At the dawn of day they approached a small farmhouse, some of the inmates of which happened to know Lucy; and, though they looked somewhat askant at her companion, and wondered not a little at the circumstance of her travelling at such a time of night, yet, as she was generally well respected, their surmises and scruples were permitted to sleep; and, after a little difficulty, they were persuaded to lend her the family pony and side-saddle, with the view to the completion of her journey.  After taking some slight refreshment, she hurried on; Bunce, keeping the road afoot, alongside, with all the patient docility of a squire of the middle ages; and to the great satisfaction of all parties, they arrived in sight of the village just as Counsellor Pippin, learned in the law, was disputing with the state attorney upon the non-admissibility of certain points of testimony, which it was the policy of the former to exclude.

CHAPTER XXXIII.

DOOM.

The village of Chestatee was crowded with visiters of all descriptions.  Judges and lawyers, soldiers and citizens and farmers—­all classes were duly represented, and a more wholesome and subordinate disposition in that quarter, may be inferred as duly resulting from the crowd.  Curiosity brought many to the spot from portions of country twenty, thirty, and even forty miles off—­for, usually well provided with good horses, the southron finds a difference of ten or twenty miles no great matter.

Such had been the reputation of the region here spoken of, not less for its large mineral wealth than for the ferocious character of those in its neighborhood, that numbers, who would not otherwise have adventured, now gladly took advantage of the great excitement, and the presence of so many, to examine a section of country of which they had heard so much.  There came the planter, of rather more wealth than his neighbors, solicitous for some excitement and novelty to keep himself from utter stagnation.  There came the farmer, discontented with his present abiding-place, and in search of a new spot of more promise, in which to drive stakes and do better.  The lawyer, from a neighboring county, in search of a cause; the creditor in search of his runaway debtor—­the judge and the jury also adding something, not less to the number than the respectability of the throng.

The grand-jury had found several bills, and most of them for the more aggravated offences in the estimation of the law.  Rivers, Munro, Blundell, Forrester, were all severally and collectively included in their inquiries; but as none of the parties were to be found for the present at least, as one of them had been removed to another and higher jurisdiction, the case of most importance left for trial was that which charged Colleton with Forrester’s murder.