“Well, that’s it,” said Chad, “that’s what ole Nathan used to call me.  I reckon I hain’t naver thought o’ my name agin tell you axed me.”  The Major looked at the lad keenly and then dropped back in his seat ruminating.

Away back in 1778 a linchpin had slipped in a wagon on the Wilderness Road and his grandfather’s only brother, Chadwick Buford, had concluded to stop there for a while and hunt and come on later—­thus ran an old letter that the Major had in his strong box at home—­and that brother had never turned up again and the supposition was that he had been killed by Indians.  Now it would be strange if he had wandered up in the mountains and settled there and if this boy were a descendant of his.  It would be very, very strange, and then the Major almost laughed at the absurdity of the idea.  The name Buford was all over the State.  The boy had said, with amazing frankness and without a particle of shame, that he was a waif—­a “woodscolt,” he said, with paralyzing candor.  And so the Major dropped the matter out of his mind, except in so far that it was a peculiar coincidence—­again saying, half to himself—­

“It certainly is very odd!”

CHAPTER 8.  HOME WITH THE MAJOR

Ahead of them, it was Court Day in Lexington.  From the town, as a centre, white turnpikes radiated in every direction like the strands of a spider’s web.  Along them, on the day before, cattle, sheep, and hogs had made their slow way.  Since dawn, that morning, the fine dust had been rising under hoof and wheel on every one of them, for Court Day is yet the great day of every month throughout the Bluegrass.  The crowd had gone ahead of the Major and Chad.  Only now and then would a laggard buggy or carriage turn into the pike from a pasture-road or locust-bordered avenue.  Only men were occupants, for the ladies rarely go to town on court days—­and probably none would go on that day.  Trouble was expected.  An abolitionist, one Brutus Dean—­not from the North, but a Kentuckian, a slave-holder and a gentleman—­would probably start a paper in Lexington to exploit his views in the heart of the Bluegrass; and his quondam friends would shatter his press and tear his office to pieces.  So the Major told Chad, and he pointed out some “hands” at work in a field.

“An’, mark my words, some day there’s goin’ to be the damnedest fight the world ever saw over these very niggers.  An’ the day ain’t so far away.”

It was noon before they reached the big cemetery on the edge of Lexington.  Through a rift in the trees the Major pointed out the grave of Henry Clay, and told him about the big monument that was to be reared above his remains.  The grave of Henry Clay!  Chad knew all about him.  He had heard Caleb Hazel read the great man’s speeches aloud by the hour—­had heard him intoning them to himself as he walked the woods to and fro from school.  Would wonders never cease.