Christmas fell upon Monday of that year, 1769.  There was to be a ball at Upper Marlboro on the Friday before, to which many of us were invited.  Though the morning came in with a blinding snowstorm from the north, the first of that winter, about ten of the clock we set out from Annapolis an exceeding merry party, the ladies in four coaches-and-six, the gentlemen and their servants riding at the wheels.  We laughed and joked despite the storm, and exchanged signals with the fair ones behind the glasses.

But we had scarce got two miles beyond the town gate when a messenger overtook us with a note for Mr. Carvel, writ upon an odd slip of paper, and with great apparent hurry: 

Honoured sir,

“I have but just come to Annapolis from New York, with Instructions to put into your Hands, & no Others, a Message of the greatest Import.  Hearing you are but now set out for Upper Marlboro I beg of you to return for half an Hour to the Coffee House.  By so doing you will be of service to a Friend, and confer a Favour upon y’r most ob’d’t Humble Servant,

“Silas Ridgeway.”

Our cavalcade had halted while I read, the ladies letting down the glasses and leaning out in their concern lest some trouble had befallen me or my grandfather.  I answered them and bade them ride on, vowing that I would overtake the coaches before they reached the Patuxent.  Then I turned Cynthia’s head for town, with Hugo at my heels.

Patty, leaning from the window of the last coach, called out to me as I passed.  I waved my hand in return, and did not remember until long after the anxiety in her eyes.

As I rode, and I rode hard, I pondered over the words of this letter.  I knew not this Mr. Ridgeway from the Lord Mayor of London; but I came to the conclusion before I had reprised the gate that his message was from Captain Daniel.  And I greatly feared that some evil had befallen my good friend.  So I came to the Coffee House, and throwing my bridle to Hugo, I ran in.

I found Mr. Ridgeway neither in the long room nor in the billiard room nor the bar.  Mr. Claude told me that indeed a man had arrived that morning from the North, a spare person with a hooked nose and scant hair, in a brown greatcoat with a torn cape.  He had gone forth afoot half an hour since.  His messenger, a negro lad whose face I knew, was in the stables with Hugo.  He had never seen the stranger till he met him that morning in State House Circle inquiring for Mr. Carvel, and had been given a shilling to gallop after me.  Impatient as I was to be gone, I sat me down in the coffee room, thinking every minute the man must return, and strongly apprehensive that Captain Daniel must be in some grave predicament.  That the favour he asked was of such a nature as I, and not my grandfather, could best fulfil.

At length, about a quarter after noon, my man comes in with Mr. Claude close behind him.  I liked his looks less than his description, and the moment I clapped eyes on him I knew that Captain Daniel had never chose such a messenger.