XVI

AT LYNCH'S

Rand, walking hastily through the hail of the Capitol, came out into the
portico. Before him, between the great pillars, the landscape showed in
glittering silver, in the brown of leafless trees and the hard green of
pine and fir. The hill fell steep and white to the houses at its base
and to the trampled street. In the still and crystal air the river made
itself plainly heard. Across, on the Chesterfield side, the woods formed
a long smudge of umber against the blue of the afternoon sky.

There were people here in the open air as there had been in the
corridor, a number of men talking loudly, or excitedly whispering, or in
silence rolling triumph beneath the tongue, or digesting defeat. Rand's
progress, here as there, brought a change. The loud talking fell, the
whisperers turned, the silent found their voices, and there arose a
humming note of recognition and tribute. Rand had carried the Albemarle
Resolutions, and that with a high hand. He moved through the crowd,
acknowledging with a bend of his head this or that man's salute, frankly
smiling upon good friends, and finely unconscious of all enemies, until
at the head of the broad steps he came upon Adam Gaudylock seated with
his gun beside him, smoking reflectively in the face of the Albemarle
Resolutions and the general excitement. At Rand's glance he rose, took
up the gun, and slid the pipe into his beaded pouch. The two descended
the steps together.

"I am going to Lynch's," said Rand. "The stage will soon be in and I
want the news. Well?"

"He's off," answered Gaudylock. "Chaise to Fredericksburg at six this
morning. Pitch dark and no one stirring, and he as chipper, fresh, and
pleased as a squirrel with a nut! Pshaw! a Creek pappoose could read his
trail! He's from New England anyway. I want a Virginian out there!"

They walked on down the white hillside. The hunter, tawny and light of
tread, scarce older to the eye, for all his wanderings, than the man
beside him, glanced aslant with his sea-blue eyes. "When are you coming,
Lewis?"

"Never, I think," said Rand abruptly; then after a moment's silent
walking, "They should better clean these paths of snow. Mocket says a
brig came in yesterday from the Indies;--attacks on Neutral Trade and
great storms at sea. I've a pipe of Madeira on the ocean that I hope
will not go astray. I wish that some time you would send me by a wagon
coming east antlers of elk for the hall at Roselands."

"W