at even there his father might discover
the treasure. What would follow discovery he knew full Well. The beating
he could take; what he wouldn't stand would be, say, Gideon's flinging
the books into the fire. "He shan't, he shan't," said the boy's hot
heart. "If he does, I'll--I'll--"

Through the window came Gaudylock's voice from the porch of the Bird in
Hand. "You Stay-at-homes--you don't know what's in the wilderness!
There's good and there's bad, and there's much beside. It's like the
sea--it's uncharted."

Lewis Rand closed the door of the room, and went out upon the shady
porch, where he found the hunter and a lounging wide-eyed knot of
listeners to tales of Kentucky and the Mississippi. The dinner-bell
rang. Adam fell pointedly silent, and his audience melted away. The
hunter rose and stretched himself. "There is prime venison for dinner,
and a quince tart and good apple brandy. Ha! I was always glad I was
born in Virginia. Here is Gideon swinging down the hill--Gideon and his
negro!"

The tobacco-roller joined them, and with a wave of the hand indicated
his purchase of the morning. This was a tall and strong negro, young,
supple, and of a cheerful countenance. Rand was in high good-humour.
"He's a runaway, Mocket says, but I'll cure him of that! He's strong as
an ox and as limber as a snake." Taking the negro's hand in his, he bent
the fingers back. "Look at that! easy as a willow! He'll strip tobacco!
His name is Joab."

The namesake of a prince in Israel looked blithely upon his new family.
"Yaas, marster," he said, with candour. "Dat is my name dat sho' is!
Jes' Joab. An' I is strong as en ox,--don' know 'bout de snaik. Marster,
is you gwine tek me 'way from Richmond?"

"Albemarle," said the tobacco-roller briefly. "To-morrow morning."

Joab studied the vine above the porch. "Kin I go tell my ole mammy
good-bye? She's washin' yonder in de creek."

Rand nodded, and the negro swung off to where, upon the grassy common
sloping to Shockoe Creek, dark washer-women were spreading clothes. The
bell of the Bird in Hand rang again, and the white men went to dinner.

Following the venison, the tart, and apple brandy came the short, bright
afternoon, passed by Lewis Rand upon the brig from the Indies with Tom
Mocket and little Vinie and a wrinkled skipper who talked of cocoanuts
and strange birds and red-handkerchiefed pirates, and spent by Gideon
first in business with the elder Mocket, and then in conversati