wife, and that he had the yeoman's love for
fresh and springing green instead of withered leaf and stalk, in no wise
militated against that other fact that it was his cue to conciliate, as
far as might be, the minds of men. He almost never neglected his cue;
when he did so, it was because uncontrollable passion had intervened.
Now the postmaster, too, shook his head over the ruined garden, entered
with particularity into the doctor's last report, and by the time that
Rand, with a nod of farewell, left the room, had voted him into the
Governor's chair, or any other seat of honour to which he might aspire.
"Brains, brains!" thought Mr. Smock. "And a plain man despite his fine
marriage! If there were more like him, the country would be safer than
it is to-day. There is the horn!"

The stage with its four horses and flapping leather hanging, its heated,
red-coated driver and guard, and its dusty passengers swung into town
with great cracking of a whip and blowing of a horn, drew up at the
post-office just long enough to deliver a plethoric mail-bag, and then
rolled on in a pillar of dust to the Eagle. The crowd about the
post-office increased, men gathering on the steps as well as upon the
porch above and on the parched turf beneath the mulberries. There was a
principle of division. The Federalists, who were in the minority, held
one end of the porch; the more prominent Republicans the other, while
the steps were free to both, and the space below was given over to a
rabble almost entirely Republican. Rand, with several associates,
lawyers or planters, stood near the head of the steps;--all waited for
the sorting and distribution of the mail. The sun was low over the
Ragged Mountains, and after the breathless heat of the day, a wind had
arisen that refreshed like wine.

Rand, his back to the light, and paying grave attention to a colleague's
low-voiced exposition of a point in law, did not at first observe a
movement of the throng, coupled with the utterance of a well-known name,
but presently, as though an unseen hand had tapped him on the shoulder,
he turned abruptly, and looked with all the rest. Mr. Jefferson was
coming up the street, riding slowly on a big, black horse and followed
by a negro groom. The tall, spare form sat very upright, the reins
loosely held in the sinewy hand. Above the lawn neckcloth the face,
sanguine in complexion and with deep-set eyes, looking smilingly from
side to side of the village street.