"You would have met a coach, if it had passed here an hour ago?"

"I guess I would," said the man. "This road leads straight across the
country."

"Where does the other road at the fork go?"

"To the patroon village. There's a reform orator there to-day and a
barn-burners' camp-fire."

Without waiting to thank his informant, Saint-Prosper pulled his horse
quickly around, while the man in the buckboard gradually got under
way, until he had once more attained a comfortable, slow gait. Indeed,
by the time his team had settled down to a sleepy jog, in keeping with
the dreamy haze, hanging upon the upland, his questioner was far down
the road.

When, however, the soldier once more reached the fork, and took the
winding way across a more level country, he moderated his pace,
realizing the need of husbanding his horse's powers of endurance.
The country seemed at peace, as though no dissension nor heated
passions could exist within that pastoral province. And yet, not far
distant, lay the domains of the patroons, the hot-bed of the two
opposing branches of the Democratic party: The "hunkers," or
conservative-minded men, and the "barn-burners," or progressive
reformers, who sympathized with the anti-renters.

After impatiently riding an hour or more through this delectable
region, the horseman drew near the patroon village, a cluster of
houses amid the hills and meadows. Here the land barons had originally
built for the tenants comfortable houses and ample barns, saw and
grist mills. But the old homes had crumbled away, and that rugged
ancestry of dwellings had been replaced by a new generation of houses,
with clapboards, staring green blinds and flimsy verandas.

In the historic market place, as Saint-Prosper rode down the street,
were assembled a number of lease-holders of both sexes and all ages,
from the puny babe in arms to the decrepit crone and hoary grand-sire,
listening to the flowing tongue of a rustic speech-maker. This forum
of the people was shaded by a sextette of well-grown elms. The
platform of the local Demosthenes stood in a corner near the street.

"'Woe to thee, O Moab! Thou art undone, O people of Chemosh,' if you
light not the torch of equal rights!" exclaimed the platform patterer
as Saint-Prosper drew near. "Awake, sons of the free soil! Now is the
time to make a stand! Forswear all allegiance to the new patroon;
this Southern libertine and despot from the land of slavery!"

The grandam wagged