h, while it would materially lengthen the distance, would at least
secure them, he thought, from the danger of contact with the scouring
party.

By no means ignorant of the country, in and about which he had
frequently travelled in the pursuit of trade, he contrived, in this way,
completely to mislead the pursuers; and the morning found them still
some distance from the village, but in a direction affording few chances
of interruption in their contemplated approach to it.

Lucy was dreadfully fatigued, and a frequent sense of weariness almost
persuaded her to lay down life itself in utter exhaustion: but the
encouraging words of the pedler, and the thought of _his_ peril, for
whose safety--though herself hopeless of all besides--she would
willingly peril all, restored her, and invigorated her to renewed
effort.

At the dawn of day they approached a small farmhouse, some of the
inmates of which happened to know Lucy; and, though they looked somewhat
askant at her companion, and wondered not a little at the circumstance
of her travelling at such a time of night, yet, as she was generally
well respected, their surmises and scruples were permitted to sleep;
and, after a little difficulty, they were persuaded to lend her the
family pony and side-saddle, with the view to the completion of her
journey. After taking some slight refreshment, she hurried on; Bunce,
keeping the road afoot, alongside, with all the patient docility of a
squire of the middle ages; and to the great satisfaction of all parties,
they arrived in sight of the village just as Counsellor Pippin, learned
in the law, was disputing with the state attorney upon the
non-admissibility of certain points of testimony, which it was the
policy of the former to exclude.

CHAPTER XXXIII.

DOOM.

The village of Chestatee was crowded with visiters of all descriptions.
Judges and lawyers, soldiers and citizens and farmers--all classes were
duly represented, and a more wholesome and subordinate disposition in
that quarter, may be inferred as duly resulting from the crowd.
Curiosity brought many to the spot from portions of country twenty,
thirty, and even forty miles off--for, usually well provided with good
horses, the southron finds a difference of ten or twenty miles no great
matter.

Such had been the reputation of the region here spoken of, not less for
its large mineral wealth than for the ferocious character of those in
its neighborhood, that numbe