Lewis Rand came out into the sunlight with “old Coke” and Locke, Plutarch and Ossian, under his arm, and in his soul I know not what ardour of hero-worship, what surging resolve and aspiration.  Young Mocket, at his elbow, regarded him with something like awe.  “That was Mr. Jefferson,” he said.  “He knows General Washington and Marquis Lafayette and Doctor Franklin.  He’s just home from Paris, and they have made him Secretary of State—­whatever that is.  He wrote the Declaration of Independence.  He’s a rich man—­he’s a lawyer, too.  He lives at a place named Monticello.”

“I know,” said Lewis Rand, “I’ve been to Monticello.  When I am a man I am going to have a house like it, with a terrace and white pillars and a library.  But I shall have a flower garden like the one at Fontenoy.”

“Ho! your house!  Is Fontenoy where Ludwell Cary lives?”

“No; he lives at Greenwood.  The Churchills live at Fontenoy.—­Now we’ll go see the Guard turn out.  Is that the apple-woman yonder?  I’ve a half-a-bit left.”

An hour later, having bought the apples, and seen the pillared Capitol, and respectfully considered the outside of Chancellor Wythe’s law office, and having parted until the afternoon with Tom Mocket, who professed an engagement on the Barbadoes brig, young Lewis Rand betook himself to the Bird in Hand.  There in the bare, not over clean chamber which had been assigned to the party from Albemarle, he deposited his precious parcel first in the depths of an ancient pair of saddle-bags, then, thinking better of it, underneath the straw mattress of a small bed.  It was probable, he knew, that 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.”