He raised his great armful and went into the house singing,--

"Once I was in old Kentucky, Christmas time, by all that's lucky!

Bear meat, deer meat, c.o.o.n and possum, Apple-jack we did allow some, In Kentucky.

"Roaring logs and whining fiddle, Up one side and down the middle!

Two foot snow and ne'er a flower,-- But Molly Darke she danced that hour, In Kentucky!"

The hunter's surmise was correct. Fairfax Cary rode slowly on upon the old, familiar way to Fontenoy. All the hills were brown, winter earth and winter air despite the brightness of the sunshine. A blue stream rippled by, pine and cedar made silhouettes against a tranquil sky, and crows were cawing in a stubble-field. Cary rode slowly, plodding on with a thoughtful brow. The few whom he met greeted him respectfully, and he answered them readily enough, then pursued his way, again in a brown study. The Fontenoy gates were reached at last, and he was about to bend from his saddle and lift the heavy latch, when a slim black girl in a checked gown made a sudden appearance in the driveway upon the other side. "I'll open hit, sah! Don' you trouble. Dar now!"

The gate swung open, Cary rode through, and Deb appeared beside Miranda.

"We've been walking a mile," she announced. "Down the drive and back again, through the hollow, round the garden, and up to the gla.s.s door--that's a mile. Are you going to stay to supper?"

Cary dismounted and walked beside her, his bridle over his arm. "I don't think so, Deb,--not to-night."

"I wish you would," said Deb wistfully. "You used to all the time, and you most never do now. And--and it's Christmas, and we aren't going to decorate, or have a party, or people staying!" Deb's chin trembled. "I don't like houses in mourning."

"Neither do I, Deb."

The colour streamed into his companion's small face. "I didn't mean--I didn't mean--I forgot! Oh, Mr. Fairfax,--"

"Dear Deb, don't mind. I wish you were going to have a Christmas as bright as bright! Won't there be any brightness for you?"

"Why, of course," answered Deb, with bravery. "I am going to have a lovely time. Uncle d.i.c.k says I can do what I please with the schoolroom, and Miranda and I and the quarter children--we're going to decorate.

Unity's going to show us how, and Scipio's going to put up the wreaths.

The quarter's to have its feast just the same, and I'm going to help Unity give out the presents. I expect it will be beautiful!"

The two walked on, Miranda following. Cary took the child's hand. "I expect it will be beautiful too, Deb. Sometimes ever so much brightness in just a little place makes up for the grey all around. Aren't you going to let me see the schoolroom?"

"Oh, would you like to?" cried Deb, brightening. "Certainly, Mr.

Fairfax. Christmas is lovely, isn't it? Unity says that maybe she and I will slip down to the quarter and watch them dancing. I'm sure I don't want parties, nor people staying!"

Deb squeezed her companion's hand, and kept silence from the big elm to the lilac-bushes. Then she broke out. "But I don't understand--I don't understand at all--"

Cary, looking down upon her, saw her little pointed chin quiver again, and her brown eyes swim. "What don't you understand, poor little Deb?"

"I don't understand why I can't go to Roselands. I've always gone the day after every Christmas, and it is always like Christmas over again!

And now Uncle d.i.c.k says, 'Stay at home, chicken, this year,' and Uncle Edward says he needs me to tell him stories, and Unity begged them at first to let me go, but when they wouldn't, she said that she couldn't beg them any more, and that she didn't think the world was going right anyhow." The tears ran over. "And Jacqueline," continued Deb, in a stifled little voice,--"Jacqueline wrote me a letter and said not to come this year if Uncle d.i.c.k and Uncle Edward wanted me at home. She told me I must always obey and love them--just as if I didn't anyhow.

She said she loved me more than most anything, but I don't think that is loving me--to think I'd better not come to Roselands. She said I was most a woman, and so I am,--I'm more than twelve,--and that I was to love her always and know that she loved me. Of course I shall love Jacqueline always--but I wanted to go to Roselands." Deb felt in her pocket, found a tiny handkerchief, and applied it to her eyes. "It's not like Christmas not to go to Roselands the day after--and I think people are cruel."

"I wouldn't think that of your sister, Deb," said Cary, with gentleness.

"Your sister isn't cruel. Don't cry."

"I'm not," answered Deb, and put carefully away a wet ball of handkerchief. "I hope you'll like the schoolroom, Mr. Fairfax. It's all cedar and red berries, and Miranda's and my dolls are sitting in the four corners. It's lovely weather for Christmas--though I wanted it to snow."

Major Edward, seated at an old desk, going over old papers, looked up as Cary entered the library. A fire of hickory crackled and flamed on the hearth, making a light to play over the portrait of Henry Churchill and over the swords crossed beneath. An old hound named Watch slept under the table, the tall clock ticked loudly, and through the gla.s.s doors, beyond the leafless trees, showed the long wave of the Blue Ridge.

"Is it you, Fair?" demanded the Major. "Come in--come in! I am merely going over old letters. They can wait. The men who wrote them are all dead." He turned in his chair. "Have you just come in?"

"Yes, sir."

"Unity was here awhile ago. She went through the gla.s.s door--down to the quarter, I suppose."

"I will stay here for a while, sir, if I may. Don't let me disturb you.

I will take a book."

"You do not disturb me," answered the Major. "I was reading a letter from Hamilton, written long ago--long ago.

"I met Deb in the driveway and we walked to the house together. Poor little maid! She is mightily distressed because she thinks there's a lack of Christmas cheer. I wish, sir, that she might have a merry Christmas."

"We'll do our best, Fair. Unity shall make it bright."

"The servants, too,--I give mine the usual feast at Greenwood, and I'm going down to the quarter for half an hour."

"The Carys make good masters. In that respect all here, too, goes on as usual. As for Deb, the child shall have the happiest day we can give her." He took from a drawer a small morocco case and opened it. "She'll have from d.i.c.k a horse and saddle, and I give her this." He held out the case, and Cary praised the small gold watch with D.C. marked in pearls.

"The only thing," continued Major Edward wearily, "is that she cannot go to Roselands. She has cried her heart out over that."

"You declined the invitation for her?"

"Yes. I made d.i.c.k do so. She is growing into womanhood. It will not answer."

"Then, sir, Colonel Churchill must know--"

"He doesn't 'know,'" said the Major doggedly. "n.o.body really knows. We may be all pursuing a spectre. I told d.i.c.k enough to make him see that Deb should not be brought into contact--"

There was a silence. Cary studied the fire, and Major Churchill unfolded deftly with his one hand a yellowing paper, glanced over it, and laid it in a separate drawer. "An order from General Washington--the Andre matter. Deb shall not visit Roselands again. d.i.c.k and I are not going to have both of Henry's children"--The Major's voice broke. "Pshaw! this d.a.m.ned weather gives a man a cold that Valley Forge itself couldn't give!" He unfolded another paper. "What's this? Benedict Arnold! Faugh!"

Rising, he approached the fire and threw the letter in, then turned impatiently upon the younger man. "Well, Fairfax Cary?"

"Is it still," asked Cary slowly, "your opinion that she does not know?"

"She?"

"Mrs. Rand."

Major Edward dragged a chair to the corner of the hearth and sat heavily down. He bent forward, a brooding, melancholy figure, a thin old veteran, grey and scarred. The fire-light showed strongly square jaw, hawk nose, and beetle brows. When he spoke, it was in a voice inexpressibly sombre. "I have seen my niece but three times since September. If you ask me now what you asked me then, I shall answer differently. I do not know--I do not know if she knows or not!"

"I think, sir, that I have a clue. The hour when he pa.s.sed Red Fields--"

Major Churchill put up a shaking hand. "No, sir! Remember our bargain.

I'll not hear it. I'll weigh no evidence on this subject. Enough for me to know in my heart of hearts that this man murdered Ludwell Cary, and that he dwells free at Roselands, blackening my niece--that he rides free to town--pleads his cases--does his work--ingratiates himself, and grows, grows in the esteem of his county and his state! That, I say, is enough, sir! If you have your clue, for G.o.d's sake don't impart it to me! I've told you I will not make nor meddle." Major Edward began to cough. "Open the window, will you? The room is d.a.m.ned hot. Well, sir, well?"

"I'll say no more, then, sir, as to that," Cary answered from the window. "I wish absolutely to respect your position. It will do no harm, however, to tell you that I am going to Richmond the day after Christmas."

"To Richmond! What are you going to Richmond for?"

"I want," replied the other, with restrained pa.s.sion,--"I want to ride from Shockoe Hill at three o'clock in the afternoon, with my face to Roselands, and in my heart the knowledge that I have been foiled and thwarted in deep-laid and cherished schemes by the one whom, for no especially good reason, I have singled out of the world to be my enemy!

I want to feel the black rage of the Rands in my heart. I want to sleep, the third night, at the Cross Roads Tavern, and I want to go on in the morning by Malplaquet I want to learn at Forrest's forge that Ludwell Cary is on the road before me. Perhaps, by the time I reach the mill and cross the ford, I will remember what it was that I did next, and how I managed to be on two roads at once."

He turned, and took up from a chair his hat and riding-whip "'Tis no easy feat," he said, with grimness, "to put one's self in the place of Lewis Rand. But then, other things are not easy either. I'll not grudge a little straining." He stood before the Major, holding out his hand--a handsome figure in his mourning dress, resolute, quiet, no longer breathing outward grief, ready even, when occasion demanded, to smile or to laugh, but essentially altered and fixed to one point. "I think, sir, I will look now for Unity. There is something I wish to say to her.

Good-bye, sir. I shall not come again until after New Year."