The knowledge that I had put my shoulder to the wheel for a Spaniard caused my tightening muscles to relax in disgust. But the don had spoken courteously, his one thought being to relieve us of his weight, at the risk of ruining his aristocratic boots.
"Sit still. Quien sabe?" I replied, without looking about, and bore up on the rail. "Heave away!"
The rails bowed under the strain, but the clay held tenaciously to the embedded wheels. I drew the reins well in and called to the willing team. They put their weight against the breast bands steadily and gallantly. The wheels rose a little, the coach gave forward.
"Heave!" I called. The wheels drew up and forward. "Steady! steady, boys! Pull away!"
Out came the forewheels; in went the rear. We caught them on the turn. One last gallant tug, and all was clear. The driver plodded around by the rear, a hand at his forelock.
"Return the rails," I said. "I'll hold them."
He took my rail with his own and toiled over to the roadside. I called up my horse and swung into the saddle, little the worse for my descent into the midst of the redoubtable avenue, for my legs had already been smeared and spattered to the thigh before I entered the bounds of the city.
Again I heard the voice at the coach window: "Muchas gracias, señor! A thousand thanks—and this."
He proved to be what I had surmised—a long-faced Spanish don. What I had not expected to see was the hand extended with the piece of silver. There was more than mere politeness in his smile. It was evident he meant well. None the less, I was of the West, where, in common opinion, Spaniards are rated with the "varmints." I took the coin and dropped it into the mire. He stared at me, astonished.
"Your pardon, señor," I said, "I am not a Spanish gentleman."
The shot hit, as I could see by the quick change in the nature of his smile.
"It is I who should ask pardon," he replied with the haughtiness of your true Spanish hidalgo. "Yet the señor will admit that his appearance—to a foreigner—"
"Few riders wear frills on the long road from Pittsburgh," I replied.
He bowed grandly and withdrew his head into the coach's dark interior. I was about to turn around, when I heard a liquid murmuring of Spanish in a lady's voice, followed by a protest from the don: "Nada, Alisanda! There is no need. He is but an Anglo-American."
The voice riveted my gaze to the coach window in eager anticipation. Nor was I disappointed. In a moment the cherry-wood of the opening framed a face which caused me to snatch the coonskin cap from my wigless yellow curls.
After four years of social life among the Spanish and French of St. Louis and New Orleans, I had thought myself well versed in all the possibilities of Latin beauty. The Señorita Alisanda was to all those creole belles as a queen to kitchen maids. Eyes of velvety black, full of pride and fire and languor; silky hair, not of the hard, glossy hue of the raven's wing, but soft and warming to chestnut where the sun shone through a straying lock; face oval and of that clear, warm pallor unknown to women of Northern blood; a straight nose with well-opened, sensitive nostrils; a scarlet-lipped mouth, whose kiss would have thrilled a dying man. But he is a fool who seeks to set down beauty in a catalogue. It was not at her eyes or hair or face that I gazed; it was at her, at the radiant spirit which shone out through that lovely mask of flesh.
She met my gaze with a directness which showed English training, as did also the slightness of her accent. Her manner was most gracious, without a trace of condescension, yet with an underlying note of haughtiness, forgotten in the liquid melody of her voice.
"Señor, I trust that you will pardon the error of my kinsman—my uncle—and that you will accept our thanks for the service."
"I am repaid—a thousand times—señorita!" I stammered, the while my dazzled eyes drank in her radiant beauty.
She bowed composedly and withdrew into the gloom of the coach. That was all. But it left me half dazed. Not until the driver trudged back and reached for the reins did it come upon me that I was staring blankly in through the empty window at the outline of the don's shoulder. The best I can say is that I did not find my mouth agape.
A touch of my heel and a hint at the bit sent my nag jogging on toward the Capitol, leaving the rescued coach to flounder along its opposite way as best it could, through the avenue already famous for its two miles of length, its hundred yards of width, and its two feet of depth.
Wearied as I was by the last of many days' hard riding from the Ohio, I was the lighter for carrying with me a scarlet-lipped vision with eyes like sloes.
CHAPTER II
PLAIN THOMAS JEFFERSON
It was the third day after my arrival in Washington. The clear sky, which in the forenoon had lured me down from the Capitol Hill along the forest-clad banks of the little Tiber, had brought at the noon hour a warmth of sunshine that made by no means ungrateful the shade of a giant tulip poplar.
I was lolling at my ease on the bank of the beautiful stream when a rider broke cover from a thicket of azaleas and cantered toward me down along the bank. The first glance at his horse brought me to my feet, eager-eyed. It was one of the most mettlesome and shapely mounts I had ever had the pleasure to view.
The rider, attracted perhaps by my ill-concealed admiration, drew up before me with the easy control of a perfect horseman, and touched his cocked hat.
"A pleasant day, sir, for a lover of wild Nature," he said.
His tone, though easy almost to familiarity, was underlaid with a quiet dignity and reserve that brought my hand in turn to my high, stiff beaver and my eyes to his face.
"A day, sir, to tempt even a botanist to forget his classifying," I ventured at sight of the rooted plant of goldenrod in his hand.
He shook his long gray locks with a whimsical manner. "On the contrary, I am of the opinion that the enjoyment of Nature should add zest to the pursuits of Science."
"Since you put it so aptly, sir, I cannot but agree," I made answer, smiling at his shrewdness. "In truth," I added, "this unusual opportunity of enjoying solidago odora so late in the season loses nothing by the knowledge that the infusion of those selfsame fragrant leaves is of service medicinally."
He met the careless glance accompanying my words with deepened interest in his thoughtful eyes. Having had the greater part of my attention thus far fixed upon the noble horse, I had not gone beyond my first impression that the man was an overseer from some near-by plantation on the Potomac. Now, roused to closer observation by his gaze, I perceived that behind his homely features lay the brain of a man of much thought and learning. With this I gave heed to the fact that his clothes, for all their carelessness of cut and condition, were of the finest materials.
I swept him the best of the bows I had acquired from the French creoles of New Orleans.
"Can it be, sir, that chance has favored me with the acquaintance of a fellow physician in what Mr. Gouverneur Morris has so aptly termed the spoiled wilderness of Washington?" I asked. "If so, permit me to introduce myself as a young but aspiring practitioner of the healing art. My name, sir, is one often in the mouths of men—Robinson—Dr. John H. Robinson."
Smiling at my attempt at wit, the gentleman swung to the ground before me, and twitched the reins over the head of his spirited mount.
"You were walking toward the Capitol?" he inquired. I nodded assent. "Then, by your leave, I will accompany you part of the way—not that