In the county of Albemarle April was blending with May. The days were soft and sunshiny, apt to be broken by a hurry of clouds, of slanting trees, and silver rain. When the sun came out again, it painted a great bow in the heavens. Beneath that bright token bloomed a thousand orchards; and the wheat and the young corn waved in the wet breeze. The land was rolling and red in colour, with beautiful trees and narrow rivers. Eastward it descended to misty plains, westward the mountains rose, bounding a noble landscape of field and forest. For many years the axe had swung and trees had fallen, but the forest yet descended to the narrow roads, observed itself in winding streams, gloomed upon the sunlit clearings where negroes sang as they tilled the soil. In the all-surrounding green the plantations showed like intaglios. From pleasant hillsides, shady groves, and hamlets of offices and quarters, the sedate red-brick, white-porticoed "great houses" looked easily forth upon a world which interested them mightily.
Upon a morning in late April of the year 1804, the early sunshine, overflowing such a plantation, dipped at last into a hollow halfway between the house and the lower gates, and overtook two young creatures playing at make-believe, their drama of the moment being that of the runaway servant.
"Oh, the sun!" wailed Deb. "We can't pretend it's dark any longer! God has gone and made another day! We'll see you running away—all of us white folk, and the overseer and Mammy Chloe! If you climb this willow, the dogs will tree you like they did Aunt Dinah's Jim! Lie down and I'll cover you with leaves like the babes in the wood!"
Miranda, a slim black limb of Satan in a blue cotton gown, flung herself with promptitude upon the ground. "Heap de beech leaves an' de oak leaves upon dis heah po' los' niggah. Oh, my lan'! don' you heah 'um comin'?"
Dead leaves fell upon her in a shower, and her accomplice gathered more with frantic haste. "Oh, it's the ghost in the tobacco-house! it's a rock rolling down the mountain! it's—it's something splashing in the swamp!"
"Is I a-hidin' in de swamp? Den don' th'ow no oak leaves on dis niggah, for dey don' grow dyar. Gawd A'moughty, lis'en to de river roarin'! I's hidin' by de river—I's hidin' by de river! I's hidin' by de river Jordan!"
Deb swayed to and fro, beating her hands in her excitement. "I see a boat—a great big boat! It's as big as the Ark! The finders are in it, and the dogs and the guns! Let us pray! O Jesus, save Miranda, even though it is a scarlet sin to run away! O Jesus, don't let them take her to the Court House! O Jesus, let them take me—"
Miranda reared herself from her leafy bed. "Humph! what you gwine do at de Co'te House? Answer me dat! I knows what de Lawd gwine say. He gwine say, 'Run for it, niggah!' Yaas, Lawd, I sholy gwine do what you say—I gwine run to de very aidge of de yearth.
"Oh, I fool you, Mister Oberseer Man!
Oh, I fool you, my ole Marster!
Cotch de mockin'bird co'tin' in de locus',
Cotch de bullfrog gruntin' in de ma'sh,
Cotch de black snake trabellin' 'long his road,
But you ain' gwine see dis niggah enny mo'!
"Miss Deb, ef I gets to de big gate fust, you gwine lemme hol' dat doll baby Marse Edward gin you?"
Deb brushed the last oak leaf from the skirt of her green gown, tossed her yellow hair out of her brown eyes, and scrambled up the steep side of the dell to a level of lawn and flowers. Her handmaiden followed her, and they paused for breath beneath the white blooms of a mighty catalpa. A hundred yards away, across an expanse of dewy turf, rose the great house, bathed in sunlight. Box, syringa, and honeysuckle environed it, and a row of poplars made a background of living green. It had tall white pillars, and shallow steps leading down to a gravelled drive. The drive was over-arched by elm and locust, and between the trees was planted purple lilac. All of fresh and fair and tender met in the late April weather, in the bright and song-filled morning, in the dew and in the flowers. Upon the steps, between the white pillars, were gathered several muslined figures, flowery bright to match the morning. In the drive below, two horsemen, booted and spurred, clad in many-caped riding-coats and attended by a negro groom, were in the act of lifting tall hats to the ladies of the house they were quitting.
"Hi!" panted Miranda. "Marse Ludwell Cary, Marse Fairfax Cary, an' dat brack niggah Eli! Whar dey gwine dis mawnin'?"
"To the Court House—to the election," answered Deb. "I know all about it, for I asked Uncle Edward. If the Federalists win, the crops will be good, and General Washington and my father and my grandfather will lie quiet in their graves. We are Federalists. If the Republicans win, the country will go to the devil."
"Hi, dat so?" said Miranda. "Le's run open de big gate. Dey two gent'men moughty free wid dey money."
Racing over the jewelled turf, mistress and maid arrived at the big gate in time to swing it open before the approaching riders. Young Fairfax Cary laughed and tossed a coin to Miranda, who bobbed and showed her teeth, while his elder brother stooped gallantly to the pretty child of the house he was leaving. "Do you know what you are like in your narrow green gown and your blowing, yellow hair? You are like a daffodil in your sister's garden."
"If you were to swing me up from the ground," said Deb meditatively, "I could stand upon the toe of your boot, and hold by Pluto's mane, and ride with you as far as the creek.—What flower is Jacqueline like?"
"Like no flower that blooms," said Mr. Ludwell Cary. "Ah, well sprung, Proserpina! Now shall we go fast as the wind?"
They went fast as the wind to the creek, and then went like the wind back to the gate, where Ludwell Cary swung the child down to earth and the waiting Miranda.
Deb curtsied to him. "Wish me good luck, Daffy-down-Dilly!" he said, with his charming smile.
"I do," she answered earnestly. "I hope that you will kill the Devil."
He looked puzzled. "Is that feasible? I don't know where to find him."
"Aren't you going to fight him at the Court House? Uncle Edward said that you were going to put down Lucifer."
The two brothers broke into laughter. "I say, Fair!" cried the elder. "Has Lewis Rand a cloven hoof? I've scarcely seen him, you know, since I went to England!"
"He's all cloven hoof, damn him!" the other answered cheerfully. "Best ride on. He'll have been at the Court House this hour!"
Ludwell Cary glanced at his watch. "Early or late, the result will be the same. The county's going for him twice over!"
"A damned tobacco-roller's son!" growled the other.
The elder brother laughed. "'A man's a man for a' that,' Fair. I dare say old Gideon rolled tobacco with all his might. As for his son, his worst enemy—and I don't know that I am that—couldn't deny him courage and energy."
"He's a dangerous man—"
"Most men are who have won by fighting. But I don't think he loves violence. Well, well, I'm coming! Good-bye, little one!"
Deb curtsied and Miranda bobbed, the gentlemen touched their hats,