to him, and I was purposing going into that country before long."

"Indeed, sir?" replied my father. "I am delighted to know that you are
to meet my friend. As it chances, he is my associate in a considerable
business enterprise--a splendid man, a splendid man, Meriwether. I will,
if you do not mind, add my letter to others you may have, and I trust
you will carry him our best wishes from this side of the mountains."

That was like my father--innocent, unsuspicious, ever ready to accept
other men as worthy of his trust, and ever ready to help a stranger as
he might. For myself, I confess I was more suspicious. Something about
Orme set me on edge, I knew not what. I heard them speaking further
about Meriwether's being somewhere in the West, and heard Orme also say
carelessly that he must in any case run over to Albemarle and call upon
some men whom he was to meet at the University of Virginia. We did not
ask his errand, and none of us suspected the purpose of his systematic
visiting among the more influential centers of that country. But if you
will go now to that white-domed building planned by Thomas Jefferson at
Charlottesville, and read the names on the brazen tablets by the doors,
names of boys who left school there to enter a harder school, then you
will see the results of the visit there of Gordon Orme.

My little personal affairs were at that time so close to me that they
obscured clear vision of larger ones. I did not hear all the talk in the
carriage, but pulled my horse in behind and so rode on moodily, gazing
out across the pleasant lands to the foot of old Catoctin and the dim
Blue Ridge. A sudden discontent assailed me. Must I live here
always--must I settle down and be simply a farmer forever? I wanted to
ride over there, over the Rock Fish Gap, where once King Charles' men
broke a bottle in honor of the king, and took possession of all the