“’Tis a great city, this Annapolis,” said Crosby. “And a good one wherein to get rid of one’s loose money. Five days ago I had a well filled purse, but between the drinking, and the card playing, and a trip to the races at Marlboro ’tis little I have left. To-night there was to be a play by an Englishman named Shakespeare, but I thought I would not stay to it, for I’m not overly fond of make-believe things.”
“I’d like to see a play,” said Dave. “At the inn I saw a book of them written by this same Shakespeare of whom you speak. It must be very fine.”
“I saw a play at Annapolis several years ago,” put in Joseph Morris. “It was a comedy called ‘The Sailor’s Lass,’ but it was not well produced and the actors were hooted off the stage and bombarded with stale cabbages.”
Our friends were to take the same road home by which they had come, and proceeded as rapidly as the loads carried by the pack horses permitted. These latter beasts were powerful animals and well broken, although one large horse named Lovejoy had a habit of wandering away if not closely watched.
The third day of the return journey found the Morrises climbing through the Blue Ridge Mountains once more. Aaron Crosby was still with them, although he expected to leave them when the Shenandoah was gained.
It was a warm day for this time of year, and Crosby ventured the prediction that a storm was at hand. “We’ll catch it afore midnight,” he said, and Joseph Morris agreed with him.
By nightfall the wind had freshened and the sky was heavily overcast. They had tried to reach the cabin of a settler living in the neighborhood, but before they could gain it, the rain came down in torrents and they were glad enough to seek the first shelter at hand. This proved to be a cliff of rocks, and here they found a cave-like opening a score of feet in depth, and huddled beneath. At first they thought to light a camp-fire, but the wind blew so furiously that the scheme was abandoned.
“The fire would fly in all directions,” said Joseph Morris. “We would get no benefit and there would be much danger.”
By ten in the evening the storm was at its worst. The rain came down in sheets, while the fitful gusts of wind tore through the mountain gap with a fierceness that threatened to uproot every bush and tree in its path. Sometimes a tree would come down, with a booming and a crashing to be heard distinctly for hundreds of yards away.
The horses had been tied up in a clump of bushes, but that was all that could be done for them, excepting to strap the blankets tightly over them, and also the loads, the latter being placed in the shelter of some rocks.