She was pointing to a jimson-weed on which had settled, with glassy wings vibrating, a long, ungainly, needle-like insect with an odd sword-like beak. “What is that?” he asked.
“A snake-doctor. If Unc’ Jefferson were here he’d say, ‘Bettah watch out! Dah’s er snek roun’ erbout heah, sho’!’ He’ll fill you full of darky superstitions.”
He shrugged his shoulders. “I’m being introduced to them hourly. I’ve met the graveyard rabbit—one of them had hoodooed my motor yesterday. I’m to carry a buckeye in my pocket—by the way, is a buckeye a horse-chestnut?—if I want to escape rheumatism. I’ve learned that it’s bad luck to make a bargain on a Friday, and the weepy consequences of singing before breakfast.” A blue-jay darted by them, to perch on a limb and eye them saucily. “And the jay-bird! He goes to hell every Friday noon to carry brimstone and tell the devil what folks have been up to.”
She clapped her hands. “You’re certainly learning fast. When I was little I used to be delighted to see a blue-jay in the cedars on Friday afternoon. It was a sign we’d been so good there was nothing to tell. Follow me now and I’ll show you the view from Lovers’ Leap. But look down. Don’t lift your eyes till I tell you.”
He dropped his gaze to the small brown boots and followed, his eyes catching low side-glimpses of woodsy things—the spangled dance of leaf-shadows, a chameleon lizard whisking through the roots of the bracken, the creamy wavering wings of a white moth resting on a dead stump. Suddenly the slim path between the trees took a quick turn, and fell away at their feet. “There,” she said. “This is the finest view at Damory Court.”
They stood on the edge of a stony ravine which widened at one end to a shallow marshy valley. The rocks were covered with gray-green feathery creepers, enwound with curly yellow tendrils of love-vine. Across the ravine, on a lower level, began a grove of splendid trees that marched up into the long stretch of neglected forest he had seen from the house. Looking down the valley, fields of young tobacco lay tier on tier, and beyond, in the very middle of the mellow vaporous distance, lifted the tapering tower of a far-off church, hazily outlined against the azure.
“You love it?” he asked, without withdrawing his eyes.
“I’ve loved it all my life. I love everything about Damory Court. Ruined as it is, it is still one of the most beautiful estates in all Virginia. There’s nothing finer even in Italy. Just behind us, where those hemlocks stand, is where the duel the children spoke of was fought.”