“I’ve got to take quite a long ride on one of Mr. Jefferson’s business matters; I don’t quite know how far it will take me.”
“You go prepared for trouble,” replied Angus with a nod at the butts of two horse-pistols which could be seen under the flaps of the holsters.
“Those are some father had with the saddle,” replied Rodney.
Angus winked and said no more, though it was evident he would like to have done so.
“Well, good-bye, Angus, and good-bye, mother. Don’t expect me back till I get here,” said Rodney, vaulting into the saddle and riding away at a furious gallop, his head up and shoulders thrown back and as full of a sense of his own importance as is permitted to a modest lad, such as Rodney Allison really was.
Before him lay long stretches of miserable roads, clogged with snow or mud, a bleak landscape, not to mention many inconveniences which the travellers through that region were then obliged to endure. But all things come to an end and so, one crisp morning, the lad reined Ned into the road leading to Mount Vernon.
Now, those of us who visit the place feel that we approach the shrine of our country. To Rodney it was a visit to one of the finest plantations in all the Old Dominion, and its owner was one of the most influential citizens as well as one of the wealthiest. The general appearance of the place that morning was much as one now finds it, save for the evidences then seen of the little army of negroes who worked on the plantation. The smoke curled lazily up into the frosty air; the majestic Potomac flowed past between bleak banks on which the first green of spring had not shown itself. A kinky haired coloured boy was promptly on hand to hold the horse, and another met him at the door.
“Talk as little as possible and see everything,” was his mother’s parting advice, and he thought of it as he looked about him. On all sides were evidences of thrift and he felt the atmosphere of home.