"You see," Syd said in conclusion, "Boosey was really a criminal of the worst sort, as well as a slave, and he belonged to old Johnson. Johnson's the man that owns the hounds. That's his place beyond the hill. He's a whiskey distiller, and raises slaves for the market. Oh, of course he's tabooed. Even a decent laborer looks down on a man that raises slaves for the market."
The boys went out fishing presently, and Godfrey looked with a thrill of horror into the dark thicket of laurel and poisonous ivy as they passed where Boosey was still hidden. Down in his secret soul there was an idea of the fierce and terrible zest of hunting anything—even a man—with a bloodhound, through that tragic dusk and quagmire. It would be akin to the gladiatorial combats between man and beast of old Rome, or the bull-fights of the plaza, which his gentle Cousin Anne had learned to relish in Madrid.
"What do you say to riding over to Col. Page's to-night?" said Syd at supper. "The girls want to practice some new music before the next party. It's only six now. We can ride over in an hour."
"All right," said Godfrey.
"Remember, boys," said Dr. Brooks, "you are to be at home and in bed by ten." For Syd's father, while he bestowed horses, guns, every accessory to pleasure upon his son with an unstinting hand, yet held a tight rein on him and never allowed him to fancy that he was a man and not in reality a child.
"We'll be home by ten, sir," the boys said promptly.
Now Godfrey was but a schoolboy, and at home only snubbed and kept in place by a half-dozen grown brothers and sisters. This riding out at night, therefore, on a pony, which for the time was his own; this calling on young ladies to whom he was known as Mr. Brooks, of New York, was an ecstatic taste of adult freedom which almost intoxicated the boy. When nine o'clock came, and Syd beckoned him from the sofa, where he was reading "Locksley Hall" to Miss Amelia Page, he rose so unwillingly as to cause Joe Page to look from his game of backgammon.
"It's too bad in the doctor to put your cousin into strict prison regulations, Syd," he said. "I'll go, however, and see about your horses."
He came back with a queer twinkle in his eye. "Sam declares he hitched them securely; but they're gone now. Sit down, boys, sit down. You may as well make the best of it. The fellows are after them. They'll be here by and by."