"Yes: Corsicans," answered Rand. "Aaron Burr is not a Corsican." He looked at his left hand, lying upon the arm of his chair, raised it, shut and opened it, gazing curiously at its vein and sinew. "You are talking midsummer madness," he said at last. "Let's leave the blazed trees for a while—though we'll talk of them again some time. Have you been along the Three-Notched Road?"
"Yes," replied Adam, turning easily. "Your tobacco's prime, the wheat, too, and the fencing is all mended and white-washed. It's not the tumble-down place it was in Gideon's time—you've done wonders with it. The morning-glories were blooming over the porch, and your white cat washing itself in the sun."
"It's but a poor home," said Rand, and he said it wistfully. He wished for a splendid house, a home so splendid that any woman must love it.
"It's not so fine as Fontenoy," quoth Adam, "nor Monticello, nor Mr. Blennerhassett's island in the Ohio, but a man might be happy in a poorer spot. Home's home, as I can testify who haven't any. I've known a Cherokee to die of homesickness for a skin stretched between two saplings. How long before you are back upon the Three-Notched Road?"
Rand moved restlessly. "The doctor says I may go downstairs to-day. I shall leave Fontenoy almost immediately. They cannot want me here."
"Have you seen Mr. Ludwell Cary?"
"He and his brother left Fontenoy some time ago. But he rides over nearly every day. Usually I see him."
"He is making a fine place of Greenwood. And he has taken a law office in Charlottesville—the brick house by the Swan.
"Yes. He told me he would not be idle."
Adam rose, and took up the gun which it was his whim to carry. "I'll go talk ginseng and maple sugar to Colonel Churchill for a bit, and then I'll go back to the Eagle. As soon as you are on the Three-Notched Road again I'll come to see you there."