As the first shaft of light over the bluff revealed the diamonds in the orchard grass I went out, wondering. Suspecting would be a better word for the nature I had inherited. But I had my orders. Terence was pacing the garden, his leggings turned black with the dew. I looked at him. Here was a vessel to disseminate.
“Terence, the Colonel is going back to Virginia with the army.”
“Him!” cried Terence, dropping the stock of his Deckard to the ground. “And back to Kaintuckee! Arrah, 'tis a sin to be jokin' before a man has a bit in his sthummick. Bad cess to yere plisantry before breakfast.”
“I'm telling you what the Colonel himself told me,” I answered, and ran on. “Davy, darlin'!” I heard him calling after me as I turned the corner, but I looked not back.
There was a single sound in the street. A thin, bronzed Indian lad squatted against the pickets with his fingers on a reed, his cheeks distended. He broke off with a wild, mournful note to stare at me. A wisp of smoke stole from a stone chimney, and the smell that corn-pone and bacon leave was in the air. A bolt was slammed back, a door creaked and stuck, was flung open, and with a “Va t'en, méchant!” a cotton-clad urchin was cast out of the house, and fled into the dusty street. Breathing the morning air in the doorway, stood a young woman in a cotton gown, a saucepan in hand. She had inquisitive eyes, a pointed, prying nose, and I knew her to be the village gossip, the wife of Jules, Monsieur Vigo's clerk. She had the same smattering of English as her husband. Now she stood regarding me narrowly between half-closed lids.
“A la bonne heure! Que fais-tu donc? What do you do so early?”
“The garrison is getting ready to leave for Kentucky to-day,” I answered.
“Ha! Jules! Écoute-toi! Nom de dieu! Is it true what you say?”
The visage of Jules, surmounted by a nightcap and heavy with sleep, appeared behind her.
“Ha, e'est Daveed!” he said. “What news have you?”