The bell of the Bird in Hand rang again, and the white men went to dinner.
Following the venison, the tart, and apple brandy came the short, bright afternoon, passed by Lewis Rand upon the brig from the Indies with Tom Mocket and little Vinie and a wrinkled skipper who talked of cocoanuts and strange birds and red-handkerchiefed pirates, and spent by Gideon first in business with the elder Mocket, and then in conversation with Adam Gaudylock.

Lewis, returning at supper-time to the Bird in Hand, found the hunter altered no whit from his habitual tawny lightness, but his father in a mood that he knew, sullen and silent.

"Adam's been talking to him," thought the boy.

"And it's just the same as when Mrs.
Selden talks to him.

Let me go--not he!" In the morning, at six of the clock, the two Rands, the negro Joab, the horses, and the dogs took the homeward road to Albemarle.