" These benevolences the pale woman did not
withhold, but she saw me depart with a wintry smile, and I heard her
distinctly mutter to a handmaiden--fearfully arid and adust--who peered
over her mistress' shoulder, "There's another on 'em, _I_ know."
I found the husband in Newmarket, easily enough--at the "store," of
course: this is invariably the centre of all gossiping and liquoring-up,
in such villages as cannot boast a public bar-room. When I delivered
certain verbal credentials, he was disposed to be more communicative
than his spouse; but his information was not very clear or satisfactory.
It appeared that on the previous morning, some hour before dawn a man
had knocked at the door and asked for shelter: from the description, I
at once recognized my guide and Falcon. But, for once, Shipley's
over-caution told against him: he not only declined to give his name,
but would not state, precisely, whence he came or whither he was going:
there were many Federal spies about, laying traps for Southern
sympathizers; so the former got suspicious, and instead of welcoming the
stranger, prayed him to pass on his way. This solitary instance of
inhospitality is thus, I think, easily accounted for. I could not blame
my "informant;" but the state of things was enough to chafe even a meek
temper: the roan's long legs had begun to tire under the unwonted weight
before I reached Newmarket, and he rolled fearfully in the slowest trot;
yet I had sworn not to sleep before I laid my hand on Falcon's mane, and
I felt, with every fresh check, more savagely determined to keep the
trail as long as horse-flesh would last under me.
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