But Carrington had
found the Forks without difficulty. He had seen the old mill his
grandfather had built almost a hundred years before, and in the
churchyard he had found the graves and read the inscriptions that
recorded the virtues of certain dead and gone Carringtons. It
had all seemed a very respectable link with the past.
He was on his way to Fayetteville, where he intended to spend the
night, and perhaps a day or two in looking around, when the
meeting with Betty and Murrell occurred. As Murrell disappeared
in the direction of Balaam's, Carrington took a spiteful kick at
the unoffending coin, and strode off down the Fayetteville pike.
But the girl's face remained with him. It was a face he would
like to see again. He wondered who she was, and if she lived in
the big house on the other road, the house beyond the red gate
which Charley Balaam had told him was called the Barony.
He was still thinking of the girl when he ate his supper that
night at Cleggett's Tavern. Later, in the bar, he engaged his
host in idle gossip. Mr. Cleggett knew all about the Barony and
its owner, Nat Ferris. Ferris was a youngish man, just married.
Carrington experienced a quick sinking of the heart. A fleeting
sense of humor succeeded--had he interfered between man and wife?
But surely if this had been the case the girl would not have
spoken as she had.
He wound Mr. Cleggett up with sundry pegs of strong New England
rum. He had met a gentleman and lady on the road that day; he
wondered, as he toyed with his glass, if it could have been the
Ferrises? Mounted? Yes, mounted.
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