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comfortably make the rest of the way to Mr. Marshall Statler’s Elkwood plantation near Goochland Courthouse.”
    â€œWill I have a chart … uh, excuse me, a map?”
    â€œYes, although you’ll follow the principal road west from here, having no difficulties, I’m sure. This isn’t wilderness any longer, you’ll discover, but in the current … uh … unsettled period, I suggest that you not attempt to ride at night. If you’d feel better about it, I could provide you with a pistol.”
    Charles hesitated. “No, I think not. I’d rather not be armed.”
    Milton nodded agreement. “Most wise. Guns have a way of inviting trouble.”
    V
    A BIGAIL was, as Milton had promised, a gentle animal. Dewey had little difficulty getting used to reining her under his host’s expert guidance. As they rode through the streets of Williamsburg during the brief training session, the older man spoke of the breeding he had planned for the mare.
    â€œStatler is standing a son of Yorick,” he explained, “a very good racing stallion campaigned by John Tayloe of Mount Airy. I swear to you that if I get a colt of the quality of Yorick, I’ll be able to win some substantial wagers with him.”
    â€œIs there a lot of horse racing in Virginia?”
    â€œA lot of racing—?” Milton seemed taken aback by the question. “Young sir, let me tell you this: a Virginian has two important considerations in his life—his racehorse and his woman.” He grinned. “I suspect that he would place them in that order of priority.”
    He held forth for some time, without interruption from Charles, about the importance of horse racing in the Dominion. About the racetracks at Williamsburg and Richmond and Alexandria.
    â€œThe war—damn it!—disrupted all that. But now, I vow, it’ll be back. Some of my associates and I are banding together to build a new track at Petersburg. We hope to interest Squire Washington in it.”
    â€œYou mean General Washington?”
    â€œThe same. In earlier days he was involved in the race meetings at Alexandria and frequently subscribed to the purses at the Williamsburg Jockey Club. A fine racing gentleman he was. I hope he will find the time to be so again.”
    For nearly an hour they crisscrossed the streets of Williamsburg, until Charles announced that he was reasonably comfortable with the mechanics of guiding Abigail.
    Upon returning to Milton’s house, Charles was given a saddlebag containing his old clothes, some food for the trip, a map, and two sealed letters: one to Mr. Stannard at the ordinary, the second to Marshall Statler.
    â€œYou’ll like Statler,” Milton assured him. “He’s a gentleman in the finest sense of that word. I’ve suggested to him that perhaps he might find a position for you at Elkwood. Of course I have no way of knowing what his exact situation is right now, but I’ve made the suggestion nevertheless.”
    â€œThank you, sir.”
    â€œYou may like Elkwood for other reasons—two of them.” Milton grinned wickedly. “Statler has a brace of young, nubile daughters. Something a virile Frenchman can appreciate, eh?”
    Charles just smiled.
    â€œNow I think you should be off. Godspeed!”
    The Virginia countryside was a revelation to a sixteen-year-old whose total experience had been in a crowded, noisy, demanding city and in the confining community of a ship at sea. The comparative vastness of it all nearly overwhelmed him, as did the immediate oneness he felt with the new environment.
    Now that he was alone, Dewey was free to turn the horse in any direction he chose. He knew that if he wanted to—and the thought of it was a bit frightening—he could abandon the route George Milton had set for him. And the task. He could go to Elkwood plantation. Or not go.
    Free to choose!
    It was heady wine.

3
    C HARLES