"Nay, do not refuse.

When you know all you will come gladly." And I appointed a meeting on the next day at the Half-way Tavern.
I got to my house at the darkening, and found Ringan waiting for me.
This time he had not sought a disguise, but he kept his fiery head covered with a broad hat, and the collar of his seaman's coat enveloped his lower face.

To a passer-by in the dusk he must have seemed an ordinary ship's captain stretching his legs on land.
He asked for food and drink, and I observed that his manner was very grave.
"Are things in train, Andrew ?" he asked.
I told him "to the last stirrup buckle." "It's as well," said he, "for the trouble has begun." Then he told me a horrid tale.

The Rapidan is a stream in the north of the dominion, flowing into the Rappahannock on its south bank.

Two years past a family of French folk--D'Aubigny was their name--had made a home in a meadow by that stream and built a house and a strong stockade, for they were in dangerous nearness to the hills, and had no neighbours within forty miles.