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Colonel Seth Grangerson of Grangerson House, Grangerville, S. Carolina, was ill. Miss Pinckney was his nearest relative, the nearest at least with whom he was not fighting, and he had wired to her, or rather his son had wired to her, to come at once. "As if I were a bird," said the old lady.
They had talked together, then Silas had sent the groom back to Charleston to return to Grangerville by train, and had driven off with Phyl. The groom, a relation of Dinah's, having some three hours to wait for a train, had dropped into Vernons to pass the time and tell the good news. He was in the kitchen now. Miss Pinckney could not but believe.
Grangerville lies on the border of Clarendon county, a tiny place that yet supports a newspaper of its own, the Grangerville Courier.
The Courier office, the barber's shop and the hotel are the chief places in Grangerville, and yellow dogs and black children seem the bulk of the population, at least of a warm afternoon, when drowsiness holds the place in her keeping, and the light lies broad and steadfast and golden upon the cotton fields, and the fields of Indian corn, and the foliage of the woods that spread to southward, enchanted woods, fading away into an enchanted world of haze and sun and silence.
The coloured groom was walking the horses, they were only a few yards away. He went to the man and gave him some money with the order to return to Charleston and go back to Grangersons by train, or at least to the station that was ten miles from Grangerville. Then as the man went off along the road he stood holding the near horse by the bridle and talking to Phyl.
Pinckney had said that it was only a two hours' run from Charleston to Grangerville, but he had reckoned without taking into consideration the badness of some of the roads, and the intricacies of the way, for it was after one o'clock when they reached the little town beyond which, a mile to the West, lay the Colonel's house.
When the great Southern moon rises above the cotton fields, Romance touches even Grangerville itself, the baying of the yellow dog, darkey voices, the distant plunking of a banjo, the owl in the trees all are the same as of old and the houses are the same, nearly, and the people, and it is hard to believe that over there to the North the locomotives of the Atlantic Coast railway are whistling down the night, that men are able to talk to one another at a distance of a thousand miles, fly like birds, live like fish, and perpetuate their shadows in the "movies."
She was never to see him again. Outside in the sunlight Silas hesitated for a moment as though he was about to turn back, then he went on, striking along the grass road and between the trees. Although he had never been over the ground before, he guessed it to be a part of the old Beauregard plantation and the distance from Grangerville to be not more than eight miles as the crow flies.
Grangerville was a backwater place, badly served by the railway, and it would take the best part of a day to get there by ordinary means. "A car will get you there inside a couple of hours," said Pinckney. "As if he couldn't have sent for Susan Revenall," went on she as though oblivious to the suggestion, "but I suppose he's fought with them again.
Already she had stopped the mouth of slander by her prompt action with Colonel Grangerson's coloured man, but she well knew how coloured servants talk; Grangerson's man was safe enough, he was frightened and he would have to get back to Grangerville. Rachel was absolutely safe, Dinah alone was doubtful. She called Rachel in, gave her the note for Richard and told her to keep a close eye on Dinah.
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