"Puir Davy," said he, and rode away in the night, for the moon shone
through the clouds.
I remember these things, I suppose, because I had nothing else to think
about. And the names stuck in my memory, intensified by later events,
until I began to write a diary.
And now I come to my travels. As the spring drew on I had had a feeling
that we could not live thus forever, with no market for our pelts. And
one day my father said to me abruptly:--
"Davy, we'll be travelling."
"Where?" I asked.
"Ye'll ken soon enough," said he. "We'll go at crack o' day."
We went away in the wild dawn, leaving the cabin desolate. We loaded the
white mare with the pelts, and my father wore a woollen suit like that of
our Scotch visitor, which I had never seen before. He had clubbed his
hair. But, strangest of all, he carried in a small parcel the silk gown
that had been my mother's. We had scant other baggage.
We crossed the Yadkin at a ford, and climbing the hills to the south of
it we went down over stony traces, down and down, through rain and sun;
stopping at rude cabins or taverns, until we came into the valley of
another river. This I know now was the Catawba. My memories of that
ride are as misty as the spring weather in the mountains. But presently
the country began to open up into broad fields, some of these abandoned
to pines.
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