The workman was not to be found after the day's work was done; he had gone away to some lecture, or some club, or some beer-shop, according to his degree of character.
For this Mildred Haviland met a man named Bill Chess in a Riverside beer parlor and for reasons of her own married him and went to live with him at Little Fawn Lake.
As to the latter, when every posting-house and ale-house could produce somebody in " the Captain's" pay, ranging from the landlord to the lowest stable nondescript, it was the likeliest thing upon the cards.
The messenger rode back at an easy trot, stopping pretty often at ale-houses by the way to drink, but evincing a tendency to keep his own counsel, and to keep his hat cocked over his eyes.