"This examination must close," said Content, with a heavy sigh; "at another hour, we may hope to push the matter to some more fortunate result; but, yonder cometh one charged with especial service from the towns below, as would seem by the fact that he disregardeth the holiness of the day no less than by the earnest manner in which he is journeying."
As the individual named was visible to all who chose to look in the direction of the hamlet, his sudden appearance caused a general interruption to the interest which had been so strongly awakened on a subject that was familiar to every resident in the valley.
The early hour, the gait at which the stranger urged his horse, the manner in which he passed the open and inviting door of the Whip-Poor-Will, proclaimed him a messenger, who probably bore some communication of importance from the Government of the Colony to the younger Heathcote, who filled the highest station of official authority in that distant settlement. Observations to this purport had passed from mouth to mouth, and curiosity was actively alive, by the time the horseman rode into the court. There he dismounted, and, covered with the dust of the road, he presented himself, with the air of one who had passed the night in the saddle, before the man he sought.
"I have orders for Captain Content Heathcote," said the messenger, saluting all around him with the usual grave but studied courtesy of the people to whom he belonged.
"He is here to receive and to obey," was the answer.
The traveller wore a little of that mysteriousness that is so grateful to certain minds, which, from inability to command respect in any other manner, are fond of making secrets of matters that might as well be revealed. In obedience to this feeling, he expressed a desire that his communications might be made apart. Content quietly motioned for him to follow, leading the way into an inner apartment of the house. As a new direction was given by this interruption, to the thoughts of the spectators of the foregoing scene, we shall also take the opportunity to digress, in order to lay before the reader some general facts that may be necessary to the connexion of the subsequent parts of the legend.