"I leave Glasgow the morrow's morn," he said, "and it's no likely we'll
meet again in Scotland. Out in Virginia, no doubt, you'll soon be a
great man, and sit in Council, and hob-nob with the Governor. But a
midge can help an elephant, and I would gladly help you, for you had
the goodwill to help me. If ye need aid you will go to Mercer's Tavern
at James Town down on the water front, and you will ask news of Ninian
Campbell. The man will say that he never heard tell of the name, and
then you will speak these words to him. You will say 'The lymphads are
on the loch, and the horn of Diarmaid has sounded.' Keep them well in
mind, for some way or other they will bring you and me together."
Without another word he was off, and as I committed the gibberish to
memory I could hear his song going up the Saltmarket:--
"The minister kissed the fiddler's wife,
And he couldna preach for thinkin' o't."
CHAPTER V.
MY FIRST COMING TO VIRGINIA.
There are few moments in life to compare with a traveller's first sight
of a new land which is destined to be for short or long his home. When,
after a fair and speedy voyage, we passed Point Comfort, and had rid
ourselves of the revenue men, and the tides bore us up the estuary of a
noble river, I stood on deck and drank in the heady foreign scents with
a boyish ecstasy.
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