Soft is the sun in the summer season at Washington, softer at times than any old Dan Chaucer ever knew; but again so ardent that anyone who would ride abroad would best do so in the early morning. This is true today, and it was true when the capital city lay in the heart of a sweeping forest at the edge of a yet unconquered morass.
The young man who now rode into this forest, leaving behind him the open streets of the straggling city--then but beginning to lighten under the rays of the morning sun--was one who evidently knew his Washington. He knew his own mind as well, for he rode steadily, as if with some definite purpose, to some definite point, looking between his horse's ears.
Sitting as erect and as easily as any cavalier of the world's best, he was tall in his saddle seat, his legs were long and straight. His boots were neatly varnished, his coat well cut, his gloves of good pattern for that time. His hat swept over a mass of dark hair, which fell deep in its loose cue upon his neck. His cravat was immaculate and well tied. He was a good figure of a man, a fine example of the young manhood of America as he rode, his light, firm hand half unconsciously curbing the antics of the splendid animal beneath him--a horse deep bay in color, high-mettled, a mount fit for a monarch--or for a young gentleman of Virginia a little more than one hundred years ago.
If it was not the horse of a monarch the young man bestrode, none the less it was the horse of one who insisted that his stables should be as good as those of any king--none less, if you please, than Mr. Thomas Jefferson, then President of the United States of America.
This particular animal was none other than Arcturus, Mr. Jefferson's favorite saddler. It was the duty as well as the delight of Mr. Jefferson's private secretary to give Arcturus and his stable-mate, Wildair, their exercise on alternate days. On this summer morning Arcturus was enjoying his turn beneath his rider--who forsooth was more often in the saddle than Mr. Jefferson himself.
Horse and rider made a picture in perfect keeping as they fared on toward the little-used forest road which led out Rock Creek way. Yonder, a few miles distant, was a stone mill owned by an old German, who sometimes would offer a cup of coffee to an early horseman. Perhaps this rider knew the way from earlier wanderings thither on other summer mornings.
Arcturus curveted along and tossed his head, mincing daintily, and making all manner of pretense at being dangerous, with sudden gusts of speed and shakings of his head and blowing out of his nostrils--though all the time the noble bay was as gentle as a dog. Whether or not he really were dangerous would have made small difference to the young man who bestrode him, for his seat was that of the born horseman.