CHAPTER XIII

If you cross the Potomac at Washington and journey westward for about fifty miles—allowing for the circuitous course taken by the railroad—you will reach Melville Court House in a trifle under two hours; always supposing, however, that the eastbound train isn’t late at the junction, that there are no funeral parties aboard, and that the negroes whose duty it is to coal the tender just across the river have not gone off to Alexandria to spend the day. The first part of the journey lies through a country of low red-c…