“Hell, no. That’s over with. The Regulators was our only hope, and they was wiped out at Alamance and their leaders hung. Everybody’s afraid to speak out against the son-of-a-bitch governor in New Bern. About all we’re beggin’ for now is to pay our high taxes in cows, hides, grain, or tobacco, but the only thing they’ll take at the courthouse is hard money, and you know we ain’t got it. All we had was this shack and a barn, and the barn’s gone.”

Elijah waited awhile, thinking, before he stood up. “Well, I’m lookin’ for something but I don’t know what. James Few and some of our other neighbors have been talkin’ to me about how we can band together and maybe stay here where we are. Right now our land ain’t worth nothin’, even though every year more settlers are moving thisaway and wanting to buy. With the high taxes we owe and no crops, we ain’t really in possession of what we’re workin’. Some of my folks live over in South Carolina, and they’ve offered me some land. It’s only about fifty acres, but it’s at least enough to get started ag’in. I’m going to walk awhile, catch the horses, and check on the cows and hogs.”

Hannah said, “Well, I don’t want to move again.”

As he walked out the door, Elijah said, “Me neither, but we may have to jes’ move off and leave this place.”

Hannah watched her husband leave and had a fleeting sense that she had made a serious mistake by joining her life to his. Her father, Anthony Reddick, was a successful mariner, having retired from the sea as a young captain who saw clearly that the profits from his voyages went to those who owned the ships. He moved first to a job with a shipping company and specialized in arranging transport of cargoes within coastal vessels so they could be unloaded expeditiously. He saved his earnings and eventually owned a substantial portion of several ships. His only daughter had grown up in relative affluence. She was completely dominated by her father, a widower, who applied his knowledge of women visited by sailors to his daughter’s potential future and did everything possible to isolate her from the outside world. Her contacts with her peers, even other girls, were minimized, but private tutors gave her as good an education as was available to any other young people in the thriving seaport of Norfolk.