"Charlottesville is a good place at all times, especially now that Burgoyne's troops are imprisoned there. I should think you might also find it profitable to return, for the prisoners kept there have put money in circulation and made work. By the way, I haven't seen you since you sold your horse to my overseer. I felt badly about that because I knew you didn't let him go without a sacrifice. I will give you a letter and when you get back you take it to Monticello and get the colt. You can pay me at your convenience." This was unexpected good fortune, and Rodney felt very grateful. "I wish I had Nat here. I would start to-morrow," he remarked to Zeb as they walked on. "Thar seems to be no such thing as complete satisfaction in this world. Now, if I had a home fer Melicite an' me to go to, well, I reckon I'd be a little easier in mind." "Come to Charlottesville with me. You heard what Mr. Jefferson said about business being brisk there. It's only a little village, but we'll find some way to turn a dollar. You've got to come, unless you can find something better." And so it happened that Rodney and his friend and Melicite, who arrived in due time, all found their way to Charlottesville, and also found home and opportunity. Rodney was surprised on his first visit to the quarters of the "Convention troops," as they were called. On Colonel Harvey's estate, about five miles distant from the Court House at Charlottesville, barracks and camps had been erected for the prisoners, who were constructing a building to be used as a theatre. Many of them had vegetable gardens, one officer, it was said, having spent nearly five hundred dollars for seed to be planted by his men. When these prisoners had arrived there the previous winter, after a march of over seven hundred miles from Massachusetts, the hillside, which now bloomed, was desolate and bleak. But few buildings had been erected, and about the only provisions obtainable were corn meal and water. All that had been changed as by magic, and many of the poor fellows had not known such comfort since leaving their homes in England, while most of the Hessians were faring better than they ever had done at home.