At Shadwell, where the barge landed, having made inquiry and been assured that all his baggage had been transferred to wagons, he left the coach and mounted his bay horse, the patient animal having been led behind at a dragging pace for many miles. Snow was still thick in the air, but once in the saddle Jefferson leaned into the wind, gave the bay his head, and let him warm his sluggish blood in a brisk canter. Sensing that he was heading home, the horse loped along, shaking his head in irritation at the snow that stung his eyelids, but keeping steadily on until the mountains loomed at last, dark blue and chill upon the horizon. Martha’s husband, Thomas Randolph, had written that all the people of Albemarle County would be out to meet him with fife and drum and banner, but Jefferson had urged Martha to see that there was no public demonstration. “I’ll likely be delayed on the way. I may even get home in the middle of the night. Head off any hoorah. This is no hero; this is plain Farmer Jefferson coming home.” When he turned off the highway into the narrow winding road up his hill, he could restrain the bay no longer. Weary as the animal was, he broke into a reaching gallop, and now the brick house was in sight, and streaming out from every door came people running, bareheaded and shouting through the storm. His daughter, his son-in-law, all his grandchildren, and every slave on the place, he was certain. They swarmed about him, lifting him off his horse, the jubilant Negroes pressing forward to kiss his hands, his boots, even his horse. The children screamed joyfully, “Grandfather is home for ever and ever!” With so many arms lifting him, he was half carried in to the house. In the lofty hall, the ceiling almost two full stories high, a great fire burned on the hearth and shone on the trophy-covered walls and the great clock over the door that worked by cannon ball weights and faced both indoors and out. Jefferson sank wearily into a deep chair. He was more worn and chilled than he wanted to admit, but a great sigh of contentment made his lips tremble. All around him were all the things he loved, that he had built, contrived, designed, invented. The weather indicator on the ceiling that was controlled by a vane on the roof outside—his eyes turned up toward it. “Still works,” he remarked, “and from the set of the wind there’ll be no good weather for another day at least. Did the wagons get here?” “No, Papa, not yet. But the roads are mighty bad, as you know.” “Freezing mud. Makes slow traveling. Now, baby,” he protested to a young granddaughter, “Grandpapa can take off his own boots.” “No, you can’t,” insisted young Cornelia, “because I’m going to do it for you. Ellen’s fetching some wool socks she knit—and, Grandpa, one is too long but please don’t mention it.” “I won’t, I promise. Not if it reaches halfway to my neck.”