WHEN we had passed the mouth of the Chickahominy, I broke the silence, now prolonged beyond reason, by pointing to the village upon its bank, and telling her something of Smith's expedition up that river, ending by asking her if she feared the savages.
When at length she succeeded in abstracting her attention from the clouds, it was to answer in the negative, in a tone of the supremest indifference, after which she relapsed into her contemplation of the weather.
Further on I tried again. “That is Kent's, yonder. He brought his wife from home last year. What a hedge of sunflowers she has planted! If you love flowers, you will find those of paradise in these woods.”
No answer.
Below Martin-Brandon we met a canoe full of Paspaheghs, bound upon a friendly visit to some one of the down-river tribes; for in the bottom of the boat reposed a fat buck, and at the feet of the young men lay trenchers of maize cakes and of late mulberries. I hailed them, and when we were alongside held up the brooch from my hat, then pointed to the purple fruit. The exchange was soon made; they sped away, and I placed the mulberries upon the thwart beside her.
“I am not hungry,” she said coldly. “Take them away.”
I bit my lip, and returned to my place at the tiller. This rose was set with thorns, and already I felt their sting. Presently she leaned back in the nest I had made for her. “I wish to sleep,” she said haughtily, and, turning her face from me, pillowed her head upon her arms.
I sat, bent forward, the tiller in my hand, and stared at my wife in some consternation. This was not the tame pigeon, the rosy, humble, domestic creature who was to make me a home and rear me children. A sea bird with broad white wings swooped down upon the water, now dark and ridged, rested there a moment, then swept away into the heart of the gathering storm. She was liker such an one. Such birds were caught at times, but never tamed and never kept.
The lightning, which had played incessantly in pale flashes across the low clouds in the south, now leaped to higher peaks and became more vivid, and the muttering of the thunder changed to long, booming peals. Thirteen years before, the Virginia storms had struck us with terror. Compared with those of the Old World we had left, they were as cannon to the whistling of arrows, as breakers on an iron coast to the dull wash of level seas. Now they were nothing to me, but as the peals changed to great crashes as of falling cities, I marveled to see my wife sleeping so quietly. The rain began to fall, slowly, in large sullen drops, and I rose to cover her with my cloak. Then I saw that the sleep was feigned, for she was gazing at the storm with wide eyes, though with no fear in their dark depths. When I moved they closed, and when I reached her the lashes still swept her cheeks, and she breathed evenly through parted lips. But, against her will, she shrank from my touch as I put the cloak about her; and when I had returned to my seat, I bent to one side and saw, as I had expected to see, that her eyes were wide open again. If she had been one whit less beautiful, I would have wished her back at Jamestown, back on the Atlantic, back at whatever outlandish place, where manners were unknown, that had owned her and cast her out. Pride and temper! I set my lips, and vowed that she should find her match.
The storm did not last. Ere we had reached Piersey's the rain had ceased and the clouds were breaking; above Chaplain's Choice hung a great rainbow; we passed Tants Weyanoke in the glory of the sunset, all shattered gold and crimson. Not a word had been spoken. I sat in a humor grim enough, and she lay there before me, wide awake, staring at the shifting banks and running water, and thinking that I thought she slept.
At last my own wharf rose before me through the gathering dusk, and beyond it shone out a light; for I had told Diccon to set my house in order, and to provide fire and torches, that my wife might see I wished to do her honor. I looked at that wife, and of a sudden the anger in my heart melted away. It was a wilderness vast and dreadful to which she had come. The mighty stream, the towering forests, the black skies and deafening thunder, the wild cries of bird and beast the savages, uncouth and terrible,—for a moment I saw my world as the woman at my feet must see it, strange, wild, and menacing, an evil land, the other side of the moon. A thing that I had forgotten came to my mind: how that, after our landing at Jamestown, years before, a boy whom we had with us did each night fill with cries and lamentations the hut where he lay with my cousin Percy, Gosnold, and myself, nor would cease though we tried both crying shame and a rope's end. It was not for homesickness, for he had no mother or kin or home; and at length Master Hunt brought him to confess that it was but pure panic terror of the land itself,—not of the Indians or of our hardships, both of which he faced bravely enough, but of the strange trees and the high and long roofs of vine, of the black sliding earth and the white mist, of the fireflies and the whippoorwills,—a sick fear of primeval Nature and her tragic mask.
This was a woman, young, alone, and friendless, unless I, who had sworn to cherish and protect her, should prove myself her friend. Wherefore, when, a few minutes later, I bent over her, it was with all gentleness that I touched and spoke to her.
“Our journey is over,” I said. “This is home, my dear.”
She let me help her to her feet, and up the wet and slippery steps to the level of the wharf. It was now quite dark, there being no moon, and thin clouds obscuring the stars. The touch of her hand, which I perforce held since I must guide her over the long, narrow, and unrailed trestle, chilled me, and her breathing was hurried, but she moved by my side through the gross darkness unfalteringly enough. Arrived at the gate of the palisade, I beat upon it with the hilt of my sword, and shouted to my men to open to us. A moment, and a dozen torches came flaring down the bank. Diccon shot back the bolts, and we entered. The men drew up and saluted; for I held my manor a camp, my servants soldiers, and myself their captain.
I have seen worse favored companies, but doubtless the woman beside me had not. Perhaps, too, the red light of the torches, now flaring brightly, now sunk before the wind, gave their countenances a more villainous cast than usual. They were not all bad. Diccon had the virtue of fidelity, if none other; there were a brace of Puritans, and a handful of honest fools, who, if they drilled badly, yet abhorred mutiny. But the half dozen I had taken off Argall's hands; the Dutchmen who might have been own brothers to those two Judases, Adam and Francis; the thief and the highwayman I had bought from the precious crew sent us by the King the year before; the negro and the Indians—small wonder that she shrank and cowered. It was but for a moment. I was yet seeking for words sufficiently reassuring when she was herself again. She did not deign to notice the men's awkward salute, and when Diccon, a handsome rogue enough, advancing to light us up the bank, brushed by her something too closely, she drew away her skirts as though he had been a lazar. At my own door I turned and spoke to the men, who had followed us up the ascent.
“This lady,” I said, taking her hand as she stood beside me, “is my true and lawful wife, your mistress, to be honored and obeyed as such. Who fails in reverence to her I hold as mutinous to myself, and will deal with him accordingly. She gives you to-morrow for holiday, with double rations, and to each a measure of rum. Now thank her properly.”
They cheered lustily, of course, and Diccon, stepping forward, gave us thanks in the name of them all, and wished us joy. After which, with another cheer, they backed from out our presence, then turned and made for their quarters, while I led my wife within the house and closed the door.
Diccon was an ingenious scoundrel. I had told him to banish the dogs, to have the house cleaned and lit, and supper upon the table; but I had not ordered the floor to be strewn with rushes, the walls draped with flowering vines, a great jar filled with sunflowers, and an illumination of a dozen torches. Nevertheless, it looked well, and I highly approved the capon and maize cakes, the venison pasty and ale, with which the table was set. Through the open doors of the two other rooms were to be seen more rushes, more flowers, and more lights.
To the larger of these rooms I now led the way, deposited her bundle upon the settle, and saw that Diccon had provided fair water for her face and hands; which done, I told her that supper waited upon her convenience, and went back to the great room.
She was long in coming, so long that I grew impatient and went to call her. The door was ajar, and so I saw her, kneeling in the middle of the floor, her head thrown back, her hands raised and clasped, on her face terror and anguish of spirit written so large that I started to see it. I stared in amazement, and, had I followed my first impulse, would have gone to her, as I would have gone to any other creature in so dire distress. On second thoughts, I went noiselessly back to my station in the great room. She had not seen me, I was sure. Nor had I long to wait. Presently she appeared, and I could have doubted the testimony of my eyes, so changed were the agonized face and figure of a few moments before. Beautiful and disdainful, she moved to the table, and took the great chair drawn before it with the air of an empress mounting a throne. I contented myself with the stool.
She ate nothing, and scarcely touched the canary I poured for her. I pressed upon her wine and viands,—in vain; I strove to make conversation,—equally in vain. Finally, tired of “yes” and “no” uttered as though she were reluctantly casting pearls before swine, I desisted, and applied myself to my supper in a silence as sullen as her own. At last we rose from table, and I went to look to the fastenings of door and windows, and returning found her standing in the centre of the room, her head up and her hands clenched at her sides. I saw that we were to have it out then and there, and I was glad of it.
“You have something to say,” I said. “I am quite at your command,” and I went and leaned against the chimneypiece.
The low fire upon the hearth burnt lower still before she broke the silence. When she did speak it was slowly, and with a voice which was evidently controlled only by a strong effort of a strong will. She said:—
“When—yesterday, to-day, ten thousand years ago you went from this horrible forest down to that wretched village yonder, to those huts that make your London, you went to buy you a wife?”
“Yes, madam,” I answered. “I went with that intention.”
“You had made your calculation? In your mind you had pitched upon such and such an article, with such and such qualities, as desirable? Doubtless you meant to get your money's worth?”
“Doubtless,” I said dryly.
“Will you tell me what you were inclined to consider its equivalent?”
I stared at her, much inclined to laugh. The interview promised to be interesting.
“I went to Jamestown to get me a wife,” I said at length, “because I had pledged my word that I would do so. I was not over-anxious. I did not run all the way. But, as you say, I intended to do the best I could for myself; one hundred and twenty pounds of tobacco being a considerable sum, and not to be lightly thrown away. I went to look for a mistress for my house, a companion for my idle hours, a rosy, humble, docile lass, with no aspirations beyond cleanliness and good temper, who was to order my household and make me a home. I was to be her head and her law, but also her sword and shield. That is what I went to look for.”
“And you found—me!” she said, and broke into strange laughter.
I bowed.
“In God's name, why did you not go further?”
I suppose she saw in my face why I went no further, for into her own the color came flaming.
“I am not what I seem!” she cried out. “I was not in that company of choice!”
I bowed again. “You have no need to tell me that, madam,” I said. “I have eyes. I desire to know why you were there at all, and why you married me.”
She turned from me, until I could see nothing but the coiled wealth of her hair and the bit of white neck between it and the ruff. We stood so in silence, she with bent head and fingers clasping and unclasping, I leaning against the wall and staring at her, for what seemed a long time. At least I had time to grow impatient, when she faced me again, and all my irritation vanished in a gasp of admiration.
Oh, she was beautiful, and of a sweetness most alluring and fatal! Had Medea worn such a look, sure Jason had quite forgot the fleece, and with those eyes Circe had needed no other charm to make men what she would. Her voice, when she spoke, was no longer imperious; it was low pleading music. And she held out entreating hands.
“Have pity on me,” she said. “Listen kindly, and have pity on me. You are a strong man and wear a sword. You can cut your way through trouble and peril. I am a woman, weak, friendless, helpless. I was in distress and peril, and I had no arm to save, no knight to fight my battle. I do not love deceit. Ah, do not think that I have not hated myself for the lie I have been. But these forest creatures that you take,—will they not bite against springe and snare? Are they scrupulous as to how they free themselves? I too was in the toils of the hunter, and I too was not scrupulous. There was a thing of which I stood in danger that would have been bitterer to me, a thousand times, than death. I had but one thought, to escape; how, I did not care,—only to escape. I had a waiting woman named Patience Worth. One night she came to me, weeping. She had wearied of service, and had signed to go to Virginia as one of Sir Edwyn Sandys' maids, and at the last moment her heart had failed her. There had been pressure brought to bear upon me that day,—I had been angered to the very soul. I sent her away with a heavy bribe, and in her dress and under her name I fled from—I went aboard that ship. No one guessed that I was not the Patience Worth to whose name I answered. No one knows now,—none but you, none but you.”
“And why am I so far honored, madam?” I said bluntly.
She crimsoned, then went white again. She was trembling now through her whole frame. At last she broke out: “I am not of that crew that came to marry! To me you are the veriest stranger,—you are but the hand at which I caught to draw myself from a pit that had been digged for me. It was my hope that this hour would never come. When I fled, mad for escape, willing to dare anything but that which I left behind, I thought, 'I may die before that ship with its shameless cargo sets sail.' When the ship set sail, and we met with stormy weather, and there was much sickness aboard, I thought, 'I may drown or I may die of the fever.' When, this afternoon, I lay there in the boat, coming up this dreadful river through the glare of the lightning, and you thought I slept, I was thinking, 'The bolts may strike me yet, and all will be well.' I prayed for that death, but the storm passed. I am not without shame. I know that you must think all ill of me, that you must feel yourself gulled and cheated. I am sorry—that is all I can say—I am sorry. I am your wife—I was married to you to-day—but I know you not and love you not. I ask you to hold me as I hold myself, a guest in your house, nothing more. I am quite at your mercy. I am entirely friendless, entirely alone. I appeal to your generosity, to your honor”—
Before I could prevent her she was kneeling to me, and she would not rise, though I bade her do so.
I went to the door, unbarred it, and looked out into the night, for the air within the room stifled me. It was not much better outside. The clouds had gathered again, and were now hanging thick and low. From the distance came a rumble of thunder, and the whole night was dull, heavy, and breathless. Hot anger possessed me: anger against Rolfe for suggesting this thing to me; anger against myself for that unlucky throw; anger, most of all, against the woman who had so cozened me. In the servants' huts, a hundred yards away, lights were still burning, against rule, for the hour was late. Glad that there was something I could rail out against, I strode down upon the men, and caught them assembled in Diccon's cabin, dicing for to-morrow's rum. When I had struck out the light with my rapier, and had rated the rogues to their several quarters, I went back through the gathering storm to the brightly-lit, flower-decked room, and to Mistress Percy.
She was still kneeling, her hands at her breast, and her eyes, wide and dark, fixed upon the blackness without the open door. I went up to her and took her by the hand.
“I am a gentleman, madam,” I said. “You need have no fear of me. I pray you to rise.”
She stood up at that, and her breath came hurriedly through her parted lips, but she did not speak.
“It grows late, and you must be weary,” I continued. “Your room is yonder. I trust that you will sleep well. Good-night.”
I bowed low, and she curtsied to me. “Good-night,” she said.
On her way to the door, she brushed against the rack wherein hung my weapons. Among them was a small dagger. Her quick eye caught its gleam, and I saw her press closer to the wall, and with her right hand strive stealthily to detach the blade from its fastening. She did not understand the trick. Her hand dropped to her side, and she was passing on, when I crossed the room, loosened the dagger, and offered it to her, with a smile and a bow. She flushed scarlet and bit her lips, but she took it.
“There are bars to the door within,” I said. “Again, good-night.”
“Good-night,” she answered, and, entering the room, she shut the door. A moment more, and I heard the heavy bars drop into place.
TEN days later, Rolfe, going down river in his barge, touched at my wharf, and finding me there walked with me toward the house.
“I have not seen you since you laughed my advice to scorn—and took it,” he said. “Where's the farthingale, Benedick the married man?”
“In the house.”
“Oh, ay!” he commented. “It's near to supper time. I trust she's a good cook?”
“She does not cook,” I said dryly. “I have hired old Goody Cotton to do that.”
He eyed me closely. “By all the gods! a new doublet! She is skillful with her needle, then?”
“She may be,” I answered. “Having never seen her with one, I am no judge. The doublet was made by the tailor at Flowerdieu Hundred.”
By this we had reached the level sward at the top of the bank. “Roses!” he exclaimed,—“a long row of them new planted! An arbor, too, and a seat beneath the big walnut! Since when hast thou turned gardner, Ralph?”
“It's Diccon's doing. He is anxious to please his mistress.”
“Who neither sews, nor cooks, nor plants! What does she do?”
“She pulls the roses,” I said. “Come in.”
When we had entered the house he stared about him; then cried out, “Acrasia's bower! Oh, thou sometime Guyon!” and began to laugh.
It was late afternoon, and the slant sunshine streaming in at door and window striped wall and floor with gold. Floor and wall were no longer logs gnarled and stained: upon the one lay a carpet of delicate ferns and aromatic leaves, and glossy vines, purple-berried, tapestried the other. Flowers—purple and red and yellow—were everywhere. As we entered, a figure started up from the hearth.
“St. George!” exclaimed Rolfe. “You have never married a blackamoor?”
“It is the negress, Angela,” I said. “I bought her from William Pierce the other day. Mistress Percy wished a waiting damsel.”
The creature, one of the five females of her kind then in Virginia, looked at us with large, rolling eyes. She knew a little Spanish, and I spoke to her in that tongue, bidding her find her mistress and tell her that company waited. When she was gone I placed a jack of ale upon the table, and Rolfe and I sat down to discuss it. Had I been in a mood for laughter, I could have found reason in his puzzled face. There were flowers upon the table, and beside them a litter of small objects, one of which he now took up.
“A white glove,” he said, “perfumed and silver-fringed, and of a size to fit Titania.”
I spread its mate out upon my palm. “A woman's hand. Too white, too soft, and too small.”
He touched lightly, one by one, the slender fingers of the glove he held. “A woman's hand,—strength in weakness, veiled power, the star in the mist, guiding, beckoning, drawing upward!”
I laughed and threw the glove from me. “The star, a will-of-the-wisp; the goal, a slough,” I said.
As he sat opposite me a change came over his face, a change so great that I knew before I turned that she was in the room.
The bundle which I had carried for her from Jamestown was neither small nor light. Why, when she fled, she chose to burden herself with such toys, or whether she gave a thought to the suspicions that might be raised in Virginia if one of Sir Edwyn's maids bedecked herself in silk and lace and jewels, I do not know, but she had brought to the forest and the tobacco fields the gauds of a maid of honor. The Puritan dress in which I first saw her was a thing of the past; she clothed herself now like the parrakeets in the forest,—or liker the lilies of the field, for verily she toiled not, neither did she spin.
Rolfe and I rose from our seats. “Mistress Percy,” I said, “let me present to you a right worthy gentleman and my very good friend, Master John Rolfe.”
She curtsied, and he bowed low. He was a man of quick wit and had been at court, but for a time he could find no words. Then: “Mistress Percy's face is not one to be forgotten. I have surely seen it before, though where”—
Her color mounted, but she answered him indifferently enough. “Probably in London, amongst the spectators of some pageant arranged in honor of the princess, your wife, sir,” she said carelessly. “I had twice the fortune to see the Lady Rebekah passing through the streets.”
“Not in the streets only,” he said courteously. “I remember now: 't was at my lord bishop's dinner. A very courtly company it was. You were laughing with my Lord Rich. You wore pearls in your hair”—
She met his gaze fully and boldly. “Memory plays us strange tricks at times,” she told him in a clear, slightly raised voice, “and it hath been three years since Master Rolfe and his Indian princess were in London. His memory hath played him false.”
She took her seat in the great chair which stood in the centre of the room, bathed in the sunlight, and the negress brought a cushion for her feet. It was not until this was done, and until she had resigned her fan to the slave, who stood behind her slowly waving the plumed toy to and fro, that she turned her lovely face upon us and bade us be seated.
An hour later a whippoorwill uttered its cry close to the window, through which now shone the crescent moon. Rolfe started up. “Beshrew me! but I had forgot that I am to sleep at Chaplain's to-night. I must hurry on.”
I rose, also. “You have had no supper!” I cried. “I too have forgotten.”
He shook his head. “I cannot wait. Moreover, I have feasted,—yea, and drunk deep.”
His eyes were very bright, with an exaltation in them as of wine. Mine, I felt, had the same light. Indeed, we were both drunk with her laughter, her beauty, and her wit. When he had kissed her hand, and I had followed him out of the house and down the bank, he broke the silence.
“Why she came to Virginia I do not know “—
“Nor care to ask,” I said.
“Nor care to ask,” he repeated, meeting my gaze. “And I know neither her name nor her rank. But as I stand here, Ralph, I saw her, a guest, at that feast of which I spoke; and Edwyn Sandys picked not his maids from such assemblies.”
I stopped him with my hand upon his shoulder. “She is one of Sandys' maids,” I asserted, with deliberation, “a waiting damsel who wearied of service and came to Virginia to better herself. She was landed with her mates at Jamestown a week or more agone, went with them to church and thence to the courting meadow, where she and Captain Ralph Percy, a gentleman adventurer, so pleased each other that they were married forthwith. That same day he brought her to his house, where she now abides, his wife, and as such to be honored by those who call themselves his friends. And she is not to be lightly spoken of, nor comment passed upon her grace, beauty, and bearing (something too great for her station, I admit), lest idle tales should get abroad.”
“Am I not thy friend, Ralph?” he asked with smiling eyes.
“I have thought so at times,” I answered.
“My friend's honor is my honor,” he went on. “Where his lips are sealed mine open not. Art content?”
“Content,” I said, and pressed the hand he held out to me.
We reached the steps of the wharf, and descending them he entered his barge, rocking lazily with the advancing tide. His rowers cast loose from the piles, and the black water slowly widened between us. From over my shoulder came a sudden bright gleam of light from the house above, and I knew that Mistress Percy was as usual wasting good pine knots. I had a vision of the many lights within, and of the beauty whom the world called my wife, sitting erect, bathed in that rosy glow, in the great armchair, with the turbaned negress behind her. I suppose Rolfe saw the same thing, for he looked from the light to me, and I heard him draw his breath.
“Ralph Percy, thou art the very button upon the cap of Fortune,” he said.
To myself my laugh sounded something of the bitterest, but to him, I presume, it vaunted my return through the darkness to the lit room and its resplendent pearl. He waved farewell, and the dusk swallowed up him and his boat. I went back to the house and to her.
She was sitting as we had left her, with her small feet crossed upon the cushion beneath them, her hands folded in her silken lap, the air from the waving fan blowing tendrils of her dark hair against her delicate standing ruff. I went and leaned against the window, facing her.
“I have been chosen Burgess for this hundred,” I said abruptly. “The Assembly meets next week. I must be in Jamestown then and for some time to come.”
She took the fan from the negress, and waved it lazily to and fro. “When do we go?” she asked at last.
“We!” I answered. “I had thought to go alone.”
The fan dropped to the floor, and her eyes opened wide. “And leave me here!” she exclaimed. “Leave me in these woods, at the mercy of Indians, wolves, and your rabble of servants!”
I smiled. “We are at peace with the Indians; it would be a stout wolf that could leap this palisade; and the servants know their master too well to care to offend their mistress. Moreover, I would leave Diccon in charge.”
“Diccon!” she cried. “The old woman in the kitchen hath told me tales of Diccon! Diccon Bravo! Diccon Gamester! Diccon Cutthroat!”
“Granted,” I said. “But Diccon Faithful as well. I can trust him.”
“But I do not trust him!” she retorted. “And I wish to go to Jamestown. This forest wearies me.” Her tone was imperious.
“I must think it over,” I said coolly. “I may take you, or I may not. I cannot tell yet.”
“But I desire to go, sir!”
“And I may desire you to stay.”
“You are a churl!”
I bowed. “I am the man of your choice, madam.”
She rose with a stamp of her foot, and, turning her back upon me, took a flower from the table and commenced to pull from it its petals. I unsheathed my sword, and, seating myself, began to polish away a speck of rust upon the blade. Ten minutes later I looked up from the task, to receive full in my face a red rose tossed from the other side of the room. The missile was followed by an enchanting burst of laughter.
“We cannot afford to quarrel, can we?” cried Mistress Jocelyn Percy. “Life is sad enough in this solitude without that. Nothing but trees and water all day long, and not a soul to speak to! And I am horribly afraid of the Indians! What if they were to kill me while you were away? You know you swore before the minister to protect me. You won't leave me to the mercies of the savages, will you? And I may go to Jamestown, may n't I? I want to go to church. I want to go to the Governor's house. I want to buy a many things. I have gold in plenty, and but this one decent dress. You'll take me with you, won't you?”
“There's not your like in Virginia,” I told her. “If you go to town clad like that and with that bearing, there will be talk enough. And ships come and go, and there are those besides Rolfe who have been to London.”
For a moment the laughter died from her eyes and lips, but it returned. “Let them talk,” she said. “What care I? And I do not think your ship captains, your traders and adventurers, do often dine with my lord bishop. This barbarous forest world and another world that I wot of are so far apart that the inhabitants of the one do not trouble those of the other. In that petty village down there I am safe enough. Besides, sir, you wear a sword.”
“My sword is ever at your service, madam.”
“Then I may go to Jamestown?”
“If you will it so.”
With her bright eyes upon me, and with one hand softly striking a rose against her laughing lips, she extended the other hand.
“You may kiss it, if you wish, sir,” she said demurely.
I knelt and kissed the white fingers, and four days later we went to Jamestown.
IT was early morning when we set out on horseback for Jamestown. I rode in front, with Mistress Percy upon a pillion behind me, and Diccon on the brown mare brought up the rear. The negress and the mails I had sent by boat.
Now, a ride through the green wood with a noble horse beneath you, and around you the freshness of the morn, is pleasant enough. Each twig had its row of diamonds, and the wet leaves that we pushed aside spilled gems upon us. The horses set their hoofs daintily upon fern and moss and lush grass. In the purple distances deer stood at gaze, the air rang with innumerable bird notes, clear and sweet, squirrels chattered, bees hummed, and through the thick leafy roof of the forest the sun showered gold dust. And Mistress Jocelyn Percy was as merry as the morning. It was now fourteen days since she and I had first met, and in that time I had found in her thrice that number of moods. She could be as gay and sweet as the morning, as dark and vengeful as the storms that came up of afternoons, pensive as the twilight, stately as the night,—in her there met a hundred minds. Also she could be childishly frank—and tell you nothing.
To-day she chose to be gracious. Ten times in an hour Diccon was off his horse to pluck this or that flower that her white forefinger pointed out. She wove the blooms into a chaplet, and placed it upon her head; she filled her lap with trailers of the vine that swayed against us, and stained her fingers and lips with the berries Diccon brought her; she laughed at the squirrels, at the scurrying partridges, at the turkeys that crossed our path, at the fish that leaped from the brooks, at old Jocomb and his sons who ferried us across the Chickahominy. She was curious concerning the musket I carried; and when, in an open space in the wood, we saw an eagle perched upon a blasted pine, she demanded my pistol. I took it from my belt and gave it to her, with a laugh. “I will eat all of your killing,” I said.
She aimed the weapon. “A wager!” she declared. “There be mercers in Jamestown? If I hit, thou 'lt buy me a pearl hatband?”
“Two.”
She fired, and the bird rose with a scream of wrath and sailed away. But two or three feathers came floating to the ground, and when Diccon had brought them to her she pointed triumphantly to the blood upon them. “You said two!” she cried.
The sun rose higher, and the heat of the day set in. Mistress Percy's interest in forest bloom and creature flagged. Instead of laughter, we had sighs at the length of way; the vines slid from her lap, and she took the faded flowers from her head and cast them aside. She talked no more, and by and by I felt her head droop against my shoulder.
“Madam is asleep,” said Diccon's voice behind me.
“Ay,” I answered. “She'll find a jack of mail but a hard pillow. And look to her that she does not fall.”
“I had best walk beside you, then,” he said.
I nodded, and he dismounted, and throwing the mare's bridle over his arm strode on beside us, with his hand upon the frame of the pillion. Ten minutes passed, the last five of which I rode with my face over my shoulder. “Diccon!” I cried at last, sharply.
He came to his senses with a start. “Ay, sir?” he questioned, his face dark red.
“Suppose you look at me for a change,” I said. “How long since Dale came in, Diccon?”
“Ten years, sir.”
“Before we enter Jamestown we'll pass through a certain field and beneath a certain tree. Do you remember what happened there, some years ago?”
“I am not like to forget, sir. You saved me from the wheel.”
“Upon which you were bound, ready to be broken for drunkenness, gaming, and loose living. I begged your life from Dale for no other reason, I think, than that you had been a horse-boy in my old company in the Low Countries. God wot, the life was scarcely worth the saving!”
“I know it, sir.”
“Dale would not let you go scot-free, but would sell you into slavery. At your own entreaty I bought you, since when you have served me indifferently well. You have showed small penitence for past misdeeds, and your amendment hath been of yet lesser bulk. A hardy rogue thou wast born, and a rogue thou wilt remain to the end of time. But we have lived and hunted, fought and bled together, and in our own fashion I think we bear each other good will,—even some love. I have winked at much, have shielded you in much, perhaps. In return I have demanded one thing, which if you had not given I would have found you another Dale to deal with.”
“Have I ever refused it, my captain?”
“Not yet. Take your hand from that pillion and hold it up; then say after me these words: 'This lady is my mistress, my master's wife, to be by me reverenced as such. Her face is not for my eyes nor her hand for my lips. If I keep not myself clean of all offense toward her, may God approve that which my master shall do!'”
The blood rushed to his face. I watched his fingers slowly loosening their grasp.
“Tardy obedience is of the house of mutiny,” I said sternly. “Will you, sirrah, or will you not?”
He raised his hand and repeated the words.
“Now hold her as before,” I ordered, and, straightening myself in the saddle, rode on, with my eyes once more on the path before me.
A mile further on, Mistress Percy stirred and raised her head from my shoulder. “Not at Jamestown yet?” she sighed, as yet but half awake. “Oh, the endless trees! I dreamed I was hawking at Windsor, and then suddenly I was here in this forest, a bird, happy because I was free; and then a falcon came swooping down upon me,—it had me in its talons, and I changed to myself again, and it changed to—What am I saying? I am talking in my sleep. Who is that singing?”
In fact, from the woods in front of us, and not a bowshot away, rang out a powerful voice:—
Forth I went, forsooth, a-maying;'” and presently, the trees thinning in front of us, we came upon a little open glade and upon the singer. He lay on his back, on the soft turf beneath an oak, with his hands clasped behind his head and his eyes upturned to the blue sky showing between leaf and branch. On one knee crossed above the other sat a squirrel with a nut in its paws, and half a dozen others scampered here and there over his great body, like so many frolicsome kittens. At a little distance grazed an old horse, gray and gaunt, springhalt and spavined, with ribs like Death's own. Its saddle and bridle adorned a limb of the oak.
The song went cheerfully on:—
“Give you good-day, reverend sir!” I called. “Art conning next Sunday's hymn?”
Nothing abashed, Master Jeremy Sparrow gently shook off the squirrels, and getting to his feet advanced to meet us.
“A toy,” he declared, with a wave of his hand, “a trifle, a silly old song that came into my mind unawares, the leaves being so green and the sky so blue. Had you come a little earlier or a little later, you would have heard the ninetieth psalm. Give you good-day madam. I must have sung for that the very queen of May was coming by.”
“Art on your way to Jamestown?” I demanded. “Come ride with us. Diccon, saddle his reverence's horse.”
“Saddle him an thou wilt, friend,” said Master Sparrow, “for he and I have idled long enough, but I fear I cannot keep pace with this fair company. I and the horse are footing it together.”
“He is not long for this world,” I remarked, eyeing his ill-favored steed, “but neither are we far from Jamestown. He'll last that far.”
Master Sparrow shook his head, with a rueful countenance. “I bought him from one of the French vignerons below Westover,” he said. “The fellow was astride the poor creature, beating him with a club because he could not go. I laid Monsieur Crapaud in the dust, after which we compounded, he for my purse, I for the animal; since when the poor beast and I have tramped it together, for I could not in conscience ride him. Have you read me Aesop's fables, Captain Percy?”
“I remember the man, the boy, and the ass,” I replied. “The ass came to grief in the end. Put thy scruples in thy pocket, man, and mount thy pale horse.”
“Not I!” he said, with a smile. “'T is a thousand pities, Captain Percy, that a small, mean, and squeamish spirit like mine should be cased like a very Guy of Warwick. Now, if I were slight of body, or even if I were no heavier than your servant there”—
“Oh!” I said. “Diccon, give his reverence the mare, and do you mount his horse and bring him slowly on to town. If he will not carry you, you can lead him in.”
Sunshine revisited the countenance of Master Jeremy Sparrow; he swung his great body into the saddle, gathered up the reins, and made the mare to caracole across the path for very joy.
“Have a care of the poor brute, friend!” he cried genially to Diccon, whose looks were of the sulkiest. “Bring him gently on, and leave him at Master Bucke's, near to the church.”
“What do you do at Jamestown?” I asked, as we passed from out the glade into the gloom of a pine wood. “I was told that you were gone to Henricus, to help Master Thorpe convert the Indians.”
“Ay,” he answered, “I did go. I had a call,—I was sure I had a call. I thought of myself as a very apostle to the Gentiles. I went from Henricus one day's journey into the wilderness, with none but an Indian lad for interpreter, and coming to an Indian village gathered its inhabitants about me, and sitting down upon a hillock read and expounded to them the Sermon on the Mount. I was much edified by the solemnity of their demeanor and the earnestness of their attention, and had conceived great hopes for their spiritual welfare, when, the reading and exhortation being finished, one of their old men arose and made me a long speech, which I could not well understand, but took to be one of grateful welcome to myself and my tidings of peace and good will. He then desired me to tarry with them, and to be present at some entertainment or other, the nature of which I could not make out. I tarried; and toward evening they conducted me with much ceremony to an open space in the midst of the village. There I found planted in the ground a thick stake, and around it a ring of flaming brushwood. To the stake was fastened an Indian warrior, captured, so my interpreter informed me, from some hostile tribe above the falls. His arms and ankles were secured to the stake by means of thongs passed through incisions in the flesh; his body was stuck over with countless pine splinters, each burning like a miniature torch; and on his shaven crown was tied a thin plate of copper heaped with red-hot coals. A little to one side appeared another stake and another circle of brushwood: the one with nothing tied to it as yet, and the other still unlit. My friend, I did not tarry to see it lit. I tore a branch from an oak, and I became as Samson with the jaw bone of the ass. I fell upon and smote those Philistines. Their wretched victim was beyond all human help, but I dearly avenged him upon his enemies. And they had their pains for naught when they planted that second stake and laid the brush for their hell fire. At last I dropped into the stream upon which their damnable village was situate, and got safely away. Next day I went to George Thorpe and resigned my ministry, telling him that we were nowhere commanded to preach to devils; when the Company was ready to send shot and steel amongst them, they might count upon me. After which I came down the river to Jamestown, where I found worthy Master Bucke well-nigh despaired of with the fever. Finally he was taken up river for change of air, and, for lack of worthier substitute, the Governor and Captain West constrained me to remain and minister to the shepherdless flock. Where will you lodge, good sir?”
“I do not know,” I said. “The town will be full, and the guest house is not yet finished.”
“Why not come to me?” he asked. “There are none in the minister's house but me and Goodwife Allen who keeps it. There are five fair large rooms and a goodly garden, though the trees do too much shadow the house. If you will come and let the sunshine in,”—a bow and smile for madam,—“I shall be your debtor.”
His plea pleased me well. Except the Governor's and Captain West's, the minister's house was the best in the town. It was retired, too, being set in its own grounds, and not upon the street, and I desired privacy. Goodwife Allen was stolid and incurious. Moreover, I liked Master Jeremy Sparrow.
I accepted his hospitality and gave him thanks. He waved them away, and fell to complimenting Mistress Percy, who was pleased to be gracious to us both. Well content for the moment with the world and ourselves, we fared on through the alternating sunshine and shade, and were happy with the careless inhabitants of the forest. Oversoon we came to the peninsula, and crossed the neck of land. Before us lay the town: to the outer eye a poor and mean village, indeed, but to the inner the stronghold and capital of our race in the western world, the germ from which might spring stately cities, the newborn babe which might in time equal its parent in stature, strength, and comeliness. So I and a few besides, both in Virginia and at home, viewed the mean houses, the poor church and rude fort, and loved the spot which had witnessed much suffering and small joy, but which held within it the future, which was even now a bit in the mouth of Spain, a thing in itself outweighing all the toil and anguish of our planting. But there were others who saw only the meanness of the place, its almost defenselessness, its fluxes and fevers, the fewness of its inhabitants and the number of its graves. Finding no gold and no earthly paradise, and that in the sweat of their brow they must eat their bread, they straightway fell into the dumps, and either died out of sheer perversity, or went yelping home to the Company with all manner of dismal tales,—which tales, through my Lord Warwick's good offices, never failed to reach the sacred ears of his Majesty, and to bring the colony and the Company into disfavor.
We came to the palisade, and found the gates wide open and the warder gone.
“Where be the people?” marveled Master Sparrow, as we rode through into the street. In truth, where were the people? On either side of the street the doors of the houses stood open, but no person looked out from them or loitered on the doorsteps; the square was empty; there were no women at the well, no children underfoot, no gaping crowd before gaol and pillory, no guard before the Governor's house,—not a soul, high or low, to be seen.
“Have they all migrated?” cried Sparrow. “Are they gone to Croatan?”
“They have left one to tell the tale, then,” I said, “for here he comes running.”