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 honoured, 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 honour——”
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 skilful 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 arbour, too, and a seat beneath the big walnut! Since when hast thou turned gardener, 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 honour. 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 colour mounted, but she answered him indifferently enough. “Probably in London, amongst the spectators of some pageant arranged in honour 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: ‘twas 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. More over, 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 honoured 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 honour is my honour,” 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, mayn’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 horse-back 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 mares 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 offence 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:—
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-favoured 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 Æsop his 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. “ ’Tis 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 demeanour 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 plan 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 defencelessness, 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 disfavour.
We came to the palisade, and found the gates wide open and the warder gone.
“Where be the people?” marvelled 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.”
A MAN came panting down the street.
“Captain Ralph Percy!” he cried. “My master said it was your horse coming across the neck. The Governor commands your attendance at once, sir.”
“Where is the Governor? Where are all the people?” I demanded.
“At the fort. They are all at the fort or on the bank below. Oh, sirs, a woeful day for us all!”
“A woeful day!” I exclaimed. “What’s the matter?”
The man, whom I recognized as one of the commander’s servants, a fellow with the soul of a French valet de chambre, was wild with terror.
“They are at the guns!” he quavered. “Alackaday! What can a few sakers and demi-culverins do against them?”
“Against whom?” I cried.
“They are giving out pikes and cutlasses! Woe’s me, the sight of naked steel hath ever made me sick!”
I drew my dagger and flashed it before him. “Does’t make you sick?” I asked. “You shall be sicker yet, if you do not speak to some purpose.”
The fellow shrank back, his eyeballs starting from his head.
“It’s a tall ship,” he gasped, “a very big ship! It hath ten culverins, beside fowlers and murderers, sakers, falcons, and bases!”
I took him by the collar and shook him off his feet.
“There are priests on board!” he managed to say as I set him down. “This time to-morrow we’ll all be on the rack! And next week the galleys will have us!”
“It’s the Spaniard at last,” I said. “Come on!”
When we reached the river bank before the fort, it was to find confusion worse confounded. The gates of the palisade were open, and through them streamed Councillors, Burgesses, and officers, while the bank itself was thronged with the generality. Ancient planters, Smith’s men, Dale’s men, tenants and servants, women and children, including the little eyases we imported the year before, negroes, Paspaheghs, French vignerons, Dutch sawmill men, Italian glass-workers,—all seethed to and fro, all talked at once, and all looked down the river. Out of the babel of voices these words came to us over and over: “The Spaniard!” “The Inquisition!” “The galleys!” They were the words oftenest heard at that time, when strange sails hove in sight.
But where was the Spaniard? On the river, hugging the shore, were many small craft, barges, shallops, sloops, and pinnaces, and beyond them the masts of the Truelove, the Due Return, and the Tiger, then in port; on these three, of which the largest, the Due Return, was of but eighty tons burthen, the mariners were running about and the masters bawling orders. But there was no other ship, no bark, galleon, or man-of-war, with three tiers of grinning ordnance, and the hated yellow flag flaunting above.
I sprang from my horse, and, leaving it and Mistress Percy in Sparrow’s charge, hastened up to the fort. As I passed through the palisade I heard my name called, and, turning, waited for Master Pory to come up. He was panting and puffing, his jovial face very red.
“I was across the neck of land when I heard the news,” he said. “I ran all the way and am somewhat scant of breath. Here’s the devil to pay!”
“It looks another mare’s-nest,” I replied. “We have cried ‘Spaniard!’ pretty often.”
“But this time the wolf’s here,” he answered. “Davies sent a horseman at a gallop from Algernon with the tidings. He passed the ship, and it was a very great one. We may thank this dead calm that it did not catch us unawares.”
Within the palisade was noise enough, but more order than without. On the half-moons commanding the river, gunners were busy about our sakers, falcons, and three culverins. In one place, West, the commander, was giving out brigandines, jacks, skulls, muskets, halberds, swords and longbows; in another, his wife, who was a very Mary Ambree, supervised the boiling of a great caldron of pitch. Each loophole in palisade and fort had already its marksman. Through the west port came a horde of reluctant invaders,—cattle, swine, and poultry,—driven in by yelling boys.
I made my way through the press to where I saw the Governor, surrounded by Councillors and Burgesses, sitting on a keg of powder, and issuing orders at the top of his voice. “Ha, Captain Percy!” he cried as I came up. “You are in good time, man! You’ve served your apprenticeship at the wars. You must teach us how to beat the dons.”
“To Englishmen, that comes by nature, sir,” I said. “Art sure we are to have the pleasure?”
“Not a doubt of it this time,” he answered. “The ship slipped in past the point last night. Davies signalled her to stop, and then sent a ball over her; but she kept on. True, it was too dark to make out much; but if she were friendly, why did she not stop for castle duties? Moreover, they say she was of at least five hundred tons, and no ship of that size hath ever visited these waters. There was no wind, and they sent a man on at once, hoping to outstrip the enemy and warn us. The man changed horses at Basse’s Choice, and passed the ship about dawn. All he could tell for the mist was that it was a very great ship, with three tiers of guns.”
“The flag?”
“She carried none.”
“Humph!” I said. “It hath a suspicious look. At least we do well to be ready. We’ll give them a warm welcome.”
“There are those here who counsel surrender,” continued the Governor. “There’s one, at least, who wants the Tiger sent downstream with a white flag and my sword.”
“Where?” I cried. “He’s no Englishman, I warrant!”
“As much an Englishman as thou, sir!” called out a gentleman whom I had encountered before, to wit, Master Edward Sharpless. “It’s well enough for swingebuckler captains, Low Country fire-eaters, to talk of holding out against a Spanish man-of-war with twice our number of fighting men, and enough ordnance to batter the town out of existence. Wise men know when the odds are too heavy!”
“It’s well enough for lily-livered, goose-fleshed lawyers to hold their tongues when men and soldiers talk,” I retorted. “We are not making indentures to the devil, and so have no need of such gentry.”
There was a roar of laughter from the captains and gunners, but terror of the Spaniard had made Master Edward Sharpless bold to all besides.
“They will wipe us off the face of the earth!” he lamented. “There won’t be an Englishman left in America! They’ll come close in upon us! They’ll batter down the fort with their culverins; they’ll turn all their swivels, sakers, and falcons upon us; they’ll throw into our midst stinkpots and grenades; they’ll mow us down with chain shot! Their gunners never miss!” His voice rose to a scream, and he shook as with an ague.
“Are you mad? It’s Spain that’s to be fought! Spain the rich! Spain the powerful! Spain the lord of the New World!”
“It’s England that fights!” I cried. “For very shame, hold thy tongue!”
“If we surrender at once, they’ll let us go!” he whined. “We can take the small boats and get to the Bermudas. They’ll let us go.”
“Into the galleys,” muttered West.
The craven tried another feint. “Think of the women and children!”
“We do,” I said sternly. “Silence, fool!”
The Governor, a brave and honest man, rose from the keg of powder. “All this is foreign to the matter, Master Sharpless. I think our duty is clear, be the odds what they may. This is our post, and we will hold it or die beside it. We are few in number, but we are England in America, and I think we will remain here. This is the King’s fifth kingdom, and we will keep it for him. We will trust in the Lord and fight it out.”
“Amen,” I said, and “Amen,” said the ring of Councillors and Burgesses and the armed men beyond.
The hum of voices now rose into excited cries, and the watchman stationed atop the big culverin called out, “Sail ho!” With one accord we turned our faces downstream. There was the ship, undoubtedly. Moreover, a strong breeze had sprung up, blowing from the sea, filling her white sails, and rapidly lessening the distance between us. As yet we could only tell that she was indeed a large ship with all sail set.
Through the gates of the palisade now came, pell-mell, the crowd without. In ten minutes’ time the women were in line ready to load the muskets, the children sheltered as best they might be, the men in ranks, the gunners at their guns, and the flag up. I had run it up with my own hand, and as I stood beneath the folds Master Sparrow and my wife came to my side.
“The women are over there,” I said to the latter, “where you had best betake yourself.”
“I prefer to stay here,” she answered. “I am not afraid.” Her colour was high, and she held her head up. “My father fought the Armada,” she said. “Get me a sword from that man who is giving them out.”
From his coign of vantage the watch now called out: “She’s a long ship,—five hundred tons, anyhow! Lord! the metal that she carries! She’s rase-decked!”
“Then she’s Spanish, sure enough!” cried the Governor.
From the crowd of servants, felons, and foreigners rose a great clamour, and presently we made out Sharpless perched on a cask in their midst and wildly gesticulating.
“The Tiger, the Truelove, and the Due Return have swung across channel!” announced the watch. “They’ve trained their guns on the Spaniard!”
The Englishmen cheered, but the bastard crew about Sharpless groaned. Extreme fear had made the lawyer shameless. “What guns have those boats?” he screamed. “Two falcons apiece and a handful of muskets, and they go out against a man-of-war! She’ll trample them underfoot! She’ll sink them with a shot apiece! The Tiger is forty tons, and the Truelove is sixty. You’re all mad!”
“Sometimes quality beats quantity,” said West.
“Didst ever hear of the Content?” sang out a gunner.
“Or of the Merchant Royal?” cried another.
“Or of the Revenge?” quoth Master Jeremy Sparrow. “Go hang thyself, coward, or, if you choose, swim out to the Spaniard, and shift from thy wet doublet and hose into a sanbenito. Let the don come, shoot if he can, and land if he will! We’ll singe his beard in Virginia as we did at Cales!