THE long service of praise and thanksgiving was well-nigh over when I
first saw her.
She sat some ten feet from me, in the corner, and so in the shadow of a
tall pew. Beyond her was a row of milkmaid beauties, red of cheek, free
of eye, deep-bosomed, and beribboned like Maypoles. I looked again, and
saw--and see--a rose amongst blowzed poppies and peonies, a pearl amidst
glass beads, a Perdita in a ring of rustics, a nonparella of all grace
and beauty! As I gazed with all my eyes, I found more than grace and
beauty in that wonderful face,--found pride, wit, fire, determination,
finally shame and anger. For, feeling my eyes upon her, she looked up
and met what she must have thought the impudent stare of an appraiser.
Her face, which had been without color, pale and clear like the sky
about the evening star, went crimson in a moment. She bit her lip and
shot at me one withering glance, then dropped her eyelids and hid the
lightning. When I looked at her again, covertly, and from under my hand
raised as though to push back my hair, she was pale once more, and her
dark eyes were fixed upon the water and the green trees without the
window.
The congregation rose, and she stood up with the other maids. Her dress
of dark woolen, severe and unadorned, her close ruff and prim white
coif, would have cried “Puritan,” had ever Puritan looked like this
woman, upon whom the poor apparel had the seeming of purple and ermine.
Anon came the benediction. Governor, Councilors, commanders, and
ministers left the choir and paced solemnly down the aisle; the maids
closed in behind; and we who had lined the walls, shifting from one heel
to the other for a long two hours, brought up the rear, and so passed
from the church to a fair green meadow adjacent thereto. Here the
company disbanded; the wearers of gold lace betaking themselves to seats
erected in the shadow of a mighty oak, and the ministers, of whom there
were four, bestowing themselves within pulpits of turf. For one altar
and one clergyman could not hope to dispatch that day's business.
As for the maids, for a minute or more they made one cluster; then,
shyly or with laughter, they drifted apart like the petals of a
wind-blown rose, and silk doublet and hose gave chase. Five minutes saw
the goodly company of damsels errant and would-be bridegrooms scattered
far and near over the smiling meadow. For the most part they went man
and maid, but the fairer of the feminine cohort had rings of clamorous
suitors from whom to choose. As for me, I walked alone; for if by chance
I neared a maid, she looked (womanlike) at my apparel first, and never
reached my face, but squarely turned her back. So disengaged, I felt
like a guest at a mask, and in some measure enjoyed the show, though
with an uneasy consciousness that I was pledged to become, sooner or
later, a part of the spectacle. I saw a shepherdess fresh from Arcadia
wave back a dozen importunate gallants, then throw a knot of blue ribbon
into their midst, laugh with glee at the scramble that ensued, and
finally march off with the wearer of the favor. I saw a neighbor of
mine, tall Jack Pride, who lived twelve miles above me, blush and
stammer, and bow again and again to a milliner's apprentice of a girl,
not five feet high and all eyes, who dropped a curtsy at each bow. When
I had passed them fifty yards or more, and looked back, they were still
bobbing and bowing. And I heard a dialogue between Phyllis and Corydon.
Says Phyllis, “Any poultry?”
Corydon. “A matter of twalve hens and twa cocks.”
Phyllis. “A cow?”
Corydon. “Twa.”
Phyllis. “How much tobacco?”
Corydon. “Three acres, hinny, though I dinna drink the weed mysel'. I'm
a Stewart, woman, an' the King's puir cousin.”
Phyllis. “What household plenishing?”
Corydon. “Ane large bed, ane flock bed, ane trundle bed, ane chest, ane
trunk, ane leather cairpet, sax cawfskin chairs an' twa-three rush, five
pair o' sheets an' auchteen dowlas napkins, sax alchemy spunes”--
Phyllis. “I'll take you.”
At the far end of the meadow, near to the fort, I met young Hamor,
alone, flushed, and hurrying back to the more populous part of the
field.
“Not yet mated?” I asked. “Where are the maids' eyes?”
“By--!” he answered, with an angry laugh. “If they're all like the
sample I've just left, I'll buy me a squaw from the Paspaheghs!”
I smiled. “So your wooing has not prospered?”
His vanity took fire. “I have not wooed in earnest,” he said carelessly,
and hitched forward his cloak of sky-blue tuftaffeta with an air. “I
sheered off quickly enough, I warrant you, when I found the nature of
the commodity I had to deal with.”
“Ah!” I said. “When I left the crowd they were going very fast. You had
best hurry, if you wish to secure a bargain.”
“I'm off,” he answered; then, jerking his thumb over his shoulder,
“If you keep on to the river and that clump of cedars, you will find
Termagaunt in ruff and farthingale.”
When he was gone, I stood still for a while and watched the slow sweep
of a buzzard high in the blue, after which I unsheathed my dagger, and
with it tried to scrape the dried mud from my boots. Succeeding but
indifferently, I put the blade up, stared again at the sky, drew a long
breath, and marched upon the covert of cedars indicated by Hamor.
As I neared it, I heard at first only the wash of the river; but
presently there came to my ears the sound of a man's voice, and then a
woman's angry “Begone, sir!”
“Kiss and be friends,” said the man.
The sound that followed being something of the loudest for even the most
hearty salutation, I was not surprised, on parting the bushes, to find
the man nursing his cheek, and the maid her hand.
“You shall pay well for that, you sweet vixen!” he cried, and caught her
by both wrists.
She struggled fiercely, bending her head this way and that, but his hot
lips had touched her face before I could come between.
When I had knocked him down he lay where he fell, dazed by the blow,
and blinking up at me with his small ferret eyes. I knew him to be one
Edward Sharpless, and I knew no good of him. He had been a lawyer in
England. He lay on the very brink of the stream, with one arm touching
the water. Flesh and blood could not resist it, so, assisted by the toe
of my boot, he took a cold bath to cool his hot blood.
When he had clambered out and had gone away, cursing, I turned to face
her. She stood against the trunk of a great cedar, her head thrown back,
a spot of angry crimson in each cheek, one small hand clenched at her
throat. I had heard her laugh as Sharpless touched the water, but now
there was only defiance in her face. As we gazed at each other, a
burst of laughter came to us from the meadow behind. I looked over my
shoulder, and beheld young Hamor, probably disappointed of a wife,--with
Giles Allen and Wynne, returning to his abandoned quarry. She saw, too,
for the crimson spread and deepened and her bosom heaved. Her dark eyes,
glancing here and there like those of a hunted creature, met my own.
“Madam,” I said, “will you marry me?”
She looked at me strangely. “Do you live here?” she asked at last, with
a disdainful wave of her hand toward the town.
“No, madam,” I answered. “I live up river, in Weyanoke Hundred, some
miles from here.”
“Then, in God's name, let us be gone!” she cried, with sudden passion.
I bowed low, and advanced to kiss her hand.
The finger tips which she slowly and reluctantly resigned to me were
icy, and the look with which she favored me was not such an one as poets
feign for like occasions. I shrugged the shoulders of my spirit, but
said nothing. So, hand in hand, though at arms' length, we passed from
the shade of the cedars into the open meadow, where we presently met
Hamor and his party. They would have barred the way, laughing and making
unsavory jests, but I drew her closer to me and laid my hand upon my
sword. They stood aside, for I was the best swordsman in Virginia.
The meadow was now less thronged. The river, up and down, was white with
sailboats, and across the neck of the peninsula went a line of horsemen,
each with his purchase upon a pillion behind him. The Governor, the
Councilors, and the commanders had betaken themselves to the Governor's
house, where a great dinner was to be given. But Master Piersey, the
Cape Merchant, remained to see the Company reimbursed to the last leaf,
and the four ministers still found occupation, though one couple trod
not upon the heels of another, as they had done an hour agone.
“I must first satisfy the treasurer,” I said, coming to a halt within
fifty feet of the now deserted high places.
She drew her hand from mine, and looked me up and down.
“How much is it?” she asked at last. “I will pay it.”
I stared at her.
“Can't you speak?” she cried, with a stamp of her foot. “At what am I
valued? Ten pounds--fifty pounds”--
“At one hundred and twenty pounds of tobacco, madam,” I said dryly. “I
will pay it myself. To what name upon the ship's list do you answer?”
“Patience Worth,” she replied.
I left her standing there, and went upon my errand with a whirling
brain. Her enrollment in that company proclaimed her meanly born, and
she bore herself as of blood royal; of her own free will she had crossed
an ocean to meet this day, and she held in passionate hatred this
day and all that it contained; she was come to Virginia to better her
condition, and the purse which she had drawn from her bosom was filled
with gold pieces. To another I would have advised caution, delay,
application to the Governor, inquiry; for myself I cared not to make
inquiries.
The treasurer gave me my receipt, and I procured, from the crowd around
him, Humfrey Kent, a good man and true, and old Belfield, the perfumer,
for witnesses. With them at my heels I went back to her, and, giving her
my hand, was making for the nearest minister, when a voice at a little
distance hailed me, crying out, “This way, Captain Percy!”
I turned toward the voice, and beheld the great figure of Master
Jeremy Sparrow sitting, cross-legged like the Grand Turk, upon a grassy
hillock, and beckoning to me from that elevation.
“Our acquaintance hath been of the shortest,” he said genially, when the
maid, the witnesses, and I had reached the foot of the hillock, “but I
have taken a liking to you and would fain do you a service. Moreover, I
lack employment. The maids take me for a hedge parson, and sheer off
to my brethren, who truly are of a more clerical appearance. Whereas if
they could only look upon the inner man! You have been long in choosing,
but have doubtless chosen”--He glanced from me to the woman beside me,
and broke off with open mouth and staring eyes. There was excuse, for
her beauty was amazing. “A paragon,” he ended, recovering himself.
“Marry us quickly, friend,” I said. “Clouds are gathering, and we have
far to go.”
He came down from his mound, and we went and stood before him. I had
around my neck the gold chain given me upon a certain occasion by Prince
Maurice, and in lieu of other ring I now twisted off the smallest link
and gave it to her.
“Your name?” asked Master Sparrow, opening his book.
“Ralph Percy, Gentleman.”
“And yours?” he demanded, staring at her with a somewhat too apparent
delight in her beauty.
She flushed richly and bit her lip.
He repeated the question.
She stood a minute in silence, her eyes upon the darkening sky. Then she
said in a low voice, “Jocelyn Leigh.”
It was not the name I had watched the Cape Merchant strike off his list.
I turned upon her and made her meet my eyes. “What is your name?” I
demanded. “Tell me the truth!”
“I have told it,” she answered proudly. “It is Jocelyn Leigh.”
I faced the minister again. “Go on,” I said briefly.
“The Company commands that no constraint be put upon its poor maids.
Wherefore, do you marry this man of your own free will and choice?”
“Ay,” she said, “of my own free will.”
Well, we were married, and Master Jeremy Sparrow wished us joy, and Kent
would have kissed the bride had I not frowned him off. He and Belfield
strode away, and I left her there, and went to get her bundle from the
house that had sheltered her overnight. Returning, I found her seated
on the turf, her chin in her hand and her dark eyes watching the distant
play of lightning. Master Sparrow had left his post, and was nowhere to
be seen.
I gave her my hand and led her to the shore; then loosed my boat and
helped her aboard. I was pushing off when a voice hailed us from the
bank, and the next instant a great bunch of red roses whirled past me
and fell into her lap. “Sweets to the sweet, you know,” said Master
Jeremy Sparrow genially. “Goodwife Allen will never miss them.”
I was in two minds whether to laugh or to swear,--for I had never
given her flowers,--when she settled the question for me by raising the
crimson mass and bestowing it upon the flood.
A sudden puff of wind brought the sail around, hiding his fallen
countenance. The wind freshened, coming from the bay, and the boat
was off like a startled deer. When I next saw him he had recovered his
equanimity, and, with a smile upon his rugged features, was waving us
a farewell. I looked at the beauty opposite me, and, with a sudden
movement of pity for him, mateless, stood up and waved to him vigorously
in turn.