IX

I know not how Capt. Calvin Tabor managed his part to tranship those

goods without discovery, but he had a shrewd head, and no doubt the

captain of the Earl of Fairfax another, and by eight o'clock that

May day the Golden Horn lay at her wharf discharging her cargo right

lustily with such openness of zeal and shouts of encouragement and

groans of labour 'twas enough to acquaint all the colony. And

straightway to the great house they brought my Lady Culpeper's

fallals, and clamped them in the hall where we were all at supper.

Mistress Mary sprang to her feet, and ran to them and bent over

them. "What are these?" she said, all in a quiver.

"The goods which you ordered, madam," spoke up one of the sailors,

with a grin which he had copied from Captain Tabor, and pulled a

forelock and ducked his head.

"The goods," said she, speaking faintly, for hers was rather the

headlong course of enthusiasm than the secret windings of diplomacy.

"Art thou gone daft, sweetheart? The goods of which you gave the

list this morning, which have but now come in on the Golden Horn,"

spake up Catherine, sharply. I marvelled as I heard her whether it

be ease or tenderness of conscience which can appease a woman with

the letter and not the substance of the truth, for I am confident

that her keeping to the outward show of honesty in her life was no

small comfort to Catherine Cavendish.

Madam Cavendish was at table that night, though moving with grimaces

from the stiffness of her rheumatic joints, and she ordered that the

sailors be given cider, the which they drank with some haste, and

were gone. Then Madam Cavendish asked Mistress Mary, with her

wonderful keenness of gaze, which I never saw excelled, "Are those

the goods which you ordered by the Golden Horn?" But I answered for

her, knowing that Madam Cavendish would pardon such presumption from

me. "Madam, those are the goods. I have it from Capt. Calvin Tabor

himself." I spoke with no roundings nor glossings of subterfuge,

having ever held that all the excuse for a lie was its boldness in a

good cause, and believing in slaying a commandment like an enemy

with a clean cut of the sword.

Mistress Mary gave a little gasp, and looked at me, and looked at

her sister Catherine, and well I knew it was on the tip of her

tongue to out with the whole to her grandmother. And so she would

doubtless have done had not her wonderment and suspicion that maybe

in some wise Catherine had conspired to buy for her in England the

goods of which she had cheated herself, and the terror of doing harm

to her sister and me. But never saw I a maid go so white and red and

make the strife within her so evident.

We were well-nigh through supper when the goods arrived, and Madam

Cavendish ordered some of the slaves to open the cases, which they

did forthwith, and all my Lady Culpeper's finery was displayed.

Never saw I such a rich assortment, and calling to mind my Lady

Culpeper's thin and sour visage, I wondered within myself whether

such fine feathers might in her case suffice to make a fine bird,

though some of them were for her daughter Cate, who was fair enough.

Nothing would do but Mistress Mary, with her lovely face still

strange to see with her consternation of puzzlement, should

severally display every piece to her grandmother, and hold against

her complexion the rich stuffs to see if the colours suited her.

Madam Cavendish was pleased to express her satisfaction with them

all, though with some demur at the extravagance. "'Tis rich enough a

wardrobe for my Lady Culpeper," said she, at which innocent

shrewdness I was driven to hard straits to keep my face grave, but

Mistress Catherine was looking on with a countenance as calm as the

moon which was just then rising.

Madam Cavendish was pleased especially with one gown of a sky

colour, shot with silver threads, and ordered that Mistress Mary

should wear it to the ball which was to be given at the governor's

house the next night.

When I heard that I started, and Catherine shot a pale glance of

consternation at me, but Mistress Mary flushed rosy-red with

rebellion.

"I have no desire to attend my Lord Culpeper's ball, madam," said

she.

"Lord Culpeper is the representative of his Majesty here in

Virginia," said Madam Cavendish, with a high head, "and no

granddaughter of mine absents herself with my approval. To the ball

you go, madam, and in that sky-coloured gown, and no more words.

Things have come to a pretty pass." So saying, she rose and, leaning

heavily on her stick, with her black maid propping her, she went

out. Then turned Mistress Mary imperiously to us and demanded to

know the meaning of it all. "Whence came these goods?" said she to

Catherine.

"On the Golden Horn, sweetheart; 'tis the list you gave this

morning," replied Catherine, without a change in the fair resolve of

her face.

"Pish!" cried Mary Cavendish. "The list I gave this morning was my

Lady Culpeper's, and you know it. Whence came these?" and she

spurned at a heap of the rich gleaming things with the toe of her

tiny foot.

"I tell you, sweetheart, on the Golden Horn," replied Catherine.

Then she turned to me in a rage. "The truth I will have," she cried

out. "Whence came these goods?"

"On the Golden Horn, madam," I said.

She stamped her foot, and her voice rang so shrill that the black

slaves, carrying out the dishes, rolled alarmed eyes at her. "Think

you I will be treated like a child?" she cried out. "What means all

this?"

Then close to her went Catherine, and flung an arm around her, and

leaned her smooth, fair head against her sister's tossing golden

one. "For the sake of those you love and who love thee, sweetheart,"

she whispered.

But Mistress Mary pushed her away and looked at her angrily. "Well,

what am I to do for their sakes?" she demanded.

"Seek to know no more than this. The goods came on the Golden Horn

but now, and 'tis the list you gave this morning."

"But it was not my list, and I deceived my grandmother, and I will

go to her now and out with the truth. Think you I will have such a

falsehood on my soul?"

Catherine leaned closer to her and whispered, and Mary gave a quick,

wild glance at me, but I know not what she said. "I pray thee seek

to know no more than that the goods came but now in a boat from the

Golden Horn, and 'tis the list you gave this morning," said

Catherine aloud.

"They are not mine by right, and well you know it." Then a thought

struck me, and I said with emphasis, "Madam, yours by right they are

and shall be, and I pray you to have no more concern in the matter."

Then so saying, I hastened out and went through the moonlight to the

wharf to seek Captain Tabor and the captain of the Earl of Fairfax,

who had come with his goods to see to their safety. Both men were

pacing back and forth, smoking long pipes, and Captain Watson, of

the Earl of Fairfax, a small and eager-spoken man, turned on me the

minute I came within hearing. "Where be my Lady Culpeper's goods?"

said he; "'tis time they were here and I on my way to the ship.

Devil take me if I run such a risk again for any man."

Then I made my errand known. I had some fifty pounds saved up from

the wreck of my fortunes; 'twas a third more than the goods were

worth. Would he but take it, pay the London merchant who had

furnished them, and have the remainder for his trouble?

"Trouble, trouble!" he shouted out, "trouble! By all the foul

fiends, man, what am I to say to my Lady Culpeper? Have you ever

had speech with her that you propose such a game with her?"

Captain Tabor burst out with a loud guffaw of laughter. "You have

not seen the maid for whom you run the risk, Dick," said he. "'Tis

the fairest--"

"What care I for fair maids?" demanded the other. "Have I not a

wife and seven little ones in old England? What think you a dimple

or a bright eye hath of weight with me?"

"Time was, Dick," laughed Captain Tabor.

"Time that was no longer is," answered the other, crossly; then to

me, "Send down my goods by some of those black fellows, and no more

parleying, sir."

"But, sir," I said, "'twill be a good fifteen pound for Mistress

Watson and the little ones when the merchant be paid."

"Go to," he growled out, "what will that avail if I be put in

prison? What am I to say to my Lady Culpeper for the non-deliverment

of her goods? Answer me that." Then came Captain Tabor to my aid

with his merry shrewdness. "'Tis as easy as the nose on thy face,

Dick," said he. "Say but to my lady that you have searched and the

goods be not in the hold of the Earl of Fairfax, and must have

miscarried, as faith they have, and say that next voyage you will

deliver them and hold thyself responsible for the cost, as you well

can afford with Master Wingfield's money."

"Hast ever heard my Lady Culpeper's tongue?" demanded the other.

"'Tis easy to advise. Would you face her thyself without the goods

in hand, Calvin Tabor?"

"Faith, and I'd face a dozen like her for fifteen pound," declared

Captain Tabor. Then, with another great laugh. "I have it; send thy

mate, send thy deaf mate, Jack Tarbox, man."

"But she will demand to see the captain."

"Faith, and the captain will be on board the Earl of Fairfax seeing

to a leak which she hath sprung, and cannot leave her," said Tabor.

"But in two days' time the governor sails in my ship for England."

"Think ye the governor will concern himself about my lady's

adornments when he be headed for England and out of reach of her

complaints?"

"But how to dodge her for so long?"

"Dick," said the other, solemnly, "much I have it in mind that a

case of fever will break out upon the Earl of Fairfax by to-morrow

or next day."

"Then think you that my lady will allow her lord the governor to

sail?"

"Dick," laughed Captain Tabor, "governors be great men and you but a

poor sailor, but when it comes to coin in wifely value, thy weight

in the heart of thy good Bridget would send the governor of Virginia

higher than thy masthead. None but my Lady Culpeper need have hint

of the fever."

"I have a sailor ailing," said the other, doubtfully, "but he hath

no sign of fever."

"'Tis enough," cried the other, gayly. "His fever will rage in

twelve hours enough to heat the 'tween decks."

"But," said Captain Watson, speaking angrily, and yet with a certain

timidity, as men will do before a scoffing friend and their own

accusing conscience, "you ask me to forswear myself."

"Nay, that I will not," cried the other. "By the Lord, I forgot thy

conscience, good Dick. Well, I have enough from my ancestors of

Plymouth to forswear and forswear again, and yet have some to spare.

I--I will go to my Lady Culpeper with the tale and save thy soul

thy scruples, and thy ears the melody of her tongue. I will acquaint

her with the miscarriage of the goods, and whisper of the sick

sailor, and all thou hast to do is to loiter about Jamestown,

keeping thy Bridget well in mind the while, and load thy ship with

the produce of the soil which the beggars of Virginia give of their

loyalty to His Majesty King Charles, and then to take on board my

Lord Culpeper and set sail."

"'Tis a fearful risk," groaned the other, "though I am a poor man,

and I will admit that my Bridget--"

"'Tis a fearful risk for you, Captain Tabor, and through you for my

mistress," I interrupted, for I did not half like the plan.

"Our ships lay alongside, and I am hailed by a brother mariner in

distress both at the prospect of the displeasure of a great and

noble lady and the suspicion of his honesty; but for that latter

will I vouch with my own, and, if needs be, will give surety that

the list of goods which she ordered shall be delivered next voyage,"

said Calvin Tabor.

"Her tongue, you know not her tongue," groaned the other.

"Even that will I dare for thee, Dick, for thee and that fair little

maid who is dabbling her pretty fingers in that flaming pudding with

which only the tough ones of a man should meddle," said Captain

Tabor. "And as for risk for me, my sailormen be as much in the toils

for Sabbath-breaking as their captain, should yesterday's work leak

out; and not a man of them knoweth the contents of those cases,

though, faith, and I heard them marvelling among themselves at the

weight of feathers and silken petticoats, and I made port in the

night-time before, and not a soul knew of it nor the unlading, save

those which be bound to keep the secret for their own necks, and,

and--well, Captain Tabor be not averse to somewhat of risk; it

gives a savour to life." So saying, he rolled his bright-blue eyes

at me and Captain Watson with such utter good-nature and

dare-deviltry as I have never seen equalled.

It was finally agreed that Captain Tabor's plan should be carried

out, and I wended my way back to Drake Hill with a feeling of

triumph, to which I of late years had been a stranger. I know of

nothing in the poor life of a man equal to that great delight of

being of service to one beloved.

I reflected with such ever-increasing joy that it finally became an

ecstasy, and I could almost, it seemed, see the colours of it in my

path; how, had it not been for me, Mary Cavendish might have been in

sore straits; and I verily believe I was as happy for the time as if

she had been my promised sweetheart and was as proud of myself.

When about half-way to Drake Hill I heard afar off a great din of

bells and horns and voices, which presently came nearer. Then the

road was filled up with the dancing May revellers, and verily I

wondered not so much at those decrees against such practices before

the Restoration, for it was as if the savages which they do say are

underneath the outer gloss of the best of us had broke loose, and I

wondered if it might not be like those mad and unlawful orgies which

it was said the god Pan led himself in person through Thessalian

groves. Those honest country maids, who in the morning had advanced

with rustic but innocent freedom, with their glossy heads crowned

with flowers, and those lusty youths, who were indeed something

boisterous, yet still held in a tight rein by decency, had seemingly

changed their very natures, or rather, perhaps, had come to that

pass when their natures could be no longer concealed. Along the road

in the white moonlight they stamped as wantonly as any herd of kine;

youths and maids with arms about each other, and all with faces

flushed with ale-drinking, and the maids with tossing hair and

draggled coats, and all the fresh garlands withered or scattered.

And the old graybeard who was Maid Marion was riotously drunk, and

borne aloft with mad and feeble gesturings on the shoulders of two

staggering young men, and after him came the aged morris dancers,

only upheld from collapse in the mire by mutual upholdings, until

they seemed like some monstrous animal moving with uncouth sprawls

of legs as multifold as a centipede, and wavering drunkenly from one

side of the road to the other, lurching into the dewy bushes, then

recovering by the joint effort of the whole.

I stood well back to let them pass, being in that mood of

self-importance, by reason of my love and the service rendered by

it, that I could have seen the whole posse led to the whipping-block

with a relish, when suddenly from their tipsy throats came a shout

of such import that my heart stood still. "Down with the king!"

hallooed one mad reveller, in a voice of such thickness that the

whole sentence seemed one word; then the others took it up, until

verily it seemed to me that their heads were not worth a farthing.

Then, "Down with the governor! down with Lord Culpeper!" shouted

that same thick voice of the man who was leading the wild crew like

a bell-wether. He forged ahead, something more steady on his legs,

but all the madder of his wits for that, with an arm around the

waist of a buxom lass on either side, and all three dancing in time.

Then all the rest echoed that shout of "Down with the governor!"

Then out he burst again with, "Down, down with the tobacco, down

with the tobacco!" But the volley of that echo was cut short by five

horsemen galloping after the throng and scattering them to the right

and left. Then a great voice of authority, set out with the

strangest oaths which ever an imagination of evil compassed, called

out to them to be still if they valued their heads, and cursed them

all for drunken fools, and as he spoke he lashed with his whip from

side to side, and his face gleamed with wrath like a demon's in the

full light, and I saw he was Captain Noel Jaynes, and well

understood how he had made a name for himself on the high seas.

After him rode the brothers, Nicholas and Richard Barry, two great

men, sticking to their saddles like rocks, with fair locks alike on

the head of each flung out on the wind, and then came Ralph Drake

rising in his stirrups and laughing wildly, and last Parson Downs,

but only last because the road was blocked, for verily I thought his

plunging horse would have all before him under his feet. They were

all past me in a trice like a dream, the May revellers scattering

and hastening forward with shrieks of terror and shouts of rage and

peals of defiant laughter, and Captain Jaynes' voice, like a

trumpet, overbearing everything, and shouts from the Barry brothers

echoing him, and now and then coming the deep rumble of

expostulations from the parson's great chest, and Ralph Drake's

peals of horse-laughter, and I was left to consider what a

tinder-box this Colony of Virginia was, and how ready to leap to

flame at a spark even when seemingly most at peace, and to regard

with more and more anxiety Mary Cavendish's part in this brewing

tumult.

After the shouting and hallooing throng had passed I walked along

slowly, reflecting, as I have said, when I saw in the road before me

two advancing--a woman, and a man leading a horse by the bridle,

and it was Mary Cavendish and Sir Humphrey Hyde.

And when I came up with them they stopped, and Humphrey addressed me

rudely enough, but as one gentleman might another when he was

angered with him, and not contemptuously, for that was never the

lad's way with me. "Master Wingfield," he said, standing before me

and holding his champing horse hard by the bits, "I pray you have

the grace to explain this matter of the goods."

I saw that Mistress Mary had been acquainting him with what had

passed and her puzzlement over it.

"There is naught to explain, Sir Humphrey," said I. "'Tis very

simple: Mistress Mary hath the goods for which she sent to England."

"Master Wingfield, you know those are my Lady Culpeper's goods, and

I have no right to them," cried Mary. But I bowed and said, "Madam,

the goods are yours, and not Lady Culpeper's."

"But I--I lied when I gave the list to my grandmother," she

cried out, half sobbing, for she was, after all, little more than a

child tiptoed to womanhood by enthusiasm.

"Madam," said I, and I bowed again. "You mistake yourself; Mistress

Mary Cavendish cannot lie, and the goods are in truth yours."

She and Sir Humphrey looked at each other; then Harry made a stride

forward, and forcing back his horse with one hand, grasped me with

the other. "Harry, Harry," he said in a whisper. "Tell me, for God's

sake, what have you done."

"The goods are Mistress Mary Cavendish's," said I. They looked at me

as I have seen folk look at a page of Virgil.

"Were they, after all, not my Lady Culpeper's?" asked Sir Humphrey.

"They are Mistress Mary Cavendish's," said I.

Mary turned suddenly to Sir Humphrey. "'Tis time you were gone now,

Humphrey," she said, softly. "'Twas only last night you were here,

and there is need of caution, and your mother--"

But Humphrey was loth to go. "'Tis not late," he said, "and I would

know more of this matter."

"You will never know more of Master Wingfield, if that is what you

wait for," she returned, with a half laugh, "and, Humphrey, your

sister Cicely said but this morning that your mother was

over-curious. I pray you, go, and Master Wingfield will take me

home. I pray you, go!"

Sir Humphrey took her hand and bent low over it, and murmured

something; then, before he sprang to his saddle, he came close to me

again. "Harry," he whispered, "she should not be in this business,

and I would have not had it so could I have helped it, and, I pray

you, have a care to her safety." This he spoke so low that Mary

could not hear, and, moreover, she, with one of those sudden turns

of hers that made her have as many faces of delight as a diamond in

the sun, had thrown an arm around the neck of Sir Humphrey's mare,

and was talking to her in such dulcet tones as her lovers would have

died for the sake of hearing in their ears.

"Have no fears for her safety," I whispered back. "So far as the

goods go, there is no more danger."

"What did you, Harry?"

"Sir Humphrey," I whispered back, while Mary's sweet voice in the

mare's delicate ear sounded like a song, "sometimes an unguessed

riddle hath less weight than a guessed one, and some fish of

knowledge had best be left in the stream. I tell thee she is safe."

So saying, I looked him full in his honest, boyish face, which was

good to see, though sometime I wished, for the maid's sake, that it

had more shrewdness of wit in it. Then he gave me a great grasp of

the hand, and whispered something hoarsely. "Thou art a good fellow,

Harry, in spite of, in spite of--" then he bent low over Mary's

hand for the second time, and sprang to his saddle, and was off

toward Jamestown on his white mare, flashing along the moonlit road

like a whiter moonbeam.

Then Mary came close to me, and did what she had never before done

since she was a child. She laid her little hand on my arm of her own

accord. "Master Wingfield," said she, softly, "what about the goods?"

"The goods for which you sent to England are yours and in the great

house," said I, and I heard my voice tremble.

She drew her hand away and stood looking at me, and her sweet

forehead under her golden curls was all knitted with perplexity.

"You know, you know I--lied," she whispered like a guilty child.

"You cannot lie," I answered, "and the goods are yours."

"And not my Lady Culpeper's?"

"And not my Lady Culpeper's."

Mary continued looking at me, then all at once her forehead cleared.

"Catherine, 'twas Catherine," she cried out. "She said not, but well

I know her; she would not own to it--the sweetheart. Sure a

falsehood to hide a loving deed is the best truth of the world.

'Twas Catherine, 'twas Catherine, the sweetheart, the darling. She

sent for naught for herself, and hath been saving for a year's time

and maybe sold a ring or two. Somehow she discovered about the plot,

what I had done. And she hath heard me say, that I know well, that I

thought 'twas a noble list of Lady Culpeper's, and I wished I were a

governor's wife or daughter, that I could have such fine things. I

remember me well that I told her thus before ever the Golden Horn

sailed for England, that time after Cicely Hyde slept with me and

told me what she had from Cate Culpeper. A goodly portion of the

goods were for Cate. 'Twas Catherine. Oh, the sweetheart, the

darling! Was there ever sister like her?"

X

It was an industrious household at Drake Hill both as to men and

women folk. The fields were full of ebony backs and plying arms of

toil at sunrise, and the hum and whir of loom and spinning-wheels

were to be heard in the negro cabins and the great house as soon as

the birds.

Madam Judith Cavendish was a stern task-mistress, and especially for

these latter duties. Had it not been for the stress of favour in

which she held me, I question if my vocation as tutor to Mistress

Mary would have had much scope for the last year, since her

grandmother esteemed so highly the importance of a maid's being

versed in all domestic arts, such as the spinning and weaving of

flax and wool, and preserving and distilling and fine needlework.

She set but small store by Latin and arithmetic for a maid, not even

if she were naturally quick at them, as was Mistress Mary; and had

it not been that she was bent upon keeping me in her service at

Drake Hill, I doubt not that she would have clapped together the

maid's books, whether or no, and set her to her wheel. As it was, a

goodly part of every day was passed by her in such wise, but so fond

was my pupil of her book that often I have seen her with it propped

open, for her reference, on a chair at her side.

It was thus the next morning, the morning of the day of my Lord

Culpeper's ball. It was a warm morning, and the doors and windows of

the hall were set wide open, and all the spring wind and scent

coming in and dimity curtains flying like flags, and the gold of

Mistress Mary's hair tossing now and then in a stronger gust, and

she and Catherine cramming down their flax baskets, lest the flax

take wings to itself and fly away. Both Mary and Catherine were at

their flax-wheels, but Madam Cavendish was in the loom-room with

some of the black women. Mary had her Latin book open, as I have

said before, on a chair at her side, but Catherine span with her

fair face set to some steady course of thought, though she too was

fond of books. Never a lesson had she taken of me, holding me in

such scorn, but I questioned much at the time, and know now, that

she was well acquainted with whatever knowledge her sister had got,

having been taught by her mother and then keeping on by herself with

her tasks. When I entered the hall, having been to Jamestown after

breakfast and just returned, both maids looked up, and suddenly one

of the wheels ceased its part in the duet, and Catherine was on her

feet and her thread fallen whither it would. "Master Wingfield,"

said she, "I would speak with you."

"Madam, at your service," said I, and followed her, leading out on

the green before the house. "What means this, what means this, sir?"

she began when she was scarcely out of hearing of her sister.

"What did you about the goods? Did you, did you--?"

She gasped for further speech, and looked at me with such a

haughtiness of scorn as never I had seen. It is hard for any man to

be attacked in such wise by a woman, and be under the necessity of

keeping his weapons sheathed, though he knoweth full well the

exceeding convincing of them and their fine point to the case in

hand. I bowed.

"Did you, did you--" she went on--"did you purchase those

goods yourself for my sister? Did you?"

I bowed again. "Madam," said I, "whatever I have, and my poor flesh

and blood and soul also, are at the service of not only your sister

but her family."

I marvelled much as I spoke thus to see no flush of shameful

consciousness overspread the maid's face, but none did, and she

continued speaking with that sharpness of hers, both as to pale look

and voice, which wounded like cold steel, which leaves an additional

sting because of the frost in it. "Know you not, sir," said she,

"that we cannot suffer a man in your position, a--a--to

purchase my sister's wardrobe?" Then, before I knew what she was

about to do, in went her hand to a broidered pocket which hung at

her girdle, and out she drew a flashing store of rings and brooches,

and one long necklace flashing with green stones. "Here, take

these," she cried out. "I have no money, but such an insult I will

not suffer, that my sister goes clad at your expense to the ball

to-night. Take these; they are five times the value of the goods."

I would in that minute have given ten years of my life had Mistress

Catherine Cavendish been a man and I could have felled her to the

ground, and no man knowing what I believed I knew could have blamed

me. The flashes of red and green from those rings and gewgaws which

she held out seemed to pass my eyes to my very soul.

"Take them," she said. "Why do you not take them, sir?"

"I have no need of jewels, madam," I said, "and whatever the servant

hath is his master's by right, and his master doth but take his own,

and no discredit to him."

She fairly wrung her hands in her helpless wrath, and the gems

glittered anew. "But, but," she stammered out, "know you the full

result of this, Harry Wingfield? She, my sister Mary, thinks that

I--I--sent to England for the goods for her; she knows that

I have some acquaintance with what she hath done, and she--she

is blessing me for it, and I cannot deny what she thinks.

I--I--cannot tell her what you, you have done, lest, lest--"

To my great astonishment she stopped short with such a flame of

blushes as I had never seen on her face before, and I was at

a loss to know what she might mean, but supposed that she

considered that the shame of Mistress Mary's wearing finery which

had been paid for out of a convict's purse would be more than she

could put upon her, and yet that she dared not inform her, lest she

refuse to wear the sky-blue robe to the governor's ball, and so

anger Madam Cavendish.

"Madam," I said, "your sister is but blessing you for what you would

have done, and wherefore need you fret?"

"God knows I would," she broke out, passionately. "Every jewel I

possess, the very gown from my back, would I have sold to save her

this, had I but known. Why did she not tell me, why did not she tell

me? Oh, Harry, I pray you to take these jewels."

"I cannot take them, madam," I said. Yet such was her distress I was

sorry for her, though I believed it to be rooted and grounded in

falsity, and that she had no need to regard with such disapprobation

her sister's being indebted to an English gentleman who gave her in

all honour the best he had. Yet could I not yield and take those

jewels, for more reasons than one; not only should I have lost the

dear delight of having served Mary Cavendish, but I had a memory of

wrong which would not suffer me to touch those rings, nor to allow

that innocent maid to be benefited by them, since I cannot say what

dark suspicions seized me when I looked at them.

"My God!" she said, "was ever such a web of falsehood as this? Here

must I hear my sister's blessings upon me for what I have done, and

I knowing all the time that 'twas you, and yet she must not know."

Then again that flame of red overspread her face and neck to the

meet of her muslin kerchief, and I knew not why.

"Madam," I said, "one deception opens the way for a whole flock,"

and I spoke with something of a double meaning, but she only cried

out, with apparently no understanding of it, that things had come to

a cruel pass, and back to the house she went; and I presently

followed her to get my gun, having a mind to shoot a few wild fowl,

since my pupil was at her wheel. And there the two sat, keeping up

that gentle drone of industry which I have come to think of as a

note of womanhood, like the hum of a bee or the purr of a cat or the

call of a bird. They sat erect, the delicate napes of their necks

showing above their muslin kerchiefs under their high twists of

hair, for even Mary had her golden curls caught up that morning on

account of the flax-lint, and from their fair, attentive faces

nobody would have gathered what stress of mind both were in. Of a

surety there must be a quieting and calming power in some of the

feminine industries which be a boon to the soul.

But, as I passed through the hall, up looked Mary, and her beautiful

face flashed out of peace into a sunlight of love and enthusiasm.

"Oh," she cried out, "oh, was there ever anyone like my sweetheart

Catherine? To think what she hath done for me, to think, to think!

And she, dear heart, loving the king! But better she loves her

little sister, and will stand by her in her disloyalty, for the love

of her. Was there ever any one like her, Master Wingfield?"

And I laughed, though maybe with some slight bitterness, for I was

but human, and that outburst of loving gratitude toward another, and

another whom I held in slight esteem, when it was I who had given

the child my little all, and presently, when my term was expired,

would have to return to England without a farthing betwixt me and

starvation, and maybe working my way before the mast to get there at

all, had a sting in it. 'Twas a strange thing that anything so noble

and partaking of the divine as the love of an honest man for a woman

should have any tincture of aught ignoble in it, and one is caused

thereby to decry one's state of mortality, which seems as

inseparable from selfish ends as the red wings of a rose from the

thorny stem which binds it to earth. Truly the longer I live the

more am I aware of the speck which mars the completeness of all in

this world, and ever the desire for a better, and that longing which

will not be appeased groweth in my soul, until methinks the very

keenness of the appetite must prove the food.

"Was there ever one like her?" repeated Mary Cavendish, and as she

spoke, up she sprang and ran to her sister and flung a fair arm

around her neck, and drew her head to her bosom, and leaned her

cheek against it, and then looked at me with a sidewise glance which

made my heart leap, for curious meanings, of which the innocent

thing had no reckoning, were in it.

I know not what I said. Truly not much, for the mockery of it all

was past my power of dealing with and keeping my respect of self.

I got my fowling-piece from the peg on the wall, and was forth and

ranging the wooded shores, with my eyes intent on the whirring

flight of the birds, and my mind on that problem of the times which

always hath, and doth, and always will, encounter a man who lives

with any understanding of what is about him, but not always as

sorely as in my case, who faced, as it were, an army of

difficulties, bound hand and foot. But after a while the sport in

which I was fairly skilled, and that sense of power which cometh to

one from the proving of his superiority over the life and death of

some weaker creation, and the salt air in my nostrils, gave me, as

it were, a glimpse of a farther horizon than the present one of

Virginia in 1682, and mine own little place in it. Then verily I

could seem to see and scent like some keen hound a smoothness which

should later come from the tangled web of circumstances, and a

greatness which should encompass mine own smallness of perplexity.

When I was wending my way back to Drake Hill, with my gun over

shoulder and some fine birds in hand, I met Sir Humphrey Hyde.

We were near Locust Creek, and the great house stood still and white

in the sunlight, and there was no life around it except for the

distant crawl of toil over the green of the tobacco fields and the

great hum of the bees in the flowering honey locusts which gave,

with the creek, the place its name. Sir Humphrey was coming from the

direction of the house, riding slowly, stooping in the saddle as if

with thought, and I guessed that he had been to see to the safety of

the contraband goods. When he saw me he halted and shouted, in his

hearty, boyish way, "Halloo, halloo, Harry, and what luck?" as if

all there was of moment in the whole world, and Virginia in

particular, was the shooting of birds on a May morning. But then his

face clouded, and he spoke earnestly enough. "Harry, Harry," he

said, in a whisper, though there was no life nearer than the bees,

and they no bearers of secrets, except those of the flowers, "I pray

thee, come back to the hall with me, and let us consult together."

I followed him back to the house, and he sprang from his saddle, had

a shutter unhasped in a twinkling, knowing evidently the secret of

it, and we were inside, standing amongst the litter of casks and

cases in the great silent desertion of the hall of Locust Creek.

Then he grasped me hard by both hands, and cried out, "Harry, Harry

Wingfield, come to thee I must, for, convict though thou be, thou

art a man with a head packed with wit, and Ralph Drake is half the

time in his cups, and Parson Downs riding his own will at such a

hard gallop that 'twill surprise me not if he leave his head behind,

and as for Dick and Nick Barry, and Captain Dickson, and--and

Major Robert Beverly, and all the others, what is it to them about

this one matter which is more to me than the whole damned hell-broth?"

"You mean?" I said, and pointed to the litter on the hall floor.

"Yes," and then, with a great show of passion, "My God, Harry

Wingfield, why, why did we gentlemen and cavaliers of Virginia allow

a woman to be mixed in this matter? If, if--these goods be

traced to her--"

"And, faith, and I see no reason why they should not be, with a

whole colony in the secret of it," I said, coldly.

"Nay, none but me and Nick and Dick Barry, and the parson since

yesterday, and Major Beverly and Capt. Noel Jaynes and you and the

captain and sailors on the Golden Horn, who value their own necks.

As God is my witness, none beside, Harry."

I could scarcely help laughing at the length of the list and the

innocence of the lad. "Her sister Catherine, Sir Humphrey," said I.

"Hath she told her, Harry?"

"And the captain of the Earl of Fairfax."

"The governor's ship? Well, then, let us go through Jamestown

proclaiming it with a horn," he gasped out, and made more of the two

last than his own long list.

"Nay, the two last are as safe as we," said I. "Mistress Catherine

holds her sister dearer than herself, and as for the captain of the

governor's ship, lock a man's tongue with the key of his own

interest if you wish it not to wag. But these goods must be moved

from here."

"That is what I well know, Harry," he said, eagerly. "All night did

I toss and study the matter. But where?"

"Not in any place on Madam Cavendish's plantation," I said, and did

not say, as I might have, for 'twas the truth, that I had also

tossed and studied, but as yet to no result.

"No, nor on mine, though I swear to thee, were I the only one to

consider, I would have them there in a twinkling, but I cannot put

my mother and sister in jeopardy even for--"

"Barry Upper Branch?"

"Nick and Dick swear they will not run the risk; that they have but

too lately escaped with their lives, and are too close watched, and

as for the parson, 'tis out of the question, and Ralph Drake hath no

hiding-place, and as for the others, they one and all refuse, and

say this is the safest place in the colony, it being a household of

women, and Madam Cavendish well known for her loyalty."

He looked at me and I at him, and again the old consideration, as I

saw his handsome, gallant young face that perchance Mary Cavendish

might love him and do worse than to wed him, came over me.

"I will find a place for the goods," said I.

"You, Harry?"

"Yes, I," I said.

"But where, Harry?"

"Wait till the need for them come, lad." Then I added, for often in

my perplexity the wish that the whole lot were at the bottom of the

river had seized me, "There is need of them, I suppose?"

But Sir Humphrey said yes, with a great emphasis to that.

"There is sure to be fighting," he said, "and never were powder and

shot so scarce. 'Tis well the Indians are quiet. This poor Colony of

Virginia hath not enough powder to guard her borders, nor, were it

not for her rich soil, enough of food to feed her children since the

Navigation Act.

"Oh, God, Harry, if but Nathaniel Bacon had lived!"

"Amen," I said, and felt as I said it, that if indeed that hero were

alive, this plot for the destroying of the young tobacco plants

might be the earthquake which threw off a new empire; but as it

were, remembering the men concerned, who had none of the stuff of

Bacon in them, I wondered if it would prove aught more than a wedge

in the scheme of liberty.

"There are those who would be ready to say that we gentlemen of

Virginia, like Bacon, are all ready to shelter ourselves behind

women's aprons," said Sir Humphrey Hyde, with a shamed glance at the

goods, referring to that stationing of the ladies of the Berkeley

faction, all arrayed in white aprons, on the earthworks before the

advance of the sons and husbands and brothers in the Bacon uprising.

"And if you hear any man say that, shoot him dead, Sir Humphrey

Hyde," I said, for, through liking not that story about Bacon, I was

fiercer in defence of it.

"Faith, and I will, Harry," cried Sir Humphrey, "and Bacon was a

greater man than the king, if I were to swing for it; but, Harry,

you cannot by yourself move these. What will you do?"

But I begged him to say no more, and started toward the window, the

door being fast locked as Mistress Mary had left it, when suddenly

the boy stopped me and caught me by the hand, and begged me to tell

him if I thought there might be any hope for him with Mary

Cavendish, being moved to do so by her sending him away so

peremptorily the night before, which had put him in sore doubt.

"Tell me, Harry," he pleaded, and the great lad seemed like a child,

with his honest outlook of blue eyes, "tell me what you think, I

pray thee, Harry; look at me, and tell me, if you were a maid, what

would you think of me?"

Loving Mary Cavendish as I did, and striving to look at him with her

eyes, a sort of tenderness crept into my heart for this simple

lover, who was as brave as he was simple, and I clapped a hand on

his fair curls, for though he was so tall I was taller, and laughed

and said, "If I were a maid, though 'tis a fancy to rack the brain,

but, if I were a maid, I would love thee well, lad."

"My mother thinketh none like me, and so tells me every day, and

says that I am like my father, who was the handsomest man in

England; but then mothers be all so, and I know not how much of it

to trust, and my sister Cicely loves Mary so well herself that she

is jealous, and often tells me--" then the lad stopped and

stared at me, and I at him, perplexed, not dreaming what was in his

mind.

"Tells you what, Sir Humphrey?" said I.

"That, that--oh, confound it, Harry, there is no harm in saying

it, for you as well as I know the folly of it, and that 'tis but the

jealous fancy of a girl. Faith, but I think my sister Cicely is as

much in love with Mary Cavendish as I. 'Tis but--my sister

Cicely, when she will tease me, tells me 'tis not I but you that

Mary Cavendish hath set her heart upon, Harry."

I felt myself growing pale at that, and I could not speak because of

a curious stiffness of my lips, and I heard my heart beat like a

clock in the deserted house. Sir Humphrey was looking at me with an

anxiety which was sharpening into suspicion. "Harry," he said, "you

do not think--"

"'Tis sheer folly, lad," I burst out then, "and let us have no more

of it. 'Tis but the idle prating of a lovesick girl, who should have

a lover, ere she try to steal a nest in the heart of one of her own

sex. 'Tis folly, Sir Humphrey Hyde."

"So said I to Cicely," Sir Humphrey cried, eagerly, too interested

in his own cause to heed my slighting words for his sister. "'Tis

the rankest folly, I told her. Here is Harry Wingfield, old enough

almost to be Mary's father, and beside, beside--oh, confound it,

Harry," the generous lad burst out. "I would not like you for a

rival, for you are a good half foot taller than I, and you have that

about you which would make a woman run to you and think herself safe

were all the Indians in Virginia up, and you are a dark man, and I

have heard say they like that, but, but--oh, I say, Harry, 'tis

a damned shame that you are here as you are, and not as a gentleman

and a cavalier with the rest of us, for all the evidence to the

contrary and all the government to the contrary, 'tis, 'tis the way

you should be, and not a word of that charge do I believe. May the

fiends take me if I do, Harry!" So saying, the lad looked at me, and

verily the tears were in his blue eyes, and out he thrust his honest

hand for me to grasp, which I did with more of comfort than I had

had for many a day, though it was the hand of a rival, and the next

minute forth he burst again: "Say, Harry, if it be true that thou

art out of the running, and I believe it must be so, for how

could?--say, Harry, think you there is any chance for me?"

"I know of no reason why there should not be, Sir Humphrey," I said.

"Only, only--that she is what she is, and I but myself. Oh,

Harry, was there ever one like that girl? All the spirit of daring

of a man she has, and yet is she full of all the sweet ways of a

maid. Faith, she would draw sword one minute and tie a ribbon the

next. She would have followed Bacon to the death, and sat up all

night to broider herself a kerchief. Comrade and sweetheart both she

is, and was there ever one like her for beauty? Harry, Harry, saw

you ever such a beauty as Mary Cavendish?"

"No, and never will," cried I, so fervently and so echoing to the

full his youthful enthusiasm that again that keen look flashed into

his eyes. "Harry," he stammered out, "you do not--say, for God's

sake, Harry, you are a man if you are a--a--, and every day

have you seen that angel, and--and--Harry, may the devil

take me if I would go against thee if she--you know I would not,

Harry, for I remember well how you taught me to shoot, and,

and--I love thee, Harry, not in such fool fashion as my sister

loveth Mary, but I love thee, and never would I cross thee."

"Sir Humphrey," said I, "it is not what you would, nor what I would,

nor what any other man would, but what be best for Mary Cavendish,

and her true happiness of life, that is to consider, whether you

love her, or I love her, or any other man love her."

"Faith, and a score do," he said, gloomily. "There be my Lord Estes

and her cousin Ralph, and I know not how many more. Faith, I would

not have her less fair, but sometimes I would that a few were

colour-blind. But 'tis different when it comes to thee, Harry. If

she--"

"Sir Humphrey," I said, "were Mary Cavendish thy sister and I

myself, and loving her and she me, and you having that affection

which you say you have for me, would you yet give her to me in

marriage and think it for her good?"

Then the poor lad coloured and stammered, and could not look me in

the face, but it was enough. "Let there be no more talk betwixt you

and me as to that matter, Sir Humphrey," I said. "There is never now

nor at any other time any question of marriage betwixt Mistress Mary

Cavendish and her convict tutor, and if he perchance had been not

colour-blind and had learned to appraise her at her rare worth, the

more had he been set against such. And all that he can do for thee,

lad, he will do."

Sir Humphrey was easily pacified, having been accustomed from his

babyhood to masterly soothing of his mother into her own ways of

thought. Again, in spite of his great stature, he looked up at me

like a very child. "Harry," he whispered, "heard you her ever say

anything pleasant concerning me?"

"Many a time," I answered, quite seriously, though I was inwardly

laughing, and could not for the life of me remember any especial

favour which she had paid him in her speech. But I have ever held

that a bold lover hath the best chance, and knowing that boldness

depends upon assurance of favour, I set about giving it to Sir

Humphrey, even at some small expense of truth.

"When, when, Harry?"

"Oh, many a time, Sir Humphrey."

"But what? I pray thee, tell me what she said, Harry."

"I have not charged my mind, lad."

"But think of something. I pray thee, think of something, Harry." He

looked at me with such exceeding wistfulness that I was forced to

cudgel my brains for something which, having a slight savour of

truth, might be seasoned to pungency at fancy. "Often have I heard

her say that she liked a fair man," I replied, and indeed I had, and

believed her to have said it because I was dark, and seemingly

inattentive to some new grace of hers as to the tying of her hair or

fastening of her kerchief.

"Did she indeed say that, Harry, and do you think she had me in mind?"

cried Sir Humphrey.

"Are you not a fair man?"

"Yes, yes, I am a fair man, am I not, Harry? What else? Sure you

have heard her say more than that."

"I have heard her say she liked a hearty laugh, and one who counted

not costs when his mind were set on aught, but rode straight for it

though all the bars were up."

"That sure is I, Harry, unless my mother stand in the way. A man

cannot bring his mother's head low, Harry, but sure if she forbid

nor know not, as in this case of this tobacco plot, I stop for

naught. Sure she meant me, then, Harry."

"And I have heard her say that she liked a young man, a man no older

than she."

"Sure, sure she meant me by that, Harry, for I am the youngest of

them all--not yet twenty. Oh, dear Harry, she had me in mind by

that. Do you not think so?"

"I know of no one else whom she could have had in mind," I answered.

The lad was blushing with delight and confusion like a girl. He cast

down his eyes before me; he stammered when he spoke. "Harry, if she

but love me, I swear I could do as brave deeds as Bacon," he said.

"I would die would she but carry about a lock of my hair on her

bosom as she does his. I would, Harry. And you think I have some

chance?"

My heart smote me lest I had misled him, for I knew with no

certainty the maid's mind. "As much chance as any, and more than

many, lad," I said, "and I will do what I can for thee."

"Harry," he said, then paused and blushed and twisted his great body

about as modestly as a girl, "Harry."

"What, Sir Humphrey?"

"Once, once--I never told of it, and no one ever knew since I was

alone, and it would have been boasting--but once--I--fought

single-handed with that great Christopher Little, whom I met by

chance when I was out in the woods, and 'twas two years since,

and I, with scarce my full growth, and he pleading for mercy at

the second round, with an eye like a blackberry and a nose like a

gillyflower, and--and--Harry, you might tell her of it, and say not

where you got the news, if you thought it no harm. And, Harry, you

will mind the time when I killed the wolf with naught but an oak

club for weapon, and she, maybe, hath not heard of that. And I

should have been to the front with Bacon, boy as I was, had it not

been for my mother--that you know well and could make her sure of.

And, and--oh, confound it, Harry, little book wit have I in my head,

and she is so clever as never was, and all I have to win her notice

be in my hands and heels, for, Harry, you will remember the race

I ran with Tom Talbot that Mayday; think you she knows of that?

And--but she must know how I rode against Nick Barry last St.

Andrew's, and, and--oh, Lord, Harry, what am I that she should think

of me? But at all odds, whether it be me or you or any other man,

see to it that these goods be moved and she not be drawn into this

which is hatching, for it may be as big a blaze as Bacon started

before we be done with it; but shall I not help thee, Harry, and

when will you move them and where?"

"I want no help, lad," I said, and was indeed firmly set in my mind

that he should know nothing about the disposal of the goods lest

Mistress Mary come to grief through her love for him, and reasoning

that ignorance was his best safeguard and hers.

We went forth from Locust Creek, I having promised that I would do

all that I could to further his suit with Mary Cavendish, and when

we reached the bend of the road, he having walked beside me,

hitherto leading his horse, he was in his saddle and away, having

first acquainted me anxiously with the fact that he was to wear that

night to the governor's ball a suit of blue velvet with silver

buttons, and asking me if I considered that it would become him in

Mistress Mary's eyes. Then I went home to Drake Hill, passing along

such a wonderful aisle of bloom of locust and peach and mulberry and

honeysuckle and long trails of a purple vine of such a surprise of

beauty as to make one incredible that he saw aright--bushes

pluming white to the wind, and over all a medley of honey and almond

and spicy scents seeming to penetrate the very soul, that I was set

to reflecting in the midst of my sadness of renunciation of my love,

and my anxiety for her if, after all, such roads of blessing which

were set for our feet at every turn led not of a necessity to

blessed ends, and if our course tended not to happiness, whether we

knew it or not, and along whatever byways of sorrow.