Mary Cavendish raised her voice high until it seemed to me like a
silver trumpet, and cried out with a wave of her white arm to them
all: "On to Laurel Creek, I pray you! Oh, I pray you, good people,
on to Laurel Creek, and cut down my tobacco for the sake of Virginia
and the honour of the Colony."
It needed but a puff of any wind of human will to send that fiery
mob leaping in a new direction. Straightway, they shouted with one
accord: "To Laurel Creek, to Laurel Creek! Down with the tobacco,
down with the governor, down with the king! To Laurel Creek!" and
forged ahead, turning to the left instead of the right, as had been
ordered, and Mary was swept along with them, and Catherine would
have been crushed, had not a horseman, whom I did not recognise,
caught her up on the saddle with him with a wonderful swing of a
long, lithe arm, and then galloped after, and as for myself and
Captain Jaynes, and Sir Humphrey, and others of the burgesses, whom
I had best not call by name, we went too, since we might as well
have tried to hold the current of the James River, as that headlong
company.
But as soon as might be, I shouted out to Sir Humphrey above the din
that our first duty must be to save Mary and Catherine. And he
answered back in a hoarse shout, "Oh, for God's sake, ride fast,
Harry, for should the militia come, what would happen to them?"
But I needed no urging. I know not whom I rode down, I trust not
any, but I know not; I got before them all in some wise, Sir
Humphrey following close behind, and Ralph Drake also, swearing that
he knew not what possessed the jades to meddle in such matters, and
shouting to the rabble to stop, but he might as well have shouted to
the wind. And by that time there were more than a hundred of us,
though whence they had come, I know not.
We gentlemen kept together in some wise, and gradually gained on
Mary, who had had the start, and there were some seven of us, one of
the Barrys, Sir Humphrey Hyde, Ralph Drake, Parson Downs, in such
guise for a parson that no one would have known him, booted and
spurred, and riding harder than any by virtue of his best horse in
the Colony, myself, and two of the burgesses. We seven gaining on
the rabble, in spite of the fact that many of them were mounted upon
Major Robert Beverly's best horses, through their having less
knowledge of horsemanship, closed around Mary Cavendish on Merry
Roger, clearing the ground with long galloping bounds, and Catherine
with the strange horseman was somewhat behind.
As we came up with Mary, she looked at us over her shoulder with a
brightness of triumph and withal something of merriment, like a
child successful in mischief, and laughed, and waved her hand in
which, as I live, she held a sword which had long graced the hall at
Drake Hill, and I believe she meditated cutting the tobacco herself.
Then a great cheer went up for her, in which we, in spite of our
misgivings, joined. Something so wonderful and innocent there was in
the fresh enthusiasm of the maid. Then again her sweet voice rang
out:
"Down with the tobacco, gentlemen of Virginia, and down with all
tyranny. Remember Nathaniel Bacon, remember Nathaniel Bacon!"
Then we all caught up that last cry of hers, and the air rang with
"Remember Nathaniel Bacon!"
But as soon as might be, I rode close enough to speak with Mary
Cavendish, and Sir Humphrey, who was on the other side, each with
our jealousy lost sight of, in our concern for her.
"Child, thou must turn and go home," I said, and I fear my voice
lost its firmness, for I was half mad with admiration, and love, and
apprehension for her.
Then Sir Humphrey echoed me.
"The militia will be upon us presently," he shouted in her ear above
the din. "Ride home as fast as you may."
She looked from one to the other of us, and laughed gayly and shook
her head, and her golden curls flew to the wind, and she touched
Merry Roger with her whip and he bounded ahead, and we had all we
could do to keep pace, he being fresh. Then Parson Downs pelted to
her side and besought her to turn, and so did Captain Jaynes, though
he was half laughing with delight at her spirit, and his bright eyes
viewed her in such wise that I could scarce keep my fingers from his
throat. But Mary Cavendish would hear to none, and no way there was
of turning her, lest we dragged her from her saddle.
Again I rode close and spoke so that no one beside her could hear.
"Go home, I pray you, if you love me," I said.
But she looked at me with a proud defiance, and such a spirit of a
man that I marvelled at her.
"'Tis no time to talk of love, sir," said she. "When a people strike
for liberty, they stop not for honey nor kisses."
Then she cried again, "Remember Nathaniel Bacon!" And again that
wild shout echoed her silver voice.
But then I spoke again, catching her bridle rein as I rode.
"Then go, if not because you love me, because I love thee," I said
close to her ear with her golden hair blowing athwart my face.
"I obey not the man who loves me, but the man who weds me, and that
you will not do, because you hold your pride dearer than love," said
she.
"Nay, because I hold thee dearer than my love," said I.
"'Tis a false principle you act upon, and love is before all else,
even that which may harm it, and thou knowest not the heart of a
woman if thou dost love one, sir," said she. Then she gave a quick
glance at my face, so close to hers in the midst of that hurrying
throng, and her blue eyes gleamed into mine, and she said, with a
bright blush over her cheeks and forehead and neck, but proudly as
if she defied even her maiden shame in the cause of love, "But thou
shalt yet know one, Harry."
Then, as if she had said too much, she pulled her bridle loose from
my detaining hand with a quick jerk, and touched her horse, and we
were on that hard gallop to Locust Creek.
Locust Creek was not a large plantation, but the fields of tobacco
were well set, and it was some task to cut them. Captain Jaynes
essayed to form the cutters into ranks, but with no avail, though he
galloped back and forth, shouting like a madman. Every man set to
work for himself, and it was again bedlam broke loose as at the
other plantation. Then indeed for the first time I saw Mary
Cavendish shrink a little, as if she were somewhat intimidated by
the fire which she had lighted, and she resisted not, when Sir
Humphrey, and her Cousin Ralph and I, urged her into the house. And
as she entered, there was Catherine, having been brought thither by
that stranger who had disappeared. And we shut the door upon both
women, and then felt freer in our minds. Capt. Noel Jaynes swore
'twas a jade fit to lead an army, then inquired what in hell brought
her thither, and why women were to the front in all our Virginian
wars, whether they wore white aprons or not?
As he spoke Ralph Drake shouted out with a great laugh, that maybe
'twas for the purpose of carrying the men, and pointed, and there
was one of the black wenches bringing Nick Barry, who else had
fallen, upon her back to the field. Then she set him down in the
tobacco and gave him a knife, and he went to cutting, having just
enough wit to do that for which his mind had been headed, and naught
else.
The mob took a fancy to that new cry of Mary Cavendish's, and every
now and then the field rang with it. "Remember Nathaniel Bacon,
remember Nathaniel Bacon!" It had a curious effect, through starting
in a distant quarter, where some of the fiercest of the workers were
grouped, then coming nearer and nearer, till the whole field rang
with that wide overspread of human voice, above the juicy slashing
of the tobacco plants.
We had been at work some little time when a tall woman in black on a
black horse came up at a steady amble, her horse being old. She
dismounted near me and her horse went to nibbling the low-hanging
boughs of a locust nearby, and the moon shone full on her face, and
I saw she was the Widow Tabitha Story, with that curious patch on
her forehead. Down to the tobacco she bent and went to work stiffly
with unaccustomed hands to such work, and then again rang that cry
of "Remember Nathaniel Bacon!" And when she heard that, up she
reared herself, and raised such a shrill response of "Remember
Nathaniel Bacon!" in a high-sobbing voice, as I never heard.
And after that for a minute the field seemed to fairly howl with
that cry of following, and memory for the dead hero, always Madam
Tabitha Story's voice in the lead, shrieking over it like a cat's.
"Lord, have mercy on us," said Parson Downs at my elbow. "She will
have all England upon us, and wherefore could not the women have
kept out of this stew?"
With that he went over to the widow and strove to quiet her, but she
only shrieked with more fury, with Mistresses Longman and Allgood to
aid her, and then--came in a mad rush upon us of horse and foot,
the militia, under Capt. Robert Waller.