PEGGY
Giles Brent was not in an enviable frame of mind on this January
morning, after his visit to St. Gabriel's manor. The gold lace on
his coat, marking his rank as deputy-governor of Maryland, covered
an anxious heart, and as he walked along the path over the bluff in
the village of St. Mary's he twirled the gold-tipped lacings of his
doublet, and cursed his fate in being caught in this coil of colonial
politics, and wished his cousin Leonard Calvert would come home from
England and attend to his own business.
Why, all of a sudden, was his brow cleared of its furrows, and his mind
of its worries for the moment? Because he had caught sight at a window
of a girl's face,--a faulty, charming face with velvet brown eyes, and
hair that shook a dusky glamour over them,--the face of Peggy Neville.
This Peggy was a born coquette--not of the type that sets its cap
at a man as obviously as a boy casts the net for butterflies, but
a coquette by instinct, full of contradictory impulses, with eyes
that whispered "Come!" even while blush and frown cried "Halt!"--with
the gaiety of a flight of larks, alternating with pouts and tears as
sudden and violent as a summer thunder-shower. Such a girl has often a
peculiar charm for an older man, who looks on amused at her coquetries,
and finds her friendship as firm as her loves are fickle. Between
Governor Brent and Peggy Neville such a friendship was established,
and it was with a delight dimpling into smiles that she threw wide the
window, and leaning out into the frosty air, cried out joyously,--
"Good-morning, your Excellency! Do you bring any news of that
good-for-nothing brother of mine?"
The governor shook his sword at her.
"I will have you in the sheriff's hands if you speak so lightly of my
close friend," he answered. "Is your aunt at home?"
"No, but my aunt's niece is, and much exercised to hear the news from
Kent Fort. So prithee come in and rest awhile."
Brent entered at a door so low that he was compelled to bow his tall
head.
"The news of most interest to you," he said, seating himself by
the fire, "comes not from Kent Fort, but from St. Gabriel's Manor,
which I left just before the expected arrival of that aforesaid
good-for-nothing brother of yours, who is in treaty with me for the
manor at Cecil Point, which Baltimore christened Robin Hood's Barn when
he made a grant of it to Mistress Elinor Calvert. The lady is staying
with my sister Mary at present."
"You have just come from St. Gabriel's?" queried Peggy, "and just seen
Mistress Calvert? Then pray tell me all about her. She is very, _very_
handsome, they say--"
"Then for once they say truth. I have seen her enter the gallery at
The Globe when all the gallants on the stage rose to catch sight of
her, and I have seen the London street-sweepers follow her for a mile.
There's beauty for you!"
"And she is very wise too?"
"Ay, as good a head for affairs as mine, and I think no small things of
mine own abilities."
"And she is virtuous and tender and true?"
"The tenderest of mothers, and the loyalest of kinswomen."
Peggy cast down her long-fringed eyes and studied the pointed toes of
her red slippers. At length looking up timidly she asked,--
"Think you I could ever be like her?"
Giles Brent burst out into a great laugh.
"Oh--not in beauty!" Peggy rushed on, all in confusion--"not in beauty,
of course, nor in mind, but could I make my character like hers? You
see, Christopher has always told me how perfect she was, and said how
proud he should be to see me like her."
"Christopher!" exclaimed Brent.
"Oho!" he thought to himself, "so the wind blows from that quarter,
does it? That explains many things. But why under heaven did he conceal
the whole business from me?"
Aloud he said: "Never mind what Christopher tells you, pretty Peggy!
Take my advice and do not waste your time in trying to be like this one
or that,--not even my Cousin Elinor. You have gifts and graces all your
own. Make the most of them, and let the others go. Who is that outside
the door? I thought I knew every man in St. Mary's, at least by sight."
"That?" said Peggy, looking out at the window with a fine show of
indifference, and then moving hastily nearer the fire, "that is no
citizen of St. Mary's, but a young Virginian in command of the ketch
_Lady Betty_ from the York River."
"And his name?"
"Romney Huntoon."
"Huntoon--? I wonder who his father is. Know you anything of his
family?"
"No, save that his father was a physician once and won great reputation
somehow, and his mother was a daughter of Sir William Romney, and
heiress to a fortune, wherewith they bought wide tracts of land on the
York River, and live, 'tis said, in more state than any in Virginia
save Governor Berkeley himself."
"Ah, now I place him. He was head of Flower da Hundred at the time of
the massacre, and since has risen to be a member of the Virginia House
of Burgesses. I would like to speak with this young man. Is that his
knock at the door?"
"I--I think it may be," hesitated Peggy. "He brought a letter from his
mother to my aunt, who knew her in their youth at home in Devonshire."
Hard upon her remarks a young man entered the room, and stood
hesitating in the doorway as if loath to venture further without
assurance of welcome.
He was a colty youth, with long legs and slim body, and hands and feet
that had not learned the repose of maturity. He had also a shock of
dark curls, and under arching brows a pair of merry blue eyes that
danced when anything pleased him beyond the common, like the sun on
Easter morning, while under their surface mirth lay steadfast depths
which bade fair to endure when their dancing days were over.
Just now there was more of anxiety than mirth in them as they turned
toward the slip of a girl by the hearth, as timid a glance as if
she were the Shah of Persia and he a humble subject in terror of the
bowstring.
"Come in!" vouchsafed Peggy,--but with some impatience in her voice,
for she had not yet begun on the list of questions she had prepared for
her other visitor.
"Governor Brent, this is Master Romney Huntoon. Master Huntoon, I
have the honor to present you to Governor Brent." Both men bowed, the
younger man lower.
"I fancy," said Brent, "that I am not wrong in taking you for the son
of that Humphrey Huntoon whose good repute has travelled beyond the
limits of his own province, and become familiar to us dwellers across
the borders."
Romney Huntoon blushed with pleasure and secretly treasured up the
words to say over to his mother; but he received them with some
discomposure. To tell the truth, it is not an easy matter to meet
a compliment for one's relative; the disclaimers wherewith a man
may receive such for himself not quite fitting the situation, yet
consanguinity seeming to demand a corresponding degree of modesty.
"My father will feel deeply honored," he murmured, and lost the end he
had fashioned for his speech in watching a curl that had fallen forward
over Peggy Neville's ear.
Brent was too much occupied with his own thoughts to heed the break in
the young man's reply.
"You have been at St. Mary's for some days?" he asked.
"A week yesterday, your Excellency."
"And spent much time on the wharf?"
"The better part of every day, overlooking first the unloading of
the tobacco, and then the getting aboard of the farm implements and
household stuff I am to carry back to Romney."
"Hm! Perhaps, then, you were witness to the--the unpleasantness that
fell out betwixt Captain Ingle and Reuben Early."
"Ay, sir--I saw the blow struck."
"Of your kindness, tell me how it all fell out. The village folk are so
hot over the matter 'tis passing hard to get a clear story from any of
them. Was Richard Ingle drunk or sober?"
"Why, not fully the one or the other, I should say; but more as one
who has been in his cups overnight and is at odds with the world next
morning."
"And Reuben Early--was he in liquor too?"
"Truth, I think Early was a bit the worse for beer, for he was
continually dropping the sacks with which he was loading the vessel
under Ingle's direction, and when one slipped into the water, instead
of making excuse for himself, he threw up his silly cap and shouted,
"God save the King and Prince Rupert!"
"Fool!"
"Ay, 'twas enough to anger any man, and it seemed to drive Ingle mad
with passion. 'The King!' he cried; 'I'd have you know your King is no
king; and as for Prince Rupert, if I had him here he should be flogged
at the capstan!' Then turning to Early, whose mouth was agape at such
treasonable utterances, he let fly a bucket he had in his hand, and
hit Early full in the head, knocking him over like an ox. If Early had
picked himself up and returned the blow I'd had some sympathy for him,
but instead he went off whimpering and vowing he'd make complaint and
have Ingle under arrest before night."
"A pestilent fellow that Ingle!" muttered Brent; "I'd have him in
irons this day were it not for the trouble over seas; but with King
and Parliament at loggerheads we must be civil with both and Ingle
hath powerful friends in high places among the Roundheads. But of the
quarrel--did you see Richard Ingle after?"
"Nay, but I believe he is still on _The Reformation_, though some say
he was seen to board a ship that sailed yesterday for New Netherland,
and 'tis known the Ingles are on good terms with Governor Stuyvesant,
who hath the Dutch hatred of papists."
"For the matter o' that," said Brent, with some bitterness, "he need
not have gone further afield than across the river. He would have found
enough Catholic-haters in Virginia to protect him."
"We may be over zealous, your Excellency," the young man answered, "but
we do not countenance evil-doers, and 'twere hard to find in Maryland
a cavalier who has the King's cause more at heart than Sir William
Berkeley."
"You say truth, Master Huntoon, and do well to maintain the honor of
your province against all slander. My regards to Sir William Berkeley
when you return--and when is that to be?"
"In two or three days at furthest now. The ketch is already loaded and
I tarry only from hour to hour."
"May the ketch and all your other ventures come safe to shore!" said
Brent, rising and taking the hand of Huntoon.
"Mistress Neville, I will see you again before my return to St.
Gabriel's, and charge myself with any message you may wish to send."
With this adieu the Governor took his leave. The young people, who had
risen with him, still stood facing each other in silence, now that they
were alone.
"Why do you not take a chair once more?" asked Peggy, fingering the
border of her flowered lawn apron.
"I have not been asked," Huntoon responded.
"I feared to detain you from business of more importance," murmured the
little hypocrite.
"Mistress Neville," said Romney, "I have known you but seven days."
"Is it really so long?" asked Peggy, demurely looking out at him from
behind the protecting curtain of her long lashes.
"So long!" exclaimed the youth. He was only twenty, and the power to
receive and parry comes later to men than to girls.
Even Peggy Neville felt a twinge of compunction at his throwing himself
thus upon her mercy. "They have been pleasant days," she continued,
"and therefore by all the laws of life should have seemed short."
"Why, so they have!" the boy rushed on,--"short as a flash of lightning
in the passing, long as July sunlight in the thinking over; and now
they are drawing to an end, somehow a darkness seems to fall around
me. When I think of sailing down the river, away from the sight of the
huddle of cottages, from the great cross in the centre of the village,
from the glimpse of this little window that gives on the wharf, my
heart sinks."
"I wonder why," said Peggy; but this time she did not look at him.
"May I tell you?"
"No, no--of course not," the girl hastened to say in a quick,
business-like voice. "'Tis no affair of mine to pry into the feelings
of all the young men who come to St. Mary's. Besides, here comes my
aunt, and she will be more concerned to bring out wine and seed-cake
for your entertainment than to hear of your regrets at parting.
However," the tease went on wickedly, "if it would relieve your mind to
tell her I will bring the subject before her."
Romney stood still, and looked at her without a word. She had hurt him
beyond the power of speech. This first love of his, which he had been
cherishing by day and brooding over by night for a whole week, seemed
to him to overshadow the world, and that she, the lady of his dreams,
should be the one to make light of it was past bearing.
"'_All_ the young men who come to St. Mary's,'" he repeated to himself
as he strode down the street. "So to her I am no more than one of the
crowd of gallants who hang about the corners and cast eyes at the girls
in the little church o' Sundays. Oh, but I will make her give me a
serious thought yet! She shall know that it is not a ball she holds in
her hands, to be tossed about and caught and thrown away, but a man's
heart."
Then, as he recalled that dimpling face and those eyelashes sweeping
the rich red cheek, he smiled in spite of himself, and fell to
thinking of a little song his mother had sung to him years ago, a song
of another capricious damsel, mightily like this provoking Peggy,--
"He kissed her once, he kissed her twice,
Though oft she coyly said him nay;
Mayhap she let him kiss her thrice
Before she bade him go away--
Singing heigh-ho!
Whether or no,
Kiss me again before you go,
Under the trees where the pippins grow."
As he reached the widening of the street in front of the Indian wigwam
transformed into a little chapel and dedicated to Our Lady, he was
struck with the number of people standing and walking about. It was
like an ant-hill suddenly emptied of its toilers. Then he recalled that
it was market day at St. Mary's, and that the village was all agog over
Dick Ingle. Women stood at the door of their pioneer cabins, their arms
akimbo, and their heads bare regardless of the winter winds, giving
and getting the latest news. Governor Brent had come last night. That
was sure. He had ridden over from St. Gabriel's Manor, where he was
visiting his sister, and he had been seen this morning walking about
the town. A mighty secrecy had been observed about the object of his
coming; but no one doubted it had to do with Ingle.
"'Twill go hard with Dick," said one; "the Governor is a just man, but
a terror to evil-doers. I miss my guess if Dick and his brother Ralph
both know not the feeling of handcuffs ere nightfall."
"Not Ralph!" interrupted another. "What justice were there in punishing
the innocent with the guilty? Ralph Ingle is as frank and hearty-spoken
a gentleman as there is in Maryland. He comes into my cottage and plays
with the baby, and the boys run to the door as soon as ever his voice
is heard."
"Ay, but how comes it he is so friendly with that rascal brother of
his?"
"Why, blood is thicker than water--even holy water."
A laugh greeted this sally; but the laughers took the precaution to
cross themselves.
"You would none of you exercise yourselves much over the intimacy,"
said a third gossip, "had ye seen as I did the two brothers talking
on deck after the row with Early. Ralph told Dick he was quit of him,
tired of trying to make a gentleman of him, and wished they might never
meet again. He did indeed--I heard it with my own ears."
"That's the most wonderful part of it," said the first speaker; "most
of the things you tell you've heard through the ears of some one else."
Gossip number three turned red and opened her mouth to deliver a
crushing retort, when she discovered that the attention of her hearers
had been distracted by the arrival of a new-comer.
It was Reuben Early, whose wife had bound as big a bandage as possible
about his head. He came up to join the group, receiving on all sides
gratifying commiserations upon the wound he had been dealt by Richard
Ingle's hand; and though he had some difficulty in explaining why he
had not returned it, nor made any defence after all his bold talk, he
still continued to pose as a hero, and to make his townfellows feel
that in his humiliation they had received an individual and collective
insult.
"When the villain struck me," he explained, "I was encumbered with the
sack of grain I was bearing, and ere I could lay it down and reach my
weapon, the fellow had disappeared down the hatchway."
"Come, come, Reuben!" cried a sceptic near-by, "we all know you are
readier with your tongue than with either sword or musket; and I for
one am not sorry to have you taught a lesson, were it not that the
blow was struck at a citizen of St. Mary's, and therefore at us all. I
am for punishing Dick Ingle for the assault, yet lightly; but for the
treason he spoke he should be hung at the yard-arm of his own ship."
"Not hung perhaps; but surely put in custody of Sheriff Ellyson here,"
suggested another of the group, who stood in the morning sunlight
outside the log cabin which served for a hostelry.
"Aha!" laughed the man next him, "our innkeeper would not see the
number of drinkers of his good ale diminished by one. How say you,
Master Boniface, would it not be well to compel the traitor to drink
himself to death at the expense of the Lord Proprietary?"
All but two of the men laughed at this sally. The innkeeper naturally
failed to see the fun of a jest of which he was the butt, and the
sheriff took the suggestion into serious consideration.
"By the Saints, it were a good scheme and has much to commend it. It
may seem a pity to waste good wine on a bad man, when the one is so
scarce and the other so plenty; but it would mightily relieve the
authorities. 'Put him in the custody of the sheriff!' you say; and how,
pray, am I to hold him when I have no jail save my two hands? Can I lie
with him at night and eat and drink by day with my arm locked in his? I
would he were at the bottom of the sea!"
"If every man were at the bottom of the sea who has been wished there,
it would be hard to find a channel for the ships, and we might walk to
England dry-shod!"
It was Giles Brent who spoke, and the men, who had not seen him
approach and did not know how much he had overheard, looked somewhat
taken aback, for the discussion of public officers and their duties was
not looked upon with special favor.
"I tell you, my men," Governor Brent continued, returning their salute
with a wave of his hand, "this standing about the door of ale-houses
is a poor way of life for pioneers. It breeds idleness, and idleness
breeds discontent. Get you all in and drink the King's health at my
charge, and then off with you to work; and the more you use your mouths
to eat and drink withal, and the less for idle chatter, the better it
shall fare with you and your families."
The men, nothing loath to obey the behest, filed into the inn, cheering
alternately for the King, Lord Baltimore, Leonard Calvert, the Governor
now in England, and his deputy, Giles Brent, the last cheer being the
mightiest of all and only drowned by the gurgling of the great draughts
of October ale pouring down their throats.
"Hold, Ellyson," said Brent, as the sheriff passed in last of all. "I
want a word with you."
"Yes, your Excellency; you do me honor," said Ellyson, doffing his cap
of maintenance.
"Does Richard Ingle take his meals on board ship or ashore?"
"I'm not rightly sure, your Excellency; but I do think he takes his
supper here at the inn, and the other meals on his ship."
"Does he come alone?"
"Sometimes alone, but oftener with his brother."
"At what hour does he sup?"
"Oh, any time after the day's work is done, and then sits carousing
till all hours. I have seen him drunk enough to light his pipe at a
pump ere midnight."
"That is well. A man in his cups may be apprehended, even by a sheriff.
Here, read this. 'Tis a proclamation bidding him yield himself to your
custody before February first. That will put him off the scent, for
he will plan to finish loading and slip off at the end of the month.
But to let him do this were to encourage all evil-doers and enemies
of the Commonwealth; therefore it behooves us to get him under arrest
in short order. When he comes to-night, do you invite him to sit down
and sup with you. Give him all he will drink, and scrimp not yourself
either. Remember you both drink at my charge. Then, when the rest of
the drinkers are gone, do you serve your warrant on him, and hold him
at your peril till I call for him. Do yonder fellows know anything of
the prospect of the arrest?"
"They said nothing."
"Then they know nothing. I would I could be as sure that when they
know nothing they say nothing. Be you silent as the grave. You are a
close-tongued fellow enough save when the wine-cup loosens your tongue
and lets out your brains, and leaves you rolled up in a corner like a
filthy hogshead. But never mind--never mind; you are better than many
around you. I give you good-morning."
So the two parted, Ellyson entering the tavern and Brent turning into
the path that led to the house of Councillor Neale.
As he passed on his way, he thought to himself, "Pray Heaven he heeds
not that caution! If he be not well drunken this night our well-laid
plan falls to the ground, and then there's a pretty muddle."