It was a merry cavalcade that swung around the great oaks that spring
morning in 1774. Two coaches with outriders and postilions led the way
with their precious freight--the elder ladies in the first coach, and the
second blossoming with flower-like faces and starred with dancing eyes.
Booted and spurred, the gentlemen rode behind, and after them rolled the
baggage-wagons, drawn by mules in jingling harness. Harry on a chestnut
sorrel and the young Kentuckian on a high-stepping gray followed the
second coach--Hugh on Firefly champed the length of the column. Colonel
Dale and Dave brought up the rear. The road was of sand and there was
little sound of hoof or wheel--only the hum of voices, occasional sallies
when a neighbor joined them, and laughter from the second coach as happy
and care-free as the singing of birds from trees by the roadside.
The capital had been moved from Jamestown to the spot where Bacon had
taken the oath against England--then called Middle-Plantation, and now
Williamsburg. The cavalcade wheeled into Gloucester Street, and Colonel
Dale pointed out to Dave the old capitol at one end and William and Mary
College at the other. Mr. Henry had thundered in the old capitol, the
Burgesses had their council-chamber there, and in the hall there would
be a ball that night. Near the street was a great building which the
colonel pointed out as the governor's palace, surrounded by
pleasure-grounds of full three hundred acres and planted thick with
linden-trees. My Lord Dunmore lived there. Back at the plantation Dave
had read in an old copy of _The Virginia Gazette_, amid advertisements
of shopkeepers, the arrival and departure of ships, and poetical bits
that sang of Myrtilla, Florella, and other colonial belles, how the town
had made an illumination in honor of the recent arrival of the elegant
Lady Dunmore and her three fine, sprightly daughters, from whose every
look flashed goodness of heart. For them the gentlemen of the Burgesses
were to give a ball the next night. At this season the planters came
with their families to the capitol, and the street was as brilliant as a
fancy-dress parade would be to us now. It was filled with coaches and
fours. Maidens moved daintily along in silk and lace, high-heeled shoes
and clocked stockings. Youths passed on spirited horses, college
students in academic dress swaggered through the throng, and from his
serene excellency's coach, drawn by six milk-white horses, my lord bowed
grimly to the grave lifting of hats on either side of the street.
The cavalcade halted before a building with a leaden bust of Sir Walter
Raleigh over the main doorway, the old Raleigh Tavern, in the Apollo
Room of which Mr. Jefferson had rapturously danced with his Belinda, and
which was to become the Faneuil Hall of Virginia. Both coaches were
quickly surrounded by bowing gentlemen, young gallants, and frolicsome
students. Dave, the young Kentuckian, and Harry would be put up at the
tavern, and, for his own reasons, Hugh elected to stay with them. With
an _au revoir_ of white hands from the coaches, the rest went on to the
house of relatives and friends.
Inside the tavern Hugh was soon surrounded by fellow students and boon
companions. He pressed Dave and the boy to drink with them, but Dave
laughingly declined and took the lad up to their room. Below they could
hear Hugh's merriment going on, and when he came up-stairs a while later
his face was flushed, he was in great spirits, and was full of
enthusiasm over a horserace and cock-fight that he had arranged for the
afternoon. With him came a youth of his own age with daredevil eyes and
a suave manner, one Dane Grey, to whom Harry gave scant greeting. One
patronizing look from the stranger toward the Kentucky boy and within
the latter a fire of antagonism was instantly kindled. With a word after
the two went out, Harry snorted his explanation:
"Tory!"
In the early afternoon coach and horsemen moved out to an "old field."
Hugh was missing from the Dale party, and General Willoughby frowned
when he noted his son's absence. When they arrived a most extraordinary
concert of sounds was filling the air. On a platform stood twenty
fiddlers in contest for a fiddle--each sawing away for dear life and each
playing a different tune--a custom that still survives in our own hills.
After this a "quire of ballads" was sung for. Then a crowd of boys
gathered to run one hundred and twelve yards for a hat worth twelve
shillings, and Dave nudged his young friend. A moment later Harry cried
to Barbara:
"Look there!"
There was their young Indian lining up with the runners, his face calm,
but an eager light in his eyes. At the word he started off almost
leisurely, until the whole crowd was nearly ten yards ahead of him, and
then a yell of astonishment rose from the crowd. The boy was skimming
the grounds on wings. Past one after another he flew, and laughing and
hardly out of breath he bounded over the finish, with the first of the
rest laboring with bursting lungs ten yards behind. Hugh and Dane Grey
had appeared arm in arm and were moving through the crowd with great
gayety and some boisterousness, and when the boy appeared with his hat
Grey shouted:
"Good for the little savage!" Erskine wheeled furiously but Dave caught
him by the arm and led him back to Harry and Barbara, who looked so
pleased that the lad's ill-humor passed at once.
"Whut you reckon I c'n do with this hat?"
"Put it on!" smiled Barbara; but it was so ludicrous surmounting his
hunter's garb that she couldn't help laughing aloud. Harry looked
uneasy, but it was evident that the girl was the one person who could
laugh at the sensitive little woodsman with no offense.
"I reckon you're right," he said, and gravely he handed it to Harry and
gravely Harry accepted it. Hugh and his friend had not approached them,
for Hugh had seen the frown on his father's face, but Erskine saw Grey
look long at Barbara, turn to question Hugh, and again he began to burn
within.
The wrestlers had now stepped forth to battle for a pair of silver
buckles, and the boy in turn nudged Dave, but unavailingly. The
wrestling was good and Dave watched it with keen interest. One huge
bull-necked fellow was easily the winner, but when the silver buckles
were in his hand, he boastfully challenged anybody in the crowd. Dave
shouldered through the crowd and faced the victor.
"I'll try you once," he said, and a shout of approval rose.
The Dale party crowded close and my lord's coach appeared on the
outskirts and stopped.
"Backholts or catch-as-catch-can?" asked the victor sneeringly.
"As you please," said Dave.
The bully rushed. Dave caught him around the neck with his left arm, his
right swinging low, the bully was lifted from the ground, crushed
against Dave's breast, the wind went out of him with a grunt, and Dave
with a smile began swinging him to and fro as though he were putting a
child to sleep. The spectators yelled their laughter and the bully
roared like a bull. Then Dave reached around with his left hand, caught
the bully's left wrist, pulled loose his hold, and with a leftward twist
of his own body tossed his antagonist some several feet away. The bully
turned once in the air and lighted resoundingly on his back. He got up
dazed and sullen, but breaking into a good-natured laugh, shook his head
and held forth the buckles to Dave.
"You won 'em," Dave said. "They're yours. I wasn't wrastling for them.
You challenged. We'll shake hands."
Then my Lord Dunmore sent for Dave and asked him where he was from.
"And do you know the Indian country on this side of the Cumberland?"
asked his lordship.
"Very well."
His lordship smiled thoughtfully.
"I may have need of you."
Dave bowed:
"I am an American, my lord."
His lordship flamed, but he controlled himself.
"You are at least an open enemy," he said, and gave orders to move on.
The horse-race was now on, and meanwhile a pair of silk stockings, of
one pistol's value, was yet to be conferred. Colonel Dale had given Hugh
permission to ride Firefly in the race, but when he saw the lad's
condition he peremptorily refused.
"And nobody else can ride him," he said, with much disappointment.
"Let me try!" cried Erskine.
"You!" Colonel Dale started to laugh, but he caught Dave's eye.
"Surely," said Dave. The colonel hesitated.
"Very well--I will."
At once the three went to the horse, and the negro groom rolled his eyes
when he learned what his purpose was.
"Dis hoss'll kill dat boy," he muttered, but the horse had already
submitted his haughty head to the lad's hand and was standing quietly.
Even Colonel Dale showed amazement and concern when the boy insisted
that the saddle be taken off, as he wanted to ride bareback, and again
Dave overcame his scruples with a word of full confidence. The boy had
been riding pony-races bareback, he explained, among the Indians, as
long as he had been able to sit a horse. The astonishment of the crowd
when they saw Colonel Dale's favorite horse enter the course with a
young Indian apparently on him bareback will have to be imagined, but
when they recognized the rider as the lad who had won the race, the
betting through psychological perversity was stronger than ever on
Firefly. Hugh even took an additional bet with his friend Grey, who was
quite openly scornful.
"You bet on the horse now," he said.
"On both," said Hugh.
It was a pretty and a close race between Firefly and a white-starred bay
mare, and they came down the course neck and neck like two whirlwinds. A
war-whoop so Indian-like and curdling that it startled every old
frontiersman who heard it came suddenly from one of the riders. Then
Firefly stretched ahead inch by inch, and another triumphant savage yell
heralded victory as the black horse swept over the line a length ahead.
Dane Grey swore quite fearfully, for it was a bet that he could ill
afford to lose. He was talking with Barbara when the boy came back to
the Dales, and something he was saying made the girl color resentfully,
and the lad heard her say sharply:
"He is my cousin," and she turned away from the young gallant and gave
the youthful winner a glad smile. Just then a group of four men stopped
near, looked closely at the little girl, and held a short consultation.
One of them came forward with a pair of silk stockings in his hand.
"These are for the loveliest maiden present here. The committee chooses
you."
And later he reported to his fellow members:
"It was like a red rose courtesying and breathing thanks."
Again Hugh and Dane Grey were missing when the party started back to the
town--they were gone to bet on "Bacon's Thunderbolts" in a cock-fight.
That night they still were missing when the party went to see the
Virginia Comedians in a play by one Mr. Congreve--they were gaming that
night--and next morning when the Kentucky lad rose, he and Dave through
his window saw the two young roisterers approaching the porch of the
hotel--much dishevelled and all but staggering with drink.
"I don't like that young man," said Dave, "and he has a bad influence on
Hugh."
That morning news came from New England that set the town a-quiver.
England's answer to the Boston tea-party had been the closing of Boston
harbor. In the House of Burgesses, the news was met with a burst of
indignation. The 1st of June was straight-way set apart as a day of
fasting, humiliation, and prayer that God would avert the calamity
threatening the civil rights of America. In the middle of the afternoon
my lord's coach and six white horses swung from his great yard and made
for the capitol--my lord sitting erect and haughty, his lips set with the
resolution to crush the spirit of the rebellion. It must have been a
notable scene, for Nicholas, Bland, Lee, Harrison, Pendleton, Henry, and
Jefferson, and perhaps Washington, were there. And my lord was far from
popular. He had hitherto girded himself with all the trappings of
etiquette, had a court herald prescribe rules for the guidance of
Virginians in approaching his excellency, had entertained little and,
unlike his predecessors, made no effort to establish cordial relations
with the people of the capitol. The Burgesses were to give a great ball
in his honor that very night, and now he was come to dissolve them. And
dissolve them he did. They bowed gravely and with no protest. Shaking
with anger my lord stalked to his coach and six while they repaired to
the Apollo Room to prohibit the use of tea and propose a general
congress of the colonies. And that ball came to pass. Haughty hosts
received their haughty guest with the finest and gravest courtesy, bent
low over my lady's hand, danced with her daughters, and wrung from my
lord's reluctant lips the one grudging word of comment:
"Gentlemen!"
And the ladies of his family bobbed their heads sadly in confirmation,
for the steel-like barrier between them was so palpable that it could
have been touched that night, it seemed, by the hand.
The two backwoodsmen had been dazzled by the brilliance of it all, for
the boy had stood with Barbara, who had been allowed to look on for a
while. Again my lord had summoned Dave to him and asked many questions
about the wilderness beyond the Cumberland, and he even had the boy to
come up and shake hands, and asked him where he had learned to ride so
well. He lifted his eyebrows when Dave answered for him and murmured
with surprise and interest:
"So--so!"
Before Barbara was sent home Hugh and Dane Grey, dressed with great
care, came in, with an exaggeration of dignity and politeness that
fooled few others than themselves. Hugh, catching Barbara's sad and
reproachful glance, did not dare go near her, but Dane made straight for
her side when he entered the room--and bowed with great gallantry. To the
boy he paid no attention whatever, and the latter, fired with
indignation and hate, turned hastily away. But in a corner unseen he
could not withhold watching the two closely, and he felt vaguely that he
was watching a frightened bird and a snake. The little girl's
self-composure seemed quite to vanish, her face flushed, her eyes were
downcast, and her whole attitude had a mature embarrassment that was far
beyond her years. The lad wondered and was deeply disturbed. The half
overlooking and wholly contemptuous glance that Grey had shot over his
head had stung him like a knife-cut, so like an actual knife indeed that
without knowing it his right hand was then fumbling at his belt. Dave
too was noticing and so was Barbara's mother and her father, who knew
very well that this smooth, suave, bold, young daredevil was
deliberately leading Hugh into all the mischief he could find. Nor did
he leave the girl's side until she was taken home. Erskine, too, left
then and went back to the tavern and up to his room. Then with his knife
in his belt he went down again and waited on the porch. Already guests
were coming back from the party and it was not long before he saw Hugh
and Dane Grey half-stumbling up the steps. Erskine rose. Grey confronted
the lad dully for a moment and then straightened.
"Here's anuzzer one wants to fight," he said thickly. "My young friend,
I will oblige you anywhere with anything, at any time--except to-night.
You must regard zhat as great honor, for I am not accustomed to fight
with savages."
And he waved the boy away with such an insolent gesture that the lad,
knowing no other desire with an enemy than to kill in any way possible,
snatched his knife from his belt. He heard a cry of surprise and horror
from Hugh and a huge hand caught his upraised wrist.
"Put it back!" said Dave sternly.
The dazed boy obeyed and Dave led him up-stairs.