I HEAR AN OLD SONG.
When we sailed at daybreak next morning I had the glow of satisfaction
with my own doings which is a safe precursor of misfortunes. I had
settled my business with the Free Companions, and need look for no more
trouble on that score. But what tickled my vanity was my talk with
Ringan and Lawrence at the Monacan lodge and the momentous trust they
had laid on me. With a young man's vanity, I saw myself the saviour of
Virginia, and hailed as such by the proud folk who now scorned me. My
only merits, as I was to learn in time, are a certain grasp of simple
truths that elude cleverer men, and a desperate obstinacy which is
reluctant to admit defeat. But it is the fashion of youth to glory in
what it lacks, and I flattered myself that I had a natural gift for
finesse and subtlety, and was a born deviser of wars. Again and again I
told myself how I and Lawrence's Virginians--grown under my hand to a
potent army--should roll back the invaders to the hills and beyond,
while the Sioux of the Carolinas guarded one flank and the streams of
the Potomac the other. In those days the star of the great Marlborough
had not risen; but John Churchill, the victor of Blenheim, did not
esteem himself a wiser strategist than the raw lad Andrew Garvald, now
sailing north in the long wash of the Atlantic seas.
The weather grew spiteful, and we were much buffeted about by the
contrary spring winds, so that it was late in the afternoon of the
third day that we turned Cape Henry and came into the Bay of
Chesapeake. Here a perfect hurricane fell upon us, and we sought refuge
in a creek on the shore of Norfolk county. The place was marshy, and it
was hard to find dry land for our night's lodging. Our provisions had
run low, and there seemed little enough for two hungry men who had all
day been striving with salt winds. So, knowing that this was a
neighbourhood studded with great manors, and remembering the
hospitality I had so often found, I left Shalah by the fire with such
food as remained, and set out with our lantern through the woods to
look for a human habitation.
I found one quicker than I had hoped. Almost at once I came on a track
which led me into a carriage-road and out of the thickets to a big
clearing. The daylight had not yet wholly gone, and it guided me to two
gate-posts, from which an avenue of chestnut trees led up to a great
house. There were lights glimmering in the windows, and when I reached
the yard and saw the size of the barns and outbuildings, I wished I had
happened on a place of less pretensions. But hunger made me bold, and I
tramped over the mown grass of the yard, which in the dusk I could see
to be set with flower-beds, till I stood before the door of as fine a
mansion as I had found in the dominion. From within came a sound of
speech and laughter, and I was in half a mind to turn back to my cold
quarters by the shore. I had no sooner struck the knocker than I wanted
to run away.
The door was opened instantly by a tall negro in a scarlet livery. He
asked no questions, but motioned me to enter as if I had been an
invited guest. I followed him, wondering dolefully what sort of figure
I must cut in my plain clothes soaked and stained by travel; for it was
clear that I had lighted on the mansion of some rich planter, who was
even now entertaining his friends. The servant led me through an outer
hall into a great room full of people. A few candles in tall
candlesticks burned down the length of a table, round which sat a score
of gentlemen. The scarlet negro went to the tablehead, and said
something to the master, who rose and came to meet me.
"I am storm-stayed," I said humbly, "and I left my boat on the shore
and came inland to look for a supper."
"You shall get it," he said heartily. "Sit down, and my servants will
bring you what you need."
"But I am not fit to intrude, sir. A weary traveller is no guest for
such a table."
"Tush, man," he cried, "when did a Virginian think the worse of a man
for his clothes? Sit down and say no more. You are heartily welcome."
He pushed me into a vacant chair at the bottom of the table, and gave
some orders to the negro. Now I knew where I was, for I had seen before
the noble figure of my host. This was Colonel Beverley, who in his
youth had ridden with Prince Rupert, and had come to Virginia long ago
in the Commonwealth time. He sat on the Council, and was the most
respected of all the magnates of the dominion, for he had restrained
the folly of successive Governors, and had ever teen ready to stand
forth alike on behalf of the liberties of the settlers and their duties
to the Crown. His name was highly esteemed at Whitehall, and more than
once he had occupied the Governor's place when His Majesty was slow in
filling it. His riches were large, but he was above all things a great
gentleman, who had grafted on an old proud stock the tolerance and
vigour of a new land.
The company had finished dining, for the table was covered with fruits
and comfits, and wine in silver goblets. There was sack and madeira,
and French claret, and white Rhenish, and ale and cider for those with
homelier palates. I saw dimly around me the faces of the guests, for
the few candles scarcely illumined the dusk of the great panelled hall
hung with dark portraits. One man gave me good-evening, but as I sat at
the extreme end of the table I was out of the circle of the company.
They talked and laughed, and it seemed to me that I could hear women's
voices at the other end. Meantime I was busy with my viands, and no man
ever punished a venison pie more heartily. As I ate and drank, I smiled
at the strangeness of my fortunes--to come thus straight from the wild
seas and the company of outlaws into a place of silver and damask and
satin coats and lace cravats and orderly wigs. The soft hum of
gentlefolks' speech was all around me, those smooth Virginian voices
compared with which my Scots tongue was as strident as a raven's. But
as I listened, I remembered Ringan and Lawrence, and, "Ah, my silken
friends," thought I, "little you know the judgment that is preparing.
Some day soon, unless God is kind, there will be blood on the lace and
the war-whoop in these pleasant chambers."
Then a voice said louder than the rest, "Dulcinea will sing to us. She
promised this morning in the garden."
At this there was a ripple of "Bravas," and presently I heard the
tuning of a lute. The low twanging went on for a little, and suddenly I
was seized with a presentiment. I set down my tankard, and waited with
my heart in my mouth.
Very clear and pure the voice rose, as fresh as the morning song of
birds. There was youth in it and joy and pride--joy of the fairness of
the earth, pride of beauty and race and strength, "_My dear and only
love_" it sang, as it had sung before; but then it had been a girl's
hope, and now it was a woman's certainty. At the first note, the past
came back to me like yesterday. I saw the moorland gables in the rain,
I heard the swirl of the tempest, I saw the elfin face in the hood
which had cheered the traveller on his way. In that dim light I could
not see the singer, but I needed no vision. The strangeness of the
thing clutched at my heart, for here was the voice which had never been
out of my ears singing again in a land far from the wet heather and the
driving mists of home.
As I sat dazed and dreaming, I knew that a great thing had befallen me.
For me, Andrew Garvald, the prosaic trader, coming out of the darkness
into this strange company, the foundations of the world had been upset.
All my cares and hopes, my gains and losses, seemed in that moment no
better than dust. Love had come to me like a hurricane. From now I had
but the one ambition, to hear that voice say to me and to mean it
truly, "My dear and only love." I knew it was folly and a madman's
dream, for I felt most deeply my common clay. What had I to offer for
the heart of that proud lady? A dingy and battered merchant might as
well enter a court of steel-clad heroes and contend for the love of a
queen. But I was not downcast. I do not think I even wanted to hope. It
was enough to know that so bright a thing was in the world, for at one
stroke my drab horizon seemed to have broadened into the infinite
heavens.
The song ended in another chorus of "Bravas." "Bring twenty candles,
Pompey," my host called out, "and the great punch-bowl. We will pledge
my lady in the old Beverley brew."
Servants set on the table a massive silver dish, into which sundry
bottles of wine and spirits were poured. A mass of cut fruit and sugar
was added, and the whole was set alight, and leaped almost to the
ceiling in a blue flame. Colonel Beverley, with a long ladle, filled
the array of glasses on a salver, which the servants carried round to
the guests. Large branching candelabra had meantime been placed on the
table, and in a glow of light we stood to our feet and honoured the
toast.
As I stood up and looked to the table's end, I saw the dark, restless
eyes and the heavy blue jowl of Governor Nicholson. He saw me, for I
was alone at the bottom end, and when we were seated, he cried out to
me,--
"What news of trade, Mr. Garvald? You're an active packman, for they
tell me you're never off the road."
At the mention of my name every eye turned towards me, and I felt,
rather than saw, the disfavour of the looks. No doubt they resented a
storekeeper's intrusion into well-bred company, and some were there who
had publicly cursed me for a meddlesome upstart. But I was not looking
their way, but at the girl who sat on my host's right hand, and in
whose dark eyes I thought I saw a spark of recognition.
She was clad in white satin, and in her hair and bosom spring flowers
had been set. Her little hand played with the slim glass, and her eyes
had all the happy freedom of childhood. But now she was a grown woman,
with a woman's pride and knowledge of power. Her exquisite slimness
and grace, amid the glow of silks and silver, gave her the air of a
fairy-tale princess. There was a grave man in black sat next her, to
whom she bent to speak. Then she looked towards me again, and smiled
with that witching mockery which had pricked my temper in the Canongate
Tolbooth.
The Governor's voice recalled me from my dream.
"How goes the Indian menace, Mr. Garvald?" he cried. "You must know,"
and he turned to the company, "that our friend combines commerce with
high policy, and shares my apprehensions as to the safety of the
dominion."
I could not tell whether he was mocking at me or not. I think he was,
for Francis Nicholson's moods were as mutable as the tides. In every
word of his there lurked some sour irony.
The company took the speech for satire, and many laughed. One young
gentleman, who wore a purple coat and a splendid brocaded vest, laughed
very loud.
"A merchant's nerves are delicate things," he said, as he fingered his
cravat. "I would have said 'like a woman's,' had I not seen this very
day Miss Elspeth's horsemanship." And he bowed to her very neatly.
Now I was never fond of being quizzed, and in that company I could not
endure it.
"We have a saying, sir," I said, "that the farmyard fowl does not fear
the eagle. The men who look grave just now are not those who live
snugly in coast manors, but the outland folk who have to keep their
doors with their own hands."
It was a rude speech, and my hard voice and common clothes made it
ruder. The gentleman fired in a second, and with blazing eyes asked me
if I intended an insult. I was about to say that he could take what
meaning he pleased, when an older man broke in with, "Tush, Charles,
let the fellow alone. You cannot quarrel with a shopman."
"I thank you, George, for a timely reminder," said my gentleman, and he
turned away his head with a motion of sovereign contempt.
"Come, come, sirs," Colonel Beverley cried, "remember the sacred law of
hospitality. You are all my guests, and you have a lady here, whose
bright eyes should be a balm for controversies."
The Governor had sat with his lips closed and his eyes roving the
table. He dearly loved a quarrel, and was minded to use me to bait
those whom he liked little.
"What is all this talk about gentility?" he said. "A man is as good as
his brains and his right arm, and no better. I am of the creed of the
Levellers, who would have a man stand stark before his Maker."
He could not have spoken words better calculated to set the company
against me. My host looked glum and disapproving, and all the silken
gentlemen murmured. The Virginian cavalier had as pretty a notion of
the worth of descent as any Highland land-louper. Indeed, to be honest,
I would have controverted the Governor myself, for I have ever held
that good blood is a mighty advantage to its possessor.
Suddenly the grave man who sat by Miss Elspeth's side spoke up. By this
time I had remembered that he was Doctor James Blair, the lately come
commissary of the diocese of London, who represented all that Virginia
had in the way of a bishop. He had a shrewd, kind face, like a Scots
dominie, and a mouth that shut as tight as the Governor's.
"Your tongue proclaims you my countryman, sir," he said. "Did I hear
right that your name was Garvald?"
"Of Auchencairn?" he asked, when I had assented.
"Of Auchencairn, or what is left of it," I said.
"Then, gentlemen," he said, addressing the company, "I can settle the
dispute on the facts, without questioning his Excellency's dogma. Mr.
Garvald is of as good blood as any in Scotland. And that," said he
firmly, "means that in the matter of birth he can hold up his head in
any company in any Christian land."
I do not think this speech made any man there look on me with greater
favour, but it enormously increased my own comfort. I have never felt
such a glow of gratitude as then filled my heart to the staid cleric.
That he was of near kin to Miss Elspeth made it tenfold sweeter. I
forgot my old clothes and my uncouth looks; I forgot, too, my
irritation with the brocaded gentleman. If her kin thought me worthy, I
cared not a bodle for the rest of mankind.
Presently we rose from table, and Colonel Beverley summoned us to the
Green Parlour, where Miss Elspeth was brewing a dish of chocolate, then
a newfangled luxury in the dominion. I would fain have made my escape,
for if my appearance was unfit for a dining-hall, it was an outrage in
a lady's withdrawing-room. But Doctor Blair came forward to me and
shook me warmly by the hand, and was full of gossip about Clydesdale,
from which apparently he had been absent these twenty years. "My niece
bade me bring you to her," he said. "She, poor child, is a happy exile,
but she has now and then an exile's longings. A Scots tongue is
pleasant in her ear."
So I perforce had to follow him into a fine room with an oaken floor,
whereon lay rich Smyrna rugs and the skins of wild beasts from the
wood. There was a prodigious number of soft couches of flowered damask,
and little tables inlaid with foreign woods and jeweller's work. 'Twas
well enough for your fine gentleman in his buckled shoes and silk
stockings to enter such a place, but for myself, in my coarse boots, I
seemed like a colt in a flower garden. The girl sat by a brazier of
charcoal, with the scarlet-coated negro at hand doing her commands. She
was so busy at the chocolate making that when her uncle said, "Elspeth,
I have brought you Mr. Garvald," she had no hand to give me. She looked
up and smiled, and went on with the business, while I stood awkwardly
by, the scorn of the assured gentlemen around me.
By and by she spoke: "You and I seem fated to meet in odd places. First
it was at Carnwath in the rain, and then at the Cauldstaneslap in a
motley company. Then I think it was in the Tolbooth, Mr. Garvald, when
you were very gruff to your deliverer. And now we are both exiles, and
once more you step in like a bogle out of the night. Will you taste my
chocolate?"
She served me first, and I could see how little the favour was to the
liking of her little retinue of courtiers. My silken gentleman, whose
name was Grey, broke in on us abruptly.
"What is this story, sir, of Indian dangers? You are new to the
country, or you would know that it is the old cry of the landless and
the lawless. Every out-at-elbows republican makes it a stick to beat
His Majesty."
"Are you a republican, Mr. Garvald?" she asked. "Now that I remember, I
have seen you in Whiggamore company."
"Why, no," I said. "I do not meddle with politics. I am a merchant, and
am well content with any Government that will protect my trade and my
person."
A sudden perversity had taken me to show myself at my most prosaic and
unromantic. I think it was the contrast with the glamour of those fine
gentlemen. I had neither claim nor desire to be of their company, and
to her I could make no pretence.
He laughed scornfully. "Yours is a noble cause," he said. "But you may
sleep peacefully in your bed, sir. Be assured that there are a thousand
gentlemen of Virginia whose swords will leap from their scabbards at a
breath of peril, on behalf of their women and their homes. And these,"
he added, taking snuff from a gold box, "are perhaps as potent spurs to
action as the whims of a busybody or the gains of a house-keeping
trader."
I was determined not to be provoked, so I answered nothing. But Miss
Elspeth opened her eyes and smiled sweetly upon the speaker.
"La, Mr. Grey, I protest you are too severe. Busybody--well, it may be.
I have found Mr. Garvald very busy in other folks' affairs. But I do
assure you he is no house-keeper, I have seen him in desperate conflict
with savage men, and even with His Majesty's redcoats. If trouble ever
comes to Virginia, you will find him, I doubt not, a very bold
moss-trooper."
It was the, light, laughing tone I remembered well, but now it did not
vex me. Nothing that she could say or do could break the spell that
had fallen on my heart, "I pray it may be so," said Mr. Grey as he
turned aside.
By this time the Governor had come forward, and I saw that my presence
was no longer desired. I wanted to get back to Shalah and solitude. The
cold bed on the shore would be warmed for me by happy dreams. So I
found my host, and thanked him for my entertainment. He gave me
good-evening hastily, as if he were glad to be rid of me.
At the hall door some one tapped me on the shoulder, and I turned to
find my silken cavalier.
"It seems you are a gentleman, sir," he said, "so I desire a word with
you. Your manners at table deserved a whipping, but I will condescend
to forget them. But a second offence shall be duly punished." He spoke
in a high, lisping voice, which was the latest London importation.
I looked him square in the eyes. He was maybe an inch taller than me, a
handsome fellow, with a flushed, petulant face and an overweening pride
in his arched brows.
"By all means let us understand each other," I said. "I have no wish to
quarrel with you. Go your way and I will go mine, and there need be no
trouble."
"That is precisely the point," said he. "I do not choose that your way
should take you again to the side of Miss Elspeth Blair. If it does, we
shall quarrel."
It was the height of flattery. At last I had found a fine gentleman who
did me the honour to regard me with jealous eyes. I laughed loudly with
delight.
He turned and strolled back to the company. Still laughing, I passed
from the house, lit my lantern, and plunged into the sombre woods.