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.
XVIII
I have seen the same effect when a stone was thrown into a boil of river-rapids; an enhancement and marvellous entanglement of swiftness and fury, and spread of broken circles, which confused the sight at the time and the memory afterwards.
It was but a small body of horse and foot, which charged us whilst we were cutting the tobacco on the plantation of Laurel Creek, but it needed not a large one to put to rout a company so overbalanced by enthusiasm, and cider, and that marvellous greed of destruction. No more than seven gentlemen of us there were to make a stand, and not more than some twenty-five of the rabble to be depended upon.
As for me, the principal thought in my mind when the militia burst upon us, was the safety of Mary Cavendish. Straight to the door of the great house I rushed, and Sir Humphrey Hyde was with me. As for the other gentlemen, they were fighting here and there as they could, Captain Jaynes making efforts to keep the main body of the defenders at his back, but with little avail. I stood against the door of the house, resolved upon but one course–that my dead body should be the threshold over which they crossed to Mary Cavendish. It was but a pitiful resolve, for what could I do single-handed, except for the boy Humphrey Hyde, against so many. But it was all, and a man can but give his all. I knew if the militia were to find Mary and Catherine Cavendish in that house, grave harm might come to them, if indeed it came not already without that. So I stood back against the door which I had previously tried, and found fast, and Sir Humphrey was with me. Then came a hush for a moment whilst the magistrate with Captain Waller, and others sitting on their horses around him, read the Riot Act, and bade us all disperse and repair to our homes, and verily I wonder, if ever there hath been in all the history of England such a farce and mummery as that same Riot Act, and if ever it were read with much effect when a riot were well under way.
Scarcely time they gave the worthy man to finish, and indeed his voice trembled as if he had the ague, and he seemed shrinking for shelter under his big wig, but they drowned out his last words with hisses, then there was a wild rush of the rabble and a cry of “Down with the tobacco!” and “A Bacon, A Bacon!” Then the militia charged, and there were the flashes of swords and partisans and the thunder of firearms.
I stood there, feeling like a deserter from the ranks, yet bound to keep the door of Laurel Creek, and I had a pistol in either hand and so had Sir Humphrey Hyde, but for a minute nobody seemed to heed us. Then as I stood there, I felt the door behind me yield a bit and a hand was thrust out, and a voice whispered, “Harry, Harry, come in hither; we can hold the house against an army.”
My heart leapt, for it was Mary, and, quicker than a flash, I had my mind made up. I turned upon Sir Humphrey and thrust him in before he knew it, through the opening of the door, and called out to him to bar and bolt as best he could inside, while I held the door. He, whether he would or not, was in the house, and seeing some of the soldiers riding our way with Captain Waller at their head, was forced to clap to the door, and shoot the bolts, but as he did so I heard a woman’s shrill cry of agony ring out.
I stood there, and Captain Waller rode up with his soldiers, and flashing his sword before my face like a streak of fire, bade me surrender in the name of his Majesty, and stand aside. But I stood still with my two pistols levelled, and had him full within range. Captain Waller was a young man, and a brave one, and never to my dying day shall I forget that face which I had the power to still with death. He looked into the muzzles of my two pistols, and his rosy colour never wavered, and he shouted out again to me his command to surrender and stand aside in the name of the King, and I stood still and made no reply. I knew that I could take two lives and then struggle unarmed for perhaps a moment’s space, and that all the time saved might be precious for those in the house. At all events, it was all that I could do for Mary Cavendish.
I held my pistols and watched his eyes, knowing well that all action through having its source in the brain of man, gives first evidence in the eyes. Then the time came when I saw his impulse to charge start in his eyes, and I fired, and he fell. Then I fired again, but wildly, for everything was in motion, and I know not whom I hit, if any one, then I felt my own right leg sink under me and I knew that I was hit. Then down on my knees I sank and put one arm through the great latch of the door, and thrust out with my knife with the free hand, and stout arms were at my shoulders striving to drag me away, but they might as well for a time have tried to drag a bar of steel from its fastenings. I thrust out here and there, and I trow my steel drew blood, and I suppose my own flowed, for presently I was kneeling in a widening circle of red. I cut those forcing hands from my arm, and others came. It was one against a multitude, for the rabble after hitting wild blows as often at their friends as at their enemies had broken and fled, except those who were taken prisoners. But the women stayed until the last and fought like wild cats, with the exception of Madam Tabitha Story, who quietly got upon her old horse, and ambled away, and cut down her own tobacco until daybreak, pressing her slaves into service.
As for the other gentlemen, they were fighting as best they could, and all the time striving vainly to gather the mob into a firm body of resistance. None of them saw the plight I was in, nor indeed could have helped me had they done so, since there were but seven gentlemen of us in all, and some by this time wounded, and one dead.
I knelt there upon the ground before the door, slashing out as best I could with one hand, and they closed faster and thicker upon me, and at last I could no more. I felt a stinging pain in my right shoulder, and then for a minute my senses left me. But it was only for a moment.
When I came to myself I was lying bound with a soldier standing guard over me, though there was small need of it, and they were raining battering blows upon the door of Laurel Creek. Somehow they had conceived the idea that there was something of great import therein, by my mad and desperate defence. I know not what they thought, but gradually all the militia were centred at that point striving to force the door. As for the shutters, they were heavily barred, and offered no easier entrance. Indeed the whole house had been strengthened for defence against the Indians before the Bacon uprising, and was near as strong as a fort. It would have been well had we all entered and defended it, though we could not have held out for long, through not being provisioned.
At last Captain Jaynes and the other gentlemen begun to conceive the situation and I caught sight of them forcing their way toward me, and shouted to them with a failing voice, for I had lost much blood, to come nearer and assist me to hold the door. Then I saw Captain Jaynes sink in his saddle, and I caught a glimpse of a mighty retreat of plunging haunches of Parson Downs’ horse, and indeed the gist of the blame for it all was afterward put upon the parson’s great fiery horse, which it was claimed had run away with him first into the fight, then away from it, such foolish reasons do men love to give for the lapses of the clergy.
As for me, I believe in coming out with the truth about the clergy and laymen, and King and peasant, alike, whether it be Cain or King David, or Parson Downs or his Majesty King Charles the Second.
However, to do the parson justice, he did not fly until he saw the day was lost, and I trow did afterward better service to me than he might have done by staying. As for the burgesses, I know not whither nor when they had gone, for they had melted away like shadows, by reason of the great obloquy which would have attached to them, should men in their high office have been discovered in such work. Ralph Drake was left, who made a push toward me with a hoarse shout, and then he fell, though not severely wounded, and then the soldiers pressed closer. And then I felt again the door yield at my back, and before I knew it I was dragged inside, and, in spite of the pressure of the mob, the door was pushed to with incredible swiftness by Humphrey Hyde’s great strength, and the bolt shot.
There I lay on the floor of the hall well-nigh spent, and Mary Cavendish was chafing my hands, bandaging my wounds with some linen got, I knew not whence, and Catherine was there, and all the time the great battering blows upon the door were kept up, and also on the window-shutters, and the door began to shake.
Then I remembered something. There was behind the house a creek which was dry in midsummer, but often, as now, in springtime, swollen with rains, and of sufficient depth and force to float a boat. And when it was possible it had been the custom to send stores of tobacco for lading on shipboard to England, by this short cut of the creek which discharged itself into the river below, and there was for that purpose a great boat in the cellar, and also a door and a little landing.
I, remembering this, whispered to Mary Cavendish with all the strength which he could muster.
“For God’s sake,” I cried, “go you to the cellar, the boat, the boat, the creek.”
But Mary looked at me, and I can see her face now.
“Think you I did not know of that way?” she said, “and think you I would leave you here to die? No, let them come in and do their worst.”
Then I turned to Catherine and pleaded with her as well as I could with those thundering blows upon the door, and I well-nigh fainting and my blood flowing fast, and she did not answer at all but looked at me.
Then I turned to Sir Humphrey Hyde. “For God’s sake, lad,” I cried, “if you love her, save her. Only a moment and they will be in here. Hear the door tremble, and then ’twill be arrest and imprisonment, and–I tell thee, lad, leave me, and save them.”
“They can do as they choose,” cried Mary. Then she turned to Sir Humphrey. “Take Catherine, and she will show you the way out by the creek,” she said. “As for me, I remain here.”
Catherine bent over me and tightened a bandage, but she did not speak. Sir Humphrey looked at me palely and doubtfully.
“Harry,” he said, “I can carry thee to the boat and we can all escape in that way.”
“Yes,” I replied, “but if I escape through them, ’twill serve to convict them, and–and–besides, lad, I cannot be moved for the bleeding of my wounds, such a long way; and besides, it is at the best arrest for me, since I have been seen by the whole posse and have shot down Captain Waller. Whither could I fly, pray? Not back to England. Me they will take in custody in any case, and they will not shoot a wounded captive. My life is safe for the time being. Humphrey–” With that I beckoned him to lean over me, which he did, putting his ear close.
“Seize Mary by force and bear her away, lad,” I whispered, “down cellar to the boat. Catherine will show thee the way.”
“I cannot, Harry,” he whispered back, and as I live the tears were in the boy’s eyes. “I cannot leave thee, Harry.”
“You must; there is no other way, if you would save her,” I whispered back. “And what good can you do by staying? The four of us will be taken, for you can do nothing for me single-handed. Captain Jaynes is killed–I saw him fall–and the parson has fled, and–and–I know not where be the others. For God’s sake, lad, save her!”
Then Sir Humphrey with such a look at me as I never forgot, but have always loved him for, with no more ado, turned upon Mary Cavendish, and caught her, pinioning both arms, and lifted her as if she had been an infant, and Catherine would have gone to her rescue, but I caught at her hand, which was still at work on my bandage.
“Go you with them and show the way to the boat,” I whispered. She set her mouth hard and looked at me. “I will not leave thee,” she said.
“If you go not, then they will be lost,” I cried out in desperation. For Mary was shrieking that she would not go, and I knew that Humphrey did not know the way, and could not find it and launch the boat in time with that struggling maid to encumber him, for already the door trembled as if to fall.
“I tell you they will not harm a wounded man,” I cried. “If you leave me I am in no more worse case than now, and if you remain, think of your sister. You know what she hath done to abet the rebellion. ‘Twill all come out if she be found here. Oh, Catherine, if you love her, I pray thee, go.”
Then Catherine Cavendish did something which I did not understand at the time, and perhaps never understood rightly. Close over me she bent, and her soft hair fell over my face and hers, hiding them, and she kissed me on my forehead, and she said low, but quite clearly, “Whatever thou hast done in the past, my scorn henceforth shall be for the deed, not for thee, for thou art a man.”
Then to her feet she sprang and caught hold of Mary’s struggling right arm, though it might as well have struggled in a vise as in Sir Humphrey Hyde’s reluctant, but mighty grasp.
“Mary,” she said, “listen to me. ‘Tis the best way to save him, to leave him.”
Then Mary rolled her piteous blue eyes at her over Sir Humphrey’s shoulder from her gold tangle of hair.
“What mean you?” she cried. “I tell you, Catherine, I will never leave him!”
“If we remain, we shall all be in custody,” replied Catherine in her clear voice, though her face was white as if she were dead, “and our estates may be forfeited, and we have no power to help him. And he must be taken in the end in any case. And if we be free, we can save him.”
“I will not go without him,” cried Mary. “Set me down, Humphrey, and take up Harry, and I will help thee carry him. Do as I tell thee, Humphrey.”
“Harry will be taken in any case,” replied Catherine, “and if you take him, you will be arrested with him, and then we can do nothing for him. I tell thee, sweet, the only way to save him is to leave him.”
Then Mary gave one look at me.
“Harry, is this the truth they tell me?” she cried.
“As God is my witness, dear child,” I replied. Then she twisted her white face around toward Sir Humphrey’s, who stood pinioning her arms with a look himself as if he were dying.
“Let me loose, Humphrey,” she said, “let me loose, then I swear I will go with you and Catherine.”
Then Sir Humphrey loosed her, and straight to me she came and bent over me and kissed me. “Harry,” she said in a whisper which was of that strange quality that it seemed to be unable to be heard by any in the whole world save us two, though it was clear enough–“I leave thee because thou tellest me that this is the only way to save thee, but I am thine for life and for death, and nothing shall ever come forever between thee and me, not even thine own self, nor the grave, nor all the wideness of life.”
Then she rose and turned to Sir Humphrey and Catherine.
“I am ready,” said she, and Sir Humphrey gave my hand one last wring, and said that he would stand by me. Then they fled and, as I lay there alone, I heard their footsteps on the cellar stairs, and presently the dip of the boat as she was launched, and heard it above all the din outside, so keen were my ears for aught that concerned her.
Then that sound and all others grew dim, for I was near swooning, and when the door fell with a mighty crash near me, it might have been the fall of a rose leaf on velvet, and I had small heed of the fierce faces which bent over me, yet the hands extended toward my wounds were tender enough. And I saw as in a dream, Capt. Robert Waller, with his arm tied up, and wondered dimly if we were both dead, for I verily believed that I had killed him, and I heard him say, and his voice sounded as if a sea rolled between us, “‘Tis the convict tutor, Wingfield, who held the door, and unless I be much mistaken, he hath his death-wound. Make a litter and lift him gently, and five of you search the house for whatever other rebels be hid herein.”
And as I live, in the midst of my faintness, which made all sounds far away as from beyond the boundary of the flesh, and beyond the din of battle, which was still going on, though feebly, like a fire burning to its close, I heard the dip of oars on the creek, and knew that Mary Cavendish was safe.
A litter they fashioned from a lid of a chest while the search was going on, and I was lifted upon it with due regard to my wounds, which I thought a generous thing of Captain Waller, inasmuch as his own face was frowning with the pain of the wound which I had given him, but he was a brave man, and a brave man is ever a generous foe.
But when I was on the litter, breathing hard, yet with some consciousness, he bent close over me, and whispered “Sir, your wounds are bound up with strips torn from a woman’s linen. I have a wife, and I know. Who was in hiding here, sir?”
My eyes flew wide open at that.
“No one,” I gasped out. “No one as I live.”
But he laughed, and bending still lower, whispered, “Have no fear as to that, Master Wingfield. Convict or not, you are a brave man, and that which you perchance gave your life to hide, shall be hidden for all Robert Waller.”
So saying he gave the order to carry me forth with as little jolting as might be, and stationed himself at my side lest I come to harm from some over-zealous soldier. But in truth the militia and the officers in those days were apparently of somewhat uncertain quantity as regarded their allegiance to the King or the Colony.
The sympathy of many of them was with the colonists who made a stand against tyranny, and they were half-hearted, if whole-handed, for the King.
Just before they bore me across the threshold of Laurel Creek, those troopers who had been sent to search the house, clattered down the stair and swore that not so much as a mouse was in hiding there, then we all went forth.
Captain Waller, though walking somewhat weakly himself, kept close to my side. And he did not mount horse until we were out in the highway.
The grounds of Laurel Creek and the tobacco fields were a most lamentable sight, though I seemed to see everything as through a mist. Here and there one lay sprawled with limbs curled like a dead spider, or else flung out at a stiff length of agony. And Capt. Noel Jaynes lay dead with a better look on his gaunt old face in death than in life. In truth Capt. Noel Jaynes might almost have been taken for a good man as he lay there dead. And the outlaw who lived next door to Margery Key was doubled up where he fell in a sulky heap of death, and by his side wept his shrewish wife, shrilly lamenting as if she were scolding rather than grieving, and I trow in the midst of it all, the thought passed through my mind that it was well for that man that he was past hearing, for it seemed as if she took him to task for having died.
Of Dick Barry was no sign to be seen, but Nick lay not dead, but dead drunk, and over him was crouched one of those black women with a knife in her hand, and no one molested her, thinking him dead, but dead he was not, only drunk, and she was wounded herself, with the blood trickling from her head, unable to carry him from the field as she had brought him.
They carried me past them, and the black woman’s eyes rolled up at us like a wild beast’s in a jungle defending her mate, and I remember thinking, though dimly, as a man will do when he has lost much blood, that love was love, and perhaps showed forth the brighter and whiter, the viler and blacker the heart which held it, and then I knew no more for a space.
XIX
When I came to a consciousness of myself again, the first thing of which I laid hold with my mind as a means whereby to pull my recollections back to my former cognisance of matters was a broad shaft of sunlight streaming in through the west window of the prison in Jamestown. And all this sunbeam was horribly barred like the body of a wasp by the iron grating of the window, and had a fierce sting of heat in it, for it was warm though only May, and I was in a high fever by reason of my wounds. And another thing which served to hale me back to acquaintance with my fixed estate of life was a great swarm of flies which had entered at that same window, and were grievously tormenting me, and I was too weak to disperse them. All my wounds were dressed and bandaged and I was laid comfortably enough upon a pallet, but I was all alone except for the flies which settled upon me blackly with such an insistence of buzzing that that minor grievance seemed verily the greatest in the world, and for the time all else was forgot.
For some little time I did not think of Mary Cavendish, so hedged about was I as to my freedom of thought and love by my physical ills, for verily after a man has been out of consciousness with a wound, it is his body which first struggles back to existence, and his heart and soul have to follow as they may.
So I lay there knowing naught except the weary pain of my wounds, and that sense of stiffness which forbade me to move, and the fretful heat of that fierce west sunbeam, and the buzzing swarm of flies, for some little time before the memory of it all came to me.
Then indeed, though with great pain, I raised myself upon my elbow, and peered about my cell, and called aloud for some one to come, thinking some one must be within hearing, for the sounds of life were all about me: the tramp of horses on the road outside, the even fall of a workman’s hammer, the sweet husky carol of a slave’s song, and the laughter of children at play.
So I shouted and waited and shouted again, and no one came. There was in my cell not much beside my pallet, except a little stand which looked like one from Drake Hill, and on the stand was a china dish like one which I had often seen at Drake Hill, with some mess therein, what, I knew not, and a bottle of wine and some medicine vials and glasses. I was not ironed, and, indeed, there was no need of that, since I could not have moved.
Between the wound in my leg and various sword-cuts, and a general soreness and stiffness as if I had been tumbled over a precipice, I was well-nigh as helpless as a week-old babe.
I called again, but no one came, and presently I quit and lay with the burning eye of the sun in my face and that pestilent buzz of flies in my ears, and my weakness and pain so increasing upon my consciousness, that I heeded them not so much. I shut my eyes and that torrid sunbeam burned red through my lids, and I wondered if they had found out aught concerning Mary Cavendish, and I wondered not so much what they would do with me, since I was so weak and spent with loss of blood that nothing that had to do with me seemed of much moment.
But as I lay there I presently heard the key turn in the lock, and one Joseph Wedge, the jailor, entered, and I saw the flutter of a woman’s draperies behind him, but he shut the door upon her, and then without my ever knowing how he came there, was the surgeon, Martyn Jennings, and he was over me looking to my wounds, and letting a little more blood to decrease my fever, though I had already lost so much, and then, since I was so near swooning, giving me a glass of the Burgundy on the stand. And whilst that was clouding my brain, since my stomach was fasting, and I had lost so much blood, entered that woman whom I had espied, and she was not Mary, but Catherine Cavendish, and there was a gentleman with her who stood aloof, with his back toward me, gazing out of the window, and of that I was glad since he screened that flaming sunbeam from me, and I concerned myself no more about him.
But at Catherine I gazed, and motioned to her to bend over me, and whispered that the jailor might not hear, what had become of Mary. Then I saw the jailor had gone out, though I had not seen him go, and she making a sign to me that the gentleman at the window was not to be minded, went on to tell me what I thirsted to know; that she and Mary and Sir Humphrey had escaped that night with ease, and she and Mary had returned to Drake Hill before midnight, and had not been molested.
If Mary were suspected she knew not, but Sir Humphrey was then under arrest and was confined on board a ship in the harbour with Major Beverly, and his mother was daily sending billets to him to return home, and blaming him, and not his jailors, for his disobedience. She told me, furthermore, that it was Cicely Hyde who had led the militia to our assembly at Laurel Creek that night, and was now in a low fever through remorse, and though she told me not, I afterward knew why that mad maid had done such a thing–’twas because of jealousy of me and Mary Cavendish, and she pulled down more upon her own head thereby than she wot of.
All this Catherine Cavendish told me in a manner which seemed strangely foreign to her, being gentle, and yet not so gentle as subdued, and her fair face was paler than ever, and when I looked at her and said not a word, and yet had a question in my eyes which she was at no loss to interpret, tears welled into her own, and she bent lower and whispered lest even the stranger at the window should hear, that Mary “sent her dear love, but, but–“
I raised myself with such energy at that that she was startled, and the gentleman at the window half turned.
“What have they done with her?” I cried. “If they dare–“
“Hush,” said Catherine. “Our grandmother hath but locked her in her chamber, since she hath discovered her love for thee, and frowns upon it, not since thou art a convict, but since thou hast turned against the King. She says that no granddaughter of hers shall wed a rebel, be he convict or prince. But she is safe, Harry, and there will no harm come to her, and indeed I think that if they in authority have heard aught of what she hath done, they are minded to keep it quiet, and–and–“
Then to my exceeding bewilderment down on her knees beside me went that proud maid and begged my pardon for her scorn of me, saying that she knew me guiltless, and knew for what reason I had taken such obloquy upon myself.
Then the gentleman at the window turned when she appealed to him, and came near, and I saw who he was–my half-brother, John Chelmsford.
XX
It was six years and more since I had seen my half-brother, and I should scarcely have known him, for time had worked great changes in both his face and form. He was much stouter than I remembered him, and wore a ruddy point of beard at his chin, and a great wig, whereas I recalled him as smooth of face, with his own hair.
But he was a handsome man, as I saw even then, lying in so much pain and weakness, and he came and stood over me, and looked at me more kindly than I should have expected, and I could see something of our common mother in his blue eyes. He reached down his hand and shook the one of mine which I could muster strength to raise, and called me brother, and hoped that I found myself better, and gave me very many tender messages of our mother, and of his father likewise, which puzzled me exceedingly, until matters were explained. Colonel Chelmsford had parted with me when I left England with but scant courtesy, and as for my poor mother, I had not seen her at all, she being confined to her chamber with grief over my disgrace, and not one word had I received from them since that time. So when John Chelmsford said that our mother sent her dear love to her son Harry, and that nothing save her delicate health had prevented her from sailing to Virginia in the same ship to see the son from whom she had been so long parted, I gasped, and felt my head reel, and I called up my mother’s face, and verily I felt the tears start in my eyes, but I was very weak.
Then forth from her pocket Catherine drew a ring, and it flashed green with a great emerald, and particoloured with brilliants, before my eyes, and I was well-nigh overcome by the sight of that and everything turned black before me, for it was my Lord Robert Ealing’s great ring of exceeding value, for the theft of which I had been transported.
Straightway Catherine saw that it was too much for me, for she knelt down beside me and called John to give her a flask of sweet waters which stood on the table, and began bathing my forehead, the while my brother looked on with something of a jealous frown.
“‘Twas thoughtless of me, Harry,” she whispered, “but they say joy does not kill, and–and–dost thou know the ring?”
I nodded. It seemed to me that no jewels could ever be mined which I would know as I knew that green star of emerald and those encircling brilliants. That ring I knew to my cost.
“My Lord Ealing is dead,” she said, “and thou knowest that he was a kinsman of the Chelmsfords, and after his funeral came this ring and a letter, and–and–thou art cleared, Harry. And–and–now I know why thou didst what thou did, Harry, ’twas–’twas–to shield me.” With that she burst into a great flood of tears, even throwing herself upon the floor of my cell in all her slim length, and not letting my brother John raise her, though he strove to do so.
“‘Tis here, ’tis here I belong, John,” she cried out wildly, “for you know not, you know not what injustice I have done this innocent man. Never can I make it good with my life.”
It is here that I shall stop the course of my story to explain the whole matter of the ring, which at the time I was too weak and spent with pain to comprehend fully as Catherine Cavendish related it. It was a curious and at the same time a simple tale, as such tales are wont to be, and its very simplicity made it seem then, and seem now, well-nigh incredible. For it is the simple things of this world which are always most unbelievable, perhaps for this reason: that men after Eden and the Serpent, expect some subtlety of reasoning to account for all happenings, and always comes the suspicion that somewhat beside two and two go to make four.
My Lord Robert Ealing who had come to the ball at Cavendish Court that long last year, was a distant kinsman of our family, and unwedded, but a man who went through the world with a silly leer of willingness toward all womenkind. And ’twas this very trait, perhaps, which accounted for his remaining unwedded, although a lord, though the fact that his estates were incumbered may have had somewhat to do with it. Be that as it may, he lived alone, except for a few old servants, and was turned sixty, when, long after my transportation, he wedded his cook, who gave him three daughters and one son, to whom the estate went, but the ring and the letter came to the Chelmsfords. The letter, which I afterwards saw, was a most curious thing, both as to composition and spelling and chirography, for his lordship was no scholar. And since the letter is but short, I may perhaps as well give it entire. After this wise it ran, being addressed to Col. John Chelmsford, who was his cousin, though considerably younger.
“Dear Cousin.–(So wrote my Lord Ealing.) When this reaches you I shall be laid in silent tomb, where, perchance, I shall be more at peace than I have ever ben in a wurld, which either fitted me not, or I did not fit. At all odds there was a sore misfit betwixt us in some way. If it was the blam of the world, good ridance and parden, if it was my blam, let them which made me come to acount for’t. I send herewith my great emruld ringg, with dimends which I suspect hath been the means of sending an inosent man into slavery. I had a mind some years agone to wed with Caterin Cavendish, and she bein a hard made to approche, having ever a stiff turn of the sholder toward me, though I knew not why, I was not willin to resk my sute by word of mouth, nor having never a gift in writin by letter. And so, knowin that mades like well such things, I bethought me of my emruld ring, and on the night of the ball, I being upstair in to lay off my hatt and cloak, stole privily into Catherin’s chamber, she being a-dancin below, and I laid the ring on her dresing table, thinkin that she would see it when she entered, and know it for a love token.
“And then I went myself below, and Caterin, she would have none of me, and made up such a face of ice when I approached, that methought I had maybe wasted my emruld ring. So after a little up the stare I stole, and the ring was not where I had put it. Then thinkin that the ring had been stole, and I had neither that nor the made, I raised a great hue and cry, and demanded that a search be maid, and the ring was found on Master Wingfield, and he was therefor transported, and I had my ring again, and myself knew not the true fact of the case until a year agone. Then feeling that I had not much longer to live, I writ this, thinking that Master Wingfield was in a rich country, and not in sufferin, and a few months more would make not much odds to him. The facs of the case, cousin, I knew from Madam Cavendish’s old servant woman Charlotte who came to my sister when the Cavendishs left for Virginia, having a fear of the sea, and later when my sister died, to my wife, and died but a year agone, and in her deathbed told me what she knew. She told me truly, that she did see Madam Cavendish on the night of the ball go into Caterin’s chamber, and espying my emruld ring on her dressing-table, take it up and look at it with exceeding astonishment, and then lay it down not on the spot whereon I had left it, but on the prayer-book on the little stand beside her bed, and then go down stairs, frowning. Then this same Charlotte, having litle interest in life as to her own affairs, and forced to suck others, if she would keep her wits nourished, being watchful, saw me enter, and miss the ring, and heard the hue and cry which I raised. And then she, still watching, saw Master Harry Wingfield, who with others was searching the house for the lost treasure, stop as he was passing the open door of Caterin’s chamber, because the green light of the emruld fixed his eyes, and rush in and secrete the ring upon his person. This Charlotte saw, and told Madam Cavendish, who bound her over to secresy to save the honour of the family, believing that her own granddaughter Caterin was the thief. This epistle, cousin, is to prove to you that Caterin was no thief, but simply a cold maid, who hath no love for either hearts or gems, but of that I complain not, havin as I believe, wedded wisely, if not to please my famly, and three daughters and a son, hath my Betty given me, and most exceedin fine tarts hath she made, and puddens, and I die content, with this last writ to thee, cousin to clear Caterin Cavendish, and may be of an innosent gentleman likewise.
“No more from thy cousin,
“Ealing.”
One strange feature was there about this letter, which the writer had not foreseen, while it cleared me well enough in the opinion of the family, to strangers it cleared me not at all, for who was to know for what reason I had entered Catherine’s chamber, and took and secreted that ring of his lordship’s? Strict silence had I maintained, and so had Madam Cavendish all these years, and naught in that letter would clear me before any court of law. Catherine being the only one whose innocence was made plain, I could now tell my story with no fear of doing her harm, but let those believe my part of it who would! Still I may say here, that I verily believe that I was at last cleared in the minds of all who knew me well, and for others I cared not. My term expired soon after that date, and though I chose to remain in Virginia and not return to England, yet my property was restored to me, for my half-brother, John Chelmsford, when confronted by any gate of injustice leapt it like an English gentleman, with no ado. And yet after I heard that letter, I knew that I was a convict still, and knew that for some I would be until the end of the chapter, and when I grew a little stronger, that wild hope that now I might have Mary, dimmed within me, for how could I allow her to wed a man with a stain upon his honour? And even had I been pardoned, the fact of the pardon had seemed to prove my guilt.
It was three days after this, my brother and various others striving all the time, but with no effect, to secure my release, that Mary herself came to see me. Catherine, as I afterward discovered, had unlocked her chamber door and set her free while her grandmother slept, and the girl had mounted Merry Roger, and come straight to me, not caring who knew.
I heard the key grate in the lock, and turned my eyes, and there she was: the blessing of my whole life, though I felt that I must not take it. Close to me she came and knelt, and leaned her cheek against mine, and stroked back my wild hair.
“Harry, Harry,” she whispered, and all her dear face was tremulous with love and joy.
“Thou art no convict, Harry,” she said. “Thou didst not steal the ring, but that I knew before, and I know not any better now, and I love thee no better now. And I would have been thine in any case.”
“I am still a convict, sweetheart,” I said, but I fear weakly.
“Harry,” she cried out, “thou wilt not let that stand betwixt us now?”
“How can I let thee wed with a convict, if I love thee?” I said. “And know you not that this letter of my Lord Ealing’s clears me not legally?”
“That I know,” she answered frowning, “because thy brother hath consulted half the lawyers in England ere he came. I know that, my poor Harry, but what is that to us?”
“I cannot let thee wed a convict; a man with his honour stained, dear heart,” I said.
Then she fixed her blue eyes upon mine with such a look as never I saw in mortal woman. She knew at that time what sentence had been fixed upon me for my share in the tobacco riot, but I did not know, and then and there she formed such a purpose, as sure no maid, however great her love for a man, formed before.
“Wait and see what manner of woman she is who loves thee, Harry,” she said.
XXI
I lay in prison until the twenty-ninth day of May, Royal Oak Day. I know not quite how it came to pass, but none of my brother’s efforts toward my release met with any success. I heard afterward some whispers as to the cause, being that so many of high degree were concerned in the riots, and that if I, a poor devil of a convict tutor, were let off too cheaply, why then the rest of them must be let loose only at a rope’s end, and that it would never do to send me back to Drake Hill scot free, while Sir Humphrey Hyde and Major Robert Beverly and my Lord Estes, and others, were in durance, and some high in office in great danger of discovery. At all events, whatever may have been the reason, my release could not be effected, and in prison I lay for all those days, but with more comfort, since either Catherine or Mary–Mary I think it must have been–made a curtain for my window, which kept out that burning eye of the western sun, and also fashioned a gnat veil to overspread my pallet, so the flies could not get at me. I knew there were others in prison, but knew not that three of them were led forth to be hung, which might have been my fate, had I been a free man, nor knew that another was released on condition that he build a bridge over Dragon’s Swamp. This last chance, my friends had striven sorely to get for me, but had not succeeded, though they had offered large sums, my brother being willing to tax the estate heavily. Some covert will there was at work against me, and it may be I could mention it, but I like not mentioning covert wills, but only such as be downright, and exercised openly in the faces of all men. I lay there not so uncomfortably, being aware of a great delight that the tobacco was cut, whether or no, as indeed it was on many plantations, and the King cheated out of great wealth.
This end of proceedings, with no Bacon to lead us, did not surprise nor disappoint me. Then, too, the fact that I was cleared of suspicion of theft in the eyes of her I loved and her family, at least, filled me with an ecstasy which sometimes awoke me from slumber like a pain. And though I was quite resolved not to let that beloved maid fling away herself upon me, unless my innocence was proven world-wide, and to shield her at all costs to myself, yet sometimes the hope that in after years I might be able to wed her and not injure her, started up within me. She came to see me whenever she could steal away, Madam Cavendish being still in that state of hatred against me, for my participation in the riot, though otherwise disposed enough to give her consent to our marriage on the spot. And every day came my brother John and Catherine, and now and then Parson Downs. And the parson used to bring me choice spirits in his pocket, and tobacco, though I could touch only the latter for fear of inflaming my wounds, and he used to sit and read me some of Will Shakespeare’s Plays, which he bore under his cassock, and a prayer-book openly in hand, that being the only touch of hypocrisy which ever I saw about Parson Downs.
“Lord, Harry, thou dost not want prayers,” he would say, “but rather being fallen as thou art, in an evil sink of human happenings, somewhat about them, and none hath so mastered the furthest roots of men’s hearts as Will Shakespeare. ‘Tis him and a pipe thou needst, lad.” So saying, down he would sit himself betwixt me and the fiery western window, and I got to believe more in his Christianity, than ever I had done when I had heard him hold forth from the pulpit.
‘Twas from him I knew the sad penalty which they fixed upon for me, for the 29th of May, that being Royal Oak Day, when they celebrated the Restoration in England, and more or less in the colonies, and on which a great junketing had been arranged, with races, and wrestling, and various sports.
Parson Downs came to me the afternoon of the 28th, and sat gazing at me with a melancholy air, nor offered to read Will Shakespeare, though he filled my pipe and pressed hard upon me a cup of Burgundy.
“‘Twill give thee heart, Harry,” he said, “and surely now thy wounds be so far healed, ’twill not inflame them, and in any case, why should good spirit inflame wounds? Faith, and I believe not in so much bleeding and so little stimulating. I’ll be damned, Harry, if I see what is left to inflame in thee, not a hint of colour in thy long face. Stands it not to reason, that if no blood be left in thee for the wounds to work upon, they must even take thy vitals? But I am no physician. However, smoke hard as thou canst, poor Harry, if thou wilt not drink, for I have something to tell thee, and there is that about our good tobacco of Virginia–now we have rescued it, betwixt you and me, from royal freebooters–which is soothing to the nerves and tending to allay evil anticipations.”
Then, as I lay puffing away something feebly at my pipe, still with enjoyment, he unfolded his evil news to me. It seemed that my brother had commissioned him so to do.
“‘Tis a shame, Harry,” he said, “and I will assure thee that all that could be done hath been, and if now there were less on guard, and a place where thou couldst hide with safety, the fleetest horse in the Colony is outside, if thou wert strong enough to sit him. And so thou escaped, I would care not if never I saw him again, though I paid a pretty penny for him and love him better than ever I loved any woman, since he springs to order and stands without hitching, and with never a word of nagging in my ears to make me pay penance for the service. What a man with a good horse, and good wine, and good tobacco, wanteth a wife for, passeth my understanding, but I know thou art young, and the maid is a fair one. Faith, and she was in such sore affliction this morning because of thee, Harry, as might well console any man. Had she been Bacon’s widow, she had not wedded again, but gone widow to her death. Thou shouldst have seen her, lad, when I ventured to strive to comfort her with the reflection that her suffering in thy behalf was not so grievous as was Bacon’s wife’s for his death, for thou art to have thy life, my poor Harry, and no great hurt, though it may be somewhat wearisome if the sun be hot. But Mistress Mary Cavendish flew out at me in such wise, though she hath known all along to what fate thou wert probably destined, and said such harsh things of poor Madam Bacon, that I was minded to retreat. Keep Mary Cavendish’s love, when she be wedded to thee, Harry, for there is little compromise with her for faults, unless she loveth, and she hath found out that Cicely Hyde betrayed the plans of the plant-cutters, and for her and Madam Bacon her sweet tongue was like a fiery lash, and Catherine was as bad, though silent. Catherine, unless I be greatly mistaken, will wed thy brother John, but unless I be more greatly mistaken, she loveth thee, and now, my poor Harry, wouldst know what they will do to thee to-morrow?”
I nodded my head.
“They will even set thee in the stocks, Harry, at the new field, before all the people at the sports,” said Parson Downs.
XXII
I truly think that if Parson Downs had informed me that I was to be put to the rack or lose my head it would not have so cut me to the heart. Something there was about a gentleman of England being set in the stocks which detracted not only from the dignity of the punishment, but that of the offence. I would not have believed they would have done that to me, and can hardly believe it now. Such a punishment had never entered into my imagination, I being a gentleman born and bred, and my crime being a grave one, whereas the stocks were commonly regarded for the common folk, who had committed petty offences, such as swearing or Sabbath-breaking. I could not for some time realise it, and lay staring at Parson Downs, while he tried to force the Burgundy upon me and stared in alarm at my paleness.
“Why, confound it, Harry,” he cried, “I tell thee, lad, do not look so. Hadst thou killed Rob Waller instead of wounding him, it would have been thy life instead of thy pride thou hadst forfeited.”
“I wish to God I had!” I burst out, yet dully, for still I only half realised it all.
“Nay, Harry,” declared the parson, “thy life is of more moment than thy pride, and as to that, what will it hurt thee to sit in the stocks an hour or so for such a cause? ‘Twill be forgot in a week’s time. I pray thee have some Burgundy, Harry, ’twill put some life into thee.”
“‘Twill never be forgot by me,” said I, and indeed it never has been, and I know not why it seemed then, and seems now, of a finer sting of bitterness than my transportation for theft.
Presently I, growing fully alive to the state of the matters, wrought up myself into such a fever of wrath and remonstrance that it was a wonder that my wounds did not open. I swore that submit to such an indignity I would not, that all the authorities in the Colony should not force me to sit in the stocks, that I would have my life first, and I looked about wildly for my own sword or pistols, and seeing them not, besought the parson for his. He strove in vain to comfort me. I was weakened by my wounds, and there was, I suppose, something of fever still lingering in my veins for all the bleeding, and for a space I was like a madman at the thought of the ignominy to which they would put me. I besought that the lieutenant-governor should be summoned and be petitioned to make my offence a capital one. I strove to rise from my couch, and the vague thought of finding a weapon and committing some crime so grave that the stocks would be out of the question as a punishment for it, was in my fevered brain.
“As well go to a branch of a locust-tree blown by the May wind with honey for all seeking noses, as to Chichely,” said Parson Downs. “And as for the burgesses, they are afraid of their own necks, and some of us there be would rather have thee sit in stocks than lose thy life, for we hold thy life dear, Harry, and some punishment it must be for thee, for thou didst shoot a King’s officer, though with a damned poor aim, Harry.”
Then I said again, with my heart like a drum in my ears, that I wished it had been better, though naught I had against Robert Waller, and as I learned afterward he had striven all he dared for my release, but the militia, being under some suspicion themselves, had to act with caution in those days.
Presently, while the parson was yet with me, my brother John came in, and verily, for the first time, I realised that we were of one blood. Down on his knees beside me he went.
“Oh, my God, Harry,” he cried, “I have done all that I could for thee, and vengeance I will have of some for this, and they shall suffer for it, that I promise thee. To fix such a penalty as this upon one of our blood!”
“John,” I whispered, grasping his hand hard, “I pray thee–“
But he guessed my meaning. “Nay, Harry,” he cried, “better this, for if I went back to our mother and told her that thou wert dead, after her long slight of thee and the long wrong we have all done thee, it would be a sorer fate for her than the stocks for thee.”
But I pleaded with him by the common blood in our veins to save me from this ignominy, and my fever increased, and he knew not how to quiet me. Then in came Catherine Cavendish, and what she said had some weight with me.
“For shame!” she said, standing over me, with her face as white as death, but with resolution in her eyes, “for shame, Harry Wingfield! Full easy it is to be brave on the battlefield, but it takes a hero to quail not when his vanity be assailed. Have not as good men as thou, and better, sat in the stocks? And think you that it will make any difference to us, except as we suffer with you? And ’tis harder for my poor sister than for thee, but she makes no complaint, nor sheds a tear, but goes about with her face like the dead, and such a look in her eyes as never I saw there before. And she told me to say to thee that she could not come to-day, but that she would make amends, and that thou hadst no cause to overworry, and I know not what she meant, but this much I do know, a brave man is a brave man whether it be the scaffold or the stocks, and–and–thou hast gotten thyself into a fever, Harry.”
With that she bade my brother John get some cool water from the jailer, and she bathed my head and arranged my bandages with that same skill which she had showed at the time when I was bruised by the mad horse, and my brother looked on as if only half pleased, yet full of pity. And Catherine, as she bathed my head, told me how Major Beverly and Sir Humphrey were yet confined on shipboard, and Dick Barry was in the prison not far from me, and Nick and Ralph Drake were in hiding, but my Lord Estes was scot-free on account of his relationship to Governor Culpeper and had been to Drake Hill, but Mary would not see him. And she said, furthermore, that her grandmother did not know that I was to be set in the stocks, and they dared not tell her, as she was grown so feeble since the riot–at one time inveighing against me for my disloyalty, and saying that I should never have Mary, though I was cleared of my disgrace and no more a convict, and at another time weeping like a child over her poor Harry, who had already suffered so much and was now in prison.
Catherine in that way, which none but a woman hath, since it pertains both to love and authority, brought me to my senses, and I grew both brave and shamed at the same time, and yet after she had gone, never was anything like the sting of that ignominy which was prepared for me on the morrow. Many a time had I seen men in the stocks, and passed them by with no ridicule, for that, it seemed to me, belonged to the same class of folk as the culprits, but with a sort of contempt which held them as less than men and below pity even. The thought that some day I, too, was to sit there, had never entered my head. I looked at my two feet upholding the coverlid, and pictured to myself how they would look protruding from the boards of the stocks. I recalled the faces of all I had ever seen therein, and wondered whether I would look like this or that one. I remembered seeing them pelted by mischievous boys, and as the dusk thickened, it seemed alive with jeering faces and my ears rang with jibes. I said to myself that now Mary Cavendish was farther from me than ever before. Some dignity of wretchedness there might be in the fate of a convict condemned unjustly, but none in the fate of a man who sat in the stocks for all the people to gaze and laugh at.
I said to myself that that cruelest fate of any–to be made ridiculous in the eyes of love–was come to me, and love henceforth was over and gone. And thinking so, those grinning and jibing faces multiplied, and the air rang with laughter, and I trow I was in a high fever all night.
XXIII
The sports and races of Royal Oak Day were to be held on the “New Field” (so called), adjoining the plantation of Barry Upper Branch. The stocks had been moved from their usual station to this place to remind the people in the midst of their gayety that the displeasure of the King was a thing to be dreaded, and that they were not their own masters, even when they made merry.
On the morning of that day came my brother John’s man-servant to shave and dress me, and the physician to attend to my wounds. It was a marvel that I was able to undergo the ordeal, and indeed, my brother had striven hard to urge my wounds as a reason for my being released. But such a naturally strong constitution had I, or else so faithfully had the physician tended me, with such copious lettings of blood and purges, that except for an exceeding weakness, I was quite myself. Still I wondered, after I had been shaven and put into my clothes, which hung somewhat loosely upon me, as I sat on a bench by the window, however I was to reach the New Field.
It was a hot and close day, with all the heaviness of sweetness of the spring settling upon the earth, and my knees had knocked together when my brother’s man-servant and the physician, one on each side of me, led me from the bed to the bench.
So very weak was I that morning, after my feverish night, that, although the physician had let a little more blood to counteract it, I verily seemed almost to forget the stocks and what I was to undergo of disgrace and ignominy, being principally glad that the window was to the west, and that burning sun which had so fretted me, shut out.
The physician, long since dead, and an old man at that date, was exceeding silent, eyeing everybody with an anxious corrugation of brows over sharp eyes, and he had always a nervous clutch of his hands to accompany the glance, as if for lancets or the necks of medicine-flasks, never leaving a patient, unless he had killed or cured. He had visited me with as much faithfulness as if I had been the governor, and yet with no kindness, and I know not to this day, whether he was for or against the King, or bled both sides impartially. He looked at me with no compassion, and I might, from his manner, as well have been going to be set on a throne as in the stocks, but he counted my pulse-beats, and then bled me.
My brother John’s man, however, whom he had brought from England, and whom I had known as a boy, and sometimes stolen away to hunt with, he being one of the village-lads, shaved me as if it had been for my execution, and often I, somewhat dazed by the loss of blood, looking at him, saw the great tears trickling down his cheeks. A soft-hearted man he was, who had met with sore troubles, having lost his family, a wife and three little ones, after which he returned to England and entered my brother’s service, though he had been brought up independently, being the son of an inn-keeper.
Something there was about this gentle, downcast man, adding the weight of my sorrow to his own, which would have aroused me to courage, if, as I said before, I had not been in such a state of body, that for the time my consciousness of what was to come was clouded.
There I sat on my bench, leaning stiffly back against the prison wall, a strange buzzing in my ears, and I scarcely knew nor sensed it when Parson Downs entered hurriedly, and leant over me, whispering that if I would, and could, my chance to escape was outside.
“The fleetest horse in the Colony,” said he, “and, Harry, I have seen Dick Barry, and if thou canst but ride to the turn of the road, thou wilt be met by Black Betty and guided to a safe place; and the jailer hath drank over much Burgundy to which I treated him, and–and if thou canst, Harry–“
Then he stopped and looked at me and turned angrily to the physician who was packing up his lancets and vials to depart. “My God, sir,” he cried, “do you kill or cure? You have not bled him again? Lord, Lord, had I but a lancet and a purge for the spirit as you for the flesh, there would be not only no sin but no souls left in the Colony! You have not bled him again, sir?”
But Martyn Jennings paid no more heed to him than if he had been a part of the prison wall, and, indeed, I doubt if he ever heeded any one who had not need of either his nostrums or his lancet, and after a last look at my bandages he went away.
Then Parson Downs and my brother’s man looked at each other.
“It is of no use, sir,” said the man, whose name was Will Wickett. “Poor Master Wingfield cannot ride a horse; he is far too weak.” And with that verily the tears rolled down his cheeks, so womanish had he grown by reason of the sore trials to which he had been put.
“Faith, and I believe he would fall off at the first motion of the horse,” agreed Parson Downs with a great scowl. I looked at, and listened to them both, with a curious feeling that they were talking about some one else, such was my weakness and giddiness from that last blood-letting.
Then Parson Downs, with an exclamation which might have sounded oddly enough if heard from the pulpit, but which may, after all, have done honour to his heart, fetched out a flask of brandy from his pocket, and bade Will Wickett find a mug somewhere, which he did speedily, and he gave me a drink which put new life into me, though it was still out of the question for me to ride that fiery horse which stood pawing outside the prison. And just here I would like to say that I never forgot, nor ceased to be grateful for the kindly interest in me, and the risk which the parson was disposed to take for my sake that day. A great risk indeed it would have been, and would doubtless have cost him his living, had I ridden across country on that famous horse of his; but he seemed not to think of that, but shook his head sadly after I had swallowed the brandy, and then my brother John came in and he turned to him.
“A fine plan for escape I had with the jailer drunk and the sentries blinded by my last winnings at cards, but Harry is too weak to ride,” he said.
Then I, being somewhat restored by the brandy, mustered up strength enough to have a mind and speak it, and declared that I would not in any case avail myself of his aid to escape, since I should only bring trouble upon him who aided me, and should in the end be caught. And just as I spoke came a company of soldiers to escort me to the stocks, and the chance, for what it was worth, was over.
This much however had my brother gained for me, since I was manifestly unable to walk or ride: one of the Cavendish chairs which they had brought from England, was at the prison door, and some of our black men for bearers, half blubbering at the errand upon which they were bound.
Somebody had rigged a curtain of thin silk for the chair, so that I, when I was set therein, had great privacy, though I knew by the sounds that I was attended by the motley crowd which usually is in following at such affairs, beside the little troop of horse which was my escort, and my brother and Parson Downs riding on either side. Parson Downs, though some might reckon him as being somewhat contumelious in his manner of leaving the tobacco-cutting, yet was not so when there was anything to be gained by his service. He was moreover quit of any blame by his office of spiritual adviser, though it was not customary for a criminal to be attended to the stocks by a clergyman, but only to the scaffold. But, as I began to gather some strength through that fiery draught which I had swallowed, and the fresh air, it verily seemed to me, though I had done with any vain complaints and was of a mind to bear my ignominy with as much bravery as though it were death, that it was as much of an occasion for spiritual consolation. I could not believe–when we were arrived at the New Field, and I was assisted from my chair in the midst of that hooting and jeering throng, which even the soldiers and the threatening gestures of the parson and my brother served but little to restrain–that I was myself, and still more so, when I was at last seated in that shameful instrument, the stocks.
Ever since that time I have wondered whether mankind hath any bodily ills which are not dependent upon the mind for their existence, and are so curable by some sore stress of it. For verily, though my wounds were not healed, and though I had not left my bed for a long time, and my seat was both rough and hard, and my feet were rudely pinioned between the boards, and the sun was blistering with that damp blister which frets the soul as well as the flesh, I seemed to sense nothing, except the shame and disgrace of my estate. As for my bodily ailments, they might have been cured, for aught I knew of them. To this time, when I lay me down to sleep after a harder day’s work than ordinary, I can see and hear the jeers of that rude crowd around the stocks. Truly, after all, a man’s vanity is his point of vantage, and I wonder greatly if that be not the true meaning of the vulnerable spot in Achilles’s heel. Some slight dignity, though I had not so understood it, I had maintained in the midst of my misfortunes. To be a convict of one’s free will, to protect the maid of one’s love from grief, was one thing, but to sit in the stocks, exposed to the jibes of a common crowd, was another. And more than aught else, I felt the sting of the comedy in it. To sit there with my two feet straight out, soles to the people, through those rude holes in the boards, and all at liberty to gaze and laugh at me, was infinitely worse than to welter in my blood upon the scaffold. How many times, as I sat there, it came to me that if it had been the scaffold, Mary Cavendish could at least have held my memory in some respect; as it was, she could but laugh. Full easy it may be for any man with the courage of a man to figure in tragedy, but try him in comedy, if you would prove his mettle.
Shortly after I arrived there in the New Field, which was a wide, open space, the sports began, and I saw them all as in a dream, or worse than a dream, a nightmare. First came Parson Downs, whispering to me that as long as he could do me no good, and was in sore need of money, and, moreover, since he would by so doing divert somewhat the public attention from me, he would enter the race which was shortly to come off for a prize of five pounds.
Then came a great challenge of drums, and the parson was in his saddle and the horses off on the three-mile course, my eyes following them into the dust-clouded distance, and seeing the parson come riding in ahead to the winning post, with that curious uncertainty as to the reality, which had been upon me all the morning. That is, of the uncertainty of aught save my shameful abiding in the stocks.
As I said before, it was a hot day, and all around the field waved fruit boughs nearly past their bloom, with the green of new leaves overcoming the white and red, and the air was heavy with honey-sweet, and, as steady as a clock-tick through all the roaring of the merrymakers, came the hum of the bees and the calls of the birds. A great flag was streaming thirty feet high, and the gay dresses of the women who had congregated to see the sports were like a flower-garden, and the waistcoats of the men were as brilliant as the breasts of birds, and nearly everybody wore the green oak-sprig which celebrated the Restoration.
Then again, the horses, after the challenge of the drums, sped around the three-mile course, and attention was diverted somewhat from me. There had been mischievous boys enough for my torment, had it not been for my brother John, who stood beside the stocks, his face white and his hand at his sword. Many a grinning urchin drew near with a stone in hand and looked at him, and looked again, then slunk away, and made as if he had no intention of throwing aught at me.
After the horse-racing came music of drums, trumpets, and hautboys, and then in spite of my brother, the crowd pressed close about me, and many scurrilous things were said and many grinning faces thrust in mine, and thinking of it now, I would that I had them all in open battlefield, for how can a man fight ridicule? Verily it is like duelling with a man of feathers. Quite still I sat, but felt that dignity and severity of bearing but made me more vulnerable to ridicule. Utterly weaponless I was against such odds.
I was glad enough when the drums challenged again for a race of boys, who were to run one hundred and twelve yards for a hat. Everybody turned from me to see that, and I watched wearily the straining backs and elbows of the little fellows, and the shouts of encouragement and of triumph when the winner came in smote my ears as through water, with curious shocks of sound.
Then ten fiddlers played for a prize, and while they played, the people gathered around me again, for races more than music have the ability to divert the minds of English folk; but they left me again, when there was a wrestling for a pair of silver knee-buckles. I remember to this day with a curious dizziness of recollection, the straining of those two stout wrestlers over the field, each forcing the other with all his might, and each scarce yielding a foot, and finally ending the strife in the same spot as where begun. I can see now those knotted arms and writhing necks of strength, and hear those quick pants of breath, and again it seems as then, a picture passing before my awful reality of shame. Then two young men danced for a pair of shoes, and the crowd gathered around them, and I was quite deserted, and could scarcely see for the throng the rhythmic flings of heels and tosses of heads. But when that sport was over, and the winner dancing merely away in his new shoes, the crowd gathered about me again, and in spite of my brother, clods of mud began to fly, and urchins to tweak at my two extended feet.
Then that happened, which verily never happened before nor since in Virginia, and can never happen again, because a maid like Mary Cavendish can never live again.
Slow pacing into the New Field in that same blue and silver gown which she had worn to the governor’s ball, with a wonderful plumed hat on her head, and no mask, and her golden hair flowing free, behind her Catherine and Cicely Hyde, like two bridesmaids, came my love, Mary Cavendish.
And while I shrank back, thinking that here was the worst sting of all, like the sting of death, that she should see me thus, straight up to the stocks she came, and gathering her blue and silver gown about her, made her way in to my side, and sat there, thrusting her two tiny feet, in their dainty shoes, through the apertures next mine, for the stocks were made to accommodate two criminals.
And then I looked at her, and would have besought her to go, but the words died on my lips, for in that minute I knew what love was, and how it could triumph over, not only the tragedy, but that which is more cruel, the comedy of life. Surely no face of woman was ever like Mary Cavendish’s, as she sat there beside me, with such an exaltation of love, which made it like the face of an angel. Not one word she said, but looked at me, and I knew that after that she was mine forever, in spite of my love, which would fain shield her from me lest I be for her harm, and I realised that love, when it is at its best, is past the consideration of any harm, being sufficient unto itself for its own bliss and glory.
But presently, I, looking at her, felt my strength failing me again, and her face grew dim, and she drew my head to her shoulder and sat so facing the multitude, and such a shout went up as never was.
And first it was half derision, and Catherine and Cicely Hyde stood near us like bridesmaids, and my brother John kept his place. Then came Madam Judith Cavendish in a chair, and she was borne close to us through the throng and was looking forth with the tears running over her old cheeks, and extending her hands as if in blessing, and she never after made any opposition to our union. Then came blustering up Parson Downs and Ralph Drake, who afterward wedded Cicely Hyde, and the two Barrys who had braved leaving hiding, and the two black wenches who dwelt with them, one with a great white bandage swathing her head, and Sir Humphrey Hyde, who had just been released, and who, while I think of it, wedded a most amiable daughter of one of the burgesses within a year. And Madam Tabitha Storey, with that mourning patch upon her forehead, was there, and Margery Key, with–marvellous to relate in that crowd–the white cat following at heel, and Mistresses Allgood and Longman with their husbands in tow. All these, with others whom I will not mention, who were friendly, gathered around me, the while Mary Cavendish sat there beside me, and again that half-derisive shout of the multitude went up.
But in a trice it all changed, for the temper of a mob is as subject to unexplained changes as the wind, and it was a great shout of sympathy and triumph instead of derision. Then they tore off the oak-sprigs with which they had bedecked themselves in honour of the day, and by so doing showed disloyalty to the King, and the militia making no resistance, and indeed, I have always suspected, secretly rejoicing at it, they had me released in a twinkling, and foremost among those who wrenched open the stocks was Capt. Calvin Tabor. Then Mary Cavendish and I stood together there before them all.
It was all many years ago, but never hath my love for her dimmed, and it shall live after Jamestown is again in ashes, when the sea-birds are calling over the sunset-waste, when the reeds are tall in the gardens, when even the tombs are crumbling, and maybe hers and mine among them, when the sea-gates are down and the water washing over the sites of the homes of the cavaliers. For I have learned that the blazon of love is the only one which holds good forever through all the wilderness of history, and the path of love is the only one which those that may come after us can safely follow unto the end of the world.