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GAYLORD PRINTEDINU.S.A,

 
The Heart’s Highway
 

 

 

Paes tay ia

 

 

 

 

 

“sue ITELD IN MERRY ROGER UNTIL I WAS FORCED

AND . .
THE BANK OF THE RIVER.”

TO COME UP

A MOGCK-BIRD WAS SINGING SOMEWHERE OVER ON
 

 

The Heart’s Highway

A Romance of Virginia in the
Seventeenth Century

 

 

By

Mary E. Wilkins

 

 

 

 

NEW YORK
DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & CO,
1900

 

 

UNIVERSITY
Ti GRARY

 

 
v5
Vile

M08
Ax id 305
CopyriGHT, 1900, BY
DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & co.

Press of J. J. Little & Co,
‘Astor Place, New York.
List of Illustrations

“SHE HELD IN MERRY ROGER UNTIL I WAS FORCED
TO COME UP AND , ., . A MOCK-BIRD WAS
SINGING SOMEWHERE OVER ON THE BANK OF
THE RIVER” . : . . . . Frontispiece

FACING PAGE
““ CAPTAIN TABOR . . . REMAINED SILENT FOR A

SPACE, HIS BROWS KNITTED” . ‘ ‘ . 112

** THEN I FELT MY OWN RIGHT LEG SINK UNDER ME,

AND I KNEW THAT I was HIT” ., . . 254

“ STRAIGHT UP TO THE STOCKS SHE CAME .. .
AND SAT THERE, THRUSTING HER TWO TINY
FEET, IN THEIR DAINTY SHOES, THROUGH THE

APERTURES NEXT MINE”. « . ° _ 306
The Heart’s Highway

In 1682, when I was thirty years of age and
Mistress Mary Cavendish just turned of eighteen,
she and I together one Sabbath morning in the
month of April were riding to meeting in James-
town. We were all alone except for the troop
of black slaves straggling in the rear, blurring
the road curiously with their black faces. It
seldom happened that we rode in such wise, for
Mistress Catherine Cavendish, the elder sister
of Mistress Mary, and Madam Cavendish, her
grandmother, usually rode with us—Madam
Judith Cavendish, though more than seventy,
sitting a horse as well as her granddaughters,
and looking, when viewed from the back, as
young as they, and being in that respect, as well
as others, a wonder to the countryside. But it
happened to-day that Madam Cavendish had a
touch of the rheumatics, that being an ailment
to which the swampy estate of the country ren-

g
The Heart’s Highway

dered those of advanced years somewhat liable,
and had remained at home on her plantation of
Drake Hill (so named in honour of the great Sir
Francis Drake, though he was long past the value
of all such earthly honours). Catherine, who was
a most devoted granddaughter, had remained
with her—although, I suspected, with some hesi-
tation at allowing her young sister to go alone,
except for me, the slaves being accounted no
more company than our shadows. Mistress
Catherine Cavendish had looked at me after a
fashion which I was at no loss to understand
when I had stood aside to allow Mistress Mary
to precede me in passing the door, but she had
no cause for the look, nor for the apprehension
which gave rise to it. By reason of bearing al-
ways my burthen upon my own back, I was even
more mindful of it than others were who had
only the sight of it, whereas I had the sore weight
and the evil aspect in my inmost soul. But it
was to be borne easily enough by virtue of that
natural resolution df a man which can make but
a featherweight of the sorest ills if it be but put in
the balance against them. I was tutor to Mis-
tress. Mary Cavendish, and I had sailed from
England to Virginia under circumstances of dis-
grace; being, indeed, a convict.

I knew exceeding well what was my befitting
deportment when I set out that Sabbath morning
with Mistress Mary Cavendish, and not only

2
The’ Heart’s Highway

upon that Sabbath morning but at all other
times; still I can well understand that my appear-
ance may have belied me, since when I looked
in a glass I would often wonder at the sight of my
own face, which seemed younger than my years,
and was strangely free from any recording lines
of experiences which might have been esteemed
bitter by any one who had not the pride of bear-
ing them. When my black eyes, which had a
bold daring in them, looked forth at me from
the glass, and my lips smiled with a gay confi-
dence at me, I could not but surmise that my
whole face was as a mask worn unwittingly over
a grave spirit. But since a man must be judged
largely by his outward guise and I had that of a
gay young blade, I need not have taken it amiss
if Catherine Cavendish had that look in her eyes
when I set forth with her young sister alone save
for those dark people which some folk believed
to have no souls.

I rode a pace behind Mary Cavendish, and
never glanced her way, not needing to do so in
order to see her, for I seemed to see her with a
superior sort of vision compounded partly of
memory and partly of imagination. Of the lat-
ter I had, not to boast, though it may perchance
be naught to boast of, being simply a kind of
higher folly, a somewhat large allowance from
my childhood. But that was not to be wondered
at, whether it were to my credit or otherwise,

3
The Heart’s Highway

since it was inherited from ancestors of much
nobler fame and worthier parts than I, one of
whom, though not in the direct line, the great
Edward Maria Wingfield, the president of the
first council of the Dominion of Virginia, having
. written a book which was held to be notable.
This imagination for the setting forth and adorn-
ing of all common things and happenings, and
my woman’s name of Maria, my whole name
being Harry Maria Wingfield, through my an-
cestor having been a favourite of a great queen,
.and so called for her honour, were all my inher-
itance at that date, all the estates belonging to
the family having become the property of my,
younger brother John.

But when I speak of my possessing an imagi-
nation which could gild all the common things of
life, I meant not to include Mistress Mary Cav-
endish therein, for she needed not such gilding,
being one of the most uncommon things in the
earth, as uncommon as a great diamond which
is rumoured to have been seen by travellers in
far India. My imagination when directed toward
her was exercised only with the comparing and
combining of various and especial beauties of
different times and circumstances, when she was
attired this way or that way, or was grave or gay,
or sweetly helpless and clinging or full of daring.
When, riding near her, I did not look at her, she
seemed all of these in one, and I was conscious

4
The Heart’s Highway

of such a great dazzle forcing my averted eyes,
that I seemed to be riding behind a star.

I knew full well, though, as I said before, not
studying the matter, just how Mistress Mary
Cavendish sat her horse, which was a noble thor-
oughbred from England, though the one which I
rode was a nobler, she having herself selected
him for my use. The horse which she rode,
Merry Roger, did not belie his name, for he was
full of prances and tosses of his fine head, and
prickings of his dainty pointed ears, but Mis-
tress Mary sat him as lightly and truly and
unswervingly as a blossom sits a dancing
bough.

That morning Mistress Mary glowed and glit-
tered and flamed in gorgeous apparel, until she
seemed to fairly overreach all the innocent young
flowery beauties of the spring with one rich trill
of colour, like a high note of a bird above a wide
chorus of others. Mistress Mary that morning
wore a tabby petticoat of a crimson colour, and
a crimson satin bodice shining over her arms and
shoulders like the plumage of a bird, and down
her back streamed her curls, shining like gold
under her gauze love-hood. I knew well how
she had sat up late the night before fashioning
that hood from one which her friend Cicely
Hyde’s grandmother had sent her from England,
and I knew, the first pages of a young maid being
easy to spell out, that she wondered if I, though

5
The Heart’s: Highway

only her tutor, approved her in it, but I gave no
sign. The love-hood was made of such thin and
precious stuff that the gold of her head showed
through.

Mistress Mary wore a mask of black velvet to
screen her face from the sun, and only her sweet
forehead and her great blue eyes and the rose-
leaf tip of her chin showed.

All that low, swampy country was lush and
green that April morning, with patches of grass
_ gleaming like emeralds in the wetness of sunken
places and unexpected pools of marsh water
gleaming out of the distances like sapphires.
The blossoms thrust out toward us from every
hand like insistent arms of beauty. There was
a frequent bush by the wayside full of a most
beautiful pink-horned flower, so exceeding sweet
that it harmed the worth of its own sweetness,
and its cups seemed fairly dripping with honey
and were gummed together with it. There were
patches of a flower of a most brilliant and won-
derful biue colour, and spreads as of cloth of gold
from cowslips over the lowlands. The road was
miry in places, and then I would fall behind her
farther still that the water and red’ mud splash-
ing from beneath my horse’s hoofs might not
reach her. Then, finally, after I had done thus
some few times, she reined in her Merry Roger,
and looked over her shoulder with a flash of her
blue eyes which compelled mine.

6
The Heart’s Highway

‘“ Why do you ride so far away, Master Wing-
field? ” said she.

I lifted my hat and bent so low in my saddle
that the feather on it grazed the red mud.

“Because I fear to splash your fine tabby
petticoat, Madam,” I answered.

“TI care not for my fine petticoat,” said she
in a petulant way, like that of a spoiled child who
is forbidden sweets and the moon, and questions
love in consequence, yet still there was some
little fear and hesitation in her tone. Mistress
Mary was a most docile pupil, seeming to have
great respect for my years and my learning, and
was as gentle under my hand as was her Merry
Roger under hers, and yet with the same sort
of gentleness, which is as the pupil and not as the
master decides, and let the puli of the other will
be felt.

I answered not, yet kept at my distance, but at
the next miry place she held in Merry Roger
until I was forced to come up, and then she spoke
again, and as she spoke a mock-bird was singing
somewhere over onthe bank of the river.

“Did you ever hear a sweeter bird’s song
than that, Master Wingfield?” said she, and
I answered that it was very sweet, as indeed
it was.

“ What do you think the bird is mocking, Mas-
ter Wingfield?” said she, and then I answered
like a fool, for the man who meets sweetness

a
The Heart’s Highway

with his own bitterness and keeps it not locked
in his own soul is a fool.

_ “T know not,” said I, “ but he may be mock-
‘ing the hope of the spring, and he may be mock-
ing the hope in the heart of man. The song ©
seems too sweet for a mock of any bird which has.
no thought beyond this year’s nest.”

I spoke thus as I would not now, when I have
learned that the soul of man, like the moon, hath
a face which he should keep ever turned toward
the Unseen, and Mistress Mary’s blue eyes, as
helpless of comprehension as a flower, looked in
mine. .

“ But there will be another spring, Master
Wingfield,” said she somewhat timidly, and then
she added, and 1 knew that she was blushing
under her mask at her own tenderness, “ and:
sometimes the hopes of the heart come true.”

She rode on with her head bent as one who
considers deeply, but I, knowing her well, knew -'
that the mood would soon pass, as it did. Sud-
denly she tossed her head and flung out her curls -
to the breeze, and swung Merry Roger’s bridle-
rein, and was away at a gallop and I after her,
measuring the ground with wide paces on my tall
thoroughbred, In this fashion we soon left the -
plodding blacks so far behind that they became -
a part of the distance-shadows. Then, allat once, °
Mistress Mary swerved off from the. main road
and was riding down the track leading to the

a
The Heart’s Highway

plantation-wharf, whence all the tobacco was
shipped for England and all the merchandise im-
ported for household use unladen. There the
way was very wet and the mire was splashed
high upon Mistress Mary’s fine tabby skirt, but
she rode on at a reckless pace, and I also, much at
a loss to know what had come to her, yet not
venturing, or rather, perhaps, deigning to in-
quire. And then I saw what she had doubtless
seen before, the masts of a ship rising straightly
among the trees with that stiffness and straight-
ness of dead wood, which is beyond that of live,
unless, indeed, in a storm at sea, when the wind
can so inspirit it, that I have seen a mast of pine
possessed by all the rage of yielding of its hun-
dred years on the spur of a mountain.

' When I saw the mast I knew that the ship
belonging to Madam Cavendish, which was
called “ The Golden Horn,” and had upon the
bow the likeness of a gilt-horn, running over
with fruit and flowers, had arrived. It was by
this ship that Madam Cavendish sent the tobacco
raised upon the plantation of Drake Hill to
England.

But even then I knew not what had so stirred
Mistress Mary that she had left her sober church-
ward road upon the Sabbath day, and judged
that it must be the desire to see “ The Golden
Horn” fresh from her voyage, nor did I dream
what she purposed doing.

9
The Heart’s Highway

Toward the end of the rolling road the wet-
ness increased; there were little pools left from
the recedence of the salt tide, and the wild breath
of it was in our faces. Then we heard voices
singing together in a sailor-song which had a
refrain not quite suited to the day, according to
common opinions, having a refrain about a lad
who sailed away on bounding billow and left
poor Jane to wear the willow; but what’s a lass’s
tears of brine to the Spanish Main and a flask
of wine?

As we came up to the ship lying in her dock,
we saw sailors on deck grouped around a cask of
that same wine which they had taken the freedom
to broach, in order to celebrate their safe arrival
in port, though it was none of theirs. The sight
aroused my anger, but Mary Cavendish did not
seem to see any occasion for wrath. She sat her
prancing horse, her head up, and her curls
streaming like a flag of gold, and there was a blue
flash in her eyes, of which I knew the meaning.
The blood of her great ancestor, the sea king,
Thomas Cavendish, who was second only to Sir
Francis Drake, was astir within her. She sat
there with the salt sea wind in her nostrils, and
her hair flung upon it like a pennant of victory,
and looked at the ship wet with the ocean surges,
the sails stiff with the rime of salt, and the group
of English sailors on the deck, and those old an-
cestral instincts which constitute the memory of

10
The Heart’s Highway

the blood awoke. She was in that instant as she
sat there almost as truly that ardent Suffolkshire
lad, Thomas Cavendish, ready to ride to the
death the white plungers of the sea, and send the
Spanish Armada to the bottom, as Mary Caven-
dish of Drake Hill, the fairest maid of her time
in the Colony of Virginia.

Then as suddenly that mood left her, as she
sat there, the sailors having risen, and standing
staring with shamefaced respect, and covertly
wiping with the hairy backs of hands their
mouths red with wine. But the captain, one
Calvin Tabor, stood before them with more
assurance, as if he had some warrant for allow-
ing such license among his men; he himself
seemed not to have been drinking. Mistress
Mary regarded them, holding in Merry Roger
with her firm little hand, with the calm grace
of a queen, although she was so young, and all
the wild fire was gone from her blue eyes. All
this time, I being as close to her side as might
be,,in case of any rudeness of the men, though
that was not likely, they being a picked crew of
Suffolkshire men, and having as yet not tasted
more wine than would make them unquestioning
of strange happenings, and render them readily
acquiescent to all counter. currents of fate.

They had ceased their song and stood with
heavy eyes sheepishly averted in their honest
red English faces, but Captain Calvin Tabor

Ir
The Heart’s Highway

spoke, bowing low, yet, as I said before, with
assured eyes.

“T have the honour to salute you, Mistress,”
he spoke with a grace somewhat beyond his call-
ing. He was a young man, as fair as a Dutch-
man and a giant in stature. He bore himself
also curiously for one of his calling, bowing as
steadily as a cavalier, with no trembling of the
knees when he recovered, and carrying his right
arm as if it would grasp sword rather than cutlass
if the need arose.

“ God be praised! I see that you have brought
‘ The Golden Horn’ safely to port,” said Mistress
Mary with a stately sweetness that covered to
me, who knew her voice and its every note so
well, an exultant ring.

“Yes, praised be God, Mistress Cavendish,”
answered Captain Tabor, “and with fine head
winds to swell the sails and no pirates.”

“ And is my new scarlet cloak safe?” cried
Mistress Mary, “and my tabby petticoats and
my blue brocade bodice, and my stockings and
my satin shoes, and laces?”

Mistress Mary spoke with that sweetness of
maiden vanity which calls for tender leniency and
admiration from a man instead of contempt.
And it may easily chance that he may be as filled
with vain delight as she, and picture to himself
as plainly her appearance in those new fallalls.

I wondered somewhat at the length of the list,

12
The Heart’s Highway

as not only Mistress Mary’s wardrobe, but those
of her grandmother and sister and many of the
household supplies, had to be purchased with the
proceeds of the tobacco, and that brought but
scanty returns of late years, owing to the Navi-
gation Act, which many esteemed a most unjust
measure, and scrupled not to say so, being se-
cure in the New World, where disloyalty against
kings could flourish without so much danger of
the daring tongue silenced at Tyburn.

It had been a hard task for many planters to
purchase the necessaries of life with the profits
of their tobacco crop, since the trade with the
Netherlands was prohibited by His Most Gra-
cious Majesty, King Charles II, for the supply
being limited to the English market, had so ex-
ceeded the demand that it brought but a beg-
garly price per pound. Therefore, I wondered,
knowing that many of those articles of women’s
attire mentioned by Mistress Mary were of great
value, and brought great sums in London, and
knowing, too, that the maid, though innocently
fond of such things, to which she had, moreover,
the natural right of youth and beauty stich as
hers, which should have all the silks and jewels
of earth, and no questioning, for its adorning,
was not given to selfish appropriation for ‘her
own needs, but rather considered those ‘of others
first. However, Mistress Mary had some prop-
-erty in her own right, she being the daughter of

13
The Heart’s Highway

a second wife, who had died possessed ot a small
‘ plantation called Laurel Creek, which was a mile
distant from Drake Hill, farther inland, having
no ship dock and employing this. Mistress
Mary might have sent some of her own tobacco
crop to England wherewith to purchase finery
for herself. Still I wondered, and I wondered
still more when Mistress Mary, albeit the Lord’s
Day, and the penalty for such labour being even
' for them of high degree not light, should pro-
pose, as she did, that the goods be then and there
unladen. Then I ventured to address her, riding
close to her side, that the captain and the sailors
should not hear, and think that I held her in
slight respect and treated her like a child, since I
presumed to call her to account for aught she
chose to do.
“Madam,” said I as low as might be, “do you
remember the day?”
“And wherefore should I not?” asked she
with a toss of her gold locks and a pout of her
-red lips which was childishness and wilfulness
itself, but there went along with it a glance
of her eyes which puzzled me, for «suddenly a
sterner and older spirit of resolve seemed to look
out of them into mine. “ Think you I am in my
-dotage, Master Wingfield, that I remember not
.the day?” said she, “and think you that I am
going deaf that I hear not the church bells? ”
“ Tf we miss the service for the unlading of the
14
The Heart’s Highway

goods, and it be discovered, it may go amiss with
us,” said I.

“Are you then afraid, Master Wingfield? ”
asked she with a glance of scorn, and a blush of
shame at her own words, for she knew that they
were false.

I felt the blood rush to my face, and I reined
back my horse, and said no more.

“T pray you have the goods that you know
of unladen at once, Captain Tabor,” said she,
and she made a motion that would have been a
stamp had she stood.

Calvin Tabor laughed, and cast a glance of
merry malice at me, and bowed low as he
replied:

“The goods shall be unladen within the hour,
Mistress,” said he, “and if you and the gentle-
man would rather not tarry to see them for fear
of discovery: a

“We shall remain,” said Mistress Mary, in-
terrupting peremptorily.

“ Then,” said Captain Calvin Tabor with alto-
gether too much of freedom as I judged, “ in case
you be brought to account for the work upon the
Sabbath, ‘The Golden Horn’ hath wings for
such a wind as prevails to-day as will outspeed
all pursuers, even should they borrow wings of
the cherubim in the churchyard.”

I was glad that Mistress Mary did not, for all
her youthfulness of temper, laugh in return, but

15

 

>
The Heart’s Highway

answered him with a grave dignity as if she her-
self felt that he had exceeded his privilege.

_“T pray you order the goods unladen at once,
Captain Tabor,” she repeated. Then the cap-
tain coloured, for he was quick-witted to scent a
rebuff, though he laughed again in his dare-devil
fashion as he turned to the sailors and shouted
out the order, and straightway the sailors so
swarmed hither and thither upon the deck that
they seemed five times as many as before, and
then we heard the hatches flung back with cae
like guns.

’ We sat there and waited, and the bell over in
Jamestown rang and the long notes died away
with sweet echoes as if from distant heights.
All around us the rank, woody growth was full
of murmurs and movements of life, and perfumes
from unseen blossoms disturbed one’s thoughts
with sweet insistence at every gust of wind, and
always: one heard the lapping of the sea-water
through all its countless ways, for well it loves
this country of Virginia and steals upon it, like a
lover who will not be gainsaid, through meadows
and thick woods and coarse swamps, until it is
hard sometimes to say, when the tide be in,
whether it be land or sea, and we who dwell
therein might well account ourselves in a Venice
of the New World.

I waited and listened while the sailors unloaded
the goods with many a shout and repeated loud

16
The Heart’s Highway

commands from the captain, and Mistress Mary
kept her eyes turned away from my face and
watched persistently the unlading, and had seem-
ingly no more thought of me than of one of the
swamp trees for some time. Then all at once
she turned toward me, though still her eyes
evaded mine.

“ Why do you not go to church, Master Wing- -
field? ” said she in a sweet, sharp voice.

“T go when you go, Madam,” said I.

“You have no need to wait for me,” said she.
“T prefer that you should not wait for me.”

I made no reply, but reined in my horse, which
was somewhat restive with his head in a cloud of
early flies.

“Do you not hear me, Master Wingfield? ”
said she. “ Why do you not proceed to church
and leave me to follow when I am ready?”

She had neverspoken to me in such manner be-
fore, and she dared not look at me as she spoke.
“T go when you go, Madam,” said I again.

Then, suddenly, with an impulse half of mis-
chief and half of anger, she lashed out with her
riding whip at my restive horse, and he sprang,
and I had much ado to keep him from bolting.
He danced to all the trees and bushes, and she
had to pull Merry Roger sharply to one side,
but finally I got the mastery of him, and rode
close to her again.

“ Madam,” said I, “I forbid you to do that

2 %7
The Heart’s Highway

again,” and as I spoke I saw her little fingers
twitch on her whip, but she dared not raise it.
She laughed as a child will who knows she is
at fault and is scared by her consciousness of
guilt and would conceal it by a bravado of merri-
ment; then she said in the sweetest, wheedling
tone that I had ever heard from her, and I had
known her from her childhood:

“ But, Master Wingfield, ’tis broad daylight
and there are no Indians hereabouts, and if there
were, here are all these English sailors and Cap-
tain Tabor. Why need you stay? Indeed, I
shall be quite safe—and hear, that must be the
last stroke of the bell?”

But I was not to be moved by wheedling. I
repeated again that I should remain where she
was. Then she, grown suddenly stern again,
withdrew a little from me, and made no further |
efforts to get rid of me, but sat still watching the
unlading with a gravity which gave me a vague
uneasiness. I began to have a feeling that here
was more than appeared on the surface, and my
suspicion grew as I watched the sailors lift those
boxes which were supposed to contain Mistress
Mary’s finery. In the first place there were
enough of them to contain the wardrobe of a
lady in waiting, in the second place they were of
curious shape for such purposes, in the third
place ’twas all those lusty English sailors could
do to lift them.

18
The Heart’s Highway

' “They be the heaviest furbelows that ever
maiden wore,” I thought as I watched them
strain at the cases, both hauling and pulling, with
many men to the ends to get them through the
hatch, then ease them to the deck, with regard
to the nipping of fingers. I noted, too, an order
given somewhat privately by Captain Tabor to
put out the pipes, and noted that not one man but
had stowed his away.

There was a bridle-path leading through the
woods to Laurel Creek, and by that way to my
consternation Mistress Mary ordered the sailors
to carry the cases. ’Twas two miles inland, and
I marvelled much to hear her, for even should
nearly all the crew go, the load would be a
grievous one, it seemed to me. But to my mind
Captain Calvin Tabor behaved as if the order
was one which he expected, neither did the
sailors grumble, but straightway loaded them-
selves with the case raised upon a species of
hurdles which must have been provided for the
purpose, and proceeded down the bridle-path,
singing to keep up their hearts another song
even more at odds with the day than the first.
The captain marched at the head of the sailors,
and Mistress Mary and I followed slowly through
the narrow aisle of green. I rode ahead, and
often pulled my horse to one side, pressing his
body hard against the trees that I might hold
‘back a branch which would have caught her

“19
The Heart’s Highway

headgear. All the way we never spoke. When
we reached Laurel Creek, Mistress Mary drew
the key from her pocket, which showed to me
that the visit had been planned should the ship
have arrived. She unlocked the door, and the
sailors, no longer singing, for they were well-
nigh spent by the journey under the heavy
burdens, deposited the cases in the great room.
Laurel Creek had belonged to Mistress Mary’s
maternal grandfather, Colonel Edmond Lane,
and had not been inhabited this many a year,
not since Mary was a baby in arms. The old
furniture still stood in the accustomed places,
‘looking desolate with that peculiar desolateness
of lifeless things which have been associated with
man. The house at Laurel Creek was a fine
mansion, finer than Drake Hill, and the hall
made me think of England. Great oak chests
stood against the walls, hung with rusting swords
and armour and empty powder-horns. A carven
seat was beside the cold hearth, and in a corner
was a tall spinning-wheel, and the carven stair
led in a spiral ascent of mystery to the shadows
above.

When the cases were all deposited in the great
room, Mistress Mary held a short conference
apart with Captain Calvin Tabor, and I saw some
gold pass from her hand to his. Then she
thanked him and the sailors for their trouble very
prettily in that way she had which would have

20
The Heart’s Highway

made every one as willing to die for her as to
carry heavy weights. Then we all filed out from
the house, and Mistress Mary locked the door,
and bade good-bye to Captain Tabor; then he
and his men took again the bridle-path back to
the ship, and she and I proceeded churchward
on the highway.

When we were once alone together I spurred
my horse up to hers and caught her bridle and
rode alongside and spoke to her as if all the past
were naught, and I with the rights to which I
had been born. It had come to that pass with
me in those days that all the pride I had left was
that of humility, but even that-I was ready to
give up for her if necessary.

“ Tell me, Madam,” said I, “ what was in those
cases?”

“ Have I not told you?” said she, and I knew
that she whitened under her mask.

“There is more than woman’s finery in those
cases, which weigh like lead,” said I. “ What do
they contain?”

Mistress Mary had, after all, little of the femi-
nine power of subterfuge in her. If she tried it,
it was, as in this case, too transparent. Straight
to the point she went with perfect frankness of
daring and rebellion as a boy might.

“Tt requires not much wit, methinks, Master
Wingfield, to see that,’ said she. Then she
laughed. “ Lord, how the poor sailor-men toiled

2I
The Heart’s Highway

to lift my gauzes and feathers and ribbons!” said
she. Then her blue eyes looked at me through
her mask with indescribable daring and defiance.

“Well, and what will you do?” said she.
“You are a gentleman in spite—you are a gen-
tleman, you cannot betray me to my hurt, and
you cannot command me like a child, for I ama
child no longer, and I will not tell you what those
cases contain.” ‘

“You shall tell me,” said I.

“ Make me if you can,” said she.

“Tell me what those cases contain,” said I.

» Then she collapsed all at once as only the cita-
del of a woman’s will can do through some inner
weakness.

“ Guns and powder and shot and partizans,”
said she. Then she added, like one who would
fain readjust herself upon the heights of her own
resolution by a good excuse for having fallen——
“Fie, why should I not have told you, Master
Wingfield? You cannot betray me, for you are
a gentleman, and I am not a child.”

“Why have you had guns and ammunition
brought from England?” I asked; but in the
shock of the discovery I had loosened my grasp
of her bridle and she was off, and in a minute we
were in Jamestown, and could not disturb the
Sabbath quiet by talk or ride too fast.

. We were a good hour and a half late, but there
‘was to my mind enough of preaching yet for my,
22
The Heart's Highway

soul’s good, for I thought not much of Parson
Downs nor his sermons, but I dreaded for Mis-
tress Mary that which might come from her
tardiness and her Sabbath-breaking, ii that were
discovered. I dismounted, and assisted Mistress
Mary to the horse block, and off came her black
velvet mask, and she clapped a pretty hand to her
hair and shook her skirts and wiped off a mud
splash. Then up the aisle she went, and I after
her and all the people staring.

I can see that church as well to-day as if I were
this moment there. Heavily sweet with honey
and almond scent it was, as well as sweet herbs
and musk, which the ladies had on their handker-
chiefs, for it was like a bower with flowers. Great
pink boughs arched overhead, and the altar was
as white as snow with blossoms. Up the aisle
she flashed, and none but Mary Cavendish could
have made that little journey under the eyes of
the governor in his pew and the governor’s lady
and all the burgesses, and the churchwarden half
starting up as if to exercise his authority, and
the parson swelling with a vast expanse of sabie
robes over the Book, with no abashedness and
yet no boldness nor unmaidenly forwardness.
There was an innocent gayety on her face like a
child’s, and an entire confidence in good will and
loving charity for her tardiness which disarmed
all. She looked out from that gauze love-hood of
hers as she came up the aisle, and the governor,

23
The Heart’s Highway

who had a harsh face enough ordinarily, beamed —
mildly indulgent. His lady eyed her with a sort
of pleasant and reminiscent wonder, though she
wasahaughty dame. The churchwarden settled
back, and as for Parson Downs, his great, red
face curved in a smile, and his eyes twinkled
under their heavy overhang of florid brow, and
then he declaimed in a hoarser and louder shout
than ever to cover the fact of his wandering at-
tention. And young Sir Humphrey Hyde, sit-
ting between his mother, Lady Betty, and his
sister, Cicely, turned as pale as death when he saw
her enter, and kept so, with frequent covert
glances at her from time to time, and I saw him,
and knew that he knew about Mistress Mary’s
furbelow boxes.

24
II.

My profession has been that of a tutor, and it
thus befell that I was under the necessity of learn-
ing as much as I was able, and even going out of
my way to seek those lessons at which all the
pages of life are open for us, and even, as it were,
turning over wayside stones, and looking under
wayside weeds in the search for them; and it
scarcely ever chanced that I did not get some
slight savour of knowledge therefrom, though I
was far enough from the full solution of the prob-
lems. And through these lessons I seemed to
gain some increase of wisdom not only of the
matters of which the lessons themselves treated,
such as the courses of the stars and planets, the
roots of herbs, and Latin verbs and algebraic
quantities, and evil and good, but of their bear-
ing upon the human heart. That I have ever
held to be the most important knowledge of all,
and the only reason for the setting of those les-
sons which must pass like all things mortal, and
can only live in so far as they have turned that
part of the scholar, which has hold of immortal-
ity, this or that way.

I know not how it may be with other men, but

25
The Heart’s Highway

of one branch of knowledge, which pertains di-
rectly to the human heart, and, when it be what
its name indicates, to its eternal life, I gained no
insight whatever from my books and my lessons,
‘nor from my observance of its workings in those
around me, and that was.the passion of love. Of
that I truly could learn naught except by turning
my reflections toward my own heart.

And I know not how this also may be with
other men, but love with me had a beginning,
though not an end and never shall have, and a
completeness of growth which makes it visible
to my thought like the shape of an angel. Ihave
loved not in one way, but in every way which
the heart of man could conceive. There is no
tone of love which the heart holds for the striking
which I have not heard like a bell through my
furthermost silences. I can truly say that when
I rode to church with Mary Cavendish that
morning in April, though I loved in my whole
life her and her alone, and was a most solitary
man as far as friends and kinsfolk went, yet not
one in the whole Kingdom of Virginia had fuller
knowledge of love in all its shades of meaning
than I. For I had loved Mary Cavendish like a
father and like a lover, like a friend and a brother,
like a slave and like a master, and such love I had
for her that I could see her good beyond her
pain, and would have had the courage to bear
her pain, though God knows her every pang was

26
The Heart’s Highway

my twenty. And it had been thus with me near
sixteen years, since I was fourteen and she was a
little maid of two, and I lived neighbour to her
in Suffolkshire. I can see myself at fourteen and
laugh at the picture. All of us have our phases
of comedy, our seasons when we are out of per-
spective and approach the grotesque and furnish
our own jesters for our after lives.

At fourteen I was as ungainly a lad, with as
helpless a sprawl of legs and arms and as staring
and shamefaced a surprise at my suddenly real-
ised height of growth, when jostled by a girl or
a younger lad, and utter discomfiture before an
unexpected deepness of tone when essaying a
polite response to an inquiry of his elders, as was
ever seen in England. And I remember that I
bore myself with a wary outlook for affronts to
my newly fledging dignity, and concealed all that
was stirring in me to new life, whether of nobility
or natural emotion, as if it were a dire shame, and
whenever I had it in my heart to be tender, was
so brusque that I seemed to have been provided
by nature with an armour of roughness like a
hedgehog. But, perhaps, I had some small ex-
cuse for this, though, after all, it is a question in
my mind as to what excuse there may be for any
man outside the motives of his own deeds, and I
care not to dwell unduly, even to my own consid-
eration, upon those disadvantages of life which
may come to a man without his cognisance and

27
The Heart’s Highway

are to be borne like any fortune of war. But
I had a mother who had small affection for me,
and that was not so unnatural nor .so much
to her discredit as it may sound, since she, poor
thing, had been forced into a marriage with my
father when she was long in love with her cousin.
Then my father having died at sea the year after
I was born, and her cousin, who was a younger
son, having come into the estates through the
deaths of both his brothers of small-pox in one
week, she married her first love in less than six
months, and no discredit to her, for women are
weak when they love, and she had doubtless been
sorely tried. They told me that my poor father
was a true man and gallant soldier, and my old
nurse used to talk to me of him, and I used to go
by myself to think of him, and my eyes would
get red when J was but a little boy with reflecting
upon my mother with her new husband and her
beautiful little boy, my brother John, a year
younger than I, and how my own poor father
was forgotten. But there was no discredit to my
mother, who was only a weak and gentle woman
and was tasting happiness after disappointment
and sorrow, in being borne so far out by the tide
of it that she lost sight, as it were, of her old
shores. My mind was never against my mother
for her lack of love for me. But it is not hard to
be lenient toward a lack of love toward one’s
self, especially remembering, as I do, myself, and
28
The Heart’s Highway

- my fine, ruddy-faced, loud-voiced stepfather and
my brother John.

A woman, by reason of her great tenderness of
heart which makes her suffer overmuch for those
she loves, has not the strength to bear the pain of
loving more than one or two so entirely, and my
mother’s whole heart was fixed with an anxious
strain of loving care upon my stepfather and my
brother. I have seen her sit hours by a window
as pale as a statue while my stepfather was away,
-for those were troublous times in England, and
he in the thick of it. When I was a lad of six or
thereabouts they were bringing the king back to
his own, and some of the loyal ones were in dan-
ger of losing their heads along his proposed
line of march. And I have known her to hang
whole nights over my brother’s bed if he had but
a tickling in the throat; and what could one poor
woman do more?

She was as slender as a reed in this marshy
country of Virginia, and her voice was a sweet
whisper, like the voice of one in a wind, and she
had a curious gracefulness of leaning toward one
she loved when in his presence, as if, whether she
would or no, her heart of affection swayed her
body toward him. Always, in thinking of my
mother, I see her leaning with that true line of
love toward my stepfather or my brother John,
her fair hair drooping over her delicate cheeks,
her blue eyes wistful with the longing to give

29
The Heart’s Highway

more and more for their happiness. My brother
John looked like my mother, being, in fact, .al-
most feminine in his appearance, though not in
his character. He had the same fair face, per-
haps more clearly and less softly cut, and the
same long, silky wave of fair hair, but the ex-
pression of his eyes was different, and in character
he was different. As for me, I was like my poor
father, so like that, as I grew older, I seemed
his very double, as my old nurse used to tell
me. Perhaps that may have accounted for the
quick glance, which seemed almost of fear,
which my mother used to give me sometimes
when I entered a room where she sat at her
embroidery-work. My mother dearly loved
fine embroideries and laces, and in thinking
of her I can no more separate her from them
than I can a flower from its scalloped setting of
petals.

I used to slink away as soon as possible when
my mother turned her startled blue eyes upon
me in such wise, that she might regain her peace,
and sometimes I used to send my brother John
to her on some errand, if I could manage it,
knowing that he could soon drive me from her
mind. One learns early such little tricks with
women; they are such tender things, and it stirs
one’s heart to impatience to see them troubled.
However, I will not deny that I may have been
at times disturbed with some bitterness and

30
The Heart's Highway

jealousy at the sight of my brother and my step-
father having that which I naturally craved, for
the heart of a little lad is a hungry thing for love,
and has pangs of nature which will not be stilled,
though they are to be borne like all else of pain
on earth. But after I saw Mary Cavendish all
that passed, for I got, through loving so entirely,
such knowledge of love in others that I saw that
the excuse of love, for its weaknesses and its own
crimes even, is such as to pass understanding.
Looking at my mother caressing my brother in-
stead of myself, I entered so fully into her own
spirit of tenderness that I no longer rebelled nor
wondered. The knowledge of the weakness of
one’s own heart goes far to set one at rights with
all others.

When I first saw Mary Cavendish she was, as
I said before, a little baby maid of two and Ia
loutish lad of fourteen, and I was going through
the park of Cavendish Hall, which lay next ours,
one morning in May, when all the hedges were
white and pink, and the blue was full of wings
and songs. Cavendish Hall had been vacant,
save for a caretaker, that many a day. Francis
Cavendish, the owner, had been for years in India,
but he had lately died, and now the younger
brother, Geoffry, Mary’s father, had come home
from America to take possession of the estate,
and he brought with him his daughter Catherine
by a former marriage, a maid a year older than I;

31
The Heart’s Highway

his second wife, a delicate lady scarce more than
a girl, and his little daughter Mary.

And they had left to come thither two fine
estates in Virginia—namely these two: Laurel
Creek, which was Mary’s mother’s in her own
right, and Drake Hill; and the second wife had
come with some misgiving and attended by a
whole troop of black slaves, which made all our
country fall agog at once with awe and ridicule
and admiration. I was myself full of interest in
this unwonted folk, and prone to linger about the
park for a sight, and maybe a chance word with
them, having ever from a child had a desire to
look farther into that which has been hitherto
unknown, whether it be in books or in the world
at large. My lessons had been learned that
morning, as was easily done, for I was accounted
quick in learning, though no more so than others,
did they put themselves to it with the same wish
to have it over. My tutor also was not one to
linger unduly at the task of teaching, since he was
given to rambling about by himself with a book
under one arm and a fish-pole over shoulder; a
scholar of gentle, melancholy moving through
the world, with such frequent pauses of abstrac-
tion that I used often to wonder if he rightfully
knew himself whither he was bound.

But my mother was fond of him and so was
my brother John, and as for my stepfather, Col.
John Chelmsford, he had too weighty matters:

32
The Heart’s Highway

upon his mind, matters which pertained to Church
and State and life and death, to think much about
tutors. I myself was not averse to Master
Snowdon, though he was to my mind, which was
ever fain to seize knowledge as a man and a
soldier should, by the forelock instead of dally-
ing, too mild and deprecatory, thereby, perhaps,
letting the best of her elude him. Still Master
Snowdon was accounted, and was, a learned man,
though scarcely knowing what he knew and
easily shaken by any bout of even my boyish
argument, until, I think, he was in some terror of
me, and like one set free when he had heard my
last page construed, and was off with his fish-pole
and his book to the green side of some quiet pool.
So I, with my book-lesson done, but my mind still
athirst for more knowledge, and, maybe, curious,
for all thirst is not for the noblest ends, crawled
through a gap in the snowy May hedge, and was
slinking across the park of Cavendish Hall with
long, loose-jointed lopes like a stray puppy, and
maybe with some sense of being where I should
not, though I could not have rightly told why,
since there were no warnings up against tres-
passers, and I had no designs upon any hare nor
deer.

Bethat as it may, lwas goingalong in such fash-
ion through the greenness of the park, so deep
with rich lights andshadowson it that May morn-
ing that it seemed like plunging thought-high ina.

3 33...
The Heart’s Highway

gréen sea, when suddenly I stopped and my heart
leapt, for there sat in the grass before me, clutch-
ing some of it with a tiny hand like a pink pearl,
the sweetest little maid that ever this world held.
All in white she was, and of a stuff so thin that
her baby curves of innocence showed through it,
and the little smock slipped low down over her
tosy shoulders, and her little toes curled pink in
the gtéén of the grass, for she had no shoes on,
having run away, before she was dressed, by some
oversight of her black nurse, and down from her
head, over all her tiny body, hiding all save the
terest glimmer of the loveliness of her face, fell
the most wonderful shower of gold locks that
ever a baby of only two years old possessed. She
sat there with the sunlight glancing on her
through a rift in the trees, all in a web of gold,
fléating and flying on the May wind, and for a
minute, I, béing well instructed in such lore,
thought she was no mortal child, but something
more, as she was indeed, but in another sense.

I stood there, and looked and looked, and she
still pulled up tiny handfuls of the green grass,
and never turned nor knew me near, when sud-
denly there burst with a speed like a storm, and a
storm indeed it was of brute life, with loud stamps
of a very fury of sound which shook the earth as
with a mighty tread of thunder, out of a thicker
part of the wood, a great black stallion on a
morning gallop with all the freedom of the spring

. 34
The Heart’s Highway

and youth firing his blood, and one step more
and his iron hoofs would have crushed the child.
But Iwas first. I flungmyself upon her andthrew
her like a feather to one side, and that was the last
I knew for a while. When I knew myself again
there was a mighty pain in my shoulder, which
seemed to be the centre of my whole existence
by reason of it, and there was the feel of baby
kisses on my lips. The courage of her blood was
in that tiny maid. She had no thought of flight
nor tears, though she knew not but that black
thunderbolt would return, and she knew not what
my ghastly silence meant. She had crept close
to me, though she might well have been bruised,
such a tender thing she was, by the rough fling
Thad given her, and was trying to kiss me awake
as she did her father. And I, rude boy, all un-
versed in grace and tenderness, and hitherto all
unsought of love, felt her soft lips on mine, and,
looking, saw that baby face all clouded about with
gold, and I loved her forever.

I knew not how to talk to a little petted treas-
ure of life like that, and I dared not speak, but I
looked at her, and she seemed not to be afraid,
- but laughed with a merriment of triumph at see-
ing me awake, and something she said in the
sweetest tongue of the world, which I yet made
poor shift to understand, for her baby speech,
besides its incompleteness, had also a long-drawn
sweetness like the slow trickle of honey, which

35
The Heart’s Highway

she had caught from those black people. which ..

she had about her since her birth.

I had great ado to move, though my shoulder
was not disjointed, only sorely bruised, but finally
I was on my feet again, though standing rather
weakly, and with an ear alert for the return of
that wild, careering brute, and the little maid was
close at my side, with one rosy set. of fingers

clinging around two of my rough brown ones
with that sweet tenacity of a baby grasp which
can hold the strongest thing on earth.

And she kept on jabbering with that slow mur-
mur of sweetness, and I stood looking down at
her, catching my breath with the pain in my
shoulder, though it was out of my thoughts with
this new love of her, and then came my father,
Col. John Chelmsford, and Capt. Geoffry Cav-
endish, walking through the park in deep con-
verse, and came upon us, and stopped and stared,
as well they might.

Capt. Geoffry Cavendish was a gaunt man with
the hectic colour of a fever, which he had caught
in the new country, ‘still in the hollows of his
cheeks. He was quite young, with sudden alert-
nesses of glances in bright black eyes like the
new colours in jewels when the light shifts. His
daughter has the same, though her eyes are blue.
Moreover, through having been in the royal navy
before he got a wound which incapacitated him
from further service, and was indeed in time the ..

36.
The Heart’s Highway

cause of his death, he had acquired a swift supple-
ness of silent movement, which his daughter has
inherited also.

When he came upon us he stared for but one
second, then came that black flash into his eyes,
and out curved an arm, and the little maid was on
her father’s shoulder, and he was questioning me
with something of mistrust. I was a gentleman
born and bred, but my clothes sat but roughly
and indifferently on me, partly through lack of
oversight and partly from that rude tumble I had
gotten. Indeed, my breeches and my coat were
something torn by it. Then, too, I had doubt-
less a look of ghastliness and astonishment that
might well have awaked suspicion, and Capt.
Geofiry Cavendish had never spoken with me in
the short time since his return. ‘ Who may you
be?” he asked, and his voice hesitated between
hostility and friendliness, and my stepfather an-
swered for me with a slight forward thrust of his
shoulders which might have indicated shame, or
impatience, or both. “’Tis Master Harry Maria
Wingfield,” answered he; then in the same
breath, ‘‘ How came you here, sir?”

I answered, seeing no reason why I should not,
though I felt my voice shake, being still unsteady
with the pain, and told the truth, that I had come
thither to see if, perchance, I could get a glimpse
of some of the black folk. At that Captain Cav-
endish laughed good-humouredly, being used

37
The Heart’s Highway

to the excitement his black troop caused and
amused at it, and called out merrily that I was
about to be gratified, and indeed at that moment
came running, with fat lunges, as it were, of trem-
ulous speed, a great black woman in pursuit of the
little maid, and heaved her high to her dark wave
of bosom with hoarse chuckles and cooings of
love and delight and white rollings of terrified
eyes at her master if, perchance, he might be
wroth at her carelessness. :

He only laughed, and brushed his dark beard
against the tender roses of the little maid as he
gave her up, but my stepfather, who, though not
ill-natured, often conceived the necessity of ill-
nature, was not so easily satisfied. He stood
looking sternly at my white face and my weak
yielding of body at the bend of the knees, and
suddenly he caught me heavily by my bruised
shoulder. ‘“ What means all this, sirrah?” he
cried out, but then I sank away before him, for
the pain was greater than I could bear.

When I came to myself my waistcoat was off,
and both men looking at my shoulder, which the
horse’s hoof must have barely grazed, though no
more, or I should have been in a worse plight.
Still the shoulder was a sorry sight enough, and
the great black woman with the little fair baby
in her arms stood aloof looking at it with ready
tears, and the baby herself made round eyes like
stars, though she knew not half what it meant. I

38
The Heart's Highway

felt the hot red of shame go over me at my weak-
ness at a little pain, after the first shock was over,
and I presumably steeled to bear it like a man,
and I struggled to my feet, pulling my waistcoat
together and looking, I will venture, much like a
sulky and ill-conditioned lad.

“What means that hurt on your shoulder,
Harry? ” asked my stepfather, Col. John Chelms-
ford, and his voice was kind enough then. “I
would not have laid such a heavy hand on thy
shoulder had I known of it,” he added. My
stepfather had never aught against me that I wot
of, having simply naught for me, and a man can-
not in justice be held to account for the limita-
tions of his affections, especially toward a rival’s
son. He spoke with all kindness, and his great
ruddy face had a heavy gleam of pity for my hurt,
but I answered not one word. ‘“ How came it so,
Harry?” he asked again with growing wonder
at my silence, but I would nof reply.

Then Captain Cavendish also addressed me.
“You need have no fear, however you came by
the hurt, my lad,” he said, and I verily believe
he thought I had somehow caught the hurt while
poaching on his preserves. I stood before them
quite still, with my knees stiff enough now, and I
think the colour came back in my face by reason
of the resistance of my spirit.

“Harry, how got you that wound on your
shoulder? Answer me, sir,” said Colonel Chelms-

39
The Heart’s Highway

ford, his voice gathering wrath anew. But I re-
mained silent. IJ do not, to this day, know why,
except that to tell of any service rendered has al-
ways seemed to me to attaint the honour of the
teller, and how much more when it was a service
toward that little maid! So I kept my silence.

Then my stepfather’s face blazed high, and his
mouth straightened and widened, and his grasp
tightened on a riding-whip which he carried, for
he had left his horse grazing a few yards away.
* How came you by it, sir?" he demanded, and
his voice was thick. Then, when I would not
reply, he raised the whip, and swung it over my
shoulders, but I caught it with my sound arm
ere it fell, and at the same time the little maid,
Mary Cavendish, set up a piteous wail of fear in
her nurse’s arms.

“TI pray you, sir, do not frighten her,” I said,
“ but wait till she be gone.” And then I waved
the black woman to carry her away, and with my
lame arm. When she had fled with the child's
soft wail floating back, I turned to my stepfather,
Col. John Chelmsford, and he, holding fiercely
to the whip which I relinquished, still eyed me
with doubt.

* Harry, why will you not tell? “ he said, but I
shook my head, waiting for him to strike, for I
was but a boy, and it had been so before, and
perhaps more justly.

“ Let the lad go, Chelmsford,” cried Captain

40
The Heart’s Highway

Cavendish. “ I'll warrant he has done no harm.”
But my stepfather would not heed him.

“* Answer me, Harry,” said he. Then, when I
would not, down came the riding-whip, but only
thrice, and not hard. ‘‘ Now go you home,” said
my stepfather, “ and show your mother the hurt,
however you came by it, and have her put some
of the cooling lotion on a linen cloth to it.” Then
he and Captain Cavendish went their ways, and I
went toward home, creeping through the gap in
the May hedge. But I did not go far, having no
mind to show my hurt, though I knew well that
my mother, being a woman and soft toward all
wounds, would make much of it, and maybe of
me on its account. But I was not of a mind to
purchase affection by complaints of bodily ills, so
I lay down under the hedge in the soft grass,
keeping my bruised shoulder uppermost, and
remained there thinking of the little maid, till
finally the pain easing somewhat, I fell asleep,
and was presently awakened by a soft touch on
my sore shoulder, which caused me to wince and
start up with wide eyes, and there was Catherine
Cavendish.

Catherine Cavendish I had seen afar, though
not to speak with her, and she being a year my
senior and not then a beauty, and I being, more-
over, of an age to look at a girl and look away
again to my own affairs, I had thought no more
of her, but I knew her at once. She was, as I said

.q
The Heart’s Highway

before, not a beauty at that time, being one of
those maids which, like some flowers, are slow of
bloom. She had grown so fast and far that she
had outspeeded her grace. She was full of tri-
angles instead of curves; her shyness was so in-
tense that it became aggressiveness. The green-
ness and sallowness of immaturity that come
before the perfection of bloom were on her face,
and her eyes either shrank before one or else
gleamed fiercely with the impulse of concealment.
There is in all youth and imperfection a stage
wherein it turns at bay to protect its helplessness
with a vain show of inadequate claws and teeth,
and Catherine Cavendish had reached it, and I
also, in my different estate as a boy. .

Catherine towered over me with her slender
height, her sallow hair falling in silky ringlets
over her dull cheeks, and when she spoke her
voice rang sharp where mine would have growled
with hoarseness.

“ Why did you not tell?” said she sharply, and
I stared up at her speechless, for I saw that she
knew.

“Why did you not tell, and why were you
whipped for it?” she demanded again. Then,
' when I did not answer: “I saw it all. I hid
behind a tree for fear of the stallion. The child
would have been killed but for you. Why were
you whipped for a thing like that?” Then all
at once, before I could answer, had I been minded

42
The Heart’s Highway

to do so, she burst out almost with violence with
a brilliant red, surging up from the cords of her
thin neck, over her whole face. ‘“‘ Never mind, I
like you for it. I would not have told. I will
never tell as long as I live, and I have brought
some lotion of cream and healing herbs, and a
linen cloth, and I will bind up your shoulder for
you.”

With that, down she was on her knees, though
I strove half rudely to prevent her, and was bind-
ing up my shoulder with a wonderful deftness of
her long fingers.

When she had done she sprang to her feet with
a curious multifold undoubling motion by reason
of her great height and lack of practice with it,
and I lumbered heavily to mine, and she asked ©
me again with a sharpness that seemed almost
venomous, so charged with curiosity it was,
though she had just expressed her approbation
of me:

“Why did you not tell?”

But I did not answer her that. I only thanked
her, or tried to thank her, I dare say in such surly
fashion that it was more like a rebuff; then I was
off, but I felt her standing there close to the
white-blooming hedge, staring after me with that
inscrutable look of an immature girl who ques-
tions doubly all she sees, beginning with herself.

43
II!

Although I was heir to a large estate, I had
not much gold and silver nor many treasures
in my possession. I never knew rightly why;
‘but my mother, having control until I was come
of age, and having, indeed, the whole property
at her disposal, doubtless considered it best that
the wealth should accumulate rather than be frit-
tered away in trifles which could be of but pass-
ing moment toa boy. But I was well equipped
enough as regarded comforts, and, as I said
before, my education was well looked after.:
Through never having much regard for such
small matters, it used to gall me not at all that my
half-brother, who was younger and such a fair
lad that he became them like a girl, should go
clad in silks and velvets and laces, with a ready
jingle of money in his purse and plenty of sweets
and trinkets to command. But after I saw that
little maid it went somewhat hard with me that
I had no bravery of apparel to catch her sweet
eyes and cause her to laugh and point with de-
light, as I have often seen her do, at the glitter
of a loop of gold or a jewelled button or a flash
of crimson sheen from a fold of velvet, for she

44
The Heart’s Highway

always dearly loved such pretty things. And it
went hard with me that I had not the where-
withal to sometimes purchase a comfit to thrust
into her little hand, reaching of her nature for
sweets like the hands of all young things. Often
I saw my brother John win her notice in such
wise, for he, though he cared in general but little
for small folk, was ravished by her, as indeed was
every one who saw her. And once my brother
John gave her a ribbon stiff with threads of gold
which pleased her mightily at the time, though,
the day after, I saw it gleaming from the wet
of the park grass, whither she had flung it, for the
caprices of a baby are beyond those of the wind,
being indeed human inclination without rudder
nor compass. Then IJ did an ungallant and un-
generous thing, for which I have always held
myself in light esteem: I gathered up that ribbon
and carried it to my brother and told him where
I had found it, but all to small purpose as re-
garded my jealousy, as he scarce gave it a
thought, and the next day gave the little maid a
silver button, which she treasured longer. As
for me, I having no ribbons nor sweets nor silver
buttons to give her, was fain to search the woods
and fields and the seashore for those small treas-
ures, without money and without price, with
which nature is lavish toward the poor who love
her and attend her carefully, such as the first
flowers of the season, nuts and seed-vessels, and
45
The Heart’s Highway

sometimes an empty bird’s nest and a stray
bright feather and bits of bright stones, which
might, for. her baby fancy, be as good as my
brother’s gold and silver, and shells, and red and
russet moss. All these I offered her from time
to time as reverently and shyly as any true lover;
though she was but a baby tugging with a sweet
angle of opposition at her black nurse’s hand and
I near a man grown, and though I had naught
to hope for save a fleeting grasp of her rosy
fingers and a wavering smile from her sweet lips
and eyes, ere she flung the offering away with
innocent inconstancy.

Her father, Capt. Geoffry Cavendish, seemed
to regard my devotion to his daughter with a
certain amusement and good-will; indeed, I used
to fancy that he had a liking for me, and would
go out of his way to say a pleasant word, but
once it happened that I took his kindness in ill
part, and still consider that I was justified in so
doing.

A gentleman should not have pity thrust upon
him unless he himself, by his complaints, seems
to sue for it, and that was ever far from me, and
I was already, although so young, as sensitive
to all slights upon my dignity as any full-grown
man. So when, one day, lying at full length upon
the grass under a reddening oak with a book
under my eyes and my pocket full of nuts if, per-
chance, my little sweetheart should come that

46
The Heart’s Highway

way with her black nurse, I heard suddenly Cap-
tain Cavetidish’s voice ring out loud and clear,
as it always did, from his practice on the quarter-
deck, with something like an oath as of righteous
indignation to the effect that it was a damned
shame for the heir and the eldest son, and a lad
with a head of a scholar and the arm of a soldier,
to be thrust aside so and made so little of. Then
another voice, smoothly sliding, as if to make
no friction with the other’s opinions, asked of
whom he spoke, and that smoothly sliding voice
I recognised as Mr. Abbot’s, the attorney’s, and
Captain Cavendish replied in a fashion which
astonished me, for I had no idea to whom he
had referred—‘ Harry Maria Wingfield, the eld-
est son and heir of as fine and gallant a gentle-
man as ever trod English soil, who is treated like
the son of a scullion by those who owe him most,
and ’tis a damned shame and I care not who
hears me.”

Then, before I had as yet fairly my wits about
me, Mr. Abbot spoke again in that voice of his
which I so hated in my boyish downrightness and
scorn of all policy that it may have led me to
an unjust estimate of all men of his profession.
“ But Col. John Chelmsford hath no meaning to
deal otherwise than fairly by the boy, and neither,
unless I greatly mistake, hath his wife.” And
this he said as if both Colonel Chelmsford and
my mother were at his elbow, and for that man-

47
The Heart's Highway

ner of speaking I have ever had contempt, pre-
ferring downright scurrility, and Captain Caven-
dish replied with his quick agility of wrath, as
precipitate toward judgment as a sailor to the
masthead in a storm:

“And what if she be? The more shame to
them that they have not enough wit to see what
they do! I tell thee this poor Harry hath a
harder time of it than any slave on my plantation
in Virginia, I ”

But then I was on my feet, and, facing them
both with my head flung back and my face, I dare
say, red and white with wrath, and demanding
hotly what that might be to them, and if my
treatment at the hands of my stepfather and my
own mother was not between them and me, and
none else, and, boy as I was, I felt as tall as Cap-
tain Cavendish as I stood there. Captain Cav-
endish stared a moment and reddened and
frowned, and then his gaunt face widened with
his ever ready laugh which made it passing sweet
for a man.

“ Tush, lad,” he cried out, “ and had I known
how fit thou were to fight thy own battles I had
not taken up the cudgels for thee, and I crave
thy pardon, I had not perceived that thy sword-
arm was grown, and henceforth thou shall cross
with thy adversaries for all me.” Then he
laughed again, and I stared at him still grimly but
softened, and he and Mr. Abbot moved on, but

48

 
The Heart’s Highway

the attorney, in passing, laid his great white hand
on my black mane of hair as if he would bless me,
and I shrank away from under it, and when he
said in that voice of his, “ ’Tis a gallant lad and
one to do good service for his king and country,”
I would that he had struck me that I might have
justly hit back.

When they had passed back on the turf I lay
with my boyish heart in a rage with the insults,
both of pity and of praise, which had been offered
me; for why should pity be offered unless there
be the weakness of betrayal of suffering to war-
rant it, and why should there be praise unless
there be craving for it, through the weakness of
wronged conceit? Be that as it may, my book
no longer interested me, and finally I rose up and
went away after having deposited all my nuts on
the grass in the hope that the little maid might
chance that way and espy them.

It was both a great and a sad day for me when
I came to go to Cambridge, great because of my
desire for knowledge and the sight of the world
which has ever been strong within me, and, being
so strong, should have led to more; and sad be-
cause of my leaving the little maid without a
chance of seeing her for so long a time. She
was then six years old, and a wonder both in
beauty and mind to all who beheld her. I saw
much more of her in those days, for my mother,
whose heart had always been sore for a little girl,

4 49
The Heart’s Highway

was often with Captain Cavendish’s wife, for the
sake of the child, though the two women were
not of the best accord one with another. Often
would I notice that my mothercaressed the child,
with only a side attention for her mother, though
that was well disguised by her soft grace of man-
ner, which seemed to include all present in a
room, and I also noticed that Madam Rosa-
mond Cavendish’s sweet mouth would be set in
a straight line with inward dissent at some re-
mark of the other woman’s.

Madam Rosamond Cavendish was, I suppose,
a beauty, though after a strange and curious
fashion, being seemingly dependent upon those
around her for it, as a chameleon is dependent
for his colour upon his surroundings. I have
seen Madam Cavendish, when praised by one
she loved, or approached by the little maid, her
daughter, with an outstretch of fair little arms
and a coercion of dimples toward kisses, flash
into such radiance of loveliness that, boy as I
was, I was dazzled by her. Then, on the other
hand, I have seen her as dully opaque of any
meaning of beauty as one could well be. But she
loved Captain Cavendish well, and I wot he never
saw her but with that wondrous charm, since
whenever he east his eyes upon her it must have
been to awaken both reflection and true life of
joy in her face. She was so small and exceeding
slim that she seemed no more than a child, and

50
The Heart's Highway

she was not strong, having a quick cough ready
at every breath of wind, and she rode nor walked
like our English women, but lay about on cush-
ions in the sun. Still, when she moved, it was
with such a vitality of grace and such readiness
that no one, I suspect, knew how frail she was
until she sickened and died the second year of my
stay in Cambridge. When I returned home I
found in her stead Madam Judith Cavendish, the
mother of Captain Cavendish, who had come
from Huntingdonshire. She was at that time
well turned of threescore, but a woman who was,
as she had always been, a power over those about
her. She looked her age, too, except for her
figure, for her hair was snowy white, and the
lines of her face fixed beyond influence of further
smiles or tears. My imagination has always been
a mighty factor in my estimation of the charac-
ters of others, and I have often wondered how
true to facts I might be, but verily it seemed to
me that after Madam Cavendish arrived at Cav-
endish Court the influence of that great strength
of character, which, when it exists in a woman,
intimidates every man, no matter who he may
be, made itself evident in the very king’s high-
way approaching Cavendish Court, and increased
as the distance diminished, according to some of
my mathematical rules.

There were in her no change and shifting to

new lights of beauty or otherwise at the estima-
§1

3
The Heart’s Highway

tion of those around her; she rather controlled,
as it were, all the domestic winds. Captain Cav-
endish bowed before his superior on his own
deck, though I believe there was much love be-
twixt them, and, as for the little maid, she tem-'
pered the wilfulness which was then growing
with her growth by outward meekness at least.
I used to think her somewhat afraid of her grand-
mother, and disposed to cling for protection and
mother-love to her elder sister Catherine. Cath-
erine, in those two years, had blossomed out her
beauty; her sallowness and green pallor had
become bloom, though not rosy, rather an in-
effable clear white like a lily. Her eyes, at once
shy and antagonistic, had become as steady as
stars in their estimation of self and others, and all
her slender height was as well in her power of
graceful guidance as the height of a young oak
tree. Catherine, in those days, paid very little
heed to me, for her one year of superior age
seemed then threefold to both of us, except as
she was jealously watchful that I win not too
much of the love of her little sister. I have never
seen such love from elder to younger as there
was from Catherine Cavendish to her half-sister
Mary after the little one had lost her mother.
And all that the little maid did, whether of work
or play, was with an eye toward the other’s appro-
bation, especially after the advent of her grand-
mother. Catherine had lovers, but she would
52
The Heart's Highway

have none ofthem. It seemed as if the maternal
love of which most maids feel the unknown and
unspelled yearning. and which, perchance, may
draw them all unwittingly to wedlock, had seized
upon Catherine Cavendish, and she had, as it
were, fulfilled it by proxy by this love of her
young sister, and so had her heart made cold
toward all lovers. Be that as it may, though she
was much sought after by more than one of high
degree, she remained as she was.

For the last part of mv stay at Cambridge I
saw but little of her, and net so much as I would
fam have done of her sister. I was past the boy-
ish hberty of ling in wait m the park for a
glimpse of her: she was not of an age for me to
psy my court. and there was little inumacy be-
twixt my mother and Madam Cavendish. But
I can troly sy that never for one mimute did I
lose the consciousness cf her in the world with
me, and that at a time when my love micht well
be a somewhat anomalous and sexless thing, since
she wes grown a ite past my first conception
of love toward her. and had not ye: reached my
second.

But oh, the glimpses [ used to catch of her at
that time. slim-lecged and swit. and shrilly sweet
of voice as a lars. and 2s shyly 2-flutter at the
motion of a hand toward her. cr else seated prim
2s any grown ctiicen. with grave eres of atten-

tion <2en her task of sampler or nen stitching!
The Heart’s Highway

- My heart used to leap in a fashion that none
would have believed nor understood, at the blue
gleam of her gown and the gold gleam of her
little head through the trees of the park, or
through the oaken shadows of the hall at Cav-
endish Court during my scant visits there. No
maid of my own age drew, for one moment, my
heart away from her. She had no rivals except
my books, for I was ever an eager scholar,
though it might have been otherwise had the
state of the country been different. I can imag-
ine that I might in some severe stress have had
my mind, being a hot-headed youth, diverted by
the feel of the sword-hilt. But just then the king
sat on his throne, and there was naught to dis-
turb the public peace except his multiplicity of
loves, which aroused discussion, which salted
society with keenest relish, but went no farther.

I took high honours at Cambridge, though no
higher than I should have done, and so no pride
and no modesty in the owning and telling; and
then I camé home, and my mother greeted me
something more warmly than she was wont, and
my stepfather, Col. John Chelmsford, took me
by the hand, and my brother John played me at
cards that night, and won, as he mostly did. John
was at that time also in Cambridge, but only in his
second year, being, although of quicker grasp
upon circumstances to his own gain than I, yet
not so alert at book-lore; but he had grown a

54
The Heart’s Highway

handsome man, as fair as a woman, yet bold as
any cavalier that ever drew sword—the kind to
win a woman by his own strength and her own
arts.

The night after I returned, there was a ball at
Cavendish Court, the first since the death of
Madam Rosamond, and my brother and I went,
and my stepfather and my mother, though she
loved not Madam Cavendish.

And Mary Cavendish, at that time ten years
old, was standing, when I first entered, with a
piece of blue-green tapestry work at her back,
clad in a little straight white gown and little
satin shoes, and a wreath of roses on her head,
from whence the golden locks flowed over her
gentle cheeks, delicately rounded between the
baby and maiden curves, with her little hands
clasped before her; and her blue eyes, now down-
cast, now uplifted with utmost confidence in the
love of all who saw her. And close by her stood
her sister Catherine, coldly sweet in a splendid
spread of glittering brocade, holding her head,
crowned with flowers and plumes, as still and
stately as if there were for her in all the world no
wind of passion; and my brother John looked at
her, and I knew he loved her, and marvelled what
would come of it, though they danced often to-
gether.

The ball went on till the east was red, and the
cocks crew, and all the birds woke in a tumult,

55
The Heart’s Highway

and then that happened which changed my whole
life.

Three weeks from that day I set sail for the
New World—a convict. I will not now say how
nor why; and on the same ship sailed Capt.
Geoffry Cavendish, his mother Madam Judith
Cavendish, his daughter Catherine, and the little
maid Mary.

And on the long voyage Captain Cavendish’s
old wound broke out anew, and he died and was
buried at sea, and I, when I arrived in this king-
dom of Virginia, with the dire uncertainty and
hardship of the convict before me, yet with
strength and readiness to bear it, was taken as
a tutor by Madam Judith Cavendish for her
granddaughter Mary, being by education well
fitted for such a post, and she herself knowing
her other reasons for so doing. And so it hap-
pened that Mistress Mary Cavendish and I rode
to meeting in Jamestown that Sabbath in April
of 1682.
Ty

Albeit I have as faithful a respect for the cus-
toms of the Church as any man, I considered
then, and consider now as well, that it was almost
beyond the power of any one to observe them
according to the fashion of the times and gain
therefrom a full edification of the spirit.

Therefore, that April morning, though filled
in my inmost heart with love and gratitude
toward God, as I had always been since I had
seen His handiwork in Mary Cavendish, which
was my especial lesson of His grace to meward,
with sweetest rhymes of joy for all my pains, and
reasons for all my doubts; and though she sat
beside me, so near that the rich spread of her
gown was over my knee, and the shining of her
beauty warm on my face, yet was I weary of the
service and eager to be out. As I said before,
Parson Downs was not to my mind, neither he
nor his discourse. Still he spoke with a mighty
energy and a conviction of the truth of his own
words which would have moved his hearers to
better purpose had they moved himself as re-
garded his dailv life. But beyond a great effer-
vescence of the spirit, which produced a high-

57
The Heart’s Highway

mounting froth of piety, like the seething top of
an ale-tankard, there came naught of it. Still
was there in him some good, or rather some lack
of ill; for he was no hypocrite, but preached
openly against his own vices, then went forth to
furnish new texts for his sermon, not caring who
might see and judge him. A hearty man he was,
who would lend his last shilling or borrow his
neighbour’s with equal readiness, forcing one to
a certain angry liking for him because of his
good-will to do that for you which you were
loth to do for him. Yet if there ever was a man
in harness to Satan as to the lusts of his flesh
and his pride of life, it was Parson Downs, in
despite of his bold curvets and prances of ex-
hortation, which so counterfeited freedom that I
doubt not that they deceived even himself; and
he felt not, the while he was expanding his great
front over his pulpit, and waving his hands, on
one of which shone a precious red stone, the
strain of his own leash. But I have ever had a
scorn which I could not cry down for any man
who was a slave, except by his own will.
Feeling thus, I was glad when Parson Downs
was done, and letting himself down with stately
jolts of ponderosity from his pulpit, and the folk
were moving out of the church in a soft press of
decorously veiled eagerness, with a great rustling
of silks and satin, and jingling of spurs and
swords, and waving of plumes, and shaking out
58
The Heart’s Highway

of stronger odours of flowers and essences and
spices.

And gladder still I was when astride my horse
in the open, with the sweet broadside of the
spring wind in my face, and all the white flower-
ing trees and bushes bowing and singing with a
thousand bird-voices, like another congregation
before the Lord. I had not the honour to assist
Mistress Mary to her saddle. Sir Humphrey
Hyde and Ralph Drake, who was a far-off cousin
of hers; and my Lord Estes, who was on a visit
to his kinsman, Lord Culpeper, the Governor of
Virginia; and half a score of others pressed be-
fore me, who was but the tutor, and had no right
to do her such service except for lack of another
at hand. And a fair sight it was for one who
loved her as I, with no privilege oi jealousy, and
yet with it astir within him, like a thing made
but of claws and fangs and stinging tongue, to
see her with that crowd of gallants about her,
and the other maids going their ways unat-
tended, with faces of averted meekness, or
haughty uplifts of brows and noses, as suited
best their different characters. Mistress Mary
was, no doubt, the fairest of them all, and yet
there was more than that in the cause for her
advantage over them. She kept all her admirers
by the very looseness of her grasp, which gave no
indication of any eagerness to hold, and thus
aroused in them no fear of detention nor of wiles

59
The Heart’s Highway

of beauty which should subvert their wills. And,
furthermore, Mary Cavendish distributed her
smiles as impartially as a flower its sweetness,
to each the same, though but a scant allotment
to each, as beseemed a maid. I could not, even
with my outlook, observe that she favoured one
more than another, unless it might have been Sir
Humphrey Hyde. I knew well that there was
some confidence betwixt the two, but whether it
was of the nature of love I could not tell.

Sir Humphrey kept the road with us for some
distance after we had left the others, gazing be-
side the horse-block, all equally desirous of fol-
lowing, but knowing well that it would not be a
fair deed to the maid to attend her homeward on
the Sabbath day with a whole troop of lovers.
But Sir Humphrey Hyde leapt to his saddle and
rode abreast with no ado, being ever minded to
do what seemed good to himself, unless, indeed,
his mother stood in the way of his pleasure. Sir
Humphrey’s mother, Lady Clarissa Hyde, was
one of those unwitting tyrants which one sees
among women, by reason of her exceeding deli-
cacy and gentleness, which made it seem but the
cruelty of a brute to cross her, and thus had her
own way forever, and never suspected it were not
always the way of others.

Sir Humphrey was awell-setyoung gentleman,
and he was dressed in the farthest fashion. The
broad back of his scarlet coat, rising to the trot of

60
The Heart’s Highway

his horse, clashed through the soft gold-green
mists and radiances of the spring landscape like
the blare of a trumpet; his gold buttons glittered;
the long plume on his hat ruffled to the wind over
his fair periwig. Wigs were not so long in fash-
ion, but Sir Humphrey was to the front in his.
Mary Cavendish and Sir Humphrey rode on
abreast, and I behind far enough to be cleared of
the mire thrown by their horse-hoofs, and my
heart was full of that demon of jealousy which
possessed me in spite of my love. It is passing
strange that I, though loving Mary Cavendish
better than myself, and having the strength to
prefer her to myself in all things, yet had not the
power to do it without pain, and must hold that
ravening jealousy to my breast. But not once
did it get the better of me, and all the way was I,
even then, thinking that Sir Humphrey Hyde
might be good man and true for Mary Caven-
dish to wed, except for a few faults of his youth,
which might be amended, and that if such be her
mind I might help her to her happiness, since I
knew that, for some reason, Madam Cavendish
had small love for Sir Humphrey, and I knew
also that I had some influence with her.

Behind us straggled the black slaves, as on our
way thither, moving unhaltingly, yet with small
energy, as do folk urged hither and yon only by
the will of others and not by their own; but, pres-
ently, through them, scattering them to the left

61
1

The Heart’s Highway

and right, galloped a black lad on a great horse
after Sir Humphrey, with the word that his
mother would have him return to the church
and escort her homeward. Then Sir Humphrey
turned, after a whispered word or two with Mis-
tress Mary, and rode back to Jamestown; and the
black lad, bounding in the saddle like a ball, after
him.

I still kept my distance behind Mistress Mary,
though often I saw her head turn, and caught a ~
blue flash of an eye over her mask.

Then passed us, booted and spurred, for he had
gotten his priestly robes off in a hurry, Parson
Downs on the fastest horse in those parts, and
riding like a jockey in spite of his heavy-weight.
His horse’s head was stretched in a line with his
neck, and after him rode, at near as great speed,
Capt. Noel Jaynes, who, as report had it, had won
wealth on the high seas in unlawful fashion. He
was a gray old man, with the eye of a hot-headed
boy, and a sabre-cut across his right cheek.

The parson saluted Mistress Mary as he
passed, and so did Captain Jaynes, with a glance
of his bright eyes at her that stirred my blood
and made me ride up faster to her side.

But the two men left the road abruptly, plung-
ing into a bridle-path at the right, and the green
walls of the wood closed behind them, though
one could still hear for long the galloping splash
of their horse’s hoofs in the miry path.

62 }
The Heart’s Highway

Mistress Mary turned to me, and her voice
rang sharp, “ Tis a pretty parson,” said she; “ he
is on his way to Barry Upper Branch with Cap-
tain Jaynes, and who is there doth not know ’tis
for no good, and on the Sabbath day, too?”

Now Barry Upper Branch belonged to broth-
ers of exceeding ill repute, except for their cour-
age, which no one doubted. They had fought
well against the Indians, and also against the
Government with Nathaniel Bacon some half
dozen years before. There had been a prize on
their heads and they had been in hiding, but now
lived openly on their plantation and were in full
feather, and therein lay in a great measure their
ill repute.

When my Lord Culpeper had arrived in Vir-
ginia, succeeding Berkeley, Jeffries, and Chi-
chely, then returned the brothers Richard and
Nicholas Barry, or Dick and Nick, as they were
termed among the people; and as my Lord Cul-
peper was not averse to increasing his revenues,
there were those who whispered, though secretly
and guardedly, that the two bold brothers pur-
chased their safety and peaceful home-dwelling.

Barry Upper Branch was a rich plantation and
had come into full possession of the brothers but
lately, their father, Major Barry, who had been
a staunch old royalist, having died. There were
acres of tobacco, and whole fields of locust for
the manufacture of metheglin, and apple orchards

63
The Heart’s Highway

from which cider enough to slack the thirst of
the colony was made. But the brothers were far
from content with such home-made liquors for
their own drinking, but imported from England
and the Netherlands and Spain great stores of
ale and rum and wines, and held therewith high
wassail with some choice and kindred spirits,
especially on the Sabbath.

Not a woman was there at Barry Upper
Branch, except for slaves, and such stories were
told as might cause a modest maid to hesitate to
speak of the place; but Mary Cavendish was as
yet but a child in her understanding of certain
things. Her blue eyes fixed me with the brave
indignation of a boy as she went on, “’Tis a
pretty parson,” said she again, “ and it would be
the tavern, just as openly, were it on a week day.”

I put my finger to my lip and cast a glance
about, for it was enjoined upon the people under
penalty that they speak not ill of any minister of
the gospel. While I cared not for myself, hav-
ing never yet held my tongue, except from my
own choice, yet was I always concerned for this
young thing, with her utter recklessness of can-
dour, lest her beauty and her charm might not
protect her always against undesirable results;
and not only were the slaves within hearing of
her voice, but none knew how many others, for
those were brave days for tale-bearers. But
Mary spoke again, and more sweetly and shrilly

64
The Heart’s Highway

than ever. “A pretty parson, forsooth! And
to keep company with a pirate captain! Fie!
When he looks at me, I clutch my gold chain
and turn the flash of my rings from sight, and
Dick and Nick Barry are the worst rakes in the
colony! Naught was ever heard good of them,
except their following of General Bacon, but a
good cause makes not always worthy adherents.”
This last she said with a toss of her head and a
proud glance, for Nathaniel Bacon was to this
maid a hero of heroes, and naught but her sex
and her tender years, she being but twelve or so
at the time, had kept her from joining his ranks.
But, indeed, in this I had full sympathy with her,
though chary of expressing it. Had it not been
for my state of disgrace and my outlook for the
welfare of the Cavendishes, I should most as-
suredly have fought with that brave man myself,
for ’twas a good cause, and one which has been
good since the beginning of things, and will hold
good till theend—the cause of the poorand down-
trod against the tyranny of the rich and great.
No greater man will there ever be in this new
country of America than Nathaniel Bacon,
though he had but twenty weeks in which to
prove his greatness; had he been granted more
he might well have changed history. I can see
now that look of high command which none
could withstand, for leaders of men are born, as
well as poets and kings, and are invincible. But
5 65
‘The’ Heart's ' Highway

it may'be that the noble wave of*rebellion which
he raised is even now going on, never to quite
cease in all time, for I know not the laws that
govern such things. It may be that, in conse-
quence of that great and brief struggle of Na-
thaniel Bacon, this New World will never sit
quietly for long at the foot of any throne, but that
I know not, being no prophet. However, this I
do know, that his influence was not then ceased
in Virginia, though he was six years dead, and
has not yet.

Mistress Mary Cavendish had framed in black,
in her chamber, a silhouette of this hero, and she
wore in a locket a lock of his hair, by which she
had come, in some girlish fashion, through a
young gossip of hers, a kinswoman of Bacon’s,
from whose head I verily believe she had pilfered
it while asleep. And, more than that, I knew of
her and Cicely Hyde strewing fresh blossoms on
the tide of the York River, i in which Bacon had
been buried, on the anniversary of his death, and
coming home with sweet eyes red with tears of
heroic sentiment, which surely be not the most
ignoble shed by mankind.

“°Twas the only good ever heard of them,”
repeated Mistress Mary, “and even that they
must need spoil by coming home and paying
tithes to my Lord Culpeper that he wink at their
disaffection. I trow had I been a man and fought

‘with General Bacon, as I would have fought, had
66
The Heart's Highway

I been a man, I would have paid no price there-
fore to the king himself, but would have stayed in
hiding forever.”

With that she touched Merry Roger with her
whip and was off at a gallop, and I abreast, in-
wardly laughing, for I well understood that this
persistency on other and stirring topics, and sud-
den flight when they failed, was to keep me from
the subject of the powder and ammunition un-
laden that morning from the “ Golden Horn.”
But she need not have taken such pains, for I,
while in church, had resolved within myself not
to question her further, lest she tell me some-
thing which might do her harm were I forced, for
her good, to reveal it, but to demand the mean-
ing of all this from Sir Humphrey Hyde, who, I
was convinced, knew as much as she.

67
V

Thus we rode homeward, and presently came
in sight of the Cavendish tobacco-fields over-
lapped with the fresh green of young leaves like
the bosses of a shield, and on the right waved
rosy garlands of the locust grove, and such a
wonderful strong sweetness of honey came from
it that we seemed to breast it like a wave, and
caught our breaths, and there was a mighty hum
of bees like a hundred spinning-wheels. But
Mistress Mary and I regarded mostly that green
stretch of tobacco, and each of us had our
thoughts, and presently out came hers—“ Master
Wingfield, I pray you, whose tobacco may that
be?” she inquired in a sudden, fierce fashion.

“Madam Cavendish’s and yours and your
sister’s,” said I.

“ Nay,” said she, “ ’tis the king’s.” Then she
tossed her head again and rode on, and said not
another word, nor I, but I knew well what she
meant. Since the Navigation Act, it was, indeed,
small profit any one had of his own tobacco, since
it all went into the exchequer of the king, and I
did not gainsay her.

When we had passed the negro huts, swarm-

68
The Heart’s Highway

ing with black babies shining in the sun as sleek
as mahogany, and all turning toward us with a
marvellous flashing of white eyeballs and opening
of red mouths of smiles, all at once, like some
garden bed of black flowers, at the sight of our
gay advance, we reached the great house, and
Mistress Catherine stood in the door clad in a
green satin gown which caught the light with
smooth shimmers like the green sheath of a
marsh lily.

Her bare, slender arms were clasped before
her, and her long, white neck was bent into an
arch of watchiul grace. Her face was the grav-
est I ever saw on maid, and not to be reconciled
with my first acquaintance with her, thereby giv-
ing me always a slight doubt as of a mask, but
her every feature was as clear and fine as ivory,
and her head proudly crowned with great wealth
of hair. Catherine Cavendish was esteemed a
great beauty, by both men and women, which
shows, perchance, that her beauty availed her lit-
tle in some ways, else it had not been so freely ad-
mitted by her own sex. However that may be,
Catherine Cavendish had had few lovers as com-
pared with many a maid less fair and less dow-
ered, and at this time she seemed to have settled
into an expectation and contentment of single-
ness.

She stood looking at her sister and me as we
rode toward her, and the sun was full on her face,

69
The Heart’s Highway

which had the cool glimmer of a pearl in the
golden light, and her wide-open eyes never wav-
ered. As she stood there she might have been
the portrait of herself, such a look had she of
unchanging quiet, and the wonder and incredul-
ity which always seized me at the sight of her to
reconcile what I knew with what she seemed, was
strong upon me. ;

When her young sister had dismounted and
had gone up the steps, she kissed her, and the
two entered the hall, clinging together in a way
which was pretty to see. I never saw such love
betwixt two where there was not full sympathy,
and that was lacking always and lacked more in
the future, through the difference in their two
temperaments gotten from different mothers.

Madam Cavendish was still in her bedchamber,
and the two sisters and I dined together in the
gredt hall. Then, after the meal was over, I
went forth with my book of Sir William Dave-
nant’s plays, and sought a favourite place of mine
in the woods, and stayed there till sundown.
Then, rising and going homeward when the mist
floated over the marshlands like veils of silver
gauze, and the frogs chorused through it in
waves of sound, and birds were circling above it,
calling sweetly with fluting notes or screaming
with the harsh trumpet-clang of sea-fowl, I heard
of a sudden, just as the sun sank below the west-
ern sky, a mighty din of horns and bells and

- 30
The Heart’s Highway

voices from the direction of Jamestown. I knew
that the sports which a certain part of the com-
munity would have on a Sabbath after sundown,
when they felt so inclined, had begun. Since
the king had been restored such sports had been
observed, now and then, according to the hu-
mour of the governor and the minister and the
others in authority. Laws had been from time
to time set forth that the night after the Sabbath,
the Sabbath being considered to cease at sun-
down, should be kept with decorum, but seldom
were they enforced, and often, as now, a great
din arose when the first gloom overspread the
earth. However, that night was the 30th of
‘April, the night before May day; and there was
more merrymaking in consequence, though
May was not here as in England, and even in
England not what it had been in the first
Charles’s reign.

But they kept up their rollicking late that
night, for the window of my chamber being
toward Jamestown, and the wind that way, I
could hear them till I fell asleep. At midnight
I wakened suddenly at the sound of a light laugh,
which I knew to be Mary Cavendish’s. There
was never in the maid any power of secrecy when
her humour overcame her. She laughed again,
and I heard a hushing voice, which I knew to be
neither her sister’s nor grandmother’s, but a
man’s.

71
The Heart’s Highway

I was up and dressed in a trice, and sword
in hand, and out of my window, which was on
the first floor, and there was Mistress Mary and
Sir Humphrey Hyde. I stepped between them
and thrust aside Sir Humphrey, who would have
opposed me. ‘“ Go into the house, madam,” said
I to her, and pointed to the door, which stood
open. Then while she hesitated, half shrinking
before me, with her old habit of obedience strong
upon her, yet with angry wilfulness urging her to
rebellion, forth stepped her distant cousin Ralph
Drake from behind a white-flowering thicket,
and demanded to know what that cursed convict
fellow did there, and had he not a right to parley
with his cousin, and was her honour not safe with
her kinsman and he an English gentleman? I
perceived by Ralph Drake’s voice that he had
perchance been making gay with the revellers at
Jamestown, and stood still when he came bully-
ingly toward me, but at that minute Mistress
Mary spoke.

“T will not have such language to my tutor,
Cousin Ralph,” said she, “ and I will have you to
understand it. He is a gentleman as well as
yourself, and you owe him an apology.” So say-
ing, she stamped her foot and looked at Ralph
Drake, her eyes flashing in the moonlight. But
Ralph Drake, whose face I could see was flushed,
even in that whiteness of light, flung away with
an oath muttered under his breath, and struck

72
The Heart’s Highway -

out across the lawn, his black shadow stalking
before him.

Then Mistress Mary turnedand bade me good-
night in the sweetest and most curious fashion, as
if nothing unusual had happened, and yet with a
softness in voice as if she would fain make amends
for her cousin’s rough speech, and fluttered in
through the open door like a white moth, and
left me alone with Sir Humphrey Hyde.

Sir Humphrey was but a lad to me, scarcely
older than Mistress Mary, for all his great
stature. He stood before me scraping the shell
walk with the end of his riding whip. Both men
had ridden hither, and I at that moment heard
Ralph Drake’s horse’s hard trot.

“ Tf you come courting Mistress Mary Caven-
dish, ’tis for her guardians, her grandmother,
and elder sister to deal with you concerning the
time and place you choose,” said I, “ but if it be
on any other errand. ie

“ Good God, Harry,” broke in Sir Humphrey,
“do you think I am come love-making in such
fashion, and with Ralph Drake in his cups,
though I swear he fastened himself to me against
my will?”

I waited a moment. Sir Humphrey had been
much about the place since he was a mere lad,
and had had, I believe, a sort of boyish good-will
toward me. Not much love had he for books,
but I was accounted a fair shot, and had some

73

 
The Heart’s Highway

knowledge of sports of hunting and fishing, and
had given him some lessons, and he had followed
me about some few years before, somewhat to
the uneasiness of his mother, who could not for-
get that I was a convict.

I cast about in my mind what to say, being re-
solved not to betray Mary Cavendish, even did
this man know what I could betray, and yet be-
ing resolved to have some understanding of
what was afoot.

“A man of honour includes not maidens in
plots, Sir Humphrey,” said I finally.

Sir Humphrey stammered and looked at me,
and looked away again. Then suddenly spake
Mistress Mary from her'window overhead, set
in a climbing trumpet-vine, and so loudly and
recklessly that had not her grandmother and
sister been on the farther side of the house they
must have heard her. “’Tis not Sir Humphrey
included the maid in the plot, but the maid who
included Sir Humphrey,” said she. Then she
laughed, and at the same moment a mock-bird
trilled in a tree.

“Why do you not tell Master Wingfield that
the maid, and not you nor Cousin Ralph, is the
prime mover in this mystery of the cargo of fur-
belows on the Golden Horn?” said she, and
laughed again.

“T shield not myself behind a maiden’s skirts,”
said Sir Humphrey, grimly.

74
The Heart’s Highway _

“ Then,” cried Mary, “ will I tell thee, Master
Wingfield, what it means. He cannot betray
us, Humphrey, for his tongue is tied with
honour, even if he be not on our side. But he
is on our side, as is every true Englishman.”
Then Mary Cavendish leaned far out the win-
dow, and a white lace scarf she wore floated
forth, and she cried with a great burst of tri-
umph and childish enthusiasm: “I will tell thee
what it means, Master Wingfield, I will tell thee
what it means; I am but a maid, but the footsteps
of General Bacon be yet plain enough to follow
in this soil of Virginia, and—and—the king gets
not our tobacco crops!”

75
VI

I have always observed with wonder and
amusement and a tender gladness the faculty
with which young creatures, and particularly,
young girls, can throw off their minds for the
time being the weight of cares and anxieties and
bring all of themselves to bear upon those exer-
cises of body or mind, to no particular end of
serious gain, which we call play and frivolity. It
may be that faculty is so ordained by a wise
Providence, which so keeps youth and the bloom
of it upon the earth, and makes the spring and
new enterprises possible. It may be that with-
out it we should rust and stick fast in our ancient
Trivets and bolts of use.

That very next morning, after I had learned
from Mary Cavendish, supplemented by a sulky
silence of assent from Sir Humphrey Hyde, that
she had, under pretence of ordering feminine
finery from England, spent all her year’s income
from her crops on powder and shot for the pur-
pose of making a stand in the contemplated de-
struction of the new tobacco crops, and thereby.
plunged herself and her family in a danger which
were hard to estimate were it discovered, I

76
The Heart’s Highway

heard a shrill duet of girlish laughs and merry
tongues before the house. Then, on looking
forth, whom should I see but Mary Cavendish
and Cicely Hyde, her great gossip, and a young
coloured wench, all washing their faces in the
May dew, which lay in a great flood as of
diamonds and pearls over everything. I
minded well the superstition, older than I, that,
if a maid washed her face in the first May dew,
it would make her skin wondrous fair, and I
laughed to myself as I peeped around the shutter
to think that Mary Cavendish should think that
she stood in need of such amendment. of nature.
Down she knelt, dragging the hem of her chintz
gown, which was as gay with a maze of printed
posies as any garden bed, and she thrust her hol-
lowed hands into the dew-laden green and
brought them over her face and rubbed till sure
there was never anything like it for sweet, glow-
ing rosiness. And Cicely Hyde, who must have
come full early to Drake Hill for that purpose,
did likewise, and with more need, as I thought,
for she was a brown maid, not so fair of feature
as some, though she had a merry heart, which
gave to her such a zest of life and welcome of
friends as made her a favourite. Up she scooped
the dew and bathed her face, turning ever and
anon to Mary Cavendish with anxious inquiries,
ending in trills of laughter which would not -be
gainsaid in May-time and youth-time by aught
77
The Heart’s Highway

of so little moment as a brown skin. “How
look I now?” she would cry out. “ How look
I now, sweetheart? Saw you ever a lily as fair
as my face?” Then Mary, with her own face
_ dripping with dew, with that wonderful: wet’
freshness of bloom upon it, would eye her with
seriousness as to any improvement, and bid her
turn this way and that. Then she would give it
as her opinion that she had best persevere, and
laugh somewhat doubtfully at first, then in a
full peal when Cicely, nothing daunted by such
discouragement in her friend’s eyes, went
bravely to work again, all her slender body shak-
ing with mirth. -But the most curious sight of
all, and that which occasioned the two maids the
most merriment, though of a covert and even
tender and pitying sort, was Mary’s black serv-
ing-wench Sukey, a half-grown girl, who had
been bidden to attend her mistress upon this
morning frolic. She was seated at a distance,
square in the wet greenness, and was plunging
both hands into the May dew and scrubbing her
face with a fierce zeal, as if her heart was in that
pretty folly, as no doubt it was. And ever and
anon as she rubbed her cheeks, which shone the
blacker and glossier for it, she would turn the
palms of her hands, which be so curiously pale
on a negro’s hands, to see if perchance some of
the darkness had stirred. And when she saw
not, then wotld she fall to scrubbing again,
7
The Heart’s Highway

Presently up stood Mary and Cicely, and
Cicely flashed in the sun a little silver mirror
which she had brought and which had lain glit-
tering in the grass a little removed, and looked
at herself, and saw that her brown cheeks were as
ever, with the exception of the flush caused by
rubbing, and tossed it with her undaunted
laugh to Mary. “The more fool be I!” she
cried out, “ instead of washing mine own face in
the May dew, better had it been had I locked
thee in the clothes-press, Mary Cavendish, and
not let thee add to thy beauty, while I but gave
my cheeks the look of fever or the small-pox. I
trow the skin be off in spots, and all to no pur-
pose! Look at thyself, Mary Cavendish, and
blush that thou be so much fairer than one who
loves thee!”

And verily Mary Cavendish did for a minute.
seem to blush as she cast a glance at herself in
the mirror and saw her marvellous rose of a face,
but the next minute the mirror flashed in the
grass and her arms were about Cicely Hyde’s
neck. “’Tis the dearest face in Virginia,
Cicely,” said she, in her sweet, vehement way,
and laid her pink cheek against the other’s plain
one. And Cicely laughed, and took her face in
her two hands and held it away that she might.
see it.

“ What matters it to poor Cicely whether her
own face be fair or not, so long as it is dear to

79
The Heart’s Highway

thee, and so [ong as she can see thine!” she cried
as passionately as a lad might have done, and I
frowned, not with jealousy, but with a curious
dislike to such affection from one maid to an-
other, which I could never understand in my-
self. Had Cicely Hyde had a lover, she would
have said that fond speech to him instead of
Mary Cavendish, but lover she had none.

But ail at once the two maids nudged one
another, and turned their faces, all convulsed
with merriment, and I looked and saw that the
poor little black lass had crept on hands and
knees to where the mirror flashed in the grass,
and was looking at her face therein with such
anxiety as might move one at once to tears and
laughter, to see if the dew had washed her white.

But Mary Cavendish ceased all in a minute
her mirth, and went up to the black child and
took the mirror from her, and said, in the
sweetest voice of pity I ever heard, “‘’Tis not in
one May dew nor two, nor perchance in the
dews of many years, you can wash your face
white, but sometime it will be.”

Then the black wench burst into tears, and
begged in that thick, sluggishly sweet tongue of
hers to know if ever the May dew would wash
her black away, and Mistress Mary answered as
seriously as if she were in the pulpit on the Sab-
bath day that it would sometime most surely and
she should see her face in the glass as fair as any.

80
The Heart’s Highway

Then the two maids, Mary Cavendish and
Cicely Hyde, went into the house, and left me, as
I said before, to wonder at that spirit of youth
which can all in a minute disrégard care and
anxiety and risk of death for the play of vanity.
But, after all, which be stronger, wars and ru-
mours of wars or vanity? And which be older,
and which fathered the other?

After the house door had shut behind the
maidens, I too went out, but not to wash my
grim man’s face in May dew, but rather for a
stroll in the morning air, and the clearing of my
wits for reflection; for much I wondered what
course I should take regarding my discovery of
the night before. I went down the road toward
Jamestown, and struck into the path to the
wharf, the same that we had taken the day be-
fore, but there were no masts of the Golden
Horn rising among the trees with a surprise of
straightness. She had weighed anchor and
sailed away over night, and possibly before. The
more I reflected the more I understood that Mis-
tress Mary Cavendish, with her ready wit and
supply of money through her inheritance from
her mother, might have concocted the scheme
of bringing over ammunition from England to
enable us to make a stand against the govern-
ment; but the plot in the first of it could not have
been hers alone. Assuredly Ralph Drake was
concerned in it, and Sir Humphrey Hyde, and

6 81
The Heart’s Highway

no one knew how many more. The main part
for Mistress Mary might well have been the fur-.
nishing of the powder and shot, for Ralph Drake
was poor, and lived, it was said, by his good luck
at cards; and as for Sir Humphrey Hyde, his.
mother held the reins in those soft hands of hers,
which would have been sorely bruised had they
been withdrawn too roughly.

I sat me down on a glittering ridge of rock
near the river-bank, and watched the blue run of
the water, and twisted the matter this and that
way in my mind, for I was sorely perplexed.
Never did I feel as then the hamper of my po-
sition, for a man who was held in such esteem as.
I by some and contempt by others, and while
having voice had no authority to maintain it,
was neither flesh nor fowl nor slave nor master.
Madam Cavendish treated me in all respects as
the equal of herself and her family—nay, more
than that, she deferred to me in such fashion as
I had never seen in her toward any one, but
Catherine treated me ever with iciness of con-
tempt, which I at that time conceived to be but
that transference of blame from her own self to
a scapegoat of wrong-doing which is a resort of
ignoble souls. They will have others not only
suffer for their own sin, but even treat them with
the scorn due themselves. And not one man
was there in the colony, excepting perhaps Sir
Humphrey Hyde and Parson Downs and the.

82.
\

The Heart's Highway

brothers Nicholas and Richard Barry, which last
were not squeamish, and would have had me as
boon companion at Barry Upper Branch, hav-
ing been drawn to me by a kindred boldness of
spirit and some little passages which I had had
with the Indians, which be not worth repeating.
I being in such a position in the colony, and con-
sidering the fact that Madam Cavendish and
Catherine were staunch loyalists, and would have
sent all their tobacco to the bottom of the salt
sea had the king so ordained, and regarded all
disaffection from the royal will as a deadly sin
‘against God and the Church, as well as the
throne, and knowing the danger which Mary
Cavendish ran, I was in a sore quandary. Could
I have but gone to those men whom I con-
ceived to be in the plot, and talked with them
on an equal footing, I would have given my right
hand. But I wondered, and with reason, what
hearing they would accord me, and I wondered
how to move in the matter at all without doing
harm to Mistress Mary, yet feared greatly that
the non-movement would harm her more. As
I sat there I fell to marvelling anew, as. I had
marvelled many times before, at that yielding on
the part of the strong which makes the power of
those in authority possible. At the yielding of
the weak we marvel not, but when one sees the
bending of staunch, true men, with muscles of.
iron and hearts of oak, to commands which be
83
The Heart’s. Highway

manifestly against their own best interests, it is
verily beyond understanding, and only to be ex-
plained by the working of those hidden springs
of nature which have been in men’s hearts since
the creation, moving them along one common
road of herding to one common end. As I sat
there I wondered not so much at the plot which
was simply to destroy all the young tobacco
plants, that there be not an over-supply and
ruinous prices therefor next year, as at the fact
that the whole colony to a man did not arise and
rebel against the order of the king in that most
infamous Navigation Act which forbade ex-
portation to any place but England, and load
their ships for the Netherlands, and get the
full worth of their crops. Well I knew that
some of the burgesses were secretly in favour
of this measure, and why should one man, Gov-
ernor Culpeper, for the king, hold for one min-
ute the will of this strong majority in abey-
ance?

I reasoned it out within myself that one cause
might lie in that distrust and suspicion of his
neighbour as to his good-will and identical in-
terest with himself which is inborn with every
man, and in most cases strengthens with his
growth. When a movement of rebellion against
authority is on foot, he eyes all askance, and
speaks in whispering corners of secrecy, not
knowing when he strikes his first blow whether

84
The Heart's Highway

his own brother’s hand will be with him against
the common tyrant, or against himself.

Were it not for this lamentable quality of the
human heart, which will prevent forever the per-
fect concerting of power to one end, such a giant
might be made of one people that it could hold
all the world and all the nations thereof at its
beck and call. But that cannot be, even in Eng-
land, which had known and knows now and will
know again that division of interest and doubts,
every man of his brother’s heart, which weaken
the arm against the common foe.

But, reflecting in such wise, I came no nearer
to the answer to my quandary as to my best
course for the protection of Mary Cavendish.

I sat there on that rock glittering like frost-
work in the May sunlight and watched the river
current until it seemed to me that my rock and
all Virginia were going out on the tide to sea and
back to England, where, had I landed then, I
would have lost my head and all my wondering
with it, and my old astonishment, which I had
had from a boy, was upon me, that so many
things that be, according to the apparent evi-
dence of our senses are not, and how can any
man ever be sure that he is on sea or land, or
coming or going? And comes there not to all
of us some day a great shock of knowledge of the
slipping past of this world, and all the history
thereof which we think of so much moment, and

85
The Heart’s Highway

\

that we only are that which remains? But then
verily it seemed to me that the matter of the
tobacco plot and Mary Cavendish’s danger was
of more moment than aught else in the century.

“Master Wingfield,” said a voice so gently
and sweetly repellent and forbidding, even while
it entreated, that it shivered the air with discord,
and I looked around, and there stood Catherine
Cavendish. She stood quite near the rock
where I sat, but she kept her head turned
slightly away as if she could not bear the sight
of my face, though she was constrained to speak
to me. But I, and I speak the truth, since I
held it unworthy a man and a gentleman to feel
aught of wrath or contempt when he was ‘sole
sufferer by reason of any wrong done by a wo-
man, had nothing but that ever recurrent sur-
prise and unbelief at the sight of her, to reconcile
what I knew, or thought I knew, with what she
seemed.

I rose and stepped from my rock to the green
shore, and she moved a little back with a slight
courtesy. “ Good-morning, Mistress Cather-
ine,” I said.

“ What know you of what my sister hath done
and the cargo that came yesterday on the Golden
Horn?” she demanded with no preface and of
a sudden; her voice rang sharp as I remem-
bered it when she first spoke to me by that white
hedge of England, and I could have sworn that

; 86
The Heart’s Highway

the tide had verily borne us thither, and she was
again that sallow girl and I the blundering lout
of a lad.

| “That I cannot answer you, madam,” said I,
and bowed and would have passed, but she stood
before me. So satin smooth was her hair that
even the fresh wind could not ruffle it, and in
such straight lines of maiden modesty hung her
green gown—always she wore green, and it be-
came her well, and ’twas a colour IJ always fancied
—that it but fluttered a little around her feet in
the marsh grass, but her face looked out from a
green gauze hood with an expression that belied
all this steadfastness of primness and decorum.
It was as if a play-actress had changed her char-
acter and not her attire, which suited another
part. Out came her slim arm, as if she would
have caught me by the hand for the sake of com-
pelling my answer; then she drew it back and
spoke with all the sharp vehemence of passion of
a woman who oversteps the bounds of restraint
which she has set herself, and is a wilder thing
than if she had been hitherto unfettered by her
will.

“I command you to tell me what I wish to
know, Harry Wingfield,” said she, and now her
eyes fixed mine with no shrinking, but a broad-
side of scorn and imperiousness.

“ And I refuse to tell you, madam,” said I.

Then indeed she caught my arm with a little

87
The Heart’s Highway

nervous hand, like a cramp of wire. “ You
shall tell me, sir,” she declared. ‘“ This much
I know already. Yesterday the Golden Horn
came in and was unladen of powder and shot in-
stead of the goods that my sister pretended
to order, and the cases are stored at Laurel
Creek. This much do I know, but not what is
afoot, nor for what Mary had conference with
Sir Humphrey Hyde and Ralph last night,
and you later on with Sir Humphrey. I de-
mand of you that you tell me, Harry Wing-
field.”

“ That I cannot do, madam,” said I.

She gave me a look with those great black
eyes of hers, and how it came to pass I never
knew, but straight to the root of the whole she
went as if my face had been an open book.

Such quickness of wit I had often heard as-
cribed to women, but never saw I aught like
that, and I trow it seemed witchcraft. “’Tis
something about the young tobacco plants,”
quoth she. “ The king would not pass the meas-
ure to cease the planting, and the assembly of
this spring broke up with no decision. Major
Beverly, who is clerk of the assembly, hath
turned against the government since Bacon
died, and all the burgesses are with him, and
Governor Culpeper sails for England soon, and
what, is the lieutenant-governor to hold the
reins? There isa plot hatching to cut down the

88
The Heart’s Highway

young tobacco plants.” I could but stare at her.
“ There is a plot to cut down the young tobacco
plants as soon as the governor hath sailed,” she
said, “and my sister Mary hath sent to England
for arms, knowing that the militia will arise and
there will be fighting.”

I still stared at her, not knowing in truth what
to say. Then suddenly she caught at my hands
with hers, and cried out with that energy that I
saw all at once the fire of life beneath that fair
_ show of maiden peace and calm of hers, “ Harry,
Harry Wingfield, if my grandmother, Madam
Cavendish, knows this, my sister is undone; no
pity will she have. Straight to the governor
will she go, though she hobble on crutches to
Jamestown! She would starve ere she would
move against the will of the king and his repre-
sentative, and so would I, but I will not have my.
little sister put to suffering and shame. God
save her, Harry Wingfield, but she might be
thrown into prison, and worse—I pray thee,
save her, Harry! Whatever ill you have done,
and however slightingly I have held you for it, I
pray you do this good deed by way of amends,
and I will put the memory of your misdeeds be-
hind me.”

Even then my bewilderment at her mention of
my misdeeds, when I verily considered that she,
as well as I, knew more of her own, was strong,
but I grasped her two little hands hard, then re-

89
The Heart’s Highway

linquished them, and bowed and said, “ Madam,
I will save your sister at whatever cost.”

“ And count it not?” said she.

“No more than I have done before, madam,”
said I, and maybe with some little bitterness, for
sometimes a woman by persistent goading may
almost raise herself to the fighting level of a man.

“ But how?” said she.

“That I must study.”

“But I charge you to keep it from Madam
Cavendish.”

} “You need have no fear.”

“ May God forgive me, but I told Madam Cav-
endish that the Golden Horn had not arrived,”
said she, “ but what have they done with the rest
of the cargo, pray?”

I started. I had, I confess, not given that a
thought, though it was but reasonable that there
was more beside those powder casks, if the rev-
enue from the crops had been so small.

But Catherine Cavendish needed but a mo-
ment for that problem. “’Twill return,” said she.
“ Captain Tabor hath but sailed off a little dis-
tance that he may return and make port, as if for
the first time since he left England, and so put
them off the scent of the Sabbath unlading of
those other wares.” She looked down the bur-
nished flow of the river as she spoke, and cried
out that she could see a sail, but I, looking also,
could not see anything save the shimmer of white

go

.
The Heart’s Highway

and green spring boughs into which the river
distance closed.

“°Tis the Golden Horn,” said Catherine.

“TI can see naught of white save the locust-
blooms,” said I.

“ Locusts stand not against the wind in stiff
sheets,” said she. “’Tis the sail of the Golden
Horn; but that matters not. Harry, Harry
Wingfield, can you save my sister? ”

“T know not whether I can, madam, but I
will,” said I.

gI
VII

Mistress Catherine and I returned together to
Drake Hill, she bearing herself with a sharp and
anxious conciliation, and I with little to say in
response, and walking behind her, though she
moved more and more slowly that I might gain
her side. . ,

We were not yet in sight of Drake Hill, but
the morning smoke from the slave cabins had be-
gun to thrust itself athwart the honeyed sweet-
ness of blossoms, and the salt freshness of the
breath of the tidal river, as the homely ways of
life will ever do athwart the beauty and inspira-
tion of it, maybe to the making of its true har-
mony, when of a sudden we both stopped and
listened. Mistress Catherine turned palely to
me, and I dare say the thought of Indians was in
her mind, though they had long been quiet, then
her face relaxed and she smiled.

“°Tis the first day of May,” said she. “ And
they are going to set up the May-pole in Jarvis
Field.”

This did they every May of late, because some
of the governors and some of the people had kept
to those prejudices against the May revelries

g2
The Heart's Highway

which had existed before the Restoration, and
frowned upon the May-pole set up in the James-
town green as if it had been, as the Roundheads
used to claim, the veritable heathen god Baal.
Jarvis Field was a green tract, clear of trees,
not far from us, and presently we met the merry
company proceeding thither. First came a great
rollicking posse of lads and lasses linked hand
in hand, all crowned with flowers, and bearing
green and blossomy boughs over shoulder.
And these were so swift with the wild spirit and
jollity of the day that they must needs come in
advance, even before the horses which dragged
the May-pole. Six of them there were, so be-
decked with ribbons and green garlands that I
marvelled they could see the road and were not
wild with fear. But they seemed to enter into
the spirit of it all, and stepped highly and daintily
with proud archings of necks and tossings of
green plumed heads, and behind them the May-
pole rasped and bumped and grated, the trunk of
a mighty oak yet bristling with green, like the
stubble of a shaggy beard of virility. And after
the May-pole came surely the queerest company
of morris dancers that ever the world saw, except
those of which I have heard tell which danced in
Herefordshire in the reign of King James, those
being composed of ten men whose ages made up
the sum of twelve hundred years. These, while
not so ancient as that, were still of the oldest men
93
The Heart’s Highway

to be come at who could move without crutches
and whose estate was not of too much dignity for
such sports. And Maid Marion was the oldest
and smallest of them all, riding her hobby-horse,
dressed in a yellow petticoat and a crimson stom-
acher, with a great wig of yellow flax hanging
down under her gilt crown, and a painted mask
to hide her white beard. And after Maid Marion
came dancing, with stiff struts and gambols, old
men as gayly attired as might be, with garlands
of peach-blossoms on their gray heads, bearing
gad-sticks of peeled willow-boughs wound with
cowslips, and ringing bells and blowing horns
with all their might. And after them trooped
young men and maids, all flinging their heels
aloft and waving with green and flowers, and
shouting and singing till it seemed the whole
colony was up and mad.

Mistress Catherine and I stood well to one side
to let them pass by, but when the morris dancers
reached us, and caught sight of Catherine in her
green robes standing among the green bushes,
above which her fair face looked, half with dis-
may, half with a quick leap of sympathy with the
merriment, for there was in this girl a strange
spirit of misrule beneath all her quiet, and I verily
believe that, had she but let loose the leash in
which she held herself, would have joined those
dancing and singing lasses and been outdone by
none, there was a sudden halt; then, before I

94
The Heart’s Highway

knew what was to happen, around her leapt a
laughing score of them, shouting that here was
the true Maid Marion, and that old John Lub-
berkin could now resign his post. Then off the
hobby-horse they tumbled him, and the lads and
lasses gathering around her, and the graybeards
standing aloof with some chagrin, would, I be-
lieve, in spite of me, since they outnumbered me
vastly, have forced Catherine into that rude
pageant as Maid Marion. But while I was
thrusting them aside, holding myself before her
as firmly as I might, there came a quick clat-
ter of hoofs, and Mistress Mary had dashed
alongside on Merry Roger. She scattered
the merry revellers right and left, calling out
to her sister to go homeward with a laugh.
“Fie on thee, Catherine!” she cried out. ‘If
thou art abroad on a May morning dressed
like the queen of it, what blame can there be
to these good folk for giving thee thy queen-
dom?”

. Catherine did not move to go when the people
drew away from her, but rather stood looking at
them with that lurking fire in her eyes and a flush
on her fair cheeks. Mistress Mary sat on her
horse, curbing him with her little hand, and her
golden curls floated around her like a cloud, for
‘she had ridden forth without her hood on hear-
ing the sound of the horns and bells, eager to see
the show like any child, and the merrymakers

95
The Heart’s Highway

stared at her, grinning with uncouth delight and
never any resentment. ‘There was that in Mary.
Cavendish’s look, when she chose to have it so,
that could, I verily believe, have swayed an army,
so full of utter good-will and lovingkindness it
was, and, more than that, of such confidence in
theirs in return that it would have taken not only
knaves, but knaves with no conceit of themselves,
to have forsworn her good opinion of them. Sud-
denly there rose a great shout and such a volley
of cheering and hallooing as can come only from
English throats, A tall lad cast a great wreath
over Mistress Mary’s own head, and cried out
with a shout that here, here was Maid Marion.
And scores of voices echoed his with “ Maid
Marion, Marion!” And then, to my great as-
tonishment and dismay, for a man is with no
enemy so much at a loss as with a laughing one,
since it wrongs his own bravery to meet smiles
with blows, they gave forth that I was Robin
Hood; that the convict tutor, Harry Wingfield,
was Robin Hood!

I felt myself white with wrath then, and was
for blindly wrestling with a great fellow who was
among the foremost, shaking with mirth, an
oak wreath over his red curls making him look
like a satyr, when Mistress Mary rode between
us. “Back, Master Wingfield,” said she, “I
pray thee stand back.” Then she looked at the
folk, all smiles and ready understanding of them,

96
The Heart’s Highway

until they hurrahed again and rang their bells
and blew their horns, and she looked like a blos-
som tossed on the wave of pandemonium.

I had my hand on her bridle-rein, ready to do
my best should any rudeness be offered her, when
suddenly she raised her hand and made a mo-
tion, and to my utter astonishment the brawling
throng, save for some on the outskirts, which
quieted presently, became still. Then Mistress
Mary’s voice arose, clear and sweet, with a child-
ish note of innocence in it:

“Good people,” said she, “fain would I be
your Maid Marion, and fain would I be your
queen of May, if you would hold with me this
Kingdom of Virginia against tyrants and op-
pressors.”

I question if a dozen there grasped her mean-
ing, but, after a second’s gaping stare, such a
shout went up that it seemed to make the
marshes quiver. I know not what mad scheme
was in the maid’s head, but I verily believe that
throng would have followed her wherever she
led, and the tobacco plants might have been that
morning cut had she so willed.

But I pulled hard at her bridle, and I forgot
my customary manner with her, so full of terror
for her I was. “For God’s sake, child, have
done,” I said, and she looked at me, and there
came a strange expression, which I had never
seen before, into her blue eyes, half of yielding as

7 97
The Heart’s. Highway-

to some strength which she feared, and half of
that high enthusiasm of youth and noble senti-
ment which threatened to swamp her in its
mighty flow as it had done her hero Bacon before
her. I know not if I could have held her; it all
passed in a second the while those wild huzzas
continued, and the crowd pressed closer, all
crowned and crested with green, like a tidal wave
of spring, but another argument came to me, and
that moved her. “’Tis not yourself alone, but.
your sister and Madam Cavendish to suffer with
you,” I said. Then she gave a quick glance at
Catherine, who was raising her white face and
trying to get near enough to speak to her, for her
sister’s speech had made her frantic with alarm,
and hesitated. Then she laughed, and the ear-
nest look faded from her face, and she called out
with that way of hers which nobody and nothing
could withstand, “ Nay,” she said, “ wait till I be
older and have as much wisdom in my head as
hath the Maid Marion whom you have chosen.
The one who hath seen so many Mays can best
know how to queen it over them.” So saying,
she snatched the wreath with which they had
crowned her from her head and cast it with such
a sweep of grace as never I saw over the head of
flax-headed and masked Maid Marion, and reined
her horse back, and the crowd, with worshipful
eyes of admiration of her and her sweetness and
wit and beauty, gave way, and was off adown the
98
The Heart’s Highway

road toward Jarvis Field, with loud clamour of
bells and horns. and wild dancing and wavings of
their gad-sticks and green branches. Mistress
Mary rode before us at a gallop, and presently
‘we were all at the breakfast table in the great hall
at Drake Hill, with foaming tankards of metheg-
lin and dishes of honey and salmon and game in
plenty. For, whatever the scarcity of the king’s
gold, there was not much lack of food in this rich
country.

Madam Cavendish was down that morning,
sitting at table with her stick beside her, her head
topped.with a great tower of snowy cap, her old
face now ivory-yellow, but with a wonderful pre-
cision of feature, for she had been a great beauty
in her day, so alert and alive with the ready com-
prehension of her black eyes, under slightly
scowling brows, that naught escaped her that
was within her reach of vision. Somewhat dull
was she of hearing, but that sharpness of eye did
much to atone for it. She looked up, when we
entered, with such keenness that for a second my
thought was that she knew all.

“What were the sounds of merrymaking
down the road? ”’ said she.

“?Twas the morris dancers and the May-pole;
’tis the first of May, as you know, madam,” said
Mary in her sweet voice, made clear and loud to
reach her grandmother’s ear; then up she went to
kiss her, and the old woman eyed her with pride,

99
The Heart’s Highway

which she was fain to conceal by chiding. “You
will ruin your complexion if you go out in sucha
wind without your mask,” she said, and looked
at the maiden’s roses and lilies with that rapture
of admiration occasioned half by memory of her
own charms, which had faded, and half by
understanding of the value of them in coin of
love, which one woman can waken only in an-
other.

For Catherine, Madam Cavendish had no
glance of admiration nor word, though she had
tended her faithfully all the day before and half
the night, rubbing her with an effusion of herbs
and oil for her rheumatic pains. Yet for her,
Madam Cavendish had no love, and treated her
with a stately toleration and no more. Mary
understood no cause for it, and often looked, as
she did then, with a distressful wonder at her
grandmother when she seemed to hold her sister
so slightingly.

“ Here is Catherine, grandmother,” said she,
“and she has had a narrow escape from being
pressed as Maid Marion by the morris dancers.”
Madam Cavendish made a slight motion, and
looked not at Catherine, but turned to me with
that face of anxious kindness which she wore for
mealone. “Saw you aught of the Golden Horn
this morning, Master Wingfield?” asked she,
and I replied truthfully enough that I had not.

Then, to my dismay, she turned to Mary and

100
The Heart’s Highway

inquired what were the goods which she had or-
dered from England, and to my greater dismay
the maid, with such a light of daring and mischief
in her blue eyes as I never saw, rattled off, the
while Catherine and I stared aghast at her, such
a list of women’s folderols as I never heard, and
most of them quite beyond my masculine com-
prehension.

Madam Cavendish nodded approvingly when
she had done. ‘“’Tis a wise choice,” said she,
“‘and as soon as the ship comes in have the
goods brought here and unpacked that I may see
them.” With that she rose stiffly, and, beckon-:
ing Catherine, who looked as if she could scarcely
stand herself, much less serve as prop for another,
she went out, tapping her stick heavily on one
side, on the other leaning on her granddaugh-
ter’s shoulder.

tor
VIII

I looked at Mistress Mary and she at me. We
had withdrawn to the deepness of a window,
while the black slaves moved in and out, bearing
the breakfast dishes, as reasonably unheeded by
us as the cup-bearers in a picture of a Roman
banquet in the time of the Czsars which I saw
once. Mistress Mary was pale with dismay, and
yet her mouth twitched with laughter at the no-
tion of displaying, before the horrified eyes of
Madam ‘Cavendish, those grim adornments.
which had arrived in the Golden Horn.

“La,” said she, “ when they come a-trundling
in a powder-cask and I courtesy and say, ‘ Mad-
am, here is my furbelowed and gold-flowered
sacque, I wonder what will come to pass.” Then
she laughed.

“ My God, madam,” said I, “ why did you give
that list?” She laughed again, and her eyes
flashed with the very light of mischief.

“T grant ’twas a fib,” said she; “ but I was
taken unawares, and, la, how could I recite to her
the true list of my rare finery which came to port
yesterday? So I but gave the list of goods for

Io2
The Heart’s Highway

which my Lady Culpeper sent to England for
the replenishing of her wardrobe and her daugh-
ter’s, and which is daily expected by ship. I had
it from Cicely Hyde, who had it from Cate Cul-
peper. The ship is due now, and may be even
now in port, and so I worded what I said, that
*twas not, after all, a fib, except the hearer chose
to make it so. I said, ‘Such goods as these are
due, madam.’”” Then she gave the list anew,
like a parrot, while Catherine, who had returned,
stood staring at her, white with terror, though
Mary did not see her until she had finished.
Then, when she turned and caught her keenly
anxious eyes, she started. ‘“ You here, Cather-
ine?” said she. Then, knowing not how much
her sister knew already, she tried to cover her
confusion, like a child denying its raid on the
jam pots, while its lips and fingers are still sticky
with the stolen sweet. “ What think you of my
list, sweetheart?” cried she, merrily. “A pair
of the silk stockings and two of the breast-knots
and a mask and a flowered apron shall you have.”
Then out of the room she whisked abruptly,
laughing from excess of nervous confusion, and
not being able to keep up the farce longer.

Then Catherine turned to me. “ She has un-
done herself, for Madam Cavendish will see those
goods when the Golden Horn comes in, or ferret
the mystery to its farthest hole of hiding,” said
she. Then she wrung her hands and cried out

103
The Heart’s Highway

sharply, “ My God, Harry Wingfield, what is to
be done?”

“Madam Cavendish would surely never be-
tray her own flesh and blood,” said I, though
doubtfully, when I reflected upon her hardness
‘ to Catherine herself, for Madam Judith Caven-
dish was not one for whom love could change
the colour of the clear light of justice, and she
would see forever her own as they were.

“ There is to her no such word as betray ex-
cept in the service of the king,” said Catherine.
Then she added in a whisper, “ Know you the
story of her youngest son, my uncle Ralph Cav-
endish, who went over to Cromwell? ”’

I nodded. I knew-it well, and had heard
it from a lad how Ralph Cavendish’s own
mother had turned him from her door one night
with the king’s troops in the neighbourhood,
though it was afterward argued that she did not
know of that, and he had been taken before
morning and afterwards executed, and she had
never said a word nor shed a tear that any one
saw.

“When the Golden Horn comes in she will
demand to see the goods,” Catherine repeated.

* Then—the Golden Horn must not come in,”
said I.

Catherine looked at me with that flash of
ready wit in her eyes which was like to the flash
of fire from gunpowder meeting tinder. Then

104
The Heart’s Highway

she cried out, “ Quick, then, quick, I pray thee,
Harry Wingfield, to the wharf! For if ever I
saw sail, I saw that, and the tide will have turned
’m. Quick, quick!” ;

She waited not for any head-gear, but forth
into the May sunlight she rushed, and I with her,
and shouted at the top of my lungs to the slaves
for my horse, then went myself, having no mind
to wait, and hustled the poor beast from his feed- .
bin, and was on his back and at a hard gallop to
the wharf, with Mistress Catherine following as
fast as she was able. Now and then, when I
turned, I saw her slim green shape advancing,
looking for all the world to my fancy like some
nymph who had been changed into a river-reed
and had gotten life again.

When I reached the wharf, with my horse all
afoam, there was indeed the Golden Horn down
the river, coming in. The tide and the wind had
been against her, or she would have reached
shore ere now. Then along the bank I urged
my horse, and in some parts, where there was no
footing and the tangle of woods too close, into
the stream we plunged and swam, then up bank
again, and so on with a mighty splatter of mire
and water and rain of green leaves and blossoms
from the low hang of branches through which
we tore way, till we came abreast of the Golden
Horn. Then I hallooed, first making sure that
there was no one lurking near to overhear, and

105
The Heart’s’ Highway

waved my handkerchief, keeping my horse
standing to his fetlocks in the current, until over
the water came an answering halloo from the
Golden Horn, and I could plainly see Captain
Calvin Tabor on the quarter-deck. The ship was
not far distant, and I could have swam to her,
and would have, though the tide was strong, had
there been no other way.

“ Halloo,” shouted Captain Tabor, and two
more men came running to the side, then more
still, till it was overhung by a whole row of red
English faces.

“ Halloo! ” shouted I.

|. “ What d’yelack? What’safoot? Halloo!”

“Send a boat, for God’s sake,” I shouted
back. ‘‘ News, news; keep where ye be. Do
not land. Send a boat!”

“Ts it the convict tutor, Wingfield?” shouted
the captain.

I called back yes, and repeated: my demand
that he send a boat for God’s sake.

Then I saw a great running hither and thither,

-and presently a boat touched water from the side
of the Golden Horn with a curious lapping dip,
and I was off my horse and tied him fast to a tree
on the bank, with loose rein that he might crop
his fill of the sweet spring herbage, and when
the boat touched bank was in her and speedily
aboard the ship.

. Captain Tabor was leaning over the bulwarks,
106
The Heart's Highway

and his ruddy face was pale, and his look of devil-
may-care gayety somewhat subdued.

When I gained the deck forward he came and
grasped me by the arm, and led me into his own
cabin, having first shouted forth to his mate an
order to drop anchor and keep the ship in mid-
stream.

“ Now, in the name of all the fiends, what is
afoot?” he cried out, though with a cautious
cock of his eyes toward the deck, for English
sailors are not black slaves when it comes to dis-
cussing matters of weight.

“There is a plot afoot against His Majesty
‘King Charles; and you but yesterday, that being
also a day on which it is unlawful to unload a
ship, discharged a portion of your cargo, toward
its furtherance and abetting,” said I.

“ Hell and damnation!” he cried out, “ when
T trust a woman’s tongue again may I swing from
my own yard-arms. What brought that fair-
faced devil into it, anyway? Be there not men
enough in this colony?”

“ And you keep not a civil tongue in your head
when you speak of Mistress Mary Cavendish;
you will find of a surety that there be one man in
this colony, sir,” said I.

He laughed in that mocking fashion of his
which incensed me still further. Then he spoke
civilly enough, and said that he meant no dis-
respect to one of the fairest ladies whom he had

107

*
‘The Heart’s Highway

ever had the good fortune to see, but that it was
so well known as to be no more:slight in men-
tioning than the paint and powder wherewith a
woman enhanced her beauty, that a woman’s
tongue could not be trusted like a man’s, and that .
it were a pity that money, which were much bet-
ter spent by her for pretty follies, should be put
to such grim uses, and where were the gallants of
Virginia that they suffered it, but did not rather
empty their own purses?

I explained, being somewhat mollified, and
also somewhat of his way of thinking, that men
there were, but there was little gold since the
Navigation Act. And I informed Captain Tabor
how Mistress Mary Cavendish, having an estate
not so heavily charged with expenses as some,
and being her own mistress with regard to the
disposal of its revenues, had the means which the
men lacked.

“ But what was the news which brought you
thither, sir? ”’ demanded Captain Tabor.

“You know of the plot—” I begun, but he
broke in upon me fiercely.

“ May the fiends take me, but what know I of
a plot?” he cried.

“Can I not bring over gowns and kerchiefs
and silken ribbons for a pretty maid without a
plot?” How knew you that? There is the
woman’s tongue again. But can I not bring
over goods even of such sort; might I not with

108
The Heart’s Highway

good reason suppose them to be for the defence
of the cause of his most gracious Majesty King
Charles against the savages, or any malcontents
in his colonies? What plot, sirrah? ”

“ The plot for the cutting down of the young
tobacco plants, Captain Tabor,” said I.

His eyes blazed at me, while his face was pale
and grim.

“ How many know of the goods I discharged
from the Golden Horn yesterday?” he asked.

“ Three men, and I know not how many more,
and two women,” said I.

“Two women!” he groaned out. “ Pestilence
on these tide-waters which hold a ship like a
trap! Two women!”

“ But the concern is lest a third woman know,”
said I.

“Tf three women know, then God save us all,
for their triple tongues will carry as far as the
last trump!” cried Captain Tabor. Perturbed
as he was, he never lost that air of reckless dar-
ing which compelled me to a sort of liking for
him. “ Out with the rest of it, sir,’ he said.

Then I told my story, to which he listened,
scowling, yet with that ready laugh at his mouth.
“°Tis a scurvy trick to serve a woman, both for
her sake and the rest of us, to let her meddle with
such matters,” he said, “and so I told that cousin
of hers, Master Drake, who came with her to
give the order ere I sailed for England.”

Tog
The Heart’s Highway

“Came any man save Ralph Drake with her
then?” I asked.

“The saints forbid,” he replied. “A secret
is a secret only when in the keeping of one; with
two it findeth legs, but with three it unfoldeth the
swiftest wings of flight in all creation, and is
everywhere with no alighting. Had three come
to me with that mad order to bring powder and
shot in the stead of silk stockings and garters and
cambric shifts and kerchiefs, I would have
clapped full sail on the Golden Horn, though—”
he hesitated, then spoke in a whisper—“ my mind
is against tyranny, to speak you true, though I
care not a farthing whether men pray on their
knees or their feet, or in gowns or the fashion of
Eden. And I care not if they pray at all, nor
would I for the sake of that ever have forsaken,
had I stood in my grandfather’s shoes, the flesh-
pots of old England for that howling wilderness
of Plymouth. But for the sake of doing as I
willed, and not as any other man, would I have
sailed or swam the seas had they been blood in-
stead of water. And so am I now with a due re-
gard to the wind and the trim of my sails and the
ears of tale-bearers, for a man hath but one head
to lose with you of Virginia. But, the Lord, to
make a little maid like that run the risk of im-
prisonment or worse, knew you aught of it, sir?”

I shook my head.

Captain Tabor laughed. “ And yet she rode

qT1o
The Heart’s Highway

straight to the wharf with you yesterday,” said
he. “Lord, what hidden springs move a wo-
man! I’ll warrant, sir,had you known, you might
have battened down the hatches fast enough on
her will, convict though you be, and, faith, sir,
but you look to me like one who is convict or
master at his own choosing and not by the will
of any other.” So saying, he gave me a look so
sharp that for a second I half surmised that he
guessed my secret, but knew better at once, and
said that our business was to deal not with what
had been, but with what might be.

“Well,” said he, “and what may that be,
Master Wingfield, in your opinion? You surely
do not mean to hold the Golden Horn in mid-
stream with her cargo undischarged until the day
of doom, lest yon old beldame offer up her fair
granddaughter on the altar of her loyalty, with
me and my hearties for kindling, to say naught of
yourself and a few of the best gentlemen of Vir-
ginia. I forfeit my head if I set sail for England;
naught is left for me that I see that shall save my
neck but to turn pirate and king it over the high
seas. Having swallowed a small morsel of my
Puritan misgivings, what is to hinder my bolting
the whole, like an exceeding bitter pill, to my
complete purging of danger? What say you,
Master Wingfield? Small reputation have you
to lose, and suré thy reckoning with powers that
be leaves thee large creditor. Will you sail with

IImr
The Heart’s Highway

me? My first lieutenant shall you be, and we
will share the booty.”

He laughed, and I stared at him that he should
stoop to jest, yet having a ready leap of comrade-
Ship toward him for it; then suddenly his mood
changed. Close to me he edged, and began talk-
ing with a serious shrewdness which showed his
mind brought fully to bear upon the situation.
“You say, sir,” said he, “that Mistress Mary
Cavendish, in a spirit of youthful daring and
levity, gave her grandmother a list of the goods
which my Lady Culpeper ordered from Eng-
land, and which even now is due?” I nodded.

* Know you by what ship?”

“ The Earl of Fairfax,” I replied, and recalled
as I spoke a rumour that my Lord Culpeper
designed his daughter Cate for the eldest son of
the earl, and had so named his ship in honour of
him.

“ You say that the Earl of Fairfax 1s even now
due? ” said Captain Tabor.

I replied that she was hourly expected by what
Thad learned ; then Captain Tabor, sitting loosely
hunched with that utter abandon of all the mus-
cles which one sees in some when they are under-
going a fierce strain of thought, remained silent
for a space, his brows knitted. Then suddenly
my shoulder tingled with the clap which he gave
it,;and the cabin rang and rang again with a
laugh so loud and gay that it seemed a very note

r12
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

““CAPTAIN TABOR . . + REMAINED SILENT FOR A SPACE, HIS BROWS
KNITTED,”
The Heart’s Highway

of the May day. ‘“ You are merry,” I said, but
I laughed myself, though somewhat doubtfully,
when he unfolded his scheme to me, which was
indeed both bold and humorous. He knew well
the captain of the Earl of Fairfax, who had been
shipmate with him.

“ Manv a lark ashore have we had together,”
said Calvin Tabor, “ and, faith, but I know things
about him now which compel him to my turn;
the devil’s mess have we both been in, but I need
not use such means of persuasion, if I know hon-
est Dick Watson.” The scheme of which Captain
Tabor delivered himself, with bursts of laughter
enough to wake the ship, was, to speak briefly,
that he should go with a boat, rowing against
the current, by keeping close to bank and taking
advantage of eddies, and meet the Earl of Fairfax
before she reached Jamestown, board her, and
persuade her captain to send the cases of my
Lady Culpeper’s goods under cover of night
to the Golden Horn, whence he would unload
them next morning, and Mistress Mary could
show them to her grandmother, and then they
were to be reshipped with all possible speed and
secrecy, the Earl of Fairfax meanwhile laying at
anchor at the mouth of the river, and then de-
livered to my Lady Culpeper.

There was but one doubt as to the success of
this curious scheme in my mind, and that was
that Mistress Mary might not easily lend herself

8 113
The Heart’s Highway

to such deception. However, Captain Tabor,
with a skill of devising concerning which I have
often wondered whether it may be more com-
mon in the descendants of those who settled in
New England, who were in such sore straits to
get their own wills, than with us of Virginia, pro-
vided a way through that difficulty.

“Tis full easy,” said he. “You say that
the maid’s sister will say naught against it—and
you?”

“T will say naught against her safety,” said I.
“ What think you I care for any little quibbles of °
the truth when that be in. question? ”

“Well,” said Captain Tabor, “then must you
and Mistress Catherine Cavendish show the
goods to the maid, and say naught as to the
means by which you came by them; tell her they
are landed from the Golden Horn, as indeed they
will be; let her think aught she chooses, that they
are indeed her own, purchased for her by her
sister or her lovers, if she choose to think so, and
bid her display them with no ado to Madam Cav-
endish, if she value the safety of the others who
are concerned in this. Betwixt the mystery and
the fright and the sight of the trinkets, if she be
aught on the pattern of any other maid, show
them she will, and hold her tongue till she be
out of her grandmother’s presence.”

“Tt can be but tried,” said I.

Then the captain sprang out on deck, and or-

11g
The Heart’s Highway

dered a boat lowered, and presently had set me
ashore, and was himself, with a half-dozen sailors,
fighting way down-stream.

I found my horse on the bank where I had left
him, and by him, waiting anxiously, Catherine
Cavendish. She listened with deepening eyes
while I told her Captain Tabor’s scheme, and’
when I had done looked at me with her beautiful
mouth set and her face as white as a white flower
on a bush beside her. “ Mary shall show the
goods,” saidshe. “ Sucha story will I tell her as
will make her innocent of aught save bewilder-
ment, and as for you and me, we are both of us
ready to burn for a lie for the sake of her.”

115
TX

I know not how Capt. Calvin Tabor managed
his part to tranship those goods without dis-
covery, but he had a shrewd head, and no doubt
the captain of the Earl of Fairfax another, and
by eight o’clock that May day the Golden Horn
lay at her wharf discharging her cargo right
lustily with such openness of zeal and shouts of
encouragement and groans of labour ’twas
enough to acquaint all the colony. And straight-
way to the great house they brought my Lady
Culpeper’s fallals, and clamped them in the hall
where we were all at supper. Mistress Mary
sprang to her feet, and ran to them and bent over
them. “ What are these?” she said, all in a
quiver.

“The goods which you ordered, madam,”
spoke up one of the sailors, with a grin which he
had copied from Captain Tabor, and pulled a
forelock and ducked his head.

“The goods,” said she, speaking faintly, for
hers was rather the headlong course of enthu-
siasm than the secret windings of diplomacy.

“ Art thou gone daft, sweetheart? The goods
of which you gave the list this morning, which

316

‘
~
The Heart’s Highway

have but now come in on the Golden Horn,”
spake up Catherine, sharply. I marvelled as I
heard her whether it be ease or tenderness of
conscience which can appease a woman with the
letter and not the substance of the truth, for lam
confident that her keeping to the outward show
of honesty in her life was no small comfort to
Catherine Cavendish.

Madam Cavendish was at table that night,
though moving with grimaces from the stiffness
of her rheumatic joints, and she ordered that the
sailors be given cider, the which they drank with
some haste, and were gone. Then Madam Cav-
endish asked Mistress Mary, with her wonderful
keenness of gaze, which I never saw excelled,
“ Are those the goods which you ordered by the
Golden Horn?” But I answered for her, know-
ing that Madam Cavendish would pardon such
presumption from me. “ Madam, those are the
goods. I have it from Capt. Calvin Tabor
himself.” I spoke with no roundings nor gloss-
ings of subterfuge, having ever held that all the
excuse for a lie was its boldness in a good cause,
and believing in slaying a commandment like an
enemy with a clean cut of the sword.

Mistress Mary gaye a little gasp, and looked at
me, and looked at her sister Catherine, and well
I knew it was on the tip of her tongue to out
with the whole to her grandmother. And so she
would doubtless have done had not her wonder-

117
The Heart’s Highway

ment and suspicion that maybe in some wise
Catherine had conspired to buy for her in Eng-
land the goods of which she had cheated herself,
and the terror of doing harm to her sister and
me. But never saw 1a maid go so white and red
and make the strife within her so evident.

We were well-nigh through supper when the
goods arrived, and Madam Cavendish ordered
some of the slaves to open the cases, which they
did forthwith, and all my Lady Culpeper’s finery
was displayed.

Never saw I such a rich assortment, and call-
ing to mind my Lady Culpeper’s thin and sour
visage, I wondered within myself whether such
fine feathers might in her case suffice to make a
fine bird, though some of them were for her
daughter Cate, who was fair enough. Nothing
would do but Mistress Mary, with her lovely face
still strange to see with her consternation of puz-
zlement, should severally display every piece to
her grandmother, and hold against her complex-
ion the rich stuffs to see if the colours suited her.
Madam Cavendish was pleased to express her
satisfaction with them all, though with some de-
mur at the extravagance. ‘“’Tis rich enough a
wardrobe for my Lady Culpeper,” said she, at
which innocent shrewdness I was driven to hard
straits to keep my face grave, but Mistress Cath-
erine was looking on with a countenance as calm
as the moon which was just then rising.

1x8
The Heart's Highway

Madam Cavendish was pleased especially with
one gown of a sky colour, shot with silver threads,
and ordered that Mistress Mary should wear it
to the ball which was to be given at the gover-
nor’s house the next night.

When I heard that I started, and Catherine
shot a pale glance of consternation at me, but
Mistress Mary flushed rosy-red with rebellion.

“T have no desire to attend my Lord Cul-
peper’s ball, madam,” said she.

“Lord Culpeper is the representative of his
Majesty here in Virginia,” said Madam Caven-
dish, with a high head, “and no granddaughter
of mine absents herself with my approval. To
the ball you go, madam, and in that sky-coloured
gown, and no more words. Things have come
toa pretty pass.” So saying, she rose and, lean-
ing heavily on her stick, with her black maid
propping her, she went out. Then turned Mis-
tress Mary imperiously to us and demanded to
know the meaning of it all. “Whence came
these goods? ” said she to Catherine.

On the Golden Horn, sweetheart; ’tis the list
you gave this morning,” replied Catherine, with-
out a change in the fair resolve of her face.

“ Pish!”’ cried Mary Cavendish. “ The list I
gave this morning was my Lady Culpeper’s, and
you know it. Whence came these?” and she
spurned at a heap of the rich gleaming things
with the toe of her tiny foot.

Ig
The Heart’s Highway

“T tell you, sweetheart, on the Golden Horn,”
replied Catherine. Then she turned to me in a
rage. “The truth I will have,” she cried out.
“Whence came these goods? ”

“ On the Golden Horn, madam,” I said.

She stamped her foot, and her voice rang so
shrill that the black slaves, carrying out the
dishes, rolled alarmed eyes at her. “Think you
I will be treated like a child?” she cried out.
“What means all this? ”

Then close to her went Catherine, and flung
an arm around her, and leaned her smooth, fair
head against her sister’s tossing golden one.
“ For the sake of those you love and who love
thee, sweetheart,” she whispered.

But Mistress Mary pushed her away and
looked at her angrily. “ Well, what am I to do
for their sakes?” she demanded.

“Seek to know no more than this. The
goods came on the Golden Horn but now, and
*tis the list you gave this morning.”

“ But it was not my list, and I deceived my
grandmother, and I will go to her now and out
with the truth. Think you I will have such a
falsehood on my soul?”

Catherine leaned closer to her and whispered,
and Mary gave a quick, wild glance at me, but I
know not what she said. “I pray thee seek to
know no more than that the goods came but
now in a boat from the Golden Horn, and ’tis

120
The Heart’s Highway

the list you gave this morning,” said Catherine
aloud.

“They are not mine by right, and well you
know it.” Thena thought struck me, and I said
with emphasis, “ Madam, yours by right they are
and shall be, and I pray you to have no more con-
cern in the matter.”

Then so saying, I hastened out and went
through the moonlight to the wharf to seek Cap-.
tain Tabor and the captain of the Earl of Fairfax,
who had come with his goods to see to their
safety. Both men were pacing back and forth,
smoking long pipes, and Captain Watson, of the
Earl of Fairfax, a small and eager-spoken man,
turned on me the minute I came within hearing.
“Where be my Lady Culpeper’s goods?” said
he; “ ’tis time they were here and I on my way to
the ship. Devil take me if I run such a risk
again for any man.”

Then I made my errand known. I had some
fifty pounds saved up from the wreck of my for-
tunes; ’twas a third more than the goods were
worth. Would he but take it, pay the London
merchant who had furnished them, and have the
remainder for his trouble?

“Trouble, trouble!” he shouted out, “trouble!
By all the foul fiends, man, what am I to say to my
Lady Culpeper? Have you ever had speech with
her that. you propose such a game with her? ”

Captain Tabor burst out with a loud guffaw of

12t
The Heart’s Highway

laughter. “You have not seen the maid for
whom you run the risk, Dick,” said he. “ ’Tis
the fairest-——”

“What care I for fair maids?” demanded the
other. “ Have I not a wife and seven little ones
in old England? What think you a dimple or a
bright eye hath of weight with me?”

“Time was, Dick,” laughed Captain Tabor.

“Time that was no longer is,” answered the
other, crossly; then to me, “Send down my
goods by some of those black fellows, and no
more parleying, sir.”

“ But, sir,” I said, “’twill be a good fifteen
pound for Mistress Watson and the little ones
when the merchant be paid.”

“ Go to,” he growled out, “ what will that avail
if I be put in prison? What am I to say to my
Lady Culpeper for the non-deliverment of her
goods? Answer methat.” Then came Captain
Tabor to my aid with his merry shrewdness.
. “?Tis as easy as the nose on thy face, Dick,” said
he. “ Say but to my lady that you have searched
and the goods be not in the hold of the Earl of
Fairfax, and must have miscarried, as faith they
have, and say that next voyage you will deliver
them and hold thyself responsible for the cost,
as you well can afford with Master Wingfield’s
money.”

“Hast ever heard my Lady Culpeper’s
tongue?” demanded the other. “’Tis easy to

122
The Heart’s Highway

advise. Would you face her thyself without the
goods in hand, Calvin Tabor?”

“ Faith, and I’d face a dozen like her for fifteen
pound,” declared Captain Tabor. Then, with
another great laugh. “TI have it; send thy mate,
send thy deaf mate, Jack Tarbox, man.”

“ But she will demand to see the captain.”

“ Faith, and the captain will be on board the
Earl of Fairfax seeing to a leak which she hath
sprung, and cannot leave her,” said Tabor.

“ But in two days’ time the governor sails in
my ship for England.”

“ Think ye the governor will concern himself
about my lady’s adornments when he be headed
for England and out of reach of her com~-
plaints?”

“ But how to dodge her for so long?”

“ Dick,” said the other, solemnly, “ much I
have it in mind that a case of fever will break out
upon the Earl of Fairfax by to-morrow or next
day.”

“Then think you that my lady will allow her
lord the governor to sail?”

“ Dick,” laughed Captain Tabor, “ governors
be great men and you but a poor sailor, but when
it comes to coin in wifely value, thy weight in the
heart of thy good Bridget would send the gover-
nor of Virginia higher than thy masthead.
None but my Lady Culpeper need have hint of
the fever.”

123
The Heart’s Highway

“ T have a sailor ailing,” said the other, doubt-
fully, “ but he hath no sign of fever.”

“*Tis enough,” cried the other, gayly. “ His
fever will rage in twelve hours enough to heat
the ’tween decks.”

“ But,” said Captain Watson, speaking angrily,
and yet with a certain timidity, as men will do be-
fore a scoffing friend and their own accusing con-
science, “ you ask me to forswear myself.”

“Nay, that I will not,” cried the other. ‘‘By
the Lord, I forgot thy conscience, good Dick.
Well, I have enough from my ancestors of Plym-
outh to forswear and forswear again, and yet
have some to spare. I—I will go to my Lady
Culpeper with the tale and save thy soul thy
scruples, and thy ears the melody of her tongue.
I will acquaint her with the miscarriage of the
goods, and whisper of the sick sailor, and all thou
hast to do is to loiter about Jamestown, keeping
thy Bridget well in mind the while, and load thy
ship with the produce of the soil which the beg-
gars of Virginia give of their loyalty to His
Majesty King Charles, and then to take on board
my Lord Culpeper and set sail.”

“?Tis a fearful risk,” groaned the other,
“though I am a poor man, and I will admit that
my Bridget

“°Tis a fearful risk for you, Captain Tabor,
and through you for my mistress,” I intersupted,
for I did not half like the plan.

124

 
The Heart’s Highway

“ Our ships lay alongside, and I am hailed by
a brother mariner in distress both at the prospect
of the displeasure of a great and noble lady and
the suspicion of his honesty; but for that latter
will I vouch with my own, and, if needs be, will
give surety that the list of goods which she or-
dered shall be delivered next voyage,” said
Calvin Tabor.

“Her tongue, you know not her tongue,”
groaned the other.

“ Even that will I dare for thee, Dick, for thee
and that fair little maid who is dabbling her
pretty fingers in that flaming pudding with
which only the tough ones of a man should med-
dle,” said Captain Tabor. “ And as for risk for
me, my sailormen be as much in the toils for
‘Sabbath-breaking as their captain, should yes- .
terday’s work leak out; and not a man of them
knoweth the contents of those cases, though,
‘faith, and I heard them marvelling among them-
‘selves at the weight of feathers and silken petti-
‘coats, and I made port in the night-time before,
‘and not a soul knew of it nor the unlading, save
those which be bound to keep the secret for their
own necks, and, and—well, Captain Tabor be
not averse to somewhat of risk; it gives a savour
to life.” So saying, he rolled his bright-blue
eyes at me and Captain Watson with such utter
good-nature and dare-deviltry as I have never
seen equalled.

125
The Heart’s Highway

It was finally agreed that Captain Tabor’s
plan should be carried out, and I wended my
way back to Drake Hill with a feeling of tri-
umph, to which I of late years had been a
stranger. I know of nothing in the poor life of
a man equal to that great delight of being of ser-
vice to one beloved.

I reflected with such ever-increasing joy that
it finally became an ecstasy, and I could almost,
it seemed, see the colours of it in my path; how,
had it not been for me, Mary Cavendish might
have been in sore straits; and I verily believe I
was as happy for the time as if she had been my
promised sweetheart and was as proud of myself.

When about half-way to Draké Hill I heard
afar off a great din of bells and horns and voices,
which presently came nearer. Then the road was
filled up with the dancing May revellers, and
verily I wondered not so much at those decrees
against such practices before the Restoration, for
it was as if the savages which they do say are un-
derneath the outer gloss of the best of us had
broke loose, and I wondered if it might not be
like those mad and unlawful orgies which it was
said the god Pan led himself in person through
Thessalian groves. Those honest country
maids, who in the morning had advanced with
rustic but innocent freedom, with their glossy
heads crowned with flowers, and those lusty
youths, who were indeed something boisterous,

126
The Heart’s Highway

yet still held in a tight rein by decency, had seem-
ingly changed their very natures, or rather, per-
haps, had come to that pass when their natures
could be no longer concealed. Along the road
in the white moonlight they stamped as wantonly
as any herd of kine; youths and maids with arms
about each other, and all with faces flushed with
ale-drinking, and the maids with tossing hair and
draggled coats, and all the fresh garlands
withered or scattered. And the old graybeard
who was Maid Marion was riotously drunk, and
borne aloft with mad and feeble gesturings on
the shoulders of two staggering young men, and
after him came the aged morris dancers, only up-
held from collapse in the mire by mutual uphold-
ings, until they seemed like some monstrous ani-
mal moving with uncouth sprawls of legs as mul-
tifold as a centipede, and wavering drunkenly
from one side of the road to the other, lurching
into the dewy bushes, then recovering by the
joint effort of the whole.

I stood well back to let them pass, being in
that mood of self-importance, by reason of my
love and the service rendered by it, that I could
have seen the whole posse led to the whipping-
block with a relish, when suddenly from their
tipsy throats came a shout of such import that
my heart stood still. “ Down with the king!”
hallooed one mad reveller, in a voice of such
thickness that the whole sentence seemed one

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The Heart’s Highway

| word; then the others took it up, until verily it
seemed to me that their heads were not worth a
farthing. Then, “ Down with the governor!
down with Lord Culpeper!” shouted that same
thick voice of the man who was leading the wild
crew like a bell-wether. He forged ahead,
something more steady on his legs, but all the
madder of his wits for that, with an arm around
the waist of a buxom lass on either side, and all
three dancing in time. Then all the rest echoed
that shout of “ Down with the governor!” Then
out he burst again with, “ Down, down with the
tobacco, down with the tobacco!” But the
volley of that echo was cut short by five horse-
men galloping after the throng and scattering
them to the right and left. Then a great voice of
authority, set out with the strangest oaths which
ever an imagination of evil compassed, called out
to them to be still if they valued their heads, and
-cursed them all for drunken fools, and as he
spoke he lashed with his whip from side to side,
and his face gleamed with wrath like a demon’s
in the full light, and I saw he was Captain Noel
Jaynes, and well understood how he had made a
name for himself on the high seas. After him
rode the brothers, Nicholas and Richard Barry,
two great men, sticking to their saddles like
rocks, with fair locks alike on the head of each
flung out on the wind, and then came Ralph
Drake rising in his stirrups and laughing wildly,
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The Heart’s Highway

and last Parson Downs, but only last because the
road was blocked, for verily I thought his plung-
ing horse would have all before him under his
feet. They were all past me in a trice like a
dream, the May revellers scattering and hasten-
ing forward with shrieks of terror and shouts of
rage and peals of defiant laughter, and Captain
Jaynes’ voice, like a trumpet, overbearing every-
thing, and shouts from the Barry brothers echo-
ing him, and now and then coming the deep
rumble of expostulations from the parson’s great
chest, and Ralph Drake’s peals of horse-laughter,
and I was left to consider what a tinder-box this
Colony of Virginia was, and how ready to
leap to flame at a spark even when seemingly
most at peace, and to regard with more and more
anxiety Mary Cavendish’s part in this brewing
tumult.

After the shouting and hallooing throng had
passed I walked along slowly, reflecting, as I
have said, when I saw in the road before me two
advancing—a woman, and a man leading a horse
by the bridle, and it was Mary Cavendish and Sir
Humphrey Hyde.

And when I came up with them they stopped,
and Humphrey addressed me rudely enough,
but as one gentleman might another when he
was angered with him, and not contemptuously,
for that was never the lad’s way with me. “ Mas-
ter Wingfield,” he said, standing before me and

9 129
The Heart’s Highway

holding his champing horse hard by the bits, “ I
pray you have the grace to explain this matter of
the goods.”

I saw that Mistress Mary had been acquaint-
ing him with what had passed and her puzzle-
ment over it.

“ There is naught to explain, Sir Humphrey,”
said I. “’Tis very simple: Mistress Mary hath
the goods for which she sent to England.”

“Master Wingfield, you know those are my
Lady Culpeper’s goods, and I have no right to
them,” cried Mary. But I bowed and said,
“Madam, the goods are yours, and not Lady
Culpeper’s.”

“But I—I lied when I gave the list to my
grandmother,” she cried out, half sobbing, for
she was, after all, little more than a child tip-
toed to womanhood by enthusiasm.

“ Madam,” said I, and I bowed again. “ You
mistake yourself; Mistress Mary Cavendish can-
not lie, and the goods are in truth yours.”

She and Sir Humphrey looked at each other;
then Harry made a stride forward, and forcing
back his horse with one hand, grasped me with
the other. “ Harry, Harry,” he said in a whis-
per. “ Tell me, for God’s sake, what have you
done.” ;

“ The goods are Mistress Mary Cavendish’s,”
said I. They looked at me as I have seen folk
look at a page of Virgil.

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The Heart’s Highway

“Were they, after all, not my Lady Cul-
peper’s?” asked Sir Humphrey.

“ They are Mistress Mary Cavendish’s,” said I.

Mary turned suddenly to Sir Humphrey.
“°Tis time you were gone now, Humphrey,”
she said, softly. “ ’Twas only last night you were
here, and there is need of caution, and your
mother—~”

But Humphrey was loth to go. “’Tis not late,”
he said, “and I would know more of this matter.”

“You will never know more of Master Wing-
field, if that is what you wait for,” she returned,
with a half laugh, “and, Humphrey, your sister
Cicely said but this morning that your mother
was over-curious. I pray you, go, and Master
Wingfield will take me home. I pray you, go!”

Sir Humphrey took her hand and bent low
over it, and murmured something; then, before
he sprang to his saddle, he came close to me
again. “ Harry,” he whispered, “she should
not be in this business, and I would have not had
it so could I have helped it, and, I pray you, have
a care to her safety.”” This he spoke so low that
Mary could not hear, and, moreover, she, with
one of those sudden turns of hers that made her
have as many faces of delight as a diamond in the
sun, had thrown an arm around the neck of Sir
Humphrey’s mare, and was talking to her in such
dulcet tones as her lovers would have died for
the sake of hearing in their ears.

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The Heart's Highway

“ Have no fears for her safety,” I whispered
back. “So far as the goods go, there is no more
danger.”

“ What did you, Harry?”

“Sir Humphrey,” I whispered back, while
Mary’s sweet voice in the mare’s delicate ear
sounded like a song, “ sometimes an unguessed
riddle hath less weight than a guessed one, and
some fish of knowledge had best be left in the
stream. I tell thee she is safe.” So saying, I
looked him full in his honest, boyish face, which
was good to see, though sometime I wished, for
the maid’s sake, that it had more shrewdness
of wit in it. Then he gave me a great grasp of
the hand, and whispered something hoarsely.
“Thou art a good fellow, Harry, in spite of, in
spite of—” then he bent low over Mary’s hand
for the second time, and sprang to his saddle, and
was off toward Jamestown on his white mare,
flashing along the moonlit road like a whiter
moonbeam.

Then Mary came close to me, and did what she
had never before done since she was a child.
She laid her little hand on my arm of her own
accord. “ Master Wingfield,” said she, softly,
“what about the goods?”

“The goods for which you sent to England
are yours and in the great house,” said I, and I
heard my voice tremble.

She drew her hand away and stood looking at

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The Heart’s Highway

me, and her sweet forehead under her golden
curls was all knitted with perplexity.

“You know, you know I—lied,”’ she whis-
pered like a guilty child.

“You cannot lie,” I answered, “and the
goods are yours.”

“ And not my Lady Culpeper’s? ”

“ And not my Lady Culpeper’s.”

Mary continued looking at me, then all at
once her forehead cleared.

“ Catherine, ’twas Catherine,” she cried out.
“ She said not, but well I know her; she would
not own to it—the sweetheart. Sure a false-
. hood to hide a loving deed is the best truth of the
world. ’Twas Catherine, ’twas Catherine, the
sweetheart, the darling. She sent for naught
for herself, and hath been saving for a year’s
time and maybe sold a ring or two, Somehow
she discovered about the plot, what I had done.
And she hath heard me say, that I know well,
that I thought ’twas a noble list of Lady Cul-
peper’s, and I wished I were a governor’s wife or
daughter, that I could have such fine things. I
remember me well that I told her thus before
ever the Golden Horn sailed for England, that
time after Cicely Hyde slept with me and told me
what she had from Cate Culpeper. A goodly
portion of the goods were for Cate. °*Twas
Catherine. Oh, the sweetheart, the darling!
‘Was there ever sister like her? ”

133

,
Xx

Tt was an industrious household at Drake Hill
both as to men and women folk. The fields were
full of ebony backs and plying arms of toil at sun-
rise, and the hum and whir of loom and spinning-
wheels were to be heard in the negro cabins and
the great house as soon as the birds.

Madam Judith Cavendish was a stern task-
mistress, and especially for these latter duties.
Had it not been for the stress of favour in which
she held me, I question if my vocation as tutor to
Mistress Mary would have had much scope for
the last year, since her grandmother esteemed so
highly the importance of a maid’s being versed
in all domestic arts, such as the spinning and
weaving of flax and wool, and preserving and dis-
tilling and fine needlework. She set but small
store by Latin and arithmetic for a maid, not
even if she were naturally quick at them, as was
Mistress Mary; and had it not been that she'was
bent upon keeping me in her service at Drake
Hill, I doubt not that she would have clapped to-
gether the maid’s books, whether or no, and set
her to her wheel. As it was, a goodly part of

134
The Heart’s Highway

every day was passed by her in such wise, but so
fond was my pupil of her book that often I have
seen her with it propped open, for her reference,
on a chair at her side.

It was thus the next morning, the morning of
the day of my Lord Culpeper’s ball. It was a
warm morning, and the doors and windows of
the hall were set wide open, and all the spring
wind and scent coming in and dimity curtains
flying like flags, and the gold of Mistress Mary’s
hair tossing now and then in a stronger gust, and
she and Catherine cramming down their flax
baskets, lest the flax take wings to itself and fly
away. Both Mary and Catherine were at their
flax-wheels, but Madam Cavendish was in the
loom-room with some of the black women. Mary
had her Latin book open, as I have said before,
on a chair at her side, but Catherine span with
her fair face set to some steady course of thought,
though she too was fond of books. Never a
lesson had she taken of me, holding me in such
scorn, but I questioned much at the time, and
know now, that she was well acquainted with
whatever knowledge her sister had got, having
been taught by her mother and then keeping on
by herself with her tasks. When I entered the
hall, having been to Jamestown after breakfast
and just returned, both maids looked up, and
suddenly one of the wheels ceased its part in the
duet, and Catherine was on her feet and her

135
The Heart’s Highway

thread fallen whither it would. “ Master Wing-
field,” said she, “I would speak with you.”

“Madam, at your service,” said I, and fol-
lowed her, leading out on the green before the
house. “ What means this, what means this,
sir?” she began when she was scarcely out of
hearing of her sister.

“What did you about the goods? Did you,
did you EY

She gasped for further speech, and looked at
me with such a haughtiness of scorn as never I
had seen. It is hard for any man to be attacked
in such wise by a woman, and be under the ne-
cessity of keeping his weapons sheathed, though
he knoweth full well the exceeding convincing of
them and their fine point to the case in hand. I
bowed.

“ Did you, did you—” she went on—“ did you
purchase those goods yourself for my sister?
Did you?”

I bowed again. “ Madam,” said I, “ whatever
I have, and my poor flesh and blood and soul
also, are at the service of not only your sister but
her family.”

I marvelled much as I spoke thus to see no
flush of shameful consciousness overspread the
maid’s face, but none did, and she continued
speaking with that sharpness of hers, both as to
pale look and voice, which wounded like cold
steel, which leaves an additional sting because of

136

 
The Heart’s Highway

the frost in it. ‘“ Know you not, sir,” said she,
“that we cannot suffer a man in your position, a
—a—to purchase my sister's wardrobe?” Then,
before I knew what she was about to do, in went
her hand to a broidered pocket which hung at
her girdle, and out she drew a flashing store of
rings and brooches, and one long necklace flash-
ing with green stones. “ Here, take these,” she
cried out. “I have no money, but such an insult
T will not suffer, that my sister goes clad at your
expense to the ball to-night. Take these; they
are five times the value of the goods.”

I would in that minute have given ten years of
my life had Mistress Catherine Cavendish been a
man and I could have felled her to the ground,
and no man knowing what I believed J knew
could have blamed me. The flashes of red and
green from those rings and gewgaws which she
held out seemed to pass my eves to my very soul.

* Take them,” she said. “Why do you not
take them, sir?”

“T have no need of jewels, madam,” I said,
“and whatever the servant hath is his master’s
by right, and his master doth but take his own,
and no discredit to him.”

She fairly wrung her hands in her helpless
wrath, and the gems glittered anew. “ But,
but,” she stammered out. “ know vou the full
result of this, Harry Wingfield? She, my sister
Mary, thinks that I—I—sent to England for the

137
The Heart's Highway

goods for her; she knows that I have some
acquaintance with what she hath done, and she—
she is blessing me for it, and I cannot deny what
she thinks, I—I—cannot tell her what you, you
have done, lest, lest ” To my great aston-
ishment she stopped short with such a flame of
blushes as I had never seen on her face before,
and I was at a loss to know what she might
_ mean, but supposed that she considered that the
shame of Mistress Mary’s wearing finery which
had been paid for out of a convict’s purse would
be more than she could put upon her, and yet
that she dared not inform her, lest she refuse to
wear the sky-blue robe to the governor’s ball,
and so anger Madam Cavendish.

“ Madam,” I said, “ your sister is but blessing
you for what you would have done, and where-
fore need you fret?”

“ God knows I would,” she broke out, passion-
ately. “Every jewel I possess, the very gown
from my back, would I have sold to save her
this, had I but known. Why did she not tell me,
why did not she tell me? Oh, Harry, I pray you
to take these jewels.”

“T cannot take them, madam,” I said. Yet
stich was her distress I was sorry for her, though
I believed it to be rooted and grounded in
falsity, and that she had no need to regard
with such disapprobation her sister’s being in-
debted to an English gentleman who gave her in

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The Heart’s Highway

all honour the best he had. Yet could I not
yield and take those jewels, for more reasons
than one; not only should I have lost the dear
delight of having served Mary Cavendish, but I
had a memory of wrong which would not suffer
me to touch those rings, nor to allow that inno-
cent maid to be benefited by them, since I can-
not say what dark suspicions seized me when I
looked at them.

“ My God! ” she said, “ was ever such a web of
falsehood as this? Here must I hear my sister’s
blessings upon me for what I have done, and I
knowing all the time that ’twas you, and yet she
must not know.” Then again that flame of red
overspread her face and neck to the meet of her
muslin kerchief, and I knew not why.

“ Madam,” I said, “ one deception opens the
way for a whole flock,” and I spoke with some-
thing of a double meaning, but she only cried
out, with apparently no understanding of it, that
things had come to a cruel pass, and back to the
house she went; and I presently followed her to
get my gun, having a mind to shoot a few wild
fowl, since my pupil was at her wheel. And there
the two sat; keeping up that gentle drone of in-
dustry which I have come to think of as a note of
womanhood, like the hum of a bee or the putr of
a cat or the call of a bird. They sat erect, the
delicate napes of their necks showing above their
muslin kerchiefs under their high twists of hair,

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The Heart’s Highway

for even Mary had her golden curls caught up
that morning on account of the flax-lint, and
from their fair, attentive faces nobody would
have gathered what stress of mind both were in.
Ofa surety there must be a quieting and calming
power in some of the feminine industries which
be a boon to the soul.

But, as I passed through the hall, up looked
Mary, and her beautiful face flashed out of peace
into a sunlight of love and enthusiasm.

“ Oh,” she cried out, “ oh, was there ever any-
one like my sweetheart Catherine? To think
what she hath done for me, to think, to think!
‘And she, dear heart, loving the king! But better
she loves her little sister, and will stand by her
in her disloyalty, for the love of her. Was there
ever any one like her, Master Wingfield? ”

And I laughed, though maybe with some slight
bitterness, for I was but human, and that out-
burst of loving gratitude toward another, and
another whom I held in slight esteem, when it
was I who had given the child my little all, and
presently, when my term was expired, would
have to return to England without a farthing be-
twixt me and starvation, and maybe working my
way before the mast to get there at all, had a
sting init. ’Twasa strange thing that anything
so noble and partaking of the divine as the love
of an honest man for a woman should have any
tincture of aught ignoble in it, and one is caused

140
The Heart's Highway

thereby to decry one's state of mortality, which
seems as inseparable from selfish ends as the red
wings of a rose from the thorny stem which binds
it to earth. Truly the longer I live the more am
I aware of the speck which mars the complete-
ness of ail in this world, and ever the desire for a
better, and that longing which will not be ap-
peased groweth in my soul, until methmks the
very keenness of the appetite must prove the
food.

“Was there ever one like her?” repeated
Mary Cavendish, and as she spoke, up she sprang
and ran to her sister and flung a fair arm around
her neck, and drew her head to her bosom, and
leaned her cheek against it, and then looked at
me with a sidewise glance which made my heart
leap, for curious meanings, of which the innocent
thing had no reckoning. were in it.

I know not what I said. Truly not much, for
the mockery of it all was past my power of deal-
ing with and keeping my respect of self.

I got my fowlmg-piece from the peg on the
wall. and was forth and ranging the wooded
shores, with my eves intent on the whirring flight
of the birds, and my mind on that problem of the
times which always hath, and doth, and always
will, encounter a man who lives with any under-
standing of what is about him, but not always as
sorely as in my case. who faced. as it were, an
army of difficulties, bound hand and foot. But

rar
The Heart’s Highway

after a while the sport in which I was fairly
skilled, and that sense of power which cometh to
one from the proving of his superiority over the
life and death of some weaker creation, and the
salt air in my nostrils, gave me, as it were, a
glimpse of a farther horizon than the present
one of Virginia in 1682, and mine own little place
init. Then verily I could seem to see and scent
like some keen hound a smoothness which should
later come from the tangled web of circum-
stances, and a greatness which should encom-
pass mine own smallness of perplexity.

When I was wending my way back to Drake
Hill, with my gun over shoulder and some fine
birds in hand, I met Sir Humphrey Hyde.

We were near Locust Creek, and the great
house stood still and white in the sunlight, and
there was no life around it except for the distant
crawl of toil over the green of the tobacco fields
and the great hum of the bees in the flowering
honey locusts which gave, with the creek, the
place its name. Sir Humphrey was coming
from the direction of the house, riding slowly,
stooping in the saddle as if with thought, and I
guessed that he had been to see to the safety of
the contraband goods. When he saw me he
halted and shouted, in his hearty, boyish way,
“ Halloo, halloo, Harry, and what luck?” as if
all there was of moment in the whole world, and
Virginia in particular, was the shooting of birds

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The Heart’s Highway

-ona May morning. But then his face clouded,
and he spoke earnestly enough. “ Harry, Har-
ry,” he said, in a whisper, though there was no
life nearer than the bees, and they no bearers of
secrets, except those of the flowers, “ I pray thee,
come back to the hall with me, and let us consult
together.”

I followed him back to the house, and he
sprang from his saddle, had a shutter unhasped
in a twinkling, knowing evidently the secret of it,
and we were inside, standing amongst the litter
of casks and cases in the great silent desertion of
the hall of Locust Creek. Then he grasped me
hard by both hands, and cried out, ‘“ Harry,
Harry Wingfield, come to thee I must, for, con-
vict though thou be, thou art a man with a head
packed with wit, and Ralph Drake is half the
time in his cups, and Parson Downs riding his
own will at such a hard gallop that ’twill surprise
me not if he leave his head behind, and as for
Dick and Nick Barry, and Captain Dickson,
and—and Major Robert Beverly, and all the
others, what is it to them about this one matter
which is more to me than the whole damned hell-
broth? ”

“ You mean?” I said, and pointed to the litter
on the hall floor.

“Yes,” and then, with a great show of passion,
“My God, Harry Wingfield, why, why did we
gentlemen and cavaliers of Virginia allow a wo-

143
The Heart’s Highway

man to be mixed in this matter? If, if—these
goods be traced to her——”

“And, faith, and I see no reason why they
should not be, with a whole colony in the secret
of it,” I said, coldly.

“ Nay, none but me and Nick and Dick Barry,
and the parson since yesterday, and Major Bev-
erly and Capt. Noel Jaynes and you and the
captain and. sailors on the Golden Horn, who

value their own necks. As God is my witness,
' none beside, Harry.”

T could scarcely help laughing at the length of
the list and the innocence of the lad. “ Her
sister Catherine, Sir Humphrey,” said I.

“ Hath she told her, Harry?”

“ And the captain of the Earl of Fairfax.”

“The governor’s ship? Well, then, let us go
through Jamestown proclaiming it with a horn,”
he gasped out, and made more of the two last
than his own long list.

“Nay, the two last are as safe as we,” said I.
** Mistress Catherine holds her sister dearer than
herself, and as for the captain of the governor’s
ship, lock a man’s tongue with the key of his own
interest if you wish it-not to wag. But these
goods must be moved from here.”

“ That is what I well know, Harry,” he said,
eagerly. “All night did I toss and study the
matter. But where?”

“Not in any place on Madam Cavendish’s.

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The Heart’s Highway

plantation,” I said, and did not say, as I might
have, for ’twas the truth, that I had also tossed.
and studied, but as yet to no result.

“No, nor on mine, though I swear to thee,
were I the only one to consider, I would have
them there in a twinkling, but I cannot put my,
mother and sister in jeopardy even for. “4

“ Barry Upper Branch?”

“Nick and Dick swear they will not run the
risk; that they have but too lately escaped with
their lives, and are too close watched, and as for
the parson, ’tis out of the question, and Ralph
Drake hath no hiding-place, and as for the
others, they one and all refuse, and say this is the
safest place in the colony, it being a household of
women, and Madam Cavendish well known for
her loyalty.”

He looked at me and I at him, and again the
old consideration, as I saw his handsome, gallant
young face that perchance Mary Cavendish
might love him and do worse than to wed him,
came over me.

“ T will find a place for the goods,” said I.

“You, Harry?”

“ Yes, I,” I said.

“ But where, Harry? ”

“ Wait till the need for them come, lad.” Then
I added, for often in my perplexity the wish that
the whole lot were at the bottom of the river had
seized me, “ There is need of them, I suppose? ”

to 145

 
The Heart’s Highway

But Sir Humphrey said yes, with a great em-
phasis to that.

“ There is sure to be fighting,” he said, “ and
never were powder and shot so scarce. ’Tis well
the Indians are quiet. This poor Colony of
Virginia hath not enough powder to guard her
borders, nor, were it not for her rich soil, enough
of food to feed her children since the Navigation
Act.

“ Oh, God, Harry, if but Nathaniel Bacon had
lived!”

“ Amen,” I said, and felt as I said it, that if in-
deed that hero were alive, this plot for the de-
stroying of the young tobacco plants might be
the earthquake which threw off a new empire;
but as it were, remembering the men concerned,
who had none of the stuff of Bacon in them, I
wondered if it would prove aught more than a
wedge in the scheme of liberty.

“ There are those who would be ready to say
that we gentlemen of Virginia, like Bacon, are ~
all ready to shelter ourselves behind women’s
aprons,” said Sir Humphrey Hyde, with a
shamed glance at the goods, referring to that sta-
tioning of the ladies of the Berkeley faction, all
arrayed in white aprons, on the earthworks be-
fore the advance of the sons and husbands and
brothers in the Bacon uprising.

“ And if you hear any man say that, shoot him
dead, Sir Humphrey Hyde,” I said, for, through

146
The Heart's Highway

liking not that story about Bacon, I was fiercer in
defence of it.

“Faith, and I will, Harry,” cried Sir Hum-
phrey, “and Bacon was a greater man than the
king, if I were to swing for it; but, Harry, you
cannot by yourself move these. What will you
do?”

But I begged him to say no more, and
started toward the window, the door being fast
locked as Mistress Mary had left it, when sud-
denly the boy stopped me and caught me by the
hand, and begged me to tell him if I thought
there might be any hope for him with Mary
Cavendish, being moved to do so by her sending
him away ‘so peremptorily the night before,
which had put him in sore doubt. ‘“ Tell me,
Harry,” he pleaded, and the great lad seemed
like a child, with his honest outlook of blue eyes,
“tell me what you think, I pray thee, Harry; look
at me, and tell me, if you were a maid, what
would you think of me?”

Loving Mary Cavendish as I did, and striving
to look at him with her eyes, a sort of tenderness
crept into my heart for this simple lover, who was
as brave as he was simple, and I clapped a hand
on his fair curls, for though he was so tall I was
taller, and laughed and said, “ If I were a maid,
though ’tis a fancy to rack the brain, but, if I
were a maid, I would love thee well, lad.”

“My mother thinketh none like me, and so

147
The Heart’s Highway

tells me every. day, and says that I am like my.
father, who was the handsomest man in England;
but then mothers be all so, and I know not how
much of it to trust, and my sister Cicely loves
Mary so well herself that she is jealous, and often
tells me—” then the lad stopped and stared at
me, and I at him, perplexed, not dreaming what
was in his mind.

“ Tells you what, Sir Humphrey? ” said I.

“That, that—oh, confound it, Harry, there
is no harm in saying it, for you as well as I know
the folly of it, and that ’tis but the jealous fancy
ofa girl. Faith, but I think my sister Cicely is
as much in love with Mary Cavendish as I. ’Tis
but—my sister Cicely, when she will tease me,
tells me ’tis not I but you that Mary Cavendish
hath set her heart upon, Harry.”

I felt myself growing pale at that, and I could
not speak because of a curious stiffness of my
lips, and I heard my heart beat like a clock in the
deserted house. Sir Humphrey was looking at
me with an anxiety which was sharpening into
suspicion. ‘“ Harry,” he said, “you do not
think. 2

“°?Tis sheer folly, lad,” I burst out then, “and
let us have no more of it. ’Tis but the idle prat-
ing of a lovesick girl, who should have a lover,
ere she try to steal a nest in the heart of one of
her own sex. ’Tis folly, Sir Humphrey Hyde.”

“So said I to Cicely,” Sir Humphrey cried,

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eagerly, too interested in his own cause to
heed my slighting words for his sister. “’Tis
the rankest folly, I told her. Here is Harry
Wingfield, old enough almost to be Mary’s
father, and beside, beside—oh, confound it, Har-
ry,” the generous lad burst out. “I would not
like you for a rival, for you are a good half foot
taller than I, and you have that about you which
would make a woman run to you and think her-
self safe were all the Indians in Virginia up, and
you are a dark man, and I have heard say they.
like that, but, but—oh, I say, Harry, ’tis a
damned shame that you are here as you are, and
not as a gentleman and a cavalier with the rest of
us, for all the evidence to the contrary and all the
government to the contrary, ’tis, ’tis the way
you should be, and not a word of that charge do
I believe. May the fiends take me if I do, Har-
ry!” So saying, the lad looked at me, and
verily the tears were in his blue eyes, and out he
thrust his honest hand for me to grasp, which I
did with more of comfort than I had had for
many a day, though it was the hand of a rival,
and the next minute forth he burst again: “ Say,
Harry, if it be true that thou art out of the run-
ning, and I believe it must be so, for how could?
—say, Harry, think you there is any chance for
me?”

“T know of no reason why there should not
be, Sir Humphrey,” I said.

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“ Only, only—that she is what she is, and I
but myself. Oh, Harry, was there ever one like
that girl? All the spirit of daring of a man she
has, and yet is she full of all the sweet ways of a
maid. Faith, she would draw sword one min-
ute and tie a ribbon the next. She would have
followed Bacon to the death, and sat up all night
to broider herself a kerchief. Comrade and
sweetheart both she is, and was there ever one
like her for beauty? Harry, Harry, saw you ever
such a beauty as Mary Cavendish?”

* No, and never will,” cried I, so fervently and
so echoing to the full his youthful enthusiasm
that again that keen look flashed into his eyes.
“ Harry,” he stammered out, ‘“‘ you do not—say,
for God’s sake, Harry, you are a man if you area
—a—, and every day have you seen that angel,
and—and—Harry, may the devil take me if I
would go against thee if she—you know I would
not, Harry, for I remember well how you taught
me to shoot, and, and—I love thee, Harry, not
in such fool fashion as my sister loveth Mary, but
I love thee, and never would I cross thee.”

“ Sir Humphrey,” said I, “it is not what you
would, nor what I would, nor what any other
man would, but what be best for Mary Caven-
dish, and her true happiness of life, that is to con-
sider, whether you love her, or I love her, or any
other man love her.”

Faith, and a score do,” he said, gloomily.

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“There be my Lord Estes and her cousin Ralph,
and I know not how many more. Faith, I would
not have her less fair, but sometimes I would that
a few were colour-blind. But ’tis different when
it comes to thee, Harry. If she a

“Sir Humphrey,” I said, ‘ were Mary Caven-
dish thy sister and I myself, and loving her and
she me, and you having that affection which you
say you have for me, would you yet give her to
me in marriage and think it for her good?”

Then the poor lad coloured and stammered,
and could not look me in the face, but it was
enough. “Let there be no more talk betwixt
you and me as to that matter, Sir Humphrey,”
I said. ‘“ There is never now nor at any other
time any question of marriage betwixt Mistress
Mary Cavendish and her convict tutor, and if he
perchance had been not colour-blind and had
learned to appraise her at her rare worth, the
more had he been set against such. And all
that he can do for thee, lad, he will do.”

Sir Humphrey was easily pacified, having been
accustomed from his babyhood to masterly
soothing of his mother into her own ways of
thought. Again, in spite of his great stature, he
looked up at me like a very child. “ Harry,” he
whispered, “heard you her ever say anything
pleasant concerning me?”

“Many a time,” I answered, quite seriously,
though I was inwardly laughing, and could not

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The Heart’s Highway

for the life of me remember any especial favour
which she had paid him in her speech. But I
have ever held that a bold lover hath the best
chance, and knowing that boldness depends
upon assurance of favour, I set about giving it to
Sir Humphrey, even at some small expense of
truth.

“When, when, Harry?”

“ Oh, many a time, Sir Humphrey.”

“But what? I pray thee, tell me what she
said, Harry.”

“T have not charged my mind, lad.”

“ But think of something. I pray thee, think
of something, Harry.” He looked at me with
such exceeding wistfulness that I was forced to
cudgel my brains for something which, having a
slight savour of truth, might be seasoned to
pungency at fancy. “ Often have I heard her
say that she liked a fair man,” I replied, and in-
deed I had, and believed her to have said it be-
cause I was dark, and seemingly inattentive to
some new grace of hers as to the tying of her
hair or fastening of her kerchief.

“ Did she indeed say that, Harry, and do you
think she had me in mind?” cried Sir Humphrey.

“ Are you not a fair man?”

“Yes, yes, I am a fair man, am I not, Harry?
What else? Sure you have heard her say more
than that.”

“’T have heard her say she liked a hearty laugh,

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and one who counted not costs when his mind
were set on aught, but rode straight for it though
all the bars were up.”

“That sure is I, Harry, unless my mother
stand in the way. A man cannot bring his
mother’s head low, Harry, but sure if she forbid
nor know not, as in this case of this tobacco plot,
I stop for naught. Sure she meant me, then,
Harry.”

“ And I have heard her say that she liked a
young man, a man no older than she.”

“ Sure, sure she meant me by that, Harry, for
I am the youngest of them all—not yet twenty.
Oh, dear Harry, she had mein mind by that. Do
you not think so?”

“T know of no one else whom she could have
had in mind,” I answered.

The lad was blushing with delight and con-
fusion like a girl. He cast down his eyes before
me; he stammered when he spoke. “ Harry, if
‘she but love me, I swear I could do as brave
deeds as Bacon,” he said. “I would die would
she but carry about a lock of my hair on her
bosom as she does his. I would, Harry. And
you think I have some chance?”

My heart smote me lest I had misled him, for
I knew with no certainty the maid’s mind. “ As
much chance as any, and more than many, lad,”
I said, “ and I will do what I can for thee.”

“Harry,” he said, then paused and blushed

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The Heart’s Highway

and twisted his great body about as modestly as
a girl, “ Harry.”

“What, Sir Humphrey?”

“ Once, once—I never told of it, and no one
ever knew since I was alone, and it would have
been boasting—but once—I—fought single-
handed with that great Christopher Little,
whom I met by chance when I was out in the
woods, and ’twas two years since, and I, with
scarce my full growth, and he pleading for mercy
at the second round, with an eye like a black-
berry and a nose like a gillyflower, and—and—
Harry, you might tell her of it, and say not where
you got the news, if you thought it no harm.
And, Harry, you will mind the time when I killed
the wolf with naught but an oak club for weapon,
and she, maybe, hath not heard of that. And I
should have been to the front with Bacon, boy as
I was, had it not been for my mother—that you
know well and could make her sure of. And,
and—oh, confound it, Harry, little book wit
have I in my head, and she is so clever as never
was, and all I have to win her notice be in my
hands and heels, for, Harry, you will remember
the race I ran with Tom Talbot that May day;
think you she knows of that? And—but she
must know how I rode against Nick Barry last
St. Andrew’s, and, and—oh, Lord, Harry, what
am I that she should think of me? Butat all
odds, whether it be me or you or any other man,

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see to it that these goods be moved and she not
be drawn into this which is hatching, for it may
be as big a blaze as Bacon started before we be
done with it; but shall I not help thee, Harry, and
when will you move them and where?”

“T want no help, lad,” I said, and was indeed
firmly set in my mind that he should know noth-
ing about the disposal of the goods lest Mistress
Mary come to grief through her love for him,
and reasoning that ignorance was his best safe-
guard and hers.

We went forth from Locust Creek, ‘I having
promised that I would do all that I could to
further his suit with Mary Cavendish, and when
we reached the bend of the road, he having
walked beside me, hitherto leading his horse, he
was in his saddle and away, having first acquaint-
ed me anxiously with the fact that he was to wear
that night to the governor’s ball a suit of blue vel-
vet with silver buttons, and asking me if I consid-
ered that it would become him in Mistress Mary’s
eyes. Then I went home to Drake Hill, passing
along such a wonderful aisle of bloom of locust
and peach and mulberry and honeysuckle and
long trails of a purple vine of such a surprise of
beauty as to make one incredible that he saw
aright—bushes pluming white to the wind, and
over all a medley of honey and almond and spicy
scents seeming to penetrate the very soul, that
I was set to reflecting in the midst of my sadness

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The Heart's Highway

of renunciation of my love, and my anxiety for
her if, after all, such roads of blessing which were
set for our feet at every turn led not of a necessity
to blessed ends, and if our course tended not to
happiness, whether we knew it or not, and along
whatever byways of sorrow.
XI

I have seen many beautiful things in my life,
as happens to every one living in a world which
hath little fault as to its appearance, if one can
outlook the shadow which his own selfishness of
sorrow and disappointment may cast before him;
but it seemed that evening, when I saw Mary
Cavendish dressed for the governor’s ball, that
she was the crown of all. I verily believe that
never since the world was made, not even that
beautiful first woman who comprehended in her-
self all those witcheries of her sex which have
een ever since to our rapture and undoing, not
even Eve when Adam first saw her in Paradise,
nor Helen, nor Cleopatra, nor any of those wo-
men whose faces have made powers of them and
given them niches in history, were as beautiful
as Mary Cavendish that night. And I doubt if
it were because she was beheld by the eyes of a
lover. I verily believe that I saw aright, and
gave her beauty no glamour because of my
fondness for her, for not one whit more did T
love her in that splendour than in her plainest
gown. But, oh, when she stood before her
grandmother and me and a concourse of slaves

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The Heart’s Highway

all in a ferment of awe and admiration, with
flashings of white teeth and upheavals of eyes
and flingings aloft of hands in hali-savage
gesticulation, and courtesied and turned herself
about in innocent delight at her own loveliness,
and yet with the sweetest modesty and apology
that she was knowing to it! That stuff which
had been sent to my Lady Culpeper and which
had been intercepted ere it reached her was of a
most rich and wonderful kind. The blue of it
was like the sky, and through it ran the gleam of
silver in a flower pattern, and a great string of
pearls gleamed on her bosom, and never was any-
thing like that mixture of triumph in, and
abashedness before, her own exceeding beauty
and her perception of it in our eyes in her dear
and lovely face. She looked at us and actually
shrank a little, as if our admiration were some-
thing of an affront to her maiden modesty, and
blushed, and then she laughed to cover it, and
swept a courtesy in her circling shimmer of blue,
and tossed her head and flirted a little fan, which
looked like the wing of a butterfly, before her
face.

“ Well, how do you like me, madam?” said
she to her grandmother, “and am I fine enough
for the governor’s ball?”

Madam Cavendish gazed at her with that
rapture of admiration in a beloved object which
can almost glorify age to youth. She called

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Mary to her and stroked the rich folds of her
gown; she straightened a flutter of ribbon.
‘Tis a fine stuff of the gown,” she said, “and blue
was always my colour. I was married init. ’Tis
fine enough for the governor’s wife, or the queen
for that matter.” She pulled out a fold so that
a long trail of silver flowers caught the light and
gleamed like frost. No misgivings and no sus-
picions she had, and none, by that time, had
Mary, believing as she did that her sister had
bought all that bravery for her, and that it was
hers by right, and only troubled by the necessity
of secrecy with her grandmother lest she dis-
cover for what purpose her own money had been
spent. But Catherine eyed her with such ex-
ceedingly worshipful love, admiration, and yet
distress that even I pitied her. Catherine her-
self that night did no discredit to her beauty, her
dress being, though it was an old one, as rich as
Mary’s, of her favourite green with a rose pattern
broidered on the front of it, and a twist of green
gauze in her fair hair, and that same necklace of
green stones which she had shown me in the
morning around her long throat, and her long,
milky-white arms hanging at her sides in the
green folds of her gown, and that pale radiance
of perfection in her every feature that made
many call her the pearl of Virginia, though, as I
have said before, she had no lovers. She and
Mary were going to the ball, and a company of
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The Heart’s Highway

black servants with them. As for me, balls
were out of the question for a convict tutor, and I
knew it, and so did they. But suddenly, to my
great amazement, Madam Cavendish turned to.
me: “ And wherefore are you not dressed for the
ball, Master Wingfield?” she said.

I stared at her, as did also Catherine and Mary,
almost as if they suspected she had gone de-
mented. “Madam,” I  stammered, scarce
thinking I had understood her rightly.

“Why are you not dressed for the ball?” she
repeated.

“ Madam,” I said, “ pardon me, but you are
well acquainted with the fact that I am not a wel-
come guest at the governor’s ball.”

“ And wherefore?” cried she imperiously.

“ Wherefore, madam?”

Mary and Catherine both looked palely at
their grandmother, not knowing what had come
to her.

“ Madam,” I said, “ do you forget?”

“T forget not that you are the eldest son and
heir of one of the best families in England, and
as good a gentleman as the best of them,” she
cried out. “That I do not forget, and I would
have you go to the ball with my granddaugh-
ters. Put on thy plum-coloured velvet suit,
Harry, and order thy horse saddled.”

For the first time I seemed to understand that
Madam Judith Cavendish had, in spite of her

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The Heart’s Highway

wonderful powers of body and mind, somewhat
of the ehildishness of age, for as she looked at
me the tears were in her stern eyes and a flush
was on the ivory white of her face, and her tone
had that querulousness in it which we associate
with childhood which cannot have its own will.

“ Madam,” I said, gently, “ you know that it
is not possible for me to do as you wish, and also
that my days of gayeties are past, though not to
my regret, and that I am looking forward to an
evening with my books, which, when a man gets
beyond his youth, yield him often more pleasure
than the society of his kind.”

“But, Harry,” she said piteously, and still
like a child, “ you are young, and I would not
have—” Then imperiously again: “Get into
thy plum-coloured velvet suit, Master Wingfield,
and accompany my granddaughters.”

But then I affected not to hear her, under pre-
tence of seeing that the sedan chairs were ready,
and hallooed to the slaves with such zeal that
Madam Cavendish’s voice was drowned, though
with no seeming rudeness, and Mary and Cather-
ine came forth in their rustling spreads of blue
and green, and the black bearers stood grinning
whitely out of the darkness, for the moon was
not up yet, and I aided them both into the chairs,
and they were off. I stood a few moments
watching the retreating flare of flambeaux, for
runners carrying them were necessary on those

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The Heart’s Highway

rough roads when dark, and the breath of the
dewy spring night fanned my face like a wing of
peace, and I regretted nothing very much which
had happened in this world, so that I could
come between that beloved girl and the troubles
starting up like poisonous weeds on her path.

But when I entered the hall Madam Caven-
dish, having sent away the slaves, even to the
little wench who had been fanning her, with
verily I believe no more of consciousness as to
what was going on about her than a Jimson weed
by the highway, called me to her in a voice so
tremulous that I scarce knew it for hers.

“ Harry, Harry,” she said, “I pray thee, come
here.” Then, when I approached, hesitating, for
I had a shrinking before some outburst of femi-
nine earnestness, which has always intimidated
me by its fire of helplessness and futility playing
against some resolve of mine which I could not,
on account of my masculine understanding of the
requirements of circumstances, allow to melt, she
reached up one hand like a little nervous claw
of ivory, and caught me by the sleeve and pulled
me down to a stool by her side. Then she
looked at me, and stich love and even adoration
were in her face as I never saw surpassed in it,
even when she regarded her granddaughter
Mary, yet withal a cruel distress and self-up-
braiding and wrath at herself and me. “ Harry,
Harry,” she said, “I can bear no more of this.”

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The Heart’s Highway

Then, to my consternation, up went her silken
apron with a fling to her old face, and she was
weeping under it as unrestrainedly as any child.

I did not know what to do nor say. “ Mad-
am,” I ventured, finally, “if you distress your-
self in such wise for my sake, ’tis needless, I as-
sure, ’tis needless, and with as much truth as
were you my own mother.”

“ Oh, Harry, Harry,” she sobbed out, “ know
you not that is why I cannot bear it longer, be-
cause you yourself bear it with no complaint? ”
Then she sobbed and even wailed with that
piteousness of the grief of age exceeding that of
infancy, inasmuch as the weight of all past griefs
of a lifetime go to swell it, and it is enhanced by
memory as well as by the present and an un-
known future. I knew not what to do, but laid
a hand somewhat timidly on one of her thin
silken arms, and strove to draw it gently from
her face. “Madam Cavendish,” I said, “ in-
deed you mistake if you weep for me. At this
moment I would change places with no man in
Virginia.”

“ But I would have—I would have you!” she
cried out, with the ardour of a girl, and down
went her apron, and her face, like an aged mask
of tragedy, not discoloured by her tears, as
would have happened with the tender skin of a
maid, confronted me. “I would have you the
governor himself, Harry. I would have you~

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The Heart’s Highway

TI would have—” ‘Then she stopped and looked
.at me with a red showing through the yellow
whiteness of her cheeks. “ You know what I
would have, and I know what you would have,
and all the rest of my old life would I give could
it be so, Harry,” she said, and I saw that she
knew of my love for her granddaughter Mary.
‘Then suddenly she cried out, vehemently: “ Not
one word have I said to you about it since that
dreadful time, Harry Wingfield, for shame and
that pride as to my name, which is a fetter on the
tongue, hath kept me still, but at last I will
speak, for I can bear itno longer. WHarry, Har-
ry, I know that you are what you are, a convict
and an exile, to shield Catherine, to shield a
granddaughter of mine, who should be in your
place. Harry Wingfield, I know that Cather-
ine Cavendish is guilty of the crime for which
you are in punishment, and, woe is me, such is
my pride, such is my wicked pride, that I have
let you suffer and said never one word.”

I put her hand to my lips. “ Madam,” I said,
“you mistake; I do not suffer. That which you
think of as my suffering and my disgrace is my
glory and happiness.”

“Yes, and why, and why? Oh, Harry, ’tis
that which is breaking my heart. ’Tis because
you love Mary, ’tis because, I verily believe,
you have loved her from the first minute you set
eyes on her, though she was but a baby in.arms.

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The Heart’s Highway

‘At first I thought it was Catherine, in spite of her
fault, but now I know it was for the sake of Mary
that you sacrificed yourseli—for her sister,
_ Harry, I know, I know, and I would to God that
I could give you your heart’s desire, for ’tis mine
also!”

Then, so saying, this old woman, who had in
her such a majesty of character and pride that it
held folk aloof at a farther distance than loud
‘swaggerings, of importance of men high in
office, drew down my head to her withered
shoulder and touched my cheek with a hand of
compassionate pity and blessing, as if I had been
in truth her son, and caught her breath again and
again with a sobbing sigh. All that I could say
to comfort her I said, assuring her, as was in-
deed the truth, that no woman could justly esti-
mate the view which a man might take of such a
condition as mine, and how the power of service
to love might be enough to content one, and he
stand in no need of pity, but she was not much
consoled. “ Harry,” she said, “ Harry, thou art
like a knight of olden times about whom a song
was written, which I heard sung in my girlhood,
and which used to bring the tears, though I was
never too ready with them. Woe be to me that
I, knowing what I know, have yet not the cour-
‘age to sacrifice my pride and my unworthy
granddaughter, and see you free. Oh, Harry,
that thou shouldst sit at home when thou art

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The Heart’s Highway

fitted by birth and breeding to go with the best
of them! Harry, I pray thee, put on thy plum-
coloured suit and go to the ball.”

“ Dear Madam Cavendish,” I said, half laugh-
ing, for she seemed more and more like a child,
“you know that it cannot be, and that I have no
desire for balls.”

“ But I would have thee go, Harry.”

“ But I am not asked,” I said.

“What matters that? 7’Tis almost with open
doors, since it is a farewell of my Lord Culpeper
before sailing for England. Harry, go, and—a
—and—I swear if any exception be taken to it,
I—I—will tell the truth.”

“* Dear madam, it cannot be,” I said, “ and the
truth is to be concealed not only for your sake,
but for that of others.”

Then she broke out in another paroxysm of
childish wailing that never was such a wretched
state of matters, such a wretched old woman
handicapped from serving one by her love for-
another. “ Harry, I cannot clear thee unless I
convict my own granddaughter Catherine,” she
said, piteously, “and if-I spared her not, neither
her nor my pride, what of Mary? Catherine
hath been like a mother to the child, and she
loves her better than she loves me. *Twould
kill her, Harry. And, Harry, how can I give
Mary to thee, and thou under this ban? Mary
Cavendish cannot wed a convict.”

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The Heart’s Highway

“ That she cannot and shall not,” I said; “ she
shall wed a much worthier man and be happy,
and sure ’tis her happiness that is the question.”

But Madam Cavendish stared at me with un-
reasoning anger, not understanding, since she
was a woman, and unreasoning as a woman will
be in such matters. “If you love not my grand-
daughter, Harry Wingfield,” she cried out, “ ’tis
not her grandmother will fling her at your head.
I will let you know, sir, that she could have her
pick in the colony if she so chose, and it may be
that she might not choose you, Master Harry
Wingfield.”

I laughed. ‘ Madam Cavendish,” I said, ris-
ing and bowing, “ were I a king instead of a con-
vict, then would I lay my crown at Mary Caven-
dish’s feet; as it is, I can but pave, if I may, her
way to happiness with my heart.”

“Then you love her as I thought, Harry?”

“ Madam,” I said, “I love her to my honour
and glory and never to my discontent, and I pray
you to believe with a love that makes no account
of selfish ends, and that I am happier at home
with my books than many a cavalier who shall
dance with her at the ball.”

“But, Harry,” she said, piteously, “I pray
thee to go.”

I laughed and shook my head, and went away
to my own quarters and sat down to my books,
but, at something past midnight, Madam Caven-

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dish sent for me in all haste. She had gone to
bed, and I was ushered to her bedroom, and when
I saw her thin length of age scarce rounding the
coverlids, and her face frilled with white lace, and
her lean neck stretching up from her pillows
with the piteous outreaching of a bird, a great
tenderness of compassion for womanhood, both
in youth and beauty and age and need, beyond
which I can express, came over me. It surely
seems to me the part of man to deal gently with
them at all times, even when we suffer through
them, for there is about them a mystery of help-
lessness and misunderstanding of themselves
which should give us an exceeding patience.
‘And it seems to me that, even in the cases of
those women who are perhaps of greater wit
and force of character than many a man, not one
of them but hath her helplessness of sex in her
heart, however concealed by her majesty of car-
riage. So, when I saw Madam Cavendish, old
and ill at ease in her mind because of me, and re-
alised all at once how it was with her in spite of
that clear head of hers and imperious way which
had swayed to her will all about her for near
eighty years, I went up to her, and, laying a
gentle hand upon her head, laid it back upon the
pillow, and touched her poor forehead, wrinkled
with the cares and troubles of so many years, and
felt all the pity in me uppermost. “’Tis near
midnight, and you have not slept, madam” I
168
The Heart’s Highway

said. “I pray you not to fret any longer about
that which we can none of us mend, and which is
but to be borne as the will of the Lord.”

“Nay, nay, Harry,” she cried out, with a piti-
ful strength of anger. “I doubt if it be the will
of the Lord. I doubt if it be not the devil—
Catherine, Catherine—Harry, my brain reels
when I think that she should have done it—a
paltry ring, and to let you——”

“It may be that she had not her wits,” I said.
“ Such things have been, I have heard, and es-
pecially in the case of a woman with jewels. It
may be that she knew not what she did, and in
any case I pray you to think no more of it, dear
madam.” And all the time I spoke I was
smoothing her old forehead under the flapping
frills of her cap.

One black woman was there in the room, sit-
ting in the shadow of the bed-curtains, fast asleep
and making a strange purring noise like a cat as
she slept.

Suddenly Madam Cavendish clutched hard at
my hand. “ Harry,” she said, “I sent for you
because I have lain here fretting lest Mary and
Catherine get not home in safety with only the
black people to guard them. I fear lest the In-
~ dians may be lurking about.”

“Dear Madam Cavendish,” I said, “ you
know that we stand in no more danger from the
Indians.”

169
The Heart’s Highway

“ Nay,” she persisted, “ we can never tell what
plans may be brewing in such savage brains. I
pray thee, Harry, ride to meet them and see if
they be safe.”

I laughed, for the danger from Indians was
long since past, but said readily enough that I
would do as she wished, being, in fact, glad
enough of a gallop in the moonlight, with the
prospect of meeting Mary. So ina few minutes I
was in the saddle and riding toward Jamestown.
The night, was very bright with the moon, and
there was a great mist rising from the marshy
lands, and such strangely pale and luminous
developments in the distances of the meadows,
marshalling and advancing and retreating, like
companies of spectres, and lingering as if for
consultation on the borders of the woods, with
floating draperies caught in the boughs thereof,
that one might have considered danger from
others than Indians. And, indeed, I often caught
the note of an owl, and once one flitted past my
face and my horse shied at the evil bird, which is
thought by the ignorant to be but a feathered
cat and of ill omen, and indeed is considered by
many who are wise to have presaged ill often-
times, as in the cases of the deaths of the em-
perors Valentinian and Commodus. Be that
as it may, I, having a pistol with me, shot at
the bird, and, though I was as good a shot
as any thereabouts, missed, and away it flew,

170
The Heart’s Highway

with a great hoot as of laughter, which I am
ready to swear I heard multiplied in a trice, as
if the bird were joined by a whole company,
and my horse shied again and would have bolted
had I not held him tightly. Now, this which
I am about to relate I am ready to swear did
truly happen, though it may well be doubted.
I had come within a short distance of Jamestown
when I reached two houses of a small size, not far
apart, not much removed from the fashion of the
negro cabins, but inhabited by English folk. In
the one dwelt a man who had been transported
for a grievous crime, whether justly or not I
cannot say, but his visage was such as to con-
demn him, and he was often in his cups and
had spent many days in the stocks, and had
made frequent acquaintance with the whipping-
post, and with him dwelt his wife, an old dame
with a tongue which had once earned her the
ducking-stool in England. As I passed this
house I saw over the door a great bunch of dill
and vervain and white thorn, which is held to
keep away witches from the threshold if gathered
upon a May day. And I knew well the reason,
for not: many rods distant was the hut where
dwelt one Margery Key, an ancient woman, who
had been verily tied crosswise and thrown in a
pond for witchcraft and been weighed against the
church Bible, and had her body searched for
witch-marks and the thatch of her house burned.
17i
The Heart’s Highway

I know not why she had not come to the stake
withal, but instead she had fled to Virginia,
where, witches being not so common, were
treated with more leniency. It may have been
that she had escaped the usual fate of those of
her kind by being considered by some a white
witch, and one who worked good instead of ill if
approached rightly, though many considered that
they who approached a white witch for the pur-
pose of profiting by her advice or warning, were
of equal guilt, and that it all led in the end to mis-
chief. Be that as it may, this old dame Margery
Key dwelt there alone in her little hut so over-
thatched and grown by vines, and scarce show-
ing the shaggy slant of its roof above the bushes,
that it resembled more the hole of some timid
and wary animal than a human habitation. And
if any visited her for consultation it was by night
and secretly, and no one ever caught sight of
her except now and then the nodding white
frill of her cap in the green gloom of a window or
the painful bend of her old back as she gathered
sticks for her fire in the woods about. How she
lived none knew. A little garden-patch she had,
and a hive or two of bees, and a red cow, which
many affirmed to have the eye of a demon, and
there were those who said that her familiars stole
bread for her from the plantation larders, and
that often a prime ham was missed and a cut of
‘venison, with no explanation, but who can say?
172
The Hearts Highway

Without doubt there are strange things in the
earth. but we are all so ‘= che midst of them, and
even 2 2art of tier workings, that we can have
no outside foothold to take fair sight thereof.
Verly a man might zs well strive to litt himself
by its boot-straps over a stile.

Bot this much I will sev. that, 2s I was nicing
ziong, cogitatmg something deeply = my mind
2s to the best disposal of the powder and the shot
which Merv Cavendish had ordered from Eng-
land, I. comme abreast of Margery Key's house,
saw of a sudden a white cat, which many affirmed
to ce her fimtisr. sering trom her coor ke 2
white zrrow of speed and off down a wood-path,
acd my horse reared and o:u-ged. and then, with
my koldmg him of ro avail, though I had a
stroce hand oa tre boise. was after her with
soch a mad cicht that I hed hard work to keep
the sec@le Pellmel chrocch the wood we
went, I ducking my head before =e mad ksh of
the branches and feeling the dew therefrom in
my <zce hke a drive of ram. until we came toa
Cleared space. them a crezt scresd of tobaceo
frelds, overlappimg sUver-wiite in the moon ght.
end hamlet of negro cohircs. end chez Major
Robert Beverly's house, s=z=dit¢ a mess of shzc-
ow except fc- one moonlit we". for 27 the amity
were gome 20 the corermcs’s ts” «Then, as I
Eve. that white cat of Margery Kev’s led me -
cha: med chase around Severiv’s ESS

—:
*.5
The Heart’s Highway

when I came to the north side of it I saw a candle
gleam in a window and heard a baby’s wail, and
knew’twaswhere his infant daughter was tended,
and as we swept past out thrust a black head
from the window, and a screech as savage as any
wild cat’s rent the peace of the night, and I be-
lieve that the child’s black nurse took us, no
doubt, for the devil himself. Then all the dogs
howled and bayed, though not one approached
us, and a great bat came fanning past, like a
winged shadow, and again I heard the owl’s hoot,
and ever before us, like a white arrow, fled that
white cat, and my horse followed in spite of me.
Then, verily I speak the truth, though it may well
be questioned, did that white cat lead us straight
to the tomb which Major Beverly had made
upon his plantation at the death of his first wife,
and in which she lay, and ’twas on a rising above
the creek, and then the cat, with a wail which was
like nothing I ever heard in this world, was away
in a straight line toward the silver gleam of the
creek, though every one knows well how cats
hate water, and had disappeared. But, though
to this I will not swear, I thought I saw a white
gleam aloft, and heard a wail of a cat skyward
along with the owl-hoots. And then my horse
stood and trembled in such wise that I thought
he would fall under me, and I dismounted and
stroked his head and tried as best I could to
_ soothe him, and we were all the time before the
174
The Heart’s Highway

tomb, which was a large one. Then of a sudden
it came to me that here was the hiding-place for
the powder and shot, for what safer hiding-place
can there be than the tomb of the first wife, when
the se¢ond hath reigned but a short time, and is
fair, and hath but just given her lord that little
darling whose cries of appealing helplessness I
could hear even there? SoI gave the tomb-door
a pull, knowing that I should not, by so doing,
disturb the slumbers of the poor lady within, and
decided with myself that it would be easy enough
to force it, and mounted and rode back as best I
might to the road. And when I came to the lit-
tle dwelling of Margery Key a thought struck
me, and I rode close, though my horse shud-
dered as if with some strange fright of something
which I could not see. I bent in my saddle and
looked in the door, but naught could I see.
Then I dismounted and tied my horse to a tree
near by, and entered the house and looked about
the sorry place as well as I could in the pale sift
of moonlight, and—the old woman was not
there. But one room there was, with a poor
pallet in a corner and a chest against the wall and
a stool, and a kettle in the fireplace, with a little
pile of sticks and a great scattering of ashes, but
no one there, and also, if I may be believed, o
broom. All this I tell for what it may be worth
to the credulity of them who hear; the facts be
such as I have said. But whether believing it
175
The Heart’s Highway

myself cr not, yet knowing that that white cat,
though it had been Margery Key in such guise,
or her familiar imp on his way to join her at some
revel whither she had ridden her broom, had
done me good service, and, seeing the piteous
smallness of the pile of sticks on the hearth, and
reflecting upon the distressful bend of the old
soul’s back, whether she had sold herself to
Satan or not, I lingered a minute to break down
a goodly armful of brush in the wood outside
and carry inside for the replenishment of her
store. And as I came forth, having done so, I
heard the door of the nearby house open, and
saw two white faces peering out at me, and heard
a woman’s voice shriek shrilly that here was the’
devil seeking the witch, and though I called out’
to reassure them, the door clapped to with a bang
like a pistol-shot, and my horse danced about so
that I could scarcely mount. Then I rode away,
something wondering within myself, since I had
been taken for the devil, how many others might
have been, and whether men made their own
devils and their own witches, instead of the
Prince of Evil having a hand in it, and yet that
happened which I have related, and I have told
the truth.

176
XII

Such a blaze of light as was the governor’s
mansion house that night I never saw, and I
heard the music of violins, and hautboys, and
viola da gambas coming from within, and a sil-
very babble of women’s tongues, with a deeper
undertone of men’s, and the tread of dancing
feet, and the stamping of horses outside, with
the whoas of the negro boys in attendance, and
through the broad gleam of the moonlight came
the flare and smoke of the torches. It seemed
as if the whole colony was either dancing at the
governor’s ball or standing outside on tiptoe
with interest. I sat waiting for some time, hold-
ing my restive horse as best I might, but there
coming no cessation in the music, I dismounted,
and seeing one of Madam Cavendish’s black
men, gave him the bridle to hold, and went up
to the house and entered, though not in my
plum-coloured velvet, and, indeed, being not only
in my ordinary clothes, but somewhat splashed
with mire from my mad gallop through the
woods. But I judged rightly that in so much
of a crowd I should pass unnoticed both as to
myself and my apparel. I stood in the great

12 177
The Heart’s Highway

room near the door and watched the dance, and
*twas as brilliant a scene as ever I had seen any-
where even in England. The musicians in the
gallery were sawing away for their lives on vio-
lins, and working breathlessly at the hautboys,
and all that gay company of Virginia’s best, spin-
ning about in a country dance of old England.
Such a brave show of velvet coats, and breeches,
and flowered brocade waistcoats, and powdered
wigs, and feathers, and laces, and ribbons, and
rich flaunts of petticoats revealing in the whirl
of the dance clocked hose on slender ankles, and
high-heeled satin shoes, would have done no dis-
credit to the court. But of them all, Mistress
Mary Cavendish was the belle and the star. She
was dancing with my Lord Estes when I entered,
and such a goodly couple they were, that I heard
many an exclamation of delight from the spec-
tators, who stood thickly about the walls, the
windows even being filled with faces of black and
white servants. My Lord Estes was a hand-
some dark man, handsomer and older than Sir
Humphrey Hyde, who, though dancing with the
governor’s daughter Cate, had, I could see, a
rueful eye of watchfulness toward Mary Caven-
dish. As he and Cate Culpeper swung past me,
Sir Humphrey’s eyes fell on my face and he gave
a start and blush, and presently, when the dance
was over and his partner seated, came up to me
with hand extended, as if I had been the noblest
178
The Heart’s Highway

guest there. “Harry, Harry,” he whispered
eagerly, “she hath danced with me three times
to-night, and hath promised again, and Harry,
saw you ever any one so beautiful as she in that
blue dress?”

I answered truthfully that I never had. Sir
Humphrey, in his blue velvet suit with the sil-
ver buttons, with his rosy face and powdered
wig, was one to look at twice and yet again, and
I regarded him as always, with that liking for
him and that fury of jealousy.

T looked at him and loved him as I might have
loved my son, with such a sweet and brave hon-
esty of simplicity he eyed me, and for the sake
of Mary Cavendish, who might find his love for
her precious, and I wished with all my heart that
I might fling him to the floor where he stood;
every nerve and muscle in me tingled with the
restraint of the desire, for such an enhancement
of a woman’s beauty as was Mary Cavendish’s
that night, will do away with the best instincts
of men, whether they will or not.

The next dance was the minuet, and Mary
Cavendish danced it with my Lord Culpeper,
the Governor of Virginia. The governor,
though I liked him not, was a-most personable
man with much grace of manner, which had ad-
ditional value from a certain harshness of feature
which led one not to expect such suavity, and he
was clad most richly in such a dazzle of gold

179
The Heart’s Highway .

‘broidery and fling of yellow laces, and glitter of
buttons, as could not be surpassed.

My Lord was in fact clad much more richly
than his wife and daughter, whose attire, though
fair enough, was not of the freshest. It was my
good luck to overhear my Lady Culpeper telling
in no very honeyed tones, a gossip of hers, the
lady of one of the burgesses, that her goods, for
which she had sent to England, had miscarried,
and were it not for the fact that there was a whis-
per of fever on the ship, she would have had the
captain herself for a good rating, and had my
Lord Culpeper not been for him, saying that the
man was of an honest record, she would have
had him set in the stocks for his remissness, that
he had not seen to it that her goods were on
‘board when the ship sailed. ‘“ And there goes
poor Cate in her old murrey-coloured satin petti-
coat,” said my lady with a bitter lengthening of
cher face, “and there is Mary Cavendish in a blue-
flowered satin with silver, which is the very twin
of the one I ordered for Cate, and which came in
on the Cavendish ship.”

“ Well,” said the other woman, who was long
and lean, and had wedded late in life a man she
would have scorned in her girlhood, and could
not forgive the wrong she had done herself, and
was filled with an inconsistency of spleen toward
all younger and fairer than she, and who, more-
over, was a born toad-eater for all in high places,

180
The Heart’s Highway

“tis fine feathers make fine birds, and were thy
Cate arrayed in that same gown in Mistress Cav-
endish’s stead. 2

“ As I believe, she would not have had the
dress had not Cate told Cicely Hyde, who is so
intimate with Mary Cavendish,” said my Lady
Culpeper. “I had it from my lord’s sister that
’twas the newest fashion in London. How else
would the chit have heard of it, I pray?”

“How else, indeed?” asked the burgess’s
wife.

“And here my poor Cate must go in her old
murrey-coloured petticoat,” said my lady.

“ But even thus, to one who looks at her and
not at her attire, she outshines Mary Cavendish,”
said the other. That was, to my thinking, as
flagrant hypocrisy as was ever heard, for if those
two maids had been clad alike as beggars, Mary
Cavendish would have carried off the palm, with
no dissenting voice, though Cate Culpeper was
fair enough to see, with her father’s grace of
manner, and his harshness of feature softened by
her rose-bloom of youth.

Catherine Cavendish was dancing as the
others, but seemingly with no heart in it, where-
as her sister was all glowing with delight in the
merriment of it, and her sense of her own beauty,
and the admiration of all about her, and smiling
as if the whole world, and at life itself, with the
innocent radiance of a child.

181

 
The Heart’s Highway

As I stood watching her, I felt a touch on my
arm, and looked, and there stood Mistress Cicely
Hyde, and her brown face was so puckered with
wrath and jealousy that I scarcely knew her.
“Did not Mary’s grandmother send you to
escort her home, Master Wingfield?” said she
in a sharp whisper, and I stared at her in amaze-
ment. ‘‘ When the ball is over, Mistress Hyde,”
I said.

“?Tis time the ball was over now,” said she.
“°Tis folly to keep it up so late as this, and
Mary hath not had a word for me since we
came.”

“ But why do you not dance yourself, Mistress
Hyde?”

“I care not to dance,” said she pettishly, and
with a glance of mingled wrath and admiration
at Mary Cavendish that might have matched
mine or her brother’s, and I marvelled deeply at
the waywardness of a maid’s heart. But then
came Ralph Drake, who had not drunken very
deeply, being only flushed, and somewhat lost to
discrimination, and disposed to dance with an-
other since he could not have his cousin Mary,
and he and Cicely went away together, and pres-
ently, when the minuet was over and another
dance on, I saw them advancing in time, but al-
ways Cicely had that eye of watchful injury upon
Mary.

It was late when the ball was done, but Mary

182

?
The Heart’s Highway a

would have stayed it out had it not been for
Catherine, who almost swooned in the middle of
a dance and had to be revived with aromatic
vinegar, and lie for a while in my Lady Cul-
peper’s bedchamber, with a black woman fan-
ning her, until she was sufficiently recovered to
go home. Mary did not espy me until, return-
ing from her sister’s side to order the sedan
chairs, she jostled against me. Then such a
blush of delight and relief came over her face as
made my heart stand still with rapture and some-
thing like fear. ‘ You here, you here, Harry?”
she cried, and stammered and blushed again, and
Sir Humphrey and Cicely, who were pressing up,
looked at me jealously.

“T am here at your grandmother’s request,
Mistress Mary,” I said.

Then my Lord Estes came elbowing me aside,
and made no more of me than if I were a black
slave, and hoarsely shouting for the sedan chairs
and the bearers, and after him Ralph Drake and
half a score of others, and all cursing at me for
a convict tutor and thrusting at me. Then truly
that temper of mine, which I have had some
cause to lament,.and yet I know not if it be aught
I can help, it being seemingly as beyond the say
‘of my own will as the recoil of a musket or the
rebound of a ball, sent me forth into the midst of
that gallant throng, and I would not say for cer-
tain, but at this late date I am inclined to believe

183
The Heart’s Highway

that I saw Ralph Drake, who came in my way
with a storm of curses, raising himself sorely
from a pool of mud, which must have worked
havoc with his velvets, and my Lord Estes
struggling forth from a thorny rose bush at the
gate, with much rending of precious laces.
Then I, convict though I was, yet having, when
authorised by the very conditions of my servi-
tude, that resolution to have my way, that a
king’s army could not have stopped me, had the
sedan chairs, and the bearers to the fore, and
presently we were set forth on the homeward
road, I-riding alongside. All the road was white
with moonlight, and when we came alongside
Margery Key’s house, as I live, that white cat
shot through the door, and immediately after, I,
looking back, saw the old dame herself standing
therein, though it was near morning, and she
quavered forth a blessing after me. “ God bless
thee, Master Wingfield, in life and death, and
may the fish of the sea come to thy line, may the
birds of the air minister to thee, and all that hath
breath of life, whether it be noxious or guileless,
do thy bidding. May even He who is nameless
stand from the path of thy desire, and hold back
from thy face the boughs of prevention whither
thou wouldst go.” This said old Margery Key
in a strange, chanting-like tone, and withdrew,
and a light flashed out in the next house, and
the woman who dwelt therein screamed, and
184
The Heart’s Highway

Mistress Mary, thrusting forth her head from the -
chair, called me to come close.

As for Catherine, she was borne along as
silently as though she slept, being, I doubt not,
still exhausted with her swoon. When I came
close to Mistress Mary’s chair, forth came her
little hand, shining with that preciousness of fair-
ness beyond that of a pearl, and “ Master Wing-
field,” said she in a whisper, lest she disturb
Catherine, “ what, what, I pray thee, was it the
witch-woman said?”

Ilaughed. “ She was calling down a blessing
upon my head, Madam,” I said.

“A blessing and not a curse?”

“ As I understood it, though I know not why.
she should have blessed me.”

“They say she is a white witch, and worketh
good instead of harm, and yet: ” said Mis-
tress Mary, and her voice trembled, showing her
fear, and I could see the negroes rolling eyes of
wide alarm at me, for they were much affected
by all hints of deviltry.

“T pray you, Madam, to have no fear,” I
said, and thought within myself that never
should she know of what had happened on my
way thither. ,

“They say that her good deeds work in the
end to mischief,” said Mary, “ and, and—'tis sure
no good whatever can come from unlawful deal-
ing with the powers of evil even in a good cause.

185

 
The Heart’s Highway

I wish the witch-woman had neither cursed thee
nor blessed thee, Harry.”

I strove again to reassure her, and said, as ver-
ily I begun to believe, that the old dame’s words
whether of cursing or blessing were of no mo-
ment, but presently Mistress Mary declared her-
self afraid of riding alone shut within her sedan
chair, and would alight, and have one of the
slaves lead my horse, and walk with me, taking
my arm the remainder of the way.

I had never known Mistress Mary Cavendish
to honour me so before, and knew not to what
to attribute it, whether to alarm as she said, or
not. And I knew not whether to be enraptured
or angered at my own rapture, or whether I
should use or not that authority which I had
over her, and which she could not, strive as best
she could, gainsay, and bid her remain in her
chair.

But being so sorely bewildered I did nothing,
but let her have her way, and on toward Drake
Hill we walked, she clinging to my arm, and
seemingly holding me to a slow pace, and the
slaves with the chairs, and my horse, forging
ahead with ill-concealed zeal on account of
that chanting proclamation of Margery Key,
which, I will venture to say, was considered by
every one of the poor fellows as a special curse
directed toward him, instead of a blessing for,
me.

186
The Heart’s Highway

As we followed on that moonlight night, she
and I alone, of a sudden I felt my youth and love
arise to such an assailing of the joy of life, that
I knew myself dragged as it were by it, and had
no more choosing as to what I should not do.
Verily it would be easier to lead an army of mal-
contents than one’s own self. And something
there was about the moonlight on that fair Vir-
ginian night, and the heaviness of the honey-
scents, and the pressure of love and life on every
side, in bush and vine and tree and nest, which
seemed to overbear me and sweep me along
as on the crest of some green tide of spring.
Verily there are forces of this world which are
beyond the overcoming of mortal man so long
as he is encumbered by his mortality.

Mary Cavendish gathered up her blue and sil-
ver petticoats about her as closely as a blue
flower-bell at nightfall, and stepped along daint-
ily at my side, and the feel of her little hand on
my arm seemed verily the only touch of material
things which held me to this world. We came
to a great pool of wet in our way, and suddenly
I thought of her feet in her little satin shoes.
“Madam, you will wet your feet if you walk
through that pool in your satin shoes,” I said,
and my voice was so hoarse with tenderness that
I would not have known it for my own, and I
felt her arm tremble. “No,” she said faintly.
But without waiting for any permission, around

187
The Heart’s Highway

her waist I put an arm, and had her raised in a
twinkling from the ground, and bore her across
the pool, she not struggling, but only whispering
iaintly when I set her down after it was well
passed. “ You—you should not have done that,
Harry.”

Then of a sudden, close she pressed her soft
cheek against my shoulder as we walked, and
whispered, as though she could keep silent no
longer, and yet as if she swooned for shame in
breaking silence: ‘‘ Harry, Harry, I liked the
way you thrust them aside when they were rude
with you, to do me a service, and Harry, you are
stronger, and—and—than them all.”

Then I knew with such a shock of joy, that I
wonder I lived, that the child loved me, but I
knew at the same time as never I had known it
before, my love for her.

“ Mistress Mary,” I said, “I but did my duty
and my service, which you can always count
upon, and I did no more than others would have
done. Sir Humphrey Hyde i

But she flung away from me at that with a
sudden movement of amazement and indigna-
tion and hurt, which cut me to the quick.
“Yes,” she said, “ yes, Master Wingfield, truly
I believe that Sir Humphrey Hyde would do me
any service that came in his way, and truly he is
a brave lad. I have a great esteem for Hum-
phrey—I have a greater esteem for Humphrey

188

 
The Heart’s Highway

than for all the rest—and I care not if you know
it, Master Wingfield.”

So saying she called to the bearers of her chair,
and would have a slave assist her to it instead of
me, and rode in silence the rest of the way, I fol-

lowing, walking niy horse, who pulled hard at
his bits.

189
XIII

It was dawn before we were abed, but I for
one had no sleep, being strained to such a pitch
of rapture and pain by what I had discovered.
The will I had not, to take the joy which I
seemed to see before me like some brimming cup
of the gods, but not yet, in the first surprise of
knowing it offered me, the will to avoid the look-
ing upon it, and the tasting of it in dreams.
Over and over I said to myself, and every time
with a new strengthening of resolution, that
Mary Cavendish should not love me, and that
in some way I would force her to obey me in that
as in other things, never doubting that I could

* do so. Well I knew that she could not wed a

convict, nor could I clear myself unless at the
expense of her sister Catherine, and sure I was
that she would not purchase love itself at such
a cost as that. There remained nothing but to
turn her fancy from me, and that seemed to me
an easy task, she being but a child, and having,
I reasoned, but little more than a childish first
love for me, which, as every one knows, doth
readily burn itself out by its excess of wick, and
lack of substantial fuel. And yet, as I lay on my
1g0
The Heart's Highway

bed with the red dawn at the windows, and the
birds calling outside, and the scent of the open-
ing blossoms entering invisible, such pangs of
joy and ecstasy beyond anything which I had
ever known on earth overwhelmed me that I
could not resist them. Knowing well that in the
end I should prove my strength, for the time I
gave myself to that advance of man before the
spur of love, which I doubt not is after the same
fashion as the unfolding of the flowers in the
spring, and the nesting of the birds, and the
movement of the world itself from season to
season, and would be as uncontrollable were it
not that a man is mightier even than that to
which he owes his own existence, and hath the
power of putting that which he loves before his
own desire of it. But for the time, knowing well
that I could at any time take up the reins to the
bridling of myself, I let them hang loose, and
over and over I whispered what Mary Cavendish
had said, and over and over I felt that touch of
delicate tenderness on my arm, and I built up
such great castles that they touched the farthest
skies of my fancy, and all the time braving the
knowledge that I should myself dash them into
ruins.

But when I looked out of my window that
May morning, and saw that wonderful fair world,
and that heaven of blue light with rosy and gol-
den and green boughs blowing athwart it, and

191
The Heart’s Highway

heard the whir of looms, the calls and laughs of
human life, the coo of dove, the hum of bees, the
trill of mock birds, outreaching all other heights
of joy, the clangour of the sea-birds, and the ten-
der rustle of the new-leaved branches in the
wind, that love for me which I had seen in the
heart of the woman I had loved since I could re-
member, seemed my own keynote of the meaning
of life sounding in my ears above all other sounds
of bane or blessing.

But the strength I had to act in discord with
it, and thrust my joy from me, and I went to plan-
ning how I could best turn the child’s fancy from
myself to some one who would be for her best
good. And yet I was not satisfied with Sir
Humphrey Hyde, and wished that his wits were
quicker, and wondered if years might improve
them, and if perchance a man as honest might
be found who had the keenness of ability to be
the worst knave in the country. But the boy
was brave, and I loved his love for Mary Caven-
dish, and I could think of no one to whom I
would so readily trust her, and it seemed to me
that perchance I might, by some praising of him,
' and swerving her thoughts to his track, lead her
to think favourably of his suit. But aman makes
many a mistake as to women, and one.of the
most frequent is that the hearts of them are like
wax, to be moulded into this and that shape.
‘That:morning, when I met Mistress Mary at the

192
The Heart’s Highway

breakfast table, she was pale and distraught, and
not only did not speak to me nor look at me, but
when I ventured to speak in praise of Sir Hum-
phrey’s gallant looks at the ball, she turned upon
me so fiercely with encomiums of my Lord Estes,
whom I knew to be not worthy of her, that I held
my tongue. But when Sir Humphrey came rid-
ing up a little later, she greeted him with such
warmth as at once put me to torture, and aroused
that spirit of defence of her against myself which
hath been the noblest thing in my poor life.

So I left them, Mistress Catherine at the flax-
wheel, and Mary out in the garden with Sir
Humphrey, gathering roses for the potpourri
jars, and the distilling into rosewater, for little
idleness was permitted at Drake Hill even after
a ball. I got my horse, but as I started forth
Madam Cavendish called—a stiffly resolute old
figure standing in the great doorway, and I dis-
mounted and went to her, leading my horse,
which I had great ado to keep from nibbling the
blossoms of a rose tree which grew over the
porch. “ Harry,” she said in a whisper, “ where
is Mary?”

“In the garden with Sir Humphrey Hyde,” I
answered.

Then Madam Cavendish frowned. “ And why
is she not at her lessons? ” she asked sternly.

“The lessons are set for the afternoon, and
this morning she is gathering rose leaves, Ma-

13 193
The Heart’s Highway

dam,” I answered; but that Madam Cavendish
knew as well as I, having in truth so ordered the
hours of the lessons.

“ But,” she said, hesitating, then she stopped,
and looked at me with an angry indecision, and
then at the garden, where the top of Mary’s
golden head was just visible above the pink mist
of the roses, and Sir Humphrey’s fair one bend-
ing over it. ‘‘ Harry,” she said, frowning, and
yet with a piteous sort of appeal. “ Why do you
not go out into the garden and help to gather
the rose leaves?” Then, before I could answer,
as if angry with herself at her own folly, she called
out to Mary’s little black maid, Sukey, to bid
her mistress come in from the garden and spin.
But before the maid started I said low in Madam
Cavendish’s ear: “Madam, think you not that the
sweet air of the garden is better for her after the
ball, than the hot ball and the labour at the
wheel?” And she gave one look at me, and
called out to Sukey that she need not speak to
her mistress, and went inside to her own work
and left me to go my way. I was relieved in my
mind that she did not ask me whither, since, if
she had, I should have been driven to one of
those broadsides of falsehood in a good cause for
which I regret the necessity, but admit it, and if
it be to my soul’s hurt, I care not, so long as I
save the other party by it.

I was bound for Barry Upper Branch, and

194
The Heart's Highway

rode thither as fast as I could, jor I contemplated
asking che Barry brothers to aid me in the re-
moval of Mistress Marv's contraband goods, and
Was anxious to lose no more time about that than
I couid avoid.

I was set upon Major Robert Beverly's tomb
as a most desirable hiding piace for them, and
knowing that there was a meeting of the As-
sembly that evening at the governor's, to discuss
some matters in private before he sailed for Eng-
land, Major Beverly being clerk, I though: that
before the moon was up would be a favourable
time for the removal, but I could not move the
goods alone, remembering how those sturdy sail-
ors tugged at them, and not deeming it well to
get any aid from the slaves.

So I rode straight to Barry Upper Branch, and
a handsome black woman in a flaunting gown,
with a great display of beads, and an orange silk
scari twisted about her head, came to parley with
me, and told me that both the brothers were
away. and added that she thought I should find
them at the tavern.

The tavern was a brick building abounding in
sharp slants of roof, and dimmed in outline by a
spreading cloud of new-leaved branches, and
there was one great honey-locust which was a
marvel to be seen, and hummed with bees with
a mighty drone zs of all the spinning-wheels in
the country, and the sweetness of it blew down

195
The Heart’s Highway

upon one passing under, like a wind of breath.
And before the tavern were tied, stamping and
shaking their heads for the early flies, many fine
horses, and among them Parson Downs’ and the
Barry brothers’, and from within the tavern came
the sound of laughter in discordant shouts, and
now and then a snatch of asong. Then a great
hoarse rumble of voice would cap the rest, telling
some loose story, then the laughter would follow
—enough, it seemed, to make the roof shake—~

and all the time the hum of the bees in the honey-
locust outside went on. Verily at that time in
Virginia, with all the spirit of the people in a
ferment of rebellion against the established order
of things, being that same ferment which the ar-
dour of Nathaniel Bacon had set in motion, and
which, so far as I see now, was the beginning of
an epoch of history, there was nothing after all,
no plotting nor counterplotting, no fierce in-
veighing against authority, nor reckless carous-
ing on the brinks of precipices, which could for
a second stay the march of the mightiest force
of all—the spring which had returned in its maj-
esty of victory, for thousands of years, and love
which had come before that.

I tied my horse with the others, with a tight
halter, for he was apt to pick quarrels, having
always a theory that such discomforts as flies or
a long weariness of standing were in some fash-
ion to be laid to the doors of other horses, and

196
The Heart’s Highway

indeed made always of his own kind his special
scapegoat of the dispensation of Providence.
*Tis little I know about that great mystery of the
animal creation and its relation toward the hu-
man race, but verily I believe that that fine horse
of mine, from his propensity for kicking and
lashing out from his iron-bound hoofs at what-
ever luckless steed came within his reach when-
ever the world went not to his liking, could not
see an inch beyond the true horizon limit of the
horse race, and attributed all that happened on
earth, including man, to the agency of his own
sort. Sure I was, from the backward glance of
viciousness which he cast at the other stamping
steeds as soon as I dismounted, that he con-
cluded with no hesitation they had in some way
led me to ride him thither instead of to his snug
berth in the Cavendish stables, with his eager
nose in his feed trough.

Before I entered the tavern, out burst Parson
Downs, and caught hold of me, with a great shout
of welcome. Half-drunk he was, and yet with a
marvellous steadiness on his legs, and a com-
mand of his voice which would have done him
credit in the pulpit. It was said that this great
parson could drink more fiery liquor and not.
betray it than any other man in the colony, and
Nick Barry, who was something of a wag, said
that the parson’s wrestlings with spirits of an-
other sort had rendered him powerful in his en-

197
The Heart's Highway

counters with these also. Be that as it may,
though I doubt not Parson Downs had drunk
more than any man there, no sign of it was in his
appearance, except that his boisterousness was
something enhanced, and his hand on my shoul-
der fevered. “Good day, good day, Master
Harry Wingfield,” he shouted. “ How goes the
time with ye, sir? And, I say, Master Wingfield,
what will you take for thy horse there? One I
have which can beat him on any course you will
pick, with all the creeks in the country to jump,
and the devil himself to have a shy at, and even
will I trade and give thee twenty pounds of to-
bacco to boot. ’Tis a higher horse than thine,
Harry, and can take two strides to one of his;
and mine hath four white feet, and thine but one,
which, as every one knoweth well, is not enough.
What say you, Harry?”

“Your reverence,’ I said, laughing, “the
horse is not mine, as you know.”

“Nay, Harry,” he burst forth, “that we all
know, and you know that we all know, is but a
fable. Doth not Madam Cavendish treat you
as a son, and are you not a convict in name
only, so far as she is concerned? I say, Harry,
you can ride my horse to the winning on
Royal Oak Day, at the races. What think you,
Harry?”

“ Your reverence,” I said, “ I pray you to give
me time,” for well I knew there was no use in

198
The Heart’s Highway

reasoning with the persistency to which frequent
potations had given rise.

Up to my horse he went with that over-
steadiness of the man in his cups, who moves with
the stiffness of a tree walking, as ii every lic of a
heavy foot was the upliiting of a root fast in the
ground, and went to stroking his head; when
straightway, my horse either not liking his touch
or the smell of his liquored breath, and judging
as was his wont that the fault must by some
means lie with his own race, straightway lashed
out a vicious hind leg like a hammer, and came
within an ace of the parson’s own valuable horse
—wnot the one which he proposed trading for mine
—and the wind of the lash irighted the parson’s
horse, and he in his turn lashed out, and another
horse at his side sprang aside; and straightway
there was such a commotion in the tavern yard
2s never was, and slaves and whiie servants
shouting, and forcing rearing horses to their
regular standing, and I stroking my beast, and
striving as best I could to bring his pure horse
wits to comprehend the strong pressure and
responsibility of humanity for the situation; and
the Barry brothers and Captain Jaynes came
running forth, Captain Jaynes swearing in such
wise that it was beyond the understanding oi any
man tunversed in that language of the high seas;
and Nick Barry, laughing wildly, and Dick,
glooming, as was the difference with the two

199
The Heart’s Highway

brothers when in liquor. And the landlord, one
John Halpin, stood in his tavern doorway with
his eyebrows raised, but no other sign of con-
sternation, knowing well enough that all this
could not affect his custom, and being one of
the most toughly leather-dried little men whom
I have ever seen, and his face so hardened into its
final lines of experience, that it had no power of
changing under new ones. And behind him
stood peering, some with wide eyes of terror, and
some with ready laughs at nothing, the few other
roisters in the tavern at that hour. ’Twas not
the best time of day for the meeting of those
choice spirits for the discussion of the other
spirits which be raised, willy-nilly, from the grape
and the grain, for the enhancing of the joy of.
life, and defiance of its miseries; but the Barrys
and Captain Jaynes and the parson were noth-
ing particular as to the time of day.

When the horses were something quieted, I,
desiring not to unfold my errand in the tavern,
got hold of Parson Downs by his mighty arm,
and elbowed Dick Barry, who cursed at me for it,
and cut short Captain Jaynes’slast string of oaths,
and hallooed to Nick Barry, and asked if I could
have a word with them. Captain Jaynes, though,
as I have said, being in the main curiously well
disposed toward me, swore at first that he would
be damned if he would stop better business to par-
ley with a damned convict tutor; but the end of

200
The Heart’s Highway

it was that he and the Barry brothers and Parson
Downs and I stood together under that mighty
humming locust tree, and I unfolded my scheme
of moving the powder and shot from Locust
Creek to Major Robert Beverly’s tomb. Noel
Jaynes stared at me a second, with his hard red
face agape, and then he clapped me upon the
shoulder, and shouted with laughter, and swore
that it should be done, and that it was a burning
hell shame that the goods had been put where
they were to the risk of a maid of beauty like
Mary Cavendish, and that he and the Barrys
would be with me that very night before moon-
rise to move them.

Then the parson, who had a poetical turn,
especially when in his cups, added, quite gravely,
that no safer place could there be for powder
than the tomb of love whose last sparks had died
out in ashes; and Dick Barry cried with an oath
that it would serve Robert Beverly rightly for
his action against them in the Bacon rising, for
though he was to the front with the oppressed
people in this, his past foul treachery against
them was not forgot, and well he remembered
that when he was in hiding for his life——

But then his brother hushed him and said, with
a shout of dry laughter, that the past was past,
and no use in dwelling upon it, but that when it
came to a safe hiding-place for goods which were
to set the kingdom in a blaze, and maybe hang

201
The Heart’s Highway

the ringleaders, he knew of none better than the
tomb of a first wife, which, when the second was
in full power, was verily back of the farthest back
door of a man’s memory.

So it was arranged that the four were to meet
me that very night after sunset and before moon-
rise, and move the goods, and I mounted and
rode away, with Parson Downs shouting after
me his proposition to trade horses, and even
offering ten pounds to boot when he saw the
splendid long pace of my thoroughbred flinging
out his legs with that freest motion of anything
in the world, unless it be the swift upward cleave
of a bird when the fluttering of wing wherewith
he hath gained his impetus hath ceased, and
nothing except that invincible rising is seen.
XIV

The first man my eyes fell upon was Farson
Downs, lolling in a chair by the fireless hearth, for
there was no call for fire that May night. His
bulk of body swept in a vast curve from his triple
chin to the floor, and his great rosy face was so
exaggerated with merriment and good cheer
that it looked like one seen in the shining swell
of a silver tankard. When Nick Barry finished
a roaring song, he stamped and clapped and
shouted applause till it set off the others with ap-
plause of it, and the place was a pandemonium.
Then that same coloured woman who had par-
leyed with me the other day, and was that night
glowing like a savage princess—as in truth she
may have been, for she had a high look as of an
unquenched spirit, in spite of her degradation
of bodyand estate—went about with a free swing-

.ing motion of hips, bearing a tray filled with
pewter mugs of strong spirits. Around. this
woman’s neck glittered row on row of beads,
and she wore a great flame-coloured turban, and
long gold eardrops dangled to her shoulders
against the glossy blackness of her cheeks, and
bracelets tinkled on her polished arms, which.
were mighty shapely, though black. In faith, the

203
The Heart's Highway

wench, had she but possessed roses and lilies for
her painting, instead of that duskiness as of the
cheek of midnight, had been a beauty such as
was seldom seen. Her dark face was instinct
With mirth and jollity, and, withal, a fierce spark
in the whitening roll of her eves under her flame-
coloured turbanmadeone think of a tiger-cat,and
roused that knowledge of danger which adds a
tingle to interest. .A man could scarce take his
eyes from her, though there were other women
there and not uncomely ones. Another black
wench there was, clad as gayly, but sunk in a lan-
guorous calm like a great cat, with Nick Barry,
now his song was done, lolling against her, and
two white women, one young and well favoured,
and the other harshly handsome, both with their
husbands present, and I doubt not decent women
enough, though something violent of temper. -As
J entered, Mistress Allgood, one of them, begun
a harangue at the top ofa shrill voice, with her
husband plucking vainly at her sleeve to temper
her vehemence. Mistress Allgood was long and
lean, and gaunt, with red fires in the hollows of
her cheeks and a compelling flash of black eves
under straight frowning brows. ‘ Gentlemen,”
said she—‘ be quiet, John Allgood, my speech I
will have, since thou being a man hath not the
tongue of one. I pray ye, gentlemen listen to my
cause of complaint. Here my goodman and me
did come to this oppressed colony of Virginia,
204
The Heart’s Highway

seven years since, having together laid by fifty
pound from the earnings of an inn called the
Jolly Yeoman in Norfolkshire, in which for many
years we had run long scores with little return,
and we bought a small portion of land and
planted tobacco, and set out trees. Then came
the terror of the Indians, and Governor Berke-
ley, always in wait for the word of the king,
and doing nothing, and once was our house
burned, and we escaped barely with our lives,
and then came Nat Bacon, and blessings upon
him, for he made the beginning of a good work.
And then did the soldiers riding to meet him,
so trample down our tobacco fields with horse
hoofs, that the leaves lay in a green pumice, and
that crop lost. And then this Navigation Act,
which I understand but little of except that it be
to fill the king’s pockets and empty ours, has
made our crops of no avail, since we but sent the
tobacco as a gift to the king, so little we have got
in return. And look, look!” she shrieked, “I
pray ye look, and sure this is the best I have,
and me always going as well attired as any of my
station in England. I pray ye look! Sure ’tis
past mending, and the stitches and the cloth go
together, as will the colony, unless somewhat be
done in season to mend its state.” So saying, up
she flung her arm, and all the under side of the
body of her-gown was in rags, and up she flung
the other, and that was in like case.
205
The Heart’s Highway

Then the other woman, who was a strapping
lass, and had been a barmaid ere she came to
Virginia in search of a husband, where she had
found one Richard Longman afraid not to do her
bidding and wed her, since he was as small and
mild a man as ever was, joined in: “I say with
Mistress Allgood,” she shrieked out, and flung
her own buxom arms aloft with such disclosures
that a roar of laughter spread through the hall,
and her husband blushed purple, and a protest
gurgled in his throat. But at that his wife, who
verily was a shrew, seized upon him by both of
* his little shoulders, and shook him until his face
wagged like a rag baby with an utter limpness of
helplessness, and shouted. out, amid peals of
laughter that seemed.to shake the roof, that here
was a pretty man, here forsooth was a pretty
man. Here was her own husband, who let his
own lawful wife go clad in such wise and lifted
not a finger! Yes, lifted not a-finger, and had
to be dragged into the present doings by the
very hair of his head by his wife, and that was not
all. Yes, that was not all. Then, with that, up
she flung one stout foot, and lo, a great hole was
in the heel of her stocking, and the other, and
then she flirted the. hem of her petticoat into
sight, and that was. all of a fringe with rags.
“ Look; look!” she shrieked out. “TI tell ye,
Thomas Longman, I will have them look, and
see to what a pass that cursed Navigation Act

206

‘
The Heart’s Highway

and the selling of the tobacco for naught, hath
brought a decent woman. How long is it since
I had a new petticoat? How long, I pray? Oh,
Lord, had the men of this colony but the spirit
of the women! Had but brave Nat Bacon
lived!” With that, this woman, who had been
perchance drinking too much beer for her head,
though she was well used to it, burst into a storm
of tears, and sprang to her feet, and cried out in
a wild voice like a furious cat’s: “ Up with ye, I
say! And why do ye stop and parley? And
why do ye wait for my Lord Culpeper to sail? I
trow the women be not afraid of the governor,
if the men be! Up with ye, and this very night
cut down the young tobacco-plants, and cheat
the king of England, who reigns but to rob his
subjects. Who cares for the Governor of Vir-
ginia? Who cares for the king? Up with ye,
I say!” With that she snatched a sword from
a peg on the wall and swung it in a circle of
flame around her head, and what with her glow-
ing eyes and streaming black locks, and burning
beauty of cheeks, and cat-like shriek of voice, she
was enough to have made the governor, and
even the king himself, quail, had he been there,
and all the time that mild husband of hers was
plucking vainly at her gown. But the men only
shouted with laughter, and presently the woman,
with a savage glare at them, sank into her chair
again, and Mistress Allgood went up to her, and
207
The Heart’s Highway

the two whispered with handsome, fiercely wag-
ging heads. Then entered another woman, after
a clatter of horse’s hoofs in the drive, and she
had a presence that compelled all the men except
one to their feet, though there was about her that
foolishness which, in my mind, doth always ham-
per the extreme of enthusiasm. This woman,
Madam Tabitha Story, was a widow of consider-
-able property, owning a plantation and slaves,
and she had, as was well known, gone mad with
zeal in the cause of Nathaniel Bacon, and had
furnished him with money, and would herself
have fought for him had she been allowed. But
Bacon, though no doubt with gratitude for her
help, had, as I believe is the usual case with brave
men, when set about with adoring women, but
little liking for her. It was, in faith, a curious
sight she presented as she entered that hall of
Barry Upper Branch with the men rising and
bowing low, and the other women eyeing her,
half with defiant glares as of respectability on
the defence, and half with admiration and com-
radeship, for she was to the far front in this
rebellion as in the other. Madam Story was a
woman so tall that she exceeded the height of
many a man, and she was clad in black, and
crowned with a great hat feathered with sable
like a hearse, and her skin was of a whiteness
more dazzling against the black than any colour.
Her face had been handsome had it not been
208
The Heart’s Highway

so elongated and strained out of its proper lines
of beauty, and her forehead was of a wonderful
height, a smooth expanse between bunches of
black curls, and in the midst was set that curious
patch which she had worn ever since Bacon’s un-
timely death, it being, as I live, nothing more
nor less than a mourning coach and four horses,
cut so cunningly out of black paper that it was
a marvel of skill,

She stared with scorn at the one black woman
approaching her with the silver tray, then she
turned and stared at Nick Barry, sitting half
overcome with drink, lolling against the other.
He cast a look of utter sheepishness at her, and
then straightened himself, and rose like the other
men, and Dick Barry motioned to both of the
black women to withdraw, which they did, slink-
ing out darkly, both with a fine rustle of silks.
Then Madam Story saluted the other women,
though somewhat stiffly, and Dick Barry, who
was never lacking in a certain gloomy dignity,
though they said him to be the worse of the two
brothers, stepped forward. “‘ Madam,” he said,
“‘T pray you to be seated.” With that he led her
with a courtly air to a great carved chair, in
which his father had been used to sit, and she
therein, somewhat mollified, her black length
doubled on itself, and that mourning coach on
her forehead was a wonderful sight.

Then arrived Major Robert Beverly and an-

14 209
The Heart's Highway

other notable man, one of the burgesses, whose
name I do to this day conceal, in consequence of
a vow to that effect, and then two more. Then
Major Beverly, who was in fact running greater
risks than almost any, inasmuch as he was Clerk
of the Assembly, and was betraying more of
trust, after he had saluted Madam Story con-
ferred privately with Dick Barry, and my Lord
Estes, and Parson Downs, with this effect. Dick
Barry, with such a show of gallantry and seri-
ousness as never was, prevailed upon the three
ladies to forgive him his discourtesy, but hinted
broadly that in an enterprise fraught with so
much danger, it were best that none but the ruder
sex should confer together, and they departed;
Mistress Longman enjoining upon her husband
to remain and deport himself like a man of spirit,
and Mistress Allgood whispering with a sharp
hiss into her goodman's alarmed ear, he nodding
the while in token of assent.

But Madam Tabitha Story paused on the
threshold ere she departed, standing back on her
heels with a marvellous dignity, and waving one
long, black-draped arm. “Gentlemen of Vir-
ginia,” said she, in a voice of such solemnity as I
had never heard excelled, “I beseech you to re-
member the example which that hero who has
departed set you. I beseech you to form your
proceedings after the fashion of those of the im-
mortal Bacon, and remember that if the time

210
The Heart's Highway

comes when a woman’s arm is needed to strike
for freedom, here is one at your service, while
the heart which moves it beats true to liberty and
the great dead!”

Nick Barry was chuckling in a maudlin fashion
when the door closed behind her, and Parson
Downs’ great face was curving upward with
smiles like a wet new moon, but the rest were
sober enough in spite of some over-indulgence,
for in truth it was a grave matter which they had
met to decide, and might mean the loss of life
and liberty to one and all.

Major Robert Beverly turned sharply upon
me as soon as the women were gone, and ac-
costed me civilly enough, though the memory of
my convict estate was in his tone. “ Master
Winefield,” said he, “may I inquire——”
“ Sir,” I replied, for I had so made up my mind,
“Tam with you in the cause, and will so swear,
if my oath be considered of sufficient moment.”

I know not how proudly and bitterly I said
that last, but Major Beverly looked at me, and
a kindly look came into his eyes. “ Master
Wingfield,” he said, “the word of any English
gentleman is sufficient,” and I could have blessed
him for it, and have ever since had remorse for
my taking advantage of his dark closet of an old
love for the hiding of the secret of the ammuni-
tion.

Then as we sat there, in a blue cloud of to-

2I1r
The Heart’s Highway

bacco-smoke, through which the green bayberry
candles gleamed faintly, and which they could
not overcome with their aromatic breath of burn-
ing, the plot for the rooting up of the young crop
was discussed in all its bearings.

I wondered somewhat to see Major Beverly,
and still others of the burgesses who presently
arrived, placing their lives in jeopardy with men
of such standing as some present. But a com-
mon cause makes common confidence, and it
might well have been, hang one, hang all. Major
Robert Beverly spoke at some length, and his
speech was, according to my mind, both wise and
discreet, though probably somewhat inflamed by
his own circumstances. The greatest store of
tobacco of any one in the colony had Major
Robert Beverly, and a fair young wife who loved
that which the proceeds could buy. And as he
spoke there was a great uproar outside, and the
tramp of horses and jingle of swords and spurs,
and a whole troop of horse came riding into the
grounds of Barry Upper Branch. And some of
those in the hall turned pale and looked about
for an exit, and some grasped their swords, and
some laughed knowingly, and Major Beverly
strode to the door, and behind him Parson
Downs, and Capt. Noel Jaynes, and the Barry
brothers, and some others, and I, pressing close,
and there was 2 half-whispered conference be-
tween Major Beverly and the leader of the horse.

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The Heart’s Highway

Then Major Beverly turned to us. “ Gentle-
men,” he said, “I am assured that in case of a
rising we have naught to fear from the militia,
who are in like case with the other sufferers from
the proceedings of the government, being about
to be disbanded in arrears of their pay. Gentle-
men, I am assured by Capt. Thomas Marvyn that
his men are with us in heart and purpose, and
though they may not help, unless the worse come
to the worse, they will not hinder.”

Then such a cheer went up from the conspira-
tors in the hall of Barry Upper Branch, and the
troop of horse outside, as it seemed, might have
been heard across the sea which divided us from
that tyranny which ruled us, and Nick Barry
shouted to some of his black slaves, and presently
every man of the soldiers was drinking cider
made from the apples of Virginia, and with it,
treason to the king and success to the rebels.

213
XV

I had not formed my plan of taking part in the
coming insurrection without many misgivings
lest I should by so doing bring harm upon the
Cavendishes. But on discussing the matter in
all its bearings with Major Robert Beverly,
whom I had ever held to be a man of judgment,
he assured me that in his opinion there could no
possible ill result come to such a household of
women, especially when the head of it was of
such openly-avowed royalist leanings. Unless,
indeed, he admitted, the bringing over of the
arms and the powder was to be traced to Mistress
Mary Cavendish. This he said, not knowing
the secret of his first wife’s tomb, and I feeling,
as indeed I was, an arch deceiver. But what
other course is left open to any man, when he can
shield the one he loves best in the whole world
only at the expense of some one else? Can he
do otherwise but let the other suffer, and even
forfeit his sense of plain dealing? I have lived
to be an old man, and verily nothing hath so
grown in the light of my experience as the im-
possibility of serving love except at a loss, not
only to others, but to oneself. But that truth of

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The Heart’s Highway

the gréatest importance in the whole world hath
also grown upon me, that love should be served
at whatever cost. I cared not then, and I care
not now, who stffered and who was wronged, if
only that beloved one was saved.

I went home that night from Barry Upper
Branch riding a horse which Dick Barry lent
me, on learning that I had come thither without
one, though not in what mad fashion, and Sir
Humphrey rode with me until our roads parted.
Much gaming was there that night after we left;
we leaving the Barrys and my Lord Estes and
Drake and Captain Jaynes and many others in-
tent upon the dice, but Humphrey and I did not
linger, I having naught to stake, and he having
promised his mother not to play. “ Sometimes
I wish that I had not so promised my mother,”
he said, looking back at me over his great boyish
shoulder as he rode ahead, “for sometimes I
think ’tis part of the estate of a man to put up
stakes at cards, and to win or lose as beseems a
gentleman of Virginia and a cavalier. But, sure,
Harry, a promise to a man’s mother is not to be
broke lightly, and indeed she doth ask me every
night when I return late, and I shall see her face
at the window when I ride in sight of the great
house; but faith, Harry, I would love to win in
something, if not in hearts, in a throw of the dice.
For sure I am a man grown, and have never had
my own will in aught that lies near my heart.”

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The Heart’s Highway

With that he gave a great sigh, and I striving to
cheer him, and indeed loving the lad, replied
that he was but young, and there was still time
ahead, and the will of one’s heart required often
but a short corner of turning. But he was angry.
again at me for that, and cried out I knew not
for all I was loved in return, the heart of a certain
maid as well as he who was despised, and spurred
his horse and rode on ahead, and when we had
come to the division of the road, saluted me
shortly, and was gone, and the sound of his gal-
loping died away in the distance, and I rode
home alone meditating.

And when I reached Drake Hill a white cur-
tain fluttered athwart a window, and I caught
a gleam of a white arm pulling it to place, and
knew that Mistress Mary had been watching for
me—I can not say with what rapture and tri-
umph and misgivings.

It was well toward morning, and indeed a faint
pallor of dawn was in the east, and now and then
a bird was waking. Not a slave on the planta-
tion was astir, and the sounds of slumber were
coming from the quarters. So I myself put my
borrowed horse in stable, and then was seeking
my own room, when, passing through the hall,
a white figure started forth from a shadow and
caught me by the arm, and it was Catherine Cav-
endish. She urged me forth to the porch, I
being bewildered and knowing not how, nor in-

216
The Heart’s Highway

deed if it were wise, to resist her. But when we
stood together there, in that hush of slumber
only broken now and then by the waking love
of a bird, and it seemed verily as if we two were
alone in the whole world, a sense of the situation
flashed upon me. I turned on my heel to re-
enter the house. “‘ Madam,’ I said, “ this will
never do. If you remain here with me, your
reputation C

“ What think you I care for my reputation? ”
she whispered. “What think you? Harry,
Wingfield, you cannot do this monstrous thing.
You cannot be so lost to all honour as to let my,
sister— You cannot, and you a convict——”

Then, indeed, for the first time in my life and
the last I answered a woman as if she were a man,
and on an equal footing of antagonism with me.
“Madam,” I replied, “ I will maintain my honour
against your own.” But she seemed to make
no account of what I said. Indeed I have often
wondered whether a woman, when she is in pur-
suit of any given end, can progress by other
methods than an ant, which hath no power of cir-
cuitousness, and will climb over a tree with long.
labour and pain rather than skirt it, if it come in
her way. Straight at her purpose she went.
“Harry, Harry,” she said, still in that sharp
whisper, “ you will not, you cannot—she is but
a child.”

Then, before I could reply, out ran Mary

217

 
The Heart’s Highway

Cavendish herself, and was close at my side, turn-
ing an angry face upon her sister.

“ Catherine,” she cried out, “ how dare you?
Iam no child. Think you that I do not know
my own mind? How dare you? You shall
not come between Harry and me! I am his
before the whole world. I will not have it,
Catherine!”

Then Catherine Cavendish, awakening such.
bewilderment and distiay in me as I had never
felt, looked at her sister, and said in a voice which
I can hear yet: “ Have thy way then, sister; but
*tis over thy own sister’s heart.”

“What mean you?” Mary asked breathlessly.

“T love him!” said Catherine.

I felt the hot blood: mount to my head, and. I
knew what shame was. I turned to retreat. I
knew not what to do, but Mary’s voice stopped
me. It rang out clear and pitiless, with that piti-
lessness of a great love.

“And what is that to me, Catherine?” she
‘cried out. “ Sure it is but to thy shame if thou
hast loved unsought and confessed unasked.
And if I had ten thotsand sisters, and they all in
love with him, as well they might be, for there
is no one like him in the whole world, over all
their hearts would I go, rather than he should
miss me.for but a second, if he loved me. Think
you that aught like that can make a difference?
Think you that one heart can outweigh two, and

218
The Heart’s Highway

the misery of one be of any account before that
of three?”

Then suddenly she looked sharply at her sister
and cried out angrily:

“Catherine Cavendish, I know what this
means. Tis but another device to part us. You
love him not. You have hated him from the
first. You have hated him, and he is no more
guilty than you be. ’Tis but a trick to turn me
from him. Fie, think you that will avail? Think
you that a sister’s heart counts with a maid be-
fore her lover’s? Little you know of love and
lovers to think that.”

Then to my great astonishment, since I had
never seen such weakness in her before, Cathe-
rine flung up her hands before her face and burst
into such a storm of wild weeping as never was,
and fled into the house, and Mary and I stood
alone together, but only for a second, for Mary,
also casting a glance at me, then about her at
the utter loneliness and silence of the world, fled
in her turn. Then I went to my room, but not
to sleep nor to think altogether of love, for my
Lord Culpeper was to sail that day, and the next
night was appointed for the beginning of the
plant cutting.

219
XVI

I know not if my Lord Culpeper had any
inkling of what was about to happen. Some
‘were there who always considered him to be one
who feathered his own nest with as little risk as
might be, regardless of those over and under
him, and one who saw when it behooved him to
do so, and was blind when it served his own ends,
even with the glare of a happening in his eyes.
And many considered that he was in England
when it seemed for his own best good without
regard to the king or the colony, but that mat-
ters not, at this date. In truth his was a ticklish
position, between two fires. If he remained in
Virginia it was at great danger to himself, if he
sided not with the insurgents; and on the other
hand there was the certainty of his losing his
governorship and his lands, and perhaps his head,
if he went to tobacco-cutting with the rest of us.
He was without doubt better off on the high sea,
which is a sort of neutral place of nature, beyond
the reach for the time, of mobs or sceptres, unless
one falls in with a black flag. At all events, off
sailed my Lord Culpeper, leaving Sir Henry

220
The Heart’s Highway

Chichely as Lieutenant-Governor, and verily he
might as well have left a weather-cock as that
well-intentioned but pliable gentleman. Give
him but a head wind over him and he would wax
fierce to order, and well he served the govern-
ment in the Bacon uprising, but leave him to his
own will and back and forth he swung with great
bluster but no stability. None of the colony,
least of all the militia, stood in awe of Sir Henry
Chichely, nor regarded him as more than a fig-
ure-head of authority when my Lord Culpeper
had set sail.

The morning of the day after the sailing, the
people of Jamestown whom one happened to
meet on the road had a strange expression of
countenance, and I doubt not that a man skilled
in such matters could have read as truly the signs
of an eruption of those forces of human passion
in the hearts of men, as of an earthquake by the
belching forth of smoke and fire from the mouth
of a volcano. Everybody looked at his neigh-
bour with either a glare of doubt and wari-
ness, or with covert understanding, and some
there were who had a pale seriousness of demean-
our from having a full comprehension of the situ-
ation and of what might come of it, though not in
the least drawing back on that account, and some
were all flushed and glowing with eagerness and
laughing from sheer delight in danger and dar-
ing, and some were like stolid beasts of the field

221
The Heart’s Highway

watching the eye of a master, ready at its wink to
leap forth to the strain of labour or fury.- Many
of these last were of our English labourers,
whom I held in some sort of pity, and doubt as
to whether it were just and merciful to draw
them into such a stew kettle, for in truth many
of them had not a pound of tobacco to lose by
the Navigation Act, and no more interest in the
uprising than had the muskets stacked in Major
Robert Beverly’s first wife’s tomb. Yet, I pray,
what can men do without tools, and have not
tools some glory of their own which we take
small account of, and yet which may be a recom-
pense to them?

Nevertheless, I saw with some misgivings
these honest fellows plodding their ways, ready
to leap to their deaths maybe at the word of com-
mand, when it did not concern their own inter-
ests in the least, and especially when they had
not that order of mind which enables a man to
have a delight in glory and in serving those
broad ends of humanity which include a man to
his own loss.

Early that morning the news spread that
Colonel. Kemp of the Gloucester militia and a
troop of horse and foot had been sent secretly
against some plant-cutters in Gloucester County
who had arisen before us, and had taken prison-
ers some twenty-two caught in the act. The-
news of the sending came first, I think, from

222
The Heart’s Highway

Major Robert Beverly, the Clerk of the Assem-
bly, who had withheld the knowledge for some
time, inasmuch as he disliked the savour of
treachery, but being in his cups that night before
at Barry Upper Branch, out it came. *Twas
Dick Barry who told me. I fell in with him and
Captain Jaynes on the Jamestown road that
morning. “ Colonel Kemp hath ridden against
the rioters in Gloucester with foot and horse,
by order of the general court, and Beverly hath
been knowing to it all this time,” he said gloom- ‘
ily. Then added that a man who served on two
sides had no strength for either, and one who had
raised his hand against Bacon had best been out
of the present cause. But Captain Jaynes swore
with one of his broadsides of mighty oaths that
*twas best as ’twas, since Beverly had some in-
fluence over the militia, and that he was safe
enough not to turn traitor with his great store
of tobacco at stake, and that should the court
proceed to extremes with the Gloucester plant-
cutters, such a flame would leap to life in Vir-
ginia as would choke England with the smoke
of its burnins.

We knew no more than the fact of the sending,
but that afternoon came riding into Jamestown
Colonel Kemp with a small body of horse, having
left the rest and the foot in Gloucester, there to
suppress further disorder, and with him, bound
to their saddles, some twenty-two prisoners, glar-

223
The Heart’s Highway

ing about them with defiant faces and covered
-with dust and mire, and some with blood.

Something there was about that awful glow of
red on face, on hand, or soaking through home-
spun sleeve or waistcoat, that was like the wav-
ing of a baitle-flag or the call ofatrumpet. Such
a fury awoke in us who looked on, as never was,
and the prisoners had been then and there torn
from their horses and set free, had it not been for
the consideration that undue precipitation might
ruin the main cause. But the sight of human
blood shed in a righteous cause is the spur of the
brave, and goads him to action beyond all else.
Quite silent we kept when that troop rode past
us on their way to prison, though we were a
gathering crowd not only of some of the best of
Virginia, but some of her worst and most un-
controlled of indenture white slaves, and con-
victs, but something there must have been in our
looks which gave heart to those who rode bound
to their horses, for one and then another turned
and looked back at us, and I trow got some hope.

However, before the night fairly fell, twenty
of the prisoners, upon giving assurance of peni-
tence, were discharged, and but two, the ring-
leaders, were committed and were in the prison.
The twenty-two, being somewhat craven-
hearted, and some of them indisposed by
wounds, were on their ways homeward when
we were afield.

224
The Heart’s Highway

We waited for the moon to be up, which was
an hour later that night. I was all equipped in
good season, and was stealing forth secretly, lest
any see me, for I wished not to alarm the house-
hold, nor if possible to have any one aware of
what I was about to do, that they might be acquit
of blame through ignorance, when I was met in
the threshold of an unused door by Mary Caven-
dish. And here will I say, while marvelling at it
greatly, that the excitement of a great cause,
which calls for all the enthusiasm and bravery of
a man, doth, while it not for one moment alters
the truth and constancy of his love, yet allay for
the time his selfish thirst for it. While I was
ready as ever to die for Mary Cavendish, and
while the thought of her was as ever in my inmost
soul, yet that effervescence of warlike spirit with-
in me had rendered me not forgetful, but some-
what unwatchful of a word and a look of hers.
‘And for the time being that sad question of our
estates, which forbade more than our loves, had
seemed to pale in importance before this matter
of maybe the rising or falling of a new empire.
Heart and soul was I in this cause, and gave my-
self the rein as I had longed to do for the cause of
‘Nathaniel Bacon.

But Mary met me at the northern door, which
opened directly on a locust thicket and was little
used, and stood before me with her beautiful face
as white as a lily but a brave light in her eyes.

15 225
The Heart’s Highway

“ Where go you, Harry?” she whispered.

Then I, not knowing her fully, and fearing lest
I disquiet her, answered evasively somewhat
about hunting and Sir Humphrey. Some reply
ef that tenor was necessary, as I was, beside
my knife for the tobacco cutting, armed to the
teeth and booted to my middle. But there was
no deceiving Mary Cavendish. She seized both
my hands, and I trow for the minute, in that
brave maiden soul of hers, the selfishness of our
love passed as well as with me.

“TY pray thee, Harry, cut down the tobacco
on Laurel Creek first,” she whispered, “as I
would, were I a man. Oh! I would I were a
man! Harry, promise me that thou wilt cut
down first the tobacco on my plantation of
Laurel Creek.”

But I had made up my mind to touch neither
that nor the tobacco on Drake Hill, lest in some
way the women of the Cavendish family be im-
plicated.

“ There be enough, and more than enough, for
to-night,” I answered, and would have passed,
but she would not let me.

“Harry,” she cried, so loud that I feared
for listening ears, “if you cut not down my to-
bacco, then will I myself! Harry, promise
me!”

No love nor fear for me was in her eyes as she
looked at me, only that enthusiasm for the cause

226
The Heart’s Highway

of liberty, and I loved her better for it, if that
could be. A man or woman who is but a bond
slave to love and incapable of aught but the
longing for it, is but a poor lover.

“T tell thee, Harry, cut down the plants on
Laurel Creek!” she cried again, and I answered
to appease her, not daring violent contradiction
lest I rouse her to some desperate act, this wild,
young maid with Nathaniel Bacon’s hair in the
locket against her heart, and as fiery blood as his
in her veins, that it should come in good time,
but that I was under the leadership of others and
not my own.

“Then as soon as may be, Harry,” she per-
sisted, “for sure I should die of shame were my
plants standing and the others cut, and Harry,
sure it could not be at all, were it not for my fine
gowns which the ‘ Golden Horn’ brought over
from England!”

With that she laughed, and stood aside to let
me pass, but suddenly, as I touched her in the
narrow way, her mood changed, and the woman
in her came uppermost, though not to her shak-
ing. But she caught hold of my right arm with
her two little hands and pressed her fair cheek
against my shoulder with that modest boldness
of a maid when she is assured of love, and whis-
pered: “ Harry, if the militia is ordered out they
say they will not fire, but—if thou be wounded,
Harry, ’tis I will nurse thee, and no other, and—

227

’
The Heart’s Highway

Harry, cut all the plants that thou art able, before
they come.”

Then she let me go, and I went forth think-
ing that here was a helpmeet for a soldier in such
times as these, and how I gloried in her because
she held her love as one with glory. Round to
the stable for my horse I stole, and it was very
dark, with a soft smother of darkness because of
a heavy mist, and the moon not up, and I had
backed my horse out of his stall and was about
to mount him, before I was aware of a dark figure
lurking in shadow, and made out by the long
sweep of the garments that it was a woman. I
paused, and looked intently into the shadow,
where she stood so silently that she might have
deceived me had it not been for a flutter of her
cloak in a stray wind.

“Who goes there?” I called out softly, but I
knew well enough. Tis sometimes a stain on
a man’s manhood, the hatred he can bear to a
woman who is continually between him and his
will, and his keen apprehension of her as a sort
of a cat under cover beside his path. So I knew
well enough it was Catherine Cavendish, and in-
deed I marvelled that I had gotten thus far with-
out meeting her. She stepped forward with no
more ado when I accosted her, and spoke, but
with great caution.

“What do you, Master Wingfield? ” she whis-
pered. “I go on my own business, an it please

228
The Heart’s Highway

you, Madam,” I answered something curtly, and
I have since shamed myself with the memory of
it, for she was a woman.

“Tt pleases me not, nor my grandmother, that
one of her household should go forth on any er-
rand of mystery at such a time as this, when
whispers have reached us of another insurrec-
tion,” she replied. ‘“ Master Wingfield, I de-
mand to know, in the name of my Grandmother
Cavendish, the purpose of your riding forth in
such fashion? ”

“ And that, Madam, I refuse to tell you,” I re-
plied, bowing low. ‘‘ You presume too greatly
on your privileges,” she burst out. ‘ You think
because my grandmother holds you in such
strange favour that she seems to forget, to for-
get ”

“ That Iam a convict, Madam,” I finished for

her, with another low bow.
_ “ Finish it as you will, Master Wingfield,” she
said haughtily, “ but you think wrongly that she
will countenance treason to the king in her own
household, and ’tis treason that is brewing to-
night.”

“Madam,” I whispered, “if you love your
grandmother and value her safety, you will re-
main in ignorance of this.”

Then she caught me by the arm, with such a
nervous ardour that never would I have known
her for the Catherine Cavendish of late years,

229

 
The Heart’s Highway

* “ My God, Harry, you shall not go,” she whis-
pered. “I say you shall not! I—I—will go to
my grandmother. I will have the militia out.
Harry, I say you shall not go!”

But then my blood was up. “ Madam,” I said,
“go I shall, and if you acquaint your grand-
mother, ’twill be to her possible undoing, and
yours and your sister’s, since the having one of
the rioters in your own household will lay you
open to suspicion. Then besides, your sister’s
bringing over of the arms may be traced to her
if the matter be agitated.”

Then truly the feminine soul of this woman
‘leapt to the surface with no more ado.

“Oh, my God, Harry!” she cried out. “I
care not for my grandmother, nor my sister, nor
the king, nor Nathaniel Bacon, nor aught, nor
aught—TI fear, I fear— Oh, I fear lest thou be
killed, Harry!”

“ Lest my dead body be brought home to thy
door, and the accusation of having furnished a
traitor to the king be laid to thee, Madam?” I
said, for not one whit believed I in her love for
me. But she only sobbed in a distracted fashion.

“Fear not, Madam,” I said, “if the militia be
out, and I fall, it will go hard that I die before
I have time to forswear myself yet again for the
sake of thy family. But, I pray thee, keep to
thyself for the sake of all.”

With that I was in my saddle and rode away,

230
The Heart’s Highway

for I had lingered, I feared, too long, and as God
is my witness I had no faith that Catherine Cav-
endish did more than assume such interest in me
for her own ends, for love, as I conceived it, was
not thus.

I hastened on my way to Barry Upper Branch,
where was the rendezvous, and on my way had
to pass the house where dwelt that woman of
strange repute, Margery Key, and it was naught
but a solidity of shadow beside the road except
for a glimmer of white from the breast of her cat
in the doorway. But as I live, as I rode past, a
voice came from that house, though how she
knew me in that gloom I know not.

“Good speed to thee, Master Wingfield, and
the fagots that thou didst gather for the despised
and poor shall turn into blessings, like bars of
silver. That which thou hast given, hast thou
forever. Go on and fear not, and strike for lib-
erty, and no harm shall come nigh thee.” As
she spoke I saw the bent back of the poor old
crone in the doorway beside her cat, and partly
because of her blessing, and partly because, as I
said before, whether witch or not, she was aged
and feeble, and ill fitted for such work, I leapt
from my saddle and gathered her another armful
of fagots, and laid them on her hearth. JI left the
old soul shedding such tears of gratitude over
that slight service and calling down such childish
blessings upon my head that I began to have

231
The Heart's Highway

)

little doubt that she was no witch, but only a poor
and solitary old woman, which to my mind is the
forlornest state of humanity. How a man fares
without those of his own flesh and blood I can
understand, since a man must needs have some
comfort in his own endurance of hardships, but
what a woman can do without chick or child,
and no solace in her own dependency, I know
not. Verily I know not that such be to blame
if they turn to Satan himself for a protector, as
they suspected Margery Key of doing.

T rode away frora Margery Key’s, having been
delayed but a moment, and the quaver of her
blessings was yet in my ears, when verily I did
see that which I have never understood. As I
live, there passed from the house of that ne’er-do-
well next door, which was closed tightly as if to
assure folk that all therein were sound asleep, a
bright light like a torch, but no man carried it,
and it crossed the road and was away over the
meadows, and no man whom I saw carried it,
and it waved in the wind like a torch streaming
back, and I knew it for a corpse candle. And
that same night the man who dwelt in that house
was slain while pulling up the tobacco plants.

I rode fast, marvelling a little upon this
strange sight, yet, though marvelling, not afraid,
for things that I understand not, and that seem
to savour of something outside the flesh, have
always rather aroused me to rage as of one who

233
The Heart’s Highway

was approached by other than the given rules of
warfare rather than fear. I have always argued
that an apparition should attack only his own
kind, and hath no right to leave his own battle-
field for ours, when we be at a disadvantage by
our lack of understanding as to weapons. So if
Thad time I would have ridden after that corpse-
candle and gotten, if I could, a sight of the bearer
had he been fiend or spook, but I knew that I
had none to lose. So I rode on hard to Barry
Upper Branch.

There was an air of mystery about the whole
place that night, though it were hard to see the
use of it. Whereas, generally speaking, there
was a broad blazon of light from all the windows
often to the revealing of strange sights within,
the shutters were closed, and only by the lines
of gold at top and bottom would one have known
the house was lit at all. And whereas there were
always to be seen horses standing openly before
the porch, this night one knew there were any
about only by the sound of their distant stamp-
ing. And yet this was the night when all mys-
tery of plotting was to be resolved into the wind
of action.

I entered and found a great company assem-
bled in the hall, and all equipped with knives for
the cutting of the tobacco plants, and arms, for
the militia, as was afterwards proved, was an un-
certain quantity. One minute the soldiers were

233
The Heart’s Highway

for the government, when the promises as to
their pay were specious, and the next, when the
pay was not forthcoming, for the rioters, and
there was no stability either for the one cause or
the other in them.

There was a hushed greeting from one or two
who stood nearest—Sir Humphrey Hyde among
them—as I entered, then the work went on.
Major Robert Beverly it was who was taking the
lead of matters, though it was not fully known
then or afterward, but sure it can do no harm
at this late date to divulge the truth, for it was a
glorious cause, and to the credit of a man’s’
honour, if not to his purse, and his standing with
the government.

Major Beverly stood at the head of the hall
with a roll of parchment in his hand, wherefrom
he read the names of those present, whom he was
dividing into parties for the purpose of the plant-
cutting, esteeming that the best plan to pursue
rather than to march out openly in a great mob.
Thus the whole company there assembled was
divided into small parties, and each put under a
leader, who was to give directions as to the com-
mencement of the work of destruction.

My party was headed by Capt. Noel Jaynes,
something to my discontent, for the hardest luck
of choosing in the world to my mind is that of
choosing a leader, for the leader is in himself a
very gall-stone. Never had it pleased me to fol-

234
The Heart’s Highway

low any man’s bidding, and in one way only
could I comfort myself and retain my respect of
self, and that was by the consideration that I
followed by my own will, and so in one sense led
myself.

When at last we set forth, some of us riding,
and some on foot, with that old pirate captain to
the front hunched to his saddle, for he never
could sit a horse like a landsman, but clung to
him as if he were a swaying mast, and worked his
bridle like a wheel with the result of heavy lunges
to right or left, I felt for the first time since I had
come to Virginia like my old self.

We hurried along the moonlit road, then
struck into a bridle-path, being bound for Major
Robert Beverly’s plantation, he being supposed
to know naught of it, and indeed after his issuing
of orders he had ridden to Jamestown, to see Sir
Henry Chichely, and keep him quiet with a game
at piquet, which he much affected.

As we rode along in silence, if any man spoke,
Captain Jaynes quieted him with a great oath
smothered in his chest, as if by a bed of feathers,
and presently I became aware that there were
more of us than when we started: We swarmed
through the woods, our company being swelled
invisibly from every side, and not only men but
women were there. Both Mistress Allgood and
Mistress Longman were pressing on with their
petticoats tucked up, and to my great surprise

235
The Heart’s Highway

both of the black women who lived at Barry
Upper Branch. They slunk along far to the rear,
with knives gleaming like white fire at their
girdles, keeping well out of sight of the Barry
brothers, who were both of our party, and look-
ing for all the world like two female tigers of
some savage jungle in search of prey, since both
moved with a curious powerful crouch of secrecy
as to her back and hips, and wary roll of fierce
eyes.

When we were fairly in the open of Major
Beverly’s plantation some few torches were lit,
and then I saw that we were indeed a good hun-
dred strong, and of the party were that old gray-
beard who had played Maid Marion on Mayday,
and many of the Morris dancers, and those lusty
lads and lasses, and they had been at the cider
this time as at the other, but all had their wits at
their service.

Not a light was in Major Beverly’s great
house, ‘not a stir in the slave quarters. One
would have sworn they were all asleep or dead.
But Captain Jaynes called a halt, and divided us
into rank and file like a company of reapers, and
to work we went on the great tobacco fields.

I trow it seemed a shame, as it ever does, to’
invoke that terrible force of the world which
man controls, whether to his liberty or his slavery
*tis the question, and bring destruction upon all
that fair inflorescence of life. But sometimes

236
The Heart’s Highway

death and destruction are the means to life and
immortality. Those great fields of Major Rob-
ert Beverly’s lay before us in the full moonlight,
overlapping with the lusty breadth of the new
leaves gleaming with silver dew, and upon them
we fell. We hacked and cut, we tore up by the
roots. In a trice we were bedlam loosened—
that is, the ruder part of us. Some of us worked
with no less fury, but still with some sense of our
own dignity as destroyers over destruction. But
the rabble who had swelled our ranks were all
on fire with rage, and wasted themselves as well
as the tobacco. They filled the air with shouts
and wild screams and peals of laughter. That
fiercest joy of the world, the joy of destruction,
was upon them, and sure it must have been one
of the chiefest of the joys of primitive man, for
all in a second it was as if the centuries of civilisa-
tion and Christianity had gone for naught, and
the great gulf which lies back of us to the past
had been leapt. One had doubted it not, had he
seen those old men tearing up the tobacco plants,
their mouths dribbling with a slow mutter of
curses, for they had drunk much cider, and being
aged, and none too well fed, it had more hold on
them than on some of the others; and to see the
women lost to all sense of decency, with their
petticoats girded high on account of the dew,
striding among the plants with high flings of
stalwart legs, then slashing right and left with
237
The Heart's Highway

an uncertainty of fury which threatened not only
themselves but their neighbours as well as the
tobacco, and shrieking now and then, regardless
of who might hear, “ Down with the king!”

Often one cut a finger, but went on with blood
flowing, and their hair begun to fly loose, and
they smeared their faces with their cut hands,
and as for the two black women, they pounced
upon those green plants with fierce swashes of
their gleaming knives, and though they could
have sensed little about the true reason for it all,
worked with a fury of savagery which needed no
motive only its first impetus of motion.

Captain Jaynes rode hither and thither striv-
ing to keep the mob in order, and enjoining si-.
lence upon them, and now and.then lashing out
with his long riding whip, but he had set forces
in motion which he could not stop. Fire and
flood and wind and the passions of men, whether
for love or rage, are beyond the leading of them
who invoke them, being the instruments of the
gods.

Sir Humphrey Hyde, who was beside me,
slashing away at the plants, whispered: “ My
God, Harry, how far will this fire which we have
kindled spread?” but not in fear so much as
amazement.

And I, bringing down a great ring of the
green leaves, replied, and felt as I spoke as if
some other than I had my tongue and my voice:

238
The Heart’s Highway

“Maybe in the end, before it hath quite died
out, to the destroying of tyranny and monarchy,
and the clearing of the fields for a new govern-
ment of equality and freedom.”

But Sir Humphrey stared at me. ,

“ Sure,” he said, “it can do no more than to
force the king to see that his colony hath grown
from infancy to manhood, and hath an arm to be
respected, and compel him to repeal the Naviga-
tion Act. What else, Harry?”

Then I, speaking again as if some other moved
my tongue, replied that none could say what
matter a little fire kindleth, but those that came
after us might know the result of that which we
that night begun.

But Sir Humphrey shook his head.

“Tf but Nat Bacon were alive!” he sighed.
“No leader have we, Harry. Oh, Harry, if thou
wert not a convict! Captain Jaynes is sure out
of his element in defending the rights of the op-
pressed, and should be on his own quarter-deck
with his cutlass in hand and his rapscallions
around him, slaying and robbing, to be in full
feather. Naught can he do here. Lord, hear
those women shriek! Why did they let women
come hither, Harry? Sure Nick Barry is in
his cups. Not thus would matters have been
were Bacon alive. The women would have been
at home in their beds, and no man in liquor at
work, for I trust not the militia. Would Cap-

239
The Heart’s Highway

tain Bacon were alive, as hé would have been,
had he not been foully done to death.”

This he said beli¢ving, as did many, that
Bacon’s death was due to treachery and not
fever, nor, as many of his enemies affirmed, from
over-indulgence in strong spirits, and I must say
that I, remembering Bacon’s greatness of enthu-
siasm and fixedness of purpose, was of the same
belief. :

As he spoke I seemed to see that dead hero
as. he would have looked in our midst with the
moonlight shining on the stern whiteness of his
face, and that look of high command in his eyes
which none dared gainsay. And I answered
again and again, as with an impulse not my own,
“ And maybe Bacon in truth leads us still, if not
by. his own chosen ways, to his own ends.”

“Truly, Harry,” Sir Humphrey agreed,
“had it not been for Bacon, I doubt if we had
been at this night’s work.”

All the time we talked, we advanced in our
‘slashing swath up the field, and all the time that
chorus of wild laughter and shrieks of disloyalty
kept time with the swash of the knives, and all
the time rose Captain Jaynes’ storm of fruitless
curses and commands, and now and then the
stinging lash of his riding whip, and also Dick
Barry’s. As for Nick Barry, he lay overcome
with sleep on a heap of the cut tobacco.

And all the time not a light shone in any of

240
The Heart’s Highway

Major Robert Beverly’s windows, and the slave
quarters were as still as the tomb.

The store of ammunition in the tomb had been
secretly removed and portioned out to the plant-
cutters at nightfall.

It was no slight task for even a hundred to cut
such a wealth of tobacco as Major Robert Bev-
erly had planted, work as fast as they might, and
proceed over the fields in a fierce crawl of de-
struction, like an army of locusts, and finally they
begun to wax impatient. And finally up rose
that termagant, Mistress Longman, straighten-
ing her back with a spring as if it were whale-
bone, showing us her face shameless with rage,
and stained green with tobacco juice, and here
and there red with blood, for she had slashed
ruthlessly. She flung back her coarse tangle of
hair, threw up her arms with a wild hurrahing
motion, and screamed out in such a volume of
shrillness that she overcapped all the rest of the
tumult:

“To the stables, to the stables !- Let out
Major Beverly’s horses, and let them trample
down the tobacco.”

Then such a cry echoed her that I trow it
might have proceeded from a thousand throats
instead of one hundred odd, and in spite of all
that Captain Jaynes could do, seconded by some
few of us gentlemen who rallied about him, but
were helpless since we could not fire upon

16 241
‘The Heart’s Highway

our coadjutors, that mob swept into Beverly’s
stables, and presently out leapt, plunging with
terror, all his fine thoroughbreds, the mob rid-
ing them about the fields in wild career. And
one of the maddest of the riders, sitting astride
and flogging her steed with a locust branch, was
Mistress Longman, while her husband vainly fled
after her, beseeching her to stop, and those
around were roaring with laughter.

Then some must let out the major’s hogs, and
they came rooting and tumbling with unwieldy
gambols. And with this wild troop of animals,
and the mob shrieking in a frenzy of delight, and
now and then a woman in terror before the on-
slaught of a galloping horse, and now and then
a whole group of cutters overset by a charging
hog, and up and after him, and slaying him, and
his squeals of agony, verily I had preferred a
battlefield of a different sort. And all this time
Major Robert Beverly’s house stood still in the
moonlight, and not a noise from the slave quar-
ters, and the fields were all in a pumice of wasted
plant life, and we were about to go farther when
I heard again the cry of the little child coming
from a chamber window. I trow they had given
her some quieting potion or she had broken
silence before.

With all our efforts the mob could not be per-
suaded to return Major Beverly’s horses to his
stables, which circumstance was afterward to the

242
The Heart’s Highway

saving of his neck, since it was argued that he
would not have abetted the using of his fine stud
in such wise, some of the horses being recovered
and some being lamed and cut.

So out of the Beverly plantation we swept;
those on horseback at a gallop and those on foot
tramping after, and above the tumult came that
farthest-reaching cry of the world—the cry of a
little child frantic with terror.

Then they were for going to another large
plantation belonging to one Richard Forster,
who had gone in Ralph Drake’s party, when all
of a sudden the horses of us who were leading
swerved aside, and there was Mistress Mary
Cavendish on her Merry Roger, and by her side,
pulling vainly at her bridle, her sister Catherine.

243
XVII

Mary Cavendish raised her voice high until it
seemed to me like a silver trumpet, and cried out
with a wave of her white arm to them all: “On
to Laurel Creek, I pray you! Oh, I pray you,
good people, on to Laurel Creek, and cut down
my tobacco for the sake of Virginia and. the hon-
our of the Colony.”

It needed but a puff of any wind of human will
to send that fiery mob leaping in a new direction.
Straightway, they shouted with one accord: “ To
Laurel Creek, to Laurel Creek! Down with the
tobacco, down with the governor, down with the
king! To Laurel Creek!” and forged ahead,
turning to the left instead of the right, as had
been ordered, and Mary was swept along with
them, and Catherine would have been crushed,
had not a horseman, whom I did not recognise,
caught her up on the saddle with him with a
wonderful swing of a long, lithe arm, and then
galloped after, and as for myself and Captain
Jaynes, and Sir Humphrey, and others of the
burgesses, whom I had best not call by name, we
went too, since we might as well have tried to

244
The Heart’s Highway

hold the current of the James River, as that head-
long company.

But as soon as might be, I shouted out to Sir
Humphrey above the din that our first duty must
be to save Mary and Catherine. And he an-
swered back in a hoarse shout, “ Oh, for God’s
sake, ride fast, Harry, for should the militia
come, what would happen to them?”

But I needed no urging. I know not whom I
rode down, I trust not any, but I know not; I
got before them all in some wise, Sir Humphrey
following close behind, and Ralph Drake also,
swearing that he knew not what possessed the
jades to meddle in such matters, and shouting
to the rabble to stop, but he might as well have
shouted to the wind. And by that time there
were more than a hundred of us, though whence
they had come, I know not.

We gentlemen kept together in some wise,
and gradually gained on Mary, who had had the
start, and there were some seven of us, one of
the Barrys, Sir Humphrey Hyde, Ralph Drake,
Parson Downs, in such guise for a parson that
no one would have known him, booted and
spurred, and riding harder than any by virtue of
his best horse in the Colony, myself, and two of
the burgesses. We seven gaining on the rabble,
in spite of the fact that many of them were
mounted upon Major Robert Beverly’s best
horses, through their having less knowledge of

245
The Heart’s Highway

horsemanship, closed around?Mary Cavendish
on Merry Roger, clearing the ground with long
galloping bounds, and Catherine with the
strange horseman was somewhat behind.

As we came up with Mary, she looked at us
over her shoulder with a brightness of triumph
and withal something of merriment, like a child
successful in mischief, and laughed, and waved
her hand in which, as I live, she held a sword
which had long graced the hall at Drake Hill,
and I believe she meditated cutting the tobacco
herself.

Then a great cheer went up for her, in which
we, in spite of our misgivings, joined. Something
so wonderful and innocent there was in the fresh
enthusiasm of the maid. Then again her sweet
voice rang out:

“ Down with the tobacco, gentlemen of Vir-
ginia, and down with all tyranny. Remember
Nathaniel Bacon, remember Nathaniel Bacon!”

Then we all caught up that last cry of hers,
and the air rang with “ Remember Nathaniel
Bacon! ”

But as soon as might be, I rode close enough
to speak with Mary Cavendish, and Sir Hum-
phrey, who was on the other side, cach with
our jealousy lost sight of, in our concern for
her.

“ Child; thou must turn and go home,” I said,
and I fear my voice lost its firmness, for I was

246
The Heart’s: Highway’

half mad with admiration, and love, and appre-
hension for her.

Then Sir Humphrey echoed me.

“The militia will be upon us presently,” he
shouted in her ear above the din. “ Ride home
as fast as you may.”

She looked from one to the other of us, and.
laughed gayly and shook her head, and her
golden curls flew to the wind, and she touched
Merry Roger with her whip and he bounded
ahead, and we had all we could do to keep pace,
he being fresh. Then Parson Downs pelted to
her side and besought her to turn, and so did
Captain Jaynes, though he was half laughing with
delight at her spirit, and his bright eyes viewed
her in such wise that I could scarce keep my.
fingers from his throat. But Mary Cavendish
would hear to none, and no way there was of
turning her, lest we dragged her from her saddle.

Again I rode close and spoke so that no one
beside her could hear.

“ Go home, I pray you, if you love me,” I said.

But she looked at me with a proud defiance,
and such a spirit of a man that I marvelled at her.

“°Tis no time to talk of love, sir,” said she.
“When a people strike for liberty, they stop not
for honey nor kisses.”

Then she cried again, “ Remember Nathaniel
Bacon!” And again that wild shout echoed her
silver voice.

247
The Heart’s Highway

But then I spoke again, catching her bridle
rein as I rode.

“ Then go, if not because you love me, because
I love thee,” I said close to her ear with her
golden hair blowing athwart my face.

“T obey not the man who loves me, but the
man who weds me, and that you will not do, be-
cause you hold your pride dearer than love,” said
she.

“Nay, because I ‘hold thee dearer than my
love,” said I.

“Tis a false principle you act upon, and love is
before all else, even that which may harm it, and
thou knowest not the heart of a woman if thou
dost love one, sir,” said she.. Then she gave a
quick glance at my face, so close to hers in the
midst of that hurrying throng, and her blue eyes
gleamed into mine, and she said, with a bright
blush over her cheeks and forehead and neck, but
proudly as if she defied even her maiden shame
in the cause of love, “ But thou shalt yet know
one, Harry.”

Then, as if she had said too much, she pulled
her bridle loose from my detaining hand with a
quick jerk, and touched her horse, and we were
on that hard gallop to Locust Creek.

Locust Creek was not a large plantation, but
the fields of tobacco were well set, and it was
some task to cut them. Captain Jaynes essayed
to form the cutters into ranks, but with no avail,

248
The Heart’s Highway

though he galloped back and forth, shouting like
amadman. 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 Hum-
phrey, 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

249
The Heart’s Highway

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 dis-
mounted 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 unaccus-
tomed 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 mem-
ory 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 Eng-
land upon us, and wherefore could not the
women have kept out of this stew? ”

250
The Heart’s Highway

With that he went over to the widow and
strove to quiet her, but she only shrieked with
more fury, with Mistresses Longman and All-
good to aid her, and then—came in a mad rush
upon us of horse and foot, the militia, under
Capt. Robert Waller.

agi
XVITI

T have seen the same effect when a stone was
thrown into a boil of river-rapids; an enhance-
ment 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 to-
bacco 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, Cap-
tain 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

252
The Heatt’s Highway

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, agairst 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 Cav-
endish 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 Hum-
phrey 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 to-
bacco!” 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

253
The Heart’s Highway

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 no-
body 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

254

«
 

‘““THEN I FELT MY OWN RIGHT LEG SINK UNDER ME, AND I KNEW
THAT I WAS HIT.”
The Heart’s Highway

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 pre-
cious 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, know-
ing 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 im-
pulse to charge start in his eyes, and I fired, and
he fell. Then I fired again, but wildly, for every-
thing 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

255
The Heart's Highway

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 day-
break, 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 upori 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

256
The Heart’s Highway

the Indians before the Bacon uprising, and was
near as strong asafort. 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 gentle-
men 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

17 257
The Heart’s Highway

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 mid-
summer, 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 Cav-
258
The Heart’s Highway

endish with all the strength which I 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—TI 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 ail escape in that way.”

259

>
The Heart’s Highway

“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. Cath-
erine will show thee the way.”

“T cannot, Harry,” he whispered back, and as
I live the tears were in the boy’s eyes. “I can-
not 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

260
The Heart’s Highway

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,” Iwhispered. 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 Hum-
phrey did not know the way, and could not find
it and launch the boat in time with that strug-
gling maid to encumber him, for already the door
trembled as if to fall.

“T 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 per-
haps 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 fore-
head, and she said low, but quite clearly, “‘ What-
ever thou hast done in the past, my scorn hence-
forth shall be for the deed, not for thee, for thou
art a man.”

Then to her feet she sprang and caught hold

261
The Heart’s Highway

of Mary’s struggling right arm, though it might
as well have struggled in a vise as in Sir Hum-
phrey 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. “TI tell you,
Catherine, I will never leave him!”

“Tf we remain, we shall all be in custody,” re-
plied 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
inany case. And if we be free, we can save him.”

“T will not go without him,” cried Mary.
“ Set me down, Humphrey, and take up Harry,
and I will help thee carry him. Doas I tell thee,
Humphrey.”

“Harry will be taken in any case,” replied
Catherine, “ and if you take him, you will be ar-
rested with him, and then we can do nothing for
_ him. TI 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

262
The Heart’s Highway

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 be-
cause 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.

“T 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 con-
cerned 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

263
The Heart’s Highway

of the fierce faces which bent over me, yet the
hands extended toward my wounds were tender
enough. And I saw as ina 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, in-
asmuch 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 gen-
erous 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

264
The Heart's Highway

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 oneas [I live.”

But he laughed, and bending still lower, whis-:
pered, “ Have no fear as to that, Master Wing-
field. 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.

265
The Heart’s 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

266
The Heart’s Highway

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 recollec-
tions back to my former cognisance of matters
was a broad shaft of sunlight streaming in
through the west window of the prison in James-
town. 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 ina
high fever by reason of my wounds. And an-
other thing which served to hale me back to ac-
quaintance 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

268
The Heart’s Highway

Cavendish, so hedged about was I as to my free-
dom 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 stiff-
ness 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, 1 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 medi- ;
cine vials and glasses. I was not ironed, and, .
indeed, there was no need of that, since I could
not have moved. J

269
The Heart’s Highway

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 con-
cerning 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

270
The Heart’s Highway

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 con-
fined 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 re-
morse, 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 Cav-

271
The Heart’s Highway

endish, and she pulled down more upon her own
head thereby than she wot of.

All this Catherine Cavendish told me in a man-
ner 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 win-
dow 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 win-
dow half turned.

“What have they done with her?” I cried.
“Tf 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

272
The Heart’s Highway

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 Chelms-

ford.
18

273
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 ten-
der 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

274
The Heart's Highway

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 pre-
vented 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
ritig, 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 whis-
pered, “ 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 en-
circling brilliants. That ring I knew to my cost.

“My Lord Ealing is dead,” she said, “and

275
The Heart’s Highway

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 Caven-
dish 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 happen-
ings, and always comes the suspicion that some-
what 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,

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The Heart’s Highway

but a man who went through the world with a
silly leer of willingness toward all womenkind.
‘And ’twas this very trait, perhaps, which ac-
counted for his remaining unwedded, although a
lord, though the fact that his estates were incum-
bered 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 fo’rt. I send herewith my
great emruld ringg, with dimends which I sus-
pect hath been the means of sending an inosent

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The Heart’s Highway

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 Cath-
erin’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 Cat-
érin, she would have none of me, and made up
such a face of ice when I approached, that me-
thought I had maybe wasted my emruld ring.
So after a little up the stare J 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
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The Heart’s Highway

not much odds to him. The facs of the case,
cousin, I knew from Madam Cavendish’s old ser-
vant 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 astonish-
ment, and then lay it down not on the spot where-
on I had left it, buton 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 Mas-
ter 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 se-
cresy to save the honour of the family, believing
that her own granddaughter Caterin was the
thief. This epistle, cousin, is to prove to you
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The Heart’s Highway

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 let-
ter, which the writer had not foreseen, while it
cleared me well enough in the opinion of the fam-
ily, to strangers it cleared me not at all, for who
was to know for what reason I had entered Cath-
erine’s chamber, and took and secreted that ring
of his lordship’s? Strict silence had I main-
tained, 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 be-
lieve 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 re-

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The Heart’s Highway

turn 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 con-
vict 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 dis-
covered, 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

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The Heart’s Highway

- before, and I know not any better now, and T
love thee no better now. And I would have
been thine in any case.”

“Tam 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?” Isaid. “ And know you not that
this letter of my Lord Ealing’s clears me not
legally?”

“ That I know,” she answered frowning, “ be-
cause 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 atme. I knew there were
others in prison, but knew not that three of them
were led forth to be hung, which might have been

283
The Heart’s Highway -

my fate, had I been a free man, nor knew that an-
other 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 uncom-
fortably, 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,

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The Heart’s Highway

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, some-
what about them, and none hath so mastered
the furthest roots of men’s hearts as Will Shake-
speare. "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.

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The Heart’s Highway

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.

“?T will 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 to-
bacco of Virginia—now we have rescued it, be-
twixt 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

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The Heart’s Highway

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
widowto her death. Thou shouldst haveseen her,
lad, when I ventured to strive to comfort her
with the reflection that her suffering in thy be-
half 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 knownall alongto 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 be-
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The Heart’s Highway

 

trayed 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.

288
XXII

I truly think that if Parson Downs had in-
formed 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 Eng-
land 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 be-
lieve it now. Such a punishment had never en-
tered 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 of-
fences, 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 Bur-
gundy upon me and stared in alarm at my pale-
ness.

“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 for-
feited.”

19 289
The Heart’s Highway

“T 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 sub-
mit 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 par-
son 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 ig-
nominy to which they would put me. I besought
that the lieutenant-governor should be sum-
moned and be petitioned to make my offence a
capital one. I strove to rise from my couch,

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The Heart’s Highway

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 pun-
ishment 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 sus-
picion 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 sucha penalty as this-upon
one of our blood!”

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The Heart’s Highway

“ John,” I whispered, grasping his hand hard,
“T 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 resolu-
tion 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 as-
sailed. Have not as good men as thou, and bet-
ter, 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

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The Heart’s Highway

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 Gov-
ernor Culpeper and had been to Drake Hill, but
Mary would not see him. And she said, further-
more, 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

293
‘The Heart’s Highway

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 en-
tered my head. I looked at my two feet uphold-
ing 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 thedusk thick-
ened, 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 un-
justly, 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 jib-
ing faces multiplied, and the air rang with laugh-
ter, and I trow I was in a high fever all night.

294
XXIII

‘The sports and races of Royal Oak Day were
to be held on the “ New Field” (so called), ad-
joining 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 win-
dow, however I was to reach the New Field.

It was a hot and close day, with all the heavi-

295
The Heart’s Highway

ness 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 every-
body 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 kind-
ness, and I know not to this day, whether he was
for or against the King, or bled both sides im-
partially. 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

296
The Heart’s Highway

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 indepen-
dently, being the son of an inn-keeper.

Something there was about this gentle, down-
cast man, adding the weight of my sorrow to
his own, which would have aroused me to cour-
age, 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:

 

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The Heart’s Highway

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.

“Tt is of no use, sir,” said the man, whose
name was Will Wickett. ‘“ Poor Master Wing-
field 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 weak-
ness and giddiness from that last blood-letting.

Then Parson Downs, with an exclamation

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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 out-
side the prison. And just here I would like to
say that I never forgot, nor ceased to be grate-
ful 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 liv- -
ing, 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 win-
nings 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

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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 usu-
ally 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

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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 par-
son 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 de-
pendent 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

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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 an-
other. 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 re-
spect; 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,

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the dust-clouded distance, and seeing the par-
son 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 over-
coming 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 every-
body 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.

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The Heart’s Highway

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 grin-
ning 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. Ut-
terly 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 fora hat. Everybody
turned from me to see that, and I watched wear-
ily 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 end-
ing the strife in the same spot as where begun. I

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The Heart’s Highway

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 pass-
ing 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 de-
serted, 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
merrily away in his new shoes, the crowd gath-
ered 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 hap-
pened before nor since in Virginia, and can never
happen again, because a maid like Mary Caven-
dish 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 flow-
ing free, behind her Catherine and Cicely Hyde,
like two bridesmaids, came my love, Mary Cav-
endish.

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 sil-
ver gown about her, made her way in to my side,
and sat there, thrusting her two tiny feet, in their

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The Heart’s Highway

dainty shoes, through the apertures next mine,
for the stocks were made to. accommodate two -
criminals. u

And then I looked at her, and would have be-
sought 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,

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‘““ STRAIGHT UP TO THE STOCKS SHE CAME . AND SAT

THERE, THRUSTING HER TWO TINY FEET, IN THEIR DAINTY
SHOES, THROUGH THE APERTURES NEXT MINE.”
The Heart's Highway

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 leav-
ing 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.

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The Heart’s Highway

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 James-
town 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 cava-
liers. 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.

308