Home > Authors Index > Mary E Wilkins Freeman > Heart's Highway: A Romance of Virginia in the Seventeenth Century > This page
The Heart's Highway: A Romance of Virginia in the Seventeenth Century, a fiction by Mary E Wilkins Freeman |
||
Chapter 13 |
||
| < Previous |
Table of content |
Next > |
|
________________________________________________
_ CHAPTER 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 looking 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 bed with the red dawn at the windows, and the birds calling outside, and the scent of the opening 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 golden and green boughs blowing athwart it, and 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 tender 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 remember, 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 planning 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 Cavendish, 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 a man 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 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 Humphrey'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 riding 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 dismounted 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, Madam," 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 bending 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 rode thither as fast as I could, for I contemplated asking the Barry brothers to aid me in the removal of Mistress Mary's contraband goods, and was anxious to lose no more time about that than I could avoid. I was set upon Major Robert Beverly's tomb as a most desirable hiding place for them, and knowing that there was a meeting of the Assembly that evening at the governor's, to discuss some matters in private before he sailed for England, Major Beverly being clerk, I thought 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 sailors 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 scarf 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 as of all the spinning-wheels in the country, and the sweetness of it blew down 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 a song. 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 ardour 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 inveighing against authority, nor reckless carousing 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 majesty 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 fashion to be laid to the doors of other horses, and 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 human 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 whatever luckless steed came within his reach whenever 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 concluded 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 command 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 another sort had rendered him powerful in his encounters 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 shoulder 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 tobacco 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 reasoning with the persistency to which frequent potations had given rise. Up to my horse he went with that oversteadiness of the man in his cups, who moves with the stiffness of a tree walking, as if every lift of a heavy foot was the uplifting 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--not the one which he proposed trading for mine--and the wind of the lash frighted 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 as never was, and slaves and white 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 of any man unversed in that language of the high seas; and Nick Barry, laughing wildly, and Dick, glooming, as was the difference with the two brothers when in liquor. And the landlord, one John Halpin, stood in his tavern doorway with his eyebrows raised, but no other sign of consternation, 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 nothing 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's last 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 parley with a damned convict tutor; but the end of 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 moonrise 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 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 moonrise, 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. _ |
||