Chapter 14

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_ CHAPTER XIV

The first man my eyes fell upon was Parson 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 applause of it, and the place was a pandemonium. Then that same coloured woman who had parleyed 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 body and estate--went about with a free swinging 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 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 eyes under her flame-coloured turban made one 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 languorous 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 I entered, Mistress Allgood, one of them, begun a harangue at the top of a 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 eyes 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, 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 Berkeley, 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.

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. "I tell ye, Thomas Longman, I will have them look, and see to what a pass that cursed Navigation Act 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 Virginia? 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 glowing 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 the two whispered with handsome, fiercely wagging 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 hamper the extreme of enthusiasm. This woman, Madam Tabitha Story, was a widow of considerable 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 comradeship, 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 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 untimely 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, slinking 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, "I 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 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 conferred privately with Dick Barry, and my Lord Estes, and Parson Downs, with this effect. Dick Barry, with such a show of gallantry and seriousness 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 Virginia," said she, in a voice of such solemnity as I had never heard excelled, "I beseech you to remember the example which that hero who has departed set you. I beseech you to form your proceedings after the fashion of those of the immortal Bacon, and remember that if the time 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 accosted me civilly enough, though the memory of my convict estate was in his tone. "Master Wingfield," said he, "may I inquire--" "Sir," I replied, for I had so made up my mind, "I am 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 ammunition.

Then as we sat there, in a blue cloud of tobacco-smoke, through which the green bayberry candles gleamed faintly, and which they could not overcome with their aromatic breath of burning, 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 common 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 a half-whispered conference between Major Beverly and the leader of the horse.

Then Major Beverly turned to us. "Gentlemen," 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. Gentlemen, 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 conspirators 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. _

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