The Cavaliers of Virginia Volume I Part 4

On the morning of the Anniversary of the Restoration, the sun was just emerging above the eastern horizon, the sky was unclouded and serene, the air balmy and elastic, and the volumes of misty drapery from the river were fast rolling away over the hills, as the Recluse stood upon one of the highest points of the river cliffs, with folded arms, surveying the scene around him.

Far back as the eye could reach to the west, all was interminable forest--the foreground exhibiting occasional specks of cleared land, where some planter, more adventurous than his fellows, had boldly trusted his fortunes to the mercy of the savage.

He looked upon the little city beneath, as the weary mariner on a long voyage may be supposed to look upon a green island in the midst of a desert of waters. His chest heaved as the swelling emotions of pent up years burst from his over-loaded heart. Bacon, the manly and ingenuous youth, whom the reader will remember as having been appointed to visit him on this morning, had just sprung upon a mettled and pawing charger, which was now throwing the fire and pebbles from his heels in thick volleys, as his master with a fire and impetuosity scarcely inferior to his own, bent over his uncurbed neck as he descended into the plain.

Several pieces of light artillery, together with volleys of musketry in quick succession, thundered over the smooth waters of the Powhatan, and reverberated in multiplied peals under the feet of the Recluse. There was something connected with this day, and its celebration, which seemed powerfully to have stirred up the still waters within him. Thick coming fancies connected with by-gone days were rolling over his soul in an uncontrolled torrent. But we must leave him for a time to his own reflections, amidst the solitary grandeur of the scene, while we pursue the road of the flying Cavalier towards the city.

The bells from the Church and State House were now also heard in the intervals of the cannonade, and as we approach nearer to the scene, a strange confusion of many sounds greet the ear. Drums and fifes, violins and banjoes, and even jews-harps, all lent their aid to swell the burst of joy and gratulation. Smiling and happy faces were grouped along the streets, while gay damsels, in their holyday finery, adorned the doors and windows of the busy citizens. A perfect Babel of commingled noises issued from the s.p.a.cious area of a tobacco warehouse, which, after the usual fashion, consisted of an extensive roof, supported by colonnades to every front. Here was congregated the rising generation--boisterous and happy in the midst of their games and sports. No schoolmaster was abroad on that day, to rush in upon the unwary urchins, and wreak upon them the vengeance of Samson upon the Philistines.

Our forefathers suffered their children to follow very much their own humours in the selection of those amus.e.m.e.nts suited to their age and condition. We see not but the result was as happy as that of the systems of our day, when every thing is regulated by system, even to the games and amus.e.m.e.nts of our children. The time is certainly not far distant when Geography will be taught by a game at cards; Chemistry by set _conversations_ upon the const.i.tuents of our edibles, and Natural Philosophy developed in nursery rhymes, that we may imbibe it with our lullabies.

On the morning in question, as merry a set of boisterous lads kicked up the dust in the old warehouse, as ever fought over a game of marbles, or laughed through one of leap-frog. And while the merry urchins, whom we have taken under our special protection, were thus enjoying a glorious holyday, their elders and superiors were moved by the same impulses. The mansion of the Governor itself was in visible commotion; servants swelling with importance, aped the grandeur of their masters' looks, while they ran from room to room on their various duties. A provincial band of music was stationed under the windows, uniting their sweet sounds to the Babel-like uproar, in the well known tune of "Over the waters to Charley."

There was one little green spot upon the common inviting the contemplative mind to pleasing reveries. Here a few of the humbler maidens of the city were adorning the overhanging bushes with gay garlands of flowers, preparatory to the evening dance, which they contemplated celebrating in imitation of their superiors, who were to move in more stately measures at the mansion of the Governor.

The household of Gideon Fairfax was likewise earlier than usual on the alert, and he being one of the council of the Colony, came in also for a share of the honours noised forth under the windows of the most distinguished Cavaliers.

Breakfast had been some time waiting at the table, and the fondly indulged daughter had been repeatedly summoned, but still she came not.

This excited the more surprise in the minds of her parents, as they supposed, that on this eventful morning, of all others in the year, she would be up with the lark. The truth was, that after retiring at such an unusual hour of the night, or rather morning--her slumbers were disturbed between sleeping and waking, by shadowy dreams of yelling savages, chivalrous youths, and mighty giants.

At length, however, she appeared, but instead of bounding into the room with gay and elastic steps, and more buoyant spirits, in happy antic.i.p.ation of the promised enjoyments of the day, her movements were slow and heavy--her eyes red and swollen, and her whole appearance indicative of languor and dejection. Her fond parents were instantly at her side--each taking a hand as she walked into the room, and striving to learn from the fancied invalid the nature of her sufferings. She a.s.sured them that she had nothing to complain of but want of rest, and with this they were the more readily satisfied, as towards morning there had indeed been much firing of guns, and other demonstrations of loyalty. Her parents being thus satisfied, that her account of the matter was the true one, Virginia was suffered to a.s.sume her place at the head of the table--a place she had for some time occupied on account of the delicate state of her mother's health. Meanwhile the anxious parents a.s.sumed their own places, and endeavoured to beguile their daughter's languor by allusions to the merry sounds, and gay group without, not forgetting the a.s.sembly at the Governor's; and it is more than probable that they would have succeeded, as few spirited and blooming beauties of sixteen can long listen unmoved to such details, had not Virginia, raising her half cheerful face at that moment to a large mirror which hung opposite, caught the reflection of a person in whose welfare she took a lively interest, standing in one corner of the room, and partly behind her chair, with a countenance and att.i.tude which expressed the deepest misery. This was no other that Wyanokee, her own little Indian attendant, who officiated near the person of her mistress, in a medium capacity between friend and servant; the mistress only requiring the companion, and the maid spontaneously offering the services due both from affection and grat.i.tude.

The figure of Wyanokee was diminutive, but like most of the aboriginal females, exquisitely proportioned, and graceful, after the fashion of nature's finest schooling. Her face was oval and between a brown and yellow colour, yet there was a vital tinge occasionally illuminating this predominant dark ground, which bespoke the refined female, in language intelligible to all, and far more eloquently than the tongue.

Her hair was jet black, and folded upon her small round head after the fashion of the Europeans; and her brilliant teeth exhibited a striking contrast to the dark shades of her skin, and darker sparkling eyes. The delicately penciled brows, arched beautifully over a countenance strikingly feminine and lady-like; and the general expression was that calm sadness which has been remarked as characteristic of the domesticated aborigines from that day to the present. Her dress was essentially after the fashion of the whites of that day, just retaining sufficient of the Indian costume, however, to set off her slight but graceful figure to the best advantage. The exquisite proportions of her finely shaped foot and ankle were displayed in a closely fitting deer skin moccasin, studded around the eyelet holes, and wrought in curious, but not unpleasing figures, with party-coloured beads and porcupine quills. Around her neck, and falling upon her gently swelling bosom, were many ingeniously wrought ornaments of wampum and silver--and around her wrists, bracelets of the same materials. Wyanokee was of the Chickahominy tribe, and had been taken prisoner after the murder of her parents by one of the neighbouring tribes, who at the time were at war with the Chickahominies. Nathaniel Bacon saw her in one of his hunting excursions, and struck with her native beauty, and pleading countenance, redeemed her from captivity at the expense of a string of blue beads.

From thence he brought her to Jamestown, to remain until some opportunity should occur of restoring her to her tribe. Her parents having been slain, however, as we have already said, and much time necessarily having elapsed before such opportunity occurred, Virginia took advantage of it, and by mild and affectionate treatment, endeavoured to win her to herself. A mutual and peculiar attachment was the consequence, so that when the opportunity actually occurred, Wyanokee refused to return to the almost extinct tribe of her fathers.

Two years had now elapsed since her introduction into the Fairfax family, during which time Virginia, an a.s.siduous pupil herself, became in her turn instructress to her little protegee. Already had she learned many of the little feminine arts and accomplishments of civilized life, and made considerable proficiency in the English language--which, however, she never employed except in private to her instructress, or on some urgent occasion. Half the young Cavaliers in Jamestown would have been willing devotees at the shrine of Wyanokee's beauty, after the corrupt fashions of the parent court and country. But such celebrity was not suited to the taste or ambition of the Indian maiden. Whenever the little errands of her patroness led her to the shops of the city, instead of encouraging the forward and impudent gallantries of the young profligates, she would trip along like a frightened partridge--always turning a deaf ear to their flatteries, and keeping her eyes fixed upon the earth, in the most modest, natural and simple guise. Notwithstanding her habitual indifference to the flatteries of her many admirers, there was one youth whose very step upon the door sill her practised ear could detect. Not that her deliverer had ever taken advantage of her grat.i.tude to him--her ignorance of civilized refinements, or her dependent situation, to poison her mind with the deceitful flatteries too common with his comrades of that day. The pa.s.sion was perhaps the growth of time and reflection and the effect of grat.i.tude, as the little Indian maiden became capable of inst.i.tuting comparisons between his conduct towards herself and that of the young Cavaliers, whose a.s.siduities have been already mentioned. Certain it is, that if it had been from some sudden impulse in their earlier intercourse, the customs of her race would have fully borne her out in declaring her pa.s.sion to its object at once. At the time of which we write, however, this feeling was a profound secret within her own bosom, as she hoped and believed; and the more Virginia impressed upon her mind the necessity of reserve and modesty in her intercourse with the other s.e.x, the more jealous she became in concealing the pa.s.sion that possessed her heart. Nevertheless, it influenced all her after life, and gave a touching interest to the progress of her moral and intellectual development.

Some few of her Indian peculiarities were still retained by Wyanokee; her gesticulation was far more powerful and expressive than her small compa.s.s of language, and the ordinary indifference of her race to pa.s.sing and exciting themes, was yet preserved by her. Her gentle mistress could indeed work upon her sensibilities through the medium of her affection and grat.i.tude, like a skilful musician upon a finely toned instrument, but the master key was still wanting even to her. There was one peculiarity of her race not quite so agreeable or inoffensive as those already mentioned--namely, the silence and celerity of her movements; sometimes she would appear to Virginia in the middle of the night with the imagined abruptness of an unearthly spirit. Often would the fair maiden awake from her slumbers and find her stooping over her couch--with the saddest and most intense interest expressed in her countenance--and again she would glide through the silent apartments of the s.p.a.cious mansion with a movement so shadowy and noiseless, that it seemed almost impossible to be effected by a substantial being.

When Virginia raised her eyes from the breakfast-table, and beheld Wyanokee's mute despair, as exhibited in the opposite mirror, her former nervous alarm and agitation instantly returned.

She was entirely at a loss to account for the unusual feeling exhibited by her attendant, except by connecting it in some way with her late nocturnal adventures. And it was a fearful supposition which flashed through her mind, that Wyanokee was acquainted with her last night's undertaking; yet at the same time ignorant of her motives. Hurrying mechanically through the meal, she rose, and taking the hand of the young Indian, was about to retire; but at that moment Nathaniel Bacon rode up to the door, his charger covered with dust and foam; leaping from his back and throwing the rein to an attendant, he entered the room at the very moment when the two maidens were about to make their exit.

Under the peculiar circ.u.mstances of the case perhaps no one could have entered more mal-appropos. Mr. Fairfax himself and Bacon had parted, at the termination of their last interview, with excited and unpleasant feelings, both having lost command of temper. Virginia had last seen him under circ.u.mstances also which in themselves were calculated to excite no very pleasing reminiscences; but considering the precise att.i.tude in which she stood at that moment with regard to Wyanokee, the interview promised to be still more embarra.s.sing. Nor was the promise falsified--the salutations of the gentlemen were cold, formal, and embarra.s.sing to both parties, while the two maidens stood on the eve of departure, each labouring under her own peculiar difficulties. Virginia felt as if all the adventures of the preceding night stood revealed to her parents, without any of the justificatory motives which had satisfied her own mind for embarking in them--while her attendant looked to her as if she too was labouring under a weight of surrept.i.tious knowledge. Mrs. Fairfax was the only one of the party who preserved self-possession enough to welcome their young friend, after so long an absence, in intelligible language.

With the peculiar tact of the cultivated female mind she judiciously led the conversation to such subjects of universal interest at the time, as to induce her husband and the young Cavalier to forget their late unpleasant difference, and Virginia to resume her seat at the table, where she busied herself in helping the visiter to his breakfast. It was singular enough too, as Virginia no doubt thought, that one of these subjects should have direct reference to some personages who had so lately and so intently occupied her own thoughts--namely the Roundheads and Independents. Frank Beverly it seems had already blown abroad the meeting of these persons in secret conclave, as mentioned in the first chapter. The meal being concluded, Bacon again sprang upon his horse and hurried forward to the portico of the Berkley Arms, in which were now displayed no very equivocal evidences of loyalty, from the master of the house and his numerous guests, who thronged its area upon his approach.

All the _elite_ of the Cavalier youth were there in a perfect throng.

No sooner had Bacon alighted and made his way into the throng, than the tumultuous discussion of the youths was hushed into silence. This was not so much owing to any sternness in the dignity of the youth as to the peculiar nature of the discussion which was going on between Dudley and Beverly, and their several partizans, at the very moment of his entrance. The tumblers of julip were held in suspense, while heavy bets were offered, and about to be taken, upon the disputed question whether the very person who so suddenly appeared among them would be present at the celebration. No sooner had he set foot on the premises, however, than the fat landlord came waddling up, grasping the hand of our hero in one of his own, while in the other he presented him with a goblet of the national beverage.

"A pledge! a pledge!" now resounded from several quarters of the well filled Tap. It may well be supposed that the suspected one had no very great relish for julip after breakfast, but knowing the importance of such trifles on an occasion like the present, and under all the peculiar circ.u.mstances in which he was placed he took the cup, and elevating it, said--"Here's to the merry king Charles, who shall be king but Charley."

"Bravely done," shouted the host--and "huzzah for Bacon," shouted his own immediate partisans, many of whom belonged to a volunteer military company of which he was the commander, and whom to see was the very object of his visit to the Arms. Taking Dudley therefore by the arm, and calling to others of the corps, he invited them to a private interview in another apartment. As Bacon pa.s.sed Frank Beverly a mutual but cold salutation was exchanged--dignified and polite on the part of the former, and cold, haughty and sneering on that of the latter--the ungracious feeling not at all lessened, it is probable, by the pointed exclusion of Beverly and his partisans from the private meeting just alluded to.

Although this was Bacon's first appearance in public, since his abrupt departure from the house of his friend and patron, it was not the first visit he had paid to the hotel, where he and his partisans now held their meeting. He had privately visited the landlord on the preceding evening, previous to the adventures related in the last chapter, for some purposes connected with the present meeting of his friends, but which he was by no means willing should be generally known. At that visit he was informed by the landlord of the mischievous plot laid by his rival to deprive him of the pleasure of Virginia's hand during the approaching festivities at the Mansion of the Governor, and his first intention was to counteract their machinations. But so intensely had his mind been engaged with the adventures of the preceding evening, that all minor interests escaped his recollection. It was the object of his visit on this morning, to remedy that oversight; but so cold and formal was his reception by Mr. Fairfax, and so embarra.s.sed was that of his daughter, that he gave up the scheme for the present, leaving the house with any thing but pleasant emotions. Indeed, from the various combinations of parties and factions, he saw his own position becoming hourly more embarra.s.sing and difficult, and still more so from the neutral position in which he was thrown--partly from the mystery connected with his origin, and partly from his connexion with the Recluse. But let the Independents on the one hand, and the Cavaliers on the other, plot and counterplot as they might, his course was clearly taken in his own mind. None of the doubts as to what cause he should espouse, which had been hinted at by some of the personages of our narrative, really existed in his mind. His course was plain, manly, upright, and straight forward. Nevertheless, as has been seen, he had not thus far entirely escaped suspicion. But trusting to the uprightness of his intentions, he took his measures on this eventful morning with a single eye to the public peace and the cause of truth, justice and humanity. It was to promote these great ends, that he now a.s.sembled the members of the military company of which he was the commander. Upon what service they were to be engaged, will appear in the succeeding chapters.

CHAPTER VII.

While Bacon and his partisans were deliberating in one of the upper rooms of the Berkley Arms, and Beverly, Ludwell and their friends, still kept up their potations in the Tap below, all of a sudden the bells ceased to chime, and the cannons to roar, and the various other demonstrations of noisy mirth that pervaded the city, were hushed into silence. A corresponding stillness instantly prevailed throughout both the a.s.sembled parties, for a moment, in order to ascertain if possible the cause of this interruption to the public rejoicings. No one in either being able to explain the matter, both parties at the same moment rushed tumultuously into the street. They beheld men, women, and children, thronging in the direction of the public square, and naturally fell into the current, and were borne on its tide into the very centre of attraction. Here they found several oxcarts standing in the street, in the beds of which were stretched the dead bodies of eight Indians--fearfully mangled, and one with his head entirely severed from the body. Twenty voices at once were interrogating the gaping negroes who bestrode the cattle, but no other satisfaction could be gained from them than a mute reference to their master; a little busy important man, who resided on the main land, and was now holding forth with great energy and amplitude of expression, touching his various adventures of the morning, to a crowd of eager loungers gathered around him, as if to appropriate his wonderful disclosure entirely to themselves.

He stated that he had found the dead bodies upon the banks of the river, where there were still many evidences of a desperate conflict of both horse and foot. That the ground was covered with blood, and that one party must have been driven into the river, and drowned, as he had been enabled to trace them by their footmarks to the very edge of the water.

It will be readily imagined by the reader that Nathaniel Bacon was no unmoved spectator of this scene, or of the various conjectural explanations that were now given in his hearing, of a transaction in which he had been such a princ.i.p.al actor, and of which he could have given such an authentic history. He was rather rejoiced than otherwise, that the little planter of the main seemed so much disposed to indulge his imagination, as a discovery of his own part in the matter, and of Virginia's delicate position on the occasion, was thereby rendered less probable. But his self congratulations were too hasty; for scarcely had he revolved these things in his mind, before a sudden rush of the crowd towards some new object of surprise arrested his attention. This was no other than Brian O'Reily, bearing into the crowd upon his back the dead body of Jamie Jamieson, and followed by his wife, who to her bruises and misfortunes had applied the comfort of whiskey in great profusion.

O'Reily, it seemed, had fully sympathised with the widowed lady, for his motions were anything but accordant with the solemnity of the occasion.

Bacon could scarce suppress a smile as he caught a glimpse of this group through the crowd. His first object; however, was to catch O'Reily's eye, and make him understand, if possible by a look, that he was to volunteer no evidence in the case. He had no sooner succeeded in gaining the notice of his attendant, than the latter applied his finger slyly to his lip, looking another way at the same time, and thus indicating that he understood the policy to be pursued, and that he was not so much intoxicated as he thought proper to seem. With this doubtful a.s.surance Bacon was compelled to rest satisfied, walking about the square all the while in visible agitation.

The corpse of the fisherman being laid out in the market-place, the officer, whose duty it was, proceeded to summon an inquest to inquire into the manner and cause of his death. The first witness summoned before this tribunal, was, of course, the wife of the deceased. She testified that a party of savages had on the preceding night entered their house, and after having cruelly murdered her husband, beaten herself, and bound her limbs with cords, had carried away all their fishing nets. That having placed these in a canoe, they laid her in it also, and paddled across the river--where they were met by another party of savages, about fifty in number, as she supposed, and while they were busily engaged in dividing the spoil, a gigantic man, with a face flaming like fire, and a sword as long as a fishing pole, had suddenly fallen upon the murderers, and quickly put them to flight, or the sword.

That having thus conquered the whole horde, he had placed her in the boat again, and brought her to her own house, where he left her, and where she remained alone until morning, when she was found by Mr. Brian O'Reily, who happened to be coming that way.

Improbable as some parts of this story were, it met with a ready credence from nearly the whole of the mult.i.tude; no tale, having any relation to the Recluse, being so marvellous that they would not readily believe it. But in no one of the a.s.sembled listeners did it excite greater surprise than in Bacon himself. It is true, that he readily recognised in the whole invention the joint influence of whiskey, and O'Reily's ingenuity, but even to these he had not supposed that he should be indebted for such downright falsehoods in his behalf. Mrs.

Jamieson, too, seemed firmly to believe all that she had testified.

Under these circ.u.mstances he did not feel himself called upon to set the matter right at the expense of Virginia's feelings, and the inevitable defeat of the measures in which he was that very morning deeply engaged. How the Irishman was to manage his part of the narrative when called upon, as he certainly would be, and that so speedily that no time would be allowed to exchange a word with his master, Bacon could not divine. He knew right well that O'Reily was gifted with a strong tendency to the most outrageous and even ridiculous exaggeration, and that he would carry through whatever he should undertake to say, with wonderful shrewdness and imperturbable confidence; but how he was to make his story agree with that which he had put into the mouth of Mrs.

Jamieson, and at the same time explain the wound upon his own face, and the contusion upon his head, without being guilty of some direct and palpable falsehood, was more than his master could imagine. At length Brian O'Reily was called to state what he knew touching the death of the fisherman. The first question propounded by the officer was, "Well, O'Reily, tell the jury how, and when you came to the house of the deceased."

"Oh! thin, and I'm bothered to know whether I got there by land or wather, and faix, I'm after b'leiven it was naither uv them."

"How then did you get there, if you went neither by land nor water?"

"An by the vestments, may be I wouldn't be far wrang, if I said it was the crathur that took me there, seein I can't deny it iny way, your haner."

"You saw no one strike or maltreat the deceased.".

"It would be but ill manners in me to be conthradictin your haner."

"You are sure you did not strike him yourself."

"As sure as two tin-pinnies--Divil burn the man that Brian O'Reily ever ill used when he was down--much less when he was dead, your haner."

(crossing himself.)

"How then came that cut upon the corner of your mouth?"

"Oh! murther, and is it these your haner's axing after?" and he ingeniously placed his finger upon a smaller wound made by his bottle on the previous night. "Yes, O'Reily, we wish you to state how you came by those wounds."

"Oh! but I'm bowld to show your haner, seein its you that axed me--sure here's the wapon that kilt me all out!" and as he spoke, he pulled out his broken necked bottle and handed it to his catechist.

"I see it has blood upon it, O'Reily, and this may explain the cut on your mouth, but how came that contusion on your temple?"

"Be dad but I run aginst a good big shelaleigh, an it broke me head so it did--sorra much head I had left at that same recknin, for the crather."

"You ran against a club, O'Reily? Was it growing in the ground or was it in the hands of an enemy?"

"It might be growin, your haner, or it might be in the hands of the great inimy himself, for all that Brian O'Reily knows--sure your haner isn't very particular in examinin the tixture of the timber that knocks you down. It might be a door-post--or may be the gate of the foort--as the thimber grows as thick here as paraties, and this gate was always too small for me when I had a dhrap of the whiskey."

"You ran against the gate-post, or the facings of Jamieson's door, then?"