The Heart's Highway Part 5

"'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 which had existed before the Restoration, and frowned upon the May-pole set up in the Jamestown green as if it had been, as the Roundheads used to claim, the veritable heathen G.o.d 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 la.s.ses 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 bedecked 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 b.u.mped and grated, the trunk of a mighty oak yet bristling with green, like the stubble of a s.h.a.ggy 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 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 stomacher, 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 pa.s.s 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 dismay, 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 la.s.ses and been outdone by none, there was a sudden halt; then, before I 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 Lubberkin could now resign his post. Then off the hobby-horse they tumbled him, and the lads and la.s.ses gathering around her, and the graybeards standing aloof with some chagrin, would, I believe, 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 clatter 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 queendom?"

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 hearing the sound of the horns and bells, eager to see the show like any child, and the merrymakers 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. Suddenly 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 astonishment 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, until they hurrahed again and rang their bells and blew their horns, and she looked like a blossom 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 motion, 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 childish 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 oppressors."

I question if a dozen there grasped her meaning, 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 G.o.d'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 to some strength which she feared, and half of that high enthusiasm of youth and n.o.ble sentiment 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 pa.s.sed 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 earnest look faded from her face, and she called out with that way of hers which n.o.body 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 s.n.a.t.c.hed 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 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 metheglin 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 precision of feature, for she had been a great beauty in her day, so alert and alive with the ready comprehension 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, which she was fain to conceal by chiding. "You will ruin your complexion if you go out in such a 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 another.

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 me alone. "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 inquired what were the goods which she had ordered 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 comprehension.

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, beckoning 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 granddaughter's shoulder.

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 Caesars which I saw once. Mistress Mary was pale with dismay, and yet her mouth twitched with laughter at the notion 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, 'Madam, here is my furbelowed and gold-flowered sacque,' I wonder what will come to pa.s.s." Then she laughed.

"My G.o.d, madam," said I, "why did you give that list?" She laughed again, and her eyes flashed with the very light of mischief.

"I 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 which my Lady Culpeper sent to England for the replenishing of her wardrobe and her daughter's, and which is daily expected by ship. I had it from Cicely Hyde, who had it from Cate Culpeper. 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, Catherine?" 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 ap.r.o.n 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 undone 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 sharply, "My G.o.d, Harry Wingfield, what is to be done?"

"Madam Cavendish would surely never betray her own flesh and blood,"

said I, though doubtfully, when I reflected upon her hardness to Catherine herself, for Madam Judith Cavendish 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 except 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 Cavendish, 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 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 sh.o.r.e 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 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'ye lack? What's afoot? Halloo!"

"Send a boat, for G.o.d's sake," I shouted back. "News, news; keep where ye be. Do not land. Send a boat!"

"Is it the convict tutor, Wingfield?" shouted the captain.

I called back yes, and repeated my demand that he send a boat for G.o.d'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, 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 midstream.

"Now, in the name of all the fiends, what is afoot?" he cried out, though with a cautious c.o.c.k of his eyes toward the deck, for English sailors are not black slaves when it comes to discussing 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.

"h.e.l.l and d.a.m.nation!" he cried out, "when I 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 disrespect to one of the fairest ladies whom he had ever had the good fortune to see, but that it was so well known as to be no more slight in mentioning 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 better 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.