True and Other Stories Part 1

True and Other Stories.

by George Parsons Lathrop.

CHAPTER I.

HER EYES WERE GRAY.

It might have been yesterday, but in simple fact it was three hundred years ago, that something happened which has an important bearing on this story of the present.

Antiquity is a great discourager of the sympathies: the centuries are apt to weigh like lead on an individual human sentiment. Yet we find it pleasant sometimes to throw off their weight, and thereby to discover that it is a mere feather in the scale as against the beating of a heart.

I know that when I speak of Guy Wharton as having been alive and in love in the year 1587, you will feel a certain patronizing pity for him--because he is not alive now. So do I. But then it is possible that you will be interested, notwithstanding--because he was a lover. Would you like to hear what experience he had? I promise not to go through the history of those three hundred years. The story of Guy is merely the starting-point of my narrative.

He was in love with a sweet English girl, Gertrude Wylde, who lived in Surrey; and she, for her part, was the daughter of a small tenant-farmer there, well connected as to family, but not well furnished with worldly goods, Guy's father was a country gentleman; but that circ.u.mstance failed to affect the young man's eyesight and emotions injuriously; he beheld Gertrude, and he loved her. I can see it all, now, as if it were something that had happened to myself--how they strolled together in those wondrous lanes hedged with hawthorn and brier and hazel, which stray so sweetly over the rolling lands about Dorking; how they met beneath the old yew tree where, half way up Box Hill, it hung out its foliage black as night, spotted with strange waxen blossoms of scarlet, like drops of blood upon a funeral-pall; how they wandered in the untamed forest of great box trees at the top; what joys they had, what anxieties beset them.

"And will thy father indeed take his leave of old England so soon?" he asked her, when they had reached the brow of the hill.

"Yes, in truth," she answered, sadly enough, looking out over the white chalk highlands, and the arborous glades and open downs, to where the waters of the English Channel showed soft against the hazy sky at the horizon, like a blue vein on a circling arm. "And that means that I must take leave of _thee_, Guy."

"Never, my darling!" cried Guy, drawing her to him. "If thou goest, I go as well."

"What! Forsake all here--estate and fortune and family? Nay, dearest, that can never be." But, as she spoke these words, Gertrude pressed her face upon his shoulder and gave way to tears. Then presently, raising her head and gazing up into his face: "How should it be possible?" she asked.

"Easily enough, if thou wilt," he replied. "I would go as thy affianced husband."

Thus it was settled that he also should join the colonizing expedition with which Gertrude's father had resolved to embark, under the patronage of Sir Walter Raleigh. Its goal was Roanoke Island, Virginia.

As the lovers walked homeward in company, and parted to go their separate ways, they felt as if their feet already trod the sh.o.r.es of the New World. "But when we are there," said Wharton before he left her at the turnstile that ushered the way to her father's farm--"there we shall have no more partings."

Alas, he was but a poor prophet!

Difficulties came up. Wharton's father violently opposed the plan that Guy had made. That, however, might not have prevented its execution, had not a fatal thing happened just at the critical time. On the eve of the sailing of the expedition, Guy's father died. That which his bitterest activity while alive failed to effect was accomplished by his white and silent presence as he lay dead in the old manor-house. At such a moment Guy could not go away; the unspoken edict of death restrained him absolutely. Besides, the elder Wharton's affairs were left in a confusion which it would take long to clear up.

So the ship sailed without Guy; but you may be sure he was at the wharf when she weighed anchor, and that he bade a tender farewell to Gertrude, promising that he would follow with the first convoy that should be sent to re-enforce and victual the new colony. At the instant when he had to leave her, she said, as if answering his words, uttered many weeks before at the turnstile: "Yes, dearest, we shall meet soon in that other world, and there shall be no more parting."

Guy did not think of the exact expression, just then; but as he travelled back to the manor-house, now his own, he kept saying to himself involuntarily: "That other world? G.o.d grant it may not mean the world beyond!" When he stepped within the door, his eye rested on the inscription over the great fireplace of the hall:

"I live, how long I trow not; I die, but where I know not; I journey, but whither I cannot see: 'Tis strange that I can merry be."

Many a festival had been held beneath the unnoticed shadow of those solemn lines; the laughter and the cheer, the sobs and murmurs of many a voice forever hushed, had echoed from the wall where the verses were graven; but it seemed to him that the motto had never gained its full meaning until now.

"I journey, but whither I cannot see."

Gertrude had gone out into the great void of the unknown s.p.a.ces; and he was to follow her--whither?

It would indeed have been strange if he could have been merry; and, to say truth, he was not greatly so; but he kept up his hope indomitably.

At last everything was arranged: he was ready to go. But he had to wait for the relief expedition to sail. In those days it was a great undertaking to prepare for a journey across the Atlantic. Raleigh was busy, perplexed, anxious: three years went by before Admiral John White started from Plymouth with three little ships (one for each year) and two shallops. But when he did start, Guy was on board.

It had been agreed with the colonists that, if anything went wrong and they should find it best to look for a new site, they should remove to a spot fifty miles inland among the friendly Indians, and should carve upon a tree the name of the place to which they were going. In case misfortune befell them, a cross was also to be carved above the name of their destination.

When, after a five weeks' voyage, Admiral White's vessels approached the sh.o.r.e of Hatteras, they anch.o.r.ed some miles out, for safety, and sent a boat in to the shallow Sound. Guy was in the bow of the boat which steered for Roanoke Island. The crew, when they had come near enough, blew trumpet-blasts as a signal of their approach, and sang songs of home--old English glees and madrigals--that had often echoed in the fields, the groves, the farmhouses of Surrey and Kent. Attracted by the sound the colonists, they hoped, would make their appearance the sooner.

But how strangely these familiar strains fell upon the ear in the primeval solitude of those lonely waters, on that lovely April day! So strangely, indeed, that one might almost fancy the colonists did not recognize them anymore, and hence failed to respond. Yet the trumpets continued to ring out on the air, and the gay songs were trolled cheerily, as the boat drew near the landing-place.

It may be imagined what an eager lookout Guy kept up at the bow. Ho believed every moment that, at the next, he should see Gertrude emerging from the woods and waving her hand to him. Still, not a sign of life had been given when he stepped ash.o.r.e.

The little party began to be oppressed by forebodings. They set out through the forest, eagerly searching for some token of their countrymen's presence; but no voice answered their calls, except those of unaccustomed birds and astonished squirrels; and no trail was found upon the light brown soil, other than the marks of an Indian moccasin or the curious dottings made by the feet of furtive animals.

At last, however, the seekers came to a tree which confronted them with three rudely carved letters cut upon its side.

C. R. O.

That was all. There was no indication of the cross, the symbol of distress. The men burst into exclamations of delight; yet Guy, though his heart bounded high with reviving hope, suffered a terrible suspense.

The st.u.r.dy tree had, as it were, found a voice and spoken; but it had uttered only one vague, baffling syllable. Of what use was that feeble clew? Still he pressed on, having no idea which way to turn, but guided by some inspiration; and presently, shouting to his companions, he pointed to another conspicuous tree which bore upon its blazed trunk the full name of the colony's new abiding-place. The letters missing from the first inscription had doubtless been worn away by storms. The word engraved upon the fibre of the second tree was "Croatan."

The friends of the colonists did not know precisely where Croatan lay; and though Guy urged an immediate exploration, the rest thought it impracticable. The distance from the ships threatened danger of being separated from the expedition by some accident, and left alone without supplies. So, having read the brief message of the departed colonists, the boat party returned to the little squadron and reported.

A storm arose; anchors were lost; the supply of fresh water had run low; and a council called by the Admiral decided that prudence required taking a southerly course to find some safer harbor; advising also that an attempt should be made to capture some Spanish vessels and return with the booty and provisions to find the lost colony. In vain Guy pleaded, with anguish in every word, that at least one of the ships should cruise near the coast off which they now lay and await the first favorable moment for prosecuting the search. The Admiral and his captains were inexorable; and the southern course was taken.

None of the vessels ever went back to the aid of the English at Croatan.

The captain of that one on which Guy Wharton was a pa.s.senger turned her prow toward England after a little time. Once more at home, Guy made every endeavor to have a new fleet equipped; but all his attempts failed. He was on the point of selling everything he owned, in order to fit out at least one ship and carry substantial aid to the exiles, when certain commercial ventures, in which a great deal of the property left to him was involved, went amiss and left him helpless. Restless, unhappy, almost broken-hearted, he entered on the struggle to re-establish himself; no opportunity occurred for him to sail to Virginia again; and so much time pa.s.sed by, that such an undertaking came to look hopeless. Even could he have gone, what would he have found? Perhaps Gertrude by this time had died. Or, perhaps, thinking herself forsaken or forgotten, as the whole community of emigrants seemingly had been, she might have married one of the colonists.

The old hope went out of Guy Wharton's life; but though, after some years, he took a wife, he never lost the pain which this tragedy of his youth had planted in his breast.

And they, meanwhile, the vanished exiles--what was their life; what were their thoughts? How long their hope survived, no one can even guess.

Without resources beyond those which the friendly Croatans themselves had; living a rude and simple life among the natives in that wild and lonely land; did they watch day after day for some sign of sail or fluttering pennon coming up the river, or listen for some sudden bugle-note or gun-shot, announcing the approach of relief? Did Gertrude keep up her faith through the weary years, hourly awaiting her lover?--fancying she heard his voice close by?--then waking again to the reality of the lonely stream, the fluttering forest-leaves, the uncouth habitations, the garments of deerskin and the swarthy savage children at play?

G.o.d only knows; for of all those hundred and fifteen wanderers, men and women, not one was ever seen among the civilized again. They pa.s.sed from the region of the known and the recorded into the vagueness of unlettered tradition. From the midst of history they were transplanted into myth. They faded out amid those dusky tribes in the forest, as the last streak of light in the west fades into darkness at nightfall.

A hundred years afterward the Indians of the Hatteras sh.o.r.e were described as declaring with pride that some of their ancestors were white and could "talk in a book," like the later Englishmen who were then established in Virginia. It was taken as confirmation of this story, that some of the Indians who told it had gray eyes.

_Her_ eyes were gray.

CHAPTER II.

THE DE VINES.

On a little headland at the southern end of Pamlico Sound where it narrows in to the waters of Core Sound, a small dwelling-house, half hut and half cottage, looked forth over the liquid expanses with an air of long habitude and battered self-reliance. It had but two meagre windows, and its chimney was short and black, suggesting an old tobacco-pipe; but the little house leaned comfortably against the low sandy ridge at its back, and did not seem to mind any of the imperfections in its own facial aspect. Along the ridge live oaks and red cedars flourished gracefully, and the ancient structure was closely enfolded at either side by thickets of that kind of holly known in the region as _yaupon_, the polished leaves and warm red berries of which glistened cheerily in the sunlight. Indeed, the whole place, dilapidated though it was, had the rea.s.suring appearance of a home; and when from its narrow doorway a beautiful young woman stepped forth into the breezy afternoon, nothing more was needed to complete the effect.

If it was a home before, it now looked the ideal of a home.