A Century Too Soon Part 1

A Century Too Soon (A Story of Bacon's Rebellion).

by John R. Musick.

PREFACE.

Historians have bestowed little attention to that important period in our great commonwealth, just after the restoration in England. Though one hundred years before liberty was actually obtained, the sleeping G.o.ddess seemed to have opened her eyes on that occasion and yawned, though she closed them the next moment for a sleep of a century longer.

Events produce such strange and lasting impressions on individuals as well as on nations, that the historian may not be much out of the way, who fancies that he sees in the reign of Cromwell the outgrowth of republicanism, which culminated in the establishment of a free and independent English-speaking people on the American continent. The two princ.i.p.al cla.s.ses of English colonists were the cavaliers and the Puritans, though there were also Quakers, Catholics, and settlers of other creeds. Generally the cavaliers were the "king's men," or royalists, and the Puritans republicans. The different characteristics of these two sects were quite marked. The Puritans were sober and industrious, quiet, fanatically religious and strict, while the cavaliers were polite, gallant, brave, good livers and quite fond of display. They were nearly all of the Church of England, with rather loose morals, fond of fox-hunting and gay society. During the time of the Commonwealth of England, the Puritans were in power, and the king's people, cavaliers, or royalists were reinstated on the restoration of monarchy in 1660.

Sir William Berkeley, a bigoted churchman, a lover of royalty, and one who despised, republicanism and personal liberty so heartily that he could "thank G.o.d that there were neither printing-presses nor public schools in Virginia," was appointed by Charles II. governor of Virginia.

Berkeley, whose early career was bright with promise, seems in his old age to have become filled with hatred and avarice. He was too stubborn to listen to the counsel even of friends. Being engaged in a profitable traffic with the Indians, he preferred to let them slaughter the people on the frontier, rather than to allow his business to be interfered with. Berkeley's tyranny was carried to such an extreme, that rebellion was the natural consequence. Rebellion always follows some injury or misplaced confidence in the powers of the government. This rebellion came a "century too soon," being just one hundred years before the great revolution, which set at liberty all the colonies of North America.

In this story we take up John Stevens and his son Robert, the son and grandson of Philip Stevens, whose story was told in "Pocahontas." The object has been to give a complete history of the period and to depict home life, manners and customs of the time in the form of a pleasing story. It remains for the reader to say if the effort has been a success.

JOHN R. MUSICK.

KIRKSVILLE, MO., August 1st, 1892.

A CENTURY TOO SOON.

CHAPTER I.

THE DUCKING-STOOL.

Blow, wind, and crack your cheeks! rage! blow!

You cataracts and hurricanes, spout Till you have drenched our steeples, drowned the c.o.c.ks!

You sulphurous and thought-executing fires, Vaunt couriers to oak-cleaving thunderbolts, Singe my white head! And thou, all-shaking thunder, Strike flat the thick rotundity o' the world.

--SHAKESPEARE.

[Ill.u.s.tration: ducking stool]

A crowd of bearded men, some in the sad-colored clothes and steeple-crowned hats of Puritans, others in loose top-boots, scarlet coats, lace and periwigs of the cavaliers of the Cromwellian period, intermixed with women, some wearing hoods and others bareheaded, was a.s.sembled on the banks of a deep pond within sight of Jamestown, Va. A curious machine, one which at the present day would puzzle the beholder to guess its use, had been constructed near the edge of the water. It was a simple contrivance and rude in structure; but the freshly hewn timbers were proof of its virgin newness. This machine was a long pole fastened upon an upright post, almost at the water's edge, so that it could revolve or dip at the will of the manipulators. On the heavy end of the pole was a seat or chair fastened, with a rest for the feet, and straps and buckles so arranged that when one was buckled down escape was impossible. On the opposite end of the pole a rope was tied, the end hanging down to the ground. This contrivance, to-day unknown, was once quite familiar to English civilization, and was called the "ducking-stool." The founders of the American, colonies, whatever may have been their original designs for the promotion of universal happiness, found it necessary very soon to allot a portion of the virgin soil to the humiliation, punishment and degradation of their fellow creatures.

Thus we find, in addition to the prison, the whipping-post and the pillory, the ducking-stool. From the vast throng a.s.sembled about the pond on that mild June day in 1653, one might suppose that the entire colony had turned out to witness some great event. Nearly four years before the opening of our story, Cromwell had established the "Commonwealth" in England; but it was not until 1653 that the Parliament party, or "Roundheads," as they were contemptuously termed, conquered the colony of Virginia. Many of the royalists were still elected to the House of Burgesses, and the cavaliers in boots and lace, with riding-whips in hand, predominated in the throng we have just described. The continual neighing of horses in the woods told of the arrival of fresh troops of planters and fox-hunting cavaliers.

The merry cavalier was easily distinguished from the sedate Puritan. The latter gazed solemnly on the instrument of torture as a thing essential to the performance of a duty, while the cavaliers seemed to have come more for the enjoyment of some rare sport, than to witness an execution of the law. Occasionally a snake-eyed aborigine mingled with the throng, gazing in wonder on the scene, or a negro, granted a half-holiday, stood grinning with barbarous delight on what was more sport than punishment in his eyes.

There is something hideous about the ducking-stool in the present age of reason and enlightenment, more especially as it was designed to punish the weaker s.e.x and usually those advanced in years. Before the ugly machine and between it and the road which ran past the pond to the village was a gra.s.s-plot, much overgrown with burdock, pigweed, plantain and such unsightly vegetation, which seemed to find something congenial in the soil that bore an instrument for the torture of the gentler s.e.x; but on one side of the post and leaning against it was a wild rosebush covered with fragrant flowers.

It was still an early hour, for the morning dew sparkled in the deeper recesses of the grand old forest, and the moisture of dawn yet lingered on the air. Strange as it may seem, that instrument was regarded with careless indifference, even by the gentler s.e.x of this period.

Meagre and cold was the sympathy which a transgressor might expect from the a.s.sembly at the pond. The women mingled freely with the crowd and appeared to take a peculiar interest in the punishment about to be inflicted. The age had not so much refinement, that any sense of impropriety kept the wearers of petticoats and farthingales from elbowing their way through the densest throngs to witness the executions. Those wives and maidens of English birth and breeding were morally and materially of coa.r.s.er fibre than their fair descendants, who would swoon at the thought of torture and punishment. They were not all hard-featured amazons in that throng, for, mingled with the stout, broad-shouldered dames, were maids naturally shy, timid and beautiful.

The ruddy cheeks and ruby lips indicated health, and the brawny arms of many women bore evidence of physical toil.

The cavaliers were jesting and laughing, while the Puritans were silent, or conversing in low, measured tones on the purpose of the a.s.sembly.

There was enough of gloom and solemnity in the one party to prove that the execution was not to be a farce, and enough merriment in the other to convince a beholder that the punishment was not capital. A young cavalier, all silk and lace, with heavy riding-boots, galloped up to the scene and, dismounting, handed the rein to a negro slave, who had run himself out of breath to keep up with his master, and hastened down to the water.

"Good morrow, Roger!" said the new-comer to a young man of about twenty-five years of age, like himself a gentleman of ease.

"Good morrow, Hugh," Roger answered.

"What gala scene have they prepared for our amus.e.m.e.nt?" asked Hugh, his dark gray eyes twinkling with merriment. "I trow it is one that you and I need never fear."

"The magistrates have adjudged Ann Linkon to be ducked."

"Marry! what hath she done?"

"Divers offences, all petty, but aggravating in themselves. She is not only a common scold, but a babbling woman, who often hath slandered and scandalized her neighbors, for which her poor husband is often brought into chargeable and vexatious suits and cast in great damages."

Hugh gave utterance to a genuine cavalier-like laugh, and, striking his boot-top with his riding-whip, returned:

"Marry! but she will make a merry sight soaring through the air like a fisher-bird to be plunged beneath the water."

"It will be a goodly sight, Hugh, and one I knew you would wish to see; therefore I sent for you."

"You have my thanks; but where is the culprit?"

"They have not arrived with her yet. Did you come from Greenspring Manor this morn?"

"Yes."

"How is Sir William Berkeley?"

"He is well, and still lives in the hope of seeing the king restored to his throne."

"Hath he invited our wandering prince to Virginia?"

"Sh--! speak not so loud," said Hugh in an undertone. "There are some of those Puritans, the cursed Roundheads, near, and it would mean death to Sir William if it were known that he but breathed such thoughts."

The two young men walked a little apart from the others and sat down upon the green, mossy banks, where they might converse uninterrupted and still be near enough to witness the ducking when the officers arrived with the victim.

"Keep a still tongue in your head, Roger," said Hugh when they were seated. "Greenspring Manor is beset with spies, and the Roundheads long for some pretext to hang Sir William for his devotion to our king; but Sir William says that the commonwealth will end with Cromwell and the son of our murdered king will be restored."

"The rule of the Roundheads is mild."

"Mild, bah!" interrupted Hugh, in contempt. "They are men without force, groundlings, the common trash from the earth with whom the best do not mingle."

"But they permit the people to send royalists to the House of Burgesses."

"That they do; yet there they must mingle with leet-men and indented slaves whose terms have expired," and Hugh heaved a sigh and dug his boot heel into the ground, adding, "It was not a merry day for old England when they struck off the king's head."

While the young royalists were discussing politics and awaiting the arrival of the guard with Ann Linkon, the women were not all silent.

"Good wives," said a hard-featured dame of fifty, "I will tell you a piece of my mind. It would be greatly for the public behoof, if we women being of mature age and church members in good repute like Ann Linkon might speak our minds of such baggage as Dorothe Stevens without being adjudged and sent to the ducking-stool as she is to be done. Wherefore is Dorothe Stevens so great that one must not say ill of her that they be plunged in the pond? Did she but have her deserts, would she be at home and Ann Linkon on the stool? Marry! I trow not!"