A Century Too Soon Part 36

Robert evidently was alluding to some domestic difficulties, and the stranger very considerately avoided asking him any further questions about himself. He asked about the proprietors of several houses and gained something of the history of the town and people.

All expected that Sir Albert would return to his vessel; but he did not.

Instead, he wandered over the hill into the wood and sat down upon a log. Robert saw him sitting there, with his white head bowed between his hands, looking so sad and broken-hearted, despite all his wealth, that his heart went out to him. He was for hours thus communing with nature, then came back to the town and went on board the _Despair_.

After that, he frequently came ash.o.r.e and strolled about the town, seldom speaking, even when addressed. But for the letters from the governor and the king, he might have been arrested on suspicion. He came and went at will, occasionally pausing to ask a question which was so guarded, that no one could suspect that he was interested in any particular subject. One day, as he was pa.s.sing the statehouse, Giles Peram, who, with the powdered wig, lace, and ruffles of a cavalier, was strutting before some of the court officials, turning his eyes with an ill-bred stare on the stranger as he pa.s.sed, remarked:

"Oh, how extraordinary!"

Sir Albert paused and, fixing his great blue eyes on the diminutive egotist, said:

"Marry! the time of king's fools hath past; yet the king of fools still reigns."

Giles Peram felt the retort most keenly, and, as usual, raged and fumed and swore vengeance after the stranger was out of sight and hearing. Sir Albert strolled down to a pond or lake that was near to the town, on the banks of which was an ancient ducking-stool. Three or four idlers were sitting on the bank, and of one of them he asked:

"For what is that ugly machine used?"

"It is a ducking-stool for scolds," was the answer. The fellow, feeling complimented at being addressed by the celebrated stranger, went on, "Well do I remember, good sir, when and for whom the stool was constructed."

"For whom was it built?" asked Sir Albert.

"It was made for Ann Linkon, who had slandered goodwife Stevens as was, but who has, since her husband was drowned at sea, married Hugh Price, the royalist and friend of the governor. Oh, how Ann did scold and rave, and it was a merry sight to see her plunged beneath the water."

The stranger asked some questions about Ann Linkon and was informed that she had died several years before. "But to the last," the narrator resumed, "she hated Dorothe Stevens. She rejoiced when poverty a.s.sailed her, brought on by her own extravagance, after her husband had gone away. Then when goodwife Stevens received the fortune from the grandfather of her dead husband, the old Spaniard at St. Augustine, she again went among the cavaliers and was enabled to marry Hugh Price. It is not a happy life she leads now, though, for there is continual trouble between the husband and the children, so she is grievously hara.s.sed in mind continually."

Sir Albert listened as an uninterested person might, then asked some questions about Hugh Price and his good wife Dorothe, and the refractory children, who were causing so much trouble. He found the Virginian voluble and willing to impart all the information he had; but he grew heartily tired of the loafer and at last left him.

No one was more interested in the stranger from across the sea than Rebecca Stevens. She had not seen him; but she had heard so much of him from her brother and others, that her girlish curiosity was aroused. One evening, as she was taking her favorite walk about the village, having wandered farther than she intended, she found herself in the wood above the town, near the old building, which Captain John Smith had called the gla.s.s-house. She turned and began at once retracing her steps, for already the sun had set, and the shades of night were gathering over the landscape. She was in sight of the church, when a short, fat little man suddenly met her. He was out of breath, as if he had been running. In the gathering twilight she recognized him as her persecutor.

"Ah! Miss Stevens, this is truly extraordinary. Believe me, this meeting is quite providential, for it enables me to pour into your ear my tale of love."

"Mr. Peram, begone, leave me!"

"Oh, no, my dear, I will never let you go until you have consented to take my name."

In his zeal, the ungentlemanly wooer seized her hand, and his vicious little eyes glared at her with such ferocity, that she gave utterance to a shriek of fear. The tread of hurried feet fell on her ears, and through the deepening shades of twilight, she caught a glimpse of a scarlet coat, long white hair and beard and flas.h.i.+ng jewels. Hands of iron seized Giles Peram. He was lifted into the air as if he had been an infant, and flung head first into a cl.u.s.ter of white thorn, where he lay for a few moments, confused and bleeding. Then Sir Albert St. Croix raised the half-fainting Rebecca from the ground and said:

"Come, my child, be not affrighted; he will not harm you."

She gazed up at the kind face and asked:

"Are you the owner of the s.h.i.+p _Despair_?"

"I am."

"Thank you, Sir Albert," she began; but he quickly interrupted her with:

"Thank not me, sweet child; but come, tell me what hath gone amiss, and have no fear, for I am powerful enough to save you from any harm."

While the villanous little coward Giles Peram crawled from the hedge and hurried back to town, the old man led the victim of his insults to the church, where they sat upon the step at the front of the vestibule. She had no fear of this good old man, whom she instinctively loved, and who seemed to wield over her a strange and mysterious influence. He asked her all about her tormentor, and she confided everything to him. She told him of the loss of her father at sea, and how they had lived through adversity until better days dawned, then of her mother's second marriage, and the trouble between her brother and Hugh Price. She did not even omit the recent uprising in which her brother had joined Bacon and the rebels in a mad blow for freedom.

"The worst has not yet come, I greatly fear," sighed the little maid.

"The rebellion is not over, and my brother will yet, I fear, be hung by the governor, for Mr. Price, his bitter enemy, is a firm friend of the governor."

"He shall not be harmed, sweet maid. I have a great s.h.i.+p, with larger and more destructive guns than were ever in Virginia. I have a crew loyal even unto death, and I could bombard and destroy their town, ere they harm either your brother, yourself or your mother."

He looked so earnest, so like a good angel of deliverance, that the impulsive Rebecca threw her arms about his neck, and he, pressing a kiss upon her fair young cheek, exclaimed:

"G.o.d bless you! There, I must go."

He conducted her home, went aboard his s.h.i.+p, and next morning the mysterious craft had disappeared from the harbor.

There were too many exciting incidents transpiring at Jamestown for the public to dwell long on the stranger. The same day on which the s.h.i.+p disappeared, the rumor ran about town:

"Bacon has fled! Bacon has fled!"

The rumor was a truth. Robert Stevens had gone with him, and although Mr. Lawrence explained that Bacon's wife was ill, and he had gone to visit her, yet Berkeley, ever suspicious, construed his sudden breaking of his parole into open hostility, and prepared to treat it accordingly.

CHAPTER XX.

BACON A REBEL.

"Hark! 'tis the sound that charms The war-steed's wakening ears.

Oh! many a mother folds her arms Round her boy-soldier, when that call she hears, And though her fond heart sink with fears, Is proud to feel his young pulse bound With valor's fervor at the sound."

--MOORE.

The day after the mysterious disappearance of the s.h.i.+p _Despair_ and the flight of Bacon, a s.h.i.+p from New England arrived in port. Bacon's flight and the disappearance of Sir Albert and his vessel were so nearly at the same time, that a rumor went around the town that the former had escaped in the vessel of the latter. This rumor however was soon dispelled on learning that Bacon was at Curles rallying the planters about him.

The vessel which had just come into port aroused new speculations, until it was learned that it was only a trading s.h.i.+p from Boston doing a little business in defiance of the navigation laws. The vessel brought only one pa.s.senger. That pa.s.senger was a beautiful young maid.

She was landed soon after the vessel cast anchor, and her first inquiry was for Rebecca Stevens:

"Is she a relative of yours, young maid?" asked the man of whom she inquired.

"No; I know of her, and would see her."

"Do you see the large brick house upon the hill--not the one on the left of the church, but to the right with the broad piazza and wires in front?"

"I see it."

"She lives there. It is the home of Hugh Price, who married her mother."

The sailors brought some baggage ash.o.r.e which was carried to a warehouse to remain until the fair traveller should send for it, and pay the costs of transfer.

"Do you travel alone, young maid?" asked the man whom she had addressed.

"I do."