Unknown - "History of Friedrich II of Prussia V Vol 15"

Richard Hakluyt - "Voyager's Tales"

Marion Mills Miller - "Practical Suggestions for Mother and Housewife"

Unknown - "The World English Bible (WEB): Amos"

To Have and To Hold:

M >> Mary Johnston >> To Have and To Hold:



*END THE SMALL PRINT! FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN ETEXTS*Ver.04.29.93*END*




Prepared by David Reed haradda@aol.com or davidr@inconnect.com





To Have and To Hold:

by Mary Johnston




TO
THE MEMORY OF
MY MOTHER

CONTENTS
CHAPTER I. IN WHICH I THROW AMBS-ACE
CHAPTER II. IN WHICH I MEET MASTER JEREMY SPARROW
CHAPTER III. IN WHICH I MARRY IN HASTE
CHAPTER IV. IN WHICH I AM LIKE TO REPENT AT LEISURE
CHAPTER V. IN WHICH A WOMAN HAS HER WAY
CHAPTER VI. IN WHICH WE GO TO JAMESTOWN
CHAPTER VII. IN WHICH WE PREPARE TO FIGHT THE SPANIARD
CHAPTER VIII. IN WHICH ENTERS MY LORD CARNAL
CHAPTER IX. IN WHICH TWO DRINK OF ONE CUP
CHAPTER X. IN WHICH MASTER PORY GAINS TIME TO SOME PURPOSE
CHAPTER XI. IN WHICH I MEET AN ITALIAN DOCTOR
CHAPTER XII. IN WHICH I RECEIVE A WARNING AND REPOSE A TRUST
CHAPTER XIII. IN WHICH THE SANTA TERESA DROPS DOWN-STREAM
CHAPTER XIV. IN WHICH WE SEEK A LOST LADY
CHAPTER XV. IN WHICH WE FIND THE HAUNTED WOOD
CHAPTER XVI. IN WHICH I AM RID OF AN UNPROFITABLE SERVANT
CHAPTER XVII. IN WHICH MY LORD AND I PLAY AT BOWLS
CHAPTER XVIII. IN WHICH WE GO OUT INTO THE NIGHT
CHAPTER XIX. IN WHICH WE HAVE UNEXPECTED COMPANY
CHAPTER XX. IN WHICH WE ARE IN DESPERATE CASE
CHAPTER XXI. IN WHICH A GRAVE IS DIGGED
CHAPTER XXII. IN WHICH I CHANGE MY NAME AND OCCUPATION
CHAPTER XXIII. IN WHICH WE WRITE UPON THE SAND
CHAPTER XXIV. IN WHICH WE CHOOSE THE LESSER OF TWO EVILS
CHAPTER XXV. IN WHICH MY LORD HATH HIS DAY
CHAPTER XXVI. IN WHICH I AM BROUGHT TO TRIAL
CHAPTER XXVII. IN WHICH I FIND AN ADVOCATE
CHAPTER XXVIII. IN WHICH THE SPRINGTIME IS AT HAND
CHAPTER XXIX. IN WHICH I KEEP TRYST
CHAPTER XXX. IN WHICH WE START UPON A JOURNEY
CHAPTER XXXI. IN WHICH NANTAUQUAS COMES TO OUR RESCUE
CHAPTER XXXII. IN WHICH WE ARE THE GUESTS OF AN EMPEROR
CHAPTER XXXIII. IN WHICH MY FRIEND BECOMES MY FOE
CHAPTER XXXIV. IN WHICH THE RACE IS NOT TO THE SWIFT
CHAPTER XXXV. IN WHICH I COME TO THE GOVERNOR'S HOUSE
CHAPTER XXXVI. IN WHICH I HEAR ILL NEWS
CHAPTER XXXVII. IN WHICH MY LORD AND I PART COMPANY
CHAPTER XXXVIII. IN WHICH I GO UPON A QUEST
CHAPTER XXXIX. IN WHICH WE LISTEN TO A SONG




TO HAVE AND TO HOLD



CHAPTER I IN WHICH I THROW AMBS-ACE


THE work of the day being over, I sat down upon my doorstep,
pipe in hand, to rest awhile in the cool of the evening. Death is not
more still than is this Virginian land in the hour when the sun has
sunk away, and it is black beneath the trees, and the stars brighten
slowly and softly, one by one. The birds that sing all day have
hushed, and the horned owls, the monster frogs, and that strange
and ominous fowl (if fowl it be, and not, as some assert, a spirit
damned) which we English call the whippoorwill, are yet silent.
Later the wolf will howl and the panther scream, but now there is
no sound. The winds are laid, and the restless leaves droop and are
quiet. The low lap of the water among the reeds is like the
breathing of one who sleeps in his watch beside the dead.

I marked the light die from the broad bosom of the river, leaving it
a dead man's hue. Awhile ago, and for many evenings, it had been
crimson, - a river of blood. A week before, a great meteor had shot
through the night, blood-red and bearded, drawing a slow-fading
fiery trail across the heavens; and the moon had risen that same
night blood-red, and upon its disk there was drawn in shadow a
thing most marvelously like a scalping knife. Wherefore, the
following day being Sunday, good Mr. Stockham, our minister at
Weyanoke, exhorted us to be on our guard, and in his prayer
besought that no sedition or rebellion might raise its head amongst
the Indian subjects of the Lord's anointed. Afterward, in the
churchyard, between the services, the more timorous began to tell
of divers portents which they had observed, and to recount old
tales of how the savages distressed us in the Starving Time. The
bolder spirits laughed them to scorn, but the women began to weep
and cower, and I, though I laughed too, thought of Smith, and how
he ever held the savages, and more especially that
Opechancanough who was now their emperor, in a most deep
distrust; telling us that the red men watched while we slept, that
they might teach wiliness to a Jesuit, and how to bide its time to a
cat crouched before a mousehole. I thought of the terms we now
kept with these heathen; of how they came and went familiarly
amongst us, spying out our weakness, and losing the salutary awe
which that noblest captain had struck into their souls; of how many
were employed as hunters to bring down deer for lazy masters; of
how, breaking the law, and that not secretly, we gave them knives
and arms, a soldier's bread, in exchange for pelts and pearls; of
how their emperor was forever sending us smooth messages; of
how their lips smiled and their eyes frowned. That afternoon, as I
rode home through the lengthening shadows, a hunter, red-brown
and naked, rose from behind a fallen tree that sprawled across my
path, and made offer to bring me my meat from the moon of corn
to the moon of stags in exchange for a gun. There was scant love
between the savages and myself, - it was answer enough when I
told him my name. I left the dark figure standing, still as a carved
stone, in the heavy shadow of the trees, and, spurring my horse
(sent me from home, the year before, by my cousin Percy), was
soon at my house, - a poor and rude one, but pleasantly set upon a
slope of green turf, and girt with maize and the broad leaves of the
tobacco. When I had had my supper, I called from their hut the two
Paspahegh lads bought by me from their tribe the Michaelmas
before, and soundly flogged them both, having in my mind a
saying of my ancient captain's, namely, "He who strikes first
oft-times strikes last."

Upon the afternoon of which I now speak, in the midsummer of
the year of grace 1621, as I sat upon my doorstep, my long pipe
between my teeth and my eyes upon the pallid stream below, my
thoughts were busy with these matters, - so busy that I did not see
a horse and rider emerge from the dimness of the forest into the
cleared space before my palisade, nor knew, until his voice came
up the bank, that my good friend, Master John Rolfe, was without
and would speak to me.

I went down to the gate, and, unbarring it, gave him my hand and
led the horse within the inclosure.

"Thou careful man!" he said, with a laugh, as he dismounted.
"Who else, think you, in this or any other hundred, now bars his
gate when the sun goes down?"

"It is my sunset gun," I answered briefly, fastening his horse as I
spoke.

He put his arm about my shoulder, for we were old friends, and
together we went up the green bank to the house, and, when I had
brought him a pipe, sat down side by side upon the doorstep.

"Of what were you dreaming?" he asked presently, when we had
made for ourselves a great cloud of smoke. "I called you twice."

"I was wishing for Dale's times and Dale's laws."

He laughed, and touched my knee with his hand, white and smooth
as a woman's, and with a green jewel upon the forefinger.

"Thou Mars incarnate!" he cried. "Thou first, last, and in the
meantime soldier! Why, what wilt thou do when thou gettest to
heaven? Make it too hot to hold thee? Or take out letters of marque
against the Enemy?"

"I am not there yet," I said dryly. "In the meantime I would like a
commission against - your relatives."

He laughed, then sighed, and, sinking his chin into his hand and
softly tapping his foot against the ground, fell into a reverie.

"I would your princess were alive," I said presently.

"So do I," he answered softly. "So do I." Locking his hands behind
his head, he raised his quiet face to the evening star. "Brave and
wise and gentle," he mused. "If I did not think to meet her again,
beyond that star, I could not smile and speak calmly, Ralph, as I do
now."

" 'T is a strange thing," I said, as I refilled my pipe. "Love for your
brother-in-arms, love for your commander if he be a commander
worth having, love for your horse and dog, I understand. But
wedded love! to tie a burden around one's neck because 't is pink
and white, or clear bronze, and shaped with elegance! Faugh!"

"Yet I came with half a mind to persuade thee to that very burden!"
he cried, with another laugh.

"Thanks for thy pains," I said, blowing blue rings into the air.

"I have ridden to-day from Jamestown," he went on. "I was the
only man, i' faith, that cared to leave its gates; and I met the world
- the bachelor world - flocking to them. Not a mile of the way but I
encountered Tom, Dick, and Harry, dressed in their Sunday
bravery and making full tilt for the city. And the boats upon the
river! I have seen the Thames less crowded."

"There was more passing than usual," I said; "but I was busy in the
fields, and did not attend. What's the lodestar?"

"The star that draws us all, - some to ruin, some to bliss ineffable, -
woman."

"Humph! The maids have come, then?"

He nodded. "There's a goodly ship down there, with a goodly
lading."

"Videlicet, some fourscore waiting damsels and milkmaids,
warranted honest by my Lord Warwick," I muttered.

"This business hath been of Edwyn Sandys' management, as you
very well know," he rejoined, with some heat. "His word is good:
therefore I hold them chaste. That they are fair I can testify, having
seen them leave the ship."

"Fair and chaste," I said, "but meanly born."

"I grant you that," he answered. "But after all, what of it? Beggars
must not be choosers. The land is new and must be peopled, nor
will those who come after us look too curiously into the lineage of
those to whom a nation owes its birth. What we in these
plantations need is a loosening of the bonds which tie us to home,
to England, and a tightening of those which bind us to this land in
which we have cast our lot. We put our hand to the plough, but we
turn our heads and look to our Egypt and its fleshpots. 'T is
children and wife - be that wife princess or peasant - that make
home of a desert, that bind a man with chains of gold to the
country where they abide. Wherefore, when at midday I met good
Master Wickham rowing down from Henricus to Jamestown, to
offer his aid to Master Bucke in his press of business to-morrow, I
gave the good man Godspeed, and thought his a fruitful errand and
one pleasing to the Lord."

"Amen," I yawned. "I love the land, and call it home. My withers
are unwrung."

He rose to his feet, and began to pace the greensward before the
door. My eyes followed his trim figure, richly though sombrely
clad, then fell with a sudden dissatisfaction upon my own stained
and frayed apparel.

"Ralph," he said presently, coming to a stand before me, "have you
ever an hundred and twenty pounds of tobacco in hand? If not, I" -

"I have the weed," I replied. "What then?"

"Then at dawn drop down with the tide to the city, and secure for
thyself one of these same errant damsels."

I stared at him, and then broke into laughter, in which, after a
space and unwillingly, he himself joined. When at length I wiped
the water from my eyes it was quite dark, the whippoorwills had
begun to call, and Rolfe must needs hasten on. I went with him
down to the gate.

"Take my advice, - it is that of your friend," he said, as he swung
himself into the saddle. He gathered up the reins and struck spurs
into his horse, then turned to call back to me: "Sleep upon my
words, Ralph, and the next time I come I look to see a farthingale
behind thee!"

"Thou art as like to see one upon me," I answered.

Nevertheless, when he had gone, and I climbed the bank and
re‰ntered the house, it was with a strange pang at the cheerlessness
of my hearth, and an angry and unreasoning impatience at the lack
of welcoming face or voice. In God's name, who was there to
welcome me? None but my hounds, and the flying squirrel I had
caught and tamed. Groping my way to the corner, I took from my
store two torches, lit them, and stuck them into the holes pierced
in the mantel shelf; then stood beneath the clear flame, and looked
with a sudden sick distaste upon the disorder which the light
betrayed. The fire was dead, and ashes and embers were scattered
upon the hearth; fragments of my last meal littered the table, and
upon the unwashed floor lay the bones I had thrown my dogs. Dirt
and confusion reigned; only upon my armor, my sword and gun,
my hunting knife and dagger, there was no spot or stain. I turned to
gaze upon them where they hung against the wall, and in my soul I
hated the piping times of peace, and longed for the camp fire and
the call to arms.

With an impatient sigh, I swept the litter from the table, and,
taking from the shelf that held my meagre library a bundle of
Master Shakespeare's plays (gathered for me by Rolfe when he was
last in London), I began to read; but my thoughts wandered, and
the tale seemed dull and oft told. I tossed it aside, and, taking dice
from my pocket, began to throw. As I cast the bits of bone, idly,
and scarce caring to observe what numbers came uppermost, I had
a vision of the forester's hut at home, where, when I was a boy, in
the days before I ran away to the wars in the Low Countries, I had
spent many a happy hour. Again I saw the bright light of the fire
reflected in each well-scrubbed crock and pannikin; again I heard
the cheerful hum of the wheel; again the face of the forester's
daughter smiled upon me. The old gray manor house, where my
mother, a stately dame, sat ever at her tapestry, and an imperious
elder brother strode to and fro among his hounds, seemed less of
home to me than did that tiny, friendly hut. To-morrow would be
my thirty-sixth birthday. All the numbers that I cast were high. "If I
throw ambs-ace," I said, with a smile for my own caprice, "curse
me if I do not take Rolfe's advice!"

I shook the box and clapped it down upon the table, then lifted it,
and stared with a lengthening face at what it had hidden; which
done, I diced no more, but put out my lights and went soberly to
bed.



CHAPTER II IN WHICH I MEET MASTER JEREMY SPARROW


MINE are not dicers' oaths. The stars were yet shining when I left
the house, and, after a word with my man Diccon, at the servants'
huts, strode down the bank and through the gate of the palisade to
the wharf, where I loosed my boat, put up her sail, and turned her
head down the broad stream. The wind was fresh and favorable,
and we went swiftly down the river through the silver mist toward
the sunrise. The sky grew pale pink to the zenith; then the sun rose
and drank up the mist. The river sparkled and shone; from the
fresh green banks came the smell of the woods and the song of
birds; above rose the sky, bright blue, with a few fleecy clouds
drifting across it. I thought of the day, thirteen years before, when
for the first time white men sailed up this same river, and of how
noble its width, how enchanting its shores, how gay and sweet
their blooms and odors, how vast their trees, how strange the
painted savages, had seemed to us, storm-tossed adventurers, who
thought we had found a very paradise, the Fortunate Isles at least.
How quickly were we undeceived! As I lay back in the stern with
half-shut eyes and tiller idle in my hand, our many tribulations and
our few joys passed in review before me. Indian attacks;
dissension and strife amongst our rulers; true men persecuted,
false knaves elevated; the weary search for gold and the South
Sea; the horror of the pestilence and the blacker horror of the
Starving Time; the arrival of the Patience and Deliverance,
whereat we wept like children; that most joyful Sunday morning
when we followed my Lord de la Warre to church; the coming of
Dale with that stern but wholesome martial code which was no
stranger to me who had fought under Maurice of Nassau; the good
times that followed, when bowl-playing gallants were put down,
cities founded, forts built, and the gospel preached; the marriage of
Rolfe and his dusky princess; Argall's expedition, in which I
played a part, and Argall's iniquitous rule; the return of Yeardley
as Sir George, and the priceless gift he brought us, - all this and
much else, old friends, old enemies, old toils and strifes and
pleasures, ran, bitter-sweet, through my memory, as the wind and
flood bore me on. Of what was before me I did not choose to
think, sufficient unto the hour being the evil thereof.

The river seemed deserted: no horsemen spurred Along the bridle
path on the shore; the boats were few and far between, and held
only servants or Indians or very old men. It was as Rolfe had said,
and the free and able-bodied of the plantations had put out,
posthaste, for matrimony. Chaplain's Choice appeared unpeopled;
Piersey's Hundred slept in the sunshine, its wharf deserted, and but
few, slow-moving figures in the tobacco fields; even the Indian
villages looked scant of all but squaws and children, for the braves
were gone to see the palefaces buy their wives. Below Paspahegh a
cockleshell of a boat carrying a great white sail overtook me, and I
was hailed by young Hamor.

"The maids are come!" he cried. "Hurrah!" and stood up to wave
his hat.

"Humph!" I said. "I guess thy destination by thy hose. Are they not
'those that were thy peach-colored ones'?"

"Oons! yes!" he answered, looking down with complacency upon
his tarnished finery. "Wedding garments, Captain Percy, wedding
garments!"

I laughed. "Thou art a tardy bridegroom. I thought that the
bachelors of this quarter of the globe slept last night in
Jamestown."

His face fell. "I know it," he said ruefully; "but my doublet had
more rents than slashes in it, and Martin Tailor kept it until
cockcrow. That fellow rolls in tobacco; he hath grown rich off our
impoverished wardrobes since the ship down yonder passed the
capes. After all," he brightened, "the bargaining takes not place
until toward midday, after solemn service and thanksgiving.
There's time enough!" He waved me a farewell, as his great sail
and narrow craft carried him past me.

I looked at the sun, which truly was not very high, with a secret
disquietude; for I had had a scurvy hope that after all I should be
too late, and so the noose which I felt tightening about my neck
might unknot itself. Wind and tide were against me, and an hour
later saw me nearing the peninsula and marveling at the shipping
which crowded its waters. It was as if every sloop, barge, canoe,
and dugout between Point Comfort and Henricus were anchored
off its shores, while above them towered the masts of the
Marmaduke and Furtherance, then in port, and of the tall ship
which had brought in those doves for sale. The river with its
dancing freight, the blue heavens and bright sunshine, the green
trees waving in the wind, the stir and bustle in the street and
market place thronged with gayly dressed gallants, made a fair
and pleasant scene. As I drove my boat in between the sloop of the
commander of Shirley Hundred and the canoe of the Nansemond
werowance, the two bells then newly hung in the church began to
peal and the drum to beat. Stepping ashore, I had a rear view only
of the folk who had clustered along the banks and in the street,
their faces and footsteps being with one accord directed toward the
market place. I went with the throng, jostled alike by velvet and
dowlas, by youths with their estates upon their backs and naked
fantastically painted savages, and trampling the tobacco with
which the greedy citizens had planted the very street. In the square
I brought up before the Governor's house, and found myself cheek
by jowl with Master Pory, our Secretary, and Speaker of the
Assembly.

"Ha, Ralph Percy!" he cried, wagging his gray head, "we two be
the only sane younkers in the plantations! All the others are
horn-mad!"

"I have caught the infection," I said, "and am one of the
bedlamites."

He stared, then broke into a roar of laughter. "Art in earnest?" he
asked, holding his fat sides. "Is Saul among the prophets?"

"Yes," I answered. "I diced last night, - yea or no; and the 'yea' -
plague on 't - had it."

He broke into another roar. "And thou callest that bridal attire,
man! Why, our cow-keeper goes in flaming silk to-day!"

I looked down upon my suit of buff, which had in truth seen some
service, and at my great boots, which I had not thought to clean
since I mired in a swamp, coming from Henricus the week before;
then shrugged my shoulders.

"You will go begging," he continued, wiping his eyes. "Not a one
of them will so much as look at you."

"Then will they miss seeing a man, and not a popinjay," I retorted.
"I shall not break my heart."

A cheer arose from the crowd, followed by a crashing peal of the
bells and a louder roll of the drum. The doors of the houses around
and to right and left of the square swung open, and the company
which had been quartered overnight upon the citizens began to
emerge. By twos and threes, some with hurried steps and downcast
eyes, others more slowly and with free glances at the staring men,
they gathered to the centre of the square, where, in surplice and
band, there awaited them godly Master Bucke and Master
Wickham of Henricus. I stared with the rest, though I did not add
my voice to theirs.

Before the arrival of yesterday's ship there had been in this natural
Eden (leaving the savages out of the reckoning) several thousand
Adams, and but some threescore Eves. And for the most part, the
Eves were either portly and bustling or withered and shrewish
housewives, of age and experience to defy the serpent. These were
different. Ninety slender figures decked in all the bravery they
could assume; ninety comely faces, pink and white, or clear brown
with the rich blood showing through; ninety pair of eyes, laughing
and alluring, or downcast with long fringes sweeping rounded
cheeks; ninety pair of ripe red lips, - the crowd shouted itself
hoarse and would not be restrained, brushing aside like straws the
staves of the marshal and his men, and surging in upon the line of
adventurous damsels. I saw young men, panting, seize hand or arm
and strive to pull toward them some reluctant fair; others snatched
kisses, or fell on their knees and began speeches out of Euphues;
others commenced an inventory of their possessions, - acres,
tobacco, servants, household plenishing. All was hubbub,
protestation, frightened cries, and hysterical laughter. The officers
ran to and fro, threatening and commanding; Master Pory
alternately cried "Shame!" and laughed his loudest; and I plucked
away a jackanapes of sixteen who had his hand upon a girl's ruff,
and shook him until the breath was well-nigh out of him. The
clamor did but increase.

"Way for the Governor!" cried the marshal. "Shame on you, my
masters! Way for his Honor and the worshipful Council!"

The three wooden steps leading down from the door of the
Governor's house suddenly blossomed into crimson and gold, as
his Honor with the attendant Councilors emerged from the hall and
stood staring at the mob below.

The Governor's honest moon face was quite pale with passion.
"What a devil is this?" he cried wrathfully. "Did you never see a
woman before? Where's the marshal? I'll imprison the last one of
you for rioters!"

Upon the platform of the pillory, which stood in the centre of the
market place, suddenly appeared a man of a gigantic frame, with a
strong face deeply lined and a great shock of grizzled hair, - a
strange thing, for he was not old. I knew him to be one Master
Jeremy Sparrow, a minister brought by the Southampton a month
before, and as yet without a charge, but at that time I had not
spoken with him. Without word of warning he thundered into a
psalm of thanksgiving, singing it at the top of a powerful and yet
sweet and tender voice, and with a fervor and exaltation that
caught the heart of the riotous crowd. The two ministers in the
throng beneath took up the strain; Master Pory added a husky
tenor, eloquent of much sack; presently we were all singing. The
audacious suitors, charmed into rationality, fell back, and the
broken line re-formed. The Governor and the Council descended,
and with pomp and solemnity took their places between the maids
and the two ministers who were to head the column. The psalm
ended, the drum beat a thundering roll, and the procession moved
forward in the direction of the church.

Master Pory having left me, to take his place among his brethren
of the Council, and the mob of those who had come to purchase
and of the curious idle having streamed away at the heels of the
marshal and his officers, I found myself alone in the square, save
for the singer, who now descended from the pillory and came up to
me.

"Captain Ralph Percy, if I mistake not?" he said, in a voice as deep
and rich as the bass of an organ.

"The same," I answered. "And you are Master Jeremy Sparrow?"

"Yea, a silly preacher, - the poorest, meekest, and lowliest of the
Lord's servitors."

His deep voice, magnificent frame, and bold and free address so
gave the lie to the humility of his words that I had much ado to
keep from laughing. He saw, and his face, which was of a cast
most martial, flashed into a smile, like sunshine on a scarred cliff.

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