John Greenleaf Whittier - "Narrative and Legendary Poems: Bay of Seven Islands and Others"

Unknown - "Catalan's Constant to 1,500,000 Places"

Jules Verne - "Tour Du Mond 80 Jours"

Laura Lee Hope - "The Bobbsey Twins at the Seashore"

To Have and To Hold:

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




"I held court this afternoon!" she cried. "Where were you, sir?
Madam West was here, and my Lady Temperance Yeardley, and
Master Wynne, and Master Thorpe from Henricus, and Master
Rolfe with his Indian brother, - who, I protest, needs but silk
doublet and hose and a month at Whitehall to make him a very
fine gentleman."

"If courage, steadfastness, truth, and courtesy make a gentleman," I
said, "he is one already. Such an one needs not silk doublet nor
court training."

She looked at me with her bright eyes. "No," she repeated, "such
an one needs not silk doublet nor court training." Going to the
fire, she stood with one hand upon the mantelshelf, looking down
into the ruddy hollows. Presently she stooped and gathered up
something from the hearth. "You waste paper strangely, Captain
Percy," she said. "Here is a whole handful of torn pieces."

She came over to the table, and with a laugh showered the white
fragments down upon it, then fell to idly piecing them together.
"What were you writing?" she asked. "'To all whom it may
concern: I, Ralph Percy, Gentleman, of the Hundred of Weyanoke,
do hereby set free from all service to me and mine' " -

I took from her the bits of paper, and fed the fire with them. "Paper
is but paper," I said. "It is easily rent. Happily a man's will is more
durable."



CHAPTER XVII IN WHICH MY LORD AND I PLAY AT BOWLS


THE Governor had brought with him from London the year before,
a set of boxwood bowls, and had made, between his house and the
fort, a noble green. The generality must still use for the game that
portion of the street that was not tobacco-planted; but the quality
flocked to the Governor's green, and here, one holiday afternoon, a
fortnight or more from the day in which I had drunk to the King
from my lord's silver goblet, was gathered a very great company.
The Governor's match was toward, - ten men to a side, a hogshead
of sweet-scented to the victorious ten, and a keg of canary to the
man whose bowl should hit the jack.

The season had been one of unusual mildness, and the sunshine
was still warm and bright, gilding the velvet of the green, and
making the red and yellow leaves swept into the trench to glow
like a ribbon of flame. The sky was blue, the water bluer still, the
leaves bright-colored, the wind blowing; only the enshrouding
forest, wrapped in haze, seemed as dim, unreal, and far away as a
last year's dream.

The Governor's gilt armchair had been brought from the church,
and put for him upon the bank of turf at the upper end of the green.
By his side sat my Lady Temperance, while the gayly dressed
dames and the men who were to play and to watch were
accommodated with stools and settles or with seats on the green
grass. All were dressed in holiday clothes, all tongues spoke, all
eyes laughed; you might have thought there was not a heavy heart
amongst them. Rolfe was there, gravely courteous, quiet and
ready; and by his side, in otterskin mantle, beaded moccasins, and
feathered headdress, the Indian chief, his brother-in-law, - the
bravest, comeliest, and manliest savage with whom I have ever
dealt. There, too, was Master Pory, red and jovial, with an eye to
the sack the servants were bringing from the Governor's house; and
the commander, with his wife; and Master Jeremy Sparrow, fresh
from a most moving sermon on the vanities of this world.
Captains, Councilors, and Burgesses aired their gold lace, and their
wit or their lack of it; while a swarm of younger adventurers,
youths of good blood and bad living, come from home for the weal
of England and the woe of Virginia, went here and there through
the crowd like gilded summer flies.

Rolfe and I were to play; he sat on the grass at the feet of Mistress
Jocelyn Percy, making her now and then some courtly speech, and
I stood beside her, my hand on the back of her chair.

The King's ward held court as though she were a king's daughter.
In the brightness of her beauty she sat there, as gracious for the
nonce as the sunshine, and as much of another world. All knew her
story, and to the daring that is in men's hearts her own daring
appealed, - and she was young and very beautiful. Some there had
not been my friends, and now rejoiced in what seemed my
inevitable ruin; some whom I had thought my friends were gone
over to the stronger side; many who in secret wished me well still
shook their heads and shrugged their shoulders over what they
were pleased to call my madness; but for her, I was glad to know,
there were only good words. The Governor had left his gilt
armchair to welcome her to the green, and had caused a chair to be
set for her near his own, and here men came and bowed before her
as if she had been a princess indeed.

A stir amongst the crowd, a murmur, and a craning of necks
heralded the approach of that other at whom the town gaped with
admiration. He came with his retinue of attendants, his pomp of
dress, his arrogance of port, his splendid beauty. Men looked from
the beauty of the King's ward to the beauty of the King's minion,
from her costly silk to his velvet and miniver, from the air of the
court that became her well to the towering pride and insolence
which to the thoughtless seemed his fortune's proper mantle, and
deemed them a pair well suited, and the King's will indeed the will
of Heaven.

I was never one to value a man by his outward seeming, but
suddenly I saw myself as in a mirror, - a soldier, scarred and
bronzed, acquainted with the camp, but not with the court,
roughened by a rude life, poor in this world's goods, the first flush
of youth gone forever. For a moment my heart was bitter within
me. The pang passed, and my hand tightened its grasp upon the
chair in which sat the woman I had wed. She was my wife, and I
would keep my own.

My lord had paused to speak to the Governor, who had risen to
greet him. Now he came toward us, and the crowd pressed and
whispered. He bowed low to Mistress Percy, made as if to pass on,
then came to a stop before her, his hat in his hand, his handsome
head bent, a smile upon his bearded lips.

"When was it that we last sat to see men bowl, lady?" he said. "I
remember a gay match when I bowled against my Lord of
Buckingham, and fair ladies sat and smiled upon us. The fairest
laughed, and tied her colors around my arm."

The lady whom he addressed sat quietly, with hands folded in her
silken lap and an untroubled face. "I did not know you then, my
lord," she answered him, quite softly and sweetly. "Had I done so,
be sure I would have cut my hand off ere it gave color of mine to"
-

"To whom?" he demanded, as she paused.

"To a coward, my lord," she said clearly.

As if she had been a man, his hand went to his sword hilt. As for
her, she leaned back in her chair and looked at him with a smile.

He spoke at last, slowly and with deliberate emphasis. "I won
then," he said. "I shall win again, my lady, - my Lady Jocelyn
Leigh."

I dropped my hand from her chair and stepped forward. "It is my
wife to whom you speak, my Lord Carnal," I said sternly. "I wait to
hear you name her rightly."

Rolfe rose from the grass and stood beside me, and Jeremy
Sparrow, shouldering aside with scant ceremony Burgess and
Councilor, came also. The Governor leaned forward out of his
chair, and the crowd became suddenly very still.

"I am waiting, my lord," I repeated.

In an instant, from what he had been he became the frank and
guileless nobleman. "A slip of the tongue, Captain Percy!" he
cried, his white teeth showing and his hand raised in a gesture of
deprecation. "A natural thing, seeing how often, how very often, I
have so addressed this lady in the days when we had not the
pleasure of your acquaintance." He turned to her and bowed, until
the feather in his hat swept the ground. "I won then," he said. "I
shall win again - Mistress Percy," and passed on to the seat that
had been reserved for him.

The game began. I was to lead one side, and young Clement the
other. At the last moment he came over to me. "I am out of it,
Captain Percy," he announced with a rueful face. "My lord there
asks me to give him my place. When we were hunting yesterday,
and the stag turned upon me, he came between and thrust his knife
into the brute, which else might have put an end to my hunting
forever and a day: so you see I can't refuse him. Plague take it all!
and Dorothy Gookin sitting there watching!"

My lord and I stood forward, each with a bowl in his hand. We
looked toward the Governor. "My lord first, as becometh his rank,"
he said. My lord stooped and threw, and his bowl went swiftly over
the grass, turned, and rested not a hands'-breadth from the jack. I
threw. "One is as near as the other!" cried Master Macocke for the
judges. A murmur arose from the crowd, and my lord swore
beneath his breath. He and I retreated to our several sides, and
Rolfe and West took our places. While they and those that
followed bowled, the crowd, attentive though it was, still talked
and laughed, and laid wagers upon its favorites; but when my lord
and I again stood forth, the noise was hushed, and men and women
stared with all their eyes. He delivered, and his bowl touched the
jack. He straightened himself, with a smile, and I heard Jeremy
Sparrow behind me groan; but my bowl too kissed the jack. The
crowd began to laugh with sheer delight, but my lord turned red
and his brows drew together. We had but one turn more. While we
waited, I marked his black eyes studying every inch of the ground
between him and that small white ball, to strike which, at that
moment, I verily believe he would have given the King's favor. All
men pray, though they pray not to the same god. As he stood there,
when his time had come, weighing the bowl in his hand, I knew
that he prayed to his d‘mon, fate, star, whatever thing he raised an
altar to and bent before. He threw, and I followed, while the throng
held its breath. Master Macocke rose to his feet. "It's a tie, my
masters!" he exclaimed.

The excited crowd surged forward, and a babel of voices arose.
"Silence, all!" cried the Governor. "Let them play it out!"

My lord threw, and his bowl stopped perilously near the shining
mark. As I stepped to my place a low and supplicating "O Lord!"
came to my ears from the lips and the heart of the preacher, who
had that morning thundered against the toys of this world. I drew
back my arm and threw with all my force. A cry arose from the
throng, and my lord ground his heel into the earth. The bowl,
spurning the jack before it, rushed on, until both buried themselves
in the red and yellow leaves that filled the trench.

I turned and bowed to my antagonist. "You bowl well, my lord," I
said. "Had you had the forest training of eye and arm, our fortunes
might have been reversed."

He looked me up and down. "You are kind, sir," he said thickly. "
'To-day to thee, to-morrow to me.' I give you joy of your petty
victory."

He turned squarely from me, and stood with his face downstream.
I was speaking to Rolfe and to the few - not even all of that side
for which I had won - who pressed around me, when he wheeled.

"Your Honor," he cried to the Governor, who had paused beside
Mistress Percy, "is not the Due Return high-pooped? Doth she not
carry a blue pennant, and hath she not a gilt siren for figurehead?"

"Ay," answered the Governor, lifting his head from the hand he
had kissed with ponderous gallantry. "What then, my lord?"

"Then to-morrow has dawned, sir captain," said my lord to me.
"Sure, Dame Venus and her blind son have begged for me
favorable winds; for the Due Return has come again."

The game that had been played was forgotten for that day. The
hogshead of sweet scented, lying to one side, wreathed with bright
vines, was unclaimed of either party; the servants who brought
forward the keg of canary dropped their burden, and stared with
the rest. All looked down the river, and all saw the Due Return
coming up the broad, ruffled stream, the wind from the sea filling
her sails, the tide with her, the gilt mermaid on her prow just rising
from the rushing foam. She came as swiftly as a bird to its nest.
None had thought to see her for at least ten days.

Upon all there fell a sudden realization that it was the word of the
King, feathered by the command of the Company, that was
hurrying, arrow-like, toward us. All knew what the Company's
orders would be, - must needs be, - and the Tudor sovereigns were
not so long in the grave that men had forgot to fear the wrath of
kings. The crowd drew back from me as from a man
plague-spotted. Only Rolfe, Sparrow, and the Indian stood their
ground.

The Governor turned from staring downstream. "The game is
played, gentlemen," he announced abruptly. "The wind grows
colder, too, and clouds are gathering. This fair company will
pardon me if I dismiss them somewhat sooner than is our wont.
The next sunny day we will play again. Give you God den,
gentles."

The crowd stood not upon the order of its going, but streamed
away to the river bank, whence it could best watch the oncoming
ship. My lord, after a most triumphant bow, swept off with his
train in the direction of the guest house. With him went Master
Pory. The Governor drew nearer to me. "Captain Percy," he said,
lowering his voice, "I am going now to mine own house. The
letters which yonder ship brings will be in my hands in less than an
hour. When I have read them, I shall perforce obey their
instructions. Before I have them I will see you, if you so wish."

"I will be with your Honor in five minutes."

He nodded, and strode off across the green to his garden. I turned
to Rolfe. "Will you take her home?" I said briefly. She was so
white and sat so still in her chair that I feared to see her swoon.
But when I spoke to her she answered clearly and steadily enough,
even with a smile, and she would not lean upon Rolfe's arm. "I will
walk alone," she said. "None that see me shall think that I am
stricken down." I watched her move away, Rolfe beside her, and
the Indian following with his noiseless step; then I went to the
Governor's house. Master Jeremy Sparrow had disappeared some
minutes before, I knew not whither.

I found Yeardley in his great room, standing before a fire and
staring down into its hollows. "Captain Percy," he said, as I went
up to him, "I am most heartily sorry for you and for the lady whom
you so ignorantly married."

"I shall not plead ignorance," I told him.

"You married, not the Lady Jocelyn Leigh, but a waiting woman
named Patience Worth. The Lady Jocelyn Leigh, a noble lady, and
a ward of the King, could not marry without the King's consent.
And you, Captain Percy, are but a mere private gentleman, a poor
Virginia adventurer; and my Lord Carnal is - my Lord Carnal. The
Court of High Commission will make short work of this fantastic
marriage."

"Then they may do it without my aid," I said. "Come, Sir George,
had you wed my Lady Temperance in such fashion, and found this
hornets' nest about your ears, what would you have done?"

He gave his short, honest laugh. "It's beside the question, Ralph
Percy, but I dare say you can guess what I would have done."

"I'll fight for my own to the last ditch," I continued. "I married her
knowing her name, if not her quality. Had I known the latter, had I
known she was the King's ward, all the same I should have married
her, an she would have had me. She is my wife in the sight of God
and honest men. Esteeming her honor, which is mine, at stake,
Death may silence me, but men shall not bend me."

"Your best hope is in my Lord of Buckingham," he said. "They say
it is out of sight, out of mind, with the King, and, thanks to this
infatuation of my Lord Carnal's, Buckingham hath the field. That
he strains every nerve to oust completely this his first rival since he
himself distanced Somerset goes without saying. That to thwart
my lord in this passion would be honey to him is equally of course.
I do not need to tell you that, if the Company so orders, I shall
have no choice but to send you and the lady home to England.
When you are in London, make your suit to my Lord of
Buckingham, and I earnestly hope that you may find in him an ally
powerful enough to bring you and the lady, to whose grace, beauty,
and courage we all do homage, out of this coil."

"We give you thanks, sir," I said.

"As you know," he went on, "I have written to the Company,
humbly petitioning that I be graciously relieved from a most
thankless task, to wit, the governorship of Virginia. My health
faileth, and I am, moreover, under my Lord Warwick's displeasure.
He waxeth ever stronger in the Company, and if I put not myself
out, he will do it for me. If I be relieved at once, and one of the
Council appointed in my place, I shall go home to look after
certain of my interests there. Then shall I be but a private
gentleman, and if I can serve you, Ralph Percy, I shall be blithe to
do so; but now, you understand" -

"I understand, and thank you, Sir George," I said. "May I ask one
question?"

"What is it?"

"Will you obey to the letter the instructions the Company sends?"

"To the letter," he answered. "I am its sworn officer."

"One thing more," I went on: "the parole I gave you, sir, that
morning behind the church, is mine own again when you shall
have read those letters and know the King's will. I am free from
that bond, at least."

He looked at me with a frown. "Make not bad worse, Captain
Percy," he said sternly.

I laughed. "It is my aim to make bad better, Sir George. I see
through the window that the Due Return hath come to anchor; I
will no longer trespass on your Honor's time." I bowed myself out,
leaving him still with the frown upon his face, staring at the fire.

Without, the world was bathed in the glow of a magnificent sunset.
Clouds, dark purple and dark crimson, reared themselves in the
west to dizzy heights, and hung threateningly over the darkening
land beneath. In the east loomed more pallid masses, and from the
bastions of the east to the bastions of the west went hurrying,
wind-driven cloudless, dark in the east, red in the west. There was
a high wind, and the river, where it was not reddened by the
sunset, was lividly green. "A storm, too!" I muttered.

As I passed the guest house, there came to me from within a burst
of loud and vaunting laughter and a boisterous drinking catch sung
by many voices; and I knew that my lord drank, and gave others to
drink, to the orders which the Due Return should bring. The
minister's house was in darkness. In the great room I struck a light
and fired the fresh torches, and found I was not its sole occupant.
On the hearth, the ashes of the dead fire touching her skirts, sat
Mistress Jocelyn Percy, her arms resting upon a low stool, and her
head pillowed upon them. Her face was not hidden: it was cold and
pure and still, like carven marble. I stood and gazed at her a
moment; then, as she did not offer to move, I brought wood to the
fire and made the forlorn room bright again.

"Where is Rolfe?" I asked at last.

"He would have stayed," she answered, "but I made him go. I
wished to be alone." She rose, and going to the window leaned her
forehead against the bars, and looked out upon the wild sky and
the hurrying river. "I would I were alone," she said in a low voice
and with a catch of her breath. As she stood there in the twilight by
the window, I knew that she was weeping, though her pride strove
to keep that knowledge from me. My heart ached for her, and I
knew not how to comfort her. At last she turned. A pasty and stoup
of wine were upon the table.

"You are tired and shaken," I said, "and you may need all your
strength. Come, eat and drink."

"For to-morrow we die," she added, and broke into tremulous
laughter. Her lashes were still wet, but her pride and daring had
returned. She drank the wine I poured for her, and we spoke of
indifferent things, - of the game that afternoon, of the Indian
Nantauquas, of the wild night that clouds and wind portended.
Supper over, I called Angela to bear her company, and I myself
went out into the night, and down the street toward the guest
house.



CHAPTER XVIII IN WHICH WE GO OUT INTO THE NIGHT


THE guest house was aflame with lights. As I neared it, there was
borne to my ears a burst of drunken shouts accompanied by a
volley of musketry. My lord was pursuing with a vengeance our
senseless fashion of wasting in drinking bouts powder that would
have been better spent against the Indians. The noise increased.
The door was flung open, and there issued a tide of drawers and
servants headed by mine host himself, and followed by a hail of
such minor breakables as the house contained and by Olympian
laughter.

I made my way past the indignant host and his staff, and standing
upon the threshold looked at the riot within. The long room was
thick with the smoke of tobacco and the smoke of powder, through
which the many torches burned yellow. Upon the great table wine
had been spilt, and dripped to swell a red pool upon the floor.
Underneath the table, still grasping his empty tankard, lay the first
of my lord's guests to fall, an up-river Burgess with white hair. The
rest of the company were fast reeling to a like fate. Young Hamor
had a fiddle, and, one foot upon a settle, the other upon the table,
drew across it a fast and furious bow. Master Pory, arrived at the
maudlin stage, alternately sang a slow and melancholy ditty and
wiped the tears from his eyes with elaborate care. Master Edward
Sharpless, now in a high voice, now in an undistinguishable
murmur, argued some imaginary case. Peaceable Sherwood was
drunk, and Giles Allen, and Pettiplace Clause. Captain John
Martin, sitting with outstretched legs, called now for a fresh
tankard, which he emptied at a gulp; now for his pistols, which, as
fast as my lord's servants brought them to him new primed, he
discharged at the ceiling. The loud wind rattled doors and
windows, and made the flame of the torches stream sideways. The
music grew madder and madder, the shots more frequent, the
drunken voices thicker and louder.

The master of the feast carried his wine better than did his guests,
or had drunk less, but his spirit too was quite without bounds. A
color burned in his cheeks, a wicked light in his eyes; he laughed
to himself. In the gray smoke cloud he saw me not, or saw me only
as one of the many who thronged the doorway and stared at the
revel within. He raised his silver cup with a slow and wavering
hand. "Drink, you dogs!" he chanted. "Drink to the Santa Teresa!
Drink to to-morrow night! Drink to a proud lady within my arms
and an enemy in my power!"

The wine that had made him mad had maddened those others,
also. In that hour they were dead to honor. With shameless
laughter and as little spilling as might be, they raised their tankards
as my lord raised his. A stone thrown by some one behind me
struck the cup from my lord's hand, sending it clattering to the
floor and dashing him with the red wine. Master Pory roared with
drunken laughter. "Cup and lip missed that time!" he cried.

The man who had thrown the stone was Jeremy Sparrow. For one
instant I saw his great figure, and the wrathful face beneath his
shock of grizzled hair; the next he had made his way through the
crowd of gaping menials and was gone.

My lord stared foolishly at the stains upon his hands, at the fallen
goblet and the stone beside it. "Cogged dice," he said thickly, "or I
had not lost that throw! I'll drink that toast by myself to-morrow
night, when the ship does n't rock like this d - d floor, and the sea
has no stones to throw. More wine, Giles! To my Lord High
Admiral, gentlemen! To his Grace of Buckingham! May he shortly
howl in hell, and looking back to Whitehall see me upon the King's
bosom! The King 's a good king, gentlemen! He gave me this ruby.
D' ye know what I had of him last year? I" -

I turned and left the door and the house. I could not thrust a fight
upon a drunken man.

Ten yards away, suddenly and without any warning of his
approach, I found beside me the Indian Nantauquas. "I have been
to the woods to hunt," he said, in the slow musical English Rolfe
had taught him. "I knew where a panther lodged, and to-day I laid
a snare, and took him in it. I brought him to my brother's house,
and caged him there. When I have tamed him, I shall give him to
the beautiful lady."

He expected no answer, and I gave him none. There are times
when an Indian is the best company in the world.

Just before we reached the market place we had to pass the mouth
of a narrow lane leading down to the river. The night was very
dark, though the stars still shone through rifts in the ever moving
clouds. The Indian and I walked rapidly on, - my footfalls
sounding clear and sharp on the frosty ground, he as noiseless as a
shadow. We had reached the further side of the lane, when he put
forth an arm and plucked from the blackness a small black figure.

In the middle of the square was kept burning a great brazier filled
with pitched wood. It was the duty of the watch to keep it flaming
from darkness to dawn. We found it freshly heaped with pine, and
its red glare lit a goodly circle. The Indian, pinioning the wrists of
his captive with his own hand of steel, dragged him with us into
this circle of light.

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