Audrey

Before eight of the clock, Mr. Stagg, peering from behind the curtain,

noted with satisfaction that the house was filling rapidly; upon the

stroke of the hour it was crowded to the door, without which might be

heard angry voices contending that there must be yet places for the

buying. The musicians began to play and more candles were lighted. There

were laughter, talk, greetings from one part of the house to another, as

much movement to and fro as could be accomplished in so crowded a space.

The manners of the London playhouses were aped not unsuccessfully. To

compare small things with great, it might have been Drury Lane upon a gala

night. If the building was rude, yet it had no rival in the colonies, and

if the audience was not so gay of hue, impertinent of tongue, or paramount

in fashion as its London counterpart, yet it was composed of the rulers

and makers of a land destined to greatness.

In the centre box sat his Excellency, William Gooch, Lieutenant-Governor

of Virginia, resplendent in velvet and gold lace, and beside him Colonel

Alexander Spotswood, arrived in town from Germanna that day, with his

heart much set upon the passage, by the Assembly, of an act which would

advantage his iron works. Colonel Byrd of Westover, Colonel Esmond of

Castlewood, Colonel Carter, Colonel Page, and Colonel Ludwell were

likewise of the Governor's party, while seated or standing in the pit, or

mingling with the ladies who made gay the boxes, were other gentlemen of

consequence,--Councilors, Burgesses, owners of vast tracts of land, of

ships and many slaves. Of their number some were traveled men, and some

had fought in England's wars, and some had studied in her universities.

Many were of gentle blood, sprung from worthy and venerable houses in that

green island which with fondness they still called home, and many had made

for themselves name and fortune, hewing their way to honor through a

primeval forest of adversities. Lesser personages were not lacking, but

crowded the gallery and invaded the pit. Old fighters of Indians were

present, and masters of ships trading from the Spanish islands or from the

ports of home. Rude lumbermen from Norfolk or the borders of the Dismal

Swamp stared about them, while here and there showed the sad-colored coat

of a minister, or the broad face of some Walloon from Spotswood's

settlement on the Rapidan, or the keener countenances of Frenchmen from

Monacan-Town.

The armorer from the Magazine elbowed a great proprietor

from the Eastern shore, while a famous guide and hunter, long and lean and

brown, described to a magnate of Yorktown a buffalo capture in the far

west, twenty leagues beyond the falls. Masters and scholars from William

and Mary were there, with rangers, traders, sailors ashore, small

planters, merchants, loquacious keepers of ordinaries, and with men, now

free and with a stake in the land, who had come there as indentured

servants, or as convicts, runaways, and fugitives from justice.