But in a trice it all changed, for the temper of a mob is as subject
to unexplained changes as the wind, and it was a great shout of
sympathy and triumph instead of derision. Then they tore off the
oak-sprigs with which they had bedecked themselves in honour of the
day, and by so doing showed disloyalty to the King, and the militia
making no resistance, and indeed, I have always suspected, secretly
rejoicing at it, they had me released in a twinkling, and foremost
among those who wrenched open the stocks was Capt. Calvin Tabor.
Then Mary Cavendish and I stood together there before them all.
It was all many years ago, but never hath my love for her dimmed,
and it shall live after Jamestown is again in ashes, when the
sea-birds are calling over the sunset-waste, when the reeds are tall
in the gardens, when even the tombs are crumbling, and maybe hers
and mine among them, when the sea-gates are down and the water
washing over the sites of the homes of the cavaliers. For I have
learned that the blazon of love is the only one which holds good
forever through all the wilderness of history, and the path of love
is the only one which those that may come after us can safely follow
unto the end of the world.