The Heart

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.