The Heart

"You say that the Earl of Fairfax is even now due?" said Captain

Tabor.

I replied that she was hourly expected by what I had learned; then

Captain Tabor, sitting loosely hunched with that utter abandon of

all the muscles which one sees in some when they are undergoing a

fierce strain of thought, remained silent for a space, his brows

knitted. Then suddenly my shoulder tingled with the clap which he

gave it, and the cabin rang and rang again with a laugh so loud and

gay that it seemed a very note of the May day. "You are merry," I

said, but I laughed myself, though somewhat doubtfully, when he

unfolded his scheme to me, which was indeed both bold and humorous.

He knew well the captain of the Earl of Fairfax, who had been

shipmate with him.

"Many a lark ashore have we had together," said Calvin Tabor, "and,

faith, but I know things about him now which compel him to my turn;

the devil's mess have we both been in, but I need not use such means

of persuasion, if I know honest Dick Watson." The scheme of which

Captain Tabor delivered himself, with bursts of laughter enough to

wake the ship, was, to speak briefly, that he should go with a boat,

rowing against the current, by keeping close to bank and taking

advantage of eddies, and meet the Earl of Fairfax before she reached

Jamestown, board her, and persuade her captain to send the cases of

my Lady Culpeper's goods under cover of night to the Golden Horn,

whence he would unload them next morning, and Mistress Mary could

show them to her grandmother, and then they were to be reshipped

with all possible speed and secrecy, the Earl of Fairfax meanwhile

laying at anchor at the mouth of the river, and then delivered to my

Lady Culpeper.

There was but one doubt as to the success of this curious scheme in

my mind, and that was that Mistress Mary might not easily lend

herself to such deception. However, Captain Tabor, with a skill of

devising concerning which I have often wondered whether it may be

more common in the descendants of those who settled in New England,

who were in such sore straits to get their own wills, than with us

of Virginia, provided a way through that difficulty.

"'Tis full easy," said he. "You say that the maid's sister will say

naught against it--and you?"

"I will say naught against her safety," said I. "What think you I

care for any little quibbles of the truth when that be in question?"