"Not in any place on Madam Cavendish's plantation," I said, and did
not say, as I might have, for 'twas the truth, that I had also
tossed and studied, but as yet to no result.
"No, nor on mine, though I swear to thee, were I the only one to
consider, I would have them there in a twinkling, but I cannot put
my mother and sister in jeopardy even for--"
"Barry Upper Branch?"
"Nick and Dick swear they will not run the risk; that they have but
too lately escaped with their lives, and are too close watched, and
as for the parson, 'tis out of the question, and Ralph Drake hath no
hiding-place, and as for the others, they one and all refuse, and
say this is the safest place in the colony, it being a household of
women, and Madam Cavendish well known for her loyalty."
He looked at me and I at him, and again the old consideration, as I
saw his handsome, gallant young face that perchance Mary Cavendish
might love him and do worse than to wed him, came over me.
"I will find a place for the goods," said I.
"You, Harry?"
"Yes, I," I said.
"But where, Harry?"
"Wait till the need for them come, lad." Then I added, for often in
my perplexity the wish that the whole lot were at the bottom of the
river had seized me, "There is need of them, I suppose?"
But Sir Humphrey said yes, with a great emphasis to that.
"There is sure to be fighting," he said, "and never were powder and
shot so scarce. 'Tis well the Indians are quiet. This poor Colony of
Virginia hath not enough powder to guard her borders, nor, were it
not for her rich soil, enough of food to feed her children since the
Navigation Act.
"Oh, God, Harry, if but Nathaniel Bacon had lived!"
"Amen," I said, and felt as I said it, that if indeed that hero were
alive, this plot for the destroying of the young tobacco plants
might be the earthquake which threw off a new empire; but as it
were, remembering the men concerned, who had none of the stuff of
Bacon in them, I wondered if it would prove aught more than a wedge
in the scheme of liberty.
"There are those who would be ready to say that we gentlemen of
Virginia, like Bacon, are all ready to shelter ourselves behind
women's aprons," said Sir Humphrey Hyde, with a shamed glance at the
goods, referring to that stationing of the ladies of the Berkeley
faction, all arrayed in white aprons, on the earthworks before the
advance of the sons and husbands and brothers in the Bacon uprising.