The Heart

"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.