We sat there and waited, and the bell over in Jamestown rang and the

long notes died away with sweet echoes as if from distant heights.

All around us the rank, woody growth was full of murmurs and

movements of life, and perfumes from unseen blossoms disturbed one's

thoughts with sweet insistence at every gust of wind, and always one

heard the lapping of the sea-water through all its countless ways,

for well it loves this country of Virginia and steals upon it, like

a lover who will not be gainsaid, through meadows and thick woods

and coarse swamps, until it is hard sometimes to say, when the tide

be in, whether it be land or sea, and we who dwell therein might

well account ourselves in a Venice of the New World.

I waited and listened while the sailors unloaded the goods with many

a shout and repeated loud commands from the captain, and Mistress

Mary kept her eyes turned away from my face and watched persistently

the unlading, and had seemingly no more thought of me than of one of

the swamp trees for some time. Then all at once she turned toward

me, though still her eyes evaded mine.

"Why do you not go to church, Master Wingfield?" said she in a

sweet, sharp voice.

"I go when you go, Madam," said I.

"You have no need to wait for me," said she. "I prefer that you

should not wait for me."

I made no reply, but reined in my horse, which was somewhat restive

with his head in a cloud of early flies.

"Do you not hear me, Master Wingfield?" said she. "Why do you not

proceed to church and leave me to follow when I am ready?"

She had never spoken to me in such manner before, and she dared not

look at me as she spoke.

"I go when you go, Madam," said I again.

Then, suddenly, with an impulse half of mischief and half of anger,

she lashed out with her riding whip at my restive horse, and he

sprang, and I had much ado to keep him from bolting. He danced to

all the trees and bushes, and she had to pull Merry Roger sharply to

one side, but finally I got the mastery of him, and rode close to

her again.

"Madam," said I, "I forbid you to do that again," and as I spoke I

saw her little fingers twitch on her whip, but she dared not raise

it. She laughed as a child will who knows she is at fault and is

scared by her consciousness of guilt and would conceal it by a

bravado of merriment; then she said in the sweetest, wheedling tone

that I had ever heard from her, and I had known her from her

childhood: "But, Master Wingfield, 'tis broad daylight and there are no Indians

hereabouts, and if there were, here are all these English sailors

and Captain Tabor. Why need you stay? Indeed, I shall be quite

safe--and hear, that must be the last stroke of the bell?"




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