The Heart

Then the other woman, who was a strapping lass, and had been a

barmaid ere she came to Virginia in search of a husband, where she

had found one Richard Longman afraid not to do her bidding and wed

her, since he was as small and mild a man as ever was, joined in: "I

say with Mistress Allgood," she shrieked out, and flung her own

buxom arms aloft with such disclosures that a roar of laughter

spread through the hall, and her husband blushed purple, and a

protest gurgled in his throat. But at that his wife, who verily was

a shrew, seized upon him by both of his little shoulders, and shook

him until his face wagged like a rag baby with an utter limpness of

helplessness, and shouted out, amid peals of laughter that seemed to

shake the roof, that here was a pretty man, here forsooth was a

pretty man. Here was her own husband, who let his own lawful wife go

clad in such wise and lifted not a finger! Yes, lifted not a finger,

and had to be dragged into the present doings by the very hair of

his head by his wife, and that was not all. Yes, that was not all.

Then, with that, up she flung one stout foot, and lo, a great hole

was in the heel of her stocking, and the other, and then she flirted

the hem of her petticoat into sight, and that was all of a fringe

with rags. "Look, look!" she shrieked out. "I tell ye, Thomas

Longman, I will have them look, and see to what a pass that cursed

Navigation Act and the selling of the tobacco for naught, hath

brought a decent woman. How long is it since I had a new petticoat?

How long, I pray? Oh, Lord, had the men of this colony but the

spirit of the women! Had but brave Nat Bacon lived!" With that, this

woman, who had been perchance drinking too much beer for her head,

though she was well used to it, burst into a storm of tears, and

sprang to her feet, and cried out in a wild voice like a furious

cat's: "Up with ye, I say! And why do ye stop and parley? And why do

ye wait for my Lord Culpeper to sail? I trow the women be not

afraid of the governor, if the men be! Up with ye, and this very

night cut down the young tobacco-plants, and cheat the king of

England, who reigns but to rob his subjects. Who cares for the

Governor of Virginia? Who cares for the king? Up with ye, I say!"

With that she snatched a sword from a peg on the wall and swung it

in a circle of flame around her head, and what with her glowing eyes

and streaming black locks, and burning beauty of cheeks, and

cat-like shriek of voice, she was enough to have made the governor,

and even the king himself, quail, had he been there, and all the

time that mild husband of hers was plucking vainly at her gown. But

the men only shouted with laughter, and presently the woman, with a

savage glare at them, sank into her chair again, and Mistress

Allgood went up to her, and the two whispered with handsome,

fiercely wagging heads. Then entered another woman, after a clatter

of horse's hoofs in the drive, and she had a presence that compelled

all the men except one to their feet, though there was about her

that foolishness which, in my mind, doth always hamper the extreme

of enthusiasm. This woman, Madam Tabitha Story, was a widow of

considerable property, owning a plantation and slaves, and she had,

as was well known, gone mad with zeal in the cause of Nathaniel

Bacon, and had furnished him with money, and would herself have

fought for him had she been allowed. But Bacon, though no doubt with

gratitude for her help, had, as I believe is the usual case with

brave men, when set about with adoring women, but little liking for

her. It was, in faith, a curious sight she presented as she entered

that hall of Barry Upper Branch with the men rising and bowing low,

and the other women eyeing her, half with defiant glares as of

respectability on the defence, and half with admiration and

comradeship, for she was to the far front in this rebellion as in

the other. Madam Story was a woman so tall that she exceeded the

height of many a man, and she was clad in black, and crowned with a

great hat feathered with sable like a hearse, and her skin was of a

whiteness more dazzling against the black than any colour. Her face

had been handsome had it not been so elongated and strained out of

its proper lines of beauty, and her forehead was of a wonderful

height, a smooth expanse between bunches of black curls, and in the

midst was set that curious patch which she had worn ever since

Bacon's untimely death, it being, as I live, nothing more nor less

than a mourning coach and four horses, cut so cunningly out of black

paper that it was a marvel of skill.