Prisoners of Hope | Page 7

inclination of the head towards the older man, "is
the only one in which I have not been disappointed. I thought to see a
rude wilderness, and I find, to borrow the language of our Roundhead
friends, a very land of Beulah."

"Ay, ay. D' ye remember what old Drayton sings?
'Virginia! Earth's only paradise!'
And a paradise it is, with mighty few drawbacks, now that the King has
come to his own again, if you except these d--d canting Quakers and
Anabaptists, and those yelling red devils on the frontier, and the danger
of a servant insurrection, and the fact that his Majesty (God bless him!)
and the Privy Council fleece us more mercilessly than did old Noll
himself. I verily think they believe our tobacco plants made of gold like
those they say Pizarro saw in Peru. But 'tis a sweet land! Why, look
around you!" he cried, warming to his subject. "The waters swarm with
fish, the marshes with wild fowl. In the winter the air rings with the
cohonk! cohonk! of the wild geese. They darken the air when they
come and go. There in the forest stand the deer, waiting for your bullet;
badgers and foxes, bears, wolves, and catamounts are more plentiful
than are hares in England. You taste pleasure indeed when you ride full
tilt through the frosty moonlight, down the ringing glades of the forest,
and hear the hounds in full cry, and see before you, black against the
silver snow, a pack of yelling wolves. Then in summer the woods are
full of singing birds and of such flowers as you in England only dream
of. Strawberries make the ground red, and there are wild melons and
grapes and mulberries, and more nuts than squirrels, which is saying
much for the nuts. Everything grows here. 'Tis the garden of the world.
And what is there fairer than the green of the tobacco and the golden
corn tassels? And the noble rivers, whose head waters no man has ever
found, hidden by the Lord in the Blue Mountains near to the South Sea!
Sir, Virginia is God's country!"
"You in these lowlands have no trouble with the Indians?"
"None to speak of since 'forty-four, when Opechancanough came down
upon us. The brush with the Ricahecrians seven years ago was nothing.
They are utterly broken, both here and in Accomac. Further up the
rivers the devil still holds his own, we hearing doleful tales of the
butchery of pioneers with their wives and children; and above the falls
of the far west, in the Monacan country, and towards the Blue
Mountains, is his stronghold and capitol; but here in the lowlands all's

safe enough. There is no fear of the savages. Would we could say as
much of the servants!"
"Why, what do you fear from them?"
"It's hard to say; but an uneasy feeling has prevailed for a year or more.
It's this d--d Oliverian element among them. You see, ever since his
Majesty's blessed restoration, gang after gang of rebels have been sent
us--Independents, Muggletonians, Fifth Monarchy men, dour Scotch
Whigamores--dangerous fanatics all! Many are Naseby or Worcester
rogues, Ironsides who worship the memory of that devil's lieutenant,
Oliver. All have the gift of the gab. We disperse them as much as
possible, not allowing above five or six to any one plantation, we of the
Council realizing that they form a dangerous leaven. Should there be
trouble, which heaven forbid! they would be the instigators, restless
mischief-makers and overturners of the established order of things that
they are! Then there are their fellow criminals, the highwaymen,
forgers, cutpurses and bullies of whom we relieve his Majesty's
government. They are few in number, but each is a very plague spot,
infecting honester men. The slaves, always excepting the Portuguese
and Spanish mulattoes from the Indies, who are devils incarnate, have
not brain enough to conspire. But in the actual event of a rising they
would be fiends unchained."
"A pleasant state of affairs!"
"Oh, it is not so serious! We who govern the Colony have to take all
possibilities, however unpleasant, into consideration. I myself do not
think the danger imminent, and many in the Council and among the
Burgesses, and well-nigh all outside will not allow that there is danger
at all. We passed more stringent servant laws last year, and we depend
upon them, and upon the great body of indented servants, who are, for
the most part, honest and amenable and know upon which side their
bread is buttered, to repress the unruly element."
"What will you do with the convicts you brought with you this
morning?"

"Use them in the tobacco fields just now when all hands are needed to
weed and sucker the plants, and afterwards put them to