To Have and To Hold | Page 5

wave his
hat.
"Humph!" I said. "I guess thy destination by thy hose. Are they not
'those that were thy peach-colored ones'?"
"Oons! yes!" he answered, looking down with complacency upon his
tarnished finery. "Wedding garments, Captain Percy, wedding
garments!"
I laughed. "Thou art a tardy bridegroom. I thought that the bachelors of
this quarter of the globe slept last night in Jamestown."
His face fell. "I know it," he said ruefully; "but my doublet had more
rents than slashes in it, and Martin Tailor kept it until cockcrow. That
fellow rolls in tobacco; he hath grown rich off our impoverished
wardrobes since the ship down yonder passed the capes. After all," he
brightened, "the bargaining takes not place until toward midday, after
solemn service and thanksgiving. There's time enough!" He waved me
a farewell, as his great sail and narrow craft carried him past me.
I looked at the sun, which truly was not very high, with a secret
disquietude; for I had had a scurvy hope that after all I should be too
late, and so the noose which I felt tightening about my neck might
unknot itself. Wind and tide were against me, and an hour later saw me
nearing the peninsula and marveling at the shipping which crowded its
waters. It was as if every sloop, barge, canoe, and dugout between
Point Comfort and Henricus were anchored off its shores, while above
them towered the masts of the Marmaduke and Furtherance, then in
port, and of the tall ship which had brought in those doves for sale. The
river with its dancing freight, the blue heavens and bright sunshine, the
green trees waving in the wind, the stir and bustle in the street and
market place thronged with gayly dressed gallants, made a fair and
pleasant scene. As I drove my boat in between the sloop of the
commander of Shirley Hundred and the canoe of the Nansemond
werowance, the two bells then newly hung in the church began to peal
and the drum to beat. Stepping ashore, I had a rear view only of the folk
who had clustered along the banks and in the street, their faces and

footsteps being with one accord directed toward the market place. I
went with the throng, jostled alike by velvet and dowlas, by youths
with their estates upon their backs and naked fantastically painted
savages, and trampling the tobacco with which the greedy citizens had
planted the very street. In the square I brought up before the Governor's
house, and found myself cheek by jowl with Master Pory, our Secretary,
and Speaker of the Assembly.
"Ha, Ralph Percy!" he cried, wagging his gray head, "we two be the
only sane younkers in the plantations! All the others are horn-mad!"
"I have caught the infection," I said, "and am one of the bedlamites."
He stared, then broke into a roar of laughter. "Art in earnest?" he asked,
holding his fat sides. "Is Saul among the prophets?"
"Yes," I answered. "I diced last night, - yea or no; and the 'yea' - plague
on 't - had it."
He broke into another roar. "And thou callest that bridal attire, man!
Why, our cow-keeper goes in flaming silk to-day!"
I looked down upon my suit of buff, which had in truth seen some
service, and at my great boots, which I had not thought to clean since I
mired in a swamp, coming from Henricus the week before; then
shrugged my shoulders.
"You will go begging," he continued, wiping his eyes. "Not a one of
them will so much as look at you."
"Then will they miss seeing a man, and not a popinjay," I retorted. "I
shall not break my heart."
A cheer arose from the crowd, followed by a crashing peal of the bells
and a louder roll of the drum. The doors of the houses around and to
right and left of the square swung open, and the company which had
been quartered overnight upon the citizens began to emerge. By twos
and threes, some with hurried steps and downcast eyes, others more

slowly and with free glances at the staring men, they gathered to the
centre of the square, where, in surplice and band, there awaited them
godly Master Bucke and Master Wickham of Henricus. I stared with
the rest, though I did not add my voice to theirs.
Before the arrival of yesterday's ship there had been in this natural
Eden (leaving the savages out of the reckoning) several thousand
Adams, and but some threescore Eves. And for the most part, the Eves
were either portly and bustling or withered and shrewish housewives,
of age and experience to defy the serpent. These were different. Ninety
slender figures decked in all the bravery they could assume; ninety
comely