By order of the company

by Mary Johnston

  CHAPTER I

  In which I Throw Ambs-ace

  The work of the day being over, I sat down upon my doorstep, pipe inhand, to rest awhile in the cool of the evening. Death is not more stillthan is this Virginian land in the hour when the sun has sunk away, andit is black beneath the trees, and the stars brighten slowly and softly,one by one. The birds that sing all day have hushed, and the hornedowls, the monster frogs, and that strange and ominous fowl (if fowl itbe, and not, as some assert, a spirit damned) which we English call thewhippoorwill, are yet silent. Later the wolf will howl and the pantherscream, but now there is no sound. The winds are laid, and the restlessleaves droop and are quiet. The low lap of the water among the reeds islike the breathing of one who sleeps in his watch beside the dead.

  I marked the light die from the broad bosom of the river, leaving it adead man's hue. Awhile ago, and for many evenings, it had beencrimson,--a river of blood. A week before, a great meteor had shotthrough the night, blood-red and bearded, drawing a slow-fading fierytrail across the heavens; and the moon had risen that same nightblood-red, and upon its disk there was drawn in shadow a thing mostmarvellously like a scalping knife. Wherefore, the following day beingSunday, good Mr. Stockham, our minister at Weyanoke, exhorted us to beon our guard, and in his prayer besought that no sedition or rebellionmight raise its head amongst the Indian subjects of the Lord's anointed.Afterward, in the churchyard, between the services, the more timorousbegan to tell of divers portents which they had observed, and to recountold tales of how the savages distressed us in the Starving Time. Thebolder spirits laughed them to scorn, but the women began to weep andcower, and I, though I laughed too, thought of Smith, and how he everheld the savages, and more especially that Opechancanough, who was nowtheir emperor, in a most deep distrust; telling us that the red menwatched while we slept, that they might teach wiliness to a Jesuit, andhow to bide its time to a cat crouched before a mousehole. I thought ofthe terms we now kept with these heathen; of how they came and wentfamiliarly amongst us, spying out our weakness, and losing the salutaryawe which that noblest captain had struck into their souls; of how manywere employed as hunters to bring down deer for lazy masters; of how,breaking the law, and that not secretly, we gave them knives and arms, asoldier's bread, in exchange for pelts and pearls; of how their emperorwas for ever sending us smooth messages; of how their lips smiled andtheir eyes frowned. That afternoon, as I rode home through thelengthening shadows, a hunter, red-brown and naked, rose from behind afallen tree that sprawled across my path, and made offer to bring me mymeat from the moon of corn to the moon of stags in exchange for a gun.There was scant love between the savages and myself,--it was answerenough when I told him my name. I left the dark figure standing, stillas a carved stone, in the heavy shadow of the trees, and, spurring myhorse (sent me from home, the year before, by my cousin Percy), was soonat my house,--a poor and rude one, but pleasantly set upon a slope ofgreen turf, and girt with maize and the broad leaves of the tobacco.When I had had my supper, I called from their hut the two Paspahegh ladsbought by me from their tribe the Michaelmas before, and soundly floggedthem both, having in my mind a saying of my ancient captain's, namely,"He who strikes first ofttimes strikes last."

  Upon the afternoon of which I now speak, in the midsummer of the year ofgrace 1621, as I sat upon my doorstep, my long pipe between my teeth andmy eyes upon the pallid stream below, my thoughts were busy with thesematters,--so busy that I did not see a horse and rider emerge from thedimness of the forest into the cleared space before my palisade, norknew, until his voice came up the bank, that my good friend, Master JohnRolfe, was without and would speak to me.

  I went down to the gate, and, unbarring it, gave him my hand and led thehorse within the inclosure.

  "Thou careful man!" he said, with a laugh, as he dismounted. "Who else,think you, in this or any other hundred, now bars his gate when the sungoes down?"

  "It is my sunset gun," I answered briefly, fastening his horse as Ispoke.

  He put his arm about my shoulder, for we were old friends, and togetherwe went up the green bank to the house, and, when I had brought him apipe, sat down side by side upon the doorstep.

  "Of what were you dreaming?" he asked presently, when we had made forourselves a great cloud of smoke. "I called you twice."

  "I was wishing for Dale's times and Dale's laws."

  He laughed, and touched my knee with his hand, white and smooth as awoman's, and with a green jewel upon the forefinger.

  "Thou Mars incarnate!" he cried. "Thou first, last, and in the meantimesoldier! Why, what wilt thou do when thou gettest to heaven? Make it toohot to hold thee? or take out letters of marque against the Enemy?"

  "I am not there yet," I said dryly. "In the meantime I would like acommission against--your relatives."

  He laughed, then sighed, and sinking his chin into his hand and softlytapping his foot against the ground, fell into a reverie.

  "I would your princess were alive," I said presently.

  "So do I," he answered softly. "So do I." Locking his hands behind hishead, he raised his quiet face to the evening star. "Brave and wise andgentle," he mused. "If I did not think to meet her again, beyond thatstar, I could not smile and speak calmly, Ralph, as I do now."

  "'Tis a strange thing," I said, as I refilled my pipe. "Love for yourbrother-in-arms, love for your commander if he be a commander worthhaving, love for your horse and dog, I understand. But wedded love! totie a burden around one's neck because 'tis pink and white, or clearbronze, and shaped with elegance! Faugh!"

  "Yet I came with half a mind to persuade thee to that very burden!" hecried, with another laugh.

  "Thanks for thy pains," I said, blowing blue rings into the air.

  "I have ridden to-day from Jamestown," he went on. "I was the only man,i' faith, that cared to leave its gates; and I met the world--thebachelor world--flocking to them. Not a mile of the way but Iencountered Tom, Dick, and Harry, dressed in their Sunday bravery andmaking full tilt for the city. And the boats upon the river! I have seenthe Thames less crowded."

  "There was more passing than usual," I said; "but I was busy in thefields, and did not attend. What's the lodestar?"

  "The star that draws us all,--some to ruin, some to blissineffable,--woman."

  "Humph! The maids have come, then?"

  He nodded. "There's a goodly ship down there, with a goodly lading."

  "_Videlicet_, some fourscore waiting damsels and milkmaids, warrantedhonest by my Lord Warwick," I muttered.

  "This business hath been of Edwyn Sandys' management, as you very wellknow," he rejoined, with some heat. "His word is good: therefore I holdthem chaste. That they are fair I can testify, having seen them leavethe ship."

  "Fair and chaste," I said, "but meanly born."

  "I grant you that," he answered. "But after all, what of it? Beggarsmust not be choosers. The land is new and must be peopled, nor willthose who come after us look too curiously into the lineage of those towhom a nation owes its birth. What we in these plantations need is aloosening of the bonds which tie us to home, to England, and atightening of those which bind us to this land in which we have cast ourlot. We put our hand to the plough, but we turn our heads and look toour Egypt and its fleshpots. 'Tis children and wife--be that wifeprincess or peasant--that make home of a desert, that bind a man withchains of gold to the country where they abide. Wherefore, when atmidday I met good Master Wickham rowing down from Henricus to Jamestown,to offer his aid to Master Bucke in his press of business to-morrow, Igave the good man Godspeed, and thought his a fruitful errand and onepleasing to the Lord."

  "Amen," I yawned. "I love the land, and call it home. My withers areunwrung."

  He rose to his feet, and began to pace the greensward before the door.My eyes followed his trim figure, richly though sombrely clad, then fellwith a sudden dissatisfaction upon my own stained and frayed apparel.

  "Ralph," he said presently, coming to a stand before me, "have you everan hu
ndred and twenty pounds of tobacco in hand? If not, I----"

  "I have the weed," I replied. "What then?"

  "Then at dawn drop down with the tide to the city, and secure forthyself one of these same errant damsels."

  I stared at him, and then broke into laughter, in which, after a spaceand unwillingly, he himself joined. When at length I wiped the waterfrom my eyes it was quite dark, the whippoorwills had begun to call, andRolfe must needs hasten on. I went with him down to the gate.

  "Take my advice,--it is that of your friend," he said, as he swunghimself into the saddle. He gathered up the reins and struck spurs intohis horse, then turned to call back to me: "Sleep upon my words, Ralph,and the next time I come I look to see a farthingale behind thee!"

  "Thou art as like to see one upon me," I answered.

  Nevertheless, when he had gone, and I climbed the bank and re-enteredthe house, it was with a strange pang at the cheerlessness of my hearth,and an angry and unreasoning impatience at the lack of welcoming face orvoice. In God's name, who was there to welcome me? None but my hounds,and the flying squirrel I had caught and tamed. Groping my way to thecorner, I took from my store two torches, lit them, and stuck them intothe holes pierced in the mantel shelf; then stood beneath the clearflame, and looked with a sudden sick distaste upon the disorder whichthe light betrayed. The fire was dead, and ashes and embers werescattered upon the hearth; fragments of my last meal littered the table,and upon the unwashed floor lay the bones I had thrown my dogs. Dirt andconfusion reigned; only upon my armour, my sword and gun, my huntingknife and dagger, there was no spot or stain. I turned to gaze upon themwhere they hung against the wall, and in my soul I hated the pipingtimes of peace, and longed for the camp fire and the call to arms.

  With an impatient sigh, I swept the litter from the table, and, takingfrom the shelf that held my meagre library a bundle of MasterShakespeare's plays (gathered for me by Rolfe when he was last inLondon), I began to read; but my thoughts wandered, and the tale seemeddull and oft-told. I tossed it aside, and, taking dice from my pocket,began to throw. As I cast the bits of bone, idly, and scarce caring toobserve what numbers came uppermost, I had a vision of the forester'shut at home, where, when I was a boy, in the days before I ran away tothe wars in the Low Countries, I had spent many a happy hour. Again Isaw the bright light of the fire reflected in each well-scrubbed crockand pannikin; again I heard the cheerful hum of the wheel; again theface of the forester's daughter smiled upon me. The old grey manorhouse, where my mother, a stately dame, sat ever at her tapestry, and animperious elder brother strode to and fro among his hounds, seemed lessof home to me than did that tiny, friendly hut. To-morrow would be mythirty-sixth birthday. All the numbers that I cast were high. "If Ithrow ambs-ace," I said, with a smile for my own caprice, "curse me ifI do not take Rolfe's advice!"

  I shook the box and clapped it down upon the table, then lifted it, andstared with a lengthening face at what it had hidden; which done, Idiced no more, but put out my lights and went soberly to bed.