My fellow Burgesses went back to their hundreds, but my house at Weyanoke knew me no more. In a tone that was apologetic, but firm, the Governor had told me that he wished my company at Jamestown. I was pleased enough to stay, I assured him, - as indeed I was. At Weyanoke, the thunderbolt would fall without warning; at Jamestown, at least I could see, coming up the river, the sails of the Due Return or what other ship the Company might send.
The color of the leaves deepened, and there came a season of a beauty singular and sad, like a smile left upon the face of the dead summer. Over all things, near and far, the forest where it met the sky, the nearer woods, the great river, and the streams that empty into it, there hung a blue haze, soft and dream-like. The forest became a painted forest, with an ever thinning canopy and an ever thickening carpet of crimson and gold; everywhere there was a low rustling underfoot and a slow rain of color. It was neither cold nor hot, but very quiet, and the birds went by like shadows, - a listless and forgetful weather, in which we began to look, every hour of every day, for the sail which we knew we should not see for weeks to come.
Good Master Bucke tarried with Master Thorpe at Henricus, recruiting his strength, and Jeremy Sparrow preached in his pulpit, slept in his chamber, and worked in his garden. This garden ran down to the green bank of the river; and here, sitting idly by the stream, her chin in her hand and her dark eyes watching the strong, free sea birds as they came and went, I found my wife one evening, as I came from the fort, where had been some martial exercise.
Thirty feet away Master Jeremy Sparrow worked among the dying flowers, and hummed: -
"There is a garden in her face, Where roses and white lilies grow."
He and I had agreed that when I must needs be absent he should be within call of her; for I believed my Lord Carnal very capable of intruding himself into her presence. That house and garden, her movements and mine, were spied upon by his foreign hirelings, I knew perfectly well.
As I sat down upon the bank at her feet, she turned to me with a sudden passion. "I am weary of it all!" she cried. "I am tired of being pent up in this house and garden, and of the watch you keep upon me. And if I go abroad, it is worse! I hate all those shameless faces that stare at me as if I were in the pillory. I am pilloried before you all, and I find the experience sufficiently bitter. And when I think that that man whom I hate, hate, hate, breathes the air that I breathe, it stifles me! If I could fly away like those birds, if I could only be gone from this place for even a day!"
"I would beg leave to take you home, to Weyanoke," I said after a pause, "but I cannot go and leave the field to him."
"And I cannot go," she answered. "I must watch for that ship and that King's command that my Lord Carnal thinks potent enough to make me his wife. King's commands are strong, but a woman's will is stronger. At the last I shall know what to do. But now why may I not take Angela and cross that strip of sand and go into the woods on the other side? They are so fair and strange, - all red and yellow, - and they look very still and peaceful. I could walk in them, or lie down under the trees and forget awhile, and they are not at all far away." She looked at me eagerly.
"You could not go alone," I told her. "There would be danger in that. But to-morrow, if you choose, I and Master Sparrow and Diccon will take you there. A day in the woods is pleasant enough, and will do none of us harm. Then you may wander as you please, fill your arms with colored leaves, and forget the world. We will watch that no harm comes nigh you, but otherwise you shall not be disturbed."
She broke into delighted laughter. Of all women the most steadfast of soul, her outward moods were as variable as a child's. "Agreed!" she cried. "You and the minister and Diccon Demon shall lay your muskets across your knees, and Angela shall witch you into stone with her old, mad, heathen charms. And then - and then - I will gather more gold than had King Midas; I will dance with the hamadryads; I will find out Oberon and make Titania jealous!"
"I do not doubt that you could do so," I said, as she sprang to her feet, childishly eager and radiantly beautiful.
I rose to go in with her, for it was supper time, but in a moment changed my mind, and resumed my seat on the bank of turf. "Do you go in," I said. "There's a snake near by, in those bushes below the bank. I'll kill the creature, and then I'll come to supper."
When she was gone, I walked to where, ten feet away, the bank dipped to a clump of reeds and willows planted in the mud on the brink of the river. Dropping on my knees I leaned over, and, grasping a man by the collar, lifted him from the slime where he belonged to the bank beside me.
It was my Lord Carnal's Italian doctor that I had so fished up. I had seen him before, and had found in his very small, mean figure clad all in black, and his narrow face with malignant eyes, and thin white lips drawn tightly over gleaming teeth, something infinitely repulsive, sickening to the sight as are certain reptiles to the touch.
"There are no simples or herbs of grace to be found amongst reeds and half-drowned willows," I said. "What did so learned a doctor look for in so unlikely a place?"
He shrugged his shoulders and made play with his clawlike hands, as if he understood me not. It was a lie, for I knew that he and the English tongue were sufficiently acquainted. I told him as much, and he shot at me a most venomous glance, but continued to shrug, gesticulate, and jabber in Italian. At last I saw nothing better to do than to take him, still by the collar, to the edge of the garden next the churchyard, and with the toe of my boot to send him tumbling among the graves. I watched him pick himself up, set his attire to rights, and go away in the gathering dusk, winding in and out among the graves; and then I went in to supper, and told Mistress Percy that the snake was dead.
