Читать книгу Erskine Dale—Pioneer - Jr. John Fox - Страница 5

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From the sun-dial on the edge of the high bank, straight above the brim of the majestic yellow James, a noble path of thick grass as broad as a modern highway ran hundreds of yards between hedges of roses straight to the open door of the great manor-house with its wide verandas and mighty pillars set deep back from the river in a grove of ancient oaks. Behind the house spread a little kingdom, divided into fields of grass, wheat, tobacco, and corn, and dotted with whitewashed cabins filled with slaves. Already the house had been built a hundred years of brick brought from England in the builder’s own ships, it was said, and the second son of the reigning generation, one Colonel Dale, sat in the veranda alone. He was a royalist officer, this second son, but his elder brother had the spirit of daring and adventure that should have been his, and he had been sitting there four years before when that elder brother came home from his first pioneering trip into the wilds, to tell that his wife was dead and their only son was a captive among the Indians. Two years later still, word came that the father, too, had met death from the savages, and the little kingdom passed into Colonel Dale’s hands.

Indentured servants, as well as blacks from Africa, had labored on that path in front of him; and up it had once stalked a deputation of the great Powhatan’s red tribes. Up that path had come the last of the early colonial dames, in huge ruffs, high-heeled shoes, and short skirts, with her husband, who was the “head of a hundred,” with gold on his clothes, and at once military commander, civil magistrate, judge, and executive of the community; had come officers in gold lace, who had been rowed up in barges from Jamestown; members of the worshipful House of Burgesses; bluff planters in silk coats, the governor and members of the council; distinguished visitors from England, colonial gentlemen and ladies. At the manor they had got beef, bacon, brown loaves, Indian corn-cakes, strong ales, and strong waters (but no tea or coffee), and “drunk” pipes of tobacco from lily-pots—jars of white earth—lighted with splinters of juniper, or coals of fire plucked from the fireplace with a pair of silver tongs. And all was English still—books, clothes, plates, knives, and forks; the church, the Church of England; the Governor, the representative of the King; his Council, the English House of Lords; the Burgesses, the English Parliament—socially aristocratic, politically republican. For ancient usage held that all “freemen” should have a voice in the elections, have equal right to say who the lawmakers and what the law. The way was open as now. Any man could get two thousand acres by service to the colony, could build, plough, reap, save, buy servants, and roll in his own coach to sit as burgess. There was but one seat of learning—at Williamsburg. What culture they had they brought from England or got from parents or minister. And always they had seemed to prefer sword and stump to the pen. They hated towns. At every wharf a long shaky trestle ran from a warehouse out into the river to load ships with tobacco for England and to get in return all conveniences and luxuries, and that was enough. In towns men jostled and individual freedom was lost, so, Ho! for the great sweeps of land and the sway of a territorial lord! Englishmen they were of Shakespeare’s time but living in Virginia, and that is all they were—save that the flower of liberty was growing faster in the new-world soil.

The plantation went back to a patent from the king in 1617, and by the grant the first stout captain was to “enjoy his landes in as large and ample manner to all intentes and purposes as any Lord of any manours in England doth hold his grounde.” This gentleman was the only man after the “Starving Time” to protest against the abandonment of Jamestown in 1610. When, two years later, he sent two henchmen as burgesses to the first general assembly, that august body would not allow them to sit unless the captain would relinquish certain high privileges in his grant.

“I hold my patent for service done,” the captain answered grandiloquently, “which noe newe or late comers can meritt or challenge,” and only with the greatest difficulty was he finally persuaded to surrender his high authority. In that day the house was built of wood, protected by a palisade, prescribed by law, and the windows had stout shutters. Everything within it had come from England. The books were ponderous folios, stout duodecimos encased in embossed leather, and among them was a folio containing Master William Shakespeare’s dramas, collected by his fellow actors Heminge and Condell. Later by many years a frame house supplanted this primitive, fort-like homestead, and early in the eighteenth century, after several generations had been educated in England, an heir built the noble manor as it still stands—an accomplished gentleman with lace collar, slashed doublet, and sable silvered hair, a combination of scholar, courtier, and soldier. And such had been the master of the little kingdom ever since.

In the earliest days the highest and reddest cedars in the world rose above the underbrush. The wild vines were so full of grape bunches that the very turf overflowed with them. Deer, turkeys, and snow-white cranes were in incredible abundance. The shores were fringed with verdure. The Indians were a “kind, loving people.” Englishmen called it the “Good Land,” and found it “most plentiful, sweet, wholesome, and fruitful of all others.” The east was the ocean; Florida was the south; the north was Nova Francia, and the west unknown. Only the shores touched the interior, which was an untravelled realm of fairer fruits and flowers than in England; green shores, majestic forests, and blue mountains filled with gold and jewels. Bright birds flitted, dusky maids danced and beckoned, rivers ran over golden sand, and toward the South Sea was the Fount of Youth, whose waters made the aged young again. Bermuda Islands were an enchanted den full of furies and devils which all men did shun as hell and perdition. And the feet of all who had made history had trod that broad path to the owner’s heart and home.

Down it now came a little girl—the flower of all those dead and gone—and her coming was just as though one of the flowers about her had stepped from its gay company on one or the other side of the path to make through them a dainty, triumphal march as the fairest of them all. At the dial she paused and her impatient blue eyes turned to a bend of the yellow river for the first glimpse of a gay barge that soon must come. At the wharf the song of negroes rose as they unloaded the boat just from Richmond. She would go and see if there was not a package for her mother and perhaps a present for herself, so with another look to the river bend she turned, but she moved no farther. Instead, she gave a little gasp, in which there was no fear, though what she saw was surely startling enough to have made her wheel in flight. Instead, she gazed steadily into a pair of grave black eyes that were fixed on her from under a green branch that overhung the footpath, and steadily she searched the figure standing there, from the coonskin cap down the fringed hunting-shirt and fringed breeches to the moccasined feet. And still the strange figure stood arms folded, motionless and silent. Neither the attitude nor the silence was quite pleasing, and the girl’s supple slenderness stiffened, her arms went rigidly to her sides, and a haughty little snap sent her undimpled chin upward.

“What do you want?”

And still he looked, searching her in turn from head to foot, for he was no more strange to her than she was to him.

“Who are you and what do you want?”

It was a new way for a woman to speak to a man; he in turn was not pleased, and a gleam in his eyes showed it.

“I am the son of a king.”

She started to laugh, but grew puzzled, for she had the blood of Pocahontas herself.

“You are an Indian?”

He shook his head, scorning to explain, dropped his rifle to the hollow of his arm, and, reaching for his belt where she saw the buckhorn handle of a hunting-knife, came toward her, but she did not flinch. Drawing a letter from the belt, he handed it to her. It was so worn and soiled that she took it daintily and saw on it her father’s name. The boy waved his hand toward the house far up the path.

“He live here?”

“You wish to see him?”

The boy grunted assent, and with a shock of resentment the little lady started up the path with her head very high indeed. The boy slipped noiselessly after her, his face unmoved, but his eyes were darting right and left to the flowers, trees, and bushes, to every flitting, strange bird, the gray streak of a scampering squirrel, and what he could not see, his ears took in—the clanking chains of work-horses, the whir of a quail, the screech of a peacock, the songs of negroes from far-off fields.

On the porch sat a gentleman in powdered wig and knee-breeches, who, lifting his eyes from a copy of The Spectator to give an order to a negro servant, saw the two coming, and the first look of bewilderment on his fine face gave way to a tolerant smile. A stray cat or dog, a crippled chicken, a neighbor’s child, or a pickaninny—all these his little daughter had brought in at one time or another for a home, and now she had a strange ward, indeed. He asked no question, for a purpose very decided and definite was plainly bringing the little lady on, and he would not have to question. Swiftly she ran up the steps, her mouth primly set, and handed him a letter.

“The messenger is the son of a king”

“The messenger is the son of a king.”

“A what?”

“The son of a king,” she repeated gravely.

“Ah,” said the gentleman, humoring her, “ask his highness to be seated.”

His highness was looking from one to the other gravely and keenly. He did not quite understand, but he knew gentle fun was being poked at him, and he dropped sullenly on the edge of the porch and stared in front of him. The little girl saw that his moccasins were much worn and that in one was a hole with the edge blood-stained. And then she began to watch her father’s face, which showed that the contents of the letter were astounding him. He rose quickly when he had finished and put out his hand to the stranger.

“I am glad to see you, my boy,” he said with great kindness. “Barbara, this is a little kinsman of ours from Kentucky. He was the adopted son of an Indian chief, but by blood he is your own cousin. His name is Erskine Dale.”