CHAPTER XX

"Was ever maiden in such humour wooed?Was ever maiden in such humour won?"

Of course the man of good conscience and knowledge in divinity had a right to the reasons which overcame all these objections. They were three.First and always, the desire to convert this unbelieving creature, namely Pokahuntas." "Shall the base feare of displeasing the world overpower or withhold me from revealing unto man the spirituall works of the Lord? Shall I despise to actuate the pious duties of a Christian? God forbid!" (But just here the Governor with his knowledge in divinity might hesitate, inasmuch as marriage with the heathen in order to his conversion is no part of the plan of salvation.)

Second. "The great appearance of her love to me!"

Third. "Her incitements hereunto stirring me up!"

All these things working together, the end is accomplished. She is afiancéewhen Argall takes her up the York to make another appeal to Powhatan, burns a few villages to show he is in earnest, and finally brings about an interview with her brothers (her father refuses to see her), in which her engagement is announced. Powhatan is delighted! Before Argall can reachJamestown with the little bride, her old uncle Opachisco and her two brothers are there before him to witness the marriage ceremony, bearing with them her father's wedding present—a nicely dressed deerskin.

THE MARRIAGE OF POCAHONTAS AT JAMESTOWN.HalberdiersGov. Sir Thos. DaleAlex. WhittakerMrs. John Rolfe and ChildMrs. Ed. Easton and ChildChoristersMattachanna and CleopatrePocahontasJohn RolfeIndian AttendantsCapt. George PercyBrother to PocahontasHenry SpilmanWilliam SpenceThos. SavageMaster SparkesThomas Powell, Wife and ChildMrs. Horton and GrandchildSir Thos. GatesOpachisco, Uncle to PocahontasA Younger Brother to Pocahontas

THE MARRIAGE OF POCAHONTAS AT JAMESTOWN.

Before this time, in April, 1613, Pocahontas had been baptized in the church Lord Delaware had repaired and beautified. Her savage father had given her three names,—Matoaca, Amonate, and Pocahontas. Her spiritual sponsors gave her "Rebekah" at her baptism—no doubt in allusion to the Rebecca of Genesis, and she was thereafter known in England as "the Lady Rebekah."

As Sir Thomas Dale had wisely foreseen, the alliance brought the blessing of peace. The Chickahominies sent an embassy to conclude a treaty by which they were to become subjects of the English king. John Rolfe and his dusky bride lived "civilly and lovingly together" at "Varina," which continued to be her residence until she left Virginia.[77]

We must soon take our leave of the troublesome old gentleman with the sour look. Governor Dale sends Raphe Hamor on a delicate errand—to ask for his young daughter in marriage—a proceeding which gives us pause, remembering that the Governor had a Lady Dale in England. However, we leave him, wherever he is, to settle that little matter with her, and avail ourselves once more of a solitary eyewitness to our narrative in which he figures so mysteriously, as we perforce must do in the much-challenged Pocahontas incident. Of her marriage with Kocoun, however, we had two witnesses,—Machumps and Kemps. Hamor took with him two Indian guides, and Thomas Savage as interpreter; also two pieces of copper, five strings of white and blue beads, five wooden combs, ten fish-hooks, and two knives; and, thus equipped, presentedhimself at Mathcot, one of Powhatan's residences on the Pamunkey.

Powhatan received him coldly, and, turning to Thomas Savage, whom he at once recognized, said, "My child, I gave you leave, being my boy, to go see your friends, and these four years I have not seen you, nor heard from my own man Namontack I sent to England, though many ships since have returned thence." Machumps, it appears, had never had the courage to tell him of the Bermuda incident.

Thomas Savage, we remember, was given to Powhatan by Captain Newport in exchange for Namontack. Pory, writing in 1624, says that he had "with much honestie and success served the publique without any public recompense, yet had an arrow shot through his body in their service." The friendly Accomac chief known as the "Laughing King" became so much attached to him that he gave him land upon which his descendants have continued to the present day. This family enjoys the distinction of being theonly one in Virginia (as far as we know) that can trace in a male line to one of the first settlers of 1607.

Powhatan had received Hamor out of doors, but after a little more talk he conducted him to his house, where his guard of two hundred bowmen was drawn up for whatever might happen.

"The first thing he did," says Hamor, "hee offered me a pipe of tobacco, then asked mee how his brother Sir Thomas Dale did, and his daughter and unknowne sonne, and how they lived and loved and liked. I told him his brother was well and his daughter so contented she would not live againe with him, whereat he laughed and demanded the cause of my cumminge." Hamor was ill at ease in the presence of the two hundred bowmen, and informed the king that he bore a private message from the Governor, upon which the king granted him audience, with only two wives and the interpreter present. Hamor presented the Governor's plea. "I told him his brother Dale, hearing of the fame of his youngest daughter" (this may have beenCleopatre) "desired him to send her by me unto him, in testimony of his love, as well for that he intended to marry her, as the desire of her sister to see her,"[78]and ended with the usual assurances of friendship.

Powhatan, after collecting himself a moment, answered gravely: "I gladly accept the salute of love and peace which, while I live, I shall exactly keep. His pledges thereof I receive with no less thanks although they are not so ample as formerly I have received; but for my daughter, I have sold her within this few days to a great Werowance for two bushels of Rawrenoke, and she is gone three days' journey from me."

Hamor seems to have thought this a small obstacle to his Governor's wishes. He represented that Powhatan could easily recall his daughter, and repay the rawrenoke to gratify his brother; especially as the bride was only twelve years old; and that three times the value of the rawrenoke would be sent him in beads, copper, hatchets, etc.

"His answer was that he loved his daughter as his life, and though hee had many children hee delighted in none so much as shee, whom if he could not behold he could not possibly live, which living with us hee could not do, having resolved on no termes to put himselfe in our hands or come amongst us, continuing: 'returne my brother this answer: that I desire no more assurance of his friendship than the promise he hath made. From me he hath one of my daughters which so long as she lives shall be sufficient. When she dies he shall have another: I hold it not brotherly to desire to bereave me of my two children at once. Farther tell him though he hath no pledge at all he need not distrust any injurie from me or my people. There have been too many of his men and mine slain, and by my occasion there shall never be more (I, which have power to perform it, have said it), although I should have just cause, for I am now old, and would gladly end my days in peace; if you offer me injury my country is largeenough to go from you. This much I hope will satisfy my brother. Now because you are weary and I sleepy we will thus end.'" And so the alliance, which would have been a brilliant one for the Princess Cleopatre, was declined with thanks.

It is the privilege of royalty to begin and end a conversation, so Hamor retired, and "the next morning he came to visit us, and kindly conducted us to the best cheer he had."

After this we hear occasionally of the emperor, now, according to Strachey, eighty years old. He was once found in possession of a handsome blank-book, in which he requested an English visitor to write a list of the articles to be sent to him as presents. His guest coveted the useful book, but Powhatan refused to part with it, "It gives me pleasure," he said, "to show it to strangers!"

His crown (sent him by King James) was kept in his treasure-house. Every autumn his people assembled to husk, shell, and store his corn,bringing him eight parts out of ten of all grain, game, skins, or pearls they had acquired; and when the grain was stored it was his custom to put on his crown, and present beads to those who best pleased him.

Powhatan Rock, under which the Indian Chief is said to be buried.Copyright, 1906, by Jamestown Official Photo. Corp'n.

The old emperor lived to hear of the birth of Pocahontas's son. When he died, a great meeting of all his people took place in the dense woods around Orapakes, and then and there, it is said, Opechancanough, his successor, revealed his plan to massacre the English; and bound each man to secrecy and fidelity. Accordingly, on a day appointed (Pocahontas being now dead), the savages rose in the morning at eight and wreaked their vengeance and fury on the English. In some instances the Indians were breakfasting with the colonists when the hour arrived! Nearly four hundred men, women, and children perished,—among them John Rolfe and the good minister Thorpe, who had built a house for Opechancanough, and established schools for the Indian children, and many other good friends of the savages.Jamestown alone escaped of all the settlements, having been warned, as we have seen, by the Christian boy, Chanco. The horrible brutality of this massacre it is impossible to describe. Nothing approaching it had ever been known even among the vindictive, cruel savages. But their punishment was sharp. The entire policy regarding them was changed, and the colonists ceased not for years to repulse and destroy them.

Twice again Opechancanough led in attempts to kill all the English. Finally he was captured and taken to Jamestown, and there shot in the back by some unknown hand. As the body of a captive was never restored to the enemy, he was probably buried there.

Pocahontas seems to have led a quiet life on her husband's tobacco plantation near the city of Henricus, until she visited England in 1616. Captain Smith, learning of her presence there, wrote a noble letter to Queen Anne, beseeching her kindness and relating in detail the story we have given of her goodness to him and to the starving colony.

She was well received at court. The high dignitaries of the church entertained her, and she conducted herself with the grave dignity and propriety demanded by the long, stiff stays which imprisoned her lithe body. The court was not conspicuous for the gravity or dignity of its own manners: but it found no fault with those of the American princess.

Pocahontas at Court.

The shy little Indian woman could hardly have understood the interest she awakened inthe bosoms of those grave and reverend seniors. Archbishops, bishops, and lesser clergy were all alike to her, differing only in the cut and richness of their robes. But to them she represented an answer to fervent prayer, the reward for lavish expenditure of health, hope, life, and fortune. As she stood before them, dignified in her enforced reticence, she seemed to them a miracle, the manifest incarnation of the Holy Spirit—nothing less.

Writers love to dwell upon the wonderful serenity of her manner, "softened by the influence of the court." The court manners were anything but soft, gentle, and serene. No coarser age, socially, finds record in English history. Pocahontas owed much to her limited knowledge of the language of the court. The coarse jest, the offensivedouble entendre, fell upon unhearing ears. Her Indian training forbade the least betrayal of emotion or surprise, and her incomprehensible Indian tongue spared her the merriment of the volatile court ladies, which mighthave been provoked by heringénueremarks. Mighty is silence,—placing those who adopt it upon a plane the chatterer never attains.

And so it came to pass that poor little Pocahontas, stiff and uncomfortable in her long stays and quilted robes, behaved in a manner which demanded no indulgence and challenged no criticism. Lord and Lady Delaware were her sponsors and instructors in court etiquette. When her lips touched the hand of the Queen, no one could find fault with her demeanour. The clergy declared that less dignity was not to have been expected, since the hand of Divine Providence was manifest in her conversion. Theblasécourtiers, with small appreciation of spiritual charms, protested they had "seen many English ladies worse favoured, worse proportioned, worse behavioured,"—which indeed we can easily believe.

Tradition preserves the astonishing fact that King James was greatly offended with John Rolfe for marrying a princess without his consent;not that he proposed to claim an alliance for "Baby Charles" or "Steenie," the new favourite and candidate for the peerage, or for any noble of his realm; but just from pure gossipy meddling, pure fussiness, pure folly; than which nothing was too foolish for "the wisest fool in Christendom."

Our Indian lady was introduced to Samuel Purchas, and he was present at the entertainment given in her honour by Dr. King, the Bishop of London; exceeding in splendour anything the author had ever witnessed. Probably Sir Walter Raleigh attended this fête. He had just been released, after thirteen years' confinement in the Tower, having walked out of the iron doors just as the degraded Earl of Somerset, Robert Carr, and his guilty wife walked in. It is certain he could not fail to meet Pocahontas. He was nothing to her, but her presence meant much to him. He had sowed, and others had reaped. Moreover, he must have scanned the peculiarly feminine lineaments of her face with wonder andkeen interest. Through her he was brought face to face with the destroyer of his two colonies, so loved and so betrayed, upon which he had exhausted his treasury.

Her son was born while she was in England, or shortly before her coming thither, and the London Company made provision for him and for her. The smoke of London so distressed her that she removed to Brentford. The tiny smoky hut of her childhood she could bear—but not the London fog. At Brentford John Smith visited her. In mortal fear of offending the king by familiarity with a princess, he addressed her ceremoniously as the "Lady Rebekah," and this[79]wounded her so deeply that she covered her face with her hands and turned away, refusing to speak for two or three hours! It appears that he awaited her pleasure, and presently she reproached him for his distant manner, thinking perhaps that he was ashamed to own her before his own people. She reminded him that he had always calledPowhatan "father," and so she now meant to call him, and be his child, and forever and ever his countrywoman; adding, "they did tell me you were dead, and I knew no other till I came to Plymouth; yet[80]Powhatan did command Uttamatomakkin to seeke you and know the truth because your Countriemen will lie much."[81]

The Indian with the long name was Matachanna's husband, also known on these pages as "Tocomoco." Powhatan had sent him to number the English, which he proceeded to do by notches on a stick, but soon grew weary of such a hopeless task. He took great offence because King James paid him no attention, and never ceased abusing the English after his return, thus helping along the massacre of five years later.

Pocahontas was on her way home, "sorely against her will," when she was smitten withillness on board ship and taken ashore at Gravesend. There she died, March 1, 1617, sustained by the faith and hope of the true Christian. She was interred in the chancel of St. George's Church; the exact spot of burial is, however, not known.

Before she left England her portrait was painted by an unknown artist, and presented to Mr. Peter Elwin, a relative of the Rolfe family, by Madame Zucchelli. As Zucchero was a painter of the time, the name Zucchelli might have been mistaken for his. Zucchero painted a beautiful portrait of Queen Elizabeth with a marvellous jewelled stomacher, but without the monstrous fanlike wings of gauze at the throat with which we are familiar.

Royal Palace, Whitehall.

John Rolfe left his son in England to be educated, and he found his "match" once more, and married the daughter of a rich man at Jamestown. Pocahontas's son married also, and was the progenitor of some of Virginia's most distinguished citizens and statesmen. He visitedhis uncle Opechancanough and his aunt "Cleopatre" after he returned to Virginia. He was not ashamed of his Indian relatives! Nor are his descendants. The names of Pocahontas, Powhatan, and Matoaca are still borne by them.

It has been said that Pocahontas died of smallpox. We know nothing from printed record or parish register except that she was buried in the chancel of the church at Gravesend in the County of Kent; that the church was destroyed by fire in 1727, and a new church, St. George's, erected upon the site of the old one; and that the Rev. John H. Haslam, later rector, placed a commemorative tablet in the chancel recording all that careful investigation has yielded of the spot where her ashes lie. One could wish that she might have found her last resting-place under the skies of her native country; that from her "unpolluted flesh violets"—the lovely wild violets of Virginia—might "spring" with every return of summer.

The infant son of Pocahontas, Thomas Rolfe,was placed under the care of Sir Lewis Stukely, Vice Admiral of Devon; and here again the story of the Indian girl touches that of Sir Walter Raleigh.[82]It was this Stukely who afterwards basely betrayed his friend, Sir Walter, and by this treachery covered himself with infamy. The son of Pocahontas did not long breathe the atmosphere polluted by this traitor. He was removed to London and educated by his uncle, Henry Rolfe.

Thomas Rolfe's immediate descendants married into the families of Bolling, Randolph, Gay, Eldridge, and Murray. No trace of the Indian in feature or character survives in those highly esteemed Virginia families. The haughty, vindictive spirit of the cruel Powhatan may have burnt itself out in the veins of John Randolph of Roanoke, who left no descendants.

Pocahontas will always be interesting to the student of colonial history. The story of her life was a strange one, and stranger the storyto its end. Her father and her kindred were consigned to the tomb with the rites and lamentations of the savage, and with wild heathenish invocations to the Devil of their imaginations. She, alone of all her tribe, simply as a consequence of one noble act, received Christian burial, in hallowed Christian soil, and is embalmed forever in grateful Christian hearts.

The time is at hand when the curtain must be rung down upon the scenes I have tried to present. I was constrained to follow the fortunes of John Smith and Pocahontas, for do what we will we cannot eliminate them from an all-important place in the early history of Virginia. Others were just as deserving, but the historians of their day failed to leave us material regarding them. Like my great favourite, the modest, brave George Percy, who lived long at Jamestown, they quietly slipped back into the shadows from which they only emerged to suffer and toil awhile for the common good.

I find it hard to leave my story. A glorious chapter in the history of Jamestown awaits a stronger pen than mine. At Jamestown, "in 1619, a year before theMayflowerskirted the coast of Massachusetts, the Virginians inaugurated representativegovernment on the American continent—'an example never lost but ever cherished as the dearest birthright of freemen.' There, on June 21, 1621, the Virginians extorted the concession that 'no orders of court shall bind the said Colony unless they be ratified by the General Assemblies.' In 1624 they there asserted the right of self-taxation and control of the public purse, protesting that 'the Governor shall not lay any imposition upon the Colony, their land or commodities otherwise than by the authority of the General Assembly, and employed as the said Assembly shall appoint.' Though loyal to the King, in 1635, at Jamestown, Governor Harvey was 'thrust out,' for encroaching upon the rights of the people. Nay, after the downfall of monarchy they confronted Cromwell himself (who sent his threatening ships to Jamestown) and only yielded to his usurpation upon an honourable capitulation, acknowledging their submission as 'a voluntary act not forced or constrained by conquest,' and guaranteeing them'such freedom and privileges as belong to the free-born people of England.' After the Restoration they broke out in open rebellion against the oppressions of government and anticipated by a century the final and victorious struggle for the liberties of America. On the untimely death of their leader—the well-born, the gallant, the accomplished, the eloquent Bacon—their revolt was quenched in blood; but even so, without any surrender of their chartered rights."[83]

These events are the glory and honour of our country, but my plan was to tell only of the birth of the nation, not its restless youth or strong manhood. My task was an humbler one: to honour the men who failed,—but not in courage or fortitude; who put their hands to the plough and never looked back; who devoted their lives, with no hope of reward, to carrying on the work assigned them; who fought the battle and fell on the field, regardless of the discouragement,disloyalty, and detraction meted out to them. They sowed; but others reaped the rich harvest. They laid the foundation; others built the fair structure. God be thanked, they suffered not in vain! When the kings of the earth send their navies into Virginia waters, when multitudes throng the gates, when cannon speaks to cannon, when orators bring their choicest words to grace the hour, a voice more eloquent than all these will rise from the sands of the desolate little island of Jamestown,—"We who lie here in unmarked graves died foryou!"

Ninety-nine years after Jamestown was settled the seat of government was removed to Williamsburg. There was then no further excuse for the existence of a town on the little peninsula. Mrs. Ann Cotton, writing soon after Bacon's Rebellion, gives sufficient reasons for this. "It is low ground, full of marshes and swamps, which make the aire especially in the sumer insalubritious and unhealthy. It is not at all replenished withsprings of fresh water, and that which they have in their wells brackish, ill-scented, penurious and not grateful to the stomach ... and (in the town) about a dozen families are getting their living by keeping of ordinaries at extraordinary prices."[84]

So it appears that "the town, even though measured by what would appear to be a standard of its time, was small, poor, and insignificant. This fact invests the place with the deepest interest, when it is remembered that from such a small beginning in the wilderness has sprung what bids fair to become, if not so already, the greatest nation of the earth."[85]

The town, deserted by all its best citizens, rapidly fell into decay and ruin. The brick houses tumbled down, the church left nothing but its sturdy old tower to stand sentinel over the graves of those who had built it and worshipped within it.

Jamestown Church Tower, Rear View, showing Old Foundations.Copyright, 1906, by Jamestown Official Photo. Corp'n.

The peninsula, to-day an island, was divided into farms, and "martial ranks of corn" stood in the plain on which John Smith exercised his men in military evolutions. Around the church the young trees had it all their own way, clasping the gravestones and bearing them aloft in their strong young arms. There was nobody to hinder or protest.

In 1856 the peninsula had become an island, and access to it was by a rowboat. A large portion of the island was already engulfed by the waves. The bank was giving away within one hundred and fifty feet of the old tower of the church. Travellers in the excursion boats to Old Point Comfort began to observe the singular behaviour of a large cypress tree in the river opposite the tower. The cypress seemed to be slowly moving onward. An old traveller remembered that the tree in 1846 stood on land; it was now two hundred and ninety feet in the water from the shore! Evidently the shore itself was receding. Through the munificent gift of Mr. andMrs. Edward Barney, in 1895, twenty-two acres of the island, including its historic area, came into the possession of the Association for the Preservation of Virginian Antiquities—a band of daughters of Virginia organized to rescue from decay and oblivion the sites of her early history, carving anew, like the Antiquary at the graves of the slaughtered Presbyterians, the story of those who "broke the way with tears."

Our guests on our anniversary day will not find the picturesque old church tower standing alone, looking toward the sea to which the anxious eyes of the sleepers beneath had been cast in the early days of starvation. Weakened by the storms of nearly three centuries, the old tower demanded support. The church has been rebuilt upon the old plan and the old foundations. A splendid sea-wall has been given by the government to the women of the Virginia Association—to do what their feeble hands tried but could not do. All is changed—except the old cypress far out in the water, which keeps its own secret, andrefuses to yield to time, or wave, or change. Who knows? Perhaps his clasping roots may hold that other child of the forest, the old brave chieftain Opechancanough.

Part of the humble little town has been exhumed. The walls and foundations of the third and fourth churches, and of some few houses have been laid bare. Very few relics have been discovered; the bones of a gigantic man, the cenotaph of a knight, skeletons which crumbled at the touch of the air, shot from some alien gun, a bit here and there of broken crockery. But beneath the mould of two centuries was found evidence of another and lasting foundation, the fundamental basis of all happiness, all moral good, and all national prosperity—that of the simple, wholesome domestic life of the fireside. A pipe, scissors, thimble, and candlestick lay together in one of the uncovered chambers.

The "Old Stone House" on Ware Creek, according to the Virginia historians, was the resort, at three different times, of the disembodied spirits of famous historical characters. "This unfinished stone edifice, evidently designed for a fortification, stands on a hill facing the water, and is difficult of access by reason of the impenetrable thickets and ravines overgrown with mountain laurel by which it is surrounded. Only by following a narrow path on the top of a wooded ridge can it be approached."[86]In consequence of its evil name nobody two hundred years ago ever visited it; and if a belated huntsman stumbled upon it by accident, he made haste to retrace his steps, frightened by the dark corners suggestive of hiding-places, and awed by the warningwhispers of the wind as it sighed through the pines.

The country around it is desolate. The ravines are filled with poisonous vines and tenanted by the deadly rattlesnake. The house itself is a roofless ruin, embroidered by ivy and caressed by the Virginia creeper, the long boughs of which, like long arms, wave in the air to warn away all intruders.

The building is small, of solid masonry, the walls two feet thick, pierced with loopholes for musketry. There is one door from which stone steps descend to an underground chamber. This is probably the first stone house ever built by the English colonists, and is generally conceded by historians and antiquarians to be the edifice of which in 1609 Anas Todkill and others wrote to the London Company, "We built a fort for a retreat neere a convenient river, upon a high commanding hill very hard to be assaulted and easie to be defended; but the want of corne occasioned the end of all our worke, it being worke enough to provide victuall."

In this provision of "victuall," the starving colonists, as we have seen, were aided by Pocahontas, who brought, it is supposed, her "wild train" laden with baskets of food as far as this house, and there dismissing them, waited for Captain John Smith. The spot was favourable as a hiding-place from the fury of her father, the old king whose house was not far away, with its substantial chimney built by the treacherous Dutchmen. Here Pocahontas may have rested when she came "through the irksome woods with shining eyes" to warn her hero of danger and treachery from her own people.

These are the bits of folk-lore gleaned by that patient and accurate historian, Charles Campbell. Sixty years ago he visited the Stone House, and verified the existence then in the minds of the common people of three distinct legends belonging to the locality. No one doubts the romantic attachment of the Indian princess to Captain Smith. It sprang into existence perhaps at the heroic moment when she shielded hisdoomed head with her own bosom, and became the dominant influence of her short and eventful life.

Who can doubt that he early learned enough of her tongue to tell her of his mighty deeds, of the court of the great Sigismund, of his triumphal procession thither preceded by the heads, borne on lances, of the three slaughtered Turks; drawing, the while, pictures in the sand similar to the marvellous creations with which he illustrated the maps with which we are familiar? It is pathetic to know that the time was to him only an episode in a life of adventure. Even the saving of his own life, so often miraculously preserved, was a matter of little importance, remembered only in a generous moment, to secure for her an interest with his Queen. To Pocahontas he was more than a hero—he was little less than the Great Father himself. To him she was an attractive, beautiful child, and yet of a nation despised—"all savage," as he termed them.

One does not like to mar the romance by accepting the story of her marriage to one of Powhatan'scaptains. So dear is the romance of the Indian girl's devotion to John Smith, that we are tempted to be unjust to John Rolfe and to explain her marriage at Jamestown as the consequence of her longing to belong to the people of her hero,—to be "forever and ever his countrywoman,"—and to find in the Puritanic John Rolfe, with his tiresome throes of conscience and long-drawn apologies for loving her, a counterpart of her gallant captain. When she met John Smith in London, very pitiful must she have appeared to him, as her portrait does to us, in her stiff brocade, high, starched ruff, and English hat; she, the swaying, graceful windflower of the forest!

She must have appeared to him strangely unlike her charming self. Her dark locks, shaven closely on her temples, as was the custom of her people while she was a maid, had been suffered to grow since she had become a matron, and hung rebelliously about her pearl ear-rings; her lithe wrists, primly sustaining her fan of three feathers,were fettered by broad English cuffs. Those feathers were the only familiar connecting links between her past and her present! All else was strange.

We read that she neither smiled nor spoke for two hours when she was visited by Captain Smith. Presently she said, "They did tell me you were dead, and I knew no other until I came to Plymouth," and then in response to his deferential devoirs to "the Lady Rebekah," indignantly declares that she will have none of such talk! She means always to call him "Father," and be to him a "child," as she had been in Virginia.

And so the legend begins; and when she finds "her grave," as the quaint old writer says, "at Gravesend," she could not rest "in ye chauncell of ye church," but John Rolfe having married another wife, and Captain Smith having died, she was free to return to her old haunts, to meet her hero without let or reproof, and explain all that had been so wrong and so unfortunate. Thebelated fishermen, returning to their homes on the Ware, grew accustomed to seeing a thin thread of smoke issuing from the Old Stone House, and flitting past the loopholes might sometimes be discerned the dusky form of Pocahontas, with the white plume, the badge of royalty, in her dark hair. Here she awaited as of yore the coming of Captain Smith, and here he came and held converse with her. At last the troubled soul is comforted—the "deare and darling daughter" of Powhatan fades away from the legends of the old Virginians and is seen no more. Let us hope she is happy in a state where there are no separations and no mysteries, and that if she ever revisits the pale glimpses of the moon her errand may be one of beneficence to her many descendants.

The grim old fortress was untenanted, except by this Indian maiden, for nearly a hundred years, and then "the dreadful pyrate Blackbeard" secretes his ill-gotten treasures in the subterranean vault. To and fro he moves with muffled oars, mans the port-holes with his guns, and restssecure from assault. With his rifles he can pick out every man who dares to thread the defile. Presently his outgoing is watched, and one fine day he is assailed, and conquered on board his own sloop. He was a bold buccaneer, and had given orders that at a signal his magazine should be fired and friend and foe perish together. But his followers preferred surrender to death, and were all brought captive to Jamestown. Very brutal was the triumph of his captors. He had given trouble and resisted long, and now they would make sure of him. They returned with his gory head hanging from the prow of their vessel, and out of the skull that had housed his busy brain they fashioned a drinking-cup and rimmed it with silver, after the manner of their fathers in the old days of England. He became the Captain Kidd of Virginia waters. His phantom ship could be seen on moonlight nights on the York River, and his headless body would disembark therefrom and hover over his buried treasure. The treasure was never found; perhapsit is there still under some stone of the old fortress.

After this we hear nothing for many years of the Old Stone House. It crumbled away very little, being so strong; but nobody is tempted to approach it or use it in any way. The luxuriant vines bear great trumpet-shaped flowers, and clothe the walls with a brilliant beauty, seen only by the bats, hanging by crooked black fingers from every projection, and ready to fly in the face of the intruder, or the noxious serpents which wind in and out and increase and multiply with no check from man, their enemy.

Finally, about the year 1776, tenants appear again in the little fortress, ghostly forms throng the wide door, strange sounds of exultation are borne by the winds, and fitful unreal lights flit about or hover over the spot. From a distance these are observed, but there is no investigation, indeed the times are too stirring to admit of investigation. The Governor of Virginia has fled from the irate Commonwealth, and digests hischagrin on board his own sloop, riding at a safe distance near Yorktown. Men are in arms, burning words leap from lip to lip,—a great crisis is at hand, a great cloud is rising, soon to darken the land and break in the thunder and lightning of a mighty tempest.

What wonder, then, that it should be believed that the bugles of the fast-coming Revolution have reached Nathaniel Bacon in his long sleep in the York River, where "thoughtful Mr. Lawrence" had sunk his gallant young body lest it meet with ignominy at the hands of Lord Berkeley; that Drummond and Carver, and Bland and Hansford, and all the grand spirits who, with their leader, had lived a hundred years too soon, should meet him now, to exult and triumph!

What matter, now, that they had bled and suffered, and laid down their bright young lives, so full of promise, for a "lost cause"! Thecausehad lived, and soon the young republic would break its shackles and stand forth with itsfoot upon the tyrant's neck. The mills of the gods had not been idle, and here in the mysterious Old Stone House, the fortress in which no living man had ever dwelt, they met to plan, to rejoice, to triumph, night after night, until the foes of the country they loved so well should be driven from her shores in disgrace and defeat.

These are the legends—if they are not too recent to be classed as legends—with which, a century ago, Virginians dignified the Old Stone House. The early settlers were firm believers in supernatural influences and warnings. A blazing star had appeared before a storm when the three ships set forth to find this country, another in the year of the massacre of 1622, and yet another on the eve of Bacon's Rebellion. Tongue-like flames flitted to and fro over the early graveyards, and ghostly lights hovered over the undrained marshes. The "boat of birchen bark" lighted by a firefly lamp of the lost lovers in the Dismal Swamp was seen as late as the nineteenth century. Huntsmen in the cold, freezing nightswould sometimes find themselves suddenly enveloped in a warm cloud,—this was because a ghost had met them and passed over them in the dark. Sterner than all these was the belief that witches—malignant spirits—were suffered to enter human bodies and bend men and women to their evil purposes.

Ghost stories have long been out of fashion. They have no longer a place in literature or even beside the winter fireside. The American of to-day may be a dreamer of dreams and seer of visions, but they are of the future, not the past. His phantoms are all ahead of him. Perhaps I should apologise for admitting them into a serious work. And yet I think that everything connected with the story of the birth of our nation deserves preservation. I believe, with Carlyle, that "the leafy, blossoming Present Time springs from thewholePast, remembered and unrememberable."

As Time goes on and touches with effacing finger one and another of the events that have marked, like milestones, the onward march of thegreat Anglo-Saxon race, we may be sure that the birth of this Western nation will ever be "remembered." "We shall not," said Daniel Webster, "stand unmoved on the shore of Plymouth while the sea continues to wash it, nor will our brethren in another early and ancient colony forget the place of its first establishment till their river ceases to flow by it. No vigour of youth, no maturity of manhood, will lead the nation to forget the spots where its infancy was cradled and defended."

FOOTNOTES[1]Hume's "James I," p. 83[2]Hakluyt, III, 174-176.[3]Stith's "History," p. 25.[4]Coke, 2 Inst. 729 and 734.[5]Harleian MS., quoted by Miss Aiken in her "Memoirs of the Court of James I."[6]"The Accomplished Cook," by Robert May; London 1685.[7]Letter of Philip Mainwaring to the Earl of Arundel, Lodge's "Illustrations," Vol. III, p. 403.[8]Cooke's "Virginia," p. 8et seq.[9]Ibid., p. 8et seq.[10]Bancroft's "History of the United States," Vol. I, p. 122.[11]Purchas's "His Pilgrimes," Vol. VIII, p. 469. The quotations from Purchas in this volume are from the Macmillan edition.[12]Quoted by Campbell, p. 39, from Stith.[13]"Site of Old Jamestown," by Samuel Yonge, p. 11.[14]Stith's "History," p. 46.[15]Purchas's "His Pilgrimes," Vol. XVIII.[16]Passiflora incarnataof Linnæus.[17]Anchusa Virginianaof Linnæus.[18]Percy's "Narrative," quoted by Campbell, "History," p. 40.[19]Percy's "Discourse," Smith's "Works," p. lxviii.[20]Campbell's "History of Virginia," p. 41.[21]Brown's "First Republic," p. 29.[22]His true name was Parahunt. This was the birthplace of King Powhatan.[23]Smith's "Works," p. 93. References to the "Works of John Smith" in this volume are from Professor Edward Arben's edition.[24]Brown's "The First Republic," p. 43et seq.[25]Possibly "Pamunkey" was meant.[26]Smith's "Works," p. 957.[27]John Smith, quoted in Campbell's "History," p. 382.[28]Cooke's "Virginia," p. 20.[29]Living in the region now known as Prince George and Surry. Their chief was Pepisco—otherwise Pepiscumah.[30]"Newes from Virginia," quoted in E. Arber's "Works of John Smith," p. 14.[31]Strachey.[32]"Newes from Virginia," by John Smith.[33]Other historians place his age at eighty years.[34]"Newes from Virginia."[35]A district near the mouth of James River, on which now stands the town of Hampton.[36]Smith's "Works," p. 400.[37]Brown's "First Republic in America," p. 82.[38]Campbell's "History of Virginia," p. 49.[39]The matches were long coils of cord, chemically treated to burn slowly, and kept lighted at both ends. The coils were hung over the shoulder or hooked to the bandolier.[40]Prince or chief.[41]Purchas, Vol. XVIII, p. 477.[42]Smith's "Works," p. 39.[43]John Smith, in his letters to Queen Anne, gave her age as "twelve or thirteen yeares."[44]Cooke's "Virginia," p. 44.[45]Smith's "Works," p. 436.[46]Smith's "Works," p. 123.[47]Smith's "Works," pp. 124-125.[48]Purchas's "His Pilgrimes," Vol. XVIII, p. 449et seq.[49]"The First Republic," p. 131.[50]The present county of Isle of Wight.[51]The colonists wished to send silk grass for a robe to Queen Anne. Queen Elizabeth had worn such a robe—made of Virginia grass.[52]Purchas, p. 507et seq.[53]Smith's "Works," p. 455.[54]"The First Republic," p. 73et seq.[55]Campbell's "History of Virginia," p. 76et seq.[56]"The First Republic," p. 76.[57]Campbell's "History of Virginia," p. 77. "The First Republic" gives a later date.[58]Cooke's "Virginia," p. 63.[59]Smith's "Works," p. 480.[60]Smith's "Works," p. 486.[61]Smith's "Works," p. 168.[62]Grahame's "History of North America," Vol. I, p. 70.[63]"The First Republic."[64]Smith's "Works," p. 487.[65]Delaware's Report, in "Virginia Britannia," p. xxvi; Cook's "Virginia," p. 79.[66]Smith's "Works," p. 635.[67]"The First Republic," p. 128et seq.[68]Virginia Britannia, p. xiii.[69]"The First Republic," pp. 285, 329, 612.[70]Campbell's "History of Virginia," p. 103.[71]"Virginia Britannia," p. 53et seq.[72]Ibid., p. 54.[73]Ibid., p. 109.[74]Spelman's "Relation"—Smith.[75]"Virginia Britannia," p. 57.[76]Campbell's "History of Virginia," p. 107.[77]Cooke's "Virginia," pp. 97-98.[78]Smith's "Works," p. 517et seq.[79]Smith, pp. 533-534.[80]One of her descendants, Mr. Robert Bolling of Chelowe, thus annotated those words in his "Smith": "To find Smith and inquire of him whether he was dead! A very comical commission, Grand-mama!"[81]Smith's "Works," p. 533.[82]Campbell's "History of Virginia," p. 122.[83]Address of Hon. Roger A. Pryor before the Virginia Bar Association, 1895.[84]"The Cradle of the Republic," p. 51.[85]"The Site of old 'James Towne,'" by Samuel H. Yonge, p. 8.[86]Howe's "History of Virginia," p. 390.

[1]Hume's "James I," p. 83

[2]Hakluyt, III, 174-176.

[3]Stith's "History," p. 25.

[4]Coke, 2 Inst. 729 and 734.

[5]Harleian MS., quoted by Miss Aiken in her "Memoirs of the Court of James I."

[6]"The Accomplished Cook," by Robert May; London 1685.

[7]Letter of Philip Mainwaring to the Earl of Arundel, Lodge's "Illustrations," Vol. III, p. 403.

[8]Cooke's "Virginia," p. 8et seq.

[9]Ibid., p. 8et seq.

[10]Bancroft's "History of the United States," Vol. I, p. 122.

[11]Purchas's "His Pilgrimes," Vol. VIII, p. 469. The quotations from Purchas in this volume are from the Macmillan edition.

[12]Quoted by Campbell, p. 39, from Stith.

[13]"Site of Old Jamestown," by Samuel Yonge, p. 11.

[14]Stith's "History," p. 46.

[15]Purchas's "His Pilgrimes," Vol. XVIII.

[16]Passiflora incarnataof Linnæus.

[17]Anchusa Virginianaof Linnæus.

[18]Percy's "Narrative," quoted by Campbell, "History," p. 40.

[19]Percy's "Discourse," Smith's "Works," p. lxviii.

[20]Campbell's "History of Virginia," p. 41.

[21]Brown's "First Republic," p. 29.

[22]His true name was Parahunt. This was the birthplace of King Powhatan.

[23]Smith's "Works," p. 93. References to the "Works of John Smith" in this volume are from Professor Edward Arben's edition.

[24]Brown's "The First Republic," p. 43et seq.

[25]Possibly "Pamunkey" was meant.

[26]Smith's "Works," p. 957.

[27]John Smith, quoted in Campbell's "History," p. 382.

[28]Cooke's "Virginia," p. 20.

[29]Living in the region now known as Prince George and Surry. Their chief was Pepisco—otherwise Pepiscumah.

[30]"Newes from Virginia," quoted in E. Arber's "Works of John Smith," p. 14.

[31]Strachey.

[32]"Newes from Virginia," by John Smith.

[33]Other historians place his age at eighty years.

[34]"Newes from Virginia."

[35]A district near the mouth of James River, on which now stands the town of Hampton.

[36]Smith's "Works," p. 400.

[37]Brown's "First Republic in America," p. 82.

[38]Campbell's "History of Virginia," p. 49.

[39]The matches were long coils of cord, chemically treated to burn slowly, and kept lighted at both ends. The coils were hung over the shoulder or hooked to the bandolier.

[40]Prince or chief.

[41]Purchas, Vol. XVIII, p. 477.

[42]Smith's "Works," p. 39.

[43]John Smith, in his letters to Queen Anne, gave her age as "twelve or thirteen yeares."

[44]Cooke's "Virginia," p. 44.

[45]Smith's "Works," p. 436.

[46]Smith's "Works," p. 123.

[47]Smith's "Works," pp. 124-125.

[48]Purchas's "His Pilgrimes," Vol. XVIII, p. 449et seq.

[49]"The First Republic," p. 131.

[50]The present county of Isle of Wight.

[51]The colonists wished to send silk grass for a robe to Queen Anne. Queen Elizabeth had worn such a robe—made of Virginia grass.

[52]Purchas, p. 507et seq.

[53]Smith's "Works," p. 455.

[54]"The First Republic," p. 73et seq.

[55]Campbell's "History of Virginia," p. 76et seq.

[56]"The First Republic," p. 76.

[57]Campbell's "History of Virginia," p. 77. "The First Republic" gives a later date.

[58]Cooke's "Virginia," p. 63.

[59]Smith's "Works," p. 480.

[60]Smith's "Works," p. 486.

[61]Smith's "Works," p. 168.

[62]Grahame's "History of North America," Vol. I, p. 70.

[63]"The First Republic."

[64]Smith's "Works," p. 487.

[65]Delaware's Report, in "Virginia Britannia," p. xxvi; Cook's "Virginia," p. 79.

[66]Smith's "Works," p. 635.

[67]"The First Republic," p. 128et seq.

[68]Virginia Britannia, p. xiii.

[69]"The First Republic," pp. 285, 329, 612.

[70]Campbell's "History of Virginia," p. 103.

[71]"Virginia Britannia," p. 53et seq.

[72]Ibid., p. 54.

[73]Ibid., p. 109.

[74]Spelman's "Relation"—Smith.

[75]"Virginia Britannia," p. 57.

[76]Campbell's "History of Virginia," p. 107.

[77]Cooke's "Virginia," pp. 97-98.

[78]Smith's "Works," p. 517et seq.

[79]Smith, pp. 533-534.

[80]One of her descendants, Mr. Robert Bolling of Chelowe, thus annotated those words in his "Smith": "To find Smith and inquire of him whether he was dead! A very comical commission, Grand-mama!"

[81]Smith's "Works," p. 533.

[82]Campbell's "History of Virginia," p. 122.

[83]Address of Hon. Roger A. Pryor before the Virginia Bar Association, 1895.

[84]"The Cradle of the Republic," p. 51.

[85]"The Site of old 'James Towne,'" by Samuel H. Yonge, p. 8.

[86]Howe's "History of Virginia," p. 390.

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