However, before the night fairly fell, twenty of the prisoners, upon
giving assurance of penitence, were discharged, and but two, the
ringleaders, were committed and were in the prison. The twenty-two,
being somewhat craven-hearted, and some of them indisposed by
wounds, were on their ways homeward when we were afield.
We waited for the moon to be up, which was an hour later that night.
I was all equipped in good season, and was stealing forth secretly,
lest any see me, for I wished not to alarm the household, nor if
possible to have any one aware of what I was about to do, that they
might be acquit of blame through ignorance, when I was met in the
threshold of an unused door by Mary Cavendish. And here will I say,
while marvelling at it greatly, that the excitement of a great
cause, which calls for all the enthusiasm and bravery of a man,
doth, while it not for one moment alters the truth and constancy of
his love, yet allay for the time his selfish thirst for it. While I
was ready as ever to die for Mary Cavendish, and while the thought
of her was as ever in my inmost soul, yet that effervescence of
warlike spirit within me had rendered me not forgetful, but somewhat
unwatchful of a word and a look of hers. And for the time being that
sad question of our estates, which forbade more than our loves, had
seemed to pale in importance before this matter of maybe the rising
or falling of a new empire. Heart and soul was I in this cause, and
gave myself the rein as I had longed to do for the cause of
Nathaniel Bacon.
But Mary met me at the northern door, which opened directly on a
locust thicket and was little used, and stood before me with her
beautiful face as white as a lily but a brave light in her eyes.
"Where go you, Harry?" she whispered.
Then I, not knowing her fully, and fearing lest I disquiet her,
answered evasively somewhat about hunting and Sir Humphrey. Some
reply of that tenor was necessary, as I was, beside my knife for the
tobacco cutting, armed to the teeth and booted to my middle. But
there was no deceiving Mary Cavendish. She seized both my hands, and
I trow for the minute, in that brave maiden soul of hers, the
selfishness of our love passed as well as with me.
"I pray thee, Harry, cut down the tobacco on Laurel Creek first,"
she whispered, "as I would, were I a man. Oh! I would I were a man!
Harry, promise me that thou wilt cut down first the tobacco on my
plantation of Laurel Creek."