Then they went apart to discuss their sorrow alone, and, as the shades of evening gathered over the scene, their relatives began a search for them. The children were found in the chimney corner clasped in each other's arms sobbing.
Although kind friends and loving relatives did all in their power to console them, they refused to be comforted. Robert remembered that noble father who had so often held him on his knee, that poor father whose mysterious fate was unknown, and he thought how wicked it was for his mother to marry the fox-hunting, gin-tippling cavalier, Hugh Price. He sobbed himself to sleep and dreamed that his father was watching him from out the great, green ocean where he had lain all these years. Price was seeking to repay him the blows he had laid on his shoulders, when the face of the dead man was seen struggling in the green waters, but so choked and entangled among seaweeds that he was forced to give up the effort. A great monster of the deep swallowed his father, and, uttering a shriek, he awoke. The child was trembling from head to foot, while a cold sweat broke out all over his body.
Next morning the negro slave who had brought the children to Flower de Hundred came for them. Taking Robert aside, he said:
"I dun tole yer, Mass Robert, dat a calamity war comin'. It am come--De Missus am married to dat fellah wat ye walloped wid de stick. Hi! but I wish ye kill um."
The long journey to Jamestown was made. They left at sunrise one morning and rode until noon, when they halted in the wilderness to allow the horses an hour to rest and graze, while they lay on a blanket spread on the grass under a tree. Robert and his sister fell asleep, and the negro was nodding, when a snake came gliding through the grass toward the sleeping children. Sam awoke in a moment and, seizing a stout stick, struck the snake and killed it before it could reach the children. They were awakened by the blow and, trembling at their narrow escape, once more set out for Jamestown.
Though they put their horses to their best all the afternoon, the sun was sinking behind the western hills and forests as they came in sight of the settlement. Twilight's sombre mantle was falling over the earth when they arrived at the door of their home and were assisted by the servants to alight.
Robert and his sister were so sore and tired they scarcely could stand. A candelabra had been lighted in the house, and the soft rays came through the open casement; but the house was strangely silent. No mother came to welcome them home with a kiss, and a chill of death fell upon those young hearts. Robert dared not ask where she was and why she was not at the stiles; but Rebecca was younger, more inexperienced and impulsive.
"Where is mother, Dinah?" she asked her mother's housekeeper.
"In de house, chile, waitin' for you," she answered.
Poor, tired, heart-broken little Rebecca forgot all save that she was her mother, and she ran upon the piazza and burst into the room where Mr. Hugh Price and her mother were.