The Heart's Highway: A Romance of Virginia in the Seventeenth Century

by Mary Eleanor Wilkins Freeman

One black woman was there in the room, sitting in the shadow of the bed-curtains, fast asleep and making a strange purring noise like a cat as she slept.

Suddenly Madam Cavendish clutched hard at my hand. "Harry," she said, "I sent for you because I have lain here fretting lest Mary and Catherine get not home in safety with only the black people to guard them. I fear lest the Indians may be lurking about."

"Dear Madam Cavendish," I said, "you know that we stand in no more danger from the Indians."

"Nay," she persisted, "we can never tell what plans may be brewing in such savage brains. I pray thee, Harry, ride to meet them and see if they be safe."

I laughed, for the danger from Indians was long since past, but said readily enough that I would do as she wished, being, in fact, glad enough of a gallop in the moonlight, with the prospect of meeting Mary. So in a few minutes I was in the saddle and riding toward Jamestown. The night was very bright with the moon, and there was a great mist rising from the marshy lands, and such strangely pale and luminous developments in the distances of the meadows, marshalling and advancing and retreating, like companies of spectres, and lingering as if for consultation on the borders of the woods, with floating draperies caught in the boughs thereof, that one might have considered danger from others than Indians. And, indeed, I often caught the note of an owl, and once one flitted past my face and my horse shied at the evil bird, which is thought by the ignorant to be but a feathered cat and of ill omen, and indeed is considered by many who are wise to have presaged ill oftentimes, as in the cases of the deaths of the emperors Valentinian and Commodus. Be that as it may, I, having a pistol with me, shot at the bird, and, though I was as good a shot as any thereabouts, missed, and away it flew, with a great hoot as of laughter, which I am ready to swear I heard multiplied in a trice, as if the bird were joined by a whole company, and my horse shied again and would have bolted had I not held him tightly. Now, this which I am about to relate I am ready to swear did truly happen, though it may well be doubted. I had come within a short distance of Jamestown when I reached two houses of a small size, not far apart, not much removed from the fashion of the negro cabins, but inhabited by English folk. In the one dwelt a man who had been transported for a grievous crime, whether justly or not I cannot say, but his visage was such as to condemn him, and he was often in his cups and had spent many days in the stocks, and had made frequent acquaintance with the whipping-post, and with him dwelt his wife, an old dame with a tongue which had once earned her the ducking-stool in England. As I passed this house I saw over the door a great bunch of dill and vervain and white thorn, which is held to keep away witches from the threshold if gathered upon a May day. And I knew well the reason, for not many rods distant was the hut where dwelt one Margery Key, an ancient woman, who had been verily tied crosswise and thrown in a pond for witchcraft and been weighed against the church Bible, and had her body searched for witch-marks and the thatch of her house burned. I know not why she had not come to the stake withal, but instead she had fled to Virginia, where, witches being not so common, were treated with more leniency. It may have been that she had escaped the usual fate of those of her kind by being considered by some a white witch, and one who worked good instead of ill if approached rightly, though many considered that they who approached a white witch for the purpose of profiting by her advice or warning, were of equal guilt, and that it all led in the end to mischief. Be that as it may, this old dame Margery Key dwelt there alone in her little hut so over-thatched and grown by vines, and scarce showing the shaggy slant of its roof above the bushes, that it resembled more the hole of some timid and wary animal than a human habitation. And if any visited her for consultation it was by night and secretly, and no one ever caught sight of her except now and then the nodding white frill of her cap in the green gloom of a window or the painful bend of her old back as she gathered sticks for her fire in the woods about. How she lived none knew. A little garden-patch she had, and a hive or two of bees, and a red cow, which many affirmed to have the eye of a demon, and there were those who said that her familiars stole bread for her from the plantation larders, and that often a prime ham was missed and a cut of venison, with no explanation, but who can say? Without doubt there are strange things in the earth, but we are all so in the midst of them, and even a part of their workings, that we can have no outside foothold to take fair sight thereof. Verily a man might as well strive to lift himself by his boot-straps over a stile.

But this much I will say, that, as I was riding along, cogitating something deeply in my mind as to the best disposal of the powder and the shot which Mary Cavendish had ordered from England, I, coming abreast of Margery Key's house, saw of a sudden a white cat, which many affirmed to be her familiar, spring from her door like a white arrow of speed and off down a wood-path, and my horse reared and plunged, and then, with my holding him of no avail, though I had a strong hand on the bridle, was after her with such a mad flight that I had hard work to keep the saddle. Pell-mell through the wood we went, I ducking my head before the mad lash of the branches and feeling the dew therefrom in my face like a drive of rain, until we came to a cleared space, then a great spread of tobacco fields, overlapping silver-white in the moonlight, and hamlet of negro cabins, and then Major Robert Beverly's house, standing a mass of shadow except for one moonlit wall, for all the family were gone to the governor's ball. Then, as I live, that white cat of Margery Key's led me in that mad chase around Beverly's house, and when I came to the north side of it I saw a candle gleam in a window and heard a baby's wail, and knew 'twas where his infant daughter was tended, and as we swept past out thrust a black head from the window, and a screech as savage as any wild cat's rent the peace of the night, and I believe that the child's black nurse took us, no doubt, for the devil himself. Then all the dogs howled and bayed, though not one approached us, and a great bat came fanning past, like a winged shadow, and again I heard the owl's hoot, and ever before us, like a white arrow, fled that white cat, and my horse followed in spite of me. Then, verily I speak the truth, though it may well be questioned, did that white cat lead us straight to the tomb which Major Beverly had made upon his plantation at the death of his first wife, and in which she lay, and 'twas on a rising above the creek, and then the cat, with a wail which was like nothing I ever heard in this world, was away in a straight line toward the silver gleam of the creek, though every one knows well how cats hate water, and had disappeared. But, though to this I will not swear, I thought I saw a white gleam aloft, and heard a wail of a cat skyward along with the owl-hoots. And then my horse stood and trembled in such wise that I thought he would fall under me, and I dismounted and stroked his head and tried as best I could to soothe him, and we were all the time before the tomb, which was a large one. Then of a sudden it came to me that here was the hiding-place for the powder and shot, for what safer hiding-place can there be than the tomb of the first wife, when the second hath reigned but a short time, and is fair, and hath but just given her lord that little darling whose cries of appealing helplessness I could hear even there? So I gave the tomb-door a pull, knowing that I should not, by so doing, disturb the slumbers of the poor lady within, and decided with myself that it would be easy enough to force it, and mounted and rode back as best I might to the road. And when I came to the little dwelling of Margery Key a thought struck me, and I rode close, though my horse shuddered as if with some strange fright of something which I could not see. I bent in my saddle and looked in the door, but naught could I see. Then I dismounted and tied my horse to a tree near by, and entered the house and looked about the sorry place as well as I could in the pale sift of moonlight, and—the old woman was not there. But one room there was, with a poor pallet in a corner and a chest against the wall and a stool, and a kettle in the fireplace, with a little pile of sticks and a great scattering of ashes, but no one there, and also, if I may be believed, no broom. All this I tell for what it may be worth to the credulity of them who hear; the facts be such as I have said. But whether believing it myself or not, yet knowing that that white cat, though it had been Margery Key in such guise, or her familiar imp on his way to join her at some revel whither she had ridden her broom, had done me good service, and, seeing the piteous smallness of the pile of sticks on the hearth, and reflecting upon the distressful bend of the old soul's back, whether she had sold herself to Satan or not, I lingered a minute to break down a goodly armful of brush in the wood outside and carry inside for the replenishment of her store. And as I came forth, having done so, I heard the door of the nearby house open, and saw two white faces peering out at me, and heard a woman's voice shriek shrilly that here was the devil seeking the witch, and though I called out to reassure them, the door clapped to with a bang like a pistol-shot, and my horse danced about so that I could scarcely mount. Then I rode away, something wondering within myself, since I had been taken for the devil, how many others might have been, and whether men made their own devils and their own witches, instead of the Prince of Evil having a hand in it, and yet that happened which I have related, and I have told the truth.

XII

Such a blaze of light as was the governor's mansion house that night I never saw, and I heard the music of violins, and hautboys, and viola da gambas coming from within, and a silvery babble of women's tongues, with a deeper undertone of men's, and the tread of dancing feet, and the stamping of horses outside, with the whoas of the negro boys in attendance, and through the broad gleam of the moonlight came the flare and smoke of the torches. It seemed as if the whole colony was either dancing at the governor's ball or standing outside on tiptoe with interest. I sat waiting for some time, holding my restive horse as best I might, but there coming no cessation in the music, I dismounted, and seeing one of Madam Cavendish's black men, gave him the bridle to hold, and went up to the house and entered, though not in my plum-coloured velvet, and, indeed, being not only in my ordinary clothes, but somewhat splashed with mire from my mad gallop through the woods. But I judged rightly that in so much of a crowd I should pass unnoticed both as to myself and my apparel. I stood in the great room near the door and watched the dance, and 'twas as brilliant a scene as ever I had seen anywhere even in England. The musicians in the gallery were sawing away for their lives on violins, and working breathlessly at the hautboys, and all that gay company of Virginia's best, spinning about in a country dance of old England. Such a brave show of velvet coats, and breeches, and flowered brocade waistcoats, and powdered wigs, and feathers, and laces, and ribbons, and rich flaunts of petticoats revealing in the whirl of the dance clocked hose on slender ankles, and high-heeled satin shoes, would have done no discredit to the court. But of them all, Mistress Mary Cavendish was the belle and the star. She was dancing with my Lord Estes when I entered, and such a goodly couple they were, that I heard many an exclamation of delight from the spectators, who stood thickly about the walls, the windows even being filled with faces of black and white servants. My Lord Estes was a handsome dark man, handsomer and older than Sir Humphrey Hyde, who, though dancing with the governor's daughter Cate, had, I could see, a rueful eye of watchfulness toward Mary Cavendish. As he and Cate Culpeper swung past me, Sir Humphrey's eyes fell on my face and he gave a start and blush, and presently, when the dance was over and his partner seated, came up to me with hand extended, as if I had been the noblest guest there. "Harry, Harry," he whispered eagerly, "she hath danced with me three times to-night, and hath promised again, and Harry, saw you ever any one so beautiful as she in that blue dress?"

I answered truthfully that I never had. Sir Humphrey, in his blue velvet suit with the silver buttons, with his rosy face and powdered wig, was one to look at twice and yet again, and I regarded him as always, with that liking for him and that fury of jealousy.

I looked at him and loved him as I might have loved my son, with such a sweet and brave honesty of simplicity he eyed me, and for the sake of Mary Cavendish, who might find his love for her precious, and I wished with all my heart that I might fling him to the floor where he stood; every nerve and muscle in me tingled with the restraint of the desire, for such an enhancement of a woman's beauty as was Mary Cavendish's that night, will do away with the best instincts of men, whether they will or not.