As I said before, it was a hot day, and all around the field waved fruit boughs nearly past their bloom, with the green of new leaves overcoming the white and red, and the air was heavy with honey-sweet, and, as steady as a clock-tick through all the roaring of the merrymakers, came the hum of the bees and the calls of the birds. A great flag was streaming thirty feet high, and the gay dresses of the women who had congregated to see the sports were like a flower-garden, and the waistcoats of the men were as brilliant as the breasts of birds, and nearly everybody wore the green oak-sprig which celebrated the Restoration.

Then again, the horses, after the challenge of the drums, sped around the three-mile course, and attention was diverted somewhat from me. There had been mischievous boys enough for my torment, had it not been for my brother John, who stood beside the stocks, his face white and his hand at his sword. Many a grinning urchin drew near with a stone in hand and looked at him, and looked again, then slunk away, and made as if he had no intention of throwing aught at me. After the horse-racing came music of drums, trumpets, and hautboys, and then in spite of my brother, the crowd pressed close about me, and many scurrilous things were said and many grinning faces thrust in mine, and thinking of it now, I would that I had them all in open battlefield, for how can a man fight ridicule? Verily it is like duelling with a man of feathers. Quite still I sat, but felt that dignity and severity of bearing but made me more vulnerable to ridicule. Utterly weaponless I was against such odds.

I was glad enough when the drums challenged again for a race of boys, who were to run one hundred and twelve yards for a hat. Everybody turned from me to see that, and I watched wearily the straining backs and elbows of the little fellows, and the shouts of encouragement and of triumph when the winner came in smote my ears as through water, with curious shocks of sound.

Then ten fiddlers played for a prize, and while they played, the people gathered around me again, for races more than music have the ability to divert the minds of English folk; but they left me again, when there was a wrestling for a pair of silver knee-buckles. I remember to this day with a curious dizziness of recollection, the straining of those two stout wrestlers over the field, each forcing the other with all his might, and each scarce yielding a foot, and finally ending the strife in the same spot as where begun. I can see now those knotted arms and writhing necks of strength, and hear those quick pants of breath, and again it seems as then, a picture passing before my awful reality of shame. Then two young men danced for a pair of shoes, and the crowd gathered around them, and I was quite deserted, and could scarcely see for the throng the rhythmic flings of heels and tosses of heads. But when that sport was over, and the winner dancing merrily away in his new shoes, the crowd gathered about me again, and in spite of my brother, clods of mud began to fly, and urchins to tweak at my two extended feet.

Then that happened, which verily never happened before nor since in
Virginia, and can never happen again, because a maid like Mary
Cavendish can never live again.

Slow pacing into the New Field in that same blue and silver gown which she had worn to the governor's ball, with a wonderful plumed hat on her head, and no mask, and her golden hair flowing free, behind her Catherine and Cicely Hyde, like two bridesmaids, came my love, Mary Cavendish.

And while I shrank back, thinking that here was the worst sting of all, like the sting of death, that she should see me thus, straight up to the stocks she came, and gathering her blue and silver gown about her, made her way in to my side, and sat there, thrusting her two tiny feet, in their dainty shoes, through the apertures next mine, for the stocks were made to accommodate two criminals.

And then I looked at her, and would have besought her to go, but the words died on my lips, for in that minute I knew what love was, and how it could triumph over, not only the tragedy, but that which is more cruel, the comedy of life. Surely no face of woman was ever like Mary Cavendish's, as she sat there beside me, with such an exaltation of love, which made it like the face of an angel. Not one word she said, but looked at me, and I knew that after that she was mine forever, in spite of my love, which would fain shield her from me lest I be for her harm, and I realised that love, when it is at its best, is past the consideration of any harm, being sufficient unto itself for its own bliss and glory.

But presently, I, looking at her, felt my strength failing me again, and her face grew dim, and she drew my head to her shoulder and sat so facing the multitude, and such a shout went up as never was.

And first it was half derision, and Catherine and Cicely Hyde stood near us like bridesmaids, and my brother John kept his place. Then came Madam Judith Cavendish in a chair, and she was borne close to us through the throng and was looking forth with the tears running over her old cheeks, and extending her hands as if in blessing, and she never after made any opposition to our union. Then came blustering up Parson Downs and Ralph Drake, who afterward wedded Cicely Hyde, and the two Barrys who had braved leaving hiding, and the two black wenches who dwelt with them, one with a great white bandage swathing her head, and Sir Humphrey Hyde, who had just been released, and who, while I think of it, wedded a most amiable daughter of one of the burgesses within a year. And Madam Tabitha Storey, with that mourning patch upon her forehead, was there, and Margery Key, with—marvellous to relate in that crowd—the white cat following at heel, and Mistresses Allgood and Longman with their husbands in tow. All these, with others whom I will not mention, who were friendly, gathered around me, the while Mary Cavendish sat there beside me, and again that half-derisive shout of the multitude went up.