"'T is a most sweet spot," said Sir Charles.
"Good!" quoth the Governor. "And now that this little matter is settled, I am once more, and for the present, sir, simply your obliged guest and servant," and he bowed to the Surveyor-General.
Carrington returned the bow. "We will drink to our better acquaintance to-night. Pompey! the sack and the aqua vitae. And, Pompey! a handful of mint."
The company fell to drinking, and then to tobacco. The Governor, whose fits of passion were as short as they were violent, arrived by rapid degrees at a pitch of high good humor. The company listened gravely for the fiftieth time to stories of the court of the first James; of Buckingham's amours, of the beauty of Henrietta Maria, of a visit to Paris, an interview with Richelieu, a duel with a captain of Mousquetaires, a kiss imprinted upon the fair hand of Anne of Austria. The charmed stream of the old courtier's reminiscences flowed on—he stopped for breath, and Sir Charles took the word and proceeded to unfold before their dazzled eyes a gorgeous phantasmagoria. The King, the Duke, Sedley and Buckingham, Mesdames Castlemaine, Stuart and Gwynne, Dryden and Waller and Lely, the King's house, the Queen's chapel, the Queen's duennas, the Tityre Tus, Paul's Walk, the Russian Ambassador, astrologers, orange girls, balls, masques, pageants, duels, the court of Louis le Grand, the King's hunting parties, Madame d'Orleans, Olympe di Mancini.
The Governor listened with dilating nostrils and sparkling eyes; Colonel Verney's vexed countenance smoothed itself; Captain Laramore, sitting with outstretched legs, and head hidden in clouds of tobacco smoke, rumbled from out that obscurity laughter and strange oaths. Even Mr. Peyton, after vainly trying to fix his attention upon the construction of a sonnet to his mistress's eyebrow, succumbed to the enchantment, and sat with parted lips, drinking in wonders; but the Surveyor-General, though he listened courteously, listened with forced smiles and with an attention which was hard to preserve from wandering.
In the midst of a brilliant account of the nuptials of the Chevalier de Grammont came an interruption.
"De horses am fed an' brought roun', massa."
The Governor started up. "Rat me, if good sack and good stories make not a man forget all else beside! Colonel Verney, I wish you, as lieutenant of this shire, to ride with me to this Chickahominy village where I have promised an audience to the half king of the tribe. Plague on the unreasonable vermin! Why can they not give way peaceably? If the colony needs and takes their lands, it leaves them a plenty elsewhere. Let them fall back towards the South Sea. Sir Charles, I grieve for the necessity, but we must leave the court and come back to the wilderness. Gentlemen, will you ride with Verney and me, or shall we part now to meet at sunset in his orchard?"
"We had best ride with your Excellency," said Carrington gravely. "I like not the temper of the Chickahominies, who ever mean most when they say least. And these roving Ricahecrians, their guests, are of a strange and fierce aspect. It is as well to go in force."
"Those vagrants from the Blue Mountains have been here overlong," said the Governor. "I shall send them packing! Well, gentlemen, since we are to have the pleasure of your company, boot and saddle is the word!"