“Tell Pocahontas again of the Son of the Great Spirit.”
In fervent, glowing words he repeated the story of the sacrifice of the Incarnate Son of God. Springing to her feet and throwing up her arms she cried, “Pocahontas loves the Royal Christ,” then falling to her knees she faltered out, “Pocahontas would serve Him as the pale faces do.”
A deep joy filled the heart of the young teacher. One more soul for the angels to sing over.
There was great rejoicing among the colonists when they heard that Pocahontas was to be baptized, and Anne Laydon elected herself as one of her god-mothers. When it came to choosing a god-father, Pocahontas settled the matter by saying, “Adam be god-father—Pocahontas hurt Adam—called him Okee. Pocahontas sorry.”
Those who assembled to witness Pocahontas the Indian maid changed into Rebecca the Christian could not hear the echo of the priest’s voice which more than twenty years before had baptized her mother, Virginia Dare, on Roanoke Island. The echo was there, nevertheless.
Lingering fall paled slowly into the drab-hued tints of winter. Brown stalks of dead nettles stood stiffly up in soldierly array from the dry stubble around their feet. Somber cedars added a mournful note to the cheerless scene around the churchyard. Back and forth paced Rolfe muffled in his cloak, with a soft dark hat pulled low over his brow. The depressing note sounded by winter found a ready echo within his heart, a heart compounded of a curious mingling of Puritan and Cavalier.
In teaching Pocahontas to speak the English language he had unwittingly learned another language himself—the hitherto unknown language of love. His uncertain steps carried him past the grave where the wife who had forsaken all to follow him across to Virginia rested. Thoughts of her and his early life in England rose up like an accusing voice to confront the love he was nurturing in his heart.
Why had it been their misfortune that their lands stepped together in old England? Why were they betrothed in childhood, when neither knew what the future might bring forth? Why had he weakly yielded to the will of his father? Then he did not care, no love had been between him and the woman lying there; here an accusing voice made itself heard—alas, she had cared. Looks and loving attentions ranged themselves in a phantom picture to testify to her love.
He remembered his disapproval of the pretty colors she had worn to try to make herself comely in his eyes. Her face did not possess the alluring attraction of beautiful features, and was only redeemed from plainness by the changeful expression, indexing faithfully the varying emotions of the heart. How plain she had seemed when at his command she dressed in sober gray, and tight bands of straw-colored hair lay where the fluffy curls had strayed. In those days he had not thought it beseeming a godly matron to use the crisping pins or deck the sinful body in gay-colored robes.