Edmund listened to the excited words. Sir William had been frightened as he heard that more and more planters were flocking into Jamestown, he doubted that Bacon meant to keep his word, he knew that Lawrence's house was a hot-bed of disorder, and he determined that he would crush any rebellion before it got a start, and put the popular leader where he could do no harm. Bacon's cousin, the colonel, who was fond of his kinsman, though he disapproved of what he had done, had sent word the night before to Nathaniel, bidding him fly for his life. At daybreak the governor's officers had gone to Lawrence's house; but the man they wanted was gone; he had fled into the country, wisely heeding his cousin's warning.
"Bacon is fled!" were the words that sped through Jamestown that June morning. And many who heard the words were glad, for now they hoped that the rebel would raise a force and overthrow Sir William, who had made many enemies in his long and strict rule as governor. Men stole away from the capital in twos and threes, some by the river, more on horseback through the country. They were afraid to stay lest Berkeley should put them in irons as partisans of Bacon's. Mr. Porter found a man with horses to sell, bought two, and with his son rode out of Jamestown before noon. West along the river bank they galloped. Bacon would make for Henrico County, and there they wanted to join him. "And I may ride with you and General Bacon, father?" Edmund begged.
"I don't know," said the father. "This may be more serious business than looking after the rear-guard in a skirmish with Indians."
"But I'm almost a man, father," Edmund urged. "And even if I didn't fight, there's other things I could do."
"I hope there'll be no fighting. It's bad when settlers turn their guns against each other. We'll have to wait till we find Nat, Edmund, and learn what he's going to do. If it's a fight it's a fight for liberty and the safety of our homes. The governor's wrong; he hasn't treated us fair."
All that day they rode through the river country, and wherever they came to settlements they found armed men mounting, for the news had spread rapidly that Nathaniel Bacon was raising an army to fight the governor.
II
From big plantations and from small farms, from manor-houses in the lowlands and from log cabins in the uplands, grown men and half-grown boys, armed with guns or swords, hurried to join General Bacon, who was sending out his call for recruits from his headquarters up the James River. The colonists were a hardy lot, used to hunting and fighting, and well pleased now at the prospect of upsetting the tyrannical governor at Jamestown. Within three days after Bacon's escape from the capital he was at the head of about six hundred men, stirring them with his speeches, for he was a very fine and fiery orator, until they were ready to follow wherever he led. The Porters, father and son, succeeded in joining his ranks, and when the young commander set out on his march to Jamestown they rode among his men.
What was Sir William Berkeley doing meantime? Bacon was a fighter, but the white-haired governor was a fighter also. He sent riders from Jamestown to summon what were called the "train-bands" of York and Gloucester, counties that lay along Chesapeake Bay and the Atlantic Ocean. But the spirit of rebellion had spread from the plantations along the James down to the seaboard settlements, and only a hundred soldiers, and not all of them very loyal to the governor, answered his summons. They marched so slowly that Bacon reached Jamestown before they were in sight of the town. At two in the afternoon the rebel leader entered the capital at the head of his men and drew up his troops on the green, not an arrow's flight from the State House where he had knelt for the governor's pardon less than ten days before.
At his order his men sentineled the roads, seized all the firearms they could find, and disarmed or arrested all men coming into Jamestown by land or river, except such as joined their own ranks.