“Tell me; what is his ground of quarrel?” asked Temple.
“Why, simply that having taken up arms against the Indians without authority, and enraging them by his injustice and cruelty, the governor required him to disband the force he had raised. He peremptorily refused, and demanded a commission from the governor as general-in-chief of the forces of Virginia to prosecute this unholy war.”
“Why unholy?” asked the Colonel. “Rebellious as was his conduct in refusing to lay down his arms at the command of the governor, yet I do not see that it should be deemed unholy to chastise the insolence of these savages.”
“I will tell you, then,” replied Bernard. “His avowed design was to avenge the murder of a poor herdsman by a chief of the Doeg tribe. Instead of visiting his vengeance upon the guilty, he turned his whole force against the Susquehannahs, a friendly tribe of Indians, and chased them like sheep into one of their forts. Five of the Indians relying on the boasted chivalry of the whites, came out of the fort unarmed, to inquire the cause of this unprovoked attack. They were answered by a charge of musketry, and basely murdered in cold blood.”
“Monstrous!” cried Temple, with horror. “Such infidelity will incense the whole Indian race against us and involve the country in another general war.”
“Exactly so,” returned Bernard, “and such is the governor's opinion; but besides this, it is suspected, and with reason too, that this Indian war is merely a pretext on the part of Bacon and a few of his followers, to cover a deeper and more criminal design. The insolent demagogue prates openly about equal rights, freedom, oppression of the mother country, and such dangerous themes, and it is shrewdly thought that, in his wild dreams of liberty, he is taking Cromwell for his model. He has all of the villainy of the old puritan, and a good deal of his genius and ability. But I beg pardon, ladies, all this politics cannot be very palatable to a lady's taste. We will certainly expect you, Mrs. Temple, to be present at the masque; and if Miss Virginia would prefer not to play her part in the exhibition, she may still be there to cheer us with her smiles. I can speak for the taste of all gallant young Virginians, that they will readily pardon her for not concealing so fair a face beneath a mask.”
“Ah, I can easily see that you are but lately from England,” said Mrs. Temple, delighted with the gallantry of the young man. “Your speech, fair sir, savours far more of the manners of the court than of these untutored forests. Alas! it reminds me of my own young days.”
“Well, Mr. Bernard,” said the Colonel, interrupting his wife in a reminiscence, which bid fair to exhaust no brief time, “you will find that we have only transplanted old English manners to another soil.
“'Cœlum non animum mutant qui trans mare currunt.'”
“I am glad to see,” said Bernard, casting an admiring glance at Virginia, “that this new soil you speak of, Colonel Temple, is so favourably adapted to the growth of the fairest flowers.”