"The eager pack from couples freed,
Dash through the bush, the briar, the brake,
While answering hound, and horn, and steed,
The mountain echoes startling wake."
The Wild Huntsman.
A few days after the events recorded in the last chapter, the denizens of the ancient city were roused betimes by the sounds of the hunter's horn, the echoing chorus of the eager hounds, and the neighing of the fiery steeds, as they were led forth to the gallant pastime of the chase. The river and overhanging hills were enveloped in an impenetrable veil of mist, and the dew settled in a snowy cloud, upon the hair and castors of the Cavaliers as they issued from their doors, rubbing their eyes and preparing to mount the mettled coursers which pawed the earth and blew thick volumes of smoke from their expanded nostrils. These preparations for the enlivening sports of the field were not confined to a small number of the civic youth, or to the keener sportsmen among their elders—all the gentry of the town and colony, with few exceptions, were assembled on the occasion.
Sir William Berkley with his numerous guests, Gideon Fairfax, with his fellows of the Council, the members of the House of Burgesses, now principally occupying the hotel of the "Berkley Arms," Frank Beverly, Philip Ludwell, Charles Dudley, with the Harrisons, the Powells, &c. all now came curvetting into the public square, dressed in their gay hunting jerkens and neat foraging caps, some with bugles swinging from their shoulders, and others with firearms suspended at their backs.
A stately gray-headed old negro, known by the cognomen of Congo, was in command of some half score of more youthful footmen of his own colour, in the livery of the Governor, each of whom held the leashes of a pair of hounds.
These, from time to time as old Congo wound a skilful blast upon his bugle, opened a deafening chorus, which echoed through the surrounding forests, and awakened from their slumbers the drowsy citizens of the town. Many a damsel peeped from her lattice to catch a glimpse of the gay Cavaliers as they wheeled into the place of rendezvous in parties of tens and twenties, all noisy and boisterous; some with the anticipation of the promised sports, and others from the more artificial stimulus of a morning julep. The sound of Congo's bugle had reverberated through the silent streets in signal blasts to the grooms of the gentry at a much earlier hour of the morning, so that many of the high-born damsels inhabiting the purlieus of this little court, were also on the alert. Among these our heroine, awakened by the echoing chorus of the "hunter's horn," was already dressed and smiling from her window, like one of her own sweet flowers, upon the gay young Cavaliers, as they passed in review before her.
In an adjoining window was another inhabitant of the same mansion, roused by the same cheering notes, but he smiled not upon the joyous throng as they gathered around the spot occupied by Congo and his canine favourites, nor yet upon those of the gay youths who rode up and touched their beavers respectfully to the smiling maiden as they singly or in pairs cantered away over the bridge in pursuit of their day's sport. It was Bacon! his head bandaged and his countenance pale and wan from his late illness and loss of blood.
Nevertheless he was dressed, and as eager for the sport as any youth among them, but exhausted nature negatived his feeble efforts and longing aspirations, and he had seated himself at the window in sullen disappointment. This latter feeling was in nowise subdued by the sight of Frank Beverly, already recovered from his slight wounds, dressed in a scarlet jerken and hunting cap, a bugle over his shoulder, and mounted upon a noble animal apparently as eager to display his fine proportions as his master. The thundering clatter of the chargers' heels as this numerous cavalcade now passed in long succession over the bridge before the gazing citizens, thus untimely awakened from their slumbers, at length began to die away in silence, broken at intervals by the measured tramp of an occasional party of the more staid, older and less eager Cavaliers, pursuing the main body at a pace more suited to their age; or by the gallop of some slumbering sluggard hastening to overtake his more punctual comrades of the chase. Now and then a note from the bugle of some overjoyous youth, as he entered the forest, brought a frown upon the brow of old Congo, whose look was turned in silent appeal against these irregular proceedings, to his master, who rode apart in earnest conversation with Mr. Fairfax. While our sportsmen are thus joyously moving on their way to the appointed spot, we will pursue the thread of the dialogue between the two dignitaries just alluded to, as it had reference to the leading personages of our story.
"Nay, treat not my apprehensions lightly, Fairfax; is not that youth who leans so disconsolately out of your window this morning, a proper knight to catch the errant fancies of a girl of sixteen?" said Sir William.
"He is indeed a right well-favoured boy," replied Mr. Fairfax, "and one calculated to win his way to a colder heart than that of a maiden near his own age. Was he not the means of your own preservation, Sir William, from the knives of yonder murderous fanatics cooped up in the jail of the city?"
"Ay!" said his companion, drily, "I grant him to be all that you say he is, but does not that enforce more powerfully what I have been saying? Ought you not under such circumstances, to acquaint him with the necessity of his finding another house than your's for his home, where your daughter is constantly before his eyes, and what is more important, where he is constantly before her's, not only with the attractions of his own well-favoured person, but in the interesting character of her father's and her uncle's preserver?"