BIX ilifornia ional ility ARMI$TEAD C. GORDON THE GIFT OF MAY TREAT MORRISON IN MEMORY OF ALEXANDER F MORRISON ROBIN AROON ROBIN AROON A Comedy of Manners By ARMISTEAD C. GORDON i Author of "The Gift of the Morning Star" and "The Ivory Gate" New York and Washington THE NEALE PUBLISHING COMPANY 1908 Copyright, 1908, by The Neale Publishing Company CM cc c TO W. GORDON McCABE 2 IN FRIENDSHIP AND ADMIRATION. 5 K o s ce -S 132241 CONTENTS THE FIRST PART THE RIVER WAY Chapter Page I Nancy Carter's Eyebrows, .... 13 II Saint Elizabeth 30 III The Cap of Youth 42 IV David's Love-Song 56 V On the Dragon Swamp Road . . 70 VI Richard the Third at the Middle Plantation 85 VII Of Dancing-Girls 97 THE SECOND PART LOVE'S ENCHANTMENT I An Offer of Marriage 109 II "Con Expressione" 122 III Pounds Sterling for a Pair .... 142 IV Naming the Song 154 V The Assembly Ball 171 VI Life's Sunny Morning 181 VII "These, With Haste" 196 VIII Another Man's Shoes 204 IX Accolade . 212 This story is founded upon a brief sketch, by the same writer, printed many years ago in a weekly literary periodical. For some of the incidents here narrated he is indebted to certain old letters, private journals, and other material of the period described. THE FIRST PART THE RIVER WAY THE FIRST CHAPTER NANCY CARTER'S EYEBROWS Summer came up the River Way from where the Gulf Stream sweeps past the Capes that stand like sentinels to guard the Chesa peake Bay; and the swallows, who are sum mer's heralds, came before her. The sun light glittered and shimmered on the waters of Rappahannock, and on the white sails of ships; while over the great red brick house, and over the green expanse of lawn and gar den, and over the broad tobacco-fields of a yet darker and richer verdure, lay like a bene diction the calm of a golden day. Should you care to make search for the place on any of the numerous maps in the State Library at Richmond which picture Virginia localities in the shadow-half of the eighteenth century, you will find it marked upon at least two of them as "Churchill." But its well-known name throughout the Colony in the year of our Lord 1774 was Bushy Park; and its owner by devise in life- i 4 ROBIN AROON tenancy, with remainder in fee to her eldest son, was the soft-haired, sweet-voiced, fair- faced widow of the late William Henning, gentleman, then for some years past asleep, and hence of indifferent mood to the world, under a marble tomb, with appropriate me morial carvings and an eulogistic inscription, amid fine company, in the graveyard of the Middle Church, sometime called the Mother Church, in the tidewater County of Middlesex. It was an imposing, roomy house, with the redness of it offset by Its lofty white-columned portico, that reached to the full height of its two tall stories, and with its staring dormer windows in the roof, and its upreaching chimneys at either gabled end, where a multi tude of swallows spent the recurrent sum mers, to the impotent wrath of the negro house-servants. The mansion fronted a breadth of green-turfed yard; and beyond the yard lay a still broader stretch of the River Way, whose waters on this sunshiny morning, late in May, were dazzling to the eyes of any beholder. On both sides of the house and at its rear stretched the fertile tobacco fields that had ROBIN AROON 15 made their owners rich through the genera tions; and there were outbuildings offices, kitchens, house-servants' quarters, stables of an amplitude and dignity commensurate with the establishment of one of the wealth iest and most important families in the Prov ince. Nearly a mile away to the southeast and farther down the River Way, the cabins of the negro slaves, facing each other in rows of long green streets, and' the more imposing dwelling-house of the overseer, shone white on a field of verdant beauty in the limpid and translucent atmosphere. The river is four and a half miles wide between the Middlesex side, where the lawn at Bushy Park stops sheer on the bank some forty feet above its surface at flood-tide, and where the apparently low-lying woods fringe the Lancaster shores beyond; and looking seaward from the mansion's pillared porches one sees the ultimate line of the horizon fade and disappear in far waters that are very near to their meeting with the waters of the Bay. Breakfast was just over in the dining- room at Bushy Park, a high-ceiled, wains coted room, bright with its hangings of crim- 1 6 ROBIN AROON son hangings, its carved mantel-piece and hearth-slab of white Italian marble, and im posing with its silver-knobbed mahogany doors and wainscoting, its heavy inlaid side board with the crested family silver of five generations of Hennings in the Colony, and its family portraits in oils on the walls, that in the course of time had been crowded out of the first and second parlors and the long hall into this less formal though equally dignified part of the mansion, where they now hung cheek by jowl with pictures of English hunting-scenes and prints of fa mous race-horses. The gathered company of visitors, young and old, at Bushy Park, who came and went as they chose by virtue of their kinship or their friendship, or their neighborship, neither asking nor being asked, had arisen from the long table, and overflowed into the hall, the parlors, the porticos and the lawn, leaving in the room three members of the household. Robert Henning, eldest son of the widow, and heir apparent of the surrounding acres, twenty-one years of age and a graduate, with distinguished honors, of one year's standing in the even then venerable college at Wil- ROBIN AROON 17 liamsburg, leaned lazily back, with knees crossed, in his arm chair at the head of the table; and with a quizzical glance at his brother David, five years his junior, contin ued a conversation which he had just begun with his mother on the subject of the Carter children, who had departed from Bushy Park on the day before. "It must have been a great relief to the Councillor and Mistress Carter to be able to keep them away from home for the three weeks they spent here," he said, uncrossing his stockinged legs and stretching them out before him. As he spoke he fixed his regard on David, who looked up with a scowl of disapproval from the newspaper he had spread out before him on the table. "Middlesex jail is yawning for that youngster," he continued with mock severity. "If he ever comes back to this county I shall warrant him convicted of all the high crimes and misdemeanors committed by him during his scandalous visit to Bushy Park." "What did he do that he has so mightily offended your majesty?" growled David, with his eyes now fast fixed on his Virginia 1 8 ROBIN AROON Gazette. "You pestered his very vitals when ever he was in the house, with your eternal hauling and mauling of him for his love of cock-fights and horse-races and fish-feasts. Can't you be satisfied to have him gone? As Greig says, 'he's flitted,' and there's an end o't. What's the evil of Jack, anyway, I pray your worshipful lordship?" "Oh, I doubt if it be in my power to en lighten your uncultivated mind," his brother answered, smiling. "Your own tastes and Jack's being of a like kind, it would be diffi cult to cause you to perceive the enormity of his indulgence in them. Besides, I doubt that the obscure and slow moving years of child hood be sufficiently progressed with you to endow your undeveloped intelligence with an adequate comprehension of the villainy of many things that is perfectly perceptible to the eyes of grown-up folk." The boy's face flamed with a momentary anger. "Robert!" said Mrs. Henning, warningly, from her seat at the end of the table near the marble mantel. There was a gleam of mirth in her eyes, and an almost imperceptible movement of the corners of her sweet mouth. ROBIN AROON 19 which her older son did not miss as he looked at her. Robert laughed; and David said, "Never care, mother. I don't mind him. I shall live to return good for his evil." Mrs. Henning smiled, as in pleasure that the fraternal warfare of words was ended; and taking up from the table the black leath er key-basket, filled with great brass keys of varied shapes and sizes, at her elbow, was about to rise from her seat. "Don't go yet, mother," said Robert Hen ning. "Listen, mother," interrupted David. "The Gazette is becoming a veritable scan dal-monger. Here's a dainty item to please the palates of all this host of lovers and gos sips now abounding at Bushy Park. I shall read it to the company after the dance to night" ; and shifting his position in order to get a better light on the paper from the high, lace-curtained window at his back, he read: 'Yesterday was married in Henrico Mr. William Carter, third son of Mr. John Car ter, to Mrs. Sarah Elson, relict of Mr. Ger- ritt Elson, deceased, aged eighty-five, a 20 ROBIN AROON sprightly old tit worth three thousand pounds fortune.' " Mrs. JHtenning's face took on a shocked expression, and Robert chuckled audibly. "I shouldn't wonder," commented David, "if he be of Jack's breed of Carters. It sounds like that lofty pedigree. They have a tooth for beauty and fortune; though they do not all like their beauty so mellow as this would seem. Jack illustrates the general family inclination. My sister Elenor will swear to't." "David !" exclaimed again the warning voice of Mrs. Henning, whose face showed a struggle between her sense of dignity and her desire to laugh. "Yes, mother, I shall be good," said the boy, returning with a grin to his paper, and his mother continued: "I think it highly improper in the Gazette to print such stories. 'Tis an invasion of per sonal privacy, and teaches the youth of the Province an evil lesson. Soon no one will be safe from the journals. They should con fine their columns to the public news and to politics." "Indeed, madam," chimed in Robert, still ROBIN AROON 21 beaming, "such conduct of the press may well cause us to commend the saying of Sir Wil liam Berkeley to the Board at London, when he was Governor here, that he was grateful to God that in his day there were no printing- presses in the Colony. Read us another like it, Davy." "And free-schools," added David, with emphasis, "he said 'printing-presses and free- schools.' He might have added 'and Scotch tutors.' I heard Mr. Lee say that they were getting to be thicker than fleas on a dog's back in the gentlemen's families." "Doubtless," replied his brother, "an ab sence of printing, schools, and tutors would prove greatly to your liking. In spite of Sir William Berkeley, all three are here now; and much to your advantage, if you will but improve it." "Don't lecture," said David; and Robert Henning took up again the subject of the young Carters. "There wasn't a cock-fight or a horse-race or a fish-feast in Middlesex during his stay, that Master John Carter missed. His genius seems to be toward low bets." "You had the pleasure of seeing him at 22 ROBIN AROON most of them, I believe," interjected David sardonically. "And Nancy," continued Robert, impervi ous to David's scorn, "give me Miss Nancy Carter, fifteen years of age, for a witch. She is vastly pretty, and knows it, with her smooth white skin and her exceeding black hair, and her black, full-arched eyebrows At the word David's grin developed sud denly into a discordant shout of delight, with the deep-voiced basso of which Mrs. Hen- ning's soprano laughter, that she seemed unable to control, chimed in. Robert Henning looked from one to the other in surprise. "What on earth" "It is Nancy's eyebrows, Robin," explained Mrs. Henning. "The reason she had her head tied up in that veil yesterday morning, on her going off with her papa, and why she ran away from you, when you wanted to kiss her 'good bye,' " said David in further explanation to Robert. The explanations were neither intelligible nor satisfactory to the latter. He saw only a touch of triumph in David's reminder of ROBIN AROON 13 his unsuccessful attempt to embrace Nancy Carter. "Excuse me, mother," he said stiffly to Mrs. Henning; and turning to David, de manded angrily to know what he was talking about. "The foolish chit of a girl cut off her eye brows the night before she left," said Mrs. Henning. "Do you not remember com menting on her absence from breakfast yes terday morning?" "She denied positively that she cut them herself," added David quickly, "and swore to the end that some mischievous person in the house had done it when she was sleeping. But I know her as I know my reading-book. She herself clipped 'em, and none other did it!" "Why, nothing of the like," said Robert, with a light dawning on him. "Mother, cannot you see that David is the culprit? Fie ! for shame, Master David, to steal upon a helpless, unconscious young girl, and wreak such a vengeance for a discarded affection!" David looked crestfallen and sullen; and Mrs. Henning said: "I am disposed to agree with David, and 24 ROBIN AROON to think that it was an experiment she was making on herself, to see how she could vary the looks of her face. It made me laugh when I saw it first to think how early and how truly she had begun copying the ab surdities of young women." "David, hasten forthwith! take pen, ink, and paper, not forgetting the sand-box for the sake of the blots, and sigh like a furnace with a woful ballad made to Miss Nancy's eyebrows," jeered Robert. "It is greatly to be desired that her mamma will give her a violent spanking when she gets home to Westmoreland for that pretty trick," commented David, who had assiduously wooed Nancy Carter during her stay at Bushy Park, only to receive the mitten at her small white hands on the last day preceding her departure. "Fie, again, David!" said his brother, "to speak thus lightly of your lost lady-love. Shall her mother spank so grown-up a young woman? Blush, David, to think of it!" The boy growled something inaudible, and returned to the perusal of his paper. "Speakin' o' books, Maister Davy," con tinued Robert, with an evident effort at imi- ROBIN AROON 25 tating the tone and accent of some individual known to the company, as he arose from his chair and approached the fire-place that was garnished with the green and feathery foliage of asparagus-plants, "I have just come into possession of one of Jack Carter's." He picked up a volume from the marble mantel-piece, and began to turn its pages. "The Fables of Aesop," he said; "listen, mother." "Mother," interrupted David, still smart ing from his brother's intimation that he had clipped Nancy Carter's eyebrows, "is it be coming in Bob to make sport of Greig by mimicking and mocking his Scotch dialect? Greig is a gentleman, and a guest of this house, though he be but a tutor. But I think I see through it; Mr. Robert would belittle Greig because he is jealous of Betty Berke ley." "Listen, mother," repeated her elder son, without deigning to notice his brother's jere miad. "Aesop's Fables, edited, revised, and corrected by John Carter, esquire. I caught master Jack at this composition a few hours before he made his much lamented flitting. It seems to have been a day of activity with 26 ROBIN AROON the younger members of the House of Carter, what with David's abstraction of Nancy's eyebrows, and Jack's venture into literature. Johnnie had ink on his wrist-laces and in the corners of his mouth, and upon the tips of his fingers. There was ink on his nose, and on his coat; and he looked as if he needed the sand-box shaken over him. The quill was a vision of beauty; and Jack might have been painted by Sir Peter Lely in the character of Erato, the muse of love-ditties." David's ill-humor vanished in his eager ness for the forthcoming revelation. He sat with open mouth, and a fixed gaze of pleased expectancy, while his brother narrated the story of John Carter's Aesop. "I suppose it was written for the benefit of your daughter, Elenor Henning, madam," he continued, addressing Mrs. Henning with mock dignity; "to be perused by her when her adorer, the scribe, should be departed." David's interest perceptibly increased. He hitched his chair closer to the table, and his mouth opened wider. "I did not fail," proceeded Robert Hen ning, "to observe him hanging with a youth ful lover's insistency at Nelly's brief coat- ROBIN AROON 27 tails, whenever he happened with her in the house. Within the pages of this com pendium of wisdom I find confirmation of his desire to become your son-in-law, madam. On its title-page he has scrawled at the bot tom of the leaf his own name at full and sprawling length, and in as elegant a hand as he is master of, with a dash below. This he follows up with the names of half the young women of quality in the Rappahan- nock Valley, appending his agreeable com ments to each." "How did you get that book?" questioned David. "I bought it, Mr. Henning," said Robert; "Carter's manuscript emendations, annota tions, et cetera, from the shameless and ink- splashed wretch himself for a mere matter of three paltry pistareens." David settled himself further back in his chair, with his gaze still fixed on his broth er's face. "Now listen, mother," said Robert again; and he turned the pages and read: " 'Miss Jenny Washington of Bushfield is very pretty.' 28 ROBIN AROON " 'Miss Steerman is a beautiful young lady.' " 'Miss Polly Tolliver.' " 'Miss Aphia Fantleroy.' " 'Miss Kitty Tayloe, Mount Airy.' " 'Miss Lydia Pettit has damned ugly freckles in her face, otherwise she is hand some and tolerable.' " 'Miss Letitia Turberville is a sweet girl'; and so forth, to the end. There are one, two, three, four, five, six ohl I suppose some fifteen or twenty girls enrolled on Jack's love roster. Last and most impudent, he con cludes his effrontery this brazen-faced inti mate of yours, Master David Henning with this amorous inscription on the last leaf in the hope that it might catch the guileless eye of your young sister Nelly : 'The name of the girl I love above all others is Elenor Hen ning, the Lovely, of Bushy Park.' ' David chuckled gleefully. His ill-humor was all gone. "As a matter of course," he said. "That's the reason he sold you the book for three pis- tareens. 'Tis a love-letter to Nelly, and you are Jack's innocent post-boy." He snatched the volume from his brother's ROBIN AROON 29 hand, and hurried out of the room in search of his sister, leaving the Virginia Gazette, with its unfinished column of the gossip of the Province, open upon the table. "I wanted you to hear it," Robert Henning said to his mother, who sat laughing softly. "It seemed vastly amusing to me. The young reprobate !" "John is a mischievous youth," said the kindly lady as she arose from her seat be hind the silver tea-urn, flanked with its fila- greed sugar-dish and cream-pot, through the interstices of which the blue glass lining showed darkly; "but I think him an honest, brave lad; and Nancy is both pretty and clever. Integrity and courage cover a multi tude of faults, even in boys, Robin; and for the sake of beauty and wit and character, we may pardon what may seem silly in as dear a child as Nancy Carter." "You are always generous, mother," her son answered. "John Carter is a fine youngster; and, though it amuses me to tease David about his friend, I am truly sorry the little Carters are gone home. As for Nancy, she is an adorable minx." THE SECOND CHAPTER SAINT ELIZABETH Mrs. Henning rang a small silver bell, and a tall, gray-haired negro of dignified mien and leisurely movement, followed by two younger negro waiters, entered the room, and proceeded with their trained assistance to gather upon a large wooden tray the old India blue china plates and dishes from the table. Mrs. Henning, with the leather key- basket in her hand, started to move toward the door that led into the passage-way. "Wait another moment, mother," said Robert. "I have something to say to you that I did not care for even David to hear just now." She resumed her seat, with an expression of quiet expectancy in her faded eyes. When the servants had withdrawn with their bur den of breakfast things to the kitchen in the yard, Robert said: "I have been thinking for some time past, mother, that the existence which I am leading ROBIN AROON 31 here is an ignoble one for me. I have had all the advantages that birth, and rearing, and education can give in this country. I am not an Oxford man, only because I prefer to be a Virginian. These are stirring times in the Colonies, and they are big with coming events." Mrs. Henning was listening attentively, almost anxiously. Her face wore a look of apprehension. "If I am to be anything more than a Vir ginia country gentleman I must go out into the world, and become acquainted with the men who are to be foremost in the great drama for which the stage is being made ready." "A Virginia country gentleman?" his mother expostulated mildly. "Can there be anything finer in the world, my dear? Your father and his father and grandfather were Virginia country gentlemen. And if that is not enough, though I think it is, you may easily be of the Council, or in some office under his excellency, the Governor. Many of the Hennings have been members of Coun cil or Burgesses." Robert smiled a significant smile. 32 ROBIN AROON "If I read the signs of the times aright, mother, there will be no more of them in of fice in Virginia under a Royal Governor." Mrs. Henning's face grew more troubled, and she made no reply. "I heard some things during the sessions of the Burgesses," her son continued, "when I was in Williamsburg in March two years ago, that stirred my blood to protest against this sluggish life here on the plantation things that made me feel how paltry are the rings of beaux who chat on a Sunday before and after sermon at Christ Church, and as semble in crowds after service to dine with the girls at the neighborhood gentlemen's houses, or to make their foolish bargains. I listened to Dabney Carr move his resolutions in the House of Burgesses for the Commit tees on Correspondence; and I heard Rich ard Henry Lee speak for the resolutions with a fervor of language that will never fade from my memory." The young man's enthusiasm kindled a flush in his mother's pale cheeks. She looked at him with misty eyes of love. "You might yourself be chosen a Burgess for Middlesex, Robert, if you cared for it. ROBIN AROON 33 The gentlemen of the county would be glad to send you, I am sure." "This house is so full of company all the time," he went on, as though oblivious of her speech, "that I can find but little leisure for business, and none for the study of politics. I must go out and meet the men of affairs." "I have thought you always quite willing to forego your books for the sake of the girls, my dear," said Mrs. Henning gently, with a wistful smile. "It is indeed a pleasure to have our friends here," he answered. "But I must not make my life all pleasure; and I cannot achieve a career by raising tobacco and entertaining visitors." He held up his left hand, and began to count on his fingers with his right. "Let's see, mother. I don't mean to seem inhospitable, and I am sure I am not." "One could not be so, and be a Henning of Bushy Park," she murmured indulgently. "But what chance is there for work, with this everlasting coming and going?" he con tinued. "Last Sunday, six girls and four 3 34 ROBIN AROON beaux, together with Mr. Conway and his wife, and Mr. Ben Waller, came here from church; and seven of them stayed the night. Three of the girls and two of the young men are here now. There's 'Silla Conway and Agnes Garlington and Betty Fitz Hugh, and George Lee, and Ned Eustace. Before sup- pertime there'll be a dozen more of men and girls. Monday, Mr. Downman and Mr. Harrison, and the three Harrison children. Wednesday I can't recall them all, with a score more in the house, in one vast proces sion coming and going. The Carters " "My dear," interrupted his mother, empha sizing the "dear," "I suppose it has been so since the house was built. It has certainly been the case since I first knew it; and, in the old days, I am told it overflowed with hospitality. Your aunt Ellis used to say to me very often in her lifetime, 'Ah, sister Henning, you should have known Bushy Park in the heydey of its glory, when there were always seven silver salvers on the table and fifty pairs of linen sheets upon the privet hedge !' And with it all, your father, and your grandfather were both quite important men in the Col- ROBIN AROON 35 ony; yet neither, with more right to import ance than you." "I have much sympathy with my dear aunt's pride in the old place," he answered, gently ignoring her allusion to the continued power of the Hennings; "and I have greatly enjoyed this year of my stay here. Visiting my neighbors, planting my tobacco, and helping you entertain your unending stream of guests have all possessed their charm. But the impulse to action grows strong in me. The very atmosphere is prophetic of coming change; and I am not the only one who has a vision of war on the horizon. A Henning of Bushy Park must not prove a laggard at the red sunrise." Mrs. Henning looked worried. Imbued with the conservatism that is always an ac companiment of established wealth and power, she had no sympathy with the spirit of revolt then rising in the Colony. The ful- minations of the political pamphleteers made no impression upon her loyalty. She had been reared with a proper respect for the King and a proper affection for the Church, and a proper estimate of her own social im portance, which no rude clamor concerning 36 ROBIN AROON taxation without representation could disturb. Moreover, she entertained no respect for the kind of politics that interfered with the ac customed tea on the breakfast table at Bushy Park. "I do not profess to understand the public questions of the day, Robin," she said; "but I should regret to see you involved in any po litical heresy." The young man laughed quietly. "I am in no danger of being tried for treason yet, mother. But I have well deter mined to quit Bushy Park for a season, and to travel in the southern colonies. There are men outside of this Province with whom I should acquaint myself, if I am to be cos mopolite." "There are many Virginians and their children in the Carolinas," said Mrs. Hen- ning. "In the Edenton and Halifax sections the names are those of our people of the river valleys. You will visit Edenton and Halifax Borough?" The anxiety in her face was still manifest; and he could see that she was seeking to charm away her own uneasiness. ROBIN AROON 37 "Yes, and Charleston and Savannah, and other places to the southward," he replied. If Mrs. Henning's knowledge of the po litical conditions of the period was inade quate, her shrewdness and common sense were nevertheless unusual; and her acquaint ance with her son's character and disposition was intuitively profound. A light had flashed on her suddenly out of the darkness, and dis pelled her gloom. She beamed with affec tion. "After all is said, my dear, is it not true that something else than your ambition is taking you away from home? You need have no secrets that you may not share with your old mother." He drew the chair, in which he had seated himself, nearer to her own; and, reaching over, took her frail blue-veined hand in his. "Mother," he said, with a tender intona tion, "you are a veritable sorceress a dealer in dark magic. There is no need of trying to hide anything from you. I do not doubt that you have already divined it; but I shall make a clean breast of what you call my 'se cret.' " 432241 38 ROBIN AROON She smiled at him with eyes that were ca ressing and wistful. "Haven't you noticed, mother, the atti tude of Greig toward our Saint Elizabeth?" "I know it," she murmured, as to herself. She withdrew her hand from his, and clasped her jeweled fingers together. " That he has been in love with her," he persisted, "from the moment that he saw her on that day when he opened his school in the East Office?" Mrs. Henning's eyes were downcast. She fingered her rings nervously. "The fact that she is Colonel Berkeley's heiress," he went on, "and that Bushy Park and Barn Oaks march together, as Greig would say, is not enough to make her care for me, mother, save in a gentle spirit of obe dience; while I well, I respect and admire Betty. But Bushy Park and Barn Oaks under one fence could never suffice to stir in me the genuinely tender passion such, for example, as I might learn in a week's associa tion with my charming cousin Milicent in Williamsburg." "It was your father's cherished wish, Rob- ROBIN AROON 39 ert," said Mrs. Henning protestingly, but with perceptible resignation. "Yes, I know, mother, and I am more than regretful for that reason that love has never smiled on the project. Sentiment is the main spring of life with us gentlefolk; and it moved my father in no small measure to this thought of his. But the girl is in love with the Scotchman, and there's an end o't. I in tend to tell her this night that I have guessed her heart's secret and that I am going away to give Greig his chance. He is only a tutor now, but he has got the stuff in him for the making of a man. In the troublous times that lie ahead of us I look to see him come to the front. Do not doubt that he will. Let him adore Betty and be happy. He is worthy of her." Mrs. Henning was fain to grieve over this swift and sudden overthrowing of her dream- castle, in which her fancies had dwelt since her oldest son's childhood; but she knew the mettle of his pasture and honored his generous spirit. She laid her left hand, with its jeweled rings surmounting the thin gold double circlet of her marriage, upon the sin ewy brown fingers that clasped her own. 40 ROBIN AROON "You mind me of the line of the Cavalier poet of the old country, my son," she mur mured. "I think of you in what you have just said as Sir Richard Lovelace sang to Lu- casta : " 'I could not love thee, dear, so much, Loved I not honour more.' "I have half suspected Betty's attachment for Mr. Greig. His for her has been for a long while evident. If you are sure of your ground as to her attitude in this delicate mat ter, I commend your courage and your self- sacrifice, though through them I lose one of my dearest hopes." "There is little of either involved," said Robert. "We should never have suited each other Betty and I. And while our friend ship has been genuine and our comradeship pleasant, neither of us has ever looked our affection in the face, to test its reality; but we have each rather evaded a realization of its coldness. It has been all the while touched with a certain frostiness, mother, that that Milly's red mouth would melt in a minute." He laughed softly with his concluding words. ROBIN AROON 41 "Don't talk to me about Milly," said Mrs. Henning, half-smiling, half-impatient, and with a suspicious moisture in her eyes which called for the intervention of her cambric handkerchief. "She's a hoyden girl, who is only one degree removed from Nancy Carter in her wildness; and besides, she's your cousin." "Older and far more mature than Nancy, mother," Robert said solemnly. Mrs. Henning arose, and kissing her son on the forehead, left the room, with the leather key-basket in her hand. THE THIRD CHAPTER THE CAP OF YOUTH The night breeze came from the river, cool and soft and sweet, and faintly stirred the curtains at the open windows. Here and there, on the uncertain water, the dark figures of three or four ships lay in the track of the low-hanging moon against a lesser darkness, with now and then a light showing like a jewel on the breast of it. Through the lit casement of an upper chamber in the Bushy Park house rose to the ears of the two girls within, whose hair was being craped by two negro maids, a hum of conversation from the men sitting in a row of chairs facing the porch below. The men sat with their feet on the steps, and smoked tobacco in long-stemmed clay pipes, while they talked politics. Mingled with their talk came to the young women above, the clearer and more distinct twanging of a guitar to the alternate accompaniment of a tenor voice, and snatches of a girl's silver soprano in an ROBIN AROON 43 indistinguishable song. The ending of the music was followed by a half-smothered scream of the soprano singer, and then by the melodious laughter of youth and maiden in unison. The voices of the smokers by the steps ceased, and the incense of their tobacco floated higher. They were listening. "That's Evelyn Harrison and David," said the younger of the two girls. "I protest that boy is a terror. Here, Libby, don't spend all your energies on that part of my head. The fiddle will soon sound for the dance, and I shall be late." "I don't care much if I miss it this evening. One gets tired of dancing every day," said the other girl, who, seated in front of a Sheraton dresser, was surveying with pensive pleasure her handsome and high-bred counte nance in the swinging mirror. Her maid, Dilsey, having finished the craping business, stood behind her with an artificial rose in her hand, and inquired: "Whar 'bouts in yo' haid is I gwi' stick dis-here bloom, Miss Betsy?" "Of course you don't care for the danc ing," said the first speaker, a small blonde lady, barely turned of twenty years, whose 44 ROBIN AROON blue eyes and pink cheeks combined with her soft light hair and her plump little figure to make a most attractive appearance. She was dressed in a chintz cotton gown with a pretty dark-blue figure stamped on it, a sky-blue silk quilt, and an apron with dark blue dots of the size of a shilling. Her yellow hair had been craped up with two rolls at each side by the accomplished and now smiling Libby; and on the top of her pretty little head was a fetching small cap of gauze and lace, adorned with the conventional artificial flower of the period. "Of course the dances do not interest you now, since Mr. Greig does not dance; though I remember it was not so when Robin first came back from Williamsburg. I vow, Betty, you are treating Robert Henning shamefully, coquetting so with this Scotch man. And your wedding-day set for Septem ber, too!" The other girl's eyes filled with tears as she turned her face away from the little mirror and looked out of the window into the dark ness, where the far-away, uncertain lights moved fitfully on the face of the waters. She made no reply. ROBIN AROON 45 "I hear that Captain Blaise, the English man, who is at Merry Point, from the new ship just come in, will be here to-night," chat tered her companion inconsequently. "He made great fame for himself as a dancer when he came out from England last year. They do say that I shall be highly diverted with his minuets. I intend to make him dance one to-night." "Captain Blaise is not a graceful dancer, Mary," said the dark-eyed girl quietly. "Perhaps he does not have so many oppor tunities of practice as our young gentlemen. But he is a very pleasant person. He has all the qualifications of an accomplished gen tleman; and in addition his dress is very genteel and pretty." "Adieu ! I hear the fiddle !" exclaimed the blonde beauty, jumping quickly from her seat. "Here, Libby, fasten this shoe, quick." She lifted the skirts of the chintz gown to a height that would have been indiscreet downstairs, and showed amid frilled sugges tions of snowy petticoats a tapering ankle in a blue silk stocking that terminated in a little foot with a finely arched instep, clad in a blue 46 ROBIN AROON morocco shoe, high-heeled and silver- buckled. The delighted Libby made fast the shoe, and the girl ran out of the room with the skirt of her gown still caught in the jeweled fingers. "I'll tell Robin his holy Saint Elizabeth is in the doldrums again to-night," she called back from the doorway. At the first notes of David's violin the young women and men had gathered, after the custom of the place, in the long hall which ran the front length of the house, that was now illuminated with the soft effulgence of wax candles, in sconces and in silver candle sticks, set here and there on little tables. The family pictures of five generations in the Col ony, painted by Lely and Reynolds and Bridges and Hesselius, the portrait paint ers, great and small, in London and Vir ginia looked down from the walls, in the glory of satin and lace and velvet and peri wig and patch on chin. With set, unchang ing faces, and strangely pursuing eyes, the dead burgesses and councillors and their de parted womankind consorts and sisters and daughters gazed from their fixed places on ROBIN AROON 47 the glittering apparition of this later genera tion, who were kindled with the same joys of youth and hope and love as these their pro totypes had also once known and long ago forgotten, since for them the pageant of life had passed. When Robert Henning entered the hall through the open door, he saw descending the wide stairway at its eastern end the dark-eyed girl who had some minutes before protested to her room-mate that she was tired of the dances. She was dressed in a lead-colored habit that was open in front, showing a lilac lutestring petticoat. Her hair, under Dil- sey's deft hand, had been craped high on a cushion, and the red rose glowed above it. Robert stepped forward to meet her; and at the sight of him there was an outbreak of light and color in her handsome face. "I shan't dance to-night, Robert," she murmured, as taking her hand he led her down the hall. "Let me help with the mu sic." "As you wish," he answered. "I have something to say to you, Betty." She looked at him with a quick glance of wonderment. 48 ROBIN AROON "I shall turn the music-sheets for you," he added. He escorted her down the length of the great hall to where the spinet stood in the western end; and the chatter of the gathered company was involuntarily hushed as the eyes of men and women alike regarded their grace ful progress. "No handsomer couple have ever walked down the aisle of the Middle Church to the altar, madam," commented Colonel Selden to Mrs. Henning. "It is getting high time for Betty to be fixing a day for what the country-side understands has been agreed on for these years. There could be no more charming successor to the present charming mistress of Bushy Park than Betty Berkeley. 'A very riband in the cap of youth,' " he added, smiling. Mrs. Henning was seated near one of the front windows; and the Colonel, standing near, bowed to her with courtly grace. He noted that she made no audible response; but moving her turkey-wing fan faintly, smiled with a face that seemed to him somewhat wan and drawn. Then he feared that he had ROBIN AROON 49 blundered, and moved quietly away, saying in his thought: "The widow doesn't like the idea of abdi cating to any other queen." In the meanwhile Elizabeth Berkeley had seated herself at the spinet; and to its music and the accompaniment of David's violin, the younger people danced a minuet of much bowing and curtsying, varied with snatches of sentences and outbreaks of light laughter. "Aren't you going to dance?" she asked Henning, looking up to him with the dark, deep eyes that had always seemed to him to contain in them mysteries that it would never be given him to fathom. "This is better," he answered softly. "When the older people begin talking I can tell you what I want to say." In a few moments scraps of conversation began to be audible above the lower notes of the music. "Mr. Ball and Mr. Ludwell made each girl a present of a pound of powder " He had just returned from the races at Fredericksburg. Dr. Flood's horse " 4 50 ROBIN AROON " They say Mr. Burwell got his discard that week " " I understand they will go from Ravens- worth to Chatham, before returning " And so the swift-winged gossip ran in va rious masculine and feminine tones of airy emptiness. "I am going away to-morrow, Saint Eliza beth," he said softly, bending over her; and it seemed to her, in the tenderness of his voice and in the surprise of his speech, that he had shouted it aloud to the company. There was for a single moment a faltering break in the music, that had almost put the dancers out of time. "I know why you are going, Robert," she murmured in words so faint that he could scarcely hear them above the chords of the instrument. David turned to look at the two ; and wondered why she should have lost that note, and what made her face so pale. "Where's Greig?" asked Henning, with a half-smile. "I haven't laid eyes on him since breakfast." Again the swift glance went up to him, with an appeal breaking forth from the mys- ROBIN AROON 51 tery of her eyes. He saw that there was a dew of tears on the lashes. "I am glad that you have found it out for yourself, Robert," she whispered. "It would have been hard for me ever to tell you. I should never have let any one know." David's violin sang louder, with a human voice of reproach, as once more a note was missed in the music of the spinet. The dancers danced on with bow and curtsy and mingled jest and laughter. Captain Blaise of The Friendship, a sturdy sailor, now clad in the height of the London fashion in honor of his provincial acquaintances, was dancing the minuet with a solemn countenance and an evident sincerity that had awakened the ill- concealed amusement of his young partner, the blonde girl in the chintz gown of the blue-print pattern. "I protest, your dancing is divine, Captain Blaise," she laughed to him; and he bowed in rigid acknowledgment. "The romance that our elders fashioned for us so painstakingly was, I doubt not, very pleasing to them in the perspective," Henning was whispering to Betty, while the others danced and laughed. "But the god of love 52 ROBIN AROON is a self-willed young deity, and aims his own arrows. I think Greig is a monstrous clever man, and I look to see him do great things some day." She bent over the keys; and the music of the stately dance died away with the last notes of David's violin. "Isn't Captain Blaise perfection?" ex claimed the blonde, chintz girl, to David, in easy hearing of the sailor, who at once hove- to in his voyage down the hall, and came to anchor near her. Betty, with her hand on Robert's arm, passed with him amid the chattering crowd, out through the great hall door under the leaded fan-window, into the white pillared portico. The short, silken-clad legs of Master Da vid, who was thick set and chubby, soon grew weary of the country dance that followed the minuet, and for which Mrs. Henning made the music upon the harpsichord. "It's awfully tiresome," he said to his pretty little partner, Miss Evelyn Harrison of Wakefield, who regarded the junior son of the house of Henning with an interest that had secretly, but none the less profoundly, re- ROBIN AROON 53 joiced at the departure on yesterday of Nancy Carter. "This dancing business every night pleases you girls vastly; but I would inform you 'tis a perfect nuisance to us men." "Us men!" the young lady mimicked, with a simulated scorn that but thinly veiled her admiration of her companion. "I vow, I like your courage, young sir." "Come, fair Eve, destroyer of Paradise," laughed the boy; "I have some sweet noth ings to whisper into your shell-like ear; and there are others listening about us." He led her, not unwillingly, to the stair way at the eastern end of the hall ; where with much proper bestowing of skirts, in which David seemed to take an unwonted interest, she seated herself on one of the lower steps. He perched beside her, and the girl languish ed at him; while now and then some passer by saw the little love-game and laughed. The boy, observing her mood, with a fine masculine disregard of the attainable, and a half-tender, half-humorous memory of Nancy Carter and her clipped eyebrows, sighed and soliloquized: "Heigho! But I do miss Nancy!" 54 ROBIN AROON His companion's face took on a momentary soberness, which passed in a smile for fear that he would see it. "Don't you?" he queried softly, regard ing her with seductive eyes. "Oh, did the girls tell you about Nancy's trick, David?" she parried swiftly, with a deft ignoring of his blunt question, and a stout maintenance of the subject. "Did Elenor tell you?" "My sister Elenor seldom confides in me," he answered with dignity. "She would give Jack Carter a dozen confidences where she gave me*half a one." "Oh, but about her eyebrows," persisted Miss Harrison. "You heard about Nancy's eyebrows?" "You're glad she's gone," said David, fac ing her, and pretending a regretful sternness. "Now, aren't you, Evelyn?" "I don't care a pistareen," said the young miss defiantly, thus crowded into a corner. "You wouldn't have loved her anyhow with her eyebrows all clipped off, and looking so pale-faced and pasty." "Pale-faced and pasty ! ho, ho ! Of course you're glad she's gone!" persisted ROBIN AROON 55 David, his simulated sternness vanishing in a laugh of complacency at the implied confes sion that he had wrung from her. "Not I, in sooth," she answered, with an unyielding spirit and a flame in her cheeks. "Why should I care? She might stay here till doomsday." The boy chuckled. "Evelyn," he said, looking into her eyes, "you're a dear little liarl" She arose in a wrath, half-genuine, half- affected; and catching up her short silken skirt, with a flash of silver shoe-buckles, ran up the stairway. He did not seek to pursue her; but, conscious of his conquest, stood still to survey her graceful flight. He saw her pause on the broad landing, and lean for a moment over the balustrade, looking down. Then he laughed up at her. With a well-directed aim from her coign of vantage she struck him on his upturned face with the rose which she had worn in her craped hair. He started up the steps in pur suit of her; and she vanished from the land ing, leaving an echo of mocking mirth. He turned, and walking slowly down the steps, picked up the rose. THE FOURTH CHAPTER DAVID'S LOVE-SONG When the dancing was ended, the old din ing-room servant entered the hall, and made an elaborate though deprecatory bow, as though it were with great regret that he in truded upon such gayety. Then he announc ed that dinner was served. Colonel Selden offered his arm to Mrs. Henning; and the company, paired off as oc casion presented itself, proceeded to the din ing-room. David escorted his young sister, Elenor, to whom his gibes and jests seemed to afford infinite amusement; while Henning brought up the rear of the procession with Elizabeth Berkeley. Mr. Greig, the grave- faced, raw-boned, red-headed Scotch teacher, who had seen David's "sweet little liar" run up the stairway, awaited her return to save her the embarrassment of entering the dining- room alone; and as he waited, kept his gaze fixed on the tall slim figure of Elizabeth Berk- ROBIN AROON 57 eley, until it passed out of sight down the hall-passage. After the bustle of being seated at the long table had subsided, a general conversation en sued, the chief topic of which was the arrival in the river of Captain Blaise's ship. A num ber of packages and hampers had preceded the coming of that gentleman to the house; and Mrs. Henning and several of the girls had busied themselves in the afternoon with unpacking them. "Have you seen your mother's importa tions for the table?" asked Saint Elizabeth of Robert Henning. "No," he answered, pausing in the effort of carving the small long ham which fronted him; "what are they?" "A beautiful pair of fashionable silver gob lets, a pair of silver sauce-cups, and a pair of elegant silver decanter holders," she said. "And all with the family crest and motto," chimed in Miss Agatha Randolph, sitting next to Mr. Lee. "That's a fine ham, Robert," observed Col onel Selden, regarding it with the air of a bon-vivant. "When you reach me, cut near the hock." 58 ROBIN AROON Then he turned to Mrs. Henning and con tinued: "It is needless to tell you, madam, that the value of a ham depends on its curing; though the hog should not be too fat. I always kill my hogs when the wind is from the north. Make a strong pepper-tea, just before salt ing. Put about a spoonful of saltpetre to every gallon of the pepper-mixture, pouring the tea on the salt. Pack the meat for about four days. Then rub with salt and Jamaica molasses, dashed with Demarara rum. Pack again for two weeks. At the end of the fort night wash in warm water, and anoint with ashes of hickory wood. Smoke with green hickory; and kill the nigger, ma'am, that lets the smoke-house fire go out." He smiled reminiscently, with a gathering of gustatory juices in his mouth. " 'Tis half in the cooking, Colonel Selden," answered Mrs. Henning, who was engaged in depositing a fried chicken-leg on a corn batter- cake for Captain Blaise; and those nearest her paused to listen. "Will you favor me with your method, madam?" asked the Colonel with attention. "Soak the ham for two days and nights. ROBIN AROON 59 Let it simmer in very hot water, half an hour for each pound. At the end of half the time pour off the water, and fill again with boiling water. Put in a half cupful of vinegar, and some cloves and cinnamon and allspice. Let it soak till the time is ended. What piece of the chicken do you like, Evelyn?" Miss Harrison liked a leg, and a gizzard to make her pretty. " Then you let the ham cool in the water, Colonel, and take off the skin. Put on enough mustard, and cover with an egg's yel low. Sprinkle with bread-crumbs, slash with a sharp knife, and put in a pint of sherry. Bake for a half hour, basting every five min utes; and there you are!" "Fine!" exclaimed Colonel Selden, clap ping his hands; "and never forget to bury the ham in clean earth for a few days before hand, if it be old." "And skin the little darky that goes to sleep over the basting," added Robert as he carved for Colonel Selden two generous slices near the hock. "I thank you, madam," said Colonel Sel den, with unaffected gratitude ; and bowed to Mrs. Henning. 60 ROBIN AROON "Did my watch and Robert's seal ring come?" asked David of his mother, with boy ish eagerness, as soon as the colloquy over the ham was at an end. He pinched his sister Elenor under the table, and whispered wrath- fully: "Why didn't you tell me about this sooner, miss?" "You saw the ship, and there's Captain Blaise," said Elenor. "I thought you would have sense enough to know." Raising her voice, Elenor asked: "And the other things, mother?" "Let's leave the other things for another occasion, dear," said Mrs. Henning, with a gentle smile on her face. "Have a dish of tea, Captain Blaise," she said to the Englishman; and she poured him a cup from the ebony-handled teapot near her. "Tea still reigns at Bushy Park, madam, my Lord North notwithstanding," murmured Mr. Ball, a white-haired old gentleman, with a rosy face and a winning smile. He rubbed his hands together with pleasurable anticipa tion as he addressed her. "I see the tax has no terror for you, Mr. Ball," said Mrs. Henning. "I am almost ROBIN AROON 61 afraid to offer the beverage to some of the gentlemen." "The privilege of age, madam, the privi lege of age," responded Mr. Ball. "I damn the tax and drink the tea, madam. Damn the tax, and drink the tea." Elenor Henning, under cover of Mr. Ball's observation upon the burning political issue of the day, said to the young woman next her, the dainty creature of the golden crimped hair and the dimity dress, whom Captain Blaise at regular intervals stared at from his seat on the opposite side of the table : "Listen, Polly, I've got the invoice of my own things in my pocket. Wait a moment, and I'll read it to you. Turn your head the other way, David." David declined the invitation mutely, and with aroused attention. Elenor produced a piece of paper, and began to read its contents in a low tone to Polly. "What's that, Nelly?" asked David, peer ing over from his side. "A love-letter?" Captain Blaise, with a changeless expres sion on his wooden face, and an apparent lack of interest in aught but his plate, lifted his eyes and stared at David. Then he laughed 62 ROBIN AROON aloud, a laugh that seemed to hurt him. Elenor read on : " 'INVOICE FOR Miss ELEXOR HENNING. A fashionable Laced Cap, Handkerchief, Ruf fles & Tuckes, 7 . o.o A fashionable Brocade Suit, 16. o.o A pair of Stays, 2. o.o A blue Satin Petticoat i., Scarlet Cloth Under Petticoat 2, 3. o.o A Pair of Blue Satin Shoes, full trimmed, 1.16.0 A Hoop i., a Pr. Blue Silk Stockings 0.12, 1.12.0 A fashionable Silver Girdle i., A Fan i., 2. o.o 33. 8.0'" "La, mother!" called David. "Hear your dear daughter Elenor." The company laid down knives and forks to listen. "She's telling George Lee about her new blue-silk stockings, and her new pair of stays." A rose-color illumined Miss Elenor's fair face. "That's a vile story, David!" she gasped. "David!" said Mrs. Henning warningly, and shaking her head at him. "I vow," exclaimed young Mr. Lee, both to relieve Miss Henning's embarrassment and to egg Master Henning on, "I hope the stays are not the newest fashion, Miss Elenor. I ROBIN AROON 63 saw a lady at Nomini last week with the new London style of stays. They seemed suited to come up to the upper part of her shoulders, almost to her chin; and were swathed round her as low as they could possibly, allowing her any liberty to walk." "God bless my soul! is it possible?" ejacu lated Mr. Ball, setting down his second cup of tea. "God bless my soul!" Captain Blaise again laughed aloud, with out the change of a muscle. "To be sure, 'twas a vastly modest dress, Miss Elenor," continued George Lee. "Do the new stays seem to be the rage in London town, Captain Blaise?" "Don't know," responded the sailor, star ing. "Have no talent in stays," and he re sumed his interrupted attention to his dinner. "Tell us about the newest a la mode in ladies' stockings, Mr. Lee," besought David flatteringly. "What are said to be the most approved colors? Is blue silk fashionable?" "David, you may withdraw," said his mother, with severity; and Mr. Lee's persi flage ceased. David arose and departed, pausing a moment at the door to beckon with significant forefinger to Evelyn Harrison, who 64 ROBIN AROON smiled at him with a negative shake of her curly head. The conversation became general, and the room was filled with the chatter and laughter of youth and happiness, and lit with the in dulgent smiles of those from whom youth had departed only to leave contentment. The painted men and women on the wainscoted walls, who had been known alive of Lely or Reynolds or Bridges or Hesselius, gazed down with their pursuing eyes, seeming the while to wear on their proud faces something of that reverence which is the essential qual ity of gentle birth and breeding. When the dinner was ended, at a signal from Mrs. Henning the ladies arose; and while the men, also arising, stood ceremoni ously, left the room. "Come on, Mr. Greig," called David from the open doorway to the Scotch tutor, who had sat for the most part silent through the meal; and the Scotchman followed the ladies into the drawing-room. "I'm not allowed to toast, and you've no mind to," said the boy, as he and Greig van ished from the sight of the other men in the wake of the ladies. ROBIN AROON 65 The gentlemen seated themselves again at the table ; and the old negro dining-room ser vant set decanters and goblets of cut glass in rose-patterns upon the board. "Sugar and hot water with the brandy, William," commanded Robert Henning. "Bring the old madeira, and some of the last cask of West India rum. I think you take yours in a dram, Colonel, instead of a toddy," he observed to Colonel Selden. "The dram, Robert," interjected old Mr. Ball. "Sugar is a mistake. The dram's the thing." From the drawing-room adjoining came David's fine tenor voice, singing for the ladies to the melodious accompaniment of Greig up on the violin. The words of the boy's song caused Robert to smile significantly at Colonel Selden, as the wine began to circulate. " 'Ah, Chloris, could I now but sit As unconcerned as when Your infant beauty could beget No happiness or pain ! When I the dawn used to admire, And praised the coming day, I little thought the rising fire Would take my rest away-' " 66 ROBIN AROON "That's for Evelyn Harrison, Colonel," said Robert, with a chuckle. "Ah!" murmured the Colonel, over his madeira. He smiled in his turn, as his thought conjured up the vision of his own gay youth, singing love-songs to some Amaryllis long since asleep in the graveyard of the Mid dle Church. "God bless 'em, Robin !" he said, with the glass at his lips. In their picturesque dress, and with the suavity of their polished manners compelling them, these men, no less than the women who had but lately sat with them, seemed, as in deed they were, some gracious portion of an old world of society that had rooted itself in the soil of centuries. They were of a new country in comparison with that which their forbears had left, and the social earth was scarcely more than virgin. Yet here was blooming in unsurpassed beauty and undi- minished splendor the full-blown flower of an ancient and lordly race. "Is that the Scotchman playing the fiddle?" queried Mr. Lee of Robert Henning. When informed that Greig was quite an accomplish- ROBIN AROON 67 ed musician, he expressed a dislike of the Scotch. "Should my sister marry one of them, I would never speak with her again," he said; "and if I have a daughter, and she marry a Scotchman, I shoot her dead at once !" It was the hyperbole of exaggerated thought, born of Henning's madeira. "Your prejudice is foolish, George," com mented his cousin, Mr. Kendall, across the board. "The Scotch are becoming influential people in the colony. I observe that nearly all the merchants and store-keepers in my ac quaintance are young Scotchmen, and most of them of good family. I find it the case throughout the Province." "Merchants and storekeepers, forsooth!" said Lee, smiling disdainfully. "The Scotchmen?" asked Mr. Ball, from down the table. "My dear sir, they make the finest of all tutors, and many of the gen tlemen have them in their families." "I will stand sponsor for Mr. Greig," ob served Robert Henning. "I grant you, they are sometimes good tailors," said Lee. "All my coats and breeches, save those for dress which I get 68 ROBIN AROON from London, are made by a Scotchman in Fredericksburg named Paul a very worthy man, but a tailor." "When your friends, Patrick Henry and Jefferson and Carr in the Burgesses, get their revolution well under way, we shall have need of the Greigs and the Pauls, and the other tailors and storekeepers and. tutors," said Colonel Selden. "And they will give a good account of themselves, I warrant," echoed Mr. Ball stoutly. Robert Henning arose, and holding high his glass, brimmed with wine, said: "The toasts, gentlemen!" When the crimson vintage glowed in each glass, he added: "I give you Mr. Pope's pledge : 'To all our loves !' ' "Surely, not for lack of a better, Robert," said George Lee, forgetting his Scotchmen. He was thinking of Betty Berkeley beyond the closed doors of the drawing-room, from which the notes of Greig's violin still bore upon their cadences the tuneful words of David's love-song: ROBIN AROON 69 " 'Your charms in harmless childhood lay Like metals in a mine; Age from no face takes more away Than youth concealed in thine. But as your charms insensibly To their perfection prest, So love as unperceived did fly, And centered in my breast.' " "Ha, ha!" laughed Colonel Selden softly, with a look at Henning, as he drained his glass. "God bless 'em!" THE FIFTH CHAPTER ON THE DRAGON SWAMP ROAD Booted and spurred, and in traveling cos tume, Robert Henning on the next morning rode out of the great gate at Bushy Park; and with him rode old Silas, who had been carriage-driver for the family since Robert's early childhood. Silas's withered face wore an expression of wrinkled misery. In front of him was strapped a hugh leather portmanteau, above which he discerned at intervals the tips of his horse's ears. They had passed the ancient sundial on the lawn, with its unerring iron finger point ing the passage of time, and its no less uner ring motto graven in the marble, "Vita um bra" proclaiming the evanescence of even a river baron's glory. Henning thought of how but a few days before he had seen Nancy Carter, in a white frock, stretched at full and charming length upon the greensward there beside it. Each detail of her attitude flashed ROBIN AROON 71 again through his memory the taper hand on chin, the half-disclosed elbow in the grass, the long graceful contour of body and limbs, the contemplative gaze of her eyes on a ship slowly moving down the river. The recollection of her lent a new signifi cance to the sundial. "A most alluring minx," he murmured, "with a devil of a spirit." Beyond the gate, to the right, lay the broad waters -of Urbanna Creek, on whose western side shone through the white morning the early sunlit roofs of the little village. A dis tant figure, standing erect in a tiny boat, seemed a speck on the face of the sparkling waters. It was one of the plantation negroes tonging oysters, in a month that had no r in it, for the family's breakfast at the great house. The sun was half an hour high. The blue of the sky was stainless; and the atmosphere seemed of translucent gold. At Henning's back the stately mansion reared its gabled and dormered roof; and the tall chimneys of it, looking far across the mutable river to where the distant banks of Lancaster smiled to the 72 ROBIN AROON summer morning, flung cool shadows over the western way. Dew-spangled webs lay upon the lush grass along the roadside; and through the tangle of the grass tiny morning grasshoppers were beginning to slip. Early bees, from the hives at the quarters to the east, were already busy with the white blooms of the wild black berries along the outreaching worm-fences. A butterfly on rainbow-tinted wings drifted aimlessly across the rider's way, wafted by the soft breeze that came up from the river. "Mars' Robert," said Silas, unmoved by the opulence of the summer's splendor. He addressed the back of Robert Henning, who rode a few paces ahead, with the long, swinging stirrup and the light left-handed rein of the genuine Virginia horseman. A slight drawing of the bridle, and a consequent pressure on the bit, checked the rapid pace of Henning's horse; and Silas drew nearer. "Young marster," repeated Silas anxiously, "is you a-gwine all de way f'om Bushy Park ter de Guff o' Nexico, a-hoss-back, like dis- heer? Hit's a-killin' yo' po' ole nigger." Henning chuckled to think of how the old ROBIN AROON 73 man was longing for his seat on the carriage- box. "Only to Williamsburg, Silas," he ans wered. "We'll get a chariot and a pair that I know of there; and I'll send these back to David. We'll drive most of the way to the Gulf." Down the Dragon Swamp Road they went through the early morning. Their way lay past the tobacco fields of the Bushy Park plantation; and as far as the eye could reach the earth was green with the dark rich beauty of the nicotian plant. The Virginians for a hundred years had heeded the irreverent admonition of the Eng lish worthy, who in the latter part of the seventeenth century, upon being importuned for aid to enlighten and save their provincial souls, had scornfully ejaculated, "Damn their souls ! Let them raise tobacco !" They had raised tobacco. The commerce in the weed for more than a century had continued to enrich tremendous ly the river barons of the Colony; and now in this year of grace 1774, the tobacco lords of Glasgow were promenading the Trongate in long scarlet robes and bushy wigs, thinking 74 ROBIN AROON of the forty-nine thousand hogsheads which the Scotch burgh in the twelvemonth preced ing had imported thence, and thanking God that they possessed such fair cause to name one of their main thoroughfares with the name of Virginia Street. An army of negro slaves, men and women, were already at work amid the greenness of the Bushy Park fields; and Silas's comment to his master that "hit look lak de crop gwine ter be a fine un, dis year," was concurred in by the lord of the manor with a nod. The road ran nearly parallel with the river, that was visible to the traveler along it, shin ing and sparkling beyond the expanse of the green tobacco fields.- A mile from the Bushy Park gate it veered to the east, traversing the adjoining plantation of Barn Oaks, until be yond a fringe of woods the stuccoed walls of the Glebe appeared in sight. Out of the Glebe gate, as the travelers drew near, trotted into the main road to join them the minister of the parish on a power ful hunter, which he bestrode with the mili tary mien of a hussar riding to battle. "Good morning, Parson," called Henning, glad of other company than Silas's, though ROBIN AROON 75 but for a little distance. "Whither away so betimes?" "I have an invitation to dine at Grymeses' Brandon," said the Reverend Mr. Heffernan, with a rich Irish accent, "and I must stop for some hours on the way to look after that ras cally carpenter, Henderson, who is repairing Christ Church. A plague on the rogue son of a redemptioner. If he were a slave, I should larrup him. Where are you going with all that luggage, Robin, machree?" and he cast a swift glance of his dark, deepset eyes at Silas's burden. "To Williamsburg, to see a Shakesperian play by an English company, just arrived, your reverence. Do you read the Gazette? Later, I shall start to the southward, for rec reation, and to study politics." 'Tis a nest of malcontents gathered to gether over there in that town," said the Par son. His thin lips covered set teeth as he paused in his speech. "I wonder my Lord Dunmore does not string some of them up for treason. Sedition is wearing too bold a front in the Province of late. Old Sir William Berke ley had made short shift of them with their Gazettes and their correspondences and fool- 76 ROBIN AROON ishness. Let them remember the rebel Bacon, and Drummond and the earlier traitors." The words came from his lips with a suc cession of jerks that were marked by the beat of his horse's hoofs in the road. Horse and rider were not unlike in other respects than that they both were hard-mouthed, and often champed at the bit. The parson was a tall, rawboned, bullet-headed Irishman, with a fine Milesian brogue that gave an edge to his talk. He seemed to be some forty years of age. The horse, that he handled with the skilled ease of a veteran rider, was also raw- boned and bullet-headed. He was some six teen hands high, and his trot was staccato, as the minister's seat in the saddle was erect. Henning had had a large experience of the Irishman's fierce party views. No company of patriotic Virginians had ever daunted him in the expression of his hatred for a political movement that threatened the church estab lishment upon which he flourished. His companion sought to change the current of the talk. "Jotank looks in fine fettle to-day, Par son," said Henning, affecting to survey the ROBIN AROON 77 sorrel stallion critically. "You should enter him in the next Richmond County races." "I have offered to wager Colonel Tayloe 50 Virginia money that this horse can beat his great Yorick in a two-mile steeple-chase, he and I to ride," jerked out the Parson grim ly. "But Colonel Tayloe does not approve that the minister of the parish shall ride races in public. He thinks, doubtless, that it may give a handle to some of the Whig Dissen ters." The Reverend Mr. Heffernan laughed harshly; and Henning rode on in silence. "It seems that some of these young bur gesses from the Western wilderness are prat ing louder than ever about their taxation with out representation. They threaten the de struction of the social order; they are full of false doctrine, heresy and schism; they " They had come to a gate across the road; and as the Parson rode forward to open it, the conclusion of his speech was lost to his companion's ears. The wide swinging gate closed behind Silas with a bang; and Mr Heffernan, resuming his position on Hen- ning's right, said: 7 8 ROBIN AROON "I hear that your sprightly young friend, Mistress George Turberville of Peckatone, whom I had the honor of meeting some months ago at Bushy Park, has declared war on all Richmond County gates." "Ah, has she?" queried Henning, with a show of interest, and relieved at the Parson's abandonment of politics. "When she goes abroad," the latter con tinued, "I learn that she is wont to arm her outriders with axes. Then she gives them orders to smash ever) 7 gate in the way and to remove all obstacles. Colonel Landon Car ter is much wrought up that she broke down some of the gates on the Sabine Hall planta tion." "Colonel Landon has a testy temper when aroused," Henning replied, laughing. "But for his courtesy to all women, he might hale the lady before the county court." "I admire her courage," said Mr. Hef- fernan. " 'Twere well if his excellency might turn her and her axe-bearers loose among yon treason-praters at the capital." "We have missed you at Bushy Park, Par son," remarked Robert, ignoring the minis ter's application of Mrs. Turberville's im- ROBIN AROON 79 patience of obstacles to the political situa tion. "The house has been full of pretty girls, who have pined for you in a minuet. David's violin is out of tune when he cannot play with you; and Colonel Selden says he hasn't had a genuine mint-julep since the last one you made for him at the Glebe." The ghost of a smile flickered over the Parson's saturnine face. "Ah, Robin, aroon," he answered, "the youth of the world is still in your veins. Your thought ever runs on wine, woman and song. I'll have the Colonel over, to try my new recipe for a julep " 'This cordial julep here, That flames and dances in its crystal bounds.' "I'll venture to assert that the old round head poet never knew anything like these green drinks we brew in Virginia. The mint is perfect now, and I have a cask ot old brandy from Lancaster." "They say at the Raleigh Tavern," ans wered Henning, "that it is a current word with the burgesses from the westward that wherever the mint grows, underneath is buried a Virginian of the River Ways." Heffernan chuckled. 8o ROBIN AROON "Divulge me your recipe, Parson," con tinued the young man. "Aha!" said the minister, "I warrant me that the schismatic rogues in your Raleigh Tavern would hail it with more acclaim than a letter from one of their pestiferous cor respondence committees in Massachusetts Bay or Providence Plantations, w r here the crop- eared breed of rebels does most abound." They passed through another plantation gate ; and saw beyond it, where the road from the south crossed that of the Dragon Swamp, a horseman on a grey nag, who appeared to await their coming. "It looks like John Ree," said the Rever end Mr. Heffernan. "Dat look ter me lak Mr, Ball's grey hoss," ventured Silas ruefully, from behind his portmanteau. Both surmises proved correct. "Hail, Parson! hail, Robin!" called Mr. Ree cheerfully, as they approached. Silas surveyed the heavens, connecting Mr. Ree's classic salutation with some threat ened change in the weather. The new comer was dressed in black super fine broadcloth, a gold-laced hat, laced ruffles, ROBIN AROON 81 and black silk stockings, all of which looked somewhat the worse for wear, and quite in appropriate for a horseback ride. His flushed face and disheveled costume contrast ed strongly with the correct and sober dignity of the minister's severely dark costume and austere demeanor. "You are out early, Mr. Ree," said Mr. Heffernan. Mr. Ree was a gentleman from beyond Fredericksburg. His plantation lay not far from where Governor Spotswood founded his iron works at Germanna. Mr. Ree pre ferred the festivities of the River region to his lonely life in the backwoods. Where fore, having neither chick nor child to look after, and possessing a highly capable and honest overseer upon his estate, he spent more of his time under the roof-trees of his many friends and acquaintances in the Rap- pahannock Valley than under his own. David Henning, with a nimble wit, had characterized Mr. Ree, on the occasion of a long stay of his at Bushy Park, as being very similar to a certain character depicted in the works of the late Mr. Addison, 82 ROBIN AROON "He stays," observed David, "eight or ten weeks in his own house because he must, and the rest of the year with his friends because he can." "This is early for me, Mr. Heffernan," Mr. Ree now said to the minister confiden tially, "but I came up by boat from Merry Point yesterday, and lay last night at Ur- banna. 'Tis a most pestiferous and immoral hole, Parson. There I fell in with several young bloods. We had a game or two be fore retiring, which lasted to the small hours. The villainous light of the candles hurt my eyes, and so I am out this morning seeking fresh air and eyesight." Parson Heffernan regarded him with in terest. "Were the stakes high, Mr. Ree?" he queried. "That's a good horse of yours, Parson," replied Ree irrelevantly. Then he added: "The stakes were not so high as yonder five-barred gate. I'll ride you a race from here thither for a purse of ten shillings, the winner to take the gate and the next gate by the church for hurdles." ROBIN AROON 83 The gate to which Mr. Ree pointed was visible about half a mile away, down the in tersecting road. "Make it twenty," said the Parson grimly, "and I'll ride ye." Mr. Ree made it twenty; and the two paused in the road, with their horse's flanks close together, to count out the silver. "Hold it, Robert," said Mr. Ree. "I'm going to Williamsburg," said Hen- ning, fobbing the money unwillingly. "Send me word to Charlestown, in the Province of Carolina, who wins the race." They did not heed him. Side by side, and bridle bit to bridle bit for a moment, the grey gelding and the sorrel paused. "Go!" shouted Henning; and down the road they went, the Parson sitting bolt up right, and riding as in a cavalry charge, and Ree leaning forward over the neck of the grey. "Dar!" ejaculated Silas, taking a tighter grip upon the portmanteau, and watching the flying figures with starting eyeballs. "Dar! 'fo' Gord! dey done off!" Henning laughed aloud at the sight, and waited long enough to see the minister on 84 ROBIN AROON Jotank clear the gate a little in advance of Mr. Ree. Then both vanished from view beyond the grove of oaks, out of which rose the red brick walls of the Middle Church. "Come on, Silas," said Henning. "The Parson's crazy and Ree is an ass. We are going to Williamsburg." And in the light of the shining summer morning they rode on to the Dragon Swamp Bridge. THE SIXTH CHAPTER It was on a moonlight night in the same month of May, two days after his departure from Bushy Park, that Robert Henning es corted westward along the north side of the Duke of Gloucester Street in Williamsburg, from the theatre near the capitol at its east ern end, his charming young cousin, Miss Milicent Hubbard. She was a vivacious and spirited damsel of seventeen, whose talk left in its wake the rippling foam of light laugh ter. Some of the young Virginians of her ac quaintance thought her, though of perfect figure otherwise, a trifle too long of limb. But there was no man in the Colony, young or old, who could look from above or on the level into her dark-lashed violet eyes of in nocence, and watch the coming and going of the dimples about her small red mouth, or note the blood whose ebb and flow paled and 86 ROBIN AROON crimsoned the oval contour of her fair face, and not dream dreams and see visions. The two young people had that evening beheld from the family circle King Richard the Third and Bosworth's fated field present ed to the most fashionable audience in Vir ginia by a company of London players; and had afterward witnessed a tragic dance com posed by Monsieur Denoir, called "The Royal Captive," executed with charming grace and abandon by a young woman of no little beauty of face and a lavish abundance of snowy draperies. The breaking up of the audience after the close of the tragic dance, whose tragedy had nevertheless wrought some hardly restrained explosions of mirth among the younger and giddier of the assemblage, had presented to Henning's delighted eyes the kaleidoscopic effect of unusual and brilliant combinations in form and color. The soft light of wax candles, reflected from brass sconces on the walls, illustrated a glowing concourse of patrician men and women, about whom hung the indefinable Old World atmosphere of ruffles and brocades, of silk stockings and jeweled buckles, and of crimped and powder- ROBIN AROON 87 ed hair. There had been something almost startling to him, in his charmed and contem plative mood, to hear the usher at the theatre door call the chaises and chariots of these people, whose names were those of the finest men and women of the most brilliant period of the Colony. "Mr. Harrison's chariot stops the way," intoned the monotonous voice; "Mr. Bas- sett's; Mr. Wormeley's; Mr. Tayloe's chaise is waiting!" Thus through the roll of the barons of York and Potomac, of Rappahannock and James, ran the announcements; until it seem ed that there were few of the grandees of Virginia who had not on that night beheld in the crowded theatre the hunch-backed king making love to Lady Anne, and later bidding bind up his wounds of battle. "Was ever woman in this humor wooed? Was ever woman in this humor won?" The lines sang themselves in the heart of more than one silken-clad gallant of the audi ence when the curtain had fallen; and many a young brocaded miss repeated in her after- dreams that night: 88 ROBIN AROON "Their lips were four red roses on a stalk." The river-lords of vast tobacco fields and innumerable negro slaves, and long colonial pedigrees, had come up to the capital from varying distances, fetching their wives and daughters, their sons, and cousins and friends. The Middle Plantation was full of them. "Mr. Berkeley's chaise! Mr. Randolph's. Mr. Stith's. Mr. Gary's. Mr. Conway's. Mr. Ball's. Mr. Page's. Mr. Nelson's." The opulent and sensuous splendor of the scene, the charm and loveliness of the women, the lofty bearing of the men kindled strange fires of prophecy in Henning's soul, that were still burning when he found himself silent after a five minutes' walk from the theatre door with Milicent on his arm. "The abolition of primogeniture for these? The destruction of the established church for these? The emancipation of the slaves for these? The equality, of all men the soiling touch of democracy, for these gay aristocrats?" "Why so glum and melancholy, Mr. Hen- ning?" queried the girl mockingly. "Did ROBIN AROON 89 the tragic dancer fill you with dismal sor row?" He smiled down at her. "I thought the dance very beautiful, Mil- ly," he answered. "It appealed to me more than did the play." " 'Tis a pity we did not have our chaise when 'twas ended," she observed, pouting. "You might then have got me home sooner, and I should not have broken in on your dreams of the beautiful dancing-girl." "Why, what's the matter, Milly?" he asked, surprised. "You're so cross," said the girl, making a provoking grimace of her small red mouth. Then he observed that she was carrying upon her left arm the train of her white satin skirt; and he reached over to take from the gloved hand on his sleeve her jeweled fan of white ostrich plumes. She pulled the fan away from him. "Pardon me, Milly," he said humbly. "You haven't heard a word that I have been saying, and I have talked to you since we left the theatre door," she grumbled. "I am all attention," he said, inclining his head toward her. 90 ROBIN AROON "Mr. Bassett is to give us a ball," she chat tered, her countenance returning with his apology. "It will be in the week before com mencement; and I am to wear a new rich gown of white satin, far handsomer than this," and she flirted the suspended train to ward him with a deft movement of her left hand. "I shall have a blue scarf over my shoul ders," she rattled on, "falling in front of my dress. My slippers will be of blue satin, and I have the sweetest pair of blue silk stock ings." He drew a quick breath. "I shall wear my lovely pearl brooch that father imported for me last year from Lon don. All of the college boys will be there Ben Harrison and Jack Nelson and Sam Cabell and Jimmie Farley and Johnnie Lewis, and all the others. And don't you think, cousin Robert, that Tom Randolph's heart my Tommy's ought to be entirely broken when he takes me on his arm that night at Bassett Hall?" In her enthusiasm over the picture of her self which her imagination conjured up as in a mental mirror, she paused in her walk for ROBIN AROON 91 a moment. Then dropping her satin train and her plumed fan at once, she clasped both hands over the blue velvet sleeve of Hen- ning's coat, and gazed up into his face with eyes that seemed to him, in the moonlight, to be kindled with the moon. Unskilled in the artifices of this young woman, he gallantly bent to pick up her fan. Milly, delighted with the success of the manoeuvre, stooped for it at the same mom ent. The charming result of this simulta neous stooping was that his face and hers came so close together he could feel her breath warm on his cheek, and he was con scious of wondering if she could hear how his heart was beating. "That was an achievement successful be yond anticipation," the girl thought delight edly. "But it would scarcely be advisable to adventure the ruse again to-night. It might lose its charm should it seem premeditated." As for her companion, with his heart still thumping quicker for the swift, elusive semi- contact, he wondered that Milicent should have improved so vastly both in manners and appearance since he left Williamsburg, a 92 ROBIN AROON graduate of the ancient college, but a year agone. "I don't know what will happen to Tom Randolph's heart that night, Milly; but I know what will happen to mine, if you drop that fan again. Your Tommy should be what our Scotch tutor Greig calls 'the prood mon' to have you on his arm and in his heart at once in such a company." "La, cousin Robert," the girl exclaimed, giving a backward kickup to her lost train, and deftly catching it in her left hand, "that is beautiful. A very pretty speech, truly. Did you graduate in fine speeches from the college, when the President and Masters last June gave you those parchments of Greek and Latin and the sciences? They should rather have crowned you with a wreath of roses, as many of the Williamsburg girls would gladly have done. You looked so handsome, standing there before the reverend seniors, and so modest and so far away from every girl in town. You are browner now than you were then, Robert, aren't you?" She looked up at him archly. "I think it is you, fair cousin, who deserve ROBIN AROON 93 the degree of Doctor of Pretty Words," he answered "summa cum laude" "Not I, Mr. Henning, I protest. It is yourself, most learned scholar in the school of the Middlesex maids, and of those of Lan caster. Your art possesses the perfection that comes only from practice. Much study of your subject has made you vastly profi cient." "The ladies of Middlesex are pleasant to look upon and delightful to talk to, and to ride and to dance and to drive with," he ans wered, fencing with her. "And those of Lancaster, with equal charms, possess for the Middlesex lads the added fascination that Hero had for Leander; one must needs pad dle across Rappahannock to take lessons in love of them. But they all fade into insigni ficance, sweet cousin, in comparison with " The sentence was finished in the sign lan guage of youth. The girl drew a deep breath of delight, and the episode of fan and train was very near an involuntary repeti tion. "Robert," she murmured, with mingled rapture and regret, "must you really leave Williamsburg to-morrow? Can not you be 94 ROBIN AROON persuaded to remain a week longer till Mr. Bassett's ball? I vow to you that if you wish it, I'll break all my contracts with all my lovers, and Tommy Randolph shall never get even a glimpse of even a toe of my new blue satin ball-slippers from London." Then she sighed softly, and said : "But I forgot about Betty Berkeley. All the Province knows about you and Betty." "Betty Berkeley and I have parted com pany, Milly," he said, and repeated to her what he had said to his mother. "She and I have never loved each other, you know, except as far-off cousins and near neighbors never as genuine sweethearts." Miss Milly looked up at him with a glance that was an intimation of how "genuine sweethearts" regarded each other. Then she was silent for a few moments, as if in contem plation of love in all its significance. The silence was broken by a demure observation, as if she were thinking aloud: "But father says that near cousins cousins german should not marry; and that no one of his ten fair daughters and six tall sons shall ever wed so near." The young man laughed aloud, to follow ROBIN AROON 95 the current of her thought; and his mirth be spoke his flattered vanity. "Nine sisters-in-law, all beautiful, and six brothers-in-law, all stalwart. How charming, Milly!" "Did you ever hear in any other country of the tremendous families that the gentle folk have in Virginia, Robert? It is posi tively discouraging. Think of nine girls to be married. And all the families I know are as large!" "You are the finest logician in the Prov ince," chuckled her kinsman. "Your prem ise or your conclusion may be unspoken; but the sequence of your logic is direct. No pundit in the faculty can excel you. You need no elaborate processes of ratiocination to arrive at incontrovertible finalities that are plainly inevitable. You can hit the centre spot of the target with both eyes shut." She responded to his laughter with laugh ter of her own. She was filled with a keen zest of the game she was playing with him. "For Heaven's sake, Robert!" she gur gled, "don't talk to me in such great words. You will make me forget that you are my 96 ROBIN AROON dearest cousin in the flush of your gayest youth. Shut my eyes? Were I to shut my eyes, I might imagine myself taking this moonlight stroll with Dr. Small." THE SEVENTH CHAPTER OF DANCING-GIRLS The moonlight lay on the sward of the Court green, where the tiny court-house de signed by some provincial Sir Christopher Wren stood with its quaint, unsupported, projecting portico-roof fronting the long wide street; on the Raleigh Tavern, forum of Colonial politics; on the Powder Horn ; on the Bruton Church that held in its heart the memories of all the grandees who had within its time frequented the Middle Plantation; on the tombs of marble with armorial bearings, and long inscriptions in labored Latin, proclaiming the "ingenua totius corporis pulchritudo" the unbought grace of life of the dead in the old church yard under them; on the Brafferton building, named for the lordly manor in the York Rid ing beyond the ocean ; on the college campus, with its president's house at the north side, and the recently erected statue of the royal 7 98 ROBIN AROON governor but lately dead, which looked with unseeing eyes down the long street that he had so often traversed in the flesh; and on the noble college building rising two and a half stories, with its dormer windows shin ing through the unstirred trees. Robert Henning and Milicent had come to a point in the street where Henning involun tarily paused. "Did you ever see anything like that?" he asked. "It is a strange distraction of the senses; or else I am moon-mad? Since what time has a stream of running water flowed along any street of the city of Williams- burg?" The moonlight was very bright; and the shadow of a large tree by the side of the way, falling across their path, mingled with the moon's magic to make an unmistakable sim ilitude of moving water in the sandy road. The girl laughed, and dragged him for ward. "Come on! Let's wade!" she cried. "La ! do you know Nancy Carter, now of Westmoreland? a slip of thing who lived here at Williamsburg up to two years ago. Had she been grown, 'twould have been un- ROBIN AROON 99 pardonable. Yet in spite of her size, she re lies on her fifteen years to carry off many of her pranks." Henning interpolated into this breathless chatter the statement that he had the honor of Miss Carter's friendly acquaintance; add ing that she had been a guest, with her broth er John, at Bushy Park, a short time before; and that indeed she was a distant relative of his, and that he thought her bewitching. "Oh, every one who is any one in Virginia is a relative of every one else who is any one in the Province," said Milly, in a breath, emerging with her companion dry shod and joyous, though with a slight unconscious lift ing of the train which she carried, on the fur ther side of the illusory stream. "Nancy was here again last August; and walking this way on such a night as this with one of the beaux of the town. It is strange to me how grown men should care to dangle after a young chit like Nancy Carter." Miss Hubbard paused in her talk to plume herself in thought upon the superiority of her own seventeen years. "No, I shan't tell names and tales togeth- ioo ROBIN AROON er," she went on. "But he was no greenling student " "Like Tommy Randolph?" asked Hen- ning maliciously. She paid no attention to his interruption, but continued. "Well, Miss Nancv arrives at this fairy streamlet. She vows it to be as genuine wa ter as any in Nomini Creek; and that she will wade through it, being fond of wading in Westmoreland, but at no risk of wetting her dainty attire. So down she sits over there, takes off her shoes and stockings, and giving her skirts a toss, forthwith proceeds over. Her beau told Mrs. Pasteur, and the news of it was soon all over the town. But he said it was a witching sight; and all the men lauorhed, and forgave it in Nancv." Henning capped Millv's story of Nancy Carter with a narration of the episode of the clipped eyebrows, suggesting discursively that his brother David had been deeply smit ten of Nancv's witcheries. Something in the mere mention of David's love-making seemed to stir again the well- springs of the girl's sentiment. Beyond the moonshine water she paused in the bright ROBIN AROON 101 light before a long, one-storied house, pro jecting upon the street. Over its doorway was a fan-shaped window, and the door itself was approached by three broad stone-steps, leading from the three sides to the stone- flagged platform at the threshold. "I never pass this house after nightfall," she said, "without recalling the dead gover nor, who has always seemed to me the fair est figure of romance and Old World chiv alry in or out of the pages of all the story books." She breathed a long-drawn sigh, and added : "I knew him when I was but a tiny little girl, and I love his beautiful memory as a woman." "Ah, yes," said Henning. "Norborne Berkeley, Baron de Botetourt. These are the steps where he found the young women sit ting, upon a moonlight night like this, twang ing their guitar-strings; and here he stopped to join them in their gay love-songs, and to give their unknown and unsyllabled names to history." "He possessed all things that befit ro mance," the girl went on devoutly "beauty, 102 ROBIN AROON wealth, distinction, power. Strange how all that is left of them is a handful of dust hid den over yonder beneath the Chapel floor." "They were beautiful things to have, Milly these that he owned," her com panion answered, falling sympathetically in with her mood. "But leaving them at his exit, there lingered after him something that was less mutable and far more lovely." She looked up at him, with the tenderness of infinite regret in her eyes; and he con tinued. "After the two all too brief years of his kindly sway in Virginia, this peer of Great Britain bequeathed to his people of this Province, high and low, upon his untimely death a more fragrant memory of sweet be neficence than all of the other royal gover nors who have ruled in the Colony." "This is entirely too serious, cousin Rob in," said Millicent. "Dead men's bones and fame and fragrant memories ! You haven't yet answered my question. Must you truly go away to-morrow, when you have only just arrived?" "Milly," he said, half-jestingly, but with a touch of tenderness in his voice which she ROBIN AROON 103 was swift to interpret, "don't tempt me, dear, in this light that flings a glamour of unreality about everything. Don't make me decide now between a strong inclination and an uncertain sense of duty. Wait until the morn's morn, most beauteous lady, and I'll e'en tell you. I must buy me a pair of horses to-morrow for my further journey; and so I shall not in any event depart until that important transaction be concluded." "A pair of horses!" she cried. "Go and buy your old horses, Mr. Henning. Make a moonlight bargain, and leave before the dawn breaks. I hate you I" She caught up her skirts, and swinging open a gate on the street, dashed through it and up the steps of a brightly lighted house. Henning, startled by her sudden change of humor, pursued her. But she was too swift for him; though the impeding fan slipped from the fingers of the hand that still grasped her skirts, and fell at the foot of the steps. He stooped to pick it up, and before he was half way to the top of the stairway she had opened the door, and passing through had slammed it. He tried the knob. She had locked him 104 ROBIN AROON out. He banged with the satyr-faced brass knocker until the alarum caused night-capped heads to pop from windows in the distance; while a hoarse voice called from a house across the wide street: "For God's sake, stop that racket, you damned devil; and let decent folk sleep!" Disconsolately, though half amused, Hen- ning started at last to leave; and before reaching the gate he beheld his shadow stretching gatewards from the light of the re opened door behind him. Turning, he saw Miss Milly Hubbard standing above him in the doorway he had just left. She was blow ing swift kisses to him from the tips of her pretty fingers. "Good-night, cousin Robin ! Beautiful dreams!" she called, between the wafted caresses. "When you return from Carolina, pray come by way of Williamsburg. I shall die to see your new horses on their way home!" He retraced his steps, to behold the door close again and the vision vanish; and one after another the lights in the house went out. He returned to his room at the Raleigh Tavern with a plumed fan in his hand, that ROBIN AROON 105 had in its softness some vague, almost imper ceptible odor, which associated itself in his imagination only with Milly. He put the fan on the dresser; and then, moved by an indefinable impulse, laid it under his pillow. When he had climbed into the high-posted bed he sought to compose himself to repose; but slumber for a time avoided him. What an utterly inconsistent girl was this Milly ! How rank was her outlawry, and how charming her face and her figure and her eyes and her ways and He lapsed at last into creeping drowsiness, and met the images of sleep. He dreamed dreams of the dancing girl at the theatre, who seemed for his subconsciousness to pos sess Milly's countenance in repose, and Milly's round lithe figure, and Milly's grace ful length of leg, and Milly's winning ways. He dreamed of the dancing-girl, and of her witchery and her charm the type, in her tender movement, of all the dancers of his toric tragedy that have flaunted silken dra peries and flashed alluring limbs before the jaded eyes of kings and conquerors; sinuous similitude of every frail, fair dancer that ever danced to the melodious music of im- 106 ROBIN AROON perial instruments, while cities flamed heaven ward; semblance of all dancing-girls that have lightened the spent hearts of sol diers and seers and statesmen ; dancers of the world, weaving beauty's witching spell with beauty's magic motion about the lulled senses of the sombre centuries; the dancing-girls of the fair forms and the radiant faces, who, though prophets perish and cities crumble, shall yet dance down the ages until time shall end, soothing the souls that are outworn with the weariness of life. THE SECOND PART LOVE'S ENCHANTMENT THE FIRST CHAPTER AN OFFER OF MARRIAGE The roses of early summer were bloom ing throughout the old colonial town of Halifax, on the bank of the Roanoke River in Eastern Carolina. The air was vibrant with the murmur of harvesting bees. A ra diant-winged humming-bird flashed and quiv ered in the woodbine that blossomed over the long veranda of the gabled brick house. The sunlight was reflected from the polished brass knocker of its front door, and flickered among the faintly rustling green leaves of the magnolias in the yard. A breeze from the river entered the hearts of the high box hedges, which on either side shaded the sand- walk leading from the mansion to the gate. The penetrating freshness of the morning pervaded house and garden, street and town. A negro man, in his shirt-sleeves, knelt near the fence, trimming with a sickle the grass, over which the shadows of the trees were dancing. A noise in the street attracted no ROBIN AROON his attention. Lifting his head, he saw two handsome bay horses, high bred and clean of limb, following past the gate with spirited step the lead of an old and withered man of his own race. "Dat's a furrin nigger," he said, while he critically surveyed the horses and their groom. "I ain't nuvver seed him 'bout here afo'. Looks like he tho't a mighty heap o' hisse'f. I wonder who dem hosses b'longs ter, nohow. Ef Miss' Judy was ter see 'em, dey'd p'intly set her crazy. Hi ! mon, whose nags is dem dar?" The old man, apparently purposely hard of hearing, continued on his way in silence, without looking either to the right or left. "Say, nigger!" called his interlocutor in a louder tone, "doncher hear me? Whose is dem dar hosses, I axed ye?" "You 'ten' ter yo' bizness, an' I gwi' 'ten' ter mine," was the tart reply- "I ain't got no time fur ter be a-swoppin' lies wid evvy sassy sarb'n' I comes acrost in Norf C'liner." "Uh-huh!" ejaculated the native with an inimitable accent of contempt. "I knowed ye soon's I sot my eyes on ter ye. Quality ROBIN AROON in niggers is got better manners 'n you's got. You b'longs ter an oberseer." At this stage of the colloquy a voice called from an upper window of the house: "Boy." It was not a loud voice, yet the word was so clearly enunciated that the old man straightway checked his horses and looked up. "Yes, marm. Sarb'n', mistis," he said, and doffed his cap to the speaker, and shuf fled his infirm feet in the tawny sands of the street, and bowed low. His adversary of the sickle, glad of an excuse to pause from his labors, soliloquized: "Dar ain't nary 'nother sich a pyar in Hal ifax Bur', 'scusin' o' dat ole po' white-trash vilyun dat's a-leadin' on 'em. Mars' Gil- christ's sor'ls can't tetch 'em wid a forty-foot pole." "Whose horses are those?" queried the young woman at the window. "Dese here? Dese here b'longs ter my young marster, marm." "Who is your young master?" "My young marster? He's Mars' Rob ert Hennin', f'om Bushy Park, County o' ii2 ROBIN AROON Middlesex, Tidewater in Ferginyer, on de Rap'hannock Riber my ole marster dat's dead and gone's oldest son." "Where is he?" "He's ter de tavvun, young mistis." "What's he doing in Halifax?" "What's he a-doin'? He ain't a-doin' nothin'. He's jes a-trabbelin' fur his pledger, marm ; dat's all. De Hennin's, dey don't have ter do nothin', young mistis; dat dey don't, de Hennin's don't!" "Well, you go back to the tavern, and tell Mr. Robert Henning, of Tidewater in Vir ginia, that I'll marry him for those horses." The pupils of the old man's eyes went into eclipse, leaving visible only their bilious whites. A laugh proceeded from his cavern ous mouth, which was echoed by his late ad versary in the yard through very sympathy. "Dat 'ar ole nigger dunno Miss Judy," commented the latter with a chuckle. "Marry him fur dese here bosses? De Lord! An' what mought yo' name be, honey?" "Now, jes' lissen, will ye!" muttered the grass-cutter, his amusement giving place to indignation. "He's a-makin' o' hisse'f ROBIN AROON 113 mons'ous familious-like, a-callin' o' marster's Miss Judy 'honey' !" "My name's Judith Montfort," said the girl. "Maybe your master has heard of me." "I dunno, mistis," the old man answered. "But I 'spec' ef he had, he'd 'a' done been here 'fo' now. My marster he thinks a heap o' dese yer bosses. He gin a pile o' money fur 'em at Williamsbu'g; but I lay, when he sets dem eyes o' his'n on ter you, he gwi' want ter make de trade. Yes, Lord! an' give ye boot, if ye ax him." She laughed aloud in her turn in tribute to his flattery, and lingered at the window until he had disappeared, leading the horses down between the rows of trees that shaded the level street. The man in the yard resumed his work. "Umph! 'fo' Gord!" he said, "I done knowed she was 'bleest fur ter have 'em. Mars' Gilchris an' all his Roanoke lo' groun's ain't wuth shucks ter Miss Judy 'longside'n a purty boss." "Jasper!" "Yas, Miss Judy." "Go up to the tavern, and find out all you 8 n 4 ROBIN AROON can about Mr. Henning. Don't let anybody know, Jasper." "Naw, Miss Judy." He laid down the sickle in the grass, and started to get his jacket from the cedar-bush near by, saying to himself: a Dat gal jes' as wile as one o' dese yer maypop vines dat runs all over de face o' de Lord's yarth. What she want me ter go up dar ter de tavvun fur, a-seekin' roun' arter dat strange man? Ole marster ketch me up dar, an' ax me how de debble come I ain't a-cuttin' dis here grass? den what? Um-umph ! Miss Judy gwi' git me an' her bofe in tribberlation some o' dese here days, wid all her carryin's-on. She 'pear like she boun' fur ter have all de young mens arter her, dem dat lives here an' dem dat don't whether dey comes f'om Tidewater ur Salt Water. Whether dey's Mister Hennin' ur Cap'n Paul, dey's all fish dat gits in her net. An' she gethers 'em in, too, mon. She's a fisher o' men, like de Good Book tells about. Looks like dey all think she's jes' as sweet as a Roanoke River paw-paw." Then once more Jasper heard the tramp of horses' hoofs along the quiet street. The ROBIN AROON 115 sound reached Miss Judith's ear at the same moment; for she opened further one of the window-shutters of her chamber, and peeped out cautiously. Jasper had nearly reached the gate. "Jasper!" "Mann." "You need not go now." "Naw, marm." Jasper's reply to his mistress was made aloud. His expressive comment under his breath was, "Ah-yi !" Having donned his jacket, however, he continued on his way to the gate; and, wait ing there with his head uncovered, took the bridle-rein from the hands of the gentleman who dismounted at the block. "Good morning, Jasper," said the new comer suavely. "Mornin', Mars' Gilchris'," answered Jasper. "Is Miss Judith within?" "She was up dar at dat upsta'rs winder, jes' one minnit back, sah," he said. "I 'spec' ef ye had speered up, ye mought ha' seed her, afo' ye got ter de hoss-block." u6 ROBIN AROON The window shutters were thrown wide open. "Miss Judith wishes you good-morning, sir," she said. Mr. Gilchrist, lifting his cocked hat, looked up and saw her in a white summer gown of some diaphanous stuff, through which faint outlines of a rounded neck and arms were visible. A somewhat complacent expression settled upon his saturnine face. Booted and spurred, he strode up the walk with military mien, and entered the shady veranda. "I will meet you half way at the door," the girl called to him with a nod and a smile; and vanished from the window. She would have blown him a kiss had he been twenty years younger. "I wish she would not meet folk half way even me," thought Mr. Gilchrist. He was beyond the midday of life, a tall, dark, serious man, very erect and stalwart. Thick, iron-gray hair covered his well-shaped head, and ended in a queue that hung over his embroidered coat-collar. He had a smoothly shaven and swarthy face, and black eyes of piercing brilliancy. His person and bearing ROBIN AROON 117 alike indicated that he was a character of note. "Father has gone down the street, Mr. Gilchrist," the girl said, as, with a flutter of white drapery, she opened the door to him. She laid her slim little hand in his so frankly that he was fain to detain it for a brief, charmed moment. He replied to her saluta tion with the ghost of a smile on his thin lips. "I called this morning to pay my respects to the daughter, if she will condescend to ac cept them, and at the same time deign to ex cuse the costume, which the distance I have been compelled to travel has necessitated. I am sojourning this week at my plantation, and rode up to-day." She glanced at the top-boots, on which no speck was visible; and observed that the lace at his wrists and on his shirt-front was im maculate. "You do me a thousand honors" ; and she half-mockingly dropped him a curtsy, catch ing her skirt with her left hand, and waving the disengaged hand toward him. "And your costume? Why, it is perfect. With an n8 ROBIN AROON exchange of the boots for dancing-pumps, you are equipped for an assembly ball." A light shadow of annoyance crossed Mr. Gilchrist's fine face. His strict sense of pro priety always suffered a shock at whatever bore the semblance of a jest; and he was especially prone to regard the levity, of which he was an object, with severe disapprobation. "The deference due you would have sug gested a more appropriate attire," he per sisted, "but circumstances forbade." "Let us sit on the veranda, and forget cir cumstances," she said. "It is cooler here." She fluttered before him to a bench beneath the vine, where the humming-bird was still whirring. Intent upon yet further apologies, he said as he seated himself: "One of my coach-horses went lame yester day, and so I was forced to ride." "I am truly sorry. Was it King George?" she asked, looking up at him with serious face. "No, the mare." "Speaking of horses, I saw a most beauti ful span of bays pass the gate just before you came," she said. "They belong to a Mr. Henning." ROBIN AROON 119 "Mr. Henning? I have not the honor of his acquaintance. I think I have heard Mr. Harnett say that it is thought a good name in Virginia. Does he hail from that Colony?" "He is a Virginian, and his horses are su perb." She spoke with enthusiasm, clasping her hands as if to emphasize her praise. "I sent him a message concerning them," she continued. "When did you meet him?" he asked cu riously. The smile of expectance on her lips bloomed into a laugh. "Like yourself, I have not the honor of his acquaintance," she said. Mr. Gilchrist's sense of propriety sus tained a severe shock. "And you sent a message to an unknown young man, unpresented, and as far as you know, unaccredited?" "Doesn't Mr. Harnett think the name a good one in Virginia?" she asked naively. "Pray, may I be allowed to inquire with what message you honored this stranger?" "If you will not scold," she replied, lifting a little white hand toward his lips, a flag 120 ROBIN AROON of truce which a younger warrior would have captured and carried into camp, "I sent him word that I would marry him for his horses !" "By heavens!" exclaimed Mr. Gilchrist, starting up. "Is this to go on forever?" There was a fierce scowl on his brow ; and in his wrath he smote his booted leg savagely with his riding-whip. The color fled for a moment from young Miss Judith's cheeks. It had been so long since she had seen him in an angry mood that she had half-forgotten what a forbidding aspect his anger gave him. She laid her hand upon his sleeve and said: "You should not be vexed with me for an idle jest." He was silent. "Forgive me," she went on, "and I'll make amends at the Assembly Ball." Not trusting himself to reply, he arose and bowed gravely; then turning, walked away between the shining lines of box-hedges to the gate. For a little moment Miss Judith Montfort forgot the glory of the June morn ing and the beauty of life. Jasper, standing in the shade of the pop lar on the edge of the street, in charge of ROBIN AROON 121 Mr. Gilchrist's horse, took off his hat as he approached. The negro's palm was itching for the accustomed shilling; but, to his sur prise, it was not forthcoming. Mr. Gil christ's brow was knitted, and darkness clouded his countenance. As if unconscious of Jasper's presence, he mechanically took the proffered bridle-rein and the negro heard him say, "Captain Paul or Mr. Henning. She would coquette with her grandfather." Then he mounted, and rode away; and Jasper commented to himself: "Dar! What I tole ye? He done cotched up wid her!" THE SECOND CHAPTER "CON EXPRESSIONS" Later in the same day on which the girl in the white, diaphanous summer dress was kindling the wrath of her elderly visitor at the brick house with the green box hedges, a discussion of her between the young man, whose name Mr. Gilchrist had coupled with Henning's, and a handsome matron, was pro ceeding in the morning parlor of The Grove, on Quanky Creek, about a mile away to the west of the town. The man was apparently about twenty-five or six years of age. He seemed of a me dium height, and his figure was slight and in the highest degree graceful. His bearing was that of a person of consequence, whose associations had been with men and women of refinement and high breeding. He had a straight nose, and the square jaw indicative of the fighting man. His complexion was swarthy, with the tinge that comes from long experience on the sea, and that is sometimes ROBIN AROON 123 called "weather-beaten" ; his eyes were large and dark, and at times wore an expression which the young women of his acquaintance regarded as deeply romantic. Some of them were wont to say that this expression indi cated more than his lips were ever known to speak. He was dressed in the latest fashion of the day, and in perfect taste, though with a general effect that to older eyes would seem to illustrate a love of the spectacular. His suit was of lavender silk, and the waistcoat of it was embroidered with silver. Lace ruffles adorned his neck and wristbands. His silk stockings were partridge colored; and he wore silver buckles at his knees and on his shoes. His chapeau bras lay on a small Sheraton table near him in the bay window, which was said to be the first window of its kind ever built in the southern colonies. Above his head hung a portrait of a clean shaven man in a peruke and crimson velvet coat; and on the gold frame of the picture was engraven a crest of a unicorn rampant, with a Latin motto. It was the portrait and crest of the colonial founder of the family that had long owned The Grove, who had been in his youth an officer in the Brish navy. i2 4 ROBIN AROON "Madam," said the young man to the lady in a softly modulated voice of peculiar sweet ness, "she is an incorrigible coquette. Any man would be a fool who would disclose his devotion to her, before first deeply interesting her. I beg, however, to have you remember," he continued apologetically, "that the words which I speak are uttered in the sacred pri vacy of this presence. I should not have said them, save for your frank questioning, which I have sought to answer frankly. I may add that I have had the good fortune to know many ladies of quality; and with my powers of observation sharpened as they have been by experience, I do not acquit myself of all knowledge of the fair sex." He spoke with grave earnestness, and the words, which coming from another might have seemed boastful, carried with them no suggestion of vanity to the minds of his audi tors." "You do her injustice, I am sure, Captain Paul," said the lady to whom he addressed his speech, smiling in a conciliatory fashion as she spoke. She was the mistress of the mansion, and held in her lap a small red morocco-covered account book, which she ROBIN AROON . . 125 had just been examining. A little negro- girl, dressed in a blue checked cotton gown, and with a nappy head neatly wrapped in many tiny pigtails that were wound about with white cotton strings, sat on a stool at her feet; and gazing up at her with a stare of sleepy attention, fanned her slowly with a huge turkey-wing fan. "Judith is fond of fun, I warrant you," continued Mrs. Jones; "but I must affirm that it does not run in the Montfort blood for the women of the name to be wantonly cruel. I appeal to Mr. Jones, who has had experience with at least one Montfort wo man." She smiled across the room at her husband, a man of middle age, whose expressive face was lit up by piercing dark eyes, and indi vidualized by a finely formed forehead, a firm decided mouth, and a chin of character and purpose. Educated at Eton, the nursery of the gentlemen of England, he was already one of the foremost men in the Carolina col ony and destined to play a highly conspicuous part- in the great drama then impending. He was smoking, in her presence, by his wife's permission, which he never failed first to ob- 126 ROBIN AROON tain from her, a corn-cob pipe with a reed- stem of such length that it was impossible for the smoker of it at once to hold the stem of the pipe in his mouth and reach the bowl of it with his fingers. Wherefore a young ne gro man, his back flattened against the wall, stood near him, in order to replenish the pipe with tobacco when empty, and to fetch the hot coal from the kitchen to relight it when it should go out "I crave your pardon, Mistress Jones, and yours, Mr. Jones, if I have blundered," said Captain Paul. He spoke with a suave indif ference that betokened no embarrassment, and that won the admiration of the man of the world whom he addressed. "The Earl of Selkirk himself, in his drawing-room at Saint Mary's Isle, could not carry it off better," thought Mr. Jones. "I was not aware that you were a Mont- fort before marriage, madam," Paul con tinued; "though I did know that the young ladv was your relative. However, that can be neither here nor there, for you invited my opinion." "Tt is of no consequence, Captain Paul," said Mr. Jones good-naturedly. "We are all ROBIN AROON 127 kinsfolk in Halifax. The place is full of Joneses and Montforts and Davies and Greens and Sitgreaves and Polks and Stiths and Daniels, who are intermarried and re lated. If relationship debarred our discus sion of each other's merits or demerits, the women of the community would all of neces sity be dumb." "I speak of Miss Montfort in a disinter ested way," said Captain Paul. "I may say that I have sometimes fancied it possible that I might fall in love with some fair one; and she is such a one as might well charm me, were my passion not always servant to my judg ment. But I opine that my wooing would be a stormy one, of such a fashion haply as boarding a ship, cutlass in hand. I value too much the privilege I enjoy of your friend ship and hospitality, madam, and yours, Mr. Jones, to run the risk of being driven from that deck, repulsed with an ardor no whit less than my own. So I still cling to the one mistress to whom my profession has at tached me; and if I mistake not, the time is not far off when I may have the oppor tunity of putting my devotion to her to the proof." 128 ROBIN AROON Mrs. Jones looked at him inquiringly. "Van, fetch me a fresh coal," said Mr. Jones to the negro servant. "This tobacco seems damp." The little girl, with the turkey-wing fan, nodded in the balmy softness of the summer morning, and caught herself as she was about to fall from her seat. 'Tis my ambition, madam, that I adore," said Captain Paul in response to Mrs. Jones's look of interrogation. "She is my beautiful mistress. My thoughts of her might never be translated into the rude verses that I have penned at times to the young women whom I have known. My sw r ord sleeps in its scab bard until some happv season comes when I may draw it in her high honor." Mr. Jones was listening attentively, while Van relit the extinguished pipe. "By all that I have learned," continued the young man, "from Mr. Jones and his brother, and from Mr. Hewes and Mr. Ire- dell, and others whom I have met here and in Edenton, and at Fredericksburg in the Province of Virginia, I foresee the coming storm of revolution." He paused a moment, as though in con- ROBIN AROON 129 temptation; and the silence in the room was only broken by the minute explosions of Mr. Jones's lips as he emitted his smoke-clouds, until Captain Paul resumed. "I am a North Briton, madam; but America has been the country of my fond election since, at the age of thirteen, I sailed out of Whitehaven harbor in The Friendship, Captain Benson, that cast anchor for the first time on that unforgotten voyage, in Vir ginia waters, in the Rappahannock River of that colony, near the port-of-entry town of Urbanna." The smoke wreaths were now curling about Mr. Jones's head where he sat listen ing; and his wife was all gracious attention to their guest, who continued his monologue. "In the time that I have spent here, ma dam, the pure and gentle influences that are your accompaniment have deeply touched me. I have promised myself the privilege of telling you yet more of my story than I have already done; and the expression of my as piration but now some day to fight for America assures me that Mr. Jones will hear it with an indulgence as kind as your own." 9 i 3 o ROBIN AROON He bowed in the direction of his host, who nodded affably, and said: "I heard your narrative on yesterday with interest and pleasure, Captain Paul. It en tertained me vastly; and I pray you, there fore, go on." "I had come to my last instalment," said Captain Paul, sitting even more erect than formerly, if that were possible, and fixing Mrs. Jones with the melancholy of his dark eyes, "to that unfortunate affair of Maxwell at Tobago. It seemed the tragic culmination of my troubles, that had begun with the re grettable business of my earlier occupation. The man's death in the Indies was imputed to me by my enemies. I was deeply annoyed ; and the apprehension that my relatives at home might think evil of me, prompted me to take active steps to defend my reputation. But the affidavits of the most trustworthy are valueless against calumny. It has been my fortune to accumulate something of what the Scotch call 'gear' in the trade and since; but I swear, madam, by all that I reverence, that I would gladly see myself a pauper to be rid of that foul aspersion." "Your friends in Carolina, Captain Paul, ROBIN AROON 131 have every confidence in your integrity of character," interposed Mrs. Jones. "We do not doubt that it is so with all who know you, and whose esteem you value. Pray do not afflict yourself with the further narrative of what may be unpleasant in the recollec tion." He smiled at her with his luminous eyes. "On the heels of this disaster I was taken with a tropical fever; and for a period I im agined my career was at an end. But later I obtained, in the spring of last year, the in dependent command of the Betsey out of London to the West Indies. Again at To bago a tragedy of my life befel me. In Oc- tobeV I was preparing to take the Betsey back to London, and found myself forced to recruit the crew. They were riotous and des perate men. In the enforcement of discipline one of them became rebellious and attacked me with a bludgeon. I had no wish for fur ther trouble, after Maxwell's case ; but I was forced to defend myself, and I slew him. I went to a magistrate of the place, and offered to surrender myself. He knew the temper of my recruited crew, and advised me to i 3 2 ROBIN AROON leave the island; and I came in a ship then sailing to Edenton." He paused in his narrative, and the mel ancholy of his eyes deepened. "It is no small comfort to me, madam," he concluded, "to have found in this haven of peace a solace and a refuge from my afflic tions. I bless the day when I sailed into your Carolina port, and formed the friend ship of Mr. Hewes, who so kindly brought me hither." "I surmise that we shall see Mr. Hewes again soon," said Mrs. Jones, with the gen erous purpose of interrupting the young Scotchman's flow of gloomy thoughts, "for I hear that Isabel Johnstone arrived in Hali fax yesterday, and is visiting Judith." "Ah," sighed Captain Paul, with a touch of sentiment, "I begrudge them the charm of young dreams and youthful passion in its blossoming." "Speak of angels," said Mr. Jones, arising at the sound of wheels on the gravel road way outside, and looking out of the bay window, "and we hear the whisper of their wings. There is Judith Montfort now come in the chair, and Isabel Johnstone with her." ROBIN AROON 133 "It is vastly kind of Isabel," said Mrs. Jones, "to call so informally." "There is nothing formal for those who keep pace with Judith," remarked Mr. Jones, going out to greet the two young la dies. They had stopped in their pleasure- drive down the Quanky road to pay a brief midday call on Mrs. Jones. Judith came in breathless, with her friend following. Mr. Jones sent Van out to tie the horse, and the long-stemmed pipe for the nonce was laid aside. After the greetings and a flutter of apparent surprise on the part of Miss Judith, which seemed as artless as it was charming, at the apparition of Captain Paul, she said to Mrs. Jones: "Oh, cousin Mary, the most beautiful span of horses passed the house this morning, and I have had a quarrel with Mr. Gilchrist about them." Captain Paul's face had lost its quality of sadness. There was a light in his dark eyes which seemed to glow with radiance at the sight ot the girl's beauty. "And they belong to a most interesting young Virginian, cousin Wiley," she said to i 3 4 ROBIN AROON Mr. Jones, who beamed with contagious pleasure at her enthusiasm. "His name is Mr. Robert Henning I think he is Colonel Henning," she rattled on. "All prominent Virginians are colonels," interjected Captain Paul, in confirmation. "And he lives at Bushy Park, in the County of Middlesex, in the Colony of Vir ginia, on the Rappahannock River, in Tide water." "Miss Montfort has clearly been studying a chart, showing the locality of the Virgin ian's home, Mrs. Jones," observed Captain Paul softly. "There is a place called Churchill on Jef ferson and Fry's map of Virginia in father's library," the girl said. "I am sure it must be his place, Captain Paul." "I vow that she has searched for it most diligently, Captain Paul," said Miss Isabel Johnstone. "And he is traveling for pleasure, and he is very wealthy, and very handsome, and very aristocratic ; and he is now at the Silver Swan Tavern; and, cousin Wiley, I do hope that you will call on him, and persuade him to remain to the Assembly Ball." ROBIN AROON 13$ "There is a horse-trade in prospect, Mr. Jones," said Miss Johnstone with a signifi cant smile, "which I think will keep Mr. Henning in Halifax for at least a day or two." "I protest, Judith, you have acquired a vast store of information about this Mr. Henning. From whom have you learned it all, my dear?" queried Mrs. Jones. "Mr. Gilchrist knew about him, cousin Mary," said Judith. "We quarreled about the horses." "Lovers' quarrels are love's renewals, says the Latin poet," observed Mr. Jones, reach ing out a hand for his pipe. "Some more to bacco, Van; and a coal." "Ah, about the horses! I see," said Mrs. Jones. "Do you really see, madam?" asked Cap tain Paul blandly; and his hostess laughed. "What do you mean, Captain Paul?" queried Judith uncertainly. Then she added, "Do you know anything of Mr. Henning?" "I have never seen him," answered the Scotchman, "but I know of him by repute. All that you have said of him, Miss Mont- fort, is doubtless true. He is one of the most 136 ROBIN AROON notable young men of the Virginia Rappa- hannock Valley." "Tell me about him," she said eagerly. "I have naught else to tell," he answered, "save that I have more than once passed up the river by Bushy Park; and that I have counted lights burning at once in thirty win dows of that mansion. Mr. Henning is one of the greatest of the Virginia river barons." Then Captain Paul turned to Miss Isabel Johnstone, and said: "I trust that my respected friend, Mr. Joseph Hewes, was well when you left Eden- ton?" The girl blushed, and answered: "When I last saw him, which was some days ago, he had in contemplation an early visit to his brother, Mr. Josiah Hewes, in Philadelphia." "I hope that we may see him in Halifax first," observed Mr. Jones; and Mrs. Jones added archly, looking at Miss Johnstone: "I am sure we shall, Isabel." "Oh, Captain Paul," broke in Miss Mont- fort, "before we go, I wish Isabel to hear you sing. Here is the spinet ready to hand, and I will make the music." ROBIN AROON 137 He bowed low in courtly acknowledgment of the compliment, and said: "When you shall have first honored us, Miss Montfort." Then he took her hand, and led her across the shining floor to the instrument. Van had replenished the long-stemmed pipe, and Mr. Jones, after requesting per mission of the ladies, again smoked content edly. "Shall mine be something Scotch?" she queried, looking up at Captain Paul with a light in her eyes that to one less sophisticated would "have betokened an unusual interest. "It is the new song, 'Robin Adair,' lately over from London," she said, adjusting her skirts to the spinet-chair. "I know the air," he replied. "I have heard it in the Irish ports." Mrs. Jones, seated where she could watch the girl's face, was amused to see in the pretty picture that they made a verification of Cap tain Paul's charge of coquetry. "They look well together," suggested Isa bel Johnstone to Mrs. Jones, near whom she sat. "It is almost like a play to see them." There was an arch smile on Judith's face 138 ROBIN AROON as she glanced up at the young man, and sang: " 'Welcome on shore again, Robin Adair! Welcome once more again, Robin Adair! I feel thy trembling hand, Tears in thine eyes do stand, To greet thy native land, Robin Adair.' " With the air of the perfect courtier, who picks up the gauntlet which an adversary has flung at his feet, the Scotchman accepted the implied challenge of demeanor and song. "If you will kindly continue to play the air, Miss Montfort, we may make it a duet." She looked at him now in undisguised sur prise, as her hands went over the keys. His eyes were fixed on hers, and there was a subtle suggestion of defiance in the words, which he sang in a clear tenor voice, and with great expression: " 'I know a valley fair, Aileen aroon ! I know a cottage there, Aileen aroon ! Far in that valley's shade, I know a gentle maid, Flower of the hazel glade, Aileen aroon !' " ROBIN AROON 139 The words were new to her. The wonder grew in her face. "Shall I go on?" she whispered, with the color mounting high on her cheeks. "If you please," he answered. And she sang: " 'Long I ne'er saw thee, love, Robin Adair! Still I prayed for thee, love, Robin Adair! When thou wert far at sea, Many made love to me; But still I thought on thee, Robin Adair!'" But the smile had disappeared from her eyes, and she gazed at him with heaving bo som and parted lips, as she played, while he sang in answer: " 'Who in the song so sweet ? Aileen aroon! Who in the dance so fleet? Aileen aroon! Dear are her charms to me, Dearer her laughter free, Dearer her constancy, Aileen aroon!' " A light began to dawn on her. This dar ing young adventurer was seeking to read her a lesson in coquetry her, the unquestioned 140 ROBIN AROON beauty and belle of the gilded youth of Caro lina. Her courage was as fine as his. With an air of defiance, and with the smile returned to her winning face, she wove about him the tender spell of her sweet soprano singing: " 'Come to my heart again, Robin Adair! Never to part again, Robin Adair! And if thou still art true, I will be constant, too, And will wed none but you, Robin Adair!"' She had reached the end of her tether; but with a courage that was the more daring for her uncertainty of what was coming, she played on, giving him the last innings. Per haps it was the instinctive curiosity of woman that prompted her perhaps, that other primal instinct of the sex to hope that the other sex may prove aggressive and victor ious. Her eyes smiled up at him still. His had the dark sternness of some grim warrior in the set cut and thrust of deadly peril. " 'Youth must with time decay, Aileen aroon ! Beauty must fade away, Aileen aroon! ROBIN AROON 141 Castles are sacked in war, Chieftains are scattered far, Truth is a fixed star, Aileen aroon!' " She arose from the spinet, as he bowed low, and murmured his thanks for the honor she had done him. "Come, Isabel, dear," she said. "We must go, cousin Mary. I never heard you in bet ter voice, Captain Paul; and the new words are beautiful. Good-bye to all of you." She fluttered out of the room, with Miss Johnstone and Captain Paul following her. "Ha, ha, ha !" laughed Mr. Jones. "Van, fetch me a fresh coal!" THE THIRD CHAPTER POUNDS STERLING FOR A PAIR Mr. Gilchrist drew rein at the door of the Silver Swan. He was a frequent and hon ored guest at the tavern; and half a dozen or more negro "boys" of all ages stepped forward promptly to hold his stirrup, im pelled by the knowledge of how the magnate recognized such offices. "Is Mr. Henning of Virginia here?" he queried of the rotund landlord, who, clad in brown stuff jerkin, knee breeches and high woolen hose, was sitting on the tavern's stoop, surrounded by his several cronies, puffing his clay pipe, which he replenished at intervals from a "poke" of bright Vir ginia tobacco in his capacious flap-pocket. Mr. Gilchrist was informed that Mr. Henning was at that moment in his private apartment, having given orders for his coach to be at the door in thirty minutes for a drive beyond Quanky Creek. "Pray inform him that I have done myself ROBIN AROON 143 the honor to call for the purpose of paying my respects," said the visitor, as he was ushered into the public room by the landlord. The great man seated himself in one of the hard wooden chairs that stood about on the sanded floor of the sparsely furnished apartment; and having laid his cocked hat on a table near at hand, and crossed his legs, stared at the fly-specked print of King George the Third above the chimney place, and awaited Mr. Henning's coming. It was not long before he saw standing in the door-way a tall, blonde young man, with blue eyes, a frank countenance, and a pleasant smile. The stranger was dressed in the height of rashion. His stock was of the finest, his knee-breeches fitted his muscular legs to a nicety, his stockings were of spun silk, and he wore on his low shoes large and shining silver buckles. He bore himself with an air of marked distinction; and Mr. Gil- christ was, in spite of himself, favorably im pressed with his appearance. Mr. Henning expressed his pleasure at becoming acquainted with his visitor; and the landlord looked on with cheerful ap proval from the threshold of the open door. 144 ROBIN AROON After the exchange of mutual compliments, Mr. Gilchrist said: "I learn that you are on the point of going for a drive. Pray do not suffer me to detain you." The Virginian replied that there was an abundance of time with half of the uay yet before him. Then his visitor asked : "Would you be willing to part with your horses?" The question seemed somewhat abrupt to the stranger, and his reply was curt. "My horses are not for sale." Mr. Gilchrist, however, took no offense; but continued with unusual suavity: "I am a great admirer of horse-flesh. I care nothing for the excitement of the race course, but keep a handsome stud for the sake of the brutes themselves. I possess some fine stock of my own raising down at my plantation near here, which I should be pleased to show you." Mr. Henning expressed his gratification somewhat stiffly. His visitor once more indi cated a strong desire to possess the young Vir ginian's horses, even at a high figure. ROBIN AROON 145 "I do not know that I care to part with them," Mr. Henning said hesitatingly. Then he added, with some curiosity : "When and where did you see them?" To a man of Mr. Gilchrist's straightfor wardness the question was an embarrassing one. He cast his looks to the floor, and stam mered: "I I that is to say I am forced to confess that I have never seen them." "Ah?" said Mr. Henning interrogatively. "I only know them through what I have heard," explained the would-be purchaser, with a visible air of hesitancy. "Why, that is singular," commented the stranger. "I have owned these horses but a sennight; and I reached this town on my way from Virginia only last evening. I had no idea they were of such fame." "I can readily understand that my desire seems peculiar to you," said Mr. Gilchrist, recovering in a measure his composure. "I regret that I am not at liberty to make expla nation of it." "It is of no consequence," replied the Vir ginian; and his visitor seemed nettled. 10 146 ROBIN AROON "I will giv 7 e you one hundred pounds for the span, sterling money," urged Mr. Gil- christ. "That is a high offer," was the reply; "they stand me at fifty pounds." The landlord had grown deeply interested at this turn of the interview. As the conver sation progressed, he advanced into the room until he stood within a few feet of where the two men sat. Mr. Henning, after a moment of silence, asked: "Could I secure another pair hereabouts to take me on my way in the event that I con sented to dispose of them to you? My stay here is necessarily short. I only remain to the Assembly Ball." "You may have the best team on my plan tation at your own price," his visitor re sponded. The excited landlord blew a cloud of smoke into the face of the Virginian, and shouted : "Take him up, Squire Hennin', take him up ! His nags are the staunchest and the best in Halifax Bur'." "I should be very much honored, if you would accompany me to my house, and make ROBIN AROON 147 your own selection. It would please me no less to have you become my guest while you remain in this vicinity." The host of the Silver Swan was scarcely less surprised than was Mr. Henning. "Squire Gilchrist has lost his head," the landlord said to himself; and he went out on the stoop to retail the conversation to his cronies. The young Virginian's curiosity was piqued. He said to his visitor: "You may take the horses on the terms proposed. I thank you heartily for your hos pitality. I should be glad at least to drive with you to your place, and in person choose their successors. May I inquire at what dis tance from town you reside?" It was only a matter of some four miles down the river. The road was very level, and the way quite shady. "There they come now," remarked Mr. Henning, as the bay horses and coach passed the window. His companion looked out with ill-disguised interest. The landlord appeared again at the door to announce to his guest the arrival of his equipage; and the two gen- 148 ROBIN AROON tlement left the public room of the tavern to gether. On the stoop stood the old negro driver, with whip in hand. "I got a word fur ye, Mars' Robert," he said, as Mr. Henning approached. "What is it, Silas?" his master asked, while he fastened his glove. "Hit's private an' pertickler, marster," Silas replied, looking askance at Mr. Gil- christ. "Excuse me for a moment," the younger man said, with a bow to his companion. "Come here, Silas." He led the way back into the public room. "Now, what is your private and particu lar word, sir?" "A young mistis', jes' on de aidge o' de town, at de big brick house wid de box- haidge an' de vines on de po'ch, what we passed by yistiddy " "Well, what about her?" "She axed me fur ter say ter ye, dat she'd marry ye fur dem dar bosses." "The devil you say!" "Dat she did, sah dat she did, marster! An' no debble 'bout it, nuther. Mo' belikes ROBIN AROON 149 ter un angel, she was, Mars' Robert. Yas, marster." "Who was she, Silas?" "I axed her dat, Mars' Robert, a-thinkin' dat ye mout want ter know. But somehow ur nuther, I 'clar ter Gord, I done smack disre- membered what she tole me she name. She's a 'rusty-crat, howsomedever, marster fus' fambly, an' no mistake. Dat is, ef dis yer kentry is got any fus' famblies, like Tide water an' de Rappahannock Valley is. An' purty, too uh! uh! Nice old place, an' fine folks dar, sar, I'll be boun', 'scusin' de nigger dat cuts de grass." "She is this remarkably eager gentleman's remarkably spoiled daughter," thought Mr. Henning, and he stepped after his new ac quaintance into the yellow coach, hung high on straps above its glittering wheels. Old Silas took the ribbons, and mounted the lofty box with becoming gravity. "Drive down this street, boy," called Mr. Gilchrist from the coach-window; and indi cated an entirely different direction from that in which stood the brick house with the box- hedges. He had no desire to be seen of its 150 ROBIN AROON fair occupant, sitting behind those horses, cheek by jowl with their owner. "Since speaking with you about these ani mals," said the Virginian, settling himself comfortably amid the cushions, "I would ask you the favor, on second thought, of releas ing me from my bargain." It was Mr. Gilchrist's turn to be surprised, but he was not. "That black scoundrel has delivered her message," he thought. He quietly asked: "Why, what is the trouble now?" "My boy, Silas, has brought me a better offer." "Damn your insolence!" said Mr. Gil- christ under his breath, looking angrily out of the window on his side. Then he turned, and with an air of great decision, replied: "Indeed, I regret to appear discourteous, Mr. Henning; but you must permit me to insist that our bargain is a binding one, and I cannot persuade myself to consent to rescind it. You have sold me the horses." "So I have," said Mr. Henning, with ROBIN AROON 151 i secret amusement; "say no more about it, I pray. The horses are yours." The coach spun rapidly along the smooth road, with the bays on their best mettle at scarcely a touch from the lash of the ancient Jehu on the box. At length the Virginian, who had been surveying the landscape from his side of the coach, remarked: "I observe many handsome residences in Halifax, sir. For example, the large quaint- looking brick building at the northern ex tremity of the street on which stands the Tavern I refer to the house with the tall box-hedges." Mr. Gilchrist was fast coming to the con clusion that this young man possessed the knack of making himself excessively dis agreeable. "That is Judge Montfort's, sir. One of the oldest houses in the town." "A devilish handsome young woman there, sir," continued Mr. Henning, with reckless audacity. "When did you see her?" asked Mr. Gil christ, fixing a penetrating look upon his com panion's face. The laughing blue eyes that 152 ROBIN AROON met his were not reassuring to the local mag nate. "I that is to say, I am compelled to con fess that I have never seen her. I only know of her beauty through what I have heard." Mr. Gilchrist was visibly annoyed, and Henning deemed it advisable at this point to pursue the subject no further. "A fine stretch of low grounds along the river," he said irrelevantly; and his com panion, gazing moodily from the opposite window of the coach in the direction of the wooded hills, acquiesced with a perfunctory nod of the head. The stream sparkled in the sunlight. The air was pungent with the odorous breath of pines on the uplands. Over the river banks the pawpaw trees stood thick; and vines and undergrowth, in rankly verdant and inter woven density, spread around and beneath the trees. Long rows of deep green corn shot up their tasseling tops from the dark loam of the bottom-lands an army with silken ban ners. The only audible noises were the mur mur of the river water, and the faint foot fall of the horses' hoofs upon the sandy road. As the oscillating vehicle halted at Mr. ROBIN AROON 153 Gilchrist's door, Henning's theory about the girl who had sent him the offer for his horses was suddenly subverted. "You will have to put up with a bachelor's accommodations, Mr. Henning. I have no women-folk," said Mr. Gilchrist. THE FOURTH CHAPTER NAMING THE SONG The day after Mr. Gilchrist visited Hen- ning at the Silver Swan Tavern and bought his span of horses, Miss Judith Montfort sat in her favorite coign of vantage, looking out from behind green shutters, upon the cool umbrageous street, at whomever chanced to be passing by the house with the box- hedges. Her guest, Miss Isabel Johnstone, with her back to the light, and her small slippered feet in a chair in front of her, was seated nearby, leisurely turning the pages of a play that had lately come from London, by way of Philadelphia. Its title was "She Stoops to Conquer; or, the Mistakes of a Night," and it had been produced at Covent Garden Theatre in the spring of the preced ing year, and received by the fashion of the town with laughter and applause. "It is vastly agreeable," commented Miss Johnstone. "The character of Tony Lump- kin is highly amusing. It is a genuine and ROBIN AROON 155 delightful comedy; and I can well imagine how all London town has rang with it." "I have promised to lend it to Captain Paul," said Miss Montfort. "He has quite a fancy for appearing versed in the belles lettres. I was very provoked with his per formance yesterday, Isabel. I had not in vited Captain Paul to sing a duet with me; and I did not like his foolish Irish song." "It seemed to me quite a lovely thing to hear you two singing," laughed Miss John- stone, moving one of the pretty feet to the floor, and slightly shifting her position so as more nearly to face her friend. "Captain Paul's voice is well modulated; and I think that he sang with much dash and spirit. But his song was quite new to me." "He was seeking to read me a lesson in his lines," replied Judith. "He thinks that I am a coquette, and that it is his duty to rebuke me, however politely, for my delinquencies. Captain Paul is a pert popinjay!" There was a flash of a trim white-stock inged ankle, and down came Miss Isabel Johnstone's other foot. The London play slipped to the floor, and lay there unnoticed. The unspoken language of the most seductive 156 ROBIN AROON book has ever lacked attention, where two attractive young women discuss an attractive young man. "But he has bewitching eyes, and a fetch ing fashion with him, you must allow," said Isabel, looking at Judith. The latter responded with a shrug of her shoulders quite French in effect, and a grim ace of dissent. "Mr. Hewes," continued Miss Johnstone, "regards him with much favor. He says that Captain Paul is an unusual instance of a Scotch peasant boy rising by the force of his own genius to fill a ready place in the society of ladies and gentlemen of the best birth and breeding." "La, what a flighty compliment!" said Judith. "But, indeed, if Mr. Hewes com mend him, I shall find no further fault." Isabel Johnstone blushed, and looked dis concerted. "I do confess," continued Miss Montfort, "that he is possessed in no small degree of a gift of fancy and a power of word-painting well calculated to kindle the imagination and win the esteem of women. He writes a beau tiful round hand; he speaks French with a ROBIN AROON 157 native accent; and he can make amatory verses." "Oh, can he?" queried Miss Johnstone, re covering her composure. "And you might add that his career has been unusual. He has seen the world " "The flesh and the devil, I warrant you!" added Judith. "I vow, as I live, he is turn ing in at the gate, at this moment!" she ex claimed, glancing beyond the box-hedges to where a graceful, erect figure, clad in light morning costume, and wearing a dress-sword and a cocked hat, was leisurely leaving the quiet and shady street. "Quick, Isabel, let's go down," she said; and there was a whispering swish of skirts, as she arose and moved toward the door of the room. "Not I, my dear," said that young lady, with a decision that smacked of pertness. "I fancy that you and Captain Paul will wish to settle the Robin Adair matter, and I should not care to interfere. I'll take your place at the window, however, and keep a lookout for Mr. Gilchrist." "Mr. Gilchrist?" repeated Judith, delay ing on the threshold. 158 ROBIN AROON "And when your Captain leaves I'll fetch him down the book," Isabel continued, stoop ing to pick it up from where it had fallen. Then she kissed her hand airily to Judith, and sang in an undertone : " 'Castles are sacked in war, Chieftains are scattered far, Truth is a fixed star, Aileen aroon !' " "You have a better memory than I could wish for," retorted Judith to the graceful mocking of her friend. "I don't see how you manage to remember the perilous stuff." So saying she vanished; and a few mo ments later entered the cool parlor down stairs, and met Captain Paul with: "I had not expected to sing a duet with you yesterday." He held her hand which she had given him in greeting, and led her to a seat with ceremonious politeness. "The air of your song fetched back to me the words of mine," he said. Then he added, "It seemed a more diverting game to me than 'Grind the Bottle' or 'Hide the Thimble.' Your kinsfolk, Mr. and Mrs. Jones, appeared to enjoy it vastly." ROBIN AROON 159 "It was a performance which has lent itself to later meditation," she replied, with a mim icry of devoutness. He regarded her with the immemorial and haunting sorrow in his eyes that is as old in those who live alone as is man's immemorial love for woman. "'Tis a song that will linger in the mem ory," he said, in felicitous response. "The words of it lie outside of the placid emotions of friendship," she observed, and there was a reminiscent melancholy in her voice to match the melancholy of his gaze. A shaft of sunshine came in through the half-closed window, and touched to brighter gold the waving wonder of her hair. "Your song, or mine?" he queried. "Both," she answered. She was airily smiling at him now. "I was angry with you; but I have forgiven you." "Ah," he murmured, "forgiveness is the fairest flower of unselfishness." "Oh!" she exclaimed, and her blue eyes went wide open. "There is an infinite meaning in the way of saying that little word which you have just uttered," said Captain Paul, now in light 160 ROBIN AROON badinage, and adjusting, his speech to her visible mood. "What little word?" she asked, and her eyes opened wider. "That 'oh!' If you would but say it again, as you said it!" She stared at him in sheer surprise for this new phase of his character. Then she laughed in merriment, and pursed her red lips to a proper shape. There was a gleam of white teeth between them. "Oh!" she said softly. "The repetition emphasizes the truth of my observation," he remarked, gravely sur- vevinq- her. He drew his chair nearer hers, as if to make a closer inspection of her method of making the interjectional sound. "This last was entirely different." She drew back from him, a little appre hensive. "It was not at all like," he said. "Would you mind repeating it?" "Oh !" she exclaimed again, almost hys terically. "You have now uttered it in three essen tially different tones, Miss Montfort, and in ROBIN AROON 161 as many manners," he commented. "The first was exclamatory " "Oh!" she repeated. "The second was interrogative " "Oh!" "The third was amused " "Oh! oh! oh! oh!" She clasped her hands, and the exclama tions came in a series of repetitions that were involuntary. She seemed to be obsessed by some spell of suggestion in his dark face. "Indifferent careless sardonic scorn ful," said he, with calm and scientific pre cision. She recovered herself. " 'Grinding the Bottle' and 'Hiding the Thimble' are dignified and elegant games in comparison with this new one of yours, Cap tain Paul," she said half-angry, half-laugh ing. "The tender 'oh' I surmise would best of all adorn your rosy mouth," said the bold young adventurer, regarding that feature with a steady gaze. "You think me a coquette," she ventured, still dazzled by his daring, ii 162 ROBIN AROON He looked into 'her eyes with an expres sion so imperturbably serene, that in spite of her large experience of admiration at the hands of men, she yet marvelled at him. "You had the audacity to tell me so," she added tentatively. He still surveyed her with grave, unsmil ing countenance. She felt in his silence and in his unwavering regard an occult and inde finable fascination. "You told not only me, but Mr. and Mrs. Jones and Isabel Johnstone. You told them all with your foolish song," she went on breathlessly. "Have I not just received of you absolu tion?" he queried. "Then why this new mockery of oh! and oh! and oh! Captain Paul?" she asked with emphasis. She felt that there was a mist of tears in her eyes. "My dear young lady," said the Scotch man gently, "I am here this morning to assure you of my unfading admiration, and to apologize if I seemed in any thing rude with my song. May I add that, while I have entertained the opinion of you with ROBIN AROON 163 which you have charged me, I do not deem that such a character in woman is without its virtue, as it surely is not without its charm. It is the sex's nature to attract and to repel by turns. I think I have read in some of the classic writers that deception is woman's proper weapon, for that without it she might have a grace the less and a tear the more. And so I deem that the fair one who first fans the flame of ardor with a soft and kindly breeze, and then 'turns on an icy gust, is but surer to win her suitor than is the quickly yielding miss, from whom he flees with sated palate at the first proclamation that there has come a new toast to town. Life has always seemed to me to have a quicker heart-beat for its uncertainty." He was smiling at her now with a debonair air of self-assurance that provoked her. "You are a very philosopher of love," she answered. "And so, your 'Aileen Aroon' was not for the purpose of rebuking me for a serious fault, so much as to arouse my in terest in you? You are vastly ingenuous, Captain Paul. But I believe it is a quality 1 64 ROBIN AROON of seafaring men to be frank in a homely fashion." The insouciance of the Scotchman was im penetrable. "That air of your song suggested the words of mine," he repeated. "I sang the old Irish verses, because they seemed to me to illustrate my view of you, and to point my acceptance of the challenge which you so daringly flung at me. But I thought in the progress of our singing, that if I were more than the poor poetaster I am, how I should wish to weave into the melodious old air the words of a newer song than either. And the newer song should thrill with all the womanly fervor and passion of your 'Robin Adair,' and throb with all the heroic truth and devotion that lie in the words of 'Aileen Aroon' ; and it should be a song of all that is sweetest in love and life, and " He spoke with theatrical language and in tonation, but with the earnestness of an un mistakable sincerity. "And when you write it, I shall name it, and we will sing it together, with blending voices, to admiring audiences," she ex claimed; moved to a mutual mood. ROBIN AROON 165 "And the name of the song shall be ?" "Robin Aroon!" she murmured; and the look of her shook his storm-beaten heart. There was a clang of the brass knocker at the door; and the servant ushered into the parlor Mr. Gilchrist. The three who proverbially are not com pany soon gave place to the two who proverb ially are. Captain Paul, with the ease of an accustomed man of the world, sought to en gage Mr. Gilchrist for a few moments in conversation upon the casual topics of the town. The magnate had met him; but re garded him with a certain measure of sus picion even though knowing him to be under the chaperonage of the Joneses. "Mrs. Jones takes odd fancies for so sen sible a woman," argued Mr. Gilchrist, against his own natural predilection in favor of the young Scotchman; "and Mr. Jones aids and abets her in them." He was perceptibly bored by Captain Paul's brief but easy flow of speech; and Judith was amused to note his relief when the latter arose, and making his polite adieux, departed. "I have seen Mr. Henning," observed Mr. 1 66 ROBIN AROON Gilchrist bluntly to Miss Montfort, when Captain Paul had gone. "Oh, you have?" replied Judith, with ap parent rapture, and her favorite gesture of clasped hands. They were very white and pretty hands, which is doubtless the reason why she so favored this gesture. "Is he good looking? What aged man does he seem to be? Will he stay long in Halifax? Mr. Gilchrist, pray tell me all that you have learned about him!" Mr. Gilchrist did not exhibit a responsive enthusiasm. On the contrary, he appeared decidedly sour-visaged. The young woman's interest clearly nettled him. "Indifferent well-looking, and I may not guess his age. He has at least the appear ance of a gentleman. I bought his horses." There was an air of triumph in his final utterance which provoked her to mirth. He leaned back in his chair and regarded her with an air of assured possession. "Then he can't get away before the As sembly Ball," she exclaimed. "He has a pair of mine," said Mr. Gil christ argumentatively. ROBIN AROON 167 "And he can hardly be young," she con tinued. "Why?" queried Mr. Gilchrist, with in terest. "Or else he failed to receive my offer of marriage," she concluded, sagely ignoring his question. Again Mr. Gilchrist's brows lowered, and he moved restlessly in his seat. "I thought we had agreed to dismiss the discussion of that piece of folly on your part," he said sternly. "However," she resumed, as if in self-com munion, "it may yet be, both that he is young and that he received the offer. But if so, it follows that he is not adventurous. Now, Captain Paul is highly adventurous." "Good God!" exclaimed Mr. Gilchrist. "There really is nothing more stupid than an unadventurous young man, Mr. Gilchrist; and so I am glad you bought Mr. Henning's horses." Mr. Gilchrist's austere features relaxed. "I have a curious feeling about those horses," the girl added "some strange inti mation that I am yet to own them." 1 68 ROBIN AROON She smiled at Mr. Gilchrist, who beamed back at her. When he had gone, with a complacency that the sense of successful achievement sel dom fails to fetch in its wake, Judith hastened upstairs. "It was extremely provoking, Isabel," she exclaimed, fluttering in to where Miss John- stone still sat by the window, whence she had seen the coming and going of the two men. "It was provoking, beyond expression, Judith," chimed in Miss Isabel Johnstone. "What was, mistress?" queried Judith tartly, surprised, and stopping in the middle of the room to see in the French mirror on the wall if her hair had been becomingly ar ranged while her beaux were present. "That Mr. Gilchrist should have inter rupted Captain Paul when you imagined him on the point of a proposal." "When I imagined!" exclaimed Miss Montfort. "I vow, you are very facetious !" "Judith," said her friend gravely, "Mr. Hewes knows Captain Paul with a very inti mate acquaintance, and says that his ambition is his ruling passion. I conceive that Captain ROBIN AROON 169 Paul can be highly agreeable to women. I have seen enough of him to know that he is charming and well-mannered, and indeed a very pretty man. But by his own confession, my dear, he is a mere peasant adventurer. He would not dare to lift his eyes to you, who are high-born and beautiful and the belle of the Colony." "Ah, you do not know Captain Paul," re plied Miss Montfort swiftly, "for there is nothing that Captain Paul would not dare. He would dare lift his eyes to any princess in Europe. It is this that makes him so irre sistible," and she sighed, and then laughed softly. Isabel Johnstone regarded her friend with the quiet wonder with which the girl, whose future life is settled by a satisfactory engage ment, regards the Alexandrian girl who is ever pining for new worlds to conquer. "I infer that you and Captain Paul have at least settled the differences between you that grew out of the song?" "He would like to mingle his song and mine in a perfect love-ditty, and name it 'Robin Aroon,' " said Judith musingly. 170 ROBIN AROON "I vow, I was so interested in Mr. Gil- christ's coming," said Miss Johnstone, "that I forgot entirely to give Captain Paul Mr. Goldsmith's play." THE FIFTH CHAPTER THE ASSEMBLY BALL The Assembly Ball was at its height in the great dancing-room of the Silver Swan. It was a goodly company there gathered to gether. The foremost of the eastern Caro linians had come to this established function; and there were Alstons and Moores and Davies and Ashes and Parkers and Burtons and Haywoods and Branches men destined in the swift impending years to make notable this town to which an English earl had given his ancient name; and women, whose later patriotism was to adorn the first an nals of a State. There were the Crowells, sprung from the house of the Lord Pro tector, whose emigrant ancestor, fleeing from England, to escape the persecution of the restored Stuarts, still preserved his family pedigree inscribed upon aristo cratic vellum, whereon was recorded the story of his ceremonial change of name by the process of cutting from a parchment 172 ROBIN AROON sheet the letter M and casting the discarded letter into mid-ocean. There, sparkling with wit, and charming the brilliant circle that surrounded her, was Captain Paul's hostess, Mrs. Wiley Jones, daughter of a governor and the later verbal discomfiter of Colonel Banastre Tarleton, of His Majesty's invad ing army in the Revolution. There was her husband's brother, Allen Jones, of Mt. Gal lant, in Northampton, with his wife the lovely sister of Isaac Edwards, secretary of the noted Governor Tryon, and the most ac complished woman of her day in the Colony; and there, also, among many others scarcely less distinguished socially and politically, were Nicholas Long, afterward commis sary-general of the Carolina troops in the Revolution, and his courageous spouse, whose praises in her old age are said by the historian to have been sounded by all the officers of the American army, so long as any were left who had known her. Not only were Halifax and the adjoining county of Northampton well represented by their talent and beauty, but Edenton, to the east, had sent up its annual contingent of Ire- dells and Cabarruses and Dawsons and ROBIN AROON 173 Brownriggs; and the country gentry had come from far and near, even out of the towns of New Berne and Wilmington. The negro fiddlers from Scotland Neck, with eyeballs rolling and feet that patted en thusiastic time, made music of reel and minuet and country-dance and rigadoon. Summer moths came in through the wide- open windows, and fluttered about the sput tering wax-candles; while gallants in velvets and laces bowed low in the dance to ladies who smiled upon them with dimpled cheek and patch on chin. Ranged about the wall, or moving back and forth, were anxious mothers with mar riageable daughters; indifferent fathers who took snuff and were bored; handsome girls and homely girls, alike beplumed, belaced and bejeweled; beaux, old and young, ar rayed in gorgeous splendor, who bowed and smirked and capered, saying many things they did not mean, and meaning many things they did not say. In apartments above the ball-room a num ber of the gentlemen played cards, or toasted "The Sons of America" in wine or toddy, or sang Liberty songs. 174 ROBIN AROON "Sir," said one of these roysterers to Cap tain Paul, "may I present you to the ladies?" "I do not care to dance now," said the sailor politely. "Will you join a game of the cards, then?" persisted the officiously hospitable young man. "Nor do I wish to game," responded Paul, ever suave and urbane. "Sir, we will drink a bumper together to the sex," said the Carolinian warmly. "Pardon me, if I deny myself that pleas ure also," replied the Scotchman, seeking to move on. "Then what the devil do you mean, sir, by coming to the Assembly Ball in Halifax, if you can neither dance, play the cards, nor drink?" The question was rude and emphatic; but the sea captain's was the soft answer that turneth away wrath. "Sir," he said gently and serenely, with the dreaminess in his sad eyes that the women loved, "I should be disposed to resent your question as impertinent, were it not that I am able to assure you truthfully that I can do all three to perfection." ROBIN AROON 175 "I salute you, sir," responded the Caro linian, "as a gentleman, and one after my own heart." Meanwhile, in an interval between two dances, to Miss Judith Montfort, clad in the low-bodiced lilac silk, just unpacked from Philadelphia for the occasion, from beneath whose skirt peeped at intervals a pair of dainty high-heeled lilac slippers, was pre sented by Mr. Gilchrist, with her kind per mission, Robert Henning, esquire, of Bushy Park, in the county of Middlesex, Tidewater Virginia. His costume was white satin threaded with gold, and his hair was frizzed and powdered, and tied in a queue with a white silk riband. More than one person wondered to see the blush that man tled the girl's soft cheek as the Virginian bent almost to the floor before her; for not even Mr. Gilchrist guessed that she was afraid lest this young stranger might speak to her of his horses. She fingered her lace handkerchief and looked down, while he twirled his cocked hat, and thought how she would scorn him if she but knew that he had recently parted for 176 ROBIN AROON paltry pounds with that in exchange for which she had offered her own lovely self. Captain Paul approached, with Miss Isabel Johnstone on his arm. Though not so tall as Henning, he seemed for his dignified and elegant carriage no whit less stately and important; and Mr. Joseph Hewes's fiancee appeared very handsome in her white brocaded silk ball-frock, with the ropes of pearls that she wore blending into the snowy smoothness of her round uncovered neck and shoulders. "La, it is Mr. Henning!" whispered Miss Johnstone, as they approached the spot where Mr. Gilchrist had just introduced the stranger to Judith. "Haply it may be Robin Aroon!" replied Captain Paul, noting the mutual pleased re gard of the newly met couple. Isabel had but the moment before expressed to him her approval of the wedding of Judith's song with his own, as she phrased it; and her de light in the appropriateness of its suggested title. Henning was duly presented to Miss John- stone and to Captain Paul; who, thereupon, after some pleasant words of commonplace, ROBIN AROON 177 moved on. Mr. Gilchrist, with fine intuition, speedily perceived his continued presence to be out of place. He made a somewhat stiff, though entirely appropriate remark to Judith, and withdrew with an exalted sense of his own magnanimity; and the music beginning again, Mr. Henning led Miss Montfort to the polished floor, with the eyes of the as sembly upon them. When the ceremonious minuet was ended, they walked together, her arm in his, on the long stoop. Among the crowd of negroes gathered about the Tavern, watching the fes tivities with keenly eager looks, were Silas and Jasper, each undiscovered of the other. They stood not far apart, in the blaze of light from an open window. As the young couple passed by in their promenade, Judge Montfort's servant solilo quized aloud : "Ah-yi! She done got him!" The old driver of Mr. Henning's coach almost simultaneously commented: "Uh-ump ! Dat's good-by ter dem hosses. Gord knows how we gwi' git ter de Guff o' Nexico, now." 12 178 ROBIN AROON Each negro heard the other's remark; and they faced about and glared fiercely at each other in hostile recognition. "J)ar's dat ole lout of a oberseer's nigger agin," said Jasper. "Well, I'll declar' ! I wan't a-lookin' fur ter see dat sassy nigger dat cuts de grass, here wid de white folks," said Silas. But master and mistress walked back and forth, with heads so inclined, and speaking in such low whispers, as gave promise of in creasing the two servants' acquaintance with each other at an early date. He was telling her of his travels, and of his home in Tide water Virginia, and of his people mother, sister, brother; and she, with the responsive ness of awakened confidence, told him in turn many things of herself each after the sweet, immortal fashion of love's beginning since the world began. Many things she told him ; and, with others, that she was the spoiled darling of an indulgent and widowed father and that he should see the cool sum mer beauty of her house with the box-hedges. But there was one thing that she did not tell him; and that one thing she found herself half-fearing that she might never have occa- ROBIN AROON 179 sion to tell him; and there was yet another theme of which each thought and neither spoke. Neither mentioned the horses. They danced again; and when in the late night the ball was over, he went with her to her father's chariot, and lingeringly tucked the lilac silk about the little feet with the high-heeled shoes, standing the while on the dangerous elevation of one of the long string of steps, that had been unrolled from the floor of the loftily swung vehicle to the ground, for my lady's exit and entrance. "Good-night," she said. "I thank you. I trust we may meet again ere you leave Hali fax Borough." "It will be your fault if we do not," he answered. "I owe the thanks. Good night." Mr. Gilchrist listened, near at hand, and frowned ; and Miss Johnstone, on the further seat of the coach, also listened, and smiled in the darkness. Then there was silence in the Montfort chariot for the space of three meditative minutes, as the vehicle rolled along the sandy street in the direction of the house with the box hedges. At the end of this time Judith leaned over and took the i8o ROBIN AROON soft responsive hand of Isabel Johnstone in her own. "Oh, Isabel," she murmured, "it was all so beautiful." "Quite beautiful," assented Miss John- stone undramatically, reflecting how all things lacked essential beauty in the absence of the unapproachable Mr. Joseph Hewes, then sailing to the nor'ward. "And do you truly think, Isabel, that I I shall really ever see him again?" "Yes, dear," said the sapient Isabel, "to morrow morning, very soon after breakfast." THE SIXTH CHAPTER 'i LIFE'S SUNNY MORNING It was the day after the ball. Judith's time for her beauty-sleep had elapsed an hour before; and in some way known only of youth and love Mr. Robert Henning had dis covered for himself the exact location of the brick house with the box-hedges. At this unseemly morning hour of eleven o'clock by the dial in front of the summer-house, with the flower-beds about it and above the laugh ing day, Miss Montfort and the Virginian found themselves seated on a rustic bench in that alluring and secure retreat, shut out from the inquisitive gaze of the world by a green redundance of woodbines covering the frail structure. The perfume of the blossoms per vaded the gay June morning ; and a horde of untiring bees were droning at their labor of honey-making a labor of which the imag inative fancy of Captain Paul, had he looked upon the pretty picture that the arbor framed, 1 82 ROBIN AROON might well have woven some apt and poetic simile. The very air was suggestive, to the bees, of honey-making. Perhaps there had been a show of surprise in the girl's face though there was none in Isabel Johnstone's when a few minutes earlier Mr. Henning had been ushered into the cool and dimly lit parlor, where the two young women sat, after their late breakfast, talking about him. "I believe he has really fascinated you, Judith," Miss Johnstone had said to her friend; and a suffusion of accusing color lit the latter's cheeks at the soft impeachment. "Last night," replied Judith, with empha sis. "This is the day after. It is always the day after when the debt is to be paid. 'One day after sight' or 'after date,' or after some thing that we sometimes regret, run man kind's and womankind's bills of exchange and promises to pay. It is the day after, dear, in which the sorrows of life are totted up in a column, like the little children's sums," said Judith, oppressed with an unusual melan choly. "I have heard Captain Paul say that this was true alike of cards and the bottle." ROBIN AROON 183 "I know the cause of your gloom, sweet lady," Isabel Johnstone had responded arch ly. "But I am no false prophet. There he is now, with his aristocratic Virginian hand on the knocker." When Henning had entered the room, Isabel made a quick excuse to disappear, with that irritating intimation therein of the en gaged girl to the unengaged : "I have landed my fish. I am the super ior angler; but I shall not do you the injustice of fishing in your own waters, with my better skill and equipment." Yet to-day Judith did not mind it. In deed, in spite of her protestation of 'the day after date,' she was glad of Miss Johnstone's departure, in the consciousness that Henning had profoundly awakened her interest. To make sure against intrusion, she had invited him to the summer-house "where it is cool er," she had explained. He thought that nothing could seem cooler or more charming than this spacious parlor where they sat; but in his worldly wisdom he took the invitation to a more secluded spot for a sign, and was acquiescent accord ingly. 1 84 ROBIN AROON The explanation had been made with some slight indication of embarrassment on Judith's part, as if she feared her visitor might perceive its underlying motive. This, with youth's instinctive intelligence in such matters, he very promptly saw; and was pleased to interpret her diffidence as indica tive of an interest that he was deeply anxious to inspire. The vision of her beauty at the ball had overwhelmed him; and he had but lately awakened from dreams of this fair, new found face, which now seemed to regard him with an involuntary and unconscious interest, that was deeper and sweeter than surprise. "I did not hope when we parted last night that you would really come to see me so soon," she said; and the tender implication of a blush suffused her cheeks. "Did you really hope for my coming?" he asked gently. The intonations of his voice were soft and musical; but the ultimate meaning of his question was more legible in the frank blue eyes that regarded her. Her own fell to her lap; and she played with a spray of the woodbine-blossoms that ROBIN AROON 185 she had nervously twisted from the vine when they entered the summer-house together. She did not answer his question. It seemed altogether too obvious for so early an hour in their love-passages. "I was deeply interested in all that you told me last night of your home in Virginia; and I thought it very strange that even before I had met you, though since your arrival in Halifax, I had been told about Bushy Park by one who had seen it." He looked at her with a regard of curious inquiry; and for the first time her eyes met his own frankly. The kindly simplicity of her speech and demeanor charmed him un- speakably. "Ah," she said, "Mr. Henning, you do not yet know Halifax; and so I must tell you that one of its most popular matrons is Mistress Wiley Jones of The Grove. She has recent ly taken a strong fancy to a young Scotchman, who has followed a sea-fearing life, and who came to the town of Edenton in the eastern part of our Province from the Indies. Thence he visited Halifax with letters; and he has now been at The Grove for some 1 86 ROBIN AROON weeks. He possesses a distinguished air and accomplished manners. He has proved a great boon to the social life of our town ; and Mistress Jones, who is my cousin, really thinks him in love with me." This demurely and with downcast eyes. Henning recalled his friend Lee's opinion of Scotchmen as expressed in a moment of un guarded conviviality about the board at Bushy Park; and for once was inclined, in spite of his regard for Greig, to concur with it. "He makes bad verses to the ladies," con tinued Judith. "I am a victim. He is a good dancer. I have danced with him. He speaks French respectably, and writes a beau tiful handwriting. These are noteworthy accomplishments in a foreigner, when no young gentleman passing through this colony is presumed to be such, unless he have an acquaintance with at least dancing, box ing, playing the fiddle and small swords and cards. He sings divinely; and I am told by my cousin, Mr. Jones, that this young man has a very genteel acquaintance with all the arts I have enumerated." ROBIN AROON 187 "Damn the Scotchman!" thought Hen- ning, who never swore. It is a strange thing, how many people, men and women, think "damn him, her or it." Henning was hardly interested, save after an antagonistic and outraged fashion, in Judith's description of Captain Paul, beyond the delight that he derived from looking into her unfathomable eyes as she talked of him; and wondering with an unspeakable longing at the moist redness of her mouth, as he thought what might be the emotion of him who should kiss it. "I saw him at the ball," he commented aloud ; and again conceived the hot, unspoken sentiment : "Damn him!" "Well," she went on, naively, "he told me a few days ago, when I was out at The Grove, that he had seen your place of Bushy Park, from his ship in Rappahannock River. He described it at night, with its innumerable front windows blazing with light." "Ah!" said Henning reminiscently, "how it all comes back to me ! But," he continued curiously, "why should Captain Paul speak 1 88 ROBIN AROON of me and of my house to you, who knew nothing of me. You never heard of me be fore I came to Halifax?" Again her eyes sought the spray of wood bine bloom, and she seemed distraught. "I had talked of you first to him," she ans wered; and hesitated, wondering if the ridi culous old negro by any possibility might have dared to deliver to him her foolish message about the horses. "And had you known of me before I came to Halifax?" he asked, with fatuous delight, expecting an affirmative reply. He bent on her a smile of pleased anticipa tion. She might have truthfully answered him, with that finely drawn evasion of fact and skilled interpretation of fancy, which is some times woman's divinest gift: "Every one in Halifax knows of every one who is any one in Virginia." But she was an artist, and she did not. She flashed at him a glance of radiant mirth, and said: "Never!" It was her chance of which she availed her self, knowing her ground. She laughed to ROBIN AROON 189 note the look of disconcerted blankness that stole into his face, as his lower jaw dropped. She could have hugged herself for her wit and diplomacy. "I don't understand it," he said. "Well," she observed softly, and half- hesitating continued meanwhile to beat her knee with the woodbine; "Mr. Gilchrist had talked to me about you. He said that your family was very prominent in Virginia, and that you " She paused for a moment with fine effect; then looking at him earnestly, she continued, "You know, Mr. Gilchrist is one of my fath er's warmest friends. My father has a very, very great regard for Mr. Gilchrist." "I do not doubt that it is well bestowed," replied Henning. "Mr. Gilchrist has been quite kind to me. He called on me at the Swan Tavern on the morning after my arrival here. I have never been so immediately and overwhelmingly honored by an entire strang er before." The girl laughed a soft, delighted laugh, and clasped her pretty hands together in her glee. Then she lifted the wild honeysuckle i 9 o ROBIN AROON to her face, and smiled at him through its leaves and flowers. "Ah! that was delicious," she said. Henning was not sure whether she referred to Mr. Gilchrist's early call, or to the aroma of the flower. "He seems to be a great fancier of horses?" observed Henning interrogatively, watching her closely. She made no reply. "He wanted to buy mine," he continued, still eyeing her. "You surely did not sell them to him ?" she said impressively. "I did," he answered. There was a ludicrous ruefulness in the tone of his reply. Her eyes sparkled. "After what I ?" she murmured. The woodbine spray fell from her hands. She did not finish the question. "Ah, but I had not seen you then," he ex plained in eager extenuation. Then with a show of feeling he solilo quized : "What an infernal ass I was!" She lifted to him the glory of eyes that ROBIN AROON 191 were half-shining, half-misty. He stooped and picked up the bloom. She held out a seductive hand, and said : "May I have it, please?" He caught the seductive hand in his own. "A fair exchange is no robbery," he ans wered, while she struggled gently and very unsuccessfully to withdraw it He could see that her bosom was heaving, and that her eyes were averted. There was a tremor in her voice as she asked, faintly smiling: "What is the price of it, Mr. Henning?" "Some little part of your regard," he ans wered, bending toward her, with the impulse to catch her in his arms. "Then give it to me," she said, looking at him unabashed. He laid the tangle of green and pink in her lap, still holding her hand. "Mr. Henning," she said, and he thought that a pallor had come into her cheeks that but now had seemed rosier than the woodbine bloom, "is this the fashion of paying morning calls upon unprotected young women in the Province of Virginia?" The query contained a magic and indefina- 1 92 ROBIN AROON ble charm for Henning. It delighted him with a subtle sense of elusive reminiscence. "It is the fashion I am sure it must be the fashion of David with Nancy Carter, and of Greig with Betty Berkeley, and of Tom Randolph with Milly Hubbard. It certainly must be; though none of them has ever told me of it. I can swear, however, for myself that it has been none of mine, elsewhere than here !" "Oh!" she said warmly, "who are they? Nancy, and Betty, and Milly?" The color came back to her cheeks, and the mirth to her eyes. She withdrew her captive hand. "Three love-stories! Oh! tell me a beautiful love-story, Mr. Henning." "I have but poor words to tell a love-story to any woman least of all, to you," he ans wered pointedly. " 'Tis more the pity, when I can imagine so charming a one." "With yourself for the hero?" He nodded. "And Nancy or Betty or Milly or what's her name?" "Judith," he responded tenderly, capturing ROBIN AROON 193 again the escaped hand, that seemed no long er elusive or impatient of captivity. Their eyes met; and each knew. "I should like to kiss you," he said. The spray of blossoms slipped, again, un noticed to the ground. "Sir," she said saucily, "do you not know that such gifts are not for the mere asking?" She wagged her pretty head at him with a daring that was irresistible. "They cannot be for the mere taking," he answered, smiling and prolonging the sweet suspense which gives love its finest flavor; and half-afraid, too, lest he might lose her by a too rough assault. "It would be un pardonable rudeness." Her maiden passion was at full tide. "I can swear that it is a fashion that has been none of mine elsewhere," she said; and her breath came short. She looked down at the toe of her slipper, and then looked up at her lover, and smiled at him in adoring mockery. "Ah, me!" she sighed inexpressibly. Then she asked in almost inarticulate words : 13 i 9 4 ROBIN AROON "Would it be proper?" "Perfectly so," he replied, "if it were a confession." "A confession? of what?" "Of what I have already seen in your eyes," he said with proud assurance. His arm was around her, unresisting; and he drew her to him. She lifted her face to his, with the light on it that never was on land or sea. He bent over her and kissed her on her half-parted lips. Her eyes closed for a delicious moment; then opening, bloomed purple into perfect flowers of love. She sighed heavily a suspiration of de light. Then she extricated herself, and said : "To think of it ! Here, in the broad day light!" She laughed a soft, contented laugh; and taking his hand in both of hers, asked: "Did Mr. Gilchrist really buy the horses?" He nodded, smiling and exultant. "And did you dare sell them to him, Robin, after getting my inviting message?" He nodded again, still smiling, yet not quite so exultant. "Oh, Robin Aroon!" she laughed, "now how can I?" ROBIN AROON 195 "Can you what?" he asked, looking puz zled. "Marry you for those horses?" she said. "Oh, I'll buy 'em back," he answered bravely. THE SEVENTH CHAPTER "THESE, WITH HASTE" Under the woodbine arbor from which the blossoms were now long gone, Judith Mont- fort read aloud to Henning in the late sum mer weather the letter that had just come to him from the Reverend Mr. Heffernan, min ister of Christ Church, Middlesex, in the Colony of Virginia. It was written in a fine ornate script, and was addressed "To Robert Henning, esquire, in the care of Mr. Thomas Gilchrist, at Halifax Borough in the Colony of North Carolina: These, with haste"; and it was sealed with red sealing wax, im pressed with the parson's family crest. " 'Robin aroon,' ' wrote Mr. Heffernan, and read Miss Judith in a voice which Hen ning thought the most musical on earth as he listened: " 'Robin aroon, Your letter fetches me news that I had not learned from your relatives at Bushy Park. When I last visited the place, which was some days ago, T found your mother, brother, and sister enjoying ROBIN AROON 197 good health, and seemingly much diverted that your trip through the southern colonies should end at Halifax; but they made no mention of your approaching marriage. Yet all the while I could but observe that they exchanged glances among themselves, when speaking of you, that conveyed no meaning to me beyond one of mystery. 'I refer to your young brother and sister in this allusion to the interchange of meaning looks. Your mother is ever too well-man nered to indulge in such demeanor. Which covert glances I now interpret as intimating a hidden knowledge of that concerning which your letter, now open before me as I write, informs me. " 'I am much honoured that you should de sire my participation in the ceremony so soon to occur, and in which you are to perform a significant and important part. I hope that the incumbent of the parish in Halifax is a good churchman. Many of these Carolina ministers are hardly loyal to the church. 'I assure you that I shall gladly comply with your request Mistress Henning this morning having notified me by a letter, sent over from Bushy Park to the Glebe by the 198 ROBIN AROON hands of your brother David, that I am in vited to make one of the wedding party out of Middlesex. This procession of guests will also include David and Elenor, Mr. Greig, the Scotchman, and Miss Elizabeth Berkeley of Barn Oaks, Colonel Selden and Mr. Ball, from the northern side of Rappahannock, Mr. Laurence Lee, Mr. John Ree, the sprightly Mistress Turberville of Peckatone, mortal foe of gates, and some others who will join the line of chariots, coaches, chaises and chairs in Williarnsburg. " 'I sorrow to be compelled to pass through so pestilent and treasonable a hole as that same city; but I opine hopefully that no stay of duration will be made there. " 'Mistress Henning bids me say to you, should I chance to write to you of my pro jected coming, that John and Anne Carter will also go to the southward with our wed ding-party, leaving Westmoreland on the day before our departure from Bushy Park, and joining us at the ferry over York River. She adds that you will understand, which I do not, if I shall further say to you that Nancy's eyebrows are now full-grown. " 'David, who fetched your mother's let- ROBIN AROON 199 ter, and stayed to breakfast with me at the Glebe, upon learning that I am to write you, requests that I will make you informed of the news about Miss Elizabeth Berkeley and the Scotchman. He says that what he has writ you on the subject is true, and that they are as friendly as two peas in the same green pease-pod. He also wishes me to add an un seemly remark of his, to the effect that young women can fling dust in your eyes as easily as I can shake it from my sandbox on to this writing, intimating thereby your lack of soph istication, and insinuating that if you be not careful, your lady love may yet give you the slip. " 'These observations in their complete ness I forbear to convey to you ; but I deem it my duty to inform you of their general pur port, in order that you may judge how utterly unable this Greig is to mould into polite fash ion the manners of his young charges. " 'Master David, I will add of my own motion, after breakfasting with me, and ac cepting of my hospitality freely, had the ill- grace, prior to his departure, to tie a small thorn bush to the tail of my riding-horse, 200 ROBIN AROON Jotank, whereby I came near to grief in my morning's ride to Christ Church. " 'I regard with apprehension and distrust the probable presence of David and young Carter in our journey 'cross-country to Hali fax. I do not credit his confidential com munication made to me, as he helped himself bountifully to hot batterbread at my break fast-table this morning, that he is by no means certain of going. \Yhen I pressed him for a reason for declining so agreeable a mission, he informed me that should he go, he might find himself in a devil of a fix inasmuch as Miss Evelyn Harrison of Wakefield is expected to join his mother's coach on the way; and that between her and the aforesaid Miss Anne Carter he would be like the hungry ass be tween the two bundles of hay he having made love to both of them. " 'I thereupon, to comfort him, for this was before his performance with the thorn- bush, bade him reflect that they would not travel in the same vehicle; and knowing his temperament, I sang to him a stave of the song in the Beggar's Opera, that the women of my boyhood in Ireland were wont to carry engraved upon their fans : to-wit : ROBIN AROON 201 " ' "If the heart of a man is oppressed with cares The mists are dispelled when a woman appears; Like the notes of a fiddle, she sweetly, sweetly Raises the spirit and charms the ears." ' " 'He finished the dish of batterbread in pious meditation; and then went out, and covertly attached the thorn. " 'The guests still come and go at Bushy Park, as I observe by their attendance at Christ Church on Sundays; while I am sel dom without some one staying at the Glebe. Mr. John Ree has honoured me with his com pany here since the day of our hurdle-race over the five-barred gates, hated of the sprightly Mistress Turberville. You will hardly have heard ere this of the result of that race a piece of news that you should know as you were stake-holder for us. I won the race by the misfortune befalling Mr. Ree's horse of striking the last gate and tumbling, whereby Mr. Ree came a cropper. He was brought to the Glebe for the healing of a sprained shoulder; and here, as I have informed you, he has since remained, though the shoulder is long since mended. The Glebe being in convenient reach of Urbanna, where some of his cronies foregather, he 202 ROBIN AROON spends much of his time there, having his bed and board here. He promises to return to his home up-country in November. He is a pretty fellow, and diverting company; and also loves a horse. " 'Mr. Ree and I plan to attend the Rich mond County races in October, when I trust you may be returned to Bushy Park with your bride, and may accompany us thither. " 'Mann Page, of Gloucester, esquire's horse, Damon, will be matched with William Fitzhugh,of Chatham, esquire's Kitty Foster; and I learn that Colonel Daniel McCarthy's Silver Legs, Moore Fauntleroy, esquire's mare, Miss Sprightly, and Colonel Francis Thornton's Merryman are all entered. These horses would make no despicable figure at New Market, in Britain, which I have at tended. " 'Have you seen any races during your stay in Carolina? " 'I am informed that there they are much attached to quarter-racing, which is always a match between two horses to run one quarter of a mile straight out, being merely an ex ertion of speed. " 'I must bring a long letter to a quick ROBIN AROON 203 close. It will please some of my congrega tion next Sunday that I have writ at this length, for I have by so much curtailed from my sermon for that day. " 'I take regret to myself, upon perusing what is here set down, that so great a dis course is given concerning horses; for this topic, I am sure, can little concern you now in your state of hymeneal expectancy. " 'Adieu, dear Sir, until I see you. " 'Your obedient, attached servant, " 'James Heffernan.' ' "He little dreams how the noble animals have made our fate for us, Robin," said Judith, when she had finished reading the letter. "He little guesses that 'tis a span of horses here that is fetching him to Halifax," said Henning. "Ah, those horses!" "That you sold to Mr. Gilchrist," she added mischievously. "And so you have al ways been Robin Aroon?" "He is an Irishman and a courtier, dear; and the name does not mean the same to him as to you and me." THE EIGHTH CHAPTER ANOTHER MAN^S SHOES In the little colonial church, bowered in green trees, on the same street upon which stood the house with the box hedges, she who had been known in the Colony of Carolina as "the divine Judith Montfort" became the blushing bride of Robert Henning. Very lovely she looked in her white silk frock; and very handsome all the women of Halifax ac claimed him in his dark blue costume, with its cascades of finest lace and its brave show of gold buttons. The wedding was at high noon ; and the noisy chirp of insects in the periwinkle vines that carpeted the churchyard mingled with the fine Irish brogue of the Reverend Mr. Heffernan, as he pronounced them man and wife, and admonished the dearly beloved there assembled that those, whom God had joined together, none should put asunder. Of them who hearkened were some who were especially dearly-beloved, not to Mr. ROBIN AROON 205 Heffernan, nor yet to the Reverend Mr. Fitz Wilson, minister of that parish, who assisted him in the ceremony, but one to another; and these, regretful, looked on and dreamed day dreams, as is the immemorial wont of youth and beauty at all weddings. But there was no outward visible sign of their dreaming, since Judith was superstitious. For herself, she had insisted that all young brides must for good-fortune wear about them, on their wed ding days, concealed in some unheralded hid ing-place, "Something old and something new, Something borrowed, something blue." For her friends and visitors, whose love- stories she had learned, since Henning's skill as a teller of love-tales was now never vainly invoked by her, she had further in sisted on the verity of the old proverb : "Once at the altar, no more at the altar." Whereupon Greig, the Scotch tutor, with ludicrously lugubrious face, and pathetic eyes that seemed to wander vainly in search of some invisible, lost object, walked down the aisle in the wake of the bridal pair, bearing 206 ROBIN AROON on his arm the vivacious Miss Evelyn Harri son of Wakefield; Nancy Carter unwillingly kept step in the procession with Launcelot Lee; and David Henning, with bland and seraphic face, escorted Miss Elizabeth Berke ley of Barn Oaks. Following them were John Norfleet of Scotland Neck and Dorothy Davie of Hali fax; Ben Harrison of Wakefield and Elenor Henning; Robert Page of Rosewell and Milicent Hubbard; while Captain Paul, and Isabel Johnstone brought up the rear of the gay procession of maids and men. There were flowers on the high altar, and the sweet ness of summer in the uncloistered air; and the beauty and fashion of the Province thronged the church to witness the solemn ceremony. "David," whispered Evelyn Harrison, leaning over to where the younger Henning stood with Betty Berkeley, "when we get back to the house, I have something to tell you." "S-h-h !" was David's sibilant warning, as he held up a white fore-finger at her, keeping, meanwhile, her promise in his memory. Never did wedding-party appear more charming than did this galaxy of pretty girls ROBIN AROON 207 and handsome youths who crowded about the love-crowned bride and groom in the parlors of Judge Montfort's house with the box- hedges; and never in either Colony did all beholders more approve a match. "What was it you were so anxious to say to me in the church, Evelyn?" asked Mr. David Henning of Miss Evelyn Harrison, discreetly drawing her aside into an alcove near the great fire-place, that glowed in the red glory of uncounted summer roses. The girl hesitated, with a show of color in her face. "Quick!" said David; "don't you see Nancy Carter over yonder watching you ?" "Then I'll not tell you," she said indig nantly. "What were you going to say to him, Evelyn?" asked Milly Hubbard, with spark ling eyes, as David departed, chuckling. "He's the most provoking boy," said Evelyn; "I had intended to tell him that I think so many of these old wedding super stitions are utterly foolish. I don't see whv T might not have him for my partner, instead of Mr. Greig, as he and I had first planned." Milly listened with pained interest, having 208 ROBIN AROON shortly before received a like confidence con cerning David from Nancy Carter. "Judith said that if we went into the church together, David and I would never be mar ried," continued Miss Harrison poutingly; "and that changed everything. But I don't believe in any such foolish notions. Do you, Milly?" "Indeed!" laughed Milly Hubbard. "I protest one would think otherwise, to see you insist, when we were dressing Judith this morning, that she should wear your new yel low garter with the diamond buckle on her left foot!" she concluded, with a rising in tonation, as Greig paused at her shoulder. "Evelyn, David is beckoning to you," she added hurriedly, and the little Harrison slipped away. There was a half-smile on Mr. Gilchrist's saturnine face, as Mr. Iredell said to him, where they stood in the midst of the chatter ing throng: "They are an extremely handsome couple, Gilchrist." He nodded acquiescence. "He has stayed more than a month at my house, Iredell," said Mr. Gilchrist, while ROBIN AROON 209 they drank the bride's health at the long side board in the dining-room. "I have become quite attached to him. He is a pretty gentle man, and in every way worthy of her." His friend bowed to Judge Montfort, who approached them. Then all three shook con gratulatory hands, effusively, in front of three empty glasses. "Ah!" said Judge Montfort, "the young people do not now-a-days suffer us to arrange these matters for them." One of the three fancied that the speech was meant for him. "Judith was delighted with the span of horses you sent her, Gilchrist," he added. "She will thank you for them in person, if she can ever escape that crowd of girls and boys." Mr. Gilchrist bowed to Judge Montfort in silence. Jasper, near at hand in a white apron, and grasping by the neck an ancestral Montfort decanter of cut glass, could not contain his feelings : "Fo' Gord!" he ejaculated, "I knowed she was 'bleest for ter have 'em !" Once more his old adversary appeared, to 210 ROBIN AROON bid him his customary defiance. Silas, shuf fling by under the burden of a huge silver coffee urn, retorted in triumph: "Yas, she done got 'em; but Mars' Robert done got her!" Jasper looked at the old man in wrath. His impulse was to smite him. "You come out here on dis back po'ch," he muttered. The old negro's pride was aroused. "G'long!" he said; "I'se right dar wid ye!" Jasper, leading the way, caught a glimpse in the crowd of Judith's happy face. His anger faded away; and as Silas stepped upon the porch behind him, he turned and said: "Shake han's, ole man! You an' me ain' gwi' quar'l dis day. You's a cullud Ferginyer gent'mun, an' I'se a Norf Kliner quality nig ger; an' I'se ez good ez you is, an' you's ez good ez me; an' I ain' got nothin' 'gin' you no mo'." "You sho'ly is a nice gentmun," responded the mollified Silas; "I ain' 'spectin' ter see nothin' like you 'twixt here an' de Guff o' Nexico." They thereupon drank in turn from the ROBIN AROON 211 mouth of the decanter that Jasper still carried in his hand. "It was a beautiful wedding, dear," said Isabel Johnstone to Judith, looking at her with shining eyes. "Even down to his beautiful shoes?" asked Judith, half-laughing, half-wistful. For Judith Montfort had wept and told Isabel Johnstone the night before, in bedroom confidence, that she had promised to marry Mr. Gilchrist and that her dear father had wanted her to marry Mr. Gilchrist and that she had always really intended to marry Mr. Gilchrist, until until she had met Robin at the Assembly Ball. And then Judith had further told her, with April laughter succeeding the gust of tears, that Robin's wedding pumps were found to be too small when they arrived that morning from Philadelphia; and that Mr. Gilchrist had thereupon presented Robin with Mr. Gil- christ's own beautiful new pair, which Mr. Gilchrist had imported for Mr. Gilchrist's own wedding with Judith Montfort ! "Look at them, Isabel," she laughed, with a glory in her face, and pointing to where her young husband stood near by; "the lovely jeweled buckles, and all!" THE NINTH CHAPTER ACCOLADE The chronicler of that glowing period in the history of Halifax records with facile pen that Mr. Iredell wrote a letter to a member of his family at Edenton about this time, in which he gave "a characteristic account of the gay and opulent borough. 'The divine Judith Montfort' has just been married to Robert Henning, a Virginia beau. The nup tials were celebrated by twenty-two consecu tive dinner-parties in as many different houses; the dinners being regularly succeeded by dances, and all terminated by a grand ball." The first of these ever-memorable twenty- two consecutive dinings took place at The Grove, in the evening after the wedding, while the sloop Chockayotte, on which Cap tain Paul was booked for passage to Edenton, lay in the Roanoke River, near by, ready to sail at the sun-rising. "I am reluctant to leave you and your hus- ROBIN AROON 213 band, madam, who have shown me more kindness than it has ever been my lot to ex perience, and which I may never hope to know again. I would honor your name the world over," he said, as he bent above his hostess' hand in salutation at the breakfast table that morning, while Mr. Jones smiled approval from the head of the shining and flower-decked board. "But the Chockayotte does not sail until to morrow," she said. "You will surely stay to the dinner for the bridal party." "Were not my brother lying sick at Fred- ericksburg, as I have learned but yesterday, I should be loth to depart until the Virginians leave," replied Captain Paul. "I shall re main to the dinner, with great pleasure." "And we shall see you again some day? You will not forget us?" said the gentle lady. "There are clouds on the horizon, mad am," responded John Paul, in the melodra matic language that seemed so well to com port with his character and person, "which portend the breaking of an early storm. I look, when that storm shall come, to fly the colors of a new republic against the ships of England on the sea. Haply, Mr. Jones and 2i 4 ROBIN AROON his brother, and my good friend, Mr. Joseph Hewes, may in that time aid me in this ambi tion of mine to command a vessel for the free dom of America," and he bowed to Mr. Jones. "It shall be my pleasure, Captain Paul," the latter responded, "as I am sure it will be the pleasure of my brother Allen, and of Mr. Hewes." The idea of impending struggle appeared to obsess the mind of the young sea-captain. His face glowed with the fervor of a great passion. "It needs no prophetic vision," he said, haranguing host and hostess, "to see the com ing event; and even less, in considering the patriotic spirit that animates the men and wo men of these colonies, to foretell its favorable issue. There is an undercurrent that is not mistakable." He spoke in the nautical phraseology which seemed frequently to suggest itself to him. "It is very strange of you to dwell on com ing war, Captain Paul," said Mrs. Jones, smiling at his enthusiasm, "when the minds of all of us are so engaged with the soft de lights of yesterday's wedding." ROBIN AROON 215 He regarded her with sorrowful, unsmiling eyes. "And the silken-clad, luxurious colonials these laughing, joyous boys and girls, in their silks and brocades, wearing their love-verses on their lips, and their love-songs in their hearts madam, I foresee them in the front of that tremendous fray. Their ease of life will be forgotten in the ardor of sac rificial struggle; and they will learn, with brave hearts and smiling faces, the beautiful meaning of the Roman saying, that it is a sweet and honorable thing to die for one's country." Then with rising intonation and uncon scious eloquence, he continued: "I mind me, madam, of that stirring story in French history when, in the Wars of the Fronde, the King's storming columns under de Praslin were beat back from the battle ments of Rethel, until, baffled and bleeding, they stood aside to suffer the Guards of the Royal Household to take their bloody turn. I recall in the story, how, with broidery and feathers, and with their ladies' love-tokens of scarves and ribands on their arms, these young gallants of the boudoir and the salon 216 ROBIN AROON moved forward to the assault, while de Pras- lin's broken veterans called jeeringly, 'En avant les gants glaces!' "I mind me, how laughingly they leaped to that gory fray. The feathers were shorn, when it was over; and the ribands and scarves were begrimed and reddened. Half of the young, white faces lay dead in the walls' broken breach; but the sweet-voiced, soft-handed boys of the court had captured the ramparts of Rethel. "Madam," he concluded, as he bowed with impassioned grace to his hostess, "I am peas ant-born, but I have the fighting spirit and the fighter's instinct. We shall yet hear that ac claim for these, our Americans, 'En avant les gants glaces!' and see again the young household guards at the storming." In the soft glow of wax-candles, following the dinner of state in the great dining-hall of The Grove, the dance took place in the parlor with the bay-window, where the gene rations of Joneses looked down on the gay assemblage, from gilded frames, with un changing faces. Beneath the portrait of Robin Jones, in the red velvet coat, first of his house in the ROBIN AROON 217 colonies, hung a sword in a metal sheath. The hilt of it was of white brass, and the grip-piece of the handle of twisted copper wire, that shone in the bright candle-light. Mrs. Jones was one of the very few of the animated crowd who observed her husband, in the interval between two dances, stand for a moment before the portrait of his progeni tor, and, with his back to the company, take down the weapon. The dance-music had ceased and the mur mur of the soft Southern voices was alone audible in the room. Mr. Jones advanced to the centre of the moving, laughing throng of men and women ; and drawing the sword from its sheath, held it, point upwards, above his head. The flashing blade caught and reflected the light of a hundred wax tapers. "Ladies and gentlemen," he called, and the assemblage paused in its movement, each where he stood, and wondered. Some subtle in fluence seemed to inform the atmosphere in the deep hush that followed. Mrs. Jones moved through the throng, and stopped at her husband's side. "I wish to make public to this gathering 218 ROBIN AROON of the best of two sister colonies the esteem in which my wife and I hold one who yet be longs to neither, though he carries in his heart the welfare and the honor of both, and of all America. He leaves us on the morrow for Virginia ; and ere he departs I would bid 'God speed!' to our friend, Captain Paul." Upon the conclusion of Mr. Jones's unex pected speech there was a clapping of hands; and then there was laughter, and shouts of applause, and the suspense of the moment was fraught with the eagerness of strained anticipation. Thereupon, forth of the applauding throng, with the accustomed dignity and grace of one sprung from a long line of courtiers, stepped the young Scotch sea-captain, clad in his lav ender suit of silk that so well became his face and figure. His head was high, and his cleancut nostril was dilated; and he walked with an unhesitant movement of cool imper turbability. The women who knew him were thrilled to see the wonted melancholy languor of his dark eyes glow into a burning and a flaming light. A score and more of them there, at ROBIN AROON 219 that moment, would have laid down their hearts, that he might trample on them. The assembled guests drew away before his advance, half-awed and wholly spell-bound by his bearing, until there was left a wide, vacant space before the master and mistress of the mansion. Reaching this spot, the sailor stood for a moment motionless, with all eyes fixed upon him. Then in a voice that fell on the list ening throng with the melodious intonations of some soft musical instrument, he said: "You do me, sir and madam, a signal and unexpected honor." He bowed low, in austere simplicity, and stood facing his hosts. "Captain Paul," said Mr. Jones, "in token of the high regard in which we hold you, up on this eve of your departure from Halifax, where you have found many friends, and upon what you and I and no few others of this company believe to be also the eve of mighty events in the destiny of these colonies, I present to you this sword. I think that you will never draw it in any save a worthy cause." He returned the weapon to its sheath, and handed it, hilt foremost, to his guest. 220 ROBIN AROON "I have no words to thank you," said Cap tain Paul, receiving it. The histrionic impulse, that ever dominat ed his life, was at flood tide in him. It was a passionate part of his nature in all critical junctures; and now it moved him as with ir resistible compulsion. He drew the blade from the scabbard, that fell from his hand with a clang upon the pol ished floor. Taking the weapon by the point, he presented the hilt of it to Mrs. Jones. "Madam," he said, and his sweet, clear voice again rang through the room, while the light in his eyes melted once more to a wistful and pathetic tenderness, "in the days of knighthood queens sometimes gave the acco lade. I should find my supremest happiness in this brilliant presence to receive it at your hand, with a prophetic title." He knelt upon one knee before her. Laughing the while, she touched his 'left shoulder with the shining sword-point. "Arise," she said, "Admiral John Paul, of an American navy." The sword fell from her hand and lay near the scabbard on the floor. THE POSTSCRIPT Many of the Seats of the Mighty still lift their lofty roofs along the River Way; but few of them now hold aught that is left out of the faded century save memories. No longer is tobacco a staple crop in the ancient county of Middlesex; and the white sails of ships forth of Glasgow and London town have vanished from the lucent sunlit days that yet kindle the tide-waters of Rappa- hannock. Urbanna is no more a port of entry; and Halifax, under the touch of time, long since ceased to be "the gay and opulent borough" that Mr. Iredell described it. The little church in which Robin Aroon and Judith were married still stands, how ever, in its periwinkle-covered yard, grey with age and haunted of the past; but the box- hedges, since grown high in air, are broken in their ordered array, and the Montfort mansion has become a lodging-house in the ownership of strangers. How Henning and his youthful compeers 222 ROBIN AROON justified Captain Paul's melodramatic proph ecy is written in history; upon some of the pages of which is also chronicled the shining story of the young Scotch sailor, who gave himself an imperishable name at Halifax, that became an imperishable fame upon the seas. Among the manuscripts of the Philosophi cal Society in Philadelphia is a lately found letter, written by him after he had achieved his honors, that lets in a glowing light upon his career in those unrecorded years before the Revolution; and in the Library of the Navy Department at Washington may still be seen his sword, the guard of its hilt broken off, but the blade uncorrupted, that once hung under the portrait of Robin Jones in the red velvet coat on the long-since crumbled and fallen walls of The Grove. DIVERSITY of CALIFORNIA AT LOS ANGELES LIBRARY 3 1158 00927 7582 UC SOUTHERN REGIONAL LIBRARY FACILITY AA 000249291 6