Sir Christopher: A Romance of a Maryland Manor in 1644. Goodwin Maud Wilder

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СКАЧАТЬ and finds her friendship as firm as her loves are fickle. Between Governor Brent and Peggy Neville such a friendship was established, and it was with a delight dimpling into smiles that she threw wide the window, and leaning out into the frosty air, cried out joyously, —

      "Good-morning, your Excellency! Do you bring any news of that good-for-nothing brother of mine?"

      The governor shook his sword at her.

      "I will have you in the sheriff's hands if you speak so lightly of my close friend," he answered. "Is your aunt at home?"

      "No, but my aunt's niece is, and much exercised to hear the news from Kent Fort. So prithee come in and rest awhile."

      Brent entered at a door so low that he was compelled to bow his tall head.

      "The news of most interest to you," he said, seating himself by the fire, "comes not from Kent Fort, but from St. Gabriel's Manor, which I left just before the expected arrival of that aforesaid good-for-nothing brother of yours, who is in treaty with me for the manor at Cecil Point, which Baltimore christened Robin Hood's Barn when he made a grant of it to Mistress Elinor Calvert. The lady is staying with my sister Mary at present."

      "You have just come from St. Gabriel's?" queried Peggy, "and just seen Mistress Calvert? Then pray tell me all about her. She is very, very handsome, they say – "

      "Then for once they say truth. I have seen her enter the gallery at The Globe when all the gallants on the stage rose to catch sight of her, and I have seen the London street-sweepers follow her for a mile. There's beauty for you!"

      "And she is very wise too?"

      "Ay, as good a head for affairs as mine, and I think no small things of mine own abilities."

      "And she is virtuous and tender and true?"

      "The tenderest of mothers, and the loyalest of kinswomen."

      Peggy cast down her long-fringed eyes and studied the pointed toes of her red slippers. At length looking up timidly she asked, —

      "Think you I could ever be like her?"

      Giles Brent burst out into a great laugh.

      "Oh – not in beauty!" Peggy rushed on, all in confusion – "not in beauty, of course, nor in mind, but could I make my character like hers? You see, Christopher has always told me how perfect she was, and said how proud he should be to see me like her."

      "Christopher!" exclaimed Brent.

      "Oho!" he thought to himself, "so the wind blows from that quarter, does it? That explains many things. But why under heaven did he conceal the whole business from me?"

      Aloud he said: "Never mind what Christopher tells you, pretty Peggy! Take my advice and do not waste your time in trying to be like this one or that, – not even my Cousin Elinor. You have gifts and graces all your own. Make the most of them, and let the others go. Who is that outside the door? I thought I knew every man in St. Mary's, at least by sight."

      "That?" said Peggy, looking out at the window with a fine show of indifference, and then moving hastily nearer the fire, "that is no citizen of St. Mary's, but a young Virginian in command of the ketch Lady Betty from the York River."

      "And his name?"

      "Romney Huntoon."

      "Huntoon – ? I wonder who his father is. Know you anything of his family?"

      "No, save that his father was a physician once and won great reputation somehow, and his mother was a daughter of Sir William Romney, and heiress to a fortune, wherewith they bought wide tracts of land on the York River, and live, 'tis said, in more state than any in Virginia save Governor Berkeley himself."

      "Ah, now I place him. He was head of Flower da Hundred at the time of the massacre, and since has risen to be a member of the Virginia House of Burgesses. I would like to speak with this young man. Is that his knock at the door?"

      "I – I think it may be," hesitated Peggy. "He brought a letter from his mother to my aunt, who knew her in their youth at home in Devonshire."

      Hard upon her remarks a young man entered the room, and stood hesitating in the doorway as if loath to venture further without assurance of welcome.

      He was a colty youth, with long legs and slim body, and hands and feet that had not learned the repose of maturity. He had also a shock of dark curls, and under arching brows a pair of merry blue eyes that danced when anything pleased him beyond the common, like the sun on Easter morning, while under their surface mirth lay steadfast depths which bade fair to endure when their dancing days were over.

      Just now there was more of anxiety than mirth in them as they turned toward the slip of a girl by the hearth, as timid a glance as if she were the Shah of Persia and he a humble subject in terror of the bowstring.

      "Come in!" vouchsafed Peggy, – but with some impatience in her voice, for she had not yet begun on the list of questions she had prepared for her other visitor.

      "Governor Brent, this is Master Romney Huntoon. Master Huntoon, I have the honor to present you to Governor Brent." Both men bowed, the younger man lower.

      "I fancy," said Brent, "that I am not wrong in taking you for the son of that Humphrey Huntoon whose good repute has travelled beyond the limits of his own province, and become familiar to us dwellers across the borders."

      Romney Huntoon blushed with pleasure and secretly treasured up the words to say over to his mother; but he received them with some discomposure. To tell the truth, it is not an easy matter to meet a compliment for one's relative; the disclaimers wherewith a man may receive such for himself not quite fitting the situation, yet consanguinity seeming to demand a corresponding degree of modesty.

      "My father will feel deeply honored," he murmured, and lost the end he had fashioned for his speech in watching a curl that had fallen forward over Peggy Neville's ear.

      Brent was too much occupied with his own thoughts to heed the break in the young man's reply.

      "You have been at St. Mary's for some days?" he asked.

      "A week yesterday, your Excellency."

      "And spent much time on the wharf?"

      "The better part of every day, overlooking first the unloading of the tobacco, and then the getting aboard of the farm implements and household stuff I am to carry back to Romney."

      "Hm! Perhaps, then, you were witness to the – the unpleasantness that fell out betwixt Captain Ingle and Reuben Early."

      "Ay, sir – I saw the blow struck."

      "Of your kindness, tell me how it all fell out. The village folk are so hot over the matter 'tis passing hard to get a clear story from any of them. Was Richard Ingle drunk or sober?"

      "Why, not fully the one or the other, I should say; but more as one who has been in his cups overnight and is at odds with the world next morning."

      "And Reuben Early – was he in liquor too?"

      "Truth, I think Early was a bit the worse for beer, for he was continually dropping the sacks with which he was loading the vessel under Ingle's direction, and when one slipped into the water, instead of making excuse for himself, he threw up his silly cap and shouted, "God save the СКАЧАТЬ