Virginia reel

“ He stood leaning upon his weapon for an instant, and then moved slowly away until he came near the river, when he laid his hand upon the palisade running along the foot of the garden, and leapt upon the beach like a youth of twenty. In a short time Virginia saw his boat upon the water, his gigantic form rising and bending to his work with desperate and reckless efforts, the frail bark gliding over the smooth waters, "like a thing of life," until it faded away in the distance to a mere speck. ”

“ In the bleakest period of winter, under leaden skies and with sombre landscapes, the country which they had reached would have been delightful to them, but clothed in the verdure of the Virginian May, when the greenness of the foliage and the tints of the wild flowers have their deepest and softest coloring, it was quite natural that visions of an earthly Paradise should have arisen before their eyes, accustomed for so long a time to the heaving plains of the Atlantic. ”

“ The Virginia creeper waved gently to and fro in a soundless breeze that was little more than a whisper. The sky was heavily sprinkled with stars whose wan clustering was blotted here and there by floating shreds of cloud, like vaporous, filmy leaves stripped by some upper gale from the Tree of Heaven. The lawn lay a mass of mysterious shadow, stirring with faint chirps and rustles and laden with the poignant scent of the garden honeysuckle. ”

“ For some time past, however, Virginia had felt her heart agitated by new sensations. Her fine blue eyes lost their lustre, her cheek its freshness, and her frame was seized with universal languor. Serenity no longer sat upon her brow, nor smiles played upon her lips. She became suddenly gay without joy, and melancholy without vexation. She fled her innocent sports, her gentle labours, and the society of her beloved family; wandering along the most unfrequented parts of the plantation, and seeking every where that rest which she could no where find. ”

“ Miss Mary Erroll was walking up and down the “front hall” in her Quorn-cloth habit, whistling softly to herself. Her short riding-skirt needed no holding up to enable her to move comfortably, and her hands were clasped behind her about her hunting-crop.
Virginia, coming slowly down the many convolutions of the broad stair-way, noticed the dark sheen of the thick braid folded away under the smart little hat, the glimpse of fair cheek and throat, the thorough-bred lines of the slight figure. ”

“ The noise of the water frightened Virginia, and she was afraid to wade through the current: Paul therefore took her up in his arms, and went thus loaded over the slippery rocks, which formed the bed of the river, careless of the tumultuous noise of its waters. "Do not be afraid," cried he to Virginia; "I feel very strong with you. If that planter at the Black River had refused you the pardon of his slave, I would have fought with him."—"What!" answered Virginia, "with that great wicked man? To what have I exposed you! Gra [14] cious heaven! how difficult it is to do good! ”

“ Virginia was suddenly and wildly happy. She could have sung for joy, a song of triumph, and losing her head a little she lost her scant foothold as well, slipped, tried to hold on, failed, and slid down the steeply sloping rock.
If the man had not sprung forward and caught her, she would probably have rolled over the narrow ledge on which he stood, and gone bounding down, down the mountain side, to her death. But he did catch her, and broke the fall, so that she landed lightly beside him, and within an ace of being on her knees. ”

“ The soft Virginia landscape, swelling in gentle waves of forest, field, and fallow to the great mountains that lie piled up far away against the western sky, is naked still and bare, save for the splashes of green pine woods here and there upon the land. But there is a light in the sky and a feel in the air that seems almost to chide the earth for its slow response. The blood courses quicker through the veins of even easy-going Virginia farmers at the thoughts of seeding-time. ”

“ For this he had come to Virginia. For this fate had turned and twisted a thousand ways. Through the riot of his senses, like a silver blaze, ran the legend of the calendar: “Every man carries his fate [Pg 327] upon a riband about his neck.” For her, something seemed to pass from her soul with that kiss, some deep irrevocable thing, shy but fiercely strong, that had sprung to him at that lip-contact as steel to magnet. The foliage about them flared up in green light and the ground under her feet rose and fell like deep sea-waves. ”

“ At the hour of sunset we could perceive the curlew and the stint skimming along the seashore; the frigate-bird poised high in air; and the white bird of the tropic, which abandons, with the star of day, the solitudes of the Indian ocean. Virginia took pleasure in resting herself upon the border of this fountain, decorated with wild and sublime magnificence. She often went thither to wash the linen of the family beneath the shade of the two cocoa-trees, and thither too she sometimes led her goats to graze. ”

“ Terrorized, when again the lanterns began to ascend the trail, Virginia sped to the cabin and awakened Margaret.
“What is it, Virginia?” Margaret asked, half awake, as she rose. “Is it a bear or the outlaw?”
“Hush! Hush!” Virginia whispered. “Be quiet as you can and follow me. There are two strange men coming up the trail. They do not mean to harm us, of course, for they do not know of our existence, but they probably plan visiting this hut, and we don’t want them to find us here. Climb through the window and then we will crouch down in the dark until we can slip away.” ”

“ Roden’s meals were generally presided over by Virginia, and she came forward to meet him now with a little silver dish of apples in one hand, evidently utterly ignorant of the presence of Mary Erroll. She stopped short, half-way across the room. A shadow as definite and sombre as the shadow [95] from a brilliant cloud upon a laughing grass-field in May settled over her face. ”

“ She knew they were to camp at Piedmont, and to follow them up, for they had but a day's start of me. It was quite clear day before our turn came to cross the ferry, and then we had to wait for hours on the other side. When I came out of the ferry-house, I put my foot on the grass, and I thought, 'This is Virginia!' It was as if I had stepped on some place where a murder had been done. I was as silly as a half-witted person," blushing apologetically. "I have had great kindness done to me in Virginia since then." ”

“ What pleasures does Virginia know but those of bed and board and hoard? She'll be merry in the first, and hearty at the second, and passionate for filling the crock with gold pieces. But your manners would freeze the heart out of her; and if you have more guineas than you can spend, where's the joy of sweating to get 'em, or of hiding 'em under the flag-stones against a lean year? No, no, she knew better than you, and did better. A gentleman may play the beggar for a while, but sooner or later his own will have him—and what's Virginia to do then? ”

“ Virginia pushed her away, walked steadily over to an old oak cupboard, took out a jug of whiskey, and drank from its green glass throat as she had seen men do. The stinging liquid filled her veins with a hot, false strength. She spoke quickly now, in a harsh tone, seizing the old nurse by the shoulders, and thrusting her white face, with its lambent, distended eyes, close to that of the terrified Aunt Tishy. ”

“ That is a way people have. Virginia seemed not to be quite of the society which she graced so brilliantly; she seemed to despise it, she passed people swiftly. A queer provocative indifference there was about her.... Take a drawing-room full of people at any hour of night, and watch Virginia there, an ornament in the most brilliant company. Watch now! Watch the pretty lady, the lovely, the remote, the queerly ungracious Virginia! Suddenly, swiftly, silently, she leaves the room. She waits for no man. ”

“ A number of planters in the Colony, who had emigrated from England after reaching the age of manhood, must have acquired in their early associations a great fondness for the excitement of the turf as well as cultivated a love of the animal for itself. In the inventory of the live stock of Virginia in 1649, it was stated, as has been seen, that many of the horses and mares to be found there at that time were of excellent blood, and this does not seem to be at all improbable. ”

“ On the eighteenth of August, the governor's daughter, Eleanor, wife to Ananias Dare, one of the council, gave birth to a daughter, the first Christian child born in the country, and hence named Virginia. Dissensions soon arose among the settlers; and, although not in want of stores, some, disappointed in not finding the new country a paradise of indolent felicity, as they had fondly anticipated, demanded permission to return home; others vehemently opposed; at length all joined in requesting White to sail for England, and to return thence with supplies. ”

“ The young man laughed. "'Tis a curious life you Virginians lead," he said. "The embroidered suits and ruffles, the cosmetics and perfumes of Whitehall in the midst of oyster beds and tobacco fields, savage Indians and negro slaves."
The girl put on a charming look of mock offense. "We are a little bit of England set down here in the wilderness. Why should we not clothe ourselves like gentlefolk as well as our kindred and friends at home? And sure both England and Virginia have had enough of sad colored raiment. Better go like a peacock than like a horrid Roundhead." ”

“ To Virginia—they are going to Virginia! The sails are made upon the Susan Constant, the Goodspeed, and the Discovery. The last wherry carries aboard the last adventurer. The anchors are weighed. Down the river the wind bears the ships toward the sea. Weather turning against them, they taste long delay in the Downs, but at last are forth upon the Atlantic. Hourly the distance grows between London town and the outgoing folk, between English shores and where the surf breaks on the pale Virginian beaches. ”

“ A swift red had dyed Mary’s face at the first reception of her kindly meant advances. It faded out now, leaving her very pale.
“Every one who is a friend of Mr. Roden ought to thank you, if they do not,” she said, with great dignity. “I am sorry I spoke, since it has been so disagreeable to you. Good-morning.”
Virginia was dismissed—she felt it. The knowledge went scorching through her veins as kirsch through the veins of one not accustomed to its fire. She hated the girl with a mad, barbaric impulse, which was as much beyond her control as its tides are beyond the control of the ocean ”

“ While cruising in the West Indies, his vessel, the Treasurer, fell in accidentally with a Dutch privateer and remained in company with her. It was from the officers of the Treasurer that the commander of this ship perhaps learned that a market for the sale of negroes could be found in Virginia, for, after touching at the Bermudas, the vessel proceeded to that Colony, which she reached in the month of August, Yeardley in the meanwhile having taken the place of Argoll, who had a few days before the arrival of the new Governor returned by stealth to England. ”

“ He answered her, still with his eyes on the vanishing figure of the girl in the Quorn-cloth habit. “You ride like an Arab,” he said. “She rides like—like—like an Englishwoman.”
“You don’t think I ride as well,” said [88] Virginia, in an indescribable voice, turning away. She was filled with an unreasoning, unchristian, wholly uncivilized desire to mount Bonnibel, overtake, and spatter Miss Mary Erroll with as much mud as possible. Suddenly she turned and came back to Roden. “I—I—I s’pose you think a gyrl oughtn’ to ride straddle?” ”

“ Then the story of Virginia, starting with Sir Walter Raleigh and Rev. Richard Hakluyt, is pursued until the year 1753, when the youthful George Washington sets forth upon his expedition to warn the approaching Frenchmen from any further encroachment upon English soil. That moment marks the arrival of a new era, when a book like the present—which is not a local history nor a bundle of local histories—can no longer follow the career of Virginia, nor of the southern colonies, except as part and parcel of the career of the American people. ”

“ It rarely rose from the ground unless disturbed. This is the familiar lark of modern Virginia, associated in the popular mind with the abandoned broom-straw fields that lie scattered so thickly through the State. One of the finest of all the English singing birds is the skylark, but none of this variety comparable to its English fellow in charm of vocal power, was found by the early settlers. ”

“ As the slanting light from the room beyond caught the sheen of her delicate throat above its velvet ribbon, he bent his head and pressed down his lips upon it and upon the bit of velvet.
Virginia, by some strange coincidence or freak of fate, was at this moment crossing [174] the lawn to put the mastiff pup into his kennel. Attracted by the unusual light in the greenhouse, she looked up. Looking up, she saw Roden as he stooped and kissed his sweetheart’s throat. She gave a fierce broken cry, like an angered beast, and turning, ran with all her might into the house. ”

“ Yet, even though there was such rout and revel at Williamsburg and kindred towns, it was in the houses of the great planters that one saw the true Virginia social existence, that one found the Virginia woman of the time in her truest apparition. Under the influences of the coming of the Cavaliers and the Huguenots--for the descendants of the latter perpetuated the restless gaiety of their forsaken land rather than the austerities of the faith which had been the cause of their exile--there had arisen in Virginia something of a cult of the social function. ”