Of what was before me I did not choose to
think, sufficient unto the hour being the evil thereof.
The river seemed deserted: no horsemen spurred Along the bridle
path on the shore; the boats were few and far between, and held
only servants or Indians or very old men. It was as Rolfe had said,
and the free and able-bodied of the plantations had put out,
posthaste, for matrimony. Chaplain's Choice appeared unpeopled;
Piersey's Hundred slept in the sunshine, its wharf deserted, and but
few, slow-moving figures in the tobacco fields; even the Indian
villages looked scant of all but squaws and children, for the braves
were gone to see the palefaces buy their wives. Below Paspahegh a
cockleshell of a boat carrying a great white sail overtook me, and I
was hailed by young Hamor.
"The maids are come!" he cried. "Hurrah!" and stood up to wave
his hat.
"Humph!" I said. "I guess thy destination by thy hose. Are they not
'those that were thy peach-colored ones'?"
"Oons! yes!" he answered, looking down with complacency upon
his tarnished finery. "Wedding garments, Captain Percy, wedding
garments!"
I laughed. "Thou art a tardy bridegroom. I thought that the
bachelors of this quarter of the globe slept last night in
Jamestown."
His face fell. "I know it," he said ruefully; "but my doublet had
more rents than slashes in it, and Martin Tailor kept it until
cockcrow.
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