The Cavaliers of Virginia, vol. 1 of 2

by William Alexander Caruthers

  CHAPTER VII.

  While Bacon and his partisans were deliberating in one of the upperrooms of the Berkley Arms, and Beverly, Ludwell and their friends, stillkept up their potations in the Tap below, all of a sudden the bellsceased to chime, and the cannons to roar, and the various otherdemonstrations of noisy mirth that pervaded the city, were hushed intosilence. A corresponding stillness instantly prevailed throughout boththe assembled parties, for a moment, in order to ascertain if possiblethe cause of this interruption to the public rejoicings. No one ineither being able to explain the matter, both parties at the same momentrushed tumultuously into the street. They beheld men, women, andchildren, thronging in the direction of the public square, and naturallyfell into the current, and were borne on its tide into the very centreof attraction. Here they found several oxcarts standing in the street,in the beds of which were stretched the dead bodies of eightIndians--fearfully mangled, and one with his head entirely severed fromthe body. Twenty voices at once were interrogating the gaping negroeswho bestrode the cattle, but no other satisfaction could be gained fromthem than a mute reference to their master; a little busy importantman, who resided on the main land, and was now holding forth with greatenergy and amplitude of expression, touching his various adventures ofthe morning, to a crowd of eager loungers gathered around him, as if toappropriate his wonderful disclosure entirely to themselves.

  He stated that he had found the dead bodies upon the banks of the river,where there were still many evidences of a desperate conflict of bothhorse and foot. That the ground was covered with blood, and that oneparty must have been driven into the river, and drowned, as he had beenenabled to trace them by their footmarks to the very edge of the water.

  It will be readily imagined by the reader that Nathaniel Bacon was nounmoved spectator of this scene, or of the various conjecturalexplanations that were now given in his hearing, of a transaction inwhich he had been such a principal actor, and of which he could havegiven such an authentic history. He was rather rejoiced than otherwise,that the little planter of the main seemed so much disposed to indulgehis imagination, as a discovery of his own part in the matter, and ofVirginia's delicate position on the occasion, was thereby rendered lessprobable. But his self congratulations were too hasty; for scarcely hadhe revolved these things in his mind, before a sudden rush of the crowdtowards some new object of surprise arrested his attention. This was noother than Brian O'Reily, bearing into the crowd upon his back the deadbody of Jamie Jamieson, and followed by his wife, who to her bruises andmisfortunes had applied the comfort of whiskey in great profusion.O'Reily, it seemed, had fully sympathised with the widowed lady, for hismotions were anything but accordant with the solemnity of the occasion.Bacon could scarce suppress a smile as he caught a glimpse of this groupthrough the crowd. His first object; however, was to catch O'Reily'seye, and make him understand, if possible by a look, that he was tovolunteer no evidence in the case. He had no sooner succeeded in gainingthe notice of his attendant, than the latter applied his finger slyly tohis lip, looking another way at the same time, and thus indicating thathe understood the policy to be pursued, and that he was not so muchintoxicated as he thought proper to seem. With this doubtful assuranceBacon was compelled to rest satisfied, walking about the square all thewhile in visible agitation.

  The corpse of the fisherman being laid out in the market-place, theofficer, whose duty it was, proceeded to summon an inquest to inquireinto the manner and cause of his death. The first witness summonedbefore this tribunal, was, of course, the wife of the deceased. Shetestified that a party of savages had on the preceding night enteredtheir house, and after having cruelly murdered her husband, beatenherself, and bound her limbs with cords, had carried away all theirfishing nets. That having placed these in a canoe, they laid her in italso, and paddled across the river--where they were met by another partyof savages, about fifty in number, as she supposed, and while they werebusily engaged in dividing the spoil, a gigantic man, with a faceflaming like fire, and a sword as long as a fishing pole, had suddenlyfallen upon the murderers, and quickly put them to flight, or the sword.That having thus conquered the whole horde, he had placed her in theboat again, and brought her to her own house, where he left her, andwhere she remained alone until morning, when she was found by Mr. BrianO'Reily, who happened to be coming that way.

  Improbable as some parts of this story were, it met with a readycredence from nearly the whole of the multitude; no tale, having anyrelation to the Recluse, being so marvellous that they would not readilybelieve it. But in no one of the assembled listeners did it excitegreater surprise than in Bacon himself. It is true, that he readilyrecognised in the whole invention the joint influence of whiskey, andO'Reily's ingenuity, but even to these he had not supposed that heshould be indebted for such downright falsehoods in his behalf. Mrs.Jamieson, too, seemed firmly to believe all that she had testified.Under these circumstances he did not feel himself called upon to set thematter right at the expense of Virginia's feelings, and the inevitabledefeat of the measures in which he was that very morning deeplyengaged. How the Irishman was to manage his part of the narrative whencalled upon, as he certainly would be, and that so speedily that no timewould be allowed to exchange a word with his master, Bacon could notdivine. He knew right well that O'Reily was gifted with a strongtendency to the most outrageous and even ridiculous exaggeration, andthat he would carry through whatever he should undertake to say, withwonderful shrewdness and imperturbable confidence; but how he was tomake his story agree with that which he had put into the mouth of Mrs.Jamieson, and at the same time explain the wound upon his own face, andthe contusion upon his head, without being guilty of some direct andpalpable falsehood, was more than his master could imagine. At lengthBrian O'Reily was called to state what he knew touching the death of thefisherman. The first question propounded by the officer was, "Well,O'Reily, tell the jury how, and when you came to the house of thedeceased."

  "Oh! thin, and I'm bothered to know whether I got there by land orwather, and faix, I'm after b'leiven it was naither uv them."

  "How then did you get there, if you went neither by land nor water?"

  "An by the vestments, may be I wouldn't be far wrang, if I said it wasthe crathur that took me there, seein I can't deny it iny way, yourhaner."

  "You saw no one strike or maltreat the deceased.".

  "It would be but ill manners in me to be conthradictin your haner."

  "You are sure you did not strike him yourself."

  "As sure as two tin-pinnies--Divil burn the man that Brian O'Reily everill used when he was down--much less when he was dead, your haner."(crossing himself.)

  "How then came that cut upon the corner of your mouth?"

  "Oh! murther, and is it these your haner's axing after?" and heingeniously placed his finger upon a smaller wound made by his bottle onthe previous night. "Yes, O'Reily, we wish you to state how you came bythose wounds."

  "Oh! but I'm bowld to show your haner, seein its you that axed me--surehere's the wapon that kilt me all out!" and as he spoke, he pulled outhis broken necked bottle and handed it to his catechist.

  "I see it has blood upon it, O'Reily, and this may explain the cut onyour mouth, but how came that contusion on your temple?"

  "Be dad but I run aginst a good big shelaleigh, an it broke me head soit did--sorra much head I had left at that same recknin, for thecrather."

  "You ran against a club, O'Reily? Was it growing in the ground or was itin the hands of an enemy?"

  "It might be growin, your haner, or it might be in the hands of thegreat inimy himself, for all that Brian O'Reily knows--sure your hanerisn't very particular in examinin the tixture of the timber that knocksyou down. It might be a door-post--or may be the gate of the foort--asthe thimber grows as thick here as paraties, and this gate was alwaystoo small for me when I had a dhrap of the whiskey."

  "You ran against the gate-post, or the facings of Jamieson's door,then?"

  "By the five crasses, an I've
done that same many's the time--barrinalways that it would be ill manners in me to conthradict your haner if Ihadn't."

  "You saw nothing then of the treacherous and thieving savages on thenight of Jamieson's murder?"

  "Oh then but I'm puzzled now intirely. By the holy father, I saw a powerof sights on that same night. The whiskey was clane too strong for me. Isaw all sorts of yeller nagres and men widout shadows, and flamincounthenances, and the fire sparklin from the very eyes of me, by thesame token. Divil a word of a lie's in that iny way."

  "But you saw no person strike or maltreat this man who lies dead here?"

  "Divil the one, your haner! Brian O'Reily's the boy that wouldn't seefoul-play to man nor baste. I never saw Jamie, till I saw him stretchedall out as you see him there."

  "You do not know then but that you may have encountered the murderers inyour own drunken travels?"

  "Faix and you may say that, your haner, widout a word of a lie in it; itbothers me intirely to tell what I did see. And, by the five crasses, ifit wasn't for the wapon you've got in your hand--and poor Jamie that Ibrought here on my back--and this thump upon my head, I should, say itwas all a dhrame clane out."

  "Well, you may go, O'Reily. I believe you know little of what happenedto yourself or any one else last night."

  "An that's thrue for you iny way; many thanks to your haner for yourkindness and civility," said O'Reily, as he left the crowd, slilytipping a wink of triumph to his master.

  Bacon certainly began to breathe more freely towards the conclusion, ashaving edged in with the crowd, he heard O'Reily's ingenious parries ofthe official's thrusts. But his trials were not yet over, for scarcelyhad he followed his attendant with his eye out of the crowd, before Mr.Fairfax stepped up to the officer and whispered something in his ear. Ina few moments after a deputy was seen leading Wyanokee into themarket-place--a look of the most profound dejection, still visiblethrough her fright, at being brought into the presence of such amultitude.

  She testified, that two of the Indians slain were her nearest kinsmen.That the one with his head severed from the body, was old King Fisher;and, upon examination, the blue feathers of his patronymic bird werefound still sticking in the matted tuft of hair upon his crown. Shefarther stated that he was her father's only brother, and that anotherof the slain was his son--the only two remaining male relatives she hadin the world. That all these savages were of the Chickahominy tribe; andthat there were not more than two hundred warriors, left of all that,brave and powerful nation which had once thronged the banks of theChickahominy river. And here the little Indian maiden seemed almostsuffocated with overpowering emotions, as the memory of former days camegushing over her heart. No tear relieved her swelling emotions, but everand anon she cast her eyes over the mangled bodies of her kinsmen, andonce or twice turned with looks more rapid and of darker meaning towardsBacon. The general expression of her countenance; however, was one ofprofound and overwhelming sadness. Her soul seemed fully capable ofrealizing the melancholy destiny which awaited all the nations of theaborigines then inhabiting the country, from the sea board to the bluemountains,[2] and whose fiat was fast bearing her race from the lovedplaces which had known them so long. It was doubtless in her mind a poorcompensation for the destruction of her native tribe and theircontemporaries, that she herself had been reclaimed from the happyignorance of savage, to the more painful knowledge of civilized life.

  [Footnote 2: The Indians possessed no knowledge of any of the tribesbeyond.]

  She was asked if she knew of the visit of these unfortunate men on thepreceding night. Her eye furtively ran over the eager faces gatheredaround, until it fell upon that of Bacon, when a momentary flash of someinternal impulse illumined her countenance. It might be vengeance, orthe hatred of unrequited passion--but let the cause be what it might, itglimmered with a demoniacal fire but for an instant, and then, like theexpiring taper in the socket after its last flash, sunk for ever. Thesadness of past and coming years seemed concentrated in the despair ofare moment. She waived her hand and shook her head in silence, thusindicating, that she could say no more--that human endurance had beenstretched to its utmost verge. Walking deliberately out of the crowduntil she came to the trunkless head of the last of the Chickahominychiefs, she bent over the mutilated remains for a moment in unutterablesorrow, and then throwing her eyes to heaven, dark in despair, shestooped to pluck one of the blue feathers from the scalp, and then withsad and lingering steps, proceeded to her home.

  All were impressed with involuntary respect for the bereaved maiden, andeven the hardened officer suffered her to depart without having finishedhis examination. Sufficient, however, had been gleaned for the jury tobring in a verdict of murder by the hands of some of the Chickahominytribe of savages. This tribe of Indians inhabited a small town calledOrapacks, on the banks of the river which gave its name to the nation.They formed a part of the grand confederation which had first beenunited under Powhatan, and afterwards his successor, Opechancanough; thelatter of whom so unfortunately fell, while a prisoner at Jamestown, bythe hands of a dastardly soldier, who took his life in revenge for somepetty wrong, real or imaginary. The depredation related in the foregoingpages, and the unfortunate result to so many of its perpetrators, wasthe first interruption to the general peace which Sir William Berkleyhad been enabled to secure for the colony, after various sanguinarymassacres and conflicts, with the numerous tribes composing the empireof Virginia, as it was sometimes called, and reaching from the Peninsulato the present seat of Richmond.

  It may be well, perhaps, to state that a process had been despatched,for form's sake, to summon the Recluse, but it was returned as similarmessages had always been before--he was _non est inventus_.

  The dead bodies were now removed,--that of Jamieson to the moreconsecrated ground around the church, and those of the Indians to a sortof Potter's-field or general burying ground, such as every city haspossessed from the time of Judas Iscariot to the present day.

  The necessary and justifiable sacrifice of some half a dozen savageswas, at that time, too common a circumstance in Jamestown, long toaffect the gayeties-of-the day. Accordingly the afternoon found thedaughters and wives of the hardy citizens gayly tripping it over thegreen common, to which we have already introduced the reader, inspiredby the music of two sable musicians, who rattled and scraped defiance toall untoward interruptions whatsoever. The town was full of strangersfrom the neighbouring plantations, together with many members of theHouse of Burgesses from surrounding counties, who had arrived inpreparation for the meeting of that body, summoned to be held on thethird succeeding day. Many of these dignified personages had collectedon the green, to witness the enjoyment of the humbler citizens and theirwives and daughters.

  A merry set of joyful lads and lasses were whirling through the giddydance; when all at once a savage yell abruptly struck upon the ear; themusic ceased, the youths stood still in the circle, while some of themaidens fled toward the public square, and others sought the protectionof their fathers, husbands, or lovers. Consternation was visible in theboldest countenances. The transactions of the morning had unstrung thenerves of the females, and urged the sterner sex to thoughts of war,which had lain dormant since the general peace and the death ofOpechancanough. But soon a jingle of little bells was heard, and thenext moment the multitude burst into a loud laugh, and simultaneouslycast their eyes up to a tall tree which overhung the green, and uponwhich was seen a painted savage, descending with great agility, he soonleaped into the middle of the area, where the dance had been inprogress, and commenced shuffling away at a most indefatigable rate, thefiddlers striking at the same moment into the humour of this strangevisiter, and he himself dexterously rattling a number of little boneswhich he held between his fingers--the bells all the while continuing tojingle, and producing the strangest effect upon the ear. His face waspainted in the ordinary warrior guise, his head shaved close to thecranium, save a lock upon the crown, to which hung a tuft of scarletfeathers--his person was grotesquely o
rnamented with beads, bells andbuttons in great profusion, interspersed with hundreds of red feathers,from which he took his name. He was called Red Feather Jack, and wasremarkably fond of the music and all the ordinary diversions of thewhites. In this respect he was the most remarkable Indian of hisday--that race having been peculiar for the haughty and dignifiedcontempt with which they looked upon the amusements of their civilizedneighbours. He was known to be as desperate in battle as he was lighthearted and merry at the sports of the white man, and had never beenknown guilty of any kind of treachery, and was a universal favourite atJamestown among all the young people of both sexes. It may be readilyimagined, therefore, that a shout of "Red Feather Jack," which wasinstantly raised by the assembled throng, brought no slight accession totheir numbers. The amusement thus afforded was kept up, intermingledwith dances of their own, to which Jack beat time with his loudestbells, until the hour had arrived for the commencement of the moreimposing and aristocratic ceremonies and amusements at the gubernatorialmansion.

  Red Feather Jack was believed by many to be an admirer of Wyanokee's,though of a different tribe. He had once, on an occasion nearly similarto the one just related, offered to lead her to the dance, but the morerefined maiden looked upon him with ineffable scorn and contempt,produced as much, doubtless, by his undignified and unnational habits,as by what she considered his inferior rank and understanding. After thecessation of the various sports upon the green--in the warehouse, andthroughout the town, Jack was taken to the Berkley Arms, where his merryperformances were kept up until a late hour of the night, to the greatamusement of the loungers and the disappointed youths who had vainlyaspired to a participation in the celebration of the Cavaliers.

  There was one peculiar circumstance attending this day's celebrationwhich became generally the subject of after remark. Not a sign offestivity or rejoicing was visible at the Cross Keys. Its master sat asolitary spectator in his own door, apparently regarding the passinglevities with sovereign contempt. This of course did not escape withoutmany comments from the more jovial landlord of "the Arms." It waslikewise remarkable that none of the Independents were visible on thisgeneral holyday, and this was the more singular as many of the humblerfollowers of the late Lord Protector had been sold into temporarybondage, and of course might be supposed eager to enjoy one day'scessation from labour, even if they did not care to join the humblercitizens in their demonstrations of loyalty.