times that followed, when bowl-playing gallants were put down,
cities founded, forts built, and the gospel preached; the marriage of
Rolfe and his dusky princess; Argall's expedition, in which I
played a part, and Argall's iniquitous rule; the return of Yeardley
as Sir George, and the priceless gift he brought us, - all this and
much else, old friends, old enemies, old toils and strifes and
pleasures, ran, bitter-sweet, through my memory, as the wind and
flood bore me on. 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