We stood by the rail looking shoreward. A heron flew up from the swamp back of
the trees and banked away on slowly flapping wings.
“I want to build a stockade,” I said, “with the buildings all inside, a place on
a hill with a good field of fire all around. It will have to be close to the
river so ships and boats can come in close.
“Then I want to get a vegetable garden and some grain growing, and to plant a
small orchard.”
“I’d like that.”
“By the way, there’s a man up on the afterdeck you should know, a very special
kind of man.”
She turned and looked at me. “You mean there’s somebody I haven’t met?”
“Well … you’ve met him, I’m sure, but not in his official capacity, and that’s
the only way to really know him. Come … we’ll go aft and see him.”
“Now? I was enjoying this.”
Taking her by the arm, we started toward the ladder to the afterdeck. We were
almost at the top of the ladder, and John Tilly was waiting near the whipstaff
with his Bible in his hand. Lila was there, and most of the crew were arranged
in respectful rows on either side.
“What does this man do?”
“What does he do? Why, he marries people. He’s a minister of the Church.”
She stopped abruptly. “Barnabas … ?”
“We mustn’t keep the man waiting, Abigail. You can marry me now and resent at
leisure.”
“I shall never resent it or you.” She looked around quickly. “Oh, Barnabas! You
… I must look a sight.”
“You couldn’t be lovelier. Come on now.”
She looked up at me. “Why! You’re laughing!”
“It is a fault I have. There is something about solemn occasions that always
stirs my humor. I like them, I respect them, but sometimes I think we all take
ourselves too seriously.”
“You don’t think marriage is serious?”
“Of course, I do. It is the ultimate test of maturity, and many find excuses for
avoiding it because they know they are not up to the challenge, or capable of
carrying on a mature relationship.”
We stopped in front of John Tilly.
Out upon the sound a slight wind ruffled the waters. The morning sun was bright
upon every wavelet, and on the shore-side trees the leaves stirred occasionally
in the slight wind. Three gulls winged their way overhead on slow, easy wings.
The deck tilted slightly under our feet and Tilly’s low, well-modulated voice
began the service.
I looked at the girl beside me, saw her hair stir slightly in the wind. Her
fingers clutched at mine and held on, very tightly.
She was far from home, her father was dead, and she was marrying a man whose
future was bound to a strange, lonely land.
When the brief ceremony was concluded we walked to the taffrail and stood there
together, not talking, just looking out over the water.
“This can only be our first home,” I told her, “for later we must go to the
mountains and build there. We must have a place to go when the Queen’s officers
come … and they will.”
That night we remained aboard the fluyt, which we now christened the Abigail.
We stood together under the stars, smelling the strange, earthy smells from the
shore of rotting vegetation, of flowers and the forest, and some faint smell of
wood-smoke from the fire of some of my men, who stayed ashore.
“My mother,” I said, “made a prophecy before I was born. It is thirty years ago,
I think, or near to that. A man was about to attack her, and before my father
came, she told the man he would die by the sword of her son, in the ruins of a
flaming town.”
“Lila told me the story, as you told it to her. She also told me you had the
gift.”
I shrugged. “I think nothing of it. It comes and it goes, but my mother, I
think, was only trying to frighten the man, for how could such a prophecy be?
That I should kill the man in the ruins of a burning town? I, who shall never
see another town?”
“Who knows?” Abigail said. “Who can read what is in tomorrow’s wind? Shall we go
to the cabin?”
16
Green lay the forest about us, brown and silent the moving river … the land
lay still, brooding, expectant. Now was the time for dreaming past, now was the
time for doing.
Oh, what a fine and handsome thing it is to sit in taverns over flagons of ale
and discourse bravely of what daring things we will do! How we will walk the
unknown paths through lands of sylvan beauty, facing the savage in his native
habitat, far from the dust of London crowds!
Warmed by wine, the rolling poetry of words and a fine sweep of gesture, a young
man feels the world is his, with a pearl in every oyster, a lovely lass behind
every window, and enemies who fade from sight at his very presence. Yet the
moment of reality comes, and no eloquence will build a stockade, nor will a
poetic phrase fend off an arrow, for the savage of the woodland has his own
conception of romance and poetry, which may involve the dreamer’s scalp.
Forever the dream is in the mind, realization in the hands.
An easy thing it had been when England lay about us to scorn the vanishing men
of Roanoke, the disappearance of Grenville’s men, for the giving up of Ralph
Lane’s colony. That was all very well for them. They had failed where we would
succeed.
We had gone beyond help. If a man here should take a misstep on a path and fall
with a broken bone, he need expect no doctor, no litter. If savages closed about
him, no Queen’s men would come with banners in bold ranks marching, nor would
there be a skirl of pipes and the movement of kilts and the claymores swinging.
One would be a man alone, and alone he must fight and die, or fight and live.
The entry into a new land is a hard, hard thing as Black Tom Watkins said, and
upon me lay responsibility for all of these who came with me. All men wish to be
captains, but few men wish to shoulder the burden of decision, and in coming
here with these others, I had staked a claim that I must wall against
misfortune.
First, our food. We had come well-provided, but for how long? Well I knew how
precious were the foods of home, so these must be carefully used, and we must
hunt, gather, and plant, to prepare for the cold winter to come.
At once I drew a plan for a stockade, showed it to Jublain, John Tilly, and the
others. A change was made here, an addition there, then the men went forth with
axes. With Black Tom and Pim Burke I went to the woods, for meat
Two were left with the ship’s boat, and they were to fish.
We were twenty-seven men and two women, and to feed such a lot is never a simple
thing.
Steadily, we walked into the woods, for I had no wish to hunt close to camp and
so frighten away what game was near. Several times we saw wild turkeys, but it
was deer I wanted, and more than one.
Yet each such venture was more than a hunt for food, it was an exploration, and
after each venture of my own or others it was in my mind to note down what was
observed and to piece together a map of the area for all to see.
Suddenly, we came upon deer, a half dozen of them feeding in a meadow, some
hundred and fifty yards off. It was far to risk a shot upon which so much
depended, so I began my stalk. Having hunted deer in England I believed these
would be no different.
All were feeding. Indicating the one I would attempt to kill, I suggested to the
others that they choose their target and shoot when I shot.
Slowly, silently I began moving upwind toward them. Suddenly I saw their tails
begin to twitch, and knowing they were about to look up, I stood fast. Their
heads lifted and they stared at me, but I made no slightest move, and waited.
Soon they decided I was harmless and resumed their feeding.
Moving on, I closed some fifteen yards closer before their tails began to twitch
again. They looked about, looked longer at me for they must have realized that
strange object out there was closer, then back to feeding. Again I moved, again
I stopped.
Now I was within less than a hundred yards of my target, and lifting my gun, I
took aim. My ball took the buck through the neck just forward of the shoulders.