But then I spoke again, catching her bridle rein as I rode.
"Then go, if not because you love me, because I love thee," I said
close to her ear with her golden hair blowing athwart my face.
"I obey not the man who loves me, but the man who weds me, and that
you will not do, because you hold your pride dearer than love," said
she.
"Nay, because I hold thee dearer than my love," said I.
"'Tis a false principle you act upon, and love is before all else,
even that which may harm it, and thou knowest not the heart of a
woman if thou dost love one, sir," said she. Then she gave a quick
glance at my face, so close to hers in the midst of that hurrying
throng, and her blue eyes gleamed into mine, and she said, with a
bright blush over her cheeks and forehead and neck, but proudly as
if she defied even her maiden shame in the cause of love, "But thou
shalt yet know one, Harry."
Then, as if she had said too much, she pulled her bridle loose from
my detaining hand with a quick jerk, and touched her horse, and we
were on that hard gallop to Locust Creek.
Locust Creek was not a large plantation, but the fields of tobacco
were well set, and it was some task to cut them. Captain Jaynes
essayed to form the cutters into ranks, but with no avail, though he
galloped back and forth, shouting like a madman. Every man set to
work for himself, and it was again bedlam broke loose as at the
other plantation. Then indeed for the first time I saw Mary
Cavendish shrink a little, as if she were somewhat intimidated by
the fire which she had lighted, and she resisted not, when Sir
Humphrey, and her Cousin Ralph and I, urged her into the house. And
as she entered, there was Catherine, having been brought thither by
that stranger who had disappeared. And we shut the door upon both
women, and then felt freer in our minds. Capt. Noel Jaynes swore
'twas a jade fit to lead an army, then inquired what in hell brought
her thither, and why women were to the front in all our Virginian
wars, whether they wore white aprons or not?
As he spoke Ralph Drake shouted out with a great laugh, that maybe
'twas for the purpose of carrying the men, and pointed, and there
was one of the black wenches bringing Nick Barry, who else had
fallen, upon her back to the field. Then she set him down in the
tobacco and gave him a knife, and he went to cutting, having just
enough wit to do that for which his mind had been headed, and naught
else.