University of Virginia Library

8. CHAPTER VIII.

John Woodvil.

When day broke upon the drowsy burghers of
St. Mary's, on the morning after the prize play, the
Olive Branch was no longer to be seen in the river.
Such a sudden departure of so important a portion
of the commercial marine of the port, produced no
small degree of speculation amongst the waking citizens
as, by degrees, after sunrise, they began to rub
their eyes and look abroad. This speculation became
still more intense when, in a few hours, they
saw files of soldiers passing through the town, and
heard, immediately afterwards, the rumour of the
arrest of Coode and his compatriots. Still more was
it excited by a report which was early brought to
town from the Rose Croft, that the broad arrow—
the mysterious presignification of mischief, a mark by
which a suspected person was proscribed, or a devoted
one forewarned—had been found deeply scratched, as
with the point of a dagger, on the Collector's door.
An unusual stir and buzz of murmured wonder prevailed
through the little city, and every body was
on foot to learn the cause of these phenomena. By

some it was said that the Skipper had gone on a
trading excursion up the bay to Kent Island, as it
was his custom to do. Those in the secret of the
last night's conspiracy had no difficulty in ascribing
his departure to movements connected with the plot:
the broad arrow on the Collector's door was easily
accounted for by such as were aware of Cocklescraft's
midnight ride on Godfrey's horse; and, on all
sides, expectation was raised into silent dread of
some eruption that was to break forth, in a moment
when none might be aware of it, and from a quarter
to which few might look.

The Council was convened at the Proprietary
mansion, and there the emergency was gravely debated
and the most energetic measures of precaution
and defence adopted. The escape of Cocklescraft,
connected with his recent quarrel with the Secretary,
and the disclosure made by Abbot of his concurrence
in the plot of the conspirators, left no doubt
of his treachery. The outbreak was rendered more
formidable by its coincidence in point of time with the
contemplated incursion of the Northern Indians, as
related by the travelling doctor—a circumstance that
seemed to infer correspondence between the leaders
of the conspiracy and the savages, and to give the
plot a consistency well calculated to excite alarm.
To these topics of apprehension, on the part of the
Council, was added a certain undefined and anxious
misgiving that the goblin stories of the Wizard's
Chapel, as reported by Dauntrees and Arnold de la
Grange, and now repeated by the Proprietary with
all the testimony he had obtained to support them,

had some connexion with this long-hatched rebellion,
and that there were secret ramifications of the plot
that had never yet been suspected. The participation
of Godfrey and Cocklescraft in the designs of
Coode, of which none of the Proprietary's friends
had entertained a surmise until the previous night,
was a fact adapted to confirm their fears of the wide
diffusion of disaffection where it had not been looked
for. The result of this deliberation was a resolve to
pursue matters to a speedy conclusion by a decisive
and bold action. The ringleaders were to be brought
instantly to trial; the military force was to be increased;
their ranks purged of all who were suspected
to want heartiness in the cause; and every
precaution was to be taken to provide against assault
from all quarters, by night or day. Captain Dauntrees
was commanded to look to the safety of the
town, and to endeavour to ascertain what had become
of Cocklescraft.

In this state of preparation and suspense, twenty-four
hours past over without tidings of the Skipper,
or any new developments of the designs of the conspirators.
The vigorous measures taken by the
Proprietary seemed to have struck terror into his
adversaries, and at least driven them into the shelter
of silence and concealment. At the end of this
period Willy of the Flats,—who was one of those
expert politicians who make it a point to manifest
their patriotism by the most eager zeal in favour of
the side that is uppermost,—having until the over-throw
of Coode been strongly inclined to take part
with the agitators, now made his way, about ten

o'clock at night, into the Fort, and thence to the
presence of Captain Dauntrees. Approaching the
Captain, with an air of constrained self-importance,
he said in a half whisper,—

“News, Master Captain—grave news, worshipful
sir,—state matters! I have come post-haste to tell
you, that twenty minutes ago—no, that I may not
lie, I will say twenty-five minutes ago—just so long as
with good speed—a dog trot we will say—it might
suffice for me to come hither from Master Weasel's
tap-room—who think you I saw, and what did he
do?”

“Speak, varlet, without this windy prologue.”

“There comes me in Master Cocklescraft, and
straight orders a noggin of brandy,—whereof guzzling
it down with a most treasonable haste, he
wiped his lips, and asked for Lieutenant Godfrey;
and when he heard that the Lieutenant was in prison,
he bit his lip and gave a kind of ha! or I might say
grunt, and walked very suspiciously away.”

“And thou hadst not the wit to follow him?”

“Follow him, Master Dauntrees, I did, as far as
the cedars of the Town House, where—the moon
being down—I lost him. He might have been on
his way to the gaol, but I staid not to seek that out,
for turning round,—now, said I, Willy, make for the
Fort as fast as you can, and tell the Captain the
whole matter.”

“Thanks, at least, for that diligence of thine.
Thou shalt have thy supper and a stoop of liquor for
this.”

“Blessings on thy worship, for thinking of the need

of an empty man!” said Willy, as with his hat tucked
under his arm he went towards the Captain's
kitchen to acquaint Matchcote with his master's hint
touching the refreshment.

Dauntrees lost no time in despatching an inferior
officer, with two or three files, in quest of the Skipper.
These returned after midnight with a tale confirming
Willy's narrative; but with the further
intelligence that no traces could be obtained of
Cocklescraft beyond his appearance at the Crow and
Archer.

The next day the Superior of the Jesuit House of
St. Inigoe's visited the Proprietary to inform him
that, at the dawn, the servants of his establishment
had found their skiff hauled up on the beach, some
fifty or a hundred yards remote from the wharf
where, on the preceding night, it had been carefully
locked by a chain, which, it appeared, had been
broken, showing that the boat had been used by
some person of whom no knowledge could yet be
obtained. He further stated that Fluke the fisherman,
who lived some distance below St. Inigoe's, on
the river bank, had that morning reported, that before
daylight his dogs had waked him with loud
barking, and that he had heard the footsteps of a
man upon the beach: that the fisherman had challenged
the stranger from his window, but had got no
reply, and was fain to let him pass on without molestation,
owing to the darkness of the hour.

This intelligence, combined with that brought to
the fort by the fiddler, strongly pointed to the visit
and retreat of the Skipper, and seemed to indicate

that he was lurking somewhere near the mouth of
the river, and had, in the night, crossed St. Inigoe's
creek immediately from the wharf of the Jesuit
House to that of the Rose Croft, by which road he
had visited the town and returned again before daylight.

Dauntrees, upon receiving this information, lost no
time in visiting the House of St. Inigoe's, to inquire
into the particulars; after which he went to see the
fisherman. The result of this journey was to confirm
him in the impression of the secret correspondence of
the Skipper with the town, and to engage Fluke in
the service of watching the future motions of the
same visitant.

Simon Fluke lived some two or three miles below
St. Inigoe's, near the mouth of the river, where a
small cabin gave shelter to his wife and a troop of
children—an amphibious brood of urchins who seemed
to be at home either on land or water, and whose
rude habits of life had inured them to the scant accommodation
and precarious protection of the hut
into which they were all huddled. This man earned
a hard livelihood by supplying his neighbours of St.
Inigoe's and the townspeople with fish; and it was
greatly to his content that he now found himself engaged
in the service of the Proprietary, with the promise
of a handsome reward if his good fortune should
enable him to aid effectually in securing the person of
the Skipper.

It was a few days after his employment in this
service, that the sun was seen to set amongst thickly
scudding clouds and blasts of wind, such as, with the

near approach of November, are apt suddenly to
break in upon the serene autumn, giving rude foretastes
of winter. The horizon was dark, and the
overmastered sun hopelessly struggled to fling a
parting beam upon the ruffled waters.

The fisherman had hauled his boat upon the sand,
bestowed his nets and other tackle in safety for
the night, and taken his seat at his fireside, with a
lighted pipe, where he challenged the besmirched,
white-haired boy that toddled across the room—the
youngest of his troop—to a game of romps, or more
demurely chatted of household cares with his meagre
and sad-visaged dame. The door of his hut standing
wide open and looking southwardly, showed him the
Potomac, even across to that remote cape called
by the early settlers after St. Gregory, but now
known as Smith's Point.

“Look out, dame,” said the fisherman, as he cast
his eye over this extensive sheet of water, yet illumined
with the light of parting day, “and you shall
see a strange craft beating up from the Virginia
shore; she is almost too light a skiff for such a sea
as that now running in. Hast seen it go down the
river to-day? Where can it belong?”

“It is a new sight to me,” replied the wife; “I
saw nothing like it go down from St. Mary's to-day.”

“He does not shape his course, either, up the river,
so much as he makes for this shore,” added the fisherman.
“He comes from some harbour on the other
side, short of St. Gregory. His business must drive
him hard, to bring him out at this hour, in the teeth
of such a wind. I will keep an eye on that fellow,

wife; there is enough in his venturing, to raise a
suspicion.”

The homely supper of the family, soon after this,
called off the fisherman from his watch, which indeed
the thickening shades of night soon rendered useless,
and the only vigilance which the master of the hut
could now exercise was shown in an occasional walk
to the beach, in the hope that the nearer approach of
the boat might inform him with more certainty whether
her course lay towards the town. Nothing however
was gained by these visits; no boat came in
view, and the gloom forbade further observation.
The craft was some seven or eight miles, at least,
from shore when she was last seen, and the fisherman,
giving up all hope of learning more that night,
threw his weary frame upon his tattered couch and
sunk into a profound sleep.

During the night a growl of the house-dog, and the
tread of a foot upon the gravel, woke the uneasyslumbering
dame, but the sound had died away
amidst the plash of waves upon the strand, before
she could rouse the heavy and torpid frame of her
snoring lord. When at last he woke, it was only to
utter a drowsy and bewildered reproof for the annoyance
he had suffered, and to fall back again into
his former deep unconsciousness. At early dawn,
however, he was abroad, breathing the sharp, cold
breeze of the clear morning. Below his hut, seaward,
he could descry upon the beach, some miles
short of Point Look Out, the small craft which, on the
previous evening, he had noted standing across the
river. It was a suspicious sight to see a boat at such

a time in such a place; and connecting it with the
circumstances his wife had remarked in the night,
Fluke found reason enough to put himself on the
watch for the person who controlled its motions. He
accordingly went into his hut, and sticking under his
girdle a horseman's pistol which he kept for domestic
defence, and taking a stout white-oak staff in his
hand, he trudged forth along the margin of the river,
resolved to plant himself in some advantageous position,
whence he might intercept any one who should
approach the boat by land. He had not left his door
above half an hour, before his wife observed a traveller,
in a seaman's dress partially concealed by a
grey cloak, striding on foot along the field contiguous
to the beach, in the same direction that her husband
had just taken. The mastiff of the household
was the first to challenge the stranger, by springing
almost to his heel,—a trespass that was instantly resented
by a sturdy blow from a walking-stick that
sent the dog yelping back to the hut.

“St. Iago! I will kill the dog!” exclaimed the wayfarer.
“Woman,” he added, as soon as he became
aware that the dame had her eye upon him, “why
dost thou not chain up the beast? By my hand! I
will make short work with him if he interrupt me
again.” And without waiting to hear the dame's
half-chiding, half-encouraging address to the dog—
“Get thee in, for a saucy, old, honest snarler!” or
her defence of him: “He will not hurt you, sir; his
growl is worse than his bite,”—he strode so rapidly
onward as soon to be out of view.

In less than an hour after sunrise, the little chaloupe

was seen laying her course gallantly before the
wind, with her tiny sail filled almost to bursting, as she
bore for the opposite side of the Potomac. The dame
busied herself in preparing her morning meal, to be in
readiness for her husband's return, and in checking
the impatient petitions of her urchin brood, who hung
around to beg for a morsel of fried fish from the pan,
or a slice of corn bread, to stay their fresh appetites,
until the coming of the father should be a signal for
a more orderly assault. Ever and anon, she went to
the door to cast an eye along the river bank, and to
watch the little craft, the subject of so much curiosity,
as it measured its rapid transit towards the Virginia
shore.

“Simon Fluke, I believe in the heart of me,” she
said, after having gone a dozen times to the door,
“thinks no more of his breakfast than if it were wet
sea-weed just out of the river: the fish, with one turn
more, will not be fit for a Christian to eat;—and here
are these children ready to munch their own fingers
for food. I wish to the saints, the man could learn
some thought of his meals when they are ready for
him! But I might as well talk to a flounder as to
Simon Fluke.”