regalia could have been more the great lady than she as she came forward to meet Cecil and his companion.
"Sir Christopher, I greet you. I would I had known of your coming yesterday that I might have had your company and protection."
Neville bowed, smiling. "The advantage of both would have been on my side, for Mistress Brent's prowess is a byword."
"Say they so indeed!" Margaret answered without attempt at disclaimer and with a smile which showed her strong white teeth, "I am glad of that, for I may need the repute in the near future. Sorry was I to hear that you had thoughts of taking up land in this part of the country and deserting Kent Fort. I count you the strongest man we have among us, and since Claiborne's rebellious efforts we need all the help we can claim. 'Tis in regard to this that I have followed my brother hither."
"I am sorry; but I fear you must meet disappointment. He has been called to St. Mary's by troubles over Dick Ingle. He may return to-morrow."
"Nay, if he comes not back to-day I must turn out the trainband on my own responsibility. The matter will not keep."
"You should be made a captain."
"Not I! I am too wise for that. The captain must give place to the colonel, and the colonel to the general; but the woman is above them all, and what men would never yield of their obstinacy to equality, they will oft give up of their courtesy to her weakness. Besides, men never forget the obedience to women they learn at their mother's knee – or over it —
"Is it not so, Father?" she went on, turning to Father White, who had joined them. "Have I not heard thee say any one might have the training of a child after seven if thou couldst have the teaching of him till then?"
"Ay, 'tis so – though this boy may not do so much credit to my teaching as I could wish;" and he pinched Cecil's ear, laughing.
"He is too busy keeping his body a-growing, I fancy, to pay much heed to his soul. How say you, Cecil, – wilt thou lend me those cheeks of thine for cushions?"
"No," answered the child, gravely, "elthe how could I keep my food in when I eat? Let me go! I mutht tell Couthin Mary thou art come. I dearly love to be the firtht to tell newth."
But this time he was too late, for Mary had caught sight of the group, and came running down the path.
"Oh, Margaret, but I am glad to see thee! Bless thine heart, how thou art blown! I have great need of thy counsel. I must have thee tell me if the pickles want sweetening, and if the stockade be high enough, and how many cattle I should order out of England – "
"Why hast not asked Giles all these things?"
"Why, Giles is so great a man he will give no heed to small things, but puts them off with a 'Presently – presently – '"
"Ay, and if he have not a care, this 'Presently, presently' will cost him dear. In a new land least of all can we afford to despise the day of small things. – Ah! there is my Cousin Elinor!" She broke off, seeing Mistress Calvert in the doorway.
The two women did not altogether harmonize. They were too much alike, and neither cared for her own type. Both loved to dominate men, though neither would have owned it. Elinor had early chosen the heart as her sphere of influence, and Margaret Brent the mind. It was in the border land that they clashed. Yet, had either been asked, especially when separated, who was the noblest woman she knew, one would have said "Elinor Calvert," the other, "Margaret Brent."
"Come in," said Elinor, as she kissed her cousin's cheek. "Come in and share the feast set out in honor of Sir Christopher Neville, Cecil's new tenant, at Robin Hood's Barn."
"I knew thou wouldst have him."
"Verily? then thou didst know more than I."
"No doubt – 'tis the privilege of the looker-on. Besides, I knew thy business head, which is better than one would think to watch thine impulsive bearing, and none but a fool would let such a tenant as Christopher Neville slip through her fingers."
Elinor reddened.
"Nay, now I see I have said somewhat amiss, but the time is too short to find out what, so forgive my sins in the bulk, and believe that I do love thee much for all we fit not always in our moods. Mary, if thou hast something hot for the inner man, prithee let me have it, for I am well-nigh starved and frozen."
To herself she said, "Neville is in love with Elinor Calvert – foolish man! She means to use him – wise woman!"
Which proves that a clever observer may be too clever, and see both more and less than there is to be seen.
Neville, after watching the women enter the house with Cecil hanging to his mother's gown, strode down the path with head thrown back, and the glint of a firm purpose shining from between his narrowed lids.
CHAPTER V
PEGGY
Giles Brent was not in an enviable frame of mind on this January morning, after his visit to St. Gabriel's manor. The gold lace on his coat, marking his rank as deputy-governor of Maryland, covered an anxious heart, and as he walked along the path over the bluff in the village of St. Mary's he twirled the gold-tipped lacings of his doublet, and cursed his fate in being caught in this coil of colonial politics, and wished his cousin Leonard Calvert would come home from England and attend to his own business.
Why, all of a sudden, was his brow cleared of its furrows, and his mind of its worries for the moment? Because he had caught sight at a window of a girl's face, – a faulty, charming face with velvet brown eyes, and hair that shook a dusky glamour over them, – the face of Peggy Neville.
This Peggy was a born coquette – not of the type that sets its cap at a man as obviously as a boy casts the net for butterflies, but a coquette by instinct, full of contradictory impulses, with eyes that whispered "Come!" even while blush and frown cried "Halt!" – with the gaiety of a flight of larks, alternating with pouts and tears as sudden and violent as a summer thunder-shower. Such a girl has often a peculiar charm for an older man, who looks on amused at her coquetries, and finds her friendship as firm as her loves are fickle. Between Governor Brent and Peggy Neville such a friendship was established, and it was with a delight dimpling into smiles that she threw wide the window, and leaning out into the frosty air, cried out joyously, —
"Good-morning, your Excellency! Do you bring any news of that good-for-nothing brother of mine?"
The governor shook his sword at her.
"I will have you in the sheriff's hands if you speak so lightly of my close friend," he answered. "Is your aunt at home?"
"No, but my aunt's niece is, and much exercised to hear the news from Kent Fort. So prithee come in and rest awhile."
Brent entered at a door so low that he was compelled to bow his tall head.
"The news of most interest to you," he said, seating himself by the fire, "comes not from Kent Fort, but from St. Gabriel's Manor, which I left just before the expected arrival of that aforesaid good-for-nothing brother of yours, who is in treaty with me for the manor at Cecil Point, which Baltimore christened Robin Hood's Barn when he made a grant of it to Mistress Elinor Calvert. The lady is staying with my sister Mary at present."
"You have just come from St. Gabriel's?" queried Peggy, "and just seen Mistress Calvert? Then pray tell me all about her. She is very, very handsome, they say – "
"Then for once they say truth. I have seen her enter the gallery at The Globe when all the gallants on the stage rose to catch sight of her, and I have seen the London street-sweepers follow her for a mile. There's beauty for you!"
"And she is very wise too?"
"Ay, as good a head for affairs as mine, and I think no small things of mine own abilities."
"And she is virtuous and tender and true?"
"The tenderest of mothers, and the loyalest of kinswomen."
Peggy cast down her long-fringed eyes and studied the pointed toes of her red slippers. At length looking up timidly she asked, —
"Think you I could ever be like her?"
Giles