This etext was produced by Charles Aldarondo
The Heart's Highway
A Romance of Virginia in the Seventeeth Century
By
Mary E. Wilkins
1900
The Heart's Highway
In 1682, when I was thirty years of age and Mistress Mary Cavendishjust turned of eighteen, she and I together one Sabbath morning inthe month of April were riding to meeting in Jamestown. We were allalone except for the troop of black slaves straggling in the rear,blurring the road curiously with their black faces. It seldomhappened that we rode in such wise, for Mistress CatherineCavendish, the elder sister of Mistress Mary, and Madam Cavendish,her grandmother, usually rode with us—Madam Judith Cavendish,though more than seventy, sitting a horse as well as hergranddaughters, and looking, when viewed from the back, as young asthey, and being in that respect, as well as others, a wonder to thecountryside. But it happened to-day that Madam Cavendish had a touchof the rheumatics, that being an ailment to which the swampy estateof the country rendered those of advanced years somewhat liable, andhad remained at home on her plantation of Drake Hill (so named inhonour of the great Sir Francis Drake, though he was long past thevalue of all such earthly honours). Catherine, who was a mostdevoted granddaughter, had remained with her—although, Isuspected, with some hesitation at allowing her young sister to goalone, except for me, the slaves being accounted no more companythan our shadows. Mistress Catherine Cavendish had looked at meafter a fashion which I was at no loss to understand when I hadstood aside to allow Mistress Mary to precede me in passing thedoor, but she had no cause for the look, nor for the apprehensionwhich gave rise to it. By reason of bearing always my burthen uponmy own back, I was even more mindful of it than others were who hadonly the sight of it, whereas I had the sore weight and the evilaspect in my inmost soul. But it was to be borne easily enough byvirtue of that natural resolution of a man which can make but afeatherweight of the sorest ills if it be but put in the balanceagainst them. I was tutor to Mistress Mary Cavendish, and I hadsailed from England to Virginia under circumstances of disgrace;being, indeed, a convict.
I knew exceeding well what was my befitting deportment when I setout that Sabbath morning with Mistress Mary Cavendish, and not onlyupon that Sabbath morning but at all other times; still I can wellunderstand that my appearance may have belied me, since when Ilooked in a glass I would often wonder at the sight of my own face,which seemed younger than my years, and was strangely free from anyrecording lines of experiences which might have been esteemed bitterby any one who had not the pride of bearing them. When my blackeyes, which had a bold daring in them, looked forth at me from theglass, and my lips smiled with a gay confidence at me, I could notbut surmise that my whole face was as a mask worn unwittingly over agrave spirit. But since a man must be judged largely by his outwardguise and I had that of a gay young blade, I need not have taken itamiss if Catherine Cavendish had that look in her eyes when I setforth with her young sister alone save for those dark people whichsome folk believed to have no souls.
I rode a pace behind Mary Cavendish, and never glanced her way, notneeding to do so in order to see her, for I seemed to see her with asuperior sort of vision compounded partly of memory and partly ofimagination. Of the latter I had, not to boast, though i