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We were just starting to go around the island when she suddenly transferred her allegiance from the steering-wheel to the wind, and sidled off in the marshes till she brought up hard aground. There was nothing to do but to wait for the rising tide. Nautica got out the chart again to see where we were.
"I feel quite apologetic," said Nautica. "Look at these great solemn trees, just like an assemblage of forest philosophers in the hush of silent deliberation." "We must have stirred them up a bit," replied the Commodore, "with our puffing and ringing. But I don't think they are deliberating. I believe they are asleep. It seems more like the hush of poppy-land in here to me."
She had found something in her book too, and was already announcing that it was right there that John Rolfe and Pocahontas were married. But the Commodore insisted that his story came first, as Nautica's romantic event was not until 1614, while his famine was in 1609-10. Nautica sighed resignedly as she agreed that we should starve first and get married afterward.
"Where do you think that church was?" interrupted Nautica. "Right near here. They say it stood about a hundred yards above the later one whose ruins are over there in the graveyard. And in that church Lord Delaware and his council " "Yes," Nautica broke in again. "That was the church that they were married in John Rolfe and Pocahontas." "To be sure," said the Commodore.
We entered the field, and had got almost to the grove when Nautica suddenly stopped, stared, and turned pale. The Commodore's glance followed hers; whereupon, he uttered brave words calculated to reassure the timid feminine heart, and in a voice that would have been steady enough if his knees had kept still. The bull said nothing.
The day was yet young when everything was ready for the trip up the river, and the shores of the little creek were echoing the harsh clicks of our labouring windlass. "She's hove short, and all ready to start whenever you are, sir," announced the sailor at the bow door. Nautica snipped a thread and laid down her sewing; the Commodore tossed his magazine aside. A moment more and we were off.
So, upon catching sight through the trees of a brick building up on the bluff, we concluded that Gadabout had reached her journey's end, and an anchor was dropped. Toward evening Nautica and the Commodore went ashore. At the top of the hill was a little graveyard, and standing in it was the old church that we had come to see. It was a small building and plain, but of historic interest.
"Just one?" repeated Nautica, "Why, to be sure, unless it takes two weddings to marry two people." "Just one wedding," persisted the Commodore. "Now, I am interested in dozens and dozens of weddings that happened right here, and all in one day." There were several things the matter with James Towne from the outset. Prominent among them was the absence of women and children.
On his part, he pinned his faith to the statement of Strachey, a man who had lived in James Towne and who had said that the isthmus was no broader than "a man will quaite a tileshard." But this Nautica refused to accept as satisfactory because we did not know what a "tileshard" was nor how far a man would "quaite" one. So we were naturally anxious to see which of us was right.
Surely while we have been telling the story of Westover, Gadabout has had time to reach the steamboat pier above the house; and we may take it that she is safely tied to the pilings. Once ashore, Nautica and the Commodore found that a short walk along the river bluff brought them to an entrance to the Westover grounds.
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