United States or Equatorial Guinea ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
It is a far cry from the Susan Constant, the Goodspeed, and the Discovery, from those first booths at Jamestown, from the Starving Time, from Christopher Newport and Edward-Maria Wingfield and Captain John Smith to these days of Governor Spotswood. And yet, considering the changes still to come, a century seems but a little time and the far cry not so very far.
Then I helped up the nurse, who wept and muttered to herself; and so we started, Alsi standing on the steps with words of feigned goodspeed as we did so. But the housecarls and the people shouted with wishes that were real, no doubt thinking that we were bound for the far-off kingdom of the prince who had won Goldberga by service as a kitchen knave in her uncle's hall for very love of her.
It was a little after midnight, and I was sound asleep, when I heard someone calling, "Sergeant Stillwell! Where is Sergeant Stillwell?" I sprang to my feet, and answered, "Here! What's wanted?" The speaker came to me, and then I saw that it was Lt. Goodspeed, who was acting as adjutant of the regiment.
You do not. "There I think you do me injustice," said Goodspeed, "I feel the necessity of educating every citizen of the Republic, as well as you." "No doubt, in a certain vague way," was the reply; "but you do not feel it as the only safety to the Republic to-day; and I do."
There were no women and children on the Sarah Constant, nor on the Goodspeed, nor on the Discovery. The story of these ships is not like that later one of the Mayflower. The colour dies out of the picture; and there remains only the worn, motley band of men men who have taken possession of the country by the sign of the cross, fit omen of the fate awaiting them.
Two or three miles long, less than a mile and a half in breadth, at its widest place composed of marsh and woodland, it ran into the river, into six fathom water, where the ships might be moored to the trees. It was this convenient deep water that determined matters. Here came to anchor the Susan Constant, the Goodspeed, and the Discovery. Here the colonists went ashore.
Riding on the Thames, before Blackwall, are three ships, small enough in all conscience' sake, the Susan Constant, the Goodspeed, and the Discovery. The Admiral of this fleet is Christopher Newport, an old seaman of Raleigh's. Bartholomew Gosnold captains the Goodspeed, and John Ratcliffe the Discovery. The three ships have aboard their crews and one hundred and twenty colonists, all men.
If they could have seen ahead, what pictures of things to come they might have beheld rising, falling, melting one into another! Certain of the men upon the Susan Constant, the Goodspeed, and the Discovery stand out clearly, etched against the sky. Christopher Newport might be forty years old.
In some way that only those who know the laze of houseboating can understand, the hours slipped by in that tiny, tucked-away haven, and it was the middle of the afternoon when Gadabout slowly felt her way out from behind the island and started up the James in the wake of the Sarah Constant, the Goodspeed, and the Discovery.
"I think," replied Le Moyne, speaking slowly and thoughtfully, "that there is a solution lying just at our hand, the very simplicity of which, perhaps, has hitherto prevented us from fully appreciating its effectiveness." "Ah!" said Goodspeed, with some eagerness, "and what may that be?" "Education!" was the reply. "Oh, yes," said the other, with a smile.
Word Of The Day