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"Good wine's good wine, no matter who pours it! 'S bud! in my young days men called a truce and forgot they were foes when the bottle went round!" "If Captain Percy will stay," quoth my lord, "I will give him welcome and good wine. As Master Pory says, men cannot be always fighting. A breathing spell to-day gives to-morrow's struggle new zest." He spoke frankly, with open face and candid eyes.
"Wine for Master Pory, Captain Percy, and myself! And Giles, my two choice goblets." Giles, whom I had never seen before, advanced to the table, took the flagon, and went toward the door, which he had shut behind him. I negligently turned in my seat, and so came in for a glimpse, as he slipped through the door, of a figure in black in the next room. The wine was brought, and with it two goblets.
The reply of Secretary of the Colony, John Pory, was something less than complacent: The last commodity spoken of in your charter is salt; the works whereof, we do much marvel, you would have restored to their former use; whereas I will undertake in one day to make as much salt by the heat of the sun, after the manner used in France, Spain, and Italy, as can be made in a year by that toilsome and erroneous way of boiling sea water into salt in kettles as our people at Smith's Island hitherto accustomed.
I have been gone ten days, faith, it seems ten years! There have no ships sailed, Master Pory? The George is still here?" I looked him full in the eye, for a sudden guess at a possible reason for his confusion had stabbed me like a knife. "Ay," he said, with a readiness that could scarce be feigned. "She was to have sailed this week, it is true, the Governor fearing to keep her longer.
Hand and face belonged to the man I had sent tumbling among the graves the evening before. "The Italian doctor," said Master Pory. There was something peculiar in his tone. I glanced at him, but his broad red face and twinkling eyes told me nothing. "The Italian doctor," he repeated. "If I had a friend in Captain Percy's predicament, I should bid him beware of the Italian doctor."
The rest of the company were fast reeling to a like fate. Young Hamor had a fiddle, and, one foot upon a settle, the other upon the table, drew across it a fast and furious bow. Master Pory, arrived at the maudlin stage, alternately sang a slow and melancholy ditty and wiped the tears from his eyes with elaborate care.
John Pory, of "the strong potations," who thinks that "good company is the soul of this life," nevertheless comforts himself in his solitude among the "crystal rivers and odoriferous woods" by reflecting that he is escaping envy and expense. George Sandys, scholar and poet, finds his solace during a Virginia exile in continuing his translation of Ovid's "Metamorphoses."
The key grated in the door behind me, and it opened to admit the gaoler and Diccon with my dinner, which I was not sorry to see. "Sir George sent the venison, sir," said the gaoler, grinning, "and Master Piersey the wild fowl, and Madam West the pasty and the marchpane, and Master Pory the sack. Be there anything you lack, sir?" "Nothing that you can supply," I answered curtly.
The drum beat again, and a messenger from the palisade came down the street at a run. "They're in the woods over against us, thicker than ants!" he cried to West as he passed. "A boat has just drifted ashore yonder, with two men in it, dead and scalped!" I turned to leave the room, and ran against Master Pory coming in on tiptoe, with a red and solemn face. He started when he saw me.
Fortunately, about this time another ship from Virginia, bearing the secretary of state, John Pory, arrived, and sold the colonists a supply of truck for trading; by which they bought from the Indians not only corn, but beaver, which proved afterwards a source of much profit.
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