began to peal and the drum to beat.
Stepping ashore, I had a rear view only of the folk who had clustered
along the banks and in the street, their faces and footsteps being with
one accord directed toward the market place. I went with the throng,
jostled alike by velvet and dowlas, by youths with their estates upon
their backs and naked fantastically painted savages, and trampling the
tobacco with which the greedy citizens had planted the very street. In
the square I brought up before the Governor's house, and found myself
cheek by jowl with Master Pory, our Secretary, and Speaker of the
Assembly.

"Ha, Ralph Percy!" he cried, wagging his gray head, "we two be the only
sane younkers in the plantations! All the others are horn-mad!"

"I have caught the infection," I said, "and am one of the bedlamites."

He stared, then broke into a roar of laughter. "Art in earnest?" he
asked, holding his fat sides. "Is Saul among the prophets?"

"Yes," I answered. "I diced last night,--yea or no; and the
'yea'--plague on 't--had it."

He broke into another roar. "And thou callest that bridal attire, man!
Why, our cow-keeper goes in flaming silk to-day!"

I looked down upon my suit of buff, which had in truth seen some
service, and at my great boots, which I had not thought to clean since I
mired in a swamp, coming from Henricus the week before; then shrugged my
shoulders.

"You will go begging," he continued, wiping his eyes. "Not a one of them
will so much as look at you."

"Then will they miss seeing a man, and not a popinjay," I retorted. "I
shall not break my heart."

A cheer arose from the crowd, followed by a crashing peal of the bells
and a louder roll of the drum. The doors of the houses around and to
right and left of the square swung open, and the company which had
been quartered overnight upon the citizens began to emerge. By twos and
threes, some with hurried steps and downcast eyes, others more slowly
and with free glances at the staring men, they gathered to the centre of
the square, where, in surplice and band, there awaited them godly Master
Bucke and Master Wickham of Henricus. I stared with the rest, though I
did not add my voice to theirs.

Before the arrival of yesterday's ship there had been in this natural
Eden (leaving the savages out of the reckoning) several thousand Adams,
and but some threescore Eves. And for the most part, the Eves were
either portly and bustling or withered and shrewish housewiv