spread a network of lines which meant my ways of sending news.  For instance, to get to a man in Essex county, the word would be passed by Middle Plantation to York Ferry.  Thence in an Indian’s canoe it would be carried to Aird’s store on the Mattaponey, from which a woodman would take it across the swamps to a clump of hemlocks.  There he would make certain marks, and a long-legged lad from the Rappahannock, riding by daily to school, would carry the tidings to the man I wanted.  And so forth over the habitable dominion.  I calculated that there were not more than a dozen of Lawrence’s men who within three days could not get the summons and within five be at the proper rendezvous.

One evening I was surprised by a visit from Colonel Beverley.  He came openly on a fine bay horse with two mounted negroes as attendants.  I had parted from him dryly, and had been surprised to find that he was one of us; but when I had talked with him a little, it appeared that he had had a big share in planning the whole business.  We mentioned no names, but I gathered that he knew Lawrence, and was at least aware of Ringan.  He warned me, I remember, to be on my guard against some of the young bloods, who might visit me to make mischief.  “It’s not that they know anything of our affairs,” he said, “but that they have got a prejudice against yourself, Mr. Garvald.  They are foolish, hot-headed lads, very puffed up by their pride of gentrice, and I do not like the notion of their playing pranks in that tobacco-shed.”

I asked him a question which had long puzzled me, why the natural defence of a country should be kept so secret.  “The Governor, at any rate,” I said, “would approve, and we are not asking the burgesses for a single guinea.”

“Yes, but the Governor would play a wild hand,” was the answer.  “He would never permit the thing to go on quietly, but would want to ride at the head of the men, and the whole fat would be in the fire.  You must know.  Mr. Garvald, that politics run high in our Virginia.  There are scores of men who would see in our enterprise a second attempt like Bacon’s, and, though they might approve of our aims, would never hear of one of Bacon’s folk serving with us.  I was never a Bacon’s man, for I was with Berkeley in Accomac and at the taking of James Town, but I know the quality of the rough fellows that Bacon led, and I want them all for this adventure.  Besides, who can deny that there is more in our plans than a defence against Indians?  There are many who feel with me that Virginia can never grow to the fullness of a nation so long as she is cooped up in the Tidewater.  New-comers arrive by every ship from England, and press on into the wilderness.  But there can be no conquest of the wilderness till we have broken the Indian menace, and pushed our frontier up to the hills—­ay, and beyond them.  But tell that to the ordinary planter, and he will assign you to the devil.  He fears these new-comers, who