Back and forth across our isthmus played the old-time life of the colony.  Rather sombre figures for a while, and all afoot.  Then colour came, and colour on horseback too.  They were seeing more prosperous times in the little village across the island.  Prancing by went the “qualitye” in flaming silks, and high dignitaries in glittering gold lace.  There was even a coach or two.  That one attended by soldiers in queer “coats of mail” must belong to Sir William Berkeley, governor of the colony.  However, we watched and waited long before anything of importance happened—­probably several years.

But time does not count for much in house-boating.

At last, some soldiers marched across the island from the James Towne side to ours, and built a fort near the isthmus.  Some more soldiers appeared on the mainland and began to build a fort on their side, near the isthmus.  Then we knew that James Towne was seeing its most stirring days.  Stubborn old Governor Berkeley and hot-headed young Nathaniel Bacon had fallen out over the Indian question.  The people were divided; and here were the preparations for the trial of arms.  While the Bacon fort, the one on the mainland, was yet incomplete, we beheld a strange line of white objects fluttering from the top of it.  With the aid of field-glasses and some historical works, we at last made out that it was a row of women in white aprons.  As our eyes became accustomed to the trying perspective of over two hundred years, we were able to recognize the charming wives of some of the most prominent men in the other fort.  The ungallant Bacon had sent out and captured these excellent ladies, and now placed them in plain sight of their husbands, thus preventing the other fort from opening fire upon him until he had his fortification completed.

After the ladies had been helped down from the rough earthworks and had spoken their minds and taken off their white aprons and gone home, the battle began.  Soldiers from the island fort made a sally across our isthmus, were repulsed, and later abandoned their works and fled pell-mell toward James Towne.

At the height of our interest, the flow of life across the historic isthmus lost colour, then died away.  No more painted savages; no more soldiers; no more gay groups of mounted men and women in bright London dress; no more worshipful personages in rich velvet and gold lace.  Instead, a slow sombre train crossing heavily over and disappearing along the forest road on the mainland leading to Williamsburg.  Here, colonial records going by, telling that the brave little capital is a capital no more; there, a quaint church service, bespeaking abandoned holy walls and sacred doors flapping in the idle wind; and all along, those shapeless loads, telling of forsaken firesides, empty streets, a village deserted.  After that, came only an occasional ox-cart, a load of hay, or (from the other direction) a carryall filled with strangers curious to visit the site of a little village that was once called James Towne.