When I was wending my way back to Drake Hill, with my gun over shoulder and some fine birds in hand, I met Sir Humphrey Hyde.

We were near Locust Creek, and the great house stood still and white in the sunlight, and there was no life around it except for the distant crawl of toil over the green of the tobacco fields and the great hum of the bees in the flowering honey locusts which gave, with the creek, the place its name.  Sir Humphrey was coming from the direction of the house, riding slowly, stooping in the saddle as if with thought, and I guessed that he had been to see to the safety of the contraband goods.  When he saw me he halted and shouted, in his hearty, boyish way, “Halloo, halloo, Harry, and what luck?” as if all there was of moment in the whole world, and Virginia in particular, was the shooting of birds on a May morning.  But then his face clouded, and he spoke earnestly enough.  “Harry, Harry,” he said, in a whisper, though there was no life nearer than the bees, and they no bearers of secrets, except those of the flowers, “I pray thee, come back to the hall with me, and let us consult together.”

I followed him back to the house, and he sprang from his saddle, had a shutter unhasped in a twinkling, knowing evidently the secret of it, and we were inside, standing amongst the litter of casks and cases in the great silent desertion of the hall of Locust Creek.  Then he grasped me hard by both hands, and cried out, “Harry, Harry Wingfield, come to thee I must, for, convict though thou be, thou art a man with a head packed with wit, and Ralph Drake is half the time in his cups, and Parson Downs riding his own will at such a hard gallop that ’twill surprise me not if he leave his head behind, and as for Dick and Nick Barry, and Captain Dickson, and—­and Major Robert Beverly, and all the others, what is it to them about this one matter which is more to me than the whole damned hell-broth?”

“You mean?” I said, and pointed to the litter on the hall floor.

“Yes,” and then, with a great show of passion, “My God, Harry Wingfield, why, why did we gentlemen and cavaliers of Virginia allow a woman to be mixed in this matter?  If, if—­these goods be traced to her—­”

“And, faith, and I see no reason why they should not be, with a whole colony in the secret of it,” I said, coldly.

“Nay, none but me and Nick and Dick Barry, and the parson since yesterday, and Major Beverly and Capt.  Noel Jaynes and you and the captain and sailors on the Golden Horn, who value their own necks.  As God is my witness, none beside, Harry.”

I could scarcely help laughing at the length of the list and the innocence of the lad.  “Her sister Catherine, Sir Humphrey,” said I.

“Hath she told her, Harry?”

“And the captain of the Earl of Fairfax.”

“The governor’s ship?  Well, then, let us go through Jamestown proclaiming it with a horn,” he gasped out, and made more of the two last than his own long list.