some planters, when I heard a great splash in the Choptank behind me, and turned around in time to see a young lady's head go under the ice."
"Mercy!"
"I was a passing good swimmer in those days, despite my arm, and as no one else seemed inclined to take a cold bath I jumped in after her, periwig and all, and held her up till the others fetched us out. But think ye I got so much as a thankee for my pains? The wench was no sooner herself again than she commenced to bewail her rescue and berate me for not letting her drown. This surprised the lot of us no end, inasmuch as she was a pretty young thing, not above sixteen or seventeen years old.
" 'How is't ye wish to end what you've scarce begun?" I asked her. 'Many's the merry tale hath a bad beginning.'
" 'No matter the cause of't,' she replied. 'In sooth I've little to thank ye for; in saving me from a short death by drowning, you but condemn me to a long one by freezing, or a longer by starving.'
"I was about to press her farther for the cause, but I chanced to observe what I'd not remarked ere then -- that though her face and arms were peaked and thin, her belly was a-bloom for fair.
" 'Ah, I see't now,' I said. 'Belike your master had sent ye to feel of the sot-weed, whether 'twas dry enough for casking, and some field-hand rogered ye in the curing-house?'
"This I said by way of a tease, inasmuch as I guessed by her ragged dress and grimy skin she was a servant girl. She made no answer, but shook her head and wept e'en harder.
" 'Welladay, then,' I said to her, 'if not a field-hand, why, the master himself, and if not the curing-house, then the linen closet or the cowshed. Such a belly as thine is not got in church, I swear! And now the planter's not stayed to lay by his harvest, I'll wager.'
"After some farther enquiry the girl owned she had indeed been supping ere the priest said grace, as young folks will; but only once, and this not by force at the hands of a servingman, but rather at the entreaty of a planter's son who'd sworn his love for her. Nor was't a mere silly milkmaid's maidenhead he took, i'faith, for she was Roxanne Edouard, the orphan of the great French gentleman Cecile Edouard of Edouardine, upriver from Cooke's Point. She'd been reared since her parents' death by a wealthy uncle in Church Creek, down-county, who was so concerned for her noble blood that he permitted her no suitors from among the young men of the place. 'Twas her bad luck to fall in love with the eldest son of her uncle's neighbor, another planter, and he in turn was so taken with her that he begged her to marry him. She was a dutiful enough child not to wed a young man against the wishes of her guardian, but not so dutiful that she didn't let him have first go at her anyhow, in the bilge of a piragua out on the river. Afterwards she refused to see him farther, and the young fool was so distressed as to give up his patrimony and go to sea a common sailor, ne'er to be heard from again. Anon she found herself with child, and straightway confessed the whole matter to her uncle, who turned her off the place at once."
"How!" Ebenezer cried. " 'Tis a nice concern he bore her, indeed! Heav'n protect a child from such solicitude! I cannot fathom it!"
"Nor I," said Andrew, "but thus it happened, or so I heard it. What's more, he threatened violence to any who took her in, and so poor Roxanne was soon brought to direst straits. She tried to indent herself as a domestic, though 'twas little she knew of work; but masters had small inclination for a servant who would herself need service ere many months passed. Everyone knew her and her plight, and many a man who'd been turned from her uncle's door for paying her the merest cordiality before, made her the filthiest proposals now she was down on her luck."
" 'Sheart! Had the wretches no pity for her state?"
"Nay, e'en here her belly undid her, for so far from discouraging, it seemed rather the more to enflame 'em, the plainer it showed. Have
"Mercy!"
"I was a passing good swimmer in those days, despite my arm, and as no one else seemed inclined to take a cold bath I jumped in after her, periwig and all, and held her up till the others fetched us out. But think ye I got so much as a thankee for my pains? The wench was no sooner herself again than she commenced to bewail her rescue and berate me for not letting her drown. This surprised the lot of us no end, inasmuch as she was a pretty young thing, not above sixteen or seventeen years old.
" 'How is't ye wish to end what you've scarce begun?" I asked her. 'Many's the merry tale hath a bad beginning.'
" 'No matter the cause of't,' she replied. 'In sooth I've little to thank ye for; in saving me from a short death by drowning, you but condemn me to a long one by freezing, or a longer by starving.'
"I was about to press her farther for the cause, but I chanced to observe what I'd not remarked ere then -- that though her face and arms were peaked and thin, her belly was a-bloom for fair.
" 'Ah, I see't now,' I said. 'Belike your master had sent ye to feel of the sot-weed, whether 'twas dry enough for casking, and some field-hand rogered ye in the curing-house?'
"This I said by way of a tease, inasmuch as I guessed by her ragged dress and grimy skin she was a servant girl. She made no answer, but shook her head and wept e'en harder.
" 'Welladay, then,' I said to her, 'if not a field-hand, why, the master himself, and if not the curing-house, then the linen closet or the cowshed. Such a belly as thine is not got in church, I swear! And now the planter's not stayed to lay by his harvest, I'll wager.'
"After some farther enquiry the girl owned she had indeed been supping ere the priest said grace, as young folks will; but only once, and this not by force at the hands of a servingman, but rather at the entreaty of a planter's son who'd sworn his love for her. Nor was't a mere silly milkmaid's maidenhead he took, i'faith, for she was Roxanne Edouard, the orphan of the great French gentleman Cecile Edouard of Edouardine, upriver from Cooke's Point. She'd been reared since her parents' death by a wealthy uncle in Church Creek, down-county, who was so concerned for her noble blood that he permitted her no suitors from among the young men of the place. 'Twas her bad luck to fall in love with the eldest son of her uncle's neighbor, another planter, and he in turn was so taken with her that he begged her to marry him. She was a dutiful enough child not to wed a young man against the wishes of her guardian, but not so dutiful that she didn't let him have first go at her anyhow, in the bilge of a piragua out on the river. Afterwards she refused to see him farther, and the young fool was so distressed as to give up his patrimony and go to sea a common sailor, ne'er to be heard from again. Anon she found herself with child, and straightway confessed the whole matter to her uncle, who turned her off the place at once."
"How!" Ebenezer cried. " 'Tis a nice concern he bore her, indeed! Heav'n protect a child from such solicitude! I cannot fathom it!"
"Nor I," said Andrew, "but thus it happened, or so I heard it. What's more, he threatened violence to any who took her in, and so poor Roxanne was soon brought to direst straits. She tried to indent herself as a domestic, though 'twas little she knew of work; but masters had small inclination for a servant who would herself need service ere many months passed. Everyone knew her and her plight, and many a man who'd been turned from her uncle's door for paying her the merest cordiality before, made her the filthiest proposals now she was down on her luck."
" 'Sheart! Had the wretches no pity for her state?"
"Nay, e'en here her belly undid her, for so far from discouraging, it seemed rather the more to enflame 'em, the plainer it showed. Have
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