t they must stay at home and burn juniper
before their own doors."

"I'll forgive you," I said, "when you 've told me what the Governor will
do."

"Why, there's the rub," he answered. "Yeardley is the most obstinate man
of my acquaintance. He who at his first coming, beside a great deal of
worth in his person, brought only his sword hath grown to be as very a
Sir Oracle among us as ever I saw. It's 'Sir George says this,' and 'Sir
George says that,' and so there's an end on't. It's all because of that
leave to cut your own throats in your own way that he brought you last
year. Sir George and Sir Edwyn! Zooks! you had better dub them St.
George and St. Edwyn at once, and be done with it. Well, on this
occasion Sir George stands up and says roundly, with a good round
oath to boot: 'The King's commands have always come to us through the
Company. The Company obeys the King; we obey the Company. His Majesty's
demand (with reverence I speak it) is out of all order. Let the Company,
through the treasurer, command us to send Captain Percy home in irons to
answer for this passing strange offense, or to return, willy nilly, the
lady who is now surely his wife, and we will have no choice but to
obey. Until the Company commands us we will do nothing; nay we can do
nothing.' And every one of my fellow Councilors (for myself, I was busy
with my pens) saith, 'My opinion, Sir George.' The upshot of it all
is that the Due Return is to sail in two days with our humble
representation to his Majesty that though we bow to his lightest word as
the leaf bows to the zephyr, yet we are, in this sole matter, handfast,
compelled by his Majesty's own gracious charter to refer our slightest
official doing to that noble Company which owes its very being to its
rigid adherence to the terms of said charter. Wherefore, if his Majesty
will be graciously pleased to command us as usual through the said
Company--and so on. Of course, not a soul in the Council, or in
Jamestown, or in Virginia dreams of a duel behind the church at sunrise
to-morrow." He knocked the ashes from his pipe, and by degrees got his
fat body up from the doorstep. "So there's a reprieve for you, Ralph
Percy, unless you kill or are killed to-morrow morning. In the latter
case, the problem's solved; in the former, the best service you can do
yourself, and maybe the Company, is to walk out of the world of your
own accord, and that as quickly as possible. Better a cross-roads and a
sta