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In the year of grace 1774, a climbing sun glowed above his Majesty's Colony of Virginia. It drank the opal mists of the marshes, flecked the fields into shadow-haunted cloth-of-gold, and so unrolled over the old “middle plantation,”—where, a round century before, Bacon and his men had taken the oath against England,—a drowsing, yellow mid-May afternoon.

Two quickened rivers, like silver girdles unclasped, wound through the lowland, from where phantom-far lay the shadows of pines against the color-washed line of sky, sharp-edged and black, in gigantic pointed fronds. The rivers rolled broadly to the sea, holding between them a green valley sweet with the warm perfumes of leaf and flower, and this valley folded to its hear Williamsburg, the gay little capital.

The teal and mallard that winged over from York to James looked down thereon and saw a single