But there were earnest talkers in Virginia, and the liveliest interest in all kinds of affairs. It was a picturesque time in the life of the colony. Things of interest were always happening. We know this of the little Mary,--she was observant and wise, quiet and reflective. She had early opinions, doubtless, upon the powers of the vestries, the African slave-trade, the right of a Virginia assembly to the privileges of parliament, and other grave questions of her time. Nor was the time without its vivid romances. Although no witch was ever burnt in Virginia, Grace Sherwood, who must have been young and comely, was arrested "under suspetion of witchcraft," condemned by a jury of old women because of a birth-mark on her body, and sentenced to a seat in the famous ducking-stool, which had been, in the wisdom of the burgesses, provided to still the tongues of "brabbling women,"--a sentence never inflicted, for a few glances at her tearful eyes won from the relenting justice the order that this ducking was to be "in no wise without her consent, _or if the day should be rainy_, or in any way to endanger her health!" [Illustration: Ducking-stool.] Stories were told around the fireside on winter nights, when the wooden shutters rattled--for rarely before 1720 were "windows sasht with crystal glass." The express, bringing mails from the north, had been scalped by Indians. Four times in one year had homeward-bound ships been sunk by pirates. Men, returning to England to receive an inheritance, were waylaid on the high seas, robbed, and murdered. In Virginia waters the dreaded "Blackbeard" had it all his own way for a while. Finally, his grim head is brought home on the bowsprit of a Virginia ship, and a drinking-cup, rimmed with silver, made of the skull that held his wicked brains. Of course, it could not be expected that he could rest in his grave under these circumstances, and so, until fifty years ago (when possibly the drinking-cup was reclaimed by his restless spirit), his phantom sloop might be seen spreading its ghostly sails in the moonlight on the York River and putting into Ware Creek to hide ill-gotten gains in the Old Stone House. Only a few years before had the dreadful Tuscaroras risen with fire and tomahawk in the neighbor colony of North Carolina. [Illustration: The Old Stone House.]