Smith's _True Travels_ appeared in 1629, and the incredible tale of his adventures read well to Londoners who were disturbed with financial depression and with the plague besides. In order to escape the plague Smith spent much time in the country near Essex in the hospitable home of Sir Humphrey Mildmay. Mildmay dubbed his wife "the old woman," and he often escaped his family with the boisterous and masculine Smith to roam his fields, to hunt, fish, dice and drink. His six children delighted in their tarrying visitor, but Smith often eluded the happy and hearty family to write history in his own room. The huge home had wings, and it was set in a shady grove from which he could see London, thirty miles away, on clear days. He did not tarry there indefinitely being sometimes impatient for London itself where he also had a room in Saltonstall's house. Yes, he had patronizing friends, but he was alone in his frustrated hopes. He had been so far and done so much as a leader of men whether they admitted it or not, and as such he was a being apart. He had been so as an adolescent who had lost his father by death, his mother by marriage, who had quit school and master as well as home. As an adult he had left country, colony and yet another colony, and when he wanted them back they had not wanted him. Finally, he was lonely because he had risen above his class in society without ever feeling secure among his betters in spite of their hospitality to an entertaining explorer and literary notable. Smith was ever without a home of his own, if never without a hope. As time went on while the hands of benevolent ladies helped him over hurdles, men were usually the ones beside him, if not back of him. He could visit for months at a time as at the Mildmay's or for years as at Saltonstall's. It was at the latter house that he died suddenly at the age of fifty-one. He had made arrangements for a dignified burial, knowing that others would not make it what it should be--before history inevitably brought him into his own. Where Shakespeare willed arms, he, Smith, the hero of legends as well as the author of them, willed books--of which he had written many and read more. An epitaph in brass extolled his feats: the victory over the three Turks; and the claim, that he had "dispersed the heathen like smoke" and made their land "a habitation for a Christian nation." Because he was buried there, St. Sepulchre's would become a shrine even as St. George's has. * * * * * Regardless of the fact that Pocahontas married John Rolfe, the public unites her name rather with that of Smith. The three make up an integral triangle. Each lived briefly, but intensely, Pocahontas passing first in the springtime of her life. Rolfe had wanted to take care of her, giving her protection, and glory in both of their countries, and proud descendants. He was more than just her husband. The poet Stephen Vincent Benet puts it: