initial commit of ebook 44165HEADmain

16 files changed, 27532 insertions, 0 deletions

diff --git a/old/44165-8.txt b/old/44165-8.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..721ee70
--- /dev/null
+++ b/old/44165-8.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,8245 @@
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Soldier Rigdale, by Beulah Marie Dix
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Soldier Rigdale
+       How He Sailed in the Mayflower and How He Served Miles Standish
+
+Author: Beulah Marie Dix
+
+Illustrator: Reginald B. Birch
+
+Release Date: November 12, 2013 [EBook #44165]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SOLDIER RIGDALE ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by sp1nd, Emmy, and the Online Distributed
+Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was
+produced from images generously made available by The
+Internet Archive)
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+SOLDIER RIGDALE
+
+[Illustration]
+
+[Illustration: "As if he knew the place and held he had the right to
+come there."]
+
+
+
+
+Soldier Rigdale
+
+HOW HE SAILED IN THE "MAYFLOWER"
+
+AND HOW HE SERVED MILES STANDISH
+
+    BY
+
+    Beulah Marie Dix
+    AUTHOR OF "HUGH GWYETH: A ROUNDHEAD CAVALIER"
+
+
+    _WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY REGINALD B. BIRCH_
+
+
+    New York
+    THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
+    LONDON: MACMILLAN & CO., LTD.
+    1899
+
+    _All rights reserved_
+
+
+
+
+    COPYRIGHT, 1899,
+    BY THE MACMILLAN COMPANY.
+
+    _Norwood Press
+    J. S. Cushing & Co.--Berwick & Smith
+    Norwood, Mass., U.S.A._
+
+
+
+
+Contents
+
+
+    CHAPTER I                            Page
+    Playing with Powder                     1
+
+    CHAPTER II
+    The Name of Miles                      17
+
+    CHAPTER III
+    Thievish Harbor                        30
+
+    CHAPTER IV
+    Hewers of Wood and Drawers of Water    45
+
+    CHAPTER V
+    News from the Shore                    61
+
+    CHAPTER VI
+    The Going Landward                     74
+
+    CHAPTER VII
+    The Man of the Family                  81
+
+    CHAPTER VIII
+    In the Time of the Sickness            95
+
+    CHAPTER IX
+    Master Hopkins's Guest                108
+
+    CHAPTER X
+    The Lords of the Soil                 125
+
+    CHAPTER XI
+    When the Good Ship Sailed             141
+
+    CHAPTER XII
+    The Sowing of the Fields              156
+
+    CHAPTER XIII
+    The Two Edwards                       171
+
+    CHAPTER XIV
+    A Mighty Resolution                   187
+
+    CHAPTER XV
+    In the Southward Country              202
+
+    CHAPTER XVI
+    The House of Bondage                  217
+
+    CHAPTER XVII
+    How they kept the Sabbath             228
+
+    CHAPTER XVIII
+    At Nauset Village                     243
+
+    CHAPTER XIX
+    Fallen among Friends                  257
+
+    CHAPTER XX
+    A Son of Perdition                    270
+
+    CHAPTER XXI
+    Between Man and Man                   283
+
+    CHAPTER XXII
+    The Bearer of Tidings                 296
+
+    CHAPTER XXIII
+    The Captain's Soldier                 311
+
+
+
+
+List of Illustrations
+
+
+    "As if he knew the place, and held he had the right to
+          come there" (p. 111)                        _Frontispiece_
+
+                                                      Opposite Page
+    "With his arm up to shut out the glare of the lanterns"      14
+
+    "Dolly plaited a fold of her apron between her fingers"      66
+
+    "'Do you like to do it, Captain Standish?'"                 102
+
+    "Saw the two young men close in combat"                     184
+
+    "'Oh, Miles, 'tis the savages come for us!'"                214
+
+    "Miles made out the figures of the men in the shallop"      254
+
+    "The breath came gripingly in his throat"                   308
+
+
+
+
+SOLDIER RIGDALE
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+PLAYING WITH POWDER
+
+
+WITH the approach of sunset, the wind that all day had ruffled the
+waves to white edges died down, till there was left on the water only
+a long, heaving motion, that rudely swayed the old ship _Mayflower_.
+One moment from her broad deck could be seen the steel-like gleam of
+the fresh-water pond on the distant beach; the next moment, as the ship
+rolled between the waves, the shore presented nothing but solid sand
+dunes and shrubby pine trees. But always overhead the sky, athwart
+which the yards, bulging with the furled sails, were raking, remained
+the same,--a level reach of thick gray that, as twilight drew on,
+seemed to brood closer over earth and ocean.
+
+How those yards seesawed up and down with the rolling of the ship, and
+the mastheads, they dipped too, quite as if they might pitch down upon
+a body! Miles Rigdale, standing with legs craftily planted and head
+thrown well back, stared and stared at their measured movement till,
+dizzy with the feeling that the great spars were tottering loose, he
+was glad to straighten his aching neck once more.
+
+"Did you see a goose, all roasted, flying for your mouth?" Francis
+Billington called from the waist of the ship, where he perched jauntily
+upon the bulwark.
+
+Sauntering from his place near the companion way, Miles halted beside
+the speaker; not that he had a great liking for Francis Billington, but
+he was a sociable lad, who must talk to some one, and, as the bleak air
+had driven the women and children into the great cabin, while the men
+were absent,--the leaders conferring in the roundhouse and the lesser
+men seeking firewood on shore,--he could for the moment find no comrade
+save young Billington.
+
+The latter was an unprepossessing lad, stunted and small for his
+fourteen years, with elfish eyes which he now turned sharply on Miles.
+"I take it, Jack Cooke is ill, and Giles Hopkins has packed you
+about your business, that you've come to spend the time with me," he
+suggested disagreeably.
+
+"I take it, maybe you've spoke the truth," Miles answered unruffled,
+as he propped his chin on his fists and braced his elbows against the
+bulwark.
+
+Gazing thus northward, he could see all about him green hills, wooded
+to the water's edge, now higher, now lower, as the ship mounted upon
+the waves, and the strip of sand beach, off which rode the bobbing
+longboat. "I wish my father had taken me with him when they went to
+fetch the wood," Miles broke out at that sight; "it's weeks and weeks
+since I set foot on land."
+
+"Pooh! I've been ashore thrice already," bragged Francis, setting one
+arm akimbo, though he took good care to grip the shrouds tightly with
+the other hand, for the bulwark was not the safest of perches.
+
+Miles tried to swallow down his envy, but he could not help saying,
+with a touch of triumph: "Anyhow, you saw no savages, and my father saw
+'em when he went exploring with Captain Standish,--six Indians and a
+dog, he saw."
+
+"So did my father," Francis sought to crush him; but Miles, declaring
+sudden truce, was asking, with civil interest: "You did not see any
+lions when you went ashore, did you, Francis?"
+
+"N--no, but Ned Dotey thought he heard one roar the other night."
+
+"Father would not take our mastiff Trug on land lest they kill him.
+Trug would give 'em a fight for it, though. But he couldn't fight the
+serpents; nobody could. Did you know, Francie, there's a serpent here
+in America,--they call it the rattlesnake,--and if it but breathe on
+you, you die presently."
+
+"How do you know?" asked Francis, awed, but incredulous.
+
+"My father read it in a book about plantations in Virginia. Maybe
+the serpents lie close in cold weather, though, so you did not see
+them." Miles was silent a long instant, while he gazed fixedly at
+the mysterious shore yonder, where all these rarities were to be met
+with. "The trees do not look like our English trees," he said, half
+to himself, "but I'd fain go in among them. Perhaps you found conies
+there, Francis? There were a plenty of them on the common at home; Trug
+and I used to chase them, and 'twas brave sport."
+
+"Mayhap if you had Trug with you, you could start some here," suggested
+Francis. "Tell you, Miles, you beg your father let you go ashore
+to-morrow, and I'll go too, and we'll seek for conies together. Will
+you?"
+
+"'Tis no use," Miles answered, scowling straight ahead.
+
+"Why not?"
+
+"Father says I cannot go," the boy blurted out. "I answered him saucily
+this morning, and he said for that I should not stir foot off the ship
+for a week. I think--I think he might let me go ashore. Along the first
+I was coughing, so my mother said I must not venture in the boat; and
+then my sister Dolly was ailing, and I must stay to bear her company;
+and then it stormed; and now he will not let me go. And I am so weary
+of this ship!"
+
+"I'd not bear such usage from any man," Francis boasted grandly. "If
+'twere my daddy treated me so harshly, I'd tell him to his face 'a' was
+a sour old curmudgeon, and--"
+
+"You need not talk so of my father," Miles interrupted sullenly, though
+he held his eyes fixed upon the shore line, not on the speaker. It was
+hard, while he looked toward the land of wonders, still unknown to him,
+to think quite kindly of the father who had arbitrarily shut him out
+from the enjoyment of it. "If you miscall him so again, Francis, I'll
+fight you," he added, conscience-stricken, in the hope of making amends
+for the disloyalty of his thoughts.
+
+Francis bent his sharp eyes on his companion, but did not take up the
+challenge; indeed, a less discreet lad than he might have considered
+an instant before coming to fisticuffs with Miles Rigdale. The boy,
+for his scant eleven years, was of a proper height, with straight
+back and sturdy limbs, a stocky, yet not clumsy, little figure, that
+promised a vigorous stature when he came to man's age. His deeply
+tanned face, that was lightly sprinkled with brown freckles, was
+square and resolute; his blue eyes were very level and honest; and his
+tousled brown hair tumbled about his forehead in a way to make more
+women than his mother think him a bonny boy. For the rest, he was clad
+humbly enough in doublet and breeches of dark gray frieze, with long
+gray stockings and stout shoes; he wore neither cloak nor hat, and his
+clenched fists, that now rested firmly on the bulwark, were bare and
+chapped red by the wind.
+
+It was the sight of the aggressive fists that made Francis use a
+different tone: "You're a pretty comrade, Miles, to fly out at me so."
+
+"You may leave my father in peace, then."
+
+"Perhaps you'd wish me to leave you in peace too. I know Goodman
+Rigdale has forbid his little son speak to me."
+
+"I'm still speaking to you, am I not?" answered Miles, and bent to
+adjust one of his shoes, so Francis could not see his face; those last
+words had hit dangerously near.
+
+"But you'll show me a clean pair of heels very speedily," sneered his
+companion, "for yonder the boat with your good father is putting off
+from shore, and when he comes--"
+
+"That's how the wind blows, is it?" struck in a new voice close at
+hand. Looking over his shoulder, Miles saw, lounging on a coil of
+rope by the foremast, a certain Edward Lister, one of the servants
+of Master Stephen Hopkins. He was a slim, dark fellow of some twenty
+years, whom Miles admired for a tall swaggerer, because he always wore
+his red cap rakishly on one side, and, since the rules about lighting
+tobacco aboard ship were strict, was ever chewing at a long pine
+splinter instead of a pipe. "So if your father catch you with Master
+Billington here, he'll swinge you soundly, eh, Miles Rigdale?" he
+asked, with his mouth quite grave, but a glancing mockery in his black
+eyes. "Better show us how briskly you can run into the cabin."
+
+Miles ostentatiously leaned his shoulders against the bulwark and
+crossed one leg over the other, as if he thought to finish the
+afternoon in that position. Shifting round thus, his gaze travelled
+beyond his companions to the high quarter-deck, where he spied several
+men trudging forth from the roundhouse. "Has the conference broken
+off?" he asked, forgetting in his curiosity that he was angry with both
+Francis and Ned Lister.
+
+"How else?" the latter answered dryly, and, rising to his feet,
+sauntered over to the two boys. "D'ye think they would confer without
+the great Master Hopkins? And he quit the roundhouse long since.
+Wearied out, doubtless, with such vigorous labor. It has taken them an
+hour to determine no more than to send forth a gang to-morrow and try
+a third time for a place where we may settle."
+
+"Another exploration? Is my father to go on it, do you know?" Miles
+questioned.
+
+"They won't let any but the great folk have a hand therein; daddy said
+'twould be so," commented Francis.
+
+"True enough," scoffed Lister; "the Governor, and Captain Standish,
+Master Bradford, Master Winslow, Master Hopkins, and--the worshipful
+Master Edward Dotey."
+
+"Aha!" jeered Francis. "They're taking old Hopkins's other man Dotey
+along, and Ned Lister is jealous of him."
+
+"Hold your tongue!" cried Lister, catching the lad by the scruff of the
+neck, "else I'll heave you over the bulwark."
+
+Francis twisted up his face and opened his mouth in a prodigious,
+dry-eyed howl, which would have set Miles laughing, had he not been
+intent just then upon the approaching boat. He could see her visibly
+growing larger, as she bounded nearer and nearer over the swell of the
+water, and each moment he recalled more distinctly in what terms his
+father had forbidden him have to do with "that Satanish brood of the
+Billingtons." Miles shuffled one foot uneasily; perhaps he really ought
+to go into the cabin now and see how his sick friend, Jack Cooke, was
+faring.
+
+He turned away and had idled a few paces along the deck, when Francis,
+who had been suffered wrest out of Lister's hold, called after him:
+"Ah, Miles daren't let his father find him with me. I knew so."
+
+"It's not so, neither," Miles flung back, and made a great show of
+stopping by the mainmast, where he stood gazing down the open hatchway
+which led to those cabins that were in the depth of the hold. "Aren't
+you coming with me, Francis?" he asked presently.
+
+The other, quite undeceived, came snickering up to him: "Have no fear;
+I'll take myself off ere your father come. Sure, you're a stout-hearted
+one, Miles."
+
+"You're a pretty fellow to talk of courage," Miles was goaded into
+replying, "after the way you howled out but now. You might have known
+Ned Lister'd do you no hurt."
+
+"No doubt you'd not have been afraid," his tormentor scoffed. "You're
+not afraid of anybody save your father."
+
+"So are you, if you told the truth of it," Miles took him up. "You'd
+not have Goodman Billington hear you vaporing so for all the silver
+crowns in England, and if Goodwife Billington came by and heard you,
+she'd cuff your ears smartly."
+
+Francis's sallow face reddened. "Much she would!" he said angrily.
+"I'll show you I be no milksop to stand in fear of my father and
+mother. Maybe now you think I'd not dare to--" he paused, his eyes
+half-closed, while he tried to concoct some peculiarly wicked sounding
+project--"to take some of my father's gunpowder and make squibs?" he
+concluded, with a triumphant look at his companion.
+
+"No, I don't think you dare," Miles answered stolidly.
+
+"Come, then, I'll show you," the other cried, and headed for the
+companion way that descended beneath the quarter-deck.
+
+Four steps down, and, passing through a narrow door, they entered
+into the stifle and stir of the "great" or main cabin. On every hand
+murmured the ceaseless confusion that always filled the straitened
+space: underfoot, sometimes with fretful wrangling, children were at
+play; women were passing to and from their cabins, or dressing their
+meat for the evening meal at the long table; upon the benches several
+sick men, whose heavy voices were audible through the shriller tones of
+those about them, sat together in talk. Over all, the brightness from
+the narrow skylights fell wanly, so the corners of the low apartment
+were dusky with thick shadows, and the dim outline of the great timbers
+overhead, and the slits of doors into the double tier of little cabins
+adjoining, could only just be made out.
+
+Miles was glad of the half light, for he knew well that if his mother
+should chance to be there and see him with Francis, she would make
+a pretext of some task to call him to her. He caught sight of her
+now, as she stood by the table in speech with Constance Hopkins, and,
+almost treading on Francis's heels in his hurry, he slipped into the
+Billingtons' cabin.
+
+It was the veriest closet of a room in which he found himself, black,
+save for a glint of sickly light that crept through an opening in the
+door, by which Miles contrived presently to discern the unmade bunk
+along the wall, the mattress, still spread out upon the floor, and the
+iron kettle and other vague household stuff that littered untidily
+the narrow space. Comparing it with his father's ordered cabin, he
+recalled his mother's indignant comment to Mistress Hopkins, that Ellen
+Billington was a poor, thriftless body, who would better be tidying her
+quarters than gossiping with her neighbors.
+
+"Now you'll see what I dare, Master Miles," Francis broke in, as, with
+much panting, he dragged from beneath the bunk a small keg. "This is
+gunpowder, if you be not afraid of the sight of it."
+
+"It does not take much courage to touch gunpowder," said Miles, bending
+forward from the bunk, where he had seated himself, and plunging his
+fist into the keg. "Let's see your squibs, Francis."
+
+Young Billington stretched himself on his stomach and, grubbing once
+more beneath the bunk, drew out a fistful of rustling papers. "These
+are leaves I tore from a jest book of daddy's," he bragged. "No doubt
+you won't believe I durst."
+
+Miles made no reply; after all, he scarcely cared to prolong his
+differences with a boy who had such a delightful plaything as a keg of
+powder. "Let me make a squib too, Francie," he begged, squatting down
+on the mattress beside his host.
+
+For a space there was silence, while, with some hard breathing, the
+two, guided more by touch than by any sight they had in the dark cabin,
+labored industriously. Blacker and blacker it grew all round them, till
+they struck their hands together as they groped in the keg, when a
+ray of faint yellow light, that must fall from a lantern in the great
+cabin, stole through the door.
+
+Now they could see how they were faring at their work, and Francis,
+who had laid his handfuls of powder on the papers and folded them
+quite dexterously, laughed in provoking fashion at Miles, who, new to
+this game, had spilt the powder and failed to make his papers stay
+folded. "It's all very well," the boy retorted irritably, as one of his
+painfully made squibs, bursting open, scattered powder between his
+knees, "but after you've made these mighty squibs what else do you do?"
+
+"Why, I'll light a bit of match," said Francis, scrambling to his feet,
+"and then we'll touch 'em off."
+
+Miles jumped up delightedly, and, reasoning that a really satisfactory
+squib should be set off in darkness, took from the bunk a blanket which
+he fastened by two nails across the opening in the door.
+
+Meantime Francis had struck his father's flint and steel together, till
+at length he succeeded in catching a spark upon the piece of "match" or
+twisted tow steeped in saltpetre. Miles could see the little red point
+shimmering in the dark and, picking up the squibs, he moved warily
+toward it. "Gi' me a squib," came Francis's voice, close at his feet.
+More accustomed to the dimness now, Miles could make out the boy's
+crouching figure and saw him lean far forward with one arm outstretched
+to touch off the powder.
+
+Then he felt Francis crowd up against his knees, and instinctively he
+drew back so his own body was pressed against the wall. Out of the dark
+on the floor, right at his feet, started a little flicker of flame
+which, with a sudden whishing sound, leaped up, a broad, bluish puff
+of fire, almost in his eyes; then, before the exclamation had left his
+lips, died sizzling away.
+
+"That was brave, wasn't it?" spoke Francis, in a rather quavering
+voice. "You can touch off one now."
+
+[Illustration: "With his arm up to shut out the glare of the lanterns."]
+
+Miles eagerly seized the match and, setting it to a squib, flung the
+twisted paper a pace from him. The same whiz, burst, sizzle, but this
+time he lost the keen pleasure in a sudden hideous thought that, even
+as the squib left his hand, came over him. "Francis," he cried, before
+the flame died down, "is this safe, think you? Say the powder in the
+keg took fire?"
+
+"Pshaw! You're afraid; I knew you'd be," replied Francis, his own
+courage quite restored.
+
+Thereupon Miles lit a third squib to show his fearlessness, and then
+together they set off the remaining two. "That's the last, and I've no
+more paper," sighed Francis, and Miles echoed the sigh.
+
+They were sitting now on the edge of the bunk; the cabin seemed very
+black to their eyes, still dazzled with the last flash, and the air
+was hot and heavy with the pungent odor of burnt powder. Miles sniffed
+it contentedly. "This is what 'twould be like in a great battle," he
+began. "Sometime I mean to be a soldier and have a musket. Did you ever
+shoot with a musket, Francis?"
+
+"No, but I've shot off a fowling piece," answered the other. He
+clambered upon the bunk, groping audibly in the dark, and presently
+dropped down again beside his companion with something long and
+slender and heavy in his arms. "Look you, Miles, here's daddy's fowling
+piece now," he said exultantly. "What say if I shoot her off?"
+
+"'Twould make a mighty big noise in so small a room," Miles answered
+longingly.
+
+"Give me the match, then."
+
+Later Miles remembered clearly how Francis had sprung to his feet at
+the word, but after that all was a confusion of dire noises,--a rending
+crash, then a sound of women screaming, of children crying, and of
+men running with clattering footsteps across the great cabin. Through
+it all he felt the weight of Francis Billington, who had pitched back
+against him, and he saw a little spurt of yellow fire that licked along
+the boards. Though he did not remember snatching a blanket from the
+bunk, one was in his hand, and he was down upon the floor, smothering
+the flames that would press out beyond the edges. A powder keg was
+somewhere near, he recollected, and he beat out one little jet of flame
+with his hand, that smarted fiercely.
+
+It all must have taken a long, long time, but still the women screamed,
+and the heavy footsteps had only just reached the door. The latch
+rattled beneath a rough hand, the light streamed into the cabin, and
+Miles dropped back against the bunk, with his arm up to shut out the
+glare of the lanterns, and the sight, too, of the angry faces in the
+doorway. "Francis, Francis," he found himself saying, in a poor whisper
+that he realized was not meant for Francis Billington's ears, "we must
+'a' killed some one."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+THE NAME OF MILES
+
+
+IN the great cabin two huge, smoky lanterns, that swayed from the beams
+overhead, cast blending white circles in the middle space, while the
+corners still remained dusky. Somewhere, there in the dark, a woman
+was crying hysterically, and others, calmer, but with startled, white
+faces, were standing beyond the group of men, who were gathered round
+the door of the Billingtons' cabin. Miles saw about him all the faces,
+terrified or menacing, but it was blurrily, as in a dream. He kept
+telling himself it was all a dream, an ugly dream, and presently he
+would awake to find he had never gone with Francis Billington, and very
+glad he would be to awake so.
+
+But the grasp on his neck--it was big John Alden, the cooper from
+Southampton, who had dragged him out into the great cabin--was real,
+and so, he now found, were the faces of the men who confronted him. The
+Elder, William Brewster, with his gray hair, and grave Governor Carver,
+he noted among them, with a hopeless feeling that all the majesty of
+the company was come thither to judge him. Close by, he heard Francis
+Billington crying, with tearful sobs, not dry howls alone, but Miles
+dropped his shamed eyes to the floor of the cabin and did not look at
+his companion. He heard Goodman Billington's rough voice, thick with
+abuse and threats against his son, and then he heard the Elder cut him
+short: "Peace now, friend. Maybe the lad is hurt."
+
+Just then, from within the Billingtons' cabin, whence a light smoke
+still drifted, spoke a quick, deep voice: "Come you in and lend a hand,
+Alden. There is work for two needs despatch. The floor here is over
+shoe thick with powder."
+
+"Ay, Captain Standish," the young man answered promptly, and loosed his
+hold on Miles's collar.
+
+There was a little movement in the group of men, and Master Stephen
+Hopkins, stepping closer to the cabin door, peered in and spoke
+solemnly: "A full keg of powder broke open! 'Tis by the mercy of Heaven
+alone the ship was not blown into atoms."
+
+"I did not have it in mind to blow up the ship," Miles faltered,
+raising his eyes. "I did but touch off a squib--because it would burn
+bravely." There the words choked in his throat, for, a little back from
+the other men, he caught sight of his father, and Goodman Rigdale's
+arms were folded, his heavy brows drawn close together, and his lips,
+beneath his beard, set in a way Miles knew of old. "I did not mean it,"
+he repeated huskily, and, gazing at the floor again, began crushing a
+fold of his doublet in his hand.
+
+About him there was questioning and answering, he knew, and he heard
+Francis whimper: "'Twas Miles. He touched off squibs, he did."
+
+"Squibs do not make such a noise as that we heard," Governor Carver
+interrupted sternly.
+
+"'Twas daddy's fowling piece. Miles Rigdale and I shot her off, and
+he--"
+
+"Let Miles Rigdale rest," the Elder admonished. "Do you tell us of
+Francis Billington."
+
+Bit by bit a fairly accurate story was drawn from the two boys, though
+by such slow and woful stages that before it was ended Captain Miles
+Standish and John Alden, with their hands all grimed with powder,
+came out from the cabin. Miles stole a fearful side-glance at the
+Low Country soldier, who, being trained in the brutal discipline of
+the camps, was likely to prove a harsher judge than the Elder or
+the Governor, but, to his relief, he saw the Captain halt beside
+Goodman Billington, to whom he growled out some pithy advice as to
+the expediency of keeping his powder covered up and out of reach of
+mischievous hands.
+
+Miles took heart a little then, as much as he could take heart while he
+knew Goodman Rigdale was frowning in the background, and even ventured
+to look up when he heard Elder Brewster say, in a tone which a trace
+of amusement and much relief made almost kindly: "Well, well, 'twas no
+Guy Fawkes conspiracy, it seems, only the folly of two scatter-brained
+lads. Your Excellency scarce will set them in the bilboes?"
+
+"Nay, I leave it to their fathers to teach them not to meddle with such
+tools in future," Governor Carver answered gravely; and thereupon, with
+a surly mutter or so from other fathers in the company as to what the
+two culprits deserved to get, the men scattered to weightier affairs.
+
+As the group thinned, Miles was left face to face with his father, who,
+making a curt sign for him to come after, led the way to the door of
+the cabin. Miles felt queer and empty at the pit of his stomach, and
+his fingers trembled as he began unhooking his doublet, but he followed
+along bravely. His eyes were still downcast, and, as he stepped, he
+counted the planks in the flooring and tried to think of nothing but
+their number.
+
+Out in the darkness of the forward deck his father gave him such
+punishment as he looked for,--a beating with a rope's end, so hard that
+Miles had to set his teeth tight and clench his hands to keep from
+crying. Once, in the midst, Goodman Rigdale stayed his arm, and in the
+instant's cessation Miles, standing in his shirt-sleeves, felt the wind
+from across the harbor strike cold on his hot flesh, that was quivering
+with the blows. "That is for that you near destroyed the ship," his
+father spoke, gravely and without anger. "Now I must flog you for that
+you disobeyed me, and had to do with one of those Billington imps."
+
+The second whipping ended, Miles huddled on his doublet, stiffly and
+awkwardly, glad of the darkness that hid his face. Goodman Rigdale was
+speaking again: "And ere you lie down to-night, my son, remember to
+give thanks unto God that by His mercy He has preserved you from being
+cast into His presence with the deaths of all that are within this ship
+upon your soul."
+
+Miles did not quite follow the words, but, with a sense that he was
+the chiefest of sinners, and with a keen realization that his back and
+sides were smarting, he gulped out an unsteady "Yes, sir," and blindly
+fled away.
+
+Aft of the foremast, as he stumbled uncertainly, he ran against a
+woman, and at once he knew it was his mother. In an unformed way he was
+aware that she had been waiting to comfort him, and at each blow had
+suffered more than he. Her voice was quavering now, though she tried
+hard to keep her everyday tone: "Come, come down to the cabin now.
+Father has shot a bird, and I've made a broth to our supper. Come,
+deary, it is turning chill here."
+
+Shaking off the hand she laid on his arm, Miles broke away and ran to
+the mainmast, where the hatchway yawned. Slipping and swinging on the
+steep ladder, he descended headlong; he was not going to his father's
+cabin, nor did he know whither he was going, only that he wanted to be
+by himself. On the orlop deck he halted an instant before passing down
+into the hold; below, there would be many people, while here, for the
+moment, he was alone. He stood blinking at the dim lantern that hung by
+the ladder, till slowly it grew blurry to his eyes, and, raising his
+bent arm, he hid his face.
+
+It seemed only a moment before he heard someone come tramping up from
+the hold, and felt a hand on his shoulder. He was turned round; he
+had to look up; and he saw, standing over him, Master Hopkins, very
+grim and stern, as was his wont. "I am glad to see these tears of
+repentance, Miles Rigdale," he spoke severely.
+
+Miles wriggled out of his hold. "I am not repentant," he cried. "I wish
+I _had_ blown _you_ up. Now you can go bid my father flog me again."
+With that he dodged the hand Hopkins put out to detain him, and,
+jumping over some coils of rope, scrambled away out of reach.
+
+Clambering over the chests and kegs that were placed upon the orlop,
+he paused only when he reached the next cleared space, by the forward
+hatchway that led to the gunroom. There it was all dark, a comfortable,
+thick blackness, and, to make it safer and lonelier, he crept under a
+table that was stored among other household stuff.
+
+For a moment he sat panting, and listened to the lap, lap of the waves
+upon the side of the ship and to his own heavy breathing, but he heard
+no sound of any one's pursuing him. Doubtless Master Hopkins had
+gone away to tell every one that he was crying and repentant, Miles
+tormented himself; no matter, he was never coming out to be jeered at
+and preached to; he would stay under the table forever, and he would
+not shed another tear to please them.
+
+So he sat, rigid and still, and each moment grew more keenly aware that
+he was sore from his beating, that his head ached, and his burnt hand
+throbbed, and his heart was big with a great burden of shame. Of a
+sudden, in the stillness and dark, he heard a sob. Then he found it was
+himself, lying with his head buried in his arms against the crosspiece
+that braced the legs of the table, and crying helplessly.
+
+He had lost track of the minutes, but he had lain there a long time,
+he knew, for his arms were numb with the pressure of the crosspiece
+against them, and his throat ached with much sobbing, when he caught
+the sound of a footstep on the planking of the orlop. At the same
+moment, light beat against his smarting eyelids, and, opening his eyes,
+he raised his head to look.
+
+The edges of the table under which he crouched were silhouetted blackly
+against the yellow lantern-glow, which crept midway into his shelter.
+Following with his eyes along the light, he could see beyond the table
+the joinings of the planks of the floor, a bit of the ladder that led
+to the main deck, and by the ladder, in shadow as the lantern was
+raised, the lower part of a man's body.
+
+Miles stared breathlessly at the commonplace leather shoes and kersey
+breeches,--all the rest the table hid from his view,--while he strove
+to hold back a sob that was halfway up his throat. It would out, but he
+tried to turn it into a sneeze, which ended in a mournful, indefinable
+gurgle.
+
+Instantly the light of the lantern, swinging round, swept almost into
+his face, and a deep voice commanded: "Come out hither."
+
+Miles sat up, tense and braced. "Is it you, Captain Standish?" he
+asked, in a small voice. Not that, to his knowledge, Miles Standish had
+ever hurt any one, but he was a brusque, peremptory man, reputed of a
+fiery temper; it was for this, probably, that Master Hopkins had sent
+him hither, as one fitted to deal out further punishment to such a
+criminal as Miles Rigdale.
+
+"Come out, and you'll speedily find if 'tis I," Standish's voice
+rejoined grimly.
+
+Miles rubbed his sleeve across his eyes, the rough frieze hurting them
+rarely, then dubiously crept from his shelter. The straight course was
+to crawl toward the light, but to go that way would land him squarely
+at the Captain's feet,--a last touch of ignominy that he could not
+endure. So he scrambled painfully over the crosspieces and round the
+table-legs, till he came out upon the open floor the width of the
+table-top from the enemy.
+
+"It's naught but you, is it?" the Captain greeted him, and turned the
+lantern so the light fell full upon him.
+
+The boy struggled hastily to his feet. "Ay, sir," he nodded, without
+speaking or looking up.
+
+The other drew a step nearer. "You're one of the knaves who tried to
+blow up the _Mayflower_, are you not?" he questioned sternly. "Did you
+steal down here to fire the magazine and finish the work?"
+
+"I--I did not go for to blow up the ship, sir," Miles pleaded, raising
+his eyes. With amazed relief, he saw that, for all his gruff tone, the
+Captain looked more amused than angry.
+
+Standish must have taken closer note of him, too, for he asked
+abruptly: "You're John Rigdale's lad, are you not?"
+
+"I am Miles Rigdale."
+
+The lantern was lowered suddenly. "My namesake, are you? Do you
+not think, sirrah, you bear too good a name to drag it into a
+powder-burning matter such as this?"
+
+"I do not hold it a good name," Miles burst out. "I would they had
+called me plain Jack."
+
+"Wherefore, pray you?"
+
+"Miles is no name at all," the boy hesitated, between shyness and the
+desire to vent a long-standing resentment. "It makes me think of the
+stone in our village that said: 'Thirteen miles to London.'"
+
+"Tut, tut, lad! Have you no Latin?"
+
+Miles slipped one hand under the edge of the table against which he
+leaned, and picked at a splinter he found there, while he stammered:
+"N--no, sir. There was no school in our village, and, had there been,
+my father could not spare me from the farm. I must help him, for I'm
+mighty strong for my years," he added gravely. "And I never want to go
+sit in a school, either. I am glad there will be no schools here in
+the plantation, not till I'm a man and can do as I will. I hold that
+is the best part of all in planting a colony, except the lions and the
+savages."
+
+"And what do you think to do with the lions and savages, Miles
+Rigdale?"
+
+"Fight 'em, sir."
+
+Captain Standish chuckled softly in his beard. "You'll fight 'em, eh?
+'Tis a great pity, in truth, no one has told you what name you bear.
+You should know that Miles in the Latin tongue signifies 'a soldier.'"
+
+Miles forgot that his cheeks were tear-stained and his eyes swollen,
+and looked up happily into the speaker's face. "I am right glad of
+that," he announced. "'Tis a good enough name, after all." He was
+sorely tempted to ask the Captain if he had been named that after he
+proved himself a soldier in the wars, or if they named him first and he
+grew to it afterward, but he concluded that would be over-bold.
+
+Though, after all, he began to doubt if Captain Standish were such
+a terrible body. He looked pleasant enough now, as he stood in the
+lantern light,--a stocky, square-shouldered man of some six and thirty
+years, with yellow-brown hair and beard, and eyes so deep set under his
+brows Miles could not tell their color. The linen bands at his neck and
+wrists were small and plain, and along the sides of his doublet of dark
+maroon kersey the rubbing of armor had worn down the cloth. He was not
+so fine a gentleman, doubtless, as young Master Edward Winslow, but he
+looked the man of war, through and through, and, moreover, he neither
+scolded nor preached at a small sinner; Miles began to be glad in his
+heart that he bore the same name as the Captain.
+
+"So, after all, you're content to be named 'Soldier' Rigdale?" Standish
+suddenly read the expression of his face.
+
+"'Tis a soldier that I mean to be," Miles confessed. "I like the smell
+of powder."
+
+"So it seems," the Captain answered, in the dryest possible tone, and
+then, as Miles's cheeks began to burn, went on hastily: "Which was it,
+you or the Billington lad, put out the fire? We found the blanket on
+the floor of the cabin."
+
+"Mayhap 'twas I. I do not recall it clearly."
+
+The Captain reached out his hand, and, taking Miles by a fold of the
+doublet-sleeve, lifted his arm. "No doubt 'twas you," he said; "you've
+blistered your hand here."
+
+"I know. It aches," Miles whispered, with a sudden husky dropping of
+his voice.
+
+"You'd better go to your mother straightway and ask her to put oil on
+it; that will soon draw out the fire."
+
+"I can't," Miles gulped. "I can never go out among the people again.
+When they all think I tried to blow them up,--and when every one will
+know I have been newly whipped. I shall stay here forever." His voice
+died down as he spoke the last: it did not sound manly, but uncommon
+silly.
+
+"You'd get mighty hungry if you did," the soldier answered him coolly.
+"You're going to your mother now, my man. Run along with you. I've to
+go on down into the gunroom, but I'll light you up the ladder."
+
+Miles gave a tremulous gasp of resignation, and scuffed slowly to the
+foot of the ladder, where he paused and smeared the back of his hand
+across his cheeks; then turned to his companion. "Captain Standish," he
+hesitated; then, as it was the only possible way of learning what he
+wished to know before he showed himself among the company, he blurted
+out desperately, "Will you tell me, is my face clean?"
+
+Captain Standish looked down at him with a funny expression in his
+eyes. "I think 'twill serve in a half light, if you slip directly into
+your father's cabin."
+
+"Thank you, sir," Miles answered; then added hastily, "You see, there
+was something flew into my eye, and one that did not know might
+think--I had been crying."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+THIEVISH HARBOR
+
+
+ONE sharp December afternoon, a week and a day after the Pilgrim
+leaders went forth the third time to seek a place for settlement, Love
+Brewster and his little brother Wrestling climbed down to the cabins
+beneath the main deck to visit their playmate, Dolly Rigdale. The cubby
+where Dolly and Miles and their father and mother had lived during the
+two months of the voyage over the sea and the five weeks of exploration
+that followed, was a dim box of a place, but the little boys liked to
+visit it, not only to talk with Dolly, who was nearer their age than
+most of the children in the company, but to see Trug and Solomon.
+
+Trug was the big, grizzled mastiff, who had guarded the house and the
+cattle faithfully for so many years that even stern John Rigdale had
+not the heart to leave him to strangers; and Solomon, with the wise
+eyes of royal yellow, was the fat house-cat, whom Dolly had insisted on
+bringing with her to the new home.
+
+"If it had been my pet, 'twould 'a' had to bide in England," Miles had
+told himself, in one bitter, jealous moment, of which he was justly
+ashamed. For, without question, Goodman Rigdale cared equally for his
+two children, only he held Miles, being a stubborn chip of manhood,
+needed frequent beatings, such as the Scriptures enjoined on good
+fathers to give their sons, whereas Dolly was just a little wench, with
+gray eyes like her mother, so she received very gentle whippings and
+triumphantly lugged Solomon on shipboard.
+
+The sleek, striped creature lay beside her now, for Dolly, still ailing
+with her cough, was resting on the bunk beneath the blankets. Wrestling
+Brewster, a big-eyed, silent child, sat by her, and, sorry to tell,
+joined forces with the little girl in rumpling poor Solomon's fur. "You
+are the best pussy," Dolly purred meantime, and, either because of her
+flattery or because the warm blankets were comfortable, the cat made no
+movement to leave her.
+
+Ordinarily Miles sniffed at the conversation of eight-year-olds, such
+as his sister, but this afternoon he gladly lingered in the cabin, for
+the accomplishments of the Brewster lads were amazing enough to lift
+them to the rank of companions. Both could jabber Dutch quite as fast
+as Miles could speak English, and Love, the talkative one, could tell
+wonderful stories of the queer Low Country city of Leyden, where all
+his short life had been spent. It was of Leyden he spoke now, sitting
+beside Miles on the turned-up mattress, where at night Goodman Rigdale
+and his son slept, and Miles, with a question here and there to draw
+out what he sought, listened again to the story of the Pilgrims.
+
+Love had good reason to know it well, for his father, Elder Brewster,
+had been from the first one of the leaders of the little company. He
+had given all his substance to help the cause of that faith which the
+bishops of the great Established Church of England held it right to
+crush out; he had suffered imprisonment for the sake of that faith;
+and finally, that he and his friends might worship God as they thought
+best, had gone into exile in Holland.
+
+There for twelve years the Pilgrim church held its own, though its
+members, for all their efforts to support themselves in that strange
+country, fared hardly and poorly. Good Deacon Fuller, the physician,
+had been glad to earn his living as a say or serge maker; Master
+William Bradford had been a maker of fustian; and the Elder had
+maintained his family and aided his poorer companions by teaching
+English to Danish and German gentlemen, and later by printing English
+books.
+
+Love told also of Master Carver, the recently elected governor of the
+company, who had given his whole fortune to the Pilgrim cause; and
+he spoke of gallant Master Edward Winslow, who, travelling in the Low
+Countries with his newly married wife, had come to know and to respect
+the Pilgrim folk and finally to cast in his lot with theirs. And, best
+of all, Love could tell of Captain Standish.
+
+There the boy turned to what Miles had been waiting to hear, and be
+sure that now he eagerly drank in each word: how the Captain came of
+a great family in Lancashire, where he had a vast estate which his
+kinsfolk had taken from him,--so Love had once heard him say to the
+Elder; how he had fought bravely against the wicked Spaniards, as far
+back as the time of Queen Bess, when Miles Standish was a very young
+man indeed; and how, of a sudden, he had come with his young wife and
+joined himself to the Pilgrims, why, none could say, for he was "not of
+our faith," Love gravely quoted the older people.
+
+That last did not greatly displease Miles, perhaps because his own
+father was rather a Puritan than an ardent Separatist, as those were
+called who, like the Pilgrims of Leyden, broke off all communion with
+the Established Church. Goodman John Rigdale grumbled about the bishops
+and the vestments of the clergymen and other matters which Miles
+neither heeded nor comprehended, but, for all his grumbling, as often
+as the law insisted, he and his household went to church. One of the
+first and liveliest recollections of childhood which Miles kept, was of
+how the red light from the painted windows that his father hated used
+to shift along the dark oak of the old pews.
+
+Lately, though, John Rigdale had spoken out too openly against the
+service book, and there had been a citation before the ecclesiastical
+court. Miles scarcely understood the matter, but he knew that Dun-face,
+the pet heifer, had been sold to pay a fine, and that their landlord,
+swearing that he was too good a Church of England man to suffer a
+pestilent Separatist hold a farm of him, had refused to renew the
+lease, bought long ago by Miles's grandfather, which now ran out.
+
+Then had come Master Stephen Hopkins, the London tanner, whose first
+wife had been a distant cousin of John Rigdale's, and he had talked of
+the new country over seas, where a man might have land and a farm of
+his own for the asking and worship to please his conscience, not the
+king's bishops. Master Hopkins had already made up his mind to embark
+with the people from Leyden; he had met their agent, Master Cushman,
+and he was acquainted with some of the London merchants who had
+formed a partnership with the Leyden people, the Londoners to furnish
+money to pay the expenses of the long voyage, the Separatists to give
+themselves and their families to defend and till the plantation thus
+gained.
+
+In the end, Master Hopkins's statements were so weighty that Goodman
+Rigdale followed his example. The stout farm horse and the cows and the
+pigs were all led away to market, and Dolly cried over each one; and
+Goodwife Rigdale, too, wept a little when most of the bits of furniture
+were sold. But Miles thought it all very merry and stirring,--the
+breaking up of the home he had known, the journey to Southampton, all
+amidst new sights and sounds, and the ship, and the long voyage over
+the sea, till the _Mayflower_ dropped anchor off Cape Cod.
+
+He was more than a bit weary of the voyage and the ship now, however,
+as he sat on the turned-up mattress in his father's stuffy little
+cabin. The dead air was cold without being bracing, and Miles broke
+short Love's discourse on the journey of the Leyden Pilgrims into
+England, by springing up and stamping his chilled feet.
+
+"It _is_ a shrewd cold day," said his companion. "See!" He puffed at
+the air, and his breath made a little white cloud. "Maybe we'd best go
+up on deck and run."
+
+At that word the two older boys turned to the door, but Wrestling shook
+his head and, pressing closer to Dolly, whispered: "Before I go, I want
+that you show me the Indian basket."
+
+Miles overheard, and delayed to draw from beneath the bunk the deal box
+in which the treasure was kept. Wrestling was so young that he seemed
+hardly more than a baby, and as a baby Miles had a kindly, protecting
+feeling for him; when he rose with the box he opened it so the little
+boy might have the first sight. Within lay a tiny basket all of silk
+grass, pictured on which in black and white were birds and flowers of a
+curious pattern.
+
+"Did your father truly bring it from the Indians?" Love asked.
+
+"He brought it home to me," Dolly explained proudly. "It was in an
+Indian house, and my father found it when he went ashore with Captain
+Standish. And so he brought it to me."
+
+Wrestling touched the fragile thing gingerly. "I wish our father fought
+the Indians once," he murmured.
+
+"It is better to be an Elder," Love rebuked him sternly; then added,
+lest Dolly's feelings be hurt, "though, to be sure, there can be but
+one Elder in a company. The rest must be fighting men, must they not,
+Miles?"
+
+But Miles gave no heed; for just then the sound of soft footsteps made
+him glance to the open door, at which the light drifted in, and there,
+standing on the threshold, he saw his mother.
+
+Years afterward, when he looked back, Miles realized Goodwife Rigdale
+had been a young woman then, not above thirty, but in those days it
+seemed to him she must be old, because she was his mother; he even
+wondered that she had not hair streaked with gray, like Mistress
+Brewster. Mothers were always old, he generalized rashly, just as they
+were always gentle-spoken and full of kindness; only that last judgment
+he revoked, after he came aboard the _Mayflower_ and heard Goodwife
+Billington, a true London virago, rail at her sons and saw her cuff
+them.
+
+But his own mother was not to be belittled by naming her with Ellen
+Billington; she was everything that was good and to be loved, even
+if she did not wear such a brave gown as Mistress Winslow, nor have
+such pink cheeks as Mistress Standish. Miles drew away from the bunk,
+against which he had been leaning, to make room for her to sit, though
+he did it awkwardly, because Love and Wrestling were looking.
+
+"I'll bide a bit now with my little maid," she said, as she drew the
+blankets more closely about Dolly. "You'll want to be running up on
+deck now, I can guess, deary, and Love and Wrestling too, if Mistress
+Brewster will suffer it."
+
+"Mother, is the shallop in sight?" Miles cried eagerly. For, since the
+exploring party sailed forth a week before, there had come so great a
+storm that hearts aboard the _Mayflower_ were not a little anxious for
+their welfare.
+
+"They've made out a sail to the southward, I heard the talk run. Go you
+and learn further, Miles. Your father will be on deck too."
+
+Miles reddened a little; why would she speak as if he were a young boy,
+to need his father? "Come, lads," he said, in a very old tone, to hide
+his mortification, and led the way from the cabin. As he passed out at
+the door, he heard a sorrowful wail from Dolly: "O me! Mammy, can I not
+run about with them soon?"
+
+But Miles forgot Dolly's woes and all, when he clambered into the
+bracing air of the deck, whither the most of the hale ones of the
+company had, like himself, bustled to watch the approaching shallop.
+Shreds of dappled cloud half obscured the east, but low in the west the
+sun was cold and yellow, and its light flecked the water and made the
+sail of the distant craft gleam like gold.
+
+Miles stared till for very dazzle he could see no longer, then turned
+his gaze inboard, where it rested on the slender figure of a woman, who
+leaned against the mainmast. When the light got out of his eyes, he
+perceived it was Mistress Rose Standish, who, while he was still gazing
+on her, came to the bulwark beside him, but, without seeming to see
+him, stood looking toward the shallop.
+
+Once and again Miles glanced up at her, thinking how bonny she was
+with the flush on her cheeks and her brown hair straying from beneath
+her hood across her forehead; and then he grew suddenly hot, for she
+chanced to look down, and their eyes met. He drew away bashfully and
+stared again at the shallop; the sun had now dropped lower, so the
+waves around it were sombre, but within the boat sparkled a gleam of
+light on metal armor. Miles almost thought to be able to distinguish
+the forms of the men, and presently their faces. "Yon is the Captain,"
+he broke out, half aloud.
+
+"Do you see him, too?" Mistress Standish spoke, as if he had addressed
+her.
+
+"That's he, by the mast, with the steel corselet."
+
+She looked down again, and the boy noted her eyes were moist, though
+she smiled as she said: "You seem to know the Captain very well, sir."
+
+"I'd know him anywhere," Miles answered earnestly. "You understand, he
+was right kind to me."
+
+Then he broke off speech, for the shallop was now fairly alongside,
+and the men in her were calling to those on shipboard greetings and
+questions and answers. Mistress Standish moved quickly toward the
+gangway, and Miles saw her meet the Captain, when he clambered up the
+ladder.
+
+Next after him came Master William Bradford, and suddenly it struck
+with a shock on Miles's remembrance that Mistress Bradford was dead,
+drowned alongside the _Mayflower_ on the very day after the shallop
+sailed, and her body carried away among the waves. Master Bradford,
+for all the weariness in his movements, looked cheerful and hopeful as
+he gained the deck, and his eyes went glancing over the women gathered
+there with such a certainty of meeting one that, child though he was,
+Miles realized something of the pity of it.
+
+But after Elder Brewster had led Master Bradford away, the horror and
+the pity slipped quickly from Miles. Drawing over closer to the gangway
+ladder, he stood watching the rest of the shallop's company scramble
+to the deck, and, listening to every scrap of speech, was soon eager
+as any of the other boys in questioning the sailors and Hopkins's man,
+Dotey.
+
+The minutes ran on till dim twilight had darkened upon the water, when
+at last, bursting with news, Miles clambered down again to Goodwife
+Rigdale in the cabin. "They've found a place for us to settle, mother,"
+he announced, barely within the door.
+
+Goodwife Rigdale hushed him with a finger on her lips; Dolly was
+asleep, so he must speak softly.
+
+Miles curled himself up on the floor at his mother's feet, with his
+elbow on her knee, and whispered: "'Tis at a place called Thievish
+Harbor--"
+
+"Nay, that's an ill name," commented the Goodwife.
+
+"'Tis because a savage stole a harpoon from a ship's boat that once put
+in there to truck, so says Robert Coppin, the pilot. It lies across a
+great bay here, and there are fair green islands and many brooks and
+cleared land and tall trees. We are going thither, all of us, mother.
+The ship is to sail so soon as the wind favors. And if they like of it
+on further look, we'll go ashore and stay. I want to go ashore again,"
+he ended wistfully; "the week's out that father said I must stay on
+the ship. Won't you beg him take me ashore first thing when we come
+thither, mother?"
+
+The flickering light that reached them from the lantern hung outside
+the cabin door was blotted out then, as Goodman Rigdale himself came
+in. Miles dared ask no favors of him directly, however, but, scrambling
+to his feet, stood silent and unobtrusive, though he listened eagerly
+to all his father had to say of Thievish Harbor, which he called
+Plymouth. "So it is named on the maps that were drawn by Captain
+Smith," he said, to which Goodwife Rigdale answered quickly: "I am glad
+for the name. Do you not have in mind, John, how kindly the people
+at our English Plymouth dealt by us when we had to put in at their
+harbor?"
+
+But this new Plymouth in America bore little resemblance to Plymouth
+in Devonshire, as Miles found, to his surprise, when he had his first
+sight of the place where the company was to settle. It was on the
+afternoon of the day succeeding the return of the shallop that, the
+wind at last favoring, the _Mayflower_ steered her course for the bay
+of Plymouth. The sunshine was strong and clear, and the air mild, so
+Goodwife Rigdale suffered Dolly come up on deck, where, well wrapped in
+a cloak, she stood between her mother and Miles.
+
+Others in plenty, all the passengers who could walk about, were
+watching for a glimpse of the new home, but Miles, in his eagerness,
+scarcely heeded his companions. He strained his eyes to see the
+headlands, brave with evergreen, loom higher and higher, and ran to
+question his friend, Giles Hopkins, who had been talking with the
+sailors, as to what they were. Giles explained that the one on the left
+was not the mainland, but a well-wooded point, and on the right yonder
+the farther of the two islands, with the trees, was where the exploring
+party had spent their Sabbath.
+
+By the time Miles returned to his mother with the news, they were
+running in between the point and the islands, and presently, well
+within the harbor, they dropped anchor in a safe mooring ground. All
+about them were headlands and islands; far to the right, across the
+bay, rose a great hill; and just over opposite where the ship lay a
+broad space of open land, with high hills behind, could be made out.
+
+"Yonder's where we'll settle," Miles assured his mother.
+
+"I see no houses," protested Dolly. "I thought there would be cottages,
+maybe. Must we lie in the woods, mammy?"
+
+"Nonsense! We'll build houses," scoffed Miles; he would have blushed
+to own that, half unconsciously, he, too, had cherished the fancy of
+seeing on the New England shore straggling streets and tiny cottages,
+as in old Plymouth.
+
+"You'll build houses, Miles?" teased his sister.
+
+"Father and I and all the men," the boy bragged. "Build them of great
+logs. Then in the spring will come a ship with horses and cows and
+sheep, and we'll have farms, just as we had at home."
+
+"With a hedge round the dooryard?" Dolly questioned.
+
+"Yes, and meadow-land and ploughed fields. We'll have all in order when
+the frost leaves the ground," Miles answered confidently.
+
+Then he looked up at his mother, and was astonished to see that for
+once her eyes were not on her children, but on the empty shore over
+opposite. Her face was wistful, and it came on Miles that perhaps she
+was not as interested in the farm concerns as he, who was a man, so he
+said quickly: "And you can have a garden here, mother, full of rosemary
+and daffadowndillies, just as at home. Maybe you'll not have to labor
+so hard here," he added more vaguely, not quite understanding her
+silence.
+
+She smiled a little then. "That's a good lad, Miles," she said, putting
+her arm about his shoulders; then she bade him go to his mates if he
+would, and she led Dolly back to the cabin.
+
+Miles stood alone, gazing at the home-shore and wondering where his
+father's farm would lie. Still thinking on it, he was turning toward
+the hatchway, when he almost ran into Goodman Rigdale. "O father,"
+Miles broke out before he thought, "may I not go with you when we begin
+our farm? I'll conduct me well and be obedient."
+
+He stopped, surprised at his own forwardness, and he was more surprised
+when his father, looking down at him gravely, said without chiding:
+"Our farm? Ay, Miles, so soon as there is work to do on shore you shall
+come with me and bear a hand."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+HEWERS OF WOOD AND DRAWERS OF WATER
+
+
+"TO-MORROW I am going ashore." Thus Miles Rigdale proclaimed, from his
+perch on the bunk in his father's cabin, to all who might choose to
+hear.
+
+"'Tis the forty and third time you've said that in the last sennight,"
+Ned Lister answered dryly. He was lounging in the cabin door,
+shirt-sleeved and shivering, while Goodwife Rigdale repaired his
+doublet; Mistress Hopkins, to whom the task ordinarily fell, lay ill,
+and her stepdaughter, Constance, was so busied that, to relieve her,
+Alice Rigdale had taken the young man and his mending off her hands.
+
+"Why do you not put on your cloak, if you be cold, Ned Lister?" Dolly
+spoke up.
+
+"Because 'tis too much labor to fetch it, Puss," Ned answered, whereat
+Miles laughed, and the Goodwife's brows puckered; another might have
+said it was because the sewing gave her trouble, but Miles, who felt
+uncomfortably that his mother disapproved of Ned as a scatter-brained,
+reckless fellow, guessed that she had not liked that last speech.
+
+He was sure of his guess when she hastened to change the subject: "Does
+it still rain upon deck, Edward?"
+
+"Rain and naught else; the third day of it now, yet by the look it
+might pour on for a week."
+
+"And my daddy's yonder in the wet on shore," murmured Dolly, pressing
+close against her mother's knee, and the Goodwife sewed more slowly,
+with her eyes downcast.
+
+But Miles burst into lamentation: "I think they might 'a' taken me
+ashore. Since we came into Plymouth Harbor they've explored and
+explored, and never suffered me to come, but they took Giles Hopkins
+with them. And now the randevous is built on shore, and some of the men
+are staying there, it has rained and rained so I cannot go to them. But
+I'm going to-morrow, the very next time the shallop sails."
+
+"To be sure you shall," Lister answered, as he scrambled into his
+mended doublet. "I'll take you along with me."
+
+Then he swaggered away jauntily, as if he had promised ample service
+in return for his mending, and Goodwife Rigdale, with a bit of a sigh,
+said softly to Miles: "'Tis well meant of Edward Lister to see you safe
+ashore, but when you are there, remember, you are to stay with your
+father, not go roving with him."
+
+Miles's satisfaction at Ned's offer was a bit tempered by her words,
+but he lost the remembrance of them next morning, when he saw the
+sun was rising clear and the shallop would go shoreward. At once he
+clattered down to the cabin to get his cap and mittens, and Trug,
+who must go with him; then ran up on deck again, where, in the chill
+sunlight, the men were laboring briskly to load the shallop. Miles
+watched them while they put in the felling-axes and handsaws and
+hammers, all the tools that were to build the new town of Plymouth,
+and the biscuit and salt beef and pease that were to form the workers'
+rations.
+
+About the time the labor was ended, Ned sauntered up to the gangway,
+and, seeing Miles, very speedily helped him clamber down the ladder,
+and made Trug leap after him. Master Isaac Allerton, who was settled
+comfortably in the stern, grumbled at burdening the shallop with
+children and curs, so Miles put his arms about Trug, and, cuddling down
+in the bottom of the boat, made himself as still and small as possible
+lest, after all, the company, thinking better of it, bid him scramble
+up the gangway ladder again.
+
+But the time for that was past, for the shallop, with her sail hanging
+sluggish, had crept surely out from the lee of the _Mayflower_, and
+now, catching the light breeze, actually stood in to the shore. Miles
+forgot the discomfort of his seat among the tools while he gazed
+toward the approaching coast line, where was to be his home. Behind him
+the sun was up, and the hills that rose away inland from the harbor
+were bright in the cold, yellow radiance, and the water and the sky
+that spread about him were both very blue. He glanced back over his
+shoulder at the dreary old _Mayflower_, and was surprised to find that,
+as the sun struck athwart her patched sails, even she was beautiful.
+
+Then the movement of those about him, and the sound of waves crunching
+on the shingle, made him look forward again. Under the shelter of a
+high bluff, where a great boulder ran out into the water, he saw those
+standing who had kept the randevous, and the randevous itself, a rude
+hut of boughs. In his eagerness Miles jumped up, and Trug, springing up
+too, began to bark, but no one took note or scolded, for the men were
+busied in running the shallop in alongside the rock, and some, leaping
+over the gunwale, were already splashing through the shallow water to
+the beach.
+
+Ned and Giles Hopkins made the shore thus, so Miles must do the like,
+and came to land all drenched and dripping. But it was land,--good,
+stable, brown earth, not the hateful, rolling ship,--he had beneath his
+feet, and, in the delight of the long unused sensation, he forgot he
+was wet and chilled, forgot his father awaited him, and there was work
+to do. He knew only that far and near the shore stretched widely, where
+a boy could run, so, for choice, he set his face to the bluff that
+towered above the landing.
+
+Up and up, through the keen, dry bushes, that whipped his hands and
+face so he laughed in the mere delight of struggling with them, he
+fought his way till he came breathless to the bare summit. All about
+him dazzled the blue of the harbor and of the unclouded sky, and
+yonder on his right, through its fringe of bushes, shone the blue of
+what seemed a cove. Down the hill rushed Miles, with Trug leaping and
+barking at his heels, and paused only on the shore of a great brook,
+that, flowing out between steep bluffs, widened into the sea.
+
+Another was before him there, his distant kinsman, Giles Hopkins,
+who, for all he was a sober lad of sixteen, was a good comrade to the
+younger boy. He now bade Miles come upstream to the spring the men had
+found on their last exploration, and Miles very readily followed him
+through the scrubby undergrowth, where the cove narrowed on the left
+hand, and on the right a high bluff kept pace with the boys. "It's on
+that bluff they mean to set the houses," Giles explained, over his
+shoulder.
+
+"Then we'll have this big stream in our dooryards," cried Miles. "Won't
+that be brave? I shall build me a raft, and sail to those wooded hills
+on the other side whenever I choose. Though, maybe, Indians dwell
+there," he added, with a dubious glance at Giles; he did not wish
+to seem afraid, but, though he intended to be a soldier, he did not
+purpose to fight without a musket and a long sword, and he wondered how
+much farther from the shore his leader would venture.
+
+But speedily his wonder had an end, for, breaking through a thicket of
+leafless alders, Giles halted at a little cavity within the sand of the
+riverbank, where the spring of sweet water bubbled up. Down lay Miles
+on the turf, and, using his hand for a cup, swallowed his first draught
+of New England water. "'Tis better than the brackish stuff we have on
+shipboard," he said, as he wiped his wet hands on his wet doublet.
+
+"The savages must have known the spot," answered the experienced Giles.
+"We found this path worn down hither from the bluff, and see, here is a
+line of stepping-stones across the brook."
+
+Miles glanced about him, half nervously, lest along the path or across
+the stones he see one of their former savage passengers approaching. He
+was at heart relieved when, as Giles led the way up the bluff, he heard
+in the distance the sound of an axe crashing on a tree trunk. Giles did
+not turn toward the sound, however, but went plodding on uphill, for
+above the bluff a second summit reared itself steeply. Miles panted in
+his trail, endlessly upward, it seemed, till at last he stood exhausted
+on a lofty hilltop, whence, far as the sea spread out before him, he
+beheld the wooded uplands roll away to westward.
+
+Giles was explaining wisely what a proper place this hill was for a
+fort, and how Captain Standish had advised the company mount upon
+it guns, which should command to southward the spring, and toward
+the harbor the landing place and the houses, which were to be built
+along the river bluff, when Master Hopkins and John Rigdale, tramping
+thither, ended their sons' holiday.
+
+"Is this the way you would work, Miles?" Goodman Rigdale asked sternly,
+and, fearing lest the next word sentence him to return at once to the
+_Mayflower_, Miles ran eagerly about the task they set him.
+
+All day he tugged chips and branches for the fire at the randevous, but
+it was work on land, in the free air, where a boy could shout as much
+as he wished, so he never realized he was weary till night came. He had
+to pack off to the ship with the other boys and near half the men, but
+he had no chance to grumble at this, as did some of his mates, for,
+once aboard the shallop, he leaned against Ned Lister and fell half
+asleep. Only when the shallop scraped the ship's side did he awake to
+stagger up the gangway ladder and stumble away to tell Dolly and his
+mother of the wonders he had seen ashore.
+
+Next day, being Sunday, no work was done, and the next day, being
+Christmas, Miles, who remembered what a time of merrymaking that was at
+home, thought he must idle again. But here on Christmas, from sunrise
+to sunset, it was all stern work. "We stain this virgin soil with no
+Popish holydays," Master Hopkins said grimly, and, though the rest did
+not exult in words, they labored with double fervor to show they did no
+honor to the day.
+
+Miles had his part to do on shore that Christmas and in the days that
+followed, though it was a different part from that he had hoped to
+have. When he talked to his mother and Dolly of building cottages,
+he had fancied that perhaps he would be allowed to sit high up on a
+ridgepole and drive nails. He knew he would enjoy doing that, but in
+practice he was set less pleasant tasks: he ran errands, not only for
+his father, but for every man who chose to send him; he fetched water
+up the steep bluff from the spring to the workers; and he carried
+firewood from where the choppers labored upon the bluff to where the
+first house was building.
+
+On occasion he even tended the fire and saw that the porridge did not
+burn, and more than once was sent to carry a portion of the food to
+the men who, unable to rise and get their rations, lay ill in the
+half-built log cabins. The numbers of these sick ever multiplied, for
+the close quarters and bad food aboard the _Mayflower_ had caused a
+fever to break out among her passengers, and the exposure to which the
+men and boys often recklessly subjected themselves increased the roll
+of the ailing, and, at last, of the dying.
+
+Miles was sorry, of course, for the men and women who sickened and
+died, but it was a sorrow that did not go deep enough to prevent his
+enjoying the open-air life, and the moments of play that he snatched
+from his work. For death had not come near any that he loved; Dolly and
+Jack Cooke had been ill, but they were getting better, and none of his
+other near acquaintances had been touched. To be sure, he himself went
+sneezing with a great cold, but it meant nothing, any more than did his
+father's cough; he did not worry for it the half as much as he fretted
+at the dull routine labors to which he was set.
+
+One day in January he had a hand in more exciting work, for Ned Lister
+and Giles Hopkins, who were going to cut swamp grass for thatch,
+invited him to come with them, and Ned even let him carry his sharp
+sickle. Ned himself turned all his effort to bearing a fowling piece,
+with the use of which, after the grass was cut, he had been bribed
+to the afternoon's labor, for he was afflicted with a hard cough that
+racked him most piteously when he was set to any work but hunting.
+
+So soon as they reached the piece of marshy ground in the deep hollow
+behind the first range of hills, where grew the grass they sought, one
+of those coughing fits laid hold on Ned. He really wasn't fit to work,
+he said, but, when Miles volunteered to do the task for him, he found
+energy to direct the boy's clumsy attempts with the sickle.
+
+Two bundles of grass the workers were expected to bring home, and Giles
+cut his, slowly and soberly, while Ned dallied with Miles, till he saw
+his companion had nearly gathered his share. Then Lister snatched the
+sickle from Miles, and, finishing the work in a surprisingly short time
+for a sick man, caught up his piece with the exclamation, "_Now_ we'll
+go fowling."
+
+Leaving the sickles and the bundles of grass where they lay, the three
+picked a path round the verge of the marsh and climbed westward over
+the hills. Last of all Miles trotted along bravely, very proud that he
+was one of the company, and full of interest at passing so far inland.
+But on the top of the second long hill, Giles suddenly cried out: "Look
+yonder. Is not that smoke?"
+
+Against the dull sky to the west Miles saw a little fine curl of gray,
+and the question was on his tongue's end, when Ned Lister anticipated
+it: "No, it can be none of our people so far from the shore. Savages,
+maybe. Say we go down and see."
+
+Shouldering his fowling piece, he set out jauntily, and the two boys
+came stoutly after. They scrambled down a rough hillslope and through
+another level piece, all open and stubbly, westward still, where the
+smoke rose. "This land has been cleared; 'tis true Indian ground here,"
+Ned spoke suddenly, and halted.
+
+Miles stopped short five paces behind his comrades. He looked to the
+hills ahead, where the bare branches of oak trees stood out clearly
+against the afternoon sky. It was a lowering sky, and night was coming.
+He glanced behind him, and saw only the barren wall of hills, no sign
+of the harbor or of the _Mayflower_. Ned and Giles were looking at each
+other with a something so dubious in their faces that Miles felt a
+griping sensation in his throat. He wondered if he could find his way
+back as he had come, and, doubting it, drew close to Ned, who had the
+fowling piece.
+
+Ned was fiddling with the lock of the piece and he spoke rather
+sheepishly: "I'm not afraid. But I'm not going to run into Heaven knows
+what with two younkers like you on my shoulders."
+
+"Say we march home, then?" Giles suggested, and straightway, facing
+round, they retraced their steps pretty smartly.
+
+Miles was still in the rear, and, as he went, he studied the long legs
+of his companions and thought how much more swiftly they could run for
+it, if anything came up behind them. Thinking so, he forgot to look to
+his feet, and, as they descended a gully, fell headlong with a great
+clattering of stones. "Wait for me!" he cried, in a sharp, high voice
+that did not sound natural.
+
+Ned glanced back, with his face tenser than its wont. "Here, take the
+fowling piece, Giles," he said curtly; then, returning to Miles, he
+lifted him to his feet, and, keeping one hand beneath his arm, helped
+him to hurry along.
+
+Thus they scurried down the hillside to the swamp, and, catching up
+their sickles and the thatch, pressed on toward the settlement. Not
+till they were panting up the landward side of the great hill and
+caught the faint sound of hammers in the street of the half-built town,
+did Ned suffer the speed to slacken. "You'll make a gallant soldier one
+day, Miley," he said then, and began laughing. "Though I take it no one
+of us was afraid; eh, boys?"
+
+They all agreed they were not in the least frightened, and some such
+version Ned must have reported to Captain Standish, when he told how
+they had seen Indian fires. For next day Miles found himself quite a
+hero in the sight of the other lads, because he had gone far into the
+woods and walked boldly right into an encampment of the savages. But
+Goodman Rigdale chided his son sternly for such a harebrained prank,
+and after that made the boy stay within his sight while he was on shore.
+
+Miles did not greatly mind, for his father and Francis Cooke, the
+father of his playmate Jack, were now engaged in a delightful work in
+which he liked to help. Lately the whole company of the _Mayflower_
+had been divided into nineteen families, and these two men, who had
+been placed in one household, were building together a cottage, high up
+on the hillside. His father's house, Miles insisted upon calling it,
+though Goodman Rigdale was at pains to explain to him that the cottage
+belonged not to any one man, but to the whole company; the Pilgrims at
+Plymouth and the merchants at London, who had advanced the money for
+the voyage, were to hold everything in common till seven years were up
+and then divide all equally, and till then no man could call a house
+his own.
+
+Still, Miles knew that by and by his mother and Dolly and Jack Cooke
+would come ashore, as other families were coming, and they would live
+together in that house, so it seemed the same as if it belonged to his
+father. He looked forward to the time when they would all be under one
+roof, and he would be suffered to sleep ashore, for, though his father
+passed his nights at the Common House, there was no room for Miles,
+who at twilight had to journey off to the ship. But that arrangement
+drew speedily to an end, for the walls of the house, built of squared
+logs, soon rose to a good height; the chimney of sticks and clay was
+finished; and at last it was but a question of thatching the roof.
+
+Of a dull afternoon in mid-January Goodman Rigdale set out to cut swamp
+grass for the thatch, and took with him Miles, who had not been so far
+afield since his exploit with Ned Lister. They went steadily up the
+slope on the shoulder of the great hill, and there Miles, who had run a
+little ahead with Trug, paused to look back proudly at the stanch, new
+cottage below. "Those are brave big logs in our house, are they not,
+sir?" he broke out. "'Twill last us a many years."
+
+"That, or whatever house shall fall to us at the division, will last
+you all your lifetime," Goodman Rigdale answered shortly. "And you will
+lease it of no man. You'll hold a house and a farm of your own here one
+day, Miles."
+
+They tramped on a time in silence, and Miles was making himself sport
+by crushing in the scum of ice on the pools along their path, when his
+father spoke suddenly: "You're in a fair way to lead an easier life
+than your father or your grandfather before you, Miles. And if you be
+the happier, you should be so much the better man."
+
+"Ay, sir," Miles answered vaguely, and tipped back his head to watch a
+great bird that went flapping across the sky; he wished his father had
+brought along a fowling piece.
+
+When they came to the swamp, Goodman Rigdale cut down the grass
+swiftly, and Miles bundled it, though he found it hard to keep pace
+with his father. Goodman Rigdale, being in haste, must at the last do
+the work himself, and, while he bundled the grass, Miles, remembering
+the stolen pleasures of his last thatching trip, picked up the sickle
+and tried a slash or two on his own account. He managed to cut his
+hand, and, though he scarcely felt the pain, because the hand was cold,
+he stared in some fright when he saw the blood come streaking out.
+
+Goodman Rigdale gave him a rag to tie up the hurt hand, and also gave
+him some good advice on the need of care with edged tools, which Miles
+did not think quite called for just then. He tried, however, not to
+show any sign of pain, because that always displeased his father; and,
+as he thought he had borne himself quite bravely, he was much hurt,
+when Goodman Rigdale, on coming down into the settlement, said: "Get
+you to the shallop now, Miles, and bide on board the _Mayflower_ till
+I send for you. You'll be of no service with your hand cut. Mayhap
+you'll be better off with your mother, too. After all, you are but a
+young lad."
+
+"As you bid, sir," Miles said, respectfully, but very stiffly, and
+walked away down the path to the landing.
+
+Once he stopped to kick a stone out of his way, and once, before he
+rounded the base of the bluff, something made him face about and look
+back to the Common House. His father was standing by the door, watching
+him, and Miles, feeling much rebuked, walked on rapidly. But the image
+of his father remained in his mind very clear.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+NEWS FROM THE SHORE
+
+
+BECAUSE Miles's hand was hurt, Goodwife Rigdale made much of him, till
+he fairly resented it, for he had grown into the age where he was
+sheepish and awkward under open petting. He soon slipped away from his
+mother and the sympathetic Dolly, and went to spend his time with Jack
+Cooke, who, during the day, while his father worked on shore, was glad
+of company. The boys had now almost room enough on shipboard to play
+satisfactorily, for many of the passengers had gone ashore; but it must
+be quiet playing, for, of those who still remained in their cabins not
+a few were ill.
+
+Goodwife Rigdale was busied to and fro in caring for the sick ones,
+and, at her bidding, Miles ran many an errand, to fetch water from the
+casks on deck or heat a pot of broth in the ship's galley. But their
+joint labor soon ended, for, a few days after the boy's return to the
+ship, came a message from Goodman Rigdale: he was just touched with the
+fever, he said, though nothing serious, but a many lay sick ashore,
+and the Goodwife could aid them as well as himself; Mistress Brewster,
+who, with her family, had gone to the settlement, had offered to
+shelter her, and he prayed her come.
+
+Next morning Goodwife Rigdale bundled her cloak about her, and set
+out in the shallop. Miles, standing by the bulwark, watched her go,
+but only for a time; it had snowed the night before, so the railings
+were white and smooth to the touch, and he found it of more absorbing
+interest to poke off strips of the frozen snow, and send them splashing
+into the cold-looking water beneath the ship's side. By the time he
+looked again to the shallop, it was so near shore he could no longer
+make out his mother's figure, and his feet were chilled too, so he went
+back to Dolly in the cabin.
+
+At first he found it manly and grown up to be left in charge, for so
+he esteemed his position. The cut in his hand was healing well, and
+he felt he would have been working ashore, if it were not that some
+one must mind his father's quarters on shipboard and care for Dolly
+and Solomon. He ordered his sister about in a paternal manner; he
+rebuked her severely if she so much as showed her small, snub nose on
+the frosty deck without wrapping herself up well; and he even insisted
+on her going to bed punctually at sundown, while he, in the glory of
+manhood, waited in the great cabin to hear what news those who came
+from the shore would bring.
+
+But Dolly took her turn when it came to their daily meals, for she had
+certain deft, housewifely ways, which Miles could not hope to imitate,
+and he was ashamed even of trying to better himself, after he heard the
+little woman speak like her mother of "men and boys that set a body's
+kitchen in a mash." Miles might tug out the pot of broth,--'twas all he
+was fit for; Goodwife Dolly would herself do the stirring and tasting;
+and though, among so many cooks, the broth sometimes burned, yet they
+always contrived to eat it.
+
+The four of them--Miles, Dolly, Jack, and Solomon--ate their food
+together in the Rigdales' cabin: most times it was only broth, or
+perhaps salted meat and biscuit, which Goodwife Rigdale, before she
+went away, had laid out for them; but once Goodman Cooke brought them
+from the shore a large piece of a cold roast goose. There was but one
+drumstick, and each felt he should have it,--Jack because he had been
+ill, and Dolly because she was a girl, and Miles because he was the
+eldest. Solomon said nothing, but he purred his loudest and rubbed his
+head against Dolly's knee. They ended by eating the drumstick together,
+each a bite, turn and turn about, and what they could not get from the
+bone was left to Solomon, who dragged his ration beneath the bunk,
+and, with eyes big and fiery, growled at them.
+
+The children remembered that supper, not only because of the cold
+goose, but because it was the last they ate together, for next morning
+Goodman Cooke took Jack to the shore. Miles watched his friend's small
+preparations enviously, and Dolly, who had come also to stand in the
+doorway of the Cookes' cabin, voiced a sorrowful wish: "I think I'd
+best go too, and see father and mother."
+
+"They've no place to put you, lass," Goodman Cooke explained. "So soon
+as there is place, they'll send for you both, be sure. For Doctor
+Fuller says your father grows heartier, Miles," he went on; "you've no
+need to worry yourself."
+
+"Indeed, I have not worried," Miles answered, in some surprise.
+
+After Jack went, life on shipboard was not so pleasant. Dolly began
+to fret for her mother and scoff at Miles's authority; Miles grew
+cross; and the broth burned oftener than ever, and finally, giving out
+altogether, left them with nothing to eat but dry biscuit. With this
+woful tale of starvation, Dolly betook herself at last to Constance
+Hopkins in the great cabin, and Miles, glad that some one should make
+known their unhappy state, yet ashamed to do so himself, lagged on
+behind.
+
+Constance Hopkins was Giles's sister, a slip of a lass, not three
+years older than Miles, but to him she seemed quite grown up. Certainly
+she bore the responsibilities of age in those days, for not only must
+she nurse her stepmother, Mistress Elizabeth Hopkins, who lay helpless
+in her cabin, but she must care for the baby, Oceanus, born on the
+voyage across the sea, and the little half-sister, Damaris, a baby
+also, not two years old. Yet somehow motherly little Constance found
+time to comfort Dolly, and cook a bit of meat for hungry Miles, and
+assure them both that their father and mother surely would come soon to
+look to them.
+
+Dolly hugged the "big girl," but Miles could scarcely do that, and he
+knew no civil speech to tell his gratitude, so he was glad when, his
+eyes falling on Damaris, he thought to pick her up. "I'll mind her for
+you a bit, Constance," he offered.
+
+Damaris was pleased with Miles's tousled hair and sturdy arms, that
+held her more firmly than her half-sister could; and Miles, never
+guessing what a source of misfortune her liking would prove to him
+hereafter, was much elated at his success with her. He tugged baby
+out on deck to show her the gulls looking for food in the water, and
+the bright crusted snow that sparkled in the sunshine on the wooded
+point. Damaris gurgled appreciatively and pulled Miles's hair; then,
+when he carried her back into the cabin, slept like a kitten, whereat
+Constance was so relieved and pleased that Miles gladly cared for the
+baby, his baby, the next day, and the next.
+
+[Illustration: "Dolly plaited a fold of her apron between her fingers."]
+
+But the third day, a Friday, a pelting fine rain set in that made an
+airing on the deck out of the question, not for the baby alone, but
+for a well-grown boy and girl. Miles and Dolly went up to spend the
+afternoon in the great cabin, because in their own quarters there was
+no one to talk to, and, moreover, it was cold. In the main cabin they
+would find some one to keep them company, and they could, at least,
+warm their hands at the little fire burning in a tubful of sand, which
+Constance often used in heating food for Mistress Hopkins.
+
+But this afternoon the fire was out and Constance busied with her
+mother, so the two children, disappointed, sat down together on a
+rude bench, at the angle in the stern where two rows of little cabins
+joined. "I wish I were with my mother," sniffed Dolly; and "'Twill do
+you no good to cry," Miles checked her sternly.
+
+"I was not crying, Miles Rigdale," the damsel answered hotly.
+
+It was on Miles's lips to reply, when close at hand a voice spoke his
+name, "Miles Rigdale!"
+
+Readily enough he jumped up and went to the half-opened door of the
+adjoining cabin. It was Captain Standish's cabin, he remembered now,
+and, as he halted in the doorway, he perceived Mistress Rose
+Standish lying in the bunk. A little of the afternoon light sifted
+in through the tiny port-hole, and by it he noted how her hair fell
+loosely about her face, unlike the way she wore it when on deck;
+but her cheeks were rosy as ever, and her voice quite steady as she
+spoke: "It's you, the lad my husband told me of? I thought I heard
+one call you by name. Will you not do somewhat for me, Miles? Fetch
+me my jug here full of water again. Goodwife Tinker was to look to
+me to-day; I felt very well this morning. But she's ill now herself,
+and when I tried to rise,--" she laughed, with a nervous catch in her
+laughter,--"why, then things went whisking round me very strangely. But
+you look as you still could stand stoutly, sir."
+
+"I'll fetch you the water, and gladly, mistress," Miles answered, so
+eagerly that he stammered. He stepped into the cabin to take the jug
+from where it rested on a chest beneath the port-hole, and Dolly,
+following shyly after, hesitated on the threshold.
+
+"Is this little maid your sister?" Mistress Standish roused up to ask.
+"Won't you come in and bear me company, sweetheart, while Miles fetches
+the water?"
+
+Dolly plaited a fold of her apron between her fingers and nodded dumbly.
+
+"That's well," said Mistress Standish. "Sit you down here on the chest
+by me. And I've some raisins of the sun you shall have if you'll stay."
+
+"Dolly must not eat your raisins if you be sick." Miles formulated the
+relentless principle which had been enforced as regards himself when
+Dolly lay ill. "And I'll fetch the water speedily." He stood a moment
+on the threshold, balancing the jug in one hand. "Mistress Standish,"
+he blurted out, with sudden resolution, "would you not rather have beer
+than water?"
+
+"Than the water from the ship's casks, yes," she answered; "but 'twill
+relish well enough, Miles. At even, when Captain Standish comes, mayhap
+he'll get me a draught of beer."
+
+"I'll get it for you now," Miles said cheerily, and walked away, with
+his head up and the jug swinging.
+
+Outside the door of the great cabin the chilly rain, that stung
+finely on his cheeks, pricked him alive to realization of what he had
+undertaken. Since Christmas, when the supply of the Pilgrim emigrants
+had given out, beer could be obtained on board the _Mayflower_ only
+from the ship's stores, through the courtesy of Master Jones, the
+captain; and he was a terrible person. Most times he ranged about the
+high quarter-deck, where only the chiefs of the Pilgrims dared go;
+once Francis Billington, to show his daring, had clambered thither,
+and Master Jones, without parley, had bidden his quartermaster, "Kick
+that young imp down into Limbo, where he belongs." From that experience
+Francis had been black and blue, and subdued in manner for a week.
+
+So it was no wonder now that, for long minutes, Miles stood shivering
+in the rain at the foot of the companion ladder, while he tried to
+summon courage to venture up. He might never have arrived at such
+hardihood, had not Jones himself, strolling forth upon the quarter-deck
+to study the weather, observed him, and presently bellowed lustily:
+"What beest thou staring up hither for, hey?"
+
+"I--I want to come up, if it like you, sir," Miles piped quaveringly.
+
+"Then come up. Beelzebub fetch thee! What's hindering thee?"
+
+Miles could have answered truly that it was a loud-voiced,
+broad-shouldered man, with a bushy gray beard, whose name was Jones,
+that hindered him; but he thought best, even on so poor an invitation,
+to scramble in silence up the steep ladder to the quarter-deck. The
+wind there was high, so he gripped the bulwark to keep erect.
+
+"Well, now thou art up, what is it thou wouldst have?" roared Jones.
+
+"Beer, sir. For Captain Standish's wife. She is ill."
+
+Master Jones hesitated a little minute, then caught Miles by the
+collar of his doublet, and only let go when he landed him within
+the roundhouse. Miles said nothing to this, but his heart thumped
+alarmingly at finding himself thus tumbled headlong into the very lair
+of the Master. Yet the roundhouse proved a harmless place, with its
+shipshape bunks and table and stools; and one of the mates, who lay
+upon a bunk, rose up at Jones's bidding, to do nothing more formidable
+than fill Miles's jug from a keg that stood in one corner.
+
+"Now see to it thou dost not filch the beer by the way," grumbled
+Master Jones. "I be ready to give to your Captain's wife, but not to
+fill the stomach of every knavish lad on shipboard; dost thou hear?"
+
+"I wouldn't take the beer that was meant for Mistress Standish," Miles
+said indignantly.
+
+"Nay, but boys be a slippery race," growled the Master. "The saints be
+blest I never had none!"
+
+Miles privately was glad of that, for he could not help thinking how
+unhappy a boy would be, with such an alarming father as Master Jones.
+Very prudently, he did not say so, but, seizing his jug, backed out of
+the roundhouse, almost too hastily to say "Thank you."
+
+He had come back to a good conceit of himself, however, by the time he
+had manoeuvred safely down the ticklish ladder, and he walked in on
+Mistress Standish and Dolly quite proudly. Mistress Standish thanked
+him mightily, enough to make Miles redden and shuffle his foot on the
+floor. "But I liked to do it for you," he muttered.
+
+After that he was persuaded to sit down on the chest beside Dolly, and
+tell Mistress Standish all about how they were building houses on the
+shore, and how he had gone to the Indian fields, and what a wonderful
+dog Trug was. Dolly chimed in there to tell what a rare pussy Solomon
+was, and how he would leap over your hands. Then Mistress Standish, who
+lay listening, and seemed to like their talk, though she said little,
+bade Miles bring her a box from a shelf against the wall, and in it,
+sure enough, were a few big raisins and a small handful of currants.
+
+The sight was too much for Miles's scruples, and when she urged the
+children eat of them, he yielded, weakly as eager little Dolly. "We'll
+take two raisins each," he said, with an effort at firmness, "and three
+currants." Then, with a sigh, he shut the box up tight, and ate his own
+share very slowly.
+
+Dolly finished more speedily, and straightway Mistress Standish urged
+her sing to them. "Dolly told me while you were gone that she is wont
+to sing to mother," she explained to Miles. "Now I want her to sing to
+me. You shall have more raisins if you will, Dolly, in spite of Brother
+Miles."
+
+Dolly was bashful, and, for all it was now murky twilight, so faces
+were not plain to see, insisted on sitting on the other side of Miles,
+where she could hide behind him. Then, at last, she sang. "Though it is
+a worldly song," she protested.
+
+"No matter. I am what your people call a worldly woman," Mistress
+Standish answered.
+
+So Dolly cuddled up to Miles and sang:--
+
+    "Skip and trip it,
+     Hey non nonny!
+     For the lark is in the clover,
+     And the fields are green and bonny,
+     And a dappled sky shows over.
+     Sing hey nonny nonny!
+     'Tis blithe world and gay,
+     When spring comes bonny
+     And the winter packs away."
+
+There Dolly broke off, short and sudden, and Miles, looking to the
+dusky doorway, saw a man's sturdy figure blocking it.
+
+"'Tis you come back, Miles?" Mistress Standish spoke quickly. "Come you
+in and sit down. Your namesake and his sister have been caring for me
+bravely--"
+
+"I'm sorry," came the Captain's voice out of the dark. "That is-- You
+must be wearied now, sweetheart. Come, Miles, my soldier, I want to
+speak with you."
+
+Miles wondered why, as he stepped out from the cabin, the Captain
+troubled to put one arm about his shoulders; he was pleased at the
+caress, yet awkward in receiving it. "I want you to go in here," said
+Captain Standish, leading him to the cabin that the Brewsters had
+occupied. "Constance Hopkins is waiting within to tell you somewhat.
+And you must remember, Miles, that you are to bear you like a man."
+
+Miles wrested round suddenly and faced the Captain. There was a little
+dim lantern light in this part of the great cabin, not enough for him
+to read the other's face, but he could guess and feel what was coming.
+"Has anything gone wrong with my mother? Tell me; tell me, quick!" he
+cried.
+
+"Not your mother, Miles. Your father."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+THE GOING LANDWARD
+
+
+GOODMAN RIGDALE had died that day at noon; he had seemed sure of
+recovery, but there came a sudden change, and, with the ebbing of the
+tide, his life went out. So much they made Miles understand, gently as
+they could. Dolly cried with choked sobbings, and Constance Hopkins,
+who had come out and taken the little girl in her arms, cried too. But
+Miles, who sat apart from the others, astride one of the benches, did
+not cry,--just scowled before him in stupid fashion, and half snarled,
+"Don't touch me," at Goodwife Tinker and the other women who had
+hastened up to sympathize.
+
+He was aware of the people about him and the lantern light; that was
+all. Something inside him seemed benumbed, and he did not care to
+talk, or cry, or do aught but sit still. He listened to Dolly; she was
+wailing now, "I want my mother. Oh, take me to my mother!" He wished
+she would hush; it worried him.
+
+Then he heard some one else speak: "Look you, Captain; Will Trevor and
+I are fresh enough to do 't, and there's the small boat belongs to the
+shallop. And Rigdale's goodwife will be wanting her bairns to-night. If
+you give the word, Will and I, we'll row them ashore."
+
+Miles looked up and saw Ned Lister, his cap on straight and his face
+earnest, speaking with the Captain. He rose, and, a little unsteadily,
+pushed the women aside, so he could clutch Ned's arm. "I want to go
+ashore," he whispered chokedly. "Take me now."
+
+"You shall go," said Captain Standish. "I'll bid them make ready the
+boat."
+
+"You and the little wench get on your cloaks briskly," Ned admonished,
+as he turned to follow the Captain. "We'll be ready ere you be."
+
+Constance came down with the two children to the cabin beneath the main
+deck. It seemed darker and colder than ever before, and Dolly's cloak
+strings were tied in a hard knot, and Miles could not find his mittens.
+At the very last, as, in stupid fashion, he searched for them a third
+time in a bag that held some odds and ends of his mother's, he heard
+Dolly cry, "Oh, Solomon, poor Solomon! Don't leave him behind, Miles. I
+know they'll not tend him. And daddy was fond of him."
+
+The cat was dozing among the blankets, but when Miles, slow and
+uncomprehending, tried to seize him, he took fright and ran beneath the
+bunk.
+
+"We've the boat ready. Quickly, Miles!" called Ned Lister in the
+passageway.
+
+Miles saw Solomon's eyes shining yellow in the dark beneath the bunk,
+and, making a grab, he clutched the cat. The creature spit and clawed,
+but Miles, with his hands bleeding, still clung to him, and, headlong,
+thrust him into the bag that had held their biscuit. One white paw came
+struggling out, but the boy shoved it in roughly, and drew the strings
+tight.
+
+"Wait, wait! Your cloak, Miles." Constance detained him, and fastened
+his cloak about his neck. Miles suffered her, like a very little boy,
+and then, slinging Solomon's bag over one shoulder, he followed Dolly
+up on deck.
+
+The rain, pelting on his cheeks and forehead, half blinded him, and
+the faces of the men, seen fitfully beneath the flaring light of the
+lantern at the gangway, looked strange to him. Their voices had no
+meaning, and they must repeat the question when one asked: "What have
+you there, Miles? Give me the bag; I'll hand it you."
+
+Miles shook his head and pressed the bag tighter beneath his arm; he
+could feel the cat's soft body writhing and struggling within. They
+brought him over to the gangway ladder, and, holding by one hand, he
+scrambled down it. How black the line of bulwarks looked against the
+lantern light, as the ship heaved upward! There he half slipped, when
+he felt some one catch him round the body, and he was dropped down on
+the stern seat of the little boat. Dolly pressed close to him, and,
+putting his arm round her, he held tight to her and to Solomon. They
+had turned the lantern now so the light flashed into the boat, and he
+realized it was Lister who sat upon the forward thwart, and the other
+man, who was standing up to push them off from the ship's side, was the
+sailor, Will Trevor.
+
+At last they were clear, out on the wide, rough water, and, with a
+motion of spitting on his hands, Trevor dropped into his seat and
+gripped his oar. As the boat swung round, Miles had sight of the
+black bulk of the _Mayflower_, with a lantern gleaming on her high
+quarter-deck and another just receding from her gangway. Then, as the
+boat headed for the shore, he could see the ship only by turning his
+head, and that was too great an effort to make.
+
+The thole-pins creaked, and the water slapped against the prow. The
+waves were running high, and, as the little boat leaped them, she
+seemed to throb through her frame. The oars and the sea that wrestled
+together made the only sound, for the rain that dropped steadily was a
+quiet rain, and the men who rowed for the most part kept silent. Once,
+to be sure, Trevor growled: "How're we heading, Ned?"
+
+Miles noted dully how Lister rested on his oar and turned his face
+landward. "I can just make out a light," he answered. "Pest on this
+rain! More to larboard we must run."
+
+For another space they tugged at the oars in silence, while Miles
+stared unheedingly into the dark, till suddenly Trevor called, "Hey,
+lad, what's wrong wi' thy bag?"
+
+Solomon's struggles had loosed the fastenings, Miles found; he thrust
+the animal back and tied the strings again, slowly and stiffly, for his
+hands were cold and sore too, where they had been scratched.
+
+"What sort o' luggage be ye travelling with?" Trevor asked, between
+strokes, in a tone that was so amused that Miles felt an angry shock:
+what right had the sailor to find any merriment in life, while Dolly
+was sobbing so? Next moment the anger passed, and instead, Miles
+wondered that Dolly should cry, for it was not true, whatever they had
+said; his father would surely come forth from the Common House to meet
+them, and he would look just as Miles had seen him on that last day.
+
+Yonder beneath the black bluff shone a light. Miles could see it now,
+and he stared unthinkingly, till it grew larger and brighter, and then
+a sudden jar almost threw him from his seat. "I'll hold her steady,"
+spoke Trevor. "Do thou get out the younkers, Ned."
+
+"Come, come, Miley, are you asleep?" said Lister. Miles saw him
+kneeling on the rock close beside him, holding the boat's gunwale with
+one hand, and with the other outstretched. "Give me the bag. Now then,
+steady. Ah! You did yourself hurt?"
+
+Miles picked himself up from the rock where he had fallen; his knees
+were aching, and he suddenly felt he should like to cry. "Yes, I hurt
+me," he said dazedly. "Give me Solomon."
+
+He made his way, groping through the dark, to the path beneath the
+bluff that led up to the settlement. The ground had thawed, so broad
+puddles had formed; he must have splashed into one, for, as he stepped,
+his shoes squeaked with water. Ned Lister strode up alongside him, with
+Dolly gathered in his arms. "You come with me up to the Elder's house,
+Miley," he said breathlessly, for Ned was wiry, rather than robust, and
+Dolly was a heavy little maid.
+
+All the way up the hill Miles had a sickening sense of awaking to
+something full of dread. The ground and the sky and the dimly seen
+houses were now all real; he felt the rain and the cold and the weight
+of the bag on his arm, and he began to realize that what had happened
+also was no dream.
+
+"Oh!" he cried, with a sudden hard gasp, and, dropping the bag, broke
+into a run. He stumbled and slipped, but pantingly he held on till he
+reached the Brewsters' cottage. From one of the tiny windows a light
+shone forth, but it blinded without aiding him. He fumbled a moment at
+the heavy door, then, grasping the rude latch at last, thrust it open
+with his shoulder, and plunged headlong into the common room.
+
+On the hearth, opposite the door, a fire blazed, and on the table
+flickered a candle. Spite of the dazzle of sudden light, Miles made out
+a woman, just turning from the fire, and, knowing her for the Elder's
+wife, ran to her. "Where's my mother, my mother?" he cried.
+
+"Hush, hush, Miles! You must quiet yourself ere you see her," Mistress
+Brewster urged, never so gently.
+
+But there came from an adjoining room his mother's voice: "Miles, I am
+here. Come to me."
+
+The narrow chamber was dark, but, seated in the far corner, he could
+distinguish a woman's bowed figure, and, stumbling heavily across the
+floor, he flung himself on his knees beside her. "Mother! Oh, mother!"
+he choked, and, burying his face in her lap, burst out crying.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+THE MAN OF THE FAMILY
+
+
+AT first Miles found a jarring unfitness in everyday life. Only eight
+and forty hours before, they had buried his father on the bluff
+overlooking the harbor; they had read no prayers over the dead, as the
+ministers did in England, and, lest the savages should spy and note how
+few the colonists were becoming, they had levelled the grave, like the
+many round about it. A raw wind had blown from off the sea, so Goodwife
+Rigdale shivered as she stood by the grave, and Miles's hands were
+senseless with the cold.
+
+Now it was over, and Goodman Rigdale dead and buried, but life went on,
+just as usual. Goodwife Rigdale helped Mistress Brewster prepare food,
+and ate of it herself; and Love and Wrestling, sorry though they had
+been for their playmates' sorrow, frolicked gayly with Solomon, whom
+Ned Lister had brought to the cottage, bag and all. By the second day,
+though her eyes were still heavy with crying, and her mouth tremulous,
+Dolly plucked up spirit to join the boys. Even earlier, Miles had
+begun to fetch wood and water for Mistress Brewster, lay the fire, and
+help where he could; if only everything had stopped for a time, till he
+could realize what had happened and master himself, he felt he could
+bear it; but the petty acts of living would go on.
+
+In such a mood of wretchedness he trudged forth on the third morning,
+up the path beyond the spring, to fetch sticks from the edge of the
+wood where the trees had been felled. He gathered the fagots, and was
+trying to tie them strongly, as his father tied the swamp grass that
+last day they worked together, when he saw Francis Billington, also in
+search of wood, drawing near.
+
+"Why, Miles!" the newcomer greeted him, in some surprise, for in these
+days Miles avoided his old comrades. But now there was no avoiding till
+the wood was tied up, so Francis came to him and, a bit awed, tried
+clumsily to be sympathetic. "I'll help you tie that wood, Miles."
+
+"I c'n do 't alone."
+
+"Look you, my daddy's going fowling to-day. Mayhap he'll take us."
+
+"I don't want to go," snapped Miles, with a sick sort of anger that
+other boys still could talk of their fathers.
+
+"You might at least be civil to a body," Francis said rather huffily.
+"What need to carry such a face for it, Miles? You were mortal afeard
+of your father while he lived. And now he can never flog you no more."
+
+Without warning, other than a small catching of the breath, Miles
+sprang to his feet and struck the speaker in the face. Francis,
+thoroughly surprised, hit back, and, clenching, they pitched over among
+the crackling sticks. Miles fell uppermost, and, hardly realizing how
+or why, he was pommelling Francis lustily, when a mighty hand heaved
+him up by the scruff of the neck. "You must not strike a man when he is
+already worsted," spoke the voice of long-legged John Alden.
+
+Miles stood biting his lips that twitched. "'A' shall not say--" he
+began, and there his voice broke. "Oh, I wish he could flog me again!"
+
+Alden stared a moment, then, with sudden understanding, swung round
+upon the whimpering Francis and rated him mightily, while Miles, glad
+not to be noticed, caught up his bundle of wood and stumbled away
+toward the settlement.
+
+Yet this was the last outward showing of the boy's grief. Little by
+little, as the busy days came, he found himself fitting into his new
+life, and at length even taking a certain zest in it. For he was now
+man of the family, and the cares he felt called on to shoulder did not
+a little to distract him from any sorry broodings. He must work with
+his full strength, wherever they sent him and whoever bade him; he
+must keep flibbertigibbet Dolly out of mischief; above all, he must
+run after his mother, as she went about to nurse the many sick of the
+settlement, and see to it that she did not catch cold or come to any
+harm.
+
+The greatest and most important labor, however, he did in the earlier
+days of his loss, when he went to fetch his father's goods from the
+_Mayflower_. Others might have said the work was done by Ned Lister,
+for Master Hopkins, who had promised Goodman Rigdale to look to his
+family, so far as he was able, sent him about this task; but Miles, who
+was sure he was the leader and Ned only the assistant, felt the whole
+expedition a tribute to his own new-come manliness.
+
+They went out in the shallop to the _Mayflower_ on a morning so bright
+and open that it scarcely recalled to Miles his coming from the ship.
+Once aboard, to be sure, the half-homesick pang laid hold on him, when
+he scrambled down to the little cabin that had sheltered him so long;
+but there was so much to do he soon cast it off. The bedding must be
+tied up securely, and the pots and platters loaded into the biggest
+kettle; and Ned, who had a coughing fit and said he didn't feel very
+well, let Miles do it all. He recovered, however, in time to help drag
+the stuff to the deck, and to get up from the orlop a small chest
+of Goodman Rigdale's; and he was also selfish enough to take charge
+himself of the loud, manly labor of transferring the goods to the
+shallop.
+
+Somewhat disappointed, Miles clambered down again to the cabin to fetch
+the box with Dolly's Indian basket, and, when he came back, the shallop
+was so near ready to push off that he had only time to drop into the
+bow beside Lister. Glancing round the great sail toward the stern,
+where such other passengers as were going from the ship were placed, he
+caught sight of Captain Standish, who sat stiffly, with one arm about
+the muffled figure of a woman. "Yon is Mistress Standish, is it not?"
+Miles questioned Lister, very softly.
+
+His companion nodded. "Set to come ashore, poor lass!" he answered,
+in the same low tone. "'Tis the last trip she'll ever make in the
+shallop." This Ned spoke sympathetically; then had no further leisure
+to talk for settling himself comfortably with his back against Goodman
+Rigdale's bedding.
+
+Miles moved a little to give Ned room, but, without heeding him,
+continued to gaze at Captain Standish and Mistress Rose. He could not
+see her face for the hood about her head and the cloak drawn up above
+her chin, but he marked the listless droop of her whole body; and he
+noted, too, how the Captain sat with his eyes looking straight out and
+his mouth hard. Miles wondered if what Lister said of Mistress Standish
+were true, and, what with wondering and watching, was taken by surprise
+and nearly overset when the shallop bumped up to the landing place.
+
+For a moment he lingered by the boat, feigning to busy himself with
+unlading the kettle, while he watched Mistress Standish. The Captain
+and Alden, who was waiting at the landing, helped her from the boat,
+and half carried her away between them up the hill. The Captain's face
+was still so grave and stern, that Miles was a trifle frightened, and
+very sorry; he wished he were a man like John Alden, so he could have
+spoken to the Captain and helped Mistress Standish.
+
+Then he had to think of other matters, for Ned, with an access of
+energy, was tumbling the goods ashore, and they must together drag
+them up to the Elder's house. Just at present that was home to Miles,
+because his mother and Dolly lived there, and he sometimes ate with
+them, though, as an additional mark of manhood,--so he esteemed it,--he
+spent his nights at the Common House.
+
+It really came about because his friends could not shelter him.
+Goodwife Rigdale and Dolly had the last spare bed at the Elder's house;
+the cottage higher up the hill, on which Goodman Rigdale had labored,
+and where Goodman Cooke and Jack had now one bunk, was filled with men
+whose houses were building; while Master Hopkins, however well he might
+mean by his friend's son, had not a roof to cover his own family. So
+Miles slept with Giles Hopkins at the Common House, where at night the
+beds were placed so thick one need not step on the floor in passing
+from the fire to his sleeping place.
+
+On Sunday all was changed, however, for then the Common House became a
+meeting-house. They tucked the beds up in corners, and swept the floor,
+as Miles knew to his cost, for on this, his second Saturday on the
+mainland, they pressed him into the service. Twice on the Sabbath the
+Elder taught his little company, and prayed with them there,--a sorry
+little company indeed, of whom fair half lay sick within the cheerless
+cabins, or dead beneath the level ground of the harbor bluff.
+
+The thought of his own dead father made Miles listen attentively
+that day; and, when he walked staidly up to the Elder's house before
+twilight, he took Dolly apart into his mother's cold little chamber,
+where he read to her from Goodman Rigdale's black-letter Bible. He
+was a painful reader, but he felt it was the fit thing for him to do
+in filling his father's place, so, with the great book on his knees,
+he sat on the floor, beneath the little window that let in the light
+sparsely through its oiled paper, and Dolly sat by him, with her
+head on his shoulder. He was much elated at finding her so quiet and
+attentive, but, when he paused to recover breath at the end of a very
+tough sentence about the Perizzites, he perceived the little girl was
+fast asleep.
+
+Miles did not wake her; just sat with the Bible in his lap and his
+stiffening arm round his sister till, when it had grown darker, his
+mother came to seek them. He had nothing to say to his mother that
+night, but afterward it was something to remember keenly, though with
+an under-pang of sorrow, how he had sat close by her in the dark and
+had felt her hand rest on his head.
+
+Next day was dreary with rain and sleet, and a dull twilight that,
+closing in early, drove Miles into the house, where he played at
+Even-and-Odd with the little Brewsters and Dolly, very quietly,
+because the Elder was writing at the table. Elder Brewster was always
+kindly-spoken, but the fact that he knew such a deal about the next
+world, and what would befall you if you were not good, put Miles in
+great awe of him.
+
+When he went forth at length, Miles, feeling more like himself, raised
+his voice, and even let the trenchers clatter while he and Dolly laid
+the table. But he had no desire to be noisy, when, late in the evening,
+the Elder returned from the house where the sick lay. A word or two
+passed between the older folk that sent Miles with a whispered question
+to his mother, who told him simply that Mistress Rose Standish had died
+that evening.
+
+Dolly cried, because she was a foolish girl, but it did not stir Miles
+so deeply. Indeed, he did not come to feel a hearty grief till next
+morning, when, as he climbed the hill to Elder Brewster's cottage, he
+saw Captain Standish, grim and set-faced, trudging up to the woods
+through the sleet and rain. The weather was too bitter for work, and
+the axe which the Captain carried was, Miles guessed, a mere pretext.
+All through the day it made him shiver to think of the solitary man,
+lingering in the cold among the pines; he wondered if even to himself
+the Captain would make pretense of working, or if he would sit idle
+among the wet logs.
+
+But forty-eight hours later the Captain was going and coming and
+working among the rest, just as before, though maybe a bit more silent.
+For the hale ones who could labor were few; the work must be done;
+and, where so many were falling, there was small space to grieve for a
+single life.
+
+Miles had even grown somewhat blunted to the sight of the sorry little
+companies that twice and even thrice a week trudged with the body of a
+friend or kinsman to the bluff above the harbor. His own life went on
+methodically; he worked, and even played with Jack Cooke and Trug, and
+some days, when he was allowed to go fowling with Ned Lister and Giles
+Hopkins, fairly enjoyed himself.
+
+But Ned began presently to have coughing fits even when he was
+bidden to go hunting, though Miles, who had grown distrustful of his
+convenient illness, urged him to "have done with fooling and come
+along." One morning in February, when Lister, instead of going about
+his work, was wasting his time thus with Miles and Jack and Giles by
+the fire in Goodman Cooke's cottage, came another to urge him, no less
+a one than Master Hopkins. Miles remembered a long time the terrible
+rating he gave Ned for his laziness and trickery, and he wondered that
+the young man sat with his head leaning on his fist, and flung back but
+a single protest: "I can judge better than you, sir, whether I be ill
+or not. 'Tis my head that's aching, not yours."
+
+To which Master Hopkins retorted grimly that, if there were a whipping
+post in the colony, something besides Ned's head would ache.
+
+Then, for that there was no help for it, Lister took his fowling piece
+and slouched away from the fire. "I'm going, since you drive me," he
+said sulkily, "but these youngsters need not follow at my heels. 'Twill
+be all I can do to fetch myself home again, let alone three brats."
+
+Much disappointed, Miles spent the day in the less joyous labor of
+fetching and carrying on the great hill, where they were putting the
+last touches to the platform on which the guns were to be mounted.
+He came to be interested, none the less, when Goodman Cooke told him
+how, in a few days, they would drag the guns up the hill and put them
+in place. That would be a brave thing to see, Miles thought, for the
+sailors from the _Mayflower_ were to come ashore and help, and the
+street from the hill to the landing place would be noisy and busy. Not
+so busy, though, as the crew of the _Mayflower_ would have made it a
+month before, for the sickness now had settled on the ship, where it
+was raging unchecked.
+
+At dusk, as Miles came down from the hill, he chanced on Master
+Hopkins, still grumbling at Lister, who bade him go see if that
+malingerer were loitering anywhere in the settlement. It seemed a
+spying errand, but, not thinking of disobedience, Miles started down
+the street. Nearest the shore stood the Common House, the house for
+the sick, and the storehouse, all three of which, to make the search
+complete, he visited.
+
+In the big main room of the sick-house lay the men who were ill, and,
+as Miles stepped in, on tiptoe because of his heavy shoes, the first
+thing he saw beneath the candlelight was Ned Lister's black head, half
+hidden under the coverlets of one of the bunks. Miles stole up to him.
+"Why, Ned, ha' you cheated the Doctor himself?" he whispered cheerfully.
+
+Lister raised his head and looked at him, with his eyes very bright.
+"I'm cheating you all; yes," he said, with a laugh. "Go tell Hopkins be
+more cautious next time how he wastes so good a property as a serving
+man. A pity! If I die he'll be out my passage-money. Well, I always
+owed him a grudge for bringing me to this forsaken country, and I'll
+even scores now."
+
+The thought seemed to please Ned mightily, for he laughed, till Doctor
+Fuller, stepping from the inner room, sharply bade him hush. "Get you
+to Master Hopkins and tell him the man is ill," he ordered Miles; and,
+as he let the boy out at the door, added, for his ear alone, "very ill."
+
+Somehow Ned's overthrow frightened Miles more than any other illness.
+Lister had always seemed so tough and wiry that his succumbing at last
+set the boy to asking himself, in some fright, if he, too, might not
+fall ill. A soreness in his throat or an ache in his head made him
+nervous. He questioned Jack minutely as to how he felt before he was
+taken sick, and then he began at once to feel as Jack had felt. He
+started to tell his mother and get her to comfort him, but then he was
+ashamed; she was busy and anxious all the time for the people she was
+called on to nurse, and he was a great, strong boy, who, of course,
+would not be sick.
+
+But one day his head ached in good earnest--no imagination; and next
+morning the ache was worse, so he was too stupid even to go out.
+Wrestling Brewster was ailing too, so Dolly and Love stayed by his bed
+to amuse him, and Miles was left quite alone. All day he sat toasting
+himself by the fire, till he was too warm and was sure his head ached
+because of the heat, so out he went, and tramped up and down the street
+till his teeth chattered with cold. He wanted no supper, but he went
+back to the house to bid his mother good night and get to bed early.
+
+"Mother came home very weary and has lain down within," Dolly said,
+so he went into the bedroom. A cold light streamed in at the little
+window, but the corners of the low room were dark and the pallet was in
+shadow. His mother was stretched upon it, with the cloak that had been
+his father's wrapped round her, but at his step she raised her head.
+"It's you, my lad?" she asked, and reached out her hand.
+
+"I came in to give you good night, mother," he said, in his manliest
+tone, because it made him proud to think he was hiding his illness from
+her. "I'll mess at the Common House to-night."
+
+She put up her hand, and, drawing his head down to her, kissed him. Her
+cheek felt hot as it pressed against his, and even in the dim light he
+noted that her face was flushed, but his head ached so lamentably that
+he made nothing of it. "Why, deary, you're not ill?" he heard her say.
+
+"Indeed, no, mother. No more ill than you," he answered bravely, and,
+bidding her good night, went softly out of the room.
+
+The west was all a chill yellow, and a northerly breeze was astir that
+set Miles shivering long before he reached the Common House. There
+a fire was alight that looked comforting, and, going up to it, he
+snuggled down in a corner of the hearth. At the table of boards laid
+on trestles some of the men were eating their supper, but Miles was
+sick at the mere thought of food. He sat staring and staring into the
+heart of the flames, where he could see the outlines of the farmhouse
+at home, and then he saw nothing, but he faintly heard steps upon the
+floor, and somebody caught him up.
+
+"What are you falling on the fire in that fashion for, eh?" one
+asked, and the man who held him--he had a vague notion it was
+Alden--questioned, "What's wrong, lad?"
+
+"Oh--h!" wailed Miles, "I think I'm dying."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+IN THE TIME OF THE SICKNESS
+
+
+TO be sure, Miles did not die, but for some days he lay in the
+sick-house, too ill to give much heed to what went on about him, or
+take thought for anything save his own misery. From a mass of hazy
+recollections one or two moments of that time afterward came back
+clearly.
+
+One such memory was of a dim morning within the cheerless room, when,
+through the familiar patter, patter of rain on the oiled paper at the
+windows, he heard a latch creak somewhere and men tread cautiously.
+Turning weakly on his pillow, Miles looked to the door that led to
+the inner room, where the sick women lay, and he saw Goodman Cooke
+and Edward Dotey come forth, stepping carefully, and carrying on a
+stretcher between them something that was muffled up and motionless. He
+turned his face again to the wall, and neither thought nor reasoned of
+what it meant,--just listened to the lulling patter of the rain.
+
+The other time of which he kept remembrance was a crisp night, when the
+whiff of wind that blew in at the outer door, as it was opened, smelt
+fresh and good, and Cooke, who came to tend the fire, piled the logs
+high. Dozing and waking, Miles watched through half-closed eyelids the
+crowded pallets about him, and the shadows that flickered up and down
+the rough walls. He must have slept a moment, but he roused up suddenly
+to see in the waning firelight Elder Brewster, who bent over him with
+a cup of drink. Leaning against the arm that supported him, Miles
+swallowed the draught obediently, and then the Elder, with more care
+than he usually had time to bestow on a single patient, laid him down
+and drew the coverings round him. "Poor little lad!" Miles heard him
+say, under his breath. "God comfort you!"
+
+Miles wondered a little, but, too stupid greatly to heed what was said,
+soon dropped to sleep once more.
+
+The crisis of his sickness must have passed on that night, for a day
+or two later he felt enough like himself to swallow with some relish a
+dish of broth. Ned Lister, packed out from the sick-house while still
+convalescent, to make room for others, fetched him the broth, and
+helped him eat, with a choking great spoon that made the process slow.
+Miles wondered whether Ned had grown thin or his clothes had grown
+baggy; perhaps 'twas a little of both.
+
+Then, on the idle wonderment, followed more serious thought, and,
+speaking slowly and weakly, he asked, as Lister settled him in his
+pallet again: "Tell me, Ned, why has not my mother been here to nurse
+me, as she did you and the others?"
+
+"Haven't you been well enough looked to, Miley?" questioned Ned,
+bending down to tie his shoestrings.
+
+"'Tis just the men have cared for me."
+
+"Well, you're a man yourself, and want only men to look to you, eh?"
+
+"No, I'm not a man," said Miles, the ready tears of sickness welling
+into his eyes, "and I want my mother."
+
+"I heard she had a touch of the fever herself," answered Ned, still
+busy with his shoes. "We're all helpless with it, Miles. There's only
+seven of us now that can crawl about to do aught. And the Captain and
+the Elder are working each like three. By the Lord, those be two good
+fellows!" This earnestly, for Ned; and then, gathering up his bowl and
+spoon, he walked away to minister to the next sick man.
+
+Every one ill, and the care of the whole colony on the shoulders of
+seven men, some half sick themselves! Miles realized vaguely that he
+ought to be patient and not fret at anything, but still the next two
+days of his slow convalescence were long and hard to bear.
+
+He was glad enough, one dim morning that seemed like all the others,
+when the Elder came into the sick-room with Dolly at his side. "The
+little wench begged to come to you, Miles," he said, as he seated her
+on the edge of the boy's pallet. "But she is to talk only few words,
+and softly, because there are others lying here very ill."
+
+So soon as he had turned and left the children to themselves, Dolly
+bent and dabbed a kiss upon her brother's chin. "Though you make me
+shy, near as if you were a stranger, Miles," she explained, in a
+subdued whisper, "you are grown so peaked, and your eyes are so very
+round."
+
+Miles smiled weakly, but happily, it was so good to see the face of one
+of his own people. "I'm glad you came, Dolly," he said, drawing her
+hand tremulously into his. "Mother will soon come too, will she not?
+Why did she not come with you?"
+
+A choke made Dolly's whisper broken: "She--could not."
+
+"Is she ill?"
+
+Dolly nodded, with a piteous face.
+
+Miles's thin fingers gripped her hand fast. "Dolly, she isn't--dead?"
+His voice rose high and frightened.
+
+"Oh, you mustn't, Miles," Dolly gasped. "And I can't tell you. They
+said I must not speak of her to you. Oh, Miles, Miles, she has been
+dead these four days!"
+
+They carried Dolly away, the mischief done, and Miles, hiding his
+head beneath the bedclothes, cried so long as strength was in him.
+Then he lay watching the red and orange streaks that flashed before
+his tight-closed eyes, and, thinking how stuffy it was beneath the
+coverlets, wondered if perhaps he would not smother. He hoped he would,
+so he had a first sensation of fretful disappointment, when some one
+uncovered his head; and then, as he caught the clearer air on his face
+and looked up at Captain Standish, felt vaguely comforted.
+
+"Drink you this, lad," spoke the Captain, gruffly, yet, Miles realized,
+with vast pity in his tone. "Then sleep."
+
+"I'll--try," swallowed Miles.
+
+"That's well. Bear it soldierly, as we all must."
+
+"Like a soldier," Miles repeated over and over to himself, and,
+shutting his lips, pressed his head into the bolster, till, worn-out,
+he slept.
+
+When he awoke, the realization of his loss returned, keen almost as
+ever; but he was a healthy lad, so inevitably strength came back to
+him, and with it, little by little, as he mastered it in silence, his
+grief abated. Those about him were kind, too, and did what they could
+to comfort him. Captain Standish himself cared for him; Ned Lister and
+Giles visited him often; and once they even let poor, guilty Dolly
+come to see him. She fetched in her arms fat Solomon, who yowled so
+piteously that, just inside the door, Doctor Fuller, who was up and
+able to tend his sick again, made her put him down, whereupon the cat
+fled home, fast as four legs could bear him.
+
+"'Twas such a pity when I fetched him so far to see you," Dolly
+lamented to Miles, as she exhibited the scratches on her hands, "but he
+will go home safe to Mistress Brewster's house. He likes it there, and
+so do I. I am going to live there always with Love and Wrestling and
+Priscilla Mullins. She made me a poppet of a piece of scarlet cloth,
+and I called it after her. I shall bring it to show you next time,
+though you'll laugh at it, because you are a boy. Indeed, I do like it
+at Mistress Brewster's. If only mammy and daddy were there too!" she
+added, in a lower tone.
+
+Elder Brewster himself had, at the very first, paused by Miles's bed,
+and spoken gravely to him of how his mother was now in a more blessed
+place, and he must try always to be a good boy, so some day he might
+join her. Though he listened dutifully, Miles did not care for the
+Elder's admonitions as much as he cared for Mistress Brewster's words.
+Newly risen from her sick-bed, she came to him, and, sitting by his
+pallet, whispered him of his mother, and how, before she died, she had
+left her love for him, and bidden him always be a good lad and a good
+brother to the little wench. "Though my lad will be that without my
+bidding," Alice Rigdale had added. "He has always been a good little
+son to me."
+
+Miles listened, with his face held stolid; it was only when Mistress
+Brewster bent and kissed him, like his mother, that he blinked fast and
+turned away his head.
+
+Day by day he grew stronger, till he sat up in bed, and then, by slow
+stages, was suffered to put on his clothes and walk staggeringly across
+the room. The next advance was his going out into the air, which would
+doubtless have been longer deferred if any one had had time to give
+close heed to the sick boy. But Doctor Fuller was busied elsewhere, and
+the Elder was looking to others of the sick folk, so, one morning when
+Lister had helped Miles into his clothes, the boy took matters into his
+own hands by slipping out at the door.
+
+It was a rare, mild March day, with a tender wind of the spring that
+came from the western woods. The earth was soft beneath the foot; the
+few bushes that clambered up the bluff across the way were bursting
+with brown buds; and the blue harbor dazzled under the vivid sunlight.
+Leaning against the doorpost, Miles joyfully drank in the freshness
+of the morning, though his eyes grew wistful as he looked again to the
+bluff yonder where were the levelled graves.
+
+[Illustration: "'Do you like to do it, Captain Standish?'"]
+
+Presently he summoned up his strength, and, stepping cautiously off the
+doorstone, picked his way round to the east side of the house, where
+the sun was warmest. Here the ground was trodden and bare, save for the
+chips scattered about the logs, of which there was a great heap stacked
+against the house-wall. At the other side of the pile, a tub of water
+rested on a great block, and, most marvellous of all, over the tub,
+busily washing a mass of bed-linen, bent Captain Standish.
+
+Miles caught his breath in a gasp of surprise that made the Captain
+look up. "So you're well recovered, Miles?" he asked cheerily.
+
+The boy nodded, and set himself down on the woodpile.
+
+"Cast on my doublet, there beside you, if you will be sitting here,"
+said Standish, and, shaking the water off his hands, came and wrapped
+the garment about Miles.
+
+Snuggling down against the sunny logs, Miles gravely watched the
+Captain. He washed the clothes deliberately, with a good deal of
+sober splashing and a lavish use of soap; and then he wrung them so
+vigorously that the muscles of his bared arms stood out. So earnest and
+busy did he seem about the undignified task that, before he thought,
+Miles blurted out: "Do you like to do it, Captain Standish?"
+
+"Not in the least," the Captain answered cheerfully, as he twisted a
+sheet so hard that a jet of water spurted over the front of his shirt,
+"not in the least, Miles. But there's no one else to do it, and it must
+needs be done."
+
+Miles pondered a moment. "I take it, that's how it is with living;
+somebody has to," he said at length.
+
+"And somebody is right glad to," Captain Standish answered, with a
+quick glance at Miles. "You must get well and run about and do a man's
+share of the work that's before us, and you'll soon be rid of any heavy
+thoughts."
+
+Miles sat still in the sunlight, and, reflecting vaguely, called to
+mind that, if his father and mother both were dead, Mistress Rose
+Standish, who was all the Captain had, likewise rested yonder on the
+bluff. Out of the fullness of knowledge the Captain was trying once
+more to teach him how to bear all bravely, he guessed, so he began
+stoutly: "Yes, I'm going to be a man, sir. Because now I'll have to
+take care of Trug and Dolly and Solomon."
+
+Captain Standish smiled a little, as he gathered the wet clothes into
+his arms. "You're a true man already, Miles," he said. "At least,
+you're a man in the way you group your women-folk with your cattle."
+
+After the Captain had gone behind the house to hang out his wash, Miles
+rested a time very thoughtful. The sunlight was warm and pleasant, and
+southward across the harbor the great bluff was dense with evergreen. A
+brave world, and he was going to do a brave part in it, as his mother
+had looked for him to do.
+
+A step upon the chips made him rouse up just as Master Hopkins came
+leisurely round the woodpile. His face was pale, for he, too, had been
+touched with the sickness, and his manner was kinder than Miles had
+ever known in him. "So you're hale again, Miles Rigdale? Do you think
+you could make shift to walk up the hill to my house?"
+
+"Yes, sir," Miles replied promptly. The house that Master Hopkins
+was building when Miles fell sick stood just across the street from
+the Elder's, and the boy had made up his mind to drag himself to the
+latter's cottage that day. It made his heart quicken to think of seeing
+again the rooms where his mother had lived that last month, and of
+talking with Dolly and Mistress Brewster. He hoped, too, that if he got
+up to the house they would keep him there to supper, perhaps all night.
+So he answered Master Hopkins's question confidently and happily:
+"Yes, sir. I can surely walk that far up the hill."
+
+"That's well," said Master Hopkins; "you shall eat dinner with us this
+noontime."
+
+"Thank you, sir," Miles answered, not overjoyed, but civilly.
+
+"I'll take you to the house with me when I go back thither," the other
+pursued. "You understand, you are to dwell with me hereafter."
+
+When Captain Standish returned from his drying ground, Stephen Hopkins
+had gone on down to the landing, and against the logs huddled a
+piteous-faced small boy, who at sight of him cried: "Captain Standish,
+Master Hopkins says I must live with him."
+
+"Do you not wish to?" asked Standish, nonchalantly, and, tipping the
+water out of his tub, set himself down on the block where it had rested.
+
+"I'd rather go anywhere else in Plymouth, unless 'twas to Goodwife
+Billington. Must I go to him, Captain Standish?" Forgetting his usual
+respectful demeanor, Miles rose, and, stumbling the few steps to the
+Captain, leaned against his knee. "I thought--maybe I should go with
+Dolly to Mistress Brewster," he said in a low voice.
+
+Standish suddenly put one arm about him. "A pity it couldn't be so,
+Miles! But the Elder's house is full, and at Master Hopkins's there's
+half a bed; you can sleep with Giles. In any case, Master Hopkins was
+your father's kinsman."
+
+"I could go to Goodman Cooke," pleaded Miles. "Or--or--I wish I could
+live with you."
+
+Standish laughed outright, though when he spoke his voice was gentle:
+"I would take you, laddie, and be glad to, if things were--as I thought
+they would be. Rose had a liking for you." He stopped short, and Miles,
+looking up in some awe, noted that his eyes were fixed on the blue
+harbor, yet he seemed to see nothing of it. When he spoke again, his
+tone was quick and altered: "But as things have fallen out, John Alden
+and I are sleeping in an unfinished cabin and eating where we can find
+a bite. And a little young fellow like you would be better off in a
+household where there are women than with two clumsy men. So they have
+arranged it all for your best good."
+
+Miles nodded, not trusting his voice to speak. He was thinking of what
+the Captain had said about being a man and things that had to be done,
+and he meant to make a good showing before him. "I like Giles," he
+began slowly, "and I like Constance, and Ned Lister will be there too;
+I'll try to like Master Hopkins--if he'll let me bring Trug."
+
+So he had put on quite a brave face by the time Master Hopkins came
+to fetch him to his new home. To him it was all so much a matter of
+course that he offered no explanations or commonplace cheering words to
+Miles; just bade him come, and soberly led the way up the hill. Miles,
+with his feet like lead and his brave resolution flagging, loitered
+half-heartedly behind him, till Master Hopkins turned. "You're not yet
+as strong as you thought, Miles Rigdale?" he said gravely, but kindly
+enough, and, lifting the boy in his arms, carried him up the hill.
+
+Miles rested passive, one arm thrown perfunctorily about Master
+Hopkins's neck, and wished he were anywhere else.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+MASTER HOPKINS'S GUEST
+
+
+    "'In Wakefield there lives a jolly pinder,
+     In Wakefield all on a green,
+     In Wakefield all on a green,--'
+
+THERE, there, Damaris! Hushaby, hushaby! Go to sleep, like a good lass."
+
+Damaris gurgled at Miles with a provokingly wide-awake crow. "I never
+saw such a bad baby," sighed the little boy. "Do go to sleep, honey.
+
+    "'In Wakefield there lives a jolly pinder,--'"
+
+"Oh, Miles," laughed Constance Hopkins, who, standing at the rude
+table, was scouring the biggest kettle, "you have sung that half a
+score of times. Is there no other song you know?"
+
+"It is no time for the child to sleep now," interrupted Mistress
+Hopkins. "I'll wrap her up, and, since 'tis so mild a morning, you may
+take her forth into the air."
+
+"O dear!" thought Miles, "I'm a man, not a nurse." He never considered
+that it was any kindness on his new guardians' part when, instead of
+putting him to heavy outdoor tasks, they set him to minding the baby
+and helping about the house. "Like a girl," Miles told himself, with
+an indignant sniff. It was not two weeks since he left the sick-house,
+and his legs were still a little uncertain, but he was sure he was fit
+to work again, or, at any rate, fit to run away and play with the other
+boys.
+
+But he took the baby now and walked forth meekly, because he lived
+in some dread of Mistress Elizabeth Hopkins. She was a thin-lipped,
+energetic young woman, who mended Miles's clothes scrupulously, and,
+with equal conscientiousness, boxed his ears whenever he tracked dirt
+on her clean floors. Her sharp tongue, though, he feared more than
+her hands, for Mistress Hopkins scolded at everything and everybody;
+indeed, the only members of the household whom her words never troubled
+were Oceanus, who was so young he just blinked his eyes when she
+talked, and Master Hopkins, on whom people's fretting had as much
+effect as it would have had upon the great rock at the landing place.
+
+After all, Miles was rather glad to get out into the air, away from
+the living room, where Mistress Hopkins was already chiding Constance.
+The morning was fair and warm, with no wind stirring, and the harbor
+sparkled invitingly, so, shouldering the unwelcome Damaris, he started
+happily to the shore.
+
+But his contentment speedily had an end, for, not halfway to the
+landing, he was overtaken by Francis Billington, Jack Cooke, and Joe
+Rogers, who at once addressed him in disrespectful wise. "Ho, Miles,
+that's brave work, tending a baby," jeered Francis.
+
+"You meddle with your own matters," Miles replied sulkily.
+
+"Come with us, Miles," Jack put in pacifically. "We're going along
+shore to the first brook--"
+
+"We do not want a baby with us," Joe interrupted.
+
+"_You_ might stay with me, Jack," Miles pleaded, as the others turned
+away.
+
+Jack, a freckled little fellow with merry eyes, dug the heel of his
+shoe into the dirt. "The other lads will be having sport," he said
+half-heartedly.
+
+"Then go with them," cried Miles. "Only you were very fain to play with
+me on shipboard."
+
+Even this last thrust failed; Jack ran after the others down the hill,
+and Miles, feeling cross and ill-treated, was left to himself.
+
+'Twould look too much as if he were following his ungracious friends if
+he went on to the landing, so he turned back to Elder Brewster's house.
+There Priscilla Mullins, a girl orphaned by the winter's sickness, who,
+because she was eighteen, was classed by Miles as a woman, was sweeping
+the doorstone with a broom of birch twigs. She paused in the labor
+teasingly to throw him a kiss, and tell him his busy sister and the
+lads were cooking by the brookside.
+
+Sure enough, in the level space between the base of the bluff on which
+the cottage stood and the cove, Miles found Dolly, and Dolly's poppet
+Priscilla, and Love, and Wrestling, and Solomon, and Trug, who was not
+admitted to Mistress Hopkins's house because his great paws dirtied her
+floor,--all busied in making delectable pies of mud.
+
+But when Miles joined them, Love withdrew from the mud-pie game, and
+wished to play at holding a council, such as his father and all the men
+were holding that morning in the Common House to regulate the military
+affairs of the colony. Dolly insisted that she should be allowed to
+come to the council too, for all Love urged that women never were
+invited thither, and the argument was growing bitter, when an unwonted
+tumult in the village street drew Miles's attention. A confused sort
+of calling and shrill shouting it seemed, that made his heart quicken
+between curiosity and alarm; so, snatching up Damaris, he scaled the
+bluff, while the rest of the children scrambled close behind him.
+
+On the doorstone Mistress Brewster and Priscilla were gazing in silent
+wonder toward the street, and, looking thither too, Miles saw a man
+stalk past to the landing, very deliberately, as if he knew the place
+and held he had the right to come there. It was no one of the settlers,
+though, but a great, half-naked fellow with a coppery face--an Indian.
+
+Dolly and Wrestling clutched Mistress Brewster's skirts, the little
+boy fairly crying, and Miles himself, it must be owned, held Damaris
+fast and drew a step nearer the doorstone. But next moment he noted the
+Indian carried for weapons only a bow and two arrows, with which he
+could not kill all the settlement, and, moreover, at his heels tagged
+venturously Giles Hopkins and several of the other boys, and even
+Goodwife Billington, very clamorous, and the Governor's serving maid.
+
+So Miles, not to be outdone by a petticoat, swaggered into the roadway
+and joined himself to the little group of curious folk, who, always
+ready to flee if he should turn on them, followed close at the savage's
+heels, down the steep hill, past Peter Browne's cottage, even to the
+door of the Common House.
+
+The noise in the street had already disturbed the men at their
+conference, and they came flocking forth at the door, the Governor, the
+Elder, and the Captain, with a score of other stout fighters crowding
+behind them. But the Indian, never a whit abashed, strode boldly up
+to them, would even have pressed into the house, had not their ranks
+barred his passage. Nothing chilled, he halted, and, stretching forth
+his hands, spoke in a guttural tone: "Welcome."
+
+"Do Indians talk English?" Miles whispered to Giles, who stood beside
+him. "Hush, hush, Damaris! The black man won't hurt you."
+
+But Damaris, quite unconvinced, clutched Miles tightly round the neck
+and went on crying lustily, till at last Goodwife Billington seized him
+by the collar. "Thou good-for-naught lad!" she scolded. "Wilt thou kill
+the poor babe? Take her back to the house, thou runagate! Ay, ay, let
+her scream herself ill, so thou mayest gape and gaze. I would I had the
+up-bringing of thee!"
+
+Some people besides himself liked to gape and gaze, Miles thought,
+but, without reply, he gathered the wailing Damaris into his arms and
+trudged slowly up the hill. There, by the Governor's house, it chanced
+he met with Francis and Jack and Joe, who, scenting something unusual
+in the village, had hastened back through the fields. "What is it has
+happened, Miles?" cried Joe.
+
+Miles, glancing over his shoulder, saw with unkind satisfaction that
+the men had taken the savage into the Common House, out of sight.
+"'Twas naught," he said airily. "Just a great Indian came into town."
+
+"Did you see him?" urged Francis. "Tell us about it."
+
+"Humph! You've no wish to talk to me when I'm tending a baby," sniffed
+Miles, and trudged on to Master Hopkins's house, so elate at his
+triumph that he forgot to be angry with Damaris for dragging him away
+from the sport.
+
+At the noon meal, indeed, he heard all and more than he could have
+learned, had he lingered about the door of the Common House, for Ned
+Lister was bubbling over with talk of the Indian. As Master Hopkins had
+stayed at the Common House and Dotey had none of his fellow-servant's
+faculty for gathering news, he proved the only tale-monger of the
+household; so the whole family harked to him respectfully, and even
+Mistress Hopkins forgot her usual sarcasms on his galloping tongue.
+
+"This is not a savage from these parts," Ned explained; "he comes from
+the eastward, from Monhegan, whither the ships out of England go to
+fish. He has been on shipboard there and so has got a smattering of
+the English tongue. One Captain Dermer brought him to Cape Cod, and he
+has been in these parts now some eight months. And he told us a deal
+of the nations hereabout. This open place where we have settled is
+called Patuxet. It was a village of the savages once, but three or four
+years back came a great plague, and all the people died, so now we are
+undisputed masters of the soil. Next unto us dwell the Massasoits, a
+tribe of some sixty fighting men; and to the southeast, those savages
+whom our men gave a brush to on their explorations in December, are the
+Nausets, near a hundred strong."
+
+Ned paused to secure himself another slice of cold mallard; then
+started on a new train: "You should 'a' seen the Indian fellow eat. He
+asked for beer, but we gave him strong water, and biscuit and butter
+and cheese and pudding, and a piece of mallard thereto, and he liked
+all very well, and ate right heartily."
+
+"He is not the only idler who looks for a full meal," said Mistress
+Hopkins scathingly. "Where have they put the vile creature now?"
+
+"Vile creature, mistress?" Ned repeated. "Sure, he says that in his own
+country he is a great lord of land, a Sagamore--"
+
+"I would he were back in his own country," Mistress Hopkins answered
+sharply. "The murderous wretch! I shall not draw a breath in peace till
+he be hence. Here, Ned, 'tis little enough work you'll do if you go
+forth, do you stay this afternoon in the house to protect us."
+
+There was an instant of disappointed silence on Lister's part, then,
+"'Tis you she means, Ned Dotey," he cried, and, without staying to take
+his cap, bolted out at the door.
+
+Nor was this the only desertion which Mistress Hopkins suffered; for,
+at their first opportunity, Dotey and Giles also slipped away, and
+Miles stayed behind only because he was so little that the mistress
+shook him when he attempted to follow. But speedily he had a bright
+thought, and asked Mistress Hopkins if perhaps, since she was afraid of
+the Indian, she would not like him to fetch Trug to the house to guard
+them.
+
+Thus Miles was allowed, at last, to bring his dog home, and so grateful
+was he, that he remained patiently tending Damaris all the long
+afternoon. He found a certain enjoyment in his position, however; he
+was sole man in the cottage, and he wondered, should other Indians
+follow this first one, if Mistress Hopkins wouldn't let him take one of
+the muskets and fight for her. When it came dark at last, he knowingly
+inspected the fastenings of the door, and told Constance not to be
+afraid; he and Trug could defend them.
+
+Poor Constance needed more comfort than that, for she was in a sorry
+fright. Her hands shook as she laid the table, and, when a step sounded
+crisply in the dooryard, she gave a nervous cry and dropped the pile of
+trenchers. It was only Ned Lister, however, who stamped in, bareheaded
+and whistling cheerfully.
+
+"You have come back, then, since 'tis suppertime?" Mistress Hopkins
+greeted him sarcastically.
+
+"Nay, I'm not hungry," Ned answered, as he sauntered over to the fire
+where Miles sat with Damaris, "'tis that the master sent me ahead to
+bid you make ready the guest chamber and the bed of state. Our Indian
+lord there, the Sagamore Samoset, is to lodge here to-night."
+
+For a moment Mistress Hopkins looked at the speaker in dumb amazement.
+"If Master Hopkins does not punish you roundly for such a lie, Edward
+Lister," she said at last, deliberately, "it will not be for want of my
+urging him."
+
+"It's the truth, though," Ned answered indifferently.
+
+"O me!" Constance cried, with a sudden nervous wail, "I know we'll all
+be slain ere daybreak. O dear!" She turned to run into the bedroom,
+when Lister caught her by the arm. "Don't cry, Constance," he urged;
+"there's no need to fear. Captain Standish and some of the others are
+coming hither to spend the night and keep watch. You'll be safe enough."
+
+But the girl, breaking from him, vanished into the chamber, whither
+Mistress Hopkins, snatching up Damaris, followed her; so, for some
+moments, Miles was free to ask questions and Ned to answer, as it liked
+them best. But, so soon as Master Hopkins's deliberate step sounded
+on the doorstone, Mistress Hopkins came forth and, as he entered
+the living room, confronted him: "Is that savage to be lodged here
+to-night, Stephen? Among us, where my children are?"
+
+"He must go somewhere, Elizabeth," the master of the house replied
+unruffled. "He is set to stay among us for the night, and the tide is
+out so we may not convey him on shipboard. We can lodge him in the
+little closet next our chamber."
+
+"He shall not come into the house!" said Mistress Hopkins, with her
+thin lips set.
+
+"Edward Lister, do you spread out the bed within the closet," Master
+Hopkins went on unheedingly.
+
+With a wink at Miles, Ned crossed the room in unusual haste, and Miles,
+taking a candle, followed after into the closet, a tiny room with one
+black window, where stood an old chest and a hogshead and a rolled-up
+mattress, which Ned began leisurely to spread out. "What think you,
+Miles?" he whispered, as the boy closed the door behind him. "It's good
+there is one person in the house whom the dame cannot rattle off as she
+list, eh?"
+
+Miles nodded vaguely, his attention all fixed on the least details of
+the commonplace room which now had a fearful interest from the guest
+it was to shelter. The thought of the savage stranger filled the place
+with such awesome fancies that he could not help going out from it
+very hastily ahead of Lister, who grumbled a little that Miles was so
+speedy to be off with the candle.
+
+Once in the bright living room, however, he became very brave indeed,
+and wondered to Giles Hopkins when the Sagamore Samoset would come.
+His mood grew the bolder when the elder lad showed him a dirk knife he
+had placed under his doublet. "For there's no being sure with these
+treacherous savages," Giles said seriously.
+
+But when the Sagamore came at last, the boys found that the Hopkins
+household would be well guarded, for with him were not only Master
+Hopkins and Dotey, but big John Alden and Captain Standish. The very
+sight of the latter reassured Miles, so down he sat on the floor by the
+hearth, with his arm round Trug, who, as soon as he spied the Indian,
+bristled the hair on his back and uttered a throaty growl.
+
+Mistress Hopkins and Constance and the two babies kept within the south
+chamber; but the men by themselves were enough to fill the living room.
+There were but two stools, besides the form on the hearth and a chest
+against the wall, so long-legged Giles must curl himself up on the
+floor by Miles, while Ned Lister set himself upon the table. They bade
+the Indian be seated on the form by the fire, right over against Miles,
+who, be sure, stared at him with eyes wide open.
+
+The Sagamore Samoset, he saw, was a tall, straight man, of complexion
+like an English gypsy, smooth-faced, with coarse black hair that fell
+to his shoulders behind, but was cut before. Since his coming into
+the settlement, his English hosts had put upon him a horseman's coat,
+which he wore with much pride and dignity; indeed, all his gestures and
+carriage were not only decent, but of a certain stateliness. "Why, he
+is somewhat like other men," Miles whispered softly to Giles, but Trug
+grumbled in his throat.
+
+Only one candle was burning in the room, but the firelight cast a
+flickering brightness on the faces of the men. Captain Standish and
+Lister and the Indian had lighted pipes of tobacco, and the air was so
+heavy with the smell of the smoke that Miles half drowsed, but through
+his drooping eyelids he watched his English comrades, and watched the
+Indian. Captain Standish was sitting adventurously right on the form
+beside the Sagamore, and now and again they spoke together. Miles noted
+that in the Indian's speech came strange words, which the Captain
+seemed to try to understand, and once or twice the Captain even sought
+to make use of them himself.
+
+Miles wondered at this, and then his only wonderment was as to whether
+he had been asleep. The logs on the hearth had broken into red embers;
+the men had risen up; and, rubbing the heaviness from his eyes, Miles
+saw Master Hopkins and the Captain usher their Indian guest into the
+little closet room.
+
+Straightway a certain tension in the company seemed to slacken; Giles
+rose stiffly from the floor, and Trug put down his head upon his
+paws, though he still kept one bright, half-opened eye fixed on the
+door through which the Indian had gone. With a great creaking of the
+trestles, Ned Lister dismounted from the table. "If he come to kill
+us," he said in a low tone to Alden, "do you run in and call me so I
+can have a share in the scuffle." Then, stretching himself mightily, he
+disappeared into the north bedroom, where the serving men and the boys
+of the household slept.
+
+"Since you have two others to keep watch with you, Master Hopkins,"
+spoke the Captain, as he took down his hat from the wall, "I'll go walk
+a turn about the hill. I'll be back ere the half-hour is up."
+
+He had put his hand to the latch, when Miles, on the impulse, sprang to
+his feet and ran to him. "May I come too, sir?" he whispered.
+
+"You, Miles? Why, you were better in bed. Nay, come if you like."
+
+Out of doors the air was crispy and silent, and pleasant smelling
+after the smoky atmosphere of the crowded room. Overhead the stars
+were dense and bright, but below, the lonely little settlement lay in
+darkness, with never a spark of a candle showing. "How late is it,
+Captain Standish?" Miles asked, in a hushed voice.
+
+"I should say it was near on to midnight," the other replied, stepping
+along so briskly that Miles's breath for talking was lost in the effort
+to keep pace with him.
+
+Up and up they toiled; past Goodman Billington's cottage; past the
+black cabin where Alden and the Captain lived; and then by the
+well-trodden path up the sheer hillside, till the planking of the broad
+platform sounded hollow beneath their feet, and they stood among the
+guns. The spark in the Captain's pipe gleamed red in the darkness, but
+Miles could not see the Captain's features; he perceived only that he
+turned his face from quarter to quarter, and remained longest gazing
+into the black west, where the ridge of hills ran jagged against the
+starry sky.
+
+He watched the Captain's movements, but he did not venture to speak
+till Standish himself broke out: "Well, there'll come no bands to
+frighten us this night, I take it. We can march home, Miles. We've a
+fair starlight to make the march under," he added, and, as they stepped
+from the platform to the yielding turf, lingered an instant to gaze
+skyward.
+
+"Which is it that is the North Star, sir?" Miles hesitated.
+
+"Why, that one yonder, lad. You know it well."
+
+"I knew 'twas the North Star in England. I knew not if 'twere the same
+here. It is such a long ways from home."
+
+"It's the same sky, Miles, and the same Heaven, I take it, that we had
+over us in England."
+
+Miles threw back his head and once more stared up into the sky, that
+was so vast it made him shrink and feel smaller even than before.
+He sighed a little, he scarcely knew why, and put his hand on the
+Captain's sleeve. Standish took Miles's hand in his, and so kept hold
+on him as they came down from the hill, and in that pressure was
+something so comforting that Miles was sorry when they reached the door
+of Master Hopkins's house.
+
+Within was heavy air, and a dull fire, and sleepy faces; Giles had gone
+to lie down on his bed, and it did not need the Captain's bidding to
+send Miles blinking after. Once, in the darkness, he was wakened by
+hearing Lister protest inarticulately that he would rather have his
+throat cut in his sleep ten times over than rise and watch; and once
+Miles guessed hazily that some one was shaking him, and he tried to say
+he was getting up, and in the midst dropped back on his pillow.
+
+At the last the dazzle of warm sunlight on his face, and the rattle,
+rattle of trenchers, brought him staggering and blinking to his feet.
+Oh, yes, he remembered; the Sagamore Samoset had been there last night;
+but he was not afraid of him, especially since 'twas daylight; indeed,
+he wanted to see him again, so out he rushed into the living room.
+
+"Well, sleepyhead!" Constance laughed at him, and Mistress Hopkins
+was beginning to scold him because he had not awakened, for all her
+efforts, till mid-morning, when Ned Lister sauntered in. "His Lordship
+the Indian is safe departed, Constance," he said consolingly, as
+he made a slow business of getting an axe from the chimney corner.
+"They gave him a knife and a bracelet and a ring, and he is gone away
+content."
+
+"A good riddance, too!" snapped Mistress Hopkins. "And now do you,
+Edward Lister, fetch two buckets of water and wash out the place where
+the creature lodged. To bring such heathen under a Christian roof! I
+hope I never set eyes on another of the coppery wretches again."
+
+Ned shrugged his shoulders and said nothing till his mistress was quite
+done; then he added meekly: "I misremembered; he said he was coming
+back again in a night or two, and next time he is going to bring with
+him a goodly number from the tribe of the Massasoits."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+THE LORDS OF THE SOIL
+
+
+SAMOSET proved as good as his word. The very next morning, for all it
+was Sunday, back he came, and with him five other tall Indians, who
+were even more wonderful fellows than he, for they were clad in skins
+of deer or of wildcat, and had dressed their hair with feathers, and
+painted their faces in black streaks. To divert their English hosts,
+they sang and danced, which Master Hopkins called a violation of the
+sanctity of the day, but Miles privately thought most edifying.
+
+He was even better pleased when that night, at the departure of his
+comrades, Samoset was ill or feigned to be, so, spite of Mistress
+Hopkins, he must be sheltered in her husband's house. Thus for three
+days Miles dwelt under the same roof with a live Indian, and ate at
+the same board, till he came to have not the least tremor at sight of
+a copper-colored face. Indeed, he neglected every task he was set, to
+dog the Indian guest about the street and make shy efforts at talk with
+him, and he was heartily grieved when at last, on Wednesday, Samoset
+went away into the forest.
+
+"No doubt he'll come again, the mistress always makes him so welcome,"
+Ned Lister consoled Miles, "and each time he goes, for his further
+encouragement, they give him a present. This morning they gave him
+a hat and shoes and stockings, and a shirt and a loin cloth. I take
+it, 'tis because I am what Master Hopkins calls a son of Belial that
+it makes me to laugh, when I think of Sagamore Samoset in an English
+headpiece with a flapping brim."
+
+"I'm mighty sorry he went," sighed Miles, uncomforted. "I was learning
+the Indian words, so I could talk to him presently, like Captain
+Standish. 'Cossaquot,' that means _bow_; and 'et chossucke' is _a
+knife_; and 'petuckquanocke' is _bread_; and--"
+
+Ned yawned suggestively, and fell to work again. He and Miles that
+afternoon were busied in the spaded garden patch at the north end of
+the dooryard, where they were pressing the seeds into the soft earth.
+The sun was hot, and, as Miles worked, he smeared his warm face with
+his fingers, till Ned assured him he was all streaked brown, like an
+Indian.
+
+But though it was hot and dirty labor, it was far manlier than to be
+ever dandling a baby; so Miles toiled on earnestly, spite of Ned's
+indolent example, and did not pause even to stretch his cramped legs
+or straighten his aching back till mid-afternoon. Then he started up
+at a noise of people hurrying through the street, the sound of a quick
+footstep, the rattle of the house-door.
+
+"'Tis Master Hopkins has taken his musket and gone forth," spoke Ned,
+who was lounging farther down the garden. "Somewhat's afoot." Away he
+went to look into the matter, and Miles ran stiffly after.
+
+Out in the street the men and boys, and even one or two girls, were
+hastening toward the bluff above the spring. As they went, a confused
+talking spread among them, from which Miles learned that yonder, on the
+great wooded hill across the brook, Indians had been seen,--Indians who
+brandished their bows and whetted their arrows in defiance. Captain
+Standish and Master Hopkins and two men from the _Mayflower_ had gone
+down to cross the brook and parley with them. Look, yonder they went
+now!
+
+From where the company had halted, high up beyond Goodman Cooke's
+cottage, Miles could see the bright river and the hill opposite, thick
+with unleaved woods. Up its base wound slowly the little band of
+Englishmen, now half-screened, now wholly visible; but Miles looked
+from them, higher up the slope, where the bare branches were agitated,
+as if something moved among them. "'Tis the savages!" said one; but,
+strain his eyes as he would, Miles saw through the bushes only the
+sad-colored English doublets.
+
+Yet, with an anxiety he scarcely comprehended, the men lingered on the
+bluff, watching and discussing in grave tones, till the Captain and
+his followers came toilsomely up the path from the spring. They had
+seen naught; the savages had not suffered them draw nigh them, Captain
+Standish explained, so briefly that he seemed curt, while his puckered
+brows still were bent on the slope whence the Indians had sent their
+defiance.
+
+Slowly the little group of curious and troubled people scattered, some
+of the weightier ones to speak with the Governor and the Captain,
+others to simpler tasks. Miles went back to his garden, but the
+sunlight had now left that corner of the yard. The great hill, where
+stood the guns, looked black against the sky, and there seemed in all
+out-of-doors a menace that made him glad at dusk to get within the
+house. Throughout supper the men kept from speaking of the savages with
+an elaborateness that made their silence the more suspicious, and the
+unspoken anxiety wrought on Miles till at bedtime he smuggled Trug into
+the chamber and made the dog lie near him.
+
+Next morning, in the clear sunlight, Miles's courage revived mightily,
+but his elders still looked sober. None the less, whether Indians
+threatened or no, the work of the colony must be done: all the morning
+men and boys trudged about their tasks, though none went far afield;
+and after the noon meal the men gathered once more at the Common House,
+to consider the public business which the first coming of Samoset had
+broken off.
+
+Oceanus was ailing that afternoon and needed his mother, so Miles
+had to mind Damaris for a dreary hour. As he sat with her upon the
+doorstone, he spied a noiseless little group of some five Indians
+passing down the street, and, alert at once, he begged leave to run see
+what might happen; but Mistress Hopkins, all a-tremble herself, forbade
+him venture out while those bloodthirsty wretches were abroad, and even
+made him come in and shut the door fast.
+
+But speedily there sounded a rattling knock to which the mistress
+must open, and in came the men of the household, so hurriedly that
+straightway the living room was in confusion. For the great Sagamore
+Massasoit, with his brother Quadequina and sixty warriors, was at hand,
+just across the brook. One of the Indians, Squanto, who could speak
+English, had gone back to bid him enter the settlement, and the men of
+the colony must get under arms to receive him; perhaps even to defend
+themselves, Master Hopkins let a word fall.
+
+There followed a great throwing-on of buff-jackets and buckling of
+sword-belts, while Giles, newly appointed drummer to the colony,
+rattled over the pots and kettles in a meaningless search for his
+drumsticks, which some one had surely moved from the place where he
+left them. Oceanus wailed, Damaris, indignant at being neglected,
+screamed aloud, Trug barked, and Mistress Hopkins scolded, but somehow,
+in the midst of the hurly-burly, the three men equipped themselves and
+tramped away; and right at their heels went Giles, with the drumsticks
+which Constance had found.
+
+But the door closed behind them and shut Miles, a soldier in name only,
+in with the women and children for another tedious hour. Damaris found
+little rest in his arms those minutes, while he ran from the western
+window, whence he could see a bit of the street and the path to the
+spring, to the eastern window, whence, far down the street, he beheld
+the men gathered in martial line, all in armor, which glimmered bravely
+in the afternoon sun.
+
+He was still gazing down the street when Constance, who had ventured
+to the other window, called to him in a terrified voice: "Miles! Oh,
+Miles! Come hither. 'Tis Indians indeed. Hundreds of them!"
+
+With no wish to see further, the girl drew away from the western
+window, and Miles thrust eagerly into her place. Yes, there were
+Indians indeed, swarms of them, it seemed at first sight, so he
+flinched back a little from the casement. For they were filing past
+the house, and that brought them so near that Miles could see even
+the grotesque figures in which their faces were painted. But soon he
+perceived English musketeers marshalling them, and he saw, too, that
+the savages were unarmed. Their mission must be peaceful, he judged;
+so, eager and unafraid, he stared at them, and was sorry when the last
+one disappeared down the street.
+
+Just then, as he turned from the window, sounded the tap, tap of a
+drum. "It is the Governor and the rest of the men with drum and trumpet
+marching up the street," spoke Constance from the eastern casement.
+"They have led the savages into the unfinished cottage by the Common
+House, and now they are going in to them."
+
+Miles, at her side, squirmed with impatience. "There's Jack yonder
+beneath the cottage window," he exclaimed, "and Francis and Joe. And
+there's such a deal to see. And I'm sure they are all good, harmless
+Indians." He gave a glance toward the bedroom, where he could hear
+Mistress Hopkins lulling Oceanus, then whispered Constance: "Won't you
+mind Damaris? I'll tell you all about it when I come back."
+
+"I see not why you wish to go forth at such a time, but I'll do 't
+for you. Run quick, ere stepmother stop you," answered kind-hearted
+Constance; and away sped Miles.
+
+Still, he was too late to share in the main excitement, for when he
+came into the yard of the unfinished house, he found the door fast shut
+and all the great folk, white or copper-colored, gone within. Only two
+musketeers remained outside to keep watch, and Edward Dotey, who was
+one of them, proved so unsympathetic as to cuff Francis Billington when
+he tried to get a peep in at the window. Much discouraged, for where
+saucy Francis failed to go there was no hope for the others, the small
+boys of the colony gathered in a patient little group in the dooryard
+to talk of these great happenings.
+
+"Master Winslow has gone out amongst the Indians," said Jack, "and
+they're holding him as hostage for their old King. 'Twas right valiant
+of him--"
+
+"Pooh! The Captain would 'a' gone just as quick," Miles retorted
+jealously. "There's naught to be afraid of, anyway. I would I were
+Giles Hopkins, and stood there in the house with the savages."
+
+"My father is in there too," spoke little Love Brewster, who had
+attached himself to Miles, "but he is so good I do not think even an
+Indian would hurt him. But there were very many of them, and if my
+mother had come close to see, I am sure she would have been afraid.
+Perhaps I were best go home and tell her there's no need to fear. You
+come with me, pray you, Miles."
+
+Young Rigdale had no wish to take his eyes from the door of the house,
+but plainly the little boy was fearful enough to want his company up
+the street, so he went with him, and at the Elder's cottage stayed a
+moment to reassure the women grandly.
+
+Dolly had no interest in Indians, since she found in the case of
+Samoset that they did not carry about with them a store of pretty
+baskets, such as the one her father had brought her; but Priscilla
+Mullins was eager to know everything, and questioned Miles and listened
+to him most flatteringly, till he offered: "If you wish to go forth and
+view the Indians, Priscilla, I'll go and take care of you."
+
+Whereat young Mistress Mullins laughed, and, slipping her hand under
+his chin, kissed him for his courtesy, "like a baby."
+
+Red and indignant, Miles flung out of the house; then forgot the
+insult, as he saw Giles, with a platter in his hand, hurrying up the
+street from Governor Carver's cottage. "What are you doing there?" he
+called, running to intercept the elder lad.
+
+"Fresh meat," panted Giles. "The Governor wished it for the King. I
+had this bit of a goose from Mistress Carver, and now I've remembered a
+mallard I saw stepmother set to boil."
+
+It took him very few minutes to hurry into his father's house, and out
+again with a second larger platter balanced in one hand, but, short as
+the space was, Miles had laid a plan. Stepping up to Giles, he took
+from him Mistress Carver's dish of meat. "Let me aid you," he proffered
+innocently.
+
+"So that's what you're scheming," laughed Giles; but he let Miles,
+under that pretext, come at his side down the street, past the little
+group of envious boys, up the doorstone of the unfinished cottage, and
+so into the very council chamber.
+
+The room was close and hazy with smoke from the pipes of tobacco that
+the King and the chief of the English puffed at, but, spite of the
+dimness, Miles speedily made out the shapes of the Indians. Black,
+red, yellow, and white, their faces were partly or wholly smeared with
+paint, and, through the wavering smoke-wreaths, their look was so grim
+that for an instant he hesitated on the threshold.
+
+But Giles went on, so he followed, across the room, between what
+seemed endless rows of Indians in hairy skins who stood or squatted
+on the floor, up to the table, where sat a tall, stalwart savage.
+Imitating Giles, Miles set down his dish of meat before him, and, with
+an agitated bow, drew back to the wall, where he wedged himself in
+between Lister and young Hopkins. "That's the King, yonder at table,"
+the latter whispered him softly.
+
+He did not look at all as Miles thought a king should look, that savage
+at the table. He wore a scant covering of skins,--a dress like that of
+his followers, save that the King had also about his neck a great chain
+of white bone beads. His face was painted a dark red; and face and head
+alike were oiled so he looked greasy; he fed untidily with his fingers,
+and sometimes, when he would give a morsel to one of his followers,
+rent the meat with his hands.
+
+But, for all he seemed so busy with feeding, his quick eyes were
+darting about the smoky room,--now resting on the Governor, who
+sat at table near him; now on the English musketeers who lined the
+walls,--and, to Miles's thinking, the King looked on them timorously;
+now on his own followers, who crowded silently about him. One of the
+Indians, squatting on the floor, held in his hands the English trumpet,
+on which he tried to blow, and, for a moment, the King paused to hark
+with a child's wonder to his efforts, then once more began tearing
+Mistress Hopkins's mallard.
+
+When nothing but bones was left of the bird, Giles slipped the platters
+from the table, and now the serious work of the conference seemed to
+begin. Up from the floor behind the table, where they had sat, rose
+two savages, who should interpret between Massasoit and the Governor;
+the one was a stranger, probably that Squanto whom Master Hopkins had
+mentioned; the other, Miles's old acquaintance, Samoset. A transformed
+Samoset, however, with an English felt hat low on his brows and an
+English shirt worn over his meagre native garments after the manner of
+a carter's frock. Ned Lister, standing rigid and soldierly against the
+wall, took Miles a sudden dig in the ribs, and winked at him with a
+"Didn't I tell you as much" expression.
+
+Miles, on his good behavior, neither looked at him nor smiled, but
+fixed his gaze on the men about the table. The sun had now shifted down
+the sky, so a great bar of light thrust in at the western window. The
+yellow brightness flecked across Elder Brewster's grizzled head, made
+Governor Carver's stiff ruff even more dazzlingly white, and gleamed
+back again from Captain Standish's steel corselet. It rested, too, on
+the papers which Master William Bradford had laid on the table before
+him, but Master Bradford's grave face, as he bent forward to write what
+the Governor bade, was in shadow. The features of Massasoit, too, were
+dark to see, but here and there, as the sunlight, bursting through
+the smoke, wavered across the room, the painted face or coppery bare
+shoulders of one of his followers stood out.
+
+The two interpreters jerked out the gutturals of their outlandish
+tongue, to which the King grunted assent, or now and again the Governor
+spoke a measured word. But outside the window a bird was singing in a
+high, purling strain; and Miles wondered if it were a fat, red-breasted
+bird, and thought more on its song and on the motes that swam in the
+sunlight, than on what the Governor was saying.
+
+After all, he was glad when the conference broke up. He was tired of
+standing stiffly, and the air of the room was heavy; and the Indians,
+when they neither ate nor played with trumpets, but just sat stolid,
+were a bit stupid. He scuffed softly but impatiently at the rear of the
+train, as the company filed forth; the Governor and the King, side by
+side, went first, and then, all in some semblance of order, the Indian
+warriors and the English leaders and soldiery.
+
+Outside, a guard of honor formed about the Governor and his guest, and
+gave them fitting escort to the brook; but Miles remained behind and
+roused the envy of his mates, with an account of what he had seen,
+till, in fickle fashion, they forsook him at the coming of a second
+guest, Quadequina, the brother of Massasoit, who, in his turn, would
+have a taste of English hospitality. He could not, however, compare
+in dignity and importance with Massasoit; he was just a tall, comely
+young savage, who liked English biscuit and strong waters, but liked
+the English muskets so little that his hosts good-naturedly laid
+them aside. Massasoit was not cowardly like that, Miles assured his
+comrades; Massasoit was every inch a king, and it was a mighty honor to
+have been in the same room with him.
+
+Quadequina had been but a short time gone, and the long shadows were
+filling the river valley with a grayness, when back across the brook,
+quite unruffled by his long detention, came Master Edward Winslow. His
+fellow-colonists might be glad to see him, and he to return unscathed
+to them, but he carried it laughingly. He was all sound, save that he
+was uncommon hungry,--Miles, following admiringly, caught a scrap of
+his speech to Captain Standish,--the Indians had tried to buy the armor
+off his back and the sword from his side, and he knew not but he might
+have sold them for a mess of pottage, only he saw no such savory viand
+among the savages, nor anything, indeed, but groundnuts.
+
+Now that Master Winslow was returned, the colonists released the
+Indians whom they had held as hostages for him, and sent them away.
+Save only Samoset and Squanto, no Indians were suffered to remain in
+the settlement, but the rumor went that King Massasoit and all his
+people had encamped for the night on the wooded hill across the brook,
+so a strict watch was set.
+
+"Do you think there will be fighting yet?" Miles questioned Giles, as
+they walked home to supper. "Quadequina was afeard of our muskets. I
+take it, we could beat those Indians."
+
+"To be sure, there'll be no fighting," answered Giles, as he tucked his
+drum under one arm in a professional way. "We've struck a truce with
+the savages."
+
+Later, at supper, Miles heard it all explained. This was a dolorous
+meal, for the meat had been devoured by his Majesty, Massasoit, and
+Mistress Hopkins was ill-tempered and rated Miles for running away that
+afternoon, and, to add to her discomfort, Samoset came blandly to sup
+with his old entertainers. "This has been an ill day such as I wish
+never to see the like of again," fretted the poor woman.
+
+"It is a happy day for our colony," said Master Hopkins gravely. "Do
+you not realize, Elizabeth, that we have this afternoon made a peace
+with our heathen neighbors that, by the will of Heaven, shall prove
+lasting? King Massasoit has covenanted that none of his people shall do
+us harm as we go abroad; and, if he be attacked, we shall aid in his
+defense, or if other tribe of savages assail us, he shall do us the
+like service. Yea, the hand of Providence has been with us this day.
+Yesternight it was all menace; but to-night we can hope for peace."
+
+Miles, in his place at table, looked at Samoset, very solemn in his
+funny shirt and hat, and, blinking sleepily at the candle, took little
+concern for the earnestness of Master Hopkins's words. He scarcely
+realized that this was almost the second founding day of New Plymouth;
+but he did know that he had stood within arm's reach of King Massasoit,
+an exploit of which no other boy in the colony could boast; and, when
+he went to bed, he dreamed all night of red and blue and green Indians.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+WHEN THE GOOD SHIP SAILED
+
+
+EVEN Mistress Hopkins must at last somewhat overcome her fear of the
+savages, else her life would have been miserable beyond endurance. For
+Massasoit having plainly made the treaty in good faith, his people
+were ready at all times to visit their English allies and eat of their
+food. Coppery faces grew so common a sight in the single street of
+New Plymouth that each boy in the colony had his own little tale of a
+friendly Indian encounter, and Miles Rigdale was no longer alone in his
+experiences.
+
+Still further to rob Miles of his prestige among his fellows, his own
+particular Indian, the Sagamore Samoset, with his hat and his shirt,
+which he used in wet weather to remove carefully, lest they be damaged,
+took himself off to his own land to the eastward; and Miles found no
+one to fill his place.
+
+To be sure, Plymouth had now a resident pensioner in the Indian
+Squanto, but he lived with Master Bradford, and so was accessible to
+other boys as well as to Miles. "I see not why he is let dwell among
+us," the latter said jealously, in the early days of Squanto's stay.
+
+"Because, if he were any but a heathen, one might say this land
+where we have planted belongs to him," Master Hopkins made a brief
+explanation, which to Miles was no explanation at all.
+
+But later, of a morning when Master Hopkins's force of laborers was
+busied in building a fence round the garden patch, Giles, who had
+listened to the talk of his elders, took the trouble to set forth
+the substance of it to Miles. "You'll understand, this Squanto
+truly belongs at Plymouth. Back in the time when an Indian village,
+Patuxet, stood where we have settled, he dwelt here. But there came an
+Englishman named Hunt--"
+
+"Who was rather more of a knave than even a trader should be,"
+parenthesized Ned Lister, who, seated comfortably on the ground near
+by, was hammering the palings together.
+
+"He was a scoundrel," said Giles, warmly. "He toled Squanto and
+nineteen others from Patuxet, and some from among the Nausets, on board
+his ship, pretending he would truck with them; and then he hoisted sail
+and steered away for Spain, where he sold them all for twenty pound
+apiece. But somehow this fellow Squanto made shift to reach England,
+where a good merchant of London cared for him. 'Twas there he came by
+the knowledge of our tongue that he has. And at last they sent him
+back hither to his own country; but meantime the plague had been among
+them at Patuxet, and all were dead."
+
+"The Lord removed the heathen to make way for a better growth," said
+Dotey, who had just come thither with an armful of fresh palings.
+
+"Truly?" muttered Ned Lister. "Then I'm thinking the Lord in His wisdom
+laid His hand pretty heavily on the poor silly savages just for our
+profit."
+
+There was little enough love already between Lister and Dotey, so Giles
+headed off a possibly bitter argument by continuing hastily: "So, as my
+father says, Squanto is, in a way, the owner of the land here, and as
+such has a right to shelter and food amongst us."
+
+Miles listened to this story with a grave, stolid face, such as the
+others kept, and made no word of comment. But afterward he thought much
+of what had been told him, and wondered if Squanto had had a wife and
+copper-colored babies, and had come home to find them dead. He felt
+sorry for the poor, lone Indian, and watched him with new sympathy;
+but to all appearances Squanto was more occupied in consuming English
+biscuit and butter than in grieving for his lost friends.
+
+Whether or no he had a claim upon the English, the Indian speedily
+showed himself able to repay them for any kindness. He told the men
+how they must wait yet some days before they planted their corn, and
+how there would then be plenty of fish in the river, which they must
+set with the seed; and much more that was useful. But nothing of the
+Indian's arts impressed Miles so much as his prowess in eel-catching,
+for he would go often into the forest and return, after a few hours,
+with fat, sweet eels, as many as he could lift in one hand.
+
+Of an afternoon in April, nearly a fortnight after the coming of
+Massasoit, Ned Lister and Giles Hopkins went to the southward with
+Squanto on such a fishing trip, and, as Miles was very eager to share
+in it, they let him come too. Their course took them over steep, wooded
+hills, where always they had blue water close on the left hand, and,
+looking back over their shoulders, could see the bay of Plymouth, with
+its flanking headlands. A tender leafage was upon the trees, and in the
+southern hollows, where the birds sang, the air was warm; but on each
+hilltop a chillier blast stung in the faces of the fishermen and urged
+them to trudge more briskly.
+
+At length they came to a gully, where two hills curved into each other,
+and descended it, half running, to the bank of a small river that
+flowed seaward through a level reach. Here was where the eels dwelt,
+Squanto gave his companions to understand; and then, without spear
+or any implement, he waded gently into the quiet water. The three
+English-born, from the bank, watched him intently, yet they scarcely
+realized how he did it, when he suddenly made a swift dart forward, and
+rose with a long, slimy thing writhing in his hands.
+
+"Do you just tread 'em out with your feet, Squanto?" Ned queried after
+a time, as, keeping pace with the savage, they trailed along the bank.
+
+When the Indian gave an "Um" that implied assent, Ned presently
+suggested: "Say we venture it, lads. It has a simple seeming. Tell us,
+Squanto, can a white man take eels that way?"
+
+"White man try," advised Squanto, stolidly. He had caught enough for a
+mess, so he probably thought that the splashings of the English fellows
+would do no harm now.
+
+Ned and Giles, stripping off shoes and stockings, waded in; and Miles,
+not to be outdone, followed after. The water felt stingingly cold
+against his bare legs, and set his teeth chattering so he could not
+talk. The very ooze of the river bed was clammy; and then he suddenly
+found his tongue and gave a frightened scream, as his toes touched
+something that rolled beneath them.
+
+"Did you take one, Miles?" cried Giles Hopkins, splashing to the spot.
+
+"I d-d-don't know," chattered Miles, from the shore where he had sought
+refuge.
+
+Giles spattered to and fro a moment. "'Twas naught but an old branch,"
+he announced contemptuously.
+
+"It was an eel," retorted Miles, "but, to be sure, he will not stand
+there the day long till you choose to come seek him."
+
+With that he forced himself to put his purpling feet into the water
+again, but, spite of this brave showing, Ned and Giles would chaff him
+on his flight, and even Squanto looked amused at the conduct of the
+youngest of his allies.
+
+Yet, for all they were so ready to laugh at him, Miles noted his
+English comrades did not take a single eel, and that gave him a kind of
+comfort. But even then there was little pleasure in wading through the
+icy water, in the expectation of stepping on a soft, squirming thing;
+so he was not sorry when Ned gave the order to take up the homeward
+march.
+
+The east wind, that had turned chillier as sunset drew on, smote
+bleakly on the hilltops, and in the hollows, where the shadows were
+creeping through the undergrowth, the warmth had died out of the air.
+The gathering darkness pressed ever closer upon the fishermen; the sea
+on their right turned gray and dim; the blue faded from the sky, and
+the green of the distant headlands of the bay changed to black. Just
+off the beach point they could dimly make out a dark bulk, where a
+single speck of light showed--the old ship _Mayflower_.
+
+"They say she'll be hoisting sail for home soon," Giles spoke, as they
+trudged through the twilight, with a surety that his comrades knew to
+what he referred.
+
+"So soon as the wind swings round into the west," answered Ned. "Then
+she'll up sail, and it's 'Eastward, ho!'"
+
+Then presently, in the dusk, Ned began whistling a sorry little tune,
+unlike those he was wont to sing, very slow and monotonous, with a
+sudden rising to a high note and as sudden a sinking again, like the
+sharp indrawing of breath in a sob. "What song is that, Ned?" Miles
+asked, because he would rather hear Lister talk than whistle that
+pitiable strain.
+
+"'Tis the Hanging-tune, Miley; the one to which they set the last
+confessions of men who are condemned to die." He fell to whistling once
+more and half humming the words:--
+
+    "'Fortune, my foe,
+      Why dost thou frown on me?'"
+
+and Miles harked to the tune till it went crying itself through his
+head.
+
+Next morning it still came back to him keenly,--the walk in the
+twilight, the look of the distant ship, the woful minor of the
+Hanging-tune. For the wind was hauling round to westward, and of a
+sudden Indians and gardening and house-building ceased to be matters
+that men talked of in the street; instead they spoke of the going of
+the ship that had borne them from England.
+
+Already she had stayed longer on their shores than any had expected,
+because of the sickness that had been among her crew. But now, on shore
+and on ship, the sickness was stayed; just half the settlers lay buried
+on the bluff, and the crew of the _Mayflower_ mustered in diminished
+numbers, yet enough survived and in recovered health to work the ship
+back to England. With the first favoring wind she would set forth upon
+her voyage; and with that bit of sure information went another, that
+Master Jones had offered to take home in her any one of the settlers
+who might wish to go.
+
+"Right generous of him, is't not?" Ned Lister spoke bitterly to Miles.
+"Who does he think is going with him? The Elder and the Governor
+and Master Bradford, all the chiefs, if they showed their faces in
+England, they'd be clapped up in prison. And the lesser men, or even
+our great Master Hopkins here, they've ventured all their substance in
+this plantation. If they go back, they must starve or beg in London
+streets, and 'tis as easy and pleasant to starve here. There's none in
+the settlement I know of has the wish to go home, save myself, and I
+cannot go, because I've sold my time to Hopkins, the more fool I!"
+
+"Why did you ever come hither, if you hate it so?" Miles questioned.
+
+"Because a penny fell wrong side up," Ned answered. "I woke up in
+London one fine morning, with no shirt to my back and but one penny
+in my pocket. 'It's either 'list for the wars, or get me into a new
+country and start afresh,' I said, so I tossed up the penny,--heads
+Bohemia, tails America. It fell tails; so I sold Stephen Hopkins my
+three years' time in return for my passage over. And a precious fool
+I was! Faith, I'd liefer dig ditches in England than play even at
+governor here. And so soon as my time's out!"
+
+Miles listened soberly, but with no sympathy; he did not understand why
+a tall, grown fellow like Ned should think on home with such longing.
+He did not care himself; he had come to New Plymouth to live, and he
+looked forward to the departure of the _Mayflower_ as a novel happening
+in the round of everyday occurrences.
+
+Yet when it befell, it seemed quite a matter-of-fact event. A clear
+breezy morning it was, and, as the household sat at their early
+breakfast, Francis Cooke came leisurely to tell Master Hopkins that
+the wind was setting steady from the west, and Master Jones had rowed
+ashore to bid his former passengers good-by; so soon as the tide was
+at flood, the ship would put forth.
+
+There was wood and water to fetch as every day; and Miles did the tasks
+hastily. As he came down the path by Cooke's house, he could feel
+the wind stirring his hair, and yonder in the harbor the waves were
+ruffling, and the dim old sails of the _Mayflower_, unfurled, bellied
+in the gusts.
+
+When he had set the dripping bucket within the living room, he ran
+down toward the bluff, to see what more was to see, but, finding his
+playmates lingering by the door of the Common House, he joined them.
+Within the house, they told him, Master Jones was drinking a friendly
+draught with the colonists, and taking his leave. Presently, indeed,
+the Master, a low, broad-shouldered figure, in his wide breeches and
+loose jacket, came forth, attended by most of the men of the colony,
+and rolled off to the landing place.
+
+Some of the boys straggled respectfully behind their elders, but Miles
+raced with those who ran to be first at the landing. There, alongside
+the rock, rode the ship's longboat, and Will Trevor and several of
+the lesser men stood talking with the sailors who sat in her. The
+youngsters, too, would gladly have borne a part, but the Master, coming
+right on their heels across the sand, broke up the little group; he was
+speaking boisterously with the Governor, so his loud voice could be
+heard even above the confusion of the embarkation.
+
+Indeed, it was all so noisy and hurried that nothing of those last
+moments remained clear in Miles's mind; he remembered only that
+men spoke of letters and packets, and the Master wished them many
+a "God be wi' you," and there was a bustling to and fro and a deal
+of hand-shaking. Then the Master, sitting in the stern seat, was
+cursing at his sailors; the width of blue water between the longboat
+and the landing rock was increasing; and for a moment Miles watched
+mechanically the sway and swing of the seamen's bodies, as, bending to
+their oars, they rowed the boat away.
+
+When at length he turned slowly about, he was aware that, halfway
+up the rugged slope of the bluff, a little group of women, all that
+survived in the colony, were standing, and the children with them. He
+scrambled up to be with Dolly, why, he could not say, only somehow he
+wanted to be sure she was safe and near him then; and he noted Mistress
+Carver, who sat upon a stone with her hands clasped tensely in her lap,
+and Priscilla Mullins, whose hair blew unheeded about her face, while
+she gazed out to sea.
+
+He almost stumbled over Wrestling Brewster and the little Samson boy,
+who had sat down on the turf and unconcernedly were playing with some
+bright pebbles; but he did not pause to speak to Wrestling, just
+clambered a few feet higher up the bluff, where Dolly, holding to
+Mistress Brewster's gown, stood with her wistful face turned seaward.
+"Look you closely, Dolly," he greeted her. "See, they're hoisting sail
+on board the _Mayflower_."
+
+Dolly, pressing up to him, whispered for her only reply: "Do you mind,
+Miles, how we came in on the ship, and mammy and daddy with us? I wish
+we'd all stayed in England."
+
+"Now hush, Dolly," Miles admonished in a gruff tone, and scowled
+vexedly as the little sister, hiding her face against his doublet,
+began to cry. Then, half pitying, he bent to speak to her, when a
+sudden gasp, as if the women about him all drew in their breath, made
+him look to the harbor. There he saw the _Mayflower_, with the western
+wind swelling her dingy sails, had heaved up anchor, and was heading
+out upon the ocean.
+
+The sun was bright and made the dirty sails gleam like silver; the
+water was blue, and the wind was brisk; and the ship stood seaward
+swiftly, very swiftly. Miles thought on how she had set forth from
+Southampton; and he knew that on board men would be clattering across
+her deck, and hauling at ropes, and the Master would be bellowing
+orders.
+
+But on shore a great silence had fallen. The most careless of the
+men had no word to say, while of the graver sort some had bowed their
+heads, and some, coming higher up the bluff, had drawn close to their
+wives and children. For a moment there was no sound save the lap of
+waves about the great gray landing rock, and the swish of shingle as
+the swell receded; then suddenly one of the women--it was Mistress
+White, six weeks a widow, who stood with her baby in her arms and her
+other little child holding to her skirts--burst out sobbing.
+
+Miles gazed about him in wonder. Why, men never cried; Captain
+Standish's face now was hard as a stone; and he himself had not the
+least inclination to shed a tear. But among the women round him was a
+stifled weeping, so anguishing for being half suppressed, that some
+pity mingled with his contempt, and, with a feeling that he was ashamed
+to listen, he slipped away from the bluff. He thought he were best run
+up on the great hill to watch the _Mayflower_ depart; and he found that
+his friend Jack and several other boys had had the same thought.
+
+All together they raced up the street to see who should gain the
+hilltop first, and by the time they came thither, with laughing and
+struggling, had clean forgot their elders, who, from the bluff below,
+watched the receding ship through a dazzle of tears. From the top of
+the hill the lads could see the white sail of the _Mayflower_ in the
+offing, out beyond Sagaquab, speeding ever farther into the horizon;
+but Miles never saw it vanish, for Francis Billington had discovered a
+nest of snakes at the other side of the hill; so, in the midst of their
+watching, the boys must run thither and look upon the wriggling little
+creatures, then scrupulously stone them all to death.
+
+When Miles clambered again to the hilltop, there was never a distant
+glimmer of a sail upon the sea; but he could not think of the ship's
+departure sadly, with the day so fair and his time at his disposal. He
+felt hungry, though, so he ran down to the house a moment to eat his
+dinner; and, for all it was long past the noon hour, he found no dinner
+ready.
+
+Ned was out by the woodpile, nailing together a hand-barrow, with
+a sudden fierce spurt of energy, but he was in a sulky temper; and
+within the house Constance went about with her eyes red. She gave
+Miles a piece of bread in his hand, and bade him run away and eat it;
+stepmother had shut herself in her chamber, and father was with her,
+trying to comfort her. "I see not why you all make such a to-do because
+the old ship has sailed," Miles spoke, with his mouth full.
+
+"Because we're left alone. Because no ship will come ere the autumn.
+Maybe it will never come," Constance burst out, with sudden
+passionateness. "And we are here, and home is there, and the ship has
+gone. You'd understand, if you were older."
+
+No, Miles did not understand yet. What with the excitement and the
+change, in spite of the sad bearing of those about him, the meaning
+of it all did not come home to him till next morning. He had risen
+early with the others and run forth to fetch wood for the morning
+fire. The sun was just reddening the horizon line, but the rest of the
+world looked faint and gray. A white mist, rolling off the fields, was
+shrinking away inland from the sea whence it had come. But out to sea
+he could distinguish clearly the dusky beach point, and the islands
+and-- There he rubbed his eyes. No, it was no trick of the mist. There
+was the old anchoring ground, but it was empty; the clumsy, old, dark
+hulk was gone.
+
+Miles walked on to the woodpile, trying hard to whistle, but the only
+strain that came was a sorry snatch in a minor key,--the Hanging-tune.
+The chill of the dawning struck into his bones. Once more he looked to
+the anchoring ground that was vacant; then he sat down suddenly among
+the damp logs. He did not cry,--he was too big and old for that,--but
+he leaned his folded arms against a log, and hid his face between them.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+THE SOWING OF THE FIELDS
+
+
+"TO be sure, though, I was not weeping," Miles declared to Constance,
+who came out from the house to see why he tarried so long at the
+woodpile, "for I never even thought on going back to England."
+
+He little guessed that, at one time, the leaders of the colony had
+spoken seriously of returning Dolly and himself to the home-country.
+But Master Hopkins had urged that, in such case, the children might be
+drawn back into the faith of the Church of England, from which their
+father had sought to snatch them; and Elder Brewster had added that it
+was a weary journey for such little folk, and no prospect at the end
+save of hard fare among grudging kindred.
+
+John Rigdale left no near relatives; and his distant cousins, to whom
+the children would have to go, were poor tenant-farmers, just as he
+had been, who would find it burdensome to feed two more mouths. For
+Miles and Dolly, not only would childhood prove hard and laborious,
+but there would be nothing better to look forward to; as the boy grew
+to manhood, he could hope only to toil for daily hire on some farmer's
+land. "Unless he fling away his soul's welfare by going as a mercenary
+in some iniquitous foreign war," said Master Isaac Allerton; whereat
+Captain Standish smiled a little behind his beard, but made no answer.
+
+But here in New Plymouth, though Miles would have plenty of work to
+do, he would have, as his inheritance from his father, a claim to a
+share of land and of whatever cattle or other property the settlers
+should hereafter hold in common. By the time he was a man, there would
+be enough for him to have a small farm of his own, where he could live
+in more comfort than he would have known in England; and, till he was
+grown, Master Hopkins was willing to feed and shelter him, in return
+for what labor he could do.
+
+As for Dolly, her case was simple enough, for if Miles stayed, she
+stayed; and Mistress Brewster was quite determined that the little girl
+should stay in no house but hers. So the _Mayflower_ sailed away, and
+Miles Rigdale, with his little household, remained behind; and he never
+dreamed that people had thought of continuing the colony without his
+aid.
+
+The boy had some cause to rate his services highly, for, in the
+weakened condition of the settlement, every atom of strength had to
+be used, and tasks were set for him as seriously as for burly Edward
+Dotey. The full working-force of New Plymouth mustered but twenty-two
+men,--counting in the venerable Elder, the Governor, and the Doctor,
+who all labored with their hands as readily as the rest,--and nine
+boys--some half-grown fellows, like Giles and Bart Allerton, who, at a
+pinch, could bear a musket and do almost a man's work, and some small
+rascals, like Miles himself, who, with the best intentions, did not
+always, for lack of strength or of wisdom, accomplish what was bidden
+them.
+
+But, old or young, laggard or brisk, every male member of the colony
+was expected to turn out now and bear a hand, for the mid-April season
+approached, and the precious corn, that was to feed the settlement,
+must be planted. To the elders, it looked like a stretch of hard work,
+but Miles hailed it joyously, as a dignified, manly labor.
+
+It began excitingly, with the coming of the alewives up the river, just
+as Squanto had foretold; and straightway some of the men set to taking
+them with seines, while others with hoes scored up the rough soil of
+the cleared fields to the north, that once had been the planting land
+of the Indians of Patuxet. Still others got out the corn, a precious
+supply of seed which they had found buried in an Indian basket under
+the sand of Cape Cod, and had made bold to take against this sowing
+time.
+
+For the present, Miles's part was only to splash about at the river
+brink, where he fancied he was hauling at the seines, or to carry a
+bucket of water to the workers in the field, or bring a stouter hoe
+from the storehouse. Planting was no labor, just sport, he went to
+assure Dolly, at the end of the first twelve hours.
+
+He tried to see his little sister once each day, but this time the work
+had been kept up so late that it was past twilight before he could
+run across the street to Elder Brewster's cottage. A lingering warmth
+was in the evening air, so Dolly and tall Priscilla Mullins, their
+faces dim in the candlelight that shone from within the living room
+behind them, were sitting on the doorstone. Some one else stood leaning
+against the doorpost, some one with a deep voice, who called Miles by
+name.
+
+"Is it you, John Alden?" the boy asked, and, because Alden was the
+Captain's friend, would have talked to him, had not Dolly, saying she
+had a great secret to tell him, dragged him away, round the corner of
+the cottage.
+
+"Now guess what 'tis, Miles," she bade, as they halted in the ray of
+light that streamed from the house-window beside them.
+
+"I cannot guess, Dolly. Be not so childish."
+
+"I'd give you three guesses. 'Tis something Love and I found in the
+woods, up beyond the spring, on a southern hillside. 'Twas so far I was
+near afraid, but I am glad I went. We were playing in the dead leaves,
+and we found these. Look on them."
+
+She drew her hand from her small bodice, with three wilted pink flowers
+clenched tightly in it. They were small flowers, of a star-shaped form
+and a rare, deep pink color, but Miles scarcely heeded color or size in
+his enjoyment of their sweet, spicy smell. They were unlike any blossom
+he had ever seen, so he was not ashamed to show his interest, even if
+a flower was a girlish trifle. "You and Love found them, Dolly? And no
+one else knows?"
+
+"'Tis a secret," Dolly nodded. "We told only Wrestling and Priscilla
+and Mistress Brewster. Ay, and the Elder too, because Mistress Brewster
+said perchance he might know what flower it was, he is so wise. And
+John Alden, Priscilla told him. And Love told Harry Samson and Milly
+Cooper--"
+
+"It's a mighty great secret when all the colony knows it," Miles said
+sarcastically, and then, at Dolly's hurt look, was sorry; so he added,
+"but I'm glad to know't, Dolly, and I'll go seek for some myself."
+
+"There are buds yonder on the hillside, but no blossoms. Maybe,
+though, we could find some, if we went and searched. Priscilla wishes
+to get some too. Oh, Miles, could we not all three go to-morrow?"
+
+"I must work," Miles answered proudly. "I'm not a child or a girl, so I
+cannot stop to play."
+
+Yet he was child enough to think he should like to go get a handful of
+those rare, pretty flowers. After he got them, he would not greatly
+care for them, but there would be the zest of owning something that
+every boy in the colony did not own; and if he gave the flowers to
+Dolly or to Constance, it would please them, since they were girls. So,
+before dawn next morning, Miles tumbled out of bed, and, taking in his
+hand the hunch of bread that formed his breakfast, ran away up beyond
+the spring. Perhaps before work-time he could find a blossom or two, he
+thought; and so grubbed hopefully among the damp, dead leaves of the
+hillslope.
+
+The mist that precedes the sunrise melted from the air; a bird sang
+faintly in the distance; and even amidst the undergrowth the light grew
+yellow and cheerful; work-time was near, and Miles had found only a
+poor half-dozen blossoms. He hated to give over, but there was no help
+for it; so, getting slowly to his feet, he was starting down the path
+to the settlement, when a man crashed out through the bushes on his
+left. It was John Alden, Miles saw at once, and he carried a great
+handful of the pink flowers.
+
+That was palpably an unfair arrangement, Miles held, so, as he fell
+into step at Alden's side, he queried: "You did not come hither and
+strip our place, did you?"
+
+"Whose place, lad?"
+
+"Why, mine and Dolly's and Priscilla's and--"
+
+"Do you think I should dare plunder the holding of so many proprietors?
+I have been to northward."
+
+Miles was silenced a moment, then insinuated, "John Alden, what do you
+want of posies? You're a man."
+
+"Well, what do _you_ want of them, Miles?" John smiled down at him.
+
+"I'm going to give mine away; I'm taking them to the Elder's cottage--"
+
+"Give them away there, eh? To Mistress Mullins, now, perhaps?"
+
+"No, to be sure," Miles said indignantly. "I do not like Priscilla
+Mullins."
+
+"Then you are the only one of that mind in New Plymouth. Why do you not
+like her?"
+
+Miles went in silence a time, kicking at each hump and hummock in his
+path, but Alden was waiting for his answer, and he wished to please
+him. "Well, if you must know, John Alden," he broke out at last, "I do
+not like Priscilla Mullins because she kissed me."
+
+Alden began to laugh, then, suddenly picking Miles up by the back of
+his doublet, shook him a little. "Miles Rigdale," he said solemnly,
+as he set the boy, rather breathless, on his feet again, "you are an
+ungrateful little cub."
+
+Miles held that a most uncalled-for charge, but he had no time to
+defend himself, for just then they came over the brow of the hill by
+Cooke's cottage and saw men astir in the street, so the day's labor
+must be beginning. Miles ran to join Francis and Jack, and, in bragging
+to his comrades of his flowers, forgot to take them to Dolly. That
+night, when he stopped to have a word with her, he told her all about
+them, but he found that she was not interested in a story of six
+blossoms, seeing that Priscilla Mullins, since the morning, had had a
+fair large bunch of them, such as no one else in the settlement could
+show.
+
+But in the days that followed Miles had little time to go seeking
+flowers on the hillslopes, or gossiping with his sister in the
+twilight. For, with never a minute of daylight to rest, the whole
+colony worked now in good earnest,--taking alewives in the brook,
+tugging them up into the fields, setting the little hills with corn
+seed and with fish to keep it moist. To crown all, the planting fell
+in a season of heat, and an intense heat, unlike the milder warmth of
+England, that sapped the heart of the stoutest worker.
+
+The first day Miles was bidden to plant corn, putting two shiny
+alewives into each hole, and Jack Cooke was set to plant the row
+next him. But unhappily they chattered so much that Miles presently
+realized, in some horror, that he had supplied several hills with
+alewives, but no corn, and, while he was pulling up the ground to
+set the matter right, came Master Hopkins. He was angry; not that he
+blustered, but he cuffed Miles smartly, and, saying he could not be
+trusted at such important work, sent him down to the shore to labor
+hereafter.
+
+From that time on, Miles tugged fish,--a dreary task, in which he was
+coupled with Francis Billington, another scatter-head. They had a
+great flat Indian basket, in which they heaped the alewives, taken all
+slippery from the big pile that lay upon the river brink; then they
+would lift the basket between them, to each a handle, and, panting and
+heaving, struggle up the steep bank from the river, and so through the
+settlement, out to the hot, open fields.
+
+It was not a great load they could carry at one time, so their
+usefulness depended on the number of trips they made, but there they
+were sluggish. Often the basket upset, and they had to sit down to
+refill it; and again, more and more frequently as the hot days went
+on, they must halt to quarrel, when Francis vowed Miles was bearing
+down on his end of the basket, and Miles declared Francis was not doing
+his share.
+
+One morning it came to such a pass that Miles took a basket by himself,
+but he found the journey single-handed so hard that he was in even
+less hurry than usual to return from the fields and get a second load.
+Loitering along, he was amusing himself by trying to carry on his head
+the empty fish-basket, which _would_ fall off, when, as he paused to
+pick up the troublesome article for the fifth time, Captain Standish,
+coming shirt-sleeved and grimy from the fields, overtook him. Rather
+guiltily, Miles straightened up very erect, and said, "Good morrow,
+sir," as he always said it to the Captain.
+
+"You're journeying back to the brook, Miles?" asked Standish. "At this
+speed you'll not come thither ere dinner-time."
+
+"I'm hastening now, sir," Miles answered, accepting the words as an
+invitation to trot along at the other's side.
+
+The Captain had his own concerns to look to, plainly, by the way he
+tramped along, but, right in the midst, he glanced down at his small
+companion and asked unexpectedly: "Where are your shoes, Miles?"
+
+"I--I could not wear them," the boy explained, kicking his bare feet
+in the sand. "Down by the river 'tis very wet. And then 'tis hot, so
+I laid off my doublet and my shoes and stockings too. I like to go
+barefoot," he added defensively. "In England, they never suffered me;
+they said only beggar children went barefoot. But--" his voice grew
+suddenly anxious, "I am sure my mother would think it right now, do not
+you, sir?"
+
+The Captain did not look convinced.
+
+"It is a great saving to my shoes," murmured Miles.
+
+"You were better save your feet," the Captain answered. "When your
+shoes wear out, there'll be new ones for you. Now do you go to the
+house and put them on, before you step on a thorn or do yourself some
+hurt." His tone was brusque, and he hurried at once about his business,
+as if he had no time to waste.
+
+Obediently Miles went to the house to finish dressing; he was a little
+sorry, because he liked the fun of going barefoot in the soft dirt,
+yet, on the whole, it was pleasant to have Captain Standish speak to
+you and order you into your shoes, as if he had some concern for you.
+So flattered did he feel, indeed, that he only smiled in a superior way
+when Francis Billington, barelegged and unregenerate, sneered at him
+for putting on his shoes and stockings.
+
+But that was the last happening of the week which Miles remembered with
+enjoyment, for the first excitement had now gone out of the labor, yet
+the work dragged heavily on. All through the weary day he felt the
+weight of the basket pulling at his arm and the heat of the steady sun
+scorching upon his bare head; and at night, when he lay on his pallet,
+with his feet throbbing and his back aching, he dreamed of tugging fish
+up the breathless pitch of a never-ending bluff.
+
+A little respite came on the Sabbath, when, of course, no work could
+be done, but with Monday's light all were in the fields once more. It
+was a day of sweltering heat; the rays of the sun seemed beaten upward
+again by the steaming earth, and the languid air was heavy and sick.
+Toward the fiercest hour, about noon, as Miles was panting through the
+fields on a return trip to the brook, Master Carver called to him.
+
+The Governor had knelt to set the corn at the head of one of the rows;
+his doublet was off and his hands were grimy, but, for all the heat,
+Miles saw that his high, bald forehead was quite dry of perspiration.
+"Here, lad," he said, as Miles ran to him, "can you fetch us a pail of
+water hither to drink?"
+
+"Ay, Governor," Miles piped in a respectful treble, and, much impressed
+by the importance of his errand, trotted off briskly. At the spring
+he longed to dally a moment, to drink of the water and to stir up the
+great green frog who lived in the cool sand of the bottom, but, so soon
+as his bucket was filled, he resolutely turned back through the glaring
+heat to the fields.
+
+Short as the time had been, a change had taken place. At first he
+thought it a mere trick of the dazzling light, but, as he looked again,
+he saw that indeed most of the men had risen from labor and, drawn
+together, were gazing in his direction. Nearer at hand, he beheld two
+coming toward the settlement; the one was John Howland, a member of the
+Governor's household, and the other, who leaned heavily upon his arm,
+was the Governor himself. They passed within arm's length of the boy,
+and Miles took note how the Governor's down-bent face was now of a dull
+reddish hue, and he noted, also, how the grime of his homely toil still
+clung to his limp hands.
+
+Surprised and a little awed, though he scarcely could tell why, Miles
+tugged on into the fields, and, finding Goodman Cooke among those who
+stood gazing after the Governor, asked him eagerly what was wrong.
+"Why, naught," spoke Cooke, "only Master Carver complains of his head;
+'tis along o' the heat, so the Doctor ordered him back to his house to
+rest. He'll be well again by eventide."
+
+But with eventide the word went among the colonists that Governor
+Carver lay unconscious, and at those tidings faces grew grave. Miles,
+in his youthfulness, gave little thought to it all; he was more
+concerned with his own half-flayed hands and aching legs than with
+Master Carver's illness, and each day these physical pangs grew keener.
+
+The height of misery came on a sultry afternoon toward the close of
+the week, a breathless, stifling time, when, for sheer weariness and
+hopelessness, Miles sat down in the hot dirt in the middle of the field
+and thought he never could rise again. Yet he scrambled up briskly,
+when he saw his guardian approach, though Master Hopkins, whose face
+was very grave, did not scold the boy, but, after a first sharp look,
+bade him go rest in the shade till the day was out. "The hot sun is
+deadly," he said, as to himself; but Miles realized only that he was
+bidden to cease from labor.
+
+He dragged himself back to the house, where he lay down upon his bed,
+and watched the little patch of sunlight clamber higher up the wall and
+harked to the drowsy sounds of out-of-doors; then heard nothing clearly
+till the men tramped in to supper. He sat up slowly, and listened to
+catch what gossip they might bring; their voices were subdued, and
+he half guessed what had befallen ere he heard Master Hopkins say
+solemnly that the good Governor Carver was dead.
+
+Miles thought on it the night long; this death, lonely by itself, was
+so much more awesome than the crowded sicknesses of the last winter. It
+seemed the order of life must show some change, but, with the heat of
+the next rising day, the colonists, as usual, only more silent, filed
+forth to their labor in the fields. For whether men were well or ill,
+or lived or died, the corn that was the hope of the settlement must be
+planted.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+THE TWO EDWARDS
+
+
+THE fields of New Plymouth at last were sown,--twenty acres of Indian
+corn and six of English seed, wheat, barley, and pease,--enough to
+yield an ample harvest. There was besides another field, where the
+corn, however tall it grew, would never be reaped, for, that the
+savages might not know the number of the dead, it was planted upon the
+graves of those who perished in the winter's sickness.
+
+Among them lay John Carver, buried honorably with such poor military
+pomp as the colony could show its governor, and with a more precious
+tribute of grief for a good man lost. Near him lay now his wife
+Katharine, who at his death had grieved and pined, till within six
+weeks they had dug for her a grave in the new-sown corn-land.
+
+Master Bradford was the new governor; a grave, wise-headed gentleman,
+with a gift of kindly speech and a shrewd sense of humor, but, to
+Miles, his greatest claim to respect was that the interpreter Squanto
+had chosen to dwell with him. For Miles Rigdale, to use Mistress
+Hopkins's vexed phrase, was "ever beating the street after the heathen
+savage." It must be owned that to his guardians he was a troublesome
+boy; not a bad boy, but a careless fellow, who, though he might mean
+to do well, was likely, when sent to weed in the fields, to be found
+swimming in the river, or hunting strawberries on the hills, or fishing
+with Squanto.
+
+Miles did not reason out his new dislike for responsible labor, did
+not take into account the influence of lazy Edward Lister, or the
+distractions of the spring and early summer in this new country; but he
+did feel there was a difference between working with his father, when
+he knew the harvest would be for his mother and Dolly, and grubbing in
+a corner of a great field that was the property of no man, but should
+feed the whole colony. He no longer took pride in his labor, and, if
+he had taken any, Mistress Hopkins's dissatisfied comments would have
+destroyed it. Yet, much though he disliked the bustling woman with the
+sharp tongue, he neither disliked nor feared her the half as much as he
+disliked and feared her husband.
+
+Years later, when he had come to manhood, Miles was able to think
+on Master Hopkins with gratitude, for, in all honesty, this severe,
+undemonstrative man used him like a son, as kindly as he used his own
+boy, Giles. Except in the stress of planting-time, Miles was never
+set to tasks beyond his strength; he was well fed,--as the fare of the
+colony went,--well sheltered, decently clad, while the little store of
+his father's goods was scrupulously left untouched for his later use.
+
+Master Hopkins tried also, conscientiously, to keep him to the path of
+strict virtue, with admonitions, and, if need were, with corrections.
+It was an age of whippings, and, on occasion, Miles was whipped
+painstakingly. Master Hopkins's floggings were, on the whole, not so
+severe as Goodman Rigdale used to give his son, but Miles resented them
+with an amazing outburst of anger. "You are not my father; you have
+no right to beat me," he cried, the first time Master Hopkins took a
+birch rod to him, and, swinging round in a fury, he lustily kicked his
+chastiser's shins.
+
+After that one attempt and the sorry consequences which it entailed, he
+never again tried to defend himself, but, though he had to submit, the
+old feeling remained; to the pain and shame of a beating was now added
+a rankling sense of the injustice and, so to speak, of the illegality
+of it all.
+
+Beatings, though, were something every boy in the colony, even the
+sober Giles, had a good share of, so Miles made shift to endure; but
+Master Hopkins presently devised a new-fangled means of persecution,
+for he insisted on teaching him to read.
+
+The boy had clung to the black-letter Bible because it was his
+father's, and sometimes of a Sunday, between the morning and afternoon
+teachings at the Common House, when it grew irksome to sit quiet and do
+nothing, would take the book and spell out half a chapter, and amuse
+himself with looking at the funny black letters. But one Sunday, a warm
+May Sunday, when Miles was lying with his book in the young grass in
+the shadow of the house, Master Hopkins, noting his unusual employment,
+bade him read aloud to him, and, as he was a man of education, was
+honestly shocked that, as he put it, "the lad could scarce spell out
+his mother-tongue."
+
+From that time dated Miles's tribulations. It was useless to protest
+that he could read well enough, he did not wish to read better; Master
+Hopkins's decree went forth that every night after supper the boy was
+to come to him with his Bible, and read aloud a chapter. Miles never
+reflected that, after a day of hard labor in the fields or woods, or of
+serious consultation with the other leaders of the colony, it could be
+neither restful nor pleasant to Master Hopkins to hear a stupid little
+boy stumble through a dreary waste of words. But he was quite aware of
+the unjust fact that the space of daylight, in the long summer evenings
+after supper, was the time when all the other lads were at liberty to
+play, while he must drone out the chronicles of dead and gone Hebrews
+with unpronounceable names.
+
+The reading lesson always took place just without the house-door, where
+there was a bench on which Master Hopkins sat; Miles stood beside him,
+where he could see the harbor and the street, with the boys passing
+down it to the beach, perhaps; and where, too, it was convenient for
+Master Hopkins to cuff his ears when his attention strayed hopelessly
+from the book to the affairs of his playmates.
+
+Sometimes, when he wished to get away and join them in carrying out
+a long-laid plan of sport, Miles would pore over his chapter twice
+or thrice in the day, and so, when evening came, be able to read it
+fairly. But on such occasions Master Hopkins always said there would
+be time to finish another chapter; and when it came to that, poor,
+disappointed Miles always stumbled, so that his lesson ended in
+disgrace and bitter rebuke.
+
+Early in July, however, he had a blissful holiday, for Master Hopkins
+went with Master Winslow and Squanto far inland to visit King
+Massasoit, so for five days there was no one to bid Miles read a word.
+Neither did any one whip him, for all he shirked his weeding, and ran
+away to fish in the harbor with Ned Lister and the sailor, Trevor, and
+played by the brookside with the other boys till long after dark.
+
+Dotey, to be sure, one morning when Miles forgot to fetch a supply of
+water, and he had to fetch it himself, threatened to "swinge" him; he
+was a steady fellow, was Dotey, and, since Giles was but a lad, in his
+master's absence was tacitly admitted to the headship of the household.
+But when he talked of beating Miles, up rose Ned, and called him, with
+an oath, a great bully, swaggering in his little ha'penny borrowed
+authority, and threatened, if he laid hands on the little fellow, to
+break his head for him.
+
+It was in the living room this happened, just before the noon meal;
+Miles remembered afterward the good smell of the roast fish Mistress
+Hopkins was setting on the table, and what an overpowering heat came
+from the great fire on the hearth. He was standing near the fireplace,
+backed up against the wall, a little conscience-stricken and fearful
+of a whipping, but still more frightened by the vehemence of the two
+men. Lister had swaggered across the floor, and stood before him, and
+Miles was glad of his protection, though he half realized that it was
+not alone the desire to defend him, but the desire to defy Dotey, the
+trusted and sober, that spoke in Ned's tone.
+
+Constance's quiet voice, as she stepped between the two young men,
+quelled the squabble: "Don't curse so, pray you, Ned. And, Ed Dotey, do
+not you whip Miles; he only forgot--"
+
+"He does not merit whipping," spoke slow Giles, who held his own little
+resentment that his father's servant was set in authority over him.
+
+Mistress Hopkins interrupted tartly that Miles needed a strong hand
+to correct him, and Dotey was quite in his right; her approval made
+it lawful enough for the young man to carry out his intention, but
+Dotey, like a discreet fellow, had no wish to bring about a scuffle
+with Lister and a hot family quarrel in his master's absence. So he
+said, as if it were a concession, that he would do as Constance asked,
+and let Miles off this time; and with that they all sat down peaceably
+to dinner. Miles ate his full share of the fish, and, believing this
+episode happily ended, put it quite out of his head.
+
+He had good cause to remember it some ten days later. By then Master
+Hopkins had returned, so it was necessary for all to be busy, and Miles
+weeded in the corn-field till his back ached, and every evening read
+his chapter in the Bible. But one morning, a hot, dull morning with
+an overcast sky, Ned and Giles planned to go with Squanto to fish for
+perch in a pond far up in the woods, and Miles received a reward for
+his diligence of the last few days in a permission to go with them.
+Giles and the Indian started on ahead, to take the bait, while the two
+others stayed to make ready the extra tackle, which, being left to
+Ned's management, was always in a snarl.
+
+Lister was sitting on the bench by the house-door, whistling a little,
+as he disentangled lines and adjusted hooks, and Miles, kneeling on
+the grass beside him, was giving what help he could, when Master
+Hopkins and Dotey came out of the cottage. Dotey, who had an axe on his
+shoulder, headed away through the garden to the hills whence firewood
+was fetched, but Master Hopkins came and stood over Ned.
+
+How it went and exactly what was said, Miles scarcely comprehended, but
+he heard Master Hopkins's stern voice and Ned's sulky answering tones,
+and in the lulls the rattle of trenchers, as Constance, inside the
+house, cleared the breakfast table. The gist seemed to be that Master
+Hopkins had found out about Ned's threatening to break Edward Dotey's
+head, for he rated him soundly that he durst lift his voice against one
+set in authority over him, a sober man, who was his better--
+
+"He is not my better," Ned retorted, flinging up his head, with his
+eyes sullen and angry.
+
+"Do you grow saucy to contradict me?" Hopkins asked frowningly.
+
+Too much had been said of Dotey for Ned to cast off rebuke with his
+usual shrug; flinging aside the tackle, he started to his feet, but,
+before he could walk away, Hopkins caught him by the shoulder. As they
+stood thus Miles noted, with sudden surprise, that alongside Master
+Hopkins Ned looked slight and almost boyish; somehow Miles had always
+thought of him as a man, because he was old enough to use a razor.
+
+"You shall stay till I have done with speaking," said Master Hopkins;
+and then Ned made a sudden movement to free himself, flung up one arm,
+half involuntarily,--and Stephen Hopkins reached him a blow that,
+taking him beneath the chin, stretched him flat on the ground at his
+master's feet.
+
+The women came to the house-door, and it surprised Miles that it was
+not Constance, but Mistress Hopkins, who cried, in a frightened voice:
+"Stephen, Stephen, I pray you--"
+
+Ned rose to his feet with his face white, and stood brushing the dirt
+off the side on which he had fallen; there was a great brown streak of
+it along one sleeve and the shoulder of his shirt. "There's work you
+have made for the mistress, sir," he said, and began laughing in a high
+key.
+
+"That's enough," Stephen Hopkins checked him. "Remember, I've never
+laid hands on you ere now, Edward Lister, but if you mend not your
+ways, this will not be the last time." He lingered yet a moment ere
+he turned away to the door, as if awaiting an answer, but Ned made no
+reply, just stood fumbling at the fishing tackle with one hand, while
+the other hung limp at his side.
+
+Only when Master Hopkins had passed out of sight into the house did
+Lister raise his head, and then, squaring his shoulders, he led the way
+toward the street. "Will you not take the tackle, after all?" asked
+Miles, running at his side. Ned's only answer was a shake of the head,
+and to all Miles's further efforts at talk and one clumsy effort at
+sympathy he kept silent.
+
+They left behind them the sandy street, and, skirting along the bluff,
+came to the path to the spring and the stepping-stones, beyond which
+lay the trail to the ponds. Ned did not turn off there, however, but
+trudged on till he reached the little stream that flowed from the pool
+where they had cut thatch. "Whither are you going?" panted Miles, for
+the third time.
+
+"Where you were best not come," Ned answered, crashing into the bushes
+on the right hand. But Miles turned doggedly in his steps, through the
+first crisp thickets and then along the miry ground by the edge of the
+pool, where the air was so muggy that he wondered Ned cared to keep up
+his reckless pace.
+
+Of necessity the speed slackened, as they clambered over the pebbles
+and pushed aside the crackling undergrowth of a dry gully in the
+northern hillside, but it was not till they were tramping through the
+hushed woods on the summit that Ned spoke: "Did you know, Miley, my
+father was a gentleman? A great family, the Listers, up Yorkshire
+way. But he was a mere younger son, and he married a pretty serving
+wench out of his father's hall, so they would have no more of him. But
+he was a gentleman, and he tried to give me a smattering of decent
+breeding,--" there Ned began to laugh, with the corners of his mouth
+drawn up, and his eyes mirthless,--"and I am a brisk serving fellow,
+whom the master pommels at will, eh, Miles? And they set a clod like
+Edward Dotey over me."
+
+There was going to be a fight, Miles guessed, but though at another
+time he might have been secretly glad at the prospect of such
+excitement, he had seen one man knocked flat that day, and it had not
+been amusing, so now he was not over-zealous for the sport. "Come back
+and fish, Ned," he coaxed, plucking at his companion's sleeve, when
+that very moment, on the hillside below them, both caught the sound of
+an axe falling on wood.
+
+After that Miles scrambled down the slope, eager as Ned himself, in
+his curiosity to see what would follow. A little clearing it was they
+came out in, where one tree had been newly felled, and its clean stump
+showed yellow; by the tree trunk, leaning on his axe and wiping his
+sweaty forehead with his sleeve, stood Dotey.
+
+"Well, Neddy, I've come to talk with you," Lister greeted him, in a
+fleering voice, and on the word set himself down on the stump, with his
+hands clasped about one knee.
+
+At first it was a talking, that lay all on Ned's side, while Dotey
+tried to keep up a pretense of work. Ned spoke words, well-chosen and
+stinging, that should make even stolid Dotey wince, and spoke them in
+a jibing tone, with a hateful laugh that startled Miles, even more
+than the sight of the little pulsing motion of the blood in Ned's dark
+cheeks.
+
+Dotey swung round impatiently at last. "Hold your tongue, will you?" he
+cried.
+
+"It is thou who wert better have held thy tongue, Neddy, before thou
+wentst blabbing to Hopkins of what passed between us."
+
+"I did not," Dotey answered blankly.
+
+"Thou art a liar," quoth Ned, quietly, and still hugging his knee.
+
+Then Dotey strode over to him, and Ned, laughing up into his face,
+jeered at him, "threaten a man with his fists, would he, when he had
+just set Hopkins on to rebuke him for the like offense;" but at length
+he rose up and cast his mocking manner. "We are agreed there is one
+Edward too many in the house," he said slowly. "Now say we despatch one
+forth of it. Will you fight me like a gentleman, rapier and dagger?"
+
+In a daze Miles listened to Dotey's first protests, Ned's taunts,
+till the final agreement was struck and the arrangements made. "I'll
+contrive to fetch rapier and dagger from the Captain's house," Ned
+concluded, "and do you, Miles, take those that hang in Hopkins's
+chamber, and bring them unto us behind the Fort Hill."
+
+Unquestioningly, Miles sped upon the errand. The sun had burnt away the
+fog now; among the trees it was hot and breathless, and, when he ran
+through the fields, the drying earth crumbled under his feet. Yet he
+scarcely minded heat or dust, as he thought on what was now to come,
+and thrilled with anticipation; for, down in his heart, he told himself
+Dotey and Lister would never hurt each other, and he had never seen
+anything livelier than a bout at quarterstaff, and a real duel would be
+a wonderful thing to witness.
+
+By the time he came to the house, he was all of an excited flutter,
+but happily Mistress Hopkins alone was within, and she was so busied
+in scouring her pewter platters that she only looked up to ask sharply
+what brought him back.
+
+"Just to fetch somewhat for Ned," Miles answered guiltily; and then
+fortune favored him, for Damaris, within the bedroom, set up a wail,
+and Mistress Hopkins bade him run in and soothe her.
+
+So Miles sang to baby, and, singing, took Master Hopkins's dagger from
+the shelf and hid it beneath his doublet; then slipped the rapier from
+the wall, and, after a hasty glance to see that none were looking,
+dropped it out at the open window. Still Damaris would not hush, and he
+had to pace the floor a time, singing always, though his voice shook
+with impatience, and his forehead was wet with perspiration.
+
+[Illustration: "Saw the two young men close in combat."]
+
+At last the child was quieted. Placing her on the bed, he passed
+quickly out through the living room, and, running behind the house,
+snatched up the rapier from the grass. Still none saw or intercepted
+him; the men and boys were at work; the intense heat of the day kept
+the women within their cottages. But to Miles each doorway seemed full
+of faces, and, in a panic, he ran for the northern spur of the hill, at
+a pace that brought the heart strangling into his throat.
+
+On the west side of Fort Hill was a little level space in the abrupt
+descent, where some pine trees stood wide apart, and the ground was
+brown and slippery with pine needles. There Lister and Dotey, both with
+their doublets and shoes cast off, were awaiting Miles; Dotey, with his
+stolid face grim, sat on the ground, turning a rapier in his hands, but
+Ned Lister was pacing slowly to and fro.
+
+"I came--fast as I could run," panted Miles.
+
+"You saw no one?" questioned Lister, as he took Master Hopkins's
+rapier and measured it with the one Dotey held.
+
+"No, no one."
+
+"Francis Billington has been spying about here, though," Dotey spoke
+evenly. "'Twas while you were at the Captain's house. I sent him
+packing. But he may bring--"
+
+"Ere any come, we'll be done with the work," Ned Lister interrupted.
+"Here, Miles, do you run up to the hilltop and lie you down in the
+grass. If you see any man coming upon us, whistle us a warning."
+
+The grass, in the glare of the sun where the trees had been felled,
+was a dazzling green, and the slope was very steep. From the summit of
+the hill where he lay down half-hidden, as they bade, Miles could see
+the blue harbor and all the sunny street of the town, so deserted that
+he ventured a glance back over his shoulder. His eyes were fastened
+there, for he saw the two young men close in combat; he heard the click
+of steel, saw the quick thrust and recovery, the bending and swaying
+of the struggling bodies. Then a cry rose up in his throat and choked
+there, for he saw the dagger fly out of Dotey's hand, and saw him slip
+upon the pine needles.
+
+A clatter of feet on hollow boards made him look suddenly toward the
+gun platform, and he had an instant's sight of Captain Standish, who,
+clapping his hand to the railing of the platform, cleared it at a leap
+and ran headlong down into the pine thicket. Setting his fingers to his
+lips, Miles gave a shrill whistle, and right upon it heard the Captain
+cry, in a terrible voice, "What work is this?" Casting one frightened
+glance down the hill, Miles saw Ned lay on his side among the pine
+needles, and Dotey stood over him with one hand dripping blood.
+
+The sky seemed to waver and the whole green world to stagger with the
+horror of what had happened. Miles crawled away through the long grass
+down the hillside, through the undergrowth, and never paused till he
+hid himself, terrified and sick, in the tangle by the pool in the
+hollow.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+A MIGHTY RESOLUTION
+
+
+THE sun had dropped behind Fort Hill, and long shadows darkened
+the soft sand of the street, when Miles at last ventured into the
+settlement. All the hot day he had lain hidden by the pool and watched
+the shreds of cloud skim across the deep sky and harked to the
+shrilling of the locusts, while he tried not to think, yet all the time
+was conscious of the awful thing that had happened, in which he had had
+a hand.
+
+Disjointedly, from time to time, he had planned how he would act a
+part, would feign to be quite ignorant of the duel, and be amazed
+when he learned of it; but when the test came, when he found himself
+actually in the street of the town, his head whirled, and he felt that
+his guilt could be read in his very face.
+
+From a dooryard some one called his name, whereat Miles's heart fairly
+ceased to beat; but it was only his friend, Jack Cooke, who came
+running to hang over his father's gate and speak to him: "Ah, Miles,
+where ha' you been? Have you heard talk of what happened?" There was
+no time for Miles to stammer out a vague answer, before Jack ran on:
+"Ned Lister and Ned Dotey, they fought a duel, real cut and thrust, up
+behind the hill, and the Captain came upon them, and they've had them
+before the Governor and the Elder, and there's been such a to-do."
+
+"Had them? Then neither was killed?" Miles cried, with a momentary
+feeling that nothing could matter, if both men still lived.
+
+"Nay, but Dotey has a great gash across the palm of his hand, and Ned
+Lister was slashed in the thigh so he scarce could walk. I saw 'em when
+they were fetched down into the village, and they have locked Dotey up
+at Master Allerton's house, and Lister at Master Hopkins's."
+
+"Wh--what are they going to do to them?" faltered Miles.
+
+"Something terrible, to be sure," Jack answered happily; "the Captain
+and all are main angry. And Goodman Billington was for flogging Francis
+mightily out of hand, but the Elder said stay till to-morrow, when they
+would question all further."
+
+"What has Francis done?"
+
+"Why, he was with them; he kept watch while they fought. That is, one
+of the lads lay in the grass and whistled them; the Captain had the
+least glimpse of him; but they found Francis prowling on the hill, so
+it must ha' been he. He says 'twasn't, but Francis is a deal of a liar,
+we all know."
+
+Miles drew a long breath, and, turning from the gateway, went scuffing
+through the sand down the street. It was Francis, not he, whom they
+suspected, he repeated, but the next moment he told himself that it
+made no difference; since he was the culprit, he must come forward
+and take the blame. But when he saw Master Hopkins sitting by the
+house-door, his heart choked up into his throat, and his step faltered.
+After all, he would not speak to Master Hopkins yet; his share in the
+duel would be discovered soon enough.
+
+With a feeling that he wished to propitiate every one, he trudged round
+the house to fetch an armful of wood, and there, by the pile, Giles
+was at work with an axe. "Well, Miles?" he said, pausing in his task,
+and then, as Miles came to his side, whispered him: "Look you, father
+thinks you were fishing with me all this day, that Ned sent you back
+to the house to be quit of you, and that you came home with me, but
+stopped at the spring. I told him naught; he just thought so and--I let
+him think so."
+
+"Oh, Giles, you are right good," gulped Miles. "For I--"
+
+"Hush now! I don't want to know aught." And Giles went back to his
+chopping.
+
+No one would find him out, then; he was safe from the mighty beating he
+expected. Francis--well, since he was innocent, of course he would say
+so, and they would believe him and not punish him. Anyway, he had no
+thought of confessing, Miles assured himself hastily, as, on entering
+the living room, he met Master Hopkins's stern gaze.
+
+The master of the house was in a gloomy temper that evening; a new
+sense of the gravity of that day's happenings came over Miles, as
+he looked on his harsh face. Mistress Hopkins, too, was silenced
+completely, and the young folk did not venture to speak while their
+elders did not address them, nor had they any wish to talk, with the
+two empty places at table confronting them. No word was uttered till
+the meal was nearly eaten, when Mistress Hopkins, after a swift glance
+at her husband, cut a thick end from the loaf of bread, and, setting it
+on a trencher, turned to Miles. "Fill a jug of water, and carry that
+and the bread to Edward Lister," she said sharply.
+
+"Edward Lister may go fasting to-night," Master Hopkins spoke, in a
+grim voice.
+
+Miles, who had slipped from his stool, stood shifting from one foot to
+the other, while he waited to see which he should obey.
+
+"Do as I bid you, Miles," Mistress Hopkins repeated steadily, though
+one hand, which she rested on the edge of the table, clenched in
+nervous wise. "The man is hurt, and whatever he has done he shall not
+go hungry and thirsty. Either Miles shall take him food and drink,
+Stephen, or I shall do so myself." She rose, and, filling a jug from
+the water-pail, gave it to the dubious Miles. "Take it to him, there in
+the closet," she bade; so Miles, without waiting for Master Hopkins to
+prevent, stepped hastily into the little room and shut the door behind
+him.
+
+The closet was very narrow, very hot, and very dusky, for the evening
+light came but sparsely through the little window. Just beneath the
+window, where whatever slight breeze entered the room could be felt,
+the old mattress was outspread, and on it Ned Lister lay. He had been
+resting his head upon his folded doublet, but at Miles's coming he drew
+himself up on his elbow; his face was white in the dimness, and he
+looked limp and sick and cowed.
+
+"Here's bread and water, Ned," Miles began, as he crossed to him.
+"And--and I'm mighty sorry."
+
+"I'm not," Ned answered, in a dogged tone. "I wish only that I'd killed
+him. Give me a drink." He took the jug from Miles and gulped down the
+water with audible swallowings; then, when he could drink no more, set
+it beside him. "They'd 'a' made little more tumult if I had killed
+him," he went on. "But I care not what they do to me."
+
+"What--what do you think they will do to us, Ned?" Miles quavered;
+the young man's prisoned and unfriended state and desperate tone had
+dislodged him from his last stronghold of security.
+
+"They spoke of flogging us," Ned answered hopelessly.
+
+"A public flogging?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+It was only a birching Miles had looked for. A public flogging! The
+horror and fright were actual and overwhelming, for it never entered
+his head that in punishment a distinction would be made between the two
+principals in the duel and their wretched little second. "Flog us!" he
+repeated dazedly. "Or--or perhaps they will hang us?"
+
+"I care not if they do," Ned retorted, and, taking up the jug, drained
+out the last of the water. "Fetch me another draught, Miley, that's a
+good lad," he begged. "My throat is all afire."
+
+It was darker now in the living room, so none could note the expression
+of his face, and Miles was glad for that. When he filled the jug at
+the pail he slopped the water clumsily, so Mistress Hopkins chided
+him. He could not seem to think or even see, for, as he stumbled back
+into the closet, he bumped his forehead against the door. "Oh, Ned,"
+he whispered, as he bent over the injured man again, "they--they have
+accused Francis in my place, but I--"
+
+"Why, that's well," Ned spoke, as he set down the jug. "I'm glad for't;
+you'll not be punished along o' me. I'll tell no word of you, Miley,
+you may be sure, and if Dotey will but hold his blabbing tongue--"
+
+"But--but they'll flog him; I ought to tell--"
+
+"Let him be flogged, the imp!" Ned growled. "But you, Miley--"
+
+There was no chance to finish, for Master Hopkins, appearing in the
+doorway, sternly ordered Miles to come forth, and, when he had quitted
+the closet, bolted the door.
+
+By now it was too dark for a reading lesson, and, even if it had been
+light, the whole routine of the day seemed overturned. Miles wandered
+out into the house-yard, but he had no will to seek the other boys;
+they might talk to him of Francis. Somehow, too, he did not wish to see
+Dolly or Mistress Brewster, who had told him how his mother looked for
+him to be a good lad. He went and sat down alone on the woodpile, where
+he harked to the distant frogs that were piping, and watched the stars
+come out over the sea.
+
+So he was still sitting when at last Constance stole out to him, and,
+putting her hand on his shoulder, whispered him he mustn't go away and
+grieve so about poor Ned. He shook her off surlily; he was tired and
+sleepy, and didn't want to talk, he said, and so rose and slouched away
+to his bedroom. There it was stiflingly hot, so when he lay down he
+pushed aside the coverlet, and even then he thrashed restlessly.
+
+Presently Giles came in and lay down in the other bed that Dotey and
+Lister had shared; he did not offer to talk, but, settling himself
+at once to sleep, was soon breathing regularly. Miles counted each
+indrawing of his breath, and tried, breathing with him, to cheat
+himself into sleeping; and tried too, with the bed beneath him
+scorching hot, to hold himself quiet in one position. His face was wet
+with perspiration, and his head ached. Somewhere in the room a mosquito
+sang piercingly, so he must strike about him with his hands, and still
+the creature sang and the air was breathless, and he could not sleep.
+
+Then he ceased the effort to gain unconsciousness, and deliberately set
+himself to face it all, and reason it out. He had done a wicked thing,
+and he should be punished for it. Francis was accused, but Francis was
+innocent and must be declared so. It did not matter though his comrades
+bade him keep silent; it was one thing for Giles not to bear tales of
+Miles, and another for Miles not to bear tales of himself; and for Ned
+Lister's way of thinking, it was not the way which Captain Standish
+would have counselled. What would the Captain think of him, when he
+knew him for a rascal who deserved whipping, Miles wondered miserably.
+Yet it was the Captain who had told him hard things must be done, not
+shirked aside; and by that ruling Miles realized that the only way for
+him was to let them know it was he himself, not Francis, who had borne
+a part in the duel.
+
+Specious objections came, and he crushed them down; and there came,
+more stubborn, the promptings of fear. A public flogging, Ned had
+hinted; and Miles recalled a dull day in the market town, whither his
+father had taken him, a jeering crowd of motley folk, a cart with a
+fellow laughing on the driver's seat, and tied by the wrists to the
+cart's tail, stripped to the waist, a man who kept his head bent down
+and never winced, for all the great blows the constable was laying
+across his shoulders. Even now Miles turned sick at the remembrance
+of the red gashes the whip had made. But Francis had not earned such
+punishment, and he had earned it.
+
+Miles rose from his restless bed, and stood by the window to catch
+a breath of air. The moon was up now, and a pale, hot glow lay on
+the fields to northward, but not a whiff of a breeze was astir. The
+harbor, as he saw it from the window, lay glassy smooth beneath the
+moon. He put his weary head down on his arms, and for a moment did not
+think, only wished it were last night, when the duel was yet unfought.
+
+Then he lay down in bed, and turned and tossed, and went his round of
+courage and fears again. He was not conscious that there had been a
+period of sleep; he had no sense of restfulness just ending, only of
+bitter dreams, but he found the room alight and a faint, early-morning
+freshness in the air, so he knew some time had passed and it was day.
+
+He did not remember in detail the thoughts of the night, but the
+conclusion was the same, and still clearer for him to see in the glare
+of morning. Rising quickly, he dressed himself so hurriedly that he was
+done before sleepy Giles had pulled on his shirt; then went out into
+the living room. Mistress Hopkins was lighting her fire with flint and
+steel, and Constance was stirring up porridge for the breakfast; but he
+gave them no heed, for outside the door he caught a glimpse of Master
+Hopkins.
+
+"Why, Miles, are you ill?" Constance asked, as she looked up at him.
+
+Miles shook his head, and stepped out upon the doorstone. At the bench
+alongside the door Master Hopkins, in his shirt-sleeves, was washing
+his face in a basin of water; he did not look up, but Miles, without
+waiting for his notice, plunged into the confession while his courage
+held. "Master Hopkins, I want to tell you--"
+
+"What is it, Miles?" Hopkins asked curtly, as he began wiping his face
+on the big, coarse towel.
+
+"It was not Francis, sir, it was I. The duel, you understand--" Miles's
+voice was faint and quavering,--"it was not Francis."
+
+"What do you mean?" said Stephen Hopkins then, and lowered the towel
+from his face; the water-drops clung to his forehead, and his hair was
+all on end, but the very grotesqueness of his look made it the more
+formidable to Miles.
+
+"It was not Francis," he repeated shakily, while his trembling fingers
+picked at a splinter in the door-frame. "I took the rapier out o' your
+bedchamber; I was in the grass and whistled to them." He stopped there,
+with his eyes on the toes of his shoes; he did not want to look at
+Master Hopkins's face, and he held his body tense against the grasp
+which he expected would hale him into confinement along with Ned Lister.
+
+But instead there was a sickening silence that seemed to last for
+minutes; then Master Hopkins said slowly: "I marvel why that you,
+the son of a godly man, should have a hand in all the evil doings of
+the settlement. You must go tell this unto the Governor, so soon as
+breakfast is ended. And I shall myself speak more of it to you."
+
+Mechanically Miles stood aside to let Master Hopkins pass into the
+house, and then he still stood a time, gazing at the gray doorstone
+beneath his feet. Presently he stepped down on the turf and slouched
+round to the corner of the house, where Trug was tied at night; though
+every one thought him evil, and they were going to flog him, Trug would
+still lick his hands lovingly. He untied the dog, and, holding to one
+end of his strap, went back through the yard; Constance, from the
+doorway, called to him to come in to breakfast, but, shaking his head,
+he walked on.
+
+Outside the yard the street was quite empty, for the colonists were all
+at their morning meal. Miles trudged slowly through the sand up the
+hillside, and then turned down the path to the spring, which he judged
+at that hour would be deserted. Sure enough, the only moving things
+beneath the high bluff were the leaping waters of the living well,
+and the sunbeams that sifted through the branches of the encroaching
+alders, and sprinkled the trodden turf.
+
+Casting himself down on the margin, Miles took a long drink of the
+water, that might have been brackish and hot for any good taste he had
+of it, then sat up and leaned against Trug, with one arm about the
+dog's neck. He had thought, so soon as he was thus by himself, he would
+cry, but he felt all choked inside; his wickedness was too deep even
+for tears.
+
+Suddenly two hands were clapped over his face. "Guess who 'tis," piped
+a treble voice, and, uncovering his eyes, Miles thrust up one hand and
+dragged Dolly down beside him,--a very brave Dolly, in a clean apron,
+with her scarlet poppet hugged under one arm. "I ran to the spring for
+Mistress Brewster," she explained, "but I cast away my jug when I saw
+you. Why are you here, Miles?"
+
+"Oh, Dolly," Miles burst out, "I have been uncommon wicked and helped
+fight a duel, and they are going to flog me through the streets, and
+maybe they'll hang me, and I would my mother were here." He mastered
+the inclination to screw his knuckles into his eyes, and, as he sat
+scowling at the hill across the brook, and blinking bravely, to keep
+a good showing before the little girl, a mighty new idea popped into
+his head and made him happy again. "But I shan't let them flog me," he
+said, grandly as Ned Lister himself. "You tell it to no one, Dolly, but
+I have it in mind to run away."
+
+"Whither, Miles?" the damsel asked, with interest, but no great
+amazement.
+
+"I shall go into the woods and live with the Indians," Miles said
+slowly, forming his plan as he spoke. "They're good, pleasant folk;
+and I'll build me a house of branches, and eat raspberries, and maybe
+kill birds with a sling, and I'll have Trug at night." It occurred to
+him that Trug would not be the liveliest of company. "Why, Dolly, say
+you come too," he cried. "We'll keep the house together, as I thought
+they'd let us when father died."
+
+Dolly's face dimpled at the prospect, then grew sober. "But if we live
+in the woods, Miles, we cannot go to meeting of a Sunday, and that
+would never do. Let's build our house just over the brook--"
+
+"Pshaw!" said Miles, contemptuously, "I might as well go back and let
+them whip me now. I'm going away into the forest. Will you come?" He
+rose and walked manfully toward the stepping-stones, but Dolly still
+sat hugging her poppet in her arms. "If you've no wish to--" Miles
+said, feeling brave and important, no longer a poor, trembling, little
+culprit. Then he turned his back on her, and gave his attention to
+leading Trug safely from stone to stone across the brook.
+
+But, as he gained the opposite bank, he heard a cry behind him: "Wait,
+oh, wait, Miles!" Dolly, with the poppet in her arms, came slipping
+and scrambling across the stepping-stones and caught his hand. "Love
+Brewster says he does not like girls and went away to play with Harry
+Samson," she panted. "And you are the only brother I have, Miles, and I
+love you, and methinks I'd liefer go with you and be an Indian."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+IN THE SOUTHWARD COUNTRY
+
+
+ACROSS the brook the woods spread away to westward and to
+southward,--majestic oak trees, lulling pines, pale birches, besides
+the walnut and beech trees, and a host of others, the names of which
+Miles did not know. Thick though they stood in the forest, all were
+soundless now, and well-nigh motionless in the still air of morning.
+In all the wood the only active thing seemed the sunshine, which came
+sliding through the branches to mottle the turf or make the pine
+needles shiny.
+
+An ardent sun it was too, even where it fell sparsely among the trees,
+and beyond the thickets, where the path led over unprotected hilltops,
+it beat fiercely through the breathless air till the heat fairly
+stifled the travellers. "Shall you go far before you build your house,
+Miles?" panted Dolly, when the roofs of the settlement were barely sunk
+from sight.
+
+Miles explained that he held it best to push on to the river where he
+had gone eeling, so he might have plenty of fish in his dooryard. He
+thought to make his way directly to the place, but the journey through
+the heat seemed longer than when he tramped it in the springtime, and
+he could not find an easy path so adroitly as Squanto had found one. He
+had to bear away inland too, lest on the seacoast he come upon some of
+the colonists gathering shellfish; and inland, not only was the going
+through the undergrowth difficult, but the hills shut off the least
+whiff of coolness from the sea.
+
+Soon Dolly gasped for breath, Trug lolled out his tongue, and even
+Miles found many pretexts to rest. Here amid the moss bubbled a spring,
+where the children delayed to drink and cool their hands; there lay a
+muddy pond, covered with white lilies, which Miles, though he wet his
+feet, strove to get with a long stick; and again and yet again they
+came on tangles of luscious raspberries, where they paused to eat their
+fill.
+
+Miles had in his pocket a fourpenny whittle, his dearest possession,
+with which he stripped a great piece of bark from a birch tree, and,
+cleaving two sticks, shaped it into a basket, in which to carry away
+some of the berries "against dinner-time." But the basket proved an
+incumbrance to the wayfarers, so, before they had wandered another
+mile, the two children sat down in a pine grove, and ate the berries
+they had gathered. They tied Trug carefully, a needless precaution,
+for the old dog, with as burdening a sense of responsibility as Miles
+himself, had no thought of trotting home and leaving those two foolish
+little bodies to their own protection.
+
+By the position of the sun Miles judged it past noon, when they
+came at last to a brook, which he thought might be the upper waters
+of the stream he was seeking. He waded in first to try its depth;
+then, in gallant fashion, would have carried Dolly over, but little
+mistress wished the fun of paddling too. The alders, coming low to the
+brookside, cast a rippling shadow on the water, and the sandy bottom
+was firm and cool; so when both children once had waded in, they spent
+some time in splashing to and fro, while Miles set forth to Dolly how
+he had caught eels.
+
+The shadows were beginning to lengthen when they climbed out on the
+farther side of the brook, and passed slowly up the next hillslope.
+Dolly now found she was tired, so Miles said they might as well build
+their house there as anywhere. Indeed, halfway up the slope they found
+a capital spot, where the hill, drawing back on itself, left a little
+level space, with sparse undergrowth and tall trees, the vanguard of
+the forest higher up, that cast a good shade.
+
+To be sure, the exposure was northern, but that would make the place
+cool in summer, Miles set forth its advantages, and when winter came,
+they could move round and pitch their camp on the other side of the
+hill, to southward. "But I shouldn't like to dwell in the wood when it
+snows," protested Dolly. "Let us go back and stay at Plymouth, come
+winter."
+
+But Miles, in his new independence, laughed at the idea of return, and
+assured Dolly that he knew how to make her a snug enough house for all
+weathers. He would drive four forked stakes into the ground; and then,
+from fork to fork, he would lay four sticks; and across those, other
+great sticks; and thatch all over with moss. He would drive stakes into
+the ground to form the sides of the cabin, and wattle them with elder
+twigs; and it would be just the trimmest little house she ever saw.
+Yes, he could drive stakes inside and divide the space into rooms, and
+he would cut windows; the only thing that troubled him was how to build
+the fireplace, but he guessed he would think that out presently.
+
+About the time that the red rays of the sun slipped under the lower
+branches of the trees, Miles laid off his doublet and rolled up his
+shirt-sleeves, ready for work. First, with his heel, he scored in the
+dirt the lines of his house; they might as well have a big one, he
+replied to Dolly's delighted exclamations.
+
+The little girl ran about within the four lines and scored for herself
+the rooms which they would make. "'Twill be such sport, Miles," she
+chattered. "A keeping room we'll have, and a parlor, and a great hall."
+Down she set herself on the grass, between the wavering lines that
+marked the hall, and waited for her brother to build the house over her.
+
+But, though Miles strode jauntily down into the bushes and stayed a
+great time, when he came back, he bore, not an armful of stakes, but
+two forked sticks, very gnarled and crooked, and another stick, some
+five feet long, without a fork. "What have you been doing, Miles?"
+Dolly greeted him, in a disappointed tone.
+
+"Why, the wood is hard, and my knife is not very big," the boy answered
+sheepishly, "so perhaps to-night, as 'tis drawing late, I'd best put up
+just a little shelter. But I'll build the house to-morrow, Dolly."
+
+Then, because the little girl's face fell so grievously, he made haste
+to amuse her by turning to such work as he could do that evening. With
+a stone for a hammer, he drove his forked sticks into the ground, and
+laid the other stick across them; that was the ridgepole, he told
+Dolly, and now, leaning other boughs against it, he would make a
+shelter that would be quite sufficient on so hot a night.
+
+But it was wearisome work, haggling off tough boughs with his small
+whittle, and he was tired with walking, and perhaps, he reasoned, as
+it was drawing on to sunset, he were best not leave Dolly alone by
+herself and go down into the dim thickets. So, after he had cut enough
+branches to go a third along one side of his ridgepole, he said vaguely
+that maybe he would get some more before dark, and so sat down close by
+Dolly.
+
+In the west the sun had already sunk, and little pink clouds were
+drifting through the sky; the afterglow still lingered on the open land
+of the valley along the stream; but in the woods, as Miles glanced over
+his shoulder, the grim shadows lurked. It was awesomely silent too,
+till, on a sudden, a bird began warbling, and presently, fluttering
+near, perched on a branch above the children, where he trilled lustily.
+
+Miles had some pebbles in his pocket, and, slipping off his garter, he
+improvised a sling; he would kill the bird for their supper, he told
+his sister, but Dolly protested; she would rather the pretty bird lived
+and sang than that she should eat him. So the songster finished his
+tune and flashed away into the darkening sky, and Miles felt as warm a
+glow of self-gratulation at giving in to his sister as if he had been
+quite certain of fetching down the bird with his sling.
+
+"But we've naught for our supper now, Dolly," he sighed presently.
+"To-morrow, though, I'll find my way to the shore and take us some
+clams, and, in any case, we'll gather plenty of berries when it's
+daylight. And you do not mind going supperless now?"
+
+"N--no," Dolly assented faintly; since the twilight came on them, she
+had grown very quiet.
+
+"I wish Ned Lister could 'a' slipped away with us," Miles resumed. "If
+he were here with his fowling piece and his fishing line, he'd take us
+all the victuals we'd want. And he'd be good company, too."
+
+Then they sat in silence a time, very close to each other, with the dog
+at their feet. Over in the west the bright stars twinkled through the
+last waning flecks of the sunset glow, and somewhere in the dark the
+frogs were piping. "Miles," whispered Dolly, "aren't you lonely?"
+
+"To be sure not," he answered stoutly.
+
+"Do you not think--perhaps we could walk back home? I'm not weary now."
+
+"I've come hither to stay," Miles said crossly; "you can run back if
+you will; no one will flog you."
+
+"You know I cannot go alone," whimpered Dolly. "And maybe there are
+Indians and lions will get us. Hark!"
+
+Miles sat erect and listened, every nerve tense, but he heard only
+the snap of a branch, yonder among the black trees. "It was naught,
+Dolly," he said more kindly, "and you needn't fear; I can take care of
+you. Come, let's lie down in our shelter, and to-morrow in the daylight
+we'll build our house."
+
+They crept in behind the screen of branches slowly, for Dolly had hold
+on Miles's hand and would not let go; but at last they were settled,
+side by side, Dolly next the leaning roof, and Trug close against
+Miles. "The leaves tickle my nose," protested the little girl, "and
+there are humps in the ground, and I'm sure that bugs will crawl into
+my ears." With a movement that quite disarranged her companions, she
+sat up and tied her apron over her head; then all three lay down once
+more. "It's--it's fearsome still," Dolly whispered once, and then no
+further words passed between them.
+
+But, although he was silent, Miles lay long awake; his body might be
+weary, but his brain was very busy with what had befallen him in the
+last two days, and with the unknown happenings that were yet before
+him. When he forgot the strangeness of the place and fell asleep at
+last, he dreamed of berry patches and ponds full of lilies, and the
+fine, great house he meant to build next day.
+
+Somewhere sounded a bewildering crash, as if a thousand cartloads of
+stone were emptied right beside him. Miles sat up, wondering at the
+sound, wondering where he was, why his face felt wet, why Dolly clung
+sobbing to him. A blinding light for an instant tore across the sky,
+and showed the trees about him twisting in an awesome manner; then
+darkness closed in again, and, through it, deafened the appalling crash
+of thunder.
+
+"Don't be frightened, Dolly, don't be frightened," stammered Miles,
+clutching his sister; he could feel Trug, with his whole great body
+a-tremble, crowding against his knee, and, through Dolly's terrified
+sobs, heard the beast whine.
+
+A second flash, that seemed to rip the sky, lit up the black woods,
+and, upon the roar that followed, sounded the rush of downpouring rain.
+As if in bucketsful, the water broke through the frail little shelter;
+the ground beneath the children grew sodden, and their faces tingled
+under the smiting of the raindrops. "Come away, in among the trees,"
+cried Miles, through the sough of the rain, and dragged Dolly to her
+feet.
+
+"Back to Plymouth, oh, let us go back to Plymouth," she wailed.
+
+Without reply, Miles gripped her wrist and stumbled up the hillside,
+where he remembered the thicker growth of trees began. Bushes tore his
+clothes and buffeted his dripping face; rain blinded him; the flash
+of the lightning dazzled out just long enough to show how unfriendly
+trunks beset him, then flared away and left him, half stunned by the
+thunder that followed, to bruise himself against their harsh bark.
+
+Still, blinded and beaten and breathless, he fought his way onward and
+at his side haled Dolly, dumb with the bewilderment of the storm. He
+had forgotten whither he hoped to go; he knew only that there was about
+him a lurid darkness of overpowering rain and rattling thunder through
+which he fled away.
+
+It had been several moments since the last clap of thunder, he realized
+suddenly, and the rain that yet pattered noisily among the leaves did
+not beat upon him with the old fury. When the thunder growled again, it
+was from far in the distance, and the space between the flash and the
+crash was wider. "'Tis near over, Dolly," he spoke subduedly.
+
+The little girl fetched a tremulous, weary sob and made a movement to
+drop down on the wet turf, but Miles held her arm more firmly. "Nay, we
+must keep walking till we be dry," he said, in what he tried to make a
+brave voice. "Maybe we'll come on some warm, sheltered spot," he added,
+for his poor little companion's comfort.
+
+Holding each other fast by the hand, and with the dog close at their
+heels, they trudged forward into the black woods. Though lessened in
+force, the rain still descended in a steady drizzle, and each bush
+against which they brushed drenched them with an added shower. The
+ground was so slippery and thick with mud that Miles began to fear
+they had strayed into a swamp, and, when they stumbled at last upon a
+thicket of close-growing evergreen, he thought it safest to shelter
+there till daylight.
+
+Crawling in beneath the low branches that half protected them from
+the slackening rain, they cuddled close to the dog and to each other.
+"I'm glad I remembered to save my poppet," Dolly sought to find some
+comfort. "She'd have been frightened, had we left her alone."
+
+So Dolly dropped off to sleep in Miles's arms, and, lulled by the drip
+of the rain, he, too, dozed a time, and awoke very chilly and stiff.
+The branches above him stirred in a gusty wind, and in the mottled sky
+he could see some faint stars. He crawled out from the thicket and, as
+he stood up in the freer air, caught the smell of brine in the breeze,
+and saw that, in the quarter of the heavens whence it came, the night
+was paling. "'Tis eastward yonder and the sea," he cried, delighted to
+find, for all his wanderings, he was not hopelessly lost. "Come, Dolly,
+we'll walk to the shore."
+
+Over hills and through thickets they trudged bravely, in the
+exhilaration of knowing whither they were headed, and that the dreadful
+night was past. Slowly the darkness was waning; the sky faded from
+black to gray, and in the wet woods a bird piped dolefully. Presently a
+still more welcome sound reached the ears of the travellers,--a long,
+mournful sough as of breaking waters. "It's waves; we're near the
+shore," cried Miles, and added a feeble hurrah, whereat Trug, judging
+all well, leaped and barked.
+
+There was yet a wide stretch of bare uplands to cross, and the morning
+had broken in earnest before the children clambered down the low bluff
+to the sandy beach. The tide was out, and the brown rocks, like dead
+sea beasts, lay uncovered; but Miles and Dolly gave them little heed,
+for just then, right in their eyes, the sun burst forth in the east,
+and made a path of yellow ripples on the water.
+
+Forgetting her weariness, Dolly almost ran down the hard sand to the
+water's edge. "I thought maybe I could see Plymouth round that point on
+our left," she told Miles disappointedly. "We can walk thither, can we
+not, along the shore?"
+
+"We'll eat breakfast first," said Miles, who had found a great shell
+upon the sand. "I'll wade out and dig clams, while you fetch seaweed
+for the fire."
+
+He had not yet made up his mind about the return to the settlement; to
+be sure, he was very wet and hungry, but it did not rain every night,
+and with the thought of Plymouth came the dreadful vision of the public
+flogging. Besides, now it was daylight, it was good to be his own
+man and get his own breakfast; so he paddled about bravely, and did
+not complain, for all the mud and water were cold and the clams few,
+and his back ached with stooping to dig them. A dozen were enough for
+two, he concluded, so when he had that number disposed securely in his
+doublet, which he had twisted into a bag, he splashed shoreward.
+
+[Illustration: "'Oh, Miles, 'tis the savages come for us!'"]
+
+Dolly had patiently fetched a mass of slippery seaweed, and, while he
+drew on his shoes and stockings, she arranged stones with the clams on
+top, and the seaweed all about them.
+
+"And now I'll light the fire," Miles said soberly, as he rose up and
+stamped his feet in his wet shoes. Taking a smooth stone, he knelt
+over the seaweed, and, striking the stone with his whittle, sought to
+get a spark. But it seemed not a proper flint, for though he struck
+and struck, no spark came, and Dolly, cold and hungry, grew impatient,
+whereat Miles rebuked her sternly: "'Tis like a girl. I'm doing the
+best I can. Hush, will you, Dolly?"
+
+Then he forgot his petty wrangling, for, at a growl from Trug, he
+looked to the bluff, and there, between him and the safe inland forest,
+he saw a little group of people coming toward him. The look on his face
+made Dolly, who knelt opposite him, glance back over her shoulder. "Oh,
+Miles," she gasped, "'tis the savages come for us!"
+
+Miles stood up and held Dolly close to him with one arm, while he
+grasped Trug's collar with the other hand. "They're all friendly,
+Dolly, all friendly," he repeated, and wondered that his voice was so
+dry and faint.
+
+A little up the sand the Indians stopped; several who kept to the rear
+were squaws, with hoes of clam-shell and baskets, but at the front were
+two warriors, who now came noiselessly down the beach. "Quiet, Trug,"
+Miles said, stoutly as he could, and, as the savages drew near, greeted
+them boldly with the Indian salutation he had learnt of Squanto:
+"Cowompaum sin; good morrow to you."
+
+They halted close to him, though evidently a bit uncertain as to the
+snarling Trug; they spoke, but he could make out no word of their rapid
+utterance. "I'm a friend," he repeated, hopeless of getting any good
+of his little store of Indian words, almost too alarmed even to recall
+them. "I come from Plymouth,--" he pointed up the shore where the
+settlement lay,--"and I want to go back thither."
+
+He made a movement as if to start up the shore, when one of the Indians
+laid a hand on his arm and pointed southward. Miles shook his head,
+while dumb terror griped his heart; these were none of King Massasoit's
+friendly Indians, but people from the Cape, such as had fought the
+Englishmen in the winter. "Let me go home," he repeated unsteadily.
+
+But without heeding him one loosed his arm from about Dolly's waist.
+Thereat Trug, with his hair a-bristle, gathered himself to spring, and
+the other warrior gripped the club he carried in his hand. "You shan't
+kill my dog!" screamed Miles, seizing Trug's collar to hold him back;
+and at that the savage, taking Dolly from beside him, lifted her in his
+arms.
+
+The other Indian would have picked up Miles, but he dodged his hand,
+and, dragging Trug with him, ran up alongside the warrior who held
+Dolly. The little girl lay perfectly quiet, her eyes round with terror,
+and her lips trembling. "Don't be afraid, Dolly," quavered Miles, in
+what he tried to make a stout voice, "no matter where they take us.
+They shan't hurt you; Trug and I won't let them hurt you."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+THE HOUSE OF BONDAGE
+
+
+IT does not become an Englishman to make a weak showing before unclad
+savages; so presently Miles swallowed the sob that was fighting a
+way up his throat, mastered the other shaky signs of his terror, and
+put his whole attention to keeping pace with his captors. They were
+now well in among the trees, where the undergrowth, after the Indian
+custom, had been thinned by fire, so between the great blackened trunks
+opened wide vistas, as in an English park.
+
+To Miles each open glade looked like every other one, but the Indians
+found amid the trees a distinct trail along which they hastened, single
+file, with the tall warrior who bore Dolly in the lead. Miles kept
+persistently at his heels, though the breath was short in his throat,
+and his whole body reeked with perspiration. The sun, all unobscured
+and yellow, was climbing steadily upward, and, by the fact that it
+shone on the left hand, he knew that they were going southward ever,
+southward into the hostile country.
+
+About mid-morning they descended a sandy slope, where pine trees grew,
+to a brook with a white bottom. Miles gathered his strength, and,
+making a little spurt ahead, flung himself down by the stream to drink;
+he felt cooler for the draught, but, when he dragged himself to his
+feet, he found that, after his little rest, his tired legs ached the
+more unbearably, so he made no objection when the Indian with the club,
+lifting him unceremoniously to his back, carried him dry-shod through
+the brook.
+
+Even on the other side, Miles made no struggle to get down; it would be
+useless, he judged, and then he was too worn out to tramp farther at
+such speed. He settled himself comfortably against his bearer's naked
+shoulders, and offered not half so much protest as Trug, who, trotting
+at the Indian's side, now and again looked to his master and whined
+anxiously.
+
+As soon as he was a bit rested, Miles began to take closer note of
+the country through which they were passing,--a country of spicy pine
+thickets and of white dust, that powdered beneath the feet of the
+Indians. From his lofty perch he could pluck tufts of glossy pine
+needles as they brushed under the lower branches of the trees, and,
+hungry as he was, he did not find them ill to chew. Presently he tried
+to converse with his Indian. "Tonokete naum?" he questioned. "Whither
+go you?"
+
+The savage answered in a pithy phrase, of which Miles made out only
+the word Ma-no-met. That, he had a vague remembrance of hearing the men
+say, was a place somewhere to the southward; but, at least, it was not
+Nauset, where the Indians who had fought the English lived. In quite
+a cheerful tone, Miles called out to Dolly their destination, and,
+with something of his former confidence, set himself to watch for the
+town; he could not help imagining it would be a row of log cabins in a
+clearing, just like Plymouth.
+
+But, for what to him seemed long hours, he saw no sign of a house, just
+the monotonous sheen of the pine trees where the sun struck upon them,
+and the dust that burst whitely through its sprinkling of pine needles.
+Now and again, through the branches, he caught the glimmer of sunny
+water, where some little pond lay; and once, when the trail led down
+into a hollow, sand gave place to the clogging mire of a bog, and the
+scrub pines yielded to cedars.
+
+The slope beyond, with its pines thickening in again, was like all the
+rest of the wood, so like that Miles had suffered his eyes to close
+against the weary glare and the hot dust, when a sudden note of shrill
+calling made him fling up his head. They were just breasting the ridge
+that had been before them, and the trees, dwindling down, gave a sight
+of what lay at the farther side.
+
+Unbroken sunlight, Miles was first aware of,--sunlight dazzling from
+the hot sky, beating upward from blue water, glaring on green pines
+that spread away beyond; and then, as the dissonant calls that made his
+whole body quiver drew his eyes to the right, he saw in the stretch of
+meadow-land between the creek and the ridge a squalid group of unkempt
+bark wigwams. The smoke that curled upward from their cone-like summits
+seemed to waver in the heat, and for an instant Miles blinked stupidly
+at the smoke, because he dared not look lower where he must see the
+varied company of coppery people who were flocking noisily forth from
+their shelters.
+
+Of a sudden, as if starting from a bad dream, he writhed out of his
+captor's hold and dropped to his feet in the sand. The Indian's grasp
+tightened instantly on his arm; but in any case, whatever they meant to
+do to him, even to kill him, it was better to walk into Manomet than
+to be carried thither like a little child. Where there might be other
+lads, too, it went through Miles's head, even in the midst of his sick
+fear.
+
+Other boys there were, certainly, squaws and warriors too, all
+thronging jabbering round him, so that, with a poor hope that he at
+least might prove friendly, Miles clung tight to the hand of the Indian
+who had carried him. Wolfish yelp of dogs, shrill, frightened cries of
+children, clatter of the curious squaws,--all deafened and bewildered
+him. Close about him he beheld crowding figures,--bare bodies that
+gleamed in the sunlight, swarthy, grim faces, eyes alert with
+curiosity,--and, overarching them all, the hot, blue sky that blinded
+him.
+
+Along with their Indian masters ran dogs, prick-eared, fox-like curs,
+one of which suddenly darted upon Trug. Above the chatter of the
+curious folk Miles heard the currish yelp, the answering snarl; but ere
+he could cry out or move, the old civilized mastiff caught the savage
+cur by the scruff, and, shaking the life out of his mangy body, flung
+him on the sand.
+
+Miles let go the Indian's hand, and cast himself upon his dog, while
+his mind rushed back to a dreadful day in England, when Trug had slain
+a farmer's tike, whose owner had threatened to brain "the curst brute";
+people did not like to have your dog kill their dog, Miles remembered
+with terror; so, catching Trug by the collar, he buffeted his head,
+a punishment which the old fellow, with his tushes still gleaming,
+endured meekly.
+
+The Indians, who had been pressing round him, had shrunk back a little,
+Miles perceived, as he paused for breath; they could not be used to big
+mastiffs. "The dog will not worry you," he addressed the company in a
+propitiating voice. "That is, he won't worry you unless you harm Dolly
+and me."
+
+They could not understand his words, he realized, but they could
+understand gestures, so with a bold front he gripped Trug's collar,
+and urged the old dog, still grumbling, along with him. He walked
+bravely too, with his chin high and his neck stiff, for all there was
+a fluttering sensation up and down his legs. He was not afraid, he
+assured himself, while he pressed his hand upon Trug's warm neck for
+comfort, and fixed his eyes on the tall warrior striding before him who
+still bore Dolly.
+
+Suddenly Miles perceived the press about him to give way a little, and
+out from amidst the people an old man came gravely toward him. He was
+a tall old man, with a wrinkly face, and his dress was squalid and
+scanty as that of the others, but by the many beads of white bone that
+hung on his bare breast, Miles judged him to be the chief of Manomet,
+Canacum. So he made his most civil bow, though he could not keep his
+knees from trembling a bit; but he looked up courageously into the old
+Indian's face, and, as he did not speak first, at length politely bade
+him "Cowompaum sin."
+
+He could not understand--indeed, apprehensive as he was, he scarcely
+had the wit to try to understand--what was said to him in reply, but he
+knew the old man took him by the hand, so in tremulous obedience he
+went whither he was led.
+
+The blue sky was all blurred out, as he passed through the opening of
+one of the black wigwams; an intolerable smoky odor half choked him;
+and his eyes were blinded with the dimness all about him. But out of
+the dusk he heard Dolly call his name, and, stumbling toward the sound,
+he put his arms about his sister.
+
+As he grew more accustomed to the dim light, he saw the old Chief,
+squatting on a mat at the back of the wigwam, and saw the shadowy
+gesture that bade him sit beside him. Almost cheerfully, since he
+held Dolly's hand in his, Miles obeyed; and for the moment, as Trug
+stretched himself at his feet, and Dolly snuggled close to his side,
+felt secure and whispered his sister not to fear.
+
+There was no time to say more, for, amidst the confusion of folk that
+crowded the dusky wigwam, he now made out two squaws, who drew near,
+and, with their curious eyes fixed on him, set before him food--a kind
+of bread of the pounded maize and ears of young corn roasted.
+
+It did not need the Chief's gesture to bid Miles fall to; he might
+be more than a little frightened, but he was also very hungry, for
+it was near eight-and-forty hours since he had tasted heartier food
+than raspberries. He now ate with such good will that nothing was
+left of the victuals but the corn-cobs, and he persuaded Dolly to eat
+too, though it was hard work to coax the child to lift her head from
+his shoulder. "I do not like to look on the Indians," she murmured
+tearfully, between two hungry mouthfuls of corn. "I would they did not
+so stare at us."
+
+They were not over-civil, Miles thought, though, after all, they
+scarcely stared at their white guests more rudely than Miles himself
+had gazed at Massasoit, when the latter visited Plymouth. He might
+not have minded their staring, if there had not been so many of
+them,--squatting and lying all through the wigwam, on the floor, or
+on the mats, or on a broad, shelf-like couch which ran all about the
+lodge,--and if the bolder ones had not been curious to feel of his
+shirt,--his doublet was left behind on the beach where he had taken the
+clams,--and of his shoes, and of Dolly's gown, though no one cared to
+put a hand upon the bristling and growling Trug.
+
+They chattered a wearisome deal too, till Miles's head ached with the
+clamor, the squaws very shrilly, and the men in guttural tones; the old
+Chief seemed to be questioning the Indians who had found the children
+on the beach, but presently he turned and addressed Miles.
+
+The boy fixed his eyes on the speaker's face and tried to understand,
+but, while all things about him were so strange and ominous, it was
+hard to keep his thoughts on the hasty sounds. He did make out that
+the Chief asked him whence he came, and, answering "Patuxet," he
+pointed whither he judged the Plymouth plantation lay. "I should like
+to go back thither," he suggested, and endeavored, with signs and his
+few poor words of the Indian language, to explain that, if they took
+Dolly to the settlement, the people would give them knives and beads.
+He started to make the same arrangement for himself, but he judged it
+useless; he doubted if Master Hopkins would think him worth buying back.
+
+But, even in Dolly's case, no one made a movement to grant Miles's
+request, and though the old Chief spoke, for an Indian, at some length
+and in a civil tone, he did not mention Patuxet nor a return thither.
+Miles swallowed down a lump in his throat, and said bravely to Dolly
+that he guessed they'd have to spend the night with the savages, but
+they seemed kindly intentioned.
+
+Through the low opening that formed the door of the wigwam he could see
+now that a long, gray shadow from the pine ridge lay upon the trodden
+sand; the afternoon must be wearing to a close. Moment by moment he
+watched the shadow stretch itself out, till all was shadow and a
+thicker dimness filled the wigwam, and on the bit of sky, which he
+could see through the smoke-hole in the roof, brooded a purplish shade.
+It was evening in earnest, and it should be supper time, Miles told
+Dolly; but Dolly, resting half-asleep against his arm, made no answer.
+
+Miles himself, for all his apprehensions, was heavy with the weariness
+of the last two days, so, whatever the morrow might have in store,
+he was glad when, one by one, the Indians slipped away like shadows,
+and he judged it bedtime. He and his sister were to sleep on the
+couch-like structure by the wall, he interpreted the Chief's gestures,
+so willingly he bade Dolly and Trug lie down; then stretched himself
+beside them. A comfortable resting place it was, very springy and soft
+with skins; but, ere Miles could reassure Dolly and settle himself for
+the night, Trug began to growl, and the great couch to groan, as what
+seemed an endless family of Indians cast themselves down alongside them.
+
+"I--I wish I were home in my own bed," Dolly protested, with a stifled
+sob.
+
+Miles hushed her, in some alarm lest the savages might not approve
+of people who cried; but his Indian bedfellows never heeded Dolly's
+tears, for they were lulling themselves to sleep by singing in a high,
+monotonous strain that drowned every other noise. After the little
+girl was quieted, they still droned on, and, when they were at last
+silent, there sounded the notes of swarms of mosquitoes that tortured
+Miles, for all he was so tired, into semi-wakefulness.
+
+A snatch of feverish slumber once and again, and then, of a sudden, he
+was aware of the round moon peering in at him through the smoke-hole.
+That same light would now be whitening the quiet fields of Plymouth,
+and slipping through the little windows across the clean floor of
+Master Hopkins's living room; Miles remembered just how the patch of
+light rested on the wall of his own chamber.
+
+He sat up on his comfortless bed and hid his face against his knee.
+"I wish I hadn't run away; I wish I were home--were home," he groaned
+aloud. But, save for the heavy snoring of the Chief of Manomet and his
+warriors, he got no answer.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+HOW THEY KEPT THE SABBATH
+
+
+A LITTLE daylight works a mighty change in the look of things. When in
+the morning Miles rose at length from the stupor of sleep into which he
+had fallen, the sky was clouded filmily to westward, but in the east,
+above the pines, hung a yellow sun. The river that curved through the
+meadow was half bright with the stroke of the sun, and, where the trees
+of the opposite bank grew low, half a lucid green; the strip of sandy
+beach shone white, and the coarse herbage of the level space all was
+gleaming.
+
+Miles looked forth from the doorway of Chief Canacum's wigwam, and,
+sniffing the breeze with the tang of brine in it, decided that, after
+all, Manomet might prove a pleasant place in which to spend a day. He
+said as much to Dolly, but she held her poppet closer and shook her
+head. "There were fleas in that bed," she answered sorrowfully. "Let's
+go home now, Miles."
+
+An easy thing to say, but to do it would have puzzled an older head
+than Miles's, for not only did leagues of forest stretch between him
+and the English settlement, but, even had he known the direct road to
+Plymouth, there was no chance to follow it, since, wherever he turned,
+the watchful eyes of the savages were upon him.
+
+Now the first novelty had worn off, the warriors limited themselves
+to staring at their visitors as they sauntered through the camp, but
+the squaws and children still wished to press close, and feel their
+clothes and touch their hands. However, no one meant to harm him, Miles
+decided, though he only half realized how awe of their white faces
+and strange garments and of their great, ugly dog was protecting him
+and his sister; and, having once concluded he was to be left unhurt,
+he took pleasure in being a centre of interest; it was his first
+experience of this sort in all his much-snubbed life.
+
+So, though Dolly would scarce look on the dark people about them, Miles
+sought presently to talk to them, just as he tried to talk to the
+Indians who came to Plymouth. So well did he impress it upon them that
+he wanted his breakfast, that one of the squaws, who had bright eyes,
+though her face was very dirty, led the children into her wigwam, where
+she brought them food,--roasted crab fish and bread. Miles thanked her
+and ate, and bade Trug and Dolly eat too, while the little Indians and
+the squaws, squatting in the sand about the wigwam door, watched as if
+they had never before seen two hungry children.
+
+Presently, as he wished to divide a morsel with Dolly, Miles drew
+out his whittle, whereat the onlookers crowded closer to gaze. Miles
+showed them his knife, though he took care not to let it go out of his
+hands, and he exhibited the other treasures he carried in his breeches
+pockets,--several nails, a button or two, some beads, and an English
+farthing piece. Indians always looked for presents, he knew, so, before
+he went out of the wigwam, he gave a button to the squaw who had fed
+him.
+
+With his Indian followers eying him the more admiringly, he now went
+journeying through the warm sand, past the dingy bark houses, to the
+farther verge of the camp, where, beyond a lusty patch of rank weeds,
+the corn-field of the savages shimmered in the heat. The tillage of
+the Indians seemed to him of an untidy sort; they had cleared away the
+trees with fire, never troubling to dig up the roots, so blackened
+stumps dotted the field, and here and there lay the greater bulk of a
+charred and fallen trunk. In between, the green corn straggled up, and
+several squaws were tending it with hoes made of great clam-shells.
+They cast aside their tools to stare on Miles and Dolly, but Miles
+stared in return only a short space; he had seen corn-fields before.
+
+"Only to think, Dolly," he burst out, as he turned his back on the
+hoers, "there's no one to bid me weed or fetch water or aught else
+that displeases me. After all, 'tis a merry life the Indians lead; I'm
+willing to dwell here with them."
+
+"_I_ do not wish to be a dirty Indian," Dolly answered decidedly, but
+in a whisper, as if she thought these attentive people must be able to
+understand her words. "Do you not think the men from Plymouth will come
+to seek us soon and take us home?"
+
+"I do not want them to come," Miles replied calmly. "Maybe they would
+hang me for that Ned fought in the duel, and surely they would beat
+me for running away. I shall have to stay here always," he added
+cheerfully.
+
+At this Dolly's lips quivered, but Miles, intent now on an Indian lad
+with a little bow in his hand, who had just come near, gave his sister
+no heed. "I'm minded to ask that boy to let me play with his bow," he
+spoke out, as they arrived once more within the lee of Chief Canacum's
+wigwam. "You sit here, and Trug shall watch you."
+
+A protest or two from Dolly, after the unreasonable fashion of
+women-folk, but Miles, leaving her seated on the sand, walked away to
+the coppery lad he had singled out. For a time the two boys stared at
+each other gravely, then Miles, smiling affably, touched the bow,
+saying, "Cossaquot? Nenmia," till presently the other yielded it into
+his hands.
+
+Then they strolled away, with several other beady-eyed youngsters, into
+the weeds on the outskirts of the camp, where Miles tried his skill
+at shooting. Though in England he had often handled a bow, here the
+best showing he could make set the little Indians laughing; and when
+the owner of the bow, taking it from him, shot an arrow and fetched
+down a pine cone from a tree many feet distant, Miles understood their
+merriment at his awkwardness.
+
+But then he stepped up to a young sumach, and, pulling out his whittle,
+hacked off a small branch in a manner to make his new friends marvel;
+so, each party respectful of the other's arts, they were speedily on a
+sound enough footing to race away together to the river bank.
+
+On the shore, half in water and half on land, lay three Indian boats,
+light, tricky things, all built of birch bark. Miles had never seen
+such craft, so he set to examining them, but his new comrades splashed
+into the water. On the sunny beach it was hot, but across the stream,
+whither they swam, the trees that pressed close to the margin darkened
+the shallows with a deep green, so cool and tempting that Miles, dusty
+with travel, longed to bathe in it too.
+
+In the end he flung off his clothes, and prepared to join in the
+splashing, when his Indian acquaintances paddled shoreward to study
+his garments. Miles suffered the youngster who had lent him the bow
+to try on his shoes, whereat all grew so clamorous he feared a little
+lest his wardrobe disappear among them, for he remembered how Thievish
+Harbor took its first name from the pilfering habits of the Indians.
+Fortunately Trug, forsaking Dolly, arrived just then, and when he
+stretched his great bulk on his master's clothes, none cared to disturb
+them.
+
+With his mind set at rest, Miles plunged into the tepid water, where
+he frolicked about with his new comrades, who swam like dogs, paw over
+paw, and dived in a way that bewildered him. But speedily he was doing
+his share in the ducking and splashing and whooping, till, before he
+knew it, the afternoon was half spent, and his shoulders smarted with
+the burning of the sun.
+
+The little Indians followed him, when he spattered out of the river,
+and, with no more than a shaking of their ears, like puppies, were
+ready to run about, but Miles, as a penalty of civilization, had to
+stay to drag on his clothes. He felt chilly now, he found, and hungry
+too, and he guessed he and Trug were best go seek Dolly.
+
+But when he came into the lee of Chief Canacum's wigwam, he saw there
+just scuffled, empty sand, so, with a big fright laying hold on him, he
+ran out into the straggling street and called his sister's name aloud.
+Just then Trug's bark told him all was well, and, hastening after
+the dog, he found, in the shade of a distant wigwam, a squaw weaving
+a mat of flags, some children sprawling, and Dolly herself, who was
+eating raspberries from a birch bark basket. "Why did you run away and
+frighten me?" Miles demanded crossly, as he flung himself on the ground
+beside her.
+
+"I may go away and make friends as well as thou," Dolly answered
+loftily. "But you shall have some of my berries, Miles. They fetched
+me them, and I can eat these--" her voice sank--"because they must be
+clean. But their other victuals are not, I know. I watched, and the
+women do never wash their kettles."
+
+Miles had no such scruples of cleanliness, so when, some two hours
+later, he scented the odor of cooking, he rose eagerly and, thinking on
+supper, sought Canacum's wigwam. There were four dark boats upon the
+white beach now, he saw, so he judged that a fishing party had come in.
+
+When he passed through the low door into the wigwam, he found a fire
+alight and a great pot of clay hung on small sticks that were laid
+over it. Into the pot the drudging squaws were putting fresh fish, and
+acorns, and the meat of squirrels, and kernels of corn, and whatever
+else they had of edibles,--"a loathsome mash," Dolly whispered Miles,
+but he was so hungry that it did not take away his appetite.
+
+So soon as the broth was done, near half the village squatted round the
+pot, the men in an inner circle, while on the outskirts, eager for any
+morsel their masters might fling to them, waited the poor squaws. But
+Dolly, because she was a little white squaw, was suffered to sit down
+with her brother beside the old Chief, who scooped up pieces of the
+fish and hot broth in a wooden bowl and gave it to Miles.
+
+Dolly looked askance at the food, but Miles and Trug ate ravenously;
+neither his queer table mates nor their queer table manners troubled
+the boy, since he himself was licking his fingers and wiping them on
+Trug's fur contentedly. "I like to eat with my fingers," he chattered
+to his venerable host. "At home they make me to eat tidily with a
+napkin, but I like it better thus."
+
+But, even at his hungriest, he could not match the Indians in trencher
+work; for, long after Miles had done eating and lain back against Trug,
+the savages still champed on, till nothing but scattered bones was left
+of the fare. By then the sun was quite down, so the lodge was black,
+save for the flashes of the sinking fire. Out-of-doors an owl hooted,
+and speedily the Indian guests withdrew to their own lodges, and the
+Chief's household went to their common bed. Little comfort did Miles
+and his two companions find there, for the singing Indians and the
+mosquitoes pestered them as on the preceding night.
+
+"I'll not endure this a third time," Miles fretted, when he awoke in
+the chilly morning. "Look you, Dolly, why should I not build us a
+little wigwam? I make no doubt they'll suffer us go sleep there by
+ourselves."
+
+Full of this new plan, he bustled forth from the wigwam, but outside
+the doorway halted in surprise. He could see no river nor more than
+the tips of the pines for a thick white fog that drifted through the
+village and struck rawly to his very marrow. For a moment he had a
+mind to slip back to Dolly in the close wigwam, but, spying his Indian
+allies, he kept to his first manly resolve and began chatting to them
+of his intentions. Though they could understand nothing of his talk,
+they came with him readily, through the clammy fog, out beyond the
+camp, where the sand, sloping up to the pine ridge, offered, as Miles
+remembered, a good location for a wigwam.
+
+The Indian houses, so far as he could judge, were built by bending over
+young saplings and securing both ends in the ground, then covering the
+frame with mats or great pieces of bark. Miles decided that poles,
+bound together at the top, would serve him as well, so he went to cut
+them in a growth of young oaks at some distance from the camp. The
+trees, all laden with fog moisture, drenched him as he worked, and the
+task took him a long time with his small whittle,--would have taken him
+longer, had not the Indian boys helped him to break the poles.
+
+They were all intent on his proceedings, and, when he returned to the
+site he had chosen, settled themselves in the sand to watch him, an
+action which pleased him little. For, when he stuck his poles into
+the sand, at the circumference of a rough circle, and bent them all
+together at the top, the ends that were thrust into the sand would fly
+up, and 'twas annoying to have other people see his failure. It took
+him some minutes to make all secure, and by then he was so breathless
+and tired that he was glad to run tell Dolly of his progress, and, at
+the same time, rest a bit.
+
+Spite of the fog, he found his sister had come out from the choking
+atmosphere of the wigwam. She was sitting a little up the pine ridge,
+behind the lodges, on a fallen tree trunk that was all a-drip; the
+sand, too, Miles noted, when he lay down at her feet, was damp and
+sticky to the touch.
+
+"They have left us alone, haven't they, Dolly?" he said in some
+surprise, as he glanced about him and saw no Indians near. "But Trug,
+he has not followed; very like they think we'll not run away and leave
+him behind." Then he perceived that his sister's arms were empty.
+"Where's the old red poppet?" he cried.
+
+"My poppet Priscilla," Dolly replied seriously. "I did put her away
+carefully. For 'tis the Sabbath to-day, Miles."
+
+"Is it?" the boy questioned, with some misgivings. "I'd lost count of
+the days. Why, I have been cutting poles and begun my wigwam--"
+
+"Then you are a Sabbath-breaker," Dolly said relentlessly. "If you
+be so wicked, I doubt if ever God let us go back to Plymouth. And
+I've been praying Him earnestly. Miles, have you said your prayers o'
+nights?"
+
+"N--no," the boy faltered, "last night I forgot 'em, and night before I
+was weary."
+
+"Come, we'll say them now," Dolly announced, and fell on her knees in
+the wet sand.
+
+Miles obediently knelt beside her; his father had looked somewhat
+askance at this practice, but Miles's mother had first taught the
+children to say their evening prayer on their knees, and, for her sake,
+the boy held obstinately to that usage.
+
+The thought of her came clearly to him now, and how she had bidden him
+be good to Dolly, so, when he had prayed "Our Father," he added an
+extemporaneous appeal, that the English folk might soon come in search
+of them. "Not for my sake, O Lord," he explained carefully, "but Thou
+knowest Dolly is but a wench and were better at Plymouth, perhaps. And,
+O Lord, I'd near be willing to go thither myself, if Thou wouldst put
+it in their minds not to flog me."
+
+Indeed, as he prayed, his heart grew very tender toward the tiny
+settlement; he would have liked well to open his eyes and see the
+sandy street of the little village stretching away up the hillside,
+the ordered cottages, the grave men about their tasks, even Master
+Hopkins--perhaps.
+
+Rather subdued, he set himself by Dolly on the wet log. "Now I'll tell
+you somewhat out of the Bible, since there is no one to preach us a
+discourse," he said, and set forth to her what he remembered of the
+last portion of the Scriptures which Master Hopkins had made him read.
+It was all about how Moses let loose the plagues upon the wicked king
+of Egypt, flies and boils and frogs,--Miles was not quite sure of the
+order of events, but he detailed them with much gusto.
+
+"I do not think there is a great deal of doctrine therein," Dolly
+commented, with a mournful shake of the head. "Elder Brewster, he did
+not discourse thus; and Mistress Brewster and Priscilla and the boys
+will have bread for dinner to-day, and maybe butter, and lobster, and,
+if I were home, I should sleep in my own bed with Priscilla, and put
+on a clean gown in the morning. I wish I were home now."
+
+Miles squeezed Dolly's fingers, and sat staring away from her into the
+fleecy fog that still shivered through the camp. So intent was he on
+gulping down his home-sickness that he started in surprise when a hand
+was laid on his shoulder, and he looked up into the face of one of
+Canacum's warriors.
+
+He was to come to the Chief's wigwam, he interpreted the Indian's
+signs, so he rose and, leading Dolly, followed his guide down the sandy
+slope. "Maybe 'tis that they have meetings too on the Sabbath," Dolly
+whispered him.
+
+Inside the lodge, where a fire smoked, many warriors were gathered,
+true enough, but no one preached to them. Instead all puffed at their
+pipes and, with long pauses, spoke together, till Miles, sitting with
+Dolly by the Chief, grew weary. Understanding nothing of their talk,
+he thought on his new wigwam and scarcely heeded them, till a warrior,
+whom he had a vague idea he had not seen before about the camp, rose up
+and, coming to him, lifted him to his feet.
+
+"What will you do?" Miles cried, with a quick pang of fright as he
+found his arm fast in the other's grip. "Are we to go with you?" And
+then, with a sudden, overwhelming hope, "To Patuxet?"
+
+"Nauset," grunted the imperturbable Chief.
+
+"They set upon the English there!" gasped Miles. "I will not go, I will
+not!"
+
+After that, all passed so quickly he remembered nothing clearly, just
+the confusion of bronzed figures in the smoky lodge, the choking odor
+of the fire, the sight of Dolly's blanched face, as one of the Indians
+drew her back from him. He had a scattered remembrance of crying out
+that they should not dare take his sister from him, Captain Standish
+would punish them for it; and then of a helpless, childish struggle,
+wherein he kicked and struck unavailingly at the savage who held him.
+
+The chill fog stung against his face, as he was dragged forth from
+the wigwam. He seemed to come to his senses again, and, ceasing to
+struggle, called over his shoulder to Dolly not to be afraid, no one
+would dare hurt her. Something pressed feebly against his knees, and he
+looked down at Trug, with a broken thong hanging at his neck and his
+head bleeding. He caught the old dog by the collar. "Go in unto Dolly,
+sirrah," he bade in his sternest voice. "And guard her, guard her!"
+
+He had a last glimpse of his sister, crouching in the door of the
+wigwam, with her arms clasped close about the mastiff's neck and her
+frightened eyes fixed on him. Then the grasp on his wrist tightened,
+and stumblingly he followed along with his new captors, past the
+dripping wigwams with their staring people, past his own unfinished
+lodge, and into the chill silence of the moist woods.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+
+AT NAUSET VILLAGE
+
+
+EASTWARD of Nauset, unchecked by headlands, as was Plymouth Harbor, but
+sweeping away into the very sky line, lay the ocean. The tide was now
+rolling in; far out at sea the water all was ridged, and, as the waves
+pressed shoreward, their crests, heaving up, burst into white foam.
+With each inward swell the water crept nearer, till now it reached the
+bare rock where Miles Rigdale, his knees level with his chin and his
+arms cast round them, was perched.
+
+Overhead, Miles knew the sky was bright, and the dazzle of the water
+was ever present to his eyes. He strove to think on naught but the
+barren glare before him, yet beneath, in his heart, he was conscious
+all the time of an aching weight of misery and sick fear. For this was
+Nauset; he had but to turn his head, and, far up the sandy beach, where
+the storm-swept pines began, he could see the cluster of wigwams, and,
+nearer, squatting upon the shore, the stolid Indian folk who had dogged
+him thither.
+
+Only that morning he had reached Nauset. There had been more than four
+and twenty hours of journeying, through unknown villages, and by sea
+in a frail bark canoe, the pitching of which, under the stroke of the
+waves, had frightened him sorely. All, indeed, had been fright and
+confusion and the wearying effort to hide his terror. For the Indians
+of Manomet doubtless would beat Trug over the head again till he was
+dead, and they would send Dolly far away, as they had sent him, perhaps
+do worse. Miles buried his face against his knees, and bit his lips
+hard.
+
+Of a sudden, he was lifted bodily from the rock where he sat. The white
+water eddied all round it, he noted, and the warrior who held him had
+stepped through it to fetch him ashore. For a moment after he was set
+upon his feet, he stood staring out upon the dazzling sea, then turned
+and passed slowly up the sand, through a patch of sparse beach grass,
+to the village.
+
+Slowly though he loitered, he came at last to the sunny cluster of
+wigwams; in their scant shadow the men--the warriors of Nauset, and
+those who had fetched Miles hither--lay smoking, and, liking their
+surly looks little, he stepped presently into the Chief's great wigwam,
+where the squaws were cooking.
+
+He was hungry, for he had not eaten since last evening, so he stood
+waiting and watching the women, though he no longer sought to talk to
+them. For they did not show a friendly curiosity, such as the squaws
+at Manomet had shown, but rather scowled upon him, as if they already
+knew enough of white folk. It was from this place that the trader Hunt,
+who stole Squanto, had kidnapped seven Indians, and it was here--Miles
+remembered only too clearly every scrap of his elders' tales--that
+only the last summer, in revenge for Hunt's dealings, three Englishmen
+trading thither had been slain.
+
+So the heart within him was heavy indeed, when at length he set himself
+down amongst the warriors at the noon meal. His place was next the
+chief of the village, whom men called Aspinet, just as it had been
+at every village where he had sat to eat, but this chieftain was not
+friendly, as the others had seemed. What few gutturals he uttered were
+directed to his warriors, not to Miles, nor did he offer to give the
+boy food.
+
+Of necessity, Miles imitated the others by thrusting his hands into the
+kettle and laying hold on the great claw of a lobster; it was so hot
+it burned his fingers sharply, but, mindful that he was watched, he
+held it fast till he could lay it on the trampled sand at his side. His
+fingers smarted, and he dared not raise his eyes from the lobster, lest
+the tears of pain that were gathering in them be seen. Fumblingly he
+drew forth his whittle and was making a clumsy effort to dig the meat
+from the shell, when a dusky hand suddenly closed on his wrist, and the
+whittle was wrenched from his grasp.
+
+For one nightmare-like instant the world seemed struck from under him;
+then Miles was aware of the reality of the smoky walls of the wigwam
+and of those grim-faced savages who sat round him. He stood up slowly,
+with his knees a-tremble, but he thrust out his hand bravely, and, in
+a stout voice, spoke to Chief Aspinet: "That whittle is mine. Give it
+back to me."
+
+A moment he stood fronting the Chief and his warriors, then, with
+a sudden feeling that for sheer alarm he would presently burst out
+crying, he turned and walked slowly from the circle of the feasters. "I
+shall not eat of your food nor come into your house till you give back
+my whittle," he flung over his shoulder in a quavering voice.
+
+With that he passed out at the doorway and set himself down
+cross-legged in the deep sand in the lee of the wigwam. The sun of
+early afternoon poured scorchingly upon him, and the sand, as he sifted
+it between his fingers, was warm. Out above the ocean he could see a
+great white gull that flashed in the strong light.
+
+A little shadow from the wigwam fell upon him, and bit by bit
+broadened, while he stupidly watched the strip of dark advance across
+the white sand. It must be mid-afternoon, he reasoned out, when the
+warriors, crammed with food, sauntered from the wigwam, and several
+came leisurely to squat in the shade close by him.
+
+Among them was Aspinet himself, Miles's whittle thrust defiantly in
+his leathern girdle, and the sight of that braced the boy's resolution
+in soldierly fashion; he must not seem afraid or willing to bear an
+affront from a savage, he knew. So, with a steady face, he addressed
+the Chief again, seeking this time to find the Indian words: "When your
+people come to us at Patuxet we do not rob them. And you were best not
+rob me, else Captain Standish will burn your wigwams."
+
+For an instant the Chief puffed slowly at his tobacco pipe, and
+impassively eyed Miles's face; then he spoke, with some broken words of
+English and his native words so slowly uttered that Miles could half
+comprehend the import of his speech: "We do not fear the coat-men.
+Thus did we to them. There was a ship broken by a storm. They saved
+most of their goods and hid it in the ground. We made them tell us
+where it was. Then we made them our servants. They wept much when we
+parted them. We gave them such meat as our dogs eat. We took away their
+clothes. They lived but a little while."
+
+Miles's eyes were wide and his lips parted with frank horror; only
+for a moment, then he recalled the hint of such a happening that had
+drifted to Plymouth, and the very reiteration of the story made it a
+little less shocking. "That was a French ship, and they are a different
+race from us," he said slowly. "An Englishman would not 'a' wept for
+you. And _I_ shall not." He drove his hands hard into the sand and
+blinked fast; the rough dirt hurt his burnt fingers, and he did not
+doubt the English folk, even the Captain, were so glad to be rid of
+him that they would leave him there forever, to the mercies of Chief
+Aspinet.
+
+Squalid though the Indian wigwams were, he was faintly glad when the
+shadows had so lengthened on the land and so darkened the sky and sea
+that it was time to go to rest, for at least the blackness would screen
+his face from the peering eyes of his captors. It was to Aspinet's
+wigwam they led him, but the courage to refuse the Chief's dubious
+hospitality no longer endured in Miles; he would forgive their taking
+his knife, if they did not use him as they had used the luckless French
+sailors.
+
+Obediently he snuggled down in one corner of the bed that ran round
+the wigwam, crowded and comfortless as was his bed at Manomet, but
+here neither Trug nor Dolly lay beside him. The sound of the sea, too,
+was strange; out-of-doors he could hear it,--the slow crash of the
+incoming tide that grew fainter and fainter.
+
+Dolly and Trug, taken from him, he knew not to what, and the safe
+little town of Plymouth whence he had fled,--all were present to him.
+He thought that he and Dolly, with the old dog beside them, were
+trudging up the path from the landing, only there were trees all along
+the path, like the limes along the church lane at home in England, and
+the houses were not log cabins, but English cottages. He knocked at
+the door of Stephen Hopkins's house, and at the same time it was the
+English farmhouse where his father had dwelt, and, when they opened the
+door to him, it was his mother who, coming across the hall, took him in
+her arms and drew him in.
+
+The blackness of the wigwam and the heavy breathing of the savages came
+once more to his consciousness. He dragged himself wearily up on one
+elbow. Through the opening in the side of the wigwam he saw the sky
+quite dark, and he heard the receding swash of the ebbing tide. Yonder
+was the ocean, and a few miles westward lay Cape Cod Bay, and across it
+snug Plymouth. If he only walked along the shore, followed the coast
+line, he would come home.
+
+There was no plan, scarce any hope in him, only he knew the English had
+forgotten him, and he could not endure it longer with a stolid face
+among the Indians. Almost ere he thought it out, yet with instinctive
+precaution, he slipped off the bed, and, holding his breath, crouched
+listening on the floor.
+
+Slowly and carefully, with the trodden dirt firm beneath his hands, he
+writhed his way to the door-opening. The morning air struck coldly on
+his cheeks, so that for an instant he shrank back, but there was in it
+something free that emboldened him to press on.
+
+Out through the door into the chilly morning, which to his more
+accustomed eyes seemed so pale, he felt detection was certain. But no
+cry alarmed him, no motion betrayed him. The soft sand deadened every
+sound, as he crept through it, hands and knees. The debris of twigs,
+higher up at the verge of the pine woods, pressed cruelly against
+his palms, but, for all the pain, he still crawled on, till darkness
+thickened about him, and above him the pine branches stirred.
+
+Springing to his feet, Miles ran forward, fast as two frightened legs
+could bear him. Brambles that plucked at his tattered sleeves made him
+halt, with heart a-jump; tougher young shoots near tripped him; but
+pantingly he held on his way. Through the branches he could catch a
+glimpse of the dull sky and one very bright star that he judged shone
+in the west, so he headed toward it.
+
+Little by little the star faded from before his eyes, and the sky
+lightened, whereat Miles ran the faster. A swamp, thick with juniper,
+barred his course, and fearfully he turned southward to pick his way
+about it. When once more he turned westward, the sky was pale as lead,
+and the birds were beginning to sing. But though the coming of dawn
+might well alarm him, he did not heed it now, as, through the trees
+before him, he caught the pounding note of waves, and, a little later,
+broke forth upon a broad expanse of meadow, beyond which rumbled the
+great sea.
+
+Yonder, very far to west, lay Plymouth, Miles told himself, and, with
+a foolish happiness springing in his heart, he stumbled briskly along
+through the sparse growth at the edge of the wood. The morning light
+now was sprinkling the sea on his right hand, and the sky was changing
+from lead-color to clear blue. Out from the forest a brook, all awake
+with the dawning, came gurgling, so Miles stopped to drink, and tarried
+to empty the sand from his shoes; he guessed he must have run leagues,
+for he was very tired.
+
+But up he got and tramped on pluckily at his stoutest pace, through the
+coarse grass of a great salt marsh, where the new-risen sun struck hot
+upon him. At the verge of the marsh an arm of the sea reached into the
+land, so Miles had no course but to wade in, shoes and all. The water
+was cold as the sun before had been hot. He clambered forth on the far
+side all a-shiver and, with his head bent, began to run for warmth's
+sake, across another bit of marsh and up a little wooded slope of sand.
+Headlong he plunged down the opposite slope, and there, in the hollow,
+by a brookside, unmoved as the pine trees themselves, stood two of the
+Nauset Indians.
+
+He trudged back to the camp with them,--there was no other way. One of
+them, when they came up to him, as he stood numb with the surprise,
+uncertain whether to run or front them boldly, struck him a buffet in
+the face, but the other, catching his arm, muttered something that made
+him desist. So Miles stole round and walked beside the second Indian
+on the trip back. They did not offer to carry him nor to slacken their
+pace, and he feared to vex them with lagging behind. His shoes, where
+he had waded through the salt water, were stiffening, so they hurt his
+feet sorely; by the time he came into the camp he was fairly limping,
+yet that was but a little pain beside what might be before him.
+
+Yet no one did him hurt. A throng of people gathered scowlingly about
+him and talked among themselves, while he waited, with his flesh
+a-quiver, but his chin thrust bravely upward. But, in the end, they
+only hustled him into a wigwam, where they left him with two squaws
+who were pounding corn. Miles flung himself upon the couch, in the
+farthest corner, and hid his face in his arms, but rigidly he held
+himself from crying. The stone pestles that ground the corn went thud,
+thud, till his head so ached it seemed as if they beat upon his very
+temples.
+
+He had come to count the rhythmic strokes in a sort of stupor, wherein
+he knew only that the pestles beat, when suddenly they ceased.
+Out-of-doors he heard a whooping and a scuffling of many naked feet in
+the sand. He pressed himself closer against the wall of the wigwam;
+they were coming to deal with him now. He shut his eyes tightly and
+buried his head deeper between his arms.
+
+They had come into the wigwam. He ought to stand up and show them he
+was not afraid, but he could not, and, when some one grasped him by the
+arm, spite of himself, he cried out in nervous terror.
+
+"Me friend. You not know Squanto?" grumbled a voice he remembered.
+
+Miles sprang to his feet. The lodge was full of savages, Aspinet and a
+score of other hostile faces, but he gave them no heed, for over him
+stood his old Plymouth acquaintance, the interpreter Squanto. With a
+great cry of relief, Miles flung his arms about him. "Oh, Squanto, take
+me home, quick, quick!" he begged; and in the next breath, "Where's
+Dolly? You must find Dolly."
+
+[Illustration: "Miles made out the figures of the men in the shallop."]
+
+The little squaw and the puppy dog were safe, Squanto explained
+leisurely; the Captain and his warriors had come in the big canoe and
+taken them, and now they waited yonder for Miles himself. "I'll go to
+him straightway," cried Miles, with a laugh that caught in his throat.
+
+But, like it or no, he must wait yet a time, for Chief Aspinet and
+his warriors would feast Squanto and the Indians who came with him,
+and the savages ate long and deliberately. Miles, unable to swallow a
+morsel, sat between his friend Squanto and one who came with him called
+Iyanough, the Sachem of Cummaquid, a young Indian with so gentle a
+bearing that the boy felt near as safe with him as with an Englishman.
+
+He could not help a little movement of repulsion, though, as they rose
+from the feast at last, when Aspinet came up to him, but the Chief was
+in a humble mood now and merely handed back the whittle, which Miles
+clapped promptly into his pocket. Aspinet would have put round his neck
+a chain of white beads too, but Miles shook his head disapprovingly; he
+wanted no presents of the uncivil Chief. Yet when Squanto said, "Take
+um," he thought well to obey the interpreter.
+
+They came forth at length from the wigwam, under a twilight sky,
+and, in some semblance of order, the whole throng of Aspinet's warriors
+took up their march across the Cape. One of them lifted Miles in his
+arms, and, though the boy would have preferred some other bearer than
+a Nauset man, he contented himself, since Squanto and Iyanough walked
+close by.
+
+At a good pace they passed up into the scrub pines of the sand hills,
+and turned westward, where, in the dull sky, the restful stars were
+beginning to show, just as Miles had seen them come out above the piny
+hills of Plymouth. The branches bent noiselessly apart, as the swift
+train pressed forward through the woods. The moon was up now; Miles,
+glancing back, saw it gleam amid the boughs, and at first its staring
+light startled him. Then they came through the trees out on broad sand
+again; the tide was far down, and out yonder, where the line of moonlit
+water began, lay the English shallop, with its sails all white.
+
+Down the beach the naked feet of the Indians pattered; now the water
+splashed noisily beneath their tread, knee high, waist high. Clearly
+and more clearly Miles made out the figures of the men in the shallop,
+erect and musket in hand, the gleam of the corselets and helmets, their
+faces almost.
+
+It was Captain Standish himself, who, slipping his ready musket to one
+hand, reached over the gunwale and, grasping Miles by the waistband,
+dropped him down into the bottom of the shallop. As he did so he
+uttered something that sounded like a fervent "Thank God!"
+
+Miles neither heard nor heeded that, but he did remember of a sudden
+that he was a wretched, little fugitive criminal, now delivered into
+the hands of English justice, and even his hero, who had been his
+friend, had thought fit to take him up roughly and drop him down
+against his boots. He rolled a little out of the way, and, crouching
+against the side of the boat, buried his face in his arms.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX
+
+FALLEN AMONG FRIENDS
+
+
+AT last the shallop had put off from the Nauset shore. The babel of
+clamorous Indians sank down, and, in its stead, sounded the thud of
+muskets laid by and the clatter of sweeps fitting to the rowlocks.
+Sharp English commands Miles heard too, but still he did not raise his
+head, till some one lifted him to his feet.
+
+All about him gleamed the hard whiteness of moonlight, under which the
+idle sail looked vast and ghostly and the faces of the men around him
+seemed unfamiliar. But he heard Captain Standish's voice: "Come, Miles,
+clamber forward with you. Your sister is fair sick for the sight of
+you."
+
+He saw it was the Captain who had lifted him up, and he caught the arm
+that held him. "I'm sorry, sir, oh, I'm mighty sorry; I won't fight
+another duel nor run away," he whispered huskily.
+
+"Don't cry, my man," the Captain spoke hurriedly. "It's well over and
+you're safe with us now. Here, Gilbert Winslow, help him forward; and,
+Stephen Hopkins, draw you nearer; I've a word to say."
+
+Dumbly obedient, Miles clambered forward over the thwarts. Young
+Gilbert Winslow, one of the rowers, put out a hand to steady him, and,
+to the boy's thinking, grasped his arm roughly. They need not begin
+punishing him at once, he reflected miserably; he was sorry for all
+he had done, but when he tried to tell them so, even the Captain had
+thought him whimpering because he had been afraid.
+
+Then for a moment he forgot his wretchedness, as he reached the forward
+thwart where Alden sat, and from beside him heard Dolly's voice
+pipe up. Miles slipped upon the reeling bottom of the shallop, and,
+stumbling closer to his sister, put his arms about her. "You're here,
+Dolly?" he asked, in a whisper, half afraid to let his voice sound out.
+"You're safe, you and Trug?"
+
+Such a ragged, tousled Dolly as she was, half hidden in the folds of
+Alden's cloak, and almost too weary even to talk. She was quite safe,
+though, she found energy to tell him, and Trug was there behind her,
+tied in the peak of the bow. He was sore with his bruises, but Goodman
+Cooke said he would live, for all that. The Indians of Manomet had done
+neither of them further hurt, but had sent them to the Sachem Iyanough,
+who was a good man and had delivered them to the English that very
+morning. So it was all well, but for the poppet.
+
+"Did they take it from you?" questioned Miles, mindful of his own
+experience with the whittle.
+
+"N--no," answered Dolly, beginning to sniffle. "I--I did give her to
+a little maid at Manomet. Because she ground the corn and fetched
+wood all day, and she had no poppet. I gave it to her, and--and the
+bad old Chief, he took her away from the little maid--he did tear her
+up and make red cloth of her--and he tied her in his hair, my poppet
+Priscilla." Dolly curled herself up against Alden's arm and wept
+wearily.
+
+"Very like Priscilla Mullins can make you another," the young man
+suggested kindly, though his face, in the moonlight, looked amused.
+
+"'Twould not be she," wailed Dolly, provoked at such stupidity, and
+went on to cry as only a very tired little girl can cry.
+
+But Miles, quite tearless, leaned back against Alden's knees, and,
+without daring to look at the men about him, gazed up into the shimmery
+sky. All the time, though, he was conscious that yonder in the stern
+sat Master Stephen Hopkins, and he thought of him and tormented himself
+with wondering what punishment he would inflict till he felt it almost
+a relief, when at last his guardian came striding across the rowers'
+seats toward him.
+
+He came, indeed, but to help Alden unfurl the sail, for they were now
+well out from shore, and the breeze, though of the faintest, was worth
+calling to their aid. But when that task was done, Master Hopkins set
+himself down on the thwart by Alden, and presently spoke to Miles, who
+started guiltily, for all nothing worse was said than, "Take my cloak
+here, Miles Rigdale, and wrap it about you."
+
+It was chilly, now they were out on the open bay, as Miles, in his
+torn shirt, knew, but, without looking at the speaker, he shrank away,
+muttering: "I wish it not. I am not cold, sir."
+
+"Take the cloak as I bid you," Master Hopkins repeated, in as stern a
+voice as if it were a dose of poison he were pressing upon Miles. "Let
+me have no more of this sullenness."
+
+He spoke so sharply and loudly that every one must hear; Miles thought
+to feel the indignant eyes of the company turn toward him. "I--I want
+to go up in the bow beside Trug," he whispered Alden, and, eager to put
+as much space as possible between himself and Master Hopkins, clambered
+over the thwart into the peak. There he crouched close to the battered
+old dog, who licked his hands, and lay so covered by the cloak that he
+could see only the blank moon rolling through the blue-black sky.
+
+But, though he did not look on his companions, he could hear their
+voices distinctly. Alden it was who spoke first: "We are not heading
+for home the quickest way, are we, sir? We follow the shore--"
+
+"'Tis that the Captain holds it best that we stand in to land and get
+fresh water," Hopkins made answer. "After that we are to hasten our
+shortest way unto Plymouth. For there's ill news astir at Nauset."
+
+"What might that be?"
+
+"They tell us the Narragansetts, that fierce tribe to southward, have
+risen and spoiled some of Massasoit's men and taken the King himself
+prisoner."
+
+There was an instant's silence, during which Miles listened
+strainingly, then Alden spoke in a different, slow tone: "And after
+they have dealt with Massasoit, should they attack Plymouth because it
+is allied to him--"
+
+"The pick of our fighting men are here in the shallop," Hopkins
+answered deliberately.
+
+Miles felt something press against his legs as he lay, heard a sleepy
+whimper from Dolly. "Let your sister rest by you, Miles," spoke Alden,
+bending over him. "I'm going to aid at the sweeps."
+
+"And you, Miles," added Master Hopkins, "were best give your thought to
+praying unto God that your mad prank may not prove the means of drawing
+the men from Plymouth at her greatest need."
+
+Once more there was silence, save for the steady creak, creak of the
+oars against the thole-pins, and now and again the flap of the listless
+sail. Miles lay quite still and stared at the round moon, yet did
+not see it, for before his eyes loomed only the unguarded cottages of
+Plymouth, white under the moonbeams, and, crawling toward them from the
+black pine hills, the slinking forms of the Narragansett warriors. Even
+when he shut his eyes and, at last, for sheer exhaustion, slumbered,
+he saw in his dreams the sleepy little settlement, all unconscious of
+the danger crowding close upon it, and the horror of this that his own
+folly had made possible startled him into wakefulness again.
+
+He saw the mast sway blackly against the dull heavens, whence the moon
+had dropped, and, with something of comfort in their mere presence,
+heard the men grumbling inaudibly, as they tugged at the sweeps. A dead
+chill was in the morning wind, so gladly he huddled the cloak more
+closely about him and drowsed once more. But the same vision of leaping
+savages and blazing cottages burned before his eyes, till, with a half
+stifled cry, he started up, as through his dreams rang an Indian whoop.
+
+All about him yellow sunshine rippled on the water; English voices
+sounded cheerily, and with them mingled the clatter of Indian tongues.
+So much of his dream was true, yet it could be no attack upon the
+shallop, for Dolly, quite unconcerned, sat gazing down at him from the
+nearest thwart.
+
+"You are to get up," she greeted him gayly. "We are at Cummaquid to
+eat breakfast with Sachem Iyanough; the Captain and some of the men
+have gone ashore unto him, and they have sent us roast fish hither, and
+there is clean bread from home. And you are to rise and eat with us,
+Master Hopkins says."
+
+At that name Miles, still half dazed with sleepiness, sprang to his
+feet. Near at hand, across the noisy blue water, gleamed the green
+shores of Cummaquid, where he could see a swarm of dusky figures, and
+in their midst the glitter of the armored Englishmen. But nothing of
+the shore or even of the folk about him was quite real, save the voice
+of Master Hopkins; Miles did not look at his face.
+
+Creeping into the stern sheets, as he was bidden, he choked down the
+food that was given him, good bread and fish, that seemed to him gall
+and ashes. For the men about him spoke anxiously of the need of getting
+speedily to Plymouth, till Miles, heavy with the sense of guilt,
+scarcely dared stir or breathe, or even think. Only when Master Hopkins
+rose from beside him did he venture so much as to shift his position;
+then he swung about stealthily and leaned his head upon one arm that
+rested on the gunwale. He let one hand droop into the water, and,
+watching the ripples slip between his fingers, thought only of their
+flow and fall.
+
+So he was still sitting, in what looked a sullen fit, when a good
+capful of wind came ruffling it along the water, and the Captain and
+his squad splashed noisily from the shore. Miles heard about him the
+clatter of their embarkation, the creak of the hoisted sail, the brisk
+voices of the men, and he longed to slip back to his old place in
+the bow, away from them, but he durst not venture it. He stared down
+into the blue water, that now began to press more swiftly through his
+hand, and, when he lifted his eyes, the green shore was fading in the
+distance.
+
+With a creak of the cordage, the shallop came about on a fresh tack,
+so only dazzling water that made his eyes ache now lay before Miles.
+Through the rents in his shirt he felt the sun hot on his bare
+shoulders, and involuntarily he made a restless movement. "What's
+amiss, Miles?" spoke the Captain's quick voice. Miles did not answer,
+but, feeling rebuked, sat silent, and studied the grain of the wood in
+the seat on which he perched.
+
+But the Captain, sitting next him, began to ask him questions in a
+curt, matter-of-fact tone, as to what Indian villages he had entered,
+and whether he had noted signs of warlike preparation, to all of which
+Miles answered hesitatingly, a little frightened, because the men about
+him silenced their talk to hark to him.
+
+Once he glanced sidewise at Standish, but the latter's brows were
+puckered and his eyes preoccupied, so Miles, not knowing whether he was
+worried about the savages or angry with him, looked again at his shoes.
+But when the Captain relapsed into grave silence, his fear grew greater
+than his shame before rebuke; so at last he plucked the Captain's
+sleeve and whispered him: "Is there any chance, sir,--maybe shall we
+come to Plymouth ere the Indians kill all the people?"
+
+"What set such a mad fancy in your head?" Standish asked, almost
+sharply. "There's not an Indian within six league of Plymouth. Don't
+worry yourself for that, lad; you'll find the village as you left it,
+and all the women ready to weep over you."
+
+At these first comforting words he had received since he boarded the
+shallop, Miles plucked up heart and drew closer to Captain Standish.
+But speedily he took note of the anxiety that made the Captain
+forgetful of him, and, with a new sorrow, he told himself that to his
+hero he was no longer "Miles, my soldier," but a foolish boy, who,
+because he was little, must be spoken to gently, and not even let
+know the full extent of the evil he had brought about. For, spite of
+Standish's cheerful speech, he could see clearly enough that every
+man in the craft was troubled and longing to reach the endangered
+settlement.
+
+But the wind blew lightly, in veering flaws, so the shallop must make
+tedious long tacks, while the hours rolled out. The heat began to go
+from the air, so Miles was glad to wrap himself in a spare cloak, as
+the Captain ordered; and the sun, in the west, slipped behind gray
+clouds. The water darkened, and the twilight had fallen in earnest,
+when at last the shallop tacked in at the outer entrance of Plymouth
+Harbor.
+
+At first the thickly wooded beach point screened the shore, but, as the
+little craft rounded it, the dim hills across the harbor were visible,
+and there, on the greatest hill, too low for stars, Miles saw sparks of
+light twinkle.
+
+It was as if the men in the shallop all drew breath again, and Miles
+himself, forgetting his guilt and the punishment in store for him,
+cried joyfully: "They're safe!"
+
+But in a moment half the joy went from him, for, when Alden, in
+the bow, fired his musket thrice, with startling reëchoes, Master
+Hopkins told him grimly that the signal was to let the people yonder
+know he had destroyed neither himself nor his sister by his sinful
+foolhardiness. Miles hung his head sorrily, and, for all Captain
+Standish presently clapped him on the shoulder and bade him look how
+the people flocked to the landing, did not glance up till, with a
+splash of oars in the quiet water, the shallop lay to, by the dark
+rock.
+
+In the thick twilight the faces of the people gathered thither could
+not be made out, but all the colony was there, Miles guessed by the
+babel of voices, and, after they had lifted him ashore, he knew it was
+Priscilla Mullins who hugged him undignifiedly, and he thought it was
+Mistress Brewster who cried when she spoke to him. But he had no time
+to make certain, for just then Master Hopkins grasped him by the arm
+and led him away up the hill to his house.
+
+Within the familiar living room a candle was alight, that set Miles
+blinking as he was brought in from the darkness, but he made out
+Mistress Hopkins, with an anxious scowl on her brows, though, for all
+Miles's torn shirt, she did not scold one word, and he saw Constance,
+with her eyes red, and Giles, who had tramped in after him, and Dotey
+and Lister. "Then they didn't hang you?" Miles cried to the latter, too
+weary to be civil.
+
+"Hang who?" asked Ned, pretty sheepishly, as his master's eyes were
+upon him.
+
+"You said they were going to hang you--"
+
+"Not I, never," vowed Ned, with his face flushing, and, slouching off
+into the bedroom, rattled the door to behind him.
+
+Miles followed him thither speedily,--he was not to be coddled by
+two soft-hearted women, Master Hopkins said,--and Giles and Dotey
+came too. They questioned him eagerly of his adventures, but Miles,
+unflattered even by such attention, would not speak of Indians or of
+birch canoes, just poured forth his woes in a weary voice upon the
+verge of tears: he would surely be soundly whipped, and Ned had said
+they would be hanged and they hadn't been, and if Ned hadn't said it,
+he wouldn't 'a' run away.
+
+"I am right sorry, for your sake, I was not dealt with less
+mercifully," Lister said bitterly, and Miles, glancing up at him, was
+checked in his lamentation; truly, Ned looked miserable, with his
+face white and a noticeable limp in his gait, and Dotey, too, had one
+hand bandaged, but, most awe-inspiring of all, Miles noted, as Ned
+unfastened his shirt, a vivid red mark about the base of his neck.
+"What was it they did to you, then?" he asked, but neither of the
+Edwards seemed eager to explain.
+
+"They just tied 'em neck and heels," Giles volunteered presently, as
+he began undressing. "And before they'd kept them so an hour, they
+promised amendment and--Hey, Ed Dotey, make Ned cease throwing shoes at
+me."
+
+With a wrangling word or two peace was restored, and the young men took
+themselves to rest; Miles noted that the ex-duellists drew the line at
+sharing one bed, for Ned Lister lay down beside him, while Giles and
+Dotey slept together.
+
+How quiet and clean it seemed in the little chamber, Miles thought;
+and how blessed it was that the Indians had not fallen on Plymouth!
+Involuntarily he sighed for very peace and happiness, then lost all
+sense of comfort at the recollection of the morrow and the punishment
+deferred that yet would surely come. "Ned, O Ned," he began, and shook
+Lister, who was lying with his head between his arms. "Tell me, Ned,
+how greatly does it hurt to be tied neck and heels?"
+
+"Um-m-m!" groaned the exasperated Lister. "Miley, if you say 'neck and
+heels' to me again, I'll wake up and thrash you."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX
+
+A SON OF PERDITION
+
+
+MILES was not fated, however, to learn by experience how it felt to
+be tied neck and heels; for all his double sin of abetting a duel and
+running away from the settlement, he suffered no unusual punishment.
+Instead, next day at noon, when Master Hopkins returned from the
+fields, he ordered him into the closet, and there gave him as thorough
+a flogging as even the boy's tormented fancy had conjured up.
+
+Miles came out, with his shoulders quivering, and, not staying for
+dinner, slouched away through the fields to the shore, where he stood a
+time blinking out to sea. He had been bidden go present himself to the
+Elder and be admonished for his sins, but he did not hold it necessary
+to go just yet.
+
+At last he had himself tolerably in hand, and, with no great heart for
+what was before him, was loitering along the shingle to the village,
+when a shrill voice hailed him, and, looking up, he saw Jack and Joe
+and Francis running toward him. So Miles put on an unconcerned bearing,
+and, making the pebbles clatter beneath his tread, swaggered to meet
+them.
+
+Oh, yes, he could tell them brave tales of how he had lived with the
+Indians, he bragged, but not now; he had to go now and be admonished by
+the Elder, he explained, as if he took pride in such awful depths of
+iniquity.
+
+"And Stephen Hopkins has admonished you ere this, I'll warrant,"
+chuckled Francis. "How heavily did he lam you?"
+
+With melancholy satisfaction, Miles pulled off his shirt and exhibited
+his stripes to his admiring companions.
+
+"Big red weals," quoth Jack. "I'm glad 'twas not I must bear such a
+banging. Here's more than one stroke has broken the skin."
+
+Miles twisted his neck, in a vain effort to study his smarting
+shoulders, while his estimate of himself rose surprisingly.
+
+"And for each whang Miles cried out, I'll be bound," added Francis.
+
+"I did not open my lips," boasted Miles. "A' could not make me. You can
+talk, if you will, Francie. We know if you'd borne the half of this,
+we'd 'a' heard you roaring from the Fort Hill clear to the Rock. But I
+mind not a beating, nor aught they can do to me or say. 'Twas so brave
+a life I led among the Indians--"
+
+There something in Francis's face made Miles glance over his shoulder,
+and right behind him, his step deadened by the sand, stood the Captain,
+who was gazing down at him with a look between contemptuous and amused,
+that made the other lads slip away, and set Miles scuttling into his
+shirt.
+
+"Well, sir, you show a deep and edifying sense of the mischief you have
+done," Standish said quietly, but the very absence of anger from his
+tone made Miles's face burn the hotter.
+
+He was glad that his shirt was over his head at that moment, so he
+could not see the speaker's look, and he dreaded to meet it. But when
+he had drawn on the garment and could glance round him, he saw, with
+an added pang of humiliation, that Captain Standish, not holding him
+worthy of further notice, had trudged on to the landing.
+
+For a moment Miles stood gazing blankly after him; then he turned and,
+kicking up the sand in half-hearted little spurts, plodded on up the
+hill to Master Brewster's gate. Beneath the bluff, on the shore of the
+brook, he came upon the Elder, laboring diligently among his green
+things, and told him in a listless tone why he had come thither. Master
+Brewster talked to him a long time and wisely, Miles had no doubt, but
+he only heard the words vaguely, for he was feeling the piteous smart
+of his irritated shoulders, and watching the flecks of light through
+the green bushes that shifted across the Elder's doublet, and harking
+to the loud purr of the fat cat Solomon, who was rubbing himself
+against the Elder's knees.
+
+Yet he was dully sorry when the Elder dismissed him, for that left him
+free for some heavy thoughts. It would be a little comfort to speak
+with Dolly; so, rather uncertain what welcome such a rapscallion as he
+might hope for, he toiled up the bluff and faltered into the Brewsters'
+living room.
+
+The wind from the sea stirred the curtain at the window, and in the
+full blast, industriously sewing at a small gown, Mistress Mullins sat
+alone. "So you've come to visit me, little Indian?" she greeted Miles,
+and put her hands to her brown hair that had ruffled in the draught.
+"My scalp is quite safe? You are well assured you have no tomahawk
+about you?"
+
+Miles shook his head in crestfallen fashion; he only wanted to see
+Dolly, he murmured.
+
+"She is in bed, poor little one! till I make her some tidy clothes to
+put on," Priscilla answered. "Stay and talk with me, Miles, like a
+gallant lad. Come, if you'll look merry again, I'll show you something
+rare. 'Tis a humbird."
+
+She led him to the western casement, where on the window-sill rested a
+little cage of paper, in which fluttered a shimmery atom no bigger than
+a bee. For a moment, because Priscilla expected it of him, Miles gazed
+at the tiny whirring wings, and touched the cage gently, but in so
+listless a fashion that the young girl asked abruptly: "What has gone
+wrong with you, Miles?"
+
+"Naught."
+
+"Then you are an uncivil youth to wear such a glum face. Come, tell me
+it all. Is it that Stephen Hopkins hath flogged you?"
+
+"No!" Miles answered, with an angry sniff. "A beating more or less,
+'tis nothing to a man."
+
+Priscilla suddenly put an arm about his neck. "My poor little--man!"
+she said, and, for all she laughed, her voice was tender. "I know I am
+but a silly woman, yet mayhap I can help you,--an you let me. Is it
+that the Elder rated you grievously?"
+
+Miles shook his head, then, spite of himself, blurted out:
+"'Tis--Captain Standish is angry and scarce will look at me. And he has
+ever been kind to me. But now he will have none of me. I had no mind to
+be so wicked; I did not mean what I said; I'm sorry."
+
+"Why, you need not lay it to heart if the Captain has been round with
+you," the girl coaxed. "He must be so troubled now with all this ill
+news of the savages."
+
+"But he--he thinks I'm not sorry," Miles faltered, twisting the ends
+of the window curtain relentlessly between his hands. "And I am, but I
+can't go to him and say it, when he is angered."
+
+"But I can go to him and tell him you are sorry, if 'twill comfort
+you," Priscilla answered coolly. "I have no fear of your Captain."
+
+"Will you so?" Miles cried gratefully. "Sure, you're uncommon good.
+When I'm older I'll marry you,--unless Jack Alden does it ere then."
+
+Whereat Mistress Mullins's face flushed pink, and she pulled Miles's
+ears, and, calling him a scamp, packed him into the bedroom to speak
+with Dolly.
+
+So, when Miles ran home to supper, he was in an almost cheerful mood,
+which speedily ended, for Master Hopkins made him read a sorrowful
+chapter on the wrath of God against transgressors, and cuffed him
+because he could not pronounce the word "Zarhites." Mistress Hopkins
+scolded too, because she had labored all the afternoon to mend the
+shirt which Miles had worn upon his wanderings; moreover, she would
+have to make the troublesome boy a new doublet, to replace the one he
+had lost, and new breeches, for those he now wore were disgracefully
+ragged, so perhaps she had reason to be vexed on his account.
+
+"But I did not tear them wantonly," Miles lamented to Ned Lister next
+morning. "Yet she says she is so busied she cannot make me new clothes
+for days, and I must wear my breeches all ragged for punishment."
+
+"Hm!" answered Ned. "Half Plymouth seems to take its diversion in
+punishing the other half." He was on his knees between two rows of the
+rustling green cornstalks, where he was grubbing up those weeds that
+were so tough as to resist his hoe; his doublet was off, but he had so
+scrupulously turned up the collar of his shirt that no trace of the red
+mark about his neck could be seen.
+
+It was so unusual for Ned to work that Miles was lingering to watch
+him, when suddenly the young man broke out: "Look you here, Miley, you
+were with me that day I made Dotey to fight me, and you heard all I
+said unto him, so I ought to tell you--'twas not he bore tales of me
+unto Hopkins; 'twas the mistress herself."
+
+Miles nodded his head. "I never had any liking for her," he said softly.
+
+Ned weeded scowlingly. "Well, she made Hopkins go unto the Governor
+and beg that Ed Dotey and I be released after we'd been tied an hour,"
+he admitted, in a grudging tone. "She might be worse, and so might Ed
+Dotey; he's no talebearer, though he is a self-sufficient coxcomb."
+
+For several days this was the only bit of private talk which Miles
+had with Ned, for Master Hopkins, who said that Lister had already
+corrupted the boy sufficiently, took now a new course of keeping the
+two rigorously apart. While Ned was sent to work in the fields, Miles
+was bidden weed in the house-garden, or fetch and carry for Mistress
+Hopkins.
+
+Master Hopkins believed, too, that Satan found mischief for idle hands,
+so he saw to it that one task followed another, till Miles, honestly
+wearied, looked back with fondness to his life among the Indians as a
+time of perpetual holiday. One morning, indeed, about a week after his
+return to Plymouth, when he was forbidden to help Ned dig clams, and
+ordered, instead, to fetch water and then weed in the garden, he voiced
+his rebellious wish: "I would I were back with those good, friendly
+Indians at Manomet."
+
+Master Hopkins, who was busy at the delicate task of repairing the lock
+of his musket, looked up at the muttered words. "You wish to dwell
+among those shameless idolaters?" he questioned grimly. "Verily, Miles
+Rigdale, you are a son of perdition."
+
+A very terrible name that was, Miles thought, but it was worse than the
+hard name, that Master Hopkins cuffed him till his ears tingled and his
+eyes watered.
+
+Frightened at his own wickedness, and smarting with the blows, he
+hurried off to the spring, and, halfway thither, met with Francis
+Billington. Even Francis's sympathy would have been welcome just then,
+and, after all he had undergone because of his confession to save the
+boy, Miles thought he had some claim to it. But Francis stiffened up at
+his greeting and put on a surprising new air of virtue. "I'm forbid to
+have to do with you, Miles," he announced, with open delight. "Sure,
+I see not why your father ever need keep you so tenderly from my
+conversation. Why, you are yourself the worst lad in all the colony;
+'twas Captain Standish himself said so to my father."
+
+"I think you are not speaking the truth," Miles answered doggedly; he
+had a mind to fight Francis for such a story, but very likely if he
+fought, Master Hopkins would whip him. So he drooped his head under the
+other's taunt and plodded on to the spring. He didn't believe Francis,
+he repeated to himself, while he swallowed and swallowed in his throat.
+But there came the remembrance of the look the Captain had given him,
+there on the shore, and his contemptuous words, and, with a sickening
+fear that, for once, Francis had spoken the truth, he felt the lump in
+his throat swell bigger.
+
+He did not care, though the water, as he scooped up his pailful at the
+spring, slopped over his shoes, but he did care when he heard on the
+pathway from the bluff the scatter of pebbles under a quick footstep;
+he could not let any one see him in so sorry a mood. Catching up his
+pail, he pressed into the crackling green alders at the farther side of
+the spring, and, as he did so, heard some one call sharply, "Miles."
+
+It was Captain Standish's voice, Captain Standish who would want to
+rate him as the worst lad in the colony, who would never believe he was
+penitent. Miles put his head down and, crashing through the alders,
+never paused till the whole dense thicket lay between him and his
+pursuer. He could hear on the lifeless, hot air no sound save that of
+his own fluttering breath; no one had offered to follow him, and he
+felt suddenly sorry that he had escaped.
+
+But, without courage to go back to the spring and face the Captain, he
+crouched down beneath the bushes and sat a long time staring through
+the leaves at the bright water of the brook. Up in the street he heard
+eager voices once, but the dread of encountering Captain Standish made
+him stay quiet in his hiding place, till the street was still again.
+Then he clambered painfully up the steeper part of the bluff below
+Cooke's house, and, with a new terror growing on him of the mighty
+scolding he could expect for his delay, scudded home.
+
+But no one had space to scold him. When he came to the house he found
+Mistress Hopkins, quite silent, and Constance, with a scared face,
+busied about dinner, and Ned and Dotey, with Giles to help, overhauling
+their muskets. "What is it has happened?" Miles questioned in amazement.
+
+"War!" Ned answered cheerily, and Mistress Hopkins, with a grewsome
+sort of satisfaction, added that she always said they'd yet be slain by
+the heathen savages.
+
+"It happened at Namasket, five league from here," Ned ran on. "Squanto
+and two other friendly copper-skins, Hobbamock and Tokamahamon, they
+went thither quietly to learn how much truth was in this talk of
+rebellion against Massasoit. And there was a certain Corbitant, an
+under-chief of the King's, who is in league with the Narragansetts, and
+he discovered them. Hobbamock broke from them and came fleeing hither,
+not an hour agone, but Tokamahamon they took and Squanto they've slain.
+So we are furbishing up our muskets."
+
+Poor Squanto, who had fetched him from Nauset, was dead. That was
+Miles's first thought, and he was honestly grieved. But ere dinner was
+out he learned from his elders that there was other fearful matter
+to think on, for if Massasoit's men were rebelling and joining the
+Narragansetts against the King and his allies, it meant a dreadful
+danger for the settlement.
+
+Quietly, but resolutely enough, the Englishmen made their arrangements
+to march against Namasket and punish the slayers of their friends.
+After a night of watching and half hidden fear, next morning, in the
+midst of a beating rain, a little squad of ten, with the Captain at
+their head, and Hobbamock to guide them, went forth to the attack.
+
+From the western window Miles watched them go. He had hoped to
+be allowed to slip forth from the house and see them start upon
+their expedition; at least get a last glimpse of Captain Standish,
+who, perhaps, in the confusion, would forget he was angry and say,
+"Good-morrow, Miles," as he used. So Miles fetched Master Hopkins's
+buff-coat, and helped Constance with the breakfast kettle, and mended
+the fire, and quieted Damaris, and waited and hoped, till he saw the
+last man of the column disappear over the bluff.
+
+He could run out and seek a dry stick of wood from the pile now, when
+going forth profited him nothing. He slouched into the wet and the
+wind, and, in the pashy dooryard, met Ned, who was in a bad temper,
+because, when he asked his master to let him go on the expedition, he
+had been contemptuously bidden by Hopkins to "stay home with the women
+and tend the disgraceful hurts he had taken in his godless brawl."
+
+"If I'd not been such a Jack as to get myself slashed, I might 'a'
+gone," Ned grumbled now to Miles, as he kicked his heels in the big
+puddle before the doorstone. "And they'll have some good fighting, I'll
+wager."
+
+"Do you think surely some of our men will be slain?" Miles questioned,
+terror-stricken.
+
+"A buff-coat does not make a man immortal," Ned cast over his shoulder,
+as he stamped into the house.
+
+But Miles, standing in the pouring rain, gazed up the path by which
+the little company had gone. The sky was thick gray, and the rain,
+driven by the wind from off the harbor, fell in long, livid streaks. He
+took up a shiny wet stick from the ground and snapped it slowly in his
+hands. "The Captain may be killed," he told himself dazedly. "And he
+does not know that I be sorry."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI
+
+BETWEEN MAN AND MAN
+
+
+ALL that night the rain fell steadily; harking to its slow patter
+on the roof, Miles thought on those who were tramping the forest,
+and wondered how they fared. Ned, stretched beside him, save for his
+regular breathing, lay like one dead, and yonder in the living room he
+could hear Trug, admitted to shelter from the rain, grumbling in his
+sleep.
+
+A long, long night it was, and the day that followed, all blurry with
+faint sunshine, was well nigh as long. Little work was to do in the wet
+fields, so Miles fetched pails of water and tended the fretting babies,
+while, like every other soul in the colony, he waited for news of the
+Captain and his men.
+
+A second night, sickly with warm mist, had closed in on Plymouth,
+before tidings came. Miles and Giles had gone forth together into the
+moist darkness to the spring, where they drank, before drawing a last
+bucketful for the house; the alders looked startlingly dense against
+the lighter black of the sky, and Miles kept close to Giles.
+
+Even the elder boy was more alert than his wont, and jumped listening
+to his feet, when far up the Namasket trail sounded ordered footsteps.
+"'Tis father and the men returning," he cried next moment, and
+scrambled swiftly up the bluff, with Miles, eager yet half in dread
+lest ill had befallen, panting after.
+
+Down through the dusk of the trail men were coming--the heavily armed
+Englishmen and in their midst some scantily clad savages. Giles,
+forgetful of reserve for once, pressed forward boldly to meet his
+father, but Miles, having no one to meet, stood back in the bushes,
+that touched his face clammily, and watched the little column, noisy
+now, as home approached, swing past. At its head marched a stocky
+figure that he knew, and, as if the Captain could see him even in the
+blackness, Miles shrank a little farther into the bushes.
+
+Yet he joined himself to the very end of the column, for he had no will
+to stay alone in the dark. Goodman Cooke marched there, and, eager to
+have some friend in the party, Miles fell into step beside him. "You
+are all come back safe, sir?" he asked propitiatingly.
+
+"Surely, yes," the other replied. "All sound, save three Indians we
+fetched hither to the Doctor. Best of all, we've Squanto here; we found
+him unhurt."
+
+By this they had come down into the village, where all the people, it
+seemed, had hurried forth, and, hearing the news of their interpreter's
+return, showed no small joy thereover. Squanto, a figure of varying
+light and shade beneath the lantern glow, took such expressions of
+kind feeling stolidly, and profited from the good wishes of his white
+friends by asking for strong water. There was some merriment thereat
+among the Englishmen,--all were in good spirits, in truth, for the
+expedition had fared well.
+
+In broken fragments Miles caught the story as he was hustled about
+among the returned soldiers and, with the other lads, stood staring at
+them under the lantern light: how the Englishmen, coming at midnight
+to Namasket, had beset the house of Corbitant, but found that valiant
+chief had fled at the mere rumor of their approach; how several of the
+Indians, trying to press forth in spite of their promises that no harm
+was meant them, had been hurt; how Squanto and Tokamahamon had been
+found alive; and how, after leaving for Corbitant a stern warning as
+to what he might expect if he continued to stir up rebellion against
+Massasoit and his allies, they had returned, successful and unscathed.
+
+But the story was quickly told by the hungry men, and then they
+scattered to their houses. The street was swiftly emptied, and even
+Giles, calling to Miles to fetch home the bucket they had left at the
+spring, trudged away with his father.
+
+Miles turned slowly up the street; he had admitted it to no one, even
+to Giles and Ned, but the last week he had had a fear of the black
+woods. Spite of his boasts to the boys of his merry life with the
+savages, he shuddered every time he thought of Nauset, and he had a
+foolish feeling that if he ventured into the forest the Indians might
+swoop down on him again. In the daytime he could laugh it away, but at
+night, and especially after the anxiety of the last twenty-four hours,
+the fear came on him strongly, and it did not seem as if the courage
+was in him to go down to the inky spring alongside the stepping-stones
+that led to the woods.
+
+He stood a time by Cooke's gate, in the hope that he might see some one
+else bound for the spring, but no one came. He went a few steps down
+the street, but, if he returned to the house without the bucket, he
+would be scolded, so, at a snail's gait, he trudged uphill again.
+
+Then it was that he noted the companionable light that shone in the
+window of Standish's cottage, high up the hillside, and, though he
+was afraid of the Captain, yet there seemed a kind of encouragement
+in that shiny spark that made him cross the street and loiter nearer.
+"Maybe John Alden'll be going to the spring," he told himself. "Or
+maybe--maybe I'll go, presently."
+
+Just at the edge of the Captain's unfenced dooryard, he halted and
+stood gazing at the light. He was not spying, to be sure; he would
+go in a moment. Through the open window he could see a corner of the
+living room, a table, with a rack and three guns above it, and, as
+he gazed, Alden, a big, black figure, strode into the bright corner
+and set down two bowls on the table. Miles drew a step or two nearer.
+"Maybe the Captain will come into the light next," he told himself.
+"And after I've seen him, then--"
+
+And then some one took him firmly by the shoulder, and right beside him
+spoke the Captain's voice, "Well, Miles?"
+
+"Oh!" the boy gasped, and then, in a panic-stricken tone, "I'm going
+home; prithee, let me go home, sir."
+
+"Nay, you are coming in with me," Standish answered, and, helplessly,
+Miles yielded to the other's grasp and stumbled over the threshold.
+
+Within, the living room was bare and martial, with a rapier above the
+chimneypiece that caught a gleam from the candle set below it, and the
+form by the door and the rough stools standing stiffly as on parade. On
+a shelf beside the fireplace there were some pots and platters; Miles
+noted all very accurately, and wondered that he should note them at
+such a time.
+
+He started when Captain Standish spoke, for all his tone was amused:
+"Here, Jack, set a bowl for this gentleman I have fetched to sup with
+us. And you, Miles, will you give me your parole not to attempt an
+escape, if I take my hand from your collar?"
+
+Miles eyed the shaft of candlelight that lay at his feet and ventured
+no answer. He knew the Captain had loosed his grasp on him, and then he
+heard him ask, in a different, serious tone: "Are you afraid of me?"
+
+At that Miles tossed back his head, stiffly as if a bar of iron were
+run down his neck. "No, sir," he said, boldly and untruthfully.
+
+He could not slip away now, whatever might be in store for him, but
+stood rigid and unpretending, while Captain Standish flung off his
+buff-coat, and Alden, with a ponderous movement, lifted the soup kettle
+to the table. Then he sat down on a stool, as he was bidden, and ate.
+It was clam broth, and he was aware of the good flavor of it, just as
+he was aware, beneath all his alarm, of the honorable fact that he was
+taking supper with Captain Standish. He began to hazard long looks at
+the Captain and to listen to the talk of the two men, with some thought
+for their words, as well as for his own concerns.
+
+"This is none of your cooking, Jack," said Standish, as he rose to
+refill his bowl.
+
+"Mistress Mullins fetched us the broth," Alden replied, with a studious
+lack of interest. "She thought we'd have naught to eat in the house
+to-night."
+
+"'Twas very wisely thought. When you have eaten, Jack, best carry back
+her kettle. They'll not yet be abed at the Elder's house."
+
+Somehow, after that, Alden made short work of his portion, and,
+summarily emptying the kettle into the Captain's bowl, gave it a
+perfunctory scrub and started briskly for Master Brewster's cottage.
+
+The Captain, with his face sober all but his eyes, swallowed his
+broth in leisurely silence for a moment before he addressed his small
+companion: "I had speech with Priscilla Mullins several days since.
+What is this, Miles, that she tells me you had to say to me?"
+
+Miles crumbled the fag end of his piece of bread with one nervous hand.
+"Why, 'twas--'twas--Captain Standish, is it true you think me the
+worst lad in the settlement?" He looked up into the other's face, and
+something he saw there made him blurt out, "I doubt if you do."
+
+"So that's why you ran away from me day before yesterday, is it?"
+
+Miles kicked his heels softly against the legs of his stool. "Because
+I want to tell you I'm sorry," he murmured. "I shall never run away to
+the Indians again. I--I was but talking when I said those words unto
+Francis and the others."
+
+"A 'miles gloriosus,' eh?" said the Captain, and smiled.
+
+Miles saw nothing amusing in the words, but he took it as a sign the
+Captain was his friend again, so he smiled back. "I won't do it again,
+sir," he promised vaguely, and then, as Standish rose from the table,
+he slipped off his stool. "May I wash the dishes, sir?" he volunteered
+for "a girl's work" eagerly.
+
+"If you wish it," the Captain answered, and then, about the time Miles
+had dropped the bowls and spoons into the nearest pail of water, broke
+out irrelevantly, "In the name of goodness, Miles, are those the only
+breeches you have to wear?"
+
+Miles clapped his right hand over one knee, and his left over an
+ostentatious rift in the side. "She hasn't time to make me new ones;
+I'm wearing these for punishment," he explained.
+
+"Indeed!" said Standish; he took his pipe from the chimneypiece and,
+filling it, kept silent so long that Miles finished his dishes and
+stole over to the hearth beside him. On the chimneypiece some books
+stood up from the miscellaneous litter, and, because they were the
+Captain's books, Miles raised himself on tiptoe to read their names.
+A "Bariffe's Artillery Guide" pleased him most; he was wondering if he
+could learn from that how to be a soldier like the Captain, when behind
+him spoke a familiar voice: "Well, Miley, do you have it in mind to
+sleep at home to-night?"
+
+Miles swung round with a start; Master Hopkins and that bucket of water
+and the scolding to come,--he remembered all clearly, for there in the
+doorway stood Ned Lister, with his out of temper look. "The master sent
+me to find the boy," he explained more civilly to the Captain. "I've
+sought him all through the village. Come, Miles, Master Hopkins--"
+
+Involuntarily Miles pressed close to the Captain. "Is he going to whip
+me, Ned?" he asked anxiously.
+
+"Tell Master Hopkins I'll send the lad home straightway," Standish
+dismissed Lister curtly, then puffed a moment at his pipe till the
+young man's leisurely footsteps died out in the yard. "So Master
+Hopkins whips you often?" he questioned abruptly.
+
+"He says I need the rod," Miles answered in a woful voice, wondering if
+the Captain would take his part. "He says I'm a son of perdition. I see
+not why 'tis right. When Ned Lister called Dotey a fool, he said he was
+in danger of hell fire, and, sure, son of perdition is a worser name
+than fool."
+
+"Hm!" muttered the Captain. "And you're still good friends with that
+valiant duellist, Edward Lister?"
+
+"I like Ned mightily, yes. But Master Hopkins does not suffer me work
+near him."
+
+"That's for punishment, too, I take it?"
+
+Miles nodded.
+
+"At this rate you should prove the best lad in the colony, not the
+worst," the Captain said dryly; and then, "Say we walk down to Master
+Hopkins's house now, and see how that wounded Indian is faring."
+
+A queer, vague hope that had risen in Miles vanished and left an
+amazing emptiness; the blackness of the lonely spring, and the whipping
+for that evening's tarrying came to his mind before he had crossed the
+room, and in the doorway he halted short.
+
+"What's amiss?" asked Standish, with no great surprise, however.
+
+"I--I take it, I'm afraid," gasped Miles, hot and cold with the shame
+of the terror he could not check. "I must go down to the spring, and
+'tis dark, and I think I'll be whipped, and--and--" His lips were
+twitching childishly. "But I wasn't afraid at Nauset, not a whit, and I
+didn't cry there," he added piteously.
+
+"I understand," the Captain said, with amazing kindness. "I'll go to
+the spring with you, Miles."
+
+For the second time in his life, Miles stepped out into the night
+with the Captain, but there was small elation in his heart with
+the knowledge of his cowardice upon him. He felt a censure in his
+companion's silence, yet he dared not speak himself, only hurried
+forward as fast as possible to end the walk. They left the last cottage
+behind them, passed a menacing clump of bushes, and then, at the head
+of the path, Miles spoke out, almost in spite of himself: "Pray you, go
+back, sir. I'm not afraid. I won't be afraid. I'll go alone."
+
+He called back the last, halfway down the path. The pebbles rattled
+with shocking loudness; there in the thicket, across the sullen
+brook, something stirred, he knew. With his eyes on the black ground,
+he stumbled toward the gurgle of the spring, groped for his bucket,
+fearing lest his hand touch something else, and, seizing it, filled it
+sparsely at the first dip, then, setting his teeth tight, made himself
+fill it again, slowly and carefully.
+
+Behind him, as he rose, the bushes all were moving and alive, and
+something, he knew, pressed close at his heels. He could not hurry with
+the bucket in his hand, only clamber, step by step, with the breath
+choked within him, till he came at last to the black pathway above the
+bluff. Before he could cast a frightened look up the trail, the bucket
+was quietly taken from him. "You waited here for me?" Miles gasped,
+and then, "But I wasn't afraid."
+
+"You will not be next time, Soldier Rigdale," Standish answered him,
+and, putting a hand on his shoulder, kept it there.
+
+Before they were into the thick of the settlement, he spoke again,
+abruptly: "So you're not happy at Master Hopkins's?"
+
+"I hate it there," Miles said under his breath, and then the hope
+that the Captain's former words had raised swept back once more, and
+he caught the other's hand. "Will you take me away from him, sir?" he
+asked hurriedly. "If I could live with Jack Cooke, anywhere else, I
+know I could be good."
+
+"I know you could, too," Standish answered. "And I think your father
+and mother would wish it. But Master Hopkins is your guardian and your
+kinsman; I can do naught, only try my hand at coaxing, and I'm uncommon
+ill at that. My faith, I know not why I speak it out to such a babe
+as you, Miles, but you must say naught of this, remember. Only--if
+'twill comfort you for your tattered breeches and the rest of your
+penances,--so soon as pretext is given me, I am minded to take you from
+Master Hopkins to live with me."
+
+"With you?" Miles asked in the blankness of joy, and then he must hush,
+for the candlelight from Master Hopkins's window struck across his
+face, and an instant later they came into the living room.
+
+Master Hopkins looked angry, of course, but his face relaxed at sight
+of the Captain, and he only bade Miles pack off to bed. "But he'll
+surely thrash you in the morning, Miles," Giles said, with a sober
+pucker of the brows. "What made you stay so long?"
+
+"I was with the Captain," Miles replied light-heartedly, and to himself
+he added, "And by and by 'twill be like this evening every day, for
+I'll live with him all the time."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII
+
+THE BEARER OF TIDINGS
+
+
+CAPTAIN STANDISH must have spoken to Master Hopkins of other matter
+than wounded Indians, for, to his surprise, Miles got no whipping
+next morning. "Since the Captain needed you, I cannot punish you for
+your delay," Master Hopkins said curtly, a remission which would have
+overwhelmed Miles, if it had not been surpassed by the joyous fact
+of Mistress Hopkins's bringing out an old suit of his father's that
+afternoon and starting to make him new clothes.
+
+In duty bound Miles went forth, and, seeking Priscilla, thanked her
+awkwardly that she had spoken for him to the Captain. He wasn't seeking
+Francis Billington, he would have declared, but somehow he sauntered to
+the shore, where Francis was likely to be, and, true enough, there he
+was, paddling in the water by the landing rock.
+
+Miles halted on the beach and resumed the talk where it had stopped
+at their last meeting. "Hm," he sniffed at his old enemy, "I take it,
+Captain Standish has other things to do than gossip about me to your
+father. You lied to me, Francis Billington, when you said he called me
+the worst boy in Plymouth, and I'm going to thrash you for that lie."
+
+"I was but jesting," vowed Francis.
+
+Miles, with his aggressive fists, smote the boy and rolled him in the
+sand. "I'm jesting too, now," he said grimly.
+
+Francis fled howling home, and Miles, with his shoulders well back,
+swung away to the corn-field. "I _had_ to beat Francis," he assured
+himself, "but now I'll not fight nor run from labor any more, but bear
+me well, because I am to go live with the Captain soon."
+
+But Miles's "soon" proved, after all, a long, and, in some ways, a
+cheerless time. There were many days still to spend in his guardian's
+house, where Mistress Hopkins scolded at his carelessness, where Master
+Hopkins bade him work when he had thought to win an hour's playtime,
+and where more than once, sorry to tell, Master Miles himself strayed
+wantonly into mischief and was sternly but justly punished therefor.
+
+Nevertheless, now that he had a big, pleasant hope to live forward to,
+he found it easier to bear what was not to his liking in the present.
+After all, when he tried, it was not so difficult as he had thought to
+do Master Hopkins's bidding, Miles told himself, and never realized
+how much easier it was for him to perform his tasks, while Ned Lister,
+still sulky and subdued from his public punishment, was working
+fiercely and would not pause to idle with him.
+
+Thus in little, dull labors and the large pleasure of looking forward,
+the muggy August days panted out their course and the September
+twilights shortened. A long, secure time of peace it was for the
+settlement, in which there fell but one incident,--an expedition which
+ten of the Plymouth men undertook far up the coast to the Bay of the
+Massachusetts, where they traded for skins and made a league with the
+Indians. Ned, who was one of the company,--because, Giles Hopkins told
+Miles, laughingly, he was held too much of a firebrand to be left
+behind,--came home with something of his old braggart manner, and told
+big stories that set young Rigdale wild with envy. Why could not he be
+a man at once, a full-sized man with a musket, and go with the Captain
+to trade or fight with the savages?
+
+But presently there was manly work in which Miles shared, for with the
+rare October days came the time of harvesting, when, as in the weeks of
+planting, every man and boy in the colony must bear a part. It was good
+weather to work, though, with nothing of the sickly heat of the April
+days, but a bracing air nerved every muscle, and the sky was deep and
+clear.
+
+Miles liked the stir and freshness of trudging to the fields, one of
+the whole company, in the awakening cool hours of the morning. His task
+at first was to follow after the reapers in the barley field and gather
+the heavy stalks of the bearded grain into sheaves. Then after the
+barley, as the days grew shorter, they harvested the corn, a toilsome
+labor, that soon became irksome to Miles, whose part was to sit all day
+under cover, amidst the stiff stalks and rustling leaves, and husk the
+ears till his arms ached and his fingers were sore. By and by, when the
+corn was dried, he foresaw he should have to help shell the kernels
+from all those ears, and he sighed a little, as he watched the pile
+rise high.
+
+Yet at heart he knew that, like all the others in the settlement, he
+was glad for the great heap of yellow ears. It had been a fruitful
+harvest; the pease, to be sure, had withered in the blossom, but the
+increase of corn and barley was so great that there was no fear lest
+the colony go hungry that winter. Men's faces were soberly elate, and
+even Master Hopkins relaxed his customary sternness.
+
+But Mistress Hopkins had a mighty grievance, for Governor Bradford,
+after the harvest all was garnered, set apart a week as a time of
+special rejoicing. "That means in a community of men, even of the most
+godly, a week of feasting," she lamented. "And who is it shall prepare
+the food but we ten poor women and maids of the colony?"
+
+To Miles, however, a week of feasting sounded pleasant; he only wished
+he were Ned Lister, for the Governor sent him and three of the other
+men fowling to get provisions for the merrymaking. In a day the four
+killed near enough to last the company a week,--a great, feathery heap
+of woodcocks, pigeons, quails, and plump wild turkeys. Miles shared in
+the work of plucking the birds, and, for the rest, he fetched wood,
+armful by armful, for the great fires that blazed out-of-doors, and
+he ran dares with the other boys, who should go farthest in among the
+blazing brands, till Goodwife Billington bore down upon them, and,
+chancing to collar her own son, cuffed him mercilessly.
+
+He tugged buckets of water, too, for the endless boilings and stewings,
+till his back ached, but he minded it little, for this was holiday
+time. The October air was crisp; there was plenty to eat,--meat,
+and bread of the fresh corn meal; and, all the time, the zest of
+strangeness was added to the jubilation by the coming of hordes of
+Indians to share the English cheer.
+
+The third day Massasoit presented himself, with ninety hungry warriors,
+whereat not only Mistress Hopkins but cheerful Priscilla Mullins was
+in despair. But his Majesty did his part in supplying provisions, for
+next morning some of his men went into the forest and returned with
+five fat deer, which he bestowed, as seemed to Miles most fitting,
+on the Captain and the Governor. They were, however, roasted for the
+behoof of the whole company, and on the last day of the feast, after
+the Captain had drilled his little troop before the King to do him
+honor, the Plymouth people and their guests ate of good venison.
+
+The tables were spread in the fields, and Miles held it a notable
+distinction that he and Giles were bidden by the Captain wait at the
+one where he sat, with Massasoit and the Governor and others of the
+chiefs of the red men and white. Miles carried the platters of meat
+thither, with all the decorum of which he was master, and hoped that
+Standish might throw a word to him, so his happiness was final when,
+on his last trip to the table, the Captain called him to his side. He
+was sitting at the left hand of the Governor, where the light from the
+afternoon sun struck athwart his face, and over opposite him sat King
+Massasoit, greasy as ever, but now monarch-like in a great robe of
+skins.
+
+It was to him that Standish spoke, in words of the Indian tongue of
+which Miles caught only one or two. But the Captain answered his
+questioning look: "His Majesty was pleased to crave a sight of you,
+Miles. Truth, you put him to stir enough last July. It was he who, when
+he got tidings from Manomet, despatched the order thither that no hurt
+should be done you, and sent us word where to seek you."
+
+"Did he do so much, sir?" Miles asked, and, gazing at the stolid
+Indian, made him a grateful bow. "I should like to tell him 'thank
+you,'" he added. "If Squanto would say it for me,--or you."
+
+Then he tramped back again to the fire to take his own share of the
+feast, a large turkey leg which Constance had saved for him, and,
+whether it were overmuch turkey or overmuch labor, he was too tired
+even to rise and witness the departure of the Indians after the
+board was cleared, for all he knew the musketeers would fire them a
+parting volley. 'Twas toilsome work, this merrymaking, he agreed with
+Priscilla, and, going weary and cross to bed, he was glad to awake to
+the Sabbath quiet of the little village, and, on the ensuing morning,
+drop once more into the ordered round of duties.
+
+There was naught to do in the following days but to make ready against
+the coming winter, by mending the cottages till every crevice was
+secure, and fetching good supply of firewood from the distant hills. A
+hint of wintry weather now was in the chill air and the lead-colored
+sky, so, one November afternoon, Miles spent hours in hunting for his
+mittens that had gone astray.
+
+Together he and Constance and Giles opened, in the search, the little
+chest that had been Goodman Rigdale's; it gave Miles a dull pang to
+turn over the clothes his father and mother had worn, but somehow all
+that sorrow seemed to have fallen very long ago. "Yet 'tis not a year
+since we sailed into the harbor," he said softly.
+
+"Just a year to-morrow since we sighted Cape Cod," answered Giles, and
+Constance changed Miles's thoughts by adding: "The other ship with our
+fresh supply should come now very speedily; in about a month I heard
+father say we might look for her. I hope there'll be cattle come in
+her; 'tis hard for the babies to have not a drop of milk."
+
+"And no butter," sighed Miles, thinking of himself. "And if they bring
+oxen, 'twill be easier ploughing, come spring; and there'll be more men
+to fight--"
+
+"There'll be two more next spring, in any case," Giles interrupted.
+"Captain Standish says that then Bart Allerton and I shall have muskets
+of our own and be enrolled in his company."
+
+In the days since the landing at Plymouth, Giles had grown a
+responsible youth, but Miles, who had been so much with him that he
+held himself near as old, was quite jealous at his last speech and
+wondered if no one would offer him a musket.
+
+He took himself forth from the chamber into the living room, where Ned
+Lister, who was cleaning his fowling piece and was in a good temper, as
+he usually was when he was busied over his weapons, let him meddle in
+the work till his fingers were blacked. "I'm going northward to-morrow
+morning, where Squanto tells me a flock of geese are astir," Ned spoke
+further. "If Master Hopkins is willing, I'll take you with me, Miley;
+'tis months since we've gone about any labor together."
+
+Disappointingly, Master Hopkins was not willing, for, when he came to
+his supper, he had to report an evil rumor, which one of Miles's old
+enemies, the Nauset Indians, had just brought to the town, that a great
+ship had been seen on their coast. It might be some English trader, or
+it might be a French ship of war, come to dispossess the colonists,
+just as the English had driven the French, at an earlier time, from
+their northern settlements.
+
+Still, even if 'twere a Frenchman, Ned argued, men must eat, and must
+kill their food ere they could eat it, so, at the last, his master said
+he might go fowling, and even, if he did not roam too far, take Miles
+with him.
+
+Early next morning the two hunters set out in lively spirits, in spite
+of the fact that the woods were sombre and the sky rough with clouds
+that looked, should they thrust a hand deep into them, as if they would
+strike something hard and cold. Already there had been bitter frosts,
+and the thick fallen leaves, on the northward trail, rustled crisply
+beneath the tread of the fowlers. Ned wore his red cap, which blazed
+out bravely under the dull trees, and his buff-jacket, too, which gave
+him the martial look he liked. Miles had no such warlike equipments,
+but Ned generously suffered him to carry the fowling piece, so he felt
+quite like a soldier. "I do but wish the French would come upon us
+now," he panted boastfully, as he shouldered the gun.
+
+"There's small danger you'll find a Frenchman, unless you cross the
+water to seek him," Ned answered. "I'll do it, so soon as my time's
+out. Go into Bohemia and fight--" There he turned off into discourse on
+the joys of a life where a man never fetched and carried, but handled
+a sword like a gentleman, which lasted them for a mile along the bare
+trail.
+
+By then they came from among the leafless trees of the level land to a
+thick piny growth at the base of a tall hill, that blocked off sight of
+the ocean. Ned was for climbing it out of hand, for, on the other side,
+by the shore, he thought to find the wild fowl, so up he scrambled,
+quite nimbly, since he had long legs and tramped unburdened, while
+Miles toiled after with the fowling piece. A mighty steep hill, where
+the pine needles lay slippery, so Miles stumbled and near fell, and,
+when he came at last to the little barren stretch of the summit, where
+the lowering sky seemed to bend down to him, he could only drop flat
+and lie panting.
+
+Ned cast himself down beside him, although he did not seem weary,
+and, half smiling at Miles's breathlessness, let his eyes at last
+turn seaward. Lying back, Miles, too, looked out upon the gray water,
+beneath the hill, that far away to eastward merged into the gray sky,
+and then a sudden exclamation made him glance at his companion.
+
+Ned was sitting erect with his hand shading his eyes, and the lines of
+his face were sharpened with a sudden tenseness. "What d'ye see?" Miles
+began carelessly, but the other, springing to his feet, spoke to him in
+a curt tone: "Jump you up, Miles. Look yonder, if you see aught in the
+offing."
+
+Ned's hands turned Miles's head eastward, but, though the boy yielded
+himself obediently and gazed whither he was told, he saw only dull
+water and brooding sky. Yet he was beginning to guess the meaning of it
+all, and, with the heart fluttering into his throat, he cried, "Ned,
+sure, you do not think--that French ship--"
+
+But Lister, wheeling about, had reached in two strides a tall pine
+tree that spired from the summit of the hill, and, grasping its lower
+branches, swung himself upward from bough to bough. His cap showed
+very red against the green of the pine needles, and Miles watched it
+go bobbing toward the tree top, with a mind so suddenly dulled that he
+could think of nothing else, till at last the young man, holding fast
+by one arm, swayed at the topmost point of the pine tree.
+
+A long minute Ned clung there, staring seaward with his face sober,
+then headlong slipped and scrambled from the tree. "It's a sail, true
+enough," he cried, and, as the words left his lips, came to the ground
+with a crashing fall that made the branches sway.
+
+Before Miles could reach his side, Ned sprang to his feet, stood a
+moment, took a single step, and then toppled over again across the
+roots of the pine, with his face working in a manner that frightened
+his companion. "Are you hurt? What is it, Ned?" he cried.
+
+"Naught but my ankle," groaned Lister, struggling to a sitting posture.
+"I've wrenched the cursed thing. Tut, tut, tut! Don't waste time here
+by me. Run to Plymouth. Tell them the ship's in sight."
+
+"The Frenchman?" gasped Miles.
+
+"How can I tell, when 'tis four league off shore?" snapped Ned. "'Tis
+a ship, and that's enough. Run along with you, briskly!" Then, spite
+of the pain, there came a sort of softening to his face. "You're not
+afeard to go back along the trail alone, Miley?"
+
+[Illustration: "The breath came gripingly in his throat."]
+
+"I've been in woods before now," cried the boy, indignantly. "But--but
+if I go, what will you do?"
+
+"Sit here and take tobacco," Ned answered, in his swaggering tone, and,
+with his hand a little unsteady, drew his pipe from his pocket. "Give
+me the fowling piece near to me, and now run your briskest, d'ye hear?
+Off with you, heavy-heels, unless you be afraid!"
+
+The taunt more than all else sent Miles plunging headlong down the
+hill. The needles slipped beneath his shoes, and his knees jarred with
+the steepness of the descent. Once he tripped, and, falling, rolled
+over and over, and rose up in fear lest he had hurt himself like Ned.
+But he could run well enough, he found, as he stumbled into the more
+level part of the trail. His briskest, and warn the Plymouth folk, Ned
+bade, and suddenly Miles's heart gave a great leap that he was to do
+so soldierly a part in the Captain's sight. He drew a big breath, and,
+bending his head, dashed down the trail.
+
+The dry twigs snapped beneath his feet; a frightened quail, with a
+startling whir, flew across his path; the branches, as he rushed by
+them, wavered and shook. Below him the ground reeled and the sky above
+was shot with black; the breath came gripingly in his throat, and a
+pain like that of a piercing iron bored into his side.
+
+Downhill, where the ground seemed not to be beneath him, and in the
+hollow splashed a brook. He felt the chill of the water over his ankle
+as he thrust his foot into it, and, stopping a moment, he plunged his
+head, that ached to bursting, into the icy ripples, then, gasping,
+staggered up the opposite slope.
+
+He was running heavily now, so it scarcely could be called running,
+swaying from side to side of the trail, but more than half, than three
+quarters, of the way was out. The trees dwindled about him; yonder were
+cleared fields; yonder the smoke rose from cottage chimneys. Now the
+stubble of corn was stiff beneath his feet; now he crashed through a
+little patch of brambles; and at last, thrusting his hands gropingly
+before him, he pitched up against the door of Captain Standish's
+cottage. "Open!" he called, but his voice came in a mere whisper.
+
+Within, they heard him, however. The door was flung open; he fell
+against Master Winslow; and yonder by the table he had sight of the
+Governor and the Elder and Master Hopkins and the Captain himself,
+starting up from the conference he had interrupted. Miles reeled
+forward a step or two and caught Standish's arm. "Captain Standish," he
+gasped, "the ship--the French--we saw it from the hill--the French are
+in the offing."
+
+Then his knees gave way and the room whirled round. A blackness was
+about him in which he heard faintly the questions and re-questions of
+the men, the clatter of the house-door, a calling in the street. Then
+thunderously, subduing all other sound, he heard the crash of the great
+gun upon the Fort Hill that called home from labor the men who should
+defend their settlement.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII
+
+THE CAPTAIN'S SOLDIER
+
+
+LYING upon his own bed, whither Master Hopkins had carried him, Miles
+harked to the rattle of eager drumsticks in the street, the hurried
+rush of footsteps, the shrill calls of boys. Nearer, in the living
+room, he could hear Mistress Hopkins's frightened tones, and the
+clatter of swords as Master Hopkins and Dotey armed themselves.
+
+Presently heavy footsteps came toward him, and Master Hopkins, with his
+buff-jacket half fastened, opened the door of the chamber to question
+him further of Ned. "He's hurt, and he made me to leave him," panted
+Miles. "And the Frenchmen will find him, and can you not send some one
+to help him, sir?"
+
+"Unless Edward Lister's neck is broke, I'll trust him to shift for
+himself till we have space to look to him," Master Hopkins answered
+with a grim sort of chuckle, and just there the house-door banged open
+and upon it Miles heard Giles's eager voice, "Father, may I not carry
+Ned's musket, since he is not here? Bart Allerton has one; the Captain
+himself said all who could fight should get under arms."
+
+Miles struggled up, with head still dizzy. "I can fight too," he
+murmured, but the older folk, without heeding him, tramped forth with
+their weapons and left him to Constance and her stepmother. But the
+women had terrified thoughts to keep them busy, so busy they took no
+note when presently Miles, quite recovered from his run, slipped off
+the bed and darted from the house.
+
+Out-of-doors the men were rallying in haste to the shore, among them
+John Alden, whom Miles hailed shrilly from the house-yard: "John Alden,
+O John! May I have your fowling piece to fight with?"
+
+"Ay, take it," Alden called, without looking round, and Miles,
+forgetting he was weary, scudded his fastest up the hill.
+
+He was to have a gun and fight, even if it was no more than a fowling
+piece, he told himself, and, in a happy flutter that set at naught the
+Frenchmen, he clambered on the table in the Captain's living room and
+dragged down the fowling piece from the wall. He longed to take also
+the rapier from the chimneypiece, but he had no right, so, contenting
+himself with the gun, he hurried forth to do his part.
+
+A gray day and a strange day; high noon, yet not dinner time, for the
+whole order of life was broken, and beyond lay--no one knew what. But
+Miles thought on the fighting, and, with his pulses leaping, clambered
+to the gun platform, where a squad was stationed, and, ready as the
+best of them, gazed out upon the ocean. There, sure enough, loomed
+larger and larger a speck of white.
+
+Captain Standish had gone down to the other men on the bluff by the
+landing, so presently Miles ran after him. He carried his fowling piece
+over his shoulder valiantly, and he stopped at the Elder's cottage to
+call to Dolly not to be afraid, and he wondered at Mistress Brewster's
+alarmed face.
+
+The men on the bluff, too, looked grave and anxious, and the Captain's
+voice was sharp and stern. But the boys who were allowed muskets,
+albeit their faces were decorously sober, looked very happy, and
+handled their weapons with such pride that Miles grew ashamed of his
+paltry fowling piece.
+
+"You might let _me_ have the musket a little time, Giles," he murmured
+to young Hopkins, who stood beside him on the northern slope of the
+bluff, where they were watching the horizon. "Surely, I could manage
+it, and 'tis Ned's, anyway, and he is my friend."
+
+Giles preserved an elderly, careworn silence, and puckered his brows
+upon the ominous east, when suddenly from behind them shrilled a
+whistle. Miles guessed who it was before he turned, so, though Giles
+and some of the others cried out in surprise, he thought it quite a
+matter of course when he saw Ned Lister coming across the fields to the
+bluff.
+
+Ned walked at a leisurely limp, with his fowling piece over his
+shoulder, and his cap on one side; it was not till he came nearer that
+Miles saw, too, that his clothes were muddied and stuck with briers and
+leaves, and his face was white to his lips, that were set in a hard
+line. "Well," he greeted his fellow-colonists civilly, "did you think I
+meant to sit there in the bushes till you chose to come seek me?"
+
+There he staggered a little, so Dotey caught hold of him, and just then
+Standish, striding through the thin ranks of his company, came up. "How
+did you get hither, Lister?" he asked, with whatever surprise may have
+been his well in check.
+
+"I walked," Ned answered, and then, as he saw the Captain's eyes upon
+his muddied jacket, he began to laugh oddly. "That is, sir, sometimes
+I rolled and otherwhiles I crawled. For I did not wish to be gulled of
+the fight. And--Giles Hopkins, you thief! give me my musket."
+
+"My father said I might--" Giles began, unruly for once, but there
+a sudden sound of cheering on the hilltop cut short the dispute. A
+man--Gilbert Winslow, they saw--came running break-neck down the steep
+street, and, so far as he could be heard, called to them, "English, an
+English ship!" and then those on the bluff, too, took up the cheering.
+
+It was the sailor Trevor, who, from the Fort Hill, had watched the ship
+grow larger till he vowed that he could make out that she was rigged
+in the English fashion. Still the Captain held his force together on
+the bluff till the stranger's nationality should be assured past doubt,
+and, meantime, he bade Dotey and Giles help Ned Lister to the house.
+"And see that he stays there," the Captain added dryly.
+
+So Ned, turned limp and unresisting of a sudden, staggered away between
+the two, and Miles, though he would fain have watched till the ship
+should loom up round the beach point, thought friendship required that
+he should follow after with the musket.
+
+When he returned to the landing place, many minutes later, there was
+no longer a doubt or a fear, for the flag of England fluttered from
+the vessel's mast. The ship _Fortune_, with the reënforcements for the
+colony, that was not expected for a month more, was casting anchor in
+Plymouth Harbor.
+
+That afternoon seemed all a hazy dream. With a feeling that he must be
+some one else, Miles watched the men make ready the shallop, saw it go
+dipping across the gray harbor, and lie to beside the great ship. He
+saw the first boatload of the newcomers pull in to the landing rock,
+and he gazed shyly and yet gladly at the faces of the men and women
+who were to be his townsfolk. Elder Brewster's grown up son came with
+them, and there were many other young men, and a few older, and several
+women, but there were very few children among them.
+
+At last, however, Miles and Jack found among the newcomers a boy but
+little older than themselves, so at once they made up to him and found
+that his name was Thomas Cushman. And because he had looked on ships
+and sea till he was weary of them, they led him away from the harbor,
+and showed him the spring and the Fort Hill, and laughed at him because
+he was so certain he should see an Indian at each turning, and Miles
+bragged to him mightily of his experiences among the savages of the
+Cape.
+
+It was near dusk when they came down again through the village, where
+the last boatload from the ship had just landed. The street seemed
+fairly thronged with folk, and out to sea a light sparkled on the
+quarter-deck of the _Fortune_, just as it used to shine upon the
+_Mayflower_.
+
+Feeling secure and happy, Miles bade his new friend Thomas good night,
+and walked home to his supper. "Bring firewood; we've many people to
+eat with us to-night," Constance called to him from the doorway, so
+he trudged on to the woodpile, where he picked out a good armful of
+the piny logs, to make a brave blaze for the friends who had come from
+England.
+
+His face, as he worked, was toward the west, where showed a smear of
+red, which the sun, struggling forth just ere his setting, had left
+behind. Miles gazed on the gay fleck, that yet was lonely in the wide
+sky, till a step near at hand startled him, and, turning, he faced
+Master Hopkins.
+
+"Lay aside that wood, Miles; I have to speak with you," his guardian
+greeted him; and Miles dropped the wood and wondered what he had done
+wrong. "Pray you, sir, John Alden told me I might take that fowling
+piece," he offered his excuses.
+
+"Am I always so severe that you look for naught but chiding from me,
+Miles?" Master Hopkins said sternly, yet with something half wistful in
+his tone. "I would but say to you that Captain Standish has long urged
+me to let you be one of his household, and I have as long withstood
+him. For all he is a brave gentleman, he is not of the faith in which
+your father lived. But he has urged me strongly this day, and you,
+too, Miles, you bore yourself fairly this morning; you have tried to
+bear yourself well these last weeks, I can see. 'Tis possible that you
+will not suffer Miles Standish to spoil you with lax discipline, and
+in matters of faith you cannot go very far astray in this colony. So I
+think it safe now to leave this matter to your own decision. You may
+stay in my house, or go unto the Captain."
+
+Miles breathed quickly and cracked a bit of bark between his fingers.
+"Am I to decide now, sir?" he asked.
+
+"Yes, now. There is a kinsman of Mistress Hopkins's come on the
+_Fortune_ who will take your place in my household if you go. But you
+need not go for that. As long as I have a house, there is a place for
+you therein, if you elect to stay."
+
+It seemed an easy thing to say, he knew what he desired, yet when
+Master Hopkins stood looking gravely down at him and waiting for his
+answer, Miles found it hard to give. "I--I-- You've been good to me,
+after all, sir," he faltered. "I'm sorry I've vexed you so many times.
+I--"
+
+"In short, you wish to go to the Captain," Master Hopkins interrupted.
+"Very well, Miles Rigdale. Be it as you wish."
+
+Then he walked away, and Miles, gathering up his armful of wood for the
+last time, wondered that, now he had his desire, he felt a half sorrow
+that it was granted him.
+
+But when he entered the house, different thoughts came to him. All was
+stir and bustle within, for Mistress Hopkins was cooking supper for the
+men with sea-appetites, who were to eat there that night, and suddenly
+Miles felt it quite a part of the day's upheaval that he should leave
+his old home. All afire with the pleasure of it, he went into the
+chamber, where he tied up his few clothes in his cloak.
+
+Ned Lister, who was stretched upon his bed, pulled himself up on his
+elbow to watch him. "So you're going to live with the Captain, Miley,"
+he repeated the boy's news. "Well, it's far better that you should;
+there'll be no one in his house to lead you into mischief." Ned's face
+grew serious and he was silent a moment, then broke out, "On my soul, I
+have liked you, lad, and I shall miss you."
+
+"I shall see you every day," Miles answered, setting himself down on
+the edge of the bed.
+
+"Hm!" Lister retorted. "Your Captain doesn't like me, Miles. Though he
+did trouble himself to see how I was faring, when he came to speak with
+Hopkins this afternoon; after all, he's a good fellow, though I've no
+liking for the punishments he gives. But that'll change now. There's a
+pack of jolly good fellows come in the _Fortune_, they say, will keep
+him busy. Plague of this ankle! I might 'a' gone out and made friends
+with them, and I'm sick to have speech again with an ungodly rascal
+like myself."
+
+Just there Constance pushed open the door and came in to bring Ned his
+supper, so Miles gathered up his bundle to go forth. But Constance
+had to kiss him good-bye, right before Ned, and tell him to come back
+often. "I will," Miles promised soberly. "You've been good to me,
+Constance, and--and if 'twill help you, I'll come tend Damaris--once in
+a while."
+
+"No, you shan't, dear, ever again," Constance said, laughing, and
+pushed him out of the room.
+
+He took the Bible that had been his father's from the chimneypiece,
+and, while Mistress Hopkins was busy talking to her kinsman, a grave
+young man who found no opportunity to answer her, thought to slip
+quietly out of the house. But Elizabeth Hopkins spied him. "Where
+are your manners, child, that you cannot say 'God be wi' you'?" she
+assailed him. "After what I've borne from your carelessness, Miles, and
+I'm sure your clothes never will be tidily mended now, and--"
+
+But there Miles got the door open and scampered away. Trug came leaping
+at his heels, and, fast as if Mistress Hopkins were likely to pursue
+him, he ran till he reached the Captain's very dooryard, and was quite
+breathless when he opened the door.
+
+Inside, the candles were lit, the meat was on the table, and the
+Captain and Alden and four of the newcomers were making their supper
+and talking heartily the while. At the noise of the opening door they
+all faced about, and Miles felt shy and abashed. "If it like you,
+Captain Standish," he stammered, "Master Hopkins said I could come, so
+I came."
+
+"And you are right welcome, Miles," Standish said quickly. "We looked
+for you to-night. Put down your bundle and come to the table. Let your
+dog come in, too."
+
+Miles slipped into a cranny on the form between Alden and a
+black-haired young man named De la Noye. It was a roast duck they
+had for supper, and the men fed Trug right at table, and they talked
+a deal, of Indians and of hunting and of planting, and then, as the
+Captain and Alden guided the conversation, of the Parliament and of the
+Spanish influence and the war in the Palatinate, till, spite of the
+excitement of the evening, Miles's head nodded, and at heart he was
+glad when at length, long after the sober bedtime hour of Plymouth, the
+men cleared the table hastily and went to their rest.
+
+The newcomers were bidden lie that night in the bedroom, since two of
+them still were weak with seasickness, but Alden and the Captain were
+to sleep in the living room, so Miles silently elected to stay with
+them, and he was glad when the chamber door closed behind the strangers.
+
+"So you've a mind to share the floor with us, Miles?" the Captain
+asked, as he threw off his doublet.
+
+"'Tis like a soldier to sleep where 'tis hard," Miles confessed shyly.
+
+Standish smiled a little. "We'll surely make a fighting man of you,
+Miles, or you'll make one of yourself. 'Twas a pretty race you ran
+alone this morning, your friend Lister told me."
+
+"Lister made a stout march of it, too," put in Alden, who had already
+rolled himself in his blanket and settled down on the floor.
+
+"There's more mettle in that rapscallion than I judged," Standish
+answered thoughtfully, and then: "Lie you down, Miles. Eh? No blanket?
+Here, take my cloak; 'tis ample enough for you."
+
+Indeed, it was, and very brave and martial, too. Miles curled himself
+up in it, and liked the manly hardness of the floor beneath his
+shoulders. He closed his eyes and half dozed, then, hearing Alden's
+voice, roused up a little.
+
+"Captain," the young man was speaking softly, "there's not an ounce of
+extra provisions in the _Fortune_."
+
+From the neighboring corner where Standish had stretched himself came a
+non-committal "Um."
+
+"And half these young fellows are equipped with nothing but the clothes
+they stand in; they gambled away their very cloaks, when the ship
+touched at Plymouth in Devonshire." There was silence in the living
+room for a time, before Alden resumed, "We had enough to do in the
+colony before, sir; now what shall we do with these?"
+
+"Why, some we'll set to ploughing and some we'll set to fight the
+Indians," said Standish. "And those that will neither plough nor fight,
+we'll pack home to England. We've no use for idlers here."
+
+Then again there was silence in the living room, and the embers in the
+fireplace gleamed red, and once, leaping into flame, set black shadows
+fluttering on the wall. "We've no use for idlers," Miles repeated to
+himself. "But I'll work as mother would wish me to, now I am in the
+Captain's house."
+
+He drew the Captain's cloak closer about him, and thought to amuse
+himself with pretending he was a true soldier, like the Captain,
+sleeping in his military cloak out under the stars, but the reality
+pleased him better than the fancy. He lay with his eyes wide open,
+smiling at the embers. "The Captain's house," he repeated. "And I shall
+stay here always."
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Transcriber's Notes:
+
+Obvious punctuation errors repaired. Author spells "rendezvous" as the
+archaic "randevous".
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Soldier Rigdale, by Beulah Marie Dix
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SOLDIER RIGDALE ***
+
+***** This file should be named 44165-8.txt or 44165-8.zip *****
+This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:
+        http://www.gutenberg.org/4/4/1/6/44165/
+
+Produced by sp1nd, Emmy, and the Online Distributed
+Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was
+produced from images generously made available by The
+Internet Archive)
+
+
+Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions
+will be renamed.
+
+Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no
+one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation
+(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without
+permission and without paying copyright royalties.  Special rules,
+set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to
+copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to
+protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark.  Project
+Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you
+charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission.  If you
+do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the
+rules is very easy.  You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose
+such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and
+research.  They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do
+practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks.  Redistribution is
+subject to the trademark license, especially commercial
+redistribution.
+
+
+
+*** START: FULL LICENSE ***
+
+THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE
+PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK
+
+To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free
+distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work
+(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project
+Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project
+Gutenberg-tm License available with this file or online at
+  www.gutenberg.org/license.
+
+
+Section 1.  General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic works
+
+1.A.  By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to
+and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property
+(trademark/copyright) agreement.  If you do not agree to abide by all
+the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy
+all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession.
+If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the
+terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or
+entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8.
+
+1.B.  "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark.  It may only be
+used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who
+agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement.  There are a few
+things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works
+even without complying with the full terms of this agreement.  See
+paragraph 1.C below.  There are a lot of things you can do with Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement
+and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works.  See paragraph 1.E below.
+
+1.C.  The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the Foundation"
+or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic works.  Nearly all the individual works in the
+collection are in the public domain in the United States.  If an
+individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you are
+located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from
+copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative
+works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg
+are removed.  Of course, we hope that you will support the Project
+Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic works by
+freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with the terms of
+this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with
+the work.  You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by
+keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project
+Gutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with others.
+
+1.D.  The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern
+what you can do with this work.  Copyright laws in most countries are in
+a constant state of change.  If you are outside the United States, check
+the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement
+before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or
+creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project
+Gutenberg-tm work.  The Foundation makes no representations concerning
+the copyright status of any work in any country outside the United
+States.
+
+1.E.  Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg:
+
+1.E.1.  The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate
+access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear prominently
+whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work on which the
+phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the phrase "Project
+Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed,
+copied or distributed:
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+1.E.2.  If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived
+from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is
+posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied
+and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees
+or charges.  If you are redistributing or providing access to a work
+with the phrase "Project Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the
+work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1
+through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the
+Project Gutenberg-tm trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or
+1.E.9.
+
+1.E.3.  If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted
+with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution
+must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional
+terms imposed by the copyright holder.  Additional terms will be linked
+to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works posted with the
+permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work.
+
+1.E.4.  Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this
+work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm.
+
+1.E.5.  Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this
+electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without
+prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with
+active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project
+Gutenberg-tm License.
+
+1.E.6.  You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary,
+compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any
+word processing or hypertext form.  However, if you provide access to or
+distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format other than
+"Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official version
+posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site (www.gutenberg.org),
+you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a
+copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon
+request, of the work in its original "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other
+form.  Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1.
+
+1.E.7.  Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying,
+performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works
+unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9.
+
+1.E.8.  You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing
+access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works provided
+that
+
+- You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from
+     the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method
+     you already use to calculate your applicable taxes.  The fee is
+     owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he
+     has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the
+     Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation.  Royalty payments
+     must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you
+     prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax
+     returns.  Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and
+     sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the
+     address specified in Section 4, "Information about donations to
+     the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation."
+
+- You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies
+     you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he
+     does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+     License.  You must require such a user to return or
+     destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium
+     and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of
+     Project Gutenberg-tm works.
+
+- You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any
+     money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the
+     electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days
+     of receipt of the work.
+
+- You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free
+     distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works.
+
+1.E.9.  If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set
+forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from
+both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael
+Hart, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark.  Contact the
+Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below.
+
+1.F.
+
+1.F.1.  Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable
+effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread
+public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg-tm
+collection.  Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain
+"Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or
+corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual
+property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a
+computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by
+your equipment.
+
+1.F.2.  LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right
+of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project
+Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project
+Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all
+liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal
+fees.  YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT
+LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE
+PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH 1.F.3.  YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE
+TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE
+LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR
+INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH
+DAMAGE.
+
+1.F.3.  LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a
+defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can
+receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a
+written explanation to the person you received the work from.  If you
+received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with
+your written explanation.  The person or entity that provided you with
+the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a
+refund.  If you received the work electronically, the person or entity
+providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to
+receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund.  If the second copy
+is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further
+opportunities to fix the problem.
+
+1.F.4.  Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth
+in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS', WITH NO OTHER
+WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO
+WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE.
+
+1.F.5.  Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied
+warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages.
+If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the
+law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be
+interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by
+the applicable state law.  The invalidity or unenforceability of any
+provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions.
+
+1.F.6.  INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the
+trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone
+providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in accordance
+with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production,
+promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works,
+harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees,
+that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do
+or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg-tm
+work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any
+Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any Defect you cause.
+
+
+Section  2.  Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of
+electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers
+including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers.  It exists
+because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from
+people in all walks of life.
+
+Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the
+assistance they need are critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's
+goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will
+remain freely available for generations to come.  In 2001, the Project
+Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure
+and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future generations.
+To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation
+and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4
+and the Foundation information page at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Section 3.  Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive
+Foundation
+
+The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit
+501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the
+state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal
+Revenue Service.  The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification
+number is 64-6221541.  Contributions to the Project Gutenberg
+Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent
+permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state's laws.
+
+The Foundation's principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S.
+Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered
+throughout numerous locations.  Its business office is located at 809
+North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887.  Email
+contact links and up to date contact information can be found at the
+Foundation's web site and official page at www.gutenberg.org/contact
+
+For additional contact information:
+     Dr. Gregory B. Newby
+     Chief Executive and Director
+     gbnewby@pglaf.org
+
+Section 4.  Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg
+Literary Archive Foundation
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide
+spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of
+increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be
+freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest
+array of equipment including outdated equipment.  Many small donations
+($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt
+status with the IRS.
+
+The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating
+charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United
+States.  Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a
+considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up
+with these requirements.  We do not solicit donations in locations
+where we have not received written confirmation of compliance.  To
+SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any
+particular state visit www.gutenberg.org/donate
+
+While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we
+have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition
+against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who
+approach us with offers to donate.
+
+International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make
+any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from
+outside the United States.  U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff.
+
+Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation
+methods and addresses.  Donations are accepted in a number of other
+ways including checks, online payments and credit card donations.
+To donate, please visit:  www.gutenberg.org/donate
+
+
+Section 5.  General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works.
+
+Professor Michael S. Hart was the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm
+concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared
+with anyone.  For forty years, he produced and distributed Project
+Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support.
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed
+editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S.
+unless a copyright notice is included.  Thus, we do not necessarily
+keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition.
+
+Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility:
+
+     www.gutenberg.org
+
+This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm,
+including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary
+Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to
+subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks.
diff --git a/old/44165-8.zip b/old/44165-8.zip
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..aa329c9
--- /dev/null
+++ b/old/44165-8.zip
diff --git a/old/44165-h.zip b/old/44165-h.zip
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..aa524e4
--- /dev/null
+++ b/old/44165-h.zip
diff --git a/old/44165-h/44165-h.htm b/old/44165-h/44165-h.htm
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..555108b
--- /dev/null
+++ b/old/44165-h/44165-h.htm
@@ -0,0 +1,11042 @@
+<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN"
+    "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd">
+<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en" lang="en">
+  <head>
+    <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=iso-8859-1" />
+    <meta http-equiv="Content-Style-Type" content="text/css" />
+    <title>
+      The Project Gutenberg eBook of Soldier Rigdale, by Beulah Marie Dix.
+    </title>
+    <style type="text/css">
+
+body {
+    margin-left: 10%;
+    margin-right: 10%;
+}
+
+    h1,h2 {
+    text-align: center; /* all headings centered */
+    clear: both;
+}
+
+p {
+    margin-top: .75em;
+       text-align: justify;
+       text-indent: 1.25em;
+       margin-bottom: .75em;
+}
+
+     .maintitle  {font-size: 200%; font-weight: bold; text-align: center;}
+     .copyright {text-align: center; font-size: 70%;}
+     .adtitle2  {font-size: 150%; font-weight: bold; text-align: center;}
+     .author   {font-size: 120%; text-align: center;}
+
+     .poem      {margin-left: 30%; text-align: left;}
+
+   img {border: 0;}
+    .tnote      {border: dashed 1px; margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%; padding-bottom: .5em; padding-top: .5em;
+                  padding-left: .5em; padding-right: .5em;}
+
+hr {
+    width: 33%;
+    margin-top: 2em;
+    margin-bottom: 2em;
+    margin-left: auto;
+    margin-right: auto;
+    clear: both;
+}
+
+hr.chap {width: 65%}
+
+table {
+    margin-left: auto;
+    margin-right: auto;
+}
+
+
+.pagenum { /* uncomment the next line for invisible page numbers */
+    /*  visibility: hidden;  */
+    position: absolute;
+    left: 92%;
+    font-size: smaller;
+    text-align: right;
+} /* page numbers */
+
+
+.center   {text-align: center;}
+
+.smcap    {font-variant: small-caps;}
+
+.caption  {font-weight: bold; font-size: 90%;}
+
+/* Images */
+.figcenter   {
+    margin: auto;
+    text-align: center;
+}
+
+.figleft {
+    float: left;
+    clear: left;
+    margin-left: 0;
+    margin-bottom: 1em;
+    margin-top: 1em;
+    margin-right: 1em;
+    padding: 0;
+    text-align: center;
+}
+
+.figright {
+    float: right;
+    clear: right;
+    margin-left: 1em;
+    margin-bottom:
+    1em;
+    margin-top: 1em;
+    margin-right: 0;
+    padding: 0;
+    text-align: center;
+}
+
+.drop-cap { text-align: justify;
+  text-indent: 0em;
+}
+.drop-cap:first-letter
+{
+  float: left;
+  margin: 0.15em 0.1em 0em 0em;
+  font-size: 250%;
+  line-height:0.5em;
+}
+@media handheld
+{
+  .drop-cap:first-letter
+  {
+    float: none;
+    margin: 0;
+    font-size: 100%;
+  }
+}
+
+
+    </style>
+  </head>
+<body>
+
+
+<pre>
+
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Soldier Rigdale, by Beulah Marie Dix
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Soldier Rigdale
+       How He Sailed in the Mayflower and How He Served Miles Standish
+
+Author: Beulah Marie Dix
+
+Illustrator: Reginald B. Birch
+
+Release Date: November 12, 2013 [EBook #44165]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SOLDIER RIGDALE ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by sp1nd, Emmy, and the Online Distributed
+Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was
+produced from images generously made available by The
+Internet Archive)
+
+
+
+
+
+
+</pre>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 525px;">
+<img src="images/cover.jpg" width="525" height="800" alt="cover" />
+</div>
+<hr class="chap" />
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_i" id="Page_i">[i]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<div class='maintitle'>SOLDIER RIGDALE</div>
+<hr class="chap" /><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_ii" id="Page_ii">[ii]</a></span></p>
+
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 145px;">
+<img src="images/i_002.jpg" width="145" height="48" alt="emblem" />
+</div>
+<hr class="chap" />
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 320px;"><a id="frontispiece"></a>
+<img src="images/i_004.jpg" width="320" height="500" alt="Indian walking through village of English" />
+<div class="caption">"As if he knew the place and held he had the right to come there."</div>
+</div>
+
+<hr class="chap" />
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_iii" id="Page_iii">[iii]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+
+<h1>Soldier Rigdale</h1>
+
+<div class='center'><b><big>·</big></b>HOW HE SAILED IN THE "MAYFLOWER"<b><big>·</big></b><br />
+<br />
+<b><big>·</big></b>AND HOW HE SERVED MILES STANDISH<b><big>·</big></b><br />
+<br /><br /><br />
+
+BY<br />
+<br />
+<span class='author'>Beulah Marie Dix</span><br />
+<small>AUTHOR OF "HUGH GWYETH: A ROUNDHEAD CAVALIER"</small><br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<i>WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY REGINALD B. BIRCH</i><br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<b>New York</b><br />
+THE MACMILLAN COMPANY<br />
+<small>LONDON: MACMILLAN &amp; CO., <span class="smcap">Ltd.</span></small><br />
+1899<br />
+<br />
+<i><small>All rights reserved</small></i><br />
+</div>
+<hr class="chap" />
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_iv" id="Page_iv">[iv]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+
+<div class='copyright'>
+<span class="smcap">Copyright, 1899,<br />
+By THE MACMILLAN COMPANY.</span><br />
+<br /><br /><br /><br />
+<i>Norwood Press<br />
+J. S. Cushing &amp; Co.&mdash;Berwick &amp; Smith<br />
+Norwood, Mass., U.S.A.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<hr class="chap" />
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_v" id="Page_v">[v]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+
+<h2>Contents</h2>
+
+
+
+<div class="center">
+<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary="Contents">
+<tr><td align="center"><br />CHAPTER I</td>
+<td align="right">Page</td>
+</tr>
+<tr><td align="left">Playing with Powder</td>
+<td align='right'><a href="#Page_1">1</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr><td align="center"><br />CHAPTER II</td>
+</tr>
+<tr><td align="left">The Name of Miles</td>
+<td align='right'><a href="#Page_17">17</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr><td align="center"><br />CHAPTER III</td>
+</tr>
+<tr><td align="left">Thievish Harbor</td>
+<td align='right'><a href="#Page_30">30</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr><td align="center"><br />CHAPTER IV</td>
+</tr>
+<tr><td align="left">Hewers of Wood and Drawers of Water</td>
+<td align='right'><a href="#Page_45">45</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr><td align="center"><br />CHAPTER V</td>
+</tr>
+<tr><td align="left">News from the Shore</td>
+<td align='right'><a href="#Page_61">61</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr><td align="center"><br />CHAPTER VI</td>
+</tr>
+<tr><td align="left">The Going Landward</td>
+<td align='right'><a href="#Page_74">74</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr><td align="center"><br />CHAPTER VII</td>
+</tr>
+<tr><td align="left">The Man of the Family</td>
+<td align='right'><a href="#Page_81">81</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr><td align="center"><br />CHAPTER VIII</td>
+</tr>
+<tr><td align="left">In the Time of the Sickness</td>
+<td align='right'><a href="#Page_95">95</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr><td align="center"><br />CHAPTER IX</td>
+</tr>
+<tr><td align="left">Master Hopkins's Guest</td>
+<td align='right'><a href="#Page_108">108</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr><td align="center"><br />CHAPTER X</td>
+</tr>
+<tr><td align="left">The Lords of the Soil</td>
+<td align='right'><a href="#Page_125">125</a><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_vi" id="Page_vi">[vi]</a></span></td>
+</tr>
+<tr><td align="center"><br />CHAPTER XI</td>
+</tr>
+<tr><td align="left">When the Good Ship Sailed</td>
+<td align='right'><a href="#Page_141">141</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr><td align="center"><br />CHAPTER XII</td>
+</tr>
+<tr><td align="left">The Sowing of the Fields</td>
+<td align='right'><a href="#Page_156">156</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr><td align="center"><br />CHAPTER XIII</td>
+</tr>
+<tr><td align="left">The Two Edwards</td>
+<td align='right'><a href="#Page_171">171</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr><td align="center"><br />CHAPTER XIV</td>
+</tr>
+<tr><td align="left">A Mighty Resolution</td>
+<td align='right'><a href="#Page_187">187</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr><td align="center"><br />CHAPTER XV</td>
+</tr>
+<tr><td align="left">In the Southward Country</td>
+<td align='right'><a href="#Page_202">202</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr><td align="center"><br />CHAPTER XVI</td>
+</tr>
+<tr><td align="left">The House of Bondage</td>
+<td align='right'><a href="#Page_217">217</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr><td align="center"><br />CHAPTER XVII</td>
+</tr>
+<tr><td align="left">How they kept the Sabbath</td>
+<td align='right'><a href="#Page_228">228</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr><td align="center"><br />CHAPTER XVIII</td>
+</tr>
+<tr><td align="left">At Nauset Village</td>
+<td align='right'><a href="#Page_243">243</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr><td align="center"><br />CHAPTER XIX</td>
+</tr>
+<tr><td align="left">Fallen among Friends</td>
+<td align='right'><a href="#Page_257">257</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr><td align="center"><br />CHAPTER XX</td>
+</tr>
+<tr><td align="left">A Son of Perdition</td>
+<td align='right'><a href="#Page_270">270</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr><td align="center"><br />CHAPTER XXI</td>
+</tr>
+<tr><td align="left">Between Man and Man</td>
+<td align='right'><a href="#Page_283">283</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr><td align="center"><br />CHAPTER XXII</td>
+</tr>
+<tr><td align="left">The Bearer of Tidings</td>
+<td align='right'><a href="#Page_296">296</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr><td align="center"><br />CHAPTER XXIII</td>
+</tr>
+<tr><td align="left">The Captain's Soldier</td>
+<td align='right'><a href="#Page_311">311</a></td>
+</tr>
+</table></div>
+
+<hr class="chap" />
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_vii" id="Page_vii">[vii]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+
+<h2>List of Illustrations</h2>
+
+
+
+
+<div class="center">
+<table border="0" cellpadding="1" cellspacing="0" summary="Illustrations">
+<tr><td align="left">"As if he knew the place, and held he had the right to come there" (p. 111)</td>
+<td align="right"><i><a href="#frontispiece">Frontispiece</a></i></td>
+</tr>
+<tr><td align="left">&nbsp;</td>
+<td align="right">Opposite Page</td>
+</tr>
+<tr><td align="left">"With his arm up to shut out the glare of the lanterns"</td>
+<td align='right'><a href="#Page_14">14</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr><td align="left">"Dolly plaited a fold of her apron between her fingers"</td>
+<td align='right'><a href="#Page_66">66</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr><td align="left">"'Do you like to do it, Captain Standish?'"</td>
+<td align='right'><a href="#Page_102">102</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr><td align="left">"Saw the two young men close in combat"</td>
+<td align='right'><a href="#Page_184">184</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr><td align="left">"'Oh, Miles, 'tis the savages come for us!'"</td>
+<td align='right'><a href="#Page_214">214</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr><td align="left">"Miles made out the figures of the men in the shallop"</td>
+<td align='right'><a href="#Page_254">254</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr><td align="left">"The breath came gripingly in his throat"</td>
+<td align='right'><a href="#Page_308">308</a></td>
+</tr>
+</table></div>
+
+<hr class="chap" />
+
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_1" id="Page_1">[1]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+
+<div class='adtitle2'>SOLDIER RIGDALE</div>
+
+
+
+
+<h2>CHAPTER I<br />
+
+<small>PLAYING WITH POWDER</small></h2>
+
+
+<div class='drop-cap'>WITH the approach of sunset, the wind
+that all day had ruffled the waves to
+white edges died down, till there was
+left on the water only a long, heaving motion,
+that rudely swayed the old ship <i>Mayflower</i>. One
+moment from her broad deck could be seen the
+steel-like gleam of the fresh-water pond on the
+distant beach; the next moment, as the ship rolled
+between the waves, the shore presented nothing but
+solid sand dunes and shrubby pine trees. But
+always overhead the sky, athwart which the yards,
+bulging with the furled sails, were raking, remained
+the same,&mdash;a level reach of thick gray that, as twilight
+drew on, seemed to brood closer over earth
+and ocean.</div>
+
+<p>How those yards seesawed up and down with
+the rolling of the ship, and the mastheads, they
+dipped too, quite as if they might pitch down
+upon a body! Miles Rigdale, standing with legs<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_2" id="Page_2">[2]</a></span>
+craftily planted and head thrown well back, stared
+and stared at their measured movement till, dizzy
+with the feeling that the great spars were tottering
+loose, he was glad to straighten his aching neck
+once more.</p>
+
+<p>"Did you see a goose, all roasted, flying for your
+mouth?" Francis Billington called from the waist
+of the ship, where he perched jauntily upon the
+bulwark.</p>
+
+<p>Sauntering from his place near the companion
+way, Miles halted beside the speaker; not that he
+had a great liking for Francis Billington, but he
+was a sociable lad, who must talk to some one, and,
+as the bleak air had driven the women and children
+into the great cabin, while the men were absent,&mdash;the
+leaders conferring in the roundhouse and the
+lesser men seeking firewood on shore,&mdash;he could
+for the moment find no comrade save young Billington.</p>
+
+<p>The latter was an unprepossessing lad, stunted
+and small for his fourteen years, with elfish eyes
+which he now turned sharply on Miles. "I take
+it, Jack Cooke is ill, and Giles Hopkins has packed
+you about your business, that you've come to spend
+the time with me," he suggested disagreeably.</p>
+
+<p>"I take it, maybe you've spoke the truth," Miles
+answered unruffled, as he propped his chin on his
+fists and braced his elbows against the bulwark.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_3" id="Page_3">[3]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Gazing thus northward, he could see all about
+him green hills, wooded to the water's edge, now
+higher, now lower, as the ship mounted upon the
+waves, and the strip of sand beach, off which rode
+the bobbing longboat. "I wish my father had
+taken me with him when they went to fetch the
+wood," Miles broke out at that sight; "it's weeks
+and weeks since I set foot on land."</p>
+
+<p>"Pooh! I've been ashore thrice already," bragged
+Francis, setting one arm akimbo, though he took
+good care to grip the shrouds tightly with the other
+hand, for the bulwark was not the safest of perches.</p>
+
+<p>Miles tried to swallow down his envy, but he
+could not help saying, with a touch of triumph:
+"Anyhow, you saw no savages, and my father saw
+'em when he went exploring with Captain Standish,&mdash;six
+Indians and a dog, he saw."</p>
+
+<p>"So did my father," Francis sought to crush
+him; but Miles, declaring sudden truce, was asking,
+with civil interest: "You did not see any lions
+when you went ashore, did you, Francis?"</p>
+
+<p>"N&mdash;no, but Ned Dotey thought he heard one
+roar the other night."</p>
+
+<p>"Father would not take our mastiff Trug on land
+lest they kill him. Trug would give 'em a fight for
+it, though. But he couldn't fight the serpents; nobody
+could. Did you know, Francie, there's a
+serpent here in America,&mdash;they call it the rattlesnake,&mdash;and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_4" id="Page_4">[4]</a></span>
+if it but breathe on you, you die
+presently."</p>
+
+<p>"How do you know?" asked Francis, awed, but
+incredulous.</p>
+
+<p>"My father read it in a book about plantations
+in Virginia. Maybe the serpents lie close in cold
+weather, though, so you did not see them." Miles
+was silent a long instant, while he gazed fixedly at
+the mysterious shore yonder, where all these rarities
+were to be met with. "The trees do not look like
+our English trees," he said, half to himself, "but
+I'd fain go in among them. Perhaps you found
+conies there, Francis? There were a plenty of them
+on the common at home; Trug and I used to chase
+them, and 'twas brave sport."</p>
+
+<p>"Mayhap if you had Trug with you, you could
+start some here," suggested Francis. "Tell you,
+Miles, you beg your father let you go ashore to-morrow,
+and I'll go too, and we'll seek for conies
+together. Will you?"</p>
+
+<p>"'Tis no use," Miles answered, scowling straight
+ahead.</p>
+
+<p>"Why not?"</p>
+
+<p>"Father says I cannot go," the boy blurted out.
+"I answered him saucily this morning, and he said
+for that I should not stir foot off the ship for a
+week. I think&mdash;I think he might let me go
+ashore. Along the first I was coughing, so my<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_5" id="Page_5">[5]</a></span>
+mother said I must not venture in the boat; and
+then my sister Dolly was ailing, and I must stay to
+bear her company; and then it stormed; and now
+he will not let me go. And I am so weary of this
+ship!"</p>
+
+<p>"I'd not bear such usage from any man," Francis
+boasted grandly. "If 'twere my daddy treated me
+so harshly, I'd tell him to his face 'a' was a sour old
+curmudgeon, and&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"You need not talk so of my father," Miles
+interrupted sullenly, though he held his eyes fixed
+upon the shore line, not on the speaker. It was
+hard, while he looked toward the land of wonders,
+still unknown to him, to think quite kindly of the
+father who had arbitrarily shut him out from the
+enjoyment of it. "If you miscall him so again,
+Francis, I'll fight you," he added, conscience-stricken,
+in the hope of making amends for the
+disloyalty of his thoughts.</p>
+
+<p>Francis bent his sharp eyes on his companion,
+but did not take up the challenge; indeed, a less
+discreet lad than he might have considered an instant
+before coming to fisticuffs with Miles Rigdale.
+The boy, for his scant eleven years, was of a proper
+height, with straight back and sturdy limbs, a stocky,
+yet not clumsy, little figure, that promised a vigorous
+stature when he came to man's age. His
+deeply tanned face, that was lightly sprinkled with<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_6" id="Page_6">[6]</a></span>
+brown freckles, was square and resolute; his blue
+eyes were very level and honest; and his tousled
+brown hair tumbled about his forehead in a way to
+make more women than his mother think him a
+bonny boy. For the rest, he was clad humbly
+enough in doublet and breeches of dark gray frieze,
+with long gray stockings and stout shoes; he wore
+neither cloak nor hat, and his clenched fists, that
+now rested firmly on the bulwark, were bare and
+chapped red by the wind.</p>
+
+<p>It was the sight of the aggressive fists that made
+Francis use a different tone: "You're a pretty
+comrade, Miles, to fly out at me so."</p>
+
+<p>"You may leave my father in peace, then."</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps you'd wish me to leave you in peace
+too. I know Goodman Rigdale has forbid his little
+son speak to me."</p>
+
+<p>"I'm still speaking to you, am I not?" answered
+Miles, and bent to adjust one of his shoes, so
+Francis could not see his face; those last words
+had hit dangerously near.</p>
+
+<p>"But you'll show me a clean pair of heels very
+speedily," sneered his companion, "for yonder the
+boat with your good father is putting off from shore,
+and when he comes&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"That's how the wind blows, is it?" struck in
+a new voice close at hand. Looking over his
+shoulder, Miles saw, lounging on a coil of rope by<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7">[7]</a></span>
+the foremast, a certain Edward Lister, one of the
+servants of Master Stephen Hopkins. He was a
+slim, dark fellow of some twenty years, whom Miles
+admired for a tall swaggerer, because he always wore
+his red cap rakishly on one side, and, since the rules
+about lighting tobacco aboard ship were strict, was
+ever chewing at a long pine splinter instead of a
+pipe. "So if your father catch you with Master
+Billington here, he'll swinge you soundly, eh, Miles
+Rigdale?" he asked, with his mouth quite grave,
+but a glancing mockery in his black eyes. "Better
+show us how briskly you can run into the
+cabin."</p>
+
+<p>Miles ostentatiously leaned his shoulders against
+the bulwark and crossed one leg over the other, as
+if he thought to finish the afternoon in that position.
+Shifting round thus, his gaze travelled beyond his
+companions to the high quarter-deck, where he
+spied several men trudging forth from the roundhouse.
+"Has the conference broken off?" he
+asked, forgetting in his curiosity that he was angry
+with both Francis and Ned Lister.</p>
+
+<p>"How else?" the latter answered dryly, and,
+rising to his feet, sauntered over to the two boys.
+"D'ye think they would confer without the great
+Master Hopkins? And he quit the roundhouse
+long since. Wearied out, doubtless, with such vigorous
+labor. It has taken them an hour to determine<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_8" id="Page_8">[8]</a></span>
+no more than to send forth a gang to-morrow
+and try a third time for a place where we may
+settle."</p>
+
+<p>"Another exploration? Is my father to go on
+it, do you know?" Miles questioned.</p>
+
+<p>"They won't let any but the great folk have a
+hand therein; daddy said 'twould be so," commented
+Francis.</p>
+
+<p>"True enough," scoffed Lister; "the Governor,
+and Captain Standish, Master Bradford, Master
+Winslow, Master Hopkins, and&mdash;the worshipful
+Master Edward Dotey."</p>
+
+<p>"Aha!" jeered Francis. "They're taking old
+Hopkins's other man Dotey along, and Ned Lister
+is jealous of him."</p>
+
+<p>"Hold your tongue!" cried Lister, catching the
+lad by the scruff of the neck, "else I'll heave you
+over the bulwark."</p>
+
+<p>Francis twisted up his face and opened his mouth
+in a prodigious, dry-eyed howl, which would have
+set Miles laughing, had he not been intent just
+then upon the approaching boat. He could see her
+visibly growing larger, as she bounded nearer and
+nearer over the swell of the water, and each moment
+he recalled more distinctly in what terms his father
+had forbidden him have to do with "that Satanish
+brood of the Billingtons." Miles shuffled one
+foot uneasily; perhaps he really ought to go into<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">[9]</a></span>
+the cabin now and see how his sick friend, Jack
+Cooke, was faring.</p>
+
+<p>He turned away and had idled a few paces along
+the deck, when Francis, who had been suffered wrest
+out of Lister's hold, called after him: "Ah, Miles
+daren't let his father find him with me. I knew so."</p>
+
+<p>"It's not so, neither," Miles flung back, and
+made a great show of stopping by the mainmast,
+where he stood gazing down the open hatchway
+which led to those cabins that were in the depth of
+the hold. "Aren't you coming with me, Francis?"
+he asked presently.</p>
+
+<p>The other, quite undeceived, came snickering up
+to him: "Have no fear; I'll take myself off ere
+your father come. Sure, you're a stout-hearted one,
+Miles."</p>
+
+<p>"You're a pretty fellow to talk of courage," Miles
+was goaded into replying, "after the way you
+howled out but now. You might have known Ned
+Lister'd do you no hurt."</p>
+
+<p>"No doubt you'd not have been afraid," his tormentor
+scoffed. "You're not afraid of anybody
+save your father."</p>
+
+<p>"So are you, if you told the truth of it," Miles
+took him up. "You'd not have Goodman Billington
+hear you vaporing so for all the silver crowns
+in England, and if Goodwife Billington came by
+and heard you, she'd cuff your ears smartly."</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">[10]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Francis's sallow face reddened. "Much she
+would!" he said angrily. "I'll show you I be no
+milksop to stand in fear of my father and mother.
+Maybe now you think I'd not dare to&mdash;" he
+paused, his eyes half-closed, while he tried to concoct
+some peculiarly wicked sounding project&mdash;"to
+take some of my father's gunpowder and make
+squibs?" he concluded, with a triumphant look at
+his companion.</p>
+
+<p>"No, I don't think you dare," Miles answered
+stolidly.</p>
+
+<p>"Come, then, I'll show you," the other cried,
+and headed for the companion way that descended
+beneath the quarter-deck.</p>
+
+<p>Four steps down, and, passing through a narrow
+door, they entered into the stifle and stir of
+the "great" or main cabin. On every hand murmured
+the ceaseless confusion that always filled the
+straitened space: underfoot, sometimes with fretful
+wrangling, children were at play; women were passing
+to and from their cabins, or dressing their meat
+for the evening meal at the long table; upon the
+benches several sick men, whose heavy voices were
+audible through the shriller tones of those about
+them, sat together in talk. Over all, the brightness
+from the narrow skylights fell wanly, so the corners
+of the low apartment were dusky with thick shadows,
+and the dim outline of the great timbers overhead,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">[11]</a></span>
+and the slits of doors into the double tier of little
+cabins adjoining, could only just be made out.</p>
+
+<p>Miles was glad of the half light, for he knew well
+that if his mother should chance to be there and see
+him with Francis, she would make a pretext of some
+task to call him to her. He caught sight of her
+now, as she stood by the table in speech with Constance
+Hopkins, and, almost treading on Francis's
+heels in his hurry, he slipped into the Billingtons'
+cabin.</p>
+
+<p>It was the veriest closet of a room in which he
+found himself, black, save for a glint of sickly light
+that crept through an opening in the door, by which
+Miles contrived presently to discern the unmade
+bunk along the wall, the mattress, still spread out
+upon the floor, and the iron kettle and other vague
+household stuff that littered untidily the narrow
+space. Comparing it with his father's ordered
+cabin, he recalled his mother's indignant comment
+to Mistress Hopkins, that Ellen Billington was a
+poor, thriftless body, who would better be tidying
+her quarters than gossiping with her neighbors.</p>
+
+<p>"Now you'll see what I dare, Master Miles,"
+Francis broke in, as, with much panting, he dragged
+from beneath the bunk a small keg. "This is gunpowder,
+if you be not afraid of the sight of it."</p>
+
+<p>"It does not take much courage to touch gunpowder,"
+said Miles, bending forward from the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">[12]</a></span>
+bunk, where he had seated himself, and plunging
+his fist into the keg. "Let's see your squibs,
+Francis."</p>
+
+<p>Young Billington stretched himself on his stomach
+and, grubbing once more beneath the bunk, drew
+out a fistful of rustling papers. "These are leaves
+I tore from a jest book of daddy's," he bragged.
+"No doubt you won't believe I durst."</p>
+
+<p>Miles made no reply; after all, he scarcely cared
+to prolong his differences with a boy who had such
+a delightful plaything as a keg of powder. "Let
+me make a squib too, Francie," he begged, squatting
+down on the mattress beside his host.</p>
+
+<p>For a space there was silence, while, with some
+hard breathing, the two, guided more by touch than
+by any sight they had in the dark cabin, labored industriously.
+Blacker and blacker it grew all round
+them, till they struck their hands together as they
+groped in the keg, when a ray of faint yellow light,
+that must fall from a lantern in the great cabin, stole
+through the door.</p>
+
+<p>Now they could see how they were faring at their
+work, and Francis, who had laid his handfuls of
+powder on the papers and folded them quite dexterously,
+laughed in provoking fashion at Miles, who,
+new to this game, had spilt the powder and failed to
+make his papers stay folded. "It's all very well,"
+the boy retorted irritably, as one of his painfully<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">[13]</a></span>
+made squibs, bursting open, scattered powder between
+his knees, "but after you've made these
+mighty squibs what else do you do?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why, I'll light a bit of match," said Francis,
+scrambling to his feet, "and then we'll touch 'em off."</p>
+
+<p>Miles jumped up delightedly, and, reasoning that
+a really satisfactory squib should be set off in darkness,
+took from the bunk a blanket which he fastened
+by two nails across the opening in the door.</p>
+
+<p>Meantime Francis had struck his father's flint
+and steel together, till at length he succeeded in
+catching a spark upon the piece of "match" or
+twisted tow steeped in saltpetre. Miles could see
+the little red point shimmering in the dark and,
+picking up the squibs, he moved warily toward it.
+"Gi' me a squib," came Francis's voice, close at his
+feet. More accustomed to the dimness now, Miles
+could make out the boy's crouching figure and saw
+him lean far forward with one arm outstretched to
+touch off the powder.</p>
+
+<p>Then he felt Francis crowd up against his knees,
+and instinctively he drew back so his own body was
+pressed against the wall. Out of the dark on the
+floor, right at his feet, started a little flicker of
+flame which, with a sudden whishing sound, leaped
+up, a broad, bluish puff of fire, almost in his eyes;
+then, before the exclamation had left his lips, died
+sizzling away.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[14]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"That was brave, wasn't it?" spoke Francis, in
+a rather quavering voice. "You can touch off one
+now."</p>
+
+<div class="figleft" style="width: 322px;">
+<img src="images/i_025.jpg" width="322" height="500" alt="" />
+<div class="caption">"With his arm up to shut out the glare of the lanterns."</div>
+</div>
+
+<p>Miles eagerly seized the match and, setting it to
+a squib, flung the twisted paper a pace from him.
+The same whiz, burst, sizzle, but this time he lost
+the keen pleasure in a sudden hideous thought that,
+even as the squib left his hand, came over him.
+"Francis," he cried, before the flame died down,
+"is this safe, think you? Say the powder in the
+keg took fire?"</p>
+
+<p>"Pshaw! You're afraid; I knew you'd be," replied
+Francis, his own courage quite restored.</p>
+
+<p>Thereupon Miles lit a third squib to show his
+fearlessness, and then together they set off the remaining
+two. "That's the last, and I've no more
+paper," sighed Francis, and Miles echoed the sigh.</p>
+
+<p>They were sitting now on the edge of the bunk;
+the cabin seemed very black to their eyes, still dazzled
+with the last flash, and the air was hot and heavy
+with the pungent odor of burnt powder. Miles
+sniffed it contentedly. "This is what 'twould be
+like in a great battle," he began. "Sometime I mean
+to be a soldier and have a musket. Did you ever
+shoot with a musket, Francis?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, but I've shot off a fowling piece," answered
+the other. He clambered upon the bunk, groping
+audibly in the dark, and presently dropped down<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[15]</a></span>
+again beside his companion with something long and
+slender and heavy in his arms. "Look you, Miles,
+here's daddy's fowling piece now," he said exultantly.
+"What say if I shoot her off?"</p>
+
+<p>"'Twould make a mighty big noise in so small a
+room," Miles answered longingly.</p>
+
+<p>"Give me the match, then."</p>
+
+<p>Later Miles remembered clearly how Francis had
+sprung to his feet at the word, but after that all
+was a confusion of dire noises,&mdash;a rending crash,
+then a sound of women screaming, of children crying,
+and of men running with clattering footsteps
+across the great cabin. Through it all he felt the
+weight of Francis Billington, who had pitched back
+against him, and he saw a little spurt of yellow fire
+that licked along the boards. Though he did not
+remember snatching a blanket from the bunk, one
+was in his hand, and he was down upon the floor,
+smothering the flames that would press out beyond
+the edges. A powder keg was somewhere near, he
+recollected, and he beat out one little jet of flame
+with his hand, that smarted fiercely.</p>
+
+<p>It all must have taken a long, long time, but still
+the women screamed, and the heavy footsteps had
+only just reached the door. The latch rattled beneath
+a rough hand, the light streamed into the
+cabin, and Miles dropped back against the bunk,
+with his arm up to shut out the glare of the lanterns,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[16]</a></span>
+and the sight, too, of the angry faces in the doorway.
+"Francis, Francis," he found himself saying, in a
+poor whisper that he realized was not meant for
+Francis Billington's ears, "we must 'a' killed some
+one."</p>
+
+<hr class="chap" />
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[17]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+
+<h2>CHAPTER II<br />
+
+<small>THE NAME OF MILES</small></h2>
+
+
+<div class='drop-cap'>IN the great cabin two huge, smoky lanterns,
+that swayed from the beams overhead, cast
+blending white circles in the middle space,
+while the corners still remained dusky. Somewhere,
+there in the dark, a woman was crying
+hysterically, and others, calmer, but with startled,
+white faces, were standing beyond the group of men,
+who were gathered round the door of the Billingtons'
+cabin. Miles saw about him all the faces,
+terrified or menacing, but it was blurrily, as in a
+dream. He kept telling himself it was all a dream,
+an ugly dream, and presently he would awake to
+find he had never gone with Francis Billington, and
+very glad he would be to awake so.</div>
+
+<p>But the grasp on his neck&mdash;it was big John
+Alden, the cooper from Southampton, who had
+dragged him out into the great cabin&mdash;was real,
+and so, he now found, were the faces of the men
+who confronted him. The Elder, William Brewster,
+with his gray hair, and grave Governor Carver,
+he noted among them, with a hopeless feeling that<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[18]</a></span>
+all the majesty of the company was come thither to
+judge him. Close by, he heard Francis Billington
+crying, with tearful sobs, not dry howls alone, but
+Miles dropped his shamed eyes to the floor of the
+cabin and did not look at his companion. He
+heard Goodman Billington's rough voice, thick with
+abuse and threats against his son, and then he
+heard the Elder cut him short: "Peace now, friend.
+Maybe the lad is hurt."</p>
+
+<p>Just then, from within the Billingtons' cabin,
+whence a light smoke still drifted, spoke a quick,
+deep voice: "Come you in and lend a hand, Alden.
+There is work for two needs despatch. The floor
+here is over shoe thick with powder."</p>
+
+<p>"Ay, Captain Standish," the young man answered
+promptly, and loosed his hold on Miles's
+collar.</p>
+
+<p>There was a little movement in the group of
+men, and Master Stephen Hopkins, stepping closer
+to the cabin door, peered in and spoke solemnly:
+"A full keg of powder broke open! 'Tis by the
+mercy of Heaven alone the ship was not blown into
+atoms."</p>
+
+<p>"I did not have it in mind to blow up the ship,"
+Miles faltered, raising his eyes. "I did but touch
+off a squib&mdash;because it would burn bravely."
+There the words choked in his throat, for, a little
+back from the other men, he caught sight of his<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[19]</a></span>
+father, and Goodman Rigdale's arms were folded,
+his heavy brows drawn close together, and his lips,
+beneath his beard, set in a way Miles knew of old.
+"I did not mean it," he repeated huskily, and, gazing
+at the floor again, began crushing a fold of his
+doublet in his hand.</p>
+
+<p>About him there was questioning and answering,
+he knew, and he heard Francis whimper: "'Twas
+Miles. He touched off squibs, he did."</p>
+
+<p>"Squibs do not make such a noise as that we
+heard," Governor Carver interrupted sternly.</p>
+
+<p>"'Twas daddy's fowling piece. Miles Rigdale
+and I shot her off, and he&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Let Miles Rigdale rest," the Elder admonished.
+"Do you tell us of Francis Billington."</p>
+
+<p>Bit by bit a fairly accurate story was drawn from
+the two boys, though by such slow and woful stages
+that before it was ended Captain Miles Standish
+and John Alden, with their hands all grimed with
+powder, came out from the cabin. Miles stole a
+fearful side-glance at the Low Country soldier, who,
+being trained in the brutal discipline of the camps,
+was likely to prove a harsher judge than the Elder
+or the Governor, but, to his relief, he saw the Captain
+halt beside Goodman Billington, to whom he
+growled out some pithy advice as to the expediency
+of keeping his powder covered up and out of reach
+of mischievous hands.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[20]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Miles took heart a little then, as much as he
+could take heart while he knew Goodman Rigdale
+was frowning in the background, and even ventured
+to look up when he heard Elder Brewster say, in a
+tone which a trace of amusement and much relief
+made almost kindly: "Well, well, 'twas no Guy
+Fawkes conspiracy, it seems, only the folly of two
+scatter-brained lads. Your Excellency scarce will
+set them in the bilboes?"</p>
+
+<p>"Nay, I leave it to their fathers to teach them
+not to meddle with such tools in future," Governor
+Carver answered gravely; and thereupon, with a
+surly mutter or so from other fathers in the company
+as to what the two culprits deserved to get,
+the men scattered to weightier affairs.</p>
+
+<p>As the group thinned, Miles was left face to face
+with his father, who, making a curt sign for him to
+come after, led the way to the door of the cabin.
+Miles felt queer and empty at the pit of his stomach,
+and his fingers trembled as he began unhooking his
+doublet, but he followed along bravely. His eyes
+were still downcast, and, as he stepped, he counted
+the planks in the flooring and tried to think of
+nothing but their number.</p>
+
+<p>Out in the darkness of the forward deck his
+father gave him such punishment as he looked for,&mdash;a
+beating with a rope's end, so hard that Miles had
+to set his teeth tight and clench his hands to keep<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[21]</a></span>
+from crying. Once, in the midst, Goodman Rigdale
+stayed his arm, and in the instant's cessation Miles,
+standing in his shirt-sleeves, felt the wind from
+across the harbor strike cold on his hot flesh, that
+was quivering with the blows. "That is for that
+you near destroyed the ship," his father spoke,
+gravely and without anger. "Now I must flog
+you for that you disobeyed me, and had to do
+with one of those Billington imps."</p>
+
+<p>The second whipping ended, Miles huddled on
+his doublet, stiffly and awkwardly, glad of the darkness
+that hid his face. Goodman Rigdale was
+speaking again: "And ere you lie down to-night,
+my son, remember to give thanks unto God that
+by His mercy He has preserved you from being
+cast into His presence with the deaths of all that
+are within this ship upon your soul."</p>
+
+<p>Miles did not quite follow the words, but, with
+a sense that he was the chiefest of sinners, and with
+a keen realization that his back and sides were
+smarting, he gulped out an unsteady "Yes, sir,"
+and blindly fled away.</p>
+
+<p>Aft of the foremast, as he stumbled uncertainly,
+he ran against a woman, and at once he knew it was
+his mother. In an unformed way he was aware that
+she had been waiting to comfort him, and at each
+blow had suffered more than he. Her voice was
+quavering now, though she tried hard to keep her<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[22]</a></span>
+everyday tone: "Come, come down to the cabin
+now. Father has shot a bird, and I've made a broth
+to our supper. Come, deary, it is turning chill here."</p>
+
+<p>Shaking off the hand she laid on his arm, Miles
+broke away and ran to the mainmast, where the
+hatchway yawned. Slipping and swinging on the
+steep ladder, he descended headlong; he was not
+going to his father's cabin, nor did he know whither
+he was going, only that he wanted to be by himself.
+On the orlop deck he halted an instant before passing
+down into the hold; below, there would be
+many people, while here, for the moment, he was
+alone. He stood blinking at the dim lantern that
+hung by the ladder, till slowly it grew blurry to his
+eyes, and, raising his bent arm, he hid his face.</p>
+
+<p>It seemed only a moment before he heard someone
+come tramping up from the hold, and felt a
+hand on his shoulder. He was turned round; he
+had to look up; and he saw, standing over him,
+Master Hopkins, very grim and stern, as was his
+wont. "I am glad to see these tears of repentance,
+Miles Rigdale," he spoke severely.</p>
+
+<p>Miles wriggled out of his hold. "I am not
+repentant," he cried. "I wish I <i>had</i> blown <i>you</i> up.
+Now you can go bid my father flog me again."
+With that he dodged the hand Hopkins put out
+to detain him, and, jumping over some coils of
+rope, scrambled away out of reach.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[23]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Clambering over the chests and kegs that were
+placed upon the orlop, he paused only when he
+reached the next cleared space, by the forward
+hatchway that led to the gunroom. There it was
+all dark, a comfortable, thick blackness, and, to
+make it safer and lonelier, he crept under a table
+that was stored among other household stuff.</p>
+
+<p>For a moment he sat panting, and listened to the
+lap, lap of the waves upon the side of the ship and
+to his own heavy breathing, but he heard no sound
+of any one's pursuing him. Doubtless Master Hopkins
+had gone away to tell every one that he was
+crying and repentant, Miles tormented himself; no
+matter, he was never coming out to be jeered at
+and preached to; he would stay under the table
+forever, and he would not shed another tear to
+please them.</p>
+
+<p>So he sat, rigid and still, and each moment grew
+more keenly aware that he was sore from his beating,
+that his head ached, and his burnt hand throbbed,
+and his heart was big with a great burden of shame.
+Of a sudden, in the stillness and dark, he heard a sob.
+Then he found it was himself, lying with his head
+buried in his arms against the crosspiece that braced
+the legs of the table, and crying helplessly.</p>
+
+<p>He had lost track of the minutes, but he had lain
+there a long time, he knew, for his arms were numb
+with the pressure of the crosspiece against them,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[24]</a></span>
+and his throat ached with much sobbing, when he
+caught the sound of a footstep on the planking of
+the orlop. At the same moment, light beat against
+his smarting eyelids, and, opening his eyes, he raised
+his head to look.</p>
+
+<p>The edges of the table under which he crouched
+were silhouetted blackly against the yellow lantern-glow,
+which crept midway into his shelter. Following
+with his eyes along the light, he could see
+beyond the table the joinings of the planks of the
+floor, a bit of the ladder that led to the main
+deck, and by the ladder, in shadow as the lantern
+was raised, the lower part of a man's body.</p>
+
+<p>Miles stared breathlessly at the commonplace
+leather shoes and kersey breeches,&mdash;all the rest the
+table hid from his view,&mdash;while he strove to hold
+back a sob that was halfway up his throat. It
+would out, but he tried to turn it into a sneeze,
+which ended in a mournful, indefinable gurgle.</p>
+
+<p>Instantly the light of the lantern, swinging round,
+swept almost into his face, and a deep voice commanded:
+"Come out hither."</p>
+
+<p>Miles sat up, tense and braced. "Is it you, Captain
+Standish?" he asked, in a small voice. Not
+that, to his knowledge, Miles Standish had ever
+hurt any one, but he was a brusque, peremptory
+man, reputed of a fiery temper; it was for this,
+probably, that Master Hopkins had sent him hither,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[25]</a></span>
+as one fitted to deal out further punishment to such
+a criminal as Miles Rigdale.</p>
+
+<p>"Come out, and you'll speedily find if 'tis I,"
+Standish's voice rejoined grimly.</p>
+
+<p>Miles rubbed his sleeve across his eyes, the rough
+frieze hurting them rarely, then dubiously crept from
+his shelter. The straight course was to crawl toward
+the light, but to go that way would land him squarely
+at the Captain's feet,&mdash;a last touch of ignominy that
+he could not endure. So he scrambled painfully
+over the crosspieces and round the table-legs, till he
+came out upon the open floor the width of the table-top
+from the enemy.</p>
+
+<p>"It's naught but you, is it?" the Captain greeted
+him, and turned the lantern so the light fell full
+upon him.</p>
+
+<p>The boy struggled hastily to his feet. "Ay, sir,"
+he nodded, without speaking or looking up.</p>
+
+<p>The other drew a step nearer. "You're one
+of the knaves who tried to blow up the <i>Mayflower</i>,
+are you not?" he questioned sternly. "Did you
+steal down here to fire the magazine and finish the
+work?"</p>
+
+<p>"I&mdash;I did not go for to blow up the ship, sir,"
+Miles pleaded, raising his eyes. With amazed relief,
+he saw that, for all his gruff tone, the Captain
+looked more amused than angry.</p>
+
+<p>Standish must have taken closer note of him, too,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">[26]</a></span>
+for he asked abruptly: "You're John Rigdale's lad,
+are you not?"</p>
+
+<p>"I am Miles Rigdale."</p>
+
+<p>The lantern was lowered suddenly. "My namesake,
+are you? Do you not think, sirrah, you bear
+too good a name to drag it into a powder-burning
+matter such as this?"</p>
+
+<p>"I do not hold it a good name," Miles burst out.
+"I would they had called me plain Jack."</p>
+
+<p>"Wherefore, pray you?"</p>
+
+<p>"Miles is no name at all," the boy hesitated, between
+shyness and the desire to vent a long-standing
+resentment. "It makes me think of the stone in our
+village that said: 'Thirteen miles to London.'"</p>
+
+<p>"Tut, tut, lad! Have you no Latin?"</p>
+
+<p>Miles slipped one hand under the edge of the
+table against which he leaned, and picked at a splinter
+he found there, while he stammered: "N&mdash;no, sir.
+There was no school in our village, and, had there
+been, my father could not spare me from the farm.
+I must help him, for I'm mighty strong for my
+years," he added gravely. "And I never want to go
+sit in a school, either. I am glad there will be no
+schools here in the plantation, not till I'm a man and
+can do as I will. I hold that is the best part of all in
+planting a colony, except the lions and the savages."</p>
+
+<p>"And what do you think to do with the lions and
+savages, Miles Rigdale?"</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[27]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Fight 'em, sir."</p>
+
+<p>Captain Standish chuckled softly in his beard.
+"You'll fight 'em, eh? 'Tis a great pity, in truth,
+no one has told you what name you bear. You
+should know that Miles in the Latin tongue signifies
+'a soldier.'"</p>
+
+<p>Miles forgot that his cheeks were tear-stained and
+his eyes swollen, and looked up happily into the
+speaker's face. "I am right glad of that," he announced.
+"'Tis a good enough name, after all."
+He was sorely tempted to ask the Captain if he had
+been named that after he proved himself a soldier in
+the wars, or if they named him first and he grew
+to it afterward, but he concluded that would be over-bold.</p>
+
+<p>Though, after all, he began to doubt if Captain
+Standish were such a terrible body. He looked
+pleasant enough now, as he stood in the lantern light,&mdash;a
+stocky, square-shouldered man of some six and
+thirty years, with yellow-brown hair and beard, and
+eyes so deep set under his brows Miles could not tell
+their color. The linen bands at his neck and wrists
+were small and plain, and along the sides of his
+doublet of dark maroon kersey the rubbing of armor
+had worn down the cloth. He was not so fine
+a gentleman, doubtless, as young Master Edward
+Winslow, but he looked the man of war, through
+and through, and, moreover, he neither scolded nor<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">[28]</a></span>
+preached at a small sinner; Miles began to be glad
+in his heart that he bore the same name as the
+Captain.</p>
+
+<p>"So, after all, you're content to be named 'Soldier'
+Rigdale?" Standish suddenly read the expression
+of his face.</p>
+
+<p>"'Tis a soldier that I mean to be," Miles confessed.
+"I like the smell of powder."</p>
+
+<p>"So it seems," the Captain answered, in the dryest
+possible tone, and then, as Miles's cheeks began
+to burn, went on hastily: "Which was it, you or
+the Billington lad, put out the fire? We found
+the blanket on the floor of the cabin."</p>
+
+<p>"Mayhap 'twas I. I do not recall it clearly."</p>
+
+<p>The Captain reached out his hand, and, taking
+Miles by a fold of the doublet-sleeve, lifted his arm.
+"No doubt 'twas you," he said; "you've blistered
+your hand here."</p>
+
+<p>"I know. It aches," Miles whispered, with a
+sudden husky dropping of his voice.</p>
+
+<p>"You'd better go to your mother straightway
+and ask her to put oil on it; that will soon draw
+out the fire."</p>
+
+<p>"I can't," Miles gulped. "I can never go out
+among the people again. When they all think I
+tried to blow them up,&mdash;and when every one will
+know I have been newly whipped. I shall stay
+here forever." His voice died down as he spoke<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[29]</a></span>
+the last: it did not sound manly, but uncommon
+silly.</p>
+
+<p>"You'd get mighty hungry if you did," the soldier
+answered him coolly. "You're going to your
+mother now, my man. Run along with you. I've
+to go on down into the gunroom, but I'll light you
+up the ladder."</p>
+
+<p>Miles gave a tremulous gasp of resignation, and
+scuffed slowly to the foot of the ladder, where he
+paused and smeared the back of his hand across his
+cheeks; then turned to his companion. "Captain
+Standish," he hesitated; then, as it was the only
+possible way of learning what he wished to know
+before he showed himself among the company, he
+blurted out desperately, "Will you tell me, is my
+face clean?"</p>
+
+<p>Captain Standish looked down at him with a
+funny expression in his eyes. "I think 'twill serve
+in a half light, if you slip directly into your father's
+cabin."</p>
+
+<p>"Thank you, sir," Miles answered; then added
+hastily, "You see, there was something flew into
+my eye, and one that did not know might think&mdash;I
+had been crying."</p>
+
+<hr class="chap" />
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[30]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+
+<h2>CHAPTER III<br />
+
+<small>THIEVISH HARBOR</small></h2>
+
+
+<div class='drop-cap'>ONE sharp December afternoon, a week and
+a day after the Pilgrim leaders went forth
+the third time to seek a place for settlement,
+Love Brewster and his little brother Wrestling
+climbed down to the cabins beneath the main
+deck to visit their playmate, Dolly Rigdale. The
+cubby where Dolly and Miles and their father and
+mother had lived during the two months of the
+voyage over the sea and the five weeks of exploration
+that followed, was a dim box of a place, but
+the little boys liked to visit it, not only to talk with
+Dolly, who was nearer their age than most of the
+children in the company, but to see Trug and
+Solomon.</div>
+
+<p>Trug was the big, grizzled mastiff, who had
+guarded the house and the cattle faithfully for so
+many years that even stern John Rigdale had not
+the heart to leave him to strangers; and Solomon,
+with the wise eyes of royal yellow, was the fat
+house-cat, whom Dolly had insisted on bringing
+with her to the new home.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[31]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"If it had been my pet, 'twould 'a' had to bide
+in England," Miles had told himself, in one bitter,
+jealous moment, of which he was justly ashamed.
+For, without question, Goodman Rigdale cared
+equally for his two children, only he held Miles,
+being a stubborn chip of manhood, needed frequent
+beatings, such as the Scriptures enjoined on good
+fathers to give their sons, whereas Dolly was just a
+little wench, with gray eyes like her mother, so she
+received very gentle whippings and triumphantly
+lugged Solomon on shipboard.</p>
+
+<p>The sleek, striped creature lay beside her now,
+for Dolly, still ailing with her cough, was resting on
+the bunk beneath the blankets. Wrestling Brewster,
+a big-eyed, silent child, sat by her, and, sorry
+to tell, joined forces with the little girl in rumpling
+poor Solomon's fur. "You are the best pussy,"
+Dolly purred meantime, and, either because of her
+flattery or because the warm blankets were comfortable,
+the cat made no movement to leave her.</p>
+
+<p>Ordinarily Miles sniffed at the conversation of
+eight-year-olds, such as his sister, but this afternoon
+he gladly lingered in the cabin, for the accomplishments
+of the Brewster lads were amazing enough to
+lift them to the rank of companions. Both could
+jabber Dutch quite as fast as Miles could speak
+English, and Love, the talkative one, could tell
+wonderful stories of the queer Low Country city<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[32]</a></span>
+of Leyden, where all his short life had been spent.
+It was of Leyden he spoke now, sitting beside
+Miles on the turned-up mattress, where at night
+Goodman Rigdale and his son slept, and Miles,
+with a question here and there to draw out what he
+sought, listened again to the story of the Pilgrims.</p>
+
+<p>Love had good reason to know it well, for his
+father, Elder Brewster, had been from the first one
+of the leaders of the little company. He had given
+all his substance to help the cause of that faith
+which the bishops of the great Established Church
+of England held it right to crush out; he had suffered
+imprisonment for the sake of that faith; and
+finally, that he and his friends might worship God
+as they thought best, had gone into exile in Holland.</p>
+
+<p>There for twelve years the Pilgrim church held
+its own, though its members, for all their efforts
+to support themselves in that strange country, fared
+hardly and poorly. Good Deacon Fuller, the physician,
+had been glad to earn his living as a say or
+serge maker; Master William Bradford had been
+a maker of fustian; and the Elder had maintained
+his family and aided his poorer companions by
+teaching English to Danish and German gentlemen,
+and later by printing English books.</p>
+
+<p>Love told also of Master Carver, the recently
+elected governor of the company, who had given<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">[33]</a></span>
+his whole fortune to the Pilgrim cause; and he
+spoke of gallant Master Edward Winslow, who,
+travelling in the Low Countries with his newly
+married wife, had come to know and to respect the
+Pilgrim folk and finally to cast in his lot with theirs.
+And, best of all, Love could tell of Captain Standish.</p>
+
+<p>There the boy turned to what Miles had been
+waiting to hear, and be sure that now he eagerly
+drank in each word: how the Captain came of a
+great family in Lancashire, where he had a vast
+estate which his kinsfolk had taken from him,&mdash;so
+Love had once heard him say to the Elder; how
+he had fought bravely against the wicked Spaniards,
+as far back as the time of Queen Bess, when Miles
+Standish was a very young man indeed; and how,
+of a sudden, he had come with his young wife and
+joined himself to the Pilgrims, why, none could
+say, for he was "not of our faith," Love gravely
+quoted the older people.</p>
+
+<p>That last did not greatly displease Miles, perhaps
+because his own father was rather a Puritan
+than an ardent Separatist, as those were called who,
+like the Pilgrims of Leyden, broke off all communion
+with the Established Church. Goodman
+John Rigdale grumbled about the bishops and the
+vestments of the clergymen and other matters which
+Miles neither heeded nor comprehended, but, for
+all his grumbling, as often as the law insisted, he<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">[34]</a></span>
+and his household went to church. One of the first
+and liveliest recollections of childhood which Miles
+kept, was of how the red light from the painted
+windows that his father hated used to shift along
+the dark oak of the old pews.</p>
+
+<p>Lately, though, John Rigdale had spoken out
+too openly against the service book, and there had
+been a citation before the ecclesiastical court. Miles
+scarcely understood the matter, but he knew that
+Dun-face, the pet heifer, had been sold to pay a
+fine, and that their landlord, swearing that he was
+too good a Church of England man to suffer a
+pestilent Separatist hold a farm of him, had refused
+to renew the lease, bought long ago by Miles's
+grandfather, which now ran out.</p>
+
+<p>Then had come Master Stephen Hopkins, the
+London tanner, whose first wife had been a distant
+cousin of John Rigdale's, and he had talked of the
+new country over seas, where a man might have
+land and a farm of his own for the asking and worship
+to please his conscience, not the king's bishops.
+Master Hopkins had already made up his mind to
+embark with the people from Leyden; he had met
+their agent, Master Cushman, and he was acquainted
+with some of the London merchants who had
+formed a partnership with the Leyden people, the
+Londoners to furnish money to pay the expenses
+of the long voyage, the Separatists to give themselves<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">[35]</a></span>
+and their families to defend and till the plantation
+thus gained.</p>
+
+<p>In the end, Master Hopkins's statements were
+so weighty that Goodman Rigdale followed his example.
+The stout farm horse and the cows and the
+pigs were all led away to market, and Dolly cried
+over each one; and Goodwife Rigdale, too, wept a
+little when most of the bits of furniture were sold.
+But Miles thought it all very merry and stirring,&mdash;the
+breaking up of the home he had known, the
+journey to Southampton, all amidst new sights and
+sounds, and the ship, and the long voyage over the
+sea, till the <i>Mayflower</i> dropped anchor off Cape Cod.</p>
+
+<p>He was more than a bit weary of the voyage and
+the ship now, however, as he sat on the turned-up
+mattress in his father's stuffy little cabin. The
+dead air was cold without being bracing, and Miles
+broke short Love's discourse on the journey of the
+Leyden Pilgrims into England, by springing up
+and stamping his chilled feet.</p>
+
+<p>"It <i>is</i> a shrewd cold day," said his companion.
+"See!" He puffed at the air, and his breath made
+a little white cloud. "Maybe we'd best go up on
+deck and run."</p>
+
+<p>At that word the two older boys turned to the
+door, but Wrestling shook his head and, pressing
+closer to Dolly, whispered: "Before I go, I want
+that you show me the Indian basket."</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">[36]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Miles overheard, and delayed to draw from beneath
+the bunk the deal box in which the treasure
+was kept. Wrestling was so young that he seemed
+hardly more than a baby, and as a baby Miles had
+a kindly, protecting feeling for him; when he rose
+with the box he opened it so the little boy might
+have the first sight. Within lay a tiny basket all
+of silk grass, pictured on which in black and white
+were birds and flowers of a curious pattern.</p>
+
+<p>"Did your father truly bring it from the Indians?"
+Love asked.</p>
+
+<p>"He brought it home to me," Dolly explained
+proudly. "It was in an Indian house, and my
+father found it when he went ashore with Captain
+Standish. And so he brought it to me."</p>
+
+<p>Wrestling touched the fragile thing gingerly. "I
+wish our father fought the Indians once," he murmured.</p>
+
+<p>"It is better to be an Elder," Love rebuked him
+sternly; then added, lest Dolly's feelings be hurt,
+"though, to be sure, there can be but one Elder in
+a company. The rest must be fighting men, must
+they not, Miles?"</p>
+
+<p>But Miles gave no heed; for just then the sound
+of soft footsteps made him glance to the open door,
+at which the light drifted in, and there, standing on
+the threshold, he saw his mother.</p>
+
+<p>Years afterward, when he looked back, Miles<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">[37]</a></span>
+realized Goodwife Rigdale had been a young woman
+then, not above thirty, but in those days it seemed
+to him she must be old, because she was his mother;
+he even wondered that she had not hair streaked
+with gray, like Mistress Brewster. Mothers were
+always old, he generalized rashly, just as they were
+always gentle-spoken and full of kindness; only
+that last judgment he revoked, after he came aboard
+the <i>Mayflower</i> and heard Goodwife Billington, a true
+London virago, rail at her sons and saw her cuff
+them.</p>
+
+<p>But his own mother was not to be belittled by
+naming her with Ellen Billington; she was everything
+that was good and to be loved, even if she did
+not wear such a brave gown as Mistress Winslow,
+nor have such pink cheeks as Mistress Standish.
+Miles drew away from the bunk, against which he
+had been leaning, to make room for her to sit,
+though he did it awkwardly, because Love and
+Wrestling were looking.</p>
+
+<p>"I'll bide a bit now with my little maid," she
+said, as she drew the blankets more closely about
+Dolly. "You'll want to be running up on deck
+now, I can guess, deary, and Love and Wrestling
+too, if Mistress Brewster will suffer it."</p>
+
+<p>"Mother, is the shallop in sight?" Miles cried
+eagerly. For, since the exploring party sailed forth
+a week before, there had come so great a storm that<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">[38]</a></span>
+hearts aboard the <i>Mayflower</i> were not a little anxious
+for their welfare.</p>
+
+<p>"They've made out a sail to the southward, I
+heard the talk run. Go you and learn further,
+Miles. Your father will be on deck too."</p>
+
+<p>Miles reddened a little; why would she speak as
+if he were a young boy, to need his father? "Come,
+lads," he said, in a very old tone, to hide his mortification,
+and led the way from the cabin. As he
+passed out at the door, he heard a sorrowful wail
+from Dolly: "O me! Mammy, can I not run
+about with them soon?"</p>
+
+<p>But Miles forgot Dolly's woes and all, when he
+clambered into the bracing air of the deck, whither
+the most of the hale ones of the company had, like
+himself, bustled to watch the approaching shallop.
+Shreds of dappled cloud half obscured the east, but
+low in the west the sun was cold and yellow, and its
+light flecked the water and made the sail of the distant
+craft gleam like gold.</p>
+
+<p>Miles stared till for very dazzle he could see no
+longer, then turned his gaze inboard, where it rested
+on the slender figure of a woman, who leaned against
+the mainmast. When the light got out of his eyes,
+he perceived it was Mistress Rose Standish, who,
+while he was still gazing on her, came to the bulwark
+beside him, but, without seeming to see him,
+stood looking toward the shallop.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[39]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Once and again Miles glanced up at her, thinking
+how bonny she was with the flush on her cheeks
+and her brown hair straying from beneath her hood
+across her forehead; and then he grew suddenly
+hot, for she chanced to look down, and their eyes
+met. He drew away bashfully and stared again at
+the shallop; the sun had now dropped lower, so the
+waves around it were sombre, but within the boat
+sparkled a gleam of light on metal armor. Miles
+almost thought to be able to distinguish the forms
+of the men, and presently their faces. "Yon is the
+Captain," he broke out, half aloud.</p>
+
+<p>"Do you see him, too?" Mistress Standish
+spoke, as if he had addressed her.</p>
+
+<p>"That's he, by the mast, with the steel corselet."</p>
+
+<p>She looked down again, and the boy noted her
+eyes were moist, though she smiled as she said:
+"You seem to know the Captain very well, sir."</p>
+
+<p>"I'd know him anywhere," Miles answered earnestly.
+"You understand, he was right kind to me."</p>
+
+<p>Then he broke off speech, for the shallop was
+now fairly alongside, and the men in her were calling
+to those on shipboard greetings and questions
+and answers. Mistress Standish moved quickly
+toward the gangway, and Miles saw her meet the
+Captain, when he clambered up the ladder.</p>
+
+<p>Next after him came Master William Bradford,
+and suddenly it struck with a shock on Miles's<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[40]</a></span>
+remembrance that Mistress Bradford was dead,
+drowned alongside the <i>Mayflower</i> on the very day
+after the shallop sailed, and her body carried away
+among the waves. Master Bradford, for all the
+weariness in his movements, looked cheerful and
+hopeful as he gained the deck, and his eyes went
+glancing over the women gathered there with such
+a certainty of meeting one that, child though he
+was, Miles realized something of the pity of it.</p>
+
+<p>But after Elder Brewster had led Master Bradford
+away, the horror and the pity slipped quickly
+from Miles. Drawing over closer to the gangway
+ladder, he stood watching the rest of the shallop's
+company scramble to the deck, and, listening to
+every scrap of speech, was soon eager as any of the
+other boys in questioning the sailors and Hopkins's
+man, Dotey.</p>
+
+<p>The minutes ran on till dim twilight had darkened
+upon the water, when at last, bursting with
+news, Miles clambered down again to Goodwife
+Rigdale in the cabin. "They've found a place for
+us to settle, mother," he announced, barely within
+the door.</p>
+
+<p>Goodwife Rigdale hushed him with a finger on
+her lips; Dolly was asleep, so he must speak
+softly.</p>
+
+<p>Miles curled himself up on the floor at his
+mother's feet, with his elbow on her knee, and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">[41]</a></span>
+whispered: "'Tis at a place called Thievish Harbor&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Nay, that's an ill name," commented the Goodwife.</p>
+
+<p>"'Tis because a savage stole a harpoon from a
+ship's boat that once put in there to truck, so says
+Robert Coppin, the pilot. It lies across a great
+bay here, and there are fair green islands and many
+brooks and cleared land and tall trees. We are
+going thither, all of us, mother. The ship is to
+sail so soon as the wind favors. And if they like
+of it on further look, we'll go ashore and stay. I
+want to go ashore again," he ended wistfully; "the
+week's out that father said I must stay on the ship.
+Won't you beg him take me ashore first thing when
+we come thither, mother?"</p>
+
+<p>The flickering light that reached them from the
+lantern hung outside the cabin door was blotted
+out then, as Goodman Rigdale himself came in.
+Miles dared ask no favors of him directly, however,
+but, scrambling to his feet, stood silent and unobtrusive,
+though he listened eagerly to all his father
+had to say of Thievish Harbor, which he called
+Plymouth. "So it is named on the maps that
+were drawn by Captain Smith," he said, to which
+Goodwife Rigdale answered quickly: "I am glad
+for the name. Do you not have in mind, John,
+how kindly the people at our English Plymouth<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">[42]</a></span>
+dealt by us when we had to put in at their harbor?"</p>
+
+<p>But this new Plymouth in America bore little
+resemblance to Plymouth in Devonshire, as Miles
+found, to his surprise, when he had his first sight
+of the place where the company was to settle. It
+was on the afternoon of the day succeeding the
+return of the shallop that, the wind at last favoring,
+the <i>Mayflower</i> steered her course for the bay of
+Plymouth. The sunshine was strong and clear, and
+the air mild, so Goodwife Rigdale suffered Dolly
+come up on deck, where, well wrapped in a cloak,
+she stood between her mother and Miles.</p>
+
+<p>Others in plenty, all the passengers who could
+walk about, were watching for a glimpse of the new
+home, but Miles, in his eagerness, scarcely heeded
+his companions. He strained his eyes to see the
+headlands, brave with evergreen, loom higher and
+higher, and ran to question his friend, Giles Hopkins,
+who had been talking with the sailors, as to
+what they were. Giles explained that the one on
+the left was not the mainland, but a well-wooded
+point, and on the right yonder the farther of the
+two islands, with the trees, was where the exploring
+party had spent their Sabbath.</p>
+
+<p>By the time Miles returned to his mother with
+the news, they were running in between the point
+and the islands, and presently, well within the harbor,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">[43]</a></span>
+they dropped anchor in a safe mooring ground.
+All about them were headlands and islands; far to
+the right, across the bay, rose a great hill; and
+just over opposite where the ship lay a broad
+space of open land, with high hills behind, could
+be made out.</p>
+
+<p>"Yonder's where we'll settle," Miles assured his
+mother.</p>
+
+<p>"I see no houses," protested Dolly. "I thought
+there would be cottages, maybe. Must we lie in
+the woods, mammy?"</p>
+
+<p>"Nonsense! We'll build houses," scoffed Miles;
+he would have blushed to own that, half unconsciously,
+he, too, had cherished the fancy of seeing
+on the New England shore straggling streets and
+tiny cottages, as in old Plymouth.</p>
+
+<p>"You'll build houses, Miles?" teased his sister.</p>
+
+<p>"Father and I and all the men," the boy bragged.
+"Build them of great logs. Then in the spring will
+come a ship with horses and cows and sheep, and
+we'll have farms, just as we had at home."</p>
+
+<p>"With a hedge round the dooryard?" Dolly
+questioned.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, and meadow-land and ploughed fields.
+We'll have all in order when the frost leaves the
+ground," Miles answered confidently.</p>
+
+<p>Then he looked up at his mother, and was
+astonished to see that for once her eyes were not<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">[44]</a></span>
+on her children, but on the empty shore over opposite.
+Her face was wistful, and it came on Miles
+that perhaps she was not as interested in the farm
+concerns as he, who was a man, so he said quickly:
+"And you can have a garden here, mother, full
+of rosemary and daffadowndillies, just as at home.
+Maybe you'll not have to labor so hard here," he
+added more vaguely, not quite understanding her
+silence.</p>
+
+<p>She smiled a little then. "That's a good lad,
+Miles," she said, putting her arm about his shoulders;
+then she bade him go to his mates if he would,
+and she led Dolly back to the cabin.</p>
+
+<p>Miles stood alone, gazing at the home-shore and
+wondering where his father's farm would lie. Still
+thinking on it, he was turning toward the hatchway,
+when he almost ran into Goodman Rigdale. "O
+father," Miles broke out before he thought, "may
+I not go with you when we begin our farm? I'll
+conduct me well and be obedient."</p>
+
+<p>He stopped, surprised at his own forwardness,
+and he was more surprised when his father, looking
+down at him gravely, said without chiding: "Our
+farm? Ay, Miles, so soon as there is work to do
+on shore you shall come with me and bear a hand."</p>
+
+<hr class="chap" />
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">[45]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+
+<h2>CHAPTER IV<br />
+
+<small>HEWERS OF WOOD AND DRAWERS OF WATER</small></h2>
+
+
+<div class='drop-cap'>"TO-MORROW I am going ashore."
+Thus Miles Rigdale proclaimed, from
+his perch on the bunk in his father's
+cabin, to all who might choose to hear.</div>
+
+<p>"'Tis the forty and third time you've said that
+in the last sennight," Ned Lister answered dryly.
+He was lounging in the cabin door, shirt-sleeved
+and shivering, while Goodwife Rigdale repaired his
+doublet; Mistress Hopkins, to whom the task
+ordinarily fell, lay ill, and her stepdaughter, Constance,
+was so busied that, to relieve her, Alice
+Rigdale had taken the young man and his mending
+off her hands.</p>
+
+<p>"Why do you not put on your cloak, if you be
+cold, Ned Lister?" Dolly spoke up.</p>
+
+<p>"Because 'tis too much labor to fetch it, Puss,"
+Ned answered, whereat Miles laughed, and the
+Goodwife's brows puckered; another might have
+said it was because the sewing gave her trouble, but
+Miles, who felt uncomfortably that his mother disapproved
+of Ned as a scatter-brained, reckless fellow,
+guessed that she had not liked that last speech.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">[46]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>He was sure of his guess when she hastened to
+change the subject: "Does it still rain upon deck,
+Edward?"</p>
+
+<p>"Rain and naught else; the third day of it now,
+yet by the look it might pour on for a week."</p>
+
+<p>"And my daddy's yonder in the wet on shore,"
+murmured Dolly, pressing close against her mother's
+knee, and the Goodwife sewed more slowly, with her
+eyes downcast.</p>
+
+<p>But Miles burst into lamentation: "I think they
+might 'a' taken me ashore. Since we came into
+Plymouth Harbor they've explored and explored,
+and never suffered me to come, but they took Giles
+Hopkins with them. And now the randevous is
+built on shore, and some of the men are staying
+there, it has rained and rained so I cannot go to
+them. But I'm going to-morrow, the very next
+time the shallop sails."</p>
+
+<p>"To be sure you shall," Lister answered, as he
+scrambled into his mended doublet. "I'll take you
+along with me."</p>
+
+<p>Then he swaggered away jauntily, as if he had
+promised ample service in return for his mending,
+and Goodwife Rigdale, with a bit of a sigh, said
+softly to Miles: "'Tis well meant of Edward Lister
+to see you safe ashore, but when you are there, remember,
+you are to stay with your father, not go
+roving with him."</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">[47]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Miles's satisfaction at Ned's offer was a bit tempered
+by her words, but he lost the remembrance
+of them next morning, when he saw the sun was rising
+clear and the shallop would go shoreward. At
+once he clattered down to the cabin to get his cap
+and mittens, and Trug, who must go with him;
+then ran up on deck again, where, in the chill sunlight,
+the men were laboring briskly to load the
+shallop. Miles watched them while they put in
+the felling-axes and handsaws and hammers, all the
+tools that were to build the new town of Plymouth,
+and the biscuit and salt beef and pease that were to
+form the workers' rations.</p>
+
+<p>About the time the labor was ended, Ned sauntered
+up to the gangway, and, seeing Miles, very
+speedily helped him clamber down the ladder, and
+made Trug leap after him. Master Isaac Allerton,
+who was settled comfortably in the stern, grumbled
+at burdening the shallop with children and curs, so
+Miles put his arms about Trug, and, cuddling down
+in the bottom of the boat, made himself as still and
+small as possible lest, after all, the company, thinking
+better of it, bid him scramble up the gangway
+ladder again.</p>
+
+<p>But the time for that was past, for the shallop,
+with her sail hanging sluggish, had crept surely out
+from the lee of the <i>Mayflower</i>, and now, catching the
+light breeze, actually stood in to the shore. Miles forgot<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">[48]</a></span>
+the discomfort of his seat among the tools while
+he gazed toward the approaching coast line, where
+was to be his home. Behind him the sun was up,
+and the hills that rose away inland from the harbor
+were bright in the cold, yellow radiance, and the
+water and the sky that spread about him were both
+very blue. He glanced back over his shoulder at
+the dreary old <i>Mayflower</i>, and was surprised to find
+that, as the sun struck athwart her patched sails,
+even she was beautiful.</p>
+
+<p>Then the movement of those about him, and
+the sound of waves crunching on the shingle, made
+him look forward again. Under the shelter of a
+high bluff, where a great boulder ran out into the
+water, he saw those standing who had kept the randevous,
+and the randevous itself, a rude hut of
+boughs. In his eagerness Miles jumped up, and
+Trug, springing up too, began to bark, but no one
+took note or scolded, for the men were busied in
+running the shallop in alongside the rock, and some,
+leaping over the gunwale, were already splashing
+through the shallow water to the beach.</p>
+
+<p>Ned and Giles Hopkins made the shore thus,
+so Miles must do the like, and came to land all
+drenched and dripping. But it was land,&mdash;good,
+stable, brown earth, not the hateful, rolling ship,&mdash;he
+had beneath his feet, and, in the delight of the
+long unused sensation, he forgot he was wet and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">[49]</a></span>
+chilled, forgot his father awaited him, and there was
+work to do. He knew only that far and near the
+shore stretched widely, where a boy could run, so,
+for choice, he set his face to the bluff that towered
+above the landing.</p>
+
+<p>Up and up, through the keen, dry bushes, that
+whipped his hands and face so he laughed in the
+mere delight of struggling with them, he fought his
+way till he came breathless to the bare summit.
+All about him dazzled the blue of the harbor and
+of the unclouded sky, and yonder on his right,
+through its fringe of bushes, shone the blue of what
+seemed a cove. Down the hill rushed Miles, with
+Trug leaping and barking at his heels, and paused
+only on the shore of a great brook, that, flowing
+out between steep bluffs, widened into the sea.</p>
+
+<p>Another was before him there, his distant kinsman,
+Giles Hopkins, who, for all he was a sober lad of sixteen,
+was a good comrade to the younger boy. He
+now bade Miles come upstream to the spring the men
+had found on their last exploration, and Miles very
+readily followed him through the scrubby undergrowth,
+where the cove narrowed on the left hand,
+and on the right a high bluff kept pace with the
+boys. "It's on that bluff they mean to set the
+houses," Giles explained, over his shoulder.</p>
+
+<p>"Then we'll have this big stream in our dooryards,"
+cried Miles. "Won't that be brave? I<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">[50]</a></span>
+shall build me a raft, and sail to those wooded hills
+on the other side whenever I choose. Though,
+maybe, Indians dwell there," he added, with a dubious
+glance at Giles; he did not wish to seem afraid,
+but, though he intended to be a soldier, he did not
+purpose to fight without a musket and a long sword,
+and he wondered how much farther from the shore
+his leader would venture.</p>
+
+<p>But speedily his wonder had an end, for, breaking
+through a thicket of leafless alders, Giles halted
+at a little cavity within the sand of the riverbank,
+where the spring of sweet water bubbled up. Down
+lay Miles on the turf, and, using his hand for a cup,
+swallowed his first draught of New England water.
+"'Tis better than the brackish stuff we have on
+shipboard," he said, as he wiped his wet hands on
+his wet doublet.</p>
+
+<p>"The savages must have known the spot," answered
+the experienced Giles. "We found this
+path worn down hither from the bluff, and see, here
+is a line of stepping-stones across the brook."</p>
+
+<p>Miles glanced about him, half nervously, lest
+along the path or across the stones he see one of
+their former savage passengers approaching. He
+was at heart relieved when, as Giles led the way up
+the bluff, he heard in the distance the sound of an
+axe crashing on a tree trunk. Giles did not turn
+toward the sound, however, but went plodding on<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">[51]</a></span>
+uphill, for above the bluff a second summit reared
+itself steeply. Miles panted in his trail, endlessly
+upward, it seemed, till at last he stood exhausted
+on a lofty hilltop, whence, far as the sea spread out
+before him, he beheld the wooded uplands roll away
+to westward.</p>
+
+<p>Giles was explaining wisely what a proper place
+this hill was for a fort, and how Captain Standish
+had advised the company mount upon it guns, which
+should command to southward the spring, and
+toward the harbor the landing place and the houses,
+which were to be built along the river bluff, when
+Master Hopkins and John Rigdale, tramping
+thither, ended their sons' holiday.</p>
+
+<p>"Is this the way you would work, Miles?"
+Goodman Rigdale asked sternly, and, fearing lest
+the next word sentence him to return at once to
+the <i>Mayflower</i>, Miles ran eagerly about the task
+they set him.</p>
+
+<p>All day he tugged chips and branches for the fire
+at the randevous, but it was work on land, in the
+free air, where a boy could shout as much as he
+wished, so he never realized he was weary till night
+came. He had to pack off to the ship with the
+other boys and near half the men, but he had no
+chance to grumble at this, as did some of his mates,
+for, once aboard the shallop, he leaned against Ned
+Lister and fell half asleep. Only when the shallop<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">[52]</a></span>
+scraped the ship's side did he awake to stagger up
+the gangway ladder and stumble away to tell Dolly
+and his mother of the wonders he had seen ashore.</p>
+
+<p>Next day, being Sunday, no work was done, and
+the next day, being Christmas, Miles, who remembered
+what a time of merrymaking that was at home,
+thought he must idle again. But here on Christmas,
+from sunrise to sunset, it was all stern work.
+"We stain this virgin soil with no Popish holydays,"
+Master Hopkins said grimly, and, though the rest
+did not exult in words, they labored with double
+fervor to show they did no honor to the day.</p>
+
+<p>Miles had his part to do on shore that Christmas
+and in the days that followed, though it was a
+different part from that he had hoped to have.
+When he talked to his mother and Dolly of building
+cottages, he had fancied that perhaps he would
+be allowed to sit high up on a ridgepole and drive
+nails. He knew he would enjoy doing that, but
+in practice he was set less pleasant tasks: he ran
+errands, not only for his father, but for every man
+who chose to send him; he fetched water up the
+steep bluff from the spring to the workers; and he
+carried firewood from where the choppers labored
+upon the bluff to where the first house was building.</p>
+
+<p>On occasion he even tended the fire and saw that
+the porridge did not burn, and more than once was<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">[53]</a></span>
+sent to carry a portion of the food to the men who,
+unable to rise and get their rations, lay ill in the
+half-built log cabins. The numbers of these sick
+ever multiplied, for the close quarters and bad food
+aboard the <i>Mayflower</i> had caused a fever to break
+out among her passengers, and the exposure to
+which the men and boys often recklessly subjected
+themselves increased the roll of the ailing, and, at
+last, of the dying.</p>
+
+<p>Miles was sorry, of course, for the men and
+women who sickened and died, but it was a sorrow
+that did not go deep enough to prevent his enjoying
+the open-air life, and the moments of play that
+he snatched from his work. For death had not
+come near any that he loved; Dolly and Jack
+Cooke had been ill, but they were getting better,
+and none of his other near acquaintances had been
+touched. To be sure, he himself went sneezing
+with a great cold, but it meant nothing, any more
+than did his father's cough; he did not worry for
+it the half as much as he fretted at the dull routine
+labors to which he was set.</p>
+
+<p>One day in January he had a hand in more exciting
+work, for Ned Lister and Giles Hopkins,
+who were going to cut swamp grass for thatch, invited
+him to come with them, and Ned even let
+him carry his sharp sickle. Ned himself turned all
+his effort to bearing a fowling piece, with the use<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">[54]</a></span>
+of which, after the grass was cut, he had been bribed
+to the afternoon's labor, for he was afflicted with a
+hard cough that racked him most piteously when
+he was set to any work but hunting.</p>
+
+<p>So soon as they reached the piece of marshy
+ground in the deep hollow behind the first range of
+hills, where grew the grass they sought, one of those
+coughing fits laid hold on Ned. He really wasn't
+fit to work, he said, but, when Miles volunteered
+to do the task for him, he found energy to direct
+the boy's clumsy attempts with the sickle.</p>
+
+<p>Two bundles of grass the workers were expected
+to bring home, and Giles cut his, slowly
+and soberly, while Ned dallied with Miles, till he
+saw his companion had nearly gathered his share.
+Then Lister snatched the sickle from Miles, and,
+finishing the work in a surprisingly short time for
+a sick man, caught up his piece with the exclamation,
+"<i>Now</i> we'll go fowling."</p>
+
+<p>Leaving the sickles and the bundles of grass
+where they lay, the three picked a path round the
+verge of the marsh and climbed westward over the
+hills. Last of all Miles trotted along bravely, very
+proud that he was one of the company, and full of
+interest at passing so far inland. But on the top
+of the second long hill, Giles suddenly cried out:
+"Look yonder. Is not that smoke?"</p>
+
+<p>Against the dull sky to the west Miles saw a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">[55]</a></span>
+little fine curl of gray, and the question was on his
+tongue's end, when Ned Lister anticipated it: "No,
+it can be none of our people so far from the shore.
+Savages, maybe. Say we go down and see."</p>
+
+<p>Shouldering his fowling piece, he set out jauntily,
+and the two boys came stoutly after. They
+scrambled down a rough hillslope and through
+another level piece, all open and stubbly, westward
+still, where the smoke rose. "This land has been
+cleared; 'tis true Indian ground here," Ned spoke
+suddenly, and halted.</p>
+
+<p>Miles stopped short five paces behind his comrades.
+He looked to the hills ahead, where the
+bare branches of oak trees stood out clearly against
+the afternoon sky. It was a lowering sky, and
+night was coming. He glanced behind him, and
+saw only the barren wall of hills, no sign of the
+harbor or of the <i>Mayflower</i>. Ned and Giles were
+looking at each other with a something so dubious
+in their faces that Miles felt a griping sensation in
+his throat. He wondered if he could find his way
+back as he had come, and, doubting it, drew close
+to Ned, who had the fowling piece.</p>
+
+<p>Ned was fiddling with the lock of the piece and
+he spoke rather sheepishly: "I'm not afraid. But
+I'm not going to run into Heaven knows what
+with two younkers like you on my shoulders."</p>
+
+<p>"Say we march home, then?" Giles suggested,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">[56]</a></span>
+and straightway, facing round, they retraced their
+steps pretty smartly.</p>
+
+<p>Miles was still in the rear, and, as he went, he
+studied the long legs of his companions and
+thought how much more swiftly they could run
+for it, if anything came up behind them. Thinking
+so, he forgot to look to his feet, and, as they
+descended a gully, fell headlong with a great clattering
+of stones. "Wait for me!" he cried, in a sharp,
+high voice that did not sound natural.</p>
+
+<p>Ned glanced back, with his face tenser than its
+wont. "Here, take the fowling piece, Giles," he
+said curtly; then, returning to Miles, he lifted him
+to his feet, and, keeping one hand beneath his arm,
+helped him to hurry along.</p>
+
+<p>Thus they scurried down the hillside to the
+swamp, and, catching up their sickles and the
+thatch, pressed on toward the settlement. Not till
+they were panting up the landward side of the great
+hill and caught the faint sound of hammers in the
+street of the half-built town, did Ned suffer the
+speed to slacken. "You'll make a gallant soldier
+one day, Miley," he said then, and began laughing.
+"Though I take it no one of us was afraid; eh,
+boys?"</p>
+
+<p>They all agreed they were not in the least frightened,
+and some such version Ned must have reported
+to Captain Standish, when he told how they had seen<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">[57]</a></span>
+Indian fires. For next day Miles found himself
+quite a hero in the sight of the other lads, because
+he had gone far into the woods and walked boldly
+right into an encampment of the savages. But
+Goodman Rigdale chided his son sternly for such
+a harebrained prank, and after that made the boy
+stay within his sight while he was on shore.</p>
+
+<p>Miles did not greatly mind, for his father and
+Francis Cooke, the father of his playmate Jack,
+were now engaged in a delightful work in which he
+liked to help. Lately the whole company of the
+<i>Mayflower</i> had been divided into nineteen families,
+and these two men, who had been placed in one
+household, were building together a cottage, high
+up on the hillside. His father's house, Miles insisted
+upon calling it, though Goodman Rigdale
+was at pains to explain to him that the cottage belonged
+not to any one man, but to the whole company;
+the Pilgrims at Plymouth and the merchants
+at London, who had advanced the money for the
+voyage, were to hold everything in common till
+seven years were up and then divide all equally,
+and till then no man could call a house his own.</p>
+
+<p>Still, Miles knew that by and by his mother and
+Dolly and Jack Cooke would come ashore, as other
+families were coming, and they would live together
+in that house, so it seemed the same as if it belonged
+to his father. He looked forward to the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">[58]</a></span>
+time when they would all be under one roof, and
+he would be suffered to sleep ashore, for, though
+his father passed his nights at the Common House,
+there was no room for Miles, who at twilight had
+to journey off to the ship. But that arrangement
+drew speedily to an end, for the walls of the house,
+built of squared logs, soon rose to a good height;
+the chimney of sticks and clay was finished; and
+at last it was but a question of thatching the roof.</p>
+
+<p>Of a dull afternoon in mid-January Goodman
+Rigdale set out to cut swamp grass for the thatch,
+and took with him Miles, who had not been so far
+afield since his exploit with Ned Lister. They
+went steadily up the slope on the shoulder of the
+great hill, and there Miles, who had run a little
+ahead with Trug, paused to look back proudly at
+the stanch, new cottage below. "Those are brave
+big logs in our house, are they not, sir?" he broke
+out. "'Twill last us a many years."</p>
+
+<p>"That, or whatever house shall fall to us at the
+division, will last you all your lifetime," Goodman
+Rigdale answered shortly. "And you will lease it
+of no man. You'll hold a house and a farm of your
+own here one day, Miles."</p>
+
+<p>They tramped on a time in silence, and Miles
+was making himself sport by crushing in the scum
+of ice on the pools along their path, when his father
+spoke suddenly: "You're in a fair way to lead an<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">[59]</a></span>
+easier life than your father or your grandfather before
+you, Miles. And if you be the happier, you
+should be so much the better man."</p>
+
+<p>"Ay, sir," Miles answered vaguely, and tipped
+back his head to watch a great bird that went flapping
+across the sky; he wished his father had
+brought along a fowling piece.</p>
+
+<p>When they came to the swamp, Goodman Rigdale
+cut down the grass swiftly, and Miles bundled
+it, though he found it hard to keep pace with his
+father. Goodman Rigdale, being in haste, must at
+the last do the work himself, and, while he bundled
+the grass, Miles, remembering the stolen pleasures
+of his last thatching trip, picked up the sickle and
+tried a slash or two on his own account. He managed
+to cut his hand, and, though he scarcely felt
+the pain, because the hand was cold, he stared in
+some fright when he saw the blood come streaking
+out.</p>
+
+<p>Goodman Rigdale gave him a rag to tie up the
+hurt hand, and also gave him some good advice on the
+need of care with edged tools, which Miles did not
+think quite called for just then. He tried, however,
+not to show any sign of pain, because that always
+displeased his father; and, as he thought he had
+borne himself quite bravely, he was much hurt, when
+Goodman Rigdale, on coming down into the settlement,
+said: "Get you to the shallop now, Miles,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">[60]</a></span>
+and bide on board the <i>Mayflower</i> till I send for you.
+You'll be of no service with your hand cut. Mayhap
+you'll be better off with your mother, too.
+After all, you are but a young lad."</p>
+
+<p>"As you bid, sir," Miles said, respectfully, but
+very stiffly, and walked away down the path to the
+landing.</p>
+
+<p>Once he stopped to kick a stone out of his way,
+and once, before he rounded the base of the bluff,
+something made him face about and look back to
+the Common House. His father was standing by
+the door, watching him, and Miles, feeling much
+rebuked, walked on rapidly. But the image of his
+father remained in his mind very clear.</p>
+
+<hr class="chap" />
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">[61]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+
+<h2>CHAPTER V<br />
+
+<small>NEWS FROM THE SHORE</small></h2>
+
+
+<div class='drop-cap'>BECAUSE Miles's hand was hurt, Goodwife
+Rigdale made much of him, till he fairly
+resented it, for he had grown into the age
+where he was sheepish and awkward under open
+petting. He soon slipped away from his mother
+and the sympathetic Dolly, and went to spend his
+time with Jack Cooke, who, during the day, while
+his father worked on shore, was glad of company.
+The boys had now almost room enough on shipboard
+to play satisfactorily, for many of the passengers
+had gone ashore; but it must be quiet playing,
+for, of those who still remained in their cabins not
+a few were ill.</div>
+
+<p>Goodwife Rigdale was busied to and fro in caring
+for the sick ones, and, at her bidding, Miles ran
+many an errand, to fetch water from the casks on
+deck or heat a pot of broth in the ship's galley.
+But their joint labor soon ended, for, a few days
+after the boy's return to the ship, came a message
+from Goodman Rigdale: he was just touched with
+the fever, he said, though nothing serious, but a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">[62]</a></span>
+many lay sick ashore, and the Goodwife could aid
+them as well as himself; Mistress Brewster, who,
+with her family, had gone to the settlement, had
+offered to shelter her, and he prayed her come.</p>
+
+<p>Next morning Goodwife Rigdale bundled her
+cloak about her, and set out in the shallop. Miles,
+standing by the bulwark, watched her go, but only
+for a time; it had snowed the night before, so the
+railings were white and smooth to the touch, and he
+found it of more absorbing interest to poke off
+strips of the frozen snow, and send them splashing
+into the cold-looking water beneath the ship's side.
+By the time he looked again to the shallop, it was
+so near shore he could no longer make out his
+mother's figure, and his feet were chilled too, so he
+went back to Dolly in the cabin.</p>
+
+<p>At first he found it manly and grown up to be
+left in charge, for so he esteemed his position. The
+cut in his hand was healing well, and he felt he
+would have been working ashore, if it were not that
+some one must mind his father's quarters on shipboard
+and care for Dolly and Solomon. He ordered
+his sister about in a paternal manner; he
+rebuked her severely if she so much as showed her
+small, snub nose on the frosty deck without wrapping
+herself up well; and he even insisted on her
+going to bed punctually at sundown, while he, in
+the glory of manhood, waited in the great cabin to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">[63]</a></span>
+hear what news those who came from the shore
+would bring.</p>
+
+<p>But Dolly took her turn when it came to their
+daily meals, for she had certain deft, housewifely
+ways, which Miles could not hope to imitate, and
+he was ashamed even of trying to better himself,
+after he heard the little woman speak like her
+mother of "men and boys that set a body's kitchen
+in a mash." Miles might tug out the pot of broth,&mdash;'twas
+all he was fit for; Goodwife Dolly would
+herself do the stirring and tasting; and though,
+among so many cooks, the broth sometimes burned,
+yet they always contrived to eat it.</p>
+
+<p>The four of them&mdash;Miles, Dolly, Jack, and
+Solomon&mdash;ate their food together in the Rigdales'
+cabin: most times it was only broth, or perhaps
+salted meat and biscuit, which Goodwife Rigdale,
+before she went away, had laid out for them; but
+once Goodman Cooke brought them from the shore
+a large piece of a cold roast goose. There was but
+one drumstick, and each felt he should have it,&mdash;Jack
+because he had been ill, and Dolly because she
+was a girl, and Miles because he was the eldest.
+Solomon said nothing, but he purred his loudest
+and rubbed his head against Dolly's knee. They
+ended by eating the drumstick together, each a bite,
+turn and turn about, and what they could not get
+from the bone was left to Solomon, who dragged<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">[64]</a></span>
+his ration beneath the bunk, and, with eyes big and
+fiery, growled at them.</p>
+
+<p>The children remembered that supper, not only
+because of the cold goose, but because it was the
+last they ate together, for next morning Goodman
+Cooke took Jack to the shore. Miles watched his
+friend's small preparations enviously, and Dolly,
+who had come also to stand in the doorway of the
+Cookes' cabin, voiced a sorrowful wish: "I think
+I'd best go too, and see father and mother."</p>
+
+<p>"They've no place to put you, lass," Goodman
+Cooke explained. "So soon as there is place,
+they'll send for you both, be sure. For Doctor
+Fuller says your father grows heartier, Miles," he
+went on; "you've no need to worry yourself."</p>
+
+<p>"Indeed, I have not worried," Miles answered,
+in some surprise.</p>
+
+<p>After Jack went, life on shipboard was not so
+pleasant. Dolly began to fret for her mother and
+scoff at Miles's authority; Miles grew cross; and
+the broth burned oftener than ever, and finally, giving
+out altogether, left them with nothing to eat
+but dry biscuit. With this woful tale of starvation,
+Dolly betook herself at last to Constance Hopkins
+in the great cabin, and Miles, glad that some one
+should make known their unhappy state, yet
+ashamed to do so himself, lagged on behind.</p>
+
+<p>Constance Hopkins was Giles's sister, a slip of a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65">[65]</a></span>
+lass, not three years older than Miles, but to him
+she seemed quite grown up. Certainly she bore
+the responsibilities of age in those days, for not
+only must she nurse her stepmother, Mistress Elizabeth
+Hopkins, who lay helpless in her cabin, but she
+must care for the baby, Oceanus, born on the voyage
+across the sea, and the little half-sister, Damaris,
+a baby also, not two years old. Yet somehow
+motherly little Constance found time to comfort
+Dolly, and cook a bit of meat for hungry Miles,
+and assure them both that their father and mother
+surely would come soon to look to them.</p>
+
+<p>Dolly hugged the "big girl," but Miles could
+scarcely do that, and he knew no civil speech to tell
+his gratitude, so he was glad when, his eyes falling
+on Damaris, he thought to pick her up. "I'll
+mind her for you a bit, Constance," he offered.</p>
+
+<p>Damaris was pleased with Miles's tousled hair
+and sturdy arms, that held her more firmly than
+her half-sister could; and Miles, never guessing
+what a source of misfortune her liking would prove
+to him hereafter, was much elated at his success
+with her. He tugged baby out on deck to show
+her the gulls looking for food in the water, and the
+bright crusted snow that sparkled in the sunshine
+on the wooded point. Damaris gurgled appreciatively
+and pulled Miles's hair; then, when he
+carried her back into the cabin, slept like a kitten,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66">[66]</a></span>
+whereat Constance was so relieved and pleased that
+Miles gladly cared for the baby, his baby, the next
+day, and the next.</p>
+
+<div class="figright" style="width: 321px;">
+<img src="images/i_079.jpg" width="321" height="500" alt="two children looking at their mother in bed" />
+<div class="caption">"Dolly plaited a fold of her apron between her fingers."</div>
+</div>
+
+<p>But the third day, a Friday, a pelting fine rain
+set in that made an airing on the deck out of the
+question, not for the baby alone, but for a well-grown
+boy and girl. Miles and Dolly went up to
+spend the afternoon in the great cabin, because in
+their own quarters there was no one to talk to, and,
+moreover, it was cold. In the main cabin they
+would find some one to keep them company, and
+they could, at least, warm their hands at the little
+fire burning in a tubful of sand, which Constance
+often used in heating food for Mistress Hopkins.</p>
+
+<p>But this afternoon the fire was out and Constance
+busied with her mother, so the two children, disappointed,
+sat down together on a rude bench, at the
+angle in the stern where two rows of little cabins
+joined. "I wish I were with my mother," sniffed
+Dolly; and "'Twill do you no good to cry," Miles
+checked her sternly.</p>
+
+<p>"I was not crying, Miles Rigdale," the damsel
+answered hotly.</p>
+
+<p>It was on Miles's lips to reply, when close at
+hand a voice spoke his name, "Miles Rigdale!"</p>
+
+<p>Readily enough he jumped up and went to the
+half-opened door of the adjoining cabin. It was
+Captain Standish's cabin, he remembered now, and,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67">[67]</a></span>
+as he halted in the doorway, he perceived Mistress
+Rose Standish lying in the bunk. A little of the
+afternoon light sifted in through the tiny port-hole,
+and by it he noted how her hair fell loosely about
+her face, unlike the way she wore it when on deck;
+but her cheeks were rosy as ever, and her voice
+quite steady as she spoke: "It's you, the lad my
+husband told me of? I thought I heard one
+call you by name. Will you not do somewhat for
+me, Miles? Fetch me my jug here full of water
+again. Goodwife Tinker was to look to me to-day;
+I felt very well this morning. But she's ill
+now herself, and when I tried to rise,&mdash;" she laughed,
+with a nervous catch in her laughter,&mdash;"why, then
+things went whisking round me very strangely. But
+you look as you still could stand stoutly, sir."</p>
+
+<p>"I'll fetch you the water, and gladly, mistress,"
+Miles answered, so eagerly that he stammered. He
+stepped into the cabin to take the jug from where it
+rested on a chest beneath the port-hole, and Dolly,
+following shyly after, hesitated on the threshold.</p>
+
+<p>"Is this little maid your sister?" Mistress Standish
+roused up to ask. "Won't you come in and
+bear me company, sweetheart, while Miles fetches
+the water?"</p>
+
+<p>Dolly plaited a fold of her apron between her
+fingers and nodded dumbly.</p>
+
+<p>"That's well," said Mistress Standish. "Sit you<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68">[68]</a></span>
+down here on the chest by me. And I've some
+raisins of the sun you shall have if you'll stay."</p>
+
+<p>"Dolly must not eat your raisins if you be sick."
+Miles formulated the relentless principle which had
+been enforced as regards himself when Dolly lay ill.
+"And I'll fetch the water speedily." He stood a
+moment on the threshold, balancing the jug in one
+hand. "Mistress Standish," he blurted out, with
+sudden resolution, "would you not rather have beer
+than water?"</p>
+
+<p>"Than the water from the ship's casks, yes," she
+answered; "but 'twill relish well enough, Miles. At
+even, when Captain Standish comes, mayhap he'll
+get me a draught of beer."</p>
+
+<p>"I'll get it for you now," Miles said cheerily,
+and walked away, with his head up and the jug
+swinging.</p>
+
+<p>Outside the door of the great cabin the chilly
+rain, that stung finely on his cheeks, pricked him
+alive to realization of what he had undertaken.
+Since Christmas, when the supply of the Pilgrim
+emigrants had given out, beer could be obtained
+on board the <i>Mayflower</i> only from the ship's stores,
+through the courtesy of Master Jones, the captain;
+and he was a terrible person. Most times he
+ranged about the high quarter-deck, where only the
+chiefs of the Pilgrims dared go; once Francis
+Billington, to show his daring, had clambered<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">[69]</a></span>
+thither, and Master Jones, without parley, had bidden
+his quartermaster, "Kick that young imp down
+into Limbo, where he belongs." From that experience
+Francis had been black and blue, and subdued
+in manner for a week.</p>
+
+<p>So it was no wonder now that, for long minutes,
+Miles stood shivering in the rain at the foot of the
+companion ladder, while he tried to summon courage
+to venture up. He might never have arrived
+at such hardihood, had not Jones himself, strolling
+forth upon the quarter-deck to study the weather,
+observed him, and presently bellowed lustily: "What
+beest thou staring up hither for, hey?"</p>
+
+<p>"I&mdash;I want to come up, if it like you, sir,"
+Miles piped quaveringly.</p>
+
+<p>"Then come up. Beelzebub fetch thee! What's
+hindering thee?"</p>
+
+<p>Miles could have answered truly that it was a
+loud-voiced, broad-shouldered man, with a bushy
+gray beard, whose name was Jones, that hindered
+him; but he thought best, even on so poor an invitation,
+to scramble in silence up the steep ladder
+to the quarter-deck. The wind there was high, so
+he gripped the bulwark to keep erect.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, now thou art up, what is it thou wouldst
+have?" roared Jones.</p>
+
+<p>"Beer, sir. For Captain Standish's wife. She
+is ill."</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70">[70]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Master Jones hesitated a little minute, then
+caught Miles by the collar of his doublet, and only
+let go when he landed him within the roundhouse.
+Miles said nothing to this, but his heart thumped
+alarmingly at finding himself thus tumbled headlong
+into the very lair of the Master. Yet the
+roundhouse proved a harmless place, with its shipshape
+bunks and table and stools; and one of the
+mates, who lay upon a bunk, rose up at Jones's
+bidding, to do nothing more formidable than fill
+Miles's jug from a keg that stood in one corner.</p>
+
+<p>"Now see to it thou dost not filch the beer by
+the way," grumbled Master Jones. "I be ready
+to give to your Captain's wife, but not to fill the
+stomach of every knavish lad on shipboard; dost
+thou hear?"</p>
+
+<p>"I wouldn't take the beer that was meant for
+Mistress Standish," Miles said indignantly.</p>
+
+<p>"Nay, but boys be a slippery race," growled the
+Master. "The saints be blest I never had none!"</p>
+
+<p>Miles privately was glad of that, for he could not
+help thinking how unhappy a boy would be, with
+such an alarming father as Master Jones. Very
+prudently, he did not say so, but, seizing his jug,
+backed out of the roundhouse, almost too hastily
+to say "Thank you."</p>
+
+<p>He had come back to a good conceit of himself,
+however, by the time he had man&oelig;uvred safely<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71">[71]</a></span>
+down the ticklish ladder, and he walked in on Mistress
+Standish and Dolly quite proudly. Mistress
+Standish thanked him mightily, enough to make
+Miles redden and shuffle his foot on the floor.
+"But I liked to do it for you," he muttered.</p>
+
+<p>After that he was persuaded to sit down on the
+chest beside Dolly, and tell Mistress Standish all
+about how they were building houses on the shore,
+and how he had gone to the Indian fields, and what
+a wonderful dog Trug was. Dolly chimed in there
+to tell what a rare pussy Solomon was, and how he
+would leap over your hands. Then Mistress Standish,
+who lay listening, and seemed to like their talk,
+though she said little, bade Miles bring her a box
+from a shelf against the wall, and in it, sure enough,
+were a few big raisins and a small handful of currants.</p>
+
+<p>The sight was too much for Miles's scruples,
+and when she urged the children eat of them, he
+yielded, weakly as eager little Dolly. "We'll
+take two raisins each," he said, with an effort at
+firmness, "and three currants." Then, with a sigh,
+he shut the box up tight, and ate his own share very
+slowly.</p>
+
+<p>Dolly finished more speedily, and straightway
+Mistress Standish urged her sing to them. "Dolly
+told me while you were gone that she is wont to
+sing to mother," she explained to Miles. "Now<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72">[72]</a></span>
+I want her to sing to me. You shall have more
+raisins if you will, Dolly, in spite of Brother Miles."</p>
+
+<p>Dolly was bashful, and, for all it was now murky
+twilight, so faces were not plain to see, insisted on
+sitting on the other side of Miles, where she could
+hide behind him. Then, at last, she sang. "Though
+it is a worldly song," she protested.</p>
+
+<p>"No matter. I am what your people call a
+worldly woman," Mistress Standish answered.</p>
+
+<p>So Dolly cuddled up to Miles and sang:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class='poem'>"Skip and trip it,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Hey non nonny!</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">For the lark is in the clover,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">And the fields are green and bonny,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">And a dappled sky shows over.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Sing hey nonny nonny!</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">'Tis blithe world and gay,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">When spring comes bonny</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">And the winter packs away."</span><br /></div>
+
+<p>There Dolly broke off, short and sudden, and
+Miles, looking to the dusky doorway, saw a man's
+sturdy figure blocking it.</p>
+
+<p>"'Tis you come back, Miles?" Mistress Standish
+spoke quickly. "Come you in and sit down. Your
+namesake and his sister have been caring for me
+bravely&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"I'm sorry," came the Captain's voice out of the
+dark. "That is&mdash; You must be wearied now,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73">[73]</a></span>
+sweetheart. Come, Miles, my soldier, I want to
+speak with you."</p>
+
+<p>Miles wondered why, as he stepped out from the
+cabin, the Captain troubled to put one arm about
+his shoulders; he was pleased at the caress, yet
+awkward in receiving it. "I want you to go in
+here," said Captain Standish, leading him to the
+cabin that the Brewsters had occupied. "Constance
+Hopkins is waiting within to tell you somewhat.
+And you must remember, Miles, that you are to
+bear you like a man."</p>
+
+<p>Miles wrested round suddenly and faced the
+Captain. There was a little dim lantern light in
+this part of the great cabin, not enough for him
+to read the other's face, but he could guess and
+feel what was coming. "Has anything gone wrong
+with my mother? Tell me; tell me, quick!" he
+cried.</p>
+
+<p>"Not your mother, Miles. Your father."</p>
+
+<hr class="chap" />
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74">[74]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+
+<h2>CHAPTER VI<br />
+
+<small>THE GOING LANDWARD</small></h2>
+
+
+<div class='drop-cap'>GOODMAN RIGDALE had died that day
+at noon; he had seemed sure of recovery,
+but there came a sudden change, and, with
+the ebbing of the tide, his life went out. So much
+they made Miles understand, gently as they could.
+Dolly cried with choked sobbings, and Constance
+Hopkins, who had come out and taken the little
+girl in her arms, cried too. But Miles, who sat
+apart from the others, astride one of the benches,
+did not cry,&mdash;just scowled before him in stupid
+fashion, and half snarled, "Don't touch me," at
+Goodwife Tinker and the other women who had
+hastened up to sympathize.</div>
+
+<p>He was aware of the people about him and the
+lantern light; that was all. Something inside him
+seemed benumbed, and he did not care to talk, or
+cry, or do aught but sit still. He listened to
+Dolly; she was wailing now, "I want my mother.
+Oh, take me to my mother!" He wished she
+would hush; it worried him.</p>
+
+<p>Then he heard some one else speak: "Look
+you, Captain; Will Trevor and I are fresh enough<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75">[75]</a></span>
+to do 't, and there's the small boat belongs to the
+shallop. And Rigdale's goodwife will be wanting
+her bairns to-night. If you give the word, Will
+and I, we'll row them ashore."</p>
+
+<p>Miles looked up and saw Ned Lister, his cap on
+straight and his face earnest, speaking with the
+Captain. He rose, and, a little unsteadily, pushed
+the women aside, so he could clutch Ned's arm.
+"I want to go ashore," he whispered chokedly.
+"Take me now."</p>
+
+<p>"You shall go," said Captain Standish. "I'll
+bid them make ready the boat."</p>
+
+<p>"You and the little wench get on your cloaks
+briskly," Ned admonished, as he turned to follow
+the Captain. "We'll be ready ere you be."</p>
+
+<p>Constance came down with the two children to
+the cabin beneath the main deck. It seemed darker
+and colder than ever before, and Dolly's cloak
+strings were tied in a hard knot, and Miles could
+not find his mittens. At the very last, as, in stupid
+fashion, he searched for them a third time in a bag
+that held some odds and ends of his mother's, he
+heard Dolly cry, "Oh, Solomon, poor Solomon!
+Don't leave him behind, Miles. I know they'll
+not tend him. And daddy was fond of him."</p>
+
+<p>The cat was dozing among the blankets, but when
+Miles, slow and uncomprehending, tried to seize
+him, he took fright and ran beneath the bunk.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76">[76]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"We've the boat ready. Quickly, Miles!" called
+Ned Lister in the passageway.</p>
+
+<p>Miles saw Solomon's eyes shining yellow in the
+dark beneath the bunk, and, making a grab, he
+clutched the cat. The creature spit and clawed, but
+Miles, with his hands bleeding, still clung to him,
+and, headlong, thrust him into the bag that had held
+their biscuit. One white paw came struggling out,
+but the boy shoved it in roughly, and drew the
+strings tight.</p>
+
+<p>"Wait, wait! Your cloak, Miles." Constance
+detained him, and fastened his cloak about his neck.
+Miles suffered her, like a very little boy, and then,
+slinging Solomon's bag over one shoulder, he followed
+Dolly up on deck.</p>
+
+<p>The rain, pelting on his cheeks and forehead,
+half blinded him, and the faces of the men, seen fitfully
+beneath the flaring light of the lantern at the
+gangway, looked strange to him. Their voices had
+no meaning, and they must repeat the question
+when one asked: "What have you there, Miles?
+Give me the bag; I'll hand it you."</p>
+
+<p>Miles shook his head and pressed the bag tighter
+beneath his arm; he could feel the cat's soft body
+writhing and struggling within. They brought him
+over to the gangway ladder, and, holding by one
+hand, he scrambled down it. How black the line
+of bulwarks looked against the lantern light, as the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77">[77]</a></span>
+ship heaved upward! There he half slipped, when
+he felt some one catch him round the body, and
+he was dropped down on the stern seat of the little
+boat. Dolly pressed close to him, and, putting his
+arm round her, he held tight to her and to Solomon.
+They had turned the lantern now so the light flashed
+into the boat, and he realized it was Lister who sat
+upon the forward thwart, and the other man, who
+was standing up to push them off from the ship's
+side, was the sailor, Will Trevor.</p>
+
+<p>At last they were clear, out on the wide, rough
+water, and, with a motion of spitting on his hands,
+Trevor dropped into his seat and gripped his oar.
+As the boat swung round, Miles had sight of the
+black bulk of the <i>Mayflower</i>, with a lantern gleaming
+on her high quarter-deck and another just receding
+from her gangway. Then, as the boat headed
+for the shore, he could see the ship only by turning
+his head, and that was too great an effort to make.</p>
+
+<p>The thole-pins creaked, and the water slapped
+against the prow. The waves were running high,
+and, as the little boat leaped them, she seemed to
+throb through her frame. The oars and the sea that
+wrestled together made the only sound, for the rain
+that dropped steadily was a quiet rain, and the men
+who rowed for the most part kept silent. Once, to
+be sure, Trevor growled: "How're we heading,
+Ned?"</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78">[78]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Miles noted dully how Lister rested on his oar
+and turned his face landward. "I can just make
+out a light," he answered. "Pest on this rain!
+More to larboard we must run."</p>
+
+<p>For another space they tugged at the oars in
+silence, while Miles stared unheedingly into the
+dark, till suddenly Trevor called, "Hey, lad, what's
+wrong wi' thy bag?"</p>
+
+<p>Solomon's struggles had loosed the fastenings,
+Miles found; he thrust the animal back and tied the
+strings again, slowly and stiffly, for his hands were
+cold and sore too, where they had been scratched.</p>
+
+<p>"What sort o' luggage be ye travelling with?"
+Trevor asked, between strokes, in a tone that was
+so amused that Miles felt an angry shock: what
+right had the sailor to find any merriment in life,
+while Dolly was sobbing so? Next moment the
+anger passed, and instead, Miles wondered that
+Dolly should cry, for it was not true, whatever they
+had said; his father would surely come forth from
+the Common House to meet them, and he would
+look just as Miles had seen him on that last day.</p>
+
+<p>Yonder beneath the black bluff shone a light.
+Miles could see it now, and he stared unthinkingly,
+till it grew larger and brighter, and then a sudden
+jar almost threw him from his seat. "I'll hold her
+steady," spoke Trevor. "Do thou get out the
+younkers, Ned."</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79">[79]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Come, come, Miley, are you asleep?" said
+Lister. Miles saw him kneeling on the rock close
+beside him, holding the boat's gunwale with one
+hand, and with the other outstretched. "Give me
+the bag. Now then, steady. Ah! You did yourself
+hurt?"</p>
+
+<p>Miles picked himself up from the rock where he
+had fallen; his knees were aching, and he suddenly
+felt he should like to cry. "Yes, I hurt me," he
+said dazedly. "Give me Solomon."</p>
+
+<p>He made his way, groping through the dark, to
+the path beneath the bluff that led up to the settlement.
+The ground had thawed, so broad puddles
+had formed; he must have splashed into one, for,
+as he stepped, his shoes squeaked with water. Ned
+Lister strode up alongside him, with Dolly gathered
+in his arms. "You come with me up to the Elder's
+house, Miley," he said breathlessly, for Ned was
+wiry, rather than robust, and Dolly was a heavy little
+maid.</p>
+
+<p>All the way up the hill Miles had a sickening
+sense of awaking to something full of dread. The
+ground and the sky and the dimly seen houses were
+now all real; he felt the rain and the cold and the
+weight of the bag on his arm, and he began to realize
+that what had happened also was no dream.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh!" he cried, with a sudden hard gasp, and,
+dropping the bag, broke into a run. He stumbled<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80">[80]</a></span>
+and slipped, but pantingly he held on till he reached
+the Brewsters' cottage. From one of the tiny windows
+a light shone forth, but it blinded without aiding
+him. He fumbled a moment at the heavy door,
+then, grasping the rude latch at last, thrust it open
+with his shoulder, and plunged headlong into the
+common room.</p>
+
+<p>On the hearth, opposite the door, a fire blazed,
+and on the table flickered a candle. Spite of the
+dazzle of sudden light, Miles made out a woman,
+just turning from the fire, and, knowing her for the
+Elder's wife, ran to her. "Where's my mother, my
+mother?" he cried.</p>
+
+<p>"Hush, hush, Miles! You must quiet yourself
+ere you see her," Mistress Brewster urged, never so
+gently.</p>
+
+<p>But there came from an adjoining room his
+mother's voice: "Miles, I am here. Come to me."</p>
+
+<p>The narrow chamber was dark, but, seated in the
+far corner, he could distinguish a woman's bowed
+figure, and, stumbling heavily across the floor, he
+flung himself on his knees beside her. "Mother!
+Oh, mother!" he choked, and, burying his face in her
+lap, burst out crying.</p>
+
+<hr class="chap" />
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81">[81]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+
+<h2>CHAPTER VII<br />
+
+<small>THE MAN OF THE FAMILY</small></h2>
+
+
+<div class='drop-cap'>AT first Miles found a jarring unfitness in
+everyday life. Only eight and forty hours
+before, they had buried his father on the
+bluff overlooking the harbor; they had read no
+prayers over the dead, as the ministers did in England,
+and, lest the savages should spy and note how
+few the colonists were becoming, they had levelled
+the grave, like the many round about it. A raw
+wind had blown from off the sea, so Goodwife Rigdale
+shivered as she stood by the grave, and Miles's
+hands were senseless with the cold.</div>
+
+<p>Now it was over, and Goodman Rigdale dead and
+buried, but life went on, just as usual. Goodwife
+Rigdale helped Mistress Brewster prepare food, and
+ate of it herself; and Love and Wrestling, sorry
+though they had been for their playmates' sorrow,
+frolicked gayly with Solomon, whom Ned Lister
+had brought to the cottage, bag and all. By the
+second day, though her eyes were still heavy with
+crying, and her mouth tremulous, Dolly plucked up
+spirit to join the boys. Even earlier, Miles had<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82">[82]</a></span>
+begun to fetch wood and water for Mistress Brewster,
+lay the fire, and help where he could; if only
+everything had stopped for a time, till he could
+realize what had happened and master himself, he
+felt he could bear it; but the petty acts of living
+would go on.</p>
+
+<p>In such a mood of wretchedness he trudged forth
+on the third morning, up the path beyond the spring,
+to fetch sticks from the edge of the wood where the
+trees had been felled. He gathered the fagots,
+and was trying to tie them strongly, as his father
+tied the swamp grass that last day they worked together,
+when he saw Francis Billington, also in
+search of wood, drawing near.</p>
+
+<p>"Why, Miles!" the newcomer greeted him,
+in some surprise, for in these days Miles avoided
+his old comrades. But now there was no avoiding
+till the wood was tied up, so Francis came to him
+and, a bit awed, tried clumsily to be sympathetic.
+"I'll help you tie that wood, Miles."</p>
+
+<p>"I c'n do 't alone."</p>
+
+<p>"Look you, my daddy's going fowling to-day.
+Mayhap he'll take us."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't want to go," snapped Miles, with a
+sick sort of anger that other boys still could talk of
+their fathers.</p>
+
+<p>"You might at least be civil to a body," Francis
+said rather huffily. "What need to carry such a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83">[83]</a></span>
+face for it, Miles? You were mortal afeard of your
+father while he lived. And now he can never flog
+you no more."</p>
+
+<p>Without warning, other than a small catching of
+the breath, Miles sprang to his feet and struck the
+speaker in the face. Francis, thoroughly surprised,
+hit back, and, clenching, they pitched over among
+the crackling sticks. Miles fell uppermost, and,
+hardly realizing how or why, he was pommelling
+Francis lustily, when a mighty hand heaved him
+up by the scruff of the neck. "You must not
+strike a man when he is already worsted," spoke
+the voice of long-legged John Alden.</p>
+
+<p>Miles stood biting his lips that twitched. "'A'
+shall not say&mdash;" he began, and there his voice broke.
+"Oh, I wish he could flog me again!"</p>
+
+<p>Alden stared a moment, then, with sudden understanding,
+swung round upon the whimpering Francis
+and rated him mightily, while Miles, glad not to be
+noticed, caught up his bundle of wood and stumbled
+away toward the settlement.</p>
+
+<p>Yet this was the last outward showing of the
+boy's grief. Little by little, as the busy days came,
+he found himself fitting into his new life, and at
+length even taking a certain zest in it. For he
+was now man of the family, and the cares he felt
+called on to shoulder did not a little to distract him
+from any sorry broodings. He must work with<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84">[84]</a></span>
+his full strength, wherever they sent him and whoever
+bade him; he must keep flibbertigibbet Dolly
+out of mischief; above all, he must run after his
+mother, as she went about to nurse the many sick
+of the settlement, and see to it that she did not catch
+cold or come to any harm.</p>
+
+<p>The greatest and most important labor, however,
+he did in the earlier days of his loss, when he went
+to fetch his father's goods from the <i>Mayflower</i>.
+Others might have said the work was done by Ned
+Lister, for Master Hopkins, who had promised
+Goodman Rigdale to look to his family, so far as
+he was able, sent him about this task; but Miles,
+who was sure he was the leader and Ned only the
+assistant, felt the whole expedition a tribute to his
+own new-come manliness.</p>
+
+<p>They went out in the shallop to the <i>Mayflower</i>
+on a morning so bright and open that it scarcely
+recalled to Miles his coming from the ship. Once
+aboard, to be sure, the half-homesick pang laid
+hold on him, when he scrambled down to the little
+cabin that had sheltered him so long; but there
+was so much to do he soon cast it off. The
+bedding must be tied up securely, and the pots
+and platters loaded into the biggest kettle; and
+Ned, who had a coughing fit and said he didn't
+feel very well, let Miles do it all. He recovered,
+however, in time to help drag the stuff to the deck,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85">[85]</a></span>
+and to get up from the orlop a small chest of
+Goodman Rigdale's; and he was also selfish enough
+to take charge himself of the loud, manly labor of
+transferring the goods to the shallop.</p>
+
+<p>Somewhat disappointed, Miles clambered down
+again to the cabin to fetch the box with Dolly's
+Indian basket, and, when he came back, the shallop
+was so near ready to push off that he had only
+time to drop into the bow beside Lister. Glancing
+round the great sail toward the stern, where such
+other passengers as were going from the ship were
+placed, he caught sight of Captain Standish, who
+sat stiffly, with one arm about the muffled figure
+of a woman. "Yon is Mistress Standish, is it
+not?" Miles questioned Lister, very softly.</p>
+
+<p>His companion nodded. "Set to come ashore,
+poor lass!" he answered, in the same low tone.
+"'Tis the last trip she'll ever make in the shallop."
+This Ned spoke sympathetically; then had no
+further leisure to talk for settling himself comfortably
+with his back against Goodman Rigdale's bedding.</p>
+
+<p>Miles moved a little to give Ned room, but,
+without heeding him, continued to gaze at Captain
+Standish and Mistress Rose. He could not see
+her face for the hood about her head and the cloak
+drawn up above her chin, but he marked the listless
+droop of her whole body; and he noted, too, how<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86">[86]</a></span>
+the Captain sat with his eyes looking straight out
+and his mouth hard. Miles wondered if what
+Lister said of Mistress Standish were true, and,
+what with wondering and watching, was taken by
+surprise and nearly overset when the shallop bumped
+up to the landing place.</p>
+
+<p>For a moment he lingered by the boat, feigning
+to busy himself with unlading the kettle, while he
+watched Mistress Standish. The Captain and
+Alden, who was waiting at the landing, helped her
+from the boat, and half carried her away between
+them up the hill. The Captain's face was still so
+grave and stern, that Miles was a trifle frightened,
+and very sorry; he wished he were a man like
+John Alden, so he could have spoken to the Captain
+and helped Mistress Standish.</p>
+
+<p>Then he had to think of other matters, for Ned,
+with an access of energy, was tumbling the goods
+ashore, and they must together drag them up to
+the Elder's house. Just at present that was home
+to Miles, because his mother and Dolly lived there,
+and he sometimes ate with them, though, as an
+additional mark of manhood,&mdash;so he esteemed it,&mdash;he
+spent his nights at the Common House.</p>
+
+<p>It really came about because his friends could not
+shelter him. Goodwife Rigdale and Dolly had the
+last spare bed at the Elder's house; the cottage
+higher up the hill, on which Goodman Rigdale had<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87">[87]</a></span>
+labored, and where Goodman Cooke and Jack had
+now one bunk, was filled with men whose houses
+were building; while Master Hopkins, however
+well he might mean by his friend's son, had not a
+roof to cover his own family. So Miles slept with
+Giles Hopkins at the Common House, where at
+night the beds were placed so thick one need not
+step on the floor in passing from the fire to his
+sleeping place.</p>
+
+<p>On Sunday all was changed, however, for then
+the Common House became a meeting-house.
+They tucked the beds up in corners, and swept the
+floor, as Miles knew to his cost, for on this, his
+second Saturday on the mainland, they pressed him
+into the service. Twice on the Sabbath the Elder
+taught his little company, and prayed with them
+there,&mdash;a sorry little company indeed, of whom
+fair half lay sick within the cheerless cabins, or dead
+beneath the level ground of the harbor bluff.</p>
+
+<p>The thought of his own dead father made Miles
+listen attentively that day; and, when he walked
+staidly up to the Elder's house before twilight, he
+took Dolly apart into his mother's cold little chamber,
+where he read to her from Goodman Rigdale's
+black-letter Bible. He was a painful reader, but he
+felt it was the fit thing for him to do in filling his
+father's place, so, with the great book on his knees,
+he sat on the floor, beneath the little window that<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_88" id="Page_88">[88]</a></span>
+let in the light sparsely through its oiled paper, and
+Dolly sat by him, with her head on his shoulder.
+He was much elated at finding her so quiet and attentive,
+but, when he paused to recover breath at the
+end of a very tough sentence about the Perizzites,
+he perceived the little girl was fast asleep.</p>
+
+<p>Miles did not wake her; just sat with the Bible
+in his lap and his stiffening arm round his sister
+till, when it had grown darker, his mother came to
+seek them. He had nothing to say to his mother
+that night, but afterward it was something to remember
+keenly, though with an under-pang of
+sorrow, how he had sat close by her in the dark
+and had felt her hand rest on his head.</p>
+
+<p>Next day was dreary with rain and sleet, and a
+dull twilight that, closing in early, drove Miles into
+the house, where he played at Even-and-Odd with
+the little Brewsters and Dolly, very quietly, because
+the Elder was writing at the table. Elder
+Brewster was always kindly-spoken, but the fact
+that he knew such a deal about the next world, and
+what would befall you if you were not good, put
+Miles in great awe of him.</p>
+
+<p>When he went forth at length, Miles, feeling
+more like himself, raised his voice, and even let the
+trenchers clatter while he and Dolly laid the table.
+But he had no desire to be noisy, when, late in the
+evening, the Elder returned from the house where<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_89" id="Page_89">[89]</a></span>
+the sick lay. A word or two passed between the
+older folk that sent Miles with a whispered question
+to his mother, who told him simply that Mistress
+Rose Standish had died that evening.</p>
+
+<p>Dolly cried, because she was a foolish girl, but it
+did not stir Miles so deeply. Indeed, he did not
+come to feel a hearty grief till next morning, when,
+as he climbed the hill to Elder Brewster's cottage,
+he saw Captain Standish, grim and set-faced, trudging
+up to the woods through the sleet and rain.
+The weather was too bitter for work, and the axe
+which the Captain carried was, Miles guessed, a mere
+pretext. All through the day it made him shiver to
+think of the solitary man, lingering in the cold
+among the pines; he wondered if even to himself
+the Captain would make pretense of working, or if
+he would sit idle among the wet logs.</p>
+
+<p>But forty-eight hours later the Captain was going
+and coming and working among the rest, just as
+before, though maybe a bit more silent. For the
+hale ones who could labor were few; the work must
+be done; and, where so many were falling, there
+was small space to grieve for a single life.</p>
+
+<p>Miles had even grown somewhat blunted to the
+sight of the sorry little companies that twice and
+even thrice a week trudged with the body of a
+friend or kinsman to the bluff above the harbor.
+His own life went on methodically; he worked, and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_90" id="Page_90">[90]</a></span>
+even played with Jack Cooke and Trug, and some
+days, when he was allowed to go fowling with Ned
+Lister and Giles Hopkins, fairly enjoyed himself.</p>
+
+<p>But Ned began presently to have coughing fits
+even when he was bidden to go hunting, though
+Miles, who had grown distrustful of his convenient
+illness, urged him to "have done with fooling and
+come along." One morning in February, when
+Lister, instead of going about his work, was wasting
+his time thus with Miles and Jack and Giles by the
+fire in Goodman Cooke's cottage, came another to
+urge him, no less a one than Master Hopkins.
+Miles remembered a long time the terrible rating
+he gave Ned for his laziness and trickery, and he
+wondered that the young man sat with his head
+leaning on his fist, and flung back but a single protest:
+"I can judge better than you, sir, whether I be
+ill or not. 'Tis my head that's aching, not yours."</p>
+
+<p>To which Master Hopkins retorted grimly that,
+if there were a whipping post in the colony, something
+besides Ned's head would ache.</p>
+
+<p>Then, for that there was no help for it, Lister took
+his fowling piece and slouched away from the fire.
+"I'm going, since you drive me," he said sulkily,
+"but these youngsters need not follow at my heels.
+'Twill be all I can do to fetch myself home again,
+let alone three brats."</p>
+
+<p>Much disappointed, Miles spent the day in the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91">[91]</a></span>
+less joyous labor of fetching and carrying on the
+great hill, where they were putting the last touches
+to the platform on which the guns were to be
+mounted. He came to be interested, none the
+less, when Goodman Cooke told him how, in a
+few days, they would drag the guns up the hill and
+put them in place. That would be a brave thing
+to see, Miles thought, for the sailors from the
+<i>Mayflower</i> were to come ashore and help, and the
+street from the hill to the landing place would be
+noisy and busy. Not so busy, though, as the crew
+of the <i>Mayflower</i> would have made it a month
+before, for the sickness now had settled on the
+ship, where it was raging unchecked.</p>
+
+<p>At dusk, as Miles came down from the hill, he
+chanced on Master Hopkins, still grumbling at
+Lister, who bade him go see if that malingerer
+were loitering anywhere in the settlement. It
+seemed a spying errand, but, not thinking of disobedience,
+Miles started down the street. Nearest
+the shore stood the Common House, the house for
+the sick, and the storehouse, all three of which, to
+make the search complete, he visited.</p>
+
+<p>In the big main room of the sick-house lay the
+men who were ill, and, as Miles stepped in, on
+tiptoe because of his heavy shoes, the first thing he
+saw beneath the candlelight was Ned Lister's black
+head, half hidden under the coverlets of one of the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_92" id="Page_92">[92]</a></span>
+bunks. Miles stole up to him. "Why, Ned, ha'
+you cheated the Doctor himself?" he whispered
+cheerfully.</p>
+
+<p>Lister raised his head and looked at him, with
+his eyes very bright. "I'm cheating you all; yes,"
+he said, with a laugh. "Go tell Hopkins be more
+cautious next time how he wastes so good a property
+as a serving man. A pity! If I die he'll be out
+my passage-money. Well, I always owed him a
+grudge for bringing me to this forsaken country,
+and I'll even scores now."</p>
+
+<p>The thought seemed to please Ned mightily, for
+he laughed, till Doctor Fuller, stepping from the
+inner room, sharply bade him hush. "Get you to
+Master Hopkins and tell him the man is ill," he
+ordered Miles; and, as he let the boy out at the
+door, added, for his ear alone, "very ill."</p>
+
+<p>Somehow Ned's overthrow frightened Miles more
+than any other illness. Lister had always seemed
+so tough and wiry that his succumbing at last set the
+boy to asking himself, in some fright, if he, too,
+might not fall ill. A soreness in his throat or an
+ache in his head made him nervous. He questioned
+Jack minutely as to how he felt before he
+was taken sick, and then he began at once to feel
+as Jack had felt. He started to tell his mother and
+get her to comfort him, but then he was ashamed;
+she was busy and anxious all the time for the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_93" id="Page_93">[93]</a></span>
+people she was called on to nurse, and he was a
+great, strong boy, who, of course, would not be
+sick.</p>
+
+<p>But one day his head ached in good earnest&mdash;no
+imagination; and next morning the ache was
+worse, so he was too stupid even to go out.
+Wrestling Brewster was ailing too, so Dolly and
+Love stayed by his bed to amuse him, and Miles
+was left quite alone. All day he sat toasting himself
+by the fire, till he was too warm and was sure
+his head ached because of the heat, so out he went,
+and tramped up and down the street till his teeth
+chattered with cold. He wanted no supper, but he
+went back to the house to bid his mother good
+night and get to bed early.</p>
+
+<p>"Mother came home very weary and has lain
+down within," Dolly said, so he went into the bedroom.
+A cold light streamed in at the little window,
+but the corners of the low room were dark and the
+pallet was in shadow. His mother was stretched
+upon it, with the cloak that had been his father's
+wrapped round her, but at his step she raised her
+head. "It's you, my lad?" she asked, and reached
+out her hand.</p>
+
+<p>"I came in to give you good night, mother," he
+said, in his manliest tone, because it made him
+proud to think he was hiding his illness from her.
+"I'll mess at the Common House to-night."</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_94" id="Page_94">[94]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>She put up her hand, and, drawing his head
+down to her, kissed him. Her cheek felt hot as
+it pressed against his, and even in the dim light he
+noted that her face was flushed, but his head ached
+so lamentably that he made nothing of it. "Why,
+deary, you're not ill?" he heard her say.</p>
+
+<p>"Indeed, no, mother. No more ill than you,"
+he answered bravely, and, bidding her good night,
+went softly out of the room.</p>
+
+<p>The west was all a chill yellow, and a northerly
+breeze was astir that set Miles shivering long before
+he reached the Common House. There a fire was
+alight that looked comforting, and, going up to it,
+he snuggled down in a corner of the hearth. At
+the table of boards laid on trestles some of the men
+were eating their supper, but Miles was sick at the
+mere thought of food. He sat staring and staring
+into the heart of the flames, where he could see the
+outlines of the farmhouse at home, and then he saw
+nothing, but he faintly heard steps upon the floor,
+and somebody caught him up.</p>
+
+<p>"What are you falling on the fire in that fashion
+for, eh?" one asked, and the man who held him&mdash;he
+had a vague notion it was Alden&mdash;questioned,
+"What's wrong, lad?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh&mdash;h!" wailed Miles, "I think I'm dying."</p>
+
+<hr class="chap" />
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_95" id="Page_95">[95]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+
+<h2>CHAPTER VIII<br />
+
+<small>IN THE TIME OF THE SICKNESS</small></h2>
+
+
+<div class='drop-cap'>TO be sure, Miles did not die, but for some
+days he lay in the sick-house, too ill to
+give much heed to what went on about
+him, or take thought for anything save his own
+misery. From a mass of hazy recollections one or
+two moments of that time afterward came back
+clearly.</div>
+
+<p>One such memory was of a dim morning within
+the cheerless room, when, through the familiar
+patter, patter of rain on the oiled paper at the
+windows, he heard a latch creak somewhere and
+men tread cautiously. Turning weakly on his
+pillow, Miles looked to the door that led to
+the inner room, where the sick women lay, and
+he saw Goodman Cooke and Edward Dotey come
+forth, stepping carefully, and carrying on a stretcher
+between them something that was muffled up and
+motionless. He turned his face again to the wall,
+and neither thought nor reasoned of what it meant,&mdash;just
+listened to the lulling patter of the rain.</p>
+
+<p>The other time of which he kept remembrance
+was a crisp night, when the whiff of wind that blew<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_96" id="Page_96">[96]</a></span>
+in at the outer door, as it was opened, smelt fresh
+and good, and Cooke, who came to tend the fire,
+piled the logs high. Dozing and waking, Miles
+watched through half-closed eyelids the crowded
+pallets about him, and the shadows that flickered
+up and down the rough walls. He must have slept
+a moment, but he roused up suddenly to see in the
+waning firelight Elder Brewster, who bent over him
+with a cup of drink. Leaning against the arm that
+supported him, Miles swallowed the draught obediently,
+and then the Elder, with more care than he
+usually had time to bestow on a single patient,
+laid him down and drew the coverings round him.
+"Poor little lad!" Miles heard him say, under his
+breath. "God comfort you!"</p>
+
+<p>Miles wondered a little, but, too stupid greatly
+to heed what was said, soon dropped to sleep once
+more.</p>
+
+<p>The crisis of his sickness must have passed
+on that night, for a day or two later he felt enough
+like himself to swallow with some relish a dish
+of broth. Ned Lister, packed out from the sick-house
+while still convalescent, to make room for
+others, fetched him the broth, and helped him eat,
+with a choking great spoon that made the process
+slow. Miles wondered whether Ned had grown
+thin or his clothes had grown baggy; perhaps 'twas
+a little of both.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_97" id="Page_97">[97]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Then, on the idle wonderment, followed more
+serious thought, and, speaking slowly and weakly,
+he asked, as Lister settled him in his pallet again:
+"Tell me, Ned, why has not my mother been here
+to nurse me, as she did you and the others?"</p>
+
+<p>"Haven't you been well enough looked to,
+Miley?" questioned Ned, bending down to tie his
+shoestrings.</p>
+
+<p>"'Tis just the men have cared for me."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, you're a man yourself, and want only men
+to look to you, eh?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, I'm not a man," said Miles, the ready tears
+of sickness welling into his eyes, "and I want my
+mother."</p>
+
+<p>"I heard she had a touch of the fever herself,"
+answered Ned, still busy with his shoes. "We're all
+helpless with it, Miles. There's only seven of us now
+that can crawl about to do aught. And the Captain
+and the Elder are working each like three. By the
+Lord, those be two good fellows!" This earnestly,
+for Ned; and then, gathering up his bowl and spoon,
+he walked away to minister to the next sick man.</p>
+
+<p>Every one ill, and the care of the whole colony
+on the shoulders of seven men, some half sick themselves!
+Miles realized vaguely that he ought to be
+patient and not fret at anything, but still the next
+two days of his slow convalescence were long and
+hard to bear.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_98" id="Page_98">[98]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>He was glad enough, one dim morning that
+seemed like all the others, when the Elder came
+into the sick-room with Dolly at his side. "The
+little wench begged to come to you, Miles," he said,
+as he seated her on the edge of the boy's pallet.
+"But she is to talk only few words, and softly,
+because there are others lying here very ill."</p>
+
+<p>So soon as he had turned and left the children to
+themselves, Dolly bent and dabbed a kiss upon her
+brother's chin. "Though you make me shy, near
+as if you were a stranger, Miles," she explained, in
+a subdued whisper, "you are grown so peaked, and
+your eyes are so very round."</p>
+
+<p>Miles smiled weakly, but happily, it was so good
+to see the face of one of his own people. "I'm
+glad you came, Dolly," he said, drawing her hand
+tremulously into his. "Mother will soon come
+too, will she not? Why did she not come with
+you?"</p>
+
+<p>A choke made Dolly's whisper broken: "She&mdash;could
+not."</p>
+
+<p>"Is she ill?"</p>
+
+<p>Dolly nodded, with a piteous face.</p>
+
+<p>Miles's thin fingers gripped her hand fast. "Dolly,
+she isn't&mdash;dead?" His voice rose high and frightened.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, you mustn't, Miles," Dolly gasped. "And
+I can't tell you. They said I must not speak of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_99" id="Page_99">[99]</a></span>
+her to you. Oh, Miles, Miles, she has been dead
+these four days!"</p>
+
+<p>They carried Dolly away, the mischief done, and
+Miles, hiding his head beneath the bedclothes, cried
+so long as strength was in him. Then he lay watching
+the red and orange streaks that flashed before
+his tight-closed eyes, and, thinking how stuffy it was
+beneath the coverlets, wondered if perhaps he would
+not smother. He hoped he would, so he had a
+first sensation of fretful disappointment, when some
+one uncovered his head; and then, as he caught the
+clearer air on his face and looked up at Captain
+Standish, felt vaguely comforted.</p>
+
+<p>"Drink you this, lad," spoke the Captain, gruffly,
+yet, Miles realized, with vast pity in his tone.
+"Then sleep."</p>
+
+<p>"I'll&mdash;try," swallowed Miles.</p>
+
+<p>"That's well. Bear it soldierly, as we all must."</p>
+
+<p>"Like a soldier," Miles repeated over and over
+to himself, and, shutting his lips, pressed his head
+into the bolster, till, worn-out, he slept.</p>
+
+<p>When he awoke, the realization of his loss returned,
+keen almost as ever; but he was a healthy
+lad, so inevitably strength came back to him, and
+with it, little by little, as he mastered it in silence,
+his grief abated. Those about him were kind, too,
+and did what they could to comfort him. Captain
+Standish himself cared for him; Ned Lister and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_100" id="Page_100">[100]</a></span>
+Giles visited him often; and once they even let
+poor, guilty Dolly come to see him. She fetched
+in her arms fat Solomon, who yowled so piteously
+that, just inside the door, Doctor Fuller, who was
+up and able to tend his sick again, made her put
+him down, whereupon the cat fled home, fast as
+four legs could bear him.</p>
+
+<p>"'Twas such a pity when I fetched him so far to
+see you," Dolly lamented to Miles, as she exhibited
+the scratches on her hands, "but he will go
+home safe to Mistress Brewster's house. He likes
+it there, and so do I. I am going to live there
+always with Love and Wrestling and Priscilla Mullins.
+She made me a poppet of a piece of scarlet
+cloth, and I called it after her. I shall bring it to
+show you next time, though you'll laugh at it,
+because you are a boy. Indeed, I do like it at
+Mistress Brewster's. If only mammy and daddy
+were there too!" she added, in a lower tone.</p>
+
+<p>Elder Brewster himself had, at the very first,
+paused by Miles's bed, and spoken gravely to him
+of how his mother was now in a more blessed place,
+and he must try always to be a good boy, so some
+day he might join her. Though he listened dutifully,
+Miles did not care for the Elder's admonitions
+as much as he cared for Mistress Brewster's
+words. Newly risen from her sick-bed, she came to
+him, and, sitting by his pallet, whispered him of his<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_101" id="Page_101">[101]</a></span>
+mother, and how, before she died, she had left her
+love for him, and bidden him always be a good lad
+and a good brother to the little wench. "Though
+my lad will be that without my bidding," Alice
+Rigdale had added. "He has always been a good
+little son to me."</p>
+
+<p>Miles listened, with his face held stolid; it was
+only when Mistress Brewster bent and kissed him,
+like his mother, that he blinked fast and turned
+away his head.</p>
+
+<p>Day by day he grew stronger, till he sat up in
+bed, and then, by slow stages, was suffered to put
+on his clothes and walk staggeringly across the
+room. The next advance was his going out into
+the air, which would doubtless have been longer
+deferred if any one had had time to give close heed
+to the sick boy. But Doctor Fuller was busied elsewhere,
+and the Elder was looking to others of the
+sick folk, so, one morning when Lister had helped
+Miles into his clothes, the boy took matters into
+his own hands by slipping out at the door.</p>
+
+<p>It was a rare, mild March day, with a tender wind
+of the spring that came from the western woods.
+The earth was soft beneath the foot; the few bushes
+that clambered up the bluff across the way were
+bursting with brown buds; and the blue harbor
+dazzled under the vivid sunlight. Leaning against
+the doorpost, Miles joyfully drank in the freshness<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_102" id="Page_102">[102]</a></span>
+of the morning, though his eyes grew wistful
+as he looked again to the bluff yonder where were
+the levelled graves.</p>
+
+<div class="figleft" style="width: 325px;">
+<img src="images/i_117.jpg" width="325" height="500" alt="man washing talking to another man" />
+<div class="caption">"'Do you like to do it, Captain Standish?'"</div>
+</div>
+
+<p>Presently he summoned up his strength, and,
+stepping cautiously off the doorstone, picked his
+way round to the east side of the house, where the
+sun was warmest. Here the ground was trodden
+and bare, save for the chips scattered about the logs,
+of which there was a great heap stacked against the
+house-wall. At the other side of the pile, a tub of
+water rested on a great block, and, most marvellous
+of all, over the tub, busily washing a mass of bed-linen,
+bent Captain Standish.</p>
+
+<p>Miles caught his breath in a gasp of surprise that
+made the Captain look up. "So you're well recovered,
+Miles?" he asked cheerily.</p>
+
+<p>The boy nodded, and set himself down on the
+woodpile.</p>
+
+<p>"Cast on my doublet, there beside you, if you
+will be sitting here," said Standish, and, shaking
+the water off his hands, came and wrapped the
+garment about Miles.</p>
+
+<p>Snuggling down against the sunny logs, Miles
+gravely watched the Captain. He washed the
+clothes deliberately, with a good deal of sober
+splashing and a lavish use of soap; and then he
+wrung them so vigorously that the muscles of his
+bared arms stood out. So earnest and busy did he<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_103" id="Page_103">[103]</a></span>
+seem about the undignified task that, before he
+thought, Miles blurted out: "Do you like to do it,
+Captain Standish?"</p>
+
+<p>"Not in the least," the Captain answered cheerfully,
+as he twisted a sheet so hard that a jet of
+water spurted over the front of his shirt, "not in
+the least, Miles. But there's no one else to do it,
+and it must needs be done."</p>
+
+<p>Miles pondered a moment. "I take it, that's
+how it is with living; somebody has to," he said
+at length.</p>
+
+<p>"And somebody is right glad to," Captain Standish
+answered, with a quick glance at Miles. "You
+must get well and run about and do a man's share
+of the work that's before us, and you'll soon be rid
+of any heavy thoughts."</p>
+
+<p>Miles sat still in the sunlight, and, reflecting
+vaguely, called to mind that, if his father and
+mother both were dead, Mistress Rose Standish,
+who was all the Captain had, likewise rested yonder
+on the bluff. Out of the fullness of knowledge the
+Captain was trying once more to teach him how to
+bear all bravely, he guessed, so he began stoutly:
+"Yes, I'm going to be a man, sir. Because now I'll
+have to take care of Trug and Dolly and Solomon."</p>
+
+<p>Captain Standish smiled a little, as he gathered
+the wet clothes into his arms. "You're a true man
+already, Miles," he said. "At least, you're a man<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_104" id="Page_104">[104]</a></span>
+in the way you group your women-folk with your
+cattle."</p>
+
+<p>After the Captain had gone behind the house to
+hang out his wash, Miles rested a time very thoughtful.
+The sunlight was warm and pleasant, and southward
+across the harbor the great bluff was dense with
+evergreen. A brave world, and he was going to do
+a brave part in it, as his mother had looked for him
+to do.</p>
+
+<p>A step upon the chips made him rouse up just as
+Master Hopkins came leisurely round the woodpile.
+His face was pale, for he, too, had been
+touched with the sickness, and his manner was
+kinder than Miles had ever known in him. "So
+you're hale again, Miles Rigdale? Do you think
+you could make shift to walk up the hill to my
+house?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, sir," Miles replied promptly. The house
+that Master Hopkins was building when Miles fell
+sick stood just across the street from the Elder's,
+and the boy had made up his mind to drag himself
+to the latter's cottage that day. It made his heart
+quicken to think of seeing again the rooms where
+his mother had lived that last month, and of talking
+with Dolly and Mistress Brewster. He hoped, too,
+that if he got up to the house they would keep him
+there to supper, perhaps all night. So he answered
+Master Hopkins's question confidently and happily:<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_105" id="Page_105">[105]</a></span>
+"Yes, sir. I can surely walk that far up the
+hill."</p>
+
+<p>"That's well," said Master Hopkins; "you shall
+eat dinner with us this noontime."</p>
+
+<p>"Thank you, sir," Miles answered, not overjoyed,
+but civilly.</p>
+
+<p>"I'll take you to the house with me when I go
+back thither," the other pursued. "You understand,
+you are to dwell with me hereafter."</p>
+
+<p>When Captain Standish returned from his drying
+ground, Stephen Hopkins had gone on down to the
+landing, and against the logs huddled a piteous-faced
+small boy, who at sight of him cried: "Captain
+Standish, Master Hopkins says I must live
+with him."</p>
+
+<p>"Do you not wish to?" asked Standish, nonchalantly,
+and, tipping the water out of his tub, set
+himself down on the block where it had rested.</p>
+
+<p>"I'd rather go anywhere else in Plymouth, unless
+'twas to Goodwife Billington. Must I go to him,
+Captain Standish?" Forgetting his usual respectful
+demeanor, Miles rose, and, stumbling the few steps
+to the Captain, leaned against his knee. "I thought&mdash;maybe
+I should go with Dolly to Mistress Brewster,"
+he said in a low voice.</p>
+
+<p>Standish suddenly put one arm about him. "A
+pity it couldn't be so, Miles! But the Elder's
+house is full, and at Master Hopkins's there's half<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_106" id="Page_106">[106]</a></span>
+a bed; you can sleep with Giles. In any case,
+Master Hopkins was your father's kinsman."</p>
+
+<p>"I could go to Goodman Cooke," pleaded Miles.
+"Or&mdash;or&mdash;I wish I could live with you."</p>
+
+<p>Standish laughed outright, though when he spoke
+his voice was gentle: "I would take you, laddie,
+and be glad to, if things were&mdash;as I thought they
+would be. Rose had a liking for you." He
+stopped short, and Miles, looking up in some awe,
+noted that his eyes were fixed on the blue harbor,
+yet he seemed to see nothing of it. When he spoke
+again, his tone was quick and altered: "But as things
+have fallen out, John Alden and I are sleeping in an
+unfinished cabin and eating where we can find a bite.
+And a little young fellow like you would be better
+off in a household where there are women than with
+two clumsy men. So they have arranged it all for
+your best good."</p>
+
+<p>Miles nodded, not trusting his voice to speak.
+He was thinking of what the Captain had said about
+being a man and things that had to be done, and he
+meant to make a good showing before him. "I
+like Giles," he began slowly, "and I like Constance,
+and Ned Lister will be there too; I'll try
+to like Master Hopkins&mdash;if he'll let me bring
+Trug."</p>
+
+<p>So he had put on quite a brave face by the
+time Master Hopkins came to fetch him to his<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_107" id="Page_107">[107]</a></span>
+new home. To him it was all so much a matter of
+course that he offered no explanations or commonplace
+cheering words to Miles; just bade him come,
+and soberly led the way up the hill. Miles, with
+his feet like lead and his brave resolution flagging,
+loitered half-heartedly behind him, till Master Hopkins
+turned. "You're not yet as strong as you
+thought, Miles Rigdale?" he said gravely, but
+kindly enough, and, lifting the boy in his arms,
+carried him up the hill.</p>
+
+<p>Miles rested passive, one arm thrown perfunctorily
+about Master Hopkins's neck, and wished he were
+anywhere else.</p>
+
+<hr class="chap" />
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_108" id="Page_108">[108]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+
+<h2>CHAPTER IX<br />
+
+<small>MASTER HOPKINS'S GUEST</small></h2>
+
+
+<div class='poem'>
+"'In Wakefield there lives a jolly pinder,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">In Wakefield all on a green,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">In Wakefield all on a green,&mdash;'</span><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class='drop-cap'>THERE, there, Damaris! Hushaby, hushaby! Go
+to sleep, like a good lass."</div>
+
+<p>Damaris gurgled at Miles with a provokingly
+wide-awake crow. "I never saw such a bad baby,"
+sighed the little boy. "Do go to sleep, honey.</p>
+
+<div class='center'>'In Wakefield there lives a jolly pinder,&mdash;'"<br /></div>
+
+<p>"Oh, Miles," laughed Constance Hopkins, who,
+standing at the rude table, was scouring the biggest
+kettle, "you have sung that half a score of times.
+Is there no other song you know?"</p>
+
+<p>"It is no time for the child to sleep now," interrupted
+Mistress Hopkins. "I'll wrap her up, and,
+since 'tis so mild a morning, you may take her forth
+into the air."</p>
+
+<p>"O dear!" thought Miles, "I'm a man, not a
+nurse." He never considered that it was any kindness
+on his new guardians' part when, instead of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_109" id="Page_109">[109]</a></span>
+putting him to heavy outdoor tasks, they set him
+to minding the baby and helping about the house.
+"Like a girl," Miles told himself, with an indignant
+sniff. It was not two weeks since he left the sick-house,
+and his legs were still a little uncertain, but
+he was sure he was fit to work again, or, at any rate,
+fit to run away and play with the other boys.</p>
+
+<p>But he took the baby now and walked forth
+meekly, because he lived in some dread of Mistress
+Elizabeth Hopkins. She was a thin-lipped, energetic
+young woman, who mended Miles's clothes
+scrupulously, and, with equal conscientiousness,
+boxed his ears whenever he tracked dirt on her
+clean floors. Her sharp tongue, though, he feared
+more than her hands, for Mistress Hopkins scolded
+at everything and everybody; indeed, the only
+members of the household whom her words never
+troubled were Oceanus, who was so young he just
+blinked his eyes when she talked, and Master Hopkins,
+on whom people's fretting had as much effect
+as it would have had upon the great rock at the
+landing place.</p>
+
+<p>After all, Miles was rather glad to get out into the
+air, away from the living room, where Mistress Hopkins
+was already chiding Constance. The morning
+was fair and warm, with no wind stirring, and the
+harbor sparkled invitingly, so, shouldering the unwelcome
+Damaris, he started happily to the shore.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_110" id="Page_110">[110]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>But his contentment speedily had an end, for, not
+halfway to the landing, he was overtaken by Francis
+Billington, Jack Cooke, and Joe Rogers, who at
+once addressed him in disrespectful wise. "Ho,
+Miles, that's brave work, tending a baby," jeered
+Francis.</p>
+
+<p>"You meddle with your own matters," Miles
+replied sulkily.</p>
+
+<p>"Come with us, Miles," Jack put in pacifically.
+"We're going along shore to the first brook&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"We do not want a baby with us," Joe interrupted.</p>
+
+<p>"<i>You</i> might stay with me, Jack," Miles pleaded,
+as the others turned away.</p>
+
+<p>Jack, a freckled little fellow with merry eyes,
+dug the heel of his shoe into the dirt. "The other
+lads will be having sport," he said half-heartedly.</p>
+
+<p>"Then go with them," cried Miles. "Only
+you were very fain to play with me on shipboard."</p>
+
+<p>Even this last thrust failed; Jack ran after the
+others down the hill, and Miles, feeling cross and
+ill-treated, was left to himself.</p>
+
+<p>'Twould look too much as if he were following
+his ungracious friends if he went on to the landing,
+so he turned back to Elder Brewster's house. There
+Priscilla Mullins, a girl orphaned by the winter's sickness,
+who, because she was eighteen, was classed by
+Miles as a woman, was sweeping the doorstone with<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_111" id="Page_111">[111]</a></span>
+a broom of birch twigs. She paused in the labor
+teasingly to throw him a kiss, and tell him his busy
+sister and the lads were cooking by the brookside.</p>
+
+<p>Sure enough, in the level space between the base
+of the bluff on which the cottage stood and the
+cove, Miles found Dolly, and Dolly's poppet Priscilla,
+and Love, and Wrestling, and Solomon, and
+Trug, who was not admitted to Mistress Hopkins's
+house because his great paws dirtied her floor,&mdash;all
+busied in making delectable pies of mud.</p>
+
+<p>But when Miles joined them, Love withdrew from
+the mud-pie game, and wished to play at holding a
+council, such as his father and all the men were
+holding that morning in the Common House to
+regulate the military affairs of the colony. Dolly
+insisted that she should be allowed to come to the
+council too, for all Love urged that women never
+were invited thither, and the argument was growing
+bitter, when an unwonted tumult in the village street
+drew Miles's attention. A confused sort of calling
+and shrill shouting it seemed, that made his heart
+quicken between curiosity and alarm; so, snatching
+up Damaris, he scaled the bluff, while the rest of
+the children scrambled close behind him.</p>
+
+<p>On the doorstone Mistress Brewster and Priscilla
+were gazing in silent wonder toward the street, and,
+looking thither too, Miles saw a man stalk past to
+the landing, very deliberately, as if he knew the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_112" id="Page_112">[112]</a></span>
+place and held he had the right to come there. It
+was no one of the settlers, though, but a great,
+half-naked fellow with a coppery face&mdash;an Indian.</p>
+
+<p>Dolly and Wrestling clutched Mistress Brewster's
+skirts, the little boy fairly crying, and Miles himself,
+it must be owned, held Damaris fast and drew a step
+nearer the doorstone. But next moment he noted
+the Indian carried for weapons only a bow and two
+arrows, with which he could not kill all the settlement,
+and, moreover, at his heels tagged venturously
+Giles Hopkins and several of the other boys,
+and even Goodwife Billington, very clamorous, and
+the Governor's serving maid.</p>
+
+<p>So Miles, not to be outdone by a petticoat, swaggered
+into the roadway and joined himself to the
+little group of curious folk, who, always ready to
+flee if he should turn on them, followed close at
+the savage's heels, down the steep hill, past Peter
+Browne's cottage, even to the door of the Common
+House.</p>
+
+<p>The noise in the street had already disturbed the
+men at their conference, and they came flocking
+forth at the door, the Governor, the Elder, and the
+Captain, with a score of other stout fighters crowding
+behind them. But the Indian, never a whit
+abashed, strode boldly up to them, would even have
+pressed into the house, had not their ranks barred
+his passage. Nothing chilled, he halted, and,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_113" id="Page_113">[113]</a></span>
+stretching forth his hands, spoke in a guttural
+tone: "Welcome."</p>
+
+<p>"Do Indians talk English?" Miles whispered to
+Giles, who stood beside him. "Hush, hush, Damaris!
+The black man won't hurt you."</p>
+
+<p>But Damaris, quite unconvinced, clutched Miles
+tightly round the neck and went on crying lustily,
+till at last Goodwife Billington seized him by the
+collar. "Thou good-for-naught lad!" she scolded.
+"Wilt thou kill the poor babe? Take her back to
+the house, thou runagate! Ay, ay, let her scream
+herself ill, so thou mayest gape and gaze. I would
+I had the up-bringing of thee!"</p>
+
+<p>Some people besides himself liked to gape
+and gaze, Miles thought, but, without reply, he
+gathered the wailing Damaris into his arms and
+trudged slowly up the hill. There, by the Governor's
+house, it chanced he met with Francis and
+Jack and Joe, who, scenting something unusual in
+the village, had hastened back through the fields.
+"What is it has happened, Miles?" cried Joe.</p>
+
+<p>Miles, glancing over his shoulder, saw with unkind
+satisfaction that the men had taken the savage
+into the Common House, out of sight. "'Twas
+naught," he said airily. "Just a great Indian came
+into town."</p>
+
+<p>"Did you see him?" urged Francis. "Tell us
+about it."</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_114" id="Page_114">[114]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Humph! You've no wish to talk to me when
+I'm tending a baby," sniffed Miles, and trudged on
+to Master Hopkins's house, so elate at his triumph
+that he forgot to be angry with Damaris for dragging
+him away from the sport.</p>
+
+<p>At the noon meal, indeed, he heard all and more
+than he could have learned, had he lingered about
+the door of the Common House, for Ned Lister
+was bubbling over with talk of the Indian. As
+Master Hopkins had stayed at the Common House
+and Dotey had none of his fellow-servant's faculty
+for gathering news, he proved the only tale-monger
+of the household; so the whole family harked to him
+respectfully, and even Mistress Hopkins forgot her
+usual sarcasms on his galloping tongue.</p>
+
+<p>"This is not a savage from these parts," Ned explained;
+"he comes from the eastward, from Monhegan,
+whither the ships out of England go to fish.
+He has been on shipboard there and so has got a
+smattering of the English tongue. One Captain
+Dermer brought him to Cape Cod, and he has been
+in these parts now some eight months. And he
+told us a deal of the nations hereabout. This open
+place where we have settled is called Patuxet. It
+was a village of the savages once, but three or four
+years back came a great plague, and all the people
+died, so now we are undisputed masters of the soil.
+Next unto us dwell the Massasoits, a tribe of some<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_115" id="Page_115">[115]</a></span>
+sixty fighting men; and to the southeast, those
+savages whom our men gave a brush to on their
+explorations in December, are the Nausets, near a
+hundred strong."</p>
+
+<p>Ned paused to secure himself another slice of
+cold mallard; then started on a new train: "You
+should 'a' seen the Indian fellow eat. He asked
+for beer, but we gave him strong water, and biscuit
+and butter and cheese and pudding, and a piece of
+mallard thereto, and he liked all very well, and ate
+right heartily."</p>
+
+<p>"He is not the only idler who looks for a full
+meal," said Mistress Hopkins scathingly. "Where
+have they put the vile creature now?"</p>
+
+<p>"Vile creature, mistress?" Ned repeated. "Sure,
+he says that in his own country he is a great lord of
+land, a Sagamore&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"I would he were back in his own country,"
+Mistress Hopkins answered sharply. "The murderous
+wretch! I shall not draw a breath in peace
+till he be hence. Here, Ned, 'tis little enough work
+you'll do if you go forth, do you stay this afternoon
+in the house to protect us."</p>
+
+<p>There was an instant of disappointed silence on
+Lister's part, then, "'Tis you she means, Ned
+Dotey," he cried, and, without staying to take his
+cap, bolted out at the door.</p>
+
+<p>Nor was this the only desertion which Mistress<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_116" id="Page_116">[116]</a></span>
+Hopkins suffered; for, at their first opportunity,
+Dotey and Giles also slipped away, and Miles
+stayed behind only because he was so little that the
+mistress shook him when he attempted to follow.
+But speedily he had a bright thought, and asked
+Mistress Hopkins if perhaps, since she was afraid
+of the Indian, she would not like him to fetch Trug
+to the house to guard them.</p>
+
+<p>Thus Miles was allowed, at last, to bring his dog
+home, and so grateful was he, that he remained
+patiently tending Damaris all the long afternoon.
+He found a certain enjoyment in his position, however;
+he was sole man in the cottage, and he wondered,
+should other Indians follow this first one, if
+Mistress Hopkins wouldn't let him take one of the
+muskets and fight for her. When it came dark at
+last, he knowingly inspected the fastenings of the
+door, and told Constance not to be afraid; he and
+Trug could defend them.</p>
+
+<p>Poor Constance needed more comfort than that,
+for she was in a sorry fright. Her hands shook as
+she laid the table, and, when a step sounded crisply
+in the dooryard, she gave a nervous cry and dropped
+the pile of trenchers. It was only Ned Lister,
+however, who stamped in, bareheaded and whistling
+cheerfully.</p>
+
+<p>"You have come back, then, since 'tis suppertime?"
+Mistress Hopkins greeted him sarcastically.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_117" id="Page_117">[117]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Nay, I'm not hungry," Ned answered, as he
+sauntered over to the fire where Miles sat with
+Damaris, "'tis that the master sent me ahead to
+bid you make ready the guest chamber and the bed
+of state. Our Indian lord there, the Sagamore
+Samoset, is to lodge here to-night."</p>
+
+<p>For a moment Mistress Hopkins looked at the
+speaker in dumb amazement. "If Master Hopkins
+does not punish you roundly for such a lie,
+Edward Lister," she said at last, deliberately, "it
+will not be for want of my urging him."</p>
+
+<p>"It's the truth, though," Ned answered indifferently.</p>
+
+<p>"O me!" Constance cried, with a sudden nervous
+wail, "I know we'll all be slain ere daybreak.
+O dear!" She turned to run into the bedroom,
+when Lister caught her by the arm. "Don't cry,
+Constance," he urged; "there's no need to fear.
+Captain Standish and some of the others are coming
+hither to spend the night and keep watch.
+You'll be safe enough."</p>
+
+<p>But the girl, breaking from him, vanished into
+the chamber, whither Mistress Hopkins, snatching
+up Damaris, followed her; so, for some moments,
+Miles was free to ask questions and Ned to answer,
+as it liked them best. But, so soon as Master
+Hopkins's deliberate step sounded on the doorstone,
+Mistress Hopkins came forth and, as he<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_118" id="Page_118">[118]</a></span>
+entered the living room, confronted him: "Is that
+savage to be lodged here to-night, Stephen? Among
+us, where my children are?"</p>
+
+<p>"He must go somewhere, Elizabeth," the master
+of the house replied unruffled. "He is set to stay
+among us for the night, and the tide is out so we
+may not convey him on shipboard. We can lodge
+him in the little closet next our chamber."</p>
+
+<p>"He shall not come into the house!" said Mistress
+Hopkins, with her thin lips set.</p>
+
+<p>"Edward Lister, do you spread out the bed
+within the closet," Master Hopkins went on unheedingly.</p>
+
+<p>With a wink at Miles, Ned crossed the room in
+unusual haste, and Miles, taking a candle, followed
+after into the closet, a tiny room with one black
+window, where stood an old chest and a hogshead
+and a rolled-up mattress, which Ned began leisurely
+to spread out. "What think you, Miles?" he
+whispered, as the boy closed the door behind him.
+"It's good there is one person in the house whom
+the dame cannot rattle off as she list, eh?"</p>
+
+<p>Miles nodded vaguely, his attention all fixed on
+the least details of the commonplace room which
+now had a fearful interest from the guest it was to
+shelter. The thought of the savage stranger filled
+the place with such awesome fancies that he could
+not help going out from it very hastily ahead of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_119" id="Page_119">[119]</a></span>
+Lister, who grumbled a little that Miles was so
+speedy to be off with the candle.</p>
+
+<p>Once in the bright living room, however, he became
+very brave indeed, and wondered to Giles
+Hopkins when the Sagamore Samoset would come.
+His mood grew the bolder when the elder lad
+showed him a dirk knife he had placed under his
+doublet. "For there's no being sure with these
+treacherous savages," Giles said seriously.</p>
+
+<p>But when the Sagamore came at last, the boys
+found that the Hopkins household would be well
+guarded, for with him were not only Master Hopkins
+and Dotey, but big John Alden and Captain
+Standish. The very sight of the latter reassured
+Miles, so down he sat on the floor by the hearth,
+with his arm round Trug, who, as soon as he spied
+the Indian, bristled the hair on his back and uttered
+a throaty growl.</p>
+
+<p>Mistress Hopkins and Constance and the two
+babies kept within the south chamber; but the
+men by themselves were enough to fill the living
+room. There were but two stools, besides the form
+on the hearth and a chest against the wall, so long-legged
+Giles must curl himself up on the floor by
+Miles, while Ned Lister set himself upon the table.
+They bade the Indian be seated on the form by the
+fire, right over against Miles, who, be sure, stared
+at him with eyes wide open.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_120" id="Page_120">[120]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>The Sagamore Samoset, he saw, was a tall, straight
+man, of complexion like an English gypsy, smooth-faced,
+with coarse black hair that fell to his shoulders
+behind, but was cut before. Since his coming into
+the settlement, his English hosts had put upon him
+a horseman's coat, which he wore with much pride
+and dignity; indeed, all his gestures and carriage
+were not only decent, but of a certain stateliness.
+"Why, he is somewhat like other men," Miles
+whispered softly to Giles, but Trug grumbled in
+his throat.</p>
+
+<p>Only one candle was burning in the room, but
+the firelight cast a flickering brightness on the faces
+of the men. Captain Standish and Lister and the
+Indian had lighted pipes of tobacco, and the air
+was so heavy with the smell of the smoke that
+Miles half drowsed, but through his drooping eyelids
+he watched his English comrades, and watched
+the Indian. Captain Standish was sitting adventurously
+right on the form beside the Sagamore, and
+now and again they spoke together. Miles noted
+that in the Indian's speech came strange words,
+which the Captain seemed to try to understand, and
+once or twice the Captain even sought to make use
+of them himself.</p>
+
+<p>Miles wondered at this, and then his only wonderment
+was as to whether he had been asleep.
+The logs on the hearth had broken into red embers;<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_121" id="Page_121">[121]</a></span>
+the men had risen up; and, rubbing the heaviness
+from his eyes, Miles saw Master Hopkins and the
+Captain usher their Indian guest into the little closet
+room.</p>
+
+<p>Straightway a certain tension in the company
+seemed to slacken; Giles rose stiffly from the floor,
+and Trug put down his head upon his paws, though
+he still kept one bright, half-opened eye fixed on the
+door through which the Indian had gone. With a
+great creaking of the trestles, Ned Lister dismounted
+from the table. "If he come to kill us,"
+he said in a low tone to Alden, "do you run in and
+call me so I can have a share in the scuffle." Then,
+stretching himself mightily, he disappeared into the
+north bedroom, where the serving men and the boys
+of the household slept.</p>
+
+<p>"Since you have two others to keep watch with
+you, Master Hopkins," spoke the Captain, as he
+took down his hat from the wall, "I'll go walk a
+turn about the hill. I'll be back ere the half-hour
+is up."</p>
+
+<p>He had put his hand to the latch, when Miles, on
+the impulse, sprang to his feet and ran to him.
+"May I come too, sir?" he whispered.</p>
+
+<p>"You, Miles? Why, you were better in bed.
+Nay, come if you like."</p>
+
+<p>Out of doors the air was crispy and silent, and
+pleasant smelling after the smoky atmosphere of the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_122" id="Page_122">[122]</a></span>
+crowded room. Overhead the stars were dense and
+bright, but below, the lonely little settlement lay in
+darkness, with never a spark of a candle showing.
+"How late is it, Captain Standish?" Miles asked,
+in a hushed voice.</p>
+
+<p>"I should say it was near on to midnight," the
+other replied, stepping along so briskly that Miles's
+breath for talking was lost in the effort to keep pace
+with him.</p>
+
+<p>Up and up they toiled; past Goodman Billington's
+cottage; past the black cabin where Alden
+and the Captain lived; and then by the well-trodden
+path up the sheer hillside, till the planking of the
+broad platform sounded hollow beneath their feet,
+and they stood among the guns. The spark in the
+Captain's pipe gleamed red in the darkness, but
+Miles could not see the Captain's features; he perceived
+only that he turned his face from quarter to
+quarter, and remained longest gazing into the black
+west, where the ridge of hills ran jagged against the
+starry sky.</p>
+
+<p>He watched the Captain's movements, but he did
+not venture to speak till Standish himself broke
+out: "Well, there'll come no bands to frighten us
+this night, I take it. We can march home, Miles.
+We've a fair starlight to make the march under," he
+added, and, as they stepped from the platform to the
+yielding turf, lingered an instant to gaze skyward.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_123" id="Page_123">[123]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Which is it that is the North Star, sir?" Miles
+hesitated.</p>
+
+<p>"Why, that one yonder, lad. You know it
+well."</p>
+
+<p>"I knew 'twas the North Star in England. I
+knew not if 'twere the same here. It is such a long
+ways from home."</p>
+
+<p>"It's the same sky, Miles, and the same Heaven,
+I take it, that we had over us in England."</p>
+
+<p>Miles threw back his head and once more stared
+up into the sky, that was so vast it made him shrink
+and feel smaller even than before. He sighed a
+little, he scarcely knew why, and put his hand on
+the Captain's sleeve. Standish took Miles's hand
+in his, and so kept hold on him as they came
+down from the hill, and in that pressure was something
+so comforting that Miles was sorry when they
+reached the door of Master Hopkins's house.</p>
+
+<p>Within was heavy air, and a dull fire, and sleepy
+faces; Giles had gone to lie down on his bed, and
+it did not need the Captain's bidding to send Miles
+blinking after. Once, in the darkness, he was
+wakened by hearing Lister protest inarticulately
+that he would rather have his throat cut in his
+sleep ten times over than rise and watch; and once
+Miles guessed hazily that some one was shaking
+him, and he tried to say he was getting up, and in
+the midst dropped back on his pillow.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_124" id="Page_124">[124]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>At the last the dazzle of warm sunlight on his
+face, and the rattle, rattle of trenchers, brought him
+staggering and blinking to his feet. Oh, yes, he
+remembered; the Sagamore Samoset had been there
+last night; but he was not afraid of him, especially
+since 'twas daylight; indeed, he wanted to see him
+again, so out he rushed into the living room.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, sleepyhead!" Constance laughed at him,
+and Mistress Hopkins was beginning to scold him
+because he had not awakened, for all her efforts, till
+mid-morning, when Ned Lister sauntered in. "His
+Lordship the Indian is safe departed, Constance," he
+said consolingly, as he made a slow business of
+getting an axe from the chimney corner. "They
+gave him a knife and a bracelet and a ring, and he
+is gone away content."</p>
+
+<p>"A good riddance, too!" snapped Mistress
+Hopkins. "And now do you, Edward Lister,
+fetch two buckets of water and wash out the place
+where the creature lodged. To bring such heathen
+under a Christian roof! I hope I never set eyes
+on another of the coppery wretches again."</p>
+
+<p>Ned shrugged his shoulders and said nothing till
+his mistress was quite done; then he added meekly:
+"I misremembered; he said he was coming back
+again in a night or two, and next time he is going
+to bring with him a goodly number from the tribe
+of the Massasoits."</p>
+
+<hr class="chap" />
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_125" id="Page_125">[125]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+
+<h2>CHAPTER X<br />
+
+<small>THE LORDS OF THE SOIL</small></h2>
+
+
+<div class='drop-cap'>SAMOSET proved as good as his word. The
+very next morning, for all it was Sunday,
+back he came, and with him five other tall
+Indians, who were even more wonderful fellows than
+he, for they were clad in skins of deer or of wildcat,
+and had dressed their hair with feathers, and
+painted their faces in black streaks. To divert
+their English hosts, they sang and danced, which
+Master Hopkins called a violation of the sanctity of
+the day, but Miles privately thought most edifying.</div>
+
+<p>He was even better pleased when that night, at
+the departure of his comrades, Samoset was ill or
+feigned to be, so, spite of Mistress Hopkins, he
+must be sheltered in her husband's house. Thus
+for three days Miles dwelt under the same roof
+with a live Indian, and ate at the same board, till
+he came to have not the least tremor at sight of a
+copper-colored face. Indeed, he neglected every
+task he was set, to dog the Indian guest about the
+street and make shy efforts at talk with him, and
+he was heartily grieved when at last, on Wednesday,
+Samoset went away into the forest.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_126" id="Page_126">[126]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"No doubt he'll come again, the mistress always
+makes him so welcome," Ned Lister consoled
+Miles, "and each time he goes, for his further
+encouragement, they give him a present. This
+morning they gave him a hat and shoes and stockings,
+and a shirt and a loin cloth. I take it, 'tis
+because I am what Master Hopkins calls a son of
+Belial that it makes me to laugh, when I think of
+Sagamore Samoset in an English headpiece with a
+flapping brim."</p>
+
+<p>"I'm mighty sorry he went," sighed Miles, uncomforted.
+"I was learning the Indian words,
+so I could talk to him presently, like Captain Standish.
+'Cossaquot,' that means <i>bow</i>; and 'et chossucke'
+is <i>a knife</i>; and 'petuckquanocke' is <i>bread</i>;
+and&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>Ned yawned suggestively, and fell to work again.
+He and Miles that afternoon were busied in the
+spaded garden patch at the north end of the dooryard,
+where they were pressing the seeds into the
+soft earth. The sun was hot, and, as Miles worked,
+he smeared his warm face with his fingers, till Ned
+assured him he was all streaked brown, like an
+Indian.</p>
+
+<p>But though it was hot and dirty labor, it was far
+manlier than to be ever dandling a baby; so Miles
+toiled on earnestly, spite of Ned's indolent example,
+and did not pause even to stretch his cramped legs<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_127" id="Page_127">[127]</a></span>
+or straighten his aching back till mid-afternoon.
+Then he started up at a noise of people hurrying
+through the street, the sound of a quick footstep,
+the rattle of the house-door.</p>
+
+<p>"'Tis Master Hopkins has taken his musket and
+gone forth," spoke Ned, who was lounging farther
+down the garden. "Somewhat's afoot." Away he
+went to look into the matter, and Miles ran stiffly
+after.</p>
+
+<p>Out in the street the men and boys, and even
+one or two girls, were hastening toward the bluff
+above the spring. As they went, a confused talking
+spread among them, from which Miles learned
+that yonder, on the great wooded hill across the
+brook, Indians had been seen,&mdash;Indians who
+brandished their bows and whetted their arrows in
+defiance. Captain Standish and Master Hopkins
+and two men from the <i>Mayflower</i> had gone down to
+cross the brook and parley with them. Look, yonder
+they went now!</p>
+
+<p>From where the company had halted, high up
+beyond Goodman Cooke's cottage, Miles could see
+the bright river and the hill opposite, thick with
+unleaved woods. Up its base wound slowly the
+little band of Englishmen, now half-screened, now
+wholly visible; but Miles looked from them, higher
+up the slope, where the bare branches were agitated,
+as if something moved among them. "'Tis the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_128" id="Page_128">[128]</a></span>
+savages!" said one; but, strain his eyes as he
+would, Miles saw through the bushes only the sad-colored
+English doublets.</p>
+
+<p>Yet, with an anxiety he scarcely comprehended,
+the men lingered on the bluff, watching and discussing
+in grave tones, till the Captain and his followers
+came toilsomely up the path from the spring.
+They had seen naught; the savages had not suffered
+them draw nigh them, Captain Standish explained,
+so briefly that he seemed curt, while his
+puckered brows still were bent on the slope whence
+the Indians had sent their defiance.</p>
+
+<p>Slowly the little group of curious and troubled
+people scattered, some of the weightier ones to
+speak with the Governor and the Captain, others to
+simpler tasks. Miles went back to his garden, but
+the sunlight had now left that corner of the yard.
+The great hill, where stood the guns, looked black
+against the sky, and there seemed in all out-of-doors
+a menace that made him glad at dusk to get
+within the house. Throughout supper the men
+kept from speaking of the savages with an elaborateness
+that made their silence the more suspicious,
+and the unspoken anxiety wrought on Miles till at
+bedtime he smuggled Trug into the chamber and
+made the dog lie near him.</p>
+
+<p>Next morning, in the clear sunlight, Miles's
+courage revived mightily, but his elders still looked<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_129" id="Page_129">[129]</a></span>
+sober. None the less, whether Indians threatened
+or no, the work of the colony must be done: all
+the morning men and boys trudged about their
+tasks, though none went far afield; and after the
+noon meal the men gathered once more at the
+Common House, to consider the public business
+which the first coming of Samoset had broken off.</p>
+
+<p>Oceanus was ailing that afternoon and needed his
+mother, so Miles had to mind Damaris for a dreary
+hour. As he sat with her upon the doorstone, he
+spied a noiseless little group of some five Indians
+passing down the street, and, alert at once, he
+begged leave to run see what might happen; but
+Mistress Hopkins, all a-tremble herself, forbade
+him venture out while those bloodthirsty wretches
+were abroad, and even made him come in and shut
+the door fast.</p>
+
+<p>But speedily there sounded a rattling knock to
+which the mistress must open, and in came the
+men of the household, so hurriedly that straightway
+the living room was in confusion. For the
+great Sagamore Massasoit, with his brother Quadequina
+and sixty warriors, was at hand, just across
+the brook. One of the Indians, Squanto, who
+could speak English, had gone back to bid him
+enter the settlement, and the men of the colony
+must get under arms to receive him; perhaps even
+to defend themselves, Master Hopkins let a word fall.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_130" id="Page_130">[130]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>There followed a great throwing-on of buff-jackets
+and buckling of sword-belts, while Giles,
+newly appointed drummer to the colony, rattled
+over the pots and kettles in a meaningless search
+for his drumsticks, which some one had surely
+moved from the place where he left them. Oceanus
+wailed, Damaris, indignant at being neglected,
+screamed aloud, Trug barked, and Mistress Hopkins
+scolded, but somehow, in the midst of the
+hurly-burly, the three men equipped themselves
+and tramped away; and right at their heels went
+Giles, with the drumsticks which Constance had
+found.</p>
+
+<p>But the door closed behind them and shut
+Miles, a soldier in name only, in with the women
+and children for another tedious hour. Damaris
+found little rest in his arms those minutes, while he
+ran from the western window, whence he could see
+a bit of the street and the path to the spring, to the
+eastern window, whence, far down the street, he beheld
+the men gathered in martial line, all in armor,
+which glimmered bravely in the afternoon sun.</p>
+
+<p>He was still gazing down the street when Constance,
+who had ventured to the other window,
+called to him in a terrified voice: "Miles! Oh,
+Miles! Come hither. 'Tis Indians indeed. Hundreds
+of them!"</p>
+
+<p>With no wish to see further, the girl drew away<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_131" id="Page_131">[131]</a></span>
+from the western window, and Miles thrust eagerly
+into her place. Yes, there were Indians indeed,
+swarms of them, it seemed at first sight, so he
+flinched back a little from the casement. For they
+were filing past the house, and that brought them
+so near that Miles could see even the grotesque
+figures in which their faces were painted. But soon
+he perceived English musketeers marshalling them,
+and he saw, too, that the savages were unarmed.
+Their mission must be peaceful, he judged; so, eager
+and unafraid, he stared at them, and was sorry when
+the last one disappeared down the street.</p>
+
+<p>Just then, as he turned from the window, sounded
+the tap, tap of a drum. "It is the Governor and
+the rest of the men with drum and trumpet marching
+up the street," spoke Constance from the eastern
+casement. "They have led the savages into the
+unfinished cottage by the Common House, and now
+they are going in to them."</p>
+
+<p>Miles, at her side, squirmed with impatience.
+"There's Jack yonder beneath the cottage window,"
+he exclaimed, "and Francis and Joe. And there's
+such a deal to see. And I'm sure they are all
+good, harmless Indians." He gave a glance toward
+the bedroom, where he could hear Mistress Hopkins
+lulling Oceanus, then whispered Constance:
+"Won't you mind Damaris? I'll tell you all about
+it when I come back."</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_132" id="Page_132">[132]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"I see not why you wish to go forth at such a
+time, but I'll do 't for you. Run quick, ere stepmother
+stop you," answered kind-hearted Constance;
+and away sped Miles.</p>
+
+<p>Still, he was too late to share in the main excitement,
+for when he came into the yard of the unfinished
+house, he found the door fast shut and all
+the great folk, white or copper-colored, gone within.
+Only two musketeers remained outside to keep
+watch, and Edward Dotey, who was one of them,
+proved so unsympathetic as to cuff Francis Billington
+when he tried to get a peep in at the window.
+Much discouraged, for where saucy Francis failed
+to go there was no hope for the others, the small
+boys of the colony gathered in a patient little group
+in the dooryard to talk of these great happenings.</p>
+
+<p>"Master Winslow has gone out amongst the
+Indians," said Jack, "and they're holding him as
+hostage for their old King. 'Twas right valiant of
+him&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Pooh! The Captain would 'a' gone just as
+quick," Miles retorted jealously. "There's naught
+to be afraid of, anyway. I would I were Giles
+Hopkins, and stood there in the house with the
+savages."</p>
+
+<p>"My father is in there too," spoke little Love
+Brewster, who had attached himself to Miles, "but
+he is so good I do not think even an Indian would<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_133" id="Page_133">[133]</a></span>
+hurt him. But there were very many of them, and
+if my mother had come close to see, I am sure she
+would have been afraid. Perhaps I were best go
+home and tell her there's no need to fear. You
+come with me, pray you, Miles."</p>
+
+<p>Young Rigdale had no wish to take his eyes
+from the door of the house, but plainly the little
+boy was fearful enough to want his company up the
+street, so he went with him, and at the Elder's
+cottage stayed a moment to reassure the women
+grandly.</p>
+
+<p>Dolly had no interest in Indians, since she found
+in the case of Samoset that they did not carry about
+with them a store of pretty baskets, such as the one
+her father had brought her; but Priscilla Mullins
+was eager to know everything, and questioned Miles
+and listened to him most flatteringly, till he offered:
+"If you wish to go forth and view the Indians,
+Priscilla, I'll go and take care of you."</p>
+
+<p>Whereat young Mistress Mullins laughed, and,
+slipping her hand under his chin, kissed him for his
+courtesy, "like a baby."</p>
+
+<p>Red and indignant, Miles flung out of the house;
+then forgot the insult, as he saw Giles, with a platter
+in his hand, hurrying up the street from Governor
+Carver's cottage. "What are you doing there?"
+he called, running to intercept the elder lad.</p>
+
+<p>"Fresh meat," panted Giles. "The Governor<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_134" id="Page_134">[134]</a></span>
+wished it for the King. I had this bit of a goose
+from Mistress Carver, and now I've remembered a
+mallard I saw stepmother set to boil."</p>
+
+<p>It took him very few minutes to hurry into his
+father's house, and out again with a second larger
+platter balanced in one hand, but, short as the space
+was, Miles had laid a plan. Stepping up to Giles,
+he took from him Mistress Carver's dish of meat.
+"Let me aid you," he proffered innocently.</p>
+
+<p>"So that's what you're scheming," laughed Giles;
+but he let Miles, under that pretext, come at his
+side down the street, past the little group of envious
+boys, up the doorstone of the unfinished cottage,
+and so into the very council chamber.</p>
+
+<p>The room was close and hazy with smoke from
+the pipes of tobacco that the King and the chief of
+the English puffed at, but, spite of the dimness,
+Miles speedily made out the shapes of the Indians.
+Black, red, yellow, and white, their faces were
+partly or wholly smeared with paint, and, through
+the wavering smoke-wreaths, their look was so grim
+that for an instant he hesitated on the threshold.</p>
+
+<p>But Giles went on, so he followed, across the
+room, between what seemed endless rows of Indians
+in hairy skins who stood or squatted on the floor,
+up to the table, where sat a tall, stalwart savage.
+Imitating Giles, Miles set down his dish of meat
+before him, and, with an agitated bow, drew back to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_135" id="Page_135">[135]</a></span>
+the wall, where he wedged himself in between Lister
+and young Hopkins. "That's the King, yonder
+at table," the latter whispered him softly.</p>
+
+<p>He did not look at all as Miles thought a king
+should look, that savage at the table. He wore a
+scant covering of skins,&mdash;a dress like that of his
+followers, save that the King had also about his
+neck a great chain of white bone beads. His face
+was painted a dark red; and face and head alike
+were oiled so he looked greasy; he fed untidily
+with his fingers, and sometimes, when he would
+give a morsel to one of his followers, rent the meat
+with his hands.</p>
+
+<p>But, for all he seemed so busy with feeding, his
+quick eyes were darting about the smoky room,&mdash;now
+resting on the Governor, who sat at table near
+him; now on the English musketeers who lined
+the walls,&mdash;and, to Miles's thinking, the King
+looked on them timorously; now on his own followers,
+who crowded silently about him. One of
+the Indians, squatting on the floor, held in his
+hands the English trumpet, on which he tried to
+blow, and, for a moment, the King paused to hark
+with a child's wonder to his efforts, then once more
+began tearing Mistress Hopkins's mallard.</p>
+
+<p>When nothing but bones was left of the bird,
+Giles slipped the platters from the table, and now
+the serious work of the conference seemed to begin.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_136" id="Page_136">[136]</a></span>
+Up from the floor behind the table, where they had
+sat, rose two savages, who should interpret between
+Massasoit and the Governor; the one was a stranger,
+probably that Squanto whom Master Hopkins
+had mentioned; the other, Miles's old acquaintance,
+Samoset. A transformed Samoset, however, with
+an English felt hat low on his brows and an English
+shirt worn over his meagre native garments
+after the manner of a carter's frock. Ned Lister,
+standing rigid and soldierly against the wall, took
+Miles a sudden dig in the ribs, and winked at
+him with a "Didn't I tell you as much" expression.</p>
+
+<p>Miles, on his good behavior, neither looked at
+him nor smiled, but fixed his gaze on the men
+about the table. The sun had now shifted down
+the sky, so a great bar of light thrust in at the
+western window. The yellow brightness flecked
+across Elder Brewster's grizzled head, made Governor
+Carver's stiff ruff even more dazzlingly white,
+and gleamed back again from Captain Standish's
+steel corselet. It rested, too, on the papers which
+Master William Bradford had laid on the table
+before him, but Master Bradford's grave face, as he
+bent forward to write what the Governor bade, was
+in shadow. The features of Massasoit, too, were
+dark to see, but here and there, as the sunlight,
+bursting through the smoke, wavered across the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_137" id="Page_137">[137]</a></span>
+room, the painted face or coppery bare shoulders of
+one of his followers stood out.</p>
+
+<p>The two interpreters jerked out the gutturals of
+their outlandish tongue, to which the King grunted
+assent, or now and again the Governor spoke a
+measured word. But outside the window a bird
+was singing in a high, purling strain; and Miles
+wondered if it were a fat, red-breasted bird, and
+thought more on its song and on the motes that
+swam in the sunlight, than on what the Governor
+was saying.</p>
+
+<p>After all, he was glad when the conference broke
+up. He was tired of standing stiffly, and the air of
+the room was heavy; and the Indians, when they
+neither ate nor played with trumpets, but just sat
+stolid, were a bit stupid. He scuffed softly but
+impatiently at the rear of the train, as the company
+filed forth; the Governor and the King, side by
+side, went first, and then, all in some semblance of
+order, the Indian warriors and the English leaders
+and soldiery.</p>
+
+<p>Outside, a guard of honor formed about the
+Governor and his guest, and gave them fitting
+escort to the brook; but Miles remained behind
+and roused the envy of his mates, with an account
+of what he had seen, till, in fickle fashion, they
+forsook him at the coming of a second guest,
+Quadequina, the brother of Massasoit, who, in his<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_138" id="Page_138">[138]</a></span>
+turn, would have a taste of English hospitality.
+He could not, however, compare in dignity and
+importance with Massasoit; he was just a tall,
+comely young savage, who liked English biscuit
+and strong waters, but liked the English muskets
+so little that his hosts good-naturedly laid them
+aside. Massasoit was not cowardly like that, Miles
+assured his comrades; Massasoit was every inch a
+king, and it was a mighty honor to have been in
+the same room with him.</p>
+
+<p>Quadequina had been but a short time gone, and
+the long shadows were filling the river valley with
+a grayness, when back across the brook, quite unruffled
+by his long detention, came Master Edward
+Winslow. His fellow-colonists might be glad to
+see him, and he to return unscathed to them, but
+he carried it laughingly. He was all sound, save
+that he was uncommon hungry,&mdash;Miles, following
+admiringly, caught a scrap of his speech to Captain
+Standish,&mdash;the Indians had tried to buy the armor
+off his back and the sword from his side, and he
+knew not but he might have sold them for a mess
+of pottage, only he saw no such savory viand among
+the savages, nor anything, indeed, but groundnuts.</p>
+
+<p>Now that Master Winslow was returned, the
+colonists released the Indians whom they had held
+as hostages for him, and sent them away. Save
+only Samoset and Squanto, no Indians were suffered<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_139" id="Page_139">[139]</a></span>
+to remain in the settlement, but the rumor went
+that King Massasoit and all his people had encamped
+for the night on the wooded hill across the
+brook, so a strict watch was set.</p>
+
+<p>"Do you think there will be fighting yet?"
+Miles questioned Giles, as they walked home to
+supper. "Quadequina was afeard of our muskets.
+I take it, we could beat those Indians."</p>
+
+<p>"To be sure, there'll be no fighting," answered
+Giles, as he tucked his drum under one arm in a
+professional way. "We've struck a truce with the
+savages."</p>
+
+<p>Later, at supper, Miles heard it all explained.
+This was a dolorous meal, for the meat had been
+devoured by his Majesty, Massasoit, and Mistress
+Hopkins was ill-tempered and rated Miles for running
+away that afternoon, and, to add to her discomfort,
+Samoset came blandly to sup with his old
+entertainers. "This has been an ill day such as I
+wish never to see the like of again," fretted the
+poor woman.</p>
+
+<p>"It is a happy day for our colony," said Master
+Hopkins gravely. "Do you not realize, Elizabeth,
+that we have this afternoon made a peace with our
+heathen neighbors that, by the will of Heaven,
+shall prove lasting? King Massasoit has covenanted
+that none of his people shall do us harm as we go
+abroad; and, if he be attacked, we shall aid in his<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_140" id="Page_140">[140]</a></span>
+defense, or if other tribe of savages assail us, he
+shall do us the like service. Yea, the hand of
+Providence has been with us this day. Yesternight
+it was all menace; but to-night we can hope for
+peace."</p>
+
+<p>Miles, in his place at table, looked at Samoset,
+very solemn in his funny shirt and hat, and, blinking
+sleepily at the candle, took little concern for
+the earnestness of Master Hopkins's words. He
+scarcely realized that this was almost the second
+founding day of New Plymouth; but he did know
+that he had stood within arm's reach of King
+Massasoit, an exploit of which no other boy in the
+colony could boast; and, when he went to bed, he
+dreamed all night of red and blue and green
+Indians.</p>
+
+<hr class="chap" />
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_141" id="Page_141">[141]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+
+<h2>CHAPTER XI<br />
+
+<small>WHEN THE GOOD SHIP SAILED</small></h2>
+
+
+<div class='drop-cap'>EVEN Mistress Hopkins must at last somewhat
+overcome her fear of the savages, else
+her life would have been miserable beyond
+endurance. For Massasoit having plainly made
+the treaty in good faith, his people were ready at
+all times to visit their English allies and eat of their
+food. Coppery faces grew so common a sight in
+the single street of New Plymouth that each boy
+in the colony had his own little tale of a friendly
+Indian encounter, and Miles Rigdale was no longer
+alone in his experiences.</div>
+
+<p>Still further to rob Miles of his prestige among
+his fellows, his own particular Indian, the Sagamore
+Samoset, with his hat and his shirt, which he used
+in wet weather to remove carefully, lest they be
+damaged, took himself off to his own land to the
+eastward; and Miles found no one to fill his place.</p>
+
+<p>To be sure, Plymouth had now a resident pensioner
+in the Indian Squanto, but he lived with
+Master Bradford, and so was accessible to other
+boys as well as to Miles. "I see not why he is<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_142" id="Page_142">[142]</a></span>
+let dwell among us," the latter said jealously, in the
+early days of Squanto's stay.</p>
+
+<p>"Because, if he were any but a heathen, one
+might say this land where we have planted belongs
+to him," Master Hopkins made a brief explanation,
+which to Miles was no explanation at all.</p>
+
+<p>But later, of a morning when Master Hopkins's
+force of laborers was busied in building a fence
+round the garden patch, Giles, who had listened to
+the talk of his elders, took the trouble to set forth
+the substance of it to Miles. "You'll understand,
+this Squanto truly belongs at Plymouth. Back in
+the time when an Indian village, Patuxet, stood
+where we have settled, he dwelt here. But there
+came an Englishman named Hunt&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Who was rather more of a knave than even a
+trader should be," parenthesized Ned Lister, who,
+seated comfortably on the ground near by, was
+hammering the palings together.</p>
+
+<p>"He was a scoundrel," said Giles, warmly. "He
+toled Squanto and nineteen others from Patuxet, and
+some from among the Nausets, on board his ship,
+pretending he would truck with them; and then he
+hoisted sail and steered away for Spain, where he
+sold them all for twenty pound apiece. But somehow
+this fellow Squanto made shift to reach England,
+where a good merchant of London cared for him.
+'Twas there he came by the knowledge of our tongue<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_143" id="Page_143">[143]</a></span>
+that he has. And at last they sent him back hither
+to his own country; but meantime the plague had
+been among them at Patuxet, and all were dead."</p>
+
+<p>"The Lord removed the heathen to make way
+for a better growth," said Dotey, who had just come
+thither with an armful of fresh palings.</p>
+
+<p>"Truly?" muttered Ned Lister. "Then I'm
+thinking the Lord in His wisdom laid His hand
+pretty heavily on the poor silly savages just for our
+profit."</p>
+
+<p>There was little enough love already between
+Lister and Dotey, so Giles headed off a possibly
+bitter argument by continuing hastily: "So, as my
+father says, Squanto is, in a way, the owner of the
+land here, and as such has a right to shelter and food
+amongst us."</p>
+
+<p>Miles listened to this story with a grave, stolid
+face, such as the others kept, and made no word of
+comment. But afterward he thought much of what
+had been told him, and wondered if Squanto had
+had a wife and copper-colored babies, and had come
+home to find them dead. He felt sorry for the poor,
+lone Indian, and watched him with new sympathy;
+but to all appearances Squanto was more occupied
+in consuming English biscuit and butter than in
+grieving for his lost friends.</p>
+
+<p>Whether or no he had a claim upon the English,
+the Indian speedily showed himself able to repay<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_144" id="Page_144">[144]</a></span>
+them for any kindness. He told the men how they
+must wait yet some days before they planted their
+corn, and how there would then be plenty of fish in
+the river, which they must set with the seed; and
+much more that was useful. But nothing of the
+Indian's arts impressed Miles so much as his prowess
+in eel-catching, for he would go often into the forest
+and return, after a few hours, with fat, sweet eels, as
+many as he could lift in one hand.</p>
+
+<p>Of an afternoon in April, nearly a fortnight after
+the coming of Massasoit, Ned Lister and Giles Hopkins
+went to the southward with Squanto on such
+a fishing trip, and, as Miles was very eager to share
+in it, they let him come too. Their course took
+them over steep, wooded hills, where always they
+had blue water close on the left hand, and, looking
+back over their shoulders, could see the bay of
+Plymouth, with its flanking headlands. A tender
+leafage was upon the trees, and in the southern hollows,
+where the birds sang, the air was warm; but
+on each hilltop a chillier blast stung in the faces of
+the fishermen and urged them to trudge more briskly.</p>
+
+<p>At length they came to a gully, where two hills
+curved into each other, and descended it, half running,
+to the bank of a small river that flowed seaward
+through a level reach. Here was where the
+eels dwelt, Squanto gave his companions to understand;
+and then, without spear or any implement,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_145" id="Page_145">[145]</a></span>
+he waded gently into the quiet water. The three
+English-born, from the bank, watched him intently,
+yet they scarcely realized how he did it, when he
+suddenly made a swift dart forward, and rose with
+a long, slimy thing writhing in his hands.</p>
+
+<p>"Do you just tread 'em out with your feet,
+Squanto?" Ned queried after a time, as, keeping
+pace with the savage, they trailed along the bank.</p>
+
+<p>When the Indian gave an "Um" that implied
+assent, Ned presently suggested: "Say we venture
+it, lads. It has a simple seeming. Tell us, Squanto,
+can a white man take eels that way?"</p>
+
+<p>"White man try," advised Squanto, stolidly. He
+had caught enough for a mess, so he probably
+thought that the splashings of the English fellows
+would do no harm now.</p>
+
+<p>Ned and Giles, stripping off shoes and stockings,
+waded in; and Miles, not to be outdone, followed
+after. The water felt stingingly cold against his bare
+legs, and set his teeth chattering so he could not
+talk. The very ooze of the river bed was clammy;
+and then he suddenly found his tongue and gave a
+frightened scream, as his toes touched something
+that rolled beneath them.</p>
+
+<p>"Did you take one, Miles?" cried Giles Hopkins,
+splashing to the spot.</p>
+
+<p>"I d-d-don't know," chattered Miles, from the
+shore where he had sought refuge.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_146" id="Page_146">[146]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Giles spattered to and fro a moment. "'Twas
+naught but an old branch," he announced contemptuously.</p>
+
+<p>"It was an eel," retorted Miles, "but, to be sure,
+he will not stand there the day long till you choose
+to come seek him."</p>
+
+<p>With that he forced himself to put his purpling
+feet into the water again, but, spite of this brave
+showing, Ned and Giles would chaff him on his
+flight, and even Squanto looked amused at the conduct
+of the youngest of his allies.</p>
+
+<p>Yet, for all they were so ready to laugh at him,
+Miles noted his English comrades did not take a
+single eel, and that gave him a kind of comfort.
+But even then there was little pleasure in wading
+through the icy water, in the expectation of stepping
+on a soft, squirming thing; so he was not sorry
+when Ned gave the order to take up the homeward
+march.</p>
+
+<p>The east wind, that had turned chillier as sunset
+drew on, smote bleakly on the hilltops, and in the
+hollows, where the shadows were creeping through
+the undergrowth, the warmth had died out of the
+air. The gathering darkness pressed ever closer
+upon the fishermen; the sea on their right turned
+gray and dim; the blue faded from the sky, and
+the green of the distant headlands of the bay
+changed to black. Just off the beach point they<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_147" id="Page_147">[147]</a></span>
+could dimly make out a dark bulk, where a single
+speck of light showed&mdash;the old ship <i>Mayflower</i>.</p>
+
+<p>"They say she'll be hoisting sail for home soon,"
+Giles spoke, as they trudged through the twilight,
+with a surety that his comrades knew to what he
+referred.</p>
+
+<p>"So soon as the wind swings round into the
+west," answered Ned. "Then she'll up sail, and
+it's 'Eastward, ho!'"</p>
+
+<p>Then presently, in the dusk, Ned began whistling
+a sorry little tune, unlike those he was wont to sing,
+very slow and monotonous, with a sudden rising to
+a high note and as sudden a sinking again, like the
+sharp indrawing of breath in a sob. "What song is
+that, Ned?" Miles asked, because he would rather
+hear Lister talk than whistle that pitiable strain.</p>
+
+<p>"'Tis the Hanging-tune, Miley; the one to which
+they set the last confessions of men who are condemned
+to die." He fell to whistling once more
+and half humming the words:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class='poem'>"'Fortune, my foe,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Why dost thou frown on me?'"</span><br /></div>
+
+<p>and Miles harked to the tune till it went crying
+itself through his head.</p>
+
+<p>Next morning it still came back to him keenly,&mdash;the
+walk in the twilight, the look of the distant ship,
+the woful minor of the Hanging-tune. For the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_148" id="Page_148">[148]</a></span>
+wind was hauling round to westward, and of a sudden
+Indians and gardening and house-building ceased
+to be matters that men talked of in the street; instead
+they spoke of the going of the ship that had
+borne them from England.</p>
+
+<p>Already she had stayed longer on their shores
+than any had expected, because of the sickness that
+had been among her crew. But now, on shore and
+on ship, the sickness was stayed; just half the settlers
+lay buried on the bluff, and the crew of the
+<i>Mayflower</i> mustered in diminished numbers, yet
+enough survived and in recovered health to work
+the ship back to England. With the first favoring
+wind she would set forth upon her voyage; and
+with that bit of sure information went another, that
+Master Jones had offered to take home in her any
+one of the settlers who might wish to go.</p>
+
+<p>"Right generous of him, is't not?" Ned Lister
+spoke bitterly to Miles. "Who does he think is
+going with him? The Elder and the Governor
+and Master Bradford, all the chiefs, if they showed
+their faces in England, they'd be clapped up in
+prison. And the lesser men, or even our great
+Master Hopkins here, they've ventured all their
+substance in this plantation. If they go back, they
+must starve or beg in London streets, and 'tis as
+easy and pleasant to starve here. There's none in
+the settlement I know of has the wish to go home,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_149" id="Page_149">[149]</a></span>
+save myself, and I cannot go, because I've sold my
+time to Hopkins, the more fool I!"</p>
+
+<p>"Why did you ever come hither, if you hate it
+so?" Miles questioned.</p>
+
+<p>"Because a penny fell wrong side up," Ned answered.
+"I woke up in London one fine morning,
+with no shirt to my back and but one penny in my
+pocket. 'It's either 'list for the wars, or get me
+into a new country and start afresh,' I said, so I
+tossed up the penny,&mdash;heads Bohemia, tails America.
+It fell tails; so I sold Stephen Hopkins my
+three years' time in return for my passage over.
+And a precious fool I was! Faith, I'd liefer dig
+ditches in England than play even at governor here.
+And so soon as my time's out!"</p>
+
+<p>Miles listened soberly, but with no sympathy;
+he did not understand why a tall, grown fellow like
+Ned should think on home with such longing. He
+did not care himself; he had come to New Plymouth
+to live, and he looked forward to the departure of
+the <i>Mayflower</i> as a novel happening in the round of
+everyday occurrences.</p>
+
+<p>Yet when it befell, it seemed quite a matter-of-fact
+event. A clear breezy morning it was, and, as
+the household sat at their early breakfast, Francis
+Cooke came leisurely to tell Master Hopkins that
+the wind was setting steady from the west, and
+Master Jones had rowed ashore to bid his former<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_150" id="Page_150">[150]</a></span>
+passengers good-by; so soon as the tide was at
+flood, the ship would put forth.</p>
+
+<p>There was wood and water to fetch as every day;
+and Miles did the tasks hastily. As he came down
+the path by Cooke's house, he could feel the wind
+stirring his hair, and yonder in the harbor the waves
+were ruffling, and the dim old sails of the <i>Mayflower</i>,
+unfurled, bellied in the gusts.</p>
+
+<p>When he had set the dripping bucket within the
+living room, he ran down toward the bluff, to see
+what more was to see, but, finding his playmates
+lingering by the door of the Common House, he
+joined them. Within the house, they told him,
+Master Jones was drinking a friendly draught with
+the colonists, and taking his leave. Presently, indeed,
+the Master, a low, broad-shouldered figure,
+in his wide breeches and loose jacket, came forth,
+attended by most of the men of the colony, and
+rolled off to the landing place.</p>
+
+<p>Some of the boys straggled respectfully behind
+their elders, but Miles raced with those who ran
+to be first at the landing. There, alongside the
+rock, rode the ship's longboat, and Will Trevor and
+several of the lesser men stood talking with the
+sailors who sat in her. The youngsters, too, would
+gladly have borne a part, but the Master, coming
+right on their heels across the sand, broke up the
+little group; he was speaking boisterously with the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_151" id="Page_151">[151]</a></span>
+Governor, so his loud voice could be heard even
+above the confusion of the embarkation.</p>
+
+<p>Indeed, it was all so noisy and hurried that nothing
+of those last moments remained clear in Miles's
+mind; he remembered only that men spoke of letters
+and packets, and the Master wished them many
+a "God be wi' you," and there was a bustling to and
+fro and a deal of hand-shaking. Then the Master,
+sitting in the stern seat, was cursing at his sailors;
+the width of blue water between the longboat and
+the landing rock was increasing; and for a moment
+Miles watched mechanically the sway and swing of
+the seamen's bodies, as, bending to their oars, they
+rowed the boat away.</p>
+
+<p>When at length he turned slowly about, he was
+aware that, halfway up the rugged slope of the
+bluff, a little group of women, all that survived in
+the colony, were standing, and the children with
+them. He scrambled up to be with Dolly, why,
+he could not say, only somehow he wanted to be
+sure she was safe and near him then; and he noted
+Mistress Carver, who sat upon a stone with her
+hands clasped tensely in her lap, and Priscilla Mullins,
+whose hair blew unheeded about her face,
+while she gazed out to sea.</p>
+
+<p>He almost stumbled over Wrestling Brewster
+and the little Samson boy, who had sat down on the
+turf and unconcernedly were playing with some<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_152" id="Page_152">[152]</a></span>
+bright pebbles; but he did not pause to speak to
+Wrestling, just clambered a few feet higher up the
+bluff, where Dolly, holding to Mistress Brewster's
+gown, stood with her wistful face turned seaward.
+"Look you closely, Dolly," he greeted her. "See,
+they're hoisting sail on board the <i>Mayflower</i>."</p>
+
+<p>Dolly, pressing up to him, whispered for her
+only reply: "Do you mind, Miles, how we came
+in on the ship, and mammy and daddy with us? I
+wish we'd all stayed in England."</p>
+
+<p>"Now hush, Dolly," Miles admonished in a
+gruff tone, and scowled vexedly as the little sister,
+hiding her face against his doublet, began to cry.
+Then, half pitying, he bent to speak to her, when
+a sudden gasp, as if the women about him all drew
+in their breath, made him look to the harbor.
+There he saw the <i>Mayflower</i>, with the western wind
+swelling her dingy sails, had heaved up anchor, and
+was heading out upon the ocean.</p>
+
+<p>The sun was bright and made the dirty sails
+gleam like silver; the water was blue, and the wind
+was brisk; and the ship stood seaward swiftly, very
+swiftly. Miles thought on how she had set forth
+from Southampton; and he knew that on board
+men would be clattering across her deck, and hauling
+at ropes, and the Master would be bellowing
+orders.</p>
+
+<p>But on shore a great silence had fallen. The<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_153" id="Page_153">[153]</a></span>
+most careless of the men had no word to say, while
+of the graver sort some had bowed their heads, and
+some, coming higher up the bluff, had drawn close
+to their wives and children. For a moment there
+was no sound save the lap of waves about the great
+gray landing rock, and the swish of shingle as the
+swell receded; then suddenly one of the women&mdash;it
+was Mistress White, six weeks a widow, who
+stood with her baby in her arms and her other little
+child holding to her skirts&mdash;burst out sobbing.</p>
+
+<p>Miles gazed about him in wonder. Why, men
+never cried; Captain Standish's face now was hard
+as a stone; and he himself had not the least inclination
+to shed a tear. But among the women round
+him was a stifled weeping, so anguishing for being
+half suppressed, that some pity mingled with his
+contempt, and, with a feeling that he was ashamed
+to listen, he slipped away from the bluff. He
+thought he were best run up on the great hill to
+watch the <i>Mayflower</i> depart; and he found that his
+friend Jack and several other boys had had the same
+thought.</p>
+
+<p>All together they raced up the street to see who
+should gain the hilltop first, and by the time they
+came thither, with laughing and struggling, had
+clean forgot their elders, who, from the bluff below,
+watched the receding ship through a dazzle of tears.
+From the top of the hill the lads could see the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_154" id="Page_154">[154]</a></span>
+white sail of the <i>Mayflower</i> in the offing, out beyond
+Sagaquab, speeding ever farther into the horizon;
+but Miles never saw it vanish, for Francis Billington
+had discovered a nest of snakes at the other
+side of the hill; so, in the midst of their watching,
+the boys must run thither and look upon the wriggling
+little creatures, then scrupulously stone them
+all to death.</p>
+
+<p>When Miles clambered again to the hilltop, there
+was never a distant glimmer of a sail upon the sea;
+but he could not think of the ship's departure sadly,
+with the day so fair and his time at his disposal.
+He felt hungry, though, so he ran down to the
+house a moment to eat his dinner; and, for all it
+was long past the noon hour, he found no dinner
+ready.</p>
+
+<p>Ned was out by the woodpile, nailing together
+a hand-barrow, with a sudden fierce spurt of energy,
+but he was in a sulky temper; and within the house
+Constance went about with her eyes red. She gave
+Miles a piece of bread in his hand, and bade him
+run away and eat it; stepmother had shut herself
+in her chamber, and father was with her, trying to
+comfort her. "I see not why you all make such a
+to-do because the old ship has sailed," Miles spoke,
+with his mouth full.</p>
+
+<p>"Because we're left alone. Because no ship will
+come ere the autumn. Maybe it will never come,"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_155" id="Page_155">[155]</a></span>
+Constance burst out, with sudden passionateness.
+"And we are here, and home is there, and the ship
+has gone. You'd understand, if you were older."</p>
+
+<p>No, Miles did not understand yet. What with
+the excitement and the change, in spite of the sad
+bearing of those about him, the meaning of it all
+did not come home to him till next morning. He
+had risen early with the others and run forth to
+fetch wood for the morning fire. The sun was just
+reddening the horizon line, but the rest of the world
+looked faint and gray. A white mist, rolling off
+the fields, was shrinking away inland from the sea
+whence it had come. But out to sea he could distinguish
+clearly the dusky beach point, and the
+islands and&mdash; There he rubbed his eyes. No,
+it was no trick of the mist. There was the old
+anchoring ground, but it was empty; the clumsy,
+old, dark hulk was gone.</p>
+
+<p>Miles walked on to the woodpile, trying hard
+to whistle, but the only strain that came was a sorry
+snatch in a minor key,&mdash;the Hanging-tune. The
+chill of the dawning struck into his bones. Once
+more he looked to the anchoring ground that was
+vacant; then he sat down suddenly among the
+damp logs. He did not cry,&mdash;he was too big and
+old for that,&mdash;but he leaned his folded arms against
+a log, and hid his face between them.</p>
+
+<hr class="chap" />
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_156" id="Page_156">[156]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+
+<h2>CHAPTER XII<br />
+
+<small>THE SOWING OF THE FIELDS</small></h2>
+
+
+<div class='drop-cap'>"TO be sure, though, I was not weeping,"
+Miles declared to Constance, who came
+out from the house to see why he tarried
+so long at the woodpile, "for I never even thought
+on going back to England."</div>
+
+<p>He little guessed that, at one time, the leaders of
+the colony had spoken seriously of returning Dolly
+and himself to the home-country. But Master
+Hopkins had urged that, in such case, the children
+might be drawn back into the faith of the Church
+of England, from which their father had sought to
+snatch them; and Elder Brewster had added that
+it was a weary journey for such little folk, and no
+prospect at the end save of hard fare among grudging
+kindred.</p>
+
+<p>John Rigdale left no near relatives; and his distant
+cousins, to whom the children would have to go,
+were poor tenant-farmers, just as he had been, who
+would find it burdensome to feed two more mouths.
+For Miles and Dolly, not only would childhood
+prove hard and laborious, but there would be nothing<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_157" id="Page_157">[157]</a></span>
+better to look forward to; as the boy grew to manhood,
+he could hope only to toil for daily hire on
+some farmer's land. "Unless he fling away his
+soul's welfare by going as a mercenary in some iniquitous
+foreign war," said Master Isaac Allerton;
+whereat Captain Standish smiled a little behind his
+beard, but made no answer.</p>
+
+<p>But here in New Plymouth, though Miles would
+have plenty of work to do, he would have, as his
+inheritance from his father, a claim to a share of
+land and of whatever cattle or other property the
+settlers should hereafter hold in common. By the
+time he was a man, there would be enough for him
+to have a small farm of his own, where he could live
+in more comfort than he would have known in
+England; and, till he was grown, Master Hopkins
+was willing to feed and shelter him, in return for
+what labor he could do.</p>
+
+<p>As for Dolly, her case was simple enough, for if
+Miles stayed, she stayed; and Mistress Brewster
+was quite determined that the little girl should stay
+in no house but hers. So the <i>Mayflower</i> sailed
+away, and Miles Rigdale, with his little household,
+remained behind; and he never dreamed that people
+had thought of continuing the colony without
+his aid.</p>
+
+<p>The boy had some cause to rate his services
+highly, for, in the weakened condition of the settlement,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_158" id="Page_158">[158]</a></span>
+every atom of strength had to be used, and
+tasks were set for him as seriously as for burly
+Edward Dotey. The full working-force of New
+Plymouth mustered but twenty-two men,&mdash;counting
+in the venerable Elder, the Governor, and the
+Doctor, who all labored with their hands as readily
+as the rest,&mdash;and nine boys&mdash;some half-grown
+fellows, like Giles and Bart Allerton, who, at a
+pinch, could bear a musket and do almost a man's
+work, and some small rascals, like Miles himself,
+who, with the best intentions, did not always, for
+lack of strength or of wisdom, accomplish what was
+bidden them.</p>
+
+<p>But, old or young, laggard or brisk, every male
+member of the colony was expected to turn out now
+and bear a hand, for the mid-April season approached,
+and the precious corn, that was to feed
+the settlement, must be planted. To the elders, it
+looked like a stretch of hard work, but Miles hailed
+it joyously, as a dignified, manly labor.</p>
+
+<p>It began excitingly, with the coming of the alewives
+up the river, just as Squanto had foretold;
+and straightway some of the men set to taking them
+with seines, while others with hoes scored up the
+rough soil of the cleared fields to the north, that
+once had been the planting land of the Indians of
+Patuxet. Still others got out the corn, a precious
+supply of seed which they had found buried in an<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_159" id="Page_159">[159]</a></span>
+Indian basket under the sand of Cape Cod, and
+had made bold to take against this sowing time.</p>
+
+<p>For the present, Miles's part was only to splash
+about at the river brink, where he fancied he was
+hauling at the seines, or to carry a bucket of water
+to the workers in the field, or bring a stouter hoe
+from the storehouse. Planting was no labor, just
+sport, he went to assure Dolly, at the end of the
+first twelve hours.</p>
+
+<p>He tried to see his little sister once each day, but
+this time the work had been kept up so late that
+it was past twilight before he could run across the
+street to Elder Brewster's cottage. A lingering
+warmth was in the evening air, so Dolly and tall
+Priscilla Mullins, their faces dim in the candlelight
+that shone from within the living room behind
+them, were sitting on the doorstone. Some one
+else stood leaning against the doorpost, some one
+with a deep voice, who called Miles by name.</p>
+
+<p>"Is it you, John Alden?" the boy asked, and,
+because Alden was the Captain's friend, would have
+talked to him, had not Dolly, saying she had a great
+secret to tell him, dragged him away, round the
+corner of the cottage.</p>
+
+<p>"Now guess what 'tis, Miles," she bade, as they
+halted in the ray of light that streamed from the
+house-window beside them.</p>
+
+<p>"I cannot guess, Dolly. Be not so childish."</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_160" id="Page_160">[160]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"I'd give you three guesses. 'Tis something
+Love and I found in the woods, up beyond the
+spring, on a southern hillside. 'Twas so far I was
+near afraid, but I am glad I went. We were playing
+in the dead leaves, and we found these. Look
+on them."</p>
+
+<p>She drew her hand from her small bodice, with
+three wilted pink flowers clenched tightly in it.
+They were small flowers, of a star-shaped form and
+a rare, deep pink color, but Miles scarcely heeded
+color or size in his enjoyment of their sweet, spicy
+smell. They were unlike any blossom he had ever
+seen, so he was not ashamed to show his interest,
+even if a flower was a girlish trifle. "You and
+Love found them, Dolly? And no one else
+knows?"</p>
+
+<p>"'Tis a secret," Dolly nodded. "We told only
+Wrestling and Priscilla and Mistress Brewster.
+Ay, and the Elder too, because Mistress Brewster
+said perchance he might know what flower it was,
+he is so wise. And John Alden, Priscilla told him.
+And Love told Harry Samson and Milly Cooper&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"It's a mighty great secret when all the colony
+knows it," Miles said sarcastically, and then, at
+Dolly's hurt look, was sorry; so he added, "but I'm
+glad to know't, Dolly, and I'll go seek for some
+myself."</p>
+
+<p>"There are buds yonder on the hillside, but no<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_161" id="Page_161">[161]</a></span>
+blossoms. Maybe, though, we could find some,
+if we went and searched. Priscilla wishes to get
+some too. Oh, Miles, could we not all three go
+to-morrow?"</p>
+
+<p>"I must work," Miles answered proudly. "I'm
+not a child or a girl, so I cannot stop to play."</p>
+
+<p>Yet he was child enough to think he should like
+to go get a handful of those rare, pretty flowers.
+After he got them, he would not greatly care for
+them, but there would be the zest of owning something
+that every boy in the colony did not own; and
+if he gave the flowers to Dolly or to Constance, it
+would please them, since they were girls. So, before
+dawn next morning, Miles tumbled out of bed,
+and, taking in his hand the hunch of bread that
+formed his breakfast, ran away up beyond the
+spring. Perhaps before work-time he could find a
+blossom or two, he thought; and so grubbed hopefully
+among the damp, dead leaves of the hillslope.</p>
+
+<p>The mist that precedes the sunrise melted from
+the air; a bird sang faintly in the distance; and
+even amidst the undergrowth the light grew yellow
+and cheerful; work-time was near, and Miles had
+found only a poor half-dozen blossoms. He hated
+to give over, but there was no help for it; so, getting
+slowly to his feet, he was starting down the path
+to the settlement, when a man crashed out through
+the bushes on his left. It was John Alden, Miles<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_162" id="Page_162">[162]</a></span>
+saw at once, and he carried a great handful of the
+pink flowers.</p>
+
+<p>That was palpably an unfair arrangement, Miles
+held, so, as he fell into step at Alden's side, he
+queried: "You did not come hither and strip our
+place, did you?"</p>
+
+<p>"Whose place, lad?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why, mine and Dolly's and Priscilla's and&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Do you think I should dare plunder the holding
+of so many proprietors? I have been to northward."</p>
+
+<p>Miles was silenced a moment, then insinuated,
+"John Alden, what do you want of posies? You're
+a man."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, what do <i>you</i> want of them, Miles?" John
+smiled down at him.</p>
+
+<p>"I'm going to give mine away; I'm taking them
+to the Elder's cottage&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Give them away there, eh? To Mistress Mullins,
+now, perhaps?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, to be sure," Miles said indignantly. "I
+do not like Priscilla Mullins."</p>
+
+<p>"Then you are the only one of that mind in
+New Plymouth. Why do you not like her?"</p>
+
+<p>Miles went in silence a time, kicking at each
+hump and hummock in his path, but Alden was
+waiting for his answer, and he wished to please him.
+"Well, if you must know, John Alden," he broke<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_163" id="Page_163">[163]</a></span>
+out at last, "I do not like Priscilla Mullins because
+she kissed me."</p>
+
+<p>Alden began to laugh, then, suddenly picking
+Miles up by the back of his doublet, shook him a
+little. "Miles Rigdale," he said solemnly, as he
+set the boy, rather breathless, on his feet again,
+"you are an ungrateful little cub."</p>
+
+<p>Miles held that a most uncalled-for charge, but
+he had no time to defend himself, for just then
+they came over the brow of the hill by Cooke's
+cottage and saw men astir in the street, so the day's
+labor must be beginning. Miles ran to join Francis
+and Jack, and, in bragging to his comrades of his
+flowers, forgot to take them to Dolly. That night,
+when he stopped to have a word with her, he told
+her all about them, but he found that she was not
+interested in a story of six blossoms, seeing that
+Priscilla Mullins, since the morning, had had a fair
+large bunch of them, such as no one else in the
+settlement could show.</p>
+
+<p>But in the days that followed Miles had little
+time to go seeking flowers on the hillslopes, or
+gossiping with his sister in the twilight. For, with
+never a minute of daylight to rest, the whole colony
+worked now in good earnest,&mdash;taking alewives in
+the brook, tugging them up into the fields, setting
+the little hills with corn seed and with fish to keep
+it moist. To crown all, the planting fell in a season<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_164" id="Page_164">[164]</a></span>
+of heat, and an intense heat, unlike the milder
+warmth of England, that sapped the heart of the
+stoutest worker.</p>
+
+<p>The first day Miles was bidden to plant corn,
+putting two shiny alewives into each hole, and Jack
+Cooke was set to plant the row next him. But
+unhappily they chattered so much that Miles presently
+realized, in some horror, that he had supplied
+several hills with alewives, but no corn, and, while
+he was pulling up the ground to set the matter
+right, came Master Hopkins. He was angry; not
+that he blustered, but he cuffed Miles smartly, and,
+saying he could not be trusted at such important
+work, sent him down to the shore to labor hereafter.</p>
+
+<p>From that time on, Miles tugged fish,&mdash;a dreary
+task, in which he was coupled with Francis Billington,
+another scatter-head. They had a great flat
+Indian basket, in which they heaped the alewives,
+taken all slippery from the big pile that lay upon
+the river brink; then they would lift the basket
+between them, to each a handle, and, panting and
+heaving, struggle up the steep bank from the river,
+and so through the settlement, out to the hot, open
+fields.</p>
+
+<p>It was not a great load they could carry at one
+time, so their usefulness depended on the number of
+trips they made, but there they were sluggish. Often
+the basket upset, and they had to sit down to refill<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_165" id="Page_165">[165]</a></span>
+it; and again, more and more frequently as the hot
+days went on, they must halt to quarrel, when
+Francis vowed Miles was bearing down on his end
+of the basket, and Miles declared Francis was not
+doing his share.</p>
+
+<p>One morning it came to such a pass that Miles
+took a basket by himself, but he found the journey
+single-handed so hard that he was in even less hurry
+than usual to return from the fields and get a
+second load. Loitering along, he was amusing
+himself by trying to carry on his head the empty
+fish-basket, which <i>would</i> fall off, when, as he paused
+to pick up the troublesome article for the fifth time,
+Captain Standish, coming shirt-sleeved and grimy
+from the fields, overtook him. Rather guiltily,
+Miles straightened up very erect, and said, "Good
+morrow, sir," as he always said it to the Captain.</p>
+
+<p>"You're journeying back to the brook, Miles?"
+asked Standish. "At this speed you'll not come
+thither ere dinner-time."</p>
+
+<p>"I'm hastening now, sir," Miles answered, accepting
+the words as an invitation to trot along at
+the other's side.</p>
+
+<p>The Captain had his own concerns to look to,
+plainly, by the way he tramped along, but, right
+in the midst, he glanced down at his small companion
+and asked unexpectedly: "Where are your
+shoes, Miles?"</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_166" id="Page_166">[166]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"I&mdash;I could not wear them," the boy explained,
+kicking his bare feet in the sand. "Down by the
+river 'tis very wet. And then 'tis hot, so I laid off
+my doublet and my shoes and stockings too. I
+like to go barefoot," he added defensively. "In
+England, they never suffered me; they said only
+beggar children went barefoot. But&mdash;" his voice
+grew suddenly anxious, "I am sure my mother
+would think it right now, do not you, sir?"</p>
+
+<p>The Captain did not look convinced.</p>
+
+<p>"It is a great saving to my shoes," murmured
+Miles.</p>
+
+<p>"You were better save your feet," the Captain
+answered. "When your shoes wear out, there'll
+be new ones for you. Now do you go to the house
+and put them on, before you step on a thorn or do
+yourself some hurt." His tone was brusque, and
+he hurried at once about his business, as if he had
+no time to waste.</p>
+
+<p>Obediently Miles went to the house to finish
+dressing; he was a little sorry, because he liked the
+fun of going barefoot in the soft dirt, yet, on the
+whole, it was pleasant to have Captain Standish
+speak to you and order you into your shoes, as if he
+had some concern for you. So flattered did he feel,
+indeed, that he only smiled in a superior way when
+Francis Billington, barelegged and unregenerate,
+sneered at him for putting on his shoes and stockings.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_167" id="Page_167">[167]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>But that was the last happening of the week
+which Miles remembered with enjoyment, for the
+first excitement had now gone out of the labor,
+yet the work dragged heavily on. All through the
+weary day he felt the weight of the basket pulling at
+his arm and the heat of the steady sun scorching
+upon his bare head; and at night, when he lay on
+his pallet, with his feet throbbing and his back aching,
+he dreamed of tugging fish up the breathless
+pitch of a never-ending bluff.</p>
+
+<p>A little respite came on the Sabbath, when, of
+course, no work could be done, but with Monday's
+light all were in the fields once more. It was a day
+of sweltering heat; the rays of the sun seemed beaten
+upward again by the steaming earth, and the languid
+air was heavy and sick. Toward the fiercest hour,
+about noon, as Miles was panting through the fields
+on a return trip to the brook, Master Carver called
+to him.</p>
+
+<p>The Governor had knelt to set the corn at the
+head of one of the rows; his doublet was off and his
+hands were grimy, but, for all the heat, Miles saw
+that his high, bald forehead was quite dry of perspiration.
+"Here, lad," he said, as Miles ran to
+him, "can you fetch us a pail of water hither to
+drink?"</p>
+
+<p>"Ay, Governor," Miles piped in a respectful
+treble, and, much impressed by the importance of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_168" id="Page_168">[168]</a></span>
+his errand, trotted off briskly. At the spring he
+longed to dally a moment, to drink of the water and
+to stir up the great green frog who lived in the cool
+sand of the bottom, but, so soon as his bucket was
+filled, he resolutely turned back through the glaring
+heat to the fields.</p>
+
+<p>Short as the time had been, a change had taken
+place. At first he thought it a mere trick of the
+dazzling light, but, as he looked again, he saw
+that indeed most of the men had risen from labor
+and, drawn together, were gazing in his direction.
+Nearer at hand, he beheld two coming toward the
+settlement; the one was John Howland, a member
+of the Governor's household, and the other, who
+leaned heavily upon his arm, was the Governor himself.
+They passed within arm's length of the boy,
+and Miles took note how the Governor's down-bent
+face was now of a dull reddish hue, and he noted,
+also, how the grime of his homely toil still clung to
+his limp hands.</p>
+
+<p>Surprised and a little awed, though he scarcely
+could tell why, Miles tugged on into the fields, and,
+finding Goodman Cooke among those who stood
+gazing after the Governor, asked him eagerly what
+was wrong. "Why, naught," spoke Cooke, "only
+Master Carver complains of his head; 'tis along o'
+the heat, so the Doctor ordered him back to his
+house to rest. He'll be well again by eventide."</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_169" id="Page_169">[169]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>But with eventide the word went among the colonists
+that Governor Carver lay unconscious, and
+at those tidings faces grew grave. Miles, in his
+youthfulness, gave little thought to it all; he was
+more concerned with his own half-flayed hands
+and aching legs than with Master Carver's illness,
+and each day these physical pangs grew
+keener.</p>
+
+<p>The height of misery came on a sultry afternoon
+toward the close of the week, a breathless, stifling
+time, when, for sheer weariness and hopelessness,
+Miles sat down in the hot dirt in the middle of the
+field and thought he never could rise again. Yet
+he scrambled up briskly, when he saw his guardian
+approach, though Master Hopkins, whose face was
+very grave, did not scold the boy, but, after a first
+sharp look, bade him go rest in the shade till the day
+was out. "The hot sun is deadly," he said, as to
+himself; but Miles realized only that he was bidden
+to cease from labor.</p>
+
+<p>He dragged himself back to the house, where he
+lay down upon his bed, and watched the little patch
+of sunlight clamber higher up the wall and harked
+to the drowsy sounds of out-of-doors; then heard
+nothing clearly till the men tramped in to supper.
+He sat up slowly, and listened to catch what gossip
+they might bring; their voices were subdued, and
+he half guessed what had befallen ere he heard<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_170" id="Page_170">[170]</a></span>
+Master Hopkins say solemnly that the good Governor
+Carver was dead.</p>
+
+<p>Miles thought on it the night long; this death,
+lonely by itself, was so much more awesome than the
+crowded sicknesses of the last winter. It seemed
+the order of life must show some change, but, with
+the heat of the next rising day, the colonists, as
+usual, only more silent, filed forth to their labor
+in the fields. For whether men were well or ill,
+or lived or died, the corn that was the hope of the
+settlement must be planted.</p>
+
+<hr class="chap" />
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_171" id="Page_171">[171]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+
+<h2>CHAPTER XIII<br />
+
+<small>THE TWO EDWARDS</small></h2>
+
+
+<div class='drop-cap'>THE fields of New Plymouth at last were
+sown,&mdash;twenty acres of Indian corn and
+six of English seed, wheat, barley, and
+pease,&mdash;enough to yield an ample harvest. There
+was besides another field, where the corn, however
+tall it grew, would never be reaped, for, that the
+savages might not know the number of the dead,
+it was planted upon the graves of those who
+perished in the winter's sickness.</div>
+
+<p>Among them lay John Carver, buried honorably
+with such poor military pomp as the colony could
+show its governor, and with a more precious tribute
+of grief for a good man lost. Near him lay now
+his wife Katharine, who at his death had grieved
+and pined, till within six weeks they had dug for
+her a grave in the new-sown corn-land.</p>
+
+<p>Master Bradford was the new governor; a grave,
+wise-headed gentleman, with a gift of kindly speech
+and a shrewd sense of humor, but, to Miles, his
+greatest claim to respect was that the interpreter
+Squanto had chosen to dwell with him. For Miles<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_172" id="Page_172">[172]</a></span>
+Rigdale, to use Mistress Hopkins's vexed phrase,
+was "ever beating the street after the heathen savage."
+It must be owned that to his guardians he
+was a troublesome boy; not a bad boy, but a careless
+fellow, who, though he might mean to do well, was
+likely, when sent to weed in the fields, to be found
+swimming in the river, or hunting strawberries on
+the hills, or fishing with Squanto.</p>
+
+<p>Miles did not reason out his new dislike for responsible
+labor, did not take into account the influence
+of lazy Edward Lister, or the distractions of
+the spring and early summer in this new country;
+but he did feel there was a difference between working
+with his father, when he knew the harvest would
+be for his mother and Dolly, and grubbing in a corner
+of a great field that was the property of no man,
+but should feed the whole colony. He no longer
+took pride in his labor, and, if he had taken any,
+Mistress Hopkins's dissatisfied comments would
+have destroyed it. Yet, much though he disliked
+the bustling woman with the sharp tongue, he neither
+disliked nor feared her the half as much as he
+disliked and feared her husband.</p>
+
+<p>Years later, when he had come to manhood,
+Miles was able to think on Master Hopkins with
+gratitude, for, in all honesty, this severe, undemonstrative
+man used him like a son, as kindly as he
+used his own boy, Giles. Except in the stress of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_173" id="Page_173">[173]</a></span>
+planting-time, Miles was never set to tasks beyond
+his strength; he was well fed,&mdash;as the fare of the
+colony went,&mdash;well sheltered, decently clad, while
+the little store of his father's goods was scrupulously
+left untouched for his later use.</p>
+
+<p>Master Hopkins tried also, conscientiously, to
+keep him to the path of strict virtue, with admonitions,
+and, if need were, with corrections. It was
+an age of whippings, and, on occasion, Miles was
+whipped painstakingly. Master Hopkins's floggings
+were, on the whole, not so severe as Goodman
+Rigdale used to give his son, but Miles
+resented them with an amazing outburst of anger.
+"You are not my father; you have no right to beat
+me," he cried, the first time Master Hopkins took
+a birch rod to him, and, swinging round in a fury,
+he lustily kicked his chastiser's shins.</p>
+
+<p>After that one attempt and the sorry consequences
+which it entailed, he never again tried to defend himself,
+but, though he had to submit, the old feeling
+remained; to the pain and shame of a beating was
+now added a rankling sense of the injustice and, so
+to speak, of the illegality of it all.</p>
+
+<p>Beatings, though, were something every boy in
+the colony, even the sober Giles, had a good share
+of, so Miles made shift to endure; but Master
+Hopkins presently devised a new-fangled means of
+persecution, for he insisted on teaching him to read.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_174" id="Page_174">[174]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>The boy had clung to the black-letter Bible because
+it was his father's, and sometimes of a Sunday,
+between the morning and afternoon teachings at the
+Common House, when it grew irksome to sit quiet
+and do nothing, would take the book and spell out
+half a chapter, and amuse himself with looking at
+the funny black letters. But one Sunday, a warm
+May Sunday, when Miles was lying with his book
+in the young grass in the shadow of the house,
+Master Hopkins, noting his unusual employment,
+bade him read aloud to him, and, as he was a man
+of education, was honestly shocked that, as he put
+it, "the lad could scarce spell out his mother-tongue."</p>
+
+<p>From that time dated Miles's tribulations. It
+was useless to protest that he could read well
+enough, he did not wish to read better; Master
+Hopkins's decree went forth that every night
+after supper the boy was to come to him with his
+Bible, and read aloud a chapter. Miles never reflected
+that, after a day of hard labor in the fields
+or woods, or of serious consultation with the other
+leaders of the colony, it could be neither restful nor
+pleasant to Master Hopkins to hear a stupid little
+boy stumble through a dreary waste of words. But
+he was quite aware of the unjust fact that the space
+of daylight, in the long summer evenings after
+supper, was the time when all the other lads were
+at liberty to play, while he must drone out the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_175" id="Page_175">[175]</a></span>
+chronicles of dead and gone Hebrews with unpronounceable
+names.</p>
+
+<p>The reading lesson always took place just without
+the house-door, where there was a bench on which
+Master Hopkins sat; Miles stood beside him,
+where he could see the harbor and the street, with
+the boys passing down it to the beach, perhaps;
+and where, too, it was convenient for Master Hopkins
+to cuff his ears when his attention strayed hopelessly
+from the book to the affairs of his playmates.</p>
+
+<p>Sometimes, when he wished to get away and join
+them in carrying out a long-laid plan of sport, Miles
+would pore over his chapter twice or thrice in the
+day, and so, when evening came, be able to read
+it fairly. But on such occasions Master Hopkins
+always said there would be time to finish another
+chapter; and when it came to that, poor, disappointed
+Miles always stumbled, so that his lesson
+ended in disgrace and bitter rebuke.</p>
+
+<p>Early in July, however, he had a blissful holiday,
+for Master Hopkins went with Master Winslow
+and Squanto far inland to visit King Massasoit, so
+for five days there was no one to bid Miles read a
+word. Neither did any one whip him, for all he
+shirked his weeding, and ran away to fish in the
+harbor with Ned Lister and the sailor, Trevor, and
+played by the brookside with the other boys till
+long after dark.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_176" id="Page_176">[176]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Dotey, to be sure, one morning when Miles forgot
+to fetch a supply of water, and he had to fetch
+it himself, threatened to "swinge" him; he was a
+steady fellow, was Dotey, and, since Giles was but
+a lad, in his master's absence was tacitly admitted to
+the headship of the household. But when he talked
+of beating Miles, up rose Ned, and called him, with
+an oath, a great bully, swaggering in his little ha'penny
+borrowed authority, and threatened, if he laid
+hands on the little fellow, to break his head for him.</p>
+
+<p>It was in the living room this happened, just before
+the noon meal; Miles remembered afterward
+the good smell of the roast fish Mistress Hopkins
+was setting on the table, and what an overpowering
+heat came from the great fire on the hearth. He
+was standing near the fireplace, backed up against
+the wall, a little conscience-stricken and fearful of
+a whipping, but still more frightened by the vehemence
+of the two men. Lister had swaggered
+across the floor, and stood before him, and Miles
+was glad of his protection, though he half realized
+that it was not alone the desire to defend him, but
+the desire to defy Dotey, the trusted and sober, that
+spoke in Ned's tone.</p>
+
+<p>Constance's quiet voice, as she stepped between
+the two young men, quelled the squabble: "Don't
+curse so, pray you, Ned. And, Ed Dotey, do not
+you whip Miles; he only forgot&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_177" id="Page_177">[177]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"He does not merit whipping," spoke slow Giles,
+who held his own little resentment that his father's
+servant was set in authority over him.</p>
+
+<p>Mistress Hopkins interrupted tartly that Miles
+needed a strong hand to correct him, and Dotey was
+quite in his right; her approval made it lawful
+enough for the young man to carry out his intention,
+but Dotey, like a discreet fellow, had no wish to
+bring about a scuffle with Lister and a hot family
+quarrel in his master's absence. So he said, as if it
+were a concession, that he would do as Constance
+asked, and let Miles off this time; and with that
+they all sat down peaceably to dinner. Miles ate his
+full share of the fish, and, believing this episode
+happily ended, put it quite out of his head.</p>
+
+<p>He had good cause to remember it some ten days
+later. By then Master Hopkins had returned, so it
+was necessary for all to be busy, and Miles weeded
+in the corn-field till his back ached, and every evening
+read his chapter in the Bible. But one morning,
+a hot, dull morning with an overcast sky, Ned and
+Giles planned to go with Squanto to fish for perch
+in a pond far up in the woods, and Miles received
+a reward for his diligence of the last few days in a
+permission to go with them. Giles and the Indian
+started on ahead, to take the bait, while the two others
+stayed to make ready the extra tackle, which, being
+left to Ned's management, was always in a snarl.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_178" id="Page_178">[178]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Lister was sitting on the bench by the house-door,
+whistling a little, as he disentangled lines and adjusted
+hooks, and Miles, kneeling on the grass
+beside him, was giving what help he could, when
+Master Hopkins and Dotey came out of the cottage.
+Dotey, who had an axe on his shoulder, headed
+away through the garden to the hills whence firewood
+was fetched, but Master Hopkins came and
+stood over Ned.</p>
+
+<p>How it went and exactly what was said, Miles
+scarcely comprehended, but he heard Master Hopkins's
+stern voice and Ned's sulky answering tones,
+and in the lulls the rattle of trenchers, as Constance,
+inside the house, cleared the breakfast table. The
+gist seemed to be that Master Hopkins had found
+out about Ned's threatening to break Edward
+Dotey's head, for he rated him soundly that he
+durst lift his voice against one set in authority
+over him, a sober man, who was his better&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"He is not my better," Ned retorted, flinging up
+his head, with his eyes sullen and angry.</p>
+
+<p>"Do you grow saucy to contradict me?" Hopkins
+asked frowningly.</p>
+
+<p>Too much had been said of Dotey for Ned to cast
+off rebuke with his usual shrug; flinging aside the
+tackle, he started to his feet, but, before he could
+walk away, Hopkins caught him by the shoulder.
+As they stood thus Miles noted, with sudden surprise,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_179" id="Page_179">[179]</a></span>
+that alongside Master Hopkins Ned looked
+slight and almost boyish; somehow Miles had
+always thought of him as a man, because he was
+old enough to use a razor.</p>
+
+<p>"You shall stay till I have done with speaking,"
+said Master Hopkins; and then Ned made a sudden
+movement to free himself, flung up one arm,
+half involuntarily,&mdash;and Stephen Hopkins reached
+him a blow that, taking him beneath the chin,
+stretched him flat on the ground at his master's feet.</p>
+
+<p>The women came to the house-door, and it surprised
+Miles that it was not Constance, but Mistress
+Hopkins, who cried, in a frightened voice: "Stephen,
+Stephen, I pray you&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>Ned rose to his feet with his face white, and stood
+brushing the dirt off the side on which he had
+fallen; there was a great brown streak of it along one
+sleeve and the shoulder of his shirt. "There's
+work you have made for the mistress, sir," he said,
+and began laughing in a high key.</p>
+
+<p>"That's enough," Stephen Hopkins checked him.
+"Remember, I've never laid hands on you ere now,
+Edward Lister, but if you mend not your ways, this
+will not be the last time." He lingered yet a moment
+ere he turned away to the door, as if awaiting
+an answer, but Ned made no reply, just stood fumbling
+at the fishing tackle with one hand, while the
+other hung limp at his side.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_180" id="Page_180">[180]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Only when Master Hopkins had passed out of
+sight into the house did Lister raise his head, and
+then, squaring his shoulders, he led the way toward
+the street. "Will you not take the tackle, after
+all?" asked Miles, running at his side. Ned's only
+answer was a shake of the head, and to all Miles's
+further efforts at talk and one clumsy effort at sympathy
+he kept silent.</p>
+
+<p>They left behind them the sandy street, and,
+skirting along the bluff, came to the path to the
+spring and the stepping-stones, beyond which lay
+the trail to the ponds. Ned did not turn off there,
+however, but trudged on till he reached the little
+stream that flowed from the pool where they had
+cut thatch. "Whither are you going?" panted
+Miles, for the third time.</p>
+
+<p>"Where you were best not come," Ned answered,
+crashing into the bushes on the right hand. But
+Miles turned doggedly in his steps, through the
+first crisp thickets and then along the miry ground
+by the edge of the pool, where the air was so muggy
+that he wondered Ned cared to keep up his reckless
+pace.</p>
+
+<p>Of necessity the speed slackened, as they clambered
+over the pebbles and pushed aside the crackling
+undergrowth of a dry gully in the northern hillside,
+but it was not till they were tramping through the
+hushed woods on the summit that Ned spoke: "Did<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_181" id="Page_181">[181]</a></span>
+you know, Miley, my father was a gentleman? A
+great family, the Listers, up Yorkshire way. But
+he was a mere younger son, and he married a pretty
+serving wench out of his father's hall, so they would
+have no more of him. But he was a gentleman, and
+he tried to give me a smattering of decent breeding,&mdash;"
+there Ned began to laugh, with the corners
+of his mouth drawn up, and his eyes mirthless,&mdash;"and
+I am a brisk serving fellow, whom the master
+pommels at will, eh, Miles? And they set a clod
+like Edward Dotey over me."</p>
+
+<p>There was going to be a fight, Miles guessed, but
+though at another time he might have been secretly
+glad at the prospect of such excitement, he had
+seen one man knocked flat that day, and it had
+not been amusing, so now he was not over-zealous
+for the sport. "Come back and fish, Ned," he
+coaxed, plucking at his companion's sleeve, when
+that very moment, on the hillside below them, both
+caught the sound of an axe falling on wood.</p>
+
+<p>After that Miles scrambled down the slope, eager
+as Ned himself, in his curiosity to see what would
+follow. A little clearing it was they came out in,
+where one tree had been newly felled, and its clean
+stump showed yellow; by the tree trunk, leaning
+on his axe and wiping his sweaty forehead with his
+sleeve, stood Dotey.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, Neddy, I've come to talk with you," Lister<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_182" id="Page_182">[182]</a></span>
+greeted him, in a fleering voice, and on the word
+set himself down on the stump, with his hands clasped
+about one knee.</p>
+
+<p>At first it was a talking, that lay all on Ned's
+side, while Dotey tried to keep up a pretense of
+work. Ned spoke words, well-chosen and stinging,
+that should make even stolid Dotey wince, and spoke
+them in a jibing tone, with a hateful laugh that
+startled Miles, even more than the sight of the little
+pulsing motion of the blood in Ned's dark cheeks.</p>
+
+<p>Dotey swung round impatiently at last. "Hold
+your tongue, will you?" he cried.</p>
+
+<p>"It is thou who wert better have held thy tongue,
+Neddy, before thou wentst blabbing to Hopkins of
+what passed between us."</p>
+
+<p>"I did not," Dotey answered blankly.</p>
+
+<p>"Thou art a liar," quoth Ned, quietly, and still
+hugging his knee.</p>
+
+<p>Then Dotey strode over to him, and Ned, laughing
+up into his face, jeered at him, "threaten a man
+with his fists, would he, when he had just set Hopkins
+on to rebuke him for the like offense;" but
+at length he rose up and cast his mocking manner.
+"We are agreed there is one Edward too
+many in the house," he said slowly. "Now say
+we despatch one forth of it. Will you fight me
+like a gentleman, rapier and dagger?"</p>
+
+<p>In a daze Miles listened to Dotey's first protests,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_183" id="Page_183">[183]</a></span>
+Ned's taunts, till the final agreement was struck and
+the arrangements made. "I'll contrive to fetch
+rapier and dagger from the Captain's house," Ned
+concluded, "and do you, Miles, take those that
+hang in Hopkins's chamber, and bring them unto
+us behind the Fort Hill."</p>
+
+<p>Unquestioningly, Miles sped upon the errand.
+The sun had burnt away the fog now; among the
+trees it was hot and breathless, and, when he ran
+through the fields, the drying earth crumbled under
+his feet. Yet he scarcely minded heat or dust, as
+he thought on what was now to come, and thrilled
+with anticipation; for, down in his heart, he told
+himself Dotey and Lister would never hurt each
+other, and he had never seen anything livelier than
+a bout at quarterstaff, and a real duel would be a
+wonderful thing to witness.</p>
+
+<p>By the time he came to the house, he was all of
+an excited flutter, but happily Mistress Hopkins
+alone was within, and she was so busied in scouring
+her pewter platters that she only looked up to ask
+sharply what brought him back.</p>
+
+<p>"Just to fetch somewhat for Ned," Miles answered
+guiltily; and then fortune favored him, for
+Damaris, within the bedroom, set up a wail, and
+Mistress Hopkins bade him run in and soothe
+her.</p>
+
+<p>So Miles sang to baby, and, singing, took Master<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_184" id="Page_184">[184]</a></span>
+Hopkins's dagger from the shelf and hid it beneath
+his doublet; then slipped the rapier from the
+wall, and, after a hasty glance to see that none were
+looking, dropped it out at the open window. Still
+Damaris would not hush, and he had to pace the
+floor a time, singing always, though his voice shook
+with impatience, and his forehead was wet with
+perspiration.</p>
+
+<div class="figleft" style="width: 324px;">
+<img src="images/i_201.jpg" width="324" height="500" alt="swordfighting" />
+<div class="caption">"Saw the two young men close in combat."</div>
+</div>
+
+<p>At last the child was quieted. Placing her on the
+bed, he passed quickly out through the living room,
+and, running behind the house, snatched up the
+rapier from the grass. Still none saw or intercepted
+him; the men and boys were at work; the
+intense heat of the day kept the women within their
+cottages. But to Miles each doorway seemed full
+of faces, and, in a panic, he ran for the northern
+spur of the hill, at a pace that brought the heart
+strangling into his throat.</p>
+
+<p>On the west side of Fort Hill was a little level
+space in the abrupt descent, where some pine trees
+stood wide apart, and the ground was brown and
+slippery with pine needles. There Lister and Dotey,
+both with their doublets and shoes cast off, were
+awaiting Miles; Dotey, with his stolid face grim,
+sat on the ground, turning a rapier in his hands, but
+Ned Lister was pacing slowly to and fro.</p>
+
+<p>"I came&mdash;fast as I could run," panted Miles.</p>
+
+<p>"You saw no one?" questioned Lister, as he<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_185" id="Page_185">[185]</a></span>
+took Master Hopkins's rapier and measured it with
+the one Dotey held.</p>
+
+<p>"No, no one."</p>
+
+<p>"Francis Billington has been spying about here,
+though," Dotey spoke evenly. "'Twas while you
+were at the Captain's house. I sent him packing.
+But he may bring&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Ere any come, we'll be done with the work,"
+Ned Lister interrupted. "Here, Miles, do you
+run up to the hilltop and lie you down in the grass.
+If you see any man coming upon us, whistle us a
+warning."</p>
+
+<p>The grass, in the glare of the sun where the trees
+had been felled, was a dazzling green, and the slope
+was very steep. From the summit of the hill where
+he lay down half-hidden, as they bade, Miles could see
+the blue harbor and all the sunny street of the town,
+so deserted that he ventured a glance back over his
+shoulder. His eyes were fastened there, for he saw
+the two young men close in combat; he heard the
+click of steel, saw the quick thrust and recovery, the
+bending and swaying of the struggling bodies. Then
+a cry rose up in his throat and choked there, for he
+saw the dagger fly out of Dotey's hand, and saw
+him slip upon the pine needles.</p>
+
+<p>A clatter of feet on hollow boards made him look
+suddenly toward the gun platform, and he had an
+instant's sight of Captain Standish, who, clapping<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_186" id="Page_186">[186]</a></span>
+his hand to the railing of the platform, cleared it
+at a leap and ran headlong down into the pine
+thicket. Setting his fingers to his lips, Miles gave
+a shrill whistle, and right upon it heard the Captain
+cry, in a terrible voice, "What work is this?"
+Casting one frightened glance down the hill, Miles
+saw Ned lay on his side among the pine needles,
+and Dotey stood over him with one hand dripping
+blood.</p>
+
+<p>The sky seemed to waver and the whole green
+world to stagger with the horror of what had happened.
+Miles crawled away through the long grass
+down the hillside, through the undergrowth, and
+never paused till he hid himself, terrified and sick,
+in the tangle by the pool in the hollow.</p>
+
+<hr class="chap" />
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_187" id="Page_187">[187]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+
+<h2>CHAPTER XIV<br />
+
+<small>A MIGHTY RESOLUTION</small></h2>
+
+
+<div class='drop-cap'>THE sun had dropped behind Fort Hill, and
+long shadows darkened the soft sand of
+the street, when Miles at last ventured into
+the settlement. All the hot day he had lain hidden
+by the pool and watched the shreds of cloud skim
+across the deep sky and harked to the shrilling of
+the locusts, while he tried not to think, yet all the
+time was conscious of the awful thing that had happened,
+in which he had had a hand.</div>
+
+<p>Disjointedly, from time to time, he had planned
+how he would act a part, would feign to be quite
+ignorant of the duel, and be amazed when he learned
+of it; but when the test came, when he found himself
+actually in the street of the town, his head
+whirled, and he felt that his guilt could be read in
+his very face.</p>
+
+<p>From a dooryard some one called his name,
+whereat Miles's heart fairly ceased to beat; but it
+was only his friend, Jack Cooke, who came running
+to hang over his father's gate and speak to him:
+"Ah, Miles, where ha' you been? Have you<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_188" id="Page_188">[188]</a></span>
+heard talk of what happened?" There was no
+time for Miles to stammer out a vague answer,
+before Jack ran on: "Ned Lister and Ned Dotey,
+they fought a duel, real cut and thrust, up behind
+the hill, and the Captain came upon them, and
+they've had them before the Governor and the
+Elder, and there's been such a to-do."</p>
+
+<p>"Had them? Then neither was killed?" Miles
+cried, with a momentary feeling that nothing could
+matter, if both men still lived.</p>
+
+<p>"Nay, but Dotey has a great gash across the
+palm of his hand, and Ned Lister was slashed in
+the thigh so he scarce could walk. I saw 'em when
+they were fetched down into the village, and they
+have locked Dotey up at Master Allerton's house,
+and Lister at Master Hopkins's."</p>
+
+<p>"Wh&mdash;what are they going to do to them?" faltered
+Miles.</p>
+
+<p>"Something terrible, to be sure," Jack answered
+happily; "the Captain and all are main angry.
+And Goodman Billington was for flogging Francis
+mightily out of hand, but the Elder said stay till
+to-morrow, when they would question all further."</p>
+
+<p>"What has Francis done?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why, he was with them; he kept watch while
+they fought. That is, one of the lads lay in the
+grass and whistled them; the Captain had the least
+glimpse of him; but they found Francis prowling<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_189" id="Page_189">[189]</a></span>
+on the hill, so it must ha' been he. He says 'twasn't,
+but Francis is a deal of a liar, we all know."</p>
+
+<p>Miles drew a long breath, and, turning from the
+gateway, went scuffing through the sand down the
+street. It was Francis, not he, whom they suspected,
+he repeated, but the next moment he told
+himself that it made no difference; since he was
+the culprit, he must come forward and take the
+blame. But when he saw Master Hopkins sitting
+by the house-door, his heart choked up into his
+throat, and his step faltered. After all, he would
+not speak to Master Hopkins yet; his share in the
+duel would be discovered soon enough.</p>
+
+<p>With a feeling that he wished to propitiate every
+one, he trudged round the house to fetch an armful
+of wood, and there, by the pile, Giles was at work
+with an axe. "Well, Miles?" he said, pausing in
+his task, and then, as Miles came to his side, whispered
+him: "Look you, father thinks you were
+fishing with me all this day, that Ned sent you
+back to the house to be quit of you, and that
+you came home with me, but stopped at the spring.
+I told him naught; he just thought so and&mdash;I let
+him think so."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Giles, you are right good," gulped Miles.
+"For I&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Hush now! I don't want to know aught."
+And Giles went back to his chopping.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_190" id="Page_190">[190]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>No one would find him out, then; he was safe
+from the mighty beating he expected. Francis&mdash;well,
+since he was innocent, of course he would say
+so, and they would believe him and not punish him.
+Anyway, he had no thought of confessing, Miles
+assured himself hastily, as, on entering the living
+room, he met Master Hopkins's stern gaze.</p>
+
+<p>The master of the house was in a gloomy temper
+that evening; a new sense of the gravity of that
+day's happenings came over Miles, as he looked on
+his harsh face. Mistress Hopkins, too, was silenced
+completely, and the young folk did not venture
+to speak while their elders did not address them,
+nor had they any wish to talk, with the two empty
+places at table confronting them. No word was
+uttered till the meal was nearly eaten, when Mistress
+Hopkins, after a swift glance at her husband, cut a
+thick end from the loaf of bread, and, setting it on
+a trencher, turned to Miles. "Fill a jug of water,
+and carry that and the bread to Edward Lister," she
+said sharply.</p>
+
+<p>"Edward Lister may go fasting to-night," Master
+Hopkins spoke, in a grim voice.</p>
+
+<p>Miles, who had slipped from his stool, stood
+shifting from one foot to the other, while he waited
+to see which he should obey.</p>
+
+<p>"Do as I bid you, Miles," Mistress Hopkins repeated
+steadily, though one hand, which she rested<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_191" id="Page_191">[191]</a></span>
+on the edge of the table, clenched in nervous wise.
+"The man is hurt, and whatever he has done he
+shall not go hungry and thirsty. Either Miles shall
+take him food and drink, Stephen, or I shall do so
+myself." She rose, and, filling a jug from the
+water-pail, gave it to the dubious Miles. "Take
+it to him, there in the closet," she bade; so Miles,
+without waiting for Master Hopkins to prevent,
+stepped hastily into the little room and shut the
+door behind him.</p>
+
+<p>The closet was very narrow, very hot, and very
+dusky, for the evening light came but sparsely
+through the little window. Just beneath the window,
+where whatever slight breeze entered the room
+could be felt, the old mattress was outspread, and
+on it Ned Lister lay. He had been resting his
+head upon his folded doublet, but at Miles's coming
+he drew himself up on his elbow; his face was
+white in the dimness, and he looked limp and sick
+and cowed.</p>
+
+<p>"Here's bread and water, Ned," Miles began,
+as he crossed to him. "And&mdash;and I'm mighty
+sorry."</p>
+
+<p>"I'm not," Ned answered, in a dogged tone. "I
+wish only that I'd killed him. Give me a drink."
+He took the jug from Miles and gulped down the
+water with audible swallowings; then, when he could
+drink no more, set it beside him. "They'd 'a' made<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_192" id="Page_192">[192]</a></span>
+little more tumult if I had killed him," he went on.
+"But I care not what they do to me."</p>
+
+<p>"What&mdash;what do you think they will do to us,
+Ned?" Miles quavered; the young man's prisoned
+and unfriended state and desperate tone had dislodged
+him from his last stronghold of security.</p>
+
+<p>"They spoke of flogging us," Ned answered
+hopelessly.</p>
+
+<p>"A public flogging?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes."</p>
+
+<p>It was only a birching Miles had looked for.
+A public flogging! The horror and fright were
+actual and overwhelming, for it never entered his
+head that in punishment a distinction would be
+made between the two principals in the duel and
+their wretched little second. "Flog us!" he repeated
+dazedly. "Or&mdash;or perhaps they will hang
+us?"</p>
+
+<p>"I care not if they do," Ned retorted, and, taking
+up the jug, drained out the last of the water.
+"Fetch me another draught, Miley, that's a good
+lad," he begged. "My throat is all afire."</p>
+
+<p>It was darker now in the living room, so none
+could note the expression of his face, and Miles was
+glad for that. When he filled the jug at the pail
+he slopped the water clumsily, so Mistress Hopkins
+chided him. He could not seem to think or even
+see, for, as he stumbled back into the closet, he<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_193" id="Page_193">[193]</a></span>
+bumped his forehead against the door. "Oh, Ned,"
+he whispered, as he bent over the injured man again,
+"they&mdash;they have accused Francis in my place,
+but I&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Why, that's well," Ned spoke, as he set down
+the jug. "I'm glad for't; you'll not be punished
+along o' me. I'll tell no word of you, Miley, you
+may be sure, and if Dotey will but hold his blabbing
+tongue&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"But&mdash;but they'll flog him; I ought to tell&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Let him be flogged, the imp!" Ned growled.
+"But you, Miley&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>There was no chance to finish, for Master Hopkins,
+appearing in the doorway, sternly ordered
+Miles to come forth, and, when he had quitted the
+closet, bolted the door.</p>
+
+<p>By now it was too dark for a reading lesson, and,
+even if it had been light, the whole routine of the
+day seemed overturned. Miles wandered out into
+the house-yard, but he had no will to seek the other
+boys; they might talk to him of Francis. Somehow,
+too, he did not wish to see Dolly or Mistress
+Brewster, who had told him how his mother looked
+for him to be a good lad. He went and sat down
+alone on the woodpile, where he harked to the distant
+frogs that were piping, and watched the stars
+come out over the sea.</p>
+
+<p>So he was still sitting when at last Constance stole<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_194" id="Page_194">[194]</a></span>
+out to him, and, putting her hand on his shoulder,
+whispered him he mustn't go away and grieve so
+about poor Ned. He shook her off surlily; he
+was tired and sleepy, and didn't want to talk, he
+said, and so rose and slouched away to his bedroom.
+There it was stiflingly hot, so when he lay down
+he pushed aside the coverlet, and even then he
+thrashed restlessly.</p>
+
+<p>Presently Giles came in and lay down in the other
+bed that Dotey and Lister had shared; he did not
+offer to talk, but, settling himself at once to sleep,
+was soon breathing regularly. Miles counted each
+indrawing of his breath, and tried, breathing with
+him, to cheat himself into sleeping; and tried too,
+with the bed beneath him scorching hot, to hold
+himself quiet in one position. His face was wet
+with perspiration, and his head ached. Somewhere
+in the room a mosquito sang piercingly, so he must
+strike about him with his hands, and still the creature
+sang and the air was breathless, and he could
+not sleep.</p>
+
+<p>Then he ceased the effort to gain unconsciousness,
+and deliberately set himself to face it all, and
+reason it out. He had done a wicked thing, and he
+should be punished for it. Francis was accused,
+but Francis was innocent and must be declared so.
+It did not matter though his comrades bade him
+keep silent; it was one thing for Giles not to bear<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_195" id="Page_195">[195]</a></span>
+tales of Miles, and another for Miles not to bear
+tales of himself; and for Ned Lister's way of thinking,
+it was not the way which Captain Standish
+would have counselled. What would the Captain
+think of him, when he knew him for a rascal who
+deserved whipping, Miles wondered miserably. Yet
+it was the Captain who had told him hard things
+must be done, not shirked aside; and by that ruling
+Miles realized that the only way for him was to let
+them know it was he himself, not Francis, who had
+borne a part in the duel.</p>
+
+<p>Specious objections came, and he crushed them
+down; and there came, more stubborn, the promptings
+of fear. A public flogging, Ned had hinted;
+and Miles recalled a dull day in the market
+town, whither his father had taken him, a jeering
+crowd of motley folk, a cart with a fellow laughing
+on the driver's seat, and tied by the wrists to the
+cart's tail, stripped to the waist, a man who kept his
+head bent down and never winced, for all the great
+blows the constable was laying across his shoulders.
+Even now Miles turned sick at the remembrance of
+the red gashes the whip had made. But Francis had
+not earned such punishment, and he had earned it.</p>
+
+<p>Miles rose from his restless bed, and stood by the
+window to catch a breath of air. The moon was up
+now, and a pale, hot glow lay on the fields to northward,
+but not a whiff of a breeze was astir. The<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_196" id="Page_196">[196]</a></span>
+harbor, as he saw it from the window, lay glassy
+smooth beneath the moon. He put his weary head
+down on his arms, and for a moment did not think,
+only wished it were last night, when the duel was
+yet unfought.</p>
+
+<p>Then he lay down in bed, and turned and
+tossed, and went his round of courage and fears
+again. He was not conscious that there had been a
+period of sleep; he had no sense of restfulness just
+ending, only of bitter dreams, but he found the room
+alight and a faint, early-morning freshness in the
+air, so he knew some time had passed and it was
+day.</p>
+
+<p>He did not remember in detail the thoughts of
+the night, but the conclusion was the same, and still
+clearer for him to see in the glare of morning. Rising
+quickly, he dressed himself so hurriedly that he
+was done before sleepy Giles had pulled on his shirt;
+then went out into the living room. Mistress Hopkins
+was lighting her fire with flint and steel, and
+Constance was stirring up porridge for the breakfast;
+but he gave them no heed, for outside the
+door he caught a glimpse of Master Hopkins.</p>
+
+<p>"Why, Miles, are you ill?" Constance asked, as
+she looked up at him.</p>
+
+<p>Miles shook his head, and stepped out upon the
+doorstone. At the bench alongside the door Master
+Hopkins, in his shirt-sleeves, was washing his<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_197" id="Page_197">[197]</a></span>
+face in a basin of water; he did not look up, but
+Miles, without waiting for his notice, plunged into
+the confession while his courage held. "Master
+Hopkins, I want to tell you&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"What is it, Miles?" Hopkins asked curtly, as
+he began wiping his face on the big, coarse towel.</p>
+
+<p>"It was not Francis, sir, it was I. The duel,
+you understand&mdash;" Miles's voice was faint and
+quavering,&mdash;"it was not Francis."</p>
+
+<p>"What do you mean?" said Stephen Hopkins
+then, and lowered the towel from his face; the
+water-drops clung to his forehead, and his hair was
+all on end, but the very grotesqueness of his look
+made it the more formidable to Miles.</p>
+
+<p>"It was not Francis," he repeated shakily, while
+his trembling fingers picked at a splinter in the door-frame.
+"I took the rapier out o' your bedchamber;
+I was in the grass and whistled to them." He
+stopped there, with his eyes on the toes of his
+shoes; he did not want to look at Master Hopkins's
+face, and he held his body tense against the
+grasp which he expected would hale him into confinement
+along with Ned Lister.</p>
+
+<p>But instead there was a sickening silence that
+seemed to last for minutes; then Master Hopkins
+said slowly: "I marvel why that you, the son of a
+godly man, should have a hand in all the evil
+doings of the settlement. You must go tell this<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_198" id="Page_198">[198]</a></span>
+unto the Governor, so soon as breakfast is ended.
+And I shall myself speak more of it to you."</p>
+
+<p>Mechanically Miles stood aside to let Master
+Hopkins pass into the house, and then he still
+stood a time, gazing at the gray doorstone beneath
+his feet. Presently he stepped down on the turf
+and slouched round to the corner of the house,
+where Trug was tied at night; though every one
+thought him evil, and they were going to flog him,
+Trug would still lick his hands lovingly. He untied
+the dog, and, holding to one end of his strap,
+went back through the yard; Constance, from the
+doorway, called to him to come in to breakfast, but,
+shaking his head, he walked on.</p>
+
+<p>Outside the yard the street was quite empty, for
+the colonists were all at their morning meal. Miles
+trudged slowly through the sand up the hillside,
+and then turned down the path to the spring, which
+he judged at that hour would be deserted. Sure
+enough, the only moving things beneath the high
+bluff were the leaping waters of the living well,
+and the sunbeams that sifted through the branches
+of the encroaching alders, and sprinkled the trodden
+turf.</p>
+
+<p>Casting himself down on the margin, Miles took
+a long drink of the water, that might have been
+brackish and hot for any good taste he had of it,
+then sat up and leaned against Trug, with one arm<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_199" id="Page_199">[199]</a></span>
+about the dog's neck. He had thought, so soon
+as he was thus by himself, he would cry, but he felt
+all choked inside; his wickedness was too deep even
+for tears.</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly two hands were clapped over his face.
+"Guess who 'tis," piped a treble voice, and, uncovering
+his eyes, Miles thrust up one hand and dragged
+Dolly down beside him,&mdash;a very brave Dolly, in a
+clean apron, with her scarlet poppet hugged under
+one arm. "I ran to the spring for Mistress Brewster,"
+she explained, "but I cast away my jug when
+I saw you. Why are you here, Miles?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Dolly," Miles burst out, "I have been
+uncommon wicked and helped fight a duel, and
+they are going to flog me through the streets, and
+maybe they'll hang me, and I would my mother
+were here." He mastered the inclination to screw
+his knuckles into his eyes, and, as he sat scowling
+at the hill across the brook, and blinking bravely,
+to keep a good showing before the little girl, a
+mighty new idea popped into his head and made
+him happy again. "But I shan't let them flog
+me," he said, grandly as Ned Lister himself. "You
+tell it to no one, Dolly, but I have it in mind to
+run away."</p>
+
+<p>"Whither, Miles?" the damsel asked, with interest,
+but no great amazement.</p>
+
+<p>"I shall go into the woods and live with the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_200" id="Page_200">[200]</a></span>
+Indians," Miles said slowly, forming his plan as
+he spoke. "They're good, pleasant folk; and I'll
+build me a house of branches, and eat raspberries, and
+maybe kill birds with a sling, and I'll have Trug
+at night." It occurred to him that Trug would not
+be the liveliest of company. "Why, Dolly, say
+you come too," he cried. "We'll keep the house
+together, as I thought they'd let us when father
+died."</p>
+
+<p>Dolly's face dimpled at the prospect, then grew
+sober. "But if we live in the woods, Miles, we
+cannot go to meeting of a Sunday, and that would
+never do. Let's build our house just over the
+brook&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Pshaw!" said Miles, contemptuously, "I might
+as well go back and let them whip me now. I'm
+going away into the forest. Will you come?" He
+rose and walked manfully toward the stepping-stones,
+but Dolly still sat hugging her poppet in her arms.
+"If you've no wish to&mdash;" Miles said, feeling brave
+and important, no longer a poor, trembling, little
+culprit. Then he turned his back on her, and gave
+his attention to leading Trug safely from stone to
+stone across the brook.</p>
+
+<p>But, as he gained the opposite bank, he heard a
+cry behind him: "Wait, oh, wait, Miles!" Dolly,
+with the poppet in her arms, came slipping and
+scrambling across the stepping-stones and caught<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_201" id="Page_201">[201]</a></span>
+his hand. "Love Brewster says he does not like
+girls and went away to play with Harry Samson,"
+she panted. "And you are the only brother I have,
+Miles, and I love you, and methinks I'd liefer go
+with you and be an Indian."</p>
+
+<hr class="chap" />
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_202" id="Page_202">[202]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+
+<h2>CHAPTER XV<br />
+
+<small>IN THE SOUTHWARD COUNTRY</small></h2>
+
+
+<div class='drop-cap'>ACROSS the brook the woods spread away to
+westward and to southward,&mdash;majestic oak
+trees, lulling pines, pale birches, besides the
+walnut and beech trees, and a host of others, the
+names of which Miles did not know. Thick though
+they stood in the forest, all were soundless now, and
+well-nigh motionless in the still air of morning. In
+all the wood the only active thing seemed the sunshine,
+which came sliding through the branches to
+mottle the turf or make the pine needles shiny.</div>
+
+<p>An ardent sun it was too, even where it fell
+sparsely among the trees, and beyond the thickets,
+where the path led over unprotected hilltops, it beat
+fiercely through the breathless air till the heat fairly
+stifled the travellers. "Shall you go far before you
+build your house, Miles?" panted Dolly, when the
+roofs of the settlement were barely sunk from sight.</p>
+
+<p>Miles explained that he held it best to push on
+to the river where he had gone eeling, so he might
+have plenty of fish in his dooryard. He thought
+to make his way directly to the place, but the journey<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_203" id="Page_203">[203]</a></span>
+through the heat seemed longer than when he
+tramped it in the springtime, and he could not find
+an easy path so adroitly as Squanto had found one.
+He had to bear away inland too, lest on the seacoast
+he come upon some of the colonists gathering
+shellfish; and inland, not only was the going through
+the undergrowth difficult, but the hills shut off the
+least whiff of coolness from the sea.</p>
+
+<p>Soon Dolly gasped for breath, Trug lolled out
+his tongue, and even Miles found many pretexts
+to rest. Here amid the moss bubbled a spring,
+where the children delayed to drink and cool
+their hands; there lay a muddy pond, covered with
+white lilies, which Miles, though he wet his feet,
+strove to get with a long stick; and again and yet
+again they came on tangles of luscious raspberries,
+where they paused to eat their fill.</p>
+
+<p>Miles had in his pocket a fourpenny whittle, his
+dearest possession, with which he stripped a great
+piece of bark from a birch tree, and, cleaving two
+sticks, shaped it into a basket, in which to carry
+away some of the berries "against dinner-time."
+But the basket proved an incumbrance to the wayfarers,
+so, before they had wandered another mile,
+the two children sat down in a pine grove, and ate
+the berries they had gathered. They tied Trug
+carefully, a needless precaution, for the old dog,
+with as burdening a sense of responsibility as Miles<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_204" id="Page_204">[204]</a></span>
+himself, had no thought of trotting home and leaving
+those two foolish little bodies to their own protection.</p>
+
+<p>By the position of the sun Miles judged it past
+noon, when they came at last to a brook, which he
+thought might be the upper waters of the stream he
+was seeking. He waded in first to try its depth;
+then, in gallant fashion, would have carried Dolly
+over, but little mistress wished the fun of paddling
+too. The alders, coming low to the brookside, cast
+a rippling shadow on the water, and the sandy bottom
+was firm and cool; so when both children once
+had waded in, they spent some time in splashing to
+and fro, while Miles set forth to Dolly how he had
+caught eels.</p>
+
+<p>The shadows were beginning to lengthen when
+they climbed out on the farther side of the brook,
+and passed slowly up the next hillslope. Dolly now
+found she was tired, so Miles said they might as
+well build their house there as anywhere. Indeed,
+halfway up the slope they found a capital spot,
+where the hill, drawing back on itself, left a little
+level space, with sparse undergrowth and tall trees,
+the vanguard of the forest higher up, that cast a
+good shade.</p>
+
+<p>To be sure, the exposure was northern, but that
+would make the place cool in summer, Miles set
+forth its advantages, and when winter came, they<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_205" id="Page_205">[205]</a></span>
+could move round and pitch their camp on the
+other side of the hill, to southward. "But I
+shouldn't like to dwell in the wood when it snows,"
+protested Dolly. "Let us go back and stay at
+Plymouth, come winter."</p>
+
+<p>But Miles, in his new independence, laughed at
+the idea of return, and assured Dolly that he knew
+how to make her a snug enough house for all
+weathers. He would drive four forked stakes into
+the ground; and then, from fork to fork, he would
+lay four sticks; and across those, other great sticks;
+and thatch all over with moss. He would drive
+stakes into the ground to form the sides of the
+cabin, and wattle them with elder twigs; and it
+would be just the trimmest little house she ever
+saw. Yes, he could drive stakes inside and divide
+the space into rooms, and he would cut windows; the
+only thing that troubled him was how to build the
+fireplace, but he guessed he would think that out
+presently.</p>
+
+<p>About the time that the red rays of the sun
+slipped under the lower branches of the trees, Miles
+laid off his doublet and rolled up his shirt-sleeves,
+ready for work. First, with his heel, he scored in
+the dirt the lines of his house; they might as well
+have a big one, he replied to Dolly's delighted
+exclamations.</p>
+
+<p>The little girl ran about within the four lines and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_206" id="Page_206">[206]</a></span>
+scored for herself the rooms which they would make.
+"'Twill be such sport, Miles," she chattered. "A
+keeping room we'll have, and a parlor, and a great
+hall." Down she set herself on the grass, between
+the wavering lines that marked the hall, and waited
+for her brother to build the house over her.</p>
+
+<p>But, though Miles strode jauntily down into the
+bushes and stayed a great time, when he came back,
+he bore, not an armful of stakes, but two forked
+sticks, very gnarled and crooked, and another stick,
+some five feet long, without a fork. "What have
+you been doing, Miles?" Dolly greeted him, in a
+disappointed tone.</p>
+
+<p>"Why, the wood is hard, and my knife is not
+very big," the boy answered sheepishly, "so perhaps
+to-night, as 'tis drawing late, I'd best put up
+just a little shelter. But I'll build the house to-morrow,
+Dolly."</p>
+
+<p>Then, because the little girl's face fell so grievously,
+he made haste to amuse her by turning to
+such work as he could do that evening. With a
+stone for a hammer, he drove his forked sticks into
+the ground, and laid the other stick across them;
+that was the ridgepole, he told Dolly, and now, leaning
+other boughs against it, he would make a shelter
+that would be quite sufficient on so hot a night.</p>
+
+<p>But it was wearisome work, haggling off tough
+boughs with his small whittle, and he was tired with<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_207" id="Page_207">[207]</a></span>
+walking, and perhaps, he reasoned, as it was drawing
+on to sunset, he were best not leave Dolly alone
+by herself and go down into the dim thickets. So,
+after he had cut enough branches to go a third along
+one side of his ridgepole, he said vaguely that maybe
+he would get some more before dark, and so sat
+down close by Dolly.</p>
+
+<p>In the west the sun had already sunk, and little
+pink clouds were drifting through the sky; the
+afterglow still lingered on the open land of the valley
+along the stream; but in the woods, as Miles
+glanced over his shoulder, the grim shadows lurked.
+It was awesomely silent too, till, on a sudden, a
+bird began warbling, and presently, fluttering near,
+perched on a branch above the children, where he
+trilled lustily.</p>
+
+<p>Miles had some pebbles in his pocket, and, slipping
+off his garter, he improvised a sling; he would
+kill the bird for their supper, he told his sister, but
+Dolly protested; she would rather the pretty bird
+lived and sang than that she should eat him. So
+the songster finished his tune and flashed away into
+the darkening sky, and Miles felt as warm a glow
+of self-gratulation at giving in to his sister as if he
+had been quite certain of fetching down the bird
+with his sling.</p>
+
+<p>"But we've naught for our supper now, Dolly,"
+he sighed presently. "To-morrow, though, I'll<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_208" id="Page_208">[208]</a></span>
+find my way to the shore and take us some clams,
+and, in any case, we'll gather plenty of berries when
+it's daylight. And you do not mind going supperless
+now?"</p>
+
+<p>"N&mdash;no," Dolly assented faintly; since the
+twilight came on them, she had grown very quiet.</p>
+
+<p>"I wish Ned Lister could 'a' slipped away with
+us," Miles resumed. "If he were here with his
+fowling piece and his fishing line, he'd take us all
+the victuals we'd want. And he'd be good company,
+too."</p>
+
+<p>Then they sat in silence a time, very close to each
+other, with the dog at their feet. Over in the west
+the bright stars twinkled through the last waning
+flecks of the sunset glow, and somewhere in the
+dark the frogs were piping. "Miles," whispered
+Dolly, "aren't you lonely?"</p>
+
+<p>"To be sure not," he answered stoutly.</p>
+
+<p>"Do you not think&mdash;perhaps we could walk
+back home? I'm not weary now."</p>
+
+<p>"I've come hither to stay," Miles said crossly;
+"you can run back if you will; no one will flog
+you."</p>
+
+<p>"You know I cannot go alone," whimpered
+Dolly. "And maybe there are Indians and lions
+will get us. Hark!"</p>
+
+<p>Miles sat erect and listened, every nerve tense,
+but he heard only the snap of a branch, yonder<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_209" id="Page_209">[209]</a></span>
+among the black trees. "It was naught, Dolly," he
+said more kindly, "and you needn't fear; I can
+take care of you. Come, let's lie down in our
+shelter, and to-morrow in the daylight we'll build
+our house."</p>
+
+<p>They crept in behind the screen of branches slowly,
+for Dolly had hold on Miles's hand and would not
+let go; but at last they were settled, side by side,
+Dolly next the leaning roof, and Trug close against
+Miles. "The leaves tickle my nose," protested
+the little girl, "and there are humps in the ground,
+and I'm sure that bugs will crawl into my ears."
+With a movement that quite disarranged her companions,
+she sat up and tied her apron over her
+head; then all three lay down once more. "It's&mdash;it's
+fearsome still," Dolly whispered once, and
+then no further words passed between them.</p>
+
+<p>But, although he was silent, Miles lay long awake;
+his body might be weary, but his brain was very
+busy with what had befallen him in the last two
+days, and with the unknown happenings that were
+yet before him. When he forgot the strangeness of
+the place and fell asleep at last, he dreamed of berry
+patches and ponds full of lilies, and the fine, great
+house he meant to build next day.</p>
+
+<p>Somewhere sounded a bewildering crash, as if a
+thousand cartloads of stone were emptied right beside
+him. Miles sat up, wondering at the sound,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_210" id="Page_210">[210]</a></span>
+wondering where he was, why his face felt wet,
+why Dolly clung sobbing to him. A blinding light
+for an instant tore across the sky, and showed the
+trees about him twisting in an awesome manner;
+then darkness closed in again, and, through it,
+deafened the appalling crash of thunder.</p>
+
+<p>"Don't be frightened, Dolly, don't be frightened,"
+stammered Miles, clutching his sister; he could
+feel Trug, with his whole great body a-tremble,
+crowding against his knee, and, through Dolly's terrified
+sobs, heard the beast whine.</p>
+
+<p>A second flash, that seemed to rip the sky, lit up
+the black woods, and, upon the roar that followed,
+sounded the rush of downpouring rain. As if in
+bucketsful, the water broke through the frail little
+shelter; the ground beneath the children grew
+sodden, and their faces tingled under the smiting of
+the raindrops. "Come away, in among the trees,"
+cried Miles, through the sough of the rain, and
+dragged Dolly to her feet.</p>
+
+<p>"Back to Plymouth, oh, let us go back to Plymouth,"
+she wailed.</p>
+
+<p>Without reply, Miles gripped her wrist and
+stumbled up the hillside, where he remembered the
+thicker growth of trees began. Bushes tore his
+clothes and buffeted his dripping face; rain blinded
+him; the flash of the lightning dazzled out just
+long enough to show how unfriendly trunks beset<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_211" id="Page_211">[211]</a></span>
+him, then flared away and left him, half stunned by
+the thunder that followed, to bruise himself against
+their harsh bark.</p>
+
+<p>Still, blinded and beaten and breathless, he fought
+his way onward and at his side haled Dolly, dumb
+with the bewilderment of the storm. He had forgotten
+whither he hoped to go; he knew only that
+there was about him a lurid darkness of overpowering
+rain and rattling thunder through which he fled
+away.</p>
+
+<p>It had been several moments since the last clap
+of thunder, he realized suddenly, and the rain that
+yet pattered noisily among the leaves did not beat
+upon him with the old fury. When the thunder
+growled again, it was from far in the distance, and
+the space between the flash and the crash was wider.
+"'Tis near over, Dolly," he spoke subduedly.</p>
+
+<p>The little girl fetched a tremulous, weary sob and
+made a movement to drop down on the wet turf,
+but Miles held her arm more firmly. "Nay, we
+must keep walking till we be dry," he said, in what
+he tried to make a brave voice. "Maybe we'll
+come on some warm, sheltered spot," he added, for
+his poor little companion's comfort.</p>
+
+<p>Holding each other fast by the hand, and with the
+dog close at their heels, they trudged forward into
+the black woods. Though lessened in force, the
+rain still descended in a steady drizzle, and each<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_212" id="Page_212">[212]</a></span>
+bush against which they brushed drenched them
+with an added shower. The ground was so slippery
+and thick with mud that Miles began to fear they
+had strayed into a swamp, and, when they stumbled
+at last upon a thicket of close-growing evergreen, he
+thought it safest to shelter there till daylight.</p>
+
+<p>Crawling in beneath the low branches that half
+protected them from the slackening rain, they cuddled
+close to the dog and to each other. "I'm glad
+I remembered to save my poppet," Dolly sought to
+find some comfort. "She'd have been frightened,
+had we left her alone."</p>
+
+<p>So Dolly dropped off to sleep in Miles's arms,
+and, lulled by the drip of the rain, he, too, dozed a
+time, and awoke very chilly and stiff. The branches
+above him stirred in a gusty wind, and in the mottled
+sky he could see some faint stars. He crawled out
+from the thicket and, as he stood up in the freer air,
+caught the smell of brine in the breeze, and saw that,
+in the quarter of the heavens whence it came, the
+night was paling. "'Tis eastward yonder and the
+sea," he cried, delighted to find, for all his wanderings,
+he was not hopelessly lost. "Come, Dolly,
+we'll walk to the shore."</p>
+
+<p>Over hills and through thickets they trudged
+bravely, in the exhilaration of knowing whither they
+were headed, and that the dreadful night was past.
+Slowly the darkness was waning; the sky faded from<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_213" id="Page_213">[213]</a></span>
+black to gray, and in the wet woods a bird piped
+dolefully. Presently a still more welcome sound
+reached the ears of the travellers,&mdash;a long, mournful
+sough as of breaking waters. "It's waves; we're
+near the shore," cried Miles, and added a feeble
+hurrah, whereat Trug, judging all well, leaped and
+barked.</p>
+
+<p>There was yet a wide stretch of bare uplands to
+cross, and the morning had broken in earnest before
+the children clambered down the low bluff to the
+sandy beach. The tide was out, and the brown
+rocks, like dead sea beasts, lay uncovered; but
+Miles and Dolly gave them little heed, for just
+then, right in their eyes, the sun burst forth in the
+east, and made a path of yellow ripples on the water.</p>
+
+<p>Forgetting her weariness, Dolly almost ran down
+the hard sand to the water's edge. "I thought
+maybe I could see Plymouth round that point on
+our left," she told Miles disappointedly. "We
+can walk thither, can we not, along the shore?"</p>
+
+<p>"We'll eat breakfast first," said Miles, who had
+found a great shell upon the sand. "I'll wade out
+and dig clams, while you fetch seaweed for the fire."</p>
+
+<p>He had not yet made up his mind about the return
+to the settlement; to be sure, he was very wet
+and hungry, but it did not rain every night, and with
+the thought of Plymouth came the dreadful vision
+of the public flogging. Besides, now it was daylight,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_214" id="Page_214">[214]</a></span>
+it was good to be his own man and get his own
+breakfast; so he paddled about bravely, and did
+not complain, for all the mud and water were cold
+and the clams few, and his back ached with stooping
+to dig them. A dozen were enough for two, he
+concluded, so when he had that number disposed
+securely in his doublet, which he had twisted into a
+bag, he splashed shoreward.</p>
+
+<div class="figright" style="width: 326px;">
+<img src="images/i_233.jpg" width="326" height="500" alt="little girl holding on to her brother, Indian in the distance" />
+<div class="caption">"'Oh, Miles, 'tis the savages come for us!'"</div>
+</div>
+
+<p>Dolly had patiently fetched a mass of slippery
+seaweed, and, while he drew on his shoes and stockings,
+she arranged stones with the clams on top, and
+the seaweed all about them.</p>
+
+<p>"And now I'll light the fire," Miles said soberly,
+as he rose up and stamped his feet in his wet shoes.
+Taking a smooth stone, he knelt over the seaweed,
+and, striking the stone with his whittle, sought to
+get a spark. But it seemed not a proper flint, for
+though he struck and struck, no spark came, and
+Dolly, cold and hungry, grew impatient, whereat
+Miles rebuked her sternly: "'Tis like a girl. I'm
+doing the best I can. Hush, will you, Dolly?"</p>
+
+<p>Then he forgot his petty wrangling, for, at a
+growl from Trug, he looked to the bluff, and there,
+between him and the safe inland forest, he saw a
+little group of people coming toward him. The
+look on his face made Dolly, who knelt opposite
+him, glance back over her shoulder. "Oh, Miles,"
+she gasped, "'tis the savages come for us!"</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_215" id="Page_215">[215]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Miles stood up and held Dolly close to him with
+one arm, while he grasped Trug's collar with the
+other hand. "They're all friendly, Dolly, all
+friendly," he repeated, and wondered that his voice
+was so dry and faint.</p>
+
+<p>A little up the sand the Indians stopped; several
+who kept to the rear were squaws, with hoes of
+clam-shell and baskets, but at the front were two
+warriors, who now came noiselessly down the beach.
+"Quiet, Trug," Miles said, stoutly as he could,
+and, as the savages drew near, greeted them boldly
+with the Indian salutation he had learnt of Squanto:
+"Cowompaum sin; good morrow to you."</p>
+
+<p>They halted close to him, though evidently a
+bit uncertain as to the snarling Trug; they spoke,
+but he could make out no word of their rapid
+utterance. "I'm a friend," he repeated, hopeless of
+getting any good of his little store of Indian words,
+almost too alarmed even to recall them. "I come
+from Plymouth,&mdash;" he pointed up the shore where
+the settlement lay,&mdash;"and I want to go back thither."</p>
+
+<p>He made a movement as if to start up the shore,
+when one of the Indians laid a hand on his arm and
+pointed southward. Miles shook his head, while
+dumb terror griped his heart; these were none of
+King Massasoit's friendly Indians, but people from
+the Cape, such as had fought the Englishmen in the
+winter. "Let me go home," he repeated unsteadily.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_216" id="Page_216">[216]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>But without heeding him one loosed his arm from
+about Dolly's waist. Thereat Trug, with his hair
+a-bristle, gathered himself to spring, and the other
+warrior gripped the club he carried in his hand.
+"You shan't kill my dog!" screamed Miles, seizing
+Trug's collar to hold him back; and at that the
+savage, taking Dolly from beside him, lifted her in
+his arms.</p>
+
+<p>The other Indian would have picked up Miles,
+but he dodged his hand, and, dragging Trug with
+him, ran up alongside the warrior who held Dolly.
+The little girl lay perfectly quiet, her eyes round
+with terror, and her lips trembling. "Don't be
+afraid, Dolly," quavered Miles, in what he tried to
+make a stout voice, "no matter where they take us.
+They shan't hurt you; Trug and I won't let them
+hurt you."</p>
+
+<hr class="chap" />
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_217" id="Page_217">[217]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+
+<h2>CHAPTER XVI<br />
+
+<small>THE HOUSE OF BONDAGE</small></h2>
+
+
+<div class='drop-cap'>IT does not become an Englishman to make a
+weak showing before unclad savages; so presently
+Miles swallowed the sob that was fighting
+a way up his throat, mastered the other shaky signs
+of his terror, and put his whole attention to keeping
+pace with his captors. They were now well in
+among the trees, where the undergrowth, after the
+Indian custom, had been thinned by fire, so between
+the great blackened trunks opened wide vistas, as in
+an English park.</div>
+
+<p>To Miles each open glade looked like every
+other one, but the Indians found amid the trees a
+distinct trail along which they hastened, single file,
+with the tall warrior who bore Dolly in the lead.
+Miles kept persistently at his heels, though the
+breath was short in his throat, and his whole body
+reeked with perspiration. The sun, all unobscured
+and yellow, was climbing steadily upward, and, by
+the fact that it shone on the left hand, he knew that
+they were going southward ever, southward into the
+hostile country.</p>
+
+<p>About mid-morning they descended a sandy<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_218" id="Page_218">[218]</a></span>
+slope, where pine trees grew, to a brook with a
+white bottom. Miles gathered his strength, and,
+making a little spurt ahead, flung himself down by
+the stream to drink; he felt cooler for the draught,
+but, when he dragged himself to his feet, he found
+that, after his little rest, his tired legs ached the
+more unbearably, so he made no objection when the
+Indian with the club, lifting him unceremoniously
+to his back, carried him dry-shod through the brook.</p>
+
+<p>Even on the other side, Miles made no struggle
+to get down; it would be useless, he judged, and
+then he was too worn out to tramp farther at such
+speed. He settled himself comfortably against his
+bearer's naked shoulders, and offered not half so
+much protest as Trug, who, trotting at the Indian's
+side, now and again looked to his master and whined
+anxiously.</p>
+
+<p>As soon as he was a bit rested, Miles began to
+take closer note of the country through which they
+were passing,&mdash;a country of spicy pine thickets
+and of white dust, that powdered beneath the feet
+of the Indians. From his lofty perch he could pluck
+tufts of glossy pine needles as they brushed under
+the lower branches of the trees, and, hungry as he
+was, he did not find them ill to chew. Presently
+he tried to converse with his Indian. "Tonokete
+naum?" he questioned. "Whither go you?"</p>
+
+<p>The savage answered in a pithy phrase, of which<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_219" id="Page_219">[219]</a></span>
+Miles made out only the word Ma-no-met. That,
+he had a vague remembrance of hearing the men say,
+was a place somewhere to the southward; but, at
+least, it was not Nauset, where the Indians who had
+fought the English lived. In quite a cheerful tone,
+Miles called out to Dolly their destination, and,
+with something of his former confidence, set himself
+to watch for the town; he could not help imagining
+it would be a row of log cabins in a clearing,
+just like Plymouth.</p>
+
+<p>But, for what to him seemed long hours, he saw
+no sign of a house, just the monotonous sheen of
+the pine trees where the sun struck upon them,
+and the dust that burst whitely through its sprinkling
+of pine needles. Now and again, through the
+branches, he caught the glimmer of sunny water,
+where some little pond lay; and once, when the
+trail led down into a hollow, sand gave place to
+the clogging mire of a bog, and the scrub pines
+yielded to cedars.</p>
+
+<p>The slope beyond, with its pines thickening in
+again, was like all the rest of the wood, so like that
+Miles had suffered his eyes to close against the
+weary glare and the hot dust, when a sudden note
+of shrill calling made him fling up his head. They
+were just breasting the ridge that had been before
+them, and the trees, dwindling down, gave a sight
+of what lay at the farther side.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_220" id="Page_220">[220]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Unbroken sunlight, Miles was first aware of,&mdash;sunlight
+dazzling from the hot sky, beating upward
+from blue water, glaring on green pines that spread
+away beyond; and then, as the dissonant calls that
+made his whole body quiver drew his eyes to the
+right, he saw in the stretch of meadow-land between
+the creek and the ridge a squalid group of unkempt
+bark wigwams. The smoke that curled upward
+from their cone-like summits seemed to waver in
+the heat, and for an instant Miles blinked stupidly
+at the smoke, because he dared not look lower
+where he must see the varied company of coppery
+people who were flocking noisily forth from their
+shelters.</p>
+
+<p>Of a sudden, as if starting from a bad dream, he
+writhed out of his captor's hold and dropped to his
+feet in the sand. The Indian's grasp tightened
+instantly on his arm; but in any case, whatever
+they meant to do to him, even to kill him, it was
+better to walk into Manomet than to be carried
+thither like a little child. Where there might be
+other lads, too, it went through Miles's head, even
+in the midst of his sick fear.</p>
+
+<p>Other boys there were, certainly, squaws and
+warriors too, all thronging jabbering round him, so
+that, with a poor hope that he at least might prove
+friendly, Miles clung tight to the hand of the Indian
+who had carried him. Wolfish yelp of dogs, shrill,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_221" id="Page_221">[221]</a></span>
+frightened cries of children, clatter of the curious
+squaws,&mdash;all deafened and bewildered him. Close
+about him he beheld crowding figures,&mdash;bare bodies
+that gleamed in the sunlight, swarthy, grim faces,
+eyes alert with curiosity,&mdash;and, overarching them
+all, the hot, blue sky that blinded him.</p>
+
+<p>Along with their Indian masters ran dogs, prick-eared,
+fox-like curs, one of which suddenly darted
+upon Trug. Above the chatter of the curious folk
+Miles heard the currish yelp, the answering snarl;
+but ere he could cry out or move, the old civilized
+mastiff caught the savage cur by the scruff, and,
+shaking the life out of his mangy body, flung him
+on the sand.</p>
+
+<p>Miles let go the Indian's hand, and cast himself
+upon his dog, while his mind rushed back to
+a dreadful day in England, when Trug had slain a
+farmer's tike, whose owner had threatened to brain
+"the curst brute"; people did not like to have your
+dog kill their dog, Miles remembered with terror;
+so, catching Trug by the collar, he buffeted his head,
+a punishment which the old fellow, with his tushes
+still gleaming, endured meekly.</p>
+
+<p>The Indians, who had been pressing round him,
+had shrunk back a little, Miles perceived, as he
+paused for breath; they could not be used to big
+mastiffs. "The dog will not worry you," he addressed
+the company in a propitiating voice. "That<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_222" id="Page_222">[222]</a></span>
+is, he won't worry you unless you harm Dolly and
+me."</p>
+
+<p>They could not understand his words, he realized,
+but they could understand gestures, so with a bold
+front he gripped Trug's collar, and urged the old
+dog, still grumbling, along with him. He walked
+bravely too, with his chin high and his neck stiff, for
+all there was a fluttering sensation up and down his
+legs. He was not afraid, he assured himself, while
+he pressed his hand upon Trug's warm neck for
+comfort, and fixed his eyes on the tall warrior striding
+before him who still bore Dolly.</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly Miles perceived the press about him to
+give way a little, and out from amidst the people an
+old man came gravely toward him. He was a tall
+old man, with a wrinkly face, and his dress was
+squalid and scanty as that of the others, but by the
+many beads of white bone that hung on his bare
+breast, Miles judged him to be the chief of Manomet,
+Canacum. So he made his most civil bow, though
+he could not keep his knees from trembling a bit;
+but he looked up courageously into the old Indian's
+face, and, as he did not speak first, at length politely
+bade him "Cowompaum sin."</p>
+
+<p>He could not understand&mdash;indeed, apprehensive
+as he was, he scarcely had the wit to try to
+understand&mdash;what was said to him in reply, but
+he knew the old man took him by the hand, so<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_223" id="Page_223">[223]</a></span>
+in tremulous obedience he went whither he was
+led.</p>
+
+<p>The blue sky was all blurred out, as he passed
+through the opening of one of the black wigwams;
+an intolerable smoky odor half choked him; and his
+eyes were blinded with the dimness all about him.
+But out of the dusk he heard Dolly call his name,
+and, stumbling toward the sound, he put his arms
+about his sister.</p>
+
+<p>As he grew more accustomed to the dim light,
+he saw the old Chief, squatting on a mat at the
+back of the wigwam, and saw the shadowy gesture
+that bade him sit beside him. Almost cheerfully,
+since he held Dolly's hand in his, Miles obeyed;
+and for the moment, as Trug stretched himself at
+his feet, and Dolly snuggled close to his side, felt
+secure and whispered his sister not to fear.</p>
+
+<p>There was no time to say more, for, amidst the
+confusion of folk that crowded the dusky wigwam,
+he now made out two squaws, who drew near, and,
+with their curious eyes fixed on him, set before him
+food&mdash;a kind of bread of the pounded maize and
+ears of young corn roasted.</p>
+
+<p>It did not need the Chief's gesture to bid Miles
+fall to; he might be more than a little frightened,
+but he was also very hungry, for it was near eight-and-forty
+hours since he had tasted heartier food
+than raspberries. He now ate with such good will<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_224" id="Page_224">[224]</a></span>
+that nothing was left of the victuals but the corn-cobs,
+and he persuaded Dolly to eat too, though it
+was hard work to coax the child to lift her head from
+his shoulder. "I do not like to look on the Indians,"
+she murmured tearfully, between two hungry
+mouthfuls of corn. "I would they did not so stare
+at us."</p>
+
+<p>They were not over-civil, Miles thought, though,
+after all, they scarcely stared at their white guests
+more rudely than Miles himself had gazed at Massasoit,
+when the latter visited Plymouth. He might
+not have minded their staring, if there had not been
+so many of them,&mdash;squatting and lying all through
+the wigwam, on the floor, or on the mats, or on a
+broad, shelf-like couch which ran all about the
+lodge,&mdash;and if the bolder ones had not been curious
+to feel of his shirt,&mdash;his doublet was left behind
+on the beach where he had taken the clams,&mdash;and
+of his shoes, and of Dolly's gown, though no
+one cared to put a hand upon the bristling and
+growling Trug.</p>
+
+<p>They chattered a wearisome deal too, till Miles's
+head ached with the clamor, the squaws very shrilly,
+and the men in guttural tones; the old Chief seemed
+to be questioning the Indians who had found the
+children on the beach, but presently he turned and
+addressed Miles.</p>
+
+<p>The boy fixed his eyes on the speaker's face and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_225" id="Page_225">[225]</a></span>
+tried to understand, but, while all things about him
+were so strange and ominous, it was hard to keep
+his thoughts on the hasty sounds. He did make
+out that the Chief asked him whence he came, and,
+answering "Patuxet," he pointed whither he judged
+the Plymouth plantation lay. "I should like to go
+back thither," he suggested, and endeavored, with
+signs and his few poor words of the Indian language,
+to explain that, if they took Dolly to the
+settlement, the people would give them knives and
+beads. He started to make the same arrangement
+for himself, but he judged it useless; he doubted if
+Master Hopkins would think him worth buying
+back.</p>
+
+<p>But, even in Dolly's case, no one made a movement
+to grant Miles's request, and though the old
+Chief spoke, for an Indian, at some length and in a
+civil tone, he did not mention Patuxet nor a return
+thither. Miles swallowed down a lump in his throat,
+and said bravely to Dolly that he guessed they'd
+have to spend the night with the savages, but they
+seemed kindly intentioned.</p>
+
+<p>Through the low opening that formed the door
+of the wigwam he could see now that a long, gray
+shadow from the pine ridge lay upon the trodden
+sand; the afternoon must be wearing to a close.
+Moment by moment he watched the shadow stretch
+itself out, till all was shadow and a thicker dimness<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_226" id="Page_226">[226]</a></span>
+filled the wigwam, and on the bit of sky, which
+he could see through the smoke-hole in the roof,
+brooded a purplish shade. It was evening in
+earnest, and it should be supper time, Miles told
+Dolly; but Dolly, resting half-asleep against his
+arm, made no answer.</p>
+
+<p>Miles himself, for all his apprehensions, was
+heavy with the weariness of the last two days, so,
+whatever the morrow might have in store, he was
+glad when, one by one, the Indians slipped away
+like shadows, and he judged it bedtime. He and
+his sister were to sleep on the couch-like structure
+by the wall, he interpreted the Chief's gestures, so
+willingly he bade Dolly and Trug lie down; then
+stretched himself beside them. A comfortable resting
+place it was, very springy and soft with skins;
+but, ere Miles could reassure Dolly and settle himself
+for the night, Trug began to growl, and the
+great couch to groan, as what seemed an endless
+family of Indians cast themselves down alongside
+them.</p>
+
+<p>"I&mdash;I wish I were home in my own bed,"
+Dolly protested, with a stifled sob.</p>
+
+<p>Miles hushed her, in some alarm lest the savages
+might not approve of people who cried; but his
+Indian bedfellows never heeded Dolly's tears, for
+they were lulling themselves to sleep by singing in
+a high, monotonous strain that drowned every<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_227" id="Page_227">[227]</a></span>
+other noise. After the little girl was quieted, they
+still droned on, and, when they were at last silent,
+there sounded the notes of swarms of mosquitoes
+that tortured Miles, for all he was so tired, into
+semi-wakefulness.</p>
+
+<p>A snatch of feverish slumber once and again,
+and then, of a sudden, he was aware of the round
+moon peering in at him through the smoke-hole.
+That same light would now be whitening the quiet
+fields of Plymouth, and slipping through the little
+windows across the clean floor of Master Hopkins's
+living room; Miles remembered just how the patch
+of light rested on the wall of his own chamber.</p>
+
+<p>He sat up on his comfortless bed and hid his
+face against his knee. "I wish I hadn't run away;
+I wish I were home&mdash;were home," he groaned aloud.
+But, save for the heavy snoring of the Chief of
+Manomet and his warriors, he got no answer.</p>
+
+<hr class="chap" />
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_228" id="Page_228">[228]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+
+<h2>CHAPTER XVII<br />
+
+<small>HOW THEY KEPT THE SABBATH</small></h2>
+
+
+<div class='drop-cap'>A LITTLE daylight works a mighty change
+in the look of things. When in the morning
+Miles rose at length from the stupor of
+sleep into which he had fallen, the sky was clouded
+filmily to westward, but in the east, above the pines,
+hung a yellow sun. The river that curved through
+the meadow was half bright with the stroke of the
+sun, and, where the trees of the opposite bank grew
+low, half a lucid green; the strip of sandy beach
+shone white, and the coarse herbage of the level
+space all was gleaming.</div>
+
+<p>Miles looked forth from the doorway of Chief
+Canacum's wigwam, and, sniffing the breeze with the
+tang of brine in it, decided that, after all, Manomet
+might prove a pleasant place in which to spend a
+day. He said as much to Dolly, but she held her
+poppet closer and shook her head. "There were
+fleas in that bed," she answered sorrowfully. "Let's
+go home now, Miles."</p>
+
+<p>An easy thing to say, but to do it would have
+puzzled an older head than Miles's, for not only<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_229" id="Page_229">[229]</a></span>
+did leagues of forest stretch between him and the
+English settlement, but, even had he known the
+direct road to Plymouth, there was no chance to
+follow it, since, wherever he turned, the watchful
+eyes of the savages were upon him.</p>
+
+<p>Now the first novelty had worn off, the warriors
+limited themselves to staring at their visitors as they
+sauntered through the camp, but the squaws and
+children still wished to press close, and feel their
+clothes and touch their hands. However, no one
+meant to harm him, Miles decided, though he only
+half realized how awe of their white faces and strange
+garments and of their great, ugly dog was protecting
+him and his sister; and, having once concluded
+he was to be left unhurt, he took pleasure in being
+a centre of interest; it was his first experience of
+this sort in all his much-snubbed life.</p>
+
+<p>So, though Dolly would scarce look on the dark
+people about them, Miles sought presently to talk
+to them, just as he tried to talk to the Indians who
+came to Plymouth. So well did he impress it upon
+them that he wanted his breakfast, that one of the
+squaws, who had bright eyes, though her face was
+very dirty, led the children into her wigwam, where
+she brought them food,&mdash;roasted crab fish and
+bread. Miles thanked her and ate, and bade Trug
+and Dolly eat too, while the little Indians and the
+squaws, squatting in the sand about the wigwam<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_230" id="Page_230">[230]</a></span>
+door, watched as if they had never before seen two
+hungry children.</p>
+
+<p>Presently, as he wished to divide a morsel with
+Dolly, Miles drew out his whittle, whereat the onlookers
+crowded closer to gaze. Miles showed them
+his knife, though he took care not to let it go out
+of his hands, and he exhibited the other treasures
+he carried in his breeches pockets,&mdash;several nails,
+a button or two, some beads, and an English farthing
+piece. Indians always looked for presents, he
+knew, so, before he went out of the wigwam, he gave
+a button to the squaw who had fed him.</p>
+
+<p>With his Indian followers eying him the more
+admiringly, he now went journeying through the
+warm sand, past the dingy bark houses, to the farther
+verge of the camp, where, beyond a lusty patch
+of rank weeds, the corn-field of the savages shimmered
+in the heat. The tillage of the Indians
+seemed to him of an untidy sort; they had cleared
+away the trees with fire, never troubling to dig up
+the roots, so blackened stumps dotted the field, and
+here and there lay the greater bulk of a charred and
+fallen trunk. In between, the green corn straggled
+up, and several squaws were tending it with hoes
+made of great clam-shells. They cast aside their
+tools to stare on Miles and Dolly, but Miles stared
+in return only a short space; he had seen corn-fields
+before.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_231" id="Page_231">[231]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Only to think, Dolly," he burst out, as he
+turned his back on the hoers, "there's no one to
+bid me weed or fetch water or aught else that displeases
+me. After all, 'tis a merry life the Indians
+lead; I'm willing to dwell here with them."</p>
+
+<p>"<i>I</i> do not wish to be a dirty Indian," Dolly answered
+decidedly, but in a whisper, as if she thought
+these attentive people must be able to understand
+her words. "Do you not think the men from
+Plymouth will come to seek us soon and take us
+home?"</p>
+
+<p>"I do not want them to come," Miles replied
+calmly. "Maybe they would hang me for that
+Ned fought in the duel, and surely they would beat
+me for running away. I shall have to stay here
+always," he added cheerfully.</p>
+
+<p>At this Dolly's lips quivered, but Miles, intent
+now on an Indian lad with a little bow in his hand,
+who had just come near, gave his sister no heed.
+"I'm minded to ask that boy to let me play with
+his bow," he spoke out, as they arrived once more
+within the lee of Chief Canacum's wigwam. "You
+sit here, and Trug shall watch you."</p>
+
+<p>A protest or two from Dolly, after the unreasonable
+fashion of women-folk, but Miles, leaving her
+seated on the sand, walked away to the coppery lad
+he had singled out. For a time the two boys stared
+at each other gravely, then Miles, smiling affably,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_232" id="Page_232">[232]</a></span>
+touched the bow, saying, "Cossaquot? Nenmia,"
+till presently the other yielded it into his hands.</p>
+
+<p>Then they strolled away, with several other beady-eyed
+youngsters, into the weeds on the outskirts of
+the camp, where Miles tried his skill at shooting.
+Though in England he had often handled a bow,
+here the best showing he could make set the little
+Indians laughing; and when the owner of the bow,
+taking it from him, shot an arrow and fetched down
+a pine cone from a tree many feet distant, Miles understood
+their merriment at his awkwardness.</p>
+
+<p>But then he stepped up to a young sumach, and,
+pulling out his whittle, hacked off a small branch in
+a manner to make his new friends marvel; so, each
+party respectful of the other's arts, they were speedily
+on a sound enough footing to race away together
+to the river bank.</p>
+
+<p>On the shore, half in water and half on land, lay
+three Indian boats, light, tricky things, all built of
+birch bark. Miles had never seen such craft, so he
+set to examining them, but his new comrades splashed
+into the water. On the sunny beach it was hot, but
+across the stream, whither they swam, the trees that
+pressed close to the margin darkened the shallows
+with a deep green, so cool and tempting that Miles,
+dusty with travel, longed to bathe in it too.</p>
+
+<p>In the end he flung off his clothes, and prepared
+to join in the splashing, when his Indian acquaintances<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_233" id="Page_233">[233]</a></span>
+paddled shoreward to study his garments.
+Miles suffered the youngster who had lent him the
+bow to try on his shoes, whereat all grew so clamorous
+he feared a little lest his wardrobe disappear
+among them, for he remembered how Thievish Harbor
+took its first name from the pilfering habits of
+the Indians. Fortunately Trug, forsaking Dolly,
+arrived just then, and when he stretched his great
+bulk on his master's clothes, none cared to disturb
+them.</p>
+
+<p>With his mind set at rest, Miles plunged into the
+tepid water, where he frolicked about with his new
+comrades, who swam like dogs, paw over paw, and
+dived in a way that bewildered him. But speedily
+he was doing his share in the ducking and splashing
+and whooping, till, before he knew it, the afternoon
+was half spent, and his shoulders smarted with the
+burning of the sun.</p>
+
+<p>The little Indians followed him, when he spattered
+out of the river, and, with no more than a
+shaking of their ears, like puppies, were ready to run
+about, but Miles, as a penalty of civilization, had to
+stay to drag on his clothes. He felt chilly now, he
+found, and hungry too, and he guessed he and Trug
+were best go seek Dolly.</p>
+
+<p>But when he came into the lee of Chief Canacum's
+wigwam, he saw there just scuffled, empty sand, so,
+with a big fright laying hold on him, he ran out into<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_234" id="Page_234">[234]</a></span>
+the straggling street and called his sister's name
+aloud. Just then Trug's bark told him all was
+well, and, hastening after the dog, he found, in the
+shade of a distant wigwam, a squaw weaving a mat
+of flags, some children sprawling, and Dolly herself,
+who was eating raspberries from a birch bark basket.
+"Why did you run away and frighten me?" Miles
+demanded crossly, as he flung himself on the ground
+beside her.</p>
+
+<p>"I may go away and make friends as well as
+thou," Dolly answered loftily. "But you shall
+have some of my berries, Miles. They fetched me
+them, and I can eat these&mdash;" her voice sank&mdash;"because
+they must be clean. But their other victuals
+are not, I know. I watched, and the women do
+never wash their kettles."</p>
+
+<p>Miles had no such scruples of cleanliness, so
+when, some two hours later, he scented the odor
+of cooking, he rose eagerly and, thinking on supper,
+sought Canacum's wigwam. There were four
+dark boats upon the white beach now, he saw, so
+he judged that a fishing party had come in.</p>
+
+<p>When he passed through the low door into the
+wigwam, he found a fire alight and a great pot of
+clay hung on small sticks that were laid over it.
+Into the pot the drudging squaws were putting fresh
+fish, and acorns, and the meat of squirrels, and
+kernels of corn, and whatever else they had of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_235" id="Page_235">[235]</a></span>
+edibles,&mdash;"a loathsome mash," Dolly whispered
+Miles, but he was so hungry that it did not take
+away his appetite.</p>
+
+<p>So soon as the broth was done, near half the village
+squatted round the pot, the men in an inner
+circle, while on the outskirts, eager for any morsel
+their masters might fling to them, waited the poor
+squaws. But Dolly, because she was a little white
+squaw, was suffered to sit down with her brother beside
+the old Chief, who scooped up pieces of the fish
+and hot broth in a wooden bowl and gave it to Miles.</p>
+
+<p>Dolly looked askance at the food, but Miles and
+Trug ate ravenously; neither his queer table mates
+nor their queer table manners troubled the boy,
+since he himself was licking his fingers and wiping
+them on Trug's fur contentedly. "I like to eat
+with my fingers," he chattered to his venerable
+host. "At home they make me to eat tidily with
+a napkin, but I like it better thus."</p>
+
+<p>But, even at his hungriest, he could not match
+the Indians in trencher work; for, long after Miles
+had done eating and lain back against Trug, the
+savages still champed on, till nothing but scattered
+bones was left of the fare. By then the sun was
+quite down, so the lodge was black, save for the
+flashes of the sinking fire. Out-of-doors an owl
+hooted, and speedily the Indian guests withdrew to
+their own lodges, and the Chief's household went<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_236" id="Page_236">[236]</a></span>
+to their common bed. Little comfort did Miles
+and his two companions find there, for the singing
+Indians and the mosquitoes pestered them as on
+the preceding night.</p>
+
+<p>"I'll not endure this a third time," Miles fretted,
+when he awoke in the chilly morning. "Look
+you, Dolly, why should I not build us a little wigwam?
+I make no doubt they'll suffer us go sleep
+there by ourselves."</p>
+
+<p>Full of this new plan, he bustled forth from the
+wigwam, but outside the doorway halted in surprise.
+He could see no river nor more than the tips of the
+pines for a thick white fog that drifted through
+the village and struck rawly to his very marrow.
+For a moment he had a mind to slip back to
+Dolly in the close wigwam, but, spying his Indian
+allies, he kept to his first manly resolve and began
+chatting to them of his intentions. Though they
+could understand nothing of his talk, they came with
+him readily, through the clammy fog, out beyond
+the camp, where the sand, sloping up to the pine
+ridge, offered, as Miles remembered, a good location
+for a wigwam.</p>
+
+<p>The Indian houses, so far as he could judge, were
+built by bending over young saplings and securing
+both ends in the ground, then covering the frame
+with mats or great pieces of bark. Miles decided
+that poles, bound together at the top, would serve<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_237" id="Page_237">[237]</a></span>
+him as well, so he went to cut them in a growth of
+young oaks at some distance from the camp. The
+trees, all laden with fog moisture, drenched him as
+he worked, and the task took him a long time with
+his small whittle,&mdash;would have taken him longer,
+had not the Indian boys helped him to break the
+poles.</p>
+
+<p>They were all intent on his proceedings, and,
+when he returned to the site he had chosen, settled
+themselves in the sand to watch him, an action
+which pleased him little. For, when he stuck his
+poles into the sand, at the circumference of a rough
+circle, and bent them all together at the top, the
+ends that were thrust into the sand would fly up,
+and 'twas annoying to have other people see his
+failure. It took him some minutes to make all
+secure, and by then he was so breathless and tired
+that he was glad to run tell Dolly of his progress,
+and, at the same time, rest a bit.</p>
+
+<p>Spite of the fog, he found his sister had come out
+from the choking atmosphere of the wigwam. She
+was sitting a little up the pine ridge, behind the
+lodges, on a fallen tree trunk that was all a-drip;
+the sand, too, Miles noted, when he lay down at her
+feet, was damp and sticky to the touch.</p>
+
+<p>"They have left us alone, haven't they, Dolly?"
+he said in some surprise, as he glanced about him
+and saw no Indians near. "But Trug, he has not<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_238" id="Page_238">[238]</a></span>
+followed; very like they think we'll not run away
+and leave him behind." Then he perceived that
+his sister's arms were empty. "Where's the old
+red poppet?" he cried.</p>
+
+<p>"My poppet Priscilla," Dolly replied seriously.
+"I did put her away carefully. For 'tis the Sabbath
+to-day, Miles."</p>
+
+<p>"Is it?" the boy questioned, with some misgivings.
+"I'd lost count of the days. Why, I have
+been cutting poles and begun my wigwam&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Then you are a Sabbath-breaker," Dolly said
+relentlessly. "If you be so wicked, I doubt if ever
+God let us go back to Plymouth. And I've been
+praying Him earnestly. Miles, have you said your
+prayers o' nights?"</p>
+
+<p>"N&mdash;no," the boy faltered, "last night I forgot
+'em, and night before I was weary."</p>
+
+<p>"Come, we'll say them now," Dolly announced,
+and fell on her knees in the wet sand.</p>
+
+<p>Miles obediently knelt beside her; his father
+had looked somewhat askance at this practice, but
+Miles's mother had first taught the children to say
+their evening prayer on their knees, and, for her
+sake, the boy held obstinately to that usage.</p>
+
+<p>The thought of her came clearly to him now, and
+how she had bidden him be good to Dolly, so, when
+he had prayed "Our Father," he added an extemporaneous
+appeal, that the English folk might soon<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_239" id="Page_239">[239]</a></span>
+come in search of them. "Not for my sake, O
+Lord," he explained carefully, "but Thou knowest
+Dolly is but a wench and were better at Plymouth,
+perhaps. And, O Lord, I'd near be willing to go
+thither myself, if Thou wouldst put it in their
+minds not to flog me."</p>
+
+<p>Indeed, as he prayed, his heart grew very tender
+toward the tiny settlement; he would have liked
+well to open his eyes and see the sandy street of
+the little village stretching away up the hillside, the
+ordered cottages, the grave men about their tasks,
+even Master Hopkins&mdash;perhaps.</p>
+
+<p>Rather subdued, he set himself by Dolly on the
+wet log. "Now I'll tell you somewhat out of the
+Bible, since there is no one to preach us a discourse,"
+he said, and set forth to her what he remembered
+of the last portion of the Scriptures
+which Master Hopkins had made him read. It
+was all about how Moses let loose the plagues upon
+the wicked king of Egypt, flies and boils and frogs,&mdash;Miles
+was not quite sure of the order of events,
+but he detailed them with much gusto.</p>
+
+<p>"I do not think there is a great deal of doctrine
+therein," Dolly commented, with a mournful shake
+of the head. "Elder Brewster, he did not discourse
+thus; and Mistress Brewster and Priscilla and the
+boys will have bread for dinner to-day, and maybe
+butter, and lobster, and, if I were home, I should<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_240" id="Page_240">[240]</a></span>
+sleep in my own bed with Priscilla, and put on a
+clean gown in the morning. I wish I were home
+now."</p>
+
+<p>Miles squeezed Dolly's fingers, and sat staring
+away from her into the fleecy fog that still shivered
+through the camp. So intent was he on gulping
+down his home-sickness that he started in surprise
+when a hand was laid on his shoulder, and he looked
+up into the face of one of Canacum's warriors.</p>
+
+<p>He was to come to the Chief's wigwam, he interpreted
+the Indian's signs, so he rose and, leading
+Dolly, followed his guide down the sandy slope.
+"Maybe 'tis that they have meetings too on the
+Sabbath," Dolly whispered him.</p>
+
+<p>Inside the lodge, where a fire smoked, many
+warriors were gathered, true enough, but no one
+preached to them. Instead all puffed at their
+pipes and, with long pauses, spoke together, till
+Miles, sitting with Dolly by the Chief, grew weary.
+Understanding nothing of their talk, he thought on
+his new wigwam and scarcely heeded them, till a
+warrior, whom he had a vague idea he had not seen
+before about the camp, rose up and, coming to him,
+lifted him to his feet.</p>
+
+<p>"What will you do?" Miles cried, with a quick
+pang of fright as he found his arm fast in the other's
+grip. "Are we to go with you?" And then, with
+a sudden, overwhelming hope, "To Patuxet?"</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_241" id="Page_241">[241]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Nauset," grunted the imperturbable Chief.</p>
+
+<p>"They set upon the English there!" gasped
+Miles. "I will not go, I will not!"</p>
+
+<p>After that, all passed so quickly he remembered
+nothing clearly, just the confusion of bronzed figures
+in the smoky lodge, the choking odor of the
+fire, the sight of Dolly's blanched face, as one of
+the Indians drew her back from him. He had a
+scattered remembrance of crying out that they
+should not dare take his sister from him, Captain
+Standish would punish them for it; and then of
+a helpless, childish struggle, wherein he kicked
+and struck unavailingly at the savage who held
+him.</p>
+
+<p>The chill fog stung against his face, as he was
+dragged forth from the wigwam. He seemed to
+come to his senses again, and, ceasing to struggle,
+called over his shoulder to Dolly not to be afraid,
+no one would dare hurt her. Something pressed
+feebly against his knees, and he looked down at
+Trug, with a broken thong hanging at his neck
+and his head bleeding. He caught the old dog by
+the collar. "Go in unto Dolly, sirrah," he bade
+in his sternest voice. "And guard her, guard
+her!"</p>
+
+<p>He had a last glimpse of his sister, crouching in
+the door of the wigwam, with her arms clasped
+close about the mastiff's neck and her frightened<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_242" id="Page_242">[242]</a></span>
+eyes fixed on him. Then the grasp on his wrist
+tightened, and stumblingly he followed along with
+his new captors, past the dripping wigwams with
+their staring people, past his own unfinished lodge,
+and into the chill silence of the moist woods.</p>
+
+<hr class="chap" />
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_243" id="Page_243">[243]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+
+<h2>CHAPTER XVIII<br />
+
+<small>AT NAUSET VILLAGE</small></h2>
+
+
+<div class='drop-cap'>EASTWARD of Nauset, unchecked by headlands,
+as was Plymouth Harbor, but sweeping
+away into the very sky line, lay the
+ocean. The tide was now rolling in; far out at sea
+the water all was ridged, and, as the waves pressed
+shoreward, their crests, heaving up, burst into white
+foam. With each inward swell the water crept
+nearer, till now it reached the bare rock where Miles
+Rigdale, his knees level with his chin and his arms
+cast round them, was perched.</div>
+
+<p>Overhead, Miles knew the sky was bright, and
+the dazzle of the water was ever present to his eyes.
+He strove to think on naught but the barren glare
+before him, yet beneath, in his heart, he was conscious
+all the time of an aching weight of misery
+and sick fear. For this was Nauset; he had but to
+turn his head, and, far up the sandy beach, where
+the storm-swept pines began, he could see the
+cluster of wigwams, and, nearer, squatting upon the
+shore, the stolid Indian folk who had dogged him
+thither.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_244" id="Page_244">[244]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Only that morning he had reached Nauset.
+There had been more than four and twenty hours
+of journeying, through unknown villages, and by
+sea in a frail bark canoe, the pitching of which,
+under the stroke of the waves, had frightened him
+sorely. All, indeed, had been fright and confusion
+and the wearying effort to hide his terror. For the
+Indians of Manomet doubtless would beat Trug
+over the head again till he was dead, and they would
+send Dolly far away, as they had sent him, perhaps
+do worse. Miles buried his face against his knees,
+and bit his lips hard.</p>
+
+<p>Of a sudden, he was lifted bodily from the rock
+where he sat. The white water eddied all round it,
+he noted, and the warrior who held him had stepped
+through it to fetch him ashore. For a moment
+after he was set upon his feet, he stood staring out
+upon the dazzling sea, then turned and passed
+slowly up the sand, through a patch of sparse beach
+grass, to the village.</p>
+
+<p>Slowly though he loitered, he came at last to the
+sunny cluster of wigwams; in their scant shadow the
+men&mdash;the warriors of Nauset, and those who had
+fetched Miles hither&mdash;lay smoking, and, liking
+their surly looks little, he stepped presently into the
+Chief's great wigwam, where the squaws were cooking.</p>
+
+<p>He was hungry, for he had not eaten since last
+evening, so he stood waiting and watching the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_245" id="Page_245">[245]</a></span>
+women, though he no longer sought to talk to
+them. For they did not show a friendly curiosity,
+such as the squaws at Manomet had shown, but
+rather scowled upon him, as if they already knew
+enough of white folk. It was from this place that
+the trader Hunt, who stole Squanto, had kidnapped
+seven Indians, and it was here&mdash;Miles remembered
+only too clearly every scrap of his elders'
+tales&mdash;that only the last summer, in revenge for
+Hunt's dealings, three Englishmen trading thither
+had been slain.</p>
+
+<p>So the heart within him was heavy indeed, when
+at length he set himself down amongst the warriors
+at the noon meal. His place was next the chief of
+the village, whom men called Aspinet, just as it
+had been at every village where he had sat to eat,
+but this chieftain was not friendly, as the others
+had seemed. What few gutturals he uttered were
+directed to his warriors, not to Miles, nor did he
+offer to give the boy food.</p>
+
+<p>Of necessity, Miles imitated the others by thrusting
+his hands into the kettle and laying hold on the
+great claw of a lobster; it was so hot it burned his
+fingers sharply, but, mindful that he was watched,
+he held it fast till he could lay it on the trampled
+sand at his side. His fingers smarted, and he
+dared not raise his eyes from the lobster, lest the
+tears of pain that were gathering in them be seen.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_246" id="Page_246">[246]</a></span>
+Fumblingly he drew forth his whittle and was making
+a clumsy effort to dig the meat from the shell,
+when a dusky hand suddenly closed on his wrist,
+and the whittle was wrenched from his grasp.</p>
+
+<p>For one nightmare-like instant the world seemed
+struck from under him; then Miles was aware of
+the reality of the smoky walls of the wigwam and
+of those grim-faced savages who sat round him.
+He stood up slowly, with his knees a-tremble, but
+he thrust out his hand bravely, and, in a stout voice,
+spoke to Chief Aspinet: "That whittle is mine.
+Give it back to me."</p>
+
+<p>A moment he stood fronting the Chief and his
+warriors, then, with a sudden feeling that for sheer
+alarm he would presently burst out crying, he turned
+and walked slowly from the circle of the feasters.
+"I shall not eat of your food nor come into your
+house till you give back my whittle," he flung over
+his shoulder in a quavering voice.</p>
+
+<p>With that he passed out at the doorway and set
+himself down cross-legged in the deep sand in the
+lee of the wigwam. The sun of early afternoon
+poured scorchingly upon him, and the sand, as he
+sifted it between his fingers, was warm. Out above
+the ocean he could see a great white gull that flashed
+in the strong light.</p>
+
+<p>A little shadow from the wigwam fell upon him,
+and bit by bit broadened, while he stupidly watched<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_247" id="Page_247">[247]</a></span>
+the strip of dark advance across the white sand. It
+must be mid-afternoon, he reasoned out, when the
+warriors, crammed with food, sauntered from the
+wigwam, and several came leisurely to squat in
+the shade close by him.</p>
+
+<p>Among them was Aspinet himself, Miles's whittle
+thrust defiantly in his leathern girdle, and the sight
+of that braced the boy's resolution in soldierly fashion;
+he must not seem afraid or willing to bear an
+affront from a savage, he knew. So, with a steady
+face, he addressed the Chief again, seeking this time
+to find the Indian words: "When your people come
+to us at Patuxet we do not rob them. And you
+were best not rob me, else Captain Standish will
+burn your wigwams."</p>
+
+<p>For an instant the Chief puffed slowly at his
+tobacco pipe, and impassively eyed Miles's face;
+then he spoke, with some broken words of English
+and his native words so slowly uttered that Miles
+could half comprehend the import of his speech:
+"We do not fear the coat-men. Thus did we to
+them. There was a ship broken by a storm. They
+saved most of their goods and hid it in the ground.
+We made them tell us where it was. Then we
+made them our servants. They wept much when
+we parted them. We gave them such meat as our
+dogs eat. We took away their clothes. They lived
+but a little while."</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_248" id="Page_248">[248]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Miles's eyes were wide and his lips parted with
+frank horror; only for a moment, then he recalled
+the hint of such a happening that had drifted to
+Plymouth, and the very reiteration of the story
+made it a little less shocking. "That was a French
+ship, and they are a different race from us," he said
+slowly. "An Englishman would not 'a' wept for
+you. And <i>I</i> shall not." He drove his hands hard
+into the sand and blinked fast; the rough dirt hurt
+his burnt fingers, and he did not doubt the English
+folk, even the Captain, were so glad to be rid of
+him that they would leave him there forever, to
+the mercies of Chief Aspinet.</p>
+
+<p>Squalid though the Indian wigwams were, he was
+faintly glad when the shadows had so lengthened
+on the land and so darkened the sky and sea that
+it was time to go to rest, for at least the blackness
+would screen his face from the peering eyes of his
+captors. It was to Aspinet's wigwam they led him,
+but the courage to refuse the Chief's dubious hospitality
+no longer endured in Miles; he would forgive
+their taking his knife, if they did not use him
+as they had used the luckless French sailors.</p>
+
+<p>Obediently he snuggled down in one corner of
+the bed that ran round the wigwam, crowded and
+comfortless as was his bed at Manomet, but here
+neither Trug nor Dolly lay beside him. The
+sound of the sea, too, was strange; out-of-doors he<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_249" id="Page_249">[249]</a></span>
+could hear it,&mdash;the slow crash of the incoming tide
+that grew fainter and fainter.</p>
+
+<p>Dolly and Trug, taken from him, he knew not
+to what, and the safe little town of Plymouth
+whence he had fled,&mdash;all were present to him. He
+thought that he and Dolly, with the old dog beside
+them, were trudging up the path from the landing,
+only there were trees all along the path, like the
+limes along the church lane at home in England,
+and the houses were not log cabins, but English
+cottages. He knocked at the door of Stephen
+Hopkins's house, and at the same time it was the
+English farmhouse where his father had dwelt, and,
+when they opened the door to him, it was his
+mother who, coming across the hall, took him in
+her arms and drew him in.</p>
+
+<p>The blackness of the wigwam and the heavy
+breathing of the savages came once more to his
+consciousness. He dragged himself wearily up on
+one elbow. Through the opening in the side of the
+wigwam he saw the sky quite dark, and he heard
+the receding swash of the ebbing tide. Yonder
+was the ocean, and a few miles westward lay Cape
+Cod Bay, and across it snug Plymouth. If he only
+walked along the shore, followed the coast line, he
+would come home.</p>
+
+<p>There was no plan, scarce any hope in him, only
+he knew the English had forgotten him, and he<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_250" id="Page_250">[250]</a></span>
+could not endure it longer with a stolid face among
+the Indians. Almost ere he thought it out, yet with
+instinctive precaution, he slipped off the bed, and,
+holding his breath, crouched listening on the floor.</p>
+
+<p>Slowly and carefully, with the trodden dirt firm
+beneath his hands, he writhed his way to the door-opening.
+The morning air struck coldly on his
+cheeks, so that for an instant he shrank back, but
+there was in it something free that emboldened him
+to press on.</p>
+
+<p>Out through the door into the chilly morning,
+which to his more accustomed eyes seemed so pale,
+he felt detection was certain. But no cry alarmed
+him, no motion betrayed him. The soft sand deadened
+every sound, as he crept through it, hands and
+knees. The debris of twigs, higher up at the verge
+of the pine woods, pressed cruelly against his palms,
+but, for all the pain, he still crawled on, till darkness
+thickened about him, and above him the pine
+branches stirred.</p>
+
+<p>Springing to his feet, Miles ran forward, fast as
+two frightened legs could bear him. Brambles that
+plucked at his tattered sleeves made him halt, with
+heart a-jump; tougher young shoots near tripped
+him; but pantingly he held on his way. Through
+the branches he could catch a glimpse of the dull
+sky and one very bright star that he judged shone
+in the west, so he headed toward it.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_251" id="Page_251">[251]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Little by little the star faded from before his eyes,
+and the sky lightened, whereat Miles ran the faster.
+A swamp, thick with juniper, barred his course, and
+fearfully he turned southward to pick his way about
+it. When once more he turned westward, the sky
+was pale as lead, and the birds were beginning to sing.
+But though the coming of dawn might well alarm
+him, he did not heed it now, as, through the trees
+before him, he caught the pounding note of waves,
+and, a little later, broke forth upon a broad expanse
+of meadow, beyond which rumbled the great sea.</p>
+
+<p>Yonder, very far to west, lay Plymouth, Miles
+told himself, and, with a foolish happiness springing
+in his heart, he stumbled briskly along through
+the sparse growth at the edge of the wood. The
+morning light now was sprinkling the sea on his
+right hand, and the sky was changing from lead-color
+to clear blue. Out from the forest a brook,
+all awake with the dawning, came gurgling, so Miles
+stopped to drink, and tarried to empty the sand
+from his shoes; he guessed he must have run
+leagues, for he was very tired.</p>
+
+<p>But up he got and tramped on pluckily at his
+stoutest pace, through the coarse grass of a great
+salt marsh, where the new-risen sun struck hot
+upon him. At the verge of the marsh an arm of
+the sea reached into the land, so Miles had no
+course but to wade in, shoes and all. The water<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_252" id="Page_252">[252]</a></span>
+was cold as the sun before had been hot. He
+clambered forth on the far side all a-shiver and, with
+his head bent, began to run for warmth's sake, across
+another bit of marsh and up a little wooded slope of
+sand. Headlong he plunged down the opposite slope,
+and there, in the hollow, by a brookside, unmoved
+as the pine trees themselves, stood two of the Nauset
+Indians.</p>
+
+<p>He trudged back to the camp with them,&mdash;there
+was no other way. One of them, when they came
+up to him, as he stood numb with the surprise, uncertain
+whether to run or front them boldly, struck
+him a buffet in the face, but the other, catching his
+arm, muttered something that made him desist. So
+Miles stole round and walked beside the second Indian
+on the trip back. They did not offer to carry
+him nor to slacken their pace, and he feared to vex
+them with lagging behind. His shoes, where he
+had waded through the salt water, were stiffening, so
+they hurt his feet sorely; by the time he came into
+the camp he was fairly limping, yet that was but a
+little pain beside what might be before him.</p>
+
+<p>Yet no one did him hurt. A throng of people
+gathered scowlingly about him and talked among
+themselves, while he waited, with his flesh a-quiver,
+but his chin thrust bravely upward. But, in the
+end, they only hustled him into a wigwam, where
+they left him with two squaws who were pounding<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_253" id="Page_253">[253]</a></span>
+corn. Miles flung himself upon the couch, in the
+farthest corner, and hid his face in his arms, but
+rigidly he held himself from crying. The stone
+pestles that ground the corn went thud, thud, till
+his head so ached it seemed as if they beat upon
+his very temples.</p>
+
+<p>He had come to count the rhythmic strokes in
+a sort of stupor, wherein he knew only that the
+pestles beat, when suddenly they ceased. Out-of-doors
+he heard a whooping and a scuffling of
+many naked feet in the sand. He pressed himself
+closer against the wall of the wigwam; they were
+coming to deal with him now. He shut his eyes
+tightly and buried his head deeper between his
+arms.</p>
+
+<p>They had come into the wigwam. He ought
+to stand up and show them he was not afraid, but
+he could not, and, when some one grasped him by
+the arm, spite of himself, he cried out in nervous
+terror.</p>
+
+<p>"Me friend. You not know Squanto?" grumbled
+a voice he remembered.</p>
+
+<p>Miles sprang to his feet. The lodge was full
+of savages, Aspinet and a score of other hostile
+faces, but he gave them no heed, for over him
+stood his old Plymouth acquaintance, the interpreter
+Squanto. With a great cry of relief, Miles
+flung his arms about him. "Oh, Squanto, take me<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_254" id="Page_254">[254]</a></span>
+home, quick, quick!" he begged; and in the next
+breath, "Where's Dolly? You must find Dolly."</p>
+
+<div class="figleft" style="width: 320px;">
+<img src="images/i_275.jpg" width="320" height="500" alt="men standing in watter next to small boatload of soldiers" />
+<div class="caption">"Miles made out the figures of the men in the shallop."</div>
+</div>
+
+<p>The little squaw and the puppy dog were safe,
+Squanto explained leisurely; the Captain and his
+warriors had come in the big canoe and taken them,
+and now they waited yonder for Miles himself.
+"I'll go to him straightway," cried Miles, with a
+laugh that caught in his throat.</p>
+
+<p>But, like it or no, he must wait yet a time, for
+Chief Aspinet and his warriors would feast Squanto
+and the Indians who came with him, and the savages
+ate long and deliberately. Miles, unable to
+swallow a morsel, sat between his friend Squanto
+and one who came with him called Iyanough, the
+Sachem of Cummaquid, a young Indian with so
+gentle a bearing that the boy felt near as safe with
+him as with an Englishman.</p>
+
+<p>He could not help a little movement of repulsion,
+though, as they rose from the feast at last,
+when Aspinet came up to him, but the Chief was
+in a humble mood now and merely handed back
+the whittle, which Miles clapped promptly into
+his pocket. Aspinet would have put round his
+neck a chain of white beads too, but Miles shook
+his head disapprovingly; he wanted no presents of
+the uncivil Chief. Yet when Squanto said, "Take
+um," he thought well to obey the interpreter.</p>
+
+<p>They came forth at length from the wigwam,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_255" id="Page_255">[255]</a></span>
+under a twilight sky, and, in some semblance of
+order, the whole throng of Aspinet's warriors took
+up their march across the Cape. One of them
+lifted Miles in his arms, and, though the boy would
+have preferred some other bearer than a Nauset
+man, he contented himself, since Squanto and Iyanough
+walked close by.</p>
+
+<p>At a good pace they passed up into the scrub
+pines of the sand hills, and turned westward, where,
+in the dull sky, the restful stars were beginning to
+show, just as Miles had seen them come out above
+the piny hills of Plymouth. The branches bent
+noiselessly apart, as the swift train pressed forward
+through the woods. The moon was up now;
+Miles, glancing back, saw it gleam amid the
+boughs, and at first its staring light startled him.
+Then they came through the trees out on broad
+sand again; the tide was far down, and out yonder,
+where the line of moonlit water began, lay the English
+shallop, with its sails all white.</p>
+
+<p>Down the beach the naked feet of the Indians
+pattered; now the water splashed noisily beneath
+their tread, knee high, waist high. Clearly and
+more clearly Miles made out the figures of the men
+in the shallop, erect and musket in hand, the gleam
+of the corselets and helmets, their faces almost.</p>
+
+<p>It was Captain Standish himself, who, slipping
+his ready musket to one hand, reached over the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_256" id="Page_256">[256]</a></span>
+gunwale and, grasping Miles by the waistband,
+dropped him down into the bottom of the shallop.
+As he did so he uttered something that sounded like
+a fervent "Thank God!"</p>
+
+<p>Miles neither heard nor heeded that, but he did
+remember of a sudden that he was a wretched, little
+fugitive criminal, now delivered into the hands of
+English justice, and even his hero, who had been
+his friend, had thought fit to take him up roughly
+and drop him down against his boots. He rolled
+a little out of the way, and, crouching against the
+side of the boat, buried his face in his arms.</p>
+
+<hr class="chap" />
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_257" id="Page_257">[257]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+
+<h2>CHAPTER XIX<br />
+
+<small>FALLEN AMONG FRIENDS</small></h2>
+
+
+<div class='drop-cap'>AT last the shallop had put off from the
+Nauset shore. The babel of clamorous
+Indians sank down, and, in its stead,
+sounded the thud of muskets laid by and the clatter
+of sweeps fitting to the rowlocks. Sharp English
+commands Miles heard too, but still he did not
+raise his head, till some one lifted him to his
+feet.</div>
+
+<p>All about him gleamed the hard whiteness of
+moonlight, under which the idle sail looked vast and
+ghostly and the faces of the men around him seemed
+unfamiliar. But he heard Captain Standish's voice:
+"Come, Miles, clamber forward with you. Your
+sister is fair sick for the sight of you."</p>
+
+<p>He saw it was the Captain who had lifted him
+up, and he caught the arm that held him. "I'm
+sorry, sir, oh, I'm mighty sorry; I won't fight
+another duel nor run away," he whispered huskily.</p>
+
+<p>"Don't cry, my man," the Captain spoke hurriedly.
+"It's well over and you're safe with us now.
+Here, Gilbert Winslow, help him forward; and,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_258" id="Page_258">[258]</a></span>
+Stephen Hopkins, draw you nearer; I've a word
+to say."</p>
+
+<p>Dumbly obedient, Miles clambered forward over
+the thwarts. Young Gilbert Winslow, one of the
+rowers, put out a hand to steady him, and, to the
+boy's thinking, grasped his arm roughly. They
+need not begin punishing him at once, he reflected
+miserably; he was sorry for all he had done, but
+when he tried to tell them so, even the Captain
+had thought him whimpering because he had been
+afraid.</p>
+
+<p>Then for a moment he forgot his wretchedness,
+as he reached the forward thwart where Alden sat,
+and from beside him heard Dolly's voice pipe up.
+Miles slipped upon the reeling bottom of the shallop,
+and, stumbling closer to his sister, put his arms
+about her. "You're here, Dolly?" he asked, in
+a whisper, half afraid to let his voice sound out.
+"You're safe, you and Trug?"</p>
+
+<p>Such a ragged, tousled Dolly as she was, half
+hidden in the folds of Alden's cloak, and almost too
+weary even to talk. She was quite safe, though, she
+found energy to tell him, and Trug was there behind
+her, tied in the peak of the bow. He was sore with
+his bruises, but Goodman Cooke said he would live,
+for all that. The Indians of Manomet had done
+neither of them further hurt, but had sent them to
+the Sachem Iyanough, who was a good man and had<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_259" id="Page_259">[259]</a></span>
+delivered them to the English that very morning.
+So it was all well, but for the poppet.</p>
+
+<p>"Did they take it from you?" questioned Miles,
+mindful of his own experience with the whittle.</p>
+
+<p>"N&mdash;no," answered Dolly, beginning to sniffle.
+"I&mdash;I did give her to a little maid at Manomet.
+Because she ground the corn and fetched wood all
+day, and she had no poppet. I gave it to her, and&mdash;and
+the bad old Chief, he took her away from
+the little maid&mdash;he did tear her up and make red
+cloth of her&mdash;and he tied her in his hair, my poppet
+Priscilla." Dolly curled herself up against
+Alden's arm and wept wearily.</p>
+
+<p>"Very like Priscilla Mullins can make you
+another," the young man suggested kindly, though
+his face, in the moonlight, looked amused.</p>
+
+<p>"'Twould not be she," wailed Dolly, provoked
+at such stupidity, and went on to cry as only a very
+tired little girl can cry.</p>
+
+<p>But Miles, quite tearless, leaned back against
+Alden's knees, and, without daring to look at the
+men about him, gazed up into the shimmery sky.
+All the time, though, he was conscious that yonder
+in the stern sat Master Stephen Hopkins, and he
+thought of him and tormented himself with wondering
+what punishment he would inflict till he felt it
+almost a relief, when at last his guardian came striding
+across the rowers' seats toward him.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_260" id="Page_260">[260]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>He came, indeed, but to help Alden unfurl the
+sail, for they were now well out from shore, and the
+breeze, though of the faintest, was worth calling to
+their aid. But when that task was done, Master
+Hopkins set himself down on the thwart by Alden,
+and presently spoke to Miles, who started guiltily,
+for all nothing worse was said than, "Take my
+cloak here, Miles Rigdale, and wrap it about you."</p>
+
+<p>It was chilly, now they were out on the open bay,
+as Miles, in his torn shirt, knew, but, without looking
+at the speaker, he shrank away, muttering:
+"I wish it not. I am not cold, sir."</p>
+
+<p>"Take the cloak as I bid you," Master Hopkins
+repeated, in as stern a voice as if it were a dose of
+poison he were pressing upon Miles. "Let me
+have no more of this sullenness."</p>
+
+<p>He spoke so sharply and loudly that every one
+must hear; Miles thought to feel the indignant eyes
+of the company turn toward him. "I&mdash;I want to
+go up in the bow beside Trug," he whispered Alden,
+and, eager to put as much space as possible between
+himself and Master Hopkins, clambered over the
+thwart into the peak. There he crouched close to
+the battered old dog, who licked his hands, and lay
+so covered by the cloak that he could see only the
+blank moon rolling through the blue-black sky.</p>
+
+<p>But, though he did not look on his companions,
+he could hear their voices distinctly. Alden it was<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_261" id="Page_261">[261]</a></span>
+who spoke first: "We are not heading for home the
+quickest way, are we, sir? We follow the shore&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"'Tis that the Captain holds it best that we stand
+in to land and get fresh water," Hopkins made answer.
+"After that we are to hasten our shortest way
+unto Plymouth. For there's ill news astir at Nauset."</p>
+
+<p>"What might that be?"</p>
+
+<p>"They tell us the Narragansetts, that fierce tribe
+to southward, have risen and spoiled some of Massasoit's
+men and taken the King himself prisoner."</p>
+
+<p>There was an instant's silence, during which Miles
+listened strainingly, then Alden spoke in a different,
+slow tone: "And after they have dealt with Massasoit,
+should they attack Plymouth because it is allied
+to him&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"The pick of our fighting men are here in the
+shallop," Hopkins answered deliberately.</p>
+
+<p>Miles felt something press against his legs as he
+lay, heard a sleepy whimper from Dolly. "Let
+your sister rest by you, Miles," spoke Alden, bending
+over him. "I'm going to aid at the sweeps."</p>
+
+<p>"And you, Miles," added Master Hopkins, "were
+best give your thought to praying unto God that
+your mad prank may not prove the means of drawing
+the men from Plymouth at her greatest need."</p>
+
+<p>Once more there was silence, save for the steady
+creak, creak of the oars against the thole-pins, and
+now and again the flap of the listless sail. Miles<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_262" id="Page_262">[262]</a></span>
+lay quite still and stared at the round moon, yet did
+not see it, for before his eyes loomed only the unguarded
+cottages of Plymouth, white under the
+moonbeams, and, crawling toward them from the
+black pine hills, the slinking forms of the Narragansett
+warriors. Even when he shut his eyes and,
+at last, for sheer exhaustion, slumbered, he saw in
+his dreams the sleepy little settlement, all unconscious
+of the danger crowding close upon it, and the
+horror of this that his own folly had made possible
+startled him into wakefulness again.</p>
+
+<p>He saw the mast sway blackly against the dull
+heavens, whence the moon had dropped, and, with
+something of comfort in their mere presence, heard
+the men grumbling inaudibly, as they tugged at the
+sweeps. A dead chill was in the morning wind, so
+gladly he huddled the cloak more closely about him
+and drowsed once more. But the same vision of
+leaping savages and blazing cottages burned before
+his eyes, till, with a half stifled cry, he started up, as
+through his dreams rang an Indian whoop.</p>
+
+<p>All about him yellow sunshine rippled on the
+water; English voices sounded cheerily, and with
+them mingled the clatter of Indian tongues. So
+much of his dream was true, yet it could be no
+attack upon the shallop, for Dolly, quite unconcerned,
+sat gazing down at him from the nearest
+thwart.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_263" id="Page_263">[263]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"You are to get up," she greeted him gayly.
+"We are at Cummaquid to eat breakfast with
+Sachem Iyanough; the Captain and some of the
+men have gone ashore unto him, and they have sent
+us roast fish hither, and there is clean bread from
+home. And you are to rise and eat with us, Master
+Hopkins says."</p>
+
+<p>At that name Miles, still half dazed with sleepiness,
+sprang to his feet. Near at hand, across the
+noisy blue water, gleamed the green shores of
+Cummaquid, where he could see a swarm of dusky
+figures, and in their midst the glitter of the armored
+Englishmen. But nothing of the shore or even of
+the folk about him was quite real, save the voice of
+Master Hopkins; Miles did not look at his face.</p>
+
+<p>Creeping into the stern sheets, as he was bidden,
+he choked down the food that was given him, good
+bread and fish, that seemed to him gall and ashes.
+For the men about him spoke anxiously of the need
+of getting speedily to Plymouth, till Miles, heavy
+with the sense of guilt, scarcely dared stir or breathe,
+or even think. Only when Master Hopkins rose
+from beside him did he venture so much as to shift
+his position; then he swung about stealthily and
+leaned his head upon one arm that rested on the
+gunwale. He let one hand droop into the water,
+and, watching the ripples slip between his fingers,
+thought only of their flow and fall.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_264" id="Page_264">[264]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>So he was still sitting, in what looked a sullen fit,
+when a good capful of wind came ruffling it along
+the water, and the Captain and his squad splashed
+noisily from the shore. Miles heard about him the
+clatter of their embarkation, the creak of the hoisted
+sail, the brisk voices of the men, and he longed to
+slip back to his old place in the bow, away from
+them, but he durst not venture it. He stared down
+into the blue water, that now began to press more
+swiftly through his hand, and, when he lifted his
+eyes, the green shore was fading in the distance.</p>
+
+<p>With a creak of the cordage, the shallop came
+about on a fresh tack, so only dazzling water that
+made his eyes ache now lay before Miles. Through
+the rents in his shirt he felt the sun hot on his bare
+shoulders, and involuntarily he made a restless
+movement. "What's amiss, Miles?" spoke the
+Captain's quick voice. Miles did not answer, but,
+feeling rebuked, sat silent, and studied the grain of
+the wood in the seat on which he perched.</p>
+
+<p>But the Captain, sitting next him, began to ask him
+questions in a curt, matter-of-fact tone, as to what
+Indian villages he had entered, and whether he had
+noted signs of warlike preparation, to all of which
+Miles answered hesitatingly, a little frightened, because
+the men about him silenced their talk to hark
+to him.</p>
+
+<p>Once he glanced sidewise at Standish, but the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_265" id="Page_265">[265]</a></span>
+latter's brows were puckered and his eyes preoccupied,
+so Miles, not knowing whether he was worried
+about the savages or angry with him, looked again
+at his shoes. But when the Captain relapsed into
+grave silence, his fear grew greater than his shame
+before rebuke; so at last he plucked the Captain's
+sleeve and whispered him: "Is there any chance,
+sir,&mdash;maybe shall we come to Plymouth ere the
+Indians kill all the people?"</p>
+
+<p>"What set such a mad fancy in your head?"
+Standish asked, almost sharply. "There's not an
+Indian within six league of Plymouth. Don't worry
+yourself for that, lad; you'll find the village as you
+left it, and all the women ready to weep over you."</p>
+
+<p>At these first comforting words he had received
+since he boarded the shallop, Miles plucked up heart
+and drew closer to Captain Standish. But speedily he
+took note of the anxiety that made the Captain
+forgetful of him, and, with a new sorrow, he told
+himself that to his hero he was no longer "Miles,
+my soldier," but a foolish boy, who, because he was
+little, must be spoken to gently, and not even let
+know the full extent of the evil he had brought
+about. For, spite of Standish's cheerful speech, he
+could see clearly enough that every man in the craft
+was troubled and longing to reach the endangered
+settlement.</p>
+
+<p>But the wind blew lightly, in veering flaws, so the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_266" id="Page_266">[266]</a></span>
+shallop must make tedious long tacks, while the
+hours rolled out. The heat began to go from the
+air, so Miles was glad to wrap himself in a spare
+cloak, as the Captain ordered; and the sun, in the
+west, slipped behind gray clouds. The water darkened,
+and the twilight had fallen in earnest, when at
+last the shallop tacked in at the outer entrance of
+Plymouth Harbor.</p>
+
+<p>At first the thickly wooded beach point screened
+the shore, but, as the little craft rounded it, the dim
+hills across the harbor were visible, and there, on the
+greatest hill, too low for stars, Miles saw sparks of
+light twinkle.</p>
+
+<p>It was as if the men in the shallop all drew breath
+again, and Miles himself, forgetting his guilt and
+the punishment in store for him, cried joyfully:
+"They're safe!"</p>
+
+<p>But in a moment half the joy went from him, for,
+when Alden, in the bow, fired his musket thrice,
+with startling reëchoes, Master Hopkins told him
+grimly that the signal was to let the people yonder
+know he had destroyed neither himself nor his sister
+by his sinful foolhardiness. Miles hung his head
+sorrily, and, for all Captain Standish presently
+clapped him on the shoulder and bade him look
+how the people flocked to the landing, did not
+glance up till, with a splash of oars in the quiet
+water, the shallop lay to, by the dark rock.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_267" id="Page_267">[267]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>In the thick twilight the faces of the people
+gathered thither could not be made out, but all the
+colony was there, Miles guessed by the babel of
+voices, and, after they had lifted him ashore, he
+knew it was Priscilla Mullins who hugged him undignifiedly,
+and he thought it was Mistress Brewster
+who cried when she spoke to him. But he had no
+time to make certain, for just then Master Hopkins
+grasped him by the arm and led him away up the
+hill to his house.</p>
+
+<p>Within the familiar living room a candle was
+alight, that set Miles blinking as he was brought in
+from the darkness, but he made out Mistress Hopkins,
+with an anxious scowl on her brows, though,
+for all Miles's torn shirt, she did not scold one
+word, and he saw Constance, with her eyes red,
+and Giles, who had tramped in after him, and
+Dotey and Lister. "Then they didn't hang you?"
+Miles cried to the latter, too weary to be civil.</p>
+
+<p>"Hang who?" asked Ned, pretty sheepishly, as
+his master's eyes were upon him.</p>
+
+<p>"You said they were going to hang you&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Not I, never," vowed Ned, with his face flushing,
+and, slouching off into the bedroom, rattled the
+door to behind him.</p>
+
+<p>Miles followed him thither speedily,&mdash;he was
+not to be coddled by two soft-hearted women,
+Master Hopkins said,&mdash;and Giles and Dotey came<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_268" id="Page_268">[268]</a></span>
+too. They questioned him eagerly of his adventures,
+but Miles, unflattered even by such attention,
+would not speak of Indians or of birch
+canoes, just poured forth his woes in a weary voice
+upon the verge of tears: he would surely be
+soundly whipped, and Ned had said they would
+be hanged and they hadn't been, and if Ned hadn't
+said it, he wouldn't 'a' run away.</p>
+
+<p>"I am right sorry, for your sake, I was not dealt
+with less mercifully," Lister said bitterly, and Miles,
+glancing up at him, was checked in his lamentation;
+truly, Ned looked miserable, with his face white and
+a noticeable limp in his gait, and Dotey, too, had
+one hand bandaged, but, most awe-inspiring of all,
+Miles noted, as Ned unfastened his shirt, a vivid
+red mark about the base of his neck. "What was
+it they did to you, then?" he asked, but neither
+of the Edwards seemed eager to explain.</p>
+
+<p>"They just tied 'em neck and heels," Giles volunteered
+presently, as he began undressing. "And
+before they'd kept them so an hour, they promised
+amendment and&mdash;Hey, Ed Dotey, make Ned cease
+throwing shoes at me."</p>
+
+<p>With a wrangling word or two peace was restored,
+and the young men took themselves to rest; Miles
+noted that the ex-duellists drew the line at sharing
+one bed, for Ned Lister lay down beside him, while
+Giles and Dotey slept together.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_269" id="Page_269">[269]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>How quiet and clean it seemed in the little chamber,
+Miles thought; and how blessed it was that the
+Indians had not fallen on Plymouth! Involuntarily
+he sighed for very peace and happiness, then lost all
+sense of comfort at the recollection of the morrow
+and the punishment deferred that yet would surely
+come. "Ned, O Ned," he began, and shook Lister,
+who was lying with his head between his arms.
+"Tell me, Ned, how greatly does it hurt to be tied
+neck and heels?"</p>
+
+<p>"Um-m-m!" groaned the exasperated Lister.
+"Miley, if you say 'neck and heels' to me again,
+I'll wake up and thrash you."</p>
+
+<hr class="chap" />
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_270" id="Page_270">[270]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+
+<h2>CHAPTER XX<br />
+
+<small>A SON OF PERDITION</small></h2>
+
+
+<div class='drop-cap'>MILES was not fated, however, to learn by
+experience how it felt to be tied neck and
+heels; for all his double sin of abetting a
+duel and running away from the settlement, he suffered
+no unusual punishment. Instead, next day at
+noon, when Master Hopkins returned from the
+fields, he ordered him into the closet, and there gave
+him as thorough a flogging as even the boy's tormented
+fancy had conjured up.</div>
+
+<p>Miles came out, with his shoulders quivering,
+and, not staying for dinner, slouched away through
+the fields to the shore, where he stood a time blinking
+out to sea. He had been bidden go present
+himself to the Elder and be admonished for his
+sins, but he did not hold it necessary to go just yet.</p>
+
+<p>At last he had himself tolerably in hand, and,
+with no great heart for what was before him, was
+loitering along the shingle to the village, when a
+shrill voice hailed him, and, looking up, he saw
+Jack and Joe and Francis running toward him. So
+Miles put on an unconcerned bearing, and, making<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_271" id="Page_271">[271]</a></span>
+the pebbles clatter beneath his tread, swaggered to
+meet them.</p>
+
+<p>Oh, yes, he could tell them brave tales of how
+he had lived with the Indians, he bragged, but not
+now; he had to go now and be admonished by the
+Elder, he explained, as if he took pride in such
+awful depths of iniquity.</p>
+
+<p>"And Stephen Hopkins has admonished you ere
+this, I'll warrant," chuckled Francis. "How heavily
+did he lam you?"</p>
+
+<p>With melancholy satisfaction, Miles pulled off
+his shirt and exhibited his stripes to his admiring
+companions.</p>
+
+<p>"Big red weals," quoth Jack. "I'm glad 'twas
+not I must bear such a banging. Here's more
+than one stroke has broken the skin."</p>
+
+<p>Miles twisted his neck, in a vain effort to study
+his smarting shoulders, while his estimate of himself
+rose surprisingly.</p>
+
+<p>"And for each whang Miles cried out, I'll be
+bound," added Francis.</p>
+
+<p>"I did not open my lips," boasted Miles. "A'
+could not make me. You can talk, if you will,
+Francie. We know if you'd borne the half of this,
+we'd 'a' heard you roaring from the Fort Hill clear
+to the Rock. But I mind not a beating, nor aught
+they can do to me or say. 'Twas so brave a life I
+led among the Indians&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_272" id="Page_272">[272]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>There something in Francis's face made Miles
+glance over his shoulder, and right behind him, his
+step deadened by the sand, stood the Captain, who
+was gazing down at him with a look between contemptuous
+and amused, that made the other lads
+slip away, and set Miles scuttling into his shirt.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, sir, you show a deep and edifying sense
+of the mischief you have done," Standish said
+quietly, but the very absence of anger from his tone
+made Miles's face burn the hotter.</p>
+
+<p>He was glad that his shirt was over his head at
+that moment, so he could not see the speaker's
+look, and he dreaded to meet it. But when he had
+drawn on the garment and could glance round him,
+he saw, with an added pang of humiliation, that
+Captain Standish, not holding him worthy of further
+notice, had trudged on to the landing.</p>
+
+<p>For a moment Miles stood gazing blankly after
+him; then he turned and, kicking up the sand in
+half-hearted little spurts, plodded on up the hill
+to Master Brewster's gate. Beneath the bluff, on
+the shore of the brook, he came upon the Elder,
+laboring diligently among his green things, and told
+him in a listless tone why he had come thither.
+Master Brewster talked to him a long time and
+wisely, Miles had no doubt, but he only heard the
+words vaguely, for he was feeling the piteous smart
+of his irritated shoulders, and watching the flecks<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_273" id="Page_273">[273]</a></span>
+of light through the green bushes that shifted across
+the Elder's doublet, and harking to the loud purr
+of the fat cat Solomon, who was rubbing himself
+against the Elder's knees.</p>
+
+<p>Yet he was dully sorry when the Elder dismissed
+him, for that left him free for some heavy thoughts.
+It would be a little comfort to speak with Dolly;
+so, rather uncertain what welcome such a rapscallion
+as he might hope for, he toiled up the bluff and
+faltered into the Brewsters' living room.</p>
+
+<p>The wind from the sea stirred the curtain at the
+window, and in the full blast, industriously sewing
+at a small gown, Mistress Mullins sat alone. "So
+you've come to visit me, little Indian?" she greeted
+Miles, and put her hands to her brown hair that
+had ruffled in the draught. "My scalp is quite
+safe? You are well assured you have no tomahawk
+about you?"</p>
+
+<p>Miles shook his head in crestfallen fashion; he
+only wanted to see Dolly, he murmured.</p>
+
+<p>"She is in bed, poor little one! till I make her
+some tidy clothes to put on," Priscilla answered.
+"Stay and talk with me, Miles, like a gallant lad.
+Come, if you'll look merry again, I'll show you
+something rare. 'Tis a humbird."</p>
+
+<p>She led him to the western casement, where on
+the window-sill rested a little cage of paper, in which
+fluttered a shimmery atom no bigger than a bee.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_274" id="Page_274">[274]</a></span>
+For a moment, because Priscilla expected it of him,
+Miles gazed at the tiny whirring wings, and touched
+the cage gently, but in so listless a fashion that the
+young girl asked abruptly: "What has gone wrong
+with you, Miles?"</p>
+
+<p>"Naught."</p>
+
+<p>"Then you are an uncivil youth to wear such a
+glum face. Come, tell me it all. Is it that Stephen
+Hopkins hath flogged you?"</p>
+
+<p>"No!" Miles answered, with an angry sniff.
+"A beating more or less, 'tis nothing to a man."</p>
+
+<p>Priscilla suddenly put an arm about his neck.
+"My poor little&mdash;man!" she said, and, for all she
+laughed, her voice was tender. "I know I am but
+a silly woman, yet mayhap I can help you,&mdash;an
+you let me. Is it that the Elder rated you grievously?"</p>
+
+<p>Miles shook his head, then, spite of himself,
+blurted out: "'Tis&mdash;Captain Standish is angry and
+scarce will look at me. And he has ever been kind
+to me. But now he will have none of me. I had
+no mind to be so wicked; I did not mean what I
+said; I'm sorry."</p>
+
+<p>"Why, you need not lay it to heart if the Captain
+has been round with you," the girl coaxed. "He
+must be so troubled now with all this ill news of
+the savages."</p>
+
+<p>"But he&mdash;he thinks I'm not sorry," Miles<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_275" id="Page_275">[275]</a></span>
+faltered, twisting the ends of the window curtain
+relentlessly between his hands. "And I am, but I
+can't go to him and say it, when he is angered."</p>
+
+<p>"But I can go to him and tell him you are sorry,
+if 'twill comfort you," Priscilla answered coolly.
+"I have no fear of your Captain."</p>
+
+<p>"Will you so?" Miles cried gratefully. "Sure,
+you're uncommon good. When I'm older I'll
+marry you,&mdash;unless Jack Alden does it ere then."</p>
+
+<p>Whereat Mistress Mullins's face flushed pink,
+and she pulled Miles's ears, and, calling him a
+scamp, packed him into the bedroom to speak with
+Dolly.</p>
+
+<p>So, when Miles ran home to supper, he was in
+an almost cheerful mood, which speedily ended, for
+Master Hopkins made him read a sorrowful chapter
+on the wrath of God against transgressors, and
+cuffed him because he could not pronounce the
+word "Zarhites." Mistress Hopkins scolded too,
+because she had labored all the afternoon to mend
+the shirt which Miles had worn upon his wanderings;
+moreover, she would have to make the troublesome
+boy a new doublet, to replace the one he had
+lost, and new breeches, for those he now wore were
+disgracefully ragged, so perhaps she had reason to
+be vexed on his account.</p>
+
+<p>"But I did not tear them wantonly," Miles
+lamented to Ned Lister next morning. "Yet she<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_276" id="Page_276">[276]</a></span>
+says she is so busied she cannot make me new
+clothes for days, and I must wear my breeches all
+ragged for punishment."</p>
+
+<p>"Hm!" answered Ned. "Half Plymouth seems
+to take its diversion in punishing the other half."
+He was on his knees between two rows of the
+rustling green cornstalks, where he was grubbing
+up those weeds that were so tough as to resist his
+hoe; his doublet was off, but he had so scrupulously
+turned up the collar of his shirt that no trace of the
+red mark about his neck could be seen.</p>
+
+<p>It was so unusual for Ned to work that Miles
+was lingering to watch him, when suddenly the
+young man broke out: "Look you here, Miley,
+you were with me that day I made Dotey to fight
+me, and you heard all I said unto him, so I ought
+to tell you&mdash;'twas not he bore tales of me unto
+Hopkins; 'twas the mistress herself."</p>
+
+<p>Miles nodded his head. "I never had any
+liking for her," he said softly.</p>
+
+<p>Ned weeded scowlingly. "Well, she made Hopkins
+go unto the Governor and beg that Ed Dotey
+and I be released after we'd been tied an hour," he
+admitted, in a grudging tone. "She might be
+worse, and so might Ed Dotey; he's no talebearer,
+though he is a self-sufficient coxcomb."</p>
+
+<p>For several days this was the only bit of private
+talk which Miles had with Ned, for Master Hopkins,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_277" id="Page_277">[277]</a></span>
+who said that Lister had already corrupted
+the boy sufficiently, took now a new course of keeping
+the two rigorously apart. While Ned was sent
+to work in the fields, Miles was bidden weed in
+the house-garden, or fetch and carry for Mistress
+Hopkins.</p>
+
+<p>Master Hopkins believed, too, that Satan found
+mischief for idle hands, so he saw to it that one
+task followed another, till Miles, honestly wearied,
+looked back with fondness to his life among the
+Indians as a time of perpetual holiday. One morning,
+indeed, about a week after his return to Plymouth,
+when he was forbidden to help Ned dig
+clams, and ordered, instead, to fetch water and then
+weed in the garden, he voiced his rebellious wish:
+"I would I were back with those good, friendly
+Indians at Manomet."</p>
+
+<p>Master Hopkins, who was busy at the delicate
+task of repairing the lock of his musket, looked up
+at the muttered words. "You wish to dwell among
+those shameless idolaters?" he questioned grimly.
+"Verily, Miles Rigdale, you are a son of perdition."</p>
+
+<p>A very terrible name that was, Miles thought,
+but it was worse than the hard name, that Master
+Hopkins cuffed him till his ears tingled and his
+eyes watered.</p>
+
+<p>Frightened at his own wickedness, and smarting
+with the blows, he hurried off to the spring, and,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_278" id="Page_278">[278]</a></span>
+halfway thither, met with Francis Billington. Even
+Francis's sympathy would have been welcome just
+then, and, after all he had undergone because of his
+confession to save the boy, Miles thought he had
+some claim to it. But Francis stiffened up at his
+greeting and put on a surprising new air of virtue.
+"I'm forbid to have to do with you, Miles," he
+announced, with open delight. "Sure, I see not
+why your father ever need keep you so tenderly
+from my conversation. Why, you are yourself the
+worst lad in all the colony; 'twas Captain Standish
+himself said so to my father."</p>
+
+<p>"I think you are not speaking the truth," Miles
+answered doggedly; he had a mind to fight Francis
+for such a story, but very likely if he fought, Master
+Hopkins would whip him. So he drooped his
+head under the other's taunt and plodded on to the
+spring. He didn't believe Francis, he repeated to
+himself, while he swallowed and swallowed in his
+throat. But there came the remembrance of the
+look the Captain had given him, there on the shore,
+and his contemptuous words, and, with a sickening
+fear that, for once, Francis had spoken the truth,
+he felt the lump in his throat swell bigger.</p>
+
+<p>He did not care, though the water, as he scooped
+up his pailful at the spring, slopped over his shoes,
+but he did care when he heard on the pathway from
+the bluff the scatter of pebbles under a quick footstep;<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_279" id="Page_279">[279]</a></span>
+he could not let any one see him in so sorry
+a mood. Catching up his pail, he pressed into the
+crackling green alders at the farther side of the
+spring, and, as he did so, heard some one call
+sharply, "Miles."</p>
+
+<p>It was Captain Standish's voice, Captain Standish
+who would want to rate him as the worst lad in the
+colony, who would never believe he was penitent.
+Miles put his head down and, crashing through the
+alders, never paused till the whole dense thicket lay
+between him and his pursuer. He could hear on
+the lifeless, hot air no sound save that of his own
+fluttering breath; no one had offered to follow him,
+and he felt suddenly sorry that he had escaped.</p>
+
+<p>But, without courage to go back to the spring
+and face the Captain, he crouched down beneath
+the bushes and sat a long time staring through the
+leaves at the bright water of the brook. Up in the
+street he heard eager voices once, but the dread of
+encountering Captain Standish made him stay quiet
+in his hiding place, till the street was still again.
+Then he clambered painfully up the steeper part
+of the bluff below Cooke's house, and, with a new
+terror growing on him of the mighty scolding he
+could expect for his delay, scudded home.</p>
+
+<p>But no one had space to scold him. When he
+came to the house he found Mistress Hopkins,
+quite silent, and Constance, with a scared face,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_280" id="Page_280">[280]</a></span>
+busied about dinner, and Ned and Dotey, with
+Giles to help, overhauling their muskets. "What
+is it has happened?" Miles questioned in amazement.</p>
+
+<p>"War!" Ned answered cheerily, and Mistress
+Hopkins, with a grewsome sort of satisfaction, added
+that she always said they'd yet be slain by the
+heathen savages.</p>
+
+<p>"It happened at Namasket, five league from
+here," Ned ran on. "Squanto and two other
+friendly copper-skins, Hobbamock and Tokamahamon,
+they went thither quietly to learn how much
+truth was in this talk of rebellion against Massasoit.
+And there was a certain Corbitant, an under-chief
+of the King's, who is in league with the Narragansetts,
+and he discovered them. Hobbamock broke
+from them and came fleeing hither, not an hour
+agone, but Tokamahamon they took and Squanto
+they've slain. So we are furbishing up our muskets."</p>
+
+<p>Poor Squanto, who had fetched him from Nauset,
+was dead. That was Miles's first thought, and he
+was honestly grieved. But ere dinner was out he
+learned from his elders that there was other fearful
+matter to think on, for if Massasoit's men were
+rebelling and joining the Narragansetts against the
+King and his allies, it meant a dreadful danger for
+the settlement.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_281" id="Page_281">[281]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Quietly, but resolutely enough, the Englishmen
+made their arrangements to march against Namasket
+and punish the slayers of their friends. After a night
+of watching and half hidden fear, next morning, in
+the midst of a beating rain, a little squad of ten,
+with the Captain at their head, and Hobbamock to
+guide them, went forth to the attack.</p>
+
+<p>From the western window Miles watched them go.
+He had hoped to be allowed to slip forth from the
+house and see them start upon their expedition; at
+least get a last glimpse of Captain Standish, who,
+perhaps, in the confusion, would forget he was angry
+and say, "Good-morrow, Miles," as he used. So
+Miles fetched Master Hopkins's buff-coat, and
+helped Constance with the breakfast kettle, and
+mended the fire, and quieted Damaris, and waited
+and hoped, till he saw the last man of the column
+disappear over the bluff.</p>
+
+<p>He could run out and seek a dry stick of wood
+from the pile now, when going forth profited him
+nothing. He slouched into the wet and the wind,
+and, in the pashy dooryard, met Ned, who was in a
+bad temper, because, when he asked his master to
+let him go on the expedition, he had been contemptuously
+bidden by Hopkins to "stay home
+with the women and tend the disgraceful hurts he
+had taken in his godless brawl."</p>
+
+<p>"If I'd not been such a Jack as to get myself<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_282" id="Page_282">[282]</a></span>
+slashed, I might 'a' gone," Ned grumbled now to
+Miles, as he kicked his heels in the big puddle before
+the doorstone. "And they'll have some good
+fighting, I'll wager."</p>
+
+<p>"Do you think surely some of our men will be
+slain?" Miles questioned, terror-stricken.</p>
+
+<p>"A buff-coat does not make a man immortal,"
+Ned cast over his shoulder, as he stamped into the
+house.</p>
+
+<p>But Miles, standing in the pouring rain, gazed
+up the path by which the little company had gone.
+The sky was thick gray, and the rain, driven by
+the wind from off the harbor, fell in long, livid
+streaks. He took up a shiny wet stick from the
+ground and snapped it slowly in his hands. "The
+Captain may be killed," he told himself dazedly.
+"And he does not know that I be sorry."</p>
+
+<hr class="chap" />
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_283" id="Page_283">[283]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+
+<h2>CHAPTER XXI<br />
+
+<small>BETWEEN MAN AND MAN</small></h2>
+
+
+<div class='drop-cap'>ALL that night the rain fell steadily; harking
+to its slow patter on the roof, Miles
+thought on those who were tramping the
+forest, and wondered how they fared. Ned, stretched
+beside him, save for his regular breathing, lay like
+one dead, and yonder in the living room he could
+hear Trug, admitted to shelter from the rain, grumbling
+in his sleep.</div>
+
+<p>A long, long night it was, and the day that followed,
+all blurry with faint sunshine, was well nigh
+as long. Little work was to do in the wet fields,
+so Miles fetched pails of water and tended the fretting
+babies, while, like every other soul in the colony,
+he waited for news of the Captain and his men.</p>
+
+<p>A second night, sickly with warm mist, had
+closed in on Plymouth, before tidings came. Miles
+and Giles had gone forth together into the moist
+darkness to the spring, where they drank, before
+drawing a last bucketful for the house; the alders
+looked startlingly dense against the lighter black of
+the sky, and Miles kept close to Giles.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_284" id="Page_284">[284]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Even the elder boy was more alert than his
+wont, and jumped listening to his feet, when far
+up the Namasket trail sounded ordered footsteps.
+"'Tis father and the men returning," he cried next
+moment, and scrambled swiftly up the bluff, with
+Miles, eager yet half in dread lest ill had befallen,
+panting after.</p>
+
+<p>Down through the dusk of the trail men were
+coming&mdash;the heavily armed Englishmen and in
+their midst some scantily clad savages. Giles, forgetful
+of reserve for once, pressed forward boldly to
+meet his father, but Miles, having no one to meet,
+stood back in the bushes, that touched his face
+clammily, and watched the little column, noisy now,
+as home approached, swing past. At its head
+marched a stocky figure that he knew, and, as if the
+Captain could see him even in the blackness, Miles
+shrank a little farther into the bushes.</p>
+
+<p>Yet he joined himself to the very end of the column,
+for he had no will to stay alone in the dark.
+Goodman Cooke marched there, and, eager to have
+some friend in the party, Miles fell into step beside
+him. "You are all come back safe, sir?" he asked
+propitiatingly.</p>
+
+<p>"Surely, yes," the other replied. "All sound,
+save three Indians we fetched hither to the Doctor.
+Best of all, we've Squanto here; we found him
+unhurt."</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_285" id="Page_285">[285]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>By this they had come down into the village,
+where all the people, it seemed, had hurried forth,
+and, hearing the news of their interpreter's return,
+showed no small joy thereover. Squanto, a figure
+of varying light and shade beneath the lantern glow,
+took such expressions of kind feeling stolidly, and
+profited from the good wishes of his white friends
+by asking for strong water. There was some merriment
+thereat among the Englishmen,&mdash;all were in
+good spirits, in truth, for the expedition had fared
+well.</p>
+
+<p>In broken fragments Miles caught the story as
+he was hustled about among the returned soldiers
+and, with the other lads, stood staring at them
+under the lantern light: how the Englishmen, coming
+at midnight to Namasket, had beset the house
+of Corbitant, but found that valiant chief had fled
+at the mere rumor of their approach; how several
+of the Indians, trying to press forth in spite of their
+promises that no harm was meant them, had been
+hurt; how Squanto and Tokamahamon had been
+found alive; and how, after leaving for Corbitant a
+stern warning as to what he might expect if he
+continued to stir up rebellion against Massasoit
+and his allies, they had returned, successful and
+unscathed.</p>
+
+<p>But the story was quickly told by the hungry
+men, and then they scattered to their houses. The<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_286" id="Page_286">[286]</a></span>
+street was swiftly emptied, and even Giles, calling
+to Miles to fetch home the bucket they had left
+at the spring, trudged away with his father.</p>
+
+<p>Miles turned slowly up the street; he had admitted
+it to no one, even to Giles and Ned, but the
+last week he had had a fear of the black woods.
+Spite of his boasts to the boys of his merry life with
+the savages, he shuddered every time he thought of
+Nauset, and he had a foolish feeling that if he ventured
+into the forest the Indians might swoop down
+on him again. In the daytime he could laugh it
+away, but at night, and especially after the anxiety
+of the last twenty-four hours, the fear came on him
+strongly, and it did not seem as if the courage was
+in him to go down to the inky spring alongside the
+stepping-stones that led to the woods.</p>
+
+<p>He stood a time by Cooke's gate, in the hope that
+he might see some one else bound for the spring, but
+no one came. He went a few steps down the
+street, but, if he returned to the house without the
+bucket, he would be scolded, so, at a snail's gait,
+he trudged uphill again.</p>
+
+<p>Then it was that he noted the companionable
+light that shone in the window of Standish's cottage,
+high up the hillside, and, though he was afraid of
+the Captain, yet there seemed a kind of encouragement
+in that shiny spark that made him cross the
+street and loiter nearer. "Maybe John Alden'll be<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_287" id="Page_287">[287]</a></span>
+going to the spring," he told himself. "Or maybe&mdash;maybe
+I'll go, presently."</p>
+
+<p>Just at the edge of the Captain's unfenced dooryard,
+he halted and stood gazing at the light. He
+was not spying, to be sure; he would go in a
+moment. Through the open window he could see
+a corner of the living room, a table, with a rack
+and three guns above it, and, as he gazed, Alden, a
+big, black figure, strode into the bright corner and
+set down two bowls on the table. Miles drew
+a step or two nearer. "Maybe the Captain will
+come into the light next," he told himself. "And
+after I've seen him, then&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>And then some one took him firmly by the
+shoulder, and right beside him spoke the Captain's
+voice, "Well, Miles?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh!" the boy gasped, and then, in a panic-stricken
+tone, "I'm going home; prithee, let me go
+home, sir."</p>
+
+<p>"Nay, you are coming in with me," Standish
+answered, and, helplessly, Miles yielded to the
+other's grasp and stumbled over the threshold.</p>
+
+<p>Within, the living room was bare and martial, with
+a rapier above the chimneypiece that caught a
+gleam from the candle set below it, and the form
+by the door and the rough stools standing stiffly as
+on parade. On a shelf beside the fireplace there
+were some pots and platters; Miles noted all very<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_288" id="Page_288">[288]</a></span>
+accurately, and wondered that he should note them
+at such a time.</p>
+
+<p>He started when Captain Standish spoke, for all
+his tone was amused: "Here, Jack, set a bowl for
+this gentleman I have fetched to sup with us. And
+you, Miles, will you give me your parole not to
+attempt an escape, if I take my hand from your
+collar?"</p>
+
+<p>Miles eyed the shaft of candlelight that lay at his
+feet and ventured no answer. He knew the Captain
+had loosed his grasp on him, and then he heard
+him ask, in a different, serious tone: "Are you
+afraid of me?"</p>
+
+<p>At that Miles tossed back his head, stiffly as if a
+bar of iron were run down his neck. "No, sir,"
+he said, boldly and untruthfully.</p>
+
+<p>He could not slip away now, whatever might be
+in store for him, but stood rigid and unpretending,
+while Captain Standish flung off his buff-coat, and
+Alden, with a ponderous movement, lifted the soup
+kettle to the table. Then he sat down on a stool,
+as he was bidden, and ate. It was clam broth, and
+he was aware of the good flavor of it, just as he was
+aware, beneath all his alarm, of the honorable fact
+that he was taking supper with Captain Standish.
+He began to hazard long looks at the Captain and to
+listen to the talk of the two men, with some thought
+for their words, as well as for his own concerns.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_289" id="Page_289">[289]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"This is none of your cooking, Jack," said
+Standish, as he rose to refill his bowl.</p>
+
+<p>"Mistress Mullins fetched us the broth," Alden
+replied, with a studious lack of interest. "She
+thought we'd have naught to eat in the house to-night."</p>
+
+<p>"'Twas very wisely thought. When you have
+eaten, Jack, best carry back her kettle. They'll
+not yet be abed at the Elder's house."</p>
+
+<p>Somehow, after that, Alden made short work of
+his portion, and, summarily emptying the kettle
+into the Captain's bowl, gave it a perfunctory scrub
+and started briskly for Master Brewster's cottage.</p>
+
+<p>The Captain, with his face sober all but his eyes,
+swallowed his broth in leisurely silence for a moment
+before he addressed his small companion: "I had
+speech with Priscilla Mullins several days since.
+What is this, Miles, that she tells me you had to
+say to me?"</p>
+
+<p>Miles crumbled the fag end of his piece of bread
+with one nervous hand. "Why, 'twas&mdash;'twas&mdash;Captain
+Standish, is it true you think me the worst
+lad in the settlement?" He looked up into the
+other's face, and something he saw there made him
+blurt out, "I doubt if you do."</p>
+
+<p>"So that's why you ran away from me day before
+yesterday, is it?"</p>
+
+<p>Miles kicked his heels softly against the legs of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_290" id="Page_290">[290]</a></span>
+his stool. "Because I want to tell you I'm sorry,"
+he murmured. "I shall never run away to the
+Indians again. I&mdash;I was but talking when I said
+those words unto Francis and the others."</p>
+
+<p>"A 'miles gloriosus,' eh?" said the Captain, and
+smiled.</p>
+
+<p>Miles saw nothing amusing in the words, but he
+took it as a sign the Captain was his friend again,
+so he smiled back. "I won't do it again, sir," he
+promised vaguely, and then, as Standish rose from
+the table, he slipped off his stool. "May I wash
+the dishes, sir?" he volunteered for "a girl's work"
+eagerly.</p>
+
+<p>"If you wish it," the Captain answered, and then,
+about the time Miles had dropped the bowls and
+spoons into the nearest pail of water, broke out
+irrelevantly, "In the name of goodness, Miles, are
+those the only breeches you have to wear?"</p>
+
+<p>Miles clapped his right hand over one knee, and
+his left over an ostentatious rift in the side. "She
+hasn't time to make me new ones; I'm wearing
+these for punishment," he explained.</p>
+
+<p>"Indeed!" said Standish; he took his pipe from
+the chimneypiece and, filling it, kept silent so long
+that Miles finished his dishes and stole over to the
+hearth beside him. On the chimneypiece some
+books stood up from the miscellaneous litter, and,
+because they were the Captain's books, Miles raised<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_291" id="Page_291">[291]</a></span>
+himself on tiptoe to read their names. A "Bariffe's
+Artillery Guide" pleased him most; he was wondering
+if he could learn from that how to be a soldier
+like the Captain, when behind him spoke a familiar
+voice: "Well, Miley, do you have it in mind to
+sleep at home to-night?"</p>
+
+<p>Miles swung round with a start; Master Hopkins
+and that bucket of water and the scolding to
+come,&mdash;he remembered all clearly, for there in
+the doorway stood Ned Lister, with his out of
+temper look. "The master sent me to find the
+boy," he explained more civilly to the Captain.
+"I've sought him all through the village. Come,
+Miles, Master Hopkins&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>Involuntarily Miles pressed close to the Captain.
+"Is he going to whip me, Ned?" he asked anxiously.</p>
+
+<p>"Tell Master Hopkins I'll send the lad home
+straightway," Standish dismissed Lister curtly, then
+puffed a moment at his pipe till the young man's
+leisurely footsteps died out in the yard. "So Master
+Hopkins whips you often?" he questioned abruptly.</p>
+
+<p>"He says I need the rod," Miles answered in a
+woful voice, wondering if the Captain would take his
+part. "He says I'm a son of perdition. I see not
+why 'tis right. When Ned Lister called Dotey a
+fool, he said he was in danger of hell fire, and, sure,
+son of perdition is a worser name than fool."</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_292" id="Page_292">[292]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Hm!" muttered the Captain. "And you're
+still good friends with that valiant duellist, Edward
+Lister?"</p>
+
+<p>"I like Ned mightily, yes. But Master Hopkins
+does not suffer me work near him."</p>
+
+<p>"That's for punishment, too, I take it?"</p>
+
+<p>Miles nodded.</p>
+
+<p>"At this rate you should prove the best lad in
+the colony, not the worst," the Captain said dryly;
+and then, "Say we walk down to Master Hopkins's
+house now, and see how that wounded Indian is
+faring."</p>
+
+<p>A queer, vague hope that had risen in Miles vanished
+and left an amazing emptiness; the blackness
+of the lonely spring, and the whipping for that evening's
+tarrying came to his mind before he had
+crossed the room, and in the doorway he halted short.</p>
+
+<p>"What's amiss?" asked Standish, with no great
+surprise, however.</p>
+
+<p>"I&mdash;I take it, I'm afraid," gasped Miles, hot
+and cold with the shame of the terror he could not
+check. "I must go down to the spring, and 'tis
+dark, and I think I'll be whipped, and&mdash;and&mdash;"
+His lips were twitching childishly. "But I wasn't
+afraid at Nauset, not a whit, and I didn't cry there,"
+he added piteously.</p>
+
+<p>"I understand," the Captain said, with amazing
+kindness. "I'll go to the spring with you, Miles."</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_293" id="Page_293">[293]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>For the second time in his life, Miles stepped out
+into the night with the Captain, but there was small
+elation in his heart with the knowledge of his cowardice
+upon him. He felt a censure in his companion's
+silence, yet he dared not speak himself, only
+hurried forward as fast as possible to end the walk.
+They left the last cottage behind them, passed a
+menacing clump of bushes, and then, at the head of
+the path, Miles spoke out, almost in spite of himself:
+"Pray you, go back, sir. I'm not afraid. I
+won't be afraid. I'll go alone."</p>
+
+<p>He called back the last, halfway down the path.
+The pebbles rattled with shocking loudness; there
+in the thicket, across the sullen brook, something
+stirred, he knew. With his eyes on the black
+ground, he stumbled toward the gurgle of the spring,
+groped for his bucket, fearing lest his hand touch
+something else, and, seizing it, filled it sparsely at
+the first dip, then, setting his teeth tight, made himself
+fill it again, slowly and carefully.</p>
+
+<p>Behind him, as he rose, the bushes all were moving
+and alive, and something, he knew, pressed close
+at his heels. He could not hurry with the bucket
+in his hand, only clamber, step by step, with the
+breath choked within him, till he came at last to the
+black pathway above the bluff. Before he could
+cast a frightened look up the trail, the bucket was
+quietly taken from him. "You waited here for<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_294" id="Page_294">[294]</a></span>
+me?" Miles gasped, and then, "But I wasn't
+afraid."</p>
+
+<p>"You will not be next time, Soldier Rigdale,"
+Standish answered him, and, putting a hand on his
+shoulder, kept it there.</p>
+
+<p>Before they were into the thick of the settlement,
+he spoke again, abruptly: "So you're not happy at
+Master Hopkins's?"</p>
+
+<p>"I hate it there," Miles said under his breath,
+and then the hope that the Captain's former words
+had raised swept back once more, and he caught the
+other's hand. "Will you take me away from him,
+sir?" he asked hurriedly. "If I could live with
+Jack Cooke, anywhere else, I know I could be
+good."</p>
+
+<p>"I know you could, too," Standish answered.
+"And I think your father and mother would wish
+it. But Master Hopkins is your guardian and your
+kinsman; I can do naught, only try my hand at
+coaxing, and I'm uncommon ill at that. My faith,
+I know not why I speak it out to such a babe as
+you, Miles, but you must say naught of this, remember.
+Only&mdash;if 'twill comfort you for your
+tattered breeches and the rest of your penances,&mdash;so
+soon as pretext is given me, I am minded to
+take you from Master Hopkins to live with me."</p>
+
+<p>"With you?" Miles asked in the blankness of
+joy, and then he must hush, for the candlelight<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_295" id="Page_295">[295]</a></span>
+from Master Hopkins's window struck across his
+face, and an instant later they came into the living
+room.</p>
+
+<p>Master Hopkins looked angry, of course, but his
+face relaxed at sight of the Captain, and he only
+bade Miles pack off to bed. "But he'll surely
+thrash you in the morning, Miles," Giles said, with
+a sober pucker of the brows. "What made you
+stay so long?"</p>
+
+<p>"I was with the Captain," Miles replied light-heartedly,
+and to himself he added, "And by and
+by 'twill be like this evening every day, for I'll live
+with him all the time."</p>
+
+<hr class="chap" />
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_296" id="Page_296">[296]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+
+<h2>CHAPTER XXII<br />
+
+<small>THE BEARER OF TIDINGS</small></h2>
+
+
+<div class='drop-cap'>CAPTAIN STANDISH must have spoken
+to Master Hopkins of other matter than
+wounded Indians, for, to his surprise, Miles
+got no whipping next morning. "Since the Captain
+needed you, I cannot punish you for your
+delay," Master Hopkins said curtly, a remission
+which would have overwhelmed Miles, if it had not
+been surpassed by the joyous fact of Mistress Hopkins's
+bringing out an old suit of his father's that
+afternoon and starting to make him new clothes.</div>
+
+<p>In duty bound Miles went forth, and, seeking
+Priscilla, thanked her awkwardly that she had spoken
+for him to the Captain. He wasn't seeking Francis
+Billington, he would have declared, but somehow
+he sauntered to the shore, where Francis was likely
+to be, and, true enough, there he was, paddling in
+the water by the landing rock.</p>
+
+<p>Miles halted on the beach and resumed the talk
+where it had stopped at their last meeting. "Hm,"
+he sniffed at his old enemy, "I take it, Captain
+Standish has other things to do than gossip about<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_297" id="Page_297">[297]</a></span>
+me to your father. You lied to me, Francis Billington,
+when you said he called me the worst boy in
+Plymouth, and I'm going to thrash you for that
+lie."</p>
+
+<p>"I was but jesting," vowed Francis.</p>
+
+<p>Miles, with his aggressive fists, smote the boy and
+rolled him in the sand. "I'm jesting too, now," he
+said grimly.</p>
+
+<p>Francis fled howling home, and Miles, with his
+shoulders well back, swung away to the corn-field.
+"I <i>had</i> to beat Francis," he assured himself, "but
+now I'll not fight nor run from labor any more, but
+bear me well, because I am to go live with the
+Captain soon."</p>
+
+<p>But Miles's "soon" proved, after all, a long, and,
+in some ways, a cheerless time. There were many
+days still to spend in his guardian's house, where
+Mistress Hopkins scolded at his carelessness, where
+Master Hopkins bade him work when he had
+thought to win an hour's playtime, and where more
+than once, sorry to tell, Master Miles himself
+strayed wantonly into mischief and was sternly but
+justly punished therefor.</p>
+
+<p>Nevertheless, now that he had a big, pleasant
+hope to live forward to, he found it easier to bear
+what was not to his liking in the present. After
+all, when he tried, it was not so difficult as he had
+thought to do Master Hopkins's bidding, Miles<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_298" id="Page_298">[298]</a></span>
+told himself, and never realized how much easier it
+was for him to perform his tasks, while Ned Lister,
+still sulky and subdued from his public punishment,
+was working fiercely and would not pause to idle
+with him.</p>
+
+<p>Thus in little, dull labors and the large pleasure
+of looking forward, the muggy August days panted
+out their course and the September twilights shortened.
+A long, secure time of peace it was for the
+settlement, in which there fell but one incident,&mdash;an
+expedition which ten of the Plymouth men undertook
+far up the coast to the Bay of the Massachusetts,
+where they traded for skins and made a
+league with the Indians. Ned, who was one of the
+company,&mdash;because, Giles Hopkins told Miles,
+laughingly, he was held too much of a firebrand to
+be left behind,&mdash;came home with something of his
+old braggart manner, and told big stories that set
+young Rigdale wild with envy. Why could not
+he be a man at once, a full-sized man with a musket,
+and go with the Captain to trade or fight with the
+savages?</p>
+
+<p>But presently there was manly work in which
+Miles shared, for with the rare October days came
+the time of harvesting, when, as in the weeks of
+planting, every man and boy in the colony must
+bear a part. It was good weather to work, though,
+with nothing of the sickly heat of the April days,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_299" id="Page_299">[299]</a></span>
+but a bracing air nerved every muscle, and the sky
+was deep and clear.</p>
+
+<p>Miles liked the stir and freshness of trudging to
+the fields, one of the whole company, in the awakening
+cool hours of the morning. His task at first
+was to follow after the reapers in the barley field
+and gather the heavy stalks of the bearded grain
+into sheaves. Then after the barley, as the days
+grew shorter, they harvested the corn, a toilsome
+labor, that soon became irksome to Miles, whose
+part was to sit all day under cover, amidst the stiff
+stalks and rustling leaves, and husk the ears till his
+arms ached and his fingers were sore. By and by,
+when the corn was dried, he foresaw he should have
+to help shell the kernels from all those ears, and he
+sighed a little, as he watched the pile rise high.</p>
+
+<p>Yet at heart he knew that, like all the others in
+the settlement, he was glad for the great heap of
+yellow ears. It had been a fruitful harvest; the
+pease, to be sure, had withered in the blossom, but
+the increase of corn and barley was so great that
+there was no fear lest the colony go hungry that
+winter. Men's faces were soberly elate, and even
+Master Hopkins relaxed his customary sternness.</p>
+
+<p>But Mistress Hopkins had a mighty grievance,
+for Governor Bradford, after the harvest all was
+garnered, set apart a week as a time of special rejoicing.
+"That means in a community of men,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_300" id="Page_300">[300]</a></span>
+even of the most godly, a week of feasting," she
+lamented. "And who is it shall prepare the food
+but we ten poor women and maids of the colony?"</p>
+
+<p>To Miles, however, a week of feasting sounded
+pleasant; he only wished he were Ned Lister, for
+the Governor sent him and three of the other men
+fowling to get provisions for the merrymaking. In
+a day the four killed near enough to last the company
+a week,&mdash;a great, feathery heap of woodcocks,
+pigeons, quails, and plump wild turkeys. Miles
+shared in the work of plucking the birds, and, for
+the rest, he fetched wood, armful by armful, for the
+great fires that blazed out-of-doors, and he ran dares
+with the other boys, who should go farthest in
+among the blazing brands, till Goodwife Billington
+bore down upon them, and, chancing to collar her
+own son, cuffed him mercilessly.</p>
+
+<p>He tugged buckets of water, too, for the endless
+boilings and stewings, till his back ached, but he
+minded it little, for this was holiday time. The
+October air was crisp; there was plenty to eat,&mdash;meat,
+and bread of the fresh corn meal; and, all the
+time, the zest of strangeness was added to the jubilation
+by the coming of hordes of Indians to share
+the English cheer.</p>
+
+<p>The third day Massasoit presented himself, with
+ninety hungry warriors, whereat not only Mistress
+Hopkins but cheerful Priscilla Mullins was in<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_301" id="Page_301">[301]</a></span>
+despair. But his Majesty did his part in supplying
+provisions, for next morning some of his men went
+into the forest and returned with five fat deer, which
+he bestowed, as seemed to Miles most fitting, on
+the Captain and the Governor. They were, however,
+roasted for the behoof of the whole company,
+and on the last day of the feast, after the Captain
+had drilled his little troop before the King to do
+him honor, the Plymouth people and their guests
+ate of good venison.</p>
+
+<p>The tables were spread in the fields, and Miles
+held it a notable distinction that he and Giles were
+bidden by the Captain wait at the one where he sat,
+with Massasoit and the Governor and others of the
+chiefs of the red men and white. Miles carried the
+platters of meat thither, with all the decorum of
+which he was master, and hoped that Standish might
+throw a word to him, so his happiness was final
+when, on his last trip to the table, the Captain called
+him to his side. He was sitting at the left hand of
+the Governor, where the light from the afternoon
+sun struck athwart his face, and over opposite him
+sat King Massasoit, greasy as ever, but now monarch-like
+in a great robe of skins.</p>
+
+<p>It was to him that Standish spoke, in words of
+the Indian tongue of which Miles caught only
+one or two. But the Captain answered his questioning
+look: "His Majesty was pleased to crave a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_302" id="Page_302">[302]</a></span>
+sight of you, Miles. Truth, you put him to stir
+enough last July. It was he who, when he got
+tidings from Manomet, despatched the order thither
+that no hurt should be done you, and sent us word
+where to seek you."</p>
+
+<p>"Did he do so much, sir?" Miles asked, and,
+gazing at the stolid Indian, made him a grateful
+bow. "I should like to tell him 'thank you,'" he
+added. "If Squanto would say it for me,&mdash;or
+you."</p>
+
+<p>Then he tramped back again to the fire to take
+his own share of the feast, a large turkey leg which
+Constance had saved for him, and, whether it were
+overmuch turkey or overmuch labor, he was too
+tired even to rise and witness the departure of the
+Indians after the board was cleared, for all he knew
+the musketeers would fire them a parting volley.
+'Twas toilsome work, this merrymaking, he agreed
+with Priscilla, and, going weary and cross to bed, he
+was glad to awake to the Sabbath quiet of the little
+village, and, on the ensuing morning, drop once
+more into the ordered round of duties.</p>
+
+<p>There was naught to do in the following days
+but to make ready against the coming winter, by
+mending the cottages till every crevice was secure,
+and fetching good supply of firewood from the
+distant hills. A hint of wintry weather now was
+in the chill air and the lead-colored sky, so, one<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_303" id="Page_303">[303]</a></span>
+November afternoon, Miles spent hours in hunting
+for his mittens that had gone astray.</p>
+
+<p>Together he and Constance and Giles opened, in
+the search, the little chest that had been Goodman
+Rigdale's; it gave Miles a dull pang to turn over
+the clothes his father and mother had worn, but
+somehow all that sorrow seemed to have fallen very
+long ago. "Yet 'tis not a year since we sailed into
+the harbor," he said softly.</p>
+
+<p>"Just a year to-morrow since we sighted Cape
+Cod," answered Giles, and Constance changed
+Miles's thoughts by adding: "The other ship with
+our fresh supply should come now very speedily;
+in about a month I heard father say we might look
+for her. I hope there'll be cattle come in her;
+'tis hard for the babies to have not a drop of
+milk."</p>
+
+<p>"And no butter," sighed Miles, thinking of himself.
+"And if they bring oxen, 'twill be easier
+ploughing, come spring; and there'll be more men
+to fight&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"There'll be two more next spring, in any case,"
+Giles interrupted. "Captain Standish says that then
+Bart Allerton and I shall have muskets of our own
+and be enrolled in his company."</p>
+
+<p>In the days since the landing at Plymouth, Giles
+had grown a responsible youth, but Miles, who had
+been so much with him that he held himself near as<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_304" id="Page_304">[304]</a></span>
+old, was quite jealous at his last speech and wondered
+if no one would offer him a musket.</p>
+
+<p>He took himself forth from the chamber into the
+living room, where Ned Lister, who was cleaning
+his fowling piece and was in a good temper, as he
+usually was when he was busied over his weapons,
+let him meddle in the work till his fingers were
+blacked. "I'm going northward to-morrow morning,
+where Squanto tells me a flock of geese are
+astir," Ned spoke further. "If Master Hopkins is
+willing, I'll take you with me, Miley; 'tis months
+since we've gone about any labor together."</p>
+
+<p>Disappointingly, Master Hopkins was not willing,
+for, when he came to his supper, he had to
+report an evil rumor, which one of Miles's old enemies,
+the Nauset Indians, had just brought to the
+town, that a great ship had been seen on their
+coast. It might be some English trader, or it
+might be a French ship of war, come to dispossess
+the colonists, just as the English had driven the
+French, at an earlier time, from their northern settlements.</p>
+
+<p>Still, even if 'twere a Frenchman, Ned argued,
+men must eat, and must kill their food ere they
+could eat it, so, at the last, his master said he might
+go fowling, and even, if he did not roam too far,
+take Miles with him.</p>
+
+<p>Early next morning the two hunters set out in<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_305" id="Page_305">[305]</a></span>
+lively spirits, in spite of the fact that the woods
+were sombre and the sky rough with clouds that
+looked, should they thrust a hand deep into them,
+as if they would strike something hard and cold.
+Already there had been bitter frosts, and the thick
+fallen leaves, on the northward trail, rustled crisply
+beneath the tread of the fowlers. Ned wore his
+red cap, which blazed out bravely under the dull
+trees, and his buff-jacket, too, which gave him the
+martial look he liked. Miles had no such warlike
+equipments, but Ned generously suffered him to
+carry the fowling piece, so he felt quite like a soldier.
+"I do but wish the French would come
+upon us now," he panted boastfully, as he shouldered
+the gun.</p>
+
+<p>"There's small danger you'll find a Frenchman,
+unless you cross the water to seek him," Ned answered.
+"I'll do it, so soon as my time's out. Go
+into Bohemia and fight&mdash;" There he turned off
+into discourse on the joys of a life where a man
+never fetched and carried, but handled a sword
+like a gentleman, which lasted them for a mile along
+the bare trail.</p>
+
+<p>By then they came from among the leafless trees
+of the level land to a thick piny growth at the base
+of a tall hill, that blocked off sight of the ocean.
+Ned was for climbing it out of hand, for, on the
+other side, by the shore, he thought to find the wild<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_306" id="Page_306">[306]</a></span>
+fowl, so up he scrambled, quite nimbly, since he
+had long legs and tramped unburdened, while Miles
+toiled after with the fowling piece. A mighty steep
+hill, where the pine needles lay slippery, so Miles
+stumbled and near fell, and, when he came at last to
+the little barren stretch of the summit, where the
+lowering sky seemed to bend down to him, he
+could only drop flat and lie panting.</p>
+
+<p>Ned cast himself down beside him, although he
+did not seem weary, and, half smiling at Miles's
+breathlessness, let his eyes at last turn seaward.
+Lying back, Miles, too, looked out upon the gray
+water, beneath the hill, that far away to eastward
+merged into the gray sky, and then a sudden exclamation
+made him glance at his companion.</p>
+
+<p>Ned was sitting erect with his hand shading his
+eyes, and the lines of his face were sharpened with a
+sudden tenseness. "What d'ye see?" Miles began
+carelessly, but the other, springing to his feet, spoke
+to him in a curt tone: "Jump you up, Miles.
+Look yonder, if you see aught in the offing."</p>
+
+<p>Ned's hands turned Miles's head eastward, but,
+though the boy yielded himself obediently and
+gazed whither he was told, he saw only dull water
+and brooding sky. Yet he was beginning to guess
+the meaning of it all, and, with the heart fluttering
+into his throat, he cried, "Ned, sure, you do not
+think&mdash;that French ship&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_307" id="Page_307">[307]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>But Lister, wheeling about, had reached in two
+strides a tall pine tree that spired from the summit
+of the hill, and, grasping its lower branches, swung
+himself upward from bough to bough. His cap
+showed very red against the green of the pine
+needles, and Miles watched it go bobbing toward
+the tree top, with a mind so suddenly dulled that
+he could think of nothing else, till at last the young
+man, holding fast by one arm, swayed at the topmost
+point of the pine tree.</p>
+
+<p>A long minute Ned clung there, staring seaward
+with his face sober, then headlong slipped and
+scrambled from the tree. "It's a sail, true enough,"
+he cried, and, as the words left his lips, came to the
+ground with a crashing fall that made the branches
+sway.</p>
+
+<p>Before Miles could reach his side, Ned sprang
+to his feet, stood a moment, took a single step, and
+then toppled over again across the roots of the pine,
+with his face working in a manner that frightened
+his companion. "Are you hurt? What is it, Ned?"
+he cried.</p>
+
+<p>"Naught but my ankle," groaned Lister, struggling
+to a sitting posture. "I've wrenched the
+cursed thing. Tut, tut, tut! Don't waste time
+here by me. Run to Plymouth. Tell them the
+ship's in sight."</p>
+
+<p>"The Frenchman?" gasped Miles.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_308" id="Page_308">[308]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"How can I tell, when 'tis four league off shore?"
+snapped Ned. "'Tis a ship, and that's enough.
+Run along with you, briskly!" Then, spite of the
+pain, there came a sort of softening to his face.
+"You're not afeard to go back along the trail alone,
+Miley?"</p>
+
+<div class="figright" style="width: 320px;">
+<img src="images/i_331.jpg" width="320" height="500" alt="boy running in woods" />
+<div class="caption">"The breath came gripingly in his throat."</div>
+</div>
+
+<p>"I've been in woods before now," cried the
+boy, indignantly. "But&mdash;but if I go, what will
+you do?"</p>
+
+<p>"Sit here and take tobacco," Ned answered, in
+his swaggering tone, and, with his hand a little
+unsteady, drew his pipe from his pocket. "Give
+me the fowling piece near to me, and now run your
+briskest, d'ye hear? Off with you, heavy-heels,
+unless you be afraid!"</p>
+
+<p>The taunt more than all else sent Miles plunging
+headlong down the hill. The needles slipped beneath
+his shoes, and his knees jarred with the steepness
+of the descent. Once he tripped, and, falling,
+rolled over and over, and rose up in fear lest he had
+hurt himself like Ned. But he could run well
+enough, he found, as he stumbled into the more
+level part of the trail. His briskest, and warn the
+Plymouth folk, Ned bade, and suddenly Miles's
+heart gave a great leap that he was to do so soldierly
+a part in the Captain's sight. He drew a big breath,
+and, bending his head, dashed down the trail.</p>
+
+<p>The dry twigs snapped beneath his feet; a frightened<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_309" id="Page_309">[309]</a></span>
+quail, with a startling whir, flew across his
+path; the branches, as he rushed by them, wavered
+and shook. Below him the ground reeled and the
+sky above was shot with black; the breath came
+gripingly in his throat, and a pain like that of a
+piercing iron bored into his side.</p>
+
+<p>Downhill, where the ground seemed not to be
+beneath him, and in the hollow splashed a brook.
+He felt the chill of the water over his ankle as he
+thrust his foot into it, and, stopping a moment,
+he plunged his head, that ached to bursting, into
+the icy ripples, then, gasping, staggered up the
+opposite slope.</p>
+
+<p>He was running heavily now, so it scarcely could
+be called running, swaying from side to side of the
+trail, but more than half, than three quarters, of the
+way was out. The trees dwindled about him; yonder
+were cleared fields; yonder the smoke rose from
+cottage chimneys. Now the stubble of corn was
+stiff beneath his feet; now he crashed through a
+little patch of brambles; and at last, thrusting his
+hands gropingly before him, he pitched up against
+the door of Captain Standish's cottage. "Open!"
+he called, but his voice came in a mere whisper.</p>
+
+<p>Within, they heard him, however. The door was
+flung open; he fell against Master Winslow; and
+yonder by the table he had sight of the Governor
+and the Elder and Master Hopkins and the Captain<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_310" id="Page_310">[310]</a></span>
+himself, starting up from the conference he had
+interrupted. Miles reeled forward a step or two
+and caught Standish's arm. "Captain Standish,"
+he gasped, "the ship&mdash;the French&mdash;we saw it
+from the hill&mdash;the French are in the offing."</p>
+
+<p>Then his knees gave way and the room whirled
+round. A blackness was about him in which he
+heard faintly the questions and re-questions of
+the men, the clatter of the house-door, a calling
+in the street. Then thunderously, subduing all
+other sound, he heard the crash of the great gun
+upon the Fort Hill that called home from labor the
+men who should defend their settlement.</p>
+
+<hr class="chap" />
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_311" id="Page_311">[311]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+
+<h2>CHAPTER XXIII<br />
+
+<small>THE CAPTAIN'S SOLDIER</small></h2>
+
+
+<div class='drop-cap'>LYING upon his own bed, whither Master
+Hopkins had carried him, Miles harked
+to the rattle of eager drumsticks in the
+street, the hurried rush of footsteps, the shrill calls
+of boys. Nearer, in the living room, he could hear
+Mistress Hopkins's frightened tones, and the clatter
+of swords as Master Hopkins and Dotey armed
+themselves.</div>
+
+<p>Presently heavy footsteps came toward him, and
+Master Hopkins, with his buff-jacket half fastened,
+opened the door of the chamber to question him
+further of Ned. "He's hurt, and he made me to
+leave him," panted Miles. "And the Frenchmen
+will find him, and can you not send some one to
+help him, sir?"</p>
+
+<p>"Unless Edward Lister's neck is broke, I'll trust
+him to shift for himself till we have space to look to
+him," Master Hopkins answered with a grim sort of
+chuckle, and just there the house-door banged open
+and upon it Miles heard Giles's eager voice, "Father,
+may I not carry Ned's musket, since he is not here?<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_312" id="Page_312">[312]</a></span>
+Bart Allerton has one; the Captain himself said all
+who could fight should get under arms."</p>
+
+<p>Miles struggled up, with head still dizzy. "I
+can fight too," he murmured, but the older folk,
+without heeding him, tramped forth with their
+weapons and left him to Constance and her stepmother.
+But the women had terrified thoughts to
+keep them busy, so busy they took no note when
+presently Miles, quite recovered from his run, slipped
+off the bed and darted from the house.</p>
+
+<p>Out-of-doors the men were rallying in haste to
+the shore, among them John Alden, whom Miles
+hailed shrilly from the house-yard: "John Alden,
+O John! May I have your fowling piece to fight
+with?"</p>
+
+<p>"Ay, take it," Alden called, without looking
+round, and Miles, forgetting he was weary, scudded
+his fastest up the hill.</p>
+
+<p>He was to have a gun and fight, even if it was
+no more than a fowling piece, he told himself, and,
+in a happy flutter that set at naught the Frenchmen,
+he clambered on the table in the Captain's
+living room and dragged down the fowling piece
+from the wall. He longed to take also the rapier
+from the chimneypiece, but he had no right, so,
+contenting himself with the gun, he hurried forth to
+do his part.</p>
+
+<p>A gray day and a strange day; high noon, yet<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_313" id="Page_313">[313]</a></span>
+not dinner time, for the whole order of life was
+broken, and beyond lay&mdash;no one knew what. But
+Miles thought on the fighting, and, with his pulses
+leaping, clambered to the gun platform, where a
+squad was stationed, and, ready as the best of them,
+gazed out upon the ocean. There, sure enough,
+loomed larger and larger a speck of white.</p>
+
+<p>Captain Standish had gone down to the other
+men on the bluff by the landing, so presently Miles
+ran after him. He carried his fowling piece over
+his shoulder valiantly, and he stopped at the Elder's
+cottage to call to Dolly not to be afraid, and he
+wondered at Mistress Brewster's alarmed face.</p>
+
+<p>The men on the bluff, too, looked grave and anxious,
+and the Captain's voice was sharp and stern.
+But the boys who were allowed muskets, albeit their
+faces were decorously sober, looked very happy, and
+handled their weapons with such pride that Miles
+grew ashamed of his paltry fowling piece.</p>
+
+<p>"You might let <i>me</i> have the musket a little time,
+Giles," he murmured to young Hopkins, who stood
+beside him on the northern slope of the bluff, where
+they were watching the horizon. "Surely, I could
+manage it, and 'tis Ned's, anyway, and he is my
+friend."</p>
+
+<p>Giles preserved an elderly, careworn silence, and
+puckered his brows upon the ominous east, when
+suddenly from behind them shrilled a whistle.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_314" id="Page_314">[314]</a></span>
+Miles guessed who it was before he turned, so,
+though Giles and some of the others cried out in
+surprise, he thought it quite a matter of course when
+he saw Ned Lister coming across the fields to the
+bluff.</p>
+
+<p>Ned walked at a leisurely limp, with his fowling
+piece over his shoulder, and his cap on one side; it
+was not till he came nearer that Miles saw, too, that
+his clothes were muddied and stuck with briers and
+leaves, and his face was white to his lips, that were
+set in a hard line. "Well," he greeted his fellow-colonists
+civilly, "did you think I meant to sit
+there in the bushes till you chose to come seek
+me?"</p>
+
+<p>There he staggered a little, so Dotey caught hold
+of him, and just then Standish, striding through the
+thin ranks of his company, came up. "How did
+you get hither, Lister?" he asked, with whatever
+surprise may have been his well in check.</p>
+
+<p>"I walked," Ned answered, and then, as he saw
+the Captain's eyes upon his muddied jacket, he
+began to laugh oddly. "That is, sir, sometimes I
+rolled and otherwhiles I crawled. For I did not
+wish to be gulled of the fight. And&mdash;Giles Hopkins,
+you thief! give me my musket."</p>
+
+<p>"My father said I might&mdash;" Giles began, unruly
+for once, but there a sudden sound of cheering on
+the hilltop cut short the dispute. A man&mdash;Gilbert<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_315" id="Page_315">[315]</a></span>
+Winslow, they saw&mdash;came running break-neck
+down the steep street, and, so far as he could be
+heard, called to them, "English, an English ship!"
+and then those on the bluff, too, took up the
+cheering.</p>
+
+<p>It was the sailor Trevor, who, from the Fort Hill,
+had watched the ship grow larger till he vowed that
+he could make out that she was rigged in the English
+fashion. Still the Captain held his force together
+on the bluff till the stranger's nationality
+should be assured past doubt, and, meantime, he
+bade Dotey and Giles help Ned Lister to the house.
+"And see that he stays there," the Captain added
+dryly.</p>
+
+<p>So Ned, turned limp and unresisting of a sudden,
+staggered away between the two, and Miles, though
+he would fain have watched till the ship should loom
+up round the beach point, thought friendship required
+that he should follow after with the musket.</p>
+
+<p>When he returned to the landing place, many
+minutes later, there was no longer a doubt or a
+fear, for the flag of England fluttered from the
+vessel's mast. The ship <i>Fortune</i>, with the reënforcements
+for the colony, that was not expected for
+a month more, was casting anchor in Plymouth
+Harbor.</p>
+
+<p>That afternoon seemed all a hazy dream. With
+a feeling that he must be some one else, Miles<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_316" id="Page_316">[316]</a></span>
+watched the men make ready the shallop, saw it go
+dipping across the gray harbor, and lie to beside the
+great ship. He saw the first boatload of the newcomers
+pull in to the landing rock, and he gazed
+shyly and yet gladly at the faces of the men and
+women who were to be his townsfolk. Elder
+Brewster's grown up son came with them, and there
+were many other young men, and a few older, and
+several women, but there were very few children
+among them.</p>
+
+<p>At last, however, Miles and Jack found among
+the newcomers a boy but little older than themselves,
+so at once they made up to him and found
+that his name was Thomas Cushman. And because
+he had looked on ships and sea till he was weary of
+them, they led him away from the harbor, and showed
+him the spring and the Fort Hill, and laughed at him
+because he was so certain he should see an Indian at
+each turning, and Miles bragged to him mightily of
+his experiences among the savages of the Cape.</p>
+
+<p>It was near dusk when they came down again
+through the village, where the last boatload from
+the ship had just landed. The street seemed fairly
+thronged with folk, and out to sea a light sparkled
+on the quarter-deck of the <i>Fortune</i>, just as it used
+to shine upon the <i>Mayflower</i>.</p>
+
+<p>Feeling secure and happy, Miles bade his new
+friend Thomas good night, and walked home to his<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_317" id="Page_317">[317]</a></span>
+supper. "Bring firewood; we've many people to
+eat with us to-night," Constance called to him from
+the doorway, so he trudged on to the woodpile,
+where he picked out a good armful of the piny logs,
+to make a brave blaze for the friends who had come
+from England.</p>
+
+<p>His face, as he worked, was toward the west,
+where showed a smear of red, which the sun, struggling
+forth just ere his setting, had left behind.
+Miles gazed on the gay fleck, that yet was lonely in
+the wide sky, till a step near at hand startled him,
+and, turning, he faced Master Hopkins.</p>
+
+<p>"Lay aside that wood, Miles; I have to speak
+with you," his guardian greeted him; and Miles
+dropped the wood and wondered what he had done
+wrong. "Pray you, sir, John Alden told me I
+might take that fowling piece," he offered his
+excuses.</p>
+
+<p>"Am I always so severe that you look for naught
+but chiding from me, Miles?" Master Hopkins
+said sternly, yet with something half wistful in his
+tone. "I would but say to you that Captain
+Standish has long urged me to let you be one of
+his household, and I have as long withstood him.
+For all he is a brave gentleman, he is not of the
+faith in which your father lived. But he has urged
+me strongly this day, and you, too, Miles, you bore
+yourself fairly this morning; you have tried to bear<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_318" id="Page_318">[318]</a></span>
+yourself well these last weeks, I can see. 'Tis possible
+that you will not suffer Miles Standish to spoil
+you with lax discipline, and in matters of faith you
+cannot go very far astray in this colony. So I think
+it safe now to leave this matter to your own decision.
+You may stay in my house, or go unto the Captain."</p>
+
+<p>Miles breathed quickly and cracked a bit of bark
+between his fingers. "Am I to decide now, sir?"
+he asked.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, now. There is a kinsman of Mistress
+Hopkins's come on the <i>Fortune</i> who will take your
+place in my household if you go. But you need
+not go for that. As long as I have a house, there
+is a place for you therein, if you elect to stay."</p>
+
+<p>It seemed an easy thing to say, he knew what he
+desired, yet when Master Hopkins stood looking
+gravely down at him and waiting for his answer,
+Miles found it hard to give. "I&mdash;I&mdash; You've
+been good to me, after all, sir," he faltered. "I'm
+sorry I've vexed you so many times. I&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"In short, you wish to go to the Captain,"
+Master Hopkins interrupted. "Very well, Miles
+Rigdale. Be it as you wish."</p>
+
+<p>Then he walked away, and Miles, gathering up
+his armful of wood for the last time, wondered that,
+now he had his desire, he felt a half sorrow that it
+was granted him.</p>
+
+<p>But when he entered the house, different thoughts<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_319" id="Page_319">[319]</a></span>
+came to him. All was stir and bustle within, for
+Mistress Hopkins was cooking supper for the men
+with sea-appetites, who were to eat there that night,
+and suddenly Miles felt it quite a part of the day's
+upheaval that he should leave his old home. All
+afire with the pleasure of it, he went into the chamber,
+where he tied up his few clothes in his cloak.</p>
+
+<p>Ned Lister, who was stretched upon his bed,
+pulled himself up on his elbow to watch him. "So
+you're going to live with the Captain, Miley," he
+repeated the boy's news. "Well, it's far better that
+you should; there'll be no one in his house to lead
+you into mischief." Ned's face grew serious and he
+was silent a moment, then broke out, "On my soul,
+I have liked you, lad, and I shall miss you."</p>
+
+<p>"I shall see you every day," Miles answered, setting
+himself down on the edge of the bed.</p>
+
+<p>"Hm!" Lister retorted. "Your Captain doesn't
+like me, Miles. Though he did trouble himself to
+see how I was faring, when he came to speak with
+Hopkins this afternoon; after all, he's a good fellow,
+though I've no liking for the punishments he
+gives. But that'll change now. There's a pack of
+jolly good fellows come in the <i>Fortune</i>, they say, will
+keep him busy. Plague of this ankle! I might 'a'
+gone out and made friends with them, and I'm sick
+to have speech again with an ungodly rascal like
+myself."</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_320" id="Page_320">[320]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Just there Constance pushed open the door and
+came in to bring Ned his supper, so Miles gathered
+up his bundle to go forth. But Constance had to
+kiss him good-bye, right before Ned, and tell him
+to come back often. "I will," Miles promised
+soberly. "You've been good to me, Constance,
+and&mdash;and if 'twill help you, I'll come tend Damaris&mdash;once
+in a while."</p>
+
+<p>"No, you shan't, dear, ever again," Constance
+said, laughing, and pushed him out of the room.</p>
+
+<p>He took the Bible that had been his father's
+from the chimneypiece, and, while Mistress Hopkins
+was busy talking to her kinsman, a grave young
+man who found no opportunity to answer her,
+thought to slip quietly out of the house. But
+Elizabeth Hopkins spied him. "Where are your
+manners, child, that you cannot say 'God be wi'
+you'?" she assailed him. "After what I've borne
+from your carelessness, Miles, and I'm sure your
+clothes never will be tidily mended now, and&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>But there Miles got the door open and scampered
+away. Trug came leaping at his heels, and, fast as
+if Mistress Hopkins were likely to pursue him, he
+ran till he reached the Captain's very dooryard, and
+was quite breathless when he opened the door.</p>
+
+<p>Inside, the candles were lit, the meat was on the
+table, and the Captain and Alden and four of the
+newcomers were making their supper and talking<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_321" id="Page_321">[321]</a></span>
+heartily the while. At the noise of the opening
+door they all faced about, and Miles felt shy and
+abashed. "If it like you, Captain Standish," he
+stammered, "Master Hopkins said I could come,
+so I came."</p>
+
+<p>"And you are right welcome, Miles," Standish
+said quickly. "We looked for you to-night. Put
+down your bundle and come to the table. Let
+your dog come in, too."</p>
+
+<p>Miles slipped into a cranny on the form between
+Alden and a black-haired young man named De la
+Noye. It was a roast duck they had for supper,
+and the men fed Trug right at table, and they talked
+a deal, of Indians and of hunting and of planting,
+and then, as the Captain and Alden guided the conversation,
+of the Parliament and of the Spanish influence
+and the war in the Palatinate, till, spite of
+the excitement of the evening, Miles's head nodded,
+and at heart he was glad when at length, long after
+the sober bedtime hour of Plymouth, the men
+cleared the table hastily and went to their rest.</p>
+
+<p>The newcomers were bidden lie that night in the
+bedroom, since two of them still were weak with seasickness,
+but Alden and the Captain were to sleep
+in the living room, so Miles silently elected to stay
+with them, and he was glad when the chamber door
+closed behind the strangers.</p>
+
+<p>"So you've a mind to share the floor with us,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_322" id="Page_322">[322]</a></span>
+Miles?" the Captain asked, as he threw off his
+doublet.</p>
+
+<p>"'Tis like a soldier to sleep where 'tis hard,"
+Miles confessed shyly.</p>
+
+<p>Standish smiled a little. "We'll surely make a
+fighting man of you, Miles, or you'll make one of
+yourself. 'Twas a pretty race you ran alone this
+morning, your friend Lister told me."</p>
+
+<p>"Lister made a stout march of it, too," put in
+Alden, who had already rolled himself in his blanket
+and settled down on the floor.</p>
+
+<p>"There's more mettle in that rapscallion than
+I judged," Standish answered thoughtfully, and
+then: "Lie you down, Miles. Eh? No blanket?
+Here, take my cloak; 'tis ample enough for you."</p>
+
+<p>Indeed, it was, and very brave and martial, too.
+Miles curled himself up in it, and liked the manly
+hardness of the floor beneath his shoulders. He
+closed his eyes and half dozed, then, hearing Alden's
+voice, roused up a little.</p>
+
+<p>"Captain," the young man was speaking softly,
+"there's not an ounce of extra provisions in the
+<i>Fortune</i>."</p>
+
+<p>From the neighboring corner where Standish had
+stretched himself came a non-committal "Um."</p>
+
+<p>"And half these young fellows are equipped with
+nothing but the clothes they stand in; they gambled
+away their very cloaks, when the ship touched at<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_323" id="Page_323">[323]</a></span>
+Plymouth in Devonshire." There was silence in
+the living room for a time, before Alden resumed,
+"We had enough to do in the colony before, sir;
+now what shall we do with these?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why, some we'll set to ploughing and some we'll
+set to fight the Indians," said Standish. "And
+those that will neither plough nor fight, we'll pack
+home to England. We've no use for idlers here."</p>
+
+<p>Then again there was silence in the living room,
+and the embers in the fireplace gleamed red, and
+once, leaping into flame, set black shadows fluttering
+on the wall. "We've no use for idlers," Miles
+repeated to himself. "But I'll work as mother
+would wish me to, now I am in the Captain's
+house."</p>
+
+<p>He drew the Captain's cloak closer about him,
+and thought to amuse himself with pretending he
+was a true soldier, like the Captain, sleeping in his
+military cloak out under the stars, but the reality
+pleased him better than the fancy. He lay with his
+eyes wide open, smiling at the embers. "The Captain's
+house," he repeated. "And I shall stay here
+always."</p>
+
+
+<hr class="chap" />
+
+<div class='tnote'><div class='center'><b>Transcriber's Notes:</b></div>
+
+<p>Obvious punctuation errors repaired. Author spells "rendezvous"
+as the archaic "randevous".</p></div>
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+<pre>
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Soldier Rigdale, by Beulah Marie Dix
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SOLDIER RIGDALE ***
+
+***** This file should be named 44165-h.htm or 44165-h.zip *****
+This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:
+        http://www.gutenberg.org/4/4/1/6/44165/
+
+Produced by sp1nd, Emmy, and the Online Distributed
+Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was
+produced from images generously made available by The
+Internet Archive)
+
+
+Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions
+will be renamed.
+
+Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no
+one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation
+(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without
+permission and without paying copyright royalties.  Special rules,
+set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to
+copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to
+protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark.  Project
+Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you
+charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission.  If you
+do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the
+rules is very easy.  You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose
+such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and
+research.  They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do
+practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks.  Redistribution is
+subject to the trademark license, especially commercial
+redistribution.
+
+
+
+*** START: FULL LICENSE ***
+
+THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE
+PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK
+
+To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free
+distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work
+(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project
+Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project
+Gutenberg-tm License available with this file or online at
+  www.gutenberg.org/license.
+
+
+Section 1.  General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic works
+
+1.A.  By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to
+and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property
+(trademark/copyright) agreement.  If you do not agree to abide by all
+the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy
+all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession.
+If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the
+terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or
+entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8.
+
+1.B.  "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark.  It may only be
+used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who
+agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement.  There are a few
+things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works
+even without complying with the full terms of this agreement.  See
+paragraph 1.C below.  There are a lot of things you can do with Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement
+and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works.  See paragraph 1.E below.
+
+1.C.  The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the Foundation"
+or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic works.  Nearly all the individual works in the
+collection are in the public domain in the United States.  If an
+individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you are
+located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from
+copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative
+works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg
+are removed.  Of course, we hope that you will support the Project
+Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic works by
+freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with the terms of
+this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with
+the work.  You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by
+keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project
+Gutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with others.
+
+1.D.  The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern
+what you can do with this work.  Copyright laws in most countries are in
+a constant state of change.  If you are outside the United States, check
+the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement
+before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or
+creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project
+Gutenberg-tm work.  The Foundation makes no representations concerning
+the copyright status of any work in any country outside the United
+States.
+
+1.E.  Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg:
+
+1.E.1.  The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate
+access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear prominently
+whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work on which the
+phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the phrase "Project
+Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed,
+copied or distributed:
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+1.E.2.  If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived
+from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is
+posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied
+and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees
+or charges.  If you are redistributing or providing access to a work
+with the phrase "Project Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the
+work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1
+through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the
+Project Gutenberg-tm trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or
+1.E.9.
+
+1.E.3.  If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted
+with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution
+must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional
+terms imposed by the copyright holder.  Additional terms will be linked
+to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works posted with the
+permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work.
+
+1.E.4.  Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this
+work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm.
+
+1.E.5.  Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this
+electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without
+prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with
+active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project
+Gutenberg-tm License.
+
+1.E.6.  You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary,
+compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any
+word processing or hypertext form.  However, if you provide access to or
+distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format other than
+"Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official version
+posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site (www.gutenberg.org),
+you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a
+copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon
+request, of the work in its original "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other
+form.  Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1.
+
+1.E.7.  Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying,
+performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works
+unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9.
+
+1.E.8.  You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing
+access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works provided
+that
+
+- You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from
+     the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method
+     you already use to calculate your applicable taxes.  The fee is
+     owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he
+     has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the
+     Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation.  Royalty payments
+     must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you
+     prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax
+     returns.  Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and
+     sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the
+     address specified in Section 4, "Information about donations to
+     the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation."
+
+- You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies
+     you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he
+     does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+     License.  You must require such a user to return or
+     destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium
+     and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of
+     Project Gutenberg-tm works.
+
+- You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any
+     money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the
+     electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days
+     of receipt of the work.
+
+- You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free
+     distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works.
+
+1.E.9.  If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set
+forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from
+both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael
+Hart, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark.  Contact the
+Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below.
+
+1.F.
+
+1.F.1.  Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable
+effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread
+public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg-tm
+collection.  Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain
+"Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or
+corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual
+property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a
+computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by
+your equipment.
+
+1.F.2.  LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right
+of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project
+Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project
+Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all
+liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal
+fees.  YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT
+LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE
+PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH 1.F.3.  YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE
+TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE
+LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR
+INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH
+DAMAGE.
+
+1.F.3.  LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a
+defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can
+receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a
+written explanation to the person you received the work from.  If you
+received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with
+your written explanation.  The person or entity that provided you with
+the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a
+refund.  If you received the work electronically, the person or entity
+providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to
+receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund.  If the second copy
+is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further
+opportunities to fix the problem.
+
+1.F.4.  Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth
+in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS', WITH NO OTHER
+WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO
+WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE.
+
+1.F.5.  Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied
+warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages.
+If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the
+law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be
+interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by
+the applicable state law.  The invalidity or unenforceability of any
+provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions.
+
+1.F.6.  INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the
+trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone
+providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in accordance
+with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production,
+promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works,
+harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees,
+that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do
+or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg-tm
+work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any
+Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any Defect you cause.
+
+
+Section  2.  Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of
+electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers
+including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers.  It exists
+because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from
+people in all walks of life.
+
+Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the
+assistance they need are critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's
+goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will
+remain freely available for generations to come.  In 2001, the Project
+Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure
+and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future generations.
+To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation
+and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4
+and the Foundation information page at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Section 3.  Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive
+Foundation
+
+The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit
+501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the
+state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal
+Revenue Service.  The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification
+number is 64-6221541.  Contributions to the Project Gutenberg
+Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent
+permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state's laws.
+
+The Foundation's principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S.
+Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered
+throughout numerous locations.  Its business office is located at 809
+North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887.  Email
+contact links and up to date contact information can be found at the
+Foundation's web site and official page at www.gutenberg.org/contact
+
+For additional contact information:
+     Dr. Gregory B. Newby
+     Chief Executive and Director
+     gbnewby@pglaf.org
+
+Section 4.  Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg
+Literary Archive Foundation
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide
+spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of
+increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be
+freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest
+array of equipment including outdated equipment.  Many small donations
+($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt
+status with the IRS.
+
+The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating
+charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United
+States.  Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a
+considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up
+with these requirements.  We do not solicit donations in locations
+where we have not received written confirmation of compliance.  To
+SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any
+particular state visit www.gutenberg.org/donate
+
+While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we
+have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition
+against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who
+approach us with offers to donate.
+
+International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make
+any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from
+outside the United States.  U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff.
+
+Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation
+methods and addresses.  Donations are accepted in a number of other
+ways including checks, online payments and credit card donations.
+To donate, please visit:  www.gutenberg.org/donate
+
+
+Section 5.  General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works.
+
+Professor Michael S. Hart was the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm
+concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared
+with anyone.  For forty years, he produced and distributed Project
+Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support.
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed
+editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S.
+unless a copyright notice is included.  Thus, we do not necessarily
+keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition.
+
+Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility:
+
+     www.gutenberg.org
+
+This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm,
+including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary
+Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to
+subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks.
+
+
+</pre>
+
+</body>
+</html>
diff --git a/old/44165-h/images/cover.jpg b/old/44165-h/images/cover.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..98befbf
--- /dev/null
+++ b/old/44165-h/images/cover.jpg
diff --git a/old/44165-h/images/i_002.jpg b/old/44165-h/images/i_002.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..d7551a4
--- /dev/null
+++ b/old/44165-h/images/i_002.jpg
diff --git a/old/44165-h/images/i_004.jpg b/old/44165-h/images/i_004.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..aa3960e
--- /dev/null
+++ b/old/44165-h/images/i_004.jpg
diff --git a/old/44165-h/images/i_025.jpg b/old/44165-h/images/i_025.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..c0be217
--- /dev/null
+++ b/old/44165-h/images/i_025.jpg
diff --git a/old/44165-h/images/i_079.jpg b/old/44165-h/images/i_079.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..c828549
--- /dev/null
+++ b/old/44165-h/images/i_079.jpg
diff --git a/old/44165-h/images/i_117.jpg b/old/44165-h/images/i_117.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..c5a6bd6
--- /dev/null
+++ b/old/44165-h/images/i_117.jpg
diff --git a/old/44165-h/images/i_201.jpg b/old/44165-h/images/i_201.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..6811a55
--- /dev/null
+++ b/old/44165-h/images/i_201.jpg
diff --git a/old/44165-h/images/i_233.jpg b/old/44165-h/images/i_233.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..9f263d1
--- /dev/null
+++ b/old/44165-h/images/i_233.jpg
diff --git a/old/44165-h/images/i_275.jpg b/old/44165-h/images/i_275.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..f0550ff
--- /dev/null
+++ b/old/44165-h/images/i_275.jpg
diff --git a/old/44165-h/images/i_331.jpg b/old/44165-h/images/i_331.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..91b48d4
--- /dev/null
+++ b/old/44165-h/images/i_331.jpg
diff --git a/old/44165.txt b/old/44165.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..fcc05e6
--- /dev/null
+++ b/old/44165.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,8245 @@
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Soldier Rigdale, by Beulah Marie Dix
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Soldier Rigdale
+       How He Sailed in the Mayflower and How He Served Miles Standish
+
+Author: Beulah Marie Dix
+
+Illustrator: Reginald B. Birch
+
+Release Date: November 12, 2013 [EBook #44165]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SOLDIER RIGDALE ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by sp1nd, Emmy, and the Online Distributed
+Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was
+produced from images generously made available by The
+Internet Archive)
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+SOLDIER RIGDALE
+
+[Illustration]
+
+[Illustration: "As if he knew the place and held he had the right to
+come there."]
+
+
+
+
+Soldier Rigdale
+
+HOW HE SAILED IN THE "MAYFLOWER"
+
+AND HOW HE SERVED MILES STANDISH
+
+    BY
+
+    Beulah Marie Dix
+    AUTHOR OF "HUGH GWYETH: A ROUNDHEAD CAVALIER"
+
+
+    _WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY REGINALD B. BIRCH_
+
+
+    New York
+    THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
+    LONDON: MACMILLAN & CO., LTD.
+    1899
+
+    _All rights reserved_
+
+
+
+
+    COPYRIGHT, 1899,
+    BY THE MACMILLAN COMPANY.
+
+    _Norwood Press
+    J. S. Cushing & Co.--Berwick & Smith
+    Norwood, Mass., U.S.A._
+
+
+
+
+Contents
+
+
+    CHAPTER I                            Page
+    Playing with Powder                     1
+
+    CHAPTER II
+    The Name of Miles                      17
+
+    CHAPTER III
+    Thievish Harbor                        30
+
+    CHAPTER IV
+    Hewers of Wood and Drawers of Water    45
+
+    CHAPTER V
+    News from the Shore                    61
+
+    CHAPTER VI
+    The Going Landward                     74
+
+    CHAPTER VII
+    The Man of the Family                  81
+
+    CHAPTER VIII
+    In the Time of the Sickness            95
+
+    CHAPTER IX
+    Master Hopkins's Guest                108
+
+    CHAPTER X
+    The Lords of the Soil                 125
+
+    CHAPTER XI
+    When the Good Ship Sailed             141
+
+    CHAPTER XII
+    The Sowing of the Fields              156
+
+    CHAPTER XIII
+    The Two Edwards                       171
+
+    CHAPTER XIV
+    A Mighty Resolution                   187
+
+    CHAPTER XV
+    In the Southward Country              202
+
+    CHAPTER XVI
+    The House of Bondage                  217
+
+    CHAPTER XVII
+    How they kept the Sabbath             228
+
+    CHAPTER XVIII
+    At Nauset Village                     243
+
+    CHAPTER XIX
+    Fallen among Friends                  257
+
+    CHAPTER XX
+    A Son of Perdition                    270
+
+    CHAPTER XXI
+    Between Man and Man                   283
+
+    CHAPTER XXII
+    The Bearer of Tidings                 296
+
+    CHAPTER XXIII
+    The Captain's Soldier                 311
+
+
+
+
+List of Illustrations
+
+
+    "As if he knew the place, and held he had the right to
+          come there" (p. 111)                        _Frontispiece_
+
+                                                      Opposite Page
+    "With his arm up to shut out the glare of the lanterns"      14
+
+    "Dolly plaited a fold of her apron between her fingers"      66
+
+    "'Do you like to do it, Captain Standish?'"                 102
+
+    "Saw the two young men close in combat"                     184
+
+    "'Oh, Miles, 'tis the savages come for us!'"                214
+
+    "Miles made out the figures of the men in the shallop"      254
+
+    "The breath came gripingly in his throat"                   308
+
+
+
+
+SOLDIER RIGDALE
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+PLAYING WITH POWDER
+
+
+WITH the approach of sunset, the wind that all day had ruffled the
+waves to white edges died down, till there was left on the water only
+a long, heaving motion, that rudely swayed the old ship _Mayflower_.
+One moment from her broad deck could be seen the steel-like gleam of
+the fresh-water pond on the distant beach; the next moment, as the ship
+rolled between the waves, the shore presented nothing but solid sand
+dunes and shrubby pine trees. But always overhead the sky, athwart
+which the yards, bulging with the furled sails, were raking, remained
+the same,--a level reach of thick gray that, as twilight drew on,
+seemed to brood closer over earth and ocean.
+
+How those yards seesawed up and down with the rolling of the ship, and
+the mastheads, they dipped too, quite as if they might pitch down upon
+a body! Miles Rigdale, standing with legs craftily planted and head
+thrown well back, stared and stared at their measured movement till,
+dizzy with the feeling that the great spars were tottering loose, he
+was glad to straighten his aching neck once more.
+
+"Did you see a goose, all roasted, flying for your mouth?" Francis
+Billington called from the waist of the ship, where he perched jauntily
+upon the bulwark.
+
+Sauntering from his place near the companion way, Miles halted beside
+the speaker; not that he had a great liking for Francis Billington, but
+he was a sociable lad, who must talk to some one, and, as the bleak air
+had driven the women and children into the great cabin, while the men
+were absent,--the leaders conferring in the roundhouse and the lesser
+men seeking firewood on shore,--he could for the moment find no comrade
+save young Billington.
+
+The latter was an unprepossessing lad, stunted and small for his
+fourteen years, with elfish eyes which he now turned sharply on Miles.
+"I take it, Jack Cooke is ill, and Giles Hopkins has packed you
+about your business, that you've come to spend the time with me," he
+suggested disagreeably.
+
+"I take it, maybe you've spoke the truth," Miles answered unruffled,
+as he propped his chin on his fists and braced his elbows against the
+bulwark.
+
+Gazing thus northward, he could see all about him green hills, wooded
+to the water's edge, now higher, now lower, as the ship mounted upon
+the waves, and the strip of sand beach, off which rode the bobbing
+longboat. "I wish my father had taken me with him when they went to
+fetch the wood," Miles broke out at that sight; "it's weeks and weeks
+since I set foot on land."
+
+"Pooh! I've been ashore thrice already," bragged Francis, setting one
+arm akimbo, though he took good care to grip the shrouds tightly with
+the other hand, for the bulwark was not the safest of perches.
+
+Miles tried to swallow down his envy, but he could not help saying,
+with a touch of triumph: "Anyhow, you saw no savages, and my father saw
+'em when he went exploring with Captain Standish,--six Indians and a
+dog, he saw."
+
+"So did my father," Francis sought to crush him; but Miles, declaring
+sudden truce, was asking, with civil interest: "You did not see any
+lions when you went ashore, did you, Francis?"
+
+"N--no, but Ned Dotey thought he heard one roar the other night."
+
+"Father would not take our mastiff Trug on land lest they kill him.
+Trug would give 'em a fight for it, though. But he couldn't fight the
+serpents; nobody could. Did you know, Francie, there's a serpent here
+in America,--they call it the rattlesnake,--and if it but breathe on
+you, you die presently."
+
+"How do you know?" asked Francis, awed, but incredulous.
+
+"My father read it in a book about plantations in Virginia. Maybe
+the serpents lie close in cold weather, though, so you did not see
+them." Miles was silent a long instant, while he gazed fixedly at
+the mysterious shore yonder, where all these rarities were to be met
+with. "The trees do not look like our English trees," he said, half
+to himself, "but I'd fain go in among them. Perhaps you found conies
+there, Francis? There were a plenty of them on the common at home; Trug
+and I used to chase them, and 'twas brave sport."
+
+"Mayhap if you had Trug with you, you could start some here," suggested
+Francis. "Tell you, Miles, you beg your father let you go ashore
+to-morrow, and I'll go too, and we'll seek for conies together. Will
+you?"
+
+"'Tis no use," Miles answered, scowling straight ahead.
+
+"Why not?"
+
+"Father says I cannot go," the boy blurted out. "I answered him saucily
+this morning, and he said for that I should not stir foot off the ship
+for a week. I think--I think he might let me go ashore. Along the first
+I was coughing, so my mother said I must not venture in the boat; and
+then my sister Dolly was ailing, and I must stay to bear her company;
+and then it stormed; and now he will not let me go. And I am so weary
+of this ship!"
+
+"I'd not bear such usage from any man," Francis boasted grandly. "If
+'twere my daddy treated me so harshly, I'd tell him to his face 'a' was
+a sour old curmudgeon, and--"
+
+"You need not talk so of my father," Miles interrupted sullenly, though
+he held his eyes fixed upon the shore line, not on the speaker. It was
+hard, while he looked toward the land of wonders, still unknown to him,
+to think quite kindly of the father who had arbitrarily shut him out
+from the enjoyment of it. "If you miscall him so again, Francis, I'll
+fight you," he added, conscience-stricken, in the hope of making amends
+for the disloyalty of his thoughts.
+
+Francis bent his sharp eyes on his companion, but did not take up the
+challenge; indeed, a less discreet lad than he might have considered
+an instant before coming to fisticuffs with Miles Rigdale. The boy,
+for his scant eleven years, was of a proper height, with straight
+back and sturdy limbs, a stocky, yet not clumsy, little figure, that
+promised a vigorous stature when he came to man's age. His deeply
+tanned face, that was lightly sprinkled with brown freckles, was
+square and resolute; his blue eyes were very level and honest; and his
+tousled brown hair tumbled about his forehead in a way to make more
+women than his mother think him a bonny boy. For the rest, he was clad
+humbly enough in doublet and breeches of dark gray frieze, with long
+gray stockings and stout shoes; he wore neither cloak nor hat, and his
+clenched fists, that now rested firmly on the bulwark, were bare and
+chapped red by the wind.
+
+It was the sight of the aggressive fists that made Francis use a
+different tone: "You're a pretty comrade, Miles, to fly out at me so."
+
+"You may leave my father in peace, then."
+
+"Perhaps you'd wish me to leave you in peace too. I know Goodman
+Rigdale has forbid his little son speak to me."
+
+"I'm still speaking to you, am I not?" answered Miles, and bent to
+adjust one of his shoes, so Francis could not see his face; those last
+words had hit dangerously near.
+
+"But you'll show me a clean pair of heels very speedily," sneered his
+companion, "for yonder the boat with your good father is putting off
+from shore, and when he comes--"
+
+"That's how the wind blows, is it?" struck in a new voice close at
+hand. Looking over his shoulder, Miles saw, lounging on a coil of
+rope by the foremast, a certain Edward Lister, one of the servants
+of Master Stephen Hopkins. He was a slim, dark fellow of some twenty
+years, whom Miles admired for a tall swaggerer, because he always wore
+his red cap rakishly on one side, and, since the rules about lighting
+tobacco aboard ship were strict, was ever chewing at a long pine
+splinter instead of a pipe. "So if your father catch you with Master
+Billington here, he'll swinge you soundly, eh, Miles Rigdale?" he
+asked, with his mouth quite grave, but a glancing mockery in his black
+eyes. "Better show us how briskly you can run into the cabin."
+
+Miles ostentatiously leaned his shoulders against the bulwark and
+crossed one leg over the other, as if he thought to finish the
+afternoon in that position. Shifting round thus, his gaze travelled
+beyond his companions to the high quarter-deck, where he spied several
+men trudging forth from the roundhouse. "Has the conference broken
+off?" he asked, forgetting in his curiosity that he was angry with both
+Francis and Ned Lister.
+
+"How else?" the latter answered dryly, and, rising to his feet,
+sauntered over to the two boys. "D'ye think they would confer without
+the great Master Hopkins? And he quit the roundhouse long since.
+Wearied out, doubtless, with such vigorous labor. It has taken them an
+hour to determine no more than to send forth a gang to-morrow and try
+a third time for a place where we may settle."
+
+"Another exploration? Is my father to go on it, do you know?" Miles
+questioned.
+
+"They won't let any but the great folk have a hand therein; daddy said
+'twould be so," commented Francis.
+
+"True enough," scoffed Lister; "the Governor, and Captain Standish,
+Master Bradford, Master Winslow, Master Hopkins, and--the worshipful
+Master Edward Dotey."
+
+"Aha!" jeered Francis. "They're taking old Hopkins's other man Dotey
+along, and Ned Lister is jealous of him."
+
+"Hold your tongue!" cried Lister, catching the lad by the scruff of the
+neck, "else I'll heave you over the bulwark."
+
+Francis twisted up his face and opened his mouth in a prodigious,
+dry-eyed howl, which would have set Miles laughing, had he not been
+intent just then upon the approaching boat. He could see her visibly
+growing larger, as she bounded nearer and nearer over the swell of the
+water, and each moment he recalled more distinctly in what terms his
+father had forbidden him have to do with "that Satanish brood of the
+Billingtons." Miles shuffled one foot uneasily; perhaps he really ought
+to go into the cabin now and see how his sick friend, Jack Cooke, was
+faring.
+
+He turned away and had idled a few paces along the deck, when Francis,
+who had been suffered wrest out of Lister's hold, called after him:
+"Ah, Miles daren't let his father find him with me. I knew so."
+
+"It's not so, neither," Miles flung back, and made a great show of
+stopping by the mainmast, where he stood gazing down the open hatchway
+which led to those cabins that were in the depth of the hold. "Aren't
+you coming with me, Francis?" he asked presently.
+
+The other, quite undeceived, came snickering up to him: "Have no fear;
+I'll take myself off ere your father come. Sure, you're a stout-hearted
+one, Miles."
+
+"You're a pretty fellow to talk of courage," Miles was goaded into
+replying, "after the way you howled out but now. You might have known
+Ned Lister'd do you no hurt."
+
+"No doubt you'd not have been afraid," his tormentor scoffed. "You're
+not afraid of anybody save your father."
+
+"So are you, if you told the truth of it," Miles took him up. "You'd
+not have Goodman Billington hear you vaporing so for all the silver
+crowns in England, and if Goodwife Billington came by and heard you,
+she'd cuff your ears smartly."
+
+Francis's sallow face reddened. "Much she would!" he said angrily.
+"I'll show you I be no milksop to stand in fear of my father and
+mother. Maybe now you think I'd not dare to--" he paused, his eyes
+half-closed, while he tried to concoct some peculiarly wicked sounding
+project--"to take some of my father's gunpowder and make squibs?" he
+concluded, with a triumphant look at his companion.
+
+"No, I don't think you dare," Miles answered stolidly.
+
+"Come, then, I'll show you," the other cried, and headed for the
+companion way that descended beneath the quarter-deck.
+
+Four steps down, and, passing through a narrow door, they entered
+into the stifle and stir of the "great" or main cabin. On every hand
+murmured the ceaseless confusion that always filled the straitened
+space: underfoot, sometimes with fretful wrangling, children were at
+play; women were passing to and from their cabins, or dressing their
+meat for the evening meal at the long table; upon the benches several
+sick men, whose heavy voices were audible through the shriller tones of
+those about them, sat together in talk. Over all, the brightness from
+the narrow skylights fell wanly, so the corners of the low apartment
+were dusky with thick shadows, and the dim outline of the great timbers
+overhead, and the slits of doors into the double tier of little cabins
+adjoining, could only just be made out.
+
+Miles was glad of the half light, for he knew well that if his mother
+should chance to be there and see him with Francis, she would make
+a pretext of some task to call him to her. He caught sight of her
+now, as she stood by the table in speech with Constance Hopkins, and,
+almost treading on Francis's heels in his hurry, he slipped into the
+Billingtons' cabin.
+
+It was the veriest closet of a room in which he found himself, black,
+save for a glint of sickly light that crept through an opening in the
+door, by which Miles contrived presently to discern the unmade bunk
+along the wall, the mattress, still spread out upon the floor, and the
+iron kettle and other vague household stuff that littered untidily
+the narrow space. Comparing it with his father's ordered cabin, he
+recalled his mother's indignant comment to Mistress Hopkins, that Ellen
+Billington was a poor, thriftless body, who would better be tidying her
+quarters than gossiping with her neighbors.
+
+"Now you'll see what I dare, Master Miles," Francis broke in, as, with
+much panting, he dragged from beneath the bunk a small keg. "This is
+gunpowder, if you be not afraid of the sight of it."
+
+"It does not take much courage to touch gunpowder," said Miles, bending
+forward from the bunk, where he had seated himself, and plunging his
+fist into the keg. "Let's see your squibs, Francis."
+
+Young Billington stretched himself on his stomach and, grubbing once
+more beneath the bunk, drew out a fistful of rustling papers. "These
+are leaves I tore from a jest book of daddy's," he bragged. "No doubt
+you won't believe I durst."
+
+Miles made no reply; after all, he scarcely cared to prolong his
+differences with a boy who had such a delightful plaything as a keg of
+powder. "Let me make a squib too, Francie," he begged, squatting down
+on the mattress beside his host.
+
+For a space there was silence, while, with some hard breathing, the
+two, guided more by touch than by any sight they had in the dark cabin,
+labored industriously. Blacker and blacker it grew all round them, till
+they struck their hands together as they groped in the keg, when a
+ray of faint yellow light, that must fall from a lantern in the great
+cabin, stole through the door.
+
+Now they could see how they were faring at their work, and Francis,
+who had laid his handfuls of powder on the papers and folded them
+quite dexterously, laughed in provoking fashion at Miles, who, new to
+this game, had spilt the powder and failed to make his papers stay
+folded. "It's all very well," the boy retorted irritably, as one of his
+painfully made squibs, bursting open, scattered powder between his
+knees, "but after you've made these mighty squibs what else do you do?"
+
+"Why, I'll light a bit of match," said Francis, scrambling to his feet,
+"and then we'll touch 'em off."
+
+Miles jumped up delightedly, and, reasoning that a really satisfactory
+squib should be set off in darkness, took from the bunk a blanket which
+he fastened by two nails across the opening in the door.
+
+Meantime Francis had struck his father's flint and steel together, till
+at length he succeeded in catching a spark upon the piece of "match" or
+twisted tow steeped in saltpetre. Miles could see the little red point
+shimmering in the dark and, picking up the squibs, he moved warily
+toward it. "Gi' me a squib," came Francis's voice, close at his feet.
+More accustomed to the dimness now, Miles could make out the boy's
+crouching figure and saw him lean far forward with one arm outstretched
+to touch off the powder.
+
+Then he felt Francis crowd up against his knees, and instinctively he
+drew back so his own body was pressed against the wall. Out of the dark
+on the floor, right at his feet, started a little flicker of flame
+which, with a sudden whishing sound, leaped up, a broad, bluish puff
+of fire, almost in his eyes; then, before the exclamation had left his
+lips, died sizzling away.
+
+"That was brave, wasn't it?" spoke Francis, in a rather quavering
+voice. "You can touch off one now."
+
+[Illustration: "With his arm up to shut out the glare of the lanterns."]
+
+Miles eagerly seized the match and, setting it to a squib, flung the
+twisted paper a pace from him. The same whiz, burst, sizzle, but this
+time he lost the keen pleasure in a sudden hideous thought that, even
+as the squib left his hand, came over him. "Francis," he cried, before
+the flame died down, "is this safe, think you? Say the powder in the
+keg took fire?"
+
+"Pshaw! You're afraid; I knew you'd be," replied Francis, his own
+courage quite restored.
+
+Thereupon Miles lit a third squib to show his fearlessness, and then
+together they set off the remaining two. "That's the last, and I've no
+more paper," sighed Francis, and Miles echoed the sigh.
+
+They were sitting now on the edge of the bunk; the cabin seemed very
+black to their eyes, still dazzled with the last flash, and the air
+was hot and heavy with the pungent odor of burnt powder. Miles sniffed
+it contentedly. "This is what 'twould be like in a great battle," he
+began. "Sometime I mean to be a soldier and have a musket. Did you ever
+shoot with a musket, Francis?"
+
+"No, but I've shot off a fowling piece," answered the other. He
+clambered upon the bunk, groping audibly in the dark, and presently
+dropped down again beside his companion with something long and
+slender and heavy in his arms. "Look you, Miles, here's daddy's fowling
+piece now," he said exultantly. "What say if I shoot her off?"
+
+"'Twould make a mighty big noise in so small a room," Miles answered
+longingly.
+
+"Give me the match, then."
+
+Later Miles remembered clearly how Francis had sprung to his feet at
+the word, but after that all was a confusion of dire noises,--a rending
+crash, then a sound of women screaming, of children crying, and of
+men running with clattering footsteps across the great cabin. Through
+it all he felt the weight of Francis Billington, who had pitched back
+against him, and he saw a little spurt of yellow fire that licked along
+the boards. Though he did not remember snatching a blanket from the
+bunk, one was in his hand, and he was down upon the floor, smothering
+the flames that would press out beyond the edges. A powder keg was
+somewhere near, he recollected, and he beat out one little jet of flame
+with his hand, that smarted fiercely.
+
+It all must have taken a long, long time, but still the women screamed,
+and the heavy footsteps had only just reached the door. The latch
+rattled beneath a rough hand, the light streamed into the cabin, and
+Miles dropped back against the bunk, with his arm up to shut out the
+glare of the lanterns, and the sight, too, of the angry faces in the
+doorway. "Francis, Francis," he found himself saying, in a poor whisper
+that he realized was not meant for Francis Billington's ears, "we must
+'a' killed some one."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+THE NAME OF MILES
+
+
+IN the great cabin two huge, smoky lanterns, that swayed from the beams
+overhead, cast blending white circles in the middle space, while the
+corners still remained dusky. Somewhere, there in the dark, a woman
+was crying hysterically, and others, calmer, but with startled, white
+faces, were standing beyond the group of men, who were gathered round
+the door of the Billingtons' cabin. Miles saw about him all the faces,
+terrified or menacing, but it was blurrily, as in a dream. He kept
+telling himself it was all a dream, an ugly dream, and presently he
+would awake to find he had never gone with Francis Billington, and very
+glad he would be to awake so.
+
+But the grasp on his neck--it was big John Alden, the cooper from
+Southampton, who had dragged him out into the great cabin--was real,
+and so, he now found, were the faces of the men who confronted him. The
+Elder, William Brewster, with his gray hair, and grave Governor Carver,
+he noted among them, with a hopeless feeling that all the majesty of
+the company was come thither to judge him. Close by, he heard Francis
+Billington crying, with tearful sobs, not dry howls alone, but Miles
+dropped his shamed eyes to the floor of the cabin and did not look at
+his companion. He heard Goodman Billington's rough voice, thick with
+abuse and threats against his son, and then he heard the Elder cut him
+short: "Peace now, friend. Maybe the lad is hurt."
+
+Just then, from within the Billingtons' cabin, whence a light smoke
+still drifted, spoke a quick, deep voice: "Come you in and lend a hand,
+Alden. There is work for two needs despatch. The floor here is over
+shoe thick with powder."
+
+"Ay, Captain Standish," the young man answered promptly, and loosed his
+hold on Miles's collar.
+
+There was a little movement in the group of men, and Master Stephen
+Hopkins, stepping closer to the cabin door, peered in and spoke
+solemnly: "A full keg of powder broke open! 'Tis by the mercy of Heaven
+alone the ship was not blown into atoms."
+
+"I did not have it in mind to blow up the ship," Miles faltered,
+raising his eyes. "I did but touch off a squib--because it would burn
+bravely." There the words choked in his throat, for, a little back from
+the other men, he caught sight of his father, and Goodman Rigdale's
+arms were folded, his heavy brows drawn close together, and his lips,
+beneath his beard, set in a way Miles knew of old. "I did not mean it,"
+he repeated huskily, and, gazing at the floor again, began crushing a
+fold of his doublet in his hand.
+
+About him there was questioning and answering, he knew, and he heard
+Francis whimper: "'Twas Miles. He touched off squibs, he did."
+
+"Squibs do not make such a noise as that we heard," Governor Carver
+interrupted sternly.
+
+"'Twas daddy's fowling piece. Miles Rigdale and I shot her off, and
+he--"
+
+"Let Miles Rigdale rest," the Elder admonished. "Do you tell us of
+Francis Billington."
+
+Bit by bit a fairly accurate story was drawn from the two boys, though
+by such slow and woful stages that before it was ended Captain Miles
+Standish and John Alden, with their hands all grimed with powder,
+came out from the cabin. Miles stole a fearful side-glance at the
+Low Country soldier, who, being trained in the brutal discipline of
+the camps, was likely to prove a harsher judge than the Elder or
+the Governor, but, to his relief, he saw the Captain halt beside
+Goodman Billington, to whom he growled out some pithy advice as to
+the expediency of keeping his powder covered up and out of reach of
+mischievous hands.
+
+Miles took heart a little then, as much as he could take heart while he
+knew Goodman Rigdale was frowning in the background, and even ventured
+to look up when he heard Elder Brewster say, in a tone which a trace
+of amusement and much relief made almost kindly: "Well, well, 'twas no
+Guy Fawkes conspiracy, it seems, only the folly of two scatter-brained
+lads. Your Excellency scarce will set them in the bilboes?"
+
+"Nay, I leave it to their fathers to teach them not to meddle with such
+tools in future," Governor Carver answered gravely; and thereupon, with
+a surly mutter or so from other fathers in the company as to what the
+two culprits deserved to get, the men scattered to weightier affairs.
+
+As the group thinned, Miles was left face to face with his father, who,
+making a curt sign for him to come after, led the way to the door of
+the cabin. Miles felt queer and empty at the pit of his stomach, and
+his fingers trembled as he began unhooking his doublet, but he followed
+along bravely. His eyes were still downcast, and, as he stepped, he
+counted the planks in the flooring and tried to think of nothing but
+their number.
+
+Out in the darkness of the forward deck his father gave him such
+punishment as he looked for,--a beating with a rope's end, so hard that
+Miles had to set his teeth tight and clench his hands to keep from
+crying. Once, in the midst, Goodman Rigdale stayed his arm, and in the
+instant's cessation Miles, standing in his shirt-sleeves, felt the wind
+from across the harbor strike cold on his hot flesh, that was quivering
+with the blows. "That is for that you near destroyed the ship," his
+father spoke, gravely and without anger. "Now I must flog you for that
+you disobeyed me, and had to do with one of those Billington imps."
+
+The second whipping ended, Miles huddled on his doublet, stiffly and
+awkwardly, glad of the darkness that hid his face. Goodman Rigdale was
+speaking again: "And ere you lie down to-night, my son, remember to
+give thanks unto God that by His mercy He has preserved you from being
+cast into His presence with the deaths of all that are within this ship
+upon your soul."
+
+Miles did not quite follow the words, but, with a sense that he was
+the chiefest of sinners, and with a keen realization that his back and
+sides were smarting, he gulped out an unsteady "Yes, sir," and blindly
+fled away.
+
+Aft of the foremast, as he stumbled uncertainly, he ran against a
+woman, and at once he knew it was his mother. In an unformed way he was
+aware that she had been waiting to comfort him, and at each blow had
+suffered more than he. Her voice was quavering now, though she tried
+hard to keep her everyday tone: "Come, come down to the cabin now.
+Father has shot a bird, and I've made a broth to our supper. Come,
+deary, it is turning chill here."
+
+Shaking off the hand she laid on his arm, Miles broke away and ran to
+the mainmast, where the hatchway yawned. Slipping and swinging on the
+steep ladder, he descended headlong; he was not going to his father's
+cabin, nor did he know whither he was going, only that he wanted to be
+by himself. On the orlop deck he halted an instant before passing down
+into the hold; below, there would be many people, while here, for the
+moment, he was alone. He stood blinking at the dim lantern that hung by
+the ladder, till slowly it grew blurry to his eyes, and, raising his
+bent arm, he hid his face.
+
+It seemed only a moment before he heard someone come tramping up from
+the hold, and felt a hand on his shoulder. He was turned round; he
+had to look up; and he saw, standing over him, Master Hopkins, very
+grim and stern, as was his wont. "I am glad to see these tears of
+repentance, Miles Rigdale," he spoke severely.
+
+Miles wriggled out of his hold. "I am not repentant," he cried. "I wish
+I _had_ blown _you_ up. Now you can go bid my father flog me again."
+With that he dodged the hand Hopkins put out to detain him, and,
+jumping over some coils of rope, scrambled away out of reach.
+
+Clambering over the chests and kegs that were placed upon the orlop,
+he paused only when he reached the next cleared space, by the forward
+hatchway that led to the gunroom. There it was all dark, a comfortable,
+thick blackness, and, to make it safer and lonelier, he crept under a
+table that was stored among other household stuff.
+
+For a moment he sat panting, and listened to the lap, lap of the waves
+upon the side of the ship and to his own heavy breathing, but he heard
+no sound of any one's pursuing him. Doubtless Master Hopkins had
+gone away to tell every one that he was crying and repentant, Miles
+tormented himself; no matter, he was never coming out to be jeered at
+and preached to; he would stay under the table forever, and he would
+not shed another tear to please them.
+
+So he sat, rigid and still, and each moment grew more keenly aware that
+he was sore from his beating, that his head ached, and his burnt hand
+throbbed, and his heart was big with a great burden of shame. Of a
+sudden, in the stillness and dark, he heard a sob. Then he found it was
+himself, lying with his head buried in his arms against the crosspiece
+that braced the legs of the table, and crying helplessly.
+
+He had lost track of the minutes, but he had lain there a long time,
+he knew, for his arms were numb with the pressure of the crosspiece
+against them, and his throat ached with much sobbing, when he caught
+the sound of a footstep on the planking of the orlop. At the same
+moment, light beat against his smarting eyelids, and, opening his eyes,
+he raised his head to look.
+
+The edges of the table under which he crouched were silhouetted blackly
+against the yellow lantern-glow, which crept midway into his shelter.
+Following with his eyes along the light, he could see beyond the table
+the joinings of the planks of the floor, a bit of the ladder that led
+to the main deck, and by the ladder, in shadow as the lantern was
+raised, the lower part of a man's body.
+
+Miles stared breathlessly at the commonplace leather shoes and kersey
+breeches,--all the rest the table hid from his view,--while he strove
+to hold back a sob that was halfway up his throat. It would out, but he
+tried to turn it into a sneeze, which ended in a mournful, indefinable
+gurgle.
+
+Instantly the light of the lantern, swinging round, swept almost into
+his face, and a deep voice commanded: "Come out hither."
+
+Miles sat up, tense and braced. "Is it you, Captain Standish?" he
+asked, in a small voice. Not that, to his knowledge, Miles Standish had
+ever hurt any one, but he was a brusque, peremptory man, reputed of a
+fiery temper; it was for this, probably, that Master Hopkins had sent
+him hither, as one fitted to deal out further punishment to such a
+criminal as Miles Rigdale.
+
+"Come out, and you'll speedily find if 'tis I," Standish's voice
+rejoined grimly.
+
+Miles rubbed his sleeve across his eyes, the rough frieze hurting them
+rarely, then dubiously crept from his shelter. The straight course was
+to crawl toward the light, but to go that way would land him squarely
+at the Captain's feet,--a last touch of ignominy that he could not
+endure. So he scrambled painfully over the crosspieces and round the
+table-legs, till he came out upon the open floor the width of the
+table-top from the enemy.
+
+"It's naught but you, is it?" the Captain greeted him, and turned the
+lantern so the light fell full upon him.
+
+The boy struggled hastily to his feet. "Ay, sir," he nodded, without
+speaking or looking up.
+
+The other drew a step nearer. "You're one of the knaves who tried to
+blow up the _Mayflower_, are you not?" he questioned sternly. "Did you
+steal down here to fire the magazine and finish the work?"
+
+"I--I did not go for to blow up the ship, sir," Miles pleaded, raising
+his eyes. With amazed relief, he saw that, for all his gruff tone, the
+Captain looked more amused than angry.
+
+Standish must have taken closer note of him, too, for he asked
+abruptly: "You're John Rigdale's lad, are you not?"
+
+"I am Miles Rigdale."
+
+The lantern was lowered suddenly. "My namesake, are you? Do you
+not think, sirrah, you bear too good a name to drag it into a
+powder-burning matter such as this?"
+
+"I do not hold it a good name," Miles burst out. "I would they had
+called me plain Jack."
+
+"Wherefore, pray you?"
+
+"Miles is no name at all," the boy hesitated, between shyness and the
+desire to vent a long-standing resentment. "It makes me think of the
+stone in our village that said: 'Thirteen miles to London.'"
+
+"Tut, tut, lad! Have you no Latin?"
+
+Miles slipped one hand under the edge of the table against which he
+leaned, and picked at a splinter he found there, while he stammered:
+"N--no, sir. There was no school in our village, and, had there been,
+my father could not spare me from the farm. I must help him, for I'm
+mighty strong for my years," he added gravely. "And I never want to go
+sit in a school, either. I am glad there will be no schools here in
+the plantation, not till I'm a man and can do as I will. I hold that
+is the best part of all in planting a colony, except the lions and the
+savages."
+
+"And what do you think to do with the lions and savages, Miles
+Rigdale?"
+
+"Fight 'em, sir."
+
+Captain Standish chuckled softly in his beard. "You'll fight 'em, eh?
+'Tis a great pity, in truth, no one has told you what name you bear.
+You should know that Miles in the Latin tongue signifies 'a soldier.'"
+
+Miles forgot that his cheeks were tear-stained and his eyes swollen,
+and looked up happily into the speaker's face. "I am right glad of
+that," he announced. "'Tis a good enough name, after all." He was
+sorely tempted to ask the Captain if he had been named that after he
+proved himself a soldier in the wars, or if they named him first and he
+grew to it afterward, but he concluded that would be over-bold.
+
+Though, after all, he began to doubt if Captain Standish were such
+a terrible body. He looked pleasant enough now, as he stood in the
+lantern light,--a stocky, square-shouldered man of some six and thirty
+years, with yellow-brown hair and beard, and eyes so deep set under his
+brows Miles could not tell their color. The linen bands at his neck and
+wrists were small and plain, and along the sides of his doublet of dark
+maroon kersey the rubbing of armor had worn down the cloth. He was not
+so fine a gentleman, doubtless, as young Master Edward Winslow, but he
+looked the man of war, through and through, and, moreover, he neither
+scolded nor preached at a small sinner; Miles began to be glad in his
+heart that he bore the same name as the Captain.
+
+"So, after all, you're content to be named 'Soldier' Rigdale?" Standish
+suddenly read the expression of his face.
+
+"'Tis a soldier that I mean to be," Miles confessed. "I like the smell
+of powder."
+
+"So it seems," the Captain answered, in the dryest possible tone, and
+then, as Miles's cheeks began to burn, went on hastily: "Which was it,
+you or the Billington lad, put out the fire? We found the blanket on
+the floor of the cabin."
+
+"Mayhap 'twas I. I do not recall it clearly."
+
+The Captain reached out his hand, and, taking Miles by a fold of the
+doublet-sleeve, lifted his arm. "No doubt 'twas you," he said; "you've
+blistered your hand here."
+
+"I know. It aches," Miles whispered, with a sudden husky dropping of
+his voice.
+
+"You'd better go to your mother straightway and ask her to put oil on
+it; that will soon draw out the fire."
+
+"I can't," Miles gulped. "I can never go out among the people again.
+When they all think I tried to blow them up,--and when every one will
+know I have been newly whipped. I shall stay here forever." His voice
+died down as he spoke the last: it did not sound manly, but uncommon
+silly.
+
+"You'd get mighty hungry if you did," the soldier answered him coolly.
+"You're going to your mother now, my man. Run along with you. I've to
+go on down into the gunroom, but I'll light you up the ladder."
+
+Miles gave a tremulous gasp of resignation, and scuffed slowly to the
+foot of the ladder, where he paused and smeared the back of his hand
+across his cheeks; then turned to his companion. "Captain Standish," he
+hesitated; then, as it was the only possible way of learning what he
+wished to know before he showed himself among the company, he blurted
+out desperately, "Will you tell me, is my face clean?"
+
+Captain Standish looked down at him with a funny expression in his
+eyes. "I think 'twill serve in a half light, if you slip directly into
+your father's cabin."
+
+"Thank you, sir," Miles answered; then added hastily, "You see, there
+was something flew into my eye, and one that did not know might
+think--I had been crying."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+THIEVISH HARBOR
+
+
+ONE sharp December afternoon, a week and a day after the Pilgrim
+leaders went forth the third time to seek a place for settlement, Love
+Brewster and his little brother Wrestling climbed down to the cabins
+beneath the main deck to visit their playmate, Dolly Rigdale. The cubby
+where Dolly and Miles and their father and mother had lived during the
+two months of the voyage over the sea and the five weeks of exploration
+that followed, was a dim box of a place, but the little boys liked to
+visit it, not only to talk with Dolly, who was nearer their age than
+most of the children in the company, but to see Trug and Solomon.
+
+Trug was the big, grizzled mastiff, who had guarded the house and the
+cattle faithfully for so many years that even stern John Rigdale had
+not the heart to leave him to strangers; and Solomon, with the wise
+eyes of royal yellow, was the fat house-cat, whom Dolly had insisted on
+bringing with her to the new home.
+
+"If it had been my pet, 'twould 'a' had to bide in England," Miles had
+told himself, in one bitter, jealous moment, of which he was justly
+ashamed. For, without question, Goodman Rigdale cared equally for his
+two children, only he held Miles, being a stubborn chip of manhood,
+needed frequent beatings, such as the Scriptures enjoined on good
+fathers to give their sons, whereas Dolly was just a little wench, with
+gray eyes like her mother, so she received very gentle whippings and
+triumphantly lugged Solomon on shipboard.
+
+The sleek, striped creature lay beside her now, for Dolly, still ailing
+with her cough, was resting on the bunk beneath the blankets. Wrestling
+Brewster, a big-eyed, silent child, sat by her, and, sorry to tell,
+joined forces with the little girl in rumpling poor Solomon's fur. "You
+are the best pussy," Dolly purred meantime, and, either because of her
+flattery or because the warm blankets were comfortable, the cat made no
+movement to leave her.
+
+Ordinarily Miles sniffed at the conversation of eight-year-olds, such
+as his sister, but this afternoon he gladly lingered in the cabin, for
+the accomplishments of the Brewster lads were amazing enough to lift
+them to the rank of companions. Both could jabber Dutch quite as fast
+as Miles could speak English, and Love, the talkative one, could tell
+wonderful stories of the queer Low Country city of Leyden, where all
+his short life had been spent. It was of Leyden he spoke now, sitting
+beside Miles on the turned-up mattress, where at night Goodman Rigdale
+and his son slept, and Miles, with a question here and there to draw
+out what he sought, listened again to the story of the Pilgrims.
+
+Love had good reason to know it well, for his father, Elder Brewster,
+had been from the first one of the leaders of the little company. He
+had given all his substance to help the cause of that faith which the
+bishops of the great Established Church of England held it right to
+crush out; he had suffered imprisonment for the sake of that faith;
+and finally, that he and his friends might worship God as they thought
+best, had gone into exile in Holland.
+
+There for twelve years the Pilgrim church held its own, though its
+members, for all their efforts to support themselves in that strange
+country, fared hardly and poorly. Good Deacon Fuller, the physician,
+had been glad to earn his living as a say or serge maker; Master
+William Bradford had been a maker of fustian; and the Elder had
+maintained his family and aided his poorer companions by teaching
+English to Danish and German gentlemen, and later by printing English
+books.
+
+Love told also of Master Carver, the recently elected governor of the
+company, who had given his whole fortune to the Pilgrim cause; and
+he spoke of gallant Master Edward Winslow, who, travelling in the Low
+Countries with his newly married wife, had come to know and to respect
+the Pilgrim folk and finally to cast in his lot with theirs. And, best
+of all, Love could tell of Captain Standish.
+
+There the boy turned to what Miles had been waiting to hear, and be
+sure that now he eagerly drank in each word: how the Captain came of
+a great family in Lancashire, where he had a vast estate which his
+kinsfolk had taken from him,--so Love had once heard him say to the
+Elder; how he had fought bravely against the wicked Spaniards, as far
+back as the time of Queen Bess, when Miles Standish was a very young
+man indeed; and how, of a sudden, he had come with his young wife and
+joined himself to the Pilgrims, why, none could say, for he was "not of
+our faith," Love gravely quoted the older people.
+
+That last did not greatly displease Miles, perhaps because his own
+father was rather a Puritan than an ardent Separatist, as those were
+called who, like the Pilgrims of Leyden, broke off all communion with
+the Established Church. Goodman John Rigdale grumbled about the bishops
+and the vestments of the clergymen and other matters which Miles
+neither heeded nor comprehended, but, for all his grumbling, as often
+as the law insisted, he and his household went to church. One of the
+first and liveliest recollections of childhood which Miles kept, was of
+how the red light from the painted windows that his father hated used
+to shift along the dark oak of the old pews.
+
+Lately, though, John Rigdale had spoken out too openly against the
+service book, and there had been a citation before the ecclesiastical
+court. Miles scarcely understood the matter, but he knew that Dun-face,
+the pet heifer, had been sold to pay a fine, and that their landlord,
+swearing that he was too good a Church of England man to suffer a
+pestilent Separatist hold a farm of him, had refused to renew the
+lease, bought long ago by Miles's grandfather, which now ran out.
+
+Then had come Master Stephen Hopkins, the London tanner, whose first
+wife had been a distant cousin of John Rigdale's, and he had talked of
+the new country over seas, where a man might have land and a farm of
+his own for the asking and worship to please his conscience, not the
+king's bishops. Master Hopkins had already made up his mind to embark
+with the people from Leyden; he had met their agent, Master Cushman,
+and he was acquainted with some of the London merchants who had
+formed a partnership with the Leyden people, the Londoners to furnish
+money to pay the expenses of the long voyage, the Separatists to give
+themselves and their families to defend and till the plantation thus
+gained.
+
+In the end, Master Hopkins's statements were so weighty that Goodman
+Rigdale followed his example. The stout farm horse and the cows and the
+pigs were all led away to market, and Dolly cried over each one; and
+Goodwife Rigdale, too, wept a little when most of the bits of furniture
+were sold. But Miles thought it all very merry and stirring,--the
+breaking up of the home he had known, the journey to Southampton, all
+amidst new sights and sounds, and the ship, and the long voyage over
+the sea, till the _Mayflower_ dropped anchor off Cape Cod.
+
+He was more than a bit weary of the voyage and the ship now, however,
+as he sat on the turned-up mattress in his father's stuffy little
+cabin. The dead air was cold without being bracing, and Miles broke
+short Love's discourse on the journey of the Leyden Pilgrims into
+England, by springing up and stamping his chilled feet.
+
+"It _is_ a shrewd cold day," said his companion. "See!" He puffed at
+the air, and his breath made a little white cloud. "Maybe we'd best go
+up on deck and run."
+
+At that word the two older boys turned to the door, but Wrestling shook
+his head and, pressing closer to Dolly, whispered: "Before I go, I want
+that you show me the Indian basket."
+
+Miles overheard, and delayed to draw from beneath the bunk the deal box
+in which the treasure was kept. Wrestling was so young that he seemed
+hardly more than a baby, and as a baby Miles had a kindly, protecting
+feeling for him; when he rose with the box he opened it so the little
+boy might have the first sight. Within lay a tiny basket all of silk
+grass, pictured on which in black and white were birds and flowers of a
+curious pattern.
+
+"Did your father truly bring it from the Indians?" Love asked.
+
+"He brought it home to me," Dolly explained proudly. "It was in an
+Indian house, and my father found it when he went ashore with Captain
+Standish. And so he brought it to me."
+
+Wrestling touched the fragile thing gingerly. "I wish our father fought
+the Indians once," he murmured.
+
+"It is better to be an Elder," Love rebuked him sternly; then added,
+lest Dolly's feelings be hurt, "though, to be sure, there can be but
+one Elder in a company. The rest must be fighting men, must they not,
+Miles?"
+
+But Miles gave no heed; for just then the sound of soft footsteps made
+him glance to the open door, at which the light drifted in, and there,
+standing on the threshold, he saw his mother.
+
+Years afterward, when he looked back, Miles realized Goodwife Rigdale
+had been a young woman then, not above thirty, but in those days it
+seemed to him she must be old, because she was his mother; he even
+wondered that she had not hair streaked with gray, like Mistress
+Brewster. Mothers were always old, he generalized rashly, just as they
+were always gentle-spoken and full of kindness; only that last judgment
+he revoked, after he came aboard the _Mayflower_ and heard Goodwife
+Billington, a true London virago, rail at her sons and saw her cuff
+them.
+
+But his own mother was not to be belittled by naming her with Ellen
+Billington; she was everything that was good and to be loved, even
+if she did not wear such a brave gown as Mistress Winslow, nor have
+such pink cheeks as Mistress Standish. Miles drew away from the bunk,
+against which he had been leaning, to make room for her to sit, though
+he did it awkwardly, because Love and Wrestling were looking.
+
+"I'll bide a bit now with my little maid," she said, as she drew the
+blankets more closely about Dolly. "You'll want to be running up on
+deck now, I can guess, deary, and Love and Wrestling too, if Mistress
+Brewster will suffer it."
+
+"Mother, is the shallop in sight?" Miles cried eagerly. For, since the
+exploring party sailed forth a week before, there had come so great a
+storm that hearts aboard the _Mayflower_ were not a little anxious for
+their welfare.
+
+"They've made out a sail to the southward, I heard the talk run. Go you
+and learn further, Miles. Your father will be on deck too."
+
+Miles reddened a little; why would she speak as if he were a young boy,
+to need his father? "Come, lads," he said, in a very old tone, to hide
+his mortification, and led the way from the cabin. As he passed out at
+the door, he heard a sorrowful wail from Dolly: "O me! Mammy, can I not
+run about with them soon?"
+
+But Miles forgot Dolly's woes and all, when he clambered into the
+bracing air of the deck, whither the most of the hale ones of the
+company had, like himself, bustled to watch the approaching shallop.
+Shreds of dappled cloud half obscured the east, but low in the west the
+sun was cold and yellow, and its light flecked the water and made the
+sail of the distant craft gleam like gold.
+
+Miles stared till for very dazzle he could see no longer, then turned
+his gaze inboard, where it rested on the slender figure of a woman, who
+leaned against the mainmast. When the light got out of his eyes, he
+perceived it was Mistress Rose Standish, who, while he was still gazing
+on her, came to the bulwark beside him, but, without seeming to see
+him, stood looking toward the shallop.
+
+Once and again Miles glanced up at her, thinking how bonny she was
+with the flush on her cheeks and her brown hair straying from beneath
+her hood across her forehead; and then he grew suddenly hot, for she
+chanced to look down, and their eyes met. He drew away bashfully and
+stared again at the shallop; the sun had now dropped lower, so the
+waves around it were sombre, but within the boat sparkled a gleam of
+light on metal armor. Miles almost thought to be able to distinguish
+the forms of the men, and presently their faces. "Yon is the Captain,"
+he broke out, half aloud.
+
+"Do you see him, too?" Mistress Standish spoke, as if he had addressed
+her.
+
+"That's he, by the mast, with the steel corselet."
+
+She looked down again, and the boy noted her eyes were moist, though
+she smiled as she said: "You seem to know the Captain very well, sir."
+
+"I'd know him anywhere," Miles answered earnestly. "You understand, he
+was right kind to me."
+
+Then he broke off speech, for the shallop was now fairly alongside,
+and the men in her were calling to those on shipboard greetings and
+questions and answers. Mistress Standish moved quickly toward the
+gangway, and Miles saw her meet the Captain, when he clambered up the
+ladder.
+
+Next after him came Master William Bradford, and suddenly it struck
+with a shock on Miles's remembrance that Mistress Bradford was dead,
+drowned alongside the _Mayflower_ on the very day after the shallop
+sailed, and her body carried away among the waves. Master Bradford,
+for all the weariness in his movements, looked cheerful and hopeful as
+he gained the deck, and his eyes went glancing over the women gathered
+there with such a certainty of meeting one that, child though he was,
+Miles realized something of the pity of it.
+
+But after Elder Brewster had led Master Bradford away, the horror and
+the pity slipped quickly from Miles. Drawing over closer to the gangway
+ladder, he stood watching the rest of the shallop's company scramble
+to the deck, and, listening to every scrap of speech, was soon eager
+as any of the other boys in questioning the sailors and Hopkins's man,
+Dotey.
+
+The minutes ran on till dim twilight had darkened upon the water, when
+at last, bursting with news, Miles clambered down again to Goodwife
+Rigdale in the cabin. "They've found a place for us to settle, mother,"
+he announced, barely within the door.
+
+Goodwife Rigdale hushed him with a finger on her lips; Dolly was
+asleep, so he must speak softly.
+
+Miles curled himself up on the floor at his mother's feet, with his
+elbow on her knee, and whispered: "'Tis at a place called Thievish
+Harbor--"
+
+"Nay, that's an ill name," commented the Goodwife.
+
+"'Tis because a savage stole a harpoon from a ship's boat that once put
+in there to truck, so says Robert Coppin, the pilot. It lies across a
+great bay here, and there are fair green islands and many brooks and
+cleared land and tall trees. We are going thither, all of us, mother.
+The ship is to sail so soon as the wind favors. And if they like of it
+on further look, we'll go ashore and stay. I want to go ashore again,"
+he ended wistfully; "the week's out that father said I must stay on
+the ship. Won't you beg him take me ashore first thing when we come
+thither, mother?"
+
+The flickering light that reached them from the lantern hung outside
+the cabin door was blotted out then, as Goodman Rigdale himself came
+in. Miles dared ask no favors of him directly, however, but, scrambling
+to his feet, stood silent and unobtrusive, though he listened eagerly
+to all his father had to say of Thievish Harbor, which he called
+Plymouth. "So it is named on the maps that were drawn by Captain
+Smith," he said, to which Goodwife Rigdale answered quickly: "I am glad
+for the name. Do you not have in mind, John, how kindly the people
+at our English Plymouth dealt by us when we had to put in at their
+harbor?"
+
+But this new Plymouth in America bore little resemblance to Plymouth
+in Devonshire, as Miles found, to his surprise, when he had his first
+sight of the place where the company was to settle. It was on the
+afternoon of the day succeeding the return of the shallop that, the
+wind at last favoring, the _Mayflower_ steered her course for the bay
+of Plymouth. The sunshine was strong and clear, and the air mild, so
+Goodwife Rigdale suffered Dolly come up on deck, where, well wrapped in
+a cloak, she stood between her mother and Miles.
+
+Others in plenty, all the passengers who could walk about, were
+watching for a glimpse of the new home, but Miles, in his eagerness,
+scarcely heeded his companions. He strained his eyes to see the
+headlands, brave with evergreen, loom higher and higher, and ran to
+question his friend, Giles Hopkins, who had been talking with the
+sailors, as to what they were. Giles explained that the one on the left
+was not the mainland, but a well-wooded point, and on the right yonder
+the farther of the two islands, with the trees, was where the exploring
+party had spent their Sabbath.
+
+By the time Miles returned to his mother with the news, they were
+running in between the point and the islands, and presently, well
+within the harbor, they dropped anchor in a safe mooring ground. All
+about them were headlands and islands; far to the right, across the
+bay, rose a great hill; and just over opposite where the ship lay a
+broad space of open land, with high hills behind, could be made out.
+
+"Yonder's where we'll settle," Miles assured his mother.
+
+"I see no houses," protested Dolly. "I thought there would be cottages,
+maybe. Must we lie in the woods, mammy?"
+
+"Nonsense! We'll build houses," scoffed Miles; he would have blushed
+to own that, half unconsciously, he, too, had cherished the fancy of
+seeing on the New England shore straggling streets and tiny cottages,
+as in old Plymouth.
+
+"You'll build houses, Miles?" teased his sister.
+
+"Father and I and all the men," the boy bragged. "Build them of great
+logs. Then in the spring will come a ship with horses and cows and
+sheep, and we'll have farms, just as we had at home."
+
+"With a hedge round the dooryard?" Dolly questioned.
+
+"Yes, and meadow-land and ploughed fields. We'll have all in order when
+the frost leaves the ground," Miles answered confidently.
+
+Then he looked up at his mother, and was astonished to see that for
+once her eyes were not on her children, but on the empty shore over
+opposite. Her face was wistful, and it came on Miles that perhaps she
+was not as interested in the farm concerns as he, who was a man, so he
+said quickly: "And you can have a garden here, mother, full of rosemary
+and daffadowndillies, just as at home. Maybe you'll not have to labor
+so hard here," he added more vaguely, not quite understanding her
+silence.
+
+She smiled a little then. "That's a good lad, Miles," she said, putting
+her arm about his shoulders; then she bade him go to his mates if he
+would, and she led Dolly back to the cabin.
+
+Miles stood alone, gazing at the home-shore and wondering where his
+father's farm would lie. Still thinking on it, he was turning toward
+the hatchway, when he almost ran into Goodman Rigdale. "O father,"
+Miles broke out before he thought, "may I not go with you when we begin
+our farm? I'll conduct me well and be obedient."
+
+He stopped, surprised at his own forwardness, and he was more surprised
+when his father, looking down at him gravely, said without chiding:
+"Our farm? Ay, Miles, so soon as there is work to do on shore you shall
+come with me and bear a hand."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+HEWERS OF WOOD AND DRAWERS OF WATER
+
+
+"TO-MORROW I am going ashore." Thus Miles Rigdale proclaimed, from his
+perch on the bunk in his father's cabin, to all who might choose to
+hear.
+
+"'Tis the forty and third time you've said that in the last sennight,"
+Ned Lister answered dryly. He was lounging in the cabin door,
+shirt-sleeved and shivering, while Goodwife Rigdale repaired his
+doublet; Mistress Hopkins, to whom the task ordinarily fell, lay ill,
+and her stepdaughter, Constance, was so busied that, to relieve her,
+Alice Rigdale had taken the young man and his mending off her hands.
+
+"Why do you not put on your cloak, if you be cold, Ned Lister?" Dolly
+spoke up.
+
+"Because 'tis too much labor to fetch it, Puss," Ned answered, whereat
+Miles laughed, and the Goodwife's brows puckered; another might have
+said it was because the sewing gave her trouble, but Miles, who felt
+uncomfortably that his mother disapproved of Ned as a scatter-brained,
+reckless fellow, guessed that she had not liked that last speech.
+
+He was sure of his guess when she hastened to change the subject: "Does
+it still rain upon deck, Edward?"
+
+"Rain and naught else; the third day of it now, yet by the look it
+might pour on for a week."
+
+"And my daddy's yonder in the wet on shore," murmured Dolly, pressing
+close against her mother's knee, and the Goodwife sewed more slowly,
+with her eyes downcast.
+
+But Miles burst into lamentation: "I think they might 'a' taken me
+ashore. Since we came into Plymouth Harbor they've explored and
+explored, and never suffered me to come, but they took Giles Hopkins
+with them. And now the randevous is built on shore, and some of the men
+are staying there, it has rained and rained so I cannot go to them. But
+I'm going to-morrow, the very next time the shallop sails."
+
+"To be sure you shall," Lister answered, as he scrambled into his
+mended doublet. "I'll take you along with me."
+
+Then he swaggered away jauntily, as if he had promised ample service
+in return for his mending, and Goodwife Rigdale, with a bit of a sigh,
+said softly to Miles: "'Tis well meant of Edward Lister to see you safe
+ashore, but when you are there, remember, you are to stay with your
+father, not go roving with him."
+
+Miles's satisfaction at Ned's offer was a bit tempered by her words,
+but he lost the remembrance of them next morning, when he saw the
+sun was rising clear and the shallop would go shoreward. At once he
+clattered down to the cabin to get his cap and mittens, and Trug,
+who must go with him; then ran up on deck again, where, in the chill
+sunlight, the men were laboring briskly to load the shallop. Miles
+watched them while they put in the felling-axes and handsaws and
+hammers, all the tools that were to build the new town of Plymouth,
+and the biscuit and salt beef and pease that were to form the workers'
+rations.
+
+About the time the labor was ended, Ned sauntered up to the gangway,
+and, seeing Miles, very speedily helped him clamber down the ladder,
+and made Trug leap after him. Master Isaac Allerton, who was settled
+comfortably in the stern, grumbled at burdening the shallop with
+children and curs, so Miles put his arms about Trug, and, cuddling down
+in the bottom of the boat, made himself as still and small as possible
+lest, after all, the company, thinking better of it, bid him scramble
+up the gangway ladder again.
+
+But the time for that was past, for the shallop, with her sail hanging
+sluggish, had crept surely out from the lee of the _Mayflower_, and
+now, catching the light breeze, actually stood in to the shore. Miles
+forgot the discomfort of his seat among the tools while he gazed
+toward the approaching coast line, where was to be his home. Behind him
+the sun was up, and the hills that rose away inland from the harbor
+were bright in the cold, yellow radiance, and the water and the sky
+that spread about him were both very blue. He glanced back over his
+shoulder at the dreary old _Mayflower_, and was surprised to find that,
+as the sun struck athwart her patched sails, even she was beautiful.
+
+Then the movement of those about him, and the sound of waves crunching
+on the shingle, made him look forward again. Under the shelter of a
+high bluff, where a great boulder ran out into the water, he saw those
+standing who had kept the randevous, and the randevous itself, a rude
+hut of boughs. In his eagerness Miles jumped up, and Trug, springing up
+too, began to bark, but no one took note or scolded, for the men were
+busied in running the shallop in alongside the rock, and some, leaping
+over the gunwale, were already splashing through the shallow water to
+the beach.
+
+Ned and Giles Hopkins made the shore thus, so Miles must do the like,
+and came to land all drenched and dripping. But it was land,--good,
+stable, brown earth, not the hateful, rolling ship,--he had beneath his
+feet, and, in the delight of the long unused sensation, he forgot he
+was wet and chilled, forgot his father awaited him, and there was work
+to do. He knew only that far and near the shore stretched widely, where
+a boy could run, so, for choice, he set his face to the bluff that
+towered above the landing.
+
+Up and up, through the keen, dry bushes, that whipped his hands and
+face so he laughed in the mere delight of struggling with them, he
+fought his way till he came breathless to the bare summit. All about
+him dazzled the blue of the harbor and of the unclouded sky, and
+yonder on his right, through its fringe of bushes, shone the blue of
+what seemed a cove. Down the hill rushed Miles, with Trug leaping and
+barking at his heels, and paused only on the shore of a great brook,
+that, flowing out between steep bluffs, widened into the sea.
+
+Another was before him there, his distant kinsman, Giles Hopkins,
+who, for all he was a sober lad of sixteen, was a good comrade to the
+younger boy. He now bade Miles come upstream to the spring the men had
+found on their last exploration, and Miles very readily followed him
+through the scrubby undergrowth, where the cove narrowed on the left
+hand, and on the right a high bluff kept pace with the boys. "It's on
+that bluff they mean to set the houses," Giles explained, over his
+shoulder.
+
+"Then we'll have this big stream in our dooryards," cried Miles. "Won't
+that be brave? I shall build me a raft, and sail to those wooded hills
+on the other side whenever I choose. Though, maybe, Indians dwell
+there," he added, with a dubious glance at Giles; he did not wish
+to seem afraid, but, though he intended to be a soldier, he did not
+purpose to fight without a musket and a long sword, and he wondered how
+much farther from the shore his leader would venture.
+
+But speedily his wonder had an end, for, breaking through a thicket of
+leafless alders, Giles halted at a little cavity within the sand of the
+riverbank, where the spring of sweet water bubbled up. Down lay Miles
+on the turf, and, using his hand for a cup, swallowed his first draught
+of New England water. "'Tis better than the brackish stuff we have on
+shipboard," he said, as he wiped his wet hands on his wet doublet.
+
+"The savages must have known the spot," answered the experienced Giles.
+"We found this path worn down hither from the bluff, and see, here is a
+line of stepping-stones across the brook."
+
+Miles glanced about him, half nervously, lest along the path or across
+the stones he see one of their former savage passengers approaching. He
+was at heart relieved when, as Giles led the way up the bluff, he heard
+in the distance the sound of an axe crashing on a tree trunk. Giles did
+not turn toward the sound, however, but went plodding on uphill, for
+above the bluff a second summit reared itself steeply. Miles panted in
+his trail, endlessly upward, it seemed, till at last he stood exhausted
+on a lofty hilltop, whence, far as the sea spread out before him, he
+beheld the wooded uplands roll away to westward.
+
+Giles was explaining wisely what a proper place this hill was for a
+fort, and how Captain Standish had advised the company mount upon
+it guns, which should command to southward the spring, and toward
+the harbor the landing place and the houses, which were to be built
+along the river bluff, when Master Hopkins and John Rigdale, tramping
+thither, ended their sons' holiday.
+
+"Is this the way you would work, Miles?" Goodman Rigdale asked sternly,
+and, fearing lest the next word sentence him to return at once to the
+_Mayflower_, Miles ran eagerly about the task they set him.
+
+All day he tugged chips and branches for the fire at the randevous, but
+it was work on land, in the free air, where a boy could shout as much
+as he wished, so he never realized he was weary till night came. He had
+to pack off to the ship with the other boys and near half the men, but
+he had no chance to grumble at this, as did some of his mates, for,
+once aboard the shallop, he leaned against Ned Lister and fell half
+asleep. Only when the shallop scraped the ship's side did he awake to
+stagger up the gangway ladder and stumble away to tell Dolly and his
+mother of the wonders he had seen ashore.
+
+Next day, being Sunday, no work was done, and the next day, being
+Christmas, Miles, who remembered what a time of merrymaking that was at
+home, thought he must idle again. But here on Christmas, from sunrise
+to sunset, it was all stern work. "We stain this virgin soil with no
+Popish holydays," Master Hopkins said grimly, and, though the rest did
+not exult in words, they labored with double fervor to show they did no
+honor to the day.
+
+Miles had his part to do on shore that Christmas and in the days that
+followed, though it was a different part from that he had hoped to
+have. When he talked to his mother and Dolly of building cottages,
+he had fancied that perhaps he would be allowed to sit high up on a
+ridgepole and drive nails. He knew he would enjoy doing that, but in
+practice he was set less pleasant tasks: he ran errands, not only for
+his father, but for every man who chose to send him; he fetched water
+up the steep bluff from the spring to the workers; and he carried
+firewood from where the choppers labored upon the bluff to where the
+first house was building.
+
+On occasion he even tended the fire and saw that the porridge did not
+burn, and more than once was sent to carry a portion of the food to
+the men who, unable to rise and get their rations, lay ill in the
+half-built log cabins. The numbers of these sick ever multiplied, for
+the close quarters and bad food aboard the _Mayflower_ had caused a
+fever to break out among her passengers, and the exposure to which the
+men and boys often recklessly subjected themselves increased the roll
+of the ailing, and, at last, of the dying.
+
+Miles was sorry, of course, for the men and women who sickened and
+died, but it was a sorrow that did not go deep enough to prevent his
+enjoying the open-air life, and the moments of play that he snatched
+from his work. For death had not come near any that he loved; Dolly and
+Jack Cooke had been ill, but they were getting better, and none of his
+other near acquaintances had been touched. To be sure, he himself went
+sneezing with a great cold, but it meant nothing, any more than did his
+father's cough; he did not worry for it the half as much as he fretted
+at the dull routine labors to which he was set.
+
+One day in January he had a hand in more exciting work, for Ned Lister
+and Giles Hopkins, who were going to cut swamp grass for thatch,
+invited him to come with them, and Ned even let him carry his sharp
+sickle. Ned himself turned all his effort to bearing a fowling piece,
+with the use of which, after the grass was cut, he had been bribed
+to the afternoon's labor, for he was afflicted with a hard cough that
+racked him most piteously when he was set to any work but hunting.
+
+So soon as they reached the piece of marshy ground in the deep hollow
+behind the first range of hills, where grew the grass they sought, one
+of those coughing fits laid hold on Ned. He really wasn't fit to work,
+he said, but, when Miles volunteered to do the task for him, he found
+energy to direct the boy's clumsy attempts with the sickle.
+
+Two bundles of grass the workers were expected to bring home, and Giles
+cut his, slowly and soberly, while Ned dallied with Miles, till he saw
+his companion had nearly gathered his share. Then Lister snatched the
+sickle from Miles, and, finishing the work in a surprisingly short time
+for a sick man, caught up his piece with the exclamation, "_Now_ we'll
+go fowling."
+
+Leaving the sickles and the bundles of grass where they lay, the three
+picked a path round the verge of the marsh and climbed westward over
+the hills. Last of all Miles trotted along bravely, very proud that he
+was one of the company, and full of interest at passing so far inland.
+But on the top of the second long hill, Giles suddenly cried out: "Look
+yonder. Is not that smoke?"
+
+Against the dull sky to the west Miles saw a little fine curl of gray,
+and the question was on his tongue's end, when Ned Lister anticipated
+it: "No, it can be none of our people so far from the shore. Savages,
+maybe. Say we go down and see."
+
+Shouldering his fowling piece, he set out jauntily, and the two boys
+came stoutly after. They scrambled down a rough hillslope and through
+another level piece, all open and stubbly, westward still, where the
+smoke rose. "This land has been cleared; 'tis true Indian ground here,"
+Ned spoke suddenly, and halted.
+
+Miles stopped short five paces behind his comrades. He looked to the
+hills ahead, where the bare branches of oak trees stood out clearly
+against the afternoon sky. It was a lowering sky, and night was coming.
+He glanced behind him, and saw only the barren wall of hills, no sign
+of the harbor or of the _Mayflower_. Ned and Giles were looking at each
+other with a something so dubious in their faces that Miles felt a
+griping sensation in his throat. He wondered if he could find his way
+back as he had come, and, doubting it, drew close to Ned, who had the
+fowling piece.
+
+Ned was fiddling with the lock of the piece and he spoke rather
+sheepishly: "I'm not afraid. But I'm not going to run into Heaven knows
+what with two younkers like you on my shoulders."
+
+"Say we march home, then?" Giles suggested, and straightway, facing
+round, they retraced their steps pretty smartly.
+
+Miles was still in the rear, and, as he went, he studied the long legs
+of his companions and thought how much more swiftly they could run for
+it, if anything came up behind them. Thinking so, he forgot to look to
+his feet, and, as they descended a gully, fell headlong with a great
+clattering of stones. "Wait for me!" he cried, in a sharp, high voice
+that did not sound natural.
+
+Ned glanced back, with his face tenser than its wont. "Here, take the
+fowling piece, Giles," he said curtly; then, returning to Miles, he
+lifted him to his feet, and, keeping one hand beneath his arm, helped
+him to hurry along.
+
+Thus they scurried down the hillside to the swamp, and, catching up
+their sickles and the thatch, pressed on toward the settlement. Not
+till they were panting up the landward side of the great hill and
+caught the faint sound of hammers in the street of the half-built town,
+did Ned suffer the speed to slacken. "You'll make a gallant soldier one
+day, Miley," he said then, and began laughing. "Though I take it no one
+of us was afraid; eh, boys?"
+
+They all agreed they were not in the least frightened, and some such
+version Ned must have reported to Captain Standish, when he told how
+they had seen Indian fires. For next day Miles found himself quite a
+hero in the sight of the other lads, because he had gone far into the
+woods and walked boldly right into an encampment of the savages. But
+Goodman Rigdale chided his son sternly for such a harebrained prank,
+and after that made the boy stay within his sight while he was on shore.
+
+Miles did not greatly mind, for his father and Francis Cooke, the
+father of his playmate Jack, were now engaged in a delightful work in
+which he liked to help. Lately the whole company of the _Mayflower_
+had been divided into nineteen families, and these two men, who had
+been placed in one household, were building together a cottage, high up
+on the hillside. His father's house, Miles insisted upon calling it,
+though Goodman Rigdale was at pains to explain to him that the cottage
+belonged not to any one man, but to the whole company; the Pilgrims at
+Plymouth and the merchants at London, who had advanced the money for
+the voyage, were to hold everything in common till seven years were up
+and then divide all equally, and till then no man could call a house
+his own.
+
+Still, Miles knew that by and by his mother and Dolly and Jack Cooke
+would come ashore, as other families were coming, and they would live
+together in that house, so it seemed the same as if it belonged to his
+father. He looked forward to the time when they would all be under one
+roof, and he would be suffered to sleep ashore, for, though his father
+passed his nights at the Common House, there was no room for Miles,
+who at twilight had to journey off to the ship. But that arrangement
+drew speedily to an end, for the walls of the house, built of squared
+logs, soon rose to a good height; the chimney of sticks and clay was
+finished; and at last it was but a question of thatching the roof.
+
+Of a dull afternoon in mid-January Goodman Rigdale set out to cut swamp
+grass for the thatch, and took with him Miles, who had not been so far
+afield since his exploit with Ned Lister. They went steadily up the
+slope on the shoulder of the great hill, and there Miles, who had run a
+little ahead with Trug, paused to look back proudly at the stanch, new
+cottage below. "Those are brave big logs in our house, are they not,
+sir?" he broke out. "'Twill last us a many years."
+
+"That, or whatever house shall fall to us at the division, will last
+you all your lifetime," Goodman Rigdale answered shortly. "And you will
+lease it of no man. You'll hold a house and a farm of your own here one
+day, Miles."
+
+They tramped on a time in silence, and Miles was making himself sport
+by crushing in the scum of ice on the pools along their path, when his
+father spoke suddenly: "You're in a fair way to lead an easier life
+than your father or your grandfather before you, Miles. And if you be
+the happier, you should be so much the better man."
+
+"Ay, sir," Miles answered vaguely, and tipped back his head to watch a
+great bird that went flapping across the sky; he wished his father had
+brought along a fowling piece.
+
+When they came to the swamp, Goodman Rigdale cut down the grass
+swiftly, and Miles bundled it, though he found it hard to keep pace
+with his father. Goodman Rigdale, being in haste, must at the last do
+the work himself, and, while he bundled the grass, Miles, remembering
+the stolen pleasures of his last thatching trip, picked up the sickle
+and tried a slash or two on his own account. He managed to cut his
+hand, and, though he scarcely felt the pain, because the hand was cold,
+he stared in some fright when he saw the blood come streaking out.
+
+Goodman Rigdale gave him a rag to tie up the hurt hand, and also gave
+him some good advice on the need of care with edged tools, which Miles
+did not think quite called for just then. He tried, however, not to
+show any sign of pain, because that always displeased his father; and,
+as he thought he had borne himself quite bravely, he was much hurt,
+when Goodman Rigdale, on coming down into the settlement, said: "Get
+you to the shallop now, Miles, and bide on board the _Mayflower_ till
+I send for you. You'll be of no service with your hand cut. Mayhap
+you'll be better off with your mother, too. After all, you are but a
+young lad."
+
+"As you bid, sir," Miles said, respectfully, but very stiffly, and
+walked away down the path to the landing.
+
+Once he stopped to kick a stone out of his way, and once, before he
+rounded the base of the bluff, something made him face about and look
+back to the Common House. His father was standing by the door, watching
+him, and Miles, feeling much rebuked, walked on rapidly. But the image
+of his father remained in his mind very clear.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+NEWS FROM THE SHORE
+
+
+BECAUSE Miles's hand was hurt, Goodwife Rigdale made much of him, till
+he fairly resented it, for he had grown into the age where he was
+sheepish and awkward under open petting. He soon slipped away from his
+mother and the sympathetic Dolly, and went to spend his time with Jack
+Cooke, who, during the day, while his father worked on shore, was glad
+of company. The boys had now almost room enough on shipboard to play
+satisfactorily, for many of the passengers had gone ashore; but it must
+be quiet playing, for, of those who still remained in their cabins not
+a few were ill.
+
+Goodwife Rigdale was busied to and fro in caring for the sick ones,
+and, at her bidding, Miles ran many an errand, to fetch water from the
+casks on deck or heat a pot of broth in the ship's galley. But their
+joint labor soon ended, for, a few days after the boy's return to the
+ship, came a message from Goodman Rigdale: he was just touched with the
+fever, he said, though nothing serious, but a many lay sick ashore,
+and the Goodwife could aid them as well as himself; Mistress Brewster,
+who, with her family, had gone to the settlement, had offered to
+shelter her, and he prayed her come.
+
+Next morning Goodwife Rigdale bundled her cloak about her, and set
+out in the shallop. Miles, standing by the bulwark, watched her go,
+but only for a time; it had snowed the night before, so the railings
+were white and smooth to the touch, and he found it of more absorbing
+interest to poke off strips of the frozen snow, and send them splashing
+into the cold-looking water beneath the ship's side. By the time he
+looked again to the shallop, it was so near shore he could no longer
+make out his mother's figure, and his feet were chilled too, so he went
+back to Dolly in the cabin.
+
+At first he found it manly and grown up to be left in charge, for so
+he esteemed his position. The cut in his hand was healing well, and
+he felt he would have been working ashore, if it were not that some
+one must mind his father's quarters on shipboard and care for Dolly
+and Solomon. He ordered his sister about in a paternal manner; he
+rebuked her severely if she so much as showed her small, snub nose on
+the frosty deck without wrapping herself up well; and he even insisted
+on her going to bed punctually at sundown, while he, in the glory of
+manhood, waited in the great cabin to hear what news those who came
+from the shore would bring.
+
+But Dolly took her turn when it came to their daily meals, for she had
+certain deft, housewifely ways, which Miles could not hope to imitate,
+and he was ashamed even of trying to better himself, after he heard the
+little woman speak like her mother of "men and boys that set a body's
+kitchen in a mash." Miles might tug out the pot of broth,--'twas all he
+was fit for; Goodwife Dolly would herself do the stirring and tasting;
+and though, among so many cooks, the broth sometimes burned, yet they
+always contrived to eat it.
+
+The four of them--Miles, Dolly, Jack, and Solomon--ate their food
+together in the Rigdales' cabin: most times it was only broth, or
+perhaps salted meat and biscuit, which Goodwife Rigdale, before she
+went away, had laid out for them; but once Goodman Cooke brought them
+from the shore a large piece of a cold roast goose. There was but one
+drumstick, and each felt he should have it,--Jack because he had been
+ill, and Dolly because she was a girl, and Miles because he was the
+eldest. Solomon said nothing, but he purred his loudest and rubbed his
+head against Dolly's knee. They ended by eating the drumstick together,
+each a bite, turn and turn about, and what they could not get from the
+bone was left to Solomon, who dragged his ration beneath the bunk,
+and, with eyes big and fiery, growled at them.
+
+The children remembered that supper, not only because of the cold
+goose, but because it was the last they ate together, for next morning
+Goodman Cooke took Jack to the shore. Miles watched his friend's small
+preparations enviously, and Dolly, who had come also to stand in the
+doorway of the Cookes' cabin, voiced a sorrowful wish: "I think I'd
+best go too, and see father and mother."
+
+"They've no place to put you, lass," Goodman Cooke explained. "So soon
+as there is place, they'll send for you both, be sure. For Doctor
+Fuller says your father grows heartier, Miles," he went on; "you've no
+need to worry yourself."
+
+"Indeed, I have not worried," Miles answered, in some surprise.
+
+After Jack went, life on shipboard was not so pleasant. Dolly began
+to fret for her mother and scoff at Miles's authority; Miles grew
+cross; and the broth burned oftener than ever, and finally, giving out
+altogether, left them with nothing to eat but dry biscuit. With this
+woful tale of starvation, Dolly betook herself at last to Constance
+Hopkins in the great cabin, and Miles, glad that some one should make
+known their unhappy state, yet ashamed to do so himself, lagged on
+behind.
+
+Constance Hopkins was Giles's sister, a slip of a lass, not three
+years older than Miles, but to him she seemed quite grown up. Certainly
+she bore the responsibilities of age in those days, for not only must
+she nurse her stepmother, Mistress Elizabeth Hopkins, who lay helpless
+in her cabin, but she must care for the baby, Oceanus, born on the
+voyage across the sea, and the little half-sister, Damaris, a baby
+also, not two years old. Yet somehow motherly little Constance found
+time to comfort Dolly, and cook a bit of meat for hungry Miles, and
+assure them both that their father and mother surely would come soon to
+look to them.
+
+Dolly hugged the "big girl," but Miles could scarcely do that, and he
+knew no civil speech to tell his gratitude, so he was glad when, his
+eyes falling on Damaris, he thought to pick her up. "I'll mind her for
+you a bit, Constance," he offered.
+
+Damaris was pleased with Miles's tousled hair and sturdy arms, that
+held her more firmly than her half-sister could; and Miles, never
+guessing what a source of misfortune her liking would prove to him
+hereafter, was much elated at his success with her. He tugged baby
+out on deck to show her the gulls looking for food in the water, and
+the bright crusted snow that sparkled in the sunshine on the wooded
+point. Damaris gurgled appreciatively and pulled Miles's hair; then,
+when he carried her back into the cabin, slept like a kitten, whereat
+Constance was so relieved and pleased that Miles gladly cared for the
+baby, his baby, the next day, and the next.
+
+[Illustration: "Dolly plaited a fold of her apron between her fingers."]
+
+But the third day, a Friday, a pelting fine rain set in that made an
+airing on the deck out of the question, not for the baby alone, but
+for a well-grown boy and girl. Miles and Dolly went up to spend the
+afternoon in the great cabin, because in their own quarters there was
+no one to talk to, and, moreover, it was cold. In the main cabin they
+would find some one to keep them company, and they could, at least,
+warm their hands at the little fire burning in a tubful of sand, which
+Constance often used in heating food for Mistress Hopkins.
+
+But this afternoon the fire was out and Constance busied with her
+mother, so the two children, disappointed, sat down together on a
+rude bench, at the angle in the stern where two rows of little cabins
+joined. "I wish I were with my mother," sniffed Dolly; and "'Twill do
+you no good to cry," Miles checked her sternly.
+
+"I was not crying, Miles Rigdale," the damsel answered hotly.
+
+It was on Miles's lips to reply, when close at hand a voice spoke his
+name, "Miles Rigdale!"
+
+Readily enough he jumped up and went to the half-opened door of the
+adjoining cabin. It was Captain Standish's cabin, he remembered now,
+and, as he halted in the doorway, he perceived Mistress Rose
+Standish lying in the bunk. A little of the afternoon light sifted
+in through the tiny port-hole, and by it he noted how her hair fell
+loosely about her face, unlike the way she wore it when on deck;
+but her cheeks were rosy as ever, and her voice quite steady as she
+spoke: "It's you, the lad my husband told me of? I thought I heard
+one call you by name. Will you not do somewhat for me, Miles? Fetch
+me my jug here full of water again. Goodwife Tinker was to look to
+me to-day; I felt very well this morning. But she's ill now herself,
+and when I tried to rise,--" she laughed, with a nervous catch in her
+laughter,--"why, then things went whisking round me very strangely. But
+you look as you still could stand stoutly, sir."
+
+"I'll fetch you the water, and gladly, mistress," Miles answered, so
+eagerly that he stammered. He stepped into the cabin to take the jug
+from where it rested on a chest beneath the port-hole, and Dolly,
+following shyly after, hesitated on the threshold.
+
+"Is this little maid your sister?" Mistress Standish roused up to ask.
+"Won't you come in and bear me company, sweetheart, while Miles fetches
+the water?"
+
+Dolly plaited a fold of her apron between her fingers and nodded dumbly.
+
+"That's well," said Mistress Standish. "Sit you down here on the chest
+by me. And I've some raisins of the sun you shall have if you'll stay."
+
+"Dolly must not eat your raisins if you be sick." Miles formulated the
+relentless principle which had been enforced as regards himself when
+Dolly lay ill. "And I'll fetch the water speedily." He stood a moment
+on the threshold, balancing the jug in one hand. "Mistress Standish,"
+he blurted out, with sudden resolution, "would you not rather have beer
+than water?"
+
+"Than the water from the ship's casks, yes," she answered; "but 'twill
+relish well enough, Miles. At even, when Captain Standish comes, mayhap
+he'll get me a draught of beer."
+
+"I'll get it for you now," Miles said cheerily, and walked away, with
+his head up and the jug swinging.
+
+Outside the door of the great cabin the chilly rain, that stung
+finely on his cheeks, pricked him alive to realization of what he had
+undertaken. Since Christmas, when the supply of the Pilgrim emigrants
+had given out, beer could be obtained on board the _Mayflower_ only
+from the ship's stores, through the courtesy of Master Jones, the
+captain; and he was a terrible person. Most times he ranged about the
+high quarter-deck, where only the chiefs of the Pilgrims dared go;
+once Francis Billington, to show his daring, had clambered thither,
+and Master Jones, without parley, had bidden his quartermaster, "Kick
+that young imp down into Limbo, where he belongs." From that experience
+Francis had been black and blue, and subdued in manner for a week.
+
+So it was no wonder now that, for long minutes, Miles stood shivering
+in the rain at the foot of the companion ladder, while he tried to
+summon courage to venture up. He might never have arrived at such
+hardihood, had not Jones himself, strolling forth upon the quarter-deck
+to study the weather, observed him, and presently bellowed lustily:
+"What beest thou staring up hither for, hey?"
+
+"I--I want to come up, if it like you, sir," Miles piped quaveringly.
+
+"Then come up. Beelzebub fetch thee! What's hindering thee?"
+
+Miles could have answered truly that it was a loud-voiced,
+broad-shouldered man, with a bushy gray beard, whose name was Jones,
+that hindered him; but he thought best, even on so poor an invitation,
+to scramble in silence up the steep ladder to the quarter-deck. The
+wind there was high, so he gripped the bulwark to keep erect.
+
+"Well, now thou art up, what is it thou wouldst have?" roared Jones.
+
+"Beer, sir. For Captain Standish's wife. She is ill."
+
+Master Jones hesitated a little minute, then caught Miles by the
+collar of his doublet, and only let go when he landed him within
+the roundhouse. Miles said nothing to this, but his heart thumped
+alarmingly at finding himself thus tumbled headlong into the very lair
+of the Master. Yet the roundhouse proved a harmless place, with its
+shipshape bunks and table and stools; and one of the mates, who lay
+upon a bunk, rose up at Jones's bidding, to do nothing more formidable
+than fill Miles's jug from a keg that stood in one corner.
+
+"Now see to it thou dost not filch the beer by the way," grumbled
+Master Jones. "I be ready to give to your Captain's wife, but not to
+fill the stomach of every knavish lad on shipboard; dost thou hear?"
+
+"I wouldn't take the beer that was meant for Mistress Standish," Miles
+said indignantly.
+
+"Nay, but boys be a slippery race," growled the Master. "The saints be
+blest I never had none!"
+
+Miles privately was glad of that, for he could not help thinking how
+unhappy a boy would be, with such an alarming father as Master Jones.
+Very prudently, he did not say so, but, seizing his jug, backed out of
+the roundhouse, almost too hastily to say "Thank you."
+
+He had come back to a good conceit of himself, however, by the time he
+had manoeuvred safely down the ticklish ladder, and he walked in on
+Mistress Standish and Dolly quite proudly. Mistress Standish thanked
+him mightily, enough to make Miles redden and shuffle his foot on the
+floor. "But I liked to do it for you," he muttered.
+
+After that he was persuaded to sit down on the chest beside Dolly, and
+tell Mistress Standish all about how they were building houses on the
+shore, and how he had gone to the Indian fields, and what a wonderful
+dog Trug was. Dolly chimed in there to tell what a rare pussy Solomon
+was, and how he would leap over your hands. Then Mistress Standish, who
+lay listening, and seemed to like their talk, though she said little,
+bade Miles bring her a box from a shelf against the wall, and in it,
+sure enough, were a few big raisins and a small handful of currants.
+
+The sight was too much for Miles's scruples, and when she urged the
+children eat of them, he yielded, weakly as eager little Dolly. "We'll
+take two raisins each," he said, with an effort at firmness, "and three
+currants." Then, with a sigh, he shut the box up tight, and ate his own
+share very slowly.
+
+Dolly finished more speedily, and straightway Mistress Standish urged
+her sing to them. "Dolly told me while you were gone that she is wont
+to sing to mother," she explained to Miles. "Now I want her to sing to
+me. You shall have more raisins if you will, Dolly, in spite of Brother
+Miles."
+
+Dolly was bashful, and, for all it was now murky twilight, so faces
+were not plain to see, insisted on sitting on the other side of Miles,
+where she could hide behind him. Then, at last, she sang. "Though it is
+a worldly song," she protested.
+
+"No matter. I am what your people call a worldly woman," Mistress
+Standish answered.
+
+So Dolly cuddled up to Miles and sang:--
+
+    "Skip and trip it,
+     Hey non nonny!
+     For the lark is in the clover,
+     And the fields are green and bonny,
+     And a dappled sky shows over.
+     Sing hey nonny nonny!
+     'Tis blithe world and gay,
+     When spring comes bonny
+     And the winter packs away."
+
+There Dolly broke off, short and sudden, and Miles, looking to the
+dusky doorway, saw a man's sturdy figure blocking it.
+
+"'Tis you come back, Miles?" Mistress Standish spoke quickly. "Come you
+in and sit down. Your namesake and his sister have been caring for me
+bravely--"
+
+"I'm sorry," came the Captain's voice out of the dark. "That is-- You
+must be wearied now, sweetheart. Come, Miles, my soldier, I want to
+speak with you."
+
+Miles wondered why, as he stepped out from the cabin, the Captain
+troubled to put one arm about his shoulders; he was pleased at the
+caress, yet awkward in receiving it. "I want you to go in here," said
+Captain Standish, leading him to the cabin that the Brewsters had
+occupied. "Constance Hopkins is waiting within to tell you somewhat.
+And you must remember, Miles, that you are to bear you like a man."
+
+Miles wrested round suddenly and faced the Captain. There was a little
+dim lantern light in this part of the great cabin, not enough for him
+to read the other's face, but he could guess and feel what was coming.
+"Has anything gone wrong with my mother? Tell me; tell me, quick!" he
+cried.
+
+"Not your mother, Miles. Your father."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+THE GOING LANDWARD
+
+
+GOODMAN RIGDALE had died that day at noon; he had seemed sure of
+recovery, but there came a sudden change, and, with the ebbing of the
+tide, his life went out. So much they made Miles understand, gently as
+they could. Dolly cried with choked sobbings, and Constance Hopkins,
+who had come out and taken the little girl in her arms, cried too. But
+Miles, who sat apart from the others, astride one of the benches, did
+not cry,--just scowled before him in stupid fashion, and half snarled,
+"Don't touch me," at Goodwife Tinker and the other women who had
+hastened up to sympathize.
+
+He was aware of the people about him and the lantern light; that was
+all. Something inside him seemed benumbed, and he did not care to
+talk, or cry, or do aught but sit still. He listened to Dolly; she was
+wailing now, "I want my mother. Oh, take me to my mother!" He wished
+she would hush; it worried him.
+
+Then he heard some one else speak: "Look you, Captain; Will Trevor and
+I are fresh enough to do 't, and there's the small boat belongs to the
+shallop. And Rigdale's goodwife will be wanting her bairns to-night. If
+you give the word, Will and I, we'll row them ashore."
+
+Miles looked up and saw Ned Lister, his cap on straight and his face
+earnest, speaking with the Captain. He rose, and, a little unsteadily,
+pushed the women aside, so he could clutch Ned's arm. "I want to go
+ashore," he whispered chokedly. "Take me now."
+
+"You shall go," said Captain Standish. "I'll bid them make ready the
+boat."
+
+"You and the little wench get on your cloaks briskly," Ned admonished,
+as he turned to follow the Captain. "We'll be ready ere you be."
+
+Constance came down with the two children to the cabin beneath the main
+deck. It seemed darker and colder than ever before, and Dolly's cloak
+strings were tied in a hard knot, and Miles could not find his mittens.
+At the very last, as, in stupid fashion, he searched for them a third
+time in a bag that held some odds and ends of his mother's, he heard
+Dolly cry, "Oh, Solomon, poor Solomon! Don't leave him behind, Miles. I
+know they'll not tend him. And daddy was fond of him."
+
+The cat was dozing among the blankets, but when Miles, slow and
+uncomprehending, tried to seize him, he took fright and ran beneath the
+bunk.
+
+"We've the boat ready. Quickly, Miles!" called Ned Lister in the
+passageway.
+
+Miles saw Solomon's eyes shining yellow in the dark beneath the bunk,
+and, making a grab, he clutched the cat. The creature spit and clawed,
+but Miles, with his hands bleeding, still clung to him, and, headlong,
+thrust him into the bag that had held their biscuit. One white paw came
+struggling out, but the boy shoved it in roughly, and drew the strings
+tight.
+
+"Wait, wait! Your cloak, Miles." Constance detained him, and fastened
+his cloak about his neck. Miles suffered her, like a very little boy,
+and then, slinging Solomon's bag over one shoulder, he followed Dolly
+up on deck.
+
+The rain, pelting on his cheeks and forehead, half blinded him, and
+the faces of the men, seen fitfully beneath the flaring light of the
+lantern at the gangway, looked strange to him. Their voices had no
+meaning, and they must repeat the question when one asked: "What have
+you there, Miles? Give me the bag; I'll hand it you."
+
+Miles shook his head and pressed the bag tighter beneath his arm; he
+could feel the cat's soft body writhing and struggling within. They
+brought him over to the gangway ladder, and, holding by one hand, he
+scrambled down it. How black the line of bulwarks looked against the
+lantern light, as the ship heaved upward! There he half slipped, when
+he felt some one catch him round the body, and he was dropped down on
+the stern seat of the little boat. Dolly pressed close to him, and,
+putting his arm round her, he held tight to her and to Solomon. They
+had turned the lantern now so the light flashed into the boat, and he
+realized it was Lister who sat upon the forward thwart, and the other
+man, who was standing up to push them off from the ship's side, was the
+sailor, Will Trevor.
+
+At last they were clear, out on the wide, rough water, and, with a
+motion of spitting on his hands, Trevor dropped into his seat and
+gripped his oar. As the boat swung round, Miles had sight of the
+black bulk of the _Mayflower_, with a lantern gleaming on her high
+quarter-deck and another just receding from her gangway. Then, as the
+boat headed for the shore, he could see the ship only by turning his
+head, and that was too great an effort to make.
+
+The thole-pins creaked, and the water slapped against the prow. The
+waves were running high, and, as the little boat leaped them, she
+seemed to throb through her frame. The oars and the sea that wrestled
+together made the only sound, for the rain that dropped steadily was a
+quiet rain, and the men who rowed for the most part kept silent. Once,
+to be sure, Trevor growled: "How're we heading, Ned?"
+
+Miles noted dully how Lister rested on his oar and turned his face
+landward. "I can just make out a light," he answered. "Pest on this
+rain! More to larboard we must run."
+
+For another space they tugged at the oars in silence, while Miles
+stared unheedingly into the dark, till suddenly Trevor called, "Hey,
+lad, what's wrong wi' thy bag?"
+
+Solomon's struggles had loosed the fastenings, Miles found; he thrust
+the animal back and tied the strings again, slowly and stiffly, for his
+hands were cold and sore too, where they had been scratched.
+
+"What sort o' luggage be ye travelling with?" Trevor asked, between
+strokes, in a tone that was so amused that Miles felt an angry shock:
+what right had the sailor to find any merriment in life, while Dolly
+was sobbing so? Next moment the anger passed, and instead, Miles
+wondered that Dolly should cry, for it was not true, whatever they had
+said; his father would surely come forth from the Common House to meet
+them, and he would look just as Miles had seen him on that last day.
+
+Yonder beneath the black bluff shone a light. Miles could see it now,
+and he stared unthinkingly, till it grew larger and brighter, and then
+a sudden jar almost threw him from his seat. "I'll hold her steady,"
+spoke Trevor. "Do thou get out the younkers, Ned."
+
+"Come, come, Miley, are you asleep?" said Lister. Miles saw him
+kneeling on the rock close beside him, holding the boat's gunwale with
+one hand, and with the other outstretched. "Give me the bag. Now then,
+steady. Ah! You did yourself hurt?"
+
+Miles picked himself up from the rock where he had fallen; his knees
+were aching, and he suddenly felt he should like to cry. "Yes, I hurt
+me," he said dazedly. "Give me Solomon."
+
+He made his way, groping through the dark, to the path beneath the
+bluff that led up to the settlement. The ground had thawed, so broad
+puddles had formed; he must have splashed into one, for, as he stepped,
+his shoes squeaked with water. Ned Lister strode up alongside him, with
+Dolly gathered in his arms. "You come with me up to the Elder's house,
+Miley," he said breathlessly, for Ned was wiry, rather than robust, and
+Dolly was a heavy little maid.
+
+All the way up the hill Miles had a sickening sense of awaking to
+something full of dread. The ground and the sky and the dimly seen
+houses were now all real; he felt the rain and the cold and the weight
+of the bag on his arm, and he began to realize that what had happened
+also was no dream.
+
+"Oh!" he cried, with a sudden hard gasp, and, dropping the bag, broke
+into a run. He stumbled and slipped, but pantingly he held on till he
+reached the Brewsters' cottage. From one of the tiny windows a light
+shone forth, but it blinded without aiding him. He fumbled a moment at
+the heavy door, then, grasping the rude latch at last, thrust it open
+with his shoulder, and plunged headlong into the common room.
+
+On the hearth, opposite the door, a fire blazed, and on the table
+flickered a candle. Spite of the dazzle of sudden light, Miles made out
+a woman, just turning from the fire, and, knowing her for the Elder's
+wife, ran to her. "Where's my mother, my mother?" he cried.
+
+"Hush, hush, Miles! You must quiet yourself ere you see her," Mistress
+Brewster urged, never so gently.
+
+But there came from an adjoining room his mother's voice: "Miles, I am
+here. Come to me."
+
+The narrow chamber was dark, but, seated in the far corner, he could
+distinguish a woman's bowed figure, and, stumbling heavily across the
+floor, he flung himself on his knees beside her. "Mother! Oh, mother!"
+he choked, and, burying his face in her lap, burst out crying.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+THE MAN OF THE FAMILY
+
+
+AT first Miles found a jarring unfitness in everyday life. Only eight
+and forty hours before, they had buried his father on the bluff
+overlooking the harbor; they had read no prayers over the dead, as the
+ministers did in England, and, lest the savages should spy and note how
+few the colonists were becoming, they had levelled the grave, like the
+many round about it. A raw wind had blown from off the sea, so Goodwife
+Rigdale shivered as she stood by the grave, and Miles's hands were
+senseless with the cold.
+
+Now it was over, and Goodman Rigdale dead and buried, but life went on,
+just as usual. Goodwife Rigdale helped Mistress Brewster prepare food,
+and ate of it herself; and Love and Wrestling, sorry though they had
+been for their playmates' sorrow, frolicked gayly with Solomon, whom
+Ned Lister had brought to the cottage, bag and all. By the second day,
+though her eyes were still heavy with crying, and her mouth tremulous,
+Dolly plucked up spirit to join the boys. Even earlier, Miles had
+begun to fetch wood and water for Mistress Brewster, lay the fire, and
+help where he could; if only everything had stopped for a time, till he
+could realize what had happened and master himself, he felt he could
+bear it; but the petty acts of living would go on.
+
+In such a mood of wretchedness he trudged forth on the third morning,
+up the path beyond the spring, to fetch sticks from the edge of the
+wood where the trees had been felled. He gathered the fagots, and was
+trying to tie them strongly, as his father tied the swamp grass that
+last day they worked together, when he saw Francis Billington, also in
+search of wood, drawing near.
+
+"Why, Miles!" the newcomer greeted him, in some surprise, for in these
+days Miles avoided his old comrades. But now there was no avoiding till
+the wood was tied up, so Francis came to him and, a bit awed, tried
+clumsily to be sympathetic. "I'll help you tie that wood, Miles."
+
+"I c'n do 't alone."
+
+"Look you, my daddy's going fowling to-day. Mayhap he'll take us."
+
+"I don't want to go," snapped Miles, with a sick sort of anger that
+other boys still could talk of their fathers.
+
+"You might at least be civil to a body," Francis said rather huffily.
+"What need to carry such a face for it, Miles? You were mortal afeard
+of your father while he lived. And now he can never flog you no more."
+
+Without warning, other than a small catching of the breath, Miles
+sprang to his feet and struck the speaker in the face. Francis,
+thoroughly surprised, hit back, and, clenching, they pitched over among
+the crackling sticks. Miles fell uppermost, and, hardly realizing how
+or why, he was pommelling Francis lustily, when a mighty hand heaved
+him up by the scruff of the neck. "You must not strike a man when he is
+already worsted," spoke the voice of long-legged John Alden.
+
+Miles stood biting his lips that twitched. "'A' shall not say--" he
+began, and there his voice broke. "Oh, I wish he could flog me again!"
+
+Alden stared a moment, then, with sudden understanding, swung round
+upon the whimpering Francis and rated him mightily, while Miles, glad
+not to be noticed, caught up his bundle of wood and stumbled away
+toward the settlement.
+
+Yet this was the last outward showing of the boy's grief. Little by
+little, as the busy days came, he found himself fitting into his new
+life, and at length even taking a certain zest in it. For he was now
+man of the family, and the cares he felt called on to shoulder did not
+a little to distract him from any sorry broodings. He must work with
+his full strength, wherever they sent him and whoever bade him; he
+must keep flibbertigibbet Dolly out of mischief; above all, he must
+run after his mother, as she went about to nurse the many sick of the
+settlement, and see to it that she did not catch cold or come to any
+harm.
+
+The greatest and most important labor, however, he did in the earlier
+days of his loss, when he went to fetch his father's goods from the
+_Mayflower_. Others might have said the work was done by Ned Lister,
+for Master Hopkins, who had promised Goodman Rigdale to look to his
+family, so far as he was able, sent him about this task; but Miles, who
+was sure he was the leader and Ned only the assistant, felt the whole
+expedition a tribute to his own new-come manliness.
+
+They went out in the shallop to the _Mayflower_ on a morning so bright
+and open that it scarcely recalled to Miles his coming from the ship.
+Once aboard, to be sure, the half-homesick pang laid hold on him, when
+he scrambled down to the little cabin that had sheltered him so long;
+but there was so much to do he soon cast it off. The bedding must be
+tied up securely, and the pots and platters loaded into the biggest
+kettle; and Ned, who had a coughing fit and said he didn't feel very
+well, let Miles do it all. He recovered, however, in time to help drag
+the stuff to the deck, and to get up from the orlop a small chest
+of Goodman Rigdale's; and he was also selfish enough to take charge
+himself of the loud, manly labor of transferring the goods to the
+shallop.
+
+Somewhat disappointed, Miles clambered down again to the cabin to fetch
+the box with Dolly's Indian basket, and, when he came back, the shallop
+was so near ready to push off that he had only time to drop into the
+bow beside Lister. Glancing round the great sail toward the stern,
+where such other passengers as were going from the ship were placed, he
+caught sight of Captain Standish, who sat stiffly, with one arm about
+the muffled figure of a woman. "Yon is Mistress Standish, is it not?"
+Miles questioned Lister, very softly.
+
+His companion nodded. "Set to come ashore, poor lass!" he answered,
+in the same low tone. "'Tis the last trip she'll ever make in the
+shallop." This Ned spoke sympathetically; then had no further leisure
+to talk for settling himself comfortably with his back against Goodman
+Rigdale's bedding.
+
+Miles moved a little to give Ned room, but, without heeding him,
+continued to gaze at Captain Standish and Mistress Rose. He could not
+see her face for the hood about her head and the cloak drawn up above
+her chin, but he marked the listless droop of her whole body; and he
+noted, too, how the Captain sat with his eyes looking straight out and
+his mouth hard. Miles wondered if what Lister said of Mistress Standish
+were true, and, what with wondering and watching, was taken by surprise
+and nearly overset when the shallop bumped up to the landing place.
+
+For a moment he lingered by the boat, feigning to busy himself with
+unlading the kettle, while he watched Mistress Standish. The Captain
+and Alden, who was waiting at the landing, helped her from the boat,
+and half carried her away between them up the hill. The Captain's face
+was still so grave and stern, that Miles was a trifle frightened, and
+very sorry; he wished he were a man like John Alden, so he could have
+spoken to the Captain and helped Mistress Standish.
+
+Then he had to think of other matters, for Ned, with an access of
+energy, was tumbling the goods ashore, and they must together drag
+them up to the Elder's house. Just at present that was home to Miles,
+because his mother and Dolly lived there, and he sometimes ate with
+them, though, as an additional mark of manhood,--so he esteemed it,--he
+spent his nights at the Common House.
+
+It really came about because his friends could not shelter him.
+Goodwife Rigdale and Dolly had the last spare bed at the Elder's house;
+the cottage higher up the hill, on which Goodman Rigdale had labored,
+and where Goodman Cooke and Jack had now one bunk, was filled with men
+whose houses were building; while Master Hopkins, however well he might
+mean by his friend's son, had not a roof to cover his own family. So
+Miles slept with Giles Hopkins at the Common House, where at night the
+beds were placed so thick one need not step on the floor in passing
+from the fire to his sleeping place.
+
+On Sunday all was changed, however, for then the Common House became a
+meeting-house. They tucked the beds up in corners, and swept the floor,
+as Miles knew to his cost, for on this, his second Saturday on the
+mainland, they pressed him into the service. Twice on the Sabbath the
+Elder taught his little company, and prayed with them there,--a sorry
+little company indeed, of whom fair half lay sick within the cheerless
+cabins, or dead beneath the level ground of the harbor bluff.
+
+The thought of his own dead father made Miles listen attentively
+that day; and, when he walked staidly up to the Elder's house before
+twilight, he took Dolly apart into his mother's cold little chamber,
+where he read to her from Goodman Rigdale's black-letter Bible. He
+was a painful reader, but he felt it was the fit thing for him to do
+in filling his father's place, so, with the great book on his knees,
+he sat on the floor, beneath the little window that let in the light
+sparsely through its oiled paper, and Dolly sat by him, with her
+head on his shoulder. He was much elated at finding her so quiet and
+attentive, but, when he paused to recover breath at the end of a very
+tough sentence about the Perizzites, he perceived the little girl was
+fast asleep.
+
+Miles did not wake her; just sat with the Bible in his lap and his
+stiffening arm round his sister till, when it had grown darker, his
+mother came to seek them. He had nothing to say to his mother that
+night, but afterward it was something to remember keenly, though with
+an under-pang of sorrow, how he had sat close by her in the dark and
+had felt her hand rest on his head.
+
+Next day was dreary with rain and sleet, and a dull twilight that,
+closing in early, drove Miles into the house, where he played at
+Even-and-Odd with the little Brewsters and Dolly, very quietly,
+because the Elder was writing at the table. Elder Brewster was always
+kindly-spoken, but the fact that he knew such a deal about the next
+world, and what would befall you if you were not good, put Miles in
+great awe of him.
+
+When he went forth at length, Miles, feeling more like himself, raised
+his voice, and even let the trenchers clatter while he and Dolly laid
+the table. But he had no desire to be noisy, when, late in the evening,
+the Elder returned from the house where the sick lay. A word or two
+passed between the older folk that sent Miles with a whispered question
+to his mother, who told him simply that Mistress Rose Standish had died
+that evening.
+
+Dolly cried, because she was a foolish girl, but it did not stir Miles
+so deeply. Indeed, he did not come to feel a hearty grief till next
+morning, when, as he climbed the hill to Elder Brewster's cottage, he
+saw Captain Standish, grim and set-faced, trudging up to the woods
+through the sleet and rain. The weather was too bitter for work, and
+the axe which the Captain carried was, Miles guessed, a mere pretext.
+All through the day it made him shiver to think of the solitary man,
+lingering in the cold among the pines; he wondered if even to himself
+the Captain would make pretense of working, or if he would sit idle
+among the wet logs.
+
+But forty-eight hours later the Captain was going and coming and
+working among the rest, just as before, though maybe a bit more silent.
+For the hale ones who could labor were few; the work must be done;
+and, where so many were falling, there was small space to grieve for a
+single life.
+
+Miles had even grown somewhat blunted to the sight of the sorry little
+companies that twice and even thrice a week trudged with the body of a
+friend or kinsman to the bluff above the harbor. His own life went on
+methodically; he worked, and even played with Jack Cooke and Trug, and
+some days, when he was allowed to go fowling with Ned Lister and Giles
+Hopkins, fairly enjoyed himself.
+
+But Ned began presently to have coughing fits even when he was
+bidden to go hunting, though Miles, who had grown distrustful of his
+convenient illness, urged him to "have done with fooling and come
+along." One morning in February, when Lister, instead of going about
+his work, was wasting his time thus with Miles and Jack and Giles by
+the fire in Goodman Cooke's cottage, came another to urge him, no less
+a one than Master Hopkins. Miles remembered a long time the terrible
+rating he gave Ned for his laziness and trickery, and he wondered that
+the young man sat with his head leaning on his fist, and flung back but
+a single protest: "I can judge better than you, sir, whether I be ill
+or not. 'Tis my head that's aching, not yours."
+
+To which Master Hopkins retorted grimly that, if there were a whipping
+post in the colony, something besides Ned's head would ache.
+
+Then, for that there was no help for it, Lister took his fowling piece
+and slouched away from the fire. "I'm going, since you drive me," he
+said sulkily, "but these youngsters need not follow at my heels. 'Twill
+be all I can do to fetch myself home again, let alone three brats."
+
+Much disappointed, Miles spent the day in the less joyous labor of
+fetching and carrying on the great hill, where they were putting the
+last touches to the platform on which the guns were to be mounted.
+He came to be interested, none the less, when Goodman Cooke told him
+how, in a few days, they would drag the guns up the hill and put them
+in place. That would be a brave thing to see, Miles thought, for the
+sailors from the _Mayflower_ were to come ashore and help, and the
+street from the hill to the landing place would be noisy and busy. Not
+so busy, though, as the crew of the _Mayflower_ would have made it a
+month before, for the sickness now had settled on the ship, where it
+was raging unchecked.
+
+At dusk, as Miles came down from the hill, he chanced on Master
+Hopkins, still grumbling at Lister, who bade him go see if that
+malingerer were loitering anywhere in the settlement. It seemed a
+spying errand, but, not thinking of disobedience, Miles started down
+the street. Nearest the shore stood the Common House, the house for
+the sick, and the storehouse, all three of which, to make the search
+complete, he visited.
+
+In the big main room of the sick-house lay the men who were ill, and,
+as Miles stepped in, on tiptoe because of his heavy shoes, the first
+thing he saw beneath the candlelight was Ned Lister's black head, half
+hidden under the coverlets of one of the bunks. Miles stole up to him.
+"Why, Ned, ha' you cheated the Doctor himself?" he whispered cheerfully.
+
+Lister raised his head and looked at him, with his eyes very bright.
+"I'm cheating you all; yes," he said, with a laugh. "Go tell Hopkins be
+more cautious next time how he wastes so good a property as a serving
+man. A pity! If I die he'll be out my passage-money. Well, I always
+owed him a grudge for bringing me to this forsaken country, and I'll
+even scores now."
+
+The thought seemed to please Ned mightily, for he laughed, till Doctor
+Fuller, stepping from the inner room, sharply bade him hush. "Get you
+to Master Hopkins and tell him the man is ill," he ordered Miles; and,
+as he let the boy out at the door, added, for his ear alone, "very ill."
+
+Somehow Ned's overthrow frightened Miles more than any other illness.
+Lister had always seemed so tough and wiry that his succumbing at last
+set the boy to asking himself, in some fright, if he, too, might not
+fall ill. A soreness in his throat or an ache in his head made him
+nervous. He questioned Jack minutely as to how he felt before he was
+taken sick, and then he began at once to feel as Jack had felt. He
+started to tell his mother and get her to comfort him, but then he was
+ashamed; she was busy and anxious all the time for the people she was
+called on to nurse, and he was a great, strong boy, who, of course,
+would not be sick.
+
+But one day his head ached in good earnest--no imagination; and next
+morning the ache was worse, so he was too stupid even to go out.
+Wrestling Brewster was ailing too, so Dolly and Love stayed by his bed
+to amuse him, and Miles was left quite alone. All day he sat toasting
+himself by the fire, till he was too warm and was sure his head ached
+because of the heat, so out he went, and tramped up and down the street
+till his teeth chattered with cold. He wanted no supper, but he went
+back to the house to bid his mother good night and get to bed early.
+
+"Mother came home very weary and has lain down within," Dolly said,
+so he went into the bedroom. A cold light streamed in at the little
+window, but the corners of the low room were dark and the pallet was in
+shadow. His mother was stretched upon it, with the cloak that had been
+his father's wrapped round her, but at his step she raised her head.
+"It's you, my lad?" she asked, and reached out her hand.
+
+"I came in to give you good night, mother," he said, in his manliest
+tone, because it made him proud to think he was hiding his illness from
+her. "I'll mess at the Common House to-night."
+
+She put up her hand, and, drawing his head down to her, kissed him. Her
+cheek felt hot as it pressed against his, and even in the dim light he
+noted that her face was flushed, but his head ached so lamentably that
+he made nothing of it. "Why, deary, you're not ill?" he heard her say.
+
+"Indeed, no, mother. No more ill than you," he answered bravely, and,
+bidding her good night, went softly out of the room.
+
+The west was all a chill yellow, and a northerly breeze was astir that
+set Miles shivering long before he reached the Common House. There
+a fire was alight that looked comforting, and, going up to it, he
+snuggled down in a corner of the hearth. At the table of boards laid
+on trestles some of the men were eating their supper, but Miles was
+sick at the mere thought of food. He sat staring and staring into the
+heart of the flames, where he could see the outlines of the farmhouse
+at home, and then he saw nothing, but he faintly heard steps upon the
+floor, and somebody caught him up.
+
+"What are you falling on the fire in that fashion for, eh?" one
+asked, and the man who held him--he had a vague notion it was
+Alden--questioned, "What's wrong, lad?"
+
+"Oh--h!" wailed Miles, "I think I'm dying."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+IN THE TIME OF THE SICKNESS
+
+
+TO be sure, Miles did not die, but for some days he lay in the
+sick-house, too ill to give much heed to what went on about him, or
+take thought for anything save his own misery. From a mass of hazy
+recollections one or two moments of that time afterward came back
+clearly.
+
+One such memory was of a dim morning within the cheerless room, when,
+through the familiar patter, patter of rain on the oiled paper at the
+windows, he heard a latch creak somewhere and men tread cautiously.
+Turning weakly on his pillow, Miles looked to the door that led to
+the inner room, where the sick women lay, and he saw Goodman Cooke
+and Edward Dotey come forth, stepping carefully, and carrying on a
+stretcher between them something that was muffled up and motionless. He
+turned his face again to the wall, and neither thought nor reasoned of
+what it meant,--just listened to the lulling patter of the rain.
+
+The other time of which he kept remembrance was a crisp night, when the
+whiff of wind that blew in at the outer door, as it was opened, smelt
+fresh and good, and Cooke, who came to tend the fire, piled the logs
+high. Dozing and waking, Miles watched through half-closed eyelids the
+crowded pallets about him, and the shadows that flickered up and down
+the rough walls. He must have slept a moment, but he roused up suddenly
+to see in the waning firelight Elder Brewster, who bent over him with
+a cup of drink. Leaning against the arm that supported him, Miles
+swallowed the draught obediently, and then the Elder, with more care
+than he usually had time to bestow on a single patient, laid him down
+and drew the coverings round him. "Poor little lad!" Miles heard him
+say, under his breath. "God comfort you!"
+
+Miles wondered a little, but, too stupid greatly to heed what was said,
+soon dropped to sleep once more.
+
+The crisis of his sickness must have passed on that night, for a day
+or two later he felt enough like himself to swallow with some relish a
+dish of broth. Ned Lister, packed out from the sick-house while still
+convalescent, to make room for others, fetched him the broth, and
+helped him eat, with a choking great spoon that made the process slow.
+Miles wondered whether Ned had grown thin or his clothes had grown
+baggy; perhaps 'twas a little of both.
+
+Then, on the idle wonderment, followed more serious thought, and,
+speaking slowly and weakly, he asked, as Lister settled him in his
+pallet again: "Tell me, Ned, why has not my mother been here to nurse
+me, as she did you and the others?"
+
+"Haven't you been well enough looked to, Miley?" questioned Ned,
+bending down to tie his shoestrings.
+
+"'Tis just the men have cared for me."
+
+"Well, you're a man yourself, and want only men to look to you, eh?"
+
+"No, I'm not a man," said Miles, the ready tears of sickness welling
+into his eyes, "and I want my mother."
+
+"I heard she had a touch of the fever herself," answered Ned, still
+busy with his shoes. "We're all helpless with it, Miles. There's only
+seven of us now that can crawl about to do aught. And the Captain and
+the Elder are working each like three. By the Lord, those be two good
+fellows!" This earnestly, for Ned; and then, gathering up his bowl and
+spoon, he walked away to minister to the next sick man.
+
+Every one ill, and the care of the whole colony on the shoulders of
+seven men, some half sick themselves! Miles realized vaguely that he
+ought to be patient and not fret at anything, but still the next two
+days of his slow convalescence were long and hard to bear.
+
+He was glad enough, one dim morning that seemed like all the others,
+when the Elder came into the sick-room with Dolly at his side. "The
+little wench begged to come to you, Miles," he said, as he seated her
+on the edge of the boy's pallet. "But she is to talk only few words,
+and softly, because there are others lying here very ill."
+
+So soon as he had turned and left the children to themselves, Dolly
+bent and dabbed a kiss upon her brother's chin. "Though you make me
+shy, near as if you were a stranger, Miles," she explained, in a
+subdued whisper, "you are grown so peaked, and your eyes are so very
+round."
+
+Miles smiled weakly, but happily, it was so good to see the face of one
+of his own people. "I'm glad you came, Dolly," he said, drawing her
+hand tremulously into his. "Mother will soon come too, will she not?
+Why did she not come with you?"
+
+A choke made Dolly's whisper broken: "She--could not."
+
+"Is she ill?"
+
+Dolly nodded, with a piteous face.
+
+Miles's thin fingers gripped her hand fast. "Dolly, she isn't--dead?"
+His voice rose high and frightened.
+
+"Oh, you mustn't, Miles," Dolly gasped. "And I can't tell you. They
+said I must not speak of her to you. Oh, Miles, Miles, she has been
+dead these four days!"
+
+They carried Dolly away, the mischief done, and Miles, hiding his
+head beneath the bedclothes, cried so long as strength was in him.
+Then he lay watching the red and orange streaks that flashed before
+his tight-closed eyes, and, thinking how stuffy it was beneath the
+coverlets, wondered if perhaps he would not smother. He hoped he would,
+so he had a first sensation of fretful disappointment, when some one
+uncovered his head; and then, as he caught the clearer air on his face
+and looked up at Captain Standish, felt vaguely comforted.
+
+"Drink you this, lad," spoke the Captain, gruffly, yet, Miles realized,
+with vast pity in his tone. "Then sleep."
+
+"I'll--try," swallowed Miles.
+
+"That's well. Bear it soldierly, as we all must."
+
+"Like a soldier," Miles repeated over and over to himself, and,
+shutting his lips, pressed his head into the bolster, till, worn-out,
+he slept.
+
+When he awoke, the realization of his loss returned, keen almost as
+ever; but he was a healthy lad, so inevitably strength came back to
+him, and with it, little by little, as he mastered it in silence, his
+grief abated. Those about him were kind, too, and did what they could
+to comfort him. Captain Standish himself cared for him; Ned Lister and
+Giles visited him often; and once they even let poor, guilty Dolly
+come to see him. She fetched in her arms fat Solomon, who yowled so
+piteously that, just inside the door, Doctor Fuller, who was up and
+able to tend his sick again, made her put him down, whereupon the cat
+fled home, fast as four legs could bear him.
+
+"'Twas such a pity when I fetched him so far to see you," Dolly
+lamented to Miles, as she exhibited the scratches on her hands, "but he
+will go home safe to Mistress Brewster's house. He likes it there, and
+so do I. I am going to live there always with Love and Wrestling and
+Priscilla Mullins. She made me a poppet of a piece of scarlet cloth,
+and I called it after her. I shall bring it to show you next time,
+though you'll laugh at it, because you are a boy. Indeed, I do like it
+at Mistress Brewster's. If only mammy and daddy were there too!" she
+added, in a lower tone.
+
+Elder Brewster himself had, at the very first, paused by Miles's bed,
+and spoken gravely to him of how his mother was now in a more blessed
+place, and he must try always to be a good boy, so some day he might
+join her. Though he listened dutifully, Miles did not care for the
+Elder's admonitions as much as he cared for Mistress Brewster's words.
+Newly risen from her sick-bed, she came to him, and, sitting by his
+pallet, whispered him of his mother, and how, before she died, she had
+left her love for him, and bidden him always be a good lad and a good
+brother to the little wench. "Though my lad will be that without my
+bidding," Alice Rigdale had added. "He has always been a good little
+son to me."
+
+Miles listened, with his face held stolid; it was only when Mistress
+Brewster bent and kissed him, like his mother, that he blinked fast and
+turned away his head.
+
+Day by day he grew stronger, till he sat up in bed, and then, by slow
+stages, was suffered to put on his clothes and walk staggeringly across
+the room. The next advance was his going out into the air, which would
+doubtless have been longer deferred if any one had had time to give
+close heed to the sick boy. But Doctor Fuller was busied elsewhere, and
+the Elder was looking to others of the sick folk, so, one morning when
+Lister had helped Miles into his clothes, the boy took matters into his
+own hands by slipping out at the door.
+
+It was a rare, mild March day, with a tender wind of the spring that
+came from the western woods. The earth was soft beneath the foot; the
+few bushes that clambered up the bluff across the way were bursting
+with brown buds; and the blue harbor dazzled under the vivid sunlight.
+Leaning against the doorpost, Miles joyfully drank in the freshness
+of the morning, though his eyes grew wistful as he looked again to the
+bluff yonder where were the levelled graves.
+
+[Illustration: "'Do you like to do it, Captain Standish?'"]
+
+Presently he summoned up his strength, and, stepping cautiously off the
+doorstone, picked his way round to the east side of the house, where
+the sun was warmest. Here the ground was trodden and bare, save for the
+chips scattered about the logs, of which there was a great heap stacked
+against the house-wall. At the other side of the pile, a tub of water
+rested on a great block, and, most marvellous of all, over the tub,
+busily washing a mass of bed-linen, bent Captain Standish.
+
+Miles caught his breath in a gasp of surprise that made the Captain
+look up. "So you're well recovered, Miles?" he asked cheerily.
+
+The boy nodded, and set himself down on the woodpile.
+
+"Cast on my doublet, there beside you, if you will be sitting here,"
+said Standish, and, shaking the water off his hands, came and wrapped
+the garment about Miles.
+
+Snuggling down against the sunny logs, Miles gravely watched the
+Captain. He washed the clothes deliberately, with a good deal of
+sober splashing and a lavish use of soap; and then he wrung them so
+vigorously that the muscles of his bared arms stood out. So earnest and
+busy did he seem about the undignified task that, before he thought,
+Miles blurted out: "Do you like to do it, Captain Standish?"
+
+"Not in the least," the Captain answered cheerfully, as he twisted a
+sheet so hard that a jet of water spurted over the front of his shirt,
+"not in the least, Miles. But there's no one else to do it, and it must
+needs be done."
+
+Miles pondered a moment. "I take it, that's how it is with living;
+somebody has to," he said at length.
+
+"And somebody is right glad to," Captain Standish answered, with a
+quick glance at Miles. "You must get well and run about and do a man's
+share of the work that's before us, and you'll soon be rid of any heavy
+thoughts."
+
+Miles sat still in the sunlight, and, reflecting vaguely, called to
+mind that, if his father and mother both were dead, Mistress Rose
+Standish, who was all the Captain had, likewise rested yonder on the
+bluff. Out of the fullness of knowledge the Captain was trying once
+more to teach him how to bear all bravely, he guessed, so he began
+stoutly: "Yes, I'm going to be a man, sir. Because now I'll have to
+take care of Trug and Dolly and Solomon."
+
+Captain Standish smiled a little, as he gathered the wet clothes into
+his arms. "You're a true man already, Miles," he said. "At least,
+you're a man in the way you group your women-folk with your cattle."
+
+After the Captain had gone behind the house to hang out his wash, Miles
+rested a time very thoughtful. The sunlight was warm and pleasant, and
+southward across the harbor the great bluff was dense with evergreen. A
+brave world, and he was going to do a brave part in it, as his mother
+had looked for him to do.
+
+A step upon the chips made him rouse up just as Master Hopkins came
+leisurely round the woodpile. His face was pale, for he, too, had been
+touched with the sickness, and his manner was kinder than Miles had
+ever known in him. "So you're hale again, Miles Rigdale? Do you think
+you could make shift to walk up the hill to my house?"
+
+"Yes, sir," Miles replied promptly. The house that Master Hopkins
+was building when Miles fell sick stood just across the street from
+the Elder's, and the boy had made up his mind to drag himself to the
+latter's cottage that day. It made his heart quicken to think of seeing
+again the rooms where his mother had lived that last month, and of
+talking with Dolly and Mistress Brewster. He hoped, too, that if he got
+up to the house they would keep him there to supper, perhaps all night.
+So he answered Master Hopkins's question confidently and happily:
+"Yes, sir. I can surely walk that far up the hill."
+
+"That's well," said Master Hopkins; "you shall eat dinner with us this
+noontime."
+
+"Thank you, sir," Miles answered, not overjoyed, but civilly.
+
+"I'll take you to the house with me when I go back thither," the other
+pursued. "You understand, you are to dwell with me hereafter."
+
+When Captain Standish returned from his drying ground, Stephen Hopkins
+had gone on down to the landing, and against the logs huddled a
+piteous-faced small boy, who at sight of him cried: "Captain Standish,
+Master Hopkins says I must live with him."
+
+"Do you not wish to?" asked Standish, nonchalantly, and, tipping the
+water out of his tub, set himself down on the block where it had rested.
+
+"I'd rather go anywhere else in Plymouth, unless 'twas to Goodwife
+Billington. Must I go to him, Captain Standish?" Forgetting his usual
+respectful demeanor, Miles rose, and, stumbling the few steps to the
+Captain, leaned against his knee. "I thought--maybe I should go with
+Dolly to Mistress Brewster," he said in a low voice.
+
+Standish suddenly put one arm about him. "A pity it couldn't be so,
+Miles! But the Elder's house is full, and at Master Hopkins's there's
+half a bed; you can sleep with Giles. In any case, Master Hopkins was
+your father's kinsman."
+
+"I could go to Goodman Cooke," pleaded Miles. "Or--or--I wish I could
+live with you."
+
+Standish laughed outright, though when he spoke his voice was gentle:
+"I would take you, laddie, and be glad to, if things were--as I thought
+they would be. Rose had a liking for you." He stopped short, and Miles,
+looking up in some awe, noted that his eyes were fixed on the blue
+harbor, yet he seemed to see nothing of it. When he spoke again, his
+tone was quick and altered: "But as things have fallen out, John Alden
+and I are sleeping in an unfinished cabin and eating where we can find
+a bite. And a little young fellow like you would be better off in a
+household where there are women than with two clumsy men. So they have
+arranged it all for your best good."
+
+Miles nodded, not trusting his voice to speak. He was thinking of what
+the Captain had said about being a man and things that had to be done,
+and he meant to make a good showing before him. "I like Giles," he
+began slowly, "and I like Constance, and Ned Lister will be there too;
+I'll try to like Master Hopkins--if he'll let me bring Trug."
+
+So he had put on quite a brave face by the time Master Hopkins came
+to fetch him to his new home. To him it was all so much a matter of
+course that he offered no explanations or commonplace cheering words to
+Miles; just bade him come, and soberly led the way up the hill. Miles,
+with his feet like lead and his brave resolution flagging, loitered
+half-heartedly behind him, till Master Hopkins turned. "You're not yet
+as strong as you thought, Miles Rigdale?" he said gravely, but kindly
+enough, and, lifting the boy in his arms, carried him up the hill.
+
+Miles rested passive, one arm thrown perfunctorily about Master
+Hopkins's neck, and wished he were anywhere else.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+MASTER HOPKINS'S GUEST
+
+
+    "'In Wakefield there lives a jolly pinder,
+     In Wakefield all on a green,
+     In Wakefield all on a green,--'
+
+THERE, there, Damaris! Hushaby, hushaby! Go to sleep, like a good lass."
+
+Damaris gurgled at Miles with a provokingly wide-awake crow. "I never
+saw such a bad baby," sighed the little boy. "Do go to sleep, honey.
+
+    "'In Wakefield there lives a jolly pinder,--'"
+
+"Oh, Miles," laughed Constance Hopkins, who, standing at the rude
+table, was scouring the biggest kettle, "you have sung that half a
+score of times. Is there no other song you know?"
+
+"It is no time for the child to sleep now," interrupted Mistress
+Hopkins. "I'll wrap her up, and, since 'tis so mild a morning, you may
+take her forth into the air."
+
+"O dear!" thought Miles, "I'm a man, not a nurse." He never considered
+that it was any kindness on his new guardians' part when, instead of
+putting him to heavy outdoor tasks, they set him to minding the baby
+and helping about the house. "Like a girl," Miles told himself, with
+an indignant sniff. It was not two weeks since he left the sick-house,
+and his legs were still a little uncertain, but he was sure he was fit
+to work again, or, at any rate, fit to run away and play with the other
+boys.
+
+But he took the baby now and walked forth meekly, because he lived
+in some dread of Mistress Elizabeth Hopkins. She was a thin-lipped,
+energetic young woman, who mended Miles's clothes scrupulously, and,
+with equal conscientiousness, boxed his ears whenever he tracked dirt
+on her clean floors. Her sharp tongue, though, he feared more than
+her hands, for Mistress Hopkins scolded at everything and everybody;
+indeed, the only members of the household whom her words never troubled
+were Oceanus, who was so young he just blinked his eyes when she
+talked, and Master Hopkins, on whom people's fretting had as much
+effect as it would have had upon the great rock at the landing place.
+
+After all, Miles was rather glad to get out into the air, away from
+the living room, where Mistress Hopkins was already chiding Constance.
+The morning was fair and warm, with no wind stirring, and the harbor
+sparkled invitingly, so, shouldering the unwelcome Damaris, he started
+happily to the shore.
+
+But his contentment speedily had an end, for, not halfway to the
+landing, he was overtaken by Francis Billington, Jack Cooke, and Joe
+Rogers, who at once addressed him in disrespectful wise. "Ho, Miles,
+that's brave work, tending a baby," jeered Francis.
+
+"You meddle with your own matters," Miles replied sulkily.
+
+"Come with us, Miles," Jack put in pacifically. "We're going along
+shore to the first brook--"
+
+"We do not want a baby with us," Joe interrupted.
+
+"_You_ might stay with me, Jack," Miles pleaded, as the others turned
+away.
+
+Jack, a freckled little fellow with merry eyes, dug the heel of his
+shoe into the dirt. "The other lads will be having sport," he said
+half-heartedly.
+
+"Then go with them," cried Miles. "Only you were very fain to play with
+me on shipboard."
+
+Even this last thrust failed; Jack ran after the others down the hill,
+and Miles, feeling cross and ill-treated, was left to himself.
+
+'Twould look too much as if he were following his ungracious friends if
+he went on to the landing, so he turned back to Elder Brewster's house.
+There Priscilla Mullins, a girl orphaned by the winter's sickness, who,
+because she was eighteen, was classed by Miles as a woman, was sweeping
+the doorstone with a broom of birch twigs. She paused in the labor
+teasingly to throw him a kiss, and tell him his busy sister and the
+lads were cooking by the brookside.
+
+Sure enough, in the level space between the base of the bluff on which
+the cottage stood and the cove, Miles found Dolly, and Dolly's poppet
+Priscilla, and Love, and Wrestling, and Solomon, and Trug, who was not
+admitted to Mistress Hopkins's house because his great paws dirtied her
+floor,--all busied in making delectable pies of mud.
+
+But when Miles joined them, Love withdrew from the mud-pie game, and
+wished to play at holding a council, such as his father and all the men
+were holding that morning in the Common House to regulate the military
+affairs of the colony. Dolly insisted that she should be allowed to
+come to the council too, for all Love urged that women never were
+invited thither, and the argument was growing bitter, when an unwonted
+tumult in the village street drew Miles's attention. A confused sort
+of calling and shrill shouting it seemed, that made his heart quicken
+between curiosity and alarm; so, snatching up Damaris, he scaled the
+bluff, while the rest of the children scrambled close behind him.
+
+On the doorstone Mistress Brewster and Priscilla were gazing in silent
+wonder toward the street, and, looking thither too, Miles saw a man
+stalk past to the landing, very deliberately, as if he knew the place
+and held he had the right to come there. It was no one of the settlers,
+though, but a great, half-naked fellow with a coppery face--an Indian.
+
+Dolly and Wrestling clutched Mistress Brewster's skirts, the little
+boy fairly crying, and Miles himself, it must be owned, held Damaris
+fast and drew a step nearer the doorstone. But next moment he noted the
+Indian carried for weapons only a bow and two arrows, with which he
+could not kill all the settlement, and, moreover, at his heels tagged
+venturously Giles Hopkins and several of the other boys, and even
+Goodwife Billington, very clamorous, and the Governor's serving maid.
+
+So Miles, not to be outdone by a petticoat, swaggered into the roadway
+and joined himself to the little group of curious folk, who, always
+ready to flee if he should turn on them, followed close at the savage's
+heels, down the steep hill, past Peter Browne's cottage, even to the
+door of the Common House.
+
+The noise in the street had already disturbed the men at their
+conference, and they came flocking forth at the door, the Governor, the
+Elder, and the Captain, with a score of other stout fighters crowding
+behind them. But the Indian, never a whit abashed, strode boldly up
+to them, would even have pressed into the house, had not their ranks
+barred his passage. Nothing chilled, he halted, and, stretching forth
+his hands, spoke in a guttural tone: "Welcome."
+
+"Do Indians talk English?" Miles whispered to Giles, who stood beside
+him. "Hush, hush, Damaris! The black man won't hurt you."
+
+But Damaris, quite unconvinced, clutched Miles tightly round the neck
+and went on crying lustily, till at last Goodwife Billington seized him
+by the collar. "Thou good-for-naught lad!" she scolded. "Wilt thou kill
+the poor babe? Take her back to the house, thou runagate! Ay, ay, let
+her scream herself ill, so thou mayest gape and gaze. I would I had the
+up-bringing of thee!"
+
+Some people besides himself liked to gape and gaze, Miles thought,
+but, without reply, he gathered the wailing Damaris into his arms and
+trudged slowly up the hill. There, by the Governor's house, it chanced
+he met with Francis and Jack and Joe, who, scenting something unusual
+in the village, had hastened back through the fields. "What is it has
+happened, Miles?" cried Joe.
+
+Miles, glancing over his shoulder, saw with unkind satisfaction that
+the men had taken the savage into the Common House, out of sight.
+"'Twas naught," he said airily. "Just a great Indian came into town."
+
+"Did you see him?" urged Francis. "Tell us about it."
+
+"Humph! You've no wish to talk to me when I'm tending a baby," sniffed
+Miles, and trudged on to Master Hopkins's house, so elate at his
+triumph that he forgot to be angry with Damaris for dragging him away
+from the sport.
+
+At the noon meal, indeed, he heard all and more than he could have
+learned, had he lingered about the door of the Common House, for Ned
+Lister was bubbling over with talk of the Indian. As Master Hopkins had
+stayed at the Common House and Dotey had none of his fellow-servant's
+faculty for gathering news, he proved the only tale-monger of the
+household; so the whole family harked to him respectfully, and even
+Mistress Hopkins forgot her usual sarcasms on his galloping tongue.
+
+"This is not a savage from these parts," Ned explained; "he comes from
+the eastward, from Monhegan, whither the ships out of England go to
+fish. He has been on shipboard there and so has got a smattering of
+the English tongue. One Captain Dermer brought him to Cape Cod, and he
+has been in these parts now some eight months. And he told us a deal
+of the nations hereabout. This open place where we have settled is
+called Patuxet. It was a village of the savages once, but three or four
+years back came a great plague, and all the people died, so now we are
+undisputed masters of the soil. Next unto us dwell the Massasoits, a
+tribe of some sixty fighting men; and to the southeast, those savages
+whom our men gave a brush to on their explorations in December, are the
+Nausets, near a hundred strong."
+
+Ned paused to secure himself another slice of cold mallard; then
+started on a new train: "You should 'a' seen the Indian fellow eat. He
+asked for beer, but we gave him strong water, and biscuit and butter
+and cheese and pudding, and a piece of mallard thereto, and he liked
+all very well, and ate right heartily."
+
+"He is not the only idler who looks for a full meal," said Mistress
+Hopkins scathingly. "Where have they put the vile creature now?"
+
+"Vile creature, mistress?" Ned repeated. "Sure, he says that in his own
+country he is a great lord of land, a Sagamore--"
+
+"I would he were back in his own country," Mistress Hopkins answered
+sharply. "The murderous wretch! I shall not draw a breath in peace till
+he be hence. Here, Ned, 'tis little enough work you'll do if you go
+forth, do you stay this afternoon in the house to protect us."
+
+There was an instant of disappointed silence on Lister's part, then,
+"'Tis you she means, Ned Dotey," he cried, and, without staying to take
+his cap, bolted out at the door.
+
+Nor was this the only desertion which Mistress Hopkins suffered; for,
+at their first opportunity, Dotey and Giles also slipped away, and
+Miles stayed behind only because he was so little that the mistress
+shook him when he attempted to follow. But speedily he had a bright
+thought, and asked Mistress Hopkins if perhaps, since she was afraid of
+the Indian, she would not like him to fetch Trug to the house to guard
+them.
+
+Thus Miles was allowed, at last, to bring his dog home, and so grateful
+was he, that he remained patiently tending Damaris all the long
+afternoon. He found a certain enjoyment in his position, however; he
+was sole man in the cottage, and he wondered, should other Indians
+follow this first one, if Mistress Hopkins wouldn't let him take one of
+the muskets and fight for her. When it came dark at last, he knowingly
+inspected the fastenings of the door, and told Constance not to be
+afraid; he and Trug could defend them.
+
+Poor Constance needed more comfort than that, for she was in a sorry
+fright. Her hands shook as she laid the table, and, when a step sounded
+crisply in the dooryard, she gave a nervous cry and dropped the pile of
+trenchers. It was only Ned Lister, however, who stamped in, bareheaded
+and whistling cheerfully.
+
+"You have come back, then, since 'tis suppertime?" Mistress Hopkins
+greeted him sarcastically.
+
+"Nay, I'm not hungry," Ned answered, as he sauntered over to the fire
+where Miles sat with Damaris, "'tis that the master sent me ahead to
+bid you make ready the guest chamber and the bed of state. Our Indian
+lord there, the Sagamore Samoset, is to lodge here to-night."
+
+For a moment Mistress Hopkins looked at the speaker in dumb amazement.
+"If Master Hopkins does not punish you roundly for such a lie, Edward
+Lister," she said at last, deliberately, "it will not be for want of my
+urging him."
+
+"It's the truth, though," Ned answered indifferently.
+
+"O me!" Constance cried, with a sudden nervous wail, "I know we'll all
+be slain ere daybreak. O dear!" She turned to run into the bedroom,
+when Lister caught her by the arm. "Don't cry, Constance," he urged;
+"there's no need to fear. Captain Standish and some of the others are
+coming hither to spend the night and keep watch. You'll be safe enough."
+
+But the girl, breaking from him, vanished into the chamber, whither
+Mistress Hopkins, snatching up Damaris, followed her; so, for some
+moments, Miles was free to ask questions and Ned to answer, as it liked
+them best. But, so soon as Master Hopkins's deliberate step sounded
+on the doorstone, Mistress Hopkins came forth and, as he entered
+the living room, confronted him: "Is that savage to be lodged here
+to-night, Stephen? Among us, where my children are?"
+
+"He must go somewhere, Elizabeth," the master of the house replied
+unruffled. "He is set to stay among us for the night, and the tide is
+out so we may not convey him on shipboard. We can lodge him in the
+little closet next our chamber."
+
+"He shall not come into the house!" said Mistress Hopkins, with her
+thin lips set.
+
+"Edward Lister, do you spread out the bed within the closet," Master
+Hopkins went on unheedingly.
+
+With a wink at Miles, Ned crossed the room in unusual haste, and Miles,
+taking a candle, followed after into the closet, a tiny room with one
+black window, where stood an old chest and a hogshead and a rolled-up
+mattress, which Ned began leisurely to spread out. "What think you,
+Miles?" he whispered, as the boy closed the door behind him. "It's good
+there is one person in the house whom the dame cannot rattle off as she
+list, eh?"
+
+Miles nodded vaguely, his attention all fixed on the least details of
+the commonplace room which now had a fearful interest from the guest
+it was to shelter. The thought of the savage stranger filled the place
+with such awesome fancies that he could not help going out from it
+very hastily ahead of Lister, who grumbled a little that Miles was so
+speedy to be off with the candle.
+
+Once in the bright living room, however, he became very brave indeed,
+and wondered to Giles Hopkins when the Sagamore Samoset would come.
+His mood grew the bolder when the elder lad showed him a dirk knife he
+had placed under his doublet. "For there's no being sure with these
+treacherous savages," Giles said seriously.
+
+But when the Sagamore came at last, the boys found that the Hopkins
+household would be well guarded, for with him were not only Master
+Hopkins and Dotey, but big John Alden and Captain Standish. The very
+sight of the latter reassured Miles, so down he sat on the floor by the
+hearth, with his arm round Trug, who, as soon as he spied the Indian,
+bristled the hair on his back and uttered a throaty growl.
+
+Mistress Hopkins and Constance and the two babies kept within the south
+chamber; but the men by themselves were enough to fill the living room.
+There were but two stools, besides the form on the hearth and a chest
+against the wall, so long-legged Giles must curl himself up on the
+floor by Miles, while Ned Lister set himself upon the table. They bade
+the Indian be seated on the form by the fire, right over against Miles,
+who, be sure, stared at him with eyes wide open.
+
+The Sagamore Samoset, he saw, was a tall, straight man, of complexion
+like an English gypsy, smooth-faced, with coarse black hair that fell
+to his shoulders behind, but was cut before. Since his coming into
+the settlement, his English hosts had put upon him a horseman's coat,
+which he wore with much pride and dignity; indeed, all his gestures and
+carriage were not only decent, but of a certain stateliness. "Why, he
+is somewhat like other men," Miles whispered softly to Giles, but Trug
+grumbled in his throat.
+
+Only one candle was burning in the room, but the firelight cast a
+flickering brightness on the faces of the men. Captain Standish and
+Lister and the Indian had lighted pipes of tobacco, and the air was so
+heavy with the smell of the smoke that Miles half drowsed, but through
+his drooping eyelids he watched his English comrades, and watched the
+Indian. Captain Standish was sitting adventurously right on the form
+beside the Sagamore, and now and again they spoke together. Miles noted
+that in the Indian's speech came strange words, which the Captain
+seemed to try to understand, and once or twice the Captain even sought
+to make use of them himself.
+
+Miles wondered at this, and then his only wonderment was as to whether
+he had been asleep. The logs on the hearth had broken into red embers;
+the men had risen up; and, rubbing the heaviness from his eyes, Miles
+saw Master Hopkins and the Captain usher their Indian guest into the
+little closet room.
+
+Straightway a certain tension in the company seemed to slacken; Giles
+rose stiffly from the floor, and Trug put down his head upon his
+paws, though he still kept one bright, half-opened eye fixed on the
+door through which the Indian had gone. With a great creaking of the
+trestles, Ned Lister dismounted from the table. "If he come to kill
+us," he said in a low tone to Alden, "do you run in and call me so I
+can have a share in the scuffle." Then, stretching himself mightily, he
+disappeared into the north bedroom, where the serving men and the boys
+of the household slept.
+
+"Since you have two others to keep watch with you, Master Hopkins,"
+spoke the Captain, as he took down his hat from the wall, "I'll go walk
+a turn about the hill. I'll be back ere the half-hour is up."
+
+He had put his hand to the latch, when Miles, on the impulse, sprang to
+his feet and ran to him. "May I come too, sir?" he whispered.
+
+"You, Miles? Why, you were better in bed. Nay, come if you like."
+
+Out of doors the air was crispy and silent, and pleasant smelling
+after the smoky atmosphere of the crowded room. Overhead the stars
+were dense and bright, but below, the lonely little settlement lay in
+darkness, with never a spark of a candle showing. "How late is it,
+Captain Standish?" Miles asked, in a hushed voice.
+
+"I should say it was near on to midnight," the other replied, stepping
+along so briskly that Miles's breath for talking was lost in the effort
+to keep pace with him.
+
+Up and up they toiled; past Goodman Billington's cottage; past the
+black cabin where Alden and the Captain lived; and then by the
+well-trodden path up the sheer hillside, till the planking of the broad
+platform sounded hollow beneath their feet, and they stood among the
+guns. The spark in the Captain's pipe gleamed red in the darkness, but
+Miles could not see the Captain's features; he perceived only that he
+turned his face from quarter to quarter, and remained longest gazing
+into the black west, where the ridge of hills ran jagged against the
+starry sky.
+
+He watched the Captain's movements, but he did not venture to speak
+till Standish himself broke out: "Well, there'll come no bands to
+frighten us this night, I take it. We can march home, Miles. We've a
+fair starlight to make the march under," he added, and, as they stepped
+from the platform to the yielding turf, lingered an instant to gaze
+skyward.
+
+"Which is it that is the North Star, sir?" Miles hesitated.
+
+"Why, that one yonder, lad. You know it well."
+
+"I knew 'twas the North Star in England. I knew not if 'twere the same
+here. It is such a long ways from home."
+
+"It's the same sky, Miles, and the same Heaven, I take it, that we had
+over us in England."
+
+Miles threw back his head and once more stared up into the sky, that
+was so vast it made him shrink and feel smaller even than before.
+He sighed a little, he scarcely knew why, and put his hand on the
+Captain's sleeve. Standish took Miles's hand in his, and so kept hold
+on him as they came down from the hill, and in that pressure was
+something so comforting that Miles was sorry when they reached the door
+of Master Hopkins's house.
+
+Within was heavy air, and a dull fire, and sleepy faces; Giles had gone
+to lie down on his bed, and it did not need the Captain's bidding to
+send Miles blinking after. Once, in the darkness, he was wakened by
+hearing Lister protest inarticulately that he would rather have his
+throat cut in his sleep ten times over than rise and watch; and once
+Miles guessed hazily that some one was shaking him, and he tried to say
+he was getting up, and in the midst dropped back on his pillow.
+
+At the last the dazzle of warm sunlight on his face, and the rattle,
+rattle of trenchers, brought him staggering and blinking to his feet.
+Oh, yes, he remembered; the Sagamore Samoset had been there last night;
+but he was not afraid of him, especially since 'twas daylight; indeed,
+he wanted to see him again, so out he rushed into the living room.
+
+"Well, sleepyhead!" Constance laughed at him, and Mistress Hopkins
+was beginning to scold him because he had not awakened, for all her
+efforts, till mid-morning, when Ned Lister sauntered in. "His Lordship
+the Indian is safe departed, Constance," he said consolingly, as
+he made a slow business of getting an axe from the chimney corner.
+"They gave him a knife and a bracelet and a ring, and he is gone away
+content."
+
+"A good riddance, too!" snapped Mistress Hopkins. "And now do you,
+Edward Lister, fetch two buckets of water and wash out the place where
+the creature lodged. To bring such heathen under a Christian roof! I
+hope I never set eyes on another of the coppery wretches again."
+
+Ned shrugged his shoulders and said nothing till his mistress was quite
+done; then he added meekly: "I misremembered; he said he was coming
+back again in a night or two, and next time he is going to bring with
+him a goodly number from the tribe of the Massasoits."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+THE LORDS OF THE SOIL
+
+
+SAMOSET proved as good as his word. The very next morning, for all it
+was Sunday, back he came, and with him five other tall Indians, who
+were even more wonderful fellows than he, for they were clad in skins
+of deer or of wildcat, and had dressed their hair with feathers, and
+painted their faces in black streaks. To divert their English hosts,
+they sang and danced, which Master Hopkins called a violation of the
+sanctity of the day, but Miles privately thought most edifying.
+
+He was even better pleased when that night, at the departure of his
+comrades, Samoset was ill or feigned to be, so, spite of Mistress
+Hopkins, he must be sheltered in her husband's house. Thus for three
+days Miles dwelt under the same roof with a live Indian, and ate at
+the same board, till he came to have not the least tremor at sight of
+a copper-colored face. Indeed, he neglected every task he was set, to
+dog the Indian guest about the street and make shy efforts at talk with
+him, and he was heartily grieved when at last, on Wednesday, Samoset
+went away into the forest.
+
+"No doubt he'll come again, the mistress always makes him so welcome,"
+Ned Lister consoled Miles, "and each time he goes, for his further
+encouragement, they give him a present. This morning they gave him
+a hat and shoes and stockings, and a shirt and a loin cloth. I take
+it, 'tis because I am what Master Hopkins calls a son of Belial that
+it makes me to laugh, when I think of Sagamore Samoset in an English
+headpiece with a flapping brim."
+
+"I'm mighty sorry he went," sighed Miles, uncomforted. "I was learning
+the Indian words, so I could talk to him presently, like Captain
+Standish. 'Cossaquot,' that means _bow_; and 'et chossucke' is _a
+knife_; and 'petuckquanocke' is _bread_; and--"
+
+Ned yawned suggestively, and fell to work again. He and Miles that
+afternoon were busied in the spaded garden patch at the north end of
+the dooryard, where they were pressing the seeds into the soft earth.
+The sun was hot, and, as Miles worked, he smeared his warm face with
+his fingers, till Ned assured him he was all streaked brown, like an
+Indian.
+
+But though it was hot and dirty labor, it was far manlier than to be
+ever dandling a baby; so Miles toiled on earnestly, spite of Ned's
+indolent example, and did not pause even to stretch his cramped legs
+or straighten his aching back till mid-afternoon. Then he started up
+at a noise of people hurrying through the street, the sound of a quick
+footstep, the rattle of the house-door.
+
+"'Tis Master Hopkins has taken his musket and gone forth," spoke Ned,
+who was lounging farther down the garden. "Somewhat's afoot." Away he
+went to look into the matter, and Miles ran stiffly after.
+
+Out in the street the men and boys, and even one or two girls, were
+hastening toward the bluff above the spring. As they went, a confused
+talking spread among them, from which Miles learned that yonder, on the
+great wooded hill across the brook, Indians had been seen,--Indians who
+brandished their bows and whetted their arrows in defiance. Captain
+Standish and Master Hopkins and two men from the _Mayflower_ had gone
+down to cross the brook and parley with them. Look, yonder they went
+now!
+
+From where the company had halted, high up beyond Goodman Cooke's
+cottage, Miles could see the bright river and the hill opposite, thick
+with unleaved woods. Up its base wound slowly the little band of
+Englishmen, now half-screened, now wholly visible; but Miles looked
+from them, higher up the slope, where the bare branches were agitated,
+as if something moved among them. "'Tis the savages!" said one; but,
+strain his eyes as he would, Miles saw through the bushes only the
+sad-colored English doublets.
+
+Yet, with an anxiety he scarcely comprehended, the men lingered on the
+bluff, watching and discussing in grave tones, till the Captain and
+his followers came toilsomely up the path from the spring. They had
+seen naught; the savages had not suffered them draw nigh them, Captain
+Standish explained, so briefly that he seemed curt, while his puckered
+brows still were bent on the slope whence the Indians had sent their
+defiance.
+
+Slowly the little group of curious and troubled people scattered, some
+of the weightier ones to speak with the Governor and the Captain,
+others to simpler tasks. Miles went back to his garden, but the
+sunlight had now left that corner of the yard. The great hill, where
+stood the guns, looked black against the sky, and there seemed in all
+out-of-doors a menace that made him glad at dusk to get within the
+house. Throughout supper the men kept from speaking of the savages with
+an elaborateness that made their silence the more suspicious, and the
+unspoken anxiety wrought on Miles till at bedtime he smuggled Trug into
+the chamber and made the dog lie near him.
+
+Next morning, in the clear sunlight, Miles's courage revived mightily,
+but his elders still looked sober. None the less, whether Indians
+threatened or no, the work of the colony must be done: all the morning
+men and boys trudged about their tasks, though none went far afield;
+and after the noon meal the men gathered once more at the Common House,
+to consider the public business which the first coming of Samoset had
+broken off.
+
+Oceanus was ailing that afternoon and needed his mother, so Miles
+had to mind Damaris for a dreary hour. As he sat with her upon the
+doorstone, he spied a noiseless little group of some five Indians
+passing down the street, and, alert at once, he begged leave to run see
+what might happen; but Mistress Hopkins, all a-tremble herself, forbade
+him venture out while those bloodthirsty wretches were abroad, and even
+made him come in and shut the door fast.
+
+But speedily there sounded a rattling knock to which the mistress
+must open, and in came the men of the household, so hurriedly that
+straightway the living room was in confusion. For the great Sagamore
+Massasoit, with his brother Quadequina and sixty warriors, was at hand,
+just across the brook. One of the Indians, Squanto, who could speak
+English, had gone back to bid him enter the settlement, and the men of
+the colony must get under arms to receive him; perhaps even to defend
+themselves, Master Hopkins let a word fall.
+
+There followed a great throwing-on of buff-jackets and buckling of
+sword-belts, while Giles, newly appointed drummer to the colony,
+rattled over the pots and kettles in a meaningless search for his
+drumsticks, which some one had surely moved from the place where he
+left them. Oceanus wailed, Damaris, indignant at being neglected,
+screamed aloud, Trug barked, and Mistress Hopkins scolded, but somehow,
+in the midst of the hurly-burly, the three men equipped themselves and
+tramped away; and right at their heels went Giles, with the drumsticks
+which Constance had found.
+
+But the door closed behind them and shut Miles, a soldier in name only,
+in with the women and children for another tedious hour. Damaris found
+little rest in his arms those minutes, while he ran from the western
+window, whence he could see a bit of the street and the path to the
+spring, to the eastern window, whence, far down the street, he beheld
+the men gathered in martial line, all in armor, which glimmered bravely
+in the afternoon sun.
+
+He was still gazing down the street when Constance, who had ventured
+to the other window, called to him in a terrified voice: "Miles! Oh,
+Miles! Come hither. 'Tis Indians indeed. Hundreds of them!"
+
+With no wish to see further, the girl drew away from the western
+window, and Miles thrust eagerly into her place. Yes, there were
+Indians indeed, swarms of them, it seemed at first sight, so he
+flinched back a little from the casement. For they were filing past
+the house, and that brought them so near that Miles could see even
+the grotesque figures in which their faces were painted. But soon he
+perceived English musketeers marshalling them, and he saw, too, that
+the savages were unarmed. Their mission must be peaceful, he judged;
+so, eager and unafraid, he stared at them, and was sorry when the last
+one disappeared down the street.
+
+Just then, as he turned from the window, sounded the tap, tap of a
+drum. "It is the Governor and the rest of the men with drum and trumpet
+marching up the street," spoke Constance from the eastern casement.
+"They have led the savages into the unfinished cottage by the Common
+House, and now they are going in to them."
+
+Miles, at her side, squirmed with impatience. "There's Jack yonder
+beneath the cottage window," he exclaimed, "and Francis and Joe. And
+there's such a deal to see. And I'm sure they are all good, harmless
+Indians." He gave a glance toward the bedroom, where he could hear
+Mistress Hopkins lulling Oceanus, then whispered Constance: "Won't you
+mind Damaris? I'll tell you all about it when I come back."
+
+"I see not why you wish to go forth at such a time, but I'll do 't
+for you. Run quick, ere stepmother stop you," answered kind-hearted
+Constance; and away sped Miles.
+
+Still, he was too late to share in the main excitement, for when he
+came into the yard of the unfinished house, he found the door fast shut
+and all the great folk, white or copper-colored, gone within. Only two
+musketeers remained outside to keep watch, and Edward Dotey, who was
+one of them, proved so unsympathetic as to cuff Francis Billington when
+he tried to get a peep in at the window. Much discouraged, for where
+saucy Francis failed to go there was no hope for the others, the small
+boys of the colony gathered in a patient little group in the dooryard
+to talk of these great happenings.
+
+"Master Winslow has gone out amongst the Indians," said Jack, "and
+they're holding him as hostage for their old King. 'Twas right valiant
+of him--"
+
+"Pooh! The Captain would 'a' gone just as quick," Miles retorted
+jealously. "There's naught to be afraid of, anyway. I would I were
+Giles Hopkins, and stood there in the house with the savages."
+
+"My father is in there too," spoke little Love Brewster, who had
+attached himself to Miles, "but he is so good I do not think even an
+Indian would hurt him. But there were very many of them, and if my
+mother had come close to see, I am sure she would have been afraid.
+Perhaps I were best go home and tell her there's no need to fear. You
+come with me, pray you, Miles."
+
+Young Rigdale had no wish to take his eyes from the door of the house,
+but plainly the little boy was fearful enough to want his company up
+the street, so he went with him, and at the Elder's cottage stayed a
+moment to reassure the women grandly.
+
+Dolly had no interest in Indians, since she found in the case of
+Samoset that they did not carry about with them a store of pretty
+baskets, such as the one her father had brought her; but Priscilla
+Mullins was eager to know everything, and questioned Miles and listened
+to him most flatteringly, till he offered: "If you wish to go forth and
+view the Indians, Priscilla, I'll go and take care of you."
+
+Whereat young Mistress Mullins laughed, and, slipping her hand under
+his chin, kissed him for his courtesy, "like a baby."
+
+Red and indignant, Miles flung out of the house; then forgot the
+insult, as he saw Giles, with a platter in his hand, hurrying up the
+street from Governor Carver's cottage. "What are you doing there?" he
+called, running to intercept the elder lad.
+
+"Fresh meat," panted Giles. "The Governor wished it for the King. I
+had this bit of a goose from Mistress Carver, and now I've remembered a
+mallard I saw stepmother set to boil."
+
+It took him very few minutes to hurry into his father's house, and out
+again with a second larger platter balanced in one hand, but, short as
+the space was, Miles had laid a plan. Stepping up to Giles, he took
+from him Mistress Carver's dish of meat. "Let me aid you," he proffered
+innocently.
+
+"So that's what you're scheming," laughed Giles; but he let Miles,
+under that pretext, come at his side down the street, past the little
+group of envious boys, up the doorstone of the unfinished cottage, and
+so into the very council chamber.
+
+The room was close and hazy with smoke from the pipes of tobacco that
+the King and the chief of the English puffed at, but, spite of the
+dimness, Miles speedily made out the shapes of the Indians. Black,
+red, yellow, and white, their faces were partly or wholly smeared with
+paint, and, through the wavering smoke-wreaths, their look was so grim
+that for an instant he hesitated on the threshold.
+
+But Giles went on, so he followed, across the room, between what
+seemed endless rows of Indians in hairy skins who stood or squatted
+on the floor, up to the table, where sat a tall, stalwart savage.
+Imitating Giles, Miles set down his dish of meat before him, and, with
+an agitated bow, drew back to the wall, where he wedged himself in
+between Lister and young Hopkins. "That's the King, yonder at table,"
+the latter whispered him softly.
+
+He did not look at all as Miles thought a king should look, that savage
+at the table. He wore a scant covering of skins,--a dress like that of
+his followers, save that the King had also about his neck a great chain
+of white bone beads. His face was painted a dark red; and face and head
+alike were oiled so he looked greasy; he fed untidily with his fingers,
+and sometimes, when he would give a morsel to one of his followers,
+rent the meat with his hands.
+
+But, for all he seemed so busy with feeding, his quick eyes were
+darting about the smoky room,--now resting on the Governor, who
+sat at table near him; now on the English musketeers who lined the
+walls,--and, to Miles's thinking, the King looked on them timorously;
+now on his own followers, who crowded silently about him. One of the
+Indians, squatting on the floor, held in his hands the English trumpet,
+on which he tried to blow, and, for a moment, the King paused to hark
+with a child's wonder to his efforts, then once more began tearing
+Mistress Hopkins's mallard.
+
+When nothing but bones was left of the bird, Giles slipped the platters
+from the table, and now the serious work of the conference seemed to
+begin. Up from the floor behind the table, where they had sat, rose
+two savages, who should interpret between Massasoit and the Governor;
+the one was a stranger, probably that Squanto whom Master Hopkins had
+mentioned; the other, Miles's old acquaintance, Samoset. A transformed
+Samoset, however, with an English felt hat low on his brows and an
+English shirt worn over his meagre native garments after the manner of
+a carter's frock. Ned Lister, standing rigid and soldierly against the
+wall, took Miles a sudden dig in the ribs, and winked at him with a
+"Didn't I tell you as much" expression.
+
+Miles, on his good behavior, neither looked at him nor smiled, but
+fixed his gaze on the men about the table. The sun had now shifted down
+the sky, so a great bar of light thrust in at the western window. The
+yellow brightness flecked across Elder Brewster's grizzled head, made
+Governor Carver's stiff ruff even more dazzlingly white, and gleamed
+back again from Captain Standish's steel corselet. It rested, too, on
+the papers which Master William Bradford had laid on the table before
+him, but Master Bradford's grave face, as he bent forward to write what
+the Governor bade, was in shadow. The features of Massasoit, too, were
+dark to see, but here and there, as the sunlight, bursting through
+the smoke, wavered across the room, the painted face or coppery bare
+shoulders of one of his followers stood out.
+
+The two interpreters jerked out the gutturals of their outlandish
+tongue, to which the King grunted assent, or now and again the Governor
+spoke a measured word. But outside the window a bird was singing in a
+high, purling strain; and Miles wondered if it were a fat, red-breasted
+bird, and thought more on its song and on the motes that swam in the
+sunlight, than on what the Governor was saying.
+
+After all, he was glad when the conference broke up. He was tired of
+standing stiffly, and the air of the room was heavy; and the Indians,
+when they neither ate nor played with trumpets, but just sat stolid,
+were a bit stupid. He scuffed softly but impatiently at the rear of the
+train, as the company filed forth; the Governor and the King, side by
+side, went first, and then, all in some semblance of order, the Indian
+warriors and the English leaders and soldiery.
+
+Outside, a guard of honor formed about the Governor and his guest, and
+gave them fitting escort to the brook; but Miles remained behind and
+roused the envy of his mates, with an account of what he had seen,
+till, in fickle fashion, they forsook him at the coming of a second
+guest, Quadequina, the brother of Massasoit, who, in his turn, would
+have a taste of English hospitality. He could not, however, compare
+in dignity and importance with Massasoit; he was just a tall, comely
+young savage, who liked English biscuit and strong waters, but liked
+the English muskets so little that his hosts good-naturedly laid
+them aside. Massasoit was not cowardly like that, Miles assured his
+comrades; Massasoit was every inch a king, and it was a mighty honor to
+have been in the same room with him.
+
+Quadequina had been but a short time gone, and the long shadows were
+filling the river valley with a grayness, when back across the brook,
+quite unruffled by his long detention, came Master Edward Winslow. His
+fellow-colonists might be glad to see him, and he to return unscathed
+to them, but he carried it laughingly. He was all sound, save that he
+was uncommon hungry,--Miles, following admiringly, caught a scrap of
+his speech to Captain Standish,--the Indians had tried to buy the armor
+off his back and the sword from his side, and he knew not but he might
+have sold them for a mess of pottage, only he saw no such savory viand
+among the savages, nor anything, indeed, but groundnuts.
+
+Now that Master Winslow was returned, the colonists released the
+Indians whom they had held as hostages for him, and sent them away.
+Save only Samoset and Squanto, no Indians were suffered to remain in
+the settlement, but the rumor went that King Massasoit and all his
+people had encamped for the night on the wooded hill across the brook,
+so a strict watch was set.
+
+"Do you think there will be fighting yet?" Miles questioned Giles, as
+they walked home to supper. "Quadequina was afeard of our muskets. I
+take it, we could beat those Indians."
+
+"To be sure, there'll be no fighting," answered Giles, as he tucked his
+drum under one arm in a professional way. "We've struck a truce with
+the savages."
+
+Later, at supper, Miles heard it all explained. This was a dolorous
+meal, for the meat had been devoured by his Majesty, Massasoit, and
+Mistress Hopkins was ill-tempered and rated Miles for running away that
+afternoon, and, to add to her discomfort, Samoset came blandly to sup
+with his old entertainers. "This has been an ill day such as I wish
+never to see the like of again," fretted the poor woman.
+
+"It is a happy day for our colony," said Master Hopkins gravely. "Do
+you not realize, Elizabeth, that we have this afternoon made a peace
+with our heathen neighbors that, by the will of Heaven, shall prove
+lasting? King Massasoit has covenanted that none of his people shall do
+us harm as we go abroad; and, if he be attacked, we shall aid in his
+defense, or if other tribe of savages assail us, he shall do us the
+like service. Yea, the hand of Providence has been with us this day.
+Yesternight it was all menace; but to-night we can hope for peace."
+
+Miles, in his place at table, looked at Samoset, very solemn in his
+funny shirt and hat, and, blinking sleepily at the candle, took little
+concern for the earnestness of Master Hopkins's words. He scarcely
+realized that this was almost the second founding day of New Plymouth;
+but he did know that he had stood within arm's reach of King Massasoit,
+an exploit of which no other boy in the colony could boast; and, when
+he went to bed, he dreamed all night of red and blue and green Indians.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+WHEN THE GOOD SHIP SAILED
+
+
+EVEN Mistress Hopkins must at last somewhat overcome her fear of the
+savages, else her life would have been miserable beyond endurance. For
+Massasoit having plainly made the treaty in good faith, his people
+were ready at all times to visit their English allies and eat of their
+food. Coppery faces grew so common a sight in the single street of
+New Plymouth that each boy in the colony had his own little tale of a
+friendly Indian encounter, and Miles Rigdale was no longer alone in his
+experiences.
+
+Still further to rob Miles of his prestige among his fellows, his own
+particular Indian, the Sagamore Samoset, with his hat and his shirt,
+which he used in wet weather to remove carefully, lest they be damaged,
+took himself off to his own land to the eastward; and Miles found no
+one to fill his place.
+
+To be sure, Plymouth had now a resident pensioner in the Indian
+Squanto, but he lived with Master Bradford, and so was accessible to
+other boys as well as to Miles. "I see not why he is let dwell among
+us," the latter said jealously, in the early days of Squanto's stay.
+
+"Because, if he were any but a heathen, one might say this land
+where we have planted belongs to him," Master Hopkins made a brief
+explanation, which to Miles was no explanation at all.
+
+But later, of a morning when Master Hopkins's force of laborers was
+busied in building a fence round the garden patch, Giles, who had
+listened to the talk of his elders, took the trouble to set forth
+the substance of it to Miles. "You'll understand, this Squanto
+truly belongs at Plymouth. Back in the time when an Indian village,
+Patuxet, stood where we have settled, he dwelt here. But there came an
+Englishman named Hunt--"
+
+"Who was rather more of a knave than even a trader should be,"
+parenthesized Ned Lister, who, seated comfortably on the ground near
+by, was hammering the palings together.
+
+"He was a scoundrel," said Giles, warmly. "He toled Squanto and
+nineteen others from Patuxet, and some from among the Nausets, on board
+his ship, pretending he would truck with them; and then he hoisted sail
+and steered away for Spain, where he sold them all for twenty pound
+apiece. But somehow this fellow Squanto made shift to reach England,
+where a good merchant of London cared for him. 'Twas there he came by
+the knowledge of our tongue that he has. And at last they sent him
+back hither to his own country; but meantime the plague had been among
+them at Patuxet, and all were dead."
+
+"The Lord removed the heathen to make way for a better growth," said
+Dotey, who had just come thither with an armful of fresh palings.
+
+"Truly?" muttered Ned Lister. "Then I'm thinking the Lord in His wisdom
+laid His hand pretty heavily on the poor silly savages just for our
+profit."
+
+There was little enough love already between Lister and Dotey, so Giles
+headed off a possibly bitter argument by continuing hastily: "So, as my
+father says, Squanto is, in a way, the owner of the land here, and as
+such has a right to shelter and food amongst us."
+
+Miles listened to this story with a grave, stolid face, such as the
+others kept, and made no word of comment. But afterward he thought much
+of what had been told him, and wondered if Squanto had had a wife and
+copper-colored babies, and had come home to find them dead. He felt
+sorry for the poor, lone Indian, and watched him with new sympathy;
+but to all appearances Squanto was more occupied in consuming English
+biscuit and butter than in grieving for his lost friends.
+
+Whether or no he had a claim upon the English, the Indian speedily
+showed himself able to repay them for any kindness. He told the men
+how they must wait yet some days before they planted their corn, and
+how there would then be plenty of fish in the river, which they must
+set with the seed; and much more that was useful. But nothing of the
+Indian's arts impressed Miles so much as his prowess in eel-catching,
+for he would go often into the forest and return, after a few hours,
+with fat, sweet eels, as many as he could lift in one hand.
+
+Of an afternoon in April, nearly a fortnight after the coming of
+Massasoit, Ned Lister and Giles Hopkins went to the southward with
+Squanto on such a fishing trip, and, as Miles was very eager to share
+in it, they let him come too. Their course took them over steep, wooded
+hills, where always they had blue water close on the left hand, and,
+looking back over their shoulders, could see the bay of Plymouth, with
+its flanking headlands. A tender leafage was upon the trees, and in the
+southern hollows, where the birds sang, the air was warm; but on each
+hilltop a chillier blast stung in the faces of the fishermen and urged
+them to trudge more briskly.
+
+At length they came to a gully, where two hills curved into each other,
+and descended it, half running, to the bank of a small river that
+flowed seaward through a level reach. Here was where the eels dwelt,
+Squanto gave his companions to understand; and then, without spear
+or any implement, he waded gently into the quiet water. The three
+English-born, from the bank, watched him intently, yet they scarcely
+realized how he did it, when he suddenly made a swift dart forward, and
+rose with a long, slimy thing writhing in his hands.
+
+"Do you just tread 'em out with your feet, Squanto?" Ned queried after
+a time, as, keeping pace with the savage, they trailed along the bank.
+
+When the Indian gave an "Um" that implied assent, Ned presently
+suggested: "Say we venture it, lads. It has a simple seeming. Tell us,
+Squanto, can a white man take eels that way?"
+
+"White man try," advised Squanto, stolidly. He had caught enough for a
+mess, so he probably thought that the splashings of the English fellows
+would do no harm now.
+
+Ned and Giles, stripping off shoes and stockings, waded in; and Miles,
+not to be outdone, followed after. The water felt stingingly cold
+against his bare legs, and set his teeth chattering so he could not
+talk. The very ooze of the river bed was clammy; and then he suddenly
+found his tongue and gave a frightened scream, as his toes touched
+something that rolled beneath them.
+
+"Did you take one, Miles?" cried Giles Hopkins, splashing to the spot.
+
+"I d-d-don't know," chattered Miles, from the shore where he had sought
+refuge.
+
+Giles spattered to and fro a moment. "'Twas naught but an old branch,"
+he announced contemptuously.
+
+"It was an eel," retorted Miles, "but, to be sure, he will not stand
+there the day long till you choose to come seek him."
+
+With that he forced himself to put his purpling feet into the water
+again, but, spite of this brave showing, Ned and Giles would chaff him
+on his flight, and even Squanto looked amused at the conduct of the
+youngest of his allies.
+
+Yet, for all they were so ready to laugh at him, Miles noted his
+English comrades did not take a single eel, and that gave him a kind of
+comfort. But even then there was little pleasure in wading through the
+icy water, in the expectation of stepping on a soft, squirming thing;
+so he was not sorry when Ned gave the order to take up the homeward
+march.
+
+The east wind, that had turned chillier as sunset drew on, smote
+bleakly on the hilltops, and in the hollows, where the shadows were
+creeping through the undergrowth, the warmth had died out of the air.
+The gathering darkness pressed ever closer upon the fishermen; the sea
+on their right turned gray and dim; the blue faded from the sky, and
+the green of the distant headlands of the bay changed to black. Just
+off the beach point they could dimly make out a dark bulk, where a
+single speck of light showed--the old ship _Mayflower_.
+
+"They say she'll be hoisting sail for home soon," Giles spoke, as they
+trudged through the twilight, with a surety that his comrades knew to
+what he referred.
+
+"So soon as the wind swings round into the west," answered Ned. "Then
+she'll up sail, and it's 'Eastward, ho!'"
+
+Then presently, in the dusk, Ned began whistling a sorry little tune,
+unlike those he was wont to sing, very slow and monotonous, with a
+sudden rising to a high note and as sudden a sinking again, like the
+sharp indrawing of breath in a sob. "What song is that, Ned?" Miles
+asked, because he would rather hear Lister talk than whistle that
+pitiable strain.
+
+"'Tis the Hanging-tune, Miley; the one to which they set the last
+confessions of men who are condemned to die." He fell to whistling once
+more and half humming the words:--
+
+    "'Fortune, my foe,
+      Why dost thou frown on me?'"
+
+and Miles harked to the tune till it went crying itself through his
+head.
+
+Next morning it still came back to him keenly,--the walk in the
+twilight, the look of the distant ship, the woful minor of the
+Hanging-tune. For the wind was hauling round to westward, and of a
+sudden Indians and gardening and house-building ceased to be matters
+that men talked of in the street; instead they spoke of the going of
+the ship that had borne them from England.
+
+Already she had stayed longer on their shores than any had expected,
+because of the sickness that had been among her crew. But now, on shore
+and on ship, the sickness was stayed; just half the settlers lay buried
+on the bluff, and the crew of the _Mayflower_ mustered in diminished
+numbers, yet enough survived and in recovered health to work the ship
+back to England. With the first favoring wind she would set forth upon
+her voyage; and with that bit of sure information went another, that
+Master Jones had offered to take home in her any one of the settlers
+who might wish to go.
+
+"Right generous of him, is't not?" Ned Lister spoke bitterly to Miles.
+"Who does he think is going with him? The Elder and the Governor
+and Master Bradford, all the chiefs, if they showed their faces in
+England, they'd be clapped up in prison. And the lesser men, or even
+our great Master Hopkins here, they've ventured all their substance in
+this plantation. If they go back, they must starve or beg in London
+streets, and 'tis as easy and pleasant to starve here. There's none in
+the settlement I know of has the wish to go home, save myself, and I
+cannot go, because I've sold my time to Hopkins, the more fool I!"
+
+"Why did you ever come hither, if you hate it so?" Miles questioned.
+
+"Because a penny fell wrong side up," Ned answered. "I woke up in
+London one fine morning, with no shirt to my back and but one penny
+in my pocket. 'It's either 'list for the wars, or get me into a new
+country and start afresh,' I said, so I tossed up the penny,--heads
+Bohemia, tails America. It fell tails; so I sold Stephen Hopkins my
+three years' time in return for my passage over. And a precious fool
+I was! Faith, I'd liefer dig ditches in England than play even at
+governor here. And so soon as my time's out!"
+
+Miles listened soberly, but with no sympathy; he did not understand why
+a tall, grown fellow like Ned should think on home with such longing.
+He did not care himself; he had come to New Plymouth to live, and he
+looked forward to the departure of the _Mayflower_ as a novel happening
+in the round of everyday occurrences.
+
+Yet when it befell, it seemed quite a matter-of-fact event. A clear
+breezy morning it was, and, as the household sat at their early
+breakfast, Francis Cooke came leisurely to tell Master Hopkins that
+the wind was setting steady from the west, and Master Jones had rowed
+ashore to bid his former passengers good-by; so soon as the tide was
+at flood, the ship would put forth.
+
+There was wood and water to fetch as every day; and Miles did the tasks
+hastily. As he came down the path by Cooke's house, he could feel
+the wind stirring his hair, and yonder in the harbor the waves were
+ruffling, and the dim old sails of the _Mayflower_, unfurled, bellied
+in the gusts.
+
+When he had set the dripping bucket within the living room, he ran
+down toward the bluff, to see what more was to see, but, finding his
+playmates lingering by the door of the Common House, he joined them.
+Within the house, they told him, Master Jones was drinking a friendly
+draught with the colonists, and taking his leave. Presently, indeed,
+the Master, a low, broad-shouldered figure, in his wide breeches and
+loose jacket, came forth, attended by most of the men of the colony,
+and rolled off to the landing place.
+
+Some of the boys straggled respectfully behind their elders, but Miles
+raced with those who ran to be first at the landing. There, alongside
+the rock, rode the ship's longboat, and Will Trevor and several of
+the lesser men stood talking with the sailors who sat in her. The
+youngsters, too, would gladly have borne a part, but the Master, coming
+right on their heels across the sand, broke up the little group; he was
+speaking boisterously with the Governor, so his loud voice could be
+heard even above the confusion of the embarkation.
+
+Indeed, it was all so noisy and hurried that nothing of those last
+moments remained clear in Miles's mind; he remembered only that
+men spoke of letters and packets, and the Master wished them many
+a "God be wi' you," and there was a bustling to and fro and a deal
+of hand-shaking. Then the Master, sitting in the stern seat, was
+cursing at his sailors; the width of blue water between the longboat
+and the landing rock was increasing; and for a moment Miles watched
+mechanically the sway and swing of the seamen's bodies, as, bending to
+their oars, they rowed the boat away.
+
+When at length he turned slowly about, he was aware that, halfway
+up the rugged slope of the bluff, a little group of women, all that
+survived in the colony, were standing, and the children with them. He
+scrambled up to be with Dolly, why, he could not say, only somehow he
+wanted to be sure she was safe and near him then; and he noted Mistress
+Carver, who sat upon a stone with her hands clasped tensely in her lap,
+and Priscilla Mullins, whose hair blew unheeded about her face, while
+she gazed out to sea.
+
+He almost stumbled over Wrestling Brewster and the little Samson boy,
+who had sat down on the turf and unconcernedly were playing with some
+bright pebbles; but he did not pause to speak to Wrestling, just
+clambered a few feet higher up the bluff, where Dolly, holding to
+Mistress Brewster's gown, stood with her wistful face turned seaward.
+"Look you closely, Dolly," he greeted her. "See, they're hoisting sail
+on board the _Mayflower_."
+
+Dolly, pressing up to him, whispered for her only reply: "Do you mind,
+Miles, how we came in on the ship, and mammy and daddy with us? I wish
+we'd all stayed in England."
+
+"Now hush, Dolly," Miles admonished in a gruff tone, and scowled
+vexedly as the little sister, hiding her face against his doublet,
+began to cry. Then, half pitying, he bent to speak to her, when a
+sudden gasp, as if the women about him all drew in their breath, made
+him look to the harbor. There he saw the _Mayflower_, with the western
+wind swelling her dingy sails, had heaved up anchor, and was heading
+out upon the ocean.
+
+The sun was bright and made the dirty sails gleam like silver; the
+water was blue, and the wind was brisk; and the ship stood seaward
+swiftly, very swiftly. Miles thought on how she had set forth from
+Southampton; and he knew that on board men would be clattering across
+her deck, and hauling at ropes, and the Master would be bellowing
+orders.
+
+But on shore a great silence had fallen. The most careless of the
+men had no word to say, while of the graver sort some had bowed their
+heads, and some, coming higher up the bluff, had drawn close to their
+wives and children. For a moment there was no sound save the lap of
+waves about the great gray landing rock, and the swish of shingle as
+the swell receded; then suddenly one of the women--it was Mistress
+White, six weeks a widow, who stood with her baby in her arms and her
+other little child holding to her skirts--burst out sobbing.
+
+Miles gazed about him in wonder. Why, men never cried; Captain
+Standish's face now was hard as a stone; and he himself had not the
+least inclination to shed a tear. But among the women round him was a
+stifled weeping, so anguishing for being half suppressed, that some
+pity mingled with his contempt, and, with a feeling that he was ashamed
+to listen, he slipped away from the bluff. He thought he were best run
+up on the great hill to watch the _Mayflower_ depart; and he found that
+his friend Jack and several other boys had had the same thought.
+
+All together they raced up the street to see who should gain the
+hilltop first, and by the time they came thither, with laughing and
+struggling, had clean forgot their elders, who, from the bluff below,
+watched the receding ship through a dazzle of tears. From the top of
+the hill the lads could see the white sail of the _Mayflower_ in the
+offing, out beyond Sagaquab, speeding ever farther into the horizon;
+but Miles never saw it vanish, for Francis Billington had discovered a
+nest of snakes at the other side of the hill; so, in the midst of their
+watching, the boys must run thither and look upon the wriggling little
+creatures, then scrupulously stone them all to death.
+
+When Miles clambered again to the hilltop, there was never a distant
+glimmer of a sail upon the sea; but he could not think of the ship's
+departure sadly, with the day so fair and his time at his disposal. He
+felt hungry, though, so he ran down to the house a moment to eat his
+dinner; and, for all it was long past the noon hour, he found no dinner
+ready.
+
+Ned was out by the woodpile, nailing together a hand-barrow, with
+a sudden fierce spurt of energy, but he was in a sulky temper; and
+within the house Constance went about with her eyes red. She gave
+Miles a piece of bread in his hand, and bade him run away and eat it;
+stepmother had shut herself in her chamber, and father was with her,
+trying to comfort her. "I see not why you all make such a to-do because
+the old ship has sailed," Miles spoke, with his mouth full.
+
+"Because we're left alone. Because no ship will come ere the autumn.
+Maybe it will never come," Constance burst out, with sudden
+passionateness. "And we are here, and home is there, and the ship has
+gone. You'd understand, if you were older."
+
+No, Miles did not understand yet. What with the excitement and the
+change, in spite of the sad bearing of those about him, the meaning
+of it all did not come home to him till next morning. He had risen
+early with the others and run forth to fetch wood for the morning
+fire. The sun was just reddening the horizon line, but the rest of the
+world looked faint and gray. A white mist, rolling off the fields, was
+shrinking away inland from the sea whence it had come. But out to sea
+he could distinguish clearly the dusky beach point, and the islands
+and-- There he rubbed his eyes. No, it was no trick of the mist. There
+was the old anchoring ground, but it was empty; the clumsy, old, dark
+hulk was gone.
+
+Miles walked on to the woodpile, trying hard to whistle, but the only
+strain that came was a sorry snatch in a minor key,--the Hanging-tune.
+The chill of the dawning struck into his bones. Once more he looked to
+the anchoring ground that was vacant; then he sat down suddenly among
+the damp logs. He did not cry,--he was too big and old for that,--but
+he leaned his folded arms against a log, and hid his face between them.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+THE SOWING OF THE FIELDS
+
+
+"TO be sure, though, I was not weeping," Miles declared to Constance,
+who came out from the house to see why he tarried so long at the
+woodpile, "for I never even thought on going back to England."
+
+He little guessed that, at one time, the leaders of the colony had
+spoken seriously of returning Dolly and himself to the home-country.
+But Master Hopkins had urged that, in such case, the children might be
+drawn back into the faith of the Church of England, from which their
+father had sought to snatch them; and Elder Brewster had added that it
+was a weary journey for such little folk, and no prospect at the end
+save of hard fare among grudging kindred.
+
+John Rigdale left no near relatives; and his distant cousins, to whom
+the children would have to go, were poor tenant-farmers, just as he
+had been, who would find it burdensome to feed two more mouths. For
+Miles and Dolly, not only would childhood prove hard and laborious,
+but there would be nothing better to look forward to; as the boy grew
+to manhood, he could hope only to toil for daily hire on some farmer's
+land. "Unless he fling away his soul's welfare by going as a mercenary
+in some iniquitous foreign war," said Master Isaac Allerton; whereat
+Captain Standish smiled a little behind his beard, but made no answer.
+
+But here in New Plymouth, though Miles would have plenty of work to
+do, he would have, as his inheritance from his father, a claim to a
+share of land and of whatever cattle or other property the settlers
+should hereafter hold in common. By the time he was a man, there would
+be enough for him to have a small farm of his own, where he could live
+in more comfort than he would have known in England; and, till he was
+grown, Master Hopkins was willing to feed and shelter him, in return
+for what labor he could do.
+
+As for Dolly, her case was simple enough, for if Miles stayed, she
+stayed; and Mistress Brewster was quite determined that the little girl
+should stay in no house but hers. So the _Mayflower_ sailed away, and
+Miles Rigdale, with his little household, remained behind; and he never
+dreamed that people had thought of continuing the colony without his
+aid.
+
+The boy had some cause to rate his services highly, for, in the
+weakened condition of the settlement, every atom of strength had to
+be used, and tasks were set for him as seriously as for burly Edward
+Dotey. The full working-force of New Plymouth mustered but twenty-two
+men,--counting in the venerable Elder, the Governor, and the Doctor,
+who all labored with their hands as readily as the rest,--and nine
+boys--some half-grown fellows, like Giles and Bart Allerton, who, at a
+pinch, could bear a musket and do almost a man's work, and some small
+rascals, like Miles himself, who, with the best intentions, did not
+always, for lack of strength or of wisdom, accomplish what was bidden
+them.
+
+But, old or young, laggard or brisk, every male member of the colony
+was expected to turn out now and bear a hand, for the mid-April season
+approached, and the precious corn, that was to feed the settlement,
+must be planted. To the elders, it looked like a stretch of hard work,
+but Miles hailed it joyously, as a dignified, manly labor.
+
+It began excitingly, with the coming of the alewives up the river, just
+as Squanto had foretold; and straightway some of the men set to taking
+them with seines, while others with hoes scored up the rough soil of
+the cleared fields to the north, that once had been the planting land
+of the Indians of Patuxet. Still others got out the corn, a precious
+supply of seed which they had found buried in an Indian basket under
+the sand of Cape Cod, and had made bold to take against this sowing
+time.
+
+For the present, Miles's part was only to splash about at the river
+brink, where he fancied he was hauling at the seines, or to carry a
+bucket of water to the workers in the field, or bring a stouter hoe
+from the storehouse. Planting was no labor, just sport, he went to
+assure Dolly, at the end of the first twelve hours.
+
+He tried to see his little sister once each day, but this time the work
+had been kept up so late that it was past twilight before he could
+run across the street to Elder Brewster's cottage. A lingering warmth
+was in the evening air, so Dolly and tall Priscilla Mullins, their
+faces dim in the candlelight that shone from within the living room
+behind them, were sitting on the doorstone. Some one else stood leaning
+against the doorpost, some one with a deep voice, who called Miles by
+name.
+
+"Is it you, John Alden?" the boy asked, and, because Alden was the
+Captain's friend, would have talked to him, had not Dolly, saying she
+had a great secret to tell him, dragged him away, round the corner of
+the cottage.
+
+"Now guess what 'tis, Miles," she bade, as they halted in the ray of
+light that streamed from the house-window beside them.
+
+"I cannot guess, Dolly. Be not so childish."
+
+"I'd give you three guesses. 'Tis something Love and I found in the
+woods, up beyond the spring, on a southern hillside. 'Twas so far I was
+near afraid, but I am glad I went. We were playing in the dead leaves,
+and we found these. Look on them."
+
+She drew her hand from her small bodice, with three wilted pink flowers
+clenched tightly in it. They were small flowers, of a star-shaped form
+and a rare, deep pink color, but Miles scarcely heeded color or size in
+his enjoyment of their sweet, spicy smell. They were unlike any blossom
+he had ever seen, so he was not ashamed to show his interest, even if
+a flower was a girlish trifle. "You and Love found them, Dolly? And no
+one else knows?"
+
+"'Tis a secret," Dolly nodded. "We told only Wrestling and Priscilla
+and Mistress Brewster. Ay, and the Elder too, because Mistress Brewster
+said perchance he might know what flower it was, he is so wise. And
+John Alden, Priscilla told him. And Love told Harry Samson and Milly
+Cooper--"
+
+"It's a mighty great secret when all the colony knows it," Miles said
+sarcastically, and then, at Dolly's hurt look, was sorry; so he added,
+"but I'm glad to know't, Dolly, and I'll go seek for some myself."
+
+"There are buds yonder on the hillside, but no blossoms. Maybe,
+though, we could find some, if we went and searched. Priscilla wishes
+to get some too. Oh, Miles, could we not all three go to-morrow?"
+
+"I must work," Miles answered proudly. "I'm not a child or a girl, so I
+cannot stop to play."
+
+Yet he was child enough to think he should like to go get a handful of
+those rare, pretty flowers. After he got them, he would not greatly
+care for them, but there would be the zest of owning something that
+every boy in the colony did not own; and if he gave the flowers to
+Dolly or to Constance, it would please them, since they were girls. So,
+before dawn next morning, Miles tumbled out of bed, and, taking in his
+hand the hunch of bread that formed his breakfast, ran away up beyond
+the spring. Perhaps before work-time he could find a blossom or two, he
+thought; and so grubbed hopefully among the damp, dead leaves of the
+hillslope.
+
+The mist that precedes the sunrise melted from the air; a bird sang
+faintly in the distance; and even amidst the undergrowth the light grew
+yellow and cheerful; work-time was near, and Miles had found only a
+poor half-dozen blossoms. He hated to give over, but there was no help
+for it; so, getting slowly to his feet, he was starting down the path
+to the settlement, when a man crashed out through the bushes on his
+left. It was John Alden, Miles saw at once, and he carried a great
+handful of the pink flowers.
+
+That was palpably an unfair arrangement, Miles held, so, as he fell
+into step at Alden's side, he queried: "You did not come hither and
+strip our place, did you?"
+
+"Whose place, lad?"
+
+"Why, mine and Dolly's and Priscilla's and--"
+
+"Do you think I should dare plunder the holding of so many proprietors?
+I have been to northward."
+
+Miles was silenced a moment, then insinuated, "John Alden, what do you
+want of posies? You're a man."
+
+"Well, what do _you_ want of them, Miles?" John smiled down at him.
+
+"I'm going to give mine away; I'm taking them to the Elder's cottage--"
+
+"Give them away there, eh? To Mistress Mullins, now, perhaps?"
+
+"No, to be sure," Miles said indignantly. "I do not like Priscilla
+Mullins."
+
+"Then you are the only one of that mind in New Plymouth. Why do you not
+like her?"
+
+Miles went in silence a time, kicking at each hump and hummock in his
+path, but Alden was waiting for his answer, and he wished to please
+him. "Well, if you must know, John Alden," he broke out at last, "I do
+not like Priscilla Mullins because she kissed me."
+
+Alden began to laugh, then, suddenly picking Miles up by the back of
+his doublet, shook him a little. "Miles Rigdale," he said solemnly,
+as he set the boy, rather breathless, on his feet again, "you are an
+ungrateful little cub."
+
+Miles held that a most uncalled-for charge, but he had no time to
+defend himself, for just then they came over the brow of the hill by
+Cooke's cottage and saw men astir in the street, so the day's labor
+must be beginning. Miles ran to join Francis and Jack, and, in bragging
+to his comrades of his flowers, forgot to take them to Dolly. That
+night, when he stopped to have a word with her, he told her all about
+them, but he found that she was not interested in a story of six
+blossoms, seeing that Priscilla Mullins, since the morning, had had a
+fair large bunch of them, such as no one else in the settlement could
+show.
+
+But in the days that followed Miles had little time to go seeking
+flowers on the hillslopes, or gossiping with his sister in the
+twilight. For, with never a minute of daylight to rest, the whole
+colony worked now in good earnest,--taking alewives in the brook,
+tugging them up into the fields, setting the little hills with corn
+seed and with fish to keep it moist. To crown all, the planting fell
+in a season of heat, and an intense heat, unlike the milder warmth of
+England, that sapped the heart of the stoutest worker.
+
+The first day Miles was bidden to plant corn, putting two shiny
+alewives into each hole, and Jack Cooke was set to plant the row
+next him. But unhappily they chattered so much that Miles presently
+realized, in some horror, that he had supplied several hills with
+alewives, but no corn, and, while he was pulling up the ground to
+set the matter right, came Master Hopkins. He was angry; not that he
+blustered, but he cuffed Miles smartly, and, saying he could not be
+trusted at such important work, sent him down to the shore to labor
+hereafter.
+
+From that time on, Miles tugged fish,--a dreary task, in which he was
+coupled with Francis Billington, another scatter-head. They had a
+great flat Indian basket, in which they heaped the alewives, taken all
+slippery from the big pile that lay upon the river brink; then they
+would lift the basket between them, to each a handle, and, panting and
+heaving, struggle up the steep bank from the river, and so through the
+settlement, out to the hot, open fields.
+
+It was not a great load they could carry at one time, so their
+usefulness depended on the number of trips they made, but there they
+were sluggish. Often the basket upset, and they had to sit down to
+refill it; and again, more and more frequently as the hot days went
+on, they must halt to quarrel, when Francis vowed Miles was bearing
+down on his end of the basket, and Miles declared Francis was not doing
+his share.
+
+One morning it came to such a pass that Miles took a basket by himself,
+but he found the journey single-handed so hard that he was in even
+less hurry than usual to return from the fields and get a second load.
+Loitering along, he was amusing himself by trying to carry on his head
+the empty fish-basket, which _would_ fall off, when, as he paused to
+pick up the troublesome article for the fifth time, Captain Standish,
+coming shirt-sleeved and grimy from the fields, overtook him. Rather
+guiltily, Miles straightened up very erect, and said, "Good morrow,
+sir," as he always said it to the Captain.
+
+"You're journeying back to the brook, Miles?" asked Standish. "At this
+speed you'll not come thither ere dinner-time."
+
+"I'm hastening now, sir," Miles answered, accepting the words as an
+invitation to trot along at the other's side.
+
+The Captain had his own concerns to look to, plainly, by the way he
+tramped along, but, right in the midst, he glanced down at his small
+companion and asked unexpectedly: "Where are your shoes, Miles?"
+
+"I--I could not wear them," the boy explained, kicking his bare feet
+in the sand. "Down by the river 'tis very wet. And then 'tis hot, so
+I laid off my doublet and my shoes and stockings too. I like to go
+barefoot," he added defensively. "In England, they never suffered me;
+they said only beggar children went barefoot. But--" his voice grew
+suddenly anxious, "I am sure my mother would think it right now, do not
+you, sir?"
+
+The Captain did not look convinced.
+
+"It is a great saving to my shoes," murmured Miles.
+
+"You were better save your feet," the Captain answered. "When your
+shoes wear out, there'll be new ones for you. Now do you go to the
+house and put them on, before you step on a thorn or do yourself some
+hurt." His tone was brusque, and he hurried at once about his business,
+as if he had no time to waste.
+
+Obediently Miles went to the house to finish dressing; he was a little
+sorry, because he liked the fun of going barefoot in the soft dirt,
+yet, on the whole, it was pleasant to have Captain Standish speak to
+you and order you into your shoes, as if he had some concern for you.
+So flattered did he feel, indeed, that he only smiled in a superior way
+when Francis Billington, barelegged and unregenerate, sneered at him
+for putting on his shoes and stockings.
+
+But that was the last happening of the week which Miles remembered with
+enjoyment, for the first excitement had now gone out of the labor, yet
+the work dragged heavily on. All through the weary day he felt the
+weight of the basket pulling at his arm and the heat of the steady sun
+scorching upon his bare head; and at night, when he lay on his pallet,
+with his feet throbbing and his back aching, he dreamed of tugging fish
+up the breathless pitch of a never-ending bluff.
+
+A little respite came on the Sabbath, when, of course, no work could
+be done, but with Monday's light all were in the fields once more. It
+was a day of sweltering heat; the rays of the sun seemed beaten upward
+again by the steaming earth, and the languid air was heavy and sick.
+Toward the fiercest hour, about noon, as Miles was panting through the
+fields on a return trip to the brook, Master Carver called to him.
+
+The Governor had knelt to set the corn at the head of one of the rows;
+his doublet was off and his hands were grimy, but, for all the heat,
+Miles saw that his high, bald forehead was quite dry of perspiration.
+"Here, lad," he said, as Miles ran to him, "can you fetch us a pail of
+water hither to drink?"
+
+"Ay, Governor," Miles piped in a respectful treble, and, much impressed
+by the importance of his errand, trotted off briskly. At the spring
+he longed to dally a moment, to drink of the water and to stir up the
+great green frog who lived in the cool sand of the bottom, but, so soon
+as his bucket was filled, he resolutely turned back through the glaring
+heat to the fields.
+
+Short as the time had been, a change had taken place. At first he
+thought it a mere trick of the dazzling light, but, as he looked again,
+he saw that indeed most of the men had risen from labor and, drawn
+together, were gazing in his direction. Nearer at hand, he beheld two
+coming toward the settlement; the one was John Howland, a member of the
+Governor's household, and the other, who leaned heavily upon his arm,
+was the Governor himself. They passed within arm's length of the boy,
+and Miles took note how the Governor's down-bent face was now of a dull
+reddish hue, and he noted, also, how the grime of his homely toil still
+clung to his limp hands.
+
+Surprised and a little awed, though he scarcely could tell why, Miles
+tugged on into the fields, and, finding Goodman Cooke among those who
+stood gazing after the Governor, asked him eagerly what was wrong.
+"Why, naught," spoke Cooke, "only Master Carver complains of his head;
+'tis along o' the heat, so the Doctor ordered him back to his house to
+rest. He'll be well again by eventide."
+
+But with eventide the word went among the colonists that Governor
+Carver lay unconscious, and at those tidings faces grew grave. Miles,
+in his youthfulness, gave little thought to it all; he was more
+concerned with his own half-flayed hands and aching legs than with
+Master Carver's illness, and each day these physical pangs grew keener.
+
+The height of misery came on a sultry afternoon toward the close of
+the week, a breathless, stifling time, when, for sheer weariness and
+hopelessness, Miles sat down in the hot dirt in the middle of the field
+and thought he never could rise again. Yet he scrambled up briskly,
+when he saw his guardian approach, though Master Hopkins, whose face
+was very grave, did not scold the boy, but, after a first sharp look,
+bade him go rest in the shade till the day was out. "The hot sun is
+deadly," he said, as to himself; but Miles realized only that he was
+bidden to cease from labor.
+
+He dragged himself back to the house, where he lay down upon his bed,
+and watched the little patch of sunlight clamber higher up the wall and
+harked to the drowsy sounds of out-of-doors; then heard nothing clearly
+till the men tramped in to supper. He sat up slowly, and listened to
+catch what gossip they might bring; their voices were subdued, and
+he half guessed what had befallen ere he heard Master Hopkins say
+solemnly that the good Governor Carver was dead.
+
+Miles thought on it the night long; this death, lonely by itself, was
+so much more awesome than the crowded sicknesses of the last winter. It
+seemed the order of life must show some change, but, with the heat of
+the next rising day, the colonists, as usual, only more silent, filed
+forth to their labor in the fields. For whether men were well or ill,
+or lived or died, the corn that was the hope of the settlement must be
+planted.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+THE TWO EDWARDS
+
+
+THE fields of New Plymouth at last were sown,--twenty acres of Indian
+corn and six of English seed, wheat, barley, and pease,--enough to
+yield an ample harvest. There was besides another field, where the
+corn, however tall it grew, would never be reaped, for, that the
+savages might not know the number of the dead, it was planted upon the
+graves of those who perished in the winter's sickness.
+
+Among them lay John Carver, buried honorably with such poor military
+pomp as the colony could show its governor, and with a more precious
+tribute of grief for a good man lost. Near him lay now his wife
+Katharine, who at his death had grieved and pined, till within six
+weeks they had dug for her a grave in the new-sown corn-land.
+
+Master Bradford was the new governor; a grave, wise-headed gentleman,
+with a gift of kindly speech and a shrewd sense of humor, but, to
+Miles, his greatest claim to respect was that the interpreter Squanto
+had chosen to dwell with him. For Miles Rigdale, to use Mistress
+Hopkins's vexed phrase, was "ever beating the street after the heathen
+savage." It must be owned that to his guardians he was a troublesome
+boy; not a bad boy, but a careless fellow, who, though he might mean
+to do well, was likely, when sent to weed in the fields, to be found
+swimming in the river, or hunting strawberries on the hills, or fishing
+with Squanto.
+
+Miles did not reason out his new dislike for responsible labor, did
+not take into account the influence of lazy Edward Lister, or the
+distractions of the spring and early summer in this new country; but he
+did feel there was a difference between working with his father, when
+he knew the harvest would be for his mother and Dolly, and grubbing in
+a corner of a great field that was the property of no man, but should
+feed the whole colony. He no longer took pride in his labor, and, if
+he had taken any, Mistress Hopkins's dissatisfied comments would have
+destroyed it. Yet, much though he disliked the bustling woman with the
+sharp tongue, he neither disliked nor feared her the half as much as he
+disliked and feared her husband.
+
+Years later, when he had come to manhood, Miles was able to think
+on Master Hopkins with gratitude, for, in all honesty, this severe,
+undemonstrative man used him like a son, as kindly as he used his own
+boy, Giles. Except in the stress of planting-time, Miles was never
+set to tasks beyond his strength; he was well fed,--as the fare of the
+colony went,--well sheltered, decently clad, while the little store of
+his father's goods was scrupulously left untouched for his later use.
+
+Master Hopkins tried also, conscientiously, to keep him to the path of
+strict virtue, with admonitions, and, if need were, with corrections.
+It was an age of whippings, and, on occasion, Miles was whipped
+painstakingly. Master Hopkins's floggings were, on the whole, not so
+severe as Goodman Rigdale used to give his son, but Miles resented them
+with an amazing outburst of anger. "You are not my father; you have
+no right to beat me," he cried, the first time Master Hopkins took a
+birch rod to him, and, swinging round in a fury, he lustily kicked his
+chastiser's shins.
+
+After that one attempt and the sorry consequences which it entailed, he
+never again tried to defend himself, but, though he had to submit, the
+old feeling remained; to the pain and shame of a beating was now added
+a rankling sense of the injustice and, so to speak, of the illegality
+of it all.
+
+Beatings, though, were something every boy in the colony, even the
+sober Giles, had a good share of, so Miles made shift to endure; but
+Master Hopkins presently devised a new-fangled means of persecution,
+for he insisted on teaching him to read.
+
+The boy had clung to the black-letter Bible because it was his
+father's, and sometimes of a Sunday, between the morning and afternoon
+teachings at the Common House, when it grew irksome to sit quiet and do
+nothing, would take the book and spell out half a chapter, and amuse
+himself with looking at the funny black letters. But one Sunday, a warm
+May Sunday, when Miles was lying with his book in the young grass in
+the shadow of the house, Master Hopkins, noting his unusual employment,
+bade him read aloud to him, and, as he was a man of education, was
+honestly shocked that, as he put it, "the lad could scarce spell out
+his mother-tongue."
+
+From that time dated Miles's tribulations. It was useless to protest
+that he could read well enough, he did not wish to read better; Master
+Hopkins's decree went forth that every night after supper the boy was
+to come to him with his Bible, and read aloud a chapter. Miles never
+reflected that, after a day of hard labor in the fields or woods, or of
+serious consultation with the other leaders of the colony, it could be
+neither restful nor pleasant to Master Hopkins to hear a stupid little
+boy stumble through a dreary waste of words. But he was quite aware of
+the unjust fact that the space of daylight, in the long summer evenings
+after supper, was the time when all the other lads were at liberty to
+play, while he must drone out the chronicles of dead and gone Hebrews
+with unpronounceable names.
+
+The reading lesson always took place just without the house-door, where
+there was a bench on which Master Hopkins sat; Miles stood beside him,
+where he could see the harbor and the street, with the boys passing
+down it to the beach, perhaps; and where, too, it was convenient for
+Master Hopkins to cuff his ears when his attention strayed hopelessly
+from the book to the affairs of his playmates.
+
+Sometimes, when he wished to get away and join them in carrying out
+a long-laid plan of sport, Miles would pore over his chapter twice
+or thrice in the day, and so, when evening came, be able to read it
+fairly. But on such occasions Master Hopkins always said there would
+be time to finish another chapter; and when it came to that, poor,
+disappointed Miles always stumbled, so that his lesson ended in
+disgrace and bitter rebuke.
+
+Early in July, however, he had a blissful holiday, for Master Hopkins
+went with Master Winslow and Squanto far inland to visit King
+Massasoit, so for five days there was no one to bid Miles read a word.
+Neither did any one whip him, for all he shirked his weeding, and ran
+away to fish in the harbor with Ned Lister and the sailor, Trevor, and
+played by the brookside with the other boys till long after dark.
+
+Dotey, to be sure, one morning when Miles forgot to fetch a supply of
+water, and he had to fetch it himself, threatened to "swinge" him; he
+was a steady fellow, was Dotey, and, since Giles was but a lad, in his
+master's absence was tacitly admitted to the headship of the household.
+But when he talked of beating Miles, up rose Ned, and called him, with
+an oath, a great bully, swaggering in his little ha'penny borrowed
+authority, and threatened, if he laid hands on the little fellow, to
+break his head for him.
+
+It was in the living room this happened, just before the noon meal;
+Miles remembered afterward the good smell of the roast fish Mistress
+Hopkins was setting on the table, and what an overpowering heat came
+from the great fire on the hearth. He was standing near the fireplace,
+backed up against the wall, a little conscience-stricken and fearful
+of a whipping, but still more frightened by the vehemence of the two
+men. Lister had swaggered across the floor, and stood before him, and
+Miles was glad of his protection, though he half realized that it was
+not alone the desire to defend him, but the desire to defy Dotey, the
+trusted and sober, that spoke in Ned's tone.
+
+Constance's quiet voice, as she stepped between the two young men,
+quelled the squabble: "Don't curse so, pray you, Ned. And, Ed Dotey, do
+not you whip Miles; he only forgot--"
+
+"He does not merit whipping," spoke slow Giles, who held his own little
+resentment that his father's servant was set in authority over him.
+
+Mistress Hopkins interrupted tartly that Miles needed a strong hand
+to correct him, and Dotey was quite in his right; her approval made
+it lawful enough for the young man to carry out his intention, but
+Dotey, like a discreet fellow, had no wish to bring about a scuffle
+with Lister and a hot family quarrel in his master's absence. So he
+said, as if it were a concession, that he would do as Constance asked,
+and let Miles off this time; and with that they all sat down peaceably
+to dinner. Miles ate his full share of the fish, and, believing this
+episode happily ended, put it quite out of his head.
+
+He had good cause to remember it some ten days later. By then Master
+Hopkins had returned, so it was necessary for all to be busy, and Miles
+weeded in the corn-field till his back ached, and every evening read
+his chapter in the Bible. But one morning, a hot, dull morning with
+an overcast sky, Ned and Giles planned to go with Squanto to fish for
+perch in a pond far up in the woods, and Miles received a reward for
+his diligence of the last few days in a permission to go with them.
+Giles and the Indian started on ahead, to take the bait, while the two
+others stayed to make ready the extra tackle, which, being left to
+Ned's management, was always in a snarl.
+
+Lister was sitting on the bench by the house-door, whistling a little,
+as he disentangled lines and adjusted hooks, and Miles, kneeling on
+the grass beside him, was giving what help he could, when Master
+Hopkins and Dotey came out of the cottage. Dotey, who had an axe on his
+shoulder, headed away through the garden to the hills whence firewood
+was fetched, but Master Hopkins came and stood over Ned.
+
+How it went and exactly what was said, Miles scarcely comprehended, but
+he heard Master Hopkins's stern voice and Ned's sulky answering tones,
+and in the lulls the rattle of trenchers, as Constance, inside the
+house, cleared the breakfast table. The gist seemed to be that Master
+Hopkins had found out about Ned's threatening to break Edward Dotey's
+head, for he rated him soundly that he durst lift his voice against one
+set in authority over him, a sober man, who was his better--
+
+"He is not my better," Ned retorted, flinging up his head, with his
+eyes sullen and angry.
+
+"Do you grow saucy to contradict me?" Hopkins asked frowningly.
+
+Too much had been said of Dotey for Ned to cast off rebuke with his
+usual shrug; flinging aside the tackle, he started to his feet, but,
+before he could walk away, Hopkins caught him by the shoulder. As they
+stood thus Miles noted, with sudden surprise, that alongside Master
+Hopkins Ned looked slight and almost boyish; somehow Miles had always
+thought of him as a man, because he was old enough to use a razor.
+
+"You shall stay till I have done with speaking," said Master Hopkins;
+and then Ned made a sudden movement to free himself, flung up one arm,
+half involuntarily,--and Stephen Hopkins reached him a blow that,
+taking him beneath the chin, stretched him flat on the ground at his
+master's feet.
+
+The women came to the house-door, and it surprised Miles that it was
+not Constance, but Mistress Hopkins, who cried, in a frightened voice:
+"Stephen, Stephen, I pray you--"
+
+Ned rose to his feet with his face white, and stood brushing the dirt
+off the side on which he had fallen; there was a great brown streak of
+it along one sleeve and the shoulder of his shirt. "There's work you
+have made for the mistress, sir," he said, and began laughing in a high
+key.
+
+"That's enough," Stephen Hopkins checked him. "Remember, I've never
+laid hands on you ere now, Edward Lister, but if you mend not your
+ways, this will not be the last time." He lingered yet a moment ere
+he turned away to the door, as if awaiting an answer, but Ned made no
+reply, just stood fumbling at the fishing tackle with one hand, while
+the other hung limp at his side.
+
+Only when Master Hopkins had passed out of sight into the house did
+Lister raise his head, and then, squaring his shoulders, he led the way
+toward the street. "Will you not take the tackle, after all?" asked
+Miles, running at his side. Ned's only answer was a shake of the head,
+and to all Miles's further efforts at talk and one clumsy effort at
+sympathy he kept silent.
+
+They left behind them the sandy street, and, skirting along the bluff,
+came to the path to the spring and the stepping-stones, beyond which
+lay the trail to the ponds. Ned did not turn off there, however, but
+trudged on till he reached the little stream that flowed from the pool
+where they had cut thatch. "Whither are you going?" panted Miles, for
+the third time.
+
+"Where you were best not come," Ned answered, crashing into the bushes
+on the right hand. But Miles turned doggedly in his steps, through the
+first crisp thickets and then along the miry ground by the edge of the
+pool, where the air was so muggy that he wondered Ned cared to keep up
+his reckless pace.
+
+Of necessity the speed slackened, as they clambered over the pebbles
+and pushed aside the crackling undergrowth of a dry gully in the
+northern hillside, but it was not till they were tramping through the
+hushed woods on the summit that Ned spoke: "Did you know, Miley, my
+father was a gentleman? A great family, the Listers, up Yorkshire
+way. But he was a mere younger son, and he married a pretty serving
+wench out of his father's hall, so they would have no more of him. But
+he was a gentleman, and he tried to give me a smattering of decent
+breeding,--" there Ned began to laugh, with the corners of his mouth
+drawn up, and his eyes mirthless,--"and I am a brisk serving fellow,
+whom the master pommels at will, eh, Miles? And they set a clod like
+Edward Dotey over me."
+
+There was going to be a fight, Miles guessed, but though at another
+time he might have been secretly glad at the prospect of such
+excitement, he had seen one man knocked flat that day, and it had not
+been amusing, so now he was not over-zealous for the sport. "Come back
+and fish, Ned," he coaxed, plucking at his companion's sleeve, when
+that very moment, on the hillside below them, both caught the sound of
+an axe falling on wood.
+
+After that Miles scrambled down the slope, eager as Ned himself, in
+his curiosity to see what would follow. A little clearing it was they
+came out in, where one tree had been newly felled, and its clean stump
+showed yellow; by the tree trunk, leaning on his axe and wiping his
+sweaty forehead with his sleeve, stood Dotey.
+
+"Well, Neddy, I've come to talk with you," Lister greeted him, in a
+fleering voice, and on the word set himself down on the stump, with his
+hands clasped about one knee.
+
+At first it was a talking, that lay all on Ned's side, while Dotey
+tried to keep up a pretense of work. Ned spoke words, well-chosen and
+stinging, that should make even stolid Dotey wince, and spoke them in
+a jibing tone, with a hateful laugh that startled Miles, even more
+than the sight of the little pulsing motion of the blood in Ned's dark
+cheeks.
+
+Dotey swung round impatiently at last. "Hold your tongue, will you?" he
+cried.
+
+"It is thou who wert better have held thy tongue, Neddy, before thou
+wentst blabbing to Hopkins of what passed between us."
+
+"I did not," Dotey answered blankly.
+
+"Thou art a liar," quoth Ned, quietly, and still hugging his knee.
+
+Then Dotey strode over to him, and Ned, laughing up into his face,
+jeered at him, "threaten a man with his fists, would he, when he had
+just set Hopkins on to rebuke him for the like offense;" but at length
+he rose up and cast his mocking manner. "We are agreed there is one
+Edward too many in the house," he said slowly. "Now say we despatch one
+forth of it. Will you fight me like a gentleman, rapier and dagger?"
+
+In a daze Miles listened to Dotey's first protests, Ned's taunts,
+till the final agreement was struck and the arrangements made. "I'll
+contrive to fetch rapier and dagger from the Captain's house," Ned
+concluded, "and do you, Miles, take those that hang in Hopkins's
+chamber, and bring them unto us behind the Fort Hill."
+
+Unquestioningly, Miles sped upon the errand. The sun had burnt away the
+fog now; among the trees it was hot and breathless, and, when he ran
+through the fields, the drying earth crumbled under his feet. Yet he
+scarcely minded heat or dust, as he thought on what was now to come,
+and thrilled with anticipation; for, down in his heart, he told himself
+Dotey and Lister would never hurt each other, and he had never seen
+anything livelier than a bout at quarterstaff, and a real duel would be
+a wonderful thing to witness.
+
+By the time he came to the house, he was all of an excited flutter,
+but happily Mistress Hopkins alone was within, and she was so busied
+in scouring her pewter platters that she only looked up to ask sharply
+what brought him back.
+
+"Just to fetch somewhat for Ned," Miles answered guiltily; and then
+fortune favored him, for Damaris, within the bedroom, set up a wail,
+and Mistress Hopkins bade him run in and soothe her.
+
+So Miles sang to baby, and, singing, took Master Hopkins's dagger from
+the shelf and hid it beneath his doublet; then slipped the rapier from
+the wall, and, after a hasty glance to see that none were looking,
+dropped it out at the open window. Still Damaris would not hush, and he
+had to pace the floor a time, singing always, though his voice shook
+with impatience, and his forehead was wet with perspiration.
+
+[Illustration: "Saw the two young men close in combat."]
+
+At last the child was quieted. Placing her on the bed, he passed
+quickly out through the living room, and, running behind the house,
+snatched up the rapier from the grass. Still none saw or intercepted
+him; the men and boys were at work; the intense heat of the day kept
+the women within their cottages. But to Miles each doorway seemed full
+of faces, and, in a panic, he ran for the northern spur of the hill, at
+a pace that brought the heart strangling into his throat.
+
+On the west side of Fort Hill was a little level space in the abrupt
+descent, where some pine trees stood wide apart, and the ground was
+brown and slippery with pine needles. There Lister and Dotey, both with
+their doublets and shoes cast off, were awaiting Miles; Dotey, with his
+stolid face grim, sat on the ground, turning a rapier in his hands, but
+Ned Lister was pacing slowly to and fro.
+
+"I came--fast as I could run," panted Miles.
+
+"You saw no one?" questioned Lister, as he took Master Hopkins's
+rapier and measured it with the one Dotey held.
+
+"No, no one."
+
+"Francis Billington has been spying about here, though," Dotey spoke
+evenly. "'Twas while you were at the Captain's house. I sent him
+packing. But he may bring--"
+
+"Ere any come, we'll be done with the work," Ned Lister interrupted.
+"Here, Miles, do you run up to the hilltop and lie you down in the
+grass. If you see any man coming upon us, whistle us a warning."
+
+The grass, in the glare of the sun where the trees had been felled,
+was a dazzling green, and the slope was very steep. From the summit of
+the hill where he lay down half-hidden, as they bade, Miles could see
+the blue harbor and all the sunny street of the town, so deserted that
+he ventured a glance back over his shoulder. His eyes were fastened
+there, for he saw the two young men close in combat; he heard the click
+of steel, saw the quick thrust and recovery, the bending and swaying
+of the struggling bodies. Then a cry rose up in his throat and choked
+there, for he saw the dagger fly out of Dotey's hand, and saw him slip
+upon the pine needles.
+
+A clatter of feet on hollow boards made him look suddenly toward the
+gun platform, and he had an instant's sight of Captain Standish, who,
+clapping his hand to the railing of the platform, cleared it at a leap
+and ran headlong down into the pine thicket. Setting his fingers to his
+lips, Miles gave a shrill whistle, and right upon it heard the Captain
+cry, in a terrible voice, "What work is this?" Casting one frightened
+glance down the hill, Miles saw Ned lay on his side among the pine
+needles, and Dotey stood over him with one hand dripping blood.
+
+The sky seemed to waver and the whole green world to stagger with the
+horror of what had happened. Miles crawled away through the long grass
+down the hillside, through the undergrowth, and never paused till he
+hid himself, terrified and sick, in the tangle by the pool in the
+hollow.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+A MIGHTY RESOLUTION
+
+
+THE sun had dropped behind Fort Hill, and long shadows darkened
+the soft sand of the street, when Miles at last ventured into the
+settlement. All the hot day he had lain hidden by the pool and watched
+the shreds of cloud skim across the deep sky and harked to the
+shrilling of the locusts, while he tried not to think, yet all the time
+was conscious of the awful thing that had happened, in which he had had
+a hand.
+
+Disjointedly, from time to time, he had planned how he would act a
+part, would feign to be quite ignorant of the duel, and be amazed
+when he learned of it; but when the test came, when he found himself
+actually in the street of the town, his head whirled, and he felt that
+his guilt could be read in his very face.
+
+From a dooryard some one called his name, whereat Miles's heart fairly
+ceased to beat; but it was only his friend, Jack Cooke, who came
+running to hang over his father's gate and speak to him: "Ah, Miles,
+where ha' you been? Have you heard talk of what happened?" There was
+no time for Miles to stammer out a vague answer, before Jack ran on:
+"Ned Lister and Ned Dotey, they fought a duel, real cut and thrust, up
+behind the hill, and the Captain came upon them, and they've had them
+before the Governor and the Elder, and there's been such a to-do."
+
+"Had them? Then neither was killed?" Miles cried, with a momentary
+feeling that nothing could matter, if both men still lived.
+
+"Nay, but Dotey has a great gash across the palm of his hand, and Ned
+Lister was slashed in the thigh so he scarce could walk. I saw 'em when
+they were fetched down into the village, and they have locked Dotey up
+at Master Allerton's house, and Lister at Master Hopkins's."
+
+"Wh--what are they going to do to them?" faltered Miles.
+
+"Something terrible, to be sure," Jack answered happily; "the Captain
+and all are main angry. And Goodman Billington was for flogging Francis
+mightily out of hand, but the Elder said stay till to-morrow, when they
+would question all further."
+
+"What has Francis done?"
+
+"Why, he was with them; he kept watch while they fought. That is, one
+of the lads lay in the grass and whistled them; the Captain had the
+least glimpse of him; but they found Francis prowling on the hill, so
+it must ha' been he. He says 'twasn't, but Francis is a deal of a liar,
+we all know."
+
+Miles drew a long breath, and, turning from the gateway, went scuffing
+through the sand down the street. It was Francis, not he, whom they
+suspected, he repeated, but the next moment he told himself that it
+made no difference; since he was the culprit, he must come forward
+and take the blame. But when he saw Master Hopkins sitting by the
+house-door, his heart choked up into his throat, and his step faltered.
+After all, he would not speak to Master Hopkins yet; his share in the
+duel would be discovered soon enough.
+
+With a feeling that he wished to propitiate every one, he trudged round
+the house to fetch an armful of wood, and there, by the pile, Giles
+was at work with an axe. "Well, Miles?" he said, pausing in his task,
+and then, as Miles came to his side, whispered him: "Look you, father
+thinks you were fishing with me all this day, that Ned sent you back
+to the house to be quit of you, and that you came home with me, but
+stopped at the spring. I told him naught; he just thought so and--I let
+him think so."
+
+"Oh, Giles, you are right good," gulped Miles. "For I--"
+
+"Hush now! I don't want to know aught." And Giles went back to his
+chopping.
+
+No one would find him out, then; he was safe from the mighty beating he
+expected. Francis--well, since he was innocent, of course he would say
+so, and they would believe him and not punish him. Anyway, he had no
+thought of confessing, Miles assured himself hastily, as, on entering
+the living room, he met Master Hopkins's stern gaze.
+
+The master of the house was in a gloomy temper that evening; a new
+sense of the gravity of that day's happenings came over Miles, as
+he looked on his harsh face. Mistress Hopkins, too, was silenced
+completely, and the young folk did not venture to speak while their
+elders did not address them, nor had they any wish to talk, with the
+two empty places at table confronting them. No word was uttered till
+the meal was nearly eaten, when Mistress Hopkins, after a swift glance
+at her husband, cut a thick end from the loaf of bread, and, setting it
+on a trencher, turned to Miles. "Fill a jug of water, and carry that
+and the bread to Edward Lister," she said sharply.
+
+"Edward Lister may go fasting to-night," Master Hopkins spoke, in a
+grim voice.
+
+Miles, who had slipped from his stool, stood shifting from one foot to
+the other, while he waited to see which he should obey.
+
+"Do as I bid you, Miles," Mistress Hopkins repeated steadily, though
+one hand, which she rested on the edge of the table, clenched in
+nervous wise. "The man is hurt, and whatever he has done he shall not
+go hungry and thirsty. Either Miles shall take him food and drink,
+Stephen, or I shall do so myself." She rose, and, filling a jug from
+the water-pail, gave it to the dubious Miles. "Take it to him, there in
+the closet," she bade; so Miles, without waiting for Master Hopkins to
+prevent, stepped hastily into the little room and shut the door behind
+him.
+
+The closet was very narrow, very hot, and very dusky, for the evening
+light came but sparsely through the little window. Just beneath the
+window, where whatever slight breeze entered the room could be felt,
+the old mattress was outspread, and on it Ned Lister lay. He had been
+resting his head upon his folded doublet, but at Miles's coming he drew
+himself up on his elbow; his face was white in the dimness, and he
+looked limp and sick and cowed.
+
+"Here's bread and water, Ned," Miles began, as he crossed to him.
+"And--and I'm mighty sorry."
+
+"I'm not," Ned answered, in a dogged tone. "I wish only that I'd killed
+him. Give me a drink." He took the jug from Miles and gulped down the
+water with audible swallowings; then, when he could drink no more, set
+it beside him. "They'd 'a' made little more tumult if I had killed
+him," he went on. "But I care not what they do to me."
+
+"What--what do you think they will do to us, Ned?" Miles quavered;
+the young man's prisoned and unfriended state and desperate tone had
+dislodged him from his last stronghold of security.
+
+"They spoke of flogging us," Ned answered hopelessly.
+
+"A public flogging?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+It was only a birching Miles had looked for. A public flogging! The
+horror and fright were actual and overwhelming, for it never entered
+his head that in punishment a distinction would be made between the two
+principals in the duel and their wretched little second. "Flog us!" he
+repeated dazedly. "Or--or perhaps they will hang us?"
+
+"I care not if they do," Ned retorted, and, taking up the jug, drained
+out the last of the water. "Fetch me another draught, Miley, that's a
+good lad," he begged. "My throat is all afire."
+
+It was darker now in the living room, so none could note the expression
+of his face, and Miles was glad for that. When he filled the jug at
+the pail he slopped the water clumsily, so Mistress Hopkins chided
+him. He could not seem to think or even see, for, as he stumbled back
+into the closet, he bumped his forehead against the door. "Oh, Ned,"
+he whispered, as he bent over the injured man again, "they--they have
+accused Francis in my place, but I--"
+
+"Why, that's well," Ned spoke, as he set down the jug. "I'm glad for't;
+you'll not be punished along o' me. I'll tell no word of you, Miley,
+you may be sure, and if Dotey will but hold his blabbing tongue--"
+
+"But--but they'll flog him; I ought to tell--"
+
+"Let him be flogged, the imp!" Ned growled. "But you, Miley--"
+
+There was no chance to finish, for Master Hopkins, appearing in the
+doorway, sternly ordered Miles to come forth, and, when he had quitted
+the closet, bolted the door.
+
+By now it was too dark for a reading lesson, and, even if it had been
+light, the whole routine of the day seemed overturned. Miles wandered
+out into the house-yard, but he had no will to seek the other boys;
+they might talk to him of Francis. Somehow, too, he did not wish to see
+Dolly or Mistress Brewster, who had told him how his mother looked for
+him to be a good lad. He went and sat down alone on the woodpile, where
+he harked to the distant frogs that were piping, and watched the stars
+come out over the sea.
+
+So he was still sitting when at last Constance stole out to him, and,
+putting her hand on his shoulder, whispered him he mustn't go away and
+grieve so about poor Ned. He shook her off surlily; he was tired and
+sleepy, and didn't want to talk, he said, and so rose and slouched away
+to his bedroom. There it was stiflingly hot, so when he lay down he
+pushed aside the coverlet, and even then he thrashed restlessly.
+
+Presently Giles came in and lay down in the other bed that Dotey and
+Lister had shared; he did not offer to talk, but, settling himself
+at once to sleep, was soon breathing regularly. Miles counted each
+indrawing of his breath, and tried, breathing with him, to cheat
+himself into sleeping; and tried too, with the bed beneath him
+scorching hot, to hold himself quiet in one position. His face was wet
+with perspiration, and his head ached. Somewhere in the room a mosquito
+sang piercingly, so he must strike about him with his hands, and still
+the creature sang and the air was breathless, and he could not sleep.
+
+Then he ceased the effort to gain unconsciousness, and deliberately set
+himself to face it all, and reason it out. He had done a wicked thing,
+and he should be punished for it. Francis was accused, but Francis was
+innocent and must be declared so. It did not matter though his comrades
+bade him keep silent; it was one thing for Giles not to bear tales of
+Miles, and another for Miles not to bear tales of himself; and for Ned
+Lister's way of thinking, it was not the way which Captain Standish
+would have counselled. What would the Captain think of him, when he
+knew him for a rascal who deserved whipping, Miles wondered miserably.
+Yet it was the Captain who had told him hard things must be done, not
+shirked aside; and by that ruling Miles realized that the only way for
+him was to let them know it was he himself, not Francis, who had borne
+a part in the duel.
+
+Specious objections came, and he crushed them down; and there came,
+more stubborn, the promptings of fear. A public flogging, Ned had
+hinted; and Miles recalled a dull day in the market town, whither his
+father had taken him, a jeering crowd of motley folk, a cart with a
+fellow laughing on the driver's seat, and tied by the wrists to the
+cart's tail, stripped to the waist, a man who kept his head bent down
+and never winced, for all the great blows the constable was laying
+across his shoulders. Even now Miles turned sick at the remembrance
+of the red gashes the whip had made. But Francis had not earned such
+punishment, and he had earned it.
+
+Miles rose from his restless bed, and stood by the window to catch
+a breath of air. The moon was up now, and a pale, hot glow lay on
+the fields to northward, but not a whiff of a breeze was astir. The
+harbor, as he saw it from the window, lay glassy smooth beneath the
+moon. He put his weary head down on his arms, and for a moment did not
+think, only wished it were last night, when the duel was yet unfought.
+
+Then he lay down in bed, and turned and tossed, and went his round of
+courage and fears again. He was not conscious that there had been a
+period of sleep; he had no sense of restfulness just ending, only of
+bitter dreams, but he found the room alight and a faint, early-morning
+freshness in the air, so he knew some time had passed and it was day.
+
+He did not remember in detail the thoughts of the night, but the
+conclusion was the same, and still clearer for him to see in the glare
+of morning. Rising quickly, he dressed himself so hurriedly that he was
+done before sleepy Giles had pulled on his shirt; then went out into
+the living room. Mistress Hopkins was lighting her fire with flint and
+steel, and Constance was stirring up porridge for the breakfast; but he
+gave them no heed, for outside the door he caught a glimpse of Master
+Hopkins.
+
+"Why, Miles, are you ill?" Constance asked, as she looked up at him.
+
+Miles shook his head, and stepped out upon the doorstone. At the bench
+alongside the door Master Hopkins, in his shirt-sleeves, was washing
+his face in a basin of water; he did not look up, but Miles, without
+waiting for his notice, plunged into the confession while his courage
+held. "Master Hopkins, I want to tell you--"
+
+"What is it, Miles?" Hopkins asked curtly, as he began wiping his face
+on the big, coarse towel.
+
+"It was not Francis, sir, it was I. The duel, you understand--" Miles's
+voice was faint and quavering,--"it was not Francis."
+
+"What do you mean?" said Stephen Hopkins then, and lowered the towel
+from his face; the water-drops clung to his forehead, and his hair was
+all on end, but the very grotesqueness of his look made it the more
+formidable to Miles.
+
+"It was not Francis," he repeated shakily, while his trembling fingers
+picked at a splinter in the door-frame. "I took the rapier out o' your
+bedchamber; I was in the grass and whistled to them." He stopped there,
+with his eyes on the toes of his shoes; he did not want to look at
+Master Hopkins's face, and he held his body tense against the grasp
+which he expected would hale him into confinement along with Ned Lister.
+
+But instead there was a sickening silence that seemed to last for
+minutes; then Master Hopkins said slowly: "I marvel why that you,
+the son of a godly man, should have a hand in all the evil doings of
+the settlement. You must go tell this unto the Governor, so soon as
+breakfast is ended. And I shall myself speak more of it to you."
+
+Mechanically Miles stood aside to let Master Hopkins pass into the
+house, and then he still stood a time, gazing at the gray doorstone
+beneath his feet. Presently he stepped down on the turf and slouched
+round to the corner of the house, where Trug was tied at night; though
+every one thought him evil, and they were going to flog him, Trug would
+still lick his hands lovingly. He untied the dog, and, holding to one
+end of his strap, went back through the yard; Constance, from the
+doorway, called to him to come in to breakfast, but, shaking his head,
+he walked on.
+
+Outside the yard the street was quite empty, for the colonists were all
+at their morning meal. Miles trudged slowly through the sand up the
+hillside, and then turned down the path to the spring, which he judged
+at that hour would be deserted. Sure enough, the only moving things
+beneath the high bluff were the leaping waters of the living well,
+and the sunbeams that sifted through the branches of the encroaching
+alders, and sprinkled the trodden turf.
+
+Casting himself down on the margin, Miles took a long drink of the
+water, that might have been brackish and hot for any good taste he had
+of it, then sat up and leaned against Trug, with one arm about the
+dog's neck. He had thought, so soon as he was thus by himself, he would
+cry, but he felt all choked inside; his wickedness was too deep even
+for tears.
+
+Suddenly two hands were clapped over his face. "Guess who 'tis," piped
+a treble voice, and, uncovering his eyes, Miles thrust up one hand and
+dragged Dolly down beside him,--a very brave Dolly, in a clean apron,
+with her scarlet poppet hugged under one arm. "I ran to the spring for
+Mistress Brewster," she explained, "but I cast away my jug when I saw
+you. Why are you here, Miles?"
+
+"Oh, Dolly," Miles burst out, "I have been uncommon wicked and helped
+fight a duel, and they are going to flog me through the streets, and
+maybe they'll hang me, and I would my mother were here." He mastered
+the inclination to screw his knuckles into his eyes, and, as he sat
+scowling at the hill across the brook, and blinking bravely, to keep
+a good showing before the little girl, a mighty new idea popped into
+his head and made him happy again. "But I shan't let them flog me," he
+said, grandly as Ned Lister himself. "You tell it to no one, Dolly, but
+I have it in mind to run away."
+
+"Whither, Miles?" the damsel asked, with interest, but no great
+amazement.
+
+"I shall go into the woods and live with the Indians," Miles said
+slowly, forming his plan as he spoke. "They're good, pleasant folk;
+and I'll build me a house of branches, and eat raspberries, and maybe
+kill birds with a sling, and I'll have Trug at night." It occurred to
+him that Trug would not be the liveliest of company. "Why, Dolly, say
+you come too," he cried. "We'll keep the house together, as I thought
+they'd let us when father died."
+
+Dolly's face dimpled at the prospect, then grew sober. "But if we live
+in the woods, Miles, we cannot go to meeting of a Sunday, and that
+would never do. Let's build our house just over the brook--"
+
+"Pshaw!" said Miles, contemptuously, "I might as well go back and let
+them whip me now. I'm going away into the forest. Will you come?" He
+rose and walked manfully toward the stepping-stones, but Dolly still
+sat hugging her poppet in her arms. "If you've no wish to--" Miles
+said, feeling brave and important, no longer a poor, trembling, little
+culprit. Then he turned his back on her, and gave his attention to
+leading Trug safely from stone to stone across the brook.
+
+But, as he gained the opposite bank, he heard a cry behind him: "Wait,
+oh, wait, Miles!" Dolly, with the poppet in her arms, came slipping
+and scrambling across the stepping-stones and caught his hand. "Love
+Brewster says he does not like girls and went away to play with Harry
+Samson," she panted. "And you are the only brother I have, Miles, and I
+love you, and methinks I'd liefer go with you and be an Indian."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+IN THE SOUTHWARD COUNTRY
+
+
+ACROSS the brook the woods spread away to westward and to
+southward,--majestic oak trees, lulling pines, pale birches, besides
+the walnut and beech trees, and a host of others, the names of which
+Miles did not know. Thick though they stood in the forest, all were
+soundless now, and well-nigh motionless in the still air of morning.
+In all the wood the only active thing seemed the sunshine, which came
+sliding through the branches to mottle the turf or make the pine
+needles shiny.
+
+An ardent sun it was too, even where it fell sparsely among the trees,
+and beyond the thickets, where the path led over unprotected hilltops,
+it beat fiercely through the breathless air till the heat fairly
+stifled the travellers. "Shall you go far before you build your house,
+Miles?" panted Dolly, when the roofs of the settlement were barely sunk
+from sight.
+
+Miles explained that he held it best to push on to the river where he
+had gone eeling, so he might have plenty of fish in his dooryard. He
+thought to make his way directly to the place, but the journey through
+the heat seemed longer than when he tramped it in the springtime, and
+he could not find an easy path so adroitly as Squanto had found one. He
+had to bear away inland too, lest on the seacoast he come upon some of
+the colonists gathering shellfish; and inland, not only was the going
+through the undergrowth difficult, but the hills shut off the least
+whiff of coolness from the sea.
+
+Soon Dolly gasped for breath, Trug lolled out his tongue, and even
+Miles found many pretexts to rest. Here amid the moss bubbled a spring,
+where the children delayed to drink and cool their hands; there lay a
+muddy pond, covered with white lilies, which Miles, though he wet his
+feet, strove to get with a long stick; and again and yet again they
+came on tangles of luscious raspberries, where they paused to eat their
+fill.
+
+Miles had in his pocket a fourpenny whittle, his dearest possession,
+with which he stripped a great piece of bark from a birch tree, and,
+cleaving two sticks, shaped it into a basket, in which to carry away
+some of the berries "against dinner-time." But the basket proved an
+incumbrance to the wayfarers, so, before they had wandered another
+mile, the two children sat down in a pine grove, and ate the berries
+they had gathered. They tied Trug carefully, a needless precaution,
+for the old dog, with as burdening a sense of responsibility as Miles
+himself, had no thought of trotting home and leaving those two foolish
+little bodies to their own protection.
+
+By the position of the sun Miles judged it past noon, when they
+came at last to a brook, which he thought might be the upper waters
+of the stream he was seeking. He waded in first to try its depth;
+then, in gallant fashion, would have carried Dolly over, but little
+mistress wished the fun of paddling too. The alders, coming low to the
+brookside, cast a rippling shadow on the water, and the sandy bottom
+was firm and cool; so when both children once had waded in, they spent
+some time in splashing to and fro, while Miles set forth to Dolly how
+he had caught eels.
+
+The shadows were beginning to lengthen when they climbed out on the
+farther side of the brook, and passed slowly up the next hillslope.
+Dolly now found she was tired, so Miles said they might as well build
+their house there as anywhere. Indeed, halfway up the slope they found
+a capital spot, where the hill, drawing back on itself, left a little
+level space, with sparse undergrowth and tall trees, the vanguard of
+the forest higher up, that cast a good shade.
+
+To be sure, the exposure was northern, but that would make the place
+cool in summer, Miles set forth its advantages, and when winter came,
+they could move round and pitch their camp on the other side of the
+hill, to southward. "But I shouldn't like to dwell in the wood when it
+snows," protested Dolly. "Let us go back and stay at Plymouth, come
+winter."
+
+But Miles, in his new independence, laughed at the idea of return, and
+assured Dolly that he knew how to make her a snug enough house for all
+weathers. He would drive four forked stakes into the ground; and then,
+from fork to fork, he would lay four sticks; and across those, other
+great sticks; and thatch all over with moss. He would drive stakes into
+the ground to form the sides of the cabin, and wattle them with elder
+twigs; and it would be just the trimmest little house she ever saw.
+Yes, he could drive stakes inside and divide the space into rooms, and
+he would cut windows; the only thing that troubled him was how to build
+the fireplace, but he guessed he would think that out presently.
+
+About the time that the red rays of the sun slipped under the lower
+branches of the trees, Miles laid off his doublet and rolled up his
+shirt-sleeves, ready for work. First, with his heel, he scored in the
+dirt the lines of his house; they might as well have a big one, he
+replied to Dolly's delighted exclamations.
+
+The little girl ran about within the four lines and scored for herself
+the rooms which they would make. "'Twill be such sport, Miles," she
+chattered. "A keeping room we'll have, and a parlor, and a great hall."
+Down she set herself on the grass, between the wavering lines that
+marked the hall, and waited for her brother to build the house over her.
+
+But, though Miles strode jauntily down into the bushes and stayed a
+great time, when he came back, he bore, not an armful of stakes, but
+two forked sticks, very gnarled and crooked, and another stick, some
+five feet long, without a fork. "What have you been doing, Miles?"
+Dolly greeted him, in a disappointed tone.
+
+"Why, the wood is hard, and my knife is not very big," the boy answered
+sheepishly, "so perhaps to-night, as 'tis drawing late, I'd best put up
+just a little shelter. But I'll build the house to-morrow, Dolly."
+
+Then, because the little girl's face fell so grievously, he made haste
+to amuse her by turning to such work as he could do that evening. With
+a stone for a hammer, he drove his forked sticks into the ground, and
+laid the other stick across them; that was the ridgepole, he told
+Dolly, and now, leaning other boughs against it, he would make a
+shelter that would be quite sufficient on so hot a night.
+
+But it was wearisome work, haggling off tough boughs with his small
+whittle, and he was tired with walking, and perhaps, he reasoned, as
+it was drawing on to sunset, he were best not leave Dolly alone by
+herself and go down into the dim thickets. So, after he had cut enough
+branches to go a third along one side of his ridgepole, he said vaguely
+that maybe he would get some more before dark, and so sat down close by
+Dolly.
+
+In the west the sun had already sunk, and little pink clouds were
+drifting through the sky; the afterglow still lingered on the open land
+of the valley along the stream; but in the woods, as Miles glanced over
+his shoulder, the grim shadows lurked. It was awesomely silent too,
+till, on a sudden, a bird began warbling, and presently, fluttering
+near, perched on a branch above the children, where he trilled lustily.
+
+Miles had some pebbles in his pocket, and, slipping off his garter, he
+improvised a sling; he would kill the bird for their supper, he told
+his sister, but Dolly protested; she would rather the pretty bird lived
+and sang than that she should eat him. So the songster finished his
+tune and flashed away into the darkening sky, and Miles felt as warm a
+glow of self-gratulation at giving in to his sister as if he had been
+quite certain of fetching down the bird with his sling.
+
+"But we've naught for our supper now, Dolly," he sighed presently.
+"To-morrow, though, I'll find my way to the shore and take us some
+clams, and, in any case, we'll gather plenty of berries when it's
+daylight. And you do not mind going supperless now?"
+
+"N--no," Dolly assented faintly; since the twilight came on them, she
+had grown very quiet.
+
+"I wish Ned Lister could 'a' slipped away with us," Miles resumed. "If
+he were here with his fowling piece and his fishing line, he'd take us
+all the victuals we'd want. And he'd be good company, too."
+
+Then they sat in silence a time, very close to each other, with the dog
+at their feet. Over in the west the bright stars twinkled through the
+last waning flecks of the sunset glow, and somewhere in the dark the
+frogs were piping. "Miles," whispered Dolly, "aren't you lonely?"
+
+"To be sure not," he answered stoutly.
+
+"Do you not think--perhaps we could walk back home? I'm not weary now."
+
+"I've come hither to stay," Miles said crossly; "you can run back if
+you will; no one will flog you."
+
+"You know I cannot go alone," whimpered Dolly. "And maybe there are
+Indians and lions will get us. Hark!"
+
+Miles sat erect and listened, every nerve tense, but he heard only
+the snap of a branch, yonder among the black trees. "It was naught,
+Dolly," he said more kindly, "and you needn't fear; I can take care of
+you. Come, let's lie down in our shelter, and to-morrow in the daylight
+we'll build our house."
+
+They crept in behind the screen of branches slowly, for Dolly had hold
+on Miles's hand and would not let go; but at last they were settled,
+side by side, Dolly next the leaning roof, and Trug close against
+Miles. "The leaves tickle my nose," protested the little girl, "and
+there are humps in the ground, and I'm sure that bugs will crawl into
+my ears." With a movement that quite disarranged her companions, she
+sat up and tied her apron over her head; then all three lay down once
+more. "It's--it's fearsome still," Dolly whispered once, and then no
+further words passed between them.
+
+But, although he was silent, Miles lay long awake; his body might be
+weary, but his brain was very busy with what had befallen him in the
+last two days, and with the unknown happenings that were yet before
+him. When he forgot the strangeness of the place and fell asleep at
+last, he dreamed of berry patches and ponds full of lilies, and the
+fine, great house he meant to build next day.
+
+Somewhere sounded a bewildering crash, as if a thousand cartloads of
+stone were emptied right beside him. Miles sat up, wondering at the
+sound, wondering where he was, why his face felt wet, why Dolly clung
+sobbing to him. A blinding light for an instant tore across the sky,
+and showed the trees about him twisting in an awesome manner; then
+darkness closed in again, and, through it, deafened the appalling crash
+of thunder.
+
+"Don't be frightened, Dolly, don't be frightened," stammered Miles,
+clutching his sister; he could feel Trug, with his whole great body
+a-tremble, crowding against his knee, and, through Dolly's terrified
+sobs, heard the beast whine.
+
+A second flash, that seemed to rip the sky, lit up the black woods,
+and, upon the roar that followed, sounded the rush of downpouring rain.
+As if in bucketsful, the water broke through the frail little shelter;
+the ground beneath the children grew sodden, and their faces tingled
+under the smiting of the raindrops. "Come away, in among the trees,"
+cried Miles, through the sough of the rain, and dragged Dolly to her
+feet.
+
+"Back to Plymouth, oh, let us go back to Plymouth," she wailed.
+
+Without reply, Miles gripped her wrist and stumbled up the hillside,
+where he remembered the thicker growth of trees began. Bushes tore his
+clothes and buffeted his dripping face; rain blinded him; the flash
+of the lightning dazzled out just long enough to show how unfriendly
+trunks beset him, then flared away and left him, half stunned by the
+thunder that followed, to bruise himself against their harsh bark.
+
+Still, blinded and beaten and breathless, he fought his way onward and
+at his side haled Dolly, dumb with the bewilderment of the storm. He
+had forgotten whither he hoped to go; he knew only that there was about
+him a lurid darkness of overpowering rain and rattling thunder through
+which he fled away.
+
+It had been several moments since the last clap of thunder, he realized
+suddenly, and the rain that yet pattered noisily among the leaves did
+not beat upon him with the old fury. When the thunder growled again, it
+was from far in the distance, and the space between the flash and the
+crash was wider. "'Tis near over, Dolly," he spoke subduedly.
+
+The little girl fetched a tremulous, weary sob and made a movement to
+drop down on the wet turf, but Miles held her arm more firmly. "Nay, we
+must keep walking till we be dry," he said, in what he tried to make a
+brave voice. "Maybe we'll come on some warm, sheltered spot," he added,
+for his poor little companion's comfort.
+
+Holding each other fast by the hand, and with the dog close at their
+heels, they trudged forward into the black woods. Though lessened in
+force, the rain still descended in a steady drizzle, and each bush
+against which they brushed drenched them with an added shower. The
+ground was so slippery and thick with mud that Miles began to fear
+they had strayed into a swamp, and, when they stumbled at last upon a
+thicket of close-growing evergreen, he thought it safest to shelter
+there till daylight.
+
+Crawling in beneath the low branches that half protected them from
+the slackening rain, they cuddled close to the dog and to each other.
+"I'm glad I remembered to save my poppet," Dolly sought to find some
+comfort. "She'd have been frightened, had we left her alone."
+
+So Dolly dropped off to sleep in Miles's arms, and, lulled by the drip
+of the rain, he, too, dozed a time, and awoke very chilly and stiff.
+The branches above him stirred in a gusty wind, and in the mottled sky
+he could see some faint stars. He crawled out from the thicket and, as
+he stood up in the freer air, caught the smell of brine in the breeze,
+and saw that, in the quarter of the heavens whence it came, the night
+was paling. "'Tis eastward yonder and the sea," he cried, delighted to
+find, for all his wanderings, he was not hopelessly lost. "Come, Dolly,
+we'll walk to the shore."
+
+Over hills and through thickets they trudged bravely, in the
+exhilaration of knowing whither they were headed, and that the dreadful
+night was past. Slowly the darkness was waning; the sky faded from
+black to gray, and in the wet woods a bird piped dolefully. Presently a
+still more welcome sound reached the ears of the travellers,--a long,
+mournful sough as of breaking waters. "It's waves; we're near the
+shore," cried Miles, and added a feeble hurrah, whereat Trug, judging
+all well, leaped and barked.
+
+There was yet a wide stretch of bare uplands to cross, and the morning
+had broken in earnest before the children clambered down the low bluff
+to the sandy beach. The tide was out, and the brown rocks, like dead
+sea beasts, lay uncovered; but Miles and Dolly gave them little heed,
+for just then, right in their eyes, the sun burst forth in the east,
+and made a path of yellow ripples on the water.
+
+Forgetting her weariness, Dolly almost ran down the hard sand to the
+water's edge. "I thought maybe I could see Plymouth round that point on
+our left," she told Miles disappointedly. "We can walk thither, can we
+not, along the shore?"
+
+"We'll eat breakfast first," said Miles, who had found a great shell
+upon the sand. "I'll wade out and dig clams, while you fetch seaweed
+for the fire."
+
+He had not yet made up his mind about the return to the settlement; to
+be sure, he was very wet and hungry, but it did not rain every night,
+and with the thought of Plymouth came the dreadful vision of the public
+flogging. Besides, now it was daylight, it was good to be his own
+man and get his own breakfast; so he paddled about bravely, and did
+not complain, for all the mud and water were cold and the clams few,
+and his back ached with stooping to dig them. A dozen were enough for
+two, he concluded, so when he had that number disposed securely in his
+doublet, which he had twisted into a bag, he splashed shoreward.
+
+[Illustration: "'Oh, Miles, 'tis the savages come for us!'"]
+
+Dolly had patiently fetched a mass of slippery seaweed, and, while he
+drew on his shoes and stockings, she arranged stones with the clams on
+top, and the seaweed all about them.
+
+"And now I'll light the fire," Miles said soberly, as he rose up and
+stamped his feet in his wet shoes. Taking a smooth stone, he knelt
+over the seaweed, and, striking the stone with his whittle, sought to
+get a spark. But it seemed not a proper flint, for though he struck
+and struck, no spark came, and Dolly, cold and hungry, grew impatient,
+whereat Miles rebuked her sternly: "'Tis like a girl. I'm doing the
+best I can. Hush, will you, Dolly?"
+
+Then he forgot his petty wrangling, for, at a growl from Trug, he
+looked to the bluff, and there, between him and the safe inland forest,
+he saw a little group of people coming toward him. The look on his face
+made Dolly, who knelt opposite him, glance back over her shoulder. "Oh,
+Miles," she gasped, "'tis the savages come for us!"
+
+Miles stood up and held Dolly close to him with one arm, while he
+grasped Trug's collar with the other hand. "They're all friendly,
+Dolly, all friendly," he repeated, and wondered that his voice was so
+dry and faint.
+
+A little up the sand the Indians stopped; several who kept to the rear
+were squaws, with hoes of clam-shell and baskets, but at the front were
+two warriors, who now came noiselessly down the beach. "Quiet, Trug,"
+Miles said, stoutly as he could, and, as the savages drew near, greeted
+them boldly with the Indian salutation he had learnt of Squanto:
+"Cowompaum sin; good morrow to you."
+
+They halted close to him, though evidently a bit uncertain as to the
+snarling Trug; they spoke, but he could make out no word of their rapid
+utterance. "I'm a friend," he repeated, hopeless of getting any good
+of his little store of Indian words, almost too alarmed even to recall
+them. "I come from Plymouth,--" he pointed up the shore where the
+settlement lay,--"and I want to go back thither."
+
+He made a movement as if to start up the shore, when one of the Indians
+laid a hand on his arm and pointed southward. Miles shook his head,
+while dumb terror griped his heart; these were none of King Massasoit's
+friendly Indians, but people from the Cape, such as had fought the
+Englishmen in the winter. "Let me go home," he repeated unsteadily.
+
+But without heeding him one loosed his arm from about Dolly's waist.
+Thereat Trug, with his hair a-bristle, gathered himself to spring, and
+the other warrior gripped the club he carried in his hand. "You shan't
+kill my dog!" screamed Miles, seizing Trug's collar to hold him back;
+and at that the savage, taking Dolly from beside him, lifted her in his
+arms.
+
+The other Indian would have picked up Miles, but he dodged his hand,
+and, dragging Trug with him, ran up alongside the warrior who held
+Dolly. The little girl lay perfectly quiet, her eyes round with terror,
+and her lips trembling. "Don't be afraid, Dolly," quavered Miles, in
+what he tried to make a stout voice, "no matter where they take us.
+They shan't hurt you; Trug and I won't let them hurt you."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+THE HOUSE OF BONDAGE
+
+
+IT does not become an Englishman to make a weak showing before unclad
+savages; so presently Miles swallowed the sob that was fighting a
+way up his throat, mastered the other shaky signs of his terror, and
+put his whole attention to keeping pace with his captors. They were
+now well in among the trees, where the undergrowth, after the Indian
+custom, had been thinned by fire, so between the great blackened trunks
+opened wide vistas, as in an English park.
+
+To Miles each open glade looked like every other one, but the Indians
+found amid the trees a distinct trail along which they hastened, single
+file, with the tall warrior who bore Dolly in the lead. Miles kept
+persistently at his heels, though the breath was short in his throat,
+and his whole body reeked with perspiration. The sun, all unobscured
+and yellow, was climbing steadily upward, and, by the fact that it
+shone on the left hand, he knew that they were going southward ever,
+southward into the hostile country.
+
+About mid-morning they descended a sandy slope, where pine trees grew,
+to a brook with a white bottom. Miles gathered his strength, and,
+making a little spurt ahead, flung himself down by the stream to drink;
+he felt cooler for the draught, but, when he dragged himself to his
+feet, he found that, after his little rest, his tired legs ached the
+more unbearably, so he made no objection when the Indian with the club,
+lifting him unceremoniously to his back, carried him dry-shod through
+the brook.
+
+Even on the other side, Miles made no struggle to get down; it would be
+useless, he judged, and then he was too worn out to tramp farther at
+such speed. He settled himself comfortably against his bearer's naked
+shoulders, and offered not half so much protest as Trug, who, trotting
+at the Indian's side, now and again looked to his master and whined
+anxiously.
+
+As soon as he was a bit rested, Miles began to take closer note of
+the country through which they were passing,--a country of spicy pine
+thickets and of white dust, that powdered beneath the feet of the
+Indians. From his lofty perch he could pluck tufts of glossy pine
+needles as they brushed under the lower branches of the trees, and,
+hungry as he was, he did not find them ill to chew. Presently he tried
+to converse with his Indian. "Tonokete naum?" he questioned. "Whither
+go you?"
+
+The savage answered in a pithy phrase, of which Miles made out only
+the word Ma-no-met. That, he had a vague remembrance of hearing the men
+say, was a place somewhere to the southward; but, at least, it was not
+Nauset, where the Indians who had fought the English lived. In quite
+a cheerful tone, Miles called out to Dolly their destination, and,
+with something of his former confidence, set himself to watch for the
+town; he could not help imagining it would be a row of log cabins in a
+clearing, just like Plymouth.
+
+But, for what to him seemed long hours, he saw no sign of a house, just
+the monotonous sheen of the pine trees where the sun struck upon them,
+and the dust that burst whitely through its sprinkling of pine needles.
+Now and again, through the branches, he caught the glimmer of sunny
+water, where some little pond lay; and once, when the trail led down
+into a hollow, sand gave place to the clogging mire of a bog, and the
+scrub pines yielded to cedars.
+
+The slope beyond, with its pines thickening in again, was like all the
+rest of the wood, so like that Miles had suffered his eyes to close
+against the weary glare and the hot dust, when a sudden note of shrill
+calling made him fling up his head. They were just breasting the ridge
+that had been before them, and the trees, dwindling down, gave a sight
+of what lay at the farther side.
+
+Unbroken sunlight, Miles was first aware of,--sunlight dazzling from
+the hot sky, beating upward from blue water, glaring on green pines
+that spread away beyond; and then, as the dissonant calls that made his
+whole body quiver drew his eyes to the right, he saw in the stretch of
+meadow-land between the creek and the ridge a squalid group of unkempt
+bark wigwams. The smoke that curled upward from their cone-like summits
+seemed to waver in the heat, and for an instant Miles blinked stupidly
+at the smoke, because he dared not look lower where he must see the
+varied company of coppery people who were flocking noisily forth from
+their shelters.
+
+Of a sudden, as if starting from a bad dream, he writhed out of his
+captor's hold and dropped to his feet in the sand. The Indian's grasp
+tightened instantly on his arm; but in any case, whatever they meant to
+do to him, even to kill him, it was better to walk into Manomet than
+to be carried thither like a little child. Where there might be other
+lads, too, it went through Miles's head, even in the midst of his sick
+fear.
+
+Other boys there were, certainly, squaws and warriors too, all
+thronging jabbering round him, so that, with a poor hope that he at
+least might prove friendly, Miles clung tight to the hand of the Indian
+who had carried him. Wolfish yelp of dogs, shrill, frightened cries of
+children, clatter of the curious squaws,--all deafened and bewildered
+him. Close about him he beheld crowding figures,--bare bodies that
+gleamed in the sunlight, swarthy, grim faces, eyes alert with
+curiosity,--and, overarching them all, the hot, blue sky that blinded
+him.
+
+Along with their Indian masters ran dogs, prick-eared, fox-like curs,
+one of which suddenly darted upon Trug. Above the chatter of the
+curious folk Miles heard the currish yelp, the answering snarl; but ere
+he could cry out or move, the old civilized mastiff caught the savage
+cur by the scruff, and, shaking the life out of his mangy body, flung
+him on the sand.
+
+Miles let go the Indian's hand, and cast himself upon his dog, while
+his mind rushed back to a dreadful day in England, when Trug had slain
+a farmer's tike, whose owner had threatened to brain "the curst brute";
+people did not like to have your dog kill their dog, Miles remembered
+with terror; so, catching Trug by the collar, he buffeted his head,
+a punishment which the old fellow, with his tushes still gleaming,
+endured meekly.
+
+The Indians, who had been pressing round him, had shrunk back a little,
+Miles perceived, as he paused for breath; they could not be used to big
+mastiffs. "The dog will not worry you," he addressed the company in a
+propitiating voice. "That is, he won't worry you unless you harm Dolly
+and me."
+
+They could not understand his words, he realized, but they could
+understand gestures, so with a bold front he gripped Trug's collar,
+and urged the old dog, still grumbling, along with him. He walked
+bravely too, with his chin high and his neck stiff, for all there was
+a fluttering sensation up and down his legs. He was not afraid, he
+assured himself, while he pressed his hand upon Trug's warm neck for
+comfort, and fixed his eyes on the tall warrior striding before him who
+still bore Dolly.
+
+Suddenly Miles perceived the press about him to give way a little, and
+out from amidst the people an old man came gravely toward him. He was
+a tall old man, with a wrinkly face, and his dress was squalid and
+scanty as that of the others, but by the many beads of white bone that
+hung on his bare breast, Miles judged him to be the chief of Manomet,
+Canacum. So he made his most civil bow, though he could not keep his
+knees from trembling a bit; but he looked up courageously into the old
+Indian's face, and, as he did not speak first, at length politely bade
+him "Cowompaum sin."
+
+He could not understand--indeed, apprehensive as he was, he scarcely
+had the wit to try to understand--what was said to him in reply, but he
+knew the old man took him by the hand, so in tremulous obedience he
+went whither he was led.
+
+The blue sky was all blurred out, as he passed through the opening of
+one of the black wigwams; an intolerable smoky odor half choked him;
+and his eyes were blinded with the dimness all about him. But out of
+the dusk he heard Dolly call his name, and, stumbling toward the sound,
+he put his arms about his sister.
+
+As he grew more accustomed to the dim light, he saw the old Chief,
+squatting on a mat at the back of the wigwam, and saw the shadowy
+gesture that bade him sit beside him. Almost cheerfully, since he
+held Dolly's hand in his, Miles obeyed; and for the moment, as Trug
+stretched himself at his feet, and Dolly snuggled close to his side,
+felt secure and whispered his sister not to fear.
+
+There was no time to say more, for, amidst the confusion of folk that
+crowded the dusky wigwam, he now made out two squaws, who drew near,
+and, with their curious eyes fixed on him, set before him food--a kind
+of bread of the pounded maize and ears of young corn roasted.
+
+It did not need the Chief's gesture to bid Miles fall to; he might
+be more than a little frightened, but he was also very hungry, for
+it was near eight-and-forty hours since he had tasted heartier food
+than raspberries. He now ate with such good will that nothing was
+left of the victuals but the corn-cobs, and he persuaded Dolly to eat
+too, though it was hard work to coax the child to lift her head from
+his shoulder. "I do not like to look on the Indians," she murmured
+tearfully, between two hungry mouthfuls of corn. "I would they did not
+so stare at us."
+
+They were not over-civil, Miles thought, though, after all, they
+scarcely stared at their white guests more rudely than Miles himself
+had gazed at Massasoit, when the latter visited Plymouth. He might
+not have minded their staring, if there had not been so many of
+them,--squatting and lying all through the wigwam, on the floor, or
+on the mats, or on a broad, shelf-like couch which ran all about the
+lodge,--and if the bolder ones had not been curious to feel of his
+shirt,--his doublet was left behind on the beach where he had taken the
+clams,--and of his shoes, and of Dolly's gown, though no one cared to
+put a hand upon the bristling and growling Trug.
+
+They chattered a wearisome deal too, till Miles's head ached with the
+clamor, the squaws very shrilly, and the men in guttural tones; the old
+Chief seemed to be questioning the Indians who had found the children
+on the beach, but presently he turned and addressed Miles.
+
+The boy fixed his eyes on the speaker's face and tried to understand,
+but, while all things about him were so strange and ominous, it was
+hard to keep his thoughts on the hasty sounds. He did make out that
+the Chief asked him whence he came, and, answering "Patuxet," he
+pointed whither he judged the Plymouth plantation lay. "I should like
+to go back thither," he suggested, and endeavored, with signs and his
+few poor words of the Indian language, to explain that, if they took
+Dolly to the settlement, the people would give them knives and beads.
+He started to make the same arrangement for himself, but he judged it
+useless; he doubted if Master Hopkins would think him worth buying back.
+
+But, even in Dolly's case, no one made a movement to grant Miles's
+request, and though the old Chief spoke, for an Indian, at some length
+and in a civil tone, he did not mention Patuxet nor a return thither.
+Miles swallowed down a lump in his throat, and said bravely to Dolly
+that he guessed they'd have to spend the night with the savages, but
+they seemed kindly intentioned.
+
+Through the low opening that formed the door of the wigwam he could see
+now that a long, gray shadow from the pine ridge lay upon the trodden
+sand; the afternoon must be wearing to a close. Moment by moment he
+watched the shadow stretch itself out, till all was shadow and a
+thicker dimness filled the wigwam, and on the bit of sky, which he
+could see through the smoke-hole in the roof, brooded a purplish shade.
+It was evening in earnest, and it should be supper time, Miles told
+Dolly; but Dolly, resting half-asleep against his arm, made no answer.
+
+Miles himself, for all his apprehensions, was heavy with the weariness
+of the last two days, so, whatever the morrow might have in store,
+he was glad when, one by one, the Indians slipped away like shadows,
+and he judged it bedtime. He and his sister were to sleep on the
+couch-like structure by the wall, he interpreted the Chief's gestures,
+so willingly he bade Dolly and Trug lie down; then stretched himself
+beside them. A comfortable resting place it was, very springy and soft
+with skins; but, ere Miles could reassure Dolly and settle himself for
+the night, Trug began to growl, and the great couch to groan, as what
+seemed an endless family of Indians cast themselves down alongside them.
+
+"I--I wish I were home in my own bed," Dolly protested, with a stifled
+sob.
+
+Miles hushed her, in some alarm lest the savages might not approve
+of people who cried; but his Indian bedfellows never heeded Dolly's
+tears, for they were lulling themselves to sleep by singing in a high,
+monotonous strain that drowned every other noise. After the little
+girl was quieted, they still droned on, and, when they were at last
+silent, there sounded the notes of swarms of mosquitoes that tortured
+Miles, for all he was so tired, into semi-wakefulness.
+
+A snatch of feverish slumber once and again, and then, of a sudden, he
+was aware of the round moon peering in at him through the smoke-hole.
+That same light would now be whitening the quiet fields of Plymouth,
+and slipping through the little windows across the clean floor of
+Master Hopkins's living room; Miles remembered just how the patch of
+light rested on the wall of his own chamber.
+
+He sat up on his comfortless bed and hid his face against his knee.
+"I wish I hadn't run away; I wish I were home--were home," he groaned
+aloud. But, save for the heavy snoring of the Chief of Manomet and his
+warriors, he got no answer.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+HOW THEY KEPT THE SABBATH
+
+
+A LITTLE daylight works a mighty change in the look of things. When in
+the morning Miles rose at length from the stupor of sleep into which he
+had fallen, the sky was clouded filmily to westward, but in the east,
+above the pines, hung a yellow sun. The river that curved through the
+meadow was half bright with the stroke of the sun, and, where the trees
+of the opposite bank grew low, half a lucid green; the strip of sandy
+beach shone white, and the coarse herbage of the level space all was
+gleaming.
+
+Miles looked forth from the doorway of Chief Canacum's wigwam, and,
+sniffing the breeze with the tang of brine in it, decided that, after
+all, Manomet might prove a pleasant place in which to spend a day. He
+said as much to Dolly, but she held her poppet closer and shook her
+head. "There were fleas in that bed," she answered sorrowfully. "Let's
+go home now, Miles."
+
+An easy thing to say, but to do it would have puzzled an older head
+than Miles's, for not only did leagues of forest stretch between him
+and the English settlement, but, even had he known the direct road to
+Plymouth, there was no chance to follow it, since, wherever he turned,
+the watchful eyes of the savages were upon him.
+
+Now the first novelty had worn off, the warriors limited themselves
+to staring at their visitors as they sauntered through the camp, but
+the squaws and children still wished to press close, and feel their
+clothes and touch their hands. However, no one meant to harm him, Miles
+decided, though he only half realized how awe of their white faces
+and strange garments and of their great, ugly dog was protecting him
+and his sister; and, having once concluded he was to be left unhurt,
+he took pleasure in being a centre of interest; it was his first
+experience of this sort in all his much-snubbed life.
+
+So, though Dolly would scarce look on the dark people about them, Miles
+sought presently to talk to them, just as he tried to talk to the
+Indians who came to Plymouth. So well did he impress it upon them that
+he wanted his breakfast, that one of the squaws, who had bright eyes,
+though her face was very dirty, led the children into her wigwam, where
+she brought them food,--roasted crab fish and bread. Miles thanked her
+and ate, and bade Trug and Dolly eat too, while the little Indians and
+the squaws, squatting in the sand about the wigwam door, watched as if
+they had never before seen two hungry children.
+
+Presently, as he wished to divide a morsel with Dolly, Miles drew
+out his whittle, whereat the onlookers crowded closer to gaze. Miles
+showed them his knife, though he took care not to let it go out of his
+hands, and he exhibited the other treasures he carried in his breeches
+pockets,--several nails, a button or two, some beads, and an English
+farthing piece. Indians always looked for presents, he knew, so, before
+he went out of the wigwam, he gave a button to the squaw who had fed
+him.
+
+With his Indian followers eying him the more admiringly, he now went
+journeying through the warm sand, past the dingy bark houses, to the
+farther verge of the camp, where, beyond a lusty patch of rank weeds,
+the corn-field of the savages shimmered in the heat. The tillage of
+the Indians seemed to him of an untidy sort; they had cleared away the
+trees with fire, never troubling to dig up the roots, so blackened
+stumps dotted the field, and here and there lay the greater bulk of a
+charred and fallen trunk. In between, the green corn straggled up, and
+several squaws were tending it with hoes made of great clam-shells.
+They cast aside their tools to stare on Miles and Dolly, but Miles
+stared in return only a short space; he had seen corn-fields before.
+
+"Only to think, Dolly," he burst out, as he turned his back on the
+hoers, "there's no one to bid me weed or fetch water or aught else
+that displeases me. After all, 'tis a merry life the Indians lead; I'm
+willing to dwell here with them."
+
+"_I_ do not wish to be a dirty Indian," Dolly answered decidedly, but
+in a whisper, as if she thought these attentive people must be able to
+understand her words. "Do you not think the men from Plymouth will come
+to seek us soon and take us home?"
+
+"I do not want them to come," Miles replied calmly. "Maybe they would
+hang me for that Ned fought in the duel, and surely they would beat
+me for running away. I shall have to stay here always," he added
+cheerfully.
+
+At this Dolly's lips quivered, but Miles, intent now on an Indian lad
+with a little bow in his hand, who had just come near, gave his sister
+no heed. "I'm minded to ask that boy to let me play with his bow," he
+spoke out, as they arrived once more within the lee of Chief Canacum's
+wigwam. "You sit here, and Trug shall watch you."
+
+A protest or two from Dolly, after the unreasonable fashion of
+women-folk, but Miles, leaving her seated on the sand, walked away to
+the coppery lad he had singled out. For a time the two boys stared at
+each other gravely, then Miles, smiling affably, touched the bow,
+saying, "Cossaquot? Nenmia," till presently the other yielded it into
+his hands.
+
+Then they strolled away, with several other beady-eyed youngsters, into
+the weeds on the outskirts of the camp, where Miles tried his skill
+at shooting. Though in England he had often handled a bow, here the
+best showing he could make set the little Indians laughing; and when
+the owner of the bow, taking it from him, shot an arrow and fetched
+down a pine cone from a tree many feet distant, Miles understood their
+merriment at his awkwardness.
+
+But then he stepped up to a young sumach, and, pulling out his whittle,
+hacked off a small branch in a manner to make his new friends marvel;
+so, each party respectful of the other's arts, they were speedily on a
+sound enough footing to race away together to the river bank.
+
+On the shore, half in water and half on land, lay three Indian boats,
+light, tricky things, all built of birch bark. Miles had never seen
+such craft, so he set to examining them, but his new comrades splashed
+into the water. On the sunny beach it was hot, but across the stream,
+whither they swam, the trees that pressed close to the margin darkened
+the shallows with a deep green, so cool and tempting that Miles, dusty
+with travel, longed to bathe in it too.
+
+In the end he flung off his clothes, and prepared to join in the
+splashing, when his Indian acquaintances paddled shoreward to study
+his garments. Miles suffered the youngster who had lent him the bow
+to try on his shoes, whereat all grew so clamorous he feared a little
+lest his wardrobe disappear among them, for he remembered how Thievish
+Harbor took its first name from the pilfering habits of the Indians.
+Fortunately Trug, forsaking Dolly, arrived just then, and when he
+stretched his great bulk on his master's clothes, none cared to disturb
+them.
+
+With his mind set at rest, Miles plunged into the tepid water, where
+he frolicked about with his new comrades, who swam like dogs, paw over
+paw, and dived in a way that bewildered him. But speedily he was doing
+his share in the ducking and splashing and whooping, till, before he
+knew it, the afternoon was half spent, and his shoulders smarted with
+the burning of the sun.
+
+The little Indians followed him, when he spattered out of the river,
+and, with no more than a shaking of their ears, like puppies, were
+ready to run about, but Miles, as a penalty of civilization, had to
+stay to drag on his clothes. He felt chilly now, he found, and hungry
+too, and he guessed he and Trug were best go seek Dolly.
+
+But when he came into the lee of Chief Canacum's wigwam, he saw there
+just scuffled, empty sand, so, with a big fright laying hold on him, he
+ran out into the straggling street and called his sister's name aloud.
+Just then Trug's bark told him all was well, and, hastening after
+the dog, he found, in the shade of a distant wigwam, a squaw weaving
+a mat of flags, some children sprawling, and Dolly herself, who was
+eating raspberries from a birch bark basket. "Why did you run away and
+frighten me?" Miles demanded crossly, as he flung himself on the ground
+beside her.
+
+"I may go away and make friends as well as thou," Dolly answered
+loftily. "But you shall have some of my berries, Miles. They fetched
+me them, and I can eat these--" her voice sank--"because they must be
+clean. But their other victuals are not, I know. I watched, and the
+women do never wash their kettles."
+
+Miles had no such scruples of cleanliness, so when, some two hours
+later, he scented the odor of cooking, he rose eagerly and, thinking on
+supper, sought Canacum's wigwam. There were four dark boats upon the
+white beach now, he saw, so he judged that a fishing party had come in.
+
+When he passed through the low door into the wigwam, he found a fire
+alight and a great pot of clay hung on small sticks that were laid
+over it. Into the pot the drudging squaws were putting fresh fish, and
+acorns, and the meat of squirrels, and kernels of corn, and whatever
+else they had of edibles,--"a loathsome mash," Dolly whispered Miles,
+but he was so hungry that it did not take away his appetite.
+
+So soon as the broth was done, near half the village squatted round the
+pot, the men in an inner circle, while on the outskirts, eager for any
+morsel their masters might fling to them, waited the poor squaws. But
+Dolly, because she was a little white squaw, was suffered to sit down
+with her brother beside the old Chief, who scooped up pieces of the
+fish and hot broth in a wooden bowl and gave it to Miles.
+
+Dolly looked askance at the food, but Miles and Trug ate ravenously;
+neither his queer table mates nor their queer table manners troubled
+the boy, since he himself was licking his fingers and wiping them on
+Trug's fur contentedly. "I like to eat with my fingers," he chattered
+to his venerable host. "At home they make me to eat tidily with a
+napkin, but I like it better thus."
+
+But, even at his hungriest, he could not match the Indians in trencher
+work; for, long after Miles had done eating and lain back against Trug,
+the savages still champed on, till nothing but scattered bones was left
+of the fare. By then the sun was quite down, so the lodge was black,
+save for the flashes of the sinking fire. Out-of-doors an owl hooted,
+and speedily the Indian guests withdrew to their own lodges, and the
+Chief's household went to their common bed. Little comfort did Miles
+and his two companions find there, for the singing Indians and the
+mosquitoes pestered them as on the preceding night.
+
+"I'll not endure this a third time," Miles fretted, when he awoke in
+the chilly morning. "Look you, Dolly, why should I not build us a
+little wigwam? I make no doubt they'll suffer us go sleep there by
+ourselves."
+
+Full of this new plan, he bustled forth from the wigwam, but outside
+the doorway halted in surprise. He could see no river nor more than
+the tips of the pines for a thick white fog that drifted through the
+village and struck rawly to his very marrow. For a moment he had a
+mind to slip back to Dolly in the close wigwam, but, spying his Indian
+allies, he kept to his first manly resolve and began chatting to them
+of his intentions. Though they could understand nothing of his talk,
+they came with him readily, through the clammy fog, out beyond the
+camp, where the sand, sloping up to the pine ridge, offered, as Miles
+remembered, a good location for a wigwam.
+
+The Indian houses, so far as he could judge, were built by bending over
+young saplings and securing both ends in the ground, then covering the
+frame with mats or great pieces of bark. Miles decided that poles,
+bound together at the top, would serve him as well, so he went to cut
+them in a growth of young oaks at some distance from the camp. The
+trees, all laden with fog moisture, drenched him as he worked, and the
+task took him a long time with his small whittle,--would have taken him
+longer, had not the Indian boys helped him to break the poles.
+
+They were all intent on his proceedings, and, when he returned to the
+site he had chosen, settled themselves in the sand to watch him, an
+action which pleased him little. For, when he stuck his poles into
+the sand, at the circumference of a rough circle, and bent them all
+together at the top, the ends that were thrust into the sand would fly
+up, and 'twas annoying to have other people see his failure. It took
+him some minutes to make all secure, and by then he was so breathless
+and tired that he was glad to run tell Dolly of his progress, and, at
+the same time, rest a bit.
+
+Spite of the fog, he found his sister had come out from the choking
+atmosphere of the wigwam. She was sitting a little up the pine ridge,
+behind the lodges, on a fallen tree trunk that was all a-drip; the
+sand, too, Miles noted, when he lay down at her feet, was damp and
+sticky to the touch.
+
+"They have left us alone, haven't they, Dolly?" he said in some
+surprise, as he glanced about him and saw no Indians near. "But Trug,
+he has not followed; very like they think we'll not run away and leave
+him behind." Then he perceived that his sister's arms were empty.
+"Where's the old red poppet?" he cried.
+
+"My poppet Priscilla," Dolly replied seriously. "I did put her away
+carefully. For 'tis the Sabbath to-day, Miles."
+
+"Is it?" the boy questioned, with some misgivings. "I'd lost count of
+the days. Why, I have been cutting poles and begun my wigwam--"
+
+"Then you are a Sabbath-breaker," Dolly said relentlessly. "If you
+be so wicked, I doubt if ever God let us go back to Plymouth. And
+I've been praying Him earnestly. Miles, have you said your prayers o'
+nights?"
+
+"N--no," the boy faltered, "last night I forgot 'em, and night before I
+was weary."
+
+"Come, we'll say them now," Dolly announced, and fell on her knees in
+the wet sand.
+
+Miles obediently knelt beside her; his father had looked somewhat
+askance at this practice, but Miles's mother had first taught the
+children to say their evening prayer on their knees, and, for her sake,
+the boy held obstinately to that usage.
+
+The thought of her came clearly to him now, and how she had bidden him
+be good to Dolly, so, when he had prayed "Our Father," he added an
+extemporaneous appeal, that the English folk might soon come in search
+of them. "Not for my sake, O Lord," he explained carefully, "but Thou
+knowest Dolly is but a wench and were better at Plymouth, perhaps. And,
+O Lord, I'd near be willing to go thither myself, if Thou wouldst put
+it in their minds not to flog me."
+
+Indeed, as he prayed, his heart grew very tender toward the tiny
+settlement; he would have liked well to open his eyes and see the
+sandy street of the little village stretching away up the hillside,
+the ordered cottages, the grave men about their tasks, even Master
+Hopkins--perhaps.
+
+Rather subdued, he set himself by Dolly on the wet log. "Now I'll tell
+you somewhat out of the Bible, since there is no one to preach us a
+discourse," he said, and set forth to her what he remembered of the
+last portion of the Scriptures which Master Hopkins had made him read.
+It was all about how Moses let loose the plagues upon the wicked king
+of Egypt, flies and boils and frogs,--Miles was not quite sure of the
+order of events, but he detailed them with much gusto.
+
+"I do not think there is a great deal of doctrine therein," Dolly
+commented, with a mournful shake of the head. "Elder Brewster, he did
+not discourse thus; and Mistress Brewster and Priscilla and the boys
+will have bread for dinner to-day, and maybe butter, and lobster, and,
+if I were home, I should sleep in my own bed with Priscilla, and put
+on a clean gown in the morning. I wish I were home now."
+
+Miles squeezed Dolly's fingers, and sat staring away from her into the
+fleecy fog that still shivered through the camp. So intent was he on
+gulping down his home-sickness that he started in surprise when a hand
+was laid on his shoulder, and he looked up into the face of one of
+Canacum's warriors.
+
+He was to come to the Chief's wigwam, he interpreted the Indian's
+signs, so he rose and, leading Dolly, followed his guide down the sandy
+slope. "Maybe 'tis that they have meetings too on the Sabbath," Dolly
+whispered him.
+
+Inside the lodge, where a fire smoked, many warriors were gathered,
+true enough, but no one preached to them. Instead all puffed at their
+pipes and, with long pauses, spoke together, till Miles, sitting with
+Dolly by the Chief, grew weary. Understanding nothing of their talk,
+he thought on his new wigwam and scarcely heeded them, till a warrior,
+whom he had a vague idea he had not seen before about the camp, rose up
+and, coming to him, lifted him to his feet.
+
+"What will you do?" Miles cried, with a quick pang of fright as he
+found his arm fast in the other's grip. "Are we to go with you?" And
+then, with a sudden, overwhelming hope, "To Patuxet?"
+
+"Nauset," grunted the imperturbable Chief.
+
+"They set upon the English there!" gasped Miles. "I will not go, I will
+not!"
+
+After that, all passed so quickly he remembered nothing clearly, just
+the confusion of bronzed figures in the smoky lodge, the choking odor
+of the fire, the sight of Dolly's blanched face, as one of the Indians
+drew her back from him. He had a scattered remembrance of crying out
+that they should not dare take his sister from him, Captain Standish
+would punish them for it; and then of a helpless, childish struggle,
+wherein he kicked and struck unavailingly at the savage who held him.
+
+The chill fog stung against his face, as he was dragged forth from
+the wigwam. He seemed to come to his senses again, and, ceasing to
+struggle, called over his shoulder to Dolly not to be afraid, no one
+would dare hurt her. Something pressed feebly against his knees, and he
+looked down at Trug, with a broken thong hanging at his neck and his
+head bleeding. He caught the old dog by the collar. "Go in unto Dolly,
+sirrah," he bade in his sternest voice. "And guard her, guard her!"
+
+He had a last glimpse of his sister, crouching in the door of the
+wigwam, with her arms clasped close about the mastiff's neck and her
+frightened eyes fixed on him. Then the grasp on his wrist tightened,
+and stumblingly he followed along with his new captors, past the
+dripping wigwams with their staring people, past his own unfinished
+lodge, and into the chill silence of the moist woods.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+
+AT NAUSET VILLAGE
+
+
+EASTWARD of Nauset, unchecked by headlands, as was Plymouth Harbor, but
+sweeping away into the very sky line, lay the ocean. The tide was now
+rolling in; far out at sea the water all was ridged, and, as the waves
+pressed shoreward, their crests, heaving up, burst into white foam.
+With each inward swell the water crept nearer, till now it reached the
+bare rock where Miles Rigdale, his knees level with his chin and his
+arms cast round them, was perched.
+
+Overhead, Miles knew the sky was bright, and the dazzle of the water
+was ever present to his eyes. He strove to think on naught but the
+barren glare before him, yet beneath, in his heart, he was conscious
+all the time of an aching weight of misery and sick fear. For this was
+Nauset; he had but to turn his head, and, far up the sandy beach, where
+the storm-swept pines began, he could see the cluster of wigwams, and,
+nearer, squatting upon the shore, the stolid Indian folk who had dogged
+him thither.
+
+Only that morning he had reached Nauset. There had been more than four
+and twenty hours of journeying, through unknown villages, and by sea
+in a frail bark canoe, the pitching of which, under the stroke of the
+waves, had frightened him sorely. All, indeed, had been fright and
+confusion and the wearying effort to hide his terror. For the Indians
+of Manomet doubtless would beat Trug over the head again till he was
+dead, and they would send Dolly far away, as they had sent him, perhaps
+do worse. Miles buried his face against his knees, and bit his lips
+hard.
+
+Of a sudden, he was lifted bodily from the rock where he sat. The white
+water eddied all round it, he noted, and the warrior who held him had
+stepped through it to fetch him ashore. For a moment after he was set
+upon his feet, he stood staring out upon the dazzling sea, then turned
+and passed slowly up the sand, through a patch of sparse beach grass,
+to the village.
+
+Slowly though he loitered, he came at last to the sunny cluster of
+wigwams; in their scant shadow the men--the warriors of Nauset, and
+those who had fetched Miles hither--lay smoking, and, liking their
+surly looks little, he stepped presently into the Chief's great wigwam,
+where the squaws were cooking.
+
+He was hungry, for he had not eaten since last evening, so he stood
+waiting and watching the women, though he no longer sought to talk to
+them. For they did not show a friendly curiosity, such as the squaws
+at Manomet had shown, but rather scowled upon him, as if they already
+knew enough of white folk. It was from this place that the trader Hunt,
+who stole Squanto, had kidnapped seven Indians, and it was here--Miles
+remembered only too clearly every scrap of his elders' tales--that
+only the last summer, in revenge for Hunt's dealings, three Englishmen
+trading thither had been slain.
+
+So the heart within him was heavy indeed, when at length he set himself
+down amongst the warriors at the noon meal. His place was next the
+chief of the village, whom men called Aspinet, just as it had been
+at every village where he had sat to eat, but this chieftain was not
+friendly, as the others had seemed. What few gutturals he uttered were
+directed to his warriors, not to Miles, nor did he offer to give the
+boy food.
+
+Of necessity, Miles imitated the others by thrusting his hands into the
+kettle and laying hold on the great claw of a lobster; it was so hot
+it burned his fingers sharply, but, mindful that he was watched, he
+held it fast till he could lay it on the trampled sand at his side. His
+fingers smarted, and he dared not raise his eyes from the lobster, lest
+the tears of pain that were gathering in them be seen. Fumblingly he
+drew forth his whittle and was making a clumsy effort to dig the meat
+from the shell, when a dusky hand suddenly closed on his wrist, and the
+whittle was wrenched from his grasp.
+
+For one nightmare-like instant the world seemed struck from under him;
+then Miles was aware of the reality of the smoky walls of the wigwam
+and of those grim-faced savages who sat round him. He stood up slowly,
+with his knees a-tremble, but he thrust out his hand bravely, and, in
+a stout voice, spoke to Chief Aspinet: "That whittle is mine. Give it
+back to me."
+
+A moment he stood fronting the Chief and his warriors, then, with
+a sudden feeling that for sheer alarm he would presently burst out
+crying, he turned and walked slowly from the circle of the feasters. "I
+shall not eat of your food nor come into your house till you give back
+my whittle," he flung over his shoulder in a quavering voice.
+
+With that he passed out at the doorway and set himself down
+cross-legged in the deep sand in the lee of the wigwam. The sun of
+early afternoon poured scorchingly upon him, and the sand, as he sifted
+it between his fingers, was warm. Out above the ocean he could see a
+great white gull that flashed in the strong light.
+
+A little shadow from the wigwam fell upon him, and bit by bit
+broadened, while he stupidly watched the strip of dark advance across
+the white sand. It must be mid-afternoon, he reasoned out, when the
+warriors, crammed with food, sauntered from the wigwam, and several
+came leisurely to squat in the shade close by him.
+
+Among them was Aspinet himself, Miles's whittle thrust defiantly in
+his leathern girdle, and the sight of that braced the boy's resolution
+in soldierly fashion; he must not seem afraid or willing to bear an
+affront from a savage, he knew. So, with a steady face, he addressed
+the Chief again, seeking this time to find the Indian words: "When your
+people come to us at Patuxet we do not rob them. And you were best not
+rob me, else Captain Standish will burn your wigwams."
+
+For an instant the Chief puffed slowly at his tobacco pipe, and
+impassively eyed Miles's face; then he spoke, with some broken words of
+English and his native words so slowly uttered that Miles could half
+comprehend the import of his speech: "We do not fear the coat-men.
+Thus did we to them. There was a ship broken by a storm. They saved
+most of their goods and hid it in the ground. We made them tell us
+where it was. Then we made them our servants. They wept much when we
+parted them. We gave them such meat as our dogs eat. We took away their
+clothes. They lived but a little while."
+
+Miles's eyes were wide and his lips parted with frank horror; only
+for a moment, then he recalled the hint of such a happening that had
+drifted to Plymouth, and the very reiteration of the story made it a
+little less shocking. "That was a French ship, and they are a different
+race from us," he said slowly. "An Englishman would not 'a' wept for
+you. And _I_ shall not." He drove his hands hard into the sand and
+blinked fast; the rough dirt hurt his burnt fingers, and he did not
+doubt the English folk, even the Captain, were so glad to be rid of
+him that they would leave him there forever, to the mercies of Chief
+Aspinet.
+
+Squalid though the Indian wigwams were, he was faintly glad when the
+shadows had so lengthened on the land and so darkened the sky and sea
+that it was time to go to rest, for at least the blackness would screen
+his face from the peering eyes of his captors. It was to Aspinet's
+wigwam they led him, but the courage to refuse the Chief's dubious
+hospitality no longer endured in Miles; he would forgive their taking
+his knife, if they did not use him as they had used the luckless French
+sailors.
+
+Obediently he snuggled down in one corner of the bed that ran round
+the wigwam, crowded and comfortless as was his bed at Manomet, but
+here neither Trug nor Dolly lay beside him. The sound of the sea, too,
+was strange; out-of-doors he could hear it,--the slow crash of the
+incoming tide that grew fainter and fainter.
+
+Dolly and Trug, taken from him, he knew not to what, and the safe
+little town of Plymouth whence he had fled,--all were present to him.
+He thought that he and Dolly, with the old dog beside them, were
+trudging up the path from the landing, only there were trees all along
+the path, like the limes along the church lane at home in England, and
+the houses were not log cabins, but English cottages. He knocked at
+the door of Stephen Hopkins's house, and at the same time it was the
+English farmhouse where his father had dwelt, and, when they opened the
+door to him, it was his mother who, coming across the hall, took him in
+her arms and drew him in.
+
+The blackness of the wigwam and the heavy breathing of the savages came
+once more to his consciousness. He dragged himself wearily up on one
+elbow. Through the opening in the side of the wigwam he saw the sky
+quite dark, and he heard the receding swash of the ebbing tide. Yonder
+was the ocean, and a few miles westward lay Cape Cod Bay, and across it
+snug Plymouth. If he only walked along the shore, followed the coast
+line, he would come home.
+
+There was no plan, scarce any hope in him, only he knew the English had
+forgotten him, and he could not endure it longer with a stolid face
+among the Indians. Almost ere he thought it out, yet with instinctive
+precaution, he slipped off the bed, and, holding his breath, crouched
+listening on the floor.
+
+Slowly and carefully, with the trodden dirt firm beneath his hands, he
+writhed his way to the door-opening. The morning air struck coldly on
+his cheeks, so that for an instant he shrank back, but there was in it
+something free that emboldened him to press on.
+
+Out through the door into the chilly morning, which to his more
+accustomed eyes seemed so pale, he felt detection was certain. But no
+cry alarmed him, no motion betrayed him. The soft sand deadened every
+sound, as he crept through it, hands and knees. The debris of twigs,
+higher up at the verge of the pine woods, pressed cruelly against
+his palms, but, for all the pain, he still crawled on, till darkness
+thickened about him, and above him the pine branches stirred.
+
+Springing to his feet, Miles ran forward, fast as two frightened legs
+could bear him. Brambles that plucked at his tattered sleeves made him
+halt, with heart a-jump; tougher young shoots near tripped him; but
+pantingly he held on his way. Through the branches he could catch a
+glimpse of the dull sky and one very bright star that he judged shone
+in the west, so he headed toward it.
+
+Little by little the star faded from before his eyes, and the sky
+lightened, whereat Miles ran the faster. A swamp, thick with juniper,
+barred his course, and fearfully he turned southward to pick his way
+about it. When once more he turned westward, the sky was pale as lead,
+and the birds were beginning to sing. But though the coming of dawn
+might well alarm him, he did not heed it now, as, through the trees
+before him, he caught the pounding note of waves, and, a little later,
+broke forth upon a broad expanse of meadow, beyond which rumbled the
+great sea.
+
+Yonder, very far to west, lay Plymouth, Miles told himself, and, with
+a foolish happiness springing in his heart, he stumbled briskly along
+through the sparse growth at the edge of the wood. The morning light
+now was sprinkling the sea on his right hand, and the sky was changing
+from lead-color to clear blue. Out from the forest a brook, all awake
+with the dawning, came gurgling, so Miles stopped to drink, and tarried
+to empty the sand from his shoes; he guessed he must have run leagues,
+for he was very tired.
+
+But up he got and tramped on pluckily at his stoutest pace, through the
+coarse grass of a great salt marsh, where the new-risen sun struck hot
+upon him. At the verge of the marsh an arm of the sea reached into the
+land, so Miles had no course but to wade in, shoes and all. The water
+was cold as the sun before had been hot. He clambered forth on the far
+side all a-shiver and, with his head bent, began to run for warmth's
+sake, across another bit of marsh and up a little wooded slope of sand.
+Headlong he plunged down the opposite slope, and there, in the hollow,
+by a brookside, unmoved as the pine trees themselves, stood two of the
+Nauset Indians.
+
+He trudged back to the camp with them,--there was no other way. One of
+them, when they came up to him, as he stood numb with the surprise,
+uncertain whether to run or front them boldly, struck him a buffet in
+the face, but the other, catching his arm, muttered something that made
+him desist. So Miles stole round and walked beside the second Indian
+on the trip back. They did not offer to carry him nor to slacken their
+pace, and he feared to vex them with lagging behind. His shoes, where
+he had waded through the salt water, were stiffening, so they hurt his
+feet sorely; by the time he came into the camp he was fairly limping,
+yet that was but a little pain beside what might be before him.
+
+Yet no one did him hurt. A throng of people gathered scowlingly about
+him and talked among themselves, while he waited, with his flesh
+a-quiver, but his chin thrust bravely upward. But, in the end, they
+only hustled him into a wigwam, where they left him with two squaws
+who were pounding corn. Miles flung himself upon the couch, in the
+farthest corner, and hid his face in his arms, but rigidly he held
+himself from crying. The stone pestles that ground the corn went thud,
+thud, till his head so ached it seemed as if they beat upon his very
+temples.
+
+He had come to count the rhythmic strokes in a sort of stupor, wherein
+he knew only that the pestles beat, when suddenly they ceased.
+Out-of-doors he heard a whooping and a scuffling of many naked feet in
+the sand. He pressed himself closer against the wall of the wigwam;
+they were coming to deal with him now. He shut his eyes tightly and
+buried his head deeper between his arms.
+
+They had come into the wigwam. He ought to stand up and show them he
+was not afraid, but he could not, and, when some one grasped him by the
+arm, spite of himself, he cried out in nervous terror.
+
+"Me friend. You not know Squanto?" grumbled a voice he remembered.
+
+Miles sprang to his feet. The lodge was full of savages, Aspinet and a
+score of other hostile faces, but he gave them no heed, for over him
+stood his old Plymouth acquaintance, the interpreter Squanto. With a
+great cry of relief, Miles flung his arms about him. "Oh, Squanto, take
+me home, quick, quick!" he begged; and in the next breath, "Where's
+Dolly? You must find Dolly."
+
+[Illustration: "Miles made out the figures of the men in the shallop."]
+
+The little squaw and the puppy dog were safe, Squanto explained
+leisurely; the Captain and his warriors had come in the big canoe and
+taken them, and now they waited yonder for Miles himself. "I'll go to
+him straightway," cried Miles, with a laugh that caught in his throat.
+
+But, like it or no, he must wait yet a time, for Chief Aspinet and
+his warriors would feast Squanto and the Indians who came with him,
+and the savages ate long and deliberately. Miles, unable to swallow a
+morsel, sat between his friend Squanto and one who came with him called
+Iyanough, the Sachem of Cummaquid, a young Indian with so gentle a
+bearing that the boy felt near as safe with him as with an Englishman.
+
+He could not help a little movement of repulsion, though, as they rose
+from the feast at last, when Aspinet came up to him, but the Chief was
+in a humble mood now and merely handed back the whittle, which Miles
+clapped promptly into his pocket. Aspinet would have put round his neck
+a chain of white beads too, but Miles shook his head disapprovingly; he
+wanted no presents of the uncivil Chief. Yet when Squanto said, "Take
+um," he thought well to obey the interpreter.
+
+They came forth at length from the wigwam, under a twilight sky,
+and, in some semblance of order, the whole throng of Aspinet's warriors
+took up their march across the Cape. One of them lifted Miles in his
+arms, and, though the boy would have preferred some other bearer than
+a Nauset man, he contented himself, since Squanto and Iyanough walked
+close by.
+
+At a good pace they passed up into the scrub pines of the sand hills,
+and turned westward, where, in the dull sky, the restful stars were
+beginning to show, just as Miles had seen them come out above the piny
+hills of Plymouth. The branches bent noiselessly apart, as the swift
+train pressed forward through the woods. The moon was up now; Miles,
+glancing back, saw it gleam amid the boughs, and at first its staring
+light startled him. Then they came through the trees out on broad sand
+again; the tide was far down, and out yonder, where the line of moonlit
+water began, lay the English shallop, with its sails all white.
+
+Down the beach the naked feet of the Indians pattered; now the water
+splashed noisily beneath their tread, knee high, waist high. Clearly
+and more clearly Miles made out the figures of the men in the shallop,
+erect and musket in hand, the gleam of the corselets and helmets, their
+faces almost.
+
+It was Captain Standish himself, who, slipping his ready musket to one
+hand, reached over the gunwale and, grasping Miles by the waistband,
+dropped him down into the bottom of the shallop. As he did so he
+uttered something that sounded like a fervent "Thank God!"
+
+Miles neither heard nor heeded that, but he did remember of a sudden
+that he was a wretched, little fugitive criminal, now delivered into
+the hands of English justice, and even his hero, who had been his
+friend, had thought fit to take him up roughly and drop him down
+against his boots. He rolled a little out of the way, and, crouching
+against the side of the boat, buried his face in his arms.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX
+
+FALLEN AMONG FRIENDS
+
+
+AT last the shallop had put off from the Nauset shore. The babel of
+clamorous Indians sank down, and, in its stead, sounded the thud of
+muskets laid by and the clatter of sweeps fitting to the rowlocks.
+Sharp English commands Miles heard too, but still he did not raise his
+head, till some one lifted him to his feet.
+
+All about him gleamed the hard whiteness of moonlight, under which the
+idle sail looked vast and ghostly and the faces of the men around him
+seemed unfamiliar. But he heard Captain Standish's voice: "Come, Miles,
+clamber forward with you. Your sister is fair sick for the sight of
+you."
+
+He saw it was the Captain who had lifted him up, and he caught the arm
+that held him. "I'm sorry, sir, oh, I'm mighty sorry; I won't fight
+another duel nor run away," he whispered huskily.
+
+"Don't cry, my man," the Captain spoke hurriedly. "It's well over and
+you're safe with us now. Here, Gilbert Winslow, help him forward; and,
+Stephen Hopkins, draw you nearer; I've a word to say."
+
+Dumbly obedient, Miles clambered forward over the thwarts. Young
+Gilbert Winslow, one of the rowers, put out a hand to steady him, and,
+to the boy's thinking, grasped his arm roughly. They need not begin
+punishing him at once, he reflected miserably; he was sorry for all
+he had done, but when he tried to tell them so, even the Captain had
+thought him whimpering because he had been afraid.
+
+Then for a moment he forgot his wretchedness, as he reached the forward
+thwart where Alden sat, and from beside him heard Dolly's voice
+pipe up. Miles slipped upon the reeling bottom of the shallop, and,
+stumbling closer to his sister, put his arms about her. "You're here,
+Dolly?" he asked, in a whisper, half afraid to let his voice sound out.
+"You're safe, you and Trug?"
+
+Such a ragged, tousled Dolly as she was, half hidden in the folds of
+Alden's cloak, and almost too weary even to talk. She was quite safe,
+though, she found energy to tell him, and Trug was there behind her,
+tied in the peak of the bow. He was sore with his bruises, but Goodman
+Cooke said he would live, for all that. The Indians of Manomet had done
+neither of them further hurt, but had sent them to the Sachem Iyanough,
+who was a good man and had delivered them to the English that very
+morning. So it was all well, but for the poppet.
+
+"Did they take it from you?" questioned Miles, mindful of his own
+experience with the whittle.
+
+"N--no," answered Dolly, beginning to sniffle. "I--I did give her to
+a little maid at Manomet. Because she ground the corn and fetched
+wood all day, and she had no poppet. I gave it to her, and--and the
+bad old Chief, he took her away from the little maid--he did tear her
+up and make red cloth of her--and he tied her in his hair, my poppet
+Priscilla." Dolly curled herself up against Alden's arm and wept
+wearily.
+
+"Very like Priscilla Mullins can make you another," the young man
+suggested kindly, though his face, in the moonlight, looked amused.
+
+"'Twould not be she," wailed Dolly, provoked at such stupidity, and
+went on to cry as only a very tired little girl can cry.
+
+But Miles, quite tearless, leaned back against Alden's knees, and,
+without daring to look at the men about him, gazed up into the shimmery
+sky. All the time, though, he was conscious that yonder in the stern
+sat Master Stephen Hopkins, and he thought of him and tormented himself
+with wondering what punishment he would inflict till he felt it almost
+a relief, when at last his guardian came striding across the rowers'
+seats toward him.
+
+He came, indeed, but to help Alden unfurl the sail, for they were now
+well out from shore, and the breeze, though of the faintest, was worth
+calling to their aid. But when that task was done, Master Hopkins set
+himself down on the thwart by Alden, and presently spoke to Miles, who
+started guiltily, for all nothing worse was said than, "Take my cloak
+here, Miles Rigdale, and wrap it about you."
+
+It was chilly, now they were out on the open bay, as Miles, in his
+torn shirt, knew, but, without looking at the speaker, he shrank away,
+muttering: "I wish it not. I am not cold, sir."
+
+"Take the cloak as I bid you," Master Hopkins repeated, in as stern a
+voice as if it were a dose of poison he were pressing upon Miles. "Let
+me have no more of this sullenness."
+
+He spoke so sharply and loudly that every one must hear; Miles thought
+to feel the indignant eyes of the company turn toward him. "I--I want
+to go up in the bow beside Trug," he whispered Alden, and, eager to put
+as much space as possible between himself and Master Hopkins, clambered
+over the thwart into the peak. There he crouched close to the battered
+old dog, who licked his hands, and lay so covered by the cloak that he
+could see only the blank moon rolling through the blue-black sky.
+
+But, though he did not look on his companions, he could hear their
+voices distinctly. Alden it was who spoke first: "We are not heading
+for home the quickest way, are we, sir? We follow the shore--"
+
+"'Tis that the Captain holds it best that we stand in to land and get
+fresh water," Hopkins made answer. "After that we are to hasten our
+shortest way unto Plymouth. For there's ill news astir at Nauset."
+
+"What might that be?"
+
+"They tell us the Narragansetts, that fierce tribe to southward, have
+risen and spoiled some of Massasoit's men and taken the King himself
+prisoner."
+
+There was an instant's silence, during which Miles listened
+strainingly, then Alden spoke in a different, slow tone: "And after
+they have dealt with Massasoit, should they attack Plymouth because it
+is allied to him--"
+
+"The pick of our fighting men are here in the shallop," Hopkins
+answered deliberately.
+
+Miles felt something press against his legs as he lay, heard a sleepy
+whimper from Dolly. "Let your sister rest by you, Miles," spoke Alden,
+bending over him. "I'm going to aid at the sweeps."
+
+"And you, Miles," added Master Hopkins, "were best give your thought to
+praying unto God that your mad prank may not prove the means of drawing
+the men from Plymouth at her greatest need."
+
+Once more there was silence, save for the steady creak, creak of the
+oars against the thole-pins, and now and again the flap of the listless
+sail. Miles lay quite still and stared at the round moon, yet did
+not see it, for before his eyes loomed only the unguarded cottages of
+Plymouth, white under the moonbeams, and, crawling toward them from the
+black pine hills, the slinking forms of the Narragansett warriors. Even
+when he shut his eyes and, at last, for sheer exhaustion, slumbered,
+he saw in his dreams the sleepy little settlement, all unconscious of
+the danger crowding close upon it, and the horror of this that his own
+folly had made possible startled him into wakefulness again.
+
+He saw the mast sway blackly against the dull heavens, whence the moon
+had dropped, and, with something of comfort in their mere presence,
+heard the men grumbling inaudibly, as they tugged at the sweeps. A dead
+chill was in the morning wind, so gladly he huddled the cloak more
+closely about him and drowsed once more. But the same vision of leaping
+savages and blazing cottages burned before his eyes, till, with a half
+stifled cry, he started up, as through his dreams rang an Indian whoop.
+
+All about him yellow sunshine rippled on the water; English voices
+sounded cheerily, and with them mingled the clatter of Indian tongues.
+So much of his dream was true, yet it could be no attack upon the
+shallop, for Dolly, quite unconcerned, sat gazing down at him from the
+nearest thwart.
+
+"You are to get up," she greeted him gayly. "We are at Cummaquid to
+eat breakfast with Sachem Iyanough; the Captain and some of the men
+have gone ashore unto him, and they have sent us roast fish hither, and
+there is clean bread from home. And you are to rise and eat with us,
+Master Hopkins says."
+
+At that name Miles, still half dazed with sleepiness, sprang to his
+feet. Near at hand, across the noisy blue water, gleamed the green
+shores of Cummaquid, where he could see a swarm of dusky figures, and
+in their midst the glitter of the armored Englishmen. But nothing of
+the shore or even of the folk about him was quite real, save the voice
+of Master Hopkins; Miles did not look at his face.
+
+Creeping into the stern sheets, as he was bidden, he choked down the
+food that was given him, good bread and fish, that seemed to him gall
+and ashes. For the men about him spoke anxiously of the need of getting
+speedily to Plymouth, till Miles, heavy with the sense of guilt,
+scarcely dared stir or breathe, or even think. Only when Master Hopkins
+rose from beside him did he venture so much as to shift his position;
+then he swung about stealthily and leaned his head upon one arm that
+rested on the gunwale. He let one hand droop into the water, and,
+watching the ripples slip between his fingers, thought only of their
+flow and fall.
+
+So he was still sitting, in what looked a sullen fit, when a good
+capful of wind came ruffling it along the water, and the Captain and
+his squad splashed noisily from the shore. Miles heard about him the
+clatter of their embarkation, the creak of the hoisted sail, the brisk
+voices of the men, and he longed to slip back to his old place in
+the bow, away from them, but he durst not venture it. He stared down
+into the blue water, that now began to press more swiftly through his
+hand, and, when he lifted his eyes, the green shore was fading in the
+distance.
+
+With a creak of the cordage, the shallop came about on a fresh tack,
+so only dazzling water that made his eyes ache now lay before Miles.
+Through the rents in his shirt he felt the sun hot on his bare
+shoulders, and involuntarily he made a restless movement. "What's
+amiss, Miles?" spoke the Captain's quick voice. Miles did not answer,
+but, feeling rebuked, sat silent, and studied the grain of the wood in
+the seat on which he perched.
+
+But the Captain, sitting next him, began to ask him questions in a
+curt, matter-of-fact tone, as to what Indian villages he had entered,
+and whether he had noted signs of warlike preparation, to all of which
+Miles answered hesitatingly, a little frightened, because the men about
+him silenced their talk to hark to him.
+
+Once he glanced sidewise at Standish, but the latter's brows were
+puckered and his eyes preoccupied, so Miles, not knowing whether he was
+worried about the savages or angry with him, looked again at his shoes.
+But when the Captain relapsed into grave silence, his fear grew greater
+than his shame before rebuke; so at last he plucked the Captain's
+sleeve and whispered him: "Is there any chance, sir,--maybe shall we
+come to Plymouth ere the Indians kill all the people?"
+
+"What set such a mad fancy in your head?" Standish asked, almost
+sharply. "There's not an Indian within six league of Plymouth. Don't
+worry yourself for that, lad; you'll find the village as you left it,
+and all the women ready to weep over you."
+
+At these first comforting words he had received since he boarded the
+shallop, Miles plucked up heart and drew closer to Captain Standish.
+But speedily he took note of the anxiety that made the Captain
+forgetful of him, and, with a new sorrow, he told himself that to his
+hero he was no longer "Miles, my soldier," but a foolish boy, who,
+because he was little, must be spoken to gently, and not even let
+know the full extent of the evil he had brought about. For, spite of
+Standish's cheerful speech, he could see clearly enough that every
+man in the craft was troubled and longing to reach the endangered
+settlement.
+
+But the wind blew lightly, in veering flaws, so the shallop must make
+tedious long tacks, while the hours rolled out. The heat began to go
+from the air, so Miles was glad to wrap himself in a spare cloak, as
+the Captain ordered; and the sun, in the west, slipped behind gray
+clouds. The water darkened, and the twilight had fallen in earnest,
+when at last the shallop tacked in at the outer entrance of Plymouth
+Harbor.
+
+At first the thickly wooded beach point screened the shore, but, as the
+little craft rounded it, the dim hills across the harbor were visible,
+and there, on the greatest hill, too low for stars, Miles saw sparks of
+light twinkle.
+
+It was as if the men in the shallop all drew breath again, and Miles
+himself, forgetting his guilt and the punishment in store for him,
+cried joyfully: "They're safe!"
+
+But in a moment half the joy went from him, for, when Alden, in
+the bow, fired his musket thrice, with startling reechoes, Master
+Hopkins told him grimly that the signal was to let the people yonder
+know he had destroyed neither himself nor his sister by his sinful
+foolhardiness. Miles hung his head sorrily, and, for all Captain
+Standish presently clapped him on the shoulder and bade him look how
+the people flocked to the landing, did not glance up till, with a
+splash of oars in the quiet water, the shallop lay to, by the dark
+rock.
+
+In the thick twilight the faces of the people gathered thither could
+not be made out, but all the colony was there, Miles guessed by the
+babel of voices, and, after they had lifted him ashore, he knew it was
+Priscilla Mullins who hugged him undignifiedly, and he thought it was
+Mistress Brewster who cried when she spoke to him. But he had no time
+to make certain, for just then Master Hopkins grasped him by the arm
+and led him away up the hill to his house.
+
+Within the familiar living room a candle was alight, that set Miles
+blinking as he was brought in from the darkness, but he made out
+Mistress Hopkins, with an anxious scowl on her brows, though, for all
+Miles's torn shirt, she did not scold one word, and he saw Constance,
+with her eyes red, and Giles, who had tramped in after him, and Dotey
+and Lister. "Then they didn't hang you?" Miles cried to the latter, too
+weary to be civil.
+
+"Hang who?" asked Ned, pretty sheepishly, as his master's eyes were
+upon him.
+
+"You said they were going to hang you--"
+
+"Not I, never," vowed Ned, with his face flushing, and, slouching off
+into the bedroom, rattled the door to behind him.
+
+Miles followed him thither speedily,--he was not to be coddled by
+two soft-hearted women, Master Hopkins said,--and Giles and Dotey
+came too. They questioned him eagerly of his adventures, but Miles,
+unflattered even by such attention, would not speak of Indians or of
+birch canoes, just poured forth his woes in a weary voice upon the
+verge of tears: he would surely be soundly whipped, and Ned had said
+they would be hanged and they hadn't been, and if Ned hadn't said it,
+he wouldn't 'a' run away.
+
+"I am right sorry, for your sake, I was not dealt with less
+mercifully," Lister said bitterly, and Miles, glancing up at him, was
+checked in his lamentation; truly, Ned looked miserable, with his
+face white and a noticeable limp in his gait, and Dotey, too, had one
+hand bandaged, but, most awe-inspiring of all, Miles noted, as Ned
+unfastened his shirt, a vivid red mark about the base of his neck.
+"What was it they did to you, then?" he asked, but neither of the
+Edwards seemed eager to explain.
+
+"They just tied 'em neck and heels," Giles volunteered presently, as
+he began undressing. "And before they'd kept them so an hour, they
+promised amendment and--Hey, Ed Dotey, make Ned cease throwing shoes at
+me."
+
+With a wrangling word or two peace was restored, and the young men took
+themselves to rest; Miles noted that the ex-duellists drew the line at
+sharing one bed, for Ned Lister lay down beside him, while Giles and
+Dotey slept together.
+
+How quiet and clean it seemed in the little chamber, Miles thought;
+and how blessed it was that the Indians had not fallen on Plymouth!
+Involuntarily he sighed for very peace and happiness, then lost all
+sense of comfort at the recollection of the morrow and the punishment
+deferred that yet would surely come. "Ned, O Ned," he began, and shook
+Lister, who was lying with his head between his arms. "Tell me, Ned,
+how greatly does it hurt to be tied neck and heels?"
+
+"Um-m-m!" groaned the exasperated Lister. "Miley, if you say 'neck and
+heels' to me again, I'll wake up and thrash you."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX
+
+A SON OF PERDITION
+
+
+MILES was not fated, however, to learn by experience how it felt to
+be tied neck and heels; for all his double sin of abetting a duel and
+running away from the settlement, he suffered no unusual punishment.
+Instead, next day at noon, when Master Hopkins returned from the
+fields, he ordered him into the closet, and there gave him as thorough
+a flogging as even the boy's tormented fancy had conjured up.
+
+Miles came out, with his shoulders quivering, and, not staying for
+dinner, slouched away through the fields to the shore, where he stood a
+time blinking out to sea. He had been bidden go present himself to the
+Elder and be admonished for his sins, but he did not hold it necessary
+to go just yet.
+
+At last he had himself tolerably in hand, and, with no great heart for
+what was before him, was loitering along the shingle to the village,
+when a shrill voice hailed him, and, looking up, he saw Jack and Joe
+and Francis running toward him. So Miles put on an unconcerned bearing,
+and, making the pebbles clatter beneath his tread, swaggered to meet
+them.
+
+Oh, yes, he could tell them brave tales of how he had lived with the
+Indians, he bragged, but not now; he had to go now and be admonished by
+the Elder, he explained, as if he took pride in such awful depths of
+iniquity.
+
+"And Stephen Hopkins has admonished you ere this, I'll warrant,"
+chuckled Francis. "How heavily did he lam you?"
+
+With melancholy satisfaction, Miles pulled off his shirt and exhibited
+his stripes to his admiring companions.
+
+"Big red weals," quoth Jack. "I'm glad 'twas not I must bear such a
+banging. Here's more than one stroke has broken the skin."
+
+Miles twisted his neck, in a vain effort to study his smarting
+shoulders, while his estimate of himself rose surprisingly.
+
+"And for each whang Miles cried out, I'll be bound," added Francis.
+
+"I did not open my lips," boasted Miles. "A' could not make me. You can
+talk, if you will, Francie. We know if you'd borne the half of this,
+we'd 'a' heard you roaring from the Fort Hill clear to the Rock. But I
+mind not a beating, nor aught they can do to me or say. 'Twas so brave
+a life I led among the Indians--"
+
+There something in Francis's face made Miles glance over his shoulder,
+and right behind him, his step deadened by the sand, stood the Captain,
+who was gazing down at him with a look between contemptuous and amused,
+that made the other lads slip away, and set Miles scuttling into his
+shirt.
+
+"Well, sir, you show a deep and edifying sense of the mischief you have
+done," Standish said quietly, but the very absence of anger from his
+tone made Miles's face burn the hotter.
+
+He was glad that his shirt was over his head at that moment, so he
+could not see the speaker's look, and he dreaded to meet it. But when
+he had drawn on the garment and could glance round him, he saw, with
+an added pang of humiliation, that Captain Standish, not holding him
+worthy of further notice, had trudged on to the landing.
+
+For a moment Miles stood gazing blankly after him; then he turned and,
+kicking up the sand in half-hearted little spurts, plodded on up the
+hill to Master Brewster's gate. Beneath the bluff, on the shore of the
+brook, he came upon the Elder, laboring diligently among his green
+things, and told him in a listless tone why he had come thither. Master
+Brewster talked to him a long time and wisely, Miles had no doubt, but
+he only heard the words vaguely, for he was feeling the piteous smart
+of his irritated shoulders, and watching the flecks of light through
+the green bushes that shifted across the Elder's doublet, and harking
+to the loud purr of the fat cat Solomon, who was rubbing himself
+against the Elder's knees.
+
+Yet he was dully sorry when the Elder dismissed him, for that left him
+free for some heavy thoughts. It would be a little comfort to speak
+with Dolly; so, rather uncertain what welcome such a rapscallion as he
+might hope for, he toiled up the bluff and faltered into the Brewsters'
+living room.
+
+The wind from the sea stirred the curtain at the window, and in the
+full blast, industriously sewing at a small gown, Mistress Mullins sat
+alone. "So you've come to visit me, little Indian?" she greeted Miles,
+and put her hands to her brown hair that had ruffled in the draught.
+"My scalp is quite safe? You are well assured you have no tomahawk
+about you?"
+
+Miles shook his head in crestfallen fashion; he only wanted to see
+Dolly, he murmured.
+
+"She is in bed, poor little one! till I make her some tidy clothes to
+put on," Priscilla answered. "Stay and talk with me, Miles, like a
+gallant lad. Come, if you'll look merry again, I'll show you something
+rare. 'Tis a humbird."
+
+She led him to the western casement, where on the window-sill rested a
+little cage of paper, in which fluttered a shimmery atom no bigger than
+a bee. For a moment, because Priscilla expected it of him, Miles gazed
+at the tiny whirring wings, and touched the cage gently, but in so
+listless a fashion that the young girl asked abruptly: "What has gone
+wrong with you, Miles?"
+
+"Naught."
+
+"Then you are an uncivil youth to wear such a glum face. Come, tell me
+it all. Is it that Stephen Hopkins hath flogged you?"
+
+"No!" Miles answered, with an angry sniff. "A beating more or less,
+'tis nothing to a man."
+
+Priscilla suddenly put an arm about his neck. "My poor little--man!"
+she said, and, for all she laughed, her voice was tender. "I know I am
+but a silly woman, yet mayhap I can help you,--an you let me. Is it
+that the Elder rated you grievously?"
+
+Miles shook his head, then, spite of himself, blurted out:
+"'Tis--Captain Standish is angry and scarce will look at me. And he has
+ever been kind to me. But now he will have none of me. I had no mind to
+be so wicked; I did not mean what I said; I'm sorry."
+
+"Why, you need not lay it to heart if the Captain has been round with
+you," the girl coaxed. "He must be so troubled now with all this ill
+news of the savages."
+
+"But he--he thinks I'm not sorry," Miles faltered, twisting the ends
+of the window curtain relentlessly between his hands. "And I am, but I
+can't go to him and say it, when he is angered."
+
+"But I can go to him and tell him you are sorry, if 'twill comfort
+you," Priscilla answered coolly. "I have no fear of your Captain."
+
+"Will you so?" Miles cried gratefully. "Sure, you're uncommon good.
+When I'm older I'll marry you,--unless Jack Alden does it ere then."
+
+Whereat Mistress Mullins's face flushed pink, and she pulled Miles's
+ears, and, calling him a scamp, packed him into the bedroom to speak
+with Dolly.
+
+So, when Miles ran home to supper, he was in an almost cheerful mood,
+which speedily ended, for Master Hopkins made him read a sorrowful
+chapter on the wrath of God against transgressors, and cuffed him
+because he could not pronounce the word "Zarhites." Mistress Hopkins
+scolded too, because she had labored all the afternoon to mend the
+shirt which Miles had worn upon his wanderings; moreover, she would
+have to make the troublesome boy a new doublet, to replace the one he
+had lost, and new breeches, for those he now wore were disgracefully
+ragged, so perhaps she had reason to be vexed on his account.
+
+"But I did not tear them wantonly," Miles lamented to Ned Lister next
+morning. "Yet she says she is so busied she cannot make me new clothes
+for days, and I must wear my breeches all ragged for punishment."
+
+"Hm!" answered Ned. "Half Plymouth seems to take its diversion in
+punishing the other half." He was on his knees between two rows of the
+rustling green cornstalks, where he was grubbing up those weeds that
+were so tough as to resist his hoe; his doublet was off, but he had so
+scrupulously turned up the collar of his shirt that no trace of the red
+mark about his neck could be seen.
+
+It was so unusual for Ned to work that Miles was lingering to watch
+him, when suddenly the young man broke out: "Look you here, Miley, you
+were with me that day I made Dotey to fight me, and you heard all I
+said unto him, so I ought to tell you--'twas not he bore tales of me
+unto Hopkins; 'twas the mistress herself."
+
+Miles nodded his head. "I never had any liking for her," he said softly.
+
+Ned weeded scowlingly. "Well, she made Hopkins go unto the Governor
+and beg that Ed Dotey and I be released after we'd been tied an hour,"
+he admitted, in a grudging tone. "She might be worse, and so might Ed
+Dotey; he's no talebearer, though he is a self-sufficient coxcomb."
+
+For several days this was the only bit of private talk which Miles
+had with Ned, for Master Hopkins, who said that Lister had already
+corrupted the boy sufficiently, took now a new course of keeping the
+two rigorously apart. While Ned was sent to work in the fields, Miles
+was bidden weed in the house-garden, or fetch and carry for Mistress
+Hopkins.
+
+Master Hopkins believed, too, that Satan found mischief for idle hands,
+so he saw to it that one task followed another, till Miles, honestly
+wearied, looked back with fondness to his life among the Indians as a
+time of perpetual holiday. One morning, indeed, about a week after his
+return to Plymouth, when he was forbidden to help Ned dig clams, and
+ordered, instead, to fetch water and then weed in the garden, he voiced
+his rebellious wish: "I would I were back with those good, friendly
+Indians at Manomet."
+
+Master Hopkins, who was busy at the delicate task of repairing the lock
+of his musket, looked up at the muttered words. "You wish to dwell
+among those shameless idolaters?" he questioned grimly. "Verily, Miles
+Rigdale, you are a son of perdition."
+
+A very terrible name that was, Miles thought, but it was worse than the
+hard name, that Master Hopkins cuffed him till his ears tingled and his
+eyes watered.
+
+Frightened at his own wickedness, and smarting with the blows, he
+hurried off to the spring, and, halfway thither, met with Francis
+Billington. Even Francis's sympathy would have been welcome just then,
+and, after all he had undergone because of his confession to save the
+boy, Miles thought he had some claim to it. But Francis stiffened up at
+his greeting and put on a surprising new air of virtue. "I'm forbid to
+have to do with you, Miles," he announced, with open delight. "Sure,
+I see not why your father ever need keep you so tenderly from my
+conversation. Why, you are yourself the worst lad in all the colony;
+'twas Captain Standish himself said so to my father."
+
+"I think you are not speaking the truth," Miles answered doggedly; he
+had a mind to fight Francis for such a story, but very likely if he
+fought, Master Hopkins would whip him. So he drooped his head under the
+other's taunt and plodded on to the spring. He didn't believe Francis,
+he repeated to himself, while he swallowed and swallowed in his throat.
+But there came the remembrance of the look the Captain had given him,
+there on the shore, and his contemptuous words, and, with a sickening
+fear that, for once, Francis had spoken the truth, he felt the lump in
+his throat swell bigger.
+
+He did not care, though the water, as he scooped up his pailful at the
+spring, slopped over his shoes, but he did care when he heard on the
+pathway from the bluff the scatter of pebbles under a quick footstep;
+he could not let any one see him in so sorry a mood. Catching up his
+pail, he pressed into the crackling green alders at the farther side of
+the spring, and, as he did so, heard some one call sharply, "Miles."
+
+It was Captain Standish's voice, Captain Standish who would want to
+rate him as the worst lad in the colony, who would never believe he was
+penitent. Miles put his head down and, crashing through the alders,
+never paused till the whole dense thicket lay between him and his
+pursuer. He could hear on the lifeless, hot air no sound save that of
+his own fluttering breath; no one had offered to follow him, and he
+felt suddenly sorry that he had escaped.
+
+But, without courage to go back to the spring and face the Captain, he
+crouched down beneath the bushes and sat a long time staring through
+the leaves at the bright water of the brook. Up in the street he heard
+eager voices once, but the dread of encountering Captain Standish made
+him stay quiet in his hiding place, till the street was still again.
+Then he clambered painfully up the steeper part of the bluff below
+Cooke's house, and, with a new terror growing on him of the mighty
+scolding he could expect for his delay, scudded home.
+
+But no one had space to scold him. When he came to the house he found
+Mistress Hopkins, quite silent, and Constance, with a scared face,
+busied about dinner, and Ned and Dotey, with Giles to help, overhauling
+their muskets. "What is it has happened?" Miles questioned in amazement.
+
+"War!" Ned answered cheerily, and Mistress Hopkins, with a grewsome
+sort of satisfaction, added that she always said they'd yet be slain by
+the heathen savages.
+
+"It happened at Namasket, five league from here," Ned ran on. "Squanto
+and two other friendly copper-skins, Hobbamock and Tokamahamon, they
+went thither quietly to learn how much truth was in this talk of
+rebellion against Massasoit. And there was a certain Corbitant, an
+under-chief of the King's, who is in league with the Narragansetts, and
+he discovered them. Hobbamock broke from them and came fleeing hither,
+not an hour agone, but Tokamahamon they took and Squanto they've slain.
+So we are furbishing up our muskets."
+
+Poor Squanto, who had fetched him from Nauset, was dead. That was
+Miles's first thought, and he was honestly grieved. But ere dinner was
+out he learned from his elders that there was other fearful matter
+to think on, for if Massasoit's men were rebelling and joining the
+Narragansetts against the King and his allies, it meant a dreadful
+danger for the settlement.
+
+Quietly, but resolutely enough, the Englishmen made their arrangements
+to march against Namasket and punish the slayers of their friends.
+After a night of watching and half hidden fear, next morning, in the
+midst of a beating rain, a little squad of ten, with the Captain at
+their head, and Hobbamock to guide them, went forth to the attack.
+
+From the western window Miles watched them go. He had hoped to
+be allowed to slip forth from the house and see them start upon
+their expedition; at least get a last glimpse of Captain Standish,
+who, perhaps, in the confusion, would forget he was angry and say,
+"Good-morrow, Miles," as he used. So Miles fetched Master Hopkins's
+buff-coat, and helped Constance with the breakfast kettle, and mended
+the fire, and quieted Damaris, and waited and hoped, till he saw the
+last man of the column disappear over the bluff.
+
+He could run out and seek a dry stick of wood from the pile now, when
+going forth profited him nothing. He slouched into the wet and the
+wind, and, in the pashy dooryard, met Ned, who was in a bad temper,
+because, when he asked his master to let him go on the expedition, he
+had been contemptuously bidden by Hopkins to "stay home with the women
+and tend the disgraceful hurts he had taken in his godless brawl."
+
+"If I'd not been such a Jack as to get myself slashed, I might 'a'
+gone," Ned grumbled now to Miles, as he kicked his heels in the big
+puddle before the doorstone. "And they'll have some good fighting, I'll
+wager."
+
+"Do you think surely some of our men will be slain?" Miles questioned,
+terror-stricken.
+
+"A buff-coat does not make a man immortal," Ned cast over his shoulder,
+as he stamped into the house.
+
+But Miles, standing in the pouring rain, gazed up the path by which
+the little company had gone. The sky was thick gray, and the rain,
+driven by the wind from off the harbor, fell in long, livid streaks. He
+took up a shiny wet stick from the ground and snapped it slowly in his
+hands. "The Captain may be killed," he told himself dazedly. "And he
+does not know that I be sorry."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI
+
+BETWEEN MAN AND MAN
+
+
+ALL that night the rain fell steadily; harking to its slow patter
+on the roof, Miles thought on those who were tramping the forest,
+and wondered how they fared. Ned, stretched beside him, save for his
+regular breathing, lay like one dead, and yonder in the living room he
+could hear Trug, admitted to shelter from the rain, grumbling in his
+sleep.
+
+A long, long night it was, and the day that followed, all blurry with
+faint sunshine, was well nigh as long. Little work was to do in the wet
+fields, so Miles fetched pails of water and tended the fretting babies,
+while, like every other soul in the colony, he waited for news of the
+Captain and his men.
+
+A second night, sickly with warm mist, had closed in on Plymouth,
+before tidings came. Miles and Giles had gone forth together into the
+moist darkness to the spring, where they drank, before drawing a last
+bucketful for the house; the alders looked startlingly dense against
+the lighter black of the sky, and Miles kept close to Giles.
+
+Even the elder boy was more alert than his wont, and jumped listening
+to his feet, when far up the Namasket trail sounded ordered footsteps.
+"'Tis father and the men returning," he cried next moment, and
+scrambled swiftly up the bluff, with Miles, eager yet half in dread
+lest ill had befallen, panting after.
+
+Down through the dusk of the trail men were coming--the heavily armed
+Englishmen and in their midst some scantily clad savages. Giles,
+forgetful of reserve for once, pressed forward boldly to meet his
+father, but Miles, having no one to meet, stood back in the bushes,
+that touched his face clammily, and watched the little column, noisy
+now, as home approached, swing past. At its head marched a stocky
+figure that he knew, and, as if the Captain could see him even in the
+blackness, Miles shrank a little farther into the bushes.
+
+Yet he joined himself to the very end of the column, for he had no will
+to stay alone in the dark. Goodman Cooke marched there, and, eager to
+have some friend in the party, Miles fell into step beside him. "You
+are all come back safe, sir?" he asked propitiatingly.
+
+"Surely, yes," the other replied. "All sound, save three Indians we
+fetched hither to the Doctor. Best of all, we've Squanto here; we found
+him unhurt."
+
+By this they had come down into the village, where all the people, it
+seemed, had hurried forth, and, hearing the news of their interpreter's
+return, showed no small joy thereover. Squanto, a figure of varying
+light and shade beneath the lantern glow, took such expressions of
+kind feeling stolidly, and profited from the good wishes of his white
+friends by asking for strong water. There was some merriment thereat
+among the Englishmen,--all were in good spirits, in truth, for the
+expedition had fared well.
+
+In broken fragments Miles caught the story as he was hustled about
+among the returned soldiers and, with the other lads, stood staring at
+them under the lantern light: how the Englishmen, coming at midnight
+to Namasket, had beset the house of Corbitant, but found that valiant
+chief had fled at the mere rumor of their approach; how several of the
+Indians, trying to press forth in spite of their promises that no harm
+was meant them, had been hurt; how Squanto and Tokamahamon had been
+found alive; and how, after leaving for Corbitant a stern warning as
+to what he might expect if he continued to stir up rebellion against
+Massasoit and his allies, they had returned, successful and unscathed.
+
+But the story was quickly told by the hungry men, and then they
+scattered to their houses. The street was swiftly emptied, and even
+Giles, calling to Miles to fetch home the bucket they had left at the
+spring, trudged away with his father.
+
+Miles turned slowly up the street; he had admitted it to no one, even
+to Giles and Ned, but the last week he had had a fear of the black
+woods. Spite of his boasts to the boys of his merry life with the
+savages, he shuddered every time he thought of Nauset, and he had a
+foolish feeling that if he ventured into the forest the Indians might
+swoop down on him again. In the daytime he could laugh it away, but at
+night, and especially after the anxiety of the last twenty-four hours,
+the fear came on him strongly, and it did not seem as if the courage
+was in him to go down to the inky spring alongside the stepping-stones
+that led to the woods.
+
+He stood a time by Cooke's gate, in the hope that he might see some one
+else bound for the spring, but no one came. He went a few steps down
+the street, but, if he returned to the house without the bucket, he
+would be scolded, so, at a snail's gait, he trudged uphill again.
+
+Then it was that he noted the companionable light that shone in the
+window of Standish's cottage, high up the hillside, and, though he
+was afraid of the Captain, yet there seemed a kind of encouragement
+in that shiny spark that made him cross the street and loiter nearer.
+"Maybe John Alden'll be going to the spring," he told himself. "Or
+maybe--maybe I'll go, presently."
+
+Just at the edge of the Captain's unfenced dooryard, he halted and
+stood gazing at the light. He was not spying, to be sure; he would
+go in a moment. Through the open window he could see a corner of the
+living room, a table, with a rack and three guns above it, and, as
+he gazed, Alden, a big, black figure, strode into the bright corner
+and set down two bowls on the table. Miles drew a step or two nearer.
+"Maybe the Captain will come into the light next," he told himself.
+"And after I've seen him, then--"
+
+And then some one took him firmly by the shoulder, and right beside him
+spoke the Captain's voice, "Well, Miles?"
+
+"Oh!" the boy gasped, and then, in a panic-stricken tone, "I'm going
+home; prithee, let me go home, sir."
+
+"Nay, you are coming in with me," Standish answered, and, helplessly,
+Miles yielded to the other's grasp and stumbled over the threshold.
+
+Within, the living room was bare and martial, with a rapier above the
+chimneypiece that caught a gleam from the candle set below it, and the
+form by the door and the rough stools standing stiffly as on parade. On
+a shelf beside the fireplace there were some pots and platters; Miles
+noted all very accurately, and wondered that he should note them at
+such a time.
+
+He started when Captain Standish spoke, for all his tone was amused:
+"Here, Jack, set a bowl for this gentleman I have fetched to sup with
+us. And you, Miles, will you give me your parole not to attempt an
+escape, if I take my hand from your collar?"
+
+Miles eyed the shaft of candlelight that lay at his feet and ventured
+no answer. He knew the Captain had loosed his grasp on him, and then he
+heard him ask, in a different, serious tone: "Are you afraid of me?"
+
+At that Miles tossed back his head, stiffly as if a bar of iron were
+run down his neck. "No, sir," he said, boldly and untruthfully.
+
+He could not slip away now, whatever might be in store for him, but
+stood rigid and unpretending, while Captain Standish flung off his
+buff-coat, and Alden, with a ponderous movement, lifted the soup kettle
+to the table. Then he sat down on a stool, as he was bidden, and ate.
+It was clam broth, and he was aware of the good flavor of it, just as
+he was aware, beneath all his alarm, of the honorable fact that he was
+taking supper with Captain Standish. He began to hazard long looks at
+the Captain and to listen to the talk of the two men, with some thought
+for their words, as well as for his own concerns.
+
+"This is none of your cooking, Jack," said Standish, as he rose to
+refill his bowl.
+
+"Mistress Mullins fetched us the broth," Alden replied, with a studious
+lack of interest. "She thought we'd have naught to eat in the house
+to-night."
+
+"'Twas very wisely thought. When you have eaten, Jack, best carry back
+her kettle. They'll not yet be abed at the Elder's house."
+
+Somehow, after that, Alden made short work of his portion, and,
+summarily emptying the kettle into the Captain's bowl, gave it a
+perfunctory scrub and started briskly for Master Brewster's cottage.
+
+The Captain, with his face sober all but his eyes, swallowed his
+broth in leisurely silence for a moment before he addressed his small
+companion: "I had speech with Priscilla Mullins several days since.
+What is this, Miles, that she tells me you had to say to me?"
+
+Miles crumbled the fag end of his piece of bread with one nervous hand.
+"Why, 'twas--'twas--Captain Standish, is it true you think me the
+worst lad in the settlement?" He looked up into the other's face, and
+something he saw there made him blurt out, "I doubt if you do."
+
+"So that's why you ran away from me day before yesterday, is it?"
+
+Miles kicked his heels softly against the legs of his stool. "Because
+I want to tell you I'm sorry," he murmured. "I shall never run away to
+the Indians again. I--I was but talking when I said those words unto
+Francis and the others."
+
+"A 'miles gloriosus,' eh?" said the Captain, and smiled.
+
+Miles saw nothing amusing in the words, but he took it as a sign the
+Captain was his friend again, so he smiled back. "I won't do it again,
+sir," he promised vaguely, and then, as Standish rose from the table,
+he slipped off his stool. "May I wash the dishes, sir?" he volunteered
+for "a girl's work" eagerly.
+
+"If you wish it," the Captain answered, and then, about the time Miles
+had dropped the bowls and spoons into the nearest pail of water, broke
+out irrelevantly, "In the name of goodness, Miles, are those the only
+breeches you have to wear?"
+
+Miles clapped his right hand over one knee, and his left over an
+ostentatious rift in the side. "She hasn't time to make me new ones;
+I'm wearing these for punishment," he explained.
+
+"Indeed!" said Standish; he took his pipe from the chimneypiece and,
+filling it, kept silent so long that Miles finished his dishes and
+stole over to the hearth beside him. On the chimneypiece some books
+stood up from the miscellaneous litter, and, because they were the
+Captain's books, Miles raised himself on tiptoe to read their names.
+A "Bariffe's Artillery Guide" pleased him most; he was wondering if he
+could learn from that how to be a soldier like the Captain, when behind
+him spoke a familiar voice: "Well, Miley, do you have it in mind to
+sleep at home to-night?"
+
+Miles swung round with a start; Master Hopkins and that bucket of water
+and the scolding to come,--he remembered all clearly, for there in the
+doorway stood Ned Lister, with his out of temper look. "The master sent
+me to find the boy," he explained more civilly to the Captain. "I've
+sought him all through the village. Come, Miles, Master Hopkins--"
+
+Involuntarily Miles pressed close to the Captain. "Is he going to whip
+me, Ned?" he asked anxiously.
+
+"Tell Master Hopkins I'll send the lad home straightway," Standish
+dismissed Lister curtly, then puffed a moment at his pipe till the
+young man's leisurely footsteps died out in the yard. "So Master
+Hopkins whips you often?" he questioned abruptly.
+
+"He says I need the rod," Miles answered in a woful voice, wondering if
+the Captain would take his part. "He says I'm a son of perdition. I see
+not why 'tis right. When Ned Lister called Dotey a fool, he said he was
+in danger of hell fire, and, sure, son of perdition is a worser name
+than fool."
+
+"Hm!" muttered the Captain. "And you're still good friends with that
+valiant duellist, Edward Lister?"
+
+"I like Ned mightily, yes. But Master Hopkins does not suffer me work
+near him."
+
+"That's for punishment, too, I take it?"
+
+Miles nodded.
+
+"At this rate you should prove the best lad in the colony, not the
+worst," the Captain said dryly; and then, "Say we walk down to Master
+Hopkins's house now, and see how that wounded Indian is faring."
+
+A queer, vague hope that had risen in Miles vanished and left an
+amazing emptiness; the blackness of the lonely spring, and the whipping
+for that evening's tarrying came to his mind before he had crossed the
+room, and in the doorway he halted short.
+
+"What's amiss?" asked Standish, with no great surprise, however.
+
+"I--I take it, I'm afraid," gasped Miles, hot and cold with the shame
+of the terror he could not check. "I must go down to the spring, and
+'tis dark, and I think I'll be whipped, and--and--" His lips were
+twitching childishly. "But I wasn't afraid at Nauset, not a whit, and I
+didn't cry there," he added piteously.
+
+"I understand," the Captain said, with amazing kindness. "I'll go to
+the spring with you, Miles."
+
+For the second time in his life, Miles stepped out into the night
+with the Captain, but there was small elation in his heart with
+the knowledge of his cowardice upon him. He felt a censure in his
+companion's silence, yet he dared not speak himself, only hurried
+forward as fast as possible to end the walk. They left the last cottage
+behind them, passed a menacing clump of bushes, and then, at the head
+of the path, Miles spoke out, almost in spite of himself: "Pray you, go
+back, sir. I'm not afraid. I won't be afraid. I'll go alone."
+
+He called back the last, halfway down the path. The pebbles rattled
+with shocking loudness; there in the thicket, across the sullen
+brook, something stirred, he knew. With his eyes on the black ground,
+he stumbled toward the gurgle of the spring, groped for his bucket,
+fearing lest his hand touch something else, and, seizing it, filled it
+sparsely at the first dip, then, setting his teeth tight, made himself
+fill it again, slowly and carefully.
+
+Behind him, as he rose, the bushes all were moving and alive, and
+something, he knew, pressed close at his heels. He could not hurry with
+the bucket in his hand, only clamber, step by step, with the breath
+choked within him, till he came at last to the black pathway above the
+bluff. Before he could cast a frightened look up the trail, the bucket
+was quietly taken from him. "You waited here for me?" Miles gasped,
+and then, "But I wasn't afraid."
+
+"You will not be next time, Soldier Rigdale," Standish answered him,
+and, putting a hand on his shoulder, kept it there.
+
+Before they were into the thick of the settlement, he spoke again,
+abruptly: "So you're not happy at Master Hopkins's?"
+
+"I hate it there," Miles said under his breath, and then the hope
+that the Captain's former words had raised swept back once more, and
+he caught the other's hand. "Will you take me away from him, sir?" he
+asked hurriedly. "If I could live with Jack Cooke, anywhere else, I
+know I could be good."
+
+"I know you could, too," Standish answered. "And I think your father
+and mother would wish it. But Master Hopkins is your guardian and your
+kinsman; I can do naught, only try my hand at coaxing, and I'm uncommon
+ill at that. My faith, I know not why I speak it out to such a babe
+as you, Miles, but you must say naught of this, remember. Only--if
+'twill comfort you for your tattered breeches and the rest of your
+penances,--so soon as pretext is given me, I am minded to take you from
+Master Hopkins to live with me."
+
+"With you?" Miles asked in the blankness of joy, and then he must hush,
+for the candlelight from Master Hopkins's window struck across his
+face, and an instant later they came into the living room.
+
+Master Hopkins looked angry, of course, but his face relaxed at sight
+of the Captain, and he only bade Miles pack off to bed. "But he'll
+surely thrash you in the morning, Miles," Giles said, with a sober
+pucker of the brows. "What made you stay so long?"
+
+"I was with the Captain," Miles replied light-heartedly, and to himself
+he added, "And by and by 'twill be like this evening every day, for
+I'll live with him all the time."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII
+
+THE BEARER OF TIDINGS
+
+
+CAPTAIN STANDISH must have spoken to Master Hopkins of other matter
+than wounded Indians, for, to his surprise, Miles got no whipping
+next morning. "Since the Captain needed you, I cannot punish you for
+your delay," Master Hopkins said curtly, a remission which would have
+overwhelmed Miles, if it had not been surpassed by the joyous fact
+of Mistress Hopkins's bringing out an old suit of his father's that
+afternoon and starting to make him new clothes.
+
+In duty bound Miles went forth, and, seeking Priscilla, thanked her
+awkwardly that she had spoken for him to the Captain. He wasn't seeking
+Francis Billington, he would have declared, but somehow he sauntered to
+the shore, where Francis was likely to be, and, true enough, there he
+was, paddling in the water by the landing rock.
+
+Miles halted on the beach and resumed the talk where it had stopped
+at their last meeting. "Hm," he sniffed at his old enemy, "I take it,
+Captain Standish has other things to do than gossip about me to your
+father. You lied to me, Francis Billington, when you said he called me
+the worst boy in Plymouth, and I'm going to thrash you for that lie."
+
+"I was but jesting," vowed Francis.
+
+Miles, with his aggressive fists, smote the boy and rolled him in the
+sand. "I'm jesting too, now," he said grimly.
+
+Francis fled howling home, and Miles, with his shoulders well back,
+swung away to the corn-field. "I _had_ to beat Francis," he assured
+himself, "but now I'll not fight nor run from labor any more, but bear
+me well, because I am to go live with the Captain soon."
+
+But Miles's "soon" proved, after all, a long, and, in some ways, a
+cheerless time. There were many days still to spend in his guardian's
+house, where Mistress Hopkins scolded at his carelessness, where Master
+Hopkins bade him work when he had thought to win an hour's playtime,
+and where more than once, sorry to tell, Master Miles himself strayed
+wantonly into mischief and was sternly but justly punished therefor.
+
+Nevertheless, now that he had a big, pleasant hope to live forward to,
+he found it easier to bear what was not to his liking in the present.
+After all, when he tried, it was not so difficult as he had thought to
+do Master Hopkins's bidding, Miles told himself, and never realized
+how much easier it was for him to perform his tasks, while Ned Lister,
+still sulky and subdued from his public punishment, was working
+fiercely and would not pause to idle with him.
+
+Thus in little, dull labors and the large pleasure of looking forward,
+the muggy August days panted out their course and the September
+twilights shortened. A long, secure time of peace it was for the
+settlement, in which there fell but one incident,--an expedition which
+ten of the Plymouth men undertook far up the coast to the Bay of the
+Massachusetts, where they traded for skins and made a league with the
+Indians. Ned, who was one of the company,--because, Giles Hopkins told
+Miles, laughingly, he was held too much of a firebrand to be left
+behind,--came home with something of his old braggart manner, and told
+big stories that set young Rigdale wild with envy. Why could not he be
+a man at once, a full-sized man with a musket, and go with the Captain
+to trade or fight with the savages?
+
+But presently there was manly work in which Miles shared, for with the
+rare October days came the time of harvesting, when, as in the weeks of
+planting, every man and boy in the colony must bear a part. It was good
+weather to work, though, with nothing of the sickly heat of the April
+days, but a bracing air nerved every muscle, and the sky was deep and
+clear.
+
+Miles liked the stir and freshness of trudging to the fields, one of
+the whole company, in the awakening cool hours of the morning. His task
+at first was to follow after the reapers in the barley field and gather
+the heavy stalks of the bearded grain into sheaves. Then after the
+barley, as the days grew shorter, they harvested the corn, a toilsome
+labor, that soon became irksome to Miles, whose part was to sit all day
+under cover, amidst the stiff stalks and rustling leaves, and husk the
+ears till his arms ached and his fingers were sore. By and by, when the
+corn was dried, he foresaw he should have to help shell the kernels
+from all those ears, and he sighed a little, as he watched the pile
+rise high.
+
+Yet at heart he knew that, like all the others in the settlement, he
+was glad for the great heap of yellow ears. It had been a fruitful
+harvest; the pease, to be sure, had withered in the blossom, but the
+increase of corn and barley was so great that there was no fear lest
+the colony go hungry that winter. Men's faces were soberly elate, and
+even Master Hopkins relaxed his customary sternness.
+
+But Mistress Hopkins had a mighty grievance, for Governor Bradford,
+after the harvest all was garnered, set apart a week as a time of
+special rejoicing. "That means in a community of men, even of the most
+godly, a week of feasting," she lamented. "And who is it shall prepare
+the food but we ten poor women and maids of the colony?"
+
+To Miles, however, a week of feasting sounded pleasant; he only wished
+he were Ned Lister, for the Governor sent him and three of the other
+men fowling to get provisions for the merrymaking. In a day the four
+killed near enough to last the company a week,--a great, feathery heap
+of woodcocks, pigeons, quails, and plump wild turkeys. Miles shared in
+the work of plucking the birds, and, for the rest, he fetched wood,
+armful by armful, for the great fires that blazed out-of-doors, and
+he ran dares with the other boys, who should go farthest in among the
+blazing brands, till Goodwife Billington bore down upon them, and,
+chancing to collar her own son, cuffed him mercilessly.
+
+He tugged buckets of water, too, for the endless boilings and stewings,
+till his back ached, but he minded it little, for this was holiday
+time. The October air was crisp; there was plenty to eat,--meat,
+and bread of the fresh corn meal; and, all the time, the zest of
+strangeness was added to the jubilation by the coming of hordes of
+Indians to share the English cheer.
+
+The third day Massasoit presented himself, with ninety hungry warriors,
+whereat not only Mistress Hopkins but cheerful Priscilla Mullins was
+in despair. But his Majesty did his part in supplying provisions, for
+next morning some of his men went into the forest and returned with
+five fat deer, which he bestowed, as seemed to Miles most fitting,
+on the Captain and the Governor. They were, however, roasted for the
+behoof of the whole company, and on the last day of the feast, after
+the Captain had drilled his little troop before the King to do him
+honor, the Plymouth people and their guests ate of good venison.
+
+The tables were spread in the fields, and Miles held it a notable
+distinction that he and Giles were bidden by the Captain wait at the
+one where he sat, with Massasoit and the Governor and others of the
+chiefs of the red men and white. Miles carried the platters of meat
+thither, with all the decorum of which he was master, and hoped that
+Standish might throw a word to him, so his happiness was final when,
+on his last trip to the table, the Captain called him to his side. He
+was sitting at the left hand of the Governor, where the light from the
+afternoon sun struck athwart his face, and over opposite him sat King
+Massasoit, greasy as ever, but now monarch-like in a great robe of
+skins.
+
+It was to him that Standish spoke, in words of the Indian tongue of
+which Miles caught only one or two. But the Captain answered his
+questioning look: "His Majesty was pleased to crave a sight of you,
+Miles. Truth, you put him to stir enough last July. It was he who, when
+he got tidings from Manomet, despatched the order thither that no hurt
+should be done you, and sent us word where to seek you."
+
+"Did he do so much, sir?" Miles asked, and, gazing at the stolid
+Indian, made him a grateful bow. "I should like to tell him 'thank
+you,'" he added. "If Squanto would say it for me,--or you."
+
+Then he tramped back again to the fire to take his own share of the
+feast, a large turkey leg which Constance had saved for him, and,
+whether it were overmuch turkey or overmuch labor, he was too tired
+even to rise and witness the departure of the Indians after the
+board was cleared, for all he knew the musketeers would fire them a
+parting volley. 'Twas toilsome work, this merrymaking, he agreed with
+Priscilla, and, going weary and cross to bed, he was glad to awake to
+the Sabbath quiet of the little village, and, on the ensuing morning,
+drop once more into the ordered round of duties.
+
+There was naught to do in the following days but to make ready against
+the coming winter, by mending the cottages till every crevice was
+secure, and fetching good supply of firewood from the distant hills. A
+hint of wintry weather now was in the chill air and the lead-colored
+sky, so, one November afternoon, Miles spent hours in hunting for his
+mittens that had gone astray.
+
+Together he and Constance and Giles opened, in the search, the little
+chest that had been Goodman Rigdale's; it gave Miles a dull pang to
+turn over the clothes his father and mother had worn, but somehow all
+that sorrow seemed to have fallen very long ago. "Yet 'tis not a year
+since we sailed into the harbor," he said softly.
+
+"Just a year to-morrow since we sighted Cape Cod," answered Giles, and
+Constance changed Miles's thoughts by adding: "The other ship with our
+fresh supply should come now very speedily; in about a month I heard
+father say we might look for her. I hope there'll be cattle come in
+her; 'tis hard for the babies to have not a drop of milk."
+
+"And no butter," sighed Miles, thinking of himself. "And if they bring
+oxen, 'twill be easier ploughing, come spring; and there'll be more men
+to fight--"
+
+"There'll be two more next spring, in any case," Giles interrupted.
+"Captain Standish says that then Bart Allerton and I shall have muskets
+of our own and be enrolled in his company."
+
+In the days since the landing at Plymouth, Giles had grown a
+responsible youth, but Miles, who had been so much with him that he
+held himself near as old, was quite jealous at his last speech and
+wondered if no one would offer him a musket.
+
+He took himself forth from the chamber into the living room, where Ned
+Lister, who was cleaning his fowling piece and was in a good temper, as
+he usually was when he was busied over his weapons, let him meddle in
+the work till his fingers were blacked. "I'm going northward to-morrow
+morning, where Squanto tells me a flock of geese are astir," Ned spoke
+further. "If Master Hopkins is willing, I'll take you with me, Miley;
+'tis months since we've gone about any labor together."
+
+Disappointingly, Master Hopkins was not willing, for, when he came to
+his supper, he had to report an evil rumor, which one of Miles's old
+enemies, the Nauset Indians, had just brought to the town, that a great
+ship had been seen on their coast. It might be some English trader, or
+it might be a French ship of war, come to dispossess the colonists,
+just as the English had driven the French, at an earlier time, from
+their northern settlements.
+
+Still, even if 'twere a Frenchman, Ned argued, men must eat, and must
+kill their food ere they could eat it, so, at the last, his master said
+he might go fowling, and even, if he did not roam too far, take Miles
+with him.
+
+Early next morning the two hunters set out in lively spirits, in spite
+of the fact that the woods were sombre and the sky rough with clouds
+that looked, should they thrust a hand deep into them, as if they would
+strike something hard and cold. Already there had been bitter frosts,
+and the thick fallen leaves, on the northward trail, rustled crisply
+beneath the tread of the fowlers. Ned wore his red cap, which blazed
+out bravely under the dull trees, and his buff-jacket, too, which gave
+him the martial look he liked. Miles had no such warlike equipments,
+but Ned generously suffered him to carry the fowling piece, so he felt
+quite like a soldier. "I do but wish the French would come upon us
+now," he panted boastfully, as he shouldered the gun.
+
+"There's small danger you'll find a Frenchman, unless you cross the
+water to seek him," Ned answered. "I'll do it, so soon as my time's
+out. Go into Bohemia and fight--" There he turned off into discourse on
+the joys of a life where a man never fetched and carried, but handled
+a sword like a gentleman, which lasted them for a mile along the bare
+trail.
+
+By then they came from among the leafless trees of the level land to a
+thick piny growth at the base of a tall hill, that blocked off sight of
+the ocean. Ned was for climbing it out of hand, for, on the other side,
+by the shore, he thought to find the wild fowl, so up he scrambled,
+quite nimbly, since he had long legs and tramped unburdened, while
+Miles toiled after with the fowling piece. A mighty steep hill, where
+the pine needles lay slippery, so Miles stumbled and near fell, and,
+when he came at last to the little barren stretch of the summit, where
+the lowering sky seemed to bend down to him, he could only drop flat
+and lie panting.
+
+Ned cast himself down beside him, although he did not seem weary,
+and, half smiling at Miles's breathlessness, let his eyes at last
+turn seaward. Lying back, Miles, too, looked out upon the gray water,
+beneath the hill, that far away to eastward merged into the gray sky,
+and then a sudden exclamation made him glance at his companion.
+
+Ned was sitting erect with his hand shading his eyes, and the lines of
+his face were sharpened with a sudden tenseness. "What d'ye see?" Miles
+began carelessly, but the other, springing to his feet, spoke to him in
+a curt tone: "Jump you up, Miles. Look yonder, if you see aught in the
+offing."
+
+Ned's hands turned Miles's head eastward, but, though the boy yielded
+himself obediently and gazed whither he was told, he saw only dull
+water and brooding sky. Yet he was beginning to guess the meaning of it
+all, and, with the heart fluttering into his throat, he cried, "Ned,
+sure, you do not think--that French ship--"
+
+But Lister, wheeling about, had reached in two strides a tall pine
+tree that spired from the summit of the hill, and, grasping its lower
+branches, swung himself upward from bough to bough. His cap showed
+very red against the green of the pine needles, and Miles watched it
+go bobbing toward the tree top, with a mind so suddenly dulled that he
+could think of nothing else, till at last the young man, holding fast
+by one arm, swayed at the topmost point of the pine tree.
+
+A long minute Ned clung there, staring seaward with his face sober,
+then headlong slipped and scrambled from the tree. "It's a sail, true
+enough," he cried, and, as the words left his lips, came to the ground
+with a crashing fall that made the branches sway.
+
+Before Miles could reach his side, Ned sprang to his feet, stood a
+moment, took a single step, and then toppled over again across the
+roots of the pine, with his face working in a manner that frightened
+his companion. "Are you hurt? What is it, Ned?" he cried.
+
+"Naught but my ankle," groaned Lister, struggling to a sitting posture.
+"I've wrenched the cursed thing. Tut, tut, tut! Don't waste time here
+by me. Run to Plymouth. Tell them the ship's in sight."
+
+"The Frenchman?" gasped Miles.
+
+"How can I tell, when 'tis four league off shore?" snapped Ned. "'Tis
+a ship, and that's enough. Run along with you, briskly!" Then, spite
+of the pain, there came a sort of softening to his face. "You're not
+afeard to go back along the trail alone, Miley?"
+
+[Illustration: "The breath came gripingly in his throat."]
+
+"I've been in woods before now," cried the boy, indignantly. "But--but
+if I go, what will you do?"
+
+"Sit here and take tobacco," Ned answered, in his swaggering tone, and,
+with his hand a little unsteady, drew his pipe from his pocket. "Give
+me the fowling piece near to me, and now run your briskest, d'ye hear?
+Off with you, heavy-heels, unless you be afraid!"
+
+The taunt more than all else sent Miles plunging headlong down the
+hill. The needles slipped beneath his shoes, and his knees jarred with
+the steepness of the descent. Once he tripped, and, falling, rolled
+over and over, and rose up in fear lest he had hurt himself like Ned.
+But he could run well enough, he found, as he stumbled into the more
+level part of the trail. His briskest, and warn the Plymouth folk, Ned
+bade, and suddenly Miles's heart gave a great leap that he was to do
+so soldierly a part in the Captain's sight. He drew a big breath, and,
+bending his head, dashed down the trail.
+
+The dry twigs snapped beneath his feet; a frightened quail, with a
+startling whir, flew across his path; the branches, as he rushed by
+them, wavered and shook. Below him the ground reeled and the sky above
+was shot with black; the breath came gripingly in his throat, and a
+pain like that of a piercing iron bored into his side.
+
+Downhill, where the ground seemed not to be beneath him, and in the
+hollow splashed a brook. He felt the chill of the water over his ankle
+as he thrust his foot into it, and, stopping a moment, he plunged his
+head, that ached to bursting, into the icy ripples, then, gasping,
+staggered up the opposite slope.
+
+He was running heavily now, so it scarcely could be called running,
+swaying from side to side of the trail, but more than half, than three
+quarters, of the way was out. The trees dwindled about him; yonder were
+cleared fields; yonder the smoke rose from cottage chimneys. Now the
+stubble of corn was stiff beneath his feet; now he crashed through a
+little patch of brambles; and at last, thrusting his hands gropingly
+before him, he pitched up against the door of Captain Standish's
+cottage. "Open!" he called, but his voice came in a mere whisper.
+
+Within, they heard him, however. The door was flung open; he fell
+against Master Winslow; and yonder by the table he had sight of the
+Governor and the Elder and Master Hopkins and the Captain himself,
+starting up from the conference he had interrupted. Miles reeled
+forward a step or two and caught Standish's arm. "Captain Standish," he
+gasped, "the ship--the French--we saw it from the hill--the French are
+in the offing."
+
+Then his knees gave way and the room whirled round. A blackness was
+about him in which he heard faintly the questions and re-questions of
+the men, the clatter of the house-door, a calling in the street. Then
+thunderously, subduing all other sound, he heard the crash of the great
+gun upon the Fort Hill that called home from labor the men who should
+defend their settlement.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII
+
+THE CAPTAIN'S SOLDIER
+
+
+LYING upon his own bed, whither Master Hopkins had carried him, Miles
+harked to the rattle of eager drumsticks in the street, the hurried
+rush of footsteps, the shrill calls of boys. Nearer, in the living
+room, he could hear Mistress Hopkins's frightened tones, and the
+clatter of swords as Master Hopkins and Dotey armed themselves.
+
+Presently heavy footsteps came toward him, and Master Hopkins, with his
+buff-jacket half fastened, opened the door of the chamber to question
+him further of Ned. "He's hurt, and he made me to leave him," panted
+Miles. "And the Frenchmen will find him, and can you not send some one
+to help him, sir?"
+
+"Unless Edward Lister's neck is broke, I'll trust him to shift for
+himself till we have space to look to him," Master Hopkins answered
+with a grim sort of chuckle, and just there the house-door banged open
+and upon it Miles heard Giles's eager voice, "Father, may I not carry
+Ned's musket, since he is not here? Bart Allerton has one; the Captain
+himself said all who could fight should get under arms."
+
+Miles struggled up, with head still dizzy. "I can fight too," he
+murmured, but the older folk, without heeding him, tramped forth with
+their weapons and left him to Constance and her stepmother. But the
+women had terrified thoughts to keep them busy, so busy they took no
+note when presently Miles, quite recovered from his run, slipped off
+the bed and darted from the house.
+
+Out-of-doors the men were rallying in haste to the shore, among them
+John Alden, whom Miles hailed shrilly from the house-yard: "John Alden,
+O John! May I have your fowling piece to fight with?"
+
+"Ay, take it," Alden called, without looking round, and Miles,
+forgetting he was weary, scudded his fastest up the hill.
+
+He was to have a gun and fight, even if it was no more than a fowling
+piece, he told himself, and, in a happy flutter that set at naught the
+Frenchmen, he clambered on the table in the Captain's living room and
+dragged down the fowling piece from the wall. He longed to take also
+the rapier from the chimneypiece, but he had no right, so, contenting
+himself with the gun, he hurried forth to do his part.
+
+A gray day and a strange day; high noon, yet not dinner time, for the
+whole order of life was broken, and beyond lay--no one knew what. But
+Miles thought on the fighting, and, with his pulses leaping, clambered
+to the gun platform, where a squad was stationed, and, ready as the
+best of them, gazed out upon the ocean. There, sure enough, loomed
+larger and larger a speck of white.
+
+Captain Standish had gone down to the other men on the bluff by the
+landing, so presently Miles ran after him. He carried his fowling piece
+over his shoulder valiantly, and he stopped at the Elder's cottage to
+call to Dolly not to be afraid, and he wondered at Mistress Brewster's
+alarmed face.
+
+The men on the bluff, too, looked grave and anxious, and the Captain's
+voice was sharp and stern. But the boys who were allowed muskets,
+albeit their faces were decorously sober, looked very happy, and
+handled their weapons with such pride that Miles grew ashamed of his
+paltry fowling piece.
+
+"You might let _me_ have the musket a little time, Giles," he murmured
+to young Hopkins, who stood beside him on the northern slope of the
+bluff, where they were watching the horizon. "Surely, I could manage
+it, and 'tis Ned's, anyway, and he is my friend."
+
+Giles preserved an elderly, careworn silence, and puckered his brows
+upon the ominous east, when suddenly from behind them shrilled a
+whistle. Miles guessed who it was before he turned, so, though Giles
+and some of the others cried out in surprise, he thought it quite a
+matter of course when he saw Ned Lister coming across the fields to the
+bluff.
+
+Ned walked at a leisurely limp, with his fowling piece over his
+shoulder, and his cap on one side; it was not till he came nearer that
+Miles saw, too, that his clothes were muddied and stuck with briers and
+leaves, and his face was white to his lips, that were set in a hard
+line. "Well," he greeted his fellow-colonists civilly, "did you think I
+meant to sit there in the bushes till you chose to come seek me?"
+
+There he staggered a little, so Dotey caught hold of him, and just then
+Standish, striding through the thin ranks of his company, came up. "How
+did you get hither, Lister?" he asked, with whatever surprise may have
+been his well in check.
+
+"I walked," Ned answered, and then, as he saw the Captain's eyes upon
+his muddied jacket, he began to laugh oddly. "That is, sir, sometimes
+I rolled and otherwhiles I crawled. For I did not wish to be gulled of
+the fight. And--Giles Hopkins, you thief! give me my musket."
+
+"My father said I might--" Giles began, unruly for once, but there
+a sudden sound of cheering on the hilltop cut short the dispute. A
+man--Gilbert Winslow, they saw--came running break-neck down the steep
+street, and, so far as he could be heard, called to them, "English, an
+English ship!" and then those on the bluff, too, took up the cheering.
+
+It was the sailor Trevor, who, from the Fort Hill, had watched the ship
+grow larger till he vowed that he could make out that she was rigged
+in the English fashion. Still the Captain held his force together on
+the bluff till the stranger's nationality should be assured past doubt,
+and, meantime, he bade Dotey and Giles help Ned Lister to the house.
+"And see that he stays there," the Captain added dryly.
+
+So Ned, turned limp and unresisting of a sudden, staggered away between
+the two, and Miles, though he would fain have watched till the ship
+should loom up round the beach point, thought friendship required that
+he should follow after with the musket.
+
+When he returned to the landing place, many minutes later, there was
+no longer a doubt or a fear, for the flag of England fluttered from
+the vessel's mast. The ship _Fortune_, with the reenforcements for the
+colony, that was not expected for a month more, was casting anchor in
+Plymouth Harbor.
+
+That afternoon seemed all a hazy dream. With a feeling that he must be
+some one else, Miles watched the men make ready the shallop, saw it go
+dipping across the gray harbor, and lie to beside the great ship. He
+saw the first boatload of the newcomers pull in to the landing rock,
+and he gazed shyly and yet gladly at the faces of the men and women
+who were to be his townsfolk. Elder Brewster's grown up son came with
+them, and there were many other young men, and a few older, and several
+women, but there were very few children among them.
+
+At last, however, Miles and Jack found among the newcomers a boy but
+little older than themselves, so at once they made up to him and found
+that his name was Thomas Cushman. And because he had looked on ships
+and sea till he was weary of them, they led him away from the harbor,
+and showed him the spring and the Fort Hill, and laughed at him because
+he was so certain he should see an Indian at each turning, and Miles
+bragged to him mightily of his experiences among the savages of the
+Cape.
+
+It was near dusk when they came down again through the village, where
+the last boatload from the ship had just landed. The street seemed
+fairly thronged with folk, and out to sea a light sparkled on the
+quarter-deck of the _Fortune_, just as it used to shine upon the
+_Mayflower_.
+
+Feeling secure and happy, Miles bade his new friend Thomas good night,
+and walked home to his supper. "Bring firewood; we've many people to
+eat with us to-night," Constance called to him from the doorway, so
+he trudged on to the woodpile, where he picked out a good armful of
+the piny logs, to make a brave blaze for the friends who had come from
+England.
+
+His face, as he worked, was toward the west, where showed a smear of
+red, which the sun, struggling forth just ere his setting, had left
+behind. Miles gazed on the gay fleck, that yet was lonely in the wide
+sky, till a step near at hand startled him, and, turning, he faced
+Master Hopkins.
+
+"Lay aside that wood, Miles; I have to speak with you," his guardian
+greeted him; and Miles dropped the wood and wondered what he had done
+wrong. "Pray you, sir, John Alden told me I might take that fowling
+piece," he offered his excuses.
+
+"Am I always so severe that you look for naught but chiding from me,
+Miles?" Master Hopkins said sternly, yet with something half wistful in
+his tone. "I would but say to you that Captain Standish has long urged
+me to let you be one of his household, and I have as long withstood
+him. For all he is a brave gentleman, he is not of the faith in which
+your father lived. But he has urged me strongly this day, and you,
+too, Miles, you bore yourself fairly this morning; you have tried to
+bear yourself well these last weeks, I can see. 'Tis possible that you
+will not suffer Miles Standish to spoil you with lax discipline, and
+in matters of faith you cannot go very far astray in this colony. So I
+think it safe now to leave this matter to your own decision. You may
+stay in my house, or go unto the Captain."
+
+Miles breathed quickly and cracked a bit of bark between his fingers.
+"Am I to decide now, sir?" he asked.
+
+"Yes, now. There is a kinsman of Mistress Hopkins's come on the
+_Fortune_ who will take your place in my household if you go. But you
+need not go for that. As long as I have a house, there is a place for
+you therein, if you elect to stay."
+
+It seemed an easy thing to say, he knew what he desired, yet when
+Master Hopkins stood looking gravely down at him and waiting for his
+answer, Miles found it hard to give. "I--I-- You've been good to me,
+after all, sir," he faltered. "I'm sorry I've vexed you so many times.
+I--"
+
+"In short, you wish to go to the Captain," Master Hopkins interrupted.
+"Very well, Miles Rigdale. Be it as you wish."
+
+Then he walked away, and Miles, gathering up his armful of wood for the
+last time, wondered that, now he had his desire, he felt a half sorrow
+that it was granted him.
+
+But when he entered the house, different thoughts came to him. All was
+stir and bustle within, for Mistress Hopkins was cooking supper for the
+men with sea-appetites, who were to eat there that night, and suddenly
+Miles felt it quite a part of the day's upheaval that he should leave
+his old home. All afire with the pleasure of it, he went into the
+chamber, where he tied up his few clothes in his cloak.
+
+Ned Lister, who was stretched upon his bed, pulled himself up on his
+elbow to watch him. "So you're going to live with the Captain, Miley,"
+he repeated the boy's news. "Well, it's far better that you should;
+there'll be no one in his house to lead you into mischief." Ned's face
+grew serious and he was silent a moment, then broke out, "On my soul, I
+have liked you, lad, and I shall miss you."
+
+"I shall see you every day," Miles answered, setting himself down on
+the edge of the bed.
+
+"Hm!" Lister retorted. "Your Captain doesn't like me, Miles. Though he
+did trouble himself to see how I was faring, when he came to speak with
+Hopkins this afternoon; after all, he's a good fellow, though I've no
+liking for the punishments he gives. But that'll change now. There's a
+pack of jolly good fellows come in the _Fortune_, they say, will keep
+him busy. Plague of this ankle! I might 'a' gone out and made friends
+with them, and I'm sick to have speech again with an ungodly rascal
+like myself."
+
+Just there Constance pushed open the door and came in to bring Ned his
+supper, so Miles gathered up his bundle to go forth. But Constance
+had to kiss him good-bye, right before Ned, and tell him to come back
+often. "I will," Miles promised soberly. "You've been good to me,
+Constance, and--and if 'twill help you, I'll come tend Damaris--once in
+a while."
+
+"No, you shan't, dear, ever again," Constance said, laughing, and
+pushed him out of the room.
+
+He took the Bible that had been his father's from the chimneypiece,
+and, while Mistress Hopkins was busy talking to her kinsman, a grave
+young man who found no opportunity to answer her, thought to slip
+quietly out of the house. But Elizabeth Hopkins spied him. "Where
+are your manners, child, that you cannot say 'God be wi' you'?" she
+assailed him. "After what I've borne from your carelessness, Miles, and
+I'm sure your clothes never will be tidily mended now, and--"
+
+But there Miles got the door open and scampered away. Trug came leaping
+at his heels, and, fast as if Mistress Hopkins were likely to pursue
+him, he ran till he reached the Captain's very dooryard, and was quite
+breathless when he opened the door.
+
+Inside, the candles were lit, the meat was on the table, and the
+Captain and Alden and four of the newcomers were making their supper
+and talking heartily the while. At the noise of the opening door they
+all faced about, and Miles felt shy and abashed. "If it like you,
+Captain Standish," he stammered, "Master Hopkins said I could come, so
+I came."
+
+"And you are right welcome, Miles," Standish said quickly. "We looked
+for you to-night. Put down your bundle and come to the table. Let your
+dog come in, too."
+
+Miles slipped into a cranny on the form between Alden and a
+black-haired young man named De la Noye. It was a roast duck they
+had for supper, and the men fed Trug right at table, and they talked
+a deal, of Indians and of hunting and of planting, and then, as the
+Captain and Alden guided the conversation, of the Parliament and of the
+Spanish influence and the war in the Palatinate, till, spite of the
+excitement of the evening, Miles's head nodded, and at heart he was
+glad when at length, long after the sober bedtime hour of Plymouth, the
+men cleared the table hastily and went to their rest.
+
+The newcomers were bidden lie that night in the bedroom, since two of
+them still were weak with seasickness, but Alden and the Captain were
+to sleep in the living room, so Miles silently elected to stay with
+them, and he was glad when the chamber door closed behind the strangers.
+
+"So you've a mind to share the floor with us, Miles?" the Captain
+asked, as he threw off his doublet.
+
+"'Tis like a soldier to sleep where 'tis hard," Miles confessed shyly.
+
+Standish smiled a little. "We'll surely make a fighting man of you,
+Miles, or you'll make one of yourself. 'Twas a pretty race you ran
+alone this morning, your friend Lister told me."
+
+"Lister made a stout march of it, too," put in Alden, who had already
+rolled himself in his blanket and settled down on the floor.
+
+"There's more mettle in that rapscallion than I judged," Standish
+answered thoughtfully, and then: "Lie you down, Miles. Eh? No blanket?
+Here, take my cloak; 'tis ample enough for you."
+
+Indeed, it was, and very brave and martial, too. Miles curled himself
+up in it, and liked the manly hardness of the floor beneath his
+shoulders. He closed his eyes and half dozed, then, hearing Alden's
+voice, roused up a little.
+
+"Captain," the young man was speaking softly, "there's not an ounce of
+extra provisions in the _Fortune_."
+
+From the neighboring corner where Standish had stretched himself came a
+non-committal "Um."
+
+"And half these young fellows are equipped with nothing but the clothes
+they stand in; they gambled away their very cloaks, when the ship
+touched at Plymouth in Devonshire." There was silence in the living
+room for a time, before Alden resumed, "We had enough to do in the
+colony before, sir; now what shall we do with these?"
+
+"Why, some we'll set to ploughing and some we'll set to fight the
+Indians," said Standish. "And those that will neither plough nor fight,
+we'll pack home to England. We've no use for idlers here."
+
+Then again there was silence in the living room, and the embers in the
+fireplace gleamed red, and once, leaping into flame, set black shadows
+fluttering on the wall. "We've no use for idlers," Miles repeated to
+himself. "But I'll work as mother would wish me to, now I am in the
+Captain's house."
+
+He drew the Captain's cloak closer about him, and thought to amuse
+himself with pretending he was a true soldier, like the Captain,
+sleeping in his military cloak out under the stars, but the reality
+pleased him better than the fancy. He lay with his eyes wide open,
+smiling at the embers. "The Captain's house," he repeated. "And I shall
+stay here always."
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Transcriber's Notes:
+
+Obvious punctuation errors repaired. Author spells "rendezvous" as the
+archaic "randevous".
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Soldier Rigdale, by Beulah Marie Dix
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SOLDIER RIGDALE ***
+
+***** This file should be named 44165.txt or 44165.zip *****
+This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:
+        http://www.gutenberg.org/4/4/1/6/44165/
+
+Produced by sp1nd, Emmy, and the Online Distributed
+Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was
+produced from images generously made available by The
+Internet Archive)
+
+
+Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions
+will be renamed.
+
+Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no
+one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation
+(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without
+permission and without paying copyright royalties.  Special rules,
+set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to
+copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to
+protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark.  Project
+Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you
+charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission.  If you
+do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the
+rules is very easy.  You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose
+such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and
+research.  They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do
+practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks.  Redistribution is
+subject to the trademark license, especially commercial
+redistribution.
+
+
+
+*** START: FULL LICENSE ***
+
+THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE
+PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK
+
+To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free
+distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work
+(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project
+Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project
+Gutenberg-tm License available with this file or online at
+  www.gutenberg.org/license.
+
+
+Section 1.  General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic works
+
+1.A.  By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to
+and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property
+(trademark/copyright) agreement.  If you do not agree to abide by all
+the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy
+all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession.
+If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the
+terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or
+entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8.
+
+1.B.  "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark.  It may only be
+used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who
+agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement.  There are a few
+things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works
+even without complying with the full terms of this agreement.  See
+paragraph 1.C below.  There are a lot of things you can do with Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement
+and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works.  See paragraph 1.E below.
+
+1.C.  The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the Foundation"
+or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic works.  Nearly all the individual works in the
+collection are in the public domain in the United States.  If an
+individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you are
+located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from
+copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative
+works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg
+are removed.  Of course, we hope that you will support the Project
+Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic works by
+freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with the terms of
+this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with
+the work.  You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by
+keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project
+Gutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with others.
+
+1.D.  The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern
+what you can do with this work.  Copyright laws in most countries are in
+a constant state of change.  If you are outside the United States, check
+the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement
+before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or
+creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project
+Gutenberg-tm work.  The Foundation makes no representations concerning
+the copyright status of any work in any country outside the United
+States.
+
+1.E.  Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg:
+
+1.E.1.  The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate
+access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear prominently
+whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work on which the
+phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the phrase "Project
+Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed,
+copied or distributed:
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+1.E.2.  If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived
+from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is
+posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied
+and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees
+or charges.  If you are redistributing or providing access to a work
+with the phrase "Project Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the
+work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1
+through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the
+Project Gutenberg-tm trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or
+1.E.9.
+
+1.E.3.  If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted
+with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution
+must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional
+terms imposed by the copyright holder.  Additional terms will be linked
+to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works posted with the
+permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work.
+
+1.E.4.  Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this
+work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm.
+
+1.E.5.  Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this
+electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without
+prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with
+active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project
+Gutenberg-tm License.
+
+1.E.6.  You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary,
+compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any
+word processing or hypertext form.  However, if you provide access to or
+distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format other than
+"Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official version
+posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site (www.gutenberg.org),
+you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a
+copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon
+request, of the work in its original "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other
+form.  Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1.
+
+1.E.7.  Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying,
+performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works
+unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9.
+
+1.E.8.  You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing
+access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works provided
+that
+
+- You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from
+     the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method
+     you already use to calculate your applicable taxes.  The fee is
+     owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he
+     has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the
+     Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation.  Royalty payments
+     must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you
+     prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax
+     returns.  Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and
+     sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the
+     address specified in Section 4, "Information about donations to
+     the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation."
+
+- You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies
+     you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he
+     does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+     License.  You must require such a user to return or
+     destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium
+     and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of
+     Project Gutenberg-tm works.
+
+- You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any
+     money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the
+     electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days
+     of receipt of the work.
+
+- You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free
+     distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works.
+
+1.E.9.  If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set
+forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from
+both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael
+Hart, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark.  Contact the
+Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below.
+
+1.F.
+
+1.F.1.  Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable
+effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread
+public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg-tm
+collection.  Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain
+"Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or
+corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual
+property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a
+computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by
+your equipment.
+
+1.F.2.  LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right
+of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project
+Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project
+Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all
+liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal
+fees.  YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT
+LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE
+PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH 1.F.3.  YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE
+TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE
+LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR
+INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH
+DAMAGE.
+
+1.F.3.  LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a
+defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can
+receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a
+written explanation to the person you received the work from.  If you
+received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with
+your written explanation.  The person or entity that provided you with
+the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a
+refund.  If you received the work electronically, the person or entity
+providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to
+receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund.  If the second copy
+is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further
+opportunities to fix the problem.
+
+1.F.4.  Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth
+in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS', WITH NO OTHER
+WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO
+WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE.
+
+1.F.5.  Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied
+warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages.
+If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the
+law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be
+interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by
+the applicable state law.  The invalidity or unenforceability of any
+provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions.
+
+1.F.6.  INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the
+trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone
+providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in accordance
+with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production,
+promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works,
+harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees,
+that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do
+or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg-tm
+work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any
+Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any Defect you cause.
+
+
+Section  2.  Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of
+electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers
+including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers.  It exists
+because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from
+people in all walks of life.
+
+Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the
+assistance they need are critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's
+goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will
+remain freely available for generations to come.  In 2001, the Project
+Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure
+and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future generations.
+To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation
+and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4
+and the Foundation information page at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Section 3.  Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive
+Foundation
+
+The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit
+501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the
+state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal
+Revenue Service.  The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification
+number is 64-6221541.  Contributions to the Project Gutenberg
+Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent
+permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state's laws.
+
+The Foundation's principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S.
+Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered
+throughout numerous locations.  Its business office is located at 809
+North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887.  Email
+contact links and up to date contact information can be found at the
+Foundation's web site and official page at www.gutenberg.org/contact
+
+For additional contact information:
+     Dr. Gregory B. Newby
+     Chief Executive and Director
+     gbnewby@pglaf.org
+
+Section 4.  Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg
+Literary Archive Foundation
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide
+spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of
+increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be
+freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest
+array of equipment including outdated equipment.  Many small donations
+($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt
+status with the IRS.
+
+The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating
+charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United
+States.  Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a
+considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up
+with these requirements.  We do not solicit donations in locations
+where we have not received written confirmation of compliance.  To
+SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any
+particular state visit www.gutenberg.org/donate
+
+While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we
+have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition
+against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who
+approach us with offers to donate.
+
+International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make
+any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from
+outside the United States.  U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff.
+
+Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation
+methods and addresses.  Donations are accepted in a number of other
+ways including checks, online payments and credit card donations.
+To donate, please visit:  www.gutenberg.org/donate
+
+
+Section 5.  General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works.
+
+Professor Michael S. Hart was the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm
+concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared
+with anyone.  For forty years, he produced and distributed Project
+Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support.
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed
+editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S.
+unless a copyright notice is included.  Thus, we do not necessarily
+keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition.
+
+Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility:
+
+     www.gutenberg.org
+
+This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm,
+including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary
+Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to
+subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks.
diff --git a/old/44165.zip b/old/44165.zip
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..3dc42ff
--- /dev/null
+++ b/old/44165.zip