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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..d7b82bc --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,4 @@ +*.txt text eol=lf +*.htm text eol=lf +*.html text eol=lf +*.md text eol=lf diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6312041 --- /dev/null +++ b/LICENSE.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11 @@ +This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements, +metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be +in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES. + +Procedures for determining public domain status are described in +the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org. + +No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in +jurisdictions other than the United States. Anyone seeking to utilize +this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright +status under the laws that apply to them. diff --git a/README.md b/README.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..c4030ec --- /dev/null +++ b/README.md @@ -0,0 +1,2 @@ +Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for +eBook #67608 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/67608) diff --git a/old/67608-0.txt b/old/67608-0.txt deleted file mode 100644 index bd2f015..0000000 --- a/old/67608-0.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,12568 +0,0 @@ -The Project Gutenberg eBook of Betty Alden, by Jane G. Austin - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and -most other parts of the world 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. If you are not located in the United States, you -will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before -using this eBook. - -Title: Betty Alden - The first-born daughter of the Pilgrims - -Author: Jane G. Austin - -Release Date: March 12, 2022 [eBook #67608] - -Language: English - -Produced by: Steve Mattern, Martin Pettit and the Online Distributed - Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was - produced from images generously made available by The - Internet Archive) - -*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BETTY ALDEN *** - - -By Jane G. Austin - - STANDISH OF STANDISH. A Novel. 16mo, $1.25. - - BETTY ALDEN. A Novel. 16mo, $1.25. - - A NAMELESS NOBLEMAN. A Novel. 16mo, $1.25; paper, 50 cents. - - DR. LE BARON AND HIS DAUGHTERS. A Novel. 16mo, $1.25. - - THE DESMOND HUNDRED. A Novel. 16mo, $1.00; paper, 50 cents. - - NANTUCKET SCRAPS. Being the Experiences of an Off-Islander In - Season and Out of Season. 16mo, $1.50. - - -HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN & COMPANY, -BOSTON AND NEW YORK. - - - - -BETTY ALDEN - -THE FIRST-BORN DAUGHTER OF -THE PILGRIMS - -BY - -JANE G. AUSTIN - -AUTHOR OF “STANDISH OF STANDISH,” “A NAMELESS NOBLEMAN,” “DR. -LE BARON AND HIS DAUGHTERS,” “THE DESMOND HUNDRED,” -“NANTUCKET SCRAPS,” ETC. - -[Illustration: Logo] - -BOSTON AND NEW YORK -HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY -The Riverside Press, Cambridge -1891 - - - - -Copyright, 1891, -BY JANE G. AUSTIN - -_All rights reserved._ - -_The Riverside Press, Cambridge, Mass., U. S. A._ -Electrotyped and Printed by H. O. Houghton & Co. - - - - -TO - -MY DEAR COUSINS - -MARSTON AND MARY WATSON - -AND THEIR - -HILLSIDE - -WHERE BETTY ALDEN HAS BEEN SO PLEASANTLY CRADLED - -DURING THE PAST YEAR - -This Story of her Life and Times - -IS AFFECTIONATELY - -DEDICATED - -PLYMOUTH -_Michaelmas, 1891_ - - - - -PREFACE. - - -Everybody has sympathized with Mr. Dick who could not keep King -Charles’s head out of his memorial, and I hope everybody will -sympathize with me who have been unable to keep Betty Alden in this her -memorial so constantly as I wished and she deserved. But as the whole -includes the less, her story will be found threaded through that of her -people and her times in that modest subordination to which the lives -of her sex were trained in that day. He who would read for himself the -story of this noble woman, the first-born daughter of the Pilgrims, -must seek it through ancient volumes and mouldering records, until at -Little Compton in Rhode Island he finds upon her gravestone the last -affectionate and honorable mention of Elizabeth, daughter of John and -Priscilla Alden, and wife of William Pabodie. Or in lighter mood, he -may consider the rugged rhyme tradition places in her mouth upon the -occasion of the birth of her great great grandchild:-- - - - “Rise daughter! To thy daughter run! - Thy daughter’s daughter hath a son.” - - -One word upon a subject which has of late been a good deal discussed, -but by no means settled, and that is, the burial place of Myles -Standish. In the absence of all proof in any such matter, tradition -becomes important, and so far as I have been able to determine, the -tradition that some of the earliest settlers were buried in the -vicinity of a temporary meeting-house upon Harden Hill in Duxbury is -more reliable than the tradition that Standish was laid in an old -burying ground at Hall’s Corner which probably was not set aside as a -burial place in 1656, the date of his death. - -It is matter of surprise and regret to most persons that the Pilgrims -took so little pains to perpetuate the memory of their graves, and -their doing so would have been a wonderful aid to those who would read -the palimpsest of the past. But a little recollection diminishes the -wonder, if not the regret. Practically, the Pilgrims had neither the -money wherewith to import gravestones, nor the skill to fashion and -sculpture them; ethically, their lives were fashioned after an ideal, -and that ideal was Protestantism in its most primitive intention, a -protest against Rome, her creeds and her usages; prayers for the dead -were to them a horrible superstition; Purgatory a mere invention of -the powers of hell; an appeal to saints, angels, or the spirits of the -departed was a direct insult to the Divine Supremacy. The instant the -soul left the body Protestantism decreed that it was not only useless -but profane to follow it with prayers (much less masses), or with any -other remembrance which might be construed as intruding upon “the -counsels of the Almighty,” so that while private grief was sternly -rebuked as rebellion against the chastisements of a just and offended -God, every form of funeral service, domestic or congregational, was set -aside as superstitious and dangerous. - -The only exceptions to this rule were the volleys of musketry fired -over the graves of certain of the leaders, as Carver, Standish, -Bradford, and a few others, but these stern military honors were -unaccompanied by even the prayer of a chaplain. - -It was perhaps not altogether from fear of the Indians that the fifty -of the Mayflower Pilgrims who were left alive that first spring -smoothed the graves of the fifty who were gone, and planted them to -corn; possibly they also feared their own hearts, sorely tempted by -nature to cherish and adorn those barren graves where so much love and -hope lay buried; and any step in that direction was a step backward -from that “city” they had crossed the seas to seek in the wilderness. - -It is I think certain that not one of the original Pilgrim graves was -marked by any sort of monument. The few we now delight to honor were -identified by those of their children to whom the third generation -erected tablets. A few persons, of loving and unbigoted hearts, begged -to be buried beside their departed friends, and Standish in his last -will allowed a sunset gleam of his tender nature to shine out when -he asked to be laid as near as conveniently might be to his two -dear daughters; but neither he nor any of the others who made this -testamentary petition mentioned where the graves were, beside which -they fain would lie, nor in any one instance have they been positively -identified. That of Elder Brewster, concerning whose burial we have -many particulars, is altogether unknown, except that it seems to have -been made upon Burying Hill. Perhaps that of Standish is there also, -for when he says,--“If I die at Duxburrow I should like,” etc., he may -mean that if he dies in Duxbury he would fain be carried to Plymouth, -there to lie beside his daughters and very likely his two little sons -as well. - -But to me it seems a small matter, this question of the grave of -Standish. He lived to be old and very infirm, and neither his old age, -his infirmities, nor his final surrender to death are any part of his -memory. For me, he stands forever as he stood in his glorious prime -among the people he so unselfishly championed, a tower of strength, -courage, and endurance, the shining survival of chivalry, the gallant -paladin whose coat-armor gleams amid the throng of russet jerkins -and mantles of hodden gray, like the dash of color with which Turner -accents his wastes of sombre water and sky. So let him stand, so let -us look upon him, and honor him and glory in him, nor seek to draw -the veil with which Time mercifully hides the only defeat our hero -ever knew, that last fatal battle when age, and “dolorous pain,” and -fell disease, conquered the invincible, and restored to earth all that -was mortal of a magnificent immortality. We cannot erect a monument -over that forgotten grave, but in some coming day let us hope that -the descendants of the soldier Pilgrim will possess themselves of the -little peninsula where the site of his home may still be traced, and -there place some memorial stone to tell that on this fairest spot of -fair Duxbury’s shore lived and died the man who gave Duxbury her name, -and bequeathed to us an inheritance far richer than that which was -“surreptitiously detained” from him. - -BOSTON, _October, 1891_. - - - - -CONTENTS. - -CHAPTER PAGE - I. A WHISPER IN THE EAR 1 - - II. A SHARP PAIR OF SCISSORS 10 - - III. TREASON 17 - - IV. THOU ART THE MAN! 24 - - V. HOW MISTRESS ALICE BRADFORD INTRODUCED - HER SISTER PRISCILLA CARPENTER TO PLYMOUTH - SOCIETY 39 - - VI. A VIPER SCOTCHED, NOT KILLED 56 - - VII. MORTON OF MERRY MOUNT 68 - - VIII. STANDISH AT MERRY MOUNT 74 - - IX. THE KYLOE COW 93 - - X. THE UNEXPECTED 102 - - XI. GOVERNOR BRADFORD PAYS A VISIT 111 - - XII. SIR CHRISTOPHER GARDINER 121 - - XIII. ONE! TWO! THREE! FIRE! 129 - - XIV. SIR CHRISTOPHER ENJOYS THE CHASE 137 - - XV. AND DESCRIBES IT 145 - - XVI. A MILLSTONE FOR SIR CHRISTOPHER 159 - - XVII. “TWO IS COMPANY, THREE IS TRUMPERY” 171 - - XVIII. THE LITTLE BOOK 182 - - XIX. A MUCH-MARRIED MAN 189 - - XX. BETTY’S JOURNEY AND THE GARRETT WRECK 196 - - XXI. “AH, BROTHER OLDHAME, IS IT THOU!” 208 - - XXII. THE MOONLIGHT AND THE DAWN 223 - - XXIII. “LOREA STANDISH IS MY NAME” 233 - - XXIV. AVERY’S FALL AND THACHER’S WOE 240 - - XXV. JEPHTHAH’S DAUGHTER 251 - - XXVI. GILLIAN 265 - - XXVII. DONNA MARIA DE LOS DOLORES 275 - -XXVIII. A SALT-FISH DINNER 286 - - XXIX. TOO LATE! TOO LATE! 295 - - XXX. PEEPING TOM AND HIS BROTHER 304 - - XXXI. JENNEY’S MILL BY MOONLIGHT 315 - - XXXII. ROBED IN WHITE SAMITE 326 - -XXXIII. A BOLD BUCCANEER 341 - - XXXIV. THE HILT OF A RAPIER 356 - - XXXV. CANARY WINE AND SEED-CAKE 363 - - XXXVI. BETTY BEARDS THE LION 372 - -XXXVII. “MARY STANDISH, MY DEAR DAUGHTER-IN-LAW” 379 - - - - -BETTY ALDEN. - - - - -CHAPTER I. - -A WHISPER IN THE EAR. - - -“Tell him yourself, Pris.” - -“No, no, Bab, I know too much for that! These men love not to be taught -by a woman, although, if all were known, full many a whisper in the -bedchamber comes out next day at the council board, and one grave -master says to another, ‘Now look you, tell it not to the women lest -they blab it!’ never mistrusting in his owl-head that a woman set the -whole matter afloat.” - -“Oh, Pris, you do love to jibe at the men. How did you ever persuade -yourself to marry one of them?” - -“Why, so that one of them might be guided into some sort of discretion. -Doesn’t John Alden show as a bright example to his fellows?” - -“And all through his wife’s training, eh, Pris?” - -“Why, surely. Didst doubt such a patent fact, Mistress Standish?” - -“But now, Pris, in sober sadness tell me what has given you such dark -suspicions of these new-comers, and how do you venture to whisper -‘treason’ and ‘traitor’ about a man who has been anointed God’s -messenger, even though it has been in the papistical Church of -England?” - -“If the English bishops are such servants of antichrist as the governor -and the Elder make them out, I should conceive that their anointing -would be rather against a man’s character than a warrant for it.” -And Priscilla Alden laughed saucily into the thoughtful face of her -friend and neighbor, Barbara Standish, who, knitting busily at a little -lamb’s-wool stocking, shook her head as she replied,-- - -“Mr. Lyford is not a man to my taste, and I care not to hear him -preach, but yet, we are told in Holy Writ not to speak evil of -dignitaries, nor to rail against those set over us”-- - -“Then surely it is contrary to Holy Writ for this Master Lyford to -speak evil of the governor and to rail against the captain, as he doth -continually”-- - -“Who rails against the captain, Mistress Alden?” demanded a cheerful -voice, as Myles Standish entered at the open door of his house, and, -removing the broad-leafed hat picturesquely pulled over his brow, -revealed temples worn bare of the rust-colored locks still clustering -thickly upon the rest of his head, and matching in color the close, -pointed beard and the heavy brows, beneath which the resolute and -piercing eyes his enemies learned to dread in early days now shone with -a genial smile. - -“Who has been abusing the captain?” repeated he, as the women laughed -in some confusion, looking at each other for an answer. Priscilla was -the first to find it, and glancing frankly into the face of the man she -might once have loved replied,-- - -“Why, ’tis I that am trying to stir Barbara into showing you what a -nest of adders we are nourishing here in Plymouth, and moving you and -the governor to set your heels upon them before it be too late.” - -As she spoke, the merry gleam died out of the captain’s eyes, and -grasping his beard in the left hand, as was his wont in perplexity, he -said gravely,-- - -“These are large matters for a woman’s handling, Priscilla, and it may -chance that Barbara’s silence is the better part of your valor. But -still,--what do you mean?” - -“I mean that Master Oldhame and Master Lyford as the head, and their -followers and creatures as the tail, are maturing into a very pretty -monster here in our midst, which if let alone will some fine morning -swallow the colony for its breakfast, and if only it would be content -with the men I would say grace for it, but, unfortunately, the women -and children are the tender bits, and will serve as a relish to the -coarser meat.” - -“Come, now, Priscilla, a truce to your quips and jibes, and tell me -what there is to tell. I cry you pardon for noting your forwardness in -what concerned you not”-- - -“Nay, Myles, you’ve said it now,” interposed Barbara, with a little -laugh, while Priscilla, gathering her work in her apron, and looking -very pretty with her flaming cheeks and sparkling eyes, jumped up -saying,-- - -“At all events, John Alden’s dinner concerns both him and me, and I -will go and make it ready; a nod is as good as a wink to a blind horse, -and a penny pipe as well as a trumpet to warn a deaf man that the enemy -is upon him. Put your nose in the air, Captain Standish, and march -stoutly on into the pitfall dug for your feet.” - -“Come, come, Mistress Alden! These are no words for a gentlewoman,” -began the captain angrily, but on the threshold Priscilla turned, a -saucy laugh flashing through the anger of her face, and reminding the -captain in his own despite of a sudden sunbeam glinting across dark -Manomet in the midst of a thunder-storm. - -“Here’s the governor coming up the hill, Myles,” whispered she, “and -you may finish the rest of your scolding to him. I’m frighted as much -as is safe for me a’ready.” - -And light as a bird she ran down the hill just as Bradford reached -the door and, glancing in, said in his sonorous and benevolent voice, -“Good-morrow to you, Mistress Standish. I am sorry to have frighted -away your merry gossip, but I am seeking the goodman-- Ah, there you -are, Captain! I would have a word with you at your leisure.” - -“Shall I run after Priscilla, Myles?” asked Barbara, cordially -returning the governor’s greeting. - -“Nay, wife, we two will walk up to the Fort,” replied Standish, and -replacing his hat, he led the way up the hill to the Fort, where he -ushered his friend into a little room contrived in the southeastern -angle for his private use: his office, his study, his den, or his -growlery by turns, for here was his little stock of books, his -writing-table and official records; here his pipes and tobacco; a stand -of private arms crowned by Gideon; the colony’s telescope fashioned -by Galileo; and here a deep leathern chair with a bench nigh at -hand, where through many a silent hour the captain sat, and amid the -smoke-wreaths of his pipe mused upon things that had been, things that -might have been, and things that never could be, never could have been. - -“Have a stool by the porthole, Will; ’tis something warm for -September,” said he, as he closed the door. - -“Ay, but you always have a good air at this east window, and a fair -view as well,” returned the governor, seating himself. - -“The view of the Charity is but a fleeting one, since she sails in the -morning,” remarked Standish dryly. - -“Yes, she does,” assented Bradford, with an air of embarrassment not -lost upon the captain, who smiled ever so little, and lighted his pipe, -saying between the puffs,-- - -“’Tis safe enough to smoke in this den of mine, Will, and your tobacco -is a wonderful counselor.” - -“Say you so, Myles? Then pass over your pouch, for I am in sore need of -counsel and sought it of you.” - -“Such as I have is at your command, Governor. What is the matter?” - -“Well, ’tis hard to put it in any dignified or magisterial phrase, -Myles, since, truth to tell, it comes of the distaff side of the -house”-- - -“Ay, ay, I can believe it! Has Priscilla Alden been whispering with -your wife?” - -“Nay, not that I know of; in truth, ’tis somewhat idler than even that -foundation, for Mistress Alden is one of our own, but this--well, -to tell the story in manful sincerity, my wife informs me that Dame -Lyford, who is as you know in childbed, and much beholden for care and -comfort to both your wife and mine, as well as to Priscilla Alden, last -night fell a-crying, and said she was a miserable wretch to receive -nourishment and tendance at their hands when her husband was practicing -with Oldhame and others for our destruction. In the beginning, Alice -set this all down as the querulous maundering of a sick woman; but -when the other persisted, and spoke of treasonable letters that her -husband had writ, and read out to Oldhame in her very presence, Dame -Bradford began to pay some heed, and ask questions, until by the time -the woman’s strength was overborne and she could say no more, the -skeleton of a plot lay bare, which should it be clothed upon with -sinew, and flesh, and armor, and weapons, might slay us all both as a -colony and as particular men.” - -“A dragon, Priscilla called it,” interposed the captain. - -“Priscilla! Did Mistress Lyford say as much to her as to my wife?” -asked the governor, a little piqued. - -“Nay, I know not, for I was, according to my wont, too outspoken to -listen as I should.” - -“Well, but explain, I beg of you.” - -“All is, that Priscilla began some sort of warning anent this very -matter, and I angered her with some jibe at women meddling in matters -too mighty for them, so that I know not what she might have had to -tell.” - -The Governor of Plymouth smiled in a subtle fashion peculiar to men -whose vision extends beyond their own time. “Women,” said he slowly, -as he pressed the tobacco into his pipe,--“women, Myles, are like the -bit of lighted tinder I will lay upon this inert mass of dried weed. -The tinder is so trivial, so slight a thing, so difficult to handle, -so easily destroyed,--and yet, brother man, how without it should we -derive the solace and counsel of our pipes?” - -Glancing at each other, the soldier and the statesman laughed somewhat -shamefacedly, and Myles said,-- - -“Ay, ’tis the pith of Æsop’s fable of the Lion and the Mouse.” - -“Well, yes, although that is a thought too arrogant, perhaps; and yet -Master Lion is ofttimes a stupid fellow, though he is styled king of -beasts.” - -“And what is the net just now, my Lord Lion?” demanded Standish, who -could not quite relish Bradford’s philosophy. The governor roused -himself at the question, and laying aside his meditative mood replied,-- - -“We both know, Captain, that all who are with us are not of us, and we -have not forgot what false reports those disaffected fellows carried -home in the Anne, nor the mutterings and plottings we have heard and -suspected since.” - -“Shorten John Oldhame by the head and you will kill the whole mutiny.” - -“That sounds very simple, but is hardly a feasible course, Captain, -especially as we have no proof in the matter, and it is upon this very -question of proof that I came to consult you.” - -“And I just shut off the only source of proof I am like to get.” - -“Nay, it is not likely that Mistress Alden knows more than my wife -has already repeated to me of what Dame Lyford can reveal, but our -good friend Master Pierce came to my house to-day about some matters -I am sending to my wife’s sister, Mary Carpenter, and all by chance -mentioned that he had in trust a parcel of letters writ by Lyford, with -one or two by Oldhame, and that both men had charged him to secrecy in -the business. Now, Standish, those letters contain the moral of the -whole matter.” - -“To be sure; it is like drawing a double tooth to see them sail out of -the harbor.” - -“Captain, it is my duty as the chief officer of this colony to learn -the contents of these missives.” - -“Yes, but how? The traitors will not betray themselves.” - -“I must privately open and read their letters,--it is my duty.” - -“No, no, Will; no, no! I can’t give in to that; I can’t help you there, -man! To open and read another man’s letter, and on the sly, is all one -with hearkening at a keyhole, or telling a lie, or turning your back on -an enemy without a blow. You can’t do that, Will, let the cause be what -it may.” - -And as the captain’s astonished gaze fixed itself upon his friend’s -face, Bradford colored deeply, yet made reply in a voice both resolute -and self-respecting,-- - -“I feel as you do, Standish, and as any honorable man must; but -this is a matter involving more than mine own honor or pleasure. If -these men are persuading our associates in England to withdraw from -their agreement, and refuse to send us further supplies, or to find -a market for our commodities, and so help out our own struggles for -subsistence, we and all these weaklings dependent upon us are lost. -You know yourself how hardly we came through the famine of last year, -and although by the mercy of God we now may hope to provide our own -food, what can we do for clothes, for tools, for even the means of -communication with our old home, if the Adventurers throw us over, or -if they demand immediate repayment of the moneys advanced? In every -way, and for all sakes, it is imperative that we prevent an evil and -false report going home to those upon whose help we still must rely for -the planting of our colony.” - -“To be sure it is the usage of war to intercept the enemy’s -dispatches,” mused Standish, tugging at his russet beard and scowling -heavily. - -“To be sure it is,” returned Bradford eagerly. “And although these men -are not avowed enemies, we can see that they are not friends. Do but -mark how thick they are with Billington, and Hicks, and all the other -malcontents. Oldhame’s house is a regular Cave of Adullam.” - -“Well, Will, tell me what I am to do or to say in the matter. You know -that I am ready for any duty, however odious.” - -“I fain would have you go aboard the Charity with me to inspect her -carriages.” - -“Is there any chance of a fight?” - -“No, no. I shall not go aboard until the last moment, when all but -Winslow have left.” - -“Winslow’s errand home is to see the Adventurers?” - -“As the colony’s agent, yes.” - -“And he knows your intent?” - -“Not yet. I have spoken of it to no man until I had your mind upon it, -Standish. To-night I shall summon the Assistants to my house, and lay -the matter before them, but I felt moved to speak of it first to you in -private.” - -“Lest I should blaze out before them all, where you could not argue the -matter coolly with me, eh?” - -Bradford smiled as he knocked the ashes out of his pipe and rose to go. - -“I could not do with your disapproval, old friend,” said he. - - - - -CHAPTER II - -A SHARP PAIR OF SCISSORS. - - -Two men stood upon Cole’s Hill, half sheltering themselves behind the -ragged growth of scrub oaks and poplars sprung from those graves of the -first winter, sown by the survivors to wheat lest the savages should -perceive that half the company were dead. That pathetic crop of grain -had perished on the ground and never been renewed; but Nature, tender -mother, soon replaced it with a robe of her own symbolism, green as her -favorite clothing ever is, and embroidered with the starry flowers of -the succory, blue as heaven. - -From the grave of John Carver and Katharine his wife had sprung a -graceful clump of birches, and it was behind these that the two men -finally took up their post of observation. One of them was John Lyford, -a smooth and white faced man, whose semi-clerical garb only accented -his cunning eyes and sensual mouth. A double renegade this, for, flying -to the New World to escape the punishment of his sins in England, -he proffered himself to the Pilgrims as a convert to their creed, -renouncing with oaths and tears his Episcopal ordination, although -assured by those liberal-minded men that such recantation was not -required or desired; then, having joined the Church of the Separation -entirely of his own free will, he turned viperwise upon the hand that -fed him, and began plotting against the peace, nay the very life, of -his generous hosts, and leading away those weak and disaffected souls -to be found in every community. - -John Oldhame, his companion, was a very different sort of person. Big, -loud-voiced, and dogmatic, he was the sailor who would see the ship -driven to destruction on the rocks unless he could be captain and give -orders to every one else. - -The motives of these two conspirators were as diverse as their -antecedents, although both came out under the auspices of the London -Adventurers, of whom a word must be said. These gentlemen, knowing -a good deal less of New England than we do of the sources of the -Nile, had _adventured_ certain moneys in fitting out the Pilgrims, -and in sustaining them until they should be able to repay the sums -thus advanced “with interest thereto.” When the Mayflower made her -first return, leaving fifty of the Pilgrims in their graves and the -other fifty just struggling back to life and feebly beginning their -plantation and house building, the Adventurers were exceedingly wroth -that she did not come freighted with lumber, furs, and especially -salted fish enough to nearly pay for her voyage. Their bitter -reproaches written to Carver were answered with manly dignity by -Bradford, but a really cordial feeling was never reëstablished, and -when the Pilgrims requested that either Robinson or some other minister -should be sent out to them, the Adventurers imposed Lyford upon them, -some of them giving him secret instructions to act as a spy in their -behalf. - -John Oldhame, a man of means and position, came out upon a different -footing, paying his own expenses, and being, as the Pilgrims phrased -it, “on his own particular” instead of “on the general” or joint stock -account. But events soon made it plain that a very good understanding -existed between Oldhame and the Adventurers, and that if he should be -enabled to detect his hosts in defrauding the Adventurers, whose greedy -maws never were fully satisfied, they would transfer their protection -and countenance to him, sustaining him as a rival or even supplanter of -the interests of the men they had undertaken to befriend. - -The Pilgrims had the faults of their virtues in very marked degree, -and carried patience, meekness, long-suffering, and credulity to a -point most irritating to their historians and very subversive of their -worldly interests. Doubtless, however, they found their account in the -final reckoning, and one must try to be patient with their goodness. -All which means that if this growing treason in their midst was at all -suspected it was not noticed, and both Oldhame and Lyford were admitted -to the full privileges of townsmen, including a seat at the Council -and full knowledge of the colony’s concerns. Lyford, in virtue of the -ordination, so scornfully abjured by himself, was requested to act as -minister in association with Elder Brewster, although some quiet doubts -still prevented his admission to the position of pastor. - -With this necessary explanation of the position of affairs we return to -the hiding-place behind the birches, whence the conspirators watched -a boat manned by four sailors which lay uneasily tossing on the flood -tide, rubbing its nose against the Rock, while, in the offing, a ship -ready for sea lay awaiting it. - -“Bradford is certainly going aboard the Charity. They’re waiting for -him, and there he comes down The Street,” growled Oldhame at length. - -“Perhaps only to see Winslow off. He, he! the Adventurers will show -Master Envoy Winslow but a sour face when they’ve read our letters,” -sniggered Lyford. - -“I wish he might be clapt up in jail for the rest of his life, confound -him!” - -“There’s Standish along of Bradford! Think he’s going aboard, too?” And -Lyford’s face showed such craven terror that Oldhame laughed aloud. - -“Afraid of Captain Shrimp, as Tom Morton calls him?” demanded he. “I’ve -put a spoke in _his_ wheel, at any rate. You writ down what I advised -about another commander, didn’t you?” - -“Ay. To send him over at all odds, and to arrest this fellow for high -treason.” - -“Ah! He’s not going aboard after all,” ejaculated Oldhame venomously. -“Feels he must stay ashore and watch you and me and Hicks and -Billington and some of the rest. Set him up for a sneaking, prying -little watch-dog! But let him undertake to order me about as he did -t’other day, and I’ll cram his square teeth down his bull’s throat for -him, damn him!” - -“He, he, he! There’s no love lost between you and Captain Standish, is -there, Master Oldhame? There, they’re off,--Winslow and Bradford only; -and Captain Shrimp returns up the hill with the rest. I sore mistrust -me the governor has got scent of those letters, Oldhame.” - -“Pho, pho, man! Don’t be so timorous. Pierce won’t give up the letters, -and if he did, Bradford would think twice before opening them. Let him -dare put a finger to one of mine, and I’ll bring the whole house about -his ears! I’d like to catch him at it. I’d--why, I’d give him a taste -of my fists,--one for himself, and one to pass on to his neighbor, and -after that”-- - -“M-o-o-o!” broke in a voice close behind, and, with a start, the -conspirators faced round to meet “the great red cow,” recently arrived -in the Charity, and, with her, the comely but scoffing face of -Priscilla Alden. - -“I cry your pardon, gentlemen, if I have disturbed a secret conclave, -but as my babes have a share of this cow’s milk, I like her not to feed -among the graves. All sorts of unclean creatures lurk here, and I fear -lest the poor beast find contamination.” - -“A saucy wench, and one that would well grace the ducking-stool,” -growled Oldhame as Priscilla drove her cow away; while Lyford, -remembering that she had that morning brought his wife a delicate -breakfast, laughed uneasily and made no reply. - -The governor’s boat meanwhile, merrily driven by the “white-ash breeze” -of four stalwart oars, had reached the ship’s side, signaling, as she -passed, the colony’s pinnace, which, under easy sail, lay off and on -the anchorage of the Charity. - -“Good-morrow, Governor. You are welcome aboard, Master Winslow,” cried -the hearty voice of William Pierce, master of the Charity, and friend -of the Pilgrims, as the passengers came aboard; and then, as if their -errand were one needing no explanation, he led the way at once to his -own cabin, fastened the door, and from a small locker at the foot of -the bed-place took a packet of letters enveloped in oilskin. Laying -these upon the little table and still resting his hand upon them, the -honest mariner looked steadily in the faces of his visitors. - -“Master Bradford, you are the governor of this colony and its chief -authority. Do you, in the presence of Master Edward Winslow, your agent -to the home government and one of your principal assistants, demand the -surrender of these letters confided to my care by persons under your -government?” - -“I do, Master Pierce,” replied Bradford distinctly, “and I call Edward -Winslow to witness that the responsibility is mine and that of my Board -of Assistants, and that you are guiltless in the matter. Nevertheless, -I will not pretend that Master Oldhame and his party are directly -under my government, since they came to Plymouth on their own account, -and are not ranked as of the general company, but rather on their own -particular.” - -“Still they are bound by the laws we all have subscribed to for our -mutual safety and advantage,” suggested Winslow, and would have said -more had not Pierce bluffly interposed,-- - -“Well, well, all these niceties are out of my line. Some colonists -have confided certain letters to me; the governor of the colony makes -requisition upon me before a competent witness for these letters, -suspecting treason therein; I surrender them to his keeping, and there -ends my responsibility. And now I will go and make sail upon my ship. -Governor, your pinnace shall be summoned whenever you give the signal.” -And Captain Pierce turned toward the companion-way, but presently -returned, a genial smile replacing the slight annoyance darkening his -face, and going to the “ditty bag” suspended near the porthole, he -fumbled for a moment, then threw what he had found upon the table, -adding merrily, “And if you want to make a neat job of it, Bradford, -here’s a sharp little pair of scissors. We sailors hate to see a trick -of work bungled, if it’s nothing better than ferreting out treason.” - -And with a smart westerly breeze the Charity set her nose toward -England, and plunged bravely out into the Atlantic. Before she sighted -the scene of the Pilgrim Mothers’ first washing-day, however, she lay -to, while the governor’s pinnace was brought alongside, and he and -Winslow came on deck and stood for a moment hand in hand. - -“God be with you, brother,” said Bradford in a voice of restrained -emotion. “Remember that until you return we are as a man half whose -limbs are palsied; nay, Carver in that prophetic moment called you our -brain. Remember it, Winslow.” - - - - -CHAPTER III. - -TREASON. - - -“Master Oldhame, you are set upon the watch to-night, and will report -after the evening gun at the Fort.” - -“The devil you say, Giles Hopkins! And who gave you leave to order your -betters about?” - -“Captain Standish names the watch, and I as ancient-bearer am under his -orders and carry his messages.” - -“You may be under Satan’s orders or under a monkey’s orders for aught -I care, Giles, my boy, but if you dare come nigh me with any more of -Captain Shrimp’s orders I’ll wring your neck for you, master bantam -cockerel, mark you that.” - -“I will report to the captain,” calmly replied Hopkins, who, despite -his father’s restless example, was fast becoming one of the colony’s -most valued young citizens. - -A profane exclamation was Oldhame’s only reply, but as the ensign -strode away he turned his head and called into the house at whose door -he sat,-- - -“Lyford! Lyford! Here’s some merry-making afoot! Captain Shrimp has -summoned me to stand on watch to-night, and I have sent him and -his errand-boy to the devil. Aha! here he comes himself with fury -stiffening every hair of his red beard and snapping out of his eyes. -Stand behind the door and hearken”-- - -“Good-even, Master Oldhame,” struck in the firm and repressed tones -of a voice at sound of which Lyford cringed closer in his corner, and -Oldhame blustered uneasily,-- - -“Good-even, Myles Standish.” - -“It is your turn in regular rotation, Master Oldhame, to stand -sentry-watch to-night as you have done before, and as every man in the -colony is called upon to do. Will you kindly report at the Fort after -gun-fire this evening?” - -“No, I won’t, Captain Shrimp.” - -“You refuse to obey the law of the colony?” - -“I refuse to be said by you, you beggarly little rascal.” - -“Then I shall arrest you as a traitor, and if I had my will, I’d have -you out and shoot you at sunrise.” - -“Oh, you would, would you, you wretched baseborn-- - -“Have a care, man, have a care. Stop while you may!” And the captain’s -voice deepened to a growl, and his eyes, wide open, yet contracted -in the pupil to a point of fire, fixed themselves like weapons upon -those of the mutineer, who, maddened by their menace, sprung to his -feet knife in hand, and aimed a blow at the captain’s face that might -have forever quenched the light of those magnetic eyes, had it not -been caught on the hilt of Gideon, the good sword that in these days -hung ever at his master’s side, although he seldom needed to quit his -scabbard. - -“Villain, you’ve broken my wrist!” yelled Oldhame, dropping his knife, -upon which Standish planted his foot. - -“To me! To me, men! Help! Murder! To me, Oldhames!” again shouted the -traitor, but although a score or so of the townsmen gathered at the -cry, not one made any demonstration or reply, while Standish, setting -his lips and drawing two or three heavy breaths, hardly cast a glance -at the crowd, but laying a hand upon Gideon’s hilt coldly demanded,-- - -“John Oldhame, do you refuse to stand your watch to-night?” - -A volley of abuse from Oldhame was interrupted by a messenger from -Bradford, who, saluting the captain, reported,-- - -“The governor sends to know the cause of the tumult, and desires -Captain Standish to arrest any disorderly persons refusing to submit to -authority.” - -“My respects to the governor, and I am about to do so,” replied -Standish in the hard and cold tone which at once repressed and betrayed -his passion. - -“John Oldhame, I arrest you in the name of the law! Alden, Howland, -Browne, I summon you to my aid! Convey this man to the Fort and lock -him in the strong-room. Do him no bodily harm unless he resist, but -secure him without delay.” - -Then ensued such a scene as Plymouth had as yet never seen, for with -one or two exceptions the men who shared the struggles and perils of -the colony’s first days had become too closely welded together, and -were too self-respecting, to rebel against the authority they had -themselves elected. - -But no sooner were the goodly foundations of the new home laid and -cemented in the blood of those who dared all for Freedom’s sake, than -the anarchist arrived to throw down what was already wrought, and erect -his own den upon the ruins. - -Oldhame, maddened both at his defeat and the failure of those who had -listened to his treason to make an open revolt in his favor, lost all -control both of words and actions, and so ramped and raved, so cursed -and vituperated, so kicked and smote and struggled, that it was not -without a most unseemly contest that he was finally secured and dragged -up the Burying Hill to the Fort, where in the corner opposite to the -captain’s den was a strong-room, small, but as yet quite sufficient for -the colony’s need of a prison. - -A few hours of silence and solitude wrought a change, however, and -John Alden, who held the position of prison-warden, came down the hill -toward sunset with a request from the prisoner that he might see Master -Lyford. - -“The wolf would fain take counsel with the fox,” remarked Priscilla -when her husband told her his errand. “And our over-amiable sheep-dogs -will never say nay to such a modest request.” - -“Pity but they made thee governor, Pris,” suggested John with a bovine -smile intended to be sarcastical. - -“Ay,” coolly replied his wife. “’Twould save some trouble. ’Tis a -roundabout way we women have to manage now.” - -“Eh? what do all those fine words mean when they’re put straight, wife?” - -“They mean that you’d better do your errand to the governor before -sunset, and then come home to eat my bannocks while they’re fresh.” - -“You’re right, Pris, and I’m gone.” - -But the bannocks were not to be eaten for another hour or so, during -which time Master Lyford was closeted with his associate in the -strong-room, and Alden kept ward without. - -That evening the ex-minister sought the governor’s presence, and with -many protestations of regret at the late unfortunate misunderstanding, -as he phrased it, offered Oldhame’s submission and willingness to -comply with the military requirements of the government, adding -craftily,-- - -“If our worthy governor were also our captain there could never be any -of these troubles.” - -“That would be to burn down the house because the chimney smokes now -and again,” replied Bradford good-humoredly. “It is largely due to -Captain Standish’s courage and skill, not to mention his loyalty, his -steadfastness, and his wisdom, that this colony is other than a handful -of ashes and a field of graves. When you new-comers have learned to -know him, you will value our captain as we do.” - -The next morning Master Oldhame was released, and the next night -stood his watch, nor, jealously as he watched and listened for them, -was there a look or a tone from the captain or any of his adherents -to remind the conquered rebel of his discomfiture, or the triumph of -authority. - -The next Sunday, or as it was universally called, the Lord’s Day, the -plot laid in the strong-room of the Fort developed most unexpectedly. - -When at ten o’clock Bartholomew Allerton, now promoted to the post -of band-master to the colony’s army, beat the “assembly” in the Town -Square as a summons to the church-goers to meet and form in their -usual procession up the hill, he was confronted by Peter Oldhame, a -lad somewhat younger than himself, who swung a cow bell almost in the -drummer’s face, shouting,-- - -“To church! To church! Englishmen hearken to the English Church! To -church! To church!” - -Bradford, who was just coming out of his house with Alice and Christian -Penn, her buxom handmaiden, following meekly behind, stopped and looked -sternly at the intruder until he, turning his back, walked down Leyden -Street toward the old Common House, disused now except for storage. - -“Shall I arrest the varlet, and clap him up in the strong-room?” asked -Bart Allerton eagerly, as he swung the drum-gear off his shoulder. - -“Nay, my son; it is the Lord’s Day and we will not farther disturb its -peace. This rebel has ceased his summons and you may do so also, lest -worse come of it.” - -“Does your honor see Master Lyford in gown and bands coming out of -Master Oldhame’s house?” - -“Nay, Bart, I see him not, for I look not at him. Now no more, good -youth, but fall into rank with your fellows.” - -And fifty men or more, each armed and ready for battle either with men -or the Ghostly Enemy who inspirits men, moved in solemn procession of -threes up Burying Hill to the Fort, the rear closed by the governor in -his robe of office, with the Elder in his gown at his right hand, and -the captain in full uniform at his left. - -Not a word was exchanged between the leaders upon the events of the -morning, but it was no news to any of them, when the long service -was over and in the seclusion of home the women’s tongues were let -loose, to hear that Lyford, in spite of his abject repudiation of -his Episcopal ordination, and membership with the Separatist Church, -had gathered a congregation, read the English Service, preached a -vituperative sermon against the leaders of the colony, and administered -the Communion. - -Such open bravado and schism as this could not be allowed to -continue, for although the Pilgrims never persecuted any man for -honest difference of religious belief, and were on very cordial terms -with many members of the English Church, whom their pastor Robinson -received to Communion and fellowship, it was hardly to be expected that -they would permit a double apostate like Lyford to gather a body of -malcontents in their midst, and hold services avowedly antagonistic to -the church of the Pilgrims. - -Nobody, therefore, was surprised when, on the Monday following this -Sunday, the governor’s message went forth summoning all the men of the -colony, whether church-members, citizens, or only temporary residents, -to assemble at the Fort at nine of the clock on Tuesday morning in a -Court of the People, the colony not yet having outgrown this, the ideal -mode of popular government. - - - - -CHAPTER IV. - -THOU ART THE MAN! - - -Again Bartholomew Allerton, with much pride in the performance, beat -out the “assembly” in the Town Square, and at the sound some fourscore -men gathered from the houses, the shore, or those impaled garden plots -surrounding each house, where already patient toil had produced in the -wilderness very sweet reminiscences of English cottage-gardens. - -The weather was wild, and ominous with the promise of one of those -fierce storms of wind and rain, pretty sure to visit the coast in March -and September, and still called by Plymouth folk the line storm, or the -equinoctial, in calm contempt of modern meteorological theories. They -also call a thunder-shower, however slight, a “tempest,” and who is to -object? Not I. - -“Master Lyford’s friends are gathering in force,” remarked Standish, as -he stood at the door of his house just below the Fort on Burying Hill. - -“His friends!” repeated Alden, who, living in the house between that of -the governor and the captain, was often to be found in company of the -latter. “I did not think he had friends enough in Plymouth to be called -a force.” - -“Not in Plymouth, nor yet in heaven, but somewhere between the two. The -armies of the Prince of the Power of the Air.” - -And Standish, smiling grimly, pointed to the troops of clouds scurrying -up over Manomet, and Watson’s Hill, and all along the eastern and -southern horizon; serried ranks, and scattered outposts, and flying -vedettes, which, now by a flank movement, and now by an onward rush, -seemed taking possession of all the blue battlefield above, blotting -out the azure, and audaciously attacking the great sun himself. - -“’Tis the equinoctial,” stammered John Alden, perplexed. - -“The wind, the great wind Euroclydon,” replied Standish, who loved -the sonorous and martial sound of old Bible English, and read it -alternately with his Cæsar. - -“Are you ready, Captain? You remember our arrangements?” asked -Bradford, his fine face a little more pallid, a little more nervous -than its wont, as he stopped on his way up the hill with the Elder and -Doctor Fuller, who was vehemently saying,-- - -“Oh, he’ll clear himself, Elder, he’ll clear himself; an unsuspicious -man like Brother Lyford may be led into unadvised action from the very -best and soundest of motives.” - -“Then he must be restrained, for the safety of other people as well as -for his own,” replied the Elder coldly. “If one of your fever patients -took a fancy in his delirium to set the house afire, I don’t suppose -you would leave him unchecked in his action, however blameless you -might hold himself.” - -“No, no;--and yet--and yet”--muttered the doctor, whose common sense -found itself sadly at war with a whimsical fancy he had conceived for -Lyford, who was to be sure a university-bred man, and an accomplished -botanist, thus affording to the alumnus of Peter-house, Cambridge, -opportunity, which he did not often enjoy, for conversation on his -favorite topics. - -His annoyance found, however, no farther expression until, entering the -Fort, he pettishly exclaimed, “Well, if we are to find an honest man we -shall need Diogenes’ lantern, or at any rate a twopenny dip or so.” - -“’Tis the gathering storm,” replied Bradford in a depressed voice, as -he stood upon the threshold of the low-ceiled chamber, lighted only by -narrow slits intended more for defense than comfort. The bare benches -were already occupied by some eighty or ninety men, their pointed hats, -sombre doublets, and burnished “pieces” showing grotesquely through the -gloom which seemed to solidify the shadows and exaggerate the lights, -while an occasional flash of lightning added the last effect to the -picture. - -A restless movement, a sense rather than a sound of expectancy, a -feeling of controversy, of doubt, of possible resistance, was in the -air, and Bradford’s sensitive organization responded at once to the -thrill. - -“Pray for us mightily to-day, Elder, pray for unworthy me,” whispered -he, as the two ascended the platform at the head of the hall, where -stood the governor’s armchair with seats at either hand for his five -assistants, and benches for such persons as should be invited to occupy -them. - -To this appeal the Elder responded only by a searching glance from -eyes of cold and wintry gray, and, passing on, he took his place at -the governor’s right hand, while Allerton and Doctor Fuller seated -themselves at the left. Winslow’s place was left vacant, and Standish, -instead of assuming his, stood near the door, fully armed and -equipped, watching Master Oldhame, who, with Lyford and several of -their insolent followers, came strolling up the hill, laughing loudly, -and displaying an exaggerated carelessness of demeanor. - -As they entered, Standish, quietly placing himself between the two -principals and their following, waved the latter to seats at the rear -of the hall, and, courteously addressing the former, said,-- - -“The governor and council crave your presence upon the platform, -gentlemen.” - -“And why so much ceremony to-day, Captain Standish?” demanded Oldhame -in a blustering attempt to imitate the suavity of the soldier. “We have -had the privilege and the honor, if there be any, of sitting upon yon -platform more than once already, and need not to be marshaled thither -to-day more than on other days.” - -“Ay, but to-day the governor designs to pay you some special attention, -and your seats are not as before,” replied Standish grimly, and, -without waiting for reply, strode on up the hall followed by the -mutineers, who, in spite of their best efforts at audacity, presented -an aspect of mingled apprehension and wrath, ill becoming the leaders -of a righteous revolution. - -The elevated seats were, indeed, a little differently arranged from -usual. The five official chairs stood in their customary position, -but no other seat remained except one bench placed near the edge of -the platform, and at such an angle that the occupants faced both the -governor and the mass of the people. To this bench Standish silently -but peremptorily waved the two men, who both felt and appeared more -like prisoners than guests. Hesitating a moment, Oldhame led the way up -the steps, and before seating himself would have pushed back the bench -so as to place it at right angles to the front edge of the platform, -but found it secured to the flooring. With an angry scowl he was about -to speak, but Bradford, raising a hand with quiet dignity, said,-- - -“Let be, if it please you, Master Oldhame. This Court of the People is -convened to inquire into certain matters concerning you, and it is best -that you should be placed in the front of the assembly that all men may -both see and hear your innocence, if haply you can prove it.” - -“Innocence, Master Governor! Innocence of what?” demanded Oldhame -truculently, while Lyford’s face suddenly lost its color, and -moistening his lips with his tongue, he cast such crafty and alarmed -looks around the assembly that Giles Hopkins whispered to Philip De la -Noye,-- - -“Mind you that rat we found in the trap t’other day? I wish I had my -little dog here to worry him.” - -“You shall be both heard and answered anon, friend,” replied Bradford -patiently. “First, however, we will ask the Elder to lead us in prayer -for guidance and for wisdom.” - -Fervently and strongly did the Elder respond to this summons, nor did -he at all forget the whispered petition Bradford had made in the moment -of his weakness; and once again the prayer of faith became effectual, -even in the moment of its utterance, so that when William Bradford -said Amen it was in more calmness, more conscious strength, and more -security of divine guidance, than he had been able to feel for days. - -Standing before his people in all the simple dignity of his character -and his position, he addressed them as friends, as associates, as -freemen, taking for granted that each was as eager as himself to -retain in all its completeness the great treasure of freedom and of -self-government they had attained. “For,” said he, turning his eyes for -a moment upon the traitors, and then reverting to his friends, “both -ye and all the world know we came hither to enjoy the liberty of our -conscience and the free use of God’s ordinances, and for that end have -ventured our lives, and passed through much hardship hitherto; and we -and our friends have borne the charge of these beginnings, which has -not been small”-- - -“Spare us the preamble, I beseech you, Master Governor, and come to the -root of the matter. Who has disturbed this somewhat sour-faced liberty -and peace ye came here to seek?” - -The insolence of the tone as well as of the words stirred even -Bradford’s chastened temper, and turning upon the traitor he angrily -exclaimed,-- - -“Who?--who but you, John Oldhame, you and your followers! As Nathan -said to David, so say I now to you, Thou art the man!” - -The stinging contempt of the tone pierced like an arrow, and fairly -stammering with rage the rebel sprang to his feet and made for the -governor, but Standish quietly interposed with voice and presence,-- - -“Best be seated, Master Oldhame! The matter has not yet come to a -passage at arms. Sit down man, sit down!” - -“Yes, Master Oldhame,” added the governor, resuming his usual -self-restraint and manner of voice, “this is matter for sober -discussion and not for heated wrangling.” Then turning to the people he -continued calmly: - -“It is well known not only to these but to you all, that when the -Charity arrived here some weeks gone by she brought letters from -the gentlemen Adventurers, upon whom we depend for aid and comfort, -demanding account of certain ill stories that had traveled home by the -Anne, partly on the tongues of those who, daunted by the hardness of -the life here, went back as soon as they might, and partly in letters -writ by those Laodiceans who remained with us but are not of us. These -tales were for the most part idle, such as that we have no grass for -cattle; no wholesome water; that salt will not cure fish here; that -neither fish nor wild fowl are to be found, and alas, alas! that -moskeetos are to be found both in our fields and housen, which, indeed, -is a plaint we may not deny. - -“With these were weightier matters, to which I, with the help of the -Assistants, made answer as seemed good to us, as that we have neither -Sacrament in use, to which we answer, How can we have when to our great -grief our pastor, Master Robinson, is withholden from coming to us, -and no worthy minister is sent to supply his place? Next, that we have -great diversity of religious belief, and this is a thing never heard -of till last Lord’s Day. But passing sundry other matters not best to -enter upon now, we spoke to the lighter question, saying that although -we do not contend that the water of our springs is as delightsome as -the beer and wine these grumblers so sorely missed, it is as good, nay, -I will say it is better, water than any other in the world, so far as -I know of mine own experience. As for the lack of grass, we replied, -Would we had one beast for every hundred that the grass would fatten. -As for the lack of fish and fowl, and the story that salt would not -cure fish caught in these waters, we did but ask, What is it brings so -many sail to these parts year by year, and how do they carry home their -fish, if they may not be cured? - -“That fish may not be salted here is as true as that no ale or beer can -be kept from souring in London. That we have thieves among us of late -is sadly true, but if none were bred in England none would come hither, -and as all men know, those who are caught have smarted well for their -offense, and shall do so still more if they mend not their manners. - -“But as for the moskeetos, we said, They were matter of such sadness -and weight that we counseled such as cannot endure moskeeto bites to -stay at home, at least until they are moskeeto proof, for surely they -are all unfit for beginning new plantations, and must leave these -emprises to hardier men. - -“Glad am I to offer you matter of mirth and cheerfulness in the -beginning, brethren, for now comes a tale of more serious import. - -“Knowing that they who could write thus to our friends were still among -us, it was but reasonable that we who stand as fathers to the colony -should seek out who they were, and stop the mischief before it grew -to larger dimensions. We have sought, and grieved am I to say we have -found, these enemies where last we should have looked for them. - -“Master John Oldhame, taking passage on the Anne with his family and -his following, came among us as a stranger, asking at the first no more -than permission to settle so near that in case of attack from Indians -he might shelter under our wing, and profit by our countenance. We -heartily bade him come and live in our village, helped him to build -housen for himself and his people, portioned him a plot of land, -aided him in every way that he desired, and gave him a voice in our -assemblies. - -“As for Master Lyford, he was, as you know, sent over at the company’s -charges, him and his large family, Master Winslow who was then in -England having been wrought upon by the Adventurers to accept him as a -minister of the gospel, and fit to become our pastor. Arrived here, he -received a house, a double portion of food and stores, a man to serve -him at our charge, and all such honor and observance as we knew how to -bestow, although we determined to tarry for a season before accepting -him as our minister in full. But now, how have these two carried -themselves among us? Have they repaid love with love, and good with -good? or has it not rather been after the fashion of the hedgehog in -the fable, which the coney in a bitter cold day invited to shelter in -her burrow, which at first was meek and gentle enow, but anon when he -was comforted and warm, thrust out his prickles and so vext the poor -coney that in the end it was she who was thrust out into the cold.” - -A low murmur of appreciation followed the parable, and Oldhame once -more sprang to his feet, while Standish attentively followed every -movement. - -“So far as I can gather any serious meaning from the buffoonery Master -Bradford intends for wit,” began he, “I take it that he accuseth me -and this godly minister of treason to this colony, where as he meanly -reminds us we have received certain benefits, for the which I am quite -ready to pay”-- - -“Shame! Shame!” - -“Shame as much as you will, Alden and Soule, Bartlett and Prence! I’ve -marked you, my springalds, but what I’ve to say is that the inditing is -false and altogether malicious. Neither Lyford nor I have writ any such -letters, or sent any such message now or ever. Say you not so, Master -Lyford?” - -“Oh verily, verily, good gentlemen all, no such thought has ever”-- - -“There, that will do, man. And now we call upon you, Master Governor, -for any warrant you may have for this insult, and if you have none, we -demand an ample apology.” - -“You positively deny writing any letters of complaint concerning us?” -asked Bradford deliberately. - -“We do.” - -“Master Allerton, be pleased to bring forth the papers you hold in -charge.” - -Allerton, his crafty face illuminated with a smile of unusual -satisfaction, brought forward a small table, and placed upon it some -twenty or thirty letters, carefully arranged and docketed, in his -neat and scholarly script. Laying his hand upon the papers, Bradford -looked at the traitors with an austere sadness significant of his just -yet gentle nature; then, turning to the people, he related how by the -advice of his council he had seized these letters, already on their way -to England, and with Winslow’s help copied the most of them, retaining, -however, some of the originals with which to confront the writers in -case of denial. - -But as the governor in his calm and judicial voice made this -announcement, glancing as he spoke at the documents spread out upon -the little table, Oldhame, furious at the humiliating discovery of his -lie, started again to his feet, foaming out all sorts of threats and -defiance, and threatening indefinite but terrible vengeance. Finally -turning to the benches with a gesture almost magnificent in its -reckless abandon, he cried,-- - -“My masters, where are your hearts! Now is the time to show yourselves -men! How oft have you groaned in my ears under the tyranny of these -oppressors, and now is your time to fling off the yoke! Stand to your -arms, brethren! Make a move, and I am with you!” - -As he recognized the intent of this seditious appeal, Standish sprang -forward, his hand upon his sword’s hilt, but Bradford, without rising, -made a slight repressive gesture, and ran his eye quickly over the -ranks of faces confronting him, marking the expression on each. - -A few, notably Billington’s, Hicks’s, Hopkins’s, and some of the -new-comers’, wore an anxious, a sheepish, or a frightened air, combined -in two or three cases with truculence, and in others with doubt, but -the great body of the freemen met the eye of their governor with -cordial sympathy and reassurance, and although no man stirred, several -handled their weapons and looked around them with an eagerness boding -ill for the traitors should they proceed to extremity. - -Oldhame also reviewed the fourscore faces arrayed before him, and was -quick to perceive and accept his defeat. - -“Ye coward dogs! Crouch under your master’s lash till it cut your -hearts out! What is it to me or mine!” - -The bitter words ground between his teeth reached no ears but those of -Lyford, upon whom, as he sank cowering back upon the bench, Bradford -next turned his eyes demanding,-- - -“What is _your_ opinion, Master Lyford, upon this question of opening -another’s letters?” - -The ex-minister started as if stung by the lash of a whip, passed his -hand across his trembling lips, and stammered,-- - -“I--I--I meant no harm. I”-- - -“Master Lyford answers the accusation of his own conscience rather than -my question,” said Bradford serenely, as the quavering voice trailed -away into silence. “The matter in his mind is this: When our brother, -Edward Winslow, was about sailing out of England in the Charity, -bringing with him this man who had been pushed upon him as a worthy -substitute for our own revered pastor, he writ with his own hand to -Master Robinson an account of the matter, with sundry other things -touching the spiritual and temporal concerns of the company. This -letter he sealed, addressed, and left lying in his state cabin, along -with sundry others, some of his own inditing, and some intrusted to -him by friends, to convey hither. One of these was from a well-known -English gentleman to Elder Brewster, and bore both names upon the cover. - -“Master Winslow’s affairs calling him back to London before the -sailing of the vessel, he left all these letters in his writing-case -under charge of Master Lyford, who used the same cabin. But no sooner -was Winslow’s back turned than Master Lyford, opening the chest -with keys of his own, read the letters, and made copies of the two -mentioned, telling under his own hand how he obtained them. These -copies he brought hither, and now is sending them back into England -by the Charity, and small charity of the godly sort doth he show in -his comments inclosed with the copies to one of our most powerful and -unloving opponents among the Adventurers. - -“And why hath he done this? Not to fulfill a heavy and painful duty, -and to protect a people and an emprise laid upon him by Almighty God, -even as the children of Israel were laid upon the shoulders of Moses -until he all but sank beneath the weight! No, Master Lyford can plead -no such necessity for the opening and reading of letters writ and -sealed by one who trusted him, but rather his motive seems to have been -the desire of doing despite to his benefactors, and of working mischief -and destruction to them who have never done him other than kindness, -trusting and befriending him as one of themselves. - -“And now, Master Allerton, I will ask you to read out these letters, -and any who will may draw near and look at the originals signed both by -John Oldhame and John Lyford.” - -The letters were read, and as page after page of Lyford’s malignant -treachery, and Oldhame’s fierce vituperation was turned, murmurs of -indignation, ominous mutterings, with here and there a groan or a -faint hiss arose from the benches, especially when the freemen heard -it recommended that the Adventurers should, as soon as possible, -send a body of men “to over-sway those here;” that they should at -all risks prevent Pastor Robinson’s coming, and should, if possible, -depose Winslow from his position as agent. Again a subdued commotion -was excited by the advice to send over a certain captain, who had -apparently been previously mentioned, with the promise that he should -at once be chosen military leader, “for this Captaine Standish looks -like a silly boy, and is in utter contempt.” - -In hearing this philippic many an eye was turned upon its subject, but -he, standing at ease with one hand upon Gideon’s hilt, only gathered -his beard in the other fist and smiled good-humoredly. He at least was -“moskeeto-proof.” - -“And now, men,” demanded the governor, turning to the people, “what -have you to say? Let any one who would make a proposal as to our -dealing with these two speak his mind freely.” - -But before any other could reply to this demand, Lyford, breaking away -from Oldhame’s fierce restraint, fell upon his knees, bursting into -tears and sobs, wringing his hands, and cringing to the floor, while he -howled out all sorts of self-accusations, calling himself a miserable -sinner, “unsavorie salt,” Judas, and many other opprobrious epithets, -doubting, as he professed, if God would ever pardon him, and in any -case despairing of the forgiveness of his benefactors and hosts, for he -had so wronged them as to pass all forgiveness. Finally, he confessed -in the most abject terms that “all he had writ against them was false -and naught, both for matter and manner,” and professed himself willing -and anxious to retract everything in the presence of God, angels, and -men. - -But the scene was soon cut short, for the self-respecting men who -listened to this abjection found it too great a humiliation of the -divine image in man, and while the culprit still sobbed and whined at -his feet, the governor, briefly ordering him to rise and be silent, -turned to the people and repeated his demand for their suffrages. - -A brief discussion ensued, chiefly among the elders, the younger men -signifying their assent or dissent by a word or two, and Bradford, -listening to all, watching the expression of all, and gathering the -sense of the assembly as much by intuition as from spoken words, at -last announced that the Court of the People found these two men guilty -of the offenses with which they stood charged, and were decided to -banish them from the settlement as dangerous to its safety. A murmur -of assent ratified this decision, and the details arranged by the -governor and council were unanimously accepted. Oldhame was to depart -at once, while his family had permission to remain until he could find -a comfortable home for them, and then rejoin him without his coming to -fetch them. - -As for Lyford, his retraction and professions of contrition had -their effect, especially with the doctor, whose earnest appeals for -indulgence finally procured permission for the penitent to remain in -the village for six months on probation, his sentence then either to be -acted upon or, in case his repentance should prove sincere, to possibly -be altogether remitted. - -The two culprits received their sentence very differently, yet very -characteristically. Oldhame, breathing fire and fury, departed from the -Fort at once in a blue flame of profanity and vituperation, and before -night set sail for Nantasket to join the Gorges men settled in that -neighborhood. - -But the meaner traitor could hardly be persuaded to stand upon his -feet, preferring to grovel at those of his judges, who for the most -part received his demonstrations very coldly, Bradford suggesting, as -he twisted away the hand Lyford was moistly kissing,-- - -“There’s a homely old proverb, master, which you might do well to -recall: ‘Actions speak louder than words.’” - -“And still another,” broke in John Alden, “says that ‘Promises butter -no parsnips.’” - -Thus ended the first trial for treason in America, and so was decided -the most important cause ever brought before the Court of the People, a -tribunal soon to be replaced by the trial by jury. - - - - -CHAPTER V. - -HOW MISTRESS ALICE BRADFORD INTRODUCED HER SISTER PRISCILLA CARPENTER -TO PLYMOUTH SOCIETY. - - -“Goodman, I’ve heavy news for you; so set your mind to bear it as best -you may.” - -“Nay, goodwife, your winsome face is no herald of bad news, and certes, -I’ll not cross the bridge until it comes in sight.” - -“Well, then, since words won’t daunt you, here’s a fact, sir! We are to -have a merry-making, and gather all the young folk of the village, and -Master Bradford will have to lay off the governor’s mantle of thought -and worry, that he may be jocund with the rest.” - -“Nay, then, Alice, ’tis indeed heavy news!” And the governor pulled a -long face, and looked mock-miserable with all his might. “And is it a -dispensation not to be gainsaid? Is there good cause that we should -submit ourselves to an affliction that might, as it would seem, be -spared?” - -“Well, dear, you know that my sister Pris has come”-- - -“Do you tell me so! Now _there_ is news in very deed! And how did -Mistress Priscilla Carpenter reach these parts?” - -“Now, Will! if you torment me so, I’ll e’en call in Priscilla Alden to -take my part. _She’ll_ give you quip for crank, I’ll warrant me.” - -“Nay, nay, wife, I’ll be meek and good as your cosset lamb, so you’ll -keep me under your own hand. Come now, let us meet this enemy face to -face. What is it all?” - -Alice, who, tender soul that she was, loved not even playful and mock -contention, sighed a little, and folding her hands in her lap gently -said,-- - -“It is all just as thou pleasest, Will, but my thought was to call -together all the young people and make a little feast to bring those -acquainted with Pris, who, poor maid, has found it a trifle dull and -straitened here, after leaving her merry young friends in England.” - -“Ever thinking of giving pleasure to others even at cost of much toil -to thyself, sweetheart!” And the governor, placing a hand under his -wife’s round chin, raised her face and kissed it tenderly again and -again, until the soft pink flushed to the roots of the fair hair. - -“Do as thou wilt, darling, in this and everything, and call upon me for -what thy men and maids cannot accomplish.” - -“Nay, I’ve help enough. Christian Penn is equal to two women, and -sister Pris herself is very notable. Then Priscilla Alden will kindly -put her hand to some of the dainty dishes, and she is a wonder at -cooking, as you know.” - -“Yes, she proved it in--early days,” interrupted Bradford, the smile -fading off his face. “Had it not been for her skill in putting a savory -touch to the coarsest food, I believe some of our sick folk would have -died,--I am sure Dame Brewster would.” - -“Oh, you poor souls! How you suffered, and I there in England eating -and drinking of the best, and--oh, Will, you should have married good -dear Priscilla to reward her care of what I held so carelessly.” - -“Wonderful logic, madam! I should, to reward Mistress Molines for her -care, have married her, when she loved another man, and I another -woman, which latter was to thus be punished for carelessness in a -matter she knew naught about!” - -And with a tender little laugh, the governor pressed another kiss -upon his wife’s smooth cheek, before he went out to his fields, while -she flew at once to her kitchen and set the domestic engine throbbing -at double-quick time. Then she stepped up the hill to John Alden’s -house, and found Priscilla, her morning work already done, washing and -dressing her little Betty, while John and Jo watched the operation with -unflagging interest. - -“Come and help you, Alice? I shall be gay and glad to do it, dear, just -as soon as Betty is in her cradle, and I have told Mary-à-Becket what -to do about the noon-meat. John, you and Jo run up the hill to the -captain’s, and ask Mistress Standish if Alick and Myles may come down -and play with you in front of the governor’s house so I may keep an eye -on you.” - -“Two fine boys, those of Barbara’s,” said the governor’s wife, and then -affectionately, “yet no finer than your sturdy little knaves.” - -“Oh, ours are well enough for little yeomen, but the captain says his -Alick is heir to a great estate, and is a gentleman born!” And the two -young women laughed good-naturedly, while Priscilla laid her baby in -the cradle, and Alice turned toward the door saying, “Well, I must be -at home to mind the maids.” - -“And I’ll be there anon. I trust you’ve good store of milk and cream. -We did well enow without it for four years, but now we’ve had it for a -while, one might as well be dead as lack it.” - -“I’ve plenty, and butter beside, both Dutch and fresh,” replied Alice -from outside the door, and in another ten minutes the wide kitchen -recently added to William Bradford’s house on the corner of Leyden -Street and the King’s Highway, now called Main Street, hummed again -with the merry sounds of youthful voices, of the whisking of eggs, and -grinding of spices, and stirring of golden compounds in wooden bowls, -and chopping suet, and stoning raisins, and slicing citron, and the -clatter of pewter dishes, which, by the way, with wooden ware were -nearly all the “pottery” the Pilgrims possessed, hypothetical teapots -and china cups to the contrary; for, since we all know that tea and -coffee were never heard of in England until about the year 1666, and -the former herb was sold for many years after at from ten to fifteen -dollars per pound (Pepys in 1671 mentions it as a strange and barbaric -beverage just introduced), it is improbable that either tea, teapot, -or teacups ever reached America until after Mary Allerton, the last -survivor of the Mayflower, rested upon Burying Hill. - -All that day and part of the next the battle raged in the Bradford -kitchen, for delicate appetites were in those times rather a defect -than a grace, and hospitality largely consisted in first providing -great quantities and many varieties of food, and then over-pressing -the guests to partake of it. An “afternoon tea” with diaphanous bread -and butter, wafer cakes, and Cambridge salts, as the only solid -refreshment, would have seemed to Alice Bradford and her guests either -a comic pretense or a niggardly insult, and very different was the -feast to which as many as could sat down at a very early hour of the -evening of the second day. - -The company was large, for in the good Old Colony fashion it included -both married and single persons, and would, if possible, have made no -distinctions of age or position, but this catholicity had in the growth -of the colony become impossible, and Mistress Bradford’s invitations -were, with much searching of spirit and desire to avoid offense, -confined principally to young persons, married and unmarried, likely to -become associates of her sister Priscilla, a fair-haired, sweet-lipped, -and daintily colored lass, reproducing Dame Alice’s own early charms. - -“The Brewster girls must come, although I cannot yet be reconciled to -Fear’s having married Isaac Allerton, and calling herself mother to -Bart, and Mary and Remember--great grown girls!” exclaimed the hostess -in consultation with her husband, and he pleasantly replied,-- - -“Oh, well, dame, we must not hope to guide all the world by our own -wisdom; and certes, if Fear’s marriage is a little incongruous, her -sister Patience is well and fitly mated with Thomas Prence. It does one -good to see such a comely and contented pair of wedded sweethearts.” - -“True enough, Will, and your thought is a rebuke to mine.” - -“Nay, wife, ’tis you that teach me to be charitable.” - -And the two, come together to reap in the glorious St. Martin’s summer -of their days the harvest sown amid the chill tears of spring, looked -in each other’s eyes with a smile of deep content. The woman was the -first to set self aside, and cried,-- - -“Come, come, Sir Governor! To business! Mistress Allerton, and her -_daughters_, Mary and Remember, Bartholomew, and the Prences, -Constance Hopkins with Nicholas Snow, whom she will marry, the Aldens, -the captain and his wife”-- - -“He is hardly to be ranked with the young folk, is he?” - -“No, dear, no more than Master Allerton, or, for that matter, the -governor and his old wife; but there, there, no more waste of time, -sir! Who else is to come, and who to be left at home?” - -“Nay, wife, I’m out of my depth already and will e’en get back to firm -land, which means I leave all to your discretion. Call Barbara and -Priscilla Alden to council, and let me know in time to put on my new -green doublet and hose, for I suppose I am to don them.” - -“Indeed you are, and your ruffles and your silk stockings that I -brought over. I will not let you live altogether in hodden gray, since -even the Elder goes soberly fine on holidays.” - -“Well, well, I leave it all to you, and must betake myself to the -woods. Good-by for a little.” - -“Good-by, dear.” - -And as the governor with an axe on his shoulder strode away down Market -Street and across the brook to Watson’s Hill, Dame Alice, a kerchief -over her head, once more ran up the hill to Priscilla Alden’s. - -As the great gun upon the hill boomed out the sunset hour, and Captain -Standish himself carefully covered it from the dews of night, Alice -Bradford stood in the great lower room of her house and looked about -her. All was done that could be done to put the place in festal array, -and although the fair dame sighed a little at the remembrance of -her stately home in Duke’s Place, London, with its tapestries and -carvings and carpets and pictures, she bravely put aside the regret, -and affectionately smoothed and patted the fine damask “cubboard cloth” -covering the lower shelf of the sideboard, or, as she called it, the -“buffet,” at one side of the room, and placed and replaced the precious -properties set out thereon:-- - -A silver wine cup, a porringer that had been her mother’s, nine silver -teaspoons, and, crown of all, four genuine Venetian wine-glasses, tall -and twisted of stem, gold-threaded and translucent of bowl, fragile and -dainty of shape, and yet, like their as dainty owner, brave to make the -pilgrimage from the home of luxury and art to the wilderness, where a -shelter from the weather and a scant supply of the coarsest food was -all to be hoped for. - -But Dame Bradford, fingering her Venice glasses, and softly smiling at -the touch, murmured to herself and to them, “’Tis our exceeding gain.” - -“What, Elsie, not dressed!” cried Priscilla Carpenter’s blithe voice, -as that young lady, running down the stairs leading to her little loft -chamber, presented herself to her sister’s inspection with a smile of -conscious deserving. - -“My word, Pris, but you are fine!” exclaimed Dame Alice, examining -with an air of unwilling admiration the young girl’s gay apparel and -ornaments. It was indeed a pretty dress, consisting of a petticoat of -cramoisie satin, quilted in an elaborate pattern of flowers, leaves, -and birds; an open skirt of brocade turned back from the front, and -caught high upon the hips with great bunches of cramoisie ribbons; a -“waistcoat” of the satin, and a little open jacket of the brocade. -Around the soft white throat of the wearer was loosely knotted a satin -cravat of the same dull red tint with the skirt, edged with a deep -lace, upon which Alice Bradford at once laid a practiced finger. - -“Pris, that _jabot_ is of Venise point! Where did you get it?” - -“Ah! That was a present from”-- - -“Well, from whom?” - -“Nay, never look so cross on’t, my lady sister! Might not I have a -sweetheart as well as you?” - -“Priscilla, I’m glad you’re here rather than with those gay friends of -yours in London. I suppose Lady Judith Carr or her daughters gave you -these clothes, did they not?” - -“Well, I earned them hard enough putting up with all my lady’s humors -and the girls’ jealous fancies,” pouted Pris. “I was glad enough when -you and brother Will wrote and offered me a home,--not but what Lady -Judith was good to me and called me her daughter; but, Elsie, ’twas not -they who gave me the laced cravat, ’twas--’twas”-- - -“Well, out with it, little sister! Who was it, if not our mother’s old -friend?” - -“Why, Elsie, ’twas a noble gentleman that I met with them down at Bath, -and--sister--he is coming over here to marry me right soon.” - -“Nay, then, but that’s news indeed! And what may be his name, pet?” - -“Sir Christopher Gardiner, and he’s a Knight of the Holy Sepulchre.” - -And Pris, fondling the lace of her cravat, smiled proudly into her -sister’s astonished face; but before either could speak, Barbara -Standish and Priscilla Alden appeared at the open door, the latter -exclaiming in her blithe voice,-- - -“What, Alice, still in your workaday kirtle! Barbara and I came thus -betimes to see if aught remained that we might do before the folk -gather.” - -“Thank you, both; I--I--nay, then, I’m a little put about, dear -friends; I hardly know,--well, well! Priscilla Carpenter, come you -into my bedroom and help me do on my clothes, and if you two will look -about and see what is ready and what is lacking, I shall be more than -grateful. Come, Pris!” - -“Something has chanced more than we know about!” suggested Priscilla -Alden, as the bedroom door closed behind the sisters. - -“Likely. But ’tis their affair and not ours,” replied Barbara quietly. -“Now let us see. Would you set open the case holding the twelve -ivory-handled knives?” - -“Yes, they’re a rarity, and some of the folk may not have seen them. -Alice says that in London they put a knife to every man’s trencher now, -and nobody uses his own sheath-knife as has been the wont.” - -“You tell me so! Well, one knife’s enough for Myles and me, yes, and -the boys to boot. But then I cut the meat in morsels, and spread the -bread with butter, or ever it goes on the table.” - -“Of course; so we all do, I suppose. Well there, all is ready now, and -here come the folk; there’s Patty Brewster, or Patience Prence as she -must now be called, and along with her Fear Allerton and Remember and -Mary,--her daughters indeed! Marry come up! _I_ might have had Isaac -Allerton for myself, but”-- - -“And there is Constance Hopkins, and Nicholas Snow,” interrupted -Barbara, who was a deadly foe to gossip, “and John and Elizabeth -Howland; then there’s Stephen Dean with Betsey Ring, and Edward Bangs -and Lyddy Hicks, and Mary Warren and Robert Bartlett, three pair of -sweethearts together, and here they all are at the door.” - -But as the more lively Priscilla ran to open it, the governor’s hearty -voice was heard without, crying,-- - -“Welcome! Welcome, friends! I was called out for a moment, but have -come home just in the nick of time and brought the captain with me.” - -“Now I do hope Myles has put on his ruff, and his other doublet that I -laid out,” murmured Barbara in Priscilla’s ear. “When the governor and -he get together, the world’s well lost for both of them.” - -“Nay, he’s all right, and a right proper man, as he always was,” -returned Priscilla, with a quick glance at the square figure and -commanding head of the Captain of Plymouth, as he entered the room and -smiled in courtly fashion at Dame Bradford’s greeting. - -“And here’s your John, a head and shoulders above all the rest,” added -Barbara good-naturedly, as Alden, the Saxon giant, strode into the room -and looked fondly across it at his wife. - -Another half hour and all were gathered about the three long tables -improvised from boards and barrels, but all covered with the fine -napery brought from Holland by Alice Bradford, who had the true -housewife’s love of elegant damask, and during Edward Southworth’s life -was able to indulge it, laying up such store of table damask, of fine -Holland “pillowbers”[1] and “cubboard cloths,” towels of Holland, of -dowlas, and of lockorum, and sheets of various qualities from “fine -Holland” to tow (the latter probably spun and woven at home), that the -inventory of her personal estate is as good reading to her descendants -as a cookery book to a hungry man. - -Plenty of trenchers both of pewter and wood lined the table, and by -each lay a napkin and a spoon, but neither knives nor forks, the -latter implement not having yet been invented, except in the shape -of a powerful trident to lift the boiled beef from the kettle, while -table knives, as Priscilla Alden had intimated, were still regarded as -curious implements of extreme luxury. A knife of a different order, -sometimes a clasp-knife, sometimes a sheath-knife, or even a dagger, -was generally carried by each man, and used upon certain _pièces de -resistance_, such as boar’s head, a roasted peacock, a shape of brawn, -a powdered and cloved and browned ham, or such other triumphs of the -culinary art as must be served whole. - -Such dishes were carried around the table, and every guest, taking -hold of the morsel he coveted with his napkin, sliced it off with his -own knife, displaying the elegance of his table manners by the skill -with which he did it. But as saffron was a favorite condiment of the -day, and pearline was not yet invented, one sighs in contemplating the -condition of these napkins, and ceases to wonder at the store of them -laid up by thrifty housekeepers. - -Ordinarily, however, the meat was divided into morsels before appearing -on the table, and thus was easily managed with the spoon,--_or_ with -the fingers. - -Between each two plates stood a pewter or wooden basin of clam chowder, -prepared by Priscilla Alden, who was held in Plymouth to possess a -magic touch for this and several other dishes. - -From these each guest transferred a portion to his own plate, except -when two supped merrily from the same bowl in token of friendly -intimacy. This first course finished and the bowls removed, all eyes -turned upon the governor, who rose in his place at the head of the -principal table, where were gathered the more important guests, and, -looking affectionately up and down the board, said,-- - -“Friends, it hardly needs that I should say that you are welcome, for -I see none that are ever less than welcome beneath this roof; but I -well may thank you for the cheer your friendly faces bring to my heart -to-night, and I well may pray you, of your goodness, to bestow upon -my young sister here the same hearty kindness you have ever shown -to me and mine.” A murmur of eager assent went round the board, and -the governor smiled cordially, as he grasped in both hands the great -two-handled loving-cup standing before him,--a grand cup, a noble cup, -of the measure of two quarts, of purest silver, beautifully fashioned, -and richly carved, as tradition said, by the hand of Benvenuto Cellini -himself; so precious a property that Katharine White, daughter of an -English bishop, was proud to bring it as almost her sole dowry to John -Carver, her husband. With him it came to the New World, and was used at -the Feast of Treaty between the colonists and Massasoit, chief of the -native owners of the soil. Katharine Carver, dying broken hearted six -weeks after her husband, bequeathed the cup to William Bradford, his -successor in the arduous post of Governor of the Colony, and from him -it passed down into that Hades of lost and all but forgotten treasures, -which may, for aught we know, become the recreation-ground for the -spirits of antiquarians. - -Filled to the brim with generous Canary, a pure and fine wine in those -days, it crowned the table, and William Bradford, steadily raising -it to his lips, smiled gravely upon his guests, adding to his little -speech of welcome,-- - -“I pledge you my hearty good-will, friends!” then drank sincerely yet -modestly, and giving one handle to Myles Standish, who sat at his left -hand, he retained his hold at the other side while the captain drank, -and in his turn gave one handle to Mistress Winslow, who came next, and -so, all standing to honor the pledge of love and good-will, the cup -passed round the board and came to Elder Brewster, at the governor’s -right hand; but he, having drank, looked around with his paternal smile -and said,-- - -“There is yet enough in the loving-cup, friends, for each one to wet -his lips, if nothing more, and I propose that we do so with our hearty -welcome and best wishes to Mistress Priscilla Carpenter.” - -Once more the cup went gayly round, and reached the Elder so dry that -he smiled, as he placed it to his lips, with a bow toward Pris savoring -more of his early days in the court of Queen Bess than of New England’s -solitudes. - -“And now to work, my friends, to work!” cried the governor. “I for one -am famished, sith my dame was so busy at noontide with that wonderful -structure yonder that she gave me naught but bread and cheese.” - -Everybody laughed, and Alice Bradford colored like a red, red rose, yet -bravely answered,-- - -“The governor will have his jest, but I hope my raised pie will suffer -roundly for its interference with his dinner.” - -“Faith, dame, but we’ll all help to punish it,” exclaimed Stephen -Hopkins, gazing fondly at the elaborate mass of pastry representing, -not inartistically, a castle with battlements and towers, and a -floating banner of silk bearing an heraldic device. “Standish! we call -upon you to lead us to the assault!” - -“Nay, if Captain Standish is summoned to the field, my fortress -surrenders without even a parley,” said Alice Bradford, as she -gracefully drew the little banner from its place, and, laying it aside, -removed a tower, a bastion, and a section of the battlement from the -doomed fortress, and, loading a plate with the spoils of its treasury, -planted the banner upon the top, and sent it to the captain, who -received it with a bow and a smile, but never a word. - -“Speak up, man!” cried Hopkins boisterously. “Make a gallant speech in -return for the courtesy of so fair a castellaine.” - -“Mistress Bradford needs no speech to assure her of my devoir,” replied -the captain simply, and the governor added,-- - -“Our captain speaks more by deeds than words, and Gideon is his most -eloquent interpreter. You have not brought him to-day, Captain.” - -“No; Gideon sulks in these days of peace, and seldom stirs abroad.” - -“Long may he be idle!” exclaimed the Elder, and a gentle murmur around -the board told that the women at least echoed the prayer. - -But Hopkins, seated next to Mistress Bradford, and watching her -distribution of the pie, cared naught for war or peace until he secured -a trencher of its contents, and presently cried,-- - -“Now, by my faith, I did not know such a pye as this could be concocted -out of Yorkshire! ’Tis perfect in all its parts: fowl, and game, and -pork, and forcemeat, and yolks of eggs, and curious art of spicery, and -melting bits of pastry within, and stout-built walls without; in fact, -there is naught lacking to such a pye as my mother used to make before -I had the wit to know such pyes sing not on every bush.” - -“You’re Yorkshire, then, Master Hopkins?” asked John Howland, who with -his young wife, once Elizabeth Tilley, sat opposite. - -“Yes, I’m Yorkshire, root and branch, and you’re Essex, and the captain -and the governor Lancashire, but all shaken up in a bag now, and turned -into New Englanders, and since the Yorkshire pye has come over along -with us I’m content for one.” - -A general laugh indorsed this patriotic speech, but Myles Standish, -toying with the silken banner of the now sacked and ruined fortress, -said in Bradford’s ear,-- - -“All very well for a man who has naught to lose in the old country. But -for my part I mean to place at least my oldest son in the seat of his -fathers.” - -The governor smiled, and then sighed. “Nor can I quite forget the lands -of Austerfield held by Bradfords and Hansons for more than one century, -and the path beside the Idle, where Brewster and I walked and talked in -the days of my first awakening to the real things of life”-- - -“Real things of life, say you, Governor?” broke in Hopkins’s strident -voice; “well, if there is aught more real in its merit than this -roasted suckling, I wish that I might meet with it.” - -And seizing with his napkin the hind leg of the little roasted pig -presented to him by Christian Penn, the old campaigner deftly sliced -it off with his sheath-knife and devoured it in the most inartificial -manner possible. - -It was probably about this epoch that our popular saying, “Fingers were -made before forks,” took shape and force. - -To the chowder, and the “pye,” and the roasted suckling succeeded a -mighty dish of succotash, that compound of dried beans, hulled corn, -salted beef, pork, and chicken which may be called the charter-dish of -Plymouth; then came wild fowl dressed in various ways, a great bowl of -“sallet,” of Priscilla Alden’s composition, and at last various sweet -dishes, still served at the end of a meal, although soon after it was -the mode to take them first. - -“Oh, dear, when will the dignities stop eating and drinking and making -compliments to each other?” murmured Priscilla Carpenter to Mary Warren -at the side table where the girls and lads were grouped together, -enjoying themselves as much as their elders, albeit in less ceremonious -fashion. - -“There! Your sister has laid down her napkin, and is gazing steadfastly -at the governor, with ‘Get up and say Grace’ in her eye,” replied -Mary, nudging Jane Cooke to enforce silence; whereat that merry maid -burst into a giggle, joined by Sarah and Elizabeth Warren, and Mary -Allerton, and Betsey Ring, while Edward Bangs, and Robert Bartlett, and -Sam Jenney, and Philip De la Noye, and Thomas Clarke, and John Cooke -chuckled in sympathy, yet knew not what at. - -A warning yet very gentle glance from Dame Bradford’s eyes stifled the -noise, and nearly did as much for its authors, who barely managed to -preserve sobriety, while the governor returned thanks to the Giver -of all good; so soon, however, as the elder party moved away, the -painfully suppressed giggle burst into a storm of merriment, which as -it subsided was renewed in fullest vigor by Sarah Warren’s bewildered -inquiry,-- - -“What _are_ we all laughing at?” - -“Never mind, we’ll laugh first, and find the wherefore at our leisure,” -suggested Jane Cooke, and so the dear old foolish fun that seems to -spring up in spontaneous growth where young folk are gathered together, -and is sometimes scorned and sometimes coveted by their elders, went -on, and, after the tables were cleared, took form in all sorts of -old English games, not very intellectual, not even very refined, but -as satisfactory to those who played as Buried Cities, and Twenty -Questions, and Intellectual Salad, and capping Browning quotations are -to the children of culture and æsthetics. - -The elders, meanwhile, retiring to the smaller room at the other -side of the front door, seated themselves to certain sober games of -draughts, of backgammon, of loo, and beggar-my-neighbor, or picquet, -while Elder Brewster challenged the governor to a game of chess which -was not finished when, at ten o’clock, the company broke up, and with -many a blithe good-night, and assurance of the pleasure they had -enjoyed, betook themselves to their own homes. - -Thus, then, was Priscilla Carpenter introduced into Plymouth society. - -FOOTNOTE: - -[1] Pillow-biers, now called pillow-cases. - - - - -CHAPTER VI. - -A VIPER SCOTCHED, NOT KILLED. - - -“’Tis meat for my masters,” muttered William Wright, plodding -stubbornly up the hill toward the Fort; but as he passed John Alden’s -door the sturdy, middle-aged man paused to watch, with a smile of -admiration rather strange to his commonplace visage, a game of romps -between little Betty Alden and Priscilla Carpenter, and indeed it was -a pretty sight. The maiden, her full yet lissome figure displayed in -a short skirt of blue cloth and a kirtle of India chintz belted down -by a little white apron, was teasing the child with a cluster of ripe -blackberries held just beyond her reach, and, dancing hither and yon as -Betty pursued, showed her pretty feet and ankles to perfection, while -the exercise and fresh air had tinted her cheeks and brightened her -eyes as cosmetics never could, and set a thousand little airy curls -loose from the fair hair braided in a long plait down her back. - -“You can’t catch me, Betty! You can’t have the plums till you catch me, -and you can’t--ah, now--catch if you can--catch if you can!” - -But Betty, shrieking with laughter as she dived this way and that, -suddenly grew so grave and frowned so terribly as she pointed her -chubby finger and stammered, “Go ’way--s’ant look o’ me--go ’way man!” -that Priscilla turned sharply round, and catching the interloper in -the very midst of a broad smile, she frowned, almost as terribly as -Betty, and loftily inquired,-- - -“Am I in your path, Master Wright?” - -“Nay, how could that be?” stammered Wright, utterly abashed before his -two accusers. “I pray you excuse me, Mistress Prissie, but I--I was -looking for the governor, and”-- - -“The governor?” interrupted Priscilla scornfully; “well, he’s not in my -pocket, is he in yours, Betty?” - -And catching up the child, she was retreating into the house, when her -admirer interposed with an air of dignity more becoming to his age and -appearance than the confusion of a detected intruder upon a girl’s -pastime,-- - -“Nay, mistress, I need not drive you away; I am going to the Fort.” - -“Well, there is the governor coming down from the Fort so as to leave -room for you,” retorted Prissie, and setting the child inside the door, -she fled down the hill as lightly as the wind that chased her. - -“Good-morrow, Wright,” cried Bradford cheerily, as the two men met. - -“Good-morrow, Governor. May I have a word with you on business?” - -“Surely. Come back to the Fort, where I have just left the captain. Ah, -here he is now!” - -And the three men were soon seated in the captain’s little den, flooded -with sunshine through its eastern window. - -“I sail in the Little James to-day, sirs,” began Wright abruptly; “and -but now, not an hour agone, Master Lyford gave me this letter, praying -me to hold it secret, and carry it to its address in London, and he -would give me five shilling when I returned. Now, sirs, I am not a man -to be hired for five shilling to do any man’s dirty work, and I liked -not Master Lyford’s look or voice as he gave me his errand, nor have -I forgot the matters concerning him and John Oldhame a while ago, and -so--here ’s the letter, Governor.” - -“Ha! ’Tis to the same address, Captain! Our well-known enemy and -gainsayer among the Adventurers.” - -“Ay. The old proverb come true again of the dog that turns from good -victual to vile,” muttered Standish grimly. “And I suppose it is to be -opened like the rest? Work I do not relish, Governor.” - -“Nor I. But Winslow and Allerton are both away, and you must come with -me to the Elder. In his presence and yours I shall open and read this -letter, as is my bounden duty.” - -And Bradford, leaning back in his chair, looked straight into the face -of the captain, who, returning the gaze with one of his keen glances, -nodded assent, saying in a surly voice,-- - -“You are the governor. It is for you to order and me to obey, but I -like it not.” - -“As for you, Wright, you have done well and wisely in this matter. The -James sails at three of the clock; come you to my house at two, and I -will return you the letter with one of mine own.” - -“Will Priscilla Carpenter be in the room!” wondered William Wright, as -he took his leave. - -The letter examined by the triumvirate of governor, Elder, and captain -proved that Lyford’s penitence, if indeed it had ever existed, had -spent its strength in protestation. The writer alluded to the letters -the governor had allowed to go forward, either by original or copy, -and declared that all they had stated was true, “only not the half,” -and that since their discovery he had been persecuted and browbeaten -to the verge of existence, and all because he loved and clung to the -Prayer Book and his Episcopal ordination. The letter closed with -entreaties that a sufficient body of settlers, with military leaders, -should at once be sent over to crush his present hosts and set him at -liberty to follow his conscience. - -“At least, we may at once grant our brother liberty to follow his -conscience in matters spiritual,” remarked the Elder with a grave -smile, as he laid down the letter. “I think it will be best to summon a -church meeting for next Lord’s Day, and utterly dismiss Master Lyford -from our fellowship and communion. It is no less than sacrilege for a -man who can write after this fashion to sit down at the Lord’s table -with us, professing to be of us.” - -“You are right, Elder,” replied Bradford sternly, “and I leave the -spiritual matter to you; but it is my duty, and one not to be slighted, -to drive this traitor out of our body politic. He must leave Plymouth -at once. Say you not so, Captain Standish?” - -“I say, bundle him into the Little James and send him back to England -to his dear cronies there, or, better still, strip off his gown and -bands and hang him as a traitor.” - -“To send him to England we have no warrant, nor would it be wise to -invite English legislation in our particular affairs,” retorted the -governor; “and as for hanging him, it is a course open both to these -same objections and to something more. No, we shall simply bid him -leave the colony and not return hither on any pretense. The wife and -children may remain until he has a home whither to carry them.” - -“A righteous judgment,” pronounced the Elder, and as Standish growled -assent, the matter was settled, and so promptly carried into effect -that in less than forty-eight hours the renegade forever turned his -back upon the place and the people who had trusted and honored him, -and whom, had he been a faithful servant of his Master and the Church, -he might undoubtedly have led to a renewed allegiance to the venerable -Mother whose unwise severity rather than whose doctrine had driven them -from the home of their ancestors. - -“There goes a viper scotched, not killed, and we shall feel his sting -yet,” remarked Standish, as he with Peter Browne and John Alden stood -on the brow of Cole’s Hill, and watched Lyford’s embarkation in a -fishing-boat belonging to Nantucket, where Oldhame had pitched his -tent for a while. Here also, or at neighboring Weymouth, Blackstone, -Maverick, Walford, and a few other of the Gorges party had succeeded -to the houses left empty by Weston’s men after their deliverance by -Myles Standish from Pecksuot, Wituwamat, and their horde. In course -of time, Blackstone, carrying his clergyman’s coat, removed to Boston -Common, Walford to Charlestown, and Maverick to East Boston, each -man representing the entire population of each place; but still some -settlers remained on the old site, so that from the time of Weston’s -arrival in 1622, this neighborhood has been the home of white men. - -“Scotched, not killed,” repeated Standish, filling his pipe, as he -sat and mused in the autumn sunshine outside of his cabin door, while -Barbara in her noiseless but competent fashion got ready a savory -supper within, and Alick, with a bow made for him by Hobomok, fired -not unskillful arrows at a target set upon the hillside. - -A week later the captain’s words came true, for the same fishing boat -that had carried away Lyford put into Plymouth Harbor on an ebb tide, -and sent off her boat with four men, one of whom was soon recognized -as Oldhame. As the banished man leaped upon the Rock, followed by his -comrades, all strangers to Plymouth, some of the older townsmen met -him, and one of them gravely inquired his business. - -“Business quotha!” blustered Oldhame, who was evidently the worse for -liquor. “My business is first to tweak Billy Bradford’s nose, and then -to kick Myles Standish into a rat-hole, and finally to burn down your -wretched kennels, and root up this doghole of a place, where I and my -friends have met such scurvy treatment.” - -“An’ your errand is so large an one, you had better go and seek the -governor and his assistants without delay,” replied Francis Cooke, -waving his hand up Leyden Street, and restraining by a look some of the -younger men, who seemed disposed to dispute the landing. - -“Why, so I will, Cooke; I’ll go up and speak to your masters, but not -my masters, mind you, good Cooke; good Cooke, ha, ha! Come, now, hop -into my boat and I’ll carry you home to be my cook, mine own good cook, -Francis! Hop in, I say!” - -And the roysterer, with a roar of drunken laughter, strode up the hill, -the strangers, who looked both anxious and ashamed, following slowly -after him. - -In the Town Square the invaders encountered Bradford with Doctor Fuller -and Stephen Hopkins, and Oldhame, pushing himself into the group, began -a violent tirade upon the abuses and insults that he averred had been -offered both him and Lyford, and was proceeding to the most scurrilous -threats and vituperations, when the governor, beckoning Bart Allerton, -who, with several other young men, was hanging around the group of -elders, said calmly,-- - -“Bart, find Captain Standish, and bid him summon a couple of the -train-band, and bring them hither.” - -“Oho! Captain Shrimp is to appear on the scene, is he? Well, I’ve come -here to settle old scores with him as well as the rest! Go fetch him, -Bart; trot, boy, trot!” - -“It needs not to fetch him, Master Oldhame, since he is here at your -service.” Thus speaking, the captain, who had been hastening down the -hill before he was summoned, strode into the circle, a grim smile upon -his face and the red light of battle in his eye. - -“Ha! my little bantam cock! are you there?” And the reckless fellow -aimed a backhanded blow at the captain’s face, which the latter easily -evaded by a side-movement, and returned with a square blow from the -shoulder, taking effect under Oldhame’s jaw, and sending him staggering -back into the arms of one of his new comrades. - -“Enough, enough!” exclaimed Bradford, holding up his hand. “A street -brawl is not befitting or seemly. Captain Standish, arrest this man, -and put him in the strong-room until we consider what measure to deal -out to him.” - -“The tide is gone, or we would carry him aboard and be off altogether,” -suggested one of the strangers. - -“Possibly not,” quietly returned the governor. “It might not seem right -to so lightly dismiss such an offense. We would bear ourselves meekly -with all men, but it is not meet that our townsfolk should see their -leaders insulted and braved thus insolently with impunity.” - -“Captain Gorges would have run a man through for less,” replied -the other. “But Oldhame said the Plymouth men were crop-eared -psalm-singers, who would not fight.” - -“If Plymouth men had not fought to some purpose on the spot where you -have settled, you would have found but sorry housing there,” retorted -Standish savagely, as he led his captive away, securely bound, and -Bradford in his usual calm tones explained,-- - -“After our captain had slain Pecksuot and Wituwamat and dispersed their -following, he nailed a placard to the tree at the gate of the stockade, -whereon he had hung one of the ringleaders, warning the savages that -if they burned or destroyed the dwellings that remained, he would -come back and serve them as he had their misleader; and this cartel, -although they could not read it, so terrified their superstitious -fancies that Captain Gorges found housen for his men, and a stoccado to -protect them.” - -“Yes,” replied the stranger, gazing curiously after Standish, “we found -the bones of the hanged man lying in a heap under the tree, and the -marks of a deadly fray in the house where Pecksuot fell.” - -“Ay, so. It was a sad necessity, and one almost as grievous to us as to -the savages,” returned Bradford. “Now, sirs, we have no quarrel with -you, nor wish for any. Your skiff will not float until three hours -after noon, and when she does we shall doubtless send away Master -Oldhame in her; meantime, you are welcome to look about and see our -town and Fort, and discourse with the people. Master Hopkins, will you -see that these men have some dinner?” - -“Such as ’tis, they’re welcome to some of mine,” promptly replied -Hopkins, whose comfortable house stood on the corner of Leyden and -Main streets just opposite the governor’s, and whose garden stretched -along to Middle Street, not yet laid out. The size and convenience of -his house, and the bountiful and cheerful hospitality of his wife, -who, with the aid of her daughters Constance, Damaris, and Deborah, -administered the domestic affairs, combining English thrift and -neatness with colonial abundance, gave Hopkins the frequent opportunity -of entertaining visitors to Plymouth, while Bradford saw that he was no -loser by such a course. - -Meanwhile the governor and his council sat in conclave, secure that -their decision would find favor with the people, or at any rate -with that nucleus and backbone of the commonalty known as “the -first-comers,” meaning the passengers of the Mayflower, the Fortune, -and the Anne, with her tender the Little James. - -At noon the tide turned, and the town went to dinner. About half past -two Bartholomew Allerton beat the “assembly” in the Town Square, and at -the well-understood summons men, women, and children gathered in the -square, or clustered in the open doorways, all filled with curiosity as -to the mode of punishment about to be meted out to the returned exile, -and yet none in the least doubt as to its justice. Even the men whom he -had brought with him to be the witnesses of his triumph stood supinely -to view his disgrace, muttering among themselves, and casting uneasy -glances down the hill to where their shallop lay still aground at the -foot of the Rock, while the larger boat hardly swung afloat on the -breast of the young tide. - -Three o’clock, and the governor, the Elder, and the captain came out -of the house of the first, robed in their official garments, and stood -upon a platform of squared logs erected at the intersection of the -streets and mounted with two small cannon called patereros. A blast -from the trumpet, and the gate of the Fort upon the hill swung open, -and out came a strange procession: first, Bart Allerton with his drum, -and three other young fellows with wind instruments, who rendered a -fair imitation of the Rogue’s March; then twenty picked men, mostly -from among the first-comers, each carrying his snaphance reversed; -then Master Oldhame, bareheaded and barefooted, and with his arms tied -across his chest; and finally, Lieutenant John Alden, bearing a naked -sword, followed by a guard of four men well armed. - -Down the hill they came at a foot-pace, the bugles and trumpet -shrilling out their contemptuous cadences, and Oldhame, his pride -subdued and his pot-valiancy all evaporated, stepping delicately as -Agog, for the pebbles hurt his bare feet, and perhaps feeling with Agog -that the bitterness of death was at his lips. - -Before the platform, where stood the magnates and the cannon, the -procession paused, the music ceased, and upon the silence rose the -governor’s calm, strong voice. - -“John Oldhame, you have come hither in defiance of the formal edict -of this government banishing you from the colony; and you have -come with violence and insult, refusing to accept warning, or to -depart peaceably. We therefore have resolved that since you return -dishonorably, you shall depart in dishonor, taking with you the -warning for the future, that the barrels of our pieces are more deadly -than their stocks. Go, and mend your manners!” - -He waved his hand, and the bugles recommenced their blare, while the -twenty men opened their ranks and ranged themselves in two lines some -three feet apart, but not directly opposite each other. - -“Go on, prisoner!” ordered Alden, touching Oldhame with the hilt of his -sword. “Go, and mend your manners!” And as the cowed yet furious rebel -stepped forward, the first man of the line struck upward with the stock -of his reversed musket, saying,-- - -“Go, and mend your manners!” The next instant the same blow and the -same words fell from the minuteman diagonally opposite, and so down the -entire line, until as the twentieth blow and twenty-second adjuration -to “Go, and mend your manners” fell upon the humiliated bully, he broke -down utterly, and with a howl of mingled rage and pain bolted into the -door of John Howland’s house next below Stephen Hopkins’s, but was met -by Elizabeth, who with little John clinging to her skirts and Desire in -her arms boldly faced the intruder for a moment, and then looking into -his streaming face and hunted eyes cried pitifully,-- - -“Oh, poor soul!” and seizing the scissors at her girdle cut the band -confining his arms, and catching up a tankard of ale set ready for her -husband held it to his lips, muttering,-- - -“Mayhap ’tis treason, but there, poor creature, drink, and then slink -away down the hill while-- Why, what’s to do now in the street?” - -“Why don’t you say, ‘Go, and mend your manners!’” hoarsely asked -Oldhame; but still he drank, and then, glancing over his hostess’s -shoulder as she stood in the doorway, he swore a great oath, and -pushing her rudely aside dashed out and down the hill to his boat. - -For, unseen by the townsmen, all of them absorbed in the punishment -parade, the ship Jacob, Captain William Pierce, had sailed into harbor -upon the flood-tide, dropped anchor beside the Nantucket fishing craft, -and set ashore her master, with his distinguished passenger Edward -Winslow, who had been to England to try to straighten the tangled -relations between the Pilgrims and the Adventurers, already playing -fast and loose with their promises. - -Some good-natured raillery from Captain Pierce upon the negligent -outlook kept by the colonists served to relieve the strain of the -late occurrence, and as Winslow with a face full of portent followed -the governor into his house, John Oldhame stepped aboard the fishing -vessel, and sailed out of Plymouth Harbor in a condition of unwonted -quiet and humiliation. - - - - -CHAPTER VII. - -MORTON OF MERRY MOUNT. - - -“Well, Master Trumpeter, and what do you make of yon craft? Are the -Don Spaniards coming to invade New Plymouth, or has the king sent to -impress you as major-domo of the royal hand?” - -“Good-morrow, Captain Standish. The governor lent me his perspective -glass, and sent me up on the hill to spy out who was coming.” - -“And that’s all right, Bart. No need to make excuse for doing the -governor’s bidding, my lad.” - -“I was thinking, Captain, you found it strange to see me on the Fort -without notice to you”-- - -“And so came up to call you to account? No, my boy, I know who’s to -be trusted and who not, else had I served in vain through those long -years in the Low Countries. Had it been Gyles Hopkins now, or Jack -Billington-- But there, what make you of the craft?” - -“I think, sir, ’tis Master Maverick’s boat from Noddle’s Island, and -there are four men in her whose faces I cannot yet make out.” - -“A friendly visit, belike. Stay you here, Bart, until you can determine -the craft, and then carry the news to the governor. I am going down to -the Rock on mine own occasions.” - -Bowling merrily along before an easterly breeze, the ketch soon rounded -Beach Point, and dropped her anchor opposite the village, but in -midstream, and so soon as the sails were snugged, and all made ready -for some possible change of weather, the four visitors stepped into a -skiff and were sculled ashore by a tall, fine-looking young fellow, -whose bronzed face and lithe figure were well set off by the buckskin -hunting-shirt and red cap worn with a jaunty air not inharmonious with -the young man’s roving black eyes and flashing smile. - -“Master Maverick and his son, Master Blackstone from Shawmut, and -Master Bursley and Master Jeffries from Wessagussett,” reported Bart -Allerton, hat in hand, at the governor’s door, and Bradford, laying -down his book, replied with a grave smile,-- - -“I will go to meet them.” - -Half an hour later the three elder visitors with the governor, the -captain, Allerton, Doctor Fuller, and one or two more, were closeted in -the new room recently added to the governor’s house, and used by him as -a council chamber and court room. - -Moses Maverick, the handsome young boatman, had meanwhile somewhat -pointedly sought out Bart Allerton, and almost invited himself to -accompany him home. - -“Go you into the front room and entertain him, Remember,” directed the -young step-mother with a mischievous smile. “I am too busy with little -Isaac to leave him just now.” - -And Maverick received the apologies of his hostess with an air so -strangely contented that Remember paused half way in making them, and -faltered and blushed and laughed, very much as a modest but open-eyed -girl would do to-day. - -“I told you last Lady Day that I should soon be here again, Remember,” -murmured the youth rather irrelevantly. - -“I know naught of Lady Days,” retorted the Pilgrim maid with an effort -at a saucy little laugh. - -“’Tis because your father is a Separatist, but we Mavericks are sound -Churchmen,” replied the lover. “Some day, mayhap, you’ll be better -advised.” - -Let us discreetly leave them to themselves, and seek the council -chamber where Blackstone is saying,-- - -“Yes, Governor Bradford, we have come to you for that aid and support -against the common foe which all Christians have a right to demand of -each other, no matter how the forms of their Christianity may disagree.” - -“The plea is one never disallowed by the men of Plymouth,” returned -Bradford in his sonorous voice. “But what would you have us to do?” - -“Why, to capture this Morton by force of arms, since words have no -effect, and ship him back to England, where they say there is a warrant -out against him for murder of some man in the west country with whom he -had business concerns.” - -“That were a high-handed proceeding, specially sith his settlement is -not within the domain of Plymouth,” suggested the Elder cautiously. - -“True,” broke in Bursley impetuously. “But as Master Blackstone has -told you, Morton sells pieces and ammunition and rum to the savages -without let or stint, and they, having naught else to do, practice at -a mark all day long, and soon will prove better shots than any white -man. Then, when some new Wituwamat or Pecksuot shall arise to stir -them to revolt, where shall we be? You had not won so easy a triumph -there where I live, Captain Standish, had your foes been armed with -snaphances.” - -“Not so easy, perhaps, but to my mind more honorable,” replied Standish -coldly. “Howbeit, I do not approve of arming the Indians.” - -“Of course, Governor,” resumed Blackstone, who had been the principal -speaker, “the peril is not great for you who can count a hundred -fighting men with Captain Standish to lead them; but none other of -the settlements is of any force, although friend Maverick here has -fortified his island, and may depend upon a dozen men or so of his -household, and the Hilton brothers at Piscataqua and Cocheco are stout -and well-armed fellows, and my neighbor Thomas Walford at Mishawum[2] -has a palisado round his house, and his blacksmith’s sledge with some -other weapons inside. Then at Naumkeag[3] are Roger Conant, Peter -Palfrey, and the rest, with your old friend Lyford as their parson, -and Conant is a fighting man as well as a godly one. But I, as all -men know, am a man of peace as befits a parson; and there is David -Thompson’s young widow and child abiding on the island bearing his -name, with only a couple of men-servants to defend them. If all of -us drew together in one hold we should not count half the force of -Plymouth, but we do not wish so to abandon our plantations.” - -“Have you labored with Thomas Morton, showing him the wrong he does?” -asked Elder Brewster coldly, and eying the Churchman with strong -disfavor, for Blackstone, with questionable taste, had chosen to wear -upon this expedition the long coat and shovel hat carefully brought by -him from England as the uniform of his profession. Dressed in these -canonicals, with the incongruous addition of “Geneva bands,” Blackstone -regularly read the Church of England service on Sundays at his house -upon the Common, sometimes alone, and sometimes to a congregation -composed of the Walfords from Charlestown, the Mavericks from Noddle’s -Island or East Boston, the settlers from Chelsea, and perhaps in fine -weather the Grays from Hull, and some of the folk from Old Spain in -Weymouth. For all these were adherents to the Church of England after a -fashion, although by no means ardent religionists of any sort; and as -such, held in considerable esteem the eccentric parson living in the -solitude he loved among his apple-trees, and beside his clear spring, -now merged in the Frog Pond of our Common. A lukewarm Churchman, he was -friendly enough to the Separatists, and now replied to Brewster with a -smile,-- - -“I have labored so vainly, Elder, that I fear even your authority would -be of no avail. I opine that our friend Standish here is the only man -whose eloquence Thomas Morton will heed in the smallest degree.” - -“And the chief men of all the settlements are agreed in making this -request of Plymouth?” asked the governor. - -“Not only the chief, but every man among them,” answered Maverick. “And -what is more to the purpose, each one of the settlements will bear its -share in whatsoever charges the arrest and transportation may involve.” - -“That is well, but should be set down in writing with signatures and -witnesses,” suggested Allerton, to whom Maverick haughtily replied,-- - -“Oh, never fear, Master Allerton. The most of us are honest men and not -traders.” - -“No offense, Master Maverick, no offense; but it is well that all -things should be done decently and in order,” returned the assistant -smoothly, and the council soon after broke up with the understanding -that Bradford, as the only recognized authority in New England, should -write Morton a formal protest in the name of all the English settlers, -reminding him that King James of happy memory had, as one of his latest -acts, issued a royal proclamation forbidding the sale of fire-arms or -spirits to the savages, and calling upon him as an English subject to -obey this edict. - -If this protest proved of none effect, the Governor of Plymouth pledged -himself to suppress the rebel and his mischief with the high hand. - -FOOTNOTES: - -[2] Charlestown. - -[3] Salem. - - - - -CHAPTER VIII. - -STANDISH AT MERRY MOUNT. - - -Some two weeks had passed by since the visit of the committee of safety -to Plymouth; long enough for Bradford, ever moderate, ever considerate, -to write a letter of kindly expostulation to Morton, and to receive -an insolent and defiant reply; and now in a pleasant June afternoon -the Plymouth boat, commanded by Standish, and manned by eight picked -followers, drew into Weymouth fore-river, where upon the water-course -now known as Phillips Creek, Weston and his men, some six or seven -years before, had founded their unlucky settlement. - -The fate of this settlement we have seen, and also learned that the -houses protected by Standish’s warning to the savages had since become -the dwelling-place of some of the followers of Ferdinando Gorges, that -showy personage who, coming to the New World with the romantic idea of -proclaiming himself its governor, found it so savage and forbidding of -aspect that, after a few months spent mostly as a guest of Plymouth, he -quietly returned to England, civilization, and a sovereignty on paper. -The houses repaired or built by him still remained, however, and among -the Gorges men who continued to live in them were the Mr. Jeffries and -Mr. Bursley who accompanied Blackstone and Maverick to Plymouth. - -A little below Phillips Creek, the Monatoquit River empties into the -bay, and across the river lies a fair height, now included in the town -of Quincy, but then known as Passonagessit, whence one might then, -and still may, look east and north upon the lovely archipelago of -Boston Harbor, or westward to the blue hills of Milton. On its eastern -face this height of Passonagessit sloped gently to the sea, with good -harborage for boats at its foot, promising facilities for fishing and -for traffic with the northern Indians. - -Upon this headland in the early summer of 1625 a wild and motley crowd -of adventurers pitched their tents, and soon replaced the canvas with -comfortable log-houses and a stockaded inclosure. The leader of this -company was one Captain Wollaston, perhaps the same adventurer whom -Captain John Smith of Pocahontas memory encountered, some fifteen years -before, on the high seas, acting as lieutenant to one Captain Barry, -an English pirate. With Wollaston were three or four partners, and a -great crew of bound servants, men who had either pledged their own -time, or been delivered into temporary slavery as punishment by English -magistrates, and the purpose of the leaders was to found a settlement -like that of Plymouth. The place was named Mount Wollaston by the white -men, while the Indians continued to call it Passonagessit, just as -they still speak of Weymouth as Wessagusset. One New England winter, -however, cooled the courage of Captain Wollaston, as it had that of -Robert Gorges, and in the spring of 1626 he took about half his bound -men to Virginia, where he sold their services to the tobacco planters -at such a profit, that he wrote back to Mr. Rasdall, his second in -command, to bring down another gang as soon as possible, and to leave -Mount Wollaston in charge of Lieutenant Fitcher, until he himself -should return thither. - -Rasdall obeyed, and in making his parting charges to Fitcher remarked,-- - -“All should go well, so that you keep Thomas Morton in check. Give him -his head and he will run away with you and Wollaston.” - -Fitcher assented with a rueful countenance, for he knew himself to be -but a timid rider, and the Morton a most unruly steed, and the event -proved his fears well grounded, for Rasdall had not reached Virginia -before Morton in the lieutenant’s temporary absence called the eight -remaining servants together, produced some bottles of rum, a net of -lemons, and a bucket of sugar, to which he bade his guests heartily -welcome, greeting each man jovially by name, and telling them that the -time had come to throw off their chains, to assert their rights, and -to reap for themselves the benefit of their hard work. He assured them -that he, although a gentleman, a learned lawyer, and a man of means, -felt himself no whit above them, and asked nothing better than to live -with them in liberty, fraternity, and equality, finally proposing that -they should seize upon “the plant” of Mount Wollaston, turn Lieutenant -Fitcher out of doors, and establish a commonwealth of their own. No -sooner said than done! The men whom Morton addressed were, in fact, -the dregs of the company left behind by Wollaston as not worth trading -off. Perhaps he never intended to come back to claim them; perhaps if -indeed he had been a pirate he took Morton’s action as nothing more -than a reasonable proceeding; at any rate this disappearance of Captain -Wollaston and Lieutenant Rasdall was final, and except that the -neighborhood of Passonagessit is still called Wollaston Heights, the -very name of this adventurer would probably have been forgotten. - -It was at any rate disused, for so soon as Lieutenant Fitcher had been, -as he reported to Bradford, “thrust out a dores,” the name of the place -was changed to Merry Mount, and the life of debauch and profligacy -promised by Morton inaugurated; as a natural consequence, Merry Mount -soon acquired so wide a fame for license and disorder that it became -the resort of the lawless adventurers who haunted the coast in those -days, sometimes calling themselves fishermen, sometimes privateers, -and sometimes buccaneers, and the whole affair grew to be a scandal, -not only to Godfearing Plymouth, but to those other settlements, of -sober, law-abiding folk, scattered up and down the coast, especially -when in the spring of 1627 Morton set up a Maypole at Merry Mount, and -proclaimed a Saturnalia of a week. - -Now a Maypole, and dancing around it crowned with flowers, is in our -day a very pretty and pastoral affair, only open to the objections -of cold, wet, and absurdity. But in old English times it was a very -different matter, being in effect a remnant of heathenesse, and the -profligate worship of the goddess Flora. William Bradford, writing an -account of the attack upon Merry Mount, expresses himself thus:-- - -“They allso set up a Maypole, drinking and dancing aboute it many days -togeather, inviting the Indean women for their consorts, dancing and -frisking togeather like so many fairies (or furies, rather) and worse -practices. As if they had anew revived and celebrated the feastes -of the Roman goddes Flora, or the beastly practices of the madd -Bacchinalians.” - -Although Plymouth and its neighbors were shocked at these practices, -they would not probably have interfered, beyond a remonstrance, with -the amusements of the Merry Mountaineers had the matter stopped there, -but, as the delegates to Plymouth represented, the selling of fire-arms -to the Indians, teaching them to shoot, and inflaming their murderous -passions with alcohol, was a very different matter, a matter of public -import, and one to be arrested by any means before it went farther. - -So after this long digression, tiresome no doubt, but essential to -understanding what follows, we come back to Myles Standish and his -eight men, “first-comers” all of them, pulling up their boat upon the -shore at Wessagusset, just as they had done five years before. As they -turned toward the path leading to the stockade, a man came hurriedly -down to meet them. - -“Good-morrow, Master Bursley,” cried the captain cheerfully. “We are on -our way to Merry Mount, and called to tell you so.” - -But Bursley held up his hand with a warning gesture, and so soon as he -was near enough hoarsely muttered in unconscious plagiarism,-- - -“The devil’s broke loose.” - -“Say you so, Bill Bursley!” responded Standish, showing all his broad -white teeth. “I did not know he’d ever been in the bilboes!” - -“Morton’s here at the house, full of liquor and swearing all sorts of -wicked intent toward--well now, Captain, if you won’t take it amiss, -I’ll tell you that he calls you Captain Shrimp!” - -“Following Master Oldhame,” replied Standish carelessly. “I must marvel -at the lack of sound wit at Wessagusset when so small a jest has to -serve so many men. But you say this roysterer is here in your house?” - -“No, in Jeffries’ house. He came this morning asking that we should -return with him to Merry Mount and help him against the ‘Plymouth -insolents’ as he called you.” - -“And what answer did he get, Master Bursley?” - -“What but nay?” demanded Bursley with a glance of honest surprise. “Was -not I one of those who came the other day to Plymouth begging Governor -Bradford to take order with this rebel? But he has been drinking, -and is in such a woundy bad humor that but now he drew a knife upon -Jeffries, and may have slain him outright before this.” - -“Say you so! Then, let us hasten and bury him with all due honors!” -exclaimed the captain, in whose nostrils the breath of battle was ever -a pleasant savor. “Howland, Alden, Browne, all of you, my merry men! -Leave the boat snug, and follow to the house, to chat with Master -Morton who awaits us there.” - -And the captain sped joyously up the path, looking to the priming of -his long pistols, and loosening Gideon in his scabbard as he went. A -rod from the house, however, a bullet nearly found its billet in his -brain, while on the threshold stood Morton, his face flushed, his gait -unsteady, and a smoking pistol in his hand. - -“Hola! Captain Shrimp, I warn you stand out of range of my pistol -practice. You might get a hurt by chance!” cried he, raising another -pistol, but before it could be aimed, or the captain take action, -somebody within the house struck up the madman’s arm, and as he turned -savagely upon this new foe, Standish, whose muscles were strong and -elastic as a panther’s, sprang across the intervening space, and -seizing his prisoner by the collar shouted,-- - -“Yield, Morton, or you’re but a dead man!” - -“One man may well yield to a mob,” muttered Morton sullenly; and seeing -that he was disarmed, Standish released his hold saying quietly,-- - -“Fair and softly, Master Morton! Governor Bradford sends me and these -men, praying for your company at Plymouth, so soon as may be. If you -will go quietly, well; but if you resist, you will go all the same; so -choose you.” - -“The Governor of Plymouth does me too much honor to send so many of his -servants with the major-domo at the head,” replied Morton bitterly. -“And sith as you say the invitation may not be refused, I’ll e’en -accept it, but would first return to Merry Mount to fetch some clothes -and set my house in order.” - -“Your return to Merry Mount will be as the governor orders hereafter. I -was bid to bring you to Plymouth without delay, and that I shall do.” - -“But not to-night, I trust, Captain Standish,” interposed Jeffries. “A -shrewd tempest is threatening, and by the time it is past, night will -be upon us and no moon.” - -“With the shoals and sandbars of this coast thick as plums in a -Christmas pudding,” remarked Philip De la Noye, whereat Peter Browne -growled, “Make it a Thanksgiving pudding, an it please you, Master -Philip. We hold no Papist feasts here.” - -Stepping outside the door, Standish took a survey of the skies, the -sea, and the forest, already waving its green boughs in welcome to the -coming rain. - -“Do you hear the ‘calling of the sea,’ Captain?” asked a Cornish man, -placing his curved hand behind his ear, and bending it to catch the -deep murmur and wail that float shoreward from the hollow of ocean -when a thunder-storm is gathering in its unknown spaces. - -“Yes,” replied Standish in an unusually hushed voice, “we will stay -awhile; perhaps the night, if our friends can keep us.” - -“Glad and gayly,” said Jeffries, who, truth to tell, was a little -afraid that the remaining garrison of Merry Mount might descend upon -his house in the night to rescue their leader or avenge his loss. - -“And we’ll feast you on the pair of wild turkeys my boy shot to-day,” -cried Bursley. “Come, we’ll make a night on’t, sith there are not beds -enough for all to lie down.” - -“With your leave, sirs, I will claim one of those beds and take my rest -while I may,” broke in Morton sourly. “I have no mind for reveling with -tipstaves and jailers.” - -“Ne’ertheless you might keep a civil tongue in your head, Morton,” -angrily exclaimed Browne, but Standish interposed,-- - -“Tut, tut, man! Never jibe at a prisoner. A bruised creature ever -solaces itself with its tongue, and so may a bruised man. Let him -alone!” - -“Thank you for nothing, Captain Shrimp!” snarled Morton; but Standish -only nodded good-humoredly, and began looking about to see if the log -hut could be made secure for the night. Finally, a small bedroom off -the principal or living room was set aside for Morton, the window -shutter nailed from the outside, and a man set to watch beside him, and -be responsible for his safety. - -The turkeys were soon plucked, dressed, and each hung by a string tied -to one leg before a rousing fire, so oppressive for the June night, -that Standish retreated to a shed at the back of the house, and stood -watching the magnificent spectacle of the tempest now in full force. On -one side lay the primeval forest, dense and gloomy with its evergreen -growth, through whose serried ranks the mad wind ploughed like a charge -of cavalry, rending the giants limb from limb, lashing the bowed heads -of those who resisted, trampling down in its savage fury old and young, -the sturdy veterans and the helpless saplings. - -At the other hand lay the ocean, seen through a slant veil of hurtling -rain, its waters flat and foaming like the head of a tigress that lays -back her ears and gnashes her teeth as she crouches for her spring, and -ever and anon, between the crashing peals of thunder and the splitting -report of some lightning bolt riving the heart of oak or mast of pine, -came the weird “calling of the sea,” the voice of deep crying unto -deep:-- - -“Watchman, what of the night? Watchman, what of the night? The watchman -said, The morning cometh, and also the night: if ye will inquire, -inquire ye!” “But hurt not the earth, neither the sea, nor the trees, -till we shall have sealed the servants of our God!” - -In face of this vast antiphony, Morton of Merry Mount and his concerns -sank to insignificance; and so felt Myles Standish, who had all the -love of nature inseparable from a great heart; but his had not been so -great had it been capable of slighting the meanest duty, and his last -act before midnight when he lay down for a few hours’ repose was to see -that his prisoner was both safe and comfortable, and that two reliable -men were upon the watch. One of these was Richard Soule and the other -John Alden, to whom the captain said,-- - -“Now mind you, Jack, it has been a hard day’s work, and our friends’ -hospitality full liberal. Do you feel your head heavy? If so, say the -word, and I’ll watch myself and be none the worse for it on the morrow. -Speak honest truth now, lad.” - -But Alden so indignantly protested that nothing could tempt him -to sleep in such an emergency, and so affectionately besought his -friend to take some rest, that the captain at length complied, much -to the delight of Morton, who, feigning sleep, had listened to the -conversation. - -Twelve o’clock, and one, and two passed quietly, yet not unnoted, -for Morton, among other claims to distinction, was the possessor of -a “pocket-clock,” the only one at Wessagusset that night, since even -Standish did not aspire to such luxury, and was well content to divide -his day by the sun and the dial, if it were clear, or by his instinct, -if it were stormy, while the night was told by its stars, the deeper -and lessening darkness, or the chill that always precedes the dawn. -Half past two, and the prisoner turned himself silently upon his bed. -At its foot sat John Alden, his snaphance between his knees, and his -head fallen forward and sidewise till he seemed to be peering down its -barrel; but alas, his stertorous breathing proclaimed that nature had -succumbed to fatigue and the watchman was fast asleep. - -A smile of elfish glee widened Morton’s already wide and loose-lipped -mouth and twinkled in his beady eyes, as without a sound, and with the -cautious movements of a cat, he stole off the bed, seized his doublet -which had been laid aside, and crept out of the bedroom into the -kitchen where, with his head and shoulders sprawling over the table, -and his piece lying upon it, Richard Soule lay sweetly dreaming of -seizing the rebel by the hair of his head, and dragging him to the -foot of a gallows high as Haman’s. With the same malicious grin and the -same cat-like movement Morton stole rapidly past this second Cerberus, -pausing only to secure his snaphance. The outer door was made fast by -an oaken bar dropped into iron staples, and this the runaway lightly -lifted out and stood against the wall; but as he opened the door, the -storm tore it from his hand, threw down the bar, extinguished the -candles, and roused the sleepers. - -Myles Standish, whose vigilant brain had warned him even through a -heavy sleep that there was danger in the camp, was already afoot and -groping for the ladder whereby to descend from his loft when the shriek -of the wind and the bewildered outcries of the watch told him what had -happened, and like a whirlwind he was down the steps, calling upon -Alden and Soule, and loudly demanding news of their prisoner. - -“He’s gone! He’s gone!” cried Soule, while Alden mutely bestirred -himself with flint and steel to strike a light. When it was obtained, -and disastrous certainty replaced the captain’s worst suspicions, -his anger knew no bounds, and the hot temper, generally controlled, -for once burst its limits and poured out a short, sharp torrent of -words that had better never have been spoken, until at last John -Alden, slowly roused to a state of wrath very foreign to his nature, -retorted,-- - -“The next time that Nell Billington is brought before the court as a -scold, it might be well to present Myles Standish along with her. What -say you, Dick?” - -“Haw! Haw!” roared Soule, who, although a worthy citizen, was not a man -of fine sensibilities. Standish glanced at him with angry contempt, and -then fixed his eyes upon Alden with a look before which that honest -fellow shrunk, and colored fiery red as he stammered,-- - -“I--I said amiss--nay, then,--forgive me, Captain.” - -“The captain can easily forgive what the friend will not soon forget, -John,” said Standish gravely, for indeed the brief treason of his -ancient henchman had struck deep into the proud, loving heart of the -soldier. “But,” continued he in the same breath, “this is no time for -private grievances--follow me!” - -And opening the door he dashed out into the night, and down the path -to the rude pier where his own boat and the two belonging to the -settlement were made fast. As he approached, a figure slipped away, -and was lost in the neighboring thicket; Myles could not see it, -but surmised it, and quick as thought a rattling charge of buckshot -followed the slight sound hardly to be distinguished amid the clashing -of branches, the scream of the wind, and the sobbing blows of the surf -upon the shore. - -Morton, lying flat upon his face behind a big poplar, heard the shot -fall around him, and knew that more would come; so, pursuing the -tactics of his Indian allies, he wriggled backward, still clinging as -closely as possible to mother earth, until, arrived at the roots of -a giant oak, he drew himself upright behind it, and stood silent and -waiting. The captain waited also, and in a moment came the green glare -both men counted upon, and while Myles springing forward searched -the thicket with another storm of shot and then with foot and sword, -Morton, taking a rapid survey of the situation, selected his route, and -sheltered by the crash of thunder which drowned all other sounds sprang -from the oak to a clump of cedars higher up the hill, and so, guided -by the lightning, and screened from the quick ear of his pursuer by -the thunder, he gradually gained the trail made by the Indians between -Wessagusset and the head waters of the tidal river Monatoquit; crossing -this channel with infinite danger, the fugitive made his way down the -other bank, and about daylight reached Merry Mount greatly to the -astonishment of the only three of his comrades who remained at home, -the rest of the garrison having gone under guidance of some of their -Indian allies to trade for beaver in the interior. - -Standish meanwhile, finding that the prisoner had made good his escape, -returned to the house, and setting aside the condolences of his hosts -and the shamefaced penitence of Richard Soule, for John Alden said -never a word, he passed the remaining hours of darkness in examining -his weapons, in pacing up and down his narrow quarters, gnawing his -mustache, fondling the hilt of Gideon, and looking out of the door or -the unglazed window-place. The hosts meantime bestirred themselves to -prepare a savory meal of venison steaks, corn cakes, and mighty ale, -to which, just as the first streaks of daylight appeared through the -breaking clouds, the whole party sat down, the stern and silent captain -among them, for angry and mortified though he was, the old soldier had -served in too many rude campaigns not to secure his rations when and -where they might be had. But the meal was very different from the jolly -supper of the night before, and it was rather a relief when the captain -rising briefly ordered,-- - -“Fall in, men! To the boat with you. Our thanks for your kind -entertainment, Master Jeffries, and you, Master Bursley. We will let -you know the ending of our enterprise so soon as may be.” - -And as the sun rose across the sea, whose blue expanse dimpled and -laughed at thought of its wild frolic during his absence, the Plymouth -boat, crossing the mouth of the Monatoquit and skirting its marshy -basin, drew in to the landing place of Merry Mount, not without -expectation of a volley from some ambush near at hand. None such came, -however, and so soon as the boat was secured, the captain, deploying -his men in open order that a shot might harm no more than one, led them -up the gentle slope and halted in the shelter of a clump of cedars, -whose survivor stands to-day lifeless and broken, but yet a witness to -the mad revels of Merry Mount and their sombre ending. His men safe, -Standish himself advanced to parley with the garrison. As he emerged -from the shelter of the grove Alden silently stepped behind, and would -have followed, but the captain, without looking round, coldly said,-- - -“Remain here, Lieutenant Alden, until you are ordered forward,” and the -young man slunk back just as a bullet whistled past the captain’s ear. -Pulling his handkerchief from his pocket Standish thrust his bayonet -through the corner, and holding it above his head, advanced until -Morton’s voice shouted through a porthole beside the door,-- - -“Halt, there, Captain Shrimp! I’m on my own domain here, garrisoned, -armed, victualed, and ready for a siege. What do you want, Shrimp?” - -“I demand the body of Thomas Morton, and if the garrison of this place -are wise, they will yield it up before it is taken by force of arms and -their hold burned over their heads.” - -A little silence ensued, for the threat of fire was a formidable one, -and Morton’s three assistants had counted the enemy’s force as it -landed, and were now clamoring for surrender. But he, who at least was -no coward, retorted upon them with a grotesque oath that alone, if need -be, he would chase these psalm-singers into the ocean, and returning to -the porthole shouted again,-- - -“Hola! Captain, Captain Shrimp”-- - -“I hold no parley with one so ignorant of the uses of war as to insult -a flag of truce,” interposed Standish, and Morton laughing boisterously -rejoined,-- - -“I cry you mercy, noble sir, and will in future, that is to say, the -near future, treat you with all the honor due to the Generalissimo of -the Plymouth Army. And now deign, most puissant leader, to satisfy me -as to the intent of the Governor of Plymouth should he gain possession -of the body of Thomas Morton, that is to say of the living body, for -should you see fit to carry him naught but a murdered carcass, well -I wot he would hang it to the wall of his Fort upon the hill to keep -company with the skull of Wituwamat. So again I demand--and I crave -your pardon, most worshipful, if I am somewhat prolix; but indeed it is -such a merry sight to watch your noble countenance waxing more and more -rubicund and wrathful while I speak”-- - -“When I have counted ten I shall order the assault if I have no -reasonable answer sooner,” interrupted Standish briefly. “One, two”-- - -“Hold, hold, man! Why so violent and rash? Tell me in a word what will -Bradford do with me an I yield?” - -“Send you to England for trial.” - -“Trial on what count?” And as he asked the question Morton’s voice -took on a new tone, one of anxiety and even alarm, for conscience was -clamoring that a dark story of robbery and murder might have followed -him from the western shores of Old England to the eastern coast of New. -But Standish’s reply reassured him. - -“For selling arms and ammunition to the Indians contrary to the king’s -proclamation.” - -“And what is a proclamation, Master General?” demanded the rebel -truculently. “Mayhap you do not know that I, Thomas Morton, Gentleman, -am a clerk learned in the law, a solicitor and barrister of Clifford’s -Inn, London, and I assure you that a royal proclamation is not law, and -its breach entails no penalty. Do you comprehend this subtlety, mine -ancient? Suppose I _have_ broken a proclamation of King James’s, what -penalty have I incurred, if not that of the law?” - -“The penalty of those who disobey and insult a king, whatever that may -be,” sturdily replied Standish. “But all that”-- - -“Nay, nay; know you not, most valiant Generalissimo, that while a law -entered upon the statute book of England remains in force until it is -repealed, a royal proclamation dies with the monarch who utters it? -King James’s proclamation sleeps with him at Westminster, and I never -have heard that King Charles has uttered any.” - -“Let it be so! I know naught and care less for these quips and -quiddities of the law. The Standishes are not pettifoggers of -Clifford’s nor any other Inn. My errand is to fetch you to Plymouth, -and there has been more than enough delay already. Will you surrender -peaceably?” - -“Surrender! Why look you here, man, or rather take my word for it sith -you may not look. My table is spread with dishes of powder, and bowls -of shot, and flagons of Dutch courage; we are a goodly garrison, and -armed to the teeth; we are behind walls, and could, if we willed, pick -you off man by man without giving you the chance of a return shot. In -fact, it is only my tenderness of human life that holds me back from -greeting you as you deserve”-- - -“Enough, enough! I will wait here no longer to be the butt of your -ribaldry. Before you can patter a prayer we will smoke you out of your -hole like rats.” - -And Myles was in fact retreating upon the body of his command when -Morton hailed again,-- - -“Hold, hold, my valiant! I was about to say that I purpose surrender, -both to save the effusion of human blood and to prevent damage to the -house, which although no lordly castle serves our turn indifferently -well as a shelter.” - -“You surrender, do you?” - -“On conditions, Captain. The garrison shall retain its colors and arms, -and march out with all the honors”-- - -“Pshaw, man! I know as well as you that four of your men are away, and -that there can be no more than three with you. As for conditions, it is -our part to dictate them, and I hereby offer your men their freedom if -they abandon the evil practices learned of their betters. For yourself -I promise naught but safe convoy to Plymouth.” - -“‘Perdition seize thee, ruthless’ Shrimp!” shouted Morton in a fury; -“we will come out and drive you into the sea to feed the fishes.” - -“Ay, come out as fast as you may, or you’ll be smoked out like so many -wasps,” retorted Standish, tearing away his flag of truce, and waving -his sword as signal for the advance of his little troop, four of -whom carried blazing torches. But Morton, although he had stimulated -his courage a little too freely, had not quite lost sight of that -discretion which is valor’s better part, and absolutely sure that -whatever Standish threatened he would fully perform, he resolved at all -events to save his house; so seizing a handful of buckshot he crammed -it into his already overloaded piece, called upon his men to follow, -and flinging open the door rushed out shouting,-- - -“Death to Standish! Death! Death!” But the clumsy musket was too heavy -for his inebriated grasp, and before he could bring it to an aim -Standish sprang in, seized the barrel with one hand and Morton’s collar -with the other, at the same time so twisting his right foot between the -rebel’s legs as to bring him flat upon his back, while the blunderbuss -harmlessly exploding supplied the din of battle. - -“There, my lad, that’s a Lancashire fall,” cried Standish with an angry -laugh. “They didn’t teach you that in Clifford’s Inn, did they now?” - -“Oh, murder! murder! I’m but a dead man! Oh! Oh!” shrieked the voice of -one of the besieged, and Standish turning sharply demanded,-- - -“Who gave the order to strike? Alden, how dare you attack without -orders!”-- - -“I attacked nobody, Captain Standish,” replied John Alden more nearly -in the same tone than he had ever addressed his beloved commander. “I -carried my sword in my hand thus, and was making in to the house when -this drunken fool stumbled out and ran his nose against the point. -He’ll be none the worse for a little blood-letting.” - -“Two of my fellows were drunk, and one an arrant coward, or you had not -made so easy a venture of your piracy,” snarled Morton viciously, and -one of the younger of the Plymouth men would have dealt him a blow with -the flat of his sword, but Standish struck it up saying sternly,-- - -“Hands off, Philip De la Noye, or you’ll feel the edge instead of the -flat of my sword. Know you nothing, nothing at all of the usages of war -that you would strike an unarmed prisoner!” - -A few moments more and the whole affair was over. Morton’s three men, -foolish, worthless fellows, hardly dangerous even under his guidance, -and perfectly harmless when deprived of it, were set at liberty with a -stern warning from Standish that they were simply left at Merry Mount -on probation, and that the smallest disobedience to the law prohibiting -the sale of fire-arms, or instruction of the Indians in their use, -would at once be known at Plymouth and most severely punished. - -“As for your Maypole, and your Indian blowzabellas, and your dancing -and mummery,” concluded the captain, “I for one have naught to say, -except that there must be some warlock-work in the matter to tempt even -a squaw to frisk round a Maypole with such as you.” - -Morton, sullen, silent, and disarmed, was meantime led to the boat -between Alden and Howland, the other men after, and last of all -Standish muttering,-- - -“Better if there had been a garrison strong enough to hold the -position. Then we might have burned the house and haply slain the -traitor in hot blood.” - - - - -CHAPTER IX. - -THE KYLOE COW. - - -“Barbara! Wife!” - -“I am here, Myles, straining the milk. I shall make some furmety for -supper. Even Lora begins to beg for it, and the boys dote upon it, -little knaves!” - -“Let the furmety wait for a bit, and come out here to see old Manomet -in the evening light. ’Tis a sight I never tire of.” - -“Ay, ’tis very fair,” replied Barbara coldly, as she came and sat for -a moment upon the bench at the cottage door, where Myles was wont to -smoke his pipe, and muse upon many matters never brought to words. - -A little lower down the hill Alick and his brother Myles were playing -with John and Joseph Alden, while Betty, a stick in her hand, drove all -four boys before her, she with mimic airs of anger and they of terror. - -“Very fair!” echoed the captain irritably. “You know naught and care -less for Nature, Bab. Your thought never gets beyond your furmety pot -or Alick’s breeches.” - -“And that’s all the better for you and Alick, Myles,” replied the -wife in her usual placid tones; but then, with one of those sudden -revulsions by which placid people occasionally surprise their friends, -she drew in her breath with something between a sob and a groan and -burst out: - -“Oh, Myles! Myles! Nature do you call it, and I not love the face of -Nature do you say! Nay, man, this is not Nature, these dark woods and -barren sands and lonesome hills, with never a chimney in sight,--that’s -not the Nature I love and long for. My heart goes back to the pleasant -fields and good old hills of Man. There are mountains grander by far -than yon dark Manomet, as you call it, and yet pranked all over with -cottages, where honest folk find a home and the stranger is ever -welcome. And then the fair valleys between, with the peaceful steads -where men are born and die in sight of their fathers’ graves, and the -old thatched roofs, and the stonecrop on the walls, and the roses -clambering over the casements, and oh, the little kyloe cows coming -home at night, and the poultry”-- - -She paused abruptly and threw her apron over her face. Myles carefully -knocked the ashes out of his pipe, laid it upon a ledge above the -bench, and taking his wife by the arm led her into the house where -he might seat her upon his knee with no risk of scandalizing chance -spectators. Then he calmly said,-- - -“The worst of quiet creatures like you, Bab, is that a man never knows -the fire’s alight till the house is in a blaze. Now as you, or was it -Priscilla Alden, said once of me, ‘A little pot’s soon hot,’ and all -the world is forced to know it, but you,--art homesick for the old -country, lass?” - -“Nay, Myles, there is no home to be sick for; all is changed there; but -I would like it better if we had a little holding of our own, and our -own cow, and some ducks, and a goose fattening for Michaelmas.” - -“But you share the great red cow with Winslow’s folk, and have milk -enough for your furmety, sweetheart!” And the grim warrior smiled -as tenderly as a mother upon the flushed wet face so near his own. -Barbara smiled too, and wiping away the tears sat upright, but was not -allowed to leave her somewhat undignified position upon her husband’s -knee. - -“There, Myles, ’tis past now, and I will be more sensible”-- - -“Prythee don’t, child! I like thee better thus.” - -“Nay, but we’re growing old folk, goodman, and it behooves us to be -sober and recollected”-- - -“Nonsense, nonsense, Bab; there’s no lass among them all that shows so -fair a rose upon her cheek, or such a wealth of sunny hair, as my Bab, -and as for thine eyes, lass, they are a marvel”-- - -“Now! now! now! well then, dear, I’ll behave myself, after all that -sweet flattery, and--come, let us go out and look at Manomet.” - -“Nay. Your longing for a place you may call your own, and have your -kine and poultry and all that about you, marries so well with a thought -I’ve been turning over and over in my mind for a month or more, that -I’ll e’en give it you now, and Manomet and the furmety may wait another -ten minutes, or so.” - -“Well, then, let me but take my knitting”-- - -“No. You shall do naught but listen, and you shall sit where you are! -For once I’ll have your whole mind”-- - -“For once, Myles!” - -“Ay, for once,--look as grieved as you may out of those eyen of yours! -Well enough do you know that Alick, and little Myles, and now Mistress -Lora have well-nigh pushed their poor old dad out of their mother’s -heart”-- - -“Myles! Dost really think it, love?” - -The captain held his wife as far from him as her seat upon his knee -would allow, and eagerly read her fair troubled face, her tender -blushes, quivering lips, and lovely, loving eyes, where the tears stood -and yet were restrained from falling--read and read as men devour with -incredulous eyes some voucher of almost incredible good fortune. Then -he slowly said,-- - -“Truly God has been very good to me, my wife. His name be praised.” - -It was a rare aspiration from those bearded lips, not innocent of the -strange oaths and fierce objurgation well known to the soldiery of that -day,--‘our army in Flanders,’--and over Barbara’s face came a look of -such joy and peace as transformed its quiet comeliness to true beauty. -But it was she who with woman’s tact dropped a veil over that moment’s -exaltation before it should degenerate into commonplace. - -“What is your plan, dear?” asked she, and her husband, with a -half-conscious feeling of relief, drew a long breath, and said,-- - -“Oh--yes. Well, Bab, I, as well as you, would be content to live a -little farther from some of our townsfolk; it is not here as it was -at first, or even when you came. Then we were all of one mind and one -interest, and if I could not belong to their church as they call it, at -least I respected their beliefs, and they let mine alone. But now, amid -all this bickering with Lyford and Oldhame”-- - -“But Oldhame has gone, and so has Lyford, and are forbidden to come -hither again,” interposed Barbara, and her husband slowly and dubiously -replied, “I know, Bab, I know; but for all that somewhat of ill feeling -in the town has grown out of that affair, and though there’s no man on -God’s earth so near to me as William Bradford, and none I reverence -more than the Elder, or had rather smoke a pipe with than Surgeon -Fuller, there are others that are to my temper like a red rag to a -bull, and it’s safer all round that we should not day by day be forced -to rub shoulders. So the long and short on’t is, Bab, for I’m not good -at speechifying, it needs Winslow for that, I have spoken to Bradford -about taking possession of that sightly hill across the bay”-- - -“The one you fired a cannon at, the other day?” interrupted Barbara -slyly. - -“Yes--that is, you goose, I fired toward it, just to see how far the -saker would carry.” - -“Nay, I think it was a sort of salute you were giving to some fancy of -your own, Myles, anent that hill.” - -“Well, then, since you will have me make myself out no older than -Alick, I had been marking how the headland stood up against the gold of -the western sky, and it minded me so of Birkenclyffe at Duxbury, and of -my boyhood at Chorley and Wigan, and of fair days gone by”-- - -He paused, and Barbara knew that his thought was of Rose, the sweet -blossom of his youth, Rose, whom he had carried in his pride to the -neighborhood of the stately domain that ought to have been his and -hers, and spent there with her almost the only idle month of his life. -She knew, and her heart contracted with a slow, miserable pang, but she -only said,-- - -“Yes, it does look like Birkenclyffe. And you think you could be happy -in living there, Myles?” - -“Happy!” echoed the soldier moodily. “I should be happy if the wars -would break out afresh, and Gideon and I might hear once more the music -that we love. We rust here, we two.” - -“But the children, Myles! The boys so like their father, and -Lora--would you have them orphans, and me”-- - -“Ah, Lora! I did not tell you when I came home from England, wife, for -I did not want to hear any jibes and gainsaying”-- - -“Oh, Myles, do I jibe at you?” - -“Well, no,--no Bab, not jibes; but you know, lass, we never were quite -of a mind about the Standish dignities”-- - -“Dear heart, we have left all that behind us in the Old World! Here -we Standishes have dignity and observance in full measure, because we -belong to thee, love. Captain Standish, head of the colony’s strong -men, is the founder of a new race in this New World.” - -“Nay, nay, Barbara, you talk but as a woman, and you never did rise up -to the lawful pride of your birth”-- - -And the captain all unconsciously put his wife off his knee, and -rising, strode up and down the room, tugging at his red beard, and -frowning portentously. Barbara, her hands folded in her lap, and a sad -smile upon her lips, sat watching him. - -“It is as well to tell you now as to keep it for years,” broke out -the captain suddenly. “Nothing will change it, that is, nothing but -Alexander’s death”-- - -“Alexander’s death! Not our boy, Myles!” - -“No, no, no, child! Alexander, son of my cousin Ralph Standish of -Standish Hall. When I was in England I went to see him as I told you.” - -“Yes, dear.” - -“I went to enforce upon him, newly come to the estates, my just and -honest claim to my grandfather’s inheritance which Ralph’s grandfather -juggled out of the orphan boy’s hands, and which they have kept ever -since.” - -“I supposed that was your errand, but as I saw naught had come of it I -asked you no questions, Myles.” - -“And therein showed yourself the kindly sensible woman you ever were, -wife. But there is more to the matter. Ralph is an honest fellow, and -after some days of looking into the matter he confessed the justice of -my claim. I tell you, Bab, we went through those old parchments like -two weasels from the Inns of Court; Morton of Clifford’s could have -been no subtler; we had out the old deeds from the muniment-room, and -sent to Chorley Church for the registry book, where are set down the -marriage of my father and mother and my own birth and baptism; and I -showed him Queen Bess’s commission to her well-beloved Myles Standish, -born on that same date, and at the last, over a good pottle of sack, he -confessed to me that I was in the right, but added, with a smile too -sly for a Standish to wear, that I should find it well-nigh impossible -to prove the matter at law, for, as he was not ashamed to say to my -beard, neither he nor his lawyers would help me, and he knew, though he -had the decency not to say it, I have no money to tickle the palms of -the judges, the commissioners, the court officials, and the Lord Harry -alone knows who they are, but all too many for me.” - -“Then your cousin is a knave and a robber!” - -“Nay, nay, Bab! Nay, I know not that one could expect a man to strip -himself of half his estate if the law bade him keep it”-- - -“You would, Myles.” - -“Ah, well, I was ever a thriftless loon, with no trader’s blood in my -veins to show me how to keep or to get money. Ralph’s grandmother was -fathered by a man who made his money in commerce.” - -And the captain smiled as one well content with his own chivalrous -incapacity, then hastily went on. “But though Ralph would not give me -mine own, nor even let me take it if I tried, he had an offer to make -on his part. His oldest son, Alexander by name, was then an infant of -two years, a sturdy little knave already scorning his petticoats, and -Ralph proposed that we should solemnly betroth him then and there to -our Lora”-- - -“But Lora was not born when you were in England five years ago, Myles.” - -“No; but I knew that our two little lads must in course of time have a -sister, and counted on her. Truth to tell, Barbara, Ralph and I picked -a name for her off the family tree. Lora.” - -“If I had known it, the child never should have borne the name, and if -I could I would change it now!” - -And Barbara, seriously angry, rose from her chair and would have left -the room, but her husband detained her. - -“There, look you, now! I knew you would take it amiss, and told Ralph -so, and he bade me keep it to myself, at all odds till the girl was -born and named, and so I have. And yet I do not see what angers you so, -Barbara, except that you ever favored your mother’s family, and held -your Standish blood too cheap.” - -“That quarrel well-nigh parted us ere ever we came together, Myles. -Haply it had been better if we had been content to rest simply cousins -and never married.” - -“Commend me to a good woman for thrusts both deep and sure when once -she is angered,” cried Myles, flinging out of the house and up the -hill to his den in the Fort. - -But when Alick and Betty Alden raced each other thither to tell him -that supper was ready, the choleric captain had fully recovered his -temper, and found his wife so placid and quietly cheerful that he -supposed she also had both forgiven and forgotten. - -Which shows that the great Captain of Plymouth understood the strategy -of battle better than that of a woman’s heart. Nor did he ever note, -that from that day Barbara never spoke her daughter’s name if it could -possibly be avoided, calling her generally “my little maid,” and as the -child grew, addressing her as May, the sweet old English contraction of -maiden. - -A few weeks later, as Barbara set the stirabout that sometimes served -instead of furmety upon the table, her husband entered, and throwing -his hat into Lora’s lap said in a tone of well deserving,-- - -“There, Bab, I’ve bought out Winslow’s share in the red cow for five -pounds and ten shillings, to be paid in corn, and I’ve satisfied Pierce -and Clark for their shares with a ewe lamb apiece, so now it is mine, -and I give it to you. She’s not the kyloe cow you were longing for, but -she’s your own.” - -“Thank you, Myles,” replied Barbara, flushing with pleasure. “And is -it quite settled that we are to go over to the Captain’s Hill as they -begin to call it?” - -“Duxbury, I mean to call it in due time. Yes, dame, the men and I are -going over to-morrow morning to fell timber, and you shall have some -sort of shelter of your own over there before you’re a month older.” - - - - -CHAPTER X. - -THE UNEXPECTED. - - -It was just as true in 1625 as it will be in 1895 that nothing is -certain to occur except the unexpected; but the idea had not yet been -phrased, and even if it had been, William Bradford’s turn of mind was -absolutely opposed to the epigrammatic, so it was in sober commonplace -that he remarked,-- - -“I never thought to have spoken with you again in Plymouth, Master -Oldhame, but sith you urge pressing business as your excuse for coming -hither, I am ready to hear it.” - -The governor sat in his chair of office, and the Assistants were ranged -each man in his place. At the end of the platform stood John Oldhame, -and behind him Bartholomew Allerton and Gyles Hopkins, each carrying a -pike, and looking very important. - -But except for these nine men the great chamber where we assisted at -the Court of the People was empty, and the sad afternoon light fell -across the vacant benches, and glimmered upon the low-browed wall -upheld by sturdy knees of oak, with a sort of mournful curiosity quite -pathetic; this curiosity was, however, reflected in the minds of the -townsfolk of Plymouth in a degree far more ludicrous than pathetic, man -often falling short of the dignity of nature. - -All that they knew, these good people, was that about noon a Nantasket -boat had rounded Beach Point, anchored in the channel, and sent a -skiff ashore under command of William Gray, the elder of two brothers, -representing the solid men of Nantasket at that day. Stepping on the -Rock, Master Gray demanded to be led to the governor, a demand complied -with the more readily that as he declined to communicate his business -to any one else. Dinner-time came and went, and as the town returned -to its posts of observation it noted William Gray rowing back to the -vessel, receiving a passenger into his skiff, and bringing ashore the -very John Oldhame whom Plymouth had so ignominiously dismissed some -two years before. The same, and yet a very different John Oldhame from -the drunken ruffler of that day, or the blustering bully who a year -before that had been solemnly exiled from Plymouth; yes, a strangely -meek and quiet John Oldhame this, who, looking neither to the right -nor the left, strode up the hill to the Fort, apparently not noticing, -certainly not resenting, the attendance of the two men-at-arms who -escorted or guarded him, as one might elect to call it. - -So much had Plymouth seen, and Helena Billington, arms akimbo, and head -inclined to one side, was beginning to vituperate the tyrants who had -beguiled an unfortunate gentleman into their clutches, and now would -clap him up in jail, when those very tyrants severally appeared coming -out of their houses and leisurely climbing the hill. - -“The governor, and the Elder, and the captain, and the doctor, and -Master Winslow, and Master Allerton,” counted she breathlessly, and -not without a certain awe at sight of all the authority of the colony -paraded before her eyes; and as the last doublet disappeared within -the gate, she sagely shook her head, with the conclusion, “Well, -gossip, it passeth my comprehension or thine, and I’ll e’en hie me -under cover when it rains, for only a fool will stay out to get -drenched.” - -From which somewhat blind apothegm we may perhaps evolve the theory -that Goodwife Billington was not one of those whom our modern slang -declares “don’t know enough to go in when it rains!” - -“Seat yourself an you will, Master Oldhame, and speak your errand,” -repeated the governor a little more indulgently, for in fact Oldhame’s -weather-and-timeworn face and somewhat bowed shoulders suggested -ill health or great suffering, a look supplemented by his voice, as -dropping upon the bench which young Allerton pushed forward he slowly -said,-- - -“My thanks, Governor Bradford. I have come here to-day upon an errand -so strange that I can scarce credit it myself, and I know not that in -my half century of years I have ever charged myself with the like. - -“Man, it is to crave pardon for my ill offices to you, and these your -associates, and to all the town of Plymouth, where I repaid kind -entertainment and many good turns with as much of evil and malevolence. -Can you, as Christian men, forgive me?” - -“As Christians,” began Bradford, after a pause of unfeigned -astonishment, “we are bound to forgive injuries greater than those you -have offered us, which indeed did not harm us as you intended. But -as prudent men, we would fain know before receiving you again to our -confidence what are the grounds of your repentance.” - -“Right enough, Master Bradford, right enough! It behooves every man to -be prudent, and the burned dog dreads the fire. But the matter is here. -A year or more agone I and other men loaded a small ship with goods, -bought mainly on credit from the French and English vessels at Monhegan -and Damaris Cove, to truck them at the Virginia colony for tobacco -and other matters which sell well to the sailors and fishermen; but -outside the Cape here, we fell upon Malabar and Tucker’s Terror, and -all those fearsome shoals and reefs that drove back your own Mayflower -from the same voyage, and to cap our misfortunes a shrewd storm out of -the northeast seized us at advantage, and shook and worried us as you -may see a dog torment a wolf caught in a trap, and sans power to defend -himself. - -“Now in that extremity some of the mariners bethought them of God, who -verily was not in all their thoughts, and so fell on prayer, making -loud lamentations of their sins and professing desire of amendment and -satisfaction. So as I listened, and marveled if those men were verily -worse than other men, or than me, of a sudden a flash as of lightning -pierced my soul and showed me mine own enormous wickedness, and how it -well might be that I was the Jonah for whom an angry God would slay -all this company. Natheless I did not cry out as Jonah did, for I knew -not if there was a great fish prepared to swallow me when my shipmates -should fling me over, nor did I feel within myself the prophet’s -constancy and courage to abide three days alive in a fish’s belly; so I -held mine own counsel, and getting behind the mast I fell upon my knees -and heartily abased myself before God, confessing my sins, and most -especially my ill-doing toward you men of Plymouth, and as the heat -of my devotion bore me on, I vowed that so God would spare me alive, -and not make shipwreck of all this company for my sin, I would humble -myself before those I had wronged, and would, if I might, do them as -much good as I had done harm. Then, sirs, believe it or not as you -will, but as I finished that prayer and made that vow, the wind fell, -as though some mighty hand had gathered it back, and held it powerless; -the ship that had lain all but upon her beam-ends, and in another -moment must have capsized, righted herself, and stood amazed and -quivering, like a horse curbed in upon the very brink of a precipice; -the sea still ran high, but the tide so bore us up, and carried us so -kindly, that two men at the helm could manage it again, and the master, -recovering his spirit that had been well-nigh dashed with the imminent -peril of his occasions, so ingeniously manœuvred his course in and out -among those sholds as to fetch us through into the open sea, although -so crippled and battered that we could no more than make back to -Gloucester for repairs. - -“There I found another vessel bound south, and took passage with my -venture, secure that now my voyage should be prospered as indeed it -was, and I stayed in Virginia something over a year, trading and laying -by money. - -“And now, masters, here I am in fulfilling of my vow. I have, and I do -crave pardon and forgetfulness of my former wrong-doing, and to prove -that my repentance is fruitful, I here bring you in solid cash for the -use of the colony five-and-twenty rose-nobles, good money, honestly -gained.” - -And with a smile of self-approval not unmixed with surprise at his own -position, Oldhame brought a grimy canvas bag from the depths of one of -the pockets of his pea-coat, and planted it with a pleasant thud and -jingle upon the table in front of the governor, who raised his hand as -if to push it back, but restrained the gesture, and after a moment’s -hesitation rose, and taking the penitent by the hand said in his -grandly simple way,-- - -“No man can do more than to confess himself sorry for wrong-doing, and -to offer satisfaction for sin. Zaccheus did no more, and the Son of God -became his guest. Master Oldhame, we receive you again as our friend -and comrade, and make you welcome to our town whensoever you may see -fit to visit us. As for this money, if you will retire for a little, -I will take counsel with my advisers here, and tell you our mind. -Will you walk about the town, or will you await our summons outside? -Bartholomew, Master Oldhame is no longer a prisoner but a guest; go -with him where he will, and Gyles, wait you without to summon him, when -we are ready.” - -But Oldhame went no farther than a sunny angle of the Fort, where, -seated upon the section of a tree-trunk set there by Captain -Standish, he lighted his pipe, folded his arms, and fixing his eyes -upon Captain’s Hill sat smoking in stolid silence, rather to the -disappointment of Bart Allerton, who was a sociable young man, and -would have liked the news from Virginia. - -The penitent’s mood had changed, however, and he was suffering from -the reaction consequent upon most unwonted acts of self-sacrifice. He -really was sincere in his contrition, and had honestly offered that -bag of gold as satisfaction for the injury done and intended toward -Plymouth. But five-and-twenty rose-nobles, representing more than -forty dollars of our money, meant in that day and place four or five -times as much, and was a sum neither lightly won, nor lightly to be -spent; so that Oldhame half unconsciously fell to meditating how far -it would have gone toward purchasing English goods for another voyage -to Virginia, or for his own maintenance while resting from his labors. -He had told his story, and made his peace-offering in a moment of -exaltation, and now the exaltation was all gone, and a certain flat and -disgusted mood had seized upon its vacant place. Human nature is not -essentially different in the nineteenth nor will be in the twentieth -century from what it was in the seventeenth. - -“The governor prays your company, Master Oldhame,” announced Gyles -Hopkins; and knocking the ashes out of his pipe, Oldhame pocketed it -and followed into that dusky chamber, where still the Court of the -People seemed to fill the benches with ghostly presence waiting to hear -and confirm their governor’s decision. - -“We pray you be seated, Master Oldhame,” began Bradford, motioning to a -chair beside the table. “Bartholomew and Gyles you are dismissed, and -see that we are not interrupted.” - -He paused while the men-at-arms withdrew, closing the door with a heavy -bang, which echoed gloomily through the empty room. - -Then Bradford, referring now and again to his associates, told the -grisly penitent that the opportunity he craved of doing a good turn to -Plymouth was at hand, and the money he proffered would aid in carrying -out the enterprise. This was no other than the transportation of -Thomas Morton to England, and there delivering him to the authorities -who waited to punish him for offenses committed before seeking the -shelter of the New World. After his capture by Standish, Morton had -been brought to Plymouth, but as he was too troublesome a prisoner -to be held there, some brilliant mind had hit upon the idea of -marooning him upon one of the Isles of Shoals, where, having no boat, -he was perfectly sure to be found when wanted, and at the same time -quite out of danger. The season for the return home of the English -fishing-vessels had now arrived, and Plymouth was already in treaty -with the master of the Dolphin to carry their rebellious prisoner as -passenger; but it was most desirable that some competent person should -accompany him, and perhaps none could be found more suitable than -Oldhame, to whom the position was now offered. If he chose to accept -it, the five-and-twenty rose-nobles, “said to be contained in this -bag which we have not opened,” and at the words Bradford laid a hand -upon the bag and threw a penetrating glance at Oldhame, whose face -flushed guiltily, for one of those nobles had indeed been so grievously -clipped as to lose a good third of its value, and he knew it, although -the governor only guessed it, “this money, be it less or more, shall -be used by you, Master Oldhame, to pay Plymouth’s proportion of -the expense of this transportation, and the remainder shall be our -recognition of your services and loss of time. Do you accept the offer, -friend?” - -“Gladly and gayly, Governor, and gentlemen all,” cried Oldhame, laying -an impulsive clutch upon the bag. “And truth to tell, I was purposing a -voyage into England when occasion should serve, so that your proposal -jumps with my desires most marvelously, and you shall find that once -there I will do you good and manful service in whatsoever you desire. I -am not unknown to Sir Ferdinando Gorges, the Governor of Old Plymouth, -whither the Dolphin is bound, and I will so present this Morton’s -offenses that we shall have him hanged over the battlements, a prey for -gleeds, before he has well tasted English air.” - -“Better to shoot him before he goes,” growled Standish. “’Tis bad -venerie when you have trapped a wolf to let him go free on the chance -some other man will finish your work.” - -“Morton hath committed no offense worthy of death on this side the -water,” suggested Allerton in his crafty voice. “If he hath in England, -let English law decide.” - -Standish cast a look of impatient dislike at the speaker, but Doctor -Fuller interposed,-- - -“Fair and softly is a good rule whereby to walk, and I know not if the -right of life and death except in combat is fairly ours. I fear me one -hundred men though led by Standish would hardly cope with Old England’s -forces if she sent them hither.” - -“My brethren,” said Bradford, lightly tapping the table with his -finger-tips, “why waste time thus? There is no question of life or -death in the present matter; we are to send this dangerous rebel home -to England for trial, and John Oldhame is to be surety for his safe -arrival, and to receive this money to defray Plymouth’s proportion of -the expense. Am I right, sirs?” - -“You are right, Governor Bradford,” said the Elder solemnly, and the -conclave broke up. - - - - -CHAPTER XI. - -GOVERNOR BRADFORD PAYS A VISIT. - - -“Now mind you, goodman, you are to put on your ruff, and the goodly -wrist-ruffles, and see that your doublet is fresh brushed, and your -hosen tight and smooth, and your hair well set up, and your beard newly -combed,--I wish I might but put a thought of ambergris and civet upon -it”-- - -“Nay, dame, not while I live, and I think when once you have killed me -with kindness you’ll have no heart to send me to the grave smelling -like a civet cat”-- - -“Oh, Will, Will! How can you!”-- - -“How can I die, or how can I forbear civet upon my beard? Nay, then, my -dame! Wilt cry over it--there, then, sweetheart, there, there!”-- - -“’Twas that you talked of dying, Will, and if thou wert dead”-- - -“Men who talk of dying never die, Elsie; but take courage, take -courage, and for thy sweet sake I’ll don the ruffles, and brush my -doublet, and re-garter my hosen, and set up my hair; nay, then, I’ll -even clean my shoes and anoint them afresh, which is more than you bade -me do.” - -“Why certainly, of course you must do that, dear; and, laugh at your -poor wife as you will, I’m sure enough you’ll pleasure her by going -brave, and showing a good front to these fine new-comers; and if you -come to see Lady Arbella Johnson be sure to mark all the items of her -clothes, for she will have the latest modes out of England.” - -“Oh, wife, wife! Oh, woman, woman! ’Twas but yesterday we were driven -to make coats of deer-skins, and shoe ourselves with the hides of -wolves and bears, because we had no other clothing, and to-day you -are all agog for the latest modes out of England, and send me to take -inventory of a titled lady’s raiment that you may copy her silks in -kersey, and her velvets in homespun.” - -“Nay, then, sir, I’m none so poor as you would make me out, but have -more than one robe of say of mine own, only they have never been aired -in this rude wilderness, and are a thought antiquated. But now that we -hear of Governor Endicott of Salem, and Governor Winthrop of the Bay, I -mind me that I am wife of Governor Bradford of Plymouth, and it is my -duty, my bounden duty, Will, to magnify thine office, and show myself -abroad as a governor’s lady should.” - -“Ay, dame; but methinks the wife of a governor should show herself more -governed than other women; more meek, and recollected, and chastened, -rather than more arrogant.” - -“Nay, Will, do I lack in these matters?” And Alice looked up in her -husband’s face, her blue eyes so swimming in tears that she could not -see the smile of tender malice upon her husband’s lips as he folded her -in his arms and whispered tender reassurances needless to set down. - -Yes, our governor was going a-neighboring to his brother potentates at -Boston, for a great change had almost suddenly befallen that pleasant -region where William Blackstone had dwelt as a solitary for so long. -Let us, as briefly as may be, freshen our memories of these early -arrivals, and so understand more clearly the new relations suddenly -involving the Pilgrims of Plymouth. - -It was in 1628 that Governor Endicott with a large and aristocratic -following arrived at Naumkeag, and speedily dispossessed Roger Conant -and the other old settlers both of their proprietary rights and their -privilege of trading with the natives. The next step was to name the -place Salem, and ordain as Independent ministers the men who had left -England proclaiming their fealty to her Established Church. - -But Salem did not long claim the seat of government, for on the 17th -of June, 1630, Governor Winthrop, with near a thousand colonists under -his command, sailed into Boston Bay and landed at Charlestown, where a -deputation from Salem had already prepared for them. Neither numbers, -nor home protection, nor wealth, nor aristocratic pretensions could, -however, save this great colony from the very same enemies that had -assailed the glorious hundred of Mayflower Pilgrims ten years before, -and cut down one half of their number. Ship fever, scurvy, and other -diseases incident to the horrors of a sea-voyage in that day seized -upon the new-comers, who aggravated their own danger by improper -food, treatment, and, so long as they lasted, terrible drugs. In six -months Charlestown had become a village of graves and of loathsome -insanitation, complicated with the want of pure and sufficient water. -Moved at length by the sufferings of his neighbors, Blackstone, who -at first had scowled upon their invasion of his solitude, visited -Governor Winthrop, and told him of a pure and unfailing spring of -water near the southern foot of the hill upon whose western slope lay -his own cabin and apple orchard, and suggested that it might be well -for the settlement to be removed across the mouth of the Mystic, and -reëstablished at Trimountain, as he called the peninsula hitherto his -own. - -Winthrop gladly accepted the suggestion, came over with Blackstone -to view the proposed site, and liked it so well that in October, -1630, he caused the frame of his own house nearly ready for erection -in Charlestown to be taken over, and set up close by the spring in -question, or, as we might now describe it, on Washington Street, -between the Old South Church and the corner of Spring Lane, under whose -worn and dusty pavement one still fancies to hear the cool wash and -gurgle of those imprisoned waters. - -Was Blackstone sorry for his good-nature when, after a little, Winthrop -and his council kindly set apart fifty acres of the domain to which he -had invited them, as his property, and proceeded to divide the rest -among themselves? Cannot one picture the reserved and somewhat cynical -hermit smoking his pipe beside his solitary fire in the evening of -that day, and smiling to himself as he considered the condescension -of the new government? And did haply some herald of coming Liberty -suggest certain pithy queries to be more plainly worded on Boston -Common a century or so later? Did the lonely man ask himself what right -Governor Winthrop or any other man had to come into this wild country -and dispossess the pioneer settlers of their holdings? True, the King -of England had given him that right. But where did the King of England -himself get the authority to do so? He had neither bought the land of -the natives, nor had he conquered them in fair fight; he simply had -heard of a fair new world beyond the seas, and claimed it for his own -by some arbitrary right divine whose source no man could tell. The land -was his, he said, and so he had sent these men in his name to take -possession, to parcel out, to give, or to withhold, from men as good -as themselves who had borne the heat and toil of the earlier days, and -who had paid the savages full measure for the lands they held. What was -this right divine? Why should kings so control the property of other -men--men who only asked to live their own lives, and neither meddle -nor make with kingcraft? Why? And as William Blackstone, the forgotten -pipe burned out, pondered this “why,” the yellowing leaves of the young -Liberty tree a few rods from his cottage door rustled impatiently, as -though they felt the breath of 1775 already in their midst. - -It did not last very long. Not only were there disputes and -heartburnings about proprietorship, but the Puritans who had come to -New England professing a stanch adherence to the church, and almost -immediately proved false to her, could not forgive the quiet man who -made no parade of religion, but never swerved from his adherence to his -ordination vows. They tried to persuade him, they tried to coerce him, -and at last received the assurance that he who had exiled himself from -England to avoid the tyranny of the Lords Bishops was not disposed to -submit to that of the lords brethren, but would leave them to dispute -with each other. - -So selling all that he had, except a plot of land around his old home, -Blackstone invested the thirty pounds of purchase money in cattle, -packed his books and some other matters upon his cows’ backs, and -driving the herd before him passed over Boston Neck and out into the -wilderness; nor did he pause until upon a tributary of Narragansett -Bay he found a lonely and lovely spot, so far from white men or their -ordinary line of travel as to rival the Isle of Juan Fernandez in -solitude. Naming his domain Study Hill, Blackstone built another house, -planted some young apple trees carefully brought from the old orchard, -set up his bookshelves, filled his pipe, and settled himself for forty -years of happiness, dying just in time to escape King Philip’s war. - -But in September, 1630, when Governor Bradford went up to pay his -first visit to Governor Winthrop, Blackstone still lived on Boston -Common, and looked upon the new-comers as his guests. They had not yet -presented him with the fifty acres of his own land. - -With the Governor of Plymouth came Elder Brewster, and Captain -Standish, Thomas Prence, and Doctor Fuller, who was already well and -gratefully known by many of the new settlers; for when the pestilence -broke out in Salem about a year before, Governor Endicott dispatched -Roger Conant to beg, in the name of Christian fellowship, that the -doctor of Plymouth, who had already met the grim enemy at home, would -come and aid his brethren. Fuller was not slow to respond, and not only -cured some of the sufferers in spite of the deadly methods of his day, -but so set forth the religious beliefs and practices of the church of -the Pilgrims that Endicott, who was still a Puritan Churchman, and -soon to be a Puritan Independent, wrote a cordial letter to Bradford, -telling how glad he was to find that the Separatists were not so bad as -he had supposed them to be. - -Again, when in the summer of 1630 the settlers at Charlestown, Boston, -Dorchester, and the neighboring country fell into the same disaster, -and with the earliest victims lost Doctor Gager their only physician, -Plymouth was appealed to for assistance, and Doctor Fuller at once -responded. But the scanty stock of drugs brought by the emigrants was -already exhausted, and Fuller’s own supply soon went, so that his -treatment was principally confined to blood-letting, and after writing -a homesick letter to his brother-in-law Bradford, he returned to -Plymouth. - -At the wooden wharf where the Pilgrims disembarked in Charlestown, they -were met by Governor Winthrop, Dudley his Deputy and successor, and the -Reverend Master Wilson, who, as he cordially grasped Elder Brewster by -the hand, cast a hurried glance over the group of visitors, and felt a -sensible relief at not perceiving the face of Ralph Smith among them. -For this reverend gentleman, persecuted out of Salem for opinion’s -sake, and refused shelter in Boston or Charlestown, had found an asylum -among the liberal Pilgrims who presently invited him to the position of -their first ordained minister. - -Mr. Wilson need not, however, have been alarmed, since Bradford, -whose character singularly united the wisdom of the serpent with the -innocence of the dove, had not thought best to include a person so -likely to be unwelcome to his hosts in this visit, at once friendly -and official; for the Governor of Plymouth had been invited to assist -at the first formal session of the Bay authorities, convened at the -Great House built by Thomas Grove, the architect “entertained” by the -Massachusetts Company under whose auspices the new colony came out. - -To this inauguration feast came also Governor Endicott from Salem, -with Master Isaac Johnson, whose wife, the Lady Arbella, lay sick unto -death in her new home, and never more would don the brave attire in -which Alice Bradford had expressed such womanly interest. With these -were assembled Sir Richard Saltonstall, Master Bradstreet, soon to -be Governor of the Bay Colony, and Pynchon, ancestor, perhaps, of -Hawthorne’s Hester; all the magistrates in fact of New England, all -the representatives of legal or spiritual authority upon this side -of the broad seas; for these men were about to test their right to -self-government, and to exercise jurisdiction over the liberty, the -property, the persons, nay, the very lives of others, and doubtless -felt that in case this right were to be called in question from the -throne or the Star Chamber, it might be well to secure the strength of -numbers and authoritative consensus. - -But we, like Bradford and his company, are only guests at Mishawum, -as they still called Charlestown, and must hasten back to Plymouth. -Enough to briefly note that Morton of Merry Mount, who had audaciously -returned to his “old nest” and his old ways, after Allerton had been -forced to dismiss him from his house in Plymouth, was brought before -the magistrates, somewhat unfairly tried, and sentenced to be “set -in the bilboes,” and afterward sent prisoner to England. His entire -property was to be confiscated, and his house burned in presence of the -Indians whom he had robbed and insulted, and so speedily was the first -portion of the sentence carried out that, as the court left the Great -House at noon, they passed close beside the criminal already seated -in the stocks with a party of Indian squaws staring at him, half in -dismay, half in satisfaction. - -“This way, Bradford! Don’t look upon him; ’tis no punishment for a -gentleman,” muttered Standish, seizing the governor’s arm and dragging -him in a sidelong direction, while Parson Wilson, and Increase Newell -the Elder of the Charlestown church, stopped to administer a “word in -season” to the defenseless prisoner. - -The business of the Bay Colony finished, Governor Bradford begged -the attention of his fellow magistrates to an affair in his own -jurisdiction: one as important as life and death could make it, for it -was a question of enforcing the death penalty upon a murderer, fully -convicted and offering no plea of extenuating circumstances. - -The culprit was John Billington, already notorious as the first person -the Pilgrims had felt called upon to punish. Since that early day -he had more than once come under discipline of the law, but now his -offense exceeded all human bounds of forgiveness, and by the stern code -of Old Testament justice merited nothing short of death. - -The victim was a young man named John Newcomen, a somewhat rough and -lawless companion, who had persisted in trapping and shooting over -ground which Billington claimed as his own monopoly, although neither -man made any pretense of ownership. The end was a bitter quarrel, after -which Billington armed himself, and, lying in wait until Newcomen -appeared, deliberately shot and killed him. - -A solemn trial by jury ensued, whereat the crime was fully proven and -no defense was attempted. A verdict of willful murder was brought in, -and no recommendation to mercy was offered by the stern foreman. The -trial could not have been more deliberate or more just, but sentence -was not immediately pronounced, for as Bradford frankly declared -to his fellow magistrates, he shrank both before God and man from -pronouncing the words that should deprive a fellow mortal of life, and -before doing so he desired the counsel and concurrence of the other New -England authorities. - -“Who killeth man, by man shall his blood be shed,” quoted Endicott in -the silence which followed Bradford’s solemn appeal. “It is the law of -God.” - -“And haply,” added Winthrop, “a sharp example in these early days may -hinder the loss of more valuable lives hereafter.” - -“With God is no respect of persons,” spoke Elder Brewster in tones of -stern reproof; but Parson Wilson, with almost a sneer, retorted,-- - -“Then let him die as one of the princes, even as Zeb and Salmana.” - -A little more discussion followed, but the result was obvious, and the -next day Bradford turned his face toward home with a heavy heart, and -yet a mind resolved upon the terrible duty soon after fulfilled. - - - - -CHAPTER XII. - -SIR CHRISTOPHER GARDINER. - - -It was several days after the governor’s return to Plymouth, and Alice -had wondered more than once if aught beside the gloom and sorrow of -Billington’s execution lay upon her husband’s mind, when, after noon of -one of those heavenly days in late September, in which one’s whole life -goes out to the joy of living, Bradford after hesitating a moment at -the door, turned back and said,-- - -“Come, Elsie, do on your hood and walk with me a little.” - -“Gay and gladly, Will,” replied she, and in a few moments they had -passed down by Elder Brewster’s house toward the brook, and then -turning to the right crossed on the stepping-stones, and striking into -the Namasket Path strolled along until, reaching a lovely intervale, -afterward called Prence’s Bottom, and now Hillside, they sat down upon -a fallen tree trunk, and Bradford abruptly asked,-- - -“Was it not one Sir Christopher Gardiner that our Pris spoke of when -she first came as some sort of sweetheart of hers?” - -“Yes. He gave her that lordly neckerchief she wears betimes. She calls -him a Knight of the Golden Melice, and then again Knight of the Holy -Sepulchre,--poor maid!” - -And Alice laughed as matrons do at the follies of maidenhood. But -Bradford shook his head, and plucking a great frond of goldenrod softly -smote his own palm with it, while he said,-- - -“’Tis a bad business, Alice, a bad business, and I fear worse may come -of it.” - -“Worse! Worse than what, Will? There’s no harm done as yet. The girl’s -not wearing the willow, nor needing pity; it’s not likely she’ll see -or hear of him again, and after a while she’ll wed William Wright, who -woos her honestly and openly.” - -“Alice, the man is here.” - -“Here! What man?” - -“Sir Christopher Gardiner, Knight of the Golden Melice and the Holy -Sepulchre, and of what you will beside. I’ve seen and spoken with him, -wife.” - -“You! When and where, for pity’s sake?” - -“Softly now, and I’ll tell you. When we left the Bay people the captain -would have us stop at Squantum Head to visit Mistress Thompson in her -widowhood and see if she lacked aught, or wished us to recommend her to -the good offices of her neighbors of the Bay, and so we did”-- - -“How is her child, Will?” - -“Well and hearty, as is she herself, and farming her island, which -Standish would have us call Trevor’s Island, but we would liever name -Thompson’s Island in his honor who was her husband and father of the -boy. Now while we talked with the widow, I remembered me that Winthrop -had mentioned some new settlers hard by Squantum, a gentleman, as he -said, named Gardiner, who claimed some title, and who, besides several -servants, entertained as housekeeper a comely young woman whom he -called his cousin. - -“Master Winthrop had not seen them, but when I said we would tarry a -little with the Widow Thompson, he asked me if it were in my way to -take a look at this Gardiner, and let him hear my judgment of him. -Truth to tell, I did not at the first mind me of our Prissie’s story of -her Knight of the Golden Melice, for such toys get cast into the dark -corners of a man’s mind”-- - -“Unless it be his own case, Will,” interposed Alice with tender jibing -in her voice. - -Bradford smiled reply, but went on with his story. “So while the rest -drank a cup of metheglin, and ate some of Mistress Thompson’s curds and -cream, Standish and I clomb the brave headland ever I hope to be known -as Squanto’s Point, and presently came upon a new cabin fairly seated -above a rising ground some half mile south of the Neponset’s River; a -pretty home as one would wish to see, with a posy bed under the window, -and vines from the woods trained over the door and casement, this last -set with glass and swinging open, for all the world like a cottage of -Old England. - -“Well, we came to the door, and Standish rapped with his sword hilt -after his own masterful fashion, so that there presently run out -a--well, I was about to say a maid, for she was young and very comely -to look upon, but in sad certainty I know not--she may be the man’s -wife, and charity will not have us suspect ill that is not brought home -by proof.” - -“How was she so very fair, Will?” - -“Why, her hair was of yellow gold, and her eyes blue as a June sky, and -the white and red of her face so cunningly mixt that it minded me of -the may in our hedges at home, or of the mayflower that we find here -in Plymouth woods, and her shape was lissome and delightsome as those -young birches, and her little hands were white and soft, and her voice -as sweet as-- Why, Elsie, woman, what is it?” - -“’Tis naught, ’tis naught! Leave go my hand I pray you, sir. I’m for -home, but you need not haste!” - -“Now, now, now! What, is mine own true-love jealous that I find another -woman fair? Why, Elsie, I go well-nigh to blush for you! Come then, to -punish you I’ll not say the words that were springing to my lips. I’ll -not tell how the frighted, guilty look of those blue eyes minded me of -other eyes steadfast and pure and serene as the evening star, nor how -the fluttering, broken tones of that sweet voice brought to the ears of -my heart a voice as sweet as that, but calm and steady, and full of the -assured peace of a clear conscience”-- - -“Nay, then, Will, tell me naught, but let me creep close to thy knee -like a chidden child and hide my face thus, for indeed I’m shamed to -show it.” - -“Nay, let me look once upon thee in sweet penitence, since ’tis so -seldom one may find the chance! Well there, then, hide it an thou -wilt, sweetheart, for if I look too closely on’t I forget all else. -Well, then, this lady, we will call her, ran to see who knocked, and -meeting Myles’s grim face, which he had forgot to deck for lady’s gaze, -she uttered a sharp little cry, and fell back to give place to the -gay figure of such a cavalier as we used to see strutting up and down -Paul’s Walk in London, hand on hips, and mustachios curled up to either -eye, and beaver cocked a’ one side, and laces and fine needlework, with -velvets and silks, and all scented like a posy bed, or the civet cat -you love so well.” - -“I mind me of the gallants of Paul’s Walk, Will; but did this man -really have laces and needlework and scent and all those matters?” - -“Well, he had the air of having them, sweetheart, and that is still the -main point, you know. So out he came, hand on sword hilt, and eyes so -terrific that I, poor wight, shrunk back affrighted”-- - -“You affrighted, indeed!” - -“Ay, but you don’t know how terrific a mien this paladin put on, dame! -Our captain bristled at sight of it as the wolf hound does at sight of -the wolf, and I feared me for the moment that they would fall to before -I could cry, ‘A list, a list, good gentles’!” - -“Oh, Will, how can you! But go on.” - -“Well, seeing the peril, I stirred myself as best I might to avoid it, -and elbowing Standish aside, I doffed my hat and said,-- - -“‘Pardon, good sir, but we have come to change courtesies with our -neighbors. We are men of the Plymouth Colony, and have been to visit -the new-comers at the Bay, who told us you were here.’ - -“Upon that our host’s visage relaxed, and he made some sort of civil -reply, although none could doubt he would liever our room than our -company; but he had us in, and as the young woman lingered near, he -spoke of her presently as ‘My cousin, Mistress Mary Grove, who of her -kindness keepeth my house.’ - -“‘And your name, sir, is Gardiner?’ queried I; and he, cock-a-hoop in -a moment as one insulted, set his hat on ’s head, and twisting his -mustachios to a needle’s point, pouted his lips to say,-- - -“‘I am Sir Christopher Gardiner, sirs, Knight of the Holy Sepulchre, -and Chevalier of the Golden Melice. And your names and quality, if I -may make so bold?’ - -“But so insolent was the tone and so belligerent the manner of this -announcement that before I could find words for reply the captain -stepped before me, his own hat set aside, and, Heaven save the mark! -twisting his own stubbly russet mustachios as fiercely as the other, -the while his hand on Gideon’s hilt, he cried,-- - -“‘This gentleman is Master William Bradford, Governor of Plymouth -Colony; and I am Myles Standish, commandant, for want of a better, of -the colony’s military force.’ - -“Now this bold assumption, which would have made some men laugh, and -set others upon opposition, just jumped with the humor of our new -friend, and taking off his hat, he held out a hand for ours; saying, -handsomely enough, that he had heard marvelous tales of our captain’s -prowess, and also of the wisdom, and I know not what, of Plymouth’s -governor. Faith, I know not but he said he had crossed the seas to -look upon two such marvels! Certes, he gave no other motive, since -in religion he seems of that convenient stripe which fits with any -pattern, and for hard work he is no better fitted than is his cousin -and housekeeper, whose lily-white hands could ill trundle a mop or work -a churn-dasher.” - -“And what do they honestly seek here in the wilderness?” - -“Why, truth to tell, I fear me they seek nothing honestly, but the -rather a dishonest refuge from judgment. If ever woman wore a guilty -and shamefaced look, it was that poor wench when first she met us; and -as for the man, although he vapored much about his desire for a quiet -life, far from the setbacks and downfalls of worldly affairs, and his -love of sylvan solitudes and the like, I trust him not,--nay, not so -far as just out of reach of a tipstaff’s clutch; he’s false, so false -that even as he talked he seemed to sneer at his own professions.” - -“But our Prissie, Will! If this is indeed the man she talked of”-- - -“Ay, that’s where the matter sits close to our hearts, wife. Did ever -she talk of him to you, in the way of picturing out his face and mien?” - -“Nay, for after that once I never would let her talk of him; but still -she gave me the notion of a gay cavalier, such a man as haunts the -king’s court, and as you say struts in Paul’s Walk,--a man who well -might be the one you and the captain saw.” - -“But--Mary Grove?” - -The matron’s fair cheek flushed a little, for the purity of that age -was of the order that hates sin without having learned to love the -sinner, and shrinks back from the sight or touch of evil instead of -fearlessly examining the hurt, and applying the oil and wine. The world -does grow in good, let the pessimists deny it as they may. - -“Pris will never know that the man is on this side the sea, unless we -tell her,” said Alice presently. - -“No. And I will caution the captain not to mention the matter.” - -“Oh, he will have mentioned it to Barbara, and she to Priscilla Alden, -before this!” exclaimed Alice. “They are like one household, the -Standishes and Aldens, and Priscilla loves to talk.” - -“But Barbara is very prudent, and if she has heard so ill a story will -think twice before she spreads it. I never knew a woman less given to -gossip, except mine own wife. I’ll tell thee, Alice, I’ll ask Myles if -he has told the tale; and if he has, I’ll ask him to speak to Barbara -and find how far it has gone.” - -“But do not tell even the captain of our poor maid’s folly,” interposed -Alice. - -“Nay, child, I’m as jealous for Prissie’s good name as if she were mine -own sister. Come, you are shivering, and the night dews begin to fall. -Let us go home.” - - - - -CHAPTER XIII. - -ONE! TWO! THREE! FIRE! - - -Alice Bradford’s instinct had correctly foreseen that Myles would -narrate his adventures to his wife just as Bradford had to his; but -the governor’s reason was also correct in arguing that Barbara would -be likely to keep such a story to herself, and the rather that Pris -Carpenter had once spoken the name of Sir Christopher Gardiner in her -presence with so much of maidenly flutter that Barbara felt there was a -story underneath. - -So when Bradford took occasion, over a pipe in the captain’s den, to -suggest that it was as well for the present to keep the story of the -knight of the Golden Melice from the public, Myles replied with a -laugh,-- - -“So says Mistress Standish. I told her, as indeed I tell her most -matters; but when she had listened, her first word was, ‘I hope neither -you nor the governor will noise this story abroad, for it might do much -harm, and could do no good.’ A prudent woman is”-- - -“From the Lord,” said Bradford. “And you and I have cause to thank Him -for the gift.” - -The talk drifted to other matters; and as the weeks and months went on, -the subject was not resumed until March came in with all the chilly -rigor of a New England seashore spring, and yet with certain fitful -gleams and promises of better things in store. It was in the midst -of one of those tempestuous storms incident to March, and always -reminding one of a fascinating naughty child’s passionate burst of -temper, that Hobomok appeared at the Fort, escorting a stranger Indian. - -“Weetonawah wants head chief,” announced he succinctly. - -The captain looked up from his Cæsar, and laid down his pipe. - -“Weetonawah is welcome,” said he in the Pokanoket dialect, which he had -acquired in perfection. “But Hobomok should not bring him here. The -head chief’s wigwam is below the hill.” - -“Pokanokets like The-Sword-of-the-White-Men best,” replied the stranger -in a final sort of manner, and Hobomok’s suppressed “Hugh!” seemed to -indorse the sentiment. Standish smiled,--for who does not love to be -trusted above his fellows?--and, rising, he threw his cloak about his -shoulders, saying,-- - -“Well, we will seek the head chief together, and take counsel upon thy -matters, Weetonawah.” - -So, unmindful of the rain, as men who live close to Nature will still -become, the three went down the hill, and found Bradford in his study -reading the Georgics, until such time as the weather would permit -him to plough his own fields; for now that “oxen strong to labor” -had immigrated, their fellow-colonists were able to improve upon the -earlier methods of agriculture, and the plough had superseded the -hoe whose rude labors had slain John Carver. Laying aside the book, -but with its pleasant influence upon his face, Bradford received his -guests, gave a cup of metheglin to each of the Indians, who would -rather it had been Nantz, and asked Standish what he would take, but -the captain shook his head. - -“I’ve had my noon meat, and care for nothing until night. Now, -Weetonawah, tell out your tidings to the head chief.” - -So Weetonawah, who spoke no English, told in his own tongue--Standish -now and again translating for the benefit of Bradford, who never became -as apt an Indian scholar as the captain--how he and a Massachusetts -brave, while hunting, had come across a white man seated beside a -camp-fire, and leaning his head upon his hand as though sick or sorry, -they knew not which. Approaching with due precautions, they found -him friendly, and willing to change tobacco for some birds to make a -broth, for he was so fevered as not to crave solid food. But when they -had parted from him a little way, the Massachusetts man halted, and -choosing a war-arrow from his quiver, gave Weetonawah to understand -that this was a criminal fleeing from justice, and that the white men -at the Bay had bade the Indians search the woods between Shawmut and -Piscataqua for him, promising a reward to whoever should bring him in. - -Still, during the brief interview beside the camp-fire, both red men -had silently marked how thoroughly armed, and how alert in spite of -his illness, the fugitive remained, and the Massachusetts man felt -that at close quarters he might fare even as Wituwamat or Pecksuot in -combat with The-Sword-of-the-White-Men; so, even in their friendly -parting, he had laid his plan to turn back and shoot the sick man as he -crouched over his fire; and lest his comrade should claim any part of -the reward, he would go upon the war-path alone, and rejoin him at the -wigwams of the Namasket village. - -But Weetonawah was brother to one of the men killed at Wessagussett, -and he had imbibed such a terror of The-Sword-of-the-White-Men and -his vengeance upon those who molested the palefaces that he would -rather have killed his Massachusetts friend, and taken the chances of -punishment from Massasoit, than to be named as companion of an Indian -who had killed a white man. So, half by argument and half by threat, -he led away the assassin, and forced from him a promise to suspend his -purpose until orders should be obtained from Plymouth; consenting that -if the head chief and The Sword gave permission, he should alone slay -the fugitive and claim the reward. - -So far, Weetonawah spoke and Bradford listened, but at this point he -started up and exclaimed,-- - -“An Indian promise! Who knows but that even now the wretch has stolen -back to slay yonder poor fugitive? Horrible! What warrant have you, -Indian, for believing this murderer will refrain?” - -Sternly repeating the query, and receiving the reply, Standish grimly -smiled. - -“He says that the Massachusetts swore upon his totem, but to make the -matter sure he brought him along hither, promising him a good noggin of -strong waters, and he is even now in the kitchen, waiting.” - -“Have him in! Hobomok, fetch him in!” cried Bradford, still in dismay. -“Kill a white man in cold blood! Shoot a sick man shivering over a -camp-fire! Standish, they are savages and heathen to the end, and we -may as well preach Christ to the wolves and bears as to them.” - -“Your best Indian preacher is still a snaphance,” replied the captain -grimly, as his mind glanced back to Pastor Robinson’s strictures upon -the Wessagussett chastisement. - -“Here they come! Now speak to this man in his own tongue, and make him -understand that if he kills this white man we will require it at his -hand, and that, after no stinted measure. Terrify him, Myles, as you -well know how! They fear you more than all the power of the Bay Colony -put together.” - -Now the fact remains that so long as Myles Standish lived his was -a name to conjure with among the red men; and although, except at -Wessagussett, he seldom, if ever, was engaged in actual conflict, -or was guilty of their blood, the rumor of his coming was enough to -disperse many an angry party, and to restrain many incendiary counsels. -Nor was it fear alone, for the savages admired and emulated, yes, and -loved the man; he went freely among them, slept in their wigwams, ate -beside their fires, smoked the pipe of peace with their warriors, and -showed human and friendly interest in their concerns. Never at any -crisis did he forget to exempt women and children from the fortunes of -war, and it was under neither his leadership nor his counsels that the -Pequot atrocities were committed by the soldiers of the Puritan Bay -Colony. - -So now, as he sternly addressed the Shawmut Indian in his own tongue, -the latter visibly quailed, and, not daring to reply directly, slunk -behind Hobomok, and in a torrent of muttered gutturals besought him to -assure The Sword that his voice was as the voice of the Great Spirit, -and he would obey it as implicitly, for if he did not his own totem -would turn upon him and destroy him, as indeed he should well deserve, -and-- But here Standish held up a hand and impatiently interrupted -with,-- - -“There, there, that’s enough! You understand me, Shawmut, and you know -that what I promise I perform. Now then, Bradford, what is to be done?” - -“Why, the man must be taken and brought in as gently as may be. -Doubtless he is in some sort a lawbreaker hiding from the justice of -Governor Winthrop, and it may be our duty to return him to the Bay; but -the first thing is to discover who he is and of what accused. Explain, -if it please you, to both these Indians that they are to find this man, -and take him by force of numbers or strategy, but without violence, and -bring him safely to this house. What reward have the authorities of the -Bay offered for his capture?” - -“A kilderkin of biscuit, a horseman’s cloak, and five ells of scarlet -cloth,” reported Standish after a good deal of discussion with the two -Indians. - -“The Bay is rich,” replied Bradford dryly. “Tell them if they bring in -this man unharmed we will give twenty pound weight of sugar, and that -is a large reward, be the man who he may.” - -The Massachusetts Indian listened as this proffer was repeated, and -then in his guttural and sullen voice muttered something at which -Standish frowned and answered angrily, while Hobomok gave way to a -derisive chuckle. As the two turned and glided stealthily out of the -room, the captain also laughed and said,-- - -“The red rascal wanted a piece and some powder and shot, or at least a -pottle or two of firewater, as he calls it.” - -“Ay! there’s the outcome of Thomas Morton’s work,” replied Bradford. -“The Bay people dealt hardly with him, yet none too hardly when we see -the despite he has done to all of us by arming the savages.” - -“Hardly, do you call it?” echoed Standish. “Well, I know not. Had I -been the judge the sentence should have been shorter and less spiteful. -To my mind it is too much like the savages themselves to crop a man’s -ears, and set him in the stocks, and pelt him with garbage, and burn -his house in his own sight, and mulct him of his money, and ship him -out of the country, and after all leave him at liberty to pull the -wool over the eyes of the big-wigs and come back again to plague us as -he did before. ’Tis womanish to invent so many ways of tormenting an -offender, and yet not put further offense out of his power.” - -“And if you had been judge?” asked Bradford with a shrewd smile. - -For answer the captain raised an imaginary piece to his shoulder and -gave the word of command,-- - -“One! Two! Three! FIRE!” - -And with the last word he brought down his right foot with full force -upon his own pipe, which had fallen unheeded from his pocket. The -governor laughed, and Standish ruefully picked up the amber mouthpiece, -exclaiming,-- - -“Now, by my faith! there goes the meerschaum that Jans Wiederhausen -carved on purpose for a parting gift to me when we left Leyden ten year -ago. And serves me right for wasting time on such boys’ tricks as yon -brag of what I might have done had all been other than it was. Well, -well! Sorry and sad I am to lose that pipe! Now I must turn to the one -Hobomok has carved out of what I take to be a jasper stone, but ’t is -heavy, and cannot drink up the poison of the tobacco as my meerschaum -did. There’s naught for a pipe like meerschaum, Will.” - -“Clay is well enough for me,” replied the governor with a smile, as he -brought a new clay pipe from the cupboard and presented it to Myles. - -Nor shall we be surprised to hear that when, a year later, Captain -William Pierce came over in the Lyon to Boston Bay, he brought a fine -meerschaum pipe as a present from Governor Bradford to his friend -Captain Standish. - - - - -CHAPTER XIV. - -SIR CHRISTOPHER ENJOYS THE CHASE. - - -Five days later, Priscilla Alden sat in the gloaming of the wild March -day before a fire so cheerful as to be truly perilous to the chimney of -sticks laid up with mud attached like an elongated hornet’s nest to the -outside of the house. Upon her knees lay little Sally, future wife of -Alexander Standish, but just now a child of two years old, with a bad -cold upon her lungs and a tendency to croup, or, as her mother called -it, quinsy; and it was by way of an ounce of prevention that Priscilla -was roasting the little thing before this huge fire, and at the same -time diligently rubbing her chest and throat with goose grease. The -child, hardly knowing whether to be amused or annoyed at the process, -kicked and struggled, uttering little cries varying from crowing -laughter to indignant squeals, while the mother made all the play she -could of the affair, now tickling the small creature in her fat neck, -now answering her cries with counter-cries and merry Boo! Boo! Boo! and -anon,-- - -“See, Sally! See the pretty fire! Shall mother throw Sally in and burn -her all up?” rubbing away meantime, until the child’s white skin glowed -like a rose and glistened like a mirror. - -“She looks like the suckling pig you roasted last Thanksgiving, -mother,” remarked John junior, who stood drying his feet before the -unusual fire, preparatory to rushing out and wetting them again. - -“Why so she is, mother’s darling little piggie-wiggie, mother’s little -suckling piggie-wiggie, and she shall be all nicely basted and set down -to roast for daddy’s supper, so she shall! Now, now, now! One more -little rub to drive the basting well in! Now, now, now, mammy’s little -Sally! Phew! who’s at the door, Johnny? Run and shut it before the air -reaches little sister!” - -“It’s only Betty,” remarked John with brotherly indifference, but still -running to help his sister close the door against the playful south -wind which insisted upon coming in along with his playmate, who laughed -aloud as she closed the door in his face, set her back against it, and -pulled off her hood to rearrange the soft red hair blown all over her -face. Glancing toward her, the mother smiled with involuntary delight -in her child’s beauty; and truly Betty was very pretty, very pretty -indeed, having selected her features and coloring from her father’s -pure Saxon type and her mother’s Latin traits, with rare eclecticism; -for her deep and rich red hair was far more beautiful than John’s blond -locks or Priscilla’s dusky tresses, and her eyes, halting between his -blue orbs and her dark ones, had resulted in that sparkling brown we -all love to watch in the woodland brook stealing out from the roots of -trees. Her complexion, neither pale nor dark, was at once glowing and -delicate, the white values bordering upon cream rather than snow, and -the reds suggesting carnations rather than roses. As for the mouth, it -was too young yet to have got its expression, but the lines were noble -and clear, sweet and pure, promising much for their maturity. A winsome -little lassie, and so her mother knew, but was far too wise to show -it. In fact, her tone was almost reproving as she said,-- - -“Why, Betty! How you are blown about! You are growing too big a girl to -play the hoiden.” - -“Goody Billington calls me a tear-coat,” replied the child, laughing in -a blithe, fearless voice very pleasant to hear. - -“Goody Billington”--began the mother, flushing a little, but checking -herself as she sat Sally up and pulled her little red flannel nightgown -over her head, while she asked in quite another tone, “Did you see -father, Betty?” - -“Yes’m, and he sent me to tell you he’d not be home for a little while. -Oh, mother, what do you think! I was running out north to find father, -as you bade me, and just as he stepped out of the woods with his axe -and Rover, we saw two Indians coming down the trail, and they were -driving a man, a white man, in front of them; and he looked so tired -and so sick, and all bent over as if he would fall down, and no hat or -cloak, and his doublet tattered and torn like the scarecrow we dressed -for the cornfield, and his poor hands all cut and bleeding and tied -behind him with a strip of deer-hide, and one of the Indians holding -the end of it, and every once in a while jerking it to make the poor -man go on; for indeed he looked fit to fall every minute, and, cold as -it was, the sweat dropped off the dark points of his hair and rolled -down his poor dirty face. Oh, mother, I was like to cry at such a -sight, and father”-- - -“Ay, what did your father do?” asked Priscilla eagerly, as, lapping the -child close to her breast, she turned half round toward Betty, who with -fixed eyes seemed witnessing again the piteous sight she described. - -“Oh, father! He talked with them a little, but you know he is none so -quick at the Indian, not like the captain”-- - -“Never mind,” interrupted Priscilla impatiently. “’Tis not for you to -say another man’s quicker at aught than your father, but what came of -it?” - -“Why, when father had talked a little he shook his head and said in -English, ‘Nay, I can make naught on’t; you must come to the governor;’ -and then we all came on toward the housen, and daddy said to me that I -should run home like a good girl, and tell you he would be here anon, -when he had seen the governor.” - -“Ay, he’ll not think of himself till every one else is served, but I’ll -not let him balk himself of a good supper if I cook a dozen, one after -the other.” - -And Priscilla, stepping into the little bedroom off the kitchen, laid -the sleeping baby in her cradle, and had no more than returned to the -larger room when the door again opened to admit her husband, with a -look of considerable perplexity upon his genial face. - -“Well, goodman, and what’s it all about?” demanded Priscilla with her -usual impetuosity, as, coming within the radius of her influence, -John’s brow cleared, and an expectant smile softened his mouth. - -“Why, dame, ’tis a coil, for you to unravel if thou canst. Betty told -you, mayhap, of the prisoner the Indians brought in.” - -“Yes?” - -“Well, the governor and the captain and Hobomok are off to the woods -after deer, and not yet home, and Dame Bradford and her sister are in -the woods looking for wintergreen and sassafras for the spring beer the -dame makes so famously after thy recipe”-- - -“Nay, she makes it better than I,” interrupted Priscilla, replying to -her husband’s proud smile. “Well?” - -“So Christian Penn would not let me leave the savages and the captive -there, for the Indians couldn’t, and the white man wouldn’t, speak a -word of English, and so”-- - -“You brought them home, goodman?” - -“Why yes; how did you know that, Priscilla?” - -“By art magic. Where are they now?” - -“I left them in the cowshed until I knew thy mind about it, wife.” - -“Nay, then, John! When was my mind other than thine in a deed of -charity?” asked Priscilla tenderly. “Fetch them in, I pray thee, with -no more ado.” - -And in a moment more John had ushered in a figure at sight of which -Priscilla exclaimed indignantly,-- - -“Why did you not unbind his arms, John Alden? The shame of seeing a -white man so used by savages, and you not to make in to his rescue!” - -“He would not have it, nor would the Indians,” expostulated John -helplessly. - -“Would not have it!” repeated his wife contemptuously, while with the -scissors hanging at her girdle she cut the thong of deer-hide painfully -binding the wounded wrists of the captive. As she approached, one of -the Indians growled a remonstrance and muttered something, of which -Alden understood only the words “Big Chief,” but with one stride -he placed himself between his wife and the remonstrant, and first -laboriously evolving Indian words equivalent to “Stand back! It’s all -right!” he added in English,-- - -“The Big Chief isn’t at home, but I’m here, and my wife will do as she -sees fit. It’ll be bad for the man who tries to hinder her.” - -“And did not you want my husband to unbind your hands, friend?” asked -Priscilla, as she gently removed the thong which had sunk deep into the -bruised flesh. - -“My thanks to you, fair dame,” replied the stranger, breaking silence -for the first time. “No, I did not wish to be released until the -Governor or the Captain of Plymouth had seen my plight and told me if -it was by their command these savages had thus dealt with me; I knew -not what might be the authority of this gentleman”-- - -“My husband is John Alden, lieutenant of the colony’s forces, and -second in command to Captain Standish.” - -“My service to you, Lieutenant Alden, and I crave your pardon for what -may have seemed surly silence under your first advances; but truth to -tell, I am a little overborne with fatigue and annoyance”-- - -“Indeed, sir, you are fit to drop,” broke in Priscilla indignantly. -“Here, sit you down in the roundabout chair, and say not a word more -till I fetch you a cup of cordial-waters. John, do get rid of these -Indians. I hate the sight of them! Let them go wait at Master Hopkins’s -until the governor comes home to take order with them”-- - -But at this moment, and while Priscilla, half filling a small silver -cup with Hollands gin slightly tempered with water, held it to the lips -of the fainting man, the door suddenly opened, and Bradford, followed -by Standish and Hobomoc, entered the room. - -“My wife and Christian Penn sent me up to ask about--ah -yes--why--Captain, this gentleman is--Your name, good sir?” - -“My name is Sir Christopher Gardiner,” replied the captive, rallying -his strength to reply with dignity. “And as you seem to recall, we met -once before at my poor home in the Massachusetts. Well enough I know -that my hospitality then was not such as befits either your quality or -mine, and yet methinks your response is even less courteous.” - -“We knew not who the fugitive might be of whom the Indians told us,” -returned Bradford gravely. “But evil entreated though you seem to have -been, your case would have been even worse had it not been for us.” - -“They went about to kill you, man,” broke in Standish bluntly. “And if -the hound the Bay Colony laid upon your track had not fallen in with -one of our own Indians, you had long since tumbled across your own -camp-fire, with an arrow through your heart.” - -“Say you so, Captain,” replied Gardiner faintly. “’Tis but another -proof that a man seldom knows his best friends; but why do the Bay -people seek my life?” - -“That is best known to yourself, sir,” began Bradford somewhat -severely; but Priscilla Alden interposed,-- - -“I pray your pardon, Master Bradford, but this man needs care and -tendance rather than catechizing just now. Look but at those arms and -hands!” - -“Ay, look!” exclaimed Gardiner, holding up his arms, yet forced at once -to drop them through pain. - -Bradford and Standish stared in amazement, for through the tattered -and stripped sleeves of the knight’s doublet and fine Hollands shirt -could be seen many and cruel weals as of stripes, some of them still -bleeding, others crusted with dry blood, and others lividly bruised. -The hands were in even yet more pitiable case, discolored, swollen, and -cut so that they hardly looked like hands at all. - -“What is this? What has chanced to your hands and arms, sir?” demanded -the governor. - -“Ask those red devils there,” replied Sir Christopher bitterly. “And -let me ask if it was not done by your own orders.” - -“By my orders! Never, so help me God!” cried Bradford; and then turning -upon the Indians he demanded,-- - -“Is this your work, Weetonawah, or is it the Shawmut’s? Did I not warn -you both to bring in the man with all care and humane tenderness?” - -The Indians looked at each other, drew their skin mantles closer about -them as if in assertion of their own dignity, and finally uttered a few -words which Standish as briefly translated:-- - -“They say they did but a little whip him with sticks, and it is no -harm.” - -“But why did they whip him, little or much?” - -“My faith! they could never have taken me alive, had not they beat my -last weapon out of my hands,” broke in the knight. “When they are gone -and I am a little refreshed I will tell you the whole story, gentlemen; -but if you indeed wish me well, drive away these assassins and leave me -to this comely matron’s tendance for a while, at least.” - -“’Tis well spoken,” replied the governor in his usual placable voice. -“John Alden, will it suit you to keep this man over-night, if no -longer, and will you, Priscilla, give him the care he needs and you so -well understand?” - -“If the goodwife says yes, I’ll not say no,” declared Alden; and -Priscilla added a little sharply,-- - -“’Tis the best word said yet.” - - - - -CHAPTER XV. - -AND DESCRIBES IT. - - -Not until the next afternoon did Priscilla Alden allow her husband -to report the patient ready to receive the visitors who awaited her -summons, but when the governor, the captain, the Elder, and the doctor -were finally admitted they found him a very different looking person -from the captive driven into town by the Indians, who had already been -paid their reward and dismissed. - -Like most of the colonists, John Alden had enlarged his house from the -rude shelter of the earliest years to a dwelling suited to a growing -and thrifty family, so that at the other side of the door opening -into the great cheerful kitchen with its southern and eastern windows -lay a new room, more carefully finished than the first, its floor -nearly covered with rugs of Priscilla’s own manufacture, its fireplace -decorated with Dutch tiles, its woodwork painted, and its casement -window set with real glass in leaden bands, instead of the oiled paper -or linen which sufficed for the kitchen windows. - -Here were collected the few pieces of furniture which William Molines -and his wife had managed to bring over from France, Holland, and -England, the three homes of their years before the Pilgrimage. The deep -and wide carved chest of black oak, with cunningly wrought hinges and -a key nearly as large as that of the Bastile, stood on one side of the -fireplace, its depths well stored with damask and napery, bed linen -and window curtains, some of Priscilla’s own spinning and some of her -mother’s, while certain articles of fine damask wrought upon looms -of Flanders, and bought even there at a great price, were hereditary -treasures. - -On the other side of the fireplace stood a “buffet,” of English make -and quaintly carved with heads of beasts and gaping gargoyles which -were the terror of Betty and her brothers on the rare occasions -when they were allowed to penetrate the solemn solitudes of this -state apartment. This buffet was not as well supplied as that of the -governor’s wife, and boasted no Venetian glass, although there were -four plain glass tumblers, or rummers, as they were then called, and a -few pieces of Delft ware with a china bowl so precious that Priscilla -seldom dared to look at it. Around the neck of one of the gargoyles -projecting from the cornice of the buffet hung a string of curious -Indian, or rather Ceylonese beads, each carved into semblance of an -idol’s head, a fact happily unguessed by their owners, or indeed by -Plymouth, which would have demanded an auto-da-fé of them in the town -square; but by some unconscious cerebration Priscilla had decorated the -other gargoyle with a string of wampum, thus balancing the superstition -of oldest eastern idolatry with that of newest, or rather latest -discovered, western. Later on, this string of wampum became quite an -appreciable bit of property, but at present it was scarcely more than -a curiosity; for although it had been recommended to the Pilgrims some -four years previous to this date by Isaac de Razières, the delightful -Dutchman who visited Plymouth with overtures of friendship and menace -from New Amsterdam, it had not as yet become the circulating medium -it did later, since both the New England Indians and the New England -colonists had to be educated to its use,--a use invented by those -unhappy Pequots and Narragansetts upon whose shore the quahaug shells -were found in perfection. The thrifty Dutchman in his visit to Plymouth -had brought a quantity of wampum for sale, and the Pilgrims, after -listening to his account of its uses and value, invested fifty pounds -with him at the rate of a penny for three bits of the blue, or six of -the white shell, this price bringing the blue pieces nearly to the -value of a cent of our currency. - -But we must linger no longer over the description of Priscilla’s -“withdrawing” room, as it might very literally be called, but -stand aside to allow the Fathers of Plymouth to enter and find Sir -Christopher Gardiner seated in an invalid-chair beside the fire, -writing in a little pocket-book which at their entrance he closed and -hid in his breast. - -Grave salutations passed, the guests were seated, and Alden, who had -ushered them in, would have left the room, but was bidden to remain by -the governor, while Standish with one of his rare smiles added,-- - -“I can answer for my friend John’s discretion as for mine own.” At -which pleasant word the giant looked foolishly glad, for it was the -most friendly speech Standish had vouchsafed since the night when -Alden’s ill-timed slumbers had so nearly dishonored his captain. - -“And now, sir,” began Bradford in a tone finely mingled of magisterial -authority and benevolent hospitality, “if you are sufficiently -recovered from the hardships of your journey hither, we should be glad -to hear some account of your coming into such straits, and especially -of what complaint the rulers of the Bay Colony may have against you.” - -“A truly reasonable inquiry, Master Governor, and one which I shall -find joyful content in gratifying,” replied the knight, assuming an -easier position, and stretching his shapely legs, clad in a pair -of John Alden’s best hose, toward the fire. The action attracted -Bradford’s notice, and, with Pris Carpenter’s fancies in his mind, he -scrutinized his guest with more attention than men generally bestow -upon one another’s personal appearance. - -Tall, dark, with a hawk’s eyes, and an eagle’s nose above an -enormous mustache, which could not, however, conceal a riotous and -sensual mouth, with dark floating hair now carefully dressed, and a -smooth-shaven cleft chin telling of both will and courage, the knight -was beyond controversy a handsome man in spite of his forty or fifty -years, and one well suited to turn the brain of a romantic girl. His -expression of reckless and jeering self-assertion, thinly veiled under -a mask of deference and deprecation, was less propitious than his -features, but as Bradford shrewdly told himself was by no means the -expression he would wear in conversation with a young maiden whom he -wished to please. - -“Yes, I shall be most happy, most content, to tell you whatever in your -opinion, sir, it imports you to know of my poor history,” pursued Sir -Christopher in a vague fashion, as if inwardly employed in concocting -a romance to serve instead of the truth. “But I know not well where -to begin. Shall I tell you that my father is a wealthy gentleman of -Gloucester in England, and is, or was, poor man, nephew of that Bishop -Gardiner, Lord of the see of Winchester, who did God service under -Queen Mary”-- - -“Peace, ribald!” broke in the stern voice of Elder Brewster. “If -indeed you are of kin to that bloody persecutor and servant of a yet -more murderous mistress, boast not of it here among those who have fled -into the wilderness to escape the cruelties of the Scarlet Woman and -those who serve her.” - -“Lo you now! I do most humbly crave your pardon, most worthy--nay, -then, what do they call men who are no priests, and yet take upon them -the priest’s office under John Calvin and his fellows?” - -“Sorry should I be to seem discourteous or inhospitable to a wounded -man,” exclaimed Bradford indignantly, “but men have been set in the -bilboes and worse for less offense than such words.” - -“Do I not know it?” retorted Gardiner. “Did not I, with these eyes, see -mine own friend Thomas Morton set in the bilboes and direfully insulted -in yon village of Boston, for less,--nay, for naught--for naught--but -scaring a pack of saucy Indians by firing some hail-shot over their -heads to fright them into bringing him a canoe? And did I not see him, -less than two months gone by, haled down to the quay and put by main -force aboard a skiff which rowed him out to the Handmaid, a crank leaky -old tub, not half victualed or half found, and no provision for his -comfort, nay, for his very life, but a handful or two of corn out of -his own provision, stolen out of his house at Merry Mount before it was -set afire? Yes, sirs, set afire as the Handmaid sailed out of port, as -a taunt and a gibe to a helpless prisoner! Ha, ha, though! That word -‘helpless’ minds me of a merry joke even in the midst of such dolor. -When our friends yonder had got poor Morton into their boat, and rowed -him to the side of the Handmaid,--and marry, she’s much such a handmaid -as Hagar of the Bible, turned out into the wilderness with neither -meat nor water enough to keep poor Ishmael alive”-- - -“Profane man! Do you dare”--began Brewster, but with an uplifted hand -and deprecatory bow the knight interrupted him:-- - -“Pardon, your reverence, though ’t was a most apposite quotation and -surely more scriptural than profane,--but let it pass. As I was saying, -when the boat reached the Handmaid’s rotund sides and a rope was thrown -over, Morton was bidden to seize it and climb aboard; but, as he -himself might say, he put in a demurrer, and represented that having no -business on board the Handmaid he hesitated to intrude where perhaps -he was not wanted. The tipstaves persisted, Morton desisted, until in -the end the rope was drawn up and a noose let down instead, wherein -they netted him and so hoysed him on board, he laughing like a fiend at -their toil and rage.” - -“They should have put the noose around his neck, and not hasted to pull -him inboard,” growled Standish; and Sir Christopher, turning airily -upon him, cried,-- - -“Say you so, Captain Sh--nay, Captain Standish? Well, and truly there’s -little love lost ’twixt you and Morton. He had a story that you pleaded -hard for leave to shoot him with your own hand, when he was down here -at Plymouth a prisoner as I am now.” - -“I would have been glad enough to meet him man to man, and let him who -was the better marksman shoot the other.” - -“And a very pretty main it would be between two such fighting cocks -as”-- - -“Enough of this!” exclaimed the governor, silencing with a gesture not -only the captain, who had sprung to his feet, but the Elder, who with -a slow red mounting to his cheek where it showed like the color in -a hardy apple frozen and withered, yet clinging to the parent tree, -seemed about to speak. - -“Sir Christopher Gardiner, if that is indeed your name and degree, -we men of Plymouth claim no titles, nor are we courtiers, skilled in -cunning fence of word, but we have our own dignity as rulers of this -little commonalty, and our self-respect as men. Be pleased, therefore, -to lay aside all these quips and cranks, and tell us briefly who you -are, and why you are found fleeing from the Bay, even at risk of your -life.” - -Somewhat impressed by the simple dignity of Bradford’s manner, and -perhaps a little ashamed of his own levity, the knight at once threw it -off, sat more upright in his chair, and fixing his eyes steadily upon -Bradford’s face as if to avoid the challenge of Standish’s eager gaze, -replied courteously,-- - -“I have already told you, Sir Governor, that I am Christopher Gardiner, -son of a worthy gentleman of Gloucester in England. Early in youth -I wandered away from home, and sojourned so many years among Jews, -Turks, and other infidels, as the Prayer Book hath it, that my father -disinherited me and gave my estates to a brother who clung to him--and -to them. On the other hand, a certain potentate whose name you love not -made me a Knight of the Holy Sepulchre and a Cavalier of the Milizia -Aureata, commonly called the Golden Melice.” - -“The Pope of Rome has no power to appoint a Knight of the Holy -Sepulchre!” exclaimed Brewster, recalling worldly lore which he had -thought forgotten. Gardiner bowed low and mockingly. - -“Pardon! No doubt, reverend sir, you are better acquainted with His -Holiness than I can be, but I go on with mine account of myself. Coming -back to England after well-nigh thirty years’ absence, I find my father -dead, my brother and his brood in possession, and naught left for the -poor exile, should he ever return, but a beggarly thousand crowns and a -nook beside the hall-fire so long as he should behave himself! - -“Well, well, ’t is not good for me to dwell on those days; so to cut -the matter short, I took my thousand crowns, and a few more that had -hidden among the tatters of my knightly robes, and came hither to the -New World, hoping to escape from men and the weariness of their ways. -I bought a bit of land from a copper-colored gentleman calling himself -Chickatawbut who professed to own it, and who made much complaint that -the men of Plymouth had stolen from his mother’s grave the choice -bearskins laid over it to keep the good gentlewoman warm through the -storms of winter”-- - -“We bought some bearskins of a native, but knew not where he got them,” -said Bradford with an air of annoyance, and Sir Christopher’s great -mustache stirred in malicious glee at seeing that the pin-prick had -reached the quick. - -“I bought my land, and I built mine house, and I planted my garden, and -I hired some Indian guides to show me the haunts of the game and fish, -and I began to live much such an innocent and beneficent life as that -of Adam in Paradise”-- - -“With yon fair lady as your Eve?” demanded Standish. The knight turned -his eyes upon him and the spark kindled in their depths, but again -Bradford interposed,-- - -“Leaving aside tropes and metaphors, Sir Christopher, may we ask -what relation the gentlewoman we found at your house sustains toward -yourself?” - -“She is my cousin, my housekeeper, my poor little friend. Ah, indeed, -gentlemen, you may leave her alone with no fear but she will suffer -enough both for her own peccadillos and mine, since those gloomy bigots -of the Bay have seized and hold her close prisoner, with low diet, and -questionings like those of the Holy Office, day by day.” - -And the man’s voice took on so genuine a tone of pain and fear as he -thought upon his helpless companion that even Brewster forbore to press -the subject further, and Bradford not unkindly inquired,-- - -“And why didst thou flee from this poor paradise of thine?” - -“I heard by my friendly Indians, the same who afterward told me that -Mary was a prisoner, that there was mischief plotting against me in -the council chamber at Boston, and one fine morning when I saw a boat -filled with tipstaves and bum-bailiffs crossing the river half a mile -or so from my house”-- - -“Neponset the Indians call it,” murmured John Alden; and Gardiner -nodded good-humoredly. - -“Ay, so they do, yet at that moment I tarried not to discover if -Winthrop’s men had learned its name as well as its navigation, but, -throwing my shot-pouch and powder-flask around my neck, thrusting my -compass into one pocket and a full flask into the other, I bade my poor -little cousin good-by, and well armed, as you may be assured, I plunged -into the forest, and set out for the New Netherlands, some sixty or -seventy leagues to the southwest of Boston Bay.” - -“They thought you would try to reach Piscataqua, where Hilton and -others are seated. Church of England men, they, and more of your own -fashion.” - -“Why, of course they so thought, Master Governor, and that is why I -went not thither; nor did I seek to come here because I felt myself in -need of some air less pure and less attenuate than that which circles -round a conventicle; I pined for the company of ordinary mortals like -myself.” - -“You hardly reached the New Netherlands, however,” suggested Bradford -dryly. - -“No. I fell sick the first night, from sleeping on the bare ground -in a pitiless storm of rain and sleet, and I rested for a day or so -with some natives whom I knew. Besides, had they much harmed her I -left behind, I would have gone back and revenged her by at least John -Winthrop’s life.” - -“Come, now, that’s spoken man fashion!” exclaimed Standish, and the two -soldiers exchanged an almost friendly glance and smile. But the smile -quickly faded from the knight’s face as his thoughts went back to his -terrible experience in the wilderness, and resting his elbow on his -knee, with his chin in the cup of his hand, he stared gloomily into the -fire, and went on:-- - -“I heard once and again from Boston, and I sent a token to my poor -girl, bidding my messenger lie, and say that I was safe and well; then -I went on, and wandered for days, nay, for weeks, up and down, hither -and yon, fevered, wounded, helpless, yet unbroken. I met natives who -told me of a great river in the Pequod country,--Canaughticott they -called it; but I could not cross it save by the favor of those savages, -the most bloody and the most implacable of any in the country, and -I saw it would be but madness to attempt it. Then I was minded to -linger about in the forest until summer, when I might make my way -north to Piscataqua, or perhaps ship aboard some vessel bound to the -New Netherlands, or even come hither and ask shelter,--in very truth -I knew not what I would be at, for every way seemed barred, and I was -too dazed and fevered much of the time to concoct a plan beyond the -next meal, or the next lodging. At last the Massachusetts runner who -had dogged the path to Piscataqua for two or three weeks tried another -trail and came upon me. I since hear that he would have murthered me -but for your influence, and I am beholden to you, one and all; for, sad -as is my plight, I am not yet ready to make venture of a country even -stranger to me than New England. But since the Bay had set a reward -upon my head it might not safely rest even upon the dank leaves of -the forest; and two days ago, while Samson so slept, the Philistines -came upon him; that is to say, I wakened suddenly with a most uncomely -savage bending over me, and trying to steal my snaphance which I hugged -close to my breast. Alive in a moment, I sprang to my feet, dashed -my fist into the fellow’s mouth and heard his teeth split off like -icicles, even as I sprang for the other side of the thicket to make -ready to shoot him. Now beyond that thicket lay a stream whose name I -know not, but broader than the Thames at London”-- - -“Taunton River, we have named it,” again suggested Alden. - -“Ay? Well, there lay a canoe pulled up on the bank, with the paddles -in it. To seize that canoe and paddle across the river was my game, -and haply so reach the New Netherlands; but as I put my shoulder to -the bows the enemy fell upon me, a half dozen at least of hellish -whooping savages with all their murderous motives uppermost. With one -mighty heave I pushed off and sprang in, at the same moment presenting -my piece now at this, now at that one of the savages. Well I knew -that any one of them might hide behind a tree and pick me off with an -arrow, and I found time to marvel that they did not, for how was I to -know that they had been ordered to take me alive and unharmed? but -even as the canoe felt the stream and swerved away from the shore, -even as a delusive hope of escape danced before my eyes, the stern of -the tittlish craft ran upon a rock, and presto! I was in the water, -and what is worse, my piece and my rapier were at the bottom of the -stream! I stooped to grope for the good blade, but it lay too deep, and -as I rose they were upon me, yelling like fiends. One weapon remained, -my little dagger of Venice, which I would not have lost for a gold -piece, sith it is a dagger of happy memories and hath carved me many a -puzzling knot, even as the great Alexander untied the Gordian knot with -his own good blade”-- - -“Your dagger is safe, and shall be restored. I pr’ythee get on,” -remonstrated Bradford. - -“Sir, your impatience is flattering to my poor powers of narration, and -sooth to say, I found myself much interested in the story as it went -on. Well, I drew the dagger and I shook it in their faces after a most -terrible fashion, and I swore most roundly that the first man who came -within reach should taste its point; and so fearful and so truthful -was my mien that they slunk back, and I even began to cast lightning -glances toward the canoe as it lay stranded not many feet away, when -some direct emissary of Satan whispered a plan to those imps of the -same master, and two of them, retiring to the bushes, cut half a dozen -or so of long poles and stripped them of their leaves and little -shoots; then each man seizing one, they began to try to knock the -dagger out of my hands, and as I swiftly changed it from side to side, -and turned every way to shelter it, their dastardly blows rained down -upon my hands and arms until the sleeves were cut to tatters and the -skin beneath to ribbons of most unseemly hue. I held on so long as a -man’s will may conquer flesh and blood, for I fancied that, knowing me -to be a man of some daring and endurance they fain would take me alive -to test my courage under torture, and I had liever provoke them to kill -me then and there; but in the end, when the dagger was beaten out of my -numb and swollen fingers, they closed in upon me like foul wolves upon -a wounded stag, and all was over. - -“They bound my arms, as Master Alden can tell you, most cruelly, and so -soon as themselves were refreshed--although not so much as a drop of -water gave they me until at night I managed to drink from a pool where -we lay for a few hours--they set off for Plymouth; and the rest you -know.” - -“And the man is over-weary for safety. ’Tis best to leave him to rest, -and to Mistress Alden’s ministrations.” - -So spake Samuel Fuller, the kindly surgeon and physician of the -Pilgrims; and Bradford cordially replied,-- - -“Yes and indeed, Doctor. Sir Christopher, we do not make you any answer -just now, except that we are beholden to you for your courteous reply -to our inquiries, and we will now leave you to repose. To-morrow we -shall know better what to reply. We wish you good-e’en.” - -“Good-evening, Sir Governor, and each of you gentlemen. Captain -Standish, it would please me much if by and by you would waste an hour -in talk with me of the stirring adventures we both have known in those -realms of heathenesse beyond the seas.” - -“It will give me singular pleasure so to do, Sir Christopher,” replied -Standish; and so in amity and sympathy parted two men who with equal -pleasure would have fought hand to hand until one lay dead upon the -field, or, as they that evening did, over a tankard of strong ale, -rehearsed for each other’s benefit their battles of old time. - - - - -CHAPTER XVI. - -A MILLSTONE FOR SIR CHRISTOPHER. - - -“Here, Betty woman! You shall help mother and carry the strange -gentleman’s breakfast to him. I’m too put about with my baking to redd -myself fit to see him. Put a clean towel over the sarver, set the salt -and pepper pot upon it, and take father’s beer-mug to fill him out a -measure of my oldest home-brewed. He said but yesterday he loved a cool -tankard better than strong waters of a morning.” - -“Shall I take one of the real damask napkins for him, mother? There are -two in the drawer of the dresser newly laundered.” - -“Yes. Give him of the best, poor fellow, while he’s with us, for he -goes from us to prison, and mayhap to worse.” - -“What worse, mother?” demanded Betty, pausing as she shook out the -folds of the Antwerp damask napkin, and turning her face toward her -mother, whose quick eye marked its sudden pallor. - -“Pho, child! I did but shoot at random; there’s no harm coming to the -man that I know of. Here, now, here’s the little bird done to a turn, -and some manchets of wheat bread, and a cup of honey, and the tankard. -That’s enough for any man’s breakfast, be he sick or well. What’s that, -now?” - -“Just a bit of mayflower, mother, that I found yesterday in the nook -south the hill, you know.” - -“Yes, yes, but--well, have thine own way, poppet,--thou ’rt a good -child.” - -And the tray, decorated with a little silver cup holding the two or -three reckless sprigs of epigæa, which had ventured before their time -into a world not yet ready for them, was carried into the fore-room, -where Sir Christopher stood at the window impatiently considering his -swollen and discolored hands from which he had removed the bandages. - -Before we attend to him, however, let us here note that the _Epigæa -repens_ still blooms in Plymouth so early, that by May-day it is gone; -and it is not, and never was, and never will be an arbutus, although a -world which chooses to say “commence” instead of “begin,” and “locate” -instead of “build,” insists upon calling it so, and probably will so -insist as long as time endures. - -“Ah! Good-morrow, little maid!” exclaimed the knight, a smile replacing -the scowl of vexation. “I have not seen you before. Are you Master -Alden’s daughter?” - -“Yes, sir,” replied Betty, placing her tray upon the table, and then -turning to make her little curtsy, for Betty knew her manners as well -as any young gentlewoman alive. “Mother was over-busy this morning to -attend you, and so sent me with your breakfast.” - -“And a right tempting breakfast, too!” declared Gardiner, seizing the -pewter beer-mug and half emptying it at a draught. “Ha! ’tis good! -A right honest strike of malt!” added he, carefully wiping his long -mustachios and smiling upon Betty, who stood solemnly regarding him. -“And a posy, too! A posy that looks marvelously like thyself, child, so -sweet and tender, yet blossoming from out austere and rigid foliage. -What is thy name, little one?” - -“Elizabeth Alden, sir; but I’m mostly called Betty.” - -“Ay, then, this flower is the Bettina, or the Betty-belle, or the -Bettissimo, is it not?” - -“Nay, sir; we call it mayflower, because father says it minds him of -the English may that blooms in the hedges where he was born. But the -doctor, who is wondrous wise about herbs, will still give it some hard -name I cannot remember. He knows botany, the doctor does.” - -“Ay, does he? Well, I would he knew a way to make me a well man and -a free one.” And the knight, hastily pushing aside his half-eaten -breakfast, began to pace up and down the room in restless anger and -impatience. Betty, halfway to the door, stopped and regarded him -pitifully, then timidly said,-- - -“I would I could help you, sir. Shall I bring my kitten to see you? or -mayhap you’d like Shakem better?” - -“And what is Shakem, thou pretty child?” - -“He’s father’s little dog that catches rats and shakes them so merrily, -and he knows tricks, too: he’ll stand up and beg, and he’ll catch the -bits on his nose, and he’ll play at being dead”-- - -“Nay, then, Betty, he’s not for me! I need no mimic deaths to mind me -of mine own. Ohé!” - -“Is that the ‘worse’ that mother meant? Oh, I’m so sorry, sir!” - -“Worse that thy mother meant? Now what’s that riddle, child?” - -“Mayhap I should not have told it again; but mother made the manchets -and broiled the bird, while we had but bean soup and coarse bread for -breakfast, because she said you’d go from here to prison and it might -be to worse.” - -“Said she so? Ha! is it resolved upon, then? But no, no, no! Winthrop -and the rest would not dare, especially with Gorges at my back. I can -make them see ’twould be but self-murther for them to give him and -the council so excellent a weapon against them. There’s no danger, no -danger of death, but I must write to Sir Ferdinando”-- - -“Is he at the Bay, sir, and will he serve you if you can make him -know?” asked Betty eagerly; and the knight, who had forgotten her, -turned with a sudden smile and uplifted eyebrows. - -“What! we’re in council together, are we, Betty? Nay, Sir Ferdinando -Gorges is in England, and-- Come, now, child, I read thine honest eyes, -and I know thou ’rt sorry for me, and would not add to my discomfort, -hadst thou the chance of doing it.” - -“Nay, sir, indeed and indeed I would not do so.” - -“I am sure of it. Well, then, Betty, promise me thou’lt not say over -again what just slipped my lips, and most particularly the name. I’ll -be sworn thou hast even now forgotten”-- - -“Nay, sir, I’ve not forgotten; ’tis Sir Ferdinando Gorges that would -befriend you, but he’s in England and may not be reached, but an the -Bay does you an injury he’ll revenge it.” - -“Thou hast too good a memory, Betty, and a wonderful quickness for thy -years,” replied the knight, biting his lip, and staring almost angrily -at the child. “Yet I must e’en trust thee. Thou’lt not lisp one word of -that lesson thou hast so pat? Mind you, child, ’twas not meant for your -ears!” - -“I’ll not say it over to any one, sir, and I did not want to hear it.” -And Betty, with a pretty air of dignity, took up the tray and was -leaving the room when Sir Christopher recalled her:-- - -“Betty, you’re taking away my posy! Was not it meant to tarry with the -poor prisoner, and comfort him a little?” - -“Yes, indeed, sir. Will you be so gentle as to take it off the tray?” - -“Ay, and thank you, Betty. Good-by, my pretty turnkey.” - -“I know not what that is, sir. Can I bring you aught else?” - -“Yes, Betty. I fain would have pens and ink and paper, if I may; and -will you or some other ministering sprite redd up the room a little?” - -“I’ll ask mother, sir,” replied Betty comprehensively, and disappeared, -leaving Sir Christopher plunged in meditation both perplexing and -futile. - -“I must wait and see how much they know before I frame my reply,” at -length said he aloud; and throwing off the weight with a shrug of his -broad shoulders, he took a small dressing-case from one of the inner -pockets of his doublet, and began to comb, to perfume, and to curl the -long dark hair which was in itself an abomination to the Puritans, and -an object of scorn to the Pilgrims. - -“The right mustachio still excels the left,” muttered he -discontentedly, as by help of a tiny pocket mirror he carefully -scrutinized the result of his labors, and separating the hairs of the -left-hand mustache tried to give it a more formidable appearance, -although it already nearly touched his eye and covered his cheek. A -gentle tap upon the door disturbed him, but without interrupting his -occupation he cried, “Come in,” and a moment later, “Oh, ’tis my little -Betty again! She has brought some paper and pens, and she finds me at -my toilet. What think you of my lovelocks, little Betty?” - -“I never saw such on a man before, sir.” - -“Nay, that’s no answer, madam! I asked how liked you them.” - -“I would like them”-- - -“Well, say it out, thou strange child.” - -“I would like them on a woman right well, sir.” - -“But not on a man?” - -“Nay. Even Alick was shorn long since.” - -“And who is Alick, pr’ythee?” - -“Alick Standish, the captain’s oldest son.” - -“And your little sweetheart?” - -“Nay, sir, mother says ’tis not pretty to talk of such things, though -like enough we’ll marry when we’re old enough, for our two fathers are -close friends.” - -“And how much older must you be, mistress, ere you may speak of such -things?” - -“Well, Susan Ring is no more than fifteen, and she is to marry Thomas -Clarke so soon as he has William Wright’s house finished, for he’s a -carpenter, and William Wright would fain marry Prissie Carpenter, the -governor’s wife’s sister”-- - -“Ohé! I had forgotten! So, so, indeed, and so it is! Now, then, here is -a coil!” - -Betty, perceiving that her prattle was no longer heard, ceased -abruptly, and in silence completed the spreading of the bed, and -dusting and arranging the furniture with all the mature and responsible -methods not uncommonly characterizing the oldest daughter of a large -family, especially in those early days. Suddenly the knight broke -silence:-- - -“Betty, you know Mistress Carpenter?” - -“Prissie?” - -“Yes.” - -“Oh, yes, sir, I know her very well. We have merry games of play -together, and I am main fond of her.” - -“Well, child, I also know her a little, and I too am fond of her, but -that is another of the things you may not tell abroad.” - -“And yet you have never been here before, have you, sir?” - -“No, thank the Lord, I never have, nor shall I willingly come again, I -promise you, my Betty; but being here, I fain would change a word or -two with Mistress Carpenter, whom I knew in England before ever she or -I came hither.” - -“And that will not be hard, sir, for she often runs in to have a chat -with mother, and I will tell her”-- - -“No, no, no, child, that will never do!” broke in Sir Christopher -impatiently. “Did I not tell thee ’twas a secret?” - -“Yes, sir, but you would speak with Prissie, you said,” replied Betty, -her eyes wide with wonder and a growing instinct of wrong-doing. “You -had best tell mother about it, sir.” - -“Nay, Betty, I thought thou wert my little friend, and felt sorry that -those cruel men at the Bay will presently serve me worse than they did -my friend Master Morton.” - -“He was here, and I liked him not at all. He miscalled Alick’s father, -and mother would not make jelly for him though he asked it of her.” - -“So! What a little partisan thou art, Betty! and I’ll venture thy -mother is, too. But, Betty, there was another man there at Boston, whom -they whipped until the blood ran down to his heels, and then they cut -off his ears, and laid a hot iron on his cheek”-- - -“Oh, sir!” And Gardiner paused, startled at the power of expression -developed in that little flower-face by horror, and anger, and pity -beyond its years. His own face softened to perhaps its best expression -as, laying a hand upon the glittering hair, he kindly said,-- - -“Nay, then, ’tis not a tale for the ears of a little maid; but thou’dst -not like to have me so served, if thou couldst hinder?” - -“Oh, sir, but how can I hinder?” - -“Why, I know not that thou canst, and yet--the first way is to keep my -counsel even from thy mother.” - -“I always tell mother, and sometimes father, all I do, but--I will not -tell what can harm you, sir; only please tell me no more.” - -“But, Betty, dear little Betty, I was just going to ask you to do me -one little kindness, and tell nobody about it. Won’t you be the friend -of a poor wretch who is to be so cruelly used if you do refuse to help -him?” - -“Indeed and indeed, sir, I would help you at one word if I could, but -I may not tell a lie, even though to save you and me too from a den of -lions.” - -“Daniel, eh? Well, little Daniel, I ask thee to tell no lies, nor to -do anything to hurt thy tender conscience, but only to carry a little -folded bit of paper to Mistress Priscilla Carpenter, and fetch me -another which she will send.” - -“Oh, I can do so much as that, sir,” replied Betty, relieved at what -seemed to her a very harmless proposition. - -“But you must give her the billet when she is all alone, Betty, and -you must not let any one--not any one, mind--know a word about it from -first to last. Can you do that?” - -“Oh, yes, easy enough,--but”--and Betty pondered, finger on lip; then -suddenly turning her brook-brown eyes upon the dark face of the man of -the world, she demanded, “Is it right for me to do it, sir? Since I may -not ask mother or father, you must tell me, sir, is it right?” - -Nobody knows why Sir Christopher Gardiner fled his native land, nor why -he dreaded to put himself in reach of its authorities; but whatever may -have been his crimes, I believe none injured his own soul more, none at -the last day will hang more like a millstone around his neck, than the -offense he now offered to the little one who made him for the moment -her arbiter of right and wrong; for he said, but turned away from her -eyes while he said,-- - -“Yes, child, ’tis right, and so would your mother say if you could ask -her; but she would far liever you did not, for she would then feel that -she must tell your father, and he the governor, and so I should be -balked of what will be a comfort to me while I am burned and bleeding -in the hangman’s hands up yonder.” - -“Oh, sir! oh, sir! The pity on’t--and--and--indeed, I’ll carry your -token.” - -“There, then, there, then, dear little maid,--don’t cry! I pr’ythee -don’t cry! Come, now, I’ll give it up! I’ll say no more about it.” - -“Nay, sir, I’ll do it, and I’ll not tell, and ’twill be a comfort to -you when--oh dear, oh dear,--but sith you say ’tis right, and mother -would call it right”-- - -“Nay, I’ll not do it,--and yet--and yet”-- - -“But why will you not, sir? ’Tis not that I was naughty and did refuse -at the first? Sometimes when I’ve been froward, father will not let me -fetch his pipe or his dry slippers, and says, ‘Thank you, Elizabeth, -but I’ll serve myself,’ and I’d rather he’d beat me, or scold, as -mother will.” - -“My child, I’m not vexed, and--well, there--wait a bit--now, here it -is, just these half dozen lines thou seest, Betty; surely there’s no -harm in such a scrap of paper, is there, child?” - -“You say not, sir,” replied Betty submissively, yet sadly, for she -liked not her errand, although resting in the confidence of a nature -itself upright, upon the assurance of her elder that she was doing -right in obeying him. - -At dinner time, with the tray came Betty, again with an apology from -her mother; and when she had set it down she took a scrap of paper from -her bosom and handed it to the knight, who, impatiently unfolding it, -read in a very rude and Gothic scrawl the two words,-- - - “_Ask Betty._ PRISCILLA CARPENTER.” - -“‘Ask Betty,’” repeated the knight aloud. “That is all there is in it, -Betty. But what is the message that I am to ask?” - -“Prissie cannot write much, but she made shift to read your billet, and -she sends her love and kind remembrance,” repeated the child glibly. -“And she said if you got leave to walk out, and I went with you, we -should go to look for the mayflowers just below the Fort Hill, down -near the palisades, and mayhap she would be there about three hours -after noon. And if you cannot go to walk, or father goes with you, she -will pass by this window while they are at lecture in the Fort, but it -would be no more than to say good-by.” - -“Now that goes almost too well to be true, little Betty!” exclaimed -the knight, rubbing his hands, and wincing as he did so, for they were -not yet healed, while Betty, sadly changed from the careless and merry -little maid of the morning hours, withdrew without a word. - -After dinner, as he had expected, Sir Christopher received a visit from -his host, who told him that the governor still awaited a reply to the -letter he had sent by Indian runners to Governor Winthrop at the Bay, -and that meanwhile Sir Christopher was to rest content where he was, -or, if it better suited him, to walk about the town. - -“That proposal jumps well with mine own fancies,” replied Gardiner -smilingly. “Your little daughter brought me these posies this morning, -and told me of how and where they grow, and I should well like to study -them in their habitat. I cherish a singular love for herbal lore, and -have the theories of Fuchsius and Bauhin at my fingers’ ends.” - -“You should talk with our doctor, then,” replied Alden. “He is -marvelously learned in all such matters, and can pluck you to pieces -the prettiest posy that grows, and break your head with the learned -names he’ll find in it.” - -“Ay, I doubt not,” returned Gardiner coldly. “But in my captivity I -better love the company of a prattling child than of a man who may be -mine enemy.” - -“Nay, friend, we’re none of us enemies of yours, nor of any but those -who are enemies of God and the king; still so far as my will goes, -Betty is free to walk with you if her mother needs her not.” - -“And may I ask of your courtesy that you will put the matter before -your dame, as I am not like to see her?” - -“Surely, although the mistress bade me say that she is presently coming -to look once more at your wounded hands and arms.” - -“Oh, they are all but well. Sound flesh and good blood like mine heal -apace.” And Sir Christopher, with a self-approving smile, held up his -well-shaped hands and straightened his comely figure. - -John Alden looked and listened, but made no response, unless a slow -smile that began almost imperceptibly, and widened and widened until it -showed nearly all his broad white teeth, could be called so. But before -it gained its full development he had left the room. - - - - -CHAPTER XVII. - -“TWO IS COMPANY, THREE IS TRUMPERY!” - - -And so it fell that about three o’clock that afternoon, as Sir -Christopher Gardiner and Betty Alden wandered along the southern foot -of Burying Hill, then called Fort Hill, searching under the lee of -every rock and clump of bushes for the epigæa, as often to be found by -its pure spicy fragrance as by sight of its coy clusters of pink and -white blossoms, Prissie Carpenter, a little basket in her hand, came -strolling along the brookside, rather ostentatiously bound upon the -same errand. - -“Now would I like the skill of a painter fellow I knew in Holland, one -Martin Ryckaert, a man I could take by the heel and eat him body and -bones as I would a prawn; but give him his charcoal and his paints and -his canvas, and he’d picture out this scene for you as if you saw it.” - -So spake Sir Christopher, who, old swashbuckler though he was, -possessed a real love of nature and a real appreciation of beauty in -whatever form it revealed itself, as he stood upright with folded arms -and looked about him, while Betty, her little fingers grimed with soil -and scratched with briers, delved amid the thickset ground pine to find -the flowers hiding there. - -It was one of those early April days which redeem the character of the -froward month, and make one almost love its capricious yet prophetic -gleams better than the assured joys of June. A high wind from the -west drove before it great white cumuli, glittering like silver in -the strong sunlight, and careering across the sky and dropping down -behind Manomet as if in an illimitable game of hide-and-seek and -catch-who-catch-can. The waves, uneasy at beholding liberty they might -not have, and games they might not join, leaped as high as they could -toward that azure playground, laughed back to the sun who laughed with -them, or, breaking hoarsely upon the shore, sent up their voices of -sturdy discontent. The trees, moved by such gigantic melody to bear -their part in the grand antiphony, clashed their bare branches in a -rhythm too vast for the human ear to comprehend, while the evergreens -murmured and sobbed and whispered together, lamenting that they had not -even dried leaves to send whirling down that wondrous dance. The brook, -its icy winter shroud still clinging to the banks, rose up to assert -that life defies the shroud, and that there is a power of spring which -shall vanquish death again and again forever; and as the brown waters -went tumbling and leaping down toward the ocean which the icy shroud -can never compass, their sweet voices joined in the universal song like -children in the choir. On sheltered slopes and sunny hillsides the -grass was springing green, and though no flowers disputed the epigæa’s -precedence, the violets and anemones, the snowdrops and the Solomon’s -seal, stood with finger on lip and foot on the threshold, waiting for -courage to cross it. - -Coming up the brookside in her blue skirt and mantle, a white -handkerchief tied over her hair, which in spite of it escaped in a -hundred little dancing tendrils, Prissie seemed a part of the great -sweeping harmony of sky and wind and sea and shore, and the knight, -as with his extended right arm he swept in the lines of a magnificent -imaginary landscape, felt, as his eyes first lighted upon that figure, -more as if it were the fitting centre and _motif_ of his piece than a -real personage. - -“A red cloak would be better,” muttered he. “And yet no,--no,--the cold -purity of blue is more harmonious, and marries well with sky and sea, -but-- Aha, Betty, there’s your friend Mistress Carpenter!” - -“Is it? Oh, yes! I’ll call her.” - -“Nay, we’ll stroll that way and see the brook near at hand, and you may -search for gooseberries while I exchange a word with pretty Prissie.” - -“There are no gooseberries as yet, sir,” replied Betty, bewildered; but -the knight only laughed and strode farther down the hill toward the -brook. - -At that very moment Myles Standish pushed his round head and square -shoulders through the trap door leading from the interior of the Fort -to the flat roof, along the parapet of which his beloved guns were -ranged, and lightly stepped off the ladder, saying,-- - -“Come out hither, Wright, and I’ll show you through the perspective -glass the beginnings of my new house. Ha! Does not the hill show fairly -against the sky?” - -“The Captain’s Hill, all men call it,” said William Wright, carefully -coming out upon the roof, and shading his eyes with his hand as -he looked across the water to the bold eminence, tree-crowned and -majestic, upon whose skirts Standish had already erected a summer -cottage soon to be solidified into a dwelling. - -“I know they do,” replied his companion absently, while he adjusted -the clumsy glass solemnly deposited in his charge by the chiefs of the -colony. “But I better like to call it Duxbury, for it minds me of -hills I knew of old.” - -“I know no hills called Duxbury in England,” objected Wright cautiously. - -“Nay, the hills are called Pennine, but the place where I first saw -them is in the manor of Duxbury. Ha! look you here, Wright, here’s -matter close at hand more nearly concerning us than the Pennine hills. -See you yonder?” - -“’Tis Mistress Carpenter and--and the man Gardiner,” stammered Wright, -staring down into the valley at his feet. - -“Ay, and little Betty Alden picking posies so far away that she might -as well be at home. Mind you, now, my friend, how close the rascal -walks to the maiden’s side, and how those hawk’s eyen of his stare into -her fair face; and by my faith, he’s grasping her hand and she, poor -maid, knows not how to pull it away!” - -“She might an’ she would,” muttered William Wright jealously. - -“Oh, I know not, I know not,” retorted Myles, teasing him. “She’s but a -withy lass, and mayhap afraid of him. Is it true she’s troth-plight to -you, Wright?” - -“Yes--that is no; she never would give her promise sure and fast, but I -had hoped”-- - -“Then, man, if you will be said by my advice, you’ll make down to the -brook at best speed and secure that faltering hope before it is floated -away like the flowers the silly maid is stripping off and flinging into -the brook, not knowing what she’s about. Go down, Wright, and claim -your own.” - -“Nay, Captain,” returned Wright, whose thin face had grown tallow-pale, -and whose thin lips refused to take moisture from a tongue almost as -dry. “If Mistress Carpenter finds her pleasure in such company and -such folly I’ll not trouble her with mine. No, I’m not for a young -gentlewoman who brings such manners and such morals from the wicked -courts of kings.” - -“Come, come, Wright, I’ll not listen to your light-lying of Mistress -Bradford’s sister. ’Tis a good girl as ever stepped and a pure maid as -lives in Plymouth, but she’s young, man, a score of years younger than -you, and doubtless she’s known the man in England, and they’ve met by -chance, and he is parley-vooing after the fashion of his kind, and she -knows not how to be rid of him. Come, go you down, man! Or go with me, -if it suits you better.” - -“No, Captain, I’ll not go.” And the stubborn face hardened in the -utterly discouraging way some faces can. “But I’ll ask this much of -your kindness, friend: go you and meet them, and find out, as you -so well can do, what is the meaning and the intent of it all; and -especially tell me if you as an honest man will say to me that this -maid is such a maid as a cautious, God-fearing man may crave for his -wife. I will trust to your discretion rather than to mine own fears, -Standish.” - -“Well, man, I’ll try to warrant your trust,” replied the captain, -laughing a little, “although I do not feel it in myself to be the judge -in a Court of Love such as they hold in France and those parts. But -you may be sure I’ll deal fairly both by you and the maid. Come after -sunset and I’ll tell you how I have fared.” - -“Nay, Pris, sweet Pris, ’tis such a pretty name I fain would dwell on’t -since I may not take sweeter dews upon my lips, believe me, fairest, -I have forgot nothing of that fair memory; all I then said I say now -and again and again! I came to New England for naught but to find thee -once more, and to woo thee for mine own dear wife and lady paramount so -long”-- - -But upon the smooth and dulcet tones of the knight suddenly intruded a -strident and mocking voice:-- - -“Good-e’en to you, Mistress Prissie; so you are looking for mayflowers -already?” - -“Ah! Oh, Captain Standish, how you startled me! I knew not you were -here.” - -“Nay, I’m grieved to have startled you, mistress, but why should not -I take my walks abroad and look for mayflowers as well as you, or at -least as well as this gentleman, whose walks in life have not always -led him in such pleasant paths, more than mine own. How say you, Sir -Christopher? We did not gather posies much in those stirring days among -the Turks wherein I first met your knightship.” - -“I do not remember meeting you, Captain Standish, before I came to New -England,” replied the knight coldly. - -“No? Well, you are an older man than I, and your memory more laden, so -like enough a little matter may well slip out of it. But when I saw you -there at Passonagessit t’other day I was sure ’twas not the first time. -And how is the fair lady we saw with you? Your wife, is she not?” - -“No, sir, she is not my wife!” thundered Sir Christopher, and the -captain’s face assumed an expression of dismay and embarrassment. - -“Not your wife!” echoed he. “Nay, nay; if I’d known that, I would not -have named her in presence of this modest gentlewoman. But how is -it, then, that she spake of you as her lord? Nay, I’ll not push the -matter, sith I see ’tis an over-delicate matter. Wow! this wind cuts -through one’s blood. Mistress Prissie, I much fear me you’ll catch a -megrim if you linger longer by the brookside, and Betty, ’tis high time -thou wert helping thy mother with the supper; run home, little maids, -and Sir Christopher, I’ll show you something more to your taste than -spring flowers and young lassies. Come up to the Fort and help me fire -the sunset gun.” - -Sir Christopher’s face was very dark, and possibly enough the captain -had not so easily taken his captive, but that Prissie Carpenter, -ashamed and terrified at the meaning she suspected under the captain’s -debonair look and voice, had already fled toward the village, followed -by Betty with a basket full of flowers, but a conscience full of thorns. - -Seeing that resistance had thus become useless, the knight gloomily -accepted his defeat, and clomb the hill beside the captain, whose -jovial manner suddenly dropped into silence, nor did he speak until -the two men stood upon the roof of the Fort. Then, while the sun, -disdaining the mantle of gold and purple officiously presented by the -western clouds, sank in undimmed glory to the horizon, and resting -there an instant seemed to view once more the fair domain he now must -abandon, Standish, his lighted match in one hand, laid a finger of the -other upon his companion’s breast. - -“Sir Christopher Gardiner,” said he, “we breed no Mary Groves in these -parts, and yon young gentlewoman is the sister of our governor, and the -promised wife of one of our worthiest citizens. ’Twould go hard with -the man that trifled with her, and well do I hope no more hath been -said than is soon forgotten and will leave no blot behind.” - -“Since when hath Myles Standish added the duty of father confessor to -his other cares?” demanded Gardiner with a sneer. - -“Ask rather, what sin hath he committed so notable as to call for the -penance of listening to thy confession, my son?” retorted the captain -good-humoredly. “Nay, man, take my hint in good part, as indeed ’tis -meant. This maid is not for thy fooling, and thine own affairs are -like to give thee trouble enough without mixing and moiling them -further. Ha! the sun is going”-- Puff! and the dull boom of heavy metal -resounded across the quiet town, and startled the eagle circling above -his nest on Captain’s Hill. - -Then the two men went silently down the hill, and whatever may have -been the knight’s secret resolves of virtue, he never again found the -opportunity to test them. - -“Now, Betty,” said her mother, as the family rose from that meal we -call tea, but they named supper, “I will put the babies to bed, and -then step up the hill to Mistress Standish’s to see little Lora, who is -worse of her measles to-night, and thou wash up the dishes and redd the -kitchen, and then go to bed like a good little lass. I’ll take in the -gentleman’s supper, and ask what he fancies for his breakfast. John, -you’ll find me at the captain’s when ’tis time for lecture.” - -“Ay, dame; and meantime I’ll smoke a quiet pipe here with Betty and dry -my wet feet.” - -But hardly had the mother disappeared when John Alden felt two tender -arms about his neck, and heard a broken whisper,-- - -“Oh, father! I’m so sorry!” - -“What! Betty, child, is’t thou? And crying! Nay, then, little woman, -what is it all about? Come sit on father’s knee and tell him thy -trouble. What makes thee sorry, my little maid?” - -“I--don’t--know--father.” - -“Don’t know! Nay, how canst thou be sorry and not know why? That’s -naught but foolishness, Betty.” - -“Please, father, will you speak to mother, and not have me carry the -gentleman’s sarver into the fore-room, nor make his bed any more?” - -“What! what!” exclaimed Alden, pushing the child back until he could -look into her wet and troubled face. “Nay, then, Betty, I ’ll have the -truth of thee; has the man been rude to thee, or said a word amiss?” - -“I--oh, don’t look so angry, father; you frighten me.” - -“But I will be answered, Betty! Why dost thou fear to go into this -man’s room? What has he said to thee?” - -“He’s said naught but kindness, father; he never spoke a cross word, -not one. What should he scold _me_ about?” - -And the innocent wonder of the sweet face filled the man with fear lest -his child might have understood him. Yet still with his own persistence -he asked,-- - -“But why dost thou not want to take him his victual, poppet?” - -“I may not tell you, daddy dear, because I promised sure and fast I -would not tell, but I’d rather he asked mother or you”-- - -“Asked us what, child?” - -“To help him-- Nay, father, please do not ask me, for I promised I -would tell nobody, and he said they’d cut off his ears and burn his -cheeks”-- - -“Tut, tut, he’s been scaring thee, thou silly little maid, and I doubt -not asking thee to help him escape. Now isn’t that the great secret?” - -“No, daddy--that is, perhaps he thought Pris would help him escape”-- - -“Pris? Why, what has she to do with this man, or thou with either of -them?” - -“Mother’s coming, and I don’t want to tell her, for she’d chide me so -sharply if I did not give up the secret, and I promised, father dear, I -promised, and you said I ought to die rather than tell a willful lie.” - -“And so I did. Well, I’ll think on’t; go back to thy dishes now.” - -And as Priscilla bustled into the room and hastily put on her outdoor -gear she noticed neither how grave her husband looked, nor how little -progress Betty had made with the dishes. - -A little later, as John Alden brought his wife home from the lecture, -he said,-- - -“William Wright was telling me that he saw Prissie Carpenter and our -Betty with Sir Christopher Gardiner by the brook picking posies this -afternoon.” - -“Why ’twas you that bade me send Betty out with him!” exclaimed -Priscilla, forestalling the objection in her husband’s voice. - -“I know it, and I’d better have left the matter to you, wife. It was -ill thought on, and we’ll not have our little maid called in question -if the man is plotting an escape”-- - -“Talking with Pris Carpenter, was he?” interrupted Priscilla sharply. - -“Yes”-- - -“Then it wasn’t escape he was talking of, but his own captivity to her -charms. She knew him in England, John; she told me so, and showed me a -token he gave her. Mayhap he’s come to marry her!” - -“And the woman Mary Grove, what make you of that, wife?” - -“Oh, a body must have charity, and many a mare’s nest is naught but a -tangle in the hedge. We’ll see.” - -“Ay, but we’ll not have our Betty mixed in with any such matter, -Priscilla, and I pray thee keep her away from this man while he is in -our house. Do not send her to the fore-room again; one of the boys can -carry in the sarver, or I will do’t myself, but Betty is not to go in -thither again.” - -“As thou sayest, John,” replied Priscilla with a meekness reserved for -the rare occasions when her husband chose to assert his authority; -so thus it came about that not again during the week he remained at -Plymouth did Sir Christopher Gardiner find speech with the child, who -never to her dying day revealed the secret she had promised to keep, -and never quite comforted herself for the duplicity into which she had -been led. - - - - -CHAPTER XVIII. - -THE LITTLE BOOK. - - -An uneasy and difficult week passed over Plymouth, its shadow resting -especially upon John Alden’s house, when one fine sunshining morning -Jo, the second boy, rushed into the house, with the news,-- - -“Mother, there’s a big boat down from the Bay, and a captain in it, -bigger than our captain, and the governor’s son, and a mort more of men -come to get the man in our fore-room.” - -“And where’s thy father, Jo?” - -“Oh, he’s down there at the waterside, and all the other men, talking -with the Bay folk, and I ran off to tell you, mother.” - -“That’s my brave boy! He doesn’t forget mother, does he?” And Priscilla -turned to look fondly at her second-born, a fine, manly little fellow, -with a marvelous likeness to his uncle Joseph Molines, victim of the -first winter’s pestilence, the brother whom Priscilla had so fondly -loved, so deeply mourned. - -“Well, poor man, if he’s to be carried away prisoner by so many -warders, I’ll e’en toss him up a dainty dish for his last dinner with -us,” continued she busily. “Jo, my man, run down and ask father if any -of the Indians have brought in oysters to-day, and if not, to get some -clams or a lobster; and be quick, my boy, for it’s hard on noon. And, -Betty, see if there are some fresh eggs in the hen roost,--I’ll make -an omelet with herbs; and there’s a fine salmon to serve with cream -sauce and a sallet”-- - -“We might kill a chicken, mother,” suggested John, the grave -first-born, so like his father in everything. - -“Nay, not to-day, Johnny,” replied Priscilla, somewhat embarrassed, -for her mind reverted to a little discovery of her own, and her eyes -glanced toward the high mantel where lay a small brown-covered notebook -much worn at the edges, and although apparently of trifling value, -just then a greater weight upon the mind of the mistress than even her -silver cup, or her six teaspoons. - -It was but the day before that Betty had picked up this book just -outside the house, and bringing it to her mother said she thought the -gentleman had dropped it out of his pocket, for she had seen it in his -room upon the table. Opening it at random, Priscilla read a few words -only, but those so strange that, instead of at once restoring the book, -she laid it aside until she should have time to consider her duty in -the matter. On one side lay hospitality and honor, but on the other was -the obligation to justice and to the common weal, which to those early -settlers was a matter far more vital than to us, for it included not -only their own interests, but perhaps the very lives of all belonging -to them. If here indeed was “a snake in the tender grass,” had she a -right to let him wind his beautiful deadly way out of reach of justice? -But on the other hand, was the danger deadly enough to warrant her in -betraying the man who had eaten her salt? This controversy of mind, -sufficiently perplexing to a woman of Priscilla’s day and training, -was suddenly resolved by the news brought home by John Alden that -the Boston boat would return directly after noon-meat, and that Sir -Christopher Gardiner would return with her. - -“Then come you in here a moment, John,” said Priscilla, rising from her -almost untasted dinner, and leading the way to her bedroom. - -John ruefully rose, his eyes upon his plate, where lay a huge segment -of suet pudding which he had just begun to absorb in his own slow and -methodical fashion. Betty’s quick eyes saw the whole. - -“I’ll turn a basin over it, father, and set it by the fire till you’re -ready for it,” said she with a flashing smile; and her father, smiling -also, replied,-- - -“Thou’rt ever a good little wench, Betty!” - -“See here, John! See this little book!” exclaimed Priscilla, shutting -the door so promptly as nearly to catch her husband’s last foot in the -crack. “’Tis the man’s, and mayhap the governor ought to know he’s a -Catholic for one thing. See, see! Isn’t that what this page meaneth?” - -“Ay, he was reconciled, as they call it, on such a day and”-- But as -Alden pored over the scribbled entry, murmuring vaguely such words as -more clearly presented themselves, his impetuous wife interrupted him:-- - -“I gave him fish for his dinner to-day, sith I would not have a dog -lack meat to his mind in mine own house, but still I remember how those -fiends of Catholics murdered my grandsire in cold blood, and his wife -after him, for naught but that they were Huguenots, as we are, and I -must hate Catholics forevermore.” - -“Nay, wife, not hate them,--not hate whom God has made and still spares -for repentance,” suggested John; but Priscilla impatiently tossed her -head. - -“God is God, and I’m but poor Priscilla, his creature. I cannot love -and hate all in one breath the same thing.” - -“Nay, wife, but thou didst give the man what meat his conscience called -for on a Friday?” - -“Yes, of course I did.” - -“And now will deliver him to death, if so it be?” - -“Oh, I cannot tell; but I hate Catholics; my father bade me do so.” - -“And yet thou dost feed them, and I’ll be bound thou’lt see that this -man’s tender wounds are well covered from the cold before he goes -aboard.” - -“There, now, I’m glad you spoke on’t, John! I’ll lap his arms with a -good woolen bandage, and you must lend him your old horseman’s cloak to -wrap himself withal. The governor’ll fetch it some day when he goes up -to visit the Bay governor again.” - -“Nay, wife, I don’t see but thou dost humbly follow thy God, and love -the sinner while thou dost hate the sin.” And John slowly and fondly -smiled down upon the petulant brown face of the wife he still loved as -well as when first he wooed her. - -“Oh, I know not how that may be, my Jeannot,” replied Priscilla, -laughing and blushing a little as she saw herself trapped. “But here’s -the little book.” - -“Ay, here’s the little book, and to my mind the best thing is for me to -carry it straight to the governor and let him do with it as he lists. -’Tis a matter too weighty for us to handle alone.” - -“Doubtless you’re right, John, and here it is,” and Priscilla, with -a little sigh of vague regret, handed the book to her husband, and -watched him as he at once left the house to carry it to the governor. - -But Betty kept the pudding warm for his supper. - -That afternoon Sir Christopher Gardiner, formally made over to the -custody of Captain John Underhill and Lieutenant Dudley, son of the -deputy-governor, sailed out of Plymouth wearing John Alden’s cloak, in -which he sullenly muffled the lower part of his face, while a slouched -hat nearly covered the upper. - -“Are you sick?” bluntly demanded Underhill, who had orders to treat his -prisoner honorably and kindly. - -“Nay, I’m sorry,” retorted the knight. - -“Fortune of war, comrade,” returned the Puritan captain not unkindly, -“and there’s no very sharp measure laid up for you, as I take it. -Our governor bade me have a care for your comfort, and the Plymouth -governor hath writ a long letter to Master Winthrop, all in your favor, -as I know from what he was saying to Alden.” - -“‘Have no fear,’ says he, ‘it shall do him no harm;’ and t’other -returns, ‘We did but our duty, and yet would be right loath to hurt the -man.’ Now what make you of that, man?” - -“Read the governor’s letter and you’ll know more than I do,” replied -Sir Christopher gloomily. - -“Read it! Nay, that’s not my business. But ’tis a hugeous letter.” - -And from the pocket of his doublet Underwood drew forth a little packet -carefully sealed and superscribed,-- - - -_To_ - -MASTER JOHN WINTHROP, - -_Honourable Governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony these:_ - - -As he turned the package over and over in his hands, the knight, who -at first had glanced at it in moody indifference, roused to intense -attention, and finally, while a streak of dusky red animated his sallow -cheek, extended his hand, saying as carelessly as he could,-- - -“Let me look at the governor’s seal, captain. Has it an heraldic -device?” - -“Nay, I know naught of such follies,” returned Underhill, holding -out the packet; but even as his fingers touched those of the knight, -trembling with impatience, a glance at his face, or perhaps only the -soldier’s instinct of peril at hand, suddenly diverted his attention, -and snatching back the dispatch, he began to replace it in his doublet, -saying gruffly,-- - -“Marry, ’tis no business of mine or thine what these governors say to -one another.” - -“Nay, but I’m sick--make way, man, make way”--and throwing himself -across Underhill, as if to reach the side of the boat, Sir Christopher, -what with his long arms flying all abroad, and what with the great -cloak that swept across Underhill’s face and breast, came very near -knocking the packet out of his hand and sweeping it overboard. - -“Have a care, man! Have a care!” cried the captain angrily. “Though -you’re squalmish all of a sudden, you needn’t fling yourself nor me -overboard.” And thrusting the inclosure containing Sir Christopher’s -notebook and the kind and gentle letter accompanying it deep into his -pocket, the future slayer of “Pequods” recovered his equilibrium and -made room for Sir Christopher, who, leaning his head upon the gunwale -of the boat, effectually hid his face from view, and made no reply to -further efforts at conversation. - -A week or so later another Boston boat came down to Plymouth, and -brought John Alden’s cloak and a letter to Bradford from Governor -Winthrop. It tells its own story in its own quaint phraseology:-- - - - S^R.: It hath pleased God to bring S^r. Christopher Gardener safe - to us with thos that came with him. And howsoever I never intended - any hard measure to him, but to respecte and use him according - to his qualitie, yet I let him know your care of him, and y^t - he shall speed y^e better for your mediation. It was a spetiall - providence of God to bring those notes of his to our hands; I - desire y^t you will please to speake to all y^t are privie to them - not to discover them to any one for y^t may frustrate y^e means - of any farder use to be made of them. The good Lord our God who - hath allways ordered things for y^e good of his poore churches - here directe us in this arighte, and dispose it to a good issue. - I am sorie we put you to so much trouble about this gentleman, - espetialy at this time of greate imploymente, but I know not how - to avoyed it. I must again intreate you to let me know what charge - & troble any of your people have been at aboute him, y^t may be - recompenced. So with the trew affection of a frind desiring all - happines to your selfe & yours, and to all my worthy friends with - you (whome I love in y^e Lord) I comende you to his grace & good - providence & rest - - your most assured friend - JOHN WINTHROP[4] - - BOSTON _May 5, 1631_ - - -FOOTNOTE: - -[4] True copy. - - - - -CHAPTER XIX. - -A MUCH-MARRIED MAN. - - -The spring had ripened into midsummer, and under the sad and foreboding -eyes of Governor Bradford a most ominous hegira of some of his dearest -friends and Plymouth’s most valued townsmen had taken place, nominally -for the summer only, but as Bradford too plainly foresaw not to end -with the summer. - -Standish’s house upon the foot of his own hill was complete, and not -far away Jonathan Brewster, the Elder’s oldest son, had put up a summer -cottage and established his wife and children. This might have passed, -but when the Elder himself, with his two sons Love and Wrestling, also -built a cottage close beside Jonathan’s upon a pretty inlet called -Eagle’s Creek, the governor’s heart sank within him, and, calling a -Court of the People, he proposed a legal enactment to the effect that -those colonists who should build houses outside the town limits for -the convenience of grazing or farming should return to the town at the -beginning of winter, and abide there until spring; also, that they -should week by week come into town to attend divine service on the -Lord’s Day. - -To this all consented, even Winslow, who, in spite of his frequent and -protracted absences in England, had found time to view the land beyond -Duxbury, and to appropriate a lovely and fertile tract at Green Harbor -in what is now Marshfield. Building a temporary cottage here, he named -the estate Careswell after his ancestral home in England, and in true -family spirit gathered around him his brothers: John, now husband of -Mary Chilton, Josias, and Kenelm, who, married to Ellinor Newton of the -Fortune, settled upon a gentle eminence by the sea in a spot so fertile -and so beautiful that it was fitly named Eden. - -Where Standish chose to lead, John Alden was in the habit of following, -nor was this migration to Duxbury an exception, for in this very summer -of 1631 Alden took up a large tract of land on the south side of -Bluefish River, and built his house upon a pleasant rise of land near -Eagletree Pond; and although two other houses have at different dates -replaced the one he built, his children of the eighth generation live -to-day upon the spot where Betty Alden grew into her fair maidenhood, -and brothers and sisters made home happy, and life a quiet joy. - -All these things and more had William Bradford been rehearsing to -his friend Captain William Pierce of the Lyon, who had looked into -Plymouth to leave some passengers and merchandise before proceeding -upon his voyage to England, until the sailor, sorry for the depression -and foreboding Bradford did not disguise from him, cast about for some -pleasanter topic, and finally cried,-- - -“Oh, let me tell you, Governor, of the hornets’ nest I found myself -caught in, awhile ago in Lun’on; and by the way, Master Isaac Allerton -was in it as well. Didn’t he tell you here of the two wives of Sir -Christopher Gardiner?” - -“Nay, we have had but little pleasant converse with Master Allerton -for a long time past,” replied Bradford heavily, and Pierce hastened to -proceed:-- - -“I know, I know, it would seem as if Allerton with all his pious texts -had never learned that the man who faileth to care for his own is worse -than a beast; for he cozened his own old father as much as he did you. -But this is another matter. It was in February that I was stopping at -the Three Anchors down by Wapping Old Stairs, and Allerton came in and -said he had a message from a woman calling herself Lady Gardiner, who -fain would have speech with him because he came out of New England; -but he, prudent man, would go to see no fair ladies unknown to himself -without a reputable witness to his honest intent, and so he was come -for me. Be sure, Bradford, I did not let the chance slip to pass some -merry jests upon our sour-visaged friend, and brought the blood to his -tallow cheeks as it has not been seen for many a day; but in the end I -gave my word to go and protect him as best I might from any designing -Lindabrides who might assail him. So at once we went to the address -written on the billet that was sent him, smelling of musk and ambergris -and civet, worse than the hold of the Lyon after a ten weeks’ voyage. -Coming to the house in the Strand, we found in a very fair lodging not -one but two fair dames; and the merry jest of it is that both the one -and the other are honest women, and married by ring, book, and bell to -this same gay knight whom Winthrop found living so meekly in the woods -of Neponset River with his cousin Mary Grove.” - -“Nay, Pierce, but this passes a jest!” exclaimed Bradford, much -disturbed as he recalled his little sister’s pale face, and his wife’s -anxieties on her account. But the jolly mariner mopped his red face -and laughed amain while he replied,-- - -“Nay, nay, Governor, I’m no church-member, and I suppose you saints -were men before you were saints, and how can you help to see the mirth -of it?” - -“Well, tell me how it was.” - -“Why, the first fair dame,--and a pretty creature she was, with soft -eyes like those of your wife’s pet doe, and yellow hair, but a mouth -too sad for kisses, and a cheek too thin and white for my taste,--she -showed us her marriage lines, and told how she was married some six -years ago to this Sir Christopher in Paris, and there abode until a -few weeks before that speaking, when, hearing strange rumors of her -husband’s proceedings, she came over to seek him in Lun’on, and found -the scent warm indeed, but Master Reynard fled over seas; and as she -sought him up and down, her quest crossed that of this other lady, who -had been indeed more deeply wronged than herself. And at that word, -Number Two, a fine bouncing well-set-up figure of a woman, black eyes -and hair, and a cheek like a sturdy rose, and a mouth I’d rather have -seen at peace than trembling with rage, she took up the word, and told -how not six months before, she too had wed Sir Christopher Gardiner, -and she too showed her marriage lines, which if not so binding as -the first ones had at least the merit of being writ in English; and -furthermore she showed us schedules of jewels and coin, and silver- -and goldsmith’s work, and much rare and costly apparel both for men -and women, for she was a widow, and all of it gone over seas with Sir -Christopher, who, it seems, after sending her for a day or two to visit -friends in the country, had made a clean sweep of everything, and the -same night set sail for Monhegan with Mary Grove, for whom, poor wench, -she could find no name vile enough, laying all the blame, as is the -wont of women, upon her, and making Sir Kit a victim of her wiles.” - -“You saw the marriage lines of both these women?” asked Bradford, -leaning his forehead upon his hand as he sat beside the table, and -sighing heavily. - -“Oh, yes,” returned Pierce, wondering at the effect of his story, but -rather attributing it to the morbid sensitiveness of a church-member. -“Yes, they were both of them as safe as a chain-cable; and though Sir -Kit does seem to have slipped them, he couldn’t have parted them so -long as the anchor of common law found holding-ground. Well, both women -were clamoring to have us two catch the man and bring him back; but -while the soft sweet first wife would have him brought back to duty -and gently wooed into a better life, the full-rigged to’-gallant-s’il -gallant buccaneer of a second wife only yearned to get him within -reach that she might write the ten commandments on his face with her -pretty little nails, and if she couldn’t recover her jewels, plate, -and apparel, she would have the worth of them out of his hair and -hide, and as for Mary Grove,--wow! man, you should have heard her! The -ducking-stool, and the bilboes, and the white sheet, and the cart’s -tail, and I know not what, were but the beginning of the blessings she -longed to pour upon that poor little sinner’s head, oh me, oh me!” - -And again the sailor, recalling the scene, threw back his head and -laughed aloud, but meeting no response checked himself suddenly and -continued:-- - -“Well, Allerton and I, when we might be heard, assured both the one and -the other dame that we compassionated their sad estate most heartily -and would willingly see them avenged, but that we had no power except -to bring the matter before Governor Winthrop, within whose jurisdiction -Sir Christopher had settled, and in the end both ladies resolved to -write to His Excellency, and promised to send the letters betimes next -day to the Three Anchors at Wapping; which, to cut the yarn short, they -did, and I gave them to Winthrop, and he as you know coursed the hare, -or rather, hunted the fox, and ran him down, here at Plymouth.” - -“But he has not been sent home, or so I heard the other day!” exclaimed -Bradford. - -“No; and why, I know not,” replied Pierce. “They kept him clapt up -for a while, but finding nothing worse against him than that he is a -friend to Sir Ferdinando Gorges, who wants the Massachusetts lands for -himself, they gave him the run of the town, and he has been vaporing up -and down there for months more than one or two. But now, Bradford, now -here’s a merry jest that even you cannot but smile at if there’s a drop -of red blood in your veins. - -“A week or two ago a stalwart fellow called Thomas Purchase, who has -taken up land at the eastward at a place called Sagadahoc, on the -Kennebec River,--or is it the Androscoggin?” - -“Both, since they come to a confluence. We have been thither trading -for beaver, and will have a port there soon, if God will.” - -“Well, this Purchase is a big man down there, and meaning to be bigger; -so, having a house, he came to Boston to purvey himself a wife; and who -should he pick from among all the fair and godly maids and widows of -that pious village but Mary Grove, who has been waiting there until -the magistrates should settle within their own minds which of the Lady -Gardiners might claim the plucking of her feathers. Yes, sir; Thomas -Purchase, with his eyes and his ears open, chose Mary Grove to be his -wife, Sir Christopher gave his consent and his blessing, and the lord’s -brethren, as Blackstone calls them, hailed with joy so clear a course -out of the muddle they’d fallen into with this woman. So Winthrop -himself married them, and Purchase, having his boat at hand, well -stocked with the barter of the beaver he had brought up, carried his -bride aboard, and also,--now mark you well, for here’s the very moral -of the jest,--also he took aboard Sir Christopher Gardiner himself, -and away they all sailed for Sagadahoc. There, what think you of that, -gossip?” - -“I think Master Thomas Purchase a singularly charitable man,” replied -Bradford with a dry smile. “But let us hope that Mary Grove convinced -him that she was more sinned against than sinning, and had not done the -wrong this villain’s second wife imputed to her.” - -“Ay, ay, doubtless you as a church-member are bound to find some such -way out of the thing; but to the mind of a plain old sea-dog like Bill -Pierce ’tis a marvelous merry tale, with no moral tacked to the end -on’t.” - -And possibly this conversation had something to do with the fact that -when Thanksgiving Day came round, Priscilla Carpenter became the wife -of William Wright. - - - - -CHAPTER XX. - -BETTY’S JOURNEY AND THE GARRETT WRECK. - - -“Betty, child, thou’rt not well. Thy little face is so peaked and pined -I hardly know my winsome lassie. What is’t, maiden?” - -“Oh, father, I don’t know”-- - -“Nay, don’t cry, my poppet! Come here and tell daddy all the trouble.” - -“Well, father, I’m so tired of seeing our neighbors carried up the -hill, and I’m looking for them to carry us too.” - -“What! Here, mother, come and tell me what our little maid may mean. -She says she’s tired of seeing our neighbors going up the hill, and she -cries as if her little heart would break.” - -The mother did not at once reply, but, laying her hand upon the child’s -head as it nestled upon her father’s breast, she looked sadly out -of the window, and said, “We had better have stayed over at Duxbury -another month, John.” - -“Why, so we would have done, wife, and indeed ’tis a loss to come back -to the town so early; but you know the governor desired it, because -in so much sickness our good doctor could not go far afield, and when -Jo was taken down he bade me bring you all in. Another year, if God -will, I mean to establish our home for winter as well as summer by the -Bluefish. But what about the hill, Betty?” persisted the father. “Why -does it daunt thee to see the folk go up the hill?” - -“Because they’re dead, father, and they carry them up to bury them!” -cried Betty in a wild burst of sobs; and Priscilla, nodding, pointed -out of the window to a little procession just passing the house, where -four men bore upon a rude hand-bier a coffin covered with a black pall, -the corners held by four younger men. Behind walked a score or so of -mourners, all men, with long crape scarfs tied around their hats. -No clergyman attended, for religious solemnities at funerals were -studiously avoided by the Separatists, lest haply they might seem to -infringe upon the hidden councils of the Almighty in regard to souls -withdrawn from the sphere of human influence. A gloomy and a hopeless -affair they made of death, those men who dreaded popery as they did -Satan, and loved John Calvin, recently gone to test his own sunless -theories. - -“Betty, dear,” exclaimed the mother suddenly, “there’s little Molly -crying in her cradle! Run, dear, and hush her, and sit by the cradle -till I come.” - -The obedient child sprang to obey, and so soon as she was gone -Priscilla softly said,-- - -“’Tis all these buryings, John, that work on the child’s tender heart, -and she heard us talking last night of poor Fear Allerton’s passing. -’Tis she that’s going up the hill now; and see! they’ve got Thomas -Prence and Philip De la Noye and Thomas Cushman and John Faunce for -pall-bearers, and Isaac Allerton and the Elder are chief mourners. You -should have been there, John, for Allerton was ship-fellow with us in -the Mayflower, and she was a dear gossip of mine always.” - -“And so I would have been but for that spike running into my foot -and making a cripple of me,” replied Alden with a rueful look at his -bandaged foot. - -“Shouldst not have left thy harrow lying on ’s back with its teeth -grinning up to the sky,” suggested Priscilla absently, and then taking -from the mantelshelf a bit of stick and a sheath knife she cut a -notch at the end of a long line, and counting said,--“Eleven on my -tally-stick already, and some of the best, alas! Peter Browne,--mind -you, John, how he and Goodman roosted in a tree all night for fear of -the ‘lions,’ and ne’er a one here? And Francis Eaton, he’s gone, and -left Christian Penn a widow. I’ll warrant me she’ll go back to the -governor’s kitchen. Then there’s the captain’s two little boys. Poor -Barbara! Truly I believe, John, of the hundred Mayflowers that came -ashore there’s not a score left.” - -“There’s two and twenty of us, counting them who were children, like -Henry Samson and Peregrine White,” said John sadly. - -“Ah, you’ve kept the tally in your head better than I with my stick,” -said Priscilla, laying it aside. “And to think of Pris Carpenter, -widowed almost as soon as she’s wed. William Wright has left her all -that he had, Alice Bradford says.” - -“Ay; and glad am I that Sir Christopher Gardiner hath gone back to his -two wives in England before she came into her fair estate.” - -“Nay, Pris would not have looked crosswise at him after she heard the -story Captain Pierce gave the governor. She was too sound a maid to -listen to any such golightly cavaliers as this man proved himself. But, -John, did you hear of the will that Widow Ring has made, and tied up -everything on her boy Andrew? And there’s Susanna Clark and Betsey -Deane been the best of daughters, and tended her hand and foot, and she -as full of whims as an egg is of meat; and when she’d for very shame’ -sake given Susan a pair of pillows, she had to tuck in that Andrew -was to have the feathers out of ’em. Think of that for a mother! And -Susan Clark, she’s to have the making of a baby’s bearing-cloth out of -a piece of red cloth the widow had laid up, and Betsey Deane’s child, -she’s to have the rest on’t. And who’s to have the widow’s three say -gowns, one of green and two of black, I mind not, but all Betty told me -of getting was one ruffle that her mother bought of Goodman Gyles, who -had it out of England in a present, and she gave him four shillings for -it, but”-- - -“But what’s to be done with our Betty?” calmly inquired John, stemming -the tide of his wife’s eloquence, apparently all unconsciously. - -She, standing open-mouthed for a moment, looked at him, colored a -little, then laughed, and nipping his arm retorted,-- - -“What’s to be done with our goodman, that’s lost his wits as well as -lamed his foot? Didst not know that I was discoursing of Widow Ring’s -will?” - -“But she’s left naught to us that I’ve heard, nor are we even called to -distribute her goods as I can hear, so were it not the part of wisdom -to attend to our own concerns instead of hers, good wife?” - -“Well, as for Betty, the child’s growing too fast, and mayhap has been -a little too straitly tied at home, what with little Molly’s coming, -and Jo’s fever, and the rest. So now that you’re laid up from work, -John, why don’t you take her up to Boston in the governor’s boat -that’s set to go two days from now, and tarry the night at Parson -Wilson’s, as he so kindly asked you when he was down here with Governor -Winthrop and his folk? Marry come up, ’twas a good supper I set before -their high mightinesses that night, and our own governor did thank me -kindly for so pleasantly entertaining the guests of the colony. ’Twas -a better supper than they had at the Winslows’ or the Howlands’ or -the Allertons’, for I know all about it. As for the Standishes, I was -helping Barbara all day, and the merit of that feast lay between us, -but”-- - -“And dost think Mistress Wilson would welcome our little maid?” - -“Surely she would, and why not? You’ll not find our Betty’s marrow -among the pick of the Bay maidens, not forgetting Master Winthrop’s -own; no, nor Simon Bradstreet’s Anne that you were so taken with when -we went up to see Mistress Winthrop.” - -“Then if you’ll make her packet ready I’ll see the governor about -the boat,” concluded John, carefully putting his wounded foot to the -ground, taking a cane in each hand, and hobbling out of the room, just -as the roll of a muffled drum announced the death of Samuel Fuller, -the much-prized and well-beloved physician of Plymouth, deacon of her -church, brother by marriage to Bradford and Wright; the constant friend -of his townsmen, and valued by many an one in the new settlements about -Boston Bay. Faithful to the last, he had attended the sick-beds of -those who were only a trifle worse than himself, until of a sudden he -succumbed, and died almost before his friends knew that he was ill. -Few deaths could have been more deeply felt in that little colony, -and few were noted in William Bradford’s diary with more solemn and -affectionate feeling. - -But before the doctor was laid to rest in his nameless grave on Burying -Hill, Betty Alden, full of delight, and yet soberly attentive to her -mother’s last charges, both as to her own conduct and her care of her -father’s foot, was on her way to Boston, where she saw many new faces -and made many new friends. Of one of these, a girl of her own age -named Christian Garrett, there is more to tell, for so close was the -friendship springing up between herself and Betty, and so good and -commendable a little maid did Christian prove herself, that John Alden, -on parting with Richard Garrett, the father, cordially invited him to -visit Plymouth at some near date and bring his little girl to visit -Betty, and this he promised to do. - -Why the luckless man should have selected mid-winter for this -expedition no man now can say, but so he did, and in spite of urgent -warnings sailed from what is now Long Wharf upon a bitter-cold morning, -with a north wind catching the crests off the waves, and hurling them -in needlepoints of ice in the teeth of the doomed company whom Richard -Garrett had persuaded to accompany him. One of these, named Henry -Harwood, was a passenger, and the other three were Garrett’s hired -servants. As the day wore on, the wind freshened, working round to the -northwest, so that arriving toward night off the Gurnet the exhausted -men thought best to anchor until morning. The killock, a rude anchor -consisting simply of a stone bound in a network of rope, was thrown -over in twenty fathoms of water, and not resting upon the bottom the -stone soon worked out of the rope, and left the boat to drive. No -lighthouse upon the Gurnet, no beacon upon the beach, then protected -the mariner of Plymouth Bay, and as the horror of thick darkness fell -upon the scene, and the boat flew before the wind which now came laden -with sleet, freezing as it fell, Garrett exclaimed,-- - -“Now may the Lord have mercy upon our sinful souls, and forgive me that -has brought my motherless child here to die!” - -“And more than that, Richard Garrett, you that have involved us in the -same disaster,” replied Harwood angrily. “Do you suppose, man, I would -have adventured with you and paid my two shilling for a passage, had -I known what manner of shallop this is, and nothing but a stone and a -rope for killock?” - -“Peace, man!” retorted Garrett sternly. “How dare you go before your -Judge with revilings in your mouth! Get you to your prayers, or be -silent.” - -“Father, the water freezes around my feet!” moaned Christian, nestling -close to his side in the darkness. - -“My poor little maid! Here, sit on my knees and I’ll lap thee in my -cloak!” - -“Nay, thou’lt take it from thyself, daddy,” remonstrated the child; -but the father had his way, and all through that cruel night sheltered -the little maid upon his knees and under his cloak, while his own feet -first ached bitterly, and then grew numb, and then died. - -“Let us pray!” cried a voice from the forward part of the boat, and, -mingled with the howling of the storm, the hissing of the brine as it -rushed savagely past the wreck, and the rattling of the frozen rigging, -there rose upon the midnight air one of those stern, strong, abject yet -self-assertive prayers that the Puritans were wont to address to their -vindictive and implacable Deity; confessing their own enormity of sin, -yet beseeching Him to forego his rightful vengeance and to lift his -scourge from their backs because his Son had already borne the penalty -of their sins, and suffered to appease the Father’s annihilating wrath. - -The prayer was strong and eloquent after its own rugged fashion, and as -the hearers breathed “A-men” they felt that their chances were better -than before, and were not surprised when, as morning broke, the low -line of Cape Cod lay before them, and the sail, partially blown from -the gaskets, filled just enough to carry them gently upon the shallow -beach. - -“We are saved!” exclaimed Harwood, staggering to his feet and clinging -to the mast. “Come, men, tumble over and wade ashore! We can be no -wetter than we are.” - -As he spoke he stepped over the gunwale into water almost up to his -middle and turned shoreward, but Garrett cried to him,-- - -“Hold, man, if you have a heart of flesh and not of stone! Take my -child out of my arms and carry her ashore, for I am utterly spent. I -shall never reach that land.” - -“Give her to me, then, some of you,” replied Harwood grudgingly. “I -know not if I can hold her in my numbed arms, but I’ll try it, though -she never should have been here.” - -“Tut! Prut! Master Harwood!” retorted Joseph Pierce, Garrett’s foreman. -“None but a sour temper would flout the master with his misfortunes -just now! I’d carry little mistress myself and spare you the trouble, -but my feet are froze fast into the wash at the bottom of the boat.” - -“And so are mine!” exclaimed another, making ineffectual efforts to -release himself from his icy bonds. - -“And I know not if I have feet or not,” added Garrett drowsily. “But I -beseech you, men, to care for my little maid.” - -“Be sure we will, master,” replied Pierce cheerily. “Here, Brastow, -give me that hatchet to cut away the ice from my feet; but no, first -help Mistress Christian over the side. Now, then, Harwood, take her, -and God’s blessing if you get her safe ashore. Have you a hold? Put -your arms round his neck, there’s a brave maid. Now hold fast.” - -No sooner was Harwood off than the others began to move, and although -Garrett himself only reached the shore by the help of two men, and -at once fell down never to rise again, all at length stood upon the -barren and shelterless sand-bank, at that point running down from the -scrub forest to the water, and looked around them in dismay. Garrett, -the leader of the expedition, was evidently dying, and one of his men -was in scarce better case. Harwood and Pierce, the strongest of those -who remained, yet hardly able to bestir themselves, gathered some -sticks and lighted a fire, but for want of a hatchet could not cut -any substantial fuel. “We must e’en wade it again to the boat, and -fetch off some victual, the hatchet, and some rugs, if nothing more,” -declared Pierce, when the fire had a little revived his chilled frame -and flagging spirit; and Harwood gloomily acquiescing, the two once -more made their perilous journey, and so loaded themselves that the -hatchet, most precious item of all he carried, dropped from Pierce’s -numbed fingers and fell somewhere among the rocks upon which the boat -had now drifted. To find it was impossible, and to stay longer in the -freezing and rising water was as impossible, so the two were fain to -stagger ashore, and fall with their burdens upon their backs beside the -fire, where their companions lay mutely regarding them with the apathy -of dying men. - -The day passed, and the night, those who survived could never quite -tell how, but in the morning Joseph Pierce and Thomas Barstow set out -to walk toward Plymouth, lying as they supposed some six or seven miles -to the westward, but in reality about fifty. Several miles on their -journey these two encountered two Indian women, who ran away from them, -but carried intelligence of the encounter to their husbands, encamped -near at hand. - -And now Plymouth’s just and generous policy toward the Indians bore -fruit. The savages both loved and feared the white men of the Old -Colony; they knew that kindness would be rewarded, and offenses -surely punished; so acting accordingly, they hastened to overtake -the footsore wanderers, and discovering whither they would go, one -of the Indians went forward as their guide, while the other turned -back to the camp, where beside the last embers of a fire lay the -lifeless body of Garrett, his child crouching beside him, dazed and -dumb with cold and terror. At the other side of the exhausted fire -lay Harwood and the other man, only half conscious, and quite unable -to move or to help themselves. The Indian, making the most of his -few words of English, stopped only to promise help and to assure the -sufferers that their comrades were safe, and then sped away to his -wigwam, whence he presently returned laden with rugs, a hatchet, and -some sort of reviving draught which he heated over the renewed fire, -and administered to each in turn. Then, covering them warmly, he cut -saplings, pointed them, and built a hut over the prostrate bodies of -the sufferers. Last of all he hewed a grave in the frozen soil with his -hatchet, and respectfully raising Richard Garrett’s dead body in his -arms laid it to rest, carefully crumbling the soil to cover it, and -raising a cairn of stones and brushwood to protect it from the beasts -of prey then prowling up and down the waste of Cape Cod. - -As the warmth increased, however, the apathy of the frozen men turned -to anguish and torture, and Harwood, dragging himself out of the hut, -had the resolution to thaw his feet in the water of a neighboring pool, -and so kept life in them; but his companion, too far gone, remained by -the fire, and when the pain was eased died, so that Harwood and the -little girl remained alone with the Indian. - -The two men who had gone toward Plymouth were no more fortunate. One -died upon the road; the other so soon as he had told his piteous -story to Bradford and the rest who ministered to him so tenderly, yet -could do nothing to detain him. Within the hour a boat well manned, -and carrying the Indian for guide, was on its way to the scene of -the disaster, and the next day returned, bringing Christian Garrett, -Henry Harwood, the body of their comrade, and the Indian who had so -faithfully cared for them, and whom Bradford liberally rewarded and -praised for his benevolence. - -Harwood was billeted upon Stephen Hopkins, but Betty Alden pleaded with -her parents that Christian Garrett might come to their house and be her -own especial charge; and this boon being easily granted, the spare-room -where Sir Christopher Gardiner had wearied and plotted became the happy -abiding-place of these two innocent young creatures, the one so active -and helpful, the other so languid and so sorrowful, and yet both of -them the happier and the better for their companionship. - -When the spring had come, Harwood, with a good crew of Plymouth men to -help him, attempted to sail Garrett’s boat up to Boston, but caught in -a wild spring storm was nearly wrecked again; and with some strange -gloomy idea of having suffered from his association with Garrett he -sued his estate for damages, and actually recovered twenty nobles, -or about thirty-three dollars, which was duly paid to him out of the -pittance left to Christian, who, although she went back to Boston and -the care of an aunt, never ceased to be one of Betty’s dearest and most -intimate friends. - - - - -CHAPTER XXI. - -“AH, BROTHER OLDHAME, IS IT THOU!” - - -It was a day in June, one of those lovely, nay, perfect days when -heaven appears at once nearer and farther off than ever before: nearer, -for we seem already to taste its delights; farther off, because earth -has suddenly become so satisfying that we ask for nothing better. - -A little southwest breeze loitered over Burying Hill, stirring the -long grasses, wooing sweet kisses and incense from the balm o’ Gilead -trees, and finally floated down The Hill, past the closed and deserted -homes of Standish and Alden to the governor’s house, grown wide and -stately in these days, boasting two parlors besides the great common -room, and furthermore a recent extension toward The Hill consisting of -one wide low room with an outside door and a loft overhead. This was -the governor’s study or office, where he kept his books and papers and -transacted the colony’s business. More than this, in the large closet -and in the loft overhead were stored the colony’s goods, both the -peltrie for export, and the shoes, textile fabrics, and other matters -which were brought back from England in exchange; and as every man or -woman who had obtained a beaver, or mink, or otter skin brought it to -the governor and asked him to send to England for a pair of shoes, a -new doublet or kirtle, pewter platter, or horn comb, the adjusting -these accounts, and remembering every one’s wishes and instructions, -consumed so large a part of the gubernatorial time that one cannot -wonder that now and again Bradford “by importunity gat off” from -reëlection, especially as his services were altogether gratuitous, -and must have interfered with the necessity of living, pressing not -only upon every man individually, but on husbands and fathers very -imperatively. The casement window of the study was swung open to the -soft June air, and the little breeze, peeping in, shrank back dismayed, -yet, mustering the courage of a petted child, gathered a handful of -perfume from Alice Bradford’s bed of early pinks close at hand, flung -it in at the open window, and then, laughing softly, flew round the -corner and in at another casement, where Alice herself sat embroidering -in green crewels the cover of a stool, and talking softly to her -daughter Mercy, Desire Howland, and Betty Alden, who sat demure as -kittens on three crickets, stitching fine seams or embroidering muslin -or silk under Dame Bradford’s skillful tuition; for among the fair -memories this gracious woman left behind her, none seem fairer than her -attention and kindly offices toward the young maids of the town. - -A very different group was that at which the naughty breeze had peeped -and flung perfume behind the swinging casement of the study: a group -of men, mature and austere, as the fathers of unruly families are apt -to become by the time the children wish to leave home and set up for -themselves. - -At the head of the old oak table with its twisted legs and lion’s -claw-feet sat William Bradford, his cheek resting on his left hand, -while with the right he drew idle lines or figures upon a sheet of -coarse paper. An inkstand hollowed from a square block of ebony stood -before him, bristling with a thicket of quill pens standing in the -sockets bored around the edge, and the Record Book of the colony, that -same yellow and tattered book we reverently handle to-day, lay open -beside it. Some papers and slips of parchment were scattered over the -board, and one lay under Winslow’s hand as he turned to speak to Myles -Standish, whose flushed face and wrathful eyes showed that his hasty -temper was stirred more than was its wont, now that Time had set his -half-century mark upon the thinning hair and lined features. - -Next to Standish sat Timothy Hatherley, his intimate friend and future -executor, and opposite them were Thomas Prence, and John Jenney the -miller, a man of substance and position, and father of two very pretty -daughters. These five were the governor’s assistants for the year, -and to them, on this morning, was added the venerable presence of -Elder Brewster, who, sitting at the foot of the table, and fixing his -wintry blue eyes upon each speaker in succession, seemed to act as -counterpoise and moderator to the more vehement moods of the younger -men. A venerable figure truly, for the threescore and ten years of -the promise were more than run out, and yet a form and face full of -life and strength, and with a cleanly freshness of complexion and eye -betokening a simple and abstemious life, enjoyed in fresh air and with -moderate labor. Upon this reassuring face the eyes of the governor -rested almost yearningly, as he listened to the captain’s fiery words:-- - -“Yes, sirs, the Bay Colony and their friends have brought themselves -into the mire by their own blundering, and now cry to Plymouth, ‘Good -Lord, deliver us!’ Whose fault is it that the Pequots are risen upon -them?” - -“They have murdered John Oldhame, I tell you, Captain!” exclaimed -Winslow impatiently. “Will you listen while I read Governor Winthrop’s -letter?” - -“Yes, Captain Standish, I pray you to listen, and allow us to do so,” -added Prence in so peremptory a tone that the old soldier turned hotly -upon him:-- - -“Thomas Prence, they say you are a dabster at handling the Bible in -prayer-meetings and prophesyings; do you remember how King Rehoboam -took counsel as to his dealings with the oppressed people of his realm, -and the old men said, ‘Deal softly and kindly with thy servants and -they will remain thy servants for aye;’ but with the folly of youth, -Rehoboam turned to men with their beards still in the silk, and said, -‘How shall I answer this people?’ and they gave their counsel: ‘Whereas -thy father hath beaten them with whips, thou shalt scourge them with -scorpions, and if thy father’s yoke was heavy upon their necks, thou -shalt add to it until they sink under it.’ The boy king listened to his -boy counselors, and the result was that ten tribes of--Pequots, we will -call them, became his bloody foes instead of his cheerful servitors. We -of Plymouth have held the whip behind our backs”-- - -“Yet brought it forward at Wessagusset,” interrupted Prence -good-humoredly, and in the moment of not displeased silence on -Standish’s part, Bradford hurriedly interposed,-- - -“Nay, Captain, let us hear the letter before we discuss this matter -further.” - -“So be it, Governor; but naught that Master Winthrop can pen or Master -Winslow read, clever craftsmen though they be, will fetch my consent -to this wholesale slaughter of the Indians, Pequots, Narragansetts, or -Pokanokets.” - -“Will you read, Master Winslow?” asked the governor in a patient voice, -and, rather hastily, as if forestalling farther discussion, Winslow -proceeded to read aloud the missive of the governor of Massachusetts -Bay, who after certain grave greetings proceeded to tell the story, -which we will enlarge a little from other sources, of how one John -Gallop, founder of the guild of Boston pilots, and occupant of the -island bearing his name in Boston Harbor, while trading to the -plantation of Saybrooke in the Connecticut Colony, had been attracted -by the strange manœuvres of a pinnace lying to off Block Island, and -running in that direction recognized her as belonging to John Oldhame, -late of Watertown, in the Massachusetts Colony, who had, about a week -before, left Boston upon a trading tour, his crew consisting only of -two English lads, his kinsmen, and two Narragansett Indians. - -“John Oldhame must be very drunk to let his craft yaw about in that -fashion,” commented Gallop, watching the bark; and his sons, John and -James, boys of twelve and fourteen, and Zebedee Palmer, his hired man, -who composed the entire ship’s company, dutifully assented, Zebedee -suggesting that in the cold March wind then blowing he should not -himself object to a drop of something comfortable. - -“When is the day you would, Zeb?” inquired his master. “But lo you -now! There goes a canoe from the pinnace to the shore heavy laden, and -manned only by redskins. Be sure there’s some Indian deviltry going on, -and though the wind be contrary we will beat down and hail her.” - -But arrived within hailing distance, Gallop perceived the deck of -the pinnace to be crowded with savages, who, so far from returning -his hail, at once dropped their occupation of loading another canoe, -and proceeded to make sail in so clumsy a fashion that the pilot’s -fears of the pinnace having been seized by Indians were reduced to -certainty, and putting his own bark before the wind blowing off the -land he pursued the captured craft, now driving wildly toward the -Narragansett shore. Bringing up the two guns and two pistols comprising -his entire armament, Gallop charged them with the duckshot he had -brought along for purposes of sport, and so soon as they came within -range began firing with no farther formalities into the dense throng of -Indians, who on their part stood armed with guns, pikes, and swords, -and as Gallop’s bark drew near fired a scattering volley, happily of -no effect; and then, as the incessant rain of duckshot--for the two -boys loaded as fast as their father fired--became intolerable, they -all fled below hatches, leaving the vessel to drift as she would. -Seeing this, the pilot hit upon a new method of attack, and standing -off a little he set his craft dead before the wind, now blowing half -a gale, and coming down with full force upon the pinnace “stemmed her -upon the quarter,” as Winthrop has it, “and almost overset her. This -so frighted the Indians that five or six ran on deck, and leaping -overboard were drowned.” Encouraged by this beginning, the pilot -repeated his manœuvre, only this time so fitting his anchor to the heel -of his bowsprit as to make a very good imitation of an iron-clad ram; -then again striking the pinnace he crushed in her forward bulwarks, and -sticking fast, began pouring in charges of his heaviest shot at such -short range that they penetrated decks and sheathing, and reached the -pirates skulking below. Finding that they refused to be driven out, and -his two guns growing too warm to work, Gallop disengaged his anchor -and again stood off; but this was enough, and five more Indians rushed -up and threw themselves into the sea, preferring a death they well -understood, to the tender mercies of a man who fought in such unknown -fashions. - -There being now but four of the savages left, Gallop boarded the -pinnace, whereupon one of the survivors yielded, and was bound and -stowed in the cabin for safe-keeping; another yielded, but leaving -Zebedee to bind him the pilot dragged away a seine huddled in the stern -sheets under which he had from his own deck perceived some horror to be -hidden. It was the body of a white man, still warm, the head cleft, the -hands and feet nearly cut off, and the face so covered with blood as to -be unrecognizable, until Gallop, dipping one of the garments stripped -off but lying near, into the salt water flooding the decks, washed it -and put aside the long hair; then gazing down into the staring eyes, he -said as if in answer to their piteous appeal, “Ah, Brother Oldhame, is -it thou! Truly I am resolved to avenge thy blood!” And, while Zebedee -managed as best he could to fasten a tow-rope to the pinnace and make -sail upon the bark, and John and James, pistol in hand, watched the -hatches in case the Indians below should make a sortie, the pilot bound -the mangled body of his friend in its clothes and in the private ensign -lying at the foot of the mast, and launched it overboard. - -“This man is wriggling his hands free, father,” reported John -Gallop, presenting his pistol at the last captive, a sachem of the -Narragansetts and a very determined fellow. - -“Say you so, Jack!” replied his father, turning back from the bulwark -over which he had just reverently dropped the shrouded form of his -murdered friend. “We’ll take no chances! Lift you his feet and I his -head and we’ll put him in John Oldhame’s keeping. Jim, stand you -to your watch till our hands are free.” And the sachem, stolid and -silent now that the worst had come, went to rejoin his comrades. Two -of the pirates remained below, but as they were armed and entrenched -in the hold Gallop left them there as prisoners, although the night -coming on and the sea and wind growing very violent, he was after a -time compelled to cast off the pinnace, which drove ashore on the -Narragansett coast. - -Arriving in Boston, Gallop at once placed the matter in the hands of -the government, who through Roger Williams and Miantonimo demanded the -surrender of the murderers who had come safely ashore in the pinnace. -In the end, Oldhame’s two cousins, who had been kept prisoners at -Block Island, were safely returned, and some of the stolen goods; but -tedious negotiations revealed the fact that nearly all the Narragansett -sachems had been privy to the conspiracy, and that some of them were -in alliance with the Pequots to cut off the English and resume the -country only sixteen years before absolutely their own. Not unnaturally -alarmed at this report, Governor Vane and his council resolved upon -what they at first called reprisals, but which soon became a stern -scheme of extermination involving the entire Pequot nation, and such of -the Narragansetts as refused to become tributaries and subjects of the -English. - -The murder of Captain Stone, the death by torture of Butterfield, and -John Tilley and his man, came into the account and gave the air of -righteous retribution to the Puritan severities; but the wrongs of the -Indians, their natural temperament, their standard of morality, their -ignorance of the gracious influences of Christianity,--none of these -seem to have been considered or weighed in the councils of Vane and his -associates, although more liberal Plymouth had set them the example -of making friends rather than enemies of a people who had surely -great cause of complaint in the loss of their homes and rights, and -who simply sought to defend themselves according to their traditional -methods. - -It was in pursuance of this resolve that Winthrop, acting this year as -deputy to Governor Vane, had written to Plymouth, setting forth all -the causes of the war already begun, and requesting of Plymouth that -aid and coöperation which one colony of white men and Christians would -naturally afford to another. - -The letter was read and laid upon the council board, and Bradford in -his own grave, thoughtful, and well-considered manner took up the -word:-- - -“Doubtless, brethren, we must find that there hath been much -provocation offered to these Pequens and Narraganseds. We know somewhat -of John Oldhame”-- - -“And naught that’s good,” muttered Standish in his red beard. - ---“and we may be sure there was cause of complaint on the part of the -Block Islanders before they so assaulted him. Jonathan Brewster hath -held our post on the Connecticut River--Windsor, as the settlers from -the Bay have named the place--for some four years now, and there has -been no trouble worth the mention”-- - -“Save when the Narragansetts chased our friend Massasoit into the -trading-house at Sowams, and I sent a runner for powder, but the -enemy ran faster the other way than he,” put in Standish. “And mind -you, though John Winthrop let us have the powder out of his private -store, that sour-visaged Dudley hauled him over the coals for it. Ever -niggardly and domineering is the Bay, and my counsel is, let them -fight out their own battles for themselves. When Plymouth has cause -to complain of the savages, Pequens or who you please, I’ll lead a -handful of Plymouth men out to give them a lesson, and till then I say -let-a-be. You have my counsel, Governor.” - -“And mine jumps with it, sir,” added John Jenney heartily, but Winslow -shook his head thoughtfully. - -“It were but poor policy for us to fall out with our brethren of the -Bay, seeing that they are so much stronger than we, and it may well -chance that we shall need their countenance in some quarrel”-- - -“Like that of Kennebec when we called upon them to help us drive out -the Frenchmen who had seized our post, and they did most civilly -decline,” suggested Standish, and Prence added,-- - -“Ay, that was but a scurvy trick they played us then.” - -And so the council went on, debating the question warmly, and yet with -a brotherly love and harmony covering all differences, until in the end -it was resolved that Winslow the diplomatist should be sent as envoy -to Boston to declare in the first place the willingness of Plymouth -to help her younger but more powerful sister against the common foe, -yet at the same time bringing forward various causes of complaint as -yet unredressed, and demanding more consideration in the future. -These complaints were, first, the refusal of the Bay government to -help Plymouth against the French who had seized her trading-post at -Kennebec; second, their allowing their people to fraternize and trade -with the usurpers; third, the insult and injury done to the Pilgrims -at Windsor in Connecticut, where a great body of people from Watertown -and Cambridge had swooped down upon the land bought by Plymouth from -the Indians, and occupied by them as a trading-post, retaining forcible -possession of it, and encouraged by the Bay to do so. - -To these three unredressed complaints Winslow was to add a reminder -of the fact, seldom forgotten by the Bay Colony, that they were much -more numerous and much more wealthy than Plymouth, and apparently quite -able to conduct their own quarrel through their own resources. For, as -the envoy was especially directed to say, the Colony of Plymouth had -hitherto lived at peace with the aborigines, and had no complaint to -make of either the Pequots or any other tribe. - -And now, this matter arranged for the moment, although much further -trouble was to come of it, the Court turned its attention to a subject -so much more personal, and near to their hearts as old friends and -associates, that its presence in their minds had added austerity to -Brewster’s mien, and thoughtfulness to that of Bradford, while it acted -as a spur to the captain’s fiery temper. - -Upon the table lay a formal petition, drawn by Edward Winslow, and -signed by Myles Standish, John Alden, Elder Brewster and his two sons -Jonathan and Love, Eaton, Soule, Samson, Bassett, Collier, Cudworth, -De la Noye, and half a dozen more substantial men, who in decorous -and respectful language represented that they and their families -already composed a community equaling that of Plymouth, and begged -to be incorporated as a town under the name of Duxbury, and to have -the approval of the mother-church in their choice of the Rev. Ralph -Partridge as their minister. - -The petition had first been presented some four years before this time, -but so deep and heartfelt was Bradford’s opposition to this distinct -separation of the original colony, and so varied his expedients to -prevent it, that the motion had never fairly been carried until now, -when an opportunity offered to secure the eloquent and devout Cambridge -scholar as pastor, and it was essential that the town should have an -assured being and resources. - -Very few words were used upon this occasion, for all had been said that -could be said, not once but many times before; and now as Bradford, -after a brief and formal discussion, signed the act of incorporation, -he laid down the pen, and looking around the council board solemnly -said,-- - -“May this rending of his garment not provoke the Lord to wrath, as well -I fear it may!” - -Not even Elder Brewster found a word to reply, and the deed was done. - -An hour later, as the Duxbury men prepared to return to their new home, -Standish linked his arm in that of his old friend and led him up the -hill, saying,-- - -“Nay, Will, for old time’s sake put a better face on ’t, man. Come over -with us to Captain’s Hill, as they call it, and tarry the night. We’ll -crush a kindly cup to the new town, and you shall be its godfather. -Never look so glum, I pr’ythee, Will! You take all the heart out of -me, old friend.” - -“See there, Myles, see that!” - -“What, mine own old house? ’Tis going to ruin already, is it not, and -yet ’tis no more than seventeen years since these hands with John -Alden’s aid laid it beam to beam.” - -“And why does it go to ruin, Myles?” - -“Why? Why, because no man careth for it, I suppose.” - -“Ay, you’ve answered me, friend. No man careth for that home, nor for -John Alden’s hard by, nor for Edward Winslow’s, and the Elder’s great -house is now but a half-hearted home, for he is more at Duxbury than -here. I speak not of the rest, for they are of less account to me; and -that is a fault which I confess, but nature is strong, and the carnal -heart of man clings to its own.” - -“And why should not a man’s heart cling to his old friends and -comrades, Will, and why should not you value the Elder, and Winslow, -and Alden, and a few more of us more than you do all these nimble Jacks -that have sprung up to push us old ones from our places? Be a saint an’ -you please, old comrade, but don’t strive to cease to be a man.” - -“And here is the Fort you loved so well, Myles. Shall you have a new -Fort at Duxbury?” - -The captain stopped, and squaring round laid a finger upon the -governor’s breast, and fixed his keen brown eyes upon the other’s -fairer face. - -“Friend,” said he in a tenderer voice than was his wont, “where a man -is all but as good and as godly as a woman, he is apt to have some -trace of woman’s faults and follies, and that last speech of yours -savors of woman’s jealousy and spite. Play the man, Will, play the man, -and smite me with thy fist an’ thou lik’st not what I do and say, but -never lower thyself to stinging with thy tongue.” - -The Governor of Plymouth turned his back and steadfastly looked over -toward Manomet, green and glowing in the sunset of a June afternoon, -her graceful young trees in their tender foliage as airy and as gay, -and her forest monarchs as stately, as they had been before the white -men saw these shores, or as they are to-day when Bradford and Standish -are dust and ashes, and as they will be when the hand that writes and -the eyes that read are even as those of the fathers. We love Nature so -passionately and so persistently because it is an unrequited affection; -at the most she only holds up the cheek for us to kiss. - -This little interlude is but a piece of delicacy that Bradford may -have time to recover himself, and now he turns, and folding Standish’s -patrician hand in a larger grasp slowly says,-- - -“‘Let the righteous smite me friendly, but let not his precious balms -break my head.’ Come, Myles, let us mount the Fort.” - -“Yes, I must see if Lieutenant Holmes is carrying out my directions, -for I promise you, Master Bradford, I’m meaning to hold a tight hand -over you here in military matters. Mind you, I am always generalissimo -of the colony’s forces, whether of Plymouth, or Scituate, or Duxbury.” - -“I thank thee, Myles,” said the governor quietly, and so they passed -into the dusky Fort, over whose portal the skull of Wituwamat still -stood, bleached by summer sun and winter snow, and sheltering year by -year the wrens who had an hereditary nest in its hollow. - -“And you’ll come home with me, Will?” said the captain wistfully, as, a -little later, they descended the hill. - -“No, Myles, no; I’m not an Abraham. I can give my Isaac with submission -and faith, but I cannot offer him up, nor feast upon the sacrifice.” - - - - -CHAPTER XXII. - -THE MOONLIGHT AND THE DAWN. - - -A clumsy boat, very different from the trim racing craft that to-day -skim the waters of Plymouth Bay weltered slowly toward the rude pier -just below the new home of Myles Standish. - -The passengers were also very different from those of to-day, and -perhaps a parallel might be drawn in both cases between passengers and -boat, but as it would not be in our own favor I will not pursue it, -merely mentioning that the solidly built, honest, safe, capacious, and -unpretending boat first mentioned contained Elder Brewster, Captain -Standish, Edward Winslow, John Alden, Thomas Prence, William Collier, -and two or three more of the “Immortals” from whom we are so glad -to claim descent, and so sorry to confess that it has been such a -tremendous descent. - -Upon the bluff where stood the captain’s house, and scattered down the -path to the shore, a path graded with military skill and precision, -a merry crowd of men, women, and children stood waving hats and -handkerchiefs and shouting words of welcome, whereat Standish smiled -and Winslow remarked,-- - -“All Duxbury seems gathered to greet us; but how are they so sure that -we bring the charter after so many disappointments?” - -“I told them if we had it I would fly my private ensign,” replied -Standish a little complacently; and Winslow, glancing at the mainmast, -perceived a small flag whereon was deftly embroidered the owl with a -rat in his talons, then as now the crest of the elder house of Standish. - -“Ha! That is something new, is ’t not?” asked the master of Careswell, -not well pleased that another should make heraldic pretensions before -himself. - -“Yes. My Lora embroidered it, and I told them all that if our errand -to-day was successful I would fly it for the first time in honor of the -birth of Duxbury.” - -“Daughter of our dear mother Plymouth,” remarked Thomas Prence; and the -captain somewhat uneasily replied,-- - -“God grant the daughter’s birth may not cost the mother’s life, as our -good governor seems to forebode.” - -“Nay, Master Bradford would have the sun stand still in heaven, and -lucky is it for Duxbury that he is no Joshua,” retorted Winslow with a -smile so near a sneer that Standish flushed angrily, and shouted with -quite unnecessary vehemence to John Howard, who was steering,-- - -“Luff, man alive, luff! You’ll never fetch the pier! Can’t you see -where you’re going?” - -“There’s Hobomok waiting to catch the bowline,” resumed Winslow -pacifically. “What a good faithful creature he has proved, and how fond -of you, Captain!” - -“He is my friend, and I am one that looks for faithfulness in a -friend,” replied the captain significantly. - -“You have a right to ask for what you give. And lo you now! there’s a -pretty sight!” pursued the diplomat, undisturbed. “Those little maids -all in white and flower-crowned mind one of the maids of Israel coming -forth to meet the captain of Judah.” - -“Or ‘Benjamin our little ruler,’ more aptly,” laughed Standish, whose -pride had no taint of personal vanity. - -“Those two slips of May are your Lora, and Betty Alden, are they not?” -pursued Winslow. - -“Yes; they are fast friends, and always together. Fair lasses enow, eh, -John?” - -“Methinks we’ve naught to complain of, Captain,” returned Alden -placidly. - -“They mind one of moonlight and dawn,” said Winslow with honest -admiration in his voice. “Lora does not look like a colonist’s child, -Captain.” - -“No. She favors her forbears. There’s an old picture at Standish Hall -that might have been painted for her likeness. Mayhap some day”-- - -“And Betty is a real rosebud of Old England. She does not copy her -comely mother, Alden, and yet is as comely.” - -“No. Sally is more like her mother,” replied John simply, and as the -boat drew in to the wharf all three men looked approvingly at the two -young girls just budding into maidenhood, and forming as sweet and pure -a contrast as the moonlight and the dawn to which the courtly Winslow -had compared them; for Betty in her wholesome growth had as it were -absorbed color from the sunshine, willowy strength from the sea breeze, -and fragrance from the epigæa, until her brown eyes sparkled and -glinted like the sea in a sunny morning, and her crisp hair had netted -the summer into its meshes, and her cheeks and lips throbbed with soft -bright color like the petals of a wild rose. But Lora, as tall already -as her friend, although several years younger, was slight as a flower -stalk, her pale gold hair almost too heavy for her little head, her -soft gray eyes almost too large for the pure oval of her face, the -sweet color of her mouth too faintly reproduced in her cheeks. If Betty -Alden resembled the dawn of a summer morning upon sea-girt field and -forest, Lora Standish brought to mind a garden of annunciation lilies -bathed in moonlight. - -And now as the fond fathers gazed, and Winslow’s golden tongue dropped -phrases sweet in their ears as honey of Hymettus, John Howard, ancestor -of a grand line of Bridgewater yeomen, but at present in the household -of Standish, deftly gave his tiller a turn that laid the boat’s nose -softly against the pier, while Hobomok, with an inarticulate grunt of -welcome, seized the line tossed him by John Alden and made it fast -around an oaken pile well bedded in the wharf. - -In a few moments the boat was empty, and its passengers mingled with -the eager crowd who pressed forward to greet them. Chief of these -was the new pastor, Ralph Partridge, a “gracious and learned man,” -an alumnus of Cambridge and for twenty years a clergyman of the -Established Church of England, but now, as Mather quaintly has it, -he, “being distressed by the ecclesiastical setters, had no defence -neither of beak nor claw, but a flight over the ocean. The place where -he took covert was the Colony of Plymouth, and the Town of Duxbury in -that Colony. This Partridge had not only the innocence of the dove, but -also the loftiness of the eagle in the great soar of his intellectual -abilities,” etc. - -To this gentleman as the principal person among his guests Standish -addressed himself, and taking from the breast of his doublet a package -carefully enveloped in oiled silk, opened it and showed a sheet of -parchment, brief as to its contents and crude as to its chirography, -but bearing some very distinguished autographs, and carrying with it -an importance to that group of people similar to that possessed in the -eyes of a young wife by the title deeds of her new home, her dower -house, and the birthplace of her future children. - -“Here is the charter, reverend sir, and now the people of Duxbury -have a right to invite you to become their pastor,” said the captain -bluntly; but as Partridge took the parchment he looked at the man who -gave it and said softly,-- - -“Shall I be your pastor, Captain Standish?” - -“Nay, sir, this is no time for such questions,” replied Standish, -rather displeased, and turning away he entered the house to lay aside -some of his heavy clothes and don festal attire. In the principal room, -deep in whispered council, stood Barbara Standish and Priscilla Alden, -two comely and gracious matrons, at sight of whom the captain’s face -softened into a merry smile. - -“Now what mischief are you plotting, you two with your heads together -like Guy Fawkes and Tyrrell?” exclaimed he. “Priscilla, never teach -your rebel fashions to my well-trained dame, or I shall have her -snatching at the reins!” - -“And you’d rather she’d ride the pillion and cling to your belt with -a ‘Good master, have a care of me’!” cried Priscilla, her dark eyes -flashing as brightly as they had done some sixteen years before while -she said, “Why don’t you speak for yourself, John?” - -“’Tis a woman’s rightful place, and I’ll be bound, when all’s said, -you came over here to-day on a pillion with only your boy Jack to cling -to.” - -“Nay, we all came in the boat, down Bluefish River and so round. -You see there’s so many of us,--John and Jo and Betty and David and -Jonathan and Sally and Ruth and Molly; for I could not leave the babies -at home without keeping Betty and Sally to mind them, and that was not -to be thought of, says my Betty, who aye has her own way.” - -“And marvelous that she should, seeing she comes of so weak a mother.” - -“Oh, she takes after her father, poor child, and he would ever be aping -the ways of his captain.” - -Doubtless the captain would soon have provided himself with a retort, -but Barbara laid a hand upon his arm. - -“While you two are changing your merry quips and cranks, the supper -waits,” said she. “Surely, Myles, you will wash your hands and -straighten your hair; and Priscilla, is’t not time for you to put the -last touch to the whips and syllabub?” - -“True enough, Barbara, and lo, I’m gone!” cried Priscilla, and -disappeared into the great cool dairy with its northern exposure, -where the milk of the red cow and the two young daughters now added to -her was manufactured by Barbara into not only butter, but all sorts -of dainty confections. On this occasion, however, Priscilla Alden had -as of old been summoned to help the housewife, and lend not only her -hands but her incomparable culinary skill to the work of providing -entertainment for the two or three score persons who had gathered to -celebrate the birthday of their town. With most of these, or at least -with the heads of the families, we are already acquainted, but in the -seventeen years since the landing of the Mayflower many who were then -children have grown to maturity and married; as for instance, Love -Brewster, who has been for three years husband of Sarah, daughter of -that William Collier the only man among the London Adventurers who -proved his faith in the Pilgrims by coming to live among them. See him -as he stands talking with Elder Brewster, his four fair daughters all -within sight: Sarah Brewster, Elizabeth Southworth, Rebecca Cole, and -Mary, whose sweet face and ample dowry have already comforted Thomas -Prence for the loss of his first wife, gentle Patience Brewster. - -So many of our friends are here collected that we may not mention half -their names: Henry Samson, the little boy passenger of the Mayflower, -with his bride, and his later come brother Abraham, soon to marry the -daughter of Lieutenant Nash; the Howlands, not only stanch John and -Elizabeth Tilley his wife, but John and Jabez their sons, and pretty -Desire, fast friend of Betty Alden and Lora Standish. And here are some -new-comers, the Pabodies, settled near John Alden on Bluefish River, -but already owning land in The Nook, where the father promises to build -a house for the first of his sons who shall marry. Three of the lads -are here to-day, and William, a fine, manly young fellow of seventeen -years, hangs around the group of laughing girls, and watches Betty -Alden with all his eyes. - -But we must not linger with the guests, although each one seems like a -friend, nor may we pause to enumerate the dainties spread in graceful -profusion upon the tables set between the house and the edge of the -bluff; suffice it to say that Barbara has delegated to Priscilla Alden -the part of caterer, and well has she sustained her reputation, using -the abundant material placed at her service to the very best advantage, -and winning from each of her assistants the very best service they knew -how to render. Nor does the banquet fail to receive ample justice at -the hands of the banqueters, beginning with those dignitaries seated -in state at a table covered with Barbara’s best napery, and provided -with all the magnificence of silver, pewter, and china that she has -been able to muster, not only from her own stores, but those of her -neighbors. Here on either hand of the captain sit Elder Brewster and -Ralph Partridge, with Winslow at the other end of the table, flanked -by William Collier and Timothy Hatherley; at another table preside -John Alden and John Howland, with Thomas Prence, William Bassett, -and Jonathan Brewster, already a leading man in the colony: and at -these two tables are seated nearly all the heads of families soon to -be enrolled as the freemen of Duxbury, while their wives and younger -children cluster around a third table, headed by Barbara and Priscilla, -and the young people enjoy themselves amazingly at their own board, -as remote as possible from that of the elders, their fun a little -chastened by the presence of those young matrons Mistress Prence and -Mistress Love Brewster, themselves no more than girls. - -And so was Duxbury’s birthday celebrated, and still the honest mirth -and neighborly kindliness went on, until the sun dropped behind -Captain’s Hill, and the red cow lowed at the bars of her pasture hard -by. - -Then, after a little silence that made itself felt, Elder Brewster rose -in his place and said,-- - -“Brethren and children, this is a day of solemn joy to us who now have -become a town by ourselves, even as children going out from their -father’s house to begin a home of their very own; a day to remember, -brethren, and to set down in our annals, that when in time to come -our children’s children shall ask, ‘Why do ye these things?’ they -shall find an answer ready to their hands. Some of you upon whom mine -eyes now rest were fellow-passengers with me in the ship Mayflower, -and ye remember, as I do, the barren and comfortless shore whereon we -landed and were fain to call it home. Some of us, turning our eyes -to that southern shore, can almost see the hillside where in those -first months we day by day laid away the forms of those dearest to our -natural hearts, or most precious to the life of our little colony; -we recall the suffering by sea, the suffering by land, the cold and -hunger and misery and grievous toil we then endured; but do we recall -them to lament, to sorrow like babes over our own distresses? Nay, -men, we recall them in joy and praise, in wonder and admiration at His -goodness who hath so wonderfully brought plenty out of famine, joy out -of sorrow, the morning out of night. Well may we say with Israel, ‘I -am less than the least of thy mercies; for with my staff I passed over -this Jordan, and now I am become two companies!’ - -“Is it not verily true? There lieth Plymouth, fair and prosperous, -the mother of us all in this new land; and here stand we, sturdy, -well-grown children, fit to take our own part in the world, ay, and to -comfort her should she call upon us. Have we not cause for rejoicing, -ay, and for a firm resolve to show ourselves in some degree worthy of -such singular mercies? Brethren, my heart is too full to speak further -save to One. Let us pray.” - -Up rose the old men, the grave and bearded men, the matronly women -whose eyes ran over with the memories the elder had invoked; up rose -the young men, rejoicing in their strength, yet reverent of their -sires, and of the story they had learned in childhood and would not -forget in age; the lads, the maidens, the little children, all rose, -and stood with bowed heads and hushed breath to listen to the tremulous -voice of that aged servant of God as, forgetting all save Him to whom -he spoke, he poured forth one of those fervent and trustful appeals -whose eloquent power are matter of history. And as he raised his -hands in benediction, calling down a special blessing upon the new -town and each and every one of its homes, a plume of smoke rose from -Burying Hill far to the south, and the sunset gun boomed out its solemn -detonation. - -“Plymouth says Amen!” whispered Priscilla Alden in Betty’s ear; and -the girl silently pointed to Lora Standish, upon whose head the last -sunbeam had laid a finger, lighting the pale gold of her hair to the -nimbus of a saint. Priscilla looked, and suddenly clasped her own child -close to her side; but neither spoke. - - - - -CHAPTER XXIII. - -“LOREA STANDISH IS MY NAME.” - - -“Lora! Aunt Bab! What do you think? Bessie Partridge has a sweetheart, -and he’s going to be a minister, and his father is one of the old sort -that we’re bound to hate; but the parson don’t care and has given his -consent, and they’re to be married out of hand. There, now!” - -“But, Betty, dear child, do catch your breath and sit down and put back -your hair all blown over your face”-- - -“I know, Aunt Bab, I know; but I just put Jo’s saddle on the colt and -cantered him over here at his best speed, and of course my hair is -blown about. Lora, I could shake you, you provoking girl, with your -hair like new carded flax, and your fresh kirtle and wimple, and your -stitchery in your hand”-- - -“The sampler is well-nigh done,” interrupted the mother proudly, “and I -think she hath done it fairly enough, don’t you, Betty Alden?” - -“Certainly I do, auntie, and I know as well as though you said it I -shall never be a patch on Lora for delicate needlework; but then there -are so many of us, and mother has no time for her needle, and the boys -and father do wear out their hosen most unmercifully, and keep me -darning or knitting all the time. I’ve a stocking in my pocket here for -Jonathan; but first let me have a good view of the sampler, Lora.” - -“Wait but till I cut off my silk at the end of ‘name,’” said Lora, -busily fastening her thread at the back of the canvas. “There, now I’ve -the needle safe! You know you lost one for me last time you were here, -and mother and I hunted an hour for it.” - -“I know,” replied Betty penitently, “and if you had not found it mother -was going to send John and Jo over to the governor to see if he had -some in store.” - -“He had some direct from Whitechapel by the Lyon,” remarked Barbara, -“but the price is advanced to fivepence each, and we must be careful.” - -“You see I have still the flourishing at the end to do,” said Lora, -handing Betty the frame in which a long and narrow piece of linen was -tightly stretched and nearly covered with parallel lines of embroidery -done in various colored silks. Near the lower end came a verse, or at -least some rhymes running thus:-- - - - “Lorea Standish is my name. - Lord, guide my heart that I may do Thy will; - Also fill my hands with such convenient skill - As will conduce to virtue void of shame, - And I will give the glory to Thy name.” - - -The letters forming these words were characterized by a noble -independence and freedom from any slavish adherence to custom, some -of them being capitals and some small, some little and some big, and -the _D’s_ turning their backs or their faces to their comrades as a -vagrant fancy dictated. Such as it was, however, this sampler was in -Betty Alden’s eyes a work of art commanding her respectful admiration, -mingled with a warmer feeling rising from her very sincere love for the -artist. - -“Oh, Lora!” cried she, throwing an arm around the girl’s slender neck -and kissing her heartily, “one can see that you come of gentle blood, -and are fitter for silken embroidery than for the milking-stool which -is my usual workbench.” - -“Nay, I would love to milk, and churn, and cook, and knit gray hosen, -but father will not have it so,” said Lora a little wearily. “I may -spin, and sew, and do my tent-stitch, and help mother make syllabubs -and the like, but it angers him if I soil my hands or wear a homespun -kirtle such as is fit for rough work”-- - -“Rough work and Lora are droll ideas to bring together, aren’t they, -auntie?” interrupted Betty with another hug and kiss to her friend, -whose sweet face had grown a little flushed and worried as she spoke. - -“But come, dear, I want you to go with me to see Bessie and ask her if -this wonderful news is sooth. She may come, mayn’t she, auntie?” - -“Yes, child, so that you’re both back for supper. Father can’t abide -finding Lora’s seat empty at table.” - -“We’ll be sure to come. Now, Loly, where’s your hood?” - -“Put on your sleeves and your cape, Lora. You’ll get burned else.” - -“Yes, mother,” replied the girl patiently, and passing into her own -bedroom returned presently with a cape covering her bare neck, and -buttoning some loose sleeves to her shoulders, for in that day a gown -with high neck and long sleeves was a vestment unknown, and when age -or cold weather or out-of-door excursions demanded a covering for -shoulders and arms it was supplied, as in Lora’s case, by temporary -expedients. A little white linen hood tied under the chin completed the -girl’s preparation, and with a gentle kiss upon her mother’s cheek she -joined Betty impatiently waiting upon the doorstep. - -“Lora, I should think it would weary you to be such a cosset!” cried -she, as the girls struck into a path leading northward through the -captain’s lands to Eagle’s Creek, where hard by a clump of aged oaks -stood the cottage where in the summer season Elder Brewster lived with -his sons Love and Wrestling and the young wife of the former. Still -trending north, the path led past Jonathan Brewster’s comfortable -cottage near the Eagle’s Tree to Harden Hill, where a little way -from the edge of the bluff stood a small and low building rudely put -together of rough timber and hewn planks, with a thatched roof and -windows of oiled cloth, and neither foundations nor chimney, the -former unneeded because the colonists hoped at no distant day to -replace this their one public edifice with something more elaborate and -permanent, and the latter undreamed of as yet even in the mother-church -of Plymouth, where the Rev. John Rayner and his colleague Charles -Chauncey, both graduates of Cambridge, England, and bred in such luxury -as England then knew, took turns in preaching, in overcoats and woolen -gloves, sermons of two hours’ duration to a congregation the weaklings -of which kept themselves alive by the use of foot-stoves and hot bricks -in their laps, while the stronger members grimly endured sitting three -and four hours in an atmosphere considerably more chill than the -outdoor winter air. - -Following this example, Duxbury built no chimneys to her first -meeting-houses, and Elder Brewster in the beginning, with Ralph -Partridge and John Holmes to succeed him, preached and prayed with only -the fire of their own zeal to keep them warm. - -A little way from the meeting-house stood a cottage owned by William -Bassett, but at present occupied by the Rev. Mr. Partridge, who waited -for his formal installation as pastor of the new-formed town before -settling himself in a house of his own, and still lingered in The -Nook, although he had already bought of William Latham a house whose -magnificence has descended upon the pages of history for our admiring -contemplation; a house, and not a cottage, for it boasted a second -story with a garret overhead, and a roof sweeping majestically in the -rear, from the roof-tree to the ground. - -But the Partridges had not yet removed to their new nest, and it was -in the vicinity of the little hired cottage on Harden Hill that Betty -and Lora found their friend Bessie demurely watering and turning a web -of fine linen laid to bleach upon the grass. As they approached she -started and turned round, a rosy, sonsy lassie, plump as her name, and -overflowing with health and spirits. - -“Oh, Bess, is it true?” began Betty, laying a hand upon each of her -friend’s shoulders and scrutinizing her face with its flaming blushes. - -“Good-even, Betty, good-even, Lora! Is what true? What does she mean, -Lora? Let me finish wetting my linen, you runagate!” - -“_Your_ linen! Aha! How many smocks and petticoats will it make? Or is -it for sheets and pillowbers? And must we all come and help you sew it, -or is there time a plenty?” - -“Nay, Betty, there’s some one coming!” whispered Lora, as the figure of -a tall young man of a decidedly clerical cut appeared from the front of -the house, and Betty, all at once as demure as a kitten, seized one end -of the linen, saying,-- - -“Certainly I’ll help you turn it, Bessie; and how is your mother -to-night?” - -“Mother’s well, and-- Master Thacher, let me bring you acquainted with -Mistress Alden and Mistress Standish, two of the chief of my friends.” - -“And so right welcome in mine eyes,” replied the young man heartily, -as he lightly kissed the cheek of first one and then the other girl, a -ceremony no more remarkable then than shaking hands is to-day. - -“My uncle Anthony has gone with Mr. Partridge to pay his respects to -Captain Standish,” added he pleasantly. “All men delight to do honor to -the Captain of Plymouth Colony.” - -“You are very courteous to say so, sir,” replied Lora, with her pretty -little air of dignity and reserve; “and your uncle will be right -welcome.” - -“’Tis strange we did not meet them in the way,” said Betty, whose -brown eyes had not yet lost the gleam of merriment lighted by Bessie’s -blushes. - -“Oh, they went by Master Alden’s to see him as well; and look, there -they all are now,--the captain and father and Master Thacher!” cried -Bessie. “They must have come to your house just as you left it, Lora.” - -“Nay, father was at work with Alick and Josias in the great field -beside the road, and I doubt if the gentlemen went to the house at -all,” said Lora, her face becoming radiant as her eyes met those of her -father, now close at hand. Beside the captain strode the tall, gaunt -figure of Ralph Partridge, a man whose many trials and persecutions had -set their stamp upon a face naturally rugged, and bowed a form intended -to be sturdy; at Standish’s other side walked a man younger in years -than the dominie, but bearing upon his face much the same expression -of strong endurance and unforgotten experiences,--a man with a story, -as any one accustomed to reading faces would say, especially when, as -now, the broad-leafed hat was removed, displaying the hair, thick as -that of a youth, but white as that of a grandsire. - -“Here, Thomas!” cried this last comer, as the elders approached the -little group of young people; “come hither, lad, and let me present you -to the notice of Captain Myles Standish, whose name I have so often -heard upon your lips.” - -“Doubtless ’twas for love of that poor old soldier that you have come -hither, Master Thomas,” said the captain merrily, and under cover -of the little jest the awkwardness of the meeting was overpast, and -a blithe half hour ensued. At last, while the shadows lengthened, -and the clouds took on their evening glory, and the sweet breath of -evening primroses and lowing kine filled the sunset hour, Myles and -Lora strolled home along the footpath, hand in hand, while Betty Alden, -light as a deer, ran along in front of them, impatient to reach home -before her mother needed her. - -Arrived at the house, father and daughter paused to look across the bay -at Plymouth peacefully sleeping in the westering light, with Manomet -purple against the golden sky, and the wide stretch of water smooth as -a mirror, save where it fawned against the point of the beach and the -foot of the bluff where they stood. - -“A fair scene, a goodly scene, daughter,” said the captain; “but not -your home for very long.” - - - - -CHAPTER XXIV. - -AVERY’S FALL AND THACHER’S WOE. - - -Two hundred and fifty years ago, even as to-day, the betrothal of a -young couple was cause of rejoicing and festivity among their friends, -and three days after Lora and Betty had made what we may call their -engagement call upon Bessie Partridge, the minister’s family with its -guests, and Elder Brewster and the Aldens, were invited to supper at -the captain’s. Not to afternoon tea, mind you; nay, not even to that -old-fashioned tea-time still popular in the rural districts, where the -guests sit down to a table loaded with hot bread and toast and all -manner of sweets, with the choice of tea or coffee to wash down the -heavy meal. - -But Barbara Standish had never even heard the names of tea or coffee, -and honestly called the last meal of the day “supper,” setting it at -about seven o’clock, when the labors of the day were over and all -men at leisure for social enjoyment. At that hour, therefore, the -guests sat down to a feast which I dare not describe because I have -already described so many, but content myself with saying that it in -no wise discredited Mistress Standish’s housewifery, and that when -Dame Partridge asked for the “resait” of the frosted cake, the hostess -proudly replied that Lora had so improved upon the old formula that -it was left in her hands altogether, and Lora modestly added that she -should be more than glad to run over and show Mrs. Partridge exactly -how she made it. - -“I’m obliged to you, dear,” responded the parson’s wife; “for,” with a -sly glance at the betrothed pair sitting very stiffly and formally at -the right hand of their hostess, “I expect we shall have to be making -up some cake pretty soon.” - -But our concern is not so much with the feast, of which these friends -partook with frank and honest appetites, as with the conversation that -came after, while the women gossiped together in the house over a drop -of mulled wine, and the men, pipes in mouth and tankards of sound ale -at hand, sat under the trees carefully preserved upon the edge of the -bluff when the land was cleared for building. - -Two wooden armchairs, the only approach to luxurious seats to be found -in the captain’s cottage, had been set forth for the elder and Parson -Partridge, and the next best given to Anthony Thacher, while the host, -with Alden and Jonathan Brewster, sat upon a rude bench formed between -two beech-trees. Hobomok, never far from his beloved hero, lay upon -the grass solemnly smoking, and the younger men, Wrestling Brewster, -commonly called Ras, as a diminutive of ’Rastling, John and Joseph -Alden, Alick Standish, and Thomas Thacher hung about the door and -windows of the great south room where Bessie, Betty, and Lora flitted -around their mothers like pretty kittens around sober Tabitha. - -Then it was that Myles, after a moment’s thought and a dubious clearing -of his throat, said tentatively,-- - -“Master Thacher, when I heard that you were to be sent deputy from -your new town of Yarmouth to our court at Plymouth, I resolved within -myself, if opportunity should offer, and your own mind prove toward -the matter, that I would ask you to give me a particular account of -your famous shipwreck upon the island men now call Thacher’s Woe from -that disaster. Would it offend you if I now urge that petition?” - -But even as the words left his mouth the captain regretted their -utterance, for the man addressed cringed and started in his chair, -as one who feels a touch upon a new wound, while the pallor of his -singularly colorless face turned to ashen gray, and his light blue eyes -dilated and wandered as those of one who sees a vision of terror. - -“Nay”--resumed Myles hastily; but as hastily Thacher took the word out -of his mouth. - -“Not nay, but ay, good friend!” exclaimed he with an attempted smile. -“I know well that the terror of those fearful hours has left its mark -not only upon my outer man, but upon the forces of my mind, which -are no longer altogether under mine own control, but, like a horse -once well terrified at a certain spot, will still swerve and start in -passing it, despite of his driver’s voice and rein. Albeit, even as it -is well that the unruly steed should be often taken past the bugbear, -which he will at last cease to dread, so it is well for me to talk of -that day from time to time, and to tell its story as occasion shall -befall, to friends who can enter into its solemnity.” - -“You are right, my son,” said Elder Brewster quietly. “The unruly heart -of man needs long and bitter discipline before it becomes truly meek.” - -“Ne’ertheless, Master Thacher, I do withdraw my petition, and beg you -instead of that story to tell us how you like our fashion of holding -court by deputies rather than _pro coram publico_ as hath been our wont -until this year.” - -“Nay, Captain Standish, one matter at a time an’t please you, and I -have no mind to be balked of the glory of mine adventure. What say you, -friends? Shall not I tell you of the shipwreck?” - -“It would give me singular pleasure to hear it, Brother Thacher,” -replied the parson, while the elder smiled approval, Jonathan Brewster -murmured “Ay!” and the captain, lifting his shaggy beard and taking the -pipe from his mouth, said with a merry gesture,-- - -“It were churlish to refuse to listen to a man who fain would tell -his own adventures, so I will e’en put all scruples in my pocket and -hearken with the rest of you.” - -“Well spoke, mine host, and I can comfort you by saying truthfully that -the qualm hath passed and I would rather tell the tale than be silent. - -“You men of Plymouth have not forgotten the great storm of August -in the year of grace 1635, for it was then that the French villain -D’Aulney seized upon your rich trading-post at Castine which they now -call Bragaduce, and turned John Willet adrift with only a shallop and -a worthless due-bill. The terrific storm that wrecked Willet’s shallop -and also the armed ship Angel Gabriel, bound to Boston in the Bay, -overtook the humbler craft in which my cousin Dominie John Avery, his -wife and six children, and I with my wife and four children, nine -mariners, and other persons were making the voyage from Ipswich to -Marblehead.” - -“It was a bark of Isaac Allerton’s in which you voyaged, was it not?” -asked Standish. - -“Ay, he was owner, but not master.” - -“Never mind who played master, if Allerton was owner, the boat was sure -of ill luck,” growled Standish; but the Elder interposed serenely,-- - -“Your speech savors of superstition as well as uncharity, Captain -Standish, and I had held you singularly free from both those vices.” - -“I crave your pardon, Elder. I had clean forgot that Allerton was for a -while your son-in-law. Go on an’ it please you, Master Thacher.” - -But again the power of those memories he had so resolutely evoked -overmastered the speaker, and it was in a hurried and broken voice -and with a furtive gesture of the hand across the eyes that he again -began:-- - -“I fain would tell you, but I cannot, what John Avery was, not to me -alone who loved him better than David could love Jonathan, better than -mine own brother who yet was dear to me, but to all the world; a man so -good, so holy, so devout, that he seemed sent hither to remind us of -the Man of Nazareth whose humble follower he was; and withal so keen of -wit, and so sound of judgment, and so ready to help with heart and hand -wherever he saw need, that I leaned upon him and yearned toward him in -all difficulties as a little child with his mother. Verily I believe it -was for the chastisement of mine own overweening love that this thing -hath befallen.” - -“Belike rather the God he served saw him fit for heaven, and so took -him even as He did Elijah,” said the Elder reverently. - -“It may be, venerable sir, it may be; but I cannot forget mine own -arrogancy when John told me that the church at Marblehead had invited -him, and he was fain to go, and I said, ‘Well and good, John, but you -sha’n’t be rid of me, for I’ll go too, and naught but death shall part -us.’ Ah me! Naught but death, says I, and verily ’t was naught but -death!” - -“Did it storm when you set forth?” asked Jonathan Brewster’s clear -and somewhat cold voice; and Thacher, recalling himself with a start, -replied in much the same tone:-- - -“No, although the weather looked threatening, and our master was in -haste to sail, hoping to weather Cape Ann before the wind changed as he -foreboded it would. But it was just off the Cape that it fell calm, and -then all in a moment the storm burst, and the wind, veering to every -point of the compass, caught us as if in a whirlpool, so that before -the sailors could trim their sails they were torn from their hands, -torn from the masts, or if they clung, only helped to tear the masts -from the hull and the rudder from the stern. I am not shipman enough -to tell you how it all befell, but this I know: that when the morning -of Saturday, the 15th day of August in 1635, broke in such fury of -wind and rain and raging waves as I never beheld before or since, our -bark drove furiously upon a reef, and in the shock went all to pieces, -carrying ten souls into eternity before one could cry God have mercy -upon them! One of these was Peter Avery, a fine lad, who had gone -aft to fetch a rope whereby to bind his mother to the stump of the -foremast, and in that act of filial charity he died.” - -“And his reward is with God,” murmured the Elder. - -“We who survived,” continued Thacher, “speedily made our way from the -crumbling wreck to the rock between whose horns our bows were jammed; -and hardly were we all off when the last timber splintered beneath -the hammer of the surge, and we were left, thirteen poor shivering -wretches, two of them little babes in their mothers’ arms, clinging -desperately to that naked rock, the helpless prey of white-headed -waves that like wild beasts ran raging along the sides of our poor -hold, and now and again with a victorious howl leaped up and seized -first one and then another of those poor little ones whom neither a -father’s arms nor a mother’s piteous embrace sufficed to save. One -by one they went, those darlings of our lives, and as her infant was -torn from her arms, Mary Avery, with a cry I shall never forget, -grasped after it, and was carried away with it. Then my friend, who -had followed them but that I held him back, struggled to his knees -and prayed aloud. O my friends! when I remember those words, when I -remember that face, drenched with the storm, blanched by the blow that -brake his heart, yet luminous as was Stephen’s in his martyrdom, I feel -like Paul who, being caught up to heaven, saw and heard what it is not -lawful--nay, what it is not possible--for a man to repeat.” - -“Nay, we would not have you try, my son,” whispered the Elder, while -the captain folded his arms and grimly set his lips, and John Alden -wept without disguise. - -“The next thing I recall,” pursued Thacher softly, “is holding my -cousin’s hand and saying over and over, ‘You shall not leave me, John, -you shall not leave me! We will die together or we will live together!’ -and I see once more amid the whirl and torment of the storm the smile -wherewith he looked me in the face and said,-- - -“‘We will die together, Anthony, and please God we will live together!’ -And then, while some loving cry to God rose afresh from his lips, -came a giant wave and tore us asunder, and I knew no more until I was -struggling in the waves with mine arm around my poor wife, and she -clinging senseless to me. - -“Then all His waves and storms went over me, and I yielded up my -spirit to Him who gave it; but it was not yet purified enough to go -where my friend was gone before, and God in mercy granted me yet -another season of probation. When the Lord’s Day broke, it found me -with my poor wife stretched like two corpses upon the strand of a -little islet hard by the rock I have named Avery’s Fall, and beside us -a poor goat, who all unaided or uncared for had come safe to land. My -poor wife! when she recovered her senses and looked about her and knew -our piteous case, who can blame her that she cried,-- - -“‘A wretched goat saved, and my four sweet babies drowned! Doth God -then care for oxen?’” - -“The Father of us all can forgive the misery of a mother’s heart,” said -the Elder, but Jonathan Alden gravely turned away his head and looked -out toward the sea. - -“Not only the milch goat, but a cheese and a rundlet of beer were -washed ashore,” pursued Thacher, “and oh, piteous sight! the cradle -whence my wife had snatched her babe came floating safe ashore, with -the covering wrought by my sister in England for our first darling, -safe in the bottom. Like Noah’s ark with the dove flown to return no -more, it seemed to us, and as I dragged the cradle ashore and my poor -wife sank beside it and buried her head in that pretty covering, her -mad despair gave way in gracious tears, and she wept until she was able -to pray. - -“Thus, then, our Lord’s Day passed, but with the Monday came rescue, -and we two with our empty cradle and its fair-wrought spread, and the -poor goat whose life had hung in the balance, were all brought first to -Boston, and then to Yarmouth.” - -“But Thomas was not with you, was he?” asked Partridge at last, -breaking his intent silence. - -“Nay, and there is a matter wherein the Elder may hold me as -superstitious as the captain,” replied Thacher, forcing a smile; “but -it has seemed to me that the Lord, not ready to take him, and not -willing to try him by the sharp discipline vouchsafed to me, interposed -with a special Providence in his behalf. - -“Only the night before we were to sail, Thomas had a dream, and, like -Belshazzar of old, he could not in waking remember its tenure, but only -its terror. Of one thing, however, he seemed fully assured, and that -was that he must not sail upon our voyage; and so strong and terrible -was his dread that he would not so much as come to see us off, but as -we went our way to the shore he struck into the forest and made the -fifteen miles or so afoot.” - -“And has he never recalled the dream?” asked Mr. Partridge, with a look -askance at his prospective son-in-law just then trying to snatch a rose -from his sweetheart’s hand. - -“No; that is, he has always seemed so ill at ease in talking of the -matter that we have let it drop. It runs in my mind that it is as much -a puzzlement to him as it can be to others.” - -“‘There be more things in heaven and earth, than are dreamt of in your -philosophy’ or in mine, quoth my old gossip Will Shakespeare,” said the -captain, and Anthony Thacher heartily replied,-- - -“And spake the truth as fairly as though he had worn gown and bands. A -great student of men was that same gossip of yours, Captain.” - -“Ay, and a rollicking good fellow. I knew him well, and something more -than well, in the time I was in England after the peace of 1609, and in -certain of his plays there’s many a quip and quirk shot at me and my -poor achievements. Didst ever see a play called ‘Henry the Fourth’?” - -“Nay, Captain, I was never in a playhouse in my life.” - -“More’s your loss, friend. Well, in that play there’s a bit runs like -this, or something so:-- - - - --‘I remember, when the fight was done, - When I was dry with rage, and desprit toil, - Breathless and faint, leaning upon my sword, - Came there a certain lord, neat, trimly dressed, - Fresh as a bridegroom’-- - - -Well, I’ll not give you the whole, if I remember it, and ’tis years -since I thought on’t, but a little later it goes forward:-- - - - ‘I then, a’l smarting, with my wounds being cold, - To be so pestered with a popinjay, - Out of my grief and my impatience, - Answered full carelessly, I know not what; - He should or he should not; for ’t made me mad - To see him shine so brisk, and smell so sweet, - And talk so like a waiting gentlewoman - Of guns, and drums, and wounds, (God save the mark!) - And telling me the sovereign’st thing on earth - Was parmaceti for an inward bruise; - And that it was great pity, so it was, - That villainous saltpetre should be digged - Out of the bowels of the harmless earth, - Which many a good tall fellow had destroyed - So cowardly; and but for these vile guns, - He would himself have been a soldier.’ - - -Oh, well, well, but I must laugh, and laugh again as I mind me of the -day when Will Shakespeare first mouthed those lines at me, and I stood -staring like a stuck pig to hear mine own words so bedded in his poesy, -like flies in amber in very sooth, for ’twas a story I had told him of -a matter that happened to myself in the Low Countries”-- - -“Alas, my son,” interposed the Elder, raising his hand, “such memories -suit but ill with the lives of ‘pilgrims and strangers’ like ourselves.” - -“And for that very reason, Elder,” replied Standish a little hotly, -“when you and Master Partridge and the rest besiege me to become a -church-member, I will listen to naught of it. The old leaven is still -a-working by fits and starts, and I’ll do no such despite to the saints -as to count myself into their company. ‘Nay, nay, mine ancient,’ says -Will to me one time when we stood side by side in Paul’s Walk, and saw -a grand procession pass us by, ‘’tis better to watch the lightning than -to handle it.’” - -With a mischievous glance at the Rev. Ralph Partridge, Standish resumed -his pipe, and the parson wisely remained silent. - - - - -CHAPTER XXV. - -JEPHTHAH’S DAUGHTER. - - -St. Martin’s summer was in the land; that lovely parting smile of the -year, so full of love, so full of reminiscence and of promise, so -full of pathos and of that vague yearning that lies at the core of -every heart, and which I fancy Bossuet means when he speaks of “the -inexorable weariness which lurks at the foundations of all our lives.” - -The door of Standish’s cottage stood wide, and between it and the -lattice opening upon the sea, letting in the sweet breath of marigolds -and thyme basking in the southern sun, Barbara stepped lightly back and -forth, spinning from her great wheel the fine yarn that would be woven -or knit into the winter garments of the household. - -A shadow across the floor made her turn, quick yet fearless as a bird -building in a tree above a house whose inmates never have threatened it. - -A tall, good-looking young man stood in the doorway, and with his eyes -searched the room before he said,-- - -“Good-morrow, dame. Is Lora somewhere at hand?” - -“Oh, good-morrow, Ras! Lora has gone to the top of the hill for a -breath of evening air. It has been so warm to-day.” - -“Yes, Hobomok calls it the Indian’s summer because it comes just before -winter,” replied Wrestling Brewster absently; and then after another -moment of hesitation he pulled off his wide hat, and coming close to -the spinner’s side fixed his eyes upon hers with a shy appeal while he -asked,-- - -“Do you think, dame, I might ask her?” - -“Ask her what, Ras?” - -“Oh, Dame Barbara, you know full well what I fain would ask.” - -“There’ll be an apple-bee at your house or at Jonathan’s this week, -will there not?” - -“Ay, at Jonathan’s on the Thursday, and Lucretia bade me invite you -all.” - -“Well, then, you foolish boy, sure that is your errand to Lora, and -you’ll find her on the hill, most like at what she calls her sunset -seat.” - -“’Twas I that made it for her,” said Wrestling eagerly, and Barbara, -smiling in the way matrons smile at transparent youth, replied,-- - -“Then you know where it is. Go, and God go with you.” - -“My grateful duty to you, dame,” murmured the young fellow, and went -like an arrow from a bow. - -A half hour later Barbara, setting her wheel aside, stepped to the door -to look toward the hill, and to judge by the position of the sun how -near the hour might be to supper time. - -Coming up from the shore she saw her husband, and at the first glance -knew that he was ill-pleased; with this conviction came a foreboding -that made her turn her eyes again toward the hill, but now it was the -daughter, and not the sun, for which she looked. - -“Where’s Lora, wife?” inquired the captain so soon as he was within -speaking distance. - -“She went out an hour or so agone for a stroll,” replied the mother -mildly. “She has been so steadily stitching at your new shirts, Myles, -that I sent her to get a breath of fresh air.” - -“Belike it’s she I saw upon the hill; ’twas a white gown, at all -events.” - -“And like you no longer to see her in white?” asked Barbara, apparently -in great surprise. “Why, ’tis to please you she wears it, though it -makes a mort of washing for poor Hepsey. But where hast been thyself, -goodman?” - -“To Plymouth, and Alice Bradford sends you a clutch of eggs from her -new brought fowls.” - -“Nay, but that’s more than kind!” cried Barbara. “And how fares she, -and is it true that Prissie Wright will marry Manasses Kempton? And did -you get the grist ground, and what said Miller Jenney of not having it -yesterday?” - -“Come, come, dame, ’tis not for naught your tongue wags like Priscilla -Alden’s all of a sudden. Tell me what man is on the hill with our Lora, -and what ’tis you’re keeping from me,--or would if you could. Out with -it, Bab! who’s the man I saw up there?” - -“Nay, Myles, that’s no tone for you to take towards me! ’Tis not one of -the children nor one of the servants you’re speaking to.” - -“What! ruffling her feathers like a Dame Partlet if you try to steal -the chickens from under her! Nay, wife, that mood’s as strange to you -as the chattering one, and both are but put on to turn my mind from -its course; but ’tis no use, Bab, no use at all. Come, now, stop these -manœuvres and ambushes and false sallies and all your simple strategy, -and meet me in the open field. Was it Wrestling Brewster that I saw -sitting with Lora on her sunset seat?” - -“I know not what you saw, Myles, but I know that Wrestling Brewster -went up there to find Lora something like a half hour ago.” - -“And you knew it?” - -“I sent him.” - -“You sent him! And for what?” - -“For naught more than to find her, but I can guess his errand though he -told it not.” - -“Oh! And might the father of the maid venture so much as to ask what -this errand might be?” - -“Nay, Myles, be not so bitter! If I cannot go with you in this matter, -’tis because I love my child even more than you can love her.” - -“Love your child! Love your own way and your own will, as you ever have -done! Woman, do you defy me?” - -“Oh, Myles, Myles!” And fearlessly approaching the angry man, Barbara -laid a hand upon his arm and looked straight into his face with all her -brave and noble soul shining out of those eyes whose wonderful charm -time had not clouded in the least. The captain met them, and the terror -of his frown subsided into an angry laugh. - -“Well--you should not thwart me if you would not see me thwarted. But -honestly, Barbara, have you forgotten or do you despise my constant -wish for Lora’s future? Must I mind you once more of my contract with -my cousin Ralph whereby his eldest son is to marry our daughter, and -so to her and her children shall be restored the fair domain which his -grandsire stole from mine? Know you not that naught in all this world -sits nearer to my heart than this scheme, and that only last month I -wrote to Ralph and told him that Lora was now turned eighteen, and -if his boy was ready to fulfill the contract I would come to England -with the maid, and see her seated at Standish Hall? Mind you all that, -Mistress Barbara?” - -“Ay, Myles, I mind it well, and I mind too that you did not tell me of -that letter till ’twas gone.” - -“Haply not, but what of that? Is a man bound to lay all his business -before his wife, or to ask her leave to write to his own kinsman?” - -“’Tis my kinsman in the same degree, mind you, husband. And because -I too am born of Standish I have a right to speak, I have a right to -know, and to decide in this matter,--yes, as good a right as yours, -Myles.” - -“Oho! ’Tis a cartel of battle, is it? Partlet against Chanticleer, eh? -Well, our cousins the Standishes of Duxbury carry a gamecock for their -crest, and I’ll e’en borrow his spurs.” - -“Oh, Myles, Myles! This over-weening ambition of thine hath turned thy -brain! When till now didst ever treat me thus?” - -“Nay, I’ll not be wheedled with soft touch, nor tearful eyen, nor -broken voice. There, there, let go mine arm and wipe thy tears away! -Why, thou foolish lass, dost not know I’d liever face a tribe of -Pequods than see thee weep? Tut, tut, silly wench, give me a kiss and -be done with it. What chance hath Samson when Delilah cries?” - -“But, dear my lord, listen now that your mood is somewhat softened. How -can you be so sure that this great marriage will make our dear maid -happy? You know how tender and how sensitive she is; you know how she -clings to love, and seems to draw her life from us as the flowers do -from the sun; sure am I, as sure as of to-day’s breath, that parted -from home and father and mother and brothers and friends and all she -has ever loved and clung to, our Lora would droop and die just as that -sea-bird did that the boys caught and tried to tame.” - -“And if she did!” cried the captain, flaming again into sudden wrath, -the reflex perhaps of a stinging pain driven through his heart by his -wife’s last words. “Had not she better die as mistress of Standish Hall -and be buried with her ancestors in the tomb of the Standishes than to -vegetate here as the wife of Wrestling Brewster and fill a nameless -grave in these wilds?” - -“Since God has forsaken you and the Evil One seized upon your mind, I -have naught more to say,” returned Barbara, thoroughly angry on her own -side; and as she turned into the house Standish, with a black frown -darkening his whole presence, strode away toward the hill. - -Almost an hour earlier Wrestling Brewster, making his way softly over -the fallen leaves and ripe mosses of the hillside path, had stolen -unawares upon as fair a picture as Captain’s Hill has ever seen, or -ever shall while time and earth endure. - -Very nearly where the monument stands to-day, there then grew a clump -of oaks, and between two of them had been fixed a commodious bench, -with a back quaintly carved and ornamented with a border of red -cedar. From this vantage-point could be seen a fairer view than that -of to-day, for man had not yet conquered Nature, nor substituted his -uncouth and commonplace works for her perfection. - -Clark’s Island, still covered with its primeval cedars and with its -northern headland unwasted and majestic, lay like a bower upon the -great field of flowing water, and matched Saquish, still an island, -but beginning to throw out tentative arms toward the Gurnet’s Head, -where six hundred years before Thorwald, brother of Leif, wounded unto -death by the savages, desired to be buried, with a cross at his head -and another at his feet, directing that the headland should thenceforth -be known as Krossness. Toward these yearned the loving arm thrown out -by Manomet toward the Duxbury shore,--that arm now reduced to a barren -sandspit, but then a green and fruit-laden peninsula; and within it -glittered in the evening light the harbor, deep enough at that day to -float not only the Mayflower, but Captain Pierce’s Lyon, which now lay -snugly anchored there, while the governor’s barge rowed away toward the -town, bearing Bradford and Winslow home with the jolly mariner as their -guest. Blue smoke-wreaths floating idly upward from Plymouth cottages -told of housewives busy with the evening meal, and upon the crest of -Burying Hill a twinkling gleam now and again showed that Lieutenant -Holmes did not suffer the brasswork of the colony’s guns to grow dim -now that they had come under his care. - -But closer at hand than these things stretched the marshes, the -beautiful Duxbury marshes with their grasses full grown and ripe, -reposing under the sunset light like a fair garden, where great masses -of color lay in harmonious contrast, and the heavy heads of seed bent, -and rippled, and rustled to the evening breeze, murmuring sweet secrets -that he carried straight out to sea and buried there. - -O man, man! Lay out your modern gardens, and mass your pelargoniums -and calceolarias and begonias and salvias and the rest, in beds of -contrasting color, and then, if you would note your improvement upon -ancient methods, go in the autumn and look at the marshes of the Old -Colony, laid out by Mother Nature before Thorwald selected Krossness -first as his chosen home, and then his chosen grave. - -So fair, so wonderful, so entrancing, lay the view that evening at -the foot of Captain’s Hill, yet Wrestling Brewster, albeit a man of -singular delicacy of perception, never saw it; saw nothing, in fact, -but the lissome form of a young maid clothed in white samite, with pale -golden hair wound around her head and held by quaint silver pins with -crystal heads that now and again caught the light and sent it flashing -back like the aureole of a saint. The great gray eyes, wide open -beneath their level brows, were steadfastly fixed upon some point far -out at sea, the vanishing point of earth’s curve, the point where the -straightforward look of human eyes glides off the surface of the globe -and penetrates the ether beyond. What vision arose before the maiden’s -eyes in that dim horizon realm? What thought or what dream parted the -soft mouth, and tinged the pure pallor of the cheek? What meant the -sigh that just stirred the flower at her throat? - -So asked the heart of the young man standing motionless and devout -in the edge of the little grove, until with the feeling of one who -intrudes upon sacred mysteries he withdrew his gaze, and rustled the -twigs of the shrub beside him. The girl turned quickly, and as she met -his eyes smiled gently. - -“Oh, is it you, Ras? I’m glad you came.” - -“Are you, Lora? Are you glad I came? And I am glad that you are glad.” - -“’Tis so fair, so heavenly a scene that I would all I love might enjoy -it as well as I.” - -“Lora! All you love, say you? Oh, Lora, do you love me?” - -“Ras! Nay, let us not speak of just ourselves; we are so little and the -sky is so great.” - -“The sky, dear? But the sky and the sea and the forest, they are always -here, and we may look at them all our lives long,--all our lives, Lora, -our two lives that might be one.” - -The gray eyes, still full of dreams, still questioning the far-off -depths of the skies beyond the sea, reluctantly turned and rested -fearlessly upon the eager and troubled face of the young man. - -“What is it, Ras dear? Why are you so--so troubled is it? Why don’t you -sit down here beside me and look as we have looked so often upon all -this beauty? It was so good of you, Ras, to make this seat for me. It -is the happiest place I know in all the world.” - -“Then make it happiest to me, darling, by letting it be the place of -our betrothal. Oh, Lora, I thought you knew,--I thought you understood, -and--and--yes, I even dared to hope that you, just in some far-off -maidenly, saintly fashion, felt somewhat the love that devours me like -death until I know for certain that it is returned, and then indeed -shall I pass from death unto life. Speak, Lora,--speak for God’s dear -sake, speak to me.” - -“But why are you so moved, Ras, and why after all these years of love -and friendliness do you beg me as if I were some stranger to say that I -love you?” - -“Lora! Lora! You break my heart!” - -“Oh, Ras, dear dear Ras! Don’t look so, don’t speak so! There are very -tears in your eyes, and see, they call the tears to mine! Why truly, -dear Ras, I love you, I love you dearly, as well as I love Alick or -Josias,--as well as I love Betty Alden, who is the dearest friend I -have, as well as”-- - -“Stop, stop, for pity’s sake! I thought I suffered before, but oh, -Lora, you have given me my deathblow.” - -“Nay, what is it, what is it I have done? What a wicked wretch I am to -grieve you so, but how is it, dear? Indeed I do love you, Ras, I do -indeed!” - -“Yes, you love me as a child loves, as an angel loves, as you loved me -years ago when I, already come to man’s estate, watched you growing -to womanhood like a sweet flower, and vowed that you, and none but -you, should be my wife; and for the sake of that vow and for love of -you,--yes, an ever growing love of you, mine own sweet love,--I have -never looked upon a maiden’s face save as a woman might. I have cared -so little for their company that they flout me”-- - -“Yes, they call you the old bachelor,” interrupted Lora, half merrily -and half penitently. “But I never once dreamed it was for love of me -you held yourself so strange to all the others. But now I do know, Ras, -it seems no more than honest that you should have what you have waited -for, and if you want me for your wife, and my father and my mother make -no objection, why I will please you thus far.” - -“You will--you will be my wife!” exclaimed Wrestling. “Oh, Lora, do you -mean it? Do you really, really mean that you will be my wife?” - -“It seems to me, young man, that I have somewhat to say in this -matter,” broke in a strident voice, and Lora looked up in dismay at -her father’s face, very angry, very ominous, yet not turned upon her. -At a later day Myles Standish was glad to remember that even in this -extremity he never spoke one angry word, or cast one angry look to the -child who was the idol of his life. - -“Oh--Captain Standish!” stammered Wrestling, springing to his feet. - -“Yes, Master Brewster, Captain Standish at your service, who ventures -to suggest that you might have done better to ask his leave before -urging his daughter to defy his wishes.” - -“Oh, father!” And Lora, rising to her slender height, stepped forward -and fearlessly slid a soft little hand into the captain’s brawny -half-closed fist. “Defy you, father!” murmured she, looking into his -face with eyes of loving reproach, “nay, I never could do that.” - -“I know it, my pet, I know it; but there, make you home as soon as ever -you may--mother is waiting for you--run away, child, run.” - -“Nay, father, but I fain would know first why you are so angry with my -dear friend Ras. He says he loves me very much, and he wants me to be -his wife, and I love him too, and if you please to have it so, I said I -would marry him”-- - -“As you might have said you would take a sail with him!” exclaimed the -captain with angry fondness in his tone; but the fondness died away as -his eyes turned from the fair face of his daughter to the flushed and -anxious one of her suitor, while he said,-- - -“You may see for yourself, Wrestling Brewster, that this child knows -not the meaning of marriage love. She is no fonder of you than of--say -Betty Alden, or mayhap her pet cat”-- - -“Nay, nay, father, I must not let that go unsaid! Not love Ras better -than I do Moppet! Oh, but I do!” - -“Lora, if you will stay here, do not speak again until I speak to you,” -commanded the father sternly. - -“I would not be harsh upon you, young sir, for you are son of mine -honored friend, Elder Brewster, and I believe a worthy son, but you did -amiss, yes, shrewdly amiss, in speaking to my daughter before you did -to me.” - -Wrestling’s lips opened and closed again. He was about to say that -Lora’s mother knew of his suit, but in the captain’s mood, that plea -might only have brought down wrath upon his wife’s head. - -“I have not found it fitting to tell all my affairs to all my -neighbors,” pursued Standish haughtily. “But I have mine own intent -with regard to my daughter, and that intent is not to marry her in this -colony. Let that be answer enough for you, Master Wrestling, and if you -like, you may advertise any other aspiring youth that designs to honor -my daughter with an offer that it is but needless mortification, for my -answer will be to all as it is to you,--nay, nay, nay!” - -And with the last word Myles placed his daughter’s hand under his arm -and led her down the hill, leaving Wrestling to cast himself prone upon -the sunset seat, his face hidden upon the back of it, and his eyes -smarting with the tears his manhood refused to allow to flow. - -Almost at home, Standish, looking with anxious love into the lily face -at his shoulder, said,-- - -“Poppet, you’re not over-sorry, are you? Why don’t you speak to me?” - -“You bade me not speak until you spoke to me, father dear. Nay, but I -am sorry, heartily sorry, you should have chided Ras so hardly. Poor -lad! He was fit to cry when we left him.” - -“But you do not really care for him, dear child? You are not set upon -becoming his--his wife?” - -“Nay, father, I do not care to be any man’s wife. I would far fainer -stay at home with you and mother, but Ras seemed so keen upon the -matter and declared I loved him not, that to make him content I said -yes; for indeed I do love him, father, more than I love any man after -you and the boys.” - -“Ha, ha! My little lass, there’ll come a day when the boys, and haply -your poor old dad as well, will fly down the wind like thistledown -before the love that still lieth sound asleep in my maid’s pure heart.” - -“Nay, father, not asleep, but too dear and too holy to be spoken of,” -murmured Lora, a soft flush upon her cheek, a tender light in her eyes -as she raised them to her father’s face. - -“What! what!” stammered he, half affrighted lest the girl had lost her -senses. “You love some one already!” - -“Oh, father, so much, so dearly! ’Tis for that I love to go and sit all -alone there upon the brow of the hill, where I may see the beauty He -has made and gaze away and away into the heavens where He lives. Sure -the hills of Judah were not so lovely as this place, and who can tell -but some day He may descend and stand visibly upon them”-- - -“Aha!” breathed the captain, stopping short and gazing appalled upon -the face of the girl, set seaward, with a half smile upon its lips and -a look of yearning love in the unfathomable eyes. But as he gazed -she turned, and throwing an arm around his neck hid her face upon his -breast with a sobbing sigh. - -“Oh, father dear, I’m sorry I tried to speak about what no words can -tell. Don’t talk to mother or to any one, will you, dear, and please do -not ask me again. ’Tis so precious and so wonderful, and ’tis all the -love I ever want beyond my home loves. You won’t talk about it, daddy -dear, will you?” - -“One word, Lora. You mean that your love is given to God alone?” - -“To Him who loved me and gave Himself for me--to Him who is chief among -ten thousand and altogether lovely--to the King in his beauty in the -land that is very far off.” - -“My child, my child!” groaned the father, drawing the girl’s form close -to his thickly beating heart and pressing his lips upon her brow, while -Jephthah’s agony turned him sick and white, and his eyes rose with an -almost angry protest to the skies. - - - - -CHAPTER XXVI. - -GILLIAN. - - -The apple-bee at Jonathan Brewster’s house by the Eagle’s Tree, where -The Nook merges into Harden Hill, was in full tide, and one could hear -the merry voices of men and maidens, and the cheerful shrilling of -matrons talking above the din, before one reached the house. Beneath a -clump of trees surrounding the great cedar known as the Eagle’s Tree -a number of horses were tied with comfortable measures of corn and -trusses of hay before them, and in the little cove lay half a dozen or -so boats uneasily tumbling upon the incoming tide. These conveyances -had brought the remoter dwellers in the new town of Duxbury and its -neighborhood: the Aldens from Eagle Tree Pond, the De la Noyes from -Stony Brook, the Soules from Powder Point, the Constant Southworths -from North River, the Howlands from Island Creek, the Bassetts from -Beaver Pond, and the Abraham Samsons from Bluefish River where they -lived neighbors to the Aldens and intermarried with them. - -Of The Nook people who came on foot, the Standishes, and Brewsters, and -Pabodies, and Prences, and Colliers, and Doctor Comfort Starr, the new -physician, with his family, and the Partridges, and Wadsworths, and -others, had mustered strong and in every variety of condition, age, and -sex; for our ancestors, having far fewer opportunities of amusement -than we have, made a great deal more of each one as it came along, and -not only sucked the juice from their orange, but ate every bit of the -pulp. The apple-bee was but a prelude to the evening’s entertainment, -and for weeks before, every young girl in the colony had planned her -dress and simple ornaments, and dreamed of some face or voice that -should belong to her own especial Robin Adair, or of the games and -the songs and haply the contradances that might be permitted when the -church-members had withdrawn; and Lucretia Brewster, with her daughter -Mary and Love’s wife Sarah, and such fantastic aid as Gillian had -chosen to bestow, had been for a week busy in preparing the house and -a big shed just finished, for the reception of the expected guests and -their steeds. - -Gillian! Well, Gillian! And when one has said her name the subject -widens until it becomes impossible to handle. Niece of Lucretia -Brewster, whose sister had married a Spaniard, this Gillian, left a -deserted orphan in some foreign port, had drifted back to England, and -thence to New England, where a year or so before the apple-bee she -had arrived by hand of Captain William Pierce, consigned along with a -present of kersey and Hollands linen to Jonathan Brewster by a cousin -who claimed that, as Lucretia was the girl’s nearest relative, her -maintenance should fall upon Lucretia’s husband. At first the charge -was joyfully accepted, for Gillian was just the age of Mary, Jonathan’s -only daughter, and would be a sister to her, as they said. But as the -weeks and months went on both Mary and her mother grew silent upon the -subject of the new sister, while Jonathan, and his sons William and -Jonathan and Benjamin, never ceased to congratulate the women and each -other upon the joy and delight of her presence; the father especially -often calling upon his wife to recognize how in this case virtue had -brought its own reward, and their benevolence to the orphan received -a blessing of singular richness almost in the first moments of its -exercise. - -To these pious thanksgivings Lucretia Brewster, who was a very discreet -woman, never offered any contradiction; but when next her husband found -some little matter essential to his comfort neglected, or some detail -of the rigid family rule calmly set aside, the gentle explanation was, -“I left it to Gillian to do;” or, “It was Gillian who chose to do it in -spite of all I said.” - -On these occasions Gillian sometimes came by a little reprimand, not -half as severe, so Mary jealously remarked, as was administered to her -very lightest offense, but apparently more than Gillian could bear, for -before it was half over she would fall into such a passion of tears -and sobs as seemed fit to rend her white throat asunder, and either -crouch moaning upon the floor in some corner like a wounded creature, -or rush headlong from the house to the woods, where she would hide all -day long, and once all night long, although Brewster and his three sons -searched and called for her till sunrise, when she appeared on the -edge of a thicket, her wonderful deep red hair hanging all matted and -tangled, with briers around her shoulders, her great passionate Spanish -eyes dilated and full of gloomy fire, and her mouth, that bewildering, -tempting, ripe red mouth, with its myriad expressions and suggestions, -its curves and dimples, and its little laughing teeth, all drawn and -pale. - -Is it to be wondered at that, after the first few times, the uncle and -guardian ceased to attempt even the discipline of a reproof, especially -as for days after one of these passions the girl would shrink out of -his presence with every mark of terror, and if he spoke to her, reply -in hurried, timorous accents, with the air of one who dreads to give -offense, and fears unmerited blame or misunderstanding. - -So at last it came to pass that Gillian did what she would, and left -undone what she chose, and quietly setting at naught all Lucretia’s -admonitions or attempts at control, was ever bright and charming to -her uncle, and remained a wonder and a fascination to the boys, who -were all wildly in love with her, a condition shared by nearly every -unmarried man in the Old Colony. - -As for Mary, good, homely, ungraceful, slow moulded Mary Brewster, -she wore herself thin and peevish in struggling against the innate -depravity of her own heart which continually urged her to hate Gillian -with a bitter hatred, more especially when John Turner, of Scituate, -came a-wooing, and Gillian, having contemplated his courtship during a -few visits, picked him up as a kitten might a great lumbering beetle, -tossed him hither and yon, patted him with her velvet paws, suddenly -thrust sharp claws through the velvet, gave him one or two contemptuous -buffets to this side and to that, and finally walked away, purring -serene indifference. - -John Turner was perhaps the only man at the apple-bee who saw nothing -to admire in Gillian, and Mary never looked her way. But Betty liked -her, and now, as the girl flitted into the great kitchen where -around the baskets and piles of apples, brought together from all -the neighborhood for Lucretia Brewster to dry in her own superlative -fashion, crowded the maids and matrons, who pared and cored, and -quartered or sliced, the rosy fruit, it was Betty Alden who cried,-- - -“Oh, Jill, is that you? Come help me string these slices. These are our -own apples, and mother wants to keep them separate from the rest, so -Sally and Ruthy and I are doing them.” - -“Did your brother Jo pick them?” asked Gillian, sinking down in her -peculiar and graceful fashion upon the floor, beside Betty, but not -offering to take the needle threaded with coarse flax that Sally held -toward her. - -“Jo and David picked them, you naughty girl, and talked of naught but -you while they did it.” - -“Betty, Betty, here’s Alick Standish coming this way, and don’t you -blush; now mind you, Betty, don’t you blush! Fie! but you do! What -makes her hate Alick so, Sally?” asked Gillian maliciously. - -“Who hates Alick?” asked the cheery voice of the good-looking “heir -apparent” of Myles Standish, who had obeyed a glance of Gillian’s eyes -and joined the group. - -“Who but the one who colors red as fire with vexation when he draws -nigh,” replied the girl coolly; and Standish, curiously regarding the -faces of the three, perceived that both Betty’s and Sally’s faces were -aflame, while Gillian’s cream-white skin looked cool as a calla lily. - -“Are you paring the apples I picked, Gillian?” asked another voice as -David Alden joined the group. - -“Nay, for ’twas Satan who first plucked an apple for a woman,” replied -Jill, with a mocking little laugh; and Alick whispered in her ear, -“There’s ne’er a son of Adam would refuse if you offered him the apple, -Gillian.” - -“What! not if he lost Paradise thereby?” - -“The paradise of your love would”-- - -“Oh, Master Pabodie, do come and reason with these terrible blasphemers -who are talking of Satan and nobody can tell what else. Say to Master -Pabodie what you were saying to me, Alick!” - -Thus dared, the young man looked half of mind to accept the challenge, -but John Pabodie, shrewdly glancing at the audacious girl, replied, -“Nay, mistress, I’m twenty years too old and haply twenty years too -young to cope with such a matter. But here’s my son William just come -home from Boston and farther, and I’ll leave him to fill the place of -Paris, if one may quote the old mythologies in a Christian land.” - -“Surely, when such a Helen rises before one’s eyes,” added a sonorous -young voice, as Gillian suddenly stood up, her sinuous and suggestive -figure displayed in a gown of creamy mull clinging to every curve, -and covering yet not concealing the exquisite roundness of arms and -shoulders white with that peculiar _mat_ whiteness never seen save in -persons of Latin blood. - -“Who was Helen?” asked Gillian very slowly, while the velvety darkness -of her eyes rested with infantile confidence upon the handsome -face of William Pabodie, who, after the pause of an instant, said -significantly,-- - -“The handsomest woman that ever lived.” - -A little silence ensued, and all eyes turned upon Gillian, who, nothing -daunted, softly replied,-- - -“She must have been well pleased when Paris told her so.” - -“Welcome home, William Pabodie!” cried Lucretia Brewster’s wholesome -voice, scattering as with a puff of west wind the strained and -bewildering atmosphere that seemed stifling the little group around the -Spanish girl. “You know all these lads and lasses, your old neighbors, -and I see that you have already made acquaintance with my niece -Gillian,--Gillian Brewster, as we call her”-- - -“My name is Gillian de Cavalcanti,” interposed Gillian quietly, but -Lucretia, flushing angrily, continued without looking at her, “If -you will come with me, Will, I will take you to Mary and some other -friends, Lora Standish and her guest, Mercy Bradford from Plymouth.” - -“My sister Anice well-nigh raves over Mistress Lora Standish,” replied -the young man, following his hostess, but even as he did so turning -to look once more at Gillian, whose eyes, soft and dewy as a chidden -child’s, followed him with a vague appeal that sent a tremor through -the young man’s heart. - -“Can it be that her aunt does not treat her well?” asked he of himself, -and his next reply to Lucretia was so cold that she turned and looked -at him, and then remembering said to herself,-- - -“The poison works quickly.” - -The apples were pared, cored, quartered, or sliced, and, threaded upon -twine, hung in festoons upon a frame erected for the purpose on the -south side of the house; the cores and skins and smaller apples were -heaped into the cider-press, which on the morrow would begin its work -of reducing them to the cheerful and wholesome beverage as essential to -our forefathers’ comfort as tea and coffee are to ours; the bountiful -supper had been eaten and merrily cleared away by a committee of -bustling matrons, and at last the great houseplace, the shed, and a -platform extending for some distance from the house were “sided off” -and swept, to make room for the frolics which to the young people were -the true meaning of the whole affair. “Kissing games” were in that day -not more objectionable than round dances are now, and perhaps that -visitor from Jupiter to whom we sometimes refer for impartial judgment -would have found them less so. Both classes of amusement depend very -much upon who indulges in them, and when Gillian’s soft warm lips -frankly pressed William Pabodie’s mouth a quick flush mounted to the -young man’s temples, and he cast a startled glance into the dark eyes -upraised to his with a look of fathomless meaning. Lucretia Brewster -saw that look, and her own matronly cheek colored angrily. Later in the -evening she sat herself down beside her sister-in-law, with whom she -was on very affectionate terms. - -“Tired, ’Cretia?” asked Mistress Love Brewster with a pleasant smile. - -“No, not to say tired, Sally, but a good deal worked up.” - -“About what?” - -“Well, one thing and another. You know my Mary’s to be married -Thanksgiving Day, and John Turner joins hands with her in begging me to -go to Scituate along with them and set her off in her housekeeping. You -know, being the only girl, she never’s quite let go of mammy’s apron -string; and for that matter, I’m as loath to part with her as ever she -can be with me.” - -“Then, why not go?” asked Sarah sympathetically. “I’m sure the change -will be good for you, and you’ve had a mort of work and worry lately.” - -“Yes, I know, but--well, I’ll tell you, Sally. I don’t want to go away -and leave Jonathan and the boys with nobody to do for them.” - -“Why, there’s Jill and your Indian woman Quoy.” - -“Yes, Quoy knows all about the house, and can get the meals and all -that as well if I was away as if I was here; but Gillian”-- - -“Why--yes, I suppose I know what you mean, ’Cretia. You’d be just as -well content if Gillian wasn’t here, eh?” - -“Full as well,” replied Lucretia with emphasis, and gazed full in her -sister’s face. Then both turned and looked at the girl who, crying, -“Button, button, who’s got the button?” was daintily trying to pry -open the stalwart fist of Josias Standish, while Mary Dingley looked -uneasily on. - -“Yes,” said Sarah softly, as if answering some unspoken appeal. “And -you don’t want to take her?” - -“Take her, no! I believe Mary wouldn’t be married at all if it was to -carry that girl along with her.” - -“Well, ’Cretia, I’ll take her, for a while at least. You know the Elder -is with us more than he is at Plymouth, and I’ll lay she won’t carry on -lightly under his eyes. I never knew any man like Father Brewster in my -life! He’d make the Old Boy behave himself, I believe, and never say a -hard word to him neither; and my boys are but boys, and I’ll risk Love.” - -“Oh, it isn’t Jonathan I’m afraid of,” said Jonathan’s wife quickly. -“But”-- - -“Oh, don’t you say a word,” interrupted Sarah with a little laugh. “I -know all about it, and it’s just as it should be; but it would be main -lonesome for a young maid here with none but men for company, and I’ll -ask her to come and make me a visit.” - -“Will you? Now that’s comfortable of you, Sally, right comfortable and -friendly,” replied Lucretia, rising to attend her summons, but with -a face so relieved from care and worry that Jonathan, meeting her, -whispered softly,-- - -“I’d liever look at thee than any of the young lasses, sweetheart.” - - - - -CHAPTER XXVII. - -DONNA MARIA DE LOS DOLORES. - - -The weeks and the months gliding along with their exasperating -illustration of the _festina lente_ principle brought a morning of -early spring, chill but bright, with a merry sun contending in the sky -against some unseen adversary who continually pelted him with great -white snowballs of cloud, which he either evaded or melted with the -fervor of his breath. In the farmhouse built by the Elder for himself -and Love, but not passing into the possession of Love and Love’s wife, -a great fire of cedar logs burned fragrantly upon the hearth of the -sitting-room, and flashed its light upon the silver tankard and cup -burnished to their utmost brightness, and modestly boasting themselves -upon the little mahogany elbow-table in the nook beside the fire, -conveniently at hand to the leathern easy-chair, so inharmonious with -our ideas of ease, which with a footstool in front was the Elder’s seat -of an evening, or in the brief repose he in these latter days allowed -himself after dinner, or when in the short and stormy winter days he -could do nothing but sit beside the fire and delight his soul with -study. - -In this blithe March morning, however, the old man was out with his son -and the oxen breaking up fallow ground, and chanting half aloud brave -verses of Holy Writ as he guided the team while Love’s mighty arms held -down the ploughshare. - -“‘O let the earth bless the Lord; yea, let it praise Him, and magnify -Him forever! - -“‘O all ye green things upon the earth, bless ye the Lord; praise Him, -and magnify Him forever! - -“‘O ye seas and floods, bless ye the Lord; praise Him, and magnify Him -forever! - -“‘O ye children of men, bless ye the Lord; praise Him, and magnify Him -forever! - -“‘O let Israel bless the Lord; praise Him, and magnify Him forever!’” - -“Wow! but this new colter is heavy; let us rest a minute, father,” -cried Love, feigning to pant and wipe his brow, but really appalled at -the look of his father’s face, and fearing to see him rapt out of his -sight as was Elijah from that of Elisha. - -“Rest? Ay, ay, I should have sooner remembered you, my boy. Yes, yes, -rest if you need it, lad, rest and don’t strain your young muscles till -they’re seasoned like mine.” - -But reverent son though he was, Love, as he turned to lift the yoke -and pat his oxen a bit, did not deny himself a slow smile of sober -amusement. - -In the sunny sitting-room, Gillian, with the firelight in her ruddy -hair, moved around, dusting and arranging the place, and especially -ordering the chair and footstool dedicated to her best friend. But why, -when she had wiped away the last grain of dust, and placed the stool -at just the best angle, and even drawn the wolfskin mat a trifle out -of the centre that it might reach the front legs of the chair, why did -she all at once cross her arms upon the high back, and, bowing her head -upon them, sob as though her heart would break, and suffer a few great -tears like the first drops of a tropic thunder-shower to roll down the -leathern back and under the comfortless cushion? Lora Standish, coming -noiselessly through the door from the kitchen, stood a moment wondering -in the doorway, then half timidly exclaimed,-- - -“Why, Gillian, what’s the matter?” - -“Oh! It’s you, is it, or is’t a ghost that it looks like? Let’s try -it!” And with a sudden gliding motion, too much like that of a snake -for beauty, Gillian seized her visitor by the arm, inflicting such a -nip with her cruel slender fingers as left its mark for many a day. -The blood flew for a moment to Lora’s cheek, but it was the blood of -warriors, and she only said as she drew back a step,-- - -“I am looking for Mistress Brewster. Do you know where she is?” - -“Yes, gone over to John Alden’s to help Priscilla in some mystery of -housecraft; but come you in and sit down for a minute or so, or I’ll -think, you proud peat, that you mean to slight me.” - -“Why should I want to slight you, Gillian?” replied Lora with the -angelic smile that distinguished her, as, throwing aside the little -white scarf around her head and shoulders, she came forward to the -fire, and leaning against the high mantelpiece put a foot upon the -fender, looking frankly the while into the sombre face of the other -girl. - -“Oh, well,--oh, well!” muttered Gillian after a moment. “’Tis well -you’re angel-like, since so soon you’ll see them.” - -“What say you, Gillian? ’Tis well I’m what, said you?” - -“Nay, sit you down, maiden,--sit you here in the Elder’s chair and put -your feet to the fire, upon his footstool. There, now, be biddable and -meek, as fits your face.” - -“Why, Jill, ’twas but yesterday that you almost smote Betty Alden to -the ground because she would have sat in that chair; and after all, -’tis not half so comfortable as mother’s splint chair.” - -“Oh, ay,” replied Gillian, as she turned toward the bookcase -and began brushing the books with a wild turkey’s wing, “that’s -different,--that’s different. I wouldn’t have let you sit there but for -what I saw a minute gone by.” - -“What you saw!” echoed Lora, not overmuch moved, for Gillian’s vagaries -had long since been voted insoluble by the simple folk of The Nook. -“And what was’t you saw?” - -“Now, now! Can you read, Lora?” - -“Yes. Father taught me when I was but a little trot. I learned as fast -as the boys, he said.” - -“Well, a priest taught me just as a man of the outside world would -have taught a parrot or an ape. All the people who have done me any -good have done it for their pleasure or their pride, and I’m naught -beholden to them. But these books!--I often spell out their titles when -I’m dull, and tired of laughing at men and women. Now hark you, Lora, -here’s some of ’em: - - - A Toyle for 2 legged Foxes. - A Cordiall for Comfort. - Burton wearing His Spur. - Memorable Conceits. - Jacob’s Ladder. - The Review of Rome. - Troubles of y^e Church of Amsterdam. - A Garland of Vertuous Dames. - Romances of Brittannia. - - -“There, heard you ever the like? It ever seems to me as if these writer -folk hetcheled their brains to find some title for their books that -will prick curiosity to the quick and force a man to buy, that he may -certify himself what ‘A Toyle for 2 Legged Foxes’ may truly mean. Is’t -not so?” - -“Haply. I’ll get father to beg the Elder to lend him that ‘Romance of -Brittannia,’ for it sounds right relishing in mine ears.” - -“And you love to read?” - -“Dearly well.” - -“Then you should have been a nun. They made much of me at Los Dolores, -because I could, when I would, read the ‘Life of Teresa de Jesus’ to -them.” - -“And when you would not, could you not?” asked Lora mischievously. - -“Indeed I couldn’t. I miscalled the words, I gabbled, I lost my place, -I dropped the book, I doubled the corners and broke the parchment,--oh, -they were glad enough to let me off, the poor nuns, the poor nuns!” - -“And did you like the convent, Gillian?” asked Lora, so wistfully that -the other paused a moment as if struck with a new idea; then throwing -down her turkey’s wing she crouched upon the wolfskin, and nursing a -knee between her clasped hands looked up into the pale face clearly -defined against the dark leather of the chair-back, as she slowly -said,-- - -“Why, what a nun you’d make, Lora Standish! Passing strange I never -thought of it before.” - -“Methinks ’twould be a happy life,” replied Lora, stifling a sigh. - -“Happy! Well, for you it may be. Your father is of the old religion, is -he not?” - -“I do not know, for he says naught and will hear naught about it. You -know he will not join the church here, although mother belongs to it, -and when we all were christened he said lay baptism was better than -none; but he goes to meeting as we all do, and gives as much as any man -to the support of the minister. He knows best, doubtless, and mother -and I do not much care to know all his mind.” - -“Oh, ay!” replied Gillian, who had listened attentively, and now shook -her head as if discarding some plan. Then lowering her gaze from Lora’s -face to the fire, now crumbling into caverns, and vistas, and toppling -turrets, and fantastic feathery piles of ashes, she slowly said,-- - -“’Tis out of possibility, but I would well have liked to see you a -sister of Donna Maria de los Dolores. It would have been a heaven on -earth to you, and the guimpe and coif and barb ought to suit you as -jewels do me. - -“Oh ’twas so fair there betimes!” continued she with sudden passion. -“I mind me of one even just before my father fetched me away to see my -mother die, one even in deep midsummer, and after vespers we walked in -the garden, the sisters and another girl and I. Such a garden, Lora, -oh, such a garden as you never dreamed of in these hateful northern -solitudes! Closed all round with a high gray stone wall covered with -passion flowers and jessamine and gay trumpet flowers, a bank of -bloom and greenery that seemed to us the end of the world, for the -banana-trees no more than reached the top of it, and inside, smooth -green walks bordered with every flower that grows, and more especially -all that are sweet and bewildering of perfume; for, Lora, when a woman -puts on a nun’s robes she does not cease to be a woman, and while with -the one hand she flings her flask of essences and her pomander box into -the fire, with the other she plants a bed of pinks, to flaunt their -color and send up their spicy odors for her delight.” - -“Who cared for the garden at Los Dolores?” asked Lora, vaguely uneasy -at the other’s tone. - -“Oh, the sisters one and another. ’Twas rare recreation for them, and -never permitted to those in penitence. They even mowed the lawns, and -shaved the paths, and rolled the gravel, for it was a great and wide -garden, with room in it for one to get away alone and entertain the -blue devils in solitude.” - -“Nay, Gillian, but could devils, blue or black, ever overpass that high -wall you told of?” - -“Could they? Oh, well--at least they never would have found you when -they searched for prey, so much I believe, maid Lora.” - -“But tell me more of the garden.” - -“Well, as I say, ’twas wide and fair and perfectly ordered, and there -was a fountain where a poor ball still was tossed up and down, up and -down upon the current, till I used by times to snatch it off in very -pity and toss it into a posy-bed to rest awhile, but Sister Marina -always found it and put it back. Then there were bosquets, where the -sun never came; and there were bordered walks, and benches under some -great cork-trees at the foot of the garden; and there were, in their -time, Annunciation lilies as fair and sweet as that Señor Don Gabriel -laid at the feet of Madonna Mary, and roses like those among which she -laid her little Jesu to sleep; and there were incense trees where the -berries and gums and bark grew that the sisters gathered so solemnly, -and dried and brayed in a special mortar, and that smelt so sweet when -the sister thurifer swung her censer up and down, and this way and -that, to keep it alight till the priest who said mass on the great days -was ready to take it from her. - -“And there were goldfish in the fountain and birds in the trees,--oh, -such glorious birds, and some of them so sweet of song! and there was -a pond where the nuns fattened great fishes for Friday dinners, and -feasted better on them than on the flesh of other days. - -“But I was going to tell you of a time, one of the last times I ever -walked in that garden or slept in my little whitewashed cell at -Dolores. Ah, now, mayhap I had been a better girl had they left me -there. Well, we walked up and down the wide grassy middle alley, the -sisters, and Inez de Soza and I, and all of us were merry, for the -Mother Superior was in a good temper and the prioress had got on her -talking-cap, and we girls and the novices asked no better than to laugh -at all our elders’ jests and cry Oh, marvelous! to all their stories, -when all at once the sister portress came down the old mossy steps -from the house, and kneeling to the Superior, who bade her rise, for -it was recreation time and all rules were relaxed, she told her that a -Dominican friar was at the gate with a comrade and asked lodging in the -priest’s chamber outside the wall. - -“‘But surely! When did we refuse hospitality to a holy man, Sister -Juana?’ replied the mother. ‘Have him in with his comrade and give him -supper in the sacristy; when he has refreshed himself I will see him -there.’ - -“‘But he also begs permission to preach to the sisters,’ persisted old -Juana, who was as obstinate as a mule; and as the Mother paused upon -her reply, Inez and I who held her hands cried,-- - -“‘Oh, do, reverend Mother, oh, do let us hear a sermon!’ and she -laughing said:-- - -“‘Well, yes, perhaps ’twill turn your hearts from the world to religion -as I have not been able to do.’ - -“So we walked another turn or so and then went into the chapel, which -was full of that soft purple shadow that fills such places as the -night falls without. The wide door to the garden stood open, and I -placed myself at the end of the bench so that I could well look out and -see and smell and listen to the world while the friar should talk of -religion. - -“Oh, maiden, ’twas as strange an hour and as sweet as ever I knew or -shall know! Outside was that fair garden, with the last rays of the sun -touching the crests of the trees, the palms and cork-trees and acacias, -and the fountain vainly leaping up to reach the sunlight, and the birds -at their vespers, and the blinding sweets of the posy-beds, and just -outside the door a great banana-tree that swayed and rustled in the -breeze, and threw its long green leaves like wooing arms in at the -door as if to drag me out, wooed me so strangely that if I looked and -listened too long I must have yielded and leaped out to its embrace. -And inside there was the dusky chapel with the pictures of the saints -glimmering from the walls, and the white Christ upon his cross with his -eyes downbent to mine, and such a passion of pleading in them as seemed -to drag the heart from my breast, and the sisters in their white robes -and rosaries, tinkling beads, and the blue cross sewed upon the breast -of each fading into the white, and their pure profiles downcast as -they listened; and there above us all in the dim obscurity of the place -the pulpit, of some black wood, and rising out of it that gaunt gray -figure of the friar, his face pale and worn, his eyes ablaze with the -fervor of his thought, his emaciated hands upraised, and his air now -that of an angel of mercy, now a minister of vengeance and wrath. - -“Oh, how he preached, that man! How his words poured out like a river -in spring and carried all before them like that river in a freshet! -Long ere he was done I was on my knees crying my heart out, and bowing -myself to God in a life of sanctity and religion,--had he given me the -chance, I would have dedicated myself as a novice that very night; and -before he was done I had whispered to Inez,-- - -“‘Take your vows with me to-morrow,’ but she replied,-- - -“‘Yon comrade of the friar is no monk!’ And looking where she looked -I saw close by the door where the Dominican had placed him a man in a -friar’s robe and cowl to be sure, but with bold black eyes that gazed -like those of a caged bird at all around, resting most often upon Inez -and me, who were the only ones who wore not the sisters’ livery, but -our own white school frocks and little caps. Somehow the sight of that -face and the regard of those bold eyes scattered all my holy mood as -the sun scorches up the dew and-- But there, there, I’ll say naught to -shock you, pale saint. ’Twas a fair picture, though, was’t not?” - -“Yes, passing fair,” replied Lora dreamily, “and I were well content to -spend my life in such a blessed retreat.” - -“Your life, maiden! Nay, you have faith in God?” - -“Why surely, Gillian! Who has not?” And Lora’s clear gray eyes rested -in a sort of alarm upon the sombre face of the girl at her feet, who -only shook her head, murmuring,-- - -“And God will care for his own.” - - - - -CHAPTER XXVIII. - -A SALT-FISH DINNER. - - -“Nay, Betty, flout me not! ’Tis an honest word I’ve said to you, and I -look to have it answered honestly.” - -“I know not what you call honest, Master Alexander Standish”-- - -“There, now! You can’t even speak without a gibe at my high-sounding -name. I count it right down unkind, Betty”-- - -“Then if I don’t please you, there’s the road home. Isn’t your name -Alexander in very sooth, or is that a by-name your mother calls you for -short?” - -“It seems to me, Mistress Alden, that your humor is a little shrewish.” - -“There, that will do! Never speak to me again so long as you’ve breath -to speak at all.” - -“Nay, Betty, I crave your pardon. ’Twas rude of me, but you put me past -my patience.” - -“Which is such a straitened foothold the least jostle will drive you -from it.” - -“Betty, I love you. Will you be my wife?” - -“Trust a modest man for impudence, when once he makes a start.” - -“Betty, I pray you lay aside this mood, and answer me seriously. ’Tis -my just due, maiden, and John Alden’s daughter should be honest.” - -“Well, then, Alick, in all sadness I will answer you--no.” - -“Do you mean it, Betty?” - -“As I mean to be saved.” - -“And will you so far humor your oldest friend as to tell him why?” - -“You do not love me as the man I wed must love, nor do I love you save -as a dear friend of childhood, and as such I shall ever love you. As -such and no more.” - -“I do not love you, say you, lass?” - -“No. You fain would marry some one out of hand, because Gillian has -fooled you, and you’re longing to show her that you care as little as -she.” - -“What--who--did she say such a thing, Betty?” - -“Nay. Oh, Alick, I must laugh,--you look so red and so befogged!--like -the sun rising on a misty morning.” - -“Who told you--what puts it in your head that I care for Gillian?” - -“I said not you cared for her; I said she’d fooled you; and ’twas mine -own eyes and mother wit told me, and no one else. She’s played with you -as my Tabby does with a mouse, only at the last she let you slip from -under her claws, not quite killed, and you ran to your old gossip to -have the wound salved; that’s all!” - -“And do you believe it was all put on? Do you truly think she cared -nothing at all for me?” - -“No more than she did for your brother Josias, or my brothers David and -Joseph, or Constant Southworth, or, or--the rest”-- - -“The rest! Oh, you mean Will Pabodie, don’t you? You’ve noted how of -late she’s all eyes and ears for him.” - -“Nay, I’ve noted naught.” The words were few and the voice was cold, -but something in the tone made Alick Standish look keenly into the face -of his old friend. It was scarlet, and the brave brown eyes were full -of tears; but as Betty caught his look she returned it with one of -right royal defiance. - -“Poor David!” said she, steadying her voice with a mighty effort, “he -has not got over Tabby’s love-pats yet. He’s worse off than you, Alick. -But here we are at home. Come in and have a mug of cider or a noggin of -milk after your walk, won’t you, lad?” - -“I’ll have the milk and thank you kindly. Isn’t that Sally peeping out -of the dairy window?” - -“Yes, she’s dairy-maid this week, and will give you the milk. You’ll -catch her in her short gown and petticoat.” - -“Won’t she be vexed?” asked the young man, with a smile anything but -heart-broken. - -“She’ll not eat you if she is. Open the door of a sudden and catch -her at work,” whispered Betty; and Alick, the smile broadening into -mischief, sharply pushed back the cleated door, revealing the figure of -a tall girl, who, with arms bare to the shoulders, was at that moment -tossing a great mass of yellow butter high into the air, her lithe -form well displayed as she leaned back and held up her hands to catch -her ponderous plaything. A linen cloth pinned around the forehead just -above the brows formed a piquant frame for the rosy, dimpling Greuze -face, with its sweet blue eyes and pure but tender lips; a lovely -innocent maiden, and as Alick Standish looked at her as if for the -first time, while she, suffering the butterball to drop upon the stone -slab in front of her, would fain have pulled her kirtle straight, but -dared not touch it with her moist hands, and half cried in her pretty -confusion, he knew as by a revelation that all his other fancies had -been but dreams and follies, and here before him stood the woman, whom -out of all the world he would choose to be his wife,--the woman whom he -could love, and love to the end. - -But while the man’s heart leaped up within him, like his who, searching -for mica, suddenly comes upon diamonds, all that rose to the lips was a -little laugh, and the prosaic petition,-- - -“Might I have a noggin of milk?” - -“Surely. Betty shall give it you-- Nay, she’s gone. Well, wait but -till I wash my hands and put my butter down in the cellar hole. Mayhap -you’ll lift up the trap for me.” - -“Of course I will! Where is it?” - -“Just here.” And tapping with one foot, Sally Alden showed an iron ring -set into the floor, and evidently intended to raise a big trap door in -the middle of the dairy. Throwing it back so that it rested upon the -floor, Alick looked down the steep steps into the little deep and cool -cellar, which in those days imperfectly forestalled the refrigerator of -to-day. - -“Let me carry down the butter for you, Sally,” said he. “’Tis too -steep.” - -“’Tis no steeper than it was last week, or will be next,” laughed Sally -in a sweet tremor of bashful joy; for Alick was her hero, and hitherto -had only treated her as one of the children. “But if you like, you may -hand me the dish after I am down.” - -“Yes, indeed. It looks like the head of John Baptist on a charger, as -’tis seen in the Elder’s big Bible.” - -“And so it does,” replied the girl, glancing with a new interest at -the great ball of butter in the middle of the pewter platter, which -Alexander held aloft in mimicry of the picture both had seen as -children. - -Then presently, the butter deposited, the trap door closed, and the -noggin of milk presented and quaffed, the two came through the long -passage dividing the dairy from the kitchen, and were met by the -mistress of the house, our Priscilla, a little older, but still as -charming as when we first knew her, and showing among her daughters -like the rose among its buds, the glorious fulfillment of a gracious -promise. - -“Good-morrow to you, Alick. Go into the sitting-room, you and -Betty,--or no; Sally, you’ve been busy while Betty was on her travels, -you go and make Alick miserable till dinner’s dished”-- - -“Nay, dame, I’m beholden to you, but I must go”-- - -“Surely you must go, but not without your dinner, my lad. ’Tis Saturday -and salt-fish dinner, you know, and I’ll warrant me your mother’s ’ll -be no better than I shall give you.” - -“My mother’d be the first to say she’s no match for Mistress Alden in -delicate cookery.” - -“There, there, go say your pretty things to the girls, Sally or Betty, -it matters not which, but don’t whet your wit on an old woman like me. -Be off with you!” - -Laughing and well pleased that fortune so favored his half-formed -wishes, Alick followed Sally through the sitting-room to the front -door, standing wide open to the summer; and then, sitting on the -threshold, their feet upon the great natural doorstone which their -children’s and their children’s children’s feet should press, the man -and the maid entered into that fairyland we all pass through once in -our lives. - - - “And some give thanks, and some blaspheme, - And most forget, but either way, - That and the child’s forgotten dream - Are all the light of all our day.” - - -“Alick! Sally! Come to dinner!” cried Betty’s blithe voice; but as the -young man arose and turned his glowing face toward her, she stared at -it for a moment in astonishment, and then turned sharply away to hide -the smile that would in her own despite curl her lips. - -“They’re stronger than we women in some ways, but they’re wondrously -weak in others,” was the thought beneath that smile. - -In the great airy kitchen, where no fire was made in the warm weather, -a table was spread large enough to accommodate, besides the heads of -the family, their eight children, and the two men and a woman who lived -in the house really as “help,” and not servants. - -A fourteenth seat was now placed for the guest between Betty and -her brother Joseph, still his mother’s true lover and helper, but -Alick noted with pleasure that Sally sat opposite, and gave him the -opportunity to study her face, which he seemed never to have seen -before. - -The long grace ended, and the clatter of chairs and feet upon the bare -floor a little subsided, John Alden, viewing with satisfaction the -great codfish lying at full length upon the platter yet longer than -itself, said,-- - -“George Soule has had more than ordinary luck with his dunfish this -season; don’t they say so at your house, Alick?” - -“Yes, sir, a small share, if you please.” - -Alden stared, and his wife interposed:-- - -“He says he’ll have some, father. Did you know that George Soule had -set up as dry-salter for the town, Alick?” - -“Yes, I heard so. Indeed, father bought a quintal of dun and another of -white fish of him,” replied Alick, wondering what Betty and Sally were -laughing about. - -“Now I don’t see why the captain portioned them that fashion,” -mused John Alden, rapidly distributing the fish into fourteen empty -trenchers. “For doubtless he knows as well as I, or rather your mother -knows as well as our housewife here, that the only way to cook your -fish aright is to bind a good dunfish carefully between two whitefish, -and steep the three all night in lukewarm water; then in the morning -to cast out that water and put in fresh, and again steep it so nigh -the fire that it ever tries to boil yet never makes out. Finally, -when all else is ready, master dunfish is released from his bondage, -and carefully laid upon a platter unbroken, while his bedfellows the -whitefish are thrown to the ducks or the pigs”-- - -“Or made into a mince wherein no man can tell the white from the dun -fish,” interposed Priscilla. “Why, father, I should suppose you’d -been ship’s cook all your youth, and major-domo ever since. I never -mistrusted you knew how a salt codfish should be cooked.” - -“I see a mort of things I don’t talk about,” retorted Alden quietly, -“and if you knew not more than most women, I could tell you just how -master tomcod should be served.” - -“Try it, father!” cried Betty, who was her father’s darling and might -say what she liked, because she never liked to say anything amiss. -“Tell us now without looking around the board, tell us what should lie -on it to be eaten with salt codfish.” - -“Well, there must be a white sauce, compounded of cream and wheaten -flour and butter; and there must be pork-scraps cut in dice and fried -of a dainty brown; and there must be beets boiled tender, but not -cut to let out the color; and there must be parsnips and turnips and -onions; and there must be brown bread and white bread; and there must -be sallet oil and mustard; and above all, there must be a good flagon -of cider, and another to back it.” - -“Right, right! Here’s every one of the things you told about and more, -for here’s a dish of those roots John Howland got in Boston of the -sloop trading to the Carolinas. Molly begged so hard for them that -mother cooked some, but I doubt if they will suit with salt fish.” - -“Father told of eating some in Boston, but we’ve had none as yet,” said -Alick, and Sally, taking up one of the sweet potatoes, broke it in two -and handed a piece across the table to Alick, who, eating it skin and -all, as if it were a fruit, declared it with sincerity to be the most -delicious morsel he had ever tasted. - -“I’ve an apple pasty to follow,” announced Priscilla, as her husband -pushed away his plate. “Rachel, you and Timothy may take away the -trenchers and bring some fresh ones; and Sally, have you a jug of cream -and a morsel of cheese for us in your dairy?” - -“Yes, indeed, mother,” and Sally, glad to escape Alick’s scrutiny, -jumped up and retreated to the dairy. - -“While John Howland was in Boston he saw Ras Brewster,” said Joseph -to keep up the conversation, which rather lagged through Betty’s -preoccupation and her mother’s housewifely cares. - -“He has been at Kennebec all this time, hasn’t he?” asked Alick with -somewhat languid interest. - -“Yes, but Master Winslow sent for him to company him to England. Will -they make any stay there, father?” - -“The Lord only knows, my son,” returned Alden with a ponderous sigh. -“The Bay people, that is to say the authorities, have to my mind done -an ill-advised thing in tolling Edward Winslow away from us. They say -he has a skillful tongue and good acquaintance with the ways of courts; -and so he hath, so he hath, but also he has a home, and comrades of -old time who look to him for comfort and aid, the more that so many of -the old stock are removed by death or distance. It is not well done of -the Bay people, and much do I hope that Winslow will not deeply engage -himself in their concerns.” - -“And Wrastle has gone with him?” asked Alick in a low voice of Joseph, -who nodded assent, adding presently, as his father lapsed into -silence,-- - -“He’ll be writer and keep the papers,--a secretary, Master Winslow -called it; and Ras said there was no knowing when he might come back.” - -“Now here’s the pie, and the cheese, and the cream, and some fresh -nutcakes, and some metheglin; so cease your lament, John, and be merry -while you may!” cried Priscilla, cutting the pie, which was baked in a -great iron basin, and was more of a pudding than a pie, as it needed to -be, since fourteen hungry mouths were to feed upon it. - - - - -CHAPTER XXIX. - -TOO LATE! TOO LATE! - - -The Thursday evening lecture was over, and Barbara Standish, with -her son Josias and some of the neighbors, strayed homeward along the -footpath leading from Harden Hill to the Brewster and Standish farms; -but Lora lingered with her father, who spoke of English politics with -Kenelm Winslow, who had just received a letter from his brother Edward -now at the English court. - -“One moment, Captain,” said the Elder’s grave and friendly voice, as -Winslow bade good-night, and Standish turned to look after Lora who had -strayed down toward the water. “One moment before you summon the little -maid. I have letters from England”-- - -“And I too, God save the mark!” growled Standish, who all the evening -had worn the face of a thundercloud. - -“Ill news, I fear,” said his friend gently. - -“Not more ill than one who has known the world for half a century -should look for; naught more novel than falsehood, and treachery, and -covetousness, and wrong.” - -“Nay, friend Myles, nay, my brother; ‘Charity suffereth long and is -kind’”-- - -“Suffereth long, but opens her eyes at last. However, I will not burden -you with mine own griefs, Elder; you had somewhat to say to me.” - -“Yes, but I fear me ’tis in an ill-chosen time. Your spirit is much -disturbed.” - -“Not so much that I cannot heed my duty, sir.” - -“Nay, Myles, take not so stern a tone with your ancient friend and -constant well-wisher. I fain would touch the tender spot that well -I know lies deep within your heart. I would speak of our children, -Captain.” - -“Ah! and you have heard from Rastle?” - -“Yes. A long letter, the full outpouring of his heart, and still the -song has but one refrain, the story but one theme. Can you guess it, -friend?” - -“Ay, I can guess it.” - -“And fain would hear no more on’t?” - -“I know not, Elder, I know not; of a truth my soul is vexed within me, -and shapes of wrath and bloodshed that I had thought buried with the -old life have wakened and are thundering at the gate of my will. Had I -that man here on this convenient sod, and I with Gideon in mine hand”-- - -The grating of strong teeth, set all unconsciously, closed the -sentence, and in the soft gray of the twilight hour the Elder examined -the face of his companion with anxious scrutiny, then sternly spoke:-- - -“Man! Satan is at your shoulder and whispering in your ear! I can all -but see and hear him.” - -“All but!” laughed Standish. “There is no peradventure about it to me.” - -“Call that pure maid to your side, and the Evil One will flee.” - -“Nay. Tell me what your boy says. Haply ’tis a better time than you -could guess.” - -The old man once more examined the face Standish would neither avert -nor soften, and then, unable to comprehend, yet following meekly the -intuitions that guide faithful souls in such matters, he drew from -his breast a folded sheet of the coarse rough paper Spielmann had in -England taught the men of Dartford to manufacture at a cost which would -terrify Marcus Ward to-day, and slowly unfolding it said,-- - -“I will read you my lad’s own words. The first page doth but tell of -his voyage and his situation in fair lodgings with Edward Winslow, who -is as a father to him, and then he goes on:-- - - - “‘There are many fair ladies at the court who kindly notice me - as Master Winslow’s associate; but, father, you know how it is - with my heart, for I fully laid it open to you before I went - away, sore hurt by what Captain Standish said to me the day you - wot of; nor have I seen the lady of my love since that day, nor - shall I, as I think, while we two abide below. And yet, sir, her - image is more present to mine eyes than are the faces of these - dames, or even your own, though there is naught so dear to me in - this world as yourself,--that is to say, if you will bear with - my fantasy, there’s naught outside of me so dear as my father; - but Lora is within, the life of my life and essence of my being, - and how should a man say his own being is dear to him, for to - what should his own being belong save to itself and the God who - gave it? Honored father, I feel that I should crave pardon of - your dignity for thus claiming its indulgence of a lover’s fond - imaginings; but, sir, you know how since my mother’s death left me - a little lonely child, your tenderness and care have filled both a - father’s and mother’s room in my life, and to-day I speak to you - as I might to her had she been alive; and as I dream of laying - my head in her lap and feeling her hand upon my hair and her - half-remembered voice in mine ears, so now I come to you and say, - I love this maid. I love her with all the power of loving God hath - given me. I love her as Jacob did Rachel, as Isaac did Rebecca, - ay, my father, as you did my mother, and life will never reach - its fullness for me except I may mingle it with her pure life. - Father, is there no hope? Is there no seven years’ or fourteen - years’ probation that may for me pass as a few days for love of - her? Will not you speak once again to the captain for me? I know - not how she feels concerning me. When I spoke to her on that fair - eve it was like arousing a child from its dreams of heaven; she - knew not what I meant, nor how far her own heart could respond to - a love whose face and voice as yet were strange to her; but with - all her tender innocence she hath a singular aptness of mind, and - a delicate discrimination that will ere now have spoken to her - heart many a homily drawn from the text I gave her in that sweet - hour. I cannot tell, I dare not think, but something within me - dares to hope that Lora loves me. Oh, how fair those words look - set down on paper, LORA LOVES ME! Nay, father, I have spent a good - half hour in staring at those three words as if they were some new - gospel of hope. Father! I dare not ask your indulgence, and yet - I know I have it, and well do you know when I thus unveil what - some men would call my weakness to your eyes, that my reverence - never was greater or more profound; but as I writ before, ’tis to - my mother in you that I dare tell all these the deepest secrets - of my heart. And now I will say no more, lest repetition weaken - what hath already been said. But you will speak to the captain, - will you not? Tell him--nay, you shall, if you see fit and find - him in the mood, you shall show him this letter; for though - ’twas written for no eyes but my father’s and mother’s, ’tis the - truth as I would speak it before God, and if all went as I would - have it, Lora’s father should be my father too,--not like you, - mine own father, but in some sort; and well do I know how dear he - loves mine own sweet maid. Mayhap that love in him will answer to - this cry of love from me, since both are fixed upon the same dear - object. But there! I will stop at this word, for should I go on - all night and all to-morrow, my pen could only trace again and - again the words it hath so often writ. I love her, I love her, I - love her! - - “‘On this other slip of paper I have copied out some verses lent - me by a lady of the court, Countess of Pembroke she is called, - and a right sweet and fair dame she is; but still I must speak of - her as Sir Henry Wotton, who wrote the verses, saith to all other - ladies as compared with his sovereign lady, the English princess - whom he served after she became queen of Bohemia,-- - - “What’s your praise, - When Philomel her voice doth raise!” - - “‘And so with my humble duty and constant affection, I am, dear - sir, - - Your humble and obedient son, - - WRESTLING BREWSTER. - - “‘P. S. The copy of verses is meant for Mistress Lora’s own hand, - if her father makes no objection. - - W. B.’” - - -“And here are the verses,” said the Elder, as the captain took the -letter and immediately gave it back, while conflicting emotions strove -eloquently upon his face. Then accepting the second paper, and turning -his shoulder to the failing light, he read half aloud:-- - - - “‘Ye meaner beauties of the night, - That poorly satisfy our eyes - More by your number than your light, - You common people of the skies, - What are you when the sun shall rise! - - “‘You curious chanters of the wood - That warble forth Dame Nature’s lays, - Thinking your meaning understood - By your weak accents, what’s your praise - When Philomel her voice doth raise! - - “‘Ye violets that first appear, - By your pure purple mantles known, - Like the proud virgins of the year - As if the spring were all your own, - What are you when the rose is blown! - - “‘So when my mistress shall be seen - In form and beauty of her mind, - By virtue first, then choice a queen, - Tell me, is she not one designed - The Eclipse and Glory of her kind?’” - - -Folding the verses, Standish held out his hand for the letter, and -placed the one carefully within the other, his deliberate movements -betraying the preoccupation of his mind; then raising his gloomy eyes -to the Elder’s face, he said,-- - -“Your son speaks of Rebecca. When Isaac’s ambassador asked her from her -kinsfolk they made answer, ‘We will call the damsel, and inquire at her -mouth.’ So say I to you, Elder.” - -“What! if Lora consent, you will not refuse her to my son?” - -“We will call the damsel, and inquire at her mouth. Oh, no, we will -not startle her again, as your son confesses that he did on that -ill-starred night. Give me the letter if you will, and I will bid her -read and ponder it through the night, and to-morrow I will come and -tell you; or no,--if it be as you wish, she shall come herself and tell -you.” - -“I felt that my boy’s words must move a father’s heart,” replied the -Elder with a loving complacency, which sank abashed before the fierce -glance of the captain’s eyes, as he strode away, muttering,-- - -“Had not they suited my purpose, his mops and mows had been my scoff.” - -Down near the edge of the bluff that finishes Harden Hill stood Lora, -leaning lightly against a birch, whose silver bark seemed some quaint -ornament of her white samite robe, like the gauzy scarf thrown around -her head and shoulders. One slender foot in its silver-buckled shoe -showed beneath the hem of her robe as if about to follow the earnest -gaze bent seaward. So profound was the maiden’s meditation that she did -not hear her father’s step, and was only roused by his sombre voice -asking,-- - -“Of what are you dreaming, Lora?” - -“Oh! Is it time to go home, father?” - -“Of what are you dreaming, child?” - -“Nay, father dear, my dreams are not worth the telling.” And with a -pretty air of coaxing the girl turned and laid a hand upon her father’s -arm; but he, withdrawing a step, almost sternly persisted,-- - -“But yet I will know them, Lora. Tell me truly, of what or of whom were -you thinking, and why did you look so earnestly over the sea?” - -“The moon is rising, father,” stammered the young girl with a piteous -attempt at unconcern. “I was looking at her.” - -“’Tis not like you, my maid, to trifle and palter in your replies. Will -you tell me of what or of whom you thought?” - -“Nay, father, if you insist I must obey, but mayhap you’ll be vexed at -my thought.” - -“Mayhap ’tis my own thought, child. Mayhap I’ve come to wish what you -were wishing as you looked over the sea.” - -“Oh, no, no, father, and no indeed!” cried Lora with a horror-stricken -look upon her face. “’Tis not your wish, and yet perhaps ’twill be -what--and it may be but mine own foolish fancy, but I was thinking, -father dear, that if the time comes soon, I would well like to lie -just here under this loving tree that seems bending to clip me in its -arms; just here, father, on this little slope, with the sea singing -lullaby at my feet, and the fair moon making a silver road from earth -to heaven, and the whispering leaves of the birch,--to lie down still -and dreamless, with this my robe of white samite folded close around my -feet, and my hair, so far too heavy now, uncoiled and unbraided, and -my two hands clasped upon my breast, and some of mother’s fair white -posies beneath them”-- - -“Lora! Lora! For Christ’s sweet sake, look at me! Look at me, darling, -and change that smile for one that I dare to meet! Change it for tears, -mine own, tears rather than such a smile; but no, no--see, here is -a letter, a letter full of this world’s love, and life, and a man’s -honest human longing to make my maid his wife. Wrestling wants to -marry you, my bird, my flower, my little Lora! Oh, Lora, Lora darling, -understand me, and take that awful smile from your lips! Wrestling -would marry you, and I give my full and free consent; yes, freely and -gladly, dear. See, here’s the letter, and some pretty poesy, and -such honey-sweet words,--take it, darling, and read it; or no,--’tis -gruesome here among the graves; come home to mother, and read it -sitting in her lap. Come, pussy, come! You love him, don’t you, my -lass? That’s all that ails you, isn’t it? Oh, say you love him and will -be his wife, and we’ll build you such a fair little home close beside -father’s, my poppet; and there’ll be little children by and by to call -me granddad, and make a hobby-horse of Gideon-- Nay, nay, she hears not -a word! Lora! Lora! Speak to me!” - -“This letter, father! Did it come from Ras? Did he write it with his -own hand?” - -“Yes, my darling. Come home and read”-- - -“I am reading it now, and more--and more.” - -“Nay, dear, you have not opened it.” And Myles, pale and trembling, -tried to take the letter from between Lora’s folded hands. But she, -drawing away, held it firmly, and gazing fixedly out to sea murmured,-- - -“He loves me so! Dear lad! He loves me so, and thinks of all it may -cost him, and yet--brave Ras! brave and noble heart! She clings to -him, and he will not push her aside! Oh, poor woman, how she writhes -in her agony, and clings and clings; and now he has carried her -into the hovel and laid her down, and one says, ‘’Tis the plague, -and yon poor gentleman must die for his charity,’ and he turns away -and whispers, ‘Lora!’ Yes, darling, yes! I know now that I love -you, dear,--wait--nay, he cannot wait, but goes before, and I--will -come--yes, dear heart, I will”-- - -And before her father could grasp her she slid from his hands, and lay -there beneath the birch-tree, the moon shining upon her white robe, and -her face as white, and the hands clasping the letter to her breast. - - - - -CHAPTER XXX. - -PEEPING TOM AND HIS BROTHER. - - -Dame Alice Bradford sat alone in her fair bedroom, its latticed windows -swinging wide to admit the flower-laden breeze that, young and fresh -as when we saw it peeping in at the council of the fathers and the -stitching of the little maids, peeped now at the still figure of the -matron, sitting for once quite idle, her hands folded listlessly upon -her lap. She was thinking, as it chanced, of that very morning, long -ago, when the green footstool cover was finished, and her little Mercy -and Desire Howland had admired it so much, and each begun one like it; -and now Mercy, her one daughter, her little ewe lamb as she called her -in thought, was Mistress Vermayes, with a home in Boston and a grand -future before her, and Desire Howland was married to John Gorham; and -although her two boys William and Joseph were as good sons as a mother -need ask, they were sons, and not daughters, nor was Dame Alice in -haste to see them bring daughters home to her. - -A few slow, meek tears gathered in her eyes and overflowed just as -the door opened and the governor came in with a letter in his hand. A -glance at his wife showed him her case, and he said tenderly,-- - -“Is it the empty nest, sweetheart, that grieves you?” - -“Nay, Will, how can I be lonesome while you are left to me?” - -“Well and bravely said, my wife, and yet I blame thee not, I blame thee -not. I miss the dear maid myself oftener than I would like to say. -But you know how oft we’ve spoke of your sister Mary Carpenter in her -lonely estate since her mother died”-- - -“And my mother as well as hers,” suggested Alice with a little sob. - -“Why surely, dear heart, and I know well that you grieve for her; but -now I’ve written to Mary, bidding her come and make her home with us, -and offering to pay the charges of her voyage, since she is left in -such straitened case, and here’s the letter all ready to send by Kenelm -Winslow, who is summoned by his brother to England to receive some -instructions. Kenelm will go to Bristol and see Mary, but I have bidden -her not to wait for his escort back, but to come so soon as she can -light of safe company, since you need her here.” - -“Oh, Will dear, which shall I praise first, your tender thought for me, -or your goodness to my sister?” - -“Well, for that matter, dame, I fancy it all comes under one head, for -if it were not to pleasure you I know not that I should urge Mistress -Carpenter across the seas to bear me company.” - -“There’s a young gentlewoman below asking to see our dame,” said the -voice of Tabitha Rowse at the door, and Alice, with a gentle look of -love and thanks in her husband’s face, followed the girl downstairs, -and entering the new parlor said pleasantly,-- - -“Oh, it is you, Mistress Gillian, is it? I should think Tabitha would -have remembered you.” - -“I have not been in Plymouth more than once or twice since the dear -Elder’s funeral,” said Gillian sorrowfully. - -“The dear Elder, yes,” replied Dame Alice. “He’s been mourned but once -among us, for the first mourning hath not ceased, nor will it soon with -those who knew and loved him.” - -“Yet none loved him like me, for he was the best friend, the only -friend I had in all the world!” And in a burst of emotion honest -enough, and yet more uncontrolled than the emotions of most persons -of that place and time, Gillian sobbed and cried, and hid her face -upon the cushion of the great chair beside which she had sunk, until -the dame, laying a hand upon the round shoulder whence the cape had -slipped, said kindly yet reprovingly,-- - -“Nay, Gillian, ’tis not meet to give way to even the worthiest grief -in such fashion as this. Dry up your eyes now, while I go to fetch you -some orange-flower water, and when you have drunk it we will speak of -other matters.” - -“Nay, dear lady, I want no orange-flower water, nor to keep you longer -than need be, but I have come to you a beggar, and would fain make my -petition ere my courage fails.” - -“A petition, maiden? Well, now, what is it? Something that I can grant, -I hope, for I love to pleasure young maids for my dear daughter’s sake.” - -“Ah, sweet Dame Alice, if I might come and be a daughter to you! -There’s my petition all in one word,--that I may come and live with -you. Am I overbold?” - -“To live with me, Gillian? Why, how do you mean, child?” - -“Let me come and be in the place of a daughter and yet not claim a -daughter’s love or rights, unless, indeed, I serve you so well that -you cannot but love me a little, and so comfort your own heart. I have -no home, and I know no one with whom I am so fain to live as with you, -dear dame.” - -“But your aunt, Lucretia Brewster”-- - -“They are going to Connecticut as soon as may be, and my aunt says -she needs me not, if I can find another home, and Love Brewster and -his wife treat me ill, and since the dear, dear old Elder died I have -no one left to say one kind or careful word to me; and oh, dame, I do -wish, and more than once or twice, that I lay beside my mother”-- - -“Poor child, poor orphan child!” murmured Alice Bradford, laying a hand -upon the girl’s silken tresses as the head rested against her knee in -all the abandonment of grief. “Yes, you shall come and stay with us for -a while, at least, if the governor consent, as I am sure he will, and -if your kinsfolk make no objection. Love and Sarah are here to-day, are -they not?” - -“Yes; Sarah’s father, Master Prence, is removing his chattels left in -the house he used while he was governor, and Love and Sarah came to -help him.” And Gillian, her end attained, rose gracefully to her feet, -straightened her dress and smoothed back her ruddy hair, while Dame -Alice, gazing out of the window toward the harbor, sadly thought of -the bereavement Plymouth that day was suffering; for a colony of some -of her best men, headed by Thomas Prence, with Nicholas Snow and his -wife, once Constance Hopkins, Cook, Doane, Bangs, and others, were -embarking with all their cattle and household goods for Nauset on the -Cape, there to found the town of Eastham, fondly dreaming it should -become the successor of Plymouth, which by successive emigrations, -deaths, and shrinkage of values seemed threatened with extinction, dull -and lifeless. As Bradford himself wrote that day in the journal so -invaluable to us all,-- - -“Thus was this poor church left like an ancient mother, grown old and -forsaken of her children, until she that had made many rich herself -became poor.” - -Fighting against the depression of spirits and want of interest in what -remained that assailed his spirit, the governor gladly consented to -accept Gillian Brewster, as everybody called her, as an inmate of his -house, and a few days later she was installed in the pretty bedroom -first occupied by Priscilla Carpenter, now a portly and sedate matron, -wife of John Cooper, of Barnstable, and at a later date by Mercy -Bradford, lately become Mistress Vermayes. Nor did her new patrons -regret their generosity for some time to come, since the girl, warned -perhaps by late misadventures, restrained the “wicked lightnings of her -eyes” to such flashes of summer lightning as only served to startle and -amuse the beholder, or at most to suggest electrical forces beneath the -surface, and to arouse a certain interest in the nature that concealed -them. Sometimes, to be sure, the governor’s serious and intent gaze -would rest upon the girl’s face until she turned uneasily away, and -sometimes Dame Alice would speak in her gentle and pure-toned voice -of the beauty of modesty and reserve in a maiden’s character; but -William and Joseph noticed her hardly more than they did their mother’s -kitten, and when occasionally she tried some little coquetries upon -them, William would look bored and absent-minded, and Joseph laugh in -a satirical fashion hard for Gillian’s hot temper to endure. One word -between the brothers may explain much that to the girl herself never -was explained. It was spoken in the first days of Gillian’s sojourn -under their father’s roof, when the two young men, gun on shoulder, -were traversing the hills about Murdock’s Pond in search of birds to -tempt their mother’s languid appetite. It was Joseph who said, wiping -his brow and resting his “piece” upon a crotched tree, for the day was -warm,-- - -“Bill, this maid Gillian is the one David Alden spoke of last harvest, -isn’t she?” - -“Ay, is she. And mind you, Joe, what he said of her?” - -“That she would wile a bird off a bough; yes, that’s what Dave said, -and Betty Alden, she puts in, ‘Allowing ’twas a male bird, so she -would.’” - -“Ay, Betty’s keen as a needle, and as straight. Well, Joe, if -she’s made a fool of a score, there’s no call for us to make it -two-and-twenty, is there?” - -“Indeed there’s not, and I wouldn’t vex the dear mother for a cargo of -red-gold heads like hers.” - -“Nor for any other. So, that’s settled, Joe, and you’re breathed by -now. Come on.” - -An hour later the young men, worn, weary, and sore athirst, welcomed -the sound of rushing waters, heard but not seen through the thick -foliage, and Joseph, in the advance as usual, cried out,-- - -“Hullo! Here’s Jenney’s Mill close at hand. We’ve got enough birds -for a famous stew, so let’s stop and rest awhile, and speak with the -miller’s folk.” - -“‘Folk’ standing for Abby and Sally and Sue Jenney,” said William -provokingly. - -“And Sam and his new wife, who was a great friend of yours, Master -Bill, while she was called Nanny Lettice, and the Widow Jenney, who to -my mind is better company than the girls.” - -“Ho! Ho! Well, there’s naught like a sober mind to recommend a young -fellow, and I’m glad to see it cropping up in your field, Father -Joseph. Well, we’ll make a neighborly call upon the widow, and -while you talk about Parson Chauncey’s notions of immersion and Mr. -Ainsworth’s psalmody I’ll e’en say a word of a lighter sort to the -young gentlewomen.” - -“Have your jest, Will, have your jest,” returned the younger brother -coolly, “but I know somewhat you don’t.” - -“Think you do, I dare say! A wise man in his own conceit is Joe -Bradford.” - -But seeing that his brother, instead of being teased, was holding -himself very quiet and peeping through the branches of the young maples -crowding down to the brink of the little river Plymouth modestly calls -The Town Brook, William stepped softly behind him, and with something -of the guilty joy of Actæon, looked upon almost as fair a sight as he -did. - -No prettier spot was then, or until very lately, to be found in the -dear old town which is mother of us all, than Holmes’s Dam, or as it -then was called Jenney’s Mill, where in the midst of a dense wood The -Town Brook, rushing toward the sea, found itself at a very early date -impeded by a dam, more or less artificial and effectual according to -the owner, but always sufficient to turn the big wheel of the gristmill -first erected by Stephen Dean, husband of that Betty Ring who inherited -so little of her mother’s great estate, and afterward carried on by -burly John Jenney, who sat as Assistant at the council board when -Duxbury wrung consent for separate identity from the mother town. -And now John slept, although _not_ with his English fathers, and his -widow jointly with her son Samuel administered the mill and ground the -grain not only of Plymouth, but of Duxbury, Sandwich, and several other -towns. With so wide a custom the miller’s was a flourishing business, -and might have been still more so had it been more carefully carried -on, but alas! John Jenney was a shipowner, and aspired to setting up -salt-works at Clark’s Island, and in fact had a soul above the pottles -of meal by which he was supposed to live; and when his widow succeeded -to his estate the customers complained that they were forced to share -their grain with rats and mice, and that the miller’s widow was too -easy tempered to be very efficient. Now, however, that the oldest son -was married and the daughters were grown up, things went better, and -the mill became a popular resort for the young people, especially in -hot weather. - -But all this time the governor’s sons are peeping through the boscage, -and we peeping with them see four young girls, their kirtles of blue -and white homespun linen drawn about their knees, while with bare -feet they comfortably paddle in a little pool formed by a bend of -the stream, floored with beach sand and bordered by a grassy bank, -whereon the four damsels sit, and chat with all the sweet volubility of -blackbirds. The rays of the morning sun sifting through the branches of -the young oaks overhead dance merrily upon heads of gold and brown, and -the flaxen locks that curl around Susan Jenney’s head, while her eyes, -blue as the blossom of the flax, gleam beneath as she says,-- - -“We wouldn’t do this to-night, girls, would we?” - -“I dare say the lads wouldn’t say nay, if we asked them to a wading -match,” replied her sister Sally with a twinkling laugh, while Abby, -older than the rest, looked sharply among the bushes, saying,-- - -“Who knows but we’re spied upon! I feel a creep up my back.” - -“’Tis Harry Wood, be sure on’t!” cried Susan with a little flirt of her -white toes that sent the water into her sister’s face, while William -Bradford, softly pulling Joseph backward, whispered in his lowest -tones,-- - -“Betty Alden’s there, and she’d never forgive us if she knew we’d spied -on them.” - -“Here goes, then!” and Joseph, laughing silently, pointed his gun at -the sky and pulled the trigger, then hastily turned back to his post of -observation, clinging to Will’s arm and shaking with an earthquake of -suppressed merriment, as if he would go to pieces. - -“’Tis like a plump of white ducks that hear the shot pattering around -them,” whispered William; but Joe was beyond speech, and could only -gasp and shake with laughter as he watched the girls, who with little -shrieks and screams and exclamations clung to each other, staring -wildly around, and then gathering their feet up under their skirts -wriggled backward in some mysterious feminine fashion, until gaining -the shelter of the undergrowth they stood up and looked around them in -timid defiance for a moment, and then, no foe presenting himself, Abby, -as oldest and bravest, darted out, and seizing the shoes and stockings -lying in a heap, bore them triumphantly under shelter. - -Some fifteen minutes later, William and Joseph Bradford, dignified -and grave as two young parsons, arrived at the door of the mill and -were received by Abby and Sally Jenney, demure and self-possessed as -possible, but with eyes on the alert for any indication that these were -the peeping Toms whom they suspected. - -“We’ve a surprise for you, William,” remarked Abby, as steps were heard -descending the stairs. “Who do you suppose is visiting us from out of -town?” - -“Is anybody visiting you? I had not heard of it.” - -“Well, here she is. Betty, you did not think we’d have company so soon -to bid you welcome, did you, now?” - -“Nay, Betty, heed her not,” exclaimed William, rising to claim the -privilege of a salute. “’Tis no company, but only two of your old -playmates. Why, you’re looking fresh as the morning, Betty, isn’t she, -Joe?” And both young men gravely surveyed the blushing girl from head -to foot, noticing especially the white thread hose and dainty buckled -shoes that covered the feet but now so rosy white in the water of the -little pool. - -“How long is it since I saw you, Betty?” demanded Joseph presently, and -William paused in a speech to Sally to hear the reply. - -“I really do not know, Joe; don’t you?” - -“I can’t say, Betty, can’t say at all;” and Betty, casting a hasty -glance at his face, was met by so serene a smile that she comfortably -assured herself, “It was not they, or they didn’t see.” - -“We’re going to have a little company to-night, and some games in the -old mill,” said Abby presently. “Will you both come? And if the young -gentlewoman at your house would like to make one of the guests, we’re -more than happy to have her.” - -“My mother is beholden to you for remembering her companion, but -I doubt if Gillian Brewster can be spared,” said William a little -hastily, and perhaps a little haughtily, for he shrank from seeing -the siren who had wrought such mischief among some of his friends -introduced to others under shelter of his mother’s name. But Joseph, -heedless of his brother’s tone and only half hearing his words, replied -almost in the same breath,-- - -“You’re very thoughtful, Abby, and I doubt not Gillian will like to -come. I’ll bring her in my boat.” - -“Gillian Brewster!” murmured Betty in a tone of dismay that drew -William Bradford’s attention to her face, suddenly pale and disturbed, -and going close to the girl who had been to him almost a sister for -the first ten years of their lives, he whispered, “Shall I prevent it, -Betty?” - -“No, no, Will! Why should I care? She’s naught to me.” - -“Nay, I thought”-- - -“’Tis a poor custom, Will; better break it off while you can.” - -“The custom of thinking?” - -“Ay. How is Mercy, and when did your mother hear from her last?” - -Half an hour soon ran away, and so did the great stone pitcher of cider -which the miller’s wife insisted upon producing, and the young men took -leave, promising to be ready at an early hour for the evening’s frolic. - - - - -CHAPTER XXXI. - -JENNEY’S MILL BY MOONLIGHT. - - - “For ’tis the twenty-first of June, - The merriest day in all the year,” - - -sang Jack Jenney, the younger brother of the mill and the miller, as to -amuse his sister’s visitors he threw the great wheel into gear and set -the machinery in motion. “Put in a grist, you young idiot, and don’t -grind off the face of the stones,” growled Samuel, standing by, and not -so hospitable as to forget business. - -“Well, here’s Squire Pabodie’s Indian waiting--English, too, but that -wants daylight. Here, bear a hand, Sam, with the Indian.” And the two -young men poured the two bushels of gold-colored maize into the hopper, -while little Hope Howland, bending over to see it drawn down the vortex -of the cruel stones, cried,-- - -“Poor Indian! Do you know, Jack, one of those Englishmen that came -from Boston to see the Rock where our fathers first landed was at the -governor’s to dinner, and father was there, and Master Bradford said -he must have some more Indian ground, and the man made great eyes and -said,-- - -“‘But does your excellency chastise the savages in such fashion as -that?’ He thought, poor gentleman, that we ground up the Indians!” - -“And doubtless he feared our governor next would roar,-- - - - ‘Fee, fie, faw, fum! - I smell the blood of an Englishman! - And be he alive, or be he dead, - I’ll grind his bones to make my bread!’” - - -And John Howland junior put his great hands upon his sister’s shoulders -to draw her back, saying, “But we won’t have you ground this grist, -Hope; so don’t tumble in. Mother wouldn’t like it.” - -“Oh, John, how you tease!” cried Hope, pouting, yet clinging to the -arm of her stalwart brother, a fine young fellow, who at a later date -calmly incurred judicial censure and a heavy fine for the sake of -warning some Quakers, in whose belief he had no share, that they were -about to be arrested and imprisoned. And from that day to our own -the stout Howland blood has held its own, foremost in that Army of -Occupation which the departing Pilgrims left to hold the land their -prowess had won. - -But while this little scene was enacted around the hopper, William -Pabodie, who, bringing his father’s corn to mill late in the afternoon, -had accepted an invitation to spend the evening and join the -merrymaking, wandered out of the house, and standing beside the pool, -idly broke the branch of lilac that some one had given him into little -bits and cast them upon the waters. - -“Nay, don’t spoil the pretty posy so,” cooed a dulcet voice at his -elbow. “If you don’t want it, give it to me.” - -“And welcome, Mistress Gillian,” replied the young man coldly, as he -held out the flowering branch. - -“Oh, but ’tis all torn and ragged,” remonstrated the girl, touching -it, then drawing back as if it wounded her. “Trim it for me with your -knife, good Master William. Nay, then, I’ll not borrow your unfriendly -tone. A scant two months agone ’twas Jill and Willy”-- - -“I ever hated the name of Willy since I was a baby!” exclaimed the -young man petulantly, yet taking the branch and trimming it as he was -bid, while Gillian, pressing close to his side, watched the operation -as if it were some rare and fascinating sight. - -“But why are you so changed to me?” murmured she, scorning the side -issue, and like a true woman keeping to the point of personal interest. - -“Changed? Am I changed?” asked the man helplessly. - -“Oh, Will! Think of the night you took me in your sledge to ride across -the snow.” - -“’Twas a great while ago,” muttered Pabodie awkwardly. - -“Ah, yes, a great while ago; and all that is fair and sweet and worthy -to be had in remembrance of all my life is a great while ago,” said the -girl bitterly, and as she raised her great dark eyes to the moon, whose -light mingled with that of dying day, Pabodie could not but see that -they were full of tears, and that the ripe mouth quivered piteously. -What man ever yet saw such a sight unmoved, especially when the face -was so wondrous fair, the June air so full of fragrance, the moon so -softly bright. - -“Nay, Gillian, I never meant to be unkind to you!” murmured William -Pabodie, half unconsciously taking the hand whose finger-tips grazed -his palm, and at the least invitation nestled so confidingly into it. - -“Gillian,” said a clear, cool voice just beside the pair. “I am sent to -call you both to a game,--a game for all of us to play together.” - -And Betty Alden, whose light footfall had not been heard through the -sound of the falling waters, quietly looked into William Pabodie’s -face, superbly glanced over Gillian’s, let her eyes rest for a moment -upon the branch of lilac which Gillian had seized, although Pabodie all -unconsciously still held it, and then, with one of those smiles upon -her lips which most women remember to have smiled, and most men shiver -in remembering to have seen, she turned and climbed the little path to -the mill door. - -“And now you’ll never speak to me again, lest Betty Alden should -chide,” cried Gillian, turning sharply aside, and with a gesture of -inimitable grace resting her folded arms against a tree-trunk, and -laying her forehead upon them, while a storm of unfeigned sobs and -tears shook the very tree she leaned on. William Pabodie, flinging -the lilac branch to the ground, would have passed her by, but she -made no movement to detain him, and so he lingered, looked at her in -sore perplexity for a moment, then said in a voice of contemptuous -kindness,-- - -“It distresses me to see you so, Gillian, and in very truth there’s no -call for it; I’m not your lover, and that you know”-- - -“Oh, yes, I know it, I know it! Poor me, there’s none to love me, and -those I could love to the death care less for me than for another’s -frown.” - -“Nay, mistress, I’m one that fears no woman’s frown, nor change my -friends to suit any fancy but mine own.” - -“But alas, Gillian’s not one of those friends!” - -“Why, yes you are, Gillian, yes you are as much my friend as--as ever.” - -“I’m your friend? Ay, but are you mine, Will?” - -“Yes--that is to say”-- - -“That is to say, so far as Betty Alden permits,” cried Gillian, -honestly losing control of herself, and flashing into the young man’s -eyes a look that made him start back as Julio did when Lamia suddenly -revealed herself a serpent. Without a word he strode past her and up -the hill, where seeking out his friend, Will Bradford, he drew him -aside and said, “Would you do me a kindness, Will?” - -“You know I would, man. What is it?” - -“Take Gillian Brewster away as soon as may be.” - -“Oho! What has she done now?” - -“That’s what I can’t tell you, Bill, but you’ll trust me that it’s no -discourtesy that I can help, to make such a petition.” - -“I know that, Bill Pabodie.” - -“Well, then”-- - -“I’ll manage it, but not of a sudden.” - -“No, no; only so that I may get a quiet word with Betty before I leave.” - -“Ay, it’s in that quarter the storm is brewing, is it? Well, in an hour -or so I’ll manage it.” - -But before the hour was over Gillian herself, for after all she was as -yet but a young maid, and not seasoned in such matters as another ten -years might have seasoned her, came to William, and resting on his arm -said plaintively,-- - -“I’m very weary, Will. When might we be leaving?” - -“They’re just going to supper, and while they sit down we can slip -away if you like, and in sooth you do look weary,” said Bradford not -unkindly, and Gillian, in a little impulse of womanliness, replied -with a wan smile,-- - -“Nay, I’ll not take you from your supper. There’s a roast pig and -apple-sauce, I hear.” - -“Oh, that’s naught, that’s naught,” protested the young man; but his -healthy appetite so rose up in approval of the roasted suckling that -it looked out at his eyes, and Gillian, laughing a little, scoffingly -said,-- - -“If it’s naught to you, it’s something to me, and I’ll not stir till -I’ve had roast pig and seed-cake and a glass of sweet wine, and mayhap -a little taste of arrack punch. May I sit by you, Will, and sip out of -your glass?” - -“Yes, that will be fine,” cried Will, seeing a happy compromise open -before him. “If you’ll sit by me and look at no other fellow but me, -I’ll stay; but if you’re going to tease me, I’ll not.” - -“I’ll look at none but you,” promised Gillian gently, but her active -brain was already shaping the query, “What does he know? What has he -heard?” and then replying to itself, “What matter! Fools all of them, -and I the worst fool of all.” - -So amidst the frank, possibly unrefined, certainly hearty merriment of -the time and place the roast pig and roasted russet apples were eaten, -and the loaf of seed-cake and another of fruit-cake were cut in great -wedges and passed around, and a choice comfiture of wild cranberries -with candied lemon peel and plenty of sugar was served on little -wooden trenchers, carved in the winter evenings by Samuel Jenney as a -present to his bride; and there was plenty of beer and cider, which -to our hardy sires were no more injurious than cold water to us, who -have bred nerves in place of their muscles and brawn; and there was -sweet Spanish wine for the ladies, passed from hand to hand in a little -pewter wine-cup, burnished like silver; and there was a good joram of -punch for every man; and the girls with little gasps and chokings put -their lips to the edge of the rummers, while Gillian, nestling close to -William Bradford’s side, was gentle and quiet as a chidden child, and -spoke to none but him, eating the while as a bird might, and no more, -until in his heart the young man felt that William Pabodie was after -all something of a churl, and not over courteous to the governor’s -guest, and Pabodie forgetting them both watched Betty Alden, who now -and again glanced at or spoke to him just as she did to Sam Jenney or -John Howland, and was the brightest, the merriest, the most winsome -lass of that gay circle of men and maids. - -“And now we’ll go, Will,” whispered Gillian, as all rose from the table. - -“Yes, poor little Jill, we’ll go now,” replied Bradford far more -tenderly than ever he had spoken before; and Joseph, who heard it, -turned sharply, and surveying his brother with astonishment whispered,-- - -“If there’s a score, need we make it two-and-twenty, Bill?” - -“Gillian is tired, and I am taking her home in the boat,” answered -William coldly. “Will you come with us, or on foot later?” - -“Take care of yourself, man, and I’ll give as good an account of -myself,” retorted Joe a little huffed, and presently the governor’s -boat glided down Town Brook, which glittered like a stream of silver -under the full moon. In the stern, her elbow on the gunwale and her -hand supporting a sorrowful face upturned to the sky, reclined -Gillian, a dusky red shawl half covering her neck and arms, and -throwing up in startling relief the exquisitely molded hand and wrist -lying palm uppermost upon her knee. - -Close beside her sat Bradford, silently dreaming a young man’s vague -sweet dreams of the wonder of womanhood, while the Indian boatman, -erect and silent as a bronze automaton, guided the boat down the rapid -stream, and far within the dewy covert of the wood a whippoorwill made -his perpetual moan, echoed softly back from the breast of Dark Orchard -Hill. - -At the mill, the after-supper fun grew fast and furious, and who but -Betty Alden to lead and queen it with a gay vivacity of invention and -power of will that made itself felt by all within its reach, while -William Pabodie, his own man once more now that the strange sorcery of -Gillian’s presence was withdrawn, calmly bided his time, and at last, -when Giles Hopkins, over from Barnstable on a visit, was trolling a -sea-song and all the rest joining in the chorus, he edged between Betty -and the girl next to her, saying,-- - -“Come out to the doorstep, Betty; I’ve something to say to you before I -go home.” - -“Then say it here, or leave it unsaid, for I’ve no mind for the -doorstep,” drawled Betty with would-be carelessness; but some instinct -told the lover that here was a citadel whose half-hearted garrison -might be taken by assault, and grasping her by the arm, he moved toward -the door, exclaiming half laughingly,-- - -“You must come, Betty, for else I’ll make such a noise that they’ll all -stop singing to turn and look at us.” - -“You’re overbold, William Pabodie,” replied Betty icily; but yielding -to both force and argument she allowed herself to be led not only to -the doorstep, but down the steep path, through the garden all odorous -with pinks and roses, to the spot beside the pool where still lay the -broken branch of lilac, and where upon the old willow-trunk still -seemed to linger the perfume of Gillian’s presence. - -“Why do you bring me here?” asked Betty, a sob rising in her throat, -but bravely choked back again. - -“Because here where an hour or two ago you set me down as false and -fickle, here have I brought you to hear me say that I love you, Betty; -and, what is more, I never have loved any woman but you, and if I may -not have you for my wife I’ll go a bachelor to my grave. Betty, will -you be my wife?” - -“If you’ve naught else to recommend you, Master Pabodie, none can -accuse you of want of courage,” replied Betty quietly, and throwing -aside the mask that in the last hours had smothered her true feelings, -she stood before him pale, stern, and pitiless. The young fellow looked -at her in dismay. - -“Betty! Don’t you believe me, Betty?” - -“Believe you when, or at which time? I believed a year or so ago that -you cared somewhat for me, at least you came as near to saying it as I -would let you, till I could know mine own mind”-- - -“And then did your mind turn to me, Betty?” demanded the lover eagerly. - -“There was no time for it to turn, unless it had been such a -weather-cock as yours, for I had not well got to thinking of the matter -before I saw that you had forgot it, and were running like a well-broke -spaniel at Gillian Brewster’s heel, so I thought no more on’t, and was -just as well content it should be so. And then Gillian went away, -and you, just like our Neptune when father’s from home, went questing -round seeking a master, and seemed willing to have me for one; and -partly because you plagued me so, I came here to stay awhile, and then -when you came to-day, and whispered in mine ear that it was to see me -you’d made the excuse to come, my silly vanity believed the tale, and -I had well-nigh been fool enough to trust you, as I would one of my -own brothers who know not how to lie; but happily for me, Gillian also -came, and I found you toying with her, and giving flowers, and looking -into her eyes, and--oh, I know not what all--it makes me sick, it does, -and all I want is to go mine own way, and have you go yours, and let -there be an end of all this folly here and now.” - -The words were no sharper than the voice was cold, and the lover -had well-nigh accepted the dismissal and turned away hopeless and -humiliated, but that as he looked gloomily down, the moonlight glinted -upon the buckle of a little shoe, and he perceived that the foot was -viciously, if silently, grinding a blossom of the poor lilac branch -into the earth. Somehow, he could not have told how, that sight brought -courage to the all but discouraged heart, and suddenly seizing both -cold and repellent hands, the young man pressed them to his breast, -crying,-- - -“No, Betty, no, and no again! I’ll not believe you. I’ll not take such -an answer. I’ll not give you up, nor turn to any way that is not your -way! Betty, I love you. I never have loved any but you. I’ll have you -and none other for my wife. Betty, darling, can’t you forgive a blind -folly, a stupid, senseless blunder? I could say a good deal to excuse -myself but for the duty every man owes to every woman, and that I’ll -not forego, even to defend myself to you”-- - -“Oh, I know well enough what _she_ is,” murmured Betty; the young man -paused, but would not, could not speak the thoughts that arose in his -mind. Perhaps Betty was, after all, not ill pleased, for let men say -what they will of the jealousies of women, there is among them an -_esprit de corps_ that rises indignantly in every true woman’s breast -when she hears her own sex or any member of it scorned by man. - -So an abrupt silence fell between the two,--an eloquent silence, for as -his hands firmly grasped hers, and the strong throbbing of his pulses -vibrated along her nerves, there was no need of words, until after a -few wonderful moments, moments that life could never repeat, the young -man drew his true love close, close to his heart, and their lips met in -a betrothal kiss. - - - - -CHAPTER XXXII. - -ROBED IN WHITE SAMITE. - - -There was company at the captain’s house, the same dear friends whom -we have seen with him on so many joyous occasions, the Aldens, the -Howlands, the Brewsters, the Pabodies and Hatherleys, and Cudworths; -and from Plymouth, the governor and his wife, the Hopkinses, and other -of the captain’s friends and associates of the old time now so long -gone by, and yet so powerful in the ties then formed. Parson Rayner was -there, too, and Ralph Partridge, but it was as friends and neighbors -that they came, and the only official word the minister of Duxbury -uttered was when he wrung the captain’s hand and said, “‘Be strong and -of a good courage,’ my friend,” and Standish, lifting sombre eyes to -the speaker’s face, answered him never a word. - -And in the midst lay Lora, very pale and still, with the golden lashes -folded close upon the cheek hardly whiter now than it had always -been, and the faint rose tint lingering in the lips just touched with -that mysterious smile that seems the trace of a joy so divine, so all -powerful, that it bursts even the icy fetters of death, and insists -upon revealing itself, if ever so dimly, for the assurance of those -who must see before they can believe. The pale golden hair that was -the mother’s pride and boast was released from all bands, and lay a -shining and rippling mantle at either side of the slender figure which -at her father’s desire was clothed in the robe of white samite he had -brought her from over seas, saying in his pride that thus the mistress -of his ancestral home should be clothed. And now! Alas, poor father! -it clothed her for her nuptials indeed, but she must cross a darker -sea than the Atlantic to enter into her kingdom. The delicate hands -lay folded upon the breast, and beneath them some snowdrops that Betty -Pabodie had nurtured, watering them with her tears and foreseeing this -day, of which indeed Lora had calmly and cheerfully spoken more than -once. - -“Put on her shoes, and fold the train of her robe around her feet,” -commanded the father. “She said it should be so.” And wonderingly the -mother obeyed, for in these awful hours none dared to intrude upon the -darkness that clothed Standish more gloomily than the mantle the Angel -of Death had lightly laid around the maiden. - -Once in the middle of the night, Barbara, rising from her sleepless -couch, sought him where he sat alone with Lora, and throwing herself -upon her knees beside him, her arms around him, and her head upon his -breast, she cried,-- - -“Oh, Myles, Myles, let us try to bear it together. Do not shut me out -of your heart. Oh, Myles, my heart is breaking--comfort me!” - -“Hush, wife, hush! What need of words or clamor? Let her rest, let her -rest--and leave us alone, good wife, my maid and me--go!” - -Then chilled, silenced, well-nigh affrighted, the mother crept away, -and left the defeated soldier to his own bitter retrospect. - -The brothers, working day and night, fashioned an oaken casket, not -of the gruesome shape in use at a later date, but more like a dainty -cradle, and the women had spread in it a couch of sweet herbs and the -fragrant tips of the balsam fir and the blossoms of the immortelle -which they called life-everlasting. A pillow of dried rose-leaves and -lavender-blossoms and the hop-flowers that soothe to dreamless slumber -was laid ready for the gentle head, and a sheet of fine linen was -spread over all. - -“The captain said when he brought home that bolt of Hollands linen from -Antwerp, that it was for Lora’s wedding clothes,” sobbed Barbara, as -she drew the shining folds from the chest that held her most valued -household treasures, and Priscilla Alden, with an arm around her -friend’s neck, kissed her, and bit her tongue lest it should say in -spite of her, “Had he let her marry Wrestling Brewster, she might have -needed wedding clothes of another sort from these.” - -And now all have looked their last, and the mother’s tears have dropped -thick and fast upon those eyes that will weep no more, and the father, -silent, stern, and tearless, has laid a hand upon that golden hair that -no longer twines around his fingers, and Betty has gently drawn one of -the snowdrops from between those resistless fingers, a snowdrop that -she will press in her Bible over the words “for of such are the kingdom -of heaven,” the cover is laid gently over that fragrant cradle, and -the brothers, with the Alden sons who have been Lora’s playmates and -dear friends, place it upon the bier and carry it along the field path -her light feet have so often trod, past the Brewster homestead, where -now only Love and his family remained, and so on to what to-day we -call Harden Hill; here around the little church already outgrown, and -soon to be superseded, the graves of some of those who thus far had -passed away were made; others, indeed, had directed that their remains -should rest upon Burying Hill in Plymouth, and some would lie within -the radius of light from their own hearthstones; but a few were here, -and the captain with his own hands marked out the spot where Lora had -fallen on that night when she knew, months before the news came over -seas, that Wrestling Brewster was dead. There they laid her, softly, -gently, as still we lay down the loved ones whom rudest touch could -not harm, or crash of thunders disturb, and her own kinsmen did the -rest. A little heap of turfs was piled near, and as the others turned -away Alexander and Josiah began to lay them; but Hobomok, the faithful -friend and long-time servitor of Standish, laid a finger upon Alick’s -arm, saying in his guttural voice,-- - -“Hobomok do something for the Moonlight-on-the-water. Hobomok put the -green cover over her.” - -“He’s right, Alick,” said Josiah, with a friendly glance at the old -Indian. “He’s all but worshiped Lora ever since she was born. Let him -lay the turf.” - -“We couldn’t better show our friendship for you, Hobomok.” - -“Hob know all about it,” replied the red man sententiously, and the -brothers followed the long line of friends who scattered along the road -toward their different homes. - -Standish walked silently beside his wife until nearly at his own door -he stopped, looking frowningly out across the sea, his teeth set hard -upon his nether lip, as if fighting out some problem in his own mind; -then falling back, he touched William Bradford upon the arm, and drew -him a little aside. - -“Send home the rest with your sons, Bradford, and stay here to-night.” - -“My good friend, many occasions call me to Plymouth”-- - -“No occasion greater than the choice of life and death; nay, if all -they say be true, the choice of salvation or damnation,--nothing -weightier than such a choice, is there, Will?” - -“What ails you, old friend? Your grief has--has made you ill!” - -And the governor, grasping his friend’s arm, looked apprehensively at -the deep color that suddenly had overspread the pallor of his face, and -at the fierce light that some thought had kindled in the gloomy depths -of his eyes, hollow and strained by vigils and unshed tears. - -“Tush, man! I’m not gone mad. I’m not such a weakling as to let any -grief master the man in me. It’s only that I’m in a strait between God -and the Enemy, and there’s no man alive I’d choose for umpire but you.” - -“If you need me, Myles, I’m with you, whatever else betide.” - -And the two men grasped hands and looked into each other’s eyes. Then -with a voice more moved than any had heard from him in three days -Standish said, “I thought I could count upon your kindness, Will, if -you knew my need. Let all the rest go, and when darkness has fallen, we -two will come back to my little maid’s grave, and I’ll tell you there.” - -And so it was. The funeral feast, almost a necessity where so many came -from far, was served and eaten nearly in silence, and then the guests -departed, Dame Bradford under charge of her two sons, and tenderly -served by Gillian, whose volatile spirit was quenched in the abundant -tears that meant so little from her eyes. - -Night had fallen, and the waning moon was shining mournfully over the -waters, when at a signal from his host Bradford followed him into the -open air and, with a word or two, along the path the funeral procession -had just trodden. - -The young birch was in leaf, and a little west wind rustled and sighed -among its branches, casting flickering shadows across the new-turfed -mound, lined from west to east that the sleeper, obedient to the great -call, might in upstanding face the rising of the Sun of Righteousness. - -“Sit you down, Bradford. There’s a rock she’s often rested on. Don’t -speak until I gather my thoughts and know what ’tis I mean to say.” - -Without reply Bradford, drawing his cloak around him, for the spring -night was chill, sat down upon the boulder, where indeed Lora had -dreamed away many an hour, gazing across the sea that ever drew her -with its vague, sad calling, and waited silently while Standish, with -folded arms and head bent upon his breast, paced up and down, up and -down, now standing upon the crumbling edge of the cliff near at hand, -now pacing back to the little church a bow-shot from the shore. - -At last, with sudden and hurried footsteps, as though fearing to linger -over his decision, the soldier drew near, holding a folded paper in his -hand, and exclaimed,-- - -“Bradford! You too have an only daughter. If a man insulted her -bitterly, bitterly, what would you do to him?” - -“Insulted her? How?” - -“No matter how. What would you do to him?” - -“It is not fair to ask me such a question in such a way, Myles, if you -mean to find an augury for your own course in my reply. I cannot tell -what I should do until I know all, and mayhap not then. But surely no -man ever offered insult to the sweet maid who’s gone?” - -“’Tis all you know about it. Well, here’s the story. When I was in -England almost a score of years ago, I went to Standish Hall to talk -with my kinsman now in authority there, and asked him if he would do -me the justice his father denied to my father. He seemed a kindly -man enough, or mayhap ’twas only that he was a smooth courtier, and -cozened easily enough a rough soldier who has never learned to lie. At -all odds, it ended in our making a solemn compact, that if the child -my wife then looked for should be a girl, she was to become the wife -of that man’s son, then a child of two or three years old, and all -that ought by right to have been mine should be settled upon her and -her younger children. We did not set it down on parchment, nor call -witnesses to our oaths; but we grasped hands upon it, and passed our -word each to each as honest gentlemen, and there it rested. When I was -in England ten years or so ago, I traveled down to Eton to see the -boy, and give him a little compliment, small enough for the heir of -Standish Hall, but large enough for my own pocket. I said naught to him -about Lora, of course, though I let him know that I felt more than a -kinsman’s interest in him, and he seemed a brave lad, a trifle set up, -but I could pardon that. Well, the time went on, and there was some -talk of Wrestling Brewster and my girl. I dealt with that as seemed -good to me, and then I wrote to my kinsman, and said the time had come -to consider our contract, and that my girl was woman grown and his boy -must be one and twenty, and I asked how and where we should meet to -give them to each other. Almost a year went by, and my blood already -began to stir at the delay, although I schooled myself to believe it no -slight, when at the last a letter came, this letter. Wait till I read -it out, for though there’s no light, I can see every word as if ’twere -printed off on mine own eyeballs. First a flummery of ‘dear kinsman’ -and the like vapid compliment, and then:-- - -“‘As touching what you call the contract of marriage between our -children, I confess I had all but forgot that we two did hold some such -discourse a matter of eighteen years ago; but what will you, cousin? -These young folk must still take their own way, and my son before -reaching his majority had set his fancy upon a young gentlewoman, one -of the great Howard family, and with a very pretty estate tacked to -her petticoat, marching well with our lands of Boisconge. So they were -betrothed some months ago and will be married come Whitsuntide. Hoping -the fair and worthy Mistress Lora, whose name so pleasantly recalls -our family tree, will soon marry to please you as well as herself, I -remain,’ et cetera, et cetera. - -“There, now, William Bradford, what would you have done to the man who -so scorned your Mercy?” - -“My faith, Standish!” cried the governor, springing to his feet, “I -cannot blame your anger, for ’tis righteous. Your cousin is but a knave -in spite of his fair words”-- - -“And what would you have done with him, had you been in my place?” -persisted Standish coldly. - -“Nay, what could be done?” faltered Bradford so lamely that Standish -uttered a little bitter laugh of derision. - -“There you see! You’ve studied Christian charity so long that you will -not say Kill him! and your manhood will not let you say Forgive him! -and you can find no middle way. - -“But I, thank God, am not so hampered; and as I finished reading that -letter my fist clenched on old Gideon’s hilt, and I promised him that -he should carry conviction to that false, proud heart. I would have -gone at once, but I saw that my little maid was grievously ill, and -I could not leave her; then I saw that she would die, and one day I -drew Gideon from his scabbard and thrust his sharp tooth through that -cartel,--see, here are the marks of him,--and I bade him hold fast till -we could wet that paper in the red ink of my reply”-- But here the -governor interrupted him,-- - -“Myles! Man has no right to predetermine vengeance. In the heat of -affront I too might have longed to combat to the death with one who had -so lightlied my child, but I never could have stored up death for him -like that.” - -“You were bred to the land and to books, Bradford, and I to arms,” -replied the soldier haughtily; and then in sudden revulsion of feeling, -he grasped his friend’s hand, saying hoarsely, “I never can be the man -you are, Will, and you better deserved than I to have had that saint -for a daughter. But come, now, I must e’en tell you the whole, as if -’twere to a father confessor, and, by my faith, I wish you were one, -for the old practice rises up in a man’s mind when trouble comes. But -there! I won’t rake up old disputes, but rather on with my shrift: I -was fully purposed, then, so soon as my sweet maid was gone, to travel -to England and seeking out Ralph Standish challenge him to mortal -combat, and to thrust my brave old sword with that letter spitted -upon its blade through his false heart and so avenge my girl. I was as -fully purposed that way as ever I was to eat when I was hungry and saw -victual before me, and I’m not more apt to change my purpose than a -mastiff is to lose his grip. - -“The night she died I went down by the edge of the water and tramped -along the beach the night through, yearning to throw myself in and get -to him. I was half mad, I think, and could I have reached that black -heart then, I fear I should have shamed my manhood by not leaving the -villain time to defend himself. The next night, that is, last night, -I was calmer, for as I had not slept nor eaten, I was not so full of -lustyhood, and sending the others away, I sat by my darling the night -through, alone, save when the poor wife came and I would not let her -stay. Poor Barbara! I’ve not remembered her grief as I should; but mine -swallowed up all else, because it was so much bigger and stronger than -all else. So sitting by her, and reading that gentle, subtle smile that -mayhap you marked upon her pretty mouth-- How can I tell you, Will? -Didst ever grasp a handful of sea sand and try to hold it fast?” - -“Ay, and felt it slip, grain by grain, between my fingers.” - -“Yes. You catch my meaning, as I knew you would. Even like those grains -of sand, my fierce desire for that man’s life slipped and slipped away, -and what I had deemed a noble vengeance grew to seem only a brutal -thirst for blood, and the thought of him and of his offense seemed to -fade into the forgotten years whose record is closed. Perhaps I slept, -perhaps I dreamed without sleeping, but all at once it seemed to me -that my maid stood beside me, close, and yet so far away I dared -not put out a hand to touch her; and that smile was on her lips, and -someway it seemed to speak its meaning without words, and the meaning -was, ‘To him that overcometh’-- That was all, and yet, something,--that -dear spirit or mine own heart, or my memory of that Book she ever made -me read to her all through the last year,--something told me that it -was to him that overcometh his own self, to him who can trust his -vengeance to the Lord and forego it for himself,--to such an one that -the path lies open to the place where Lora has gone; but to the man of -bloodshed and heady violence that path is no more to be traced than a -highway through this wilderness. - -“But when the daylight came, and I had eaten and slept, I began to -think ’t was all a fantasy bred of long watching and fasting, and that -my first thought was the best, and even I fancied that I was growing -old and my hardihood was on the wane, and the cold apathy of age was -what held my hand; and so, tossed this way and that, and sore bestead -with doubt and anguish, I turned to some other for calmer counsel and -a juster view. In the old days I would have sought a priest, but now I -turn to you, Will; give me your counsel,--tell me where is my right.” - -Throwing himself upon the ground, the soldier hid his face upon the -fresh green mound and lay exhausted and passive. His friend stood many -moments motionless, his eyes uplifted to the sky, where the little -white clouds flying across the face of the waning moon gave her a look -of hurry and perturbation, as if she too were sore beset by the doubts -and temptations of the earthly atmosphere. At last he slowly spoke:-- - -“Old friend, I am no better or wiser man than you, and I can only -speak as a fallible sinner may to one for whose welfare he yearns as -for his own. It seems to me that God has already answered you through -that dear child who has gone to Him. ‘Vengeance is mine; I will repay,’ -saith He, and the promise to him that overcometh is as precious and -as many-sided as’ the white stone that he shall receive, and which -commentators hold to mean the diamond”-- - -“Enough, enough, man!” cried Standish, starting to his feet. “I cannot -listen to so many words. I care naught for commentators or texts. Tell -me as man to man, may I go and kill mine enemy or no!” - -“Well, then, no! You shall here and now kneel down and lay your revenge -at the foot of Christ’s cross and leave it there. Man! Has your enemy -hurt you more than those who drove the spikes through his hands and -feet, what time He prayed ‘Father, forgive them; they know not what -they do’? and bethink you how easy vengeance would have been to Him.” - -“Ay. Knew not what they did!” muttered Standish. “Knowing it or not, -that man slew my child, for had it not been for the contract, I would -have let her marry Brewster, and she might have been to-day a happy -wife and mother.” - -“And if you will reckon in that fashion,” replied Bradford sternly, “it -was surely you who slew Wrestling Brewster, since it was because he -might not have Lora that he went to England and found his death. Should -not God and our dear Elder have required his blood at your hand?” - -A great silence was the only answer, and presently Bradford spoke -again, and now in the tone of assured conviction and well-grounded -authority that in some moods the human soul yearns to hear, especially -an ardent, impetuous, and loving soul like that of Standish; a nature -that, while the impulse lasts, will dare heaven and hell and earth to -achieve its purposes, and when the revulsion comes distrusts all that -is within, and turns like a drowning man to some external authority. -Such a man makes a good soldier, for as he says, “Go here, and go -there!” to those beneath him, he is ready to add, “For I also am a man -under authority.” - -And in this need, characterizing some of the strongest souls that -animate humanity, masculine and feminine, lies the yearning for -confession and guidance, absolution and penance, that has for centuries -been the strongest weapon in the hand of the Catholic Church. - -“No, my friend, you shall not carry this controversy away from this -spot. It is Satan who buffets you so sorely, and if you will fight, -it is with him the combat shall be. Which is the stronger, you, or -that great dragon, that old serpent, whom Michael, of old, fought and -conquered? Fight _him_ in the name of the Lord, and with Gideon if you -will, but here and now relinquish all, yes, every iota of the desire -for your brother’s blood. Destroy that letter,--yes, tear it in pieces -here beside Lora’s grave, and bury the remembrance of it as you have -buried her. You have left it to me, Myles, and I have been given this -to say to you. Take it, in the name of God who hears us.” - -“I take it as I took her message,” replied Standish in a low voice, and -rising to his knees, for he had been lying prone beside the grave, he -sought about for a moment, and finding a bit of stick began carefully -to remove one of the turfs at the foot of the new-made grave. Laying -it at one side, he took the letter from under his knee, where he had -held it, and quietly tore it into fragments, which he held in his -left hand, while with the right he scooped a hollow in the loose loam -beneath the sod; but in deepening the cavity his fingers encountered -some foreign substance, and drawing it out, held up to the moonlight -a little package enveloped in a strip of the cloth-like inner bark of -the birch-tree, and bound around with cord twisted of fibres of the -hackmatack. - -“Some of Hobomok’s work,” murmured Standish, carefully unrolling the -bark, and disclosing a curiously shaped and much worn stone of a -peculiarly hard and dense quality, fashioned at one end into a neck by -which it could be securely carried, and at the other sharpened to a -curved edge capable of cutting wood. - -“Why, ’t is Hobomok’s totem!” exclaimed Standish, turning it over and -over. “He always wore it about his neck, and for all he calls himself -a praying Indian, I sorely mistrusted he prayed as much to his totem -as to any other god, nor would he ever let us see him use it, or take -it in our hands, though the boys have urged him more than enough. The -dear maid used to talk to him in her gentle way, and try to make a good -Christian of him, just as she used to set up her dolls and play go to -meeting with them, and with as great results. But now,--did he bury -it here for a charm to keep away the afrits, or did he lay it at her -feet to show that in her sweet patience of death she had conquered his -unbelief even as she conquered that other savage, her father?” - -“Ask him,” suggested Bradford, but Standish, carefully replacing the -totem in its covering, shook his head. - -“No, no! Hobomok is too much of a gentleman to pry into what is not -meant for him to know, and I should be ashamed to let him know that I -had surprised what he fain would have held a secret. - -“No, I’ll lay the letter in first, and then the totem to keep it down, -and my little maid will understand all that is meant by the one and -the other. There! And now, friend, I thank you. We’re growing old -men, Will; ‘it is toward evening, and the day is far spent,’ but this -night’s work will stand both for you and for me when all else fails. -Come, let us be going.” - - - - -CHAPTER XXXIII. - -A BOLD BUCCANEER. - - -“It’s an ill wind, they say, that blows nobody good, and I believe this -is that same wind.” - -“Tut, tut, man! ’Tis ill luck speaking against the wind. Wot you not -who is the Prince of the Power of the Air?” - -“Sathanas; and I verily believe he’s in this smoky chimney.” - -“Well, then, Jacob Cooke, get you outside the house, and if Jack -Jenney’s afeard of the one he says makes it smoke, he’d as well go out -with you.” - -“Thank you for nothing, Dame Damaris,” retorted John Jenney, laughing -as he rose to his feet. “I didn’t look to be turned out of the house -when I came to make a wedding visit, but mayhap ’tis so new to you to -have a house that you haven’t welly learned to govern it.” - -“That’s the truth, Jack,” interposed the master of the house, a little -mortified; “so we’ll e’en leave the shrewish dame to her own devices, -and go out to find a warm corner beside a chimney that doesn’t smoke, -and a woman that doesn’t scold.” - -“Go your ways. Your room is aye better than your company,” responded -the comely dame, whom as Damaris Hopkins we saw a baby on board the -Mayflower, and who, lately married to the son of Francis Cooke, was one -of the most stirring young matrons of the town. - -The two men, laughing, and yet a little reluctant to turn out into the -shrewd east wind, paused outside the house. This new home, built upon -land inherited by Damaris from her father, Stephen Hopkins, was on the -westerly edge of Training Green, and thus high enough to catch the full -force of the wind rising steadily since noon. - -“Phew!” whistled Jenney, dragging his hat over his brows, “’tis enough -to take the curl out of a pig’s tail. There’ll be some wracks along the -coast, if this holds all night.” - -“Come up the hill to the Fort, and ask Livetenant Holmes to give us a -squint through the spy-glass.” - -“I’m with you. But Holmes isn’t half the good fellow the captain was. -The Fort don’t seem the same place.” - -“No. And yet the captain could give a rough lick with his tongue, if -one angered him.” - -“Yes. You, and Bart Allerton, and Peregrine White, and Giles Hopkins -used to catch it once in a while when you meddled or made with the -guns.” - -“Yes, and when he trained us in the manual exercise. But we’re all -beholden to him for knowing how to manage a piece man-fashion.” - -“Ay, we’re all beholden to him, and sorry am I he’s gone from the town, -and they say is breaking in health and spirit.” - -“Since father went it seems as if the old settlers were passing away -and we youngsters are to hold the helm.” And Jacob sighed in a gruffly -sentimental sort of fashion. - -“You’re right, Cooke, and I sore mistrust our fathers’ chairs will -prove too wide for us. I know mine is, and often enough I wish the old -man back.” - -“Ha! That was a shrewd twist of the wind! It seemed to snatch my -breath. Well, here we are.” And raising the heavy iron latch, the two -men precipitated themselves into the great lower room of the Fort, -where once we saw the Pilgrims hold their fast when drought and famine -were sore upon them, and once we assisted at the trial of John Oldhame. - -The religious services of the town were still held in this place, -although it had long been Pastor Rayner’s urgent appeal to the people -that they should build a suitable meeting-house for the worship of God, -and no longer mingle ecclesiastical and secular pursuits in the same -building. But since the removal of some of the colony’s wealthiest and -most influential townsmen to Duxbury, Scituate, Marshfield, and the -Cape towns, poor Plymouth had become so destitute that her sons could -barely provide food for the body, and had little money or energy to -spare in suitably serving the soul’s aliment. - -And now help was to come, and from a most unexpected source. - -Upon the platform at the top of the Fort the two visitors found -Lieutenant Holmes, sheltered from the wind behind a sentry-box, and -absorbed in the use of the spy-glass they had come to seek. - -“Well, and what do you see, Livetenant?” demanded Cooke, ever ready -with his tongue. The soldier, who after the manner of most men when -absorbed in the use of one sense was slow to occupy himself with -another (it being one of the privileges of womanhood to do two things -at once and do both well), did not reply at once, and Jenney, screening -his eyes with his hand, looked out to seaward for a long moment, and -then cried,-- - -“Surely there’s a sail in the scurry off the Gurnet! Isn’t it so, -Livetenant?” - -“A sail, say you?” replied Holmes slowly, and in the mechanical tone of -one whose eye is glued to a spy-glass. “Well, double it, and thribble -it, and mayhap you’ll hit closer to the bull’s eye.” - -“Three sail!” exclaimed Cooke, fairly dancing with excitement. “Come, -now, let’s have a squint, Holmes, just a cast of the eye, and I’ll give -back the glass in a jiffy. Let’s have it, there’s a Christian!” - -“Well, then, Jake, take your squint, and tell me what you make of it.” -And the lieutenant, laughing a little, rose to his feet, handed the -glass to Cooke, and rubbed his eyes, which, in fact, had declined to -serve any longer in that one-sided fashion. - -“You’re right, Holmes, you’re right! ’Tis three sail, and sizable -craft, too; brigantines, I should say.” - -“Come, come, Jake!” expostulated the lieutenant jealously. “A man’s not -going to tell a brigantine from a bark at this distance, and with such -a spoor flying.” - -“Mabbe not, Livetenant, mabbe not; but I’ll miss my guess if it’s not -a brigantine I’ve got in the field now, and laboring mightily she is. -Take my word for it, Brown’s Island’ll be the death of her, unless -they’ve got a skipper out of a thousand, and men of might to handle -helm and canvas.” - -“Give me one peep before you take the glass,” pleaded Jenney, and jolly -Holmes consenting, the young fellow so availed himself of the privilege -that Cooke, who was a trifle short-sighted, and found his own eyes -useless, protested,-- - -“It’s bad manners for any man to take so long a pull at the glass! Pass -it around lively is the rule.” - -“My chance now,” cried Holmes peremptorily; so the three men watched, -turn and turn about, until Holmes after a long survey handed the glass -to Cooke, saying,-- - -“It’s time for me to go down and report to the governor. Stay you here -and keep goal till I come back.” - -“All right. I’ll do it,” briefly replied Cooke, already absorbed in the -sense of sight. - -In the wide house under the hill, where Bradford and his early love -were growing placidly old together, there was a guest of unusual -degree, and Lieutenant Holmes, requesting to see the governor at once, -was ushered into the dining-room, where with the master and mistress of -the house, their two sons and Gillian, sat a priest in the strait garb -of the Jesuit, and bearing upon his thin, shrewd face the traces of -that cultivation and worldly facility generally marking the Order which -has ruled the world, and yet failed to save itself. This was Father -Drouillette, a Frenchman by birth, a cosmopolitan by training, visiting -the New World, not, as we may be sure, without a purpose, and yet -quite capable of allowing himself to be torn in little shreds without -suffering that purpose to be discovered. - -He had already been in Boston, and the fishing-smack that brought -him from thence to Plymouth would with the morning’s tide sail for -Manhattan, so that four-and-twenty hours comprised his stay in -Plymouth; but this brief sojourn was enough for the Jesuit to see and -know that the soil of the Old Colony was not yet ripe for the seeds of -the cinchona (then called Jesuit’s Bark), and also to read Bradford’s -noble nature and courteous kindliness, to both of which he did full -justice in his report, adding that as the day was Friday, the governor -gave him an excellent dinner of fish. - -After the fish came a delicate pudding, succeeded by a dessert, over -which the family still sat when Lieutenant Holmes, entering the room, -reported three large vessels in distress driving into the harbor, and -already off Beach Point. - -“Are the lives of the mariners in danger?” inquired the priest, -crossing himself so unobtrusively that only Bradford perceived the -gesture. - -“I fear for them if they do not keep to the channel, for the tide is -on the ebb, and ’tis but a crooked course,” replied Holmes; and the -governor, rising, said somewhat hurriedly,-- - -“If you will excuse me, sir, I will leave you with my wife for a -little, and go to see that a pilot is sent out”-- - -“I told Doten to get his boat ready, and wait your Excellency’s -orders,” interposed Holmes, resolute to give the governor his full -honors before this stranger. - -“That was well done, friend,” replied Bradford gently, and would have -left the room, but the priest, rising nimbly, and taking his cloak and -hat from the deer’s antlers where they hung, exclaimed, in his perfect -although accented English, “Nay, I will not be left behind. There may -be use for another pair of hands.” - -“And possibly for a turn of priest-craft,” thought Bradford, smiling to -himself; but Drouillette, catching the smile, returned it with a little -shrug and arch of the eyebrows, saying in French,-- - -“And why not? Few mariners sail from Geneva.” - -“You are in your right, sir,” returned the governor in the same tongue, -and courteously motioning his guest to pass before him, while Gillian, -to whom French was a mother tongue, listened with both ears, and -resolved to by and by hold a private conversation with the priest, -who already had perceived her knowledge of his language and taken the -measure of her nature; that she would prove an easy proselyte, and -quite enjoy the intrigue of covertly becoming a Catholic while openly -remaining in a Protestant community, he had also perceived, but after a -moment’s thought had decided the facile victory to be at once valueless -and dangerous, and during the rest of his stay opposed a bland -stupidity to all the girl’s ingenious advances. - -The stout pilot boat, clumsy enough as contrasted with those that -to-day skim across the waters of Plymouth harbor, but then a model -of beauty and skill, lay ready beside the Rock, and at a word from -the governor speeded forth under its close-reefed foresail, carrying -three active fellows to the rescue of the foremost brigantine, which, -warned by the sounding-lead of shoal water, and struggling against a -current which insisted upon setting her ashore on the beach, was lying -to and waiting for pilotage. Half an hour later the three vessels -were anchored in the stream, and a procession of boats was bringing -their officers and detachments of the crews ashore, discharging them -at a rude stone pier and bulkhead extending a few feet beyond the -Rock, which, as yet uninjured by patriotic zeal, lay calmly presiding -over the modern commotions that had come to disturb its centuries of -solitude. - -In the place of honor in the first boat sat a very elegant gentleman, -dressed in all the picturesque bravery of a cavalier: his broad hat -covered with ostrich plumes, his doublet of Genoese velvet slashed -with satin of Lyons in harmonious shades of cramoisie and murrey, -his breeches of velvet adorned with a deep lace almost hidden by -the wrinkled tops of boots of soft Cordovan leather. To correct the -effeminacy of this costume, accented as it was by jewels, lace, and -perfume in profusion, Captain Cromwell, prince and leader of the -buccaneers soon to swarm the Spanish seas, carried so proud and -warlike a countenance, curled his mustachios so fiercely, showed such -strong white teeth set in so massive a jaw, and such broad shoulders -and muscular limbs, that it must have been a rash man, indeed, who -ventured to make criticism of whatever the captain might choose to -wear, or to inquire how an officer under commission from the new -Commonwealth of England still displayed himself under the guise of a -royalist cavalier. The explanation probably, had he chosen to give it, -was that the Spanish seas were a long distance from England, that it -was a long while since his letter-of-marque had left home, and that as -the King was still at large, the fortune of war might at any moment -replace him upon the throne, so that in view of all these circumstances -a successful buccaneer must be in a great measure his own lawgiver. -Nominally, Captain Cromwell was in religion and politics a Parliament -man; at heart, he was a Roman Catholic and a cavalier, and at this -distance from the central authority indulged himself in at least -dressing to suit his own taste. - -Springing ashore as the boat touched the pier, the commandant, without -waiting for an introduction from Lieutenant Holmes, who escorted him, -doffed his hat until the plumes swept the ground and bowed low, both to -the governor and the priest, saying,-- - -“My respects to you, most noble Governor, and to you, reverend sir, -and my thanks for the timely aid you have sent us. Allow me to present -myself as Thomas Cromwell, in command of these three brigantines sent -out by the English government to hold our country’s foes, especially -those of Spain, in check, and to make reprisals for certain offenses -offered to the British flag in these waters. As it is long since I had -news from England, I will not add ‘God save the King!’ nor yet ‘God -save the Parliament!’ lest I should offend somebody’s sensibilities, -but content myself with simply exclaiming, ‘God save old England!’” - -“An aspiration we all may echo, Captain Cromwell,” replied Bradford -gravely, “and I am happy to assure you that by the latest advices from -England the parliamentarians under whose authority you sail are still -favored by Providence. For the rest, all honest Englishmen are welcome -to such hospitality as our impoverished town can offer. There is an -Ordinary at the head of this hill kept by James Cole, where very decent -accommodation may be had for your men, and I shall be most happy to -welcome you and your officers at mine own house, nearly opposite the -tavern, as often as you are pleased to come. This gentleman, a guest -like yourself, is called Father Drouillette, from France.” - -“My duty to you, father,” responded Cromwell, bending his knee, and -the Jesuit, keenly regarding him, made a slight motion of benediction, -murmuring, “Bless you, my son.” - -“And now,” continued Bradford, in a less formal manner, “let us at once -seek the shelter of James Cole’s roof and mine, and escape this biting -wind, of which, Captain, you will already have had more than enough, as -I opine.” - -The buccaneer assented, and speaking a rapid word or two among the men -surrounding him, sent the mass of them to the tavern with a stern -injunction to sobriety and decency; then calling the commanders of the -three ships, he presented them to Bradford, who at once extended his -invitation to them, and led the way to the house, where a merry fire -and refreshments were found awaiting them, but nobody was to be seen. - -“I wonder through which crevice that little schemer is peeping,” said -Father Drouillette to himself as he took snuff and presented his box to -Cromwell, who took a pinch, and absorbing it delicately, said,-- - -“You must let me offer you a jar of Spanish mixture, prepared, as I -hear, especially for the Archbishop of Toledo, who is curious in his -tobacco. It is most agreeably scented with vanilla, and carries a -certain odor of incense that arouses very devout reminiscences in the -mind of a poor wanderer like myself.” - -“My poor nose would indeed feel itself honored by a pinch of such truly -ecclesiastical snuff as you describe. But as I sail with the morning -tide, I fear I shall not have the opportunity of trying it,” replied -the Jesuit; and Cromwell, after a moment’s thought, suggested,-- - -“Unless, reverend sir, you would do me the honor of sleeping on board -the Golden Fleece, as my ship is called. I can offer you a decent bed, -and my fellows will doubtless purvey in this good town the material for -a breakfast. Shall I have the honor of entertaining your reverence?” - -“I shall be most happy to accept your hospitality, my son, if Governor -Bradford will accept my humble excuses for cutting short my visit to -him,” began the priest; but before he could finish, a door at the end -of the room quietly opened, and Gillian, with downcast eyes and air of -timid modesty, glided to Bradford’s side, murmuring: - -“Our dame fain would know how many beds we shall prepare. She says -there are plenty for all the gentlemen.” - -“St. Anthony befriend us! Is that the daughter of our worthy host?” -whispered Cromwell to the priest, who only shook his head, and rising -from his chair said in English,-- - -“Master Bradford, will you hold me excused if I accept this gentleman’s -invitation to pass the night aboard his vessel? It may be more -convenient for my early embarkation, and less disturbance to your -household.” - -“You shall perfectly suit your own convenience, sir,” replied Bradford -in his calm and gentle fashion, although the murmured colloquies of -priest and buccaneer had rather annoyed him; “but you will all take -your supper with us, I trust. Gillian, you may tell the mistress that -these five gentlemen will sup with us, but prefer to sleep on board -ship.” - -That night Captain Cromwell transferred a curious chronicle of the -misdoings of a year past from his own conscience to the custody of the -priest, and received some very sensible and practical advice. But at -the end of all, the penitent, with a gesture of deference, declared,-- - -“You’re right, father, doubtless right, both as priest and man of the -world; but I feel it in my marrow that yon lass is my fate, and ’tis -useless striving against it. Those eyes of hers pierced my heart to the -core when first they met mine own, and when at supper she served me -with meat and drink, no nectar or ambrosia was ever more Olympian.” - -“Well, well, my son,” answered the priest indulgently, “I say not -you shall not marry the maid if she will have you; but I forebode -it will be a marriage of haste, most vainly repented of at leisure. -I spoke with the governor about her, and find she is a penniless -orphan, although connected with the family of their late teacher, Elder -Brewster, as they called him; and Mistress Gillian is under the austere -protection of the governor and his most sweet and gracious lady. Your -wooing, if you persist in this mad intention, must be wholly honorable -and worthy. Remember that, my son!” and the priest’s voice assumed a -stern and authoritative accent, which the penitent accepted with a bend -of his head while he replied,-- - -“Most positively so, father. The homeless maid shall become Mistress -Cromwell, with all the pomp and ceremony”-- - -“Of Master Bradford’s office,” interposed the Jesuit. “For these -poor rebels to our dear Mother’s authority are only married by civil -process, and scorn the church’s benediction.” - -“Is that the way of it!” exclaimed Cromwell, a little dismayed. “Well, -I will bring my bride to Manhattan or to Virginia, where you tell me -you are to found a college, and our nuptials shall be blessed there. -The civil rite binds us so far as law is concerned.” - -“Man’s law, yes,” replied the priest dryly; “and I will trust your -word to fulfill this promise, if indeed you carry out your most rash -resolve.” - -“I shall carry it out, father,” asserted the buccaneer quietly. “’Tis -my way.” - -The next morning Father Drouillette, the richer by a gloriously -illuminated missal, a gold crucifix set with five great rubies, and -half a dozen jars of the Archbishop of Toledo’s snuff, embarked on -board the fisherman, while Cromwell took up his quarters at Cole’s -tavern, which woke to such thriving business as it had never known -before. Examination of the brigantines showed two of them to be in -need of extensive repairs in consequence not only of the storm which -had driven them into Plymouth, but of the long cruise preceding it; -and as this cruise had been exceedingly prosperous, the mariners, who -during the next month pervaded the town and made acquaintance with most -of its inhabitants, scattered their money and precious commodities of -various sorts in such profusion that Governor Winthrop, of Boston, in -chronicling this visit, attributes the storm that drove the buccaneer -into Plymouth to a divine interposition intended for the maintenance of -the impoverished town, threatened with utter desertion and destruction. - -Nor was the leader less generous and profuse than his more reckless -followers, so that not only were the governor’s family overwhelmed with -as many rich gifts as he could be prevailed on to allow them to accept, -but nearly every one of the poorer families was so substantially -relieved as to give all new hope and energy to help themselves. - -Not a week from the day of his arrival had elapsed before Cromwell -sought an interview with the governor, and, without mentioning that he -already had obtained her full consent to his proposals, offered himself -as a suitor for Mistress Gillian’s hand. Bradford, utterly amazed at -the idea, would at the first have absolutely set it aside, declaring -that such a sudden fancy could have no substantial foundation, and was -unworthy of discussion; but when next the governor was closeted with -his wife, he discovered that in her mind this marriage was a scheme to -be encouraged as much as possible, and at the last, a little impatient -of masculine density, the wife exclaimed,-- - -“’Tis an honorable and safe way out of the moil we have been stirring -in, since first we made Gillian one of our family; and so that she -desires it, and he hath means and will to care for her, all that -remains, if she has Love Brewster’s consent, is for me to make up the -piece of brocade Cromwell hath given her into a wedding gown, and for -you to bind them fast in matrimony.” - -“Say you so, Elsie, say you so?” demanded the governor, pausing in the -perilous operation of shaving his chin to stare into the mirror at -his wife, who was settling her cap at one corner. “Why, I fancied you -prized Gillian’s company and daughterly service above all things.” - -“I can spare it,” briefly replied Alice Bradford with an inscrutable -smile. - -“But hasn’t the child won a place in your affections, wife?” - -“She has in yours and Will’s and Joseph’s, and that’s three parts of -the family.” - -“Surely, Alice, you’ve not turned jealous?” - -“You lightly me, William, when you ask if I am jealous of--of Gillian.” - -“I do not comprehend,” murmured the governor, resuming his razor, but -presently suspending it to demand with considerable energy,-- - -“You really mean, then, that as honest and Godfearing guardians of this -child we should give her in marriage to this stranger?” - -“Yes, I do. When all is said, she is almost as much a stranger as he, -and I know not why they should not suit each other well.” - -“So be it. I will tell the man, and do you speak as a mother should to -the maid. ’Tis not like you, Alice, to be bitter.” - -“I shall not love her the better, if you are to chide me on her -account, Will.” - -“Nay, chide thee, sweetheart! ’Twould ill befit me to chide the better -half of mine own life.” - -So the suitor received permission to woo his bride openly, and Gillian -presently so shone with jewels, and so rustled about in gorgeous -raiment, that matrons and maids suspended their work to run to the -doors and watch her as she passed by. - - - - -CHAPTER XXXIV. - -THE HILT OF A RAPIER. - - -“Voysye! Hold on, man! Here, come along back!” - -“Belay your jaw, you landlubber! I’m bound to overhaul that clipper -before she gets away! Cast off your grapnel, or”-- - -And twisting his arm away from Francis Billington, with whom he had -been drinking until both men had had more than enough, Richard Voysye, -seaman of the Golden Fleece, set out to overtake the female figure -which had just flitted past them in the twilight. Billington, not so -tipsy as the sailor, lunged forward in pursuit, and once more grasping -his arm exclaimed,-- - -“’Tis the young dame your captain is going to marry, I tell you, and -’twill go hard with the man that affronts her”-- - -“Hang the captain, and you too! There, then, you fool--take that!” - -Delivering, as he spoke, a cruel blow in the face of his opponent, -Voysye felled him to the ground, and pursuing Gillian, who hearing the -scuffle had paused to look behind her, threw a rude arm around her -waist, crying,-- - -“Come, now, I’ll have one kiss, if I die for’t.” - -But Gillian, lithe as a cat, struggled and fought after her kind, so -successfully that the ruffian had not been able to snatch his kiss -before a heavy foot reached him with a kick, and a furious voice roared -in his ear,-- - -“Avast there, you”--but the epithets are not writable, and in these -days no man, however angry, would use them in a woman’s presence. -They were, however, effectual, for with an oath quite as furious and -quite as unmentionable, Voysye quitted his hold upon the girl’s waist -and, turning, aimed at Cromwell’s face a buffet which, however, only -reached his shoulder. Angered, not so much at the assault as the -insubordination, the captain seized his sheathed rapier, and dealt with -the hilt a blow upon the sailor’s head which prostrated him, bleeding -and senseless, at Gillian’s feet. - -“You’ve killed him, and they’ll hang you for murder!” cried she. “Hide -him, and get away with your vessels before it’s found out.” - -“And would you go with me?” demanded Cromwell, gazing curiously in the -girl’s fierce, flushed face. - -“Yes--no--yes, if you could get clear, and save your neck and your -money,” returned Gillian with cynical frankness. - -“Ay, I thought as much, Mistress,” retorted the sailor, “and I’m a fool -to care for such a woman; but still I do, and when I go you shall go -too, or if I’m hung you shall have the price of a soul. Thirty pieces -satisfied Judas, didn’t it?” - -“Here’s another man coming,” replied Gillian coldly, and with no more -words she walked away, while Cromwell, turning to the new-comer, said,-- - -“Well, Higgins, I’m beholden to you for setting me on his track, and -here he is. He lifted his hand on me, and I felled him with a tap of my -cutlass hilt. See if he’s hurt.” - -Higgins, a man of few words, stared for a moment into his captain’s -face, looked after the retreating figure of Gillian, and then kneeling -beside his comrade fingered the wound awhile, mumbling, “Hurt, I should -say! ’Tis a shrewd wound i’faith! A parlous cut! ’Tis life and death, -and nigher death than life, to my mind.” - -“Nonsense, man,” replied Cromwell a little uneasily. “A great hulking -fellow like that don’t die of a tap on his numskull. Run you into the -village and fetch a surgeon. Hasten, now, and when you’ve sent him, see -about some sort of litter, that we may take him to Cole’s tavern.” - -“’Tis no use,” grumbled Higgins, but still scrambled to his feet, and -set off at such good speed that in half an hour Doctor Matthew Fuller, -nephew and successor of our old friend Doctor Samuel, was on the spot -and encouraging the wounded man’s efforts toward consciousness. But so -soon as he could sit up and speak, Voysye, true to his nature, paid -his surgeon’s bill with a curse, responded to his captain’s rough -expressions of amity with sulky silence, and scorning the litter, or -even the support of a friendly arm, staggered off toward the shore, and -as soon as possible got aboard ship and comforted his wound with as -much Santa Cruz rum as he could obtain, seasoning it with dire threats -of vengeance against Higgins, who prudently kept out of his way. - -“’Tis an ill wind blown over,” reported Cromwell to his sweetheart that -night; and so it might have proved but that Voysye, waking next morning -in the dispositions natural to a man who has a fevered wound across -his head, and has gone to bed very drunk, insisted upon going ashore -to find and fight with Higgins, who had, as he knew, reported him to -the captain. In the captain’s absence all discipline had fallen into -such disrepute that nobody opposed the half-delirious movements of the -wounded man, who went ashore, roved around for a while, and finally, -just as he had discovered Higgins and was pointing a pistol at his -head, was seized with convulsions, and twenty-four hours later lay a -dead man in an upper chamber of Cole’s tavern. - -So serious a matter as this could not be suffered to pass unnoticed -by the authorities, and with some grave expressions of regret and an -assurance of honorable treatment, Captain Cromwell was placed under -arrest and lodged in the strong-room of the Fort under guardianship of -Lieutenant Holmes, while a messenger was dispatched to Captain’s Hill -to summon Standish to a conference with the governor and the others -of his council; for the sailor had requested to be tried by a court -martial, and who but the General Officer of all the Colonies could -organize and head it? With the great captain came Lieutenant Nash, and -Ensign-bearer Constant Southworth, with Hatherley, Alden, Willett, -Cudworth, and other of the Duxbury men, so that for some days Plymouth -assumed the air of a garrisoned place in time of war, much to the -delight of Gillian, and perhaps some other of the lonely maids of the -almost deserted town. - -The court martial, formal and dignified in its proceedings and -absolutely just in its dealings, lasted for a whole day, and much -testimony to Cromwell’s generous and humane treatment of his men was -rendered, as well as a good deal most unfavorable to the character of -the dead man, who seems to have been a very drunken and brutal fellow. -The only possible testimony as to the rencontre was that of Gillian, -and this she was most anxious to be permitted to give in person before -the court; but here both Bradford and Brewster interposed, and -insisted that a written affidavit made and sworn before the governor -should be accepted, a course indorsed by Standish with great alacrity. - -In the end Cromwell was acquitted, but not without an exhortation from -Parson Rayner, the Chaplain of the Commission, to greater reverence and -tenderness for human life, to which the prisoner listened respectfully, -but Standish with a covert smile playing around the sadness of his -mouth, as he recalled a similar reproach long ago made to him by John -Robinson, now many years gone to his rest. - -Perhaps as a mark of respect to the court martial that had tried and -acquitted him, possibly as a late testimony to his tenderness for -human life, Cromwell’s first act as a free man was to order a military -funeral for Voysye, and to request the presence of the train band -of Plymouth, to every member of which he presented a piece of black -taffeta to make a mourning cloak. - -“And now I will marry you,” said Gillian, when next she saw her lover -alone; but he, with a queer smile, replied,-- - -“Think better of it, my dear! my money is well-nigh spent, and I feel -it in my bones that the next court martial will order me to be shot. -You’ll make a poor bargain, and that’s not to your mind.” - -“A poor bargain indeed!” retorted Gillian, her temper flaming up; and -as John Alden’s boat was over from Duxbury she begged a passage in -it, and an hour later was on her way to visit Betty Pabodie, as she -pretended, but really to torment Sarah Brewster, who felt that she had -no right to refuse her willful kinswoman shelter whenever she claimed -it. - -A few days later Cromwell sailed for Boston, where he remained for some -months, presented Governor Winthrop with an elegant sedan-chair, taken -out of one of his prizes, and was much admired and petted. Whether -Gillian joined him there and was openly married to him, or whether the -innate romance pervasive of the sea moved Cromwell to plan and execute -an elopement for the girl, whose relatives would have been only too -glad to give her to any worthy husband, we cannot tell; but that in -some way they at last came together is evident, and also that they were -married, since she was allowed to inherit his property. The manner -of his death was one of those marvels which men then regarded as a -direct judgment from heaven, but which we moderns are content to call a -strange coincidence. - -It was in the late autumn, and Cromwell, after a merry feast at the -house of a boon companion in Dorchester, was riding rapidly homeward, -when his horse slipped upon an icy slope, and threw his rider violently -over his head. The night passed, and in the morning a wayfarer found -the faithful beast standing pensive and patient beside his master’s -prostrate body, now cold and stiff; and when he was brought into the -town and carried to his lodgings a wild-eyed woman rushed to meet -him, and staring at the wound whence his lifeblood had drained away, -shrieked, “’Tis Voysye’s hurt over again,” and fell in a swoon across -the body. - -John Higgins, who had followed his captain’s body home, started in -terror at that word, and coming forward drew away the hair from the -wound, stared at it as Gillian had done, and hoarsely asked,-- - -“Was’t Voysye’s spook did it?” - -“Nay, man,” impatiently answered the man who had found him. “See you -not that ’twas the hilt of the poor gentleman’s own rapier did it? When -I came upon him, the brass was bedded in the wound, and you may see the -blood and hairs upon it now. See!” - -“Ay, I see,” replied Higgins heavily. “And well do I know, without -seeing, whose hand it was that urged the hilt to just that spot upon my -poor captain’s head. Wow! But I wish I might have seen the tussle that -befell when the old man got free of his carcase and fell upon Voysye -man to man; nay, spook to spook. Would they still be at it, think you?” - -In a month or so more, Gillian, a very wealthy young widow, sailed for -England, where she married a pious and passing rich old Covenanter, -whom she also survived, and became one of the gayest and least -prejudiced ladies of the Court of Charles the Second, where we will -leave her. - - - - -CHAPTER XXXV. - -CANARY WINE AND SEED-CAKE. - - -It was in what Captain William Pierce called the ebb of the afternoon; -that dreamy, quiet leisure hour that falls in country places when the -heavy work and heavy feeding of the day are over, and the evening -milking and bedding the cattle and providing the pleasant meal called -supper still lie in the middle distance. - -Priscilla, our own Priscilla, not forgotten or unloved, -although unmentioned and a little hidden behind the throng of -new-comers,--Priscilla Alden stood in the thrifty orchard of pear and -apple trees, planted twenty years before by her goodman, trees whose -lineal descendants may to-day be found in the place of the old ones, -just as Aldens still till the Aldens’ farm. - -At the edge of the orchard a row of lime-trees shaded the well and -the southern door of the comfortable house, and beneath these trees -were set the beehives, whose dainty denizens loved the golden blossoms -so well that from morning until night they swarmed up and down their -fragrant pasture, making a sound like the surf upon a pebbly shore. -Priscilla is gone, those trees, those bees are gone, and you and I are -going, but the bees of to-day swarm just as vigorously through this -lime-tree at my window as those did then, and as the bees of two or -three centuries hence will through the trees whose seeds are not yet -planted. Only man is ephemeral and changeable: the bees and the trees -are conservative. - -Some such idea, but too vague to be recognized by an unspeculative -brain, floated through Priscilla’s mind as, leaning against the trunk -of her favorite pear-tree, she gazed up into the yellow lime blossoms, -listened to the bees, and remembered the years when she and John had -planted the trees, while their little children looked on and asked -questions. - -“Ah well, ah well!” murmured she at last. “’Tis their nature to -swarm--the children and the bees, both; and Betty shall have the best -hive as soon as they’re settled. Ah me!” - -Then with one of her old impetuous motions Priscilla dashed her hands -across her eyes and cleared them of the coming tears. Good, kindly, -honest eyes still, if not so bright or so brown as they were once, and -as Betty’s are now; and a comely matron face, albeit the colors are -somewhat ripened; and the chestnut hair, lined with a silver thread -here and there, is put back under a matron’s coif, but the mobile lips -still disclose perfect teeth, and John Alden still holds it a delight -to take a kiss from those lips, and put his finger under that smooth, -round chin. ’Tis no more than later summer yet, and the frosts of -autumn are as yet far distant. - -“Ah well, ah well!” said Priscilla once more, and restlessly plucked a -rose or two from the tall bush beside the door, those old-fashioned, -sweet white roses now almost forgotten. As she pinned them in the -kerchief covering her bosom, the matron paused, and with eye and ear -questioned the grassy path leading from the new-made highway to the -front of their own house. Yes, a horse was heavily trotting up the -path, and, going around the corner of the house, Priscilla was just -in time to meet Mistress Standish, mounted upon a pillion, with John -Haward in the saddle. - -“And glad am I to see you, Barbara,” cried she, embracing and kissing -her friend with more vivacity than most mothers of her day ventured to -show. “’Tis a sight for sore eyes to look upon you. Where have you been -keeping yourself?” - -“Where housewives must--at home,” replied Barbara pleasantly. “John, -you can lift the saddle and cool the mare’s back, but I shall not tarry -over an hour, so hold you within call.” - -“Nay, you’ll stay supper,” remonstrated Priscilla as the two women -went into the house, and the hostess removed her guest’s riding gear. -“There’s a moon, you know.” - -“Ay, and there’s a goodman at home,” retorted Barbara, and then, her -face suddenly losing its somewhat artificial air of cheerfulness, she -looked piteously in her friend’s eyes and said with a catch in her -voice,-- - -“’Tis about him, about Myles, that I’ve come to see you, Priscilla.” - -“Why, what is the matter, dear? Is the captain ailing more than usual?” - -“No, though he’s far from well, and naught angers him so quick as -saying so; but that’s not the worst. ’Tis his soul that’s sick, -Priscilla.” - -“But how? Has the parson been at him again to join the church?” - -“Nay, I’m afraid Master Partridge will never look over the things Myles -said the last time he urged him so vehemently, and the captain gave way -to the ache in his back, that he says is ever with him, and let out a -strange oath or two about meddling parsons and I know not what. To be -sure’t was in Dutch, but I think parson spelled out enough of it to -anger him, and”-- - -“And serve him right, plaguing a sick man with the catechism,” broke in -Priscilla. “But if not that, what is it ails the captain?” - -“Why, it’s not so much the captain that’s ailing as Josiah, poor boy.” - -“Josiah ailing!” - -“Yes, with a sore and sharp disease called love-sickness, Priscilla. -You know he’s sweethearted Mary Dingley these five years or more, and a -dear, pretty, loving little maid she is.” - -“Yes, and what’s come across their courting?” - -“Why, there’s where Myles is distraught. Before our Lora went, you know -she and Mary Dingley were closer than sisters, and while my poor girl -lay sick Mary was ever at her side, and helped us dress her for her -burying”-- - -“Ah, the sweet saint, how pure and holy she looked when we had done!” -murmured Priscilla, but Barbara hurriedly raised her hand. - -“Nay, talk not on ’t, or I shall lose sight of all else. ’Tis only by -times I dare to speak of her. You know when our Alick married your -Sally, his father would fain have had them come home to live; but -Sally had liever keep her own house, and Alick felt himself old enough -to be goodman,--and, well, never mind all that, but Josiah talked to -me--you know he was ever my own boy--at that time, and he said when he -and his Molly got wed, ’twould be his wish and will and her pleasure -to come home to us, and be the stay of our old age, and so ’twas -settled; but then my poor maid took sick, and there was no thought of -aught but her in the house, and when she was gone, Josiah, who loved -her tenderly, said not a word until the year came round and more, and -then, man fashion, he spoke out more honestly than shrewdly to his -father and me together, and said ’t was time now that he was wed, and -he would fain bring his wife to us to fill the place of her that was -gone. Mayhap ’twas just the word ‘fill the place’ that angered Lora’s -father; perhaps he forgot that he was young himself once, and that God -lightens the burdens that he lays upon young hearts lest they should be -broken before they’re used, while to us that have well-nigh done our -work he lets grief crush out this world’s life that we may be ready for -the next. But, however that may be, the captain took mortal offense at -the thought of any young woman filling Lora’s place at the hearth or -in the love of those who mourned her and should ever mourn her, and he -said things that no temper but one so sweet as my Josiah’s could have -brooked. If it had been Myles, he would have broke out at his father -and given as good as he got, and when o’ stormy nights I think of my -poor sailor lad at sea, I comfort myself with the thought that he’s -safe from breaking the fifth commandment. But there, ’tis not of son -Myles I’m speaking, but of poor Josiah.” - -“And he took his father’s rating in brave patience as he ever does,--so -Alick says,” said Alick’s mother-in-law. - -“Yes. Then Alick has told you of our trouble?” demanded Barbara almost -jealously, but Priscilla hastened to reply,-- - -“Oh, no. Only he loves to magnify his brother, who is more than dear to -him. But go on, Bab, with your story.” - -“Well, dear, I tried to talk with the captain when we were alone, but -the wound was too deep and too angry to bear much handling, and so I -e’en left it to nature and to grace. But at the end he consented that -Josiah should marry, and he would talk with John Dingley about setting -up the young folks, and he promised never to say another bitter word to -Josiah about it; but on the other hand he would not go to the marriage, -and he bade me tell the poor lad that he was not to bring his lass to -the house either before or after they were married, for no, not for one -half hour should Lora’s place be filled, nor should any woman call him -father so long as he lived.” - -“He bade Alick tell Sally as much as that, and she hasn’t been anigh -your house since,” interposed Sally’s mother indignantly; but Barbara -raised her shadowy blue eyes so piteously, and looked so imploringly -into her friend’s face, that a misty softness suddenly filled -Priscilla’s own eyes, and petting the other’s hand she said,-- - -“There, there, gossip, ’tis all right! Go on, go on.” - -And Barbara, smiling faintly as one well used to control her own -feelings, and to make allowance for the impetuosity of others, went on: -“So I told Josiah, and he told Mary, and she her father and mother, and -not one of them would hearken to any marriage so shadowed, nor could I -blame them. All that was a year ago, and Josiah has been as good a son -as ever man could ask ever since; but a week apast or so, he spoke to -me, and said his youth was going, and Mary was of full age, and ’twas -not right that he should ask her to wait in her father’s house till her -younger sisters were married over her head, and he had made up his mind -to go to Connecticut and make a home whereto he might carry his wife. -John Haward could manage the farm, and Hobomok the fishing and boats, -and perhaps his brother Myles after this voyage would settle down -awhile at home. Oh, Priscilla, when I heard that word I felt as if the -end had come, and I must e’en lay down under the burthen that I could -not carry. Alick gone, and Myles gone, and my one sweet maid gone, and -my two dear little fellows left over on Burying Hill at Plymouth, and -now Josiah, the one whom, God forgive me, I haply loved the best”-- - -“No, no, it sha’n’t be, it can’t be,” interrupted Priscilla -impulsively. “Myles shall listen to reason; he shall see that what he -calls grief has grown into cruel selfishness. I’ll tell him so; I’ll -talk to him”-- - -“’Twas what I came to ask of you, dear Pris! Well do I know, that -from the days before I came until now, Myles has held you in singular -tenderness, and you may say to him things that no one else dare, and -that I will not say lest he mistake it for chiding, or for want of -love, or--well, now, how can I say it, Priscilla, but you know as well -as I, that when a woman has once made her husband ashamed of himself, -she has lost what she never will recover in his eyes. Our masters love -not to be mastered by a woman, and she the one sworn to obedience.” - -“And so you’d put me in that place and make sure that hereafter Myles -shall not love me too well!” exclaimed Priscilla petulantly, and in -the same breath added, “No, no, that was but a peevish jest, and you -know it, Bab. Wait, now, till I take counsel with myself, for there’s -a thought lurking somewhere in the back of my head that I’d fain catch -and look in’s face before I say more.” - -And jumping up, Priscilla went to a cupboard, and taking out a decanter -of canary wine and a loaf of seed-cake, placed them before her guest -with a napkin and a sheath-knife. Then, lifting a forefinger to silence -Barbara’s acknowledgments, she went to the open door, and stood -plucking some withered leaves and faded flowers from the white rosebush -with automatic tidiness, but with a mind altogether unconscious of the -body’s occupation. - -A few moments of summer silence followed, that living silence of summer -so different from the deadly silence of winter, and then, suddenly -flinging her handful of leaves and roses upon the ground, Priscilla -turned, and coming back into the room cried triumphantly, “I have it -now, Barbara! ’Tis Betty!” - -“Betty!” echoed Barbara dropping the morsel of cake from between her -fingers. “What about Betty?” - -“She’s the one to speak to Myles about Josiah and Mary Dingley.” - -“Betty!” - -“Yes, Betty. See here, now, woman; ’tisn’t that I’m afeard of -Myles,--the dear knows that I never yet quailed before the face of man; -but, Bab, you’ve hit on one sad truth about our masters, and I’ll give -you another. They ill brook to be taught by their wives, say you, and -I will add, they still love a fair young face better than one whereon -they’ve watched the wrinkles come and the bloom fade out. Some thirty -years ago I was a comely lass enough, and our gallant captain thought -me so; but he’s seen me at least five times a sennight ever since, and -I could tell you well-nigh the day he stared long and shrewdly in my -face and said in his heart, ‘She’s lost her comeliness’”-- - -“Nay, nay, Pris, he’s said more than once that Sally’s not a patch upon -her mother.” - -“Upon what her mother was once, was what he meant, gossip, no matter -what he said. Oh, don’t tell me, Bab! If I know naught else in this -world, I know Priscilla Alden, and I can spell out a page or so of -Myles Standish. But pass all that, and come to Betty. - -“It’s not only that she’s far comelier than ever her mother was, but -she’s fresh and new in her matronhood; as a maid she held her tongue -before her elders as a maid should do, and I’ll lay you a pretty penny -that the captain don’t guess she has a tongue, and a headpiece to keep -it in, that’ll match any man in the colony, if once she starts out. Now -what I say is, that she shall go in boldly, as Esther did to Ahasuerus, -and speak her mind, and as Esther said, If she die, she dies. Thank -goodness, the captain can’t kill her outright, and she can stand a -strange word or two in Dutch better than poor Parson Partridge did.” - -“Well, ’tis an idea to think on,” replied Barbara slowly, and -Priscilla, knowing that the matter was settled, smiled the smile of a -contented diplomat, and brushing the cake crumbs into the napkin, shook -them out of the door before she quietly clenched the matter by saying,-- - -“I’m going over to Betty’s in the morning, and I’ll speak to her.” - - - - -CHAPTER XXXVI. - -BETTY BEARDS THE LION. - - -It was perhaps a week later, but as fair and peaceful a summer evening -as that when Priscilla Alden showed herself more worldly-wise than -vain, that Myles Standish, according to his constant custom, climbed -the Captain’s Hill to sit upon the sunset seat, and with sad eyes -fixed upon the horizon line to muse in lonely bitterness upon the -sorrow he endured but did not accept. Half an hour of solitude no -more than sufficed to deaden the physical pain, aggravated by the -steep climb, against which the soldier in his latter years fought in -the grim silence of hopelessness, and with a long breath of relief he -leaned back against one of the trees supporting the seat and wiped his -forehead. The sound of a light footstep, the rustle of a woman’s dress, -disturbed him, and with a sudden flush of emotion he turned, half -fancying that Lora herself had come to meet him at her favorite tryst. - -But instead of the fair pale face, the golden hair, and spiritual blue -eyes of his daughter, it was the joyous and brilliant face of Betty -Alden, or as we now must learn to call her, Bettie Pabodie, subdued -indeed by tenderest sympathy, but rich in color, in light, in abounding -health, that met his gaze, and with a peevish exclamation he turned -away, fixing his eyes again upon the water. - -“Mayn’t I come and sit with you a little minute, Captain?” asked -Betty, seeing and hearing all, but noticing nothing, and without -waiting for reply she sank down upon the other end of the bench, and -for some minutes remained quite silent; then she said very softly,-- - -“I came here to find you, sir, for it seemed to me the fittest place.” - -“For what?” asked the father hoarsely, as his unwelcome companion -paused. - -“To speak of one I loved more than ever I loved mine own sisters.” And -the round firm voice grew very sweetly tender and tremulous, for it -spoke no more than the truth. - -“I cannot talk of her--I know you loved her, and she you--but”-- - -Again there was silence, for the great heart bled inwardly and made no -sign. At last the girl ventured again:-- - -“Oh, forgive me, sir, if I seem to fail of respect to your wish, or of -tenderness to your exceeding sorrow, but there’s something she fain -would have you know. God forgive me if I profanely touch his mysteries, -but it seems to me that she who has gone straight to his presence has -been sent to bring to mind words she spoke and I never yet have dared -repeat. Will you say nay to her wish, dear and honored friend?” - -“Words she said?” echoed the father, and, uncovering his face, he -turned and fixed upon Betty such stern demanding eyes, that even her -high courage almost quailed; but though her lips turned pale, she -steadfastly replied,-- - -“Yes, words she said in the night before she went. Only I heard them.” - -“And God,” suggested the captain as severely as if he were -administering an oath. - -“And God who hears me now,” replied Betty, her eyes meeting his so -bravely and so truthfully that his own softened as he said,-- - -“I marvel that you feared to tell me anything I ought to know.” - -“I did not exactly fear, sir, but I knew ’twould be unwelcome, and -mayhap too soon to do good.” - -“Well. Leave skirmishing, and come out boldly with whatever it may be. -I’ll listen, at least.” - -And folding his arms and setting his lips, the soldier faced her with -just the mien he would have worn in submitting to an amputation upon -the field of battle. An answering courage lighted the face of the -young woman, and although Standish did not then consciously notice how -beautiful she was, doubtless that beauty made itself felt. - -But brave as she was, Betty could not steadily endure the sombre flame -of eyes that seemed to pierce the very core of her heart, and her own -gaze, after a little wandering, fixed upon the thatched roof-tree in -the plain below, where her baby girl lay asleep in its cradle, and her -voice was calm and steady as she made reply. - -“It was in the last night that our dear Lora was with us, and you had -just gone somewhat hastily out of the room and out of the house”-- - -“Ay.” - -“And Lora looked after you a moment while her lips moved in prayer. -Then she turned to me and said,-- - -“‘Dear father! He’ll miss me sore, and he’ll grieve out of measure that -he denied me my love,’”-- - -A bitter, bitter groan burst from the father’s lips, and he buried his -face in his hands for a moment, but uttered no word. Betty paused for a -moment, and went on more softly,-- - -“‘But tell him when he can bear it,’ said she, ‘that it made no -difference and it did no harm. Before ever Wrestling spoke to me I had -heard one say to my soul, The Master hath come and calleth for thee! -and I have long been ready, ay, and fain to go.’” - -“Said she so! Said my maid so! ‘Ready, ay, and fain to go’?” - -“They are her very words, her very, very words.” - -“I can believe it; I can believe my own lass would find some way to -comfort me, even from the grave where she is laid.” - -“Nay, dear sir, from the heaven whither she has gone to live forever.” - -“I can believe that, too, from your lips, child, for you come to me as -an angel. More, tell me more.” - -“I cannot tell all her words after those, for she grew faint and weak, -and much was lost, but I gathered that her mind dwelt much upon some -story Gillian Brewster had told her of a far away foreign convent, and -she spoke of the leaves of a great tree that ever waved across an open -door, and brought cool breezes to her head. I believe she wandered a -little in her mind, and then she grew very still, and after a while she -opened her eyes and smiled up into mine the while she whispered, ‘’Tis -Mary and not Sally that will comfort him best. She’ll be a daughter -to him in a place next to mine. Tell him so.’ Then she shut her eyes -again, and we spoke no more alone.” - -“And it is all true truth?” - -“All God’s truth, sir. Oh, do you think I could say otherwise?” - -“No. I know you could not. Wait.” And with his head bowed upon his -breast the captain took counsel with himself for many minutes. At last -he looked at Betty, whose bright face now was pale with exhaustion, and -said almost harshly,-- - -“I knew not that she cared overmuch for Mary Dingley; they were little -enough alike.” - -“No; but don’t you see, sir,” replied Betty with a sort of sweet -impatience, “that it was not her own likings or her own pleasure -she was thinking of, but of you and your happiness? Even if she had -misliked Mary and knew she would be a good daughter to you, she would -have said the same.” - -“Yes, yes, you’re right, girl, you’re right, and I’m but a poor, blind, -selfish old man. She’d have me think of others more than of myself. The -mother getting old and no daughter to help her, no little children to -cheer her,--yes, I see, my maid, I see, and I’ll do your bidding--if I -can.” - -“Oh, no, sir, not my bidding”-- - -“I know, I know, lass, and for all thy high spirit thou wert ever -maiden meek and mild to thine elders. But it was not to thee I spoke -just then. Yet now I will have thee to advise with me, for, truth to -tell, I am a little fogged and stunned with all these matters, and -since my sweet maid left me I’ve grown old and doddering--no, never -mind naysaying me, I know what I know. What I will have thee tell me, -Betty, is this. Shall I--would Lora have me bid Josiah bring his wife -home--and let her sit in--Oh, my God! I cannot, I cannot”-- - -He covered his face again, and for some moments Betty sat in respectful -silence, then, moving nearer, laid a light touch upon the shoulder -heaving under its mighty struggle for self-control. - -“Not in Lora’s place, dear sir,” said she softly. “No one can take that -e’en if she would, and Mary Dingley would not an she could. I know her -well, and a milder, gentler, sweeter maid no longer lives on earth. She -is one who will ever bear your grief in mind, yet never speak of it; -one who will give you a daughter’s duty and tendance, yet never press -for a daughter’s freedom; one who will love you as much as you will let -her, yet never be nettled at thought you do not love her as you might. -She is as fond of Josiah as woman can be of man, yet modest and meek -and shamefast as a maid should ever be. Oh, sir, she is a girl among a -thousand, I do assure you, and if you will open house and heart to her -you shall never, never repent of it.” - -“The maid must be worth something who can claim so leal a friend in -you, Betty Alden.” - -And across that worn and haggard face gleamed a smile such as had not -been seen there since Lora died. The certainty of success shot like -a sharp pain through Betty’s heart, and for a moment broke down the -courage which failure would only have stimulated. Turning suddenly -away, and leaning her head against a tree-trunk, she drew a long, -gasping breath and burst into tears. - -Was not Priscilla’s intuition justified, and her theory proven? Had it -been she herself, or any woman of her age and strong character, she -would have learned self-control and so lost her best weapon; or if she -had fallen into tears, the man would have simply felt that the weakness -of age had overtaken her, and would have doubted the soundness of her -advice. But when sweet-and-twenty weeps honestly and fervidly, and -from a loving, honest heart, no man between thirty and seventy looks -unmoved upon those tears; nor did Myles Standish, as hastily rising he -hovered over the girl, not touching her, for no Spaniard ever treated -his Infanta with more respect than this true gentleman showed to every -woman, but pulling out a great handkerchief and making little futile -efforts to apply it, while he incoherently exclaimed in almost the -voice he might have used to Lora,-- - -“Why, there now, there, dear heart,--nay, child, for pity’s sake--why, -my little lass, don’t ’ee take on so. Nay, what shall I say to pleasure -thee? Come, now, Betty, come, now, dry up thine eyes like a good girl, -and I’ll give thee--what shall I give thee? If thou wert mine own lass -I’d give thee a kiss”-- - -“And I’ll give you one as it is, sir,” cried Betty, and turning like a -flash, she threw her arms around the old man’s neck and pressed upon -his cheek two lips so soft, so warm, so sweet, that a streak of dark -red mounted to his temples, and taking the girl’s head between his -hands he kissed her forehead with a strange stir of reverent tenderness -at his heart. - -“Betty, my lass, thou’st done a good work to-day,” said he simply, and -she, with a smile and a, sob struggling for preëminence, murmured,-- - -“Thank God!” - - - - -CHAPTER XXXVII. - -“MARY STANDISH, MY DEAR DAUGHTER-IN-LAW.” - - -The lime-trees have shed not only flowers but fruit, and the bees are -adding to their clover and clethra honey a last deposit from latest -hollyhocks and goldenrod. The apples lie in fragrant piles beneath the -orchard trees, or in a less worthy heap beside the cider mill; the -maize and the pumpkins gleam in merry gold, exulting over the withered -foliage that in their non-age flaunted above their heads; the barns are -bursting, and the cattle sleek with plenteous corn; it is the jocund -time of year when Mother Earth spreads an abundant board, and calls her -children to eat and give thanks to their Creator and hers. - -The waters of Duxbury Bay, placid and gleaming with the hazy sunlight -of the Indian summer, reflect the sails of a dozen or more boats lazily -gliding in from Plymouth, from Marshfield, from Scituate, and even -from Barnstable and Sandwich, for the children of the Pilgrims have -not yet outgrown the family love and interest that bound their fathers -in so close a tie, and the Robinsons, children of the good pastor who -so loved and so cruelly misjudged our captain, have come from the Cape -to the wedding of his son, bringing with them little Marcy, to whom -Standish left “£3 to her whom I tenderly love for her grandfather’s -sake.” - -Yes, this is the wedding day of Josiah Standish and Mary Dingley, -whose parents have generously consented to bring their daughter to -Duxbury and let the marriage take place in her future home, as the -captain has requested; and now that he has given his consent, the old -man gives his heart to the plan, and sends his own boat with John -Haward or Hobomok laden with invitations to the old friends whom in -these latter days he has almost churlishly avoided. - -“Our maid would have us show true and hearty welcome to the new -sister,” he says rather wistfully to Betty, upon whom he leans -pathetically for companionship and appreciation, and she confidently -replies, “Yes, indeed, she would have it so.” - -“The governor’s boat is coming in, father,” announces Josiah, his -honest face aglow with love and pride, and the captain rather heavily -descends the path, and as the boat grazes the wharf extends his -hand to the stately white-haired and benignant man, who grasps it -affectionately and says,-- - -“So here we all are once more, Captain. ’Tis a great compliment these -young folk pay me, when so many other magistrates are nigh hand to -them.” - -“So many, ay,” replies the captain heartily. “But shake us all up in -a bag, and we’ll not make one of Will Bradford, let alone that you’re -governor of the Colony and my boy’s so cock-a-hoop that no less than -the governor will serve his turn.” - -“Says your father sooth, Josiah?” demands Bradford, turning to give his -hand to the bridegroom, who presents himself with bashful manliness, or -if you please with manly bashfulness, to welcome his father’s guests -and receive their jocose congratulations. - -“And now to business, that we may the sooner come to pleasure, for -I shrewdly guess the housewife hath a crust and a cup ready for us -somewhere, and so soon as we’ve settled these two young folk, we’ll -look for our reward.” - -So cried the captain, striving piteously after his old jocular air, as -he led the way up the hill to the house, which, with doors standing -hospitably open, white curtains waving from swinging casements, and -groups of smiling matrons and maids standing around, presented a very -festive appearance. - -“You have added to your house since I was here, Captain,” remarked -Bradford, pausing at the top of the bluff to regard the scene before -him. - -“Yes. We had to make room for the young couple, and while we were about -it, I pleased myself with shaping a sort of fortalice that’s long been -in my mind, and the rather that I forebode trouble with the Indians -before many years. Hobomok is uneasy, and if the Dutch hanker too -greedily for our roasted chestnuts they’ll like enough thrust in a red -man’s paw to scratch them out.” - -“Why, what hath Hobomok learned? We should know as soon as you, -Captain.” - -“Oh, there’s no cut-and-dried story to tell, or I would surely have -carried it to you, and as it is, I shall offer some good advice to you -at Plymouth; but one thing at a time, Will, and to-night we’re at a -wedding and not at a council. Think you not ’t is a pretty notion of a -fortified cottage?” - -“Why, yes”--began the governor, but the soldier eagerly interrupted -him, pointing out, with the professional pride of an engineer, how -the two parallelograms of the building, so placed as to form two -sides of an irregular triangle, inclosed a court or corral closed on -the third side by a high stockade. Into this the livestock could be -driven, and the farm utensils and other outdoor property secured, at -very brief notice, while portholes, cunningly masked, commanded not -only the approach to this corral, but to the only outside door of the -house, placed at the junction of the two parallelograms, one of which -slightly overlapped the other. Three substantial chimneys, two in the -southern and one in the northern wing of the house, promised domestic -comfort amid all this warlike defense, and beneath the white-curtained -casements cottage flowers bravely bloomed, and tossed their heads in -saucy security. - -“We keep the southern front for ourselves,” remarked Myles with his -grim smile. “Old folks need the sun to warm their sluggish blood, but -these youngsters can make their own summer, for a while at least.” - -“Nay, you’ve lent them some sunshine at the east end of their wing, -and well do I hope they’ll lend you some of the summer of their joy, -Myles.” So spoke the governor, looking shrewdly into the face of -his old friend; but he, avoiding the glance, slightly shrugged his -shoulders, muttering,-- - -“He who lives will see,” and led the way into the house. - -The brief and bald civil service soon was said, the hearty salutes -bestowed, and the sturdy handshaking over; then Governor Bradford, -with an air at once paternal and courtly, led the bride to the head of -the principal table, and the feast, upon which the skill of a select -committee of our old friends had expended itself, began. But too many -feasts have been described, and I dare not tell of the glories of this, -save only of the great wedding-cake, with its choice frostwork of -flowers and foliage, shaped by Betty Pabodie’s nimble fingers,--a cake -to be carved with much ceremony, and amid much mirth and jubilation, -by the bride’s own hand, with the gold ring hidden somewhere amid its -sweets for the next bride, and the toy half of a scissors for the man -doomed to be an old bachelor. - -But at last all was over; the hunter’s moon, whose culmination had -fixed the date of the wedding, hung glorious in heaven, shedding almost -the light of day; the neighbors’ horses were saddled and pillioned, and -the boats of those who came from farther afield were manned and ready; -Alice Bradford, muffling herself in cloak and hood for the voyage, -was changing a last word with Priscilla and Barbara, while sweet -Alice Richards, her daughter-in-law, was deep in baby lore with Betty -Pabodie, and the governor and the captain outside the door were by -chance left for a moment quite alone. Turning by a common impulse--one -of those impulses we all have felt compelling us to undreamed-of -action,--they faced each other and grasped hands. - -“I’m glad you came, Will,” said the captain. - -“Ay, and so am I. ’Tis many a year since first we clasped hands in old -Amsterdam, Myles.” - -“More years than there are months between this and our last hand clasp, -friend.” - -“God knows--God alone knows.” - -“Mind you of that other moonlight night, Will, when you and I stood by -my girl’s new-made grave, and you moved me to bury my revenge with her?” - -“I’ve thought of it more than once to-night, more than once.” - -“He’s dead.” - -“What, your cousin?” - -“Yes. The man that slighted my maid. He’s dead and buried.” - -“And revenge of thought as well as deed is buried with him, Myles, is -it not?” - -“H--m! Now, that’s a fight where I’m willing to cry craven. See you -here, Will, the Lord that made me fashioned me out of mere mortal clay, -and his work stands fast in spite of my good will or yours to change -it. While I was a young fellow, I fought the Spaniards and the Turks; -in my lustyhood, I fought the Indians and the wilderness; and now, in -mine age, I fight Myles Standish and the devil; and though I’ve as good -a stomach for hard knocks as most men, I feel betimes ’twill not be a -sorry thing to undo harness, hang up Gideon, and lay me down to rest -and sleep.” - -“Not yet, old friend, not yet! We came on pilgrimage together, and -we’ll march shoulder to shoulder into the holy city,--that is, if God -will.” - -“If God will,” echoed Standish, and as the merry throng poured out, -they found the elders standing hand in hand and face to face, with the -moonlight gleaming softly over them and glistening in their eyes. - -*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BETTY ALDEN *** - -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will -be renamed. - -Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright -law 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. 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Austin. - </title> - <link rel="coverpage" href="images/cover.jpg" /> - <style type="text/css"> - - p { margin-top: .75em; - text-align: justify; - margin-bottom: .75em; - } - - p.bold {text-align: center; font-weight: bold;} - p.bold2 {text-align: center; font-weight: bold; font-size: 150%;} - - h1,h2,h3,h4,h5,h6 { - text-align: center; /* all headings centered */ - clear: both; - } - h1 span, h2 span { display: block; text-align: center; } - #id1 { font-size: smaller } - - - hr { - width: 33%; - margin-top: 2em; - margin-bottom: 2em; - margin-left: 33.5%; - margin-right: 33.5%; - clear: both; - } - - body{margin-left: 10%; - margin-right: 10%; - } - - table {margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; padding: 5px; border-collapse: collapse; border: none; text-align: right;} - - .pagenum { /* uncomment the next line for invisible page numbers */ - /* visibility: hidden; */ - position: absolute; - left: 92%; - font-size: smaller; - text-align: right; - text-indent: 0px; - } /* page numbers */ - - .center {text-align: center;} - .smcap {font-variant: small-caps;} - .box {max-width: 25em; margin: 1.5em auto;} - .space-above {margin-top: 3em;} - .right {text-align: right;} - .left {text-align: left;} - .s3 {display: inline; margin-left: 3em;} - - .poem {display: inline-block; text-align: left;} - .poem br {display: none;} - .poem .stanza {margin: 1em 0em 1em 0em;} - .poem div {margin: 0; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -3em;} - .poem div.i8 {margin-left: 8em;} - - </style> - </head> -<body> -<div lang='en' xml:lang='en'> -<p style='text-align:center; font-size:1.2em; font-weight:bold'>The Project Gutenberg eBook of <span lang='' xml:lang=''>Betty Alden</span>, by Jane G. Austin</p> -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and -most other parts of the world 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 <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a>. If you -are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the -country where you are located before using this eBook. -</div> -</div> - -<p style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:0; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Title: <span lang='' xml:lang=''>Betty Alden</span></p> -<p style='display:block; margin-left:2em; text-indent:0; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:1em;'><span lang='' xml:lang=''>The first-born daughter of the Pilgrims</span></p> -<p style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:0; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Author: Jane G. Austin</p> -<p style='display:block; text-indent:0; margin:1em 0'>Release Date: March 12, 2022 [eBook #67608]</p> -<p style='display:block; text-indent:0; margin:1em 0'>Language: English</p> - <p style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:0; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em; text-align:left'>Produced by: Steve Mattern, Martin Pettit and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive)</p> -<div style='margin-top:2em; margin-bottom:4em'>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK <span lang='' xml:lang=''>BETTY ALDEN</span> ***</div> - -<div class="center"><img src="images/front.jpg" alt="front" /></div> - -<hr /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_i" id="Page_i">[Pg i]</a></span></p> - -<div class="center"><img src="images/ad.jpg" alt="By Jane G. Austin" /></div> - -<hr /> - -<div class="center"><img src="images/title.jpg" alt="Title page" /></div> - -<hr /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_ii" id="Page_ii">[Pg ii]</a></span></p> - -<h1>BETTY ALDEN</h1> - -<p class="bold">THE FIRST-BORN DAUGHTER OF<br />THE PILGRIMS</p> - -<p class="bold space-above">BY</p> - -<p class="bold2">JANE G. AUSTIN</p> - -<p class="bold">AUTHOR OF “STANDISH OF STANDISH,” “A NAMELESS NOBLEMAN,” “DR.<br /> -LE BARON AND HIS DAUGHTERS,” “THE DESMOND HUNDRED,”<br /> -“NANTUCKET SCRAPS,” ETC.</p> - -<div class="center space-above"><img src="images/logo.jpg" alt="logo" /></div> - -<p class="bold space-above">BOSTON AND NEW YORK<br />HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY<br /> -The Riverside Press, Cambridge<br />1891</p> - -<hr /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_iii" id="Page_iii">[Pg iii]</a></span></p> - -<p class="center">Copyright, 1891,<br /><span class="smcap">By</span> JANE G. AUSTIN</p> - -<p class="center"><i>All rights reserved.</i></p> - -<p class="center space-above"><i>The Riverside Press, Cambridge, Mass., U. S. A.</i><br /> -Electrotyped and Printed by H. O. Houghton & Co.</p> - -<hr /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_iv" id="Page_iv">[Pg iv]</a></span></p> - -<p class="center">TO<br /><br />MY DEAR COUSINS<br /><br />MARSTON AND MARY WATSON<br /><br /> -AND THEIR<br /><br />HILLSIDE<br /><br /> -WHERE BETTY ALDEN HAS BEEN SO PLEASANTLY CRADLED<br /><br /> -DURING THE PAST YEAR<br /><br />This Story of her Life and Times<br /><br />IS AFFECTIONATELY<br /> -<br />DEDICATED<br /><br /><br /><span class="smcap">Plymouth</span><br /><i>Michaelmas, 1891</i></p> - -<hr /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_v" id="Page_v">[Pg v]</a></span></p> - -<h2>PREFACE.</h2> - -<div class="center"><img src="images/line.jpg" alt="line" /></div> - -<p>Everybody has sympathized with Mr. Dick who could not keep King -Charles’s head out of his memorial, and I hope everybody will -sympathize with me who have been unable to keep Betty Alden in this her -memorial so constantly as I wished and she deserved. But as the whole -includes the less, her story will be found threaded through that of her -people and her times in that modest subordination to which the lives -of her sex were trained in that day. He who would read for himself the -story of this noble woman, the first-born daughter of the Pilgrims, -must seek it through ancient volumes and mouldering records, until at -Little Compton in Rhode Island he finds upon her gravestone the last -affectionate and honorable mention of Elizabeth, daughter of John and -Priscilla Alden, and wife of William Pabodie. Or in lighter mood, he -may consider the rugged rhyme tradition places in her mouth upon the -occasion of the birth of her great great grandchild:—</p> - -<div class="center"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<div>“Rise daughter! To thy daughter run!</div> -<div>Thy daughter’s daughter hath a son.”</div> -</div></div></div> - -<p>One word upon a subject which has of late been a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_vi" id="Page_vi">[Pg vi]</a></span> good deal discussed, -but by no means settled, and that is, the burial place of Myles -Standish. In the absence of all proof in any such matter, tradition -becomes important, and so far as I have been able to determine, the -tradition that some of the earliest settlers were buried in the -vicinity of a temporary meeting-house upon Harden Hill in Duxbury is -more reliable than the tradition that Standish was laid in an old -burying ground at Hall’s Corner which probably was not set aside as a -burial place in 1656, the date of his death.</p> - -<p>It is matter of surprise and regret to most persons that the Pilgrims -took so little pains to perpetuate the memory of their graves, and -their doing so would have been a wonderful aid to those who would read -the palimpsest of the past. But a little recollection diminishes the -wonder, if not the regret. Practically, the Pilgrims had neither the -money wherewith to import gravestones, nor the skill to fashion and -sculpture them; ethically, their lives were fashioned after an ideal, -and that ideal was Protestantism in its most primitive intention, a -protest against Rome, her creeds and her usages; prayers for the dead -were to them a horrible superstition; Purgatory a mere invention of -the powers of hell; an appeal to saints, angels, or the spirits of the -departed was a direct insult to the Divine Supremacy. The instant the -soul left the body Protestantism decreed that it was not only useless -but profane to follow it with prayers (much less masses), or with any -other remembrance which might be construed as <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_vii" id="Page_vii">[Pg vii]</a></span>intruding upon “the -counsels of the Almighty,” so that while private grief was sternly -rebuked as rebellion against the chastisements of a just and offended -God, every form of funeral service, domestic or congregational, was set -aside as superstitious and dangerous.</p> - -<p>The only exceptions to this rule were the volleys of musketry fired -over the graves of certain of the leaders, as Carver, Standish, -Bradford, and a few others, but these stern military honors were -unaccompanied by even the prayer of a chaplain.</p> - -<p>It was perhaps not altogether from fear of the Indians that the fifty -of the Mayflower Pilgrims who were left alive that first spring -smoothed the graves of the fifty who were gone, and planted them to -corn; possibly they also feared their own hearts, sorely tempted by -nature to cherish and adorn those barren graves where so much love and -hope lay buried; and any step in that direction was a step backward -from that “city” they had crossed the seas to seek in the wilderness.</p> - -<p>It is I think certain that not one of the original Pilgrim graves was -marked by any sort of monument. The few we now delight to honor were -identified by those of their children to whom the third generation -erected tablets. A few persons, of loving and unbigoted hearts, begged -to be buried beside their departed friends, and Standish in his last -will allowed a sunset gleam of his tender nature to shine out when -he asked to be laid as near as conveniently might be to his two -dear daughters; but neither he nor any of the others who made<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_viii" id="Page_viii">[Pg viii]</a></span> this -testamentary petition mentioned where the graves were, beside which -they fain would lie, nor in any one instance have they been positively -identified. That of Elder Brewster, concerning whose burial we have -many particulars, is altogether unknown, except that it seems to have -been made upon Burying Hill. Perhaps that of Standish is there also, -for when he says,—“If I die at Duxburrow I should like,” etc., he may -mean that if he dies in Duxbury he would fain be carried to Plymouth, -there to lie beside his daughters and very likely his two little sons -as well.</p> - -<p>But to me it seems a small matter, this question of the grave of -Standish. He lived to be old and very infirm, and neither his old age, -his infirmities, nor his final surrender to death are any part of his -memory. For me, he stands forever as he stood in his glorious prime -among the people he so unselfishly championed, a tower of strength, -courage, and endurance, the shining survival of chivalry, the gallant -paladin whose coat-armor gleams amid the throng of russet jerkins -and mantles of hodden gray, like the dash of color with which Turner -accents his wastes of sombre water and sky. So let him stand, so let -us look upon him, and honor him and glory in him, nor seek to draw -the veil with which Time mercifully hides the only defeat our hero -ever knew, that last fatal battle when age, and “dolorous pain,” and -fell disease, conquered the invincible, and restored to earth all that -was mortal of a magnificent immortality. We cannot erect a <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_ix" id="Page_ix">[Pg ix]</a></span>monument -over that forgotten grave, but in some coming day let us hope that -the descendants of the soldier Pilgrim will possess themselves of the -little peninsula where the site of his home may still be traced, and -there place some memorial stone to tell that on this fairest spot of -fair Duxbury’s shore lived and died the man who gave Duxbury her name, -and bequeathed to us an inheritance far richer than that which was -“surreptitiously detained” from him.</p> - -<blockquote><p><span class="smcap">Boston</span>, <i>October, 1891</i>.</p></blockquote> - -<hr /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_xi" id="Page_xi">[Pg xi]</a></span></p> - -<h2>CONTENTS.</h2> - -<div class="center"><img src="images/line.jpg" alt="line" /></div> - -<table summary="CONTENTS"> - <tr> - <td colspan="2" class="left"><span class="smcap">Chapter</span></td> - <td><span class="smcap">Page</span></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td>I. </td> - <td class="left"><span class="smcap">A Whisper in the Ear</span></td> - <td><a href="#Page_1">1</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td>II. </td> - <td class="left"><span class="smcap">A Sharp Pair of Scissors</span></td> - <td><a href="#Page_10">10</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td>III. </td> - <td class="left"><span class="smcap">Treason</span></td> - <td><a href="#Page_17">17</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td>IV. </td> - <td class="left"><span class="smcap">Thou art the Man!</span></td> - <td><a href="#Page_24">24</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td>V. </td> - <td class="left"><span class="smcap">How Mistress Alice Bradford introduced<br /> -her Sister Priscilla Carpenter to Plymouth Society</span></td> - <td><a href="#Page_39">39</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td>VI. </td> - <td class="left"><span class="smcap">A Viper Scotched, not Killed</span></td> - <td><a href="#Page_56">56</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td>VII. </td> - <td class="left"><span class="smcap">Morton of Merry Mount</span></td> - <td><a href="#Page_68">68</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td>VIII. </td> - <td class="left"><span class="smcap">Standish at Merry Mount</span></td> - <td><a href="#Page_74">74</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td>IX. </td> - <td class="left"><span class="smcap">The Kyloe Cow</span></td> - <td><a href="#Page_93">93</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td>X. </td> - <td class="left"><span class="smcap">The Unexpected</span></td> - <td><a href="#Page_102">102</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td>XI. </td> - <td class="left"><span class="smcap">Governor Bradford pays a Visit</span></td> - <td><a href="#Page_111">111</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td>XII. </td> - <td class="left"><span class="smcap">Sir Christopher Gardiner</span></td> - <td><a href="#Page_121">121</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td>XIII. </td> - <td class="left"><span class="smcap">One! Two! Three! Fire!</span></td> - <td><a href="#Page_129">129</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td>XIV. </td> - <td class="left"><span class="smcap">Sir Christopher enjoys the Chase</span></td> - <td><a href="#Page_137">137</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td>XV. </td> - <td class="left"><span class="smcap">And describes it</span></td> - <td><a href="#Page_145">145</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td>XVI. </td> - <td class="left"><span class="smcap">A Millstone for Sir Christopher</span></td> - <td><a href="#Page_159">159</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td>XVII. </td> - <td class="left"><span class="smcap">Two is Company, Three is Trumpery</span></td> - <td><a href="#Page_171">171</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td>XVIII. </td> - <td class="left"><span class="smcap">The Little Book</span></td> - <td><a href="#Page_182">182</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td>XIX. </td> - <td class="left"><span class="smcap">A Much-Married Man</span></td> - <td><a href="#Page_189">189</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td>XX. </td> - <td class="left"><span class="smcap">Betty’s Journey and the Garrett Wreck</span></td> - <td><a href="#Page_196">196</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td>XXI. </td> - <td class="left">“<span class="smcap">Ah, Brother Oldhame, is it Thou!</span>”</td> - <td><a href="#Page_208">208</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td>XXII. </td> - <td class="left"><span class="smcap">The Moonlight and the Dawn</span></td> - <td><a href="#Page_223">223</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td>XXIII. </td> - <td class="left">“<span class="smcap">Lorea Standish is my Name</span>”</td> - <td><a href="#Page_233">233</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td>XXIV. </td> - <td class="left"><span class="smcap">Avery’s Fall and Thacher’s Woe</span></td> - <td><a href="#Page_240">240</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td>XXV. </td> - <td class="left"><span class="smcap">Jephthah’s Daughter</span></td> - <td><a href="#Page_251">251</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td>XXVI. </td> - <td class="left"><span class="smcap">Gillian</span></td> - <td><a href="#Page_265">265</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td>XXVII. </td> - <td class="left"><span class="smcap">Donna Maria de los Dolores</span></td> - <td><a href="#Page_275">275</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td>XXVIII. </td> - <td class="left"><span class="smcap">A Salt-Fish Dinner</span></td> - <td><a href="#Page_286">286</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_xii" id="Page_xii">[Pg xii]</a></span>XXIX. </td> - <td class="left"><span class="smcap">Too Late! Too Late!</span></td> - <td><a href="#Page_295">295</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td>XXX. </td> - <td class="left"><span class="smcap">Peeping Tom and his Brother</span></td> - <td><a href="#Page_304">304</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td>XXXI. </td> - <td class="left"><span class="smcap">Jenney’s Mill by Moonlight</span></td> - <td><a href="#Page_315">315</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td>XXXII. </td> - <td class="left"><span class="smcap">Robed in White Samite</span></td> - <td><a href="#Page_326">326</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td>XXXIII. </td> - <td class="left"><span class="smcap">A Bold Buccaneer</span></td> - <td><a href="#Page_341">341</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td>XXXIV. </td> - <td class="left"><span class="smcap">The Hilt of a Rapier</span></td> - <td><a href="#Page_356">356</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td>XXXV. </td> - <td class="left"><span class="smcap">Canary Wine and Seed-Cake</span></td> - <td><a href="#Page_363">363</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td>XXXVI. </td> - <td class="left"><span class="smcap">Betty beards the Lion</span></td> - <td><a href="#Page_372">372</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td>XXXVII. </td> - <td class="left">“<span class="smcap">Mary Standish, my dear Daughter-in-Law</span>”</td> - <td><a href="#Page_379">379</a></td> - </tr> -</table> - -<hr /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_1" id="Page_1">[Pg 1]</a></span></p> - -<h2>BETTY ALDEN.</h2> - -<div class="center"><img src="images/line.jpg" alt="line" /></div> - -<h2>CHAPTER I.</h2> - -<p class="bold">A WHISPER IN THE EAR.</p> - -<p>“Tell him yourself, Pris.”</p> - -<p>“No, no, Bab, I know too much for that! These men love not to be taught -by a woman, although, if all were known, full many a whisper in the -bedchamber comes out next day at the council board, and one grave -master says to another, ‘Now look you, tell it not to the women lest -they blab it!’ never mistrusting in his owl-head that a woman set the -whole matter afloat.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, Pris, you do love to jibe at the men. How did you ever persuade -yourself to marry one of them?”</p> - -<p>“Why, so that one of them might be guided into some sort of discretion. -Doesn’t John Alden show as a bright example to his fellows?”</p> - -<p>“And all through his wife’s training, eh, Pris?”</p> - -<p>“Why, surely. Didst doubt such a patent fact, Mistress Standish?”</p> - -<p>“But now, Pris, in sober sadness tell me what has given you such dark -suspicions of these new-comers, and how do you venture to whisper -‘treason’ and ‘traitor’ about a man who has been anointed God’s -messenger,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_2" id="Page_2">[Pg 2]</a></span> even though it has been in the papistical Church of -England?”</p> - -<p>“If the English bishops are such servants of antichrist as the governor -and the Elder make them out, I should conceive that their anointing -would be rather against a man’s character than a warrant for it.” -And Priscilla Alden laughed saucily into the thoughtful face of her -friend and neighbor, Barbara Standish, who, knitting busily at a little -lamb’s-wool stocking, shook her head as she replied,—</p> - -<p>“Mr. Lyford is not a man to my taste, and I care not to hear him -preach, but yet, we are told in Holy Writ not to speak evil of -dignitaries, nor to rail against those set over us”—</p> - -<p>“Then surely it is contrary to Holy Writ for this Master Lyford to -speak evil of the governor and to rail against the captain, as he doth -continually”—</p> - -<p>“Who rails against the captain, Mistress Alden?” demanded a cheerful -voice, as Myles Standish entered at the open door of his house, and, -removing the broad-leafed hat picturesquely pulled over his brow, -revealed temples worn bare of the rust-colored locks still clustering -thickly upon the rest of his head, and matching in color the close, -pointed beard and the heavy brows, beneath which the resolute and -piercing eyes his enemies learned to dread in early days now shone with -a genial smile.</p> - -<p>“Who has been abusing the captain?” repeated he, as the women laughed -in some confusion, looking at each other for an answer. Priscilla was -the first to find it, and glancing frankly into the face of the man she -might once have loved replied,—</p> - -<p>“Why, ’tis I that am trying to stir Barbara into<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_3" id="Page_3">[Pg 3]</a></span> showing you what a -nest of adders we are nourishing here in Plymouth, and moving you and -the governor to set your heels upon them before it be too late.”</p> - -<p>As she spoke, the merry gleam died out of the captain’s eyes, and -grasping his beard in the left hand, as was his wont in perplexity, he -said gravely,—</p> - -<p>“These are large matters for a woman’s handling, Priscilla, and it may -chance that Barbara’s silence is the better part of your valor. But -still,—what do you mean?”</p> - -<p>“I mean that Master Oldhame and Master Lyford as the head, and their -followers and creatures as the tail, are maturing into a very pretty -monster here in our midst, which if let alone will some fine morning -swallow the colony for its breakfast, and if only it would be content -with the men I would say grace for it, but, unfortunately, the women -and children are the tender bits, and will serve as a relish to the -coarser meat.”</p> - -<p>“Come, now, Priscilla, a truce to your quips and jibes, and tell me -what there is to tell. I cry you pardon for noting your forwardness in -what concerned you not”—</p> - -<p>“Nay, Myles, you’ve said it now,” interposed Barbara, with a little -laugh, while Priscilla, gathering her work in her apron, and looking -very pretty with her flaming cheeks and sparkling eyes, jumped up -saying,—</p> - -<p>“At all events, John Alden’s dinner concerns both him and me, and I -will go and make it ready; a nod is as good as a wink to a blind horse, -and a penny pipe as well as a trumpet to warn a deaf man that the enemy -is upon him. Put your nose in the air, Captain Standish, and march -stoutly on into the pitfall dug for your feet.” </p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_4" id="Page_4">[Pg 4]</a></span></p> - -<p>“Come, come, Mistress Alden! These are no words for a gentlewoman,” -began the captain angrily, but on the threshold Priscilla turned, a -saucy laugh flashing through the anger of her face, and reminding the -captain in his own despite of a sudden sunbeam glinting across dark -Manomet in the midst of a thunder-storm.</p> - -<p>“Here’s the governor coming up the hill, Myles,” whispered she, “and -you may finish the rest of your scolding to him. I’m frighted as much -as is safe for me a’ready.”</p> - -<p>And light as a bird she ran down the hill just as Bradford reached -the door and, glancing in, said in his sonorous and benevolent voice, -“Good-morrow to you, Mistress Standish. I am sorry to have frighted -away your merry gossip, but I am seeking the goodman— Ah, there you -are, Captain! I would have a word with you at your leisure.”</p> - -<p>“Shall I run after Priscilla, Myles?” asked Barbara, cordially -returning the governor’s greeting.</p> - -<p>“Nay, wife, we two will walk up to the Fort,” replied Standish, and -replacing his hat, he led the way up the hill to the Fort, where he -ushered his friend into a little room contrived in the southeastern -angle for his private use: his office, his study, his den, or his -growlery by turns, for here was his little stock of books, his -writing-table and official records; here his pipes and tobacco; a stand -of private arms crowned by Gideon; the colony’s telescope fashioned -by Galileo; and here a deep leathern chair with a bench nigh at -hand, where through many a silent hour the captain sat, and amid the -smoke-wreaths of his pipe mused upon things that had been, things that -might have been, and things that never could be, never could have been.</p> -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_5" id="Page_5">[Pg 5]</a></span></p> - -<p>“Have a stool by the porthole, Will; ’tis something warm for -September,” said he, as he closed the door.</p> - -<p>“Ay, but you always have a good air at this east window, and a fair -view as well,” returned the governor, seating himself.</p> - -<p>“The view of the Charity is but a fleeting one, since she sails in the -morning,” remarked Standish dryly.</p> - -<p>“Yes, she does,” assented Bradford, with an air of embarrassment not -lost upon the captain, who smiled ever so little, and lighted his pipe, -saying between the puffs,—</p> - -<p>“’Tis safe enough to smoke in this den of mine, Will, and your tobacco -is a wonderful counselor.”</p> - -<p>“Say you so, Myles? Then pass over your pouch, for I am in sore need of -counsel and sought it of you.”</p> - -<p>“Such as I have is at your command, Governor. What is the matter?”</p> - -<p>“Well, ’tis hard to put it in any dignified or magisterial phrase, -Myles, since, truth to tell, it comes of the distaff side of the -house”—</p> - -<p>“Ay, ay, I can believe it! Has Priscilla Alden been whispering with -your wife?”</p> - -<p>“Nay, not that I know of; in truth, ’tis somewhat idler than even that -foundation, for Mistress Alden is one of our own, but this—well, -to tell the story in manful sincerity, my wife informs me that Dame -Lyford, who is as you know in childbed, and much beholden for care and -comfort to both your wife and mine, as well as to Priscilla Alden, last -night fell a-crying, and said she was a miserable wretch to receive -nourishment and tendance at their hands when her husband was practicing -with Oldhame and others for our destruction. In the beginning, Alice -set this all down<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_6" id="Page_6">[Pg 6]</a></span> as the querulous maundering of a sick woman; but -when the other persisted, and spoke of treasonable letters that her -husband had writ, and read out to Oldhame in her very presence, Dame -Bradford began to pay some heed, and ask questions, until by the time -the woman’s strength was overborne and she could say no more, the -skeleton of a plot lay bare, which should it be clothed upon with -sinew, and flesh, and armor, and weapons, might slay us all both as a -colony and as particular men.”</p> - -<p>“A dragon, Priscilla called it,” interposed the captain.</p> - -<p>“Priscilla! Did Mistress Lyford say as much to her as to my wife?” -asked the governor, a little piqued.</p> - -<p>“Nay, I know not, for I was, according to my wont, too outspoken to -listen as I should.”</p> - -<p>“Well, but explain, I beg of you.”</p> - -<p>“All is, that Priscilla began some sort of warning anent this very -matter, and I angered her with some jibe at women meddling in matters -too mighty for them, so that I know not what she might have had to -tell.”</p> - -<p>The Governor of Plymouth smiled in a subtle fashion peculiar to men -whose vision extends beyond their own time. “Women,” said he slowly, -as he pressed the tobacco into his pipe,—“women, Myles, are like the -bit of lighted tinder I will lay upon this inert mass of dried weed. -The tinder is so trivial, so slight a thing, so difficult to handle, -so easily destroyed,—and yet, brother man, how without it should we -derive the solace and counsel of our pipes?”</p> - -<p>Glancing at each other, the soldier and the statesman laughed somewhat -shamefacedly, and Myles said,—</p> - -<p>“Ay, ’tis the pith of Æsop’s fable of the Lion and the Mouse.” </p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7">[Pg 7]</a></span></p> - -<p>“Well, yes, although that is a thought too arrogant, perhaps; and yet -Master Lion is ofttimes a stupid fellow, though he is styled king of -beasts.”</p> - -<p>“And what is the net just now, my Lord Lion?” demanded Standish, who -could not quite relish Bradford’s philosophy. The governor roused -himself at the question, and laying aside his meditative mood replied,—</p> - -<p>“We both know, Captain, that all who are with us are not of us, and we -have not forgot what false reports those disaffected fellows carried -home in the Anne, nor the mutterings and plottings we have heard and -suspected since.”</p> - -<p>“Shorten John Oldhame by the head and you will kill the whole mutiny.”</p> - -<p>“That sounds very simple, but is hardly a feasible course, Captain, -especially as we have no proof in the matter, and it is upon this very -question of proof that I came to consult you.”</p> - -<p>“And I just shut off the only source of proof I am like to get.”</p> - -<p>“Nay, it is not likely that Mistress Alden knows more than my wife -has already repeated to me of what Dame Lyford can reveal, but our -good friend Master Pierce came to my house to-day about some matters -I am sending to my wife’s sister, Mary Carpenter, and all by chance -mentioned that he had in trust a parcel of letters writ by Lyford, with -one or two by Oldhame, and that both men had charged him to secrecy in -the business. Now, Standish, those letters contain the moral of the -whole matter.”</p> - -<p>“To be sure; it is like drawing a double tooth to see them sail out of -the harbor.” </p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_8" id="Page_8">[Pg 8]</a></span></p> - -<p>“Captain, it is my duty as the chief officer of this colony to learn -the contents of these missives.”</p> - -<p>“Yes, but how? The traitors will not betray themselves.”</p> - -<p>“I must privately open and read their letters,—it is my duty.”</p> - -<p>“No, no, Will; no, no! I can’t give in to that; I can’t help you there, -man! To open and read another man’s letter, and on the sly, is all one -with hearkening at a keyhole, or telling a lie, or turning your back on -an enemy without a blow. You can’t do that, Will, let the cause be what -it may.”</p> - -<p>And as the captain’s astonished gaze fixed itself upon his friend’s -face, Bradford colored deeply, yet made reply in a voice both resolute -and self-respecting,—</p> - -<p>“I feel as you do, Standish, and as any honorable man must; but -this is a matter involving more than mine own honor or pleasure. If -these men are persuading our associates in England to withdraw from -their agreement, and refuse to send us further supplies, or to find -a market for our commodities, and so help out our own struggles for -subsistence, we and all these weaklings dependent upon us are lost. -You know yourself how hardly we came through the famine of last year, -and although by the mercy of God we now may hope to provide our own -food, what can we do for clothes, for tools, for even the means of -communication with our old home, if the Adventurers throw us over, or -if they demand immediate repayment of the moneys advanced? In every -way, and for all sakes, it is imperative that we prevent an evil and -false report going home to those upon whose help we still must rely for -the planting of our colony.”</p> - -<p>“To be sure it is the usage of war to intercept the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">[Pg 9]</a></span> enemy’s -dispatches,” mused Standish, tugging at his russet beard and scowling -heavily.</p> - -<p>“To be sure it is,” returned Bradford eagerly. “And although these men -are not avowed enemies, we can see that they are not friends. Do but -mark how thick they are with Billington, and Hicks, and all the other -malcontents. Oldhame’s house is a regular Cave of Adullam.”</p> - -<p>“Well, Will, tell me what I am to do or to say in the matter. You know -that I am ready for any duty, however odious.”</p> - -<p>“I fain would have you go aboard the Charity with me to inspect her -carriages.”</p> - -<p>“Is there any chance of a fight?”</p> - -<p>“No, no. I shall not go aboard until the last moment, when all but -Winslow have left.”</p> - -<p>“Winslow’s errand home is to see the Adventurers?”</p> - -<p>“As the colony’s agent, yes.”</p> - -<p>“And he knows your intent?”</p> - -<p>“Not yet. I have spoken of it to no man until I had your mind upon it, -Standish. To-night I shall summon the Assistants to my house, and lay -the matter before them, but I felt moved to speak of it first to you in -private.”</p> - -<p>“Lest I should blaze out before them all, where you could not argue the -matter coolly with me, eh?”</p> - -<p>Bradford smiled as he knocked the ashes out of his pipe and rose to go.</p> - -<p>“I could not do with your disapproval, old friend,” said he.</p> - -<hr /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">[Pg 10]</a></span></p> - -<h2>CHAPTER II</h2> - -<p class="bold">A SHARP PAIR OF SCISSORS.</p> - -<p>Two men stood upon Cole’s Hill, half sheltering themselves behind the -ragged growth of scrub oaks and poplars sprung from those graves of the -first winter, sown by the survivors to wheat lest the savages should -perceive that half the company were dead. That pathetic crop of grain -had perished on the ground and never been renewed; but Nature, tender -mother, soon replaced it with a robe of her own symbolism, green as her -favorite clothing ever is, and embroidered with the starry flowers of -the succory, blue as heaven.</p> - -<p>From the grave of John Carver and Katharine his wife had sprung a -graceful clump of birches, and it was behind these that the two men -finally took up their post of observation. One of them was John Lyford, -a smooth and white faced man, whose semi-clerical garb only accented -his cunning eyes and sensual mouth. A double renegade this, for, flying -to the New World to escape the punishment of his sins in England, -he proffered himself to the Pilgrims as a convert to their creed, -renouncing with oaths and tears his Episcopal ordination, although -assured by those liberal-minded men that such recantation was not -required or desired; then, having joined the Church of the Separation -entirely of his own free will, he turned viperwise upon the hand that -fed him, and began plotting against the peace, nay the very life,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">[Pg 11]</a></span> of -his generous hosts, and leading away those weak and disaffected souls -to be found in every community.</p> - -<p>John Oldhame, his companion, was a very different sort of person. Big, -loud-voiced, and dogmatic, he was the sailor who would see the ship -driven to destruction on the rocks unless he could be captain and give -orders to every one else.</p> - -<p>The motives of these two conspirators were as diverse as their -antecedents, although both came out under the auspices of the London -Adventurers, of whom a word must be said. These gentlemen, knowing -a good deal less of New England than we do of the sources of the -Nile, had <i>adventured</i> certain moneys in fitting out the Pilgrims, -and in sustaining them until they should be able to repay the sums -thus advanced “with interest thereto.” When the Mayflower made her -first return, leaving fifty of the Pilgrims in their graves and the -other fifty just struggling back to life and feebly beginning their -plantation and house building, the Adventurers were exceedingly wroth -that she did not come freighted with lumber, furs, and especially -salted fish enough to nearly pay for her voyage. Their bitter -reproaches written to Carver were answered with manly dignity by -Bradford, but a really cordial feeling was never reëstablished, and -when the Pilgrims requested that either Robinson or some other minister -should be sent out to them, the Adventurers imposed Lyford upon them, -some of them giving him secret instructions to act as a spy in their -behalf.</p> - -<p>John Oldhame, a man of means and position, came out upon a different -footing, paying his own expenses, and being, as the Pilgrims phrased -it, “on his own particular” instead of “on the general” or joint stock<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">[Pg 12]</a></span> -account. But events soon made it plain that a very good understanding -existed between Oldhame and the Adventurers, and that if he should be -enabled to detect his hosts in defrauding the Adventurers, whose greedy -maws never were fully satisfied, they would transfer their protection -and countenance to him, sustaining him as a rival or even supplanter of -the interests of the men they had undertaken to befriend.</p> - -<p>The Pilgrims had the faults of their virtues in very marked degree, -and carried patience, meekness, long-suffering, and credulity to a -point most irritating to their historians and very subversive of their -worldly interests. Doubtless, however, they found their account in the -final reckoning, and one must try to be patient with their goodness. -All which means that if this growing treason in their midst was at all -suspected it was not noticed, and both Oldhame and Lyford were admitted -to the full privileges of townsmen, including a seat at the Council -and full knowledge of the colony’s concerns. Lyford, in virtue of the -ordination, so scornfully abjured by himself, was requested to act as -minister in association with Elder Brewster, although some quiet doubts -still prevented his admission to the position of pastor.</p> - -<p>With this necessary explanation of the position of affairs we return to -the hiding-place behind the birches, whence the conspirators watched -a boat manned by four sailors which lay uneasily tossing on the flood -tide, rubbing its nose against the Rock, while, in the offing, a ship -ready for sea lay awaiting it.</p> - -<p>“Bradford is certainly going aboard the Charity. They’re waiting for -him, and there he comes down The Street,” growled Oldhame at length. </p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">[Pg 13]</a></span></p> - -<p>“Perhaps only to see Winslow off. He, he! the Adventurers will show -Master Envoy Winslow but a sour face when they’ve read our letters,” -sniggered Lyford.</p> - -<p>“I wish he might be clapt up in jail for the rest of his life, confound -him!”</p> - -<p>“There’s Standish along of Bradford! Think he’s going aboard, too?” And -Lyford’s face showed such craven terror that Oldhame laughed aloud.</p> - -<p>“Afraid of Captain Shrimp, as Tom Morton calls him?” demanded he. “I’ve -put a spoke in <i>his</i> wheel, at any rate. You writ down what I advised -about another commander, didn’t you?”</p> - -<p>“Ay. To send him over at all odds, and to arrest this fellow for high -treason.”</p> - -<p>“Ah! He’s not going aboard after all,” ejaculated Oldhame venomously. -“Feels he must stay ashore and watch you and me and Hicks and -Billington and some of the rest. Set him up for a sneaking, prying -little watch-dog! But let him undertake to order me about as he did -t’other day, and I’ll cram his square teeth down his bull’s throat for -him, damn him!”</p> - -<p>“He, he, he! There’s no love lost between you and Captain Standish, is -there, Master Oldhame? There, they’re off,—Winslow and Bradford only; -and Captain Shrimp returns up the hill with the rest. I sore mistrust -me the governor has got scent of those letters, Oldhame.”</p> - -<p>“Pho, pho, man! Don’t be so timorous. Pierce won’t give up the letters, -and if he did, Bradford would think twice before opening them. Let him -dare put a finger to one of mine, and I’ll bring the whole house about -his ears! I’d like to catch him at it. I’d—why, I’d give him a taste -of my fists,—one for <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[Pg 14]</a></span>himself, and one to pass on to his neighbor, and -after that”—</p> - -<p>“M-o-o-o!” broke in a voice close behind, and, with a start, the -conspirators faced round to meet “the great red cow,” recently arrived -in the Charity, and, with her, the comely but scoffing face of -Priscilla Alden.</p> - -<p>“I cry your pardon, gentlemen, if I have disturbed a secret conclave, -but as my babes have a share of this cow’s milk, I like her not to feed -among the graves. All sorts of unclean creatures lurk here, and I fear -lest the poor beast find contamination.”</p> - -<p>“A saucy wench, and one that would well grace the ducking-stool,” -growled Oldhame as Priscilla drove her cow away; while Lyford, -remembering that she had that morning brought his wife a delicate -breakfast, laughed uneasily and made no reply.</p> - -<p>The governor’s boat meanwhile, merrily driven by the “white-ash breeze” -of four stalwart oars, had reached the ship’s side, signaling, as she -passed, the colony’s pinnace, which, under easy sail, lay off and on -the anchorage of the Charity.</p> - -<p>“Good-morrow, Governor. You are welcome aboard, Master Winslow,” cried -the hearty voice of William Pierce, master of the Charity, and friend -of the Pilgrims, as the passengers came aboard; and then, as if their -errand were one needing no explanation, he led the way at once to his -own cabin, fastened the door, and from a small locker at the foot of -the bed-place took a packet of letters enveloped in oilskin. Laying -these upon the little table and still resting his hand upon them, the -honest mariner looked steadily in the faces of his visitors.</p> - -<p>“Master Bradford, you are the governor of this<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[Pg 15]</a></span> colony and its chief -authority. Do you, in the presence of Master Edward Winslow, your agent -to the home government and one of your principal assistants, demand the -surrender of these letters confided to my care by persons under your -government?”</p> - -<p>“I do, Master Pierce,” replied Bradford distinctly, “and I call Edward -Winslow to witness that the responsibility is mine and that of my Board -of Assistants, and that you are guiltless in the matter. Nevertheless, -I will not pretend that Master Oldhame and his party are directly -under my government, since they came to Plymouth on their own account, -and are not ranked as of the general company, but rather on their own -particular.”</p> - -<p>“Still they are bound by the laws we all have subscribed to for our -mutual safety and advantage,” suggested Winslow, and would have said -more had not Pierce bluffly interposed,—</p> - -<p>“Well, well, all these niceties are out of my line. Some colonists -have confided certain letters to me; the governor of the colony makes -requisition upon me before a competent witness for these letters, -suspecting treason therein; I surrender them to his keeping, and there -ends my responsibility. And now I will go and make sail upon my ship. -Governor, your pinnace shall be summoned whenever you give the signal.” -And Captain Pierce turned toward the companion-way, but presently -returned, a genial smile replacing the slight annoyance darkening his -face, and going to the “ditty bag” suspended near the porthole, he -fumbled for a moment, then threw what he had found upon the table, -adding merrily, “And if you want to make a neat job of it, Bradford, -here’s a sharp little pair of scissors.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[Pg 16]</a></span> We sailors hate to see a trick -of work bungled, if it’s nothing better than ferreting out treason.”</p> - -<p>And with a smart westerly breeze the Charity set her nose toward -England, and plunged bravely out into the Atlantic. Before she sighted -the scene of the Pilgrim Mothers’ first washing-day, however, she lay -to, while the governor’s pinnace was brought alongside, and he and -Winslow came on deck and stood for a moment hand in hand.</p> - -<p>“God be with you, brother,” said Bradford in a voice of restrained -emotion. “Remember that until you return we are as a man half whose -limbs are palsied; nay, Carver in that prophetic moment called you our -brain. Remember it, Winslow.”</p> - -<hr /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[Pg 17]</a></span></p> - -<h2>CHAPTER III.</h2> - -<p class="bold">TREASON.</p> - -<p>“Master Oldhame, you are set upon the watch to-night, and will report -after the evening gun at the Fort.”</p> - -<p>“The devil you say, Giles Hopkins! And who gave you leave to order your -betters about?”</p> - -<p>“Captain Standish names the watch, and I as ancient-bearer am under his -orders and carry his messages.”</p> - -<p>“You may be under Satan’s orders or under a monkey’s orders for aught -I care, Giles, my boy, but if you dare come nigh me with any more of -Captain Shrimp’s orders I’ll wring your neck for you, master bantam -cockerel, mark you that.”</p> - -<p>“I will report to the captain,” calmly replied Hopkins, who, despite -his father’s restless example, was fast becoming one of the colony’s -most valued young citizens.</p> - -<p>A profane exclamation was Oldhame’s only reply, but as the ensign -strode away he turned his head and called into the house at whose door -he sat,—</p> - -<p>“Lyford! Lyford! Here’s some merry-making afoot! Captain Shrimp has -summoned me to stand on watch to-night, and I have sent him and -his errand-boy to the devil. Aha! here he comes himself with fury -stiffening every hair of his red beard and snapping out of his eyes. -Stand behind the door and hearken”— </p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[Pg 18]</a></span></p> - -<p>“Good-even, Master Oldhame,” struck in the firm and repressed tones -of a voice at sound of which Lyford cringed closer in his corner, and -Oldhame blustered uneasily,—</p> - -<p>“Good-even, Myles Standish.”</p> - -<p>“It is your turn in regular rotation, Master Oldhame, to stand -sentry-watch to-night as you have done before, and as every man in the -colony is called upon to do. Will you kindly report at the Fort after -gun-fire this evening?”</p> - -<p>“No, I won’t, Captain Shrimp.”</p> - -<p>“You refuse to obey the law of the colony?”</p> - -<p>“I refuse to be said by you, you beggarly little rascal.”</p> - -<p>“Then I shall arrest you as a traitor, and if I had my will, I’d have -you out and shoot you at sunrise.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, you would, would you, you wretched baseborn—</p> - -<p>“Have a care, man, have a care. Stop while you may!” And the captain’s -voice deepened to a growl, and his eyes, wide open, yet contracted -in the pupil to a point of fire, fixed themselves like weapons upon -those of the mutineer, who, maddened by their menace, sprung to his -feet knife in hand, and aimed a blow at the captain’s face that might -have forever quenched the light of those magnetic eyes, had it not -been caught on the hilt of Gideon, the good sword that in these days -hung ever at his master’s side, although he seldom needed to quit his -scabbard.</p> - -<p>“Villain, you’ve broken my wrist!” yelled Oldhame, dropping his knife, -upon which Standish planted his foot.</p> - -<p>“To me! To me, men! Help! Murder! To me, Oldhames!” again shouted the -traitor, but although a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[Pg 19]</a></span> score or so of the townsmen gathered at the -cry, not one made any demonstration or reply, while Standish, setting -his lips and drawing two or three heavy breaths, hardly cast a glance -at the crowd, but laying a hand upon Gideon’s hilt coldly demanded,—</p> - -<p>“John Oldhame, do you refuse to stand your watch to-night?”</p> - -<p>A volley of abuse from Oldhame was interrupted by a messenger from -Bradford, who, saluting the captain, reported,—</p> - -<p>“The governor sends to know the cause of the tumult, and desires -Captain Standish to arrest any disorderly persons refusing to submit to -authority.”</p> - -<p>“My respects to the governor, and I am about to do so,” replied -Standish in the hard and cold tone which at once repressed and betrayed -his passion.</p> - -<p>“John Oldhame, I arrest you in the name of the law! Alden, Howland, -Browne, I summon you to my aid! Convey this man to the Fort and lock -him in the strong-room. Do him no bodily harm unless he resist, but -secure him without delay.”</p> - -<p>Then ensued such a scene as Plymouth had as yet never seen, for with -one or two exceptions the men who shared the struggles and perils of -the colony’s first days had become too closely welded together, and -were too self-respecting, to rebel against the authority they had -themselves elected.</p> - -<p>But no sooner were the goodly foundations of the new home laid and -cemented in the blood of those who dared all for Freedom’s sake, than -the anarchist arrived to throw down what was already wrought, and erect -his own den upon the ruins.</p> - -<p>Oldhame, maddened both at his defeat and the failure<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[Pg 20]</a></span> of those who had -listened to his treason to make an open revolt in his favor, lost all -control both of words and actions, and so ramped and raved, so cursed -and vituperated, so kicked and smote and struggled, that it was not -without a most unseemly contest that he was finally secured and dragged -up the Burying Hill to the Fort, where in the corner opposite to the -captain’s den was a strong-room, small, but as yet quite sufficient for -the colony’s need of a prison.</p> - -<p>A few hours of silence and solitude wrought a change, however, and -John Alden, who held the position of prison-warden, came down the hill -toward sunset with a request from the prisoner that he might see Master -Lyford.</p> - -<p>“The wolf would fain take counsel with the fox,” remarked Priscilla -when her husband told her his errand. “And our over-amiable sheep-dogs -will never say nay to such a modest request.”</p> - -<p>“Pity but they made thee governor, Pris,” suggested John with a bovine -smile intended to be sarcastical.</p> - -<p>“Ay,” coolly replied his wife. “’Twould save some trouble. ’Tis a -roundabout way we women have to manage now.”</p> - -<p>“Eh? what do all those fine words mean when they’re put straight, wife?”</p> - -<p>“They mean that you’d better do your errand to the governor before -sunset, and then come home to eat my bannocks while they’re fresh.”</p> - -<p>“You’re right, Pris, and I’m gone.”</p> - -<p>But the bannocks were not to be eaten for another hour or so, during -which time Master Lyford was closeted with his associate in the -strong-room, and Alden kept ward without. </p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[Pg 21]</a></span></p> - -<p>That evening the ex-minister sought the governor’s presence, and with -many protestations of regret at the late unfortunate misunderstanding, -as he phrased it, offered Oldhame’s submission and willingness to -comply with the military requirements of the government, adding -craftily,—</p> - -<p>“If our worthy governor were also our captain there could never be any -of these troubles.”</p> - -<p>“That would be to burn down the house because the chimney smokes now -and again,” replied Bradford good-humoredly. “It is largely due to -Captain Standish’s courage and skill, not to mention his loyalty, his -steadfastness, and his wisdom, that this colony is other than a handful -of ashes and a field of graves. When you new-comers have learned to -know him, you will value our captain as we do.”</p> - -<p>The next morning Master Oldhame was released, and the next night -stood his watch, nor, jealously as he watched and listened for them, -was there a look or a tone from the captain or any of his adherents -to remind the conquered rebel of his discomfiture, or the triumph of -authority.</p> - -<p>The next Sunday, or as it was universally called, the Lord’s Day, the -plot laid in the strong-room of the Fort developed most unexpectedly.</p> - -<p>When at ten o’clock Bartholomew Allerton, now promoted to the post -of band-master to the colony’s army, beat the “assembly” in the Town -Square as a summons to the church-goers to meet and form in their -usual procession up the hill, he was confronted by Peter Oldhame, a -lad somewhat younger than himself, who swung a cow bell almost in the -drummer’s face, shouting,—</p> - -<p>“To church! To church! Englishmen hearken to the English Church! To -church! To church!” </p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[Pg 22]</a></span></p> - -<p>Bradford, who was just coming out of his house with Alice and Christian -Penn, her buxom handmaiden, following meekly behind, stopped and looked -sternly at the intruder until he, turning his back, walked down Leyden -Street toward the old Common House, disused now except for storage.</p> - -<p>“Shall I arrest the varlet, and clap him up in the strong-room?” asked -Bart Allerton eagerly, as he swung the drum-gear off his shoulder.</p> - -<p>“Nay, my son; it is the Lord’s Day and we will not farther disturb its -peace. This rebel has ceased his summons and you may do so also, lest -worse come of it.”</p> - -<p>“Does your honor see Master Lyford in gown and bands coming out of -Master Oldhame’s house?”</p> - -<p>“Nay, Bart, I see him not, for I look not at him. Now no more, good -youth, but fall into rank with your fellows.”</p> - -<p>And fifty men or more, each armed and ready for battle either with men -or the Ghostly Enemy who inspirits men, moved in solemn procession of -threes up Burying Hill to the Fort, the rear closed by the governor in -his robe of office, with the Elder in his gown at his right hand, and -the captain in full uniform at his left.</p> - -<p>Not a word was exchanged between the leaders upon the events of the -morning, but it was no news to any of them, when the long service -was over and in the seclusion of home the women’s tongues were let -loose, to hear that Lyford, in spite of his abject repudiation of -his Episcopal ordination, and membership with the Separatist Church, -had gathered a congregation, read the English Service, preached a -vituperative sermon against the leaders of the colony, and administered -the Communion.</p> - -<p>Such open bravado and schism as this could not be<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[Pg 23]</a></span> allowed to -continue, for although the Pilgrims never persecuted any man for -honest difference of religious belief, and were on very cordial terms -with many members of the English Church, whom their pastor Robinson -received to Communion and fellowship, it was hardly to be expected that -they would permit a double apostate like Lyford to gather a body of -malcontents in their midst, and hold services avowedly antagonistic to -the church of the Pilgrims.</p> - -<p>Nobody, therefore, was surprised when, on the Monday following this -Sunday, the governor’s message went forth summoning all the men of the -colony, whether church-members, citizens, or only temporary residents, -to assemble at the Fort at nine of the clock on Tuesday morning in a -Court of the People, the colony not yet having outgrown this, the ideal -mode of popular government.</p> - -<hr /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[Pg 24]</a></span></p> - -<h2>CHAPTER IV.</h2> - -<p class="bold">THOU ART THE MAN!</p> - -<p>Again Bartholomew Allerton, with much pride in the performance, beat -out the “assembly” in the Town Square, and at the sound some fourscore -men gathered from the houses, the shore, or those impaled garden plots -surrounding each house, where already patient toil had produced in the -wilderness very sweet reminiscences of English cottage-gardens.</p> - -<p>The weather was wild, and ominous with the promise of one of those -fierce storms of wind and rain, pretty sure to visit the coast in March -and September, and still called by Plymouth folk the line storm, or the -equinoctial, in calm contempt of modern meteorological theories. They -also call a thunder-shower, however slight, a “tempest,” and who is to -object? Not I.</p> - -<p>“Master Lyford’s friends are gathering in force,” remarked Standish, as -he stood at the door of his house just below the Fort on Burying Hill.</p> - -<p>“His friends!” repeated Alden, who, living in the house between that of -the governor and the captain, was often to be found in company of the -latter. “I did not think he had friends enough in Plymouth to be called -a force.”</p> - -<p>“Not in Plymouth, nor yet in heaven, but somewhere between the two. The -armies of the Prince of the Power of the Air.” </p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[Pg 25]</a></span></p> - -<p>And Standish, smiling grimly, pointed to the troops of clouds scurrying -up over Manomet, and Watson’s Hill, and all along the eastern and -southern horizon; serried ranks, and scattered outposts, and flying -vedettes, which, now by a flank movement, and now by an onward rush, -seemed taking possession of all the blue battlefield above, blotting -out the azure, and audaciously attacking the great sun himself.</p> - -<p>“’Tis the equinoctial,” stammered John Alden, perplexed.</p> - -<p>“The wind, the great wind Euroclydon,” replied Standish, who loved -the sonorous and martial sound of old Bible English, and read it -alternately with his Cæsar.</p> - -<p>“Are you ready, Captain? You remember our arrangements?” asked -Bradford, his fine face a little more pallid, a little more nervous -than its wont, as he stopped on his way up the hill with the Elder and -Doctor Fuller, who was vehemently saying,—</p> - -<p>“Oh, he’ll clear himself, Elder, he’ll clear himself; an unsuspicious -man like Brother Lyford may be led into unadvised action from the very -best and soundest of motives.”</p> - -<p>“Then he must be restrained, for the safety of other people as well as -for his own,” replied the Elder coldly. “If one of your fever patients -took a fancy in his delirium to set the house afire, I don’t suppose -you would leave him unchecked in his action, however blameless you -might hold himself.”</p> - -<p>“No, no;—and yet—and yet”—muttered the doctor, whose common sense -found itself sadly at war with a whimsical fancy he had conceived for -Lyford, who was to be sure a university-bred man, and an accomplished<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">[Pg 26]</a></span> -botanist, thus affording to the alumnus of Peter-house, Cambridge, -opportunity, which he did not often enjoy, for conversation on his -favorite topics.</p> - -<p>His annoyance found, however, no farther expression until, entering the -Fort, he pettishly exclaimed, “Well, if we are to find an honest man we -shall need Diogenes’ lantern, or at any rate a twopenny dip or so.”</p> - -<p>“’Tis the gathering storm,” replied Bradford in a depressed voice, as -he stood upon the threshold of the low-ceiled chamber, lighted only by -narrow slits intended more for defense than comfort. The bare benches -were already occupied by some eighty or ninety men, their pointed hats, -sombre doublets, and burnished “pieces” showing grotesquely through the -gloom which seemed to solidify the shadows and exaggerate the lights, -while an occasional flash of lightning added the last effect to the -picture.</p> - -<p>A restless movement, a sense rather than a sound of expectancy, a -feeling of controversy, of doubt, of possible resistance, was in the -air, and Bradford’s sensitive organization responded at once to the -thrill.</p> - -<p>“Pray for us mightily to-day, Elder, pray for unworthy me,” whispered -he, as the two ascended the platform at the head of the hall, where -stood the governor’s armchair with seats at either hand for his five -assistants, and benches for such persons as should be invited to occupy -them.</p> - -<p>To this appeal the Elder responded only by a searching glance from -eyes of cold and wintry gray, and, passing on, he took his place at -the governor’s right hand, while Allerton and Doctor Fuller seated -themselves at the left. Winslow’s place was left vacant, and Standish, -instead of assuming his, stood near the door, fully<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[Pg 27]</a></span> armed and -equipped, watching Master Oldhame, who, with Lyford and several of -their insolent followers, came strolling up the hill, laughing loudly, -and displaying an exaggerated carelessness of demeanor.</p> - -<p>As they entered, Standish, quietly placing himself between the two -principals and their following, waved the latter to seats at the rear -of the hall, and, courteously addressing the former, said,—</p> - -<p>“The governor and council crave your presence upon the platform, -gentlemen.”</p> - -<p>“And why so much ceremony to-day, Captain Standish?” demanded Oldhame -in a blustering attempt to imitate the suavity of the soldier. “We have -had the privilege and the honor, if there be any, of sitting upon yon -platform more than once already, and need not to be marshaled thither -to-day more than on other days.”</p> - -<p>“Ay, but to-day the governor designs to pay you some special attention, -and your seats are not as before,” replied Standish grimly, and, -without waiting for reply, strode on up the hall followed by the -mutineers, who, in spite of their best efforts at audacity, presented -an aspect of mingled apprehension and wrath, ill becoming the leaders -of a righteous revolution.</p> - -<p>The elevated seats were, indeed, a little differently arranged from -usual. The five official chairs stood in their customary position, -but no other seat remained except one bench placed near the edge of -the platform, and at such an angle that the occupants faced both the -governor and the mass of the people. To this bench Standish silently -but peremptorily waved the two men, who both felt and appeared more -like prisoners than guests. Hesitating a moment, Oldhame led the way up -the steps, and before seating himself would have<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">[Pg 28]</a></span> pushed back the bench -so as to place it at right angles to the front edge of the platform, -but found it secured to the flooring. With an angry scowl he was about -to speak, but Bradford, raising a hand with quiet dignity, said,—</p> - -<p>“Let be, if it please you, Master Oldhame. This Court of the People is -convened to inquire into certain matters concerning you, and it is best -that you should be placed in the front of the assembly that all men may -both see and hear your innocence, if haply you can prove it.”</p> - -<p>“Innocence, Master Governor! Innocence of what?” demanded Oldhame -truculently, while Lyford’s face suddenly lost its color, and -moistening his lips with his tongue, he cast such crafty and alarmed -looks around the assembly that Giles Hopkins whispered to Philip De la -Noye,—</p> - -<p>“Mind you that rat we found in the trap t’other day? I wish I had my -little dog here to worry him.”</p> - -<p>“You shall be both heard and answered anon, friend,” replied Bradford -patiently. “First, however, we will ask the Elder to lead us in prayer -for guidance and for wisdom.”</p> - -<p>Fervently and strongly did the Elder respond to this summons, nor did -he at all forget the whispered petition Bradford had made in the moment -of his weakness; and once again the prayer of faith became effectual, -even in the moment of its utterance, so that when William Bradford -said Amen it was in more calmness, more conscious strength, and more -security of divine guidance, than he had been able to feel for days.</p> - -<p>Standing before his people in all the simple dignity of his character -and his position, he addressed them as<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[Pg 29]</a></span> friends, as associates, as -freemen, taking for granted that each was as eager as himself to -retain in all its completeness the great treasure of freedom and of -self-government they had attained. “For,” said he, turning his eyes for -a moment upon the traitors, and then reverting to his friends, “both -ye and all the world know we came hither to enjoy the liberty of our -conscience and the free use of God’s ordinances, and for that end have -ventured our lives, and passed through much hardship hitherto; and we -and our friends have borne the charge of these beginnings, which has -not been small”—</p> - -<p>“Spare us the preamble, I beseech you, Master Governor, and come to the -root of the matter. Who has disturbed this somewhat sour-faced liberty -and peace ye came here to seek?”</p> - -<p>The insolence of the tone as well as of the words stirred even -Bradford’s chastened temper, and turning upon the traitor he angrily -exclaimed,—</p> - -<p>“Who?—who but you, John Oldhame, you and your followers! As Nathan -said to David, so say I now to you, Thou art the man!”</p> - -<p>The stinging contempt of the tone pierced like an arrow, and fairly -stammering with rage the rebel sprang to his feet and made for the -governor, but Standish quietly interposed with voice and presence,—</p> - -<p>“Best be seated, Master Oldhame! The matter has not yet come to a -passage at arms. Sit down man, sit down!”</p> - -<p>“Yes, Master Oldhame,” added the governor, resuming his usual -self-restraint and manner of voice, “this is matter for sober -discussion and not for heated wrangling.” Then turning to the people he -continued calmly:</p> - -<p>“It is well known not only to these but to you all,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[Pg 30]</a></span> that when the -Charity arrived here some weeks gone by she brought letters from -the gentlemen Adventurers, upon whom we depend for aid and comfort, -demanding account of certain ill stories that had traveled home by the -Anne, partly on the tongues of those who, daunted by the hardness of -the life here, went back as soon as they might, and partly in letters -writ by those Laodiceans who remained with us but are not of us. These -tales were for the most part idle, such as that we have no grass for -cattle; no wholesome water; that salt will not cure fish here; that -neither fish nor wild fowl are to be found, and alas, alas! that -moskeetos are to be found both in our fields and housen, which, indeed, -is a plaint we may not deny.</p> - -<p>“With these were weightier matters, to which I, with the help of the -Assistants, made answer as seemed good to us, as that we have neither -Sacrament in use, to which we answer, How can we have when to our great -grief our pastor, Master Robinson, is withholden from coming to us, -and no worthy minister is sent to supply his place? Next, that we have -great diversity of religious belief, and this is a thing never heard -of till last Lord’s Day. But passing sundry other matters not best to -enter upon now, we spoke to the lighter question, saying that although -we do not contend that the water of our springs is as delightsome as -the beer and wine these grumblers so sorely missed, it is as good, nay, -I will say it is better, water than any other in the world, so far as -I know of mine own experience. As for the lack of grass, we replied, -Would we had one beast for every hundred that the grass would fatten. -As for the lack of fish and fowl, and the story that salt would not -cure fish caught in these waters, we did but ask, What is it brings<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[Pg 31]</a></span> so -many sail to these parts year by year, and how do they carry home their -fish, if they may not be cured?</p> - -<p>“That fish may not be salted here is as true as that no ale or beer can -be kept from souring in London. That we have thieves among us of late -is sadly true, but if none were bred in England none would come hither, -and as all men know, those who are caught have smarted well for their -offense, and shall do so still more if they mend not their manners.</p> - -<p>“But as for the moskeetos, we said, They were matter of such sadness -and weight that we counseled such as cannot endure moskeeto bites to -stay at home, at least until they are moskeeto proof, for surely they -are all unfit for beginning new plantations, and must leave these -emprises to hardier men.</p> - -<p>“Glad am I to offer you matter of mirth and cheerfulness in the -beginning, brethren, for now comes a tale of more serious import.</p> - -<p>“Knowing that they who could write thus to our friends were still among -us, it was but reasonable that we who stand as fathers to the colony -should seek out who they were, and stop the mischief before it grew -to larger dimensions. We have sought, and grieved am I to say we have -found, these enemies where last we should have looked for them.</p> - -<p>“Master John Oldhame, taking passage on the Anne with his family and -his following, came among us as a stranger, asking at the first no more -than permission to settle so near that in case of attack from Indians -he might shelter under our wing, and profit by our countenance. We -heartily bade him come and live in our village, helped him to build -housen for himself and his people, portioned him a plot of land, -aided him in every way that he desired, and gave him a voice in our -assemblies. </p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[Pg 32]</a></span></p> - -<p>“As for Master Lyford, he was, as you know, sent over at the company’s -charges, him and his large family, Master Winslow who was then in -England having been wrought upon by the Adventurers to accept him as a -minister of the gospel, and fit to become our pastor. Arrived here, he -received a house, a double portion of food and stores, a man to serve -him at our charge, and all such honor and observance as we knew how to -bestow, although we determined to tarry for a season before accepting -him as our minister in full. But now, how have these two carried -themselves among us? Have they repaid love with love, and good with -good? or has it not rather been after the fashion of the hedgehog in -the fable, which the coney in a bitter cold day invited to shelter in -her burrow, which at first was meek and gentle enow, but anon when he -was comforted and warm, thrust out his prickles and so vext the poor -coney that in the end it was she who was thrust out into the cold.”</p> - -<p>A low murmur of appreciation followed the parable, and Oldhame once -more sprang to his feet, while Standish attentively followed every -movement.</p> - -<p>“So far as I can gather any serious meaning from the buffoonery Master -Bradford intends for wit,” began he, “I take it that he accuseth me -and this godly minister of treason to this colony, where as he meanly -reminds us we have received certain benefits, for the which I am quite -ready to pay”—</p> - -<p>“Shame! Shame!”</p> - -<p>“Shame as much as you will, Alden and Soule, Bartlett and Prence! I’ve -marked you, my springalds, but what I’ve to say is that the inditing is -false and altogether malicious. Neither Lyford nor I have writ any such -letters, or sent any such message now or ever. Say you not so, Master -Lyford?” </p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">[Pg 33]</a></span></p> - -<p>“Oh verily, verily, good gentlemen all, no such thought has ever”—</p> - -<p>“There, that will do, man. And now we call upon you, Master Governor, -for any warrant you may have for this insult, and if you have none, we -demand an ample apology.”</p> - -<p>“You positively deny writing any letters of complaint concerning us?” -asked Bradford deliberately.</p> - -<p>“We do.”</p> - -<p>“Master Allerton, be pleased to bring forth the papers you hold in -charge.”</p> - -<p>Allerton, his crafty face illuminated with a smile of unusual -satisfaction, brought forward a small table, and placed upon it some -twenty or thirty letters, carefully arranged and docketed, in his -neat and scholarly script. Laying his hand upon the papers, Bradford -looked at the traitors with an austere sadness significant of his just -yet gentle nature; then, turning to the people, he related how by the -advice of his council he had seized these letters, already on their way -to England, and with Winslow’s help copied the most of them, retaining, -however, some of the originals with which to confront the writers in -case of denial.</p> - -<p>But as the governor in his calm and judicial voice made this -announcement, glancing as he spoke at the documents spread out upon -the little table, Oldhame, furious at the humiliating discovery of his -lie, started again to his feet, foaming out all sorts of threats and -defiance, and threatening indefinite but terrible vengeance. Finally -turning to the benches with a gesture almost magnificent in its -reckless abandon, he cried,—</p> - -<p>“My masters, where are your hearts! Now is the time to show yourselves -men! How oft have you<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">[Pg 34]</a></span> groaned in my ears under the tyranny of these -oppressors, and now is your time to fling off the yoke! Stand to your -arms, brethren! Make a move, and I am with you!”</p> - -<p>As he recognized the intent of this seditious appeal, Standish sprang -forward, his hand upon his sword’s hilt, but Bradford, without rising, -made a slight repressive gesture, and ran his eye quickly over the -ranks of faces confronting him, marking the expression on each.</p> - -<p>A few, notably Billington’s, Hicks’s, Hopkins’s, and some of the -new-comers’, wore an anxious, a sheepish, or a frightened air, combined -in two or three cases with truculence, and in others with doubt, but -the great body of the freemen met the eye of their governor with -cordial sympathy and reassurance, and although no man stirred, several -handled their weapons and looked around them with an eagerness boding -ill for the traitors should they proceed to extremity.</p> - -<p>Oldhame also reviewed the fourscore faces arrayed before him, and was -quick to perceive and accept his defeat.</p> - -<p>“Ye coward dogs! Crouch under your master’s lash till it cut your -hearts out! What is it to me or mine!”</p> - -<p>The bitter words ground between his teeth reached no ears but those of -Lyford, upon whom, as he sank cowering back upon the bench, Bradford -next turned his eyes demanding,—</p> - -<p>“What is <i>your</i> opinion, Master Lyford, upon this question of opening -another’s letters?”</p> - -<p>The ex-minister started as if stung by the lash of a whip, passed his -hand across his trembling lips, and stammered,—</p> - -<p>“I—I—I meant no harm. I”— </p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">[Pg 35]</a></span></p> - -<p>“Master Lyford answers the accusation of his own conscience rather than -my question,” said Bradford serenely, as the quavering voice trailed -away into silence. “The matter in his mind is this: When our brother, -Edward Winslow, was about sailing out of England in the Charity, -bringing with him this man who had been pushed upon him as a worthy -substitute for our own revered pastor, he writ with his own hand to -Master Robinson an account of the matter, with sundry other things -touching the spiritual and temporal concerns of the company. This -letter he sealed, addressed, and left lying in his state cabin, along -with sundry others, some of his own inditing, and some intrusted to -him by friends, to convey hither. One of these was from a well-known -English gentleman to Elder Brewster, and bore both names upon the cover.</p> - -<p>“Master Winslow’s affairs calling him back to London before the -sailing of the vessel, he left all these letters in his writing-case -under charge of Master Lyford, who used the same cabin. But no sooner -was Winslow’s back turned than Master Lyford, opening the chest -with keys of his own, read the letters, and made copies of the two -mentioned, telling under his own hand how he obtained them. These -copies he brought hither, and now is sending them back into England -by the Charity, and small charity of the godly sort doth he show in -his comments inclosed with the copies to one of our most powerful and -unloving opponents among the Adventurers.</p> - -<p>“And why hath he done this? Not to fulfill a heavy and painful duty, -and to protect a people and an emprise laid upon him by Almighty God, -even as the children of Israel were laid upon the shoulders of Moses<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">[Pg 36]</a></span> -until he all but sank beneath the weight! No, Master Lyford can plead -no such necessity for the opening and reading of letters writ and -sealed by one who trusted him, but rather his motive seems to have been -the desire of doing despite to his benefactors, and of working mischief -and destruction to them who have never done him other than kindness, -trusting and befriending him as one of themselves.</p> - -<p>“And now, Master Allerton, I will ask you to read out these letters, -and any who will may draw near and look at the originals signed both by -John Oldhame and John Lyford.”</p> - -<p>The letters were read, and as page after page of Lyford’s malignant -treachery, and Oldhame’s fierce vituperation was turned, murmurs of -indignation, ominous mutterings, with here and there a groan or a -faint hiss arose from the benches, especially when the freemen heard -it recommended that the Adventurers should, as soon as possible, -send a body of men “to over-sway those here;” that they should at -all risks prevent Pastor Robinson’s coming, and should, if possible, -depose Winslow from his position as agent. Again a subdued commotion -was excited by the advice to send over a certain captain, who had -apparently been previously mentioned, with the promise that he should -at once be chosen military leader, “for this Captaine Standish looks -like a silly boy, and is in utter contempt.”</p> - -<p>In hearing this philippic many an eye was turned upon its subject, but -he, standing at ease with one hand upon Gideon’s hilt, only gathered -his beard in the other fist and smiled good-humoredly. He at least was -“moskeeto-proof.”</p> - -<p>“And now, men,” demanded the governor, turning to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">[Pg 37]</a></span> the people, “what -have you to say? Let any one who would make a proposal as to our -dealing with these two speak his mind freely.”</p> - -<p>But before any other could reply to this demand, Lyford, breaking away -from Oldhame’s fierce restraint, fell upon his knees, bursting into -tears and sobs, wringing his hands, and cringing to the floor, while he -howled out all sorts of self-accusations, calling himself a miserable -sinner, “unsavorie salt,” Judas, and many other opprobrious epithets, -doubting, as he professed, if God would ever pardon him, and in any -case despairing of the forgiveness of his benefactors and hosts, for he -had so wronged them as to pass all forgiveness. Finally, he confessed -in the most abject terms that “all he had writ against them was false -and naught, both for matter and manner,” and professed himself willing -and anxious to retract everything in the presence of God, angels, and -men.</p> - -<p>But the scene was soon cut short, for the self-respecting men who -listened to this abjection found it too great a humiliation of the -divine image in man, and while the culprit still sobbed and whined at -his feet, the governor, briefly ordering him to rise and be silent, -turned to the people and repeated his demand for their suffrages.</p> - -<p>A brief discussion ensued, chiefly among the elders, the younger men -signifying their assent or dissent by a word or two, and Bradford, -listening to all, watching the expression of all, and gathering the -sense of the assembly as much by intuition as from spoken words, at -last announced that the Court of the People found these two men guilty -of the offenses with which they stood charged, and were decided to -banish them from the <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">[Pg 38]</a></span>settlement as dangerous to its safety. A murmur -of assent ratified this decision, and the details arranged by the -governor and council were unanimously accepted. Oldhame was to depart -at once, while his family had permission to remain until he could find -a comfortable home for them, and then rejoin him without his coming to -fetch them.</p> - -<p>As for Lyford, his retraction and professions of contrition had -their effect, especially with the doctor, whose earnest appeals for -indulgence finally procured permission for the penitent to remain in -the village for six months on probation, his sentence then either to be -acted upon or, in case his repentance should prove sincere, to possibly -be altogether remitted.</p> - -<p>The two culprits received their sentence very differently, yet very -characteristically. Oldhame, breathing fire and fury, departed from the -Fort at once in a blue flame of profanity and vituperation, and before -night set sail for Nantasket to join the Gorges men settled in that -neighborhood.</p> - -<p>But the meaner traitor could hardly be persuaded to stand upon his -feet, preferring to grovel at those of his judges, who for the most -part received his demonstrations very coldly, Bradford suggesting, as -he twisted away the hand Lyford was moistly kissing,—</p> - -<p>“There’s a homely old proverb, master, which you might do well to -recall: ‘Actions speak louder than words.’”</p> - -<p>“And still another,” broke in John Alden, “says that ‘Promises butter -no parsnips.’”</p> - -<p>Thus ended the first trial for treason in America, and so was decided -the most important cause ever brought before the Court of the People, a -tribunal soon to be replaced by the trial by jury.</p> - -<hr /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[Pg 39]</a></span></p> - -<h2>CHAPTER V.</h2> - -<p class="bold">HOW MISTRESS ALICE BRADFORD INTRODUCED HER SISTER PRISCILLA CARPENTER -TO PLYMOUTH SOCIETY.</p> - -<p>“Goodman, I’ve heavy news for you; so set your mind to bear it as best -you may.”</p> - -<p>“Nay, goodwife, your winsome face is no herald of bad news, and certes, -I’ll not cross the bridge until it comes in sight.”</p> - -<p>“Well, then, since words won’t daunt you, here’s a fact, sir! We are to -have a merry-making, and gather all the young folk of the village, and -Master Bradford will have to lay off the governor’s mantle of thought -and worry, that he may be jocund with the rest.”</p> - -<p>“Nay, then, Alice, ’tis indeed heavy news!” And the governor pulled a -long face, and looked mock-miserable with all his might. “And is it a -dispensation not to be gainsaid? Is there good cause that we should -submit ourselves to an affliction that might, as it would seem, be -spared?”</p> - -<p>“Well, dear, you know that my sister Pris has come”—</p> - -<p>“Do you tell me so! Now <i>there</i> is news in very deed! And how did -Mistress Priscilla Carpenter reach these parts?”</p> - -<p>“Now, Will! if you torment me so, I’ll e’en call in Priscilla Alden to -take my part. <i>She’ll</i> give you quip for crank, I’ll warrant me.” </p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[Pg 40]</a></span></p> - -<p>“Nay, nay, wife, I’ll be meek and good as your cosset lamb, so you’ll -keep me under your own hand. Come now, let us meet this enemy face to -face. What is it all?”</p> - -<p>Alice, who, tender soul that she was, loved not even playful and mock -contention, sighed a little, and folding her hands in her lap gently -said,—</p> - -<p>“It is all just as thou pleasest, Will, but my thought was to call -together all the young people and make a little feast to bring those -acquainted with Pris, who, poor maid, has found it a trifle dull and -straitened here, after leaving her merry young friends in England.”</p> - -<p>“Ever thinking of giving pleasure to others even at cost of much toil -to thyself, sweetheart!” And the governor, placing a hand under his -wife’s round chin, raised her face and kissed it tenderly again and -again, until the soft pink flushed to the roots of the fair hair.</p> - -<p>“Do as thou wilt, darling, in this and everything, and call upon me for -what thy men and maids cannot accomplish.”</p> - -<p>“Nay, I’ve help enough. Christian Penn is equal to two women, and -sister Pris herself is very notable. Then Priscilla Alden will kindly -put her hand to some of the dainty dishes, and she is a wonder at -cooking, as you know.”</p> - -<p>“Yes, she proved it in—early days,” interrupted Bradford, the smile -fading off his face. “Had it not been for her skill in putting a savory -touch to the coarsest food, I believe some of our sick folk would have -died,—I am sure Dame Brewster would.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, you poor souls! How you suffered, and I there in England eating -and drinking of the best, and—oh, Will, you should have married good -dear Priscilla to reward her care of what I held so carelessly.” </p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">[Pg 41]</a></span></p> - -<p>“Wonderful logic, madam! I should, to reward Mistress Molines for her -care, have married her, when she loved another man, and I another -woman, which latter was to thus be punished for carelessness in a -matter she knew naught about!”</p> - -<p>And with a tender little laugh, the governor pressed another kiss -upon his wife’s smooth cheek, before he went out to his fields, while -she flew at once to her kitchen and set the domestic engine throbbing -at double-quick time. Then she stepped up the hill to John Alden’s -house, and found Priscilla, her morning work already done, washing and -dressing her little Betty, while John and Jo watched the operation with -unflagging interest.</p> - -<p>“Come and help you, Alice? I shall be gay and glad to do it, dear, just -as soon as Betty is in her cradle, and I have told Mary-à-Becket what -to do about the noon-meat. John, you and Jo run up the hill to the -captain’s, and ask Mistress Standish if Alick and Myles may come down -and play with you in front of the governor’s house so I may keep an eye -on you.”</p> - -<p>“Two fine boys, those of Barbara’s,” said the governor’s wife, and then -affectionately, “yet no finer than your sturdy little knaves.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, ours are well enough for little yeomen, but the captain says his -Alick is heir to a great estate, and is a gentleman born!” And the two -young women laughed good-naturedly, while Priscilla laid her baby in -the cradle, and Alice turned toward the door saying, “Well, I must be -at home to mind the maids.”</p> - -<p>“And I’ll be there anon. I trust you’ve good store of milk and cream. -We did well enow without it for four years, but now we’ve had it for a -while, one might as well be dead as lack it.” </p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">[Pg 42]</a></span></p> - -<p>“I’ve plenty, and butter beside, both Dutch and fresh,” replied Alice -from outside the door, and in another ten minutes the wide kitchen -recently added to William Bradford’s house on the corner of Leyden -Street and the King’s Highway, now called Main Street, hummed again -with the merry sounds of youthful voices, of the whisking of eggs, and -grinding of spices, and stirring of golden compounds in wooden bowls, -and chopping suet, and stoning raisins, and slicing citron, and the -clatter of pewter dishes, which, by the way, with wooden ware were -nearly all the “pottery” the Pilgrims possessed, hypothetical teapots -and china cups to the contrary; for, since we all know that tea and -coffee were never heard of in England until about the year 1666, and -the former herb was sold for many years after at from ten to fifteen -dollars per pound (Pepys in 1671 mentions it as a strange and barbaric -beverage just introduced), it is improbable that either tea, teapot, -or teacups ever reached America until after Mary Allerton, the last -survivor of the Mayflower, rested upon Burying Hill.</p> - -<p>All that day and part of the next the battle raged in the Bradford -kitchen, for delicate appetites were in those times rather a defect -than a grace, and hospitality largely consisted in first providing -great quantities and many varieties of food, and then over-pressing -the guests to partake of it. An “afternoon tea” with diaphanous bread -and butter, wafer cakes, and Cambridge salts, as the only solid -refreshment, would have seemed to Alice Bradford and her guests either -a comic pretense or a niggardly insult, and very different was the -feast to which as many as could sat down at a very early hour of the -evening of the second day. </p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">[Pg 43]</a></span></p> - -<p>The company was large, for in the good Old Colony fashion it included -both married and single persons, and would, if possible, have made no -distinctions of age or position, but this catholicity had in the growth -of the colony become impossible, and Mistress Bradford’s invitations -were, with much searching of spirit and desire to avoid offense, -confined principally to young persons, married and unmarried, likely to -become associates of her sister Priscilla, a fair-haired, sweet-lipped, -and daintily colored lass, reproducing Dame Alice’s own early charms.</p> - -<p>“The Brewster girls must come, although I cannot yet be reconciled to -Fear’s having married Isaac Allerton, and calling herself mother to -Bart, and Mary and Remember—great grown girls!” exclaimed the hostess -in consultation with her husband, and he pleasantly replied,—</p> - -<p>“Oh, well, dame, we must not hope to guide all the world by our own -wisdom; and certes, if Fear’s marriage is a little incongruous, her -sister Patience is well and fitly mated with Thomas Prence. It does one -good to see such a comely and contented pair of wedded sweethearts.”</p> - -<p>“True enough, Will, and your thought is a rebuke to mine.”</p> - -<p>“Nay, wife, ’tis you that teach me to be charitable.”</p> - -<p>And the two, come together to reap in the glorious St. Martin’s summer -of their days the harvest sown amid the chill tears of spring, looked -in each other’s eyes with a smile of deep content. The woman was the -first to set self aside, and cried,—</p> - -<p>“Come, come, Sir Governor! To business! Mistress Allerton, and her -<i>daughters</i>, Mary and Remember, <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">[Pg 44]</a></span>Bartholomew, and the Prences, -Constance Hopkins with Nicholas Snow, whom she will marry, the Aldens, -the captain and his wife”—</p> - -<p>“He is hardly to be ranked with the young folk, is he?”</p> - -<p>“No, dear, no more than Master Allerton, or, for that matter, the -governor and his old wife; but there, there, no more waste of time, -sir! Who else is to come, and who to be left at home?”</p> - -<p>“Nay, wife, I’m out of my depth already and will e’en get back to firm -land, which means I leave all to your discretion. Call Barbara and -Priscilla Alden to council, and let me know in time to put on my new -green doublet and hose, for I suppose I am to don them.”</p> - -<p>“Indeed you are, and your ruffles and your silk stockings that I -brought over. I will not let you live altogether in hodden gray, since -even the Elder goes soberly fine on holidays.”</p> - -<p>“Well, well, I leave it all to you, and must betake myself to the -woods. Good-by for a little.”</p> - -<p>“Good-by, dear.”</p> - -<p>And as the governor with an axe on his shoulder strode away down Market -Street and across the brook to Watson’s Hill, Dame Alice, a kerchief -over her head, once more ran up the hill to Priscilla Alden’s.</p> - -<p>As the great gun upon the hill boomed out the sunset hour, and Captain -Standish himself carefully covered it from the dews of night, Alice -Bradford stood in the great lower room of her house and looked about -her. All was done that could be done to put the place in festal array, -and although the fair dame sighed a little at the remembrance of -her stately home in Duke’s Place,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">[Pg 45]</a></span> London, with its tapestries and -carvings and carpets and pictures, she bravely put aside the regret, -and affectionately smoothed and patted the fine damask “cubboard cloth” -covering the lower shelf of the sideboard, or, as she called it, the -“buffet,” at one side of the room, and placed and replaced the precious -properties set out thereon:—</p> - -<p>A silver wine cup, a porringer that had been her mother’s, nine silver -teaspoons, and, crown of all, four genuine Venetian wine-glasses, tall -and twisted of stem, gold-threaded and translucent of bowl, fragile and -dainty of shape, and yet, like their as dainty owner, brave to make the -pilgrimage from the home of luxury and art to the wilderness, where a -shelter from the weather and a scant supply of the coarsest food was -all to be hoped for.</p> - -<p>But Dame Bradford, fingering her Venice glasses, and softly smiling at -the touch, murmured to herself and to them, “’Tis our exceeding gain.”</p> - -<p>“What, Elsie, not dressed!” cried Priscilla Carpenter’s blithe voice, -as that young lady, running down the stairs leading to her little loft -chamber, presented herself to her sister’s inspection with a smile of -conscious deserving.</p> - -<p>“My word, Pris, but you are fine!” exclaimed Dame Alice, examining -with an air of unwilling admiration the young girl’s gay apparel and -ornaments. It was indeed a pretty dress, consisting of a petticoat of -cramoisie satin, quilted in an elaborate pattern of flowers, leaves, -and birds; an open skirt of brocade turned back from the front, and -caught high upon the hips with great bunches of cramoisie ribbons; a -“waistcoat” of the satin, and a little open jacket of the brocade. -Around the soft white<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">[Pg 46]</a></span> throat of the wearer was loosely knotted a satin -cravat of the same dull red tint with the skirt, edged with a deep -lace, upon which Alice Bradford at once laid a practiced finger.</p> - -<p>“Pris, that <i>jabot</i> is of Venise point! Where did you get it?”</p> - -<p>“Ah! That was a present from”—</p> - -<p>“Well, from whom?”</p> - -<p>“Nay, never look so cross on’t, my lady sister! Might not I have a -sweetheart as well as you?”</p> - -<p>“Priscilla, I’m glad you’re here rather than with those gay friends of -yours in London. I suppose Lady Judith Carr or her daughters gave you -these clothes, did they not?”</p> - -<p>“Well, I earned them hard enough putting up with all my lady’s humors -and the girls’ jealous fancies,” pouted Pris. “I was glad enough when -you and brother Will wrote and offered me a home,—not but what Lady -Judith was good to me and called me her daughter; but, Elsie, ’twas not -they who gave me the laced cravat, ’twas—’twas”—</p> - -<p>“Well, out with it, little sister! Who was it, if not our mother’s old -friend?”</p> - -<p>“Why, Elsie, ’twas a noble gentleman that I met with them down at Bath, -and—sister—he is coming over here to marry me right soon.”</p> - -<p>“Nay, then, but that’s news indeed! And what may be his name, pet?”</p> - -<p>“Sir Christopher Gardiner, and he’s a Knight of the Holy Sepulchre.”</p> - -<p>And Pris, fondling the lace of her cravat, smiled proudly into her -sister’s astonished face; but before either could speak, Barbara -Standish and Priscilla<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">[Pg 47]</a></span> Alden appeared at the open door, the latter -exclaiming in her blithe voice,—</p> - -<p>“What, Alice, still in your workaday kirtle! Barbara and I came thus -betimes to see if aught remained that we might do before the folk -gather.”</p> - -<p>“Thank you, both; I—I—nay, then, I’m a little put about, dear -friends; I hardly know,—well, well! Priscilla Carpenter, come you -into my bedroom and help me do on my clothes, and if you two will look -about and see what is ready and what is lacking, I shall be more than -grateful. Come, Pris!”</p> - -<p>“Something has chanced more than we know about!” suggested Priscilla -Alden, as the bedroom door closed behind the sisters.</p> - -<p>“Likely. But ’tis their affair and not ours,” replied Barbara quietly. -“Now let us see. Would you set open the case holding the twelve -ivory-handled knives?”</p> - -<p>“Yes, they’re a rarity, and some of the folk may not have seen them. -Alice says that in London they put a knife to every man’s trencher now, -and nobody uses his own sheath-knife as has been the wont.”</p> - -<p>“You tell me so! Well, one knife’s enough for Myles and me, yes, and -the boys to boot. But then I cut the meat in morsels, and spread the -bread with butter, or ever it goes on the table.”</p> - -<p>“Of course; so we all do, I suppose. Well there, all is ready now, and -here come the folk; there’s Patty Brewster, or Patience Prence as she -must now be called, and along with her Fear Allerton and Remember and -Mary,—her daughters indeed! Marry come up! <i>I</i> might have had Isaac -Allerton for myself, but”—</p> - -<p>“And there is Constance Hopkins, and Nicholas Snow,” interrupted -Barbara, who was a deadly foe to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">[Pg 48]</a></span> gossip, “and John and Elizabeth -Howland; then there’s Stephen Dean with Betsey Ring, and Edward Bangs -and Lyddy Hicks, and Mary Warren and Robert Bartlett, three pair of -sweethearts together, and here they all are at the door.”</p> - -<p>But as the more lively Priscilla ran to open it, the governor’s hearty -voice was heard without, crying,—</p> - -<p>“Welcome! Welcome, friends! I was called out for a moment, but have -come home just in the nick of time and brought the captain with me.”</p> - -<p>“Now I do hope Myles has put on his ruff, and his other doublet that I -laid out,” murmured Barbara in Priscilla’s ear. “When the governor and -he get together, the world’s well lost for both of them.”</p> - -<p>“Nay, he’s all right, and a right proper man, as he always was,” -returned Priscilla, with a quick glance at the square figure and -commanding head of the Captain of Plymouth, as he entered the room and -smiled in courtly fashion at Dame Bradford’s greeting.</p> - -<p>“And here’s your John, a head and shoulders above all the rest,” added -Barbara good-naturedly, as Alden, the Saxon giant, strode into the room -and looked fondly across it at his wife.</p> - -<p>Another half hour and all were gathered about the three long tables -improvised from boards and barrels, but all covered with the fine -napery brought from Holland by Alice Bradford, who had the true -housewife’s love of elegant damask, and during Edward Southworth’s life -was able to indulge it, laying up such store of table damask, of fine -Holland “pillowbers”<a name="FNanchor_1_1" id="FNanchor_1_1"></a><a href="#Footnote_1_1" >[1]</a> and “cubboard cloths,” towels of Holland, of -dowlas, and of lockorum, and sheets of various qualities from “fine -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">[Pg 49]</a></span>Holland” to tow (the latter probably spun and woven at home), that the -inventory of her personal estate is as good reading to her descendants -as a cookery book to a hungry man.</p> - -<p>Plenty of trenchers both of pewter and wood lined the table, and by -each lay a napkin and a spoon, but neither knives nor forks, the -latter implement not having yet been invented, except in the shape -of a powerful trident to lift the boiled beef from the kettle, while -table knives, as Priscilla Alden had intimated, were still regarded as -curious implements of extreme luxury. A knife of a different order, -sometimes a clasp-knife, sometimes a sheath-knife, or even a dagger, -was generally carried by each man, and used upon certain <i>pièces de -resistance</i>, such as boar’s head, a roasted peacock, a shape of brawn, -a powdered and cloved and browned ham, or such other triumphs of the -culinary art as must be served whole.</p> - -<p>Such dishes were carried around the table, and every guest, taking -hold of the morsel he coveted with his napkin, sliced it off with his -own knife, displaying the elegance of his table manners by the skill -with which he did it. But as saffron was a favorite condiment of the -day, and pearline was not yet invented, one sighs in contemplating the -condition of these napkins, and ceases to wonder at the store of them -laid up by thrifty housekeepers.</p> - -<p>Ordinarily, however, the meat was divided into morsels before appearing -on the table, and thus was easily managed with the spoon,—<i>or</i> with -the fingers.</p> - -<p>Between each two plates stood a pewter or wooden basin of clam chowder, -prepared by Priscilla Alden, who was held in Plymouth to possess a -magic touch for this and several other dishes. </p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">[Pg 50]</a></span></p> - -<p>From these each guest transferred a portion to his own plate, except -when two supped merrily from the same bowl in token of friendly -intimacy. This first course finished and the bowls removed, all eyes -turned upon the governor, who rose in his place at the head of the -principal table, where were gathered the more important guests, and, -looking affectionately up and down the board, said,—</p> - -<p>“Friends, it hardly needs that I should say that you are welcome, for -I see none that are ever less than welcome beneath this roof; but I -well may thank you for the cheer your friendly faces bring to my heart -to-night, and I well may pray you, of your goodness, to bestow upon -my young sister here the same hearty kindness you have ever shown -to me and mine.” A murmur of eager assent went round the board, and -the governor smiled cordially, as he grasped in both hands the great -two-handled loving-cup standing before him,—a grand cup, a noble cup, -of the measure of two quarts, of purest silver, beautifully fashioned, -and richly carved, as tradition said, by the hand of Benvenuto Cellini -himself; so precious a property that Katharine White, daughter of an -English bishop, was proud to bring it as almost her sole dowry to John -Carver, her husband. With him it came to the New World, and was used at -the Feast of Treaty between the colonists and Massasoit, chief of the -native owners of the soil. Katharine Carver, dying broken hearted six -weeks after her husband, bequeathed the cup to William Bradford, his -successor in the arduous post of Governor of the Colony, and from him -it passed down into that Hades of lost and all but forgotten treasures, -which may, for aught we know, become the recreation-ground for the -spirits of antiquarians. </p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">[Pg 51]</a></span></p> - -<p>Filled to the brim with generous Canary, a pure and fine wine in those -days, it crowned the table, and William Bradford, steadily raising -it to his lips, smiled gravely upon his guests, adding to his little -speech of welcome,—</p> - -<p>“I pledge you my hearty good-will, friends!” then drank sincerely yet -modestly, and giving one handle to Myles Standish, who sat at his left -hand, he retained his hold at the other side while the captain drank, -and in his turn gave one handle to Mistress Winslow, who came next, and -so, all standing to honor the pledge of love and good-will, the cup -passed round the board and came to Elder Brewster, at the governor’s -right hand; but he, having drank, looked around with his paternal smile -and said,—</p> - -<p>“There is yet enough in the loving-cup, friends, for each one to wet -his lips, if nothing more, and I propose that we do so with our hearty -welcome and best wishes to Mistress Priscilla Carpenter.”</p> - -<p>Once more the cup went gayly round, and reached the Elder so dry that -he smiled, as he placed it to his lips, with a bow toward Pris savoring -more of his early days in the court of Queen Bess than of New England’s -solitudes.</p> - -<p>“And now to work, my friends, to work!” cried the governor. “I for one -am famished, sith my dame was so busy at noontide with that wonderful -structure yonder that she gave me naught but bread and cheese.”</p> - -<p>Everybody laughed, and Alice Bradford colored like a red, red rose, yet -bravely answered,—</p> - -<p>“The governor will have his jest, but I hope my raised pie will suffer -roundly for its interference with his dinner.” </p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">[Pg 52]</a></span></p> - -<p>“Faith, dame, but we’ll all help to punish it,” exclaimed Stephen -Hopkins, gazing fondly at the elaborate mass of pastry representing, -not inartistically, a castle with battlements and towers, and a -floating banner of silk bearing an heraldic device. “Standish! we call -upon you to lead us to the assault!”</p> - -<p>“Nay, if Captain Standish is summoned to the field, my fortress -surrenders without even a parley,” said Alice Bradford, as she -gracefully drew the little banner from its place, and, laying it aside, -removed a tower, a bastion, and a section of the battlement from the -doomed fortress, and, loading a plate with the spoils of its treasury, -planted the banner upon the top, and sent it to the captain, who -received it with a bow and a smile, but never a word.</p> - -<p>“Speak up, man!” cried Hopkins boisterously. “Make a gallant speech in -return for the courtesy of so fair a castellaine.”</p> - -<p>“Mistress Bradford needs no speech to assure her of my devoir,” replied -the captain simply, and the governor added,—</p> - -<p>“Our captain speaks more by deeds than words, and Gideon is his most -eloquent interpreter. You have not brought him to-day, Captain.”</p> - -<p>“No; Gideon sulks in these days of peace, and seldom stirs abroad.”</p> - -<p>“Long may he be idle!” exclaimed the Elder, and a gentle murmur around -the board told that the women at least echoed the prayer.</p> - -<p>But Hopkins, seated next to Mistress Bradford, and watching her -distribution of the pie, cared naught for war or peace until he secured -a trencher of its contents, and presently cried,— </p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">[Pg 53]</a></span></p> - -<p>“Now, by my faith, I did not know such a pye as this could be concocted -out of Yorkshire! ’Tis perfect in all its parts: fowl, and game, and -pork, and forcemeat, and yolks of eggs, and curious art of spicery, and -melting bits of pastry within, and stout-built walls without; in fact, -there is naught lacking to such a pye as my mother used to make before -I had the wit to know such pyes sing not on every bush.”</p> - -<p>“You’re Yorkshire, then, Master Hopkins?” asked John Howland, who with -his young wife, once Elizabeth Tilley, sat opposite.</p> - -<p>“Yes, I’m Yorkshire, root and branch, and you’re Essex, and the captain -and the governor Lancashire, but all shaken up in a bag now, and turned -into New Englanders, and since the Yorkshire pye has come over along -with us I’m content for one.”</p> - -<p>A general laugh indorsed this patriotic speech, but Myles Standish, -toying with the silken banner of the now sacked and ruined fortress, -said in Bradford’s ear,—</p> - -<p>“All very well for a man who has naught to lose in the old country. But -for my part I mean to place at least my oldest son in the seat of his -fathers.”</p> - -<p>The governor smiled, and then sighed. “Nor can I quite forget the lands -of Austerfield held by Bradfords and Hansons for more than one century, -and the path beside the Idle, where Brewster and I walked and talked in -the days of my first awakening to the real things of life”—</p> - -<p>“Real things of life, say you, Governor?” broke in Hopkins’s strident -voice; “well, if there is aught more real in its merit than this -roasted suckling, I wish that I might meet with it.”</p> - -<p>And seizing with his napkin the hind leg of the little<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">[Pg 54]</a></span> roasted pig -presented to him by Christian Penn, the old campaigner deftly sliced -it off with his sheath-knife and devoured it in the most inartificial -manner possible.</p> - -<p>It was probably about this epoch that our popular saying, “Fingers were -made before forks,” took shape and force.</p> - -<p>To the chowder, and the “pye,” and the roasted suckling succeeded a -mighty dish of succotash, that compound of dried beans, hulled corn, -salted beef, pork, and chicken which may be called the charter-dish of -Plymouth; then came wild fowl dressed in various ways, a great bowl of -“sallet,” of Priscilla Alden’s composition, and at last various sweet -dishes, still served at the end of a meal, although soon after it was -the mode to take them first.</p> - -<p>“Oh, dear, when will the dignities stop eating and drinking and making -compliments to each other?” murmured Priscilla Carpenter to Mary Warren -at the side table where the girls and lads were grouped together, -enjoying themselves as much as their elders, albeit in less ceremonious -fashion.</p> - -<p>“There! Your sister has laid down her napkin, and is gazing steadfastly -at the governor, with ‘Get up and say Grace’ in her eye,” replied -Mary, nudging Jane Cooke to enforce silence; whereat that merry maid -burst into a giggle, joined by Sarah and Elizabeth Warren, and Mary -Allerton, and Betsey Ring, while Edward Bangs, and Robert Bartlett, and -Sam Jenney, and Philip De la Noye, and Thomas Clarke, and John Cooke -chuckled in sympathy, yet knew not what at.</p> - -<p>A warning yet very gentle glance from Dame Bradford’s eyes stifled the -noise, and nearly did as much for its authors, who barely managed to -preserve sobriety,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">[Pg 55]</a></span> while the governor returned thanks to the Giver -of all good; so soon, however, as the elder party moved away, the -painfully suppressed giggle burst into a storm of merriment, which as -it subsided was renewed in fullest vigor by Sarah Warren’s bewildered -inquiry,—</p> - -<p>“What <i>are</i> we all laughing at?”</p> - -<p>“Never mind, we’ll laugh first, and find the wherefore at our leisure,” -suggested Jane Cooke, and so the dear old foolish fun that seems to -spring up in spontaneous growth where young folk are gathered together, -and is sometimes scorned and sometimes coveted by their elders, went -on, and, after the tables were cleared, took form in all sorts of -old English games, not very intellectual, not even very refined, but -as satisfactory to those who played as Buried Cities, and Twenty -Questions, and Intellectual Salad, and capping Browning quotations are -to the children of culture and æsthetics.</p> - -<p>The elders, meanwhile, retiring to the smaller room at the other -side of the front door, seated themselves to certain sober games of -draughts, of backgammon, of loo, and beggar-my-neighbor, or picquet, -while Elder Brewster challenged the governor to a game of chess which -was not finished when, at ten o’clock, the company broke up, and with -many a blithe good-night, and assurance of the pleasure they had -enjoyed, betook themselves to their own homes.</p> - -<p>Thus, then, was Priscilla Carpenter introduced into Plymouth society.</p> - -<h3>FOOTNOTE:</h3> - -<p><a name="Footnote_1_1" id="Footnote_1_1"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1_1">[1]</a> Pillow-biers, now called pillow-cases.</p> - -<hr /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">[Pg 56]</a></span></p> - -<h2>CHAPTER VI.</h2> - -<p class="bold">A VIPER SCOTCHED, NOT KILLED.</p> - -<p>“’Tis meat for my masters,” muttered William Wright, plodding -stubbornly up the hill toward the Fort; but as he passed John Alden’s -door the sturdy, middle-aged man paused to watch, with a smile of -admiration rather strange to his commonplace visage, a game of romps -between little Betty Alden and Priscilla Carpenter, and indeed it was -a pretty sight. The maiden, her full yet lissome figure displayed in -a short skirt of blue cloth and a kirtle of India chintz belted down -by a little white apron, was teasing the child with a cluster of ripe -blackberries held just beyond her reach, and, dancing hither and yon as -Betty pursued, showed her pretty feet and ankles to perfection, while -the exercise and fresh air had tinted her cheeks and brightened her -eyes as cosmetics never could, and set a thousand little airy curls -loose from the fair hair braided in a long plait down her back.</p> - -<p>“You can’t catch me, Betty! You can’t have the plums till you catch me, -and you can’t—ah, now—catch if you can—catch if you can!”</p> - -<p>But Betty, shrieking with laughter as she dived this way and that, -suddenly grew so grave and frowned so terribly as she pointed her -chubby finger and stammered, “Go ’way—s’ant look o’ me—go ’way man!” -that Priscilla turned sharply round, and catching the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">[Pg 57]</a></span> interloper in -the very midst of a broad smile, she frowned, almost as terribly as -Betty, and loftily inquired,—</p> - -<p>“Am I in your path, Master Wright?”</p> - -<p>“Nay, how could that be?” stammered Wright, utterly abashed before his -two accusers. “I pray you excuse me, Mistress Prissie, but I—I was -looking for the governor, and”—</p> - -<p>“The governor?” interrupted Priscilla scornfully; “well, he’s not in my -pocket, is he in yours, Betty?”</p> - -<p>And catching up the child, she was retreating into the house, when her -admirer interposed with an air of dignity more becoming to his age and -appearance than the confusion of a detected intruder upon a girl’s -pastime,—</p> - -<p>“Nay, mistress, I need not drive you away; I am going to the Fort.”</p> - -<p>“Well, there is the governor coming down from the Fort so as to leave -room for you,” retorted Prissie, and setting the child inside the door, -she fled down the hill as lightly as the wind that chased her.</p> - -<p>“Good-morrow, Wright,” cried Bradford cheerily, as the two men met.</p> - -<p>“Good-morrow, Governor. May I have a word with you on business?”</p> - -<p>“Surely. Come back to the Fort, where I have just left the captain. Ah, -here he is now!”</p> - -<p>And the three men were soon seated in the captain’s little den, flooded -with sunshine through its eastern window.</p> - -<p>“I sail in the Little James to-day, sirs,” began Wright abruptly; “and -but now, not an hour agone, Master Lyford gave me this letter, praying -me to hold it secret, and carry it to its address in London, and he -would<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">[Pg 58]</a></span> give me five shilling when I returned. Now, sirs, I am not a man -to be hired for five shilling to do any man’s dirty work, and I liked -not Master Lyford’s look or voice as he gave me his errand, nor have -I forgot the matters concerning him and John Oldhame a while ago, and -so—here ’s the letter, Governor.”</p> - -<p>“Ha! ’Tis to the same address, Captain! Our well-known enemy and -gainsayer among the Adventurers.”</p> - -<p>“Ay. The old proverb come true again of the dog that turns from good -victual to vile,” muttered Standish grimly. “And I suppose it is to be -opened like the rest? Work I do not relish, Governor.”</p> - -<p>“Nor I. But Winslow and Allerton are both away, and you must come with -me to the Elder. In his presence and yours I shall open and read this -letter, as is my bounden duty.”</p> - -<p>And Bradford, leaning back in his chair, looked straight into the face -of the captain, who, returning the gaze with one of his keen glances, -nodded assent, saying in a surly voice,—</p> - -<p>“You are the governor. It is for you to order and me to obey, but I -like it not.”</p> - -<p>“As for you, Wright, you have done well and wisely in this matter. The -James sails at three of the clock; come you to my house at two, and I -will return you the letter with one of mine own.”</p> - -<p>“Will Priscilla Carpenter be in the room!” wondered William Wright, as -he took his leave.</p> - -<p>The letter examined by the triumvirate of governor, Elder, and captain -proved that Lyford’s penitence, if indeed it had ever existed, had -spent its strength in protestation. The writer alluded to the letters -the governor had allowed to go forward, either by original<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">[Pg 59]</a></span> or copy, -and declared that all they had stated was true, “only not the half,” -and that since their discovery he had been persecuted and browbeaten -to the verge of existence, and all because he loved and clung to the -Prayer Book and his Episcopal ordination. The letter closed with -entreaties that a sufficient body of settlers, with military leaders, -should at once be sent over to crush his present hosts and set him at -liberty to follow his conscience.</p> - -<p>“At least, we may at once grant our brother liberty to follow his -conscience in matters spiritual,” remarked the Elder with a grave -smile, as he laid down the letter. “I think it will be best to summon a -church meeting for next Lord’s Day, and utterly dismiss Master Lyford -from our fellowship and communion. It is no less than sacrilege for a -man who can write after this fashion to sit down at the Lord’s table -with us, professing to be of us.”</p> - -<p>“You are right, Elder,” replied Bradford sternly, “and I leave the -spiritual matter to you; but it is my duty, and one not to be slighted, -to drive this traitor out of our body politic. He must leave Plymouth -at once. Say you not so, Captain Standish?”</p> - -<p>“I say, bundle him into the Little James and send him back to England -to his dear cronies there, or, better still, strip off his gown and -bands and hang him as a traitor.”</p> - -<p>“To send him to England we have no warrant, nor would it be wise to -invite English legislation in our particular affairs,” retorted the -governor; “and as for hanging him, it is a course open both to these -same objections and to something more. No, we shall simply bid him -leave the colony and not return hither on any<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">[Pg 60]</a></span> pretense. The wife and -children may remain until he has a home whither to carry them.”</p> - -<p>“A righteous judgment,” pronounced the Elder, and as Standish growled -assent, the matter was settled, and so promptly carried into effect -that in less than forty-eight hours the renegade forever turned his -back upon the place and the people who had trusted and honored him, -and whom, had he been a faithful servant of his Master and the Church, -he might undoubtedly have led to a renewed allegiance to the venerable -Mother whose unwise severity rather than whose doctrine had driven them -from the home of their ancestors.</p> - -<p>“There goes a viper scotched, not killed, and we shall feel his sting -yet,” remarked Standish, as he with Peter Browne and John Alden stood -on the brow of Cole’s Hill, and watched Lyford’s embarkation in a -fishing-boat belonging to Nantucket, where Oldhame had pitched his -tent for a while. Here also, or at neighboring Weymouth, Blackstone, -Maverick, Walford, and a few other of the Gorges party had succeeded -to the houses left empty by Weston’s men after their deliverance by -Myles Standish from Pecksuot, Wituwamat, and their horde. In course -of time, Blackstone, carrying his clergyman’s coat, removed to Boston -Common, Walford to Charlestown, and Maverick to East Boston, each -man representing the entire population of each place; but still some -settlers remained on the old site, so that from the time of Weston’s -arrival in 1622, this neighborhood has been the home of white men.</p> - -<p>“Scotched, not killed,” repeated Standish, filling his pipe, as he -sat and mused in the autumn sunshine outside of his cabin door, while -Barbara in her noiseless but competent fashion got ready a savory -supper within, and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">[Pg 61]</a></span> Alick, with a bow made for him by Hobomok, fired -not unskillful arrows at a target set upon the hillside.</p> - -<p>A week later the captain’s words came true, for the same fishing boat -that had carried away Lyford put into Plymouth Harbor on an ebb tide, -and sent off her boat with four men, one of whom was soon recognized -as Oldhame. As the banished man leaped upon the Rock, followed by his -comrades, all strangers to Plymouth, some of the older townsmen met -him, and one of them gravely inquired his business.</p> - -<p>“Business quotha!” blustered Oldhame, who was evidently the worse for -liquor. “My business is first to tweak Billy Bradford’s nose, and then -to kick Myles Standish into a rat-hole, and finally to burn down your -wretched kennels, and root up this doghole of a place, where I and my -friends have met such scurvy treatment.”</p> - -<p>“An’ your errand is so large an one, you had better go and seek the -governor and his assistants without delay,” replied Francis Cooke, -waving his hand up Leyden Street, and restraining by a look some of the -younger men, who seemed disposed to dispute the landing.</p> - -<p>“Why, so I will, Cooke; I’ll go up and speak to your masters, but not -my masters, mind you, good Cooke; good Cooke, ha, ha! Come, now, hop -into my boat and I’ll carry you home to be my cook, mine own good cook, -Francis! Hop in, I say!”</p> - -<p>And the roysterer, with a roar of drunken laughter, strode up the hill, -the strangers, who looked both anxious and ashamed, following slowly -after him.</p> - -<p>In the Town Square the invaders encountered Bradford with Doctor Fuller -and Stephen Hopkins, and Oldhame, pushing himself into the group, began -a violent<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">[Pg 62]</a></span> tirade upon the abuses and insults that he averred had been -offered both him and Lyford, and was proceeding to the most scurrilous -threats and vituperations, when the governor, beckoning Bart Allerton, -who, with several other young men, was hanging around the group of -elders, said calmly,—</p> - -<p>“Bart, find Captain Standish, and bid him summon a couple of the -train-band, and bring them hither.”</p> - -<p>“Oho! Captain Shrimp is to appear on the scene, is he? Well, I’ve come -here to settle old scores with him as well as the rest! Go fetch him, -Bart; trot, boy, trot!”</p> - -<p>“It needs not to fetch him, Master Oldhame, since he is here at your -service.” Thus speaking, the captain, who had been hastening down the -hill before he was summoned, strode into the circle, a grim smile upon -his face and the red light of battle in his eye.</p> - -<p>“Ha! my little bantam cock! are you there?” And the reckless fellow -aimed a backhanded blow at the captain’s face, which the latter easily -evaded by a side-movement, and returned with a square blow from the -shoulder, taking effect under Oldhame’s jaw, and sending him staggering -back into the arms of one of his new comrades.</p> - -<p>“Enough, enough!” exclaimed Bradford, holding up his hand. “A street -brawl is not befitting or seemly. Captain Standish, arrest this man, -and put him in the strong-room until we consider what measure to deal -out to him.”</p> - -<p>“The tide is gone, or we would carry him aboard and be off altogether,” -suggested one of the strangers.</p> - -<p>“Possibly not,” quietly returned the governor. “It might not seem right -to so lightly dismiss such an<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">[Pg 63]</a></span> offense. We would bear ourselves meekly -with all men, but it is not meet that our townsfolk should see their -leaders insulted and braved thus insolently with impunity.”</p> - -<p>“Captain Gorges would have run a man through for less,” replied -the other. “But Oldhame said the Plymouth men were crop-eared -psalm-singers, who would not fight.”</p> - -<p>“If Plymouth men had not fought to some purpose on the spot where you -have settled, you would have found but sorry housing there,” retorted -Standish savagely, as he led his captive away, securely bound, and -Bradford in his usual calm tones explained,—</p> - -<p>“After our captain had slain Pecksuot and Wituwamat and dispersed their -following, he nailed a placard to the tree at the gate of the stockade, -whereon he had hung one of the ringleaders, warning the savages that -if they burned or destroyed the dwellings that remained, he would -come back and serve them as he had their misleader; and this cartel, -although they could not read it, so terrified their superstitious -fancies that Captain Gorges found housen for his men, and a stoccado to -protect them.”</p> - -<p>“Yes,” replied the stranger, gazing curiously after Standish, “we found -the bones of the hanged man lying in a heap under the tree, and the -marks of a deadly fray in the house where Pecksuot fell.”</p> - -<p>“Ay, so. It was a sad necessity, and one almost as grievous to us as to -the savages,” returned Bradford. “Now, sirs, we have no quarrel with -you, nor wish for any. Your skiff will not float until three hours -after noon, and when she does we shall doubtless send away Master -Oldhame in her; meantime, you are welcome to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">[Pg 64]</a></span> look about and see our -town and Fort, and discourse with the people. Master Hopkins, will you -see that these men have some dinner?”</p> - -<p>“Such as ’tis, they’re welcome to some of mine,” promptly replied -Hopkins, whose comfortable house stood on the corner of Leyden and -Main streets just opposite the governor’s, and whose garden stretched -along to Middle Street, not yet laid out. The size and convenience of -his house, and the bountiful and cheerful hospitality of his wife, -who, with the aid of her daughters Constance, Damaris, and Deborah, -administered the domestic affairs, combining English thrift and -neatness with colonial abundance, gave Hopkins the frequent opportunity -of entertaining visitors to Plymouth, while Bradford saw that he was no -loser by such a course.</p> - -<p>Meanwhile the governor and his council sat in conclave, secure that -their decision would find favor with the people, or at any rate -with that nucleus and backbone of the commonalty known as “the -first-comers,” meaning the passengers of the Mayflower, the Fortune, -and the Anne, with her tender the Little James.</p> - -<p>At noon the tide turned, and the town went to dinner. About half past -two Bartholomew Allerton beat the “assembly” in the Town Square, and at -the well-understood summons men, women, and children gathered in the -square, or clustered in the open doorways, all filled with curiosity as -to the mode of punishment about to be meted out to the returned exile, -and yet none in the least doubt as to its justice. Even the men whom he -had brought with him to be the witnesses of his triumph stood supinely -to view his disgrace, muttering among themselves, and casting uneasy -glances down the hill to where their shallop lay still aground at the -foot of the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65">[Pg 65]</a></span> Rock, while the larger boat hardly swung afloat on the -breast of the young tide.</p> - -<p>Three o’clock, and the governor, the Elder, and the captain came out -of the house of the first, robed in their official garments, and stood -upon a platform of squared logs erected at the intersection of the -streets and mounted with two small cannon called patereros. A blast -from the trumpet, and the gate of the Fort upon the hill swung open, -and out came a strange procession: first, Bart Allerton with his drum, -and three other young fellows with wind instruments, who rendered a -fair imitation of the Rogue’s March; then twenty picked men, mostly -from among the first-comers, each carrying his snaphance reversed; -then Master Oldhame, bareheaded and barefooted, and with his arms tied -across his chest; and finally, Lieutenant John Alden, bearing a naked -sword, followed by a guard of four men well armed.</p> - -<p>Down the hill they came at a foot-pace, the bugles and trumpet -shrilling out their contemptuous cadences, and Oldhame, his pride -subdued and his pot-valiancy all evaporated, stepping delicately as -Agog, for the pebbles hurt his bare feet, and perhaps feeling with Agog -that the bitterness of death was at his lips.</p> - -<p>Before the platform, where stood the magnates and the cannon, the -procession paused, the music ceased, and upon the silence rose the -governor’s calm, strong voice.</p> - -<p>“John Oldhame, you have come hither in defiance of the formal edict -of this government banishing you from the colony; and you have -come with violence and insult, refusing to accept warning, or to -depart peaceably. We therefore have resolved that since you return -dishonorably, you shall depart in dishonor, taking with you<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66">[Pg 66]</a></span> the -warning for the future, that the barrels of our pieces are more deadly -than their stocks. Go, and mend your manners!”</p> - -<p>He waved his hand, and the bugles recommenced their blare, while the -twenty men opened their ranks and ranged themselves in two lines some -three feet apart, but not directly opposite each other.</p> - -<p>“Go on, prisoner!” ordered Alden, touching Oldhame with the hilt of his -sword. “Go, and mend your manners!” And as the cowed yet furious rebel -stepped forward, the first man of the line struck upward with the stock -of his reversed musket, saying,—</p> - -<p>“Go, and mend your manners!” The next instant the same blow and the -same words fell from the minuteman diagonally opposite, and so down the -entire line, until as the twentieth blow and twenty-second adjuration -to “Go, and mend your manners” fell upon the humiliated bully, he broke -down utterly, and with a howl of mingled rage and pain bolted into the -door of John Howland’s house next below Stephen Hopkins’s, but was met -by Elizabeth, who with little John clinging to her skirts and Desire in -her arms boldly faced the intruder for a moment, and then looking into -his streaming face and hunted eyes cried pitifully,—</p> - -<p>“Oh, poor soul!” and seizing the scissors at her girdle cut the band -confining his arms, and catching up a tankard of ale set ready for her -husband held it to his lips, muttering,—</p> - -<p>“Mayhap ’tis treason, but there, poor creature, drink, and then slink -away down the hill while— Why, what’s to do now in the street?”</p> - -<p>“Why don’t you say, ‘Go, and mend your manners!’” hoarsely asked -Oldhame; but still he drank, and then,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67">[Pg 67]</a></span> glancing over his hostess’s -shoulder as she stood in the doorway, he swore a great oath, and -pushing her rudely aside dashed out and down the hill to his boat.</p> - -<p>For, unseen by the townsmen, all of them absorbed in the punishment -parade, the ship Jacob, Captain William Pierce, had sailed into harbor -upon the flood-tide, dropped anchor beside the Nantucket fishing craft, -and set ashore her master, with his distinguished passenger Edward -Winslow, who had been to England to try to straighten the tangled -relations between the Pilgrims and the Adventurers, already playing -fast and loose with their promises.</p> - -<p>Some good-natured raillery from Captain Pierce upon the negligent -outlook kept by the colonists served to relieve the strain of the -late occurrence, and as Winslow with a face full of portent followed -the governor into his house, John Oldhame stepped aboard the fishing -vessel, and sailed out of Plymouth Harbor in a condition of unwonted -quiet and humiliation.</p> - -<hr /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68">[Pg 68]</a></span></p> - -<h2>CHAPTER VII.</h2> - -<p class="bold">MORTON OF MERRY MOUNT.</p> - -<p>“Well, Master Trumpeter, and what do you make of yon craft? Are the -Don Spaniards coming to invade New Plymouth, or has the king sent to -impress you as major-domo of the royal hand?”</p> - -<p>“Good-morrow, Captain Standish. The governor lent me his perspective -glass, and sent me up on the hill to spy out who was coming.”</p> - -<p>“And that’s all right, Bart. No need to make excuse for doing the -governor’s bidding, my lad.”</p> - -<p>“I was thinking, Captain, you found it strange to see me on the Fort -without notice to you”—</p> - -<p>“And so came up to call you to account? No, my boy, I know who’s to -be trusted and who not, else had I served in vain through those long -years in the Low Countries. Had it been Gyles Hopkins now, or Jack -Billington— But there, what make you of the craft?”</p> - -<p>“I think, sir, ’tis Master Maverick’s boat from Noddle’s Island, and -there are four men in her whose faces I cannot yet make out.”</p> - -<p>“A friendly visit, belike. Stay you here, Bart, until you can determine -the craft, and then carry the news to the governor. I am going down to -the Rock on mine own occasions.”</p> - -<p>Bowling merrily along before an easterly breeze, the ketch soon rounded -Beach Point, and dropped her <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">[Pg 69]</a></span>anchor opposite the village, but in -midstream, and so soon as the sails were snugged, and all made ready -for some possible change of weather, the four visitors stepped into a -skiff and were sculled ashore by a tall, fine-looking young fellow, -whose bronzed face and lithe figure were well set off by the buckskin -hunting-shirt and red cap worn with a jaunty air not inharmonious with -the young man’s roving black eyes and flashing smile.</p> - -<p>“Master Maverick and his son, Master Blackstone from Shawmut, and -Master Bursley and Master Jeffries from Wessagussett,” reported Bart -Allerton, hat in hand, at the governor’s door, and Bradford, laying -down his book, replied with a grave smile,—</p> - -<p>“I will go to meet them.”</p> - -<p>Half an hour later the three elder visitors with the governor, the -captain, Allerton, Doctor Fuller, and one or two more, were closeted in -the new room recently added to the governor’s house, and used by him as -a council chamber and court room.</p> - -<p>Moses Maverick, the handsome young boatman, had meanwhile somewhat -pointedly sought out Bart Allerton, and almost invited himself to -accompany him home.</p> - -<p>“Go you into the front room and entertain him, Remember,” directed the -young step-mother with a mischievous smile. “I am too busy with little -Isaac to leave him just now.”</p> - -<p>And Maverick received the apologies of his hostess with an air so -strangely contented that Remember paused half way in making them, and -faltered and blushed and laughed, very much as a modest but open-eyed -girl would do to-day.</p> - -<p>“I told you last Lady Day that I should soon be here again, Remember,” -murmured the youth rather irrelevantly. </p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70">[Pg 70]</a></span></p> - -<p>“I know naught of Lady Days,” retorted the Pilgrim maid with an effort -at a saucy little laugh.</p> - -<p>“’Tis because your father is a Separatist, but we Mavericks are sound -Churchmen,” replied the lover. “Some day, mayhap, you’ll be better -advised.”</p> - -<p>Let us discreetly leave them to themselves, and seek the council -chamber where Blackstone is saying,—</p> - -<p>“Yes, Governor Bradford, we have come to you for that aid and support -against the common foe which all Christians have a right to demand of -each other, no matter how the forms of their Christianity may disagree.”</p> - -<p>“The plea is one never disallowed by the men of Plymouth,” returned -Bradford in his sonorous voice. “But what would you have us to do?”</p> - -<p>“Why, to capture this Morton by force of arms, since words have no -effect, and ship him back to England, where they say there is a warrant -out against him for murder of some man in the west country with whom he -had business concerns.”</p> - -<p>“That were a high-handed proceeding, specially sith his settlement is -not within the domain of Plymouth,” suggested the Elder cautiously.</p> - -<p>“True,” broke in Bursley impetuously. “But as Master Blackstone has -told you, Morton sells pieces and ammunition and rum to the savages -without let or stint, and they, having naught else to do, practice at -a mark all day long, and soon will prove better shots than any white -man. Then, when some new Wituwamat or Pecksuot shall arise to stir -them to revolt, where shall we be? You had not won so easy a triumph -there where I live, Captain Standish, had your foes been armed with -snaphances.” </p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71">[Pg 71]</a></span></p> - -<p>“Not so easy, perhaps, but to my mind more honorable,” replied Standish -coldly. “Howbeit, I do not approve of arming the Indians.”</p> - -<p>“Of course, Governor,” resumed Blackstone, who had been the principal -speaker, “the peril is not great for you who can count a hundred -fighting men with Captain Standish to lead them; but none other of -the settlements is of any force, although friend Maverick here has -fortified his island, and may depend upon a dozen men or so of his -household, and the Hilton brothers at Piscataqua and Cocheco are stout -and well-armed fellows, and my neighbor Thomas Walford at Mishawum<a name="FNanchor_2_2" id="FNanchor_2_2"></a><a href="#Footnote_2_2">[2]</a> -has a palisado round his house, and his blacksmith’s sledge with some -other weapons inside. Then at Naumkeag<a name="FNanchor_3_3" id="FNanchor_3_3"></a><a href="#Footnote_3_3">[3]</a> are Roger Conant, Peter -Palfrey, and the rest, with your old friend Lyford as their parson, -and Conant is a fighting man as well as a godly one. But I, as all -men know, am a man of peace as befits a parson; and there is David -Thompson’s young widow and child abiding on the island bearing his -name, with only a couple of men-servants to defend them. If all of -us drew together in one hold we should not count half the force of -Plymouth, but we do not wish so to abandon our plantations.”</p> - -<p>“Have you labored with Thomas Morton, showing him the wrong he does?” -asked Elder Brewster coldly, and eying the Churchman with strong -disfavor, for Blackstone, with questionable taste, had chosen to wear -upon this expedition the long coat and shovel hat carefully brought by -him from England as the uniform of his profession. Dressed in these -canonicals, with the incongruous addition of “Geneva bands,” Blackstone -regularly read the Church of England service on Sundays<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72">[Pg 72]</a></span> at his house -upon the Common, sometimes alone, and sometimes to a congregation -composed of the Walfords from Charlestown, the Mavericks from Noddle’s -Island or East Boston, the settlers from Chelsea, and perhaps in fine -weather the Grays from Hull, and some of the folk from Old Spain in -Weymouth. For all these were adherents to the Church of England after a -fashion, although by no means ardent religionists of any sort; and as -such, held in considerable esteem the eccentric parson living in the -solitude he loved among his apple-trees, and beside his clear spring, -now merged in the Frog Pond of our Common. A lukewarm Churchman, he was -friendly enough to the Separatists, and now replied to Brewster with a -smile,—</p> - -<p>“I have labored so vainly, Elder, that I fear even your authority would -be of no avail. I opine that our friend Standish here is the only man -whose eloquence Thomas Morton will heed in the smallest degree.”</p> - -<p>“And the chief men of all the settlements are agreed in making this -request of Plymouth?” asked the governor.</p> - -<p>“Not only the chief, but every man among them,” answered Maverick. “And -what is more to the purpose, each one of the settlements will bear its -share in whatsoever charges the arrest and transportation may involve.”</p> - -<p>“That is well, but should be set down in writing with signatures and -witnesses,” suggested Allerton, to whom Maverick haughtily replied,—</p> - -<p>“Oh, never fear, Master Allerton. The most of us are honest men and not -traders.”</p> - -<p>“No offense, Master Maverick, no offense; but it is well that all -things should be done decently and in<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73">[Pg 73]</a></span> order,” returned the assistant -smoothly, and the council soon after broke up with the understanding -that Bradford, as the only recognized authority in New England, should -write Morton a formal protest in the name of all the English settlers, -reminding him that King James of happy memory had, as one of his latest -acts, issued a royal proclamation forbidding the sale of fire-arms or -spirits to the savages, and calling upon him as an English subject to -obey this edict.</p> - -<p>If this protest proved of none effect, the Governor of Plymouth pledged -himself to suppress the rebel and his mischief with the high hand.</p> - -<h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3> - -<p><a name="Footnote_2_2" id="Footnote_2_2"></a><a href="#FNanchor_2_2">[2]</a> Charlestown.</p> - -<p><a name="Footnote_3_3" id="Footnote_3_3"></a><a href="#FNanchor_3_3">[3]</a> Salem.</p> - -<hr /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74">[Pg 74]</a></span></p> - -<h2>CHAPTER VIII.</h2> - -<p class="bold">STANDISH AT MERRY MOUNT.</p> - -<p>Some two weeks had passed by since the visit of the committee of safety -to Plymouth; long enough for Bradford, ever moderate, ever considerate, -to write a letter of kindly expostulation to Morton, and to receive -an insolent and defiant reply; and now in a pleasant June afternoon -the Plymouth boat, commanded by Standish, and manned by eight picked -followers, drew into Weymouth fore-river, where upon the water-course -now known as Phillips Creek, Weston and his men, some six or seven -years before, had founded their unlucky settlement.</p> - -<p>The fate of this settlement we have seen, and also learned that the -houses protected by Standish’s warning to the savages had since become -the dwelling-place of some of the followers of Ferdinando Gorges, that -showy personage who, coming to the New World with the romantic idea of -proclaiming himself its governor, found it so savage and forbidding of -aspect that, after a few months spent mostly as a guest of Plymouth, he -quietly returned to England, civilization, and a sovereignty on paper. -The houses repaired or built by him still remained, however, and among -the Gorges men who continued to live in them were the Mr. Jeffries and -Mr. Bursley who accompanied Blackstone and Maverick to Plymouth. </p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75">[Pg 75]</a></span></p> - -<p>A little below Phillips Creek, the Monatoquit River empties into the -bay, and across the river lies a fair height, now included in the town -of Quincy, but then known as Passonagessit, whence one might then, -and still may, look east and north upon the lovely archipelago of -Boston Harbor, or westward to the blue hills of Milton. On its eastern -face this height of Passonagessit sloped gently to the sea, with good -harborage for boats at its foot, promising facilities for fishing and -for traffic with the northern Indians.</p> - -<p>Upon this headland in the early summer of 1625 a wild and motley crowd -of adventurers pitched their tents, and soon replaced the canvas with -comfortable log-houses and a stockaded inclosure. The leader of this -company was one Captain Wollaston, perhaps the same adventurer whom -Captain John Smith of Pocahontas memory encountered, some fifteen years -before, on the high seas, acting as lieutenant to one Captain Barry, -an English pirate. With Wollaston were three or four partners, and a -great crew of bound servants, men who had either pledged their own -time, or been delivered into temporary slavery as punishment by English -magistrates, and the purpose of the leaders was to found a settlement -like that of Plymouth. The place was named Mount Wollaston by the white -men, while the Indians continued to call it Passonagessit, just as -they still speak of Weymouth as Wessagusset. One New England winter, -however, cooled the courage of Captain Wollaston, as it had that of -Robert Gorges, and in the spring of 1626 he took about half his bound -men to Virginia, where he sold their services to the tobacco planters -at such a profit, that he wrote back to Mr. Rasdall, his second in -command, to bring down another<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76">[Pg 76]</a></span> gang as soon as possible, and to leave -Mount Wollaston in charge of Lieutenant Fitcher, until he himself -should return thither.</p> - -<p>Rasdall obeyed, and in making his parting charges to Fitcher remarked,—</p> - -<p>“All should go well, so that you keep Thomas Morton in check. Give him -his head and he will run away with you and Wollaston.”</p> - -<p>Fitcher assented with a rueful countenance, for he knew himself to be -but a timid rider, and the Morton a most unruly steed, and the event -proved his fears well grounded, for Rasdall had not reached Virginia -before Morton in the lieutenant’s temporary absence called the eight -remaining servants together, produced some bottles of rum, a net of -lemons, and a bucket of sugar, to which he bade his guests heartily -welcome, greeting each man jovially by name, and telling them that the -time had come to throw off their chains, to assert their rights, and -to reap for themselves the benefit of their hard work. He assured them -that he, although a gentleman, a learned lawyer, and a man of means, -felt himself no whit above them, and asked nothing better than to live -with them in liberty, fraternity, and equality, finally proposing that -they should seize upon “the plant” of Mount Wollaston, turn Lieutenant -Fitcher out of doors, and establish a commonwealth of their own. No -sooner said than done! The men whom Morton addressed were, in fact, -the dregs of the company left behind by Wollaston as not worth trading -off. Perhaps he never intended to come back to claim them; perhaps if -indeed he had been a pirate he took Morton’s action as nothing more -than a reasonable proceeding; at any rate this disappearance of Captain -Wollaston<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77">[Pg 77]</a></span> and Lieutenant Rasdall was final, and except that the -neighborhood of Passonagessit is still called Wollaston Heights, the -very name of this adventurer would probably have been forgotten.</p> - -<p>It was at any rate disused, for so soon as Lieutenant Fitcher had been, -as he reported to Bradford, “thrust out a dores,” the name of the place -was changed to Merry Mount, and the life of debauch and profligacy -promised by Morton inaugurated; as a natural consequence, Merry Mount -soon acquired so wide a fame for license and disorder that it became -the resort of the lawless adventurers who haunted the coast in those -days, sometimes calling themselves fishermen, sometimes privateers, -and sometimes buccaneers, and the whole affair grew to be a scandal, -not only to Godfearing Plymouth, but to those other settlements, of -sober, law-abiding folk, scattered up and down the coast, especially -when in the spring of 1627 Morton set up a Maypole at Merry Mount, and -proclaimed a Saturnalia of a week.</p> - -<p>Now a Maypole, and dancing around it crowned with flowers, is in our -day a very pretty and pastoral affair, only open to the objections -of cold, wet, and absurdity. But in old English times it was a very -different matter, being in effect a remnant of heathenesse, and the -profligate worship of the goddess Flora. William Bradford, writing an -account of the attack upon Merry Mount, expresses himself thus:—</p> - -<p>“They allso set up a Maypole, drinking and dancing aboute it many days -togeather, inviting the Indean women for their consorts, dancing and -frisking togeather like so many fairies (or furies, rather) and worse -practices. As if they had anew revived and celebrated the feastes -of the Roman goddes Flora, or the beastly practices of the madd -Bacchinalians.” </p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78">[Pg 78]</a></span></p> - -<p>Although Plymouth and its neighbors were shocked at these practices, -they would not probably have interfered, beyond a remonstrance, with -the amusements of the Merry Mountaineers had the matter stopped there, -but, as the delegates to Plymouth represented, the selling of fire-arms -to the Indians, teaching them to shoot, and inflaming their murderous -passions with alcohol, was a very different matter, a matter of public -import, and one to be arrested by any means before it went farther.</p> - -<p>So after this long digression, tiresome no doubt, but essential to -understanding what follows, we come back to Myles Standish and his -eight men, “first-comers” all of them, pulling up their boat upon the -shore at Wessagusset, just as they had done five years before. As they -turned toward the path leading to the stockade, a man came hurriedly -down to meet them.</p> - -<p>“Good-morrow, Master Bursley,” cried the captain cheerfully. “We are on -our way to Merry Mount, and called to tell you so.”</p> - -<p>But Bursley held up his hand with a warning gesture, and so soon as he -was near enough hoarsely muttered in unconscious plagiarism,—</p> - -<p>“The devil’s broke loose.”</p> - -<p>“Say you so, Bill Bursley!” responded Standish, showing all his broad -white teeth. “I did not know he’d ever been in the bilboes!”</p> - -<p>“Morton’s here at the house, full of liquor and swearing all sorts of -wicked intent toward—well now, Captain, if you won’t take it amiss, -I’ll tell you that he calls you Captain Shrimp!”</p> - -<p>“Following Master Oldhame,” replied Standish carelessly. “I must marvel -at the lack of sound wit at Wessagusset when so small a jest has to -serve so many men. But you say this roysterer is here in your house?” </p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79">[Pg 79]</a></span></p> - -<p>“No, in Jeffries’ house. He came this morning asking that we should -return with him to Merry Mount and help him against the ‘Plymouth -insolents’ as he called you.”</p> - -<p>“And what answer did he get, Master Bursley?”</p> - -<p>“What but nay?” demanded Bursley with a glance of honest surprise. “Was -not I one of those who came the other day to Plymouth begging Governor -Bradford to take order with this rebel? But he has been drinking, -and is in such a woundy bad humor that but now he drew a knife upon -Jeffries, and may have slain him outright before this.”</p> - -<p>“Say you so! Then, let us hasten and bury him with all due honors!” -exclaimed the captain, in whose nostrils the breath of battle was ever -a pleasant savor. “Howland, Alden, Browne, all of you, my merry men! -Leave the boat snug, and follow to the house, to chat with Master -Morton who awaits us there.”</p> - -<p>And the captain sped joyously up the path, looking to the priming of -his long pistols, and loosening Gideon in his scabbard as he went. A -rod from the house, however, a bullet nearly found its billet in his -brain, while on the threshold stood Morton, his face flushed, his gait -unsteady, and a smoking pistol in his hand.</p> - -<p>“Hola! Captain Shrimp, I warn you stand out of range of my pistol -practice. You might get a hurt by chance!” cried he, raising another -pistol, but before it could be aimed, or the captain take action, -somebody within the house struck up the madman’s arm, and as he turned -savagely upon this new foe, Standish, whose muscles were strong and -elastic as a panther’s, sprang across the intervening space, and -seizing his prisoner by the collar shouted,— </p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80">[Pg 80]</a></span></p> - -<p>“Yield, Morton, or you’re but a dead man!”</p> - -<p>“One man may well yield to a mob,” muttered Morton sullenly; and seeing -that he was disarmed, Standish released his hold saying quietly,—</p> - -<p>“Fair and softly, Master Morton! Governor Bradford sends me and these -men, praying for your company at Plymouth, so soon as may be. If you -will go quietly, well; but if you resist, you will go all the same; so -choose you.”</p> - -<p>“The Governor of Plymouth does me too much honor to send so many of his -servants with the major-domo at the head,” replied Morton bitterly. -“And sith as you say the invitation may not be refused, I’ll e’en -accept it, but would first return to Merry Mount to fetch some clothes -and set my house in order.”</p> - -<p>“Your return to Merry Mount will be as the governor orders hereafter. I -was bid to bring you to Plymouth without delay, and that I shall do.”</p> - -<p>“But not to-night, I trust, Captain Standish,” interposed Jeffries. “A -shrewd tempest is threatening, and by the time it is past, night will -be upon us and no moon.”</p> - -<p>“With the shoals and sandbars of this coast thick as plums in a -Christmas pudding,” remarked Philip De la Noye, whereat Peter Browne -growled, “Make it a Thanksgiving pudding, an it please you, Master -Philip. We hold no Papist feasts here.”</p> - -<p>Stepping outside the door, Standish took a survey of the skies, the -sea, and the forest, already waving its green boughs in welcome to the -coming rain.</p> - -<p>“Do you hear the ‘calling of the sea,’ Captain?” asked a Cornish man, -placing his curved hand behind his ear, and bending it to catch the -deep murmur and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81">[Pg 81]</a></span> wail that float shoreward from the hollow of ocean -when a thunder-storm is gathering in its unknown spaces.</p> - -<p>“Yes,” replied Standish in an unusually hushed voice, “we will stay -awhile; perhaps the night, if our friends can keep us.”</p> - -<p>“Glad and gayly,” said Jeffries, who, truth to tell, was a little -afraid that the remaining garrison of Merry Mount might descend upon -his house in the night to rescue their leader or avenge his loss.</p> - -<p>“And we’ll feast you on the pair of wild turkeys my boy shot to-day,” -cried Bursley. “Come, we’ll make a night on’t, sith there are not beds -enough for all to lie down.”</p> - -<p>“With your leave, sirs, I will claim one of those beds and take my rest -while I may,” broke in Morton sourly. “I have no mind for reveling with -tipstaves and jailers.”</p> - -<p>“Ne’ertheless you might keep a civil tongue in your head, Morton,” -angrily exclaimed Browne, but Standish interposed,—</p> - -<p>“Tut, tut, man! Never jibe at a prisoner. A bruised creature ever -solaces itself with its tongue, and so may a bruised man. Let him -alone!”</p> - -<p>“Thank you for nothing, Captain Shrimp!” snarled Morton; but Standish -only nodded good-humoredly, and began looking about to see if the log -hut could be made secure for the night. Finally, a small bedroom off -the principal or living room was set aside for Morton, the window -shutter nailed from the outside, and a man set to watch beside him, and -be responsible for his safety.</p> - -<p>The turkeys were soon plucked, dressed, and each hung by a string tied -to one leg before a rousing fire, so oppressive for the June night, -that Standish retreated<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82">[Pg 82]</a></span> to a shed at the back of the house, and stood -watching the magnificent spectacle of the tempest now in full force. On -one side lay the primeval forest, dense and gloomy with its evergreen -growth, through whose serried ranks the mad wind ploughed like a charge -of cavalry, rending the giants limb from limb, lashing the bowed heads -of those who resisted, trampling down in its savage fury old and young, -the sturdy veterans and the helpless saplings.</p> - -<p>At the other hand lay the ocean, seen through a slant veil of hurtling -rain, its waters flat and foaming like the head of a tigress that lays -back her ears and gnashes her teeth as she crouches for her spring, and -ever and anon, between the crashing peals of thunder and the splitting -report of some lightning bolt riving the heart of oak or mast of pine, -came the weird “calling of the sea,” the voice of deep crying unto -deep:—</p> - -<p>“Watchman, what of the night? Watchman, what of the night? The watchman -said, The morning cometh, and also the night: if ye will inquire, -inquire ye!” “But hurt not the earth, neither the sea, nor the trees, -till we shall have sealed the servants of our God!”</p> - -<p>In face of this vast antiphony, Morton of Merry Mount and his concerns -sank to insignificance; and so felt Myles Standish, who had all the -love of nature inseparable from a great heart; but his had not been so -great had it been capable of slighting the meanest duty, and his last -act before midnight when he lay down for a few hours’ repose was to see -that his prisoner was both safe and comfortable, and that two reliable -men were upon the watch. One of these was Richard Soule and the other -John Alden, to whom the captain said,—</p> - -<p>“Now mind you, Jack, it has been a hard day’s work,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83">[Pg 83]</a></span> and our friends’ -hospitality full liberal. Do you feel your head heavy? If so, say the -word, and I’ll watch myself and be none the worse for it on the morrow. -Speak honest truth now, lad.”</p> - -<p>But Alden so indignantly protested that nothing could tempt him -to sleep in such an emergency, and so affectionately besought his -friend to take some rest, that the captain at length complied, much -to the delight of Morton, who, feigning sleep, had listened to the -conversation.</p> - -<p>Twelve o’clock, and one, and two passed quietly, yet not unnoted, -for Morton, among other claims to distinction, was the possessor of -a “pocket-clock,” the only one at Wessagusset that night, since even -Standish did not aspire to such luxury, and was well content to divide -his day by the sun and the dial, if it were clear, or by his instinct, -if it were stormy, while the night was told by its stars, the deeper -and lessening darkness, or the chill that always precedes the dawn. -Half past two, and the prisoner turned himself silently upon his bed. -At its foot sat John Alden, his snaphance between his knees, and his -head fallen forward and sidewise till he seemed to be peering down its -barrel; but alas, his stertorous breathing proclaimed that nature had -succumbed to fatigue and the watchman was fast asleep.</p> - -<p>A smile of elfish glee widened Morton’s already wide and loose-lipped -mouth and twinkled in his beady eyes, as without a sound, and with the -cautious movements of a cat, he stole off the bed, seized his doublet -which had been laid aside, and crept out of the bedroom into the -kitchen where, with his head and shoulders sprawling over the table, -and his piece lying upon it, Richard Soule lay sweetly dreaming of -seizing the rebel by the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84">[Pg 84]</a></span> hair of his head, and dragging him to the -foot of a gallows high as Haman’s. With the same malicious grin and the -same cat-like movement Morton stole rapidly past this second Cerberus, -pausing only to secure his snaphance. The outer door was made fast by -an oaken bar dropped into iron staples, and this the runaway lightly -lifted out and stood against the wall; but as he opened the door, the -storm tore it from his hand, threw down the bar, extinguished the -candles, and roused the sleepers.</p> - -<p>Myles Standish, whose vigilant brain had warned him even through a -heavy sleep that there was danger in the camp, was already afoot and -groping for the ladder whereby to descend from his loft when the shriek -of the wind and the bewildered outcries of the watch told him what had -happened, and like a whirlwind he was down the steps, calling upon -Alden and Soule, and loudly demanding news of their prisoner.</p> - -<p>“He’s gone! He’s gone!” cried Soule, while Alden mutely bestirred -himself with flint and steel to strike a light. When it was obtained, -and disastrous certainty replaced the captain’s worst suspicions, -his anger knew no bounds, and the hot temper, generally controlled, -for once burst its limits and poured out a short, sharp torrent of -words that had better never have been spoken, until at last John -Alden, slowly roused to a state of wrath very foreign to his nature, -retorted,—</p> - -<p>“The next time that Nell Billington is brought before the court as a -scold, it might be well to present Myles Standish along with her. What -say you, Dick?”</p> - -<p>“Haw! Haw!” roared Soule, who, although a worthy citizen, was not a man -of fine sensibilities. Standish glanced at him with angry contempt, and -then fixed his<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85">[Pg 85]</a></span> eyes upon Alden with a look before which that honest -fellow shrunk, and colored fiery red as he stammered,—</p> - -<p>“I—I said amiss—nay, then,—forgive me, Captain.”</p> - -<p>“The captain can easily forgive what the friend will not soon forget, -John,” said Standish gravely, for indeed the brief treason of his -ancient henchman had struck deep into the proud, loving heart of the -soldier. “But,” continued he in the same breath, “this is no time for -private grievances—follow me!”</p> - -<p>And opening the door he dashed out into the night, and down the path -to the rude pier where his own boat and the two belonging to the -settlement were made fast. As he approached, a figure slipped away, -and was lost in the neighboring thicket; Myles could not see it, -but surmised it, and quick as thought a rattling charge of buckshot -followed the slight sound hardly to be distinguished amid the clashing -of branches, the scream of the wind, and the sobbing blows of the surf -upon the shore.</p> - -<p>Morton, lying flat upon his face behind a big poplar, heard the shot -fall around him, and knew that more would come; so, pursuing the -tactics of his Indian allies, he wriggled backward, still clinging as -closely as possible to mother earth, until, arrived at the roots of -a giant oak, he drew himself upright behind it, and stood silent and -waiting. The captain waited also, and in a moment came the green glare -both men counted upon, and while Myles springing forward searched -the thicket with another storm of shot and then with foot and sword, -Morton, taking a rapid survey of the situation, selected his route, and -sheltered by the crash of thunder which drowned all other sounds sprang -from the oak to a clump of cedars higher up the hill, and so, guided -by the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86">[Pg 86]</a></span> lightning, and screened from the quick ear of his pursuer by -the thunder, he gradually gained the trail made by the Indians between -Wessagusset and the head waters of the tidal river Monatoquit; crossing -this channel with infinite danger, the fugitive made his way down the -other bank, and about daylight reached Merry Mount greatly to the -astonishment of the only three of his comrades who remained at home, -the rest of the garrison having gone under guidance of some of their -Indian allies to trade for beaver in the interior.</p> - -<p>Standish meanwhile, finding that the prisoner had made good his escape, -returned to the house, and setting aside the condolences of his hosts -and the shamefaced penitence of Richard Soule, for John Alden said -never a word, he passed the remaining hours of darkness in examining -his weapons, in pacing up and down his narrow quarters, gnawing his -mustache, fondling the hilt of Gideon, and looking out of the door or -the unglazed window-place. The hosts meantime bestirred themselves to -prepare a savory meal of venison steaks, corn cakes, and mighty ale, -to which, just as the first streaks of daylight appeared through the -breaking clouds, the whole party sat down, the stern and silent captain -among them, for angry and mortified though he was, the old soldier had -served in too many rude campaigns not to secure his rations when and -where they might be had. But the meal was very different from the jolly -supper of the night before, and it was rather a relief when the captain -rising briefly ordered,—</p> - -<p>“Fall in, men! To the boat with you. Our thanks for your kind -entertainment, Master Jeffries, and you, Master Bursley. We will let -you know the ending of our enterprise so soon as may be.” </p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87">[Pg 87]</a></span></p> - -<p>And as the sun rose across the sea, whose blue expanse dimpled and -laughed at thought of its wild frolic during his absence, the Plymouth -boat, crossing the mouth of the Monatoquit and skirting its marshy -basin, drew in to the landing place of Merry Mount, not without -expectation of a volley from some ambush near at hand. None such came, -however, and so soon as the boat was secured, the captain, deploying -his men in open order that a shot might harm no more than one, led them -up the gentle slope and halted in the shelter of a clump of cedars, -whose survivor stands to-day lifeless and broken, but yet a witness to -the mad revels of Merry Mount and their sombre ending. His men safe, -Standish himself advanced to parley with the garrison. As he emerged -from the shelter of the grove Alden silently stepped behind, and would -have followed, but the captain, without looking round, coldly said,—</p> - -<p>“Remain here, Lieutenant Alden, until you are ordered forward,” and the -young man slunk back just as a bullet whistled past the captain’s ear. -Pulling his handkerchief from his pocket Standish thrust his bayonet -through the corner, and holding it above his head, advanced until -Morton’s voice shouted through a porthole beside the door,—</p> - -<p>“Halt, there, Captain Shrimp! I’m on my own domain here, garrisoned, -armed, victualed, and ready for a siege. What do you want, Shrimp?”</p> - -<p>“I demand the body of Thomas Morton, and if the garrison of this place -are wise, they will yield it up before it is taken by force of arms and -their hold burned over their heads.”</p> - -<p>A little silence ensued, for the threat of fire was a formidable one, -and Morton’s three assistants had<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_88" id="Page_88">[Pg 88]</a></span> counted the enemy’s force as it -landed, and were now clamoring for surrender. But he, who at least was -no coward, retorted upon them with a grotesque oath that alone, if need -be, he would chase these psalm-singers into the ocean, and returning to -the porthole shouted again,—</p> - -<p>“Hola! Captain, Captain Shrimp”—</p> - -<p>“I hold no parley with one so ignorant of the uses of war as to insult -a flag of truce,” interposed Standish, and Morton laughing boisterously -rejoined,—</p> - -<p>“I cry you mercy, noble sir, and will in future, that is to say, the -near future, treat you with all the honor due to the Generalissimo of -the Plymouth Army. And now deign, most puissant leader, to satisfy me -as to the intent of the Governor of Plymouth should he gain possession -of the body of Thomas Morton, that is to say of the living body, for -should you see fit to carry him naught but a murdered carcass, well -I wot he would hang it to the wall of his Fort upon the hill to keep -company with the skull of Wituwamat. So again I demand—and I crave -your pardon, most worshipful, if I am somewhat prolix; but indeed it is -such a merry sight to watch your noble countenance waxing more and more -rubicund and wrathful while I speak”—</p> - -<p>“When I have counted ten I shall order the assault if I have no -reasonable answer sooner,” interrupted Standish briefly. “One, two”—</p> - -<p>“Hold, hold, man! Why so violent and rash? Tell me in a word what will -Bradford do with me an I yield?”</p> - -<p>“Send you to England for trial.”</p> - -<p>“Trial on what count?” And as he asked the question Morton’s voice -took on a new tone, one of anxiety and even alarm, for conscience was -clamoring that a dark<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_89" id="Page_89">[Pg 89]</a></span> story of robbery and murder might have followed -him from the western shores of Old England to the eastern coast of New. -But Standish’s reply reassured him.</p> - -<p>“For selling arms and ammunition to the Indians contrary to the king’s -proclamation.”</p> - -<p>“And what is a proclamation, Master General?” demanded the rebel -truculently. “Mayhap you do not know that I, Thomas Morton, Gentleman, -am a clerk learned in the law, a solicitor and barrister of Clifford’s -Inn, London, and I assure you that a royal proclamation is not law, and -its breach entails no penalty. Do you comprehend this subtlety, mine -ancient? Suppose I <i>have</i> broken a proclamation of King James’s, what -penalty have I incurred, if not that of the law?”</p> - -<p>“The penalty of those who disobey and insult a king, whatever that may -be,” sturdily replied Standish. “But all that”—</p> - -<p>“Nay, nay; know you not, most valiant Generalissimo, that while a law -entered upon the statute book of England remains in force until it is -repealed, a royal proclamation dies with the monarch who utters it? -King James’s proclamation sleeps with him at Westminster, and I never -have heard that King Charles has uttered any.”</p> - -<p>“Let it be so! I know naught and care less for these quips and -quiddities of the law. The Standishes are not pettifoggers of -Clifford’s nor any other Inn. My errand is to fetch you to Plymouth, -and there has been more than enough delay already. Will you surrender -peaceably?”</p> - -<p>“Surrender! Why look you here, man, or rather take my word for it sith -you may not look. My table is spread with dishes of powder, and bowls -of shot, and flagons of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_90" id="Page_90">[Pg 90]</a></span> Dutch courage; we are a goodly garrison, and -armed to the teeth; we are behind walls, and could, if we willed, pick -you off man by man without giving you the chance of a return shot. In -fact, it is only my tenderness of human life that holds me back from -greeting you as you deserve”—</p> - -<p>“Enough, enough! I will wait here no longer to be the butt of your -ribaldry. Before you can patter a prayer we will smoke you out of your -hole like rats.”</p> - -<p>And Myles was in fact retreating upon the body of his command when -Morton hailed again,—</p> - -<p>“Hold, hold, my valiant! I was about to say that I purpose surrender, -both to save the effusion of human blood and to prevent damage to the -house, which although no lordly castle serves our turn indifferently -well as a shelter.”</p> - -<p>“You surrender, do you?”</p> - -<p>“On conditions, Captain. The garrison shall retain its colors and arms, -and march out with all the honors”—</p> - -<p>“Pshaw, man! I know as well as you that four of your men are away, and -that there can be no more than three with you. As for conditions, it is -our part to dictate them, and I hereby offer your men their freedom if -they abandon the evil practices learned of their betters. For yourself -I promise naught but safe convoy to Plymouth.”</p> - -<p>“‘Perdition seize thee, ruthless’ Shrimp!” shouted Morton in a fury; -“we will come out and drive you into the sea to feed the fishes.”</p> - -<p>“Ay, come out as fast as you may, or you’ll be smoked out like so many -wasps,” retorted Standish, tearing away his flag of truce, and waving -his sword as<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91">[Pg 91]</a></span> signal for the advance of his little troop, four of -whom carried blazing torches. But Morton, although he had stimulated -his courage a little too freely, had not quite lost sight of that -discretion which is valor’s better part, and absolutely sure that -whatever Standish threatened he would fully perform, he resolved at all -events to save his house; so seizing a handful of buckshot he crammed -it into his already overloaded piece, called upon his men to follow, -and flinging open the door rushed out shouting,—</p> - -<p>“Death to Standish! Death! Death!” But the clumsy musket was too heavy -for his inebriated grasp, and before he could bring it to an aim -Standish sprang in, seized the barrel with one hand and Morton’s collar -with the other, at the same time so twisting his right foot between the -rebel’s legs as to bring him flat upon his back, while the blunderbuss -harmlessly exploding supplied the din of battle.</p> - -<p>“There, my lad, that’s a Lancashire fall,” cried Standish with an angry -laugh. “They didn’t teach you that in Clifford’s Inn, did they now?”</p> - -<p>“Oh, murder! murder! I’m but a dead man! Oh! Oh!” shrieked the voice of -one of the besieged, and Standish turning sharply demanded,—</p> - -<p>“Who gave the order to strike? Alden, how dare you attack without -orders!”—</p> - -<p>“I attacked nobody, Captain Standish,” replied John Alden more nearly -in the same tone than he had ever addressed his beloved commander. “I -carried my sword in my hand thus, and was making in to the house when -this drunken fool stumbled out and ran his nose against the point. -He’ll be none the worse for a little blood-letting.” </p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_92" id="Page_92">[Pg 92]</a></span></p> - -<p>“Two of my fellows were drunk, and one an arrant coward, or you had not -made so easy a venture of your piracy,” snarled Morton viciously, and -one of the younger of the Plymouth men would have dealt him a blow with -the flat of his sword, but Standish struck it up saying sternly,—</p> - -<p>“Hands off, Philip De la Noye, or you’ll feel the edge instead of the -flat of my sword. Know you nothing, nothing at all of the usages of war -that you would strike an unarmed prisoner!”</p> - -<p>A few moments more and the whole affair was over. Morton’s three men, -foolish, worthless fellows, hardly dangerous even under his guidance, -and perfectly harmless when deprived of it, were set at liberty with a -stern warning from Standish that they were simply left at Merry Mount -on probation, and that the smallest disobedience to the law prohibiting -the sale of fire-arms, or instruction of the Indians in their use, -would at once be known at Plymouth and most severely punished.</p> - -<p>“As for your Maypole, and your Indian blowzabellas, and your dancing -and mummery,” concluded the captain, “I for one have naught to say, -except that there must be some warlock-work in the matter to tempt even -a squaw to frisk round a Maypole with such as you.”</p> - -<p>Morton, sullen, silent, and disarmed, was meantime led to the boat -between Alden and Howland, the other men after, and last of all -Standish muttering,—</p> - -<p>“Better if there had been a garrison strong enough to hold the -position. Then we might have burned the house and haply slain the -traitor in hot blood.”</p> - -<hr /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_93" id="Page_93">[Pg 93]</a></span></p> - -<h2>CHAPTER IX.</h2> - -<p class="bold">THE KYLOE COW.</p> - -<p>“Barbara! Wife!”</p> - -<p>“I am here, Myles, straining the milk. I shall make some furmety for -supper. Even Lora begins to beg for it, and the boys dote upon it, -little knaves!”</p> - -<p>“Let the furmety wait for a bit, and come out here to see old Manomet -in the evening light. ’Tis a sight I never tire of.”</p> - -<p>“Ay, ’tis very fair,” replied Barbara coldly, as she came and sat for -a moment upon the bench at the cottage door, where Myles was wont to -smoke his pipe, and muse upon many matters never brought to words.</p> - -<p>A little lower down the hill Alick and his brother Myles were playing -with John and Joseph Alden, while Betty, a stick in her hand, drove all -four boys before her, she with mimic airs of anger and they of terror.</p> - -<p>“Very fair!” echoed the captain irritably. “You know naught and care -less for Nature, Bab. Your thought never gets beyond your furmety pot -or Alick’s breeches.”</p> - -<p>“And that’s all the better for you and Alick, Myles,” replied the -wife in her usual placid tones; but then, with one of those sudden -revulsions by which placid people occasionally surprise their friends, -she drew in her breath with something between a sob and a groan and -burst out:</p> - -<p>“Oh, Myles! Myles! Nature do you call it, and I<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_94" id="Page_94">[Pg 94]</a></span> not love the face of -Nature do you say! Nay, man, this is not Nature, these dark woods and -barren sands and lonesome hills, with never a chimney in sight,—that’s -not the Nature I love and long for. My heart goes back to the pleasant -fields and good old hills of Man. There are mountains grander by far -than yon dark Manomet, as you call it, and yet pranked all over with -cottages, where honest folk find a home and the stranger is ever -welcome. And then the fair valleys between, with the peaceful steads -where men are born and die in sight of their fathers’ graves, and the -old thatched roofs, and the stonecrop on the walls, and the roses -clambering over the casements, and oh, the little kyloe cows coming -home at night, and the poultry”—</p> - -<p>She paused abruptly and threw her apron over her face. Myles carefully -knocked the ashes out of his pipe, laid it upon a ledge above the -bench, and taking his wife by the arm led her into the house where -he might seat her upon his knee with no risk of scandalizing chance -spectators. Then he calmly said,—</p> - -<p>“The worst of quiet creatures like you, Bab, is that a man never knows -the fire’s alight till the house is in a blaze. Now as you, or was it -Priscilla Alden, said once of me, ‘A little pot’s soon hot,’ and all -the world is forced to know it, but you,—art homesick for the old -country, lass?”</p> - -<p>“Nay, Myles, there is no home to be sick for; all is changed there; but -I would like it better if we had a little holding of our own, and our -own cow, and some ducks, and a goose fattening for Michaelmas.”</p> - -<p>“But you share the great red cow with Winslow’s folk, and have milk -enough for your furmety, sweetheart!” And the grim warrior smiled -as tenderly as<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_95" id="Page_95">[Pg 95]</a></span> a mother upon the flushed wet face so near his own. -Barbara smiled too, and wiping away the tears sat upright, but was not -allowed to leave her somewhat undignified position upon her husband’s -knee.</p> - -<p>“There, Myles, ’tis past now, and I will be more sensible”—</p> - -<p>“Prythee don’t, child! I like thee better thus.”</p> - -<p>“Nay, but we’re growing old folk, goodman, and it behooves us to be -sober and recollected”—</p> - -<p>“Nonsense, nonsense, Bab; there’s no lass among them all that shows so -fair a rose upon her cheek, or such a wealth of sunny hair, as my Bab, -and as for thine eyes, lass, they are a marvel”—</p> - -<p>“Now! now! now! well then, dear, I’ll behave myself, after all that -sweet flattery, and—come, let us go out and look at Manomet.”</p> - -<p>“Nay. Your longing for a place you may call your own, and have your -kine and poultry and all that about you, marries so well with a thought -I’ve been turning over and over in my mind for a month or more, that -I’ll e’en give it you now, and Manomet and the furmety may wait another -ten minutes, or so.”</p> - -<p>“Well, then, let me but take my knitting”—</p> - -<p>“No. You shall do naught but listen, and you shall sit where you are! -For once I’ll have your whole mind”—</p> - -<p>“For once, Myles!”</p> - -<p>“Ay, for once,—look as grieved as you may out of those eyen of yours! -Well enough do you know that Alick, and little Myles, and now Mistress -Lora have well-nigh pushed their poor old dad out of their mother’s -heart”—</p> - -<p>“Myles! Dost really think it, love?”</p> - -<p>The captain held his wife as far from him as her seat<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_96" id="Page_96">[Pg 96]</a></span> upon his knee -would allow, and eagerly read her fair troubled face, her tender -blushes, quivering lips, and lovely, loving eyes, where the tears stood -and yet were restrained from falling—read and read as men devour with -incredulous eyes some voucher of almost incredible good fortune. Then -he slowly said,—</p> - -<p>“Truly God has been very good to me, my wife. His name be praised.”</p> - -<p>It was a rare aspiration from those bearded lips, not innocent of the -strange oaths and fierce objurgation well known to the soldiery of that -day,—‘our army in Flanders,’—and over Barbara’s face came a look of -such joy and peace as transformed its quiet comeliness to true beauty. -But it was she who with woman’s tact dropped a veil over that moment’s -exaltation before it should degenerate into commonplace.</p> - -<p>“What is your plan, dear?” asked she, and her husband, with a -half-conscious feeling of relief, drew a long breath, and said,—</p> - -<p>“Oh—yes. Well, Bab, I, as well as you, would be content to live a -little farther from some of our townsfolk; it is not here as it was -at first, or even when you came. Then we were all of one mind and one -interest, and if I could not belong to their church as they call it, at -least I respected their beliefs, and they let mine alone. But now, amid -all this bickering with Lyford and Oldhame”—</p> - -<p>“But Oldhame has gone, and so has Lyford, and are forbidden to come -hither again,” interposed Barbara, and her husband slowly and dubiously -replied, “I know, Bab, I know; but for all that somewhat of ill feeling -in the town has grown out of that affair, and though there’s no man on -God’s earth so near to me as William <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_97" id="Page_97">[Pg 97]</a></span>Bradford, and none I reverence -more than the Elder, or had rather smoke a pipe with than Surgeon -Fuller, there are others that are to my temper like a red rag to a -bull, and it’s safer all round that we should not day by day be forced -to rub shoulders. So the long and short on’t is, Bab, for I’m not good -at speechifying, it needs Winslow for that, I have spoken to Bradford -about taking possession of that sightly hill across the bay”—</p> - -<p>“The one you fired a cannon at, the other day?” interrupted Barbara -slyly.</p> - -<p>“Yes—that is, you goose, I fired toward it, just to see how far the -saker would carry.”</p> - -<p>“Nay, I think it was a sort of salute you were giving to some fancy of -your own, Myles, anent that hill.”</p> - -<p>“Well, then, since you will have me make myself out no older than -Alick, I had been marking how the headland stood up against the gold of -the western sky, and it minded me so of Birkenclyffe at Duxbury, and of -my boyhood at Chorley and Wigan, and of fair days gone by”—</p> - -<p>He paused, and Barbara knew that his thought was of Rose, the sweet -blossom of his youth, Rose, whom he had carried in his pride to the -neighborhood of the stately domain that ought to have been his and -hers, and spent there with her almost the only idle month of his life. -She knew, and her heart contracted with a slow, miserable pang, but she -only said,—</p> - -<p>“Yes, it does look like Birkenclyffe. And you think you could be happy -in living there, Myles?”</p> - -<p>“Happy!” echoed the soldier moodily. “I should be happy if the wars -would break out afresh, and Gideon and I might hear once more the music -that we love. We rust here, we two.” </p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_98" id="Page_98">[Pg 98]</a></span></p> - -<p>“But the children, Myles! The boys so like their father, and -Lora—would you have them orphans, and me”—</p> - -<p>“Ah, Lora! I did not tell you when I came home from England, wife, for -I did not want to hear any jibes and gainsaying”—</p> - -<p>“Oh, Myles, do I jibe at you?”</p> - -<p>“Well, no,—no Bab, not jibes; but you know, lass, we never were quite -of a mind about the Standish dignities”—</p> - -<p>“Dear heart, we have left all that behind us in the Old World! Here -we Standishes have dignity and observance in full measure, because we -belong to thee, love. Captain Standish, head of the colony’s strong -men, is the founder of a new race in this New World.”</p> - -<p>“Nay, nay, Barbara, you talk but as a woman, and you never did rise up -to the lawful pride of your birth”—</p> - -<p>And the captain all unconsciously put his wife off his knee, and -rising, strode up and down the room, tugging at his red beard, and -frowning portentously. Barbara, her hands folded in her lap, and a sad -smile upon her lips, sat watching him.</p> - -<p>“It is as well to tell you now as to keep it for years,” broke out -the captain suddenly. “Nothing will change it, that is, nothing but -Alexander’s death”—</p> - -<p>“Alexander’s death! Not our boy, Myles!”</p> - -<p>“No, no, no, child! Alexander, son of my cousin Ralph Standish of -Standish Hall. When I was in England I went to see him as I told you.”</p> - -<p>“Yes, dear.”</p> - -<p>“I went to enforce upon him, newly come to the estates, my just and -honest claim to my grandfather’s inheritance which Ralph’s grandfather -juggled out of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_99" id="Page_99">[Pg 99]</a></span> the orphan boy’s hands, and which they have kept ever -since.”</p> - -<p>“I supposed that was your errand, but as I saw naught had come of it I -asked you no questions, Myles.”</p> - -<p>“And therein showed yourself the kindly sensible woman you ever were, -wife. But there is more to the matter. Ralph is an honest fellow, and -after some days of looking into the matter he confessed the justice of -my claim. I tell you, Bab, we went through those old parchments like -two weasels from the Inns of Court; Morton of Clifford’s could have -been no subtler; we had out the old deeds from the muniment-room, and -sent to Chorley Church for the registry book, where are set down the -marriage of my father and mother and my own birth and baptism; and I -showed him Queen Bess’s commission to her well-beloved Myles Standish, -born on that same date, and at the last, over a good pottle of sack, he -confessed to me that I was in the right, but added, with a smile too -sly for a Standish to wear, that I should find it well-nigh impossible -to prove the matter at law, for, as he was not ashamed to say to my -beard, neither he nor his lawyers would help me, and he knew, though he -had the decency not to say it, I have no money to tickle the palms of -the judges, the commissioners, the court officials, and the Lord Harry -alone knows who they are, but all too many for me.”</p> - -<p>“Then your cousin is a knave and a robber!”</p> - -<p>“Nay, nay, Bab! Nay, I know not that one could expect a man to strip -himself of half his estate if the law bade him keep it”—</p> - -<p>“You would, Myles.”</p> - -<p>“Ah, well, I was ever a thriftless loon, with no trader’s blood in my -veins to show me how to keep or to get<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_100" id="Page_100">[Pg 100]</a></span> money. Ralph’s grandmother was -fathered by a man who made his money in commerce.”</p> - -<p>And the captain smiled as one well content with his own chivalrous -incapacity, then hastily went on. “But though Ralph would not give me -mine own, nor even let me take it if I tried, he had an offer to make -on his part. His oldest son, Alexander by name, was then an infant of -two years, a sturdy little knave already scorning his petticoats, and -Ralph proposed that we should solemnly betroth him then and there to -our Lora”—</p> - -<p>“But Lora was not born when you were in England five years ago, Myles.”</p> - -<p>“No; but I knew that our two little lads must in course of time have a -sister, and counted on her. Truth to tell, Barbara, Ralph and I picked -a name for her off the family tree. Lora.”</p> - -<p>“If I had known it, the child never should have borne the name, and if -I could I would change it now!”</p> - -<p>And Barbara, seriously angry, rose from her chair and would have left -the room, but her husband detained her.</p> - -<p>“There, look you, now! I knew you would take it amiss, and told Ralph -so, and he bade me keep it to myself, at all odds till the girl was -born and named, and so I have. And yet I do not see what angers you so, -Barbara, except that you ever favored your mother’s family, and held -your Standish blood too cheap.”</p> - -<p>“That quarrel well-nigh parted us ere ever we came together, Myles. -Haply it had been better if we had been content to rest simply cousins -and never married.”</p> - -<p>“Commend me to a good woman for thrusts both deep and sure when once -she is angered,” cried Myles,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_101" id="Page_101">[Pg 101]</a></span> flinging out of the house and up the -hill to his den in the Fort.</p> - -<p>But when Alick and Betty Alden raced each other thither to tell him -that supper was ready, the choleric captain had fully recovered his -temper, and found his wife so placid and quietly cheerful that he -supposed she also had both forgiven and forgotten.</p> - -<p>Which shows that the great Captain of Plymouth understood the strategy -of battle better than that of a woman’s heart. Nor did he ever note, -that from that day Barbara never spoke her daughter’s name if it could -possibly be avoided, calling her generally “my little maid,” and as the -child grew, addressing her as May, the sweet old English contraction of -maiden.</p> - -<p>A few weeks later, as Barbara set the stirabout that sometimes served -instead of furmety upon the table, her husband entered, and throwing -his hat into Lora’s lap said in a tone of well deserving,—</p> - -<p>“There, Bab, I’ve bought out Winslow’s share in the red cow for five -pounds and ten shillings, to be paid in corn, and I’ve satisfied Pierce -and Clark for their shares with a ewe lamb apiece, so now it is mine, -and I give it to you. She’s not the kyloe cow you were longing for, but -she’s your own.”</p> - -<p>“Thank you, Myles,” replied Barbara, flushing with pleasure. “And is -it quite settled that we are to go over to the Captain’s Hill as they -begin to call it?”</p> - -<p>“Duxbury, I mean to call it in due time. Yes, dame, the men and I are -going over to-morrow morning to fell timber, and you shall have some -sort of shelter of your own over there before you’re a month older.”</p> - -<hr /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_102" id="Page_102">[Pg 102]</a></span></p> - -<h2>CHAPTER X.</h2> - -<p class="bold">THE UNEXPECTED.</p> - -<p>It was just as true in 1625 as it will be in 1895 that nothing is -certain to occur except the unexpected; but the idea had not yet been -phrased, and even if it had been, William Bradford’s turn of mind was -absolutely opposed to the epigrammatic, so it was in sober commonplace -that he remarked,—</p> - -<p>“I never thought to have spoken with you again in Plymouth, Master -Oldhame, but sith you urge pressing business as your excuse for coming -hither, I am ready to hear it.”</p> - -<p>The governor sat in his chair of office, and the Assistants were ranged -each man in his place. At the end of the platform stood John Oldhame, -and behind him Bartholomew Allerton and Gyles Hopkins, each carrying a -pike, and looking very important.</p> - -<p>But except for these nine men the great chamber where we assisted at -the Court of the People was empty, and the sad afternoon light fell -across the vacant benches, and glimmered upon the low-browed wall -upheld by sturdy knees of oak, with a sort of mournful curiosity quite -pathetic; this curiosity was, however, reflected in the minds of the -townsfolk of Plymouth in a degree far more ludicrous than pathetic, man -often falling short of the dignity of nature. </p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_103" id="Page_103">[Pg 103]</a></span></p> - -<p>All that they knew, these good people, was that about noon a Nantasket -boat had rounded Beach Point, anchored in the channel, and sent a -skiff ashore under command of William Gray, the elder of two brothers, -representing the solid men of Nantasket at that day. Stepping on the -Rock, Master Gray demanded to be led to the governor, a demand complied -with the more readily that as he declined to communicate his business -to any one else. Dinner-time came and went, and as the town returned -to its posts of observation it noted William Gray rowing back to the -vessel, receiving a passenger into his skiff, and bringing ashore the -very John Oldhame whom Plymouth had so ignominiously dismissed some -two years before. The same, and yet a very different John Oldhame from -the drunken ruffler of that day, or the blustering bully who a year -before that had been solemnly exiled from Plymouth; yes, a strangely -meek and quiet John Oldhame this, who, looking neither to the right -nor the left, strode up the hill to the Fort, apparently not noticing, -certainly not resenting, the attendance of the two men-at-arms who -escorted or guarded him, as one might elect to call it.</p> - -<p>So much had Plymouth seen, and Helena Billington, arms akimbo, and head -inclined to one side, was beginning to vituperate the tyrants who had -beguiled an unfortunate gentleman into their clutches, and now would -clap him up in jail, when those very tyrants severally appeared coming -out of their houses and leisurely climbing the hill.</p> - -<p>“The governor, and the Elder, and the captain, and the doctor, and -Master Winslow, and Master Allerton,” counted she breathlessly, and -not without a certain awe at sight of all the authority of the colony -paraded <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_104" id="Page_104">[Pg 104]</a></span>before her eyes; and as the last doublet disappeared within -the gate, she sagely shook her head, with the conclusion, “Well, -gossip, it passeth my comprehension or thine, and I’ll e’en hie me -under cover when it rains, for only a fool will stay out to get -drenched.”</p> - -<p>From which somewhat blind apothegm we may perhaps evolve the theory -that Goodwife Billington was not one of those whom our modern slang -declares “don’t know enough to go in when it rains!”</p> - -<p>“Seat yourself an you will, Master Oldhame, and speak your errand,” -repeated the governor a little more indulgently, for in fact Oldhame’s -weather-and-timeworn face and somewhat bowed shoulders suggested -ill health or great suffering, a look supplemented by his voice, as -dropping upon the bench which young Allerton pushed forward he slowly -said,—</p> - -<p>“My thanks, Governor Bradford. I have come here to-day upon an errand -so strange that I can scarce credit it myself, and I know not that in -my half century of years I have ever charged myself with the like.</p> - -<p>“Man, it is to crave pardon for my ill offices to you, and these your -associates, and to all the town of Plymouth, where I repaid kind -entertainment and many good turns with as much of evil and malevolence. -Can you, as Christian men, forgive me?”</p> - -<p>“As Christians,” began Bradford, after a pause of unfeigned -astonishment, “we are bound to forgive injuries greater than those you -have offered us, which indeed did not harm us as you intended. But -as prudent men, we would fain know before receiving you again to our -confidence what are the grounds of your repentance.”</p> - -<p>“Right enough, Master Bradford, right enough! It<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_105" id="Page_105">[Pg 105]</a></span> behooves every man to -be prudent, and the burned dog dreads the fire. But the matter is here. -A year or more agone I and other men loaded a small ship with goods, -bought mainly on credit from the French and English vessels at Monhegan -and Damaris Cove, to truck them at the Virginia colony for tobacco -and other matters which sell well to the sailors and fishermen; but -outside the Cape here, we fell upon Malabar and Tucker’s Terror, and -all those fearsome shoals and reefs that drove back your own Mayflower -from the same voyage, and to cap our misfortunes a shrewd storm out of -the northeast seized us at advantage, and shook and worried us as you -may see a dog torment a wolf caught in a trap, and sans power to defend -himself.</p> - -<p>“Now in that extremity some of the mariners bethought them of God, who -verily was not in all their thoughts, and so fell on prayer, making -loud lamentations of their sins and professing desire of amendment and -satisfaction. So as I listened, and marveled if those men were verily -worse than other men, or than me, of a sudden a flash as of lightning -pierced my soul and showed me mine own enormous wickedness, and how it -well might be that I was the Jonah for whom an angry God would slay -all this company. Natheless I did not cry out as Jonah did, for I knew -not if there was a great fish prepared to swallow me when my shipmates -should fling me over, nor did I feel within myself the prophet’s -constancy and courage to abide three days alive in a fish’s belly; so I -held mine own counsel, and getting behind the mast I fell upon my knees -and heartily abased myself before God, confessing my sins, and most -especially my ill-doing toward you men of Plymouth, and as the heat -of my devotion bore me on, I<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_106" id="Page_106">[Pg 106]</a></span> vowed that so God would spare me alive, -and not make shipwreck of all this company for my sin, I would humble -myself before those I had wronged, and would, if I might, do them as -much good as I had done harm. Then, sirs, believe it or not as you -will, but as I finished that prayer and made that vow, the wind fell, -as though some mighty hand had gathered it back, and held it powerless; -the ship that had lain all but upon her beam-ends, and in another -moment must have capsized, righted herself, and stood amazed and -quivering, like a horse curbed in upon the very brink of a precipice; -the sea still ran high, but the tide so bore us up, and carried us so -kindly, that two men at the helm could manage it again, and the master, -recovering his spirit that had been well-nigh dashed with the imminent -peril of his occasions, so ingeniously manœuvred his course in and out -among those sholds as to fetch us through into the open sea, although -so crippled and battered that we could no more than make back to -Gloucester for repairs.</p> - -<p>“There I found another vessel bound south, and took passage with my -venture, secure that now my voyage should be prospered as indeed it -was, and I stayed in Virginia something over a year, trading and laying -by money.</p> - -<p>“And now, masters, here I am in fulfilling of my vow. I have, and I do -crave pardon and forgetfulness of my former wrong-doing, and to prove -that my repentance is fruitful, I here bring you in solid cash for the -use of the colony five-and-twenty rose-nobles, good money, honestly -gained.”</p> - -<p>And with a smile of self-approval not unmixed with surprise at his own -position, Oldhame brought a grimy canvas bag from the depths of one of -the pockets of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_107" id="Page_107">[Pg 107]</a></span> his pea-coat, and planted it with a pleasant thud and -jingle upon the table in front of the governor, who raised his hand as -if to push it back, but restrained the gesture, and after a moment’s -hesitation rose, and taking the penitent by the hand said in his -grandly simple way,—</p> - -<p>“No man can do more than to confess himself sorry for wrong-doing, and -to offer satisfaction for sin. Zaccheus did no more, and the Son of God -became his guest. Master Oldhame, we receive you again as our friend -and comrade, and make you welcome to our town whensoever you may see -fit to visit us. As for this money, if you will retire for a little, -I will take counsel with my advisers here, and tell you our mind. -Will you walk about the town, or will you await our summons outside? -Bartholomew, Master Oldhame is no longer a prisoner but a guest; go -with him where he will, and Gyles, wait you without to summon him, when -we are ready.”</p> - -<p>But Oldhame went no farther than a sunny angle of the Fort, where, -seated upon the section of a tree-trunk set there by Captain -Standish, he lighted his pipe, folded his arms, and fixing his eyes -upon Captain’s Hill sat smoking in stolid silence, rather to the -disappointment of Bart Allerton, who was a sociable young man, and -would have liked the news from Virginia.</p> - -<p>The penitent’s mood had changed, however, and he was suffering from -the reaction consequent upon most unwonted acts of self-sacrifice. He -really was sincere in his contrition, and had honestly offered that -bag of gold as satisfaction for the injury done and intended toward -Plymouth. But five-and-twenty rose-nobles, representing more than -forty dollars of our money, meant in that day and place four or five -times as much, and was a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_108" id="Page_108">[Pg 108]</a></span> sum neither lightly won, nor lightly to be -spent; so that Oldhame half unconsciously fell to meditating how far -it would have gone toward purchasing English goods for another voyage -to Virginia, or for his own maintenance while resting from his labors. -He had told his story, and made his peace-offering in a moment of -exaltation, and now the exaltation was all gone, and a certain flat and -disgusted mood had seized upon its vacant place. Human nature is not -essentially different in the nineteenth nor will be in the twentieth -century from what it was in the seventeenth.</p> - -<p>“The governor prays your company, Master Oldhame,” announced Gyles -Hopkins; and knocking the ashes out of his pipe, Oldhame pocketed it -and followed into that dusky chamber, where still the Court of the -People seemed to fill the benches with ghostly presence waiting to hear -and confirm their governor’s decision.</p> - -<p>“We pray you be seated, Master Oldhame,” began Bradford, motioning to a -chair beside the table. “Bartholomew and Gyles you are dismissed, and -see that we are not interrupted.”</p> - -<p>He paused while the men-at-arms withdrew, closing the door with a heavy -bang, which echoed gloomily through the empty room.</p> - -<p>Then Bradford, referring now and again to his associates, told the -grisly penitent that the opportunity he craved of doing a good turn to -Plymouth was at hand, and the money he proffered would aid in carrying -out the enterprise. This was no other than the transportation of -Thomas Morton to England, and there delivering him to the authorities -who waited to punish him for offenses committed before seeking the -shelter of the New World. After his capture by Standish, Morton<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_109" id="Page_109">[Pg 109]</a></span> had -been brought to Plymouth, but as he was too troublesome a prisoner -to be held there, some brilliant mind had hit upon the idea of -marooning him upon one of the Isles of Shoals, where, having no boat, -he was perfectly sure to be found when wanted, and at the same time -quite out of danger. The season for the return home of the English -fishing-vessels had now arrived, and Plymouth was already in treaty -with the master of the Dolphin to carry their rebellious prisoner as -passenger; but it was most desirable that some competent person should -accompany him, and perhaps none could be found more suitable than -Oldhame, to whom the position was now offered. If he chose to accept -it, the five-and-twenty rose-nobles, “said to be contained in this -bag which we have not opened,” and at the words Bradford laid a hand -upon the bag and threw a penetrating glance at Oldhame, whose face -flushed guiltily, for one of those nobles had indeed been so grievously -clipped as to lose a good third of its value, and he knew it, although -the governor only guessed it, “this money, be it less or more, shall -be used by you, Master Oldhame, to pay Plymouth’s proportion of -the expense of this transportation, and the remainder shall be our -recognition of your services and loss of time. Do you accept the offer, -friend?”</p> - -<p>“Gladly and gayly, Governor, and gentlemen all,” cried Oldhame, laying -an impulsive clutch upon the bag. “And truth to tell, I was purposing a -voyage into England when occasion should serve, so that your proposal -jumps with my desires most marvelously, and you shall find that once -there I will do you good and manful service in whatsoever you desire. I -am not unknown to Sir Ferdinando Gorges, the Governor of Old Plymouth,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_110" id="Page_110">[Pg 110]</a></span> -whither the Dolphin is bound, and I will so present this Morton’s -offenses that we shall have him hanged over the battlements, a prey for -gleeds, before he has well tasted English air.”</p> - -<p>“Better to shoot him before he goes,” growled Standish. “’Tis bad -venerie when you have trapped a wolf to let him go free on the chance -some other man will finish your work.”</p> - -<p>“Morton hath committed no offense worthy of death on this side the -water,” suggested Allerton in his crafty voice. “If he hath in England, -let English law decide.”</p> - -<p>Standish cast a look of impatient dislike at the speaker, but Doctor -Fuller interposed,—</p> - -<p>“Fair and softly is a good rule whereby to walk, and I know not if the -right of life and death except in combat is fairly ours. I fear me one -hundred men though led by Standish would hardly cope with Old England’s -forces if she sent them hither.”</p> - -<p>“My brethren,” said Bradford, lightly tapping the table with his -finger-tips, “why waste time thus? There is no question of life or -death in the present matter; we are to send this dangerous rebel home -to England for trial, and John Oldhame is to be surety for his safe -arrival, and to receive this money to defray Plymouth’s proportion of -the expense. Am I right, sirs?”</p> - -<p>“You are right, Governor Bradford,” said the Elder solemnly, and the -conclave broke up.</p> - -<hr /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_111" id="Page_111">[Pg 111]</a></span></p> - -<h2>CHAPTER XI.</h2> - -<p class="bold">GOVERNOR BRADFORD PAYS A VISIT.</p> - -<p>“Now mind you, goodman, you are to put on your ruff, and the goodly -wrist-ruffles, and see that your doublet is fresh brushed, and your -hosen tight and smooth, and your hair well set up, and your beard newly -combed,—I wish I might but put a thought of ambergris and civet upon -it”—</p> - -<p>“Nay, dame, not while I live, and I think when once you have killed me -with kindness you’ll have no heart to send me to the grave smelling -like a civet cat”—</p> - -<p>“Oh, Will, Will! How can you!”—</p> - -<p>“How can I die, or how can I forbear civet upon my beard? Nay, then, my -dame! Wilt cry over it—there, then, sweetheart, there, there!”—</p> - -<p>“’Twas that you talked of dying, Will, and if thou wert dead”—</p> - -<p>“Men who talk of dying never die, Elsie; but take courage, take -courage, and for thy sweet sake I’ll don the ruffles, and brush my -doublet, and re-garter my hosen, and set up my hair; nay, then, I’ll -even clean my shoes and anoint them afresh, which is more than you bade -me do.”</p> - -<p>“Why certainly, of course you must do that, dear; and, laugh at your -poor wife as you will, I’m sure enough you’ll pleasure her by going -brave, and showing a good front to these fine new-comers; and if you -come<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_112" id="Page_112">[Pg 112]</a></span> to see Lady Arbella Johnson be sure to mark all the items of her -clothes, for she will have the latest modes out of England.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, wife, wife! Oh, woman, woman! ’Twas but yesterday we were driven -to make coats of deer-skins, and shoe ourselves with the hides of -wolves and bears, because we had no other clothing, and to-day you -are all agog for the latest modes out of England, and send me to take -inventory of a titled lady’s raiment that you may copy her silks in -kersey, and her velvets in homespun.”</p> - -<p>“Nay, then, sir, I’m none so poor as you would make me out, but have -more than one robe of say of mine own, only they have never been aired -in this rude wilderness, and are a thought antiquated. But now that we -hear of Governor Endicott of Salem, and Governor Winthrop of the Bay, I -mind me that I am wife of Governor Bradford of Plymouth, and it is my -duty, my bounden duty, Will, to magnify thine office, and show myself -abroad as a governor’s lady should.”</p> - -<p>“Ay, dame; but methinks the wife of a governor should show herself more -governed than other women; more meek, and recollected, and chastened, -rather than more arrogant.”</p> - -<p>“Nay, Will, do I lack in these matters?” And Alice looked up in her -husband’s face, her blue eyes so swimming in tears that she could not -see the smile of tender malice upon her husband’s lips as he folded her -in his arms and whispered tender reassurances needless to set down.</p> - -<p>Yes, our governor was going a-neighboring to his brother potentates at -Boston, for a great change had almost suddenly befallen that pleasant -region where<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_113" id="Page_113">[Pg 113]</a></span> William Blackstone had dwelt as a solitary for so long. -Let us, as briefly as may be, freshen our memories of these early -arrivals, and so understand more clearly the new relations suddenly -involving the Pilgrims of Plymouth.</p> - -<p>It was in 1628 that Governor Endicott with a large and aristocratic -following arrived at Naumkeag, and speedily dispossessed Roger Conant -and the other old settlers both of their proprietary rights and their -privilege of trading with the natives. The next step was to name the -place Salem, and ordain as Independent ministers the men who had left -England proclaiming their fealty to her Established Church.</p> - -<p>But Salem did not long claim the seat of government, for on the 17th -of June, 1630, Governor Winthrop, with near a thousand colonists under -his command, sailed into Boston Bay and landed at Charlestown, where a -deputation from Salem had already prepared for them. Neither numbers, -nor home protection, nor wealth, nor aristocratic pretensions could, -however, save this great colony from the very same enemies that had -assailed the glorious hundred of Mayflower Pilgrims ten years before, -and cut down one half of their number. Ship fever, scurvy, and other -diseases incident to the horrors of a sea-voyage in that day seized -upon the new-comers, who aggravated their own danger by improper -food, treatment, and, so long as they lasted, terrible drugs. In six -months Charlestown had become a village of graves and of loathsome -insanitation, complicated with the want of pure and sufficient water. -Moved at length by the sufferings of his neighbors, Blackstone, who -at first had scowled upon their invasion of his solitude, visited -Governor Winthrop, and told him of a pure and unfailing<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_114" id="Page_114">[Pg 114]</a></span> spring of -water near the southern foot of the hill upon whose western slope lay -his own cabin and apple orchard, and suggested that it might be well -for the settlement to be removed across the mouth of the Mystic, and -reëstablished at Trimountain, as he called the peninsula hitherto his -own.</p> - -<p>Winthrop gladly accepted the suggestion, came over with Blackstone -to view the proposed site, and liked it so well that in October, -1630, he caused the frame of his own house nearly ready for erection -in Charlestown to be taken over, and set up close by the spring in -question, or, as we might now describe it, on Washington Street, -between the Old South Church and the corner of Spring Lane, under whose -worn and dusty pavement one still fancies to hear the cool wash and -gurgle of those imprisoned waters.</p> - -<p>Was Blackstone sorry for his good-nature when, after a little, Winthrop -and his council kindly set apart fifty acres of the domain to which he -had invited them, as his property, and proceeded to divide the rest -among themselves? Cannot one picture the reserved and somewhat cynical -hermit smoking his pipe beside his solitary fire in the evening of -that day, and smiling to himself as he considered the condescension -of the new government? And did haply some herald of coming Liberty -suggest certain pithy queries to be more plainly worded on Boston -Common a century or so later? Did the lonely man ask himself what right -Governor Winthrop or any other man had to come into this wild country -and dispossess the pioneer settlers of their holdings? True, the King -of England had given him that right. But where did the King of England -himself get the authority to do so? He had neither bought the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_115" id="Page_115">[Pg 115]</a></span> land of -the natives, nor had he conquered them in fair fight; he simply had -heard of a fair new world beyond the seas, and claimed it for his own -by some arbitrary right divine whose source no man could tell. The land -was his, he said, and so he had sent these men in his name to take -possession, to parcel out, to give, or to withhold, from men as good -as themselves who had borne the heat and toil of the earlier days, and -who had paid the savages full measure for the lands they held. What was -this right divine? Why should kings so control the property of other -men—men who only asked to live their own lives, and neither meddle -nor make with kingcraft? Why? And as William Blackstone, the forgotten -pipe burned out, pondered this “why,” the yellowing leaves of the young -Liberty tree a few rods from his cottage door rustled impatiently, as -though they felt the breath of 1775 already in their midst.</p> - -<p>It did not last very long. Not only were there disputes and -heartburnings about proprietorship, but the Puritans who had come to -New England professing a stanch adherence to the church, and almost -immediately proved false to her, could not forgive the quiet man who -made no parade of religion, but never swerved from his adherence to his -ordination vows. They tried to persuade him, they tried to coerce him, -and at last received the assurance that he who had exiled himself from -England to avoid the tyranny of the Lords Bishops was not disposed to -submit to that of the lords brethren, but would leave them to dispute -with each other.</p> - -<p>So selling all that he had, except a plot of land around his old home, -Blackstone invested the thirty pounds of purchase money in cattle, -packed his books and some other matters upon his cows’ backs, and -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_116" id="Page_116">[Pg 116]</a></span>driving the herd before him passed over Boston Neck and out into the -wilderness; nor did he pause until upon a tributary of Narragansett -Bay he found a lonely and lovely spot, so far from white men or their -ordinary line of travel as to rival the Isle of Juan Fernandez in -solitude. Naming his domain Study Hill, Blackstone built another house, -planted some young apple trees carefully brought from the old orchard, -set up his bookshelves, filled his pipe, and settled himself for forty -years of happiness, dying just in time to escape King Philip’s war.</p> - -<p>But in September, 1630, when Governor Bradford went up to pay his -first visit to Governor Winthrop, Blackstone still lived on Boston -Common, and looked upon the new-comers as his guests. They had not yet -presented him with the fifty acres of his own land.</p> - -<p>With the Governor of Plymouth came Elder Brewster, and Captain -Standish, Thomas Prence, and Doctor Fuller, who was already well and -gratefully known by many of the new settlers; for when the pestilence -broke out in Salem about a year before, Governor Endicott dispatched -Roger Conant to beg, in the name of Christian fellowship, that the -doctor of Plymouth, who had already met the grim enemy at home, would -come and aid his brethren. Fuller was not slow to respond, and not only -cured some of the sufferers in spite of the deadly methods of his day, -but so set forth the religious beliefs and practices of the church of -the Pilgrims that Endicott, who was still a Puritan Churchman, and -soon to be a Puritan Independent, wrote a cordial letter to Bradford, -telling how glad he was to find that the Separatists were not so bad as -he had supposed them to be.</p> - -<p>Again, when in the summer of 1630 the settlers at<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_117" id="Page_117">[Pg 117]</a></span> Charlestown, Boston, -Dorchester, and the neighboring country fell into the same disaster, -and with the earliest victims lost Doctor Gager their only physician, -Plymouth was appealed to for assistance, and Doctor Fuller at once -responded. But the scanty stock of drugs brought by the emigrants was -already exhausted, and Fuller’s own supply soon went, so that his -treatment was principally confined to blood-letting, and after writing -a homesick letter to his brother-in-law Bradford, he returned to -Plymouth.</p> - -<p>At the wooden wharf where the Pilgrims disembarked in Charlestown, they -were met by Governor Winthrop, Dudley his Deputy and successor, and the -Reverend Master Wilson, who, as he cordially grasped Elder Brewster by -the hand, cast a hurried glance over the group of visitors, and felt a -sensible relief at not perceiving the face of Ralph Smith among them. -For this reverend gentleman, persecuted out of Salem for opinion’s -sake, and refused shelter in Boston or Charlestown, had found an asylum -among the liberal Pilgrims who presently invited him to the position of -their first ordained minister.</p> - -<p>Mr. Wilson need not, however, have been alarmed, since Bradford, -whose character singularly united the wisdom of the serpent with the -innocence of the dove, had not thought best to include a person so -likely to be unwelcome to his hosts in this visit, at once friendly -and official; for the Governor of Plymouth had been invited to assist -at the first formal session of the Bay authorities, convened at the -Great House built by Thomas Grove, the architect “entertained” by the -Massachusetts Company under whose auspices the new colony came out.</p> - -<p>To this inauguration feast came also Governor <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_118" id="Page_118">[Pg 118]</a></span>Endicott from Salem, -with Master Isaac Johnson, whose wife, the Lady Arbella, lay sick unto -death in her new home, and never more would don the brave attire in -which Alice Bradford had expressed such womanly interest. With these -were assembled Sir Richard Saltonstall, Master Bradstreet, soon to -be Governor of the Bay Colony, and Pynchon, ancestor, perhaps, of -Hawthorne’s Hester; all the magistrates in fact of New England, all -the representatives of legal or spiritual authority upon this side -of the broad seas; for these men were about to test their right to -self-government, and to exercise jurisdiction over the liberty, the -property, the persons, nay, the very lives of others, and doubtless -felt that in case this right were to be called in question from the -throne or the Star Chamber, it might be well to secure the strength of -numbers and authoritative consensus.</p> - -<p>But we, like Bradford and his company, are only guests at Mishawum, -as they still called Charlestown, and must hasten back to Plymouth. -Enough to briefly note that Morton of Merry Mount, who had audaciously -returned to his “old nest” and his old ways, after Allerton had been -forced to dismiss him from his house in Plymouth, was brought before -the magistrates, somewhat unfairly tried, and sentenced to be “set -in the bilboes,” and afterward sent prisoner to England. His entire -property was to be confiscated, and his house burned in presence of the -Indians whom he had robbed and insulted, and so speedily was the first -portion of the sentence carried out that, as the court left the Great -House at noon, they passed close beside the criminal already seated -in the stocks with a party of Indian squaws staring at him, half in -dismay, half in satisfaction.</p> - -<p>“This way, Bradford! Don’t look upon him; ’tis<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_119" id="Page_119">[Pg 119]</a></span> no punishment for a -gentleman,” muttered Standish, seizing the governor’s arm and dragging -him in a sidelong direction, while Parson Wilson, and Increase Newell -the Elder of the Charlestown church, stopped to administer a “word in -season” to the defenseless prisoner.</p> - -<p>The business of the Bay Colony finished, Governor Bradford begged -the attention of his fellow magistrates to an affair in his own -jurisdiction: one as important as life and death could make it, for it -was a question of enforcing the death penalty upon a murderer, fully -convicted and offering no plea of extenuating circumstances.</p> - -<p>The culprit was John Billington, already notorious as the first person -the Pilgrims had felt called upon to punish. Since that early day -he had more than once come under discipline of the law, but now his -offense exceeded all human bounds of forgiveness, and by the stern code -of Old Testament justice merited nothing short of death.</p> - -<p>The victim was a young man named John Newcomen, a somewhat rough and -lawless companion, who had persisted in trapping and shooting over -ground which Billington claimed as his own monopoly, although neither -man made any pretense of ownership. The end was a bitter quarrel, after -which Billington armed himself, and, lying in wait until Newcomen -appeared, deliberately shot and killed him.</p> - -<p>A solemn trial by jury ensued, whereat the crime was fully proven and -no defense was attempted. A verdict of willful murder was brought in, -and no recommendation to mercy was offered by the stern foreman. The -trial could not have been more deliberate or more just, but sentence -was not immediately pronounced, for as<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_120" id="Page_120">[Pg 120]</a></span> Bradford frankly declared -to his fellow magistrates, he shrank both before God and man from -pronouncing the words that should deprive a fellow mortal of life, and -before doing so he desired the counsel and concurrence of the other New -England authorities.</p> - -<p>“Who killeth man, by man shall his blood be shed,” quoted Endicott in -the silence which followed Bradford’s solemn appeal. “It is the law of -God.”</p> - -<p>“And haply,” added Winthrop, “a sharp example in these early days may -hinder the loss of more valuable lives hereafter.”</p> - -<p>“With God is no respect of persons,” spoke Elder Brewster in tones of -stern reproof; but Parson Wilson, with almost a sneer, retorted,—</p> - -<p>“Then let him die as one of the princes, even as Zeb and Salmana.”</p> - -<p>A little more discussion followed, but the result was obvious, and the -next day Bradford turned his face toward home with a heavy heart, and -yet a mind resolved upon the terrible duty soon after fulfilled.</p> - -<hr /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_121" id="Page_121">[Pg 121]</a></span></p> - -<h2>CHAPTER XII.</h2> - -<p class="bold">SIR CHRISTOPHER GARDINER.</p> - -<p>It was several days after the governor’s return to Plymouth, and Alice -had wondered more than once if aught beside the gloom and sorrow of -Billington’s execution lay upon her husband’s mind, when, after noon of -one of those heavenly days in late September, in which one’s whole life -goes out to the joy of living, Bradford after hesitating a moment at -the door, turned back and said,—</p> - -<p>“Come, Elsie, do on your hood and walk with me a little.”</p> - -<p>“Gay and gladly, Will,” replied she, and in a few moments they had -passed down by Elder Brewster’s house toward the brook, and then -turning to the right crossed on the stepping-stones, and striking into -the Namasket Path strolled along until, reaching a lovely intervale, -afterward called Prence’s Bottom, and now Hillside, they sat down upon -a fallen tree trunk, and Bradford abruptly asked,—</p> - -<p>“Was it not one Sir Christopher Gardiner that our Pris spoke of when -she first came as some sort of sweetheart of hers?”</p> - -<p>“Yes. He gave her that lordly neckerchief she wears betimes. She calls -him a Knight of the Golden Melice, and then again Knight of the Holy -Sepulchre,—poor maid!” </p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_122" id="Page_122">[Pg 122]</a></span></p> - -<p>And Alice laughed as matrons do at the follies of maidenhood. But -Bradford shook his head, and plucking a great frond of goldenrod softly -smote his own palm with it, while he said,—</p> - -<p>“’Tis a bad business, Alice, a bad business, and I fear worse may come -of it.”</p> - -<p>“Worse! Worse than what, Will? There’s no harm done as yet. The girl’s -not wearing the willow, nor needing pity; it’s not likely she’ll see -or hear of him again, and after a while she’ll wed William Wright, who -woos her honestly and openly.”</p> - -<p>“Alice, the man is here.”</p> - -<p>“Here! What man?”</p> - -<p>“Sir Christopher Gardiner, Knight of the Golden Melice and the Holy -Sepulchre, and of what you will beside. I’ve seen and spoken with him, -wife.”</p> - -<p>“You! When and where, for pity’s sake?”</p> - -<p>“Softly now, and I’ll tell you. When we left the Bay people the captain -would have us stop at Squantum Head to visit Mistress Thompson in her -widowhood and see if she lacked aught, or wished us to recommend her to -the good offices of her neighbors of the Bay, and so we did”—</p> - -<p>“How is her child, Will?”</p> - -<p>“Well and hearty, as is she herself, and farming her island, which -Standish would have us call Trevor’s Island, but we would liever name -Thompson’s Island in his honor who was her husband and father of the -boy. Now while we talked with the widow, I remembered me that Winthrop -had mentioned some new settlers hard by Squantum, a gentleman, as he -said, named Gardiner, who claimed some title, and who, besides several -servants, entertained as housekeeper a comely young woman whom he -called his cousin. </p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_123" id="Page_123">[Pg 123]</a></span></p> - -<p>“Master Winthrop had not seen them, but when I said we would tarry a -little with the Widow Thompson, he asked me if it were in my way to -take a look at this Gardiner, and let him hear my judgment of him. -Truth to tell, I did not at the first mind me of our Prissie’s story of -her Knight of the Golden Melice, for such toys get cast into the dark -corners of a man’s mind”—</p> - -<p>“Unless it be his own case, Will,” interposed Alice with tender jibing -in her voice.</p> - -<p>Bradford smiled reply, but went on with his story. “So while the rest -drank a cup of metheglin, and ate some of Mistress Thompson’s curds and -cream, Standish and I clomb the brave headland ever I hope to be known -as Squanto’s Point, and presently came upon a new cabin fairly seated -above a rising ground some half mile south of the Neponset’s River; a -pretty home as one would wish to see, with a posy bed under the window, -and vines from the woods trained over the door and casement, this last -set with glass and swinging open, for all the world like a cottage of -Old England.</p> - -<p>“Well, we came to the door, and Standish rapped with his sword hilt -after his own masterful fashion, so that there presently run out -a—well, I was about to say a maid, for she was young and very comely -to look upon, but in sad certainty I know not—she may be the man’s -wife, and charity will not have us suspect ill that is not brought home -by proof.”</p> - -<p>“How was she so very fair, Will?”</p> - -<p>“Why, her hair was of yellow gold, and her eyes blue as a June sky, and -the white and red of her face so cunningly mixt that it minded me of -the may in our hedges at home, or of the mayflower that we find here -in Plymouth woods, and her shape was lissome and <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_124" id="Page_124">[Pg 124]</a></span>delightsome as those -young birches, and her little hands were white and soft, and her voice -as sweet as— Why, Elsie, woman, what is it?”</p> - -<p>“’Tis naught, ’tis naught! Leave go my hand I pray you, sir. I’m for -home, but you need not haste!”</p> - -<p>“Now, now, now! What, is mine own true-love jealous that I find another -woman fair? Why, Elsie, I go well-nigh to blush for you! Come then, to -punish you I’ll not say the words that were springing to my lips. I’ll -not tell how the frighted, guilty look of those blue eyes minded me of -other eyes steadfast and pure and serene as the evening star, nor how -the fluttering, broken tones of that sweet voice brought to the ears of -my heart a voice as sweet as that, but calm and steady, and full of the -assured peace of a clear conscience”—</p> - -<p>“Nay, then, Will, tell me naught, but let me creep close to thy knee -like a chidden child and hide my face thus, for indeed I’m shamed to -show it.”</p> - -<p>“Nay, let me look once upon thee in sweet penitence, since ’tis so -seldom one may find the chance! Well there, then, hide it an thou -wilt, sweetheart, for if I look too closely on’t I forget all else. -Well, then, this lady, we will call her, ran to see who knocked, and -meeting Myles’s grim face, which he had forgot to deck for lady’s gaze, -she uttered a sharp little cry, and fell back to give place to the -gay figure of such a cavalier as we used to see strutting up and down -Paul’s Walk in London, hand on hips, and mustachios curled up to either -eye, and beaver cocked a’ one side, and laces and fine needlework, with -velvets and silks, and all scented like a posy bed, or the civet cat -you love so well.”</p> - -<p>“I mind me of the gallants of Paul’s Walk, Will; but<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_125" id="Page_125">[Pg 125]</a></span> did this man -really have laces and needlework and scent and all those matters?”</p> - -<p>“Well, he had the air of having them, sweetheart, and that is still the -main point, you know. So out he came, hand on sword hilt, and eyes so -terrific that I, poor wight, shrunk back affrighted”—</p> - -<p>“You affrighted, indeed!”</p> - -<p>“Ay, but you don’t know how terrific a mien this paladin put on, dame! -Our captain bristled at sight of it as the wolf hound does at sight of -the wolf, and I feared me for the moment that they would fall to before -I could cry, ‘A list, a list, good gentles’!”</p> - -<p>“Oh, Will, how can you! But go on.”</p> - -<p>“Well, seeing the peril, I stirred myself as best I might to avoid it, -and elbowing Standish aside, I doffed my hat and said,—</p> - -<p>“‘Pardon, good sir, but we have come to change courtesies with our -neighbors. We are men of the Plymouth Colony, and have been to visit -the new-comers at the Bay, who told us you were here.’</p> - -<p>“Upon that our host’s visage relaxed, and he made some sort of civil -reply, although none could doubt he would liever our room than our -company; but he had us in, and as the young woman lingered near, he -spoke of her presently as ‘My cousin, Mistress Mary Grove, who of her -kindness keepeth my house.’</p> - -<p>“‘And your name, sir, is Gardiner?’ queried I; and he, cock-a-hoop in -a moment as one insulted, set his hat on ’s head, and twisting his -mustachios to a needle’s point, pouted his lips to say,—</p> - -<p>“‘I am Sir Christopher Gardiner, sirs, Knight of the Holy Sepulchre, -and Chevalier of the Golden Melice. And your names and quality, if I -may make so bold?’ </p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_126" id="Page_126">[Pg 126]</a></span></p> - -<p>“But so insolent was the tone and so belligerent the manner of this -announcement that before I could find words for reply the captain -stepped before me, his own hat set aside, and, Heaven save the mark! -twisting his own stubbly russet mustachios as fiercely as the other, -the while his hand on Gideon’s hilt, he cried,—</p> - -<p>“‘This gentleman is Master William Bradford, Governor of Plymouth -Colony; and I am Myles Standish, commandant, for want of a better, of -the colony’s military force.’</p> - -<p>“Now this bold assumption, which would have made some men laugh, and -set others upon opposition, just jumped with the humor of our new -friend, and taking off his hat, he held out a hand for ours; saying, -handsomely enough, that he had heard marvelous tales of our captain’s -prowess, and also of the wisdom, and I know not what, of Plymouth’s -governor. Faith, I know not but he said he had crossed the seas to -look upon two such marvels! Certes, he gave no other motive, since -in religion he seems of that convenient stripe which fits with any -pattern, and for hard work he is no better fitted than is his cousin -and housekeeper, whose lily-white hands could ill trundle a mop or work -a churn-dasher.”</p> - -<p>“And what do they honestly seek here in the wilderness?”</p> - -<p>“Why, truth to tell, I fear me they seek nothing honestly, but the -rather a dishonest refuge from judgment. If ever woman wore a guilty -and shamefaced look, it was that poor wench when first she met us; and -as for the man, although he vapored much about his desire for a quiet -life, far from the setbacks and downfalls of worldly affairs, and his -love of sylvan solitudes and the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_127" id="Page_127">[Pg 127]</a></span> like, I trust him not,—nay, not so -far as just out of reach of a tipstaff’s clutch; he’s false, so false -that even as he talked he seemed to sneer at his own professions.”</p> - -<p>“But our Prissie, Will! If this is indeed the man she talked of”—</p> - -<p>“Ay, that’s where the matter sits close to our hearts, wife. Did ever -she talk of him to you, in the way of picturing out his face and mien?”</p> - -<p>“Nay, for after that once I never would let her talk of him; but still -she gave me the notion of a gay cavalier, such a man as haunts the -king’s court, and as you say struts in Paul’s Walk,—a man who well -might be the one you and the captain saw.”</p> - -<p>“But—Mary Grove?”</p> - -<p>The matron’s fair cheek flushed a little, for the purity of that age -was of the order that hates sin without having learned to love the -sinner, and shrinks back from the sight or touch of evil instead of -fearlessly examining the hurt, and applying the oil and wine. The world -does grow in good, let the pessimists deny it as they may.</p> - -<p>“Pris will never know that the man is on this side the sea, unless we -tell her,” said Alice presently.</p> - -<p>“No. And I will caution the captain not to mention the matter.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, he will have mentioned it to Barbara, and she to Priscilla Alden, -before this!” exclaimed Alice. “They are like one household, the -Standishes and Aldens, and Priscilla loves to talk.”</p> - -<p>“But Barbara is very prudent, and if she has heard so ill a story will -think twice before she spreads it. I never knew a woman less given to -gossip, except mine own wife. I’ll tell thee, Alice, I’ll ask Myles if -he has<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_128" id="Page_128">[Pg 128]</a></span> told the tale; and if he has, I’ll ask him to speak to Barbara -and find how far it has gone.”</p> - -<p>“But do not tell even the captain of our poor maid’s folly,” interposed -Alice.</p> - -<p>“Nay, child, I’m as jealous for Prissie’s good name as if she were mine -own sister. Come, you are shivering, and the night dews begin to fall. -Let us go home.”</p> - -<hr /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_129" id="Page_129">[Pg 129]</a></span></p> - -<h2>CHAPTER XIII.</h2> - -<p class="bold">ONE! TWO! THREE! FIRE!</p> - -<p>Alice Bradford’s instinct had correctly foreseen that Myles would -narrate his adventures to his wife just as Bradford had to his; but -the governor’s reason was also correct in arguing that Barbara would -be likely to keep such a story to herself, and the rather that Pris -Carpenter had once spoken the name of Sir Christopher Gardiner in her -presence with so much of maidenly flutter that Barbara felt there was a -story underneath.</p> - -<p>So when Bradford took occasion, over a pipe in the captain’s den, to -suggest that it was as well for the present to keep the story of the -knight of the Golden Melice from the public, Myles replied with a -laugh,—</p> - -<p>“So says Mistress Standish. I told her, as indeed I tell her most -matters; but when she had listened, her first word was, ‘I hope neither -you nor the governor will noise this story abroad, for it might do much -harm, and could do no good.’ A prudent woman is”—</p> - -<p>“From the Lord,” said Bradford. “And you and I have cause to thank Him -for the gift.”</p> - -<p>The talk drifted to other matters; and as the weeks and months went on, -the subject was not resumed until March came in with all the chilly -rigor of a New England seashore spring, and yet with certain fitful -gleams and promises of better things in store. It was in the midst -of one of those tempestuous storms incident to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_130" id="Page_130">[Pg 130]</a></span> March, and always -reminding one of a fascinating naughty child’s passionate burst of -temper, that Hobomok appeared at the Fort, escorting a stranger Indian.</p> - -<p>“Weetonawah wants head chief,” announced he succinctly.</p> - -<p>The captain looked up from his Cæsar, and laid down his pipe.</p> - -<p>“Weetonawah is welcome,” said he in the Pokanoket dialect, which he had -acquired in perfection. “But Hobomok should not bring him here. The -head chief’s wigwam is below the hill.”</p> - -<p>“Pokanokets like The-Sword-of-the-White-Men best,” replied the stranger -in a final sort of manner, and Hobomok’s suppressed “Hugh!” seemed to -indorse the sentiment. Standish smiled,—for who does not love to be -trusted above his fellows?—and, rising, he threw his cloak about his -shoulders, saying,—</p> - -<p>“Well, we will seek the head chief together, and take counsel upon thy -matters, Weetonawah.”</p> - -<p>So, unmindful of the rain, as men who live close to Nature will still -become, the three went down the hill, and found Bradford in his study -reading the Georgics, until such time as the weather would permit -him to plough his own fields; for now that “oxen strong to labor” -had immigrated, their fellow-colonists were able to improve upon the -earlier methods of agriculture, and the plough had superseded the -hoe whose rude labors had slain John Carver. Laying aside the book, -but with its pleasant influence upon his face, Bradford received his -guests, gave a cup of metheglin to each of the Indians, who would -rather it had been Nantz, and asked Standish what he would take, but -the captain shook his head.</p> - -<p>“I’ve had my noon meat, and care for nothing until<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_131" id="Page_131">[Pg 131]</a></span> night. Now, -Weetonawah, tell out your tidings to the head chief.”</p> - -<p>So Weetonawah, who spoke no English, told in his own tongue—Standish -now and again translating for the benefit of Bradford, who never became -as apt an Indian scholar as the captain—how he and a Massachusetts -brave, while hunting, had come across a white man seated beside a -camp-fire, and leaning his head upon his hand as though sick or sorry, -they knew not which. Approaching with due precautions, they found -him friendly, and willing to change tobacco for some birds to make a -broth, for he was so fevered as not to crave solid food. But when they -had parted from him a little way, the Massachusetts man halted, and -choosing a war-arrow from his quiver, gave Weetonawah to understand -that this was a criminal fleeing from justice, and that the white men -at the Bay had bade the Indians search the woods between Shawmut and -Piscataqua for him, promising a reward to whoever should bring him in.</p> - -<p>Still, during the brief interview beside the camp-fire, both red men -had silently marked how thoroughly armed, and how alert in spite of -his illness, the fugitive remained, and the Massachusetts man felt -that at close quarters he might fare even as Wituwamat or Pecksuot in -combat with The-Sword-of-the-White-Men; so, even in their friendly -parting, he had laid his plan to turn back and shoot the sick man as he -crouched over his fire; and lest his comrade should claim any part of -the reward, he would go upon the war-path alone, and rejoin him at the -wigwams of the Namasket village.</p> - -<p>But Weetonawah was brother to one of the men killed at Wessagussett, -and he had imbibed such a terror of The-Sword-of-the-White-Men and -his vengeance upon<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_132" id="Page_132">[Pg 132]</a></span> those who molested the palefaces that he would -rather have killed his Massachusetts friend, and taken the chances of -punishment from Massasoit, than to be named as companion of an Indian -who had killed a white man. So, half by argument and half by threat, -he led away the assassin, and forced from him a promise to suspend his -purpose until orders should be obtained from Plymouth; consenting that -if the head chief and The Sword gave permission, he should alone slay -the fugitive and claim the reward.</p> - -<p>So far, Weetonawah spoke and Bradford listened, but at this point he -started up and exclaimed,—</p> - -<p>“An Indian promise! Who knows but that even now the wretch has stolen -back to slay yonder poor fugitive? Horrible! What warrant have you, -Indian, for believing this murderer will refrain?”</p> - -<p>Sternly repeating the query, and receiving the reply, Standish grimly -smiled.</p> - -<p>“He says that the Massachusetts swore upon his totem, but to make the -matter sure he brought him along hither, promising him a good noggin of -strong waters, and he is even now in the kitchen, waiting.”</p> - -<p>“Have him in! Hobomok, fetch him in!” cried Bradford, still in dismay. -“Kill a white man in cold blood! Shoot a sick man shivering over a -camp-fire! Standish, they are savages and heathen to the end, and we -may as well preach Christ to the wolves and bears as to them.”</p> - -<p>“Your best Indian preacher is still a snaphance,” replied the captain -grimly, as his mind glanced back to Pastor Robinson’s strictures upon -the Wessagussett chastisement.</p> - -<p>“Here they come! Now speak to this man in his<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_133" id="Page_133">[Pg 133]</a></span> own tongue, and make him -understand that if he kills this white man we will require it at his -hand, and that, after no stinted measure. Terrify him, Myles, as you -well know how! They fear you more than all the power of the Bay Colony -put together.”</p> - -<p>Now the fact remains that so long as Myles Standish lived his was -a name to conjure with among the red men; and although, except at -Wessagussett, he seldom, if ever, was engaged in actual conflict, -or was guilty of their blood, the rumor of his coming was enough to -disperse many an angry party, and to restrain many incendiary counsels. -Nor was it fear alone, for the savages admired and emulated, yes, and -loved the man; he went freely among them, slept in their wigwams, ate -beside their fires, smoked the pipe of peace with their warriors, and -showed human and friendly interest in their concerns. Never at any -crisis did he forget to exempt women and children from the fortunes of -war, and it was under neither his leadership nor his counsels that the -Pequot atrocities were committed by the soldiers of the Puritan Bay -Colony.</p> - -<p>So now, as he sternly addressed the Shawmut Indian in his own tongue, -the latter visibly quailed, and, not daring to reply directly, slunk -behind Hobomok, and in a torrent of muttered gutturals besought him to -assure The Sword that his voice was as the voice of the Great Spirit, -and he would obey it as implicitly, for if he did not his own totem -would turn upon him and destroy him, as indeed he should well deserve, -and— But here Standish held up a hand and impatiently interrupted -with,—</p> - -<p>“There, there, that’s enough! You understand me, Shawmut, and you know -that what I promise I perform. Now then, Bradford, what is to be done?”</p> -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_134" id="Page_134">[Pg 134]</a></span></p> - -<p>“Why, the man must be taken and brought in as gently as may be. -Doubtless he is in some sort a lawbreaker hiding from the justice of -Governor Winthrop, and it may be our duty to return him to the Bay; but -the first thing is to discover who he is and of what accused. Explain, -if it please you, to both these Indians that they are to find this man, -and take him by force of numbers or strategy, but without violence, and -bring him safely to this house. What reward have the authorities of the -Bay offered for his capture?”</p> - -<p>“A kilderkin of biscuit, a horseman’s cloak, and five ells of scarlet -cloth,” reported Standish after a good deal of discussion with the two -Indians.</p> - -<p>“The Bay is rich,” replied Bradford dryly. “Tell them if they bring in -this man unharmed we will give twenty pound weight of sugar, and that -is a large reward, be the man who he may.”</p> - -<p>The Massachusetts Indian listened as this proffer was repeated, and -then in his guttural and sullen voice muttered something at which -Standish frowned and answered angrily, while Hobomok gave way to a -derisive chuckle. As the two turned and glided stealthily out of the -room, the captain also laughed and said,—</p> - -<p>“The red rascal wanted a piece and some powder and shot, or at least a -pottle or two of firewater, as he calls it.”</p> - -<p>“Ay! there’s the outcome of Thomas Morton’s work,” replied Bradford. -“The Bay people dealt hardly with him, yet none too hardly when we see -the despite he has done to all of us by arming the savages.”</p> - -<p>“Hardly, do you call it?” echoed Standish. “Well, I know not. Had I -been the judge the sentence should have been shorter and less spiteful. -To my mind it is<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_135" id="Page_135">[Pg 135]</a></span> too much like the savages themselves to crop a man’s -ears, and set him in the stocks, and pelt him with garbage, and burn -his house in his own sight, and mulct him of his money, and ship him -out of the country, and after all leave him at liberty to pull the -wool over the eyes of the big-wigs and come back again to plague us as -he did before. ’Tis womanish to invent so many ways of tormenting an -offender, and yet not put further offense out of his power.”</p> - -<p>“And if you had been judge?” asked Bradford with a shrewd smile.</p> - -<p>For answer the captain raised an imaginary piece to his shoulder and -gave the word of command,—</p> - -<p>“One! Two! Three! FIRE!”</p> - -<p>And with the last word he brought down his right foot with full force -upon his own pipe, which had fallen unheeded from his pocket. The -governor laughed, and Standish ruefully picked up the amber mouthpiece, -exclaiming,—</p> - -<p>“Now, by my faith! there goes the meerschaum that Jans Wiederhausen -carved on purpose for a parting gift to me when we left Leyden ten year -ago. And serves me right for wasting time on such boys’ tricks as yon -brag of what I might have done had all been other than it was. Well, -well! Sorry and sad I am to lose that pipe! Now I must turn to the one -Hobomok has carved out of what I take to be a jasper stone, but ’t is -heavy, and cannot drink up the poison of the tobacco as my meerschaum -did. There’s naught for a pipe like meerschaum, Will.”</p> - -<p>“Clay is well enough for me,” replied the governor with a smile, as he -brought a new clay pipe from the cupboard and presented it to Myles. </p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_136" id="Page_136">[Pg 136]</a></span></p> - -<p>Nor shall we be surprised to hear that when, a year later, Captain -William Pierce came over in the Lyon to Boston Bay, he brought a fine -meerschaum pipe as a present from Governor Bradford to his friend -Captain Standish.</p> - -<hr /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_137" id="Page_137">[Pg 137]</a></span></p> - -<h2>CHAPTER XIV.</h2> - -<p class="bold">SIR CHRISTOPHER ENJOYS THE CHASE.</p> - -<p>Five days later, Priscilla Alden sat in the gloaming of the wild March -day before a fire so cheerful as to be truly perilous to the chimney of -sticks laid up with mud attached like an elongated hornet’s nest to the -outside of the house. Upon her knees lay little Sally, future wife of -Alexander Standish, but just now a child of two years old, with a bad -cold upon her lungs and a tendency to croup, or, as her mother called -it, quinsy; and it was by way of an ounce of prevention that Priscilla -was roasting the little thing before this huge fire, and at the same -time diligently rubbing her chest and throat with goose grease. The -child, hardly knowing whether to be amused or annoyed at the process, -kicked and struggled, uttering little cries varying from crowing -laughter to indignant squeals, while the mother made all the play she -could of the affair, now tickling the small creature in her fat neck, -now answering her cries with counter-cries and merry Boo! Boo! Boo! and -anon,—</p> - -<p>“See, Sally! See the pretty fire! Shall mother throw Sally in and burn -her all up?” rubbing away meantime, until the child’s white skin glowed -like a rose and glistened like a mirror.</p> - -<p>“She looks like the suckling pig you roasted last Thanksgiving, -mother,” remarked John junior, who<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_138" id="Page_138">[Pg 138]</a></span> stood drying his feet before the -unusual fire, preparatory to rushing out and wetting them again.</p> - -<p>“Why so she is, mother’s darling little piggie-wiggie, mother’s little -suckling piggie-wiggie, and she shall be all nicely basted and set down -to roast for daddy’s supper, so she shall! Now, now, now! One more -little rub to drive the basting well in! Now, now, now, mammy’s little -Sally! Phew! who’s at the door, Johnny? Run and shut it before the air -reaches little sister!”</p> - -<p>“It’s only Betty,” remarked John with brotherly indifference, but still -running to help his sister close the door against the playful south -wind which insisted upon coming in along with his playmate, who laughed -aloud as she closed the door in his face, set her back against it, and -pulled off her hood to rearrange the soft red hair blown all over her -face. Glancing toward her, the mother smiled with involuntary delight -in her child’s beauty; and truly Betty was very pretty, very pretty -indeed, having selected her features and coloring from her father’s -pure Saxon type and her mother’s Latin traits, with rare eclecticism; -for her deep and rich red hair was far more beautiful than John’s blond -locks or Priscilla’s dusky tresses, and her eyes, halting between his -blue orbs and her dark ones, had resulted in that sparkling brown we -all love to watch in the woodland brook stealing out from the roots of -trees. Her complexion, neither pale nor dark, was at once glowing and -delicate, the white values bordering upon cream rather than snow, and -the reds suggesting carnations rather than roses. As for the mouth, it -was too young yet to have got its expression, but the lines were noble -and clear, sweet and pure, promising much for their maturity. A winsome -little lassie, and so her mother knew,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_139" id="Page_139">[Pg 139]</a></span> but was far too wise to show -it. In fact, her tone was almost reproving as she said,—</p> - -<p>“Why, Betty! How you are blown about! You are growing too big a girl to -play the hoiden.”</p> - -<p>“Goody Billington calls me a tear-coat,” replied the child, laughing in -a blithe, fearless voice very pleasant to hear.</p> - -<p>“Goody Billington”—began the mother, flushing a little, but checking -herself as she sat Sally up and pulled her little red flannel nightgown -over her head, while she asked in quite another tone, “Did you see -father, Betty?”</p> - -<p>“Yes’m, and he sent me to tell you he’d not be home for a little while. -Oh, mother, what do you think! I was running out north to find father, -as you bade me, and just as he stepped out of the woods with his axe -and Rover, we saw two Indians coming down the trail, and they were -driving a man, a white man, in front of them; and he looked so tired -and so sick, and all bent over as if he would fall down, and no hat or -cloak, and his doublet tattered and torn like the scarecrow we dressed -for the cornfield, and his poor hands all cut and bleeding and tied -behind him with a strip of deer-hide, and one of the Indians holding -the end of it, and every once in a while jerking it to make the poor -man go on; for indeed he looked fit to fall every minute, and, cold as -it was, the sweat dropped off the dark points of his hair and rolled -down his poor dirty face. Oh, mother, I was like to cry at such a -sight, and father”—</p> - -<p>“Ay, what did your father do?” asked Priscilla eagerly, as, lapping the -child close to her breast, she turned half round toward Betty, who with -fixed eyes seemed witnessing again the piteous sight she described. </p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_140" id="Page_140">[Pg 140]</a></span></p> - -<p>“Oh, father! He talked with them a little, but you know he is none so -quick at the Indian, not like the captain”—</p> - -<p>“Never mind,” interrupted Priscilla impatiently. “’Tis not for you to -say another man’s quicker at aught than your father, but what came of -it?”</p> - -<p>“Why, when father had talked a little he shook his head and said in -English, ‘Nay, I can make naught on’t; you must come to the governor;’ -and then we all came on toward the housen, and daddy said to me that I -should run home like a good girl, and tell you he would be here anon, -when he had seen the governor.”</p> - -<p>“Ay, he’ll not think of himself till every one else is served, but I’ll -not let him balk himself of a good supper if I cook a dozen, one after -the other.”</p> - -<p>And Priscilla, stepping into the little bedroom off the kitchen, laid -the sleeping baby in her cradle, and had no more than returned to the -larger room when the door again opened to admit her husband, with a -look of considerable perplexity upon his genial face.</p> - -<p>“Well, goodman, and what’s it all about?” demanded Priscilla with her -usual impetuosity, as, coming within the radius of her influence, -John’s brow cleared, and an expectant smile softened his mouth.</p> - -<p>“Why, dame, ’tis a coil, for you to unravel if thou canst. Betty told -you, mayhap, of the prisoner the Indians brought in.”</p> - -<p>“Yes?”</p> - -<p>“Well, the governor and the captain and Hobomok are off to the woods -after deer, and not yet home, and Dame Bradford and her sister are in -the woods looking for wintergreen and sassafras for the spring beer the -dame makes so famously after thy recipe”— </p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_141" id="Page_141">[Pg 141]</a></span></p> - -<p>“Nay, she makes it better than I,” interrupted Priscilla, replying to -her husband’s proud smile. “Well?”</p> - -<p>“So Christian Penn would not let me leave the savages and the captive -there, for the Indians couldn’t, and the white man wouldn’t, speak a -word of English, and so”—</p> - -<p>“You brought them home, goodman?”</p> - -<p>“Why yes; how did you know that, Priscilla?”</p> - -<p>“By art magic. Where are they now?”</p> - -<p>“I left them in the cowshed until I knew thy mind about it, wife.”</p> - -<p>“Nay, then, John! When was my mind other than thine in a deed of -charity?” asked Priscilla tenderly. “Fetch them in, I pray thee, with -no more ado.”</p> - -<p>And in a moment more John had ushered in a figure at sight of which -Priscilla exclaimed indignantly,—</p> - -<p>“Why did you not unbind his arms, John Alden? The shame of seeing a -white man so used by savages, and you not to make in to his rescue!”</p> - -<p>“He would not have it, nor would the Indians,” expostulated John -helplessly.</p> - -<p>“Would not have it!” repeated his wife contemptuously, while with the -scissors hanging at her girdle she cut the thong of deer-hide painfully -binding the wounded wrists of the captive. As she approached, one of -the Indians growled a remonstrance and muttered something, of which -Alden understood only the words “Big Chief,” but with one stride -he placed himself between his wife and the remonstrant, and first -laboriously evolving Indian words equivalent to “Stand back! It’s all -right!” he added in English,—</p> - -<p>“The Big Chief isn’t at home, but I’m here, and my wife will do as she -sees fit. It’ll be bad for the man who tries to hinder her.” </p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_142" id="Page_142">[Pg 142]</a></span></p> - -<p>“And did not you want my husband to unbind your hands, friend?” asked -Priscilla, as she gently removed the thong which had sunk deep into the -bruised flesh.</p> - -<p>“My thanks to you, fair dame,” replied the stranger, breaking silence -for the first time. “No, I did not wish to be released until the -Governor or the Captain of Plymouth had seen my plight and told me if -it was by their command these savages had thus dealt with me; I knew -not what might be the authority of this gentleman”—</p> - -<p>“My husband is John Alden, lieutenant of the colony’s forces, and -second in command to Captain Standish.”</p> - -<p>“My service to you, Lieutenant Alden, and I crave your pardon for what -may have seemed surly silence under your first advances; but truth to -tell, I am a little overborne with fatigue and annoyance”—</p> - -<p>“Indeed, sir, you are fit to drop,” broke in Priscilla indignantly. -“Here, sit you down in the roundabout chair, and say not a word more -till I fetch you a cup of cordial-waters. John, do get rid of these -Indians. I hate the sight of them! Let them go wait at Master Hopkins’s -until the governor comes home to take order with them”—</p> - -<p>But at this moment, and while Priscilla, half filling a small silver -cup with Hollands gin slightly tempered with water, held it to the lips -of the fainting man, the door suddenly opened, and Bradford, followed -by Standish and Hobomoc, entered the room.</p> - -<p>“My wife and Christian Penn sent me up to ask about—ah -yes—why—Captain, this gentleman is—Your name, good sir?”</p> - -<p>“My name is Sir Christopher Gardiner,” replied the captive, rallying -his strength to reply with dignity. “And as you seem to recall, we met -once before at my<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_143" id="Page_143">[Pg 143]</a></span> poor home in the Massachusetts. Well enough I know -that my hospitality then was not such as befits either your quality or -mine, and yet methinks your response is even less courteous.”</p> - -<p>“We knew not who the fugitive might be of whom the Indians told us,” -returned Bradford gravely. “But evil entreated though you seem to have -been, your case would have been even worse had it not been for us.”</p> - -<p>“They went about to kill you, man,” broke in Standish bluntly. “And if -the hound the Bay Colony laid upon your track had not fallen in with -one of our own Indians, you had long since tumbled across your own -camp-fire, with an arrow through your heart.”</p> - -<p>“Say you so, Captain,” replied Gardiner faintly. “’Tis but another -proof that a man seldom knows his best friends; but why do the Bay -people seek my life?”</p> - -<p>“That is best known to yourself, sir,” began Bradford somewhat -severely; but Priscilla Alden interposed,—</p> - -<p>“I pray your pardon, Master Bradford, but this man needs care and -tendance rather than catechizing just now. Look but at those arms and -hands!”</p> - -<p>“Ay, look!” exclaimed Gardiner, holding up his arms, yet forced at once -to drop them through pain.</p> - -<p>Bradford and Standish stared in amazement, for through the tattered -and stripped sleeves of the knight’s doublet and fine Hollands shirt -could be seen many and cruel weals as of stripes, some of them still -bleeding, others crusted with dry blood, and others lividly bruised. -The hands were in even yet more pitiable case, discolored, swollen, and -cut so that they hardly looked like hands at all.</p> - -<p>“What is this? What has chanced to your hands and arms, sir?” demanded -the governor. </p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_144" id="Page_144">[Pg 144]</a></span></p> - -<p>“Ask those red devils there,” replied Sir Christopher bitterly. “And -let me ask if it was not done by your own orders.”</p> - -<p>“By my orders! Never, so help me God!” cried Bradford; and then turning -upon the Indians he demanded,—</p> - -<p>“Is this your work, Weetonawah, or is it the Shawmut’s? Did I not warn -you both to bring in the man with all care and humane tenderness?”</p> - -<p>The Indians looked at each other, drew their skin mantles closer about -them as if in assertion of their own dignity, and finally uttered a few -words which Standish as briefly translated:—</p> - -<p>“They say they did but a little whip him with sticks, and it is no -harm.”</p> - -<p>“But why did they whip him, little or much?”</p> - -<p>“My faith! they could never have taken me alive, had not they beat my -last weapon out of my hands,” broke in the knight. “When they are gone -and I am a little refreshed I will tell you the whole story, gentlemen; -but if you indeed wish me well, drive away these assassins and leave me -to this comely matron’s tendance for a while, at least.”</p> - -<p>“’Tis well spoken,” replied the governor in his usual placable voice. -“John Alden, will it suit you to keep this man over-night, if no -longer, and will you, Priscilla, give him the care he needs and you so -well understand?”</p> - -<p>“If the goodwife says yes, I’ll not say no,” declared Alden; and -Priscilla added a little sharply,—</p> - -<p>“’Tis the best word said yet.”</p> - -<hr /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_145" id="Page_145">[Pg 145]</a></span></p> - -<h2>CHAPTER XV.</h2> - -<p class="bold">AND DESCRIBES IT.</p> - -<p>Not until the next afternoon did Priscilla Alden allow her husband -to report the patient ready to receive the visitors who awaited her -summons, but when the governor, the captain, the Elder, and the doctor -were finally admitted they found him a very different looking person -from the captive driven into town by the Indians, who had already been -paid their reward and dismissed.</p> - -<p>Like most of the colonists, John Alden had enlarged his house from the -rude shelter of the earliest years to a dwelling suited to a growing -and thrifty family, so that at the other side of the door opening -into the great cheerful kitchen with its southern and eastern windows -lay a new room, more carefully finished than the first, its floor -nearly covered with rugs of Priscilla’s own manufacture, its fireplace -decorated with Dutch tiles, its woodwork painted, and its casement -window set with real glass in leaden bands, instead of the oiled paper -or linen which sufficed for the kitchen windows.</p> - -<p>Here were collected the few pieces of furniture which William Molines -and his wife had managed to bring over from France, Holland, and -England, the three homes of their years before the Pilgrimage. The deep -and wide carved chest of black oak, with cunningly wrought hinges and -a key nearly as large as that of the Bastile, stood on one side of the -fireplace, its depths<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_146" id="Page_146">[Pg 146]</a></span> well stored with damask and napery, bed linen -and window curtains, some of Priscilla’s own spinning and some of her -mother’s, while certain articles of fine damask wrought upon looms -of Flanders, and bought even there at a great price, were hereditary -treasures.</p> - -<p>On the other side of the fireplace stood a “buffet,” of English make -and quaintly carved with heads of beasts and gaping gargoyles which -were the terror of Betty and her brothers on the rare occasions -when they were allowed to penetrate the solemn solitudes of this -state apartment. This buffet was not as well supplied as that of the -governor’s wife, and boasted no Venetian glass, although there were -four plain glass tumblers, or rummers, as they were then called, and a -few pieces of Delft ware with a china bowl so precious that Priscilla -seldom dared to look at it. Around the neck of one of the gargoyles -projecting from the cornice of the buffet hung a string of curious -Indian, or rather Ceylonese beads, each carved into semblance of an -idol’s head, a fact happily unguessed by their owners, or indeed by -Plymouth, which would have demanded an auto-da-fé of them in the town -square; but by some unconscious cerebration Priscilla had decorated the -other gargoyle with a string of wampum, thus balancing the superstition -of oldest eastern idolatry with that of newest, or rather latest -discovered, western. Later on, this string of wampum became quite an -appreciable bit of property, but at present it was scarcely more than -a curiosity; for although it had been recommended to the Pilgrims some -four years previous to this date by Isaac de Razières, the delightful -Dutchman who visited Plymouth with overtures of friendship and menace -from New Amsterdam, it had not as yet become the circulating medium -it did<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_147" id="Page_147">[Pg 147]</a></span> later, since both the New England Indians and the New England -colonists had to be educated to its use,—a use invented by those -unhappy Pequots and Narragansetts upon whose shore the quahaug shells -were found in perfection. The thrifty Dutchman in his visit to Plymouth -had brought a quantity of wampum for sale, and the Pilgrims, after -listening to his account of its uses and value, invested fifty pounds -with him at the rate of a penny for three bits of the blue, or six of -the white shell, this price bringing the blue pieces nearly to the -value of a cent of our currency.</p> - -<p>But we must linger no longer over the description of Priscilla’s -“withdrawing” room, as it might very literally be called, but -stand aside to allow the Fathers of Plymouth to enter and find Sir -Christopher Gardiner seated in an invalid-chair beside the fire, -writing in a little pocket-book which at their entrance he closed and -hid in his breast.</p> - -<p>Grave salutations passed, the guests were seated, and Alden, who had -ushered them in, would have left the room, but was bidden to remain by -the governor, while Standish with one of his rare smiles added,—</p> - -<p>“I can answer for my friend John’s discretion as for mine own.” At -which pleasant word the giant looked foolishly glad, for it was the -most friendly speech Standish had vouchsafed since the night when -Alden’s ill-timed slumbers had so nearly dishonored his captain.</p> - -<p>“And now, sir,” began Bradford in a tone finely mingled of magisterial -authority and benevolent hospitality, “if you are sufficiently -recovered from the hardships of your journey hither, we should be glad -to hear some account of your coming into such straits, and especially -of what complaint the rulers of the Bay Colony may have against you.” </p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_148" id="Page_148">[Pg 148]</a></span></p> - -<p>“A truly reasonable inquiry, Master Governor, and one which I shall -find joyful content in gratifying,” replied the knight, assuming an -easier position, and stretching his shapely legs, clad in a pair -of John Alden’s best hose, toward the fire. The action attracted -Bradford’s notice, and, with Pris Carpenter’s fancies in his mind, he -scrutinized his guest with more attention than men generally bestow -upon one another’s personal appearance.</p> - -<p>Tall, dark, with a hawk’s eyes, and an eagle’s nose above an -enormous mustache, which could not, however, conceal a riotous and -sensual mouth, with dark floating hair now carefully dressed, and a -smooth-shaven cleft chin telling of both will and courage, the knight -was beyond controversy a handsome man in spite of his forty or fifty -years, and one well suited to turn the brain of a romantic girl. His -expression of reckless and jeering self-assertion, thinly veiled under -a mask of deference and deprecation, was less propitious than his -features, but as Bradford shrewdly told himself was by no means the -expression he would wear in conversation with a young maiden whom he -wished to please.</p> - -<p>“Yes, I shall be most happy, most content, to tell you whatever in your -opinion, sir, it imports you to know of my poor history,” pursued Sir -Christopher in a vague fashion, as if inwardly employed in concocting -a romance to serve instead of the truth. “But I know not well where -to begin. Shall I tell you that my father is a wealthy gentleman of -Gloucester in England, and is, or was, poor man, nephew of that Bishop -Gardiner, Lord of the see of Winchester, who did God service under -Queen Mary”—</p> - -<p>“Peace, ribald!” broke in the stern voice of Elder<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_149" id="Page_149">[Pg 149]</a></span> Brewster. “If -indeed you are of kin to that bloody persecutor and servant of a yet -more murderous mistress, boast not of it here among those who have fled -into the wilderness to escape the cruelties of the Scarlet Woman and -those who serve her.”</p> - -<p>“Lo you now! I do most humbly crave your pardon, most worthy—nay, -then, what do they call men who are no priests, and yet take upon them -the priest’s office under John Calvin and his fellows?”</p> - -<p>“Sorry should I be to seem discourteous or inhospitable to a wounded -man,” exclaimed Bradford indignantly, “but men have been set in the -bilboes and worse for less offense than such words.”</p> - -<p>“Do I not know it?” retorted Gardiner. “Did not I, with these eyes, see -mine own friend Thomas Morton set in the bilboes and direfully insulted -in yon village of Boston, for less,—nay, for naught—for naught—but -scaring a pack of saucy Indians by firing some hail-shot over their -heads to fright them into bringing him a canoe? And did I not see him, -less than two months gone by, haled down to the quay and put by main -force aboard a skiff which rowed him out to the Handmaid, a crank leaky -old tub, not half victualed or half found, and no provision for his -comfort, nay, for his very life, but a handful or two of corn out of -his own provision, stolen out of his house at Merry Mount before it was -set afire? Yes, sirs, set afire as the Handmaid sailed out of port, as -a taunt and a gibe to a helpless prisoner! Ha, ha, though! That word -‘helpless’ minds me of a merry joke even in the midst of such dolor. -When our friends yonder had got poor Morton into their boat, and rowed -him to the side of the Handmaid,—and marry, she’s much such a handmaid -as Hagar of the Bible, turned out into the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_150" id="Page_150">[Pg 150]</a></span> wilderness with neither -meat nor water enough to keep poor Ishmael alive”—</p> - -<p>“Profane man! Do you dare”—began Brewster, but with an uplifted hand -and deprecatory bow the knight interrupted him:—</p> - -<p>“Pardon, your reverence, though ’t was a most apposite quotation and -surely more scriptural than profane,—but let it pass. As I was saying, -when the boat reached the Handmaid’s rotund sides and a rope was thrown -over, Morton was bidden to seize it and climb aboard; but, as he -himself might say, he put in a demurrer, and represented that having no -business on board the Handmaid he hesitated to intrude where perhaps -he was not wanted. The tipstaves persisted, Morton desisted, until in -the end the rope was drawn up and a noose let down instead, wherein -they netted him and so hoysed him on board, he laughing like a fiend at -their toil and rage.”</p> - -<p>“They should have put the noose around his neck, and not hasted to pull -him inboard,” growled Standish; and Sir Christopher, turning airily -upon him, cried,—</p> - -<p>“Say you so, Captain Sh—nay, Captain Standish? Well, and truly there’s -little love lost ’twixt you and Morton. He had a story that you pleaded -hard for leave to shoot him with your own hand, when he was down here -at Plymouth a prisoner as I am now.”</p> - -<p>“I would have been glad enough to meet him man to man, and let him who -was the better marksman shoot the other.”</p> - -<p>“And a very pretty main it would be between two such fighting cocks -as”—</p> - -<p>“Enough of this!” exclaimed the governor, silencing with a gesture not -only the captain, who had sprung to his feet, but the Elder, who with -a slow red mounting to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_151" id="Page_151">[Pg 151]</a></span> his cheek where it showed like the color in -a hardy apple frozen and withered, yet clinging to the parent tree, -seemed about to speak.</p> - -<p>“Sir Christopher Gardiner, if that is indeed your name and degree, -we men of Plymouth claim no titles, nor are we courtiers, skilled in -cunning fence of word, but we have our own dignity as rulers of this -little commonalty, and our self-respect as men. Be pleased, therefore, -to lay aside all these quips and cranks, and tell us briefly who you -are, and why you are found fleeing from the Bay, even at risk of your -life.”</p> - -<p>Somewhat impressed by the simple dignity of Bradford’s manner, and -perhaps a little ashamed of his own levity, the knight at once threw it -off, sat more upright in his chair, and fixing his eyes steadily upon -Bradford’s face as if to avoid the challenge of Standish’s eager gaze, -replied courteously,—</p> - -<p>“I have already told you, Sir Governor, that I am Christopher Gardiner, -son of a worthy gentleman of Gloucester in England. Early in youth -I wandered away from home, and sojourned so many years among Jews, -Turks, and other infidels, as the Prayer Book hath it, that my father -disinherited me and gave my estates to a brother who clung to him—and -to them. On the other hand, a certain potentate whose name you love not -made me a Knight of the Holy Sepulchre and a Cavalier of the Milizia -Aureata, commonly called the Golden Melice.”</p> - -<p>“The Pope of Rome has no power to appoint a Knight of the Holy -Sepulchre!” exclaimed Brewster, recalling worldly lore which he had -thought forgotten. Gardiner bowed low and mockingly.</p> - -<p>“Pardon! No doubt, reverend sir, you are better<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_152" id="Page_152">[Pg 152]</a></span> acquainted with His -Holiness than I can be, but I go on with mine account of myself. Coming -back to England after well-nigh thirty years’ absence, I find my father -dead, my brother and his brood in possession, and naught left for the -poor exile, should he ever return, but a beggarly thousand crowns and a -nook beside the hall-fire so long as he should behave himself!</p> - -<p>“Well, well, ’t is not good for me to dwell on those days; so to cut -the matter short, I took my thousand crowns, and a few more that had -hidden among the tatters of my knightly robes, and came hither to the -New World, hoping to escape from men and the weariness of their ways. -I bought a bit of land from a copper-colored gentleman calling himself -Chickatawbut who professed to own it, and who made much complaint that -the men of Plymouth had stolen from his mother’s grave the choice -bearskins laid over it to keep the good gentlewoman warm through the -storms of winter”—</p> - -<p>“We bought some bearskins of a native, but knew not where he got them,” -said Bradford with an air of annoyance, and Sir Christopher’s great -mustache stirred in malicious glee at seeing that the pin-prick had -reached the quick.</p> - -<p>“I bought my land, and I built mine house, and I planted my garden, and -I hired some Indian guides to show me the haunts of the game and fish, -and I began to live much such an innocent and beneficent life as that -of Adam in Paradise”—</p> - -<p>“With yon fair lady as your Eve?” demanded Standish. The knight turned -his eyes upon him and the spark kindled in their depths, but again -Bradford interposed,—</p> - -<p>“Leaving aside tropes and metaphors, Sir Christopher,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_153" id="Page_153">[Pg 153]</a></span> may we ask -what relation the gentlewoman we found at your house sustains toward -yourself?”</p> - -<p>“She is my cousin, my housekeeper, my poor little friend. Ah, indeed, -gentlemen, you may leave her alone with no fear but she will suffer -enough both for her own peccadillos and mine, since those gloomy bigots -of the Bay have seized and hold her close prisoner, with low diet, and -questionings like those of the Holy Office, day by day.”</p> - -<p>And the man’s voice took on so genuine a tone of pain and fear as he -thought upon his helpless companion that even Brewster forbore to press -the subject further, and Bradford not unkindly inquired,—</p> - -<p>“And why didst thou flee from this poor paradise of thine?”</p> - -<p>“I heard by my friendly Indians, the same who afterward told me that -Mary was a prisoner, that there was mischief plotting against me in -the council chamber at Boston, and one fine morning when I saw a boat -filled with tipstaves and bum-bailiffs crossing the river half a mile -or so from my house”—</p> - -<p>“Neponset the Indians call it,” murmured John Alden; and Gardiner -nodded good-humoredly.</p> - -<p>“Ay, so they do, yet at that moment I tarried not to discover if -Winthrop’s men had learned its name as well as its navigation, but, -throwing my shot-pouch and powder-flask around my neck, thrusting my -compass into one pocket and a full flask into the other, I bade my poor -little cousin good-by, and well armed, as you may be assured, I plunged -into the forest, and set out for the New Netherlands, some sixty or -seventy leagues to the southwest of Boston Bay.”</p> - -<p>“They thought you would try to reach Piscataqua,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_154" id="Page_154">[Pg 154]</a></span> where Hilton and -others are seated. Church of England men, they, and more of your own -fashion.”</p> - -<p>“Why, of course they so thought, Master Governor, and that is why I -went not thither; nor did I seek to come here because I felt myself in -need of some air less pure and less attenuate than that which circles -round a conventicle; I pined for the company of ordinary mortals like -myself.”</p> - -<p>“You hardly reached the New Netherlands, however,” suggested Bradford -dryly.</p> - -<p>“No. I fell sick the first night, from sleeping on the bare ground -in a pitiless storm of rain and sleet, and I rested for a day or so -with some natives whom I knew. Besides, had they much harmed her I -left behind, I would have gone back and revenged her by at least John -Winthrop’s life.”</p> - -<p>“Come, now, that’s spoken man fashion!” exclaimed Standish, and the two -soldiers exchanged an almost friendly glance and smile. But the smile -quickly faded from the knight’s face as his thoughts went back to his -terrible experience in the wilderness, and resting his elbow on his -knee, with his chin in the cup of his hand, he stared gloomily into the -fire, and went on:—</p> - -<p>“I heard once and again from Boston, and I sent a token to my poor -girl, bidding my messenger lie, and say that I was safe and well; then -I went on, and wandered for days, nay, for weeks, up and down, hither -and yon, fevered, wounded, helpless, yet unbroken. I met natives who -told me of a great river in the Pequod country,—Canaughticott they -called it; but I could not cross it save by the favor of those savages, -the most bloody and the most implacable of any in the country, and -I saw it would be but madness to attempt it. Then<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_155" id="Page_155">[Pg 155]</a></span> I was minded to -linger about in the forest until summer, when I might make my way -north to Piscataqua, or perhaps ship aboard some vessel bound to the -New Netherlands, or even come hither and ask shelter,—in very truth -I knew not what I would be at, for every way seemed barred, and I was -too dazed and fevered much of the time to concoct a plan beyond the -next meal, or the next lodging. At last the Massachusetts runner who -had dogged the path to Piscataqua for two or three weeks tried another -trail and came upon me. I since hear that he would have murthered me -but for your influence, and I am beholden to you, one and all; for, sad -as is my plight, I am not yet ready to make venture of a country even -stranger to me than New England. But since the Bay had set a reward -upon my head it might not safely rest even upon the dank leaves of -the forest; and two days ago, while Samson so slept, the Philistines -came upon him; that is to say, I wakened suddenly with a most uncomely -savage bending over me, and trying to steal my snaphance which I hugged -close to my breast. Alive in a moment, I sprang to my feet, dashed -my fist into the fellow’s mouth and heard his teeth split off like -icicles, even as I sprang for the other side of the thicket to make -ready to shoot him. Now beyond that thicket lay a stream whose name I -know not, but broader than the Thames at London”—</p> - -<p>“Taunton River, we have named it,” again suggested Alden.</p> - -<p>“Ay? Well, there lay a canoe pulled up on the bank, with the paddles -in it. To seize that canoe and paddle across the river was my game, -and haply so reach the New Netherlands; but as I put my shoulder to -the bows the enemy fell upon me, a half dozen at least<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_156" id="Page_156">[Pg 156]</a></span> of hellish -whooping savages with all their murderous motives uppermost. With one -mighty heave I pushed off and sprang in, at the same moment presenting -my piece now at this, now at that one of the savages. Well I knew -that any one of them might hide behind a tree and pick me off with an -arrow, and I found time to marvel that they did not, for how was I to -know that they had been ordered to take me alive and unharmed? but -even as the canoe felt the stream and swerved away from the shore, -even as a delusive hope of escape danced before my eyes, the stern of -the tittlish craft ran upon a rock, and presto! I was in the water, -and what is worse, my piece and my rapier were at the bottom of the -stream! I stooped to grope for the good blade, but it lay too deep, and -as I rose they were upon me, yelling like fiends. One weapon remained, -my little dagger of Venice, which I would not have lost for a gold -piece, sith it is a dagger of happy memories and hath carved me many a -puzzling knot, even as the great Alexander untied the Gordian knot with -his own good blade”—</p> - -<p>“Your dagger is safe, and shall be restored. I pr’ythee get on,” -remonstrated Bradford.</p> - -<p>“Sir, your impatience is flattering to my poor powers of narration, and -sooth to say, I found myself much interested in the story as it went -on. Well, I drew the dagger and I shook it in their faces after a most -terrible fashion, and I swore most roundly that the first man who came -within reach should taste its point; and so fearful and so truthful -was my mien that they slunk back, and I even began to cast lightning -glances toward the canoe as it lay stranded not many feet away, when -some direct emissary of Satan whispered a plan to those imps<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_157" id="Page_157">[Pg 157]</a></span> of the -same master, and two of them, retiring to the bushes, cut half a dozen -or so of long poles and stripped them of their leaves and little -shoots; then each man seizing one, they began to try to knock the -dagger out of my hands, and as I swiftly changed it from side to side, -and turned every way to shelter it, their dastardly blows rained down -upon my hands and arms until the sleeves were cut to tatters and the -skin beneath to ribbons of most unseemly hue. I held on so long as a -man’s will may conquer flesh and blood, for I fancied that, knowing me -to be a man of some daring and endurance they fain would take me alive -to test my courage under torture, and I had liever provoke them to kill -me then and there; but in the end, when the dagger was beaten out of my -numb and swollen fingers, they closed in upon me like foul wolves upon -a wounded stag, and all was over.</p> - -<p>“They bound my arms, as Master Alden can tell you, most cruelly, and so -soon as themselves were refreshed—although not so much as a drop of -water gave they me until at night I managed to drink from a pool where -we lay for a few hours—they set off for Plymouth; and the rest you -know.”</p> - -<p>“And the man is over-weary for safety. ’Tis best to leave him to rest, -and to Mistress Alden’s ministrations.”</p> - -<p>So spake Samuel Fuller, the kindly surgeon and physician of the -Pilgrims; and Bradford cordially replied,—</p> - -<p>“Yes and indeed, Doctor. Sir Christopher, we do not make you any answer -just now, except that we are beholden to you for your courteous reply -to our inquiries, and we will now leave you to repose. To-morrow we -shall know better what to reply. We wish you good-e’en.” </p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_158" id="Page_158">[Pg 158]</a></span></p> - -<p>“Good-evening, Sir Governor, and each of you gentlemen. Captain -Standish, it would please me much if by and by you would waste an hour -in talk with me of the stirring adventures we both have known in those -realms of heathenesse beyond the seas.”</p> - -<p>“It will give me singular pleasure so to do, Sir Christopher,” replied -Standish; and so in amity and sympathy parted two men who with equal -pleasure would have fought hand to hand until one lay dead upon the -field, or, as they that evening did, over a tankard of strong ale, -rehearsed for each other’s benefit their battles of old time.</p> - -<hr /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_159" id="Page_159">[Pg 159]</a></span></p> - -<h2>CHAPTER XVI.</h2> - -<p class="bold">A MILLSTONE FOR SIR CHRISTOPHER.</p> - -<p>“Here, Betty woman! You shall help mother and carry the strange -gentleman’s breakfast to him. I’m too put about with my baking to redd -myself fit to see him. Put a clean towel over the sarver, set the salt -and pepper pot upon it, and take father’s beer-mug to fill him out a -measure of my oldest home-brewed. He said but yesterday he loved a cool -tankard better than strong waters of a morning.”</p> - -<p>“Shall I take one of the real damask napkins for him, mother? There are -two in the drawer of the dresser newly laundered.”</p> - -<p>“Yes. Give him of the best, poor fellow, while he’s with us, for he -goes from us to prison, and mayhap to worse.”</p> - -<p>“What worse, mother?” demanded Betty, pausing as she shook out the -folds of the Antwerp damask napkin, and turning her face toward her -mother, whose quick eye marked its sudden pallor.</p> - -<p>“Pho, child! I did but shoot at random; there’s no harm coming to the -man that I know of. Here, now, here’s the little bird done to a turn, -and some manchets of wheat bread, and a cup of honey, and the tankard. -That’s enough for any man’s breakfast, be he sick or well. What’s that, -now?”</p> - -<p>“Just a bit of mayflower, mother, that I found yesterday in the nook -south the hill, you know.” </p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_160" id="Page_160">[Pg 160]</a></span></p> - -<p>“Yes, yes, but—well, have thine own way, poppet,—thou ’rt a good -child.”</p> - -<p>And the tray, decorated with a little silver cup holding the two or -three reckless sprigs of epigæa, which had ventured before their time -into a world not yet ready for them, was carried into the fore-room, -where Sir Christopher stood at the window impatiently considering his -swollen and discolored hands from which he had removed the bandages.</p> - -<p>Before we attend to him, however, let us here note that the <i>Epigæa -repens</i> still blooms in Plymouth so early, that by May-day it is gone; -and it is not, and never was, and never will be an arbutus, although a -world which chooses to say “commence” instead of “begin,” and “locate” -instead of “build,” insists upon calling it so, and probably will so -insist as long as time endures.</p> - -<p>“Ah! Good-morrow, little maid!” exclaimed the knight, a smile replacing -the scowl of vexation. “I have not seen you before. Are you Master -Alden’s daughter?”</p> - -<p>“Yes, sir,” replied Betty, placing her tray upon the table, and then -turning to make her little curtsy, for Betty knew her manners as well -as any young gentlewoman alive. “Mother was over-busy this morning to -attend you, and so sent me with your breakfast.”</p> - -<p>“And a right tempting breakfast, too!” declared Gardiner, seizing the -pewter beer-mug and half emptying it at a draught. “Ha! ’tis good! -A right honest strike of malt!” added he, carefully wiping his long -mustachios and smiling upon Betty, who stood solemnly regarding him. -“And a posy, too! A posy that looks marvelously like thyself, child, so -sweet and tender, yet<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_161" id="Page_161">[Pg 161]</a></span> blossoming from out austere and rigid foliage. -What is thy name, little one?”</p> - -<p>“Elizabeth Alden, sir; but I’m mostly called Betty.”</p> - -<p>“Ay, then, this flower is the Bettina, or the Betty-belle, or the -Bettissimo, is it not?”</p> - -<p>“Nay, sir; we call it mayflower, because father says it minds him of -the English may that blooms in the hedges where he was born. But the -doctor, who is wondrous wise about herbs, will still give it some hard -name I cannot remember. He knows botany, the doctor does.”</p> - -<p>“Ay, does he? Well, I would he knew a way to make me a well man and -a free one.” And the knight, hastily pushing aside his half-eaten -breakfast, began to pace up and down the room in restless anger and -impatience. Betty, halfway to the door, stopped and regarded him -pitifully, then timidly said,—</p> - -<p>“I would I could help you, sir. Shall I bring my kitten to see you? or -mayhap you’d like Shakem better?”</p> - -<p>“And what is Shakem, thou pretty child?”</p> - -<p>“He’s father’s little dog that catches rats and shakes them so merrily, -and he knows tricks, too: he’ll stand up and beg, and he’ll catch the -bits on his nose, and he’ll play at being dead”—</p> - -<p>“Nay, then, Betty, he’s not for me! I need no mimic deaths to mind me -of mine own. Ohé!”</p> - -<p>“Is that the ‘worse’ that mother meant? Oh, I’m so sorry, sir!”</p> - -<p>“Worse that thy mother meant? Now what’s that riddle, child?”</p> - -<p>“Mayhap I should not have told it again; but mother made the manchets -and broiled the bird, while we had but bean soup and coarse bread for -breakfast, because<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_162" id="Page_162">[Pg 162]</a></span> she said you’d go from here to prison and it might -be to worse.”</p> - -<p>“Said she so? Ha! is it resolved upon, then? But no, no, no! Winthrop -and the rest would not dare, especially with Gorges at my back. I can -make them see ’twould be but self-murther for them to give him and -the council so excellent a weapon against them. There’s no danger, no -danger of death, but I must write to Sir Ferdinando”—</p> - -<p>“Is he at the Bay, sir, and will he serve you if you can make him -know?” asked Betty eagerly; and the knight, who had forgotten her, -turned with a sudden smile and uplifted eyebrows.</p> - -<p>“What! we’re in council together, are we, Betty? Nay, Sir Ferdinando -Gorges is in England, and— Come, now, child, I read thine honest eyes, -and I know thou ’rt sorry for me, and would not add to my discomfort, -hadst thou the chance of doing it.”</p> - -<p>“Nay, sir, indeed and indeed I would not do so.”</p> - -<p>“I am sure of it. Well, then, Betty, promise me thou’lt not say over -again what just slipped my lips, and most particularly the name. I’ll -be sworn thou hast even now forgotten”—</p> - -<p>“Nay, sir, I’ve not forgotten; ’tis Sir Ferdinando Gorges that would -befriend you, but he’s in England and may not be reached, but an the -Bay does you an injury he’ll revenge it.”</p> - -<p>“Thou hast too good a memory, Betty, and a wonderful quickness for thy -years,” replied the knight, biting his lip, and staring almost angrily -at the child. “Yet I must e’en trust thee. Thou’lt not lisp one word of -that lesson thou hast so pat? Mind you, child, ’twas not meant for your -ears!” </p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_163" id="Page_163">[Pg 163]</a></span></p> - -<p>“I’ll not say it over to any one, sir, and I did not want to hear it.” -And Betty, with a pretty air of dignity, took up the tray and was -leaving the room when Sir Christopher recalled her:—</p> - -<p>“Betty, you’re taking away my posy! Was not it meant to tarry with the -poor prisoner, and comfort him a little?”</p> - -<p>“Yes, indeed, sir. Will you be so gentle as to take it off the tray?”</p> - -<p>“Ay, and thank you, Betty. Good-by, my pretty turnkey.”</p> - -<p>“I know not what that is, sir. Can I bring you aught else?”</p> - -<p>“Yes, Betty. I fain would have pens and ink and paper, if I may; and -will you or some other ministering sprite redd up the room a little?”</p> - -<p>“I’ll ask mother, sir,” replied Betty comprehensively, and disappeared, -leaving Sir Christopher plunged in meditation both perplexing and -futile.</p> - -<p>“I must wait and see how much they know before I frame my reply,” at -length said he aloud; and throwing off the weight with a shrug of his -broad shoulders, he took a small dressing-case from one of the inner -pockets of his doublet, and began to comb, to perfume, and to curl the -long dark hair which was in itself an abomination to the Puritans, and -an object of scorn to the Pilgrims.</p> - -<p>“The right mustachio still excels the left,” muttered he -discontentedly, as by help of a tiny pocket mirror he carefully -scrutinized the result of his labors, and separating the hairs of the -left-hand mustache tried to give it a more formidable appearance, -although it already nearly touched his eye and covered his cheek. A -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_164" id="Page_164">[Pg 164]</a></span>gentle tap upon the door disturbed him, but without interrupting his -occupation he cried, “Come in,” and a moment later, “Oh, ’tis my little -Betty again! She has brought some paper and pens, and she finds me at -my toilet. What think you of my lovelocks, little Betty?”</p> - -<p>“I never saw such on a man before, sir.”</p> - -<p>“Nay, that’s no answer, madam! I asked how liked you them.”</p> - -<p>“I would like them”—</p> - -<p>“Well, say it out, thou strange child.”</p> - -<p>“I would like them on a woman right well, sir.”</p> - -<p>“But not on a man?”</p> - -<p>“Nay. Even Alick was shorn long since.”</p> - -<p>“And who is Alick, pr’ythee?”</p> - -<p>“Alick Standish, the captain’s oldest son.”</p> - -<p>“And your little sweetheart?”</p> - -<p>“Nay, sir, mother says ’tis not pretty to talk of such things, though -like enough we’ll marry when we’re old enough, for our two fathers are -close friends.”</p> - -<p>“And how much older must you be, mistress, ere you may speak of such -things?”</p> - -<p>“Well, Susan Ring is no more than fifteen, and she is to marry Thomas -Clarke so soon as he has William Wright’s house finished, for he’s a -carpenter, and William Wright would fain marry Prissie Carpenter, the -governor’s wife’s sister”—</p> - -<p>“Ohé! I had forgotten! So, so, indeed, and so it is! Now, then, here is -a coil!”</p> - -<p>Betty, perceiving that her prattle was no longer heard, ceased -abruptly, and in silence completed the spreading of the bed, and -dusting and arranging the furniture with all the mature and responsible -methods not uncommonly<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_165" id="Page_165">[Pg 165]</a></span> characterizing the oldest daughter of a large -family, especially in those early days. Suddenly the knight broke -silence:—</p> - -<p>“Betty, you know Mistress Carpenter?”</p> - -<p>“Prissie?”</p> - -<p>“Yes.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, yes, sir, I know her very well. We have merry games of play -together, and I am main fond of her.”</p> - -<p>“Well, child, I also know her a little, and I too am fond of her, but -that is another of the things you may not tell abroad.”</p> - -<p>“And yet you have never been here before, have you, sir?”</p> - -<p>“No, thank the Lord, I never have, nor shall I willingly come again, I -promise you, my Betty; but being here, I fain would change a word or -two with Mistress Carpenter, whom I knew in England before ever she or -I came hither.”</p> - -<p>“And that will not be hard, sir, for she often runs in to have a chat -with mother, and I will tell her”—</p> - -<p>“No, no, no, child, that will never do!” broke in Sir Christopher -impatiently. “Did I not tell thee ’twas a secret?”</p> - -<p>“Yes, sir, but you would speak with Prissie, you said,” replied Betty, -her eyes wide with wonder and a growing instinct of wrong-doing. “You -had best tell mother about it, sir.”</p> - -<p>“Nay, Betty, I thought thou wert my little friend, and felt sorry that -those cruel men at the Bay will presently serve me worse than they did -my friend Master Morton.”</p> - -<p>“He was here, and I liked him not at all. He <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_166" id="Page_166">[Pg 166]</a></span>miscalled Alick’s father, -and mother would not make jelly for him though he asked it of her.”</p> - -<p>“So! What a little partisan thou art, Betty! and I’ll venture thy -mother is, too. But, Betty, there was another man there at Boston, whom -they whipped until the blood ran down to his heels, and then they cut -off his ears, and laid a hot iron on his cheek”—</p> - -<p>“Oh, sir!” And Gardiner paused, startled at the power of expression -developed in that little flower-face by horror, and anger, and pity -beyond its years. His own face softened to perhaps its best expression -as, laying a hand upon the glittering hair, he kindly said,—</p> - -<p>“Nay, then, ’tis not a tale for the ears of a little maid; but thou’dst -not like to have me so served, if thou couldst hinder?”</p> - -<p>“Oh, sir, but how can I hinder?”</p> - -<p>“Why, I know not that thou canst, and yet—the first way is to keep my -counsel even from thy mother.”</p> - -<p>“I always tell mother, and sometimes father, all I do, but—I will not -tell what can harm you, sir; only please tell me no more.”</p> - -<p>“But, Betty, dear little Betty, I was just going to ask you to do me -one little kindness, and tell nobody about it. Won’t you be the friend -of a poor wretch who is to be so cruelly used if you do refuse to help -him?”</p> - -<p>“Indeed and indeed, sir, I would help you at one word if I could, but -I may not tell a lie, even though to save you and me too from a den of -lions.”</p> - -<p>“Daniel, eh? Well, little Daniel, I ask thee to tell no lies, nor to -do anything to hurt thy tender conscience, but only to carry a little -folded bit of paper to Mistress Priscilla Carpenter, and fetch me -another which she will send.” </p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_167" id="Page_167">[Pg 167]</a></span></p> - -<p>“Oh, I can do so much as that, sir,” replied Betty, relieved at what -seemed to her a very harmless proposition.</p> - -<p>“But you must give her the billet when she is all alone, Betty, and -you must not let any one—not any one, mind—know a word about it from -first to last. Can you do that?”</p> - -<p>“Oh, yes, easy enough,—but”—and Betty pondered, finger on lip; then -suddenly turning her brook-brown eyes upon the dark face of the man of -the world, she demanded, “Is it right for me to do it, sir? Since I may -not ask mother or father, you must tell me, sir, is it right?”</p> - -<p>Nobody knows why Sir Christopher Gardiner fled his native land, nor why -he dreaded to put himself in reach of its authorities; but whatever may -have been his crimes, I believe none injured his own soul more, none at -the last day will hang more like a millstone around his neck, than the -offense he now offered to the little one who made him for the moment -her arbiter of right and wrong; for he said, but turned away from her -eyes while he said,—</p> - -<p>“Yes, child, ’tis right, and so would your mother say if you could ask -her; but she would far liever you did not, for she would then feel that -she must tell your father, and he the governor, and so I should be -balked of what will be a comfort to me while I am burned and bleeding -in the hangman’s hands up yonder.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, sir! oh, sir! The pity on’t—and—and—indeed, I’ll carry your -token.”</p> - -<p>“There, then, there, then, dear little maid,—don’t cry! I pr’ythee -don’t cry! Come, now, I’ll give it up! I’ll say no more about it.” </p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_168" id="Page_168">[Pg 168]</a></span></p> - -<p>“Nay, sir, I’ll do it, and I’ll not tell, and ’twill be a comfort to -you when—oh dear, oh dear,—but sith you say ’tis right, and mother -would call it right”—</p> - -<p>“Nay, I’ll not do it,—and yet—and yet”—</p> - -<p>“But why will you not, sir? ’Tis not that I was naughty and did refuse -at the first? Sometimes when I’ve been froward, father will not let me -fetch his pipe or his dry slippers, and says, ‘Thank you, Elizabeth, -but I’ll serve myself,’ and I’d rather he’d beat me, or scold, as -mother will.”</p> - -<p>“My child, I’m not vexed, and—well, there—wait a bit—now, here it -is, just these half dozen lines thou seest, Betty; surely there’s no -harm in such a scrap of paper, is there, child?”</p> - -<p>“You say not, sir,” replied Betty submissively, yet sadly, for she -liked not her errand, although resting in the confidence of a nature -itself upright, upon the assurance of her elder that she was doing -right in obeying him.</p> - -<p>At dinner time, with the tray came Betty, again with an apology from -her mother; and when she had set it down she took a scrap of paper from -her bosom and handed it to the knight, who, impatiently unfolding it, -read in a very rude and Gothic scrawl the two words,—</p> - -<p class="center">“<i>Ask Betty.</i> <span class="smcap">Priscilla Carpenter.</span>”</p> - -<p>“‘Ask Betty,’” repeated the knight aloud. “That is all there is in it, -Betty. But what is the message that I am to ask?”</p> - -<p>“Prissie cannot write much, but she made shift to read your billet, and -she sends her love and kind remembrance,” repeated the child glibly. -“And she said if you got leave to walk out, and I went with you, we -should go to look for the mayflowers just below the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_169" id="Page_169">[Pg 169]</a></span> Fort Hill, down -near the palisades, and mayhap she would be there about three hours -after noon. And if you cannot go to walk, or father goes with you, she -will pass by this window while they are at lecture in the Fort, but it -would be no more than to say good-by.”</p> - -<p>“Now that goes almost too well to be true, little Betty!” exclaimed -the knight, rubbing his hands, and wincing as he did so, for they were -not yet healed, while Betty, sadly changed from the careless and merry -little maid of the morning hours, withdrew without a word.</p> - -<p>After dinner, as he had expected, Sir Christopher received a visit from -his host, who told him that the governor still awaited a reply to the -letter he had sent by Indian runners to Governor Winthrop at the Bay, -and that meanwhile Sir Christopher was to rest content where he was, -or, if it better suited him, to walk about the town.</p> - -<p>“That proposal jumps well with mine own fancies,” replied Gardiner -smilingly. “Your little daughter brought me these posies this morning, -and told me of how and where they grow, and I should well like to study -them in their habitat. I cherish a singular love for herbal lore, and -have the theories of Fuchsius and Bauhin at my fingers’ ends.”</p> - -<p>“You should talk with our doctor, then,” replied Alden. “He is -marvelously learned in all such matters, and can pluck you to pieces -the prettiest posy that grows, and break your head with the learned -names he’ll find in it.”</p> - -<p>“Ay, I doubt not,” returned Gardiner coldly. “But in my captivity I -better love the company of a prattling child than of a man who may be -mine enemy.”</p> - -<p>“Nay, friend, we’re none of us enemies of yours, nor<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_170" id="Page_170">[Pg 170]</a></span> of any but those -who are enemies of God and the king; still so far as my will goes, -Betty is free to walk with you if her mother needs her not.”</p> - -<p>“And may I ask of your courtesy that you will put the matter before -your dame, as I am not like to see her?”</p> - -<p>“Surely, although the mistress bade me say that she is presently coming -to look once more at your wounded hands and arms.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, they are all but well. Sound flesh and good blood like mine heal -apace.” And Sir Christopher, with a self-approving smile, held up his -well-shaped hands and straightened his comely figure.</p> - -<p>John Alden looked and listened, but made no response, unless a slow -smile that began almost imperceptibly, and widened and widened until it -showed nearly all his broad white teeth, could be called so. But before -it gained its full development he had left the room.</p> - -<hr /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_171" id="Page_171">[Pg 171]</a></span></p> - -<h2>CHAPTER XVII.</h2> - -<p class="bold">“TWO IS COMPANY, THREE IS TRUMPERY!”</p> - -<p>And so it fell that about three o’clock that afternoon, as Sir -Christopher Gardiner and Betty Alden wandered along the southern foot -of Burying Hill, then called Fort Hill, searching under the lee of -every rock and clump of bushes for the epigæa, as often to be found by -its pure spicy fragrance as by sight of its coy clusters of pink and -white blossoms, Prissie Carpenter, a little basket in her hand, came -strolling along the brookside, rather ostentatiously bound upon the -same errand.</p> - -<p>“Now would I like the skill of a painter fellow I knew in Holland, one -Martin Ryckaert, a man I could take by the heel and eat him body and -bones as I would a prawn; but give him his charcoal and his paints and -his canvas, and he’d picture out this scene for you as if you saw it.”</p> - -<p>So spake Sir Christopher, who, old swashbuckler though he was, -possessed a real love of nature and a real appreciation of beauty in -whatever form it revealed itself, as he stood upright with folded arms -and looked about him, while Betty, her little fingers grimed with soil -and scratched with briers, delved amid the thickset ground pine to find -the flowers hiding there.</p> - -<p>It was one of those early April days which redeem the character of the -froward month, and make one almost love its capricious yet prophetic -gleams better<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_172" id="Page_172">[Pg 172]</a></span> than the assured joys of June. A high wind from the -west drove before it great white cumuli, glittering like silver in -the strong sunlight, and careering across the sky and dropping down -behind Manomet as if in an illimitable game of hide-and-seek and -catch-who-catch-can. The waves, uneasy at beholding liberty they might -not have, and games they might not join, leaped as high as they could -toward that azure playground, laughed back to the sun who laughed with -them, or, breaking hoarsely upon the shore, sent up their voices of -sturdy discontent. The trees, moved by such gigantic melody to bear -their part in the grand antiphony, clashed their bare branches in a -rhythm too vast for the human ear to comprehend, while the evergreens -murmured and sobbed and whispered together, lamenting that they had not -even dried leaves to send whirling down that wondrous dance. The brook, -its icy winter shroud still clinging to the banks, rose up to assert -that life defies the shroud, and that there is a power of spring which -shall vanquish death again and again forever; and as the brown waters -went tumbling and leaping down toward the ocean which the icy shroud -can never compass, their sweet voices joined in the universal song like -children in the choir. On sheltered slopes and sunny hillsides the -grass was springing green, and though no flowers disputed the epigæa’s -precedence, the violets and anemones, the snowdrops and the Solomon’s -seal, stood with finger on lip and foot on the threshold, waiting for -courage to cross it.</p> - -<p>Coming up the brookside in her blue skirt and mantle, a white -handkerchief tied over her hair, which in spite of it escaped in a -hundred little dancing tendrils, Prissie seemed a part of the great -sweeping harmony of sky<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_173" id="Page_173">[Pg 173]</a></span> and wind and sea and shore, and the knight, -as with his extended right arm he swept in the lines of a magnificent -imaginary landscape, felt, as his eyes first lighted upon that figure, -more as if it were the fitting centre and <i>motif</i> of his piece than a -real personage.</p> - -<p>“A red cloak would be better,” muttered he. “And yet no,—no,—the cold -purity of blue is more harmonious, and marries well with sky and sea, -but— Aha, Betty, there’s your friend Mistress Carpenter!”</p> - -<p>“Is it? Oh, yes! I’ll call her.”</p> - -<p>“Nay, we’ll stroll that way and see the brook near at hand, and you may -search for gooseberries while I exchange a word with pretty Prissie.”</p> - -<p>“There are no gooseberries as yet, sir,” replied Betty, bewildered; but -the knight only laughed and strode farther down the hill toward the -brook.</p> - -<p>At that very moment Myles Standish pushed his round head and square -shoulders through the trap door leading from the interior of the Fort -to the flat roof, along the parapet of which his beloved guns were -ranged, and lightly stepped off the ladder, saying,—</p> - -<p>“Come out hither, Wright, and I’ll show you through the perspective -glass the beginnings of my new house. Ha! Does not the hill show fairly -against the sky?”</p> - -<p>“The Captain’s Hill, all men call it,” said William Wright, carefully -coming out upon the roof, and shading his eyes with his hand as -he looked across the water to the bold eminence, tree-crowned and -majestic, upon whose skirts Standish had already erected a summer -cottage soon to be solidified into a dwelling.</p> - -<p>“I know they do,” replied his companion absently, while he adjusted -the clumsy glass solemnly deposited in his charge by the chiefs of the -colony. “But I better<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_174" id="Page_174">[Pg 174]</a></span> like to call it Duxbury, for it minds me of -hills I knew of old.”</p> - -<p>“I know no hills called Duxbury in England,” objected Wright cautiously.</p> - -<p>“Nay, the hills are called Pennine, but the place where I first saw -them is in the manor of Duxbury. Ha! look you here, Wright, here’s -matter close at hand more nearly concerning us than the Pennine hills. -See you yonder?”</p> - -<p>“’Tis Mistress Carpenter and—and the man Gardiner,” stammered Wright, -staring down into the valley at his feet.</p> - -<p>“Ay, and little Betty Alden picking posies so far away that she might -as well be at home. Mind you, now, my friend, how close the rascal -walks to the maiden’s side, and how those hawk’s eyen of his stare into -her fair face; and by my faith, he’s grasping her hand and she, poor -maid, knows not how to pull it away!”</p> - -<p>“She might an’ she would,” muttered William Wright jealously.</p> - -<p>“Oh, I know not, I know not,” retorted Myles, teasing him. “She’s but a -withy lass, and mayhap afraid of him. Is it true she’s troth-plight to -you, Wright?”</p> - -<p>“Yes—that is no; she never would give her promise sure and fast, but I -had hoped”—</p> - -<p>“Then, man, if you will be said by my advice, you’ll make down to the -brook at best speed and secure that faltering hope before it is floated -away like the flowers the silly maid is stripping off and flinging into -the brook, not knowing what she’s about. Go down, Wright, and claim -your own.”</p> - -<p>“Nay, Captain,” returned Wright, whose thin face had grown tallow-pale, -and whose thin lips refused to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_175" id="Page_175">[Pg 175]</a></span> take moisture from a tongue almost as -dry. “If Mistress Carpenter finds her pleasure in such company and -such folly I’ll not trouble her with mine. No, I’m not for a young -gentlewoman who brings such manners and such morals from the wicked -courts of kings.”</p> - -<p>“Come, come, Wright, I’ll not listen to your light-lying of Mistress -Bradford’s sister. ’Tis a good girl as ever stepped and a pure maid as -lives in Plymouth, but she’s young, man, a score of years younger than -you, and doubtless she’s known the man in England, and they’ve met by -chance, and he is parley-vooing after the fashion of his kind, and she -knows not how to be rid of him. Come, go you down, man! Or go with me, -if it suits you better.”</p> - -<p>“No, Captain, I’ll not go.” And the stubborn face hardened in the -utterly discouraging way some faces can. “But I’ll ask this much of -your kindness, friend: go you and meet them, and find out, as you -so well can do, what is the meaning and the intent of it all; and -especially tell me if you as an honest man will say to me that this -maid is such a maid as a cautious, God-fearing man may crave for his -wife. I will trust to your discretion rather than to mine own fears, -Standish.”</p> - -<p>“Well, man, I’ll try to warrant your trust,” replied the captain, -laughing a little, “although I do not feel it in myself to be the judge -in a Court of Love such as they hold in France and those parts. But -you may be sure I’ll deal fairly both by you and the maid. Come after -sunset and I’ll tell you how I have fared.”</p> - -<p>“Nay, Pris, sweet Pris, ’tis such a pretty name I fain would dwell on’t -since I may not take sweeter dews upon my lips, believe me, fairest, -I have forgot nothing of that fair memory; all I then said I say now -and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_176" id="Page_176">[Pg 176]</a></span> again and again! I came to New England for naught but to find thee -once more, and to woo thee for mine own dear wife and lady paramount so -long”—</p> - -<p>But upon the smooth and dulcet tones of the knight suddenly intruded a -strident and mocking voice:—</p> - -<p>“Good-e’en to you, Mistress Prissie; so you are looking for mayflowers -already?”</p> - -<p>“Ah! Oh, Captain Standish, how you startled me! I knew not you were -here.”</p> - -<p>“Nay, I’m grieved to have startled you, mistress, but why should not -I take my walks abroad and look for mayflowers as well as you, or at -least as well as this gentleman, whose walks in life have not always -led him in such pleasant paths, more than mine own. How say you, Sir -Christopher? We did not gather posies much in those stirring days among -the Turks wherein I first met your knightship.”</p> - -<p>“I do not remember meeting you, Captain Standish, before I came to New -England,” replied the knight coldly.</p> - -<p>“No? Well, you are an older man than I, and your memory more laden, so -like enough a little matter may well slip out of it. But when I saw you -there at Passonagessit t’other day I was sure ’twas not the first time. -And how is the fair lady we saw with you? Your wife, is she not?”</p> - -<p>“No, sir, she is not my wife!” thundered Sir Christopher, and the -captain’s face assumed an expression of dismay and embarrassment.</p> - -<p>“Not your wife!” echoed he. “Nay, nay; if I’d known that, I would not -have named her in presence of this modest gentlewoman. But how is -it, then, that she spake of you as her lord? Nay, I’ll not push the -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_177" id="Page_177">[Pg 177]</a></span>matter, sith I see ’tis an over-delicate matter. Wow! this wind cuts -through one’s blood. Mistress Prissie, I much fear me you’ll catch a -megrim if you linger longer by the brookside, and Betty, ’tis high time -thou wert helping thy mother with the supper; run home, little maids, -and Sir Christopher, I’ll show you something more to your taste than -spring flowers and young lassies. Come up to the Fort and help me fire -the sunset gun.”</p> - -<p>Sir Christopher’s face was very dark, and possibly enough the captain -had not so easily taken his captive, but that Prissie Carpenter, -ashamed and terrified at the meaning she suspected under the captain’s -debonair look and voice, had already fled toward the village, followed -by Betty with a basket full of flowers, but a conscience full of thorns.</p> - -<p>Seeing that resistance had thus become useless, the knight gloomily -accepted his defeat, and clomb the hill beside the captain, whose -jovial manner suddenly dropped into silence, nor did he speak until -the two men stood upon the roof of the Fort. Then, while the sun, -disdaining the mantle of gold and purple officiously presented by the -western clouds, sank in undimmed glory to the horizon, and resting -there an instant seemed to view once more the fair domain he now must -abandon, Standish, his lighted match in one hand, laid a finger of the -other upon his companion’s breast.</p> - -<p>“Sir Christopher Gardiner,” said he, “we breed no Mary Groves in these -parts, and yon young gentlewoman is the sister of our governor, and the -promised wife of one of our worthiest citizens. ’Twould go hard with -the man that trifled with her, and well do I hope no more hath been -said than is soon forgotten and will leave no blot behind.” </p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_178" id="Page_178">[Pg 178]</a></span></p> - -<p>“Since when hath Myles Standish added the duty of father confessor to -his other cares?” demanded Gardiner with a sneer.</p> - -<p>“Ask rather, what sin hath he committed so notable as to call for the -penance of listening to thy confession, my son?” retorted the captain -good-humoredly. “Nay, man, take my hint in good part, as indeed ’tis -meant. This maid is not for thy fooling, and thine own affairs are -like to give thee trouble enough without mixing and moiling them -further. Ha! the sun is going”— Puff! and the dull boom of heavy metal -resounded across the quiet town, and startled the eagle circling above -his nest on Captain’s Hill.</p> - -<p>Then the two men went silently down the hill, and whatever may have -been the knight’s secret resolves of virtue, he never again found the -opportunity to test them.</p> - -<p>“Now, Betty,” said her mother, as the family rose from that meal we -call tea, but they named supper, “I will put the babies to bed, and -then step up the hill to Mistress Standish’s to see little Lora, who is -worse of her measles to-night, and thou wash up the dishes and redd the -kitchen, and then go to bed like a good little lass. I’ll take in the -gentleman’s supper, and ask what he fancies for his breakfast. John, -you’ll find me at the captain’s when ’tis time for lecture.”</p> - -<p>“Ay, dame; and meantime I’ll smoke a quiet pipe here with Betty and dry -my wet feet.”</p> - -<p>But hardly had the mother disappeared when John Alden felt two tender -arms about his neck, and heard a broken whisper,—</p> - -<p>“Oh, father! I’m so sorry!”</p> - -<p>“What! Betty, child, is’t thou? And crying! Nay,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_179" id="Page_179">[Pg 179]</a></span> then, little woman, -what is it all about? Come sit on father’s knee and tell him thy -trouble. What makes thee sorry, my little maid?”</p> - -<p>“I—don’t—know—father.”</p> - -<p>“Don’t know! Nay, how canst thou be sorry and not know why? That’s -naught but foolishness, Betty.”</p> - -<p>“Please, father, will you speak to mother, and not have me carry the -gentleman’s sarver into the fore-room, nor make his bed any more?”</p> - -<p>“What! what!” exclaimed Alden, pushing the child back until he could -look into her wet and troubled face. “Nay, then, Betty, I ’ll have the -truth of thee; has the man been rude to thee, or said a word amiss?”</p> - -<p>“I—oh, don’t look so angry, father; you frighten me.”</p> - -<p>“But I will be answered, Betty! Why dost thou fear to go into this -man’s room? What has he said to thee?”</p> - -<p>“He’s said naught but kindness, father; he never spoke a cross word, -not one. What should he scold <i>me</i> about?”</p> - -<p>And the innocent wonder of the sweet face filled the man with fear lest -his child might have understood him. Yet still with his own persistence -he asked,—</p> - -<p>“But why dost thou not want to take him his victual, poppet?”</p> - -<p>“I may not tell you, daddy dear, because I promised sure and fast I -would not tell, but I’d rather he asked mother or you”—</p> - -<p>“Asked us what, child?”</p> - -<p>“To help him— Nay, father, please do not ask me, for I promised I -would tell nobody, and he said they’d cut off his ears and burn his -cheeks”—</p> - -<p>“Tut, tut, he’s been scaring thee, thou silly little<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_180" id="Page_180">[Pg 180]</a></span> maid, and I doubt -not asking thee to help him escape. Now isn’t that the great secret?”</p> - -<p>“No, daddy—that is, perhaps he thought Pris would help him escape”—</p> - -<p>“Pris? Why, what has she to do with this man, or thou with either of -them?”</p> - -<p>“Mother’s coming, and I don’t want to tell her, for she’d chide me so -sharply if I did not give up the secret, and I promised, father dear, I -promised, and you said I ought to die rather than tell a willful lie.”</p> - -<p>“And so I did. Well, I’ll think on’t; go back to thy dishes now.”</p> - -<p>And as Priscilla bustled into the room and hastily put on her outdoor -gear she noticed neither how grave her husband looked, nor how little -progress Betty had made with the dishes.</p> - -<p>A little later, as John Alden brought his wife home from the lecture, -he said,—</p> - -<p>“William Wright was telling me that he saw Prissie Carpenter and our -Betty with Sir Christopher Gardiner by the brook picking posies this -afternoon.”</p> - -<p>“Why ’twas you that bade me send Betty out with him!” exclaimed -Priscilla, forestalling the objection in her husband’s voice.</p> - -<p>“I know it, and I’d better have left the matter to you, wife. It was -ill thought on, and we’ll not have our little maid called in question -if the man is plotting an escape”—</p> - -<p>“Talking with Pris Carpenter, was he?” interrupted Priscilla sharply.</p> - -<p>“Yes”—</p> - -<p>“Then it wasn’t escape he was talking of, but his own captivity to her -charms. She knew him in <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_181" id="Page_181">[Pg 181]</a></span>England, John; she told me so, and showed me a -token he gave her. Mayhap he’s come to marry her!”</p> - -<p>“And the woman Mary Grove, what make you of that, wife?”</p> - -<p>“Oh, a body must have charity, and many a mare’s nest is naught but a -tangle in the hedge. We’ll see.”</p> - -<p>“Ay, but we’ll not have our Betty mixed in with any such matter, -Priscilla, and I pray thee keep her away from this man while he is in -our house. Do not send her to the fore-room again; one of the boys can -carry in the sarver, or I will do’t myself, but Betty is not to go in -thither again.”</p> - -<p>“As thou sayest, John,” replied Priscilla with a meekness reserved for -the rare occasions when her husband chose to assert his authority; -so thus it came about that not again during the week he remained at -Plymouth did Sir Christopher Gardiner find speech with the child, who -never to her dying day revealed the secret she had promised to keep, -and never quite comforted herself for the duplicity into which she had -been led.</p> - -<hr /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_182" id="Page_182">[Pg 182]</a></span></p> - -<h2>CHAPTER XVIII.</h2> - -<p class="bold">THE LITTLE BOOK.</p> - -<p>An uneasy and difficult week passed over Plymouth, its shadow resting -especially upon John Alden’s house, when one fine sunshining morning -Jo, the second boy, rushed into the house, with the news,—</p> - -<p>“Mother, there’s a big boat down from the Bay, and a captain in it, -bigger than our captain, and the governor’s son, and a mort more of men -come to get the man in our fore-room.”</p> - -<p>“And where’s thy father, Jo?”</p> - -<p>“Oh, he’s down there at the waterside, and all the other men, talking -with the Bay folk, and I ran off to tell you, mother.”</p> - -<p>“That’s my brave boy! He doesn’t forget mother, does he?” And Priscilla -turned to look fondly at her second-born, a fine, manly little fellow, -with a marvelous likeness to his uncle Joseph Molines, victim of the -first winter’s pestilence, the brother whom Priscilla had so fondly -loved, so deeply mourned.</p> - -<p>“Well, poor man, if he’s to be carried away prisoner by so many -warders, I’ll e’en toss him up a dainty dish for his last dinner with -us,” continued she busily. “Jo, my man, run down and ask father if any -of the Indians have brought in oysters to-day, and if not, to get some -clams or a lobster; and be quick, my boy, for it’s hard on noon. And, -Betty, see if there are some<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_183" id="Page_183">[Pg 183]</a></span> fresh eggs in the hen roost,—I’ll make -an omelet with herbs; and there’s a fine salmon to serve with cream -sauce and a sallet”—</p> - -<p>“We might kill a chicken, mother,” suggested John, the grave -first-born, so like his father in everything.</p> - -<p>“Nay, not to-day, Johnny,” replied Priscilla, somewhat embarrassed, -for her mind reverted to a little discovery of her own, and her eyes -glanced toward the high mantel where lay a small brown-covered notebook -much worn at the edges, and although apparently of trifling value, -just then a greater weight upon the mind of the mistress than even her -silver cup, or her six teaspoons.</p> - -<p>It was but the day before that Betty had picked up this book just -outside the house, and bringing it to her mother said she thought the -gentleman had dropped it out of his pocket, for she had seen it in his -room upon the table. Opening it at random, Priscilla read a few words -only, but those so strange that, instead of at once restoring the book, -she laid it aside until she should have time to consider her duty in -the matter. On one side lay hospitality and honor, but on the other was -the obligation to justice and to the common weal, which to those early -settlers was a matter far more vital than to us, for it included not -only their own interests, but perhaps the very lives of all belonging -to them. If here indeed was “a snake in the tender grass,” had she a -right to let him wind his beautiful deadly way out of reach of justice? -But on the other hand, was the danger deadly enough to warrant her in -betraying the man who had eaten her salt? This controversy of mind, -sufficiently perplexing to a woman of Priscilla’s day and training, -was suddenly resolved by the news brought<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_184" id="Page_184">[Pg 184]</a></span> home by John Alden that -the Boston boat would return directly after noon-meat, and that Sir -Christopher Gardiner would return with her.</p> - -<p>“Then come you in here a moment, John,” said Priscilla, rising from her -almost untasted dinner, and leading the way to her bedroom.</p> - -<p>John ruefully rose, his eyes upon his plate, where lay a huge segment -of suet pudding which he had just begun to absorb in his own slow and -methodical fashion. Betty’s quick eyes saw the whole.</p> - -<p>“I’ll turn a basin over it, father, and set it by the fire till you’re -ready for it,” said she with a flashing smile; and her father, smiling -also, replied,—</p> - -<p>“Thou’rt ever a good little wench, Betty!”</p> - -<p>“See here, John! See this little book!” exclaimed Priscilla, shutting -the door so promptly as nearly to catch her husband’s last foot in the -crack. “’Tis the man’s, and mayhap the governor ought to know he’s a -Catholic for one thing. See, see! Isn’t that what this page meaneth?”</p> - -<p>“Ay, he was reconciled, as they call it, on such a day and”— But as -Alden pored over the scribbled entry, murmuring vaguely such words as -more clearly presented themselves, his impetuous wife interrupted him:—</p> - -<p>“I gave him fish for his dinner to-day, sith I would not have a dog -lack meat to his mind in mine own house, but still I remember how those -fiends of Catholics murdered my grandsire in cold blood, and his wife -after him, for naught but that they were Huguenots, as we are, and I -must hate Catholics forevermore.”</p> - -<p>“Nay, wife, not hate them,—not hate whom God has made and still spares -for repentance,” suggested John; but Priscilla impatiently tossed her -head. </p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_185" id="Page_185">[Pg 185]</a></span></p> - -<p>“God is God, and I’m but poor Priscilla, his creature. I cannot love -and hate all in one breath the same thing.”</p> - -<p>“Nay, wife, but thou didst give the man what meat his conscience called -for on a Friday?”</p> - -<p>“Yes, of course I did.”</p> - -<p>“And now will deliver him to death, if so it be?”</p> - -<p>“Oh, I cannot tell; but I hate Catholics; my father bade me do so.”</p> - -<p>“And yet thou dost feed them, and I’ll be bound thou’lt see that this -man’s tender wounds are well covered from the cold before he goes -aboard.”</p> - -<p>“There, now, I’m glad you spoke on’t, John! I’ll lap his arms with a -good woolen bandage, and you must lend him your old horseman’s cloak to -wrap himself withal. The governor’ll fetch it some day when he goes up -to visit the Bay governor again.”</p> - -<p>“Nay, wife, I don’t see but thou dost humbly follow thy God, and love -the sinner while thou dost hate the sin.” And John slowly and fondly -smiled down upon the petulant brown face of the wife he still loved as -well as when first he wooed her.</p> - -<p>“Oh, I know not how that may be, my Jeannot,” replied Priscilla, -laughing and blushing a little as she saw herself trapped. “But here’s -the little book.”</p> - -<p>“Ay, here’s the little book, and to my mind the best thing is for me to -carry it straight to the governor and let him do with it as he lists. -’Tis a matter too weighty for us to handle alone.”</p> - -<p>“Doubtless you’re right, John, and here it is,” and Priscilla, with -a little sigh of vague regret, handed the book to her husband, and -watched him as he at once left the house to carry it to the governor. </p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_186" id="Page_186">[Pg 186]</a></span></p> - -<p>But Betty kept the pudding warm for his supper.</p> - -<p>That afternoon Sir Christopher Gardiner, formally made over to the -custody of Captain John Underhill and Lieutenant Dudley, son of the -deputy-governor, sailed out of Plymouth wearing John Alden’s cloak, in -which he sullenly muffled the lower part of his face, while a slouched -hat nearly covered the upper.</p> - -<p>“Are you sick?” bluntly demanded Underhill, who had orders to treat his -prisoner honorably and kindly.</p> - -<p>“Nay, I’m sorry,” retorted the knight.</p> - -<p>“Fortune of war, comrade,” returned the Puritan captain not unkindly, -“and there’s no very sharp measure laid up for you, as I take it. -Our governor bade me have a care for your comfort, and the Plymouth -governor hath writ a long letter to Master Winthrop, all in your favor, -as I know from what he was saying to Alden.”</p> - -<p>“‘Have no fear,’ says he, ‘it shall do him no harm;’ and t’other -returns, ‘We did but our duty, and yet would be right loath to hurt the -man.’ Now what make you of that, man?”</p> - -<p>“Read the governor’s letter and you’ll know more than I do,” replied -Sir Christopher gloomily.</p> - -<p>“Read it! Nay, that’s not my business. But ’tis a hugeous letter.”</p> - -<p>And from the pocket of his doublet Underwood drew forth a little packet -carefully sealed and superscribed,—</p> - -<div class="box"><p><i>To</i></p> - -<p class="center"><span class="smcap">Master John Winthrop</span>,<br /> -<br /><i>Honourable Governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony these:</i></p></div> - -<p>As he turned the package over and over in his hands,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_187" id="Page_187">[Pg 187]</a></span> the knight, who -at first had glanced at it in moody indifference, roused to intense -attention, and finally, while a streak of dusky red animated his sallow -cheek, extended his hand, saying as carelessly as he could,—</p> - -<p>“Let me look at the governor’s seal, captain. Has it an heraldic -device?”</p> - -<p>“Nay, I know naught of such follies,” returned Underhill, holding -out the packet; but even as his fingers touched those of the knight, -trembling with impatience, a glance at his face, or perhaps only the -soldier’s instinct of peril at hand, suddenly diverted his attention, -and snatching back the dispatch, he began to replace it in his doublet, -saying gruffly,—</p> - -<p>“Marry, ’tis no business of mine or thine what these governors say to -one another.”</p> - -<p>“Nay, but I’m sick—make way, man, make way”—and throwing himself -across Underhill, as if to reach the side of the boat, Sir Christopher, -what with his long arms flying all abroad, and what with the great -cloak that swept across Underhill’s face and breast, came very near -knocking the packet out of his hand and sweeping it overboard.</p> - -<p>“Have a care, man! Have a care!” cried the captain angrily. “Though -you’re squalmish all of a sudden, you needn’t fling yourself nor me -overboard.” And thrusting the inclosure containing Sir Christopher’s -notebook and the kind and gentle letter accompanying it deep into his -pocket, the future slayer of “Pequods” recovered his equilibrium and -made room for Sir Christopher, who, leaning his head upon the gunwale -of the boat, effectually hid his face from view, and made no reply to -further efforts at conversation.</p> - -<p>A week or so later another Boston boat came down<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_188" id="Page_188">[Pg 188]</a></span> to Plymouth, and -brought John Alden’s cloak and a letter to Bradford from Governor -Winthrop. It tells its own story in its own quaint phraseology:—</p> - -<blockquote><p>S<sup>R.</sup>: It hath pleased God to bring S<sup>r.</sup> Christopher Gardener safe -to us with thos that came with him. And howsoever I never intended -any hard measure to him, but to respecte and use him according -to his qualitie, yet I let him know your care of him, and y<sup>t</sup> -he shall speed y<sup>e</sup> better for your mediation. It was a spetiall -providence of God to bring those notes of his to our hands; I -desire y<sup>t</sup> you will please to speake to all y<sup>t</sup> are privie to them -not to discover them to any one for y<sup>t</sup> may frustrate y<sup>e</sup> means -of any farder use to be made of them. The good Lord our God who -hath allways ordered things for y<sup>e</sup> good of his poore churches -here directe us in this arighte, and dispose it to a good issue. -I am sorie we put you to so much trouble about this gentleman, -espetialy at this time of greate imploymente, but I know not how -to avoyed it. I must again intreate you to let me know what charge -& troble any of your people have been at aboute him, y<sup>t</sup> may be -recompenced. So with the trew affection of a frind desiring all -happines to your selfe & yours, and to all my worthy friends with -you (whome I love in y<sup>e</sup> Lord) I comende you to his grace & good -providence & rest</p> - -<p class="right">your most assured friend<span class="s3"> </span><br /> -<span class="smcap">John Winthrop</span><a name="FNanchor_4_4" id="FNanchor_4_4"></a><a href="#Footnote_4_4">[4]</a></p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Boston</span> <i>May 5, 1631</i></p></blockquote> - -<h3>FOOTNOTE:</h3> - -<p><a name="Footnote_4_4" id="Footnote_4_4"></a><a href="#FNanchor_4_4">[4]</a> True copy.</p> - -<hr /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_189" id="Page_189">[Pg 189]</a></span></p> - -<h2>CHAPTER XIX.</h2> - -<p class="bold">A MUCH-MARRIED MAN.</p> - -<p>The spring had ripened into midsummer, and under the sad and foreboding -eyes of Governor Bradford a most ominous hegira of some of his dearest -friends and Plymouth’s most valued townsmen had taken place, nominally -for the summer only, but as Bradford too plainly foresaw not to end -with the summer.</p> - -<p>Standish’s house upon the foot of his own hill was complete, and not -far away Jonathan Brewster, the Elder’s oldest son, had put up a summer -cottage and established his wife and children. This might have passed, -but when the Elder himself, with his two sons Love and Wrestling, also -built a cottage close beside Jonathan’s upon a pretty inlet called -Eagle’s Creek, the governor’s heart sank within him, and, calling a -Court of the People, he proposed a legal enactment to the effect that -those colonists who should build houses outside the town limits for -the convenience of grazing or farming should return to the town at the -beginning of winter, and abide there until spring; also, that they -should week by week come into town to attend divine service on the -Lord’s Day.</p> - -<p>To this all consented, even Winslow, who, in spite of his frequent and -protracted absences in England, had found time to view the land beyond -Duxbury, and to appropriate a lovely and fertile tract at Green Harbor<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_190" id="Page_190">[Pg 190]</a></span> -in what is now Marshfield. Building a temporary cottage here, he named -the estate Careswell after his ancestral home in England, and in true -family spirit gathered around him his brothers: John, now husband of -Mary Chilton, Josias, and Kenelm, who, married to Ellinor Newton of the -Fortune, settled upon a gentle eminence by the sea in a spot so fertile -and so beautiful that it was fitly named Eden.</p> - -<p>Where Standish chose to lead, John Alden was in the habit of following, -nor was this migration to Duxbury an exception, for in this very summer -of 1631 Alden took up a large tract of land on the south side of -Bluefish River, and built his house upon a pleasant rise of land near -Eagletree Pond; and although two other houses have at different dates -replaced the one he built, his children of the eighth generation live -to-day upon the spot where Betty Alden grew into her fair maidenhood, -and brothers and sisters made home happy, and life a quiet joy.</p> - -<p>All these things and more had William Bradford been rehearsing to -his friend Captain William Pierce of the Lyon, who had looked into -Plymouth to leave some passengers and merchandise before proceeding -upon his voyage to England, until the sailor, sorry for the depression -and foreboding Bradford did not disguise from him, cast about for some -pleasanter topic, and finally cried,—</p> - -<p>“Oh, let me tell you, Governor, of the hornets’ nest I found myself -caught in, awhile ago in Lun’on; and by the way, Master Isaac Allerton -was in it as well. Didn’t he tell you here of the two wives of Sir -Christopher Gardiner?”</p> - -<p>“Nay, we have had but little pleasant converse with<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_191" id="Page_191">[Pg 191]</a></span> Master Allerton -for a long time past,” replied Bradford heavily, and Pierce hastened to -proceed:—</p> - -<p>“I know, I know, it would seem as if Allerton with all his pious texts -had never learned that the man who faileth to care for his own is worse -than a beast; for he cozened his own old father as much as he did you. -But this is another matter. It was in February that I was stopping at -the Three Anchors down by Wapping Old Stairs, and Allerton came in and -said he had a message from a woman calling herself Lady Gardiner, who -fain would have speech with him because he came out of New England; -but he, prudent man, would go to see no fair ladies unknown to himself -without a reputable witness to his honest intent, and so he was come -for me. Be sure, Bradford, I did not let the chance slip to pass some -merry jests upon our sour-visaged friend, and brought the blood to his -tallow cheeks as it has not been seen for many a day; but in the end I -gave my word to go and protect him as best I might from any designing -Lindabrides who might assail him. So at once we went to the address -written on the billet that was sent him, smelling of musk and ambergris -and civet, worse than the hold of the Lyon after a ten weeks’ voyage. -Coming to the house in the Strand, we found in a very fair lodging not -one but two fair dames; and the merry jest of it is that both the one -and the other are honest women, and married by ring, book, and bell to -this same gay knight whom Winthrop found living so meekly in the woods -of Neponset River with his cousin Mary Grove.”</p> - -<p>“Nay, Pierce, but this passes a jest!” exclaimed Bradford, much -disturbed as he recalled his little sister’s pale face, and his wife’s -anxieties on her account. But<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_192" id="Page_192">[Pg 192]</a></span> the jolly mariner mopped his red face -and laughed amain while he replied,—</p> - -<p>“Nay, nay, Governor, I’m no church-member, and I suppose you saints -were men before you were saints, and how can you help to see the mirth -of it?”</p> - -<p>“Well, tell me how it was.”</p> - -<p>“Why, the first fair dame,—and a pretty creature she was, with soft -eyes like those of your wife’s pet doe, and yellow hair, but a mouth -too sad for kisses, and a cheek too thin and white for my taste,—she -showed us her marriage lines, and told how she was married some six -years ago to this Sir Christopher in Paris, and there abode until a -few weeks before that speaking, when, hearing strange rumors of her -husband’s proceedings, she came over to seek him in Lun’on, and found -the scent warm indeed, but Master Reynard fled over seas; and as she -sought him up and down, her quest crossed that of this other lady, who -had been indeed more deeply wronged than herself. And at that word, -Number Two, a fine bouncing well-set-up figure of a woman, black eyes -and hair, and a cheek like a sturdy rose, and a mouth I’d rather have -seen at peace than trembling with rage, she took up the word, and told -how not six months before, she too had wed Sir Christopher Gardiner, -and she too showed her marriage lines, which if not so binding as -the first ones had at least the merit of being writ in English; and -furthermore she showed us schedules of jewels and coin, and silver- -and goldsmith’s work, and much rare and costly apparel both for men -and women, for she was a widow, and all of it gone over seas with Sir -Christopher, who, it seems, after sending her for a day or two to visit -friends in the country, had made a clean sweep of everything, and the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_193" id="Page_193">[Pg 193]</a></span> -same night set sail for Monhegan with Mary Grove, for whom, poor wench, -she could find no name vile enough, laying all the blame, as is the -wont of women, upon her, and making Sir Kit a victim of her wiles.”</p> - -<p>“You saw the marriage lines of both these women?” asked Bradford, -leaning his forehead upon his hand as he sat beside the table, and -sighing heavily.</p> - -<p>“Oh, yes,” returned Pierce, wondering at the effect of his story, but -rather attributing it to the morbid sensitiveness of a church-member. -“Yes, they were both of them as safe as a chain-cable; and though Sir -Kit does seem to have slipped them, he couldn’t have parted them so -long as the anchor of common law found holding-ground. Well, both women -were clamoring to have us two catch the man and bring him back; but -while the soft sweet first wife would have him brought back to duty -and gently wooed into a better life, the full-rigged to’-gallant-s’il -gallant buccaneer of a second wife only yearned to get him within -reach that she might write the ten commandments on his face with her -pretty little nails, and if she couldn’t recover her jewels, plate, -and apparel, she would have the worth of them out of his hair and -hide, and as for Mary Grove,—wow! man, you should have heard her! The -ducking-stool, and the bilboes, and the white sheet, and the cart’s -tail, and I know not what, were but the beginning of the blessings she -longed to pour upon that poor little sinner’s head, oh me, oh me!”</p> - -<p>And again the sailor, recalling the scene, threw back his head and -laughed aloud, but meeting no response checked himself suddenly and -continued:—</p> - -<p>“Well, Allerton and I, when we might be heard, assured both the one and -the other dame that we <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_194" id="Page_194">[Pg 194]</a></span>compassionated their sad estate most heartily -and would willingly see them avenged, but that we had no power except -to bring the matter before Governor Winthrop, within whose jurisdiction -Sir Christopher had settled, and in the end both ladies resolved to -write to His Excellency, and promised to send the letters betimes next -day to the Three Anchors at Wapping; which, to cut the yarn short, they -did, and I gave them to Winthrop, and he as you know coursed the hare, -or rather, hunted the fox, and ran him down, here at Plymouth.”</p> - -<p>“But he has not been sent home, or so I heard the other day!” exclaimed -Bradford.</p> - -<p>“No; and why, I know not,” replied Pierce. “They kept him clapt up -for a while, but finding nothing worse against him than that he is a -friend to Sir Ferdinando Gorges, who wants the Massachusetts lands for -himself, they gave him the run of the town, and he has been vaporing up -and down there for months more than one or two. But now, Bradford, now -here’s a merry jest that even you cannot but smile at if there’s a drop -of red blood in your veins.</p> - -<p>“A week or two ago a stalwart fellow called Thomas Purchase, who has -taken up land at the eastward at a place called Sagadahoc, on the -Kennebec River,—or is it the Androscoggin?”</p> - -<p>“Both, since they come to a confluence. We have been thither trading -for beaver, and will have a port there soon, if God will.”</p> - -<p>“Well, this Purchase is a big man down there, and meaning to be bigger; -so, having a house, he came to Boston to purvey himself a wife; and who -should he pick from among all the fair and godly maids and widows of -that pious village but Mary Grove, who has<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_195" id="Page_195">[Pg 195]</a></span> been waiting there until -the magistrates should settle within their own minds which of the Lady -Gardiners might claim the plucking of her feathers. Yes, sir; Thomas -Purchase, with his eyes and his ears open, chose Mary Grove to be his -wife, Sir Christopher gave his consent and his blessing, and the lord’s -brethren, as Blackstone calls them, hailed with joy so clear a course -out of the muddle they’d fallen into with this woman. So Winthrop -himself married them, and Purchase, having his boat at hand, well -stocked with the barter of the beaver he had brought up, carried his -bride aboard, and also,—now mark you well, for here’s the very moral -of the jest,—also he took aboard Sir Christopher Gardiner himself, -and away they all sailed for Sagadahoc. There, what think you of that, -gossip?”</p> - -<p>“I think Master Thomas Purchase a singularly charitable man,” replied -Bradford with a dry smile. “But let us hope that Mary Grove convinced -him that she was more sinned against than sinning, and had not done the -wrong this villain’s second wife imputed to her.”</p> - -<p>“Ay, ay, doubtless you as a church-member are bound to find some such -way out of the thing; but to the mind of a plain old sea-dog like Bill -Pierce ’tis a marvelous merry tale, with no moral tacked to the end -on’t.”</p> - -<p>And possibly this conversation had something to do with the fact that -when Thanksgiving Day came round, Priscilla Carpenter became the wife -of William Wright.</p> - -<hr /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_196" id="Page_196">[Pg 196]</a></span></p> - -<h2>CHAPTER XX.</h2> - -<p class="bold">BETTY’S JOURNEY AND THE GARRETT WRECK.</p> - -<p>“Betty, child, thou’rt not well. Thy little face is so peaked and pined -I hardly know my winsome lassie. What is’t, maiden?”</p> - -<p>“Oh, father, I don’t know”—</p> - -<p>“Nay, don’t cry, my poppet! Come here and tell daddy all the trouble.”</p> - -<p>“Well, father, I’m so tired of seeing our neighbors carried up the -hill, and I’m looking for them to carry us too.”</p> - -<p>“What! Here, mother, come and tell me what our little maid may mean. -She says she’s tired of seeing our neighbors going up the hill, and she -cries as if her little heart would break.”</p> - -<p>The mother did not at once reply, but, laying her hand upon the child’s -head as it nestled upon her father’s breast, she looked sadly out -of the window, and said, “We had better have stayed over at Duxbury -another month, John.”</p> - -<p>“Why, so we would have done, wife, and indeed ’tis a loss to come back -to the town so early; but you know the governor desired it, because -in so much sickness our good doctor could not go far afield, and when -Jo was taken down he bade me bring you all in. Another year, if God -will, I mean to establish our home for winter as well as summer by the -Bluefish. But what about the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_197" id="Page_197">[Pg 197]</a></span> hill, Betty?” persisted the father. “Why -does it daunt thee to see the folk go up the hill?”</p> - -<p>“Because they’re dead, father, and they carry them up to bury them!” -cried Betty in a wild burst of sobs; and Priscilla, nodding, pointed -out of the window to a little procession just passing the house, where -four men bore upon a rude hand-bier a coffin covered with a black pall, -the corners held by four younger men. Behind walked a score or so of -mourners, all men, with long crape scarfs tied around their hats. -No clergyman attended, for religious solemnities at funerals were -studiously avoided by the Separatists, lest haply they might seem to -infringe upon the hidden councils of the Almighty in regard to souls -withdrawn from the sphere of human influence. A gloomy and a hopeless -affair they made of death, those men who dreaded popery as they did -Satan, and loved John Calvin, recently gone to test his own sunless -theories.</p> - -<p>“Betty, dear,” exclaimed the mother suddenly, “there’s little Molly -crying in her cradle! Run, dear, and hush her, and sit by the cradle -till I come.”</p> - -<p>The obedient child sprang to obey, and so soon as she was gone -Priscilla softly said,—</p> - -<p>“’Tis all these buryings, John, that work on the child’s tender heart, -and she heard us talking last night of poor Fear Allerton’s passing. -’Tis she that’s going up the hill now; and see! they’ve got Thomas -Prence and Philip De la Noye and Thomas Cushman and John Faunce for -pall-bearers, and Isaac Allerton and the Elder are chief mourners. You -should have been there, John, for Allerton was ship-fellow with us in -the Mayflower, and she was a dear gossip of mine always.”</p> - -<p>“And so I would have been but for that spike <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_198" id="Page_198">[Pg 198]</a></span>running into my foot -and making a cripple of me,” replied Alden with a rueful look at his -bandaged foot.</p> - -<p>“Shouldst not have left thy harrow lying on ’s back with its teeth -grinning up to the sky,” suggested Priscilla absently, and then taking -from the mantelshelf a bit of stick and a sheath knife she cut a -notch at the end of a long line, and counting said,—“Eleven on my -tally-stick already, and some of the best, alas! Peter Browne,—mind -you, John, how he and Goodman roosted in a tree all night for fear of -the ‘lions,’ and ne’er a one here? And Francis Eaton, he’s gone, and -left Christian Penn a widow. I’ll warrant me she’ll go back to the -governor’s kitchen. Then there’s the captain’s two little boys. Poor -Barbara! Truly I believe, John, of the hundred Mayflowers that came -ashore there’s not a score left.”</p> - -<p>“There’s two and twenty of us, counting them who were children, like -Henry Samson and Peregrine White,” said John sadly.</p> - -<p>“Ah, you’ve kept the tally in your head better than I with my stick,” -said Priscilla, laying it aside. “And to think of Pris Carpenter, -widowed almost as soon as she’s wed. William Wright has left her all -that he had, Alice Bradford says.”</p> - -<p>“Ay; and glad am I that Sir Christopher Gardiner hath gone back to his -two wives in England before she came into her fair estate.”</p> - -<p>“Nay, Pris would not have looked crosswise at him after she heard the -story Captain Pierce gave the governor. She was too sound a maid to -listen to any such golightly cavaliers as this man proved himself. But, -John, did you hear of the will that Widow Ring has made, and tied up -everything on her boy Andrew? And<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_199" id="Page_199">[Pg 199]</a></span> there’s Susanna Clark and Betsey -Deane been the best of daughters, and tended her hand and foot, and she -as full of whims as an egg is of meat; and when she’d for very shame’ -sake given Susan a pair of pillows, she had to tuck in that Andrew -was to have the feathers out of ’em. Think of that for a mother! And -Susan Clark, she’s to have the making of a baby’s bearing-cloth out of -a piece of red cloth the widow had laid up, and Betsey Deane’s child, -she’s to have the rest on’t. And who’s to have the widow’s three say -gowns, one of green and two of black, I mind not, but all Betty told me -of getting was one ruffle that her mother bought of Goodman Gyles, who -had it out of England in a present, and she gave him four shillings for -it, but”—</p> - -<p>“But what’s to be done with our Betty?” calmly inquired John, stemming -the tide of his wife’s eloquence, apparently all unconsciously.</p> - -<p>She, standing open-mouthed for a moment, looked at him, colored a -little, then laughed, and nipping his arm retorted,—</p> - -<p>“What’s to be done with our goodman, that’s lost his wits as well as -lamed his foot? Didst not know that I was discoursing of Widow Ring’s -will?”</p> - -<p>“But she’s left naught to us that I’ve heard, nor are we even called to -distribute her goods as I can hear, so were it not the part of wisdom -to attend to our own concerns instead of hers, good wife?”</p> - -<p>“Well, as for Betty, the child’s growing too fast, and mayhap has been -a little too straitly tied at home, what with little Molly’s coming, -and Jo’s fever, and the rest. So now that you’re laid up from work, -John, why don’t you take her up to Boston in the governor’s boat -that’s set to go two days from now, and tarry the night<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_200" id="Page_200">[Pg 200]</a></span> at Parson -Wilson’s, as he so kindly asked you when he was down here with Governor -Winthrop and his folk? Marry come up, ’twas a good supper I set before -their high mightinesses that night, and our own governor did thank me -kindly for so pleasantly entertaining the guests of the colony. ’Twas -a better supper than they had at the Winslows’ or the Howlands’ or -the Allertons’, for I know all about it. As for the Standishes, I was -helping Barbara all day, and the merit of that feast lay between us, -but”—</p> - -<p>“And dost think Mistress Wilson would welcome our little maid?”</p> - -<p>“Surely she would, and why not? You’ll not find our Betty’s marrow -among the pick of the Bay maidens, not forgetting Master Winthrop’s -own; no, nor Simon Bradstreet’s Anne that you were so taken with when -we went up to see Mistress Winthrop.”</p> - -<p>“Then if you’ll make her packet ready I’ll see the governor about -the boat,” concluded John, carefully putting his wounded foot to the -ground, taking a cane in each hand, and hobbling out of the room, just -as the roll of a muffled drum announced the death of Samuel Fuller, -the much-prized and well-beloved physician of Plymouth, deacon of her -church, brother by marriage to Bradford and Wright; the constant friend -of his townsmen, and valued by many an one in the new settlements about -Boston Bay. Faithful to the last, he had attended the sick-beds of -those who were only a trifle worse than himself, until of a sudden he -succumbed, and died almost before his friends knew that he was ill. -Few deaths could have been more deeply felt in that little colony, -and few were noted in William Bradford’s diary with more solemn and -affectionate feeling. </p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_201" id="Page_201">[Pg 201]</a></span></p> - -<p>But before the doctor was laid to rest in his nameless grave on Burying -Hill, Betty Alden, full of delight, and yet soberly attentive to her -mother’s last charges, both as to her own conduct and her care of her -father’s foot, was on her way to Boston, where she saw many new faces -and made many new friends. Of one of these, a girl of her own age -named Christian Garrett, there is more to tell, for so close was the -friendship springing up between herself and Betty, and so good and -commendable a little maid did Christian prove herself, that John Alden, -on parting with Richard Garrett, the father, cordially invited him to -visit Plymouth at some near date and bring his little girl to visit -Betty, and this he promised to do.</p> - -<p>Why the luckless man should have selected mid-winter for this -expedition no man now can say, but so he did, and in spite of urgent -warnings sailed from what is now Long Wharf upon a bitter-cold morning, -with a north wind catching the crests off the waves, and hurling them -in needlepoints of ice in the teeth of the doomed company whom Richard -Garrett had persuaded to accompany him. One of these, named Henry -Harwood, was a passenger, and the other three were Garrett’s hired -servants. As the day wore on, the wind freshened, working round to the -northwest, so that arriving toward night off the Gurnet the exhausted -men thought best to anchor until morning. The killock, a rude anchor -consisting simply of a stone bound in a network of rope, was thrown -over in twenty fathoms of water, and not resting upon the bottom the -stone soon worked out of the rope, and left the boat to drive. No -lighthouse upon the Gurnet, no beacon upon the beach, then protected -the mariner of Plymouth Bay, and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_202" id="Page_202">[Pg 202]</a></span> as the horror of thick darkness fell -upon the scene, and the boat flew before the wind which now came laden -with sleet, freezing as it fell, Garrett exclaimed,—</p> - -<p>“Now may the Lord have mercy upon our sinful souls, and forgive me that -has brought my motherless child here to die!”</p> - -<p>“And more than that, Richard Garrett, you that have involved us in the -same disaster,” replied Harwood angrily. “Do you suppose, man, I would -have adventured with you and paid my two shilling for a passage, had -I known what manner of shallop this is, and nothing but a stone and a -rope for killock?”</p> - -<p>“Peace, man!” retorted Garrett sternly. “How dare you go before your -Judge with revilings in your mouth! Get you to your prayers, or be -silent.”</p> - -<p>“Father, the water freezes around my feet!” moaned Christian, nestling -close to his side in the darkness.</p> - -<p>“My poor little maid! Here, sit on my knees and I’ll lap thee in my -cloak!”</p> - -<p>“Nay, thou’lt take it from thyself, daddy,” remonstrated the child; -but the father had his way, and all through that cruel night sheltered -the little maid upon his knees and under his cloak, while his own feet -first ached bitterly, and then grew numb, and then died.</p> - -<p>“Let us pray!” cried a voice from the forward part of the boat, and, -mingled with the howling of the storm, the hissing of the brine as it -rushed savagely past the wreck, and the rattling of the frozen rigging, -there rose upon the midnight air one of those stern, strong, abject yet -self-assertive prayers that the Puritans were wont to address to their -vindictive and implacable Deity; confessing their own enormity of sin, -yet beseeching Him to forego his rightful vengeance and to lift his -scourge<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_203" id="Page_203">[Pg 203]</a></span> from their backs because his Son had already borne the penalty -of their sins, and suffered to appease the Father’s annihilating wrath.</p> - -<p>The prayer was strong and eloquent after its own rugged fashion, and as -the hearers breathed “A-men” they felt that their chances were better -than before, and were not surprised when, as morning broke, the low -line of Cape Cod lay before them, and the sail, partially blown from -the gaskets, filled just enough to carry them gently upon the shallow -beach.</p> - -<p>“We are saved!” exclaimed Harwood, staggering to his feet and clinging -to the mast. “Come, men, tumble over and wade ashore! We can be no -wetter than we are.”</p> - -<p>As he spoke he stepped over the gunwale into water almost up to his -middle and turned shoreward, but Garrett cried to him,—</p> - -<p>“Hold, man, if you have a heart of flesh and not of stone! Take my -child out of my arms and carry her ashore, for I am utterly spent. I -shall never reach that land.”</p> - -<p>“Give her to me, then, some of you,” replied Harwood grudgingly. “I -know not if I can hold her in my numbed arms, but I’ll try it, though -she never should have been here.”</p> - -<p>“Tut! Prut! Master Harwood!” retorted Joseph Pierce, Garrett’s foreman. -“None but a sour temper would flout the master with his misfortunes -just now! I’d carry little mistress myself and spare you the trouble, -but my feet are froze fast into the wash at the bottom of the boat.”</p> - -<p>“And so are mine!” exclaimed another, making ineffectual efforts to -release himself from his icy bonds. </p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_204" id="Page_204">[Pg 204]</a></span></p> - -<p>“And I know not if I have feet or not,” added Garrett drowsily. “But I -beseech you, men, to care for my little maid.”</p> - -<p>“Be sure we will, master,” replied Pierce cheerily. “Here, Brastow, -give me that hatchet to cut away the ice from my feet; but no, first -help Mistress Christian over the side. Now, then, Harwood, take her, -and God’s blessing if you get her safe ashore. Have you a hold? Put -your arms round his neck, there’s a brave maid. Now hold fast.”</p> - -<p>No sooner was Harwood off than the others began to move, and although -Garrett himself only reached the shore by the help of two men, and -at once fell down never to rise again, all at length stood upon the -barren and shelterless sand-bank, at that point running down from the -scrub forest to the water, and looked around them in dismay. Garrett, -the leader of the expedition, was evidently dying, and one of his men -was in scarce better case. Harwood and Pierce, the strongest of those -who remained, yet hardly able to bestir themselves, gathered some -sticks and lighted a fire, but for want of a hatchet could not cut -any substantial fuel. “We must e’en wade it again to the boat, and -fetch off some victual, the hatchet, and some rugs, if nothing more,” -declared Pierce, when the fire had a little revived his chilled frame -and flagging spirit; and Harwood gloomily acquiescing, the two once -more made their perilous journey, and so loaded themselves that the -hatchet, most precious item of all he carried, dropped from Pierce’s -numbed fingers and fell somewhere among the rocks upon which the boat -had now drifted. To find it was impossible, and to stay longer in the -freezing and rising water was as impossible, so the two<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_205" id="Page_205">[Pg 205]</a></span> were fain to -stagger ashore, and fall with their burdens upon their backs beside the -fire, where their companions lay mutely regarding them with the apathy -of dying men.</p> - -<p>The day passed, and the night, those who survived could never quite -tell how, but in the morning Joseph Pierce and Thomas Barstow set out -to walk toward Plymouth, lying as they supposed some six or seven miles -to the westward, but in reality about fifty. Several miles on their -journey these two encountered two Indian women, who ran away from them, -but carried intelligence of the encounter to their husbands, encamped -near at hand.</p> - -<p>And now Plymouth’s just and generous policy toward the Indians bore -fruit. The savages both loved and feared the white men of the Old -Colony; they knew that kindness would be rewarded, and offenses -surely punished; so acting accordingly, they hastened to overtake -the footsore wanderers, and discovering whither they would go, one -of the Indians went forward as their guide, while the other turned -back to the camp, where beside the last embers of a fire lay the -lifeless body of Garrett, his child crouching beside him, dazed and -dumb with cold and terror. At the other side of the exhausted fire -lay Harwood and the other man, only half conscious, and quite unable -to move or to help themselves. The Indian, making the most of his -few words of English, stopped only to promise help and to assure the -sufferers that their comrades were safe, and then sped away to his -wigwam, whence he presently returned laden with rugs, a hatchet, and -some sort of reviving draught which he heated over the renewed fire, -and administered to each in turn. Then, covering them warmly, he cut<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_206" id="Page_206">[Pg 206]</a></span> -saplings, pointed them, and built a hut over the prostrate bodies of -the sufferers. Last of all he hewed a grave in the frozen soil with his -hatchet, and respectfully raising Richard Garrett’s dead body in his -arms laid it to rest, carefully crumbling the soil to cover it, and -raising a cairn of stones and brushwood to protect it from the beasts -of prey then prowling up and down the waste of Cape Cod.</p> - -<p>As the warmth increased, however, the apathy of the frozen men turned -to anguish and torture, and Harwood, dragging himself out of the hut, -had the resolution to thaw his feet in the water of a neighboring pool, -and so kept life in them; but his companion, too far gone, remained by -the fire, and when the pain was eased died, so that Harwood and the -little girl remained alone with the Indian.</p> - -<p>The two men who had gone toward Plymouth were no more fortunate. One -died upon the road; the other so soon as he had told his piteous -story to Bradford and the rest who ministered to him so tenderly, yet -could do nothing to detain him. Within the hour a boat well manned, -and carrying the Indian for guide, was on its way to the scene of -the disaster, and the next day returned, bringing Christian Garrett, -Henry Harwood, the body of their comrade, and the Indian who had so -faithfully cared for them, and whom Bradford liberally rewarded and -praised for his benevolence.</p> - -<p>Harwood was billeted upon Stephen Hopkins, but Betty Alden pleaded with -her parents that Christian Garrett might come to their house and be her -own especial charge; and this boon being easily granted, the spare-room -where Sir Christopher Gardiner had wearied and plotted became the happy -abiding-place of these two<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_207" id="Page_207">[Pg 207]</a></span> innocent young creatures, the one so active -and helpful, the other so languid and so sorrowful, and yet both of -them the happier and the better for their companionship.</p> - -<p>When the spring had come, Harwood, with a good crew of Plymouth men to -help him, attempted to sail Garrett’s boat up to Boston, but caught in -a wild spring storm was nearly wrecked again; and with some strange -gloomy idea of having suffered from his association with Garrett he -sued his estate for damages, and actually recovered twenty nobles, -or about thirty-three dollars, which was duly paid to him out of the -pittance left to Christian, who, although she went back to Boston and -the care of an aunt, never ceased to be one of Betty’s dearest and most -intimate friends.</p> - -<hr /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_208" id="Page_208">[Pg 208]</a></span></p> - -<h2>CHAPTER XXI.</h2> - -<p class="bold">“AH, BROTHER OLDHAME, IS IT THOU!”</p> - -<p>It was a day in June, one of those lovely, nay, perfect days when -heaven appears at once nearer and farther off than ever before: nearer, -for we seem already to taste its delights; farther off, because earth -has suddenly become so satisfying that we ask for nothing better.</p> - -<p>A little southwest breeze loitered over Burying Hill, stirring the -long grasses, wooing sweet kisses and incense from the balm o’ Gilead -trees, and finally floated down The Hill, past the closed and deserted -homes of Standish and Alden to the governor’s house, grown wide and -stately in these days, boasting two parlors besides the great common -room, and furthermore a recent extension toward The Hill consisting of -one wide low room with an outside door and a loft overhead. This was -the governor’s study or office, where he kept his books and papers and -transacted the colony’s business. More than this, in the large closet -and in the loft overhead were stored the colony’s goods, both the -peltrie for export, and the shoes, textile fabrics, and other matters -which were brought back from England in exchange; and as every man or -woman who had obtained a beaver, or mink, or otter skin brought it to -the governor and asked him to send to England for a pair of shoes, a -new doublet or kirtle, pewter platter, or horn comb, the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_209" id="Page_209">[Pg 209]</a></span> adjusting -these accounts, and remembering every one’s wishes and instructions, -consumed so large a part of the gubernatorial time that one cannot -wonder that now and again Bradford “by importunity gat off” from -reëlection, especially as his services were altogether gratuitous, -and must have interfered with the necessity of living, pressing not -only upon every man individually, but on husbands and fathers very -imperatively. The casement window of the study was swung open to the -soft June air, and the little breeze, peeping in, shrank back dismayed, -yet, mustering the courage of a petted child, gathered a handful of -perfume from Alice Bradford’s bed of early pinks close at hand, flung -it in at the open window, and then, laughing softly, flew round the -corner and in at another casement, where Alice herself sat embroidering -in green crewels the cover of a stool, and talking softly to her -daughter Mercy, Desire Howland, and Betty Alden, who sat demure as -kittens on three crickets, stitching fine seams or embroidering muslin -or silk under Dame Bradford’s skillful tuition; for among the fair -memories this gracious woman left behind her, none seem fairer than her -attention and kindly offices toward the young maids of the town.</p> - -<p>A very different group was that at which the naughty breeze had peeped -and flung perfume behind the swinging casement of the study: a group -of men, mature and austere, as the fathers of unruly families are apt -to become by the time the children wish to leave home and set up for -themselves.</p> - -<p>At the head of the old oak table with its twisted legs and lion’s -claw-feet sat William Bradford, his cheek resting on his left hand, -while with the right he drew idle lines or figures upon a sheet of -coarse paper. An<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_210" id="Page_210">[Pg 210]</a></span> inkstand hollowed from a square block of ebony stood -before him, bristling with a thicket of quill pens standing in the -sockets bored around the edge, and the Record Book of the colony, that -same yellow and tattered book we reverently handle to-day, lay open -beside it. Some papers and slips of parchment were scattered over the -board, and one lay under Winslow’s hand as he turned to speak to Myles -Standish, whose flushed face and wrathful eyes showed that his hasty -temper was stirred more than was its wont, now that Time had set his -half-century mark upon the thinning hair and lined features.</p> - -<p>Next to Standish sat Timothy Hatherley, his intimate friend and future -executor, and opposite them were Thomas Prence, and John Jenney the -miller, a man of substance and position, and father of two very pretty -daughters. These five were the governor’s assistants for the year, -and to them, on this morning, was added the venerable presence of -Elder Brewster, who, sitting at the foot of the table, and fixing his -wintry blue eyes upon each speaker in succession, seemed to act as -counterpoise and moderator to the more vehement moods of the younger -men. A venerable figure truly, for the threescore and ten years of -the promise were more than run out, and yet a form and face full of -life and strength, and with a cleanly freshness of complexion and eye -betokening a simple and abstemious life, enjoyed in fresh air and with -moderate labor. Upon this reassuring face the eyes of the governor -rested almost yearningly, as he listened to the captain’s fiery words:—</p> - -<p>“Yes, sirs, the Bay Colony and their friends have brought themselves -into the mire by their own blundering, and now cry to Plymouth, ‘Good -Lord, deliver<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_211" id="Page_211">[Pg 211]</a></span> us!’ Whose fault is it that the Pequots are risen upon -them?”</p> - -<p>“They have murdered John Oldhame, I tell you, Captain!” exclaimed -Winslow impatiently. “Will you listen while I read Governor Winthrop’s -letter?”</p> - -<p>“Yes, Captain Standish, I pray you to listen, and allow us to do so,” -added Prence in so peremptory a tone that the old soldier turned hotly -upon him:—</p> - -<p>“Thomas Prence, they say you are a dabster at handling the Bible in -prayer-meetings and prophesyings; do you remember how King Rehoboam -took counsel as to his dealings with the oppressed people of his realm, -and the old men said, ‘Deal softly and kindly with thy servants and -they will remain thy servants for aye;’ but with the folly of youth, -Rehoboam turned to men with their beards still in the silk, and said, -‘How shall I answer this people?’ and they gave their counsel: ‘Whereas -thy father hath beaten them with whips, thou shalt scourge them with -scorpions, and if thy father’s yoke was heavy upon their necks, thou -shalt add to it until they sink under it.’ The boy king listened to his -boy counselors, and the result was that ten tribes of—Pequots, we will -call them, became his bloody foes instead of his cheerful servitors. We -of Plymouth have held the whip behind our backs”—</p> - -<p>“Yet brought it forward at Wessagusset,” interrupted Prence -good-humoredly, and in the moment of not displeased silence on -Standish’s part, Bradford hurriedly interposed,—</p> - -<p>“Nay, Captain, let us hear the letter before we discuss this matter -further.”</p> - -<p>“So be it, Governor; but naught that Master Winthrop can pen or Master -Winslow read, clever craftsmen<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_212" id="Page_212">[Pg 212]</a></span> though they be, will fetch my consent -to this wholesale slaughter of the Indians, Pequots, Narragansetts, or -Pokanokets.”</p> - -<p>“Will you read, Master Winslow?” asked the governor in a patient voice, -and, rather hastily, as if forestalling farther discussion, Winslow -proceeded to read aloud the missive of the governor of Massachusetts -Bay, who after certain grave greetings proceeded to tell the story, -which we will enlarge a little from other sources, of how one John -Gallop, founder of the guild of Boston pilots, and occupant of the -island bearing his name in Boston Harbor, while trading to the -plantation of Saybrooke in the Connecticut Colony, had been attracted -by the strange manœuvres of a pinnace lying to off Block Island, and -running in that direction recognized her as belonging to John Oldhame, -late of Watertown, in the Massachusetts Colony, who had, about a week -before, left Boston upon a trading tour, his crew consisting only of -two English lads, his kinsmen, and two Narragansett Indians.</p> - -<p>“John Oldhame must be very drunk to let his craft yaw about in that -fashion,” commented Gallop, watching the bark; and his sons, John and -James, boys of twelve and fourteen, and Zebedee Palmer, his hired man, -who composed the entire ship’s company, dutifully assented, Zebedee -suggesting that in the cold March wind then blowing he should not -himself object to a drop of something comfortable.</p> - -<p>“When is the day you would, Zeb?” inquired his master. “But lo you -now! There goes a canoe from the pinnace to the shore heavy laden, and -manned only by redskins. Be sure there’s some Indian deviltry going on, -and though the wind be contrary we will beat down and hail her.” </p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_213" id="Page_213">[Pg 213]</a></span></p> - -<p>But arrived within hailing distance, Gallop perceived the deck of -the pinnace to be crowded with savages, who, so far from returning -his hail, at once dropped their occupation of loading another canoe, -and proceeded to make sail in so clumsy a fashion that the pilot’s -fears of the pinnace having been seized by Indians were reduced to -certainty, and putting his own bark before the wind blowing off the -land he pursued the captured craft, now driving wildly toward the -Narragansett shore. Bringing up the two guns and two pistols comprising -his entire armament, Gallop charged them with the duckshot he had -brought along for purposes of sport, and so soon as they came within -range began firing with no farther formalities into the dense throng of -Indians, who on their part stood armed with guns, pikes, and swords, -and as Gallop’s bark drew near fired a scattering volley, happily of -no effect; and then, as the incessant rain of duckshot—for the two -boys loaded as fast as their father fired—became intolerable, they -all fled below hatches, leaving the vessel to drift as she would. -Seeing this, the pilot hit upon a new method of attack, and standing -off a little he set his craft dead before the wind, now blowing half -a gale, and coming down with full force upon the pinnace “stemmed her -upon the quarter,” as Winthrop has it, “and almost overset her. This -so frighted the Indians that five or six ran on deck, and leaping -overboard were drowned.” Encouraged by this beginning, the pilot -repeated his manœuvre, only this time so fitting his anchor to the heel -of his bowsprit as to make a very good imitation of an iron-clad ram; -then again striking the pinnace he crushed in her forward bulwarks, and -sticking fast, began pouring in charges of his heaviest shot at such -short<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_214" id="Page_214">[Pg 214]</a></span> range that they penetrated decks and sheathing, and reached the -pirates skulking below. Finding that they refused to be driven out, and -his two guns growing too warm to work, Gallop disengaged his anchor -and again stood off; but this was enough, and five more Indians rushed -up and threw themselves into the sea, preferring a death they well -understood, to the tender mercies of a man who fought in such unknown -fashions.</p> - -<p>There being now but four of the savages left, Gallop boarded the -pinnace, whereupon one of the survivors yielded, and was bound and -stowed in the cabin for safe-keeping; another yielded, but leaving -Zebedee to bind him the pilot dragged away a seine huddled in the stern -sheets under which he had from his own deck perceived some horror to be -hidden. It was the body of a white man, still warm, the head cleft, the -hands and feet nearly cut off, and the face so covered with blood as to -be unrecognizable, until Gallop, dipping one of the garments stripped -off but lying near, into the salt water flooding the decks, washed it -and put aside the long hair; then gazing down into the staring eyes, he -said as if in answer to their piteous appeal, “Ah, Brother Oldhame, is -it thou! Truly I am resolved to avenge thy blood!” And, while Zebedee -managed as best he could to fasten a tow-rope to the pinnace and make -sail upon the bark, and John and James, pistol in hand, watched the -hatches in case the Indians below should make a sortie, the pilot bound -the mangled body of his friend in its clothes and in the private ensign -lying at the foot of the mast, and launched it overboard.</p> - -<p>“This man is wriggling his hands free, father,” reported John -Gallop, presenting his pistol at the last captive, a sachem of the -Narragansetts and a very determined fellow. </p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_215" id="Page_215">[Pg 215]</a></span></p> - -<p>“Say you so, Jack!” replied his father, turning back from the bulwark -over which he had just reverently dropped the shrouded form of his -murdered friend. “We’ll take no chances! Lift you his feet and I his -head and we’ll put him in John Oldhame’s keeping. Jim, stand you -to your watch till our hands are free.” And the sachem, stolid and -silent now that the worst had come, went to rejoin his comrades. Two -of the pirates remained below, but as they were armed and entrenched -in the hold Gallop left them there as prisoners, although the night -coming on and the sea and wind growing very violent, he was after a -time compelled to cast off the pinnace, which drove ashore on the -Narragansett coast.</p> - -<p>Arriving in Boston, Gallop at once placed the matter in the hands of -the government, who through Roger Williams and Miantonimo demanded the -surrender of the murderers who had come safely ashore in the pinnace. -In the end, Oldhame’s two cousins, who had been kept prisoners at -Block Island, were safely returned, and some of the stolen goods; but -tedious negotiations revealed the fact that nearly all the Narragansett -sachems had been privy to the conspiracy, and that some of them were -in alliance with the Pequots to cut off the English and resume the -country only sixteen years before absolutely their own. Not unnaturally -alarmed at this report, Governor Vane and his council resolved upon -what they at first called reprisals, but which soon became a stern -scheme of extermination involving the entire Pequot nation, and such of -the Narragansetts as refused to become tributaries and subjects of the -English.</p> - -<p>The murder of Captain Stone, the death by torture of Butterfield, and -John Tilley and his man, came into the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_216" id="Page_216">[Pg 216]</a></span> account and gave the air of -righteous retribution to the Puritan severities; but the wrongs of the -Indians, their natural temperament, their standard of morality, their -ignorance of the gracious influences of Christianity,—none of these -seem to have been considered or weighed in the councils of Vane and his -associates, although more liberal Plymouth had set them the example -of making friends rather than enemies of a people who had surely -great cause of complaint in the loss of their homes and rights, and -who simply sought to defend themselves according to their traditional -methods.</p> - -<p>It was in pursuance of this resolve that Winthrop, acting this year as -deputy to Governor Vane, had written to Plymouth, setting forth all -the causes of the war already begun, and requesting of Plymouth that -aid and coöperation which one colony of white men and Christians would -naturally afford to another.</p> - -<p>The letter was read and laid upon the council board, and Bradford in -his own grave, thoughtful, and well-considered manner took up the -word:—</p> - -<p>“Doubtless, brethren, we must find that there hath been much -provocation offered to these Pequens and Narraganseds. We know somewhat -of John Oldhame”—</p> - -<p>“And naught that’s good,” muttered Standish in his red beard.</p> - -<p>—“and we may be sure there was cause of complaint on the part of the -Block Islanders before they so assaulted him. Jonathan Brewster hath -held our post on the Connecticut River—Windsor, as the settlers from -the Bay have named the place—for some four years now, and there has -been no trouble worth the mention”— </p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_217" id="Page_217">[Pg 217]</a></span></p> - -<p>“Save when the Narragansetts chased our friend Massasoit into the -trading-house at Sowams, and I sent a runner for powder, but the -enemy ran faster the other way than he,” put in Standish. “And mind -you, though John Winthrop let us have the powder out of his private -store, that sour-visaged Dudley hauled him over the coals for it. Ever -niggardly and domineering is the Bay, and my counsel is, let them -fight out their own battles for themselves. When Plymouth has cause -to complain of the savages, Pequens or who you please, I’ll lead a -handful of Plymouth men out to give them a lesson, and till then I say -let-a-be. You have my counsel, Governor.”</p> - -<p>“And mine jumps with it, sir,” added John Jenney heartily, but Winslow -shook his head thoughtfully.</p> - -<p>“It were but poor policy for us to fall out with our brethren of the -Bay, seeing that they are so much stronger than we, and it may well -chance that we shall need their countenance in some quarrel”—</p> - -<p>“Like that of Kennebec when we called upon them to help us drive out -the Frenchmen who had seized our post, and they did most civilly -decline,” suggested Standish, and Prence added,—</p> - -<p>“Ay, that was but a scurvy trick they played us then.”</p> - -<p>And so the council went on, debating the question warmly, and yet with -a brotherly love and harmony covering all differences, until in the end -it was resolved that Winslow the diplomatist should be sent as envoy -to Boston to declare in the first place the willingness of Plymouth -to help her younger but more powerful sister against the common foe, -yet at the same time bringing forward various causes of complaint as -yet unredressed,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_218" id="Page_218">[Pg 218]</a></span> and demanding more consideration in the future. -These complaints were, first, the refusal of the Bay government to -help Plymouth against the French who had seized her trading-post at -Kennebec; second, their allowing their people to fraternize and trade -with the usurpers; third, the insult and injury done to the Pilgrims -at Windsor in Connecticut, where a great body of people from Watertown -and Cambridge had swooped down upon the land bought by Plymouth from -the Indians, and occupied by them as a trading-post, retaining forcible -possession of it, and encouraged by the Bay to do so.</p> - -<p>To these three unredressed complaints Winslow was to add a reminder -of the fact, seldom forgotten by the Bay Colony, that they were much -more numerous and much more wealthy than Plymouth, and apparently quite -able to conduct their own quarrel through their own resources. For, as -the envoy was especially directed to say, the Colony of Plymouth had -hitherto lived at peace with the aborigines, and had no complaint to -make of either the Pequots or any other tribe.</p> - -<p>And now, this matter arranged for the moment, although much further -trouble was to come of it, the Court turned its attention to a subject -so much more personal, and near to their hearts as old friends and -associates, that its presence in their minds had added austerity to -Brewster’s mien, and thoughtfulness to that of Bradford, while it acted -as a spur to the captain’s fiery temper.</p> - -<p>Upon the table lay a formal petition, drawn by Edward Winslow, and -signed by Myles Standish, John Alden, Elder Brewster and his two sons -Jonathan and Love, Eaton, Soule, Samson, Bassett, Collier, Cudworth,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_219" id="Page_219">[Pg 219]</a></span> -De la Noye, and half a dozen more substantial men, who in decorous -and respectful language represented that they and their families -already composed a community equaling that of Plymouth, and begged -to be incorporated as a town under the name of Duxbury, and to have -the approval of the mother-church in their choice of the Rev. Ralph -Partridge as their minister.</p> - -<p>The petition had first been presented some four years before this time, -but so deep and heartfelt was Bradford’s opposition to this distinct -separation of the original colony, and so varied his expedients to -prevent it, that the motion had never fairly been carried until now, -when an opportunity offered to secure the eloquent and devout Cambridge -scholar as pastor, and it was essential that the town should have an -assured being and resources.</p> - -<p>Very few words were used upon this occasion, for all had been said that -could be said, not once but many times before; and now as Bradford, -after a brief and formal discussion, signed the act of incorporation, -he laid down the pen, and looking around the council board solemnly -said,—</p> - -<p>“May this rending of his garment not provoke the Lord to wrath, as well -I fear it may!”</p> - -<p>Not even Elder Brewster found a word to reply, and the deed was done.</p> - -<p>An hour later, as the Duxbury men prepared to return to their new home, -Standish linked his arm in that of his old friend and led him up the -hill, saying,—</p> - -<p>“Nay, Will, for old time’s sake put a better face on ’t, man. Come over -with us to Captain’s Hill, as they call it, and tarry the night. We’ll -crush a kindly cup to the new town, and you shall be its godfather. -Never<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_220" id="Page_220">[Pg 220]</a></span> look so glum, I pr’ythee, Will! You take all the heart out of -me, old friend.”</p> - -<p>“See there, Myles, see that!”</p> - -<p>“What, mine own old house? ’Tis going to ruin already, is it not, and -yet ’tis no more than seventeen years since these hands with John -Alden’s aid laid it beam to beam.”</p> - -<p>“And why does it go to ruin, Myles?”</p> - -<p>“Why? Why, because no man careth for it, I suppose.”</p> - -<p>“Ay, you’ve answered me, friend. No man careth for that home, nor for -John Alden’s hard by, nor for Edward Winslow’s, and the Elder’s great -house is now but a half-hearted home, for he is more at Duxbury than -here. I speak not of the rest, for they are of less account to me; and -that is a fault which I confess, but nature is strong, and the carnal -heart of man clings to its own.”</p> - -<p>“And why should not a man’s heart cling to his old friends and -comrades, Will, and why should not you value the Elder, and Winslow, -and Alden, and a few more of us more than you do all these nimble Jacks -that have sprung up to push us old ones from our places? Be a saint an’ -you please, old comrade, but don’t strive to cease to be a man.”</p> - -<p>“And here is the Fort you loved so well, Myles. Shall you have a new -Fort at Duxbury?”</p> - -<p>The captain stopped, and squaring round laid a finger upon the -governor’s breast, and fixed his keen brown eyes upon the other’s -fairer face.</p> - -<p>“Friend,” said he in a tenderer voice than was his wont, “where a man -is all but as good and as godly as a woman, he is apt to have some -trace of woman’s faults<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_221" id="Page_221">[Pg 221]</a></span> and follies, and that last speech of yours -savors of woman’s jealousy and spite. Play the man, Will, play the man, -and smite me with thy fist an’ thou lik’st not what I do and say, but -never lower thyself to stinging with thy tongue.”</p> - -<p>The Governor of Plymouth turned his back and steadfastly looked over -toward Manomet, green and glowing in the sunset of a June afternoon, -her graceful young trees in their tender foliage as airy and as gay, -and her forest monarchs as stately, as they had been before the white -men saw these shores, or as they are to-day when Bradford and Standish -are dust and ashes, and as they will be when the hand that writes and -the eyes that read are even as those of the fathers. We love Nature so -passionately and so persistently because it is an unrequited affection; -at the most she only holds up the cheek for us to kiss.</p> - -<p>This little interlude is but a piece of delicacy that Bradford may -have time to recover himself, and now he turns, and folding Standish’s -patrician hand in a larger grasp slowly says,—</p> - -<p>“‘Let the righteous smite me friendly, but let not his precious balms -break my head.’ Come, Myles, let us mount the Fort.”</p> - -<p>“Yes, I must see if Lieutenant Holmes is carrying out my directions, -for I promise you, Master Bradford, I’m meaning to hold a tight hand -over you here in military matters. Mind you, I am always generalissimo -of the colony’s forces, whether of Plymouth, or Scituate, or Duxbury.”</p> - -<p>“I thank thee, Myles,” said the governor quietly, and so they passed -into the dusky Fort, over whose portal the skull of Wituwamat still -stood, bleached by <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_222" id="Page_222">[Pg 222]</a></span>summer sun and winter snow, and sheltering year by -year the wrens who had an hereditary nest in its hollow.</p> - -<p>“And you’ll come home with me, Will?” said the captain wistfully, as, a -little later, they descended the hill.</p> - -<p>“No, Myles, no; I’m not an Abraham. I can give my Isaac with submission -and faith, but I cannot offer him up, nor feast upon the sacrifice.”</p> - -<hr /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_223" id="Page_223">[Pg 223]</a></span></p> - -<h2>CHAPTER XXII.</h2> - -<p class="bold">THE MOONLIGHT AND THE DAWN.</p> - -<p>A clumsy boat, very different from the trim racing craft that to-day -skim the waters of Plymouth Bay weltered slowly toward the rude pier -just below the new home of Myles Standish.</p> - -<p>The passengers were also very different from those of to-day, and -perhaps a parallel might be drawn in both cases between passengers and -boat, but as it would not be in our own favor I will not pursue it, -merely mentioning that the solidly built, honest, safe, capacious, and -unpretending boat first mentioned contained Elder Brewster, Captain -Standish, Edward Winslow, John Alden, Thomas Prence, William Collier, -and two or three more of the “Immortals” from whom we are so glad -to claim descent, and so sorry to confess that it has been such a -tremendous descent.</p> - -<p>Upon the bluff where stood the captain’s house, and scattered down the -path to the shore, a path graded with military skill and precision, -a merry crowd of men, women, and children stood waving hats and -handkerchiefs and shouting words of welcome, whereat Standish smiled -and Winslow remarked,—</p> - -<p>“All Duxbury seems gathered to greet us; but how are they so sure that -we bring the charter after so many disappointments?”</p> - -<p>“I told them if we had it I would fly my private<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_224" id="Page_224">[Pg 224]</a></span> ensign,” replied -Standish a little complacently; and Winslow, glancing at the mainmast, -perceived a small flag whereon was deftly embroidered the owl with a -rat in his talons, then as now the crest of the elder house of Standish.</p> - -<p>“Ha! That is something new, is ’t not?” asked the master of Careswell, -not well pleased that another should make heraldic pretensions before -himself.</p> - -<p>“Yes. My Lora embroidered it, and I told them all that if our errand -to-day was successful I would fly it for the first time in honor of the -birth of Duxbury.”</p> - -<p>“Daughter of our dear mother Plymouth,” remarked Thomas Prence; and the -captain somewhat uneasily replied,—</p> - -<p>“God grant the daughter’s birth may not cost the mother’s life, as our -good governor seems to forebode.”</p> - -<p>“Nay, Master Bradford would have the sun stand still in heaven, and -lucky is it for Duxbury that he is no Joshua,” retorted Winslow with a -smile so near a sneer that Standish flushed angrily, and shouted with -quite unnecessary vehemence to John Howard, who was steering,—</p> - -<p>“Luff, man alive, luff! You’ll never fetch the pier! Can’t you see -where you’re going?”</p> - -<p>“There’s Hobomok waiting to catch the bowline,” resumed Winslow -pacifically. “What a good faithful creature he has proved, and how fond -of you, Captain!”</p> - -<p>“He is my friend, and I am one that looks for faithfulness in a -friend,” replied the captain significantly.</p> - -<p>“You have a right to ask for what you give. And lo you now! there’s a -pretty sight!” pursued the <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_225" id="Page_225">[Pg 225]</a></span>diplomat, undisturbed. “Those little maids -all in white and flower-crowned mind one of the maids of Israel coming -forth to meet the captain of Judah.”</p> - -<p>“Or ‘Benjamin our little ruler,’ more aptly,” laughed Standish, whose -pride had no taint of personal vanity.</p> - -<p>“Those two slips of May are your Lora, and Betty Alden, are they not?” -pursued Winslow.</p> - -<p>“Yes; they are fast friends, and always together. Fair lasses enow, eh, -John?”</p> - -<p>“Methinks we’ve naught to complain of, Captain,” returned Alden -placidly.</p> - -<p>“They mind one of moonlight and dawn,” said Winslow with honest -admiration in his voice. “Lora does not look like a colonist’s child, -Captain.”</p> - -<p>“No. She favors her forbears. There’s an old picture at Standish Hall -that might have been painted for her likeness. Mayhap some day”—</p> - -<p>“And Betty is a real rosebud of Old England. She does not copy her -comely mother, Alden, and yet is as comely.”</p> - -<p>“No. Sally is more like her mother,” replied John simply, and as the -boat drew in to the wharf all three men looked approvingly at the two -young girls just budding into maidenhood, and forming as sweet and pure -a contrast as the moonlight and the dawn to which the courtly Winslow -had compared them; for Betty in her wholesome growth had as it were -absorbed color from the sunshine, willowy strength from the sea breeze, -and fragrance from the epigæa, until her brown eyes sparkled and -glinted like the sea in a sunny morning, and her crisp hair had netted -the summer into its meshes, and her cheeks and lips throbbed with soft<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_226" id="Page_226">[Pg 226]</a></span> -bright color like the petals of a wild rose. But Lora, as tall already -as her friend, although several years younger, was slight as a flower -stalk, her pale gold hair almost too heavy for her little head, her -soft gray eyes almost too large for the pure oval of her face, the -sweet color of her mouth too faintly reproduced in her cheeks. If Betty -Alden resembled the dawn of a summer morning upon sea-girt field and -forest, Lora Standish brought to mind a garden of annunciation lilies -bathed in moonlight.</p> - -<p>And now as the fond fathers gazed, and Winslow’s golden tongue dropped -phrases sweet in their ears as honey of Hymettus, John Howard, ancestor -of a grand line of Bridgewater yeomen, but at present in the household -of Standish, deftly gave his tiller a turn that laid the boat’s nose -softly against the pier, while Hobomok, with an inarticulate grunt of -welcome, seized the line tossed him by John Alden and made it fast -around an oaken pile well bedded in the wharf.</p> - -<p>In a few moments the boat was empty, and its passengers mingled with -the eager crowd who pressed forward to greet them. Chief of these -was the new pastor, Ralph Partridge, a “gracious and learned man,” -an alumnus of Cambridge and for twenty years a clergyman of the -Established Church of England, but now, as Mather quaintly has it, -he, “being distressed by the ecclesiastical setters, had no defence -neither of beak nor claw, but a flight over the ocean. The place where -he took covert was the Colony of Plymouth, and the Town of Duxbury in -that Colony. This Partridge had not only the innocence of the dove, but -also the loftiness of the eagle in the great soar of his intellectual -abilities,” etc.</p> - -<p>To this gentleman as the principal person among his<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_227" id="Page_227">[Pg 227]</a></span> guests Standish -addressed himself, and taking from the breast of his doublet a package -carefully enveloped in oiled silk, opened it and showed a sheet of -parchment, brief as to its contents and crude as to its chirography, -but bearing some very distinguished autographs, and carrying with it -an importance to that group of people similar to that possessed in the -eyes of a young wife by the title deeds of her new home, her dower -house, and the birthplace of her future children.</p> - -<p>“Here is the charter, reverend sir, and now the people of Duxbury -have a right to invite you to become their pastor,” said the captain -bluntly; but as Partridge took the parchment he looked at the man who -gave it and said softly,—</p> - -<p>“Shall I be your pastor, Captain Standish?”</p> - -<p>“Nay, sir, this is no time for such questions,” replied Standish, -rather displeased, and turning away he entered the house to lay aside -some of his heavy clothes and don festal attire. In the principal room, -deep in whispered council, stood Barbara Standish and Priscilla Alden, -two comely and gracious matrons, at sight of whom the captain’s face -softened into a merry smile.</p> - -<p>“Now what mischief are you plotting, you two with your heads together -like Guy Fawkes and Tyrrell?” exclaimed he. “Priscilla, never teach -your rebel fashions to my well-trained dame, or I shall have her -snatching at the reins!”</p> - -<p>“And you’d rather she’d ride the pillion and cling to your belt with -a ‘Good master, have a care of me’!” cried Priscilla, her dark eyes -flashing as brightly as they had done some sixteen years before while -she said, “Why don’t you speak for yourself, John?”</p> - -<p>“’Tis a woman’s rightful place, and I’ll be bound,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_228" id="Page_228">[Pg 228]</a></span> when all’s said, -you came over here to-day on a pillion with only your boy Jack to cling -to.”</p> - -<p>“Nay, we all came in the boat, down Bluefish River and so round. -You see there’s so many of us,—John and Jo and Betty and David and -Jonathan and Sally and Ruth and Molly; for I could not leave the babies -at home without keeping Betty and Sally to mind them, and that was not -to be thought of, says my Betty, who aye has her own way.”</p> - -<p>“And marvelous that she should, seeing she comes of so weak a mother.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, she takes after her father, poor child, and he would ever be aping -the ways of his captain.”</p> - -<p>Doubtless the captain would soon have provided himself with a retort, -but Barbara laid a hand upon his arm.</p> - -<p>“While you two are changing your merry quips and cranks, the supper -waits,” said she. “Surely, Myles, you will wash your hands and -straighten your hair; and Priscilla, is’t not time for you to put the -last touch to the whips and syllabub?”</p> - -<p>“True enough, Barbara, and lo, I’m gone!” cried Priscilla, and -disappeared into the great cool dairy with its northern exposure, -where the milk of the red cow and the two young daughters now added to -her was manufactured by Barbara into not only butter, but all sorts -of dainty confections. On this occasion, however, Priscilla Alden had -as of old been summoned to help the housewife, and lend not only her -hands but her incomparable culinary skill to the work of providing -entertainment for the two or three score persons who had gathered to -celebrate the birthday of their town. With most of these, or at least -with the heads of the families, we are already acquainted, but in the -seventeen years<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_229" id="Page_229">[Pg 229]</a></span> since the landing of the Mayflower many who were then -children have grown to maturity and married; as for instance, Love -Brewster, who has been for three years husband of Sarah, daughter of -that William Collier the only man among the London Adventurers who -proved his faith in the Pilgrims by coming to live among them. See him -as he stands talking with Elder Brewster, his four fair daughters all -within sight: Sarah Brewster, Elizabeth Southworth, Rebecca Cole, and -Mary, whose sweet face and ample dowry have already comforted Thomas -Prence for the loss of his first wife, gentle Patience Brewster.</p> - -<p>So many of our friends are here collected that we may not mention half -their names: Henry Samson, the little boy passenger of the Mayflower, -with his bride, and his later come brother Abraham, soon to marry the -daughter of Lieutenant Nash; the Howlands, not only stanch John and -Elizabeth Tilley his wife, but John and Jabez their sons, and pretty -Desire, fast friend of Betty Alden and Lora Standish. And here are some -new-comers, the Pabodies, settled near John Alden on Bluefish River, -but already owning land in The Nook, where the father promises to build -a house for the first of his sons who shall marry. Three of the lads -are here to-day, and William, a fine, manly young fellow of seventeen -years, hangs around the group of laughing girls, and watches Betty -Alden with all his eyes.</p> - -<p>But we must not linger with the guests, although each one seems like a -friend, nor may we pause to enumerate the dainties spread in graceful -profusion upon the tables set between the house and the edge of the -bluff; suffice it to say that Barbara has delegated to Priscilla Alden -the part of caterer, and well has she sustained<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_230" id="Page_230">[Pg 230]</a></span> her reputation, using -the abundant material placed at her service to the very best advantage, -and winning from each of her assistants the very best service they knew -how to render. Nor does the banquet fail to receive ample justice at -the hands of the banqueters, beginning with those dignitaries seated -in state at a table covered with Barbara’s best napery, and provided -with all the magnificence of silver, pewter, and china that she has -been able to muster, not only from her own stores, but those of her -neighbors. Here on either hand of the captain sit Elder Brewster and -Ralph Partridge, with Winslow at the other end of the table, flanked -by William Collier and Timothy Hatherley; at another table preside -John Alden and John Howland, with Thomas Prence, William Bassett, -and Jonathan Brewster, already a leading man in the colony: and at -these two tables are seated nearly all the heads of families soon to -be enrolled as the freemen of Duxbury, while their wives and younger -children cluster around a third table, headed by Barbara and Priscilla, -and the young people enjoy themselves amazingly at their own board, -as remote as possible from that of the elders, their fun a little -chastened by the presence of those young matrons Mistress Prence and -Mistress Love Brewster, themselves no more than girls.</p> - -<p>And so was Duxbury’s birthday celebrated, and still the honest mirth -and neighborly kindliness went on, until the sun dropped behind -Captain’s Hill, and the red cow lowed at the bars of her pasture hard -by.</p> - -<p>Then, after a little silence that made itself felt, Elder Brewster rose -in his place and said,—</p> - -<p>“Brethren and children, this is a day of solemn joy to us who now have -become a town by ourselves, even<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_231" id="Page_231">[Pg 231]</a></span> as children going out from their -father’s house to begin a home of their very own; a day to remember, -brethren, and to set down in our annals, that when in time to come -our children’s children shall ask, ‘Why do ye these things?’ they -shall find an answer ready to their hands. Some of you upon whom mine -eyes now rest were fellow-passengers with me in the ship Mayflower, -and ye remember, as I do, the barren and comfortless shore whereon we -landed and were fain to call it home. Some of us, turning our eyes -to that southern shore, can almost see the hillside where in those -first months we day by day laid away the forms of those dearest to our -natural hearts, or most precious to the life of our little colony; -we recall the suffering by sea, the suffering by land, the cold and -hunger and misery and grievous toil we then endured; but do we recall -them to lament, to sorrow like babes over our own distresses? Nay, -men, we recall them in joy and praise, in wonder and admiration at His -goodness who hath so wonderfully brought plenty out of famine, joy out -of sorrow, the morning out of night. Well may we say with Israel, ‘I -am less than the least of thy mercies; for with my staff I passed over -this Jordan, and now I am become two companies!’</p> - -<p>“Is it not verily true? There lieth Plymouth, fair and prosperous, -the mother of us all in this new land; and here stand we, sturdy, -well-grown children, fit to take our own part in the world, ay, and to -comfort her should she call upon us. Have we not cause for rejoicing, -ay, and for a firm resolve to show ourselves in some degree worthy of -such singular mercies? Brethren, my heart is too full to speak further -save to One. Let us pray.”</p> - -<p>Up rose the old men, the grave and bearded men, the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_232" id="Page_232">[Pg 232]</a></span> matronly women -whose eyes ran over with the memories the elder had invoked; up rose -the young men, rejoicing in their strength, yet reverent of their -sires, and of the story they had learned in childhood and would not -forget in age; the lads, the maidens, the little children, all rose, -and stood with bowed heads and hushed breath to listen to the tremulous -voice of that aged servant of God as, forgetting all save Him to whom -he spoke, he poured forth one of those fervent and trustful appeals -whose eloquent power are matter of history. And as he raised his -hands in benediction, calling down a special blessing upon the new -town and each and every one of its homes, a plume of smoke rose from -Burying Hill far to the south, and the sunset gun boomed out its solemn -detonation.</p> - -<p>“Plymouth says Amen!” whispered Priscilla Alden in Betty’s ear; and -the girl silently pointed to Lora Standish, upon whose head the last -sunbeam had laid a finger, lighting the pale gold of her hair to the -nimbus of a saint. Priscilla looked, and suddenly clasped her own child -close to her side; but neither spoke.</p> - -<hr /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_233" id="Page_233">[Pg 233]</a></span></p> - -<h2>CHAPTER XXIII.</h2> - -<p class="bold">“LOREA STANDISH IS MY NAME.”</p> - -<p>“Lora! Aunt Bab! What do you think? Bessie Partridge has a sweetheart, -and he’s going to be a minister, and his father is one of the old sort -that we’re bound to hate; but the parson don’t care and has given his -consent, and they’re to be married out of hand. There, now!”</p> - -<p>“But, Betty, dear child, do catch your breath and sit down and put back -your hair all blown over your face”—</p> - -<p>“I know, Aunt Bab, I know; but I just put Jo’s saddle on the colt and -cantered him over here at his best speed, and of course my hair is -blown about. Lora, I could shake you, you provoking girl, with your -hair like new carded flax, and your fresh kirtle and wimple, and your -stitchery in your hand”—</p> - -<p>“The sampler is well-nigh done,” interrupted the mother proudly, “and I -think she hath done it fairly enough, don’t you, Betty Alden?”</p> - -<p>“Certainly I do, auntie, and I know as well as though you said it I -shall never be a patch on Lora for delicate needlework; but then there -are so many of us, and mother has no time for her needle, and the boys -and father do wear out their hosen most unmercifully, and keep me -darning or knitting all the time. I’ve a stocking in my pocket here for -Jonathan; but first let me have a good view of the sampler, Lora.” </p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_234" id="Page_234">[Pg 234]</a></span></p> - -<p>“Wait but till I cut off my silk at the end of ‘name,’” said Lora, -busily fastening her thread at the back of the canvas. “There, now I’ve -the needle safe! You know you lost one for me last time you were here, -and mother and I hunted an hour for it.”</p> - -<p>“I know,” replied Betty penitently, “and if you had not found it mother -was going to send John and Jo over to the governor to see if he had -some in store.”</p> - -<p>“He had some direct from Whitechapel by the Lyon,” remarked Barbara, -“but the price is advanced to fivepence each, and we must be careful.”</p> - -<p>“You see I have still the flourishing at the end to do,” said Lora, -handing Betty the frame in which a long and narrow piece of linen was -tightly stretched and nearly covered with parallel lines of embroidery -done in various colored silks. Near the lower end came a verse, or at -least some rhymes running thus:—</p> - -<div class="center"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<div>“Lorea Standish is my name.</div> -<div>Lord, guide my heart that I may do Thy will;</div> -<div>Also fill my hands with such convenient skill</div> -<div>As will conduce to virtue void of shame,</div> -<div>And I will give the glory to Thy name.”</div> -</div></div></div> - -<p>The letters forming these words were characterized by a noble -independence and freedom from any slavish adherence to custom, some -of them being capitals and some small, some little and some big, and -the <i>D’s</i> turning their backs or their faces to their comrades as a -vagrant fancy dictated. Such as it was, however, this sampler was in -Betty Alden’s eyes a work of art commanding her respectful admiration, -mingled with a warmer feeling rising from her very sincere love for the -artist.</p> - -<p>“Oh, Lora!” cried she, throwing an arm around the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_235" id="Page_235">[Pg 235]</a></span> girl’s slender neck -and kissing her heartily, “one can see that you come of gentle blood, -and are fitter for silken embroidery than for the milking-stool which -is my usual workbench.”</p> - -<p>“Nay, I would love to milk, and churn, and cook, and knit gray hosen, -but father will not have it so,” said Lora a little wearily. “I may -spin, and sew, and do my tent-stitch, and help mother make syllabubs -and the like, but it angers him if I soil my hands or wear a homespun -kirtle such as is fit for rough work”—</p> - -<p>“Rough work and Lora are droll ideas to bring together, aren’t they, -auntie?” interrupted Betty with another hug and kiss to her friend, -whose sweet face had grown a little flushed and worried as she spoke.</p> - -<p>“But come, dear, I want you to go with me to see Bessie and ask her if -this wonderful news is sooth. She may come, mayn’t she, auntie?”</p> - -<p>“Yes, child, so that you’re both back for supper. Father can’t abide -finding Lora’s seat empty at table.”</p> - -<p>“We’ll be sure to come. Now, Loly, where’s your hood?”</p> - -<p>“Put on your sleeves and your cape, Lora. You’ll get burned else.”</p> - -<p>“Yes, mother,” replied the girl patiently, and passing into her own -bedroom returned presently with a cape covering her bare neck, and -buttoning some loose sleeves to her shoulders, for in that day a gown -with high neck and long sleeves was a vestment unknown, and when age -or cold weather or out-of-door excursions demanded a covering for -shoulders and arms it was supplied, as in Lora’s case, by temporary -expedients. A little white linen hood tied under the chin completed the -girl’s preparation, and with a gentle kiss upon her mother’s<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_236" id="Page_236">[Pg 236]</a></span> cheek she -joined Betty impatiently waiting upon the doorstep.</p> - -<p>“Lora, I should think it would weary you to be such a cosset!” cried -she, as the girls struck into a path leading northward through the -captain’s lands to Eagle’s Creek, where hard by a clump of aged oaks -stood the cottage where in the summer season Elder Brewster lived with -his sons Love and Wrestling and the young wife of the former. Still -trending north, the path led past Jonathan Brewster’s comfortable -cottage near the Eagle’s Tree to Harden Hill, where a little way -from the edge of the bluff stood a small and low building rudely put -together of rough timber and hewn planks, with a thatched roof and -windows of oiled cloth, and neither foundations nor chimney, the -former unneeded because the colonists hoped at no distant day to -replace this their one public edifice with something more elaborate and -permanent, and the latter undreamed of as yet even in the mother-church -of Plymouth, where the Rev. John Rayner and his colleague Charles -Chauncey, both graduates of Cambridge, England, and bred in such luxury -as England then knew, took turns in preaching, in overcoats and woolen -gloves, sermons of two hours’ duration to a congregation the weaklings -of which kept themselves alive by the use of foot-stoves and hot bricks -in their laps, while the stronger members grimly endured sitting three -and four hours in an atmosphere considerably more chill than the -outdoor winter air.</p> - -<p>Following this example, Duxbury built no chimneys to her first -meeting-houses, and Elder Brewster in the beginning, with Ralph -Partridge and John Holmes to succeed him, preached and prayed with only -the fire of their own zeal to keep them warm. </p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_237" id="Page_237">[Pg 237]</a></span></p> - -<p>A little way from the meeting-house stood a cottage owned by William -Bassett, but at present occupied by the Rev. Mr. Partridge, who waited -for his formal installation as pastor of the new-formed town before -settling himself in a house of his own, and still lingered in The -Nook, although he had already bought of William Latham a house whose -magnificence has descended upon the pages of history for our admiring -contemplation; a house, and not a cottage, for it boasted a second -story with a garret overhead, and a roof sweeping majestically in the -rear, from the roof-tree to the ground.</p> - -<p>But the Partridges had not yet removed to their new nest, and it was -in the vicinity of the little hired cottage on Harden Hill that Betty -and Lora found their friend Bessie demurely watering and turning a web -of fine linen laid to bleach upon the grass. As they approached she -started and turned round, a rosy, sonsy lassie, plump as her name, and -overflowing with health and spirits.</p> - -<p>“Oh, Bess, is it true?” began Betty, laying a hand upon each of her -friend’s shoulders and scrutinizing her face with its flaming blushes.</p> - -<p>“Good-even, Betty, good-even, Lora! Is what true? What does she mean, -Lora? Let me finish wetting my linen, you runagate!”</p> - -<p>“<i>Your</i> linen! Aha! How many smocks and petticoats will it make? Or is -it for sheets and pillowbers? And must we all come and help you sew it, -or is there time a plenty?”</p> - -<p>“Nay, Betty, there’s some one coming!” whispered Lora, as the figure of -a tall young man of a decidedly clerical cut appeared from the front of -the house, and Betty, all at once as demure as a kitten, seized one end -of the linen, saying,— </p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_238" id="Page_238">[Pg 238]</a></span></p> - -<p>“Certainly I’ll help you turn it, Bessie; and how is your mother -to-night?”</p> - -<p>“Mother’s well, and— Master Thacher, let me bring you acquainted with -Mistress Alden and Mistress Standish, two of the chief of my friends.”</p> - -<p>“And so right welcome in mine eyes,” replied the young man heartily, -as he lightly kissed the cheek of first one and then the other girl, a -ceremony no more remarkable then than shaking hands is to-day.</p> - -<p>“My uncle Anthony has gone with Mr. Partridge to pay his respects to -Captain Standish,” added he pleasantly. “All men delight to do honor to -the Captain of Plymouth Colony.”</p> - -<p>“You are very courteous to say so, sir,” replied Lora, with her pretty -little air of dignity and reserve; “and your uncle will be right -welcome.”</p> - -<p>“’Tis strange we did not meet them in the way,” said Betty, whose -brown eyes had not yet lost the gleam of merriment lighted by Bessie’s -blushes.</p> - -<p>“Oh, they went by Master Alden’s to see him as well; and look, there -they all are now,—the captain and father and Master Thacher!” cried -Bessie. “They must have come to your house just as you left it, Lora.”</p> - -<p>“Nay, father was at work with Alick and Josias in the great field -beside the road, and I doubt if the gentlemen went to the house at -all,” said Lora, her face becoming radiant as her eyes met those of her -father, now close at hand. Beside the captain strode the tall, gaunt -figure of Ralph Partridge, a man whose many trials and persecutions had -set their stamp upon a face naturally rugged, and bowed a form intended -to be sturdy; at Standish’s other side walked a man younger in years -than the dominie, but bearing upon his face<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_239" id="Page_239">[Pg 239]</a></span> much the same expression -of strong endurance and unforgotten experiences,—a man with a story, -as any one accustomed to reading faces would say, especially when, as -now, the broad-leafed hat was removed, displaying the hair, thick as -that of a youth, but white as that of a grandsire.</p> - -<p>“Here, Thomas!” cried this last comer, as the elders approached the -little group of young people; “come hither, lad, and let me present you -to the notice of Captain Myles Standish, whose name I have so often -heard upon your lips.”</p> - -<p>“Doubtless ’twas for love of that poor old soldier that you have come -hither, Master Thomas,” said the captain merrily, and under cover -of the little jest the awkwardness of the meeting was overpast, and -a blithe half hour ensued. At last, while the shadows lengthened, -and the clouds took on their evening glory, and the sweet breath of -evening primroses and lowing kine filled the sunset hour, Myles and -Lora strolled home along the footpath, hand in hand, while Betty Alden, -light as a deer, ran along in front of them, impatient to reach home -before her mother needed her.</p> - -<p>Arrived at the house, father and daughter paused to look across the bay -at Plymouth peacefully sleeping in the westering light, with Manomet -purple against the golden sky, and the wide stretch of water smooth as -a mirror, save where it fawned against the point of the beach and the -foot of the bluff where they stood.</p> - -<p>“A fair scene, a goodly scene, daughter,” said the captain; “but not -your home for very long.”</p> - -<hr /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_240" id="Page_240">[Pg 240]</a></span></p> - -<h2>CHAPTER XXIV.</h2> - -<p class="bold">AVERY’S FALL AND THACHER’S WOE.</p> - -<p>Two hundred and fifty years ago, even as to-day, the betrothal of a -young couple was cause of rejoicing and festivity among their friends, -and three days after Lora and Betty had made what we may call their -engagement call upon Bessie Partridge, the minister’s family with its -guests, and Elder Brewster and the Aldens, were invited to supper at -the captain’s. Not to afternoon tea, mind you; nay, not even to that -old-fashioned tea-time still popular in the rural districts, where the -guests sit down to a table loaded with hot bread and toast and all -manner of sweets, with the choice of tea or coffee to wash down the -heavy meal.</p> - -<p>But Barbara Standish had never even heard the names of tea or coffee, -and honestly called the last meal of the day “supper,” setting it at -about seven o’clock, when the labors of the day were over and all -men at leisure for social enjoyment. At that hour, therefore, the -guests sat down to a feast which I dare not describe because I have -already described so many, but content myself with saying that it in -no wise discredited Mistress Standish’s housewifery, and that when -Dame Partridge asked for the “resait” of the frosted cake, the hostess -proudly replied that Lora had so improved upon the old formula that -it was left in her hands altogether, and Lora modestly added that she -should be more than glad<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_241" id="Page_241">[Pg 241]</a></span> to run over and show Mrs. Partridge exactly -how she made it.</p> - -<p>“I’m obliged to you, dear,” responded the parson’s wife; “for,” with a -sly glance at the betrothed pair sitting very stiffly and formally at -the right hand of their hostess, “I expect we shall have to be making -up some cake pretty soon.”</p> - -<p>But our concern is not so much with the feast, of which these friends -partook with frank and honest appetites, as with the conversation that -came after, while the women gossiped together in the house over a drop -of mulled wine, and the men, pipes in mouth and tankards of sound ale -at hand, sat under the trees carefully preserved upon the edge of the -bluff when the land was cleared for building.</p> - -<p>Two wooden armchairs, the only approach to luxurious seats to be found -in the captain’s cottage, had been set forth for the elder and Parson -Partridge, and the next best given to Anthony Thacher, while the host, -with Alden and Jonathan Brewster, sat upon a rude bench formed between -two beech-trees. Hobomok, never far from his beloved hero, lay upon -the grass solemnly smoking, and the younger men, Wrestling Brewster, -commonly called Ras, as a diminutive of ’Rastling, John and Joseph -Alden, Alick Standish, and Thomas Thacher hung about the door and -windows of the great south room where Bessie, Betty, and Lora flitted -around their mothers like pretty kittens around sober Tabitha.</p> - -<p>Then it was that Myles, after a moment’s thought and a dubious clearing -of his throat, said tentatively,—</p> - -<p>“Master Thacher, when I heard that you were to be sent deputy from -your new town of Yarmouth to our court at Plymouth, I resolved within -myself, if <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_242" id="Page_242">[Pg 242]</a></span>opportunity should offer, and your own mind prove toward -the matter, that I would ask you to give me a particular account of -your famous shipwreck upon the island men now call Thacher’s Woe from -that disaster. Would it offend you if I now urge that petition?”</p> - -<p>But even as the words left his mouth the captain regretted their -utterance, for the man addressed cringed and started in his chair, -as one who feels a touch upon a new wound, while the pallor of his -singularly colorless face turned to ashen gray, and his light blue eyes -dilated and wandered as those of one who sees a vision of terror.</p> - -<p>“Nay”—resumed Myles hastily; but as hastily Thacher took the word out -of his mouth.</p> - -<p>“Not nay, but ay, good friend!” exclaimed he with an attempted smile. -“I know well that the terror of those fearful hours has left its mark -not only upon my outer man, but upon the forces of my mind, which -are no longer altogether under mine own control, but, like a horse -once well terrified at a certain spot, will still swerve and start in -passing it, despite of his driver’s voice and rein. Albeit, even as it -is well that the unruly steed should be often taken past the bugbear, -which he will at last cease to dread, so it is well for me to talk of -that day from time to time, and to tell its story as occasion shall -befall, to friends who can enter into its solemnity.”</p> - -<p>“You are right, my son,” said Elder Brewster quietly. “The unruly heart -of man needs long and bitter discipline before it becomes truly meek.”</p> - -<p>“Ne’ertheless, Master Thacher, I do withdraw my petition, and beg you -instead of that story to tell us how you like our fashion of holding -court by deputies rather than <i>pro coram publico</i> as hath been our wont -until this year.” </p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_243" id="Page_243">[Pg 243]</a></span></p> - -<p>“Nay, Captain Standish, one matter at a time an’t please you, and I -have no mind to be balked of the glory of mine adventure. What say you, -friends? Shall not I tell you of the shipwreck?”</p> - -<p>“It would give me singular pleasure to hear it, Brother Thacher,” -replied the parson, while the elder smiled approval, Jonathan Brewster -murmured “Ay!” and the captain, lifting his shaggy beard and taking the -pipe from his mouth, said with a merry gesture,—</p> - -<p>“It were churlish to refuse to listen to a man who fain would tell -his own adventures, so I will e’en put all scruples in my pocket and -hearken with the rest of you.”</p> - -<p>“Well spoke, mine host, and I can comfort you by saying truthfully that -the qualm hath passed and I would rather tell the tale than be silent.</p> - -<p>“You men of Plymouth have not forgotten the great storm of August -in the year of grace 1635, for it was then that the French villain -D’Aulney seized upon your rich trading-post at Castine which they now -call Bragaduce, and turned John Willet adrift with only a shallop and -a worthless due-bill. The terrific storm that wrecked Willet’s shallop -and also the armed ship Angel Gabriel, bound to Boston in the Bay, -overtook the humbler craft in which my cousin Dominie John Avery, his -wife and six children, and I with my wife and four children, nine -mariners, and other persons were making the voyage from Ipswich to -Marblehead.”</p> - -<p>“It was a bark of Isaac Allerton’s in which you voyaged, was it not?” -asked Standish.</p> - -<p>“Ay, he was owner, but not master.”</p> - -<p>“Never mind who played master, if Allerton was owner, the boat was sure -of ill luck,” growled Standish; but the Elder interposed serenely,— </p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_244" id="Page_244">[Pg 244]</a></span></p> - -<p>“Your speech savors of superstition as well as uncharity, Captain -Standish, and I had held you singularly free from both those vices.”</p> - -<p>“I crave your pardon, Elder. I had clean forgot that Allerton was for a -while your son-in-law. Go on an’ it please you, Master Thacher.”</p> - -<p>But again the power of those memories he had so resolutely evoked -overmastered the speaker, and it was in a hurried and broken voice -and with a furtive gesture of the hand across the eyes that he again -began:—</p> - -<p>“I fain would tell you, but I cannot, what John Avery was, not to me -alone who loved him better than David could love Jonathan, better than -mine own brother who yet was dear to me, but to all the world; a man so -good, so holy, so devout, that he seemed sent hither to remind us of -the Man of Nazareth whose humble follower he was; and withal so keen of -wit, and so sound of judgment, and so ready to help with heart and hand -wherever he saw need, that I leaned upon him and yearned toward him in -all difficulties as a little child with his mother. Verily I believe it -was for the chastisement of mine own overweening love that this thing -hath befallen.”</p> - -<p>“Belike rather the God he served saw him fit for heaven, and so took -him even as He did Elijah,” said the Elder reverently.</p> - -<p>“It may be, venerable sir, it may be; but I cannot forget mine own -arrogancy when John told me that the church at Marblehead had invited -him, and he was fain to go, and I said, ‘Well and good, John, but you -sha’n’t be rid of me, for I’ll go too, and naught but death shall part -us.’ Ah me! Naught but death, says I, and verily ’t was naught but -death!” </p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_245" id="Page_245">[Pg 245]</a></span></p> - -<p>“Did it storm when you set forth?” asked Jonathan Brewster’s clear -and somewhat cold voice; and Thacher, recalling himself with a start, -replied in much the same tone:—</p> - -<p>“No, although the weather looked threatening, and our master was in -haste to sail, hoping to weather Cape Ann before the wind changed as he -foreboded it would. But it was just off the Cape that it fell calm, and -then all in a moment the storm burst, and the wind, veering to every -point of the compass, caught us as if in a whirlpool, so that before -the sailors could trim their sails they were torn from their hands, -torn from the masts, or if they clung, only helped to tear the masts -from the hull and the rudder from the stern. I am not shipman enough -to tell you how it all befell, but this I know: that when the morning -of Saturday, the 15th day of August in 1635, broke in such fury of -wind and rain and raging waves as I never beheld before or since, our -bark drove furiously upon a reef, and in the shock went all to pieces, -carrying ten souls into eternity before one could cry God have mercy -upon them! One of these was Peter Avery, a fine lad, who had gone -aft to fetch a rope whereby to bind his mother to the stump of the -foremast, and in that act of filial charity he died.”</p> - -<p>“And his reward is with God,” murmured the Elder.</p> - -<p>“We who survived,” continued Thacher, “speedily made our way from the -crumbling wreck to the rock between whose horns our bows were jammed; -and hardly were we all off when the last timber splintered beneath -the hammer of the surge, and we were left, thirteen poor shivering -wretches, two of them little babes in their mothers’ arms, clinging -desperately to that naked rock, the helpless prey of white-headed -waves<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_246" id="Page_246">[Pg 246]</a></span> that like wild beasts ran raging along the sides of our poor -hold, and now and again with a victorious howl leaped up and seized -first one and then another of those poor little ones whom neither a -father’s arms nor a mother’s piteous embrace sufficed to save. One -by one they went, those darlings of our lives, and as her infant was -torn from her arms, Mary Avery, with a cry I shall never forget, -grasped after it, and was carried away with it. Then my friend, who -had followed them but that I held him back, struggled to his knees -and prayed aloud. O my friends! when I remember those words, when I -remember that face, drenched with the storm, blanched by the blow that -brake his heart, yet luminous as was Stephen’s in his martyrdom, I feel -like Paul who, being caught up to heaven, saw and heard what it is not -lawful—nay, what it is not possible—for a man to repeat.”</p> - -<p>“Nay, we would not have you try, my son,” whispered the Elder, while -the captain folded his arms and grimly set his lips, and John Alden -wept without disguise.</p> - -<p>“The next thing I recall,” pursued Thacher softly, “is holding my -cousin’s hand and saying over and over, ‘You shall not leave me, John, -you shall not leave me! We will die together or we will live together!’ -and I see once more amid the whirl and torment of the storm the smile -wherewith he looked me in the face and said,—</p> - -<p>“‘We will die together, Anthony, and please God we will live together!’ -And then, while some loving cry to God rose afresh from his lips, -came a giant wave and tore us asunder, and I knew no more until I was -struggling in the waves with mine arm around my poor wife, and she -clinging senseless to me.</p> - -<p>“Then all His waves and storms went over me, and I<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_247" id="Page_247">[Pg 247]</a></span> yielded up my -spirit to Him who gave it; but it was not yet purified enough to go -where my friend was gone before, and God in mercy granted me yet -another season of probation. When the Lord’s Day broke, it found me -with my poor wife stretched like two corpses upon the strand of a -little islet hard by the rock I have named Avery’s Fall, and beside us -a poor goat, who all unaided or uncared for had come safe to land. My -poor wife! when she recovered her senses and looked about her and knew -our piteous case, who can blame her that she cried,—</p> - -<p>“‘A wretched goat saved, and my four sweet babies drowned! Doth God -then care for oxen?’”</p> - -<p>“The Father of us all can forgive the misery of a mother’s heart,” said -the Elder, but Jonathan Alden gravely turned away his head and looked -out toward the sea.</p> - -<p>“Not only the milch goat, but a cheese and a rundlet of beer were -washed ashore,” pursued Thacher, “and oh, piteous sight! the cradle -whence my wife had snatched her babe came floating safe ashore, with -the covering wrought by my sister in England for our first darling, -safe in the bottom. Like Noah’s ark with the dove flown to return no -more, it seemed to us, and as I dragged the cradle ashore and my poor -wife sank beside it and buried her head in that pretty covering, her -mad despair gave way in gracious tears, and she wept until she was able -to pray.</p> - -<p>“Thus, then, our Lord’s Day passed, but with the Monday came rescue, -and we two with our empty cradle and its fair-wrought spread, and the -poor goat whose life had hung in the balance, were all brought first to -Boston, and then to Yarmouth.” </p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_248" id="Page_248">[Pg 248]</a></span></p> - -<p>“But Thomas was not with you, was he?” asked Partridge at last, -breaking his intent silence.</p> - -<p>“Nay, and there is a matter wherein the Elder may hold me as -superstitious as the captain,” replied Thacher, forcing a smile; “but -it has seemed to me that the Lord, not ready to take him, and not -willing to try him by the sharp discipline vouchsafed to me, interposed -with a special Providence in his behalf.</p> - -<p>“Only the night before we were to sail, Thomas had a dream, and, like -Belshazzar of old, he could not in waking remember its tenure, but only -its terror. Of one thing, however, he seemed fully assured, and that -was that he must not sail upon our voyage; and so strong and terrible -was his dread that he would not so much as come to see us off, but as -we went our way to the shore he struck into the forest and made the -fifteen miles or so afoot.”</p> - -<p>“And has he never recalled the dream?” asked Mr. Partridge, with a look -askance at his prospective son-in-law just then trying to snatch a rose -from his sweetheart’s hand.</p> - -<p>“No; that is, he has always seemed so ill at ease in talking of the -matter that we have let it drop. It runs in my mind that it is as much -a puzzlement to him as it can be to others.”</p> - -<p>“‘There be more things in heaven and earth, than are dreamt of in your -philosophy’ or in mine, quoth my old gossip Will Shakespeare,” said the -captain, and Anthony Thacher heartily replied,—</p> - -<p>“And spake the truth as fairly as though he had worn gown and bands. A -great student of men was that same gossip of yours, Captain.”</p> - -<p>“Ay, and a rollicking good fellow. I knew him<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_249" id="Page_249">[Pg 249]</a></span> well, and something more -than well, in the time I was in England after the peace of 1609, and in -certain of his plays there’s many a quip and quirk shot at me and my -poor achievements. Didst ever see a play called ‘Henry the Fourth’?”</p> - -<p>“Nay, Captain, I was never in a playhouse in my life.”</p> - -<p>“More’s your loss, friend. Well, in that play there’s a bit runs like -this, or something so:—</p> - -<div class="center"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<div>—‘I remember, when the fight was done,</div> -<div>When I was dry with rage, and desprit toil,</div> -<div>Breathless and faint, leaning upon my sword,</div> -<div>Came there a certain lord, neat, trimly dressed,</div> -<div>Fresh as a bridegroom’—</div> -</div></div></div> - -<p>Well, I’ll not give you the whole, if I remember it, and ’tis years -since I thought on’t, but a little later it goes forward:—</p> - -<div class="center"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<div>‘I then, a’l smarting, with my wounds being cold,</div> -<div>To be so pestered with a popinjay,</div> -<div>Out of my grief and my impatience,</div> -<div>Answered full carelessly, I know not what;</div> -<div>He should or he should not; for ’t made me mad</div> -<div>To see him shine so brisk, and smell so sweet,</div> -<div>And talk so like a waiting gentlewoman</div> -<div>Of guns, and drums, and wounds, (God save the mark!)</div> -<div>And telling me the sovereign’st thing on earth</div> -<div>Was parmaceti for an inward bruise;</div> -<div>And that it was great pity, so it was,</div> -<div>That villainous saltpetre should be digged</div> -<div>Out of the bowels of the harmless earth,</div> -<div>Which many a good tall fellow had destroyed</div> -<div>So cowardly; and but for these vile guns,</div> -<div>He would himself have been a soldier.’</div> -</div></div></div> - -<p>Oh, well, well, but I must laugh, and laugh again as I mind me of the -day when Will Shakespeare first<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_250" id="Page_250">[Pg 250]</a></span> mouthed those lines at me, and I stood -staring like a stuck pig to hear mine own words so bedded in his poesy, -like flies in amber in very sooth, for ’twas a story I had told him of -a matter that happened to myself in the Low Countries”—</p> - -<p>“Alas, my son,” interposed the Elder, raising his hand, “such memories -suit but ill with the lives of ‘pilgrims and strangers’ like ourselves.”</p> - -<p>“And for that very reason, Elder,” replied Standish a little hotly, -“when you and Master Partridge and the rest besiege me to become a -church-member, I will listen to naught of it. The old leaven is still -a-working by fits and starts, and I’ll do no such despite to the saints -as to count myself into their company. ‘Nay, nay, mine ancient,’ says -Will to me one time when we stood side by side in Paul’s Walk, and saw -a grand procession pass us by, ‘’tis better to watch the lightning than -to handle it.’”</p> - -<p>With a mischievous glance at the Rev. Ralph Partridge, Standish resumed -his pipe, and the parson wisely remained silent.</p> - -<hr /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_251" id="Page_251">[Pg 251]</a></span></p> - -<h2>CHAPTER XXV.</h2> - -<p class="bold">JEPHTHAH’S DAUGHTER.</p> - -<p>St. Martin’s summer was in the land; that lovely parting smile of the -year, so full of love, so full of reminiscence and of promise, so -full of pathos and of that vague yearning that lies at the core of -every heart, and which I fancy Bossuet means when he speaks of “the -inexorable weariness which lurks at the foundations of all our lives.”</p> - -<p>The door of Standish’s cottage stood wide, and between it and the -lattice opening upon the sea, letting in the sweet breath of marigolds -and thyme basking in the southern sun, Barbara stepped lightly back and -forth, spinning from her great wheel the fine yarn that would be woven -or knit into the winter garments of the household.</p> - -<p>A shadow across the floor made her turn, quick yet fearless as a bird -building in a tree above a house whose inmates never have threatened it.</p> - -<p>A tall, good-looking young man stood in the doorway, and with his eyes -searched the room before he said,—</p> - -<p>“Good-morrow, dame. Is Lora somewhere at hand?”</p> - -<p>“Oh, good-morrow, Ras! Lora has gone to the top of the hill for a -breath of evening air. It has been so warm to-day.”</p> - -<p>“Yes, Hobomok calls it the Indian’s summer because it comes just before -winter,” replied Wrestling <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_252" id="Page_252">[Pg 252]</a></span>Brewster absently; and then after another -moment of hesitation he pulled off his wide hat, and coming close to -the spinner’s side fixed his eyes upon hers with a shy appeal while he -asked,—</p> - -<p>“Do you think, dame, I might ask her?”</p> - -<p>“Ask her what, Ras?”</p> - -<p>“Oh, Dame Barbara, you know full well what I fain would ask.”</p> - -<p>“There’ll be an apple-bee at your house or at Jonathan’s this week, -will there not?”</p> - -<p>“Ay, at Jonathan’s on the Thursday, and Lucretia bade me invite you -all.”</p> - -<p>“Well, then, you foolish boy, sure that is your errand to Lora, and -you’ll find her on the hill, most like at what she calls her sunset -seat.”</p> - -<p>“’Twas I that made it for her,” said Wrestling eagerly, and Barbara, -smiling in the way matrons smile at transparent youth, replied,—</p> - -<p>“Then you know where it is. Go, and God go with you.”</p> - -<p>“My grateful duty to you, dame,” murmured the young fellow, and went -like an arrow from a bow.</p> - -<p>A half hour later Barbara, setting her wheel aside, stepped to the door -to look toward the hill, and to judge by the position of the sun how -near the hour might be to supper time.</p> - -<p>Coming up from the shore she saw her husband, and at the first glance -knew that he was ill-pleased; with this conviction came a foreboding -that made her turn her eyes again toward the hill, but now it was the -daughter, and not the sun, for which she looked.</p> - -<p>“Where’s Lora, wife?” inquired the captain so soon as he was within -speaking distance. </p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_253" id="Page_253">[Pg 253]</a></span></p> - -<p>“She went out an hour or so agone for a stroll,” replied the mother -mildly. “She has been so steadily stitching at your new shirts, Myles, -that I sent her to get a breath of fresh air.”</p> - -<p>“Belike it’s she I saw upon the hill; ’twas a white gown, at all -events.”</p> - -<p>“And like you no longer to see her in white?” asked Barbara, apparently -in great surprise. “Why, ’tis to please you she wears it, though it -makes a mort of washing for poor Hepsey. But where hast been thyself, -goodman?”</p> - -<p>“To Plymouth, and Alice Bradford sends you a clutch of eggs from her -new brought fowls.”</p> - -<p>“Nay, but that’s more than kind!” cried Barbara. “And how fares she, -and is it true that Prissie Wright will marry Manasses Kempton? And did -you get the grist ground, and what said Miller Jenney of not having it -yesterday?”</p> - -<p>“Come, come, dame, ’tis not for naught your tongue wags like Priscilla -Alden’s all of a sudden. Tell me what man is on the hill with our Lora, -and what ’tis you’re keeping from me,—or would if you could. Out with -it, Bab! who’s the man I saw up there?”</p> - -<p>“Nay, Myles, that’s no tone for you to take towards me! ’Tis not one of -the children nor one of the servants you’re speaking to.”</p> - -<p>“What! ruffling her feathers like a Dame Partlet if you try to steal -the chickens from under her! Nay, wife, that mood’s as strange to you -as the chattering one, and both are but put on to turn my mind from -its course; but ’tis no use, Bab, no use at all. Come, now, stop these -manœuvres and ambushes and false sallies and all your simple strategy, -and meet me in the open field. Was it<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_254" id="Page_254">[Pg 254]</a></span> Wrestling Brewster that I saw -sitting with Lora on her sunset seat?”</p> - -<p>“I know not what you saw, Myles, but I know that Wrestling Brewster -went up there to find Lora something like a half hour ago.”</p> - -<p>“And you knew it?”</p> - -<p>“I sent him.”</p> - -<p>“You sent him! And for what?”</p> - -<p>“For naught more than to find her, but I can guess his errand though he -told it not.”</p> - -<p>“Oh! And might the father of the maid venture so much as to ask what -this errand might be?”</p> - -<p>“Nay, Myles, be not so bitter! If I cannot go with you in this matter, -’tis because I love my child even more than you can love her.”</p> - -<p>“Love your child! Love your own way and your own will, as you ever have -done! Woman, do you defy me?”</p> - -<p>“Oh, Myles, Myles!” And fearlessly approaching the angry man, Barbara -laid a hand upon his arm and looked straight into his face with all her -brave and noble soul shining out of those eyes whose wonderful charm -time had not clouded in the least. The captain met them, and the terror -of his frown subsided into an angry laugh.</p> - -<p>“Well—you should not thwart me if you would not see me thwarted. But -honestly, Barbara, have you forgotten or do you despise my constant -wish for Lora’s future? Must I mind you once more of my contract with -my cousin Ralph whereby his eldest son is to marry our daughter, and -so to her and her children shall be restored the fair domain which his -grandsire stole from mine? Know you not that naught in all this<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_255" id="Page_255">[Pg 255]</a></span> world -sits nearer to my heart than this scheme, and that only last month I -wrote to Ralph and told him that Lora was now turned eighteen, and -if his boy was ready to fulfill the contract I would come to England -with the maid, and see her seated at Standish Hall? Mind you all that, -Mistress Barbara?”</p> - -<p>“Ay, Myles, I mind it well, and I mind too that you did not tell me of -that letter till ’twas gone.”</p> - -<p>“Haply not, but what of that? Is a man bound to lay all his business -before his wife, or to ask her leave to write to his own kinsman?”</p> - -<p>“’Tis my kinsman in the same degree, mind you, husband. And because -I too am born of Standish I have a right to speak, I have a right to -know, and to decide in this matter,—yes, as good a right as yours, -Myles.”</p> - -<p>“Oho! ’Tis a cartel of battle, is it? Partlet against Chanticleer, eh? -Well, our cousins the Standishes of Duxbury carry a gamecock for their -crest, and I’ll e’en borrow his spurs.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, Myles, Myles! This over-weening ambition of thine hath turned thy -brain! When till now didst ever treat me thus?”</p> - -<p>“Nay, I’ll not be wheedled with soft touch, nor tearful eyen, nor -broken voice. There, there, let go mine arm and wipe thy tears away! -Why, thou foolish lass, dost not know I’d liever face a tribe of -Pequods than see thee weep? Tut, tut, silly wench, give me a kiss and -be done with it. What chance hath Samson when Delilah cries?”</p> - -<p>“But, dear my lord, listen now that your mood is somewhat softened. How -can you be so sure that this great marriage will make our dear maid -happy? You<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_256" id="Page_256">[Pg 256]</a></span> know how tender and how sensitive she is; you know how she -clings to love, and seems to draw her life from us as the flowers do -from the sun; sure am I, as sure as of to-day’s breath, that parted -from home and father and mother and brothers and friends and all she -has ever loved and clung to, our Lora would droop and die just as that -sea-bird did that the boys caught and tried to tame.”</p> - -<p>“And if she did!” cried the captain, flaming again into sudden wrath, -the reflex perhaps of a stinging pain driven through his heart by his -wife’s last words. “Had not she better die as mistress of Standish Hall -and be buried with her ancestors in the tomb of the Standishes than to -vegetate here as the wife of Wrestling Brewster and fill a nameless -grave in these wilds?”</p> - -<p>“Since God has forsaken you and the Evil One seized upon your mind, I -have naught more to say,” returned Barbara, thoroughly angry on her own -side; and as she turned into the house Standish, with a black frown -darkening his whole presence, strode away toward the hill.</p> - -<p>Almost an hour earlier Wrestling Brewster, making his way softly over -the fallen leaves and ripe mosses of the hillside path, had stolen -unawares upon as fair a picture as Captain’s Hill has ever seen, or -ever shall while time and earth endure.</p> - -<p>Very nearly where the monument stands to-day, there then grew a clump -of oaks, and between two of them had been fixed a commodious bench, -with a back quaintly carved and ornamented with a border of red -cedar. From this vantage-point could be seen a fairer view than that -of to-day, for man had not yet conquered Nature, nor substituted his -uncouth and commonplace works for her perfection. </p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_257" id="Page_257">[Pg 257]</a></span></p> - -<p>Clark’s Island, still covered with its primeval cedars and with its -northern headland unwasted and majestic, lay like a bower upon the -great field of flowing water, and matched Saquish, still an island, -but beginning to throw out tentative arms toward the Gurnet’s Head, -where six hundred years before Thorwald, brother of Leif, wounded unto -death by the savages, desired to be buried, with a cross at his head -and another at his feet, directing that the headland should thenceforth -be known as Krossness. Toward these yearned the loving arm thrown out -by Manomet toward the Duxbury shore,—that arm now reduced to a barren -sandspit, but then a green and fruit-laden peninsula; and within it -glittered in the evening light the harbor, deep enough at that day to -float not only the Mayflower, but Captain Pierce’s Lyon, which now lay -snugly anchored there, while the governor’s barge rowed away toward the -town, bearing Bradford and Winslow home with the jolly mariner as their -guest. Blue smoke-wreaths floating idly upward from Plymouth cottages -told of housewives busy with the evening meal, and upon the crest of -Burying Hill a twinkling gleam now and again showed that Lieutenant -Holmes did not suffer the brasswork of the colony’s guns to grow dim -now that they had come under his care.</p> - -<p>But closer at hand than these things stretched the marshes, the -beautiful Duxbury marshes with their grasses full grown and ripe, -reposing under the sunset light like a fair garden, where great masses -of color lay in harmonious contrast, and the heavy heads of seed bent, -and rippled, and rustled to the evening breeze, murmuring sweet secrets -that he carried straight out to sea and buried there. </p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_258" id="Page_258">[Pg 258]</a></span></p> - -<p>O man, man! Lay out your modern gardens, and mass your pelargoniums -and calceolarias and begonias and salvias and the rest, in beds of -contrasting color, and then, if you would note your improvement upon -ancient methods, go in the autumn and look at the marshes of the Old -Colony, laid out by Mother Nature before Thorwald selected Krossness -first as his chosen home, and then his chosen grave.</p> - -<p>So fair, so wonderful, so entrancing, lay the view that evening at -the foot of Captain’s Hill, yet Wrestling Brewster, albeit a man of -singular delicacy of perception, never saw it; saw nothing, in fact, -but the lissome form of a young maid clothed in white samite, with pale -golden hair wound around her head and held by quaint silver pins with -crystal heads that now and again caught the light and sent it flashing -back like the aureole of a saint. The great gray eyes, wide open -beneath their level brows, were steadfastly fixed upon some point far -out at sea, the vanishing point of earth’s curve, the point where the -straightforward look of human eyes glides off the surface of the globe -and penetrates the ether beyond. What vision arose before the maiden’s -eyes in that dim horizon realm? What thought or what dream parted the -soft mouth, and tinged the pure pallor of the cheek? What meant the -sigh that just stirred the flower at her throat?</p> - -<p>So asked the heart of the young man standing motionless and devout -in the edge of the little grove, until with the feeling of one who -intrudes upon sacred mysteries he withdrew his gaze, and rustled the -twigs of the shrub beside him. The girl turned quickly, and as she met -his eyes smiled gently.</p> - -<p>“Oh, is it you, Ras? I’m glad you came.” </p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_259" id="Page_259">[Pg 259]</a></span></p> - -<p>“Are you, Lora? Are you glad I came? And I am glad that you are glad.”</p> - -<p>“’Tis so fair, so heavenly a scene that I would all I love might enjoy -it as well as I.”</p> - -<p>“Lora! All you love, say you? Oh, Lora, do you love me?”</p> - -<p>“Ras! Nay, let us not speak of just ourselves; we are so little and the -sky is so great.”</p> - -<p>“The sky, dear? But the sky and the sea and the forest, they are always -here, and we may look at them all our lives long,—all our lives, Lora, -our two lives that might be one.”</p> - -<p>The gray eyes, still full of dreams, still questioning the far-off -depths of the skies beyond the sea, reluctantly turned and rested -fearlessly upon the eager and troubled face of the young man.</p> - -<p>“What is it, Ras dear? Why are you so—so troubled is it? Why don’t you -sit down here beside me and look as we have looked so often upon all -this beauty? It was so good of you, Ras, to make this seat for me. It -is the happiest place I know in all the world.”</p> - -<p>“Then make it happiest to me, darling, by letting it be the place of -our betrothal. Oh, Lora, I thought you knew,—I thought you understood, -and—and—yes, I even dared to hope that you, just in some far-off -maidenly, saintly fashion, felt somewhat the love that devours me like -death until I know for certain that it is returned, and then indeed -shall I pass from death unto life. Speak, Lora,—speak for God’s dear -sake, speak to me.”</p> - -<p>“But why are you so moved, Ras, and why after all these years of love -and friendliness do you beg me as if I were some stranger to say that I -love you?” </p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_260" id="Page_260">[Pg 260]</a></span></p> - -<p>“Lora! Lora! You break my heart!”</p> - -<p>“Oh, Ras, dear dear Ras! Don’t look so, don’t speak so! There are very -tears in your eyes, and see, they call the tears to mine! Why truly, -dear Ras, I love you, I love you dearly, as well as I love Alick or -Josias,—as well as I love Betty Alden, who is the dearest friend I -have, as well as”—</p> - -<p>“Stop, stop, for pity’s sake! I thought I suffered before, but oh, -Lora, you have given me my deathblow.”</p> - -<p>“Nay, what is it, what is it I have done? What a wicked wretch I am to -grieve you so, but how is it, dear? Indeed I do love you, Ras, I do -indeed!”</p> - -<p>“Yes, you love me as a child loves, as an angel loves, as you loved me -years ago when I, already come to man’s estate, watched you growing -to womanhood like a sweet flower, and vowed that you, and none but -you, should be my wife; and for the sake of that vow and for love of -you,—yes, an ever growing love of you, mine own sweet love,—I have -never looked upon a maiden’s face save as a woman might. I have cared -so little for their company that they flout me”—</p> - -<p>“Yes, they call you the old bachelor,” interrupted Lora, half merrily -and half penitently. “But I never once dreamed it was for love of me -you held yourself so strange to all the others. But now I do know, Ras, -it seems no more than honest that you should have what you have waited -for, and if you want me for your wife, and my father and my mother make -no objection, why I will please you thus far.”</p> - -<p>“You will—you will be my wife!” exclaimed Wrestling. “Oh, Lora, do you -mean it? Do you really, really mean that you will be my wife?” </p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_261" id="Page_261">[Pg 261]</a></span></p> - -<p>“It seems to me, young man, that I have somewhat to say in this -matter,” broke in a strident voice, and Lora looked up in dismay at -her father’s face, very angry, very ominous, yet not turned upon her. -At a later day Myles Standish was glad to remember that even in this -extremity he never spoke one angry word, or cast one angry look to the -child who was the idol of his life.</p> - -<p>“Oh—Captain Standish!” stammered Wrestling, springing to his feet.</p> - -<p>“Yes, Master Brewster, Captain Standish at your service, who ventures -to suggest that you might have done better to ask his leave before -urging his daughter to defy his wishes.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, father!” And Lora, rising to her slender height, stepped forward -and fearlessly slid a soft little hand into the captain’s brawny -half-closed fist. “Defy you, father!” murmured she, looking into his -face with eyes of loving reproach, “nay, I never could do that.”</p> - -<p>“I know it, my pet, I know it; but there, make you home as soon as ever -you may—mother is waiting for you—run away, child, run.”</p> - -<p>“Nay, father, but I fain would know first why you are so angry with my -dear friend Ras. He says he loves me very much, and he wants me to be -his wife, and I love him too, and if you please to have it so, I said I -would marry him”—</p> - -<p>“As you might have said you would take a sail with him!” exclaimed the -captain with angry fondness in his tone; but the fondness died away as -his eyes turned from the fair face of his daughter to the flushed and -anxious one of her suitor, while he said,—</p> - -<p>“You may see for yourself, Wrestling Brewster, that this child knows -not the meaning of marriage love. She<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_262" id="Page_262">[Pg 262]</a></span> is no fonder of you than of—say -Betty Alden, or mayhap her pet cat”—</p> - -<p>“Nay, nay, father, I must not let that go unsaid! Not love Ras better -than I do Moppet! Oh, but I do!”</p> - -<p>“Lora, if you will stay here, do not speak again until I speak to you,” -commanded the father sternly.</p> - -<p>“I would not be harsh upon you, young sir, for you are son of mine -honored friend, Elder Brewster, and I believe a worthy son, but you did -amiss, yes, shrewdly amiss, in speaking to my daughter before you did -to me.”</p> - -<p>Wrestling’s lips opened and closed again. He was about to say that -Lora’s mother knew of his suit, but in the captain’s mood, that plea -might only have brought down wrath upon his wife’s head.</p> - -<p>“I have not found it fitting to tell all my affairs to all my -neighbors,” pursued Standish haughtily. “But I have mine own intent -with regard to my daughter, and that intent is not to marry her in this -colony. Let that be answer enough for you, Master Wrestling, and if you -like, you may advertise any other aspiring youth that designs to honor -my daughter with an offer that it is but needless mortification, for my -answer will be to all as it is to you,—nay, nay, nay!”</p> - -<p>And with the last word Myles placed his daughter’s hand under his arm -and led her down the hill, leaving Wrestling to cast himself prone upon -the sunset seat, his face hidden upon the back of it, and his eyes -smarting with the tears his manhood refused to allow to flow.</p> - -<p>Almost at home, Standish, looking with anxious love into the lily face -at his shoulder, said,—</p> - -<p>“Poppet, you’re not over-sorry, are you? Why don’t you speak to me?” </p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_263" id="Page_263">[Pg 263]</a></span></p> - -<p>“You bade me not speak until you spoke to me, father dear. Nay, but I -am sorry, heartily sorry, you should have chided Ras so hardly. Poor -lad! He was fit to cry when we left him.”</p> - -<p>“But you do not really care for him, dear child? You are not set upon -becoming his—his wife?”</p> - -<p>“Nay, father, I do not care to be any man’s wife. I would far fainer -stay at home with you and mother, but Ras seemed so keen upon the -matter and declared I loved him not, that to make him content I said -yes; for indeed I do love him, father, more than I love any man after -you and the boys.”</p> - -<p>“Ha, ha! My little lass, there’ll come a day when the boys, and haply -your poor old dad as well, will fly down the wind like thistledown -before the love that still lieth sound asleep in my maid’s pure heart.”</p> - -<p>“Nay, father, not asleep, but too dear and too holy to be spoken of,” -murmured Lora, a soft flush upon her cheek, a tender light in her eyes -as she raised them to her father’s face.</p> - -<p>“What! what!” stammered he, half affrighted lest the girl had lost her -senses. “You love some one already!”</p> - -<p>“Oh, father, so much, so dearly! ’Tis for that I love to go and sit all -alone there upon the brow of the hill, where I may see the beauty He -has made and gaze away and away into the heavens where He lives. Sure -the hills of Judah were not so lovely as this place, and who can tell -but some day He may descend and stand visibly upon them”—</p> - -<p>“Aha!” breathed the captain, stopping short and gazing appalled upon -the face of the girl, set seaward, with a half smile upon its lips and -a look of yearning love in<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_264" id="Page_264">[Pg 264]</a></span> the unfathomable eyes. But as he gazed -she turned, and throwing an arm around his neck hid her face upon his -breast with a sobbing sigh.</p> - -<p>“Oh, father dear, I’m sorry I tried to speak about what no words can -tell. Don’t talk to mother or to any one, will you, dear, and please do -not ask me again. ’Tis so precious and so wonderful, and ’tis all the -love I ever want beyond my home loves. You won’t talk about it, daddy -dear, will you?”</p> - -<p>“One word, Lora. You mean that your love is given to God alone?”</p> - -<p>“To Him who loved me and gave Himself for me—to Him who is chief among -ten thousand and altogether lovely—to the King in his beauty in the -land that is very far off.”</p> - -<p>“My child, my child!” groaned the father, drawing the girl’s form close -to his thickly beating heart and pressing his lips upon her brow, while -Jephthah’s agony turned him sick and white, and his eyes rose with an -almost angry protest to the skies.</p> - -<hr /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_265" id="Page_265">[Pg 265]</a></span></p> - -<h2>CHAPTER XXVI.</h2> - -<p class="bold">GILLIAN.</p> - -<p>The apple-bee at Jonathan Brewster’s house by the Eagle’s Tree, where -The Nook merges into Harden Hill, was in full tide, and one could hear -the merry voices of men and maidens, and the cheerful shrilling of -matrons talking above the din, before one reached the house. Beneath a -clump of trees surrounding the great cedar known as the Eagle’s Tree -a number of horses were tied with comfortable measures of corn and -trusses of hay before them, and in the little cove lay half a dozen or -so boats uneasily tumbling upon the incoming tide. These conveyances -had brought the remoter dwellers in the new town of Duxbury and its -neighborhood: the Aldens from Eagle Tree Pond, the De la Noyes from -Stony Brook, the Soules from Powder Point, the Constant Southworths -from North River, the Howlands from Island Creek, the Bassetts from -Beaver Pond, and the Abraham Samsons from Bluefish River where they -lived neighbors to the Aldens and intermarried with them.</p> - -<p>Of The Nook people who came on foot, the Standishes, and Brewsters, and -Pabodies, and Prences, and Colliers, and Doctor Comfort Starr, the new -physician, with his family, and the Partridges, and Wadsworths, and -others, had mustered strong and in every variety of condition, age, and -sex; for our ancestors, having far<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_266" id="Page_266">[Pg 266]</a></span> fewer opportunities of amusement -than we have, made a great deal more of each one as it came along, and -not only sucked the juice from their orange, but ate every bit of the -pulp. The apple-bee was but a prelude to the evening’s entertainment, -and for weeks before, every young girl in the colony had planned her -dress and simple ornaments, and dreamed of some face or voice that -should belong to her own especial Robin Adair, or of the games and -the songs and haply the contradances that might be permitted when the -church-members had withdrawn; and Lucretia Brewster, with her daughter -Mary and Love’s wife Sarah, and such fantastic aid as Gillian had -chosen to bestow, had been for a week busy in preparing the house and -a big shed just finished, for the reception of the expected guests and -their steeds.</p> - -<p>Gillian! Well, Gillian! And when one has said her name the subject -widens until it becomes impossible to handle. Niece of Lucretia -Brewster, whose sister had married a Spaniard, this Gillian, left a -deserted orphan in some foreign port, had drifted back to England, and -thence to New England, where a year or so before the apple-bee she -had arrived by hand of Captain William Pierce, consigned along with a -present of kersey and Hollands linen to Jonathan Brewster by a cousin -who claimed that, as Lucretia was the girl’s nearest relative, her -maintenance should fall upon Lucretia’s husband. At first the charge -was joyfully accepted, for Gillian was just the age of Mary, Jonathan’s -only daughter, and would be a sister to her, as they said. But as the -weeks and months went on both Mary and her mother grew silent upon the -subject of the new sister, while Jonathan, and his sons William and -Jonathan and Benjamin,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_267" id="Page_267">[Pg 267]</a></span> never ceased to congratulate the women and each -other upon the joy and delight of her presence; the father especially -often calling upon his wife to recognize how in this case virtue had -brought its own reward, and their benevolence to the orphan received -a blessing of singular richness almost in the first moments of its -exercise.</p> - -<p>To these pious thanksgivings Lucretia Brewster, who was a very discreet -woman, never offered any contradiction; but when next her husband found -some little matter essential to his comfort neglected, or some detail -of the rigid family rule calmly set aside, the gentle explanation was, -“I left it to Gillian to do;” or, “It was Gillian who chose to do it in -spite of all I said.”</p> - -<p>On these occasions Gillian sometimes came by a little reprimand, not -half as severe, so Mary jealously remarked, as was administered to her -very lightest offense, but apparently more than Gillian could bear, for -before it was half over she would fall into such a passion of tears -and sobs as seemed fit to rend her white throat asunder, and either -crouch moaning upon the floor in some corner like a wounded creature, -or rush headlong from the house to the woods, where she would hide all -day long, and once all night long, although Brewster and his three sons -searched and called for her till sunrise, when she appeared on the -edge of a thicket, her wonderful deep red hair hanging all matted and -tangled, with briers around her shoulders, her great passionate Spanish -eyes dilated and full of gloomy fire, and her mouth, that bewildering, -tempting, ripe red mouth, with its myriad expressions and suggestions, -its curves and dimples, and its little laughing teeth, all drawn and -pale.</p> - -<p>Is it to be wondered at that, after the first few times,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_268" id="Page_268">[Pg 268]</a></span> the uncle and -guardian ceased to attempt even the discipline of a reproof, especially -as for days after one of these passions the girl would shrink out of -his presence with every mark of terror, and if he spoke to her, reply -in hurried, timorous accents, with the air of one who dreads to give -offense, and fears unmerited blame or misunderstanding.</p> - -<p>So at last it came to pass that Gillian did what she would, and left -undone what she chose, and quietly setting at naught all Lucretia’s -admonitions or attempts at control, was ever bright and charming to -her uncle, and remained a wonder and a fascination to the boys, who -were all wildly in love with her, a condition shared by nearly every -unmarried man in the Old Colony.</p> - -<p>As for Mary, good, homely, ungraceful, slow moulded Mary Brewster, -she wore herself thin and peevish in struggling against the innate -depravity of her own heart which continually urged her to hate Gillian -with a bitter hatred, more especially when John Turner, of Scituate, -came a-wooing, and Gillian, having contemplated his courtship during a -few visits, picked him up as a kitten might a great lumbering beetle, -tossed him hither and yon, patted him with her velvet paws, suddenly -thrust sharp claws through the velvet, gave him one or two contemptuous -buffets to this side and to that, and finally walked away, purring -serene indifference.</p> - -<p>John Turner was perhaps the only man at the apple-bee who saw nothing -to admire in Gillian, and Mary never looked her way. But Betty liked -her, and now, as the girl flitted into the great kitchen where -around the baskets and piles of apples, brought together from all -the neighborhood for Lucretia Brewster to dry in her own superlative -fashion, crowded the maids and matrons,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_269" id="Page_269">[Pg 269]</a></span> who pared and cored, and -quartered or sliced, the rosy fruit, it was Betty Alden who cried,—</p> - -<p>“Oh, Jill, is that you? Come help me string these slices. These are our -own apples, and mother wants to keep them separate from the rest, so -Sally and Ruthy and I are doing them.”</p> - -<p>“Did your brother Jo pick them?” asked Gillian, sinking down in her -peculiar and graceful fashion upon the floor, beside Betty, but not -offering to take the needle threaded with coarse flax that Sally held -toward her.</p> - -<p>“Jo and David picked them, you naughty girl, and talked of naught but -you while they did it.”</p> - -<p>“Betty, Betty, here’s Alick Standish coming this way, and don’t you -blush; now mind you, Betty, don’t you blush! Fie! but you do! What -makes her hate Alick so, Sally?” asked Gillian maliciously.</p> - -<p>“Who hates Alick?” asked the cheery voice of the good-looking “heir -apparent” of Myles Standish, who had obeyed a glance of Gillian’s eyes -and joined the group.</p> - -<p>“Who but the one who colors red as fire with vexation when he draws -nigh,” replied the girl coolly; and Standish, curiously regarding the -faces of the three, perceived that both Betty’s and Sally’s faces were -aflame, while Gillian’s cream-white skin looked cool as a calla lily.</p> - -<p>“Are you paring the apples I picked, Gillian?” asked another voice as -David Alden joined the group.</p> - -<p>“Nay, for ’twas Satan who first plucked an apple for a woman,” replied -Jill, with a mocking little laugh; and Alick whispered in her ear, -“There’s ne’er a son of Adam would refuse if you offered him the apple, -Gillian.” </p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_270" id="Page_270">[Pg 270]</a></span></p> - -<p>“What! not if he lost Paradise thereby?”</p> - -<p>“The paradise of your love would”—</p> - -<p>“Oh, Master Pabodie, do come and reason with these terrible blasphemers -who are talking of Satan and nobody can tell what else. Say to Master -Pabodie what you were saying to me, Alick!”</p> - -<p>Thus dared, the young man looked half of mind to accept the challenge, -but John Pabodie, shrewdly glancing at the audacious girl, replied, -“Nay, mistress, I’m twenty years too old and haply twenty years too -young to cope with such a matter. But here’s my son William just come -home from Boston and farther, and I’ll leave him to fill the place of -Paris, if one may quote the old mythologies in a Christian land.”</p> - -<p>“Surely, when such a Helen rises before one’s eyes,” added a sonorous -young voice, as Gillian suddenly stood up, her sinuous and suggestive -figure displayed in a gown of creamy mull clinging to every curve, -and covering yet not concealing the exquisite roundness of arms and -shoulders white with that peculiar <i>mat</i> whiteness never seen save in -persons of Latin blood.</p> - -<p>“Who was Helen?” asked Gillian very slowly, while the velvety darkness -of her eyes rested with infantile confidence upon the handsome -face of William Pabodie, who, after the pause of an instant, said -significantly,—</p> - -<p>“The handsomest woman that ever lived.”</p> - -<p>A little silence ensued, and all eyes turned upon Gillian, who, nothing -daunted, softly replied,—</p> - -<p>“She must have been well pleased when Paris told her so.”</p> - -<p>“Welcome home, William Pabodie!” cried Lucretia Brewster’s wholesome -voice, scattering as with a puff of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_271" id="Page_271">[Pg 271]</a></span> west wind the strained and -bewildering atmosphere that seemed stifling the little group around the -Spanish girl. “You know all these lads and lasses, your old neighbors, -and I see that you have already made acquaintance with my niece -Gillian,—Gillian Brewster, as we call her”—</p> - -<p>“My name is Gillian de Cavalcanti,” interposed Gillian quietly, but -Lucretia, flushing angrily, continued without looking at her, “If -you will come with me, Will, I will take you to Mary and some other -friends, Lora Standish and her guest, Mercy Bradford from Plymouth.”</p> - -<p>“My sister Anice well-nigh raves over Mistress Lora Standish,” replied -the young man, following his hostess, but even as he did so turning -to look once more at Gillian, whose eyes, soft and dewy as a chidden -child’s, followed him with a vague appeal that sent a tremor through -the young man’s heart.</p> - -<p>“Can it be that her aunt does not treat her well?” asked he of himself, -and his next reply to Lucretia was so cold that she turned and looked -at him, and then remembering said to herself,—</p> - -<p>“The poison works quickly.”</p> - -<p>The apples were pared, cored, quartered, or sliced, and, threaded upon -twine, hung in festoons upon a frame erected for the purpose on the -south side of the house; the cores and skins and smaller apples were -heaped into the cider-press, which on the morrow would begin its work -of reducing them to the cheerful and wholesome beverage as essential to -our forefathers’ comfort as tea and coffee are to ours; the bountiful -supper had been eaten and merrily cleared away by a committee of -bustling matrons, and at last the great houseplace, the shed,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_272" id="Page_272">[Pg 272]</a></span> and a -platform extending for some distance from the house were “sided off” -and swept, to make room for the frolics which to the young people were -the true meaning of the whole affair. “Kissing games” were in that day -not more objectionable than round dances are now, and perhaps that -visitor from Jupiter to whom we sometimes refer for impartial judgment -would have found them less so. Both classes of amusement depend very -much upon who indulges in them, and when Gillian’s soft warm lips -frankly pressed William Pabodie’s mouth a quick flush mounted to the -young man’s temples, and he cast a startled glance into the dark eyes -upraised to his with a look of fathomless meaning. Lucretia Brewster -saw that look, and her own matronly cheek colored angrily. Later in the -evening she sat herself down beside her sister-in-law, with whom she -was on very affectionate terms.</p> - -<p>“Tired, ’Cretia?” asked Mistress Love Brewster with a pleasant smile.</p> - -<p>“No, not to say tired, Sally, but a good deal worked up.”</p> - -<p>“About what?”</p> - -<p>“Well, one thing and another. You know my Mary’s to be married -Thanksgiving Day, and John Turner joins hands with her in begging me to -go to Scituate along with them and set her off in her housekeeping. You -know, being the only girl, she never’s quite let go of mammy’s apron -string; and for that matter, I’m as loath to part with her as ever she -can be with me.”</p> - -<p>“Then, why not go?” asked Sarah sympathetically. “I’m sure the change -will be good for you, and you’ve had a mort of work and worry lately.”</p> - -<p>“Yes, I know, but—well, I’ll tell you, Sally. I<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_273" id="Page_273">[Pg 273]</a></span> don’t want to go away -and leave Jonathan and the boys with nobody to do for them.”</p> - -<p>“Why, there’s Jill and your Indian woman Quoy.”</p> - -<p>“Yes, Quoy knows all about the house, and can get the meals and all -that as well if I was away as if I was here; but Gillian”—</p> - -<p>“Why—yes, I suppose I know what you mean, ’Cretia. You’d be just as -well content if Gillian wasn’t here, eh?”</p> - -<p>“Full as well,” replied Lucretia with emphasis, and gazed full in her -sister’s face. Then both turned and looked at the girl who, crying, -“Button, button, who’s got the button?” was daintily trying to pry -open the stalwart fist of Josias Standish, while Mary Dingley looked -uneasily on.</p> - -<p>“Yes,” said Sarah softly, as if answering some unspoken appeal. “And -you don’t want to take her?”</p> - -<p>“Take her, no! I believe Mary wouldn’t be married at all if it was to -carry that girl along with her.”</p> - -<p>“Well, ’Cretia, I’ll take her, for a while at least. You know the Elder -is with us more than he is at Plymouth, and I’ll lay she won’t carry on -lightly under his eyes. I never knew any man like Father Brewster in my -life! He’d make the Old Boy behave himself, I believe, and never say a -hard word to him neither; and my boys are but boys, and I’ll risk Love.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, it isn’t Jonathan I’m afraid of,” said Jonathan’s wife quickly. -“But”—</p> - -<p>“Oh, don’t you say a word,” interrupted Sarah with a little laugh. “I -know all about it, and it’s just as it should be; but it would be main -lonesome for a young maid here with none but men for company, and I’ll -ask her to come and make me a visit.” </p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_274" id="Page_274">[Pg 274]</a></span></p> - -<p>“Will you? Now that’s comfortable of you, Sally, right comfortable and -friendly,” replied Lucretia, rising to attend her summons, but with -a face so relieved from care and worry that Jonathan, meeting her, -whispered softly,—</p> - -<p>“I’d liever look at thee than any of the young lasses, sweetheart.”</p> - -<hr /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_275" id="Page_275">[Pg 275]</a></span></p> - -<h2>CHAPTER XXVII.</h2> - -<p class="bold">DONNA MARIA DE LOS DOLORES.</p> - -<p>The weeks and the months gliding along with their exasperating -illustration of the <i>festina lente</i> principle brought a morning of -early spring, chill but bright, with a merry sun contending in the sky -against some unseen adversary who continually pelted him with great -white snowballs of cloud, which he either evaded or melted with the -fervor of his breath. In the farmhouse built by the Elder for himself -and Love, but not passing into the possession of Love and Love’s wife, -a great fire of cedar logs burned fragrantly upon the hearth of the -sitting-room, and flashed its light upon the silver tankard and cup -burnished to their utmost brightness, and modestly boasting themselves -upon the little mahogany elbow-table in the nook beside the fire, -conveniently at hand to the leathern easy-chair, so inharmonious with -our ideas of ease, which with a footstool in front was the Elder’s seat -of an evening, or in the brief repose he in these latter days allowed -himself after dinner, or when in the short and stormy winter days he -could do nothing but sit beside the fire and delight his soul with -study.</p> - -<p>In this blithe March morning, however, the old man was out with his son -and the oxen breaking up fallow ground, and chanting half aloud brave -verses of Holy Writ as he guided the team while Love’s mighty arms held -down the ploughshare. </p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_276" id="Page_276">[Pg 276]</a></span></p> - -<p>“‘O let the earth bless the Lord; yea, let it praise Him, and magnify -Him forever!</p> - -<p>“‘O all ye green things upon the earth, bless ye the Lord; praise Him, -and magnify Him forever!</p> - -<p>“‘O ye seas and floods, bless ye the Lord; praise Him, and magnify Him -forever!</p> - -<p>“‘O ye children of men, bless ye the Lord; praise Him, and magnify Him -forever!</p> - -<p>“‘O let Israel bless the Lord; praise Him, and magnify Him forever!’”</p> - -<p>“Wow! but this new colter is heavy; let us rest a minute, father,” -cried Love, feigning to pant and wipe his brow, but really appalled at -the look of his father’s face, and fearing to see him rapt out of his -sight as was Elijah from that of Elisha.</p> - -<p>“Rest? Ay, ay, I should have sooner remembered you, my boy. Yes, yes, -rest if you need it, lad, rest and don’t strain your young muscles till -they’re seasoned like mine.”</p> - -<p>But reverent son though he was, Love, as he turned to lift the yoke -and pat his oxen a bit, did not deny himself a slow smile of sober -amusement.</p> - -<p>In the sunny sitting-room, Gillian, with the firelight in her ruddy -hair, moved around, dusting and arranging the place, and especially -ordering the chair and footstool dedicated to her best friend. But why, -when she had wiped away the last grain of dust, and placed the stool -at just the best angle, and even drawn the wolfskin mat a trifle out -of the centre that it might reach the front legs of the chair, why did -she all at once cross her arms upon the high back, and, bowing her head -upon them, sob as though her heart would break, and suffer a few great -tears like the first drops of a tropic<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_277" id="Page_277">[Pg 277]</a></span> thunder-shower to roll down the -leathern back and under the comfortless cushion? Lora Standish, coming -noiselessly through the door from the kitchen, stood a moment wondering -in the doorway, then half timidly exclaimed,—</p> - -<p>“Why, Gillian, what’s the matter?”</p> - -<p>“Oh! It’s you, is it, or is’t a ghost that it looks like? Let’s try -it!” And with a sudden gliding motion, too much like that of a snake -for beauty, Gillian seized her visitor by the arm, inflicting such a -nip with her cruel slender fingers as left its mark for many a day. -The blood flew for a moment to Lora’s cheek, but it was the blood of -warriors, and she only said as she drew back a step,—</p> - -<p>“I am looking for Mistress Brewster. Do you know where she is?”</p> - -<p>“Yes, gone over to John Alden’s to help Priscilla in some mystery of -housecraft; but come you in and sit down for a minute or so, or I’ll -think, you proud peat, that you mean to slight me.”</p> - -<p>“Why should I want to slight you, Gillian?” replied Lora with the -angelic smile that distinguished her, as, throwing aside the little -white scarf around her head and shoulders, she came forward to the -fire, and leaning against the high mantelpiece put a foot upon the -fender, looking frankly the while into the sombre face of the other -girl.</p> - -<p>“Oh, well,—oh, well!” muttered Gillian after a moment. “’Tis well -you’re angel-like, since so soon you’ll see them.”</p> - -<p>“What say you, Gillian? ’Tis well I’m what, said you?”</p> - -<p>“Nay, sit you down, maiden,—sit you here in the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_278" id="Page_278">[Pg 278]</a></span> Elder’s chair and put -your feet to the fire, upon his footstool. There, now, be biddable and -meek, as fits your face.”</p> - -<p>“Why, Jill, ’twas but yesterday that you almost smote Betty Alden to -the ground because she would have sat in that chair; and after all, -’tis not half so comfortable as mother’s splint chair.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, ay,” replied Gillian, as she turned toward the bookcase -and began brushing the books with a wild turkey’s wing, “that’s -different,—that’s different. I wouldn’t have let you sit there but for -what I saw a minute gone by.”</p> - -<p>“What you saw!” echoed Lora, not overmuch moved, for Gillian’s vagaries -had long since been voted insoluble by the simple folk of The Nook. -“And what was’t you saw?”</p> - -<p>“Now, now! Can you read, Lora?”</p> - -<p>“Yes. Father taught me when I was but a little trot. I learned as fast -as the boys, he said.”</p> - -<p>“Well, a priest taught me just as a man of the outside world would -have taught a parrot or an ape. All the people who have done me any -good have done it for their pleasure or their pride, and I’m naught -beholden to them. But these books!—I often spell out their titles when -I’m dull, and tired of laughing at men and women. Now hark you, Lora, -here’s some of ’em:</p> - -<div class="center"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<div>A Toyle for 2 legged Foxes.</div> -<div>A Cordiall for Comfort.</div> -<div>Burton wearing His Spur.</div> -<div>Memorable Conceits.</div> -<div>Jacob’s Ladder.</div> -<div>The Review of Rome.</div> -<div>Troubles of y<sup>e</sup> Church of Amsterdam.</div> -<div><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_279" id="Page_279">[Pg 279]</a></span>A Garland of Vertuous Dames.</div> -<div>Romances of Brittannia.</div> -</div></div></div> - -<p>“There, heard you ever the like? It ever seems to me as if these writer -folk hetcheled their brains to find some title for their books that -will prick curiosity to the quick and force a man to buy, that he may -certify himself what ‘A Toyle for 2 Legged Foxes’ may truly mean. Is’t -not so?”</p> - -<p>“Haply. I’ll get father to beg the Elder to lend him that ‘Romance of -Brittannia,’ for it sounds right relishing in mine ears.”</p> - -<p>“And you love to read?”</p> - -<p>“Dearly well.”</p> - -<p>“Then you should have been a nun. They made much of me at Los Dolores, -because I could, when I would, read the ‘Life of Teresa de Jesus’ to -them.”</p> - -<p>“And when you would not, could you not?” asked Lora mischievously.</p> - -<p>“Indeed I couldn’t. I miscalled the words, I gabbled, I lost my place, -I dropped the book, I doubled the corners and broke the parchment,—oh, -they were glad enough to let me off, the poor nuns, the poor nuns!”</p> - -<p>“And did you like the convent, Gillian?” asked Lora, so wistfully that -the other paused a moment as if struck with a new idea; then throwing -down her turkey’s wing she crouched upon the wolfskin, and nursing a -knee between her clasped hands looked up into the pale face clearly -defined against the dark leather of the chair-back, as she slowly -said,—</p> - -<p>“Why, what a nun you’d make, Lora Standish! Passing strange I never -thought of it before.”</p> - -<p>“Methinks ’twould be a happy life,” replied Lora, stifling a sigh. </p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_280" id="Page_280">[Pg 280]</a></span></p> - -<p>“Happy! Well, for you it may be. Your father is of the old religion, is -he not?”</p> - -<p>“I do not know, for he says naught and will hear naught about it. You -know he will not join the church here, although mother belongs to it, -and when we all were christened he said lay baptism was better than -none; but he goes to meeting as we all do, and gives as much as any man -to the support of the minister. He knows best, doubtless, and mother -and I do not much care to know all his mind.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, ay!” replied Gillian, who had listened attentively, and now shook -her head as if discarding some plan. Then lowering her gaze from Lora’s -face to the fire, now crumbling into caverns, and vistas, and toppling -turrets, and fantastic feathery piles of ashes, she slowly said,—</p> - -<p>“’Tis out of possibility, but I would well have liked to see you a -sister of Donna Maria de los Dolores. It would have been a heaven on -earth to you, and the guimpe and coif and barb ought to suit you as -jewels do me.</p> - -<p>“Oh ’twas so fair there betimes!” continued she with sudden passion. -“I mind me of one even just before my father fetched me away to see my -mother die, one even in deep midsummer, and after vespers we walked in -the garden, the sisters and another girl and I. Such a garden, Lora, -oh, such a garden as you never dreamed of in these hateful northern -solitudes! Closed all round with a high gray stone wall covered with -passion flowers and jessamine and gay trumpet flowers, a bank of -bloom and greenery that seemed to us the end of the world, for the -banana-trees no more than reached the top of it, and inside, smooth -green<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_281" id="Page_281">[Pg 281]</a></span> walks bordered with every flower that grows, and more especially -all that are sweet and bewildering of perfume; for, Lora, when a woman -puts on a nun’s robes she does not cease to be a woman, and while with -the one hand she flings her flask of essences and her pomander box into -the fire, with the other she plants a bed of pinks, to flaunt their -color and send up their spicy odors for her delight.”</p> - -<p>“Who cared for the garden at Los Dolores?” asked Lora, vaguely uneasy -at the other’s tone.</p> - -<p>“Oh, the sisters one and another. ’Twas rare recreation for them, and -never permitted to those in penitence. They even mowed the lawns, and -shaved the paths, and rolled the gravel, for it was a great and wide -garden, with room in it for one to get away alone and entertain the -blue devils in solitude.”</p> - -<p>“Nay, Gillian, but could devils, blue or black, ever overpass that high -wall you told of?”</p> - -<p>“Could they? Oh, well—at least they never would have found you when -they searched for prey, so much I believe, maid Lora.”</p> - -<p>“But tell me more of the garden.”</p> - -<p>“Well, as I say, ’twas wide and fair and perfectly ordered, and there -was a fountain where a poor ball still was tossed up and down, up and -down upon the current, till I used by times to snatch it off in very -pity and toss it into a posy-bed to rest awhile, but Sister Marina -always found it and put it back. Then there were bosquets, where the -sun never came; and there were bordered walks, and benches under some -great cork-trees at the foot of the garden; and there were, in their -time, Annunciation lilies as fair and sweet as that Señor Don Gabriel -laid at the feet of Madonna Mary, and roses<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_282" id="Page_282">[Pg 282]</a></span> like those among which she -laid her little Jesu to sleep; and there were incense trees where the -berries and gums and bark grew that the sisters gathered so solemnly, -and dried and brayed in a special mortar, and that smelt so sweet when -the sister thurifer swung her censer up and down, and this way and -that, to keep it alight till the priest who said mass on the great days -was ready to take it from her.</p> - -<p>“And there were goldfish in the fountain and birds in the trees,—oh, -such glorious birds, and some of them so sweet of song! and there was -a pond where the nuns fattened great fishes for Friday dinners, and -feasted better on them than on the flesh of other days.</p> - -<p>“But I was going to tell you of a time, one of the last times I ever -walked in that garden or slept in my little whitewashed cell at -Dolores. Ah, now, mayhap I had been a better girl had they left me -there. Well, we walked up and down the wide grassy middle alley, the -sisters, and Inez de Soza and I, and all of us were merry, for the -Mother Superior was in a good temper and the prioress had got on her -talking-cap, and we girls and the novices asked no better than to laugh -at all our elders’ jests and cry Oh, marvelous! to all their stories, -when all at once the sister portress came down the old mossy steps -from the house, and kneeling to the Superior, who bade her rise, for -it was recreation time and all rules were relaxed, she told her that a -Dominican friar was at the gate with a comrade and asked lodging in the -priest’s chamber outside the wall.</p> - -<p>“‘But surely! When did we refuse hospitality to a holy man, Sister -Juana?’ replied the mother. ‘Have him in with his comrade and give him -supper in the sacristy; when he has refreshed himself I will see him -there.’ </p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_283" id="Page_283">[Pg 283]</a></span></p> - -<p>“‘But he also begs permission to preach to the sisters,’ persisted old -Juana, who was as obstinate as a mule; and as the Mother paused upon -her reply, Inez and I who held her hands cried,—</p> - -<p>“‘Oh, do, reverend Mother, oh, do let us hear a sermon!’ and she -laughing said:—</p> - -<p>“‘Well, yes, perhaps ’twill turn your hearts from the world to religion -as I have not been able to do.’</p> - -<p>“So we walked another turn or so and then went into the chapel, which -was full of that soft purple shadow that fills such places as the -night falls without. The wide door to the garden stood open, and I -placed myself at the end of the bench so that I could well look out and -see and smell and listen to the world while the friar should talk of -religion.</p> - -<p>“Oh, maiden, ’twas as strange an hour and as sweet as ever I knew or -shall know! Outside was that fair garden, with the last rays of the sun -touching the crests of the trees, the palms and cork-trees and acacias, -and the fountain vainly leaping up to reach the sunlight, and the birds -at their vespers, and the blinding sweets of the posy-beds, and just -outside the door a great banana-tree that swayed and rustled in the -breeze, and threw its long green leaves like wooing arms in at the -door as if to drag me out, wooed me so strangely that if I looked and -listened too long I must have yielded and leaped out to its embrace. -And inside there was the dusky chapel with the pictures of the saints -glimmering from the walls, and the white Christ upon his cross with his -eyes downbent to mine, and such a passion of pleading in them as seemed -to drag the heart from my breast, and the sisters in their white robes -and rosaries, tinkling beads, and the blue cross sewed upon the breast -of each<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_284" id="Page_284">[Pg 284]</a></span> fading into the white, and their pure profiles downcast as -they listened; and there above us all in the dim obscurity of the place -the pulpit, of some black wood, and rising out of it that gaunt gray -figure of the friar, his face pale and worn, his eyes ablaze with the -fervor of his thought, his emaciated hands upraised, and his air now -that of an angel of mercy, now a minister of vengeance and wrath.</p> - -<p>“Oh, how he preached, that man! How his words poured out like a river -in spring and carried all before them like that river in a freshet! -Long ere he was done I was on my knees crying my heart out, and bowing -myself to God in a life of sanctity and religion,—had he given me the -chance, I would have dedicated myself as a novice that very night; and -before he was done I had whispered to Inez,—</p> - -<p>“‘Take your vows with me to-morrow,’ but she replied,—</p> - -<p>“‘Yon comrade of the friar is no monk!’ And looking where she looked -I saw close by the door where the Dominican had placed him a man in a -friar’s robe and cowl to be sure, but with bold black eyes that gazed -like those of a caged bird at all around, resting most often upon Inez -and me, who were the only ones who wore not the sisters’ livery, but -our own white school frocks and little caps. Somehow the sight of that -face and the regard of those bold eyes scattered all my holy mood as -the sun scorches up the dew and— But there, there, I’ll say naught to -shock you, pale saint. ’Twas a fair picture, though, was’t not?”</p> - -<p>“Yes, passing fair,” replied Lora dreamily, “and I were well content to -spend my life in such a blessed retreat.” </p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_285" id="Page_285">[Pg 285]</a></span></p> - -<p>“Your life, maiden! Nay, you have faith in God?”</p> - -<p>“Why surely, Gillian! Who has not?” And Lora’s clear gray eyes rested -in a sort of alarm upon the sombre face of the girl at her feet, who -only shook her head, murmuring,—</p> - -<p>“And God will care for his own.”</p> - -<hr /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_286" id="Page_286">[Pg 286]</a></span></p> - -<h2>CHAPTER XXVIII.</h2> - -<p class="bold">A SALT-FISH DINNER.</p> - -<p>“Nay, Betty, flout me not! ’Tis an honest word I’ve said to you, and I -look to have it answered honestly.”</p> - -<p>“I know not what you call honest, Master Alexander Standish”—</p> - -<p>“There, now! You can’t even speak without a gibe at my high-sounding -name. I count it right down unkind, Betty”—</p> - -<p>“Then if I don’t please you, there’s the road home. Isn’t your name -Alexander in very sooth, or is that a by-name your mother calls you for -short?”</p> - -<p>“It seems to me, Mistress Alden, that your humor is a little shrewish.”</p> - -<p>“There, that will do! Never speak to me again so long as you’ve breath -to speak at all.”</p> - -<p>“Nay, Betty, I crave your pardon. ’Twas rude of me, but you put me past -my patience.”</p> - -<p>“Which is such a straitened foothold the least jostle will drive you -from it.”</p> - -<p>“Betty, I love you. Will you be my wife?”</p> - -<p>“Trust a modest man for impudence, when once he makes a start.”</p> - -<p>“Betty, I pray you lay aside this mood, and answer me seriously. ’Tis -my just due, maiden, and John Alden’s daughter should be honest.”</p> - -<p>“Well, then, Alick, in all sadness I will answer you—no.” </p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_287" id="Page_287">[Pg 287]</a></span></p> - -<p>“Do you mean it, Betty?”</p> - -<p>“As I mean to be saved.”</p> - -<p>“And will you so far humor your oldest friend as to tell him why?”</p> - -<p>“You do not love me as the man I wed must love, nor do I love you save -as a dear friend of childhood, and as such I shall ever love you. As -such and no more.”</p> - -<p>“I do not love you, say you, lass?”</p> - -<p>“No. You fain would marry some one out of hand, because Gillian has -fooled you, and you’re longing to show her that you care as little as -she.”</p> - -<p>“What—who—did she say such a thing, Betty?”</p> - -<p>“Nay. Oh, Alick, I must laugh,—you look so red and so befogged!—like -the sun rising on a misty morning.”</p> - -<p>“Who told you—what puts it in your head that I care for Gillian?”</p> - -<p>“I said not you cared for her; I said she’d fooled you; and ’twas mine -own eyes and mother wit told me, and no one else. She’s played with you -as my Tabby does with a mouse, only at the last she let you slip from -under her claws, not quite killed, and you ran to your old gossip to -have the wound salved; that’s all!”</p> - -<p>“And do you believe it was all put on? Do you truly think she cared -nothing at all for me?”</p> - -<p>“No more than she did for your brother Josias, or my brothers David and -Joseph, or Constant Southworth, or, or—the rest”—</p> - -<p>“The rest! Oh, you mean Will Pabodie, don’t you? You’ve noted how of -late she’s all eyes and ears for him.”</p> - -<p>“Nay, I’ve noted naught.” The words were few<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_288" id="Page_288">[Pg 288]</a></span> and the voice was cold, -but something in the tone made Alick Standish look keenly into the face -of his old friend. It was scarlet, and the brave brown eyes were full -of tears; but as Betty caught his look she returned it with one of -right royal defiance.</p> - -<p>“Poor David!” said she, steadying her voice with a mighty effort, “he -has not got over Tabby’s love-pats yet. He’s worse off than you, Alick. -But here we are at home. Come in and have a mug of cider or a noggin of -milk after your walk, won’t you, lad?”</p> - -<p>“I’ll have the milk and thank you kindly. Isn’t that Sally peeping out -of the dairy window?”</p> - -<p>“Yes, she’s dairy-maid this week, and will give you the milk. You’ll -catch her in her short gown and petticoat.”</p> - -<p>“Won’t she be vexed?” asked the young man, with a smile anything but -heart-broken.</p> - -<p>“She’ll not eat you if she is. Open the door of a sudden and catch -her at work,” whispered Betty; and Alick, the smile broadening into -mischief, sharply pushed back the cleated door, revealing the figure of -a tall girl, who, with arms bare to the shoulders, was at that moment -tossing a great mass of yellow butter high into the air, her lithe -form well displayed as she leaned back and held up her hands to catch -her ponderous plaything. A linen cloth pinned around the forehead just -above the brows formed a piquant frame for the rosy, dimpling Greuze -face, with its sweet blue eyes and pure but tender lips; a lovely -innocent maiden, and as Alick Standish looked at her as if for the -first time, while she, suffering the butterball to drop upon the stone -slab in front of her, would fain have pulled her kirtle straight, but -dared not touch it with her<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_289" id="Page_289">[Pg 289]</a></span> moist hands, and half cried in her pretty -confusion, he knew as by a revelation that all his other fancies had -been but dreams and follies, and here before him stood the woman, whom -out of all the world he would choose to be his wife,—the woman whom he -could love, and love to the end.</p> - -<p>But while the man’s heart leaped up within him, like his who, searching -for mica, suddenly comes upon diamonds, all that rose to the lips was a -little laugh, and the prosaic petition,—</p> - -<p>“Might I have a noggin of milk?”</p> - -<p>“Surely. Betty shall give it you— Nay, she’s gone. Well, wait but -till I wash my hands and put my butter down in the cellar hole. Mayhap -you’ll lift up the trap for me.”</p> - -<p>“Of course I will! Where is it?”</p> - -<p>“Just here.” And tapping with one foot, Sally Alden showed an iron ring -set into the floor, and evidently intended to raise a big trap door in -the middle of the dairy. Throwing it back so that it rested upon the -floor, Alick looked down the steep steps into the little deep and cool -cellar, which in those days imperfectly forestalled the refrigerator of -to-day.</p> - -<p>“Let me carry down the butter for you, Sally,” said he. “’Tis too -steep.”</p> - -<p>“’Tis no steeper than it was last week, or will be next,” laughed Sally -in a sweet tremor of bashful joy; for Alick was her hero, and hitherto -had only treated her as one of the children. “But if you like, you may -hand me the dish after I am down.”</p> - -<p>“Yes, indeed. It looks like the head of John Baptist on a charger, as -’tis seen in the Elder’s big Bible.”</p> - -<p>“And so it does,” replied the girl, glancing with a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_290" id="Page_290">[Pg 290]</a></span> new interest at -the great ball of butter in the middle of the pewter platter, which -Alexander held aloft in mimicry of the picture both had seen as -children.</p> - -<p>Then presently, the butter deposited, the trap door closed, and the -noggin of milk presented and quaffed, the two came through the long -passage dividing the dairy from the kitchen, and were met by the -mistress of the house, our Priscilla, a little older, but still as -charming as when we first knew her, and showing among her daughters -like the rose among its buds, the glorious fulfillment of a gracious -promise.</p> - -<p>“Good-morrow to you, Alick. Go into the sitting-room, you and -Betty,—or no; Sally, you’ve been busy while Betty was on her travels, -you go and make Alick miserable till dinner’s dished”—</p> - -<p>“Nay, dame, I’m beholden to you, but I must go”—</p> - -<p>“Surely you must go, but not without your dinner, my lad. ’Tis Saturday -and salt-fish dinner, you know, and I’ll warrant me your mother’s ’ll -be no better than I shall give you.”</p> - -<p>“My mother’d be the first to say she’s no match for Mistress Alden in -delicate cookery.”</p> - -<p>“There, there, go say your pretty things to the girls, Sally or Betty, -it matters not which, but don’t whet your wit on an old woman like me. -Be off with you!”</p> - -<p>Laughing and well pleased that fortune so favored his half-formed -wishes, Alick followed Sally through the sitting-room to the front -door, standing wide open to the summer; and then, sitting on the -threshold, their feet upon the great natural doorstone which their -children’s and their children’s children’s feet should press, the man -and the maid entered into that fairyland we all pass through once in -our lives. </p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_291" id="Page_291">[Pg 291]</a></span></p> - -<div class="center"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<div>“And some give thanks, and some blaspheme,</div> -<div>And most forget, but either way,</div> -<div>That and the child’s forgotten dream</div> -<div>Are all the light of all our day.”</div> -</div></div></div> - -<p>“Alick! Sally! Come to dinner!” cried Betty’s blithe voice; but as the -young man arose and turned his glowing face toward her, she stared at -it for a moment in astonishment, and then turned sharply away to hide -the smile that would in her own despite curl her lips.</p> - -<p>“They’re stronger than we women in some ways, but they’re wondrously -weak in others,” was the thought beneath that smile.</p> - -<p>In the great airy kitchen, where no fire was made in the warm weather, -a table was spread large enough to accommodate, besides the heads of -the family, their eight children, and the two men and a woman who lived -in the house really as “help,” and not servants.</p> - -<p>A fourteenth seat was now placed for the guest between Betty and -her brother Joseph, still his mother’s true lover and helper, but -Alick noted with pleasure that Sally sat opposite, and gave him the -opportunity to study her face, which he seemed never to have seen -before.</p> - -<p>The long grace ended, and the clatter of chairs and feet upon the bare -floor a little subsided, John Alden, viewing with satisfaction the -great codfish lying at full length upon the platter yet longer than -itself, said,—</p> - -<p>“George Soule has had more than ordinary luck with his dunfish this -season; don’t they say so at your house, Alick?”</p> - -<p>“Yes, sir, a small share, if you please.”</p> - -<p>Alden stared, and his wife interposed:—</p> - -<p>“He says he’ll have some, father. Did you know<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_292" id="Page_292">[Pg 292]</a></span> that George Soule had -set up as dry-salter for the town, Alick?”</p> - -<p>“Yes, I heard so. Indeed, father bought a quintal of dun and another of -white fish of him,” replied Alick, wondering what Betty and Sally were -laughing about.</p> - -<p>“Now I don’t see why the captain portioned them that fashion,” -mused John Alden, rapidly distributing the fish into fourteen empty -trenchers. “For doubtless he knows as well as I, or rather your mother -knows as well as our housewife here, that the only way to cook your -fish aright is to bind a good dunfish carefully between two whitefish, -and steep the three all night in lukewarm water; then in the morning -to cast out that water and put in fresh, and again steep it so nigh -the fire that it ever tries to boil yet never makes out. Finally, -when all else is ready, master dunfish is released from his bondage, -and carefully laid upon a platter unbroken, while his bedfellows the -whitefish are thrown to the ducks or the pigs”—</p> - -<p>“Or made into a mince wherein no man can tell the white from the dun -fish,” interposed Priscilla. “Why, father, I should suppose you’d -been ship’s cook all your youth, and major-domo ever since. I never -mistrusted you knew how a salt codfish should be cooked.”</p> - -<p>“I see a mort of things I don’t talk about,” retorted Alden quietly, -“and if you knew not more than most women, I could tell you just how -master tomcod should be served.”</p> - -<p>“Try it, father!” cried Betty, who was her father’s darling and might -say what she liked, because she never liked to say anything amiss. -“Tell us now without looking around the board, tell us what should lie -on it to be eaten with salt codfish.” </p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_293" id="Page_293">[Pg 293]</a></span></p> - -<p>“Well, there must be a white sauce, compounded of cream and wheaten -flour and butter; and there must be pork-scraps cut in dice and fried -of a dainty brown; and there must be beets boiled tender, but not -cut to let out the color; and there must be parsnips and turnips and -onions; and there must be brown bread and white bread; and there must -be sallet oil and mustard; and above all, there must be a good flagon -of cider, and another to back it.”</p> - -<p>“Right, right! Here’s every one of the things you told about and more, -for here’s a dish of those roots John Howland got in Boston of the -sloop trading to the Carolinas. Molly begged so hard for them that -mother cooked some, but I doubt if they will suit with salt fish.”</p> - -<p>“Father told of eating some in Boston, but we’ve had none as yet,” said -Alick, and Sally, taking up one of the sweet potatoes, broke it in two -and handed a piece across the table to Alick, who, eating it skin and -all, as if it were a fruit, declared it with sincerity to be the most -delicious morsel he had ever tasted.</p> - -<p>“I’ve an apple pasty to follow,” announced Priscilla, as her husband -pushed away his plate. “Rachel, you and Timothy may take away the -trenchers and bring some fresh ones; and Sally, have you a jug of cream -and a morsel of cheese for us in your dairy?”</p> - -<p>“Yes, indeed, mother,” and Sally, glad to escape Alick’s scrutiny, -jumped up and retreated to the dairy.</p> - -<p>“While John Howland was in Boston he saw Ras Brewster,” said Joseph -to keep up the conversation, which rather lagged through Betty’s -preoccupation and her mother’s housewifely cares.</p> - -<p>“He has been at Kennebec all this time, hasn’t he?” asked Alick with -somewhat languid interest. </p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_294" id="Page_294">[Pg 294]</a></span></p> - -<p>“Yes, but Master Winslow sent for him to company him to England. Will -they make any stay there, father?”</p> - -<p>“The Lord only knows, my son,” returned Alden with a ponderous sigh. -“The Bay people, that is to say the authorities, have to my mind done -an ill-advised thing in tolling Edward Winslow away from us. They say -he has a skillful tongue and good acquaintance with the ways of courts; -and so he hath, so he hath, but also he has a home, and comrades of -old time who look to him for comfort and aid, the more that so many of -the old stock are removed by death or distance. It is not well done of -the Bay people, and much do I hope that Winslow will not deeply engage -himself in their concerns.”</p> - -<p>“And Wrastle has gone with him?” asked Alick in a low voice of Joseph, -who nodded assent, adding presently, as his father lapsed into -silence,—</p> - -<p>“He’ll be writer and keep the papers,—a secretary, Master Winslow -called it; and Ras said there was no knowing when he might come back.”</p> - -<p>“Now here’s the pie, and the cheese, and the cream, and some fresh -nutcakes, and some metheglin; so cease your lament, John, and be merry -while you may!” cried Priscilla, cutting the pie, which was baked in a -great iron basin, and was more of a pudding than a pie, as it needed to -be, since fourteen hungry mouths were to feed upon it.</p> - -<hr /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_295" id="Page_295">[Pg 295]</a></span></p> - -<h2>CHAPTER XXIX.</h2> - -<p class="bold">TOO LATE! TOO LATE!</p> - -<p>The Thursday evening lecture was over, and Barbara Standish, with -her son Josias and some of the neighbors, strayed homeward along the -footpath leading from Harden Hill to the Brewster and Standish farms; -but Lora lingered with her father, who spoke of English politics with -Kenelm Winslow, who had just received a letter from his brother Edward -now at the English court.</p> - -<p>“One moment, Captain,” said the Elder’s grave and friendly voice, as -Winslow bade good-night, and Standish turned to look after Lora who had -strayed down toward the water. “One moment before you summon the little -maid. I have letters from England”—</p> - -<p>“And I too, God save the mark!” growled Standish, who all the evening -had worn the face of a thundercloud.</p> - -<p>“Ill news, I fear,” said his friend gently.</p> - -<p>“Not more ill than one who has known the world for half a century -should look for; naught more novel than falsehood, and treachery, and -covetousness, and wrong.”</p> - -<p>“Nay, friend Myles, nay, my brother; ‘Charity suffereth long and is -kind’”—</p> - -<p>“Suffereth long, but opens her eyes at last. However, I will not burden -you with mine own griefs, Elder; you had somewhat to say to me.” </p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_296" id="Page_296">[Pg 296]</a></span></p> - -<p>“Yes, but I fear me ’tis in an ill-chosen time. Your spirit is much -disturbed.”</p> - -<p>“Not so much that I cannot heed my duty, sir.”</p> - -<p>“Nay, Myles, take not so stern a tone with your ancient friend and -constant well-wisher. I fain would touch the tender spot that well -I know lies deep within your heart. I would speak of our children, -Captain.”</p> - -<p>“Ah! and you have heard from Rastle?”</p> - -<p>“Yes. A long letter, the full outpouring of his heart, and still the -song has but one refrain, the story but one theme. Can you guess it, -friend?”</p> - -<p>“Ay, I can guess it.”</p> - -<p>“And fain would hear no more on’t?”</p> - -<p>“I know not, Elder, I know not; of a truth my soul is vexed within me, -and shapes of wrath and bloodshed that I had thought buried with the -old life have wakened and are thundering at the gate of my will. Had I -that man here on this convenient sod, and I with Gideon in mine hand”—</p> - -<p>The grating of strong teeth, set all unconsciously, closed the -sentence, and in the soft gray of the twilight hour the Elder examined -the face of his companion with anxious scrutiny, then sternly spoke:—</p> - -<p>“Man! Satan is at your shoulder and whispering in your ear! I can all -but see and hear him.”</p> - -<p>“All but!” laughed Standish. “There is no peradventure about it to me.”</p> - -<p>“Call that pure maid to your side, and the Evil One will flee.”</p> - -<p>“Nay. Tell me what your boy says. Haply ’tis a better time than you -could guess.”</p> - -<p>The old man once more examined the face Standish would neither avert -nor soften, and then, unable to <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_297" id="Page_297">[Pg 297]</a></span>comprehend, yet following meekly the -intuitions that guide faithful souls in such matters, he drew from -his breast a folded sheet of the coarse rough paper Spielmann had in -England taught the men of Dartford to manufacture at a cost which would -terrify Marcus Ward to-day, and slowly unfolding it said,—</p> - -<p>“I will read you my lad’s own words. The first page doth but tell of -his voyage and his situation in fair lodgings with Edward Winslow, who -is as a father to him, and then he goes on:—</p> - -<blockquote><p>“‘There are many fair ladies at the court who kindly notice me -as Master Winslow’s associate; but, father, you know how it is -with my heart, for I fully laid it open to you before I went -away, sore hurt by what Captain Standish said to me the day you -wot of; nor have I seen the lady of my love since that day, nor -shall I, as I think, while we two abide below. And yet, sir, her -image is more present to mine eyes than are the faces of these -dames, or even your own, though there is naught so dear to me in -this world as yourself,—that is to say, if you will bear with -my fantasy, there’s naught outside of me so dear as my father; -but Lora is within, the life of my life and essence of my being, -and how should a man say his own being is dear to him, for to -what should his own being belong save to itself and the God who -gave it? Honored father, I feel that I should crave pardon of -your dignity for thus claiming its indulgence of a lover’s fond -imaginings; but, sir, you know how since my mother’s death left me -a little lonely child, your tenderness and care have filled both a -father’s and mother’s room in my life, and to-day I speak to you -as I might to her had she been alive; and as I dream of laying -my head in her lap and feeling her hand upon my<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_298" id="Page_298">[Pg 298]</a></span> hair and her -half-remembered voice in mine ears, so now I come to you and say, -I love this maid. I love her with all the power of loving God hath -given me. I love her as Jacob did Rachel, as Isaac did Rebecca, -ay, my father, as you did my mother, and life will never reach its -fullness for me except I may mingle it with her pure life. Father, -is there no hope? Is there no seven years’ or fourteen years’ -probation that may for me pass as a few days for love of her? Will -not you speak once again to the captain for me? I know not how -she feels concerning me. When I spoke to her on that fair eve it -was like arousing a child from its dreams of heaven; she knew not -what I meant, nor how far her own heart could respond to a love -whose face and voice as yet were strange to her; but with all -her tender innocence she hath a singular aptness of mind, and a -delicate discrimination that will ere now have spoken to her heart -many a homily drawn from the text I gave her in that sweet hour. -I cannot tell, I dare not think, but something within me dares to -hope that Lora loves me. Oh, how fair those words look set down on -paper, <span class="smcap">Lora loves me!</span> Nay, father, I have spent a good -half hour in staring at those three words as if they were some new -gospel of hope. Father! I dare not ask your indulgence, and yet -I know I have it, and well do you know when I thus unveil what -some men would call my weakness to your eyes, that my reverence -never was greater or more profound; but as I writ before, ’tis to -my mother in you that I dare tell all these the deepest secrets -of my heart. And now I will say no more, lest repetition weaken -what hath already been said. But you will speak to the captain, -will you not? Tell him—nay, you shall, if you see fit and find -him in the mood, you shall<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_299" id="Page_299">[Pg 299]</a></span> show him this letter; for though -’twas written for no eyes but my father’s and mother’s, ’tis the -truth as I would speak it before God, and if all went as I would -have it, Lora’s father should be my father too,—not like you, -mine own father, but in some sort; and well do I know how dear he -loves mine own sweet maid. Mayhap that love in him will answer to -this cry of love from me, since both are fixed upon the same dear -object. But there! I will stop at this word, for should I go on -all night and all to-morrow, my pen could only trace again and -again the words it hath so often writ. I love her, I love her, I -love her!</p> - -<p>“‘On this other slip of paper I have copied out some verses lent -me by a lady of the court, Countess of Pembroke she is called, -and a right sweet and fair dame she is; but still I must speak of -her as Sir Henry Wotton, who wrote the verses, saith to all other -ladies as compared with his sovereign lady, the English princess -whom he served after she became queen of Bohemia,—</p> - -<div class="center"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<div class="i8">“What’s your praise,</div> -<div>When Philomel her voice doth raise!”</div> -</div></div></div> - -<p>“‘And so with my humble duty and constant affection, I am, dear -sir,</p> - -<p class="right">Your humble and obedient son,<span class="s3"> </span><br /> -<span class="smcap">Wrestling Brewster</span>.</p> - -<p>“‘P. S. The copy of verses is meant for Mistress Lora’s own hand, -if her father makes no objection.</p> - -<p class="right">W. B.’”</p></blockquote> - -<p>“And here are the verses,” said the Elder, as the captain took the -letter and immediately gave it back, while conflicting emotions strove -eloquently upon his face. Then accepting the second paper, and turning -his shoulder to the failing light, he read half aloud:— </p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_300" id="Page_300">[Pg 300]</a></span></p> - -<div class="center"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<div>“‘Ye meaner beauties of the night,</div> -<div>That poorly satisfy our eyes</div> -<div>More by your number than your light,</div> -<div>You common people of the skies,</div> -<div>What are you when the sun shall rise!</div> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<div>“‘You curious chanters of the wood</div> -<div>That warble forth Dame Nature’s lays,</div> -<div>Thinking your meaning understood</div> -<div>By your weak accents, what’s your praise</div> -<div>When Philomel her voice doth raise!</div> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<div>“‘Ye violets that first appear,</div> -<div>By your pure purple mantles known,</div> -<div>Like the proud virgins of the year</div> -<div>As if the spring were all your own,</div> -<div>What are you when the rose is blown!</div> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<div>“‘So when my mistress shall be seen</div> -<div>In form and beauty of her mind,</div> -<div>By virtue first, then choice a queen,</div> -<div>Tell me, is she not one designed</div> -<div>The Eclipse and Glory of her kind?’”</div> -</div></div></div> - -<p>Folding the verses, Standish held out his hand for the letter, and -placed the one carefully within the other, his deliberate movements -betraying the preoccupation of his mind; then raising his gloomy eyes -to the Elder’s face, he said,—</p> - -<p>“Your son speaks of Rebecca. When Isaac’s ambassador asked her from her -kinsfolk they made answer, ‘We will call the damsel, and inquire at her -mouth.’ So say I to you, Elder.”</p> - -<p>“What! if Lora consent, you will not refuse her to my son?”</p> - -<p>“We will call the damsel, and inquire at her mouth. Oh, no, we will -not startle her again, as your son <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_301" id="Page_301">[Pg 301]</a></span>confesses that he did on that -ill-starred night. Give me the letter if you will, and I will bid her -read and ponder it through the night, and to-morrow I will come and -tell you; or no,—if it be as you wish, she shall come herself and tell -you.”</p> - -<p>“I felt that my boy’s words must move a father’s heart,” replied the -Elder with a loving complacency, which sank abashed before the fierce -glance of the captain’s eyes, as he strode away, muttering,—</p> - -<p>“Had not they suited my purpose, his mops and mows had been my scoff.”</p> - -<p>Down near the edge of the bluff that finishes Harden Hill stood Lora, -leaning lightly against a birch, whose silver bark seemed some quaint -ornament of her white samite robe, like the gauzy scarf thrown around -her head and shoulders. One slender foot in its silver-buckled shoe -showed beneath the hem of her robe as if about to follow the earnest -gaze bent seaward. So profound was the maiden’s meditation that she did -not hear her father’s step, and was only roused by his sombre voice -asking,—</p> - -<p>“Of what are you dreaming, Lora?”</p> - -<p>“Oh! Is it time to go home, father?”</p> - -<p>“Of what are you dreaming, child?”</p> - -<p>“Nay, father dear, my dreams are not worth the telling.” And with a -pretty air of coaxing the girl turned and laid a hand upon her father’s -arm; but he, withdrawing a step, almost sternly persisted,—</p> - -<p>“But yet I will know them, Lora. Tell me truly, of what or of whom were -you thinking, and why did you look so earnestly over the sea?”</p> - -<p>“The moon is rising, father,” stammered the young girl with a piteous -attempt at unconcern. “I was looking at her.” </p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_302" id="Page_302">[Pg 302]</a></span></p> - -<p>“’Tis not like you, my maid, to trifle and palter in your replies. Will -you tell me of what or of whom you thought?”</p> - -<p>“Nay, father, if you insist I must obey, but mayhap you’ll be vexed at -my thought.”</p> - -<p>“Mayhap ’tis my own thought, child. Mayhap I’ve come to wish what you -were wishing as you looked over the sea.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, no, no, father, and no indeed!” cried Lora with a horror-stricken -look upon her face. “’Tis not your wish, and yet perhaps ’twill be -what—and it may be but mine own foolish fancy, but I was thinking, -father dear, that if the time comes soon, I would well like to lie -just here under this loving tree that seems bending to clip me in its -arms; just here, father, on this little slope, with the sea singing -lullaby at my feet, and the fair moon making a silver road from earth -to heaven, and the whispering leaves of the birch,—to lie down still -and dreamless, with this my robe of white samite folded close around my -feet, and my hair, so far too heavy now, uncoiled and unbraided, and -my two hands clasped upon my breast, and some of mother’s fair white -posies beneath them”—</p> - -<p>“Lora! Lora! For Christ’s sweet sake, look at me! Look at me, darling, -and change that smile for one that I dare to meet! Change it for tears, -mine own, tears rather than such a smile; but no, no—see, here is -a letter, a letter full of this world’s love, and life, and a man’s -honest human longing to make my maid his wife. Wrestling wants to -marry you, my bird, my flower, my little Lora! Oh, Lora, Lora darling, -understand me, and take that awful smile from your lips! Wrestling -would marry you, and I give my full and free consent; yes, freely and -gladly, dear. See, here’s<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_303" id="Page_303">[Pg 303]</a></span> the letter, and some pretty poesy, and -such honey-sweet words,—take it, darling, and read it; or no,—’tis -gruesome here among the graves; come home to mother, and read it -sitting in her lap. Come, pussy, come! You love him, don’t you, my -lass? That’s all that ails you, isn’t it? Oh, say you love him and will -be his wife, and we’ll build you such a fair little home close beside -father’s, my poppet; and there’ll be little children by and by to call -me granddad, and make a hobby-horse of Gideon— Nay, nay, she hears not -a word! Lora! Lora! Speak to me!”</p> - -<p>“This letter, father! Did it come from Ras? Did he write it with his -own hand?”</p> - -<p>“Yes, my darling. Come home and read”—</p> - -<p>“I am reading it now, and more—and more.”</p> - -<p>“Nay, dear, you have not opened it.” And Myles, pale and trembling, -tried to take the letter from between Lora’s folded hands. But she, -drawing away, held it firmly, and gazing fixedly out to sea murmured,—</p> - -<p>“He loves me so! Dear lad! He loves me so, and thinks of all it may -cost him, and yet—brave Ras! brave and noble heart! She clings to -him, and he will not push her aside! Oh, poor woman, how she writhes -in her agony, and clings and clings; and now he has carried her -into the hovel and laid her down, and one says, ‘’Tis the plague, -and yon poor gentleman must die for his charity,’ and he turns away -and whispers, ‘Lora!’ Yes, darling, yes! I know now that I love -you, dear,—wait—nay, he cannot wait, but goes before, and I—will -come—yes, dear heart, I will”—</p> - -<p>And before her father could grasp her she slid from his hands, and lay -there beneath the birch-tree, the moon shining upon her white robe, and -her face as white, and the hands clasping the letter to her breast.</p> - -<hr /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_304" id="Page_304">[Pg 304]</a></span></p> - -<h2>CHAPTER XXX.</h2> - -<p class="bold">PEEPING TOM AND HIS BROTHER.</p> - -<p>Dame Alice Bradford sat alone in her fair bedroom, its latticed windows -swinging wide to admit the flower-laden breeze that, young and fresh -as when we saw it peeping in at the council of the fathers and the -stitching of the little maids, peeped now at the still figure of the -matron, sitting for once quite idle, her hands folded listlessly upon -her lap. She was thinking, as it chanced, of that very morning, long -ago, when the green footstool cover was finished, and her little Mercy -and Desire Howland had admired it so much, and each begun one like it; -and now Mercy, her one daughter, her little ewe lamb as she called her -in thought, was Mistress Vermayes, with a home in Boston and a grand -future before her, and Desire Howland was married to John Gorham; and -although her two boys William and Joseph were as good sons as a mother -need ask, they were sons, and not daughters, nor was Dame Alice in -haste to see them bring daughters home to her.</p> - -<p>A few slow, meek tears gathered in her eyes and overflowed just as -the door opened and the governor came in with a letter in his hand. A -glance at his wife showed him her case, and he said tenderly,—</p> - -<p>“Is it the empty nest, sweetheart, that grieves you?”</p> - -<p>“Nay, Will, how can I be lonesome while you are left to me?” </p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_305" id="Page_305">[Pg 305]</a></span></p> - -<p>“Well and bravely said, my wife, and yet I blame thee not, I blame thee -not. I miss the dear maid myself oftener than I would like to say. -But you know how oft we’ve spoke of your sister Mary Carpenter in her -lonely estate since her mother died”—</p> - -<p>“And my mother as well as hers,” suggested Alice with a little sob.</p> - -<p>“Why surely, dear heart, and I know well that you grieve for her; but -now I’ve written to Mary, bidding her come and make her home with us, -and offering to pay the charges of her voyage, since she is left in -such straitened case, and here’s the letter all ready to send by Kenelm -Winslow, who is summoned by his brother to England to receive some -instructions. Kenelm will go to Bristol and see Mary, but I have bidden -her not to wait for his escort back, but to come so soon as she can -light of safe company, since you need her here.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, Will dear, which shall I praise first, your tender thought for me, -or your goodness to my sister?”</p> - -<p>“Well, for that matter, dame, I fancy it all comes under one head, for -if it were not to pleasure you I know not that I should urge Mistress -Carpenter across the seas to bear me company.”</p> - -<p>“There’s a young gentlewoman below asking to see our dame,” said the -voice of Tabitha Rowse at the door, and Alice, with a gentle look of -love and thanks in her husband’s face, followed the girl downstairs, -and entering the new parlor said pleasantly,—</p> - -<p>“Oh, it is you, Mistress Gillian, is it? I should think Tabitha would -have remembered you.”</p> - -<p>“I have not been in Plymouth more than once or twice since the dear -Elder’s funeral,” said Gillian sorrowfully. </p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_306" id="Page_306">[Pg 306]</a></span></p> - -<p>“The dear Elder, yes,” replied Dame Alice. “He’s been mourned but once -among us, for the first mourning hath not ceased, nor will it soon with -those who knew and loved him.”</p> - -<p>“Yet none loved him like me, for he was the best friend, the only -friend I had in all the world!” And in a burst of emotion honest -enough, and yet more uncontrolled than the emotions of most persons -of that place and time, Gillian sobbed and cried, and hid her face -upon the cushion of the great chair beside which she had sunk, until -the dame, laying a hand upon the round shoulder whence the cape had -slipped, said kindly yet reprovingly,—</p> - -<p>“Nay, Gillian, ’tis not meet to give way to even the worthiest grief -in such fashion as this. Dry up your eyes now, while I go to fetch you -some orange-flower water, and when you have drunk it we will speak of -other matters.”</p> - -<p>“Nay, dear lady, I want no orange-flower water, nor to keep you longer -than need be, but I have come to you a beggar, and would fain make my -petition ere my courage fails.”</p> - -<p>“A petition, maiden? Well, now, what is it? Something that I can grant, -I hope, for I love to pleasure young maids for my dear daughter’s sake.”</p> - -<p>“Ah, sweet Dame Alice, if I might come and be a daughter to you! -There’s my petition all in one word,—that I may come and live with -you. Am I overbold?”</p> - -<p>“To live with me, Gillian? Why, how do you mean, child?”</p> - -<p>“Let me come and be in the place of a daughter and yet not claim a -daughter’s love or rights, unless, indeed,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_307" id="Page_307">[Pg 307]</a></span> I serve you so well that -you cannot but love me a little, and so comfort your own heart. I have -no home, and I know no one with whom I am so fain to live as with you, -dear dame.”</p> - -<p>“But your aunt, Lucretia Brewster”—</p> - -<p>“They are going to Connecticut as soon as may be, and my aunt says -she needs me not, if I can find another home, and Love Brewster and -his wife treat me ill, and since the dear, dear old Elder died I have -no one left to say one kind or careful word to me; and oh, dame, I do -wish, and more than once or twice, that I lay beside my mother”—</p> - -<p>“Poor child, poor orphan child!” murmured Alice Bradford, laying a hand -upon the girl’s silken tresses as the head rested against her knee in -all the abandonment of grief. “Yes, you shall come and stay with us for -a while, at least, if the governor consent, as I am sure he will, and -if your kinsfolk make no objection. Love and Sarah are here to-day, are -they not?”</p> - -<p>“Yes; Sarah’s father, Master Prence, is removing his chattels left in -the house he used while he was governor, and Love and Sarah came to -help him.” And Gillian, her end attained, rose gracefully to her feet, -straightened her dress and smoothed back her ruddy hair, while Dame -Alice, gazing out of the window toward the harbor, sadly thought of -the bereavement Plymouth that day was suffering; for a colony of some -of her best men, headed by Thomas Prence, with Nicholas Snow and his -wife, once Constance Hopkins, Cook, Doane, Bangs, and others, were -embarking with all their cattle and household goods for Nauset on the -Cape, there to found the town of Eastham, fondly dreaming it should -become the successor of Plymouth, which by<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_308" id="Page_308">[Pg 308]</a></span> successive emigrations, -deaths, and shrinkage of values seemed threatened with extinction, dull -and lifeless. As Bradford himself wrote that day in the journal so -invaluable to us all,—</p> - -<p>“Thus was this poor church left like an ancient mother, grown old and -forsaken of her children, until she that had made many rich herself -became poor.”</p> - -<p>Fighting against the depression of spirits and want of interest in what -remained that assailed his spirit, the governor gladly consented to -accept Gillian Brewster, as everybody called her, as an inmate of his -house, and a few days later she was installed in the pretty bedroom -first occupied by Priscilla Carpenter, now a portly and sedate matron, -wife of John Cooper, of Barnstable, and at a later date by Mercy -Bradford, lately become Mistress Vermayes. Nor did her new patrons -regret their generosity for some time to come, since the girl, warned -perhaps by late misadventures, restrained the “wicked lightnings of her -eyes” to such flashes of summer lightning as only served to startle and -amuse the beholder, or at most to suggest electrical forces beneath the -surface, and to arouse a certain interest in the nature that concealed -them. Sometimes, to be sure, the governor’s serious and intent gaze -would rest upon the girl’s face until she turned uneasily away, and -sometimes Dame Alice would speak in her gentle and pure-toned voice -of the beauty of modesty and reserve in a maiden’s character; but -William and Joseph noticed her hardly more than they did their mother’s -kitten, and when occasionally she tried some little coquetries upon -them, William would look bored and absent-minded, and Joseph laugh in -a satirical fashion hard for Gillian’s hot temper to endure. One word -between the brothers<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_309" id="Page_309">[Pg 309]</a></span> may explain much that to the girl herself never -was explained. It was spoken in the first days of Gillian’s sojourn -under their father’s roof, when the two young men, gun on shoulder, -were traversing the hills about Murdock’s Pond in search of birds to -tempt their mother’s languid appetite. It was Joseph who said, wiping -his brow and resting his “piece” upon a crotched tree, for the day was -warm,—</p> - -<p>“Bill, this maid Gillian is the one David Alden spoke of last harvest, -isn’t she?”</p> - -<p>“Ay, is she. And mind you, Joe, what he said of her?”</p> - -<p>“That she would wile a bird off a bough; yes, that’s what Dave said, -and Betty Alden, she puts in, ‘Allowing ’twas a male bird, so she -would.’”</p> - -<p>“Ay, Betty’s keen as a needle, and as straight. Well, Joe, if -she’s made a fool of a score, there’s no call for us to make it -two-and-twenty, is there?”</p> - -<p>“Indeed there’s not, and I wouldn’t vex the dear mother for a cargo of -red-gold heads like hers.”</p> - -<p>“Nor for any other. So, that’s settled, Joe, and you’re breathed by -now. Come on.”</p> - -<p>An hour later the young men, worn, weary, and sore athirst, welcomed -the sound of rushing waters, heard but not seen through the thick -foliage, and Joseph, in the advance as usual, cried out,—</p> - -<p>“Hullo! Here’s Jenney’s Mill close at hand. We’ve got enough birds -for a famous stew, so let’s stop and rest awhile, and speak with the -miller’s folk.”</p> - -<p>“‘Folk’ standing for Abby and Sally and Sue Jenney,” said William -provokingly.</p> - -<p>“And Sam and his new wife, who was a great friend of yours, Master -Bill, while she was called Nanny <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_310" id="Page_310">[Pg 310]</a></span>Lettice, and the Widow Jenney, who to -my mind is better company than the girls.”</p> - -<p>“Ho! Ho! Well, there’s naught like a sober mind to recommend a young -fellow, and I’m glad to see it cropping up in your field, Father -Joseph. Well, we’ll make a neighborly call upon the widow, and -while you talk about Parson Chauncey’s notions of immersion and Mr. -Ainsworth’s psalmody I’ll e’en say a word of a lighter sort to the -young gentlewomen.”</p> - -<p>“Have your jest, Will, have your jest,” returned the younger brother -coolly, “but I know somewhat you don’t.”</p> - -<p>“Think you do, I dare say! A wise man in his own conceit is Joe -Bradford.”</p> - -<p>But seeing that his brother, instead of being teased, was holding -himself very quiet and peeping through the branches of the young maples -crowding down to the brink of the little river Plymouth modestly calls -The Town Brook, William stepped softly behind him, and with something -of the guilty joy of Actæon, looked upon almost as fair a sight as he -did.</p> - -<p>No prettier spot was then, or until very lately, to be found in the -dear old town which is mother of us all, than Holmes’s Dam, or as it -then was called Jenney’s Mill, where in the midst of a dense wood The -Town Brook, rushing toward the sea, found itself at a very early date -impeded by a dam, more or less artificial and effectual according to -the owner, but always sufficient to turn the big wheel of the gristmill -first erected by Stephen Dean, husband of that Betty Ring who inherited -so little of her mother’s great estate, and afterward carried on by -burly John Jenney, who sat as Assistant at the council board when -Duxbury wrung consent for<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_311" id="Page_311">[Pg 311]</a></span> separate identity from the mother town. -And now John slept, although <i>not</i> with his English fathers, and his -widow jointly with her son Samuel administered the mill and ground the -grain not only of Plymouth, but of Duxbury, Sandwich, and several other -towns. With so wide a custom the miller’s was a flourishing business, -and might have been still more so had it been more carefully carried -on, but alas! John Jenney was a shipowner, and aspired to setting up -salt-works at Clark’s Island, and in fact had a soul above the pottles -of meal by which he was supposed to live; and when his widow succeeded -to his estate the customers complained that they were forced to share -their grain with rats and mice, and that the miller’s widow was too -easy tempered to be very efficient. Now, however, that the oldest son -was married and the daughters were grown up, things went better, and -the mill became a popular resort for the young people, especially in -hot weather.</p> - -<p>But all this time the governor’s sons are peeping through the boscage, -and we peeping with them see four young girls, their kirtles of blue -and white homespun linen drawn about their knees, while with bare -feet they comfortably paddle in a little pool formed by a bend of -the stream, floored with beach sand and bordered by a grassy bank, -whereon the four damsels sit, and chat with all the sweet volubility of -blackbirds. The rays of the morning sun sifting through the branches of -the young oaks overhead dance merrily upon heads of gold and brown, and -the flaxen locks that curl around Susan Jenney’s head, while her eyes, -blue as the blossom of the flax, gleam beneath as she says,—</p> - -<p>“We wouldn’t do this to-night, girls, would we?” </p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_312" id="Page_312">[Pg 312]</a></span></p> - -<p>“I dare say the lads wouldn’t say nay, if we asked them to a wading -match,” replied her sister Sally with a twinkling laugh, while Abby, -older than the rest, looked sharply among the bushes, saying,—</p> - -<p>“Who knows but we’re spied upon! I feel a creep up my back.”</p> - -<p>“’Tis Harry Wood, be sure on’t!” cried Susan with a little flirt of her -white toes that sent the water into her sister’s face, while William -Bradford, softly pulling Joseph backward, whispered in his lowest -tones,—</p> - -<p>“Betty Alden’s there, and she’d never forgive us if she knew we’d spied -on them.”</p> - -<p>“Here goes, then!” and Joseph, laughing silently, pointed his gun at -the sky and pulled the trigger, then hastily turned back to his post of -observation, clinging to Will’s arm and shaking with an earthquake of -suppressed merriment, as if he would go to pieces.</p> - -<p>“’Tis like a plump of white ducks that hear the shot pattering around -them,” whispered William; but Joe was beyond speech, and could only -gasp and shake with laughter as he watched the girls, who with little -shrieks and screams and exclamations clung to each other, staring -wildly around, and then gathering their feet up under their skirts -wriggled backward in some mysterious feminine fashion, until gaining -the shelter of the undergrowth they stood up and looked around them in -timid defiance for a moment, and then, no foe presenting himself, Abby, -as oldest and bravest, darted out, and seizing the shoes and stockings -lying in a heap, bore them triumphantly under shelter.</p> - -<p>Some fifteen minutes later, William and Joseph Bradford, dignified -and grave as two young parsons, arrived at the door of the mill and -were received by Abby and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_313" id="Page_313">[Pg 313]</a></span> Sally Jenney, demure and self-possessed as -possible, but with eyes on the alert for any indication that these were -the peeping Toms whom they suspected.</p> - -<p>“We’ve a surprise for you, William,” remarked Abby, as steps were heard -descending the stairs. “Who do you suppose is visiting us from out of -town?”</p> - -<p>“Is anybody visiting you? I had not heard of it.”</p> - -<p>“Well, here she is. Betty, you did not think we’d have company so soon -to bid you welcome, did you, now?”</p> - -<p>“Nay, Betty, heed her not,” exclaimed William, rising to claim the -privilege of a salute. “’Tis no company, but only two of your old -playmates. Why, you’re looking fresh as the morning, Betty, isn’t she, -Joe?” And both young men gravely surveyed the blushing girl from head -to foot, noticing especially the white thread hose and dainty buckled -shoes that covered the feet but now so rosy white in the water of the -little pool.</p> - -<p>“How long is it since I saw you, Betty?” demanded Joseph presently, and -William paused in a speech to Sally to hear the reply.</p> - -<p>“I really do not know, Joe; don’t you?”</p> - -<p>“I can’t say, Betty, can’t say at all;” and Betty, casting a hasty -glance at his face, was met by so serene a smile that she comfortably -assured herself, “It was not they, or they didn’t see.”</p> - -<p>“We’re going to have a little company to-night, and some games in the -old mill,” said Abby presently. “Will you both come? And if the young -gentlewoman at your house would like to make one of the guests, we’re -more than happy to have her.”</p> - -<p>“My mother is beholden to you for remembering her<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_314" id="Page_314">[Pg 314]</a></span> companion, but -I doubt if Gillian Brewster can be spared,” said William a little -hastily, and perhaps a little haughtily, for he shrank from seeing -the siren who had wrought such mischief among some of his friends -introduced to others under shelter of his mother’s name. But Joseph, -heedless of his brother’s tone and only half hearing his words, replied -almost in the same breath,—</p> - -<p>“You’re very thoughtful, Abby, and I doubt not Gillian will like to -come. I’ll bring her in my boat.”</p> - -<p>“Gillian Brewster!” murmured Betty in a tone of dismay that drew -William Bradford’s attention to her face, suddenly pale and disturbed, -and going close to the girl who had been to him almost a sister for -the first ten years of their lives, he whispered, “Shall I prevent it, -Betty?”</p> - -<p>“No, no, Will! Why should I care? She’s naught to me.”</p> - -<p>“Nay, I thought”—</p> - -<p>“’Tis a poor custom, Will; better break it off while you can.”</p> - -<p>“The custom of thinking?”</p> - -<p>“Ay. How is Mercy, and when did your mother hear from her last?”</p> - -<p>Half an hour soon ran away, and so did the great stone pitcher of cider -which the miller’s wife insisted upon producing, and the young men took -leave, promising to be ready at an early hour for the evening’s frolic.</p> - -<hr /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_315" id="Page_315">[Pg 315]</a></span></p> - -<h2>CHAPTER XXXI.</h2> - -<p class="bold">JENNEY’S MILL BY MOONLIGHT.</p> - -<div class="center"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<div>“For ’tis the twenty-first of June,</div> -<div>The merriest day in all the year,”</div> -</div></div></div> - -<p>sang Jack Jenney, the younger brother of the mill and the miller, as to -amuse his sister’s visitors he threw the great wheel into gear and set -the machinery in motion. “Put in a grist, you young idiot, and don’t -grind off the face of the stones,” growled Samuel, standing by, and not -so hospitable as to forget business.</p> - -<p>“Well, here’s Squire Pabodie’s Indian waiting—English, too, but that -wants daylight. Here, bear a hand, Sam, with the Indian.” And the two -young men poured the two bushels of gold-colored maize into the hopper, -while little Hope Howland, bending over to see it drawn down the vortex -of the cruel stones, cried,—</p> - -<p>“Poor Indian! Do you know, Jack, one of those Englishmen that came -from Boston to see the Rock where our fathers first landed was at the -governor’s to dinner, and father was there, and Master Bradford said -he must have some more Indian ground, and the man made great eyes and -said,—</p> - -<p>“‘But does your excellency chastise the savages in such fashion as -that?’ He thought, poor gentleman, that we ground up the Indians!”</p> - -<p>“And doubtless he feared our governor next would roar,— </p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_316" id="Page_316">[Pg 316]</a></span></p> - -<div class="center"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<div>‘Fee, fie, faw, fum!</div> -<div>I smell the blood of an Englishman!</div> -<div>And be he alive, or be he dead,</div> -<div>I’ll grind his bones to make my bread!’”</div> -</div></div></div> - -<p>And John Howland junior put his great hands upon his sister’s shoulders -to draw her back, saying, “But we won’t have you ground this grist, -Hope; so don’t tumble in. Mother wouldn’t like it.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, John, how you tease!” cried Hope, pouting, yet clinging to the -arm of her stalwart brother, a fine young fellow, who at a later date -calmly incurred judicial censure and a heavy fine for the sake of -warning some Quakers, in whose belief he had no share, that they were -about to be arrested and imprisoned. And from that day to our own -the stout Howland blood has held its own, foremost in that Army of -Occupation which the departing Pilgrims left to hold the land their -prowess had won.</p> - -<p>But while this little scene was enacted around the hopper, William -Pabodie, who, bringing his father’s corn to mill late in the afternoon, -had accepted an invitation to spend the evening and join the -merrymaking, wandered out of the house, and standing beside the pool, -idly broke the branch of lilac that some one had given him into little -bits and cast them upon the waters.</p> - -<p>“Nay, don’t spoil the pretty posy so,” cooed a dulcet voice at his -elbow. “If you don’t want it, give it to me.”</p> - -<p>“And welcome, Mistress Gillian,” replied the young man coldly, as he -held out the flowering branch.</p> - -<p>“Oh, but ’tis all torn and ragged,” remonstrated the girl, touching -it, then drawing back as if it wounded her. “Trim it for me with your -knife, good Master <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_317" id="Page_317">[Pg 317]</a></span>William. Nay, then, I’ll not borrow your unfriendly -tone. A scant two months agone ’twas Jill and Willy”—</p> - -<p>“I ever hated the name of Willy since I was a baby!” exclaimed the -young man petulantly, yet taking the branch and trimming it as he was -bid, while Gillian, pressing close to his side, watched the operation -as if it were some rare and fascinating sight.</p> - -<p>“But why are you so changed to me?” murmured she, scorning the side -issue, and like a true woman keeping to the point of personal interest.</p> - -<p>“Changed? Am I changed?” asked the man helplessly.</p> - -<p>“Oh, Will! Think of the night you took me in your sledge to ride across -the snow.”</p> - -<p>“’Twas a great while ago,” muttered Pabodie awkwardly.</p> - -<p>“Ah, yes, a great while ago; and all that is fair and sweet and worthy -to be had in remembrance of all my life is a great while ago,” said the -girl bitterly, and as she raised her great dark eyes to the moon, whose -light mingled with that of dying day, Pabodie could not but see that -they were full of tears, and that the ripe mouth quivered piteously. -What man ever yet saw such a sight unmoved, especially when the face -was so wondrous fair, the June air so full of fragrance, the moon so -softly bright.</p> - -<p>“Nay, Gillian, I never meant to be unkind to you!” murmured William -Pabodie, half unconsciously taking the hand whose finger-tips grazed -his palm, and at the least invitation nestled so confidingly into it.</p> - -<p>“Gillian,” said a clear, cool voice just beside the pair. “I am sent to -call you both to a game,—a game for all of us to play together.” </p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_318" id="Page_318">[Pg 318]</a></span></p> - -<p>And Betty Alden, whose light footfall had not been heard through the -sound of the falling waters, quietly looked into William Pabodie’s -face, superbly glanced over Gillian’s, let her eyes rest for a moment -upon the branch of lilac which Gillian had seized, although Pabodie all -unconsciously still held it, and then, with one of those smiles upon -her lips which most women remember to have smiled, and most men shiver -in remembering to have seen, she turned and climbed the little path to -the mill door.</p> - -<p>“And now you’ll never speak to me again, lest Betty Alden should -chide,” cried Gillian, turning sharply aside, and with a gesture of -inimitable grace resting her folded arms against a tree-trunk, and -laying her forehead upon them, while a storm of unfeigned sobs and -tears shook the very tree she leaned on. William Pabodie, flinging -the lilac branch to the ground, would have passed her by, but she -made no movement to detain him, and so he lingered, looked at her in -sore perplexity for a moment, then said in a voice of contemptuous -kindness,—</p> - -<p>“It distresses me to see you so, Gillian, and in very truth there’s no -call for it; I’m not your lover, and that you know”—</p> - -<p>“Oh, yes, I know it, I know it! Poor me, there’s none to love me, and -those I could love to the death care less for me than for another’s -frown.”</p> - -<p>“Nay, mistress, I’m one that fears no woman’s frown, nor change my -friends to suit any fancy but mine own.”</p> - -<p>“But alas, Gillian’s not one of those friends!”</p> - -<p>“Why, yes you are, Gillian, yes you are as much my friend as—as ever.”</p> -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_319" id="Page_319">[Pg 319]</a></span></p> - -<p>“I’m your friend? Ay, but are you mine, Will?”</p> - -<p>“Yes—that is to say”—</p> - -<p>“That is to say, so far as Betty Alden permits,” cried Gillian, -honestly losing control of herself, and flashing into the young man’s -eyes a look that made him start back as Julio did when Lamia suddenly -revealed herself a serpent. Without a word he strode past her and up -the hill, where seeking out his friend, Will Bradford, he drew him -aside and said, “Would you do me a kindness, Will?”</p> - -<p>“You know I would, man. What is it?”</p> - -<p>“Take Gillian Brewster away as soon as may be.”</p> - -<p>“Oho! What has she done now?”</p> - -<p>“That’s what I can’t tell you, Bill, but you’ll trust me that it’s no -discourtesy that I can help, to make such a petition.”</p> - -<p>“I know that, Bill Pabodie.”</p> - -<p>“Well, then”—</p> - -<p>“I’ll manage it, but not of a sudden.”</p> - -<p>“No, no; only so that I may get a quiet word with Betty before I leave.”</p> - -<p>“Ay, it’s in that quarter the storm is brewing, is it? Well, in an hour -or so I’ll manage it.”</p> - -<p>But before the hour was over Gillian herself, for after all she was as -yet but a young maid, and not seasoned in such matters as another ten -years might have seasoned her, came to William, and resting on his arm -said plaintively,—</p> - -<p>“I’m very weary, Will. When might we be leaving?”</p> - -<p>“They’re just going to supper, and while they sit down we can slip -away if you like, and in sooth you do look weary,” said Bradford not -unkindly, and <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_320" id="Page_320">[Pg 320]</a></span>Gillian, in a little impulse of womanliness, replied -with a wan smile,—</p> - -<p>“Nay, I’ll not take you from your supper. There’s a roast pig and -apple-sauce, I hear.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, that’s naught, that’s naught,” protested the young man; but his -healthy appetite so rose up in approval of the roasted suckling that -it looked out at his eyes, and Gillian, laughing a little, scoffingly -said,—</p> - -<p>“If it’s naught to you, it’s something to me, and I’ll not stir till -I’ve had roast pig and seed-cake and a glass of sweet wine, and mayhap -a little taste of arrack punch. May I sit by you, Will, and sip out of -your glass?”</p> - -<p>“Yes, that will be fine,” cried Will, seeing a happy compromise open -before him. “If you’ll sit by me and look at no other fellow but me, -I’ll stay; but if you’re going to tease me, I’ll not.”</p> - -<p>“I’ll look at none but you,” promised Gillian gently, but her active -brain was already shaping the query, “What does he know? What has he -heard?” and then replying to itself, “What matter! Fools all of them, -and I the worst fool of all.”</p> - -<p>So amidst the frank, possibly unrefined, certainly hearty merriment of -the time and place the roast pig and roasted russet apples were eaten, -and the loaf of seed-cake and another of fruit-cake were cut in great -wedges and passed around, and a choice comfiture of wild cranberries -with candied lemon peel and plenty of sugar was served on little -wooden trenchers, carved in the winter evenings by Samuel Jenney as a -present to his bride; and there was plenty of beer and cider, which -to our hardy sires were no more injurious than cold water to us, who -have bred nerves in place of their<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_321" id="Page_321">[Pg 321]</a></span> muscles and brawn; and there was -sweet Spanish wine for the ladies, passed from hand to hand in a little -pewter wine-cup, burnished like silver; and there was a good joram of -punch for every man; and the girls with little gasps and chokings put -their lips to the edge of the rummers, while Gillian, nestling close to -William Bradford’s side, was gentle and quiet as a chidden child, and -spoke to none but him, eating the while as a bird might, and no more, -until in his heart the young man felt that William Pabodie was after -all something of a churl, and not over courteous to the governor’s -guest, and Pabodie forgetting them both watched Betty Alden, who now -and again glanced at or spoke to him just as she did to Sam Jenney or -John Howland, and was the brightest, the merriest, the most winsome -lass of that gay circle of men and maids.</p> - -<p>“And now we’ll go, Will,” whispered Gillian, as all rose from the table.</p> - -<p>“Yes, poor little Jill, we’ll go now,” replied Bradford far more -tenderly than ever he had spoken before; and Joseph, who heard it, -turned sharply, and surveying his brother with astonishment whispered,—</p> - -<p>“If there’s a score, need we make it two-and-twenty, Bill?”</p> - -<p>“Gillian is tired, and I am taking her home in the boat,” answered -William coldly. “Will you come with us, or on foot later?”</p> - -<p>“Take care of yourself, man, and I’ll give as good an account of -myself,” retorted Joe a little huffed, and presently the governor’s -boat glided down Town Brook, which glittered like a stream of silver -under the full moon. In the stern, her elbow on the gunwale and her -hand supporting a sorrowful face upturned to the sky,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_322" id="Page_322">[Pg 322]</a></span> reclined -Gillian, a dusky red shawl half covering her neck and arms, and -throwing up in startling relief the exquisitely molded hand and wrist -lying palm uppermost upon her knee.</p> - -<p>Close beside her sat Bradford, silently dreaming a young man’s vague -sweet dreams of the wonder of womanhood, while the Indian boatman, -erect and silent as a bronze automaton, guided the boat down the rapid -stream, and far within the dewy covert of the wood a whippoorwill made -his perpetual moan, echoed softly back from the breast of Dark Orchard -Hill.</p> - -<p>At the mill, the after-supper fun grew fast and furious, and who but -Betty Alden to lead and queen it with a gay vivacity of invention and -power of will that made itself felt by all within its reach, while -William Pabodie, his own man once more now that the strange sorcery of -Gillian’s presence was withdrawn, calmly bided his time, and at last, -when Giles Hopkins, over from Barnstable on a visit, was trolling a -sea-song and all the rest joining in the chorus, he edged between Betty -and the girl next to her, saying,—</p> - -<p>“Come out to the doorstep, Betty; I’ve something to say to you before I -go home.”</p> - -<p>“Then say it here, or leave it unsaid, for I’ve no mind for the -doorstep,” drawled Betty with would-be carelessness; but some instinct -told the lover that here was a citadel whose half-hearted garrison -might be taken by assault, and grasping her by the arm, he moved toward -the door, exclaiming half laughingly,—</p> - -<p>“You must come, Betty, for else I’ll make such a noise that they’ll all -stop singing to turn and look at us.”</p> - -<p>“You’re overbold, William Pabodie,” replied Betty<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_323" id="Page_323">[Pg 323]</a></span> icily; but yielding -to both force and argument she allowed herself to be led not only to -the doorstep, but down the steep path, through the garden all odorous -with pinks and roses, to the spot beside the pool where still lay the -broken branch of lilac, and where upon the old willow-trunk still -seemed to linger the perfume of Gillian’s presence.</p> - -<p>“Why do you bring me here?” asked Betty, a sob rising in her throat, -but bravely choked back again.</p> - -<p>“Because here where an hour or two ago you set me down as false and -fickle, here have I brought you to hear me say that I love you, Betty; -and, what is more, I never have loved any woman but you, and if I may -not have you for my wife I’ll go a bachelor to my grave. Betty, will -you be my wife?”</p> - -<p>“If you’ve naught else to recommend you, Master Pabodie, none can -accuse you of want of courage,” replied Betty quietly, and throwing -aside the mask that in the last hours had smothered her true feelings, -she stood before him pale, stern, and pitiless. The young fellow looked -at her in dismay.</p> - -<p>“Betty! Don’t you believe me, Betty?”</p> - -<p>“Believe you when, or at which time? I believed a year or so ago that -you cared somewhat for me, at least you came as near to saying it as I -would let you, till I could know mine own mind”—</p> - -<p>“And then did your mind turn to me, Betty?” demanded the lover eagerly.</p> - -<p>“There was no time for it to turn, unless it had been such a -weather-cock as yours, for I had not well got to thinking of the matter -before I saw that you had forgot it, and were running like a well-broke -spaniel at Gillian Brewster’s heel, so I thought no more on’t, and was -just<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_324" id="Page_324">[Pg 324]</a></span> as well content it should be so. And then Gillian went away, -and you, just like our Neptune when father’s from home, went questing -round seeking a master, and seemed willing to have me for one; and -partly because you plagued me so, I came here to stay awhile, and then -when you came to-day, and whispered in mine ear that it was to see me -you’d made the excuse to come, my silly vanity believed the tale, and -I had well-nigh been fool enough to trust you, as I would one of my -own brothers who know not how to lie; but happily for me, Gillian also -came, and I found you toying with her, and giving flowers, and looking -into her eyes, and—oh, I know not what all—it makes me sick, it does, -and all I want is to go mine own way, and have you go yours, and let -there be an end of all this folly here and now.”</p> - -<p>The words were no sharper than the voice was cold, and the lover -had well-nigh accepted the dismissal and turned away hopeless and -humiliated, but that as he looked gloomily down, the moonlight glinted -upon the buckle of a little shoe, and he perceived that the foot was -viciously, if silently, grinding a blossom of the poor lilac branch -into the earth. Somehow, he could not have told how, that sight brought -courage to the all but discouraged heart, and suddenly seizing both -cold and repellent hands, the young man pressed them to his breast, -crying,—</p> - -<p>“No, Betty, no, and no again! I’ll not believe you. I’ll not take such -an answer. I’ll not give you up, nor turn to any way that is not your -way! Betty, I love you. I never have loved any but you. I’ll have you -and none other for my wife. Betty, darling, can’t you forgive a blind -folly, a stupid, senseless blunder? I could say a good deal to excuse -myself but for the duty every<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_325" id="Page_325">[Pg 325]</a></span> man owes to every woman, and that I’ll -not forego, even to defend myself to you”—</p> - -<p>“Oh, I know well enough what <i>she</i> is,” murmured Betty; the young man -paused, but would not, could not speak the thoughts that arose in his -mind. Perhaps Betty was, after all, not ill pleased, for let men say -what they will of the jealousies of women, there is among them an -<i>esprit de corps</i> that rises indignantly in every true woman’s breast -when she hears her own sex or any member of it scorned by man.</p> - -<p>So an abrupt silence fell between the two,—an eloquent silence, for as -his hands firmly grasped hers, and the strong throbbing of his pulses -vibrated along her nerves, there was no need of words, until after a -few wonderful moments, moments that life could never repeat, the young -man drew his true love close, close to his heart, and their lips met in -a betrothal kiss.</p> - -<hr /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_326" id="Page_326">[Pg 326]</a></span></p> - -<h2>CHAPTER XXXII.</h2> - -<p class="bold">ROBED IN WHITE SAMITE.</p> - -<p>There was company at the captain’s house, the same dear friends whom -we have seen with him on so many joyous occasions, the Aldens, the -Howlands, the Brewsters, the Pabodies and Hatherleys, and Cudworths; -and from Plymouth, the governor and his wife, the Hopkinses, and other -of the captain’s friends and associates of the old time now so long -gone by, and yet so powerful in the ties then formed. Parson Rayner was -there, too, and Ralph Partridge, but it was as friends and neighbors -that they came, and the only official word the minister of Duxbury -uttered was when he wrung the captain’s hand and said, “‘Be strong and -of a good courage,’ my friend,” and Standish, lifting sombre eyes to -the speaker’s face, answered him never a word.</p> - -<p>And in the midst lay Lora, very pale and still, with the golden lashes -folded close upon the cheek hardly whiter now than it had always -been, and the faint rose tint lingering in the lips just touched with -that mysterious smile that seems the trace of a joy so divine, so all -powerful, that it bursts even the icy fetters of death, and insists -upon revealing itself, if ever so dimly, for the assurance of those -who must see before they can believe. The pale golden hair that was -the mother’s pride and boast was released from all bands, and lay a -shining and rippling mantle at either side of the slender figure which -at<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_327" id="Page_327">[Pg 327]</a></span> her father’s desire was clothed in the robe of white samite he had -brought her from over seas, saying in his pride that thus the mistress -of his ancestral home should be clothed. And now! Alas, poor father! -it clothed her for her nuptials indeed, but she must cross a darker -sea than the Atlantic to enter into her kingdom. The delicate hands -lay folded upon the breast, and beneath them some snowdrops that Betty -Pabodie had nurtured, watering them with her tears and foreseeing this -day, of which indeed Lora had calmly and cheerfully spoken more than -once.</p> - -<p>“Put on her shoes, and fold the train of her robe around her feet,” -commanded the father. “She said it should be so.” And wonderingly the -mother obeyed, for in these awful hours none dared to intrude upon the -darkness that clothed Standish more gloomily than the mantle the Angel -of Death had lightly laid around the maiden.</p> - -<p>Once in the middle of the night, Barbara, rising from her sleepless -couch, sought him where he sat alone with Lora, and throwing herself -upon her knees beside him, her arms around him, and her head upon his -breast, she cried,—</p> - -<p>“Oh, Myles, Myles, let us try to bear it together. Do not shut me out -of your heart. Oh, Myles, my heart is breaking—comfort me!”</p> - -<p>“Hush, wife, hush! What need of words or clamor? Let her rest, let her -rest—and leave us alone, good wife, my maid and me—go!”</p> - -<p>Then chilled, silenced, well-nigh affrighted, the mother crept away, -and left the defeated soldier to his own bitter retrospect.</p> - -<p>The brothers, working day and night, fashioned an<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_328" id="Page_328">[Pg 328]</a></span> oaken casket, not -of the gruesome shape in use at a later date, but more like a dainty -cradle, and the women had spread in it a couch of sweet herbs and the -fragrant tips of the balsam fir and the blossoms of the immortelle -which they called life-everlasting. A pillow of dried rose-leaves and -lavender-blossoms and the hop-flowers that soothe to dreamless slumber -was laid ready for the gentle head, and a sheet of fine linen was -spread over all.</p> - -<p>“The captain said when he brought home that bolt of Hollands linen from -Antwerp, that it was for Lora’s wedding clothes,” sobbed Barbara, as -she drew the shining folds from the chest that held her most valued -household treasures, and Priscilla Alden, with an arm around her -friend’s neck, kissed her, and bit her tongue lest it should say in -spite of her, “Had he let her marry Wrestling Brewster, she might have -needed wedding clothes of another sort from these.”</p> - -<p>And now all have looked their last, and the mother’s tears have dropped -thick and fast upon those eyes that will weep no more, and the father, -silent, stern, and tearless, has laid a hand upon that golden hair that -no longer twines around his fingers, and Betty has gently drawn one of -the snowdrops from between those resistless fingers, a snowdrop that -she will press in her Bible over the words “for of such are the kingdom -of heaven,” the cover is laid gently over that fragrant cradle, and -the brothers, with the Alden sons who have been Lora’s playmates and -dear friends, place it upon the bier and carry it along the field path -her light feet have so often trod, past the Brewster homestead, where -now only Love and his family remained, and so on to what to-day we -call Harden Hill; here around the little church already outgrown, and -soon to be <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_329" id="Page_329">[Pg 329]</a></span>superseded, the graves of some of those who thus far had -passed away were made; others, indeed, had directed that their remains -should rest upon Burying Hill in Plymouth, and some would lie within -the radius of light from their own hearthstones; but a few were here, -and the captain with his own hands marked out the spot where Lora had -fallen on that night when she knew, months before the news came over -seas, that Wrestling Brewster was dead. There they laid her, softly, -gently, as still we lay down the loved ones whom rudest touch could -not harm, or crash of thunders disturb, and her own kinsmen did the -rest. A little heap of turfs was piled near, and as the others turned -away Alexander and Josiah began to lay them; but Hobomok, the faithful -friend and long-time servitor of Standish, laid a finger upon Alick’s -arm, saying in his guttural voice,—</p> - -<p>“Hobomok do something for the Moonlight-on-the-water. Hobomok put the -green cover over her.”</p> - -<p>“He’s right, Alick,” said Josiah, with a friendly glance at the old -Indian. “He’s all but worshiped Lora ever since she was born. Let him -lay the turf.”</p> - -<p>“We couldn’t better show our friendship for you, Hobomok.”</p> - -<p>“Hob know all about it,” replied the red man sententiously, and the -brothers followed the long line of friends who scattered along the road -toward their different homes.</p> - -<p>Standish walked silently beside his wife until nearly at his own door -he stopped, looking frowningly out across the sea, his teeth set hard -upon his nether lip, as if fighting out some problem in his own mind; -then falling back, he touched William Bradford upon the arm, and drew -him a little aside. </p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_330" id="Page_330">[Pg 330]</a></span></p> - -<p>“Send home the rest with your sons, Bradford, and stay here to-night.”</p> - -<p>“My good friend, many occasions call me to Plymouth”—</p> - -<p>“No occasion greater than the choice of life and death; nay, if all -they say be true, the choice of salvation or damnation,—nothing -weightier than such a choice, is there, Will?”</p> - -<p>“What ails you, old friend? Your grief has—has made you ill!”</p> - -<p>And the governor, grasping his friend’s arm, looked apprehensively at -the deep color that suddenly had overspread the pallor of his face, and -at the fierce light that some thought had kindled in the gloomy depths -of his eyes, hollow and strained by vigils and unshed tears.</p> - -<p>“Tush, man! I’m not gone mad. I’m not such a weakling as to let any -grief master the man in me. It’s only that I’m in a strait between God -and the Enemy, and there’s no man alive I’d choose for umpire but you.”</p> - -<p>“If you need me, Myles, I’m with you, whatever else betide.”</p> - -<p>And the two men grasped hands and looked into each other’s eyes. Then -with a voice more moved than any had heard from him in three days -Standish said, “I thought I could count upon your kindness, Will, if -you knew my need. Let all the rest go, and when darkness has fallen, we -two will come back to my little maid’s grave, and I’ll tell you there.”</p> - -<p>And so it was. The funeral feast, almost a necessity where so many came -from far, was served and eaten nearly in silence, and then the guests -departed, Dame Bradford under charge of her two sons, and tenderly<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_331" id="Page_331">[Pg 331]</a></span> -served by Gillian, whose volatile spirit was quenched in the abundant -tears that meant so little from her eyes.</p> - -<p>Night had fallen, and the waning moon was shining mournfully over the -waters, when at a signal from his host Bradford followed him into the -open air and, with a word or two, along the path the funeral procession -had just trodden.</p> - -<p>The young birch was in leaf, and a little west wind rustled and sighed -among its branches, casting flickering shadows across the new-turfed -mound, lined from west to east that the sleeper, obedient to the great -call, might in upstanding face the rising of the Sun of Righteousness.</p> - -<p>“Sit you down, Bradford. There’s a rock she’s often rested on. Don’t -speak until I gather my thoughts and know what ’tis I mean to say.”</p> - -<p>Without reply Bradford, drawing his cloak around him, for the spring -night was chill, sat down upon the boulder, where indeed Lora had -dreamed away many an hour, gazing across the sea that ever drew her -with its vague, sad calling, and waited silently while Standish, with -folded arms and head bent upon his breast, paced up and down, up and -down, now standing upon the crumbling edge of the cliff near at hand, -now pacing back to the little church a bow-shot from the shore.</p> - -<p>At last, with sudden and hurried footsteps, as though fearing to linger -over his decision, the soldier drew near, holding a folded paper in his -hand, and exclaimed,—</p> - -<p>“Bradford! You too have an only daughter. If a man insulted her -bitterly, bitterly, what would you do to him?”</p> - -<p>“Insulted her? How?”</p> - -<p>“No matter how. What would you do to him?” </p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_332" id="Page_332">[Pg 332]</a></span></p> - -<p>“It is not fair to ask me such a question in such a way, Myles, if you -mean to find an augury for your own course in my reply. I cannot tell -what I should do until I know all, and mayhap not then. But surely no -man ever offered insult to the sweet maid who’s gone?”</p> - -<p>“’Tis all you know about it. Well, here’s the story. When I was in -England almost a score of years ago, I went to Standish Hall to talk -with my kinsman now in authority there, and asked him if he would do -me the justice his father denied to my father. He seemed a kindly -man enough, or mayhap ’twas only that he was a smooth courtier, and -cozened easily enough a rough soldier who has never learned to lie. At -all odds, it ended in our making a solemn compact, that if the child -my wife then looked for should be a girl, she was to become the wife -of that man’s son, then a child of two or three years old, and all -that ought by right to have been mine should be settled upon her and -her younger children. We did not set it down on parchment, nor call -witnesses to our oaths; but we grasped hands upon it, and passed our -word each to each as honest gentlemen, and there it rested. When I was -in England ten years or so ago, I traveled down to Eton to see the -boy, and give him a little compliment, small enough for the heir of -Standish Hall, but large enough for my own pocket. I said naught to him -about Lora, of course, though I let him know that I felt more than a -kinsman’s interest in him, and he seemed a brave lad, a trifle set up, -but I could pardon that. Well, the time went on, and there was some -talk of Wrestling Brewster and my girl. I dealt with that as seemed -good to me, and then I wrote to my kinsman, and said the time had come -to consider our contract, and that my girl was woman grown<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_333" id="Page_333">[Pg 333]</a></span> and his boy -must be one and twenty, and I asked how and where we should meet to -give them to each other. Almost a year went by, and my blood already -began to stir at the delay, although I schooled myself to believe it no -slight, when at the last a letter came, this letter. Wait till I read -it out, for though there’s no light, I can see every word as if ’twere -printed off on mine own eyeballs. First a flummery of ‘dear kinsman’ -and the like vapid compliment, and then:—</p> - -<p>“‘As touching what you call the contract of marriage between our -children, I confess I had all but forgot that we two did hold some such -discourse a matter of eighteen years ago; but what will you, cousin? -These young folk must still take their own way, and my son before -reaching his majority had set his fancy upon a young gentlewoman, one -of the great Howard family, and with a very pretty estate tacked to -her petticoat, marching well with our lands of Boisconge. So they were -betrothed some months ago and will be married come Whitsuntide. Hoping -the fair and worthy Mistress Lora, whose name so pleasantly recalls -our family tree, will soon marry to please you as well as herself, I -remain,’ et cetera, et cetera.</p> - -<p>“There, now, William Bradford, what would you have done to the man who -so scorned your Mercy?”</p> - -<p>“My faith, Standish!” cried the governor, springing to his feet, “I -cannot blame your anger, for ’tis righteous. Your cousin is but a knave -in spite of his fair words”—</p> - -<p>“And what would you have done with him, had you been in my place?” -persisted Standish coldly.</p> - -<p>“Nay, what could be done?” faltered Bradford so lamely that Standish -uttered a little bitter laugh of derision. </p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_334" id="Page_334">[Pg 334]</a></span></p> - -<p>“There you see! You’ve studied Christian charity so long that you will -not say Kill him! and your manhood will not let you say Forgive him! -and you can find no middle way.</p> - -<p>“But I, thank God, am not so hampered; and as I finished reading that -letter my fist clenched on old Gideon’s hilt, and I promised him that -he should carry conviction to that false, proud heart. I would have -gone at once, but I saw that my little maid was grievously ill, and -I could not leave her; then I saw that she would die, and one day I -drew Gideon from his scabbard and thrust his sharp tooth through that -cartel,—see, here are the marks of him,—and I bade him hold fast till -we could wet that paper in the red ink of my reply”— But here the -governor interrupted him,—</p> - -<p>“Myles! Man has no right to predetermine vengeance. In the heat of -affront I too might have longed to combat to the death with one who had -so lightlied my child, but I never could have stored up death for him -like that.”</p> - -<p>“You were bred to the land and to books, Bradford, and I to arms,” -replied the soldier haughtily; and then in sudden revulsion of feeling, -he grasped his friend’s hand, saying hoarsely, “I never can be the man -you are, Will, and you better deserved than I to have had that saint -for a daughter. But come, now, I must e’en tell you the whole, as if -’twere to a father confessor, and, by my faith, I wish you were one, -for the old practice rises up in a man’s mind when trouble comes. But -there! I won’t rake up old disputes, but rather on with my shrift: I -was fully purposed, then, so soon as my sweet maid was gone, to travel -to England and seeking out Ralph Standish challenge him to mortal -combat, and to thrust<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_335" id="Page_335">[Pg 335]</a></span> my brave old sword with that letter spitted -upon its blade through his false heart and so avenge my girl. I was as -fully purposed that way as ever I was to eat when I was hungry and saw -victual before me, and I’m not more apt to change my purpose than a -mastiff is to lose his grip.</p> - -<p>“The night she died I went down by the edge of the water and tramped -along the beach the night through, yearning to throw myself in and get -to him. I was half mad, I think, and could I have reached that black -heart then, I fear I should have shamed my manhood by not leaving the -villain time to defend himself. The next night, that is, last night, -I was calmer, for as I had not slept nor eaten, I was not so full of -lustyhood, and sending the others away, I sat by my darling the night -through, alone, save when the poor wife came and I would not let her -stay. Poor Barbara! I’ve not remembered her grief as I should; but mine -swallowed up all else, because it was so much bigger and stronger than -all else. So sitting by her, and reading that gentle, subtle smile that -mayhap you marked upon her pretty mouth— How can I tell you, Will? -Didst ever grasp a handful of sea sand and try to hold it fast?”</p> - -<p>“Ay, and felt it slip, grain by grain, between my fingers.”</p> - -<p>“Yes. You catch my meaning, as I knew you would. Even like those grains -of sand, my fierce desire for that man’s life slipped and slipped away, -and what I had deemed a noble vengeance grew to seem only a brutal -thirst for blood, and the thought of him and of his offense seemed to -fade into the forgotten years whose record is closed. Perhaps I slept, -perhaps I dreamed without sleeping, but all at once it seemed to me -that my maid stood beside me, close, and yet so far away I<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_336" id="Page_336">[Pg 336]</a></span> dared -not put out a hand to touch her; and that smile was on her lips, and -someway it seemed to speak its meaning without words, and the meaning -was, ‘To him that overcometh’— That was all, and yet, something,—that -dear spirit or mine own heart, or my memory of that Book she ever made -me read to her all through the last year,—something told me that it -was to him that overcometh his own self, to him who can trust his -vengeance to the Lord and forego it for himself,—to such an one that -the path lies open to the place where Lora has gone; but to the man of -bloodshed and heady violence that path is no more to be traced than a -highway through this wilderness.</p> - -<p>“But when the daylight came, and I had eaten and slept, I began to -think ’t was all a fantasy bred of long watching and fasting, and that -my first thought was the best, and even I fancied that I was growing -old and my hardihood was on the wane, and the cold apathy of age was -what held my hand; and so, tossed this way and that, and sore bestead -with doubt and anguish, I turned to some other for calmer counsel and -a juster view. In the old days I would have sought a priest, but now I -turn to you, Will; give me your counsel,—tell me where is my right.”</p> - -<p>Throwing himself upon the ground, the soldier hid his face upon the -fresh green mound and lay exhausted and passive. His friend stood many -moments motionless, his eyes uplifted to the sky, where the little -white clouds flying across the face of the waning moon gave her a look -of hurry and perturbation, as if she too were sore beset by the doubts -and temptations of the earthly atmosphere. At last he slowly spoke:—</p> - -<p>“Old friend, I am no better or wiser man than you,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_337" id="Page_337">[Pg 337]</a></span> and I can only -speak as a fallible sinner may to one for whose welfare he yearns as -for his own. It seems to me that God has already answered you through -that dear child who has gone to Him. ‘Vengeance is mine; I will repay,’ -saith He, and the promise to him that overcometh is as precious and -as many-sided as’ the white stone that he shall receive, and which -commentators hold to mean the diamond”—</p> - -<p>“Enough, enough, man!” cried Standish, starting to his feet. “I cannot -listen to so many words. I care naught for commentators or texts. Tell -me as man to man, may I go and kill mine enemy or no!”</p> - -<p>“Well, then, no! You shall here and now kneel down and lay your revenge -at the foot of Christ’s cross and leave it there. Man! Has your enemy -hurt you more than those who drove the spikes through his hands and -feet, what time He prayed ‘Father, forgive them; they know not what -they do’? and bethink you how easy vengeance would have been to Him.”</p> - -<p>“Ay. Knew not what they did!” muttered Standish. “Knowing it or not, -that man slew my child, for had it not been for the contract, I would -have let her marry Brewster, and she might have been to-day a happy -wife and mother.”</p> - -<p>“And if you will reckon in that fashion,” replied Bradford sternly, “it -was surely you who slew Wrestling Brewster, since it was because he -might not have Lora that he went to England and found his death. Should -not God and our dear Elder have required his blood at your hand?”</p> - -<p>A great silence was the only answer, and presently Bradford spoke -again, and now in the tone of assured conviction and well-grounded -authority that in some<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_338" id="Page_338">[Pg 338]</a></span> moods the human soul yearns to hear, especially -an ardent, impetuous, and loving soul like that of Standish; a nature -that, while the impulse lasts, will dare heaven and hell and earth to -achieve its purposes, and when the revulsion comes distrusts all that -is within, and turns like a drowning man to some external authority. -Such a man makes a good soldier, for as he says, “Go here, and go -there!” to those beneath him, he is ready to add, “For I also am a man -under authority.”</p> - -<p>And in this need, characterizing some of the strongest souls that -animate humanity, masculine and feminine, lies the yearning for -confession and guidance, absolution and penance, that has for centuries -been the strongest weapon in the hand of the Catholic Church.</p> - -<p>“No, my friend, you shall not carry this controversy away from this -spot. It is Satan who buffets you so sorely, and if you will fight, -it is with him the combat shall be. Which is the stronger, you, or -that great dragon, that old serpent, whom Michael, of old, fought and -conquered? Fight <i>him</i> in the name of the Lord, and with Gideon if you -will, but here and now relinquish all, yes, every iota of the desire -for your brother’s blood. Destroy that letter,—yes, tear it in pieces -here beside Lora’s grave, and bury the remembrance of it as you have -buried her. You have left it to me, Myles, and I have been given this -to say to you. Take it, in the name of God who hears us.”</p> - -<p>“I take it as I took her message,” replied Standish in a low voice, and -rising to his knees, for he had been lying prone beside the grave, he -sought about for a moment, and finding a bit of stick began carefully -to remove one of the turfs at the foot of the new-made grave. Laying -it at one side, he took the letter from<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_339" id="Page_339">[Pg 339]</a></span> under his knee, where he had -held it, and quietly tore it into fragments, which he held in his -left hand, while with the right he scooped a hollow in the loose loam -beneath the sod; but in deepening the cavity his fingers encountered -some foreign substance, and drawing it out, held up to the moonlight -a little package enveloped in a strip of the cloth-like inner bark of -the birch-tree, and bound around with cord twisted of fibres of the -hackmatack.</p> - -<p>“Some of Hobomok’s work,” murmured Standish, carefully unrolling the -bark, and disclosing a curiously shaped and much worn stone of a -peculiarly hard and dense quality, fashioned at one end into a neck by -which it could be securely carried, and at the other sharpened to a -curved edge capable of cutting wood.</p> - -<p>“Why, ’t is Hobomok’s totem!” exclaimed Standish, turning it over and -over. “He always wore it about his neck, and for all he calls himself -a praying Indian, I sorely mistrusted he prayed as much to his totem -as to any other god, nor would he ever let us see him use it, or take -it in our hands, though the boys have urged him more than enough. The -dear maid used to talk to him in her gentle way, and try to make a good -Christian of him, just as she used to set up her dolls and play go to -meeting with them, and with as great results. But now,—did he bury -it here for a charm to keep away the afrits, or did he lay it at her -feet to show that in her sweet patience of death she had conquered his -unbelief even as she conquered that other savage, her father?”</p> - -<p>“Ask him,” suggested Bradford, but Standish, carefully replacing the -totem in its covering, shook his head.</p> - -<p>“No, no! Hobomok is too much of a gentleman to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_340" id="Page_340">[Pg 340]</a></span> pry into what is not -meant for him to know, and I should be ashamed to let him know that I -had surprised what he fain would have held a secret.</p> - -<p>“No, I’ll lay the letter in first, and then the totem to keep it down, -and my little maid will understand all that is meant by the one and -the other. There! And now, friend, I thank you. We’re growing old -men, Will; ‘it is toward evening, and the day is far spent,’ but this -night’s work will stand both for you and for me when all else fails. -Come, let us be going.”</p> - -<hr /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_341" id="Page_341">[Pg 341]</a></span></p> - -<h2>CHAPTER XXXIII.</h2> - -<p class="bold">A BOLD BUCCANEER.</p> - -<p>“It’s an ill wind, they say, that blows nobody good, and I believe this -is that same wind.”</p> - -<p>“Tut, tut, man! ’Tis ill luck speaking against the wind. Wot you not -who is the Prince of the Power of the Air?”</p> - -<p>“Sathanas; and I verily believe he’s in this smoky chimney.”</p> - -<p>“Well, then, Jacob Cooke, get you outside the house, and if Jack -Jenney’s afeard of the one he says makes it smoke, he’d as well go out -with you.”</p> - -<p>“Thank you for nothing, Dame Damaris,” retorted John Jenney, laughing -as he rose to his feet. “I didn’t look to be turned out of the house -when I came to make a wedding visit, but mayhap ’tis so new to you to -have a house that you haven’t welly learned to govern it.”</p> - -<p>“That’s the truth, Jack,” interposed the master of the house, a little -mortified; “so we’ll e’en leave the shrewish dame to her own devices, -and go out to find a warm corner beside a chimney that doesn’t smoke, -and a woman that doesn’t scold.”</p> - -<p>“Go your ways. Your room is aye better than your company,” responded -the comely dame, whom as Damaris Hopkins we saw a baby on board the -Mayflower, and who, lately married to the son of Francis Cooke, was one -of the most stirring young matrons of the town. </p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_342" id="Page_342">[Pg 342]</a></span></p> - -<p>The two men, laughing, and yet a little reluctant to turn out into the -shrewd east wind, paused outside the house. This new home, built upon -land inherited by Damaris from her father, Stephen Hopkins, was on the -westerly edge of Training Green, and thus high enough to catch the full -force of the wind rising steadily since noon.</p> - -<p>“Phew!” whistled Jenney, dragging his hat over his brows, “’tis enough -to take the curl out of a pig’s tail. There’ll be some wracks along the -coast, if this holds all night.”</p> - -<p>“Come up the hill to the Fort, and ask Livetenant Holmes to give us a -squint through the spy-glass.”</p> - -<p>“I’m with you. But Holmes isn’t half the good fellow the captain was. -The Fort don’t seem the same place.”</p> - -<p>“No. And yet the captain could give a rough lick with his tongue, if -one angered him.”</p> - -<p>“Yes. You, and Bart Allerton, and Peregrine White, and Giles Hopkins -used to catch it once in a while when you meddled or made with the -guns.”</p> - -<p>“Yes, and when he trained us in the manual exercise. But we’re all -beholden to him for knowing how to manage a piece man-fashion.”</p> - -<p>“Ay, we’re all beholden to him, and sorry am I he’s gone from the town, -and they say is breaking in health and spirit.”</p> - -<p>“Since father went it seems as if the old settlers were passing away -and we youngsters are to hold the helm.” And Jacob sighed in a gruffly -sentimental sort of fashion.</p> - -<p>“You’re right, Cooke, and I sore mistrust our fathers’ chairs will -prove too wide for us. I know mine is, and often enough I wish the old -man back.” </p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_343" id="Page_343">[Pg 343]</a></span></p> - -<p>“Ha! That was a shrewd twist of the wind! It seemed to snatch my -breath. Well, here we are.” And raising the heavy iron latch, the two -men precipitated themselves into the great lower room of the Fort, -where once we saw the Pilgrims hold their fast when drought and famine -were sore upon them, and once we assisted at the trial of John Oldhame.</p> - -<p>The religious services of the town were still held in this place, -although it had long been Pastor Rayner’s urgent appeal to the people -that they should build a suitable meeting-house for the worship of God, -and no longer mingle ecclesiastical and secular pursuits in the same -building. But since the removal of some of the colony’s wealthiest and -most influential townsmen to Duxbury, Scituate, Marshfield, and the -Cape towns, poor Plymouth had become so destitute that her sons could -barely provide food for the body, and had little money or energy to -spare in suitably serving the soul’s aliment.</p> - -<p>And now help was to come, and from a most unexpected source.</p> - -<p>Upon the platform at the top of the Fort the two visitors found -Lieutenant Holmes, sheltered from the wind behind a sentry-box, and -absorbed in the use of the spy-glass they had come to seek.</p> - -<p>“Well, and what do you see, Livetenant?” demanded Cooke, ever ready -with his tongue. The soldier, who after the manner of most men when -absorbed in the use of one sense was slow to occupy himself with -another (it being one of the privileges of womanhood to do two things -at once and do both well), did not reply at once, and Jenney, screening -his eyes with his hand, looked out to seaward for a long moment, and -then cried,— </p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_344" id="Page_344">[Pg 344]</a></span></p> - -<p>“Surely there’s a sail in the scurry off the Gurnet! Isn’t it so, -Livetenant?”</p> - -<p>“A sail, say you?” replied Holmes slowly, and in the mechanical tone of -one whose eye is glued to a spy-glass. “Well, double it, and thribble -it, and mayhap you’ll hit closer to the bull’s eye.”</p> - -<p>“Three sail!” exclaimed Cooke, fairly dancing with excitement. “Come, -now, let’s have a squint, Holmes, just a cast of the eye, and I’ll give -back the glass in a jiffy. Let’s have it, there’s a Christian!”</p> - -<p>“Well, then, Jake, take your squint, and tell me what you make of it.” -And the lieutenant, laughing a little, rose to his feet, handed the -glass to Cooke, and rubbed his eyes, which, in fact, had declined to -serve any longer in that one-sided fashion.</p> - -<p>“You’re right, Holmes, you’re right! ’Tis three sail, and sizable -craft, too; brigantines, I should say.”</p> - -<p>“Come, come, Jake!” expostulated the lieutenant jealously. “A man’s not -going to tell a brigantine from a bark at this distance, and with such -a spoor flying.”</p> - -<p>“Mabbe not, Livetenant, mabbe not; but I’ll miss my guess if it’s not -a brigantine I’ve got in the field now, and laboring mightily she is. -Take my word for it, Brown’s Island’ll be the death of her, unless -they’ve got a skipper out of a thousand, and men of might to handle -helm and canvas.”</p> - -<p>“Give me one peep before you take the glass,” pleaded Jenney, and jolly -Holmes consenting, the young fellow so availed himself of the privilege -that Cooke, who was a trifle short-sighted, and found his own eyes -useless, protested,—</p> - -<p>“It’s bad manners for any man to take so long a pull at the glass! Pass -it around lively is the rule.” </p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_345" id="Page_345">[Pg 345]</a></span></p> - -<p>“My chance now,” cried Holmes peremptorily; so the three men watched, -turn and turn about, until Holmes after a long survey handed the glass -to Cooke, saying,—</p> - -<p>“It’s time for me to go down and report to the governor. Stay you here -and keep goal till I come back.”</p> - -<p>“All right. I’ll do it,” briefly replied Cooke, already absorbed in the -sense of sight.</p> - -<p>In the wide house under the hill, where Bradford and his early love -were growing placidly old together, there was a guest of unusual -degree, and Lieutenant Holmes, requesting to see the governor at once, -was ushered into the dining-room, where with the master and mistress of -the house, their two sons and Gillian, sat a priest in the strait garb -of the Jesuit, and bearing upon his thin, shrewd face the traces of -that cultivation and worldly facility generally marking the Order which -has ruled the world, and yet failed to save itself. This was Father -Drouillette, a Frenchman by birth, a cosmopolitan by training, visiting -the New World, not, as we may be sure, without a purpose, and yet -quite capable of allowing himself to be torn in little shreds without -suffering that purpose to be discovered.</p> - -<p>He had already been in Boston, and the fishing-smack that brought -him from thence to Plymouth would with the morning’s tide sail for -Manhattan, so that four-and-twenty hours comprised his stay in -Plymouth; but this brief sojourn was enough for the Jesuit to see and -know that the soil of the Old Colony was not yet ripe for the seeds of -the cinchona (then called Jesuit’s Bark), and also to read Bradford’s -noble nature and courteous kindliness, to both of which he did full -justice in his report, adding that as the day was Friday, the governor -gave him an excellent dinner of fish. </p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_346" id="Page_346">[Pg 346]</a></span></p> - -<p>After the fish came a delicate pudding, succeeded by a dessert, over -which the family still sat when Lieutenant Holmes, entering the room, -reported three large vessels in distress driving into the harbor, and -already off Beach Point.</p> - -<p>“Are the lives of the mariners in danger?” inquired the priest, -crossing himself so unobtrusively that only Bradford perceived the -gesture.</p> - -<p>“I fear for them if they do not keep to the channel, for the tide is -on the ebb, and ’tis but a crooked course,” replied Holmes; and the -governor, rising, said somewhat hurriedly,—</p> - -<p>“If you will excuse me, sir, I will leave you with my wife for a -little, and go to see that a pilot is sent out”—</p> - -<p>“I told Doten to get his boat ready, and wait your Excellency’s -orders,” interposed Holmes, resolute to give the governor his full -honors before this stranger.</p> - -<p>“That was well done, friend,” replied Bradford gently, and would have -left the room, but the priest, rising nimbly, and taking his cloak and -hat from the deer’s antlers where they hung, exclaimed, in his perfect -although accented English, “Nay, I will not be left behind. There may -be use for another pair of hands.”</p> - -<p>“And possibly for a turn of priest-craft,” thought Bradford, smiling to -himself; but Drouillette, catching the smile, returned it with a little -shrug and arch of the eyebrows, saying in French,—</p> - -<p>“And why not? Few mariners sail from Geneva.”</p> - -<p>“You are in your right, sir,” returned the governor in the same tongue, -and courteously motioning his guest to pass before him, while Gillian, -to whom French was a mother tongue, listened with both ears, and -resolved to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_347" id="Page_347">[Pg 347]</a></span> by and by hold a private conversation with the priest, -who already had perceived her knowledge of his language and taken the -measure of her nature; that she would prove an easy proselyte, and -quite enjoy the intrigue of covertly becoming a Catholic while openly -remaining in a Protestant community, he had also perceived, but after a -moment’s thought had decided the facile victory to be at once valueless -and dangerous, and during the rest of his stay opposed a bland -stupidity to all the girl’s ingenious advances.</p> - -<p>The stout pilot boat, clumsy enough as contrasted with those that -to-day skim across the waters of Plymouth harbor, but then a model -of beauty and skill, lay ready beside the Rock, and at a word from -the governor speeded forth under its close-reefed foresail, carrying -three active fellows to the rescue of the foremost brigantine, which, -warned by the sounding-lead of shoal water, and struggling against a -current which insisted upon setting her ashore on the beach, was lying -to and waiting for pilotage. Half an hour later the three vessels -were anchored in the stream, and a procession of boats was bringing -their officers and detachments of the crews ashore, discharging them -at a rude stone pier and bulkhead extending a few feet beyond the -Rock, which, as yet uninjured by patriotic zeal, lay calmly presiding -over the modern commotions that had come to disturb its centuries of -solitude.</p> - -<p>In the place of honor in the first boat sat a very elegant gentleman, -dressed in all the picturesque bravery of a cavalier: his broad hat -covered with ostrich plumes, his doublet of Genoese velvet slashed -with satin of Lyons in harmonious shades of cramoisie and murrey, -his breeches of velvet adorned with a deep lace<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_348" id="Page_348">[Pg 348]</a></span> almost hidden by -the wrinkled tops of boots of soft Cordovan leather. To correct the -effeminacy of this costume, accented as it was by jewels, lace, and -perfume in profusion, Captain Cromwell, prince and leader of the -buccaneers soon to swarm the Spanish seas, carried so proud and -warlike a countenance, curled his mustachios so fiercely, showed such -strong white teeth set in so massive a jaw, and such broad shoulders -and muscular limbs, that it must have been a rash man, indeed, who -ventured to make criticism of whatever the captain might choose to -wear, or to inquire how an officer under commission from the new -Commonwealth of England still displayed himself under the guise of a -royalist cavalier. The explanation probably, had he chosen to give it, -was that the Spanish seas were a long distance from England, that it -was a long while since his letter-of-marque had left home, and that as -the King was still at large, the fortune of war might at any moment -replace him upon the throne, so that in view of all these circumstances -a successful buccaneer must be in a great measure his own lawgiver. -Nominally, Captain Cromwell was in religion and politics a Parliament -man; at heart, he was a Roman Catholic and a cavalier, and at this -distance from the central authority indulged himself in at least -dressing to suit his own taste.</p> - -<p>Springing ashore as the boat touched the pier, the commandant, without -waiting for an introduction from Lieutenant Holmes, who escorted him, -doffed his hat until the plumes swept the ground and bowed low, both to -the governor and the priest, saying,—</p> - -<p>“My respects to you, most noble Governor, and to you, reverend sir, -and my thanks for the timely aid you have sent us. Allow me to present -myself as Thomas <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_349" id="Page_349">[Pg 349]</a></span>Cromwell, in command of these three brigantines sent -out by the English government to hold our country’s foes, especially -those of Spain, in check, and to make reprisals for certain offenses -offered to the British flag in these waters. As it is long since I had -news from England, I will not add ‘God save the King!’ nor yet ‘God -save the Parliament!’ lest I should offend somebody’s sensibilities, -but content myself with simply exclaiming, ‘God save old England!’”</p> - -<p>“An aspiration we all may echo, Captain Cromwell,” replied Bradford -gravely, “and I am happy to assure you that by the latest advices from -England the parliamentarians under whose authority you sail are still -favored by Providence. For the rest, all honest Englishmen are welcome -to such hospitality as our impoverished town can offer. There is an -Ordinary at the head of this hill kept by James Cole, where very decent -accommodation may be had for your men, and I shall be most happy to -welcome you and your officers at mine own house, nearly opposite the -tavern, as often as you are pleased to come. This gentleman, a guest -like yourself, is called Father Drouillette, from France.”</p> - -<p>“My duty to you, father,” responded Cromwell, bending his knee, and -the Jesuit, keenly regarding him, made a slight motion of benediction, -murmuring, “Bless you, my son.”</p> - -<p>“And now,” continued Bradford, in a less formal manner, “let us at once -seek the shelter of James Cole’s roof and mine, and escape this biting -wind, of which, Captain, you will already have had more than enough, as -I opine.”</p> - -<p>The buccaneer assented, and speaking a rapid word or two among the men -surrounding him, sent the mass<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_350" id="Page_350">[Pg 350]</a></span> of them to the tavern with a stern -injunction to sobriety and decency; then calling the commanders of the -three ships, he presented them to Bradford, who at once extended his -invitation to them, and led the way to the house, where a merry fire -and refreshments were found awaiting them, but nobody was to be seen.</p> - -<p>“I wonder through which crevice that little schemer is peeping,” said -Father Drouillette to himself as he took snuff and presented his box to -Cromwell, who took a pinch, and absorbing it delicately, said,—</p> - -<p>“You must let me offer you a jar of Spanish mixture, prepared, as I -hear, especially for the Archbishop of Toledo, who is curious in his -tobacco. It is most agreeably scented with vanilla, and carries a -certain odor of incense that arouses very devout reminiscences in the -mind of a poor wanderer like myself.”</p> - -<p>“My poor nose would indeed feel itself honored by a pinch of such truly -ecclesiastical snuff as you describe. But as I sail with the morning -tide, I fear I shall not have the opportunity of trying it,” replied -the Jesuit; and Cromwell, after a moment’s thought, suggested,—</p> - -<p>“Unless, reverend sir, you would do me the honor of sleeping on board -the Golden Fleece, as my ship is called. I can offer you a decent bed, -and my fellows will doubtless purvey in this good town the material for -a breakfast. Shall I have the honor of entertaining your reverence?”</p> - -<p>“I shall be most happy to accept your hospitality, my son, if Governor -Bradford will accept my humble excuses for cutting short my visit to -him,” began the priest; but before he could finish, a door at the end -of the room quietly opened, and Gillian, with downcast eyes and air of -timid modesty, glided to Bradford’s side, murmuring: </p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_351" id="Page_351">[Pg 351]</a></span></p> - -<p>“Our dame fain would know how many beds we shall prepare. She says -there are plenty for all the gentlemen.”</p> - -<p>“St. Anthony befriend us! Is that the daughter of our worthy host?” -whispered Cromwell to the priest, who only shook his head, and rising -from his chair said in English,—</p> - -<p>“Master Bradford, will you hold me excused if I accept this gentleman’s -invitation to pass the night aboard his vessel? It may be more -convenient for my early embarkation, and less disturbance to your -household.”</p> - -<p>“You shall perfectly suit your own convenience, sir,” replied Bradford -in his calm and gentle fashion, although the murmured colloquies of -priest and buccaneer had rather annoyed him; “but you will all take -your supper with us, I trust. Gillian, you may tell the mistress that -these five gentlemen will sup with us, but prefer to sleep on board -ship.”</p> - -<p>That night Captain Cromwell transferred a curious chronicle of the -misdoings of a year past from his own conscience to the custody of the -priest, and received some very sensible and practical advice. But at -the end of all, the penitent, with a gesture of deference, declared,—</p> - -<p>“You’re right, father, doubtless right, both as priest and man of the -world; but I feel it in my marrow that yon lass is my fate, and ’tis -useless striving against it. Those eyes of hers pierced my heart to the -core when first they met mine own, and when at supper she served me -with meat and drink, no nectar or ambrosia was ever more Olympian.”</p> - -<p>“Well, well, my son,” answered the priest indulgently, “I say not -you shall not marry the maid if she will have<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_352" id="Page_352">[Pg 352]</a></span> you; but I forebode -it will be a marriage of haste, most vainly repented of at leisure. -I spoke with the governor about her, and find she is a penniless -orphan, although connected with the family of their late teacher, Elder -Brewster, as they called him; and Mistress Gillian is under the austere -protection of the governor and his most sweet and gracious lady. Your -wooing, if you persist in this mad intention, must be wholly honorable -and worthy. Remember that, my son!” and the priest’s voice assumed a -stern and authoritative accent, which the penitent accepted with a bend -of his head while he replied,—</p> - -<p>“Most positively so, father. The homeless maid shall become Mistress -Cromwell, with all the pomp and ceremony”—</p> - -<p>“Of Master Bradford’s office,” interposed the Jesuit. “For these -poor rebels to our dear Mother’s authority are only married by civil -process, and scorn the church’s benediction.”</p> - -<p>“Is that the way of it!” exclaimed Cromwell, a little dismayed. “Well, -I will bring my bride to Manhattan or to Virginia, where you tell me -you are to found a college, and our nuptials shall be blessed there. -The civil rite binds us so far as law is concerned.”</p> - -<p>“Man’s law, yes,” replied the priest dryly; “and I will trust your -word to fulfill this promise, if indeed you carry out your most rash -resolve.”</p> - -<p>“I shall carry it out, father,” asserted the buccaneer quietly. “’Tis -my way.”</p> - -<p>The next morning Father Drouillette, the richer by a gloriously -illuminated missal, a gold crucifix set with five great rubies, and -half a dozen jars of the Archbishop of Toledo’s snuff, embarked on -board the fisherman,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_353" id="Page_353">[Pg 353]</a></span> while Cromwell took up his quarters at Cole’s -tavern, which woke to such thriving business as it had never known -before. Examination of the brigantines showed two of them to be in -need of extensive repairs in consequence not only of the storm which -had driven them into Plymouth, but of the long cruise preceding it; -and as this cruise had been exceedingly prosperous, the mariners, who -during the next month pervaded the town and made acquaintance with most -of its inhabitants, scattered their money and precious commodities of -various sorts in such profusion that Governor Winthrop, of Boston, in -chronicling this visit, attributes the storm that drove the buccaneer -into Plymouth to a divine interposition intended for the maintenance of -the impoverished town, threatened with utter desertion and destruction.</p> - -<p>Nor was the leader less generous and profuse than his more reckless -followers, so that not only were the governor’s family overwhelmed with -as many rich gifts as he could be prevailed on to allow them to accept, -but nearly every one of the poorer families was so substantially -relieved as to give all new hope and energy to help themselves.</p> - -<p>Not a week from the day of his arrival had elapsed before Cromwell -sought an interview with the governor, and, without mentioning that he -already had obtained her full consent to his proposals, offered himself -as a suitor for Mistress Gillian’s hand. Bradford, utterly amazed at -the idea, would at the first have absolutely set it aside, declaring -that such a sudden fancy could have no substantial foundation, and was -unworthy of discussion; but when next the governor was closeted with -his wife, he discovered that in her mind this marriage was a scheme to -be encouraged as much as <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_354" id="Page_354">[Pg 354]</a></span>possible, and at the last, a little impatient -of masculine density, the wife exclaimed,—</p> - -<p>“’Tis an honorable and safe way out of the moil we have been stirring -in, since first we made Gillian one of our family; and so that she -desires it, and he hath means and will to care for her, all that -remains, if she has Love Brewster’s consent, is for me to make up the -piece of brocade Cromwell hath given her into a wedding gown, and for -you to bind them fast in matrimony.”</p> - -<p>“Say you so, Elsie, say you so?” demanded the governor, pausing in the -perilous operation of shaving his chin to stare into the mirror at -his wife, who was settling her cap at one corner. “Why, I fancied you -prized Gillian’s company and daughterly service above all things.”</p> - -<p>“I can spare it,” briefly replied Alice Bradford with an inscrutable -smile.</p> - -<p>“But hasn’t the child won a place in your affections, wife?”</p> - -<p>“She has in yours and Will’s and Joseph’s, and that’s three parts of -the family.”</p> - -<p>“Surely, Alice, you’ve not turned jealous?”</p> - -<p>“You lightly me, William, when you ask if I am jealous of—of Gillian.”</p> - -<p>“I do not comprehend,” murmured the governor, resuming his razor, but -presently suspending it to demand with considerable energy,—</p> - -<p>“You really mean, then, that as honest and Godfearing guardians of this -child we should give her in marriage to this stranger?”</p> - -<p>“Yes, I do. When all is said, she is almost as much a stranger as he, -and I know not why they should not suit each other well.” </p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_355" id="Page_355">[Pg 355]</a></span></p> - -<p>“So be it. I will tell the man, and do you speak as a mother should to -the maid. ’Tis not like you, Alice, to be bitter.”</p> - -<p>“I shall not love her the better, if you are to chide me on her -account, Will.”</p> - -<p>“Nay, chide thee, sweetheart! ’Twould ill befit me to chide the better -half of mine own life.”</p> - -<p>So the suitor received permission to woo his bride openly, and Gillian -presently so shone with jewels, and so rustled about in gorgeous -raiment, that matrons and maids suspended their work to run to the -doors and watch her as she passed by.</p> - -<hr /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_356" id="Page_356">[Pg 356]</a></span></p> - -<h2>CHAPTER XXXIV.</h2> - -<p class="bold">THE HILT OF A RAPIER.</p> - -<p>“Voysye! Hold on, man! Here, come along back!”</p> - -<p>“Belay your jaw, you landlubber! I’m bound to overhaul that clipper -before she gets away! Cast off your grapnel, or”—</p> - -<p>And twisting his arm away from Francis Billington, with whom he had -been drinking until both men had had more than enough, Richard Voysye, -seaman of the Golden Fleece, set out to overtake the female figure -which had just flitted past them in the twilight. Billington, not so -tipsy as the sailor, lunged forward in pursuit, and once more grasping -his arm exclaimed,—</p> - -<p>“’Tis the young dame your captain is going to marry, I tell you, and -’twill go hard with the man that affronts her”—</p> - -<p>“Hang the captain, and you too! There, then, you fool—take that!”</p> - -<p>Delivering, as he spoke, a cruel blow in the face of his opponent, -Voysye felled him to the ground, and pursuing Gillian, who hearing the -scuffle had paused to look behind her, threw a rude arm around her -waist, crying,—</p> - -<p>“Come, now, I’ll have one kiss, if I die for’t.”</p> - -<p>But Gillian, lithe as a cat, struggled and fought after her kind, so -successfully that the ruffian had not been able to snatch his kiss -before a heavy foot reached him with a kick, and a furious voice roared -in his ear,— </p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_357" id="Page_357">[Pg 357]</a></span></p> - -<p>“Avast there, you”—but the epithets are not writable, and in these -days no man, however angry, would use them in a woman’s presence. -They were, however, effectual, for with an oath quite as furious and -quite as unmentionable, Voysye quitted his hold upon the girl’s waist -and, turning, aimed at Cromwell’s face a buffet which, however, only -reached his shoulder. Angered, not so much at the assault as the -insubordination, the captain seized his sheathed rapier, and dealt with -the hilt a blow upon the sailor’s head which prostrated him, bleeding -and senseless, at Gillian’s feet.</p> - -<p>“You’ve killed him, and they’ll hang you for murder!” cried she. “Hide -him, and get away with your vessels before it’s found out.”</p> - -<p>“And would you go with me?” demanded Cromwell, gazing curiously in the -girl’s fierce, flushed face.</p> - -<p>“Yes—no—yes, if you could get clear, and save your neck and your -money,” returned Gillian with cynical frankness.</p> - -<p>“Ay, I thought as much, Mistress,” retorted the sailor, “and I’m a fool -to care for such a woman; but still I do, and when I go you shall go -too, or if I’m hung you shall have the price of a soul. Thirty pieces -satisfied Judas, didn’t it?”</p> - -<p>“Here’s another man coming,” replied Gillian coldly, and with no more -words she walked away, while Cromwell, turning to the new-comer, said,—</p> - -<p>“Well, Higgins, I’m beholden to you for setting me on his track, and -here he is. He lifted his hand on me, and I felled him with a tap of my -cutlass hilt. See if he’s hurt.”</p> - -<p>Higgins, a man of few words, stared for a moment into his captain’s -face, looked after the retreating figure<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_358" id="Page_358">[Pg 358]</a></span> of Gillian, and then kneeling -beside his comrade fingered the wound awhile, mumbling, “Hurt, I should -say! ’Tis a shrewd wound i’faith! A parlous cut! ’Tis life and death, -and nigher death than life, to my mind.”</p> - -<p>“Nonsense, man,” replied Cromwell a little uneasily. “A great hulking -fellow like that don’t die of a tap on his numskull. Run you into the -village and fetch a surgeon. Hasten, now, and when you’ve sent him, see -about some sort of litter, that we may take him to Cole’s tavern.”</p> - -<p>“’Tis no use,” grumbled Higgins, but still scrambled to his feet, and -set off at such good speed that in half an hour Doctor Matthew Fuller, -nephew and successor of our old friend Doctor Samuel, was on the spot -and encouraging the wounded man’s efforts toward consciousness. But so -soon as he could sit up and speak, Voysye, true to his nature, paid -his surgeon’s bill with a curse, responded to his captain’s rough -expressions of amity with sulky silence, and scorning the litter, or -even the support of a friendly arm, staggered off toward the shore, and -as soon as possible got aboard ship and comforted his wound with as -much Santa Cruz rum as he could obtain, seasoning it with dire threats -of vengeance against Higgins, who prudently kept out of his way.</p> - -<p>“’Tis an ill wind blown over,” reported Cromwell to his sweetheart that -night; and so it might have proved but that Voysye, waking next morning -in the dispositions natural to a man who has a fevered wound across -his head, and has gone to bed very drunk, insisted upon going ashore -to find and fight with Higgins, who had, as he knew, reported him to -the captain. In the captain’s absence all discipline had fallen into -such disrepute that<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_359" id="Page_359">[Pg 359]</a></span> nobody opposed the half-delirious movements of the -wounded man, who went ashore, roved around for a while, and finally, -just as he had discovered Higgins and was pointing a pistol at his -head, was seized with convulsions, and twenty-four hours later lay a -dead man in an upper chamber of Cole’s tavern.</p> - -<p>So serious a matter as this could not be suffered to pass unnoticed -by the authorities, and with some grave expressions of regret and an -assurance of honorable treatment, Captain Cromwell was placed under -arrest and lodged in the strong-room of the Fort under guardianship of -Lieutenant Holmes, while a messenger was dispatched to Captain’s Hill -to summon Standish to a conference with the governor and the others -of his council; for the sailor had requested to be tried by a court -martial, and who but the General Officer of all the Colonies could -organize and head it? With the great captain came Lieutenant Nash, and -Ensign-bearer Constant Southworth, with Hatherley, Alden, Willett, -Cudworth, and other of the Duxbury men, so that for some days Plymouth -assumed the air of a garrisoned place in time of war, much to the -delight of Gillian, and perhaps some other of the lonely maids of the -almost deserted town.</p> - -<p>The court martial, formal and dignified in its proceedings and -absolutely just in its dealings, lasted for a whole day, and much -testimony to Cromwell’s generous and humane treatment of his men was -rendered, as well as a good deal most unfavorable to the character of -the dead man, who seems to have been a very drunken and brutal fellow. -The only possible testimony as to the rencontre was that of Gillian, -and this she was most anxious to be permitted to give in person before -the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_360" id="Page_360">[Pg 360]</a></span> court; but here both Bradford and Brewster interposed, and -insisted that a written affidavit made and sworn before the governor -should be accepted, a course indorsed by Standish with great alacrity.</p> - -<p>In the end Cromwell was acquitted, but not without an exhortation from -Parson Rayner, the Chaplain of the Commission, to greater reverence and -tenderness for human life, to which the prisoner listened respectfully, -but Standish with a covert smile playing around the sadness of his -mouth, as he recalled a similar reproach long ago made to him by John -Robinson, now many years gone to his rest.</p> - -<p>Perhaps as a mark of respect to the court martial that had tried and -acquitted him, possibly as a late testimony to his tenderness for -human life, Cromwell’s first act as a free man was to order a military -funeral for Voysye, and to request the presence of the train band -of Plymouth, to every member of which he presented a piece of black -taffeta to make a mourning cloak.</p> - -<p>“And now I will marry you,” said Gillian, when next she saw her lover -alone; but he, with a queer smile, replied,—</p> - -<p>“Think better of it, my dear! my money is well-nigh spent, and I feel -it in my bones that the next court martial will order me to be shot. -You’ll make a poor bargain, and that’s not to your mind.”</p> - -<p>“A poor bargain indeed!” retorted Gillian, her temper flaming up; and -as John Alden’s boat was over from Duxbury she begged a passage in -it, and an hour later was on her way to visit Betty Pabodie, as she -pretended, but really to torment Sarah Brewster, who felt that she had -no right to refuse her willful kinswoman shelter whenever she claimed -it. </p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_361" id="Page_361">[Pg 361]</a></span></p> - -<p>A few days later Cromwell sailed for Boston, where he remained for some -months, presented Governor Winthrop with an elegant sedan-chair, taken -out of one of his prizes, and was much admired and petted. Whether -Gillian joined him there and was openly married to him, or whether the -innate romance pervasive of the sea moved Cromwell to plan and execute -an elopement for the girl, whose relatives would have been only too -glad to give her to any worthy husband, we cannot tell; but that in -some way they at last came together is evident, and also that they were -married, since she was allowed to inherit his property. The manner -of his death was one of those marvels which men then regarded as a -direct judgment from heaven, but which we moderns are content to call a -strange coincidence.</p> - -<p>It was in the late autumn, and Cromwell, after a merry feast at the -house of a boon companion in Dorchester, was riding rapidly homeward, -when his horse slipped upon an icy slope, and threw his rider violently -over his head. The night passed, and in the morning a wayfarer found -the faithful beast standing pensive and patient beside his master’s -prostrate body, now cold and stiff; and when he was brought into the -town and carried to his lodgings a wild-eyed woman rushed to meet -him, and staring at the wound whence his lifeblood had drained away, -shrieked, “’Tis Voysye’s hurt over again,” and fell in a swoon across -the body.</p> - -<p>John Higgins, who had followed his captain’s body home, started in -terror at that word, and coming forward drew away the hair from the -wound, stared at it as Gillian had done, and hoarsely asked,—</p> - -<p>“Was’t Voysye’s spook did it?”</p> - -<p>“Nay, man,” impatiently answered the man who had<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_362" id="Page_362">[Pg 362]</a></span> found him. “See you -not that ’twas the hilt of the poor gentleman’s own rapier did it? When -I came upon him, the brass was bedded in the wound, and you may see the -blood and hairs upon it now. See!”</p> - -<p>“Ay, I see,” replied Higgins heavily. “And well do I know, without -seeing, whose hand it was that urged the hilt to just that spot upon my -poor captain’s head. Wow! But I wish I might have seen the tussle that -befell when the old man got free of his carcase and fell upon Voysye -man to man; nay, spook to spook. Would they still be at it, think you?”</p> - -<p>In a month or so more, Gillian, a very wealthy young widow, sailed for -England, where she married a pious and passing rich old Covenanter, -whom she also survived, and became one of the gayest and least -prejudiced ladies of the Court of Charles the Second, where we will -leave her.</p> - -<hr /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_363" id="Page_363">[Pg 363]</a></span></p> - -<h2>CHAPTER XXXV.</h2> - -<p class="bold">CANARY WINE AND SEED-CAKE.</p> - -<p>It was in what Captain William Pierce called the ebb of the afternoon; -that dreamy, quiet leisure hour that falls in country places when the -heavy work and heavy feeding of the day are over, and the evening -milking and bedding the cattle and providing the pleasant meal called -supper still lie in the middle distance.</p> - -<p>Priscilla, our own Priscilla, not forgotten or unloved, -although unmentioned and a little hidden behind the throng of -new-comers,—Priscilla Alden stood in the thrifty orchard of pear and -apple trees, planted twenty years before by her goodman, trees whose -lineal descendants may to-day be found in the place of the old ones, -just as Aldens still till the Aldens’ farm.</p> - -<p>At the edge of the orchard a row of lime-trees shaded the well and -the southern door of the comfortable house, and beneath these trees -were set the beehives, whose dainty denizens loved the golden blossoms -so well that from morning until night they swarmed up and down their -fragrant pasture, making a sound like the surf upon a pebbly shore. -Priscilla is gone, those trees, those bees are gone, and you and I are -going, but the bees of to-day swarm just as vigorously through this -lime-tree at my window as those did then, and as the bees of two or -three centuries hence will through the trees whose seeds are not yet -planted. Only man is<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_364" id="Page_364">[Pg 364]</a></span> ephemeral and changeable: the bees and the trees -are conservative.</p> - -<p>Some such idea, but too vague to be recognized by an unspeculative -brain, floated through Priscilla’s mind as, leaning against the trunk -of her favorite pear-tree, she gazed up into the yellow lime blossoms, -listened to the bees, and remembered the years when she and John had -planted the trees, while their little children looked on and asked -questions.</p> - -<p>“Ah well, ah well!” murmured she at last. “’Tis their nature to -swarm—the children and the bees, both; and Betty shall have the best -hive as soon as they’re settled. Ah me!”</p> - -<p>Then with one of her old impetuous motions Priscilla dashed her hands -across her eyes and cleared them of the coming tears. Good, kindly, -honest eyes still, if not so bright or so brown as they were once, and -as Betty’s are now; and a comely matron face, albeit the colors are -somewhat ripened; and the chestnut hair, lined with a silver thread -here and there, is put back under a matron’s coif, but the mobile lips -still disclose perfect teeth, and John Alden still holds it a delight -to take a kiss from those lips, and put his finger under that smooth, -round chin. ’Tis no more than later summer yet, and the frosts of -autumn are as yet far distant.</p> - -<p>“Ah well, ah well!” said Priscilla once more, and restlessly plucked a -rose or two from the tall bush beside the door, those old-fashioned, -sweet white roses now almost forgotten. As she pinned them in the -kerchief covering her bosom, the matron paused, and with eye and ear -questioned the grassy path leading from the new-made highway to the -front of their own house. Yes, a horse was heavily trotting up the -path, and, going<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_365" id="Page_365">[Pg 365]</a></span> around the corner of the house, Priscilla was just -in time to meet Mistress Standish, mounted upon a pillion, with John -Haward in the saddle.</p> - -<p>“And glad am I to see you, Barbara,” cried she, embracing and kissing -her friend with more vivacity than most mothers of her day ventured to -show. “’Tis a sight for sore eyes to look upon you. Where have you been -keeping yourself?”</p> - -<p>“Where housewives must—at home,” replied Barbara pleasantly. “John, -you can lift the saddle and cool the mare’s back, but I shall not tarry -over an hour, so hold you within call.”</p> - -<p>“Nay, you’ll stay supper,” remonstrated Priscilla as the two women -went into the house, and the hostess removed her guest’s riding gear. -“There’s a moon, you know.”</p> - -<p>“Ay, and there’s a goodman at home,” retorted Barbara, and then, her -face suddenly losing its somewhat artificial air of cheerfulness, she -looked piteously in her friend’s eyes and said with a catch in her -voice,—</p> - -<p>“’Tis about him, about Myles, that I’ve come to see you, Priscilla.”</p> - -<p>“Why, what is the matter, dear? Is the captain ailing more than usual?”</p> - -<p>“No, though he’s far from well, and naught angers him so quick as -saying so; but that’s not the worst. ’Tis his soul that’s sick, -Priscilla.”</p> - -<p>“But how? Has the parson been at him again to join the church?”</p> - -<p>“Nay, I’m afraid Master Partridge will never look over the things Myles -said the last time he urged him so vehemently, and the captain gave way -to the ache in his back, that he says is ever with him, and let out a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_366" id="Page_366">[Pg 366]</a></span> -strange oath or two about meddling parsons and I know not what. To be -sure’t was in Dutch, but I think parson spelled out enough of it to -anger him, and”—</p> - -<p>“And serve him right, plaguing a sick man with the catechism,” broke in -Priscilla. “But if not that, what is it ails the captain?”</p> - -<p>“Why, it’s not so much the captain that’s ailing as Josiah, poor boy.”</p> - -<p>“Josiah ailing!”</p> - -<p>“Yes, with a sore and sharp disease called love-sickness, Priscilla. -You know he’s sweethearted Mary Dingley these five years or more, and a -dear, pretty, loving little maid she is.”</p> - -<p>“Yes, and what’s come across their courting?”</p> - -<p>“Why, there’s where Myles is distraught. Before our Lora went, you know -she and Mary Dingley were closer than sisters, and while my poor girl -lay sick Mary was ever at her side, and helped us dress her for her -burying”—</p> - -<p>“Ah, the sweet saint, how pure and holy she looked when we had done!” -murmured Priscilla, but Barbara hurriedly raised her hand.</p> - -<p>“Nay, talk not on ’t, or I shall lose sight of all else. ’Tis only by -times I dare to speak of her. You know when our Alick married your -Sally, his father would fain have had them come home to live; but -Sally had liever keep her own house, and Alick felt himself old enough -to be goodman,—and, well, never mind all that, but Josiah talked to -me—you know he was ever my own boy—at that time, and he said when he -and his Molly got wed, ’twould be his wish and will and her pleasure -to come home to us, and be the stay of our old age, and so ’twas -settled; but then my poor maid took sick, and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_367" id="Page_367">[Pg 367]</a></span> there was no thought of -aught but her in the house, and when she was gone, Josiah, who loved -her tenderly, said not a word until the year came round and more, and -then, man fashion, he spoke out more honestly than shrewdly to his -father and me together, and said ’t was time now that he was wed, and -he would fain bring his wife to us to fill the place of her that was -gone. Mayhap ’twas just the word ‘fill the place’ that angered Lora’s -father; perhaps he forgot that he was young himself once, and that God -lightens the burdens that he lays upon young hearts lest they should be -broken before they’re used, while to us that have well-nigh done our -work he lets grief crush out this world’s life that we may be ready for -the next. But, however that may be, the captain took mortal offense at -the thought of any young woman filling Lora’s place at the hearth or -in the love of those who mourned her and should ever mourn her, and he -said things that no temper but one so sweet as my Josiah’s could have -brooked. If it had been Myles, he would have broke out at his father -and given as good as he got, and when o’ stormy nights I think of my -poor sailor lad at sea, I comfort myself with the thought that he’s -safe from breaking the fifth commandment. But there, ’tis not of son -Myles I’m speaking, but of poor Josiah.”</p> - -<p>“And he took his father’s rating in brave patience as he ever does,—so -Alick says,” said Alick’s mother-in-law.</p> - -<p>“Yes. Then Alick has told you of our trouble?” demanded Barbara almost -jealously, but Priscilla hastened to reply,—</p> - -<p>“Oh, no. Only he loves to magnify his brother, who is more than dear to -him. But go on, Bab, with your story.” </p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_368" id="Page_368">[Pg 368]</a></span></p> - -<p>“Well, dear, I tried to talk with the captain when we were alone, but -the wound was too deep and too angry to bear much handling, and so I -e’en left it to nature and to grace. But at the end he consented that -Josiah should marry, and he would talk with John Dingley about setting -up the young folks, and he promised never to say another bitter word to -Josiah about it; but on the other hand he would not go to the marriage, -and he bade me tell the poor lad that he was not to bring his lass to -the house either before or after they were married, for no, not for one -half hour should Lora’s place be filled, nor should any woman call him -father so long as he lived.”</p> - -<p>“He bade Alick tell Sally as much as that, and she hasn’t been anigh -your house since,” interposed Sally’s mother indignantly; but Barbara -raised her shadowy blue eyes so piteously, and looked so imploringly -into her friend’s face, that a misty softness suddenly filled -Priscilla’s own eyes, and petting the other’s hand she said,—</p> - -<p>“There, there, gossip, ’tis all right! Go on, go on.”</p> - -<p>And Barbara, smiling faintly as one well used to control her own -feelings, and to make allowance for the impetuosity of others, went on: -“So I told Josiah, and he told Mary, and she her father and mother, and -not one of them would hearken to any marriage so shadowed, nor could I -blame them. All that was a year ago, and Josiah has been as good a son -as ever man could ask ever since; but a week apast or so, he spoke to -me, and said his youth was going, and Mary was of full age, and ’twas -not right that he should ask her to wait in her father’s house till her -younger sisters were married over her head, and he had made up his mind -to go to <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_369" id="Page_369">[Pg 369]</a></span>Connecticut and make a home whereto he might carry his wife. -John Haward could manage the farm, and Hobomok the fishing and boats, -and perhaps his brother Myles after this voyage would settle down -awhile at home. Oh, Priscilla, when I heard that word I felt as if the -end had come, and I must e’en lay down under the burthen that I could -not carry. Alick gone, and Myles gone, and my one sweet maid gone, and -my two dear little fellows left over on Burying Hill at Plymouth, and -now Josiah, the one whom, God forgive me, I haply loved the best”—</p> - -<p>“No, no, it sha’n’t be, it can’t be,” interrupted Priscilla -impulsively. “Myles shall listen to reason; he shall see that what he -calls grief has grown into cruel selfishness. I’ll tell him so; I’ll -talk to him”—</p> - -<p>“’Twas what I came to ask of you, dear Pris! Well do I know, that -from the days before I came until now, Myles has held you in singular -tenderness, and you may say to him things that no one else dare, and -that I will not say lest he mistake it for chiding, or for want of -love, or—well, now, how can I say it, Priscilla, but you know as well -as I, that when a woman has once made her husband ashamed of himself, -she has lost what she never will recover in his eyes. Our masters love -not to be mastered by a woman, and she the one sworn to obedience.”</p> - -<p>“And so you’d put me in that place and make sure that hereafter Myles -shall not love me too well!” exclaimed Priscilla petulantly, and in -the same breath added, “No, no, that was but a peevish jest, and you -know it, Bab. Wait, now, till I take counsel with myself, for there’s -a thought lurking somewhere in the back of my head that I’d fain catch -and look in’s face before I say more.” </p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_370" id="Page_370">[Pg 370]</a></span></p> - -<p>And jumping up, Priscilla went to a cupboard, and taking out a decanter -of canary wine and a loaf of seed-cake, placed them before her guest -with a napkin and a sheath-knife. Then, lifting a forefinger to silence -Barbara’s acknowledgments, she went to the open door, and stood -plucking some withered leaves and faded flowers from the white rosebush -with automatic tidiness, but with a mind altogether unconscious of the -body’s occupation.</p> - -<p>A few moments of summer silence followed, that living silence of summer -so different from the deadly silence of winter, and then, suddenly -flinging her handful of leaves and roses upon the ground, Priscilla -turned, and coming back into the room cried triumphantly, “I have it -now, Barbara! ’Tis Betty!”</p> - -<p>“Betty!” echoed Barbara dropping the morsel of cake from between her -fingers. “What about Betty?”</p> - -<p>“She’s the one to speak to Myles about Josiah and Mary Dingley.”</p> - -<p>“Betty!”</p> - -<p>“Yes, Betty. See here, now, woman; ’tisn’t that I’m afeard of -Myles,—the dear knows that I never yet quailed before the face of man; -but, Bab, you’ve hit on one sad truth about our masters, and I’ll give -you another. They ill brook to be taught by their wives, say you, and -I will add, they still love a fair young face better than one whereon -they’ve watched the wrinkles come and the bloom fade out. Some thirty -years ago I was a comely lass enough, and our gallant captain thought -me so; but he’s seen me at least five times a sennight ever since, and -I could tell you well-nigh the day he stared long and shrewdly in my -face and said in his heart, ‘She’s lost her comeliness’”— </p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_371" id="Page_371">[Pg 371]</a></span></p> - -<p>“Nay, nay, Pris, he’s said more than once that Sally’s not a patch upon -her mother.”</p> - -<p>“Upon what her mother was once, was what he meant, gossip, no matter -what he said. Oh, don’t tell me, Bab! If I know naught else in this -world, I know Priscilla Alden, and I can spell out a page or so of -Myles Standish. But pass all that, and come to Betty.</p> - -<p>“It’s not only that she’s far comelier than ever her mother was, but -she’s fresh and new in her matronhood; as a maid she held her tongue -before her elders as a maid should do, and I’ll lay you a pretty penny -that the captain don’t guess she has a tongue, and a headpiece to keep -it in, that’ll match any man in the colony, if once she starts out. Now -what I say is, that she shall go in boldly, as Esther did to Ahasuerus, -and speak her mind, and as Esther said, If she die, she dies. Thank -goodness, the captain can’t kill her outright, and she can stand a -strange word or two in Dutch better than poor Parson Partridge did.”</p> - -<p>“Well, ’tis an idea to think on,” replied Barbara slowly, and -Priscilla, knowing that the matter was settled, smiled the smile of a -contented diplomat, and brushing the cake crumbs into the napkin, shook -them out of the door before she quietly clenched the matter by saying,—</p> - -<p>“I’m going over to Betty’s in the morning, and I’ll speak to her.”</p> - -<hr /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_372" id="Page_372">[Pg 372]</a></span></p> - -<h2>CHAPTER XXXVI.</h2> - -<p class="bold">BETTY BEARDS THE LION.</p> - -<p>It was perhaps a week later, but as fair and peaceful a summer evening -as that when Priscilla Alden showed herself more worldly-wise than -vain, that Myles Standish, according to his constant custom, climbed -the Captain’s Hill to sit upon the sunset seat, and with sad eyes -fixed upon the horizon line to muse in lonely bitterness upon the -sorrow he endured but did not accept. Half an hour of solitude no -more than sufficed to deaden the physical pain, aggravated by the -steep climb, against which the soldier in his latter years fought in -the grim silence of hopelessness, and with a long breath of relief he -leaned back against one of the trees supporting the seat and wiped his -forehead. The sound of a light footstep, the rustle of a woman’s dress, -disturbed him, and with a sudden flush of emotion he turned, half -fancying that Lora herself had come to meet him at her favorite tryst.</p> - -<p>But instead of the fair pale face, the golden hair, and spiritual blue -eyes of his daughter, it was the joyous and brilliant face of Betty -Alden, or as we now must learn to call her, Bettie Pabodie, subdued -indeed by tenderest sympathy, but rich in color, in light, in abounding -health, that met his gaze, and with a peevish exclamation he turned -away, fixing his eyes again upon the water.</p> - -<p>“Mayn’t I come and sit with you a little minute,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_373" id="Page_373">[Pg 373]</a></span> Captain?” asked -Betty, seeing and hearing all, but noticing nothing, and without -waiting for reply she sank down upon the other end of the bench, and -for some minutes remained quite silent; then she said very softly,—</p> - -<p>“I came here to find you, sir, for it seemed to me the fittest place.”</p> - -<p>“For what?” asked the father hoarsely, as his unwelcome companion -paused.</p> - -<p>“To speak of one I loved more than ever I loved mine own sisters.” And -the round firm voice grew very sweetly tender and tremulous, for it -spoke no more than the truth.</p> - -<p>“I cannot talk of her—I know you loved her, and she you—but”—</p> - -<p>Again there was silence, for the great heart bled inwardly and made no -sign. At last the girl ventured again:—</p> - -<p>“Oh, forgive me, sir, if I seem to fail of respect to your wish, or of -tenderness to your exceeding sorrow, but there’s something she fain -would have you know. God forgive me if I profanely touch his mysteries, -but it seems to me that she who has gone straight to his presence has -been sent to bring to mind words she spoke and I never yet have dared -repeat. Will you say nay to her wish, dear and honored friend?”</p> - -<p>“Words she said?” echoed the father, and, uncovering his face, he -turned and fixed upon Betty such stern demanding eyes, that even her -high courage almost quailed; but though her lips turned pale, she -steadfastly replied,—</p> - -<p>“Yes, words she said in the night before she went. Only I heard them.”</p> - -<p>“And God,” suggested the captain as severely as if he were -administering an oath. </p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_374" id="Page_374">[Pg 374]</a></span></p> - -<p>“And God who hears me now,” replied Betty, her eyes meeting his so -bravely and so truthfully that his own softened as he said,—</p> - -<p>“I marvel that you feared to tell me anything I ought to know.”</p> - -<p>“I did not exactly fear, sir, but I knew ’twould be unwelcome, and -mayhap too soon to do good.”</p> - -<p>“Well. Leave skirmishing, and come out boldly with whatever it may be. -I’ll listen, at least.”</p> - -<p>And folding his arms and setting his lips, the soldier faced her with -just the mien he would have worn in submitting to an amputation upon -the field of battle. An answering courage lighted the face of the -young woman, and although Standish did not then consciously notice how -beautiful she was, doubtless that beauty made itself felt.</p> - -<p>But brave as she was, Betty could not steadily endure the sombre flame -of eyes that seemed to pierce the very core of her heart, and her own -gaze, after a little wandering, fixed upon the thatched roof-tree in -the plain below, where her baby girl lay asleep in its cradle, and her -voice was calm and steady as she made reply.</p> - -<p>“It was in the last night that our dear Lora was with us, and you had -just gone somewhat hastily out of the room and out of the house”—</p> - -<p>“Ay.”</p> - -<p>“And Lora looked after you a moment while her lips moved in prayer. -Then she turned to me and said,—</p> - -<p>“‘Dear father! He’ll miss me sore, and he’ll grieve out of measure that -he denied me my love,’”—</p> - -<p>A bitter, bitter groan burst from the father’s lips, and he buried his -face in his hands for a moment, but uttered no word. Betty paused for a -moment, and went on more softly,— </p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_375" id="Page_375">[Pg 375]</a></span></p> - -<p>“‘But tell him when he can bear it,’ said she, ‘that it made no -difference and it did no harm. Before ever Wrestling spoke to me I had -heard one say to my soul, The Master hath come and calleth for thee! -and I have long been ready, ay, and fain to go.’”</p> - -<p>“Said she so! Said my maid so! ‘Ready, ay, and fain to go’?”</p> - -<p>“They are her very words, her very, very words.”</p> - -<p>“I can believe it; I can believe my own lass would find some way to -comfort me, even from the grave where she is laid.”</p> - -<p>“Nay, dear sir, from the heaven whither she has gone to live forever.”</p> - -<p>“I can believe that, too, from your lips, child, for you come to me as -an angel. More, tell me more.”</p> - -<p>“I cannot tell all her words after those, for she grew faint and weak, -and much was lost, but I gathered that her mind dwelt much upon some -story Gillian Brewster had told her of a far away foreign convent, and -she spoke of the leaves of a great tree that ever waved across an open -door, and brought cool breezes to her head. I believe she wandered a -little in her mind, and then she grew very still, and after a while she -opened her eyes and smiled up into mine the while she whispered, ‘’Tis -Mary and not Sally that will comfort him best. She’ll be a daughter -to him in a place next to mine. Tell him so.’ Then she shut her eyes -again, and we spoke no more alone.”</p> - -<p>“And it is all true truth?”</p> - -<p>“All God’s truth, sir. Oh, do you think I could say otherwise?”</p> - -<p>“No. I know you could not. Wait.” And with his head bowed upon his -breast the captain took counsel<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_376" id="Page_376">[Pg 376]</a></span> with himself for many minutes. At last -he looked at Betty, whose bright face now was pale with exhaustion, and -said almost harshly,—</p> - -<p>“I knew not that she cared overmuch for Mary Dingley; they were little -enough alike.”</p> - -<p>“No; but don’t you see, sir,” replied Betty with a sort of sweet -impatience, “that it was not her own likings or her own pleasure -she was thinking of, but of you and your happiness? Even if she had -misliked Mary and knew she would be a good daughter to you, she would -have said the same.”</p> - -<p>“Yes, yes, you’re right, girl, you’re right, and I’m but a poor, blind, -selfish old man. She’d have me think of others more than of myself. The -mother getting old and no daughter to help her, no little children to -cheer her,—yes, I see, my maid, I see, and I’ll do your bidding—if I -can.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, no, sir, not my bidding”—</p> - -<p>“I know, I know, lass, and for all thy high spirit thou wert ever -maiden meek and mild to thine elders. But it was not to thee I spoke -just then. Yet now I will have thee to advise with me, for, truth to -tell, I am a little fogged and stunned with all these matters, and -since my sweet maid left me I’ve grown old and doddering—no, never -mind naysaying me, I know what I know. What I will have thee tell me, -Betty, is this. Shall I—would Lora have me bid Josiah bring his wife -home—and let her sit in—Oh, my God! I cannot, I cannot”—</p> - -<p>He covered his face again, and for some moments Betty sat in respectful -silence, then, moving nearer, laid a light touch upon the shoulder -heaving under its mighty struggle for self-control. </p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_377" id="Page_377">[Pg 377]</a></span></p> - -<p>“Not in Lora’s place, dear sir,” said she softly. “No one can take that -e’en if she would, and Mary Dingley would not an she could. I know her -well, and a milder, gentler, sweeter maid no longer lives on earth. She -is one who will ever bear your grief in mind, yet never speak of it; -one who will give you a daughter’s duty and tendance, yet never press -for a daughter’s freedom; one who will love you as much as you will let -her, yet never be nettled at thought you do not love her as you might. -She is as fond of Josiah as woman can be of man, yet modest and meek -and shamefast as a maid should ever be. Oh, sir, she is a girl among a -thousand, I do assure you, and if you will open house and heart to her -you shall never, never repent of it.”</p> - -<p>“The maid must be worth something who can claim so leal a friend in -you, Betty Alden.”</p> - -<p>And across that worn and haggard face gleamed a smile such as had not -been seen there since Lora died. The certainty of success shot like -a sharp pain through Betty’s heart, and for a moment broke down the -courage which failure would only have stimulated. Turning suddenly -away, and leaning her head against a tree-trunk, she drew a long, -gasping breath and burst into tears.</p> - -<p>Was not Priscilla’s intuition justified, and her theory proven? Had it -been she herself, or any woman of her age and strong character, she -would have learned self-control and so lost her best weapon; or if she -had fallen into tears, the man would have simply felt that the weakness -of age had overtaken her, and would have doubted the soundness of her -advice. But when sweet-and-twenty weeps honestly and fervidly, and -from a loving, honest heart, no man between thirty and seventy<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_378" id="Page_378">[Pg 378]</a></span> looks -unmoved upon those tears; nor did Myles Standish, as hastily rising he -hovered over the girl, not touching her, for no Spaniard ever treated -his Infanta with more respect than this true gentleman showed to every -woman, but pulling out a great handkerchief and making little futile -efforts to apply it, while he incoherently exclaimed in almost the -voice he might have used to Lora,—</p> - -<p>“Why, there now, there, dear heart,—nay, child, for pity’s sake—why, -my little lass, don’t ’ee take on so. Nay, what shall I say to pleasure -thee? Come, now, Betty, come, now, dry up thine eyes like a good girl, -and I’ll give thee—what shall I give thee? If thou wert mine own lass -I’d give thee a kiss”—</p> - -<p>“And I’ll give you one as it is, sir,” cried Betty, and turning like a -flash, she threw her arms around the old man’s neck and pressed upon -his cheek two lips so soft, so warm, so sweet, that a streak of dark -red mounted to his temples, and taking the girl’s head between his -hands he kissed her forehead with a strange stir of reverent tenderness -at his heart.</p> - -<p>“Betty, my lass, thou’st done a good work to-day,” said he simply, and -she, with a smile and a, sob struggling for preëminence, murmured,—</p> - -<p>“Thank God!”</p> - -<hr /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_379" id="Page_379">[Pg 379]</a></span></p> - -<h2>CHAPTER XXXVII.</h2> - -<p class="bold">“MARY STANDISH, MY DEAR DAUGHTER-IN-LAW.”</p> - -<p>The lime-trees have shed not only flowers but fruit, and the bees are -adding to their clover and clethra honey a last deposit from latest -hollyhocks and goldenrod. The apples lie in fragrant piles beneath the -orchard trees, or in a less worthy heap beside the cider mill; the -maize and the pumpkins gleam in merry gold, exulting over the withered -foliage that in their non-age flaunted above their heads; the barns are -bursting, and the cattle sleek with plenteous corn; it is the jocund -time of year when Mother Earth spreads an abundant board, and calls her -children to eat and give thanks to their Creator and hers.</p> - -<p>The waters of Duxbury Bay, placid and gleaming with the hazy sunlight -of the Indian summer, reflect the sails of a dozen or more boats lazily -gliding in from Plymouth, from Marshfield, from Scituate, and even -from Barnstable and Sandwich, for the children of the Pilgrims have -not yet outgrown the family love and interest that bound their fathers -in so close a tie, and the Robinsons, children of the good pastor who -so loved and so cruelly misjudged our captain, have come from the Cape -to the wedding of his son, bringing with them little Marcy, to whom -Standish left “£3 to her whom I tenderly love for her grandfather’s -sake.”</p> - -<p>Yes, this is the wedding day of Josiah Standish and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_380" id="Page_380">[Pg 380]</a></span> Mary Dingley, -whose parents have generously consented to bring their daughter to -Duxbury and let the marriage take place in her future home, as the -captain has requested; and now that he has given his consent, the old -man gives his heart to the plan, and sends his own boat with John -Haward or Hobomok laden with invitations to the old friends whom in -these latter days he has almost churlishly avoided.</p> - -<p>“Our maid would have us show true and hearty welcome to the new -sister,” he says rather wistfully to Betty, upon whom he leans -pathetically for companionship and appreciation, and she confidently -replies, “Yes, indeed, she would have it so.”</p> - -<p>“The governor’s boat is coming in, father,” announces Josiah, his -honest face aglow with love and pride, and the captain rather heavily -descends the path, and as the boat grazes the wharf extends his -hand to the stately white-haired and benignant man, who grasps it -affectionately and says,—</p> - -<p>“So here we all are once more, Captain. ’Tis a great compliment these -young folk pay me, when so many other magistrates are nigh hand to -them.”</p> - -<p>“So many, ay,” replies the captain heartily. “But shake us all up in -a bag, and we’ll not make one of Will Bradford, let alone that you’re -governor of the Colony and my boy’s so cock-a-hoop that no less than -the governor will serve his turn.”</p> - -<p>“Says your father sooth, Josiah?” demands Bradford, turning to give his -hand to the bridegroom, who presents himself with bashful manliness, or -if you please with manly bashfulness, to welcome his father’s guests -and receive their jocose congratulations.</p> - -<p>“And now to business, that we may the sooner come<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_381" id="Page_381">[Pg 381]</a></span> to pleasure, for -I shrewdly guess the housewife hath a crust and a cup ready for us -somewhere, and so soon as we’ve settled these two young folk, we’ll -look for our reward.”</p> - -<p>So cried the captain, striving piteously after his old jocular air, as -he led the way up the hill to the house, which, with doors standing -hospitably open, white curtains waving from swinging casements, and -groups of smiling matrons and maids standing around, presented a very -festive appearance.</p> - -<p>“You have added to your house since I was here, Captain,” remarked -Bradford, pausing at the top of the bluff to regard the scene before -him.</p> - -<p>“Yes. We had to make room for the young couple, and while we were about -it, I pleased myself with shaping a sort of fortalice that’s long been -in my mind, and the rather that I forebode trouble with the Indians -before many years. Hobomok is uneasy, and if the Dutch hanker too -greedily for our roasted chestnuts they’ll like enough thrust in a red -man’s paw to scratch them out.”</p> - -<p>“Why, what hath Hobomok learned? We should know as soon as you, -Captain.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, there’s no cut-and-dried story to tell, or I would surely have -carried it to you, and as it is, I shall offer some good advice to you -at Plymouth; but one thing at a time, Will, and to-night we’re at a -wedding and not at a council. Think you not ’t is a pretty notion of a -fortified cottage?”</p> - -<p>“Why, yes”—began the governor, but the soldier eagerly interrupted -him, pointing out, with the professional pride of an engineer, how -the two parallelograms of the building, so placed as to form two -sides of an irregular triangle, inclosed a court or corral closed on -the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_382" id="Page_382">[Pg 382]</a></span> third side by a high stockade. Into this the livestock could be -driven, and the farm utensils and other outdoor property secured, at -very brief notice, while portholes, cunningly masked, commanded not -only the approach to this corral, but to the only outside door of the -house, placed at the junction of the two parallelograms, one of which -slightly overlapped the other. Three substantial chimneys, two in the -southern and one in the northern wing of the house, promised domestic -comfort amid all this warlike defense, and beneath the white-curtained -casements cottage flowers bravely bloomed, and tossed their heads in -saucy security.</p> - -<p>“We keep the southern front for ourselves,” remarked Myles with his -grim smile. “Old folks need the sun to warm their sluggish blood, but -these youngsters can make their own summer, for a while at least.”</p> - -<p>“Nay, you’ve lent them some sunshine at the east end of their wing, -and well do I hope they’ll lend you some of the summer of their joy, -Myles.” So spoke the governor, looking shrewdly into the face of -his old friend; but he, avoiding the glance, slightly shrugged his -shoulders, muttering,—</p> - -<p>“He who lives will see,” and led the way into the house.</p> - -<p>The brief and bald civil service soon was said, the hearty salutes -bestowed, and the sturdy handshaking over; then Governor Bradford, -with an air at once paternal and courtly, led the bride to the head of -the principal table, and the feast, upon which the skill of a select -committee of our old friends had expended itself, began. But too many -feasts have been described, and I dare not tell of the glories of this, -save only of the great wedding-cake, with its choice frostwork of -flowers and <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_383" id="Page_383">[Pg 383]</a></span>foliage, shaped by Betty Pabodie’s nimble fingers,—a cake -to be carved with much ceremony, and amid much mirth and jubilation, -by the bride’s own hand, with the gold ring hidden somewhere amid its -sweets for the next bride, and the toy half of a scissors for the man -doomed to be an old bachelor.</p> - -<p>But at last all was over; the hunter’s moon, whose culmination had -fixed the date of the wedding, hung glorious in heaven, shedding almost -the light of day; the neighbors’ horses were saddled and pillioned, and -the boats of those who came from farther afield were manned and ready; -Alice Bradford, muffling herself in cloak and hood for the voyage, -was changing a last word with Priscilla and Barbara, while sweet -Alice Richards, her daughter-in-law, was deep in baby lore with Betty -Pabodie, and the governor and the captain outside the door were by -chance left for a moment quite alone. Turning by a common impulse—one -of those impulses we all have felt compelling us to undreamed-of -action,—they faced each other and grasped hands.</p> - -<p>“I’m glad you came, Will,” said the captain.</p> - -<p>“Ay, and so am I. ’Tis many a year since first we clasped hands in old -Amsterdam, Myles.”</p> - -<p>“More years than there are months between this and our last hand clasp, -friend.”</p> - -<p>“God knows—God alone knows.”</p> - -<p>“Mind you of that other moonlight night, Will, when you and I stood by -my girl’s new-made grave, and you moved me to bury my revenge with her?”</p> - -<p>“I’ve thought of it more than once to-night, more than once.”</p> - -<p>“He’s dead.”</p> - -<p>“What, your cousin?” </p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_384" id="Page_384">[Pg 384]</a></span></p> - -<p>“Yes. The man that slighted my maid. He’s dead and buried.”</p> - -<p>“And revenge of thought as well as deed is buried with him, Myles, is -it not?”</p> - -<p>“H—m! Now, that’s a fight where I’m willing to cry craven. See you -here, Will, the Lord that made me fashioned me out of mere mortal clay, -and his work stands fast in spite of my good will or yours to change -it. While I was a young fellow, I fought the Spaniards and the Turks; -in my lustyhood, I fought the Indians and the wilderness; and now, in -mine age, I fight Myles Standish and the devil; and though I’ve as good -a stomach for hard knocks as most men, I feel betimes ’twill not be a -sorry thing to undo harness, hang up Gideon, and lay me down to rest -and sleep.”</p> - -<p>“Not yet, old friend, not yet! We came on pilgrimage together, and -we’ll march shoulder to shoulder into the holy city,—that is, if God -will.”</p> - -<p>“If God will,” echoed Standish, and as the merry throng poured out, -they found the elders standing hand in hand and face to face, with the -moonlight gleaming softly over them and glistening in their eyes.</p> - -<div lang='en' xml:lang='en'> -<div style='display:block; margin-top:4em'>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK <span lang='' xml:lang=''>BETTY ALDEN</span> ***</div> -<div style='text-align:left'> - -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> -Updated editions will replace the previous one—the old editions will -be renamed. -</div> - -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> -Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright -law 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. 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