Standish of Standish: A Story of the Pilgrims
by Jane G. Austin · English · Gutenberg #22052 · 670,958 chars · public domain (US)
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Title: Standish of Standish: A Story of the Pilgrims
Author: Jane G. Austin
Release date: July 12, 2007 [eBook #22052]
Language: English
Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/22052
Credits: E-text prepared by Susan Carr, Suzanne Shell, and the Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team
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E-text prepared by Susan Carr, Suzanne Shell, and the Project Gutenberg
Online Distributed Proofreading Team (http://www.pgdp.net)
Transcriber's note:
Inconsistencies in hyphenation have been maintained. Archaic
usage of words such as "salvage" for "savage" and "randevous"
for "rendezvous" have been maintained. Several misprints and
punctuation errors have been corrected. A list of corrections
can be found at the end of the text.
STANDISH OF STANDISH
A Story of the Pilgrims
by
Jane G. Austin
* * * * *
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, on and New York.
* * * * *
STANDISH OF STANDISH
A Story of the Pilgrims
by
JANE G. AUSTIN
Author of "A Nameless Nobleman," "The Desmond Hundred," "Mrs. Beauchamp
Brown," "Nantucket Scraps," "Moon Folk," Etc., Etc.
[Illustration]
Boston and New York Houghton, Mifflin and Company The Riverside Press,
Cambridge 1892
Copyright, 1889,
by Jane G. Austin.
All rights reserved
Eleventh Edition.
The Riverside Press, Cambridge, Mass., U. S. A.
Electrotyped and Printed by H. O. Houghton & Co.
Dedication.
TO THE MEMORY OF MY DEAR BROTHER,
JOHN A. GOODWIN,
WHO MORE THAN ANY MAN HAS CONSERVED FOR OUR DELIGHT THE STORY OF THOSE
PILGRIM FATHERS "WITHOUT WHOSE LIVES OURS HAD NOT BEEN."
A PREFATORY NOTE.
The history of the Old Colony includes, among some very stern facts, a
deal of sweet and tender romance, hitherto hardly known except to those
who have learned it at their mother's knee.
But in these days many persons seem disposed to pause for a moment in
the eager race after the golden fruits of the Pilgrims' husbandry, and
to look curiously back at the spot where the seed was sown.
To such I offer this story of Myles Standish,
The-Sword-of-the-White-Men, the hero, who not for gain, not from
necessity, not even from religious zeal, but purely in the knightly
fervor of his blood, forsook home, and heritage, and glory, and
ambition, to company that helpless band of exiles, and to be the
Great-Heart of their Pilgrimage to the City that they sought.
To such students I will promise that they shall not be misled as to
facts, though these be strung upon a slender thread of romance; and I
will beg them to ground themselves well upon the solid Pilgrim Rock,
that they may the better understand the story of Lazarus LeBaron, son of
A Nameless Nobleman, to be offered them in due time, unless Time shall
be no more for the Author.
Boston, _October_, 1889. JANE G. AUSTIN.
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER PAGE
I. The Battle of the Tubs 1
II. The Launch of the Pinnace 19
III. The Sword of Standish 27
IV. The Lilies of France 41
V. An Awful Danger 54
VI. The First Encounter 63
VII. Clarke's Island 73
VIII. Burying Hill 86
IX. Rose 94
X. A Terrible Night 104
XI. The Colonists of Cole's Hill 115
XII. The Headless Arrow 134
XIII. The Captain's Promotion 141
XIV. Second Marriages 151
XV. Samoset 164
XVI. Priscilla Molines' Letter 176
XVII. An International Treaty 184
XVIII. The Last Link Broken 197
XIX. Sowed and Reaped in One Day 205
XX. Funeral-baked Meats and Marriage Feasts 213
XXI. An Affair of Honor 224
XXII. The Captain's Pipe 236
XXIII. "Speak for Yourself, John!" 243
XXIV. The Mysterious Grave 253
XXV. A Little Discipline 266
XXVI. The First Thanksgiving Day of New England 276
XXVII. A Love Philtre 288
XXVIII. Philip De La Noye 296
XXIX. Keeping Christmas 311
XXX. A Soldier's Instinct 319
XXXI. A Pot of Broth 343
XXXII. The Sunset Gun 351
XXXIII. Pecksuot's Knife 356
XXXIV. The Wolf at the Door 370
XXXV. The Brides' Ship 376
XXXVI. Marriage Bells 385
XXXVII. "And to be Wroth with one we Love!" 395
XXXVIII. Barbara 406
XXXIX. A Military Wedding 416
XL. "Parting is such Sweet Sorrow!" 420
STANDISH OF STANDISH.
CHAPTER I.
THE BATTLE OF THE TUBS.
It was Monday morning.
It was also the twenty-third day of November in the year of our Lord
1620; but this latter fact was either unknown or matter of profound
indifference to the two-and-twenty women who stood ready to make the day
memorable in the world's history, while the fact of Monday was to them
one of paramount importance.
Do you ask why this was thus?
The answer is duplex: first, the two-and-twenty women were not aware of
their own importance, nor could guess that History would ever concern
herself with the date of their present undertaking; and second, for a
reason whose roots are prehistoric, for they spring from the
unfathomable depths of the feminine soul wherein abides inherently the
love of purity, of order, and of tradition. Yes, in two hundred and
seventy years the face of Nature, of empires, and of peoples has changed
almost beyond recognition in this our New World; but the grand law at
whose practical establishment in the New World we now assist, abides
to-day:--
Monday is Washing Day.
Does some caviler here suggest that although the human female soul is
embodied in the children of Ham, Shem, and Japhet, the mighty law
referred to is binding only upon that Anglo-British-Saxon-Norman
division of Japhet's daughters domiciled in and emanating from the
British Isles? Let us proudly reply that in considering the result of a
process we consider the whole; and let us meekly add that to our mind
the Anglo-British-Saxon-Norman woman, perfected under an American sky,
is the woman of the world; and finally, let us point to the
two-and-twenty heroines of that Monday as chief among American women,
for they were the Pilgrim Mothers of the New World.
The Pilgrim Fathers were there also; and they, too, were exemplifying a
law of nature, that is to say, a law of male nature in every clime and
every age. They did not love Washing Day. They felt no joy in the
possibility of its observance, they felt no need of its processes. And
yet again _more humano_, they did not openly set themselves against it,
they did not frankly express their unworthy content in their present
estate, but they feebly suggested that as the observance had been some
weeks omitted, with no sensible loss of comfort to themselves, it might
well be farther postponed; that the facilities were by no means
remarkable; that rain was very possible, and that they had to apply
themselves without delay to unshipping the pinnace from the hold of the
Mayflower, and fitting her for the immediate service of exploration.
To these arguments the women meekly responded that in the nature of
things they were better fitted to judge of the emergency than their
lords, whose attention must be absorbed in matters of so much higher
import; that they did not require the help of any man whose work upon
the pinnace would be at all important, and that the sandy beach, the
pool of fresh water, and the clumps of stunted shrubs fairly spread upon
the shore in front of them were all the facilities they required. As for
the weather, as Dame Hopkins piously remarked:--
"If Monday's weather be not fit for washing, there is no promise in Holy
Writ of anything better in the rest of the week."
"Oh, if thou r't bent on washing, the shrewdest storm that ever swept
the Zuyder Zee will never stop thee; so get thy rags together as soon as
may be," growled her husband, a grizzled, hard-visaged veteran some
twenty years older than this his second wife of whom he was very fond.
"Nay, then," interposed another voice, as a shrewd, kindly looking man,
albeit with a certain whimsical cast to his thin features, approached
the pair; "Mistress Hopkins will do no washing to-day; no, nor even go
on shore to gather chill and weariness for my little friend Oceanus."
"'Will not,' shall not? Marry and who is to hinder, if you please, good
Master Fuller?" asked the young woman in a somewhat shrewish voice.
"I, Samuel Fuller, Licentiate of Cambridge, late practitioner of
Bartlemy's Hospital, London, and your medical adviser, madam," replied
the doctor with a dry smile and mocking bow. "Recall, if you please,
that Oceanus is not yet a fortnight old, and that both mother and child
are still my responsibility. Would you ruin my reputation, madam, not to
mention risking your own life and the boy's?"
"Have a care, Doctor, or some fine day you'll trip in your own quips,
and break your neck," replied Mistress Hopkins half sullenly, while her
husband cried,--
"He's right there, Bess. Thou 'rt in no case for such rough sport as
this is like to prove, and thou 'lt stay aboard whoever goes ashore."
"Yes, stay thou aboard and mind thy babe, and I'll take thy clothes
along with my own, so thou 'lt let Constance come to help me," suggested
the somewhat coarse voice of a woman standing by.
"Thank you kindly, goodwife Billington," replied Elizabeth Hopkins
coldly. "But Alice Rigdale hath already promised to do what is needed,
and Constance must stay with me to mind Damaris and Oceanus."
"Oh, if goodwife Rigdale has taken it in hand, I will step back,"
replied Mistress Billington sharply; and as she descended the
companion-way, Hopkins muttered in his wife's ear,--
"Now thou showest some sense, wench. The least thou hast to do with the
Billington brood the better I'll be pleased."
"That's worth working for, surely," retorted his wife, tossing her head
pettishly.
"I tell you there's no boat to be spared, and no man to row it, and I'll
have naught to say to it," exclaimed a surly voice from the
companion-way, and Captain Thomas Jones, master of the Mayflower, but
not of the Pilgrims, appeared on deck.
Captain Jones was not an amiable man, his training as buccaneer and
slaver having possibly blunted his finer feelings, and his consciousness
of present treachery probably increasing the irritability often
succeeding to a murdered conscience.
Such as he was, however, this man was the Inventor of Plymouth Rock,
since by his collusion with the Dutch who wished to keep the profits of
their Manhattan Colony to themselves, the Mayflower had found it
impossible to make her way southward around Cape Cod, and after nearly
going to wreck upon the shoals off Malabar, or Tucker's Terror had been
driven within the embrace of the curving arm thrown out by the New World
to welcome and shelter the homeless children of the Old. There she lay
now, the weather-beaten, clumsy, strained, and groaning old bark whose
name is glorious in the annals of our country while Time shall endure,
and whose merest splinter would to-day be enshrined in gold; there she
lay swinging gently to the send of the great Atlantic whose waves broke
sonorously upon the beach outside, and came racing around the point a
flood of shattered and harmless monsters, moaning and hissing, to find
their prey escaped and safely landlocked.
"There's no boat, I say, and there's an end on 't," repeated Master
Jones truculently as he stepped on deck, and two men who had been
earnestly conversing at the stern of the brig turned round and came
toward him. They were John Carver, already governor of the colony, and
William Bradford, his lieutenant and successor. The governor was the
first to speak, and the somewhat measured accents of his voice, with its
inflections at once kindly and haughty, told of gentle breeding, of a
calm and dignified temper, and of an aptness at command.
"And why no boat, Master Jones?" asked he quietly. "Methought by the
terms of our agreement you were to aid us in every way in making our
settlement."
"And I'm not going back of my word, am I, master?" demanded Jones
peevishly. "A pack of wenches going ashore with tubs and kettles and
bales and such gear is not a settlement, is it?"
"Nay, but a means thereto if haply they find the place convenient,"
replied Carver pleasantly. "At any rate, we will send them, since it has
been promised, and the same boat will serve to transport them with their
gear that is already fitted to help us ashore with the pinnace."
"And our own men will do all that is required in lading and rowing the
boat," added Bradford in his mild, persuasive voice. Jones, overborne by
a calm authority against which he could not bluster, turned on his heel
muttering some surly assent. Carver slightly smiled as he watched the
square and clumsy form expressing in every line of its back the futile
rage of an overborne coward, and, turning toward the companion way, he
called,--
"Howland, John Howland, a word with thee!"
"Ay, sir," replied a blithe young voice; and presently a handsome head
of pure Saxon type, as indeed were both Bradford's and Carver's,
appeared above the hatchway, and a strong young fellow swinging himself
upon deck approached the governor, saying apologetically,--
"I was helping to get out the pinnace, and there is a mort of dust and
dirt about her."
"I'll give thee a pleasanter task, John," replied Carver, smiling
affectionately upon his young retainer. "Thou and John Alden and Gilbert
Winslow shall take charge of the women who fain would go ashore to wash
their clothes. They will use the boat already lying alongside, and thou
hadst better advise with Mistress Brewster for the rest. I leave it all
with you twain."
"I will do my best, sir," replied Howland with a smile that showed his
short, strong teeth and made his blue eyes twinkle pleasantly; then
returning to the hatchway he called down,--
"Ho, Alden! You're wanted, man, and so is Gilbert Winslow."
"He's not here, then," responded a heavier voice, as a splendid young
giant swung himself up on deck and ran his fingers through a shock of
curling chestnut hair; a glorious youth, six feet and over in his hose
of hodden gray, with the shoulders and sinews of an athlete, and the
calm, strong face of an Egyptian god.
"What is it, John?" asked he, fixing his dark eyes upon Howland with the
affectionate gladness one reads in the eyes of a dog called to his
master's side, but of which few human natures are capable.
"Why, Jack, thou and I and Gilbert Winslow are appointed squires of
dames to some of the women who would fain go ashore to wash clothes, and
we are to pack them into yonder boat, row them ashore, and then purvey
wood, water, and such like for them."
"I'd liefer haul out the pinnace," replied Alden with a grimace. "But
your will is mine."
"Nay, the governor's will is thine and mine, and it is he set us this
task. Where is Winslow?"
"In the cabin belike, chatting with Mary Chilton. It's the work he best
loves," replied Alden grimly. "But I'll find him."
"And some of the boys, Jack," suggested Howland, as the younger man
turned away. "Bart Allerton and Love Brewster, Giles Hopkins and
Crakstone and Cooke, any of the lads that you fall foul of, except the
Billingtons,--of them I'll have none."
"And why not the Billingtons, worshipful Master Howland, lackey of the
governor, and page-boy to his wife," demanded the voice that had
interrupted Mistress Hopkins, and turning toward it, Howland confronted
a short, square woman, not without a certain vulgar comeliness of her
own, although now her buxom complexion was florid with anger and her
black eyes snapping angrily, while the arms akimbo, the swaying figure,
and raised voice betrayed Helena Billington for precisely what she was,
a common scold and shrew. Howland was a brave man; he had already showed
both strength and prowess when, washed overboard in a "seel" of the
ship, and carried fathoms deep in mid-ocean, he caught the
topsail-halyards swept over with him and clung to them until he was
rescued in spite of the raging wind and waves that repeatedly dragged
him under; nor in the face of savage foe, or savage beast, or peril by
land or sea, was John Howland ever known less than the foremost; but now
in face of this angry woman he found naught to say, and blushing and
stammering and half laughing fairly turned and ran away, springing up
the stairs to the elevated deck cabins, in one of which Elder Brewster
and his family had their lodging.
Mistress Brewster, a pale, sweet-faced woman, already at fifty-four
dressing and behaving as the venerable mother in Israel, came forward to
meet him, and smiling indulgently asked,--
"Now what hast thou done to goodwife Billington, thou naughty lad? I
hear thy name in her complaint, and indeed all the company can hear it,
if they will."
"I did but say I would none of her boys in my party, dear Mistress
Brewster, and I hope you'll say so too," replied Howland, uncovering
his yellow head. "They are the greatest marplots and scapegraces"--
"Nay, nay, John! Say no evil, or thou 'lt make me think thou hast
'scaped grace thyself," suggested the elder's wife with her gentle
smile. "And prithee, what is thy party? Are my boys bidden, or must they
e'en bide with the Billingtons?"
"The party is your party, dear dame, for the governor sent me to ask
your commands upon it, and if Love and Wrestling will give us such aid
as their years allow, I shall be most grateful."
And then in simple phrase Howland repeated the governor's instructions,
and requested those of the dame, who at once convened an informal
council of matrons, and so well advised them that in a scant hour the
clumsy boat, rolling and bumping against the side of the brig, was laden
with bales of clothing, tubs whose hoops John Alden, a cooper by trade,
was hurriedly overlooking, and sundry great brass and copper kettles,
household necessities of that epoch, and descending as relics to us who
look upon them with respectful wonder as memorial brasses of the "giants
of those days."
A flock of women, all demurely and plainly dressed, although the most of
them were under thirty years of age, stood waiting at the head of the
ladder until the cargo was stored, and Howland, sending his assistants
back on deck, planted himself upon the gunwale of the boat, and holding
out his hand to a stout, solid-looking woman with a young girl beside
her said,--
"Mistress Tilley, you had best come first, for you will be apt at
helping the others, as I hand them down. And thou, too, Elizabeth, if
thou wilt."
"And Constance Hopkins and Remember Allerton," pleaded the girl,
lifting a sweet, saucy face to the young man; "we never are separated,
for we're all of an age, all going on sixteen you know."
"Hush, Bess, thou 'rt malapert," chided her mother, descending heavily
into the boat, while a mutinous young voice above called out,--
"Nay, I'm not going. Stepmother won't spare me."
"Now Constance Hopkins, thou naughty hussy, wilt thou grumble at
tarrying with me to care for thine own dear sister and brother? Fie on
thee, girl!"
"They're not my own," grumbled Constance in Remember Allerton's ear.
"Giles is my own brother and he is to go, and Damaris and Oceanus are
but half sister and brother, and she's but my stepmother."
"Hush, now, or she'll hear and thou 'lt come by a whipping," whispered
Remember hastily, as Dame Hopkins turned from Mistress Winslow who had
spoken to her, and came toward the girls. "I'll stay aboard with thee,
Constance, and help thee with the babies."
"Thou 'rt a dear good wench and I love thee," replied Constance in the
same tone, and, as the stepmother placed the muffled baby in her arms,
she took him without comment, and went below followed by Elizabeth
Tilley.
Two trips of the capacious boat sufficed to carry women, clothes,
utensils, and assistants across the three quarters of a mile of shallow
water lying between the brig and the shore, and the boys who went in the
first boat were at once set to work to gather dry stuff from the
thickets of scrub oak and pine sparsely clothing the beach, and to build
several fires along the margin of a large pool or perhaps pond of fresh
water divided from the harbor by a narrow beach of firm white sand.
Beach and pond have long since been devoured by the hungry sea, but
stumps of good-sized trees are still dug from the dreary sands
environing Provincetown, to show what once has been.
The second boat-load arrived, and by help of Alden's stalwart arm,
Howland's cool decision and prompt action, and Winslow's quick eye and
ready aid to any woman needing assistance, the apparatus was soon
adjusted, and a dozen pairs of strong white arms were plunged in the
suds, or throwing the clothes into the great caldrons bubbling over the
fires which the boys gayly replenished.
Not all the women of the Mayflower were thus engaged, however, for
several were delicate in health, and several others had servants who
took this ungentle labor upon themselves; but those who did not labor
with their hands felt no superiority, and those who did had no shame in
so doing; and although the manners of the day inculcated a certain
deference of manner and speech from the lower rank to the higher, and
from youth to age, the very fact that every one of these persons had
abandoned home and friends and comfort that they might secure liberty,
induced a sense of self respect and respect for others, which is the
very root and basis of a true republic. Thus Katharine Carver, wife of
the governor, daughter of Bishop White, and sister of Robinson, the
pastor of the community left behind in Leyden, although she sent her
maid Lois, and her man-servant Roger Wilder, to do the required work,
came ashore with the rest, and by a touch here and a word there, and her
interest and sympathy, took her part in the labor of the whole, and
delicate woman and well-born lady though she was, made each of those
hard-working sisters feel that it was only her weakness, and not her
station, that prevented her doing all that they did. "Eleven o' the
clock," said John Alden, as the Mayflower's cracked bell told six hoarse
strokes. "They said they'd bring our dinner ashore for us," and he
looked wistfully toward the ship.
"Who said?" asked Howland; "for I've more faith in some say-sos than in
some others."
"Well, if I remember, 't was Mistress Molines who told me," replied
Alden carefully careless.
"Oh, ay," assented Howland, his blue eyes twinkling. "But I thought she
was ill, poor woman."
"Nay, I meant Mistress Priscilla Molines," retorted the giant, blushing.
"She said somewhat to me of an onion soup which she flavors marvelously
well."
"Ah, yes, onion soup," retorted Howland gravely. "Methought it must be
some such moving theme you discussed yester even as you sat on the
cable. I noted even at that distance the tears in your eyes."
"And if there were tears in mine eyes it is no matter of mocking, for
Mistress Priscilla was telling me that her mother is sick as she fears
unto death, and"--
"John Howland, the boat is coming off with the rest of our company and
noon-meat for us all. Wilt thou and John Alden receive and help them
ashore, while Gilbert helps us to make ready here?"
"Surely we will, Mistress Carver," replied Howland heartily, for his
relationship toward the governor and his beautiful wife was rather that
of a younger brother than of a retainer; and although the smallness of
his fortune had induced him to accept the patronage of the older and
wealthier man, it was much as a lad of noble lineage was content a few
years before this to become first the page and then the squire of a
belted knight.
The boat, unable to reach the shore on account of the flatness of the
beach, stuck fast about a bow-shot from dry land, and the men and boys
at once tumbled over the edge and prepared to carry not only the
luggage, but the female passengers ashore. Alden seeing this prospect,
tore off his boots and stockings, and plunging into the chill water
hastened to the stern of the boat where a slender, vivacious girl,
brown, dark-eyed, and with cheeks glowing with the dusky richness of a
peach, stood balancing herself like a bird and giving orders to a young
man already in the water.
"Now have a care, Robert Cartier, of that kettle. If thou spillst the
soup"--
"The onion soup, Mistress Priscilla?" asked Alden approaching
unperceived. Priscilla cast a look at him from the corners of her long
eyes, and replied carelessly,--
"Yes, Master Alden, an onion soup. Is that a favorite dish with your
worship?"
"Why, thou knowest,"--began the young man with an air of bewilderment,
but Priscilla interrupted him.
"Since thou art here with thy broad shoulders, John Alden, thou wilt do
well to make them of use. There is Mistress Allerton struggling with a
hamper beyond her strength, and there are bales of clothes that must not
be wet. Load thyself, good mule, and plod shoreward."
"To be sure I will and gladly, fair mistress," replied Alden patiently.
"But first let me take thee ashore dry-shod, and then I will bring all
the rest."
"Beshrew thee for a modest youth," retorted Priscilla, the peach color
of her cheeks deepening to pomegranate; "when I go ashore I will convey
myself, or my brother will carry me; and thou, since thou art so
picksome, may set thyself to work, and ask naught of me."
"But why art thou so tart when I meant naught," began Alden,
bewildered; but again the girl cut him short with a stinging little
laugh.
"Thou never meanest aught, poor John; but I have no time to waste with
thee. Here, Robert, these come next, and take Mistress Allerton's hamper
as well."
"Nay, that is for me," growled Alden, seizing the basket from the hands
of the astonished servant who relinquished it with a stare and a
muttered exclamation in French; for William Molines, called Mullins by
the Pilgrims, his wife, son, daughter, and servant were all of the
French Huguenots, who fleeing from their native land planted a colony
upon the river Waal in Holland, and were at this time known as Walloons.
Learning enough of Dutch to carry on the business of daily life, and of
English to communicate with their co-religionists of the Pilgrim church
in Leyden, they retained French as the dear home language of their
birth, and the young people, like Priscilla and her brother Joseph, used
the three languages with equal facility.
A little offended and a good deal puzzled by the change in Priscilla's
manner since their last interview, Alden devoted himself to unloading
the boat without again addressing her, until he saw her confide herself
to the arms of her brother to be taken ashore; then seizing an armful of
parcels, he strode along close behind the slender stripling whose thews
and sinews were obviously unequal to his courage, and who floundered
painfully over the uneven sands. At last he stumbled, recovered himself,
plunged wildly forward, and fell flat upon his face, while his sister,
suddenly seized and held aloft in two strong arms, did not so much as
wet the hem of her garment, until with a few swift strides her rescuer
set her on dry land and turned to help the boy who came floundering
after them with a rueful and angry countenance.
"'T was all thy fault, Priscilla," began he. "Twisting and squirming to
see who was coming after us."
"Nay, 't was the fault of some great monster who came trampling on our
heels, and making the water wash round my feet. Some whale or griffin
belike, though he has hid himself again," and the girl affected to shade
her eyes and scan the sparkling waters, while Alden strode moodily away.
Priscilla glanced after his retreating figure, and spoke again to her
brother in a voice whose cooing softness poor John had never heard.
"Thou poor dripping lad! And such a cough as thou hast already! Come
with me sweetheart, and I'll set thee between two fires, and put my
duffle cloak about thee, and heat some soup scalding hot. I would I had
a sup of strong waters for thee--ah yes, I see!"
And hurriedly leading her brother to a sheltered nook between two great
fires, she cast her cloak over his shoulders, and then sprang up the
sand-hill with the graceful strength of an antelope to the spot where
Doctor Fuller stood talking with a man whose appearance demands a word
of description. Short and square built, the figure bespoke strength and
long training in athletic exercises, while the haughty set of the head,
the well-shaped hands and feet, and the clear cut of the features told
of gentle blood and the habit of predominance. The bare head was covered
with thick chestnut hair, worn at the temples by pressure of a steel
cap, and well matched in color by eyes whose strong, stern glances
carried defeat to the hearts of his savage foes even before his quick
blows fell. The mouth, firmly closed beneath its drooping moustache, was
like the eyes, stern and terrible in anger, but like them it was
capable of a winning sweetness and charm only known to those he loved,
those he pitied, and to the life-long friends whose loving description
has come down to us; for this was Myles Standish, the soldier and hero
of the Pilgrims; their dauntless defender in battle, their gentle nurse
in illness, their councilor and envoy and shining example in peace; the
right arm of the colony, its modest commander, and its intelligent
servant.
As Priscilla approached, the two men ceased their conversation and
turned toward her, neither of them unconscious of the beauty, grace, and
vigor which clothed her as a garment, yet each restrained by inborn
chivalry and respect from expressing his opinion.
"Oh, Doctor, or you, Captain Standish, have either of you a flask of
strong waters about you? My poor Joseph has fallen in the water, and it
is so cold, and he has already a cough."
"Yes, we saw him fall. He was overloaded for such a stripling," said the
doctor, with his dry smile, while Standish, hastily pulling a flask from
his pocket, said,--
"Here is some well-approved Hollands gin, Mistress Priscilla; and I
would advise a good draught as soon as may be, and have it heated if it
may be."
"Here, hand it me. I will go and give my friend Joseph a rating for
undertaking tasks beyond his strength, though belike the fault was none
of his!" And the doctor seizing the flask strode down the hill, while
Priscilla lingered to ask,--
"How doth Mistress Standish find herself to-day? I heard she was but
poorly."
"Ay, poorly enough," replied the Captain with a shadow chasing the smile
from his eyes. "She is hardly strong enough for these shrewd winds and
rough adventures. I had done better to leave her in England until we are
established somewhere."
"There's more than one in our company, I fear me, that has adventured
beyond their strength," replied Priscilla sadly, as she remembered her
mother's hectic flush and wasting strength and her brother's cough.
"A forlorn hope, perhaps, set to garrison this by-corner of the world,
but not forgotten by the Commander-in-chief, remember that, maid
Priscilla," said the captain kindly and cheerily. "There in the Low
Countries our worst trouble was that the home government never backed us
as they should, and more than once we felt we were forgot and neglected;
but in the warfare we have to wage here in the wilderness we can never
fear that."
"Yet soldiers may die at their post here as well as there," said
Priscilla, turning to go down the hill.
"So long as the work is done it matters little what becomes of the
soldier," replied Myles briefly, and the two rejoined the group around
the fires.
Before nightfall the clothes, dried and sweet with the sunshine and pure
air, were carefully folded into the tubs and kettles, the dinner was
neatly cleared away, and the whole company in several trips of the boats
conveyed on board, while the carpenters and their volunteer aids
remained to work while daylight lasted upon the pinnace, the Pilgrims'
own craft, intended for exploration along the shore, and for fishing
when they should have made a settlement.
But Joseph Molines had not shaken off his chill by means of the
captain's Hollands gin, nor did his mother or Rose Standish find
themselves better in the evening than they had been in the morning, and
as the darkness of the November night closed around the lonely bark,
gaunt shadowy forms, Disease and Famine and Death, seemed shaping
themselves among the clouds and brooding menacingly over the Forlorn
Hope, as its soldiers slept or watched beneath.
CHAPTER II.
THE LAUNCH OF THE PINNACE.
"Mary! Mary Chilton! Maid Mary mine!" called Priscilla Molines in her
clear bird-voice, as she ran down the steps leading to the principal
cabin. "Come on deck and see the launch of the pinnace! The carpenters
call her fit for use if not finished, and the men have gone ashore to
launch her. Where art thou, poppet!"
"Here," replied a gentler and sweeter voice, as Mary Chilton came
forward, a long gray stocking dangling from her hands, and stood in a
slant ray of sunshine which lighted her golden hair to a glory, and
showed the pure tints of her May-bloom face and clear blue eyes; a
lovely English face in its first fresh rapture of morning beauty.
"Right merrily will I come, Priscilla, if there be aught to see,"
continued she, throwing down the stocking which she was knitting for her
father. "Truly my eyes ache with staring at nothingness."
"Well, there's a trifle this side of nothingness on the beach at this
minute," retorted Priscilla, pinching her friend's ear. "Men call it
Gilbert Winslow."
"Hush, hush, Priscilla!" whispered Mary, with a scared look toward her
mother's cabin. "If anybody heard such folly! And Mistress White already
tells my mother that we two are over-light in our carriage and
conversation."
"Mistress White"--began Priscilla sharply, but ended the exclamation
with a saucy laugh and said instead, "Yes, truly as thou sayest, my May,
mine eyes ache with gazing upon nothingness and my tongue aches with
speaking naught but wisdom. It is out of nature for young maids to be as
staid as their elders, and methinks I do not care to be. Let us be young
while we have youth, say I."
She looked perilously pretty as she arched her brows and pouted her ripe
lips, and Mary looked at her in loving admiration, while she answered
sagely,--
"You and yours are French, Priscilla, and I am all English like my
forbears; so thou mayst well be lighter natured than I--I mean no harm,
dear."
"No harm is done, dear mother in Israel," replied Priscilla half
mockingly, and seizing Mary's hand she led her on deck, where many of
the women and children were collected, watching the preparations on
shore for the launch of the pinnace, which, much strained by bad stowage
between decks, had needed about a fortnight's work done upon her before
she was fit for service.
"They only wait for her to set forth on a second exploration," said
Priscilla confidentially; "and a little bird sang in my ear that they
would go to-morrow."
"What little bird?" asked Mary curiously; but before Priscilla could
reply another voice interposed; it was that of Bridget Tilley, who had
come on deck to seek her daughter Elizabeth, and now sharply inquired,--
"Another expedition, say you? And my goodman scarce brought back from
death's door, whither the first jaunt led him! Nay, now, 't is not
right, 't is all one as murder, to hale dying men out of their beds and
into that wilderness. No blessing will follow such work, and I'll cry
upon the governor or the captain or the elder to stop it!"
"What is it, Mistress Tilley? Any wrong that I can help set right?"
asked a sweet voice, and Bridget turned toward the speaker with a
somewhat more subdued manner, lowering her voice as she said,--
"Thank you kindly, Mistress Standish, and God be praised that you can be
on deck; but my matter is this," and again she poured out her anxieties
and her fears, until Rose Standish, a fair white rose now, and trembling
in the shrewd autumn air so soon to scatter her petals and bear the pure
fragrance of her life down through the centuries, until men to-day love
her whom they never knew, leaned wearily against the bulkhead and
said,--
"Rest easy, dear dame. Thou 'rt all in the right, and it behooves us to
protect our lords from their own rash courage, just as it befits their
courage to protect us against salvages and wild beasts. I will whisper
in my husband's ear that Master Tilley is all unfit to carry out his own
brave impulses, and I will conspire with Mistress Carver and Mistress
Bradford, and, above all, with our dear mother, the elder's wife, that
each shall make petition to her lord to see that no sick or overborne
man be allowed to adventure himself on the expedition. Will that satisfy
thee, dame?"
"Right well, and you are all one with the saints we used to honor,
though we do know better now."
"'T is the most comfortable promise I've heard in many a day, dear
Mistress Standish," cried Priscilla vivaciously. "And well do I believe
that the whispers of the wives are more weighty than the shouts of the
husbands. I've never proved it myself, being but a maid; yet I have ere
now marked how the prancing of the noblest steed is full deftly checked
by a silken rein."
"It were well if a rein were put upon thy tongue, girl," severely
interposed a comely matron sitting near. "Thou 'rt over forward for thy
years, Priscilla. Shamefastness and meekness become a maid, and when
thou knowest more thou 'lt say less."
"Thanks, Mistress White, I will try to profit by your discourse,"
replied Priscilla demurely; but her tone did not satisfy the matron, who
sharply rejoined,--
"See that thou do, Mistress Malapert, or I'll ask the elder to deal with
thee. Here he is now."
And, in fact, Elder Brewster, who had caught the tone of Mistress
White's voice, drew near to the group, saying pleasantly, "A goodly
sight yonder, is it not? And how well our strong fellows set their
shoulders to the toil! What shall we call the pinnace when she is
launched, Mistress White?"
"Methinks Discretion would be a good name, Elder," replied the lady with
a glance at the two girls. "Surely, we have room for it in our company."
"Truth, my daughter, and yet to my mind Charity is a sweeter name, and
one more likely to float us over troubled waters." And the elder's
pleasant smile disarmed his words of all sting. "Priscilla," continued
he, turning to the girl, "I hear that thy father keeps his bed to-day,
and thy mother is but poorly."
"Indeed, sir, they are both in evil case," replied Priscilla sadly.
"Neither of them has stomach for such food as is at hand, and so they
weaken daily. John Alden shot some little birds yesterday, and I made
broth of them, but, saving that, my mother has taken no meat for days."
"I will go and visit them," said the elder, and forgetting the launch he
had come up to see, he went at once.
"See! See! There she goes!" cried Elizabeth Tilley, as the great boat
slid gracefully down her ways to the water, dipped her bows deeply, and
finding her level rode upon an even keel.
"There she goes!" echoed Constance Hopkins and Remember Allerton, who
with Elizabeth Tilley constituted what may be called the rosebud
division of the Pilgrim girls, all glowing in the freshness of early
youth, all comely, strong, and vivacious. Priscilla Molines and Mary
Chilton with Desire Minter, a distant relative and charge of Governor
Carver's, made another little group of older girls, and then came the
young matrons of whom there were many, while Mistress Brewster in the
dignity of middle life was the recognized head and guide of all.
"Yes, there she goes," cried Priscilla, clapping her hands and dancing
upon her slender feet. "And Mary," continued she, dropping her voice to
a whisper, "it was Captain Standish who gave that last mighty shove"--
"Nay, it was John Alden," interrupted Mary innocently.
"I tell thee, girl, it was the captain. John Alden is ever at his elbow
and striving to imitate him, but our captain is still the leader, and I
do honour a man who can think as well as do, and act as well as talk. Of
talkers we have enow, the dear knows; Master Winslow and Master Allerton
can so argue that they would force you to swear black was white and the
moon a good Dutch cheese an they chose, and they can lay out work
marvelously well for others to carry out, but I mark that their own
hands abide in their pockets for the most part. Then there are plenty of
strong arms with no head-pieces, like John Alden and your good friend
Gilbert Winslow and John Howland and"--
"Nay, nay, Priscilla, thou shalt not wrong good men so," interrupted
Mary, her fair face coloring a little. "The leaders aye must lead, and
the younger and simpler aye must follow in every community, and I mark
not that those you flout for speaking so well fail of their share in the
labor, nor do I think John Alden or the rest would do well to thrust
their advice upon their betters. At all rates, yon boat had not slid
down so merrily if John Alden had not put his shoulder to the work."
"Yea, put his shoulder where the captain laid his hand," retorted
Priscilla with her mocking laugh, and then putting her arm around Mary's
shoulders, she added affectionately,--
"What a wise little woman thou art, ever looking at both sides of the
matter while I see but one! And in truth, perhaps, it is better that
there be these varied excellences, so that all comers may be suited,
just as thou art fond of porridge while I would liefer have soup."
"And art a rare hand at compounding it," replied Mary admiringly. "How
Desire Minter smacked her lips over the dish thou gavest her the other
day."
"That poor Desirée, as my gossip Jeanne De la Noye used to call her! I
like well to give her some tasty bit, for it makes her so happy at so
little trouble to myself, since I am ever cooking."
"Dost thou really like cooking, Priscilla; or dost thou do it because
thou ought, as I do?" asked Mary, who hated the culinary art, and yet
was called upon to practice it, as were all young women of the day.
"Oh, I love it," replied Priscilla, with enthusiasm. "My mother and my
grandmother and all my aunts were notable cooks, and in the good old
days in France before I was born, they say my grandmother's patés and
conserves and ragouts were famous all through Lyons, where my
grandfather and his father before him were great silk manufacturers with
plenty of men and maids and money at their command."
"Ah, Priscilla, thou 'rt hankering after the flesh-pots again! Remember
Lot's wife!" and Mary laughed, but gently stole a hand into that of
Priscilla, who pressed it tenderly as she replied,--
"Lot's wife spoiled all her cookery with salt, and I'll at least distill
none from mine own eyes. How shall I make Robert Cartier know that I
want him to come aboard and help me with my father's supper?"
"Beckon to John Alden to send him," retorted Mary promptly. Priscilla
turned and fixed her long dark eyes in mock bewilderment upon the
other's face.
"And why is it easier to beckon to John Alden than to Robert Cartier,
thou foolish girl?" asked she.
"Because Robert is only thy father's servant, and John is thine own and
ever waiting thy command," replied Mary demurely, and Priscilla's rich
color mounted to her brow as she laughingly retorted,--
"Now, maid Mary, that quip was more like me than thee, and I'll have
none of it. 'T is for thee to carry the honey-bag to mollify the stings
my naughty tongue must aye inflict. I would I were not so waspish, Mary
mine!"
"Thou 'rt naught but what is dear and lovely, and I care for thee beyond
any man that ever walked, saving my father," cried Mary, pressing close
to her friend's side.
"Then will I be jealous of Master Chilton," murmured Priscilla, the
teasing mood again rising to the surface. "For I'll have no rival in thy
heart, save only Gilbert Winslow, whom I hope not to oust."
"See, there is John Alden steadfastly regarding us," cried Mary, a
little annoyed. "Point thy finger at Robert as he stands staring at the
boat, and then beckon. My word for it, John will read the signal
aright."
"Why, then, so be it, and if Dame White sees me I'll swear 'twas thee,
Mary," and Priscilla half proudly, half shyly made the signal, which was
at once understood and acted upon by Alden, who, truth to tell, seldom
lost sight of Priscilla when in her company. Cartier receiving the
message waded after a boat just leaving the beach, and came aboard
dripping wet, an imprudence so common among the younger men of the
Pilgrims on that flat coast as to become a serious factor in the
terrible mortality which was to sweep off half their number within a few
months.
CHAPTER III.
THE SWORD OF STANDISH.
The "little bird," probably John Alden, constant companion of Standish,
had sung truly in Priscilla's ear of a second exploring party about to
leave the Mayflower in quest of a favorable site for the town and colony
the Pilgrims had come forth to found.
To this step they were urged not only by their own wishes, but by the
importunities of Captain Jones, who having obeyed his Dutch employers
and brought his passengers to a point well removed from the Virginian or
Manhattan shores whereon they intended to land, was now only desirous to
put them ashore almost anywhere, and make sail for England while the
winter storms held off and his provisions lasted. His own interest,
therefore, made him zealous in the Pilgrims' service, and so heartily
had he offered his men, boats, and provisions for the expedition that
the Pilgrims had made him its leader, some of them still believing in
his honesty and friendliness, and some others feeling that the surest
way to effect their plans was to induce the surly commander to make them
his own. The event proved their shrewdness, for Jones accepted the
appointment with great satisfaction, and told off ten of his best seamen
to add to the four-and-twenty sound men who were nearly all that the
Pilgrims could muster, since, thanks to the secret councils of Rose
Standish and her associates, all sick or weakly candidates were weeded
out from the volunteers, and the Tilley brothers, William Molines,
James Chilton, William White, and several others were kindly bidden to
remain on board and nurse their strength for the next expedition.
About noon the tide serving, the four-and-thirty adventurers, divided
between the ship's long-boat and their own pinnace, took the sea in
teeth of a freezing northeasterly gale, and under low-lying clouds whose
gray bosoms teemed with snow and sleet.
Thomas English, a mariner engaged as master of the shallop, held the
helm, while as many willing hands as could grasp the oars pulled lustily
in the direction of what is now called the Pamet River, a stream
discovered some days previously by a foot expedition under charge of
Standish, and considered as a possible seat for their colony. The
crowded state of the boats and the head wind rendered the sails useless,
and oars proved inefficient to propel so large a boat as the pinnace,
while the sea, rapidly rising with the rising wind, broke so dangerously
over the quarter that English refused to proceed, and it was hastily
resolved to run into what is now called East Harbor, land the
passengers, and allow the long-boat to return to the ship, while the
pinnace lay to until the gale moderated. This was done, but owing to the
shoals, the men were obliged to wade knee-deep to reach land, and the
cold was now so intense that their clothes froze upon them as they
resumed their journey on foot. Well may we believe what William Bradford
later said: "Some of our people who are dead took the original of their
death on that day."
Marching six or seven miles on foot, the party encamped, building a
barricade, or as they called it a "randevous," of pine boughs to protect
them from savage beasts or men, and within it kindling a fire beside
which they sat down to eat such provisions as they had brought, and to
solace themselves with modest draughts of the strong waters they used
but not abused.
The next day the exploration was continued both by sea and land, the
hardy adventurers marching through snow six inches deep, or upon the
loose sands of the beach where the wind flogged them with lashes of icy
spray and stinging shards. In passing through a belt of woods traces of
human presence were to be seen, especially certain young trees bent down
and their tops made fast to the earth. Stepping aside to examine one of
these, William Bradford suddenly found his leg inclosed in a noose,
while the tree, released and springing upward, would have carried him
ignominiously with it had not he seized the trunk of another sapling,
and lustily shouted for help. His comrades came running back, and not
without laughter and some grim pleasantries released him. Stephen
Hopkins alone understood the trap, and cutting from it a piece of smooth
fine cord twisted of wood fibres handed it to Bradford, saying,--
"Here, man, keep it by way of horn-book to teach thee wood-lore in these
salvage countries. It is the moral of what we used to see among the
Bermoothes some ten years gone by. Ay, and the traps too. I've seen many
a wild thing, deer or what not, jerked up by the leg and hanging from a
tree like Absalom, until its master came along to cut its throat and
dress it, as it hung."
"Glad am I that no such master came to release me," said Bradford
laughing ruefully as he rubbed his leg and limped along.
"So thou wert in the Bermudas, Hopkins?" asked Standish who was of the
walking party; "wast buccaneering?"
"Nay, Captain, all men do not follow thy trade," replied Hopkins with
his boisterous laugh. "Mine was quite another office, for I was
lay-reader to Parson Buck, and he was chaplain to Gates who was to be
governor of a Virginia colony an' he could have reached it. But like our
own adventure it miscarried, and we were wrecked on the Bermoothes. We
abode there six months, and the Indians showed us how to trap deer just
as Bradford was trapped but now, ho, ho!"
"Lay-reader wast thou?" asked Standish surveying the burly veteran with
whimsical interest. "Well, now, I'd never take thee for a parson's
lieutenant, Hopkins! I can hardly fancy thee meek and mild with bands
under that unkempt beard, and a gown over thy buff jacket. Wert meek and
mild in those days, Hopkins, and thy tongue, was 't innocent of strange
oaths?"
"A truce to thy jibes, master Captain," retorted Hopkins not half
pleased at receiving the jests he so freely offered. "If thou didst but
know, my voice was more for war than peace, sith it seemed to me then
even as it did before we landed here, that an expedition gone astray is
an expedition ended, and that all compacts cease when their conditions
cannot be fulfilled. We shipped to go to Virginia, and Gates was to be
our governor; well and good, but here we were wrecked on Bermuda, and my
rede was that every man was thus released from his promises and free to
set forth anew for himself."
"So! Yonder threatening on the Mayflower was not thy first experience in
raising sedition and discontent, and trying to turn a God-fearing
community into a nest of pirates!" exclaimed Standish scornfully.
"Well, what came of it in that instance?"
"Why, Gates called a court-martial, tried me for treason by an authority
I denied, and sentenced me to death."
"Ay, and what then?"
"Then Parson Buck who could ill spare me, since I writ half his
discourses, and the admiral who would not see murder done under cloak of
law, they went to Gates and so wrought upon his temper that he set me
free and bade me begone, and I went right merrily."
"Thou mindst me of an officer under me, down there by Utrecht," said
Standish meditatively. "He, too, was for setting up every man for
himself in the plunder of a village we had taken, and I had given orders
about."
"And what became of him?" asked Hopkins, as the captain seemed to have
finished.
"Oh, there was no parson just there to make use of him, and no admiral
to judge about my authority, and he was shot," replied Standish quietly.
Hopkins scowled and laid his hand upon his sword hilt, but Bradford, who
had listened with both interest and amusement to the conversation,
deftly interposed with some question about the route, and Hopkins, who
prided himself upon his wood-lore, took the lead, and conducted the
party by the easiest route to the spot where they would rejoin their
brethren of the boat.
The Pamet River, reached at length, proved unsatisfactory for a
settlement, but at its mouth were found sundry matters of interest,--the
remains of a palisade formed apparently by civilized hands, the ruins of
a log hut, quite different from the wigwams of the savages, and a large
mound which when opened proved full of Indian corn, some shelled, some
on the ear, the yellow kernels variegated with red and blue ones, like
the maize still grown in that vicinity. The snow upon the ground would
have concealed this "barn," as rustic John Rigdale called it, had not
the previous expedition noted and marked it, and the ground was so hard
frozen that it must be hewed with the stout cutlasses and axes of the
Pilgrims, and the clods pried up with levers. Standish drew his sword
with the rest, but after watching for a moment thrust it back into the
sheath, saying to Alden who as usual was close beside him,--
"Nay, I'll none of it! What mine own thews and sinews may compass, I'll
undertake right joyfully, but I'll never ask Gideon to risk his edge or
his backbone in such rude labors as yon. Every man to his trade, and
these are the sappers and miners with whom he has no concern."
"Is Gideon the name of your sword then, Master?" asked Alden half
timidly, for Standish had the habit of command and was impatient of much
questioning.
Alden however was a favorite, and the captain, like a lover, was won by
the admiring glance the young man threw at the sword, as its owner
unsheathed it and laid the blade fondly across his palm.
"Why ay," replied he smiling down at it, "I have christened him so; but
methinks, like other converts, he finds the new name sit uneasily at
times, and would fain hear the old one."
"And what might that be?"
"Ah, that is what no man alive can tell. He who forged it of that rare
metal which now and again falls from the skies, and he who first
wielded and named it, have lain in the dust well nigh a thousand years,
if old tales be true."
"A thousand years! But what is its story,--if you will tell it, Master
Standish?" and the young man's face grew bright with excitement as he
glanced from the soldier's face to the blade glittering across his palm,
and seeming to laugh in the wintry sunshine.
"Well, it was an old armorer in Ghent for whom I had done some service
in protecting his daughter and saving some mails which my men would have
plundered, and the old man was more grateful than need be, and came one
night to my lodgings bringing this sword wrapped in his mantle, to offer
me as a gift, for he said he would not sell it, valuing it above all
price."
"And still you would have him take a price," suggested Alden exultantly,
but Standish answered gently,--
"Nay, John, that is but poor pride that cannot allow another to be its
benefactor. I took the old man's gift and thanked him heartily. Later
on, as chance befell, I did him a good turn in a contract for arms,
while he knew it not. But that is beside the matter, which is the sword.
He told me, that old man did, a story fit to set in the ancient romaunts
of chivalry, how he as a young fellow full of heart and lustihood went
out to fight the Turks or some other heathen of those parts, and was a
prisoner, and a lady loved him and he loved her not, having a sweetheart
waiting for him at home. And she had a noble heart and forgave him his
despite, and set him free at risk of her own life, nor gave him freedom
only, but a purse of gold and this sword, which she averred had been
captured from the Persian people hundreds of years before, and was a
true Damascus blade forged from meteor iron, and of the curious
tempering now forgotten. And she said, moreover, that there was a charm
upon it that made him who carried it invincible and scathless, and she,
poor maid, had robbed her father's house of this great treasure, and
brought it to him who loved another woman better than her, and so with
tears and smiles she gave it over, and he for very ruth gave her a
tender kiss, and thus they parted."
"Nay, I pity her not. She was overbold to offer her love before it had
been asked," said Alden hastily.
"Ah, boy, thou 'rt in all the hardness of thy callow youth, and nought's
more hard. Wait some fifteen years till thou comest to my age, and
thou 'lt pity the poor heathen maid as I do to-day. Well, my armorer
took the sword and played it some forty years or more, and then, too old
to wield arms, he took to dealing in them, but never sold this, for it
had proved all that the lady claimed for it, and had slain his enemies,
and fended his friends, and saved his own head more times than he could
number, and now he gave it to me who had, he said, saved more than his
life."
"And these outlandish signs and marks upon the blade?" asked Alden,
peering down at the sword.
"There, now, thou callest for another tale," replied Standish smiling
good-naturedly. "But as they seem to need us not in disemboweling yon
granary, and here we are guard against surprise from whoever may rightly
own the treasure and come to claim it, I will e'en tell thee the rest.
"Thou knowest Pastor Robinson of Leyden, though thou wast never out of
England thyself?"
"I know his fame as a pious teacher and a learned man, well beloved of
his people."
"Beloved? Ay, none more so," exclaimed Standish heartily. "I ever wished
I might see him in some great peril and prove my love by cutting down a
round dozen of his foes. And learned! Why, man, he disputed with the
most learned among their Dutch scholars openly in the big church, and
left them not a leg to stand on, or a tongue to wag. Why, 't is no more
to him to read Hebrew than for me to spell out my Bible. So then,
knowing his learning and his love of all that is old and curious, I one
day showed him my sword and asked if he could rede me fairly the
mystical texts or whatever they might be upon the blade. But mind thee I
said naught to him of any charm or amulet about it, lest I might wound
his conscience, which is tender as a maid's. Thou shouldst have seen the
dear old man, barnacles on nose, peering and peeping and muttering over
the queer device, all at one as he were a wizard himself and working
some spell. But at the last he heaved a mighty sigh, and gave me back
the sword saying, nay, he could not make out more than that there were
two legends in two different tongues and by different hands, and that
the effigies of the sun and moon and stars pointed, he feared, to
idolatrous emblems, and were not such as a Christian man might safely
deal withal. So I asked him would it be better should I have the Holy
Rood wrought above them as did the Crusaders of old, and beshrew me, but
this device seemed to please him less than the other."
"Nay, our teachers like not the look of the Cross, nor use it as our
fathers used. It savoreth of Popery, they say," interposed Alden
glancing at the captain's face for sure approval, but to his surprise he
saw it overcast and frowning.
"Thou knowest," replied he a little haughtily, "that I am not of the
Separatist Church, nor agree in all its teachings. The Standishes were
ever good Catholics, since they came over from Normandy with William the
Baseborn, and if I hold not to the religion of my fathers I accept no
other, nor can I ever esteem lightly those things my mother venerated."
The younger man, perplexed and mortified, remained silent, but in a
moment Standish smiled and resumed his story.
"So, Pastor Robinson confessed his own want of skill, as so wise a man
need not shame to do, but told me of a certain aged scholar in
Amsterdam, well versed in Eastern lore, and able, if any man alive could
do it, to rede me the riddle aright, and he wrote down his name and
lodging and a line to recommend me to his kindly attention, and so gave
me fair good-night.
"Not long after, my occasions called me to Amsterdam, and be sure I took
the time to find the old ancient scholar, a queer, dried-up graybeard,
with skin like the parchment covers of his folios; but he gave me
courteous welcome, and I laid the sword upon the table under his nose.
Faith, John, I thought that same nose would grow to my blade, for a good
half hour passed away, or ever he stirred or spoke. Then he looked
askance at me and said,--
"'How old art thou in very truth?'"
"I told him some thirty years, and he stared and stared until had he
been a young man and a soldier I had asked him his intent. But as it
was, I did but stare back again, until at the last his parchment cheeks
creased and crackled in what may have been meant for a smile, and he
said,--
"'Thou mightst have been a score of thirties if thou hadst been born
when this blade was forged.'
"'And why?' asked I, wondering if Pastor Robinson could have known the
man was an old wizard.
"'Because there's that on this blade would have kept thee from all harm
if thou hadst made it thine own,' said he, tapping that circle."
And turning the blade, Standish showed upon the reverse from the sun,
moon, and stars, an ornamented medallion close to the hilt, containing
certain cabalistic signs and marks. Below this was an inscription of
several lines in totally different characters.[1]
[1] This sword may still be seen in Pilgrim Hall, Plymouth,
Massachusetts.
"And that is a charm to keep a man alive?" asked Alden with bated breath
and eager eyes.
"So that old man said," replied Standish, "but I concern myself little
with such matters, having ever found my own right arm enough to keep my
head, and the grace of God better than any heathen charm."
"And did he read it, and the rest?" pursued Alden.
"Yes, he read it, or at the least he muttered something in some
outlandish gibberish," replied the captain, laughing a little
shamefacedly. "And he told me its meaning, partly in Latin, for we spoke
together in that tongue, but I am such a dullard that I forgot the words
as soon as he spoke them, and so asked him to write them down. Then he
fell a pondering again, and said like the pastor, that the two
inscriptions differed in every way, and he must muse awhile and look in
his books before he could read them fairly, and he asked me to leave
the sword with him. So seeing him so venerable and honorable a man I
consented, although not willingly, and went my way. The next morning I
sought him again not certain but that in the night he and my sword and
the charm had all flown out of window together and gone to join the
Witch of Endor. But no, there he sat, and the sword before him, as if
they never had stirred since I left. And the old man gave me a bit of
parchment covered with crabbed Latin script, and told me I should find
therein the sense of my two inscriptions, though there were words even
he could not decipher. So I put the parchment in my pouch, and reached
my hand to the sword, when he withheld it and said,--
"'This charm avails nothing for thee, my son, because it was not framed
for thee, nor dost thou swear by the powers therein invoked; but I can
frame one that will avail, and will protect thee from any weapon raised
against thee. I have learned somewhat I never knew, in studying thy
sword, and I would fain repay thee in kind.'
"Now lad, as he spoke, a certain terror seized me lest I should be found
dabbling in the black art, and I said, with more than enough vehemence,
that I wanted no charm, nor did I fear mortal weapon or mortal foe, for
in God was my trust, and He was able to hold me scathless, or to take me
when He would. And then, John, a fancy seized me, a foolish fancy of
romance perhaps, but still I mind not thy knowing, so thou 'lt not
babble of it to others. I asked the old man could he put what I had just
said into the same tongue with that heathen charm, and so shape it that
I could have it carved upon my blade above the sun and moon and stars,
which those Persian idolaters worship and had graved there almost as
idols. And he smiled again in that grewsome fashion of his, and said ay
he could do that much, and that as three possessors had already put
invocations to their gods upon the blade it was but fit I should do so
in my turn.
"I liked not the quip, nor the evening of a Christian man's belief to
idolatrous worship, but yet the idea of the Christian charm, if one
might call it so, had taken fast possession of my mind, and I felt as
though it were snatching the good blade from the powers of heathenesse
and giving it to God. So I put what I would say in few words, and the
old man wrought upon it till he had it to his mind, and at the last took
a pencil dipped in some wizard's ink or other and drew these signs upon
the sword as you see them, bidding me take it to an armorer and have
them cut in just as they stood. So I did, choosing, you may be sure, the
armorer who had given me the sword, and showing him, as I have you, that
this is no heathen charm, but the sign of a Christian man's faith."
"And what do they mean, all three of them?" asked Alden reverently. "I
see the figures 1149 graved clearly enough, but what mean the other two
rows?"
"My lad, thou seest wrong. The 1 and 4 and 9 are but symbols of letters
not there set down, and the whole, partly from that same foolish fancy I
told thee of, and partly because the old scholar bade me never tell it
lest some other man should steal his learning, and partly because Gideon
hath kept the first secret so many years that I feel like trusting him
with another, for all these reasons I promised myself and the scholar
and Gideon that I would never tell the thing to mortal man, nor even
the rendering of the other devices; and lest I should be tempted to
forego my word, sith I claim to be no stronger than Samson, or lest some
one should surprise the secret unawares, I cut the piece of parchment in
two pieces, and handed them back to the old scholar, who disguised not
his huge content thereat. So thou seest, John, two of the three
inscriptions I could not unravel to thee if I would, and of the third
thou wilt not ask me, since it is guarded by a promise."
"Surely, Master, it is not I who would ask you to break it," said John
simply. "But the name of Gideon?"
"Didst never read of Gideon in Holy Writ, John? A mighty soldier before
the Lord who hewed down his father's idol-grove and came out from among
his own people and carved his own way in the world. Ever as I read his
story, I mind me of a man I knew in Lancashire who went to the house of
his fathers to claim what was his own, and when he gat it not, he threw
down the idols he had been trained to worship, and shook off the dust of
that idol-grove where Mammon and Rank and the world's opinion were set
up as gods, and went out into the world to hew out his own fortunes by
the might of his own right arm, and his trust in the God of Israel. So
now, John Alden, thou knowest more about my good sword than any man
alive, for I doubt me if the scholar remembereth, and the armorer is
dead. And when we go into battle, if such good luck await us, and thou
hearest me cry, The Sword of the Lord and of Gideon! thou 'lt know my
meaning."
CHAPTER IV.
THE LILIES OF FRANCE.
"Ho Captain Standish, thou 'rt wanted here!" cried the coarse voice of
Thomas Jones as the two men approached the group gathered about the corn
heap. "Come hither and teach these gentle maids the usages of war. They
speak forsooth of making payment to these unbreeched salvages for the
corn we are taking from this hole in the ground. Was it the way of your
bold fellows in Flanders to make payment to the Spaniards if you
surprised and sacked their camp?"
"The Spaniards were our declared enemies," replied Standish coldly; "and
not only their gear but their lives were ours if we could take them, and
so were ours theirs an' they approved themselves the better men. But
here it is not so; we have no quarrel as yet with the salvages, nor is
it wise to provoke one. We are but a handful, and they in their own
country of unknown strength. Besides, why should we harm those who have
done us no wrong? Is it not wiser to make friends and allies if we may?
So Master Jones you must e'en rank me with the gentle maids who speak
for honesty and justice in this matter."
"As you will, it is no concern of mine," retorted Jones with a surly
laugh; "but never before did I sail in such saintly company, or find
bearded men with swords at their sides carrying themselves like milk-fed
babes."
"And in sad seriousness, good Master Jones, do you intend to cast a slur
upon our courage?" demanded Standish, a cold smile upon his lips, while
his right hand toyed with Gideon's hilt, and his right foot planted
itself more firmly.
"Nay, he's no such ass," interposed Hopkins hastily. "He did but mean a
merry joke, and we would have you Captain Standish tell off such men as
had best remain on shore for further exploration while the rest shall
return to the ship with Master Jones, who is in mind to go back before
night."
"Oh, he is overdone with the work we babes have scarce begun," muttered
Standish with a wrathful laugh. "Glad am I to spare him."
"And I," said Bradford joining them. "And we are all of one mind that
Captain Standish shall take command of those who remain, since the
governor and several others find themselves but ailing and will return
with Jones, who forebodes foul weather and needs must take his men
aboard to meet it."
"Why, that's no more than his duty, and mayhap I wronged him," said
Standish generously. "Well, who tarries with me?"
The division was soon made, and as the boats left the shore, beneath the
same cold and stormy sky that had led them forth, and feebly breasted
the hissing waves which seemed to sneer at their puny efforts, the
eighteen men who remained on shore drew closer together.
"Methinks our men are to be sifted like Gideon's army at Mount Moreh,"
said Edward Winslow running his eye over the little group as he linked
his arm with Bradford's. "They went forth twenty-and-two hundred and
fell away to three hundred."
"By the three hundred who lap the water with their hands will I conquer
Midian," quoted Bradford in a clear and ringing voice.
"Hear you that, John?" asked Standish of the young man who followed him
closely. "It is a good omen that the grand old story should have come
into Winslow's head. And now, men, my opinion is that we should strike
inland, and see if we cannot come upon some settlement or stronghold of
the natives, for certes, these barns and graves were not made without
hands, nor were the stubble-fields reaped by ghosts. The tract lying
north and east of this river is yet new to us, and, since you will be
led by me, we will march for some hours hither and yon through its
length and breadth, making our randevous where night may overtake us,
and returning hither to meet the shallop to-morrow."
"It is good counsel, and we will follow you, Captain," said Winslow,
while a consenting murmur stirred the russet beards around, and Hopkins
said, "He among us who best knows the ways of woodlands, and how to
steer the plainest course through these swamps and thickets, should be
on the lead, it seemeth to me, Captain."
"Ay, Hopkins, I have thought of all that," interrupted Standish rather
curtly; "and I have chosen my scout already. Billington, where art thou,
man?"
"Here, Captain," responded a coarse voice, and a man whose mean and
truculent face contrasted forcibly with those about him pushed forward
and stood before the captain, who gave him a comprehensive glance,
noting not only the mean and bad face, but the wiry and well-knit
figure, and the eyes quick and watchful as a rat's.
"Billington," repeated he at last, "I've noticed on these expeditions
that thou hast a pretty knack at woodcraft, and can smell thy way among
these bogs and thorny coppices with marvelous good judgment."
"I learned such woodcraft and more while I was gamekeeper to my Lord
Lovell in the old country," interrupted Billington with an impudent
grin. The captain again regarded him with that penetrating glance whose
power is matter of history and replied,--
"I suppose it was in such service that thou camest by that ugly scar
across thy nose. Thou hast never been a soldier, well I wot."
"Thou 'rt right, Captain," said Billington putting his hand to his face
with an unabashed laugh. "It was a poacher"--
"Ay, I thought it was a poacher," interrupted Standish dryly. "Well,
master gamekeeper Billington, to-day thou 'rt under my orders, and I
desire thee to lead us through this wood in an easterly course, and to
keep a diligent eye upon all signs of occupation by the enemy, that is
to say, our friends the salvages. Be very careful in this matter, an'
please thee, good Billington, for shouldst thou think it a merry jest to
lead us into danger of any sort, I fear me thou 'dst find it but a poor
bargain for thyself."
"Nay, Captain, the man means no harm and feels that we are all comrades
in this matter," said Winslow pacifically, while Hopkins muttered
discontentedly,--
"O'er many masters to my mind."
Standish answered neither, except by a glance from his penetrating eyes,
and Billington taking the lead the little party struck into the woods
and marched rapidly and in silence for an hour or more, when Allerton,
the oldest and feeblest man of the party, suddenly halted, and called to
Standish that he must perforce rest for a few minutes, and was,
moreover, sadly athirst. This want was immediately echoed by all, for
the flasks at every man's belt contained spirits or strong beer, and the
toil of the march, sometimes in spite of Billington's skill through
thickets whose thorny branches tore even the armor from the Pilgrims'
backs, and sometimes through half frozen morasses, had induced a thirst
craving plentiful draughts of pure water.
"We've passed neither spring nor runlet on our course, for I've looked
for such," said Billington removing his leather cap and wiping his brow
upon his sleeve. "And though 't is frosty weather, such a diligent march
as ours heats the blood shrewdly."
"We will halt beside this coppice for a space," ordered Standish
glancing at Allerton's pallid face; "and do thou search yonder hollow,
Billington, for water. Alden go you with him, and keep an eye on his
course."
The two men thus detailed plunged into the little hollow where indeed
water should have been, but found only a pool so shallow and so
sheltered as to have frozen quite solid; from this they brought some
pieces of ice with which Allerton was so revived as to resume his course
for another mile when he again broke down, while all the rest suffered
so sensibly from thirst that they could not conceal their distress.
Another halt was called, and all the younger men dispersed in various
directions, while Allerton lay stretched upon the ground, his parched
mouth open, and his eyes half closed. Beside him stood Standish, real
concern upon his usually stern features, and in his hand a flask of
spirits, from which the exhausted and fevered man turned loathingly.
"'T is as good schnapps as ever came through a still," said Standish
wistfully; "and if thou couldst stomach it must surely do thee good."
"Water, water!" moaned Allerton.
"Ay, a little water mingled with it were better for thee just now,"
replied the Captain soothingly. "But sith water may not be had"--
"Ho, men! Water, water, a running brook!" cried Alden's hearty voice, as
he came bursting his way through the thicket. "A running brook and a
deer drinking at its spring."
"And why didst not shoot the deer instead of hallooing him away, thou
great idiot?" demanded Standish in jesting anger, while, with such a
rush as the animal sore athirst makes when he scents the water springs,
all the men but three of the party burst through the undergrowth and
found themselves in a lovely little dale so sheltered by hills and trees
as to offer only a southern exposure to the weather. The snow of the
previous day had already disappeared from this favored spot, and the
little runlet with its welling spring sparkled free from frost among the
long grasses, sweet-gale, and low shrubbery of the place; among these
shrubs more than one dainty track leading from the forest to the runlet
showed that here the deer came daily down to drink, and Alden in his
heart felt he had done well not to lift a hand against the pretty
creature he had surprised there. But neither the poetic Bradford, the
polished Winslow, nor the meditative Howland paused any more than their
brethren to note the beauty of the spot, but one and all plunging
forward threw themselves upon their knees thrusting their faces into the
water, and only pausing to draw breath and drink again.
"We there drank our first New England water, and with as much delight as
ever we drunk drink in all our lives," wrote Bradford at a later day,
and no doubt the memory of its refreshment lasted all his life.
All but three, and these three were Allerton who could not go, Standish
who would not leave him, and Alden who would not leave Standish until
the latter said,--
"But dost not see, John, that thou 'rt hindering me from quenching my
thirst? Go thou and bring thy steel cap full of water for Master
Allerton, and when I see him revived I'll go right gladly to lap water
out of my hand among my three hundred."
"You are ever right, master," replied Alden briefly, and ran to do as he
was bid.
An hour's rest and the food they had been unable to swallow while
athirst, so refreshed the Pilgrims that even Allerton resumed the march
with fresh courage and pursued it steadily until Billington, suddenly
pausing and pointing down at a narrow path intersecting their own, said
in a low voice to Standish who came close behind him,--
"Men's feet, not beasts. It will lead belike to a village."
"Ay," responded the captain briefly. "Look well to your weapons men, and
light your matches, but let no man fire his piece without command." And
drawing his sword, Standish strode eagerly forward close to Billington,
who with all his faults was no coward, and blithely blew his match to a
fiery glow, while glancing with his ferret eyes behind every tree and
into every covert he passed.
Nothing, however, was to be seen, and suddenly the path came to an end
in a large clearing covered with the stubble of maize recently gathered,
while at the farther side stood several huts formed by a circle of
elastic poles, the butts thrust in the ground and the tops bound
together leaving a hole through which the smoke was invited to escape,
and sometimes did so. The outside was protected by heavy mats of skins
or braided of bark, while a more highly decorated one closed the
doorway. All were evidently deserted, and after some cautious advances,
the captain leaving three men on guard permitted the rest to extinguish
their matches and explore the wigwams so curious to European eyes and so
familiar to our own.
The interior of each showed a cooking hearth or platform framed of
sticks and stones, and an assortment of wooden cooking utensils rudely
carved. Among these the explorers noticed an English bucket without a
bale and a copper kettle, both linking themselves in their minds to the
traces of civilization already noted in the palisades and ruined cabin
near which the store of corn had been found. Many baskets, both for use
and ornament, were found, and sundry boxes curiously wrought with bits
of clam shell, such as were used for wampum, and also little crab shells
and colored pebbles, seemed to show the presence of women and their
proficiency in the fancy work of their own time and taste. Several deer
heads, one of them freshly killed, showed that the inmates of the
wigwams were not far distant, and in a hollow tree by way of larder was
hung the carcass of a deer, so well ripened that even Hopkins pronounced
it "fitter for dogs than men."
From all these novelties and curiosities the Pilgrims selected a few of
the prettier specimens to carry to their comrades on board, formally
promising each other, as they had in case of the corn, to make due
payment to the owners whenever they should be found, a promise most
conscientiously performed at a later day.
By the time these matters were fully examined night was falling, and
the Pilgrims, strong in their own good intentions and also in their
weapons, encamped a short distance from the Indian village, and although
keeping diligent guard all night saw nor heard naught to disturb their
slumbers. Rousing betimes next morning, their first attention was given
to prayers, and their next to making as good a breakfast as possible
with the aid of some wild fowl and little birds shot during the previous
day's march, and then the "meat and mass" which "hinder no man" thus
attended to, they set forth in the direction of the river where they
were to be picked up by the shallop. Toward noon this point was nearly
reached, in fact the clearing with the European cabin was close at hand,
when Billington paused beside a mound carefully laid up with a border of
beach stones and rounded high and smooth with sods, over which were laid
hewn planks such as composed the cabin.
"It is another store of corn of choicer variety," declared he greedily;
but Hopkins shook his head.
"It is the grave of some great sachem, or haply from these planks above
him it is the grave of whoever built yon cabin and palisado."
"Belike there is treasure of some wrecked vessel which brought him
hither, and which he stored away thus, until his rescue," said Rigdale.
"Should not we cautiously open it, Captain, and certify ourselves what
is therein?" asked Bradford. "If it prove a grave we can but reverently
cover it again, and if it be food, we need all that we can gather for
food and seed."
"Ay, Master Bradford," replied Standish thoughtfully. "I like not
meddling with graves for despite or for curiosity, but sith it much
imports us to understand this country where we are to dwell, I think we
may examine this mound, and, as thou sayest, if it be a grave of white
man or of red, we will leave it as honorable as we find it."
Permission thus given, swords, bayonets, and hatchets were set to work,
and in a few moments, the upper surface of sand and earth being removed,
the explorers came upon a large bow, strong, tough, and beautifully
carved and pointed.
"It is a sachem, and a mighty man of valor if he wielded this bow and
shot these arrows," said Hopkins handling them respectfully.
"It seemeth to me like a white man's touch in this carving," said
Winslow examining the bow.
"Here lieth a goodly mat, stained with red and blue in a fair pattern,"
said Bradford drawing it off the grave, as it now seemed certain to be.
"And what is this?" exclaimed Alden raising something which lay beneath
the mat. Brushing away the mould that clung to it, this proved to be a
piece of plank some twenty-seven inches in length, carefully smoothed
upon one side, and painted with what seemed an heraldic achievement,
while the top was cut into something of the fashion of a crest
consisting of three spikes or tines.
"It is a hatchment over a noble's grave," cried Standish. "Say you not
so, Master Winslow? See you, here is a shield, although I know not the
device, and here is surely a crest."
"So it beseemeth, Captain," replied Winslow cautiously. "And to my mind
this crest is a rude presentment of the lilies of France. See you now,
Master Bradford!"
"Nay, I know naught of such toys," replied Bradford sturdily. "To my
mind it looketh as much like Neptune's trident as aught else."
"Or like a muck-fork," suggested Rigdale in his broad Lancashire
dialect, and with a coarse laugh resented by Standish, who, an
aristocrat to his heart's core, ill brooked contempt of chivalrous
emblems, especially by a rustic of his own shire.
"Well, let us get on with this business," said he peremptorily, and
pulling away another mat he disclosed a store of bowls, plates, dishes,
and such matters, all new and beautifully carved and decorated.
"For the dead man to cook and eat on his journey to the happy hunting
grounds, which the salvages place in the room of heaven," said Hopkins
sanctimoniously. Beneath these lay another mat, and beneath this a crypt
carefully bedded with dry white sand, upon which lay two packages
carefully sewn up in sailcloth, the one more than six feet in length,
the other barely three.
"The body of a man and child," said Bradford softly, as he helped to
raise them from their pure white cell and lay them upon the earth.
"Open them with care, friends," said Standish uncovering his head. "It
is some white man buried in such honor as they had knowledge of by those
who loved him."
The many folds of canvas removed, there lay a strange sight before the
Pilgrims' eyes. Inclosed in a great quantity of fine red powder,
emitting a pungent but agreeable odor, lay the skeleton of a man,
fleshless, except upon the skull, where clung the skin and a mass of
beautiful hair, yellow as gold, and curling closely as if in life.
"Is the flesh turned to this red powder?" asked Alden fingering it
dubiously.
"Dost know, Hopkins?" asked Standish, but the veteran shook his head.
"I have seen naught like this in all my life," confessed he. "See, here
is a parcel at his feet done up in another bit of the old sail."
"Shall I open it, Captain?" asked Alden eagerly.
"Ay, an' thou wilt."
"'T is clothes. A sailor's jerkin and breeches, a knife, a sail needle
threaded with somewhat like a bowstring"--
"A deer's sinew. They still use it as our women do linen thread," said
Hopkins taking it in his hand.
"And some bits of wrought iron," continued Alden turning them over.
"Ay, ay, ay, the poor fellow's chiefest treasures in his exile among the
salvages," said Bradford gently.
"And still he was finding some comfort, you may well be sure," suggested
Hopkins. "For it was a savage woman who laid him thus carefully to his
rest, and yon package be sure is the bones of her child."
"Belike. Open it, John," said Standish briefly, and in effect the
smaller package contained the same red and pungent powder encasing the
bones of a little child, his head covered with a thinner thatch of the
father's yellow curls, and the wrists, ankles, and neck surrounded with
strings of fine white beads. Beside it lay a little bow and arrows
ornamented with all the loving elaboration of Indian art.
"A boy, and his mother's darling, be she red or white, savage or
Christian," said Bradford softly, as his thoughts flew to the baby boy
left in Holland under charge of his wife Dorothy's parents.
"Yes," replied Standish gently. "Cover them reverently, and lay them in
their grave again. God send comfort to that poor woman's heart."
"Certes they are no salvages," said Hopkins positively. "Never saw I
yellow hair on any but a white man's head, nor do red men wear
breeches."
"Ay, he was a white man, but, as I opine, a Frenchman," declared Winslow
thoughtfully.
"French surely, masters, for this is French," said Robert Cartier
timidly, as he handled the pointed board. "These are indeed the lilies
of France. I have seen them full oft."
"Say you so, lad?" asked Standish kindly. "Well, I suppose a man loves
his country's ensign though he be naught but a Frenchman. There, place
all as we found it, and let us go our ways."
CHAPTER V.
AN AWFUL DANGER.
"Found you a good burial place in yonder wilderness?" asked Dorothy
Bradford of her husband the next morning as he sat beside her in their
little cabin on the high quarter deck of the Mayflower.
"Ay truly, wife," replied the husband cheerily. "And much did we muse as
to the remains so honorably interred. One of those we found was a little
lad scarce as old as our baby John, and almost mine eyes grew wet in
thinking of him so far away."
"Cruel that thou art to speak of him," exclaimed the young mother
wildly, "when thou knowest I am dying for sight of the child and of home
and my mother and all that I hold dear. I asked, hadst thou found a
grave for poor me in this wilderness whither thou hast brought me to
die."
"Nay, then, dear wife"--
"Mock me not with fair words, for they are naught. If I indeed am dear
take me home to all I love. Here I have naught but thee, and one might
as well love one of these cold gray rocks as thee."
"Have I not been kind and gentle to thee, Dorothy?" asked Bradford
bowing his face upon his hands.
"Ay, kind enow," replied she sullenly. "And gentle, as brave men still
must be to helpless women, but as for love! Tell me now, William
Bradford, dost thou to-day love me as thou couldst have loved Alice
Carpenter who flouted thee and married Edward Southworth instead? Nay,
now, them darest not deny that thou dost love her still!"
"Peace, woman!" exclaimed Bradford raising his face, stern and pale as
his wife had seldom seen it, and then as he marked her fragile features
and woe-begone expression his tone changed to a gentle one. "Nay,
Dorothy, thou wrongest thyself and me. I told thee of certain passages,
past before I knew thee, because I would have no secret between my wife
and me, and it is ill-done of thee to use my confidence as a weapon
against me. And again thou wrongest me grievously; Edward Southworth's
wife is naught to us; we twain are made one, and our lives are to run in
the one channel while both shall last. It is for me to shape and hew
that channel, and for thee to see that its waters run clear and sweet,
and, if you will, to plant posies on the banks. Let us never speak again
of these matters, Dorothy, but rather turn our minds to making a fair
home of the place whither God hath brought us, and doing our best by
each other. Trust me, wife, thou shalt never have cause to complain for
lack of aught I can win for thee or do for thee. Nay, Dorothy, my wife,
weep not so bitterly!"
"Master Bradford, are you within?" asked John Howland's voice outside
the door.
"Ay. What is thy errand, John?"
"The governor prays you to attend a Council convened in the great
cabin."
"I will come," and laying his hand tenderly yet solemnly upon the bowed
head of his wife Bradford murmured,--
"God help thee, Dorothy, God help us both!" and without waiting for a
reply so left her.
In the cabin he found the principal men of the company seated around a
table covered with charts, scrolls, and instruments of various sorts.
Standish with a brief nod made room for the new-comer, and Carver in his
measured tones explained: "Some of us were talking with Master Jones
upon the question of seating ourselves by yonder river as he strongly
adviseth, and I thought it best, Master Bradford, to call a general
Council and settle the matter out of hand. Here are such charts as the
Mayflower saileth by, and here is Master Smith's maps whereon we find
this bay, and much of the coast beyond, laid fairly down. Master Hopkins
counseleth a place called Agawam[2] some twenty leagues to the
northward, whereof he hath heard as a good harbor and fishing ground.
Others say that we should explore yet farther along the shores of this
land which Smith calleth Cape Cod, even as he nameth the whole district
New England, which is verily a pleasant reminder for us, who in spite of
persecution and harshness must still love the name of the land wherein
we have left the bones of our sires."
[2] Ipswich.
"It needs not so many words, Governor," interrupted Jones rudely. "If ye
will not be satisfied with the place ye saw yesterday, Coppin, our
pilot, knoweth of another river with plenty of cleared land about it,
and a harbor fit for a war-fleet to ride in, lying two or three leagues
to the southwest of this place. What think you of taking your pinnace
and going to look at it?"
"We will have in the pilot and hear his story for ourselves before we
answer that query," said Carver with dignity, while Standish less
temperately demanded,--
"And why, Master Jones, didst not tell us this at first rather than at
last? Well nigh hadst thou forced us to land where we could if only to
be rid of thy importunity."
"Why of course I had rather landed you here, and been off for home
rather than to carry you further and be burdened with your queasy
fancies," retorted Jones brutally. "I'm no man's fool I'd have thee to
know my little fire-eater, and thou 'lt be no gladder to say good-by
when the time comes than I."
"Here is Robert Coppin, friends," interposed Brewster mildly, as a hardy
fellow entered the cabin and nodded with scant ceremony to the company.
"Sit thee down, Coppin," said Carver making room for the pilot beside
him. "We would have thee show us upon the chart this river whereof
Master Jones says thou knowest."
"Well, it should be hereaway methinks," replied Coppin bending over the
map and tracing the coast line with a horny forefinger. "Is it yon? Nay,
I am no scholar and steer not by a chart I cannot make out. I know the
place when I see it, and I'll find it again if I'm set to it."
"Thou 'st been there, then?"
"Ay, we lay there three weeks when I sailed in the whaler Scotsman out
of Glasgow, and more by token we named the place Thievish Harbor, for
one of the Indians stole a harpoon out of our boat and away with it
before we could reach him. 'T is a goodly river, broader and deeper than
yon, and has a broad safe harbor."[3]
[3] Jones River, Duxbury.
"And why didst thou not tell us of this place sooner, Master Coppin,
sith thou art our pilot?" sternly demanded Winslow.
"Well, master," returned Coppin slowly, and casting a furtive look at
Jones who was draining a pewter flagon of beer, "I did tell Master Jones
yonder, but he said he had liefer you seated here, and I was to hold my
tongue"--
"Thou liest, knave," roared Jones menacing him with the flagon. "Thou
liest in thy throat. Or if thou didst mumble some nonsense in mine ears,
I paid no heed, doubting not that thou hadst told it all before to thy
gossips among these pious folk. But, Governor, if it is your pleasure to
seek out this place, I will lend you some of my men and set you forward
at your own pleasure."
"Thanks for your good will, master," replied Carver coldly. "What say
you, friends? Shall we try it?"
Murmurs and words of assent were heard on all sides, and Standish
said,--
"My mind, if you will have it, is that this matter should be shrewdly
pressed, and an end made of it as soon as may be. Our people dwindle
daily; they who were well a se'nnight since are ill to-day, and may be
dead to-morrow. Our provision waxeth short and poor, and be it once
spent our good friend Jones will give us none of his we may be sure. We
are no babes to be cast down by these things, nor frighted at facing
them, but sure it is the part of wisdom to use our strength while it is
left to us, and to explore this place, and any other whereof we may
hear, with no farther delay. My counsel is to tell off a company of our
soundest men, and set forth with Coppin this very hour, or as soon as we
may."
"Well and manfully spoken, Captain Standish," replied Carver, and from
more than one bearded throat came a grim murmur of approval, while
Hopkins significantly added,--
"Let them who will, be treated as babes and set down here or there
without their own consent. I for one am with thee, Captain, in the
bolder course."
"If thou 'rt with me, thou 'rt with the governor and the brethren. I
have no separate design, Master Hopkins," replied Standish coldly. "I
did but give my mind subject to the approval of the rest."
"And so good a mind it seemeth to me, that I propose we follow it
without delay. What say ye, friends?"
"I like the scheme so well that I fain would set forth this moment,"
said Bradford, over whom the depression of his interview with Dorothy
still hung.
"Then in God's name let the thing go forward," said Carver solemnly
raising his hand. "And, it is my mind that such among us as have in some
sort the charge of the rest should be the men to go upon this emprise,
both because they are best fitted to judge what is needed, and because
they will be hampered by no need of orders from headquarters. I propose,
then, that leaving Elder Brewster in charge of those who remain aboard,
the party should consist of me as your governor, and Captain Standish as
our man of war, with Master Winslow, Master Bradford, and the Brothers
Tilley from the Leyden brethren, to whom we will join Master Hopkins,
Master Warren, and Edward Dotey of London."
"Will it please your excellency to add my name?" asked John Howland
eagerly. "Well I wot I am not a principal man, but I have a strong arm,
and would fain follow thee, if I may."
"A strong arm, a stout heart, and a ready wit," replied Carver looking
kindly at his retainer. "And gladly do I number thee of the company.
That then counts ten of us, and we shall have Thomas English in charge
of the pinnace with John Alderton our seaman, and that methinks is
enough."
"Enough to meet the danger if there be danger, and to divide the glory
if there be glory," said Myles placidly, and Bradford softly and
pensively replied,
"No such glory as thou didst win in Flanders, friend, but truly the
'glory that fadeth not away.'"
"Hm!" retorted Myles as softly, but pulling his red beard with a grim
smile. "I'm not greedy, Will, and I'll leave those honors for thee."
"Nay," began Bradford rousing himself, but at that moment the whole brig
was shaken, and the councilors startled from their dignity by a
tremendous explosion which drove them from their seats, while the air
was rent by yells and shrieks in various tones and degrees, and a
stifling smoke and smell of gunpowder filled the cabin.
"The magazine has blown up!" shouted Standish. "Man the boats, and fetch
the women and children!" And he rushed to his own cabin where Rose lay,
not well enough to rise. But Bradford, seated near the companion-way,
had already sprung down and presently returned leading by the ear a
blubbering boy, his hands and face besmirched with gunpowder.
"Here is the culprit, Master Carver," announced he placing him in front
of the governor.
"John Billington!" exclaimed Carver sternly. "Ever in mischief, what
hast thou done now? Speak the truth, boy, or 't is the worse for thee."
"I did but take dad's gun from the hooks in our cabin, and she went off
in my hands," whimpered the boy.
"Nay, 'twas more than that, for we heard not one but several
explosions," persisted the governor.
"There was a keg of gunpowder under the bed," confessed the boy
reluctantly, "and--and--some of it flew out upon the floor."
"Flew out without hands!" exclaimed Hopkins, but Carver raised his
finger and asked mildly,--
"And what didst thou with the powder on the floor, John?"
"I made some squibs as father did last Guy Fawkes Day," muttered the
boy.
"And dropped the fire among the loose powder on the floor, and so sent
all off together!" broke in Hopkins again. "And if the keg had caught,
thou wouldst have blown the ship to pieces! Thou unwhipt rascal,
thou 'rt enough to corrupt a whole colony of boys. If my Bartholomew
ever speaks to thee again I'll break every bone in his body, as I'd well
like to thine, and will"--
"Nay, nay, Master Hopkins!" interposed the governor sternly. "It is
never well to threaten what we cannot perform. We break not bones nor
put to the torture in our new community; but, John Billington, I shall
counsel thy father to take thee ashore and whip thee so soundly as shall
make thee long remember that gunpowder is for thee forbidden fruit. Go,
now, to thy cabin, and remain there till he comes, while I go to see
what harm thou hast wrought."
"Mistress Carver would fain see the governor without delay," announced
Lois, Mistress Carver's maid, in a quavering voice. "Jasper More was so
frighted by the noise that he is in convulsions, and we know not but he
is dying."
"Is Doctor Fuller here?" demanded another voice. "Mistress White would
see him presently."
"And this is thy work, boy!" exclaimed Carver solemnly. "Go!"
And the boy crept miserably away, foreboding the whipping of which he
was not disappointed.
CHAPTER VI.
THE FIRST ENCOUNTER.
So thoroughly were the bolder spirits among the Pilgrims impressed with
the necessity of haste in finding an abiding place that by afternoon of
the next day the pinnace was victualed and fitted for a voyage of ten
days or more, and the adventurers ready to embark. To the twelve men
previously named, all of whom were signers of the Constitution already
drawn up to quell symptoms of insubordination on the part of Hopkins and
others, were added Clarke and Coppin, acting as pilots, with the rank of
master's mate, three sailors, and the master gunner, who, uninvited,
thrust himself into the company in hopes of making something by traffic,
or, as he phrased it, _trucking_ with the Indians.
But hasten as they might many things delayed them, some of them as
important as the death of Jasper More, an orphan in charge of the
Carvers, and the birth of a son to Mistress White, whom his father and
Doctor Fuller whimsically named Peregrine, latest of the Pilgrims, and
first of native born American white men. When at last the shallop left
the Mayflower's side it was in teeth of such bad weather as left the
former expedition far in the shade, for not only was the northeast wind
more bitter, but the temperature so low that the spray froze upon the
rigging and the men's jerkins, turning them into coats of mail almost
impossible to bend.
It was soon found impossible for Master English to lay his proposed
course, and finally the Pilgrims resolved to land and encamp for the
night, partly for the sake of the greedy gunner, who had turned so
deadly sick that it was feared he would die, and for Edward Tilley, who
lay in the bottom of the boat in a dead swoon, while his brother John
crouched beside him covered with John Howland's coat, which he declared
was but an impediment to him in rowing.
"They should never have come. Had I guessed their unfitness I would have
hindered it, but now alack it is too late, and I fear they have come to
their death," said Carver in Bradford's ear, and indeed it was so. The
brothers, never divided in body or soul since their birth, had as one
man given their substance, their strength, their faith, to the common
cause, and now were giving their lives as simply and as willingly as
heroes ever will go to their death, so giving life to many.
The second night found them only as far as what we now call Eastham, and
again building a "randevous" and gathering firewood, a difficult task at
any time in this vicinity, for the trees were lofty and the underbrush
annually burned away by the Indians to facilitate hunting. But it was
finally done, as all things will be when such men set about them, the
fire was built, the supper eaten, the prayer said, and the psalm sung,
its rude melody rising from that wilderness to the wintry sky with the
assurance of Daniel's song in the den of lions. Then all slept except
Edward Dotey, to whom was committed the first watch, to last while three
inches of the slow-match attached to his piece were consuming.
Striding up and down his appointed beat the young man hummed again the
evening psalm, mildly anathematized the cold, peered into the blackness
of the forest, and glanced enviously at his comrades sound asleep about
the fire.
"'T is all but burned," muttered he stooping to examine the match, and
thrusting a fallen log back into the fire with his boot. But in that
very instant upon the intense stillness of the night burst suddenly a
discordant clamor, a confusion of horrible and unknown sounds, unlike,
in simple Edward Dotey's mind, to anything possible this side of hell.
Undaunted even thus, he answered the assault with a yell of quivering
defiance, fired his matchlock into the air, and shouted at the top of
his voice,--
"Arm! arm! arm! The fiend is upon us!"
All sprang to their feet alert and ready, and two or three pieces were
shot off, but no foe appeared, and no reply was made to their shouts of
defiance.
Dotey, questioned by Standish, was fain to confess he had seen nothing,
and Coppin averred that he had more than once heard similar sounds upon
the coast of Newfoundland, and that they were commonly thought to be the
voices of sirens or mermaids who haunted lonely shores.
"If naught more imminent than mermaids is upon us I'll e'en go back to
sleep," said Winslow in good-natured derision, while Standish, lighting
his slow-match, said pleasantly to Dotey,--
"Lay thee down, man, and sleep. If thy fiend comes again I'll give
account of him."
A few grim jests, a little laughter, and the camp was again quiet, until
Standish, sure that no enemy could be at hand, resigned his watch to
Howland, and he to English, until at five o'clock William Bradford
aroused his comrades, reminding them that on account of the tide they
must embark within the hour, and had still to breakfast.
A wintry fog, piercing in its chill, had closed down upon the camp,
covering everything with a half-frozen rime, dropping sullenly like rain
from such things as came near the fire, and stiffening into ice in the
shade.
"I fear me our pieces will hang fire after this soaking," remarked
Carver examining his matchlock.
"It were well to try them before there is need," said Winslow firing his
into the thicket behind the camp. His example was followed by several,
until Standish good-humoredly cried,--
"Enough, enough, friends! Save powder and shot for the enemy if there be
one. Such grapes grow not on these vines."
"Well, since the pieces are ready, and the twilight breaks, it were well
for some of us to carry them and the other armor down to the boat, while
the rest set out the breakfast," suggested Hopkins, always anxious to be
stirring.
"Nay, 't is but poor soldiership to part from our arms even for so brief
a space," said Winslow. "There be other matters, cloaks and haversacks,
and such like, that can be carried, but the arms and armor should abide
with them who wear them."
"Master Winslow may do as seemeth good in his own eyes, but my armor
goeth now," retorted Hopkins in a belligerent tone. And loading himself
with his breastplate, steel cap, matchlock, and bullet pouch, he strode
obstinately away to the boat, lying some three or four hundred yards
distant, waiting for the tide to float her.
Standish watched him disapprovingly, and, turning to Carver, he inquired
significantly,--
"What saith our governor?"
"Let each man do as seemeth good to himself," replied Carver placably.
"'T is of no great import."
"My snaphance goes nowhere out of reach of my right hand," announced
Standish somewhat sharply, for the want of discipline grieved him, and
Bradford, Winslow, and Howland silently indorsed both his action and his
feeling. The courteous Carver said nothing, and did nothing, but a
sailor seeing the governor's armor lying together, carried it down to
the boat, thinking to do him a service.
Reaching the shore, Hopkins found the boat surrounded by a few inches of
water, and, not caring to wade out to her, laid his load upon the shore,
to wait until she fairly floated,--an example followed by the rest, some
of whom strolled back to the camp, while others stood talking to those
who had slept on board, until a summons to breakfast quickened their
motions; but just as the laggards entered the randevous the same
horrible noise that had so startled Edward Dotey burst forth again,
while one of the sailors yet lingering by the shore came rushing up,
shouting like a madman,--
"Salvages! Indians! They are men!" and, as if to prove his words, a
shower of arrows came rattling into the randevous, one of them
transfixing the lump of boiled beef laid ready for breakfast.
"Why didn't you bring up your pieces again, ye fools!" cried Standish
angrily. "Run, now, and recover them before the enemy seizes them, while
we men of wit cover your course."
Not waiting to dispute the style of this command, the unarmed men
hastened to obey it, while Standish, taking position at the open
entrance of the barricade, fired his shaphance in the direction where
the sailor pointed; Bradford followed suit; but as Winslow and Howland
stepped forward Standish held up his hand,--
"Hold your fire, men, until we see the foe, and Bradford load again with
all speed! We must hold the randevous at all odds, for here is half our
stuff, and our lives depend upon not losing it. Hasten ye laggards! Run
Tilley! Run men!"
"He is spent!" cried John Howland, throwing down his piece and dashing
out into the open, where he seized John Tilley round the waist and half
carried, half dragged him into the inclosure.
"They will seize the shallop!" cried Carver, and springing on the
barricade, heedless of his own exposure, he shouted to those in the
boat,--
"Ho, Warren! English! Coppin! Are you safe and on your watch?"
"Ay, well! All is well!" cried the rough voices of the seamen, and
Warren's manly tones added, "Be of good courage, brethren!"
"And quit yourselves like men," muttered Standish, his snaphance at his
shoulder, his eager eyes scanning the covert.
Three shots from the pinnace rang bravely through the wood, and then
came a hail,--
"Ho, comrades, bring us a light! We have no fire to set off our pieces!"
"Their matches are not alight!" exclaimed Howland, and snatching a brand
from the camp-fire he again dashed out, down the wooded slope, and
splashing mid-leg deep through the freezing brine, he gave the brand
into Warren's hand, then rushed back as he came, the arrows whistling
around his head and two sticking in his heavy frieze jerkin.
"Well done, John! well done!" cried Carver clapping the young man on the
shoulder as, breathless and glowing, he stooped to pick up his
matchlock. "The sight of such valor will daunten the Indians more than a
whole flight of bullets."
And in fact there was for a moment a lull in the enemy's movements, but
rather of rage than dismay, for the savage outcry burst forth the next
moment with more ferocity than ever, and as it died away a single voice
shouted in a tone of command some words, to which the rest responded by
such a yell as later on curdled the blood of the hapless settlers at
Deerfield and other places.
"Aha! There is a leader, there!" growled Standish, his eyes glittering
and his strong teeth clenched. "Let him show himself!"
As if in answer to the wish a stalwart figure leaped from behind a large
tree to the shelter of a smaller one, about half a gunshot from the
camp.
"That's your man, Captain!" exclaimed Howland, who stood next him.
"Ay, leave him to me!" growled Standish. "Ha!" for an arrow well and
strongly aimed hit squarely above his heart, and rebounded from the coat
of mail Rose had insisted upon his putting on.
"For thee, wife!" murmured the captain, and fired.
Bark and splinters flew from the tree where the crown of the warrior's
head had showed for an instant, but a shriek of derisive laughter told
that no further harm was done. Standish, with a grim smile, reloaded
his snaphance, while two more arrows vigorously flew, one piercing the
right sleeve of his doublet, the other aimed at his face, which he
avoided by moving his head. Then for one instant a dusky arm was seen
reaching over the shoulder for another arrow, and in that instant the
snaphance rang cheerily out, the arm fell with a convulsive movement,
and a piercing cry rang through the wood, followed by the pattering of
many moccasoned feet, as dusky shadows slipped from tree to tree, and
were lost in the dim recesses of the forest.
"They are routed! They fly!" cried Howland firing his piece into a
rustling thicket.
"Yes, that last cry was the retreat," said Standish half regretfully
plucking the arrow from his sleeve. "The chief finds his courage cooled
by a broken elbow. I doubt me if ever he speed arrow again."
"Body o' me!" continued he examining the shaft in his hand. "See you,
John, 't is pointed with naught but a bird's talon, curiously bound on
with its own sinews. To be scratched to death by a fowl were but a poor
ending for a man that has fought Alva!"
"Pursue them, Captain, pursue and terrify, but kill not, if you can help
it," ordered Carver eagerly. "Let the heathen know that they are but
men, and that the Lord of Hosts is on our side."
"Forward then, men! At the double-quick! Run!" and, waving his sword,
Standish rushed after the flying savages, followed by all but Carver,
English, and the sailors who stayed to guard the randevous and the
pinnace. But even as he ran Myles muttered, perhaps to the sword
Gideon,--
"Beshrew me if I see how I am to hurl yon text in the heathen's teeth,
sith we have no common tongue, and they will not stop for parley! A good
man, and a gentle, but no soldier, is our governor!"
As might have been expected, the Pilgrims, in their heavy clothing and
armor, proved no match for the Indians in a foot-race, and after
pursuing them for about a quarter of a mile Standish called a halt, and
ordered his men to raise a shout of mingled triumph and defiance,
followed by a volley of three, each three reloading as the next fired.
The victory thus asserted, and the foe offering no response, the little
army retired in good order upon the randevous, where they only tarried
long enough to pick up the rest of their possessions and make a sheaf of
arrows, pointed not only with eagle's claws, but with the tips of deer's
horns and bits of brass and iron gathered from the various European
vessels touching for provisions or traffic at these shores.
It was indeed to the treachery of one of these commanders that the
present attack of the savages was due. Thomas Hunt, visiting these
shores in 1614 to procure a cargo of dried fish for Spain, recompensed
the kindness and hospitality of the savages by cajoling four-and-twenty
of them on board his ship and carrying them as slaves to Malaga, where
he sold several, the rest being claimed for purposes of conversion by
the Franciscan Friars of those parts.
One of these captives, named Tisquantum, or Squanto, escaped from Hunt,
and remained for a while in England, where he was kindly treated and
learned the language with something of the mode of life. He was brought
back to Cape Cod as an interpreter by an adventurer named Dermer, and
finally returned to his own people, who were so enraged by his story of
Hunt's treachery and cruelty, that they resolved by way of revenge to
sacrifice the first white men who fell into their hands, and had they
proved themselves better men than the Pilgrims would have inflicted not
only death, but the most cruel torments upon them.
The goods and weapons on hoard, Carver, by a word, gathered the men
around him upon the sands, and in a few fervent and hearty words
returned thanks to the God of battles for His aid and protection,
invoking at the same time protection and counsel for the farther dangers
of the exploration. Then embarking with all speed the shallop was pushed
off and flew merrily on before the strong east wind.
CHAPTER VII.
CLARKE'S ISLAND.
"And now, Master Coppin, let us bear up for Thievish Harbor without more
delays," said Carver as the boat settled to her work, and the men into
their places.
"Ay, ay, master," responded the pilot cheerily. "And a good harbor and a
good seat shall you find it in spite of its ill-favored name."
But as the day went on the stormy sky lowered yet more and more blackly,
the wind, shifting between east and north, swooped in angry gusts across
the black waters, or blew in so fierce a gale that the shallop scarcely
bore her close-reefed sails, and more than once careened so as to ship
alarming seas. The air, filled with sleet and icy snow, cut like a knife
through the thickest clothing, and again Edward Tilley, swooning with
exhaustion and cold, lay lifeless in the bottom of the boat, sadly
watched by his brother in hardly better plight and by Carver, who, like
the father of a family, carried all his children in his heart.
About the middle of the afternoon these skirmishes of the storm
concentrated in one furious and irresistible attack, before which even
the hardy sailors lowered their heads and clung to whatever lay nearest,
while Clarke, who was steering, suddenly reeled violently against the
bulwark, and recovering himself with a fearful oath seized an oar and
thrusting it out astern shouted,--
"We be all dead men! The rudder has broke, and no man can steer in such
a sea as this with an oar!"
"Two men may, so they be men and not cowards!" shouted John Alderton in
retort, and springing to the stern he thrust out his own oar, calling to
a comrade,--"Here, Cornish Jim, come you and help me, and so long as ash
blades and stout arms hold we two will steer the craft."
"Good cheer, men!" hailed Coppin from the bows where he was on the
lookout. "I see the harbor straight ahead! We are all but in! Carry on,
carry on with your sails there, Clarke, and let us make the haven before
the gale rises to its height."
"She'll never carry another inch of canvas," expostulated English as the
mate shook out a reef in the mainsail, but Coppin and Clarke were now in
command, since only they professed to know the coast, and the warning
was unheeded, especially as the wind had for a moment lulled or rather
drawn back for a more formidable spring, swooping down as the last reef
point was loosed with a force that snatched the great sail from the
men's hands, and buried the nose of the shallop deep under water. The
sail cracked and filled until it was tense as iron, but the honest
Holland duck could not give way, and it was the mast that had to go,
breaking into three pieces and falling overboard with a splintering
crash. Nor was this the worst, for with the mast went the great sail
with all its hamper of blocks and cordage, which, half in and half out
the boat, threatened to capsize and swamp her before it could be cut
away.
"Save the sail, men!" cried English through all the hubbub. "As good
lose all as lose our sail! Gather it in and stow it as best we may. Keep
her before the wind, you lubbers! Handle your oars for your lives!"
For now the great boat, losing her sail, must depend upon oars, and with
two men at each, and Alderton and the Cornish giant steering as best
they might against a sea howling and leaping like wild beasts around
them, the shattered craft drove on past the headland of Manomet,
steering straight for the deadly rocks off the Gurnet's Head, which
Coppin espying from the bows, he uttered a cry of dismay, shouting,--
"The Lord be merciful to our sinful souls, for I never saw this place
before!"
"Breakers ahead!" shouted Clarke. "Beach her, Alderton! Run her ashore
on yon headland! We that can swim may save ourselves! Beach her, I say!"
"And I say no such coward thing," retorted Alderton. "About with her,
men! Row, row for your lives! Bend down to it! So! Pull, pull! I see a
channel ahead and smooth water! Hold on here, Jim, till I get out
another oar, this cracks! Now then! Yeo-ho! Here we go past the reef!"
And weathering Brown's Island and the Gurnet Rocks, the brave fellow
steering more by instinct than sight, for darkness had fallen with the
storm, the shallop struck the channel then dividing Saquish from the
Gurnet, flew through it like a hunted creature, and forging past the
north headland of a small densely wooded island found herself in calm
water close under its lee.
"There, men, ye are safe, thanks to stout hearts and arms and good ashen
blades!" exclaimed Alderton drawing his first full breath since seizing
the steering oar.
"Thanks to God Almighty who still giveth His servants the victory,"
amended Carver, who had toiled with the sturdiest.
"And now, where are we and what is to do next?" demanded Standish
clenching his blistered hands.
"We are between two shores, maybe islands both, maybe the lee shore is
the main," replied Coppin peering through the darkness. "And more I know
not."
"And I for one am minded to get ashore and see if there be stuff for a
fire and shelter, whatever name the place may hold," cried Hopkins
dashing the drops of salt water from his face and beard.
"And I," added Standish heartily. "What say you, Master Carver? Shall we
land and make some sort of randevous upon the shore?"
"The place may be full of salvages, who, drawn by the light of a fire,
can come upon us unaware," replied Carver hesitatingly.
"As well risk another encounter as to perish here of cold and
exhaustion," suggested Winslow.
"Safety most often lies on the side of courage," declared Standish
sententiously.
"And Master Tilley will die if naught be done for him," pleaded Howland,
and to this consideration Carver at once yielded his careful scruples.
"Ay, John, thou 'rt right to mind me of that," said he. "Some of us will
go ashore and make a fire, whereat to comfort those who are overborne by
cold and weariness, and some shall keep the boat until the first are
refreshed, and so hold watch and watch."
"And I will be of the first watch ashore," cried Clarke, the master's
mate; "for I'd twice liefer meet all the salvages of the Indies than to
freeze like a clod, so here goes." And stepping upon the gunwale he made
a spring in the dark, alighting upon a slippery rock and measuring his
length upon the sand. Nothing daunted, however, he grasped a handful of
sand in each fist, as if his prostration had been voluntary, and
springing to his feet cried in a braggadocio voice,--
"I seize this land for King James of England and for myself."
"Thyself!" growled Coppin, jealously. "We'll call it Clarke's Land,
then; for truly 't is all thou 'rt ever likely to be master of."
"Nay, then, thou 'rt welcome to the six feet they'll give thee after
thou 'rt hung," retorted Clarke, and the sailors chuckled at the jest,
while the Pilgrims gravely arranged which watch should first land, and
which keep the boat.
Peering around in the obscurity, the pioneers soon found a sheltered
nook close under the bluff, and built their fire and made their camp
very near the spot where a little wharf now lies, and where generation
after generation of their children has stood to meditate, to dream, to
drink in the glory of summer seas and skies, or beneath the August moon
to whisper in each others ears the old, old story, never so fresh and
never so real as it has come to some of them on the shores of Clarke's
Island.
No rosy dreams, no moonlit passages were theirs however, who in that
stormy December night first trod that pleasant shore, but rather the
sternest realities of life and death, as with numb and icy fingers they
struck a light and sheltered the feeble blaze loth to catch upon the wet
twigs and leaves hastily collected.
"Either there are no Indians or this is an island too small for
hunting," said Hopkins as he groped in the thicket at the top of the
bluff for small wood.
"And how know you that?" inquired Howland who helped him.
"By this undergrowth that we are gathering, lad. The Indians burn it off
year by year in the haunts of the deer, so that they may course there
freely, but here thou seest are plenty of old and dry twigs."
"The better for our fire," returned Howland philosophically, not so much
interested at that moment in the habits of Indians as in providing for
Elizabeth Tilley's father.
The more cautious brethren in the pinnace meantime had anchored and made
things as snug as possible on board, but as the fire blazed up, and one
after another on shore showed signs of its genial influence, the dangers
of abandoning the boat grew less and less formidable, until Standish,
rubbing his hands and turning to toast the other side of his person,
cried exultingly,--
"Aha, I am warm! I have seen the fire!"
"So have I seen it, and here goes to feel it!" cried Coppin jumping as
far toward land as he could, and splashing the rest of the way, for he
had sulkily remained on board when Clarke leaped ashore and claimed the
island.
"Methinks the example is good if the manner be uncourteous," said
Winslow wistfully.
"Ay," replied Carver a little annoyed by Coppin's action, although he
claimed no authority over the rough fellow. "I was just about to say
that it were as well that we landed, taking our arms with us and
standing on our guard, for truly we are perishing here."
The permission calmly waited for was thankfully received, and in a few
moments the whole party was gathered about the now jubilant fire which,
fed with cedar logs, sent up clouds of perfumed smoke to float like
incense among the crests of the shivering parent trees.
The next morning broke calm and 'sunshining,' and the Pilgrims, renewing
their fire, offered a solemn prayer of thanksgiving and confidence, and
sat down to breakfast.
After this came an exploration, which showed the small size and compact
nature of the island, as well as its total lack of inhabitants. This
tour was followed by an informal council about the fire, wherein it was
resolved to remain during the day, which was Saturday, upon the island,
drying and cleaning their weapons, rigging a temporary mast for the
shallop, baling and drying her, and restoring by rest and comfort some
measure of strength to the feebler members of the party. Also, and this
not the least consideration, the next day being Sunday, they would thus
be prepared to observe it with that decency and recollection which were
part of their religion.
The plan arranged, all set heartily to work to carry it out, the sailors
going aboard to bale the boat, and Clarke and Alderton undertaking to
fit the new mast. A proud young cedar, growing straight and tall among
his slender admirers, was soon found, and as the white man's axe for the
first time since cedars grew upon Clarke's Island bit into the heart of
one of their number, we well might fancy that, mingling with the east
wind and the sound of the surf on Salthouse Beach rose the echo of the
dirge, startling the sailors of Egean shores, long before,--
"Pan is dead! Great Pan is dead!"
Late in the afternoon when all the work was done, and the men sat or lay
around the fire enjoying the Sabbatical repose long distinguishing the
New England Saturday evening, Carver, Standish, Bradford, and Winslow
climbed the hill rising sharply above their camping-ground, and paused
by what is now called Sunset Rock to look about them.
"Clarke's Island is but a small addition to King James's territory,"
said Winslow with his subtle smile, as he glanced over the ninety acres
of woodland lying around him.
"Our own England is not very large," replied Carver quietly, "but she
hath long arms."
"And I," cried Standish gayly, "am but a little fellow, and yet am not
in the way of calling upon bigger men to protect me! Despise not the day
of small things, Master Winslow, albeit you carry your head some inches
higher than mine."
"There is a great rock showing above the scrub oaks to the north," said
Bradford pointing in that direction. "Let us climb it and see what lieth
beyond."
"Have with you, brother!" responded Standish, and forcing their way
through the stunted growth covering this higher and bleaker portion of
the island the four men soon stood at the base of an enormous bowlder
about thirty feet in height, brought hither in some glacial overflow of
the forgotten years.
On the southern side a deep crevice, worn by many rains, offered a
foothold, even as it does to-day, and in a moment the four Pilgrim
chiefs stood upon the summit and looked about them.
The sun was setting in lavish gorgeousness, while in the deep blue vault
arching overhead tiny points of light showed where the stars waited
impatiently to take their places and glorify the night.
The sea, almost black in its depth of color, dashed mournfully upon the
rocks fallen from the high northern and western bluffs, and across the
wintry flood lay the shores of what was to be Duxbury, running out at
the south into a peninsula, terminating in a bold summit. This was
Captain's Hill, and the Captain standing there looked at it all
unconsciously and said:--
"Yonder is a spot that might be made into a goodly hold against any foe.
With a piece or two properly mounted on that fair height, and a palisado
cutting off the headland from the main, it would fall into as pretty a
little fortalice as could be asked."
"Too small a seat for our whole company, howbeit," said Carver
scrutinizing the spot.
"And we must seek a river with commodious harbor for our fishing fleet,"
added Winslow, not knowing the capacities then of Jones's River and
Green Bay, hard by Captain's Hill, where he was to spend the honorable
evening of his days.
"Fishing!" echoed Standish contemptuously. "It is like those good
dry-salters and drapers of London town, who have helped out our
enterprise, to expect us, landing on this barren shore in the depth of
winter, to fall on fishing before we break our fast, or build a shelter
for our wives and children. Our first work is to subdue the salvages, to
cut down the forest, to build houses, and plant crops. If we reach the
fishing by this day twelvemonth we shall have done well."
"I fear me the Adventurers of whom you speak so slightingly will hardly
be of your mind," replied Winslow coldly.
"Then let them come over here and collect their profits for themselves,"
retorted Standish. "And well would I like to see Thomas Weston and
Robert Cushman, with some of those smug London traders who think to buy
good men's lives and swords for the price of a red herring, set down
here to battle with the frost and snow, and sea and swamps, not to
mention the salvages. We should hear their tune change from 'Fish, fish,
fish!' I warrant me."
But at this speech Winslow, even more of a diplomatist than a soldier,
looked grave, and Bradford, in whose harmonious character valor was ever
in accord with reason, laid a hand upon the little Captain's shoulder,
and said affectionately:--
"Thy courage is still so keen, Myles, that when thine enemies are put to
flight thou 'rt tempted to turn upon thy friends! Doubtless the
Adventurers, mostly men of peace, traders, if thou wilt have it so, yet
none the worse for that, do somewhat fail to fathom the perils of this
our undertaking; still no man is to be condemned for an honest
misconception, and these same traders have freely risked their money to
furnish us forth. We, too, had never stood on this rock to-night had not
those men thrust their hands deep into their pockets, and is it out of
reason for them to ask to see some return for their money as soon as may
be?"
"Not out of reason for traders, mayhap," replied Myles obstinately. "I
would that we had come at our own charges altogether."
"Those of us who had a little money were not enough to furnish forth
those who had none," interposed Carver gravely; "and we have none too
many hands as it is to do the work laid out for us."
"Thou 'rt right, as thou mainly art, Governor," replied Standish
good-humoredly; "and haply 't is well that my hot head is linked with
thy cool one."
"We were all ill sped, lacking thy skill and valor in war, Captain,"
replied Carver kindly, and after a moment's meditative silence he slowly
added,--
"It ill befits finite man to intrude upon the Councils of infinite
wisdom, and yet it seemeth borne strangely in upon my mind that God hath
carefully chosen His weapons for the mighty conquest He hath set Himself
to make in this wilderness, and, if I may say it without grieving your
modesty, brethren, I seem to see in you, standing with me here, three
chosen leaders.
"A man of war, trained from childhood in martial tactics, and in the use
of weapons, and of a singular courage and determination, you, Standish,
are the strong right arm of the body corporate.
"And you, Winslow, bred among courtiers and statesmen, subtle of
intellect, ready of speech, cool of temper, and sound in judgment, in
you I see our ambassador, our spokesman, our counselor and adviser, our
Chrysostom of the golden mouth."
"And Bradford," jealously demanded Standish laying a hand upon the arm
of the future governor, for whom he ever entertained a mighty affection.
Carver turned and looked full into Bradford's steadfast eyes upraised to
his, and his own gaze became rapt and well-nigh prophetic. When he spoke
again it was in a lower and less spontaneous voice.
"The arm strikes, the tongue parleys, but both must be in accord with
the brain, or all is lost. The father of his people must think for all,
plan for all, encourage, restrain, cherish, discipline all. Standish for
the camp, Winslow for the council, but for you, Bradford, the sleepless
vigil, the constant watch, the self-forgetting energy, whose fruits are
safety, honor, and prosperity, for those who lean on you."
"But, dear friend, it is you who still must be our governor, our
reliance, our father!" exclaimed Bradford eagerly, but Carver turned
away and began the steep descent.
Those whom he left looked earnestly in each other's faces, yet said
nothing. A future grander, and more terrible than they had imagined,
seemed suddenly defined before them, and each dimly felt the burden and
the honor of his own part therein laid upon him.
As thus they stood, three noble figures clearly defined against the
amber of the evening sky, Richard Warren and Stephen Hopkins appeared
upon the crest of the hill and paused to look about them.
"See yonder figures, looking as cut out of stone, and set up for idols
in the high places of Baal," sneered Hopkins. "These be our masters,
Warren, if so be we yield to them."
Warren, a genial, honest gentleman of London, who had thrown his entire
patrimony, as well as his earnest soul, into this enterprise, shook his
head and laughingly replied,--
"Thou 'rt ever too jealous, Stephen, for thine own comfort. Our
brethren, all unconscious that they make so fine a show up there, are
giving their best and their all to the common weal, and so are we. If
their best, chance to be gold, and ours but iron, think 'st thou God
will value the one offering above the other? I trow not man, and I am
for my part well content as matters stand."
"Nay," persisted Hopkins, "but mark you how constantly they slight us
and Dotey, because we are out of England, and not of Holland, and so not
of Robinson's congregation?"
"Nay," replied Warren pacifically; "I had liefer mark the many times we
are called to Council and to share in whatever good may be toward. And
mark you, Hopkins, you and I are the fathers of many children, and those
men have none as yet, and this land whose foundations must be laid in
our blood, if need be, shall become the inheritance of those we leave
behind. Please God, my five girls, coming hither so soon as I have a
roof to shelter them, shall become the mothers of soldiers and
statesmen, maybe of kings, for who knoweth what is to come when the seed
sown in tears shall be reaped in joy!"
Hopkins answered only by a contemptuous sniff, and the triumvirate
descending from their pedestal, all six men returned amicably to the
camp.
CHAPTER VIII.
BURYING HILL.
Much has been said and written of the Sunday spent by the advanced guard
of Pilgrims upon Clarke's Island, and a very modern tradition points to
the great rock in the centre of the island as the scene of their
devotions. Nothing, however, is less probable than that this handful of
men, with no pastor or even presiding elder among them, should leave
their encampment under the bluff, and the neighborhood of their boat, to
travel inland to this bleak and exposed bowlder, there to set one of
their number to exhort the rest. Carver certainly was a deacon of
Robinson's congregation, yet this office gave him no spiritual
authority, but rather the duties of a warden in the mother church, nor
was the governor a man to assume any authority not his own; so although
he led the informal service held in that sheltered nook, upon the shore,
Winslow and Bradford and Hopkins were the chief speakers, while John
Howland in his melodious and powerful voice raised a psalm that made the
welkin ring, and Richard Warren stoutly cried Amen to all the rest.
Standish, his arms folded and one hand resting upon the hilt of Gideon,
stood a little apart, his head reverently bared in the prayers, and with
a rough attempt at melody echoing Howland's psalm; but during the
exhortations or prophesyings, he strode softly up and down the beach,
or mounting upon the bluff swept sea and land with the keen glances of
eyes that nothing escaped. Occasionally a fervent word would be sped in
his direction from one or another, and many a prayer, as before and
after that hour, was urged that this bulwark of the church against her
secular foes might become her obedient son. When thus exhorted or prayed
for the captain's face became a study, sometimes so impenetrably obtuse,
sometimes so rigid in its obstinacy, sometimes touched with shrewd
amusement, and sometimes moved to tender sympathy, but never to
conviction or even doubt, and as the years went on, those who loved him
most, even Bradford and Alden and Brewster, ceased all effort to bring
this precious comrade into their own fold, but learned to accept him as
he was.
Monday broke with clear and gracious skies and a sea only pleasantly
rippled with its late commotion. Refreshed and cheered by their long
rest the Pilgrims were early afoot, and at a good hour the cleaned and
furbished arms were packed in the shallop, the sail, bent to its new
mast, was unfurled to its fullest spread, and the eighteen men, each at
his own post, eager and hopeful. It had been resolved to proceed no
farther in search of Coppin's harbor, which afterward proved to be Cut
River and the site of Marshfield, but to explore the landlocked harbor
lying before them.
Carefully sounding as she went, the shallop felt her way through the Cow
Yard or Horse Market, around Beach Point, and having the flood tide with
her rode triumphantly over Dick's Flat and Mother White's Guzzle, until
finally, with furled sails and her head to the wind, she lay within a
biscuit toss of the shore.
"See, there are cleared fields and a river full of fish, and all things
ready to our hand," cried Howland excitedly.
"Bring her up to the beach, then, and we will land and explore," replied
Carver, smiling at the young man's enthusiasm.
"There is a rock a few rods ahead set ready for a stepping-stone,"
announced Howland standing in the bows.
"Lay her up to it, men," growled English, and in a moment the bows of
the shallop caressingly touched the cheek of that great gray Rock,
itself a pilgrim, as has well been said, from some far northern shore,
brought here by the vast forces of Nature, and laid to wait in grand
patience, until the ages should bring it a name, a use, and a nation's
love and honor.
"Jump then, lad, and see thou jump not five fadom deep, as thou didst
out there in mid-seas!" cried Hopkins, and Howland leaping lightly from
the boat to the rock cried in his blithe voice,--
"And I seize this mainland for King James, even as Master Clarke did yon
island."
"Only thou dost not claim it for thine own under the king as he did,"
replied Coppin.
"It seemeth to me," said Carver as he stepped on shore, "as if this
place were fairly laid down on Smith's map that we were studying. Think
you not so, Master Winslow?"
"Ay, I believe it is the place he hath called Plymouth after our English
town."
"Why, then, if we are minded to tarry here, it were well befitting that
we should continue the name, for our Plymouth brethren cheered and
comforted us marvelously in our sad outsetting," replied the governor,
and Bradford added,--
"They were in very truth kinder than our own."
"'T is a better harbor than English Plymouth can boast," said Coppin
turning to survey the bay.
"Harbor! English Plymouth's harbor is no better than a slaughter pen!
Not less than ten good ships were pounded to pieces there in the last
year," said the sailor Alderton.
"Yes, 't is worse than the Goodwin Sands, if that can be," echoed
English.
"While here is a haven most artificially contrived for safety, with its
overlapping arms and islands," cried Clarke.
"Ay, the islands, Clarke's Island above all, are such as all England
cannot match!" jeered Coppin, while Howland, followed by the rest, began
to climb the bluff in front of them, choosing almost by instinct the
easy ascent around its base, now known as Leyden Street. A little above
the future site of the Common house they paused to take breath and to
consult.
"Yes, here is cleared land enow for any crop we can plant in a year to
come," said Dotey, looking approvingly along Cole's Hill.
"And I hear the tinkle of water falling upon water," cried Bradford
gazing down toward the outlet of Town Brook. "There must be springs
yonder."
"But fuel would needs be lugged on men's backs further than I for one
could fancy," grumbled Hopkins glancing at the woods nowhere very near.
"We can scarce hope for arable land and dense forest in one plot of
ground," remarked Winslow dryly.
"Let us march into the land and explore it fully," suggested Carver.
"Every man should carry his piece with lighted match, but the rest of
the gear may well be left in the boat under charge of the shipmen.
Master Gunner I advise thee to stay behind also. If we meet with the
Indians and there is any opening for trucking I promise thee thy full
share and advantage."
"He who stays by the stuff shall share with him who goeth to the
battle," quoted Standish, who was well versed in what may be called the
military history of the Bible.
"'T is a venerable law, Captain, and out of a faultless code," replied
Carver reverently.
"Come on, then, brethren!" cried Hopkins striding up the steep face of
Burying Hill. The rest followed, and on the crest stopped to admire the
magnificent view spread out in the clear light of the wintry morning.
"Yon is a sightly point for a town," said Warren pointing to Watson's
Hill.
"Too far from the shore," replied Carver.
"And from those tinkling springs for whose water I already am athirst,"
added Bradford.
"Hm! hm!" growled Standish plucking at his beard and pacing to and fro;
"here is the place for a stronghold, Master Carver, just here where we
are standing. See you now, from a breastwork thrown up hereabout and
mounted with a minion or two a man could sweep off an army. 'T is but a
pretty shot to the rock whereon we landed, and where any but a fool
would choose to land, since it is the only dry-shod landing on the
beach; and here we have Bradford's springs well in range, and this
ascent by which we have clomb thither. Why, it is a little Gibraltar
ready to our hand. Then if the salvages approach by land, from yon fair
hill which Warren advises, our heavier guns will meet them half way,
and our smaller metal mow them down at close quarters. We are well set
forth in gun-metal, Governor, for I saw to it myself; not only minions,
but sakers and falcons and bases, not to mention each man's piece, which
I fain would have had all snaphances like mine own. Ay, we are well
armed, and here is our fortalice."
"But not to my mind our dwelling, Captain," replied Carver pleasantly.
"Mind you, half our company are women and children, and it were hard for
them to be cooped up in a fort or to descend and climb again this shrewd
ascent whenever they were athirst. I say not but that a fortification
here were admirable when we come at it, but methinks our dwellings were
better placed under its protection than within it."
"Along this course we have just trod from the rock," suggested Winslow.
"And tending toward the springs," added Bradford with a smile.
"Nay, man, come and drink since thou 'rt so sore athirst," cried Hopkins
clapping him on the back. "If 't were a spring of Hollands now, or even
a double strike of English ale, I'd race thee for it, but never yet did
I find my stomach clamor for cold water."
"'T is very delicate water for all that," declared Bradford as the two
men, stumbling down the steep descent of Spring Lane, reached and
stooped to drink of the spring at its foot.
"Too delicate for me," retorted Hopkins; "fitter for maids than men."
"Well, beer is brewed of water as well as of barley and hops," declared
Bradford; "and thou 'st only to raise the grain and this fair spring
will turn it into beer for thee at thy pleasure."
"And here be blackberry briers for my dame to brew her wild-berry wines,
and lo you now, this is sassafras whose roots are worth their weight in
gold to the chirurgeons, and these are strawberry leaves."
"And we have seen cherry and plum stocks in abundance the way we came,"
declared Bradford as the rest of the party straggled down the hill.
"Excellent sand and gravel for building," said Warren crumbling the soil
around the spring. "Ay, and here is clay to shape into pots and pans
when the goodwives have broken all they bring."
"Methinks it hath a look of fuller's clay, and so is almost as well for
us as soap," said Howland taking up some and washing his hands in the
brook. "There, now, see you its use!"
"Have with you, friend," cried Winslow, daintiest of the pioneers.
"Surely cleanliness being next to godliness tendeth somewhat to the same
satisfaction!"
The exploration, carried as far as Eel River at the south and Murdoch's
Pond westerly, lasted until night, when the Pilgrims bivouacked on the
shore, supping merrily on some great clams dug by the sailors and wild
fowl shot by Howland and Dotey. Before they slept under the sheltering
brow of Cole's Hill it was pretty well decided that Plymouth, as they
began at once to call it, should be their permanent dwelling-place, more
especially as in their day-long explorations they had seen no natives or
even their dwellings, and the site seemed for some reason abandoned to
their occupancy.
But the joyous return with good news to those on board the Mayflower was
turned into grief and dismay by the tidings awaiting the explorers.
Dorothy Bradford was dead. How it could have happened, or just when, no
one knew, but on the very day after her husband's departure she had gone
quietly on deck while the rest of the company were at supper and never
was seen again; nor till the sea gives up its dead shall any know the
story of that poor overwrought soul's last fierce struggle and defeat.
Nor can we speak of the young husband's anguish, and it may be
self-reproach, in that awful hour. He speaks not himself of this matter
in his journal, save in briefest words; nor dare we intrude upon such
matters as lie between a man and his God. But this we may say, that as
Jacob, wrestling with the angel and overcoming, went halting all his
days from the wound of that strange conflict, so Bradford's face when he
again took his place among his fellows told of years forever consumed in
one terrible struggle.
CHAPTER IX.
ROSE.
"Myles!"
"Ay, sweetheart, here am I."
"A little drink--nay, I want it not. I was dreaming thy cousin Barbara
was making a sallet, and I was fain to taste it, it looked so cool and
fresh,--and I wakened. I would well like some sallet, Myles."
"As soon as the day dawns, my Rose, I will go and look for herbs. I
marked some sorrel on the hill yester e'en, albeit something dry and
sere."
"Why doth the ship roll so sorely, Myles?"
"Thou 'rt not on shipboard, child, but in our little hospital here
ashore. Mindest thou not how thou didst mourn and cry to me, 'Take me
ashore, Myles, take me ashore, that I may breathe sweet air and live.'
So I lapped thee in blankets and brought thee, to-morrow is a se'nnight.
Like you not this sweet new dwelling?"
"Well enow; but sweet air will not make me live if the time hath come
for me to die." And the sick girl smiled wanly, inscrutably, the smile
of one who knows what he will not say.
The face of the fearless soldier grew white with terror, and almost
angrily he replied,--
"Hush, child! Thy time to die hath not come. Never think it, for it
shall not be."
"Nay, Myles, thou canst not daunten Death with thy stern voice and
masterful eye, though thou canst quell a score of other foes with one
glance."
And Rose, moving her frail little hand toward the sinewy fist clenched
upon the bed-covering, slid a finger within its grasp, and went softly
on with a pathetic ring of gayety in her voice,--
"I was dreaming, too, of home, mine own old home. I was gathering
cowslips in the meadow at St. Mary's, and mother stood by with little
Maudlin in her arms. They smiled, both of them, ah how sweetly they
smiled upon me, and I filled my pinafore with the cowslips, soft, cool,
wet cowslips,--I feel them in my hand now, so cool, so wet! Myles, I
fain would have those cowslips, may I not?"
"Child! Child! Thou 'lt break my heart!"
"Mother and Maudlin both died the year I saw thee first, dost remember,
Myles?"
"Try to sleep a little, my darling. I will say thee a psalm, or perhaps
one of those old Manx ballads thou didst use to lilt so lightly."
"Mistress White says they are ungodly, and a snare of Satan," replied
Rose dreamily, and before Myles could utter the wrathful comment that
quivered upon his lips she went on,--
"It was across her grave I saw thee, dear, dost mind thee of that hour?"
"Thy mother's grave? ay, I mind me."
"Yes, thou camest with thy cousin Barbara to seek thy grandsire's
gravestone and to search out the muniments of thy race. Thou 'lt never
lay hands on that inheritance, Myles."
"I care not, so thou wilt get strong and well again, my Rose, my Rose!"
And with a groan but half driven back upon his heart, the soldier
turned his head aside and set his teeth upon his trembling lip. But
Rose, more alive in the past than the present, rambled on in her sweet,
weak voice,--
"'Not only this wild hunting ground and ruined lodge where we abide, but
many a fair manor in England, and many a stately home is his,' that was
what Barbara told me about thee afterward; and when I praised thy
presence, for I loved thee or ever I knew it myself, she straightened
her neck and said full proudly, 'Ay, and not only a goodly man, but a
brave soldier and noble soul.' 'Twas she who first saw that thou lovedst
me, Myles, and came and wept for joy upon my neck."
"Peace, peace, dear child. Thou wastest thy strength in talking
overmuch. Sleep, canst thou not, dear heart?"
"Dost think that Barbara will come hither? She promised me surefast that
she would so soon as there was a company ready. She said it was so
lonely there in Man when I was gone. Will she come, think you, Myles?"
"Like enow, sweetheart. Barbara mostly carries out what she promises.
But"--
"And thou 'lt be very, very good to thy cousin, wilt thou not, Myles?
Thou 'rt all she has now."
"Surely both of us will be good to our kinswoman, dear wife, and all the
more that, as thou sayest, it was by going to visit her that I first saw
thee, blooming like a very rose in that gray old Manx churchyard."
"I was ever friends with Barbara, but I loved her all the more for thy
sake, dear. And she was well pleased that we two should wed--leastways
she said so."
"And if she said it she meant it, for in all the years she tarried in my
mother's house I never knew her tell a lie or wear two faces. But now,
verily, child, I must have thee rest. Speak not again unless thou
needest somewhat. I will have it so, my Rose."
"Then let me lay my hand in thine. There, then, good-night."
"Good-night, mine own."
And while the winter night lapsed through hours of deadly chill and
darkness into the sad twilight of early morning the soldier sat
motionless, holding that fragile hand, gazing upon that lovely face,
lovely yet so changed from the cherubic beauty that had won his heart
amid the summer fields of Man but three short years before.
What he thought, what he felt in those hours, he could not himself have
revealed, for a man's emotion is usually in inverse proportion to its
expression, and Myles Standish was essentially a man of action and not
of words; but God only knows how these strong inarticulate natures
suffer in the agony that divides bone from marrow, and yet leaves the
sufferer conscious of the capacity to live and to suffer yet again and
again.
In some respects this vigil resembled that of Bradford in hearing of
Dorothy's death, in some it was widely different, for with Bradford's
grief was mingled self-reproach and keen introspection; he weighed his
own life, he found it wanting, he condemned it, and offering his
suffering as righteous penance, he extolled the justice of God, and
submitted himself as a culprit to the scourge.
But Standish thought neither of the justice of God nor of his own
demerits, nor had he skill or practice for introspection. "A man under
authority and having soldiers under him," he both rendered and expected
obedience, prompt, entire, and unquestioning. His was a nature of
loyalty so magnificent as to need no buttresses of reason, or of
self-distrust, a loyalty so sweet as to be unconscious of itself, a
loyalty so entire that the soul could not get outside of it to consider
it objectively.
The order came from the King of kings, and it was to be obeyed, or
endured; the King could do no wrong.
Nor indeed had he been skilled to search, could Myles have found matter
for self-reproach in all his dealings with the child dying at his side.
Busy from his boyhood in the pursuit of arms, and loving his mother with
all the force of his great nature, the man had cared little for other
women, turning with scorn from the meretricious charms of those he
encountered in camp or among his comrades, and finding no time or
inclination to seek others, so that except for the light fancies of an
hour, or the calm affection for his cousin Barbara, whom he found on one
of his visits to his home in Chorley giving a daughter's tendance to his
mother, Standish had passed his three and thirtieth birthday ignorant of
the nature of love, and mocking at its power.
But the first glance at the lovely girl weeping beside her mother's
grave warned him that a new hour had struck, and a new foe opposed him;
nor was he long in making full and frank surrender to an authority as
strong as it was gentle, and as tyrannous as sweet.
Motionless and erect the soldier sat the long night through, and as if
she gathered strength from the grasp of his healthy hand, Rose slept
quietly until the sun rose, and the women still well enough to wait upon
the sick came softly in.
Then she opened her eyes, fixed them upon his with a tender smile, and
said,--
"Poor Myles! Thou hast watched all night while selfish I held thee and
slept. But now begone and get thine own rest and food. I shall do well
with these kind friends."
"I'll leave thee, then, for a little, but I shall not be far away, and
if thou needest, send," replied her husband releasing his hand from the
frail yet burning grasp that still held him. "Dame Turner, thou 'lt see
that I am called if she asks for me, wilt thou?"
"Surely, Captain, but she is doing bravely this morning, and you had
better rest."
"Nay, but let her not ask twice for me, or aught else."
Leaving the house, and drawing one or two eager breaths of fresh air,
Standish climbed the hill where already the fortification he had
proposed was nearly complete, though not yet armed. Stepping upon a
great beam, squared but not laid in place, he stood looking around him
as if to see what Nature and his own work could offer to fill the great
gulf opening in the future.
A light fog still clung to the face of the water and hung in the hollows
of the hills; shrouded in its folds the Mayflower lay like a spectre
ship, ugly, unsafe, full of discomfort and misery, but yet the only link
between this handful of dying men and their home. Standish gazed at her
with a gathering darkness upon his face, until the burden of his thought
broke out in a savage murmur,--
"_Couldst_ not make thy way through yonder shoals and bring us to the
fair shores I told her of! If it be thy fault, Thomas Jones!"--
The slow clenching of a jaw square and strong as a mastiff's finished
the sentence, and Standish's eyes came back to the rude hut where all
he loved lay dying, perhaps through this man's fault. At his feet lay
the sketch as it were of the town he and his comrades had laid down in
outline, and intended to build up as time and strength allowed. Already
Leyden Street, or The Street, as it was at first called, lay a distinct
thoroughfare from the Rock to the Fort, the eastern and western
extremities of the village. Along this street were staked out plots of
land, some larger and some smaller in the proportion of eight feet
frontage to each person in a family, the single men, and those women and
children already left desolate, being divided among the householders,
and the whole company reduced to nineteen families.
Standish's own house, not yet finished, lay nearest to the Fort, which
with its armament were to be his especial charge, and several of the
single men had been appointed to his family. Their own illness, and that
of Mistress Standish had, however, interfered with this arrangement, and
only John Alden shared the house as yet with Standish, the two men
sometimes eating at the Common house, the only one except the hospital
really finished, and sometimes cooking for themselves such food as they
could lay hands upon, for the house, unlike some of the others, already
boasted a chimney laid up of sticks and clay, and showed a generous
fireplace in the larger or living room which, with two little
sleeping-rooms and a loft, comprised the whole accommodation.
Upon this little home so hopefully begun, so neglected during the last
ten days, Myles gazed long and wistfully, smiling sadly as he saw Alden
come out and look up and down the street for him, finally going to seek
him in the Common house, a substantial structure some twenty feet
square, built of hewn oaken logs, fitted together as closely as
possible, and the crevices stopped with clay, which freely washed out in
stormy weather.
The roof, like all the rest, was covered with thatch formed of dried
reeds and grasses, and the windows were filled with oiled linen instead
of glass, still an article of costly luxury. Above the Common house
stood the building which the increasing mortality of the colony had
demanded as a hospital, and below it was the storehouse, where most of
the common stock of goods was collected, although some of the passengers
and their possessions still remained on board the brig, where Jones gave
them but scant hospitality or kindness.
Folding his arms more closely as the chill wind of February swept in
from seaward, Standish gazed upon all these objects as if they for the
first time attracted his attention, and then, as the lifting fog
revealed the distant landscape, he turned and fixedly regarded Captain's
Hill rising in its bold isolation to the north. Long he gazed, and then,
slightly shaking his head, stepped down from the beam and paced about
the little enclosure, half unconsciously examining the work of platform
and parapet, and following with a gunner's eye the range of the pieces
yet unmounted; pausing longest before the eastern front, he marked with
satisfaction how well the minion there to be placed would guard the
landing and sweep the solitary street, and even knelt to look along its
imaginary barrel.
Rising he brushed the soil from his knees with almost a smile,
muttering,--
"Ay, lad, thou 'rt needed, thou 'rt needed, and he who is needed has no
right to desert his post."
But suddenly the smile faded, for as he turned to leave the Fort his
eyes fell upon Cole's Hill, where but a few rods from the Common house,
and under its protection, they had dug the graves of those already dead,
and where lay room enough for many more. But his battle fought, and his
mind resolved, Myles was too much master of himself to need a second
conflict, and setting his lips firmly beneath the tawny moustache that
shaded them, he strode down the hill, and at his own door found John
Alden waiting for him and changing greetings with a party of four men
armed with sickles and attended by two dogs.
"Wish you good-morrow, Captain," said the foremost, a sturdy young
fellow with a pleasant English face.
"Good-morrow Peter Browne, and you, John Goodman," replied the captain
cordially. "Whither away?"
"To cut thatch in the fields nigh yon little pond," replied Browne
pointing in a westerly direction. "And I am taking Nero along to give
account of any Indians that may be lurking there."
"And John Goodman's spaniel to rouse the game for Nero to pull down,"
said Standish with a smile. "Well, God speed you."
And turning into the unfinished house he found Alden watching him with a
look of silent friendliness and sympathy more eloquent than words;
returning the greeting as mutely and as heartily, Standish would have
passed into his own bedroom, but the younger man interposed,--
"Thou 'lt break thy fast, Captain, wilt thou not? All is ready and
waiting your coming; some of the bean soup you liked yester even, and
some fish"--
"Presently, presently, good John! I would but bathe and refresh myself.
Nay, look not so doubtingly after me, friend. I am a man, and know a
man's devoir."
He spoke with a smile as brave as it was gentle, and passing in closed
the door.
"Doth he know she is dying!" muttered John throwing himself upon a
bench; "and Priscilla sickening and her mother dead!"
CHAPTER X.
A TERRIBLE NIGHT.
As Standish entered his own house the four men to whom he had spoken
passed on around the base of the hill, and reaching a tract of swampy
land covered with reeds and rushes suitable for thatching, they set to
work cutting them and binding in bundles ready for use. For some hours
they wrought industriously, until Peter Browne, commander of the
expedition, straightened his back, stretched his cramped arms, and
gazing at the sun announced,--
"Noontime, men. We'll e'en rest and eat our snack."
"Art thou o' mind to come and show me the pond where thou sawest wild
fowl t' other day?" asked John Goodman, townsman and friend of Browne's.
"Ay, will I. Take thy meat in thy hand and come along," replied Browne.
"And we may as well finish our day there, sith this spot is well nigh
stripped. Margeson and Britteridge, when you have fed, you can bind the
rushes that are cut, and then come after us as far as a little pond
behind that hill, due west from here I should say. You'll find it easily
enough."
"Oh, ay, we'll find it," replied Margeson, a rough companion, but a good
worker. "Go on mates, and take your dogs with you, for they're smelling
at the victuals enough to turn a man's stomach. Get out you beast!" and
raising his foot he offered to kick Nero, who growled menacingly and
showed a formidable set of teeth.
"Have a care, man!" cried Browne angrily. "Meddle with that dog and
he'll make victual of thee before thou knowest what ails thee. 'T is
ever a poor sign when a man cannot abear dogs or children."
And the two friends, followed by the mastiff and spaniel, walked rapidly
away. Two hours passed while Margeson and Britteredge, not greatly in
haste, finished their lunch and tied and stacked the reeds already cut.
Then shouldering their sickles they leisurely skirted the hill in front
of them, and after a little search came upon the pretty sheet of water
now called Murdoch's Pond.
"This will be the place," said Margeson looking about him; "but where is
pepperpot Browne?"
"Or his dog?" suggested Britteridge slyly.
"Whistle and the beasts will hear us if the men do not," said Margeson
suiting the action to the word. No answer followed, and both men
together raised a yet shriller note, followed by shouts, halloos, and
various noises supposed to carry sound to the farthest limits of space.
But each effort died away in dim and distant echoes among the hills, and
after a while the men looked at each other in half angry discouragement.
"They've played us a trick," said Margeson; "they're hiding to mock at
us, or they've gone back to the village some other way."
"Nay," replied Britteridge pacifically; "they're not such babes as to
play tricks like that. See, here are goodly reeds; let us cut and bind
some while we tarry, and Browne will be back anon."
Grumbling and unconvinced Margeson still complied, and for a while
longer the two worked fitfully, pausing now and again to look about
them, to listen, or to shout.
At last, by tacit consent, both threw down their tools, and with slow,
half-fearful gaze surveyed the scene. It was a dismal one. The sun had
reached the tops of the pines, and already the water lay in black shadow
at their feet, rippled by the small, bitter breeze creeping in from
seaward, and stirring the sedge into faint whisperings and moanings;
night birds, awaking in the depths of the forest, uttered querulous
cries, and strange, vague sounds within the covert suggested prowling
beast or savage creeping near and nearer.
"Ugh! 't is a grewsome spot as ever I saw," said Margeson as softly as
if he feared to be overheard. "Certes the men have gone home some other
way, and the sun is setting. Let us be after them, say I."
"And say I," replied Britteridge readily, and without more words the two
men hurried away, and in a brief half hour presented themselves before
the governor with news that their comrades were not to be found, either
in the field or the town, and doubtless were lost in the forest or
captured by the Indians.
Carver, ever as ready to act as to command, armed himself at once, and
summoning such men as were on shore led them to the wood, where by
calling, firing their pieces, and kindling torches they protracted the
search far into the night, and when forced to give it up until daylight
returned to the Common house for united and fervent prayers and
supplications.
Early in the morning another search party, headed by Stephen Hopkins,
with Billington as scout, entered the woods, but having traversed a
radius of seven or eight miles returned at night weary, footsore, and
with no tidings.
News of the loss was carried on board the Mayflower, and a heavy sense
of misfortune and danger settled upon the little community already
depressed by disease and want.
The men thus mourned were meantime in nearly as evil case as was feared.
Just before arriving at the pond, while munching their frugal lunch and
discussing the prospect of game, they espied a splendid stag who had
evidently been disturbed while drinking, and stood with head erect and
dilated eyes gazing upon the first white men he had ever seen, and
perhaps foreboding the war of extermination they had come to wage on him
and his.
"Oh for a piece!" cried Browne raising an imaginary gun to his shoulder.
"Seize him, Nero! Take him, good dog! Hi! Away, away!"
Nero needing no second invitation uttered a deep bay and set off,
followed by the spaniel, yelping to the extent of her powers, while the
two men, reckless of the fact that they were unarmed save with sickles,
and could never hope to overtake the deer on foot, bounded after as fast
as they could lay legs to the ground, nor paused until utterly blown and
exhausted and the chase out of sight and hearing.
"Hah!" panted Browne flinging himself upon the ground; "I haven't been
breathed like that since I ran in the foot-race at home in Yorkshire
five year agone. Phew!"
Goodman only replied by inarticulate groans and wheezes, and while he
yet struggled for breath Nero came trotting back through the woods with
a mortified and contrite expression pervading his body from eloquent
eyes to abject tail, while Pike, as the spaniel was called, followed at
some distance with an affected carelessness of demeanor as if she would
have it clearly understood that she had been running solely for her own
pleasure, with no idea of chasing the deer. The men laughed, and patting
their favorites allowed them to lie and rest for some moments; then as
the air grew chill they rose and strolled in the direction, as they
supposed, of the clearing where they had left their comrades. But the
wood was thick, and several swampy hollows induced detours; the sun was
obscured by the gathering snow clouds, and neither man was skilled in
woodcraft; while the dogs, roaming at pleasure, were more intent upon
tracing various scents of game than of finding the way home. Thus it
came that as darkness began to gather visibly among the crowding
evergreens, and the last tinge of sunlight was buried in thickening
clouds, the two men stopped and looked each other squarely in the face.
"Yes, John," said Browne reading the frightened eyes of his younger and
less courageous companion. "Yes, lad, we're lost, and I doubt me must
pass the night in the woods."
"And we lack not only food but cloaks and weapons!" exclaimed Goodman
looking forlornly about him, and stooping to pat Pike, who scenting
disaster in the air had returned whimpering to her master's side.
"If we could but find some deserted hut of the salvages, or some of
their stored grain, or even the venison we disdained the other day,"
suggested Browne.
"We've seen no trace of such a thing to-day," replied Goodman
disconsolately.
"Come on, then, and let us look while daylight lingers. Mayhap the dogs
will lead us out if we put them to it. Hi, Nero! Home boy, home! Seek!"
Nero whimpered intelligently and trotted on for a mile or so, but with
none of that appearance of conviction which sometimes gives to an
animal's proceedings the force of an inspiration. Browne, who knew his
dog well, felt the discouragement of his movement, and finally stopped
abruptly.
"Nay, he knows no home in this wilderness and feels no call to one place
more than another. 'T is past praying for, John; we must e'en make up
our minds to sleep here. Suppose that we lie down in the lee of these
nut-bushes, call the dogs to curl up beside us, and try to keep life
going till morning; no doubt we shall find the way out then, or at least
somewhat to eat."
"My blood is like ice already," murmured Goodman burying his hands in
the spaniel's curly hair.
"If we had but flint and steel to make a fire it were something!"
exclaimed Browne. "What Jack-o'-Bedlams we were to set off thus
unprovided. Catch me so again!"
"But we came out to cut thatch, not to chase deer and get lost in the
woods," suggested Goodman trying to laugh, though his teeth chattered
like castanets.
"It will never do for thee to lie down as chilled as thou art,"
exclaimed Browne anxiously. "I promised thy old mother I'd have an eye
to thee, and lo it is I that have led thee into this mischance! What
shall I do for thee? I have it, lad! Sith it is too dark and rough to
walk farther I'll try a fall with thee; there's naught warms a man's
blood like a good wrestling match. Come on, then!"
"I'm no match for thee, Peter, but here goes!" replied Goodman
struggling to his feet, and the two men joined there in the darkness and
the wilderness in what might truly be called a "joust of courtesy,"
moved only by mutual love and good will, for the event proved Goodman's
modesty well founded, and it was only a few moments before Browne,
raising his slender opponent in his arms, set him down sharply two or
three times upon his feet, saying,--
"I'll not throw thee, for that might prove small kindness. Art warmer?"
But before Goodman could answer a snarling cry broke from the thicket
close at hand, and was answered by another and another voice until the
air seemed filled with the cries of howling fiends.
Nero started to his feet, his eyes glowing, the hair bristling stiffly
upon his neck, and with a fierce growl of defiance would have sprung
forward had not his master seized him by the collar exclaiming,--
"Nay, fool! wouldst rush on thy destruction!"
"'T is the salvages!" stammered Goodman staring about him in the
darkness.
"Nay, 't is lions," replied Browne. "Hopkins saith they swarm about
here. We must climb a tree, John. Here is a stout one; up with thee,
man, as fast as may be!"
"But thou, Peter?" asked John clambering into the oak his friend pointed
out.
"I cannot leave Nero. He'll be gone to the lion so soon as I quit my
hold of his collar, and I'll not lose him but in sorer need than this.
Here, take thou the spaniel and hold her to thee for warmth."
"Nay, I'll not be safe and thou in danger," replied the young man
springing down; "and, moreover, it is deadly cold perching in a tree."
"Well, then, we'll both stand on our guard here, and if the lions come
we'll e'en up in the tree hand over hand and leave the poor beasts to
their fate. Stamp thy feet on the ground and walk a few paces up and
down, John. I fear me thou 'lt swound with the cold like poor Tilley."
"I could not well be colder and live," replied Goodman faintly, as he
tried to follow his friend's injunction.
The night crept on, with frost and snow and icy rain and heavy darkness,
and still the wolves prowled howling around their prey, and the good dog
held them at bay with savage growls and deep-throated yelps of defiance,
and his master, caring more for the humble friend he had reared and
brought over seas from his English home than for his own safety, held
him all night by the collar, and the spaniel whimpered with cold and
terror in her master's arms, and he, poor lad, suffered all the anguish
of death as his feet and legs chilled and stiffened and froze like ice.
A night not to be numbered in those men's lives by hours but years, a
night of exhaustion, terror, and agony, a night hopeless of morning save
through the exceeding mercy of God.
The gray light broke at last, however, and with it the wolves grew mute
and slunk away, Nero quieted into obedience, and Browne carefully
straightening his own stiffened joints and rising to his feet looked
into his comrade's face and shook his head.
"John, hearken to me, lad! We're in a sore strait but we're not dead,
and daylight hath broken. Hold up thy face to the sky, man, and say 'I
WILL win through this, so help me God!' and having said it, stick to it,
even as Nero would have stuck to yon lion's throat until he was clawed
away in shreds. Come, try it, my lad, try it!"
Catching something of his friend's heroic spirit the poor fellow did as
he was bidden, but followed the brave resolve with a piteous look into
the other's face while he said,--
"My feet are froze, Peter; there is no feeling nor power in them. But
lead on, and I will follow if I must crawl."
"Tarry a bit till I see"--
And not pausing to finish his sentence Browne set himself to climb the
tree beneath which they had passed the night. His cramped limbs and
benumbed fingers made this no easy task and more than once he was near
losing his grasp and finishing the story by a headlong fall to the
frozen earth, but this danger was passed also, and presently hastening
down he said,--
"Well, heavy though the clouds be I can see that east is that-a-way, and
not far from us rises a high hill. Come, then, lean on me; pass thy arm
around my shoulders this fashion and I will help thee on. Then I will
leave thee at the foot of the hill and myself climb it, and if need be
some tree upon its summit. From that I shall surely catch sight of the
sea, and knowing that we know all we need."
Goodman silently laid his arm around the stalwart shoulders presented to
him, but found himself too weak and spent for other reply, and Browne,
passing an arm around his waist, looked anxiously into his face,
saying,--
"Courage, lad, courage!"
"Ay, I WILL, by God's help!" murmured the poor lad as with agony
inexpressible he forced his stiffened limbs to follow one after the
other.
The hill, more distant than Browne had supposed, was only reached after
two hours of agonizing effort, and at the foot Goodman sank speechless
and exhausted, his eyes closed, his parted lips white and drawn. Browne
looked at him despairingly, and calling the dogs made one crouch at
either side close to the heart and lungs of the prostrate body, and then
hastened on up the hill muttering,--
"'T is best kindness to leave him." Half an hour later he came crashing
down again through underbrush and fallen branches shouting,--
"Courage, John; courage, man! From the top of the biggest tree on this
hill I've seen not only the sea, but our own harbor, and the old brig
rocking away as peacefully as may be. Think of the good friends and the
good Hollands gin and the good fires aboard of her. Come, rouse up, lad!
Once more pluck up thy courage and remember thy resolve! 'T is but
another hour or so and we are there!"
And yet the good fellow knew that not one but many hours lay before
them, and that it was for him to find strength and endurance for both.
Once more his cheery voice and assured courage conveyed power for
another effort to the half-dead lad he almost carried in his arms, and
so, with frequent pauses for rest and encouragement, the day wore past,
until at last on the brow of Watson's Hill, Browne, his own strength all
but spent, cried tremulously,--
"Now God be praised! here is the harbor at our feet, yonder is the
Mayflower, below is the village, and but a few moments more will bring
thee, John, to a bed and Surgeon Fuller's care, and me to a fire and
some boiling schnapps."
"God indeed be praised!" murmured Goodman rousing himself for the final
effort; and so it came to pass that just at sunset the two crossed the
brook and came hobbling down The Street amid a clamorous and joyful
crowd of friends who lifted Goodman from his feet, nor paused until they
brought them both into the house where abode Carver and also Fuller, the
shrewd and crabbed physician and philanthropist. Here Goodman was laid
upon a bed, his shoes cut from his feet, and in a few moments the
governor on one side and the doctor on the other were vigorously rubbing
the frozen limbs with alcohol.
"Shall I lose my feet, Doctor?" asked the patient feebly.
"Lose them!" cried the doctor indignantly. "Nay! what use would a
footless man be to the Adventurers who sent thee out? 'T were but a
knave's trick for thee to shed thy feet first thing, and I'll see to it
thou dost not."
"And that's a comfortable saying, Master Fuller," said Browne standing
anxiously by.
"Thou here, Peter Browne!" exclaimed the doctor glancing up under his
shaggy brows. "What art doing here, blockhead? Get thee into bed beside
a good fire, and bid Hopkins mix thee a posset such as he would have for
himself. Be off, I say!"
CHAPTER XI.
THE COLONISTS OF COLE'S HILL.
The next day both Carver and Bradford were forced to succumb under the
epidemic already raging among the colonists, and in another fortnight
the hospital and Common house were crowded to their utmost capacity with
the beds of the ill and dying. The terrible colds taken in the various
explorations, the vile food and bad air of the brig, with the want of
ordinary comforts on shore, were at last bearing their fruit in a
combination of scurvy, rheumatism, and typhoid fever of a malignant
type. On board ship matters were even worse than on shore, and Jones,
who would willingly have abandoned the settlers as soon as they were
debarked, found himself, perforce, a sharer in their distress through
the illness and death of his crew, and the danger of running short of
provisions.
The day came at length when of all the company, numbering a hundred and
one when they landed, only seven remained able either to nurse the sick
or bury the dead, and hour by hour, as these met about their complicated
duties, they studied each others faces, in terror of seeing the fatal
signs that yet one more was stricken down, and the annihilation of the
settlement one step farther advanced.
Of these seven, two were Elder Brewster and Myles Standish, and well did
they prove themselves fit to be rulers among the people, for they
became servants of all, without hesitation and without affectation,
nursing, cooking, dressing loathsome wounds, and ministering in all
those homely ways repugnant to refined senses, and especially, perhaps,
to the dignity of man. The doctor also kept on foot, although terribly
worn with sleeplessness, fatigue, and rheumatism; Peter Browne, none the
worse for his day and night in the woods, with Francis Eaton to help
him, took charge of digging the graves and burying the dead, already in
their silent colony along the brow of Cole's Hill, almost equaling their
yet suffering comrades. The two remaining sound ones were Stephen
Hopkins and Helen Billington, who, as the only female nurse, was called
upon to attend the sick women, so far as she could; this, of course,
gave but little time for each patient, and one night the doctor
hurriedly said to Standish,--
"Captain, wilt have an eye to-night to those two beds in the corner?
'T is Priscilla Molines and Desire Minter, both shrewdly burned with
fever, and needing medicine and care lest they should fall to raving
before morning. I'd not ask thee, knowing all thou hast on hand, but
goodwife Billington must not quit"--
"Nay, nay, what needs so many words," interrupted Standish. "Give me
their medicine and directions, I can care for them well enow and for
Bradford whose huckle-bone[4] giveth him sore distress to-night."
[4] Hip-bone.
"I doubt me if he wins through," said the Doctor softly; "and White and
Molines will never see the morning, and Mistress Winslow is going
fast--well, I leave the maids and Bradford to thee."
"Ay, I'll do my best," replied Standish briefly.
And so it came to pass that Priscilla Molines, moaning in her feverish
unrest, felt a moist linen laid upon her brow and a cup held to her
parched lips.
"Petite maman!" murmured she, and with those moistened lips kissed the
hand that held the cup.
Standish sadly smiled a little, and passed on to the next bed where lay
Desire Minter, not so ill, but far more requiring than Priscilla.
"Here is thy draught, child," said the nurse kindly, as he raised her
head and put the cup to her lips. Swallowing it eagerly, she lifted her
jealous eyes and with a smile half cunning, half pathetic, whispered,--
"I love thee too, but I think it not maidenly to kiss thee till I'm
asked."
"Nay, girl, thou 'rt dreaming or wild," said the Captain soothingly.
"She, poor maid, is distraught, and took me for her mother. She loves me
not, nor dost thou, nor do I ask any woman's love."
"Nay, then, thou 'rt mocking me. Thou dost love her, and she loves thee,
for I've heard her say as much; but still I know one that loves thee
better."
"If thou were not so ill, Desire, I'd find it in my heart to say--but
there, sleep poor child, sleep! Thou knowst not what thou sayst."
And Standish turned impatiently away to Bradford who suffered
excruciatingly that night with inflammatory rheumatism in the hip-joint.
The next morning Priscilla awaking refreshed, and for the moment quite
herself, found her neighbor weeping passionately, yet from time to time
regarding her in so peculiar a fashion that she said softly,--
"What is it, Desire? Art thou in sore pain?"
"It ill fits thee to pity me when it is thou that hast done me such
despite," whimpered Desire sullenly.
"I! what dost thou mean?"
"Why, I have ever liked our Captain since first I saw him, and now his
wife is dead and buried, why should he not marry me as well as another?"
"Why not, if it pleaseth him? I forbid not the banns," replied
Priscilla, the dim wraith of her old smile passing across her face.
"Why not? Because thou hast bewitched him, thou naughty sprite, and thou
knowest it."
"What dost thou mean, Desire? Speak out and done with it, for thou
weariest me sore," exclaimed Priscilla impatiently, while the fever
began to streak her pallid cheek and flame in her great eyes.
"Why, I saw you two kissing last night, and I suppose you're promised to
each other," muttered the other sulkily, and Priscilla, rising on her
elbow, fixed on her a glance beneath which the coward quailed, yet
sullenly murmured,--
"Well, you did!"
"Desire Minter, thou art lying, and thou knowest it, or else thy wits
are distraught, or mine."
"Ah, 't is well to try to edge out of it by brow-beating me, but thou
canst not. I saw you two kissing. When he first came in he went and
stood beside thy bed and looked down at it, biting at his beard, as is
his wont when he is moved; and then he fell upon his knees, whispering
something, and kissed the pillow, over and over, and when he stood up he
drew his hand across his eyes, and all for love of thee. So now, then!"
"Is that true, Desire? Can it be true that he cares for me in that
fashion?" asked Priscilla falling back bewildered, for she knew no more
than did Desire that hers was the bed where Rose Standish had breathed
her last sigh, and her husband had looked his last on her sweet face.
"Certes, 't is true, and thou knowest it better than I, for when, later
on, he came to give thee a drink and wet thy forehead and lips, thou
didst give him back his kiss right tenderly, and mutter something of
'love' and 'darling.'"
"I kissed Myles Standish!" cried Priscilla wildly.
"Ay, kissed the hand that held the cup, and when he came to me I told
him I had seen it all, and that I knew before that thou lovedst him."
"Thou saidst I loved him!"
"Ay, and he said he loved thee not, nor any woman, but 't was a blind,
for such a weary sigh as he fetched, and turned to look again at thee."
"I kissed him, and thou saidst I loved him, and he said he loved me
not!" cried Priscilla blindly; and then with a wild cry she burst into a
delirious laugh, ending in a shriek that brought Doctor Fuller from the
next room.
"What is this! what is toward!" demanded he glancing from Priscilla to
Desire, who replied in her sullen tones,--
"I know not, except that Captain Standish and Priscilla are sweethearts,
and I told her I saw them kissing last night, and haply she is shamed as
well she may be."
"And well mayst thou be doubly shamed," replied the doctor sternly, "to
torment her into frenzy with thy jealous fancies, and she already at
death's door. Thou sawest naught, whatever thou mayst have dreamed; and
mark me now, Desire Minter, I forbid thee to speak one word more, good
or bad, to Priscilla Molines while thou stayest here; and if thou
heedest not, I'll put thee in another house and leave thee to shift for
thyself."
Thoroughly cowed, the mischief maker promised obedience, and the doctor
turned to the delirious girl, whom he finally quieted to a moaning
sleep, in which he left her, muttering to himself as he went,--
"Not a month since his wife died in that bed--well--'t is no concern of
mine."
And so it came about that the idea of love between Priscilla and
Standish was planted in four active minds, and in time bore strange and
bitter fruit.
And so the gloomy days crept on, and the sufferers and the mourners of
the village which lay half-built beneath the hill passed on to take up
their dwelling in the village upon the bluff, where, silent pilgrims,
they lay, row upon row, hands meekly folded, lips close set, and eyes
forever shut, but yet attaining all that they sought in this their
pilgrimage, freedom from tyranny even of time and circumstance, freedom
to worship God in spirit and in truth.
When a conqueror or a tyrant decimates his captives or his subjects, the
world cries out in horror of such disregard of life, but in this
instance God spared one half His people from the sorrows and the
hardships they had come forth to seek, and gave them at once the reward,
for which their brethren still must toil. Of the hundred and one men,
women, and children, who followed Gideon to the battle, but fifty were
chosen to achieve the final conquest.
Among those who survived for a little time was John Goodman, who, after
lying for weeks at death's door, came slowly back for a while, and in
the early spring crept out in the sunshine with the faithful Pike at
his heels. Trying his strength from day to day, he at last hobbled down
to the brook and across, but was no sooner beyond hail of the village
than two great gray wolves, stealing from a thicket, sprang upon the
dog, who, not so venturesome as Nero, ran to take refuge between her
master's still tender feet, causing them not a little pain.
"Fool! Again without a weapon!" exclaimed John apostrophizing himself,
and picking up a good-sized stone he threw it, with a shout, at the
foremost wolf, who retreated snarling to the bushes. Stumbling back
toward the village as fast as he could, Goodman came presently to a pile
of stout palings cut for fencing, and arming himself with one cast an
anxious look behind. It was time, for the wolves, recovering courage as
he retreated, were in full pursuit, with glaring eyes and lolling
tongues.
Ordering Pike to crouch behind him, the young fellow stood at bay,
hooting, shouting, and waving his stave in a semicircle, within whose
sweep the creatures were not anxious to intrude. Weary at length of
trying to surprise the fortress by a flank movement, yet reluctant to
abandon the hope of seizing Pike, the wolves finally seated themselves
upon their haunches at a little distance and seemed to consult, grinning
and snapping their teeth from time to time at the spaniel, who cowered
almost into the ground, whimpering piteously, while her master leaned
upon his paling and laughed aloud, an insult to which the wolves
responded by throwing back their heads and uttering howls like those of
a dog baying the moon. Then suddenly leaping into the bushes they
disappeared as quickly as they came, leaving Goodman, still chuckling,
to resume his path to the village.
"We'll have a merry tale for Peter Browne this evening, won't we, Pike!"
But while the brave young fellow climbed the little hill from the brook
to The Street, this smiling expression gave place to one of
consternation, as he beheld a column of smoke and flame issuing from the
roof of the house set apart as hospital, and heard a terrified shout
of,--
"Fire! Fire!"
"Fire! Fire!" echoed Goodman running toward the spot as fast as his
tender feet would allow.
Sounder men were before him, however, and when he arrived a ladder was
placed against the side of the burning house, and Alden, with Billington
at his heels, was about to mount it, when Brewster exclaiming,--
"Here's no place for sick men," pushed both aside, ran up the ladder,
and tearing the blazing thatch from the roof flung it down in handfuls
so rapidly and effectually that in five minutes the threatened
conflagration was subdued to smoking embers and a few fugitive flames
here and there, where already the fire had fastened upon the poles laid
to support the thatch. Some buckets of water passed up by the little
crowd below soon extinguished these, and then the Elder, peeping down
through the damaged roof into the room below, cried cheerily,--
"All is safe, friends, and no great harm done."
"God be praised!" exclaimed Bradford's voice from within, and Brewster
softly said, "Amen!" as he descended the ladder less easily than he had
mounted it. At the foot he encountered Doctor Fuller, who with Standish
had just been to Cole's Hill arranging for another line of graves.
"Let me see your hands, Elder," demanded the physician in his usual dry
fashion.
"No need,'t is naught. Go look after your sick folk," replied the Elder
trying to push past, but Fuller caught him by the sleeve, exclaiming
sharply,--
"A man whose hands are needed for others as oft as thine are, has no
right to let them become useless, and 't is not in reason but they are
burned."
"You're right, Fuller, and I'm but a froward child," said Brewster, a
sudden smile replacing the frown of pain upon his face, and obediently
opening out his burned and bleeding palms. "Come to the Common house, so
as not to fright my wife within there, and do them up with some of your
wonderful balsam."
"And were it not for thought of your work, you would not have let me see
them," said Fuller glancing from under his penthouse brows with a look
of cynical admiration.
"One cannot give thought to every pin-prick with such deadly sickness on
all sides," replied Brewster simply. "Best go into the hospital and see
if thy poor dying folk have taken any harm of the fright before thou
lookest after me."
"The Captain has gone into the sick-house. I'll hold on to you,"
returned the Doctor curtly, and Brewster yielded with his ever gracious
smile.
That evening as the Elder with his bandaged hands, Carver, gaunt and
pale from an attack of fever, Standish, Winslow, John Howland, and
Doctor Fuller sat at supper in the Common house, Master Jones, followed
by a sailor heavily laden, presented himself at the door.
"Good e'en, Masters, and how are your sick folk?" demanded he, in a
would-be cordial voice.
"Thanks for your courtesy, Master Jones," replied the governor with
grave politeness. "They are doing reasonably well, except some few who
do not seem like to mend in this world."
"And Master Bradford? Sure he is not going to die?" pursued Jones in a
voice of strange anxiety, as he sank into the great arm-chair Carver had
proffered him.
"He is as low as a man can be and live," broke in the doctor gruffly, as
he fixed Jones with a glance of angry reproach, beneath which even that
rough companion quailed.
"He sent aboard yesterday begging a can of beer," blurted he, his brown
face reddening a little.
"Yes," replied the governor sternly, "and you made answer that though it
were your own father needing it, you would not stint yourself."
"I said it, and I don't deny it," retorted Jones with a feeble attempt
at bluster. "But any man has a right to change his mind if he find
cause, and I've changed mine as you will see, for I've brought not a
can, but a runlet of beer for Bradford, and any others who crave it and
are like to die wanting it; and when that is gone if Master Carver will
send on board asking it for the sick folk, he shall have it though I be
forced to drink water myself on the voyage home. I'll have no dead men
haunting me and bringing a plague upon the ship."
"Truly we are greatly beholden to you, Master Jones," began Carver in
great surprise, but the mariner raised his hand and continued,--
"Nay, hear me out, for that's not all. I went ashore to-day and shot
five geese, and here they are, all of them, not one spared, though I
could have well fancied a bit of goose to my supper, but I brought all
to you, and more than that, even, for here is the better half of a buck
we found in the wood ready shot to our hand. The Indians had cut off his
horns and carried them away, and doubtless were gone for help to carry
the carcase home when we came upon it; haply they saw us coming and made
a run for it; at all odds they had left him as he fell, and Sir Wolf was
already tearing at his throat so busily that he knew not friends were
nigh, until a bullet through his head heralded our coming. So here are
the haunches for you, and I content myself with the poorer parts."
Taking the articles named from a bag which the sailor had at his
direction laid upon the floor, Jones ranged them in an imposing line in
the centre of the room, and resuming his chair looked at his hosts still
in that conciliatory and half timid manner so utterly new to them and
foreign to his usual demeanor.
"We are, indeed, deeply beholden to you, Master Jones," said Carver at
length in his grave and courteous tones. "But if I may freely speak my
thought, and if I read my brethren's minds aright, we cannot but muse
curiously upon this sudden and marvelous change in your dealings with
us, and would fain know its meaning."
"Feeling certain that Master Jones is not one to give something for
nothing, and so in common prudence wishing to know at the outset what
price he expects for bearing himself in Christian charity, as he seemeth
desirous to do," suggested Standish with more candor than diplomacy.
"Thou 'rt ever ready with thy gibes on better men than thyself, art
not?" exclaimed Jones turning angrily upon him. For reply Standish
leaned back in his chair, pulled at his red beard, and laughed
contemptuously; but Winslow hastily interposed with a voice like oil
upon the waves.
"Our captain will still have his jest upon all of us, Master Jones, but
in truth as the governor hath said, we cannot but admire at this
wonderful generosity on thy part, and fain would know whence it
ariseth."
"Why, sure 't is not far to seek," replied Jones with a hideous grimace
intended for a conciliatory smile; "we have ever been good friends, have
we not, and you all wish me well, as I do all of you. Certes, none of
you would try to bring evil upon our heads, lest it fall upon your own
instead, for still those who wish ill to others fall upon ill luck
themselves. Is it not so, Elder?"
"Art speaking of Christian doctrine, or of heathen superstition, Master
Jones?" inquired the Elder fixing his mild, yet penetrating eyes upon
the seaman, who slunk beneath their gaze.
"Nay, then!" blustered he rising to his feet, "I came hither when I
would fain have stayed in my own cabin aboard, and I came not to chop
logic nor to be put to the question like a malefactor, but to bring help
to my sick neighbors, who, to be sure, cried out for it lustily enough
before they got it, but now pick and question at my good meat and drink
as if 't were like to poison them. Well, that's an end on 't, and you
can take it or leave it, as you will. Good e'en to you."
"Nay, nay, Master Jones," interposed Carver hastily, as the angry man
made toward the door. "Let us not part thus, especially in view of thy
great kindness toward us, for which, in good sooth, we are more
grateful than
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