To Buffet Waves and Ride on Storms
The wind held fair, the golden September weather waited on each new day
at its rising and sent it at its close, radiantly splendid, into the sea
ahead of the _Mayflower_ as she swept westward.
Full canvas hoisted she was able to sail at her best speed under the
favouring conditions so that the hopeful young people whom she carried
talked confidently of the houses they would build, the village they
would found before heavy frosts. Captain Myles Standish, always
impetuous as any of the boys, was one of those who let themselves forget
there were such things as storms.
"We'll be New Englishmen at this rate before we fully realize we've left
home; what do you say, my lassies three?" he demanded, pausing in a
rapid stride of the deck before Constance Hopkins and two young girls
who were her own age, but seemed much younger, Humility Cooper and her
cousin, Elizabeth Tilley.
"What do you three mermaidens in this forward nook each morning?"
Captain Standish went on without waiting for a reply to his first
question, which indeed, he had not asked to have it answered.
"Elizabeth's mother, Mistress John Tilley, is sick and declares that she
shall die," said Constance, Humility and Elizabeth being shyly silent
before the captain.
"No one ever thought to live through sea-sickness, nor wanted to,"
declared Captain Myles with his hearty laugh. "Yet no one dies of it,
that is certain. And is Mistress Ann Tilley also lain down and left
Humility to the mercy of the dolphins? And is your stepmother, too, Con,
a victim? It's a calm sea we've been having by comparison. I've sailed
from England into France when there _was_ a sea running, certes! But
this--pooh!"
"Humility's cousin, Mistress Ann Tilley, is not ill, nor my stepmother,
Captain Standish, but they are attending to those who are, and to the
children. Father says that when he sailed for Virginia, before my mother
died, meaning to settle there, that the storm that wrecked them on
Bermuda Island and kept us from being already these eleven years
colonists in the New World, was a wind and sea that make this seem no
more than the lake at the king's palace, where the swans float."
Constance looked up smiling at the captain as she answered, but he noted
that her eyes were swollen from tears.
"Take a turn with me along the deck, child," Captain Myles said,
gruffly, and held out a hand to steady Constance on her feet.
"Now, what was it?" he asked, lightly touching the young girl's cheek
when they had passed beyond the hearing of Constance's two demure little
companions. "Homesick, my lass?"
"Heartsick, rather, Captain Myles," said Constance, with a sob.
"Mistress Hopkins hates me!"
"Oh, fie, Connie, how could she?" asked the captain, lightly, but he
scowled angrily. There was much sympathy between him and Stephen
Hopkins, neither of whom agreed with the extreme severity of most of
the pilgrims; they both had seen the world and looked at life from their
wider experience.
Captain Standish knew that Giles's and Constance's mother had been the
daughter of an old and honourable family, with all the fine qualities of
mind and soul that should be the inheritance of gentle breeding. He knew
how it had come about that Stephen Hopkins had married a second time a
woman greatly her inferior, whose jealousy of the first wife's children
saddened their young lives and made his own course hard and unpleasant.
Prone to speak his mind and fond of Giles and Constance, the impetuous
captain often found it hard to keep his tongue between his teeth when
Dame Eliza indulged in her favourite game of badgering, persecuting her
stepchildren. Now, when he said: "Fie, how could she?" Constance looked
up at him with a forlorn smile. She knew the captain was quite aware
that her stepmother could, and did dislike her, and she caught the anger
in his voice.
"How could she not, dear Captain Myles?" she asked. Then, with her
pent-up feeling overmastering her, she burst out sobbing.
"Oh, you know she hates, she hates me, Captain!" she cried. "Nothing I
can do is pleasing to her. I take care of Damaris--sure I love my little
sister, and do not remember the half that is not my sister in her! And
I wait on Mistress Hopkins, and sew, and do her bidding, and I do not
answer her cruel taunts, nor do I go to my father complaining; but she
hates me. Is it fair? Could I help it that my father loved my own
mother, and married her, and that she was a lovely and accomplished
lady?"
"Do you want to help it, if by helping you mean altering, Connie?" asked
Captain Myles, with a twinkle. "No, child, you surely cannot help all
these things which come by no will of yours, but by the will of God. And
I am your witness that you are ever patient and dutiful. Bear as best
you can, sweet Constantia, and by and by the wrong will become right, as
right in the end is ever strongest. I cannot endure to see your young
eyes wet with tears called out by unkindness. There is enough and to
spare of hard matters to endure for all of us on this adventure not to
add to it what is not only unnecessary, but unjust. Cheer up, Con, my
lass! It's a long lane--in England!--that has no turning, and it's a
long voyage on the seas that ends in no safe harbour! And do you know,
Connie girl, that there's soon to be a turn in this bright weather?
There's a feeling of change and threatening in this soft wind."
Constance wiped her eyes and smiled, knowing that the captain wished to
lead her into other themes than her own troubles, the discussion of
which was, after all, useless.
"I don't know about the weather, except the weather I'm having," she
said. "Ah, I don't want it to storm, not on the mid-seas, Captain
Myles."
"Aye, but it's the mid-seas of the year, Connie, when the days and
nights are one in length, and at that time old wise men say a storm is
usually forthcoming. We'll weather it, never fear! If we are bearing
westward a great hope and mission as we all believe--not I in precisely
the same fashion as these stricter saints, but in my own way no
less--then we are sure to reach our goal, my dear," said the captain
cheerfully.
"Sometimes I lose faith; I think I am wicked," sighed Constance.
"We are all poor miserable sinners! Even the English Church which we
have cast off and consigned to perdition, puts that confession into our
mouths," said Captain Myles, with another twinkle, and was gratified
that Constance's laugh rang out in response to his thinly veiled
mischief.
Captain Standish proved to be a true prophet. On the second day after he
had announced to Constance the coming change in weather it came. The
_Mayflower_ ran into a violent storm, seas and wind were wild, the small
ship tossed on the crest of billows and plunged down into the chasm
between them as they reared high above her till it seemed impossible
that she should hold together, far less hold her course.
In truth she did not hold to her course, but fell off it before the
storm, groaning in every beam as if with fearful grief at her own
danger, and at the likelihood of destroying by her destruction the hope,
the tremendous mission which she bore within her.
The women and children cowered below in their crowded quarters--lacking
air, space, every comfort--numb with the misery of sickness and the
threat of imminent death.
Constance Hopkins, young as she was, cheered and sustained her elders.
Like a mettlesome horse that throws up his head and puts forth renewed
strength when there rises before him a long steep mountain, Constance
laughed at fear, sang and jested, tenderly helping the sick, gathering
around her the children for story-telling and such quiet play as there
was room for. Little Damaris was sick and cross, but Constance comforted
her with unfailing patience, proving so motherly an elder sister than
even Mistress Eliza's jealous dislike for the girl melted when she saw
her so loving to the child.
"You are proving yourself a good girl, Constantia," she said, with
something like shame. "If I die you will look after Damaris and bring
her up as I would have done? Promise me this, for I know that you will
never break your word, and having it I can leave my child without
anxiety for her future."
"It needs no promise, Stepmother," said Constance. "Surely I would not
fail to do my best for my little sister. But if you want my word fully,
it is given you. I will try to be grown up and wise, and bring up
Damaris carefully if you should leave her. But isn't this silly talk!
You will not die. You will tell Damaris's little girls about your voyage
in the _Mayflower_, and laugh with them over how you talked of dying
when we were so tossed and tumbled, like a tennis ball struck by a
strong hand holding a big racquet, but unskilled at the game!" Constance
laughed but her stepmother frowned.
"Never shall I talk of games to my daughter," she said, "nor shall you,
if you take my place." Then she relented, recalling Constance's
unselfish kindness all these dark hours.
"But you have been a good girl, Constantia. Though I fear you are not
chastised in spirit as becomes one of our company of saints, yet have
you been patient and gentle in all ways, and a mother to Damaris and the
other small ones. I can do no less than say this and remember it," she
added.
Constance was white from weariness and the fear that she fought down
with merry chatter, but now a warm flush spread to her hair.
"Oh, Mistress Hopkins, if you would not hate me, if you would but think
me just a little worthy of kindly thoughts--for indeed I am not
wicked--the hardship of this voyage would be a cheap price to pay for
it! I would not be so unhappy as I am if, though you did not love me,
you would at least not hate me, nor mind that my father loved me--me and
Giles!" Constance cried passionately, trembling on the verge of tears.
Then she dashed her hand across her eyes as Giles might have done, and
laughed to choke down a sob.
"Priscilla! Priscilla Mullins, come! I need your help," she called.
"What to do, Constance?" asked Priscilla, edging her way from the other
end of the crowded cabin to the younger girl.
Priscilla looked blooming still, in spite of the conditions to dim her
bright colour.
Placid by nature, she did not fret over discomfort or danger. Trim and
neat, she was a pleasant sight among the distressed, pallid faces about
her, like a bit of English sky, a green English meadow, a warm English
hearth in the waste of waters that led to the waste of wintry
wilderness.
"What am I do to for thee, Constance?" Priscilla asked in her deep, alto
voice.
"Help me get these children up into the air in a sheltered nook on
deck," said Constance. "They are suffocating here."
"No, no!" cried two or three mothers. "They will be washed away,
Constantia."
"Not where we have been taking them these three days past," said
Priscilla. "Let me go first and get John Alden to prepare that nest of
sails and ropes he made so cleverly for us two days ago."
"What doesn't John Alden do cleverly?" murmured Constance, with a sly
glance. "Go then, Pris dear, but don't forget to hasten back to tell me
it is ready."
Priscilla did not linger. John Alden had gotten two others to help him,
and a safe shelter where the children could be packed to breathe the air
they sorely needed was ready when Priscilla came to ask for it. So
Priscilla hurried back and soon she and Constance had the little
pilgrims safely stowed, made comfortable, though Damaris feared the
great waves towering on every side and clung to Constance in desperate
faith.
"What is to do yonder?" asked Priscilla of John Alden, who after they
were settled came to see that everything was right with them.
"What are the men working upon?"
"I suppose it's no harm telling you now," said John Alden, "since they
are at work as you see, but the ship has been leaking badly, and one of
her main beams bowed and cracked, directly amidships. There has been the
next thing to mutiny among the sailors, who have no desire to go to the
bottom, and wanted to turn back. We have been in consultation and they
have growled and threatened, but we are half way over to the western
world so may as safely go on as to return. At last we got them to agree
to that and now they are mending the ship. We have aboard a great jack;
one of the passengers brought it out of Holland, luckily. What they are
doing yonder is jacking up that broken beam. The carpenter is going to
set a post under it in the lower deck, and calk the leaky upper parts,
and so we shall go on to America. The ship is staunch enough, we all
agree, if only we can hold her where she is strained. But you had no
idea of how near you were to going back, had you?"
"Oh, no!" cried Priscilla. "Almost am I tempted to wish we had
returned."
"No, no, no!" cried Constance. "No turning back! Storms, and savages,
and wilderness ahead, but no turning back!"
Damaris fell asleep on Constance's shoulder, and slept so deeply that
when Myles Standish, Stephen Hopkins, and John Alden came to help the
girls to get the children safely down again into their cabin she did not
waken, and Constance begged to be allowed to stay there with her,
letting her sleep in the strong air, for the child had troubled her
sister by her languor.
Cramped and aching Constance kept her place, Damaris's dead weight upon
her arm, till, after a long time, her father returned to her with a
moved face.
"Shift the child to my arm, Constance," he said, sitting beside her.
"You must be weary with your long vigil over her, my patient, sweet
Constance!"
"Oh, Father-daddy," cried Constance, quick tears springing to her eyes,
"what does it matter if you call me that? You will always love me, my
father?"
"Child, child, what aileth thee?" said Stephen Hopkins, gently. "Are you
not the very core of my heart, so like your lovely young mother that you
grip me at times with the pain of my joy in you and my sorrow for her.
The pilgrim brethren would not approve of such expressions of love, my
dear, yet I think God who gave me a father's heart and you a daughter's,
and taught us our duty to Him by the figure of His own Fatherhood,
cannot share that condemnation. All the world to me you shall be to the
end of my life, my Constance. But I came to tell you a great piece of
news. The _Mayflower_ has shipped another passenger, mid-seas though it
is."
Constance looked up questioningly.
"I have another son, Constance. The angels given charge of little
children saw him safely to us through the perils of the voyage. Do you
not think, as I do, that this child is like a promise to us of success
in the New World?"
"Yes, Father," said Constance, softly, sweet gravity upon her face, and
tears upon her lashes. "Will he be called Stephen?"
"Your stepmother wishes him named Oceanus, because of his sea-birth. Do
you like the name?" asked her father.
Constance shook her head. "Not a whit," she said, "for it sounds like a
heathen god, and that I do not like, though my stepmother is a stricter
Puritan than are you and I. I would love another Stephen Hopkins. But if
it must be Oceanus--well, I'll try to make it a smooth ocean for the
little fellow, his life with us, I mean."
"Shall we go below to see him? I will carry Damaris," said Mr. Hopkins,
rising, and offering Constance his hand, at the same time shifting her
burden to himself.
Damaris whined and burrowed into her father's shoulder, half waking.
Constance stumbled and fell laughing, to her knees, numb from long
sitting with the child's weight upon them.
At the door of the cabin they met Doctor Fuller, who paused to look long
and steadily at Constance.
"You have been saving me work, little mistress," he said, putting a hand
on her shoulder. "Your blithe courage has done more than my physic to
hold off serious trouble in yonder cabin, and your service of hands has
been as helpful. When we get to our new home will you accept the
position of physician's assistant? Will you be my cheerful little
partner, and let us be Samuel Fuller and Company, physicians and
surgeons to the worshipful company of pilgrims in the New World?"
Constance dropped a curtsey as well as the narrow space allowed. She, as
well as all the rest of the ship's company, loved and trusted this kind
young doctor who had left his wife and child to follow him later, and
was crossing the seas with the pilgrims as the minister to their
suffering bodies.
"Indeed, Doctor Fuller, I will accept the office, though it will make me
so proud that I shall be turned out of the community as unfit to be part
of it," she cried.
* * * * *
There followed after this long days of bleak endurance, the cold
increasing, the storms raging. For days at a time the _Mayflower_ lay
to, stripped of all sail, floating in currents, thrown up on high,
driven nose down into an apparently bottomless pit, the least of man's
work cut off from man's natural life, left to herself in the desert of
waters, packed with the humanity that crowded her.
Yet through it all the men and women she bore did not lose heart, but
beneath the overwhelming misery of their condition kept alive the sense
of God's sustaining providence and personal direction.
Thus it was not strange that the little ship and her company proved
stronger than the wintry storms, that she survived and, once more
hoisting sail, kept on her westerly course.
It was November; for two months and more the _Mayflower_ had sailed and
drifted, but now there were signs that the hazardous voyage was nearly
over.
"Come on deck, Con! Come on deck!" shouted Giles Hopkins. "All hands on
deck for the first glimpse of land! They think 'twill soon be seen."
Pale, weak, but quivering with joy, the pilgrims gathered on the
_Mayflower's_ decks.
Rose Standish was but the shadow of her sweet self. Constance lingered
to give the final touches to Rose's toilette; they were all striving to
make some little festal appearance to their garments suitably to greet
the New World.
"I can hardly go up, dear Connie," murmured Rose. "The _Mayflower_ hath
taken all the vigour from this poor rose."
"When the mayflower goes, the rose blooms," said Constance. "Wait till
we get ashore and you are in your own warm, cozy home!"
Rose shook her head, but made an effort to greet Captain Myles brightly
as he came to help her to the deck.
"What land are we to see, Myles? Where are we?" she asked.
"Gosnold's country of Cape Cod, rose of the world," said Captain Myles.
"It lies just ahead. Have a care, Constance; don't trip. Here we are,
then!"
They took their places in a sheltered nook and waited. The Billington
boys had clambered high aloft and no one reproved them. Though their
pranks were always calling forth a reprimand from some one, this time no
one blamed them, but rather envied them for getting where they could see
land first of all.
Sharply Francis Billington's boyish voice rang out:
"Land! Land! Land!" he shouted.
It was but an instant before the entire company of pilgrims were on
their knees, sobbing, chanting, praising, each in his own way, the God
who had brought their pilgrimage to this end.
That night they tacked southward, looking for Hudson's river, but the
sea was so rough, the shoals around the promontories southward so
dangerous, that they gave over the quest and turned back.
The next day the sun shone with the brilliant glory of winter upon the
sea, and upon the low-lying coast, as the _Mayflower_ came into her
harbour.
"Father, it is the New World!" cried Constance, clasping her father's
arm in spite of the tiny _Mayflower_ baby which she held.
"The New World it is, friend Stephen. Now to conquer it!" said Myles
Standish, clapping Mr. Hopkins on the shoulder and touching his sword
hilt with the other hand.