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.