AN AFFAIR OF HONOR.
"Thou liest foully, Edward Dotey! Thou liest even as Ananias and
Sapphira lied."
"Liest, thou son of Belial! 'T is thou that liest, and art a cock-a-hoop
braggart into the bargain, Master Edward Lister! Tell me that our
master's daughter gave thee that kerchief"--
"If thou couldst read, I'd show thee 'Constance Hopkins' fairly wrought
upon it by the young mistress's own hand."
"Then thou stolest it, and I will straight to our master and tell him
on 't!"
"Hi, hi, my springalds! what meaneth all this vaporing and noise? What's
amiss, Lister?"
"It matters not what's amiss John Billington. Pass on and attend to
thine own affairs."
"Lister's afraid to tell that he carrieth stolen goods in his doublet
and lies about them into the bargain," sneered Edward Dotey.
"I lie do I, thou base-born coward! Lie thou there, then!"
And Edward Lister with one generous buffet stretched his opponent upon
the pile of firewood they had been hewing a little way from the town.
Billington who had wandered in that direction with his gun upon his
shoulder looking for game, helped the fallen man to his feet and
officiously fingered a bruise rising upon his cheek.
"Hi! Hi! But here's a coil! He's wounded thee sorely, Dotey! I'm witness
that he assaulted thee, with intent to kill like enough. Canst stand?"
"Let me go, let me at him, leave go of my arm John Billington! I'll soon
show thee"--
"Nay Ned," interposed Lister, as Billington with a malignant grin upon
his face half hindered, half permitted Dotey's struggles to free himself
from the poacher's sinewy arms. "Nay, man, I meant not to draw e'en so
much blood as trickles down thy cheek"--
"He meant to draw it by the bucketful and not in drops," interpreted
Billington. "And now he tries to crawl off. Take thy knife to him, man;
nay, get ye both your swords and hack away at each other until we see
which is the better bird. 'T is long since I saw a main"--
"Ay, we'll fight it out, Lister, and see which is the better man in the
matter you wot of." And Dotey, who was furiously jealous lest his fellow
retainer should have made more progress in the regard of Constance
Hopkins than himself, nodded meaningly toward him, while Billington
watched both with Mephistophilean glee.
"Agreed," replied Lister more coolly. "Although thou knowest private
quarrels are forbidden by the Captain."
"Hah! Thou 'rt afraid of our peppery little Captain!" cried Billington.
"Some day thou 'lt see me take him between thumb and finger and crack
him like a flea if he mells too much with me."
"I heard thee flout at his command t' other day, and I heard him tell
thee the next time thou didst so let loose thy tongue, he'd take order
with thee," exclaimed Lister hotly, and Billington snapping his fingers
contemptuously retorted,--
"'T is no use, Dotey. Lister's afraid of thee and will not fight. 'T is
a good boy, but not over-brave."
"Stay you here, you two, till I can go and come, and we will see who is
the coward!" retorted Lister furiously, and before either could reply he
sped away in the direction of the village.
"'T is like a bull-fight," cried Billington with a coarse laugh. "The
creature is hard to wake, but when he hath darts enough quivering in his
hide he rouses up and showeth rare sport. Now let us find a fair, smooth
field for our sword play. 'T is not so easy in this wild land."
"I know not why our captain should forbid the duello; 't is ever the way
of gentles to settle their disputes at the point of the sword," said
Dotey musingly.
"Ay, and in this place we all are gentles, or all simples, I know not
which," added Billington. "Certes, one man should here count as good as
another, and 't is often in my mind to say so, and to cry, Down with
governors, and captains, and elders"--
"Nay, nay, such talk smacks too strong of treason to suit my ear,"
exclaimed Dotey, who was, after all, an honest, well-meaning young
fellow, a little carried away just now by jealousy and by the
intoxicating air of liberty and freedom, but by no means to the extent
of joining or desiring a revolt against the appointed powers of Church
or State.
"Well, here is Lister, and with not only swords but daggers if I can see
aright. Ay, that's a good lad, that's a brave lad, Lister! There's no
craven in thy skin, is there, and I shrewdly nip mine own tongue for so
calling thee. Come now, my merry men, let me place you fairly, each with
his shoulder to the sun, each planted firmly on sound footing. There
then, that is as well as may be, and well enow. Come, one, two, three,
and lay on!"
But careful as Lister had been in securing and bringing away his
weapons, he had not escaped the scrutiny of two bright eyes hidden
behind the curtain dividing the nook where Constance Hopkins and her
sister Damaris slept, from the main room of the dwelling, and no sooner
had the young man left the house than Constance hastily followed, and
running lightly up the hill to where the Captain with John Alden at his
side was roofing in an addition to his half-built house she cried,--
"Captain Standish, I fear me there's mischief afoot with Edward Dotey
and Edward Lister!"
"Ay? And what makes thee think so, my lass?" asked Standish peering down
from his coign of vantage. "Where are they?"
"My father sent them afield this morning to rive and pile firewood, but
a few minutes agone Edward Lister came creeping into the house and up to
the loft where they two and Bartholomew sleep, and I who was below heard
the clank of steel, and peeping saw that he brought down two swords and
had stuck two daggers in his belt"--
"Aha! Swords and daggers, my young masters!" exclaimed the Captain,
hastily descending the ladder beside which Constance stood. "John, drop
thy hammer and take thy piece; nay, take a good stick in hand, and we
will soon bring these springalds to order. Whereaway are they, girl?"
"That-a-way, sir; nay, see you not Lister's cap bob up and down as he
runneth behind yon bushes?"
"Ay, lass, thou hast a sharp eye. Go home and rest content--thou 'rt a
wise and good child."
Ten minutes later the captain and his follower plunging through the
underwood fringing Watson's Hill heard the clash of steel upon steel and
a coarse voice crying,--
"Well played, Dotey! Nay, 't is naught but a scratch--don't give over
for that, Lister; up and at him again, boy! Get thy revenge on him!"
"That knave Billington!" growled Standish: "I could have sworn he was in
it! Here you! Stop that! Drop your blades, men! Drop them!"
Lister and Dotey, nothing loth, for both were wounded, obeyed the
summons, and staggering back from each other stood leaning upon their
swords and panting desperately, while Billington dexterously stepping
backward behind an elder bush made his way forest-ward with a stealthy
footstep, and a shrewd use of cover, suggestive of his former calling.
"And now what meaneth this, ye young fools!" sternly demanded Standish.
"Are ye aping the sins of your betters and claiming the rights of the
duello? Rights say I! Nay, 't is forbidden to any man in this colony,
and ye know it well, ha?"
"Yea, Captain, we knew 't was forbidden, but we had a quarrel"--
"And why if ye must fight did ye take to deadly weapons? Have ye not a
pair of fists apiece, or if that could not content ye, are there not
single-sticks enow in these woods? I've a mind to take my ramrod in hand
and show ye the virtue of a good stick, but I promise you that if not I,
some other shall give you a lesson you'll not forget. Come, march!"
"I'm shrewdly slashed in the leg, Captain," expostulated Dotey; "and
fear me I cannot walk."
"Ay? Sit down, then, and let me see. Thou 'st a sore wound in thy
leather breeches, but--ay, there's a scratch beneath, but naught to
hinder your moving. Here, I'll plaster it up in a twinkling."
And from the pocket of his doublet the old soldier produced a case
containing some of the most essential requisites of surgery, and with a
deftness and delicacy of touch, surprising to one who had not seen him
beside a sick-bed, he soon had the wound safe and comfortable.
"There, man, thou 'rt fit to walk from here to Cape Cod. Many a mile
have I marched with a worse wound than that, and no better than a rag or
at best my belt bound round it. Now you sirrah! Hast a scratch, too?"
For reply Lister silently held out a hand whence the blood dripped
freely from a cut across the palm.
"Tried to grasp 't other fool's dagger in thy naked hand, eh?" coolly
remarked the Captain as he cut a strip of plaster to fit the wound. "Now
the next time take my counsel and catch it in the leathern sleeve of thy
jerkin. Better wound a dead calf than a live one."
"Next time, sayst he!" commented Dotey in a mock aside to his companion.
"So we were not so far astray this time."
"Next time thou meetest a dagger, I should have said," retorted the
Captain with his grimmest smile. "I never said ye were not to fight, for
I trow ye'll have chance enough at that before I'm done with ye; but
when a handful of men are set as we are to garrison a little post on the
frontier of a savage country, for one to fall afoul of another and to
risk two lives out of a dozen for some senseless feud of their own is to
my mind little short of treason to the government they've sworn to
defend. Now then, march! Alden, give Dotey thy arm to lean upon if he
needs it. Forward!"
That night Dotey and Lister slept in two rooms under guard, and the next
morning the freemen of the colony were convened in the Common house to
judge their case. With them Billington was also summoned, although
neither Dotey nor Lister had betrayed his complicity.
Accused of deliberate assault upon each other with deadly weapons both
men humbly pleaded guilty and expressed their penitence, but to this
Bradford gravely replied,--
"Glad are we to know that ye are penitent, and resolved upon amendment,
but ne'er the less we cannot therefore omit some signal punishment both
to make a serious impression upon your own memories, and to advertise to
all other evil-doers that we bear not the sword of justice in vain.
Brethren, I pray you speak your minds. What ought to be done to these
would-be murderers?"
"In the army they would have earned a flogging," remarked the captain
sitting at the governor's right hand.
"Perhaps solitary confinement with fasting would subdue the angry heat
of their blood most effectually," said the elder at Bradford's other
side.
"Had we a pillory or a pair of stocks I would advise that public
disgrace," said Winslow; and Allerton suggested,--
"They might be fined for the benefit of the public purse."
"If the Governor will leave them to me I'll promise to trounce them
well, and after, to set them extra tasks for a month or so," offered
Hopkins; and Alden murmured to Howland,--
"Allerton is treasurer of the public purse, and Hopkins will profit by
the extra labor, mark you!"
"What is thy counsel, Surgeon Fuller?" inquired Bradford, and the
whimsical doctor replied,--
"I once saw two fellows in a little village of Sussex lying upon the
stones of the market-place, tied neck and heels, and methinks I never
have heard such ingenious profanity as those men were yelling each at
his unseen comrade. I asked the publican where I baited my horse the
cause of so strange a spectacle, and he said this was their manner of
disciplining brawlers in the ale-house. They were to lie there
four-and-twenty hours without bite or sup, and so I left them. Methinks
it were a suitable discipline in this case, but I may fairly hope the
profanity of those unenlightened rustics will give place with our erring
brethren to sighs of penitence and sorrow."
"What think you, brethren, of our good surgeon's suggestion?" asked
Bradford, restraining the smile tempting the corners of his mouth. "It
approves itself to me as a fair sentence. Will those who are so minded
raise their right hands?"
The larger number of right hands rose in the air, and the sentence was
pronounced that so soon as the doctor assured the authorities that the
wounded men would take no harm from the exposure, the duelists, bound
neck and heels, should be laid at the meeting of the four roads, there
to remain four-and-twenty hours without food or water, and until that
time each was to remain locked in a separate chamber.
"And now John Billington," continued Bradford sternly, as the younger
men were removed, "how hast thou to defend thyself from the charge of
blood guiltiness in stirring up strife between these two?"
"Nay, your worship, it was their own quarrel," replied Billington
hardily. "I did but chance to pass and saw them at it, and so tarried a
moment to see fair play."
"And to hound them on at each other, as if it were a bull-baiting for
thine own amusement," interposed Standish in a contemptuous tone. "Nay,
lie not about it, man! I heard thee, and saw thee!"
"Surely, Billington," resumed the governor, "thou hast not so soon
forgotten how thou wast convened before us some weeks since, charged
with insolence and disobedience to our captain, and with seditious
speech anent the government. We did then speak of some such punishment
as this for thee, but thy outcry of penitence and promise of amendment,
coupled with the shame of chastising thee in sight of thine own wife and
sons, was so great that we forgave thee, the more that Captain Standish
passed over the affront to himself; but now we see that the penitence
was but feigned, and the amendment a thing of naught, and much I fear
me, John Billington, that an' thou amend not thy ways, harsher
discipline than we would willingly inflict will be thy portion in time
to come."
The governor spoke with more than usual solemnity fixing upon the
offender a gaze severe yet pitiful and reluctant, as one who foresees
for another a fate deserved indeed, and yet too terrible to contemplate.
Perhaps before that astute and reflective mind there rose a vision of
the gallows nine years later to be erected by his own order, whereon
John Billington, deliberate murderer of John Newcomen, should expiate
his crime and open the gloomy record of capital punishment in New
England.
At the present moment, however, the offender slunk away with his
reproof, and the meeting proceeded to consider other matters, for, while
the new government felt itself competent to deal with matters of life
and death, it also found no matter too trifling for its attention.
Four days later Edward Dotey and Edward Lister, their wounds comfortably
healed, were brought out into the market place as in fond reminiscence
of home the Pilgrims called what is now the Town Square of Plymouth, and
each offender was solemnly tied neck and heels together,--an attitude at
once ignominious and painful.
The governor, with Allerton his assistant, the captain, the elder,
Winslow, Hopkins, and Warren stood formally arrayed to witness the
execution of the sentence, which Billington was forced to carry out. The
less important members of the community surrounded the scene, and from
amid the fluctuating crowd murmurs of amaze, of pity, of approval, or
the reverse became from time to time audible.
"Nay, then, 't is a shame to see Christian men so served, and they so
scarce a commodity in these parts," declared Helen Billington to her
neighbor Mistress Hopkins, who nippingly replied,--
"Mayhap we've mistook the men we've put in power."
"Ay," returned the coarser malcontent. "They passed by thy goodman, and
put worse men over his head."
"Master Hopkins careth naught for such honors as these have to bestow.
His name was made or ever he came hither," replied Elizabeth a little
coldly as she moved away.
"Glad am I to see that thy goodman leaveth the cord as slack as may be,
Goody Billington," whispered Lois, late maid to Mistress Carver, but now
the promised second wife of Francis Eaton, who stood beside her, and
overhearing the whisper said reprovingly,--
"Nay, wench, thou speakest foolishly. If evil-doers are to go unwhipt of
justice how long shall this colony endure. See you not that if these
roysterers had each killed the other, there had been two men the less to
stand between your silly throats and the hatchets of the salvages?"
"Ay, there's sound sense in that, Francis," replied Lois yielding
admiringly to the superior wisdom of her betrothed, but Helen Billington
nodding and blinking, muttered to her boy John, as she leaned upon his
shoulder,--
"Wait but till dark, when all the wiseacres are asleep, and see if thy
daddy sets not these men free, ay, and puts weapons in their hands like
enough, to revenge themselves withal."
The offenders bound, and laid each upon his side on the bare ground, the
court withdrew and the crowd dispersed. But scarce an hour had passed
ere Hopkins presented himself before the governor and his assistant, at
work over the colony's records, those precious first minutes, now
forever lost, and with an elaborately quiet and restrained demeanor
said,--
"Master Bradford, yon poor knaves of mine are suffering shrewdly from
cramps and shooting pains as well as from the ache of their scarce
healed wounds. They promise in sad sincerity to amend their ways, and
when all is said, they are good and kindly lads, and did but ape the
fashions of their betters in the Old World. May not I persuade your
worship to look over their offense for this time, and to remit their
pains and penalties as soon as may be?"
"Thou sayest they are penitent, good Master Hopkins?" asked Bradford
judicially.
"Ay, and to my mind honestly so."
"We will speak with them, Master Allerton, and if the captain and the
elder agree with me, Master Hopkins, thy petition is granted, for indeed
it is to me more pain to make another suffer than to suffer myself, even
as a father feels the rod upon his own heart the while he lays it on his
son's back."
"And yet the warning that to spare the rod will spoil the child applies
to the children of the State as well as to the household," remarked
Allerton, whose lively son Bartholomew could have testified to his
father's strict obedience to Solomon's precept.
The chiefs of the colony were soon reassembled about the grotesque
figures of the suffering duelists, and with their approval, the governor
having demanded and received ample professions of contrition, and
promises of amendment, ordered Billington to release the prisoners, who
shamefacedly crept away to their master's house, and thus ended the
first and for many years the only duel fought upon New England soil.