BARBARA.
"Wilt give me some breakfast, Priscilla?" asked a well-known voice, as
Mistress Alden bent to uncover her bake kettle, or Dutch oven, to see if
the manchets of fine flour her husband liked so heartily were well
browned.
"Lord-a-mercy!" cried she nearly dropping the cover and springing to her
feet. "What, 't is truly thee, Captain, and not thy spook? Why 't was
but yester e'en Dame Bradford told me thou wert away with Master Bridges
on a fishing adventure, and none might guess the day of thy return."
"She said so, did she?" replied the captain; "and who heard it beside
thee, Priscilla?"
"Why--now let me think--yea and verily, Christian Penn was in the room
and no doubt heard the sad tidings though she said naught."
"And none beside, Mistress Alden?"
"None--nay, now I think on 't, thy kinswoman Barbara was in presence.
But there, my manchets will be burnt to crusts. Sit thee down, Captain,
sit thee down."
"And what said Mistress Standish anent my going?" asked Myles seating
himself upon a three-legged stool and doffing his slouched hat.
Priscilla looked at him with one of the keen glances which John declared
counted the cockles of a man's heart. Then she smiled with an air of
satisfaction and replied,--
"Barbara said naught, and so told me much."
"Told thee much? Come now, Priscilla, spare me thine old-time jibes and
puzzlements and show thyself true womanly, and mine own honest friend.
I'm sore bestead, Priscilla--I have a quarrel with Myles Standish, and
't is as big a fardel as my shoulders will bear. Tell me what Barbara's
silence meant to thee?"
"It meant that it was her doings that thou hadst gone, and that thy
going both angered and grieved her, Captain."
"Angered, mayhap."
"Yea, and grieved. She ate no supper, although I prayed her to taste a
new confection of mine own invention."
"Priscilla, dost think Master Allerton would be--would make a"--
"Would be the right goodman for Barbara? No, and no again, I think
naught of the kind."
"Ah! You women are so quick upon the trigger, Priscilla. I would my
snaphance went to the aim as lightly and as surely as your or Barbara's
thought."
"Come now, Captain, the manchets are done, and the fish is broiled, and
the porridge made. Wait but till I call the goodman and open a pottle of
my summer beer; 't is dear Dame Brewster's diet-drink, with a thought
more flavor to it, and John says--ah, here thou art, thou big sluggard.
We need no horn to call thee to thy meat."
Entering the cottage with a grin upon his lips and the promise of a kiss
in his eyes, Alden started joyfully at sight of the Captain, and at
Priscilla's impatient summons he bashfully took the head of the table
and asked the blessing upon his family and their daily bread, which was
then the undisputed duty of every head of a household. The captain ate
well, as Priscilla slyly noted; and as she rose from the table and began
rapidly to carry the few pewter and wooden dishes to the scullery John
had added to the two rooms and loft comprising the cottage, she
muttered,--
"What fools we women be! When they care for us the most, a savory dish
will comfort them, and we must pule, and pine, and pale--ah!"
For the captain had followed and stood at the housewife's elbow with a
confused and somewhat foolish smile upon his face.
"Wilt do me a favour, Priscilla?"
"Gladly, as thou knowest, sir."
"Nay, sir me no sirs, Priscilla! Take me for thine own familiar friend
as already I am Alden's."
"'T is an ill-advised quotation, Captain, for the 'own familiar friend'
of the Psalmist proved a false one. But ne'ertheless I'll wear the cap,
and haply prove as true as another to my promise. What can I do for
thee, Captain?"
"Why--as thou dost seem to surmise, Priscilla, there is a question
between Barbara and me--truth to tell I gave her just matter of offense,
and now I've thought better on 't and fain would tell her so, and yet I
fear me if I ask outright she'll not let me come to speech of her."
"Ay, ay, good friend, I see," exclaimed Priscilla, holding up her
slender shapely hand. "And here's the cat's-paw that's to pull thy
chestnuts from the fire!"
"Nay Priscilla"--
"Yea Captain! Put not thy wit to further distress, good friend, for it
needs not; I see all and more than all thou couldst tell me. Go thy way
to the Fort, and look over thy dear guns and wait until thou seest--what
thou wilt see."
And with a little push the young matron thrust her guest out of the open
door of the scullery, and hasted to finish her own labors.
Almost an hour passed and the Captain of the Armies of New England had
uncovered and examined and sighted and petted each gun in his armament
more than once; had considered the range of the saker, the minion, the
falcon, and the bases; and had stood gazing blankly at the whitened
skull of Wituwamat above the gate of the Fort until the wrens who nested
there began to fly restlessly in and out, fancying that the captain
planned an invasion of their territory. He still stood in this posture
when the rustle of a footfall among the dried herbage reached his quick
ear, and turning he confronted Barbara, whose down-dropt eyes hid the
gleam of amusement the sight of his melancholy attitude had kindled in
their depths.
"Priscilla says that you have returned home from the fishing because you
were but poorly, cousin, and she would have me come and ask if you cared
to speak with the chirurgeon who is going afield presently."
"So chill, so frozen, Barbara? Is 't so a kinswoman should speak with
one ill at ease both in mind and body?"
"I came but as a messenger, sir, and venture not to presume upon any
claim of kindred to one who joins the blood of Percivale to that of
Standish."
"Nay now, nay now, Barbara!--Here, come to the shaded side of the Fort,
and sit you down where we two sat"--
"We two sat on the bench without your door the last parley that we had,
good cousin."
"'Gentle tongues aye give the sharpest wounds,' and it is thou who
provest the proverb true, Barbara."
"Nay, I'll sit me down and listen with all meekness to what thou hast to
say, Captain Standish."
"Thanks for even so much courtesy, Barbara, for I have sought thee to
say that I deserve none at thy hands. I, to whose protection and
comforting thou hast come across the sea, have treated thee as no
base-born churl hath warrant for treating the meanest of woman-kind. I,
to pride myself upon gentle blood and knightly training, and then throw
insult and taunt upon a woman's unshielded head! Nay, Barbara, had any
man three days agone forecast my doing such a thing, I had hurled the
lie in his teeth, and haply crammed it down with Gideon's hilt. Nay--the
good sword may well be ashamed of his master; well may I look for him to
shiver in my grasp when next I draw him"--
"Myles! Myles, I'll hear no more! Nay then, not a word, or I shall hold
it proven that my wish is naught to thee, for all thy contrite sayings.
I fear me Priscilla is right, and thou 'rt truly ill. This hot sun hath
touched thy head with some such distemper as sped poor Master Carver.
Sit thee down here beside me, and I'll fetch cool water from the spring
to bathe thy temples."
"It needs not, cousin. My distemper is of the mind, the heart; nay, it
is wounded honor, lass, and there's no ill of body can sting a man so
shrewdly as that. Say that I have thy pardon, Barbara, if thou canst say
it in truth, and 't will be better than any med'cine in Fuller's
chest."
"Why, certes, Myles, thou hast my forgiveness and over and over for any
rough word thou mayst have said, and in sober sadness I mind not what
they were, for all my thought hath been of my unkindness to thee. Myles,
I never told thee, but when thy mother lay a-dying, and thou far away,
fighting the Spaniards in Holland, she bade me care for thee even as she
would have done, and fill a sister's place--and more, and I laid my hand
in hers and promised sacredly, and so she rested content."
"And why didst never tell me this before, cousin?"
"I know not--nay, but that's not all out true, and I'll tell thee no
lies, Myles. When next thou camest to our poor home at Man, thou didst
see Rose, and from the first I knew well enow that there'd be no need of
sister-care for one who found so sweet a wife."
"Ay, she was sweet,--sweet as her pretty name. Dost know, Barbara, when
these bushes burgeon in early summer with their soft and fragrant bloom
it ever minds me of that sweet and fragile Rose that lies beneath."
But Barbara was silent.
"Ah well, ah well, 't is a brief chapter strangely at odds with the rude
life wherein it found itself, and now 't is closed, and better so for
her. She could not have bloomed among these dreary sands and savage
woods; it was not fitting."
He paced a few steps back and forward, and Barbara rose, her clear eyes
full of a woman's noble and patient strength.
"And so, Myles, we are at peace again, and I at least will make it my
endeavor that there shall be no such breach of charity in the future.'"
"Nay, Barbara, stay a little, I pray thee. I have somewhat to say, for
which in advance I must ask thy patience and indulgence. Thou 'lt not be
angered at me so soon again, Barbara?"
"Nay, I'll not be angered, cousin." But Barbara's voice was very sad.
"'T is this, and I thought of it all last night as we flitted in the
moonlight across the bay, and what thou sayest of my mother's charge to
thee fits my thought like hand and glove. Why should not we two wed,
Barbara?"
He turned and looked at her, and stood amazed to see how the steadfast
calm of her face broke up in a tempest of indignation, of grief, of
outraged womanhood.
"Why, Barbara! Why, cousin! What is it, what have I said? What ails
thee, dear? What works upon thee so cruelly?"
"That any man should dare fancy it of me--there, there, let be, let me
pass, let me go!"
"Nay, then, I'll not let thee go. I'm but a rude bungler in these
women-ways, and I've said or done somewhat that wounds thee sorely, and
I'll not let thee go till 't is all outsaid and I have once more cleared
myself of at least willful offense toward thee."
"Wilt keep me by force, sir?"
"Ay maid I will, for 't is only in bodily strength that I'm thy match,
and so for the moment I will e'en use it. Sit thee here now and listen
yet again, as I say, Why may not we two wed, cousin Barbara? Thou 'rt
not mine own cousin, thou knowest, child; 't was thy father and mine
were in that bond; and--now bear with me, Barbara--I've a shrewd
suspicion that my mother bade thee be not a sister but a wife to me.
Truth now, did she not, maid?"
"She could not guide either my love or thine, so why would she try?"
"Nay, that's no answer, lass, but we'll let the question go. There's not
a woman alive, Barbara, so dear to me as thou; there's none I hold in
greater reverence or trust; there's none with whom I would so gladly
live out my days, and--though now I risk thy scorn,--there's none whose
lineage I so respect"--
"What, the Henley lineage?" murmured Barbara, with face averted to hide
a smile.
"Nay, thou 'rt all Standish, Barbara! Thou 'rt more Standish than I, for
thou hast the eyes of those old portraits my poor father vainly tried to
wrest from his cousin Alexander. Let me look at those eyes, Barbara!"
"And so because it suits thy convenience to make me thy wife, thou takst
no heed of mine own fancies," said Barbara, not heeding this request.
"And I pray thee unhand me, for I promise to patiently abide till thou
hast said thy say."
"Now there again thou dost me wrong, lass, for as I told thee t' other
day there's no bachelor here fit to wed with thee, there's none I'd give
thee to, nor would I see thee wither away unwed."
"Gramercy cousin, but methinks that is a question I well might settle
for myself."
"Why nay, sith there is no gentleman unwed among our company, save
Allerton, whom I love as little as thou dost."
"I care not for any"--
"I know it, Barbara, I know it well. Thou 'rt that rare marvel, a woman
sufficing unto herself, for as I believe, thou hast never fancied any
man, though more than one hath fancied thee."
"'T is my cold heart," murmured Barbara with a little smile strangled in
its birth.
"Nay," replied her cousin thoughtfully as he pulled at his moustache and
gazed upon the ground at his feet. "Nay, I call thee not so much
heartless as fancy-free. Thou 'rt kind and gentle, ay, and loving as my
dear mother knew. I'm well content with thy heart for such as it is,
Barbara, if thou 'lt but give it me."
"Nay, Myles, I'm deadly sure I've none to give, and out of nothing
nothing comes."
"Thou ne'er canst love me, Barbara?"
"No more than I love thee now, Myles."
"With calm cousin-love thou meanest?"
"I am ill skilled at logic, Myles. I cannot set out my feelings in class
and order, as our chirurgeon doth his herbs and flowers."
"Well, Barbara, I'm grieved that thou lookest upon me so coldly, but I
draw not back from my petition. I'd liefer have thy calm tenderness than
another's hot love, for I can trust thee as I trust mine own honor, and
I know full well that thou 'lt ever be better than thy word. So take me,
Barbara, for thy husband, and fulfill the dear mother's last desire, and
give me the hope of teaching thee in the days to come to love me even as
I love thee."
But for all answer Barbara only turned and laid her hands in his, and
slowly raised the wonder of her eyes until they looked straight into
his; and the man whose front had never quailed in face of death or
danger grew pallid beneath his bronze, and trembled like a leaf in the
wind.
"What!--Barbara!--Dost really love me, maid? Nay, cheat me not--speak!
Dost love me, sweetheart, already?"
But Barbara said never a word, nor did Myles ever know more of the
secret of her life than in that one supreme moment he read in her
steadfast eyes.