A VIPER SCOTCHED, NOT KILLED.
“’Tis meat for my masters,” muttered William Wright, plodding
stubbornly up the hill toward the Fort; but as he passed John Alden’s
door the sturdy, middle-aged man paused to watch, with a smile of
admiration rather strange to his commonplace visage, a game of romps
between little Betty Alden and Priscilla Carpenter, and indeed it was
a pretty sight. The maiden, her full yet lissome figure displayed in
a short skirt of blue cloth and a kirtle of India chintz belted down
by a little white apron, was teasing the child with a cluster of ripe
blackberries held just beyond her reach, and, dancing hither and yon as
Betty pursued, showed her pretty feet and ankles to perfection, while
the exercise and fresh air had tinted her cheeks and brightened her
eyes as cosmetics never could, and set a thousand little airy curls
loose from the fair hair braided in a long plait down her back.
“You can’t catch me, Betty! You can’t have the plums till you catch me,
and you can’t--ah, now--catch if you can--catch if you can!”
But Betty, shrieking with laughter as she dived this way and that,
suddenly grew so grave and frowned so terribly as she pointed her
chubby finger and stammered, “Go ’way--s’ant look o’ me--go ’way man!”
that Priscilla turned sharply round, and catching the interloper in
the very midst of a broad smile, she frowned, almost as terribly as
Betty, and loftily inquired,--
“Am I in your path, Master Wright?”
“Nay, how could that be?” stammered Wright, utterly abashed before his
two accusers. “I pray you excuse me, Mistress Prissie, but I--I was
looking for the governor, and”--
“The governor?” interrupted Priscilla scornfully; “well, he’s not in my
pocket, is he in yours, Betty?”
And catching up the child, she was retreating into the house, when her
admirer interposed with an air of dignity more becoming to his age and
appearance than the confusion of a detected intruder upon a girl’s
pastime,--
“Nay, mistress, I need not drive you away; I am going to the Fort.”
“Well, there is the governor coming down from the Fort so as to leave
room for you,” retorted Prissie, and setting the child inside the door,
she fled down the hill as lightly as the wind that chased her.
“Good-morrow, Wright,” cried Bradford cheerily, as the two men met.
“Good-morrow, Governor. May I have a word with you on business?”
“Surely. Come back to the Fort, where I have just left the captain. Ah,
here he is now!”
And the three men were soon seated in the captain’s little den, flooded
with sunshine through its eastern window.
“I sail in the Little James to-day, sirs,” began Wright abruptly; “and
but now, not an hour agone, Master Lyford gave me this letter, praying
me to hold it secret, and carry it to its address in London, and he
would give me five shilling when I returned. Now, sirs, I am not a man
to be hired for five shilling to do any man’s dirty work, and I liked
not Master Lyford’s look or voice as he gave me his errand, nor have
I forgot the matters concerning him and John Oldhame a while ago, and
so--here ’s the letter, Governor.”
“Ha! ’Tis to the same address, Captain! Our well-known enemy and
gainsayer among the Adventurers.”
“Ay. The old proverb come true again of the dog that turns from good
victual to vile,” muttered Standish grimly. “And I suppose it is to be
opened like the rest? Work I do not relish, Governor.”
“Nor I. But Winslow and Allerton are both away, and you must come with
me to the Elder. In his presence and yours I shall open and read this
letter, as is my bounden duty.”
And Bradford, leaning back in his chair, looked straight into the face
of the captain, who, returning the gaze with one of his keen glances,
nodded assent, saying in a surly voice,--
“You are the governor. It is for you to order and me to obey, but I
like it not.”
“As for you, Wright, you have done well and wisely in this matter. The
James sails at three of the clock; come you to my house at two, and I
will return you the letter with one of mine own.”
“Will Priscilla Carpenter be in the room!” wondered William Wright, as
he took his leave.
The letter examined by the triumvirate of governor, Elder, and captain
proved that Lyford’s penitence, if indeed it had ever existed, had
spent its strength in protestation. The writer alluded to the letters
the governor had allowed to go forward, either by original or copy,
and declared that all they had stated was true, “only not the half,”
and that since their discovery he had been persecuted and browbeaten
to the verge of existence, and all because he loved and clung to the
Prayer Book and his Episcopal ordination. The letter closed with
entreaties that a sufficient body of settlers, with military leaders,
should at once be sent over to crush his present hosts and set him at
liberty to follow his conscience.
“At least, we may at once grant our brother liberty to follow his
conscience in matters spiritual,” remarked the Elder with a grave
smile, as he laid down the letter. “I think it will be best to summon a
church meeting for next Lord’s Day, and utterly dismiss Master Lyford
from our fellowship and communion. It is no less than sacrilege for a
man who can write after this fashion to sit down at the Lord’s table
with us, professing to be of us.”
“You are right, Elder,” replied Bradford sternly, “and I leave the
spiritual matter to you; but it is my duty, and one not to be slighted,
to drive this traitor out of our body politic. He must leave Plymouth
at once. Say you not so, Captain Standish?”
“I say, bundle him into the Little James and send him back to England
to his dear cronies there, or, better still, strip off his gown and
bands and hang him as a traitor.”
“To send him to England we have no warrant, nor would it be wise to
invite English legislation in our particular affairs,” retorted the
governor; “and as for hanging him, it is a course open both to these
same objections and to something more. No, we shall simply bid him
leave the colony and not return hither on any pretense. The wife and
children may remain until he has a home whither to carry them.”
“A righteous judgment,” pronounced the Elder, and as Standish growled
assent, the matter was settled, and so promptly carried into effect
that in less than forty-eight hours the renegade forever turned his
back upon the place and the people who had trusted and honored him,
and whom, had he been a faithful servant of his Master and the Church,
he might undoubtedly have led to a renewed allegiance to the venerable
Mother whose unwise severity rather than whose doctrine had driven them
from the home of their ancestors.
“There goes a viper scotched, not killed, and we shall feel his sting
yet,” remarked Standish, as he with Peter Browne and John Alden stood
on the brow of Cole’s Hill, and watched Lyford’s embarkation in a
fishing-boat belonging to Nantucket, where Oldhame had pitched his
tent for a while. Here also, or at neighboring Weymouth, Blackstone,
Maverick, Walford, and a few other of the Gorges party had succeeded
to the houses left empty by Weston’s men after their deliverance by
Myles Standish from Pecksuot, Wituwamat, and their horde. In course
of time, Blackstone, carrying his clergyman’s coat, removed to Boston
Common, Walford to Charlestown, and Maverick to East Boston, each
man representing the entire population of each place; but still some
settlers remained on the old site, so that from the time of Weston’s
arrival in 1622, this neighborhood has been the home of white men.
“Scotched, not killed,” repeated Standish, filling his pipe, as he
sat and mused in the autumn sunshine outside of his cabin door, while
Barbara in her noiseless but competent fashion got ready a savory
supper within, and Alick, with a bow made for him by Hobomok, fired
not unskillful arrows at a target set upon the hillside.
A week later the captain’s words came true, for the same fishing boat
that had carried away Lyford put into Plymouth Harbor on an ebb tide,
and sent off her boat with four men, one of whom was soon recognized
as Oldhame. As the banished man leaped upon the Rock, followed by his
comrades, all strangers to Plymouth, some of the older townsmen met
him, and one of them gravely inquired his business.
“Business quotha!” blustered Oldhame, who was evidently the worse for
liquor. “My business is first to tweak Billy Bradford’s nose, and then
to kick Myles Standish into a rat-hole, and finally to burn down your
wretched kennels, and root up this doghole of a place, where I and my
friends have met such scurvy treatment.”
“An’ your errand is so large an one, you had better go and seek the
governor and his assistants without delay,” replied Francis Cooke,
waving his hand up Leyden Street, and restraining by a look some of the
younger men, who seemed disposed to dispute the landing.
“Why, so I will, Cooke; I’ll go up and speak to your masters, but not
my masters, mind you, good Cooke; good Cooke, ha, ha! Come, now, hop
into my boat and I’ll carry you home to be my cook, mine own good cook,
Francis! Hop in, I say!”
And the roysterer, with a roar of drunken laughter, strode up the hill,
the strangers, who looked both anxious and ashamed, following slowly
after him.
In the Town Square the invaders encountered Bradford with Doctor Fuller
and Stephen Hopkins, and Oldhame, pushing himself into the group, began
a violent tirade upon the abuses and insults that he averred had been
offered both him and Lyford, and was proceeding to the most scurrilous
threats and vituperations, when the governor, beckoning Bart Allerton,
who, with several other young men, was hanging around the group of
elders, said calmly,--
“Bart, find Captain Standish, and bid him summon a couple of the
train-band, and bring them hither.”
“Oho! Captain Shrimp is to appear on the scene, is he? Well, I’ve come
here to settle old scores with him as well as the rest! Go fetch him,
Bart; trot, boy, trot!”
“It needs not to fetch him, Master Oldhame, since he is here at your
service.” Thus speaking, the captain, who had been hastening down the
hill before he was summoned, strode into the circle, a grim smile upon
his face and the red light of battle in his eye.
“Ha! my little bantam cock! are you there?” And the reckless fellow
aimed a backhanded blow at the captain’s face, which the latter easily
evaded by a side-movement, and returned with a square blow from the
shoulder, taking effect under Oldhame’s jaw, and sending him staggering
back into the arms of one of his new comrades.
“Enough, enough!” exclaimed Bradford, holding up his hand. “A street
brawl is not befitting or seemly. Captain Standish, arrest this man,
and put him in the strong-room until we consider what measure to deal
out to him.”
“The tide is gone, or we would carry him aboard and be off altogether,”
suggested one of the strangers.
“Possibly not,” quietly returned the governor. “It might not seem right
to so lightly dismiss such an offense. We would bear ourselves meekly
with all men, but it is not meet that our townsfolk should see their
leaders insulted and braved thus insolently with impunity.”
“Captain Gorges would have run a man through for less,” replied
the other. “But Oldhame said the Plymouth men were crop-eared
psalm-singers, who would not fight.”
“If Plymouth men had not fought to some purpose on the spot where you
have settled, you would have found but sorry housing there,” retorted
Standish savagely, as he led his captive away, securely bound, and
Bradford in his usual calm tones explained,--
“After our captain had slain Pecksuot and Wituwamat and dispersed their
following, he nailed a placard to the tree at the gate of the stockade,
whereon he had hung one of the ringleaders, warning the savages that
if they burned or destroyed the dwellings that remained, he would
come back and serve them as he had their misleader; and this cartel,
although they could not read it, so terrified their superstitious
fancies that Captain Gorges found housen for his men, and a stoccado to
protect them.”
“Yes,” replied the stranger, gazing curiously after Standish, “we found
the bones of the hanged man lying in a heap under the tree, and the
marks of a deadly fray in the house where Pecksuot fell.”
“Ay, so. It was a sad necessity, and one almost as grievous to us as to
the savages,” returned Bradford. “Now, sirs, we have no quarrel with
you, nor wish for any. Your skiff will not float until three hours
after noon, and when she does we shall doubtless send away Master
Oldhame in her; meantime, you are welcome to look about and see our
town and Fort, and discourse with the people. Master Hopkins, will you
see that these men have some dinner?”
“Such as ’tis, they’re welcome to some of mine,” promptly replied
Hopkins, whose comfortable house stood on the corner of Leyden and
Main streets just opposite the governor’s, and whose garden stretched
along to Middle Street, not yet laid out. The size and convenience of
his house, and the bountiful and cheerful hospitality of his wife,
who, with the aid of her daughters Constance, Damaris, and Deborah,
administered the domestic affairs, combining English thrift and
neatness with colonial abundance, gave Hopkins the frequent opportunity
of entertaining visitors to Plymouth, while Bradford saw that he was no
loser by such a course.
Meanwhile the governor and his council sat in conclave, secure that
their decision would find favor with the people, or at any rate
with that nucleus and backbone of the commonalty known as “the
first-comers,” meaning the passengers of the Mayflower, the Fortune,
and the Anne, with her tender the Little James.
At noon the tide turned, and the town went to dinner. About half past
two Bartholomew Allerton beat the “assembly” in the Town Square, and at
the well-understood summons men, women, and children gathered in the
square, or clustered in the open doorways, all filled with curiosity as
to the mode of punishment about to be meted out to the returned exile,
and yet none in the least doubt as to its justice. Even the men whom he
had brought with him to be the witnesses of his triumph stood supinely
to view his disgrace, muttering among themselves, and casting uneasy
glances down the hill to where their shallop lay still aground at the
foot of the Rock, while the larger boat hardly swung afloat on the
breast of the young tide.
Three o’clock, and the governor, the Elder, and the captain came out
of the house of the first, robed in their official garments, and stood
upon a platform of squared logs erected at the intersection of the
streets and mounted with two small cannon called patereros. A blast
from the trumpet, and the gate of the Fort upon the hill swung open,
and out came a strange procession: first, Bart Allerton with his drum,
and three other young fellows with wind instruments, who rendered a
fair imitation of the Rogue’s March; then twenty picked men, mostly
from among the first-comers, each carrying his snaphance reversed;
then Master Oldhame, bareheaded and barefooted, and with his arms tied
across his chest; and finally, Lieutenant John Alden, bearing a naked
sword, followed by a guard of four men well armed.
Down the hill they came at a foot-pace, the bugles and trumpet
shrilling out their contemptuous cadences, and Oldhame, his pride
subdued and his pot-valiancy all evaporated, stepping delicately as
Agog, for the pebbles hurt his bare feet, and perhaps feeling with Agog
that the bitterness of death was at his lips.
Before the platform, where stood the magnates and the cannon, the
procession paused, the music ceased, and upon the silence rose the
governor’s calm, strong voice.
“John Oldhame, you have come hither in defiance of the formal edict
of this government banishing you from the colony; and you have
come with violence and insult, refusing to accept warning, or to
depart peaceably. We therefore have resolved that since you return
dishonorably, you shall depart in dishonor, taking with you the
warning for the future, that the barrels of our pieces are more deadly
than their stocks. Go, and mend your manners!”
He waved his hand, and the bugles recommenced their blare, while the
twenty men opened their ranks and ranged themselves in two lines some
three feet apart, but not directly opposite each other.
“Go on, prisoner!” ordered Alden, touching Oldhame with the hilt of his
sword. “Go, and mend your manners!” And as the cowed yet furious rebel
stepped forward, the first man of the line struck upward with the stock
of his reversed musket, saying,--
“Go, and mend your manners!” The next instant the same blow and the
same words fell from the minuteman diagonally opposite, and so down the
entire line, until as the twentieth blow and twenty-second adjuration
to “Go, and mend your manners” fell upon the humiliated bully, he broke
down utterly, and with a howl of mingled rage and pain bolted into the
door of John Howland’s house next below Stephen Hopkins’s, but was met
by Elizabeth, who with little John clinging to her skirts and Desire in
her arms boldly faced the intruder for a moment, and then looking into
his streaming face and hunted eyes cried pitifully,--
“Oh, poor soul!” and seizing the scissors at her girdle cut the band
confining his arms, and catching up a tankard of ale set ready for her
husband held it to his lips, muttering,--
“Mayhap ’tis treason, but there, poor creature, drink, and then slink
away down the hill while-- Why, what’s to do now in the street?”
“Why don’t you say, ‘Go, and mend your manners!’” hoarsely asked
Oldhame; but still he drank, and then, glancing over his hostess’s
shoulder as she stood in the doorway, he swore a great oath, and
pushing her rudely aside dashed out and down the hill to his boat.
For, unseen by the townsmen, all of them absorbed in the punishment
parade, the ship Jacob, Captain William Pierce, had sailed into harbor
upon the flood-tide, dropped anchor beside the Nantucket fishing craft,
and set ashore her master, with his distinguished passenger Edward
Winslow, who had been to England to try to straighten the tangled
relations between the Pilgrims and the Adventurers, already playing
fast and loose with their promises.
Some good-natured raillery from Captain Pierce upon the negligent
outlook kept by the colonists served to relieve the strain of the
late occurrence, and as Winslow with a face full of portent followed
the governor into his house, John Oldhame stepped aboard the fishing
vessel, and sailed out of Plymouth Harbor in a condition of unwonted
quiet and humiliation.