MORTON OF MERRY MOUNT.
“Well, Master Trumpeter, and what do you make of yon craft? Are the
Don Spaniards coming to invade New Plymouth, or has the king sent to
impress you as major-domo of the royal hand?”
“Good-morrow, Captain Standish. The governor lent me his perspective
glass, and sent me up on the hill to spy out who was coming.”
“And that’s all right, Bart. No need to make excuse for doing the
governor’s bidding, my lad.”
“I was thinking, Captain, you found it strange to see me on the Fort
without notice to you”--
“And so came up to call you to account? No, my boy, I know who’s to
be trusted and who not, else had I served in vain through those long
years in the Low Countries. Had it been Gyles Hopkins now, or Jack
Billington-- But there, what make you of the craft?”
“I think, sir, ’tis Master Maverick’s boat from Noddle’s Island, and
there are four men in her whose faces I cannot yet make out.”
“A friendly visit, belike. Stay you here, Bart, until you can determine
the craft, and then carry the news to the governor. I am going down to
the Rock on mine own occasions.”
Bowling merrily along before an easterly breeze, the ketch soon rounded
Beach Point, and dropped her anchor opposite the village, but in
midstream, and so soon as the sails were snugged, and all made ready
for some possible change of weather, the four visitors stepped into a
skiff and were sculled ashore by a tall, fine-looking young fellow,
whose bronzed face and lithe figure were well set off by the buckskin
hunting-shirt and red cap worn with a jaunty air not inharmonious with
the young man’s roving black eyes and flashing smile.
“Master Maverick and his son, Master Blackstone from Shawmut, and
Master Bursley and Master Jeffries from Wessagussett,” reported Bart
Allerton, hat in hand, at the governor’s door, and Bradford, laying
down his book, replied with a grave smile,--
“I will go to meet them.”
Half an hour later the three elder visitors with the governor, the
captain, Allerton, Doctor Fuller, and one or two more, were closeted in
the new room recently added to the governor’s house, and used by him as
a council chamber and court room.
Moses Maverick, the handsome young boatman, had meanwhile somewhat
pointedly sought out Bart Allerton, and almost invited himself to
accompany him home.
“Go you into the front room and entertain him, Remember,” directed the
young step-mother with a mischievous smile. “I am too busy with little
Isaac to leave him just now.”
And Maverick received the apologies of his hostess with an air so
strangely contented that Remember paused half way in making them, and
faltered and blushed and laughed, very much as a modest but open-eyed
girl would do to-day.
“I told you last Lady Day that I should soon be here again, Remember,”
murmured the youth rather irrelevantly.
“I know naught of Lady Days,” retorted the Pilgrim maid with an effort
at a saucy little laugh.
“’Tis because your father is a Separatist, but we Mavericks are sound
Churchmen,” replied the lover. “Some day, mayhap, you’ll be better
advised.”
Let us discreetly leave them to themselves, and seek the council
chamber where Blackstone is saying,--
“Yes, Governor Bradford, we have come to you for that aid and support
against the common foe which all Christians have a right to demand of
each other, no matter how the forms of their Christianity may disagree.”
“The plea is one never disallowed by the men of Plymouth,” returned
Bradford in his sonorous voice. “But what would you have us to do?”
“Why, to capture this Morton by force of arms, since words have no
effect, and ship him back to England, where they say there is a warrant
out against him for murder of some man in the west country with whom he
had business concerns.”
“That were a high-handed proceeding, specially sith his settlement is
not within the domain of Plymouth,” suggested the Elder cautiously.
“True,” broke in Bursley impetuously. “But as Master Blackstone has
told you, Morton sells pieces and ammunition and rum to the savages
without let or stint, and they, having naught else to do, practice at
a mark all day long, and soon will prove better shots than any white
man. Then, when some new Wituwamat or Pecksuot shall arise to stir
them to revolt, where shall we be? You had not won so easy a triumph
there where I live, Captain Standish, had your foes been armed with
snaphances.”
“Not so easy, perhaps, but to my mind more honorable,” replied Standish
coldly. “Howbeit, I do not approve of arming the Indians.”
“Of course, Governor,” resumed Blackstone, who had been the principal
speaker, “the peril is not great for you who can count a hundred
fighting men with Captain Standish to lead them; but none other of
the settlements is of any force, although friend Maverick here has
fortified his island, and may depend upon a dozen men or so of his
household, and the Hilton brothers at Piscataqua and Cocheco are stout
and well-armed fellows, and my neighbor Thomas Walford at Mishawum[2]
has a palisado round his house, and his blacksmith’s sledge with some
other weapons inside. Then at Naumkeag[3] are Roger Conant, Peter
Palfrey, and the rest, with your old friend Lyford as their parson,
and Conant is a fighting man as well as a godly one. But I, as all
men know, am a man of peace as befits a parson; and there is David
Thompson’s young widow and child abiding on the island bearing his
name, with only a couple of men-servants to defend them. If all of
us drew together in one hold we should not count half the force of
Plymouth, but we do not wish so to abandon our plantations.”
“Have you labored with Thomas Morton, showing him the wrong he does?”
asked Elder Brewster coldly, and eying the Churchman with strong
disfavor, for Blackstone, with questionable taste, had chosen to wear
upon this expedition the long coat and shovel hat carefully brought by
him from England as the uniform of his profession. Dressed in these
canonicals, with the incongruous addition of “Geneva bands,” Blackstone
regularly read the Church of England service on Sundays at his house
upon the Common, sometimes alone, and sometimes to a congregation
composed of the Walfords from Charlestown, the Mavericks from Noddle’s
Island or East Boston, the settlers from Chelsea, and perhaps in fine
weather the Grays from Hull, and some of the folk from Old Spain in
Weymouth. For all these were adherents to the Church of England after a
fashion, although by no means ardent religionists of any sort; and as
such, held in considerable esteem the eccentric parson living in the
solitude he loved among his apple-trees, and beside his clear spring,
now merged in the Frog Pond of our Common. A lukewarm Churchman, he was
friendly enough to the Separatists, and now replied to Brewster with a
smile,--
“I have labored so vainly, Elder, that I fear even your authority would
be of no avail. I opine that our friend Standish here is the only man
whose eloquence Thomas Morton will heed in the smallest degree.”
“And the chief men of all the settlements are agreed in making this
request of Plymouth?” asked the governor.
“Not only the chief, but every man among them,” answered Maverick. “And
what is more to the purpose, each one of the settlements will bear its
share in whatsoever charges the arrest and transportation may involve.”
“That is well, but should be set down in writing with signatures and
witnesses,” suggested Allerton, to whom Maverick haughtily replied,--
“Oh, never fear, Master Allerton. The most of us are honest men and not
traders.”
“No offense, Master Maverick, no offense; but it is well that all
things should be done decently and in order,” returned the assistant
smoothly, and the council soon after broke up with the understanding
that Bradford, as the only recognized authority in New England, should
write Morton a formal protest in the name of all the English settlers,
reminding him that King James of happy memory had, as one of his latest
acts, issued a royal proclamation forbidding the sale of fire-arms or
spirits to the savages, and calling upon him as an English subject to
obey this edict.
If this protest proved of none effect, the Governor of Plymouth pledged
himself to suppress the rebel and his mischief with the high hand.
FOOTNOTES:
[2] Charlestown.
[3] Salem.