STANDISH AT MERRY MOUNT.
Some two weeks had passed by since the visit of the committee of safety
to Plymouth; long enough for Bradford, ever moderate, ever considerate,
to write a letter of kindly expostulation to Morton, and to receive
an insolent and defiant reply; and now in a pleasant June afternoon
the Plymouth boat, commanded by Standish, and manned by eight picked
followers, drew into Weymouth fore-river, where upon the water-course
now known as Phillips Creek, Weston and his men, some six or seven
years before, had founded their unlucky settlement.
The fate of this settlement we have seen, and also learned that the
houses protected by Standish’s warning to the savages had since become
the dwelling-place of some of the followers of Ferdinando Gorges, that
showy personage who, coming to the New World with the romantic idea of
proclaiming himself its governor, found it so savage and forbidding of
aspect that, after a few months spent mostly as a guest of Plymouth, he
quietly returned to England, civilization, and a sovereignty on paper.
The houses repaired or built by him still remained, however, and among
the Gorges men who continued to live in them were the Mr. Jeffries and
Mr. Bursley who accompanied Blackstone and Maverick to Plymouth.
A little below Phillips Creek, the Monatoquit River empties into the
bay, and across the river lies a fair height, now included in the town
of Quincy, but then known as Passonagessit, whence one might then,
and still may, look east and north upon the lovely archipelago of
Boston Harbor, or westward to the blue hills of Milton. On its eastern
face this height of Passonagessit sloped gently to the sea, with good
harborage for boats at its foot, promising facilities for fishing and
for traffic with the northern Indians.
Upon this headland in the early summer of 1625 a wild and motley crowd
of adventurers pitched their tents, and soon replaced the canvas with
comfortable log-houses and a stockaded inclosure. The leader of this
company was one Captain Wollaston, perhaps the same adventurer whom
Captain John Smith of Pocahontas memory encountered, some fifteen years
before, on the high seas, acting as lieutenant to one Captain Barry,
an English pirate. With Wollaston were three or four partners, and a
great crew of bound servants, men who had either pledged their own
time, or been delivered into temporary slavery as punishment by English
magistrates, and the purpose of the leaders was to found a settlement
like that of Plymouth. The place was named Mount Wollaston by the white
men, while the Indians continued to call it Passonagessit, just as
they still speak of Weymouth as Wessagusset. One New England winter,
however, cooled the courage of Captain Wollaston, as it had that of
Robert Gorges, and in the spring of 1626 he took about half his bound
men to Virginia, where he sold their services to the tobacco planters
at such a profit, that he wrote back to Mr. Rasdall, his second in
command, to bring down another gang as soon as possible, and to leave
Mount Wollaston in charge of Lieutenant Fitcher, until he himself
should return thither.
Rasdall obeyed, and in making his parting charges to Fitcher remarked,--
“All should go well, so that you keep Thomas Morton in check. Give him
his head and he will run away with you and Wollaston.”
Fitcher assented with a rueful countenance, for he knew himself to be
but a timid rider, and the Morton a most unruly steed, and the event
proved his fears well grounded, for Rasdall had not reached Virginia
before Morton in the lieutenant’s temporary absence called the eight
remaining servants together, produced some bottles of rum, a net of
lemons, and a bucket of sugar, to which he bade his guests heartily
welcome, greeting each man jovially by name, and telling them that the
time had come to throw off their chains, to assert their rights, and
to reap for themselves the benefit of their hard work. He assured them
that he, although a gentleman, a learned lawyer, and a man of means,
felt himself no whit above them, and asked nothing better than to live
with them in liberty, fraternity, and equality, finally proposing that
they should seize upon “the plant” of Mount Wollaston, turn Lieutenant
Fitcher out of doors, and establish a commonwealth of their own. No
sooner said than done! The men whom Morton addressed were, in fact,
the dregs of the company left behind by Wollaston as not worth trading
off. Perhaps he never intended to come back to claim them; perhaps if
indeed he had been a pirate he took Morton’s action as nothing more
than a reasonable proceeding; at any rate this disappearance of Captain
Wollaston and Lieutenant Rasdall was final, and except that the
neighborhood of Passonagessit is still called Wollaston Heights, the
very name of this adventurer would probably have been forgotten.
It was at any rate disused, for so soon as Lieutenant Fitcher had been,
as he reported to Bradford, “thrust out a dores,” the name of the place
was changed to Merry Mount, and the life of debauch and profligacy
promised by Morton inaugurated; as a natural consequence, Merry Mount
soon acquired so wide a fame for license and disorder that it became
the resort of the lawless adventurers who haunted the coast in those
days, sometimes calling themselves fishermen, sometimes privateers,
and sometimes buccaneers, and the whole affair grew to be a scandal,
not only to Godfearing Plymouth, but to those other settlements, of
sober, law-abiding folk, scattered up and down the coast, especially
when in the spring of 1627 Morton set up a Maypole at Merry Mount, and
proclaimed a Saturnalia of a week.
Now a Maypole, and dancing around it crowned with flowers, is in our
day a very pretty and pastoral affair, only open to the objections
of cold, wet, and absurdity. But in old English times it was a very
different matter, being in effect a remnant of heathenesse, and the
profligate worship of the goddess Flora. William Bradford, writing an
account of the attack upon Merry Mount, expresses himself thus:--
“They allso set up a Maypole, drinking and dancing aboute it many days
togeather, inviting the Indean women for their consorts, dancing and
frisking togeather like so many fairies (or furies, rather) and worse
practices. As if they had anew revived and celebrated the feastes
of the Roman goddes Flora, or the beastly practices of the madd
Bacchinalians.”
Although Plymouth and its neighbors were shocked at these practices,
they would not probably have interfered, beyond a remonstrance, with
the amusements of the Merry Mountaineers had the matter stopped there,
but, as the delegates to Plymouth represented, the selling of fire-arms
to the Indians, teaching them to shoot, and inflaming their murderous
passions with alcohol, was a very different matter, a matter of public
import, and one to be arrested by any means before it went farther.
So after this long digression, tiresome no doubt, but essential to
understanding what follows, we come back to Myles Standish and his
eight men, “first-comers” all of them, pulling up their boat upon the
shore at Wessagusset, just as they had done five years before. As they
turned toward the path leading to the stockade, a man came hurriedly
down to meet them.
“Good-morrow, Master Bursley,” cried the captain cheerfully. “We are on
our way to Merry Mount, and called to tell you so.”
But Bursley held up his hand with a warning gesture, and so soon as he
was near enough hoarsely muttered in unconscious plagiarism,--
“The devil’s broke loose.”
“Say you so, Bill Bursley!” responded Standish, showing all his broad
white teeth. “I did not know he’d ever been in the bilboes!”
“Morton’s here at the house, full of liquor and swearing all sorts of
wicked intent toward--well now, Captain, if you won’t take it amiss,
I’ll tell you that he calls you Captain Shrimp!”
“Following Master Oldhame,” replied Standish carelessly. “I must marvel
at the lack of sound wit at Wessagusset when so small a jest has to
serve so many men. But you say this roysterer is here in your house?”
“No, in Jeffries’ house. He came this morning asking that we should
return with him to Merry Mount and help him against the ‘Plymouth
insolents’ as he called you.”
“And what answer did he get, Master Bursley?”
“What but nay?” demanded Bursley with a glance of honest surprise. “Was
not I one of those who came the other day to Plymouth begging Governor
Bradford to take order with this rebel? But he has been drinking,
and is in such a woundy bad humor that but now he drew a knife upon
Jeffries, and may have slain him outright before this.”
“Say you so! Then, let us hasten and bury him with all due honors!”
exclaimed the captain, in whose nostrils the breath of battle was ever
a pleasant savor. “Howland, Alden, Browne, all of you, my merry men!
Leave the boat snug, and follow to the house, to chat with Master
Morton who awaits us there.”
And the captain sped joyously up the path, looking to the priming of
his long pistols, and loosening Gideon in his scabbard as he went. A
rod from the house, however, a bullet nearly found its billet in his
brain, while on the threshold stood Morton, his face flushed, his gait
unsteady, and a smoking pistol in his hand.
“Hola! Captain Shrimp, I warn you stand out of range of my pistol
practice. You might get a hurt by chance!” cried he, raising another
pistol, but before it could be aimed, or the captain take action,
somebody within the house struck up the madman’s arm, and as he turned
savagely upon this new foe, Standish, whose muscles were strong and
elastic as a panther’s, sprang across the intervening space, and
seizing his prisoner by the collar shouted,--
“Yield, Morton, or you’re but a dead man!”
“One man may well yield to a mob,” muttered Morton sullenly; and seeing
that he was disarmed, Standish released his hold saying quietly,--
“Fair and softly, Master Morton! Governor Bradford sends me and these
men, praying for your company at Plymouth, so soon as may be. If you
will go quietly, well; but if you resist, you will go all the same; so
choose you.”
“The Governor of Plymouth does me too much honor to send so many of his
servants with the major-domo at the head,” replied Morton bitterly.
“And sith as you say the invitation may not be refused, I’ll e’en
accept it, but would first return to Merry Mount to fetch some clothes
and set my house in order.”
“Your return to Merry Mount will be as the governor orders hereafter. I
was bid to bring you to Plymouth without delay, and that I shall do.”
“But not to-night, I trust, Captain Standish,” interposed Jeffries. “A
shrewd tempest is threatening, and by the time it is past, night will
be upon us and no moon.”
“With the shoals and sandbars of this coast thick as plums in a
Christmas pudding,” remarked Philip De la Noye, whereat Peter Browne
growled, “Make it a Thanksgiving pudding, an it please you, Master
Philip. We hold no Papist feasts here.”
Stepping outside the door, Standish took a survey of the skies, the
sea, and the forest, already waving its green boughs in welcome to the
coming rain.
“Do you hear the ‘calling of the sea,’ Captain?” asked a Cornish man,
placing his curved hand behind his ear, and bending it to catch the
deep murmur and wail that float shoreward from the hollow of ocean
when a thunder-storm is gathering in its unknown spaces.
“Yes,” replied Standish in an unusually hushed voice, “we will stay
awhile; perhaps the night, if our friends can keep us.”
“Glad and gayly,” said Jeffries, who, truth to tell, was a little
afraid that the remaining garrison of Merry Mount might descend upon
his house in the night to rescue their leader or avenge his loss.
“And we’ll feast you on the pair of wild turkeys my boy shot to-day,”
cried Bursley. “Come, we’ll make a night on’t, sith there are not beds
enough for all to lie down.”
“With your leave, sirs, I will claim one of those beds and take my rest
while I may,” broke in Morton sourly. “I have no mind for reveling with
tipstaves and jailers.”
“Ne’ertheless you might keep a civil tongue in your head, Morton,”
angrily exclaimed Browne, but Standish interposed,--
“Tut, tut, man! Never jibe at a prisoner. A bruised creature ever
solaces itself with its tongue, and so may a bruised man. Let him
alone!”
“Thank you for nothing, Captain Shrimp!” snarled Morton; but Standish
only nodded good-humoredly, and began looking about to see if the log
hut could be made secure for the night. Finally, a small bedroom off
the principal or living room was set aside for Morton, the window
shutter nailed from the outside, and a man set to watch beside him, and
be responsible for his safety.
The turkeys were soon plucked, dressed, and each hung by a string tied
to one leg before a rousing fire, so oppressive for the June night,
that Standish retreated to a shed at the back of the house, and stood
watching the magnificent spectacle of the tempest now in full force. On
one side lay the primeval forest, dense and gloomy with its evergreen
growth, through whose serried ranks the mad wind ploughed like a charge
of cavalry, rending the giants limb from limb, lashing the bowed heads
of those who resisted, trampling down in its savage fury old and young,
the sturdy veterans and the helpless saplings.
At the other hand lay the ocean, seen through a slant veil of hurtling
rain, its waters flat and foaming like the head of a tigress that lays
back her ears and gnashes her teeth as she crouches for her spring, and
ever and anon, between the crashing peals of thunder and the splitting
report of some lightning bolt riving the heart of oak or mast of pine,
came the weird “calling of the sea,” the voice of deep crying unto
deep:--
“Watchman, what of the night? Watchman, what of the night? The watchman
said, The morning cometh, and also the night: if ye will inquire,
inquire ye!” “But hurt not the earth, neither the sea, nor the trees,
till we shall have sealed the servants of our God!”
In face of this vast antiphony, Morton of Merry Mount and his concerns
sank to insignificance; and so felt Myles Standish, who had all the
love of nature inseparable from a great heart; but his had not been so
great had it been capable of slighting the meanest duty, and his last
act before midnight when he lay down for a few hours’ repose was to see
that his prisoner was both safe and comfortable, and that two reliable
men were upon the watch. One of these was Richard Soule and the other
John Alden, to whom the captain said,--
“Now mind you, Jack, it has been a hard day’s work, and our friends’
hospitality full liberal. Do you feel your head heavy? If so, say the
word, and I’ll watch myself and be none the worse for it on the morrow.
Speak honest truth now, lad.”
But Alden so indignantly protested that nothing could tempt him
to sleep in such an emergency, and so affectionately besought his
friend to take some rest, that the captain at length complied, much
to the delight of Morton, who, feigning sleep, had listened to the
conversation.
Twelve o’clock, and one, and two passed quietly, yet not unnoted,
for Morton, among other claims to distinction, was the possessor of
a “pocket-clock,” the only one at Wessagusset that night, since even
Standish did not aspire to such luxury, and was well content to divide
his day by the sun and the dial, if it were clear, or by his instinct,
if it were stormy, while the night was told by its stars, the deeper
and lessening darkness, or the chill that always precedes the dawn.
Half past two, and the prisoner turned himself silently upon his bed.
At its foot sat John Alden, his snaphance between his knees, and his
head fallen forward and sidewise till he seemed to be peering down its
barrel; but alas, his stertorous breathing proclaimed that nature had
succumbed to fatigue and the watchman was fast asleep.
A smile of elfish glee widened Morton’s already wide and loose-lipped
mouth and twinkled in his beady eyes, as without a sound, and with the
cautious movements of a cat, he stole off the bed, seized his doublet
which had been laid aside, and crept out of the bedroom into the
kitchen where, with his head and shoulders sprawling over the table,
and his piece lying upon it, Richard Soule lay sweetly dreaming of
seizing the rebel by the hair of his head, and dragging him to the
foot of a gallows high as Haman’s. With the same malicious grin and the
same cat-like movement Morton stole rapidly past this second Cerberus,
pausing only to secure his snaphance. The outer door was made fast by
an oaken bar dropped into iron staples, and this the runaway lightly
lifted out and stood against the wall; but as he opened the door, the
storm tore it from his hand, threw down the bar, extinguished the
candles, and roused the sleepers.
Myles Standish, whose vigilant brain had warned him even through a
heavy sleep that there was danger in the camp, was already afoot and
groping for the ladder whereby to descend from his loft when the shriek
of the wind and the bewildered outcries of the watch told him what had
happened, and like a whirlwind he was down the steps, calling upon
Alden and Soule, and loudly demanding news of their prisoner.
“He’s gone! He’s gone!” cried Soule, while Alden mutely bestirred
himself with flint and steel to strike a light. When it was obtained,
and disastrous certainty replaced the captain’s worst suspicions,
his anger knew no bounds, and the hot temper, generally controlled,
for once burst its limits and poured out a short, sharp torrent of
words that had better never have been spoken, until at last John
Alden, slowly roused to a state of wrath very foreign to his nature,
retorted,--
“The next time that Nell Billington is brought before the court as a
scold, it might be well to present Myles Standish along with her. What
say you, Dick?”
“Haw! Haw!” roared Soule, who, although a worthy citizen, was not a man
of fine sensibilities. Standish glanced at him with angry contempt, and
then fixed his eyes upon Alden with a look before which that honest
fellow shrunk, and colored fiery red as he stammered,--
“I--I said amiss--nay, then,--forgive me, Captain.”
“The captain can easily forgive what the friend will not soon forget,
John,” said Standish gravely, for indeed the brief treason of his
ancient henchman had struck deep into the proud, loving heart of the
soldier. “But,” continued he in the same breath, “this is no time for
private grievances--follow me!”
And opening the door he dashed out into the night, and down the path
to the rude pier where his own boat and the two belonging to the
settlement were made fast. As he approached, a figure slipped away,
and was lost in the neighboring thicket; Myles could not see it,
but surmised it, and quick as thought a rattling charge of buckshot
followed the slight sound hardly to be distinguished amid the clashing
of branches, the scream of the wind, and the sobbing blows of the surf
upon the shore.
Morton, lying flat upon his face behind a big poplar, heard the shot
fall around him, and knew that more would come; so, pursuing the
tactics of his Indian allies, he wriggled backward, still clinging as
closely as possible to mother earth, until, arrived at the roots of
a giant oak, he drew himself upright behind it, and stood silent and
waiting. The captain waited also, and in a moment came the green glare
both men counted upon, and while Myles springing forward searched
the thicket with another storm of shot and then with foot and sword,
Morton, taking a rapid survey of the situation, selected his route, and
sheltered by the crash of thunder which drowned all other sounds sprang
from the oak to a clump of cedars higher up the hill, and so, guided
by the lightning, and screened from the quick ear of his pursuer by
the thunder, he gradually gained the trail made by the Indians between
Wessagusset and the head waters of the tidal river Monatoquit; crossing
this channel with infinite danger, the fugitive made his way down the
other bank, and about daylight reached Merry Mount greatly to the
astonishment of the only three of his comrades who remained at home,
the rest of the garrison having gone under guidance of some of their
Indian allies to trade for beaver in the interior.
Standish meanwhile, finding that the prisoner had made good his escape,
returned to the house, and setting aside the condolences of his hosts
and the shamefaced penitence of Richard Soule, for John Alden said
never a word, he passed the remaining hours of darkness in examining
his weapons, in pacing up and down his narrow quarters, gnawing his
mustache, fondling the hilt of Gideon, and looking out of the door or
the unglazed window-place. The hosts meantime bestirred themselves to
prepare a savory meal of venison steaks, corn cakes, and mighty ale,
to which, just as the first streaks of daylight appeared through the
breaking clouds, the whole party sat down, the stern and silent captain
among them, for angry and mortified though he was, the old soldier had
served in too many rude campaigns not to secure his rations when and
where they might be had. But the meal was very different from the jolly
supper of the night before, and it was rather a relief when the captain
rising briefly ordered,--
“Fall in, men! To the boat with you. Our thanks for your kind
entertainment, Master Jeffries, and you, Master Bursley. We will let
you know the ending of our enterprise so soon as may be.”
And as the sun rose across the sea, whose blue expanse dimpled and
laughed at thought of its wild frolic during his absence, the Plymouth
boat, crossing the mouth of the Monatoquit and skirting its marshy
basin, drew in to the landing place of Merry Mount, not without
expectation of a volley from some ambush near at hand. None such came,
however, and so soon as the boat was secured, the captain, deploying
his men in open order that a shot might harm no more than one, led them
up the gentle slope and halted in the shelter of a clump of cedars,
whose survivor stands to-day lifeless and broken, but yet a witness to
the mad revels of Merry Mount and their sombre ending. His men safe,
Standish himself advanced to parley with the garrison. As he emerged
from the shelter of the grove Alden silently stepped behind, and would
have followed, but the captain, without looking round, coldly said,--
“Remain here, Lieutenant Alden, until you are ordered forward,” and the
young man slunk back just as a bullet whistled past the captain’s ear.
Pulling his handkerchief from his pocket Standish thrust his bayonet
through the corner, and holding it above his head, advanced until
Morton’s voice shouted through a porthole beside the door,--
“Halt, there, Captain Shrimp! I’m on my own domain here, garrisoned,
armed, victualed, and ready for a siege. What do you want, Shrimp?”
“I demand the body of Thomas Morton, and if the garrison of this place
are wise, they will yield it up before it is taken by force of arms and
their hold burned over their heads.”
A little silence ensued, for the threat of fire was a formidable one,
and Morton’s three assistants had counted the enemy’s force as it
landed, and were now clamoring for surrender. But he, who at least was
no coward, retorted upon them with a grotesque oath that alone, if need
be, he would chase these psalm-singers into the ocean, and returning to
the porthole shouted again,--
“Hola! Captain, Captain Shrimp”--
“I hold no parley with one so ignorant of the uses of war as to insult
a flag of truce,” interposed Standish, and Morton laughing boisterously
rejoined,--
“I cry you mercy, noble sir, and will in future, that is to say, the
near future, treat you with all the honor due to the Generalissimo of
the Plymouth Army. And now deign, most puissant leader, to satisfy me
as to the intent of the Governor of Plymouth should he gain possession
of the body of Thomas Morton, that is to say of the living body, for
should you see fit to carry him naught but a murdered carcass, well
I wot he would hang it to the wall of his Fort upon the hill to keep
company with the skull of Wituwamat. So again I demand--and I crave
your pardon, most worshipful, if I am somewhat prolix; but indeed it is
such a merry sight to watch your noble countenance waxing more and more
rubicund and wrathful while I speak”--
“When I have counted ten I shall order the assault if I have no
reasonable answer sooner,” interrupted Standish briefly. “One, two”--
“Hold, hold, man! Why so violent and rash? Tell me in a word what will
Bradford do with me an I yield?”
“Send you to England for trial.”
“Trial on what count?” And as he asked the question Morton’s voice
took on a new tone, one of anxiety and even alarm, for conscience was
clamoring that a dark story of robbery and murder might have followed
him from the western shores of Old England to the eastern coast of New.
But Standish’s reply reassured him.
“For selling arms and ammunition to the Indians contrary to the king’s
proclamation.”
“And what is a proclamation, Master General?” demanded the rebel
truculently. “Mayhap you do not know that I, Thomas Morton, Gentleman,
am a clerk learned in the law, a solicitor and barrister of Clifford’s
Inn, London, and I assure you that a royal proclamation is not law, and
its breach entails no penalty. Do you comprehend this subtlety, mine
ancient? Suppose I _have_ broken a proclamation of King James’s, what
penalty have I incurred, if not that of the law?”
“The penalty of those who disobey and insult a king, whatever that may
be,” sturdily replied Standish. “But all that”--
“Nay, nay; know you not, most valiant Generalissimo, that while a law
entered upon the statute book of England remains in force until it is
repealed, a royal proclamation dies with the monarch who utters it?
King James’s proclamation sleeps with him at Westminster, and I never
have heard that King Charles has uttered any.”
“Let it be so! I know naught and care less for these quips and
quiddities of the law. The Standishes are not pettifoggers of
Clifford’s nor any other Inn. My errand is to fetch you to Plymouth,
and there has been more than enough delay already. Will you surrender
peaceably?”
“Surrender! Why look you here, man, or rather take my word for it sith
you may not look. My table is spread with dishes of powder, and bowls
of shot, and flagons of Dutch courage; we are a goodly garrison, and
armed to the teeth; we are behind walls, and could, if we willed, pick
you off man by man without giving you the chance of a return shot. In
fact, it is only my tenderness of human life that holds me back from
greeting you as you deserve”--
“Enough, enough! I will wait here no longer to be the butt of your
ribaldry. Before you can patter a prayer we will smoke you out of your
hole like rats.”
And Myles was in fact retreating upon the body of his command when
Morton hailed again,--
“Hold, hold, my valiant! I was about to say that I purpose surrender,
both to save the effusion of human blood and to prevent damage to the
house, which although no lordly castle serves our turn indifferently
well as a shelter.”
“You surrender, do you?”
“On conditions, Captain. The garrison shall retain its colors and arms,
and march out with all the honors”--
“Pshaw, man! I know as well as you that four of your men are away, and
that there can be no more than three with you. As for conditions, it is
our part to dictate them, and I hereby offer your men their freedom if
they abandon the evil practices learned of their betters. For yourself
I promise naught but safe convoy to Plymouth.”
“‘Perdition seize thee, ruthless’ Shrimp!” shouted Morton in a fury;
“we will come out and drive you into the sea to feed the fishes.”
“Ay, come out as fast as you may, or you’ll be smoked out like so many
wasps,” retorted Standish, tearing away his flag of truce, and waving
his sword as signal for the advance of his little troop, four of
whom carried blazing torches. But Morton, although he had stimulated
his courage a little too freely, had not quite lost sight of that
discretion which is valor’s better part, and absolutely sure that
whatever Standish threatened he would fully perform, he resolved at all
events to save his house; so seizing a handful of buckshot he crammed
it into his already overloaded piece, called upon his men to follow,
and flinging open the door rushed out shouting,--
“Death to Standish! Death! Death!” But the clumsy musket was too heavy
for his inebriated grasp, and before he could bring it to an aim
Standish sprang in, seized the barrel with one hand and Morton’s collar
with the other, at the same time so twisting his right foot between the
rebel’s legs as to bring him flat upon his back, while the blunderbuss
harmlessly exploding supplied the din of battle.
“There, my lad, that’s a Lancashire fall,” cried Standish with an angry
laugh. “They didn’t teach you that in Clifford’s Inn, did they now?”
“Oh, murder! murder! I’m but a dead man! Oh! Oh!” shrieked the voice of
one of the besieged, and Standish turning sharply demanded,--
“Who gave the order to strike? Alden, how dare you attack without
orders!”--
“I attacked nobody, Captain Standish,” replied John Alden more nearly
in the same tone than he had ever addressed his beloved commander. “I
carried my sword in my hand thus, and was making in to the house when
this drunken fool stumbled out and ran his nose against the point.
He’ll be none the worse for a little blood-letting.”
“Two of my fellows were drunk, and one an arrant coward, or you had not
made so easy a venture of your piracy,” snarled Morton viciously, and
one of the younger of the Plymouth men would have dealt him a blow with
the flat of his sword, but Standish struck it up saying sternly,--
“Hands off, Philip De la Noye, or you’ll feel the edge instead of the
flat of my sword. Know you nothing, nothing at all of the usages of war
that you would strike an unarmed prisoner!”
A few moments more and the whole affair was over. Morton’s three men,
foolish, worthless fellows, hardly dangerous even under his guidance,
and perfectly harmless when deprived of it, were set at liberty with a
stern warning from Standish that they were simply left at Merry Mount
on probation, and that the smallest disobedience to the law prohibiting
the sale of fire-arms, or instruction of the Indians in their use,
would at once be known at Plymouth and most severely punished.
“As for your Maypole, and your Indian blowzabellas, and your dancing
and mummery,” concluded the captain, “I for one have naught to say,
except that there must be some warlock-work in the matter to tempt even
a squaw to frisk round a Maypole with such as you.”
Morton, sullen, silent, and disarmed, was meantime led to the boat
between Alden and Howland, the other men after, and last of all
Standish muttering,--
“Better if there had been a garrison strong enough to hold the
position. Then we might have burned the house and haply slain the
traitor in hot blood.”