ONE! TWO! THREE! FIRE!
Alice Bradford’s instinct had correctly foreseen that Myles would
narrate his adventures to his wife just as Bradford had to his; but
the governor’s reason was also correct in arguing that Barbara would
be likely to keep such a story to herself, and the rather that Pris
Carpenter had once spoken the name of Sir Christopher Gardiner in her
presence with so much of maidenly flutter that Barbara felt there was a
story underneath.
So when Bradford took occasion, over a pipe in the captain’s den, to
suggest that it was as well for the present to keep the story of the
knight of the Golden Melice from the public, Myles replied with a
laugh,--
“So says Mistress Standish. I told her, as indeed I tell her most
matters; but when she had listened, her first word was, ‘I hope neither
you nor the governor will noise this story abroad, for it might do much
harm, and could do no good.’ A prudent woman is”--
“From the Lord,” said Bradford. “And you and I have cause to thank Him
for the gift.”
The talk drifted to other matters; and as the weeks and months went on,
the subject was not resumed until March came in with all the chilly
rigor of a New England seashore spring, and yet with certain fitful
gleams and promises of better things in store. It was in the midst
of one of those tempestuous storms incident to March, and always
reminding one of a fascinating naughty child’s passionate burst of
temper, that Hobomok appeared at the Fort, escorting a stranger Indian.
“Weetonawah wants head chief,” announced he succinctly.
The captain looked up from his Cæsar, and laid down his pipe.
“Weetonawah is welcome,” said he in the Pokanoket dialect, which he had
acquired in perfection. “But Hobomok should not bring him here. The
head chief’s wigwam is below the hill.”
“Pokanokets like The-Sword-of-the-White-Men best,” replied the stranger
in a final sort of manner, and Hobomok’s suppressed “Hugh!” seemed to
indorse the sentiment. Standish smiled,--for who does not love to be
trusted above his fellows?--and, rising, he threw his cloak about his
shoulders, saying,--
“Well, we will seek the head chief together, and take counsel upon thy
matters, Weetonawah.”
So, unmindful of the rain, as men who live close to Nature will still
become, the three went down the hill, and found Bradford in his study
reading the Georgics, until such time as the weather would permit
him to plough his own fields; for now that “oxen strong to labor”
had immigrated, their fellow-colonists were able to improve upon the
earlier methods of agriculture, and the plough had superseded the
hoe whose rude labors had slain John Carver. Laying aside the book,
but with its pleasant influence upon his face, Bradford received his
guests, gave a cup of metheglin to each of the Indians, who would
rather it had been Nantz, and asked Standish what he would take, but
the captain shook his head.
“I’ve had my noon meat, and care for nothing until night. Now,
Weetonawah, tell out your tidings to the head chief.”
So Weetonawah, who spoke no English, told in his own tongue--Standish
now and again translating for the benefit of Bradford, who never became
as apt an Indian scholar as the captain--how he and a Massachusetts
brave, while hunting, had come across a white man seated beside a
camp-fire, and leaning his head upon his hand as though sick or sorry,
they knew not which. Approaching with due precautions, they found
him friendly, and willing to change tobacco for some birds to make a
broth, for he was so fevered as not to crave solid food. But when they
had parted from him a little way, the Massachusetts man halted, and
choosing a war-arrow from his quiver, gave Weetonawah to understand
that this was a criminal fleeing from justice, and that the white men
at the Bay had bade the Indians search the woods between Shawmut and
Piscataqua for him, promising a reward to whoever should bring him in.
Still, during the brief interview beside the camp-fire, both red men
had silently marked how thoroughly armed, and how alert in spite of
his illness, the fugitive remained, and the Massachusetts man felt
that at close quarters he might fare even as Wituwamat or Pecksuot in
combat with The-Sword-of-the-White-Men; so, even in their friendly
parting, he had laid his plan to turn back and shoot the sick man as he
crouched over his fire; and lest his comrade should claim any part of
the reward, he would go upon the war-path alone, and rejoin him at the
wigwams of the Namasket village.
But Weetonawah was brother to one of the men killed at Wessagussett,
and he had imbibed such a terror of The-Sword-of-the-White-Men and
his vengeance upon those who molested the palefaces that he would
rather have killed his Massachusetts friend, and taken the chances of
punishment from Massasoit, than to be named as companion of an Indian
who had killed a white man. So, half by argument and half by threat,
he led away the assassin, and forced from him a promise to suspend his
purpose until orders should be obtained from Plymouth; consenting that
if the head chief and The Sword gave permission, he should alone slay
the fugitive and claim the reward.
So far, Weetonawah spoke and Bradford listened, but at this point he
started up and exclaimed,--
“An Indian promise! Who knows but that even now the wretch has stolen
back to slay yonder poor fugitive? Horrible! What warrant have you,
Indian, for believing this murderer will refrain?”
Sternly repeating the query, and receiving the reply, Standish grimly
smiled.
“He says that the Massachusetts swore upon his totem, but to make the
matter sure he brought him along hither, promising him a good noggin of
strong waters, and he is even now in the kitchen, waiting.”
“Have him in! Hobomok, fetch him in!” cried Bradford, still in dismay.
“Kill a white man in cold blood! Shoot a sick man shivering over a
camp-fire! Standish, they are savages and heathen to the end, and we
may as well preach Christ to the wolves and bears as to them.”
“Your best Indian preacher is still a snaphance,” replied the captain
grimly, as his mind glanced back to Pastor Robinson’s strictures upon
the Wessagussett chastisement.
“Here they come! Now speak to this man in his own tongue, and make him
understand that if he kills this white man we will require it at his
hand, and that, after no stinted measure. Terrify him, Myles, as you
well know how! They fear you more than all the power of the Bay Colony
put together.”
Now the fact remains that so long as Myles Standish lived his was
a name to conjure with among the red men; and although, except at
Wessagussett, he seldom, if ever, was engaged in actual conflict,
or was guilty of their blood, the rumor of his coming was enough to
disperse many an angry party, and to restrain many incendiary counsels.
Nor was it fear alone, for the savages admired and emulated, yes, and
loved the man; he went freely among them, slept in their wigwams, ate
beside their fires, smoked the pipe of peace with their warriors, and
showed human and friendly interest in their concerns. Never at any
crisis did he forget to exempt women and children from the fortunes of
war, and it was under neither his leadership nor his counsels that the
Pequot atrocities were committed by the soldiers of the Puritan Bay
Colony.
So now, as he sternly addressed the Shawmut Indian in his own tongue,
the latter visibly quailed, and, not daring to reply directly, slunk
behind Hobomok, and in a torrent of muttered gutturals besought him to
assure The Sword that his voice was as the voice of the Great Spirit,
and he would obey it as implicitly, for if he did not his own totem
would turn upon him and destroy him, as indeed he should well deserve,
and-- But here Standish held up a hand and impatiently interrupted
with,--
“There, there, that’s enough! You understand me, Shawmut, and you know
that what I promise I perform. Now then, Bradford, what is to be done?”
“Why, the man must be taken and brought in as gently as may be.
Doubtless he is in some sort a lawbreaker hiding from the justice of
Governor Winthrop, and it may be our duty to return him to the Bay; but
the first thing is to discover who he is and of what accused. Explain,
if it please you, to both these Indians that they are to find this man,
and take him by force of numbers or strategy, but without violence, and
bring him safely to this house. What reward have the authorities of the
Bay offered for his capture?”
“A kilderkin of biscuit, a horseman’s cloak, and five ells of scarlet
cloth,” reported Standish after a good deal of discussion with the two
Indians.
“The Bay is rich,” replied Bradford dryly. “Tell them if they bring in
this man unharmed we will give twenty pound weight of sugar, and that
is a large reward, be the man who he may.”
The Massachusetts Indian listened as this proffer was repeated, and
then in his guttural and sullen voice muttered something at which
Standish frowned and answered angrily, while Hobomok gave way to a
derisive chuckle. As the two turned and glided stealthily out of the
room, the captain also laughed and said,--
“The red rascal wanted a piece and some powder and shot, or at least a
pottle or two of firewater, as he calls it.”
“Ay! there’s the outcome of Thomas Morton’s work,” replied Bradford.
“The Bay people dealt hardly with him, yet none too hardly when we see
the despite he has done to all of us by arming the savages.”
“Hardly, do you call it?” echoed Standish. “Well, I know not. Had I
been the judge the sentence should have been shorter and less spiteful.
To my mind it is too much like the savages themselves to crop a man’s
ears, and set him in the stocks, and pelt him with garbage, and burn
his house in his own sight, and mulct him of his money, and ship him
out of the country, and after all leave him at liberty to pull the
wool over the eyes of the big-wigs and come back again to plague us as
he did before. ’Tis womanish to invent so many ways of tormenting an
offender, and yet not put further offense out of his power.”
“And if you had been judge?” asked Bradford with a shrewd smile.
For answer the captain raised an imaginary piece to his shoulder and
gave the word of command,--
“One! Two! Three! FIRE!”
And with the last word he brought down his right foot with full force
upon his own pipe, which had fallen unheeded from his pocket. The
governor laughed, and Standish ruefully picked up the amber mouthpiece,
exclaiming,--
“Now, by my faith! there goes the meerschaum that Jans Wiederhausen
carved on purpose for a parting gift to me when we left Leyden ten year
ago. And serves me right for wasting time on such boys’ tricks as yon
brag of what I might have done had all been other than it was. Well,
well! Sorry and sad I am to lose that pipe! Now I must turn to the one
Hobomok has carved out of what I take to be a jasper stone, but ’t is
heavy, and cannot drink up the poison of the tobacco as my meerschaum
did. There’s naught for a pipe like meerschaum, Will.”
“Clay is well enough for me,” replied the governor with a smile, as he
brought a new clay pipe from the cupboard and presented it to Myles.
Nor shall we be surprised to hear that when, a year later, Captain
William Pierce came over in the Lyon to Boston Bay, he brought a fine
meerschaum pipe as a present from Governor Bradford to his friend
Captain Standish.