SOLDIER RIGDALE
[Illustration]
[Illustration: "As if he knew the place and held he had the right to
come there."]
Soldier Rigdale
HOW HE SAILED IN THE "MAYFLOWER"
AND HOW HE SERVED MILES STANDISH
BY
Beulah Marie Dix
AUTHOR OF "HUGH GWYETH: A ROUNDHEAD CAVALIER"
_WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY REGINALD B. BIRCH_
New York
THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
LONDON: MACMILLAN & CO., LTD.
1899
_All rights reserved_
COPYRIGHT, 1899,
BY THE MACMILLAN COMPANY.
_Norwood Press
J. S. Cushing & Co.--Berwick & Smith
Norwood, Mass., U.S.A._
Contents
CHAPTER I Page
Playing with Powder 1
CHAPTER II
The Name of Miles 17
CHAPTER III
Thievish Harbor 30
CHAPTER IV
Hewers of Wood and Drawers of Water 45
CHAPTER V
News from the Shore 61
CHAPTER VI
The Going Landward 74
CHAPTER VII
The Man of the Family 81
CHAPTER VIII
In the Time of the Sickness 95
CHAPTER IX
Master Hopkins's Guest 108
CHAPTER X
The Lords of the Soil 125
CHAPTER XI
When the Good Ship Sailed 141
CHAPTER XII
The Sowing of the Fields 156
CHAPTER XIII
The Two Edwards 171
CHAPTER XIV
A Mighty Resolution 187
CHAPTER XV
In the Southward Country 202
CHAPTER XVI
The House of Bondage 217
CHAPTER XVII
How they kept the Sabbath 228
CHAPTER XVIII
At Nauset Village 243
CHAPTER XIX
Fallen among Friends 257
CHAPTER XX
A Son of Perdition 270
CHAPTER XXI
Between Man and Man 283
CHAPTER XXII
The Bearer of Tidings 296
CHAPTER XXIII
The Captain's Soldier 311
List of Illustrations
"As if he knew the place, and held he had the right to
come there" (p. 111) _Frontispiece_
Opposite Page
"With his arm up to shut out the glare of the lanterns" 14
"Dolly plaited a fold of her apron between her fingers" 66
"'Do you like to do it, Captain Standish?'" 102
"Saw the two young men close in combat" 184
"'Oh, Miles, 'tis the savages come for us!'" 214
"Miles made out the figures of the men in the shallop" 254
"The breath came gripingly in his throat" 308
SOLDIER RIGDALE
CHAPTER I
PLAYING WITH POWDER
WITH the approach of sunset, the wind that all day had ruffled the
waves to white edges died down, till there was left on the water only
a long, heaving motion, that rudely swayed the old ship _Mayflower_.
One moment from her broad deck could be seen the steel-like gleam of
the fresh-water pond on the distant beach; the next moment, as the ship
rolled between the waves, the shore presented nothing but solid sand
dunes and shrubby pine trees. But always overhead the sky, athwart
which the yards, bulging with the furled sails, were raking, remained
the same,--a level reach of thick gray that, as twilight drew on,
seemed to brood closer over earth and ocean.
How those yards seesawed up and down with the rolling of the ship, and
the mastheads, they dipped too, quite as if they might pitch down upon
a body! Miles Rigdale, standing with legs craftily planted and head
thrown well back, stared and stared at their measured movement till,
dizzy with the feeling that the great spars were tottering loose, he
was glad to straighten his aching neck once more.
"Did you see a goose, all roasted, flying for your mouth?" Francis
Billington called from the waist of the ship, where he perched jauntily
upon the bulwark.
Sauntering from his place near the companion way, Miles halted beside
the speaker; not that he had a great liking for Francis Billington, but
he was a sociable lad, who must talk to some one, and, as the bleak air
had driven the women and children into the great cabin, while the men
were absent,--the leaders conferring in the roundhouse and the lesser
men seeking firewood on shore,--he could for the moment find no comrade
save young Billington.
The latter was an unprepossessing lad, stunted and small for his
fourteen years, with elfish eyes which he now turned sharply on Miles.
"I take it, Jack Cooke is ill, and Giles Hopkins has packed you
about your business, that you've come to spend the time with me," he
suggested disagreeably.
"I take it, maybe you've spoke the truth," Miles answered unruffled,
as he propped his chin on his fists and braced his elbows against the
bulwark.
Gazing thus northward, he could see all about him green hills, wooded
to the water's edge, now higher, now lower, as the ship mounted upon
the waves, and the strip of sand beach, off which rode the bobbing
longboat. "I wish my father had taken me with him when they went to
fetch the wood," Miles broke out at that sight; "it's weeks and weeks
since I set foot on land."
"Pooh! I've been ashore thrice already," bragged Francis, setting one
arm akimbo, though he took good care to grip the shrouds tightly with
the other hand, for the bulwark was not the safest of perches.
Miles tried to swallow down his envy, but he could not help saying,
with a touch of triumph: "Anyhow, you saw no savages, and my father saw
'em when he went exploring with Captain Standish,--six Indians and a
dog, he saw."
"So did my father," Francis sought to crush him; but Miles, declaring
sudden truce, was asking, with civil interest: "You did not see any
lions when you went ashore, did you, Francis?"
"N--no, but Ned Dotey thought he heard one roar the other night."
"Father would not take our mastiff Trug on land lest they kill him.
Trug would give 'em a fight for it, though. But he couldn't fight the
serpents; nobody could. Did you know, Francie, there's a serpent here
in America,--they call it the rattlesnake,--and if it but breathe on
you, you die presently."
"How do you know?" asked Francis, awed, but incredulous.
"My father read it in a book about plantations in Virginia. Maybe
the serpents lie close in cold weather, though, so you did not see
them." Miles was silent a long instant, while he gazed fixedly at
the mysterious shore yonder, where all these rarities were to be met
with. "The trees do not look like our English trees," he said, half
to himself, "but I'd fain go in among them. Perhaps you found conies
there, Francis? There were a plenty of them on the common at home; Trug
and I used to chase them, and 'twas brave sport."
"Mayhap if you had Trug with you, you could start some here," suggested
Francis. "Tell you, Miles, you beg your father let you go ashore
to-morrow, and I'll go too, and we'll seek for conies together. Will
you?"
"'Tis no use," Miles answered, scowling straight ahead.
"Why not?"
"Father says I cannot go," the boy blurted out. "I answered him saucily
this morning, and he said for that I should not stir foot off the ship
for a week. I think--I think he might let me go ashore. Along the first
I was coughing, so my mother said I must not venture in the boat; and
then my sister Dolly was ailing, and I must stay to bear her company;
and then it stormed; and now he will not let me go. And I am so weary
of this ship!"
"I'd not bear such usage from any man," Francis boasted grandly. "If
'twere my daddy treated me so harshly, I'd tell him to his face 'a' was
a sour old curmudgeon, and--"
"You need not talk so of my father," Miles interrupted sullenly, though
he held his eyes fixed upon the shore line, not on the speaker. It was
hard, while he looked toward the land of wonders, still unknown to him,
to think quite kindly of the father who had arbitrarily shut him out
from the enjoyment of it. "If you miscall him so again, Francis, I'll
fight you," he added, conscience-stricken, in the hope of making amends
for the disloyalty of his thoughts.
Francis bent his sharp eyes on his companion, but did not take up the
challenge; indeed, a less discreet lad than he might have considered
an instant before coming to fisticuffs with Miles Rigdale. The boy,
for his scant eleven years, was of a proper height, with straight
back and sturdy limbs, a stocky, yet not clumsy, little figure, that
promised a vigorous stature when he came to man's age. His deeply
tanned face, that was lightly sprinkled with brown freckles, was
square and resolute; his blue eyes were very level and honest; and his
tousled brown hair tumbled about his forehead in a way to make more
women than his mother think him a bonny boy. For the rest, he was clad
humbly enough in doublet and breeches of dark gray frieze, with long
gray stockings and stout shoes; he wore neither cloak nor hat, and his
clenched fists, that now rested firmly on the bulwark, were bare and
chapped red by the wind.
It was the sight of the aggressive fists that made Francis use a
different tone: "You're a pretty comrade, Miles, to fly out at me so."
"You may leave my father in peace, then."
"Perhaps you'd wish me to leave you in peace too. I know Goodman
Rigdale has forbid his little son speak to me."
"I'm still speaking to you, am I not?" answered Miles, and bent to
adjust one of his shoes, so Francis could not see his face; those last
words had hit dangerously near.
"But you'll show me a clean pair of heels very speedily," sneered his
companion, "for yonder the boat with your good father is putting off
from shore, and when he comes--"
"That's how the wind blows, is it?" struck in a new voice close at
hand. Looking over his shoulder, Miles saw, lounging on a coil of
rope by the foremast, a certain Edward Lister, one of the servants
of Master Stephen Hopkins. He was a slim, dark fellow of some twenty
years, whom Miles admired for a tall swaggerer, because he always wore
his red cap rakishly on one side, and, since the rules about lighting
tobacco aboard ship were strict, was ever chewing at a long pine
splinter instead of a pipe. "So if your father catch you with Master
Billington here, he'll swinge you soundly, eh, Miles Rigdale?" he
asked, with his mouth quite grave, but a glancing mockery in his black
eyes. "Better show us how briskly you can run into the cabin."
Miles ostentatiously leaned his shoulders against the bulwark and
crossed one leg over the other, as if he thought to finish the
afternoon in that position. Shifting round thus, his gaze travelled
beyond his companions to the high quarter-deck, where he spied several
men trudging forth from the roundhouse. "Has the conference broken
off?" he asked, forgetting in his curiosity that he was angry with both
Francis and Ned Lister.
"How else?" the latter answered dryly, and, rising to his feet,
sauntered over to the two boys. "D'ye think they would confer without
the great Master Hopkins? And he quit the roundhouse long since.
Wearied out, doubtless, with such vigorous labor. It has taken them an
hour to determine no more than to send forth a gang to-morrow and try
a third time for a place where we may settle."
"Another exploration? Is my father to go on it, do you know?" Miles
questioned.
"They won't let any but the great folk have a hand therein; daddy said
'twould be so," commented Francis.
"True enough," scoffed Lister; "the Governor, and Captain Standish,
Master Bradford, Master Winslow, Master Hopkins, and--the worshipful
Master Edward Dotey."
"Aha!" jeered Francis. "They're taking old Hopkins's other man Dotey
along, and Ned Lister is jealous of him."
"Hold your tongue!" cried Lister, catching the lad by the scruff of the
neck, "else I'll heave you over the bulwark."
Francis twisted up his face and opened his mouth in a prodigious,
dry-eyed howl, which would have set Miles laughing, had he not been
intent just then upon the approaching boat. He could see her visibly
growing larger, as she bounded nearer and nearer over the swell of the
water, and each moment he recalled more distinctly in what terms his
father had forbidden him have to do with "that Satanish brood of the
Billingtons." Miles shuffled one foot uneasily; perhaps he really ought
to go into the cabin now and see how his sick friend, Jack Cooke, was
faring.
He turned away and had idled a few paces along the deck, when Francis,
who had been suffered wrest out of Lister's hold, called after him:
"Ah, Miles daren't let his father find him with me. I knew so."
"It's not so, neither," Miles flung back, and made a great show of
stopping by the mainmast, where he stood gazing down the open hatchway
which led to those cabins that were in the depth of the hold. "Aren't
you coming with me, Francis?" he asked presently.
The other, quite undeceived, came snickering up to him: "Have no fear;
I'll take myself off ere your father come. Sure, you're a stout-hearted
one, Miles."
"You're a pretty fellow to talk of courage," Miles was goaded into
replying, "after the way you howled out but now. You might have known
Ned Lister'd do you no hurt."
"No doubt you'd not have been afraid," his tormentor scoffed. "You're
not afraid of anybody save your father."
"So are you, if you told the truth of it," Miles took him up. "You'd
not have Goodman Billington hear you vaporing so for all the silver
crowns in England, and if Goodwife Billington came by and heard you,
she'd cuff your ears smartly."
Francis's sallow face reddened. "Much she would!" he said angrily.
"I'll show you I be no milksop to stand in fear of my father and
mother. Maybe now you think I'd not dare to--" he paused, his eyes
half-closed, while he tried to concoct some peculiarly wicked sounding
project--"to take some of my father's gunpowder and make squibs?" he
concluded, with a triumphant look at his companion.
"No, I don't think you dare," Miles answered stolidly.
"Come, then, I'll show you," the other cried, and headed for the
companion way that descended beneath the quarter-deck.
Four steps down, and, passing through a narrow door, they entered
into the stifle and stir of the "great" or main cabin. On every hand
murmured the ceaseless confusion that always filled the straitened
space: underfoot, sometimes with fretful wrangling, children were at
play; women were passing to and from their cabins, or dressing their
meat for the evening meal at the long table; upon the benches several
sick men, whose heavy voices were audible through the shriller tones of
those about them, sat together in talk. Over all, the brightness from
the narrow skylights fell wanly, so the corners of the low apartment
were dusky with thick shadows, and the dim outline of the great timbers
overhead, and the slits of doors into the double tier of little cabins
adjoining, could only just be made out.
Miles was glad of the half light, for he knew well that if his mother
should chance to be there and see him with Francis, she would make
a pretext of some task to call him to her. He caught sight of her
now, as she stood by the table in speech with Constance Hopkins, and,
almost treading on Francis's heels in his hurry, he slipped into the
Billingtons' cabin.
It was the veriest closet of a room in which he found himself, black,
save for a glint of sickly light that crept through an opening in the
door, by which Miles contrived presently to discern the unmade bunk
along the wall, the mattress, still spread out upon the floor, and the
iron kettle and other vague household stuff that littered untidily
the narrow space. Comparing it with his father's ordered cabin, he
recalled his mother's indignant comment to Mistress Hopkins, that Ellen
Billington was a poor, thriftless body, who would better be tidying her
quarters than gossiping with her neighbors.
"Now you'll see what I dare, Master Miles," Francis broke in, as, with
much panting, he dragged from beneath the bunk a small keg. "This is
gunpowder, if you be not afraid of the sight of it."
"It does not take much courage to touch gunpowder," said Miles, bending
forward from the bunk, where he had seated himself, and plunging his
fist into the keg. "Let's see your squibs, Francis."
Young Billington stretched himself on his stomach and, grubbing once
more beneath the bunk, drew out a fistful of rustling papers. "These
are leaves I tore from a jest book of daddy's," he bragged. "No doubt
you won't believe I durst."
Miles made no reply; after all, he scarcely cared to prolong his
differences with a boy who had such a delightful plaything as a keg of
powder. "Let me make a squib too, Francie," he begged, squatting down
on the mattress beside his host.
For a space there was silence, while, with some hard breathing, the
two, guided more by touch than by any sight they had in the dark cabin,
labored industriously. Blacker and blacker it grew all round them, till
they struck their hands together as they groped in the keg, when a
ray of faint yellow light, that must fall from a lantern in the great
cabin, stole through the door.
Now they could see how they were faring at their work, and Francis,
who had laid his handfuls of powder on the papers and folded them
quite dexterously, laughed in provoking fashion at Miles, who, new to
this game, had spilt the powder and failed to make his papers stay
folded. "It's all very well," the boy retorted irritably, as one of his
painfully made squibs, bursting open, scattered powder between his
knees, "but after you've made these mighty squibs what else do you do?"
"Why, I'll light a bit of match," said Francis, scrambling to his feet,
"and then we'll touch 'em off."
Miles jumped up delightedly, and, reasoning that a really satisfactory
squib should be set off in darkness, took from the bunk a blanket which
he fastened by two nails across the opening in the door.
Meantime Francis had struck his father's flint and steel together, till
at length he succeeded in catching a spark upon the piece of "match" or
twisted tow steeped in saltpetre. Miles could see the little red point
shimmering in the dark and, picking up the squibs, he moved warily
toward it. "Gi' me a squib," came Francis's voice, close at his feet.
More accustomed to the dimness now, Miles could make out the boy's
crouching figure and saw him lean far forward with one arm outstretched
to touch off the powder.
Then he felt Francis crowd up against his knees, and instinctively he
drew back so his own body was pressed against the wall. Out of the dark
on the floor, right at his feet, started a little flicker of flame
which, with a sudden whishing sound, leaped up, a broad, bluish puff
of fire, almost in his eyes; then, before the exclamation had left his
lips, died sizzling away.
"That was brave, wasn't it?" spoke Francis, in a rather quavering
voice. "You can touch off one now."
[Illustration: "With his arm up to shut out the glare of the lanterns."]
Miles eagerly seized the match and, setting it to a squib, flung the
twisted paper a pace from him. The same whiz, burst, sizzle, but this
time he lost the keen pleasure in a sudden hideous thought that, even
as the squib left his hand, came over him. "Francis," he cried, before
the flame died down, "is this safe, think you? Say the powder in the
keg took fire?"
"Pshaw! You're afraid; I knew you'd be," replied Francis, his own
courage quite restored.
Thereupon Miles lit a third squib to show his fearlessness, and then
together they set off the remaining two. "That's the last, and I've no
more paper," sighed Francis, and Miles echoed the sigh.
They were sitting now on the edge of the bunk; the cabin seemed very
black to their eyes, still dazzled with the last flash, and the air
was hot and heavy with the pungent odor of burnt powder. Miles sniffed
it contentedly. "This is what 'twould be like in a great battle," he
began. "Sometime I mean to be a soldier and have a musket. Did you ever
shoot with a musket, Francis?"
"No, but I've shot off a fowling piece," answered the other. He
clambered upon the bunk, groping audibly in the dark, and presently
dropped down again beside his companion with something long and
slender and heavy in his arms. "Look you, Miles, here's daddy's fowling
piece now," he said exultantly. "What say if I shoot her off?"
"'Twould make a mighty big noise in so small a room," Miles answered
longingly.
"Give me the match, then."
Later Miles remembered clearly how Francis had sprung to his feet at
the word, but after that all was a confusion of dire noises,--a rending
crash, then a sound of women screaming, of children crying, and of
men running with clattering footsteps across the great cabin. Through
it all he felt the weight of Francis Billington, who had pitched back
against him, and he saw a little spurt of yellow fire that licked along
the boards. Though he did not remember snatching a blanket from the
bunk, one was in his hand, and he was down upon the floor, smothering
the flames that would press out beyond the edges. A powder keg was
somewhere near, he recollected, and he beat out one little jet of flame
with his hand, that smarted fiercely.
It all must have taken a long, long time, but still the women screamed,
and the heavy footsteps had only just reached the door. The latch
rattled beneath a rough hand, the light streamed into the cabin, and
Miles dropped back against the bunk, with his arm up to shut out the
glare of the lanterns, and the sight, too, of the angry faces in the
doorway. "Francis, Francis," he found himself saying, in a poor whisper
that he realized was not meant for Francis Billington's ears, "we must
'a' killed some one."