THE NAME OF MILES
IN the great cabin two huge, smoky lanterns, that swayed from the beams
overhead, cast blending white circles in the middle space, while the
corners still remained dusky. Somewhere, there in the dark, a woman
was crying hysterically, and others, calmer, but with startled, white
faces, were standing beyond the group of men, who were gathered round
the door of the Billingtons' cabin. Miles saw about him all the faces,
terrified or menacing, but it was blurrily, as in a dream. He kept
telling himself it was all a dream, an ugly dream, and presently he
would awake to find he had never gone with Francis Billington, and very
glad he would be to awake so.
But the grasp on his neck--it was big John Alden, the cooper from
Southampton, who had dragged him out into the great cabin--was real,
and so, he now found, were the faces of the men who confronted him. The
Elder, William Brewster, with his gray hair, and grave Governor Carver,
he noted among them, with a hopeless feeling that all the majesty of
the company was come thither to judge him. Close by, he heard Francis
Billington crying, with tearful sobs, not dry howls alone, but Miles
dropped his shamed eyes to the floor of the cabin and did not look at
his companion. He heard Goodman Billington's rough voice, thick with
abuse and threats against his son, and then he heard the Elder cut him
short: "Peace now, friend. Maybe the lad is hurt."
Just then, from within the Billingtons' cabin, whence a light smoke
still drifted, spoke a quick, deep voice: "Come you in and lend a hand,
Alden. There is work for two needs despatch. The floor here is over
shoe thick with powder."
"Ay, Captain Standish," the young man answered promptly, and loosed his
hold on Miles's collar.
There was a little movement in the group of men, and Master Stephen
Hopkins, stepping closer to the cabin door, peered in and spoke
solemnly: "A full keg of powder broke open! 'Tis by the mercy of Heaven
alone the ship was not blown into atoms."
"I did not have it in mind to blow up the ship," Miles faltered,
raising his eyes. "I did but touch off a squib--because it would burn
bravely." There the words choked in his throat, for, a little back from
the other men, he caught sight of his father, and Goodman Rigdale's
arms were folded, his heavy brows drawn close together, and his lips,
beneath his beard, set in a way Miles knew of old. "I did not mean it,"
he repeated huskily, and, gazing at the floor again, began crushing a
fold of his doublet in his hand.
About him there was questioning and answering, he knew, and he heard
Francis whimper: "'Twas Miles. He touched off squibs, he did."
"Squibs do not make such a noise as that we heard," Governor Carver
interrupted sternly.
"'Twas daddy's fowling piece. Miles Rigdale and I shot her off, and
he--"
"Let Miles Rigdale rest," the Elder admonished. "Do you tell us of
Francis Billington."
Bit by bit a fairly accurate story was drawn from the two boys, though
by such slow and woful stages that before it was ended Captain Miles
Standish and John Alden, with their hands all grimed with powder,
came out from the cabin. Miles stole a fearful side-glance at the
Low Country soldier, who, being trained in the brutal discipline of
the camps, was likely to prove a harsher judge than the Elder or
the Governor, but, to his relief, he saw the Captain halt beside
Goodman Billington, to whom he growled out some pithy advice as to
the expediency of keeping his powder covered up and out of reach of
mischievous hands.
Miles took heart a little then, as much as he could take heart while he
knew Goodman Rigdale was frowning in the background, and even ventured
to look up when he heard Elder Brewster say, in a tone which a trace
of amusement and much relief made almost kindly: "Well, well, 'twas no
Guy Fawkes conspiracy, it seems, only the folly of two scatter-brained
lads. Your Excellency scarce will set them in the bilboes?"
"Nay, I leave it to their fathers to teach them not to meddle with such
tools in future," Governor Carver answered gravely; and thereupon, with
a surly mutter or so from other fathers in the company as to what the
two culprits deserved to get, the men scattered to weightier affairs.
As the group thinned, Miles was left face to face with his father, who,
making a curt sign for him to come after, led the way to the door of
the cabin. Miles felt queer and empty at the pit of his stomach, and
his fingers trembled as he began unhooking his doublet, but he followed
along bravely. His eyes were still downcast, and, as he stepped, he
counted the planks in the flooring and tried to think of nothing but
their number.
Out in the darkness of the forward deck his father gave him such
punishment as he looked for,--a beating with a rope's end, so hard that
Miles had to set his teeth tight and clench his hands to keep from
crying. Once, in the midst, Goodman Rigdale stayed his arm, and in the
instant's cessation Miles, standing in his shirt-sleeves, felt the wind
from across the harbor strike cold on his hot flesh, that was quivering
with the blows. "That is for that you near destroyed the ship," his
father spoke, gravely and without anger. "Now I must flog you for that
you disobeyed me, and had to do with one of those Billington imps."
The second whipping ended, Miles huddled on his doublet, stiffly and
awkwardly, glad of the darkness that hid his face. Goodman Rigdale was
speaking again: "And ere you lie down to-night, my son, remember to
give thanks unto God that by His mercy He has preserved you from being
cast into His presence with the deaths of all that are within this ship
upon your soul."
Miles did not quite follow the words, but, with a sense that he was
the chiefest of sinners, and with a keen realization that his back and
sides were smarting, he gulped out an unsteady "Yes, sir," and blindly
fled away.
Aft of the foremast, as he stumbled uncertainly, he ran against a
woman, and at once he knew it was his mother. In an unformed way he was
aware that she had been waiting to comfort him, and at each blow had
suffered more than he. Her voice was quavering now, though she tried
hard to keep her everyday tone: "Come, come down to the cabin now.
Father has shot a bird, and I've made a broth to our supper. Come,
deary, it is turning chill here."
Shaking off the hand she laid on his arm, Miles broke away and ran to
the mainmast, where the hatchway yawned. Slipping and swinging on the
steep ladder, he descended headlong; he was not going to his father's
cabin, nor did he know whither he was going, only that he wanted to be
by himself. On the orlop deck he halted an instant before passing down
into the hold; below, there would be many people, while here, for the
moment, he was alone. He stood blinking at the dim lantern that hung by
the ladder, till slowly it grew blurry to his eyes, and, raising his
bent arm, he hid his face.
It seemed only a moment before he heard someone come tramping up from
the hold, and felt a hand on his shoulder. He was turned round; he
had to look up; and he saw, standing over him, Master Hopkins, very
grim and stern, as was his wont. "I am glad to see these tears of
repentance, Miles Rigdale," he spoke severely.
Miles wriggled out of his hold. "I am not repentant," he cried. "I wish
I _had_ blown _you_ up. Now you can go bid my father flog me again."
With that he dodged the hand Hopkins put out to detain him, and,
jumping over some coils of rope, scrambled away out of reach.
Clambering over the chests and kegs that were placed upon the orlop,
he paused only when he reached the next cleared space, by the forward
hatchway that led to the gunroom. There it was all dark, a comfortable,
thick blackness, and, to make it safer and lonelier, he crept under a
table that was stored among other household stuff.
For a moment he sat panting, and listened to the lap, lap of the waves
upon the side of the ship and to his own heavy breathing, but he heard
no sound of any one's pursuing him. Doubtless Master Hopkins had
gone away to tell every one that he was crying and repentant, Miles
tormented himself; no matter, he was never coming out to be jeered at
and preached to; he would stay under the table forever, and he would
not shed another tear to please them.
So he sat, rigid and still, and each moment grew more keenly aware that
he was sore from his beating, that his head ached, and his burnt hand
throbbed, and his heart was big with a great burden of shame. Of a
sudden, in the stillness and dark, he heard a sob. Then he found it was
himself, lying with his head buried in his arms against the crosspiece
that braced the legs of the table, and crying helplessly.
He had lost track of the minutes, but he had lain there a long time,
he knew, for his arms were numb with the pressure of the crosspiece
against them, and his throat ached with much sobbing, when he caught
the sound of a footstep on the planking of the orlop. At the same
moment, light beat against his smarting eyelids, and, opening his eyes,
he raised his head to look.
The edges of the table under which he crouched were silhouetted blackly
against the yellow lantern-glow, which crept midway into his shelter.
Following with his eyes along the light, he could see beyond the table
the joinings of the planks of the floor, a bit of the ladder that led
to the main deck, and by the ladder, in shadow as the lantern was
raised, the lower part of a man's body.
Miles stared breathlessly at the commonplace leather shoes and kersey
breeches,--all the rest the table hid from his view,--while he strove
to hold back a sob that was halfway up his throat. It would out, but he
tried to turn it into a sneeze, which ended in a mournful, indefinable
gurgle.
Instantly the light of the lantern, swinging round, swept almost into
his face, and a deep voice commanded: "Come out hither."
Miles sat up, tense and braced. "Is it you, Captain Standish?" he
asked, in a small voice. Not that, to his knowledge, Miles Standish had
ever hurt any one, but he was a brusque, peremptory man, reputed of a
fiery temper; it was for this, probably, that Master Hopkins had sent
him hither, as one fitted to deal out further punishment to such a
criminal as Miles Rigdale.
"Come out, and you'll speedily find if 'tis I," Standish's voice
rejoined grimly.
Miles rubbed his sleeve across his eyes, the rough frieze hurting them
rarely, then dubiously crept from his shelter. The straight course was
to crawl toward the light, but to go that way would land him squarely
at the Captain's feet,--a last touch of ignominy that he could not
endure. So he scrambled painfully over the crosspieces and round the
table-legs, till he came out upon the open floor the width of the
table-top from the enemy.
"It's naught but you, is it?" the Captain greeted him, and turned the
lantern so the light fell full upon him.
The boy struggled hastily to his feet. "Ay, sir," he nodded, without
speaking or looking up.
The other drew a step nearer. "You're one of the knaves who tried to
blow up the _Mayflower_, are you not?" he questioned sternly. "Did you
steal down here to fire the magazine and finish the work?"
"I--I did not go for to blow up the ship, sir," Miles pleaded, raising
his eyes. With amazed relief, he saw that, for all his gruff tone, the
Captain looked more amused than angry.
Standish must have taken closer note of him, too, for he asked
abruptly: "You're John Rigdale's lad, are you not?"
"I am Miles Rigdale."
The lantern was lowered suddenly. "My namesake, are you? Do you
not think, sirrah, you bear too good a name to drag it into a
powder-burning matter such as this?"
"I do not hold it a good name," Miles burst out. "I would they had
called me plain Jack."
"Wherefore, pray you?"
"Miles is no name at all," the boy hesitated, between shyness and the
desire to vent a long-standing resentment. "It makes me think of the
stone in our village that said: 'Thirteen miles to London.'"
"Tut, tut, lad! Have you no Latin?"
Miles slipped one hand under the edge of the table against which he
leaned, and picked at a splinter he found there, while he stammered:
"N--no, sir. There was no school in our village, and, had there been,
my father could not spare me from the farm. I must help him, for I'm
mighty strong for my years," he added gravely. "And I never want to go
sit in a school, either. I am glad there will be no schools here in
the plantation, not till I'm a man and can do as I will. I hold that
is the best part of all in planting a colony, except the lions and the
savages."
"And what do you think to do with the lions and savages, Miles
Rigdale?"
"Fight 'em, sir."
Captain Standish chuckled softly in his beard. "You'll fight 'em, eh?
'Tis a great pity, in truth, no one has told you what name you bear.
You should know that Miles in the Latin tongue signifies 'a soldier.'"
Miles forgot that his cheeks were tear-stained and his eyes swollen,
and looked up happily into the speaker's face. "I am right glad of
that," he announced. "'Tis a good enough name, after all." He was
sorely tempted to ask the Captain if he had been named that after he
proved himself a soldier in the wars, or if they named him first and he
grew to it afterward, but he concluded that would be over-bold.
Though, after all, he began to doubt if Captain Standish were such
a terrible body. He looked pleasant enough now, as he stood in the
lantern light,--a stocky, square-shouldered man of some six and thirty
years, with yellow-brown hair and beard, and eyes so deep set under his
brows Miles could not tell their color. The linen bands at his neck and
wrists were small and plain, and along the sides of his doublet of dark
maroon kersey the rubbing of armor had worn down the cloth. He was not
so fine a gentleman, doubtless, as young Master Edward Winslow, but he
looked the man of war, through and through, and, moreover, he neither
scolded nor preached at a small sinner; Miles began to be glad in his
heart that he bore the same name as the Captain.
"So, after all, you're content to be named 'Soldier' Rigdale?" Standish
suddenly read the expression of his face.
"'Tis a soldier that I mean to be," Miles confessed. "I like the smell
of powder."
"So it seems," the Captain answered, in the dryest possible tone, and
then, as Miles's cheeks began to burn, went on hastily: "Which was it,
you or the Billington lad, put out the fire? We found the blanket on
the floor of the cabin."
"Mayhap 'twas I. I do not recall it clearly."
The Captain reached out his hand, and, taking Miles by a fold of the
doublet-sleeve, lifted his arm. "No doubt 'twas you," he said; "you've
blistered your hand here."
"I know. It aches," Miles whispered, with a sudden husky dropping of
his voice.
"You'd better go to your mother straightway and ask her to put oil on
it; that will soon draw out the fire."
"I can't," Miles gulped. "I can never go out among the people again.
When they all think I tried to blow them up,--and when every one will
know I have been newly whipped. I shall stay here forever." His voice
died down as he spoke the last: it did not sound manly, but uncommon
silly.
"You'd get mighty hungry if you did," the soldier answered him coolly.
"You're going to your mother now, my man. Run along with you. I've to
go on down into the gunroom, but I'll light you up the ladder."
Miles gave a tremulous gasp of resignation, and scuffed slowly to the
foot of the ladder, where he paused and smeared the back of his hand
across his cheeks; then turned to his companion. "Captain Standish," he
hesitated; then, as it was the only possible way of learning what he
wished to know before he showed himself among the company, he blurted
out desperately, "Will you tell me, is my face clean?"
Captain Standish looked down at him with a funny expression in his
eyes. "I think 'twill serve in a half light, if you slip directly into
your father's cabin."
"Thank you, sir," Miles answered; then added hastily, "You see, there
was something flew into my eye, and one that did not know might
think--I had been crying."