THIEVISH HARBOR
ONE sharp December afternoon, a week and a day after the Pilgrim
leaders went forth the third time to seek a place for settlement, Love
Brewster and his little brother Wrestling climbed down to the cabins
beneath the main deck to visit their playmate, Dolly Rigdale. The cubby
where Dolly and Miles and their father and mother had lived during the
two months of the voyage over the sea and the five weeks of exploration
that followed, was a dim box of a place, but the little boys liked to
visit it, not only to talk with Dolly, who was nearer their age than
most of the children in the company, but to see Trug and Solomon.
Trug was the big, grizzled mastiff, who had guarded the house and the
cattle faithfully for so many years that even stern John Rigdale had
not the heart to leave him to strangers; and Solomon, with the wise
eyes of royal yellow, was the fat house-cat, whom Dolly had insisted on
bringing with her to the new home.
"If it had been my pet, 'twould 'a' had to bide in England," Miles had
told himself, in one bitter, jealous moment, of which he was justly
ashamed. For, without question, Goodman Rigdale cared equally for his
two children, only he held Miles, being a stubborn chip of manhood,
needed frequent beatings, such as the Scriptures enjoined on good
fathers to give their sons, whereas Dolly was just a little wench, with
gray eyes like her mother, so she received very gentle whippings and
triumphantly lugged Solomon on shipboard.
The sleek, striped creature lay beside her now, for Dolly, still ailing
with her cough, was resting on the bunk beneath the blankets. Wrestling
Brewster, a big-eyed, silent child, sat by her, and, sorry to tell,
joined forces with the little girl in rumpling poor Solomon's fur. "You
are the best pussy," Dolly purred meantime, and, either because of her
flattery or because the warm blankets were comfortable, the cat made no
movement to leave her.
Ordinarily Miles sniffed at the conversation of eight-year-olds, such
as his sister, but this afternoon he gladly lingered in the cabin, for
the accomplishments of the Brewster lads were amazing enough to lift
them to the rank of companions. Both could jabber Dutch quite as fast
as Miles could speak English, and Love, the talkative one, could tell
wonderful stories of the queer Low Country city of Leyden, where all
his short life had been spent. It was of Leyden he spoke now, sitting
beside Miles on the turned-up mattress, where at night Goodman Rigdale
and his son slept, and Miles, with a question here and there to draw
out what he sought, listened again to the story of the Pilgrims.
Love had good reason to know it well, for his father, Elder Brewster,
had been from the first one of the leaders of the little company. He
had given all his substance to help the cause of that faith which the
bishops of the great Established Church of England held it right to
crush out; he had suffered imprisonment for the sake of that faith;
and finally, that he and his friends might worship God as they thought
best, had gone into exile in Holland.
There for twelve years the Pilgrim church held its own, though its
members, for all their efforts to support themselves in that strange
country, fared hardly and poorly. Good Deacon Fuller, the physician,
had been glad to earn his living as a say or serge maker; Master
William Bradford had been a maker of fustian; and the Elder had
maintained his family and aided his poorer companions by teaching
English to Danish and German gentlemen, and later by printing English
books.
Love told also of Master Carver, the recently elected governor of the
company, who had given his whole fortune to the Pilgrim cause; and
he spoke of gallant Master Edward Winslow, who, travelling in the Low
Countries with his newly married wife, had come to know and to respect
the Pilgrim folk and finally to cast in his lot with theirs. And, best
of all, Love could tell of Captain Standish.
There the boy turned to what Miles had been waiting to hear, and be
sure that now he eagerly drank in each word: how the Captain came of
a great family in Lancashire, where he had a vast estate which his
kinsfolk had taken from him,--so Love had once heard him say to the
Elder; how he had fought bravely against the wicked Spaniards, as far
back as the time of Queen Bess, when Miles Standish was a very young
man indeed; and how, of a sudden, he had come with his young wife and
joined himself to the Pilgrims, why, none could say, for he was "not of
our faith," Love gravely quoted the older people.
That last did not greatly displease Miles, perhaps because his own
father was rather a Puritan than an ardent Separatist, as those were
called who, like the Pilgrims of Leyden, broke off all communion with
the Established Church. Goodman John Rigdale grumbled about the bishops
and the vestments of the clergymen and other matters which Miles
neither heeded nor comprehended, but, for all his grumbling, as often
as the law insisted, he and his household went to church. One of the
first and liveliest recollections of childhood which Miles kept, was of
how the red light from the painted windows that his father hated used
to shift along the dark oak of the old pews.
Lately, though, John Rigdale had spoken out too openly against the
service book, and there had been a citation before the ecclesiastical
court. Miles scarcely understood the matter, but he knew that Dun-face,
the pet heifer, had been sold to pay a fine, and that their landlord,
swearing that he was too good a Church of England man to suffer a
pestilent Separatist hold a farm of him, had refused to renew the
lease, bought long ago by Miles's grandfather, which now ran out.
Then had come Master Stephen Hopkins, the London tanner, whose first
wife had been a distant cousin of John Rigdale's, and he had talked of
the new country over seas, where a man might have land and a farm of
his own for the asking and worship to please his conscience, not the
king's bishops. Master Hopkins had already made up his mind to embark
with the people from Leyden; he had met their agent, Master Cushman,
and he was acquainted with some of the London merchants who had
formed a partnership with the Leyden people, the Londoners to furnish
money to pay the expenses of the long voyage, the Separatists to give
themselves and their families to defend and till the plantation thus
gained.
In the end, Master Hopkins's statements were so weighty that Goodman
Rigdale followed his example. The stout farm horse and the cows and the
pigs were all led away to market, and Dolly cried over each one; and
Goodwife Rigdale, too, wept a little when most of the bits of furniture
were sold. But Miles thought it all very merry and stirring,--the
breaking up of the home he had known, the journey to Southampton, all
amidst new sights and sounds, and the ship, and the long voyage over
the sea, till the _Mayflower_ dropped anchor off Cape Cod.
He was more than a bit weary of the voyage and the ship now, however,
as he sat on the turned-up mattress in his father's stuffy little
cabin. The dead air was cold without being bracing, and Miles broke
short Love's discourse on the journey of the Leyden Pilgrims into
England, by springing up and stamping his chilled feet.
"It _is_ a shrewd cold day," said his companion. "See!" He puffed at
the air, and his breath made a little white cloud. "Maybe we'd best go
up on deck and run."
At that word the two older boys turned to the door, but Wrestling shook
his head and, pressing closer to Dolly, whispered: "Before I go, I want
that you show me the Indian basket."
Miles overheard, and delayed to draw from beneath the bunk the deal box
in which the treasure was kept. Wrestling was so young that he seemed
hardly more than a baby, and as a baby Miles had a kindly, protecting
feeling for him; when he rose with the box he opened it so the little
boy might have the first sight. Within lay a tiny basket all of silk
grass, pictured on which in black and white were birds and flowers of a
curious pattern.
"Did your father truly bring it from the Indians?" Love asked.
"He brought it home to me," Dolly explained proudly. "It was in an
Indian house, and my father found it when he went ashore with Captain
Standish. And so he brought it to me."
Wrestling touched the fragile thing gingerly. "I wish our father fought
the Indians once," he murmured.
"It is better to be an Elder," Love rebuked him sternly; then added,
lest Dolly's feelings be hurt, "though, to be sure, there can be but
one Elder in a company. The rest must be fighting men, must they not,
Miles?"
But Miles gave no heed; for just then the sound of soft footsteps made
him glance to the open door, at which the light drifted in, and there,
standing on the threshold, he saw his mother.
Years afterward, when he looked back, Miles realized Goodwife Rigdale
had been a young woman then, not above thirty, but in those days it
seemed to him she must be old, because she was his mother; he even
wondered that she had not hair streaked with gray, like Mistress
Brewster. Mothers were always old, he generalized rashly, just as they
were always gentle-spoken and full of kindness; only that last judgment
he revoked, after he came aboard the _Mayflower_ and heard Goodwife
Billington, a true London virago, rail at her sons and saw her cuff
them.
But his own mother was not to be belittled by naming her with Ellen
Billington; she was everything that was good and to be loved, even
if she did not wear such a brave gown as Mistress Winslow, nor have
such pink cheeks as Mistress Standish. Miles drew away from the bunk,
against which he had been leaning, to make room for her to sit, though
he did it awkwardly, because Love and Wrestling were looking.
"I'll bide a bit now with my little maid," she said, as she drew the
blankets more closely about Dolly. "You'll want to be running up on
deck now, I can guess, deary, and Love and Wrestling too, if Mistress
Brewster will suffer it."
"Mother, is the shallop in sight?" Miles cried eagerly. For, since the
exploring party sailed forth a week before, there had come so great a
storm that hearts aboard the _Mayflower_ were not a little anxious for
their welfare.
"They've made out a sail to the southward, I heard the talk run. Go you
and learn further, Miles. Your father will be on deck too."
Miles reddened a little; why would she speak as if he were a young boy,
to need his father? "Come, lads," he said, in a very old tone, to hide
his mortification, and led the way from the cabin. As he passed out at
the door, he heard a sorrowful wail from Dolly: "O me! Mammy, can I not
run about with them soon?"
But Miles forgot Dolly's woes and all, when he clambered into the
bracing air of the deck, whither the most of the hale ones of the
company had, like himself, bustled to watch the approaching shallop.
Shreds of dappled cloud half obscured the east, but low in the west the
sun was cold and yellow, and its light flecked the water and made the
sail of the distant craft gleam like gold.
Miles stared till for very dazzle he could see no longer, then turned
his gaze inboard, where it rested on the slender figure of a woman, who
leaned against the mainmast. When the light got out of his eyes, he
perceived it was Mistress Rose Standish, who, while he was still gazing
on her, came to the bulwark beside him, but, without seeming to see
him, stood looking toward the shallop.
Once and again Miles glanced up at her, thinking how bonny she was
with the flush on her cheeks and her brown hair straying from beneath
her hood across her forehead; and then he grew suddenly hot, for she
chanced to look down, and their eyes met. He drew away bashfully and
stared again at the shallop; the sun had now dropped lower, so the
waves around it were sombre, but within the boat sparkled a gleam of
light on metal armor. Miles almost thought to be able to distinguish
the forms of the men, and presently their faces. "Yon is the Captain,"
he broke out, half aloud.
"Do you see him, too?" Mistress Standish spoke, as if he had addressed
her.
"That's he, by the mast, with the steel corselet."
She looked down again, and the boy noted her eyes were moist, though
she smiled as she said: "You seem to know the Captain very well, sir."
"I'd know him anywhere," Miles answered earnestly. "You understand, he
was right kind to me."
Then he broke off speech, for the shallop was now fairly alongside,
and the men in her were calling to those on shipboard greetings and
questions and answers. Mistress Standish moved quickly toward the
gangway, and Miles saw her meet the Captain, when he clambered up the
ladder.
Next after him came Master William Bradford, and suddenly it struck
with a shock on Miles's remembrance that Mistress Bradford was dead,
drowned alongside the _Mayflower_ on the very day after the shallop
sailed, and her body carried away among the waves. Master Bradford,
for all the weariness in his movements, looked cheerful and hopeful as
he gained the deck, and his eyes went glancing over the women gathered
there with such a certainty of meeting one that, child though he was,
Miles realized something of the pity of it.
But after Elder Brewster had led Master Bradford away, the horror and
the pity slipped quickly from Miles. Drawing over closer to the gangway
ladder, he stood watching the rest of the shallop's company scramble
to the deck, and, listening to every scrap of speech, was soon eager
as any of the other boys in questioning the sailors and Hopkins's man,
Dotey.
The minutes ran on till dim twilight had darkened upon the water, when
at last, bursting with news, Miles clambered down again to Goodwife
Rigdale in the cabin. "They've found a place for us to settle, mother,"
he announced, barely within the door.
Goodwife Rigdale hushed him with a finger on her lips; Dolly was
asleep, so he must speak softly.
Miles curled himself up on the floor at his mother's feet, with his
elbow on her knee, and whispered: "'Tis at a place called Thievish
Harbor--"
"Nay, that's an ill name," commented the Goodwife.
"'Tis because a savage stole a harpoon from a ship's boat that once put
in there to truck, so says Robert Coppin, the pilot. It lies across a
great bay here, and there are fair green islands and many brooks and
cleared land and tall trees. We are going thither, all of us, mother.
The ship is to sail so soon as the wind favors. And if they like of it
on further look, we'll go ashore and stay. I want to go ashore again,"
he ended wistfully; "the week's out that father said I must stay on
the ship. Won't you beg him take me ashore first thing when we come
thither, mother?"
The flickering light that reached them from the lantern hung outside
the cabin door was blotted out then, as Goodman Rigdale himself came
in. Miles dared ask no favors of him directly, however, but, scrambling
to his feet, stood silent and unobtrusive, though he listened eagerly
to all his father had to say of Thievish Harbor, which he called
Plymouth. "So it is named on the maps that were drawn by Captain
Smith," he said, to which Goodwife Rigdale answered quickly: "I am glad
for the name. Do you not have in mind, John, how kindly the people
at our English Plymouth dealt by us when we had to put in at their
harbor?"
But this new Plymouth in America bore little resemblance to Plymouth
in Devonshire, as Miles found, to his surprise, when he had his first
sight of the place where the company was to settle. It was on the
afternoon of the day succeeding the return of the shallop that, the
wind at last favoring, the _Mayflower_ steered her course for the bay
of Plymouth. The sunshine was strong and clear, and the air mild, so
Goodwife Rigdale suffered Dolly come up on deck, where, well wrapped in
a cloak, she stood between her mother and Miles.
Others in plenty, all the passengers who could walk about, were
watching for a glimpse of the new home, but Miles, in his eagerness,
scarcely heeded his companions. He strained his eyes to see the
headlands, brave with evergreen, loom higher and higher, and ran to
question his friend, Giles Hopkins, who had been talking with the
sailors, as to what they were. Giles explained that the one on the left
was not the mainland, but a well-wooded point, and on the right yonder
the farther of the two islands, with the trees, was where the exploring
party had spent their Sabbath.
By the time Miles returned to his mother with the news, they were
running in between the point and the islands, and presently, well
within the harbor, they dropped anchor in a safe mooring ground. All
about them were headlands and islands; far to the right, across the
bay, rose a great hill; and just over opposite where the ship lay a
broad space of open land, with high hills behind, could be made out.
"Yonder's where we'll settle," Miles assured his mother.
"I see no houses," protested Dolly. "I thought there would be cottages,
maybe. Must we lie in the woods, mammy?"
"Nonsense! We'll build houses," scoffed Miles; he would have blushed
to own that, half unconsciously, he, too, had cherished the fancy of
seeing on the New England shore straggling streets and tiny cottages,
as in old Plymouth.
"You'll build houses, Miles?" teased his sister.
"Father and I and all the men," the boy bragged. "Build them of great
logs. Then in the spring will come a ship with horses and cows and
sheep, and we'll have farms, just as we had at home."
"With a hedge round the dooryard?" Dolly questioned.
"Yes, and meadow-land and ploughed fields. We'll have all in order when
the frost leaves the ground," Miles answered confidently.
Then he looked up at his mother, and was astonished to see that for
once her eyes were not on her children, but on the empty shore over
opposite. Her face was wistful, and it came on Miles that perhaps she
was not as interested in the farm concerns as he, who was a man, so he
said quickly: "And you can have a garden here, mother, full of rosemary
and daffadowndillies, just as at home. Maybe you'll not have to labor
so hard here," he added more vaguely, not quite understanding her
silence.
She smiled a little then. "That's a good lad, Miles," she said, putting
her arm about his shoulders; then she bade him go to his mates if he
would, and she led Dolly back to the cabin.
Miles stood alone, gazing at the home-shore and wondering where his
father's farm would lie. Still thinking on it, he was turning toward
the hatchway, when he almost ran into Goodman Rigdale. "O father,"
Miles broke out before he thought, "may I not go with you when we begin
our farm? I'll conduct me well and be obedient."
He stopped, surprised at his own forwardness, and he was more surprised
when his father, looking down at him gravely, said without chiding:
"Our farm? Ay, Miles, so soon as there is work to do on shore you shall
come with me and bear a hand."