THE CAPTAIN'S SOLDIER
LYING upon his own bed, whither Master Hopkins had carried him, Miles
harked to the rattle of eager drumsticks in the street, the hurried
rush of footsteps, the shrill calls of boys. Nearer, in the living
room, he could hear Mistress Hopkins's frightened tones, and the
clatter of swords as Master Hopkins and Dotey armed themselves.
Presently heavy footsteps came toward him, and Master Hopkins, with his
buff-jacket half fastened, opened the door of the chamber to question
him further of Ned. "He's hurt, and he made me to leave him," panted
Miles. "And the Frenchmen will find him, and can you not send some one
to help him, sir?"
"Unless Edward Lister's neck is broke, I'll trust him to shift for
himself till we have space to look to him," Master Hopkins answered
with a grim sort of chuckle, and just there the house-door banged open
and upon it Miles heard Giles's eager voice, "Father, may I not carry
Ned's musket, since he is not here? Bart Allerton has one; the Captain
himself said all who could fight should get under arms."
Miles struggled up, with head still dizzy. "I can fight too," he
murmured, but the older folk, without heeding him, tramped forth with
their weapons and left him to Constance and her stepmother. But the
women had terrified thoughts to keep them busy, so busy they took no
note when presently Miles, quite recovered from his run, slipped off
the bed and darted from the house.
Out-of-doors the men were rallying in haste to the shore, among them
John Alden, whom Miles hailed shrilly from the house-yard: "John Alden,
O John! May I have your fowling piece to fight with?"
"Ay, take it," Alden called, without looking round, and Miles,
forgetting he was weary, scudded his fastest up the hill.
He was to have a gun and fight, even if it was no more than a fowling
piece, he told himself, and, in a happy flutter that set at naught the
Frenchmen, he clambered on the table in the Captain's living room and
dragged down the fowling piece from the wall. He longed to take also
the rapier from the chimneypiece, but he had no right, so, contenting
himself with the gun, he hurried forth to do his part.
A gray day and a strange day; high noon, yet not dinner time, for the
whole order of life was broken, and beyond lay--no one knew what. But
Miles thought on the fighting, and, with his pulses leaping, clambered
to the gun platform, where a squad was stationed, and, ready as the
best of them, gazed out upon the ocean. There, sure enough, loomed
larger and larger a speck of white.
Captain Standish had gone down to the other men on the bluff by the
landing, so presently Miles ran after him. He carried his fowling piece
over his shoulder valiantly, and he stopped at the Elder's cottage to
call to Dolly not to be afraid, and he wondered at Mistress Brewster's
alarmed face.
The men on the bluff, too, looked grave and anxious, and the Captain's
voice was sharp and stern. But the boys who were allowed muskets,
albeit their faces were decorously sober, looked very happy, and
handled their weapons with such pride that Miles grew ashamed of his
paltry fowling piece.
"You might let _me_ have the musket a little time, Giles," he murmured
to young Hopkins, who stood beside him on the northern slope of the
bluff, where they were watching the horizon. "Surely, I could manage
it, and 'tis Ned's, anyway, and he is my friend."
Giles preserved an elderly, careworn silence, and puckered his brows
upon the ominous east, when suddenly from behind them shrilled a
whistle. Miles guessed who it was before he turned, so, though Giles
and some of the others cried out in surprise, he thought it quite a
matter of course when he saw Ned Lister coming across the fields to the
bluff.
Ned walked at a leisurely limp, with his fowling piece over his
shoulder, and his cap on one side; it was not till he came nearer that
Miles saw, too, that his clothes were muddied and stuck with briers and
leaves, and his face was white to his lips, that were set in a hard
line. "Well," he greeted his fellow-colonists civilly, "did you think I
meant to sit there in the bushes till you chose to come seek me?"
There he staggered a little, so Dotey caught hold of him, and just then
Standish, striding through the thin ranks of his company, came up. "How
did you get hither, Lister?" he asked, with whatever surprise may have
been his well in check.
"I walked," Ned answered, and then, as he saw the Captain's eyes upon
his muddied jacket, he began to laugh oddly. "That is, sir, sometimes
I rolled and otherwhiles I crawled. For I did not wish to be gulled of
the fight. And--Giles Hopkins, you thief! give me my musket."
"My father said I might--" Giles began, unruly for once, but there
a sudden sound of cheering on the hilltop cut short the dispute. A
man--Gilbert Winslow, they saw--came running break-neck down the steep
street, and, so far as he could be heard, called to them, "English, an
English ship!" and then those on the bluff, too, took up the cheering.
It was the sailor Trevor, who, from the Fort Hill, had watched the ship
grow larger till he vowed that he could make out that she was rigged
in the English fashion. Still the Captain held his force together on
the bluff till the stranger's nationality should be assured past doubt,
and, meantime, he bade Dotey and Giles help Ned Lister to the house.
"And see that he stays there," the Captain added dryly.
So Ned, turned limp and unresisting of a sudden, staggered away between
the two, and Miles, though he would fain have watched till the ship
should loom up round the beach point, thought friendship required that
he should follow after with the musket.
When he returned to the landing place, many minutes later, there was
no longer a doubt or a fear, for the flag of England fluttered from
the vessel's mast. The ship _Fortune_, with the reƫnforcements for the
colony, that was not expected for a month more, was casting anchor in
Plymouth Harbor.
That afternoon seemed all a hazy dream. With a feeling that he must be
some one else, Miles watched the men make ready the shallop, saw it go
dipping across the gray harbor, and lie to beside the great ship. He
saw the first boatload of the newcomers pull in to the landing rock,
and he gazed shyly and yet gladly at the faces of the men and women
who were to be his townsfolk. Elder Brewster's grown up son came with
them, and there were many other young men, and a few older, and several
women, but there were very few children among them.
At last, however, Miles and Jack found among the newcomers a boy but
little older than themselves, so at once they made up to him and found
that his name was Thomas Cushman. And because he had looked on ships
and sea till he was weary of them, they led him away from the harbor,
and showed him the spring and the Fort Hill, and laughed at him because
he was so certain he should see an Indian at each turning, and Miles
bragged to him mightily of his experiences among the savages of the
Cape.
It was near dusk when they came down again through the village, where
the last boatload from the ship had just landed. The street seemed
fairly thronged with folk, and out to sea a light sparkled on the
quarter-deck of the _Fortune_, just as it used to shine upon the
_Mayflower_.
Feeling secure and happy, Miles bade his new friend Thomas good night,
and walked home to his supper. "Bring firewood; we've many people to
eat with us to-night," Constance called to him from the doorway, so
he trudged on to the woodpile, where he picked out a good armful of
the piny logs, to make a brave blaze for the friends who had come from
England.
His face, as he worked, was toward the west, where showed a smear of
red, which the sun, struggling forth just ere his setting, had left
behind. Miles gazed on the gay fleck, that yet was lonely in the wide
sky, till a step near at hand startled him, and, turning, he faced
Master Hopkins.
"Lay aside that wood, Miles; I have to speak with you," his guardian
greeted him; and Miles dropped the wood and wondered what he had done
wrong. "Pray you, sir, John Alden told me I might take that fowling
piece," he offered his excuses.
"Am I always so severe that you look for naught but chiding from me,
Miles?" Master Hopkins said sternly, yet with something half wistful in
his tone. "I would but say to you that Captain Standish has long urged
me to let you be one of his household, and I have as long withstood
him. For all he is a brave gentleman, he is not of the faith in which
your father lived. But he has urged me strongly this day, and you,
too, Miles, you bore yourself fairly this morning; you have tried to
bear yourself well these last weeks, I can see. 'Tis possible that you
will not suffer Miles Standish to spoil you with lax discipline, and
in matters of faith you cannot go very far astray in this colony. So I
think it safe now to leave this matter to your own decision. You may
stay in my house, or go unto the Captain."
Miles breathed quickly and cracked a bit of bark between his fingers.
"Am I to decide now, sir?" he asked.
"Yes, now. There is a kinsman of Mistress Hopkins's come on the
_Fortune_ who will take your place in my household if you go. But you
need not go for that. As long as I have a house, there is a place for
you therein, if you elect to stay."
It seemed an easy thing to say, he knew what he desired, yet when
Master Hopkins stood looking gravely down at him and waiting for his
answer, Miles found it hard to give. "I--I-- You've been good to me,
after all, sir," he faltered. "I'm sorry I've vexed you so many times.
I--"
"In short, you wish to go to the Captain," Master Hopkins interrupted.
"Very well, Miles Rigdale. Be it as you wish."
Then he walked away, and Miles, gathering up his armful of wood for the
last time, wondered that, now he had his desire, he felt a half sorrow
that it was granted him.
But when he entered the house, different thoughts came to him. All was
stir and bustle within, for Mistress Hopkins was cooking supper for the
men with sea-appetites, who were to eat there that night, and suddenly
Miles felt it quite a part of the day's upheaval that he should leave
his old home. All afire with the pleasure of it, he went into the
chamber, where he tied up his few clothes in his cloak.
Ned Lister, who was stretched upon his bed, pulled himself up on his
elbow to watch him. "So you're going to live with the Captain, Miley,"
he repeated the boy's news. "Well, it's far better that you should;
there'll be no one in his house to lead you into mischief." Ned's face
grew serious and he was silent a moment, then broke out, "On my soul, I
have liked you, lad, and I shall miss you."
"I shall see you every day," Miles answered, setting himself down on
the edge of the bed.
"Hm!" Lister retorted. "Your Captain doesn't like me, Miles. Though he
did trouble himself to see how I was faring, when he came to speak with
Hopkins this afternoon; after all, he's a good fellow, though I've no
liking for the punishments he gives. But that'll change now. There's a
pack of jolly good fellows come in the _Fortune_, they say, will keep
him busy. Plague of this ankle! I might 'a' gone out and made friends
with them, and I'm sick to have speech again with an ungodly rascal
like myself."
Just there Constance pushed open the door and came in to bring Ned his
supper, so Miles gathered up his bundle to go forth. But Constance
had to kiss him good-bye, right before Ned, and tell him to come back
often. "I will," Miles promised soberly. "You've been good to me,
Constance, and--and if 'twill help you, I'll come tend Damaris--once in
a while."
"No, you shan't, dear, ever again," Constance said, laughing, and
pushed him out of the room.
He took the Bible that had been his father's from the chimneypiece,
and, while Mistress Hopkins was busy talking to her kinsman, a grave
young man who found no opportunity to answer her, thought to slip
quietly out of the house. But Elizabeth Hopkins spied him. "Where
are your manners, child, that you cannot say 'God be wi' you'?" she
assailed him. "After what I've borne from your carelessness, Miles, and
I'm sure your clothes never will be tidily mended now, and--"
But there Miles got the door open and scampered away. Trug came leaping
at his heels, and, fast as if Mistress Hopkins were likely to pursue
him, he ran till he reached the Captain's very dooryard, and was quite
breathless when he opened the door.
Inside, the candles were lit, the meat was on the table, and the
Captain and Alden and four of the newcomers were making their supper
and talking heartily the while. At the noise of the opening door they
all faced about, and Miles felt shy and abashed. "If it like you,
Captain Standish," he stammered, "Master Hopkins said I could come, so
I came."
"And you are right welcome, Miles," Standish said quickly. "We looked
for you to-night. Put down your bundle and come to the table. Let your
dog come in, too."
Miles slipped into a cranny on the form between Alden and a
black-haired young man named De la Noye. It was a roast duck they
had for supper, and the men fed Trug right at table, and they talked
a deal, of Indians and of hunting and of planting, and then, as the
Captain and Alden guided the conversation, of the Parliament and of the
Spanish influence and the war in the Palatinate, till, spite of the
excitement of the evening, Miles's head nodded, and at heart he was
glad when at length, long after the sober bedtime hour of Plymouth, the
men cleared the table hastily and went to their rest.
The newcomers were bidden lie that night in the bedroom, since two of
them still were weak with seasickness, but Alden and the Captain were
to sleep in the living room, so Miles silently elected to stay with
them, and he was glad when the chamber door closed behind the strangers.
"So you've a mind to share the floor with us, Miles?" the Captain
asked, as he threw off his doublet.
"'Tis like a soldier to sleep where 'tis hard," Miles confessed shyly.
Standish smiled a little. "We'll surely make a fighting man of you,
Miles, or you'll make one of yourself. 'Twas a pretty race you ran
alone this morning, your friend Lister told me."
"Lister made a stout march of it, too," put in Alden, who had already
rolled himself in his blanket and settled down on the floor.
"There's more mettle in that rapscallion than I judged," Standish
answered thoughtfully, and then: "Lie you down, Miles. Eh? No blanket?
Here, take my cloak; 'tis ample enough for you."
Indeed, it was, and very brave and martial, too. Miles curled himself
up in it, and liked the manly hardness of the floor beneath his
shoulders. He closed his eyes and half dozed, then, hearing Alden's
voice, roused up a little.
"Captain," the young man was speaking softly, "there's not an ounce of
extra provisions in the _Fortune_."
From the neighboring corner where Standish had stretched himself came a
non-committal "Um."
"And half these young fellows are equipped with nothing but the clothes
they stand in; they gambled away their very cloaks, when the ship
touched at Plymouth in Devonshire." There was silence in the living
room for a time, before Alden resumed, "We had enough to do in the
colony before, sir; now what shall we do with these?"
"Why, some we'll set to ploughing and some we'll set to fight the
Indians," said Standish. "And those that will neither plough nor fight,
we'll pack home to England. We've no use for idlers here."
Then again there was silence in the living room, and the embers in the
fireplace gleamed red, and once, leaping into flame, set black shadows
fluttering on the wall. "We've no use for idlers," Miles repeated to
himself. "But I'll work as mother would wish me to, now I am in the
Captain's house."
He drew the Captain's cloak closer about him, and thought to amuse
himself with pretending he was a true soldier, like the Captain,
sleeping in his military cloak out under the stars, but the reality
pleased him better than the fancy. He lay with his eyes wide open,
smiling at the embers. "The Captain's house," he repeated. "And I shall
stay here always."
* * * * *
Transcriber's Notes:
Obvious punctuation errors repaired. Author spells "rendezvous" as the
archaic "randevous".