“My name is Gillian de Cavalcanti,” interposed Gillian quietly, but Lucretia, flushing angrily, continued without looking at her, “If you will come with me, Will, I will take you to Mary and some other friends, Lora Standish and her guest, Mercy Bradford from Plymouth.”
“My sister Anice well-nigh raves over Mistress Lora Standish,” replied the young man, following his hostess, but even as he did so turning to look once more at Gillian, whose eyes, soft and dewy as a chidden child’s, followed him with a vague appeal that sent a tremor through the young man’s heart.
“Can it be that her aunt does not treat her well?” asked he of himself, and his next reply to Lucretia was so cold that she turned and looked at him, and then remembering said to herself,—
“The poison works quickly.”
The apples were pared, cored, quartered, or sliced, and, threaded upon twine, hung in festoons upon a frame erected for the purpose on the south side of the house; the cores and skins and smaller apples were heaped into the cider-press, which on the morrow would begin its work of reducing them to the cheerful and wholesome beverage as essential to our forefathers’ comfort as tea and coffee are to ours; the bountiful supper had been eaten and merrily cleared away by a committee of bustling matrons, and at last the great houseplace, the shed,and a platform extending for some distance from the house were “sided off” and swept, to make room for the frolics which to the young people were the true meaning of the whole affair. “Kissing games” were in that day not more objectionable than round dances are now, and perhaps that visitor from Jupiter to whom we sometimes refer for impartial judgment would have found them less so. Both classes of amusement depend very much upon who indulges in them, and when Gillian’s soft warm lips frankly pressed William Pabodie’s mouth a quick flush mounted to the young man’s temples, and he cast a startled glance into the dark eyes upraised to his with a look of fathomless meaning. Lucretia Brewster saw that look, and her own matronly cheek colored angrily. Later in the evening she sat herself down beside her sister-in-law, with whom she was on very affectionate terms.
“Tired, ’Cretia?” asked Mistress Love Brewster with a pleasant smile.
“No, not to say tired, Sally, but a good deal worked up.”
“About what?”
“Well, one thing and another. You know my Mary’s to be married Thanksgiving Day, and John Turner joins hands with her in begging me to go to Scituate along with them and set her off in her housekeeping. You know, being the only girl, she never’s quite let go of mammy’s apron string; and for that matter, I’m as loath to part with her as ever she can be with me.”
“Then, why not go?” asked Sarah sympathetically. “I’m sure the change will be good for you, and you’ve had a mort of work and worry lately.”
“Yes, I know, but—well, I’ll tell you, Sally. Idon’t want to go away and leave Jonathan and the boys with nobody to do for them.”
“Why, there’s Jill and your Indian woman Quoy.”
“Yes, Quoy knows all about the house, and can get the meals and all that as well if I was away as if I was here; but Gillian”—
“Why—yes, I suppose I know what you mean, ’Cretia. You’d be just as well content if Gillian wasn’t here, eh?”
“Full as well,” replied Lucretia with emphasis, and gazed full in her sister’s face. Then both turned and looked at the girl who, crying, “Button, button, who’s got the button?” was daintily trying to pry open the stalwart fist of Josias Standish, while Mary Dingley looked uneasily on.
“Yes,” said Sarah softly, as if answering some unspoken appeal. “And you don’t want to take her?”
“Take her, no! I believe Mary wouldn’t be married at all if it was to carry that girl along with her.”
“Well, ’Cretia, I’ll take her, for a while at least. You know the Elder is with us more than he is at Plymouth, and I’ll lay she won’t carry on lightly under his eyes. I never knew any man like Father Brewster in my life! He’d make the Old Boy behave himself, I believe, and never say a hard word to him neither; and my boys are but boys, and I’ll risk Love.”
“Oh, it isn’t Jonathan I’m afraid of,” said Jonathan’s wife quickly. “But”—
“Oh, don’t you say a word,” interrupted Sarah with a little laugh. “I know all about it, and it’s just as it should be; but it would be main lonesome for a young maid here with none but men for company, and I’ll ask her to come and make me a visit.”
“Will you? Now that’s comfortable of you, Sally, right comfortable and friendly,” replied Lucretia, rising to attend her summons, but with a face so relieved from care and worry that Jonathan, meeting her, whispered softly,—
“I’d liever look at thee than any of the young lasses, sweetheart.”
DONNA MARIA DE LOS DOLORES.
The weeks and the months gliding along with their exasperating illustration of thefestina lenteprinciple brought a morning of early spring, chill but bright, with a merry sun contending in the sky against some unseen adversary who continually pelted him with great white snowballs of cloud, which he either evaded or melted with the fervor of his breath. In the farmhouse built by the Elder for himself and Love, but not passing into the possession of Love and Love’s wife, a great fire of cedar logs burned fragrantly upon the hearth of the sitting-room, and flashed its light upon the silver tankard and cup burnished to their utmost brightness, and modestly boasting themselves upon the little mahogany elbow-table in the nook beside the fire, conveniently at hand to the leathern easy-chair, so inharmonious with our ideas of ease, which with a footstool in front was the Elder’s seat of an evening, or in the brief repose he in these latter days allowed himself after dinner, or when in the short and stormy winter days he could do nothing but sit beside the fire and delight his soul with study.
In this blithe March morning, however, the old man was out with his son and the oxen breaking up fallow ground, and chanting half aloud brave verses of Holy Writ as he guided the team while Love’s mighty arms held down the ploughshare.
“‘O let the earth bless the Lord; yea, let it praise Him, and magnify Him forever!
“‘O all ye green things upon the earth, bless ye the Lord; praise Him, and magnify Him forever!
“‘O ye seas and floods, bless ye the Lord; praise Him, and magnify Him forever!
“‘O ye children of men, bless ye the Lord; praise Him, and magnify Him forever!
“‘O let Israel bless the Lord; praise Him, and magnify Him forever!’”
“Wow! but this new colter is heavy; let us rest a minute, father,” cried Love, feigning to pant and wipe his brow, but really appalled at the look of his father’s face, and fearing to see him rapt out of his sight as was Elijah from that of Elisha.
“Rest? Ay, ay, I should have sooner remembered you, my boy. Yes, yes, rest if you need it, lad, rest and don’t strain your young muscles till they’re seasoned like mine.”
But reverent son though he was, Love, as he turned to lift the yoke and pat his oxen a bit, did not deny himself a slow smile of sober amusement.
In the sunny sitting-room, Gillian, with the firelight in her ruddy hair, moved around, dusting and arranging the place, and especially ordering the chair and footstool dedicated to her best friend. But why, when she had wiped away the last grain of dust, and placed the stool at just the best angle, and even drawn the wolfskin mat a trifle out of the centre that it might reach the front legs of the chair, why did she all at once cross her arms upon the high back, and, bowing her head upon them, sob as though her heart would break, and suffer a few great tears like the first drops of a tropicthunder-shower to roll down the leathern back and under the comfortless cushion? Lora Standish, coming noiselessly through the door from the kitchen, stood a moment wondering in the doorway, then half timidly exclaimed,—
“Why, Gillian, what’s the matter?”
“Oh! It’s you, is it, or is’t a ghost that it looks like? Let’s try it!” And with a sudden gliding motion, too much like that of a snake for beauty, Gillian seized her visitor by the arm, inflicting such a nip with her cruel slender fingers as left its mark for many a day. The blood flew for a moment to Lora’s cheek, but it was the blood of warriors, and she only said as she drew back a step,—
“I am looking for Mistress Brewster. Do you know where she is?”
“Yes, gone over to John Alden’s to help Priscilla in some mystery of housecraft; but come you in and sit down for a minute or so, or I’ll think, you proud peat, that you mean to slight me.”
“Why should I want to slight you, Gillian?” replied Lora with the angelic smile that distinguished her, as, throwing aside the little white scarf around her head and shoulders, she came forward to the fire, and leaning against the high mantelpiece put a foot upon the fender, looking frankly the while into the sombre face of the other girl.
“Oh, well,—oh, well!” muttered Gillian after a moment. “’Tis well you’re angel-like, since so soon you’ll see them.”
“What say you, Gillian? ’Tis well I’m what, said you?”
“Nay, sit you down, maiden,—sit you here in theElder’s chair and put your feet to the fire, upon his footstool. There, now, be biddable and meek, as fits your face.”
“Why, Jill, ’twas but yesterday that you almost smote Betty Alden to the ground because she would have sat in that chair; and after all, ’tis not half so comfortable as mother’s splint chair.”
“Oh, ay,” replied Gillian, as she turned toward the bookcase and began brushing the books with a wild turkey’s wing, “that’s different,—that’s different. I wouldn’t have let you sit there but for what I saw a minute gone by.”
“What you saw!” echoed Lora, not overmuch moved, for Gillian’s vagaries had long since been voted insoluble by the simple folk of The Nook. “And what was’t you saw?”
“Now, now! Can you read, Lora?”
“Yes. Father taught me when I was but a little trot. I learned as fast as the boys, he said.”
“Well, a priest taught me just as a man of the outside world would have taught a parrot or an ape. All the people who have done me any good have done it for their pleasure or their pride, and I’m naught beholden to them. But these books!—I often spell out their titles when I’m dull, and tired of laughing at men and women. Now hark you, Lora, here’s some of ’em:
A Toyle for 2 legged Foxes.A Cordiall for Comfort.Burton wearing His Spur.Memorable Conceits.Jacob’s Ladder.The Review of Rome.Troubles of yeChurch of Amsterdam.A Garland of Vertuous Dames.Romances of Brittannia.
A Toyle for 2 legged Foxes.A Cordiall for Comfort.Burton wearing His Spur.Memorable Conceits.Jacob’s Ladder.The Review of Rome.Troubles of yeChurch of Amsterdam.A Garland of Vertuous Dames.Romances of Brittannia.
A Toyle for 2 legged Foxes.A Cordiall for Comfort.Burton wearing His Spur.Memorable Conceits.Jacob’s Ladder.The Review of Rome.Troubles of yeChurch of Amsterdam.A Garland of Vertuous Dames.Romances of Brittannia.
A Toyle for 2 legged Foxes.
A Cordiall for Comfort.
Burton wearing His Spur.
Memorable Conceits.
Jacob’s Ladder.
The Review of Rome.
Troubles of yeChurch of Amsterdam.
A Garland of Vertuous Dames.
Romances of Brittannia.
“There, heard you ever the like? It ever seems to me as if these writer folk hetcheled their brains to find some title for their books that will prick curiosity to the quick and force a man to buy, that he may certify himself what ‘A Toyle for 2 Legged Foxes’ may truly mean. Is’t not so?”
“Haply. I’ll get father to beg the Elder to lend him that ‘Romance of Brittannia,’ for it sounds right relishing in mine ears.”
“And you love to read?”
“Dearly well.”
“Then you should have been a nun. They made much of me at Los Dolores, because I could, when I would, read the ‘Life of Teresa de Jesus’ to them.”
“And when you would not, could you not?” asked Lora mischievously.
“Indeed I couldn’t. I miscalled the words, I gabbled, I lost my place, I dropped the book, I doubled the corners and broke the parchment,—oh, they were glad enough to let me off, the poor nuns, the poor nuns!”
“And did you like the convent, Gillian?” asked Lora, so wistfully that the other paused a moment as if struck with a new idea; then throwing down her turkey’s wing she crouched upon the wolfskin, and nursing a knee between her clasped hands looked up into the pale face clearly defined against the dark leather of the chair-back, as she slowly said,—
“Why, what a nun you’d make, Lora Standish! Passing strange I never thought of it before.”
“Methinks ’twould be a happy life,” replied Lora, stifling a sigh.
“Happy! Well, for you it may be. Your father is of the old religion, is he not?”
“I do not know, for he says naught and will hear naught about it. You know he will not join the church here, although mother belongs to it, and when we all were christened he said lay baptism was better than none; but he goes to meeting as we all do, and gives as much as any man to the support of the minister. He knows best, doubtless, and mother and I do not much care to know all his mind.”
“Oh, ay!” replied Gillian, who had listened attentively, and now shook her head as if discarding some plan. Then lowering her gaze from Lora’s face to the fire, now crumbling into caverns, and vistas, and toppling turrets, and fantastic feathery piles of ashes, she slowly said,—
“’Tis out of possibility, but I would well have liked to see you a sister of Donna Maria de los Dolores. It would have been a heaven on earth to you, and the guimpe and coif and barb ought to suit you as jewels do me.
“Oh ’twas so fair there betimes!” continued she with sudden passion. “I mind me of one even just before my father fetched me away to see my mother die, one even in deep midsummer, and after vespers we walked in the garden, the sisters and another girl and I. Such a garden, Lora, oh, such a garden as you never dreamed of in these hateful northern solitudes! Closed all round with a high gray stone wall covered with passion flowers and jessamine and gay trumpet flowers, a bank of bloom and greenery that seemed to us the end of the world, for the banana-trees no more than reached the top of it, and inside, smooth greenwalks bordered with every flower that grows, and more especially all that are sweet and bewildering of perfume; for, Lora, when a woman puts on a nun’s robes she does not cease to be a woman, and while with the one hand she flings her flask of essences and her pomander box into the fire, with the other she plants a bed of pinks, to flaunt their color and send up their spicy odors for her delight.”
“Who cared for the garden at Los Dolores?” asked Lora, vaguely uneasy at the other’s tone.
“Oh, the sisters one and another. ’Twas rare recreation for them, and never permitted to those in penitence. They even mowed the lawns, and shaved the paths, and rolled the gravel, for it was a great and wide garden, with room in it for one to get away alone and entertain the blue devils in solitude.”
“Nay, Gillian, but could devils, blue or black, ever overpass that high wall you told of?”
“Could they? Oh, well—at least they never would have found you when they searched for prey, so much I believe, maid Lora.”
“But tell me more of the garden.”
“Well, as I say, ’twas wide and fair and perfectly ordered, and there was a fountain where a poor ball still was tossed up and down, up and down upon the current, till I used by times to snatch it off in very pity and toss it into a posy-bed to rest awhile, but Sister Marina always found it and put it back. Then there were bosquets, where the sun never came; and there were bordered walks, and benches under some great cork-trees at the foot of the garden; and there were, in their time, Annunciation lilies as fair and sweet as that Señor Don Gabriel laid at the feet of Madonna Mary, and roseslike those among which she laid her little Jesu to sleep; and there were incense trees where the berries and gums and bark grew that the sisters gathered so solemnly, and dried and brayed in a special mortar, and that smelt so sweet when the sister thurifer swung her censer up and down, and this way and that, to keep it alight till the priest who said mass on the great days was ready to take it from her.
“And there were goldfish in the fountain and birds in the trees,—oh, such glorious birds, and some of them so sweet of song! and there was a pond where the nuns fattened great fishes for Friday dinners, and feasted better on them than on the flesh of other days.
“But I was going to tell you of a time, one of the last times I ever walked in that garden or slept in my little whitewashed cell at Dolores. Ah, now, mayhap I had been a better girl had they left me there. Well, we walked up and down the wide grassy middle alley, the sisters, and Inez de Soza and I, and all of us were merry, for the Mother Superior was in a good temper and the prioress had got on her talking-cap, and we girls and the novices asked no better than to laugh at all our elders’ jests and cry Oh, marvelous! to all their stories, when all at once the sister portress came down the old mossy steps from the house, and kneeling to the Superior, who bade her rise, for it was recreation time and all rules were relaxed, she told her that a Dominican friar was at the gate with a comrade and asked lodging in the priest’s chamber outside the wall.
“‘But surely! When did we refuse hospitality to a holy man, Sister Juana?’ replied the mother. ‘Have him in with his comrade and give him supper in the sacristy; when he has refreshed himself I will see him there.’
“‘But he also begs permission to preach to the sisters,’ persisted old Juana, who was as obstinate as a mule; and as the Mother paused upon her reply, Inez and I who held her hands cried,—
“‘Oh, do, reverend Mother, oh, do let us hear a sermon!’ and she laughing said:—
“‘Well, yes, perhaps ’twill turn your hearts from the world to religion as I have not been able to do.’
“So we walked another turn or so and then went into the chapel, which was full of that soft purple shadow that fills such places as the night falls without. The wide door to the garden stood open, and I placed myself at the end of the bench so that I could well look out and see and smell and listen to the world while the friar should talk of religion.
“Oh, maiden, ’twas as strange an hour and as sweet as ever I knew or shall know! Outside was that fair garden, with the last rays of the sun touching the crests of the trees, the palms and cork-trees and acacias, and the fountain vainly leaping up to reach the sunlight, and the birds at their vespers, and the blinding sweets of the posy-beds, and just outside the door a great banana-tree that swayed and rustled in the breeze, and threw its long green leaves like wooing arms in at the door as if to drag me out, wooed me so strangely that if I looked and listened too long I must have yielded and leaped out to its embrace. And inside there was the dusky chapel with the pictures of the saints glimmering from the walls, and the white Christ upon his cross with his eyes downbent to mine, and such a passion of pleading in them as seemed to drag the heart from my breast, and the sisters in their white robes and rosaries, tinkling beads, and the blue cross sewed upon the breast of eachfading into the white, and their pure profiles downcast as they listened; and there above us all in the dim obscurity of the place the pulpit, of some black wood, and rising out of it that gaunt gray figure of the friar, his face pale and worn, his eyes ablaze with the fervor of his thought, his emaciated hands upraised, and his air now that of an angel of mercy, now a minister of vengeance and wrath.
“Oh, how he preached, that man! How his words poured out like a river in spring and carried all before them like that river in a freshet! Long ere he was done I was on my knees crying my heart out, and bowing myself to God in a life of sanctity and religion,—had he given me the chance, I would have dedicated myself as a novice that very night; and before he was done I had whispered to Inez,—
“‘Take your vows with me to-morrow,’ but she replied,—
“‘Yon comrade of the friar is no monk!’ And looking where she looked I saw close by the door where the Dominican had placed him a man in a friar’s robe and cowl to be sure, but with bold black eyes that gazed like those of a caged bird at all around, resting most often upon Inez and me, who were the only ones who wore not the sisters’ livery, but our own white school frocks and little caps. Somehow the sight of that face and the regard of those bold eyes scattered all my holy mood as the sun scorches up the dew and— But there, there, I’ll say naught to shock you, pale saint. ’Twas a fair picture, though, was’t not?”
“Yes, passing fair,” replied Lora dreamily, “and I were well content to spend my life in such a blessed retreat.”
“Your life, maiden! Nay, you have faith in God?”
“Why surely, Gillian! Who has not?” And Lora’s clear gray eyes rested in a sort of alarm upon the sombre face of the girl at her feet, who only shook her head, murmuring,—
“And God will care for his own.”
A SALT-FISH DINNER.
“Nay, Betty, flout me not! ’Tis an honest word I’ve said to you, and I look to have it answered honestly.”
“I know not what you call honest, Master Alexander Standish”—
“There, now! You can’t even speak without a gibe at my high-sounding name. I count it right down unkind, Betty”—
“Then if I don’t please you, there’s the road home. Isn’t your name Alexander in very sooth, or is that a by-name your mother calls you for short?”
“It seems to me, Mistress Alden, that your humor is a little shrewish.”
“There, that will do! Never speak to me again so long as you’ve breath to speak at all.”
“Nay, Betty, I crave your pardon. ’Twas rude of me, but you put me past my patience.”
“Which is such a straitened foothold the least jostle will drive you from it.”
“Betty, I love you. Will you be my wife?”
“Trust a modest man for impudence, when once he makes a start.”
“Betty, I pray you lay aside this mood, and answer me seriously. ’Tis my just due, maiden, and John Alden’s daughter should be honest.”
“Well, then, Alick, in all sadness I will answer you—no.”
“Do you mean it, Betty?”
“As I mean to be saved.”
“And will you so far humor your oldest friend as to tell him why?”
“You do not love me as the man I wed must love, nor do I love you save as a dear friend of childhood, and as such I shall ever love you. As such and no more.”
“I do not love you, say you, lass?”
“No. You fain would marry some one out of hand, because Gillian has fooled you, and you’re longing to show her that you care as little as she.”
“What—who—did she say such a thing, Betty?”
“Nay. Oh, Alick, I must laugh,—you look so red and so befogged!—like the sun rising on a misty morning.”
“Who told you—what puts it in your head that I care for Gillian?”
“I said not you cared for her; I said she’d fooled you; and ’twas mine own eyes and mother wit told me, and no one else. She’s played with you as my Tabby does with a mouse, only at the last she let you slip from under her claws, not quite killed, and you ran to your old gossip to have the wound salved; that’s all!”
“And do you believe it was all put on? Do you truly think she cared nothing at all for me?”
“No more than she did for your brother Josias, or my brothers David and Joseph, or Constant Southworth, or, or—the rest”—
“The rest! Oh, you mean Will Pabodie, don’t you? You’ve noted how of late she’s all eyes and ears for him.”
“Nay, I’ve noted naught.” The words were fewand the voice was cold, but something in the tone made Alick Standish look keenly into the face of his old friend. It was scarlet, and the brave brown eyes were full of tears; but as Betty caught his look she returned it with one of right royal defiance.
“Poor David!” said she, steadying her voice with a mighty effort, “he has not got over Tabby’s love-pats yet. He’s worse off than you, Alick. But here we are at home. Come in and have a mug of cider or a noggin of milk after your walk, won’t you, lad?”
“I’ll have the milk and thank you kindly. Isn’t that Sally peeping out of the dairy window?”
“Yes, she’s dairy-maid this week, and will give you the milk. You’ll catch her in her short gown and petticoat.”
“Won’t she be vexed?” asked the young man, with a smile anything but heart-broken.
“She’ll not eat you if she is. Open the door of a sudden and catch her at work,” whispered Betty; and Alick, the smile broadening into mischief, sharply pushed back the cleated door, revealing the figure of a tall girl, who, with arms bare to the shoulders, was at that moment tossing a great mass of yellow butter high into the air, her lithe form well displayed as she leaned back and held up her hands to catch her ponderous plaything. A linen cloth pinned around the forehead just above the brows formed a piquant frame for the rosy, dimpling Greuze face, with its sweet blue eyes and pure but tender lips; a lovely innocent maiden, and as Alick Standish looked at her as if for the first time, while she, suffering the butterball to drop upon the stone slab in front of her, would fain have pulled her kirtle straight, but dared not touch it with hermoist hands, and half cried in her pretty confusion, he knew as by a revelation that all his other fancies had been but dreams and follies, and here before him stood the woman, whom out of all the world he would choose to be his wife,—the woman whom he could love, and love to the end.
But while the man’s heart leaped up within him, like his who, searching for mica, suddenly comes upon diamonds, all that rose to the lips was a little laugh, and the prosaic petition,—
“Might I have a noggin of milk?”
“Surely. Betty shall give it you— Nay, she’s gone. Well, wait but till I wash my hands and put my butter down in the cellar hole. Mayhap you’ll lift up the trap for me.”
“Of course I will! Where is it?”
“Just here.” And tapping with one foot, Sally Alden showed an iron ring set into the floor, and evidently intended to raise a big trap door in the middle of the dairy. Throwing it back so that it rested upon the floor, Alick looked down the steep steps into the little deep and cool cellar, which in those days imperfectly forestalled the refrigerator of to-day.
“Let me carry down the butter for you, Sally,” said he. “’Tis too steep.”
“’Tis no steeper than it was last week, or will be next,” laughed Sally in a sweet tremor of bashful joy; for Alick was her hero, and hitherto had only treated her as one of the children. “But if you like, you may hand me the dish after I am down.”
“Yes, indeed. It looks like the head of John Baptist on a charger, as ’tis seen in the Elder’s big Bible.”
“And so it does,” replied the girl, glancing with anew interest at the great ball of butter in the middle of the pewter platter, which Alexander held aloft in mimicry of the picture both had seen as children.
Then presently, the butter deposited, the trap door closed, and the noggin of milk presented and quaffed, the two came through the long passage dividing the dairy from the kitchen, and were met by the mistress of the house, our Priscilla, a little older, but still as charming as when we first knew her, and showing among her daughters like the rose among its buds, the glorious fulfillment of a gracious promise.
“Good-morrow to you, Alick. Go into the sitting-room, you and Betty,—or no; Sally, you’ve been busy while Betty was on her travels, you go and make Alick miserable till dinner’s dished”—
“Nay, dame, I’m beholden to you, but I must go”—
“Surely you must go, but not without your dinner, my lad. ’Tis Saturday and salt-fish dinner, you know, and I’ll warrant me your mother’s ’ll be no better than I shall give you.”
“My mother’d be the first to say she’s no match for Mistress Alden in delicate cookery.”
“There, there, go say your pretty things to the girls, Sally or Betty, it matters not which, but don’t whet your wit on an old woman like me. Be off with you!”
Laughing and well pleased that fortune so favored his half-formed wishes, Alick followed Sally through the sitting-room to the front door, standing wide open to the summer; and then, sitting on the threshold, their feet upon the great natural doorstone which their children’s and their children’s children’s feet should press, the man and the maid entered into that fairyland we all pass through once in our lives.
“And some give thanks, and some blaspheme,And most forget, but either way,That and the child’s forgotten dreamAre all the light of all our day.”
“And some give thanks, and some blaspheme,And most forget, but either way,That and the child’s forgotten dreamAre all the light of all our day.”
“And some give thanks, and some blaspheme,And most forget, but either way,That and the child’s forgotten dreamAre all the light of all our day.”
“And some give thanks, and some blaspheme,
And most forget, but either way,
That and the child’s forgotten dream
Are all the light of all our day.”
“Alick! Sally! Come to dinner!” cried Betty’s blithe voice; but as the young man arose and turned his glowing face toward her, she stared at it for a moment in astonishment, and then turned sharply away to hide the smile that would in her own despite curl her lips.
“They’re stronger than we women in some ways, but they’re wondrously weak in others,” was the thought beneath that smile.
In the great airy kitchen, where no fire was made in the warm weather, a table was spread large enough to accommodate, besides the heads of the family, their eight children, and the two men and a woman who lived in the house really as “help,” and not servants.
A fourteenth seat was now placed for the guest between Betty and her brother Joseph, still his mother’s true lover and helper, but Alick noted with pleasure that Sally sat opposite, and gave him the opportunity to study her face, which he seemed never to have seen before.
The long grace ended, and the clatter of chairs and feet upon the bare floor a little subsided, John Alden, viewing with satisfaction the great codfish lying at full length upon the platter yet longer than itself, said,—
“George Soule has had more than ordinary luck with his dunfish this season; don’t they say so at your house, Alick?”
“Yes, sir, a small share, if you please.”
Alden stared, and his wife interposed:—
“He says he’ll have some, father. Did you knowthat George Soule had set up as dry-salter for the town, Alick?”
“Yes, I heard so. Indeed, father bought a quintal of dun and another of white fish of him,” replied Alick, wondering what Betty and Sally were laughing about.
“Now I don’t see why the captain portioned them that fashion,” mused John Alden, rapidly distributing the fish into fourteen empty trenchers. “For doubtless he knows as well as I, or rather your mother knows as well as our housewife here, that the only way to cook your fish aright is to bind a good dunfish carefully between two whitefish, and steep the three all night in lukewarm water; then in the morning to cast out that water and put in fresh, and again steep it so nigh the fire that it ever tries to boil yet never makes out. Finally, when all else is ready, master dunfish is released from his bondage, and carefully laid upon a platter unbroken, while his bedfellows the whitefish are thrown to the ducks or the pigs”—
“Or made into a mince wherein no man can tell the white from the dun fish,” interposed Priscilla. “Why, father, I should suppose you’d been ship’s cook all your youth, and major-domo ever since. I never mistrusted you knew how a salt codfish should be cooked.”
“I see a mort of things I don’t talk about,” retorted Alden quietly, “and if you knew not more than most women, I could tell you just how master tomcod should be served.”
“Try it, father!” cried Betty, who was her father’s darling and might say what she liked, because she never liked to say anything amiss. “Tell us now without looking around the board, tell us what should lie on it to be eaten with salt codfish.”
“Well, there must be a white sauce, compounded of cream and wheaten flour and butter; and there must be pork-scraps cut in dice and fried of a dainty brown; and there must be beets boiled tender, but not cut to let out the color; and there must be parsnips and turnips and onions; and there must be brown bread and white bread; and there must be sallet oil and mustard; and above all, there must be a good flagon of cider, and another to back it.”
“Right, right! Here’s every one of the things you told about and more, for here’s a dish of those roots John Howland got in Boston of the sloop trading to the Carolinas. Molly begged so hard for them that mother cooked some, but I doubt if they will suit with salt fish.”
“Father told of eating some in Boston, but we’ve had none as yet,” said Alick, and Sally, taking up one of the sweet potatoes, broke it in two and handed a piece across the table to Alick, who, eating it skin and all, as if it were a fruit, declared it with sincerity to be the most delicious morsel he had ever tasted.
“I’ve an apple pasty to follow,” announced Priscilla, as her husband pushed away his plate. “Rachel, you and Timothy may take away the trenchers and bring some fresh ones; and Sally, have you a jug of cream and a morsel of cheese for us in your dairy?”
“Yes, indeed, mother,” and Sally, glad to escape Alick’s scrutiny, jumped up and retreated to the dairy.
“While John Howland was in Boston he saw Ras Brewster,” said Joseph to keep up the conversation, which rather lagged through Betty’s preoccupation and her mother’s housewifely cares.
“He has been at Kennebec all this time, hasn’t he?” asked Alick with somewhat languid interest.
“Yes, but Master Winslow sent for him to company him to England. Will they make any stay there, father?”
“The Lord only knows, my son,” returned Alden with a ponderous sigh. “The Bay people, that is to say the authorities, have to my mind done an ill-advised thing in tolling Edward Winslow away from us. They say he has a skillful tongue and good acquaintance with the ways of courts; and so he hath, so he hath, but also he has a home, and comrades of old time who look to him for comfort and aid, the more that so many of the old stock are removed by death or distance. It is not well done of the Bay people, and much do I hope that Winslow will not deeply engage himself in their concerns.”
“And Wrastle has gone with him?” asked Alick in a low voice of Joseph, who nodded assent, adding presently, as his father lapsed into silence,—
“He’ll be writer and keep the papers,—a secretary, Master Winslow called it; and Ras said there was no knowing when he might come back.”
“Now here’s the pie, and the cheese, and the cream, and some fresh nutcakes, and some metheglin; so cease your lament, John, and be merry while you may!” cried Priscilla, cutting the pie, which was baked in a great iron basin, and was more of a pudding than a pie, as it needed to be, since fourteen hungry mouths were to feed upon it.
TOO LATE! TOO LATE!
The Thursday evening lecture was over, and Barbara Standish, with her son Josias and some of the neighbors, strayed homeward along the footpath leading from Harden Hill to the Brewster and Standish farms; but Lora lingered with her father, who spoke of English politics with Kenelm Winslow, who had just received a letter from his brother Edward now at the English court.
“One moment, Captain,” said the Elder’s grave and friendly voice, as Winslow bade good-night, and Standish turned to look after Lora who had strayed down toward the water. “One moment before you summon the little maid. I have letters from England”—
“And I too, God save the mark!” growled Standish, who all the evening had worn the face of a thundercloud.
“Ill news, I fear,” said his friend gently.
“Not more ill than one who has known the world for half a century should look for; naught more novel than falsehood, and treachery, and covetousness, and wrong.”
“Nay, friend Myles, nay, my brother; ‘Charity suffereth long and is kind’”—
“Suffereth long, but opens her eyes at last. However, I will not burden you with mine own griefs, Elder; you had somewhat to say to me.”
“Yes, but I fear me ’tis in an ill-chosen time. Your spirit is much disturbed.”
“Not so much that I cannot heed my duty, sir.”
“Nay, Myles, take not so stern a tone with your ancient friend and constant well-wisher. I fain would touch the tender spot that well I know lies deep within your heart. I would speak of our children, Captain.”
“Ah! and you have heard from Rastle?”
“Yes. A long letter, the full outpouring of his heart, and still the song has but one refrain, the story but one theme. Can you guess it, friend?”
“Ay, I can guess it.”
“And fain would hear no more on’t?”
“I know not, Elder, I know not; of a truth my soul is vexed within me, and shapes of wrath and bloodshed that I had thought buried with the old life have wakened and are thundering at the gate of my will. Had I that man here on this convenient sod, and I with Gideon in mine hand”—
The grating of strong teeth, set all unconsciously, closed the sentence, and in the soft gray of the twilight hour the Elder examined the face of his companion with anxious scrutiny, then sternly spoke:—
“Man! Satan is at your shoulder and whispering in your ear! I can all but see and hear him.”
“All but!” laughed Standish. “There is no peradventure about it to me.”
“Call that pure maid to your side, and the Evil One will flee.”
“Nay. Tell me what your boy says. Haply ’tis a better time than you could guess.”
The old man once more examined the face Standish would neither avert nor soften, and then, unable tocomprehend, yet following meekly the intuitions that guide faithful souls in such matters, he drew from his breast a folded sheet of the coarse rough paper Spielmann had in England taught the men of Dartford to manufacture at a cost which would terrify Marcus Ward to-day, and slowly unfolding it said,—
“I will read you my lad’s own words. The first page doth but tell of his voyage and his situation in fair lodgings with Edward Winslow, who is as a father to him, and then he goes on:—
“‘There are many fair ladies at the court who kindly notice me as Master Winslow’s associate; but, father, you know how it is with my heart, for I fully laid it open to you before I went away, sore hurt by what Captain Standish said to me the day you wot of; nor have I seen the lady of my love since that day, nor shall I, as I think, while we two abide below. And yet, sir, her image is more present to mine eyes than are the faces of these dames, or even your own, though there is naught so dear to me in this world as yourself,—that is to say, if you will bear with my fantasy, there’s naught outside of me so dear as my father; but Lora is within, the life of my life and essence of my being, and how should a man say his own being is dear to him, for to what should his own being belong save to itself and the God who gave it? Honored father, I feel that I should crave pardon of your dignity for thus claiming its indulgence of a lover’s fond imaginings; but, sir, you know how since my mother’s death left me a little lonely child, your tenderness and care have filled both a father’s and mother’s room in my life, and to-day I speak to you as I might to her had she been alive; and as I dream of laying my head in her lap and feeling her hand upon myhair and her half-remembered voice in mine ears, so now I come to you and say, I love this maid. I love her with all the power of loving God hath given me. I love her as Jacob did Rachel, as Isaac did Rebecca, ay, my father, as you did my mother, and life will never reach its fullness for me except I may mingle it with her pure life. Father, is there no hope? Is there no seven years’ or fourteen years’ probation that may for me pass as a few days for love of her? Will not you speak once again to the captain for me? I know not how she feels concerning me. When I spoke to her on that fair eve it was like arousing a child from its dreams of heaven; she knew not what I meant, nor how far her own heart could respond to a love whose face and voice as yet were strange to her; but with all her tender innocence she hath a singular aptness of mind, and a delicate discrimination that will ere now have spoken to her heart many a homily drawn from the text I gave her in that sweet hour. I cannot tell, I dare not think, but something within me dares to hope that Lora loves me. Oh, how fair those words look set down on paper,Lora loves me!Nay, father, I have spent a good half hour in staring at those three words as if they were some new gospel of hope. Father! I dare not ask your indulgence, and yet I know I have it, and well do you know when I thus unveil what some men would call my weakness to your eyes, that my reverence never was greater or more profound; but as I writ before, ’tis to my mother in you that I dare tell all these the deepest secrets of my heart. And now I will say no more, lest repetition weaken what hath already been said. But you will speak to the captain, will you not? Tell him—nay, you shall, if you see fit and find him in the mood, you shallshow him this letter; for though ’twas written for no eyes but my father’s and mother’s, ’tis the truth as I would speak it before God, and if all went as I would have it, Lora’s father should be my father too,—not like you, mine own father, but in some sort; and well do I know how dear he loves mine own sweet maid. Mayhap that love in him will answer to this cry of love from me, since both are fixed upon the same dear object. But there! I will stop at this word, for should I go on all night and all to-morrow, my pen could only trace again and again the words it hath so often writ. I love her, I love her, I love her!“‘On this other slip of paper I have copied out some verses lent me by a lady of the court, Countess of Pembroke she is called, and a right sweet and fair dame she is; but still I must speak of her as Sir Henry Wotton, who wrote the verses, saith to all other ladies as compared with his sovereign lady, the English princess whom he served after she became queen of Bohemia,—“What’s your praise,When Philomel her voice doth raise!”“‘And so with my humble duty and constant affection, I am, dear sir,Your humble and obedient son,Wrestling Brewster.“‘P. S. The copy of verses is meant for Mistress Lora’s own hand, if her father makes no objection.W. B.’”
“‘There are many fair ladies at the court who kindly notice me as Master Winslow’s associate; but, father, you know how it is with my heart, for I fully laid it open to you before I went away, sore hurt by what Captain Standish said to me the day you wot of; nor have I seen the lady of my love since that day, nor shall I, as I think, while we two abide below. And yet, sir, her image is more present to mine eyes than are the faces of these dames, or even your own, though there is naught so dear to me in this world as yourself,—that is to say, if you will bear with my fantasy, there’s naught outside of me so dear as my father; but Lora is within, the life of my life and essence of my being, and how should a man say his own being is dear to him, for to what should his own being belong save to itself and the God who gave it? Honored father, I feel that I should crave pardon of your dignity for thus claiming its indulgence of a lover’s fond imaginings; but, sir, you know how since my mother’s death left me a little lonely child, your tenderness and care have filled both a father’s and mother’s room in my life, and to-day I speak to you as I might to her had she been alive; and as I dream of laying my head in her lap and feeling her hand upon myhair and her half-remembered voice in mine ears, so now I come to you and say, I love this maid. I love her with all the power of loving God hath given me. I love her as Jacob did Rachel, as Isaac did Rebecca, ay, my father, as you did my mother, and life will never reach its fullness for me except I may mingle it with her pure life. Father, is there no hope? Is there no seven years’ or fourteen years’ probation that may for me pass as a few days for love of her? Will not you speak once again to the captain for me? I know not how she feels concerning me. When I spoke to her on that fair eve it was like arousing a child from its dreams of heaven; she knew not what I meant, nor how far her own heart could respond to a love whose face and voice as yet were strange to her; but with all her tender innocence she hath a singular aptness of mind, and a delicate discrimination that will ere now have spoken to her heart many a homily drawn from the text I gave her in that sweet hour. I cannot tell, I dare not think, but something within me dares to hope that Lora loves me. Oh, how fair those words look set down on paper,Lora loves me!Nay, father, I have spent a good half hour in staring at those three words as if they were some new gospel of hope. Father! I dare not ask your indulgence, and yet I know I have it, and well do you know when I thus unveil what some men would call my weakness to your eyes, that my reverence never was greater or more profound; but as I writ before, ’tis to my mother in you that I dare tell all these the deepest secrets of my heart. And now I will say no more, lest repetition weaken what hath already been said. But you will speak to the captain, will you not? Tell him—nay, you shall, if you see fit and find him in the mood, you shallshow him this letter; for though ’twas written for no eyes but my father’s and mother’s, ’tis the truth as I would speak it before God, and if all went as I would have it, Lora’s father should be my father too,—not like you, mine own father, but in some sort; and well do I know how dear he loves mine own sweet maid. Mayhap that love in him will answer to this cry of love from me, since both are fixed upon the same dear object. But there! I will stop at this word, for should I go on all night and all to-morrow, my pen could only trace again and again the words it hath so often writ. I love her, I love her, I love her!
“‘On this other slip of paper I have copied out some verses lent me by a lady of the court, Countess of Pembroke she is called, and a right sweet and fair dame she is; but still I must speak of her as Sir Henry Wotton, who wrote the verses, saith to all other ladies as compared with his sovereign lady, the English princess whom he served after she became queen of Bohemia,—
“What’s your praise,When Philomel her voice doth raise!”
“What’s your praise,When Philomel her voice doth raise!”
“What’s your praise,When Philomel her voice doth raise!”
“What’s your praise,
When Philomel her voice doth raise!”
“‘And so with my humble duty and constant affection, I am, dear sir,
Your humble and obedient son,Wrestling Brewster.
“‘P. S. The copy of verses is meant for Mistress Lora’s own hand, if her father makes no objection.
W. B.’”
“And here are the verses,” said the Elder, as the captain took the letter and immediately gave it back, while conflicting emotions strove eloquently upon his face. Then accepting the second paper, and turning his shoulder to the failing light, he read half aloud:—