A BOLD BUCCANEER.
“It’s an ill wind, they say, that blows nobody good, and I believe this is that same wind.”
“Tut, tut, man! ’Tis ill luck speaking against the wind. Wot you not who is the Prince of the Power of the Air?”
“Sathanas; and I verily believe he’s in this smoky chimney.”
“Well, then, Jacob Cooke, get you outside the house, and if Jack Jenney’s afeard of the one he says makes it smoke, he’d as well go out with you.”
“Thank you for nothing, Dame Damaris,” retorted John Jenney, laughing as he rose to his feet. “I didn’t look to be turned out of the house when I came to make a wedding visit, but mayhap ’tis so new to you to have a house that you haven’t welly learned to govern it.”
“That’s the truth, Jack,” interposed the master of the house, a little mortified; “so we’ll e’en leave the shrewish dame to her own devices, and go out to find a warm corner beside a chimney that doesn’t smoke, and a woman that doesn’t scold.”
“Go your ways. Your room is aye better than your company,” responded the comely dame, whom as Damaris Hopkins we saw a baby on board the Mayflower, and who, lately married to the son of Francis Cooke, was one of the most stirring young matrons of the town.
The two men, laughing, and yet a little reluctant to turn out into the shrewd east wind, paused outside the house. This new home, built upon land inherited by Damaris from her father, Stephen Hopkins, was on the westerly edge of Training Green, and thus high enough to catch the full force of the wind rising steadily since noon.
“Phew!” whistled Jenney, dragging his hat over his brows, “’tis enough to take the curl out of a pig’s tail. There’ll be some wracks along the coast, if this holds all night.”
“Come up the hill to the Fort, and ask Livetenant Holmes to give us a squint through the spy-glass.”
“I’m with you. But Holmes isn’t half the good fellow the captain was. The Fort don’t seem the same place.”
“No. And yet the captain could give a rough lick with his tongue, if one angered him.”
“Yes. You, and Bart Allerton, and Peregrine White, and Giles Hopkins used to catch it once in a while when you meddled or made with the guns.”
“Yes, and when he trained us in the manual exercise. But we’re all beholden to him for knowing how to manage a piece man-fashion.”
“Ay, we’re all beholden to him, and sorry am I he’s gone from the town, and they say is breaking in health and spirit.”
“Since father went it seems as if the old settlers were passing away and we youngsters are to hold the helm.” And Jacob sighed in a gruffly sentimental sort of fashion.
“You’re right, Cooke, and I sore mistrust our fathers’ chairs will prove too wide for us. I know mine is, and often enough I wish the old man back.”
“Ha! That was a shrewd twist of the wind! It seemed to snatch my breath. Well, here we are.” And raising the heavy iron latch, the two men precipitated themselves into the great lower room of the Fort, where once we saw the Pilgrims hold their fast when drought and famine were sore upon them, and once we assisted at the trial of John Oldhame.
The religious services of the town were still held in this place, although it had long been Pastor Rayner’s urgent appeal to the people that they should build a suitable meeting-house for the worship of God, and no longer mingle ecclesiastical and secular pursuits in the same building. But since the removal of some of the colony’s wealthiest and most influential townsmen to Duxbury, Scituate, Marshfield, and the Cape towns, poor Plymouth had become so destitute that her sons could barely provide food for the body, and had little money or energy to spare in suitably serving the soul’s aliment.
And now help was to come, and from a most unexpected source.
Upon the platform at the top of the Fort the two visitors found Lieutenant Holmes, sheltered from the wind behind a sentry-box, and absorbed in the use of the spy-glass they had come to seek.
“Well, and what do you see, Livetenant?” demanded Cooke, ever ready with his tongue. The soldier, who after the manner of most men when absorbed in the use of one sense was slow to occupy himself with another (it being one of the privileges of womanhood to do two things at once and do both well), did not reply at once, and Jenney, screening his eyes with his hand, looked out to seaward for a long moment, and then cried,—
“Surely there’s a sail in the scurry off the Gurnet! Isn’t it so, Livetenant?”
“A sail, say you?” replied Holmes slowly, and in the mechanical tone of one whose eye is glued to a spy-glass. “Well, double it, and thribble it, and mayhap you’ll hit closer to the bull’s eye.”
“Three sail!” exclaimed Cooke, fairly dancing with excitement. “Come, now, let’s have a squint, Holmes, just a cast of the eye, and I’ll give back the glass in a jiffy. Let’s have it, there’s a Christian!”
“Well, then, Jake, take your squint, and tell me what you make of it.” And the lieutenant, laughing a little, rose to his feet, handed the glass to Cooke, and rubbed his eyes, which, in fact, had declined to serve any longer in that one-sided fashion.
“You’re right, Holmes, you’re right! ’Tis three sail, and sizable craft, too; brigantines, I should say.”
“Come, come, Jake!” expostulated the lieutenant jealously. “A man’s not going to tell a brigantine from a bark at this distance, and with such a spoor flying.”
“Mabbe not, Livetenant, mabbe not; but I’ll miss my guess if it’s not a brigantine I’ve got in the field now, and laboring mightily she is. Take my word for it, Brown’s Island’ll be the death of her, unless they’ve got a skipper out of a thousand, and men of might to handle helm and canvas.”
“Give me one peep before you take the glass,” pleaded Jenney, and jolly Holmes consenting, the young fellow so availed himself of the privilege that Cooke, who was a trifle short-sighted, and found his own eyes useless, protested,—
“It’s bad manners for any man to take so long a pull at the glass! Pass it around lively is the rule.”
“My chance now,” cried Holmes peremptorily; so the three men watched, turn and turn about, until Holmes after a long survey handed the glass to Cooke, saying,—
“It’s time for me to go down and report to the governor. Stay you here and keep goal till I come back.”
“All right. I’ll do it,” briefly replied Cooke, already absorbed in the sense of sight.
In the wide house under the hill, where Bradford and his early love were growing placidly old together, there was a guest of unusual degree, and Lieutenant Holmes, requesting to see the governor at once, was ushered into the dining-room, where with the master and mistress of the house, their two sons and Gillian, sat a priest in the strait garb of the Jesuit, and bearing upon his thin, shrewd face the traces of that cultivation and worldly facility generally marking the Order which has ruled the world, and yet failed to save itself. This was Father Drouillette, a Frenchman by birth, a cosmopolitan by training, visiting the New World, not, as we may be sure, without a purpose, and yet quite capable of allowing himself to be torn in little shreds without suffering that purpose to be discovered.
He had already been in Boston, and the fishing-smack that brought him from thence to Plymouth would with the morning’s tide sail for Manhattan, so that four-and-twenty hours comprised his stay in Plymouth; but this brief sojourn was enough for the Jesuit to see and know that the soil of the Old Colony was not yet ripe for the seeds of the cinchona (then called Jesuit’s Bark), and also to read Bradford’s noble nature and courteous kindliness, to both of which he did full justice in his report, adding that as the day was Friday, the governor gave him an excellent dinner of fish.
After the fish came a delicate pudding, succeeded by a dessert, over which the family still sat when Lieutenant Holmes, entering the room, reported three large vessels in distress driving into the harbor, and already off Beach Point.
“Are the lives of the mariners in danger?” inquired the priest, crossing himself so unobtrusively that only Bradford perceived the gesture.
“I fear for them if they do not keep to the channel, for the tide is on the ebb, and ’tis but a crooked course,” replied Holmes; and the governor, rising, said somewhat hurriedly,—
“If you will excuse me, sir, I will leave you with my wife for a little, and go to see that a pilot is sent out”—
“I told Doten to get his boat ready, and wait your Excellency’s orders,” interposed Holmes, resolute to give the governor his full honors before this stranger.
“That was well done, friend,” replied Bradford gently, and would have left the room, but the priest, rising nimbly, and taking his cloak and hat from the deer’s antlers where they hung, exclaimed, in his perfect although accented English, “Nay, I will not be left behind. There may be use for another pair of hands.”
“And possibly for a turn of priest-craft,” thought Bradford, smiling to himself; but Drouillette, catching the smile, returned it with a little shrug and arch of the eyebrows, saying in French,—
“And why not? Few mariners sail from Geneva.”
“You are in your right, sir,” returned the governor in the same tongue, and courteously motioning his guest to pass before him, while Gillian, to whom French was a mother tongue, listened with both ears, and resolved toby and by hold a private conversation with the priest, who already had perceived her knowledge of his language and taken the measure of her nature; that she would prove an easy proselyte, and quite enjoy the intrigue of covertly becoming a Catholic while openly remaining in a Protestant community, he had also perceived, but after a moment’s thought had decided the facile victory to be at once valueless and dangerous, and during the rest of his stay opposed a bland stupidity to all the girl’s ingenious advances.
The stout pilot boat, clumsy enough as contrasted with those that to-day skim across the waters of Plymouth harbor, but then a model of beauty and skill, lay ready beside the Rock, and at a word from the governor speeded forth under its close-reefed foresail, carrying three active fellows to the rescue of the foremost brigantine, which, warned by the sounding-lead of shoal water, and struggling against a current which insisted upon setting her ashore on the beach, was lying to and waiting for pilotage. Half an hour later the three vessels were anchored in the stream, and a procession of boats was bringing their officers and detachments of the crews ashore, discharging them at a rude stone pier and bulkhead extending a few feet beyond the Rock, which, as yet uninjured by patriotic zeal, lay calmly presiding over the modern commotions that had come to disturb its centuries of solitude.
In the place of honor in the first boat sat a very elegant gentleman, dressed in all the picturesque bravery of a cavalier: his broad hat covered with ostrich plumes, his doublet of Genoese velvet slashed with satin of Lyons in harmonious shades of cramoisie and murrey, his breeches of velvet adorned with a deep lacealmost hidden by the wrinkled tops of boots of soft Cordovan leather. To correct the effeminacy of this costume, accented as it was by jewels, lace, and perfume in profusion, Captain Cromwell, prince and leader of the buccaneers soon to swarm the Spanish seas, carried so proud and warlike a countenance, curled his mustachios so fiercely, showed such strong white teeth set in so massive a jaw, and such broad shoulders and muscular limbs, that it must have been a rash man, indeed, who ventured to make criticism of whatever the captain might choose to wear, or to inquire how an officer under commission from the new Commonwealth of England still displayed himself under the guise of a royalist cavalier. The explanation probably, had he chosen to give it, was that the Spanish seas were a long distance from England, that it was a long while since his letter-of-marque had left home, and that as the King was still at large, the fortune of war might at any moment replace him upon the throne, so that in view of all these circumstances a successful buccaneer must be in a great measure his own lawgiver. Nominally, Captain Cromwell was in religion and politics a Parliament man; at heart, he was a Roman Catholic and a cavalier, and at this distance from the central authority indulged himself in at least dressing to suit his own taste.
Springing ashore as the boat touched the pier, the commandant, without waiting for an introduction from Lieutenant Holmes, who escorted him, doffed his hat until the plumes swept the ground and bowed low, both to the governor and the priest, saying,—
“My respects to you, most noble Governor, and to you, reverend sir, and my thanks for the timely aid you have sent us. Allow me to present myself as ThomasCromwell, in command of these three brigantines sent out by the English government to hold our country’s foes, especially those of Spain, in check, and to make reprisals for certain offenses offered to the British flag in these waters. As it is long since I had news from England, I will not add ‘God save the King!’ nor yet ‘God save the Parliament!’ lest I should offend somebody’s sensibilities, but content myself with simply exclaiming, ‘God save old England!’”
“An aspiration we all may echo, Captain Cromwell,” replied Bradford gravely, “and I am happy to assure you that by the latest advices from England the parliamentarians under whose authority you sail are still favored by Providence. For the rest, all honest Englishmen are welcome to such hospitality as our impoverished town can offer. There is an Ordinary at the head of this hill kept by James Cole, where very decent accommodation may be had for your men, and I shall be most happy to welcome you and your officers at mine own house, nearly opposite the tavern, as often as you are pleased to come. This gentleman, a guest like yourself, is called Father Drouillette, from France.”
“My duty to you, father,” responded Cromwell, bending his knee, and the Jesuit, keenly regarding him, made a slight motion of benediction, murmuring, “Bless you, my son.”
“And now,” continued Bradford, in a less formal manner, “let us at once seek the shelter of James Cole’s roof and mine, and escape this biting wind, of which, Captain, you will already have had more than enough, as I opine.”
The buccaneer assented, and speaking a rapid word or two among the men surrounding him, sent the massof them to the tavern with a stern injunction to sobriety and decency; then calling the commanders of the three ships, he presented them to Bradford, who at once extended his invitation to them, and led the way to the house, where a merry fire and refreshments were found awaiting them, but nobody was to be seen.
“I wonder through which crevice that little schemer is peeping,” said Father Drouillette to himself as he took snuff and presented his box to Cromwell, who took a pinch, and absorbing it delicately, said,—
“You must let me offer you a jar of Spanish mixture, prepared, as I hear, especially for the Archbishop of Toledo, who is curious in his tobacco. It is most agreeably scented with vanilla, and carries a certain odor of incense that arouses very devout reminiscences in the mind of a poor wanderer like myself.”
“My poor nose would indeed feel itself honored by a pinch of such truly ecclesiastical snuff as you describe. But as I sail with the morning tide, I fear I shall not have the opportunity of trying it,” replied the Jesuit; and Cromwell, after a moment’s thought, suggested,—
“Unless, reverend sir, you would do me the honor of sleeping on board the Golden Fleece, as my ship is called. I can offer you a decent bed, and my fellows will doubtless purvey in this good town the material for a breakfast. Shall I have the honor of entertaining your reverence?”
“I shall be most happy to accept your hospitality, my son, if Governor Bradford will accept my humble excuses for cutting short my visit to him,” began the priest; but before he could finish, a door at the end of the room quietly opened, and Gillian, with downcast eyes and air of timid modesty, glided to Bradford’s side, murmuring:
“Our dame fain would know how many beds we shall prepare. She says there are plenty for all the gentlemen.”
“St. Anthony befriend us! Is that the daughter of our worthy host?” whispered Cromwell to the priest, who only shook his head, and rising from his chair said in English,—
“Master Bradford, will you hold me excused if I accept this gentleman’s invitation to pass the night aboard his vessel? It may be more convenient for my early embarkation, and less disturbance to your household.”
“You shall perfectly suit your own convenience, sir,” replied Bradford in his calm and gentle fashion, although the murmured colloquies of priest and buccaneer had rather annoyed him; “but you will all take your supper with us, I trust. Gillian, you may tell the mistress that these five gentlemen will sup with us, but prefer to sleep on board ship.”
That night Captain Cromwell transferred a curious chronicle of the misdoings of a year past from his own conscience to the custody of the priest, and received some very sensible and practical advice. But at the end of all, the penitent, with a gesture of deference, declared,—
“You’re right, father, doubtless right, both as priest and man of the world; but I feel it in my marrow that yon lass is my fate, and ’tis useless striving against it. Those eyes of hers pierced my heart to the core when first they met mine own, and when at supper she served me with meat and drink, no nectar or ambrosia was ever more Olympian.”
“Well, well, my son,” answered the priest indulgently, “I say not you shall not marry the maid if she will haveyou; but I forebode it will be a marriage of haste, most vainly repented of at leisure. I spoke with the governor about her, and find she is a penniless orphan, although connected with the family of their late teacher, Elder Brewster, as they called him; and Mistress Gillian is under the austere protection of the governor and his most sweet and gracious lady. Your wooing, if you persist in this mad intention, must be wholly honorable and worthy. Remember that, my son!” and the priest’s voice assumed a stern and authoritative accent, which the penitent accepted with a bend of his head while he replied,—
“Most positively so, father. The homeless maid shall become Mistress Cromwell, with all the pomp and ceremony”—
“Of Master Bradford’s office,” interposed the Jesuit. “For these poor rebels to our dear Mother’s authority are only married by civil process, and scorn the church’s benediction.”
“Is that the way of it!” exclaimed Cromwell, a little dismayed. “Well, I will bring my bride to Manhattan or to Virginia, where you tell me you are to found a college, and our nuptials shall be blessed there. The civil rite binds us so far as law is concerned.”
“Man’s law, yes,” replied the priest dryly; “and I will trust your word to fulfill this promise, if indeed you carry out your most rash resolve.”
“I shall carry it out, father,” asserted the buccaneer quietly. “’Tis my way.”
The next morning Father Drouillette, the richer by a gloriously illuminated missal, a gold crucifix set with five great rubies, and half a dozen jars of the Archbishop of Toledo’s snuff, embarked on board the fisherman,while Cromwell took up his quarters at Cole’s tavern, which woke to such thriving business as it had never known before. Examination of the brigantines showed two of them to be in need of extensive repairs in consequence not only of the storm which had driven them into Plymouth, but of the long cruise preceding it; and as this cruise had been exceedingly prosperous, the mariners, who during the next month pervaded the town and made acquaintance with most of its inhabitants, scattered their money and precious commodities of various sorts in such profusion that Governor Winthrop, of Boston, in chronicling this visit, attributes the storm that drove the buccaneer into Plymouth to a divine interposition intended for the maintenance of the impoverished town, threatened with utter desertion and destruction.
Nor was the leader less generous and profuse than his more reckless followers, so that not only were the governor’s family overwhelmed with as many rich gifts as he could be prevailed on to allow them to accept, but nearly every one of the poorer families was so substantially relieved as to give all new hope and energy to help themselves.
Not a week from the day of his arrival had elapsed before Cromwell sought an interview with the governor, and, without mentioning that he already had obtained her full consent to his proposals, offered himself as a suitor for Mistress Gillian’s hand. Bradford, utterly amazed at the idea, would at the first have absolutely set it aside, declaring that such a sudden fancy could have no substantial foundation, and was unworthy of discussion; but when next the governor was closeted with his wife, he discovered that in her mind this marriage was a scheme to be encouraged as much aspossible, and at the last, a little impatient of masculine density, the wife exclaimed,—
“’Tis an honorable and safe way out of the moil we have been stirring in, since first we made Gillian one of our family; and so that she desires it, and he hath means and will to care for her, all that remains, if she has Love Brewster’s consent, is for me to make up the piece of brocade Cromwell hath given her into a wedding gown, and for you to bind them fast in matrimony.”
“Say you so, Elsie, say you so?” demanded the governor, pausing in the perilous operation of shaving his chin to stare into the mirror at his wife, who was settling her cap at one corner. “Why, I fancied you prized Gillian’s company and daughterly service above all things.”
“I can spare it,” briefly replied Alice Bradford with an inscrutable smile.
“But hasn’t the child won a place in your affections, wife?”
“She has in yours and Will’s and Joseph’s, and that’s three parts of the family.”
“Surely, Alice, you’ve not turned jealous?”
“You lightly me, William, when you ask if I am jealous of—of Gillian.”
“I do not comprehend,” murmured the governor, resuming his razor, but presently suspending it to demand with considerable energy,—
“You really mean, then, that as honest and Godfearing guardians of this child we should give her in marriage to this stranger?”
“Yes, I do. When all is said, she is almost as much a stranger as he, and I know not why they should not suit each other well.”
“So be it. I will tell the man, and do you speak as a mother should to the maid. ’Tis not like you, Alice, to be bitter.”
“I shall not love her the better, if you are to chide me on her account, Will.”
“Nay, chide thee, sweetheart! ’Twould ill befit me to chide the better half of mine own life.”
So the suitor received permission to woo his bride openly, and Gillian presently so shone with jewels, and so rustled about in gorgeous raiment, that matrons and maids suspended their work to run to the doors and watch her as she passed by.
THE HILT OF A RAPIER.
“Voysye! Hold on, man! Here, come along back!”
“Belay your jaw, you landlubber! I’m bound to overhaul that clipper before she gets away! Cast off your grapnel, or”—
And twisting his arm away from Francis Billington, with whom he had been drinking until both men had had more than enough, Richard Voysye, seaman of the Golden Fleece, set out to overtake the female figure which had just flitted past them in the twilight. Billington, not so tipsy as the sailor, lunged forward in pursuit, and once more grasping his arm exclaimed,—
“’Tis the young dame your captain is going to marry, I tell you, and ’twill go hard with the man that affronts her”—
“Hang the captain, and you too! There, then, you fool—take that!”
Delivering, as he spoke, a cruel blow in the face of his opponent, Voysye felled him to the ground, and pursuing Gillian, who hearing the scuffle had paused to look behind her, threw a rude arm around her waist, crying,—
“Come, now, I’ll have one kiss, if I die for’t.”
But Gillian, lithe as a cat, struggled and fought after her kind, so successfully that the ruffian had not been able to snatch his kiss before a heavy foot reached him with a kick, and a furious voice roared in his ear,—
“Avast there, you”—but the epithets are not writable, and in these days no man, however angry, would use them in a woman’s presence. They were, however, effectual, for with an oath quite as furious and quite as unmentionable, Voysye quitted his hold upon the girl’s waist and, turning, aimed at Cromwell’s face a buffet which, however, only reached his shoulder. Angered, not so much at the assault as the insubordination, the captain seized his sheathed rapier, and dealt with the hilt a blow upon the sailor’s head which prostrated him, bleeding and senseless, at Gillian’s feet.
“You’ve killed him, and they’ll hang you for murder!” cried she. “Hide him, and get away with your vessels before it’s found out.”
“And would you go with me?” demanded Cromwell, gazing curiously in the girl’s fierce, flushed face.
“Yes—no—yes, if you could get clear, and save your neck and your money,” returned Gillian with cynical frankness.
“Ay, I thought as much, Mistress,” retorted the sailor, “and I’m a fool to care for such a woman; but still I do, and when I go you shall go too, or if I’m hung you shall have the price of a soul. Thirty pieces satisfied Judas, didn’t it?”
“Here’s another man coming,” replied Gillian coldly, and with no more words she walked away, while Cromwell, turning to the new-comer, said,—
“Well, Higgins, I’m beholden to you for setting me on his track, and here he is. He lifted his hand on me, and I felled him with a tap of my cutlass hilt. See if he’s hurt.”
Higgins, a man of few words, stared for a moment into his captain’s face, looked after the retreating figureof Gillian, and then kneeling beside his comrade fingered the wound awhile, mumbling, “Hurt, I should say! ’Tis a shrewd wound i’faith! A parlous cut! ’Tis life and death, and nigher death than life, to my mind.”
“Nonsense, man,” replied Cromwell a little uneasily. “A great hulking fellow like that don’t die of a tap on his numskull. Run you into the village and fetch a surgeon. Hasten, now, and when you’ve sent him, see about some sort of litter, that we may take him to Cole’s tavern.”
“’Tis no use,” grumbled Higgins, but still scrambled to his feet, and set off at such good speed that in half an hour Doctor Matthew Fuller, nephew and successor of our old friend Doctor Samuel, was on the spot and encouraging the wounded man’s efforts toward consciousness. But so soon as he could sit up and speak, Voysye, true to his nature, paid his surgeon’s bill with a curse, responded to his captain’s rough expressions of amity with sulky silence, and scorning the litter, or even the support of a friendly arm, staggered off toward the shore, and as soon as possible got aboard ship and comforted his wound with as much Santa Cruz rum as he could obtain, seasoning it with dire threats of vengeance against Higgins, who prudently kept out of his way.
“’Tis an ill wind blown over,” reported Cromwell to his sweetheart that night; and so it might have proved but that Voysye, waking next morning in the dispositions natural to a man who has a fevered wound across his head, and has gone to bed very drunk, insisted upon going ashore to find and fight with Higgins, who had, as he knew, reported him to the captain. In the captain’s absence all discipline had fallen into such disrepute thatnobody opposed the half-delirious movements of the wounded man, who went ashore, roved around for a while, and finally, just as he had discovered Higgins and was pointing a pistol at his head, was seized with convulsions, and twenty-four hours later lay a dead man in an upper chamber of Cole’s tavern.
So serious a matter as this could not be suffered to pass unnoticed by the authorities, and with some grave expressions of regret and an assurance of honorable treatment, Captain Cromwell was placed under arrest and lodged in the strong-room of the Fort under guardianship of Lieutenant Holmes, while a messenger was dispatched to Captain’s Hill to summon Standish to a conference with the governor and the others of his council; for the sailor had requested to be tried by a court martial, and who but the General Officer of all the Colonies could organize and head it? With the great captain came Lieutenant Nash, and Ensign-bearer Constant Southworth, with Hatherley, Alden, Willett, Cudworth, and other of the Duxbury men, so that for some days Plymouth assumed the air of a garrisoned place in time of war, much to the delight of Gillian, and perhaps some other of the lonely maids of the almost deserted town.
The court martial, formal and dignified in its proceedings and absolutely just in its dealings, lasted for a whole day, and much testimony to Cromwell’s generous and humane treatment of his men was rendered, as well as a good deal most unfavorable to the character of the dead man, who seems to have been a very drunken and brutal fellow. The only possible testimony as to the rencontre was that of Gillian, and this she was most anxious to be permitted to give in person before thecourt; but here both Bradford and Brewster interposed, and insisted that a written affidavit made and sworn before the governor should be accepted, a course indorsed by Standish with great alacrity.
In the end Cromwell was acquitted, but not without an exhortation from Parson Rayner, the Chaplain of the Commission, to greater reverence and tenderness for human life, to which the prisoner listened respectfully, but Standish with a covert smile playing around the sadness of his mouth, as he recalled a similar reproach long ago made to him by John Robinson, now many years gone to his rest.
Perhaps as a mark of respect to the court martial that had tried and acquitted him, possibly as a late testimony to his tenderness for human life, Cromwell’s first act as a free man was to order a military funeral for Voysye, and to request the presence of the train band of Plymouth, to every member of which he presented a piece of black taffeta to make a mourning cloak.
“And now I will marry you,” said Gillian, when next she saw her lover alone; but he, with a queer smile, replied,—
“Think better of it, my dear! my money is well-nigh spent, and I feel it in my bones that the next court martial will order me to be shot. You’ll make a poor bargain, and that’s not to your mind.”
“A poor bargain indeed!” retorted Gillian, her temper flaming up; and as John Alden’s boat was over from Duxbury she begged a passage in it, and an hour later was on her way to visit Betty Pabodie, as she pretended, but really to torment Sarah Brewster, who felt that she had no right to refuse her willful kinswoman shelter whenever she claimed it.
A few days later Cromwell sailed for Boston, where he remained for some months, presented Governor Winthrop with an elegant sedan-chair, taken out of one of his prizes, and was much admired and petted. Whether Gillian joined him there and was openly married to him, or whether the innate romance pervasive of the sea moved Cromwell to plan and execute an elopement for the girl, whose relatives would have been only too glad to give her to any worthy husband, we cannot tell; but that in some way they at last came together is evident, and also that they were married, since she was allowed to inherit his property. The manner of his death was one of those marvels which men then regarded as a direct judgment from heaven, but which we moderns are content to call a strange coincidence.
It was in the late autumn, and Cromwell, after a merry feast at the house of a boon companion in Dorchester, was riding rapidly homeward, when his horse slipped upon an icy slope, and threw his rider violently over his head. The night passed, and in the morning a wayfarer found the faithful beast standing pensive and patient beside his master’s prostrate body, now cold and stiff; and when he was brought into the town and carried to his lodgings a wild-eyed woman rushed to meet him, and staring at the wound whence his lifeblood had drained away, shrieked, “’Tis Voysye’s hurt over again,” and fell in a swoon across the body.
John Higgins, who had followed his captain’s body home, started in terror at that word, and coming forward drew away the hair from the wound, stared at it as Gillian had done, and hoarsely asked,—
“Was’t Voysye’s spook did it?”
“Nay, man,” impatiently answered the man who hadfound him. “See you not that ’twas the hilt of the poor gentleman’s own rapier did it? When I came upon him, the brass was bedded in the wound, and you may see the blood and hairs upon it now. See!”
“Ay, I see,” replied Higgins heavily. “And well do I know, without seeing, whose hand it was that urged the hilt to just that spot upon my poor captain’s head. Wow! But I wish I might have seen the tussle that befell when the old man got free of his carcase and fell upon Voysye man to man; nay, spook to spook. Would they still be at it, think you?”
In a month or so more, Gillian, a very wealthy young widow, sailed for England, where she married a pious and passing rich old Covenanter, whom she also survived, and became one of the gayest and least prejudiced ladies of the Court of Charles the Second, where we will leave her.
CANARY WINE AND SEED-CAKE.
It was in what Captain William Pierce called the ebb of the afternoon; that dreamy, quiet leisure hour that falls in country places when the heavy work and heavy feeding of the day are over, and the evening milking and bedding the cattle and providing the pleasant meal called supper still lie in the middle distance.
Priscilla, our own Priscilla, not forgotten or unloved, although unmentioned and a little hidden behind the throng of new-comers,—Priscilla Alden stood in the thrifty orchard of pear and apple trees, planted twenty years before by her goodman, trees whose lineal descendants may to-day be found in the place of the old ones, just as Aldens still till the Aldens’ farm.
At the edge of the orchard a row of lime-trees shaded the well and the southern door of the comfortable house, and beneath these trees were set the beehives, whose dainty denizens loved the golden blossoms so well that from morning until night they swarmed up and down their fragrant pasture, making a sound like the surf upon a pebbly shore. Priscilla is gone, those trees, those bees are gone, and you and I are going, but the bees of to-day swarm just as vigorously through this lime-tree at my window as those did then, and as the bees of two or three centuries hence will through the trees whose seeds are not yet planted. Only man isephemeral and changeable: the bees and the trees are conservative.
Some such idea, but too vague to be recognized by an unspeculative brain, floated through Priscilla’s mind as, leaning against the trunk of her favorite pear-tree, she gazed up into the yellow lime blossoms, listened to the bees, and remembered the years when she and John had planted the trees, while their little children looked on and asked questions.
“Ah well, ah well!” murmured she at last. “’Tis their nature to swarm—the children and the bees, both; and Betty shall have the best hive as soon as they’re settled. Ah me!”
Then with one of her old impetuous motions Priscilla dashed her hands across her eyes and cleared them of the coming tears. Good, kindly, honest eyes still, if not so bright or so brown as they were once, and as Betty’s are now; and a comely matron face, albeit the colors are somewhat ripened; and the chestnut hair, lined with a silver thread here and there, is put back under a matron’s coif, but the mobile lips still disclose perfect teeth, and John Alden still holds it a delight to take a kiss from those lips, and put his finger under that smooth, round chin. ’Tis no more than later summer yet, and the frosts of autumn are as yet far distant.
“Ah well, ah well!” said Priscilla once more, and restlessly plucked a rose or two from the tall bush beside the door, those old-fashioned, sweet white roses now almost forgotten. As she pinned them in the kerchief covering her bosom, the matron paused, and with eye and ear questioned the grassy path leading from the new-made highway to the front of their own house. Yes, a horse was heavily trotting up the path, and, goingaround the corner of the house, Priscilla was just in time to meet Mistress Standish, mounted upon a pillion, with John Haward in the saddle.
“And glad am I to see you, Barbara,” cried she, embracing and kissing her friend with more vivacity than most mothers of her day ventured to show. “’Tis a sight for sore eyes to look upon you. Where have you been keeping yourself?”
“Where housewives must—at home,” replied Barbara pleasantly. “John, you can lift the saddle and cool the mare’s back, but I shall not tarry over an hour, so hold you within call.”
“Nay, you’ll stay supper,” remonstrated Priscilla as the two women went into the house, and the hostess removed her guest’s riding gear. “There’s a moon, you know.”
“Ay, and there’s a goodman at home,” retorted Barbara, and then, her face suddenly losing its somewhat artificial air of cheerfulness, she looked piteously in her friend’s eyes and said with a catch in her voice,—
“’Tis about him, about Myles, that I’ve come to see you, Priscilla.”
“Why, what is the matter, dear? Is the captain ailing more than usual?”
“No, though he’s far from well, and naught angers him so quick as saying so; but that’s not the worst. ’Tis his soul that’s sick, Priscilla.”
“But how? Has the parson been at him again to join the church?”
“Nay, I’m afraid Master Partridge will never look over the things Myles said the last time he urged him so vehemently, and the captain gave way to the ache in his back, that he says is ever with him, and let out astrange oath or two about meddling parsons and I know not what. To be sure’t was in Dutch, but I think parson spelled out enough of it to anger him, and”—
“And serve him right, plaguing a sick man with the catechism,” broke in Priscilla. “But if not that, what is it ails the captain?”
“Why, it’s not so much the captain that’s ailing as Josiah, poor boy.”
“Josiah ailing!”
“Yes, with a sore and sharp disease called love-sickness, Priscilla. You know he’s sweethearted Mary Dingley these five years or more, and a dear, pretty, loving little maid she is.”
“Yes, and what’s come across their courting?”
“Why, there’s where Myles is distraught. Before our Lora went, you know she and Mary Dingley were closer than sisters, and while my poor girl lay sick Mary was ever at her side, and helped us dress her for her burying”—
“Ah, the sweet saint, how pure and holy she looked when we had done!” murmured Priscilla, but Barbara hurriedly raised her hand.
“Nay, talk not on ’t, or I shall lose sight of all else. ’Tis only by times I dare to speak of her. You know when our Alick married your Sally, his father would fain have had them come home to live; but Sally had liever keep her own house, and Alick felt himself old enough to be goodman,—and, well, never mind all that, but Josiah talked to me—you know he was ever my own boy—at that time, and he said when he and his Molly got wed, ’twould be his wish and will and her pleasure to come home to us, and be the stay of our old age, and so ’twas settled; but then my poor maid took sick, andthere was no thought of aught but her in the house, and when she was gone, Josiah, who loved her tenderly, said not a word until the year came round and more, and then, man fashion, he spoke out more honestly than shrewdly to his father and me together, and said ’t was time now that he was wed, and he would fain bring his wife to us to fill the place of her that was gone. Mayhap ’twas just the word ‘fill the place’ that angered Lora’s father; perhaps he forgot that he was young himself once, and that God lightens the burdens that he lays upon young hearts lest they should be broken before they’re used, while to us that have well-nigh done our work he lets grief crush out this world’s life that we may be ready for the next. But, however that may be, the captain took mortal offense at the thought of any young woman filling Lora’s place at the hearth or in the love of those who mourned her and should ever mourn her, and he said things that no temper but one so sweet as my Josiah’s could have brooked. If it had been Myles, he would have broke out at his father and given as good as he got, and when o’ stormy nights I think of my poor sailor lad at sea, I comfort myself with the thought that he’s safe from breaking the fifth commandment. But there, ’tis not of son Myles I’m speaking, but of poor Josiah.”
“And he took his father’s rating in brave patience as he ever does,—so Alick says,” said Alick’s mother-in-law.
“Yes. Then Alick has told you of our trouble?” demanded Barbara almost jealously, but Priscilla hastened to reply,—
“Oh, no. Only he loves to magnify his brother, who is more than dear to him. But go on, Bab, with your story.”
“Well, dear, I tried to talk with the captain when we were alone, but the wound was too deep and too angry to bear much handling, and so I e’en left it to nature and to grace. But at the end he consented that Josiah should marry, and he would talk with John Dingley about setting up the young folks, and he promised never to say another bitter word to Josiah about it; but on the other hand he would not go to the marriage, and he bade me tell the poor lad that he was not to bring his lass to the house either before or after they were married, for no, not for one half hour should Lora’s place be filled, nor should any woman call him father so long as he lived.”
“He bade Alick tell Sally as much as that, and she hasn’t been anigh your house since,” interposed Sally’s mother indignantly; but Barbara raised her shadowy blue eyes so piteously, and looked so imploringly into her friend’s face, that a misty softness suddenly filled Priscilla’s own eyes, and petting the other’s hand she said,—
“There, there, gossip, ’tis all right! Go on, go on.”
And Barbara, smiling faintly as one well used to control her own feelings, and to make allowance for the impetuosity of others, went on: “So I told Josiah, and he told Mary, and she her father and mother, and not one of them would hearken to any marriage so shadowed, nor could I blame them. All that was a year ago, and Josiah has been as good a son as ever man could ask ever since; but a week apast or so, he spoke to me, and said his youth was going, and Mary was of full age, and ’twas not right that he should ask her to wait in her father’s house till her younger sisters were married over her head, and he had made up his mind to go toConnecticut and make a home whereto he might carry his wife. John Haward could manage the farm, and Hobomok the fishing and boats, and perhaps his brother Myles after this voyage would settle down awhile at home. Oh, Priscilla, when I heard that word I felt as if the end had come, and I must e’en lay down under the burthen that I could not carry. Alick gone, and Myles gone, and my one sweet maid gone, and my two dear little fellows left over on Burying Hill at Plymouth, and now Josiah, the one whom, God forgive me, I haply loved the best”—
“No, no, it sha’n’t be, it can’t be,” interrupted Priscilla impulsively. “Myles shall listen to reason; he shall see that what he calls grief has grown into cruel selfishness. I’ll tell him so; I’ll talk to him”—
“’Twas what I came to ask of you, dear Pris! Well do I know, that from the days before I came until now, Myles has held you in singular tenderness, and you may say to him things that no one else dare, and that I will not say lest he mistake it for chiding, or for want of love, or—well, now, how can I say it, Priscilla, but you know as well as I, that when a woman has once made her husband ashamed of himself, she has lost what she never will recover in his eyes. Our masters love not to be mastered by a woman, and she the one sworn to obedience.”
“And so you’d put me in that place and make sure that hereafter Myles shall not love me too well!” exclaimed Priscilla petulantly, and in the same breath added, “No, no, that was but a peevish jest, and you know it, Bab. Wait, now, till I take counsel with myself, for there’s a thought lurking somewhere in the back of my head that I’d fain catch and look in’s face before I say more.”
And jumping up, Priscilla went to a cupboard, and taking out a decanter of canary wine and a loaf of seed-cake, placed them before her guest with a napkin and a sheath-knife. Then, lifting a forefinger to silence Barbara’s acknowledgments, she went to the open door, and stood plucking some withered leaves and faded flowers from the white rosebush with automatic tidiness, but with a mind altogether unconscious of the body’s occupation.
A few moments of summer silence followed, that living silence of summer so different from the deadly silence of winter, and then, suddenly flinging her handful of leaves and roses upon the ground, Priscilla turned, and coming back into the room cried triumphantly, “I have it now, Barbara! ’Tis Betty!”
“Betty!” echoed Barbara dropping the morsel of cake from between her fingers. “What about Betty?”
“She’s the one to speak to Myles about Josiah and Mary Dingley.”
“Betty!”
“Yes, Betty. See here, now, woman; ’tisn’t that I’m afeard of Myles,—the dear knows that I never yet quailed before the face of man; but, Bab, you’ve hit on one sad truth about our masters, and I’ll give you another. They ill brook to be taught by their wives, say you, and I will add, they still love a fair young face better than one whereon they’ve watched the wrinkles come and the bloom fade out. Some thirty years ago I was a comely lass enough, and our gallant captain thought me so; but he’s seen me at least five times a sennight ever since, and I could tell you well-nigh the day he stared long and shrewdly in my face and said in his heart, ‘She’s lost her comeliness’”—
“Nay, nay, Pris, he’s said more than once that Sally’s not a patch upon her mother.”
“Upon what her mother was once, was what he meant, gossip, no matter what he said. Oh, don’t tell me, Bab! If I know naught else in this world, I know Priscilla Alden, and I can spell out a page or so of Myles Standish. But pass all that, and come to Betty.
“It’s not only that she’s far comelier than ever her mother was, but she’s fresh and new in her matronhood; as a maid she held her tongue before her elders as a maid should do, and I’ll lay you a pretty penny that the captain don’t guess she has a tongue, and a headpiece to keep it in, that’ll match any man in the colony, if once she starts out. Now what I say is, that she shall go in boldly, as Esther did to Ahasuerus, and speak her mind, and as Esther said, If she die, she dies. Thank goodness, the captain can’t kill her outright, and she can stand a strange word or two in Dutch better than poor Parson Partridge did.”
“Well, ’tis an idea to think on,” replied Barbara slowly, and Priscilla, knowing that the matter was settled, smiled the smile of a contented diplomat, and brushing the cake crumbs into the napkin, shook them out of the door before she quietly clenched the matter by saying,—
“I’m going over to Betty’s in the morning, and I’ll speak to her.”
BETTY BEARDS THE LION.
It was perhaps a week later, but as fair and peaceful a summer evening as that when Priscilla Alden showed herself more worldly-wise than vain, that Myles Standish, according to his constant custom, climbed the Captain’s Hill to sit upon the sunset seat, and with sad eyes fixed upon the horizon line to muse in lonely bitterness upon the sorrow he endured but did not accept. Half an hour of solitude no more than sufficed to deaden the physical pain, aggravated by the steep climb, against which the soldier in his latter years fought in the grim silence of hopelessness, and with a long breath of relief he leaned back against one of the trees supporting the seat and wiped his forehead. The sound of a light footstep, the rustle of a woman’s dress, disturbed him, and with a sudden flush of emotion he turned, half fancying that Lora herself had come to meet him at her favorite tryst.
But instead of the fair pale face, the golden hair, and spiritual blue eyes of his daughter, it was the joyous and brilliant face of Betty Alden, or as we now must learn to call her, Bettie Pabodie, subdued indeed by tenderest sympathy, but rich in color, in light, in abounding health, that met his gaze, and with a peevish exclamation he turned away, fixing his eyes again upon the water.
“Mayn’t I come and sit with you a little minute,Captain?” asked Betty, seeing and hearing all, but noticing nothing, and without waiting for reply she sank down upon the other end of the bench, and for some minutes remained quite silent; then she said very softly,—
“I came here to find you, sir, for it seemed to me the fittest place.”
“For what?” asked the father hoarsely, as his unwelcome companion paused.
“To speak of one I loved more than ever I loved mine own sisters.” And the round firm voice grew very sweetly tender and tremulous, for it spoke no more than the truth.
“I cannot talk of her—I know you loved her, and she you—but”—
Again there was silence, for the great heart bled inwardly and made no sign. At last the girl ventured again:—
“Oh, forgive me, sir, if I seem to fail of respect to your wish, or of tenderness to your exceeding sorrow, but there’s something she fain would have you know. God forgive me if I profanely touch his mysteries, but it seems to me that she who has gone straight to his presence has been sent to bring to mind words she spoke and I never yet have dared repeat. Will you say nay to her wish, dear and honored friend?”
“Words she said?” echoed the father, and, uncovering his face, he turned and fixed upon Betty such stern demanding eyes, that even her high courage almost quailed; but though her lips turned pale, she steadfastly replied,—
“Yes, words she said in the night before she went. Only I heard them.”
“And God,” suggested the captain as severely as if he were administering an oath.
“And God who hears me now,” replied Betty, her eyes meeting his so bravely and so truthfully that his own softened as he said,—
“I marvel that you feared to tell me anything I ought to know.”
“I did not exactly fear, sir, but I knew ’twould be unwelcome, and mayhap too soon to do good.”
“Well. Leave skirmishing, and come out boldly with whatever it may be. I’ll listen, at least.”
And folding his arms and setting his lips, the soldier faced her with just the mien he would have worn in submitting to an amputation upon the field of battle. An answering courage lighted the face of the young woman, and although Standish did not then consciously notice how beautiful she was, doubtless that beauty made itself felt.
But brave as she was, Betty could not steadily endure the sombre flame of eyes that seemed to pierce the very core of her heart, and her own gaze, after a little wandering, fixed upon the thatched roof-tree in the plain below, where her baby girl lay asleep in its cradle, and her voice was calm and steady as she made reply.
“It was in the last night that our dear Lora was with us, and you had just gone somewhat hastily out of the room and out of the house”—
“Ay.”
“And Lora looked after you a moment while her lips moved in prayer. Then she turned to me and said,—
“‘Dear father! He’ll miss me sore, and he’ll grieve out of measure that he denied me my love,’”—
A bitter, bitter groan burst from the father’s lips, and he buried his face in his hands for a moment, but uttered no word. Betty paused for a moment, and went on more softly,—
“‘But tell him when he can bear it,’ said she, ‘that it made no difference and it did no harm. Before ever Wrestling spoke to me I had heard one say to my soul, The Master hath come and calleth for thee! and I have long been ready, ay, and fain to go.’”
“Said she so! Said my maid so! ‘Ready, ay, and fain to go’?”
“They are her very words, her very, very words.”
“I can believe it; I can believe my own lass would find some way to comfort me, even from the grave where she is laid.”
“Nay, dear sir, from the heaven whither she has gone to live forever.”
“I can believe that, too, from your lips, child, for you come to me as an angel. More, tell me more.”
“I cannot tell all her words after those, for she grew faint and weak, and much was lost, but I gathered that her mind dwelt much upon some story Gillian Brewster had told her of a far away foreign convent, and she spoke of the leaves of a great tree that ever waved across an open door, and brought cool breezes to her head. I believe she wandered a little in her mind, and then she grew very still, and after a while she opened her eyes and smiled up into mine the while she whispered, ‘’Tis Mary and not Sally that will comfort him best. She’ll be a daughter to him in a place next to mine. Tell him so.’ Then she shut her eyes again, and we spoke no more alone.”
“And it is all true truth?”
“All God’s truth, sir. Oh, do you think I could say otherwise?”
“No. I know you could not. Wait.” And with his head bowed upon his breast the captain took counselwith himself for many minutes. At last he looked at Betty, whose bright face now was pale with exhaustion, and said almost harshly,—
“I knew not that she cared overmuch for Mary Dingley; they were little enough alike.”
“No; but don’t you see, sir,” replied Betty with a sort of sweet impatience, “that it was not her own likings or her own pleasure she was thinking of, but of you and your happiness? Even if she had misliked Mary and knew she would be a good daughter to you, she would have said the same.”
“Yes, yes, you’re right, girl, you’re right, and I’m but a poor, blind, selfish old man. She’d have me think of others more than of myself. The mother getting old and no daughter to help her, no little children to cheer her,—yes, I see, my maid, I see, and I’ll do your bidding—if I can.”
“Oh, no, sir, not my bidding”—
“I know, I know, lass, and for all thy high spirit thou wert ever maiden meek and mild to thine elders. But it was not to thee I spoke just then. Yet now I will have thee to advise with me, for, truth to tell, I am a little fogged and stunned with all these matters, and since my sweet maid left me I’ve grown old and doddering—no, never mind naysaying me, I know what I know. What I will have thee tell me, Betty, is this. Shall I—would Lora have me bid Josiah bring his wife home—and let her sit in—Oh, my God! I cannot, I cannot”—
He covered his face again, and for some moments Betty sat in respectful silence, then, moving nearer, laid a light touch upon the shoulder heaving under its mighty struggle for self-control.
“Not in Lora’s place, dear sir,” said she softly. “No one can take that e’en if she would, and Mary Dingley would not an she could. I know her well, and a milder, gentler, sweeter maid no longer lives on earth. She is one who will ever bear your grief in mind, yet never speak of it; one who will give you a daughter’s duty and tendance, yet never press for a daughter’s freedom; one who will love you as much as you will let her, yet never be nettled at thought you do not love her as you might. She is as fond of Josiah as woman can be of man, yet modest and meek and shamefast as a maid should ever be. Oh, sir, she is a girl among a thousand, I do assure you, and if you will open house and heart to her you shall never, never repent of it.”
“The maid must be worth something who can claim so leal a friend in you, Betty Alden.”
And across that worn and haggard face gleamed a smile such as had not been seen there since Lora died. The certainty of success shot like a sharp pain through Betty’s heart, and for a moment broke down the courage which failure would only have stimulated. Turning suddenly away, and leaning her head against a tree-trunk, she drew a long, gasping breath and burst into tears.
Was not Priscilla’s intuition justified, and her theory proven? Had it been she herself, or any woman of her age and strong character, she would have learned self-control and so lost her best weapon; or if she had fallen into tears, the man would have simply felt that the weakness of age had overtaken her, and would have doubted the soundness of her advice. But when sweet-and-twenty weeps honestly and fervidly, and from a loving, honest heart, no man between thirty and seventylooks unmoved upon those tears; nor did Myles Standish, as hastily rising he hovered over the girl, not touching her, for no Spaniard ever treated his Infanta with more respect than this true gentleman showed to every woman, but pulling out a great handkerchief and making little futile efforts to apply it, while he incoherently exclaimed in almost the voice he might have used to Lora,—
“Why, there now, there, dear heart,—nay, child, for pity’s sake—why, my little lass, don’t ’ee take on so. Nay, what shall I say to pleasure thee? Come, now, Betty, come, now, dry up thine eyes like a good girl, and I’ll give thee—what shall I give thee? If thou wert mine own lass I’d give thee a kiss”—
“And I’ll give you one as it is, sir,” cried Betty, and turning like a flash, she threw her arms around the old man’s neck and pressed upon his cheek two lips so soft, so warm, so sweet, that a streak of dark red mounted to his temples, and taking the girl’s head between his hands he kissed her forehead with a strange stir of reverent tenderness at his heart.
“Betty, my lass, thou’st done a good work to-day,” said he simply, and she, with a smile and a, sob struggling for preëminence, murmured,—
“Thank God!”