two children looking at their mother in bed"Dolly plaited a fold of her apron between her fingers."
"Dolly plaited a fold of her apron between her fingers."
But the third day, a Friday, a pelting fine rain set in that made an airing on the deck out of the question, not for the baby alone, but for a well-grown boy and girl. Miles and Dolly went up to spend the afternoon in the great cabin, because in their own quarters there was no one to talk to, and, moreover, it was cold. In the main cabin they would find some one to keep them company, and they could, at least, warm their hands at the little fire burning in a tubful of sand, which Constance often used in heating food for Mistress Hopkins.
But this afternoon the fire was out and Constance busied with her mother, so the two children, disappointed, sat down together on a rude bench, at the angle in the stern where two rows of little cabins joined. "I wish I were with my mother," sniffed Dolly; and "'Twill do you no good to cry," Miles checked her sternly.
"I was not crying, Miles Rigdale," the damsel answered hotly.
It was on Miles's lips to reply, when close at hand a voice spoke his name, "Miles Rigdale!"
Readily enough he jumped up and went to the half-opened door of the adjoining cabin. It was Captain Standish's cabin, he remembered now, and,as he halted in the doorway, he perceived Mistress Rose Standish lying in the bunk. A little of the afternoon light sifted in through the tiny port-hole, and by it he noted how her hair fell loosely about her face, unlike the way she wore it when on deck; but her cheeks were rosy as ever, and her voice quite steady as she spoke: "It's you, the lad my husband told me of? I thought I heard one call you by name. Will you not do somewhat for me, Miles? Fetch me my jug here full of water again. Goodwife Tinker was to look to me to-day; I felt very well this morning. But she's ill now herself, and when I tried to rise,—" she laughed, with a nervous catch in her laughter,—"why, then things went whisking round me very strangely. But you look as you still could stand stoutly, sir."
"I'll fetch you the water, and gladly, mistress," Miles answered, so eagerly that he stammered. He stepped into the cabin to take the jug from where it rested on a chest beneath the port-hole, and Dolly, following shyly after, hesitated on the threshold.
"Is this little maid your sister?" Mistress Standish roused up to ask. "Won't you come in and bear me company, sweetheart, while Miles fetches the water?"
Dolly plaited a fold of her apron between her fingers and nodded dumbly.
"That's well," said Mistress Standish. "Sit youdown here on the chest by me. And I've some raisins of the sun you shall have if you'll stay."
"Dolly must not eat your raisins if you be sick." Miles formulated the relentless principle which had been enforced as regards himself when Dolly lay ill. "And I'll fetch the water speedily." He stood a moment on the threshold, balancing the jug in one hand. "Mistress Standish," he blurted out, with sudden resolution, "would you not rather have beer than water?"
"Than the water from the ship's casks, yes," she answered; "but 'twill relish well enough, Miles. At even, when Captain Standish comes, mayhap he'll get me a draught of beer."
"I'll get it for you now," Miles said cheerily, and walked away, with his head up and the jug swinging.
Outside the door of the great cabin the chilly rain, that stung finely on his cheeks, pricked him alive to realization of what he had undertaken. Since Christmas, when the supply of the Pilgrim emigrants had given out, beer could be obtained on board theMayfloweronly from the ship's stores, through the courtesy of Master Jones, the captain; and he was a terrible person. Most times he ranged about the high quarter-deck, where only the chiefs of the Pilgrims dared go; once Francis Billington, to show his daring, had clamberedthither, and Master Jones, without parley, had bidden his quartermaster, "Kick that young imp down into Limbo, where he belongs." From that experience Francis had been black and blue, and subdued in manner for a week.
So it was no wonder now that, for long minutes, Miles stood shivering in the rain at the foot of the companion ladder, while he tried to summon courage to venture up. He might never have arrived at such hardihood, had not Jones himself, strolling forth upon the quarter-deck to study the weather, observed him, and presently bellowed lustily: "What beest thou staring up hither for, hey?"
"I—I want to come up, if it like you, sir," Miles piped quaveringly.
"Then come up. Beelzebub fetch thee! What's hindering thee?"
Miles could have answered truly that it was a loud-voiced, broad-shouldered man, with a bushy gray beard, whose name was Jones, that hindered him; but he thought best, even on so poor an invitation, to scramble in silence up the steep ladder to the quarter-deck. The wind there was high, so he gripped the bulwark to keep erect.
"Well, now thou art up, what is it thou wouldst have?" roared Jones.
"Beer, sir. For Captain Standish's wife. She is ill."
Master Jones hesitated a little minute, then caught Miles by the collar of his doublet, and only let go when he landed him within the roundhouse. Miles said nothing to this, but his heart thumped alarmingly at finding himself thus tumbled headlong into the very lair of the Master. Yet the roundhouse proved a harmless place, with its shipshape bunks and table and stools; and one of the mates, who lay upon a bunk, rose up at Jones's bidding, to do nothing more formidable than fill Miles's jug from a keg that stood in one corner.
"Now see to it thou dost not filch the beer by the way," grumbled Master Jones. "I be ready to give to your Captain's wife, but not to fill the stomach of every knavish lad on shipboard; dost thou hear?"
"I wouldn't take the beer that was meant for Mistress Standish," Miles said indignantly.
"Nay, but boys be a slippery race," growled the Master. "The saints be blest I never had none!"
Miles privately was glad of that, for he could not help thinking how unhappy a boy would be, with such an alarming father as Master Jones. Very prudently, he did not say so, but, seizing his jug, backed out of the roundhouse, almost too hastily to say "Thank you."
He had come back to a good conceit of himself, however, by the time he had manœuvred safelydown the ticklish ladder, and he walked in on Mistress Standish and Dolly quite proudly. Mistress Standish thanked him mightily, enough to make Miles redden and shuffle his foot on the floor. "But I liked to do it for you," he muttered.
After that he was persuaded to sit down on the chest beside Dolly, and tell Mistress Standish all about how they were building houses on the shore, and how he had gone to the Indian fields, and what a wonderful dog Trug was. Dolly chimed in there to tell what a rare pussy Solomon was, and how he would leap over your hands. Then Mistress Standish, who lay listening, and seemed to like their talk, though she said little, bade Miles bring her a box from a shelf against the wall, and in it, sure enough, were a few big raisins and a small handful of currants.
The sight was too much for Miles's scruples, and when she urged the children eat of them, he yielded, weakly as eager little Dolly. "We'll take two raisins each," he said, with an effort at firmness, "and three currants." Then, with a sigh, he shut the box up tight, and ate his own share very slowly.
Dolly finished more speedily, and straightway Mistress Standish urged her sing to them. "Dolly told me while you were gone that she is wont to sing to mother," she explained to Miles. "NowI want her to sing to me. You shall have more raisins if you will, Dolly, in spite of Brother Miles."
Dolly was bashful, and, for all it was now murky twilight, so faces were not plain to see, insisted on sitting on the other side of Miles, where she could hide behind him. Then, at last, she sang. "Though it is a worldly song," she protested.
"No matter. I am what your people call a worldly woman," Mistress Standish answered.
So Dolly cuddled up to Miles and sang:—
"Skip and trip it,Hey non nonny!For the lark is in the clover,And the fields are green and bonny,And a dappled sky shows over.Sing hey nonny nonny!'Tis blithe world and gay,When spring comes bonnyAnd the winter packs away."
There Dolly broke off, short and sudden, and Miles, looking to the dusky doorway, saw a man's sturdy figure blocking it.
"'Tis you come back, Miles?" Mistress Standish spoke quickly. "Come you in and sit down. Your namesake and his sister have been caring for me bravely—"
"I'm sorry," came the Captain's voice out of the dark. "That is— You must be wearied now,sweetheart. Come, Miles, my soldier, I want to speak with you."
Miles wondered why, as he stepped out from the cabin, the Captain troubled to put one arm about his shoulders; he was pleased at the caress, yet awkward in receiving it. "I want you to go in here," said Captain Standish, leading him to the cabin that the Brewsters had occupied. "Constance Hopkins is waiting within to tell you somewhat. And you must remember, Miles, that you are to bear you like a man."
Miles wrested round suddenly and faced the Captain. There was a little dim lantern light in this part of the great cabin, not enough for him to read the other's face, but he could guess and feel what was coming. "Has anything gone wrong with my mother? Tell me; tell me, quick!" he cried.
"Not your mother, Miles. Your father."
GOODMAN RIGDALE had died that day at noon; he had seemed sure of recovery, but there came a sudden change, and, with the ebbing of the tide, his life went out. So much they made Miles understand, gently as they could. Dolly cried with choked sobbings, and Constance Hopkins, who had come out and taken the little girl in her arms, cried too. But Miles, who sat apart from the others, astride one of the benches, did not cry,—just scowled before him in stupid fashion, and half snarled, "Don't touch me," at Goodwife Tinker and the other women who had hastened up to sympathize.
He was aware of the people about him and the lantern light; that was all. Something inside him seemed benumbed, and he did not care to talk, or cry, or do aught but sit still. He listened to Dolly; she was wailing now, "I want my mother. Oh, take me to my mother!" He wished she would hush; it worried him.
Then he heard some one else speak: "Look you, Captain; Will Trevor and I are fresh enoughto do 't, and there's the small boat belongs to the shallop. And Rigdale's goodwife will be wanting her bairns to-night. If you give the word, Will and I, we'll row them ashore."
Miles looked up and saw Ned Lister, his cap on straight and his face earnest, speaking with the Captain. He rose, and, a little unsteadily, pushed the women aside, so he could clutch Ned's arm. "I want to go ashore," he whispered chokedly. "Take me now."
"You shall go," said Captain Standish. "I'll bid them make ready the boat."
"You and the little wench get on your cloaks briskly," Ned admonished, as he turned to follow the Captain. "We'll be ready ere you be."
Constance came down with the two children to the cabin beneath the main deck. It seemed darker and colder than ever before, and Dolly's cloak strings were tied in a hard knot, and Miles could not find his mittens. At the very last, as, in stupid fashion, he searched for them a third time in a bag that held some odds and ends of his mother's, he heard Dolly cry, "Oh, Solomon, poor Solomon! Don't leave him behind, Miles. I know they'll not tend him. And daddy was fond of him."
The cat was dozing among the blankets, but when Miles, slow and uncomprehending, tried to seize him, he took fright and ran beneath the bunk.
"We've the boat ready. Quickly, Miles!" called Ned Lister in the passageway.
Miles saw Solomon's eyes shining yellow in the dark beneath the bunk, and, making a grab, he clutched the cat. The creature spit and clawed, but Miles, with his hands bleeding, still clung to him, and, headlong, thrust him into the bag that had held their biscuit. One white paw came struggling out, but the boy shoved it in roughly, and drew the strings tight.
"Wait, wait! Your cloak, Miles." Constance detained him, and fastened his cloak about his neck. Miles suffered her, like a very little boy, and then, slinging Solomon's bag over one shoulder, he followed Dolly up on deck.
The rain, pelting on his cheeks and forehead, half blinded him, and the faces of the men, seen fitfully beneath the flaring light of the lantern at the gangway, looked strange to him. Their voices had no meaning, and they must repeat the question when one asked: "What have you there, Miles? Give me the bag; I'll hand it you."
Miles shook his head and pressed the bag tighter beneath his arm; he could feel the cat's soft body writhing and struggling within. They brought him over to the gangway ladder, and, holding by one hand, he scrambled down it. How black the line of bulwarks looked against the lantern light, as theship heaved upward! There he half slipped, when he felt some one catch him round the body, and he was dropped down on the stern seat of the little boat. Dolly pressed close to him, and, putting his arm round her, he held tight to her and to Solomon. They had turned the lantern now so the light flashed into the boat, and he realized it was Lister who sat upon the forward thwart, and the other man, who was standing up to push them off from the ship's side, was the sailor, Will Trevor.
At last they were clear, out on the wide, rough water, and, with a motion of spitting on his hands, Trevor dropped into his seat and gripped his oar. As the boat swung round, Miles had sight of the black bulk of theMayflower, with a lantern gleaming on her high quarter-deck and another just receding from her gangway. Then, as the boat headed for the shore, he could see the ship only by turning his head, and that was too great an effort to make.
The thole-pins creaked, and the water slapped against the prow. The waves were running high, and, as the little boat leaped them, she seemed to throb through her frame. The oars and the sea that wrestled together made the only sound, for the rain that dropped steadily was a quiet rain, and the men who rowed for the most part kept silent. Once, to be sure, Trevor growled: "How're we heading, Ned?"
Miles noted dully how Lister rested on his oar and turned his face landward. "I can just make out a light," he answered. "Pest on this rain! More to larboard we must run."
For another space they tugged at the oars in silence, while Miles stared unheedingly into the dark, till suddenly Trevor called, "Hey, lad, what's wrong wi' thy bag?"
Solomon's struggles had loosed the fastenings, Miles found; he thrust the animal back and tied the strings again, slowly and stiffly, for his hands were cold and sore too, where they had been scratched.
"What sort o' luggage be ye travelling with?" Trevor asked, between strokes, in a tone that was so amused that Miles felt an angry shock: what right had the sailor to find any merriment in life, while Dolly was sobbing so? Next moment the anger passed, and instead, Miles wondered that Dolly should cry, for it was not true, whatever they had said; his father would surely come forth from the Common House to meet them, and he would look just as Miles had seen him on that last day.
Yonder beneath the black bluff shone a light. Miles could see it now, and he stared unthinkingly, till it grew larger and brighter, and then a sudden jar almost threw him from his seat. "I'll hold her steady," spoke Trevor. "Do thou get out the younkers, Ned."
"Come, come, Miley, are you asleep?" said Lister. Miles saw him kneeling on the rock close beside him, holding the boat's gunwale with one hand, and with the other outstretched. "Give me the bag. Now then, steady. Ah! You did yourself hurt?"
Miles picked himself up from the rock where he had fallen; his knees were aching, and he suddenly felt he should like to cry. "Yes, I hurt me," he said dazedly. "Give me Solomon."
He made his way, groping through the dark, to the path beneath the bluff that led up to the settlement. The ground had thawed, so broad puddles had formed; he must have splashed into one, for, as he stepped, his shoes squeaked with water. Ned Lister strode up alongside him, with Dolly gathered in his arms. "You come with me up to the Elder's house, Miley," he said breathlessly, for Ned was wiry, rather than robust, and Dolly was a heavy little maid.
All the way up the hill Miles had a sickening sense of awaking to something full of dread. The ground and the sky and the dimly seen houses were now all real; he felt the rain and the cold and the weight of the bag on his arm, and he began to realize that what had happened also was no dream.
"Oh!" he cried, with a sudden hard gasp, and, dropping the bag, broke into a run. He stumbledand slipped, but pantingly he held on till he reached the Brewsters' cottage. From one of the tiny windows a light shone forth, but it blinded without aiding him. He fumbled a moment at the heavy door, then, grasping the rude latch at last, thrust it open with his shoulder, and plunged headlong into the common room.
On the hearth, opposite the door, a fire blazed, and on the table flickered a candle. Spite of the dazzle of sudden light, Miles made out a woman, just turning from the fire, and, knowing her for the Elder's wife, ran to her. "Where's my mother, my mother?" he cried.
"Hush, hush, Miles! You must quiet yourself ere you see her," Mistress Brewster urged, never so gently.
But there came from an adjoining room his mother's voice: "Miles, I am here. Come to me."
The narrow chamber was dark, but, seated in the far corner, he could distinguish a woman's bowed figure, and, stumbling heavily across the floor, he flung himself on his knees beside her. "Mother! Oh, mother!" he choked, and, burying his face in her lap, burst out crying.
AT first Miles found a jarring unfitness in everyday life. Only eight and forty hours before, they had buried his father on the bluff overlooking the harbor; they had read no prayers over the dead, as the ministers did in England, and, lest the savages should spy and note how few the colonists were becoming, they had levelled the grave, like the many round about it. A raw wind had blown from off the sea, so Goodwife Rigdale shivered as she stood by the grave, and Miles's hands were senseless with the cold.
Now it was over, and Goodman Rigdale dead and buried, but life went on, just as usual. Goodwife Rigdale helped Mistress Brewster prepare food, and ate of it herself; and Love and Wrestling, sorry though they had been for their playmates' sorrow, frolicked gayly with Solomon, whom Ned Lister had brought to the cottage, bag and all. By the second day, though her eyes were still heavy with crying, and her mouth tremulous, Dolly plucked up spirit to join the boys. Even earlier, Miles hadbegun to fetch wood and water for Mistress Brewster, lay the fire, and help where he could; if only everything had stopped for a time, till he could realize what had happened and master himself, he felt he could bear it; but the petty acts of living would go on.
In such a mood of wretchedness he trudged forth on the third morning, up the path beyond the spring, to fetch sticks from the edge of the wood where the trees had been felled. He gathered the fagots, and was trying to tie them strongly, as his father tied the swamp grass that last day they worked together, when he saw Francis Billington, also in search of wood, drawing near.
"Why, Miles!" the newcomer greeted him, in some surprise, for in these days Miles avoided his old comrades. But now there was no avoiding till the wood was tied up, so Francis came to him and, a bit awed, tried clumsily to be sympathetic. "I'll help you tie that wood, Miles."
"I c'n do 't alone."
"Look you, my daddy's going fowling to-day. Mayhap he'll take us."
"I don't want to go," snapped Miles, with a sick sort of anger that other boys still could talk of their fathers.
"You might at least be civil to a body," Francis said rather huffily. "What need to carry such aface for it, Miles? You were mortal afeard of your father while he lived. And now he can never flog you no more."
Without warning, other than a small catching of the breath, Miles sprang to his feet and struck the speaker in the face. Francis, thoroughly surprised, hit back, and, clenching, they pitched over among the crackling sticks. Miles fell uppermost, and, hardly realizing how or why, he was pommelling Francis lustily, when a mighty hand heaved him up by the scruff of the neck. "You must not strike a man when he is already worsted," spoke the voice of long-legged John Alden.
Miles stood biting his lips that twitched. "'A' shall not say—" he began, and there his voice broke. "Oh, I wish he could flog me again!"
Alden stared a moment, then, with sudden understanding, swung round upon the whimpering Francis and rated him mightily, while Miles, glad not to be noticed, caught up his bundle of wood and stumbled away toward the settlement.
Yet this was the last outward showing of the boy's grief. Little by little, as the busy days came, he found himself fitting into his new life, and at length even taking a certain zest in it. For he was now man of the family, and the cares he felt called on to shoulder did not a little to distract him from any sorry broodings. He must work withhis full strength, wherever they sent him and whoever bade him; he must keep flibbertigibbet Dolly out of mischief; above all, he must run after his mother, as she went about to nurse the many sick of the settlement, and see to it that she did not catch cold or come to any harm.
The greatest and most important labor, however, he did in the earlier days of his loss, when he went to fetch his father's goods from theMayflower. Others might have said the work was done by Ned Lister, for Master Hopkins, who had promised Goodman Rigdale to look to his family, so far as he was able, sent him about this task; but Miles, who was sure he was the leader and Ned only the assistant, felt the whole expedition a tribute to his own new-come manliness.
They went out in the shallop to theMayfloweron a morning so bright and open that it scarcely recalled to Miles his coming from the ship. Once aboard, to be sure, the half-homesick pang laid hold on him, when he scrambled down to the little cabin that had sheltered him so long; but there was so much to do he soon cast it off. The bedding must be tied up securely, and the pots and platters loaded into the biggest kettle; and Ned, who had a coughing fit and said he didn't feel very well, let Miles do it all. He recovered, however, in time to help drag the stuff to the deck,and to get up from the orlop a small chest of Goodman Rigdale's; and he was also selfish enough to take charge himself of the loud, manly labor of transferring the goods to the shallop.
Somewhat disappointed, Miles clambered down again to the cabin to fetch the box with Dolly's Indian basket, and, when he came back, the shallop was so near ready to push off that he had only time to drop into the bow beside Lister. Glancing round the great sail toward the stern, where such other passengers as were going from the ship were placed, he caught sight of Captain Standish, who sat stiffly, with one arm about the muffled figure of a woman. "Yon is Mistress Standish, is it not?" Miles questioned Lister, very softly.
His companion nodded. "Set to come ashore, poor lass!" he answered, in the same low tone. "'Tis the last trip she'll ever make in the shallop." This Ned spoke sympathetically; then had no further leisure to talk for settling himself comfortably with his back against Goodman Rigdale's bedding.
Miles moved a little to give Ned room, but, without heeding him, continued to gaze at Captain Standish and Mistress Rose. He could not see her face for the hood about her head and the cloak drawn up above her chin, but he marked the listless droop of her whole body; and he noted, too, howthe Captain sat with his eyes looking straight out and his mouth hard. Miles wondered if what Lister said of Mistress Standish were true, and, what with wondering and watching, was taken by surprise and nearly overset when the shallop bumped up to the landing place.
For a moment he lingered by the boat, feigning to busy himself with unlading the kettle, while he watched Mistress Standish. The Captain and Alden, who was waiting at the landing, helped her from the boat, and half carried her away between them up the hill. The Captain's face was still so grave and stern, that Miles was a trifle frightened, and very sorry; he wished he were a man like John Alden, so he could have spoken to the Captain and helped Mistress Standish.
Then he had to think of other matters, for Ned, with an access of energy, was tumbling the goods ashore, and they must together drag them up to the Elder's house. Just at present that was home to Miles, because his mother and Dolly lived there, and he sometimes ate with them, though, as an additional mark of manhood,—so he esteemed it,—he spent his nights at the Common House.
It really came about because his friends could not shelter him. Goodwife Rigdale and Dolly had the last spare bed at the Elder's house; the cottage higher up the hill, on which Goodman Rigdale hadlabored, and where Goodman Cooke and Jack had now one bunk, was filled with men whose houses were building; while Master Hopkins, however well he might mean by his friend's son, had not a roof to cover his own family. So Miles slept with Giles Hopkins at the Common House, where at night the beds were placed so thick one need not step on the floor in passing from the fire to his sleeping place.
On Sunday all was changed, however, for then the Common House became a meeting-house. They tucked the beds up in corners, and swept the floor, as Miles knew to his cost, for on this, his second Saturday on the mainland, they pressed him into the service. Twice on the Sabbath the Elder taught his little company, and prayed with them there,—a sorry little company indeed, of whom fair half lay sick within the cheerless cabins, or dead beneath the level ground of the harbor bluff.
The thought of his own dead father made Miles listen attentively that day; and, when he walked staidly up to the Elder's house before twilight, he took Dolly apart into his mother's cold little chamber, where he read to her from Goodman Rigdale's black-letter Bible. He was a painful reader, but he felt it was the fit thing for him to do in filling his father's place, so, with the great book on his knees, he sat on the floor, beneath the little window thatlet in the light sparsely through its oiled paper, and Dolly sat by him, with her head on his shoulder. He was much elated at finding her so quiet and attentive, but, when he paused to recover breath at the end of a very tough sentence about the Perizzites, he perceived the little girl was fast asleep.
Miles did not wake her; just sat with the Bible in his lap and his stiffening arm round his sister till, when it had grown darker, his mother came to seek them. He had nothing to say to his mother that night, but afterward it was something to remember keenly, though with an under-pang of sorrow, how he had sat close by her in the dark and had felt her hand rest on his head.
Next day was dreary with rain and sleet, and a dull twilight that, closing in early, drove Miles into the house, where he played at Even-and-Odd with the little Brewsters and Dolly, very quietly, because the Elder was writing at the table. Elder Brewster was always kindly-spoken, but the fact that he knew such a deal about the next world, and what would befall you if you were not good, put Miles in great awe of him.
When he went forth at length, Miles, feeling more like himself, raised his voice, and even let the trenchers clatter while he and Dolly laid the table. But he had no desire to be noisy, when, late in the evening, the Elder returned from the house wherethe sick lay. A word or two passed between the older folk that sent Miles with a whispered question to his mother, who told him simply that Mistress Rose Standish had died that evening.
Dolly cried, because she was a foolish girl, but it did not stir Miles so deeply. Indeed, he did not come to feel a hearty grief till next morning, when, as he climbed the hill to Elder Brewster's cottage, he saw Captain Standish, grim and set-faced, trudging up to the woods through the sleet and rain. The weather was too bitter for work, and the axe which the Captain carried was, Miles guessed, a mere pretext. All through the day it made him shiver to think of the solitary man, lingering in the cold among the pines; he wondered if even to himself the Captain would make pretense of working, or if he would sit idle among the wet logs.
But forty-eight hours later the Captain was going and coming and working among the rest, just as before, though maybe a bit more silent. For the hale ones who could labor were few; the work must be done; and, where so many were falling, there was small space to grieve for a single life.
Miles had even grown somewhat blunted to the sight of the sorry little companies that twice and even thrice a week trudged with the body of a friend or kinsman to the bluff above the harbor. His own life went on methodically; he worked, andeven played with Jack Cooke and Trug, and some days, when he was allowed to go fowling with Ned Lister and Giles Hopkins, fairly enjoyed himself.
But Ned began presently to have coughing fits even when he was bidden to go hunting, though Miles, who had grown distrustful of his convenient illness, urged him to "have done with fooling and come along." One morning in February, when Lister, instead of going about his work, was wasting his time thus with Miles and Jack and Giles by the fire in Goodman Cooke's cottage, came another to urge him, no less a one than Master Hopkins. Miles remembered a long time the terrible rating he gave Ned for his laziness and trickery, and he wondered that the young man sat with his head leaning on his fist, and flung back but a single protest: "I can judge better than you, sir, whether I be ill or not. 'Tis my head that's aching, not yours."
To which Master Hopkins retorted grimly that, if there were a whipping post in the colony, something besides Ned's head would ache.
Then, for that there was no help for it, Lister took his fowling piece and slouched away from the fire. "I'm going, since you drive me," he said sulkily, "but these youngsters need not follow at my heels. 'Twill be all I can do to fetch myself home again, let alone three brats."
Much disappointed, Miles spent the day in theless joyous labor of fetching and carrying on the great hill, where they were putting the last touches to the platform on which the guns were to be mounted. He came to be interested, none the less, when Goodman Cooke told him how, in a few days, they would drag the guns up the hill and put them in place. That would be a brave thing to see, Miles thought, for the sailors from theMayflowerwere to come ashore and help, and the street from the hill to the landing place would be noisy and busy. Not so busy, though, as the crew of theMayflowerwould have made it a month before, for the sickness now had settled on the ship, where it was raging unchecked.
At dusk, as Miles came down from the hill, he chanced on Master Hopkins, still grumbling at Lister, who bade him go see if that malingerer were loitering anywhere in the settlement. It seemed a spying errand, but, not thinking of disobedience, Miles started down the street. Nearest the shore stood the Common House, the house for the sick, and the storehouse, all three of which, to make the search complete, he visited.
In the big main room of the sick-house lay the men who were ill, and, as Miles stepped in, on tiptoe because of his heavy shoes, the first thing he saw beneath the candlelight was Ned Lister's black head, half hidden under the coverlets of one of thebunks. Miles stole up to him. "Why, Ned, ha' you cheated the Doctor himself?" he whispered cheerfully.
Lister raised his head and looked at him, with his eyes very bright. "I'm cheating you all; yes," he said, with a laugh. "Go tell Hopkins be more cautious next time how he wastes so good a property as a serving man. A pity! If I die he'll be out my passage-money. Well, I always owed him a grudge for bringing me to this forsaken country, and I'll even scores now."
The thought seemed to please Ned mightily, for he laughed, till Doctor Fuller, stepping from the inner room, sharply bade him hush. "Get you to Master Hopkins and tell him the man is ill," he ordered Miles; and, as he let the boy out at the door, added, for his ear alone, "very ill."
Somehow Ned's overthrow frightened Miles more than any other illness. Lister had always seemed so tough and wiry that his succumbing at last set the boy to asking himself, in some fright, if he, too, might not fall ill. A soreness in his throat or an ache in his head made him nervous. He questioned Jack minutely as to how he felt before he was taken sick, and then he began at once to feel as Jack had felt. He started to tell his mother and get her to comfort him, but then he was ashamed; she was busy and anxious all the time for thepeople she was called on to nurse, and he was a great, strong boy, who, of course, would not be sick.
But one day his head ached in good earnest—no imagination; and next morning the ache was worse, so he was too stupid even to go out. Wrestling Brewster was ailing too, so Dolly and Love stayed by his bed to amuse him, and Miles was left quite alone. All day he sat toasting himself by the fire, till he was too warm and was sure his head ached because of the heat, so out he went, and tramped up and down the street till his teeth chattered with cold. He wanted no supper, but he went back to the house to bid his mother good night and get to bed early.
"Mother came home very weary and has lain down within," Dolly said, so he went into the bedroom. A cold light streamed in at the little window, but the corners of the low room were dark and the pallet was in shadow. His mother was stretched upon it, with the cloak that had been his father's wrapped round her, but at his step she raised her head. "It's you, my lad?" she asked, and reached out her hand.
"I came in to give you good night, mother," he said, in his manliest tone, because it made him proud to think he was hiding his illness from her. "I'll mess at the Common House to-night."
She put up her hand, and, drawing his head down to her, kissed him. Her cheek felt hot as it pressed against his, and even in the dim light he noted that her face was flushed, but his head ached so lamentably that he made nothing of it. "Why, deary, you're not ill?" he heard her say.
"Indeed, no, mother. No more ill than you," he answered bravely, and, bidding her good night, went softly out of the room.
The west was all a chill yellow, and a northerly breeze was astir that set Miles shivering long before he reached the Common House. There a fire was alight that looked comforting, and, going up to it, he snuggled down in a corner of the hearth. At the table of boards laid on trestles some of the men were eating their supper, but Miles was sick at the mere thought of food. He sat staring and staring into the heart of the flames, where he could see the outlines of the farmhouse at home, and then he saw nothing, but he faintly heard steps upon the floor, and somebody caught him up.
"What are you falling on the fire in that fashion for, eh?" one asked, and the man who held him—he had a vague notion it was Alden—questioned, "What's wrong, lad?"
"Oh—h!" wailed Miles, "I think I'm dying."
TO be sure, Miles did not die, but for some days he lay in the sick-house, too ill to give much heed to what went on about him, or take thought for anything save his own misery. From a mass of hazy recollections one or two moments of that time afterward came back clearly.
One such memory was of a dim morning within the cheerless room, when, through the familiar patter, patter of rain on the oiled paper at the windows, he heard a latch creak somewhere and men tread cautiously. Turning weakly on his pillow, Miles looked to the door that led to the inner room, where the sick women lay, and he saw Goodman Cooke and Edward Dotey come forth, stepping carefully, and carrying on a stretcher between them something that was muffled up and motionless. He turned his face again to the wall, and neither thought nor reasoned of what it meant,—just listened to the lulling patter of the rain.
The other time of which he kept remembrance was a crisp night, when the whiff of wind that blewin at the outer door, as it was opened, smelt fresh and good, and Cooke, who came to tend the fire, piled the logs high. Dozing and waking, Miles watched through half-closed eyelids the crowded pallets about him, and the shadows that flickered up and down the rough walls. He must have slept a moment, but he roused up suddenly to see in the waning firelight Elder Brewster, who bent over him with a cup of drink. Leaning against the arm that supported him, Miles swallowed the draught obediently, and then the Elder, with more care than he usually had time to bestow on a single patient, laid him down and drew the coverings round him. "Poor little lad!" Miles heard him say, under his breath. "God comfort you!"
Miles wondered a little, but, too stupid greatly to heed what was said, soon dropped to sleep once more.
The crisis of his sickness must have passed on that night, for a day or two later he felt enough like himself to swallow with some relish a dish of broth. Ned Lister, packed out from the sick-house while still convalescent, to make room for others, fetched him the broth, and helped him eat, with a choking great spoon that made the process slow. Miles wondered whether Ned had grown thin or his clothes had grown baggy; perhaps 'twas a little of both.
Then, on the idle wonderment, followed more serious thought, and, speaking slowly and weakly, he asked, as Lister settled him in his pallet again: "Tell me, Ned, why has not my mother been here to nurse me, as she did you and the others?"
"Haven't you been well enough looked to, Miley?" questioned Ned, bending down to tie his shoestrings.
"'Tis just the men have cared for me."
"Well, you're a man yourself, and want only men to look to you, eh?"
"No, I'm not a man," said Miles, the ready tears of sickness welling into his eyes, "and I want my mother."
"I heard she had a touch of the fever herself," answered Ned, still busy with his shoes. "We're all helpless with it, Miles. There's only seven of us now that can crawl about to do aught. And the Captain and the Elder are working each like three. By the Lord, those be two good fellows!" This earnestly, for Ned; and then, gathering up his bowl and spoon, he walked away to minister to the next sick man.
Every one ill, and the care of the whole colony on the shoulders of seven men, some half sick themselves! Miles realized vaguely that he ought to be patient and not fret at anything, but still the next two days of his slow convalescence were long and hard to bear.
He was glad enough, one dim morning that seemed like all the others, when the Elder came into the sick-room with Dolly at his side. "The little wench begged to come to you, Miles," he said, as he seated her on the edge of the boy's pallet. "But she is to talk only few words, and softly, because there are others lying here very ill."
So soon as he had turned and left the children to themselves, Dolly bent and dabbed a kiss upon her brother's chin. "Though you make me shy, near as if you were a stranger, Miles," she explained, in a subdued whisper, "you are grown so peaked, and your eyes are so very round."
Miles smiled weakly, but happily, it was so good to see the face of one of his own people. "I'm glad you came, Dolly," he said, drawing her hand tremulously into his. "Mother will soon come too, will she not? Why did she not come with you?"
A choke made Dolly's whisper broken: "She—could not."
"Is she ill?"
Dolly nodded, with a piteous face.
Miles's thin fingers gripped her hand fast. "Dolly, she isn't—dead?" His voice rose high and frightened.
"Oh, you mustn't, Miles," Dolly gasped. "And I can't tell you. They said I must not speak ofher to you. Oh, Miles, Miles, she has been dead these four days!"
They carried Dolly away, the mischief done, and Miles, hiding his head beneath the bedclothes, cried so long as strength was in him. Then he lay watching the red and orange streaks that flashed before his tight-closed eyes, and, thinking how stuffy it was beneath the coverlets, wondered if perhaps he would not smother. He hoped he would, so he had a first sensation of fretful disappointment, when some one uncovered his head; and then, as he caught the clearer air on his face and looked up at Captain Standish, felt vaguely comforted.
"Drink you this, lad," spoke the Captain, gruffly, yet, Miles realized, with vast pity in his tone. "Then sleep."
"I'll—try," swallowed Miles.
"That's well. Bear it soldierly, as we all must."
"Like a soldier," Miles repeated over and over to himself, and, shutting his lips, pressed his head into the bolster, till, worn-out, he slept.
When he awoke, the realization of his loss returned, keen almost as ever; but he was a healthy lad, so inevitably strength came back to him, and with it, little by little, as he mastered it in silence, his grief abated. Those about him were kind, too, and did what they could to comfort him. Captain Standish himself cared for him; Ned Lister andGiles visited him often; and once they even let poor, guilty Dolly come to see him. She fetched in her arms fat Solomon, who yowled so piteously that, just inside the door, Doctor Fuller, who was up and able to tend his sick again, made her put him down, whereupon the cat fled home, fast as four legs could bear him.
"'Twas such a pity when I fetched him so far to see you," Dolly lamented to Miles, as she exhibited the scratches on her hands, "but he will go home safe to Mistress Brewster's house. He likes it there, and so do I. I am going to live there always with Love and Wrestling and Priscilla Mullins. She made me a poppet of a piece of scarlet cloth, and I called it after her. I shall bring it to show you next time, though you'll laugh at it, because you are a boy. Indeed, I do like it at Mistress Brewster's. If only mammy and daddy were there too!" she added, in a lower tone.
Elder Brewster himself had, at the very first, paused by Miles's bed, and spoken gravely to him of how his mother was now in a more blessed place, and he must try always to be a good boy, so some day he might join her. Though he listened dutifully, Miles did not care for the Elder's admonitions as much as he cared for Mistress Brewster's words. Newly risen from her sick-bed, she came to him, and, sitting by his pallet, whispered him of hismother, and how, before she died, she had left her love for him, and bidden him always be a good lad and a good brother to the little wench. "Though my lad will be that without my bidding," Alice Rigdale had added. "He has always been a good little son to me."
Miles listened, with his face held stolid; it was only when Mistress Brewster bent and kissed him, like his mother, that he blinked fast and turned away his head.
Day by day he grew stronger, till he sat up in bed, and then, by slow stages, was suffered to put on his clothes and walk staggeringly across the room. The next advance was his going out into the air, which would doubtless have been longer deferred if any one had had time to give close heed to the sick boy. But Doctor Fuller was busied elsewhere, and the Elder was looking to others of the sick folk, so, one morning when Lister had helped Miles into his clothes, the boy took matters into his own hands by slipping out at the door.
It was a rare, mild March day, with a tender wind of the spring that came from the western woods. The earth was soft beneath the foot; the few bushes that clambered up the bluff across the way were bursting with brown buds; and the blue harbor dazzled under the vivid sunlight. Leaning against the doorpost, Miles joyfully drank in the freshnessof the morning, though his eyes grew wistful as he looked again to the bluff yonder where were the levelled graves.