MILES was not fated, however, to learn by experience how it felt to be tied neck and heels; for all his double sin of abetting a duel and running away from the settlement, he suffered no unusual punishment. Instead, next day at noon, when Master Hopkins returned from the fields, he ordered him into the closet, and there gave him as thorough a flogging as even the boy's tormented fancy had conjured up.
Miles came out, with his shoulders quivering, and, not staying for dinner, slouched away through the fields to the shore, where he stood a time blinking out to sea. He had been bidden go present himself to the Elder and be admonished for his sins, but he did not hold it necessary to go just yet.
At last he had himself tolerably in hand, and, with no great heart for what was before him, was loitering along the shingle to the village, when a shrill voice hailed him, and, looking up, he saw Jack and Joe and Francis running toward him. So Miles put on an unconcerned bearing, and, makingthe pebbles clatter beneath his tread, swaggered to meet them.
Oh, yes, he could tell them brave tales of how he had lived with the Indians, he bragged, but not now; he had to go now and be admonished by the Elder, he explained, as if he took pride in such awful depths of iniquity.
"And Stephen Hopkins has admonished you ere this, I'll warrant," chuckled Francis. "How heavily did he lam you?"
With melancholy satisfaction, Miles pulled off his shirt and exhibited his stripes to his admiring companions.
"Big red weals," quoth Jack. "I'm glad 'twas not I must bear such a banging. Here's more than one stroke has broken the skin."
Miles twisted his neck, in a vain effort to study his smarting shoulders, while his estimate of himself rose surprisingly.
"And for each whang Miles cried out, I'll be bound," added Francis.
"I did not open my lips," boasted Miles. "A' could not make me. You can talk, if you will, Francie. We know if you'd borne the half of this, we'd 'a' heard you roaring from the Fort Hill clear to the Rock. But I mind not a beating, nor aught they can do to me or say. 'Twas so brave a life I led among the Indians—"
There something in Francis's face made Miles glance over his shoulder, and right behind him, his step deadened by the sand, stood the Captain, who was gazing down at him with a look between contemptuous and amused, that made the other lads slip away, and set Miles scuttling into his shirt.
"Well, sir, you show a deep and edifying sense of the mischief you have done," Standish said quietly, but the very absence of anger from his tone made Miles's face burn the hotter.
He was glad that his shirt was over his head at that moment, so he could not see the speaker's look, and he dreaded to meet it. But when he had drawn on the garment and could glance round him, he saw, with an added pang of humiliation, that Captain Standish, not holding him worthy of further notice, had trudged on to the landing.
For a moment Miles stood gazing blankly after him; then he turned and, kicking up the sand in half-hearted little spurts, plodded on up the hill to Master Brewster's gate. Beneath the bluff, on the shore of the brook, he came upon the Elder, laboring diligently among his green things, and told him in a listless tone why he had come thither. Master Brewster talked to him a long time and wisely, Miles had no doubt, but he only heard the words vaguely, for he was feeling the piteous smart of his irritated shoulders, and watching the flecksof light through the green bushes that shifted across the Elder's doublet, and harking to the loud purr of the fat cat Solomon, who was rubbing himself against the Elder's knees.
Yet he was dully sorry when the Elder dismissed him, for that left him free for some heavy thoughts. It would be a little comfort to speak with Dolly; so, rather uncertain what welcome such a rapscallion as he might hope for, he toiled up the bluff and faltered into the Brewsters' living room.
The wind from the sea stirred the curtain at the window, and in the full blast, industriously sewing at a small gown, Mistress Mullins sat alone. "So you've come to visit me, little Indian?" she greeted Miles, and put her hands to her brown hair that had ruffled in the draught. "My scalp is quite safe? You are well assured you have no tomahawk about you?"
Miles shook his head in crestfallen fashion; he only wanted to see Dolly, he murmured.
"She is in bed, poor little one! till I make her some tidy clothes to put on," Priscilla answered. "Stay and talk with me, Miles, like a gallant lad. Come, if you'll look merry again, I'll show you something rare. 'Tis a humbird."
She led him to the western casement, where on the window-sill rested a little cage of paper, in which fluttered a shimmery atom no bigger than a bee.For a moment, because Priscilla expected it of him, Miles gazed at the tiny whirring wings, and touched the cage gently, but in so listless a fashion that the young girl asked abruptly: "What has gone wrong with you, Miles?"
"Naught."
"Then you are an uncivil youth to wear such a glum face. Come, tell me it all. Is it that Stephen Hopkins hath flogged you?"
"No!" Miles answered, with an angry sniff. "A beating more or less, 'tis nothing to a man."
Priscilla suddenly put an arm about his neck. "My poor little—man!" she said, and, for all she laughed, her voice was tender. "I know I am but a silly woman, yet mayhap I can help you,—an you let me. Is it that the Elder rated you grievously?"
Miles shook his head, then, spite of himself, blurted out: "'Tis—Captain Standish is angry and scarce will look at me. And he has ever been kind to me. But now he will have none of me. I had no mind to be so wicked; I did not mean what I said; I'm sorry."
"Why, you need not lay it to heart if the Captain has been round with you," the girl coaxed. "He must be so troubled now with all this ill news of the savages."
"But he—he thinks I'm not sorry," Milesfaltered, twisting the ends of the window curtain relentlessly between his hands. "And I am, but I can't go to him and say it, when he is angered."
"But I can go to him and tell him you are sorry, if 'twill comfort you," Priscilla answered coolly. "I have no fear of your Captain."
"Will you so?" Miles cried gratefully. "Sure, you're uncommon good. When I'm older I'll marry you,—unless Jack Alden does it ere then."
Whereat Mistress Mullins's face flushed pink, and she pulled Miles's ears, and, calling him a scamp, packed him into the bedroom to speak with Dolly.
So, when Miles ran home to supper, he was in an almost cheerful mood, which speedily ended, for Master Hopkins made him read a sorrowful chapter on the wrath of God against transgressors, and cuffed him because he could not pronounce the word "Zarhites." Mistress Hopkins scolded too, because she had labored all the afternoon to mend the shirt which Miles had worn upon his wanderings; moreover, she would have to make the troublesome boy a new doublet, to replace the one he had lost, and new breeches, for those he now wore were disgracefully ragged, so perhaps she had reason to be vexed on his account.
"But I did not tear them wantonly," Miles lamented to Ned Lister next morning. "Yet shesays she is so busied she cannot make me new clothes for days, and I must wear my breeches all ragged for punishment."
"Hm!" answered Ned. "Half Plymouth seems to take its diversion in punishing the other half." He was on his knees between two rows of the rustling green cornstalks, where he was grubbing up those weeds that were so tough as to resist his hoe; his doublet was off, but he had so scrupulously turned up the collar of his shirt that no trace of the red mark about his neck could be seen.
It was so unusual for Ned to work that Miles was lingering to watch him, when suddenly the young man broke out: "Look you here, Miley, you were with me that day I made Dotey to fight me, and you heard all I said unto him, so I ought to tell you—'twas not he bore tales of me unto Hopkins; 'twas the mistress herself."
Miles nodded his head. "I never had any liking for her," he said softly.
Ned weeded scowlingly. "Well, she made Hopkins go unto the Governor and beg that Ed Dotey and I be released after we'd been tied an hour," he admitted, in a grudging tone. "She might be worse, and so might Ed Dotey; he's no talebearer, though he is a self-sufficient coxcomb."
For several days this was the only bit of private talk which Miles had with Ned, for Master Hopkins,who said that Lister had already corrupted the boy sufficiently, took now a new course of keeping the two rigorously apart. While Ned was sent to work in the fields, Miles was bidden weed in the house-garden, or fetch and carry for Mistress Hopkins.
Master Hopkins believed, too, that Satan found mischief for idle hands, so he saw to it that one task followed another, till Miles, honestly wearied, looked back with fondness to his life among the Indians as a time of perpetual holiday. One morning, indeed, about a week after his return to Plymouth, when he was forbidden to help Ned dig clams, and ordered, instead, to fetch water and then weed in the garden, he voiced his rebellious wish: "I would I were back with those good, friendly Indians at Manomet."
Master Hopkins, who was busy at the delicate task of repairing the lock of his musket, looked up at the muttered words. "You wish to dwell among those shameless idolaters?" he questioned grimly. "Verily, Miles Rigdale, you are a son of perdition."
A very terrible name that was, Miles thought, but it was worse than the hard name, that Master Hopkins cuffed him till his ears tingled and his eyes watered.
Frightened at his own wickedness, and smarting with the blows, he hurried off to the spring, and,halfway thither, met with Francis Billington. Even Francis's sympathy would have been welcome just then, and, after all he had undergone because of his confession to save the boy, Miles thought he had some claim to it. But Francis stiffened up at his greeting and put on a surprising new air of virtue. "I'm forbid to have to do with you, Miles," he announced, with open delight. "Sure, I see not why your father ever need keep you so tenderly from my conversation. Why, you are yourself the worst lad in all the colony; 'twas Captain Standish himself said so to my father."
"I think you are not speaking the truth," Miles answered doggedly; he had a mind to fight Francis for such a story, but very likely if he fought, Master Hopkins would whip him. So he drooped his head under the other's taunt and plodded on to the spring. He didn't believe Francis, he repeated to himself, while he swallowed and swallowed in his throat. But there came the remembrance of the look the Captain had given him, there on the shore, and his contemptuous words, and, with a sickening fear that, for once, Francis had spoken the truth, he felt the lump in his throat swell bigger.
He did not care, though the water, as he scooped up his pailful at the spring, slopped over his shoes, but he did care when he heard on the pathway from the bluff the scatter of pebbles under a quick footstep;he could not let any one see him in so sorry a mood. Catching up his pail, he pressed into the crackling green alders at the farther side of the spring, and, as he did so, heard some one call sharply, "Miles."
It was Captain Standish's voice, Captain Standish who would want to rate him as the worst lad in the colony, who would never believe he was penitent. Miles put his head down and, crashing through the alders, never paused till the whole dense thicket lay between him and his pursuer. He could hear on the lifeless, hot air no sound save that of his own fluttering breath; no one had offered to follow him, and he felt suddenly sorry that he had escaped.
But, without courage to go back to the spring and face the Captain, he crouched down beneath the bushes and sat a long time staring through the leaves at the bright water of the brook. Up in the street he heard eager voices once, but the dread of encountering Captain Standish made him stay quiet in his hiding place, till the street was still again. Then he clambered painfully up the steeper part of the bluff below Cooke's house, and, with a new terror growing on him of the mighty scolding he could expect for his delay, scudded home.
But no one had space to scold him. When he came to the house he found Mistress Hopkins, quite silent, and Constance, with a scared face,busied about dinner, and Ned and Dotey, with Giles to help, overhauling their muskets. "What is it has happened?" Miles questioned in amazement.
"War!" Ned answered cheerily, and Mistress Hopkins, with a grewsome sort of satisfaction, added that she always said they'd yet be slain by the heathen savages.
"It happened at Namasket, five league from here," Ned ran on. "Squanto and two other friendly copper-skins, Hobbamock and Tokamahamon, they went thither quietly to learn how much truth was in this talk of rebellion against Massasoit. And there was a certain Corbitant, an under-chief of the King's, who is in league with the Narragansetts, and he discovered them. Hobbamock broke from them and came fleeing hither, not an hour agone, but Tokamahamon they took and Squanto they've slain. So we are furbishing up our muskets."
Poor Squanto, who had fetched him from Nauset, was dead. That was Miles's first thought, and he was honestly grieved. But ere dinner was out he learned from his elders that there was other fearful matter to think on, for if Massasoit's men were rebelling and joining the Narragansetts against the King and his allies, it meant a dreadful danger for the settlement.
Quietly, but resolutely enough, the Englishmen made their arrangements to march against Namasket and punish the slayers of their friends. After a night of watching and half hidden fear, next morning, in the midst of a beating rain, a little squad of ten, with the Captain at their head, and Hobbamock to guide them, went forth to the attack.
From the western window Miles watched them go. He had hoped to be allowed to slip forth from the house and see them start upon their expedition; at least get a last glimpse of Captain Standish, who, perhaps, in the confusion, would forget he was angry and say, "Good-morrow, Miles," as he used. So Miles fetched Master Hopkins's buff-coat, and helped Constance with the breakfast kettle, and mended the fire, and quieted Damaris, and waited and hoped, till he saw the last man of the column disappear over the bluff.
He could run out and seek a dry stick of wood from the pile now, when going forth profited him nothing. He slouched into the wet and the wind, and, in the pashy dooryard, met Ned, who was in a bad temper, because, when he asked his master to let him go on the expedition, he had been contemptuously bidden by Hopkins to "stay home with the women and tend the disgraceful hurts he had taken in his godless brawl."
"If I'd not been such a Jack as to get myselfslashed, I might 'a' gone," Ned grumbled now to Miles, as he kicked his heels in the big puddle before the doorstone. "And they'll have some good fighting, I'll wager."
"Do you think surely some of our men will be slain?" Miles questioned, terror-stricken.
"A buff-coat does not make a man immortal," Ned cast over his shoulder, as he stamped into the house.
But Miles, standing in the pouring rain, gazed up the path by which the little company had gone. The sky was thick gray, and the rain, driven by the wind from off the harbor, fell in long, livid streaks. He took up a shiny wet stick from the ground and snapped it slowly in his hands. "The Captain may be killed," he told himself dazedly. "And he does not know that I be sorry."
ALL that night the rain fell steadily; harking to its slow patter on the roof, Miles thought on those who were tramping the forest, and wondered how they fared. Ned, stretched beside him, save for his regular breathing, lay like one dead, and yonder in the living room he could hear Trug, admitted to shelter from the rain, grumbling in his sleep.
A long, long night it was, and the day that followed, all blurry with faint sunshine, was well nigh as long. Little work was to do in the wet fields, so Miles fetched pails of water and tended the fretting babies, while, like every other soul in the colony, he waited for news of the Captain and his men.
A second night, sickly with warm mist, had closed in on Plymouth, before tidings came. Miles and Giles had gone forth together into the moist darkness to the spring, where they drank, before drawing a last bucketful for the house; the alders looked startlingly dense against the lighter black of the sky, and Miles kept close to Giles.
Even the elder boy was more alert than his wont, and jumped listening to his feet, when far up the Namasket trail sounded ordered footsteps. "'Tis father and the men returning," he cried next moment, and scrambled swiftly up the bluff, with Miles, eager yet half in dread lest ill had befallen, panting after.
Down through the dusk of the trail men were coming—the heavily armed Englishmen and in their midst some scantily clad savages. Giles, forgetful of reserve for once, pressed forward boldly to meet his father, but Miles, having no one to meet, stood back in the bushes, that touched his face clammily, and watched the little column, noisy now, as home approached, swing past. At its head marched a stocky figure that he knew, and, as if the Captain could see him even in the blackness, Miles shrank a little farther into the bushes.
Yet he joined himself to the very end of the column, for he had no will to stay alone in the dark. Goodman Cooke marched there, and, eager to have some friend in the party, Miles fell into step beside him. "You are all come back safe, sir?" he asked propitiatingly.
"Surely, yes," the other replied. "All sound, save three Indians we fetched hither to the Doctor. Best of all, we've Squanto here; we found him unhurt."
By this they had come down into the village, where all the people, it seemed, had hurried forth, and, hearing the news of their interpreter's return, showed no small joy thereover. Squanto, a figure of varying light and shade beneath the lantern glow, took such expressions of kind feeling stolidly, and profited from the good wishes of his white friends by asking for strong water. There was some merriment thereat among the Englishmen,—all were in good spirits, in truth, for the expedition had fared well.
In broken fragments Miles caught the story as he was hustled about among the returned soldiers and, with the other lads, stood staring at them under the lantern light: how the Englishmen, coming at midnight to Namasket, had beset the house of Corbitant, but found that valiant chief had fled at the mere rumor of their approach; how several of the Indians, trying to press forth in spite of their promises that no harm was meant them, had been hurt; how Squanto and Tokamahamon had been found alive; and how, after leaving for Corbitant a stern warning as to what he might expect if he continued to stir up rebellion against Massasoit and his allies, they had returned, successful and unscathed.
But the story was quickly told by the hungry men, and then they scattered to their houses. Thestreet was swiftly emptied, and even Giles, calling to Miles to fetch home the bucket they had left at the spring, trudged away with his father.
Miles turned slowly up the street; he had admitted it to no one, even to Giles and Ned, but the last week he had had a fear of the black woods. Spite of his boasts to the boys of his merry life with the savages, he shuddered every time he thought of Nauset, and he had a foolish feeling that if he ventured into the forest the Indians might swoop down on him again. In the daytime he could laugh it away, but at night, and especially after the anxiety of the last twenty-four hours, the fear came on him strongly, and it did not seem as if the courage was in him to go down to the inky spring alongside the stepping-stones that led to the woods.
He stood a time by Cooke's gate, in the hope that he might see some one else bound for the spring, but no one came. He went a few steps down the street, but, if he returned to the house without the bucket, he would be scolded, so, at a snail's gait, he trudged uphill again.
Then it was that he noted the companionable light that shone in the window of Standish's cottage, high up the hillside, and, though he was afraid of the Captain, yet there seemed a kind of encouragement in that shiny spark that made him cross the street and loiter nearer. "Maybe John Alden'll begoing to the spring," he told himself. "Or maybe—maybe I'll go, presently."
Just at the edge of the Captain's unfenced dooryard, he halted and stood gazing at the light. He was not spying, to be sure; he would go in a moment. Through the open window he could see a corner of the living room, a table, with a rack and three guns above it, and, as he gazed, Alden, a big, black figure, strode into the bright corner and set down two bowls on the table. Miles drew a step or two nearer. "Maybe the Captain will come into the light next," he told himself. "And after I've seen him, then—"
And then some one took him firmly by the shoulder, and right beside him spoke the Captain's voice, "Well, Miles?"
"Oh!" the boy gasped, and then, in a panic-stricken tone, "I'm going home; prithee, let me go home, sir."
"Nay, you are coming in with me," Standish answered, and, helplessly, Miles yielded to the other's grasp and stumbled over the threshold.
Within, the living room was bare and martial, with a rapier above the chimneypiece that caught a gleam from the candle set below it, and the form by the door and the rough stools standing stiffly as on parade. On a shelf beside the fireplace there were some pots and platters; Miles noted all veryaccurately, and wondered that he should note them at such a time.
He started when Captain Standish spoke, for all his tone was amused: "Here, Jack, set a bowl for this gentleman I have fetched to sup with us. And you, Miles, will you give me your parole not to attempt an escape, if I take my hand from your collar?"
Miles eyed the shaft of candlelight that lay at his feet and ventured no answer. He knew the Captain had loosed his grasp on him, and then he heard him ask, in a different, serious tone: "Are you afraid of me?"
At that Miles tossed back his head, stiffly as if a bar of iron were run down his neck. "No, sir," he said, boldly and untruthfully.
He could not slip away now, whatever might be in store for him, but stood rigid and unpretending, while Captain Standish flung off his buff-coat, and Alden, with a ponderous movement, lifted the soup kettle to the table. Then he sat down on a stool, as he was bidden, and ate. It was clam broth, and he was aware of the good flavor of it, just as he was aware, beneath all his alarm, of the honorable fact that he was taking supper with Captain Standish. He began to hazard long looks at the Captain and to listen to the talk of the two men, with some thought for their words, as well as for his own concerns.
"This is none of your cooking, Jack," said Standish, as he rose to refill his bowl.
"Mistress Mullins fetched us the broth," Alden replied, with a studious lack of interest. "She thought we'd have naught to eat in the house to-night."
"'Twas very wisely thought. When you have eaten, Jack, best carry back her kettle. They'll not yet be abed at the Elder's house."
Somehow, after that, Alden made short work of his portion, and, summarily emptying the kettle into the Captain's bowl, gave it a perfunctory scrub and started briskly for Master Brewster's cottage.
The Captain, with his face sober all but his eyes, swallowed his broth in leisurely silence for a moment before he addressed his small companion: "I had speech with Priscilla Mullins several days since. What is this, Miles, that she tells me you had to say to me?"
Miles crumbled the fag end of his piece of bread with one nervous hand. "Why, 'twas—'twas—Captain Standish, is it true you think me the worst lad in the settlement?" He looked up into the other's face, and something he saw there made him blurt out, "I doubt if you do."
"So that's why you ran away from me day before yesterday, is it?"
Miles kicked his heels softly against the legs ofhis stool. "Because I want to tell you I'm sorry," he murmured. "I shall never run away to the Indians again. I—I was but talking when I said those words unto Francis and the others."
"A 'miles gloriosus,' eh?" said the Captain, and smiled.
Miles saw nothing amusing in the words, but he took it as a sign the Captain was his friend again, so he smiled back. "I won't do it again, sir," he promised vaguely, and then, as Standish rose from the table, he slipped off his stool. "May I wash the dishes, sir?" he volunteered for "a girl's work" eagerly.
"If you wish it," the Captain answered, and then, about the time Miles had dropped the bowls and spoons into the nearest pail of water, broke out irrelevantly, "In the name of goodness, Miles, are those the only breeches you have to wear?"
Miles clapped his right hand over one knee, and his left over an ostentatious rift in the side. "She hasn't time to make me new ones; I'm wearing these for punishment," he explained.
"Indeed!" said Standish; he took his pipe from the chimneypiece and, filling it, kept silent so long that Miles finished his dishes and stole over to the hearth beside him. On the chimneypiece some books stood up from the miscellaneous litter, and, because they were the Captain's books, Miles raisedhimself on tiptoe to read their names. A "Bariffe's Artillery Guide" pleased him most; he was wondering if he could learn from that how to be a soldier like the Captain, when behind him spoke a familiar voice: "Well, Miley, do you have it in mind to sleep at home to-night?"
Miles swung round with a start; Master Hopkins and that bucket of water and the scolding to come,—he remembered all clearly, for there in the doorway stood Ned Lister, with his out of temper look. "The master sent me to find the boy," he explained more civilly to the Captain. "I've sought him all through the village. Come, Miles, Master Hopkins—"
Involuntarily Miles pressed close to the Captain. "Is he going to whip me, Ned?" he asked anxiously.
"Tell Master Hopkins I'll send the lad home straightway," Standish dismissed Lister curtly, then puffed a moment at his pipe till the young man's leisurely footsteps died out in the yard. "So Master Hopkins whips you often?" he questioned abruptly.
"He says I need the rod," Miles answered in a woful voice, wondering if the Captain would take his part. "He says I'm a son of perdition. I see not why 'tis right. When Ned Lister called Dotey a fool, he said he was in danger of hell fire, and, sure, son of perdition is a worser name than fool."
"Hm!" muttered the Captain. "And you're still good friends with that valiant duellist, Edward Lister?"
"I like Ned mightily, yes. But Master Hopkins does not suffer me work near him."
"That's for punishment, too, I take it?"
Miles nodded.
"At this rate you should prove the best lad in the colony, not the worst," the Captain said dryly; and then, "Say we walk down to Master Hopkins's house now, and see how that wounded Indian is faring."
A queer, vague hope that had risen in Miles vanished and left an amazing emptiness; the blackness of the lonely spring, and the whipping for that evening's tarrying came to his mind before he had crossed the room, and in the doorway he halted short.
"What's amiss?" asked Standish, with no great surprise, however.
"I—I take it, I'm afraid," gasped Miles, hot and cold with the shame of the terror he could not check. "I must go down to the spring, and 'tis dark, and I think I'll be whipped, and—and—" His lips were twitching childishly. "But I wasn't afraid at Nauset, not a whit, and I didn't cry there," he added piteously.
"I understand," the Captain said, with amazing kindness. "I'll go to the spring with you, Miles."
For the second time in his life, Miles stepped out into the night with the Captain, but there was small elation in his heart with the knowledge of his cowardice upon him. He felt a censure in his companion's silence, yet he dared not speak himself, only hurried forward as fast as possible to end the walk. They left the last cottage behind them, passed a menacing clump of bushes, and then, at the head of the path, Miles spoke out, almost in spite of himself: "Pray you, go back, sir. I'm not afraid. I won't be afraid. I'll go alone."
He called back the last, halfway down the path. The pebbles rattled with shocking loudness; there in the thicket, across the sullen brook, something stirred, he knew. With his eyes on the black ground, he stumbled toward the gurgle of the spring, groped for his bucket, fearing lest his hand touch something else, and, seizing it, filled it sparsely at the first dip, then, setting his teeth tight, made himself fill it again, slowly and carefully.
Behind him, as he rose, the bushes all were moving and alive, and something, he knew, pressed close at his heels. He could not hurry with the bucket in his hand, only clamber, step by step, with the breath choked within him, till he came at last to the black pathway above the bluff. Before he could cast a frightened look up the trail, the bucket was quietly taken from him. "You waited here forme?" Miles gasped, and then, "But I wasn't afraid."
"You will not be next time, Soldier Rigdale," Standish answered him, and, putting a hand on his shoulder, kept it there.
Before they were into the thick of the settlement, he spoke again, abruptly: "So you're not happy at Master Hopkins's?"
"I hate it there," Miles said under his breath, and then the hope that the Captain's former words had raised swept back once more, and he caught the other's hand. "Will you take me away from him, sir?" he asked hurriedly. "If I could live with Jack Cooke, anywhere else, I know I could be good."
"I know you could, too," Standish answered. "And I think your father and mother would wish it. But Master Hopkins is your guardian and your kinsman; I can do naught, only try my hand at coaxing, and I'm uncommon ill at that. My faith, I know not why I speak it out to such a babe as you, Miles, but you must say naught of this, remember. Only—if 'twill comfort you for your tattered breeches and the rest of your penances,—so soon as pretext is given me, I am minded to take you from Master Hopkins to live with me."
"With you?" Miles asked in the blankness of joy, and then he must hush, for the candlelightfrom Master Hopkins's window struck across his face, and an instant later they came into the living room.
Master Hopkins looked angry, of course, but his face relaxed at sight of the Captain, and he only bade Miles pack off to bed. "But he'll surely thrash you in the morning, Miles," Giles said, with a sober pucker of the brows. "What made you stay so long?"
"I was with the Captain," Miles replied light-heartedly, and to himself he added, "And by and by 'twill be like this evening every day, for I'll live with him all the time."
CAPTAIN STANDISH must have spoken to Master Hopkins of other matter than wounded Indians, for, to his surprise, Miles got no whipping next morning. "Since the Captain needed you, I cannot punish you for your delay," Master Hopkins said curtly, a remission which would have overwhelmed Miles, if it had not been surpassed by the joyous fact of Mistress Hopkins's bringing out an old suit of his father's that afternoon and starting to make him new clothes.
In duty bound Miles went forth, and, seeking Priscilla, thanked her awkwardly that she had spoken for him to the Captain. He wasn't seeking Francis Billington, he would have declared, but somehow he sauntered to the shore, where Francis was likely to be, and, true enough, there he was, paddling in the water by the landing rock.
Miles halted on the beach and resumed the talk where it had stopped at their last meeting. "Hm," he sniffed at his old enemy, "I take it, Captain Standish has other things to do than gossip aboutme to your father. You lied to me, Francis Billington, when you said he called me the worst boy in Plymouth, and I'm going to thrash you for that lie."
"I was but jesting," vowed Francis.
Miles, with his aggressive fists, smote the boy and rolled him in the sand. "I'm jesting too, now," he said grimly.
Francis fled howling home, and Miles, with his shoulders well back, swung away to the corn-field. "Ihadto beat Francis," he assured himself, "but now I'll not fight nor run from labor any more, but bear me well, because I am to go live with the Captain soon."
But Miles's "soon" proved, after all, a long, and, in some ways, a cheerless time. There were many days still to spend in his guardian's house, where Mistress Hopkins scolded at his carelessness, where Master Hopkins bade him work when he had thought to win an hour's playtime, and where more than once, sorry to tell, Master Miles himself strayed wantonly into mischief and was sternly but justly punished therefor.
Nevertheless, now that he had a big, pleasant hope to live forward to, he found it easier to bear what was not to his liking in the present. After all, when he tried, it was not so difficult as he had thought to do Master Hopkins's bidding, Milestold himself, and never realized how much easier it was for him to perform his tasks, while Ned Lister, still sulky and subdued from his public punishment, was working fiercely and would not pause to idle with him.
Thus in little, dull labors and the large pleasure of looking forward, the muggy August days panted out their course and the September twilights shortened. A long, secure time of peace it was for the settlement, in which there fell but one incident,—an expedition which ten of the Plymouth men undertook far up the coast to the Bay of the Massachusetts, where they traded for skins and made a league with the Indians. Ned, who was one of the company,—because, Giles Hopkins told Miles, laughingly, he was held too much of a firebrand to be left behind,—came home with something of his old braggart manner, and told big stories that set young Rigdale wild with envy. Why could not he be a man at once, a full-sized man with a musket, and go with the Captain to trade or fight with the savages?
But presently there was manly work in which Miles shared, for with the rare October days came the time of harvesting, when, as in the weeks of planting, every man and boy in the colony must bear a part. It was good weather to work, though, with nothing of the sickly heat of the April days,but a bracing air nerved every muscle, and the sky was deep and clear.
Miles liked the stir and freshness of trudging to the fields, one of the whole company, in the awakening cool hours of the morning. His task at first was to follow after the reapers in the barley field and gather the heavy stalks of the bearded grain into sheaves. Then after the barley, as the days grew shorter, they harvested the corn, a toilsome labor, that soon became irksome to Miles, whose part was to sit all day under cover, amidst the stiff stalks and rustling leaves, and husk the ears till his arms ached and his fingers were sore. By and by, when the corn was dried, he foresaw he should have to help shell the kernels from all those ears, and he sighed a little, as he watched the pile rise high.
Yet at heart he knew that, like all the others in the settlement, he was glad for the great heap of yellow ears. It had been a fruitful harvest; the pease, to be sure, had withered in the blossom, but the increase of corn and barley was so great that there was no fear lest the colony go hungry that winter. Men's faces were soberly elate, and even Master Hopkins relaxed his customary sternness.
But Mistress Hopkins had a mighty grievance, for Governor Bradford, after the harvest all was garnered, set apart a week as a time of special rejoicing. "That means in a community of men,even of the most godly, a week of feasting," she lamented. "And who is it shall prepare the food but we ten poor women and maids of the colony?"
To Miles, however, a week of feasting sounded pleasant; he only wished he were Ned Lister, for the Governor sent him and three of the other men fowling to get provisions for the merrymaking. In a day the four killed near enough to last the company a week,—a great, feathery heap of woodcocks, pigeons, quails, and plump wild turkeys. Miles shared in the work of plucking the birds, and, for the rest, he fetched wood, armful by armful, for the great fires that blazed out-of-doors, and he ran dares with the other boys, who should go farthest in among the blazing brands, till Goodwife Billington bore down upon them, and, chancing to collar her own son, cuffed him mercilessly.
He tugged buckets of water, too, for the endless boilings and stewings, till his back ached, but he minded it little, for this was holiday time. The October air was crisp; there was plenty to eat,—meat, and bread of the fresh corn meal; and, all the time, the zest of strangeness was added to the jubilation by the coming of hordes of Indians to share the English cheer.
The third day Massasoit presented himself, with ninety hungry warriors, whereat not only Mistress Hopkins but cheerful Priscilla Mullins was indespair. But his Majesty did his part in supplying provisions, for next morning some of his men went into the forest and returned with five fat deer, which he bestowed, as seemed to Miles most fitting, on the Captain and the Governor. They were, however, roasted for the behoof of the whole company, and on the last day of the feast, after the Captain had drilled his little troop before the King to do him honor, the Plymouth people and their guests ate of good venison.
The tables were spread in the fields, and Miles held it a notable distinction that he and Giles were bidden by the Captain wait at the one where he sat, with Massasoit and the Governor and others of the chiefs of the red men and white. Miles carried the platters of meat thither, with all the decorum of which he was master, and hoped that Standish might throw a word to him, so his happiness was final when, on his last trip to the table, the Captain called him to his side. He was sitting at the left hand of the Governor, where the light from the afternoon sun struck athwart his face, and over opposite him sat King Massasoit, greasy as ever, but now monarch-like in a great robe of skins.
It was to him that Standish spoke, in words of the Indian tongue of which Miles caught only one or two. But the Captain answered his questioning look: "His Majesty was pleased to crave asight of you, Miles. Truth, you put him to stir enough last July. It was he who, when he got tidings from Manomet, despatched the order thither that no hurt should be done you, and sent us word where to seek you."
"Did he do so much, sir?" Miles asked, and, gazing at the stolid Indian, made him a grateful bow. "I should like to tell him 'thank you,'" he added. "If Squanto would say it for me,—or you."
Then he tramped back again to the fire to take his own share of the feast, a large turkey leg which Constance had saved for him, and, whether it were overmuch turkey or overmuch labor, he was too tired even to rise and witness the departure of the Indians after the board was cleared, for all he knew the musketeers would fire them a parting volley. 'Twas toilsome work, this merrymaking, he agreed with Priscilla, and, going weary and cross to bed, he was glad to awake to the Sabbath quiet of the little village, and, on the ensuing morning, drop once more into the ordered round of duties.
There was naught to do in the following days but to make ready against the coming winter, by mending the cottages till every crevice was secure, and fetching good supply of firewood from the distant hills. A hint of wintry weather now was in the chill air and the lead-colored sky, so, oneNovember afternoon, Miles spent hours in hunting for his mittens that had gone astray.
Together he and Constance and Giles opened, in the search, the little chest that had been Goodman Rigdale's; it gave Miles a dull pang to turn over the clothes his father and mother had worn, but somehow all that sorrow seemed to have fallen very long ago. "Yet 'tis not a year since we sailed into the harbor," he said softly.
"Just a year to-morrow since we sighted Cape Cod," answered Giles, and Constance changed Miles's thoughts by adding: "The other ship with our fresh supply should come now very speedily; in about a month I heard father say we might look for her. I hope there'll be cattle come in her; 'tis hard for the babies to have not a drop of milk."
"And no butter," sighed Miles, thinking of himself. "And if they bring oxen, 'twill be easier ploughing, come spring; and there'll be more men to fight—"
"There'll be two more next spring, in any case," Giles interrupted. "Captain Standish says that then Bart Allerton and I shall have muskets of our own and be enrolled in his company."
In the days since the landing at Plymouth, Giles had grown a responsible youth, but Miles, who had been so much with him that he held himself near asold, was quite jealous at his last speech and wondered if no one would offer him a musket.
He took himself forth from the chamber into the living room, where Ned Lister, who was cleaning his fowling piece and was in a good temper, as he usually was when he was busied over his weapons, let him meddle in the work till his fingers were blacked. "I'm going northward to-morrow morning, where Squanto tells me a flock of geese are astir," Ned spoke further. "If Master Hopkins is willing, I'll take you with me, Miley; 'tis months since we've gone about any labor together."
Disappointingly, Master Hopkins was not willing, for, when he came to his supper, he had to report an evil rumor, which one of Miles's old enemies, the Nauset Indians, had just brought to the town, that a great ship had been seen on their coast. It might be some English trader, or it might be a French ship of war, come to dispossess the colonists, just as the English had driven the French, at an earlier time, from their northern settlements.
Still, even if 'twere a Frenchman, Ned argued, men must eat, and must kill their food ere they could eat it, so, at the last, his master said he might go fowling, and even, if he did not roam too far, take Miles with him.
Early next morning the two hunters set out inlively spirits, in spite of the fact that the woods were sombre and the sky rough with clouds that looked, should they thrust a hand deep into them, as if they would strike something hard and cold. Already there had been bitter frosts, and the thick fallen leaves, on the northward trail, rustled crisply beneath the tread of the fowlers. Ned wore his red cap, which blazed out bravely under the dull trees, and his buff-jacket, too, which gave him the martial look he liked. Miles had no such warlike equipments, but Ned generously suffered him to carry the fowling piece, so he felt quite like a soldier. "I do but wish the French would come upon us now," he panted boastfully, as he shouldered the gun.
"There's small danger you'll find a Frenchman, unless you cross the water to seek him," Ned answered. "I'll do it, so soon as my time's out. Go into Bohemia and fight—" There he turned off into discourse on the joys of a life where a man never fetched and carried, but handled a sword like a gentleman, which lasted them for a mile along the bare trail.
By then they came from among the leafless trees of the level land to a thick piny growth at the base of a tall hill, that blocked off sight of the ocean. Ned was for climbing it out of hand, for, on the other side, by the shore, he thought to find the wildfowl, so up he scrambled, quite nimbly, since he had long legs and tramped unburdened, while Miles toiled after with the fowling piece. A mighty steep hill, where the pine needles lay slippery, so Miles stumbled and near fell, and, when he came at last to the little barren stretch of the summit, where the lowering sky seemed to bend down to him, he could only drop flat and lie panting.
Ned cast himself down beside him, although he did not seem weary, and, half smiling at Miles's breathlessness, let his eyes at last turn seaward. Lying back, Miles, too, looked out upon the gray water, beneath the hill, that far away to eastward merged into the gray sky, and then a sudden exclamation made him glance at his companion.
Ned was sitting erect with his hand shading his eyes, and the lines of his face were sharpened with a sudden tenseness. "What d'ye see?" Miles began carelessly, but the other, springing to his feet, spoke to him in a curt tone: "Jump you up, Miles. Look yonder, if you see aught in the offing."
Ned's hands turned Miles's head eastward, but, though the boy yielded himself obediently and gazed whither he was told, he saw only dull water and brooding sky. Yet he was beginning to guess the meaning of it all, and, with the heart fluttering into his throat, he cried, "Ned, sure, you do not think—that French ship—"
But Lister, wheeling about, had reached in two strides a tall pine tree that spired from the summit of the hill, and, grasping its lower branches, swung himself upward from bough to bough. His cap showed very red against the green of the pine needles, and Miles watched it go bobbing toward the tree top, with a mind so suddenly dulled that he could think of nothing else, till at last the young man, holding fast by one arm, swayed at the topmost point of the pine tree.
A long minute Ned clung there, staring seaward with his face sober, then headlong slipped and scrambled from the tree. "It's a sail, true enough," he cried, and, as the words left his lips, came to the ground with a crashing fall that made the branches sway.
Before Miles could reach his side, Ned sprang to his feet, stood a moment, took a single step, and then toppled over again across the roots of the pine, with his face working in a manner that frightened his companion. "Are you hurt? What is it, Ned?" he cried.
"Naught but my ankle," groaned Lister, struggling to a sitting posture. "I've wrenched the cursed thing. Tut, tut, tut! Don't waste time here by me. Run to Plymouth. Tell them the ship's in sight."
"The Frenchman?" gasped Miles.
"How can I tell, when 'tis four league off shore?" snapped Ned. "'Tis a ship, and that's enough. Run along with you, briskly!" Then, spite of the pain, there came a sort of softening to his face. "You're not afeard to go back along the trail alone, Miley?"