"Barbara, hath Master Allerton asked thee to be his wife?" inquired Myles, as he and his cousin sat together upon the bench in front of his own house some few evenings after the weddings.
"He spoke to the governor, and he to me," replied Barbara, a little spark of mirth glinting in her blue eyes.
"And thou saidst?"—
"I said that I hardly knew Master Allerton by sight as yet, and was in no haste to wed."
"What sort of yea-nay answer was that, thou silly wench? Why didst not say No, round and full?"
"Because No, wrapped in gentle words, served my turn as well, cousin."
"Come now, I do remember that tone of old, soft as snow and unbendable as ice. So 't is the same Barbara I quarreled with so oft, is it? Ever quite sure that her own way is the best, and ever watchful lest any should lay a finger on her free will."
"Methinks, Myles, you give your kinswoman a somewhat unlovely temper of her own. How is it about Captain Standish in these days? Hath he grown meek and mild, and afraid to carry himself after his own mind?"
"Why so tart, Barbara? Because I chid thee for trifling with Allerton?"
"Nay Myles, I made not yon weary voyage for the sake of quarreling with thee. Well dost thou know, cousin, I would not trifle with any man, and I begged the governor to enforce out of his own mouth the no-say that I worded gently, for truly there is no reason for me to flout the gentleman. How could he honor me more than to ask me to wife?"
"Well, well, so long as thou hast said No and will stick to No, all is well; but I like not this man Allerton; he is too shrewd a trader for a simple gentleman to cope with. He sold me corn and gave scant measure, and I told him of it too. He likes me not better than I like him."
"Rest easy, Myles, I'll never make him thy cousin. I care not if I never wed."
"Nay, that's too far on t' other side the hedge. A comely and a winsome lass like thee is sure to wed, but what runs in my head, Barbara, is that there is none left here fit for thee. I would that Bradford had not been so constant to his old-time sweetheart. I would have given thee to him, for though his folk were but yeomen of the better sort there at home, here he is the Governor and playeth his part as well as any Howard or Percy of them all. Winslow cometh of good lineage and carrieth his coat-armor; but he and now his brother John are wed, and Gilbert will leave us anon, so that verily I see no man left with whom a Standish might fitly wed."
A peal of merry laughter broke in upon the captain's meditative pause, and his indignant and astonished regard only seemed to aggravate the matter, until at last Barbara breathlessly exclaimed,—
"Nay Myles, for sweet pity's sake look not so glum,nor devour me all at one mouthful. Dost remember how I used to tell thee to beware, for 'a little pot is soon hot,' and thine own wrath will choke thee some day?"
"Glad am I to amuse you so pleasantly Mistress Standish, but may I ask the exact provocation to mirth I have just now offered?"
"Oh Myles, I meant not to chafe thy temper so sorely, and I pray thee hold me excused for untimely laughter; but in good sooth it so tickled my fancy to hear thee airing thine old world quips and quiddities about coat-armor, and one with whom a Standish might fitly wed, and yeomen snatched from oblivion by the saving grace of a governor's title! And look upon these rocks and wild woods and swart savages and thine own rude labors—nay then, but I must laugh or burst!"
And giving way to her humor the girl trolled out peal after peal of delicious laughter, while her cousin folding his arms sat regarding her with an iron visage, which whenever she caught sight of it set her off again. At last, however, she wiped her eyes and penitently cried,—
"I did not think myself so rude, Myles. Pr'ythee forgive me, cousin. Nay, look not so ungently upon me! Here's my hand on 't I am sorry."
But the captain took not the offered hand nor unbent his angry brow. Rising from the bench he paced up and down for a moment, then stopping in front of Barbara calmly said,—
"Nay, I'm not angry. At first I was astonied that a gentlewoman could so forget herself; but I do remember that Thomas Standish, your father, marriedbeneath his station, and so imported a strain into the blood of his noble house that will crop out now and again in his children. I should not therefore too much admire at such derelictions from courtesy and gentlehood as I but now have seen."
As he slowly spoke his bitter words the lingering gleams of laughter and the softening lines of penitence faded from Barbara's face. Rising to her height, nearly equal with that of her cousin, she gazed full into his angry eyes with the blue splendor of her own all ablaze with indignation and contempt.
"You dare to make light of my mother, do you, Captain Standish! My dear and dearly honored mother, who in her brave love endured the poverty and the labors that my father had no skill to save her from. My mother, who carried her noble husband upon her shoulders as it were, and would not even die till he was dead. Myles Standish, I take shame to myself that I am kin to you, and if ever I do wed, it shall be to lose my name and forget my lineage."
She passed him going down the hill, but with a long step he overtook her, saying almost timidly,—
"Nay, nay, thou 'rt over sharp with me, Barbara! I said, and I meant, no word against thy mother, of whom I ever heard report as one of the sweetest and faithfullest of wives"—
"There, that will do, sir. My mother needs no praise of yours, and, thanks be to God, hath gone where she may rest from the burden of her high marriage. Let me pass an 't please you, Master Captain."
"But Barbara, nay Barbara, stay but to hear a word"—
"There have been words enow and to spare. I gonow to tell the governor that I am minded to take passage in the Anne once more. My mother's folk in Bedfordshire, yeomen all of them, Captain Standish, will make me gay and welcome, and with them and such as them will I live and die."
"And fill thy leisure with fashioning silk purses out of fabric thou 'lt find to hand," cried the captain, his temper flashing up again; but Barbara neither turned nor replied as she fled down the hill to hide the tears she could no longer restrain.
Howbeit she said no word to Bradford of the return passage, a fact which Standish easily discovered when early next morning he met the governor and stopped to say to him,—
"Well met, Will; I was on my road to seek thee, man."
"Ay, and for what, brother?"
"Why, Will, I'm moped with naught to do, and all these strange faces at every turn. I liked it better when we were to ourselves and it was only to fight the Neponsets now and again. I fain would find some work further agate than yon palisado."
"Why, then, thy wish and my desire fit together as cup and ball, for here is the Little James unladen and idle. She is to stay with us, thou knowest, for use in trading and fishing, but Bridges, her master, saith some of his men are grumbling already at prospect of such peaceful emprises. They fain would go buccaneering in the Spanish Seas, or discover some such road to hasty fortune, albeit bloody and violent. Master Bridges and I agreed that it was best to find work for these uneasy souls withouten too much delay, and I told him we had been thinking to send a party to look after the fishing-stage we built last year at Cape Ann. Gloucester, they say Roger Conant hath named the place already. Now what say you, Myles? Will take some men and join them to Bridges' buccaneers, and hold all in hand and start them on fishing?"
"'T will suit me woundy well, governor. Howbeit, 't is not the time for cod, is it?"
"No, but mackerel and bluefish are in season, and at all odds 't is well to be on hand to claim the staging, for Conant hath sent word by an Indian that some English ships were harrying our fishermen at Monhegan, and we had best look to our properties in those regions."
"Ay, ay, 't is as thou sayest, Will, like cup and ball, thy need and my desire. How soon can we sail?"
"Why, to-night, an' it pleaseth thee. Bridges is in haste to get off, and the sooner the Little James is afloat the more content he will find himself. And as to thy company. Here is a minute of the men I had thought on."
"H—m, h—m," muttered the captain glancing over the list handed him by Bradford. "Yes, these are sound good fellows all, and none of them burthened with wives. And by that same token, Will, thou and thy dame will care for my kinswoman, and bar Master Allerton from persecuting her with his most mawkish suit while I am gone?"
"Surely, Myles, we'll care for Mistress Barbara, who is to my wife as one of her own sisters."
"Yes, the Carpenters are gentlefolk, if not a county family like ours," said Standish simply. Bradford stared a little, but only replied,—
"Then I put the command in your hands, Captain, and you will order matters as suits your own convenience and pleasure. Master Bridges will welcome you right gladly."
And before the sun, just risen over Manomet, sank behind Captain's Hill, the Little James had rounded the Gurnet, and was standing on for Cape Ann, with Myles Standish leaning against her mainmast, and smoking the pipe Hobomok had bestowed upon him with the assurance that he who used it carried a charmed life so long as it remained unbroken. The captain's arms were folded and his eyes fixed upon the fort-crowned hill where lay his home, but it was not of fort or home that he mused as at the last he muttered,—
"And yet I glory in thy spirit, thou proud peat!"
Early the next morning Standish was somewhat roughly roused from his slumbers by Master Bridges, who, shaking his shoulder, cried,—
"Here, Captain, here's gear for thee. Rouse thee, Master!"
"What is 't, Bridges? What's to do, man? Are the savages upon us?"
"Nay, but pirates, or as good."
"Ha! That's well. Send all your small arms on deck, Master Bridges, pipe to quarters, train your falcon—I'll be on deck anon"—
"Nay, but you do somewhat mistake, Captain. I said indeed pirates, but that's not sure. There is a little ship anchored within a cable's length of the James, and her men are busy on shore with the fishing-stage which Lister saith is yours"—
"And so it is, every sliver of it."
"Mayhap, then, you'll come on deck and tell these merry men as much, for they do only jeer at me."
"They'll not jeer long when my snaphance joins inthe debate," said Standish grimly as he followed the master up the companion way.
"Hail me yon craft, and ask for her commandant," ordered he, glancing rapidly over the scene. Bridges obeyed, and got reply that Master Hewes, captain of the Fisherman out of Southampton, was on shore with all his men except the ship-keeper, who, however, spared the jibes with which he had seasoned his reply to Bridges' first informal hail.
"The wind is fair, the tide flood. Carry your craft further in-shore, Master Bridges, that we may parley with these pirates from the vantage ground of our own deck," ordered the captain, and was obeyed so fairly that the Little James presently lay hove-to within a biscuit-toss of the staging, where some fifteen or twenty men were diligently employed in curing a take of fish.
A short sharp colloquy ensued, Standish claiming the erection and its precincts as the property of Plymouth, and ordering the interlopers to at once release it, and to carry away their fish and their utensils, leaving room for the lawful owners' occupancy.
To this demand Hewes impudently replied that when he had done with the fish-flakes he cared not who used them, and that he would abandon the place when it suited his own convenience, and not before.
"Well and good; then we shall come and take it," shouted the captain in conclusion, and turning his attention in-board, he rapidly divided his men and Bridges' into two storming parties, while a watch left on board was to take charge of the light falcon mounted on deck, and at a signal from shore to begin the dance by firing upon the staging which Hewes was already barricading with a row of barrels, behind which he rapidly posted his men, musket in hand, and matches alight.
"Now by St. Lawrence!" cried Standish, watching these preparations. "But the fellow hath a pretty notion of a barricado! I could not have done so very much better in his place. 'T is fairer fortune than we could look for, to meet so ready a fellow, and you shall see some pretty sport anon, Master Bridges."
But at this moment a little group of men hastening from the fishing huts marking the present site of Gloucester, appeared upon the scene, and in their leader both Standish and Bridges recognized Roger Conant, a friend and sometime visitor of Plymouth, who immediately upon arrival of the Anne had gone to join some friends fishing at Monhegan, and now, with them, was establishing a sister station at Gloucester. Warned by the Indians that Hewes had seized the Plymouth fishing-stage, and seeing the Little James entering the bay, Conant hastened to collect his friends and present himself upon the scene of action to act as mediator, or ally of Plymouth, as circumstances might direct.
"We have come none too soon, men!" exclaimed Conant breathlessly as at a run he rounded the headland closing in the cove, and saw upon the barricaded staging Hewes and his men blowing at their matches, while Standish, his eyes aflame and an angry smile upon his lips, sprang ashore and hurried his men out of the boat.
"Now glad am I to see you, Master Conant," cried Bridges, already waiting upon the beach, and hastening toward him he said in a lower voice. "Our captain hath got on his fighting cap, and thrown discretion to the winds. 'T will be an ill day for Plymouth if her men are led on to kill Englishmen fishing with the king's license."
"Ay indeed will it. Bide a bit till I can parley with both thy captain and Hewes, who is not an ill fellow if one handleth him gingerly."
"Gingerly goeth not smoothly with peppery, and 't is but half the truth to call our captain that," said Bridges with a dry smile, as Conant passed him to reach Standish who was marshaling his men upon the sands.
Too long it were to detail the arguments of the man of peace, the delicate manipulation of the tempers of both parties, the concessions wrung from the one side and the other, until after several hours' debate Standish moodily said,—
"Well Conant, sith you put it so, sith you make it out that by enforcing the colony's right I do but attack the colony's life, I yield, for I am sworn defender and champion of Plymouth and her prosperity, and never shall it be said that Myles Standish preferred his own quarrel to the well-being of those he had sworn to protect. To leave yon fellow unscathed for his insolence, sits like a blister on a raw wound, but go and make what terms you can with him. I suppose you require not that I abandon the colony's property altogether to him."
"Nay, nay, Captain, but I am thinking that my comrades and I, with some of the Little James' men and Master Hewes' company, should clap to and run up another staging in a few hours either for the new-comers or the Plymouth men"—
"For Plymouth if you would pleasure me. I would not my men should take the leavings of yon rabble at any price," interrupted Standish haughtily.
"So be it, and if Hewes with his men will do their best, and Master Bridges and you will send your crew to help, we also will labor in the common cause untileach party shall have a staging of its own, and the bond of Christian charity need not be broken."
"That same bond will be all the safer if I may get away from here with as small delay as may be," retorted Standish.
"And that too shall be," replied Conant cheerfully. "For I fain would speak with the Master of the Anne before she sails, and I'll e'en take our own pinnace and set you across the bay, and be back again before my mates have well missed me."
"So wilt thou save me from some such explosion as befalls when a little pot is tightly closed and its contents overheated," replied Myles with a grim smile, and although Conant stared at the odd simile, he paused not to ask its solution, but so hastened the building of the stage and the other business of the day that when sunset fell, the two men, leaving the rest at an amicable supper eaten in common, spread the wide sails of their pinnace to a fitful western wind, and skimmed southward under the soothing and chastening light of the new-risen moon.
The western wind though often sighing in capricious languor never quite deserted those who trusted to it, and at a good hour next morning the pinnace dropped her anchor beside the Anne, and her dory carried the two mew ashore just as Plymouth woke to a new day.
"Wilt give me some breakfast, Priscilla?" asked a well-known voice, as Mistress Alden bent to uncover her bake kettle, or Dutch oven, to see if the manchets of fine flour her husband liked so heartily were well browned.
"Lord-a-mercy!" cried she nearly dropping the cover and springing to her feet. "What, 't is truly thee, Captain, and not thy spook? Why 't was but yester e'en Dame Bradford told me thou wert away with Master Bridges on a fishing adventure, and none might guess the day of thy return."
"She said so, did she?" replied the captain; "and who heard it beside thee, Priscilla?"
"Why—now let me think—yea and verily, Christian Penn was in the room and no doubt heard the sad tidings though she said naught."
"And none beside, Mistress Alden?"
"None—nay, now I think on 't, thy kinswoman Barbara was in presence. But there, my manchets will be burnt to crusts. Sit thee down, Captain, sit thee down."
"And what said Mistress Standish anent my going?" asked Myles seating himself upon a three-legged stool and doffing his slouched hat.
Priscilla looked at him with one of the keen glances which John declared counted the cockles of a man'sheart. Then she smiled with an air of satisfaction and replied,—
"Barbara said naught, and so told me much."
"Told thee much? Come now, Priscilla, spare me thine old-time jibes and puzzlements and show thyself true womanly, and mine own honest friend. I'm sore bestead, Priscilla—I have a quarrel with Myles Standish, and 't is as big a fardel as my shoulders will bear. Tell me what Barbara's silence meant to thee?"
"It meant that it was her doings that thou hadst gone, and that thy going both angered and grieved her, Captain."
"Angered, mayhap."
"Yea, and grieved. She ate no supper, although I prayed her to taste a new confection of mine own invention."
"Priscilla, dost think Master Allerton would be—would make a"—
"Would be the right goodman for Barbara? No, and no again, I think naught of the kind."
"Ah! You women are so quick upon the trigger, Priscilla. I would my snaphance went to the aim as lightly and as surely as your or Barbara's thought."
"Come now, Captain, the manchets are done, and the fish is broiled, and the porridge made. Wait but till I call the goodman and open a pottle of my summer beer; 't is dear Dame Brewster's diet-drink, with a thought more flavor to it, and John says—ah, here thou art, thou big sluggard. We need no horn to call thee to thy meat."
Entering the cottage with a grin upon his lips and the promise of a kiss in his eyes, Alden started joyfully at sight of the Captain, and at Priscilla's impatientsummons he bashfully took the head of the table and asked the blessing upon his family and their daily bread, which was then the undisputed duty of every head of a household. The captain ate well, as Priscilla slyly noted; and as she rose from the table and began rapidly to carry the few pewter and wooden dishes to the scullery John had added to the two rooms and loft comprising the cottage, she muttered,—
"What fools we women be! When they care for us the most, a savory dish will comfort them, and we must pule, and pine, and pale—ah!"
For the captain had followed and stood at the housewife's elbow with a confused and somewhat foolish smile upon his face.
"Wilt do me a favour, Priscilla?"
"Gladly, as thou knowest, sir."
"Nay, sir me no sirs, Priscilla! Take me for thine own familiar friend as already I am Alden's."
"'T is an ill-advised quotation, Captain, for the 'own familiar friend' of the Psalmist proved a false one. But ne'ertheless I'll wear the cap, and haply prove as true as another to my promise. What can I do for thee, Captain?"
"Why—as thou dost seem to surmise, Priscilla, there is a question between Barbara and me—truth to tell I gave her just matter of offense, and now I've thought better on 't and fain would tell her so, and yet I fear me if I ask outright she'll not let me come to speech of her."
"Ay, ay, good friend, I see," exclaimed Priscilla, holding up her slender shapely hand. "And here's the cat's-paw that's to pull thy chestnuts from the fire!"
"Nay Priscilla"—
"Yea Captain! Put not thy wit to further distress, good friend, for it needs not; I see all and more than all thou couldst tell me. Go thy way to the Fort, and look over thy dear guns and wait until thou seest—what thou wilt see."
And with a little push the young matron thrust her guest out of the open door of the scullery, and hasted to finish her own labors.
Almost an hour passed and the Captain of the Armies of New England had uncovered and examined and sighted and petted each gun in his armament more than once; had considered the range of the saker, the minion, the falcon, and the bases; and had stood gazing blankly at the whitened skull of Wituwamat above the gate of the Fort until the wrens who nested there began to fly restlessly in and out, fancying that the captain planned an invasion of their territory. He still stood in this posture when the rustle of a footfall among the dried herbage reached his quick ear, and turning he confronted Barbara, whose down-dropt eyes hid the gleam of amusement the sight of his melancholy attitude had kindled in their depths.
"Priscilla says that you have returned home from the fishing because you were but poorly, cousin, and she would have me come and ask if you cared to speak with the chirurgeon who is going afield presently."
"So chill, so frozen, Barbara? Is 't so a kinswoman should speak with one ill at ease both in mind and body?"
"I came but as a messenger, sir, and venture not to presume upon any claim of kindred to one who joins the blood of Percivale to that of Standish."
"Nay now, nay now, Barbara!—Here, come to theshaded side of the Fort, and sit you down where we two sat"—
"We two sat on the bench without your door the last parley that we had, good cousin."
"'Gentle tongues aye give the sharpest wounds,' and it is thou who provest the proverb true, Barbara."
"Nay, I'll sit me down and listen with all meekness to what thou hast to say, Captain Standish."
"Thanks for even so much courtesy, Barbara, for I have sought thee to say that I deserve none at thy hands. I, to whose protection and comforting thou hast come across the sea, have treated thee as no base-born churl hath warrant for treating the meanest of woman-kind. I, to pride myself upon gentle blood and knightly training, and then throw insult and taunt upon a woman's unshielded head! Nay, Barbara, had any man three days agone forecast my doing such a thing, I had hurled the lie in his teeth, and haply crammed it down with Gideon's hilt. Nay—the good sword may well be ashamed of his master; well may I look for him to shiver in my grasp when next I draw him"—
"Myles! Myles, I'll hear no more! Nay then, not a word, or I shall hold it proven that my wish is naught to thee, for all thy contrite sayings. I fear me Priscilla is right, and thou 'rt truly ill. This hot sun hath touched thy head with some such distemper as sped poor Master Carver. Sit thee down here beside me, and I'll fetch cool water from the spring to bathe thy temples."
"It needs not, cousin. My distemper is of the mind, the heart; nay, it is wounded honor, lass, and there's no ill of body can sting a man so shrewdly as that. Say that I have thy pardon, Barbara, if thou canst say it intruth, and 't will be better than any med'cine in Fuller's chest."
"Why, certes, Myles, thou hast my forgiveness and over and over for any rough word thou mayst have said, and in sober sadness I mind not what they were, for all my thought hath been of my unkindness to thee. Myles, I never told thee, but when thy mother lay a-dying, and thou far away, fighting the Spaniards in Holland, she bade me care for thee even as she would have done, and fill a sister's place—and more, and I laid my hand in hers and promised sacredly, and so she rested content."
"And why didst never tell me this before, cousin?"
"I know not—nay, but that's not all out true, and I'll tell thee no lies, Myles. When next thou camest to our poor home at Man, thou didst see Rose, and from the first I knew well enow that there'd be no need of sister-care for one who found so sweet a wife."
"Ay, she was sweet,—sweet as her pretty name. Dost know, Barbara, when these bushes burgeon in early summer with their soft and fragrant bloom it ever minds me of that sweet and fragile Rose that lies beneath."
But Barbara was silent.
"Ah well, ah well, 't is a brief chapter strangely at odds with the rude life wherein it found itself, and now 't is closed, and better so for her. She could not have bloomed among these dreary sands and savage woods; it was not fitting."
He paced a few steps back and forward, and Barbara rose, her clear eyes full of a woman's noble and patient strength.
"And so, Myles, we are at peace again, and I at least will make it my endeavor that there shall be no such breach of charity in the future.'"
"Nay, Barbara, stay a little, I pray thee. I have somewhat to say, for which in advance I must ask thy patience and indulgence. Thou 'lt not be angered at me so soon again, Barbara?"
"Nay, I'll not be angered, cousin." But Barbara's voice was very sad.
"'T is this, and I thought of it all last night as we flitted in the moonlight across the bay, and what thou sayest of my mother's charge to thee fits my thought like hand and glove. Why should not we two wed, Barbara?"
He turned and looked at her, and stood amazed to see how the steadfast calm of her face broke up in a tempest of indignation, of grief, of outraged womanhood.
"Why, Barbara! Why, cousin! What is it, what have I said? What ails thee, dear? What works upon thee so cruelly?"
"That any man should dare fancy it of me—there, there, let be, let me pass, let me go!"
"Nay, then, I'll not let thee go. I'm but a rude bungler in these women-ways, and I've said or done somewhat that wounds thee sorely, and I'll not let thee go till 't is all outsaid and I have once more cleared myself of at least willful offense toward thee."
"Wilt keep me by force, sir?"
"Ay maid I will, for 't is only in bodily strength that I'm thy match, and so for the moment I will e'en use it. Sit thee here now and listen yet again, as I say, Why may not we two wed, cousin Barbara? Thou 'rt not mine own cousin, thou knowest, child; 't was thy father and mine were in that bond; and—now bear with me, Barbara—I've a shrewd suspicion that my mother bade thee be not a sister but a wife to me. Truth now, did she not, maid?"
"She could not guide either my love or thine, so why would she try?"
"Nay, that's no answer, lass, but we'll let the question go. There's not a woman alive, Barbara, so dear to me as thou; there's none I hold in greater reverence or trust; there's none with whom I would so gladly live out my days, and—though now I risk thy scorn,—there's none whose lineage I so respect"—
"What, the Henley lineage?" murmured Barbara, with face averted to hide a smile.
"Nay, thou 'rt all Standish, Barbara! Thou 'rt more Standish than I, for thou hast the eyes of those old portraits my poor father vainly tried to wrest from his cousin Alexander. Let me look at those eyes, Barbara!"
"And so because it suits thy convenience to make me thy wife, thou takst no heed of mine own fancies," said Barbara, not heeding this request. "And I pray thee unhand me, for I promise to patiently abide till thou hast said thy say."
"Now there again thou dost me wrong, lass, for as I told thee t' other day there's no bachelor here fit to wed with thee, there's none I'd give thee to, nor would I see thee wither away unwed."
"Gramercy cousin, but methinks that is a question I well might settle for myself."
"Why nay, sith there is no gentleman unwed among our company, save Allerton, whom I love as little as thou dost."
"I care not for any"—
"I know it, Barbara, I know it well. Thou 'rt that rare marvel, a woman sufficing unto herself, for as Ibelieve, thou hast never fancied any man, though more than one hath fancied thee."
"'T is my cold heart," murmured Barbara with a little smile strangled in its birth.
"Nay," replied her cousin thoughtfully as he pulled at his moustache and gazed upon the ground at his feet. "Nay, I call thee not so much heartless as fancy-free. Thou 'rt kind and gentle, ay, and loving as my dear mother knew. I'm well content with thy heart for such as it is, Barbara, if thou 'lt but give it me."
"Nay, Myles, I'm deadly sure I've none to give, and out of nothing nothing comes."
"Thou ne'er canst love me, Barbara?"
"No more than I love thee now, Myles."
"With calm cousin-love thou meanest?"
"I am ill skilled at logic, Myles. I cannot set out my feelings in class and order, as our chirurgeon doth his herbs and flowers."
"Well, Barbara, I'm grieved that thou lookest upon me so coldly, but I draw not back from my petition. I'd liefer have thy calm tenderness than another's hot love, for I can trust thee as I trust mine own honor, and I know full well that thou 'lt ever be better than thy word. So take me, Barbara, for thy husband, and fulfill the dear mother's last desire, and give me the hope of teaching thee in the days to come to love me even as I love thee."
But for all answer Barbara only turned and laid her hands in his, and slowly raised the wonder of her eyes until they looked straight into his; and the man whose front had never quailed in face of death or danger grew pallid beneath his bronze, and trembled like a leaf in the wind.
"What!—Barbara!—Dost really love me, maid? Nay, cheat me not—speak! Dost love me, sweetheart, already?"
But Barbara said never a word, nor did Myles ever know more of the secret of her life than in that one supreme moment he read in her steadfast eyes.
"And thou 'rt not amazed, Elsie, that our captain and his kinswoman will wed?" asked Governor Bradford of his wife in the privacy of the family bedroom.
"No more than at the sun's rising in the East," replied Alice with a demure little smile.
"Hm! Master Galileo saith the sun riseth not at all, and though the power of Rome caused him to gainsay it, he did tell me privily in Amsterdam that it was sooth, and the sun bided forever in the one place while this round world turned over daily."
"I ever thought the good man was a little crazed," replied Mistress Bradford serenely. "Like Paul, much learning had made him mad."
"Nay wife, 't was Festus charged Paul with madness, because the apostle knew more than himself. Haply 't is so with Master Galileo."
"It may be, William. These be not matters for women to meddle withal," replied Alice meekly.
"But anent our captain's wooing of his cousin, Elsie? How is 't thou 'rt not amazed like the rest of us?"
"Because I saw long since that Barbara would never wed another than her cousin, and thou knowest, Will, how like draws to like, even across the waste of ocean."
"Ay dame, I know it well and sweetly, and never shall I forget to give thanks to Him whose wisdom reacheth from end to end, sweetly ordering all things. But how chanced Mistress Barbara to confess her fondness to thee, sweetheart?"
"Nay now! Though men do be our masters in most things, how dull they still show themselves in others. As if a maid, or for that matter a widow, would ever 'confess her fondness' for any man till he had wooed her so to do, and but coyly then, if she be wise."
"Too coyly for him to credit her with overmuch tenderness," suggested the bridegroom.
"Facts speak louder than words, and if a woman will set herself upon far and perilous journeys, and compass sea and land to come to him who calleth her, methinks he need not doubt her friendship for him. Nay now, nay now, we talk of Barbara and the Captain, and I'll tell thee. Since I was left alone in London,—so lonely too in my wide house in Duke's Place,—I have taken dear and sweet counsel with Barbara, whom I first knew in the congregation of Pastor Jacob, and she hath been my guest for weeks and months at a time, so that if any two women know each other well, their names are Barbara and Alice."
"But yet she never told thee that she loved her cousin? Now that is passing strange."
"'T would to my mind have been far stranger had she so bewrayed herself."
"But still those gentle eyes of thine read the secret of her heart?"
"I did mistrust it for long, but when I had thy letter, Will, and settled my mind to come to thee, I told Barbara somewhat of the old story"—
"Of how thou wast minded to spite thy comely face by cutting off its nose?"
But Mistress Bradford had no smile for her husband's somewhat coarse jest, and went quietly on,—
"And I told her, too, that her kinsman, Myles, had lost the sweet wife of whom she had so often and so gently spoken; and at the last I told her I was minded to sell all that I had and go to our folk in New England, and I asked her would she go, to be ever and always my dear sister if no other home should offer, and though we said no word that day of Captain Standish, sure am I that he was in both our minds. And now, dear man, dost see through the millstone?"
"Ay, since woman's wit hath delved a hole, I can see through it as well as another." And the governor kissed his wife as merrily as another man, while she adjusting the demure matron's cap about her fair young face went out to see that the breakfast was fairly spread.
A fortnight later when the Anne had sailed, and the Little James had returned and gone again upon a luckless fishing trip, and the new-comers had settled into their appointed places, and the town was once more quiet, there came a fair September day when work was laid aside, and after breakfast the armies of the colony, at least a hundred souls in all,—if we count the trumpeters, the buglers, the fifers, and the drummers,—assembled on the Training Green just across the brook, and after some evolutions marched in orderly array back again past the spring and up the hill to the governor's house, where they were joined by him and the elder. Then up and on to the captain's house, where a guard of honor presented itself at the door, and ushered forththe chief, carefully dressed in his uniform of state, while at his side merrily clanked Gideon, resplendent, though none but he and his master knew it, in such a furbishing and polishing as seldom had fallen to his lot before.
Saluting his comrades gravely and with somewhat more of dignity than his wont, the captain took his place, and the procession climbed the short ascent remaining to the door of the Fort, where entered the dignitaries and as many more as could find room. Here in the great room now used as a place of worship a group of matrons and maids awaited them, with Barbara in their midst, fair and stately in her white robes, the glory of her eyes outvying any jewels she could have worn.
The meagre civil service was spoken by the governor, but at the request of both bride and bridegroom the elder made a prayer to which the captain listened more reverently than his wont, and cried Amen more heartily.
Then they came forth these two Standishes made one, and the train band escorted them to their home, and fired a salute of honor, whose reverberating waves rolling across the waters broke at last upon the foot of Captain's Hill, sighing away into silence over the quiet plain where one day should be dug a warrior's grave, marked head and foot with a great three-cornered stone.
And so, tenderly, reluctantly, lingeringly we leave them, these dear ones whose memory we cherish so lovingly, and in the sober reality of whose lives lies a charm no romance can ever reach.
Would you know more of them, for there are, as the Sultana promised morning by morning, stranger and better things to come than these that have been told, go read the annals of the Pilgrims, those precious fragments left to us by Bradford and by Winslow, and a letter written by De Rasières, Secretary of the Dutch Colony at Manhattan, who, visiting Plymouth upon a diplomatic errand in 1627, wrote to his superiors a letter preserved in the Royal Library of Holland wherein he draws this little picture of the town we have tried to reproduce, and mentions some of these dear friends whose lives we know so much better than he did.
"New Plymouth lies on the slope of a hill, stretching east toward the sea-coast with a broad street about a cannon shot long, leading down the hill with a cross street in the middle going southward to the rivulet, and northward to the land. The houses are constructed of hewn planks, with gardens also enclosed behind, and at the sides, with hewn planks, so that their houses and court-yards are arranged in very good order, with astockade against a sudden attack; and at the ends of the streets there are three wooden gates. In the centre on the cross street stands the Governor's house, before which is a square erection upon which four patereros are mounted so as to flank along the streets.
"Upon the hill they have a large square house, with a flat roof made of thick sawn planks stayed with oak beams, upon the top of which they have six cannons which shoot iron balls of four or five pounds and command the surrounding country. The lower part they use for their church, where they preach on Sundays and the usual holidays. They assemble by beat of drum, each with his musket or firelock, in front of the Captain's door; they have their cloaks on, and place themselves in order three abreast, and are led by a sergeant without beat of drum. Behind comes the Governor in a long robe; beside him on the right hand comes the preacher with his cloak on, and on the left hand the Captain with his side-arms and cloak on, and with a small cane in his hand; and so they march in good order, and each sets his arms down near him. Thus they are constantly on their guard night and day."
But after all, glad as we are of this little loophole pierced through the mists of antiquity, the fashion of our friends' houses and court-yards, their cloaks and muskets and quaint Sunday procession are not as valuable to us as the story of their individual lives: the story of Priscilla and John Alden and their children; of Myles, military power of the colony, beyond his threescore years and ten; of Barbara, called his "dear wife" in the dignified Last Will, wherein he bequeaths "Ormistic, Bousconge, Wrightington, Maudesley" and the rest, to Alexander his "son and heir," sturdily proclaimingwith as it were his last breath, that these fair domains were "surreptitiously detained" from him. And Lora Standish, fair sweet shadow upon the mirror of the past; and Mary Dingley, beloved of the grand old warrior; and Alice Bradford, of whom at the last Morton wrote,—
"Adoe my lovingfriend, my aunt, my mother,Of those that's left I have not such another."
And Bradford himself, and Brewster, and Winslow, and Howland, each one of whom hath left behind him enough of achievement to fill a dozen of the degenerate lives of a butterfly of to-day; and the women they loved, and the young men and maidens who rose up around them: ah, how can we leave them, how can we say good-by! Shall we not the rather cherish them and study them more than we ever yet have done, feeling in our hearts that those virtues, that courage, and that nobility of life may be ours as well as theirs, may illustrate the easy life of to-day, and make it less unworthy to be the fruit of the Tree of Liberty, planted in the blood and watered by the tears of our Fathers.