A Pilgrim Maid Part 10

So Constance hummed softly, not to disturb the reader, the content that she felt not lessened by anxiety for Giles; there were hours in which she was a.s.sured of Giles's safe return, and this was one of them.

Stephen Hopkins had been conscious of his girl's loving companionship, though not aware that he felt it, till, at last, the small tune that she hummed crept through his brain into his thought, and he laid down his book to look at her.

She sat straight and prim by necessity. Her chair was narrow and erect--a carved, dark oaken chair, with a small round seat; it had been Constance's mother's, and had come out of her grandfather's Tudor mansion, wherein he had once entertained Queen Bess.

Constance's dress was of dark homespun stuff, coming up close under her soft chin, falling straight around her feet, ornamented but with narrow bands of linen at her neck and around her wrists. Yet by its extreme severity the Puritan gown said: "See how lovely this young creature is! Only her fleckless skin, her gracious outlines, could triumph over my barrenness!"

Obedient to her elders' demands upon her to curb its riotousness, Constance had brushed smooth and capped her l.u.s.trous hair, yet its tendrils escaped upon her brow; it glinted below the cap around her ears, and in the back of her neck, and shone in the firelight like precious metal.

Stephen Hopkins's eyes brightened with delight in her charm, but, though he was not one of the strictest of Plymouth colonists, yet was he too imbued with their customs to express his pleasure in Constance's beauty.

Instead he said, but his voice thrilled with what he left unsaid: "It's a great thing, my girl, to draw such a woman as Portia, here in this leathern book. She shines through it, and you see her clever eyes, her splendid presence, best of all her great power to love, to humble herself, to forget herself for the man she hath chosen! I would have you conversant with the women here met, Constance; they are worthy friends for you, in the wilderness where such n.o.ble ladies are rare."

"Yet we have fine women and devoted ones here, Father," objected Constance, putting down the fine linen that she was hemst.i.tching for her father's wearing. He noted the slender, supple hands, long-fingered, graceful, yet a womanly hand, made for loyalty.

"Far be it from me to belittle them who recognized their hard and repulsive duty in the plague last winter, and performed it with utter self-renunciation," said Stephen Hopkins. "But, Constance, there is a something that, while it cannot transcend goodness, enhances it and places its possessor on a sort of dais all her life. Your mother had it, child. She was beautiful, charming, winsome, gracious, yet had she a lordly way with her; you see it in a fine-bred steed; I know not how to describe it. She was mettlesome, spirited. It was as if she did the right with a sort of inborn scorn for aught low; had made her choice at birth for true n.o.bility and could but abide by it for aye, having made that choice. You have much of her, my la.s.s, and I am daily thankful for it. A fine lady, was your exquisite young mother, and that says it, though the term is lowered by common usage. I would that you could have known her, my poor child! It was a loss hard to accept that you were deprived of her too soon, and never could have her direct impress upon you. And yet, thank Heaven, she hath left it upon you in mothering you, though the memory of her doth not bless you. And you sit here, upon a Plymouth hearthstone, far from the civilization that produced her, and to this I brought you!"

"Oh, Father, Father, my darling!" cried Constance, flinging aside her work and dropping upon her knees beside him, for his voice quivered with an emotion that he never before had allowed to escape him, as he uttered a self-reproach that no one knew he harboured. "Oh, my father, dearest, don't you know that I am happy here? And are you not here with me? However fine a lady my sweet mother was--and for your sake I am glad indeed if you see anything of her in me!--yet was she no truer lady than you are a fine gentleman. And with you I need no better exemplar. As time goes on we shall receive from England much of the good we have left behind; our colony will grow and prosper; we shall not be crude, unlettered. And how truly n.o.ble are many of our company, not only you, but Governor Bradford, Mr. Brewster, Mr. Winslow; their wives; our Arm, Captain Myles; and--dearest of all, save you--Doctor Fuller! No maiden need lack of models who has these! But indeed, I want to be all that you would have me to be! I cannot say how glad I am if you see in me anything of my mother! Not for my sake; for yours, for yours!"

"Portia after all!" Stephen Hopkins cried, stroking Constance's cheek. "That proves how well he knew, great Will of Warwickshire--which is our county also, my la.s.s! Not for their own sake do true women value their charm, but for him they love. 'But only to stand high in your account I might in virtues, beauties, livings, friends, exceed!' So spake Portia; so, in effect, spake you just now. That was your mother's way; she, too, longed to have, but to give, her possessions, herself----"

There came a knocking at the door and Constance sprang back to her chair, catching up her sewing, thrusting in her needle with shortened breath, not to be caught by her severe Plymouth neighbours in so unseemly a thing as betraying love for her father, leaning on his knee.

Mr. Hopkins answered the summons, and there entered Francis Eaton, Mr. Allerton, and John Howland, who having come to Plymouth as the servant of Governor Carver, was now living in the colony with his articles of bondage annulled, and was inclined to exceed in severity the other Puritans, as one who had not long had authority even over himself.

"Peace be to you, Mr. Hopkins," said John Howland, gravely. "Mistress Constantia, I wish you a good evening. Sir, we are come to consult you as to certain provisions to be made for the winter to come, as to care of the sick, should there be many----. Will that great beast bite? She seems not to like me, and I may say the feeling is mutual; I never could bear a beast."

"She will not bite you, John; she is but deciding on your credentials as set forth in the odour of your clothing," said Mr. Hopkins, smiling. "Down, Hecate, good la.s.s! While I am here you may leave it to me to see to your dwelling and fireside, old trusty!"

Hecate wagged her whip like tail and instantly lay down, her nose on her extended paws, frowning at the callers.

"But what is this, Stephen Hopkins?" demanded Francis Eaton, picking up the marred, leather-covered great volume which Stephen Hopkins had laid down when he had risen. "Shakespeare! Plays! Fie, fie upon you; sir! I wot you know this is G.o.dless matter, and that you are sinning to set the example of such reading to your child."

Stephen Hopkins's quick temper blazed; he took a step in the speaker's direction, and Hecate was justified in growling at her master's lead.

"Zounds! Eaton," he cried. "I know that an Englishman's house is his castle, on whichever side of the ocean he builds it, and that I will not brook your coming into it to tell me--you to tell me, forsooth!--that I am sinning! Look to your own affairs, sir, but keep your hands off mine. If you are too ignorant to know more of Shakespeare than to think him harmful, well, then, sir, you confess to an ignorance that is in itself a sin against the Providence that gave us poets."

"As to that, Francis Eaton," said Mr. Allerton, "Mr. Hopkins hath the best of it. We who strive after the highest virtue do not indulge in worldly reading, but there be those among us who would not condemn Shakespeare. But what is the noise I hear? Permit us to go yonder into your outer room, Mr. Hopkins, to satisfy ourselves that worse than play-reading is not carried on within this house."

"Noise? I heard no noise till now, being too much occupied to note it, but it is easy to decide upon its cause from here, though if you desire to go yonder, or to share the play, I'll not prevent you," said Mr. Hopkins, his anger mounting.

"Say, rather, as I seriously fear, that you are too accustomed to the sound to note it. I will pa.s.s over, as unworthy of you and of my profession, the insult you proffered me in suggesting that I would bear part in a wicked game," said Mr. Allerton, going toward the door.

He threw it open with a magnificent gesture and stalked through it, followed close by the other two, and by Hecate's growl and Puck's sharp barking.

Constance had dropped her work and sat rigidly regarding her father with amazed and frightened eyes.

Stephen Hopkins went after them, purple with rage. What they saw was a table marked off at its farther end by lines drawn in chalk. At the nearer end sat Edward Doty and Edward Lister, the men whom Stephen Hopkins had brought over with him on the Mayflower to serve him. Beside them sat tankards of home-made beer, and a small pile of coins lay, one at each man's right hand.

Just as Francis Eaton threw open the door, Edward Lister leaned forward, balanced a coin carefully between his thumb and finger, and shot it forward over one of the lines at the other end.

"Aimed, by St. George! Well shot, Ted!" cried Edward Doty.

"See that thou beatest me not, Ned; thou art a better man than me at it," said Lister, and they both took a draught of beer, wiping their lips on their sleeve in high satisfaction with the flavour, the game, and each other.

"Shovelboard!" "Shuffleboard!" cried Francis Eaton and John Howland together, differing on the p.r.o.nunciation of the obnoxious sport, but one in the boundless horror in their voices.

"Stephen Hopkins, I am profoundly shocked," said Mr. Allerton, turning with lowering brows upon their host. "A man of your standing among us! A man of your experience of the world! Well wot you that playing of games is forbid among us. That you should tolerate it is frightful to consider----"

"See here, Isaac Allerton," said Stephen Hopkins, stepping so close to his neighbour that Mr. Allerton fell back uneasily, "it is a principle among us that every man is to follow his conscience. If we have thrown off the authority of our old days, an authority mind you, that had much to be said for it, and set up our own conscience as the sole guide of our actions, then how dare you come into my house to reproach me for what I consider no wrong-doing? Ted and Ned are good fellows, on whose hands leisure hangs heavily, since they do not read Shakespeare, as does their master, whom equally you condemn. To my mind shovelboard is innocent; I have permitted my men to play it. Go, if you will, and report to our governor this heinous crime of allowing innocent play. But on your peril read me no sermon, nor set up your opinion in mine own house, for, by my honour, I'll not abide it."

"By no will of mine will I report you, my brother," said Isaac Allerton, but the gleam in his eye belied him; there was jealousy in this little community, as in all human communities. "You know that my duty will compel me to lay before Governor Bradford what I have seen. Since we have with our own eyes seen it, there needs no further witnesses."

"Imply that I would deny the truth, were there never a witness, and Heaven help you, Plymouth or no Plymouth, brother or no brother! I'm not a liar," cried Stephen Hopkins, so fiercely that Mr. Allerton and his companions went swiftly out the side door, Mr. Allerton protesting: "Nay, then Brother and friend; thou art a choleric man, and lax as to this business, but no one would doubt your honour."

After they had gone Mr. Hopkins went back to his chair by the fireside, leaving Ted and Ned staring open-mouthed at each other, stunned by the tempest aroused by their game.

"Well, rather would I have held the psalm book the whole evening than got the master into trouble," said Ted.

"Easy done, since thou couldst no more than hold it, reading being beyond thee," grinned Ned. "Yet am I one with thy meaning, which is clearer to me than is print."

Constance dared not speak to her father when he returned to her. She glanced up at his angry face and went on with her st.i.tchery in silence.

At length he stretched himself out, his feet well toward the fire, and let his right hand fall on Hecate's insinuating head, his left on Puck's thrusting nose.

"Good friends!" he said to the happy dogs. "I am ashamed, my Constance, so to have afflicted thee. Smile, child; thou dost look as though destruction awaited me."

"I am so sorry, Father! In good sooth, is there not trouble coming to you from this night's business?" asked Constance, folding up her work.

"Nothing serious, child; likely a fine. But indeed it will be worth it to have the chance it will buy me to speak my mind clearly to my fellow colonists on these matters. Ah, my girl, my girl, what sad fools we mortals be, as Shakespeare, whom also these grave and reverend seigniors condemn, hath said! We have come here to sail by the free wind of conscience, but look you, it must be the conscience of the few, greater thraldom than it was in the Old World! Ah, Constance, Constance, we came here to escape the thraldom of men, but to do that it needs that no men came! If authority we are to have, then let it be authoritative, say I; not the mere opinion of men. My child, have you ever noted how much human nature there is in a man?"

But the next day, during which Stephen Hopkins was absent from his home, when he returned at night his philosophy had been sadly jostled.

He had been called before the governor, reprimanded and fined, and his pride, his sense of justice, were both outraged when he actually had to meet the situation. Dame Eliza was in a state of mind that made matters worse. She had heard from one of those persons through whom ill news filters as naturally as water through a spring, that her husband had been, as she termed it, "disgraced before the world."

"They can't disgrace him, Stepmother," protested Constance, though she knew that it was useless to try to stem the tide of Dame Eliza's grievance. "My father is in the right; they have the power to fine, but not to disgrace him who hath done no wrong."

"Of course he hath done no wrong," snapped Dame Eliza. "Shovelboard was played in my father's kitchen when I was no age. Are these prating men better than my father? Answer me that! But your father has no right to risk getting into trouble for two ne'er-do-wells, like his two precious Edwards. They eat more than any four men I ever knew, and that will I maintain against all comers, and as to work they cannot so much as see it. Worthless! And for them will he risk our good name. For mark me, Constantia, shovelboard is a game, and gaming an abomination, and not to be mentioned in a virtuous household, yet would your father permit it played----"

"But you just said it was harmless, and that your father had a table!" cried Constance.

"My father was a good man, but not a Puritan," said Dame Eliza, somewhat confused to be called upon to harmonize her own statements. "In England shovelboard is one thing; in Plymouth a second thing, and two things are not the same as one thing. I am disgusted with your father, but what good does it do me to speak? Never am I heeded but rather am I flouted by the Hopkins brood, young and old, which is why I never speak, but eat my heart out in silence and patience, knowing that had I married as I might have married--aye, and that many times, I'd have you know--I'd not be here among sands and marshes and Indians and barrens, slaving for ungrateful people who think to show their better blood by treating me as they best know how! But it is a long lane that hath no turning, and justice must one day be my reward."

When Stephen Hopkins came in Dame Eliza dared not air her grievances; his angry face compelled silence. Even Constance did not intrude upon his annoyance, but contented herself with conveying her sympathy by waiting upon him and talking blithely to Damaris, succeeding at last in winning a smile from her father by her amusing stories to the child.

"There is a moon, Constance; is it too cold for you to walk with me? The sea is fair and silvery beneath the moon rays," said Mr. Hopkins after supper.

"Not a whit too chill, Father, and I shall like to be out of doors," cried Constance, disregarding her stepmother's frown, who disapproved of pleasure strolls.

Constance drew her cloak about her, its deep hood over her head, and went out with her father. Stephen Hopkins placed her hand in his arm, and led her toward the beach. It was a deep, clear autumn night, the moon was brilliant; the sea, still as a mirror, gave its surface for the path that led from the earth to the moon, made by the moon rays.

At last her father spoke to Constance.

"Wise little woman," he said, patting the hand in his arm, "to keep silent till a man has conquered his humours. Your mother had that rare feminine wisdom. What a comrade was she, my dear! Seeing your profile thus half-concealed by your hood I have been letting myself feel that she had returned to me. And so she has, for you are part of her, her gift to me! Trouble no more over my annoyance, Constance; I have conquered it. I do not say that there is no soreness left in me, that I should be thus dealt with, but I am philosopher enough to see that Myles Standish was right when he once said to me that I was a fool for my pains; that living in Plymouth I must bear myself Plymouth-wise."

"Father, have you had enough of impertinence in the day's doings, that your neighbours should dare to judge you, or will you tolerate a little more impertinence, and from your own daughter?" asked Constance.

"Now what's in the wind?" demanded Stephen Hopkins, stopping short.

"Nay, Father, let me speak freely!" Constance implored. "Indeed there is nothing in my heart that you would disapprove, could I bare it to your eyes. Does not this day's experience throw a light upon Giles?"

"Giles! How? Why?" exclaimed her father.

"Giles is as like you as are two peas in a pod, dear Father. He does not count himself a boy any longer. He hath felt that he was dealt with for offences that he had not done. He has been wounded, angry, sore, sad--and most of all because he half worships you. The governor, Mr. Winslow, no one is to you, nor can hurt you, as you can hurt Giles. Don't you feel to-day, Father, how hard it is for a young lad to bear injustice? When Giles comes home will you not show him that you trust him, love him, as I so well know you do, but as he cannot now be made to believe you do? And won't you construe him by what you have suffered this day, and comfort him? Forgive me, Father, my dearest, dearest! I do not mean wrong, and after all, it is only your Constance speaking her heart out to you," she pleaded.

For upwards of ten minutes Stephen Hopkins was silent while Constance hung trembling on his arm.

Then her father turned to her, and took her face in both his hands, tears in his eyes.

"It is only my Constance speaking; only my dearest earthly treasure," he said. "And by all the G.o.ds, she hath spoken sweetly and truly, and I will heed her! Yes, my Constance, I will read my own bitterness in Giles's heart, and I will heal it, if but the lad comes back safe to us."

With which promise, that sounded in Constance's ears like the carol of angels, her father kissed her thrice on brow, and lips, a most unusual caress from him. It was a thankful Constance that lay down beside Damaris that night, beneath the lean-to roof.

"Now I know that Giles will come back, for this is what has been meant in all that hath lately come to us," was her last thought as she drifted into sleep.

CHAPTER XV.

The "Fortune," that Sailed, First West, then East.

"There's a ship, there's a sail standing toward us!"

It was Francis Billington's shrill boyish voice that aroused the Hopkins household with this tidings, early in the morning on one of those mid-November days when at that hour the air was chill and at noon the warmth of summer brooded over land and sea.

Stephen Hopkins called from within: "Wait, wait, Francis, till I can come to thee."

In a moment or two he came out of his door and looked in the direction in which the boy pointed, although a hillock on the Hopkins land, which lay between Leyden and Middle streets, cut off the sight of the sail.

"She's coming up from the south'ard," cried Francis, excitedly. "Most like from the Cape, but she must have come from England first, say you not so, Mr. Hopkins?"

"Surely," agreed Stephen Hopkins. "The savages build no vessels like ours, as you well know. Thank you, my boy, for warning me of her approach. Go on and spread your news broadcast; let our entire community be out to welcome whatever good the ship brings, or to resist harm--though that I fear not. I will myself be at the wharf when she gets in."

"Oh, as to that, Mr. Hopkins, you have time to eat as big a breakfast as you can get and still be too early for the arrival," said Francis, grinning. "She's got a long way to cover and a deal to do to reach Plymouth wharf in this still air. She's not close in, by much. I hurried and yelled to get you up quick because--well, because you've got to hurry folks and yell when a ship comes in, haven't you?"

Mr. Hopkins smiled sympathetically at the boy whose actions rarely got sympathy.

"Till ships become a more common sight in our harbour, Francis, I would advise letting your excitement on the coming of one have vent a-plenty," he said, turning to reenter the house as Francis Billington, acting on advice more promptly than was his wont, ran down Leyden Street, throwing up his cap and shouting: "A ship! A sail! A ship! A sail!" at the top of his vigorous lungs, not only unreproved for his disturbance of the peaceful morning, but hailed with answering excitement by the men, women, and children whom he aroused as he ran.

The ship took as long to reach haven as Francis Billington had prophesied she would require. She proved to be a small ship with a figure-head of a woman, meant to represent Fortune, for she was blindfolded, but her battered paint indicated that she had in her own person encountered ill-fortune in her course.

A number of people were gathered on her forward deck, looking eagerly for indications of the sort of place that they were approaching.

"Mr. Weston, knowing that we depend upon him and his brother merchants, our friends across seas, for supplies, hath at last dispatched us the long-waited ship," said Mr. Winslow to Mr. Hopkins.

"With someone, let us hope, authorized to carry back report of us here, and thus to get us, later on, what we sore need. Many new colonists, as well as nearly all things that human beings require for existence," said Stephen Hopkins, with something of the strain upon his endurance that he had suffered getting into his voice.

The ship was the Fortune--her figure-head had announced as much. When she made anchor, and her small boat came to the wharf, the first person to step ash.o.r.e was Mr. Robert Cushman, the English agent who had played so large a part in the embarkation of the pilgrims in the Mayflower.

"Welcome, in all truth!" said Governor Bradford stepping forward to seize the hand of this man, from whose coming and subsequent reports at home so much might be hoped. "Now, at last, have we what we have so long needed, a representative who can speak of us as one who hath seen!"

"I am glad to be here in a twofold sense, Mr. Bradford," returned Mr. Cushman.

"Glad to meet with you, whom I knew under the distant sky of home, glad to be at the end of my voyage. I have brought you thirty-five additional members of your community. We came first to Cape Cod, and a more discouraged band of adventurers would be hard to find than were these men when they saw how barren of everything was the Cape. I a.s.sured them that they would find you in better condition here, at Plymouth, and we set sail hither. They have been scanning waves and sky for the first symptom of something like comfort at Plymouth, beginning their anxious outlook long before it was possible to satisfy it. I a.s.sure you that never was a wharf hailed so gladly as was this one that you have built, for these men argued that before you would build a wharf you must have made sure of greater essentials."

"We are truly thankful for new strength added to us; we need it sore," said William Bradford. "We make out to live, nor have we wanted seriously, thus far."

"The men I have gathered together and brought to you are not provided; they will be a charge upon you for a while in food and raiment, but after a time their strength should more than recompense you in labour," said Mr. Cushman. "Where is the governor? I have a letter here from Mr. Weston to Governor Carver; will you take me to him?"

"That we may not do, Mr. Cushman," said Governor Bradford, sadly. "Governor Carver is at rest since last April, a half year agone. It was a day of summer heat and he was labouring in the field, from which he came out very sick, complaining greatly of his head. He lay down and in a few hours his senses failed, which never returned to him till his death, some days later. Bitterly have we mourned that just man. And but a month and somewhat more, pa.s.sed when Mistress Carver, who was a weak woman, and sore beset by the sufferings of her coming here, and so ill-fitted to bear grief, followed her spouse to their reward, as none who knew them could doubt. I am chosen, unworthily, to succeed John Carver as governor of this colony."

"Then is the letter thine, William Bradford, and the Plymouth men have wisely picked out thee to hold chief office over them," said Robert Cushman. "Yet your news is heavy hearing, and I hope there is not much of such tidings to be given me."

"Half of us lie yonder on the hillside," said Governor Bradford. "But they died in the first months of our landing, when we lacked shelter and all else. It was a mortality that a.s.sailed us, a swift plague, but since it hath pa.s.sed there is little sickness among us. Gather your men and let us go on to the village which we have built us, a habitation in the wilderness, like Israel of old. Like old Plymouth at home it is in name, but in naught else, yet it is not wholly without its pleasant comfort, and we are learning to hold it dear, as Providence hath wisely made man to cherish his home."

Mr. Cushman marshalled his sorry-looking followers; they were dest.i.tute of bedding, household utensils, even scantily provided with clothes, so that they came off the Fortune in the lightest marching order, and filled with dismay the Plymouth people who saw that their deficiencies would fall upon the first settlers to supply.

"Well, Constantia, and so hath it ever been, and ever will be, world without end, that they who till and sow do not reap, but rather some idle blackbird that sits upon a stump whistling for the corn that grows for him, and not for his betters," scolded Dame Eliza who, like others of the women who were hard-working and economical, felt especially aggrieved by this invoice of dest.i.tution. "It is we, and such as we who may feed them, even to Damaris. Get a pan of dried beans, child, and sh.e.l.l 'em, for it is against our profession to see them starve, but why the agents sent, or Robert Cushman brought, beggars to us it would puzzle Solomon to say. Where will your warm cloak come from that you hoped for, think you, Constantia, with these people requiring our stores? Do they take Plymouth for Beggars' Bush?"

"I came hither walking beside my father, who was talking with Mr. Winslow, Stepmother," said Constance, noting with amus.e.m.e.nt that her stepmother commiserated her probable sacrifice, swayed by her indignation to make common cause with Constance, whose desires she rarely noted. "They said that it would put a burden upon us to provide for these new-comers at first, but that they looked like able and hopeful subjects to requite us abundantly, and that soon. So never mind my cloak; I will darn and patch my old one, and at least there be none here who will not know why I go shabby, and be in similar stress."

The door opened and Humility Cooper entered. She kissed Constance on the cheek, a manner of greeting not common among these Puritan maidens, especially when they met often, and slowly took the stool that Constance placed for her in the chimney corner, loosening her cape as she did so.

"I have news, dear Constance," Humility said.

"How strangely you look at me, Humility!" cried Constance. "Is your news good or ill? Your face would tell me it was both; your eyes shine, yet are ready to tears, and your lips droop, yet are smiling!"

"My news is that same mixture, Constance," cried Humility. "I am sent for from England. The letter is come by the Fortune. She is to lie in our harbour barely two sen' nights, and then weigh anchor for home. And I----"

"You go on her!" cried Constance. "Oh Humility!"

"And so I do," said Humility. "I am glad to go home. It is a sad and heavy-hearted thing to be here alone, with only Elizabeth Tilley, my cousin, left me. To be sure her father and mother, and Edward Tilley and his wife, who brought me hither, were but my cousins, though one degree nearer than John Tilley's Betsy; yet was it kindred, and they were those who had me in charge. Since they died I have felt lone, kind though everyone hath been; you and Priscilla Mullins Alden and Elizabeth are like my sisters. But my heart yearns back to England. Yet when I think of seeing you for the last time, till we meet beyond all parting, since you will never go to the old land, nor I return to the new one, then it seems that it will break my heart to say farewell, and that I cannot go."