A Pilgrim Maid Part 11

"Why, Humility, dear la.s.s, we cannot let you go!" cried Constance, putting her arms around the younger girl toward whom she felt as a protector, as well as comrade.

"Tut, tut!" said Dame Eliza, yet not unkindly. "It is best for Humility to go. I have long been glad to know, what we did know, that her kindred at home would send for her."

Humility stooped and gathered up Lady Fair, the cat, on her knee.

"I am like her," she said. "The warmth I have holds me, and I like not to venture out into the chillsome wet of the dark and storm."

"Lady Fair would scamper home fast enough if she were among strangers, in a new place, Humility," cried Constance, with one of her mercurial changes setting herself to cheer Humility on her unavoidable road. "It will be hard setting out, but you will be glad enough when you see the green line of sh.o.r.e that will be England awaiting you!"

"I thought you would be sorry, Constance!" cried Humility, tears springing to her eyes and rolling down her smooth, pink cheeks.

"And am I not, dear heart, just because I want to make it easier for you?" Constance reproached her. "How I shall miss you, dear little trusting Humility, I cannot tell you. But I am glad to know that we who remain are worse off than you who go, and that when you see home again there will be more than enough there to make up to you for Pris, Elizabeth, and me. There will be ships coming after this, so my father and Mr. Winslow were saying, and you will write us, and we will write you. And some day, when Ocea.n.u.s, or Peregrine White, or one of the other small children here, is grown up to be a great portrait painter, like Mr. Holbein, whose portraits I was taken to see at Windsor when I was small, I will dispatch to you a great canvas of an old lady in flowing skirts, with white hair puffed and coifed and it will be painted across the bottom in readable letters: 'Portrait of Constantia Hopkins, aetat. 86,' else will you never know it for me, the silly girl you left behind."

"'Silly girl,' indeed! You will be the wife of some great gentleman who is now in England, but who will cross to the colony, and you will be the mother of those who will help in its growth," cried Humility the prophetess.

"Cease your foolish babble, both of you!" Dame Eliza ordered them, impatiently. "It is poor business talking of serious matters lightly, but Humility is well-off, and needs not pity, to be returning to the land that we cast off, nor am I as Lot's wife saying it, for it is true, nor am I repining."

Humility had made a correct announcement in saying that the Fortune would stay on the western sh.o.r.e but two weeks.

For that time she lay in the waters of Plymouth harbour taking on a cargo of goods to the value of 500 pounds, or thereabout, which the Plymouth people rightly felt would put their enterprise in a new light when the ship arrived in England, especially that she had come hither unprepared for trade, expecting no such store here.

Lumber they stowed upon the Fortune to her utmost capacity to carry, and two hogsheads full of beaver and otter skins, taken in exchange for the little that the Englishmen had to offer for them, the idea of trading for furs being new to them, till Squanto showed them the value in a beaver skin.

On the night of the thirteenth day of the Fortune's lying at anchor Humility went aboard to be ready in case that the ship's master should suddenly resolve to take advantage of a favourable wind and sail unexpectedly.

Stephen Hopkins offered to take the young girls, who had been Humility's companions on the Mayflower, out to the Fortune early the next morning for the final parting. It was decided that the Fortune was to set sail at the turn of the tide on the fourteenth day, and drop down to sea on the first of its ebb.

Priscilla, Elizabeth Tilley, Desire Minter, who was also to return to England when summoned, and Constance, were rowed out to the ship when the reddening east threw a glory upon the Fortune and covered her battered, blindfolded figure-head with the robes of an aurora.

Humility was dressed, awaiting them. She threw herself into the arms of each of the girls in succession, and for once five young girls were silent, their chatter hushed by the solemn thought that never would their eyes rest again upon Humility's pleasant little face; that never again would Humility see the faces which had smiled her through her days of bereavement, see Constance who had nursed her back to life when she herself seemed likely to follow her protectors to the hillside, to their corn-hidden graves.

"We cannot forget, so we will not ask each other to remember, Humility dear," whispered Constance, her lips against Humility's soft, brown hair.

Humility shook her head, unable otherwise to reply.

"I love you more than any one on earth, Con," she managed to say at last.

"I am sorry to shorten your stay, daughters, sorry to compel you to leave Mistress Humility," said Mr. Cushman, coming down the deck to the plaintive group, "but we are sailing now, and there will be no time when the last good-bye is easy. You must go ash.o.r.e."

Not a word was spoken as Priscilla, Desire--though for her the parting was not final--Elizabeth and Constance kissed, clung to Humility, and for ever let her go. Stephen Hopkins, not a little moved himself--for he was fond of Humility, over whom he had kept ward since Edward Tilley had died--guided the tear-blinded girls down the ship's ladder, into his boat, and rowed them ash.o.r.e.

The Fortune's sails creaked and her gear rattled as her men hauled up her canvas for her homeward voyage.

She weighed anchor and slowly moved on her first tack, bright in the golden sunshine of a perfect Indian summer morning.

"Be brave, and wave a gay farewell to the little la.s.s," said Stephen Hopkins. "And may G.o.d fend her from harm on her way, and lead her over still waters all her days."

"Oh, amen, amen, Father!" sobbed Constance. "She can't see we are crying while we wave to her so blithely. But it is the harder part to stay behind."

"With me, my la.s.s?" asked Stephen Hopkins, smiling tenderly down on his usually courageous little pioneer.

"Oh, no; no indeed! Forgive me, Father! The one hard thing would be to stay anywhere without thee," cried Constance, smiling as brightly as she had just wept bitterly. The Fortune leaned over slightly, and sailed at a good speed down the harbour, Humility's white signal of farewell hanging out over the boat's stern, discernable long after the girl's plump little figure and pink round face, all washed white with tears, had been blotted out by intervening s.p.a.ce.

Before the Fortune had gone wholly out of sight Francis Billington came over the marsh gra.s.s that edged the sand, sometimes running for a few steps, sometimes lagging; his whole figure and air eloquent of catastrophe.

"What can ail Francis Billington?" exclaimed Stephen Hopkins.

"He looks ghastly," cried Constance. "Father, it can't be--Giles?" she whispered.

"Bad news of him!" cried her father quickly, turning pale. "Nonsense, no; of course not."

Nevertheless he strode toward the boy hastily and caught him by the arm.

"What aileth thee; speak!" he ordered him.

"Jack. Jack is--Jack----" Francis stammered.

"Oh, is it Jack?" cried Stephen Hopkins, relieved, though he could have struck himself a moment later for the seeming heartlessness of his excusable mistake.

"What has Jack done now? He is always getting into mischief, but I am sure you need have no fear for him. But now that I look at you----. Why, my poor lad, what is it? No harm hath befallen your brother?"

"Jack is dead," said Francis.

Constance uttered a cry, and her father fell back a step or two, shocked and sorry.

"Forgive me, Francis; I had no notion of this. I never thought John Billington, the younger, could come to actual harm--so daring, so reckless, but so strong and able to take care of himself! Dead! Francis, it can't be. You are mistaken. Where is Doctor Fuller?"

"With my father," said Francis, and they saw that he shook from head to foot.

"He was with Jack; he did what he could. He couldn't do more," said Francis.

"Poor lad," said Stephen Hopkins, laying his hand gently on the boy's shoulder.

"Do you want to tell us? Was it an accident?"

Francis nodded. "Bouncing Bully," he muttered.

Stephen Hopkins glanced questioningly at Constance; he thought perhaps Francis was wandering in his mind.

"That was poor Jack's great pistol that he took such pride in," cried Constance.

"Oh, Francis, did that kill him?"

"Burst," cried Francis, and said no more.

"Come home with us, Francis," said Mr. Hopkins. "Indeed, my boy, I am heartily sorry for thee, and wish I could comfort thee. Be brave, and bear it in the way that thou hast been taught."

"I liked Jack," said poor Francis, turning away. "I thank you, Mr. Hopkins, but I'd not care to go home with you. If Giles was back----. Not that I don't love you, Con, but Jack and Giles----. I'm going--somewhere. I guess I'll find Nimrod, my dog. Thank you, Mr. Hopkins, but I couldn't come. I forgot why I came here. Doctor Fuller told me to say he wanted you. It's about Jack--Jack's----. They'll bury him."

The boy turned away, staggering, but in a moment Constance and her father, watching him, saw him break into a run and disappear.

"Don't look so worried, my dear," said Stephen Hopkins. "It is a boy's instinct to hide his grief, and the dog will be a good comrade for Francis for awhile. Later we will get hold of him. Best leave him to himself awhile. That wild, unruly Jack! And he is dead! I'd rather a hundred pounds were lost than that I had spoken as I did to Francis at first, but how should I have dreamed it was more than another of the Billington sc.r.a.pes? I tell thee, Connie, it will be a rare mercy if the father does not end badly one day. He is insubordinate, lawless, dangerous. Perhaps young John is saved a worse fate."

"Nevertheless I am sad enough over the fate that has befallen him," said Constance. "He was a kindly boy, and loyal enough to me to make it right that I should mourn him. And I did like him. Poor Jack. Poor, young, heedless Jack! And how proud he was of that clumsy weapon that hath turned on him!"

"And so did I like him, Connie, though he and Francis have been, from our first embarkation on the Mayflower, the torment and black sheep of our company. But I liked the boy. I like his father less, and fear he will one day force us to deal with him extremely." In which prophecy Stephen Hopkins was only too right.

"To think that in one day we should bid a last farewell to two of our young fellow-exiles, Humility and Jack, both gone home, and for ever from us! Giles liked Jack; Jack stood by him when he needed help. Oh, Father, Father, if it were Giles!" cried Constance.

"I know, I know, child," said her father, huskily. "I've been thinking that. I've been thinking that, and more. My son has been headstrong, but never wicked. He is stiffnecked, but hath no evil in his will, except that he resists me. But I have been thinking hard, my Constance. You were right; I would have done well to listen to your pleadings, to your wiser understanding of my boy. I have been hard on him, unjust to him; I should have admitted him to my confidence, given mine to him. I am wrong and humbly I confess it to you, Giles's advocate. When he comes back my boy shall find a better father awaiting him. I wounded him through his very love for me, and well I know how once he loved me."

"Oh, Father; dear, good, great Father!" cried Constance, forgetful of all grief. "Only a great man can thus acknowledge a mistake. My dear, dear, beloved Father!" And in her heart she thought perhaps poor Jack had not died in vain if his death helped to show their father how dear Giles was to him, still, and after all.

CHAPTER XVI.

A Gallant Lad Withal.

There was a gray sky the day after young madcap John Billington was laid to rest in the grave that had been hard to think of as meant for him, dug by the younger colonists. Long rifted clouds lay piled upon one another from the line of one horizon to the other, and the wind blew steadily, keeping close to the ground and whistling around chimneys and rafters in a way that portended a storm driven in from the sea.

"I think it's lost-and-lone to-day, Constance," said Damaris, coining her own term for the melancholy that seemed to envelop earth and sky. "I think it's a good day for a story, and I'd like much to sit in your lap in the chimney corner and hear your nicest ones."

"Would you, my Cosset? But you said a story at first, and now you say my nicest ones! Do you mean one story, or several stories, Damaris?" Constance asked.

"I mean one first, and many ones after that, if you could tell them, Constance," said the child. "Mother says we have no time to idle in story-telling, but to-day is so empty and lonesome! I'd like to have a story."

"And so you shall, my little sis!" cried Constance gathering Damaris into her arms and dropping into the high-backed chair which Dame Eliza preempted for herself, when she was there; but now she was not at home. "Come, at least the fire is gay! Hark how it snaps and sings! And how gaily red and golden are the flames, and how the great log glows! Shall we play it is a red-coated soldier, fighting the chill for us?"

"No, oh, no," shuddered Damaris. "Don't play about fighting and guns!"

Constance cuddled her closer, drawing her head into the hollow of her shoulder. Sensitive, grave little Damaris had been greatly unnerved by the death of Jack, and especially that his own pistol had taken his life.

"We'll play that the red glow is loving kindness, and that we have had our eyes touched with magic that makes us able to see love," cried Constance. "Fire is the emblem of love, warming our hearts toward all things, so our fancy will be at once make-believe and truth. Remember, my cosset lamb, that love is around us, whether we see it or not, and that there can be no dismal gray days if we have our eyes touched to see the glow of love warming us! Now what shall the story be? Here in the hearth corner, shall it be Cinderella? Or shall it be the story of the lucky bear, that found a house empty and a fire burning when he wanted a home, and wherein he set up housekeeping for himself, like the quality?"

"All of them, Constance! But first tell me what we shall do when Giles comes home. I like that story best. I wish he would come soon!" sighed Damaris.

"Ah, so do I! And so he will;" Constance corrected instantly the pain that she knew had escaped into her voice. "Captain Standish will not risk the coming of cold weather; he will bring them home soon. Well, what shall we do then, you want to hear? First of all, someone will come running, calling to us that the shallop hath appeared below in the harbour. Then we shall all make ourselves fine, and----"

"Someone is coming now, Con, but not running," cried Damaris, sitting up and holding up a warning finger.

"It is a man's step," began Constance, but, as the door opened she sprang to her feet with a cry, and stood for an instant of stunned joy holding Damaris clasped to her breast. Then she set the child on her feet and leaped into Giles's arms, with a great sob, repeating his name and clinging to him.

"Steady, Constance! Steady, dear la.s.s," cried Giles, himself in not much better state, while Damaris clung around his waist and frantically kissed the tops of his muddy boots.

"Oh, how did you get here? When did you come? Are they all safely here?" cried Constance.

"Every man of them; we had a fine expedition, not a misfortune, perfect weather, and we saw wonders of n.o.ble country: streams and hills and plains," said Giles, and instantly Constance felt a new manhood and self-confidence in him, steadier, less a.s.sertive than his boyish pride, the self-reliance that is won through encountering realities, in conquering self and hence things outside of self.

"I cannot wait to hear the tale! Let me help you off with your heavy coat, your matchlock, and then sit you down in this warmest corner, and tell me everything," cried Constance, beginning to recover herself, the rich colour of her delight flooding her face as, the first shock of surprise over, she realized that it was indeed Giles come back to her and that her secret anxiety for him was past. "Art hungry, my own?" she added, fluttering around her brother, like a true woman, wanting first of all to feed him.

"Well, Con, to be truthful I am always hungry," said Giles, smiling down on her.

"But not in such strait now that I cannot wait till the next meal."

"Here are our father and Mistress Hopkins, hastening hither," said Constance, looking out the door, hoping for this coming of her father. "You have not seen Father yet?"

"No, Con; I came straight home, but the captain has met with him, I am sure. And, Con, I want to tell you before he comes in, that I have seen how wrong I was toward our good father, and that I hope to carry myself dutifully toward him henceforth."

Constance clasped her hands, rapturously, but had not time to reply before the door was thrown wide open and Stephen Hopkins strode in, his face radiant.

He went up to his tall son and clasped his shoulders in a grip that made Giles wince, and said through his closed teeth, trying to steady his voice: "My lad, my fine son, thank G.o.d I have you back! And by His mercy never again shall we be parted, nor sundered by the least sundering."

Giles looked up, and Giles looked down. He hoped, yet hardly dared to think, that his father meant more than mere bodily separation.

"I am glad enough to be here, yet we had glorious days, and have seen a country so worthy that we wish that we might go thither, leaving this less profitable country," said Giles. "We have seen land that by a little effort would be turned into gracious meadows. We have seen great bays and rivers, full of fish, capable of navigation and industry. We have seen a beautiful river, which we have named the Charles, for we think it to be that river which Captain John Smith thus named in his map. The Charles flows down to the sea, past three hills which top a n.o.ble harbour, and where we would dearly like to build a town. I will tell you of these things in order. Captain Myles will have a meeting of the Plymouth people to hear our tale; I would wait for that, else will it be stale hearing to you."

"Nay, Giles, we shall never tire of it!" cried Constance. "A good story is the better for oft hearing, as you know well, do you not, little Damaris?"

"Well, it hath made a man of thee, Giles Hopkins," said Dame Eliza who had silently watched the lad closely as he talked. "It was a lucky thing for thee that the Arm of the Colony, Captain Myles, took thee for one of his tools."

"A lucky thing for him, too," interposed Giles's father proudly. "I have seen Myles; he hath told me how, when you and he were fallen behind your companions, investigating a deep ravine, he had slipped and would have been killed by his own matchlock as it struck against the rock, but that you, risking your life, threw yourself forward on a narrow ledge and struck up the muzzle of the gun. The colony is in your debt, my son, that your arm warded death from the man it calls, justly, its Arm."

"Prithee, father!" expostulated Giles, turning crimson. "Who could do less for a lesser man? And who would not do far more for Myles Standish? I would be a fool to hesitate over risk to a life no more valuable than mine, if such as he were in danger. Besides which the captain exaggerates my danger. I don't want that prated here. Please help me silence Myles Standish."

Stephen Hopkins nodded in satisfaction.

"Right, Giles. A blast on one's own horn produces much the sound of the bray of an a.s.s. Yet am I glad that I know of this," he said.

Little Love Brewster, who was often a messenger from one Plymouth house to another, came running in at that moment.

"My father sends me," he panted. "The men of Plymouth are to sit this afternoon at our house to hear the tale of the adventurers to the Ma.s.sachusetts. You will come? Giles, did you bring us new kinds of arrows from the strange savages? My father saith that Squanto was the best guide and helper on this expedition that white men ever had."

"So he was, Love. I brought no new arrows, but I have in my sack something for each little lad in the colony. And for the girls I have wondrous beads," added Giles, seeing Damaris's crestfallen face.

"I will risk a reprimand; it can be no worse than disapproval from Elder Brewster, and belike they will spare me because of the occasion," thought Constance in her own room, making ready to go to the a.s.sembly that was to gather to welcome the explorers, but which to her mind was gathered chiefly to honour Giles.

Thus deliberately she violated the rule of the colony; let her beautiful hair curl around her flushed face; put on a collar of her mother's finest lace, tied in such wise by a knot of rose-coloured ribbon that it looked like a cl.u.s.ter of buds under her decided little chin. And, surveying herself in the gla.s.s, which was over small and hazy for her merits, that chin raised itself in a hitch of defiance.

"Why should I not be young, and fair and happy?" Constance demanded of her unjust reflection. "At the worst, and if I am forced to remove it, I shall have been gay and bonny--a wee bit so!--for a little while."

With which this unworthy pilgrim maid danced down the stairs, seized by the hand Damaris, who looked beside her like a small brown grub, and set out for Elder Brewster's house.