A Pilgrim Maid Part 4

"You can; there is no one else that I can count upon. The older men among us are dying, leaving the affairs of the colony to be carried on by the young ones. In like manner I must call upon so young a girl as you to be my a.s.sistant. The older women are doing, and must do, still more important work in preparing the nourishment on which these lives depend and which the young ones are not proficient to prepare."

Doctor Fuller looked smilingly toward Dame Eliza as he said this, as if he feared her taking offence at Constance's promotion, and sought to placate her.

Mistress Hopkins gave no sign of knowing that he had turned to her, but she said to Damaris, as if by chance: "This broth may do more than herb brews toward curing, though your mother is not a physician's aid," and Doctor Fuller knew that he had been right.

A week later, though Humility Cooper was recovering, many more had fallen ill, and several had died.

It was late in January; the winter was set in full of wrath against those who had dared array themselves to defy its power in the wilderness, but the sun shone brightly, though without warmth-giving mercy, upon Plymouth.

There was an armed truce between Giles and his father. The boy would not beg his father's pardon for having defied him. His love for his father had been of the nature of hero-worship, and now, turned to bitterness, it increased the strength of his pride, smarting under false accusation, to resist his father.

On the other hand Stephen Hopkins, high-tempered, strong of will, was angry and hurt that his son refused to justify himself, or to plead with him. So the elder and the younger, as Constance had said, too much alike, were at a deadlock of suffering and anger toward each other.

Stephen Hopkins was beginning his house on what he had named Leyden Street, in memory of the pilgrims' refuge in Holland, though only by the eyes of faith could a street be discerned to bear the name. Like all else in Plymouth colony, Leyden Street was rather a matter of prophecy than actuality.

Giles was helping to build the house. All day he worked in silence, bearing the cold without complaint, but in no wise evincing the slightest interest in what he did. At night, in spite of the stringent laws of the Puritan colony, Giles contrived often to slip away with John Billington into the woods. John Billington's father, who was as unruly as his boys, connived at these escapades. He was perpetually quarrelling with Myles Standish, whose duty it was to enforce the law, and who did that duty without relenting, although by all the colonists, except the Billingtons, he was loved as well as respected.

Early one morning Constance hurried out of the community house, tears running down her cheeks, to meet Captain Myles coming toward it.

"Why, pretty Constance, don't grieve, child!" said the Plymouth captain, heartily.

"Giles hath come to no harm, I warrant you, though he has spent the night again with that harum-scarum Jack Billington, and this time Francis Billington, too."

"Oh, Captain Standish, it is not Giles! I forgot Giles," gasped Constance.

"Rose?" exclaimed the captain, sharply.

Constance bent her head. "She is pa.s.sing. I came to seek you," she said, and together she and the captain went to Rose's side.

They found Doctor Fuller there holding Rose's hand as she lay with closed eyes, breathing lightly. In his other hand he held his watch measuring the brief moments left, in which Rose Standish should be a part of time. Mary Brewster, the elder's wife, held up a warning finger not to disturb Rose, but Doctor Fuller looked quietly toward Captain Standish.

"It matters not now, Myles," he said. "You cannot harm her. There are but few moments left."

Myles Standish sprang forward, fell upon his knees, and raised Rose in his arms.

"Rose of the world, my English blossom, what have I done to bring thee here?" he sobbed, with a strong man's utter abandonment of grief, and with none of the Puritan habit of self-restraint.

"Wherever thou hadst gone, I would have chosen, my husband! I loved thee, Myles, I loved thee Myles!" she said, so clearly that everyone heard her sweet voice echo to the farthest corner of the room, and for the last time.

For with that supreme effort to comfort her husband, disarming his regret, Rose Standish died.

They bore Rose's body, so light that it was scarce a burden to the two men who carried it as in a litter, forth to the spot upon the hillside whither they had already made so many similar processions, which was fast becoming as thickly populated as was that portion of the colony occupied by the living.

But as the sun mounted higher, although the March winds cut on some days, then as now they do in March, yet, then as now, there were soft and dreamy days under the ascending sun's rays, made more effective by the moderating sea and flat sands.

The devastating diseases of winter began to abate; the pale, weak remnants of the Mayflower's pa.s.sengers crept out to walk with a sort of wonder upon the earth which was new to them, and which they had so nearly quitted that nothing, even of those aspects of things that most recalled the home land, seemed to them familiar.

The men began to break the soil for farming, and to bring forth and discuss the grain which they had found hidden by the savages--most fortunately, for without it there would have been starvation to look forward to after all that they had endured, since no supplies from England had yet come after them.

There was talk of the Mayflower's return; she had lain all winter in Plymouth harbour because the Pilgrims had required her shelter and a.s.sistance. Soon she was to depart, a severance those ash.o.r.e dreaded, albeit there was well-grounded lack of confidence in the honesty of her captain, Jones, whom the more outspoken among the colonists denounced openly as a rascal.

Little Damaris was fretful, as she so often was, one afternoon early in March; the child was not strong and consequently was peevish. Constance was trying to amuse her, sitting with the child, warmly wrapped from the keen wind, in the warmth of the sunshine behind the southern wall of the community house.

"Tell me a story, Constance," begged Damaris, though it was not "a story," but several that Constance had already told her. "Make a fairy story. I won't tell Mother you did. Fairy stories are not lies, no matter what they say, are they, Connie? I know they are not true and you tell me they are not true, so why are they lies? Why does Mother say they are lies? Are they bad, are they, Connie? Tell me one, anyway; I won't tell her."

"Ah, little Sister, I would rather not do things that we cannot tell your mother about," said Constance. "I do not think a fairy story is wrong, because we both know it is make-believe, that there are no fairies, but your mother thinks them wrong, and I do not want you to do what you will not tell her you do. Suppose you tell me a story, instead? That would be fairer; only think how many, many stories I have told you, and how long it is since you have told me the least little word of one!"

"Well," agreed Damaris, but without enthusiasm. "What shall I tell you about? Not a Bible one."

"No, perhaps not," Constance answered, looking lazily off to sea. Then, because she was looking seaward, she added: "Shall it be one about a sailor? That ought to be an interesting story."

"A true sailor, or a made-up one?" asked Damaris, getting aroused to her task.

"Do you know one about a real sailor?" Constance somewhat sleepily inquired.

"Here is a true one," announced Damaris.

"Once upon a time there was a sailor, and he sailed on a ship named the Mayflower. And he came in. And he said: How are you, little girl? And I said: I am pretty well, but my name is Damaris Hopkins. And he said: What a nice name. And I said: Yes, it is. And he said: Where is your folks? and I said: I don't know where my mother went out of the cabin just this minute. But my sister was around, and my brother Giles was here, fixing my hammock, 'cause it hung funny and let me roll over on myself and folded me hurt. And my other brother couldn't go nowheres 'tall, because he was born when we was sailing here, and he can't walk. And the sailor man said: Yes, there were two babies on the ship when we came that we didn't have when we started, and show me your hammock. And I did, and he said it was a nice ham----Constance, what's the matter? I felt you jump, and you look scared. Is it Indians? Connie, Connie, don't let 'em get me!"

"No, no, child, there aren't any Indians about," Constance tried to laugh. "Did I jump? Sometimes people do jump when they almost fall asleep, and I was just as sleepy as a fireside cat when you began to tell me the story. Now I am not one bit sleepy! That is the most interesting story I have heard almost--yes, I think quite--in all my life! And it is a true one?"

"Yes, every bit true," said Damaris, proudly.

"And the sailor went into the cabin, and saw your hammock, and said it was a nice one, did he? Well, so it is a nice one! Did your mother see the man?" asked Constance, trying to hide her impatience.

"No," Damaris shook her head, decidedly. "Mother was coming, but the man just put his hand in and set my hammock swinging. Then he went out, and Mother was stopping and she didn't see him. And neither did I, not any more, ever again."

"Did you tell your mother about this sailor?" Constance inquired.

"Oh, no," sighed Damaris. "I didn't tell her. She doesn't like stories so much as we do. I tell you all my stories, and you tell me all yours, don't we, Constance? I didn't tell Mother. She says: 'That's Hopkins to like stories, and music, and art.' What's art, Connie? And she says: 'You don't get those idle ways from my side, so don't let me hear any foolish talk, for you will be punished for idle talk.' What's that, Connie?"

"Oh, idle talk is--idle talk is hard to explain to you, little Damaris! It is talk that has nothing to it, unless it may have something harmful to it. You'll understand when you are old enough to make what you do really matter. But this has not been idle talk to-day! Far, far from idle talk was that fine story you told me! Suppose we keep that story all to ourselves, not tell it to anyone at all, will you please, my darling little sister? Then, perhaps, some day, I will ask you to tell it to Father! Would not that be a great day for Damaris? But only if you don't tell it to any one till then, not to your mother, not to any one!" Constance insisted, hoping to impress the child to the point of secrecy, yet not to let her feel how much Constance herself set upon this request.

"I won't! I won't tell it to any one; not to Mother, not to any one," Damaris repeated the form of her vow. Then she looked up into Constance's face with a puzzled frown.

"But you wouldn't tell a fairy story, because you said you didn't want things I couldn't tell mother! And now you say I mustn't tell her about my story!" she said.

Constance burst out laughing, and hugged Damaris to her, hiding in the child's hood a merrier face than she had worn for many, many a day.

"You have caught me, little Damaris!" she cried. "Caught me fairly! But that was a fairy story, don't you see? This isn't, this is true. So this is not to be told, not now, do you see?"

Damaris said "yes," slowly, with the frown in her smooth little brow deepening. It was puzzling; she did not really see, but since Constance expected her to see she said "yes," and felt curiously bewildered. However, what Constance said was to her small half-sister not merely law, but gospel. Constance was always right, always the most lovable, the most delightful person whom Damaris knew.

"All right, Connie. I won't tell anyone my sailor-man story," she said at last, clearing up.

"Just now," Constance supplemented her. "Some day you shall tell it, Damaris! Some day I shall want you to tell it! And now, little Sister, will you go into the house and tell Ocea.n.u.s to hurry up and grow big enough to run about, because the world, our new world, is getting to be a lovely place in the spring sunshine, and he must grow big enough to enjoy it as fast as he can? I must find Giles; I have something beautiful, beautiful to tell him!"

She kissed Damaris before setting her on her feet, and the child kissed her in return, clinging to her.

"You are so funny, Constance!" she said, in great satisfaction with her sister's drollery in a world that had been filled with gloom and illness for what seemed to so young a child, almost all her life.

"Ah, I want to be, Damaris! I want to be funny, and happy, and glad! Oh, I want to be!" cried Constance, and ran away at top speed with a rare relapse into her proper age and condition.

CHAPTER VII.

The Persuasive Power of Justice and Violence.

John Billington had been forced reluctantly to work on the houses erecting in the Plymouth plantation.

He was not lazy, but he was adventuresome, and steady employment held for him no attraction. Since Captain Standish and the others in authority would deal with him if he tried to shirk his share of daily work, John made it as bearable as possible by joining himself to Giles in the building of the Hopkins house. Constance knew that she should find the two boys building her future home, and thither she ran at her best speed, and Constance could run like a nymph.

"Oh, Giles!" she panted, coming up to the two amateur carpenters, and rejoicing that they were alone.

"Oh, Con!" Giles echoed, turning on his ladder to face her, half sitting on a rung. "What's forward? Hath the king sent messengers calling me home to be prime minister? Sorry to disappoint His Royal Highness, but I can't go. I'd liefer be a trapper!"

"And that's what your appointment is!" triumphed Constance. "You're to trap big game, no less than a human rascal! Oh, Giles and Jack, do hear what I've got to tell you!"

"But for us to hear, you must tell, Con!" John Billington reminded her. "I'll bet a golden doubloon you've got wind of the missing papers!"

"We don't bet, Jack, but if we did you'd win your wager," Constance laughed. "Damaris told me 'a true story,' and now I'm going to tell it to you. Fancy that little person having this story tucked away in her brain all these weary days!"

And Constance related Damaris's entertainment of her, to which John Billington listened with many running comments of tongue and whistled exclamations, but Giles in perfect silence, betraying no excitement.

"Here's a merry chance, Giles!" John cried as soon as Constance ended. "What with savages likely to visit us and robbers for us to hunt, why life in the New World may be bearable after all!"

Giles ignored his jubilant comment.

"I shall go out to the Mayflower and get the packet," he said. "It is too late to-day, but in the morning early I shall make it. I suppose you will go with me, Jack?"

"Safe to suppose it," said John. "I'd swim after you if you started without me."

"Won't you take Captain Standish? I mean won't you ask him to help you?" asked Constance, anxiously. "It is sufficient matter to engage him, and he is our protector in all dangers."

"We need no protection, little Sis," said Giles, loftily. "It hath been my experience that a just cause is sufficient. We have suspected the master of the Mayflower of trickery all along."

Constance could not forbear a smile at her brother's worldly-wise air of deep knowledge of mankind, but nevertheless she wished that "the right arm of the colony" might be with the boys to strike for them if need were.

It was with no misgiving as to their own ability, but with the highest glee, that Giles and John made their preparations to set forth just before dawn.

They kept their own counsel strictly and warned Constance not to talk.

There was not much to be done to make ready, merely to see that the small boat, built by the boys for their own use, was tight, and to tuck out of sight under her bow seat a heavy coat in case the east wind--which the pilgrims had soon learned was likely to come in upon them sharply on the warmest day--blew up chillingly.

John Billington owned, by his father's reckless indulgence, a pistol that was his chief treasure; a heavy, clumsy thing, difficult to hold true, liable to do the unexpected, the awkward progenitor of the pretty modern revolver, but a pistol for all its defects, and the apple of John's eye. This he had named Bouncing Bully, invariably spoke of it as "he", and felt toward it and treated it not merely as his arms, but as his companion in arms.

Bouncing Bully was to make the third member of the party; he accompanied John, hidden with difficulty because of his bulk, in the breast of his coat, when he crept out without disturbing his father and Francis, to join Giles at the spot on the sh.o.r.e where their flat-bottomed row boat was pulled up.

He found Giles awaiting him, watching the sands in a crude hour gla.s.s which he had himself constructed.

"I've been waiting an hour," Giles said as John came up. "I know you are not late, but all the same here I have stood while this gla.s.s ran out, with ten minutes more since I turned it again."

"Well, I'm here now; take hold and run her out," said John, seizing the boat's bow and bracing to shove her.

"Row out. I'll row back," commanded Giles as he and John swung over the side of the boat out of the waves into which they had waded.

They did not talk as they advanced upon the Mayflower which lay at anchor in the harbour. They had agreed upon boarding her with as little to announce their coming as possible. As it chanced, there being no need of guarding against surprise, there was no one on deck when the boys made their boat fast to the ship's cable, and clambered on deck--save one round-faced man who was swabbing the deck to the accompaniment of his droning a song, tuneless outside his own conception of it.

"Lord bless and save us but you dafted me, young masters!" this man exclaimed when Giles and John appeared; he leaned against the rail with the air of a fine lady, funny to see in one so stoutly stalwart.

"I didna know ye at sight; now I see 'tis Master Giles and Master John Billington, whose pranks was hard on us crossing."

"You are not the man we want," said Giles, haughtily, trusting to a.s.surance to win his end. "Fetch me that man who goes in and about the cabin at times, the one that stands well with Jones, the ship's master."

This last was a gamble on chance, but Giles felt sure of his conclusions, that the captain was at the bottom of the loss of the papers, the actual thief his tool.

"Aye, I know un," said the man, nodding sagely, proud of his quickness. "'Tis George Heaton, I make no doubt. The captain gives him what is another, better man's due. Master Jones gives him his ear and his favour. 'Tis George, slick George, you want, of that I'm certain." He nodded many times as he ended.

"Likely thing," agreed Giles. "Fetch him."

The deck cleaner departed in a heavy fashion, and returned shortly in company with a wiry, slender young man, having a handsome face, a quick roving eye, crafty, but clever.

"Ah, George, do you remember me?" asked Giles. "Don't dare to offer me your hand, my man, for I'd not touch it."

"I may be serving as a sailor, but I'm as good a gentleman born as you," retorted Heaton, flushing angrily.

"Decently born you may be; of that I know nothing. Pity is it that you have gone so far from your birthday," said Giles. "But as good a gentleman as I am you are not, nor as anyone, as this honest fellow here. For blood or no blood, a thief is far from a gentleman."

George Heaton made a step forward with upraised fist, but Giles looked at him contemptuously, and did not fall back.

"No play acting here. Give me the papers you stole out of my stepmother's care, out of my little sister's sleeping hammock, weeks agone," said Giles, coolly. "Your game is up. For some reason the child did not tell us of your act till now; now she hath spoken. Fortunately the ship hath lingered for you to be dealt with before she took you back to England. Hand over the papers, Heaton, if you ever hope to be nearer England than the arm of the tree from which you shall hang on the New England coast, unless you restore your booty."

Heaton looked into Giles's angry eyes and quailed. The boy had grown up during the hard winter, and Heaton recognized his master; more than that, he had the cowardice that had made him the ready tool of Captain Jones--the cowardice of the man who lives by tricks, trusting them to carry him to success--who will not stand by his colours because he has no standard of loyalty.

"I haven't got your father's papers, Giles Hopkins," he growled, dropping his eyes.

"You could have said much that I would not have believed, but that I believe," said Giles. "Do you know what Master Jones did with them when you gave them over to him, you miserable cat's paw?"

"How about giving the cat to the cat's paw, Giles?" suggested John, grinning in huge enjoyment of George Heaton's instant, sailor's appreciation of his joke and the offices of "the cat" with which sailors were lashed in punishment.

"I hope it will not be necessary. If Captain Standish comes with a picked number of our men to get these papers, there will be worse beasts than the cat let loose on the Mayflower. Lead me to the captain, Heaton, and remember it will go hard with you if you let him lead you into denial of the crime you committed for him," said Giles, with such a dignity as filled rollicking John, who wanted to turn the adventure into a frolic, with admiration for his comrade.