Standish of Standish Part 13

"Wish you good-morrow, Captain," said the foremost, a st.u.r.dy young fellow with a pleasant English face.

"Good-morrow Peter Browne, and you, John Goodman," replied the captain cordially. "Whither away?"

"To cut thatch in the fields nigh yon little pond," replied Browne pointing in a westerly direction. "And I am taking Nero along to give account of any Indians that may be lurking there."

"And John Goodman's spaniel to rouse the game for Nero to pull down,"

said Standish with a smile. "Well, G.o.d speed you."

And turning into the unfinished house he found Alden watching him with a look of silent friendliness and sympathy more eloquent than words; returning the greeting as mutely and as heartily, Standish would have pa.s.sed into his own bedroom, but the younger man interposed,--

"Thou 'lt break thy fast, Captain, wilt thou not? All is ready and waiting your coming; some of the bean soup you liked yester even, and some fish"--

"Presently, presently, good John! I would but bathe and refresh myself.

Nay, look not so doubtingly after me, friend. I am a man, and know a man's devoir."

He spoke with a smile as brave as it was gentle, and pa.s.sing in closed the door.

"Doth he know she is dying!" muttered John throwing himself upon a bench; "and Priscilla sickening and her mother dead!"

CHAPTER X.

A TERRIBLE NIGHT.

As Standish entered his own house the four men to whom he had spoken pa.s.sed on around the base of the hill, and reaching a tract of swampy land covered with reeds and rushes suitable for thatching, they set to work cutting them and binding in bundles ready for use. For some hours they wrought industriously, until Peter Browne, commander of the expedition, straightened his back, stretched his cramped arms, and gazing at the sun announced,--

"Noontime, men. We'll e'en rest and eat our snack."

"Art thou o' mind to come and show me the pond where thou sawest wild fowl t' other day?" asked John Goodman, townsman and friend of Browne's.

"Ay, will I. Take thy meat in thy hand and come along," replied Browne.

"And we may as well finish our day there, sith this spot is well nigh stripped. Margeson and Britteridge, when you have fed, you can bind the rushes that are cut, and then come after us as far as a little pond behind that hill, due west from here I should say. You'll find it easily enough."

"Oh, ay, we'll find it," replied Margeson, a rough companion, but a good worker. "Go on mates, and take your dogs with you, for they're smelling at the victuals enough to turn a man's stomach. Get out you beast!" and raising his foot he offered to kick Nero, who growled menacingly and showed a formidable set of teeth.

"Have a care, man!" cried Browne angrily. "Meddle with that dog and he'll make victual of thee before thou knowest what ails thee. 'T is ever a poor sign when a man cannot abear dogs or children."

And the two friends, followed by the mastiff and spaniel, walked rapidly away. Two hours pa.s.sed while Margeson and Britteredge, not greatly in haste, finished their lunch and tied and stacked the reeds already cut.

Then shouldering their sickles they leisurely skirted the hill in front of them, and after a little search came upon the pretty sheet of water now called Murdoch's Pond.

"This will be the place," said Margeson looking about him; "but where is pepperpot Browne?"

"Or his dog?" suggested Britteridge slyly.

"Whistle and the beasts will hear us if the men do not," said Margeson suiting the action to the word. No answer followed, and both men together raised a yet shriller note, followed by shouts, halloos, and various noises supposed to carry sound to the farthest limits of s.p.a.ce.

But each effort died away in dim and distant echoes among the hills, and after a while the men looked at each other in half angry discouragement.

"They've played us a trick," said Margeson; "they're hiding to mock at us, or they've gone back to the village some other way."

"Nay," replied Britteridge pacifically; "they're not such babes as to play tricks like that. See, here are goodly reeds; let us cut and bind some while we tarry, and Browne will be back anon."

Grumbling and unconvinced Margeson still complied, and for a while longer the two worked fitfully, pausing now and again to look about them, to listen, or to shout.

At last, by tacit consent, both threw down their tools, and with slow, half-fearful gaze surveyed the scene. It was a dismal one. The sun had reached the tops of the pines, and already the water lay in black shadow at their feet, rippled by the small, bitter breeze creeping in from seaward, and stirring the sedge into faint whisperings and moanings; night birds, awaking in the depths of the forest, uttered querulous cries, and strange, vague sounds within the covert suggested prowling beast or savage creeping near and nearer.

"Ugh! 't is a grewsome spot as ever I saw," said Margeson as softly as if he feared to be overheard. "Certes the men have gone home some other way, and the sun is setting. Let us be after them, say I."

"And say I," replied Britteridge readily, and without more words the two men hurried away, and in a brief half hour presented themselves before the governor with news that their comrades were not to be found, either in the field or the town, and doubtless were lost in the forest or captured by the Indians.

Carver, ever as ready to act as to command, armed himself at once, and summoning such men as were on sh.o.r.e led them to the wood, where by calling, firing their pieces, and kindling torches they protracted the search far into the night, and when forced to give it up until daylight returned to the Common house for united and fervent prayers and supplications.

Early in the morning another search party, headed by Stephen Hopkins, with Billington as scout, entered the woods, but having traversed a radius of seven or eight miles returned at night weary, footsore, and with no tidings.

News of the loss was carried on board the Mayflower, and a heavy sense of misfortune and danger settled upon the little community already depressed by disease and want.

The men thus mourned were meantime in nearly as evil case as was feared.

Just before arriving at the pond, while munching their frugal lunch and discussing the prospect of game, they espied a splendid stag who had evidently been disturbed while drinking, and stood with head erect and dilated eyes gazing upon the first white men he had ever seen, and perhaps foreboding the war of extermination they had come to wage on him and his.

"Oh for a piece!" cried Browne raising an imaginary gun to his shoulder.

"Seize him, Nero! Take him, good dog! Hi! Away, away!"

Nero needing no second invitation uttered a deep bay and set off, followed by the spaniel, yelping to the extent of her powers, while the two men, reckless of the fact that they were unarmed save with sickles, and could never hope to overtake the deer on foot, bounded after as fast as they could lay legs to the ground, nor paused until utterly blown and exhausted and the chase out of sight and hearing.

"Hah!" panted Browne flinging himself upon the ground; "I haven't been breathed like that since I ran in the foot-race at home in Yorkshire five year agone. Phew!"

Goodman only replied by inarticulate groans and wheezes, and while he yet struggled for breath Nero came trotting back through the woods with a mortified and contrite expression pervading his body from eloquent eyes to abject tail, while Pike, as the spaniel was called, followed at some distance with an affected carelessness of demeanor as if she would have it clearly understood that she had been running solely for her own pleasure, with no idea of chasing the deer. The men laughed, and patting their favorites allowed them to lie and rest for some moments; then as the air grew chill they rose and strolled in the direction, as they supposed, of the clearing where they had left their comrades. But the wood was thick, and several swampy hollows induced detours; the sun was obscured by the gathering snow clouds, and neither man was skilled in woodcraft; while the dogs, roaming at pleasure, were more intent upon tracing various scents of game than of finding the way home. Thus it came that as darkness began to gather visibly among the crowding evergreens, and the last tinge of sunlight was buried in thickening clouds, the two men stopped and looked each other squarely in the face.

"Yes, John," said Browne reading the frightened eyes of his younger and less courageous companion. "Yes, lad, we're lost, and I doubt me must pa.s.s the night in the woods."

"And we lack not only food but cloaks and weapons!" exclaimed Goodman looking forlornly about him, and stooping to pat Pike, who scenting disaster in the air had returned whimpering to her master's side.

"If we could but find some deserted hut of the salvages, or some of their stored grain, or even the venison we disdained the other day,"

suggested Browne.

"We've seen no trace of such a thing to-day," replied Goodman disconsolately.

"Come on, then, and let us look while daylight lingers. Mayhap the dogs will lead us out if we put them to it. Hi, Nero! Home boy, home! Seek!"

Nero whimpered intelligently and trotted on for a mile or so, but with none of that appearance of conviction which sometimes gives to an animal's proceedings the force of an inspiration. Browne, who knew his dog well, felt the discouragement of his movement, and finally stopped abruptly.

"Nay, he knows no home in this wilderness and feels no call to one place more than another. 'T is past praying for, John; we must e'en make up our minds to sleep here. Suppose that we lie down in the lee of these nut-bushes, call the dogs to curl up beside us, and try to keep life going till morning; no doubt we shall find the way out then, or at least somewhat to eat."

"My blood is like ice already," murmured Goodman burying his hands in the spaniel's curly hair.