Standish of Standish Part 2

And hurriedly leading her brother to a sheltered nook between two great fires, she cast her cloak over his shoulders, and then sprang up the sand-hill with the graceful strength of an antelope to the spot where Doctor Fuller stood talking with a man whose appearance demands a word of description. Short and square built, the figure bespoke strength and long training in athletic exercises, while the haughty set of the head, the well-shaped hands and feet, and the clear cut of the features told of gentle blood and the habit of predominance. The bare head was covered with thick chestnut hair, worn at the temples by pressure of a steel cap, and well matched in color by eyes whose strong, stern glances carried defeat to the hearts of his savage foes even before his quick blows fell. The mouth, firmly closed beneath its drooping moustache, was like the eyes, stern and terrible in anger, but like them it was capable of a winning sweetness and charm only known to those he loved, those he pitied, and to the life-long friends whose loving description has come down to us; for this was Myles Standish, the soldier and hero of the Pilgrims; their dauntless defender in battle, their gentle nurse in illness, their councilor and envoy and shining example in peace; the right arm of the colony, its modest commander, and its intelligent servant.

As Priscilla approached, the two men ceased their conversation and turned toward her, neither of them unconscious of the beauty, grace, and vigor which clothed her as a garment, yet each restrained by inborn chivalry and respect from expressing his opinion.

"Oh, Doctor, or you, Captain Standish, have either of you a flask of strong waters about you? My poor Joseph has fallen in the water, and it is so cold, and he has already a cough."

"Yes, we saw him fall. He was overloaded for such a stripling," said the doctor, with his dry smile, while Standish, hastily pulling a flask from his pocket, said,--

"Here is some well-approved Hollands gin, Mistress Priscilla; and I would advise a good draught as soon as may be, and have it heated if it may be."

"Here, hand it me. I will go and give my friend Joseph a rating for undertaking tasks beyond his strength, though belike the fault was none of his!" And the doctor seizing the flask strode down the hill, while Priscilla lingered to ask,--

"How doth Mistress Standish find herself to-day? I heard she was but poorly."

"Ay, poorly enough," replied the Captain with a shadow chasing the smile from his eyes. "She is hardly strong enough for these shrewd winds and rough adventures. I had done better to leave her in England until we are established somewhere."

"There's more than one in our company, I fear me, that has adventured beyond their strength," replied Priscilla sadly, as she remembered her mother's hectic flush and wasting strength and her brother's cough.

"A forlorn hope, perhaps, set to garrison this by-corner of the world, but not forgotten by the Commander-in-chief, remember that, maid Priscilla," said the captain kindly and cheerily. "There in the Low Countries our worst trouble was that the home government never backed us as they should, and more than once we felt we were forgot and neglected; but in the warfare we have to wage here in the wilderness we can never fear that."

"Yet soldiers may die at their post here as well as there," said Priscilla, turning to go down the hill.

"So long as the work is done it matters little what becomes of the soldier," replied Myles briefly, and the two rejoined the group around the fires.

Before nightfall the clothes, dried and sweet with the sunshine and pure air, were carefully folded into the tubs and kettles, the dinner was neatly cleared away, and the whole company in several trips of the boats conveyed on board, while the carpenters and their volunteer aids remained to work while daylight lasted upon the pinnace, the Pilgrims'

own craft, intended for exploration along the sh.o.r.e, and for fishing when they should have made a settlement.

But Joseph Molines had not shaken off his chill by means of the captain's Hollands gin, nor did his mother or Rose Standish find themselves better in the evening than they had been in the morning, and as the darkness of the November night closed around the lonely bark, gaunt shadowy forms, Disease and Famine and Death, seemed shaping themselves among the clouds and brooding menacingly over the Forlorn Hope, as its soldiers slept or watched beneath.

CHAPTER II.

THE LAUNCH OF THE PINNACE.

"Mary! Mary Chilton! Maid Mary mine!" called Priscilla Molines in her clear bird-voice, as she ran down the steps leading to the princ.i.p.al cabin. "Come on deck and see the launch of the pinnace! The carpenters call her fit for use if not finished, and the men have gone ash.o.r.e to launch her. Where art thou, poppet!"

"Here," replied a gentler and sweeter voice, as Mary Chilton came forward, a long gray stocking dangling from her hands, and stood in a slant ray of sunshine which lighted her golden hair to a glory, and showed the pure tints of her May-bloom face and clear blue eyes; a lovely English face in its first fresh rapture of morning beauty.

"Right merrily will I come, Priscilla, if there be aught to see,"

continued she, throwing down the stocking which she was knitting for her father. "Truly my eyes ache with staring at nothingness."

"Well, there's a trifle this side of nothingness on the beach at this minute," retorted Priscilla, pinching her friend's ear. "Men call it Gilbert Winslow."

"Hush, hush, Priscilla!" whispered Mary, with a scared look toward her mother's cabin. "If anybody heard such folly! And Mistress White already tells my mother that we two are over-light in our carriage and conversation."

"Mistress White"--began Priscilla sharply, but ended the exclamation with a saucy laugh and said instead, "Yes, truly as thou sayest, my May, mine eyes ache with gazing upon nothingness and my tongue aches with speaking naught but wisdom. It is out of nature for young maids to be as staid as their elders, and methinks I do not care to be. Let us be young while we have youth, say I."

She looked perilously pretty as she arched her brows and pouted her ripe lips, and Mary looked at her in loving admiration, while she answered sagely,--

"You and yours are French, Priscilla, and I am all English like my forbears; so thou mayst well be lighter natured than I--I mean no harm, dear."

"No harm is done, dear mother in Israel," replied Priscilla half mockingly, and seizing Mary's hand she led her on deck, where many of the women and children were collected, watching the preparations on sh.o.r.e for the launch of the pinnace, which, much strained by bad stowage between decks, had needed about a fortnight's work done upon her before she was fit for service.

"They only wait for her to set forth on a second exploration," said Priscilla confidentially; "and a little bird sang in my ear that they would go to-morrow."

"What little bird?" asked Mary curiously; but before Priscilla could reply another voice interposed; it was that of Bridget Tilley, who had come on deck to seek her daughter Elizabeth, and now sharply inquired,--

"Another expedition, say you? And my goodman scarce brought back from death's door, whither the first jaunt led him! Nay, now, 't is not right, 't is all one as murder, to hale dying men out of their beds and into that wilderness. No blessing will follow such work, and I'll cry upon the governor or the captain or the elder to stop it!"

"What is it, Mistress Tilley? Any wrong that I can help set right?"

asked a sweet voice, and Bridget turned toward the speaker with a somewhat more subdued manner, lowering her voice as she said,--

"Thank you kindly, Mistress Standish, and G.o.d be praised that you can be on deck; but my matter is this," and again she poured out her anxieties and her fears, until Rose Standish, a fair white rose now, and trembling in the shrewd autumn air so soon to scatter her petals and bear the pure fragrance of her life down through the centuries, until men to-day love her whom they never knew, leaned wearily against the bulkhead and said,--

"Rest easy, dear dame. Thou 'rt all in the right, and it behooves us to protect our lords from their own rash courage, just as it befits their courage to protect us against salvages and wild beasts. I will whisper in my husband's ear that Master Tilley is all unfit to carry out his own brave impulses, and I will conspire with Mistress Carver and Mistress Bradford, and, above all, with our dear mother, the elder's wife, that each shall make pet.i.tion to her lord to see that no sick or overborne man be allowed to adventure himself on the expedition. Will that satisfy thee, dame?"

"Right well, and you are all one with the saints we used to honor, though we do know better now."

"'T is the most comfortable promise I've heard in many a day, dear Mistress Standish," cried Priscilla vivaciously. "And well do I believe that the whispers of the wives are more weighty than the shouts of the husbands. I've never proved it myself, being but a maid; yet I have ere now marked how the prancing of the n.o.blest steed is full deftly checked by a silken rein."

"It were well if a rein were put upon thy tongue, girl," severely interposed a comely matron sitting near. "Thou 'rt over forward for thy years, Priscilla. Shamefastness and meekness become a maid, and when thou knowest more thou 'lt say less."

"Thanks, Mistress White, I will try to profit by your discourse,"

replied Priscilla demurely; but her tone did not satisfy the matron, who sharply rejoined,--

"See that thou do, Mistress Malapert, or I'll ask the elder to deal with thee. Here he is now."

And, in fact, Elder Brewster, who had caught the tone of Mistress White's voice, drew near to the group, saying pleasantly, "A goodly sight yonder, is it not? And how well our strong fellows set their shoulders to the toil! What shall we call the pinnace when she is launched, Mistress White?"

"Methinks Discretion would be a good name, Elder," replied the lady with a glance at the two girls. "Surely, we have room for it in our company."

"Truth, my daughter, and yet to my mind Charity is a sweeter name, and one more likely to float us over troubled waters." And the elder's pleasant smile disarmed his words of all sting. "Priscilla," continued he, turning to the girl, "I hear that thy father keeps his bed to-day, and thy mother is but poorly."

"Indeed, sir, they are both in evil case," replied Priscilla sadly.

"Neither of them has stomach for such food as is at hand, and so they weaken daily. John Alden shot some little birds yesterday, and I made broth of them, but, saving that, my mother has taken no meat for days."

"I will go and visit them," said the elder, and forgetting the launch he had come up to see, he went at once.

"See! See! There she goes!" cried Elizabeth Tilley, as the great boat slid gracefully down her ways to the water, dipped her bows deeply, and finding her level rode upon an even keel.

"There she goes!" echoed Constance Hopkins and Remember Allerton, who with Elizabeth Tilley const.i.tuted what may be called the rosebud division of the Pilgrim girls, all glowing in the freshness of early youth, all comely, strong, and vivacious. Priscilla Molines and Mary Chilton with Desire Minter, a distant relative and charge of Governor Carver's, made another little group of older girls, and then came the young matrons of whom there were many, while Mistress Brewster in the dignity of middle life was the recognized head and guide of all.

"Yes, there she goes," cried Priscilla, clapping her hands and dancing upon her slender feet. "And Mary," continued she, dropping her voice to a whisper, "it was Captain Standish who gave that last mighty shove"--

"Nay, it was John Alden," interrupted Mary innocently.