Standish of Standish Part 21

"Ay, but I know not just how nigh. Her father held for his lifetime a little place of ours on the Isle of Man, and I, trying to find an old record that should give me a fair estate feloniously held from me now, went over there once and again, and so met Rose, and went yet again and again, until we two wed, and I carried her away to my friends in the Netherlands."

"And is thy cousin wed?"

"Nay, did not I say I'd like to give her to thee to wife? But barring that, I'll send for her to come with the next company, perchance under charge of thy sober widow, Will, and I'll marry her to one of these our good friends here. So if I do not marry myself, for the weal of the community as Winslow says, I shall purvey for some one of them a wife and mother of children in my stead."

"'T is well thought on, Captain," replied Bradford laughing, "and I can promise that if Mistress Southworth makes the voyage she will gladly take charge of thy cousin, for whom we will choose a husband of our best. But why wilt not thou marry again, thyself? Was not that in thy mind in speaking of counsel?"

"Ay--nay--in good sooth I know not, lad. I fain would know thine own intentions, and I have them, but for myself--truth to tell, I care not to wed again. I lived many years with only my good sword here as sweetheart and comrade, and I was well stead, and--none can make good the treasure late found and soon lost--but yet--come now, Will, confidence for confidence, I'll tell thee somewhat"--

"Touching fair Mistress Priscilla?" asked Bradford with a smile of quiet humor.

"Aha!" exclaimed Standish, a swarthy color mounting to his cheek. "'T is common talk, then!"

"Well, I know not--certes I have heard it spoken on more than once, but to say 'common talk'--we who are left alive are so few and so bound together that 't is no more than a family, and the weal of each is common to all."

"But what hast thou heard, in very truth?"

"Why, naught, except that Priscilla hath a sort of kindness for thee, and thou hast, in a way, made her affairs thine own, and so 't was naught but likely"--

"Ay, ay, I see, I ever had but an ill idea of great families, having been born into one myself,--as thou sayest, the affairs of one are the gossip of all."

"Nay, I said"--

"Pst, man, I know what thou saidst, and what I think, so hold thy peace.

Nay, then, this idle prating hath a certain foundation, as smoke aye shows some little fire beneath, and I'll tell it thee. When William Molines lay a-dying his mind was sore distraught at leaving his poor, motherless maid alone, for his son Joseph had gone before him, so he sent for me to watch with him that night, and somewhere in the small hours we thought his time had come, and he besought me to promise that I would take the maid under my keeping and not let her come to want. He said naught of marriage, nor did I, for my wife was but then at rest, and such speech would have been unseemly for him and hateful to me. I took his words as they were spoken, and I gave my promise, and so far as there was need I have kept it, and seen that the maid was housed and fed and looked after by Mistress Brewster, but more, I thought not on."

"Master Molines was a discreet and careful man and seldom told out all his thought," said Bradford astutely. "Methinks he counted upon 'the way of a man with a maid,' and left it to thee to find out the most perfect plan of caring for a young gentlewoman."

"Dost think so, Will? Dost think he meant me to take her to wife? Dost think she so considers it?" and Myles s.n.a.t.c.hing off his barret-cap pushed up the hair from his suddenly heated and burning forehead.

Bradford looked at him with his peculiar smile of subtle humor and shrewd kindliness.

"Why, Myles, thou lookst fairly frightened! Thou who never counted the foe, or thought twice ere leading a forlorn hope, or asked quarter of Turk or Spaniard"--

"Nay, nay, nay, Will, spare thy gibes! Here is a moil, here is an ambushment! Here am I, going fair and softly on mine own way, and of a sudden the trap is sprung, and Honor starts up and cries, 'There's but one way out of it, take it, w.i.l.l.y-nilly!' If the maid is of her father's mind I am bound to her."

"I think she would not say thee nay," said Bradford demurely.

"Thou hast no right to avow that, Will, and I were but a sorry knave to believe it. A lady's yea-say is an honor to any man, and he who receives it must do so in all reverence. No man hath a right to fancy or to say that a modest maid is ready with yea or nay before she is asked."

"Thou art right, and I wrong, Myles, and in truth I know naught of Mistress Priscilla's mind."

"But I will, and that ere many days are past. Thou hast done me a good turn, Will, in showing me where I stand. I dreamed not that Molines was--well,--he died peacefully and I will not disturb his rest. Yes, I will but wait until the Mayflower is gone and my cabin weather-tight, and the garden sown, and then I will speak with Priscilla. If Barbara comes she'll be rare good company for both of us."

Again Bradford smiled very quietly, and the two men walked on in silence.

CHAPTER XV.

SAMOSET.

Once more the freemen of the colony were convened in Council around the well-scoured table in the princ.i.p.al room of the Common house, become for the nonce a House of Commons, and Captain Standish was explaining the scheme he had arranged for organizing his little army, when again the solemnity of the meeting was invaded by shrill cries of alarm and anger, this time, however, in a solo rather than chorus, for goodwife Billington having taken the field, her more timid sisters were abashed into silence.

"Thou foul beast, I say begone! Scat! Avaunt! Nay, grin not at me thou devil straight from h.e.l.l! Wait but till I fetch a bucket of boiling water to throw over thee, thou Cheshire cat! I'll soon see how much of thy nasty color is fast dye"--

"What means this unseemly brawling?" sternly demanded Elder Brewster as Standish ceased speaking, and all eyes involuntarily turned toward the door.

"Billington, the voice is that of thy wife. Go, and warn her that we tolerate no common scolds in our midst, and that the cucking-stool and the pillory"--

But the elder's threats and Billington's shamefaced obedience and the wonder of all who had listened to the outbreak were cut short by a startling apparition upon the threshold; the savages had really come at last, or at least one of them, for here stood, tall and erect, the splendid figure of a man, naked except for a waistband of buckskin fringe, his skin of a bright copper color glistening in the morning sun, and forming a rich background for the vari-colored paints with which it was decorated; his coa.r.s.e, black hair, cut square above the eyebrows, fell upon his shoulders at the back, and was ornamented by three eagle-feathers woven into its tresses; in his hand he carried a bow nearly as tall as himself, and two arrows; a sharp little hatchet, evidently of European make, was thrust into his girdle, but the keenness of its edge was less than that of the glances with which he watched the slightest movement of the armed men who started to their feet at his approach.

The savage was the first to speak, and his utterance has become as cla.s.sic as Caesar's "Veni,"--for it was,--

"Welcome!"

As he p.r.o.nounced it, and looked about him with kindly, if wary eyes, the Pilgrims drew a long breath, and the tense anxiety of the moment lapsed into aspects various as the temperaments of the men.

"What! Do these men speak English, then!" exclaimed Allerton bewildered, while Standish muttered,--

"Look to your side-arms, men. He may mean treachery," and n.o.ble Carver, extending his hand, said,--

"Thanks for your courtesy, friend. How know you our language?"

"I am Samoset. I am friend of Englishmen. I come to say welcome."

"Truly 't is a marvel to hear him speak in our own tongue and so glibly too. Mark you how he chooses his words as one of some dignity himself,"

said Bradford softly, but the quick ears of the savage caught the substance of his words, and tapping his broad chest lightly with his fingers he proudly replied,--

"Samoset, sachem of Monhegan. Samoset do well to many Englishmen in his own country."

"And where is Monhegan, friend Samoset?" asked Carver pleasantly. "Might it be this place?"

"This place Patuxet. Monhegan nearer to the sunrise," replied Samoset pointing eastward.

"And how far?"

"Suppose walk, five days; big wind in ship, one day."

"And how camest thou, and when?"

"Ship. Three, four moons ago."

"Ah, then it is not an armed a.s.sault upon us," said Carver aside and in a tone of relief.

"Nay, these salvages are more treacherous than a quicksand. Try him with more questions," suggested Hopkins, the other men murmuring a.s.sent, while the Indian glancing with his opaque, black eyes from one to another showed not how much he understood of what went on about him.

"'In vino veritas,'" suggested Bradford with a smile. "Were it not well to give him something by way of welcome?"