Standish of Standish Part 40

"I send you a loving-cup, sir!" exclaimed the girl, her eyes flashing, and her color rising.

"Yes. Call it by what name you will; I mean the cup Desire Minter brought me from thee, with a message that I should drink thy health."

"Loth were I to think, Captain Standish, that you would willfully insult a maid with none to defend her, and so I will charitably suppose that you have been forced to drink too many healths to guard well thine own.

Good e'en, sir."

"Now by the G.o.d that made us both, wench, I'll have an end of this. Nay, not one step dost thou stir until you or I are laid in a lie."

"A lie, Captain Standish!"

"Mayhap my own lie. I say that Desire Minter brought me a silver cup of some sweet posset, such as you have made for our sick folk time and again, and bade me from you quaff it to your health."

"And that is G.o.d's truth, say you, sir?"

"Mistress Molines, my word has not often been doubted, and you force me to remind you that I come not of mechanical"--

"Nay, nay, stop there, an' it please you, sir! We'll unwind this coil before we snarl another. Fear not that my base mechanical blood shall ever sully your n.o.ble strain; but mean though I be, my habit is a tolerably truthful one, and I tell you once and for all that I sent you no cup, I made you no posset, I desired no health drunk by you."

"Nay, then, what hath this girl Desire wrought? And truth to tell Priscilla, I fear me 't is poison, for a shrewd pain seizeth me ever and anon, and a strange heaviness is in my head."

"And there's a sultry color on your cheek--nay, then, we'll see the surgeon"--

"And thou 'lt forgive whatever I have said amiss, Priscilla, for mayhap I'll trouble thee no more. Like enough she hath revenged herself"--

"For your scorn of her love," interposed Priscilla vivaciously. "Like enough, like enough. Come to the house, Captain, and let us take counsel with the dear mother. She still knows best."

"Go thou, Priscilla. It hardly beseems a man and a soldier to seek redress for a wench's love scratch at the hands of an old woman--nay, nay, fire not up afresh! No one can honor Mistress Brewster more than I do, but tell me, is she a man or is she young? Sooth now, Priscilla!"

"And still in thy masterful mood thou 'lt have the last word, doughty Captain. But go you home, then, and bid John Alden make a fire and heat a good kettle of water, and I'll away to the mother who will deal with Desire in short measure."

"'T is good counsel and I'll follow it, for in sober sadness I feel strangely amiss." And the soldier, who now was as livid as he had been flushed, strode away up the hill, while Priscilla picking up the trenchers fled like a lapwing into the house where she found Desire seated sullenly in a corner, while the elder, his wife, and the governor were gathered together near the fire cozily discussing the events of the day. Standing before them and restraining her natural vivacity that it might not discredit the importance of her story, Priscilla in brief and pungent phrases told the story of the loving draught, and as Desire rose and stole toward the door laid a hand upon her arm that effectually detained her until the elder sternly said,--

"Remain you here, Desire Minter, until this report is sifted."

"Were it not well to send at once for our good physician, that he may know what hath been done before he sees the captain?" suggested Bradford mildly, and the elder a.s.senting, Priscilla was dispatched for doctor Fuller, who arrived within the minute, and listened with profound attention, while Mistress Brewster, to whom alone the girl would reply, extracted from her a most startling story.

"The captain first of all asked me to wife, and if he had not been wiled away from me by artful"--

"Nay, nay, Desire, thou 'rt not to say such things as that," interposed the dame with gentle severity, and Bradford added in much the same tone,--

"'T was thine own idle fancy, girl, that set thee on such a notion. The captain hath averred to me as Christian man that he never made proffer to thee nor wished so to do since first he set eyes on thee."

"He did then," muttered Desire sullenly, and Mistress Brewster interposed.

"Leaving that aside, tell us, Desire, what didst thou give the captain to drink, and why didst say that Priscilla sent it?"

"Marry, because she hath bewitched him, and I wot well he would take it from her without gainsaying."

"But what was it thou gavest him?"

"'T was--there was a wench here with the savages, and Squanto told me she was a wise woman and knew how to work spells"--

"Well then, go on, Desire."

"And so I went with her pulling herbs in the fields and swamps, and with one word English and one of jabber, we knew each other's meaning, and I gave her the buckle of my belt which was broke and none here could mend it."

"A generous gift, truly," interposed the elder, but his wife beseeching silence with a gesture asked,--

"And what gave she thee, Desire?"

"Some herbs, mother."

"And what were the herbs to do?"

"She said steep them well, and give the broth to any man I fancied, and it would turn his fancy on me."

"A love philtre! _Vade retrograde Sathanas!_" exclaimed the elder half rising from his chair, but here the doctor eagerly interposed,--

"What like was the herb, girl? Hast any of it in store for a second dose?"

"Mayhap--a little," muttered Desire twisting and turning, but seeing no means of escape.

"Go and fetch it," commanded the elder. "And Priscilla do thou go too and see that the wretched creature doth not make way with it."

"And sith John Howland is after a sort betrothed to the poor bemused child, I think it well to summon him, that he may advise with us as to the sequela of this folly. I will call him to the Council." And Bradford followed the two girls from the room.

"If she hath murdered the captain, she shall die the death," exclaimed the elder striding about the room, and pausing before the great chair where his pale and fragile wife sat looking up at him with beseeching eyes.

"Nay, William, she is hardly older than our own dear girls, and it would ill become us who still carry our own lives in our hands to deprive a poor silly maid of hers."

"So the best road out of the maze is to cure the captain," remarked Doctor Fuller dryly. "After that we'll marry the girl to John Howland, and trust him to keep her quiet. Here they come."

And in at the open door came the governor and Howland, Desire and Priscilla, who carried in her hand a little box full of half-dried leaves, which she presented to the doctor, who solemnly pulling from his pocket a pair of clumsy iron-bowed spectacles put them astride his nose, and taking the herbs to the window carefully examined them, while all the rest stood anxiously around staring with all their might.

"Hm! Hah! Yes, well yes, I see, I see!" murmured the botanist, and then turning to Bradford he fixed him with a meditative gaze over the tops of his barnacles and said,--

"You know something of botany, Governor. Say you not that this is the _Platanthera Satyrion_, the herb supposed to give vigor to the hearts of those wild men whom the mythologists celebrate?"

"Is it? I should have taken it for the iris whose flower I have noted in these swamps."

"'T is akin, ay, distant kin, but with the difference that maketh one harmless, and 't other deadly. I will take it to Sister Winslow's house and examine it with my books, but still I can aver at once that 't is Platanthera; and if it is also Satyrion I will promise that it shall prove only nauseous and distasteful to our good Captain, and by no means deadly. I will go to see him."

"And John Howland," said the Governor turning toward the young man who stood looking with aversion at the figure of Desire, who with her head in her ap.r.o.n wept loud and angrily, "it seemeth to me that since this maid is betrothed to you, and is manifestly unfit to guide herself, that it is best for you to marry her here, and now, and after that train her into more discretion than she naturally showeth."

"May it please you, Master Bradford, and you, Elder," replied Howland coldly, "it seemeth to me that a woman who shows so little modesty in the pursuit of one man is scarce fit wife for another. I did indeed promise my late dear mistress whose ward this girl was, that I would care for her, and if need be take her to wife; but sure am I that if that G.o.dly and discreet matron could know of all this, she would hold me free of my bonds, the rather that I have never looked upon her with that tenderness that G.o.d putteth in our hearts toward those"--

"Nay, then, if it comes to that," interposed Desire, s.n.a.t.c.hing away her ap.r.o.n and showing a swollen and tear-stained face, "I hate and despise thee, John Howland, and always have and always will; and if I took thee for my bachelor at all it was only in hope that 't would give a jealous twinge to the heart of a better man, and if at the last I failed of him thou wouldst be better than none; but I've changed my mind, and now I'll none of thee, not if ne'er another man"--