Standish of Standish Part 44

continued he, laying down his pipe and drawing a roll of paper from the pocket of his leathern jerkin, "and am fain to have your mind upon it, for I would not be over bitter, and yet was shrewdly wounded that John Carver lying in his honored grave should be so rudely attacked. Shall I read it?"

"Ay, an' thou wilt, though I'm more than half in mind to take pa.s.sage by the Fortune, and give Master Weston and the rest a reply after mine own fashion."

"What, and leave the train band to its own destruction! But here you have my poor script:--

"To the worshipful Master Thos: Weston:

"Sir,--Your large letter written to Mr. Carver and dated the 16th of July 1621 I have received the 20th of Nov'br, wherein you lay many heavy imputations upon him and us all. Touching him he is departed this life, and now is at rest in the Lord from all those troubles and inc.u.mbrances with which we are yet to strive. He needs not my apology; for his care and pains were so great for the common good both ours and yours, as that therewith it is thought, he oppressed himself and shortened his days of whose loss we cannot sufficiently complain. At great charges in this Adventure I confess you have been, and many losses you may sustain; but the loss of his and many other honest and industrious mens lives cannot be valued at any price. Of the one there may be hope of recovery, but the other no recompence can make good."

"Oh, you're too mild, Bradford," burst out the captain as the reader paused and looked up for approval. "You should bombard him with red-hot shot, hurl a flight of grape, a volley of canister into his midst--nay then, but I'll go myself and with a blow of my gauntlet across Master Weston's ears"--

"Captain--Captain Standish! Master Warren hath sent me to warn your worship that some of the new-comers are building a bonfire in the Town Square, and sprinkling the pile with powder"--

"There, Myles, thou seest how well we can spare thee! Wouldst leave me at the mercy of these rough companions who"--

But already the captain armed with a stout stick was half way down the hill, and, smiling quaintly to himself Bradford relighted his pipe and went home to finish his letter.

A week later the Fortune sailed on her return voyage carrying Cushman, who left his son Thomas under Bradford's care until he should come again, not knowing that his next voyage should be across the sh.o.r.eless sea whence no bark hath yet returned. Under his charge traveled Desire Minter, loudly proclaiming her joy at returning to regions "where a body might at least look for decent victual," and Humility Cooper, Elizabeth Tilley's little cousin. The two seamen, Trevor and Ely, also returned, their year of service having expired; but in spite of the dearth of provision, already imminent owing to the unprovided condition of the new-comers, not one of the Pilgrims embraced this opportunity of escape.

Besides her pa.s.sengers, the Fortune carried valuable freight consigned to Weston as agent of the Adventurers. The best room was given to sa.s.safras root, of which the colonists had gathered great store, and with much rejoicing, for being just then the panacea of both French and English physicians, it was worth something like forty dollars of our present money per pound. Besides the sa.s.safras were several hogsheads of beaver skins, also very valuable at that time, and the rest of the hold was filled with clapboards and other finished lumber, the whole cargo worth at least twenty-five hundred dollars. The most precious thing on board that little vessel however, if we except human life, was a ma.n.u.script journal written by William Bradford and Edward Winslow, and sent home to their friend George Morton in London, who, finding it too good to be kept to himself, had it printed the very same year by "John Bellamy at his shop at the Two Greyhounds, near the Royal Exchange, London," and as he did not give the names of its authors, nor bestow any distinctive t.i.tle upon it, it came to be called "Mourt's Relation," and was the first book ever printed about that insignificant knot of emigrants in whom we now glory as the Forefathers of New England. But alas for human hopes, alas for the honest rejoicings of the Pilgrims in their goodly cargo, just before the Fortune sighted the English coast she was captured by a French cruiser and carried into Isle Dieu. Two weeks later the vessel, crew, and pa.s.sengers were released, but the sa.s.safras, the beaver skins, and the lumber went to heal and warm and house Frenchmen instead of Englishmen, and Thomas Weston's pockets still cried out with their emptiness. Happily for the world, however, the Frenchmen did not appreciate the "Relation," and it went peacefully on in Robert Cushman's mails, and reached good George Morton's hands.

About a week after the sailing of the Fortune came Christmas Day, and Bradford doing on his clothing for a good day at lumbering allowed himself a half regretful memory of the sports and revelings with which he and the other youth of Austerfield had been wont to observe the Feast; but presently remembering his new beliefs, the Separatist leader murmured something about "rags of Popery," and went down to his breakfast.

"Call the men together, Howland," ordered he in some displeasure as leaving his house axe in hand he found only his older comrades awaiting him. "Where are the new-comers? I see none of them."

"An' it please you, Governor, Hicks and the rest of them say it goeth against their conscience to work on Christmas Day," reported Howland with a grim smile.

For a moment Bradford frowned, but as he caught the gay glint of Standish's eyes his own softened, and after a brief pause he answered temperately,--

"We will force no man's conscience. Tell Robert Hicks and the rest that I excuse them until they be better informed."

At noon the wood-choppers returned to the village weary and hungry, for already had the entire company been placed upon half rations of food, so to continue until another cargo should arrive, or the next year's crop be ripe. Well for their endurance that they could not foresee that no farther cargo of provisions should ever arrive for them, from those who had undertaken to support them, and that the next year's crop should prove a failure. But now as they wearily toiled up the hill from the brookside, eager for the hour of rest and the scanty meal they were learning to value so highly, sounds of loud revelry and boisterous mirth fell upon their ears, sounds alien to their mood, their necessities, and on this day to their principles.

"Those runagates are holding Christmas revels in spite of you, Governor," remarked Standish half jeeringly; while Hopkins, whose humor just now was not far removed from mutiny, muttered that if G.o.dless men were to play, he saw not why good Christians should be forced to work, call it Christmas Day or any other.

"You are right, Hopkins, although somewhat discourteous in your rect.i.tude," replied Bradford, and hasting forward he came in sight of the Town Square, where some fifteen or twenty of the Fortune pa.s.sengers were amusing themselves at "stool-ball," a kind of cricket, at pitching the bar, wrestling, hopping-matches, and various other old English sports, many of which had been encouraged and even led by the governor in the late week of Thanksgiving. But now advancing into the midst, his air of serene authority as much as his uplifted hand imposing silence upon the merry rebels, who dropped their various implements, and tried in vain to appear at ease, Bradford looking from one to another quietly said,--

"I told you this morning that if you made the keeping of Christmas Day matter of conscience, I should leave you alone until you were better informed; now, however, I warn you that it goeth against my conscience as governor of this colony to let idle men play while others work, and if indeed you find matter of devotion in the day ye shall keep it quietly and soberly in your housen. There shall be neither reveling nor gaming in the streets, and that I promise you. Let whosoever owneth these toys take them away and store them out of sight; and remember, men, that the Apostle saith, 'If a man will not work neither shall he eat.'"

Silently and shamefacedly the revelers collected bats and b.a.l.l.s, cricket stools, bars, poles, and iron weights, carrying them each man to his own house, and in the afternoon the chopping party was augmented by nearly every one of the new-comers.

CHAPTER x.x.x.

A SOLDIER'S INSTINCT.

A year and more from that Christmas Day has sped, and again we find Bradford and Standish with Winslow gathered together at the governor's house, resting after the labors of the day, smoking the consoling pipe, and even tasting from time to time the contents of a square case bottle, which, with a jug of hot water and a basin of sugar were set forth upon a curious little clawfooted table worth to-day its weight in gold if only it could have survived.

None of the three look younger than they did when they first stepped upon the Rock; sun and wind, and winter storm and summer heat have bronzed their English complexions and deepened the lines about the quiet steadfast lips and anxious eyes. Already Bradford's shoulders were a little bowed, partly by the burden of his responsibility, partly by arduous manual labor, but upon his face had grown the serenity and somewhat of the impa.s.siveness into which the Egyptians loved to mould the features of their kings,--that expression which of all others belongs to a man who uses great power firmly and decisively, and yet looks upon himself as but a steward, who soon or late shall be called to render a strict account of his stewardship.

And Winslow, courtly, learned, and fit for lofty emprise, how bore he this life of toil and privation, this constant contention with such foes as famine, and disease, and squalor, and uncouth savagery? Look at the portrait painted of him in London some years later, and see if there is not an infinite weariness, a brooding _Cui bono?_ set as a seal upon those haughty features. Can one after studying that face much wonder that when the Ma.s.sachusetts Bay authorities in 1646 besought Plymouth to spare their sometime governor, their wise and astute statesman, to arrange the Bay's quarrel with the Home government, Winslow eagerly accepted the mission, although as Bradford sadly records, his going was--"much to the weakening of this government, without whose consent he took these employments upon him."

So well, however, did he fill the larger sphere for which his ambitious nature perhaps had secretly pined, that after four years of arduous service when the Ma.s.sachusetts quarrel was well adjusted, and Winslow would have returned home, President Steele, whom he had helped to found the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel, wrote to the Colonial Commissioners in New England that although Winslow was unwilling to be kept longer from his family, he could not yet be spared, because his great acquaintance and influence with members of Parliament made him invaluable to the work in hand.

Then in 1652 the Protector, Oliver Cromwell, placed him at the head of a committee for settling a Dutch quarrel; and in 1655 the same power named him governor of Hispaniola, and dispatched him thither with a fleet and body of soldiers to conquer and take possession of his new territory.

But General Venable in command of the soldiers, and Admiral Penn in command of the fleet, fell to loggerheads as to which was the other's superior, and even Winslow's diplomacy could not heal the breach; so the attack upon Hispaniola proved a disgraceful failure, and as the fleet sailed away to attack Jamaica, the Great Commissioner, as they called him fell ill of chagrin and worry, and after a few days of wild delirium wherein he stood upon Burying Hill, and drank of the Pilgrims' Spring, and spoke loving words to the wife and children he should see no more, he died, and was committed to the great deep with a salute of two-and-forty guns, and never a kiss or tear, for all who loved him were far away.

But all this honor, all this disaster, lies in the future, for as yet Winslow is only seven-and-twenty, and yet the lines of ambition, of weariness, of hauteur are foreshadowed upon his face; already Time with his light indelible pencil has faintly traced the furrows he by and by will plow that all who run may read.

Perhaps the least change of all is that upon the captain's face, for before ever he landed on the Rock full twenty years of a soldier's life had set those firm lips, and steadied those marvelous eyes, and impressed upon every line of the deep bronzed face the air of the vigilant commander who was both born and bred for the post he fills so thoroughly. If any change, perhaps there is a softening one, for those keen eyes have looked so often upon misery and need, and so little upon bloodshed in these three last years, that they have gained somewhat of tenderness, somewhat of human sympathy; and the look that dying men and women have strained their glazing eyes to see to the last, is not so far from the surface as once it was. But the governor is speaking,--

"Yes, my friends, I will confess to feeling more than a little uneasy over the matter. This party whom our sometime friend Weston hath sent over to settle at our very doors as it were, and to steal our trade with the Indians, and so hold us from paying off our debt to the Adventurers"--

"With whom he was still to abide as our Advocate," growled Standish.

"Ay. He hath doubtless served us a sorry turn by not only dividing himself from the Adventurers, but setting up a rival trading-post of his own," remarked Winslow.

"And worse than that is this news Squanto brings in to-day," resumed the governor. "I mean the dealings of those new-comers with the Indians."

"Yes, they carry themselves like both knaves and fools, and will presently find their own necks in the noose," said Standish rapping the ashes out of his pipe with such force as to break it.

"But worse again than that," suggested Winslow quietly, "is the danger they bring upon us. Hobomok warneth me that there is a wide discontent growing among the red men, springing from the conduct of these men at Weymouth as they call it. The Neponsets have suffered robbery, and insult, and outrage at their hands, and both the Ma.s.sachusetts on the one hand and the Pokanokets on the other are in sympathy with them. Then you will see, brethren, that Canonicus with his Narragansetts, who already hath sent us his cartel of defiance, will make brief alliance with Ma.s.sasoit, and all will combine to drive every white man from the country. There is hardly any bound to the mischief these roysterers at Weymouth have set on foot."

"And Ma.s.sasoit no longer our friend, since we refused to send him poor Squanto's head," said Bradford meditatively.

"Yes," laughed the captain. "'T is food for mirth, were a man dying, to see Squanto skulk at our heels like a dog who sees a lion in the path.

He hardly dares step outside the palisado, for fear some envoy of Ma.s.sasoit's shall pounce upon him."

"'T is a good lesson to teach him discretion," said Winslow. "Certes he stirred up strife between us and the sachem with his c.o.c.k-and-bull stories."

"Especially when he sent his squaw to warn us that Canonicus with Ma.s.sasoit and Corbitant were on the way from Namasket to devour us."

"Ay, no wonder Ma.s.sasoit was aggrieved at being so slandered, and could he have got Tisquantum once within his clutches 't would have gone hard with the poor fool. But never burnt child dreaded fire as he now doth the outside of the palisado."

"Didst hear, Winslow, that t' other day when some of us were unearthing a keg of powder buried there in the Fort, Squanto and a savage guest of his clomb the hill to see what was going on? The magazine is pa.s.sably deep as you know, and Squanto himself had never seen it opened; so when they saw Alden hand up the keg to Hopkins, the guest asked in the Indian tongue what was in it, and Squanto told him 't was the plague which just before our coming swept the land, and that the white men had captured it and buried it here upon the hill to let loose upon their enemies; and in the end the knave got a goodly price from his visitor for a.s.surance that the plague should not be liberated till he had time to reach Sandwich."

All three men laughed, but Bradford said,--"I fear me Squanto hath done us no little harm with his double dealings, his jealousy of Hobomok, and his craving for bribes; but withal he hath been so good a friend to us, more than useful at the first when we knew naught of the place or how to live, or plant, or fish, that I thought right to risk even Ma.s.sasoit's enmity rather than to give our poor knave up to his wrath."

"And then I never can forget," said Winslow, "that Squanto as only survivor of the Patuxets was in some sort lord of the soil whereon we pitched."

"Yes truly," responded the captain with a short laugh. "Like myself he was born to great estates and sees them enjoyed by others."

"Well then, since nothing is imminent in this matter of the Weymouth colonists and their quarrel with the Indians, we had better, now that the palisado around the town is complete"--

"Gates, bolts, bastions, all complete from the great rock around to the brook," interposed Standish, his figure visibly dilating with satisfaction. Bradford smiled and allowed his eyes to rest affectionately for an instant upon his comrade, then continued in a lighter tone,--