Standish of Standish Part 50

"Hobomok the pniese! Hobomok the devil! Hobomok is awake! Hobomok has come!"

"The fool will be shot! Hath he gone mad!" shouted Billington, but Hopkins grasped his arm.

"Let be, let be! He knows what he is about. Himself told me that his name Hobomok answereth to our word Devil, and that while every pniese through fasting and self-torture gains much power over demons and is greatly feared by all who are not pnieses, he having taken the foul fiend's name, had gained double the power of the rest, and could when put to it summon Sathanas and all his brood to aid him. Those others know it, and--lo, you now, see them scatter, see them fly!" and with a loud laugh he pointed to the savage crew, who panic stricken were fleeing before the pniese like a flock of frightened sheep.

"Have after them! Follow me, men!" shouted Standish rushing down the hill, the others following as fast as they could, but not fast enough, for before they came within shot, the party was halted by Hobomok's return, who half glorious, half laughing, reported the enemy hidden in a swamp, whither he led his friends.

"We will slay no more if we can help it," declared the captain. "Alden, show a flag of truce. Haply they will understand it."

But although as Standish drew near the thicket, Alden carrying the white flag beside him, the savages refrained from firing, his invitation to parley was received with a volley of abuse and defiance renewed at every attempt of his to speak.

"Obtakiest is there. I know his voice," declared Hobomok who had crept up behind. "He will not show himself lest I curse him."

"Obtakiest! Sachem! Art thou there?" demanded Standish. "Come forth then like a man, and we two will fight it out here in the midst. I challenge thee, sachem!"

A hoa.r.s.e laugh and a volley of obscene abuse was the reply, and Standish indignantly cried,--

"Dost not know how base and cowardly it is to hide there and tongue it like an angry woman! Thou 'rt not fit to be called a man!"

A shower of arrows was the only response to this, and presently the movement of the bushes showed that the Indians were retreating to a deeper fastness, and Standish deeply disgusted marched his own men back to the village, the only casualty on either side being the broken arm of the powah or priest, who with Wituwamat and Pecksuot were really the heart of the conspiracy; for Obtakiest after a while sent a squaw to Plymouth abjectly begging for peace, and declaring that he had since Standish's visit changed his camp every night for fear of receiving another one.

"And now, Master Manning, and you, master of the Swan and friend of the Neponsets," demanded Standish, as he arrayed the Weymouth men before him, and declared his success in their quarrel, "what shall I do more for your comfort or safety before my return to Plymouth? For myself, I should never fear to remain in this plantation had I the half of your men, but for yourselves ye must judge. Only I will add that I am charged by Governor Bradford to say that any who will come to settle in Plymouth and abide by its laws and governance shall be kindly welcomed."

The settlers debated the matter among themselves for a while, and although a few and those of the best, decided to accept the invitation to Plymouth albeit somewhat coldly given, the majority decided to desert the post where they had suffered so much, and to join some other of Weston's men at Monhegan. The Pilgrims cheerfully lent their help, and before night the settlers had loaded all their portable property into the Swan, Standish had seen the gates of the stockade securely bolted and barred, and Hobomok with some red paint had traced upon each a hideous emblem, which he a.s.sured the white men would frighten away any predatory Indian.

Standish only laughed, but Hopkins nodded sagely.

"The rogue is right--I know the symbol, and have seen the terror it carries," said he; and true it is that whether from superst.i.tious or from martial terrors, that stockade and the houses it enclosed, and the body of the savage left swinging from the tree in their midst, were never molested or apparently visited by the red men again. As the heavy laden Swan weltered out of the harbor, victualed with all that remained of Standish's seed corn except a scanty ration apiece to his own men, the pinnace bore gallantly up for Plymouth, and in due course joyfully arrived there bringing home all her crew victorious and unscathed.

With them came Wituwamat's head to be set on a pike over the gateway of the Fort, for these our Fathers were not of our day or thought in such matters; and these Englishmen did but follow the usage of England, when so lately as 1747 the heads of the unhappy Pretender's more unhappy followers defiled the air of London's busiest street.

Standish for one never doubted of the justice of his course either in the slaying of the colony's avowed enemies, or the exposure of the ringleader's head; not even when a year or so later Bradford sorrowfully placed in his hands a letter just received from his revered Pastor Robinson at Leyden, who in commenting on the death of the Indians said,--

"Oh how happy a thing it had been had you converted some before you had killed any. Let me be bold to exhort you seriously to consider of the disposition of your captain, whom I love;--but there is cause to fear that by occasion, especially of provocation, there may be wanting in him that tenderness of the life of man made after G.o.d's image, that is meet."

Standish read the letter, and returning it without a word went out from his friend's presence, nor did he ever after allude to it, but a blow had been struck upon that loyal loving heart from which it never in this life recovered.

Thirty years later as the hero set his house in order, his failing hand wrote these words,--

"I give 3. to Mercy Robinson whom I tenderly love for her grandfather's sake."

And that was his revenge.

CHAPTER x.x.xIV.

THE WOLF AT THE DOOR.

Midsummer was upon the land, and the heat and drought were intense. Day after day the sun rose fierce and pitiless, drinking up at a draught what scanty dews had distilled in a night so brief and heated that it brought no refreshment to herbage or to man. Day after day wistful eyes searched the horizon for a cloud if no bigger than a man's hand, and still only the hard blue above and the palpitating horizon line stared blankly back. The crops languished in the field, some already dead, and the scanty store saved from the seed corn quite gone. Many a day a few clams, a lobster, or a piece of fish without bread or any vegetable, was a family's whole subsistence.

Early in July the ship Plantation had touched at Plymouth having on board two hogsheads of dried peas for sale, but seeing the bitter need of the colonists the shipmaster raised the price to 8 per hogshead, and although they had the money, the Fathers refused to submit to the extortion, and the peas sailed southward.

It is but forty miles from Plymouth to Boston Harbor, where about a hundred and fifty years later the women signed a declaration that they would forego the use of tea rather than submit to extortion, and their fathers and husbands and lovers flung a goodly cargo into the sea.

But a stout spirit although it keeps a man up puts no flesh on his bones, and soon it became a piteous sight to stand in the Town Square and mark the faces and figures of those who pa.s.sed by. Strong men staggered from weakness as they walked, women glided along like mournful white wraiths, even the little children in their quaint garb looked worn and emaciated. Standish, who relying upon his iron const.i.tution and long training in a soldier's endurance, had regularly divided his rations with some woman or child, had grown so gaunt and worn that he might well have posed as The Skeleton in Armor, when he held his monthly muster, and Mistress Brewster, although some private provision was made for her, wasted away piteously.

"Where is the ship spoken by the master of the Plantation?" was the daily cry, and daily Hobomok climbed the great tulip-tree on the crest of Watson's Hill and swept the horizon line with eyes keener than any white man's.

"The Lord abaseth us for our sins," declared the elder. "Call a solemn a.s.sembly, proclaim a fast, let us entreat our G.o.d to have mercy, and our Lord to pardon. Who can tell but He yet may turn and have compa.s.sion, and spare the remnant of His people. Even as a servant looketh to the hand of his master even so let us wait upon our G.o.d, beseeching that He spare, that He pardon, that He restore us, who for our sins are appointed to die."

So spake the elder after the evening prayers of a day even more exhausting than its predecessors, and Myles Standish, leaning against the wall for very weakness, muttered,--

"Nay, what sin have these women and children wrought? What odds between a G.o.d like that and the Shietan of the salvages? Nay, Elder, thou hast not bettered the faith my mother lived and died by."

But the fast was appointed for the next day, which fell on a Thursday, and as the sun sprang up with even an added blaze of pitiless heat, he saw a mournful procession winding up the hill to the Fort, now so completed as to offer a large lower room for purposes of devotion or of refuge, while the ordnance mounted on the roof gained a wider range, and presented a more formidable aspect.

At the head walked Elder Brewster, but the shadowy form of Mary his wife reclined in the old chair set beside the window, whence she could watch the procession she was unable to join except in spirit. Then came the Governor and the Captain, Allerton and Winslow, Warren and Fuller, Hopkins and Howland, Alden and Browne, and the rest of the glorious band, the least of whom has his name written in the Libro d'Oro of the men posterity delighteth to honor. After the men came the women, meek and gentle, yet strong and courageous, and the children, poor little heroes and heroines, involuntary martyrs like the Holy Innocents of Bethlehem.

"Get thee to the roof, Hobomok," ordered the captain, "and say the prayers the elder hath so painfully taught thee; but mind me, lad, keep thine eyes upon the horizon and watch for the answer, whether it be a sail, or whether it be a rain cloud. Shalt play the part of Elijah's servant, and the elder is the very moral of the stern old prophet."

No morsel of food, no drop of drink, had pa.s.sed the lips of that wan company since the pittance of the night before, and yet for nine long hours of that fearful day, the air so heated that it hardly fed the lungs, and the sun blazing so pitilessly upon the log structure that a faint odor of parching wood mingled with the torrid air within the Fort, yes, for nine long hours the elder prayed, or preached, or recited aloud the deep abas.e.m.e.nt of the penitential psalms, and the wail of the prophets, proclaiming, yet deprecating, the wrath of an offended G.o.d.

In the intervals others spoke; Doctor Fuller, himself a deacon in the church, and Bradford, whose pet.i.tion less abject than that of the elder, called confidently for help, upon Him who twice fed a starving mult.i.tude, who promised that no pet.i.tion in His name should go unanswered, who hungering in the wilderness knew the extremity of famine, who cried aloud, I Thirst, who has promised to be with His own in all time till Time shall be no more.

Standish, like the statue of a sentinel in bronze, stood at the door leaning upon his snaphance, listening intently to all, and breathing a deep-throated Amen to the governor's prayer.

Noon blazed overhead, and Priscilla, ah, poor white, attenuate Priscilla, crept down the hill to the elder's house, and gathering a handful of fire-wood warmed some broth made from a rabbit snared by Alden the day before, and silently brought a cup to the mother, who drank it with the tears br.i.m.m.i.n.g over her patient, faded eyes.

"I am not worthy to fast with the rest of you. I am an unprofitable servant," whispered she handing back the cup and covering her face.

"Oh, mother, mother, do not break my heart," cried the girl, whom the smell of food had turned sick and faint. "It is not so, dear saint. The Lord will not have thee fast because He knows thou art already perfected"--

"Hush, hush, my child; thy words are both wild and wicked. Get thee back to the House of Prayer, and beg our G.o.d to forgive thy sin of presumption. Fare thee well--nay, one moment,--doth,--doth the elder look sadly spent?--he is not over strong--and Jonathan? Didst mark him and the boys? Wrestling is but puny."

"They are all in such strength as can be looked for, mother dear, and will hold out as well as any." And Priscilla wanly smiled in the poor pinched face, adjusted the cushions and the foot-rest, and without so much as a drop of cold water for herself, wearily climbed the hill. The captain making room for her to pa.s.s looked with anxious sympathy into her face, but spake no word, and again the withering hours pa.s.sed on, and the elder prayed in a husky and broken whisper, and his hearers muttered an Amen, hollow and mournful as the echo from an open tomb.

Three o'clock, and Hobomok scrambled down from the roof, and stood in the open doorway. His master saw and went out to him. In a moment he came again, and pa.s.sing between the banks of rude benches stood before the elder, who, pausing suddenly, fixed upon him a gaze of piteous inquiry, while a little movement among the hundred starving souls watching and praying heralded his news.

"The answer has come, Elder," announced the soldier briefly. "A full rigged ship has just cleared Manomet headland, and a cloud black with rain is rolling up out of the Southwest."

"Let us pray!" said the elder softly; and Standish bowed his head with the rest as the holy man, his voice strong and fervent once more, poured out for himself and his people such grat.i.tude as perhaps is only possible from those "appointed to die," and suddenly rescued by the hand of a merciful Father.

A few moments later, as the procession wound down the hill, somewhat less formally than it had gone up, the southern and western sky were black with clouds already veiling the sun, and within an hour a soft and tender rain began to fall, soaking quietly into the earth gaping all over with the wounds of drought, and reviving, as Bradford quaintly phrased it, both their drooping affections and their withered corn.

"The white man's G.o.d is better than the red man's," remarked Hobomok privately to Wa.n.a.lancet, who was visiting Plymouth. "When our powahs pray for rain, and cut themselves, and offer sacrifice, it comes sometimes, but in noisy floods that tear up the earth, and beat down the maize, and do more harm than good. Wa.n.a.lancet better turn praying Indian like Hobomok."