Standish of Standish Part 17

"Rigdale and Tinker are yet in bed, and their wives wait upon them, hand and foot, though fitter to be in their own beds. And not only on them, but now and again find time to run and give a drink or some such tendance to our men lying groaning at the other side the bulkhead. You mind that knave boatswain who still scoffed and swore at thy prayers, Elder, and so grievously flouted the first who fell sick among you?"

Brewster nodded, and Standish bringing his clenched fist down upon the table growled,--

"I mind him so well that I've promised him a skin full of broken bones the first time I catch him ash.o.r.e."

"Then thou 'lt be glad to know that he lies a-dying to-night," replied Jones with horrible navete.

"Dying!"

"No question on 't; and this morning as he lay groaning in sore distress, and calling upon one and another to wait on him, and none had time or stomach for it, goodwife Rigdale came to the caboose for a morsel of meat after her night's watch, and hearing him she cried, 'Alack, poor soul!' and hasted to him with the very cup she was just putting to her own lips. The dog fastened to it, I promise you, and drank every drop, then gazing up at her asked a bit too late,--

"'Hast any left for thyself?'

"She smiled on him with that white face she wears nowadays and said,--

"'Nay, but thou 'rt more than welcome.' Then says Master Boatswain, not knowing that I heard him,--

"'Oh, if I was set to get over this, as well do I know I am not, I would ask no better than to join your company and forswear all I have held dear. For now do I see how true Christians carry themselves to each other when they are in trouble, while we heathen let each other lie and die like dogs.'

"So the poor wench, fit to drop as she was, knelt and began praying for him, and I stole away."

"But do not those men care one for another in their sickness?" asked Brewster indignantly.

"As yonder wolf tended upon the dying buck," replied Jones with a careless laugh. "To drink his blood while it was warm was his chief care, and my men part the gear of their dying messmates before their eyes. Why, one of the quartermasters, Williams, thou knowest, would fain have hired Bowman, the other quartermaster, to befriend him to the last, and promised him all his goods if he should die, and money if he got well; but the knave did but make him two messes of broth, and some kind of posset to drink o' nights, and then left him, swearing all over the s.h.i.+p that Williams was cozening him by living so long, and he would do no more for him though he starved, and yet the poor soul lay a-dying then."

"And Bowman had his goods?" demanded Howland sternly.

"Ay had he, or ever the breath was out of the body. Then there was Cooper, who died cursing and swearing at his wife, and her spendthrift ways, that wasted all his wage and still sent him to gather more. And there was the gunner whose whole thought was that he must quit his gear, and would have his chest stand where he could see it, and the key under his pillow to the last; and when one of your men asked would he listen to a bit of a prayer he bawled out with a curse, 'Nay, what profit was there in prayers, or who would pay him for hearkening.'

"I tell you, masters, 't is the worst port ever I made, and albeit I'm not a man of dainty or queasy stomach, it turns me sick to see and hear such things, and know that I'm master of a crew bound for h.e.l.l though we called it Virginia."

"Mayhap if the Mayflower's crew had used more diligence in seeking to land us in Virginia they had not themselves made the port thou speakest of," said Standish bitterly, while Carver, sighing profoundly, pushed back from the table in sign that the conference was ended, but said in a voice of unfeigned friendliness,--

"Truly, Master Jones, thou needest and shall have our kindliest sympathy, and our prayers, for this that you tell of is a fearful condition, and a fatal for both body and soul, and well may you call upon Almighty G.o.d for pardon and for mercy. If any of your men are fain to come on sh.o.r.e we will receive them and give such tendance as we do to our own, and right certain am I that those of our company yet on board will do all that they are able for you. Forgetting the past, about which we might justly murmur if we would, we are ready in your necessity to reckon you as brothers, and to spend and to be spent in your service, as G.o.d giveth ability.

"Will it please thee to tarry while we hold our evening devotions, and join thy prayers to ours, that the Lord will have mercy upon all of us?"

"Yes, I'll tarry, though 't is not greatly in my way. Haply He might take it amiss if I went," muttered Jones looking about him uneasily, while Carver regarded his hopeless neophyte with divine compa.s.sion, and Elder Brewster prayed long and fervently that not only the children should be fed, but that the dogs might eat of the crumbs that fell from the table, and that in the end even the sons of Belial might be forgiven their blindness and hardness of heart, and receive even though undeservingly the uncovenanted mercies of G.o.d.

Fortunately for his good intentions the object of many of these pet.i.tions quite failed to comprehend them, and when the devotion was over rose and went away far more gently than he had come.

CHAPTER XII.

THE HEADLESS ARROW.

"Where is the governor? Hast seen him of late, Mistress Priscilla?"

"Nay, Peter Browne, not since breakfast; but what is thy great haste?

Have the skies fallen, or our friends the lions eaten up Nero?"

"Nay, then, 't is worse than lions; ay, here is Master Carver."

"Here am I, Peter, and what wouldst thou with me in such haste?"

"Why, sir, I have ill news. This morning I went a-fowling to a pond beyond that where we cut thatch and fell into such mishap, and as I lay quiet at my stand waiting till the ducks might swim my way, I saw, for I heard naught, twelve stout salvages all painted and trimmed up, carrying bows and arrows and every man his little axe at his girdle. Each glided after each like shadows upon the water, so still and smooth, and they seemed making for the town. Then as I bent my ear to the quarter whence they came I caught the far-off echo of that same fiendish cry that saluted us at the First Encounter, and would seem to be their war-cry or slogan."

"And then?"

"I waited till all were past and all sound died away, and then I fetched a compa.s.s, and ran home as fast as I might to warn the company and the captain."

"And thou didst well, Peter," replied Carver musingly, while Priscilla standing in the doorway behind him, with Mary Chilton at her side, nodded mockingly, and clapped her hands in silent applause.

Turning suddenly, the governor surprised her antics, but smiling, asked,--

"Dost know, Priscilla, whither Captain Standish went this morning?"

"He and Francis Cooke went a-field so soon as they had done breakfast, sir, and as they carried axes and wedges in hand, it would seem they had gone to rive timber," replied Priscilla demurely.

"Ay, like enough; but as 't is near noon, when they will be home for dinner, we will e'en wait till we have the captain's counsel, and meantime I'll see that all have their arms in readiness."

"And I will go help to make the dinner ready," said Priscilla. "Thou canst lay the table, Mary."

"Ay," replied the girl listlessly, and turning suddenly to hide the tears that filled her blue eyes. Priscilla looked after her, and the forced gayety faded from her own face as she put her arm about her friend's waist and led her away.

"Nay, then, nay, then," whispered she; "no more crying, poppet! Didst thou not cry half the night in spite of all I could say?"

"But how can I be gay, and father and mother both dead, and I so weak and ailing, and alone."

"But, Mary, I have lost more than that," said Priscilla in a low voice, and with that hard constraint of manner common to those who seldom speak of their emotions.

"I know thou hast lost father, mother, brother"--

"And even the faithful servant whom I remember in the dear old home when I was a toddling child," said Priscilla gloomily.

"Ay, but some have tenderer hearts than others and feel these things more cruelly," persisted Mary weeping unrestrainedly.

Priscilla removed her arm from the others waist and stood for a moment looking out at the open door with a mirthless smile upon her lips. Then, with one long sigh, she turned, and patting Mary's heaving shoulder said gently enough,--

"I'm more grieved for thee than I can tell, dear Mary; but still I find that to busy one's self in many ways, and to put on as light-hearted a look as one can muster, is a help to grief. See now poor Elizabeth Tilley. She hath cried herself ill, and must tarry in bed where is naught to divert her grief. Is it not better to keep afoot and be of use to others, at least?"

"Ay, I suppose so," replied Mary disconsolately.

"Well, then, lay the table, while I try if the meat is boiled. Oh, if we had but some turnips, or a cabbage, or aught beside beans to eat with it."

"Canst not make a sauce of biscuit crumbs and b.u.t.ter and an onion, as thou didst for the birds?" asked Mary drying her eyes.