Still further to rob Miles of his prestige among his fellows, his own particular Indian, the Sagamore Samoset, with his hat and his shirt, which he used in wet weather to remove carefully, lest they be damaged, took himself off to his own land to the eastward; and Miles found no one to fill his place.
To be sure, Plymouth had now a resident pensioner in the Indian Squanto, but he lived with Master Bradford, and so was accessible to other boys as well as to Miles. "I see not why he is let dwell among us," the latter said jealously, in the early days of Squanto's stay.
"Because, if he were any but a heathen, one might say this land where we have planted belongs to him," Master Hopkins made a brief explanation, which to Miles was no explanation at all.
But later, of a morning when Master Hopkins's force of laborers was busied in building a fence round the garden patch, Giles, who had listened to the talk of his elders, took the trouble to set forth the substance of it to Miles. "You'll understand, this Squanto truly belongs at Plymouth. Back in the time when an Indian village, Patuxet, stood where we have settled, he dwelt here. But there came an Englishman named Hunt—"
"Who was rather more of a knave than even a trader should be," parenthesized Ned Lister, who, seated comfortably on the ground near by, was hammering the palings together.
"He was a scoundrel," said Giles, warmly. "He toled Squanto and nineteen others from Patuxet, and some from among the Nausets, on board his ship, pretending he would truck with them; and then he hoisted sail and steered away for Spain, where he sold them all for twenty pound apiece. But somehow this fellow Squanto made shift to reach England, where a good merchant of London cared for him. 'Twas there he came by the knowledge of our tongue that he has. And at last they sent him back hither to his own country; but meantime the plague had been among them at Patuxet, and all were dead."
"The Lord removed the heathen to make way for a better growth," said Dotey, who had just come thither with an armful of fresh palings.
"Truly?" muttered Ned Lister. "Then I'm thinking the Lord in His wisdom laid His hand pretty heavily on the poor silly savages just for our profit."
There was little enough love already between Lister and Dotey, so Giles headed off a possibly bitter argument by continuing hastily: "So, as my father says, Squanto is, in a way, the owner of the land here, and as such has a right to shelter and food amongst us."
Miles listened to this story with a grave, stolid face, such as the others kept, and made no word of comment. But afterward he thought much of what had been told him, and wondered if Squanto had had a wife and copper-colored babies, and had come home to find them dead. He felt sorry for the poor, lone Indian, and watched him with new sympathy; but to all appearances Squanto was more occupied in consuming English biscuit and butter than in grieving for his lost friends.
Whether or no he had a claim upon the English, the Indian speedily showed himself able to repay them for any kindness. He told the men how they must wait yet some days before they planted their corn, and how there would then be plenty of fish in the river, which they must set with the seed; and much more that was useful. But nothing of the Indian's arts impressed Miles so much as his prowess in eel-catching, for he would go often into the forest and return, after a few hours, with fat, sweet eels, as many as he could lift in one hand.
Of an afternoon in April, nearly a fortnight after the coming of Massasoit, Ned Lister and Giles Hopkins went to the southward with Squanto on such a fishing trip, and, as Miles was very eager to share in it, they let him come too. Their course took them over steep, wooded hills, where always they had blue water close on the left hand, and, looking back over their shoulders, could see the bay of Plymouth, with its flanking headlands. A tender leafage was upon the trees, and in the southern hollows, where the birds sang, the air was warm; but on each hilltop a chillier blast stung in the faces of the fishermen and urged them to trudge more briskly.
At length they came to a gully, where two hills curved into each other, and descended it, half running, to the bank of a small river that flowed seaward through a level reach. Here was where the eels dwelt, Squanto gave his companions to understand; and then, without spear or any implement, he waded gently into the quiet water. The three English-born, from the bank, watched him intently, yet they scarcely realized how he did it, when he suddenly made a swift dart forward, and rose with a long, slimy thing writhing in his hands.
"Do you just tread 'em out with your feet, Squanto?" Ned queried after a time, as, keeping pace with the savage, they trailed along the bank.
When the Indian gave an "Um" that implied assent, Ned presently suggested: "Say we venture it, lads. It has a simple seeming. Tell us, Squanto, can a white man take eels that way?"
"White man try," advised Squanto, stolidly. He had caught enough for a mess, so he probably thought that the splashings of the English fellows would do no harm now.
Ned and Giles, stripping off shoes and stockings, waded in; and Miles, not to be outdone, followed after. The water felt stingingly cold against his bare legs, and set his teeth chattering so he could not talk. The very ooze of the river bed was clammy; and then he suddenly found his tongue and gave a frightened scream, as his toes touched something that rolled beneath them.
"Did you take one, Miles?" cried Giles Hopkins, splashing to the spot.
"I d-d-don't know," chattered Miles, from the shore where he had sought refuge.
Giles spattered to and fro a moment. "'Twas naught but an old branch," he announced contemptuously.
"It was an eel," retorted Miles, "but, to be sure, he will not stand there the day long till you choose to come seek him."
With that he forced himself to put his purpling feet into the water again, but, spite of this brave showing, Ned and Giles would chaff him on his flight, and even Squanto looked amused at the conduct of the youngest of his allies.
Yet, for all they were so ready to laugh at him, Miles noted his English comrades did not take a single eel, and that gave him a kind of comfort. But even then there was little pleasure in wading through the icy water, in the expectation of stepping on a soft, squirming thing; so he was not sorry when Ned gave the order to take up the homeward march.
The east wind, that had turned chillier as sunset drew on, smote bleakly on the hilltops, and in the hollows, where the shadows were creeping through the undergrowth, the warmth had died out of the air. The gathering darkness pressed ever closer upon the fishermen; the sea on their right turned gray and dim; the blue faded from the sky, and the green of the distant headlands of the bay changed to black. Just off the beach point they could dimly make out a dark bulk, where a single speck of light showed—the old ship Mayflower.
"They say she'll be hoisting sail for home soon," Giles spoke, as they trudged through the twilight, with a surety that his comrades knew to what he referred.
"So soon as the wind swings round into the west," answered Ned. "Then she'll up sail, and it's 'Eastward, ho!'"
Then presently, in the dusk, Ned began whistling a sorry little tune, unlike those he was wont to sing, very slow and monotonous, with a sudden rising to a high note and as sudden a sinking again, like the sharp indrawing of breath in a sob. "What song is that, Ned?" Miles asked, because he would rather hear Lister talk than whistle that pitiable strain.
"'Tis the Hanging-tune, Miley; the one to which they set the last confessions of men who are condemned to die." He fell to whistling once more and half humming the words:—
Why dost thou frown on me?'"
and Miles harked to the tune till it went crying itself through his head.
Next morning it still came back to him keenly,—the walk in the twilight, the look of the distant ship, the woful minor of the Hanging-tune. For the wind was hauling round to westward, and of a sudden Indians and gardening and house-building ceased to be matters that men talked of in the street; instead they spoke of the going of the ship that had borne them from England.
Already she had stayed longer on their shores than any had expected, because of the sickness that had been among her crew. But now, on shore and on ship, the sickness was stayed; just half the settlers lay buried on the bluff, and the crew of the Mayflower mustered in diminished numbers, yet enough survived and in recovered health to work the ship back to England. With the first favoring wind she would set forth upon her voyage; and with that bit of sure information went another, that Master Jones had offered to take home in her any one of the settlers who might wish to go.
"Right generous of him, is't not?" Ned Lister spoke bitterly to Miles. "Who does he think is going with him? The Elder and the Governor and Master Bradford, all the chiefs, if they showed their faces in England, they'd be clapped up in prison. And the lesser men, or even our great Master Hopkins here, they've ventured all their substance in this plantation. If they go back, they must starve or beg in London streets, and 'tis as easy and pleasant to starve here. There's none in the settlement I know of has the wish to go home, save myself, and I cannot go, because I've sold my time to Hopkins, the more fool I!"
"Why did you ever come hither, if you hate it so?" Miles questioned.
"Because a penny fell wrong side up," Ned answered. "I woke up in London one fine morning, with no shirt to my back and but one penny in my pocket. 'It's either 'list for the wars, or get me into a new country and start afresh,' I said, so I tossed up the penny,—heads Bohemia, tails America. It fell tails; so I sold Stephen Hopkins my three years' time in return for my passage over. And a precious fool I was! Faith, I'd liefer dig ditches in England than play even at governor here. And so soon as my time's out!"
Miles listened soberly, but with no sympathy; he did not understand why a tall, grown fellow like Ned should think on home with such longing. He did not care himself; he had come to New Plymouth to live, and he looked forward to the departure of the Mayflower as a novel happening in the round of everyday occurrences.
Yet when it befell, it seemed quite a matter-of-fact event. A clear breezy morning it was, and, as the household sat at their early breakfast, Francis Cooke came leisurely to tell Master Hopkins that the wind was setting steady from the west, and Master Jones had rowed ashore to bid his former passengers good-by; so soon as the tide was at flood, the ship would put forth.
There was wood and water to fetch as every day; and Miles did the tasks hastily. As he came down the path by Cooke's house, he could feel the wind stirring his hair, and yonder in the harbor the waves were ruffling, and the dim old sails of the Mayflower, unfurled, bellied in the gusts.
When he had set the dripping bucket within the living room, he ran down toward the bluff, to see what more was to see, but, finding his playmates lingering by the door of the Common House, he joined them. Within the house, they told him, Master Jones was drinking a friendly draught with the colonists, and taking his leave. Presently, indeed, the Master, a low, broad-shouldered figure, in his wide breeches and loose jacket, came forth, attended by most of the men of the colony, and rolled off to the landing place.
Some of the boys straggled respectfully behind their elders, but Miles raced with those who ran to be first at the landing. There, alongside the rock, rode the ship's longboat, and Will Trevor and several of the lesser men stood talking with the sailors who sat in her. The youngsters, too, would gladly have borne a part, but the Master, coming right on their heels across the sand, broke up the little group; he was speaking boisterously with the Governor, so his loud voice could be heard even above the confusion of the embarkation.
Indeed, it was all so noisy and hurried that nothing of those last moments remained clear in Miles's mind; he remembered only that men spoke of letters and packets, and the Master wished them many a "God be wi' you," and there was a bustling to and fro and a deal of hand-shaking. Then the Master, sitting in the stern seat, was cursing at his sailors; the width of blue water between the longboat and the landing rock was increasing; and for a moment Miles watched mechanically the sway and swing of the seamen's bodies, as, bending to their oars, they rowed the boat away.
When at length he turned slowly about, he was aware that, halfway up the rugged slope of the bluff, a little group of women, all that survived in the colony, were standing, and the children with them. He scrambled up to be with Dolly, why, he could not say, only somehow he wanted to be sure she was safe and near him then; and he noted Mistress Carver, who sat upon a stone with her hands clasped tensely in her lap, and Priscilla Mullins, whose hair blew unheeded about her face, while she gazed out to sea.
He almost stumbled over Wrestling Brewster and the little Samson boy, who had sat down on the turf and unconcernedly were playing with some bright pebbles; but he did not pause to speak to Wrestling, just clambered a few feet higher up the bluff, where Dolly, holding to Mistress Brewster's gown, stood with her wistful face turned seaward. "Look you closely, Dolly," he greeted her. "See, they're hoisting sail on board the Mayflower."
Dolly, pressing up to him, whispered for her only reply: "Do you mind, Miles, how we came in on the ship, and mammy and daddy with us? I wish we'd all stayed in England."
"Now hush, Dolly," Miles admonished in a gruff tone, and scowled vexedly as the little sister, hiding her face against his doublet, began to cry. Then, half pitying, he bent to speak to her, when a sudden gasp, as if the women about him all drew in their breath, made him look to the harbor. There he saw the Mayflower, with the western wind swelling her dingy sails, had heaved up anchor, and was heading out upon the ocean.
The sun was bright and made the dirty sails gleam like silver; the water was blue, and the wind was brisk; and the ship stood seaward swiftly, very swiftly. Miles thought on how she had set forth from Southampton; and he knew that on board men would be clattering across her deck, and hauling at ropes, and the Master would be bellowing orders.
But on shore a great silence had fallen. The most careless of the men had no word to say, while of the graver sort some had bowed their heads, and some, coming higher up the bluff, had drawn close to their wives and children. For a moment there was no sound save the lap of waves about the great gray landing rock, and the swish of shingle as the swell receded; then suddenly one of the women—it was Mistress White, six weeks a widow, who stood with her baby in her arms and her other little child holding to her skirts—burst out sobbing.
Miles gazed about him in wonder. Why, men never cried; Captain Standish's face now was hard as a stone; and he himself had not the least inclination to shed a tear. But among the women round him was a stifled weeping, so anguishing for being half suppressed, that some pity mingled with his contempt, and, with a feeling that he was ashamed to listen, he slipped away from the bluff. He thought he were best run up on the great hill to watch the Mayflower depart; and he found that his friend Jack and several other boys had had the same thought.
All together they raced up the street to see who should gain the hilltop first, and by the time they came thither, with laughing and struggling, had clean forgot their elders, who, from the bluff below, watched the receding ship through a dazzle of tears. From the top of the hill the lads could see the white sail of the Mayflower in the offing, out beyond Sagaquab, speeding ever farther into the horizon; but Miles never saw it vanish, for Francis Billington had discovered a nest of snakes at the other side of the hill; so, in the midst of their watching, the boys must run thither and look upon the wriggling little creatures, then scrupulously stone them all to death.
When Miles clambered again to the hilltop, there was never a distant glimmer of a sail upon the sea; but he could not think of the ship's departure sadly, with the day so fair and his time at his disposal. He felt hungry, though, so he ran down to the house a moment to eat his dinner; and, for all it was long past the noon hour, he found no dinner ready.
Ned was out by the woodpile, nailing together a hand-barrow, with a sudden fierce spurt of energy, but he was in a sulky temper; and within the house Constance went about with her eyes red. She gave Miles a piece of bread in his hand, and bade him run away and eat it; stepmother had shut herself in her chamber, and father was with her, trying to comfort her. "I see not why you all make such a to-do because the old ship has sailed," Miles spoke, with his mouth full.
"Because we're left alone. Because no ship will come ere the autumn. Maybe it will never come," Constance burst out, with sudden passionateness. "And we are here, and home is there, and the ship has gone. You'd understand, if you were older."
No, Miles did not understand yet. What with the excitement and the change, in spite of the sad bearing of those about him, the meaning of it all did not come home to him till next morning. He had risen early with the others and run forth to fetch wood for the morning fire. The sun was just reddening the horizon line, but the rest of the world looked faint and gray. A white mist, rolling off the fields, was shrinking away inland from the sea whence it had come. But out to sea he could distinguish clearly the dusky beach point, and the islands and— There he rubbed his eyes. No, it was no trick of the mist. There was the old anchoring ground, but it was empty; the clumsy, old, dark hulk was gone.
Miles walked on to the woodpile, trying hard to whistle, but the only strain that came was a sorry snatch in a minor key,—the Hanging-tune. The chill of the dawning struck into his bones. Once more he looked to the anchoring ground that was vacant; then he sat down suddenly among the damp logs. He did not cry,—he was too big and old for that,—but he leaned his folded arms against a log, and hid his face between them.
CHAPTER XII
THE SOWING OF THE FIELDS
He little guessed that, at one time, the leaders of the colony had spoken seriously of returning Dolly and himself to the home-country. But Master Hopkins had urged that, in such case, the children might be drawn back into the faith of the Church of England, from which their father had sought to snatch them; and Elder Brewster had added that it was a weary journey for such little folk, and no prospect at the end save of hard fare among grudging kindred.
John Rigdale left no near relatives; and his distant cousins, to whom the children would have to go, were poor tenant-farmers, just as he had been, who would find it burdensome to feed two more mouths. For Miles and Dolly, not only would childhood prove hard and laborious, but there would be nothing better to look forward to; as the boy grew to manhood, he could hope only to toil for daily hire on some farmer's land. "Unless he fling away his soul's welfare by going as a mercenary in some iniquitous foreign war," said Master Isaac Allerton; whereat Captain Standish smiled a little behind his beard, but made no answer.
But here in New Plymouth, though Miles would have plenty of work to do, he would have, as his inheritance from his father, a claim to a share of land and of whatever cattle or other property the settlers should hereafter hold in common. By the time he was a man, there would be enough for him to have a small farm of his own, where he could live in more comfort than he would have known in England; and, till he was grown, Master Hopkins was willing to feed and shelter him, in return for what labor he could do.
As for Dolly, her case was simple enough, for if Miles stayed, she stayed; and Mistress Brewster was quite determined that the little girl should stay in no house but hers. So the Mayflower sailed away, and Miles Rigdale, with his little household, remained behind; and he never dreamed that people had thought of continuing the colony without his aid.
The boy had some cause to rate his services highly, for, in the weakened condition of the settlement, every atom of strength had to be used, and tasks were set for him as seriously as for burly Edward Dotey. The full working-force of New Plymouth mustered but twenty-two men,—counting in the venerable Elder, the Governor, and the Doctor, who all labored with their hands as readily as the rest,—and nine boys—some half-grown fellows, like Giles and Bart Allerton, who, at a pinch, could bear a musket and do almost a man's work, and some small rascals, like Miles himself, who, with the best intentions, did not always, for lack of strength or of wisdom, accomplish what was bidden them.
But, old or young, laggard or brisk, every male member of the colony was expected to turn out now and bear a hand, for the mid-April season approached, and the precious corn, that was to feed the settlement, must be planted. To the elders, it looked like a stretch of hard work, but Miles hailed it joyously, as a dignified, manly labor.
It began excitingly, with the coming of the alewives up the river, just as Squanto had foretold; and straightway some of the men set to taking them with seines, while others with hoes scored up the rough soil of the cleared fields to the north, that once had been the planting land of the Indians of Patuxet. Still others got out the corn, a precious supply of seed which they had found buried in an Indian basket under the sand of Cape Cod, and had made bold to take against this sowing time.
For the present, Miles's part was only to splash about at the river brink, where he fancied he was hauling at the seines, or to carry a bucket of water to the workers in the field, or bring a stouter hoe from the storehouse. Planting was no labor, just sport, he went to assure Dolly, at the end of the first twelve hours.
He tried to see his little sister once each day, but this time the work had been kept up so late that it was past twilight before he could run across the street to Elder Brewster's cottage. A lingering warmth was in the evening air, so Dolly and tall Priscilla Mullins, their faces dim in the candlelight that shone from within the living room behind them, were sitting on the doorstone. Some one else stood leaning against the doorpost, some one with a deep voice, who called Miles by name.
"Is it you, John Alden?" the boy asked, and, because Alden was the Captain's friend, would have talked to him, had not Dolly, saying she had a great secret to tell him, dragged him away, round the corner of the cottage.
"Now guess what 'tis, Miles," she bade, as they halted in the ray of light that streamed from the house-window beside them.
"I cannot guess, Dolly. Be not so childish."
"I'd give you three guesses. 'Tis something Love and I found in the woods, up beyond the spring, on a southern hillside. 'Twas so far I was near afraid, but I am glad I went. We were playing in the dead leaves, and we found these. Look on them."
She drew her hand from her small bodice, with three wilted pink flowers clenched tightly in it. They were small flowers, of a star-shaped form and a rare, deep pink color, but Miles scarcely heeded color or size in his enjoyment of their sweet, spicy smell. They were unlike any blossom he had ever seen, so he was not ashamed to show his interest, even if a flower was a girlish trifle. "You and Love found them, Dolly? And no one else knows?"
"'Tis a secret," Dolly nodded. "We told only Wrestling and Priscilla and Mistress Brewster. Ay, and the Elder too, because Mistress Brewster said perchance he might know what flower it was, he is so wise. And John Alden, Priscilla told him. And Love told Harry Samson and Milly Cooper—"
"It's a mighty great secret when all the colony knows it," Miles said sarcastically, and then, at Dolly's hurt look, was sorry; so he added, "but I'm glad to know't, Dolly, and I'll go seek for some myself."
"There are buds yonder on the hillside, but no blossoms. Maybe, though, we could find some, if we went and searched. Priscilla wishes to get some too. Oh, Miles, could we not all three go to-morrow?"
"I must work," Miles answered proudly. "I'm not a child or a girl, so I cannot stop to play."
Yet he was child enough to think he should like to go get a handful of those rare, pretty flowers. After he got them, he would not greatly care for them, but there would be the zest of owning something that every boy in the colony did not own; and if he gave the flowers to Dolly or to Constance, it would please them, since they were girls. So, before dawn next morning, Miles tumbled out of bed, and, taking in his hand the hunch of bread that formed his breakfast, ran away up beyond the spring. Perhaps before work-time he could find a blossom or two, he thought; and so grubbed hopefully among the damp, dead leaves of the hillslope.
The mist that precedes the sunrise melted from the air; a bird sang faintly in the distance; and even amidst the undergrowth the light grew yellow and cheerful; work-time was near, and Miles had found only a poor half-dozen blossoms. He hated to give over, but there was no help for it; so, getting slowly to his feet, he was starting down the path to the settlement, when a man crashed out through the bushes on his left. It was John Alden, Miles saw at once, and he carried a great handful of the pink flowers.
That was palpably an unfair arrangement, Miles held, so, as he fell into step at Alden's side, he queried: "You did not come hither and strip our place, did you?"
"Whose place, lad?"
"Why, mine and Dolly's and Priscilla's and—"
"Do you think I should dare plunder the holding of so many proprietors? I have been to northward."
Miles was silenced a moment, then insinuated, "John Alden, what do you want of posies? You're a man."
"Well, what do you want of them, Miles?" John smiled down at him.
"I'm going to give mine away; I'm taking them to the Elder's cottage—"
"Give them away there, eh? To Mistress Mullins, now, perhaps?"
"No, to be sure," Miles said indignantly. "I do not like Priscilla Mullins."
"Then you are the only one of that mind in New Plymouth. Why do you not like her?"
Miles went in silence a time, kicking at each hump and hummock in his path, but Alden was waiting for his answer, and he wished to please him. "Well, if you must know, John Alden," he broke out at last, "I do not like Priscilla Mullins because she kissed me."
Alden began to laugh, then, suddenly picking Miles up by the back of his doublet, shook him a little. "Miles Rigdale," he said solemnly, as he set the boy, rather breathless, on his feet again, "you are an ungrateful little cub."
Miles held that a most uncalled-for charge, but he had no time to defend himself, for just then they came over the brow of the hill by Cooke's cottage and saw men astir in the street, so the day's labor must be beginning. Miles ran to join Francis and Jack, and, in bragging to his comrades of his flowers, forgot to take them to Dolly. That night, when he stopped to have a word with her, he told her all about them, but he found that she was not interested in a story of six blossoms, seeing that Priscilla Mullins, since the morning, had had a fair large bunch of them, such as no one else in the settlement could show.
But in the days that followed Miles had little time to go seeking flowers on the hillslopes, or gossiping with his sister in the twilight. For, with never a minute of daylight to rest, the whole colony worked now in good earnest,—taking alewives in the brook, tugging them up into the fields, setting the little hills with corn seed and with fish to keep it moist. To crown all, the planting fell in a season of heat, and an intense heat, unlike the milder warmth of England, that sapped the heart of the stoutest worker.
The first day Miles was bidden to plant corn, putting two shiny alewives into each hole, and Jack Cooke was set to plant the row next him. But unhappily they chattered so much that Miles presently realized, in some horror, that he had supplied several hills with alewives, but no corn, and, while he was pulling up the ground to set the matter right, came Master Hopkins. He was angry; not that he blustered, but he cuffed Miles smartly, and, saying he could not be trusted at such important work, sent him down to the shore to labor hereafter.
From that time on, Miles tugged fish,—a dreary task, in which he was coupled with Francis Billington, another scatter-head. They had a great flat Indian basket, in which they heaped the alewives, taken all slippery from the big pile that lay upon the river brink; then they would lift the basket between them, to each a handle, and, panting and heaving, struggle up the steep bank from the river, and so through the settlement, out to the hot, open fields.
It was not a great load they could carry at one time, so their usefulness depended on the number of trips they made, but there they were sluggish. Often the basket upset, and they had to sit down to refill it; and again, more and more frequently as the hot days went on, they must halt to quarrel, when Francis vowed Miles was bearing down on his end of the basket, and Miles declared Francis was not doing his share.
One morning it came to such a pass that Miles took a basket by himself, but he found the journey single-handed so hard that he was in even less hurry than usual to return from the fields and get a second load. Loitering along, he was amusing himself by trying to carry on his head the empty fish-basket, which would fall off, when, as he paused to pick up the troublesome article for the fifth time, Captain Standish, coming shirt-sleeved and grimy from the fields, overtook him. Rather guiltily, Miles straightened up very erect, and said, "Good morrow, sir," as he always said it to the Captain.
"You're journeying back to the brook, Miles?" asked Standish. "At this speed you'll not come thither ere dinner-time."
"I'm hastening now, sir," Miles answered, accepting the words as an invitation to trot along at the other's side.
The Captain had his own concerns to look to, plainly, by the way he tramped along, but, right in the midst, he glanced down at his small companion and asked unexpectedly: "Where are your shoes, Miles?"
"I—I could not wear them," the boy explained, kicking his bare feet in the sand. "Down by the river 'tis very wet. And then 'tis hot, so I laid off my doublet and my shoes and stockings too. I like to go barefoot," he added defensively. "In England, they never suffered me; they said only beggar children went barefoot. But—" his voice grew suddenly anxious, "I am sure my mother would think it right now, do not you, sir?"
The Captain did not look convinced.
"It is a great saving to my shoes," murmured Miles.
"You were better save your feet," the Captain answered. "When your shoes wear out, there'll be new ones for you. Now do you go to the house and put them on, before you step on a thorn or do yourself some hurt." His tone was brusque, and he hurried at once about his business, as if he had no time to waste.
Obediently Miles went to the house to finish dressing; he was a little sorry, because he liked the fun of going barefoot in the soft dirt, yet, on the whole, it was pleasant to have Captain Standish speak to you and order you into your shoes, as if he had some concern for you. So flattered did he feel, indeed, that he only smiled in a superior way when Francis Billington, barelegged and unregenerate, sneered at him for putting on his shoes and stockings.
But that was the last happening of the week which Miles remembered with enjoyment, for the first excitement had now gone out of the labor, yet the work dragged heavily on. All through the weary day he felt the weight of the basket pulling at his arm and the heat of the steady sun scorching upon his bare head; and at night, when he lay on his pallet, with his feet throbbing and his back aching, he dreamed of tugging fish up the breathless pitch of a never-ending bluff.
A little respite came on the Sabbath, when, of course, no work could be done, but with Monday's light all were in the fields once more. It was a day of sweltering heat; the rays of the sun seemed beaten upward again by the steaming earth, and the languid air was heavy and sick. Toward the fiercest hour, about noon, as Miles was panting through the fields on a return trip to the brook, Master Carver called to him.
The Governor had knelt to set the corn at the head of one of the rows; his doublet was off and his hands were grimy, but, for all the heat, Miles saw that his high, bald forehead was quite dry of perspiration. "Here, lad," he said, as Miles ran to him, "can you fetch us a pail of water hither to drink?"
"Ay, Governor," Miles piped in a respectful treble, and, much impressed by the importance of his errand, trotted off briskly. At the spring he longed to dally a moment, to drink of the water and to stir up the great green frog who lived in the cool sand of the bottom, but, so soon as his bucket was filled, he resolutely turned back through the glaring heat to the fields.
Short as the time had been, a change had taken place. At first he thought it a mere trick of the dazzling light, but, as he looked again, he saw that indeed most of the men had risen from labor and, drawn together, were gazing in his direction. Nearer at hand, he beheld two coming toward the settlement; the one was John Howland, a member of the Governor's household, and the other, who leaned heavily upon his arm, was the Governor himself. They passed within arm's length of the boy, and Miles took note how the Governor's down-bent face was now of a dull reddish hue, and he noted, also, how the grime of his homely toil still clung to his limp hands.
Surprised and a little awed, though he scarcely could tell why, Miles tugged on into the fields, and, finding Goodman Cooke among those who stood gazing after the Governor, asked him eagerly what was wrong. "Why, naught," spoke Cooke, "only Master Carver complains of his head; 'tis along o' the heat, so the Doctor ordered him back to his house to rest. He'll be well again by eventide."
But with eventide the word went among the colonists that Governor Carver lay unconscious, and at those tidings faces grew grave. Miles, in his youthfulness, gave little thought to it all; he was more concerned with his own half-flayed hands and aching legs than with Master Carver's illness, and each day these physical pangs grew keener.
The height of misery came on a sultry afternoon toward the close of the week, a breathless, stifling time, when, for sheer weariness and hopelessness, Miles sat down in the hot dirt in the middle of the field and thought he never could rise again. Yet he scrambled up briskly, when he saw his guardian approach, though Master Hopkins, whose face was very grave, did not scold the boy, but, after a first sharp look, bade him go rest in the shade till the day was out. "The hot sun is deadly," he said, as to himself; but Miles realized only that he was bidden to cease from labor.
He dragged himself back to the house, where he lay down upon his bed, and watched the little patch of sunlight clamber higher up the wall and harked to the drowsy sounds of out-of-doors; then heard nothing clearly till the men tramped in to supper. He sat up slowly, and listened to catch what gossip they might bring; their voices were subdued, and he half guessed what had befallen ere he heard Master Hopkins say solemnly that the good Governor Carver was dead.
Miles thought on it the night long; this death, lonely by itself, was so much more awesome than the crowded sicknesses of the last winter. It seemed the order of life must show some change, but, with the heat of the next rising day, the colonists, as usual, only more silent, filed forth to their labor in the fields. For whether men were well or ill, or lived or died, the corn that was the hope of the settlement must be planted.
CHAPTER XIII
THE TWO EDWARDS
Among them lay John Carver, buried honorably with such poor military pomp as the colony could show its governor, and with a more precious tribute of grief for a good man lost. Near him lay now his wife Katharine, who at his death had grieved and pined, till within six weeks they had dug for her a grave in the new-sown corn-land.
Master Bradford was the new governor; a grave, wise-headed gentleman, with a gift of kindly speech and a shrewd sense of humor, but, to Miles, his greatest claim to respect was that the interpreter Squanto had chosen to dwell with him. For Miles Rigdale, to use Mistress Hopkins's vexed phrase, was "ever beating the street after the heathen savage." It must be owned that to his guardians he was a troublesome boy; not a bad boy, but a careless fellow, who, though he might mean to do well, was likely, when sent to weed in the fields, to be found swimming in the river, or hunting strawberries on the hills, or fishing with Squanto.
Miles did not reason out his new dislike for responsible labor, did not take into account the influence of lazy Edward Lister, or the distractions of the spring and early summer in this new country; but he did feel there was a difference between working with his father, when he knew the harvest would be for his mother and Dolly, and grubbing in a corner of a great field that was the property of no man, but should feed the whole colony. He no longer took pride in his labor, and, if he had taken any, Mistress Hopkins's dissatisfied comments would have destroyed it. Yet, much though he disliked the bustling woman with the sharp tongue, he neither disliked nor feared her the half as much as he disliked and feared her husband.
Years later, when he had come to manhood, Miles was able to think on Master Hopkins with gratitude, for, in all honesty, this severe, undemonstrative man used him like a son, as kindly as he used his own boy, Giles. Except in the stress of planting-time, Miles was never set to tasks beyond his strength; he was well fed,—as the fare of the colony went,—well sheltered, decently clad, while the little store of his father's goods was scrupulously left untouched for his later use.
Master Hopkins tried also, conscientiously, to keep him to the path of strict virtue, with admonitions, and, if need were, with corrections. It was an age of whippings, and, on occasion, Miles was whipped painstakingly. Master Hopkins's floggings were, on the whole, not so severe as Goodman Rigdale used to give his son, but Miles resented them with an amazing outburst of anger. "You are not my father; you have no right to beat me," he cried, the first time Master Hopkins took a birch rod to him, and, swinging round in a fury, he lustily kicked his chastiser's shins.
After that one attempt and the sorry consequences which it entailed, he never again tried to defend himself, but, though he had to submit, the old feeling remained; to the pain and shame of a beating was now added a rankling sense of the injustice and, so to speak, of the illegality of it all.
Beatings, though, were something every boy in the colony, even the sober Giles, had a good share of, so Miles made shift to endure; but Master Hopkins presently devised a new-fangled means of persecution, for he insisted on teaching him to read.
The boy had clung to the black-letter Bible because it was his father's, and sometimes of a Sunday, between the morning and afternoon teachings at the Common House, when it grew irksome to sit quiet and do nothing, would take the book and spell out half a chapter, and amuse himself with looking at the funny black letters. But one Sunday, a warm May Sunday, when Miles was lying with his book in the young grass in the shadow of the house, Master Hopkins, noting his unusual employment, bade him read aloud to him, and, as he was a man of education, was honestly shocked that, as he put it, "the lad could scarce spell out his mother-tongue."
From that time dated Miles's tribulations. It was useless to protest that he could read well enough, he did not wish to read better; Master Hopkins's decree went forth that every night after supper the boy was to come to him with his Bible, and read aloud a chapter. Miles never reflected that, after a day of hard labor in the fields or woods, or of serious consultation with the other leaders of the colony, it could be neither restful nor pleasant to Master Hopkins to hear a stupid little boy stumble through a dreary waste of words. But he was quite aware of the unjust fact that the space of daylight, in the long summer evenings after supper, was the time when all the other lads were at liberty to play, while he must drone out the chronicles of dead and gone Hebrews with unpronounceable names.
The reading lesson always took place just without the house-door, where there was a bench on which Master Hopkins sat; Miles stood beside him, where he could see the harbor and the street, with the boys passing down it to the beach, perhaps; and where, too, it was convenient for Master Hopkins to cuff his ears when his attention strayed hopelessly from the book to the affairs of his playmates.
Sometimes, when he wished to get away and join them in carrying out a long-laid plan of sport, Miles would pore over his chapter twice or thrice in the day, and so, when evening came, be able to read it fairly. But on such occasions Master Hopkins always said there would be time to finish another chapter; and when it came to that, poor, disappointed Miles always stumbled, so that his lesson ended in disgrace and bitter rebuke.
Early in July, however, he had a blissful holiday, for Master Hopkins went with Master Winslow and Squanto far inland to visit King Massasoit, so for five days there was no one to bid Miles read a word. Neither did any one whip him, for all he shirked his weeding, and ran away to fish in the harbor with Ned Lister and the sailor, Trevor, and played by the brookside with the other boys till long after dark.
Dotey, to be sure, one morning when Miles forgot to fetch a supply of water, and he had to fetch it himself, threatened to "swinge" him; he was a steady fellow, was Dotey, and, since Giles was but a lad, in his master's absence was tacitly admitted to the headship of the household. But when he talked of beating Miles, up rose Ned, and called him, with an oath, a great bully, swaggering in his little ha'penny borrowed authority, and threatened, if he laid hands on the little fellow, to break his head for him.
It was in the living room this happened, just before the noon meal; Miles remembered afterward the good smell of the roast fish Mistress Hopkins was setting on the table, and what an overpowering heat came from the great fire on the hearth. He was standing near the fireplace, backed up against the wall, a little conscience-stricken and fearful of a whipping, but still more frightened by the vehemence of the two men. Lister had swaggered across the floor, and stood before him, and Miles was glad of his protection, though he half realized that it was not alone the desire to defend him, but the desire to defy Dotey, the trusted and sober, that spoke in Ned's tone.
Constance's quiet voice, as she stepped between the two young men, quelled the squabble: "Don't curse so, pray you, Ned. And, Ed Dotey, do not you whip Miles; he only forgot—"
"He does not merit whipping," spoke slow Giles, who held his own little resentment that his father's servant was set in authority over him.
Mistress Hopkins interrupted tartly that Miles needed a strong hand to correct him, and Dotey was quite in his right; her approval made it lawful enough for the young man to carry out his intention, but Dotey, like a discreet fellow, had no wish to bring about a scuffle with Lister and a hot family quarrel in his master's absence. So he said, as if it were a concession, that he would do as Constance asked, and let Miles off this time; and with that they all sat down peaceably to dinner. Miles ate his full share of the fish, and, believing this episode happily ended, put it quite out of his head.
He had good cause to remember it some ten days later. By then Master Hopkins had returned, so it was necessary for all to be busy, and Miles weeded in the corn-field till his back ached, and every evening read his chapter in the Bible. But one morning, a hot, dull morning with an overcast sky, Ned and Giles planned to go with Squanto to fish for perch in a pond far up in the woods, and Miles received a reward for his diligence of the last few days in a permission to go with them. Giles and the Indian started on ahead, to take the bait, while the two others stayed to make ready the extra tackle, which, being left to Ned's management, was always in a snarl.
Lister was sitting on the bench by the house-door, whistling a little, as he disentangled lines and adjusted hooks, and Miles, kneeling on the grass beside him, was giving what help he could, when Master Hopkins and Dotey came out of the cottage. Dotey, who had an axe on his shoulder, headed away through the garden to the hills whence firewood was fetched, but Master Hopkins came and stood over Ned.
How it went and exactly what was said, Miles scarcely comprehended, but he heard Master Hopkins's stern voice and Ned's sulky answering tones, and in the lulls the rattle of trenchers, as Constance, inside the house, cleared the breakfast table. The gist seemed to be that Master Hopkins had found out about Ned's threatening to break Edward Dotey's head, for he rated him soundly that he durst lift his voice against one set in authority over him, a sober man, who was his better—
"He is not my better," Ned retorted, flinging up his head, with his eyes sullen and angry.
"Do you grow saucy to contradict me?" Hopkins asked frowningly.
Too much had been said of Dotey for Ned to cast off rebuke with his usual shrug; flinging aside the tackle, he started to his feet, but, before he could walk away, Hopkins caught him by the shoulder. As they stood thus Miles noted, with sudden surprise, that alongside Master Hopkins Ned looked slight and almost boyish; somehow Miles had always thought of him as a man, because he was old enough to use a razor.
"You shall stay till I have done with speaking," said Master Hopkins; and then Ned made a sudden movement to free himself, flung up one arm, half involuntarily,—and Stephen Hopkins reached him a blow that, taking him beneath the chin, stretched him flat on the ground at his master's feet.
The women came to the house-door, and it surprised Miles that it was not Constance, but Mistress Hopkins, who cried, in a frightened voice: "Stephen, Stephen, I pray you—"
Ned rose to his feet with his face white, and stood brushing the dirt off the side on which he had fallen; there was a great brown streak of it along one sleeve and the shoulder of his shirt. "There's work you have made for the mistress, sir," he said, and began laughing in a high key.
"That's enough," Stephen Hopkins checked him. "Remember, I've never laid hands on you ere now, Edward Lister, but if you mend not your ways, this will not be the last time." He lingered yet a moment ere he turned away to the door, as if awaiting an answer, but Ned made no reply, just stood fumbling at the fishing tackle with one hand, while the other hung limp at his side.
Only when Master Hopkins had passed out of sight into the house did Lister raise his head, and then, squaring his shoulders, he led the way toward the street. "Will you not take the tackle, after all?" asked Miles, running at his side. Ned's only answer was a shake of the head, and to all Miles's further efforts at talk and one clumsy effort at sympathy he kept silent.
They left behind them the sandy street, and, skirting along the bluff, came to the path to the spring and the stepping-stones, beyond which lay the trail to the ponds. Ned did not turn off there, however, but trudged on till he reached the little stream that flowed from the pool where they had cut thatch. "Whither are you going?" panted Miles, for the third time.
"Where you were best not come," Ned answered, crashing into the bushes on the right hand. But Miles turned doggedly in his steps, through the first crisp thickets and then along the miry ground by the edge of the pool, where the air was so muggy that he wondered Ned cared to keep up his reckless pace.
Of necessity the speed slackened, as they clambered over the pebbles and pushed aside the crackling undergrowth of a dry gully in the northern hillside, but it was not till they were tramping through the hushed woods on the summit that Ned spoke: "Did you know, Miley, my father was a gentleman? A great family, the Listers, up Yorkshire way. But he was a mere younger son, and he married a pretty serving wench out of his father's hall, so they would have no more of him. But he was a gentleman, and he tried to give me a smattering of decent breeding,—" there Ned began to laugh, with the corners of his mouth drawn up, and his eyes mirthless,—"and I am a brisk serving fellow, whom the master pommels at will, eh, Miles? And they set a clod like Edward Dotey over me."
There was going to be a fight, Miles guessed, but though at another time he might have been secretly glad at the prospect of such excitement, he had seen one man knocked flat that day, and it had not been amusing, so now he was not over-zealous for the sport. "Come back and fish, Ned," he coaxed, plucking at his companion's sleeve, when that very moment, on the hillside below them, both caught the sound of an axe falling on wood.
After that Miles scrambled down the slope, eager as Ned himself, in his curiosity to see what would follow. A little clearing it was they came out in, where one tree had been newly felled, and its clean stump showed yellow; by the tree trunk, leaning on his axe and wiping his sweaty forehead with his sleeve, stood Dotey.
"Well, Neddy, I've come to talk with you," Lister greeted him, in a fleering voice, and on the word set himself down on the stump, with his hands clasped about one knee.
At first it was a talking, that lay all on Ned's side, while Dotey tried to keep up a pretense of work. Ned spoke words, well-chosen and stinging, that should make even stolid Dotey wince, and spoke them in a jibing tone, with a hateful laugh that startled Miles, even more than the sight of the little pulsing motion of the blood in Ned's dark cheeks.
Dotey swung round impatiently at last. "Hold your tongue, will you?" he cried.
"It is thou who wert better have held thy tongue, Neddy, before thou wentst blabbing to Hopkins of what passed between us."
"I did not," Dotey answered blankly.
"Thou art a liar," quoth Ned, quietly, and still hugging his knee.
Then Dotey strode over to him, and Ned, laughing up into his face, jeered at him, "threaten a man with his fists, would he, when he had just set Hopkins on to rebuke him for the like offense;" but at length he rose up and cast his mocking manner. "We are agreed there is one Edward too many in the house," he said slowly. "Now say we despatch one forth of it. Will you fight me like a gentleman, rapier and dagger?"
In a daze Miles listened to Dotey's first protests, Ned's taunts, till the final agreement was struck and the arrangements made. "I'll contrive to fetch rapier and dagger from the Captain's house," Ned concluded, "and do you, Miles, take those that hang in Hopkins's chamber, and bring them unto us behind the Fort Hill."
Unquestioningly, Miles sped upon the errand. The sun had burnt away the fog now; among the trees it was hot and breathless, and, when he ran through the fields, the drying earth crumbled under his feet. Yet he scarcely minded heat or dust, as he thought on what was now to come, and thrilled with anticipation; for, down in his heart, he told himself Dotey and Lister would never hurt each other, and he had never seen anything livelier than a bout at quarterstaff, and a real duel would be a wonderful thing to witness.
By the time he came to the house, he was all of an excited flutter, but happily Mistress Hopkins alone was within, and she was so busied in scouring her pewter platters that she only looked up to ask sharply what brought him back.
"Just to fetch somewhat for Ned," Miles answered guiltily; and then fortune favored him, for Damaris, within the bedroom, set up a wail, and Mistress Hopkins bade him run in and soothe her.
So Miles sang to baby, and, singing, took Master Hopkins's dagger from the shelf and hid it beneath his doublet; then slipped the rapier from the wall, and, after a hasty glance to see that none were looking, dropped it out at the open window. Still Damaris would not hush, and he had to pace the floor a time, singing always, though his voice shook with impatience, and his forehead was wet with perspiration.