It was just as true in 1625 as it will be in 1895 that nothing is certain to occur except the unexpected; but the idea had not yet been phrased, and even if it had been, William Bradford’s turn of mind was absolutely opposed to the epigrammatic, so it was in sober commonplace that he remarked,—
“I never thought to have spoken with you again in Plymouth, Master Oldhame, but sith you urge pressing business as your excuse for coming hither, I am ready to hear it.”
The governor sat in his chair of office, and the Assistants were ranged each man in his place. At the end of the platform stood John Oldhame, and behind him Bartholomew Allerton and Gyles Hopkins, each carrying a pike, and looking very important.
But except for these nine men the great chamber where we assisted at the Court of the People was empty, and the sad afternoon light fell across the vacant benches, and glimmered upon the low-browed wall upheld by sturdy knees of oak, with a sort of mournful curiosity quite pathetic; this curiosity was, however, reflected in the minds of the townsfolk of Plymouth in a degree far more ludicrous than pathetic, man often falling short of the dignity of nature.
All that they knew, these good people, was that about noon a Nantasket boat had rounded Beach Point, anchored in the channel, and sent a skiff ashore under command of William Gray, the elder of two brothers, representing the solid men of Nantasket at that day. Stepping on the Rock, Master Gray demanded to be led to the governor, a demand complied with the more readily that as he declined to communicate his business to any one else. Dinner-time came and went, and as the town returned to its posts of observation it noted William Gray rowing back to the vessel, receiving a passenger into his skiff, and bringing ashore the very John Oldhame whom Plymouth had so ignominiously dismissed some two years before. The same, and yet a very different John Oldhame from the drunken ruffler of that day, or the blustering bully who a year before that had been solemnly exiled from Plymouth; yes, a strangely meek and quiet John Oldhame this, who, looking neither to the right nor the left, strode up the hill to the Fort, apparently not noticing, certainly not resenting, the attendance of the two men-at-arms who escorted or guarded him, as one might elect to call it.
So much had Plymouth seen, and Helena Billington, arms akimbo, and head inclined to one side, was beginning to vituperate the tyrants who had beguiled an unfortunate gentleman into their clutches, and now would clap him up in jail, when those very tyrants severally appeared coming out of their houses and leisurely climbing the hill.
“The governor, and the Elder, and the captain, and the doctor, and Master Winslow, and Master Allerton,” counted she breathlessly, and not without a certain awe at sight of all the authority of the colony paraded before her eyes; and as the last doublet disappeared within the gate, she sagely shook her head, with the conclusion, “Well, gossip, it passeth my comprehension or thine, and I’ll e’en hie me under cover when it rains, for only a fool will stay out to get drenched.”
From which somewhat blind apothegm we may perhaps evolve the theory that Goodwife Billington was not one of those whom our modern slang declares “don’t know enough to go in when it rains!”
“Seat yourself an you will, Master Oldhame, and speak your errand,” repeated the governor a little more indulgently, for in fact Oldhame’s weather-and-timeworn face and somewhat bowed shoulders suggested ill health or great suffering, a look supplemented by his voice, as dropping upon the bench which young Allerton pushed forward he slowly said,—
“My thanks, Governor Bradford. I have come here to-day upon an errand so strange that I can scarce credit it myself, and I know not that in my half century of years I have ever charged myself with the like.
“Man, it is to crave pardon for my ill offices to you, and these your associates, and to all the town of Plymouth, where I repaid kind entertainment and many good turns with as much of evil and malevolence. Can you, as Christian men, forgive me?”
“As Christians,” began Bradford, after a pause of unfeigned astonishment, “we are bound to forgive injuries greater than those you have offered us, which indeed did not harm us as you intended. But as prudent men, we would fain know before receiving you again to our confidence what are the grounds of your repentance.”
“Right enough, Master Bradford, right enough! It behooves every man to be prudent, and the burned dog dreads the fire. But the matter is here. A year or more agone I and other men loaded a small ship with goods, bought mainly on credit from the French and English vessels at Monhegan and Damaris Cove, to truck them at the Virginia colony for tobacco and other matters which sell well to the sailors and fishermen; but outside the Cape here, we fell upon Malabar and Tucker’s Terror, and all those fearsome shoals and reefs that drove back your own Mayflower from the same voyage, and to cap our misfortunes a shrewd storm out of the northeast seized us at advantage, and shook and worried us as you may see a dog torment a wolf caught in a trap, and sans power to defend himself.
“Now in that extremity some of the mariners bethought them of God, who verily was not in all their thoughts, and so fell on prayer, making loud lamentations of their sins and professing desire of amendment and satisfaction. So as I listened, and marveled if those men were verily worse than other men, or than me, of a sudden a flash as of lightning pierced my soul and showed me mine own enormous wickedness, and how it well might be that I was the Jonah for whom an angry God would slay all this company. Natheless I did not cry out as Jonah did, for I knew not if there was a great fish prepared to swallow me when my shipmates should fling me over, nor did I feel within myself the prophet’s constancy and courage to abide three days alive in a fish’s belly; so I held mine own counsel, and getting behind the mast I fell upon my knees and heartily abased myself before God, confessing my sins, and most especially my ill-doing toward you men of Plymouth, and as the heat of my devotion bore me on, I vowed that so God would spare me alive, and not make shipwreck of all this company for my sin, I would humble myself before those I had wronged, and would, if I might, do them as much good as I had done harm. Then, sirs, believe it or not as you will, but as I finished that prayer and made that vow, the wind fell, as though some mighty hand had gathered it back, and held it powerless; the ship that had lain all but upon her beam-ends, and in another moment must have capsized, righted herself, and stood amazed and quivering, like a horse curbed in upon the very brink of a precipice; the sea still ran high, but the tide so bore us up, and carried us so kindly, that two men at the helm could manage it again, and the master, recovering his spirit that had been well-nigh dashed with the imminent peril of his occasions, so ingeniously manœuvred his course in and out among those sholds as to fetch us through into the open sea, although so crippled and battered that we could no more than make back to Gloucester for repairs.
“There I found another vessel bound south, and took passage with my venture, secure that now my voyage should be prospered as indeed it was, and I stayed in Virginia something over a year, trading and laying by money.
“And now, masters, here I am in fulfilling of my vow. I have, and I do crave pardon and forgetfulness of my former wrong-doing, and to prove that my repentance is fruitful, I here bring you in solid cash for the use of the colony five-and-twenty rose-nobles, good money, honestly gained.”
And with a smile of self-approval not unmixed with surprise at his own position, Oldhame brought a grimy canvas bag from the depths of one of the pockets of his pea-coat, and planted it with a pleasant thud and jingle upon the table in front of the governor, who raised his hand as if to push it back, but restrained the gesture, and after a moment’s hesitation rose, and taking the penitent by the hand said in his grandly simple way,—
“No man can do more than to confess himself sorry for wrong-doing, and to offer satisfaction for sin. Zaccheus did no more, and the Son of God became his guest. Master Oldhame, we receive you again as our friend and comrade, and make you welcome to our town whensoever you may see fit to visit us. As for this money, if you will retire for a little, I will take counsel with my advisers here, and tell you our mind. Will you walk about the town, or will you await our summons outside? Bartholomew, Master Oldhame is no longer a prisoner but a guest; go with him where he will, and Gyles, wait you without to summon him, when we are ready.”
But Oldhame went no farther than a sunny angle of the Fort, where, seated upon the section of a tree-trunk set there by Captain Standish, he lighted his pipe, folded his arms, and fixing his eyes upon Captain’s Hill sat smoking in stolid silence, rather to the disappointment of Bart Allerton, who was a sociable young man, and would have liked the news from Virginia.
The penitent’s mood had changed, however, and he was suffering from the reaction consequent upon most unwonted acts of self-sacrifice. He really was sincere in his contrition, and had honestly offered that bag of gold as satisfaction for the injury done and intended toward Plymouth. But five-and-twenty rose-nobles, representing more than forty dollars of our money, meant in that day and place four or five times as much, and was a sum neither lightly won, nor lightly to be spent; so that Oldhame half unconsciously fell to meditating how far it would have gone toward purchasing English goods for another voyage to Virginia, or for his own maintenance while resting from his labors. He had told his story, and made his peace-offering in a moment of exaltation, and now the exaltation was all gone, and a certain flat and disgusted mood had seized upon its vacant place. Human nature is not essentially different in the nineteenth nor will be in the twentieth century from what it was in the seventeenth.
“The governor prays your company, Master Oldhame,” announced Gyles Hopkins; and knocking the ashes out of his pipe, Oldhame pocketed it and followed into that dusky chamber, where still the Court of the People seemed to fill the benches with ghostly presence waiting to hear and confirm their governor’s decision.
“We pray you be seated, Master Oldhame,” began Bradford, motioning to a chair beside the table. “Bartholomew and Gyles you are dismissed, and see that we are not interrupted.”
He paused while the men-at-arms withdrew, closing the door with a heavy bang, which echoed gloomily through the empty room.
Then Bradford, referring now and again to his associates, told the grisly penitent that the opportunity he craved of doing a good turn to Plymouth was at hand, and the money he proffered would aid in carrying out the enterprise. This was no other than the transportation of Thomas Morton to England, and there delivering him to the authorities who waited to punish him for offenses committed before seeking the shelter of the New World. After his capture by Standish, Morton had been brought to Plymouth, but as he was too troublesome a prisoner to be held there, some brilliant mind had hit upon the idea of marooning him upon one of the Isles of Shoals, where, having no boat, he was perfectly sure to be found when wanted, and at the same time quite out of danger. The season for the return home of the English fishing-vessels had now arrived, and Plymouth was already in treaty with the master of the Dolphin to carry their rebellious prisoner as passenger; but it was most desirable that some competent person should accompany him, and perhaps none could be found more suitable than Oldhame, to whom the position was now offered. If he chose to accept it, the five-and-twenty rose-nobles, “said to be contained in this bag which we have not opened,” and at the words Bradford laid a hand upon the bag and threw a penetrating glance at Oldhame, whose face flushed guiltily, for one of those nobles had indeed been so grievously clipped as to lose a good third of its value, and he knew it, although the governor only guessed it, “this money, be it less or more, shall be used by you, Master Oldhame, to pay Plymouth’s proportion of the expense of this transportation, and the remainder shall be our recognition of your services and loss of time. Do you accept the offer, friend?”
“Gladly and gayly, Governor, and gentlemen all,” cried Oldhame, laying an impulsive clutch upon the bag. “And truth to tell, I was purposing a voyage into England when occasion should serve, so that your proposal jumps with my desires most marvelously, and you shall find that once there I will do you good and manful service in whatsoever you desire. I am not unknown to Sir Ferdinando Gorges, the Governor of Old Plymouth, whither the Dolphin is bound, and I will so present this Morton’s offenses that we shall have him hanged over the battlements, a prey for gleeds, before he has well tasted English air.”
“Better to shoot him before he goes,” growled Standish. “’Tis bad venerie when you have trapped a wolf to let him go free on the chance some other man will finish your work.”
“Morton hath committed no offense worthy of death on this side the water,” suggested Allerton in his crafty voice. “If he hath in England, let English law decide.”
Standish cast a look of impatient dislike at the speaker, but Doctor Fuller interposed,—
“Fair and softly is a good rule whereby to walk, and I know not if the right of life and death except in combat is fairly ours. I fear me one hundred men though led by Standish would hardly cope with Old England’s forces if she sent them hither.”
“My brethren,” said Bradford, lightly tapping the table with his finger-tips, “why waste time thus? There is no question of life or death in the present matter; we are to send this dangerous rebel home to England for trial, and John Oldhame is to be surety for his safe arrival, and to receive this money to defray Plymouth’s proportion of the expense. Am I right, sirs?”
“You are right, Governor Bradford,” said the Elder solemnly, and the conclave broke up.