CHAPTER XII.
SIR CHRISTOPHER GARDINER.
It was several days after the governor’s return to Plymouth, and Alice had wondered more than once if aught beside the gloom and sorrow of Billington’s execution lay upon her husband’s mind, when, after noon of one of those heavenly days in late September, in which one’s whole life goes out to the joy of living, Bradford after hesitating a moment at the door, turned back and said,—
“Come, Elsie, do on your hood and walk with me a little.”
“Gay and gladly, Will,” replied she, and in a few moments they had passed down by Elder Brewster’s house toward the brook, and then turning to the right crossed on the stepping-stones, and striking into the Namasket Path strolled along until, reaching a lovely intervale, afterward called Prence’s Bottom, and now Hillside, they sat down upon a fallen tree trunk, and Bradford abruptly asked,—
“Was it not one Sir Christopher Gardiner that our Pris spoke of when she first came as some sort of sweetheart of hers?”
“Yes. He gave her that lordly neckerchief she wears betimes. She calls him a Knight of the Golden Melice, and then again Knight of the Holy Sepulchre,—poor maid!”
And Alice laughed as matrons do at the follies of maidenhood. But Bradford shook his head, and plucking a great frond of goldenrod softly smote his own palm with it, while he said,—
“’Tis a bad business, Alice, a bad business, and I fear worse may come of it.”
“Worse! Worse than what, Will? There’s no harm done as yet. The girl’s not wearing the willow, nor needing pity; it’s not likely she’ll see or hear of him again, and after a while she’ll wed William Wright, who woos her honestly and openly.”
“Alice, the man is here.”
“Here! What man?”
“Sir Christopher Gardiner, Knight of the Golden Melice and the Holy Sepulchre, and of what you will beside. I’ve seen and spoken with him, wife.”
“You! When and where, for pity’s sake?”
“Softly now, and I’ll tell you. When we left the Bay people the captain would have us stop at Squantum Head to visit Mistress Thompson in her widowhood and see if she lacked aught, or wished us to recommend her to the good offices of her neighbors of the Bay, and so we did”—
“How is her child, Will?”
“Well and hearty, as is she herself, and farming her island, which Standish would have us call Trevor’s Island, but we would liever name Thompson’s Island in his honor who was her husband and father of the boy. Now while we talked with the widow, I remembered me that Winthrop had mentioned some new settlers hard by Squantum, a gentleman, as he said, named Gardiner, who claimed some title, and who, besides several servants, entertained as housekeeper a comely young woman whom he called his cousin.
“Master Winthrop had not seen them, but when I said we would tarry a little with the Widow Thompson, he asked me if it were in my way to take a look at this Gardiner, and let him hear my judgment of him. Truth to tell, I did not at the first mind me of our Prissie’s story of her Knight of the Golden Melice, for such toys get cast into the dark corners of a man’s mind”—
“Unless it be his own case, Will,” interposed Alice with tender jibing in her voice.
Bradford smiled reply, but went on with his story. “So while the rest drank a cup of metheglin, and ate some of Mistress Thompson’s curds and cream, Standish and I clomb the brave headland ever I hope to be known as Squanto’s Point, and presently came upon a new cabin fairly seated above a rising ground some half mile south of the Neponset’s River; a pretty home as one would wish to see, with a posy bed under the window, and vines from the woods trained over the door and casement, this last set with glass and swinging open, for all the world like a cottage of Old England.
“Well, we came to the door, and Standish rapped with his sword hilt after his own masterful fashion, so that there presently run out a—well, I was about to say a maid, for she was young and very comely to look upon, but in sad certainty I know not—she may be the man’s wife, and charity will not have us suspect ill that is not brought home by proof.”
“How was she so very fair, Will?”
“Why, her hair was of yellow gold, and her eyes blue as a June sky, and the white and red of her face so cunningly mixt that it minded me of the may in our hedges at home, or of the mayflower that we find here in Plymouth woods, and her shape was lissome and delightsome as those young birches, and her little hands were white and soft, and her voice as sweet as— Why, Elsie, woman, what is it?”
“’Tis naught, ’tis naught! Leave go my hand I pray you, sir. I’m for home, but you need not haste!”
“Now, now, now! What, is mine own true-love jealous that I find another woman fair? Why, Elsie, I go well-nigh to blush for you! Come then, to punish you I’ll not say the words that were springing to my lips. I’ll not tell how the frighted, guilty look of those blue eyes minded me of other eyes steadfast and pure and serene as the evening star, nor how the fluttering, broken tones of that sweet voice brought to the ears of my heart a voice as sweet as that, but calm and steady, and full of the assured peace of a clear conscience”—
“Nay, then, Will, tell me naught, but let me creep close to thy knee like a chidden child and hide my face thus, for indeed I’m shamed to show it.”
“Nay, let me look once upon thee in sweet penitence, since ’tis so seldom one may find the chance! Well there, then, hide it an thou wilt, sweetheart, for if I look too closely on’t I forget all else. Well, then, this lady, we will call her, ran to see who knocked, and meeting Myles’s grim face, which he had forgot to deck for lady’s gaze, she uttered a sharp little cry, and fell back to give place to the gay figure of such a cavalier as we used to see strutting up and down Paul’s Walk in London, hand on hips, and mustachios curled up to either eye, and beaver cocked a’ one side, and laces and fine needlework, with velvets and silks, and all scented like a posy bed, or the civet cat you love so well.”
“I mind me of the gallants of Paul’s Walk, Will; but did this man really have laces and needlework and scent and all those matters?”
“Well, he had the air of having them, sweetheart, and that is still the main point, you know. So out he came, hand on sword hilt, and eyes so terrific that I, poor wight, shrunk back affrighted”—
“You affrighted, indeed!”
“Ay, but you don’t know how terrific a mien this paladin put on, dame! Our captain bristled at sight of it as the wolf hound does at sight of the wolf, and I feared me for the moment that they would fall to before I could cry, ‘A list, a list, good gentles’!”
“Oh, Will, how can you! But go on.”
“Well, seeing the peril, I stirred myself as best I might to avoid it, and elbowing Standish aside, I doffed my hat and said,—
“‘Pardon, good sir, but we have come to change courtesies with our neighbors. We are men of the Plymouth Colony, and have been to visit the new-comers at the Bay, who told us you were here.’
“Upon that our host’s visage relaxed, and he made some sort of civil reply, although none could doubt he would liever our room than our company; but he had us in, and as the young woman lingered near, he spoke of her presently as ‘My cousin, Mistress Mary Grove, who of her kindness keepeth my house.’
“‘And your name, sir, is Gardiner?’ queried I; and he, cock-a-hoop in a moment as one insulted, set his hat on ’s head, and twisting his mustachios to a needle’s point, pouted his lips to say,—
“‘I am Sir Christopher Gardiner, sirs, Knight of the Holy Sepulchre, and Chevalier of the Golden Melice. And your names and quality, if I may make so bold?’
“But so insolent was the tone and so belligerent the manner of this announcement that before I could find words for reply the captain stepped before me, his own hat set aside, and, Heaven save the mark! twisting his own stubbly russet mustachios as fiercely as the other, the while his hand on Gideon’s hilt, he cried,—
“‘This gentleman is Master William Bradford, Governor of Plymouth Colony; and I am Myles Standish, commandant, for want of a better, of the colony’s military force.’
“Now this bold assumption, which would have made some men laugh, and set others upon opposition, just jumped with the humor of our new friend, and taking off his hat, he held out a hand for ours; saying, handsomely enough, that he had heard marvelous tales of our captain’s prowess, and also of the wisdom, and I know not what, of Plymouth’s governor. Faith, I know not but he said he had crossed the seas to look upon two such marvels! Certes, he gave no other motive, since in religion he seems of that convenient stripe which fits with any pattern, and for hard work he is no better fitted than is his cousin and housekeeper, whose lily-white hands could ill trundle a mop or work a churn-dasher.”
“And what do they honestly seek here in the wilderness?”
“Why, truth to tell, I fear me they seek nothing honestly, but the rather a dishonest refuge from judgment. If ever woman wore a guilty and shamefaced look, it was that poor wench when first she met us; and as for the man, although he vapored much about his desire for a quiet life, far from the setbacks and downfalls of worldly affairs, and his love of sylvan solitudes and the like, I trust him not,—nay, not so far as just out of reach of a tipstaff’s clutch; he’s false, so false that even as he talked he seemed to sneer at his own professions.”
“But our Prissie, Will! If this is indeed the man she talked of”—
“Ay, that’s where the matter sits close to our hearts, wife. Did ever she talk of him to you, in the way of picturing out his face and mien?”
“Nay, for after that once I never would let her talk of him; but still she gave me the notion of a gay cavalier, such a man as haunts the king’s court, and as you say struts in Paul’s Walk,—a man who well might be the one you and the captain saw.”
“But—Mary Grove?”
The matron’s fair cheek flushed a little, for the purity of that age was of the order that hates sin without having learned to love the sinner, and shrinks back from the sight or touch of evil instead of fearlessly examining the hurt, and applying the oil and wine. The world does grow in good, let the pessimists deny it as they may.
“Pris will never know that the man is on this side the sea, unless we tell her,” said Alice presently.
“No. And I will caution the captain not to mention the matter.”
“Oh, he will have mentioned it to Barbara, and she to Priscilla Alden, before this!” exclaimed Alice. “They are like one household, the Standishes and Aldens, and Priscilla loves to talk.”
“But Barbara is very prudent, and if she has heard so ill a story will think twice before she spreads it. I never knew a woman less given to gossip, except mine own wife. I’ll tell thee, Alice, I’ll ask Myles if he has told the tale; and if he has, I’ll ask him to speak to Barbara and find how far it has gone.”
“But do not tell even the captain of our poor maid’s folly,” interposed Alice.
“Nay, child, I’m as jealous for Prissie’s good name as if she were mine own sister. Come, you are shivering, and the night dews begin to fall. Let us go home.”