CHAPTER XIV.
SIR CHRISTOPHER ENJOYS THE CHASE.
Five days later, Priscilla Alden sat in the gloaming of the wild March day before a fire so cheerful as to be truly perilous to the chimney of sticks laid up with mud attached like an elongated hornet’s nest to the outside of the house. Upon her knees lay little Sally, future wife of Alexander Standish, but just now a child of two years old, with a bad cold upon her lungs and a tendency to croup, or, as her mother called it, quinsy; and it was by way of an ounce of prevention that Priscilla was roasting the little thing before this huge fire, and at the same time diligently rubbing her chest and throat with goose grease. The child, hardly knowing whether to be amused or annoyed at the process, kicked and struggled, uttering little cries varying from crowing laughter to indignant squeals, while the mother made all the play she could of the affair, now tickling the small creature in her fat neck, now answering her cries with counter-cries and merry Boo! Boo! Boo! and anon,—
“See, Sally! See the pretty fire! Shall mother throw Sally in and burn her all up?” rubbing away meantime, until the child’s white skin glowed like a rose and glistened like a mirror.
“She looks like the suckling pig you roasted last Thanksgiving, mother,” remarked John junior, who stood drying his feet before the unusual fire, preparatory to rushing out and wetting them again.
“Why so she is, mother’s darling little piggie-wiggie, mother’s little suckling piggie-wiggie, and she shall be all nicely basted and set down to roast for daddy’s supper, so she shall! Now, now, now! One more little rub to drive the basting well in! Now, now, now, mammy’s little Sally! Phew! who’s at the door, Johnny? Run and shut it before the air reaches little sister!”
“It’s only Betty,” remarked John with brotherly indifference, but still running to help his sister close the door against the playful south wind which insisted upon coming in along with his playmate, who laughed aloud as she closed the door in his face, set her back against it, and pulled off her hood to rearrange the soft red hair blown all over her face. Glancing toward her, the mother smiled with involuntary delight in her child’s beauty; and truly Betty was very pretty, very pretty indeed, having selected her features and coloring from her father’s pure Saxon type and her mother’s Latin traits, with rare eclecticism; for her deep and rich red hair was far more beautiful than John’s blond locks or Priscilla’s dusky tresses, and her eyes, halting between his blue orbs and her dark ones, had resulted in that sparkling brown we all love to watch in the woodland brook stealing out from the roots of trees. Her complexion, neither pale nor dark, was at once glowing and delicate, the white values bordering upon cream rather than snow, and the reds suggesting carnations rather than roses. As for the mouth, it was too young yet to have got its expression, but the lines were noble and clear, sweet and pure, promising much for their maturity. A winsome little lassie, and so her mother knew, but was far too wise to show it. In fact, her tone was almost reproving as she said,—
“Why, Betty! How you are blown about! You are growing too big a girl to play the hoiden.”
“Goody Billington calls me a tear-coat,” replied the child, laughing in a blithe, fearless voice very pleasant to hear.
“Goody Billington”—began the mother, flushing a little, but checking herself as she sat Sally up and pulled her little red flannel nightgown over her head, while she asked in quite another tone, “Did you see father, Betty?”
“Yes’m, and he sent me to tell you he’d not be home for a little while. Oh, mother, what do you think! I was running out north to find father, as you bade me, and just as he stepped out of the woods with his axe and Rover, we saw two Indians coming down the trail, and they were driving a man, a white man, in front of them; and he looked so tired and so sick, and all bent over as if he would fall down, and no hat or cloak, and his doublet tattered and torn like the scarecrow we dressed for the cornfield, and his poor hands all cut and bleeding and tied behind him with a strip of deer-hide, and one of the Indians holding the end of it, and every once in a while jerking it to make the poor man go on; for indeed he looked fit to fall every minute, and, cold as it was, the sweat dropped off the dark points of his hair and rolled down his poor dirty face. Oh, mother, I was like to cry at such a sight, and father”—
“Ay, what did your father do?” asked Priscilla eagerly, as, lapping the child close to her breast, she turned half round toward Betty, who with fixed eyes seemed witnessing again the piteous sight she described.
“Oh, father! He talked with them a little, but you know he is none so quick at the Indian, not like the captain”—
“Never mind,” interrupted Priscilla impatiently. “’Tis not for you to say another man’s quicker at aught than your father, but what came of it?”
“Why, when father had talked a little he shook his head and said in English, ‘Nay, I can make naught on’t; you must come to the governor;’ and then we all came on toward the housen, and daddy said to me that I should run home like a good girl, and tell you he would be here anon, when he had seen the governor.”
“Ay, he’ll not think of himself till every one else is served, but I’ll not let him balk himself of a good supper if I cook a dozen, one after the other.”
And Priscilla, stepping into the little bedroom off the kitchen, laid the sleeping baby in her cradle, and had no more than returned to the larger room when the door again opened to admit her husband, with a look of considerable perplexity upon his genial face.
“Well, goodman, and what’s it all about?” demanded Priscilla with her usual impetuosity, as, coming within the radius of her influence, John’s brow cleared, and an expectant smile softened his mouth.
“Why, dame, ’tis a coil, for you to unravel if thou canst. Betty told you, mayhap, of the prisoner the Indians brought in.”
“Yes?”
“Well, the governor and the captain and Hobomok are off to the woods after deer, and not yet home, and Dame Bradford and her sister are in the woods looking for wintergreen and sassafras for the spring beer the dame makes so famously after thy recipe”—
“Nay, she makes it better than I,” interrupted Priscilla, replying to her husband’s proud smile. “Well?”
“So Christian Penn would not let me leave the savages and the captive there, for the Indians couldn’t, and the white man wouldn’t, speak a word of English, and so”—
“You brought them home, goodman?”
“Why yes; how did you know that, Priscilla?”
“By art magic. Where are they now?”
“I left them in the cowshed until I knew thy mind about it, wife.”
“Nay, then, John! When was my mind other than thine in a deed of charity?” asked Priscilla tenderly. “Fetch them in, I pray thee, with no more ado.”
And in a moment more John had ushered in a figure at sight of which Priscilla exclaimed indignantly,—
“Why did you not unbind his arms, John Alden? The shame of seeing a white man so used by savages, and you not to make in to his rescue!”
“He would not have it, nor would the Indians,” expostulated John helplessly.
“Would not have it!” repeated his wife contemptuously, while with the scissors hanging at her girdle she cut the thong of deer-hide painfully binding the wounded wrists of the captive. As she approached, one of the Indians growled a remonstrance and muttered something, of which Alden understood only the words “Big Chief,” but with one stride he placed himself between his wife and the remonstrant, and first laboriously evolving Indian words equivalent to “Stand back! It’s all right!” he added in English,—
“The Big Chief isn’t at home, but I’m here, and my wife will do as she sees fit. It’ll be bad for the man who tries to hinder her.”
“And did not you want my husband to unbind your hands, friend?” asked Priscilla, as she gently removed the thong which had sunk deep into the bruised flesh.
“My thanks to you, fair dame,” replied the stranger, breaking silence for the first time. “No, I did not wish to be released until the Governor or the Captain of Plymouth had seen my plight and told me if it was by their command these savages had thus dealt with me; I knew not what might be the authority of this gentleman”—
“My husband is John Alden, lieutenant of the colony’s forces, and second in command to Captain Standish.”
“My service to you, Lieutenant Alden, and I crave your pardon for what may have seemed surly silence under your first advances; but truth to tell, I am a little overborne with fatigue and annoyance”—
“Indeed, sir, you are fit to drop,” broke in Priscilla indignantly. “Here, sit you down in the roundabout chair, and say not a word more till I fetch you a cup of cordial-waters. John, do get rid of these Indians. I hate the sight of them! Let them go wait at Master Hopkins’s until the governor comes home to take order with them”—
But at this moment, and while Priscilla, half filling a small silver cup with Hollands gin slightly tempered with water, held it to the lips of the fainting man, the door suddenly opened, and Bradford, followed by Standish and Hobomoc, entered the room.
“My wife and Christian Penn sent me up to ask about—ah yes—why—Captain, this gentleman is—Your name, good sir?”
“My name is Sir Christopher Gardiner,” replied the captive, rallying his strength to reply with dignity. “And as you seem to recall, we met once before at my poor home in the Massachusetts. Well enough I know that my hospitality then was not such as befits either your quality or mine, and yet methinks your response is even less courteous.”
“We knew not who the fugitive might be of whom the Indians told us,” returned Bradford gravely. “But evil entreated though you seem to have been, your case would have been even worse had it not been for us.”
“They went about to kill you, man,” broke in Standish bluntly. “And if the hound the Bay Colony laid upon your track had not fallen in with one of our own Indians, you had long since tumbled across your own camp-fire, with an arrow through your heart.”
“Say you so, Captain,” replied Gardiner faintly. “’Tis but another proof that a man seldom knows his best friends; but why do the Bay people seek my life?”
“That is best known to yourself, sir,” began Bradford somewhat severely; but Priscilla Alden interposed,—
“I pray your pardon, Master Bradford, but this man needs care and tendance rather than catechizing just now. Look but at those arms and hands!”
“Ay, look!” exclaimed Gardiner, holding up his arms, yet forced at once to drop them through pain.
Bradford and Standish stared in amazement, for through the tattered and stripped sleeves of the knight’s doublet and fine Hollands shirt could be seen many and cruel weals as of stripes, some of them still bleeding, others crusted with dry blood, and others lividly bruised. The hands were in even yet more pitiable case, discolored, swollen, and cut so that they hardly looked like hands at all.
“What is this? What has chanced to your hands and arms, sir?” demanded the governor.
“Ask those red devils there,” replied Sir Christopher bitterly. “And let me ask if it was not done by your own orders.”
“By my orders! Never, so help me God!” cried Bradford; and then turning upon the Indians he demanded,—
“Is this your work, Weetonawah, or is it the Shawmut’s? Did I not warn you both to bring in the man with all care and humane tenderness?”
The Indians looked at each other, drew their skin mantles closer about them as if in assertion of their own dignity, and finally uttered a few words which Standish as briefly translated:—
“They say they did but a little whip him with sticks, and it is no harm.”
“But why did they whip him, little or much?”
“My faith! they could never have taken me alive, had not they beat my last weapon out of my hands,” broke in the knight. “When they are gone and I am a little refreshed I will tell you the whole story, gentlemen; but if you indeed wish me well, drive away these assassins and leave me to this comely matron’s tendance for a while, at least.”
“’Tis well spoken,” replied the governor in his usual placable voice. “John Alden, will it suit you to keep this man over-night, if no longer, and will you, Priscilla, give him the care he needs and you so well understand?”
“If the goodwife says yes, I’ll not say no,” declared Alden; and Priscilla added a little sharply,—
“’Tis the best word said yet.”