CHAPTER XVI.
A MILLSTONE FOR SIR CHRISTOPHER.
“Here, Betty woman! You shall help mother and carry the strange gentleman’s breakfast to him. I’m too put about with my baking to redd myself fit to see him. Put a clean towel over the sarver, set the salt and pepper pot upon it, and take father’s beer-mug to fill him out a measure of my oldest home-brewed. He said but yesterday he loved a cool tankard better than strong waters of a morning.”
“Shall I take one of the real damask napkins for him, mother? There are two in the drawer of the dresser newly laundered.”
“Yes. Give him of the best, poor fellow, while he’s with us, for he goes from us to prison, and mayhap to worse.”
“What worse, mother?” demanded Betty, pausing as she shook out the folds of the Antwerp damask napkin, and turning her face toward her mother, whose quick eye marked its sudden pallor.
“Pho, child! I did but shoot at random; there’s no harm coming to the man that I know of. Here, now, here’s the little bird done to a turn, and some manchets of wheat bread, and a cup of honey, and the tankard. That’s enough for any man’s breakfast, be he sick or well. What’s that, now?”
“Just a bit of mayflower, mother, that I found yesterday in the nook south the hill, you know.”
“Yes, yes, but—well, have thine own way, poppet,—thou ’rt a good child.”
And the tray, decorated with a little silver cup holding the two or three reckless sprigs of epigæa, which had ventured before their time into a world not yet ready for them, was carried into the fore-room, where Sir Christopher stood at the window impatiently considering his swollen and discolored hands from which he had removed the bandages.
Before we attend to him, however, let us here note that the Epigæa repens still blooms in Plymouth so early, that by May-day it is gone; and it is not, and never was, and never will be an arbutus, although a world which chooses to say “commence” instead of “begin,” and “locate” instead of “build,” insists upon calling it so, and probably will so insist as long as time endures.
“Ah! Good-morrow, little maid!” exclaimed the knight, a smile replacing the scowl of vexation. “I have not seen you before. Are you Master Alden’s daughter?”
“Yes, sir,” replied Betty, placing her tray upon the table, and then turning to make her little curtsy, for Betty knew her manners as well as any young gentlewoman alive. “Mother was over-busy this morning to attend you, and so sent me with your breakfast.”
“And a right tempting breakfast, too!” declared Gardiner, seizing the pewter beer-mug and half emptying it at a draught. “Ha! ’tis good! A right honest strike of malt!” added he, carefully wiping his long mustachios and smiling upon Betty, who stood solemnly regarding him. “And a posy, too! A posy that looks marvelously like thyself, child, so sweet and tender, yet blossoming from out austere and rigid foliage. What is thy name, little one?”
“Elizabeth Alden, sir; but I’m mostly called Betty.”
“Ay, then, this flower is the Bettina, or the Betty-belle, or the Bettissimo, is it not?”
“Nay, sir; we call it mayflower, because father says it minds him of the English may that blooms in the hedges where he was born. But the doctor, who is wondrous wise about herbs, will still give it some hard name I cannot remember. He knows botany, the doctor does.”
“Ay, does he? Well, I would he knew a way to make me a well man and a free one.” And the knight, hastily pushing aside his half-eaten breakfast, began to pace up and down the room in restless anger and impatience. Betty, halfway to the door, stopped and regarded him pitifully, then timidly said,—
“I would I could help you, sir. Shall I bring my kitten to see you? or mayhap you’d like Shakem better?”
“And what is Shakem, thou pretty child?”
“He’s father’s little dog that catches rats and shakes them so merrily, and he knows tricks, too: he’ll stand up and beg, and he’ll catch the bits on his nose, and he’ll play at being dead”—
“Nay, then, Betty, he’s not for me! I need no mimic deaths to mind me of mine own. Ohé!”
“Is that the ‘worse’ that mother meant? Oh, I’m so sorry, sir!”
“Worse that thy mother meant? Now what’s that riddle, child?”
“Mayhap I should not have told it again; but mother made the manchets and broiled the bird, while we had but bean soup and coarse bread for breakfast, because she said you’d go from here to prison and it might be to worse.”
“Said she so? Ha! is it resolved upon, then? But no, no, no! Winthrop and the rest would not dare, especially with Gorges at my back. I can make them see ’twould be but self-murther for them to give him and the council so excellent a weapon against them. There’s no danger, no danger of death, but I must write to Sir Ferdinando”—
“Is he at the Bay, sir, and will he serve you if you can make him know?” asked Betty eagerly; and the knight, who had forgotten her, turned with a sudden smile and uplifted eyebrows.
“What! we’re in council together, are we, Betty? Nay, Sir Ferdinando Gorges is in England, and— Come, now, child, I read thine honest eyes, and I know thou ’rt sorry for me, and would not add to my discomfort, hadst thou the chance of doing it.”
“Nay, sir, indeed and indeed I would not do so.”
“I am sure of it. Well, then, Betty, promise me thou’lt not say over again what just slipped my lips, and most particularly the name. I’ll be sworn thou hast even now forgotten”—
“Nay, sir, I’ve not forgotten; ’tis Sir Ferdinando Gorges that would befriend you, but he’s in England and may not be reached, but an the Bay does you an injury he’ll revenge it.”
“Thou hast too good a memory, Betty, and a wonderful quickness for thy years,” replied the knight, biting his lip, and staring almost angrily at the child. “Yet I must e’en trust thee. Thou’lt not lisp one word of that lesson thou hast so pat? Mind you, child, ’twas not meant for your ears!”
“I’ll not say it over to any one, sir, and I did not want to hear it.” And Betty, with a pretty air of dignity, took up the tray and was leaving the room when Sir Christopher recalled her:—
“Betty, you’re taking away my posy! Was not it meant to tarry with the poor prisoner, and comfort him a little?”
“Yes, indeed, sir. Will you be so gentle as to take it off the tray?”
“Ay, and thank you, Betty. Good-by, my pretty turnkey.”
“I know not what that is, sir. Can I bring you aught else?”
“Yes, Betty. I fain would have pens and ink and paper, if I may; and will you or some other ministering sprite redd up the room a little?”
“I’ll ask mother, sir,” replied Betty comprehensively, and disappeared, leaving Sir Christopher plunged in meditation both perplexing and futile.
“I must wait and see how much they know before I frame my reply,” at length said he aloud; and throwing off the weight with a shrug of his broad shoulders, he took a small dressing-case from one of the inner pockets of his doublet, and began to comb, to perfume, and to curl the long dark hair which was in itself an abomination to the Puritans, and an object of scorn to the Pilgrims.
“The right mustachio still excels the left,” muttered he discontentedly, as by help of a tiny pocket mirror he carefully scrutinized the result of his labors, and separating the hairs of the left-hand mustache tried to give it a more formidable appearance, although it already nearly touched his eye and covered his cheek. A gentle tap upon the door disturbed him, but without interrupting his occupation he cried, “Come in,” and a moment later, “Oh, ’tis my little Betty again! She has brought some paper and pens, and she finds me at my toilet. What think you of my lovelocks, little Betty?”
“I never saw such on a man before, sir.”
“Nay, that’s no answer, madam! I asked how liked you them.”
“I would like them”—
“Well, say it out, thou strange child.”
“I would like them on a woman right well, sir.”
“But not on a man?”
“Nay. Even Alick was shorn long since.”
“And who is Alick, pr’ythee?”
“Alick Standish, the captain’s oldest son.”
“And your little sweetheart?”
“Nay, sir, mother says ’tis not pretty to talk of such things, though like enough we’ll marry when we’re old enough, for our two fathers are close friends.”
“And how much older must you be, mistress, ere you may speak of such things?”
“Well, Susan Ring is no more than fifteen, and she is to marry Thomas Clarke so soon as he has William Wright’s house finished, for he’s a carpenter, and William Wright would fain marry Prissie Carpenter, the governor’s wife’s sister”—
“Ohé! I had forgotten! So, so, indeed, and so it is! Now, then, here is a coil!”
Betty, perceiving that her prattle was no longer heard, ceased abruptly, and in silence completed the spreading of the bed, and dusting and arranging the furniture with all the mature and responsible methods not uncommonly characterizing the oldest daughter of a large family, especially in those early days. Suddenly the knight broke silence:—
“Betty, you know Mistress Carpenter?”
“Prissie?”
“Yes.”
“Oh, yes, sir, I know her very well. We have merry games of play together, and I am main fond of her.”
“Well, child, I also know her a little, and I too am fond of her, but that is another of the things you may not tell abroad.”
“And yet you have never been here before, have you, sir?”
“No, thank the Lord, I never have, nor shall I willingly come again, I promise you, my Betty; but being here, I fain would change a word or two with Mistress Carpenter, whom I knew in England before ever she or I came hither.”
“And that will not be hard, sir, for she often runs in to have a chat with mother, and I will tell her”—
“No, no, no, child, that will never do!” broke in Sir Christopher impatiently. “Did I not tell thee ’twas a secret?”
“Yes, sir, but you would speak with Prissie, you said,” replied Betty, her eyes wide with wonder and a growing instinct of wrong-doing. “You had best tell mother about it, sir.”
“Nay, Betty, I thought thou wert my little friend, and felt sorry that those cruel men at the Bay will presently serve me worse than they did my friend Master Morton.”
“He was here, and I liked him not at all. He miscalled Alick’s father, and mother would not make jelly for him though he asked it of her.”
“So! What a little partisan thou art, Betty! and I’ll venture thy mother is, too. But, Betty, there was another man there at Boston, whom they whipped until the blood ran down to his heels, and then they cut off his ears, and laid a hot iron on his cheek”—
“Oh, sir!” And Gardiner paused, startled at the power of expression developed in that little flower-face by horror, and anger, and pity beyond its years. His own face softened to perhaps its best expression as, laying a hand upon the glittering hair, he kindly said,—
“Nay, then, ’tis not a tale for the ears of a little maid; but thou’dst not like to have me so served, if thou couldst hinder?”
“Oh, sir, but how can I hinder?”
“Why, I know not that thou canst, and yet—the first way is to keep my counsel even from thy mother.”
“I always tell mother, and sometimes father, all I do, but—I will not tell what can harm you, sir; only please tell me no more.”
“But, Betty, dear little Betty, I was just going to ask you to do me one little kindness, and tell nobody about it. Won’t you be the friend of a poor wretch who is to be so cruelly used if you do refuse to help him?”
“Indeed and indeed, sir, I would help you at one word if I could, but I may not tell a lie, even though to save you and me too from a den of lions.”
“Daniel, eh? Well, little Daniel, I ask thee to tell no lies, nor to do anything to hurt thy tender conscience, but only to carry a little folded bit of paper to Mistress Priscilla Carpenter, and fetch me another which she will send.”
“Oh, I can do so much as that, sir,” replied Betty, relieved at what seemed to her a very harmless proposition.
“But you must give her the billet when she is all alone, Betty, and you must not let any one—not any one, mind—know a word about it from first to last. Can you do that?”
“Oh, yes, easy enough,—but”—and Betty pondered, finger on lip; then suddenly turning her brook-brown eyes upon the dark face of the man of the world, she demanded, “Is it right for me to do it, sir? Since I may not ask mother or father, you must tell me, sir, is it right?”
Nobody knows why Sir Christopher Gardiner fled his native land, nor why he dreaded to put himself in reach of its authorities; but whatever may have been his crimes, I believe none injured his own soul more, none at the last day will hang more like a millstone around his neck, than the offense he now offered to the little one who made him for the moment her arbiter of right and wrong; for he said, but turned away from her eyes while he said,—
“Yes, child, ’tis right, and so would your mother say if you could ask her; but she would far liever you did not, for she would then feel that she must tell your father, and he the governor, and so I should be balked of what will be a comfort to me while I am burned and bleeding in the hangman’s hands up yonder.”
“Oh, sir! oh, sir! The pity on’t—and—and—indeed, I’ll carry your token.”
“There, then, there, then, dear little maid,—don’t cry! I pr’ythee don’t cry! Come, now, I’ll give it up! I’ll say no more about it.”
“Nay, sir, I’ll do it, and I’ll not tell, and ’twill be a comfort to you when—oh dear, oh dear,—but sith you say ’tis right, and mother would call it right”—
“Nay, I’ll not do it,—and yet—and yet”—
“But why will you not, sir? ’Tis not that I was naughty and did refuse at the first? Sometimes when I’ve been froward, father will not let me fetch his pipe or his dry slippers, and says, ‘Thank you, Elizabeth, but I’ll serve myself,’ and I’d rather he’d beat me, or scold, as mother will.”
“My child, I’m not vexed, and—well, there—wait a bit—now, here it is, just these half dozen lines thou seest, Betty; surely there’s no harm in such a scrap of paper, is there, child?”
“You say not, sir,” replied Betty submissively, yet sadly, for she liked not her errand, although resting in the confidence of a nature itself upright, upon the assurance of her elder that she was doing right in obeying him.
At dinner time, with the tray came Betty, again with an apology from her mother; and when she had set it down she took a scrap of paper from her bosom and handed it to the knight, who, impatiently unfolding it, read in a very rude and Gothic scrawl the two words,—
“ASK BETTY. PRISCILLA CARPENTER.”
“‘Ask Betty,’” repeated the knight aloud. “That is all there is in it, Betty. But what is the message that I am to ask?”
“Prissie cannot write much, but she made shift to read your billet, and she sends her love and kind remembrance,” repeated the child glibly. “And she said if you got leave to walk out, and I went with you, we should go to look for the mayflowers just below the Fort Hill, down near the palisades, and mayhap she would be there about three hours after noon. And if you cannot go to walk, or father goes with you, she will pass by this window while they are at lecture in the Fort, but it would be no more than to say good-by.”
“Now that goes almost too well to be true, little Betty!” exclaimed the knight, rubbing his hands, and wincing as he did so, for they were not yet healed, while Betty, sadly changed from the careless and merry little maid of the morning hours, withdrew without a word.
After dinner, as he had expected, Sir Christopher received a visit from his host, who told him that the governor still awaited a reply to the letter he had sent by Indian runners to Governor Winthrop at the Bay, and that meanwhile Sir Christopher was to rest content where he was, or, if it better suited him, to walk about the town.
“That proposal jumps well with mine own fancies,” replied Gardiner smilingly. “Your little daughter brought me these posies this morning, and told me of how and where they grow, and I should well like to study them in their habitat. I cherish a singular love for herbal lore, and have the theories of Fuchsius and Bauhin at my fingers’ ends.”
“You should talk with our doctor, then,” replied Alden. “He is marvelously learned in all such matters, and can pluck you to pieces the prettiest posy that grows, and break your head with the learned names he’ll find in it.”
“Ay, I doubt not,” returned Gardiner coldly. “But in my captivity I better love the company of a prattling child than of a man who may be mine enemy.”
“Nay, friend, we’re none of us enemies of yours, nor of any but those who are enemies of God and the king; still so far as my will goes, Betty is free to walk with you if her mother needs her not.”
“And may I ask of your courtesy that you will put the matter before your dame, as I am not like to see her?”
“Surely, although the mistress bade me say that she is presently coming to look once more at your wounded hands and arms.”
“Oh, they are all but well. Sound flesh and good blood like mine heal apace.” And Sir Christopher, with a self-approving smile, held up his well-shaped hands and straightened his comely figure.
John Alden looked and listened, but made no response, unless a slow smile that began almost imperceptibly, and widened and widened until it showed nearly all his broad white teeth, could be called so. But before it gained its full development he had left the room.