CHAPTER I.
A WHISPER IN THE EAR.
“Tell him yourself, Pris.”
“No, no, Bab, I know too much for that! These men love not to be taught by a woman, although, if all were known, full many a whisper in the bedchamber comes out next day at the council board, and one grave master says to another, ‘Now look you, tell it not to the women lest they blab it!’ never mistrusting in his owl-head that a woman set the whole matter afloat.”
“Oh, Pris, you do love to jibe at the men. How did you ever persuade yourself to marry one of them?”
“Why, so that one of them might be guided into some sort of discretion. Doesn’t John Alden show as a bright example to his fellows?”
“And all through his wife’s training, eh, Pris?”
“Why, surely. Didst doubt such a patent fact, Mistress Standish?”
“But now, Pris, in sober sadness tell me what has given you such dark suspicions of these new-comers, and how do you venture to whisper ‘treason’ and ‘traitor’ about a man who has been anointed God’s messenger, even though it has been in the papistical Church of England?”
“If the English bishops are such servants of antichrist as the governor and the Elder make them out, I should conceive that their anointing would be rather against a man’s character than a warrant for it.” And Priscilla Alden laughed saucily into the thoughtful face of her friend and neighbor, Barbara Standish, who, knitting busily at a little lamb’s-wool stocking, shook her head as she replied,—
“Mr. Lyford is not a man to my taste, and I care not to hear him preach, but yet, we are told in Holy Writ not to speak evil of dignitaries, nor to rail against those set over us”—
“Then surely it is contrary to Holy Writ for this Master Lyford to speak evil of the governor and to rail against the captain, as he doth continually”—
“Who rails against the captain, Mistress Alden?” demanded a cheerful voice, as Myles Standish entered at the open door of his house, and, removing the broad-leafed hat picturesquely pulled over his brow, revealed temples worn bare of the rust-colored locks still clustering thickly upon the rest of his head, and matching in color the close, pointed beard and the heavy brows, beneath which the resolute and piercing eyes his enemies learned to dread in early days now shone with a genial smile.
“Who has been abusing the captain?” repeated he, as the women laughed in some confusion, looking at each other for an answer. Priscilla was the first to find it, and glancing frankly into the face of the man she might once have loved replied,—
“Why, ’tis I that am trying to stir Barbara into showing you what a nest of adders we are nourishing here in Plymouth, and moving you and the governor to set your heels upon them before it be too late.”
As she spoke, the merry gleam died out of the captain’s eyes, and grasping his beard in the left hand, as was his wont in perplexity, he said gravely,—
“These are large matters for a woman’s handling, Priscilla, and it may chance that Barbara’s silence is the better part of your valor. But still,—what do you mean?”
“I mean that Master Oldhame and Master Lyford as the head, and their followers and creatures as the tail, are maturing into a very pretty monster here in our midst, which if let alone will some fine morning swallow the colony for its breakfast, and if only it would be content with the men I would say grace for it, but, unfortunately, the women and children are the tender bits, and will serve as a relish to the coarser meat.”
“Come, now, Priscilla, a truce to your quips and jibes, and tell me what there is to tell. I cry you pardon for noting your forwardness in what concerned you not”—
“Nay, Myles, you’ve said it now,” interposed Barbara, with a little laugh, while Priscilla, gathering her work in her apron, and looking very pretty with her flaming cheeks and sparkling eyes, jumped up saying,—
“At all events, John Alden’s dinner concerns both him and me, and I will go and make it ready; a nod is as good as a wink to a blind horse, and a penny pipe as well as a trumpet to warn a deaf man that the enemy is upon him. Put your nose in the air, Captain Standish, and march stoutly on into the pitfall dug for your feet.”
“Come, come, Mistress Alden! These are no words for a gentlewoman,” began the captain angrily, but on the threshold Priscilla turned, a saucy laugh flashing through the anger of her face, and reminding the captain in his own despite of a sudden sunbeam glinting across dark Manomet in the midst of a thunder-storm.
“Here’s the governor coming up the hill, Myles,” whispered she, “and you may finish the rest of your scolding to him. I’m frighted as much as is safe for me a’ready.”
And light as a bird she ran down the hill just as Bradford reached the door and, glancing in, said in his sonorous and benevolent voice, “Good-morrow to you, Mistress Standish. I am sorry to have frighted away your merry gossip, but I am seeking the goodman— Ah, there you are, Captain! I would have a word with you at your leisure.”
“Shall I run after Priscilla, Myles?” asked Barbara, cordially returning the governor’s greeting.
“Nay, wife, we two will walk up to the Fort,” replied Standish, and replacing his hat, he led the way up the hill to the Fort, where he ushered his friend into a little room contrived in the southeastern angle for his private use: his office, his study, his den, or his growlery by turns, for here was his little stock of books, his writing-table and official records; here his pipes and tobacco; a stand of private arms crowned by Gideon; the colony’s telescope fashioned by Galileo; and here a deep leathern chair with a bench nigh at hand, where through many a silent hour the captain sat, and amid the smoke-wreaths of his pipe mused upon things that had been, things that might have been, and things that never could be, never could have been.
“Have a stool by the porthole, Will; ’tis something warm for September,” said he, as he closed the door.
“Ay, but you always have a good air at this east window, and a fair view as well,” returned the governor, seating himself.
“The view of the Charity is but a fleeting one, since she sails in the morning,” remarked Standish dryly.
“Yes, she does,” assented Bradford, with an air of embarrassment not lost upon the captain, who smiled ever so little, and lighted his pipe, saying between the puffs,—
“’Tis safe enough to smoke in this den of mine, Will, and your tobacco is a wonderful counselor.”
“Say you so, Myles? Then pass over your pouch, for I am in sore need of counsel and sought it of you.”
“Such as I have is at your command, Governor. What is the matter?”
“Well, ’tis hard to put it in any dignified or magisterial phrase, Myles, since, truth to tell, it comes of the distaff side of the house”—
“Ay, ay, I can believe it! Has Priscilla Alden been whispering with your wife?”
“Nay, not that I know of; in truth, ’tis somewhat idler than even that foundation, for Mistress Alden is one of our own, but this—well, to tell the story in manful sincerity, my wife informs me that Dame Lyford, who is as you know in childbed, and much beholden for care and comfort to both your wife and mine, as well as to Priscilla Alden, last night fell a-crying, and said she was a miserable wretch to receive nourishment and tendance at their hands when her husband was practicing with Oldhame and others for our destruction. In the beginning, Alice set this all down as the querulous maundering of a sick woman; but when the other persisted, and spoke of treasonable letters that her husband had writ, and read out to Oldhame in her very presence, Dame Bradford began to pay some heed, and ask questions, until by the time the woman’s strength was overborne and she could say no more, the skeleton of a plot lay bare, which should it be clothed upon with sinew, and flesh, and armor, and weapons, might slay us all both as a colony and as particular men.”
“A dragon, Priscilla called it,” interposed the captain.
“Priscilla! Did Mistress Lyford say as much to her as to my wife?” asked the governor, a little piqued.
“Nay, I know not, for I was, according to my wont, too outspoken to listen as I should.”
“Well, but explain, I beg of you.”
“All is, that Priscilla began some sort of warning anent this very matter, and I angered her with some jibe at women meddling in matters too mighty for them, so that I know not what she might have had to tell.”
The Governor of Plymouth smiled in a subtle fashion peculiar to men whose vision extends beyond their own time. “Women,” said he slowly, as he pressed the tobacco into his pipe,—“women, Myles, are like the bit of lighted tinder I will lay upon this inert mass of dried weed. The tinder is so trivial, so slight a thing, so difficult to handle, so easily destroyed,—and yet, brother man, how without it should we derive the solace and counsel of our pipes?”
Glancing at each other, the soldier and the statesman laughed somewhat shamefacedly, and Myles said,—
“Ay, ’tis the pith of Æsop’s fable of the Lion and the Mouse.”
“Well, yes, although that is a thought too arrogant, perhaps; and yet Master Lion is ofttimes a stupid fellow, though he is styled king of beasts.”
“And what is the net just now, my Lord Lion?” demanded Standish, who could not quite relish Bradford’s philosophy. The governor roused himself at the question, and laying aside his meditative mood replied,—
“We both know, Captain, that all who are with us are not of us, and we have not forgot what false reports those disaffected fellows carried home in the Anne, nor the mutterings and plottings we have heard and suspected since.”
“Shorten John Oldhame by the head and you will kill the whole mutiny.”
“That sounds very simple, but is hardly a feasible course, Captain, especially as we have no proof in the matter, and it is upon this very question of proof that I came to consult you.”
“And I just shut off the only source of proof I am like to get.”
“Nay, it is not likely that Mistress Alden knows more than my wife has already repeated to me of what Dame Lyford can reveal, but our good friend Master Pierce came to my house to-day about some matters I am sending to my wife’s sister, Mary Carpenter, and all by chance mentioned that he had in trust a parcel of letters writ by Lyford, with one or two by Oldhame, and that both men had charged him to secrecy in the business. Now, Standish, those letters contain the moral of the whole matter.”
“To be sure; it is like drawing a double tooth to see them sail out of the harbor.”
“Captain, it is my duty as the chief officer of this colony to learn the contents of these missives.”
“Yes, but how? The traitors will not betray themselves.”
“I must privately open and read their letters,—it is my duty.”
“No, no, Will; no, no! I can’t give in to that; I can’t help you there, man! To open and read another man’s letter, and on the sly, is all one with hearkening at a keyhole, or telling a lie, or turning your back on an enemy without a blow. You can’t do that, Will, let the cause be what it may.”
And as the captain’s astonished gaze fixed itself upon his friend’s face, Bradford colored deeply, yet made reply in a voice both resolute and self-respecting,—
“I feel as you do, Standish, and as any honorable man must; but this is a matter involving more than mine own honor or pleasure. If these men are persuading our associates in England to withdraw from their agreement, and refuse to send us further supplies, or to find a market for our commodities, and so help out our own struggles for subsistence, we and all these weaklings dependent upon us are lost. You know yourself how hardly we came through the famine of last year, and although by the mercy of God we now may hope to provide our own food, what can we do for clothes, for tools, for even the means of communication with our old home, if the Adventurers throw us over, or if they demand immediate repayment of the moneys advanced? In every way, and for all sakes, it is imperative that we prevent an evil and false report going home to those upon whose help we still must rely for the planting of our colony.”
“To be sure it is the usage of war to intercept the enemy’s dispatches,” mused Standish, tugging at his russet beard and scowling heavily.
“To be sure it is,” returned Bradford eagerly. “And although these men are not avowed enemies, we can see that they are not friends. Do but mark how thick they are with Billington, and Hicks, and all the other malcontents. Oldhame’s house is a regular Cave of Adullam.”
“Well, Will, tell me what I am to do or to say in the matter. You know that I am ready for any duty, however odious.”
“I fain would have you go aboard the Charity with me to inspect her carriages.”
“Is there any chance of a fight?”
“No, no. I shall not go aboard until the last moment, when all but Winslow have left.”
“Winslow’s errand home is to see the Adventurers?”
“As the colony’s agent, yes.”
“And he knows your intent?”
“Not yet. I have spoken of it to no man until I had your mind upon it, Standish. To-night I shall summon the Assistants to my house, and lay the matter before them, but I felt moved to speak of it first to you in private.”
“Lest I should blaze out before them all, where you could not argue the matter coolly with me, eh?”
Bradford smiled as he knocked the ashes out of his pipe and rose to go.
“I could not do with your disapproval, old friend,” said he.