“Master Oldhame, you are set upon the watch to-night, and will report after the evening gun at the Fort.”
“The devil you say, Giles Hopkins! And who gave you leave to order your betters about?”
“Captain Standish names the watch, and I as ancient-bearer am under his orders and carry his messages.”
“You may be under Satan’s orders or under a monkey’s orders for aught I care, Giles, my boy, but if you dare come nigh me with any more of Captain Shrimp’s orders I’ll wring your neck for you, master bantam cockerel, mark you that.”
“I will report to the captain,” calmly replied Hopkins, who, despite his father’s restless example, was fast becoming one of the colony’s most valued young citizens.
A profane exclamation was Oldhame’s only reply, but as the ensign strode away he turned his head and called into the house at whose door he sat,—
“Lyford! Lyford! Here’s some merry-making afoot! Captain Shrimp has summoned me to stand on watch to-night, and I have sent him and his errand-boy to the devil. Aha! here he comes himself with fury stiffening every hair of his red beard and snapping out of his eyes. Stand behind the door and hearken”—
“Good-even, Master Oldhame,” struck in the firm and repressed tones of a voice at sound of which Lyford cringed closer in his corner, and Oldhame blustered uneasily,—
“Good-even, Myles Standish.”
“It is your turn in regular rotation, Master Oldhame, to stand sentry-watch to-night as you have done before, and as every man in the colony is called upon to do. Will you kindly report at the Fort after gun-fire this evening?”
“No, I won’t, Captain Shrimp.”
“You refuse to obey the law of the colony?”
“I refuse to be said by you, you beggarly little rascal.”
“Then I shall arrest you as a traitor, and if I had my will, I’d have you out and shoot you at sunrise.”
“Oh, you would, would you, you wretched baseborn—
“Have a care, man, have a care. Stop while you may!” And the captain’s voice deepened to a growl, and his eyes, wide open, yet contracted in the pupil to a point of fire, fixed themselves like weapons upon those of the mutineer, who, maddened by their menace, sprung to his feet knife in hand, and aimed a blow at the captain’s face that might have forever quenched the light of those magnetic eyes, had it not been caught on the hilt of Gideon, the good sword that in these days hung ever at his master’s side, although he seldom needed to quit his scabbard.
“Villain, you’ve broken my wrist!” yelled Oldhame, dropping his knife, upon which Standish planted his foot.
“To me! To me, men! Help! Murder! To me, Oldhames!” again shouted the traitor, but although a score or so of the townsmen gathered at the cry, not one made any demonstration or reply, while Standish, setting his lips and drawing two or three heavy breaths, hardly cast a glance at the crowd, but laying a hand upon Gideon’s hilt coldly demanded,—
“John Oldhame, do you refuse to stand your watch to-night?”
A volley of abuse from Oldhame was interrupted by a messenger from Bradford, who, saluting the captain, reported,—
“The governor sends to know the cause of the tumult, and desires Captain Standish to arrest any disorderly persons refusing to submit to authority.”
“My respects to the governor, and I am about to do so,” replied Standish in the hard and cold tone which at once repressed and betrayed his passion.
“John Oldhame, I arrest you in the name of the law! Alden, Howland, Browne, I summon you to my aid! Convey this man to the Fort and lock him in the strong-room. Do him no bodily harm unless he resist, but secure him without delay.”
Then ensued such a scene as Plymouth had as yet never seen, for with one or two exceptions the men who shared the struggles and perils of the colony’s first days had become too closely welded together, and were too self-respecting, to rebel against the authority they had themselves elected.
But no sooner were the goodly foundations of the new home laid and cemented in the blood of those who dared all for Freedom’s sake, than the anarchist arrived to throw down what was already wrought, and erect his own den upon the ruins.
Oldhame, maddened both at his defeat and the failure of those who had listened to his treason to make an open revolt in his favor, lost all control both of words and actions, and so ramped and raved, so cursed and vituperated, so kicked and smote and struggled, that it was not without a most unseemly contest that he was finally secured and dragged up the Burying Hill to the Fort, where in the corner opposite to the captain’s den was a strong-room, small, but as yet quite sufficient for the colony’s need of a prison.
A few hours of silence and solitude wrought a change, however, and John Alden, who held the position of prison-warden, came down the hill toward sunset with a request from the prisoner that he might see Master Lyford.
“The wolf would fain take counsel with the fox,” remarked Priscilla when her husband told her his errand. “And our over-amiable sheep-dogs will never say nay to such a modest request.”
“Pity but they made thee governor, Pris,” suggested John with a bovine smile intended to be sarcastical.
“Ay,” coolly replied his wife. “’Twould save some trouble. ’Tis a roundabout way we women have to manage now.”
“Eh? what do all those fine words mean when they’re put straight, wife?”
“They mean that you’d better do your errand to the governor before sunset, and then come home to eat my bannocks while they’re fresh.”
“You’re right, Pris, and I’m gone.”
But the bannocks were not to be eaten for another hour or so, during which time Master Lyford was closeted with his associate in the strong-room, and Alden kept ward without.
That evening the ex-minister sought the governor’s presence, and with many protestations of regret at the late unfortunate misunderstanding, as he phrased it, offered Oldhame’s submission and willingness to comply with the military requirements of the government, adding craftily,—
“If our worthy governor were also our captain there could never be any of these troubles.”
“That would be to burn down the house because the chimney smokes now and again,” replied Bradford good-humoredly. “It is largely due to Captain Standish’s courage and skill, not to mention his loyalty, his steadfastness, and his wisdom, that this colony is other than a handful of ashes and a field of graves. When you new-comers have learned to know him, you will value our captain as we do.”
The next morning Master Oldhame was released, and the next night stood his watch, nor, jealously as he watched and listened for them, was there a look or a tone from the captain or any of his adherents to remind the conquered rebel of his discomfiture, or the triumph of authority.
The next Sunday, or as it was universally called, the Lord’s Day, the plot laid in the strong-room of the Fort developed most unexpectedly.
When at ten o’clock Bartholomew Allerton, now promoted to the post of band-master to the colony’s army, beat the “assembly” in the Town Square as a summons to the church-goers to meet and form in their usual procession up the hill, he was confronted by Peter Oldhame, a lad somewhat younger than himself, who swung a cow bell almost in the drummer’s face, shouting,—
“To church! To church! Englishmen hearken to the English Church! To church! To church!”
Bradford, who was just coming out of his house with Alice and Christian Penn, her buxom handmaiden, following meekly behind, stopped and looked sternly at the intruder until he, turning his back, walked down Leyden Street toward the old Common House, disused now except for storage.
“Shall I arrest the varlet, and clap him up in the strong-room?” asked Bart Allerton eagerly, as he swung the drum-gear off his shoulder.
“Nay, my son; it is the Lord’s Day and we will not farther disturb its peace. This rebel has ceased his summons and you may do so also, lest worse come of it.”
“Does your honor see Master Lyford in gown and bands coming out of Master Oldhame’s house?”
“Nay, Bart, I see him not, for I look not at him. Now no more, good youth, but fall into rank with your fellows.”
And fifty men or more, each armed and ready for battle either with men or the Ghostly Enemy who inspirits men, moved in solemn procession of threes up Burying Hill to the Fort, the rear closed by the governor in his robe of office, with the Elder in his gown at his right hand, and the captain in full uniform at his left.
Not a word was exchanged between the leaders upon the events of the morning, but it was no news to any of them, when the long service was over and in the seclusion of home the women’s tongues were let loose, to hear that Lyford, in spite of his abject repudiation of his Episcopal ordination, and membership with the Separatist Church, had gathered a congregation, read the English Service, preached a vituperative sermon against the leaders of the colony, and administered the Communion.
Such open bravado and schism as this could not be allowed to continue, for although the Pilgrims never persecuted any man for honest difference of religious belief, and were on very cordial terms with many members of the English Church, whom their pastor Robinson received to Communion and fellowship, it was hardly to be expected that they would permit a double apostate like Lyford to gather a body of malcontents in their midst, and hold services avowedly antagonistic to the church of the Pilgrims.
Nobody, therefore, was surprised when, on the Monday following this Sunday, the governor’s message went forth summoning all the men of the colony, whether church-members, citizens, or only temporary residents, to assemble at the Fort at nine of the clock on Tuesday morning in a Court of the People, the colony not yet having outgrown this, the ideal mode of popular government.