CHAPTER XVI
A Gallant Lad Withal
There was a gray sky the day after young madcap John Billington was laidto rest in the grave that had been hard to think of as meant for him,dug by the younger colonists. Long rifted clouds lay piled upon oneanother from the line of one horizon to the other, and the wind blewsteadily, keeping close to the ground and whistling around chimneys andrafters in a way that portended a storm driven in from the sea.
"I think it's lost-and-lone to-day, Constance," said Damaris, coiningher own term for the melancholy that seemed to envelop earth and sky. "Ithink it's a good day for a story, and I'd like much to sit in your lapin the chimney corner and hear your nicest ones."
"Would you, my Cosset? But you said a story at first, and now you say mynicest _ones_! Do you mean one story, or several stories, Damaris?"Constance asked.
"I mean one first, and many ones after that, if you could tell them,Constance," said the child. "Mother says we have no time to idle instory-telling, but to-day is so empty and lonesome! I'd like to have astory."
"And so you shall, my little sis!" cried Constance gathering Damarisinto her arms and dropping into the high-backed chair which Dame Elizapreempted for herself, when she was there; but now she was not at home."Come, at least the fire is gay! Hark how it snaps and sings! And howgaily red and golden are the flames, and how the great log glows! Shallwe play it is a red-coated soldier, fighting the chill for us?"
"No, oh, no," shuddered Damaris. "Don't play about fighting and guns!"
Constance cuddled her closer, drawing her head into the hollow of hershoulder. Sensitive, grave little Damaris had been greatly unnerved bythe death of Jack, and especially that his own pistol had taken hislife.
"We'll play that the red glow is loving kindness, and that we have hadour eyes touched with magic that makes us able to see love," criedConstance. "Fire is the emblem of love, warming our hearts toward allthings, so our fancy will be at once make-believe and truth. Remember,my cosset lamb, that love is around us, whether we see it or not, andthat there can be no dismal gray days if we have our eyes touched to seethe glow of love warming us! Now what shall the story be? Here in thehearth corner, shall it be Cinderella? Or shall it be the story of thelucky bear, that found a house empty and a fire burning when he wanted ahome, and wherein he set up housekeeping for himself, like the quality?"
"All of them, Constance! But first tell me what we shall do when Gilescomes home. I like that story best. I wish he would come soon!" sighedDamaris.
"Ah, so do I! And so he will;" Constance corrected instantly the painthat she knew had escaped into her voice. "Captain Standish will notrisk the coming of cold weather; he will bring them home soon. Well,what shall we do then, you want to hear? First of all, someone willcome running, calling to us that the shallop hath appeared below in theharbour. Then we shall all make ourselves fine, and----"
"Someone is coming now, Con, but not running," cried Damaris, sitting upand holding up a warning finger.
"It is a man's step," began Constance, but, as the door opened shesprang to her feet with a cry, and stood for an instant of stunned joyholding Damaris clasped to her breast. Then she set the child on herfeet and leaped into Giles's arms, with a great sob, repeating his nameand clinging to him.
"Steady, Constance! Steady, dear lass," cried Giles, himself in not muchbetter state, while Damaris clung around his waist and franticallykissed the tops of his muddy boots.
"Oh, how did you get here? When did you come? Are they all safely here?"cried Constance.
"Every man of them; we had a fine expedition, not a misfortune, perfectweather, and we saw wonders of noble country: streams and hills andplains," said Giles, and instantly Constance felt a new manhood andself-confidence in him, steadier, less assertive than his boyish pride,the self-reliance that is won through encountering realities, inconquering self and hence things outside of self.
"I cannot wait to hear the tale! Let me help you off with your heavycoat, your matchlock, and then sit you down in this warmest corner, andtell me everything," cried Constance, beginning to recover herself, therich colour of her delight flooding her face as, the first shock ofsurprise over, she realized that it was indeed Giles come back to herand that her secret anxiety for him was past. "Art hungry, my own?" sheadded, fluttering around her brother, like a true woman, wanting firstof all to feed him.
"Well, Con, to be truthful I am always hungry," said Giles, smiling downon her.
"But not in such strait now that I cannot wait till the next meal."
"Here are our father and Mistress Hopkins, hastening hither," saidConstance, looking out the door, hoping for this coming of her father."You have not seen Father yet?"
"No, Con; I came straight home, but the captain has met with him, I amsure. And, Con, I want to tell you before he comes in, that I have seenhow wrong I was toward our good father, and that I hope to carry myselfdutifully toward him henceforth."
Constance clasped her hands, rapturously, but had not time to replybefore the door was thrown wide open and Stephen Hopkins strode in, hisface radiant.
He went up to his tall son and clasped his shoulders in a grip that madeGiles wince, and said through his closed teeth, trying to steady hisvoice:
"My lad, my fine son, thank God I have you back! And by His mercy neveragain shall we be parted, nor sundered by the least sundering."
Giles looked up, and Giles looked down. He hoped, yet hardly dared tothink, that his father meant more than mere bodily separation.
"I am glad enough to be here, yet we had glorious days, and have seen acountry so worthy that we wish that we might go thither, leaving thisless profitable country," said Giles. "We have seen land that by alittle effort would be turned into gracious meadows. We have seen greatbays and rivers, full of fish, capable of navigation and industry. Wehave seen a beautiful river, which we have named the Charles, for wethink it to be that river which Captain John Smith thus named in hismap. The Charles flows down to the sea, past three hills which top anoble harbour, and where we would dearly like to build a town. I willtell you of these things in order. Captain Myles will have a meeting ofthe Plymouth people to hear our tale; I would wait for that, else willit be stale hearing to you."
"Nay, Giles, we shall never tire of it!" cried Constance. "A good storyis the better for oft hearing, as you know well, do you not, littleDamaris?"
"Well, it hath made a man of thee, Giles Hopkins," said Dame Eliza whohad silently watched the lad closely as he talked. "It was a lucky thingfor thee that the Arm of the Colony, Captain Myles, took thee for one ofhis tools."
"A lucky thing for him, too," interposed Giles's father proudly. "I haveseen Myles; he hath told me how, when you and he were fallen behind yourcompanions, investigating a deep ravine, he had slipped and would havebeen killed by his own matchlock as it struck against the rock, but thatyou, risking your life, threw yourself forward on a narrow ledge andstruck up the muzzle of the gun. The colony is in your debt, my son,that your arm warded death from the man it calls, justly, its Arm."
"Prithee, father!" expostulated Giles, turning crimson. "Who could doless for a lesser man? And who would not do far more for Myles Standish?I would be a fool to hesitate over risk to a life no more valuable thanmine, if such as he were in danger. Besides which the captainexaggerates my danger. I don't want that prated here. Please help mesilence Myles Standish."
Stephen Hopkins nodded in satisfaction.
"Right, Giles. A blast on one's own horn produces much the sound of thebray of an ass. Yet am I glad that I know of this," he said.
Little Love Brewster, who was often a messenger from one Plymouth houseto another, came running in at that moment.
"My father sends me," he panted. "The men of Plymouth are to sit thisafternoon at our house to hear the tale of the adventurers to theMassachusetts. You will come? Giles, did you bring us new kinds ofarrows from the strange savages? My father saith that Squanto was thebest guide and helper on this expedition that whit
e men ever had."
"So he was, Love. I brought no new arrows, but I have in my sacksomething for each little lad in the colony. And for the girls I havewondrous beads," added Giles, seeing Damaris's crestfallen face.
"I will risk a reprimand; it can be no worse than disapproval from ElderBrewster, and belike they will spare me because of the occasion,"thought Constance in her own room, making ready to go to the assemblythat was to gather to welcome the explorers, but which to her mind wasgathered chiefly to honour Giles.
Thus deliberately she violated the rule of the colony; let her beautifulhair curl around her flushed face; put on a collar of her mother'sfinest lace, tied in such wise by a knot of rose-coloured ribbon that itlooked like a cluster of buds under her decided little chin. And,surveying herself in the glass, which was over small and hazy for hermerits, that chin raised itself in a hitch of defiance.
"Why should I not be young, and fair and happy?" Constance demanded ofher unjust reflection. "At the worst, and if I am forced to remove it, Ishall have been gay and bonny--a wee bit so!--for a little while."
With which this unworthy pilgrim maid danced down the stairs, seized bythe hand Damaris, who looked beside her like a small brown grub, and setout for Elder Brewster's house.
Although the older women raised disapproving brows at Constance, andshook their heads over her rose-tinted knots of ribbon, no one openlyreproved her, and she slid into her place less pleased with herornamentation than she had been while anticipating a rebuke.
Captain Myles Standish rose up in his place and gave the history of hisexplorations in a clear-cut, terse way, that omitted nothing, yet dwelton nothing beyond the narration of necessary facts.
It was a long story, however condensed, yet no one wearied of it, butlistened enthralled to his account of the Squaw-Sachem of the tribe ofthe Massachusetts, who ruled in the place of her dead spouse, the chiefNanepashemet, and was feared by other Indians as a relentless foe, andof the great rock that ended a promontory far in on the bay, at the footof the three hills which were so good a site for a settlement, a rockthat was fashioned by Nature into the profile of an Indian's face, andwhich they called Squaw Rock, or Squantum Head. As the captain went ontelling of their inland marches from these three hills and their bay,and of the fertile country of great beauty which they everywhere cameupon, there arose outside a commotion of children crying, and the largerchildren who were in charge of the small ones, calling frantically.
Squanto, admitted to the assembly as one who had borne an important partin the story that Myles Standish was relating, sprang to his feet andran out of the house. He came back in a few moments, followed by anotherIndian--a tall, lithe, lean youth, with an unfriendly manner.
"What is this?" demanded Governor Bradford, rising.
"Narragansett, come tell you not friends to you," said Squanto.
The Narragansett warrior, with a great air of contempt, threw upon thefloor, in the middle of the assembly, a small bundle of arrows, tiedaround with a spotted snake skin. This done, he straightened himself,folded his arms, and looked disdainfully upon the white men.
"Well, what has gone amiss with _his_ digestion!" exclaimed Giles,aloud.
His father shook his head at him. "How do you construe this act andmanner, Squanto? Surely it portendeth trouble."
"It is war," said Squanto. "Arrows tied by snake skin means no friend;war."
"Perhaps we would do well to let it lie; picking it up may meanacceptance of the challenge, as if it were a glove in a tourney. Thecustoms of men run amazingly together, though race and educationseparate them," suggested Myles Standish.
"Squanto, take this defiant youngster out of here, and treat himpolitely; see that he is fed and given a place to sleep. Tell him thatwe will answer him----By your approval, Governor and gentlemen?"
"You have anticipated my own suggestion, Captain Standish," said WilliamBradford bowing, and Squanto, who understood more than he could put intowords, spoke rapidly to the Narragansett messenger and led him away.
"Shall we deliberate upon this, being conveniently assembled?" suggestedGovernor Bradford.
"It needs small consideration, meseems," said Myles Standish,impatiently. "Dismiss this messenger at once; do not let him remain hereover night. The less your foe knows of you, the more your mystery willincrease his dread of you. In the morning send a messenger of our own tothe Narragansetts, and tell them that if they want war, war be it. Ifthey prefer war to peace, let them begin upon the war at once; that weno more fear them than we have wronged them, and as they choose, sowould we deal with them, as friends worth keeping, or foes to fear."
"Admirable advice," Stephen Hopkins applauded the captain, and the otherPlymouth men echoed his applause.
Then, with boyish impetuosity and with laughter lighting up his handsomeface, Giles leaped to his feet.
"Now do I know the answer!" he cried. "Let the words be as our captainhath spoken; no one could utter better! But there is a further answer!Empty their snakeskin of arrows and fill it round with bullets, andthrow it down among them, as they threw their pretty toy down to us! Andour stuffing of it will have a bad flavour to their palates, mark me. Itwill be like filling a Christmas goose with red peppers, and if itdoesn't send the Narragansetts away from the table they were setting forus, then is not my name Giles Hopkins! And one more word, my elders andmasters! Let me be your messenger to the Narragansetts, I beseech you!They sent a youth to us; send you this youth back to them. If it behauteur against hauteur, pride for pride, I'll bear me like the lion andthe unicorn fighting for the crown, both together, in one person. Seewhether or not I can strike the true defiant attitude!"
With which, eyes sparkling with fun and excitement, head thrown back,Giles struck an attitude, folding his arms and spreading his feet,looking at once so boyish and so handsome that with difficultyConstance held her clasped hands from clapping him.
"Truth, friend Stephen, your lad hath an idea!" said Myles Standish,delightedly.
"It could not be better. Conceived in true harmony with the savages'message to us, and carrying conviction of our sincerity to them at thefirst glimpse of it! By all means let us do as Giles suggests."
There was not a dissentient voice in the entire assembly; indeedeveryone was highly delighted with the humour of it.
There was some objection to allowing Giles to be the messenger, but hereCaptain Standish stood his friend, though Constance looked at himreproachfully for helping Giles into this risky business.
"Let the lad go, good gentlemen," he said. "Giles hath been with me onthese recent explorations, and hath borne himself with fortitude,courage, and prudence. He longs to play a man's part among us; let himhave the office of messenger to the Narragansetts, and go thither in theearly morning, at dawn. We will dismiss their youth at once, and followhim with our better message without loss of time."
So it was decided, and in high feather Giles returned to his home,Damaris on his shoulder, Constance walking soberly at his side, halfsharing his triumph in his mission, half frightened lest her brother hadbut returned from unknown dangers to encounter worse ones.
"Oh, they'll not harm me, timorous Con!" Giles assured her. "They knowthat it is prudent to let lie the sleeping English bulldogs, of whom,trust me, they know by repute! Now, Sis, can you deck me out in somewise impressive to these savages, who will not see the dignity of oursober dress as we do?"
"Feathers?" suggested Constance, abandoning her anxiety to enter intothis phase of the mission. "I think feathers in your hat, Giles, andsome sort of a bright sash across your breast, all stuck through withknives? I will get knives from Pris and some of the others. And--oh, Iknow, Giles! That crimson velvet cloak that was our mother's, hungbackward from your shoulder! Splendid, Giles; splendid enough for SirWalter Raleigh himself to wear at Elizabeth's court, or to spread forher to walk upon."
"It promises well, Sis, in sound, at least," said Giles. "But by allthat's wise, help me to carry this paraphernalia ready to don at a safedistance
from Plymouth, and by no means betray to our solemn rulers howI shall be decked out!"
The sun was still two hours below his rising when Giles started, thecrimson velvet cloak in a bag, his matchlock, or rather Myles Standish'smatchlock lent Giles for the expedition, slung across his shoulder, asword at his side, and the plumes fastened into his hat by Constance'sneedle and thread, but covered with another hat which surmounted hisown.
Constance had arisen, also, and went with Giles a little way upon hisjourney. Stephen Hopkins had blessed him and bidden him farewell on thepreceding night, not to make too much of his setting forth.
At the boundary which they had agreed upon, Constance kissed her brothergood-bye, removing his second hat, and dressing the plumes crushed belowit.
"Good-bye, my dear one," she said. "And hasten back to me, for I cannotendure delay of your return. And you look splendid, my Knight of theWilderness, even without the crimson cloak. But see to it that you makeit swing back gloriously, and wave it in the dazzled eyes of theNarragansetts!"
"'You look splendid, my knight of the wilderness'"]
Thus with another kiss, Constance turned back singing, to show to Gileshow little she feared for him, and half laughing to herself, for she wasstill very young, and they had managed between them to give thisimportant errand much of the effect of a boy-and-girl, masqueradingfrolic.
Yet, always subject to sudden variations of spirits, Constance had notgone far before she sat down upon a rock and cried heartily. Then,having sung and wept over Giles, she went sedately homeward to await hisreturn in a mood that savoured of both extremes with which she hadparted from him.
The waiting was tedious, but it was not long. Sooner than she had daredto hope for him, Giles came marching back to her, and as he sang as hecame, at the top of a lusty voice, Plymouth knew before he could tell itthat his errand had been successful.
Giles went straight to Governor Bradford's house, whither those who hadseen and heard him coming followed him.
"There is our gift of war rejected," said Giles, throwing down thespotted snakeskin, still bulging with its bullets. "They would havenaught of it, but picked it up and gave it back to me with much air ofsolicitude, and with many words, which I could not understand, but whichI doubt not were full of the warmest love for us English. And I was gladto get back the stuffed snakeskin and our good bullets, for here, so farfrom supplies, bullets are bullets, and if any of our red neighbours didattack us we could not afford to have lessened our stock in objectlessons. All's well that ends well--where have I heard that phrase?Father, isn't it in a book of yours?" Giles concluded, innocentlyunconscious that he was walking on thin ice in alluding to a play ofShakespeare's, and his father's possession of it.
"You have done well, Giles Hopkins," said Governor Bradford, heartily,"both in your conception of this message, and in your bearing it to theNarragansetts. And so from them we have no more to fear?"
"No more whatever," said Giles.
"Nevertheless, from this day let us build a stockade around the town,and close our gates at night, appointing sentinels to take shifts ofguarding us," said Myles Standish. "This incident hath shown me that theoutlying savages are not securely to be trusted. I have long thoughtthat we should organize into military form. I want four squadrons of ourmen, each squadron given a quarter of the town to guard; I want picketsplanted around us, and at any alarm, as of danger from fire or foe, Iwant these Plymouth companies to be ready to fly to rescue."
"It shall be as you suggest, Captain," said Governor Bradford. "Thesethings are for you to order, and the wisdom of this is obvious."
Constance and Giles walked home together, Constance hiding beneath hergown the plumes which she had first fastened into, then ripped out ofGiles's hat.
"It is a delight to see you thus bearing your part in the affairs ofPlymouth, Giles, dearest," she said. "And what fun this errand must havebeen!"
Giles turned on her a pain-drawn face.
"So it was, Constance, and I did like it," he said. "But how I wish JackBillington had been with me! He was a brave lad, Constance, and a truefriend. He was unruly, but he was not wicked, and the strict ways hereirked him. Oh, I wish he had been here to do this service instead of me!I miss him, miss him."
Giles stopped abruptly, and Constance gently touched his arm. Giles hadnot spoken before of Jack's death, and she had not dared allude to it.
"I am sorry, too, dear Giles," she whispered, and Giles acknowledged hersympathy by a touch upon her hand, while his other hand furtively wipedaway the tears that manhood forbade the boy to let fall.