CHAPTER IX
MASTER HOPKINS'S GUEST
"'In Wakefield there lives a jolly pinder, In Wakefield all on a green, In Wakefield all on a green,--'
THERE, there, Damaris! Hushaby, hushaby! Go to sleep, like a good lass."
Damaris gurgled at Miles with a provokingly wide-awake crow. "I neversaw such a bad baby," sighed the little boy. "Do go to sleep, honey.
"'In Wakefield there lives a jolly pinder,--'"
"Oh, Miles," laughed Constance Hopkins, who, standing at the rudetable, was scouring the biggest kettle, "you have sung that half ascore of times. Is there no other song you know?"
"It is no time for the child to sleep now," interrupted MistressHopkins. "I'll wrap her up, and, since 'tis so mild a morning, you maytake her forth into the air."
"O dear!" thought Miles, "I'm a man, not a nurse." He never consideredthat it was any kindness on his new guardians' part when, instead ofputting him to heavy outdoor tasks, they set him to minding the babyand helping about the house. "Like a girl," Miles told himself, withan indignant sniff. It was not two weeks since he left the sick-house,and his legs were still a little uncertain, but he was sure he was fitto work again, or, at any rate, fit to run away and play with the otherboys.
But he took the baby now and walked forth meekly, because he livedin some dread of Mistress Elizabeth Hopkins. She was a thin-lipped,energetic young woman, who mended Miles's clothes scrupulously, and,with equal conscientiousness, boxed his ears whenever he tracked dirton her clean floors. Her sharp tongue, though, he feared more thanher hands, for Mistress Hopkins scolded at everything and everybody;indeed, the only members of the household whom her words never troubledwere Oceanus, who was so young he just blinked his eyes when shetalked, and Master Hopkins, on whom people's fretting had as mucheffect as it would have had upon the great rock at the landing place.
After all, Miles was rather glad to get out into the air, away fromthe living room, where Mistress Hopkins was already chiding Constance.The morning was fair and warm, with no wind stirring, and the harborsparkled invitingly, so, shouldering the unwelcome Damaris, he startedhappily to the shore.
But his contentment speedily had an end, for, not halfway to thelanding, he was overtaken by Francis Billington, Jack Cooke, and JoeRogers, who at once addressed him in disrespectful wise. "Ho, Miles,that's brave work, tending a baby," jeered Francis.
"You meddle with your own matters," Miles replied sulkily.
"Come with us, Miles," Jack put in pacifically. "We're going alongshore to the first brook--"
"We do not want a baby with us," Joe interrupted.
"_You_ might stay with me, Jack," Miles pleaded, as the others turnedaway.
Jack, a freckled little fellow with merry eyes, dug the heel of hisshoe into the dirt. "The other lads will be having sport," he saidhalf-heartedly.
"Then go with them," cried Miles. "Only you were very fain to play withme on shipboard."
Even this last thrust failed; Jack ran after the others down the hill,and Miles, feeling cross and ill-treated, was left to himself.
'Twould look too much as if he were following his ungracious friends ifhe went on to the landing, so he turned back to Elder Brewster's house.There Priscilla Mullins, a girl orphaned by the winter's sickness, who,because she was eighteen, was classed by Miles as a woman, was sweepingthe doorstone with a broom of birch twigs. She paused in the laborteasingly to throw him a kiss, and tell him his busy sister and thelads were cooking by the brookside.
Sure enough, in the level space between the base of the bluff on whichthe cottage stood and the cove, Miles found Dolly, and Dolly's poppetPriscilla, and Love, and Wrestling, and Solomon, and Trug, who was notadmitted to Mistress Hopkins's house because his great paws dirtied herfloor,--all busied in making delectable pies of mud.
But when Miles joined them, Love withdrew from the mud-pie game, andwished to play at holding a council, such as his father and all the menwere holding that morning in the Common House to regulate the militaryaffairs of the colony. Dolly insisted that she should be allowed tocome to the council too, for all Love urged that women never wereinvited thither, and the argument was growing bitter, when an unwontedtumult in the village street drew Miles's attention. A confused sortof calling and shrill shouting it seemed, that made his heart quickenbetween curiosity and alarm; so, snatching up Damaris, he scaled thebluff, while the rest of the children scrambled close behind him.
On the doorstone Mistress Brewster and Priscilla were gazing in silentwonder toward the street, and, looking thither too, Miles saw a manstalk past to the landing, very deliberately, as if he knew the placeand held he had the right to come there. It was no one of the settlers,though, but a great, half-naked fellow with a coppery face--an Indian.
Dolly and Wrestling clutched Mistress Brewster's skirts, the littleboy fairly crying, and Miles himself, it must be owned, held Damarisfast and drew a step nearer the doorstone. But next moment he noted theIndian carried for weapons only a bow and two arrows, with which hecould not kill all the settlement, and, moreover, at his heels taggedventurously Giles Hopkins and several of the other boys, and evenGoodwife Billington, very clamorous, and the Governor's serving maid.
So Miles, not to be outdone by a petticoat, swaggered into the roadwayand joined himself to the little group of curious folk, who, alwaysready to flee if he should turn on them, followed close at the savage'sheels, down the steep hill, past Peter Browne's cottage, even to thedoor of the Common House.
The noise in the street had already disturbed the men at theirconference, and they came flocking forth at the door, the Governor, theElder, and the Captain, with a score of other stout fighters crowdingbehind them. But the Indian, never a whit abashed, strode boldly upto them, would even have pressed into the house, had not their ranksbarred his passage. Nothing chilled, he halted, and, stretching forthhis hands, spoke in a guttural tone: "Welcome."
"Do Indians talk English?" Miles whispered to Giles, who stood besidehim. "Hush, hush, Damaris! The black man won't hurt you."
But Damaris, quite unconvinced, clutched Miles tightly round the neckand went on crying lustily, till at last Goodwife Billington seized himby the collar. "Thou good-for-naught lad!" she scolded. "Wilt thou killthe poor babe? Take her back to the house, thou runagate! Ay, ay, lether scream herself ill, so thou mayest gape and gaze. I would I had theup-bringing of thee!"
Some people besides himself liked to gape and gaze, Miles thought,but, without reply, he gathered the wailing Damaris into his arms andtrudged slowly up the hill. There, by the Governor's house, it chancedhe met with Francis and Jack and Joe, who, scenting something unusualin the village, had hastened back through the fields. "What is it hashappened, Miles?" cried Joe.
Miles, glancing over his shoulder, saw with unkind satisfaction thatthe men had taken the savage into the Common House, out of sight."'Twas naught," he said airily. "Just a great Indian came into town."
"Did you see him?" urged Francis. "Tell us about it."
"Humph! You've no wish to talk to me when I'm tending a baby," sniffedMiles, and trudged on to Master Hopkins's house, so elate at histriumph that he forgot to be angry with Damaris for dragging him awayfrom the sport.
At the noon meal, indeed, he heard all and more than he could havelearned, had he lingered about the door of the Common House, for NedLister was bubbling over with talk of the Indian. As Master Hopkins hadstayed at the Common House and Dotey had none of his fellow-servant'sfaculty for gathering news, he proved the only tale-monger of thehousehold; so the whole family harked to him respectfully, and evenMistress Hopkins forgot her usual sarcasms on his galloping tongue.
"This is not a savage from these parts," Ned explained; "he comes fromthe eastward, from Monhegan, whither the ships out of England go tofish. He has been on shipboard there and so has got a smattering ofthe English tongue. One Captain Dermer brought him to Cape Cod, and hehas been in these parts now some eight months. And he told us a dealof the nations herea
bout. This open place where we have settled iscalled Patuxet. It was a village of the savages once, but three or fouryears back came a great plague, and all the people died, so now we areundisputed masters of the soil. Next unto us dwell the Massasoits, atribe of some sixty fighting men; and to the southeast, those savageswhom our men gave a brush to on their explorations in December, are theNausets, near a hundred strong."
Ned paused to secure himself another slice of cold mallard; thenstarted on a new train: "You should 'a' seen the Indian fellow eat. Heasked for beer, but we gave him strong water, and biscuit and butterand cheese and pudding, and a piece of mallard thereto, and he likedall very well, and ate right heartily."
"He is not the only idler who looks for a full meal," said MistressHopkins scathingly. "Where have they put the vile creature now?"
"Vile creature, mistress?" Ned repeated. "Sure, he says that in his owncountry he is a great lord of land, a Sagamore--"
"I would he were back in his own country," Mistress Hopkins answeredsharply. "The murderous wretch! I shall not draw a breath in peace tillhe be hence. Here, Ned, 'tis little enough work you'll do if you goforth, do you stay this afternoon in the house to protect us."
There was an instant of disappointed silence on Lister's part, then,"'Tis you she means, Ned Dotey," he cried, and, without staying to takehis cap, bolted out at the door.
Nor was this the only desertion which Mistress Hopkins suffered; for,at their first opportunity, Dotey and Giles also slipped away, andMiles stayed behind only because he was so little that the mistressshook him when he attempted to follow. But speedily he had a brightthought, and asked Mistress Hopkins if perhaps, since she was afraid ofthe Indian, she would not like him to fetch Trug to the house to guardthem.
Thus Miles was allowed, at last, to bring his dog home, and so gratefulwas he, that he remained patiently tending Damaris all the longafternoon. He found a certain enjoyment in his position, however; hewas sole man in the cottage, and he wondered, should other Indiansfollow this first one, if Mistress Hopkins wouldn't let him take one ofthe muskets and fight for her. When it came dark at last, he knowinglyinspected the fastenings of the door, and told Constance not to beafraid; he and Trug could defend them.
Poor Constance needed more comfort than that, for she was in a sorryfright. Her hands shook as she laid the table, and, when a step soundedcrisply in the dooryard, she gave a nervous cry and dropped the pile oftrenchers. It was only Ned Lister, however, who stamped in, bareheadedand whistling cheerfully.
"You have come back, then, since 'tis suppertime?" Mistress Hopkinsgreeted him sarcastically.
"Nay, I'm not hungry," Ned answered, as he sauntered over to the firewhere Miles sat with Damaris, "'tis that the master sent me ahead tobid you make ready the guest chamber and the bed of state. Our Indianlord there, the Sagamore Samoset, is to lodge here to-night."
For a moment Mistress Hopkins looked at the speaker in dumb amazement."If Master Hopkins does not punish you roundly for such a lie, EdwardLister," she said at last, deliberately, "it will not be for want of myurging him."
"It's the truth, though," Ned answered indifferently.
"O me!" Constance cried, with a sudden nervous wail, "I know we'll allbe slain ere daybreak. O dear!" She turned to run into the bedroom,when Lister caught her by the arm. "Don't cry, Constance," he urged;"there's no need to fear. Captain Standish and some of the others arecoming hither to spend the night and keep watch. You'll be safe enough."
But the girl, breaking from him, vanished into the chamber, whitherMistress Hopkins, snatching up Damaris, followed her; so, for somemoments, Miles was free to ask questions and Ned to answer, as it likedthem best. But, so soon as Master Hopkins's deliberate step soundedon the doorstone, Mistress Hopkins came forth and, as he enteredthe living room, confronted him: "Is that savage to be lodged hereto-night, Stephen? Among us, where my children are?"
"He must go somewhere, Elizabeth," the master of the house repliedunruffled. "He is set to stay among us for the night, and the tide isout so we may not convey him on shipboard. We can lodge him in thelittle closet next our chamber."
"He shall not come into the house!" said Mistress Hopkins, with herthin lips set.
"Edward Lister, do you spread out the bed within the closet," MasterHopkins went on unheedingly.
With a wink at Miles, Ned crossed the room in unusual haste, and Miles,taking a candle, followed after into the closet, a tiny room with oneblack window, where stood an old chest and a hogshead and a rolled-upmattress, which Ned began leisurely to spread out. "What think you,Miles?" he whispered, as the boy closed the door behind him. "It's goodthere is one person in the house whom the dame cannot rattle off as shelist, eh?"
Miles nodded vaguely, his attention all fixed on the least details ofthe commonplace room which now had a fearful interest from the guestit was to shelter. The thought of the savage stranger filled the placewith such awesome fancies that he could not help going out from itvery hastily ahead of Lister, who grumbled a little that Miles was sospeedy to be off with the candle.
Once in the bright living room, however, he became very brave indeed,and wondered to Giles Hopkins when the Sagamore Samoset would come.His mood grew the bolder when the elder lad showed him a dirk knife hehad placed under his doublet. "For there's no being sure with thesetreacherous savages," Giles said seriously.
But when the Sagamore came at last, the boys found that the Hopkinshousehold would be well guarded, for with him were not only MasterHopkins and Dotey, but big John Alden and Captain Standish. The verysight of the latter reassured Miles, so down he sat on the floor by thehearth, with his arm round Trug, who, as soon as he spied the Indian,bristled the hair on his back and uttered a throaty growl.
Mistress Hopkins and Constance and the two babies kept within the southchamber; but the men by themselves were enough to fill the living room.There were but two stools, besides the form on the hearth and a chestagainst the wall, so long-legged Giles must curl himself up on thefloor by Miles, while Ned Lister set himself upon the table. They badethe Indian be seated on the form by the fire, right over against Miles,who, be sure, stared at him with eyes wide open.
The Sagamore Samoset, he saw, was a tall, straight man, of complexionlike an English gypsy, smooth-faced, with coarse black hair that fellto his shoulders behind, but was cut before. Since his coming intothe settlement, his English hosts had put upon him a horseman's coat,which he wore with much pride and dignity; indeed, all his gestures andcarriage were not only decent, but of a certain stateliness. "Why, heis somewhat like other men," Miles whispered softly to Giles, but Truggrumbled in his throat.
Only one candle was burning in the room, but the firelight cast aflickering brightness on the faces of the men. Captain Standish andLister and the Indian had lighted pipes of tobacco, and the air was soheavy with the smell of the smoke that Miles half drowsed, but throughhis drooping eyelids he watched his English comrades, and watched theIndian. Captain Standish was sitting adventurously right on the formbeside the Sagamore, and now and again they spoke together. Miles notedthat in the Indian's speech came strange words, which the Captainseemed to try to understand, and once or twice the Captain even soughtto make use of them himself.
Miles wondered at this, and then his only wonderment was as to whetherhe had been asleep. The logs on the hearth had broken into red embers;the men had risen up; and, rubbing the heaviness from his eyes, Milessaw Master Hopkins and the Captain usher their Indian guest into thelittle closet room.
Straightway a certain tension in the company seemed to slacken; Gilesrose stiffly from the floor, and Trug put down his head upon hispaws, though he still kept one bright, half-opened eye fixed on thedoor through which the Indian had gone. With a great creaking of thetrestles, Ned Lister dismounted from the table. "If he come to killus," he said in a low tone to Alden, "do you run in and call me so Ican have a share in the scuffle." Then, stretching himself mightily, hedisappeared into the north bedroom, where the serving men and the boysof t
he household slept.
"Since you have two others to keep watch with you, Master Hopkins,"spoke the Captain, as he took down his hat from the wall, "I'll go walka turn about the hill. I'll be back ere the half-hour is up."
He had put his hand to the latch, when Miles, on the impulse, sprang tohis feet and ran to him. "May I come too, sir?" he whispered.
"You, Miles? Why, you were better in bed. Nay, come if you like."
Out of doors the air was crispy and silent, and pleasant smellingafter the smoky atmosphere of the crowded room. Overhead the starswere dense and bright, but below, the lonely little settlement lay indarkness, with never a spark of a candle showing. "How late is it,Captain Standish?" Miles asked, in a hushed voice.
"I should say it was near on to midnight," the other replied, steppingalong so briskly that Miles's breath for talking was lost in the effortto keep pace with him.
Up and up they toiled; past Goodman Billington's cottage; past theblack cabin where Alden and the Captain lived; and then by thewell-trodden path up the sheer hillside, till the planking of the broadplatform sounded hollow beneath their feet, and they stood among theguns. The spark in the Captain's pipe gleamed red in the darkness, butMiles could not see the Captain's features; he perceived only that heturned his face from quarter to quarter, and remained longest gazinginto the black west, where the ridge of hills ran jagged against thestarry sky.
He watched the Captain's movements, but he did not venture to speaktill Standish himself broke out: "Well, there'll come no bands tofrighten us this night, I take it. We can march home, Miles. We've afair starlight to make the march under," he added, and, as they steppedfrom the platform to the yielding turf, lingered an instant to gazeskyward.
"Which is it that is the North Star, sir?" Miles hesitated.
"Why, that one yonder, lad. You know it well."
"I knew 'twas the North Star in England. I knew not if 'twere the samehere. It is such a long ways from home."
"It's the same sky, Miles, and the same Heaven, I take it, that we hadover us in England."
Miles threw back his head and once more stared up into the sky, thatwas so vast it made him shrink and feel smaller even than before.He sighed a little, he scarcely knew why, and put his hand on theCaptain's sleeve. Standish took Miles's hand in his, and so kept holdon him as they came down from the hill, and in that pressure wassomething so comforting that Miles was sorry when they reached the doorof Master Hopkins's house.
Within was heavy air, and a dull fire, and sleepy faces; Giles had goneto lie down on his bed, and it did not need the Captain's bidding tosend Miles blinking after. Once, in the darkness, he was wakened byhearing Lister protest inarticulately that he would rather have histhroat cut in his sleep ten times over than rise and watch; and onceMiles guessed hazily that some one was shaking him, and he tried to sayhe was getting up, and in the midst dropped back on his pillow.
At the last the dazzle of warm sunlight on his face, and the rattle,rattle of trenchers, brought him staggering and blinking to his feet.Oh, yes, he remembered; the Sagamore Samoset had been there last night;but he was not afraid of him, especially since 'twas daylight; indeed,he wanted to see him again, so out he rushed into the living room.
"Well, sleepyhead!" Constance laughed at him, and Mistress Hopkinswas beginning to scold him because he had not awakened, for all herefforts, till mid-morning, when Ned Lister sauntered in. "His Lordshipthe Indian is safe departed, Constance," he said consolingly, ashe made a slow business of getting an axe from the chimney corner."They gave him a knife and a bracelet and a ring, and he is gone awaycontent."
"A good riddance, too!" snapped Mistress Hopkins. "And now do you,Edward Lister, fetch two buckets of water and wash out the place wherethe creature lodged. To bring such heathen under a Christian roof! Ihope I never set eyes on another of the coppery wretches again."
Ned shrugged his shoulders and said nothing till his mistress was quitedone; then he added meekly: "I misremembered; he said he was comingback again in a night or two, and next time he is going to bring withhim a goodly number from the tribe of the Massasoits."