"Mark me well, lad, I mean not to cast aught of discredit on the elder's teaching, nor to shake any man's faith in Beulahs, or Canaans, or hills of Paradise, for doubtless Holy Writ gives warrant for such forecasting; and surely approved masters of strategy, and warfare both offensive and defensive, like Moses, and David, and Joshua, did not fight for the guerdon of a fool's bauble, or a May-queen's garland. But yet, mind thee, John, there are other great soldiers given us as ensamples in that same Holy Writ who seemed to set no store upon the Beulahs, and cared naught for milk or honey; men like Gideon, and Samson, and Saul, and Joab; and still the Lord of Hosts led these men forth, and fought for them and fended them, so long as they fought for themselves and were careful to catch the order and obey it. I know not, Jack, these matters are too mighty for a poor soldier like me to handle understandingly; and still somehow it seemeth me that this same Lord of Hosts will know how to deal mercifully even with a rough, war-worn fellow like me, who repenteth him of his sins and hath freely given himself to do battle in Christ's name against all Heathenesse, and to stand forth with this handful of saints against His foes and theirs, and that, although he cannot clearly see the Hills of Beulah, nor cares for such luscious cates as suit some stomachs. Dost catch my meaning, boy?"

"Ay, master, and well do I wish my hope of G.o.d's favor were as fairly founded"--

"Nay now, nay now, did not I this minute tell thee that I care naught for sweets? Save thy honey for some maiden's lips. Ah, and now I think on 't, here is a quiet and leisure time wherein to study out the strategy of that wooing emprise I was telling thee of--nay, did I tell thee?"

"Wooing--what--I--I know not fairly," stammered John Alden, but the captain still gazing upon Hither Manomet, where now the purple bloom of twilight was replacing the glory of the sunset, marked not the pallor stealing the red from beneath the brown of the young fellow's cheek, nor heard the discordant falter of his voice.

"Ay," replied he thoughtfully,--"my wooing of Priscilla Molines, thou knowest. I thought I spoke to thee of it, but at all odds the time has now well come when I should address the maid. I ought indeed to have done it long ago, and mayhap she will be a bit peevish at the delay, for doubtless her father told her ere he died of our compact, but there has been no convenient season, and truth to tell, Jack, I have no great heart toward the matter--yon green plateau lies betwixt me and"--

And in the sudden silence John Alden's gaze went out over the steel gray waters, out and out to the far horizon line where the rose tint had faded from the sky and a low line of fog gathered slowly and sadly.

"I'll tell thee, boy," suddenly resumed the captain rising from the bench and confronting his companion, while lightly touching his breast with the mouthpiece of the pipe upon whose cold ashes John mechanically fixed his eyes,--"thou shalt woo her for me."

"I--I woo her--nay, master, nay"--

"And why nay, thou foolish boy? 'T will be rare practice for thee against some of these la.s.ses grow up, and thou wouldst fain go a-wooing on thine own account. Nay, then, can it be that a young fellow who would gayly go forth against Goliath of Gath were he in these parts is craven before the bright eyes and nimble tongue of a little maid? Dost think Priscilla will box thine ears?"

"Nay, but"--

"Nay me no buts and but me no nays, for the scheme tickles my fancy hugely, and so it shall be. Thou seest, Jack, it were more than a little awkward for me to show reason why I have not spoken sooner, and the fair lady's angry dignity will be appeased by seeing that I stand in awe of her, and woo her as princesses are wooed, by proxy. Thou shalt be my proxy, Jack, and see thou serve me not so scurvy a trick as--ha, here cometh the governor."

And, in effect, Bradford striding up the hill with all the vigor of his one-and-thirty years was already so close at hand as to save John Alden the pain of a reply.

"Good e'en, Governor," cried Standish going a step or two to meet his guest.

"Good e'en, Captain,--Alden. There's more trouble toward about the Billingtons."

"What now?" demanded the captain with a stern brevity auguring ill for the frequent offender.

"Nay, 't is no willful offense this time, nor is the father to blame except for not training his boys better; but the son John hath run away to go to the salvages his brother says, and the mother saith he is stolen, and whichever way it may be, he has been missing since yester even at bedtime, and now we have to go and look him up."

"'Ill bird of an ill egg,'" growled Standish. "Mayhap 't were better not to find him."

"And yet we must," replied Bradford gently. "And as Squanto reports that the boy shaped his course for Manomet, my idea is that it were well for us to take our boat and coast along the headland and so on in the course we came at first, observing the sh.o.r.e, and noting such points as may be of use in the future. Mayhap we shall come as far as the First Encounter, and make out whether those salvages whom Squanto calls the Nausets are still so dangerously disposed toward us. At any rate we will try to discover our creditors for the seed-corn springing so greenly over yonder."

"Pity that Winslow hath gone to Sowams to visit Ma.s.sasoit," remarked the captain dryly. "We shall miss his subtle wit in these delicate affairs of state."

"Yes, and if it comes to blows we shall miss no less Stephen Hopkins's doughty arm," replied Bradford. "But sith both are gone, we had better leave the Elder in charge of the settlement along with Master Allerton, John Howland, who is a stout man-at-arms, John Alden, Gilbert Winslow, Dotey, and Cooke."

"Seven men in all."

"Yes, and with Winslow and Hopkins away, that leaves ten of us to go on this expedition, and I shall take Lister lest he brawl with Dotey, and Billington not only that he is the boy's father, but lest he raise a sedition in the camp."

"Well thought on. I tell thee thou hast a head-piece of thine own, Will, though thou art so mild spoken."

Bradford laughed with a glance of affectionate recognition of the soldier's compliment, and then the two arranged the details of the proposed expedition, while Alden standing straight and still as a statue watched the gloom of night blotting all the color from sky, and sea, and sh.o.r.e, even as the fog crept stealthily in swallowing all before it, and a great dumb wave of sorrow and dismay surged up from his own heart, and swallowed all the brightness of his life.

Suddenly from the Town Square at the foot of the hill rose the sound of a drum not inartistically touched, and both the governor and the captain rose to their feet.

"Bart Allerton hath learned to use the drumsticks as if he had served with us in Flanders," said the soldier complacently, as they turned down the little sinuous footpath.

"Yes," replied the governor gravely. "He does credit to thy teaching, Captain, and yet methinks there may be danger that a vain delight in his own performance may cause the lad, and haply others, to forget that this, for lack of a bell, is our call to prayer. Couldst thou find it in thy heart, Myles, to direct that in future the drum shall sound but three heavy and unmodulated beats?"

"Oh ay, if it will please thee better, Will. Didst ever read of the tyrant Procrustes?"

"What of him?"

"Only that he would force all men to fit to one measure, though he dragged the life out of them. Dost fancy the G.o.d to whom we shall presently pray is better pleased with a dreary noise than with some hint at melody? Alden, come on, lad, 't is time for prayers, and thy woesome face suits the occasion. What's amiss, lad?"

"Naught's amiss, master," replied the youth more briefly than his wont, and with a sudden spring from a projecting bowlder he pa.s.sed the two elder men and arrived first at the Common house.

"That younker's face and voice are not so blithe as might be. Hast been chiding him, Myles?" asked Bradford as they followed down the hill.

"Nay," replied the captain. "But like enough he's thwarted at missing the chance of a brush with the redskins to-morrow, and 't is a pity."

"Nay, Myles, look not so pensive on 't," responded the governor laughing. "There are men, believe it if you can, who love the smell of roses better than of blood. To my fancy John Alden--but there, light jesting is surely ill befitting the hour of prayer."

CHAPTER XXIII.

"SPEAK FOR YOURSELF, JOHN!"

Further information gathered by Squanto and Hobomok from the Indian guests who were constantly in and out of the village proved that John Billington had wandered as far as Manomet, and that Canac.u.m, the sachem of that place, had sent him on with some Nauset braves who were visiting him, as a present or perhaps hostage to Aspinet, chief of the Nausets and Pamets. The course of the rescuing party was thus determined, and, apart from the recovery of little Billington, Bradford was glad of the opportunity of offering payment to the Nausets for the corn borrowed from the mysterious granary near the First Encounter, and also much desired to hear an explanation of the grave containing the bones of the French sailor and little child.

It was, therefore, with considerable satisfaction that he next morning led his little party to the water side, and embarked them just as the sun rising joyously from out the blue, blue sea, sent a handful of merry shafts to tip each wave with glory and glance in harmless flame from every point of armor or of weapon in the pinnace, as the crew moved every man to his appointed place, the captain pushing st.u.r.dily with an oar while John Alden, half in, half out the water, heaved mightily at the bows hanging at the foot of the Rock.

"Once more! Now again! There she floats!" cried the captain. "One more shove, John! There, there, enough! Fare thee well, lad, and mind the business I bade thee take in hand!"

"Ay, master," replied the youth, but as he stepped upon the Rock, and shook the waters from his mighty limbs, he heaved a sigh so ponderous that surely it helped to fill the mainsail now curving grandly to the gathering breeze.

But the summer day ripened to noon, and waned until the sun all but touched the crest of Captain's Hill, before the young man gave over the work at which he had labored like a t.i.tan all day long, and going down to the brook at a point where the captain and he had dug a semicircular basin and paved it about with white sea-pebbles by way of a lavatory, he made his toilet, chiefly by throwing the clear cool water in bucketfuls over his head and neck, and then rubbing himself with a coa.r.s.e towel until the crisp hair curled vivaciously, and the fair skin glowed out from under its coat of sunbrown in strong relief to the white teeth and blue eyes that made the face so comely in its strength.

A little brushing of the dark doublet and leathern small-clothes, the low russet boots and knitted hose that completed his costume, and the unwilling envoy strolled down the hill to Elder Brewster's cottage and paused unseen and unheard outside the open door. It was the quiet time in the afternoon when the rougher labors of the day were ended, and the housewife might rest herself with the more delicate tasks of spinning, knitting, or needlework, for it was in these, "the good old days" we all so plaintively lament, that the distich--

"Man may work from sun to sun But woman's work is never done"--

originated, and was something more than a bitter jest.

In the elder's busy household all the women were using this hour for their own refreshment. Mistress Brewster was lying upon her bed, Mary Chilton had taken her knitting and gone to sit awhile with Desire Minter and Elizabeth Tilley, and Priscilla drawing her quaintly carved spinning-wheel into the middle of the room so that she could look out of the window giving upon the brook and distant Manomet, was spinning some exquisitely fine linen thread, with which she purposed to weave cambric delicate enough for kerchiefs and caps. As she spun, she sang as the birds sing, that is from the heart, and not from the score; and now it was a blithe chanson brought by her mother from her French home, and now it was a s.n.a.t.c.h of some Dutch folks-lied or some Flemish drinking-song, and again the rude melody of an old Huguenot hymn, the half devout, half defiant invocation of men who prayed with naked swords in their hands.

But suddenly into the sonorous strains of Luther's Hymn broke the joyous trill of a linnet's song, and the bird alighting upon a neighboring poplar seemed challenging the unseen songster to a trial of skill. The stately hymn broke off in a little burst of laughter; and then accepting the challenge, the girl took up the linnet's strain in an unworded song, sweeter, richer, more full of joy, and love, and sunshine than his own, until the little fellow with an angry chirp and flirt of the wings flew onward to the forest where he knew no such unequal contest awaited him.

"Well done, maid!" exclaimed Alden stepping in at the open door. "Thou hast so outsung the bird that he hath flown."

"Nay, methinks he flew because he saw an owl abroad, and owls are ever grewsome neighbors to poor little songsters," replied Priscilla dryly, and, pressing the treadle swiftly she drew out her cobweb thread with such earnest care that she could not look up at the tall and comely guest who awkwardly stood awaiting some more hospitable greeting.

Receiving none, he presently subsided upon a stool hard by the spinning-wheel, and after watching its steady whirl for some moments said,--