"Ay indeed will it. Bide a bit till I can parley with both thy captain and Hewes, who is not an ill fellow if one handleth him gingerly."

"Gingerly goeth not smoothly with peppery, and 't is but half the truth to call our captain that," said Bridges with a dry smile, as Conant pa.s.sed him to reach Standish who was marshaling his men upon the sands.

Too long it were to detail the arguments of the man of peace, the delicate manipulation of the tempers of both parties, the concessions wrung from the one side and the other, until after several hours' debate Standish moodily said,--

"Well Conant, sith you put it so, sith you make it out that by enforcing the colony's right I do but attack the colony's life, I yield, for I am sworn defender and champion of Plymouth and her prosperity, and never shall it be said that Myles Standish preferred his own quarrel to the well-being of those he had sworn to protect. To leave yon fellow unscathed for his insolence, sits like a blister on a raw wound, but go and make what terms you can with him. I suppose you require not that I abandon the colony's property altogether to him."

"Nay, nay, Captain, but I am thinking that my comrades and I, with some of the Little James' men and Master Hewes' company, should clap to and run up another staging in a few hours either for the new-comers or the Plymouth men"--

"For Plymouth if you would pleasure me. I would not my men should take the leavings of yon rabble at any price," interrupted Standish haughtily.

"So be it, and if Hewes with his men will do their best, and Master Bridges and you will send your crew to help, we also will labor in the common cause until each party shall have a staging of its own, and the bond of Christian charity need not be broken."

"That same bond will be all the safer if I may get away from here with as small delay as may be," retorted Standish.

"And that too shall be," replied Conant cheerfully. "For I fain would speak with the Master of the Anne before she sails, and I'll e'en take our own pinnace and set you across the bay, and be back again before my mates have well missed me."

"So wilt thou save me from some such explosion as befalls when a little pot is tightly closed and its contents overheated," replied Myles with a grim smile, and although Conant stared at the odd simile, he paused not to ask its solution, but so hastened the building of the stage and the other business of the day that when sunset fell, the two men, leaving the rest at an amicable supper eaten in common, spread the wide sails of their pinnace to a fitful western wind, and skimmed southward under the soothing and chastening light of the new-risen moon.

The western wind though often sighing in capricious languor never quite deserted those who trusted to it, and at a good hour next morning the pinnace dropped her anchor beside the Anne, and her dory carried the two mew ash.o.r.e just as Plymouth woke to a new day.

CHAPTER x.x.xVIII.

BARBARA.

"Wilt give me some breakfast, Priscilla?" asked a well-known voice, as Mistress Alden bent to uncover her bake kettle, or Dutch oven, to see if the manchets of fine flour her husband liked so heartily were well browned.

"Lord-a-mercy!" cried she nearly dropping the cover and springing to her feet. "What, 't is truly thee, Captain, and not thy spook? Why 't was but yester e'en Dame Bradford told me thou wert away with Master Bridges on a fishing adventure, and none might guess the day of thy return."

"She said so, did she?" replied the captain; "and who heard it beside thee, Priscilla?"

"Why--now let me think--yea and verily, Christian Penn was in the room and no doubt heard the sad tidings though she said naught."

"And none beside, Mistress Alden?"

"None--nay, now I think on 't, thy kinswoman Barbara was in presence.

But there, my manchets will be burnt to crusts. Sit thee down, Captain, sit thee down."

"And what said Mistress Standish anent my going?" asked Myles seating himself upon a three-legged stool and doffing his slouched hat.

Priscilla looked at him with one of the keen glances which John declared counted the c.o.c.kles of a man's heart. Then she smiled with an air of satisfaction and replied,--

"Barbara said naught, and so told me much."

"Told thee much? Come now, Priscilla, spare me thine old-time jibes and puzzlements and show thyself true womanly, and mine own honest friend.

I'm sore bestead, Priscilla--I have a quarrel with Myles Standish, and 't is as big a fardel as my shoulders will bear. Tell me what Barbara's silence meant to thee?"

"It meant that it was her doings that thou hadst gone, and that thy going both angered and grieved her, Captain."

"Angered, mayhap."

"Yea, and grieved. She ate no supper, although I prayed her to taste a new confection of mine own invention."

"Priscilla, dost think Master Allerton would be--would make a"--

"Would be the right goodman for Barbara? No, and no again, I think naught of the kind."

"Ah! You women are so quick upon the trigger, Priscilla. I would my snaphance went to the aim as lightly and as surely as your or Barbara's thought."

"Come now, Captain, the manchets are done, and the fish is broiled, and the porridge made. Wait but till I call the goodman and open a pottle of my summer beer; 't is dear Dame Brewster's diet-drink, with a thought more flavor to it, and John says--ah, here thou art, thou big sluggard.

We need no horn to call thee to thy meat."

Entering the cottage with a grin upon his lips and the promise of a kiss in his eyes, Alden started joyfully at sight of the Captain, and at Priscilla's impatient summons he bashfully took the head of the table and asked the blessing upon his family and their daily bread, which was then the undisputed duty of every head of a household. The captain ate well, as Priscilla slyly noted; and as she rose from the table and began rapidly to carry the few pewter and wooden dishes to the scullery John had added to the two rooms and loft comprising the cottage, she muttered,--

"What fools we women be! When they care for us the most, a savory dish will comfort them, and we must pule, and pine, and pale--ah!"

For the captain had followed and stood at the housewife's elbow with a confused and somewhat foolish smile upon his face.

"Wilt do me a favour, Priscilla?"

"Gladly, as thou knowest, sir."

"Nay, sir me no sirs, Priscilla! Take me for thine own familiar friend as already I am Alden's."

"'T is an ill-advised quotation, Captain, for the 'own familiar friend'

of the Psalmist proved a false one. But ne'ertheless I'll wear the cap, and haply prove as true as another to my promise. What can I do for thee, Captain?"

"Why--as thou dost seem to surmise, Priscilla, there is a question between Barbara and me--truth to tell I gave her just matter of offense, and now I've thought better on 't and fain would tell her so, and yet I fear me if I ask outright she'll not let me come to speech of her."

"Ay, ay, good friend, I see," exclaimed Priscilla, holding up her slender shapely hand. "And here's the cat's-paw that's to pull thy chestnuts from the fire!"

"Nay Priscilla"--

"Yea Captain! Put not thy wit to further distress, good friend, for it needs not; I see all and more than all thou couldst tell me. Go thy way to the Fort, and look over thy dear guns and wait until thou seest--what thou wilt see."

And with a little push the young matron thrust her guest out of the open door of the scullery, and hasted to finish her own labors.

Almost an hour pa.s.sed and the Captain of the Armies of New England had uncovered and examined and sighted and petted each gun in his armament more than once; had considered the range of the saker, the minion, the falcon, and the bases; and had stood gazing blankly at the whitened skull of Wituwamat above the gate of the Fort until the wrens who nested there began to fly restlessly in and out, fancying that the captain planned an invasion of their territory. He still stood in this posture when the rustle of a footfall among the dried herbage reached his quick ear, and turning he confronted Barbara, whose down-dropt eyes hid the gleam of amus.e.m.e.nt the sight of his melancholy att.i.tude had kindled in their depths.

"Priscilla says that you have returned home from the fishing because you were but poorly, cousin, and she would have me come and ask if you cared to speak with the chirurgeon who is going afield presently."

"So chill, so frozen, Barbara? Is 't so a kinswoman should speak with one ill at ease both in mind and body?"

"I came but as a messenger, sir, and venture not to presume upon any claim of kindred to one who joins the blood of Percivale to that of Standish."