Standish of Standish Part 10

On the southern side a deep crevice, worn by many rains, offered a foothold, even as it does to-day, and in a moment the four Pilgrim chiefs stood upon the summit and looked about them.

The sun was setting in lavish gorgeousness, while in the deep blue vault arching overhead tiny points of light showed where the stars waited impatiently to take their places and glorify the night.

The sea, almost black in its depth of color, dashed mournfully upon the rocks fallen from the high northern and western bluffs, and across the wintry flood lay the sh.o.r.es of what was to be Duxbury, running out at the south into a peninsula, terminating in a bold summit. This was Captain's Hill, and the Captain standing there looked at it all unconsciously and said:--

"Yonder is a spot that might be made into a goodly hold against any foe.

With a piece or two properly mounted on that fair height, and a palisado cutting off the headland from the main, it would fall into as pretty a little fortalice as could be asked."

"Too small a seat for our whole company, howbeit," said Carver scrutinizing the spot.

"And we must seek a river with commodious harbor for our fis.h.i.+ng fleet,"

added Winslow, not knowing the capacities then of Jones's River and Green Bay, hard by Captain's Hill, where he was to spend the honorable evening of his days.

"Fis.h.i.+ng!" echoed Standish contemptuously. "It is like those good dry-salters and drapers of London town, who have helped out our enterprise, to expect us, landing on this barren sh.o.r.e in the depth of winter, to fall on fis.h.i.+ng before we break our fast, or build a shelter for our wives and children. Our first work is to subdue the salvages, to cut down the forest, to build houses, and plant crops. If we reach the fis.h.i.+ng by this day twelvemonth we shall have done well."

"I fear me the Adventurers of whom you speak so slightingly will hardly be of your mind," replied Winslow coldly.

"Then let them come over here and collect their profits for themselves,"

retorted Standish. "And well would I like to see Thomas Weston and Robert Cushman, with some of those smug London traders who think to buy good men's lives and swords for the price of a red herring, set down here to battle with the frost and snow, and sea and swamps, not to mention the salvages. We should hear their tune change from 'Fish, fish, fis.h.!.+' I warrant me."

But at this speech Winslow, even more of a diplomatist than a soldier, looked grave, and Bradford, in whose harmonious character valor was ever in accord with reason, laid a hand upon the little Captain's shoulder, and said affectionately:--

"Thy courage is still so keen, Myles, that when thine enemies are put to flight thou 'rt tempted to turn upon thy friends! Doubtless the Adventurers, mostly men of peace, traders, if thou wilt have it so, yet none the worse for that, do somewhat fail to fathom the perils of this our undertaking; still no man is to be condemned for an honest misconception, and these same traders have freely risked their money to furnish us forth. We, too, had never stood on this rock to-night had not those men thrust their hands deep into their pockets, and is it out of reason for them to ask to see some return for their money as soon as may be?"

"Not out of reason for traders, mayhap," replied Myles obstinately. "I would that we had come at our own charges altogether."

"Those of us who had a little money were not enough to furnish forth those who had none," interposed Carver gravely; "and we have none too many hands as it is to do the work laid out for us."

"Thou 'rt right, as thou mainly art, Governor," replied Standish good-humoredly; "and haply 't is well that my hot head is linked with thy cool one."

"We were all ill sped, lacking thy skill and valor in war, Captain,"

replied Carver kindly, and after a moment's meditative silence he slowly added,--

"It ill befits finite man to intrude upon the Councils of infinite wisdom, and yet it seemeth borne strangely in upon my mind that G.o.d hath carefully chosen His weapons for the mighty conquest He hath set Himself to make in this wilderness, and, if I may say it without grieving your modesty, brethren, I seem to see in you, standing with me here, three chosen leaders.

"A man of war, trained from childhood in martial tactics, and in the use of weapons, and of a singular courage and determination, you, Standish, are the strong right arm of the body corporate.

"And you, Winslow, bred among courtiers and statesmen, subtle of intellect, ready of speech, cool of temper, and sound in judgment, in you I see our amba.s.sador, our spokesman, our counselor and adviser, our Chrysostom of the golden mouth."

"And Bradford," jealously demanded Standish laying a hand upon the arm of the future governor, for whom he ever entertained a mighty affection.

Carver turned and looked full into Bradford's steadfast eyes upraised to his, and his own gaze became rapt and well-nigh prophetic. When he spoke again it was in a lower and less spontaneous voice.

"The arm strikes, the tongue parleys, but both must be in accord with the brain, or all is lost. The father of his people must think for all, plan for all, encourage, restrain, cherish, discipline all. Standish for the camp, Winslow for the council, but for you, Bradford, the sleepless vigil, the constant watch, the self-forgetting energy, whose fruits are safety, honor, and prosperity, for those who lean on you."

"But, dear friend, it is you who still must be our governor, our reliance, our father!" exclaimed Bradford eagerly, but Carver turned away and began the steep descent.

Those whom he left looked earnestly in each other's faces, yet said nothing. A future grander, and more terrible than they had imagined, seemed suddenly defined before them, and each dimly felt the burden and the honor of his own part therein laid upon him.

As thus they stood, three n.o.ble figures clearly defined against the amber of the evening sky, Richard Warren and Stephen Hopkins appeared upon the crest of the hill and paused to look about them.

"See yonder figures, looking as cut out of stone, and set up for idols in the high places of Baal," sneered Hopkins. "These be our masters, Warren, if so be we yield to them."

Warren, a genial, honest gentleman of London, who had thrown his entire patrimony, as well as his earnest soul, into this enterprise, shook his head and laughingly replied,--

"Thou 'rt ever too jealous, Stephen, for thine own comfort. Our brethren, all unconscious that they make so fine a show up there, are giving their best and their all to the common weal, and so are we. If their best, chance to be gold, and ours but iron, think 'st thou G.o.d will value the one offering above the other? I trow not man, and I am for my part well content as matters stand."

"Nay," persisted Hopkins, "but mark you how constantly they slight us and Dotey, because we are out of England, and not of Holland, and so not of Robinson's congregation?"

"Nay," replied Warren pacifically; "I had liefer mark the many times we are called to Council and to share in whatever good may be toward. And mark you, Hopkins, you and I are the fathers of many children, and those men have none as yet, and this land whose foundations must be laid in our blood, if need be, shall become the inheritance of those we leave behind. Please G.o.d, my five girls, coming hither so soon as I have a roof to shelter them, shall become the mothers of soldiers and statesmen, maybe of kings, for who knoweth what is to come when the seed sown in tears shall be reaped in joy!"

Hopkins answered only by a contemptuous sniff, and the triumvirate descending from their pedestal, all six men returned amicably to the camp.

CHAPTER VIII.

BURYING HILL.

Much has been said and written of the Sunday spent by the advanced guard of Pilgrims upon Clarke's Island, and a very modern tradition points to the great rock in the centre of the island as the scene of their devotions. Nothing, however, is less probable than that this handful of men, with no pastor or even presiding elder among them, should leave their encampment under the bluff, and the neighborhood of their boat, to travel inland to this bleak and exposed bowlder, there to set one of their number to exhort the rest. Carver certainly was a deacon of Robinson's congregation, yet this office gave him no spiritual authority, but rather the duties of a warden in the mother church, nor was the governor a man to a.s.sume any authority not his own; so although he led the informal service held in that sheltered nook, upon the sh.o.r.e, Winslow and Bradford and Hopkins were the chief speakers, while John Howland in his melodious and powerful voice raised a psalm that made the welkin ring, and Richard Warren stoutly cried Amen to all the rest.

Standish, his arms folded and one hand resting upon the hilt of Gideon, stood a little apart, his head reverently bared in the prayers, and with a rough attempt at melody echoing Howland's psalm; but during the exhortations or prophesyings, he strode softly up and down the beach, or mounting upon the bluff swept sea and land with the keen glances of eyes that nothing escaped. Occasionally a fervent word would be sped in his direction from one or another, and many a prayer, as before and after that hour, was urged that this bulwark of the church against her secular foes might become her obedient son. When thus exhorted or prayed for the captain's face became a study, sometimes so impenetrably obtuse, sometimes so rigid in its obstinacy, sometimes touched with shrewd amus.e.m.e.nt, and sometimes moved to tender sympathy, but never to conviction or even doubt, and as the years went on, those who loved him most, even Bradford and Alden and Brewster, ceased all effort to bring this precious comrade into their own fold, but learned to accept him as he was.

Monday broke with clear and gracious skies and a sea only pleasantly rippled with its late commotion. Refreshed and cheered by their long rest the Pilgrims were early afoot, and at a good hour the cleaned and furbished arms were packed in the shallop, the sail, bent to its new mast, was unfurled to its fullest spread, and the eighteen men, each at his own post, eager and hopeful. It had been resolved to proceed no farther in search of Coppin's harbor, which afterward proved to be Cut River and the site of Marshfield, but to explore the landlocked harbor lying before them.

Carefully sounding as she went, the shallop felt her way through the Cow Yard or Horse Market, around Beach Point, and having the flood tide with her rode triumphantly over d.i.c.k's Flat and Mother White's Guzzle, until finally, with furled sails and her head to the wind, she lay within a biscuit toss of the sh.o.r.e.

"See, there are cleared fields and a river full of fish, and all things ready to our hand," cried Howland excitedly.

"Bring her up to the beach, then, and we will land and explore," replied Carver, smiling at the young man's enthusiasm.

"There is a rock a few rods ahead set ready for a stepping-stone,"

announced Howland standing in the bows.

"Lay her up to it, men," growled English, and in a moment the bows of the shallop caressingly touched the cheek of that great gray Rock, itself a pilgrim, as has well been said, from some far northern sh.o.r.e, brought here by the vast forces of Nature, and laid to wait in grand patience, until the ages should bring it a name, a use, and a nation's love and honor.

"Jump then, lad, and see thou jump not five fadom deep, as thou didst out there in mid-seas!" cried Hopkins, and Howland leaping lightly from the boat to the rock cried in his blithe voice,--

"And I seize this mainland for King James, even as Master Clarke did yon island."

"Only thou dost not claim it for thine own under the king as he did,"

replied Coppin.

"It seemeth to me," said Carver as he stepped on sh.o.r.e, "as if this place were fairly laid down on Smith's map that we were studying. Think you not so, Master Winslow?"

"Ay, I believe it is the place he hath called Plymouth after our English town."