A Pilgrim Maid: A Story of Plymouth Colony in 1620

by Marion Ames Taggart

  CHAPTER II

  To Buffet Waves and Ride on Storms

  The wind held fair, the golden September weather waited on each new dayat its rising and sent it at its close, radiantly splendid, into the seaahead of the _Mayflower_ as she swept westward.

  Full canvas hoisted she was able to sail at her best speed under thefavouring conditions so that the hopeful young people whom she carriedtalked confidently of the houses they would build, the village theywould found before heavy frosts. Captain Myles Standish, alwaysimpetuous as any of the boys, was one of those who let themselves forgetthere were such things as storms.

  "We'll be New Englishmen at this rate before we fully realize we've lefthome; what do you say, my lassies three?" he demanded, pausing in arapid stride of the deck before Constance Hopkins and two young girlswho were her own age, but seemed much younger, Humility Cooper and hercousin, Elizabeth Tilley.

  "What do you three mermaidens in this forward nook each morning?"Captain Standish went on without waiting for a reply to his firstquestion, which indeed, he had not asked to have it answered.

  "Elizabeth's mother, Mistress John Tilley, is sick and declares that sheshall die," said Constance, Humility and Elizabeth being shyly silentbefore the captain.

  "No one ever thought to live through sea-sickness, nor wanted to,"declared Captain Myles with his hearty laugh. "Yet no one dies of it,that is certain. And is Mistress Ann Tilley also lain down and leftHumility to the mercy of the dolphins? And is your stepmother, too, Con,a victim? It's a calm sea we've been having by comparison. I've sailedfrom England into France when there _was_ a sea running, certes! Butthis--pooh!"

  "Humility's cousin, Mistress Ann Tilley, is not ill, nor my stepmother,Captain Standish, but they are attending to those who are, and to thechildren. Father says that when he sailed for Virginia, before my motherdied, meaning to settle there, that the storm that wrecked them onBermuda Island and kept us from being already these eleven yearscolonists in the New World, was a wind and sea that make this seem nomore than the lake at the king's palace, where the swans float."

  Constance looked up smiling at the captain as she answered, but he notedthat her eyes were swollen from tears.

  "Take a turn with me along the deck, child," Captain Myles said,gruffly, and held out a hand to steady Constance on her feet.

  "Now, what was it?" he asked, lightly touching the young girl's cheekwhen they had passed beyond the hearing of Constance's two demure littlecompanions. "Homesick, my lass?"

  "Heartsick, rather, Captain Myles," said Constance, with a sob."Mistress Hopkins hates me!"

  "Oh, fie, Connie, how could she?" asked the captain, lightly, but hescowled angrily. There was much sympathy between him and StephenHopkins, neither of whom agreed with the extreme severity of most ofthe pilgrims; they both had seen the world and looked at life from theirwider experience.

  Captain Standish knew that Giles's and Constance's mother had been thedaughter of an old and honourable family, with all the fine qualities ofmind and soul that should be the inheritance of gentle breeding. He knewhow it had come about that Stephen Hopkins had married a second time awoman greatly her inferior, whose jealousy of the first wife's childrensaddened their young lives and made his own course hard and unpleasant.Prone to speak his mind and fond of Giles and Constance, the impetuouscaptain often found it hard to keep his tongue between his teeth whenDame Eliza indulged in her favourite game of badgering, persecuting herstepchildren. Now, when he said: "Fie, how could she?" Constance lookedup at him with a forlorn smile. She knew the captain was quite awarethat her stepmother could, and did dislike her, and she caught the angerin his voice.

  "How could she not, dear Captain Myles?" she asked. Then, with herpent-up feeling overmastering her, she burst out sobbing.

  "Oh, you know she hates, she hates me, Captain!" she cried. "Nothing Ican do is pleasing to her. I take care of Damaris--sure I love my littlesister, and do not remember the half that is not my sister in her! AndI wait on Mistress Hopkins, and sew, and do her bidding, and I do notanswer her cruel taunts, nor do I go to my father complaining; but shehates me. Is it fair? Could I help it that my father loved my ownmother, and married her, and that she was a lovely and accomplishedlady?"

  "Do you want to help it, if by helping you mean altering, Connie?" askedCaptain Myles, with a twinkle. "No, child, you surely cannot help allthese things which come by no will of yours, but by the will of God. AndI am your witness that you are ever patient and dutiful. Bear as bestyou can, sweet Constantia, and by and by the wrong will become right, asright in the end is ever strongest. I cannot endure to see your youngeyes wet with tears called out by unkindness. There is enough and tospare of hard matters to endure for all of us on this adventure not toadd to it what is not only unnecessary, but unjust. Cheer up, Con, mylass! It's a long lane--in England!--that has no turning, and it's along voyage on the seas that ends in no safe harbour! And do you know,Connie girl, that there's soon to be a turn in this bright weather?There's a feeling of change and threatening in this soft wind."

  Constance wiped her eyes and smiled, knowing that the captain wished tolead her into other themes than her own troubles, the discussion ofwhich was, after all, useless.

  "I don't know about the weather, except the weather I'm having," shesaid. "Ah, I don't want it to storm, not on the mid-seas, CaptainMyles."

  "Aye, but it's the mid-seas of the year, Connie, when the days andnights are one in length, and at that time old wise men say a storm isusually forthcoming. We'll weather it, never fear! If we are bearingwestward a great hope and mission as we all believe--not I in preciselythe same fashion as these stricter saints, but in my own way noless--then we are sure to reach our goal, my dear," said the captaincheerfully.

  "Sometimes I lose faith; I think I am wicked," sighed Constance.

  "We are all poor miserable sinners! Even the English Church which wehave cast off and consigned to perdition, puts that confession into ourmouths," said Captain Myles, with another twinkle, and was gratifiedthat Constance's laugh rang out in response to his thinly veiledmischief.

  Captain Standish proved to be a true prophet. On the second day after hehad announced to Constance the coming change in weather it came. The_Mayflower_ ran into a violent storm, seas and wind were wild, the smallship tossed on the crest of billows and plunged down into the chasmbetween them as they reared high above her till it seemed impossiblethat she should hold together, far less hold her course.

  In truth she did not hold to her course, but fell off it before thestorm, groaning in every beam as if with fearful grief at her owndanger, and at the likelihood of destroying by her destruction the hope,the tremendous mission which she bore within her.

  The women and children cowered below in their crowded quarters--lackingair, space, every comfort--numb with the misery of sickness and thethreat of imminent death.

  Constance Hopkins, young as she was, cheered and sustained her elders.Like a mettlesome horse that throws up his head and puts forth renewedstrength when there rises before him a long steep mountain, Constancelaughed at fear, sang and jested, tenderly helping the sick, gatheringaround her the children for story-telling and such quiet play as therewas room for. Little Damaris was sick and cross, but Constance comfortedher with unfailing patience, proving so motherly an elder sister thaneven Mistress Eliza's jealous dislike for the girl melted when she sawher so loving to the child.

  "You are proving yourself a good girl, Constantia," she said, withsomething like shame. "If I die you will look after Damaris and bringher up as I would have done? Promise me this, for I know that you willnever break your word, and having it I can leave my child withoutanxiety for her future."

  "It needs no promise, Stepmother," said Constance. "Surely I would notfail to do my best for my little sister. But if you want my word fully,it is given you. I will try to be grown up and wise, and bring upDamaris carefully if you should leave her. But isn't this silly talk!You will not die. You will tell Damaris's little girls abo
ut your voyagein the _Mayflower_, and laugh with them over how you talked of dyingwhen we were so tossed and tumbled, like a tennis ball struck by astrong hand holding a big racquet, but unskilled at the game!" Constancelaughed but her stepmother frowned.

  "Never shall I talk of games to my daughter," she said, "nor shall you,if you take my place." Then she relented, recalling Constance'sunselfish kindness all these dark hours.

  "But you have been a good girl, Constantia. Though I fear you are notchastised in spirit as becomes one of our company of saints, yet haveyou been patient and gentle in all ways, and a mother to Damaris and theother small ones. I can do no less than say this and remember it," sheadded.

  Constance was white from weariness and the fear that she fought downwith merry chatter, but now a warm flush spread to her hair.

  "Oh, Mistress Hopkins, if you would not hate me, if you would but thinkme just a little worthy of kindly thoughts--for indeed I am notwicked--the hardship of this voyage would be a cheap price to pay forit! I would not be so unhappy as I am if, though you did not love me,you would at least not hate me, nor mind that my father loved me--me andGiles!" Constance cried passionately, trembling on the verge of tears.

  Then she dashed her hand across her eyes as Giles might have done, andlaughed to choke down a sob.

  "Priscilla! Priscilla Mullins, come! I need your help," she called.

  "What to do, Constance?" asked Priscilla, edging her way from the otherend of the crowded cabin to the younger girl.

  Priscilla looked blooming still, in spite of the conditions to dim herbright colour.

  Placid by nature, she did not fret over discomfort or danger. Trim andneat, she was a pleasant sight among the distressed, pallid faces abouther, like a bit of English sky, a green English meadow, a warm Englishhearth in the waste of waters that led to the waste of wintrywilderness.

  "What am I do to for thee, Constance?" Priscilla asked in her deep, altovoice.

  "Help me get these children up into the air in a sheltered nook ondeck," said Constance. "They are suffocating here."

  "No, no!" cried two or three mothers. "They will be washed away,Constantia."

  "Not where we have been taking them these three days past," saidPriscilla. "Let me go first and get John Alden to prepare that nest ofsails and ropes he made so cleverly for us two days ago."

  "What doesn't John Alden do cleverly?" murmured Constance, with a slyglance. "Go then, Pris dear, but don't forget to hasten back to tell meit is ready."

  Priscilla did not linger. John Alden had gotten two others to help him,and a safe shelter where the children could be packed to breathe the airthey sorely needed was ready when Priscilla came to ask for it. SoPriscilla hurried back and soon she and Constance had the littlepilgrims safely stowed, made comfortable, though Damaris feared thegreat waves towering on every side and clung to Constance in desperatefaith.

  "What is to do yonder?" asked Priscilla of John Alden, who after theywere settled came to see that everything was right with them.

  "What are the men working upon?"

  "I suppose it's no harm telling you now," said John Alden, "since theyare at work as you see, but the ship has been leaking badly, and one ofher main beams bowed and cracked, directly amidships. There has been thenext thing to mutiny among the sailors, who have no desire to go to thebottom, and wanted to turn back. We have been in consultation and theyhave growled and threatened, but we are half way over to the westernworld so may as safely go on as to return. At last we got them to agreeto that and now they are mending the ship. We have aboard a great jack;one of the passengers brought it out of Holland, luckily. What they aredoing yonder is jacking up that broken beam. The carpenter is going toset a post under it in the lower deck, and calk the leaky upper parts,and so we shall go on to America. The ship is staunch enough, we allagree, if only we can hold her where she is strained. But you had noidea of how near you were to going back, had you?"

  "Oh, no!" cried Priscilla. "Almost am I tempted to wish we hadreturned."

  "No, no, no!" cried Constance. "No turning back! Storms, and savages,and wilderness ahead, but no turning back!"

  Damaris fell asleep on Constance's shoulder, and slept so deeply thatwhen Myles Standish, Stephen Hopkins, and John Alden came to help thegirls to get the children safely down again into their cabin she did notwaken, and Constance begged to be allowed to stay there with her,letting her sleep in the strong air, for the child had troubled hersister by her languor.

  Cramped and aching Constance kept her place, Damaris's dead weight uponher arm, till, after a long time, her father returned to her with amoved face.

  "Shift the child to my arm, Constance," he said, sitting beside her."You must be weary with your long vigil over her, my patient, sweetConstance!"

  "Oh, Father-daddy," cried Constance, quick tears springing to her eyes,"what does it matter if you call me that? You will always love me, myfather?"

  "Child, child, what aileth thee?" said Stephen Hopkins, gently. "Are younot the very core of my heart, so like your lovely young mother that yougrip me at times with the pain of my joy in you and my sorrow for her.The pilgrim brethren would not approve of such expressions of love, mydear, yet I think God who gave me a father's heart and you a daughter's,and taught us our duty to Him by the figure of His own Fatherhood,cannot share that condemnation. All the world to me you shall be to theend of my life, my Constance. But I came to tell you a great piece ofnews. The _Mayflower_ has shipped another passenger, mid-seas though itis."

  Constance looked up questioningly.

  "I have another son, Constance. The angels given charge of littlechildren saw him safely to us through the perils of the voyage. Do younot think, as I do, that this child is like a promise to us of successin the New World?"

  "Yes, Father," said Constance, softly, sweet gravity upon her face, andtears upon her lashes. "Will he be called Stephen?"

  "Your stepmother wishes him named Oceanus, because of his sea-birth. Doyou like the name?" asked her father.

  Constance shook her head. "Not a whit," she said, "for it sounds like aheathen god, and that I do not like, though my stepmother is a stricterPuritan than are you and I. I would love another Stephen Hopkins. But ifit must be Oceanus--well, I'll try to make it a smooth ocean for thelittle fellow, his life with us, I mean."

  "Shall we go below to see him? I will carry Damaris," said Mr. Hopkins,rising, and offering Constance his hand, at the same time shifting herburden to himself.

  Damaris whined and burrowed into her father's shoulder, half waking.Constance stumbled and fell laughing, to her knees, numb from longsitting with the child's weight upon them.

  At the door of the cabin they met Doctor Fuller, who paused to look longand steadily at Constance.

  "You have been saving me work, little mistress," he said, putting a handon her shoulder. "Your blithe courage has done more than my physic tohold off serious trouble in yonder cabin, and your service of hands hasbeen as helpful. When we get to our new home will you accept theposition of physician's assistant? Will you be my cheerful littlepartner, and let us be Samuel Fuller and Company, physicians andsurgeons to the worshipful company of pilgrims in the New World?"

  Constance dropped a curtsey as well as the narrow space allowed. She, aswell as all the rest of the ship's company, loved and trusted this kindyoung doctor who had left his wife and child to follow him later, andwas crossing the seas with the pilgrims as the minister to theirsuffering bodies.

  "Indeed, Doctor Fuller, I will accept the office, though it will make meso proud that I shall be turned out of the community as unfit to be partof it," she cried.

  * * * * *

  There followed after this long days of bleak endurance, the coldincreasing, the storms raging. For days at a time the _Mayflower_ layto, stripped of all sail, floating in currents, thrown up on high,driven nose down into an apparently bottomless pit, the least of man'swork cut off from man's natural life, left to herself in the desert ofwaters
, packed with the humanity that crowded her.

  Yet through it all the men and women she bore did not lose heart, butbeneath the overwhelming misery of their condition kept alive the senseof God's sustaining providence and personal direction.

  Thus it was not strange that the little ship and her company provedstronger than the wintry storms, that she survived and, once morehoisting sail, kept on her westerly course.

  It was November; for two months and more the _Mayflower_ had sailed anddrifted, but now there were signs that the hazardous voyage was nearlyover.

  "Come on deck, Con! Come on deck!" shouted Giles Hopkins. "All hands ondeck for the first glimpse of land! They think 'twill soon be seen."

  Pale, weak, but quivering with joy, the pilgrims gathered on the_Mayflower's_ decks.

  Rose Standish was but the shadow of her sweet self. Constance lingeredto give the final touches to Rose's toilette; they were all striving tomake some little festal appearance to their garments suitably to greetthe New World.

  "I can hardly go up, dear Connie," murmured Rose. "The _Mayflower_ hathtaken all the vigour from this poor rose."

  "When the mayflower goes, the rose blooms," said Constance. "Wait tillwe get ashore and you are in your own warm, cozy home!"

  Rose shook her head, but made an effort to greet Captain Myles brightlyas he came to help her to the deck.

  "What land are we to see, Myles? Where are we?" she asked.

  "Gosnold's country of Cape Cod, rose of the world," said Captain Myles."It lies just ahead. Have a care, Constance; don't trip. Here we are,then!"

  They took their places in a sheltered nook and waited. The Billingtonboys had clambered high aloft and no one reproved them. Though theirpranks were always calling forth a reprimand from some one, this time noone blamed them, but rather envied them for getting where they could seeland first of all.

  Sharply Francis Billington's boyish voice rang out:

  "Land! Land! Land!" he shouted.

  It was but an instant before the entire company of pilgrims were ontheir knees, sobbing, chanting, praising, each in his own way, the Godwho had brought their pilgrimage to this end.

  That night they tacked southward, looking for Hudson's river, but thesea was so rough, the shoals around the promontories southward sodangerous, that they gave over the quest and turned back.

  The next day the sun shone with the brilliant glory of winter upon thesea, and upon the low-lying coast, as the _Mayflower_ came into herharbour.

  "Father, it is the New World!" cried Constance, clasping her father'sarm in spite of the tiny _Mayflower_ baby which she held.

  "The New World it is, friend Stephen. Now to conquer it!" said MylesStandish, clapping Mr. Hopkins on the shoulder and touching his swordhilt with the other hand.