CHAPTER VIII
Deep Love, Deep Wound
Constance had escaped from Humility Cooper and Elizabeth Tilley who hadaffectionately joined her when she had appeared on her way to the beachto await Giles's return.
Constance invented a question that must be asked Elder Brewster becauseshe knew that the girls, though they revered him, feared him, and neverwillingly went where they must reply to his gravely kind attempts atconversation with them. "I surely feel like a wicked hypocrite," sighedConstance, watching her friends away as she turned toward the house thatsheltered the elder.
"What would dear little Humility say if she knew I had tried to get ridof her? Or Elizabeth either! But it isn't as though I had not wantedthem for a less good reason. I do love them dearly! I must meet Gilesand hear his news as soon as I can, and it can't be told before another.Mercy upon us, what _was_ it that I had thought of to ask ElderBrewster! I've forgotten every syllable of it! Well, mercy upon us! Andsuppose he sees me hesitating here! I know! I'll confess to him that Iwas wishing I was in Warwickshire hearing Eastertide alleluias sung inmy cousins' church, and ask him if it was sinful. He loves to correctme, dear old saint!"
Dimpling with mischief Constance turned her head away from a possibleonlooker in the house to pull her face down into the proper expressionfor a youthful seeker for guidance. Then, quite demure and serious, withdowncast eyes, she turned and went into the house.
Elder William Brewster kept her some time. She was nervously anxious toescape, fearing to miss the boys' arrival. But Elder Brewster wasdeeply interested in pretty Constance Hopkins, in whom, in spite of hersweet docility and patient daily performance of her hard tasks, hediscerned glimpses of girlish liveliness that made him anxious and whichhe felt must be corrected to bring the dear girl into perfection.
Constance decided that she was expiating fully whatever fault theremight have been in feigning an errand to Elder Brewster to get rid ofthe girls as she sat uneasily listening to that good man's exposition ofthe value of alleluias in the heart above those sung in church, and thebaseness of allowing the mind to look back for a moment at the "shacklesfrom which she was freed." Good Elder Brewster ended by reading from hisroughened brown leather-covered Bible the story of Lot's wife to whichConstance--who had heard it many times, it being an appropriate themefor the pilgrim band to ponder, sick in heart and body as they had beenso long--did not harken.
At last she was dismissed with a fatherly hand laid on her shining head,and a last warning to keep in mind how favoured above her Englishcousins she had been to be chosen a daughter in Israel to help found akingdom of righteousness. Constance ran like the wind down the road,stump-bordered, the beginning of a street, and came down upon the beachjust as the boys reached it and their boat bumped up on the sand underthe last three hard pulls they had given the oars in unison.
"Oh! Giles, oh, Giles, oh Jack!" cried Constance fairly dancing underher excitement.
"Oh, Con, oh, Con! Oh, Constantia!" mocked John, hauling away on thepainter and getting the boat up to her tying stake.
"What happened you? Have you news?" Constance implored them.
"We heard no especial news, Con," said Giles. "I'm not sure we asked forany. We have this instead; will that suffice you?"
He took from his breast the packet of papers and offered it to her.
"Oh, Giles!" sighed Constance, clasping her hands, tears of reliefspringing to her eyes. "All of them? Are they all safe? Thank Heaven!"she added as Giles nodded.
"Did you have trouble getting them? Who held them? Tell me everything!"
"Give me a chance Constantia Chatter," said Giles, using the nameConstance had been dubbed when, a little tot, she ceaselessly used hernew accomplishment of talking. "We had no trouble, no. We found thethief and made him confess what we already knew, that he was themaster's cat's paw. Jones had to disgorge; he could not hold the paperswithout paying too heavy a penalty. So here they are. Why don't you takethem?"
"I take them?" puzzled Constance, accepting them as Giles thrust theminto her hand. "Do you want me to put them away for you? Are you notcoming to dinner? There is not enough time to go to work before noon.The sun was not two hours from our noon mark beside the house when Ileft it."
"I suppose I am going to dinner," said Giles. "I am ready enough for it.No, I don't want you to put the papers away for me. You can do with themwhat you like. I should advise your giving them to Father, since theyare his, but that is as you will. I give them into your hands."
"Giles, Giles!" cried Constance, in distress, instantly guessing thatthis meant that Giles was intending to hold aloof from a part inrejoicing over the recovery.
"Give them to Father yourself. How proud of you he will be that youferreted out the thief and went so bravely, with only John, to demandthem for him! It is not my honour, and I must not take it."
"Oh, as to honour, you got the first clue from Damaris, if there'shonour in it, but for that I do not care. I did the errand when you sentme on it, or opened my way. However it came about I will not give thepapers to my father. In no wise will I stoop to set myself right in hiseyes. Perhaps he will say that the whole story is false, that I did notget the papers on the ship, but had them hidden till fear and an uneasyconscience made me deliver them up, and that you are shielding yourbrother," said Giles, frowning as he turned from Constance.
"And I thought now everything would be right!" groaned the girl--herlips quivering, tears running down her cheeks. "Giles, dear Giles;don't, don't be so bitter, so unforgiving! It is not just to Father, notjust to yourself, to me. It isn't _right_. Giles! Will you hold thisgrudge against the father you so loved, and forget all the years thatwent before, for a miserable day when he half harboured doubt of you,and that when he was torn by influence, tormented till he was hardlyhimself?"
"Now, Constance, there is no need of your turning preacher," Giles said,harshly.
"If you like to swallow insult, well and good. It does not matter abouta girl, but a man's honour is his chiefest possession. Take the papers,and prate no more to me. My father wanted them; there they are. Hesuspected me of stealing them; I found the thief. That's all there isabout it. What is there to-day to eat? An early row makes a man hungry.Art ready, Jack? We will go to the house, by your leave, pretty Sis.Sorry to see your eyes reddening, but better that than other harm."
Constance hesitated as Giles went up the beach, taking John with him.For a moment she debated seeking Captain Standish, giving him thepapers, and asking him to be intermediary between her father and thisheadstrong boy, who talked so largely of himself as "a man," and behavedwith such wrong-headed, childish obstinacy. But a second thoughtconvinced her that she herself might serve Giles better than thecaptain, and she took her way after her brother, beginning to hope, trueto herself, that her father's pleasure in recovering the papers, hisdesire to make amends to Giles, would express itself in such wise thatthey would be drawn together closer than before the trouble arose.
It was turning into a balmy day, after a chilly morning. Though only themiddle of March the air was full of spring. In the community house, asConstance entered, she found her stepmother, and Mrs. White--each withher _Mayflower_-born baby held in one arm--busily setting forth thedinner, while Priscilla and Humility and Elizabeth helped them, and thesmaller children, headed by Damaris, attempted to help, were sharplyrebuked for getting in the way, subsided, but quickly darted up again totake a dish, or hand a knife which their inconsistent elders foundneeded.
Several men--Mr. Hopkins, Mr. White; Mr. Warren, whose wife had not yetcome from England; Doctor Fuller, in like plight; John and FrancisBillington's father, John Alden and Captain Myles Standish, as a matterof course--were discussing planting of corn while awaiting the finishingtouches to their carefully rationed noonday meal.
"If you follow my counsel," the captain was saying, "you will plant overthe spot where we have laid so many of our company. Thus far we hardlyare aware of our savage neighbours, but with the warm weather they willcome
forth from their woodlands, and who knows what may befall us fromthem? Better, say I, conceal from them that no more than half of thosewho sailed hither are here to-day. Better hide from their eyes beneaththe tall maize the graves on yonder hillside."
"Well said, good counsel, Captain Myles," said Stephen Hopkins. "God'sacre, the folk of parts of Europe call the enclosure of their dead. Wewill make our acre God's acre, planting it doubly for our protection, ingrain for our winter need, concealment of our devastation."
Suddenly the air was rent with a piercing shriek, and little LoveBrewster, the Elder's seven-year-old son, came tumbling into the house,shaking and inarticulate with terror.
Priscilla Mullins caught him into her lap and tried to sooth him anddiscover the cause of his fright, but he only waved his little handsfrantically and sobbed beyond all possibility of guessing what wordswere smothered beneath the sobs.
"Elder Brewster promised to let the child pass the afternoon withDamaris," began Mrs. Hopkins, but before she got farther John Aldenstarted up.
"Look there," he said. "Is it wonderful that Love finds the sight beyondhim?"
"'Look there,' said John Alden"]
Stalking toward the house in all the awful splendour of paint, feathers,beads, and gaudy blanket came a tall savage. He had, of course, seen thechild and realized his fright and that he had run to alarm the pilgrims,but not a whit did it alter the steady pace at which he advanced,looking neither to left nor to right, his arms folded upon his breast,no sign apparent of whether he came in friendship or in enmity.
The first instinct of the colonists, in this first encounter with anIndian near to the settlement was to be prepared in case he came inenmity.
Several of the men reached for the guns which hung ready on the walls,and took them down, examining their horns and rods as they handled them.But the savage, standing in the doorway, made a gesture full of calmdignity which the pilgrims rightly construed to mean salutation, anduttered a throaty sound that plainly had the same import.
"Welcome!" hazarded Myles Standish advancing with outstretched hand uponthe new-comer, uncertain how to begin his acquaintance, but hoping thismight be pleasing. "Yes," said the Indian in English, to the boundlesssurprise of the Englishmen. "Yes, welcome, friend!" He took CaptainStandish's hand.
"Chief?" he asked. "Samoset," he added, touching his own breast, andthus introducing himself.
"How in the name of all that is wonderful did he learn English!" criedStephen Hopkins.
"Yes, Samoset know," the Indian turned upon him, understanding. "Whitemen ships fish far, far sunrise," he pointed eastward, and they knewthat he was telling them that English fishermen had been known to him,whose fishing grounds lay toward the east.
"'Tis true; our men have been far east and north of here," said MylesStandish, turning toward Stephen Hopkins, as to one who had travelled.
"Humphrey Gilbert, but many since then," nodded Mr. Hopkins.
"Big chief Squanto been home long time white men, he talk more Samoset,"said Samoset. "Squanto come see----." He waved his hand comprehendinglyover his audience, to indicate whom Squanto intended to visit.
"Well, womenfolk, you must find something better than you give us, andset it forth for our guest," said Stephen Hopkins. "Get out our Englishbeer; Captain Myles I'll undertake, will join me in foregoing ourportion to-morrow for him. And the preserved fruits; I'm certain he willfind them a novelty. And you must draw on our store of trinkets forgifts. Lads--Giles, John, Francis--help the girls open the chest andmake selection."
Samoset betrayed no understanding of these English words, maintaining astolid indifference while preparations for his entertainment went on.But he did full justice to the best that the colonists had to set beforehim and accepted their subsequent gifts with a fine air of noblecondescension, as a monarch accepting tribute.
Later with pipes filled with the refreshing weed from Virginia, whichhad circuitously found its way back to the New World, via England, thePlymouth men sat down to talk to Samoset.
Limited as was his vocabulary, broken as was his speech, yet theymanaged to understand much of what he told them, valuable informationrelating to their Indian neighbours near by, to the state of thecountry, to climate and soil, and to the people of the forests farthernorth.
Samoset went away bearing his gifts, with which, penetrating hisreserve, the colonists saw that he was greatly pleased. He promised aspeedy return, and to bring to them Squanto, from whose friendship andbetter knowledge of their speech and race evidently Samoset thought theywould gain much.
The younger men--Doctor Fuller, John Alden and others, needless to sayGiles, John, and Francis Billington, under the conduct of MylesStandish--accompanied Samoset for a few miles on his return.
The sun was dropping westward, the night promising to be as warmly kindas the day had been, and Constance slipped her hand into her father'sarm as he stood watching their important guest's departure, under hisescort's guardianship.
"A little tiny walk with me, Father dear?" she hinted. "I like to watchthe sunset redden the sands, and it is so warm and fine. Besides, I havesomething most beautiful to tell you!"
"Good news, Con? This seems to be a day of good things," said herfather, as Constance nodded hard. "The coming of yonder Indian seems tome the happiest thing that could well have befallen us. Given thefriendship of our neighbouring tribes we have little to fear from moredistant ones, and the great threat to our colony's continuance isremoved. Well, I will walk with you child, but not far nor long. Thereis scant time for dalliance in our lives, you know."
They went out, Constance first running to snatch her cloak and pull itsdeep hood over her hair as a precaution against a cold that the warm daymight betray her into, and which she had good reason to fear who hadhelped nurse the victims of the first months of the immigration.
"The good news, Daughter?" hinted Mr. Hopkins after they had walked ashort distance in silence.
Constance laughed triumphantly, giving his arm a little shake. "I waitedto see if you wouldn't ask!" she cried, "I knew you were just ascurious, you men, as we poor women creatures--but of course in a big,manly way!" She pursed her lips and shook her head, lightly pinching herfather to point her satire.
"Have a care, Mistress Constantia!" her father warned her. "Curiosity isa weakness, even dangerous, but disrespect to your elders and betters,what is that?"
"Great fun," retorted Constance.
Her father laughed. He found his girl's playfulness, which she wasrecovering with the springtide and the relief from the heavy sorrow ofthe first weeks in Plymouth, refreshing amid the extreme seriousness ofmost of the people around him. "Proceed with your tidings, you saucyminx!" he said.
"Very well then, Mr. Stephen Hopkins," Constance obeyed him, "what wouldyou say if I were to tell you that there was news of your missing packetof papers?"
Stephen Hopkins stopped short. "I should say thank God with all myheart, Constance, not merely because the loss was serious, but most ofall because of Giles. Is it true?" he asked.
"They are found!" cried Constance, jubilantly, "and it was Giles himselfwho faced the thief and forced him to give them up. It is a finetale!" And she proceeded to tell it.
Her father's relief, his pleasure, was evidently great, but toConstance's alarm as the story ended, his face settled into anexpression of annoyance.
"It is indeed good news, Constance, and I am grateful, relieved by it,"he said, having heard her to the end. "But why did not Giles tell methis himself, bring me the recovered packet? Would it not be natural towish to confer upon me, himself, the happiness he had won for me, tohasten to me with his victory, still more that it clears him of theleast doubt of complicity in the loss?"
"Ah, no, Father! That is just the point of his not doing so!" criedConstance. "Giles is sore at heart that you felt there might be a doubtof him. He cannot endure it, nor seem to bring you proofs of hisinnocence. I suppose he does not feel like a boy, but like a man whosehonour is questioned, and by--for
give me, Father, but I must make itclear--by one whose trust in him should be stronger than any other's."
"Nonsense, Constantia!" Stephen Hopkins exploded, angrily. "What are wecoming to if we cannot question our own children? Giles is not a man; heis a boy, and my boy, so I shall expect him to render me an account ofhis actions whenever, and however I demand it. I'll not stand for hispride, his assumption of injured dignity. Let him remember that! ThankGod my son is an honest lad, as by all reason he should be. But thoughhe is right as to the theft, he is wrong in his arrogance, and pride isas deadly a sin as stealing. I want no more of this nonsense."
"Oh, Father dear," cried Constance, wringing her hands with her peculiargesture when matters got too difficult for those small hands. "Please,please be kind to Giles! Oh, I thought everything would be all right nowthat the packet was recovered, and by him! Be patient with him, I begyou. He is not one that can be driven, but rather won by love to do yourwill. If you will convey to him that you regret having suspected him hewill at once come back to be our own Giles."
"Have a care, Constantia, that in your anxiety for your brother you donot fall into a share of his fault!" warned her father. "It is not foryou to advise me in my dealing with my son. As to trying to placate himby anything like an apology: preposterous suggestion! That is not theway of discipline, my girl! Let Giles indicate to me his properhumility, his regret for taking the attitude that I am not in authorityover him, free to demand of him any explanation, any evidence of hischaracter I please. No, no, Constance! You mean well, but you arewrong."
Thus saying, Mr. Hopkins turned on his heel to go back to the house, andConstance followed, no longer with her hand on her father's arm, butunderstanding the strong annoyance he felt toward Giles, and painfullyconscious that her pleading for her brother had done less than no good.
A Pilgrim Maid: A Story of Plymouth Colony in 1620 Page 10