Part 16 (1/2)
”Let me see your hands, Elder,” demanded the physician in his usual dry fas.h.i.+on.
”No need,'t is naught. Go look after your sick folk,” replied the Elder trying to push past, but Fuller caught him by the sleeve, exclaiming sharply,--
”A man whose hands are needed for others as oft as thine are, has no right to let them become useless, and 't is not in reason but they are burned.”
”You're right, Fuller, and I'm but a froward child,” said Brewster, a sudden smile replacing the frown of pain upon his face, and obediently opening out his burned and bleeding palms. ”Come to the Common house, so as not to fright my wife within there, and do them up with some of your wonderful balsam.”
”And were it not for thought of your work, you would not have let me see them,” said Fuller glancing from under his penthouse brows with a look of cynical admiration.
”One cannot give thought to every pin-p.r.i.c.k with such deadly sickness on all sides,” replied Brewster simply. ”Best go into the hospital and see if thy poor dying folk have taken any harm of the fright before thou lookest after me.”
”The Captain has gone into the sick-house. I'll hold on to you,”
returned the Doctor curtly, and Brewster yielded with his ever gracious smile.
That evening as the Elder with his bandaged hands, Carver, gaunt and pale from an attack of fever, Standish, Winslow, John Howland, and Doctor Fuller sat at supper in the Common house, Master Jones, followed by a sailor heavily laden, presented himself at the door.
”Good e'en, Masters, and how are your sick folk?” demanded he, in a would-be cordial voice.
”Thanks for your courtesy, Master Jones,” replied the governor with grave politeness. ”They are doing reasonably well, except some few who do not seem like to mend in this world.”
”And Master Bradford? Sure he is not going to die?” pursued Jones in a voice of strange anxiety, as he sank into the great arm-chair Carver had proffered him.
”He is as low as a man can be and live,” broke in the doctor gruffly, as he fixed Jones with a glance of angry reproach, beneath which even that rough companion quailed.
”He sent aboard yesterday begging a can of beer,” blurted he, his brown face reddening a little.
”Yes,” replied the governor sternly, ”and you made answer that though it were your own father needing it, you would not stint yourself.”
”I said it, and I don't deny it,” retorted Jones with a feeble attempt at bl.u.s.ter. ”But any man has a right to change his mind if he find cause, and I've changed mine as you will see, for I've brought not a can, but a runlet of beer for Bradford, and any others who crave it and are like to die wanting it; and when that is gone if Master Carver will send on board asking it for the sick folk, he shall have it though I be forced to drink water myself on the voyage home. I'll have no dead men haunting me and bringing a plague upon the s.h.i.+p.”
”Truly we are greatly beholden to you, Master Jones,” began Carver in great surprise, but the mariner raised his hand and continued,--
”Nay, hear me out, for that's not all. I went ash.o.r.e to-day and shot five geese, and here they are, all of them, not one spared, though I could have well fancied a bit of goose to my supper, but I brought all to you, and more than that, even, for here is the better half of a buck we found in the wood ready shot to our hand. The Indians had cut off his horns and carried them away, and doubtless were gone for help to carry the carcase home when we came upon it; haply they saw us coming and made a run for it; at all odds they had left him as he fell, and Sir Wolf was already tearing at his throat so busily that he knew not friends were nigh, until a bullet through his head heralded our coming. So here are the haunches for you, and I content myself with the poorer parts.”
Taking the articles named from a bag which the sailor had at his direction laid upon the floor, Jones ranged them in an imposing line in the centre of the room, and resuming his chair looked at his hosts still in that conciliatory and half timid manner so utterly new to them and foreign to his usual demeanor.
”We are, indeed, deeply beholden to you, Master Jones,” said Carver at length in his grave and courteous tones. ”But if I may freely speak my thought, and if I read my brethren's minds aright, we cannot but muse curiously upon this sudden and marvelous change in your dealings with us, and would fain know its meaning.”
”Feeling certain that Master Jones is not one to give something for nothing, and so in common prudence wis.h.i.+ng to know at the outset what price he expects for bearing himself in Christian charity, as he seemeth desirous to do,” suggested Standish with more candor than diplomacy.
”Thou 'rt ever ready with thy gibes on better men than thyself, art not?” exclaimed Jones turning angrily upon him. For reply Standish leaned back in his chair, pulled at his red beard, and laughed contemptuously; but Winslow hastily interposed with a voice like oil upon the waves.
”Our captain will still have his jest upon all of us, Master Jones, but in truth as the governor hath said, we cannot but admire at this wonderful generosity on thy part, and fain would know whence it ariseth.”
”Why, sure 't is not far to seek,” replied Jones with a hideous grimace intended for a conciliatory smile; ”we have ever been good friends, have we not, and you all wish me well, as I do all of you. Certes, none of you would try to bring evil upon our heads, lest it fall upon your own instead, for still those who wish ill to others fall upon ill luck themselves. Is it not so, Elder?”
”Art speaking of Christian doctrine, or of heathen superst.i.tion, Master Jones?” inquired the Elder fixing his mild, yet penetrating eyes upon the seaman, who slunk beneath their gaze.
”Nay, then!” bl.u.s.tered he rising to his feet, ”I came hither when I would fain have stayed in my own cabin aboard, and I came not to chop logic nor to be put to the question like a malefactor, but to bring help to my sick neighbors, who, to be sure, cried out for it l.u.s.tily enough before they got it, but now pick and question at my good meat and drink as if 't were like to poison them. Well, that's an end on 't, and you can take it or leave it, as you will. Good e'en to you.”