Part 12 (1/2)
Although the older women raised disapproving brows at Constance, and shook their heads over her rose-tinted knots of ribbon, no one openly reproved her, and she slid into her place less pleased with her ornamentation than she had been while antic.i.p.ating a rebuke.
Captain Myles Standish rose up in his place and gave the history of his explorations in a clear-cut, terse way, that omitted nothing, yet dwelt on nothing beyond the narration of necessary facts.
It was a long story, however condensed, yet no one wearied of it, but listened enthralled to his account of the Squaw-Sachem of the tribe of the Ma.s.sachusetts, who ruled in the place of her dead spouse, the chief Nanepashemet, and was feared by other Indians as a relentless foe, and of the great rock that ended a promontory far in on the bay, at the foot of the three hills which were so good a site for a settlement, a rock that was fas.h.i.+oned by Nature into the profile of an Indian's face, and which they called Squaw Rock, or Squantum Head. As the captain went on telling of their inland marches from these three hills and their bay, and of the fertile country of great beauty which they everywhere came upon, there arose outside a commotion of children crying, and the larger children who were in charge of the small ones, calling frantically.
Squanto, admitted to the a.s.sembly as one who had borne an important part in the story that Myles Standish was relating, sprang to his feet and ran out of the house. He came back in a few moments, followed by another Indian--a tall, lithe, lean youth, with an unfriendly manner.
”What is this?” demanded Governor Bradford, rising.
”Narragansett, come tell you not friends to you,” said Squanto.
The Narragansett warrior, with a great air of contempt, threw upon the floor, in the middle of the a.s.sembly, a small bundle of arrows, tied around with a spotted snake skin. This done, he straightened himself, folded his arms, and looked disdainfully upon the white men.
”Well, what has gone amiss with his digestion!” exclaimed Giles, aloud.
His father shook his head at him. ”How do you construe this act and manner, Squanto? Surely it portendeth trouble.”
”It is war,” said Squanto. ”Arrows tied by snake skin means no friend; war.”
”Perhaps we would do well to let it lie; picking it up may mean acceptance of the challenge, as if it were a glove in a tourney. The customs of men run amazingly together, though race and education separate them,” suggested Myles Standish.
”Squanto, take this defiant youngster out of here, and treat him politely; see that he is fed and given a place to sleep. Tell him that we will answer him----By your approval, Governor and gentlemen?”
”You have antic.i.p.ated my own suggestion, Captain Standish,” said William Bradford bowing, and Squanto, who understood more than he could put into words, spoke rapidly to the Narragansett messenger and led him away.
”Shall we deliberate upon this, being conveniently a.s.sembled?” suggested Governor Bradford.
”It needs small consideration, meseems,” said Myles Standish, impatiently. ”Dismiss this messenger at once; do not let him remain here over night. The less your foe knows of you, the more your mystery will increase his dread of you. In the morning send a messenger of our own to the Narragansetts, and tell them that if they want war, war be it. If they prefer war to peace, let them begin upon the war at once; that we no more fear them than we have wronged them, and as they choose, so would we deal with them, as friends worth keeping, or foes to fear.”
”Admirable advice,” Stephen Hopkins applauded the captain, and the other Plymouth men echoed his applause.
Then, with boyish impetuosity and with laughter lighting up his handsome face, Giles leaped to his feet.
”Now do I know the answer!” he cried. ”Let the words be as our captain hath spoken; no one could utter better! But there is a further answer! Empty their snakeskin of arrows and fill it round with bullets, and throw it down among them, as they threw their pretty toy down to us! And our stuffing of it will have a bad flavour to their palates, mark me. It will be like filling a Christmas goose with red peppers, and if it doesn't send the Narragansetts away from the table they were setting for us, then is not my name Giles Hopkins! And one more word, my elders and masters! Let me be your messenger to the Narragansetts, I beseech you! They sent a youth to us; send you this youth back to them. If it be hauteur against hauteur, pride for pride, I'll bear me like the lion and the unicorn fighting for the crown, both together, in one person. See whether or not I can strike the true defiant att.i.tude!”
With which, eyes sparkling with fun and excitement, head thrown back, Giles struck an att.i.tude, folding his arms and spreading his feet, looking at once so boyish and so handsome that with difficulty Constance held her clasped hands from clapping him.
”Truth, friend Stephen, your lad hath an idea!” said Myles Standish, delightedly.
”It could not be better. Conceived in true harmony with the savages' message to us, and carrying conviction of our sincerity to them at the first glimpse of it! By all means let us do as Giles suggests.”
There was not a dissentient voice in the entire a.s.sembly; indeed everyone was highly delighted with the humour of it.
There was some objection to allowing Giles to be the messenger, but here Captain Standish stood his friend, though Constance looked at him reproachfully for helping Giles into this risky business.
”Let the lad go, good gentlemen,” he said. ”Giles hath been with me on these recent explorations, and hath borne himself with fort.i.tude, courage, and prudence. He longs to play a man's part among us; let him have the office of messenger to the Narragansetts, and go thither in the early morning, at dawn. We will dismiss their youth at once, and follow him with our better message without loss of time.”
So it was decided, and in high feather Giles returned to his home, Damaris on his shoulder, Constance walking soberly at his side, half sharing his triumph in his mission, half frightened lest her brother had but returned from unknown dangers to encounter worse ones.
”Oh, they'll not harm me, timorous Con!” Giles a.s.sured her. ”They know that it is prudent to let lie the sleeping English bulldogs, of whom, trust me, they know by repute! Now, Sis, can you deck me out in some wise impressive to these savages, who will not see the dignity of our sober dress as we do?”
”Feathers?” suggested Constance, abandoning her anxiety to enter into this phase of the mission. ”I think feathers in your hat, Giles, and some sort of a bright sash across your breast, all stuck through with knives? I will get knives from Pris and some of the others. And--oh, I know, Giles! That crimson velvet cloak that was our mother's, hung backward from your shoulder! Splendid, Giles; splendid enough for Sir Walter Raleigh himself to wear at Elizabeth's court, or to spread for her to walk upon.”
”It promises well, Sis, in sound, at least,” said Giles. ”But by all that's wise, help me to carry this paraphernalia ready to don at a safe distance from Plymouth, and by no means betray to our solemn rulers how I shall be decked out!”
The sun was still two hours below his rising when Giles started, the crimson velvet cloak in a bag, his matchlock, or rather Myles Standish's matchlock lent Giles for the expedition, slung across his shoulder, a sword at his side, and the plumes fastened into his hat by Constance's needle and thread, but covered with another hat which surmounted his own.
Constance had arisen, also, and went with Giles a little way upon his journey. Stephen Hopkins had blessed him and bidden him farewell on the preceding night, not to make too much of his setting forth.
At the boundary which they had agreed upon, Constance kissed her brother good-bye, removing his second hat, and dressing the plumes crushed below it.
”Good-bye, my dear one,” she said. ”And hasten back to me, for I cannot endure delay of your return. And you look splendid, my Knight of the Wilderness, even without the crimson cloak. But see to it that you make it swing back gloriously, and wave it in the dazzled eyes of the Narragansetts!”
[Ill.u.s.tration: ”'You look splendid, my knight of the wilderness'”]
Thus with another kiss, Constance turned back singing, to show to Giles how little she feared for him, and half laughing to herself, for she was still very young, and they had managed between them to give this important errand much of the effect of a boy-and-girl, masquerading frolic.
Yet, always subject to sudden variations of spirits, Constance had not gone far before she sat down upon a rock and cried heartily. Then, having sung and wept over Giles, she went sedately homeward to await his return in a mood that savoured of both extremes with which she had parted from him.
The waiting was tedious, but it was not long. Sooner than she had dared to hope for him, Giles came marching back to her, and as he sang as he came, at the top of a l.u.s.ty voice, Plymouth knew before he could tell it that his errand had been successful.
Giles went straight to Governor Bradford's house, whither those who had seen and heard him coming followed him.
”There is our gift of war rejected,” said Giles, throwing down the spotted snakeskin, still bulging with its bullets. ”They would have naught of it, but picked it up and gave it back to me with much air of solicitude, and with many words, which I could not understand, but which I doubt not were full of the warmest love for us English. And I was glad to get back the stuffed snakeskin and our good bullets, for here, so far from supplies, bullets are bullets, and if any of our red neighbours did attack us we could not afford to have lessened our stock in object lessons. All's well that ends well--where have I heard that phrase? Father, isn't it in a book of yours?” Giles concluded, innocently unconscious that he was walking on thin ice in alluding to a play of Shakespeare's, and his father's possession of it.
”You have done well, Giles Hopkins,” said Governor Bradford, heartily, ”both in your conception of this message, and in your bearing it to the Narragansetts. And so from them we have no more to fear?”
”No more whatever,” said Giles.
”Nevertheless, from this day let us build a stockade around the town, and close our gates at night, appointing sentinels to take s.h.i.+fts of guarding us,” said Myles Standish. ”This incident hath shown me that the outlying savages are not securely to be trusted. I have long thought that we should organize into military form. I want four squadrons of our men, each squadron given a quarter of the town to guard; I want pickets planted around us, and at any alarm, as of danger from fire or foe, I want these Plymouth companies to be ready to fly to rescue.”
”It shall be as you suggest, Captain,” said Governor Bradford. ”These things are for you to order, and the wisdom of this is obvious.”
Constance and Giles walked home together, Constance hiding beneath her gown the plumes which she had first fastened into, then ripped out of Giles's hat.
”It is a delight to see you thus bearing your part in the affairs of Plymouth, Giles, dearest,” she said. ”And what fun this errand must have been!”
Giles turned on her a pain-drawn face.
”So it was, Constance, and I did like it,” he said. ”But how I wish Jack Billington had been with me! He was a brave lad, Constance, and a true friend. He was unruly, but he was not wicked, and the strict ways here irked him. Oh, I wish he had been here to do this service instead of me! I miss him, miss him.”
Giles stopped abruptly, and Constance gently touched his arm. Giles had not spoken before of Jack's death, and she had not dared allude to it.
”I am sorry, too, dear Giles,” she whispered, and Giles acknowledged her sympathy by a touch upon her hand, while his other hand furtively wiped away the tears that manhood forbade the boy to let fall.
CHAPTER XVII.