CHAPTER XII

The Lost Lads

A gray evening of mist drifting in from the sea settled down upon Plymouth. It emphasized the silence and seemed to widen and deepen the vacuum created by the absence of Giles and John. For the supper hour, at which they were enthusiastically prompt to return to give their hearty appetites their due, came and passed without bringing back the boys.

Stephen Hopkins pushed away his plate with its generous burden untouched, threw on his wide-brimmed hat, and strode out of the house without a word. Constance knew that he had gone to ask help from Myles Standish, to organize a search, and go out to find the lost.

Damaris crept into her sister's lap and sat with her thin little hands in Constance's, mutely looking up into the white, sorrowing face above her.

Even Dame Eliza was reluctantly moved to something like pity for the girl's silent misery, and expressed it in her way.

"At least," she said, suddenly, out of the deep silence enveloping them, "here is one thing gone wrong without my sending. No one can say that I had a finger raised to push your brother out of the right course this time!"

Constance tried to reply, but failed. Not directly had her stepmother had a share in this misfortune, but how great a share had she in the estrangement between father and son that was at the bottom of the present misunderstanding? Constance would not remind her stepmother of this, and no other reply was possible to her in her intense anxiety.

The night wore away, the dawn came, lifting the fog as the sun shot up out of the sea. Stephen Hopkins came out of the principal bedroom on the ground floor of the house showing in his haggard face that he had not slept. Constance came slowly down the winding stairs, pale, with dark circles under her eyes which looked as though they had withdrawn from her face, retreated into the mind which dwelt on Giles since they could no longer see him, and the brain alone could fulfil their office.

"There's no sort of use in getting out mourning till you're sure of having a corpse, so I say," said Mistress Eliza, impatiently. "Giles is certain to take care of himself. I've no manner of patience with people who borrow what they can't return, and how would you return trouble, borrowed from nothing and nobody?"

Nevertheless she helped both Constance and her father to a generous bowlful of porridge, and set it before them with a snapped-out: "Eat that!" which Constance was grateful to feel concealed uneasiness on her stepmother's own part.

Another day, and still another, wore themselves away. Constance fought to keep her mind occupied with all manner of tasks, hoping to tire herself till she must sleep at night, but nevertheless slept only brokenly, lying staring at the three stars which she could see through the tiny oblong window under the eaves, or into the blackness of the slanting roof, listening to Damaris's quiet breathing, and thinking that childhood was not more blessed in being happy than in its ability to forget.

Stephen Hopkins had gone with Captain Standish, Francis Billington, and Squanto to scour the woods for miles, although labouring hands could ill be spared at that season. They returned at the close of their fourth day of absence, and no one ventured to question them; that they had not so much as a clue to the lost lads was clearly written on their faces.

Constance drew her stool close to her father after supper was over, and wound her arms about him and laid her head on his breast, unrebuked by her stepmother.

"Read the fifty-first psalm, my daughter; it was the penitential psalm in England in my beginnings," Stephen Hopkins said, and Constance read it in a low voice, which she dared not raise, lest it break.

An hour later, an hour which had been passed in silence, broken only by Dame Eliza's taking Damaris up to bed, the sound of voices was heard coming down the quiet street. Stephen Hopkins's body tautened as he sat erect, and Constance sprang to her feet. No one ever went outside his house in the Plymouth plantation after the hour for family prayers, which was identical in every house. But someone was abroad now; it was not possible----?

"It is Squanto," said Stephen Hopkins, catching the Indian's syllables of broken English.

"And Francis Billington, and another Indian, talking in his own tongue!" added Constance, shaking with excitement.

The door opened; Stephen Hopkins did not move to open it. There entered the three whom those within the house had recognized; Francis's face was crimson, his eyes flashing.

"You come to tell me that my son is dead?" said Stephen Hopkins, raising his hand as if to ward off a blow.

"No, we don't! Don't look like that, Mr. Hopkins, Con!" cried Francis. "Jack and Giles are all right----"

"Massasoit send him," said Squanto, interrupting the boy, as if he wanted to save Stephen Hopkins from betraying the feeling that an Indian would scorn to betray, for Mr. Hopkins had closed his eyes and swayed slightly as he heard Francis's high boyish voice utter the words he had so hungered to hear.

Squanto pointed to the Indian beside him as he spoke. "Massasoit sent him. Massasoit know where boys go. Nawsett. It not far; Massasoit more far. Nawsett Indians fight you when you come, not yet got Plymouth found. Nawsett. Both boys, both two." Squanto touched two fingers of his left hand. "Not dead, not sick, not hurt. You send, Massasoit say. Get boys you send Nawsett. Squanto go show Nawsett." Squanto looked proudly at his hearers, rejoicing in his good news.

"Praise God from Whom all blessings flow," said Stephen Hopkins, bowing his head, and Constance burst into tears and seized him around the neck, while Francis drew his sleeves across his eyes, muttering something about: "Rather old Jack was all right."

Dame Eliza came down the stairs, having heard voices, and recognized them as Indian, but had been unable to catch what was said. She stopped as she saw the scene before her, and her face crimsoned. She at once knew the purport, though not the details, of the message delivered through Squanto by Massasoit's messenger, and that the lost lads were safe. With a quick revulsion from the anxiety that she had felt, she instantly lost her temper.

"Stephen Hopkins, what is this unseemingly exhibition? Will you allow your daughter to behave in this manner before a youth, and two savage men? Shame on you! Stand up, Constantia, and let your father alone. So Giles is safe, I suppose? Well, did I not tell you so? Bad sixpences are hard to lose; your son will give you plenty of the scant comfort you've already had from him. No fear of him not coming back to plague me, and to disgrace you," she scolded.

"Oh, Stepmother, when we are so glad and thankful!" sighed Constance, lifting her tired, tear-worn face, over which the light of her gladness and gratitude was beginning to shine.

There was nothing to be done that night but to try to adjust to the relief that had come, and to wait impatiently for morning to arrange to bring home the wanderers.

Stephen Hopkins was ahead of the sun in beginning the next day, and as soon as he could decently do so, he set out to see Governor Bradford to ask his help.

"I rejoice with you, my friend and brother," said dignified William Bradford, when he had heard Mr. Hopkins's story. "Like the woman in the Gospel you call in your neighbours to rejoice with you that the lost is found. I will at once send the shallop to sail down the coast and bring off our thorn-in-the-flesh, young John Billington, and your somewhat unruly lad with him. As your brother in our great enterprise and your true well-wisher, let me advise that you deal sternly with Giles when he is returned to us. He hath done exceeding wrong thus to afflict you, and with you, all of our community to a lesser extent, by anxiety over his safety. Furthermore, it is a time in which we need all our workers; he hath not only deprived us of his own services, but hath demanded the valuable hours of others in striving to rescue him. I doubt not that you will do your duty as a father, but let me remind you that your duty is not leniency, but sternness to the lad who is too nearly man to fail us all as he hath done."

"It is true, William Bradford, and I will do my best though it hath afflicted me that I may have driven the lad from me by blaming him when it was not his desert, and that because of this he went away," said Mr. Hopkins.

"If this were true, Stephen, yet would it not excuse Giles," said William Bradford, whose one child, a boy, had been left behind in England to follow his father to the New World later, and who was not versed in ways of fatherhood to highstrung youths of Giles's age. "It becometh not a son to resent his father's chastisements, which, properly borne, may result in benefit, whether or not their immediate occasion was a matter of justice or error. So deal with your son sternly, I warn you, nor let your natural pleasure in receiving him safe back again relax you toward him."

The shallop was launched with sufficient men to navigate her, Squanto accompanying them to guide them southward to the tribe that held Giles and John, in a sense, their captives.

On the third day after her departure the shallop came again in sight, nosing her way slowly up the harbour against a wind dead ahead and blowing strong. There was time, and to spare for any amount of preparation, and yet to get down on the sands to see the shallop come to anchor, and be ready to welcome those whom she bore. Nevertheless, Constance hurried her simple toilet till she was breathless, snarling the comb in her hair; tying her shoe laces into knots which her nervousness could hardly disentangle; chafing her delicate skin with the vigorous strokes she gave her face; stooping frequently to peer out of her bedroom window to see if, by an impossible mischance, the shallop had come up before she was dressed, although the one glimpse that she had managed to get of the small craft had shown that the shallop was an hour away down the harbour.

At last her flustered mishaps were over, and Constance was neat and trim, ready to go down to the beach.

"Damaris, little sister, come up and let me see that none of the dinner treacle is on the outside of your small mouth," Constance called gaily down the stairs.

Damaris appeared, came half way, and stopped forlornly.

"Mother says she will take me, Constance," the child said, mournfully. "She says that you will greet Giles with warm welcome, and that I must not help in it, for that Giles is wicked, and must be frowned upon. Is Giles wicked, Constance? He is good to me; I love him, not so much as you, but I do love Giles. Must I not be glad when he comes, Sister?"

"Oh, Damaris, darling, your kind little heart tells you that you would want a welcome yourself if you were returning after an absence! And we know that the father of that bad son in the Gospel went out to meet him, and fell on his neck! But I must not teach you against your mother's teaching! You know, little lass, whether or not I think our big brother bad!" said poor Constance. "Where is your mother?"

"She hath gone to fetch Oceanus back; he crawled out of the open door and went as fast as a spider down the street, crawling, Constance! He looked so funny!" and Damaris laughed.

Constance laughed too, and cried gaily, with one of her sudden changes from sober to gay: "And so Oceanus is beginning to run off, too! What a time we shall have, Damaris, with our big brother marching away, and our baby brother crawling away, both of them caring not a button whether we are frightened about them, or not!"

She flitted down the stairs with her lightness of movement that gave her the effect of a half-flight, caught Damaris to her and kissed her soundly, and set her down just in time to escape rebuke for her demonstrativeness from Dame Eliza, who returned with her face reddened, and Oceanus kicking under one arm, hung like a sack below it, and screaming with baffled rage and the desire of adventure. On the beach nearly everyone of the small community was gathered to see the arrival.

Constance stole up behind Priscilla Alden, and touched her shoulder.

"You are not the only happy girl here to-day, my bonny bride," she said.

Priscilla turned and caught Constance by both hands.

"Nor the only one glad for this cause, Constance," she retorted. "Indeed I rejoice beyond my powers of telling, that Giles is come to thee, and that thou art spared the bitter sorrow that we feared had fallen upon thee!"

"Well do I know that, dear Pris," said Constance. "Where is my father?"

"Yonder with William Bradford, Edward Winslow, Elder Brewster; do you not see?" Priscilla replied nodding toward the group that stood somewhat apart from the others. Constance crossed over to them, and curtseyed respectfully to the heads of this small portion of the king's subjects.

"Will you not come with me, my father?" she said, hoping that Stephen Hopkins would stand with her on the edge of the sands to be the first whom Giles would see on arriving, identifying himself with her who, Giles would know, was watching for him with a heart leaping out toward him.

"No, Daughter, I will remain here. I am to-day less Giles Hopkins's father than one of the representatives of this community, which he and John Billington have offended," replied Stephen Hopkins, but whether with his mind in complete accord with his decision, or stifling a longing to run to meet his son, like that other father of whom Constance had spoken to Damaris, the girl could not tell.

She turned away, recognizing the futility of pleading when her father was flanked as he then was.

The shallop was beached and the lost lads leaped out, John with a broad grin on his face, unmixed enjoyment of the situation visible in his every look; Giles with his eyes troubled, joy in getting back struggling with his misgivings as to what he might find awaiting him.

The first thing that he found was Constance, and there was no admixture in the delight with which he seized his sister's hands--warmer greeting being impossible before a concourse which would rebuke it sternly--and replied fervently to her: "Oh, Giles, how glad I am to see you again!"

"And I to see you, sweet sis! Ah, there is Pris! I missed her wedding. And there is John Alden!" said Giles, shading his eyes with his hand, but Constance saw the eyes searching for his father, and merely glancing at Priscilla and John.

"Our father is with the other weighty men of our plantation, waiting for you, Giles. You and John must go to them," suggested Constance.

Giles shrugged his shoulders. "Otherwise they will not know we are back?" he asked. "Very well; come, then, Jack. The sooner the better; then the gods are propitiated."

The two wilful lads walked over to the grave men awaiting them.

"We thank you, Governor Bradford, for sending the shallop after us," said Giles.

"Is this all that you have to say?" demanded William Bradford!

"No, sir; we have had adventures. We wandered five days, subsisting on berries and roots; came upon an Indian village, called Manamet, which we reckon to be some twenty miles to the southward of Plymouth here. These Indians conveyed us on to Nawsett still further along, and there we rested until the shallop appeared to take us off. This is, in brief, the history of our trip, although I assure you, it was longer in the living than in the telling. Permit me to add, Governor, that those Indians among whom we tarried are coming to make a peace with us and seek satisfaction from those of our community who took their corn what time we were dallying at Cape Cod, when we arrived in the _Mayflower_. This is, perhaps, in a measure due to our visit to them, though we would not claim the full merit of it, since it may also be partly wrought by Massasoit's example."

Giles spoke with an easy nonchalance that held no suggestion of contrition, and William Bradford, as well as Elder Brewster, and Mr. Winslow, frowned upon him, while his father flushed darkly under the bronze tint of his skin, and his eyes flashed. At every encounter this father and son mutually angered each other.

"Inasmuch as you have done well, Giles Hopkins and John Billington, we applaud you," said Governor Bradford, slowly. "In sooth we are rejoiced that you are not dead, not harmed by your adventure. We rejoice, also, in the tidings of peace with yet another savage neighbour. But we demand of you recognition of your evil ways, repentance for the anxiety that you have caused those to whom you are dear, to all Christians, who, as is their profession, wish you well; for the injury you have done us in taking yourselves off, to the neglect of your seasonable labours, and the time which hath been wasted by able-bodied men searching for you. You have not asked your father to pardon you."

Giles looked straight into his father's eyes. Unfortunately there was in them nothing of the look they had worn a few nights earlier when Constance had read to him the psalm of the stricken heart.

"I am truly grieved for the suffering that I know my sister bore while my fate was uncertain, for I know well her love for me. And I regret being a charge upon this struggling plantation. As far as lies in my power I will repay that debt to it. But as to my father, his last words to me expressed his dislike for me, and his certainty that I was a wrong-doer. I cannot think that he has grieved for me," said poor Giles, speaking like a man to men until, at the last words, his voice quavered.

"I have grieved for thee often and bitterly, Giles, and over thee, which is harder for a father than sorrow for a son. Show me that I am wrong in my judgment of thee, by humbling thyself to my just authority, and conducting thyself as I would have thee act, and with a great joy in my heart I will confess myself mistaken in thee, and thank Heaven for my error," said Stephen Hopkins.

Giles's eyes wavered, he dropped his lids, and bit his lip. The simple manhood in his father's words moved him, yet he reflected that he had been justified in resenting an unfounded suspicion on this father's part, and he steeled himself against him. More than this, how could he reply to him when he was surrounded by the stern men who condemned youthful folly, and whom Giles resisted in thought and deed?

Giles turned away without raising his eyes; he did not see a half movement that his father made to hold out his hand to detain him.

"Time will right, or end everything," the boy muttered, and walked away.

Constance, who had been watching the meeting between her two well-beloveds, crossed over to Myles Standish.

"Captain Standish," she begged him, "come with me; I need you."

"Faith, little Con, I need you always, but never have you! You show scant pity to a lonely man, that misses his little friend," retorted Captain Standish, turning on his heel, obedient to a gesture from Constance to walk with her.

"It is about Giles, dear Captain," Constance began. "He is back, I am thankful for it, but this breach between him and my father is a wide one, and over such a foolish thing! And it came about just when everything was going well!"

"Foolish trifles make the deepest breaches, Constance, hardest to bridge over," said Captain Myles. "I grant you that the case is serious, chiefly because the man and the boy love each other so greatly; that, and their likeness, is what balk them. What would you have me do?"

"I don't know, but something!" cried Constance wringing-her hands. "I hoped you would have a plan by which you could bring them together."

"Well, truth to tell, Con, I have a plan by which to separate them," said the captain, adding, laughing--as Constance cried out: "Oh, not for all time!"--"But I think a time spent apart would bring them together in the end. Here is my plan: I am going exploring. There is that vast tract of country north of us which we have not seen, and tribes of savages, of which Squanto tries to tell us, but which he lacks of English to describe. I am going to take a company of men from here and explore to the nor'ard. I would take Giles among them. He will learn self-discipline, obedience to me--I am too much a soldier to be lax in exacting obedience from all who serve under me--and he will return here licked into shape by the tongue of experience, as an unruly cub is licked into his proper form by his dam. In the meantime your father will see Giles more calmly than at short range, and will not be irritated by his manly airs. When they come together again it will be on a new plane, as men, not as man and boy, and I foresee between them the sane enjoyment of their profound mutual affection. I had it in mind to ask Stephen Hopkins to lend me his boy; what say you, my Constance?"

"I say: Bless you, and thrice over bless you, Captain Myles Standish!" cried Constance. "It is the very solution! Oh, I am thankful! I shall be anxious every hour till you return, but with all my heart I say: Take Giles with you and teach him sense. What should we ever do here without you, Captain, dear 'Arm-of-the-Colony'?"

"I doubt you ever have a chance to try that dire lack, my Con," said Captain Myles, with a humorous look at her. "I think I'm chained here by the interest that has grown in me day by day, and that I shall die among you. Though, by my sword, it's a curious thing to think of Myles Standish dying among strict Puritans!"