CHAPTER XV

The "Fortune," that Sailed, First West, then East

"There's a ship, there's a sail standing toward us!"

It was Francis Billington's shrill boyish voice that aroused the Hopkins household with this tidings, early in the morning on one of those mid-November days when at that hour the air was chill and at noon the warmth of summer brooded over land and sea.

Stephen Hopkins called from within: "Wait, wait, Francis, till I can come to thee."

In a moment or two he came out of his door and looked in the direction in which the boy pointed, although a hillock on the Hopkins land, which lay between Leyden and Middle streets, cut off the sight of the sail.

"She's coming up from the south'ard," cried Francis, excitedly. "Most like from the Cape, but she must have come from England first, say you not so, Mr. Hopkins?"

"Surely," agreed Stephen Hopkins. "The savages build no vessels like ours, as you well know. Thank you, my boy, for warning me of her approach. Go on and spread your news broadcast; let our entire community be out to welcome whatever good the ship brings, or to resist harm--though that I fear not. I will myself be at the wharf when she gets in."

"Oh, as to that, Mr. Hopkins, you have time to eat as big a breakfast as you can get and still be too early for the arrival," said Francis, grinning. "She's got a long way to cover and a deal to do to reach Plymouth wharf in this still air. She's not close in, by much. I hurried and yelled to get you up quick because--well, because you've got to hurry folks and yell when a ship comes in, haven't you?"

Mr. Hopkins smiled sympathetically at the boy whose actions rarely got sympathy.

"Till ships become a more common sight in our harbour, Francis, I would advise letting your excitement on the coming of one have vent a-plenty," he said, turning to reenter the house as Francis Billington, acting on advice more promptly than was his wont, ran down Leyden Street, throwing up his cap and shouting: "A ship! A sail! A ship! A sail!" at the top of his vigorous lungs, not only unreproved for his disturbance of the peaceful morning, but hailed with answering excitement by the men, women, and children whom he aroused as he ran.

The ship took as long to reach haven as Francis Billington had prophesied she would require. She proved to be a small ship with a figure-head of a woman, meant to represent Fortune, for she was blindfolded, but her battered paint indicated that she had in her own person encountered ill-fortune in her course.

A number of people were gathered on her forward deck, looking eagerly for indications of the sort of place that they were approaching.

"Mr. Weston, knowing that we depend upon him and his brother merchants, our friends across seas, for supplies, hath at last dispatched us the long-waited ship," said Mr. Winslow to Mr. Hopkins.

"With someone, let us hope, authorized to carry back report of us here, and thus to get us, later on, what we sore need. Many new colonists, as well as nearly all things that human beings require for existence," said Stephen Hopkins, with something of the strain upon his endurance that he had suffered getting into his voice.

The ship was the _Fortune_--her figure-head had announced as much. When she made anchor, and her small boat came to the wharf, the first person to step ashore was Mr. Robert Cushman, the English agent who had played so large a part in the embarkation of the pilgrims in the _Mayflower_.

"Welcome, in all truth!" said Governor Bradford stepping forward to seize the hand of this man, from whose coming and subsequent reports at home so much might be hoped. "Now, at last, have we what we have so long needed, a representative who can speak of us as one who hath seen!"

"I am glad to be here in a twofold sense, Mr. Bradford," returned Mr. Cushman.

"Glad to meet with you, whom I knew under the distant sky of home, glad to be at the end of my voyage. I have brought you thirty-five additional members of your community. We came first to Cape Cod, and a more discouraged band of adventurers would be hard to find than were these men when they saw how barren of everything was the Cape. I assured them that they would find you in better condition here, at Plymouth, and we set sail hither. They have been scanning waves and sky for the first symptom of something like comfort at Plymouth, beginning their anxious outlook long before it was possible to satisfy it. I assure you that never was a wharf hailed so gladly as was this one that you have built, for these men argued that before you would build a wharf you must have made sure of greater essentials."

"We are truly thankful for new strength added to us; we need it sore," said William Bradford. "We make out to live, nor have we wanted seriously, thus far."

"The men I have gathered together and brought to you are not provided; they will be a charge upon you for a while in food and raiment, but after a time their strength should more than recompense you in labour," said Mr. Cushman. "Where is the governor? I have a letter here from Mr. Weston to Governor Carver; will you take me to him?"

"That we may not do, Mr. Cushman," said Governor Bradford, sadly. "Governor Carver is at rest since last April, a half year agone. It was a day of summer heat and he was labouring in the field, from which he came out very sick, complaining greatly of his head. He lay down and in a few hours his senses failed, which never returned to him till his death, some days later. Bitterly have we mourned that just man. And but a month and somewhat more, passed when Mistress Carver, who was a weak woman, and sore beset by the sufferings of her coming here, and so ill-fitted to bear grief, followed her spouse to their reward, as none who knew them could doubt. I am chosen, unworthily, to succeed John Carver as governor of this colony."

"Then is the letter thine, William Bradford, and the Plymouth men have wisely picked out thee to hold chief office over them," said Robert Cushman. "Yet your news is heavy hearing, and I hope there is not much of such tidings to be given me."

"Half of us lie yonder on the hillside," said Governor Bradford. "But they died in the first months of our landing, when we lacked shelter and all else. It was a mortality that assailed us, a swift plague, but since it hath passed there is little sickness among us. Gather your men and let us go on to the village which we have built us, a habitation in the wilderness, like Israel of old. Like old Plymouth at home it is in name, but in naught else, yet it is not wholly without its pleasant comfort, and we are learning to hold it dear, as Providence hath wisely made man to cherish his home."

Mr. Cushman marshalled his sorry-looking followers; they were destitute of bedding, household utensils, even scantily provided with clothes, so that they came off the _Fortune_ in the lightest marching order, and filled with dismay the Plymouth people who saw that their deficiencies would fall upon the first settlers to supply.

"Well, Constantia, and so hath it ever been, and ever will be, world without end, that they who till and sow do not reap, but rather some idle blackbird that sits upon a stump whistling for the corn that grows for him, and not for his betters," scolded Dame Eliza who, like others of the women who were hard-working and economical, felt especially aggrieved by this invoice of destitution. "It is we, and such as we who may feed them, even to Damaris. Get a pan of dried beans, child, and shell 'em, for it is against our profession to see them starve, but why the agents sent, or Robert Cushman brought, beggars to us it would puzzle Solomon to say. Where will your warm cloak come from that you hoped for, think you, Constantia, with these people requiring our stores? Do they take Plymouth for Beggars' Bush?"

"I came hither walking beside my father, who was talking with Mr. Winslow, Stepmother," said Constance, noting with amusement that her stepmother commiserated her probable sacrifice, swayed by her indignation to make common cause with Constance, whose desires she rarely noted. "They said that it would put a burden upon us to provide for these new-comers at first, but that they looked like able and hopeful subjects to requite us abundantly, and that soon. So never mind my cloak; I will darn and patch my old one, and at least there be none here who will not know why I go shabby, and be in similar stress."

The door opened and Humility Cooper entered. She kissed Constance on the cheek, a manner of greeting not common among these Puritan maidens, especially when they met often, and slowly took the stool that Constance placed for her in the chimney corner, loosening her cape as she did so.

"I have news, dear Constance," Humility said.

"How strangely you look at me, Humility!" cried Constance. "Is your news good or ill? Your face would tell me it was both; your eyes shine, yet are ready to tears, and your lips droop, yet are smiling!"

"My news is that same mixture, Constance," cried Humility. "I am sent for from England. The letter is come by the _Fortune_. She is to lie in our harbour barely two sen' nights, and then weigh anchor for home. And I----"

"You go on her!" cried Constance. "Oh Humility!"

"And so I do," said Humility. "I am glad to go home. It is a sad and heavy-hearted thing to be here alone, with only Elizabeth Tilley, my cousin, left me. To be sure her father and mother, and Edward Tilley and his wife, who brought me hither, were but my cousins, though one degree nearer than John Tilley's Betsy; yet was it kindred, and they were those who had me in charge. Since they died I have felt lone, kind though everyone hath been; you and Priscilla Mullins Alden and Elizabeth are like my sisters. But my heart yearns back to England. Yet when I think of seeing you for the last time, till we meet beyond all parting, since you will never go to the old land, nor I return to the new one, then it seems that it will break my heart to say farewell, and that I cannot go."

"Why, Humility, dear lass, we cannot let you go!" cried Constance, putting her arms around the younger girl toward whom she felt as a protector, as well as comrade.

"Tut, tut!" said Dame Eliza, yet not unkindly. "It is best for Humility to go. I have long been glad to know, what we did know, that her kindred at home would send for her."

Humility stooped and gathered up Lady Fair, the cat, on her knee.

"I am like her," she said. "The warmth I have holds me, and I like not to venture out into the chillsome wet of the dark and storm."

"Lady Fair would scamper home fast enough if she were among strangers, in a new place, Humility," cried Constance, with one of her mercurial changes setting herself to cheer Humility on her unavoidable road. "It will be hard setting out, but you will be glad enough when you see the green line of shore that will be England awaiting you!"

"I thought you would be sorry, Constance!" cried Humility, tears springing to her eyes and rolling down her smooth, pink cheeks.

"And am I not, dear heart, just because I want to make it easier for you?" Constance reproached her. "How I shall miss you, dear little trusting Humility, I cannot tell you. But I am glad to know that we who remain are worse off than you who go, and that when you see home again there will be more than enough there to make up to you for Pris, Elizabeth, and me. There will be ships coming after this, so my father and Mr. Winslow were saying, and you will write us, and we will write you. And some day, when Oceanus, or Peregrine White, or one of the other small children here, is grown up to be a great portrait painter, like Mr. Holbein, whose portraits I was taken to see at Windsor when I was small, I will dispatch to you a great canvas of an old lady in flowing skirts, with white hair puffed and coifed and it will be painted across the bottom in readable letters: 'Portrait of Constantia Hopkins, aetat. 86,' else will you never know it for me, the silly girl you left behind."

"'Silly girl,' indeed! You will be the wife of some great gentleman who is now in England, but who will cross to the colony, and you will be the mother of those who will help in its growth," cried Humility the prophetess.

"Cease your foolish babble, both of you!" Dame Eliza ordered them, impatiently. "It is poor business talking of serious matters lightly, but Humility is well-off, and needs not pity, to be returning to the land that we cast off, nor am I as Lot's wife saying it, for it is true, nor am I repining."

Humility had made a correct announcement in saying that the _Fortune_ would stay on the western shore but two weeks.

For that time she lay in the waters of Plymouth harbour taking on a cargo of goods to the value of 500 pounds, or thereabout, which the Plymouth people rightly felt would put their enterprise in a new light when the ship arrived in England, especially that she had come hither unprepared for trade, expecting no such store here.

Lumber they stowed upon the _Fortune_ to her utmost capacity to carry, and two hogsheads full of beaver and otter skins, taken in exchange for the little that the Englishmen had to offer for them, the idea of trading for furs being new to them, till Squanto showed them the value in a beaver skin.

On the night of the thirteenth day of the _Fortune's_ lying at anchor Humility went aboard to be ready in case that the ship's master should suddenly resolve to take advantage of a favourable wind and sail unexpectedly.

Stephen Hopkins offered to take the young girls, who had been Humility's companions on the _Mayflower_, out to the _Fortune_ early the next morning for the final parting. It was decided that the _Fortune_ was to set sail at the turn of the tide on the fourteenth day, and drop down to sea on the first of its ebb.

Priscilla, Elizabeth Tilley, Desire Minter, who was also to return to England when summoned, and Constance, were rowed out to the ship when the reddening east threw a glory upon the _Fortune_ and covered her battered, blindfolded figure-head with the robes of an aurora.

Humility was dressed, awaiting them. She threw herself into the arms of each of the girls in succession, and for once five young girls were silent, their chatter hushed by the solemn thought that never would their eyes rest again upon Humility's pleasant little face; that never again would Humility see the faces which had smiled her through her days of bereavement, see Constance who had nursed her back to life when she herself seemed likely to follow her protectors to the hillside, to their corn-hidden graves.

"We cannot forget, so we will not ask each other to remember, Humility dear," whispered Constance, her lips against Humility's soft, brown hair.

Humility shook her head, unable otherwise to reply.

"I love you more than any one on earth, Con," she managed to say at last.

"I am sorry to shorten your stay, daughters, sorry to compel you to leave Mistress Humility," said Mr. Cushman, coming down the deck to the plaintive group, "but we are sailing now, and there will be no time when the last good-bye is easy. You must go ashore."

Not a word was spoken as Priscilla, Desire--though for her the parting was not final--Elizabeth and Constance kissed, clung to Humility, and for ever let her go. Stephen Hopkins, not a little moved himself--for he was fond of Humility, over whom he had kept ward since Edward Tilley had died--guided the tear-blinded girls down the ship's ladder, into his boat, and rowed them ashore.

The _Fortune's_ sails creaked and her gear rattled as her men hauled up her canvas for her homeward voyage.

She weighed anchor and slowly moved on her first tack, bright in the golden sunshine of a perfect Indian summer morning.

"Be brave, and wave a gay farewell to the little lass," said Stephen Hopkins. "And may God fend her from harm on her way, and lead her over still waters all her days."

"Oh, amen, amen, Father!" sobbed Constance. "She can't see we are crying while we wave to her so blithely. But it is the harder part to stay behind."

"With me, my lass?" asked Stephen Hopkins, smiling tenderly down on his usually courageous little pioneer.

"Oh, no; no indeed! Forgive me, Father! The one hard thing would be to stay anywhere without thee," cried Constance, smiling as brightly as she had just wept bitterly. The _Fortune_ leaned over slightly, and sailed at a good speed down the harbour, Humility's white signal of farewell hanging out over the boat's stern, discernable long after the girl's plump little figure and pink round face, all washed white with tears, had been blotted out by intervening space.

Before the _Fortune_ had gone wholly out of sight Francis Billington came over the marsh grass that edged the sand, sometimes running for a few steps, sometimes lagging; his whole figure and air eloquent of catastrophe.

"What can ail Francis Billington?" exclaimed Stephen Hopkins.

"He looks ghastly," cried Constance. "Father, it can't be--Giles?" she whispered.

"Bad news of him!" cried her father quickly, turning pale. "Nonsense, no; of course not."

Nevertheless he strode toward the boy hastily and caught him by the arm.

"What aileth thee; speak!" he ordered him.

"Jack. Jack is--Jack----" Francis stammered.

"Oh, is it Jack?" cried Stephen Hopkins, relieved, though he could have struck himself a moment later for the seeming heartlessness of his excusable mistake.

"What has Jack done now? He is always getting into mischief, but I am sure you need have no fear for him. But now that I look at you----. Why, my poor lad, what is it? No harm hath befallen your brother?"

"Jack is dead," said Francis.

Constance uttered a cry, and her father fell back a step or two, shocked and sorry.

"Forgive me, Francis; I had no notion of this. I never thought John Billington, the younger, could come to actual harm--so daring, so reckless, but so strong and able to take care of himself! Dead! Francis, it can't be. You are mistaken. Where is Doctor Fuller?"

"With my father," said Francis, and they saw that he shook from head to foot.

"He was with Jack; he did what he could. He couldn't do more," said Francis.

"Poor lad," said Stephen Hopkins, laying his hand gently on the boy's shoulder.

"Do you want to tell us? Was it an accident?"

Francis nodded. "Bouncing Bully," he muttered.

Stephen Hopkins glanced questioningly at Constance; he thought perhaps Francis was wandering in his mind.

"That was poor Jack's great pistol that he took such pride in," cried Constance.

"Oh, Francis, did that kill him?"

"Burst," cried Francis, and said no more.

"Come home with us, Francis," said Mr. Hopkins. "Indeed, my boy, I am heartily sorry for thee, and wish I could comfort thee. Be brave, and bear it in the way that thou hast been taught."

"I liked Jack," said poor Francis, turning away. "I thank you, Mr. Hopkins, but I'd not care to go home with you. If Giles was back----. Not that I don't love you, Con, but Jack and Giles----. I'm going--somewhere. I guess I'll find Nimrod, my dog. Thank you, Mr. Hopkins, but I couldn't come. I forgot why I came here. Doctor Fuller told me to say he wanted you. It's about Jack--Jack's----. They'll bury him."

The boy turned away, staggering, but in a moment Constance and her father, watching him, saw him break into a run and disappear.

"Don't look so worried, my dear," said Stephen Hopkins. "It is a boy's instinct to hide his grief, and the dog will be a good comrade for Francis for awhile. Later we will get hold of him. Best leave him to himself awhile. That wild, unruly Jack! And he is dead! I'd rather a hundred pounds were lost than that I had spoken as I did to Francis at first, but how should I have dreamed it was more than another of the Billington scrapes? I tell thee, Connie, it will be a rare mercy if the father does not end badly one day. He is insubordinate, lawless, dangerous. Perhaps young John is saved a worse fate."

"Nevertheless I am sad enough over the fate that has befallen him," said Constance. "He was a kindly boy, and loyal enough to me to make it right that I should mourn him. And I did like him. Poor Jack. Poor, young, heedless Jack! And how proud he was of that clumsy weapon that hath turned on him!"

"And so did I like him, Connie, though he and Francis have been, from our first embarkation on the _Mayflower_, the torment and black sheep of our company. But I liked the boy. I like his father less, and fear he will one day force us to deal with him extremely." In which prophecy Stephen Hopkins was only too right.

"To think that in one day we should bid a last farewell to two of our young fellow-exiles, Humility and Jack, both gone home, and for ever from us! Giles liked Jack; Jack stood by him when he needed help. Oh, Father, Father, if it were Giles!" cried Constance.

"I know, I know, child," said her father, huskily. "I've been thinking that. I've been thinking that, and more. My son has been headstrong, but never wicked. He is stiffnecked, but hath no evil in his will, except that he resists me. But I have been thinking hard, my Constance. You were right; I would have done well to listen to your pleadings, to your wiser understanding of my boy. I have been hard on him, unjust to him; I should have admitted him to my confidence, given mine to him. I am wrong and humbly I confess it to you, Giles's advocate. When he comes back my boy shall find a better father awaiting him. I wounded him through his very love for me, and well I know how once he loved me."

"Oh, Father; dear, good, great Father!" cried Constance, forgetful of all grief. "Only a great man can thus acknowledge a mistake. My dear, dear, beloved Father!" And in her heart she thought perhaps poor Jack had not died in vain if his death helped to show their father how dear Giles was to him, still, and after all.