CHAPTER XVI

A Gallant Lad Withal

There was a gray sky the day after young madcap John Billington was laid to rest in the grave that had been hard to think of as meant for him, dug by the younger colonists. Long rifted clouds lay piled upon one another from the line of one horizon to the other, and the wind blew steadily, keeping close to the ground and whistling around chimneys and rafters in a way that portended a storm driven in from the sea.

"I think it's lost-and-lone to-day, Constance," said Damaris, coining her own term for the melancholy that seemed to envelop earth and sky. "I think it's a good day for a story, and I'd like much to sit in your lap in the chimney corner and hear your nicest ones."

"Would you, my Cosset? But you said a story at first, and now you say my nicest _ones_! Do you mean one story, or several stories, Damaris?" Constance asked.

"I mean one first, and many ones after that, if you could tell them, Constance," said the child. "Mother says we have no time to idle in story-telling, but to-day is so empty and lonesome! I'd like to have a story."

"And so you shall, my little sis!" cried Constance gathering Damaris into her arms and dropping into the high-backed chair which Dame Eliza preempted for herself, when she was there; but now she was not at home. "Come, at least the fire is gay! Hark how it snaps and sings! And how gaily red and golden are the flames, and how the great log glows! Shall we play it is a red-coated soldier, fighting the chill for us?"

"No, oh, no," shuddered Damaris. "Don't play about fighting and guns!"

Constance cuddled her closer, drawing her head into the hollow of her shoulder. Sensitive, grave little Damaris had been greatly unnerved by the death of Jack, and especially that his own pistol had taken his life.

"We'll play that the red glow is loving kindness, and that we have had our eyes touched with magic that makes us able to see love," cried Constance. "Fire is the emblem of love, warming our hearts toward all things, so our fancy will be at once make-believe and truth. Remember, my cosset lamb, that love is around us, whether we see it or not, and that there can be no dismal gray days if we have our eyes touched to see the glow of love warming us! Now what shall the story be? Here in the hearth corner, shall it be Cinderella? Or shall it be the story of the lucky bear, that found a house empty and a fire burning when he wanted a home, and wherein he set up housekeeping for himself, like the quality?"

"All of them, Constance! But first tell me what we shall do when Giles comes home. I like that story best. I wish he would come soon!" sighed Damaris.

"Ah, so do I! And so he will;" Constance corrected instantly the pain that she knew had escaped into her voice. "Captain Standish will not risk the coming of cold weather; he will bring them home soon. Well, what shall we do then, you want to hear? First of all, someone will come running, calling to us that the shallop hath appeared below in the harbour. Then we shall all make ourselves fine, and----"

"Someone is coming now, Con, but not running," cried Damaris, sitting up and holding up a warning finger.

"It is a man's step," began Constance, but, as the door opened she sprang to her feet with a cry, and stood for an instant of stunned joy holding Damaris clasped to her breast. Then she set the child on her feet and leaped into Giles's arms, with a great sob, repeating his name and clinging to him.

"Steady, Constance! Steady, dear lass," cried Giles, himself in not much better state, while Damaris clung around his waist and frantically kissed the tops of his muddy boots.

"Oh, how did you get here? When did you come? Are they all safely here?" cried Constance.

"Every man of them; we had a fine expedition, not a misfortune, perfect weather, and we saw wonders of noble country: streams and hills and plains," said Giles, and instantly Constance felt a new manhood and self-confidence in him, steadier, less assertive than his boyish pride, the self-reliance that is won through encountering realities, in conquering self and hence things outside of self.

"I cannot wait to hear the tale! Let me help you off with your heavy coat, your matchlock, and then sit you down in this warmest corner, and tell me everything," cried Constance, beginning to recover herself, the rich colour of her delight flooding her face as, the first shock of surprise over, she realized that it was indeed Giles come back to her and that her secret anxiety for him was past. "Art hungry, my own?" she added, fluttering around her brother, like a true woman, wanting first of all to feed him.

"Well, Con, to be truthful I am always hungry," said Giles, smiling down on her.

"But not in such strait now that I cannot wait till the next meal."

"Here are our father and Mistress Hopkins, hastening hither," said Constance, looking out the door, hoping for this coming of her father. "You have not seen Father yet?"

"No, Con; I came straight home, but the captain has met with him, I am sure. And, Con, I want to tell you before he comes in, that I have seen how wrong I was toward our good father, and that I hope to carry myself dutifully toward him henceforth."

Constance clasped her hands, rapturously, but had not time to reply before the door was thrown wide open and Stephen Hopkins strode in, his face radiant.

He went up to his tall son and clasped his shoulders in a grip that made Giles wince, and said through his closed teeth, trying to steady his voice:

"My lad, my fine son, thank God I have you back! And by His mercy never again shall we be parted, nor sundered by the least sundering."

Giles looked up, and Giles looked down. He hoped, yet hardly dared to think, that his father meant more than mere bodily separation.

"I am glad enough to be here, yet we had glorious days, and have seen a country so worthy that we wish that we might go thither, leaving this less profitable country," said Giles. "We have seen land that by a little effort would be turned into gracious meadows. We have seen great bays and rivers, full of fish, capable of navigation and industry. We have seen a beautiful river, which we have named the Charles, for we think it to be that river which Captain John Smith thus named in his map. The Charles flows down to the sea, past three hills which top a noble harbour, and where we would dearly like to build a town. I will tell you of these things in order. Captain Myles will have a meeting of the Plymouth people to hear our tale; I would wait for that, else will it be stale hearing to you."

"Nay, Giles, we shall never tire of it!" cried Constance. "A good story is the better for oft hearing, as you know well, do you not, little Damaris?"

"Well, it hath made a man of thee, Giles Hopkins," said Dame Eliza who had silently watched the lad closely as he talked. "It was a lucky thing for thee that the Arm of the Colony, Captain Myles, took thee for one of his tools."

"A lucky thing for him, too," interposed Giles's father proudly. "I have seen Myles; he hath told me how, when you and he were fallen behind your companions, investigating a deep ravine, he had slipped and would have been killed by his own matchlock as it struck against the rock, but that you, risking your life, threw yourself forward on a narrow ledge and struck up the muzzle of the gun. The colony is in your debt, my son, that your arm warded death from the man it calls, justly, its Arm."

"Prithee, father!" expostulated Giles, turning crimson. "Who could do less for a lesser man? And who would not do far more for Myles Standish? I would be a fool to hesitate over risk to a life no more valuable than mine, if such as he were in danger. Besides which the captain exaggerates my danger. I don't want that prated here. Please help me silence Myles Standish."

Stephen Hopkins nodded in satisfaction.

"Right, Giles. A blast on one's own horn produces much the sound of the bray of an ass. Yet am I glad that I know of this," he said.

Little Love Brewster, who was often a messenger from one Plymouth house to another, came running in at that moment.

"My father sends me," he panted. "The men of Plymouth are to sit this afternoon at our house to hear the tale of the adventurers to the Massachusetts. You will come? Giles, did you bring us new kinds of arrows from the strange savages? My father saith that Squanto was the best guide and helper on this expedition that white men ever had."

"So he was, Love. I brought no new arrows, but I have in my sack something for each little lad in the colony. And for the girls I have wondrous beads," added Giles, seeing Damaris's crestfallen face.

"I will risk a reprimand; it can be no worse than disapproval from Elder Brewster, and belike they will spare me because of the occasion," thought Constance in her own room, making ready to go to the assembly that was to gather to welcome the explorers, but which to her mind was gathered chiefly to honour Giles.

Thus deliberately she violated the rule of the colony; let her beautiful hair curl around her flushed face; put on a collar of her mother's finest lace, tied in such wise by a knot of rose-coloured ribbon that it looked like a cluster of buds under her decided little chin. And, surveying herself in the glass, which was over small and hazy for her merits, that chin raised itself in a hitch of defiance.

"Why should I not be young, and fair and happy?" Constance demanded of her unjust reflection. "At the worst, and if I am forced to remove it, I shall have been gay and bonny--a wee bit so!--for a little while."

With which this unworthy pilgrim maid danced down the stairs, seized by the hand Damaris, who looked beside her like a small brown grub, and set out for Elder Brewster's house.

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 anticipating 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 Massachusetts, 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 fashioned 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 assembly 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 assembly, 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 anticipated 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 assembled?" 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 attitude!"

With which, eyes sparkling with fun and excitement, head thrown back, Giles struck an attitude, 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 assembly; 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 fortitude, 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 assured 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!"

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 lusty 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 shifts 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.