CHAPTER VIII

Deep Love, Deep Wound

Constance had escaped from Humility Cooper and Elizabeth Tilley who had affectionately joined her when she had appeared on her way to the beach to await Giles's return.

Constance invented a question that must be asked Elder Brewster because she knew that the girls, though they revered him, feared him, and never willingly went where they must reply to his gravely kind attempts at conversation with them. "I surely feel like a wicked hypocrite," sighed Constance, watching her friends away as she turned toward the house that sheltered the elder.

"What would dear little Humility say if she knew I had tried to get rid of her? Or Elizabeth either! But it isn't as though I had not wanted them for a less good reason. I do love them dearly! I must meet Giles and hear his news as soon as I can, and it can't be told before another. Mercy upon us, what _was_ it that I had thought of to ask Elder Brewster! I've forgotten every syllable of it! Well, mercy upon us! And suppose he sees me hesitating here! I know! I'll confess to him that I was wishing I was in Warwickshire hearing Eastertide alleluias sung in my cousins' church, and ask him if it was sinful. He loves to correct me, dear old saint!"

Dimpling with mischief Constance turned her head away from a possible onlooker in the house to pull her face down into the proper expression for a youthful seeker for guidance. Then, quite demure and serious, with downcast eyes, she turned and went into the house.

Elder William Brewster kept her some time. She was nervously anxious to escape, fearing to miss the boys' arrival. But Elder Brewster was deeply interested in pretty Constance Hopkins, in whom, in spite of her sweet docility and patient daily performance of her hard tasks, he discerned glimpses of girlish liveliness that made him anxious and which he felt must be corrected to bring the dear girl into perfection.

Constance decided that she was expiating fully whatever fault there might have been in feigning an errand to Elder Brewster to get rid of the girls as she sat uneasily listening to that good man's exposition of the value of alleluias in the heart above those sung in church, and the baseness of allowing the mind to look back for a moment at the "shackles from which she was freed." Good Elder Brewster ended by reading from his roughened brown leather-covered Bible the story of Lot's wife to which Constance--who had heard it many times, it being an appropriate theme for the pilgrim band to ponder, sick in heart and body as they had been so long--did not harken.

At last she was dismissed with a fatherly hand laid on her shining head, and a last warning to keep in mind how favoured above her English cousins she had been to be chosen a daughter in Israel to help found a kingdom of righteousness. Constance ran like the wind down the road, stump-bordered, the beginning of a street, and came down upon the beach just as the boys reached it and their boat bumped up on the sand under the last three hard pulls they had given the oars in unison.

"Oh! Giles, oh, Giles, oh Jack!" cried Constance fairly dancing under her excitement.

"Oh, Con, oh, Con! Oh, Constantia!" mocked John, hauling away on the painter and getting the boat up to her tying stake.

"What happened you? Have you news?" Constance implored them.

"We heard no especial news, Con," said Giles. "I'm not sure we asked for any. We have this instead; will that suffice you?"

He took from his breast the packet of papers and offered it to her.

"Oh, Giles!" sighed Constance, clasping her hands, tears of relief springing to her eyes. "All of them? Are they all safe? Thank Heaven!" she added as Giles nodded.

"Did you have trouble getting them? Who held them? Tell me everything!"

"Give me a chance Constantia Chatter," said Giles, using the name Constance had been dubbed when, a little tot, she ceaselessly used her new accomplishment of talking. "We had no trouble, no. We found the thief and made him confess what we already knew, that he was the master's cat's paw. Jones had to disgorge; he could not hold the papers without paying too heavy a penalty. So here they are. Why don't you take them?"

"I take them?" puzzled Constance, accepting them as Giles thrust them into her hand. "Do you want me to put them away for you? Are you not coming to dinner? There is not enough time to go to work before noon. The sun was not two hours from our noon mark beside the house when I left it."

"I suppose I am going to dinner," said Giles. "I am ready enough for it. No, I don't want you to put the papers away for me. You can do with them what you like. I should advise your giving them to Father, since they are his, but that is as you will. I give them into your hands."

"Giles, Giles!" cried Constance, in distress, instantly guessing that this meant that Giles was intending to hold aloof from a part in rejoicing over the recovery.

"Give them to Father yourself. How proud of you he will be that you ferreted out the thief and went so bravely, with only John, to demand them for him! It is not my honour, and I must not take it."

"Oh, as to honour, you got the first clue from Damaris, if there's honour in it, but for that I do not care. I did the errand when you sent me on it, or opened my way. However it came about I will not give the papers to my father. In no wise will I stoop to set myself right in his eyes. Perhaps he will say that the whole story is false, that I did not get the papers on the ship, but had them hidden till fear and an uneasy conscience made me deliver them up, and that you are shielding your brother," said Giles, frowning as he turned from Constance.

"And I thought now everything would be right!" groaned the girl--her lips quivering, tears running down her cheeks. "Giles, dear Giles; don't, don't be so bitter, so unforgiving! It is not just to Father, not just to yourself, to me. It isn't _right_. Giles! Will you hold this grudge against the father you so loved, and forget all the years that went before, for a miserable day when he half harboured doubt of you, and that when he was torn by influence, tormented till he was hardly himself?"

"Now, Constance, there is no need of your turning preacher," Giles said, harshly.

"If you like to swallow insult, well and good. It does not matter about a girl, but a man's honour is his chiefest possession. Take the papers, and prate no more to me. My father wanted them; there they are. He suspected me of stealing them; I found the thief. That's all there is about it. What is there to-day to eat? An early row makes a man hungry. Art ready, Jack? We will go to the house, by your leave, pretty Sis. Sorry to see your eyes reddening, but better that than other harm."

Constance hesitated as Giles went up the beach, taking John with him. For a moment she debated seeking Captain Standish, giving him the papers, and asking him to be intermediary between her father and this headstrong boy, who talked so largely of himself as "a man," and behaved with such wrong-headed, childish obstinacy. But a second thought convinced her that she herself might serve Giles better than the captain, and she took her way after her brother, beginning to hope, true to herself, that her father's pleasure in recovering the papers, his desire to make amends to Giles, would express itself in such wise that they would be drawn together closer than before the trouble arose.

It was turning into a balmy day, after a chilly morning. Though only the middle of March the air was full of spring. In the community house, as Constance entered, she found her stepmother, and Mrs. White--each with her _Mayflower_-born baby held in one arm--busily setting forth the dinner, while Priscilla and Humility and Elizabeth helped them, and the smaller children, headed by Damaris, attempted to help, were sharply rebuked for getting in the way, subsided, but quickly darted up again to take a dish, or hand a knife which their inconsistent elders found needed.

Several men--Mr. Hopkins, Mr. White; Mr. Warren, whose wife had not yet come from England; Doctor Fuller, in like plight; John and Francis Billington's father, John Alden and Captain Myles Standish, as a matter of course--were discussing planting of corn while awaiting the finishing touches to their carefully rationed noonday meal.

"If you follow my counsel," the captain was saying, "you will plant over the spot where we have laid so many of our company. Thus far we hardly are aware of our savage neighbours, but with the warm weather they will come forth from their woodlands, and who knows what may befall us from them? Better, say I, conceal from them that no more than half of those who sailed hither are here to-day. Better hide from their eyes beneath the tall maize the graves on yonder hillside."

"Well said, good counsel, Captain Myles," said Stephen Hopkins. "God's acre, the folk of parts of Europe call the enclosure of their dead. We will make our acre God's acre, planting it doubly for our protection, in grain for our winter need, concealment of our devastation."

Suddenly the air was rent with a piercing shriek, and little Love Brewster, the Elder's seven-year-old son, came tumbling into the house, shaking and inarticulate with terror.

Priscilla Mullins caught him into her lap and tried to sooth him and discover the cause of his fright, but he only waved his little hands frantically and sobbed beyond all possibility of guessing what words were smothered beneath the sobs.

"Elder Brewster promised to let the child pass the afternoon with Damaris," began Mrs. Hopkins, but before she got farther John Alden started up.

"Look there," he said. "Is it wonderful that Love finds the sight beyond him?"

Stalking toward the house in all the awful splendour of paint, feathers, beads, and gaudy blanket came a tall savage. He had, of course, seen the child and realized his fright and that he had run to alarm the pilgrims, but not a whit did it alter the steady pace at which he advanced, looking neither to left nor to right, his arms folded upon his breast, no sign apparent of whether he came in friendship or in enmity.

The first instinct of the colonists, in this first encounter with an Indian near to the settlement was to be prepared in case he came in enmity.

Several of the men reached for the guns which hung ready on the walls, and took them down, examining their horns and rods as they handled them. But the savage, standing in the doorway, made a gesture full of calm dignity which the pilgrims rightly construed to mean salutation, and uttered a throaty sound that plainly had the same import.

"Welcome!" hazarded Myles Standish advancing with outstretched hand upon the new-comer, uncertain how to begin his acquaintance, but hoping this might be pleasing. "Yes," said the Indian in English, to the boundless surprise of the Englishmen. "Yes, welcome, friend!" He took Captain Standish's hand.

"Chief?" he asked. "Samoset," he added, touching his own breast, and thus introducing himself.

"How in the name of all that is wonderful did he learn English!" cried Stephen Hopkins.

"Yes, Samoset know," the Indian turned upon him, understanding. "White men ships fish far, far sunrise," he pointed eastward, and they knew that he was telling them that English fishermen had been known to him, whose fishing grounds lay toward the east.

"'Tis true; our men have been far east and north of here," said Myles Standish, turning toward Stephen Hopkins, as to one who had travelled.

"Humphrey Gilbert, but many since then," nodded Mr. Hopkins.

"Big chief Squanto been home long time white men, he talk more Samoset," said Samoset. "Squanto come see----." He waved his hand comprehendingly over his audience, to indicate whom Squanto intended to visit.

"Well, womenfolk, you must find something better than you give us, and set it forth for our guest," said Stephen Hopkins. "Get out our English beer; Captain Myles I'll undertake, will join me in foregoing our portion to-morrow for him. And the preserved fruits; I'm certain he will find them a novelty. And you must draw on our store of trinkets for gifts. Lads--Giles, John, Francis--help the girls open the chest and make selection."

Samoset betrayed no understanding of these English words, maintaining a stolid indifference while preparations for his entertainment went on. But he did full justice to the best that the colonists had to set before him and accepted their subsequent gifts with a fine air of noble condescension, as a monarch accepting tribute.

Later with pipes filled with the refreshing weed from Virginia, which had circuitously found its way back to the New World, via England, the Plymouth men sat down to talk to Samoset.

Limited as was his vocabulary, broken as was his speech, yet they managed to understand much of what he told them, valuable information relating to their Indian neighbours near by, to the state of the country, to climate and soil, and to the people of the forests farther north.

Samoset went away bearing his gifts, with which, penetrating his reserve, the colonists saw that he was greatly pleased. He promised a speedy return, and to bring to them Squanto, from whose friendship and better knowledge of their speech and race evidently Samoset thought they would gain much.

The younger men--Doctor Fuller, John Alden and others, needless to say Giles, John, and Francis Billington, under the conduct of Myles Standish--accompanied Samoset for a few miles on his return.

The sun was dropping westward, the night promising to be as warmly kind as the day had been, and Constance slipped her hand into her father's arm as he stood watching their important guest's departure, under his escort's guardianship.

"A little tiny walk with me, Father dear?" she hinted. "I like to watch the sunset redden the sands, and it is so warm and fine. Besides, I have something most beautiful to tell you!"

"Good news, Con? This seems to be a day of good things," said her father, as Constance nodded hard. "The coming of yonder Indian seems to me the happiest thing that could well have befallen us. Given the friendship of our neighbouring tribes we have little to fear from more distant ones, and the great threat to our colony's continuance is removed. Well, I will walk with you child, but not far nor long. There is scant time for dalliance in our lives, you know."

They went out, Constance first running to snatch her cloak and pull its deep hood over her hair as a precaution against a cold that the warm day might betray her into, and which she had good reason to fear who had helped nurse the victims of the first months of the immigration.

"The good news, Daughter?" hinted Mr. Hopkins after they had walked a short distance in silence.

Constance laughed triumphantly, giving his arm a little shake. "I waited to see if you wouldn't ask!" she cried, "I knew you were just as curious, you men, as we poor women creatures--but of course in a big, manly way!" She pursed her lips and shook her head, lightly pinching her father to point her satire.

"Have a care, Mistress Constantia!" her father warned her. "Curiosity is a weakness, even dangerous, but disrespect to your elders and betters, what is that?"

"Great fun," retorted Constance.

Her father laughed. He found his girl's playfulness, which she was recovering with the springtide and the relief from the heavy sorrow of the first weeks in Plymouth, refreshing amid the extreme seriousness of most of the people around him. "Proceed with your tidings, you saucy minx!" he said.

"Very well then, Mr. Stephen Hopkins," Constance obeyed him, "what would you say if I were to tell you that there was news of your missing packet of papers?"

Stephen Hopkins stopped short. "I should say thank God with all my heart, Constance, not merely because the loss was serious, but most of all because of Giles. Is it true?" he asked.

"They are found!" cried Constance, jubilantly, "and it was Giles himself who faced the thief and forced him to give them up. It is a fine tale!" And she proceeded to tell it.

Her father's relief, his pleasure, was evidently great, but to Constance's alarm as the story ended, his face settled into an expression of annoyance.

"It is indeed good news, Constance, and I am grateful, relieved by it," he said, having heard her to the end. "But why did not Giles tell me this himself, bring me the recovered packet? Would it not be natural to wish to confer upon me, himself, the happiness he had won for me, to hasten to me with his victory, still more that it clears him of the least doubt of complicity in the loss?"

"Ah, no, Father! That is just the point of his not doing so!" cried Constance. "Giles is sore at heart that you felt there might be a doubt of him. He cannot endure it, nor seem to bring you proofs of his innocence. I suppose he does not feel like a boy, but like a man whose honour is questioned, and by--forgive me, Father, but I must make it clear--by one whose trust in him should be stronger than any other's."

"Nonsense, Constantia!" Stephen Hopkins exploded, angrily. "What are we coming to if we cannot question our own children? Giles is not a man; he is a boy, and my boy, so I shall expect him to render me an account of his actions whenever, and however I demand it. I'll not stand for his pride, his assumption of injured dignity. Let him remember that! Thank God my son is an honest lad, as by all reason he should be. But though he is right as to the theft, he is wrong in his arrogance, and pride is as deadly a sin as stealing. I want no more of this nonsense."

"Oh, Father dear," cried Constance, wringing her hands with her peculiar gesture when matters got too difficult for those small hands. "Please, please be kind to Giles! Oh, I thought everything would be all right now that the packet was recovered, and by him! Be patient with him, I beg you. He is not one that can be driven, but rather won by love to do your will. If you will convey to him that you regret having suspected him he will at once come back to be our own Giles."

"Have a care, Constantia, that in your anxiety for your brother you do not fall into a share of his fault!" warned her father. "It is not for you to advise me in my dealing with my son. As to trying to placate him by anything like an apology: preposterous suggestion! That is not the way of discipline, my girl! Let Giles indicate to me his proper humility, his regret for taking the attitude that I am not in authority over him, free to demand of him any explanation, any evidence of his character I please. No, no, Constance! You mean well, but you are wrong."

Thus saying, Mr. Hopkins turned on his heel to go back to the house, and Constance followed, no longer with her hand on her father's arm, but understanding the strong annoyance he felt toward Giles, and painfully conscious that her pleading for her brother had done less than no good.