CHAPTER XX

A SON OF PERDITION

MILES was not fated, however, to learn by experience how it felt to be tied neck and heels; for all his double sin of abetting a duel and running away from the settlement, he suffered no unusual punishment. Instead, next day at noon, when Master Hopkins returned from the fields, he ordered him into the closet, and there gave him as thorough a flogging as even the boy's tormented fancy had conjured up.

Miles came out, with his shoulders quivering, and, not staying for dinner, slouched away through the fields to the shore, where he stood a time blinking out to sea. He had been bidden go present himself to the Elder and be admonished for his sins, but he did not hold it necessary to go just yet.

At last he had himself tolerably in hand, and, with no great heart for what was before him, was loitering along the shingle to the village, when a shrill voice hailed him, and, looking up, he saw Jack and Joe and Francis running toward him. So Miles put on an unconcerned bearing, and, making the pebbles clatter beneath his tread, swaggered to meet them.

Oh, yes, he could tell them brave tales of how he had lived with the Indians, he bragged, but not now; he had to go now and be admonished by the Elder, he explained, as if he took pride in such awful depths of iniquity.

"And Stephen Hopkins has admonished you ere this, I'll warrant," chuckled Francis. "How heavily did he lam you?"

With melancholy satisfaction, Miles pulled off his shirt and exhibited his stripes to his admiring companions.

"Big red weals," quoth Jack. "I'm glad 'twas not I must bear such a banging. Here's more than one stroke has broken the skin."

Miles twisted his neck, in a vain effort to study his smarting shoulders, while his estimate of himself rose surprisingly.

"And for each whang Miles cried out, I'll be bound," added Francis.

"I did not open my lips," boasted Miles. "A' could not make me. You can talk, if you will, Francie. We know if you'd borne the half of this, we'd 'a' heard you roaring from the Fort Hill clear to the Rock. But I mind not a beating, nor aught they can do to me or say. 'Twas so brave a life I led among the Indians--"

There something in Francis's face made Miles glance over his shoulder, and right behind him, his step deadened by the sand, stood the Captain, who was gazing down at him with a look between contemptuous and amused, that made the other lads slip away, and set Miles scuttling into his shirt.

"Well, sir, you show a deep and edifying sense of the mischief you have done," Standish said quietly, but the very absence of anger from his tone made Miles's face burn the hotter.

He was glad that his shirt was over his head at that moment, so he could not see the speaker's look, and he dreaded to meet it. But when he had drawn on the garment and could glance round him, he saw, with an added pang of humiliation, that Captain Standish, not holding him worthy of further notice, had trudged on to the landing.

For a moment Miles stood gazing blankly after him; then he turned and, kicking up the sand in half-hearted little spurts, plodded on up the hill to Master Brewster's gate. Beneath the bluff, on the shore of the brook, he came upon the Elder, laboring diligently among his green things, and told him in a listless tone why he had come thither. Master Brewster talked to him a long time and wisely, Miles had no doubt, but he only heard the words vaguely, for he was feeling the piteous smart of his irritated shoulders, and watching the flecks of light through the green bushes that shifted across the Elder's doublet, and harking to the loud purr of the fat cat Solomon, who was rubbing himself against the Elder's knees.

Yet he was dully sorry when the Elder dismissed him, for that left him free for some heavy thoughts. It would be a little comfort to speak with Dolly; so, rather uncertain what welcome such a rapscallion as he might hope for, he toiled up the bluff and faltered into the Brewsters' living room.

The wind from the sea stirred the curtain at the window, and in the full blast, industriously sewing at a small gown, Mistress Mullins sat alone. "So you've come to visit me, little Indian?" she greeted Miles, and put her hands to her brown hair that had ruffled in the draught. "My scalp is quite safe? You are well assured you have no tomahawk about you?"

Miles shook his head in crestfallen fashion; he only wanted to see Dolly, he murmured.

"She is in bed, poor little one! till I make her some tidy clothes to put on," Priscilla answered. "Stay and talk with me, Miles, like a gallant lad. Come, if you'll look merry again, I'll show you something rare. 'Tis a humbird."

She led him to the western casement, where on the window-sill rested a little cage of paper, in which fluttered a shimmery atom no bigger than a bee. For a moment, because Priscilla expected it of him, Miles gazed at the tiny whirring wings, and touched the cage gently, but in so listless a fashion that the young girl asked abruptly: "What has gone wrong with you, Miles?"

"Naught."

"Then you are an uncivil youth to wear such a glum face. Come, tell me it all. Is it that Stephen Hopkins hath flogged you?"

"No!" Miles answered, with an angry sniff. "A beating more or less, 'tis nothing to a man."

Priscilla suddenly put an arm about his neck. "My poor little--man!" she said, and, for all she laughed, her voice was tender. "I know I am but a silly woman, yet mayhap I can help you,--an you let me. Is it that the Elder rated you grievously?"

Miles shook his head, then, spite of himself, blurted out: "'Tis--Captain Standish is angry and scarce will look at me. And he has ever been kind to me. But now he will have none of me. I had no mind to be so wicked; I did not mean what I said; I'm sorry."

"Why, you need not lay it to heart if the Captain has been round with you," the girl coaxed. "He must be so troubled now with all this ill news of the savages."

"But he--he thinks I'm not sorry," Miles faltered, twisting the ends of the window curtain relentlessly between his hands. "And I am, but I can't go to him and say it, when he is angered."

"But I can go to him and tell him you are sorry, if 'twill comfort you," Priscilla answered coolly. "I have no fear of your Captain."

"Will you so?" Miles cried gratefully. "Sure, you're uncommon good. When I'm older I'll marry you,--unless Jack Alden does it ere then."

Whereat Mistress Mullins's face flushed pink, and she pulled Miles's ears, and, calling him a scamp, packed him into the bedroom to speak with Dolly.

So, when Miles ran home to supper, he was in an almost cheerful mood, which speedily ended, for Master Hopkins made him read a sorrowful chapter on the wrath of God against transgressors, and cuffed him because he could not pronounce the word "Zarhites." Mistress Hopkins scolded too, because she had labored all the afternoon to mend the shirt which Miles had worn upon his wanderings; moreover, she would have to make the troublesome boy a new doublet, to replace the one he had lost, and new breeches, for those he now wore were disgracefully ragged, so perhaps she had reason to be vexed on his account.

"But I did not tear them wantonly," Miles lamented to Ned Lister next morning. "Yet she says she is so busied she cannot make me new clothes for days, and I must wear my breeches all ragged for punishment."

"Hm!" answered Ned. "Half Plymouth seems to take its diversion in punishing the other half." He was on his knees between two rows of the rustling green cornstalks, where he was grubbing up those weeds that were so tough as to resist his hoe; his doublet was off, but he had so scrupulously turned up the collar of his shirt that no trace of the red mark about his neck could be seen.

It was so unusual for Ned to work that Miles was lingering to watch him, when suddenly the young man broke out: "Look you here, Miley, you were with me that day I made Dotey to fight me, and you heard all I said unto him, so I ought to tell you--'twas not he bore tales of me unto Hopkins; 'twas the mistress herself."

Miles nodded his head. "I never had any liking for her," he said softly.

Ned weeded scowlingly. "Well, she made Hopkins go unto the Governor and beg that Ed Dotey and I be released after we'd been tied an hour," he admitted, in a grudging tone. "She might be worse, and so might Ed Dotey; he's no talebearer, though he is a self-sufficient coxcomb."

For several days this was the only bit of private talk which Miles had with Ned, for Master Hopkins, who said that Lister had already corrupted the boy sufficiently, took now a new course of keeping the two rigorously apart. While Ned was sent to work in the fields, Miles was bidden weed in the house-garden, or fetch and carry for Mistress Hopkins.

Master Hopkins believed, too, that Satan found mischief for idle hands, so he saw to it that one task followed another, till Miles, honestly wearied, looked back with fondness to his life among the Indians as a time of perpetual holiday. One morning, indeed, about a week after his return to Plymouth, when he was forbidden to help Ned dig clams, and ordered, instead, to fetch water and then weed in the garden, he voiced his rebellious wish: "I would I were back with those good, friendly Indians at Manomet."

Master Hopkins, who was busy at the delicate task of repairing the lock of his musket, looked up at the muttered words. "You wish to dwell among those shameless idolaters?" he questioned grimly. "Verily, Miles Rigdale, you are a son of perdition."

A very terrible name that was, Miles thought, but it was worse than the hard name, that Master Hopkins cuffed him till his ears tingled and his eyes watered.

Frightened at his own wickedness, and smarting with the blows, he hurried off to the spring, and, halfway thither, met with Francis Billington. Even Francis's sympathy would have been welcome just then, and, after all he had undergone because of his confession to save the boy, Miles thought he had some claim to it. But Francis stiffened up at his greeting and put on a surprising new air of virtue. "I'm forbid to have to do with you, Miles," he announced, with open delight. "Sure, I see not why your father ever need keep you so tenderly from my conversation. Why, you are yourself the worst lad in all the colony; 'twas Captain Standish himself said so to my father."

"I think you are not speaking the truth," Miles answered doggedly; he had a mind to fight Francis for such a story, but very likely if he fought, Master Hopkins would whip him. So he drooped his head under the other's taunt and plodded on to the spring. He didn't believe Francis, he repeated to himself, while he swallowed and swallowed in his throat. But there came the remembrance of the look the Captain had given him, there on the shore, and his contemptuous words, and, with a sickening fear that, for once, Francis had spoken the truth, he felt the lump in his throat swell bigger.

He did not care, though the water, as he scooped up his pailful at the spring, slopped over his shoes, but he did care when he heard on the pathway from the bluff the scatter of pebbles under a quick footstep; he could not let any one see him in so sorry a mood. Catching up his pail, he pressed into the crackling green alders at the farther side of the spring, and, as he did so, heard some one call sharply, "Miles."

It was Captain Standish's voice, Captain Standish who would want to rate him as the worst lad in the colony, who would never believe he was penitent. Miles put his head down and, crashing through the alders, never paused till the whole dense thicket lay between him and his pursuer. He could hear on the lifeless, hot air no sound save that of his own fluttering breath; no one had offered to follow him, and he felt suddenly sorry that he had escaped.

But, without courage to go back to the spring and face the Captain, he crouched down beneath the bushes and sat a long time staring through the leaves at the bright water of the brook. Up in the street he heard eager voices once, but the dread of encountering Captain Standish made him stay quiet in his hiding place, till the street was still again. Then he clambered painfully up the steeper part of the bluff below Cooke's house, and, with a new terror growing on him of the mighty scolding he could expect for his delay, scudded home.

But no one had space to scold him. When he came to the house he found Mistress Hopkins, quite silent, and Constance, with a scared face, busied about dinner, and Ned and Dotey, with Giles to help, overhauling their muskets. "What is it has happened?" Miles questioned in amazement.

"War!" Ned answered cheerily, and Mistress Hopkins, with a grewsome sort of satisfaction, added that she always said they'd yet be slain by the heathen savages.

"It happened at Namasket, five league from here," Ned ran on. "Squanto and two other friendly copper-skins, Hobbamock and Tokamahamon, they went thither quietly to learn how much truth was in this talk of rebellion against Massasoit. And there was a certain Corbitant, an under-chief of the King's, who is in league with the Narragansetts, and he discovered them. Hobbamock broke from them and came fleeing hither, not an hour agone, but Tokamahamon they took and Squanto they've slain. So we are furbishing up our muskets."

Poor Squanto, who had fetched him from Nauset, was dead. That was Miles's first thought, and he was honestly grieved. But ere dinner was out he learned from his elders that there was other fearful matter to think on, for if Massasoit's men were rebelling and joining the Narragansetts against the King and his allies, it meant a dreadful danger for the settlement.

Quietly, but resolutely enough, the Englishmen made their arrangements to march against Namasket and punish the slayers of their friends. After a night of watching and half hidden fear, next morning, in the midst of a beating rain, a little squad of ten, with the Captain at their head, and Hobbamock to guide them, went forth to the attack.

From the western window Miles watched them go. He had hoped to be allowed to slip forth from the house and see them start upon their expedition; at least get a last glimpse of Captain Standish, who, perhaps, in the confusion, would forget he was angry and say, "Good-morrow, Miles," as he used. So Miles fetched Master Hopkins's buff-coat, and helped Constance with the breakfast kettle, and mended the fire, and quieted Damaris, and waited and hoped, till he saw the last man of the column disappear over the bluff.

He could run out and seek a dry stick of wood from the pile now, when going forth profited him nothing. He slouched into the wet and the wind, and, in the pashy dooryard, met Ned, who was in a bad temper, because, when he asked his master to let him go on the expedition, he had been contemptuously bidden by Hopkins to "stay home with the women and tend the disgraceful hurts he had taken in his godless brawl."

"If I'd not been such a Jack as to get myself slashed, I might 'a' gone," Ned grumbled now to Miles, as he kicked his heels in the big puddle before the doorstone. "And they'll have some good fighting, I'll wager."

"Do you think surely some of our men will be slain?" Miles questioned, terror-stricken.

"A buff-coat does not make a man immortal," Ned cast over his shoulder, as he stamped into the house.

But Miles, standing in the pouring rain, gazed up the path by which the little company had gone. The sky was thick gray, and the rain, driven by the wind from off the harbor, fell in long, livid streaks. He took up a shiny wet stick from the ground and snapped it slowly in his hands. "The Captain may be killed," he told himself dazedly. "And he does not know that I be sorry."