CHAPTER V

NEWS FROM THE SHORE

BECAUSE Miles's hand was hurt, Goodwife Rigdale made much of him, till he fairly resented it, for he had grown into the age where he was sheepish and awkward under open petting. He soon slipped away from his mother and the sympathetic Dolly, and went to spend his time with Jack Cooke, who, during the day, while his father worked on shore, was glad of company. The boys had now almost room enough on shipboard to play satisfactorily, for many of the passengers had gone ashore; but it must be quiet playing, for, of those who still remained in their cabins not a few were ill.

Goodwife Rigdale was busied to and fro in caring for the sick ones, and, at her bidding, Miles ran many an errand, to fetch water from the casks on deck or heat a pot of broth in the ship's galley. But their joint labor soon ended, for, a few days after the boy's return to the ship, came a message from Goodman Rigdale: he was just touched with the fever, he said, though nothing serious, but a many lay sick ashore, and the Goodwife could aid them as well as himself; Mistress Brewster, who, with her family, had gone to the settlement, had offered to shelter her, and he prayed her come.

Next morning Goodwife Rigdale bundled her cloak about her, and set out in the shallop. Miles, standing by the bulwark, watched her go, but only for a time; it had snowed the night before, so the railings were white and smooth to the touch, and he found it of more absorbing interest to poke off strips of the frozen snow, and send them splashing into the cold-looking water beneath the ship's side. By the time he looked again to the shallop, it was so near shore he could no longer make out his mother's figure, and his feet were chilled too, so he went back to Dolly in the cabin.

At first he found it manly and grown up to be left in charge, for so he esteemed his position. The cut in his hand was healing well, and he felt he would have been working ashore, if it were not that some one must mind his father's quarters on shipboard and care for Dolly and Solomon. He ordered his sister about in a paternal manner; he rebuked her severely if she so much as showed her small, snub nose on the frosty deck without wrapping herself up well; and he even insisted on her going to bed punctually at sundown, while he, in the glory of manhood, waited in the great cabin to hear what news those who came from the shore would bring.

But Dolly took her turn when it came to their daily meals, for she had certain deft, housewifely ways, which Miles could not hope to imitate, and he was ashamed even of trying to better himself, after he heard the little woman speak like her mother of "men and boys that set a body's kitchen in a mash." Miles might tug out the pot of broth,--'twas all he was fit for; Goodwife Dolly would herself do the stirring and tasting; and though, among so many cooks, the broth sometimes burned, yet they always contrived to eat it.

The four of them--Miles, Dolly, Jack, and Solomon--ate their food together in the Rigdales' cabin: most times it was only broth, or perhaps salted meat and biscuit, which Goodwife Rigdale, before she went away, had laid out for them; but once Goodman Cooke brought them from the shore a large piece of a cold roast goose. There was but one drumstick, and each felt he should have it,--Jack because he had been ill, and Dolly because she was a girl, and Miles because he was the eldest. Solomon said nothing, but he purred his loudest and rubbed his head against Dolly's knee. They ended by eating the drumstick together, each a bite, turn and turn about, and what they could not get from the bone was left to Solomon, who dragged his ration beneath the bunk, and, with eyes big and fiery, growled at them.

The children remembered that supper, not only because of the cold goose, but because it was the last they ate together, for next morning Goodman Cooke took Jack to the shore. Miles watched his friend's small preparations enviously, and Dolly, who had come also to stand in the doorway of the Cookes' cabin, voiced a sorrowful wish: "I think I'd best go too, and see father and mother."

"They've no place to put you, lass," Goodman Cooke explained. "So soon as there is place, they'll send for you both, be sure. For Doctor Fuller says your father grows heartier, Miles," he went on; "you've no need to worry yourself."

"Indeed, I have not worried," Miles answered, in some surprise.

After Jack went, life on shipboard was not so pleasant. Dolly began to fret for her mother and scoff at Miles's authority; Miles grew cross; and the broth burned oftener than ever, and finally, giving out altogether, left them with nothing to eat but dry biscuit. With this woful tale of starvation, Dolly betook herself at last to Constance Hopkins in the great cabin, and Miles, glad that some one should make known their unhappy state, yet ashamed to do so himself, lagged on behind.

Constance Hopkins was Giles's sister, a slip of a lass, not three years older than Miles, but to him she seemed quite grown up. Certainly she bore the responsibilities of age in those days, for not only must she nurse her stepmother, Mistress Elizabeth Hopkins, who lay helpless in her cabin, but she must care for the baby, Oceanus, born on the voyage across the sea, and the little half-sister, Damaris, a baby also, not two years old. Yet somehow motherly little Constance found time to comfort Dolly, and cook a bit of meat for hungry Miles, and assure them both that their father and mother surely would come soon to look to them.

Dolly hugged the "big girl," but Miles could scarcely do that, and he knew no civil speech to tell his gratitude, so he was glad when, his eyes falling on Damaris, he thought to pick her up. "I'll mind her for you a bit, Constance," he offered.

Damaris was pleased with Miles's tousled hair and sturdy arms, that held her more firmly than her half-sister could; and Miles, never guessing what a source of misfortune her liking would prove to him hereafter, was much elated at his success with her. He tugged baby out on deck to show her the gulls looking for food in the water, and the bright crusted snow that sparkled in the sunshine on the wooded point. Damaris gurgled appreciatively and pulled Miles's hair; then, when he carried her back into the cabin, slept like a kitten, whereat Constance was so relieved and pleased that Miles gladly cared for the baby, his baby, the next day, and the next.

But the third day, a Friday, a pelting fine rain set in that made an airing on the deck out of the question, not for the baby alone, but for a well-grown boy and girl. Miles and Dolly went up to spend the afternoon in the great cabin, because in their own quarters there was no one to talk to, and, moreover, it was cold. In the main cabin they would find some one to keep them company, and they could, at least, warm their hands at the little fire burning in a tubful of sand, which Constance often used in heating food for Mistress Hopkins.

But this afternoon the fire was out and Constance busied with her mother, so the two children, disappointed, sat down together on a rude bench, at the angle in the stern where two rows of little cabins joined. "I wish I were with my mother," sniffed Dolly; and "'Twill do you no good to cry," Miles checked her sternly.

"I was not crying, Miles Rigdale," the damsel answered hotly.

It was on Miles's lips to reply, when close at hand a voice spoke his name, "Miles Rigdale!"

Readily enough he jumped up and went to the half-opened door of the adjoining cabin. It was Captain Standish's cabin, he remembered now, and, as he halted in the doorway, he perceived Mistress Rose Standish lying in the bunk. A little of the afternoon light sifted in through the tiny port-hole, and by it he noted how her hair fell loosely about her face, unlike the way she wore it when on deck; but her cheeks were rosy as ever, and her voice quite steady as she spoke: "It's you, the lad my husband told me of? I thought I heard one call you by name. Will you not do somewhat for me, Miles? Fetch me my jug here full of water again. Goodwife Tinker was to look to me to-day; I felt very well this morning. But she's ill now herself, and when I tried to rise,--" she laughed, with a nervous catch in her laughter,--"why, then things went whisking round me very strangely. But you look as you still could stand stoutly, sir."

"I'll fetch you the water, and gladly, mistress," Miles answered, so eagerly that he stammered. He stepped into the cabin to take the jug from where it rested on a chest beneath the port-hole, and Dolly, following shyly after, hesitated on the threshold.

"Is this little maid your sister?" Mistress Standish roused up to ask. "Won't you come in and bear me company, sweetheart, while Miles fetches the water?"

Dolly plaited a fold of her apron between her fingers and nodded dumbly.

"That's well," said Mistress Standish. "Sit you down here on the chest by me. And I've some raisins of the sun you shall have if you'll stay."

"Dolly must not eat your raisins if you be sick." Miles formulated the relentless principle which had been enforced as regards himself when Dolly lay ill. "And I'll fetch the water speedily." He stood a moment on the threshold, balancing the jug in one hand. "Mistress Standish," he blurted out, with sudden resolution, "would you not rather have beer than water?"

"Than the water from the ship's casks, yes," she answered; "but 'twill relish well enough, Miles. At even, when Captain Standish comes, mayhap he'll get me a draught of beer."

"I'll get it for you now," Miles said cheerily, and walked away, with his head up and the jug swinging.

Outside the door of the great cabin the chilly rain, that stung finely on his cheeks, pricked him alive to realization of what he had undertaken. Since Christmas, when the supply of the Pilgrim emigrants had given out, beer could be obtained on board the _Mayflower_ only from the ship's stores, through the courtesy of Master Jones, the captain; and he was a terrible person. Most times he ranged about the high quarter-deck, where only the chiefs of the Pilgrims dared go; once Francis Billington, to show his daring, had clambered thither, and Master Jones, without parley, had bidden his quartermaster, "Kick that young imp down into Limbo, where he belongs." From that experience Francis had been black and blue, and subdued in manner for a week.

So it was no wonder now that, for long minutes, Miles stood shivering in the rain at the foot of the companion ladder, while he tried to summon courage to venture up. He might never have arrived at such hardihood, had not Jones himself, strolling forth upon the quarter-deck to study the weather, observed him, and presently bellowed lustily: "What beest thou staring up hither for, hey?"

"I--I want to come up, if it like you, sir," Miles piped quaveringly.

"Then come up. Beelzebub fetch thee! What's hindering thee?"

Miles could have answered truly that it was a loud-voiced, broad-shouldered man, with a bushy gray beard, whose name was Jones, that hindered him; but he thought best, even on so poor an invitation, to scramble in silence up the steep ladder to the quarter-deck. The wind there was high, so he gripped the bulwark to keep erect.

"Well, now thou art up, what is it thou wouldst have?" roared Jones.

"Beer, sir. For Captain Standish's wife. She is ill."

Master Jones hesitated a little minute, then caught Miles by the collar of his doublet, and only let go when he landed him within the roundhouse. Miles said nothing to this, but his heart thumped alarmingly at finding himself thus tumbled headlong into the very lair of the Master. Yet the roundhouse proved a harmless place, with its shipshape bunks and table and stools; and one of the mates, who lay upon a bunk, rose up at Jones's bidding, to do nothing more formidable than fill Miles's jug from a keg that stood in one corner.

"Now see to it thou dost not filch the beer by the way," grumbled Master Jones. "I be ready to give to your Captain's wife, but not to fill the stomach of every knavish lad on shipboard; dost thou hear?"

"I wouldn't take the beer that was meant for Mistress Standish," Miles said indignantly.

"Nay, but boys be a slippery race," growled the Master. "The saints be blest I never had none!"

Miles privately was glad of that, for he could not help thinking how unhappy a boy would be, with such an alarming father as Master Jones. Very prudently, he did not say so, but, seizing his jug, backed out of the roundhouse, almost too hastily to say "Thank you."

He had come back to a good conceit of himself, however, by the time he had manoeuvred safely down the ticklish ladder, and he walked in on Mistress Standish and Dolly quite proudly. Mistress Standish thanked him mightily, enough to make Miles redden and shuffle his foot on the floor. "But I liked to do it for you," he muttered.

After that he was persuaded to sit down on the chest beside Dolly, and tell Mistress Standish all about how they were building houses on the shore, and how he had gone to the Indian fields, and what a wonderful dog Trug was. Dolly chimed in there to tell what a rare pussy Solomon was, and how he would leap over your hands. Then Mistress Standish, who lay listening, and seemed to like their talk, though she said little, bade Miles bring her a box from a shelf against the wall, and in it, sure enough, were a few big raisins and a small handful of currants.

The sight was too much for Miles's scruples, and when she urged the children eat of them, he yielded, weakly as eager little Dolly. "We'll take two raisins each," he said, with an effort at firmness, "and three currants." Then, with a sigh, he shut the box up tight, and ate his own share very slowly.

Dolly finished more speedily, and straightway Mistress Standish urged her sing to them. "Dolly told me while you were gone that she is wont to sing to mother," she explained to Miles. "Now I want her to sing to me. You shall have more raisins if you will, Dolly, in spite of Brother Miles."

Dolly was bashful, and, for all it was now murky twilight, so faces were not plain to see, insisted on sitting on the other side of Miles, where she could hide behind him. Then, at last, she sang. "Though it is a worldly song," she protested.

"No matter. I am what your people call a worldly woman," Mistress Standish answered.

So Dolly cuddled up to Miles and sang:--

"Skip and trip it, Hey non nonny! For the lark is in the clover, And the fields are green and bonny, And a dappled sky shows over. Sing hey nonny nonny! 'Tis blithe world and gay, When spring comes bonny And the winter packs away."

There Dolly broke off, short and sudden, and Miles, looking to the dusky doorway, saw a man's sturdy figure blocking it.

"'Tis you come back, Miles?" Mistress Standish spoke quickly. "Come you in and sit down. Your namesake and his sister have been caring for me bravely--"

"I'm sorry," came the Captain's voice out of the dark. "That is-- You must be wearied now, sweetheart. Come, Miles, my soldier, I want to speak with you."

Miles wondered why, as he stepped out from the cabin, the Captain troubled to put one arm about his shoulders; he was pleased at the caress, yet awkward in receiving it. "I want you to go in here," said Captain Standish, leading him to the cabin that the Brewsters had occupied. "Constance Hopkins is waiting within to tell you somewhat. And you must remember, Miles, that you are to bear you like a man."

Miles wrested round suddenly and faced the Captain. There was a little dim lantern light in this part of the great cabin, not enough for him to read the other's face, but he could guess and feel what was coming. "Has anything gone wrong with my mother? Tell me; tell me, quick!" he cried.

"Not your mother, Miles. Your father."