A Pilgrim Maid: A Story of Plymouth Colony in 1620

by Marion Ames Taggart

  CHAPTER I

  With England's Shores Left Far Astern

  A young girl, brown-haired, blue-eyed, with a sweet seriousness that wasneither joy nor sorrow upon her fair pale face, leaned against the maston the _Mayflower's_ deck watching the bustle of the final preparationsfor setting sail westward.

  A boy somewhat older than she stood beside her whittling an arrow from abit of beechwood, whistling through his teeth, his tongue pressedagainst them, a livelier air than a pilgrim boy from Leyden was supposedto know, and sullenly scorning to betray interest in the excitementashore and aboard.

  A little girl clung to the pretty young girl's skirt; the unlikenessbetween them, though they were sisters, was explained by their being buthalf sisters. Little Damaris was like her mother, Constance'sstepmother, while Constance herself reflected the delicate loveliness ofher own and her brother Giles's mother, dead in early youth and lyingnow at rest in a green English churchyard while her children weresetting forth into the unknown.

  Two boys--one older than Constance, Giles's age, the other younger thanthe girl--came rushing down the deck with such impetuosity, plus theyounger lad's head used as a battering ram, that the men at work stowingaway hampers and barrels, trying to clear a way for the start, gaveplace to the rough onslaught.

  Several looked after the pair in a way that suggested something morevigorous than a look had it not been that fear of the pilgrim leadersrestrained swearing. Not a whit did the charging lads care for the wraththey aroused. The elder stopped himself by clutching the rope whichConstance Hopkins idly swung, while the younger caught Giles around thewaist and nearly pulled him over.

  "I'll teach you manners, you young savage, Francis Billington!" growledGiles, but he did not mean it, as Francis well knew.

  "If I'm a savage I'll be the only one of us at home in America,"chuckled the boy.

  "Getting ready an arrow for the savage?" he added.

  "It's all decided. There's been the greatest to-do ashore. Why didn'tyou come off the ship to see the last of 'em, Constance?" interruptedthe older boy. Constance Hopkins shook her head, sadly.

  "Nay, then, John, I've had my fill of partings," she said. "Are theygone back, those we had to leave behind?"

  "That have they!" cried John Billington. "Some of them were sorry tomiss the adventure, but if truth were told some were glad to be well outof it, and with no more disgrace in setting back than that the_Mayflower_ could not hold us all. Well, they've missed danger and maybedeath, but I'd not be out of it for a king's ransom. Giles, what do youthink is whispered? That the _Speedwell_ could make the voyage as wellas the _Mayflower_, though she be smaller, if only she carried lesssail, and that her leaking is--a greater leak in her master Reynolds'struth, and that she'd be seaworthy if he'd let her!"

  "Cur!" growled Giles Hopkins. "He knows he'd have to stay with his shipin the wilderness a year it might be and there's better comfort inEngland and Holland! We're well rid of him if he's that kind of acoward. I wondered myself if he was up to a trick when we put in thefirst time, at Dartmouth. This time when we made Plymouth I smelled arat certain. Are we almost loaded?"

  "Yes. They've packed all the provisions from the _Speedwell_ into the_Mayflower_ that she will hold. We'll be off soon. Not too soon! Thesixth day of September, and we a month dallying along the shore becauseof the _Speedwell's_ leaking! Constantia, you'll be cold before we makea fire in the New World I'm thinking!"

  John Billington chuckled as if the cold of winter in the wilderness werea merry jest.

  "Cold, and maybe hungry, and maybe ill of body and sick of heart, butnever quite losing courage, I hope, John, comrade!" Constance said,looking up with a smile and a flush that warmed her white cheeks fromwhich heavy thoughts had driven their usual soft colour.

  "No fear! You're the kind that says little and does much," said JohnBillington with surprising sharpness in a lad that never seemed to havea thought to spare for anything but madcap pranks.

  "Here come Father, and the captain, and dear John," said little Damaris.

  Stephen Hopkins was a strong-built man, with a fire in his eye, and anair of the world about him, in spite of his severe Puritan garb, thatdeclared him different from most of his comrades of the Leyden communityof English exiles.

  With all her likeness to her dead English girl-mother, who was gentleborn and well bred, there was something in Constance as she stood now,head up and eyes bright, that was also like her father.

  Beside Mr. Hopkins walked a thick-set man, a soldier in every motion andlook, with little of the Puritan in his air, and just behind them came ayoung man, far younger than either of the others, with an open, pleasantEnglish face, and an expression at once shy and friendly.

  "Oh, dear John Alden!" cried little Damaris, and forsook Constance'sskirt for John Alden's ready arms which raised her to his shoulder.

  Giles Hopkins's gloom lifted as he returned Captain Myles Standish'ssalute.

  "Yes, Captain; I'm ready enough to sail," he said, answering thecaptain's question.

  "Mistress Constantia?" suggested Myles Standish.

  "Is there doubt of it when we've twice put in from sea, and were readyto sail when we left Southampton a month ago?" asked Constance. "Sure weare ready, Captain Standish, as you well know. Where is Mistress Rose?"

  "In the women's cabin with Mistress Hopkins putting to rights theirbelongings as fast as they can before we weigh anchor, and get perhapsstood on our heads by winds and waves," Captain Standish smiled. "Thoughthe wind is fine for us now." His face clouded. "Mistress Rose is afrail rose, Con! They will be coming on deck to see the start."

  "The voyage may give sweet Rose new strength, Captain Standish,"murmured Constance coming close to the captain and slipping her handinto his, for she was his prime favourite and his lovely, frail youngwife's chosen friend, in spite of the ten years difference in theirages.

  "Ah, Con, my lass, God grant it, but I'm sore afraid for her! How canshe buffet the exposure of a wilderness winter, and--hush! Here theyare!" whispered Myles Standish.

  Mistress Eliza Hopkins was tall, bony, sinewy of build, with a dark,strong face, determination and temper in her eye. Rose Standish was heropposite--a slight, pale, drooping creature not more than five yearsabove twenty; patience, suffering in her every motion, and clingingaffection in every line of her gentle face.

  Constance ran to wind her arm around her as Rose came up and slipped onelittle hand into her husband's arm.

  Mrs. Hopkins frowned.

  "It likes me not to see you so forward with caresses, Constantia," shesaid, and her voice rasped like the ship's tackles as the sailors got upthe canvas.

  "It is not becoming in the elect whose hearts are set upon heavenlythings to fawn upon creatures, nor make unmaidenly displays."

  Giles kicked viciously at the rope which Constance had held. It was nothard to guess that the unnatural gloom, the sullenness that marked a boymeant by Nature to be pleasant, was due to bad blood between him andthis aggressive stepmother, who plainly did not like him.

  "Oh, Mistress Hopkins," cried Constance, flushing, "why do you think itis wrong to be loving? Never can I believe God who made us with warmhearts, and gave us such darlings as Rose Standish, didn't want us tolove and show our love."

  "You are much too free with your irreverence, Mistress Constantia; itbecomes you not to proclaim your Maker's opinions and desires for hissaints," said Mrs. Hopkins, frowning heavily.

  "'Sdeath, Eliza, will you never let the girl alone?" cried StephenHopkins, angrily.

  "As though we had nothing to think of in weighing anchor and leavingEngland for ever--and for what else besides, who knows--without carpingat a little girl's loving natural ways to an older girl whom she loves?I agree with Connie; it's good to sweeten life with affection."

  "Connie, forsooth!" echoed Mrs. Hopkins, bitterly. "Are we to usemeaningless titles for young women setting forth to found a kingdom? Anddo you still use the oaths of worldlings, as you did just now? Oh,Stephen Hopkins, ma
y you not be found unworthy of your high calling andinvoke the wrath of Heaven upon your family!"

  Stephen Hopkins looked ready to burst out into hot wrath, but MylesStandish gave him a humorous glance, and shrugged his shoulders.

  "What would you?" he seemed to say. "Old friend, bad temper seizes everyopportunity to wreak itself, and we who have seen the world can affordto let the women fume. Jealousy is a worse vice than an oath of theStuart reign."

  Stephen Hopkins harkened to this unspoken philosophy; Myles Standish hadgreat influence over him. This, with the rapid gathering on deck of therest of the pilgrims, served to avert what threatened to be an explosionof pardonable wrath. They came crowding up from the cabins, thiscourageous band of determined men and women, and gathered silently tolook their last on home, and not merely on home, but on the comforts ofthe established life which to many among them were necessary to theirexistence.

  There were many children, sober little men and women, in unchildlikecaricatures of their elders' garb and with solemn round faces lookingscared by the gravity around them.

  Priscilla Mullins gathered the children together and led them over tojoin Constance Hopkins. She and Constance divided the love of the childpilgrims between them. Priscilla, round of face, smooth and rosy ofcheek, wholesome and sensible, was good to look upon. It often happenedthat her duty brought her near to wherever John Alden might chance tobe, but no one had ever suspected that John objected.

  John Alden had been taken on as cooper from Southampton when the_Mayflower_ first sailed. It was not certain that the pilgrims couldkeep him with them. Already they had learned to value him, and many aglance was now exchanged that told the hope that sunny little Priscillamight help to hold the young man on this hard expedition.

  The crew of the _Mayflower_ pulled up her sails, but without the usualsailor songs. Silently they pulled, working in unison to the sharp wordsof command uttered by their officers, till every shred of canvas, underwhich they were to set forth under a favouring wind, was strained intoplace and set.

  On the shore was gathered a crowd gazing, wondering, at this departure.Some there were who were to have been of the company in the lesser ship,the _Speedwell_, which had been remanded from the voyage as unfit forit. These lingered to see the setting forth for the New World which wasnot to be their world, after all.

  There were many who gazed, pityingly, awe-struck, but bewildered by thespirit that led these severe-looking people away from England first, andthen from Holland, to try their fortunes where no fortune promised.

  Others there were who laughed merrily over the absurdity of the quest,and these called all sorts of jests and quips to the pilgrims on theship, inviting to a contest of wit which the pilgrims utterly disdained.

  And then the by-standers on wharf and sands of old Plymouth becamesilent, for, as the _Mayflower_ began to move out from her dock, therearose the solemn chant of a psalm.

  The air was wailing, lugubrious, unmusical, but the words were awesome.

  "When Israel went out from Egypt, from the land of a strange people,"they were singing.

  "A strange people!" And these pilgrims were of English blood, and thiswas England which they were thus renouncing!

  What curious folk these were!

  But this psalm was followed by another: "The Lord is my shepherd."

  Ah, that was another matter! No one who heard them, however slight thesympathy felt for this unsympathetic band, but hoped that the Lord wouldshepherd them, "lead them beside still waters," for the sea might wellbe unquiet.

  "Oh, poor creatures, poor creatures," said a buxom woman, snuggling herbaby's head into her deep shoulder, and wiping her own eyes with herapron. "I fain must pity 'em, that I must, though I'm none too lovin'myself toward their queer dourness. But I hope the Lord will shepherd'em; sore will they need it, I'm thinkin', yonder where there's noshepherds nor flocks, but only wild men to cut them down like we do hawfor the church, as they all thinks is wicked!" she mourned, motherlyyearning toward the people going out the harbour like babes in the wood,into no one would dare say what awful fate.

  The pilgrims stood with their faces set toward England, with Englandtugging at their heart strings, as the strong southeasterly wind filledthe _Mayflower's_ canvas and pulled at her shrouds.

  And as they sailed away the monotonous chant of the psalms went on,floating back to England, a farewell and a prophecy.

  Rose Standish's tears were softly falling and her voice was silent, butConstance Hopkins chanted bravely, and the children joined her withPriscilla Mullins's strong contralto upholding them.

  Even Giles sang, and the two scamps of Billington boys looked seriousfor once, and helped the chant.

  Myles Standish raised his soldier's hat and turned to Stephen Hopkins,holding out his right hand.

  "We're fairly off this time, friend Stephen," he said. "God speed us."

  "Amen, Captain Myles, for else we'll speed not, returned StephenHopkins.

  "Oh, Daddy, we're together anyway!" cried Constance, with one of hersudden bursts of emotion which her stepmother so severely condemned, andshe threw herself on her father's breast.

  Mr. Hopkins did not share his wife's view of his beloved little girl'sdemonstrativeness. He patted her head gently, tucking a stray wisp ofhair under her Puritan cap.

  "There, there, my child, there, there, Connie! Surely we're together andshall be. So it can't be a wilderness for us, can it?" he said.

  An hour later, the wind still favouring, the _Mayflower_ droppedsunsetward, out of old Plymouth Harbour.