The Pilgrim

by Hugh Nissenson

  Hook asked Wrestling, “And you, sir, have you wrestled with the Lord our God?”

  Wrestling said, “I would not know how to do so. But I’ll tell you this: to be called ‘wrestling’ by the world these past five-and-twenty years hath made it hard for me. ‘Good morrow, Master Wrestling,’ people say to me. ‘Didst thou prevail against the Lord this morning?’”

  Hook asked, “And what do you say to that?”

  “I answer, ‘God hath not manifested Himself to me in any way. My poor soul is quiescent.’”

  Hook said, “What doth ‘quiescent’ mean?”

  Wrestling said, “Something quiet, something motionless, something still.”

  Hook replied, “Better than poor Annie Watts in Worksop. She tormented herself day and night as to whether she be damned or saved. She could not bear not knowing, so she threw her four-month-old babe, Clyde, down a well, wherein he drowned. Said Annie, ‘’Tis better to know that I am damned than not to know what God plans for my soul throughout eternity.’ They hanged her.”

  That evening, Master Brewster and I spake together for a while in Latin.

  He said, “I was a pensioner at Peterhouse, wherein I dined every day upon a joint of roasted beef, mutton, or veal. In truth, I am weary of dining here upon Indian pudding, mussels, and clams (placenta indica, mituli, et sponduli).

  We talked about Peterhouse’s popish altar.

  Brewster said, “Everyone bowed and cringed to it upon entering and leaving the chapel. That repelled me, but being young, I accepted the Romish practices of my elders in the hope of winning their approval.

  “I converted to Separatism after I left Cambridge. Pastor John Robinson converted me in the autumn of 1600. At the time, like my father before me, I was the steward and bailiff of Scrooby Manor in Nottingham. I attended services at St. Wilfrid’s. The altar, caps, surplices, and crucifixes disgusted me. The tyranny of bishops against godly preachers and people made me look further into things and see the unlawfulness of their callings. But I knew not where to turn.

  “Then by the grace of God, Pastor Robinson visited me. I had known him in Cambridge.

  “I told him of my plight. He recited to me 2 Corinthians, 6:17, ‘Wherefore come out from among them and separate yourselves, sayeth the Lord. And touch none unclean thing, and I will receive you.’

  “Pastor Robinson said, ‘The Church of England is the unclean thing that blights our land. Separate thyself from it, and Christ will receive you as one of His Saints.’

  “So it was, by God’s grace, that I became a Separatist and freed my soul from its bondage to bishops, caps, surplices, crucifixes, altars—all the fetters forged by the Church of England that had chained my soul to the earth and deprived it of heaven.”

  He chewed on one end of his grey mustache and stared into the fire. Then he said, “When James gained the throne, many of us Separatists were clapt into prison. My house was beset and watched day and night. Some of us fled to Holland and left our means of living behind.

  “I followed Pastor Robinson to Leyden with my family in the spring of 1607. Most of my fellow Saints, having been farmers, turned to other trades as could be easily learned. They labored twelve hours a day as weavers, wool carders (lanae pectores), wool combers (depectores), and such like. Children of the best dispositions were so oppressed with labor that their bodies were disfigured.

  Then Brewster spake in English, “I taught English and Latin at the University of Leyden. In 1611, I was elected Elder of the Separatist congregation. We have neither Minister nor Teacher in our church. My plentiful life among the godly poor convinced me that when we settled in the New World, there should be no great divide amongst us between the rich and the poor. And so it is. We have no use here for ready money. We share our goods in common. We sow and reap and build our common houses together. We share our victuals to an equal extent, just as Christ shared bread and wine with His disciples.

  “Plymouth Plantation is a Christian commonwealth that harkens back to the earliest days of Christ’s church.”

  I said, “Why, then, this is the place for me.”

  Rigdale said, “And for me.”

  Hook said, “But not for me. I have come across the sea to earn four pounds, three shillings, and tuppence in ready money.”

  • • •

  The next day being Saturday, everyone stopped labouring at five in the afternoon to prepare for the coming of the Sabbath at sundown, which I was pleased to note was the same time that the Children of Israel celebrated the beginning of their Holy Day. We washed our hands and faces and changed our shirts. At sunset, all the inhabitants of Plymouth were assembled by the beat of a drum. Each man who was a member of the Plantation wore a black cloak and carried a musket or firelock. Weston’s armed men marched amongst them. Led by a sergeant, everyone placed himself in order, three abreast. Behind the sergeant came Governor Bradford, wearing a long blue robe. Beside him, on the right hand, came Master Brewster, likewise wearing a blue robe. Then there came Captain Standish in his coat of mail, armed with his rapier. He was nigh a head shorter than Master Brewster.

  I took my place in the crowd between Abigail and Henry. Everyone marched to the entrance of the common house where four men bore lighted reed torches aloft in the gathering darkness. The flames flared in the wind. Governor Bradford, Master Brewster, and Captain Standish turned about and faced us. At that moment, the waning moon vanished behind a cloud. My left hand brushed against Abigail’s right arm. Though I could not clearly see her face in the darkness, I was sure that she was smiling at me. I smiled in return and grasped her right hand.

  Brewster said, “We welcome Weston’s men and the crew of the Swan as our guests and give thanks to Almighty God for their safe arrival at the Plymouth Plantation. Let us walk with our new brethren with tenderness, avoiding jealousies and suspicions, back-bitings, censurings, provokings, and secret rising of spirit against them; but in all offences to follow the rule of our Lord Jesus, and to bear and forbear, give and forgive, as He hath taught us.

  “Now, let us all welcome the holy Sabbath, that the Jews call the mystical bride of God, and which we—the new Chosen People—cherish as the holiest day of the week, when the whole universe returns to that state of absolute rest that preceded creation.” He preached a sermon on Exodus 20:8, “Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy.”

  His words were lost to me, though, for as he spake I again profaned the Sabbath with the fingers of my left hand, with which I caressed the palm of Abigail’s right hand, and then her delicate wrist, and then each finger. I could scarcely believe that she allowed me these caresses. But then she slipped her left hand up the cuff of my right sleeve and there she found my pulse with her thumb and pressed it awhile.

  She said, “We must fast on the morrow and ask God’s forgiveness for our transgressions on the holy Sabbath.”

  “I was just now thinking the same thing,” said I.

  • • •

  And so Abigail and I fasted on our first Sabbath in the Plymouth Plantation. I suffered a headache from hunger all the day. At the morning service, Abigail stood in the row ahead of me between Henry and Edward.

  Master Brewster said, “I will now preach a sermon on John 15:17, ‘These things I command you, that you love one another.’”

  Abigail’s head was bowed. God forgive me, I gazed at the auburn curls upon the nape of her neck.

  After the service, Abigail and I spake for awhile. Her hands were swelled and red from washing Henry and Edward’s clothes.

  She said, “Tomorrow, I will cleanse Edward’s house. I don’t mind the hard work. Were it not for the Indians, this place would be a paradise for me. I could not harken to Master Brewster’s sermon. You are to be blamed. I felt your eyes upon me the whole time. God forgive us for desecrating the Sabbath twice in a row.”

  • • •

  Governor Bradford cam
e up to me and said, “Did you study Hebrew at Cambridge, Mister Wentworth?”

  “I did, sir.”

  He said, “I studied the holy tongue at the University of Leyden and am at present writing a Hebrew grammar. I should like to show it to you.”

  “It would be an honor, sir.”

  A tall man came up to us. The black hair of his head was long behind, but short before. There was none on his face at all. He had the complexion of an English gypsy.

  Governor Bradford said, “This is Squanto. He is a Patuxet Indian who was taken to England, where he learned English. After eight years there, he was returned to New England in 1619. He helped us get through the first winter of general sickness. He is our interpreter. He taught us to make our soil fertile with pieces of rotting herring, which we bury with the kernels of corn. He is also our pilot who guides us to unknown places for our profit.”

  Squanto walked away. Governor Bradford said, “But never forget. Like all the other Indians, he is a benighted, treacherous, heathen savage, who worships the devil.

  “How few, weak and raw, were we at our first beginning here and in the midst of barbarous enemies. Yet God wrought our peace for us. We were at the brim of the pit and in danger of being swallowed up. A loving God protected us from our savage enemies.”

  Abigail said, “Captain Standish told me last night that almost the entire Virginia colony was massacred in March by the local savages.”

  “Alas, it’s true,” said Governor Bradford. “Captain Francis West, being in New England about the latter end of May past, sailed from here to Virginia and returned with the news and a few survivors who thereafter departed for England. The savages dealt a merciless blow to an unsuspecting people. Neither age nor sex was spared, and heinous atrocities were committed upon the living and the dead. The number of those massacred exceeded the whole number of our colonists here by nearly threefold. Up to the hour of the attack, the savages had cunningly borne the aspect of friendliness.”

  Abigail cried out, “O, my God, help us.”

  I accompanied Abigail to Edward Winslow’s house on the Street.

  She said, “So that Squanto is an Indian! I do not like the look of him. Did you notice? He hath not a hair upon his face. Not a one! And his complexion! He hath the complexion of a gypsy.”

  “That’s what I think. An English gypsy.”

  “We think alike, you and I.”

  “What are you thinking of now?”

  She said, “I cannot take my mind off that massacre in Virginia. And you?”

  We had arrived at Edward Winslow’s door. I said:

  This much I say, and saying bid adieu,

  When I wed a maid, it shall be you.

  • • •

  After sunset, I ate savoury Indian pudding at Master Brewster’s house. He served me a strong liquor made of pumpions and parsnips and walnut tree chips. He then recalled to me the difficult early days of the colony. He told me about the solitary death of Governor Bradford’s first wife, Dorothy.

  He said, “Two years ago, she fell from the deck of the Mayflower whilst the ship was docked in Cape Cod Bay. Some say she killed herself because she was stricken with melancholy. It is known she left her three-year-old son, John, with her sister in Holland, rather than subject him to the dangers of the ocean voyage. Governor Bradford responded to the news of his beloved wife’s death, saying, ‘I embrace God’s will. He loves me greatly. He greatly chastises those whom He greatly loves.’”

  I was much moved. Governor Bradford’s faith enabled him to accept his wife’s mysterious death, and her possible damnation, as a divine chastisement upon himself—proof that God greatly loved him. Why, this stout man with a big nose was a true Saint. I was sure of it! It was God’s will that he had been elected Governor of the Plymouth Plantation, after he had proved to Him that he was worthy of governing His godly people in the New World.

  Master Brewster asked Rigdale if he was related to John Rigdale, a haberdasher of London who, with his wife, Alice, came over on the Mayflower only to die together without issue during the first winter of the general sickness.

  Rigdale said, “I have a brother named John, a widower, living in London. But of this other John Rigdale, I know not.”

  Brewster said, “In November 1620, when our provisions were scarce and the Plantation was near to starving, Bradford, myself, Captain Standish, John Rigdale, and five or six other men mounted an expedition on Cape Cod. We searched for Indian villages where we could trade a horseman’s coat of red cotton and some knives for corn. By the grace of God, Rigdale found a heap of sand, which we digged up, and in it we found a little old basket full of fair Indian corn. We digged further and found a great new basket, full of very fair corn of this year, with some six-and-thirty goodly ears of corn, some yellow, some red, some mixed with blue. It was a very goodly sight. The basket held six or eight bushels. The Indians had apparently buried it for seed corn. After much consultation, we decided to take as much of the corn as we could carry away with us. The rest we buried again for we were so laden with armor that we could carry no more.

  “We decided that if we found any savages to whom the corn belonged, we would immediately return it. But Providence willed otherwise, and we brought the corn back home.

  “I said to my fellows, ‘We have stolen the seed corn the savages require for their next crop. We have committed a heinous crime. We are felons and, according to English law, should be hanged. Let us pray for forgiveness.’

  “And so we did. Nevertheless, God punished us with the ravages of disease. On the thirteenth day of March, Winslow’s beloved wife, Elizabeth, died of the scurvy, followed in the same month by thirteen others of our members. In all, half of our company died, the greatest part in the depths of the winter for want of houses and other comforts, being likewise infected with the scurvy and other diseases. Of a hundred persons, scarce fifty of us remained. John Rigdale and his wife died within a week of each other of the scurvy. They were stricken with delirium. I remember John saying, ‘Let us make a law that whoever falls asleep at the table shall forfeit his head.’”

  Abigail said, “Surely there are more than fifty people here.”

  Master Edward said, “There are eighty-seven of us here, by the grace of God. The good ship Fortune brought thirty-seven more of us hither in November 1621. My brother John was amongst them. Alas, many of the others are not truly godly. They must be forced to come to Sabbath services.

  “Thomas Weston had sent them hither without enough provisions. He wrote in a letter to Governor Bradford that we would have to stand here on our own two legs. Our Christian duty compels us to feed your men from the Swan for as long as we are able. We have weak hopes here of supply and succor. But what of the ample provisions that you brought with you? Let us all enjoy a portion of them.”

  I said, “I will speak with Andrew Weston about it.”

  On the day following, Weston said to me, “Some months ago, Bradford agreed with my brother to provide sufficient victuals to us for at least two months—or as long as we are compelled to tarry here. Our scant supplies are for us alone. They must last us at least a year. I set sail next in a week on the Swan to search for a suitable place in which we can establish our plantation.”

  Governor Bradford said to me, “I did not agree with Weston that we are obliged to feed all your men. But since you are here, I shall do my Christian duty and see that you do not starve. You will all continue to weed the cornfield and build the fort in exchange for victuals.”

  • • •

  I laboured side by side with Hook, who found the green corn very eatable and pleasant to taste. Late one afternoon, Rigdale and I came upon him and two of his friends stealing the ears of unripe corn in the amount of five bushels. I bade them to desist, saying, “The corn you have robbed belongs to all the inhabitants of the Plymouth Plantation. They will depend upon it for their winte
r sustenance. Mr. Rigdale and I must report your crime to Governor Bradford.”

  Hook said to me, “You are a whoreson filthy slave, a dungworm, an excrement! By great, great Caesar’s sword, you and your friend will pay with your lives if you betray us.”

  Rigdale said, “By great Caesar’s sword! The knave swears admirably! Like a man who reads the Roman histories.”

  We reported the three thieves to Governor Bradford. He ordered the magistrates to tie their wrists and ankles together and condemned them to lie that way without meat or drink for twenty-four hours. Master Brewster preached a two-hour sermon to them on the text from Scripture, Exodus 20:15, “Thou shalt not steal.”

  Their limbs swelled; they were in great pain. They swore to the Governor that they would never steal again. At sunset, I requested him to free them and he did.

  Abigail said to me, “You have a kind heart.”

  I said, “I asked the Governor to release them because Hook threatened to murder Rigdale and me if we betrayed him. I thought if I secured his freedom, he would forswear taking vengeance on us.”

  “Thank you for being honest with me.”

  “I could not do otherwise,” said I. “I love you.”

  “I think you were born with ‘I love you’ in your mouth. You have it as ready as a nightingale hath his song. I love to hear you say it. Say it again.”

  I said, “I love you.”

  “And I love you.”

  “That is the first time that you have said so. What day of the week is it?”

  Abigail said, “Wednesday.”

  “What day of the month?”

  “I warrant it’s about the fourteenth of July.”