Standish of Standish: A Story of the Pilgrims
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CHAPTER XXXIX.
A MILITARY WEDDING.
"And thou 'rt not amazed, Elsie, that our captain and his kinswoman willwed?" asked Governor Bradford of his wife in the privacy of the familybedroom.
"No more than at the sun's rising in the East," replied Alice with ademure little smile.
"Hm! Master Galileo saith the sun riseth not at all, and though thepower of Rome caused him to gainsay it, he did tell me privily inAmsterdam that it was sooth, and the sun bided forever in the one placewhile this round world turned over daily."
"I ever thought the good man was a little crazed," replied MistressBradford serenely. "Like Paul, much learning had made him mad."
"Nay wife, 't was Festus charged Paul with madness, because the apostleknew more than himself. Haply 't is so with Master Galileo."
"It may be, William. These be not matters for women to meddle withal,"replied Alice meekly.
"But anent our captain's wooing of his cousin, Elsie? How is 't thou 'rtnot amazed like the rest of us?"
"Because I saw long since that Barbara would never wed another than hercousin, and thou knowest, Will, how like draws to like, even across thewaste of ocean."
"Ay dame, I know it well and sweetly, and never shall I forget to givethanks to Him whose wisdom reacheth from end to end, sweetly orderingall things. But how chanced Mistress Barbara to confess her fondness tothee, sweetheart?"
"Nay now! Though men do be our masters in most things, how dull theystill show themselves in others. As if a maid, or for that matter awidow, would ever 'confess her fondness' for any man till he had wooedher so to do, and but coyly then, if she be wise."
"Too coyly for him to credit her with overmuch tenderness," suggestedthe bridegroom.
"Facts speak louder than words, and if a woman will set herself upon farand perilous journeys, and compass sea and land to come to him whocalleth her, methinks he need not doubt her friendship for him. Nay now,nay now, we talk of Barbara and the Captain, and I'll tell thee. Since Iwas left alone in London,--so lonely too in my wide house in Duke'sPlace,--I have taken dear and sweet counsel with Barbara, whom I firstknew in the congregation of Pastor Jacob, and she hath been my guest forweeks and months at a time, so that if any two women know each otherwell, their names are Barbara and Alice."
"But yet she never told thee that she loved her cousin? Now that ispassing strange."
"'T would to my mind have been far stranger had she so bewrayedherself."
"But still those gentle eyes of thine read the secret of her heart?"
"I did mistrust it for long, but when I had thy letter, Will, andsettled my mind to come to thee, I told Barbara somewhat of the oldstory"--
"Of how thou wast minded to spite thy comely face by cutting off itsnose?"
But Mistress Bradford had no smile for her husband's somewhat coarsejest, and went quietly on,--
"And I told her, too, that her kinsman, Myles, had lost the sweet wifeof whom she had so often and so gently spoken; and at the last I toldher I was minded to sell all that I had and go to our folk in NewEngland, and I asked her would she go, to be ever and always my dearsister if no other home should offer, and though we said no word thatday of Captain Standish, sure am I that he was in both our minds. Andnow, dear man, dost see through the millstone?"
"Ay, since woman's wit hath delved a hole, I can see through it as wellas another." And the governor kissed his wife as merrily as another man,while she adjusting the demure matron's cap about her fair young facewent out to see that the breakfast was fairly spread.
A fortnight later when the Anne had sailed, and the Little James hadreturned and gone again upon a luckless fishing trip, and the new-comershad settled into their appointed places, and the town was once morequiet, there came a fair September day when work was laid aside, andafter breakfast the armies of the colony, at least a hundred souls inall,--if we count the trumpeters, the buglers, the fifers, and thedrummers,--assembled on the Training Green just across the brook, andafter some evolutions marched in orderly array back again past thespring and up the hill to the governor's house, where they were joinedby him and the elder. Then up and on to the captain's house, where aguard of honor presented itself at the door, and ushered forth thechief, carefully dressed in his uniform of state, while at his sidemerrily clanked Gideon, resplendent, though none but he and his masterknew it, in such a furbishing and polishing as seldom had fallen to hislot before.
Saluting his comrades gravely and with somewhat more of dignity than hiswont, the captain took his place, and the procession climbed the shortascent remaining to the door of the Fort, where entered the dignitariesand as many more as could find room. Here in the great room now used asa place of worship a group of matrons and maids awaited them, withBarbara in their midst, fair and stately in her white robes, the gloryof her eyes outvying any jewels she could have worn.
The meagre civil service was spoken by the governor, but at the requestof both bride and bridegroom the elder made a prayer to which thecaptain listened more reverently than his wont, and cried Amen moreheartily.
Then they came forth these two Standishes made one, and the train bandescorted them to their home, and fired a salute of honor, whosereverberating waves rolling across the waters broke at last upon thefoot of Captain's Hill, sighing away into silence over the quiet plainwhere one day should be dug a warrior's grave, marked head and foot witha great three-cornered stone.
CHAPTER XL.
"PARTING IS SUCH SWEET SORROW."
And so, tenderly, reluctantly, lingeringly we leave them, these dearones whose memory we cherish so lovingly, and in the sober reality ofwhose lives lies a charm no romance can ever reach.
Would you know more of them, for there are, as the Sultana promisedmorning by morning, stranger and better things to come than these thathave been told, go read the annals of the Pilgrims, those preciousfragments left to us by Bradford and by Winslow, and a letter written byDe Rasieres, Secretary of the Dutch Colony at Manhattan, who, visitingPlymouth upon a diplomatic errand in 1627, wrote to his superiors aletter preserved in the Royal Library of Holland wherein he draws thislittle picture of the town we have tried to reproduce, and mentions someof these dear friends whose lives we know so much better than he did.
"New Plymouth lies on the slope of a hill, stretching east toward thesea-coast with a broad street about a cannon shot long, leading down thehill with a cross street in the middle going southward to the rivulet,and northward to the land. The houses are constructed of hewn planks,with gardens also enclosed behind, and at the sides, with hewn planks,so that their houses and court-yards are arranged in very good order,with a stockade against a sudden attack; and at the ends of the streetsthere are three wooden gates. In the centre on the cross street standsthe Governor's house, before which is a square erection upon which fourpatereros are mounted so as to flank along the streets.
"Upon the hill they have a large square house, with a flat roof made ofthick sawn planks stayed with oak beams, upon the top of which they havesix cannons which shoot iron balls of four or five pounds and commandthe surrounding country. The lower part they use for their church, wherethey preach on Sundays and the usual holidays. They assemble by beat ofdrum, each with his musket or firelock, in front of the Captain's door;they have their cloaks on, and place themselves in order three abreast,and are led by a sergeant without beat of drum. Behind comes theGovernor in a long robe; beside him on the right hand comes the preacherwith his cloak on, and on the left hand the Captain with his side-armsand cloak on, and with a small cane in his hand; and so they march ingood order, and each sets his arms down near him. Thus they areconstantly on their guard night and day."
But after all, glad as we are of this little loophole pierced throughthe mists of antiquity, the fashion of our friends' houses andcourt-yards, their cloaks and muskets and quaint Sunday procession arenot as valuable to us as the story of their individual lives: the storyof Priscilla and John Alden and their children; of Myles, military powerof t
he colony, beyond his threescore years and ten; of Barbara, calledhis "dear wife" in the dignified Last Will, wherein he bequeaths"Ormistic, Bousconge, Wrightington, Maudesley" and the rest, toAlexander his "son and heir," sturdily proclaiming with as it were hislast breath, that these fair domains were "surreptitiously detained"from him. And Lora Standish, fair sweet shadow upon the mirror of thepast; and Mary Dingley, beloved of the grand old warrior; and AliceBradford, of whom at the last Morton wrote,--
"Adoe my loving friend, my aunt, my mother, Of those that's left I have not such another."
And Bradford himself, and Brewster, and Winslow, and Howland, each oneof whom hath left behind him enough of achievement to fill a dozen ofthe degenerate lives of a butterfly of to-day; and the women they loved,and the young men and maidens who rose up around them: ah, how can weleave them, how can we say good-by! Shall we not the rather cherish themand study them more than we ever yet have done, feeling in our heartsthat those virtues, that courage, and that nobility of life may be oursas well as theirs, may illustrate the easy life of to-day, and make itless unworthy to be the fruit of the Tree of Liberty, planted in theblood and watered by the tears of our Fathers.
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Transcriber's Notes:
Page 58, Comma added after "Thou liest, knave"
Page 102, Comma added after "Good-morrow"
Page 144, Hyphen added to "commander in-chief"
Page 149, Period added after "his unwonted amenity"
Page 179, Double quote added after "thou mayest set down"
Page 304, Period added after "Glad am I to see thee"
Page 363, "Pecksnot" changed to "Pecksuot"
Page 422, "freind" changed to "friend"