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Standish of Standish, a novel by Jane Goodwin Austin |
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Chapter 19. Sowed And Reaped In One Day |
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_ CHAPTER XIX. SOWED AND REAPED IN ONE DAY "Bradford thou wast bred to the land wast not?" demanded Hopkins bursting into the house where William Bradford, ill and crippled with rheumatism in his "huckle-bone" or hip-joint, sat beside the fire reading an old Latin copy of the Georgics. "Bred to the land? Well, my forbears were husbandmen, and the uncle who cared for me as an orphan boy was a yeoman, but as I had some estate and not very rugged health, they aye left me alone with my books in my young days. But why?" "Didst thou ever hear then, or didst thou ever read in thy books, of planting fish along with corn?" "Nay. Didst thou?" "That is what I am coming at. A lot of the men are talking with this Squanto about the place and time and manner of setting corn. Naturally the poor brute knoweth somewhat of the place and its customs, seeing that he hath always lived here, and still it irks me to see a salvage giving lessons to his white masters. He saith too that corn is to be planted when the oak leaves are as large as a mouse's ear. Such rotten rubbish!" "But doth he aver that his people were used to plant fish with the corn?" "Ay, and he went down to the brook yester even and set some manner of snare, and this morning hath taken a peck or so of little fish, for all the world like a Dutch herring only bigger, and of these he says two must go into every hill of the corn, that is, this corn of theirs, for of wheat or rye or barley he knoweth nothing." "By way of enrichment, I suppose." "Ay, for in his gibberish he saith that corn hath been raised hereabout again and again, and now the land is hungry. Ha, ha, man, fancy the salvage calling the dead earth hungry, as if it were alive." "Our dear mother Earth dead, sayst thou!" exclaimed Bradford smiling dreamily and glancing at his Virgil. "Nay, man, she is the vigorous fecund mother of all outward life, and when she dieth, the end of all things hath come." "A pest on thy dreaming and thy bookish phantasies!" roared Hopkins kicking the smouldering log upon the hearth until a river of sparks flowed up and out of the wide chimney. "Dost thou agree to putting fish to decay amid the corn we are to eat by and by?" "We are not to live by what we plant, but by what we reap, friend Hopkins," replied Bradford still smiling in the inscrutable fashion of a man who pursues his own train of thought far down beneath his surface conversation. "Dost thou agree to the herring?" roared Hopkins smiting the table with his brawny fist. "Why yes, Hopkins, if it needs that I give my sanction. It striketh my fancy that the man who hath raised and eaten his bread on this spot for some thirty years is like to know better how to do it than we who have just come. But what matter as to my opinion?" "Oh ay, I did not tell it as I should, but the governor sent me out of the field to ask thee, knowing that thou wast yeoman born." "Then I pray thee tell the Governor that in my poor mind it were well to follow the native customs in these matters at least for the first. I would that I could get a-field and do my share of the work." "Thou 'rt as well off here. 'T is woundy hot on that hill-side. I've known July cooler than this April." "And still my rheumatism hugs the fire," said Bradford taking up the tongs and readjusting the scattered logs, while bustling Dame Hopkins hung her dinner-pot upon the crane in the farthest corner, and began a clatter of tongue before which her husband fled apace. That night when the men came home from the field all spoke of the unusual and exhaustive heat of the weather, for it was now one of those periods of unseasonable sultriness which from time to time afflict our spring season, as on April 19, 1775, when the wheat stood high enough above ground to bend before the breeze, and the British soldiers fell down beside the road, overcome by heat in their rapid flight from the "embattled farmers" of Concord and Lexington. But the next morning rose even sultrier and more debilitating, and Mistress Katharine Carver following her husband to the door laid a hand upon his shoulder saying,-- "Go not a-field to-day, John. It is even more cruelly hot than yesterday, and thou art overborne with toil already. Stay with me, I pray thee." "Nay, Kate, I were indeed unfit for the leader of the brethren could I send them forth to labor that I counted too heavy for myself. Let me go, sweetheart, and if thou wilt, say a prayer that I faint not by the way." "That will I truly, and yet"-- The rest died on her lips for he was gone, yet for a few minutes longer she stood watching the tall figure as it disappeared up the hill path and listening to the murmur of a spinning-wheel in Elder Brewster's house, fitfully accompanied by a blithe tune lilted now and again by the spinner. "Priscilla is early at her work," thought the dame. "I would I might sing and spin like that!" and with a little sigh she leaned her head against the door-post and closed her eyes; a sweet, pale face, colorless and pure as an Easter lily, and eyes whose blueness seemed to show through the weary lids with their deep golden fringe. A fair woman, a lovely woman, delicately bred, for her father was one of those English bishops whose authority her husband and his friends so resolutely denied, and both she and her sister, Pastor Robinson's wife, had "lain in the lilies and fed on the roses of life" until love led them to ardent sympathy with the Separatist movement, and they had wed with two of its most powerful leaders, while their brother, Roger White, became one himself. "From heat to heat the day increased," and Katharine Carver lay faint and exhausted upon a settle drawn close beside the open door, when a strange sound of both assured and stumbling feet drew near, and as she started up it was to meet John Howland, half leading, half supporting her husband, whose face, deeply flushed, lay upon the other's shoulder. "Be not over startled, dear lady!" exclaimed Howland. "The governor findeth himself a little overborne by the heat, and hath come"-- "John! Dear heart, what is it! Nay, try not to speak! Here, good John Howland, help me to lay him upon the bed--there then, dear one"-- "Fret not thyself, Kate, 't is but a pain in my head--ah--'t is shrewd enough, but it will pass--there, there, good wife, fret not thyself!" "John Howland, wilt thou find Surgeon Fuller, and mayhap Dame Brewster, but no more. I will wring a napkin out of fair water and lay to his head, for it burneth like fire." "Ay, it burneth like fire," muttered the sick man wearily moving the poor head from side to side, and Katharine left alone dropped for one moment upon her knees and raised streaming eyes and clasped hands to Heaven, then rose, and when the Doctor and gentle Mary Brewster entered she stood white and calm at her husband's head. "Ay, ay, he hath sunstroke," muttered the surgeon, laying a hand upon the patient's forehead, "and no wonder, for it is shrewdly hot to-day, and he toiling away like any Hodge of them all. I must let him blood. Canst get me a basin and a bandage, Mistress?" "I will fetch them, Katharine. Sit you down." And the Elder's wife slipped out of the door and back again before even impatient Doctor Fuller could wonder where she was. An hour later Carver arousing from the stupor that was growing upon him, asked to see William Bradford, who at once hobbled in from the neighboring house, although himself hardly able to sit up. "It grieves me to find thee in such evil case, brother," said he painfully seating himself beside the sick man's pillow. "Thy sorrows will last longer than mine, Will. I must set my house in order so far as I have time. Dost mind, Bradford, what I said to thee and Winslow and Standish, the time I saw ye standing upon the great rock in yon island before we landed in this place?" "Yes, dear friend, I do remember." "Well, 't was borne in upon me then, that I was only to look upon the Promised Land, and then for my sins to die, and that thou wert the Joshua who should conquer our Canaan and make the people to dwell safely therein. Thou shalt be their governor, Bradford, and--their servant." "As thou hast ever been! Chief of all because the helper of all." "Send for Winslow and Standish and the elder. I cannot long command my senses, and fain would speak--nay, 't was but a passing pang. Send for them, and meanwhile call John Howland and Kate, my wife. I must hasten--hasten"-- Again the stupor crept over him, but steadily fighting it off, and holding his consciousness in the grasp of a strong man's will, he again opened his eyes as his wife, so pale, so still, so self-controlled, leaned over him and laid her cool fingers upon his brow. "Ay, sweetheart, 't is thy touch. I could tell it among a hundred. Dear, wilt thou go home to thy father's house? He'll have thee, now thy poor 'Brownist' is gone. Or wilt thou go to thy sister Robinson? She will be fain to have thee." "'Whither thou goest I will go,' my husband." "Say you so, Dame? Ay, thou wast ever of a high heart, and a brave. Mayhap our Lord will be merciful to both of us,--but His will be done. Thou 'lt be submissive to thy God, Kate, as thou hast ever been to thy lord?" "Ay, dear, my lord, I will try to do thy bidding even thus far." "Ah, Kate, Kate, thou hast never failed in all our happy wedded life--fail not now--promise--promise"-- "Dear love, I promise to bow myself in all loving submission to whatsoever our God shall send." "Ay, that is right, that is well, that is mine own noble Kate. And Howland, I leave her to thy care--be a brother, a leal and true friend--thou knowest what that word means--I can no more--my senses reel"-- "It needs no more, dear master, dear friend, if I may call my master so"-- "My friend," murmured Carver. "Then I do pledge my word as a God-fearing man, that from this moment the first care, the chiefest duty of my life shall be to serve and shield and comfort my dear lady so far as God gives me power. I will be her servant, her brother, her friend, in all ways, and under all comings, and so help me God, as I shall keep this my promise." "Thou dost comfort my soul, even as it enters upon the valley of the shadow. Stand ye two aside and bring in my brethren." Howland quietly opened the door, and the three who had stood grouped against the golden sky on that December evening on Clarke's Island silently entered the room and stood around the bed, where in the awful hush that clings about the last hour their chief lay half unconscious and yet able to rally his energies for one more mighty effort. "Brethren, I go--God remaineth--His blessing be upon you, and all His Israel here.--Forgive my shortcomings--forgive if I have offended any, knowing or unknowing"-- "Thou hast ever been our best and dearest earthly friend--pardon thou us, dear saint!" murmured Winslow. --"And if ye will follow my counsel, make William Bradford your Governor--and set aside all jealousy, all heart burning--Winslow dost promise?" "Ay, friend, I promise right heartily." "Standish?" "Ay, Governor." "Good-by--I can no more--Elder, say a prayer--yet cease before I die"-- And with a long, quivering sigh as of one who relinquishes his grasp of a burden too mighty for his strength, the first Governor of Plymouth Colony went to render an account of his stewardship. _ |
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