Standish of Standish Part 14

"If we had but flint and steel to make a fire it were something!"

exclaimed Browne. "What Jack-o'-Bedlams we were to set off thus unprovided. Catch me so again!"

"But we came out to cut thatch, not to chase deer and get lost in the woods," suggested Goodman trying to laugh, though his teeth chattered like castanets.

"It will never do for thee to lie down as chilled as thou art,"

exclaimed Browne anxiously. "I promised thy old mother I'd have an eye to thee, and lo it is I that have led thee into this mischance! What shall I do for thee? I have it, lad! Sith it is too dark and rough to walk farther I'll try a fall with thee; there's naught warms a man's blood like a good wrestling match. Come on, then!"

"I'm no match for thee, Peter, but here goes!" replied Goodman struggling to his feet, and the two men joined there in the darkness and the wilderness in what might truly be called a "joust of courtesy,"

moved only by mutual love and good will, for the event proved Goodman's modesty well founded, and it was only a few moments before Browne, raising his slender opponent in his arms, set him down sharply two or three times upon his feet, saying,--

"I'll not throw thee, for that might prove small kindness. Art warmer?"

But before Goodman could answer a snarling cry broke from the thicket close at hand, and was answered by another and another voice until the air seemed filled with the cries of howling fiends.

Nero started to his feet, his eyes glowing, the hair bristling stiffly upon his neck, and with a fierce growl of defiance would have sprung forward had not his master seized him by the collar exclaiming,--

"Nay, fool! wouldst rush on thy destruction!"

"'T is the salvages!" stammered Goodman staring about him in the darkness.

"Nay, 't is lions," replied Browne. "Hopkins saith they swarm about here. We must climb a tree, John. Here is a stout one; up with thee, man, as fast as may be!"

"But thou, Peter?" asked John clambering into the oak his friend pointed out.

"I cannot leave Nero. He'll be gone to the lion so soon as I quit my hold of his collar, and I'll not lose him but in sorer need than this.

Here, take thou the spaniel and hold her to thee for warmth."

"Nay, I'll not be safe and thou in danger," replied the young man springing down; "and, moreover, it is deadly cold perching in a tree."

"Well, then, we'll both stand on our guard here, and if the lions come we'll e'en up in the tree hand over hand and leave the poor beasts to their fate. Stamp thy feet on the ground and walk a few paces up and down, John. I fear me thou 'lt swound with the cold like poor Tilley."

"I could not well be colder and live," replied Goodman faintly, as he tried to follow his friend's injunction.

The night crept on, with frost and snow and icy rain and heavy darkness, and still the wolves prowled howling around their prey, and the good dog held them at bay with savage growls and deep-throated yelps of defiance, and his master, caring more for the humble friend he had reared and brought over seas from his English home than for his own safety, held him all night by the collar, and the spaniel whimpered with cold and terror in her master's arms, and he, poor lad, suffered all the anguish of death as his feet and legs chilled and stiffened and froze like ice.

A night not to be numbered in those men's lives by hours but years, a night of exhaustion, terror, and agony, a night hopeless of morning save through the exceeding mercy of G.o.d.

The gray light broke at last, however, and with it the wolves grew mute and slunk away, Nero quieted into obedience, and Browne carefully straightening his own stiffened joints and rising to his feet looked into his comrade's face and shook his head.

"John, hearken to me, lad! We're in a sore strait but we're not dead, and daylight hath broken. Hold up thy face to the sky, man, and say 'I WILL win through this, so help me G.o.d!' and having said it, stick to it, even as Nero would have stuck to yon lion's throat until he was clawed away in shreds. Come, try it, my lad, try it!"

Catching something of his friend's heroic spirit the poor fellow did as he was bidden, but followed the brave resolve with a piteous look into the other's face while he said,--

"My feet are froze, Peter; there is no feeling nor power in them. But lead on, and I will follow if I must crawl."

"Tarry a bit till I see"--

And not pausing to finish his sentence Browne set himself to climb the tree beneath which they had pa.s.sed the night. His cramped limbs and benumbed fingers made this no easy task and more than once he was near losing his grasp and finis.h.i.+ng the story by a headlong fall to the frozen earth, but this danger was pa.s.sed also, and presently hastening down he said,--

"Well, heavy though the clouds be I can see that east is that-a-way, and not far from us rises a high hill. Come, then, lean on me; pa.s.s thy arm around my shoulders this fas.h.i.+on and I will help thee on. Then I will leave thee at the foot of the hill and myself climb it, and if need be some tree upon its summit. From that I shall surely catch sight of the sea, and knowing that we know all we need."

Goodman silently laid his arm around the stalwart shoulders presented to him, but found himself too weak and spent for other reply, and Browne, pa.s.sing an arm around his waist, looked anxiously into his face, saying,--

"Courage, lad, courage!"

"Ay, I WILL, by G.o.d's help!" murmured the poor lad as with agony inexpressible he forced his stiffened limbs to follow one after the other.

The hill, more distant than Browne had supposed, was only reached after two hours of agonizing effort, and at the foot Goodman sank speechless and exhausted, his eyes closed, his parted lips white and drawn. Browne looked at him despairingly, and calling the dogs made one crouch at either side close to the heart and lungs of the prostrate body, and then hastened on up the hill muttering,--

"'T is best kindness to leave him." Half an hour later he came cras.h.i.+ng down again through underbrush and fallen branches shouting,--

"Courage, John; courage, man! From the top of the biggest tree on this hill I've seen not only the sea, but our own harbor, and the old brig rocking away as peacefully as may be. Think of the good friends and the good Hollands gin and the good fires aboard of her. Come, rouse up, lad!

Once more pluck up thy courage and remember thy resolve! 'T is but another hour or so and we are there!"

And yet the good fellow knew that not one but many hours lay before them, and that it was for him to find strength and endurance for both.

Once more his cheery voice and a.s.sured courage conveyed power for another effort to the half-dead lad he almost carried in his arms, and so, with frequent pauses for rest and encouragement, the day wore past, until at last on the brow of Watson's Hill, Browne, his own strength all but spent, cried tremulously,--

"Now G.o.d be praised! here is the harbor at our feet, yonder is the Mayflower, below is the village, and but a few moments more will bring thee, John, to a bed and Surgeon Fuller's care, and me to a fire and some boiling schnapps."

"G.o.d indeed be praised!" murmured Goodman rousing himself for the final effort; and so it came to pa.s.s that just at sunset the two crossed the brook and came hobbling down The Street amid a clamorous and joyful crowd of friends who lifted Goodman from his feet, nor paused until they brought them both into the house where abode Carver and also Fuller, the shrewd and crabbed physician and philanthropist. Here Goodman was laid upon a bed, his shoes cut from his feet, and in a few moments the governor on one side and the doctor on the other were vigorously rubbing the frozen limbs with alcohol.

"Shall I lose my feet, Doctor?" asked the patient feebly.

"Lose them!" cried the doctor indignantly. "Nay! what use would a footless man be to the Adventurers who sent thee out? 'T were but a knave's trick for thee to shed thy feet first thing, and I'll see to it thou dost not."

"And that's a comfortable saying, Master Fuller," said Browne standing anxiously by.

"Thou here, Peter Browne!" exclaimed the doctor glancing up under his s.h.a.ggy brows. "What art doing here, blockhead? Get thee into bed beside a good fire, and bid Hopkins mix thee a posset such as he would have for himself. Be off, I say!"

CHAPTER XI.

THE COLONISTS OF COLE'S HILL.

The next day both Carver and Bradford were forced to succ.u.mb under the epidemic already raging among the colonists, and in another fortnight the hospital and Common house were crowded to their utmost capacity with the beds of the ill and dying. The terrible colds taken in the various explorations, the vile food and bad air of the brig, with the want of ordinary comforts on sh.o.r.e, were at last bearing their fruit in a combination of scurvy, rheumatism, and typhoid fever of a malignant type. On board s.h.i.+p matters were even worse than on sh.o.r.e, and Jones, who would willingly have abandoned the settlers as soon as they were debarked, found himself, perforce, a sharer in their distress through the illness and death of his crew, and the danger of running short of provisions.

The day came at length when of all the company, numbering a hundred and one when they landed, only seven remained able either to nurse the sick or bury the dead, and hour by hour, as these met about their complicated duties, they studied each others faces, in terror of seeing the fatal signs that yet one more was stricken down, and the annihilation of the settlement one step farther advanced.

Of these seven, two were Elder Brewster and Myles Standish, and well did they prove themselves fit to be rulers among the people, for they became servants of all, without hesitation and without affectation, nursing, cooking, dressing loathsome wounds, and ministering in all those homely ways repugnant to refined senses, and especially, perhaps, to the dignity of man. The doctor also kept on foot, although terribly worn with sleeplessness, fatigue, and rheumatism; Peter Browne, none the worse for his day and night in the woods, with Francis Eaton to help him, took charge of digging the graves and burying the dead, already in their silent colony along the brow of Cole's Hill, almost equaling their yet suffering comrades. The two remaining sound ones were Stephen Hopkins and Helen Billington, who, as the only female nurse, was called upon to attend the sick women, so far as she could; this, of course, gave but little time for each patient, and one night the doctor hurriedly said to Standish,--

"Captain, wilt have an eye to-night to those two beds in the corner?

'T is Priscilla Molines and Desire Minter, both shrewdly burned with fever, and needing medicine and care lest they should fall to raving before morning. I'd not ask thee, knowing all thou hast on hand, but goodwife Billington must not quit"--

"Nay, nay, what needs so many words," interrupted Standish. "Give me their medicine and directions, I can care for them well enow and for Bradford whose huckle-bone[4] giveth him sore distress to-night."

[4] Hip-bone.