The Plowshare and the Sword Part 44

So the two Englishmen and the French girl went forth under the winter sky, where a shy moon peeped through laced clouds like a fair maid looking between the curtains of her bed. A dull glow of firelight showed when they looked back into the hollow; and once, when they paused for breath, their ears became filled with the wild sound of singing for the dead.

Morning dawned, and the brigantine was well away, running with a fresh breeze from the colony of France, all hearts aboard as light as the frosty waves which kissed her sides. Through fog and snow she went, like a bird flying to the warmth. Little wonder that the men sang at their tasks; that Upcliff repeated his old stories of the main with a fresh delight, none grudging him a laugh; that Woodfield gathered health at every hour; that Madeleine laughed from morn to night. They were as children released from school, playing on the happy home-going.

So the _Dartmouth_ drew down to Boston quay, after one delay on the unfrequented sh.o.r.e to make repairs, the men clanking at the pumps to keep the leaking barque above the line of danger. The citizens flocked down to meet her, and Hough's approving gaze fell upon Puritan faces among whom he could feel himself indeed at home.

Winthrop himself was called to give the sailors welcome to New England.

He stepped aboard, and grasped the master's hand; but not a word could he utter before Madeleine came between them, her beauty all in splendour, her mouth quivering, as she cried:

"Tell me, sir--tell me quickly, where is my Geoffrey?"

She had forgotten that other men bearing her lover's name walked the earth. Winthrop stared in some bewilderment, and the more stern of his following frowned at so much glorious life and impetuous loveliness.

The majority repeated the name with ominous shakings of bearded chins.

"'Tis our comrade, young Geoffrey Viner, of whom the maid speaks," said Woodfield in explanation.

"Yea," exclaimed Madeleine. "Let me off the s.h.i.+p."

"Stay," said Winthrop. "The young man is here indeed." He turned to Hough with the demand: "Is he beyond doubt a true Englishman?"

"True!" exclaimed Madeleine, her violet eyes two angry flashes. "You suspect him? Oh, you false man!"

It was the first time that John Winthrop had been accused of falseness; and the novelty of the accusation brought a smile to his face.

"The boy is loyal to the faith, and as true an Englishman as yourself, brother Winthrop," broke in the voice of Hough.

"Let justice prevail where I rule," said the pious governor when he heard this. "I thank G.o.d that you have come in time. It has been proved to our satisfaction against this boy that he has conspired with the Dutch for the capture of our town, and as I speak he lies under sentence of death. Thus the wisest judges err, and the humble of us ask Heaven to amend our faults."

Madeleine had paled very slightly while Winthrop spoke. Then she drew her small dignified self upright, and said very confidently: "I knew that we should arrive in time."

"Methinks we shall scarcely find any swifter messenger to bear the good news to the young man----" commenced the quiet voice of Roger Williams, who had joined his friend and governor upon the quay.

The end of the pastor's sentence became drowned in a shout of hearty laughter such as had never been heard before in Boston; for immediately he began to speak Madeleine picked up her skirt, and was already running like Atalanta, breathlessly demanding from those who stood by whether her feet were carrying her in the right way.

"Send a cheer after her, men of Somerset," shouted Silas Upcliff.

"For, by my soul, a braver la.s.s ne'er loved an Englishman!"

CHAPTER x.x.xVII.

THE PLOWSHARE.

It was summer in the year 1647, and over all the colony of Virginia there was peace. Fortunate were its settlers to be cut apart from their brethren in the isle of strife, where the deceitful king was imprisoned in his palace of Hampton Court, and the London citizens filled their streets with cries of "Parliament" and "Privilege." New England remained untouched by this wave of feeling, of which indeed it knew nothing, and its people went on planting their crops and gathering the increase, happy to be removed from the oppression of a king and the persecution of the Church.

Upon the south side of the Potomac, at no great distance from the sea, stood a two-storey house overhung with wild vines, and approached by a ladder-like flight of steps which rose between two borders of flowers.

Behind a plantation stretched in a straight mile, fringed on either side by sweet-smelling bush, where purple b.u.t.terflies played through the long day and a silver stream laughed on its way to the sea.

The Grove, as this homestead was named, had quickly identified itself among the successful colonial ventures. The day of small things was rapidly nearing its close. Not only were the joint owners of the plantation able to supply the neighbouring village with wheatmeal and cheeses, but their export business to the Old World was growing more profitable each season. The Virginian exporters, Viner and Woodfield, were well-known to import merchants of Bristol, and faded invoices of that firm were to be seen in more than one dusty counting-house a century later, when change and chance demanded a winding-up of the business of certain old-time traders across the seas.

This success was due not altogether to the energy of the partners who gave their names to the undertaking. It was commonly reported that the Lady of The Grove was in the main responsible for much of her husband's prosperity. According to rumour, Mistress Woodfield was an excellent housewife, clever at her needle, and with a better knowledge of simples than any woman in the New World, if methinks somewhat over-inclined to play the grand dame and careful against soiling her hands. With Mistress Viner it was otherwise. She was never to be found taking her ease in idleness, or retailing gossip concerning neighbours. Sloth, as once she said when rebuking the governor--for she feared no man--is an epidemic which claims more victims than the plague. Early in the morning she walked her garden, inhaling the sweet air, noting what progress had taken place during the night, ordering and arranging all things; and should her husband long delay joining her, how reproachfully she would call: "Geoffrey! Oh, slug! You are losing an hour of life." At fall of evening she would walk in the plantation beside her fair-haired lad, as she loved to call her lord and master, planning fresh improvements, and never failing to note the beauty of the life which slept around. Seldom did she speak of the past; never did she trouble her mind concerning the future. All would be well she knew. There could be no time so good as the present. "What do we want with past or future?" she would exclaim, when she caught her Geoffrey in retrospective or antic.i.p.atory mood. "Cold mirrors in which we see our silent selves like blocks of wood or stone. It is this minute which is our own glorious life." The cruellest, and falsest, thing that any woman could say concerning Madeleine Viner was that the fair mistress of The Grove had been seen wearing a sorrowful face.

The simple inscription, "An American Woman," was carved by her own desire over Mistress Viner's burying-place at the dawn of the eighteenth century;' and at a later date an unauthorised and unknown hand cut upon the shaft of the wooden column which stood upon her resting-place, and was destroyed by fire before Canada was wrested from the French, the not unsuitable motto, "Ride, si sapis."

Over the fireplace of the princ.i.p.al room in The Grove a ring was set in the hard oak woodwork. This ring contained a sigil engraved with the arms of the Iden family, a chevron between three close helmets, and was given a place of honour in the home because through its power Geoffrey obtained a letter of recommendation and a subsequent patent of land from that liberal-minded papist, Lord Baltimore, to whom the ring had been delivered upon the safe arrival of the _Dartmouth_ in the Bay of Chesapeake.

"Better men never bled for England than the men of Kent," said the peer, when he had listened to Geoffrey's story. "Braver men ne'er fled from her sh.o.r.es to save their loyal lives. The owner of this ring was once my honoured friend. His name has for long been most famous for devotion to the crown." The lord sighed and sadly added: "This Charles shall learn to rue the day when he first cast aside the help of his old loyalist families, and by oppression and persecution most intolerable drove them from their homes. But now, with G.o.d's help, we purpose to build up upon this continent a new people, greater and more clear-sighted than the old, and the motto of that people shall be, 'Liberty of thought and freedom in religion.' Tell me now, how shall I serve you?"

"I would settle, either in Maryland or in Virginia, and help to build up that new American people of whom you speak," the young man answered.

So Geoffrey Viner obtained favour in the eyes of Lord Baltimore by the power of the ring; and when the patent for the land issued, he and Woodfield forgot their former dreams of power, and, exchanging sword for axe, felled the big trees and cleared away the bush, that they might plough the virgin soil and plant their seed. As for stern Hough, he remained in Boston, to fight Satan, since he might no longer fight the French, and to preach the gloomy doctrine that he loved; and there he lived to a great age, and there suddenly died one winter morning in a bitterly cold church--for the religious feeling of the community would allow no physical comfort to the wors.h.i.+pper--with a Bible between his hands and a strained smile upon his face, as the preacher dilated upon a psalm-singing Heaven reserved for the elect, and a burning fiery furnace for all else. Hough had been a good man, according to the light which he had received, and doubtless the psalm-singing Heaven was his.

It was evening. Geoffrey and Madeleine walked hand in hand through their plantation, inhaling fragrance from the dewy blooms. Rain had fallen during the afternoon, but when the sun broke out, to bid the settlers good e'en, the country became a fairy-land. A sleepy bird piped on a distant branch. A pale evening star rose in the east where warm vapours were swimming in a silent sea. The peace was perfect in that true Arcadia. Wars were yet to horrify the province, but the shadow was not yet. For the present the sword was buried, and the earth brought forth fruit plenteously.

"If only I might have my wis.h.!.+" exclaimed Madeleine, breaking a long silence.

Her husband looked at her, pressing her fingers within his, but answered nothing.

"I would have the whole world like this," she went on. "Geoffrey, we would not, if we could, seek to conceive a world more beautiful than ours. Yet how we spoil it by not knowing how to live! Were it my world I would banish all hypocrisy, all disputings over religion, all l.u.s.t for power, and try to teach my people how to love--how to love, and nothing else."

"Making us perfect before our time," said Geoffrey, watching tenderly the evening lights playing across her hair.

"No, husband. We shall not attain perfection here. But it is from this country that a light shall proceed to spread throughout the world.

Are we not already showing others how to live? What people before us have ever dared to permit independence in thought and freedom in religion? We have already stripped the Church of its mysteries. We believe that a man may rise to G.o.d without a priest. We are going to grow very great on this side of the seas, and fly very high, and our motto shall always be Peace. Then we shall destroy all weapons of war, and break up armies, and settle down in brotherly love, each man upon his own plot of ground----"

"Envying that of his neighbour," broke in her husband gently.

"Ah, Geoffrey! Scoffer! But mayhap 'tis a foolish dream. Could we but live in love, it might follow that the wolf would be ashamed to hunt the lamb, and would feed upon gra.s.s, and thus it might happen that our kine would lack. It is best as G.o.d ordains. The panther must remain fierce, the bind-weed choke the flower, the rose grow its thorn, and the berry retain its poison. But would you walk in my garden, husband?"

"And see the devil changed into a monk?" asked Geoffrey, with a smile.

"There is no devil in my garden," cried Madeleine joyously. "The snake has no bite, and the devil is dead of idleness. The angels show themselves among my roses."

"They are here," said Geoffrey simply. "Madeleine, sweet wife, before we met I followed the promptings of the body; but through your eyes I have seen the soul. It is not the soldier who wins life with his sword. He does but strive in a vain shadow, until that happy day--ill for him if it comes not--when there dawns upon his heart the light of love, and his mind is inspired, and his ears hear the stirring of wings, and his eyes are opened."

"What does he see, husband?" she asked caressingly.

"The sweet spirit of the woman who is sent to be his star."

They returned to their home in the sunset, and Madeleine was singing softly as she swung her husband's arm. The young matron ran forward, to be entranced and transfigured by the last sunrays, and kissed her fingers to the departing orb with a blithesome cry:

"Wake us before the morning bell, bright sun, and come not in clouds as you came to-day."

Upon entering the flower garden a resonant voice, alternating with tremendous bursts of glee, destroyed the stillness of the evening.

Husband and wife looked at each other in complete understanding, and Madeleine held a finger to her lips, and motioned Geoffrey to advance on tip-toe. They pressed through a bower of roses, beneath a tangle of creepers, through tall rye-gra.s.s, and as they advanced the great voice came more strongly to their ears. At length they stood unseen within sight of their house front, and, drawing close together, laughed restrainedly.

Upon the topmost step, in a line with the entrance, sat a man of immense bulk, holding a pretty fair-haired child upon his mighty knee; and this child he was dancing up and down, shouting a quaint accompaniment meantime. Around his head trailed the luxuriant vines, covered with their fluffy white blooms, and the dainty humming-birds went whirring by, chasing in sport the hivebound bees.