_ CHAPTER XVI. PRISCILLA MOLINES' LETTER
"John Alden, the captain says thou 'rt a ready writer. Didst learn that along with coopering?"
"Nay, Mistress Priscilla, I was not dubbed cooper until I was a se'nnight old, or so."
"Oho! Then thy schoolcraft all came in the first week of thy life. Eh?"
"Have thy way, Priscilla. Thou knowst well enow thou canst not anger me."
"Truly? Well I never cared to see a man maiden-meek. But thou canst write?"
"Ay, and so canst thou, I have heard."
"Heed not all thou hearest, John; no, nor believe all thou seest."
"But what about my pencraft? Can I do aught for thee, Priscilla?"
"Mayhap."
"And what is it, maid? Well thou knowest that it is more than joy for me to do thy bidding."
"Nay, I know not what feeling 'more than joy' can be, unless haply it topple over t' other side and become woe, and I would be loth to breed thee woe."
"And I am as loth to let thee; but still thou dost it and will do it."
"Verily!"
"Ay, verily; but what is thy bidding, Priscilla? for I have an errand on hand."
"And what weighty matter claims thee for its guardian?"
"Nay, 't is no such weighty matter, nor is it a secret. The governor will have me warn the men to gather in the Common house to-morrow to complete the affairs twice broken off by the visit of our red-skinned neighbors."
"And mark my words, John, they'll come again to-morrow so sure as you try to hold council. 'T is a fate, and you'll not escape it."
"Pooh, child! Dost believe in signs and fates?"
"My forbears did. Haply thou hadst none, and so escaped the corruption of such folly."
"Nay now, Priscilla, each one of us has just as many grandsires as another all the way back to Adam, only some of us have had more important matter in hand than to reckon up their names, and 't will never spoil a night's rest for me that I know not if my great-grandam was Cicely or Phyllis. But tell me, mistress, what my pen can do for thee?"
"Thy pen! Then 't is not thy heart or thy hand that is at my service?" and Priscilla raised a pair of such melting and velvety brown eyes to the somewhat offended face of the young giant that he at once tumbled into the depths of abject submission, and trying to seize her hand exclaimed,--
"Oh sweetheart, thou knowest only too well that hand and heart and all I have are thine if thou wilt but take them."
"Nay, John, thou must not speak so, no, nor touch my hand until I give it thee of mine own free will"--
"Until? Nay, that means that some time thou wilt give it!"
"Well, then, I don't say until, and if thou dost pester me I'll say never. And I'll ask John Howland to write my letter."
"Stay, stay Priscilla! If 't is a letter to be written let me write it, for I was the first one asked, and I'll not pester thee, lass. I am a patient man by nature, and I'll bide thy good pleasure."
"There, now, that's more sensible, and as my own time runs short as well as thine, sit down at the corner of the table here--hast thy ink-horn with thee? Ay, well, here is paper ready, and we have time before I must make supper."
"Yes, an hour or more," said John looking at some marks upon the window ledge cut to show the shadows cast at noon, at sunrise, and at sunset at this time in the year. Priscilla meantime had arranged the writing materials upon the corner of the heavy oaken table with its twisted legs and cross pieces still to be seen in Pilgrim Hall in Plymouth as Elder Brewster's table, and drawing up two new-made oaken stools, for the elder's chair in the chimney-corner was not to be lightly or profanely occupied, she said,--
"Come now, Master Alden, I am ready."
"I would thou wert ready," murmured John, but as the blooming face remained bent over the table, and the very shoulders showed cold indifference, he continued hastily as he seated himself,--
"And so am I ready. To whom shall I address the letter?"
"Methinks I would first put time and place at the head of the sheet. So have I noted that letters are most commonly begun."
"Ay. Well, then, here is:--
"'The Settlement of New Plymouth, March the 21st inst. A. D. 1620.'" For thus in Old Style did John Alden count the date we now should set at March 31st, 1621. And having written it in the queer crabbed Saxon script we find so hard to decipher he inquired,--
"And what next, Mistress Priscilla?"
"Next, Master John, thou mayest set down,"--
"'My well beloved'"--
"Well, who is thy well beloved?" demanded John pen in hand and flame on cheek.
"Nay, the name is of no importance," replied Priscilla coldly. "Let us go on."
"Very well, 'My well beloved,' is set down."
"'I promised thee news of my welfare so soon as opportunity should serve to send it.'"--
"Well?"
--"'And now I would have thee know that I find none to take thy place in my heart or eyes'"--
The young man laid down his pen, and with a sterner look upon his face than the teasing girl had ever seen there, rose from the table saying,--
"I did not deem thee so unmaidenly, Priscilla, as to ask a man who loves thee to write thy love-messages to one thou favorest more highly. 'T is not well done, mistress, neither modest nor kind."
"I wonder at thy hardihood, John Alden, putting such reproach upon me. Never think again that I will listen to thy wooing after such insult, and thou stupid oaf, did I not tell thee that the letter was to Jeanne De la Noye, my dear girl-friend in Leyden?"
"Nay, thou toldst me no such thing."
"Well, I tell thee now, and thou mayst put Jeanne after 'my well-beloved' at the top, an' thou wilt. Art satisfied now, thou quarrelsome fellow?"
"Satisfied that thou wilt bring me to an untimely grave, thou wicked girl!"
"Well, then sit down and finish my letter before thou seekest that same grave, for the shadow creeps on apace. Nay, now, I will be good, good John."
"Ah well-a-day, I am indeed an oaf, as thou sayest, to be so wrought upon by a coy maid's smiles or frowns, but have thy will mistress, have thy will."
"Nay now, John, cannot a big, brave fellow like thee take a poor maid's folly more gently? Think then, dear John, of how forlorn a maid it is; think of the graves under yon springing wheat"--
"There, there, dear heart, forgive my rude brutishness; forgive me, sweet one, or I shall go out and do some injury to myself or another, thou hast so stirred my sluggish heart"--
But a peal of laughter, rich and sweet as a bob-o-link's song, cut short his speech, and Priscilla dashing away the tears that hung in her archly curved eyelashes exclaimed,--
"
Thy sluggish heart, John! Why, thy heart is like an open tub of gunpowder, and all my poor thoughtless words seem sparks to kindle it! Well, then, sith both are sorry, and both fain would be friends, let us get on with my fond messages to Jeanne and her sister Marie, or I shall have to put away my paper hardly the worse for thy work."
"Well, then, thou honey bee, as sweet as thy sting is sharp, what next?"
"Tell her in thine own words how long we were cooped in yon vile-smelling old tub, and how when we landed, Mary Chilton and not I was first of all the women to leap upon the rock we call our threshold; and oh John, tell her how I am orphaned of father and mother and brother, and even the dear old servant who carried me in his arms, and many a time in Leyden walked behind us three malapert maids--oh me, oh me!"--
She turned away to the window and bowed her face in her hands, smothering the sobs that she could not quite restrain. John sat still, looking at her, his own eyes dim and his face very pale. At this moment the door was suddenly thrust open, and Standish entered the room exclaiming,--
"Is Alden here?"
"Ay, Captain," replied the young man rising and coming forward. Standish cast a hasty glance at the figure of the young girl, another at the young man's face, and motioned him to follow outside.
"Hast thou done aught to offend Mistress Molines?" demanded he as John drew the door close after him.
"Not I," replied he somewhat indignantly. "She asked me to write for her to some maid of her acquaintance in Leyden, and when it came to telling of her orphanage and desolate estate her woman-heart gave way, and she was moved to tears."
"Ay, ay, poor child! 'T is sad enow, but we will put all that right presently--yes, I promised William Molines, and so let him die at ease, and I will keep my word to the dead. A husband and a home, and haply a troop of little rogues and wenches at her knees will soon comfort her orphanhood, eh, John?"
"I know not, sir--I--doth she know of this compact betwixt her father and you?"
"Come, now, thou 'rt not my father confessor, lad, nor yet my general," replied Standish with peremptory good humor. "Get thee back to thy pencraft, and when it is done come to me at the Fort, I have work for thee."
"Yes, sir." And the young man turned again into the house where Priscilla, quite calm, but a little subdued in manner, awaited him.
"And now wilt thou set thy name at the foot, Priscilla?" asked the scribe when the fourth side of the paper was nearly covered.
"Let me see. Ah, there is yet a little room. Say, 'My friendly salutation to thy brothers, Jacques, Philip, and little Guillaume; and now I think on 't, Jacques asked me to advise him if this were a good place for a young man to settle, and as I promised, I will now bid thee say that to my mind it is a place of goodly promise, and I were glad indeed to see all my friends of the house of De la Noye coming hither in the next ship.'"
"I have heard ere now that the pith of a woman's letter was in the post scriptum, just as the sting of a honey bee cometh at the latter end," said John dryly. "And now wilt thou sign?"
"Yes. Give me the quill.
Ciel, how it sputters and spatters! 'T is a wondrous poor pen, John."
"It served my turn well enow," replied John surveying with a grim smile the childish signature surrounded with a halo of ink-spatters; but as not one third of the women in the company could have done as well, Priscilla felt no more chagrin at not being a clerk, than a young lady of to-day would at not knowing trigonometry.
"And now address it to the Sieur Jacques De la Noye for Mademoiselle Jeanne De la Noye, and I will trust thee to put it with the letters already writ to go by the Mayflower. And thank thee kindly, John, for thy trouble."
"Thou 'rt more than welcome, Priscilla."
"But why so grave upon 't, lad?"
"'The heart knoweth its own bitterness,' and mine hath no lack of bitter food, Priscilla."
"Nay, perhaps thou turn 'st sweet into bitter. A kind word to the brother of my gossip Jeanne"--
"Ah, that's not all, nor the worst. But there, I'll fetch thee some water from the spring." And seizing the bucket, the young man went hastily out, leaving Priscilla staring at the folded letter upon the table, while she half murmured,--
"Handsome Jacques with his quick wit and gentle breeding, and our brave Captain, the pink of knightly chivalry, and--John!"-- _