Читать книгу A Candle in the Wilderness - Irving Bacheller - Страница 5

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At Doctor Cotton’s party they met the great men of the parish and some lately arrived. The dinner was served at twelve o’clock. To their surprise they found both Endicott and Dudley in a genial mood.

Governor Dudley said: “Young men, I can give you no better compliment than to say that you look much alike.”

Many spoke of their resemblance, but under the skin there were subtle differences not quickly discovered. William, of a family distinguished in scholarship and statecraft, had a milder and more generous temper than his friend. Robert, of a family of soldiers, was made of sterner stuff. He had a keener relish for desperate hazards—like that of racing with the King’s officer—and a cooler head in facing them. He had not William’s skill in choosing words to serve him. There was an inborn grace and refinement in the manners of William, which Robert had tried in vain to acquire. He was of a lighter spirit and carriage. These young men had Puritan sympathies, yet they had done no worrying about their souls. It must be admitted that neither was quite prepared for admission to the First Church of Boston, the gate of a way straighter and narrower than any they had known. They had been familiar with the fat rump of luxury and its license.

The Governor kindly offered to send a man of the best judgment as to land to help them find a good site for their plantation.

It was while they were talking with him that they were introduced to the most comely girl in the colony, Miss Elizabeth Brade, of a family well known in Lincolnshire. She was dressed like a lady of fashion in London—satin overskirt, virago sleeves, with puffs, old Flemish lace, rare and costly jewels in her hair and on her neck and wrists.

“What a glory of youth!” the Governor exclaimed as he took her hand. “I could wish it were not my duty to chide you for this rich attire. It quarrels with our teaching and is a bad example.”

Quickly she answered: “You should have grace for the young.”

“I have grace for every one but myself,” he answered.

He exercised the license of a Governor, being not himself plainly dressed. He wore a blue coat, ’broidered doublet, velvet breeches and white stockings with ribbons at the knee. Only Endicott was in sad cloth. His great white linen collar over his coat as he came in had reminded the young men of a lion’s mane.

Mrs. Winthrop spoke up for the young lady: “Every girl who has to find a husband in this land should have special indulgence.”

Miss Brade turned and greeted the young men and quickly chose between them. Her talk was chiefly addressed to William:

“Why are old people always thinking about marriage?” she asked. “One would suppose that our only thought was of mating. I am not a bird.”

“Good! I like girls better even than larks or nightingales.”

“And have they not the same right to plumage? I can not put away my love of silk and satin and jewels and embroidery.”

She lifted her skirt a little, showing her pretty ankles and a bit of the embroidery on her petticoat and gave the perfumed satin a shake.

“Do you not like the sound of it?”

“Yes, but better the grace with which you wear it and the smile in your query.”

“I like you!” she exclaimed. “I am going to ask our host to make you sit by me. If I were a queen I’d hire a poet to flatter me as Mary did. It’s better than wine.”

The blood of both had reddened their faces a little when she left him.

William was asked to take Miss Brade to dinner. His seat was next hers. All stood with bowed heads while Mr. Endicott made a long prayer. William found another new world in the eyes of the young lady. They were brown, gentle eyes. Her abundant hair was brown. The skin on her shapely face was fair but filled with glowing vitality, her mouth charmingly curved, her teeth perfect. It was said by one who knew her at that time and whose words are now on record: “I have met the ‘Lady Bess’ as she is called. She has every grace of form and feature. Yet her charm is in something beneath it all, radiating from her countenance, artful and yet artless. It is a something very lovely that comes of her blood and breeding and her frank good-nature. The light in her smile is like the suggestive glow of certain flowers not easy to explain.”

It is no wonder, one would say, that the young man was impressed by her and the more because he had come out of great hardship to a crude wilderness. The young lady was in a merry mood not like that of the older folk at the table. The latter began at once to discuss the vexed problem: should the cross be cut out of the King’s colors? All agreed with Mr. Endicott that it was a symbol of ancient popish superstition out of place in the New World. Still many were of the mind of Mr. Winthrop that the colony should be careful not to offend the King. The Governor quoted Roger Williams, of the church at Salem, whereat the old lion, Endicott, growled:

“There is one respect in which I can agree with that man of rash and lamentable apostasies.”

They spoke also of the growing fortifications which were to defend them against the threat of the Archbishop of Canterbury to take charge of them.

While this talk engaged the others William and the girl gave thought to things of an interest limited to themselves.

“Tell me of dear old England,” she urged. “What were you doing there?”

“School mostly. For a time I was a page to the Earl of Lincoln.”

“A page! What did you have to do?”

“I was in training to be a squire and finally a knight. I waited on my master and mistress, attended in the chase. Served the lady in her bower. Was much instructed by the chaplain, the lady and her damsels. Offered the first glass of wine to my master and the guests. Waited at dinner, helped with the dishes, served the napkin and ewer. I could be a great help in your house.”

She looked in his eyes and answered with a smile, the light of which was long in his memory, “I think that I will engage you and mainly to serve the lady with compliments.”

“My friend Robert was another page in the great house. High prices and repeated levies of the King reduced the fortune of our patron so that he had to cut down his household. We went home. Our fathers were in hard times. It was necessary to put money in our purses. We began to hate tyranny. We became rebels, fled from England and here we are.”

“So it was with my father and the rest of us. He is a son of Sir Edward Brade.”

“A great statesman! One of the King’s opposers in the parliament. A speech of his helped to make me a rebel.”

“Strange!” she exclaimed thoughtfully. “The same wind blew us over the sea—my grandfather was in part the cause of your coming as well as mine.”

“Perhaps it’s destiny. Who knows?”

She turned toward him and smiled, saying: “I wonder.” Quickly she asked: “Do you like this new world?”

“One needs help in the task of liking it,” he answered. “I begin to have a hopeful feeling.”

“Oh, you will be running away soon. Here they blame one for being young. They want you to hurry up and grow old and solemn and [now she whispered] get your soul saved. There’s little amusement. Many think it’s wicked to be merry. One must never forget death and go to all the funerals. I wish that God were not so easily offended here. He’s more indulgent in England.”

The wine had been poured when Doctor Cotton arose and said: “I know that the vain drinking of one to another is to some an offense, but I have no vain purpose in proposing the health, prosperity and contentment in our land of two young men lately arrived here, namely, William Heydon and Robert Heathers, both of families which I knew and loved in Lincolnshire. They passed through a mighty storm in which their ship was well-nigh foundered in the sea and in which I am told, though not by him, that William saved the life of the well-beloved, famous Puritan Captain John Huddleston—a life worth saving, as many have reason to know. Like a well-bred English gentleman he will of course disclaim all credit for this noble doing, but I wish him to rise and greet us after the toast is drunk.”

All clapped their hands and arose and drank the toast. William then said, with a remarkable grace of manner: “I have been trying to forget that little incident of the storm of which the beloved Doctor has spoken. I am sure that any of you would reach out a hand to one in trouble. That I shall ever be ready to do. But I would not have you overestimate me. You will find me a poor hero but, I hope, a good citizen. I thank the Doctor and each and all of you for these welcome good wishes.”

In making his acknowledgments Robert said: “We were shaken up like dice in a box and had to pump for our lives on that ship. I’m pumping now and am as scared as I was then. I’m sinking with embarrassment and gratitude. The hold is full. A pailful is enough for a sample, so I say thank you.”

These two speeches illustrate the differing methods of the young men.

John Winthrop read a letter from Thomas Shepherd, minister of the First Church of Salem, in which he entreated that no sin be made of drinking one to another and thus adding a new sin to those, already proclaimed by the Almighty. A number of those present agreed that there were sins enough in the catalogue.

They sat long at dinner with venison and wild turkeys and pigeons and fish and cakes and jellies and pumpkin sauce made into a pie. Mr. Brade had a negro slave who waited on him and then stood erect and solemn behind him in a livery with scarlet trimmings.

Robert sat opposite William, between Margaret Winthrop and a comely but commonplace girl. While the dinner was going on Mrs. Winthrop observed William and Elizabeth with deep and growing interest.

“Look at them,” she said to Robert. “Are they not a pair? Upon my word! I think that they like each other. They see no one but themselves. They are as those apart.”

William walked with the Lady Bess after dinner, for it would seem that they still had many things to say to each other. When they returned, Mrs. Winthrop invited them to come with Robert to sup at her home a week later.

“I shall try to have all the young people come to meet you,” she said. “You may count upon special indulgence.”

William and Robert walked the bounds with the Brades. The walk ended at the latter’s door as night was falling. Mr. and Mrs. Brade still had the light hearts of a better time and environment. They were nearing forty years of age. Mr. Brade had bought and was clearing a big tract of land and proposed to be a planter with a tenantry.

The lady said: “God help us we are cheerful—not yet solemnified by the heavy troubles that have come to many of those around us. We have horses. Every day we ride through the dusky wood to the plantation far beyond the neck and look after the workers and have excellent good times. At home Bess keeps the house merry.”

“And us longing for old England,” said her husband. “Still, with my family, my pipe, my task and my horses I make out very well.”

“Often I ride the old bull when the path is wet,” said Elizabeth.

Her father laughed, saying: “She would mount a moose if he could be persuaded to stand long enough.”

“I hear that there are lions and tigers and unicorns far back in the wilderness,” said Robert.

Mr. Brade said: “Only God knows what is far back in the wilderness. Some say it is wider than the sea. There are Indians worse than the most cruel beast. They subject their captives to the vilest torment. But the near savages are now friendly, and roundabout us there are no beasts to harm one save wolves that sometimes kill the sheep.”

At the door Mrs. Brade said to the young men: “You will find a welcome in our home.”

Elizabeth turned to William, saying with a smile: “Queen Mary said to the poet who had kept her waiting, ‘Young man, you know your duty. If you are careless you may find your head in a basket some day.’ ”

“I think that mine is missing now,” was his laughing answer.

When the young men were gone and the slave had admitted the Brades to their home the Lady Bess began:

“Let him light the rushes, I must talk to you. I am like Columbus when he saw the green shores in the west.”

“What have you discovered?” her father asked.

“The man!—The one man! I swear it by the beard of Pharaoh. He came here partly because of a speech of grandfather’s. Now that is what I call destiny.”

She told them of all that the young man had said, as if it had been as precious as the wisdom of Solomon, and of the noble look of him in saying it. She crowned her enthusiasm with a trembling seriousness. “He is adorable. I have said that the words of Margaret Winthrop to her husband in the letter which he read to me, were not well chosen. I was a fool. I could now write them myself: ‘I wish that I may always be pleasing to thee. I will say to thee as Abigail said to David: I will be a servant to wash the feet of my lord.’ ”

Roswell Brade and his wife were laughing.

“My Lady Bess!” said he. “This is like you—an avalanche of enthusiasm! I knew it would come that way. Restrain yourself. We know little of the young man.”

She arose and danced before them—like one in a galliard.

“Restrain myself!” she exclaimed. “Would you try to put fetters on a butterfly?”

Her father added: “He may not care a fig for you.”

“Am I a dullard? If I be not right you may call me a horse and ride me to market. I have hooked my fish.”

“He may not be worth the catching. I’ll write to England for information.”

The girl said: “You may write but I—I am not afflicted with dim eyes and the ignorance of age.”

More was said but that is enough.

A dialogue, in the room of the young men that night, was of a like nature.

Robert said: “Coming home you were as one counting the stars. I spoke but you did not hear me. You’re like a young lad trying to look sober after his first bottle of wine. Are you ill?”

William answered: “If I am it is a kind of illness of which I would to God there were no cure. I think it some enchantment such as we have seen in the pretty comedies of Will Shakespeare. That smile! Those eyes and lips and hands and shoulders and all that is behind them! They broke the shell of some sleeping thing in me. It has come to life. I reckon that I am like a woman when she feels the first kick of the child.”

Robert interrupted his rhapsody with these laughing words: “By Jove, Will! I’m no midwife but I can rub some liniment on you.”

“Don’t laugh at me,” said William. “I’ve been hit hard. It’s a serious matter but I feel happy and benevolent.”

“And you twitter like a bullfinch. Go on.”

William resumed his song: “I could even believe everything that Romeo and Juliet said to each other at the Blackfriars’ when we went up to London. Coming home I was thinking of that sentence in Endicott’s prayer: ‘O God! break the heavens and come down and fill these hearts with celestial rapture.’ Well, I got it—a heart full. God’s my witness! I could go out and sing to the moon.”

“Wait till you’re engaged,” said Robert. “Then you have a license to be even an idiot. Solos to the moon are like a dog’s sorrow. Duets are better. Just now I recommend a cold tub.”

The young men sat and looked at each other and laughed.

The final scene in this little comedy of youth, old as human joy, came a week later after Mrs. Winthrop’s supper-party. William walked home with the Lady Bess at nine o’clock. Rush lights were aglow in the Brade parlor. Would he come in and sit down a while? He would. They sat down together. She began the dialogue by saying:

“I like to hear you talk about the stars.”

He answered: “I never saw their beauty until I came here.”

“Are they not as beautiful in England?”

“Yes, but my eyes have changed.”

“Changed! How may that be?” As she spoke she turned to him with a look of interest.

“Would you care to know?”

“Well, my great need is knowledge.” She smiled, her fingers playing with the lace on her breast.

“I think that I will not tell you.”

She sighed and looked into his eyes, saying: “You get me burning with curiosity and then throw cold water on me.”

The young man looked at her. His passion broke its fetters of restraint. “My dear, what have you done to me?” he asked. “I too am burning in the same fire. If I am to have a bath of cold water I may as well get it now as later. You have lent your beauty to all nature. I see it everywhere. I love you. Tell me, am I to be crowned with gold or with thorns?”

He took her hand. She withdrew it and turned away from him, covering her face, and said: “Astonishment does not become me. I must hide a moment.”

“I will not try to hide the truth because I can not. It is too big to be hidden. Then—it longs to be discovered.”

She uncovered her face that assumed a look of pained surprise. It vanished in a smile. She took his hand in hers and whispered: “I am sorry.”

He answered: “Your eyes and your words are in disagreement.”

“How can I love you? I do not even know you.”

“It is easy to know me. I show you my heart. There is nothing in it save my love of you. Tell me how to win you for I must have you for my own.”

She held his hand in hers as she said: “This is madness. Try to put it out of your heart. If it is impossible tell my father of it. I am sure that he could help you put it away. If not come back to me and I will soon convince you that I am not worth the bother. Let us now talk of sheep and cows.”

“No. If we change our theme let us speak of snails and turtles. Think of the wooing of a snail—even a young and winsome snail.”

She answered with a laugh: “I think it would be a dull affair.”

“Then why should I imitate it? Have I not what our Will has called ‘the bounding pulse of youth’?”

She felt her wrist, saying: “I think that mine needs more stimulation.”

There was an invitation in her eyes, and he tried to kiss her but she resisted him.

As William arose to go she added: “Consider the humble snail. He never hurries.”

“The lucky snail has no clock. It is late in Boston. Even now I must argue with the constable.”

At the door she whispered: “Come back to me after you have seen my father whatsoever he may say.”

She stood close to him looking into his eyes. He embraced her and their lips met.

Then she said in a whisper: “You thief! Now go home and forget all about this if you can.”

“If you can,” he said to himself as he went away. “What a pretty bit of impudence!”