Standish of Standish | Page 8

off his chill by means of the
captain's Hollands gin, nor did his mother or Rose Standish find
themselves better in the evening than they had been in the morning, and
as the darkness of the November night closed around the lonely bark,
gaunt shadowy forms, Disease and Famine and Death, seemed shaping
themselves among the clouds and brooding menacingly over the
Forlorn Hope, as its soldiers slept or watched beneath.
CHAPTER II.
THE LAUNCH OF THE PINNACE.
"Mary! Mary Chilton! Maid Mary mine!" called Priscilla Molines in
her clear bird-voice, as she ran down the steps leading to the principal
cabin. "Come on deck and see the launch of the pinnace! The
carpenters call her fit for use if not finished, and the men have gone
ashore to launch her. Where art thou, poppet!"
"Here," replied a gentler and sweeter voice, as Mary Chilton came
forward, a long gray stocking dangling from her hands, and stood in a
slant ray of sunshine which lighted her golden hair to a glory, and

showed the pure tints of her May-bloom face and clear blue eyes; a
lovely English face in its first fresh rapture of morning beauty.
"Right merrily will I come, Priscilla, if there be aught to see,"
continued she, throwing down the stocking which she was knitting for
her father. "Truly my eyes ache with staring at nothingness."
"Well, there's a trifle this side of nothingness on the beach at this
minute," retorted Priscilla, pinching her friend's ear. "Men call it
Gilbert Winslow."
"Hush, hush, Priscilla!" whispered Mary, with a scared look toward her
mother's cabin. "If anybody heard such folly! And Mistress White
already tells my mother that we two are over-light in our carriage and
conversation."
"Mistress White"--began Priscilla sharply, but ended the exclamation
with a saucy laugh and said instead, "Yes, truly as thou sayest, my May,
mine eyes ache with gazing upon nothingness and my tongue aches
with speaking naught but wisdom. It is out of nature for young maids to
be as staid as their elders, and methinks I do not care to be. Let us be
young while we have youth, say I."
She looked perilously pretty as she arched her brows and pouted her
ripe lips, and Mary looked at her in loving admiration, while she
answered sagely,--
"You and yours are French, Priscilla, and I am all English like my
forbears; so thou mayst well be lighter natured than I--I mean no harm,
dear."
"No harm is done, dear mother in Israel," replied Priscilla half
mockingly, and seizing Mary's hand she led her on deck, where many
of the women and children were collected, watching the preparations
on shore for the launch of the pinnace, which, much strained by bad
stowage between decks, had needed about a fortnight's work done upon
her before she was fit for service.

"They only wait for her to set forth on a second exploration," said
Priscilla confidentially; "and a little bird sang in my ear that they would
go to-morrow."
"What little bird?" asked Mary curiously; but before Priscilla could
reply another voice interposed; it was that of Bridget Tilley, who had
come on deck to seek her daughter Elizabeth, and now sharply
inquired,--
"Another expedition, say you? And my goodman scarce brought back
from death's door, whither the first jaunt led him! Nay, now, 't is not
right, 't is all one as murder, to hale dying men out of their beds and
into that wilderness. No blessing will follow such work, and I'll cry
upon the governor or the captain or the elder to stop it!"
"What is it, Mistress Tilley? Any wrong that I can help set right?"
asked a sweet voice, and Bridget turned toward the speaker with a
somewhat more subdued manner, lowering her voice as she said,--
"Thank you kindly, Mistress Standish, and God be praised that you can
be on deck; but my matter is this," and again she poured out her
anxieties and her fears, until Rose Standish, a fair white rose now, and
trembling in the shrewd autumn air so soon to scatter her petals and
bear the pure fragrance of her life down through the centuries, until
men to-day love her whom they never knew, leaned wearily against the
bulkhead and said,--
"Rest easy, dear dame. Thou 'rt all in the right, and it behooves us to
protect our lords from their own rash courage, just as it befits their
courage to protect us against salvages and wild beasts. I will whisper in
my husband's ear that Master Tilley is all unfit to carry out his own
brave impulses, and I will conspire with Mistress Carver and Mistress
Bradford, and, above all, with our dear mother, the elder's wife, that
each shall make petition to her lord