Soldier Rigdale: How He Sailed in the Mayflower and How He Served Miles Standish

by Beulah Marie Dix

Obediently he snuggled down in one corner of the bed that ran round the wigwam, crowded and comfortless as was his bed at Manomet, but here neither Trug nor Dolly lay beside him. The sound of the sea, too, was strange; out-of-doors he could hear it,—the slow crash of the incoming tide that grew fainter and fainter.

Dolly and Trug, taken from him, he knew not to what, and the safe little town of Plymouth whence he had fled,—all were present to him. He thought that he and Dolly, with the old dog beside them, were trudging up the path from the landing, only there were trees all along the path, like the limes along the church lane at home in England, and the houses were not log cabins, but English cottages. He knocked at the door of Stephen Hopkins's house, and at the same time it was the English farmhouse where his father had dwelt, and, when they opened the door to him, it was his mother who, coming across the hall, took him in her arms and drew him in.

The blackness of the wigwam and the heavy breathing of the savages came once more to his consciousness. He dragged himself wearily up on one elbow. Through the opening in the side of the wigwam he saw the sky quite dark, and he heard the receding swash of the ebbing tide. Yonder was the ocean, and a few miles westward lay Cape Cod Bay, and across it snug Plymouth. If he only walked along the shore, followed the coast line, he would come home.

There was no plan, scarce any hope in him, only he knew the English had forgotten him, and he could not endure it longer with a stolid face among the Indians. Almost ere he thought it out, yet with instinctive precaution, he slipped off the bed, and, holding his breath, crouched listening on the floor.

Slowly and carefully, with the trodden dirt firm beneath his hands, he writhed his way to the door-opening. The morning air struck coldly on his cheeks, so that for an instant he shrank back, but there was in it something free that emboldened him to press on.

Out through the door into the chilly morning, which to his more accustomed eyes seemed so pale, he felt detection was certain. But no cry alarmed him, no motion betrayed him. The soft sand deadened every sound, as he crept through it, hands and knees. The debris of twigs, higher up at the verge of the pine woods, pressed cruelly against his palms, but, for all the pain, he still crawled on, till darkness thickened about him, and above him the pine branches stirred.

Springing to his feet, Miles ran forward, fast as two frightened legs could bear him. Brambles that plucked at his tattered sleeves made him halt, with heart a-jump; tougher young shoots near tripped him; but pantingly he held on his way. Through the branches he could catch a glimpse of the dull sky and one very bright star that he judged shone in the west, so he headed toward it.

Little by little the star faded from before his eyes, and the sky lightened, whereat Miles ran the faster. A swamp, thick with juniper, barred his course, and fearfully he turned southward to pick his way about it. When once more he turned westward, the sky was pale as lead, and the birds were beginning to sing. But though the coming of dawn might well alarm him, he did not heed it now, as, through the trees before him, he caught the pounding note of waves, and, a little later, broke forth upon a broad expanse of meadow, beyond which rumbled the great sea.

Yonder, very far to west, lay Plymouth, Miles told himself, and, with a foolish happiness springing in his heart, he stumbled briskly along through the sparse growth at the edge of the wood. The morning light now was sprinkling the sea on his right hand, and the sky was changing from lead-color to clear blue. Out from the forest a brook, all awake with the dawning, came gurgling, so Miles stopped to drink, and tarried to empty the sand from his shoes; he guessed he must have run leagues, for he was very tired.