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

by Beulah Marie Dix

But the story was quickly told by the hungry men, and then they scattered to their houses. The street was swiftly emptied, and even Giles, calling to Miles to fetch home the bucket they had left at the spring, trudged away with his father.

Miles turned slowly up the street; he had admitted it to no one, even to Giles and Ned, but the last week he had had a fear of the black woods. Spite of his boasts to the boys of his merry life with the savages, he shuddered every time he thought of Nauset, and he had a foolish feeling that if he ventured into the forest the Indians might swoop down on him again. In the daytime he could laugh it away, but at night, and especially after the anxiety of the last twenty-four hours, the fear came on him strongly, and it did not seem as if the courage was in him to go down to the inky spring alongside the stepping-stones that led to the woods.

He stood a time by Cooke's gate, in the hope that he might see some one else bound for the spring, but no one came. He went a few steps down the street, but, if he returned to the house without the bucket, he would be scolded, so, at a snail's gait, he trudged uphill again.

Then it was that he noted the companionable light that shone in the window of Standish's cottage, high up the hillside, and, though he was afraid of the Captain, yet there seemed a kind of encouragement in that shiny spark that made him cross the street and loiter nearer. "Maybe John Alden'll be going to the spring," he told himself. "Or maybe—maybe I'll go, presently."

Just at the edge of the Captain's unfenced dooryard, he halted and stood gazing at the light. He was not spying, to be sure; he would go in a moment. Through the open window he could see a corner of the living room, a table, with a rack and three guns above it, and, as he gazed, Alden, a big, black figure, strode into the bright corner and set down two bowls on the table. Miles drew a step or two nearer. "Maybe the Captain will come into the light next," he told himself. "And after I've seen him, then—"

And then some one took him firmly by the shoulder, and right beside him spoke the Captain's voice, "Well, Miles?"

"Oh!" the boy gasped, and then, in a panic-stricken tone, "I'm going home; prithee, let me go home, sir."

"Nay, you are coming in with me," Standish answered, and, helplessly, Miles yielded to the other's grasp and stumbled over the threshold.

Within, the living room was bare and martial, with a rapier above the chimneypiece that caught a gleam from the candle set below it, and the form by the door and the rough stools standing stiffly as on parade. On a shelf beside the fireplace there were some pots and platters; Miles noted all very accurately, and wondered that he should note them at such a time.

He started when Captain Standish spoke, for all his tone was amused: "Here, Jack, set a bowl for this gentleman I have fetched to sup with us. And you, Miles, will you give me your parole not to attempt an escape, if I take my hand from your collar?"