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

by Beulah Marie Dix

But Miles forgot Dolly's woes and all, when he clambered into the bracing air of the deck, whither the most of the hale ones of the company had, like himself, bustled to watch the approaching shallop. Shreds of dappled cloud half obscured the east, but low in the west the sun was cold and yellow, and its light flecked the water and made the sail of the distant craft gleam like gold.

Miles stared till for very dazzle he could see no longer, then turned his gaze inboard, where it rested on the slender figure of a woman, who leaned against the mainmast. When the light got out of his eyes, he perceived it was Mistress Rose Standish, who, while he was still gazing on her, came to the bulwark beside him, but, without seeming to see him, stood looking toward the shallop.

Once and again Miles glanced up at her, thinking how bonny she was with the flush on her cheeks and her brown hair straying from beneath her hood across her forehead; and then he grew suddenly hot, for she chanced to look down, and their eyes met. He drew away bashfully and stared again at the shallop; the sun had now dropped lower, so the waves around it were sombre, but within the boat sparkled a gleam of light on metal armor. Miles almost thought to be able to distinguish the forms of the men, and presently their faces. "Yon is the Captain," he broke out, half aloud.

"Do you see him, too?" Mistress Standish spoke, as if he had addressed her.

"That's he, by the mast, with the steel corselet."

She looked down again, and the boy noted her eyes were moist, though she smiled as she said: "You seem to know the Captain very well, sir."

"I'd know him anywhere," Miles answered earnestly. "You understand, he was right kind to me."

Then he broke off speech, for the shallop was now fairly alongside, and the men in her were calling to those on shipboard greetings and questions and answers. Mistress Standish moved quickly toward the gangway, and Miles saw her meet the Captain, when he clambered up the ladder.

Next after him came Master William Bradford, and suddenly it struck with a shock on Miles's remembrance that Mistress Bradford was dead, drowned alongside the Mayflower on the very day after the shallop sailed, and her body carried away among the waves. Master Bradford, for all the weariness in his movements, looked cheerful and hopeful as he gained the deck, and his eyes went glancing over the women gathered there with such a certainty of meeting one that, child though he was, Miles realized something of the pity of it.