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

by Beulah Marie Dix

Yet when it befell, it seemed quite a matter-of-fact event. A clear breezy morning it was, and, as the household sat at their early breakfast, Francis Cooke came leisurely to tell Master Hopkins that the wind was setting steady from the west, and Master Jones had rowed ashore to bid his former passengers good-by; so soon as the tide was at flood, the ship would put forth.

There was wood and water to fetch as every day; and Miles did the tasks hastily. As he came down the path by Cooke's house, he could feel the wind stirring his hair, and yonder in the harbor the waves were ruffling, and the dim old sails of the Mayflower, unfurled, bellied in the gusts.

When he had set the dripping bucket within the living room, he ran down toward the bluff, to see what more was to see, but, finding his playmates lingering by the door of the Common House, he joined them. Within the house, they told him, Master Jones was drinking a friendly draught with the colonists, and taking his leave. Presently, indeed, the Master, a low, broad-shouldered figure, in his wide breeches and loose jacket, came forth, attended by most of the men of the colony, and rolled off to the landing place.

Some of the boys straggled respectfully behind their elders, but Miles raced with those who ran to be first at the landing. There, alongside the rock, rode the ship's longboat, and Will Trevor and several of the lesser men stood talking with the sailors who sat in her. The youngsters, too, would gladly have borne a part, but the Master, coming right on their heels across the sand, broke up the little group; he was speaking boisterously with the Governor, so his loud voice could be heard even above the confusion of the embarkation.

Indeed, it was all so noisy and hurried that nothing of those last moments remained clear in Miles's mind; he remembered only that men spoke of letters and packets, and the Master wished them many a "God be wi' you," and there was a bustling to and fro and a deal of hand-shaking. Then the Master, sitting in the stern seat, was cursing at his sailors; the width of blue water between the longboat and the landing rock was increasing; and for a moment Miles watched mechanically the sway and swing of the seamen's bodies, as, bending to their oars, they rowed the boat away.

When at length he turned slowly about, he was aware that, halfway up the rugged slope of the bluff, a little group of women, all that survived in the colony, were standing, and the children with them. He scrambled up to be with Dolly, why, he could not say, only somehow he wanted to be sure she was safe and near him then; and he noted Mistress Carver, who sat upon a stone with her hands clasped tensely in her lap, and Priscilla Mullins, whose hair blew unheeded about her face, while she gazed out to sea.

He almost stumbled over Wrestling Brewster and the little Samson boy, who had sat down on the turf and unconcernedly were playing with some bright pebbles; but he did not pause to speak to Wrestling, just clambered a few feet higher up the bluff, where Dolly, holding to Mistress Brewster's gown, stood with her wistful face turned seaward. "Look you closely, Dolly," he greeted her. "See, they're hoisting sail on board the Mayflower."

Dolly, pressing up to him, whispered for her only reply: "Do you mind, Miles, how we came in on the ship, and mammy and daddy with us? I wish we'd all stayed in England."

"Now hush, Dolly," Miles admonished in a gruff tone, and scowled vexedly as the little sister, hiding her face against his doublet, began to cry. Then, half pitying, he bent to speak to her, when a sudden gasp, as if the women about him all drew in their breath, made him look to the harbor. There he saw the Mayflower, with the western wind swelling her dingy sails, had heaved up anchor, and was heading out upon the ocean.

The sun was bright and made the dirty sails gleam like silver; the water was blue, and the wind was brisk; and the ship stood seaward swiftly, very swiftly. Miles thought on how she had set forth from Southampton; and he knew that on board men would be clattering across her deck, and hauling at ropes, and the Master would be bellowing orders.