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

by Beulah Marie Dix

Then he lay down in bed, and turned and tossed, and went his round of courage and fears again. He was not conscious that there had been a period of sleep; he had no sense of restfulness just ending, only of bitter dreams, but he found the room alight and a faint, early-morning freshness in the air, so he knew some time had passed and it was day.

He did not remember in detail the thoughts of the night, but the conclusion was the same, and still clearer for him to see in the glare of morning. Rising quickly, he dressed himself so hurriedly that he was done before sleepy Giles had pulled on his shirt; then went out into the living room. Mistress Hopkins was lighting her fire with flint and steel, and Constance was stirring up porridge for the breakfast; but he gave them no heed, for outside the door he caught a glimpse of Master Hopkins.

"Why, Miles, are you ill?" Constance asked, as she looked up at him.

Miles shook his head, and stepped out upon the doorstone. At the bench alongside the door Master Hopkins, in his shirt-sleeves, was washing his face in a basin of water; he did not look up, but Miles, without waiting for his notice, plunged into the confession while his courage held. "Master Hopkins, I want to tell you—"

"What is it, Miles?" Hopkins asked curtly, as he began wiping his face on the big, coarse towel.

"It was not Francis, sir, it was I. The duel, you understand—" Miles's voice was faint and quavering,—"it was not Francis."

"What do you mean?" said Stephen Hopkins then, and lowered the towel from his face; the water-drops clung to his forehead, and his hair was all on end, but the very grotesqueness of his look made it the more formidable to Miles.

"It was not Francis," he repeated shakily, while his trembling fingers picked at a splinter in the door-frame. "I took the rapier out o' your bedchamber; I was in the grass and whistled to them." He stopped there, with his eyes on the toes of his shoes; he did not want to look at Master Hopkins's face, and he held his body tense against the grasp which he expected would hale him into confinement along with Ned Lister.

But instead there was a sickening silence that seemed to last for minutes; then Master Hopkins said slowly: "I marvel why that you, the son of a godly man, should have a hand in all the evil doings of the settlement. You must go tell this unto the Governor, so soon as breakfast is ended. And I shall myself speak more of it to you."

Mechanically Miles stood aside to let Master Hopkins pass into the house, and then he still stood a time, gazing at the gray doorstone beneath his feet. Presently he stepped down on the turf and slouched round to the corner of the house, where Trug was tied at night; though every one thought him evil, and they were going to flog him, Trug would still lick his hands lovingly. He untied the dog, and, holding to one end of his strap, went back through the yard; Constance, from the doorway, called to him to come in to breakfast, but, shaking his head, he walked on.