A MUCH-MARRIED MAN.
The spring had ripened into midsummer, and under the sad and foreboding eyes of Governor Bradford a most ominous hegira of some of his dearest friends and Plymouth’s most valued townsmen had taken place, nominally for the summer only, but as Bradford too plainly foresaw not to end with the summer.
Standish’s house upon the foot of his own hill was complete, and not far away Jonathan Brewster, the Elder’s oldest son, had put up a summer cottage and established his wife and children. This might have passed, but when the Elder himself, with his two sons Love and Wrestling, also built a cottage close beside Jonathan’s upon a pretty inlet called Eagle’s Creek, the governor’s heart sank within him, and, calling a Court of the People, he proposed a legal enactment to the effect that those colonists who should build houses outside the town limits for the convenience of grazing or farming should return to the town at the beginning of winter, and abide there until spring; also, that they should week by week come into town to attend divine service on the Lord’s Day.
To this all consented, even Winslow, who, in spite of his frequent and protracted absences in England, had found time to view the land beyond Duxbury, and to appropriate a lovely and fertile tract at Green Harbor in what is now Marshfield. Building a temporary cottage here, he named the estate Careswell after his ancestral home in England, and in true family spirit gathered around him his brothers: John, now husband of Mary Chilton, Josias, and Kenelm, who, married to Ellinor Newton of the Fortune, settled upon a gentle eminence by the sea in a spot so fertile and so beautiful that it was fitly named Eden.
Where Standish chose to lead, John Alden was in the habit of following, nor was this migration to Duxbury an exception, for in this very summer of 1631 Alden took up a large tract of land on the south side of Bluefish River, and built his house upon a pleasant rise of land near Eagletree Pond; and although two other houses have at different dates replaced the one he built, his children of the eighth generation live to-day upon the spot where Betty Alden grew into her fair maidenhood, and brothers and sisters made home happy, and life a quiet joy.
All these things and more had William Bradford been rehearsing to his friend Captain William Pierce of the Lyon, who had looked into Plymouth to leave some passengers and merchandise before proceeding upon his voyage to England, until the sailor, sorry for the depression and foreboding Bradford did not disguise from him, cast about for some pleasanter topic, and finally cried,—
“Oh, let me tell you, Governor, of the hornets’ nest I found myself caught in, awhile ago in Lun’on; and by the way, Master Isaac Allerton was in it as well. Didn’t he tell you here of the two wives of Sir Christopher Gardiner?”
“Nay, we have had but little pleasant converse with Master Allerton for a long time past,” replied Bradford heavily, and Pierce hastened to proceed:—
“I know, I know, it would seem as if Allerton with all his pious texts had never learned that the man who faileth to care for his own is worse than a beast; for he cozened his own old father as much as he did you. But this is another matter. It was in February that I was stopping at the Three Anchors down by Wapping Old Stairs, and Allerton came in and said he had a message from a woman calling herself Lady Gardiner, who fain would have speech with him because he came out of New England; but he, prudent man, would go to see no fair ladies unknown to himself without a reputable witness to his honest intent, and so he was come for me. Be sure, Bradford, I did not let the chance slip to pass some merry jests upon our sour-visaged friend, and brought the blood to his tallow cheeks as it has not been seen for many a day; but in the end I gave my word to go and protect him as best I might from any designing Lindabrides who might assail him. So at once we went to the address written on the billet that was sent him, smelling of musk and ambergris and civet, worse than the hold of the Lyon after a ten weeks’ voyage. Coming to the house in the Strand, we found in a very fair lodging not one but two fair dames; and the merry jest of it is that both the one and the other are honest women, and married by ring, book, and bell to this same gay knight whom Winthrop found living so meekly in the woods of Neponset River with his cousin Mary Grove.”
“Nay, Pierce, but this passes a jest!” exclaimed Bradford, much disturbed as he recalled his little sister’s pale face, and his wife’s anxieties on her account. But the jolly mariner mopped his red face and laughed amain while he replied,—