“Well, as for Betty, the child’s growing too fast, and mayhap has been a little too straitly tied at home, what with little Molly’s coming, and Jo’s fever, and the rest. So now that you’re laid up from work, John, why don’t you take her up to Boston in the governor’s boat that’s set to go two days from now, and tarry the night at Parson Wilson’s, as he so kindly asked you when he was down here with Governor Winthrop and his folk? Marry come up, ’twas a good supper I set before their high mightinesses that night, and our own governor did thank me kindly for so pleasantly entertaining the guests of the colony. ’Twas a better supper than they had at the Winslows’ or the Howlands’ or the Allertons’, for I know all about it. As for the Standishes, I was helping Barbara all day, and the merit of that feast lay between us, but”—
“And dost think Mistress Wilson would welcome our little maid?”
“Surely she would, and why not? You’ll not find our Betty’s marrow among the pick of the Bay maidens, not forgetting Master Winthrop’s own; no, nor Simon Bradstreet’s Anne that you were so taken with when we went up to see Mistress Winthrop.”
“Then if you’ll make her packet ready I’ll see the governor about the boat,” concluded John, carefully putting his wounded foot to the ground, taking a cane in each hand, and hobbling out of the room, just as the roll of a muffled drum announced the death of Samuel Fuller, the much-prized and well-beloved physician of Plymouth, deacon of her church, brother by marriage to Bradford and Wright; the constant friend of his townsmen, and valued by many an one in the new settlements about Boston Bay. Faithful to the last, he had attended the sick-beds of those who were only a trifle worse than himself, until of a sudden he succumbed, and died almost before his friends knew that he was ill. Few deaths could have been more deeply felt in that little colony, and few were noted in William Bradford’s diary with more solemn and affectionate feeling.
But before the doctor was laid to rest in his nameless grave on Burying Hill, Betty Alden, full of delight, and yet soberly attentive to her mother’s last charges, both as to her own conduct and her care of her father’s foot, was on her way to Boston, where she saw many new faces and made many new friends. Of one of these, a girl of her own age named Christian Garrett, there is more to tell, for so close was the friendship springing up between herself and Betty, and so good and commendable a little maid did Christian prove herself, that John Alden, on parting with Richard Garrett, the father, cordially invited him to visit Plymouth at some near date and bring his little girl to visit Betty, and this he promised to do.
Why the luckless man should have selected mid-winter for this expedition no man now can say, but so he did, and in spite of urgent warnings sailed from what is now Long Wharf upon a bitter-cold morning, with a north wind catching the crests off the waves, and hurling them in needlepoints of ice in the teeth of the doomed company whom Richard Garrett had persuaded to accompany him. One of these, named Henry Harwood, was a passenger, and the other three were Garrett’s hired servants. As the day wore on, the wind freshened, working round to the northwest, so that arriving toward night off the Gurnet the exhausted men thought best to anchor until morning. The killock, a rude anchor consisting simply of a stone bound in a network of rope, was thrown over in twenty fathoms of water, and not resting upon the bottom the stone soon worked out of the rope, and left the boat to drive. No lighthouse upon the Gurnet, no beacon upon the beach, then protected the mariner of Plymouth Bay, and as the horror of thick darkness fell upon the scene, and the boat flew before the wind which now came laden with sleet, freezing as it fell, Garrett exclaimed,—
“Now may the Lord have mercy upon our sinful souls, and forgive me that has brought my motherless child here to die!”
“And more than that, Richard Garrett, you that have involved us in the same disaster,” replied Harwood angrily. “Do you suppose, man, I would have adventured with you and paid my two shilling for a passage, had I known what manner of shallop this is, and nothing but a stone and a rope for killock?”
“Peace, man!” retorted Garrett sternly. “How dare you go before your Judge with revilings in your mouth! Get you to your prayers, or be silent.”