“Is that the way of it!” exclaimed Cromwell, a little dismayed. “Well, I will bring my bride to Manhattan or to Virginia, where you tell me you are to found a college, and our nuptials shall be blessed there. The civil rite binds us so far as law is concerned.”
“Man’s law, yes,” replied the priest dryly; “and I will trust your word to fulfill this promise, if indeed you carry out your most rash resolve.”
“I shall carry it out, father,” asserted the buccaneer quietly. “’Tis my way.”
The next morning Father Drouillette, the richer by a gloriously illuminated missal, a gold crucifix set with five great rubies, and half a dozen jars of the Archbishop of Toledo’s snuff, embarked on board the fisherman, while Cromwell took up his quarters at Cole’s tavern, which woke to such thriving business as it had never known before. Examination of the brigantines showed two of them to be in need of extensive repairs in consequence not only of the storm which had driven them into Plymouth, but of the long cruise preceding it; and as this cruise had been exceedingly prosperous, the mariners, who during the next month pervaded the town and made acquaintance with most of its inhabitants, scattered their money and precious commodities of various sorts in such profusion that Governor Winthrop, of Boston, in chronicling this visit, attributes the storm that drove the buccaneer into Plymouth to a divine interposition intended for the maintenance of the impoverished town, threatened with utter desertion and destruction.
Nor was the leader less generous and profuse than his more reckless followers, so that not only were the governor’s family overwhelmed with as many rich gifts as he could be prevailed on to allow them to accept, but nearly every one of the poorer families was so substantially relieved as to give all new hope and energy to help themselves.
Not a week from the day of his arrival had elapsed before Cromwell sought an interview with the governor, and, without mentioning that he already had obtained her full consent to his proposals, offered himself as a suitor for Mistress Gillian’s hand. Bradford, utterly amazed at the idea, would at the first have absolutely set it aside, declaring that such a sudden fancy could have no substantial foundation, and was unworthy of discussion; but when next the governor was closeted with his wife, he discovered that in her mind this marriage was a scheme to be encouraged as much as possible, and at the last, a little impatient of masculine density, the wife exclaimed,—
“’Tis an honorable and safe way out of the moil we have been stirring in, since first we made Gillian one of our family; and so that she desires it, and he hath means and will to care for her, all that remains, if she has Love Brewster’s consent, is for me to make up the piece of brocade Cromwell hath given her into a wedding gown, and for you to bind them fast in matrimony.”
“Say you so, Elsie, say you so?” demanded the governor, pausing in the perilous operation of shaving his chin to stare into the mirror at his wife, who was settling her cap at one corner. “Why, I fancied you prized Gillian’s company and daughterly service above all things.”
“I can spare it,” briefly replied Alice Bradford with an inscrutable smile.
“But hasn’t the child won a place in your affections, wife?”