Another half hour and all were gathered about the three long tables improvised from boards and barrels, but all covered with the fine napery brought from Holland by Alice Bradford, who had the true housewife’s love of elegant damask, and during Edward Southworth’s life was able to indulge it, laying up such store of table damask, of fine Holland “pillowbers”[1] and “cubboard cloths,” towels of Holland, of dowlas, and of lockorum, and sheets of various qualities from “fine Holland” to tow (the latter probably spun and woven at home), that the inventory of her personal estate is as good reading to her descendants as a cookery book to a hungry man.
Plenty of trenchers both of pewter and wood lined the table, and by each lay a napkin and a spoon, but neither knives nor forks, the latter implement not having yet been invented, except in the shape of a powerful trident to lift the boiled beef from the kettle, while table knives, as Priscilla Alden had intimated, were still regarded as curious implements of extreme luxury. A knife of a different order, sometimes a clasp-knife, sometimes a sheath-knife, or even a dagger, was generally carried by each man, and used upon certain pièces de resistance, such as boar’s head, a roasted peacock, a shape of brawn, a powdered and cloved and browned ham, or such other triumphs of the culinary art as must be served whole.
Such dishes were carried around the table, and every guest, taking hold of the morsel he coveted with his napkin, sliced it off with his own knife, displaying the elegance of his table manners by the skill with which he did it. But as saffron was a favorite condiment of the day, and pearline was not yet invented, one sighs in contemplating the condition of these napkins, and ceases to wonder at the store of them laid up by thrifty housekeepers.
Ordinarily, however, the meat was divided into morsels before appearing on the table, and thus was easily managed with the spoon,—or with the fingers.
Between each two plates stood a pewter or wooden basin of clam chowder, prepared by Priscilla Alden, who was held in Plymouth to possess a magic touch for this and several other dishes.
From these each guest transferred a portion to his own plate, except when two supped merrily from the same bowl in token of friendly intimacy. This first course finished and the bowls removed, all eyes turned upon the governor, who rose in his place at the head of the principal table, where were gathered the more important guests, and, looking affectionately up and down the board, said,—
“Friends, it hardly needs that I should say that you are welcome, for I see none that are ever less than welcome beneath this roof; but I well may thank you for the cheer your friendly faces bring to my heart to-night, and I well may pray you, of your goodness, to bestow upon my young sister here the same hearty kindness you have ever shown to me and mine.” A murmur of eager assent went round the board, and the governor smiled cordially, as he grasped in both hands the great two-handled loving-cup standing before him,—a grand cup, a noble cup, of the measure of two quarts, of purest silver, beautifully fashioned, and richly carved, as tradition said, by the hand of Benvenuto Cellini himself; so precious a property that Katharine White, daughter of an English bishop, was proud to bring it as almost her sole dowry to John Carver, her husband. With him it came to the New World, and was used at the Feast of Treaty between the colonists and Massasoit, chief of the native owners of the soil. Katharine Carver, dying broken hearted six weeks after her husband, bequeathed the cup to William Bradford, his successor in the arduous post of Governor of the Colony, and from him it passed down into that Hades of lost and all but forgotten treasures, which may, for aught we know, become the recreation-ground for the spirits of antiquarians.
Filled to the brim with generous Canary, a pure and fine wine in those days, it crowned the table, and William Bradford, steadily raising it to his lips, smiled gravely upon his guests, adding to his little speech of welcome,—