"Lo you now, dear mother," cried she excitedly. "There are three boats rowing toward the Rock, and in every one of them you may make out women's gear, and who knows but Patience and Fear are of the company. All the men have gone down to the Rock, and I am going."
Out she ran again, and Priscilla quickly moved to the mother's side, but great joys do not kill even though they startle, and presently the white white face was raised with a smile almost of heaven illuminating it, and the dame softly said,—
"Yes, they have come. I knew it in the night. They have come, but Priscilla thou 'rt none the less my dear and duteous daughter. Now get you to the Rock with the rest. I shall be well alone."
"Now is Will Bradford well content; now is comedy ready to tread upon the heels of tragedy, and funeral dirges to end in marriage chimes," muttered the captain as he plunged down the steep of Leyden Street, and stood with overcast face and compressed lips watching the boats sweeping merrily up to the landing.
In the foremost sat the governor, and close beside him two female figures their backs to the shore. On the next thwart Surgeon Fuller, his whimsical face for once honestly glad, leaned an elbow on his knee and peered up into the comely face of Bridget, his young wife, for Agnes Carpenter lay asleep beneath St. Peter's Church in old Leyden town. But her sister Juliana had come with her husband, George Morton, and their five children, Patience already a winsome lass of fifteen, soon to marry John Faunce and become mother of the last ruling Elder of Plymouth Church.
Later on, two more of these fair Carpenter girls were to come over to the home of their sister Alice: Priscilla, who married William Wright, one of the joyous passengers of the Fortune; and Mary, of whom the Chronicles say that she died "a godly old maid" in her sister's home.
Pardon the interlude, but there is something very fascinating in the story of this family of five beautiful girls so eagerly sought in marriage by the best men of the colony, and of her who was the flower of all and yet died "a godly old maid."
The governor's boat was at the Rock, and willing hands on shore caught at the rope thrown from the bows, and dragged her up so that the passengers could step out dry shod. Standish drew back a little, and with folded arms stood watching the debarkation. Last of all came Bradford and the two ladies he had escorted.
"So that is Mistress Alice Carpenter Southworth, is it," muttered the soldier grasping a handful of his ruddy beard. "Well, it is a winsome dame and a gentle; I wonder not that Will hath"—
But the calm comment ended abruptly in an exclamation of incredulity and pleasure, for when Mistress Southworth stood safely upon the strand, Bradford turned and gave his hand to her companion, a girl of some four or five and twenty years old, with one of those rounded and supple figures which combine strength and delicacy, endurance and elasticity, and are very slow in yielding to the attacks of Time. A demure hood tied under the chin framed a round face, whose firm fair skin had defied the tarnish of the sea, and only gained a somewhat warmer glow in cheek and lip than its native tone. Little tendrils of sunny brown hair pushed their laughing way from beneath the edge of the hood and curled joyously to the fingers of the toying wind. Straight dark brows and long eyelashes of the same deep tint gave character to the face, and shaded a pair of eyes whose beauty has stamped itself upon every generation of this woman's descendants. Large, and peculiarly opened, these eyes were of a clear violet blue, but with pupils whose frequent dilatation gave such range of tint and expression, and such extraordinary brilliancy that many were found to insist that the eyes themselves were black, while others vowed that no such intensity of blue had ever been seen in human orbs before. But neither in the shape, nor the color, nor the brilliancy, nor the pathetic curve of the upper lid, did the wonderful beauty of these eyes abide; it was a fascination, a compelling power in their regard; the power of appeal or of assurance, of love or wrath, of promise or of trust, that dwelt in their depths, and leaped or stole thence bending to their service the will of all who gazed steadfastly upon them. Weapons more dangerous in a woman's hands than was Gideon the Sword, in the hands of the Captain of Plymouth.