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| MONTH after month passed away, and in Autumn the ships of the merchants | |
| Came with kindred and friends, with cattle and corn for the Pilgrims. | |
| All in the village was peace; the men were intent on their labors, | |
| Busy with hewing and building, with garden-plot and with merestead, | |
| Busy with breaking the glebe, and mowing the grass in the meadows, | 5 |
| Searching the sea for its fish, and hunting the deer in the forest. | |
| All in the village was peace; but at times the rumor of warfare | |
| Filled the air with alarm, and the apprehension of danger. | |
| Bravely the stalwart Standish was scouring the land with his forces, | |
| Waxing valiant in fight and defeating the alien armies, | 10 |
| Till his name had become a sound of fear to the nations. | |
| Anger was still in his heart, but at times the remorse and contrition | |
| Which in all noble natures succeed the passionate outbreak, | |
| Came like a rising tide, that encounters the rush of a river, | |
| Staying its current awhile, but making it bitter and brackish. | 15 |
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| Meanwhile Alden at home had built him a new habitation, | |
| Solid, substantial, of timber rough-hewn from the firs of the forest. | |
| Wooden-barred was the door, and the roof was covered with rushes; | |
| Latticed the windows were, and the window-panes were of paper, | |
| Oiled to admit the light, while wind and rain were excluded. | 20 |
| There too he dug a well, and around it planted an orchard: | |
| Still may be seen to this day some trace of the well and the orchard. | |
| Close to the house was the stall, where, safe and secure from annoyance, | |
| Raghorn, the snow-white bull, that had fallen to Alden’s allotment | |
| In the division of cattle, might ruminate in the night-time | 25 |
| Over the pastures he cropped, made fragrant by sweet pennyroyal. | |
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| Oft when his labor was finished, with eager feet would the dreamer | |
| Follow the pathway that ran through the woods to the house of Priscilla, | |
| Led by illusions romantic and subtile deceptions of fancy, | |
| Pleasure disguised as duty, and love in the semblance of friendship. | 30 |
| Ever of her he thought, when he fashioned the walls of his dwelling; | |
| Ever of her he thought, when he delved in the soil of his garden; | |
| Ever of her he thought, when he read in his Bible on Sunday | |
| Praise of the virtuous woman, as she is described in the Proverbs,— | |
| How the heart of her husband doth safely trust in her always, | 35 |
| How all the days of her life she will do him good, and not evil, | |
| How she seeketh the wool and the flax and worketh with gladness, | |
| How she layeth her hand to the spindle and holdeth the distaff, | |
| How she is not afraid of the snow for herself or her household, | |
| Knowing her household are clothed with the scarlet cloth of her weaving! | 40 |
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| So as she sat at her wheel one afternoon in the Autumn, | |
| Alden, who opposite sat, and was watching her dexterous fingers, | |
| As if the thread she was spinning were that of his life and his fortune, | |
| After a pause in their talk, thus spake to the sound of the spindle. | |
| “Truly, Priscilla,” he said, “when I see you spinning and spinning, | 45 |
| Never idle a moment, but thrifty and thoughtful of others, | |
| Suddenly you are transformed, are visibly changed in a moment; | |
| You are no longer Priscilla, but Bertha the Beautiful Spinner.” | |
| Here the light foot on the treadle grew swifter and swifter; the spindle | |
| Uttered an angry snarl, and the thread snapped short in her fingers; | 50 |
| While the impetuous speaker, not heeding the mischief, continued: | |
| “You are the beautiful Bertha, the spinner, the queen of Helvetia; | |
| She whose story I read at a stall in the streets of Southampton, | |
| Who, as she rode on her palfrey, o’er valley and meadow and mountain, | |
| Ever was spinning her thread from a distaff fixed to her saddle. | 55 |
| She was so thrifty and good, that her name passed into a proverb. | |
| So shall it be with your own, when the spinning-wheel shall no longer | |
| Hum in the house of the farmer, and fill its chambers with music. | |
| Then shall the mothers, reproving, relate how it was in their childhood, | |
| Praising the good old times, and the days of Priscilla the spinner!” | 60 |
| Straight uprose from her wheel the beautiful Puritan maiden, | |
| Pleased with the praise of her thrift from him whose praise was the sweetest, | |
| Drew from the reel on the table a snowy skein of her spinning, | |
| Thus making answer, meanwhile, to the flattering phrases of Alden: | |
| “Come, you must not be idle; if I am a pattern for housewives, | 65 |
| Show yourself equally worthy of being the model of husbands. | |
| Hold this skein on your hands, while I wind it, ready for knitting; | |
| Then who knows but hereafter, when fashions have changed and the manners, | |
| Fathers may talk to their sons of the good old times of John Alden!” | |
| Thus, with a jest and a laugh, the skein on his hands she adjusted, | 70 |
| He sitting awkwardly there, with his arms extended before him, | |
| She standing graceful, erect, and winding the thread from his fingers, | |
| Sometimes chiding a little his clumsy manner of holding, | |
| Sometimes touching his hands, as she disentangled expertly | |
| Twist or knot in the yarn, unawares—for how could she help it?— | 75 |
| Sending electrical thrills through every nerve in his body. | |
| |
| Lo! in the midst of this scene, a breathless messenger entered, | |
| Bringing in hurry and heat the terrible news from the village. | |
| Yes; Miles Standish was dead!—an Indian had brought them the tidings,— | |
| Slain by a poisoned arrow, shot down in the front of the battle, | 80 |
| Into an ambush beguiled, cut off with the whole of his forces; | |
| All the town would be burned, and all the people be murdered! | |
| Such were the tidings of evil that burst on the hearts of the hearers. | |
| Silent and statue-like stood Priscilla, her face looking backward | |
| Still at the face of the speaker, her arms uplifted in horror; | 85 |
| But John Alden, upstarting, as if the barb of the arrow | |
| Piercing the heart of his friend had struck his own, and had sundered | |
| Once and forever the bonds that held him bound as a captive, | |
| Wild with excess of sensation, the awful delight of his freedom, | |
| Mingled with pain and regret, unconscious of what he was doing, | 90 |
| Clasped, almost with a groan, the motionless form of Priscilla, | |
| Pressing her close to his heart, as forever his own, and exclaiming: | |
| “Those whom the Lord hath united, let no man put them asunder!” | |
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| Even as rivulets twain, from distant and separate sources, | |
| Seeing each other afar, as they leap from the rocks, and pursuing | 95 |
| Each one its devious path, but drawing nearer and nearer, | |
| Rush together at last, at their trysting-place in the forest; | |
| So these lives that had run thus far in separate channels, | |
| Coming in sight of each other, then swerving and flowing asunder, | |
| Parted by barriers strong, but drawing nearer and nearer, | 100 |
| Rushed together at last, and one was lost in the other. | |
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