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VIII. The Spinning-Wheel, The Courtship of Miles Standish
Month after month passed away, and in Autumn the ships of themerchantsCame with kindred and friends, with cattle and corn for thePilgrims.All in the village was peace; the men were intent on theirlabors,Busy with hewing and building, with garden-plot and withmerestead,Busy with breaking the glebe, and mowing the grass in themeadows,Searching the sea for its fish, and hunting the deer in theforest.All in the village was peace; but at times the rumor of warfareFilled the air with alarm, and the apprehension of danger.Bravely the stalwart Standish was scouring the land withhis forces,Waxing valiant in fight and defeating the alien armies,Till his name had become a sound of fear to the nations.Anger was still in his heart, but at times the remorse andcontritionWhich 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. Meanwhile Alden at home had built him a new habitation,Solid, substantial, of timber rough-hewn from the firs of theforest.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.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 theorchard.Close to the house was the stall, where, safe and secure fromannoyance,Raghorn, the snow-white bull, that had fallen to Alden’sallotmentIn the division of cattle, might ruminate in the night-timeOver the pastures he cropped, made fragrant by sweet pennyroyal. Oft when his labor was finished, with eager feet would thedreamerFollow the pathway that ran through the woods to the house ofPriscilla,Led by illusions romantic and subtile deceptions of fancy,Pleasure disguised as duty, and love in the semblance offriendship.Ever of her he thought, when he fashioned the walls of hisdwelling;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 SundayPraise of the virtuous woman, as she is described in theProverbs,—How the heart of her husband doth safely trust in her always,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 herweaving! 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 hisfortune,After a pause in their talk, thus spake to the sound of thespindle.“Truly, Priscilla,” he said, “when I see you spinning andspinning,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; thespindleUttered an angry snarl, and the thread snapped short in herfingers;While the impetuous speaker, not heeding the mischief, continued:“You are the beautiful Bertha, the spinner, the queen ofHelvetia;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 andmountain,Ever was spinning her thread from a distaff fixed to her saddle.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 nolongerHum in the house of the farmer, and fill its chambers with music.Then shall the mothers, reproving, relate how it was in theirchildhood,Praising the good old times, and the days of Priscilla thespinner!”Straight uprose from her wheel the beautiful Puritan maiden,Pleased with the praise of her thrift from him whose praise wasthe sweetest,Drew from the reel on the table a snowy skein of her spinning,Thus making answer, meanwhile, to the flattering phrases ofAlden:“Come, you must not be idle; if I am a pattern for housewives,Show yourself equally worthy of being the model of husbands.Hold this skein on your hands, while I wind it, ready forknitting;Then who knows but hereafter, when fashions have changed and themanners,Fathers may talk to their sons of the good old times of JohnAlden!”Thus, with a jest and a laugh, the skein on his hands sheadjusted,He sitting awkwardly there, with his arms extended before him,She standing graceful, erect, and winding the thread from hisfingers,Sometimes chiding a little his clumsy manner of holding,Sometimes touching his hands, as she disentangled expertlyTwist or knot in the yarn, unawares—for how could she help it?—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 thetidings,—Slain by a poisoned arrow, shot down in the front of the battle,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 thehearers.Silent and statue-like stood Priscilla, her face looking backwardStill at the face of the speaker, her arms uplifted in horror;But John Alden, upstarting, as if the barb of the arrowPiercing the heart of his friend had struck his own, and hadsunderedOnce and for ever 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,Clasped, almost with a groan, the motionless form of Priscilla,Pressing her close to his heart, as for ever his own, andexclaiming:“Those whom the Lord hath united, let no man put them asunder!” Even as rivulets twain, from distant and separate sources,Seeing each other afar, as they leap from the rocks, and pursuingEach 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,Rushed together at last, and one was lost in the other.