PRISCILLA
Thus for a while he stood, and mused by the shore
of the ocean,
Thinking of many things, and most of all of Priscilla;
And as if thought had the power to draw to itself,
like the loadstone,
Whatsoever it touches, by subtile laws of its nature,
Lo! as he turned to depart, Priscilla was standing
beside him.
“Are you so much offended, you will not speak
to me?” said she.
“Am I so much to blame, that yesterday, when
you were pleading
Warmly the cause of another, my heart, impulsive and
wayward,
Pleaded your own, and spake out, forgetful perhaps
of decorum?
Certainly you can forgive me for speaking so frankly,
for saying
What I ought not to have said, yet now I can never
unsay it;
For there are moments in life, when the heart is so
full of emotion,
That if by chance it be shaken, or into its depths
like a pebble
Drops some careless word, it overflows, and its secret,
Spilt on the ground like water, can never be gathered
together.
Yesterday I was shocked, when I heard you speak of
Miles Standish,
Praising his virtues, transforming his very defects
into virtues,
Praising his courage and strength, and even his fighting
in Flanders,
As if by fighting alone you could win the heart of
a woman,
Quite overlooking yourself and the rest, in exalting
your hero.
Therefore I spake as I did, by an irresistible impulse.
You will forgive me, I hope, for the sake of the friendship
between us,
Which is too true and too sacred to be so easily broken!”
Thereupon answered John Alden, the scholar, the friend
of Miles Standish:
“I was not angry with you, with myself alone
I was angry,
Seeing how badly I managed the matter I had in my
keeping.”
“No!” interrupted the maiden, with answer
prompt and decisive;
“No; you were angry with me, for speaking so
frankly and freely.
It was wrong, I acknowledge; for it is the fate of
a woman
Long to be patient and silent, to wait like a ghost
that is speechless,
Till some questioning voice dissolves the spell of
its silence.
Hence is the inner life of so many suffering women
Sunless and silent and deep, like subterranean rivers
Running through caverns of darkness, unheard, unseen,
and unfruitful,
Chafing their channels of stone, with endless and
profitless murmurs.”
Thereupon answered John Alden, the young man, the
lover of women:
“Heaven forbid it, Priscilla; and truly they
seem to me always
More like the beautiful rivers that watered the garden
of Eden,
More like the river Euphrates, through deserts of
Havilah flowing,
Filling the land with delight, and memories sweet
of the garden!”
“Ah, by these words, I can see,” again
interrupted the maiden,
“How very little you prize me, or care for what
I am saying.
When from the depths of my heart, in pain and with
secret misgiving,
Frankly I speak to you, asking for sympathy only and
kindness,
Straightway you take up my words, that are plain and
direct and in earnest,
Turn them away from their meaning, and answer with
flattering phrases.
This is not right, is not just, is not true to the
best that is in you;
For I know and esteem you, and feel that your nature
is noble,
Lifting mine up to a higher, a more ethereal level.
Therefore I value your friendship, and feel it perhaps
the more keenly
If you say aught that implies I am only as one among
many,
If you make use of those common and complimentary
phrases
Most men think so fine, in dealing and speaking with
women,
But which women reject as insipid, if not as insulting.”
Mute and amazed was Alden; and listened and looked
at Priscilla,
Thinking he never had seen her more fair, more divine
in her beauty.
He who but yesterday pleaded so glibly the cause of
another,
Stood there embarrassed and silent, and seeking in
vain for an answer.
So the maiden went on, and little divined or imagined
What was at work in his heart, that made him so awkward
and speechless.
“Let us, then, be what we are, and speak what
we think, and in all things
Keep ourselves loyal to truth, and the sacred professions
of friendship.
It is no secret I tell you, nor am I ashamed to declare
it:
I have liked to be with you, to see you, to speak
with you always.
So I was hurt at your words, and a little affronted
to hear you
Urge me to marry your friend, though he were the Captain
Miles Standish.
For I must tell you the truth: much more to me
is your friendship
Than all the love he could give, were he twice the
hero you think him.”
Then she extended her hand, and Alden, who eagerly
grasped it,
Felt all the wounds in his heart, that were aching
and bleeding so sorely,
Healed by the touch of that hand, and he said, with
a voice full of feeling:
“Yes, we must ever be friends; and of all who
offer you friendship
Let me be ever the first, the truest, the nearest
and dearest!”
Casting a farewell look at the glimmering sail of
the Mayflower,
Distant, but still in sight, and sinking below the
horizon,
Homeward together they walked, with a strange, indefinite
feeling,
That all the rest had departed and left them alone
in the desert.
But, as they went through the fields in the blessing
and smile of the sunshine,
Lighter grew their hearts, and Priscilla said very
archly:
“Now that our terrible Captain has gone in pursuit
of the Indians,
Where he is happier far than he would be commanding
a household,
You may speak boldly, and tell me of all that happened
between you,
When you returned last night, and said how ungrateful
you found me.”
Thereupon answered John Alden, and told her the whole
of the story,—
Told her his own despair, and the direful wrath of
Miles Standish.
Whereat the maiden smiled, and said between laughing
and earnest,
“He is a little chimney, and heated hot in a
moment!”
But as he gently rebuked her, and told her how much
he had suffered,—
How he had even determined to sail that day in the
Mayflower,
And had remained for her sake, on hearing the dangers
that threatened,—
All her manner was changed, and she said with a faltering
accent,
“Truly I thank you for this: how good you
have been to me always!”
Thus, as a pilgrim devout, who toward Jerusalem
journeys,
Taking three steps in advance, and one reluctantly
backward,
Urged by importunate zeal, and withheld by pangs of
contrition;
Slowly but steadily onward, receding yet ever advancing,
Journeyed this Puritan youth to the Holy Land of his
longings,
Urged by the fervor of love, and withheld by remorseful
misgivings.
