865

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,

870 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;

875 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.

880 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 cham bers 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!"

885 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,

890 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,

695 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

900 Sending electrical thrills through every nerve in his body.

Lo! in the midst of this scene, a breathless mes

senger 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,

905 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;

910 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,

5

915 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! "

Even as rivulets twain, from distant and separate

sources,

Seeing each other afar, as they leap from the rocks, and pursuing

920 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 chan

nels,

Coming in sight of each other, then swerving and flowing asunder,

Parted by barriers strong, but drawing nearer and

nearer,

925 Rushed together at last, and one was lost in the other.

IX.

THE WEDDING-DAY.

FORTH from the curtain of clouds, from the tent of purple and scarlet,

Issued the sun, the great High-Priest, in his gar ments resplendent,

Holiness unto the Lord, in letters of light, on his

forehead,

Round the hem of his robe the golden bells and pomegranates.

930 Blessing the world he came, and the bars of vapor beneath him

Gleamed like a grate of brass, and the sea at his feet was a laver !

This was the wedding morn of Priscilla the Puri-
tan maiden.

Friends were assembled together; the Elder and
Magistrate also

Graced the scene with their presence, and stood like
the Law and the Gospel,

935 One with the sanction of earth and one with the blessing of heaven.

Simple and brief was the wedding, as that of Ruth and of Boaz.

Softly the youth and the maiden repeated the words of betrothal,

Taking each other for husband and wife in the Mag-
istrate's presence,

After the Puritan way, and the laudable custom of
Holland.

940 Fervently then, and devoutly, the excellent Elder of Plymouth

Prayed for the hearth and the home, that were founded that day in affection,

Speaking of life and of death, and imploring Divine benedictions.

939. "May 12 was the first marriage in this place, which, according to the laudable custome of the Low-Cuntries, in which they had lived, was thought most requisite to be performed by the magistrate, as being a civill thing, upon which many questions aboute inheritances doe depende, with other things most proper to their cognizans, and most consonante to the scripturs, Ruth 4. and no wher found in the gospell to be layed on the ministers as a part of their office." Bradford's History, p. 101.