“Mr. Winslow!” A voice caught at him, interrupting his reminiscing. As he turned he saw Pastor Gifford approaching from the square with his nephew. “You're two days late,” Gifford said as he came to take Winslow's hand. “We've been concerned.”
“Every coach was full for two days after the King arrived
from France.” He shook his head sadly. “I'd have been most happy to leave earlier.”
“Come, Uncle,” Matthew said quickly, noting his evident fatigue. “These coach rides are enough to make a man take to his bed. I'll accompany you to Pastor Gifford's house. You can tell us the news on the way.”
“I think I will take a little rest, Matthew,” his uncle nodded. He allowed himself to be led along the street by Matthew's gentle pressure. He said little as they made their way past the first group of cottages north of the Mote Hall, but gave a sigh of relief as they came to the small cottage of the pastor.
“Wife!” Gifford called out as they crossed the threshold, “We have a guest.”
Gifford's wife Sarah, a short, heavy-set woman of fifty, turned from the massive fireplace, her face lighting up at the sight of the older man. “Ah now, I've been cooking for you for two days! Sit you down, and you can have these meat pies I've had to fight my husband and your nephew for!”
“Yes, sit down, Edward,” Gifford urged, pulling a heavy chair back from the table. “Sit you down, too,” he said to the younger Winslow. “You can lie down after you've eaten, Edward, but first, tell us about the event.”
“Charles is king of Englandâand that's the whole of it,” Winslow said heavily. He reached into his inner pocket, fumbled around briefly, then pulled a letter out. “A letter from your father.”
As Matthew opened the letter, he heard Pastor Gifford saying, “Well, we knew it was coming, didn't we?”
“Yes, we knew it.” Winslow leaned forward, placed his brow on his fist and closed his eyes. “Aye, we
knew
it, Johnâ but I don't think any of us really have any idea of what it's going to be like.”
“In that you are probably right,” Gifford said slowly. “It'll be a dark night of the soul for our people.”
As the two older men spoke of the new order and the
problems it would bring to their small world, Matthew read the brief lines:
4 March 1660
My son Matthew,
Your request that we travel to England to meet your new bride is, of course, quite out of the question. I fear you do not yet understand how ill your mother is. She is almost completely bedfast now, and I must stay at home to take care of her, except for those times when the neighbors sit with her.
I do not even dare go to preach overnight at any of the churches, for fear she will be gone when I return. She is quite ready to go home to the Lord. This morning when one of the good ladies asked her if she had any fear, she roused up, and her eyes had the same fire they had when I first saw her, and she said right smartly, “Afraid? How could I be afraid to go to Him whom I have loved and longed for these fifty years!”
She had memorized your letters word for word and only wishes that she might have seen your bride. But what has meant the most to herâand to me, my son!âis the portion of the last letter where you indicated your intention to pursue the Lord. That, along with the word from your uncle in which he speaks of your interest in preaching along with good Master Bunyan, have been the joy of her heart, and mine also.
When we parted, Matthew, I said, “Be true to God and to yourself.” I can add nothing to that, except that your mother and I have great faith now in you, and that if we do not meet again on this earth, we will be reunited in a better Kingdom!
Gilbert Winslow
Matthew blinked rapidly, his eyes burning as he read the lines, and he bit his lip as he folded the letter and stored it in his pocket. He had been over-hasty in his marriage, he knew, and the guilt of it bore heavily on him. The original plan had been for a trip to Plymouth with Lydia so she might meet his parents, then marry there. But there had been such objections from Martha Smith over Lydia making such a voyage in an
unmarried state that they had given up on the idea. “We'll go to America soon, dear,” Lydia had said, knowing something of the pain he felt. But the trip was long and expensive. So the five months of their marriage had served only to increase the pain Matthew felt over his parents.
He shook off the thought and heard his uncle speaking of the restoration of Charles to the throne. “The whole country is one big ball, John. You should have seen the excitement when Charles came ashore day before last! He came in a barge with two dukes. Mr. Pepys was with him, and the captain of the brigantine steered. There was also Mr. Mansell and a dog the king lovesâand many others from his nest in France. A large crowd was there to meet him, including General Monk, who fell on him with all imaginable love and respect, thousands of horsemen it seemed, and noblemen of all sorts. The mayor of the town presented him his white staff, the badge of his place, which the King gave him again.” He gave a short laugh and a sardonic light came into his eyes. “You'll like this, John, the mayor gave him a very rich Bible, which he took and said, holding it up, âThis is what I love more than anything else in the world!' ”
“You don't think he meant it?” Matthew asked.
“Meant it? Him, with his fancy French whores in his cabin on the ship he'd just left?” Winslow shook his head violently and struck the table with a clenched fist. “The man's an actor, I tell you! Now it pleases him to play the benevolent monarch, forgiving his enemiesâbut mark my word, within months the gallows in England will bear the weight of those who were closest to Cromwell.”
“What about you, Edward?” Gifford asked quickly.
“I would not be at all surprised to find myself among those pinpointed by Charles.”
“Butâyou won't stay here, will you, Uncle?” Matthew asked.
“Stay here? Of course I'll stay here! I've not so much life
in front of me that I'd sell out what I've lived for just to have a few more hours on this earth!”
“That's very well for you, Edward,” Gifford nodded. “But I think for your nephew it might be best to return to Plymouth.”
“I agree,” the old man said.
“Well,
I
don't!” The face of young Winslow flushed and there was a stubbornness in the set of his chin that brought a sudden image of Gilbert Winslow to the older man. He watched as Matthew got to his feet and paced the confines of the small room in agitation, his trim figure alive with nervous energy. “What sort of man do you take me for? A coward?”
“Now, Matthew, there's no question of that,” Gifford soothed. He had grown accustomed to the quick, impulsive shifts in the young man's behavior, so now he reasoned with him carefully. “First of all, this isn't your home. What happens here isn't your battleâexcept perhaps in prayer. Secondly, you are not alone now. If you were single, that might be a different story, but as Mr. Bacon has said, âHe that hath wife and children hath given hostages to fortune.' You must consider Lydia. And thirdly, you must have been under constant burden concerning your mother. You must see that going back to Plymouth would be the wise thing to do.”
“Perhaps so, but you forget one thing,” Matthew responded quickly. “You and I have had long talks, have we not, about my preaching? Am I to leave that, too? And don't tell me there's preaching to be done at Plymouth, Pastor Gifford! I will quote you one scripture, and you tell me how I may without peril to my soul ignore it: âHe that putteth his hand to the plow and turneth back, is not fit for the kingdom of God!' ”
Pastor Gifford gaped open-mouthed at the fiery ardor of young Winslow. Then he gave a short laugh and threw up his hands. “I leave him to you, Edward!”
“Well, that's no good, either,” Edward smiled, and for that moment the lines of his face softened and he looked much like the young man before him. “The Winslows have always
been fool-stubborn, and I see this one is no different. His father is that way himselfâand so am I, I suppose.”
Matthew stood there, so tall that his head almost brushed the rough beam over his head. He smiled down at Gifford. “It would be so much easier if it were a real war with swords and pikes, wouldn't it? Just go out slashing and hackingâthen you either killed or got killed. But this isn't like that, is it?”
“No, our weapons are not carnal, but mighty to God to the pulling down of strongholds,” Gifford stated emphatically. “And it's a mighty stronghold that lies before usâthe realm of England will be set to crush every Puritan and Separatist to powder, and very soon.”
There was a silence as Gifford's wife came to the table with trenchers full of meat. “Well,” the younger man said, “Lydia is expecting me.” He took his uncle's hand. “You'll come to our house for supper tomorrow night, will you, sir?”
“Done!”
“Good day, then. I'll read the book by Mr. Hooker before our study tomorrow, Pastor.”
He left the room hurriedly, and as the two men began to eat, Edward asked, “What's your judgment, John, on that young man?”
Gifford chewed a morsel of meat slowly, swallowed, then said, “He's either going to be a great manâ” He paused, then with a shrug of his narrow shoulders, finished by saying, “He's got the raw material, Edward, but the crucible we're all going to be in soon will test him out.”
“It would kill Gilbert and Humility if he failed,” Edward remarked with sadness in his old eyes. “He's all that's left of the House of Winslow, isn't he? If he goes down, it'll be like there never were any of us.”
“No! He won't go down!” Pastor Gifford said suddenly, his usually mild expression twisted to an explosive anger. “This king may think to wipe us out, but he shall not do it, not by all that's holy! You and I have fought, but we are old.
It'll be young men like your nephew who'll have to stand in the gap this time!”
“Amen!” Edward Winslow agreed loudly. Then he looked at the door and said in a prayerful whisper, “Amen!”
The tiny house on the edge of town was like a doll's house, having only one room for cooking, dining, eating, and studying, and one small room no more than eight feet square for sleeping. It had been used by one of the deacons, Matthew Prince, as a storage shed for his blacksmithing equipment, but he had agreed to rent it to the newlyweds very cheaply.
It had been a delightful game for the pair, cleaning out the rooms, finding a few pieces of furniture and fitting them into every possible location. They set up housekeeping with a wedding gift from Edward Winslow, a small bag of gold sovereigns. “If it hadn't been for your uncle Edward, we'd be roosting on a tree!” Lydia had laughed once as they tried to put a sideboard along a wall that was only two inches longer than the massive piece of oak furniture.
He had dropped the end he was struggling with, picked her up in his arms and covered her face with kisses, crying out, “I'd rather have a woman like you roosting in a tree than any other in a castle!”
“Matthew!” she had cried, but there was a look of intense satisfaction in her dark eyes as she pretended to pout. She had always been a romantic girlâfar too much so for her aunt's tastes. Perhaps it was the French blood. In any case, she had somehow been able to maintain a balance between an inner life alive with imagination and the rigid creed and austere practices of the Pilgrim way. She had learned while very young to act out little dramas she made up only when alone, but even when she ceased to pantomime such things, she kept up a lively imagination.
Those little dramas had been buried deep inside, but she had learned almost at once that the man she had married was at
least
as romantic as she, although he denied it vehemently.
To outsiders, Matthew and Lydia seemed a rather conventional young married couple. She tended her tiny house, sewed, cooked, and sat demurely by her tall, handsome husband through the four-hour sermons, and he went faithfully to work with the dusty books of Asa Goodman, looking as solemn as a deacon.
But when they were alone in their snug cottage, their behavior would have been a scandal to the neighbors, not to mention the deacons and pastors! They both had playful minds, and their verbal give-and-take, puns and jokes that would have been meaningless to anyone else, was a source of constant delight to both of them.
Even now as he walked to the door and stepped inside, his heart beat a little faster at the thought of her. She met him at once, throwing her arms around him and pulling his head down for a kiss. They stood there for a long moment, savoring each other. Then he stepped back and pulled the letter from his pocket. “Uncle Edward is back. He brought a letter from Father.”
She read it quickly, then looked up with apprehension. “It sounds very serious.”
“I think it is. Father isn't given to idle words.”
She bit her lower lip, then said quietly, “You feel very bad, don't you?”
“I ... wish we could have gone home.” Then seeing her face grow tense, he took her in his arms and added, “Now, don't you fret, Princess. It just couldn't be.”
“Do you think we should go now?”
He released her and sat down on the single bench in the room. “Uncle Edward and Pastor Gifford say we should go. Not just because of Mother's illness, but they think there's going to be hard times for all of us.”
She nodded and sat down next to him. Taking his hand in hers, she spoke softly. “And what do you say, dear?”
He shook his head stubbornly, an expression she had
learned to recognize. “I say we stay here. Where in America is there a man like Pastor Gifford or John Bunyan to sit under?”
“All right, we stay!” she cried out; then she jumped up and ran to the fireplace. “Oh, I've burned the potatoes!”