But though it was hot and dirty labor, it was far manlier than to be ever dandling a baby; so Miles toiled on earnestly, spite of Ned's indolent example, and did not pause even to stretch his cramped legs or straighten his aching back till mid-afternoon. Then he started up at a noise of people hurrying through the street, the sound of a quick footstep, the rattle of the house-door.
"'Tis Master Hopkins has taken his musket and gone forth," spoke Ned, who was lounging farther down the garden. "Somewhat's afoot." Away he went to look into the matter, and Miles ran stiffly after.
Out in the street the men and boys, and even one or two girls, were hastening toward the bluff above the spring. As they went, a confused talking spread among them, from which Miles learned that yonder, on the great wooded hill across the brook, Indians had been seen,--Indians who brandished their bows and whetted their arrows in defiance. Captain Standish and Master Hopkins and two men from the _Mayflower_ had gone down to cross the brook and parley with them. Look, yonder they went now!
From where the company had halted, high up beyond Goodman Cooke's cottage, Miles could see the bright river and the hill opposite, thick with unleaved woods. Up its base wound slowly the little band of Englishmen, now half-screened, now wholly visible; but Miles looked from them, higher up the slope, where the bare branches were agitated, as if something moved among them. "'Tis the savages!" said one; but, strain his eyes as he would, Miles saw through the bushes only the sad-colored English doublets.
Yet, with an anxiety he scarcely comprehended, the men lingered on the bluff, watching and discussing in grave tones, till the Captain and his followers came toilsomely up the path from the spring. They had seen naught; the savages had not suffered them draw nigh them, Captain Standish explained, so briefly that he seemed curt, while his puckered brows still were bent on the slope whence the Indians had sent their defiance.
Slowly the little group of curious and troubled people scattered, some of the weightier ones to speak with the Governor and the Captain, others to simpler tasks. Miles went back to his garden, but the sunlight had now left that corner of the yard. The great hill, where stood the guns, looked black against the sky, and there seemed in all out-of-doors a menace that made him glad at dusk to get within the house. Throughout supper the men kept from speaking of the savages with an elaborateness that made their silence the more suspicious, and the unspoken anxiety wrought on Miles till at bedtime he smuggled Trug into the chamber and made the dog lie near him.