Soldier Rigdale

Soldier Rigdale - How He Sailed in the Mayflower and How He Served Miles Standish by Beulah Marie Dix. WITH the approach of sunset, the wind that all day had ruffled the waves to white edges died down, till there was left on the water only a long, heaving motion, that rudely swayed the old ship Mayflower. One moment from her broad deck could be seen the steel-like gleam of the fresh-water pond on the distant beach; the next moment, as the ship rolled between the waves, the shore presented nothing but solid sand dunes and shrubby pine trees. But always overhead the sky, athwart which the yards, bulging with the furled sails, were raking, remained the same,—a level reach of thick gray that, as twilight drew on, seemed to brood closer over earth and ocean.. How those yards seesawed up and down with the rolling of the ship, and the mastheads, they dipped too, quite as if they might pitch down upon a body! Miles Rigdale, standing with legs craftily planted and head thrown well back, stared and stared at their measured movement till, dizzy with the feeling that the great spars were tottering loose, he was glad to straighten his aching neck once more.. "Did you see a goose, all roasted, flying for your mouth?" Francis Billington called from the waist of the ship, where he perched jauntily upon the bulwark.. Sauntering from his place near the companion way, Miles halted beside the speaker; not that he had a great liking for Francis Billington, but he was a sociable lad, who must talk to some one, and, as the bleak air had driven the women and children into the great cabin, while the men were absent,—the leaders conferring in the roundhouse and the lesser men seeking firewood on shore,—he could for the moment find no comrade save young Billington.