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+The Project Gutenberg eBook, Standish of Standish, by Jane G. Austin
+
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+
+
+
+Title: Standish of Standish
+       A story of the Pilgrims
+
+
+Author: Jane G. Austin
+
+
+
+Release Date: July 12, 2007  [eBook #22052]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+
+***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK STANDISH OF STANDISH***
+
+
+E-text prepared by Susan Carr, Suzanne Shell, and the Project Gutenberg
+Online Distributed Proofreading Team (http://www.pgdp.net)
+
+
+
+Transcriber's note:
+
+   Inconsistencies in hyphenation have been maintained. Archaic
+   usage of words such as "salvage" for "savage" and "randevous"
+   for "rendezvous" have been maintained. Several misprints and
+   punctuation errors have been corrected. A list of corrections
+   can be found at the end of the text.
+
+
+
+
+
+STANDISH OF STANDISH
+
+A Story of the Pilgrims
+
+by
+
+Jane G. Austin
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+By Jane G. Austin
+
+STANDISH OF STANDISH. A Novel. 16mo, $1.25.
+
+BETTY ALDEN. A Novel. 16mo, $1.25.
+
+A NAMELESS NOBLEMAN. A Novel. 16mo, $1.25; paper, 50 cents.
+
+DR. LE BARON AND HIS DAUGHTERS. A Novel. 16mo, $1.25.
+
+THE DESMOND HUNDRED. A Novel. 16mo, $1.00; paper, 50 cents.
+
+NANTUCKET SCRAPS. Being the Experiences of an Off-Islander In Season and
+Out of Season. 16mo, $1.50.
+
+HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN & COMPANY, on and New York.
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+STANDISH OF STANDISH
+
+A Story of the Pilgrims
+
+by
+
+JANE G. AUSTIN
+
+Author of "A Nameless Nobleman," "The Desmond Hundred," "Mrs. Beauchamp
+Brown," "Nantucket Scraps," "Moon Folk," Etc., Etc.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+Boston and New York Houghton, Mifflin and Company The Riverside Press,
+Cambridge 1892
+
+Copyright, 1889,
+by Jane G. Austin.
+All rights reserved
+
+Eleventh Edition.
+
+The Riverside Press, Cambridge, Mass., U. S. A.
+Electrotyped and Printed by H. O. Houghton & Co.
+
+
+
+
+
+Dedication.
+
+
+TO THE MEMORY OF MY DEAR BROTHER,
+
+JOHN A. GOODWIN,
+
+WHO MORE THAN ANY MAN HAS CONSERVED FOR OUR DELIGHT THE STORY OF THOSE
+PILGRIM FATHERS "WITHOUT WHOSE LIVES OURS HAD NOT BEEN."
+
+
+
+
+
+A PREFATORY NOTE.
+
+The history of the Old Colony includes, among some very stern facts, a
+deal of sweet and tender romance, hitherto hardly known except to those
+who have learned it at their mother's knee.
+
+But in these days many persons seem disposed to pause for a moment in
+the eager race after the golden fruits of the Pilgrims' husbandry, and
+to look curiously back at the spot where the seed was sown.
+
+To such I offer this story of Myles Standish,
+The-Sword-of-the-White-Men, the hero, who not for gain, not from
+necessity, not even from religious zeal, but purely in the knightly
+fervor of his blood, forsook home, and heritage, and glory, and
+ambition, to company that helpless band of exiles, and to be the
+Great-Heart of their Pilgrimage to the City that they sought.
+
+To such students I will promise that they shall not be misled as to
+facts, though these be strung upon a slender thread of romance; and I
+will beg them to ground themselves well upon the solid Pilgrim Rock,
+that they may the better understand the story of Lazarus LeBaron, son of
+A Nameless Nobleman, to be offered them in due time, unless Time shall
+be no more for the Author.
+
+Boston, _October_, 1889. JANE G. AUSTIN.
+
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS.
+
+
+                CHAPTER                                    PAGE
+
+  I.            The Battle of the Tubs                        1
+  II.           The Launch of the Pinnace                    19
+  III.          The Sword of Standish                        27
+  IV.           The Lilies of France                         41
+  V.            An Awful Danger                              54
+  VI.           The First Encounter                          63
+  VII.          Clarke's Island                              73
+  VIII.         Burying Hill                                 86
+  IX.           Rose                                         94
+  X.            A Terrible Night                            104
+  XI.           The Colonists of Cole's Hill                115
+  XII.          The Headless Arrow                          134
+  XIII.         The Captain's Promotion                     141
+  XIV.          Second Marriages                            151
+  XV.           Samoset                                     164
+  XVI.          Priscilla Molines' Letter                   176
+  XVII.         An International Treaty                     184
+  XVIII.        The Last Link Broken                        197
+  XIX.          Sowed and Reaped in One Day                 205
+  XX.           Funeral-baked Meats and Marriage Feasts     213
+  XXI.          An Affair of Honor                          224
+  XXII.         The Captain's Pipe                          236
+  XXIII.        "Speak for Yourself, John!"                 243
+  XXIV.         The Mysterious Grave                        253
+  XXV.          A Little Discipline                         266
+  XXVI.         The First Thanksgiving Day of New England   276
+  XXVII.        A Love Philtre                              288
+  XXVIII.       Philip De La Noye                           296
+  XXIX.         Keeping Christmas                           311
+  XXX.          A Soldier's Instinct                        319
+  XXXI.         A Pot of Broth                              343
+  XXXII.        The Sunset Gun                              351
+  XXXIII.       Pecksuot's Knife                            356
+  XXXIV.        The Wolf at the Door                        370
+  XXXV.         The Brides' Ship                            376
+  XXXVI.        Marriage Bells                              385
+  XXXVII.       "And to be Wroth with one we Love!"         395
+  XXXVIII.      Barbara                                     406
+  XXXIX.        A Military Wedding                          416
+  XL.           "Parting is such Sweet Sorrow!"             420
+
+
+
+
+
+STANDISH OF STANDISH.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+THE BATTLE OF THE TUBS.
+
+
+It was Monday morning.
+
+It was also the twenty-third day of November in the year of our Lord
+1620; but this latter fact was either unknown or matter of profound
+indifference to the two-and-twenty women who stood ready to make the day
+memorable in the world's history, while the fact of Monday was to them
+one of paramount importance.
+
+Do you ask why this was thus?
+
+The answer is duplex: first, the two-and-twenty women were not aware of
+their own importance, nor could guess that History would ever concern
+herself with the date of their present undertaking; and second, for a
+reason whose roots are prehistoric, for they spring from the
+unfathomable depths of the feminine soul wherein abides inherently the
+love of purity, of order, and of tradition. Yes, in two hundred and
+seventy years the face of Nature, of empires, and of peoples has changed
+almost beyond recognition in this our New World; but the grand law at
+whose practical establishment in the New World we now assist, abides
+to-day:--
+
+Monday is Washing Day.
+
+Does some caviler here suggest that although the human female soul is
+embodied in the children of Ham, Shem, and Japhet, the mighty law
+referred to is binding only upon that Anglo-British-Saxon-Norman
+division of Japhet's daughters domiciled in and emanating from the
+British Isles? Let us proudly reply that in considering the result of a
+process we consider the whole; and let us meekly add that to our mind
+the Anglo-British-Saxon-Norman woman, perfected under an American sky,
+is the woman of the world; and finally, let us point to the
+two-and-twenty heroines of that Monday as chief among American women,
+for they were the Pilgrim Mothers of the New World.
+
+The Pilgrim Fathers were there also; and they, too, were exemplifying a
+law of nature, that is to say, a law of male nature in every clime and
+every age. They did not love Washing Day. They felt no joy in the
+possibility of its observance, they felt no need of its processes. And
+yet again _more humano_, they did not openly set themselves against it,
+they did not frankly express their unworthy content in their present
+estate, but they feebly suggested that as the observance had been some
+weeks omitted, with no sensible loss of comfort to themselves, it might
+well be farther postponed; that the facilities were by no means
+remarkable; that rain was very possible, and that they had to apply
+themselves without delay to unshipping the pinnace from the hold of the
+Mayflower, and fitting her for the immediate service of exploration.
+
+To these arguments the women meekly responded that in the nature of
+things they were better fitted to judge of the emergency than their
+lords, whose attention must be absorbed in matters of so much higher
+import; that they did not require the help of any man whose work upon
+the pinnace would be at all important, and that the sandy beach, the
+pool of fresh water, and the clumps of stunted shrubs fairly spread upon
+the shore in front of them were all the facilities they required. As for
+the weather, as Dame Hopkins piously remarked:--
+
+"If Monday's weather be not fit for washing, there is no promise in Holy
+Writ of anything better in the rest of the week."
+
+"Oh, if thou r't bent on washing, the shrewdest storm that ever swept
+the Zuyder Zee will never stop thee; so get thy rags together as soon as
+may be," growled her husband, a grizzled, hard-visaged veteran some
+twenty years older than this his second wife of whom he was very fond.
+
+"Nay, then," interposed another voice, as a shrewd, kindly looking man,
+albeit with a certain whimsical cast to his thin features, approached
+the pair; "Mistress Hopkins will do no washing to-day; no, nor even go
+on shore to gather chill and weariness for my little friend Oceanus."
+
+"'Will not,' shall not? Marry and who is to hinder, if you please, good
+Master Fuller?" asked the young woman in a somewhat shrewish voice.
+
+"I, Samuel Fuller, Licentiate of Cambridge, late practitioner of
+Bartlemy's Hospital, London, and your medical adviser, madam," replied
+the doctor with a dry smile and mocking bow. "Recall, if you please,
+that Oceanus is not yet a fortnight old, and that both mother and child
+are still my responsibility. Would you ruin my reputation, madam, not to
+mention risking your own life and the boy's?"
+
+"Have a care, Doctor, or some fine day you'll trip in your own quips,
+and break your neck," replied Mistress Hopkins half sullenly, while her
+husband cried,--
+
+"He's right there, Bess. Thou 'rt in no case for such rough sport as
+this is like to prove, and thou 'lt stay aboard whoever goes ashore."
+
+"Yes, stay thou aboard and mind thy babe, and I'll take thy clothes
+along with my own, so thou 'lt let Constance come to help me," suggested
+the somewhat coarse voice of a woman standing by.
+
+"Thank you kindly, goodwife Billington," replied Elizabeth Hopkins
+coldly. "But Alice Rigdale hath already promised to do what is needed,
+and Constance must stay with me to mind Damaris and Oceanus."
+
+"Oh, if goodwife Rigdale has taken it in hand, I will step back,"
+replied Mistress Billington sharply; and as she descended the
+companion-way, Hopkins muttered in his wife's ear,--
+
+"Now thou showest some sense, wench. The least thou hast to do with the
+Billington brood the better I'll be pleased."
+
+"That's worth working for, surely," retorted his wife, tossing her head
+pettishly.
+
+"I tell you there's no boat to be spared, and no man to row it, and I'll
+have naught to say to it," exclaimed a surly voice from the
+companion-way, and Captain Thomas Jones, master of the Mayflower, but
+not of the Pilgrims, appeared on deck.
+
+Captain Jones was not an amiable man, his training as buccaneer and
+slaver having possibly blunted his finer feelings, and his consciousness
+of present treachery probably increasing the irritability often
+succeeding to a murdered conscience.
+
+Such as he was, however, this man was the Inventor of Plymouth Rock,
+since by his collusion with the Dutch who wished to keep the profits of
+their Manhattan Colony to themselves, the Mayflower had found it
+impossible to make her way southward around Cape Cod, and after nearly
+going to wreck upon the shoals off Malabar, or Tucker's Terror had been
+driven within the embrace of the curving arm thrown out by the New World
+to welcome and shelter the homeless children of the Old. There she lay
+now, the weather-beaten, clumsy, strained, and groaning old bark whose
+name is glorious in the annals of our country while Time shall endure,
+and whose merest splinter would to-day be enshrined in gold; there she
+lay swinging gently to the send of the great Atlantic whose waves broke
+sonorously upon the beach outside, and came racing around the point a
+flood of shattered and harmless monsters, moaning and hissing, to find
+their prey escaped and safely landlocked.
+
+"There's no boat, I say, and there's an end on 't," repeated Master
+Jones truculently as he stepped on deck, and two men who had been
+earnestly conversing at the stern of the brig turned round and came
+toward him. They were John Carver, already governor of the colony, and
+William Bradford, his lieutenant and successor. The governor was the
+first to speak, and the somewhat measured accents of his voice, with its
+inflections at once kindly and haughty, told of gentle breeding, of a
+calm and dignified temper, and of an aptness at command.
+
+"And why no boat, Master Jones?" asked he quietly. "Methought by the
+terms of our agreement you were to aid us in every way in making our
+settlement."
+
+"And I'm not going back of my word, am I, master?" demanded Jones
+peevishly. "A pack of wenches going ashore with tubs and kettles and
+bales and such gear is not a settlement, is it?"
+
+"Nay, but a means thereto if haply they find the place convenient,"
+replied Carver pleasantly. "At any rate, we will send them, since it has
+been promised, and the same boat will serve to transport them with their
+gear that is already fitted to help us ashore with the pinnace."
+
+"And our own men will do all that is required in lading and rowing the
+boat," added Bradford in his mild, persuasive voice. Jones, overborne by
+a calm authority against which he could not bluster, turned on his heel
+muttering some surly assent. Carver slightly smiled as he watched the
+square and clumsy form expressing in every line of its back the futile
+rage of an overborne coward, and, turning toward the companion way, he
+called,--
+
+"Howland, John Howland, a word with thee!"
+
+"Ay, sir," replied a blithe young voice; and presently a handsome head
+of pure Saxon type, as indeed were both Bradford's and Carver's,
+appeared above the hatchway, and a strong young fellow swinging himself
+upon deck approached the governor, saying apologetically,--
+
+"I was helping to get out the pinnace, and there is a mort of dust and
+dirt about her."
+
+"I'll give thee a pleasanter task, John," replied Carver, smiling
+affectionately upon his young retainer. "Thou and John Alden and Gilbert
+Winslow shall take charge of the women who fain would go ashore to wash
+their clothes. They will use the boat already lying alongside, and thou
+hadst better advise with Mistress Brewster for the rest. I leave it all
+with you twain."
+
+"I will do my best, sir," replied Howland with a smile that showed his
+short, strong teeth and made his blue eyes twinkle pleasantly; then
+returning to the hatchway he called down,--
+
+"Ho, Alden! You're wanted, man, and so is Gilbert Winslow."
+
+"He's not here, then," responded a heavier voice, as a splendid young
+giant swung himself up on deck and ran his fingers through a shock of
+curling chestnut hair; a glorious youth, six feet and over in his hose
+of hodden gray, with the shoulders and sinews of an athlete, and the
+calm, strong face of an Egyptian god.
+
+"What is it, John?" asked he, fixing his dark eyes upon Howland with the
+affectionate gladness one reads in the eyes of a dog called to his
+master's side, but of which few human natures are capable.
+
+"Why, Jack, thou and I and Gilbert Winslow are appointed squires of
+dames to some of the women who would fain go ashore to wash clothes, and
+we are to pack them into yonder boat, row them ashore, and then purvey
+wood, water, and such like for them."
+
+"I'd liefer haul out the pinnace," replied Alden with a grimace. "But
+your will is mine."
+
+"Nay, the governor's will is thine and mine, and it is he set us this
+task. Where is Winslow?"
+
+"In the cabin belike, chatting with Mary Chilton. It's the work he best
+loves," replied Alden grimly. "But I'll find him."
+
+"And some of the boys, Jack," suggested Howland, as the younger man
+turned away. "Bart Allerton and Love Brewster, Giles Hopkins and
+Crakstone and Cooke, any of the lads that you fall foul of, except the
+Billingtons,--of them I'll have none."
+
+"And why not the Billingtons, worshipful Master Howland, lackey of the
+governor, and page-boy to his wife," demanded the voice that had
+interrupted Mistress Hopkins, and turning toward it, Howland confronted
+a short, square woman, not without a certain vulgar comeliness of her
+own, although now her buxom complexion was florid with anger and her
+black eyes snapping angrily, while the arms akimbo, the swaying figure,
+and raised voice betrayed Helena Billington for precisely what she was,
+a common scold and shrew. Howland was a brave man; he had already showed
+both strength and prowess when, washed overboard in a "seel" of the
+ship, and carried fathoms deep in mid-ocean, he caught the
+topsail-halyards swept over with him and clung to them until he was
+rescued in spite of the raging wind and waves that repeatedly dragged
+him under; nor in the face of savage foe, or savage beast, or peril by
+land or sea, was John Howland ever known less than the foremost; but now
+in face of this angry woman he found naught to say, and blushing and
+stammering and half laughing fairly turned and ran away, springing up
+the stairs to the elevated deck cabins, in one of which Elder Brewster
+and his family had their lodging.
+
+Mistress Brewster, a pale, sweet-faced woman, already at fifty-four
+dressing and behaving as the venerable mother in Israel, came forward to
+meet him, and smiling indulgently asked,--
+
+"Now what hast thou done to goodwife Billington, thou naughty lad? I
+hear thy name in her complaint, and indeed all the company can hear it,
+if they will."
+
+"I did but say I would none of her boys in my party, dear Mistress
+Brewster, and I hope you'll say so too," replied Howland, uncovering
+his yellow head. "They are the greatest marplots and scapegraces"--
+
+"Nay, nay, John! Say no evil, or thou 'lt make me think thou hast
+'scaped grace thyself," suggested the elder's wife with her gentle
+smile. "And prithee, what is thy party? Are my boys bidden, or must they
+e'en bide with the Billingtons?"
+
+"The party is your party, dear dame, for the governor sent me to ask
+your commands upon it, and if Love and Wrestling will give us such aid
+as their years allow, I shall be most grateful."
+
+And then in simple phrase Howland repeated the governor's instructions,
+and requested those of the dame, who at once convened an informal
+council of matrons, and so well advised them that in a scant hour the
+clumsy boat, rolling and bumping against the side of the brig, was laden
+with bales of clothing, tubs whose hoops John Alden, a cooper by trade,
+was hurriedly overlooking, and sundry great brass and copper kettles,
+household necessities of that epoch, and descending as relics to us who
+look upon them with respectful wonder as memorial brasses of the "giants
+of those days."
+
+A flock of women, all demurely and plainly dressed, although the most of
+them were under thirty years of age, stood waiting at the head of the
+ladder until the cargo was stored, and Howland, sending his assistants
+back on deck, planted himself upon the gunwale of the boat, and holding
+out his hand to a stout, solid-looking woman with a young girl beside
+her said,--
+
+"Mistress Tilley, you had best come first, for you will be apt at
+helping the others, as I hand them down. And thou, too, Elizabeth, if
+thou wilt."
+
+"And Constance Hopkins and Remember Allerton," pleaded the girl,
+lifting a sweet, saucy face to the young man; "we never are separated,
+for we're all of an age, all going on sixteen you know."
+
+"Hush, Bess, thou 'rt malapert," chided her mother, descending heavily
+into the boat, while a mutinous young voice above called out,--
+
+"Nay, I'm not going. Stepmother won't spare me."
+
+"Now Constance Hopkins, thou naughty hussy, wilt thou grumble at
+tarrying with me to care for thine own dear sister and brother? Fie on
+thee, girl!"
+
+"They're not my own," grumbled Constance in Remember Allerton's ear.
+"Giles is my own brother and he is to go, and Damaris and Oceanus are
+but half sister and brother, and she's but my stepmother."
+
+"Hush, now, or she'll hear and thou 'lt come by a whipping," whispered
+Remember hastily, as Dame Hopkins turned from Mistress Winslow who had
+spoken to her, and came toward the girls. "I'll stay aboard with thee,
+Constance, and help thee with the babies."
+
+"Thou 'rt a dear good wench and I love thee," replied Constance in the
+same tone, and, as the stepmother placed the muffled baby in her arms,
+she took him without comment, and went below followed by Elizabeth
+Tilley.
+
+Two trips of the capacious boat sufficed to carry women, clothes,
+utensils, and assistants across the three quarters of a mile of shallow
+water lying between the brig and the shore, and the boys who went in the
+first boat were at once set to work to gather dry stuff from the
+thickets of scrub oak and pine sparsely clothing the beach, and to build
+several fires along the margin of a large pool or perhaps pond of fresh
+water divided from the harbor by a narrow beach of firm white sand.
+Beach and pond have long since been devoured by the hungry sea, but
+stumps of good-sized trees are still dug from the dreary sands
+environing Provincetown, to show what once has been.
+
+The second boat-load arrived, and by help of Alden's stalwart arm,
+Howland's cool decision and prompt action, and Winslow's quick eye and
+ready aid to any woman needing assistance, the apparatus was soon
+adjusted, and a dozen pairs of strong white arms were plunged in the
+suds, or throwing the clothes into the great caldrons bubbling over the
+fires which the boys gayly replenished.
+
+Not all the women of the Mayflower were thus engaged, however, for
+several were delicate in health, and several others had servants who
+took this ungentle labor upon themselves; but those who did not labor
+with their hands felt no superiority, and those who did had no shame in
+so doing; and although the manners of the day inculcated a certain
+deference of manner and speech from the lower rank to the higher, and
+from youth to age, the very fact that every one of these persons had
+abandoned home and friends and comfort that they might secure liberty,
+induced a sense of self respect and respect for others, which is the
+very root and basis of a true republic. Thus Katharine Carver, wife of
+the governor, daughter of Bishop White, and sister of Robinson, the
+pastor of the community left behind in Leyden, although she sent her
+maid Lois, and her man-servant Roger Wilder, to do the required work,
+came ashore with the rest, and by a touch here and a word there, and her
+interest and sympathy, took her part in the labor of the whole, and
+delicate woman and well-born lady though she was, made each of those
+hard-working sisters feel that it was only her weakness, and not her
+station, that prevented her doing all that they did. "Eleven o' the
+clock," said John Alden, as the Mayflower's cracked bell told six hoarse
+strokes. "They said they'd bring our dinner ashore for us," and he
+looked wistfully toward the ship.
+
+"Who said?" asked Howland; "for I've more faith in some say-sos than in
+some others."
+
+"Well, if I remember, 't was Mistress Molines who told me," replied
+Alden carefully careless.
+
+"Oh, ay," assented Howland, his blue eyes twinkling. "But I thought she
+was ill, poor woman."
+
+"Nay, I meant Mistress Priscilla Molines," retorted the giant, blushing.
+"She said somewhat to me of an onion soup which she flavors marvelously
+well."
+
+"Ah, yes, onion soup," retorted Howland gravely. "Methought it must be
+some such moving theme you discussed yester even as you sat on the
+cable. I noted even at that distance the tears in your eyes."
+
+"And if there were tears in mine eyes it is no matter of mocking, for
+Mistress Priscilla was telling me that her mother is sick as she fears
+unto death, and"--
+
+"John Howland, the boat is coming off with the rest of our company and
+noon-meat for us all. Wilt thou and John Alden receive and help them
+ashore, while Gilbert helps us to make ready here?"
+
+"Surely we will, Mistress Carver," replied Howland heartily, for his
+relationship toward the governor and his beautiful wife was rather that
+of a younger brother than of a retainer; and although the smallness of
+his fortune had induced him to accept the patronage of the older and
+wealthier man, it was much as a lad of noble lineage was content a few
+years before this to become first the page and then the squire of a
+belted knight.
+
+The boat, unable to reach the shore on account of the flatness of the
+beach, stuck fast about a bow-shot from dry land, and the men and boys
+at once tumbled over the edge and prepared to carry not only the
+luggage, but the female passengers ashore. Alden seeing this prospect,
+tore off his boots and stockings, and plunging into the chill water
+hastened to the stern of the boat where a slender, vivacious girl,
+brown, dark-eyed, and with cheeks glowing with the dusky richness of a
+peach, stood balancing herself like a bird and giving orders to a young
+man already in the water.
+
+"Now have a care, Robert Cartier, of that kettle. If thou spillst the
+soup"--
+
+"The onion soup, Mistress Priscilla?" asked Alden approaching
+unperceived. Priscilla cast a look at him from the corners of her long
+eyes, and replied carelessly,--
+
+"Yes, Master Alden, an onion soup. Is that a favorite dish with your
+worship?"
+
+"Why, thou knowest,"--began the young man with an air of bewilderment,
+but Priscilla interrupted him.
+
+"Since thou art here with thy broad shoulders, John Alden, thou wilt do
+well to make them of use. There is Mistress Allerton struggling with a
+hamper beyond her strength, and there are bales of clothes that must not
+be wet. Load thyself, good mule, and plod shoreward."
+
+"To be sure I will and gladly, fair mistress," replied Alden patiently.
+"But first let me take thee ashore dry-shod, and then I will bring all
+the rest."
+
+"Beshrew thee for a modest youth," retorted Priscilla, the peach color
+of her cheeks deepening to pomegranate; "when I go ashore I will convey
+myself, or my brother will carry me; and thou, since thou art so
+picksome, may set thyself to work, and ask naught of me."
+
+"But why art thou so tart when I meant naught," began Alden,
+bewildered; but again the girl cut him short with a stinging little
+laugh.
+
+"Thou never meanest aught, poor John; but I have no time to waste with
+thee. Here, Robert, these come next, and take Mistress Allerton's hamper
+as well."
+
+"Nay, that is for me," growled Alden, seizing the basket from the hands
+of the astonished servant who relinquished it with a stare and a
+muttered exclamation in French; for William Molines, called Mullins by
+the Pilgrims, his wife, son, daughter, and servant were all of the
+French Huguenots, who fleeing from their native land planted a colony
+upon the river Waal in Holland, and were at this time known as Walloons.
+Learning enough of Dutch to carry on the business of daily life, and of
+English to communicate with their co-religionists of the Pilgrim church
+in Leyden, they retained French as the dear home language of their
+birth, and the young people, like Priscilla and her brother Joseph, used
+the three languages with equal facility.
+
+A little offended and a good deal puzzled by the change in Priscilla's
+manner since their last interview, Alden devoted himself to unloading
+the boat without again addressing her, until he saw her confide herself
+to the arms of her brother to be taken ashore; then seizing an armful of
+parcels, he strode along close behind the slender stripling whose thews
+and sinews were obviously unequal to his courage, and who floundered
+painfully over the uneven sands. At last he stumbled, recovered himself,
+plunged wildly forward, and fell flat upon his face, while his sister,
+suddenly seized and held aloft in two strong arms, did not so much as
+wet the hem of her garment, until with a few swift strides her rescuer
+set her on dry land and turned to help the boy who came floundering
+after them with a rueful and angry countenance.
+
+"'T was all thy fault, Priscilla," began he. "Twisting and squirming to
+see who was coming after us."
+
+"Nay, 't was the fault of some great monster who came trampling on our
+heels, and making the water wash round my feet. Some whale or griffin
+belike, though he has hid himself again," and the girl affected to shade
+her eyes and scan the sparkling waters, while Alden strode moodily away.
+Priscilla glanced after his retreating figure, and spoke again to her
+brother in a voice whose cooing softness poor John had never heard.
+
+"Thou poor dripping lad! And such a cough as thou hast already! Come
+with me sweetheart, and I'll set thee between two fires, and put my
+duffle cloak about thee, and heat some soup scalding hot. I would I had
+a sup of strong waters for thee--ah yes, I see!"
+
+And hurriedly leading her brother to a sheltered nook between two great
+fires, she cast her cloak over his shoulders, and then sprang up the
+sand-hill with the graceful strength of an antelope to the spot where
+Doctor Fuller stood talking with a man whose appearance demands a word
+of description. Short and square built, the figure bespoke strength and
+long training in athletic exercises, while the haughty set of the head,
+the well-shaped hands and feet, and the clear cut of the features told
+of gentle blood and the habit of predominance. The bare head was covered
+with thick chestnut hair, worn at the temples by pressure of a steel
+cap, and well matched in color by eyes whose strong, stern glances
+carried defeat to the hearts of his savage foes even before his quick
+blows fell. The mouth, firmly closed beneath its drooping moustache, was
+like the eyes, stern and terrible in anger, but like them it was
+capable of a winning sweetness and charm only known to those he loved,
+those he pitied, and to the life-long friends whose loving description
+has come down to us; for this was Myles Standish, the soldier and hero
+of the Pilgrims; their dauntless defender in battle, their gentle nurse
+in illness, their councilor and envoy and shining example in peace; the
+right arm of the colony, its modest commander, and its intelligent
+servant.
+
+As Priscilla approached, the two men ceased their conversation and
+turned toward her, neither of them unconscious of the beauty, grace, and
+vigor which clothed her as a garment, yet each restrained by inborn
+chivalry and respect from expressing his opinion.
+
+"Oh, Doctor, or you, Captain Standish, have either of you a flask of
+strong waters about you? My poor Joseph has fallen in the water, and it
+is so cold, and he has already a cough."
+
+"Yes, we saw him fall. He was overloaded for such a stripling," said the
+doctor, with his dry smile, while Standish, hastily pulling a flask from
+his pocket, said,--
+
+"Here is some well-approved Hollands gin, Mistress Priscilla; and I
+would advise a good draught as soon as may be, and have it heated if it
+may be."
+
+"Here, hand it me. I will go and give my friend Joseph a rating for
+undertaking tasks beyond his strength, though belike the fault was none
+of his!" And the doctor seizing the flask strode down the hill, while
+Priscilla lingered to ask,--
+
+"How doth Mistress Standish find herself to-day? I heard she was but
+poorly."
+
+"Ay, poorly enough," replied the Captain with a shadow chasing the smile
+from his eyes. "She is hardly strong enough for these shrewd winds and
+rough adventures. I had done better to leave her in England until we are
+established somewhere."
+
+"There's more than one in our company, I fear me, that has adventured
+beyond their strength," replied Priscilla sadly, as she remembered her
+mother's hectic flush and wasting strength and her brother's cough.
+
+"A forlorn hope, perhaps, set to garrison this by-corner of the world,
+but not forgotten by the Commander-in-chief, remember that, maid
+Priscilla," said the captain kindly and cheerily. "There in the Low
+Countries our worst trouble was that the home government never backed us
+as they should, and more than once we felt we were forgot and neglected;
+but in the warfare we have to wage here in the wilderness we can never
+fear that."
+
+"Yet soldiers may die at their post here as well as there," said
+Priscilla, turning to go down the hill.
+
+"So long as the work is done it matters little what becomes of the
+soldier," replied Myles briefly, and the two rejoined the group around
+the fires.
+
+Before nightfall the clothes, dried and sweet with the sunshine and pure
+air, were carefully folded into the tubs and kettles, the dinner was
+neatly cleared away, and the whole company in several trips of the boats
+conveyed on board, while the carpenters and their volunteer aids
+remained to work while daylight lasted upon the pinnace, the Pilgrims'
+own craft, intended for exploration along the shore, and for fishing
+when they should have made a settlement.
+
+But Joseph Molines had not shaken off his chill by means of the
+captain's Hollands gin, nor did his mother or Rose Standish find
+themselves better in the evening than they had been in the morning, and
+as the darkness of the November night closed around the lonely bark,
+gaunt shadowy forms, Disease and Famine and Death, seemed shaping
+themselves among the clouds and brooding menacingly over the Forlorn
+Hope, as its soldiers slept or watched beneath.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+THE LAUNCH OF THE PINNACE.
+
+
+"Mary! Mary Chilton! Maid Mary mine!" called Priscilla Molines in her
+clear bird-voice, as she ran down the steps leading to the principal
+cabin. "Come on deck and see the launch of the pinnace! The carpenters
+call her fit for use if not finished, and the men have gone ashore to
+launch her. Where art thou, poppet!"
+
+"Here," replied a gentler and sweeter voice, as Mary Chilton came
+forward, a long gray stocking dangling from her hands, and stood in a
+slant ray of sunshine which lighted her golden hair to a glory, and
+showed the pure tints of her May-bloom face and clear blue eyes; a
+lovely English face in its first fresh rapture of morning beauty.
+
+"Right merrily will I come, Priscilla, if there be aught to see,"
+continued she, throwing down the stocking which she was knitting for her
+father. "Truly my eyes ache with staring at nothingness."
+
+"Well, there's a trifle this side of nothingness on the beach at this
+minute," retorted Priscilla, pinching her friend's ear. "Men call it
+Gilbert Winslow."
+
+"Hush, hush, Priscilla!" whispered Mary, with a scared look toward her
+mother's cabin. "If anybody heard such folly! And Mistress White already
+tells my mother that we two are over-light in our carriage and
+conversation."
+
+"Mistress White"--began Priscilla sharply, but ended the exclamation
+with a saucy laugh and said instead, "Yes, truly as thou sayest, my May,
+mine eyes ache with gazing upon nothingness and my tongue aches with
+speaking naught but wisdom. It is out of nature for young maids to be as
+staid as their elders, and methinks I do not care to be. Let us be young
+while we have youth, say I."
+
+She looked perilously pretty as she arched her brows and pouted her ripe
+lips, and Mary looked at her in loving admiration, while she answered
+sagely,--
+
+"You and yours are French, Priscilla, and I am all English like my
+forbears; so thou mayst well be lighter natured than I--I mean no harm,
+dear."
+
+"No harm is done, dear mother in Israel," replied Priscilla half
+mockingly, and seizing Mary's hand she led her on deck, where many of
+the women and children were collected, watching the preparations on
+shore for the launch of the pinnace, which, much strained by bad stowage
+between decks, had needed about a fortnight's work done upon her before
+she was fit for service.
+
+"They only wait for her to set forth on a second exploration," said
+Priscilla confidentially; "and a little bird sang in my ear that they
+would go to-morrow."
+
+"What little bird?" asked Mary curiously; but before Priscilla could
+reply another voice interposed; it was that of Bridget Tilley, who had
+come on deck to seek her daughter Elizabeth, and now sharply inquired,--
+
+"Another expedition, say you? And my goodman scarce brought back from
+death's door, whither the first jaunt led him! Nay, now, 't is not
+right, 't is all one as murder, to hale dying men out of their beds and
+into that wilderness. No blessing will follow such work, and I'll cry
+upon the governor or the captain or the elder to stop it!"
+
+"What is it, Mistress Tilley? Any wrong that I can help set right?"
+asked a sweet voice, and Bridget turned toward the speaker with a
+somewhat more subdued manner, lowering her voice as she said,--
+
+"Thank you kindly, Mistress Standish, and God be praised that you can be
+on deck; but my matter is this," and again she poured out her anxieties
+and her fears, until Rose Standish, a fair white rose now, and trembling
+in the shrewd autumn air so soon to scatter her petals and bear the pure
+fragrance of her life down through the centuries, until men to-day love
+her whom they never knew, leaned wearily against the bulkhead and
+said,--
+
+"Rest easy, dear dame. Thou 'rt all in the right, and it behooves us to
+protect our lords from their own rash courage, just as it befits their
+courage to protect us against salvages and wild beasts. I will whisper
+in my husband's ear that Master Tilley is all unfit to carry out his own
+brave impulses, and I will conspire with Mistress Carver and Mistress
+Bradford, and, above all, with our dear mother, the elder's wife, that
+each shall make petition to her lord to see that no sick or overborne
+man be allowed to adventure himself on the expedition. Will that satisfy
+thee, dame?"
+
+"Right well, and you are all one with the saints we used to honor,
+though we do know better now."
+
+"'T is the most comfortable promise I've heard in many a day, dear
+Mistress Standish," cried Priscilla vivaciously. "And well do I believe
+that the whispers of the wives are more weighty than the shouts of the
+husbands. I've never proved it myself, being but a maid; yet I have ere
+now marked how the prancing of the noblest steed is full deftly checked
+by a silken rein."
+
+"It were well if a rein were put upon thy tongue, girl," severely
+interposed a comely matron sitting near. "Thou 'rt over forward for thy
+years, Priscilla. Shamefastness and meekness become a maid, and when
+thou knowest more thou 'lt say less."
+
+"Thanks, Mistress White, I will try to profit by your discourse,"
+replied Priscilla demurely; but her tone did not satisfy the matron, who
+sharply rejoined,--
+
+"See that thou do, Mistress Malapert, or I'll ask the elder to deal with
+thee. Here he is now."
+
+And, in fact, Elder Brewster, who had caught the tone of Mistress
+White's voice, drew near to the group, saying pleasantly, "A goodly
+sight yonder, is it not? And how well our strong fellows set their
+shoulders to the toil! What shall we call the pinnace when she is
+launched, Mistress White?"
+
+"Methinks Discretion would be a good name, Elder," replied the lady with
+a glance at the two girls. "Surely, we have room for it in our company."
+
+"Truth, my daughter, and yet to my mind Charity is a sweeter name, and
+one more likely to float us over troubled waters." And the elder's
+pleasant smile disarmed his words of all sting. "Priscilla," continued
+he, turning to the girl, "I hear that thy father keeps his bed to-day,
+and thy mother is but poorly."
+
+"Indeed, sir, they are both in evil case," replied Priscilla sadly.
+"Neither of them has stomach for such food as is at hand, and so they
+weaken daily. John Alden shot some little birds yesterday, and I made
+broth of them, but, saving that, my mother has taken no meat for days."
+
+"I will go and visit them," said the elder, and forgetting the launch he
+had come up to see, he went at once.
+
+"See! See! There she goes!" cried Elizabeth Tilley, as the great boat
+slid gracefully down her ways to the water, dipped her bows deeply, and
+finding her level rode upon an even keel.
+
+"There she goes!" echoed Constance Hopkins and Remember Allerton, who
+with Elizabeth Tilley constituted what may be called the rosebud
+division of the Pilgrim girls, all glowing in the freshness of early
+youth, all comely, strong, and vivacious. Priscilla Molines and Mary
+Chilton with Desire Minter, a distant relative and charge of Governor
+Carver's, made another little group of older girls, and then came the
+young matrons of whom there were many, while Mistress Brewster in the
+dignity of middle life was the recognized head and guide of all.
+
+"Yes, there she goes," cried Priscilla, clapping her hands and dancing
+upon her slender feet. "And Mary," continued she, dropping her voice to
+a whisper, "it was Captain Standish who gave that last mighty shove"--
+
+"Nay, it was John Alden," interrupted Mary innocently.
+
+"I tell thee, girl, it was the captain. John Alden is ever at his elbow
+and striving to imitate him, but our captain is still the leader, and I
+do honour a man who can think as well as do, and act as well as talk. Of
+talkers we have enow, the dear knows; Master Winslow and Master Allerton
+can so argue that they would force you to swear black was white and the
+moon a good Dutch cheese an they chose, and they can lay out work
+marvelously well for others to carry out, but I mark that their own
+hands abide in their pockets for the most part. Then there are plenty of
+strong arms with no head-pieces, like John Alden and your good friend
+Gilbert Winslow and John Howland and"--
+
+"Nay, nay, Priscilla, thou shalt not wrong good men so," interrupted
+Mary, her fair face coloring a little. "The leaders aye must lead, and
+the younger and simpler aye must follow in every community, and I mark
+not that those you flout for speaking so well fail of their share in the
+labor, nor do I think John Alden or the rest would do well to thrust
+their advice upon their betters. At all rates, yon boat had not slid
+down so merrily if John Alden had not put his shoulder to the work."
+
+"Yea, put his shoulder where the captain laid his hand," retorted
+Priscilla with her mocking laugh, and then putting her arm around Mary's
+shoulders, she added affectionately,--
+
+"What a wise little woman thou art, ever looking at both sides of the
+matter while I see but one! And in truth, perhaps, it is better that
+there be these varied excellences, so that all comers may be suited,
+just as thou art fond of porridge while I would liefer have soup."
+
+"And art a rare hand at compounding it," replied Mary admiringly. "How
+Desire Minter smacked her lips over the dish thou gavest her the other
+day."
+
+"That poor Desirée, as my gossip Jeanne De la Noye used to call her! I
+like well to give her some tasty bit, for it makes her so happy at so
+little trouble to myself, since I am ever cooking."
+
+"Dost thou really like cooking, Priscilla; or dost thou do it because
+thou ought, as I do?" asked Mary, who hated the culinary art, and yet
+was called upon to practice it, as were all young women of the day.
+
+"Oh, I love it," replied Priscilla, with enthusiasm. "My mother and my
+grandmother and all my aunts were notable cooks, and in the good old
+days in France before I was born, they say my grandmother's patés and
+conserves and ragouts were famous all through Lyons, where my
+grandfather and his father before him were great silk manufacturers with
+plenty of men and maids and money at their command."
+
+"Ah, Priscilla, thou 'rt hankering after the flesh-pots again! Remember
+Lot's wife!" and Mary laughed, but gently stole a hand into that of
+Priscilla, who pressed it tenderly as she replied,--
+
+"Lot's wife spoiled all her cookery with salt, and I'll at least distill
+none from mine own eyes. How shall I make Robert Cartier know that I
+want him to come aboard and help me with my father's supper?"
+
+"Beckon to John Alden to send him," retorted Mary promptly. Priscilla
+turned and fixed her long dark eyes in mock bewilderment upon the
+other's face.
+
+"And why is it easier to beckon to John Alden than to Robert Cartier,
+thou foolish girl?" asked she.
+
+"Because Robert is only thy father's servant, and John is thine own and
+ever waiting thy command," replied Mary demurely, and Priscilla's rich
+color mounted to her brow as she laughingly retorted,--
+
+"Now, maid Mary, that quip was more like me than thee, and I'll have
+none of it. 'T is for thee to carry the honey-bag to mollify the stings
+my naughty tongue must aye inflict. I would I were not so waspish, Mary
+mine!"
+
+"Thou 'rt naught but what is dear and lovely, and I care for thee beyond
+any man that ever walked, saving my father," cried Mary, pressing close
+to her friend's side.
+
+"Then will I be jealous of Master Chilton," murmured Priscilla, the
+teasing mood again rising to the surface. "For I'll have no rival in thy
+heart, save only Gilbert Winslow, whom I hope not to oust."
+
+"See, there is John Alden steadfastly regarding us," cried Mary, a
+little annoyed. "Point thy finger at Robert as he stands staring at the
+boat, and then beckon. My word for it, John will read the signal
+aright."
+
+"Why, then, so be it, and if Dame White sees me I'll swear 'twas thee,
+Mary," and Priscilla half proudly, half shyly made the signal, which was
+at once understood and acted upon by Alden, who, truth to tell, seldom
+lost sight of Priscilla when in her company. Cartier receiving the
+message waded after a boat just leaving the beach, and came aboard
+dripping wet, an imprudence so common among the younger men of the
+Pilgrims on that flat coast as to become a serious factor in the
+terrible mortality which was to sweep off half their number within a few
+months.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+THE SWORD OF STANDISH.
+
+
+The "little bird," probably John Alden, constant companion of Standish,
+had sung truly in Priscilla's ear of a second exploring party about to
+leave the Mayflower in quest of a favorable site for the town and colony
+the Pilgrims had come forth to found.
+
+To this step they were urged not only by their own wishes, but by the
+importunities of Captain Jones, who having obeyed his Dutch employers
+and brought his passengers to a point well removed from the Virginian or
+Manhattan shores whereon they intended to land, was now only desirous to
+put them ashore almost anywhere, and make sail for England while the
+winter storms held off and his provisions lasted. His own interest,
+therefore, made him zealous in the Pilgrims' service, and so heartily
+had he offered his men, boats, and provisions for the expedition that
+the Pilgrims had made him its leader, some of them still believing in
+his honesty and friendliness, and some others feeling that the surest
+way to effect their plans was to induce the surly commander to make them
+his own. The event proved their shrewdness, for Jones accepted the
+appointment with great satisfaction, and told off ten of his best seamen
+to add to the four-and-twenty sound men who were nearly all that the
+Pilgrims could muster, since, thanks to the secret councils of Rose
+Standish and her associates, all sick or weakly candidates were weeded
+out from the volunteers, and the Tilley brothers, William Molines,
+James Chilton, William White, and several others were kindly bidden to
+remain on board and nurse their strength for the next expedition.
+
+About noon the tide serving, the four-and-thirty adventurers, divided
+between the ship's long-boat and their own pinnace, took the sea in
+teeth of a freezing northeasterly gale, and under low-lying clouds whose
+gray bosoms teemed with snow and sleet.
+
+Thomas English, a mariner engaged as master of the shallop, held the
+helm, while as many willing hands as could grasp the oars pulled lustily
+in the direction of what is now called the Pamet River, a stream
+discovered some days previously by a foot expedition under charge of
+Standish, and considered as a possible seat for their colony. The
+crowded state of the boats and the head wind rendered the sails useless,
+and oars proved inefficient to propel so large a boat as the pinnace,
+while the sea, rapidly rising with the rising wind, broke so dangerously
+over the quarter that English refused to proceed, and it was hastily
+resolved to run into what is now called East Harbor, land the
+passengers, and allow the long-boat to return to the ship, while the
+pinnace lay to until the gale moderated. This was done, but owing to the
+shoals, the men were obliged to wade knee-deep to reach land, and the
+cold was now so intense that their clothes froze upon them as they
+resumed their journey on foot. Well may we believe what William Bradford
+later said: "Some of our people who are dead took the original of their
+death on that day."
+
+Marching six or seven miles on foot, the party encamped, building a
+barricade, or as they called it a "randevous," of pine boughs to protect
+them from savage beasts or men, and within it kindling a fire beside
+which they sat down to eat such provisions as they had brought, and to
+solace themselves with modest draughts of the strong waters they used
+but not abused.
+
+The next day the exploration was continued both by sea and land, the
+hardy adventurers marching through snow six inches deep, or upon the
+loose sands of the beach where the wind flogged them with lashes of icy
+spray and stinging shards. In passing through a belt of woods traces of
+human presence were to be seen, especially certain young trees bent down
+and their tops made fast to the earth. Stepping aside to examine one of
+these, William Bradford suddenly found his leg inclosed in a noose,
+while the tree, released and springing upward, would have carried him
+ignominiously with it had not he seized the trunk of another sapling,
+and lustily shouted for help. His comrades came running back, and not
+without laughter and some grim pleasantries released him. Stephen
+Hopkins alone understood the trap, and cutting from it a piece of smooth
+fine cord twisted of wood fibres handed it to Bradford, saying,--
+
+"Here, man, keep it by way of horn-book to teach thee wood-lore in these
+salvage countries. It is the moral of what we used to see among the
+Bermoothes some ten years gone by. Ay, and the traps too. I've seen many
+a wild thing, deer or what not, jerked up by the leg and hanging from a
+tree like Absalom, until its master came along to cut its throat and
+dress it, as it hung."
+
+"Glad am I that no such master came to release me," said Bradford
+laughing ruefully as he rubbed his leg and limped along.
+
+"So thou wert in the Bermudas, Hopkins?" asked Standish who was of the
+walking party; "wast buccaneering?"
+
+"Nay, Captain, all men do not follow thy trade," replied Hopkins with
+his boisterous laugh. "Mine was quite another office, for I was
+lay-reader to Parson Buck, and he was chaplain to Gates who was to be
+governor of a Virginia colony an' he could have reached it. But like our
+own adventure it miscarried, and we were wrecked on the Bermoothes. We
+abode there six months, and the Indians showed us how to trap deer just
+as Bradford was trapped but now, ho, ho!"
+
+"Lay-reader wast thou?" asked Standish surveying the burly veteran with
+whimsical interest. "Well, now, I'd never take thee for a parson's
+lieutenant, Hopkins! I can hardly fancy thee meek and mild with bands
+under that unkempt beard, and a gown over thy buff jacket. Wert meek and
+mild in those days, Hopkins, and thy tongue, was 't innocent of strange
+oaths?"
+
+"A truce to thy jibes, master Captain," retorted Hopkins not half
+pleased at receiving the jests he so freely offered. "If thou didst but
+know, my voice was more for war than peace, sith it seemed to me then
+even as it did before we landed here, that an expedition gone astray is
+an expedition ended, and that all compacts cease when their conditions
+cannot be fulfilled. We shipped to go to Virginia, and Gates was to be
+our governor; well and good, but here we were wrecked on Bermuda, and my
+rede was that every man was thus released from his promises and free to
+set forth anew for himself."
+
+"So! Yonder threatening on the Mayflower was not thy first experience in
+raising sedition and discontent, and trying to turn a God-fearing
+community into a nest of pirates!" exclaimed Standish scornfully.
+"Well, what came of it in that instance?"
+
+"Why, Gates called a court-martial, tried me for treason by an authority
+I denied, and sentenced me to death."
+
+"Ay, and what then?"
+
+"Then Parson Buck who could ill spare me, since I writ half his
+discourses, and the admiral who would not see murder done under cloak of
+law, they went to Gates and so wrought upon his temper that he set me
+free and bade me begone, and I went right merrily."
+
+"Thou mindst me of an officer under me, down there by Utrecht," said
+Standish meditatively. "He, too, was for setting up every man for
+himself in the plunder of a village we had taken, and I had given orders
+about."
+
+"And what became of him?" asked Hopkins, as the captain seemed to have
+finished.
+
+"Oh, there was no parson just there to make use of him, and no admiral
+to judge about my authority, and he was shot," replied Standish quietly.
+Hopkins scowled and laid his hand upon his sword hilt, but Bradford, who
+had listened with both interest and amusement to the conversation,
+deftly interposed with some question about the route, and Hopkins, who
+prided himself upon his wood-lore, took the lead, and conducted the
+party by the easiest route to the spot where they would rejoin their
+brethren of the boat.
+
+The Pamet River, reached at length, proved unsatisfactory for a
+settlement, but at its mouth were found sundry matters of interest,--the
+remains of a palisade formed apparently by civilized hands, the ruins of
+a log hut, quite different from the wigwams of the savages, and a large
+mound which when opened proved full of Indian corn, some shelled, some
+on the ear, the yellow kernels variegated with red and blue ones, like
+the maize still grown in that vicinity. The snow upon the ground would
+have concealed this "barn," as rustic John Rigdale called it, had not
+the previous expedition noted and marked it, and the ground was so hard
+frozen that it must be hewed with the stout cutlasses and axes of the
+Pilgrims, and the clods pried up with levers. Standish drew his sword
+with the rest, but after watching for a moment thrust it back into the
+sheath, saying to Alden who as usual was close beside him,--
+
+"Nay, I'll none of it! What mine own thews and sinews may compass, I'll
+undertake right joyfully, but I'll never ask Gideon to risk his edge or
+his backbone in such rude labors as yon. Every man to his trade, and
+these are the sappers and miners with whom he has no concern."
+
+"Is Gideon the name of your sword then, Master?" asked Alden half
+timidly, for Standish had the habit of command and was impatient of much
+questioning.
+
+Alden however was a favorite, and the captain, like a lover, was won by
+the admiring glance the young man threw at the sword, as its owner
+unsheathed it and laid the blade fondly across his palm.
+
+"Why ay," replied he smiling down at it, "I have christened him so; but
+methinks, like other converts, he finds the new name sit uneasily at
+times, and would fain hear the old one."
+
+"And what might that be?"
+
+"Ah, that is what no man alive can tell. He who forged it of that rare
+metal which now and again falls from the skies, and he who first
+wielded and named it, have lain in the dust well nigh a thousand years,
+if old tales be true."
+
+"A thousand years! But what is its story,--if you will tell it, Master
+Standish?" and the young man's face grew bright with excitement as he
+glanced from the soldier's face to the blade glittering across his palm,
+and seeming to laugh in the wintry sunshine.
+
+"Well, it was an old armorer in Ghent for whom I had done some service
+in protecting his daughter and saving some mails which my men would have
+plundered, and the old man was more grateful than need be, and came one
+night to my lodgings bringing this sword wrapped in his mantle, to offer
+me as a gift, for he said he would not sell it, valuing it above all
+price."
+
+"And still you would have him take a price," suggested Alden exultantly,
+but Standish answered gently,--
+
+"Nay, John, that is but poor pride that cannot allow another to be its
+benefactor. I took the old man's gift and thanked him heartily. Later
+on, as chance befell, I did him a good turn in a contract for arms,
+while he knew it not. But that is beside the matter, which is the sword.
+He told me, that old man did, a story fit to set in the ancient romaunts
+of chivalry, how he as a young fellow full of heart and lustihood went
+out to fight the Turks or some other heathen of those parts, and was a
+prisoner, and a lady loved him and he loved her not, having a sweetheart
+waiting for him at home. And she had a noble heart and forgave him his
+despite, and set him free at risk of her own life, nor gave him freedom
+only, but a purse of gold and this sword, which she averred had been
+captured from the Persian people hundreds of years before, and was a
+true Damascus blade forged from meteor iron, and of the curious
+tempering now forgotten. And she said, moreover, that there was a charm
+upon it that made him who carried it invincible and scathless, and she,
+poor maid, had robbed her father's house of this great treasure, and
+brought it to him who loved another woman better than her, and so with
+tears and smiles she gave it over, and he for very ruth gave her a
+tender kiss, and thus they parted."
+
+"Nay, I pity her not. She was overbold to offer her love before it had
+been asked," said Alden hastily.
+
+"Ah, boy, thou 'rt in all the hardness of thy callow youth, and nought's
+more hard. Wait some fifteen years till thou comest to my age, and
+thou 'lt pity the poor heathen maid as I do to-day. Well, my armorer
+took the sword and played it some forty years or more, and then, too old
+to wield arms, he took to dealing in them, but never sold this, for it
+had proved all that the lady claimed for it, and had slain his enemies,
+and fended his friends, and saved his own head more times than he could
+number, and now he gave it to me who had, he said, saved more than his
+life."
+
+"And these outlandish signs and marks upon the blade?" asked Alden,
+peering down at the sword.
+
+"There, now, thou callest for another tale," replied Standish smiling
+good-naturedly. "But as they seem to need us not in disemboweling yon
+granary, and here we are guard against surprise from whoever may rightly
+own the treasure and come to claim it, I will e'en tell thee the rest.
+
+"Thou knowest Pastor Robinson of Leyden, though thou wast never out of
+England thyself?"
+
+"I know his fame as a pious teacher and a learned man, well beloved of
+his people."
+
+"Beloved? Ay, none more so," exclaimed Standish heartily. "I ever wished
+I might see him in some great peril and prove my love by cutting down a
+round dozen of his foes. And learned! Why, man, he disputed with the
+most learned among their Dutch scholars openly in the big church, and
+left them not a leg to stand on, or a tongue to wag. Why, 't is no more
+to him to read Hebrew than for me to spell out my Bible. So then,
+knowing his learning and his love of all that is old and curious, I one
+day showed him my sword and asked if he could rede me fairly the
+mystical texts or whatever they might be upon the blade. But mind thee I
+said naught to him of any charm or amulet about it, lest I might wound
+his conscience, which is tender as a maid's. Thou shouldst have seen the
+dear old man, barnacles on nose, peering and peeping and muttering over
+the queer device, all at one as he were a wizard himself and working
+some spell. But at the last he heaved a mighty sigh, and gave me back
+the sword saying, nay, he could not make out more than that there were
+two legends in two different tongues and by different hands, and that
+the effigies of the sun and moon and stars pointed, he feared, to
+idolatrous emblems, and were not such as a Christian man might safely
+deal withal. So I asked him would it be better should I have the Holy
+Rood wrought above them as did the Crusaders of old, and beshrew me, but
+this device seemed to please him less than the other."
+
+"Nay, our teachers like not the look of the Cross, nor use it as our
+fathers used. It savoreth of Popery, they say," interposed Alden
+glancing at the captain's face for sure approval, but to his surprise he
+saw it overcast and frowning.
+
+"Thou knowest," replied he a little haughtily, "that I am not of the
+Separatist Church, nor agree in all its teachings. The Standishes were
+ever good Catholics, since they came over from Normandy with William the
+Baseborn, and if I hold not to the religion of my fathers I accept no
+other, nor can I ever esteem lightly those things my mother venerated."
+
+The younger man, perplexed and mortified, remained silent, but in a
+moment Standish smiled and resumed his story.
+
+"So, Pastor Robinson confessed his own want of skill, as so wise a man
+need not shame to do, but told me of a certain aged scholar in
+Amsterdam, well versed in Eastern lore, and able, if any man alive could
+do it, to rede me the riddle aright, and he wrote down his name and
+lodging and a line to recommend me to his kindly attention, and so gave
+me fair good-night.
+
+"Not long after, my occasions called me to Amsterdam, and be sure I took
+the time to find the old ancient scholar, a queer, dried-up graybeard,
+with skin like the parchment covers of his folios; but he gave me
+courteous welcome, and I laid the sword upon the table under his nose.
+Faith, John, I thought that same nose would grow to my blade, for a good
+half hour passed away, or ever he stirred or spoke. Then he looked
+askance at me and said,--
+
+"'How old art thou in very truth?'"
+
+"I told him some thirty years, and he stared and stared until had he
+been a young man and a soldier I had asked him his intent. But as it
+was, I did but stare back again, until at the last his parchment cheeks
+creased and crackled in what may have been meant for a smile, and he
+said,--
+
+"'Thou mightst have been a score of thirties if thou hadst been born
+when this blade was forged.'
+
+"'And why?' asked I, wondering if Pastor Robinson could have known the
+man was an old wizard.
+
+"'Because there's that on this blade would have kept thee from all harm
+if thou hadst made it thine own,' said he, tapping that circle."
+
+And turning the blade, Standish showed upon the reverse from the sun,
+moon, and stars, an ornamented medallion close to the hilt, containing
+certain cabalistic signs and marks. Below this was an inscription of
+several lines in totally different characters.[1]
+
+[1] This sword may still be seen in Pilgrim Hall, Plymouth,
+Massachusetts.
+
+"And that is a charm to keep a man alive?" asked Alden with bated breath
+and eager eyes.
+
+"So that old man said," replied Standish, "but I concern myself little
+with such matters, having ever found my own right arm enough to keep my
+head, and the grace of God better than any heathen charm."
+
+"And did he read it, and the rest?" pursued Alden.
+
+"Yes, he read it, or at the least he muttered something in some
+outlandish gibberish," replied the captain, laughing a little
+shamefacedly. "And he told me its meaning, partly in Latin, for we spoke
+together in that tongue, but I am such a dullard that I forgot the words
+as soon as he spoke them, and so asked him to write them down. Then he
+fell a pondering again, and said like the pastor, that the two
+inscriptions differed in every way, and he must muse awhile and look in
+his books before he could read them fairly, and he asked me to leave
+the sword with him. So seeing him so venerable and honorable a man I
+consented, although not willingly, and went my way. The next morning I
+sought him again not certain but that in the night he and my sword and
+the charm had all flown out of window together and gone to join the
+Witch of Endor. But no, there he sat, and the sword before him, as if
+they never had stirred since I left. And the old man gave me a bit of
+parchment covered with crabbed Latin script, and told me I should find
+therein the sense of my two inscriptions, though there were words even
+he could not decipher. So I put the parchment in my pouch, and reached
+my hand to the sword, when he withheld it and said,--
+
+"'This charm avails nothing for thee, my son, because it was not framed
+for thee, nor dost thou swear by the powers therein invoked; but I can
+frame one that will avail, and will protect thee from any weapon raised
+against thee. I have learned somewhat I never knew, in studying thy
+sword, and I would fain repay thee in kind.'
+
+"Now lad, as he spoke, a certain terror seized me lest I should be found
+dabbling in the black art, and I said, with more than enough vehemence,
+that I wanted no charm, nor did I fear mortal weapon or mortal foe, for
+in God was my trust, and He was able to hold me scathless, or to take me
+when He would. And then, John, a fancy seized me, a foolish fancy of
+romance perhaps, but still I mind not thy knowing, so thou 'lt not
+babble of it to others. I asked the old man could he put what I had just
+said into the same tongue with that heathen charm, and so shape it that
+I could have it carved upon my blade above the sun and moon and stars,
+which those Persian idolaters worship and had graved there almost as
+idols. And he smiled again in that grewsome fashion of his, and said ay
+he could do that much, and that as three possessors had already put
+invocations to their gods upon the blade it was but fit I should do so
+in my turn.
+
+"I liked not the quip, nor the evening of a Christian man's belief to
+idolatrous worship, but yet the idea of the Christian charm, if one
+might call it so, had taken fast possession of my mind, and I felt as
+though it were snatching the good blade from the powers of heathenesse
+and giving it to God. So I put what I would say in few words, and the
+old man wrought upon it till he had it to his mind, and at the last took
+a pencil dipped in some wizard's ink or other and drew these signs upon
+the sword as you see them, bidding me take it to an armorer and have
+them cut in just as they stood. So I did, choosing, you may be sure, the
+armorer who had given me the sword, and showing him, as I have you, that
+this is no heathen charm, but the sign of a Christian man's faith."
+
+"And what do they mean, all three of them?" asked Alden reverently. "I
+see the figures 1149 graved clearly enough, but what mean the other two
+rows?"
+
+"My lad, thou seest wrong. The 1 and 4 and 9 are but symbols of letters
+not there set down, and the whole, partly from that same foolish fancy I
+told thee of, and partly because the old scholar bade me never tell it
+lest some other man should steal his learning, and partly because Gideon
+hath kept the first secret so many years that I feel like trusting him
+with another, for all these reasons I promised myself and the scholar
+and Gideon that I would never tell the thing to mortal man, nor even
+the rendering of the other devices; and lest I should be tempted to
+forego my word, sith I claim to be no stronger than Samson, or lest some
+one should surprise the secret unawares, I cut the piece of parchment in
+two pieces, and handed them back to the old scholar, who disguised not
+his huge content thereat. So thou seest, John, two of the three
+inscriptions I could not unravel to thee if I would, and of the third
+thou wilt not ask me, since it is guarded by a promise."
+
+"Surely, Master, it is not I who would ask you to break it," said John
+simply. "But the name of Gideon?"
+
+"Didst never read of Gideon in Holy Writ, John? A mighty soldier before
+the Lord who hewed down his father's idol-grove and came out from among
+his own people and carved his own way in the world. Ever as I read his
+story, I mind me of a man I knew in Lancashire who went to the house of
+his fathers to claim what was his own, and when he gat it not, he threw
+down the idols he had been trained to worship, and shook off the dust of
+that idol-grove where Mammon and Rank and the world's opinion were set
+up as gods, and went out into the world to hew out his own fortunes by
+the might of his own right arm, and his trust in the God of Israel. So
+now, John Alden, thou knowest more about my good sword than any man
+alive, for I doubt me if the scholar remembereth, and the armorer is
+dead. And when we go into battle, if such good luck await us, and thou
+hearest me cry, The Sword of the Lord and of Gideon! thou 'lt know my
+meaning."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+THE LILIES OF FRANCE.
+
+
+"Ho Captain Standish, thou 'rt wanted here!" cried the coarse voice of
+Thomas Jones as the two men approached the group gathered about the corn
+heap. "Come hither and teach these gentle maids the usages of war. They
+speak forsooth of making payment to these unbreeched salvages for the
+corn we are taking from this hole in the ground. Was it the way of your
+bold fellows in Flanders to make payment to the Spaniards if you
+surprised and sacked their camp?"
+
+"The Spaniards were our declared enemies," replied Standish coldly; "and
+not only their gear but their lives were ours if we could take them, and
+so were ours theirs an' they approved themselves the better men. But
+here it is not so; we have no quarrel as yet with the salvages, nor is
+it wise to provoke one. We are but a handful, and they in their own
+country of unknown strength. Besides, why should we harm those who have
+done us no wrong? Is it not wiser to make friends and allies if we may?
+So Master Jones you must e'en rank me with the gentle maids who speak
+for honesty and justice in this matter."
+
+"As you will, it is no concern of mine," retorted Jones with a surly
+laugh; "but never before did I sail in such saintly company, or find
+bearded men with swords at their sides carrying themselves like milk-fed
+babes."
+
+"And in sad seriousness, good Master Jones, do you intend to cast a slur
+upon our courage?" demanded Standish, a cold smile upon his lips, while
+his right hand toyed with Gideon's hilt, and his right foot planted
+itself more firmly.
+
+"Nay, he's no such ass," interposed Hopkins hastily. "He did but mean a
+merry joke, and we would have you Captain Standish tell off such men as
+had best remain on shore for further exploration while the rest shall
+return to the ship with Master Jones, who is in mind to go back before
+night."
+
+"Oh, he is overdone with the work we babes have scarce begun," muttered
+Standish with a wrathful laugh. "Glad am I to spare him."
+
+"And I," said Bradford joining them. "And we are all of one mind that
+Captain Standish shall take command of those who remain, since the
+governor and several others find themselves but ailing and will return
+with Jones, who forebodes foul weather and needs must take his men
+aboard to meet it."
+
+"Why, that's no more than his duty, and mayhap I wronged him," said
+Standish generously. "Well, who tarries with me?"
+
+The division was soon made, and as the boats left the shore, beneath the
+same cold and stormy sky that had led them forth, and feebly breasted
+the hissing waves which seemed to sneer at their puny efforts, the
+eighteen men who remained on shore drew closer together.
+
+"Methinks our men are to be sifted like Gideon's army at Mount Moreh,"
+said Edward Winslow running his eye over the little group as he linked
+his arm with Bradford's. "They went forth twenty-and-two hundred and
+fell away to three hundred."
+
+"By the three hundred who lap the water with their hands will I conquer
+Midian," quoted Bradford in a clear and ringing voice.
+
+"Hear you that, John?" asked Standish of the young man who followed him
+closely. "It is a good omen that the grand old story should have come
+into Winslow's head. And now, men, my opinion is that we should strike
+inland, and see if we cannot come upon some settlement or stronghold of
+the natives, for certes, these barns and graves were not made without
+hands, nor were the stubble-fields reaped by ghosts. The tract lying
+north and east of this river is yet new to us, and, since you will be
+led by me, we will march for some hours hither and yon through its
+length and breadth, making our randevous where night may overtake us,
+and returning hither to meet the shallop to-morrow."
+
+"It is good counsel, and we will follow you, Captain," said Winslow,
+while a consenting murmur stirred the russet beards around, and Hopkins
+said, "He among us who best knows the ways of woodlands, and how to
+steer the plainest course through these swamps and thickets, should be
+on the lead, it seemeth to me, Captain."
+
+"Ay, Hopkins, I have thought of all that," interrupted Standish rather
+curtly; "and I have chosen my scout already. Billington, where art thou,
+man?"
+
+"Here, Captain," responded a coarse voice, and a man whose mean and
+truculent face contrasted forcibly with those about him pushed forward
+and stood before the captain, who gave him a comprehensive glance,
+noting not only the mean and bad face, but the wiry and well-knit
+figure, and the eyes quick and watchful as a rat's.
+
+"Billington," repeated he at last, "I've noticed on these expeditions
+that thou hast a pretty knack at woodcraft, and can smell thy way among
+these bogs and thorny coppices with marvelous good judgment."
+
+"I learned such woodcraft and more while I was gamekeeper to my Lord
+Lovell in the old country," interrupted Billington with an impudent
+grin. The captain again regarded him with that penetrating glance whose
+power is matter of history and replied,--
+
+"I suppose it was in such service that thou camest by that ugly scar
+across thy nose. Thou hast never been a soldier, well I wot."
+
+"Thou 'rt right, Captain," said Billington putting his hand to his face
+with an unabashed laugh. "It was a poacher"--
+
+"Ay, I thought it was a poacher," interrupted Standish dryly. "Well,
+master gamekeeper Billington, to-day thou 'rt under my orders, and I
+desire thee to lead us through this wood in an easterly course, and to
+keep a diligent eye upon all signs of occupation by the enemy, that is
+to say, our friends the salvages. Be very careful in this matter, an'
+please thee, good Billington, for shouldst thou think it a merry jest to
+lead us into danger of any sort, I fear me thou 'dst find it but a poor
+bargain for thyself."
+
+"Nay, Captain, the man means no harm and feels that we are all comrades
+in this matter," said Winslow pacifically, while Hopkins muttered
+discontentedly,--
+
+"O'er many masters to my mind."
+
+Standish answered neither, except by a glance from his penetrating eyes,
+and Billington taking the lead the little party struck into the woods
+and marched rapidly and in silence for an hour or more, when Allerton,
+the oldest and feeblest man of the party, suddenly halted, and called to
+Standish that he must perforce rest for a few minutes, and was,
+moreover, sadly athirst. This want was immediately echoed by all, for
+the flasks at every man's belt contained spirits or strong beer, and the
+toil of the march, sometimes in spite of Billington's skill through
+thickets whose thorny branches tore even the armor from the Pilgrims'
+backs, and sometimes through half frozen morasses, had induced a thirst
+craving plentiful draughts of pure water.
+
+"We've passed neither spring nor runlet on our course, for I've looked
+for such," said Billington removing his leather cap and wiping his brow
+upon his sleeve. "And though 't is frosty weather, such a diligent march
+as ours heats the blood shrewdly."
+
+"We will halt beside this coppice for a space," ordered Standish
+glancing at Allerton's pallid face; "and do thou search yonder hollow,
+Billington, for water. Alden go you with him, and keep an eye on his
+course."
+
+The two men thus detailed plunged into the little hollow where indeed
+water should have been, but found only a pool so shallow and so
+sheltered as to have frozen quite solid; from this they brought some
+pieces of ice with which Allerton was so revived as to resume his course
+for another mile when he again broke down, while all the rest suffered
+so sensibly from thirst that they could not conceal their distress.
+Another halt was called, and all the younger men dispersed in various
+directions, while Allerton lay stretched upon the ground, his parched
+mouth open, and his eyes half closed. Beside him stood Standish, real
+concern upon his usually stern features, and in his hand a flask of
+spirits, from which the exhausted and fevered man turned loathingly.
+
+"'T is as good schnapps as ever came through a still," said Standish
+wistfully; "and if thou couldst stomach it must surely do thee good."
+
+"Water, water!" moaned Allerton.
+
+"Ay, a little water mingled with it were better for thee just now,"
+replied the Captain soothingly. "But sith water may not be had"--
+
+"Ho, men! Water, water, a running brook!" cried Alden's hearty voice, as
+he came bursting his way through the thicket. "A running brook and a
+deer drinking at its spring."
+
+"And why didst not shoot the deer instead of hallooing him away, thou
+great idiot?" demanded Standish in jesting anger, while, with such a
+rush as the animal sore athirst makes when he scents the water springs,
+all the men but three of the party burst through the undergrowth and
+found themselves in a lovely little dale so sheltered by hills and trees
+as to offer only a southern exposure to the weather. The snow of the
+previous day had already disappeared from this favored spot, and the
+little runlet with its welling spring sparkled free from frost among the
+long grasses, sweet-gale, and low shrubbery of the place; among these
+shrubs more than one dainty track leading from the forest to the runlet
+showed that here the deer came daily down to drink, and Alden in his
+heart felt he had done well not to lift a hand against the pretty
+creature he had surprised there. But neither the poetic Bradford, the
+polished Winslow, nor the meditative Howland paused any more than their
+brethren to note the beauty of the spot, but one and all plunging
+forward threw themselves upon their knees thrusting their faces into the
+water, and only pausing to draw breath and drink again.
+
+"We there drank our first New England water, and with as much delight as
+ever we drunk drink in all our lives," wrote Bradford at a later day,
+and no doubt the memory of its refreshment lasted all his life.
+
+All but three, and these three were Allerton who could not go, Standish
+who would not leave him, and Alden who would not leave Standish until
+the latter said,--
+
+"But dost not see, John, that thou 'rt hindering me from quenching my
+thirst? Go thou and bring thy steel cap full of water for Master
+Allerton, and when I see him revived I'll go right gladly to lap water
+out of my hand among my three hundred."
+
+"You are ever right, master," replied Alden briefly, and ran to do as he
+was bid.
+
+An hour's rest and the food they had been unable to swallow while
+athirst, so refreshed the Pilgrims that even Allerton resumed the march
+with fresh courage and pursued it steadily until Billington, suddenly
+pausing and pointing down at a narrow path intersecting their own, said
+in a low voice to Standish who came close behind him,--
+
+"Men's feet, not beasts. It will lead belike to a village."
+
+"Ay," responded the captain briefly. "Look well to your weapons men, and
+light your matches, but let no man fire his piece without command." And
+drawing his sword, Standish strode eagerly forward close to Billington,
+who with all his faults was no coward, and blithely blew his match to a
+fiery glow, while glancing with his ferret eyes behind every tree and
+into every covert he passed.
+
+Nothing, however, was to be seen, and suddenly the path came to an end
+in a large clearing covered with the stubble of maize recently gathered,
+while at the farther side stood several huts formed by a circle of
+elastic poles, the butts thrust in the ground and the tops bound
+together leaving a hole through which the smoke was invited to escape,
+and sometimes did so. The outside was protected by heavy mats of skins
+or braided of bark, while a more highly decorated one closed the
+doorway. All were evidently deserted, and after some cautious advances,
+the captain leaving three men on guard permitted the rest to extinguish
+their matches and explore the wigwams so curious to European eyes and so
+familiar to our own.
+
+The interior of each showed a cooking hearth or platform framed of
+sticks and stones, and an assortment of wooden cooking utensils rudely
+carved. Among these the explorers noticed an English bucket without a
+bale and a copper kettle, both linking themselves in their minds to the
+traces of civilization already noted in the palisades and ruined cabin
+near which the store of corn had been found. Many baskets, both for use
+and ornament, were found, and sundry boxes curiously wrought with bits
+of clam shell, such as were used for wampum, and also little crab shells
+and colored pebbles, seemed to show the presence of women and their
+proficiency in the fancy work of their own time and taste. Several deer
+heads, one of them freshly killed, showed that the inmates of the
+wigwams were not far distant, and in a hollow tree by way of larder was
+hung the carcass of a deer, so well ripened that even Hopkins pronounced
+it "fitter for dogs than men."
+
+From all these novelties and curiosities the Pilgrims selected a few of
+the prettier specimens to carry to their comrades on board, formally
+promising each other, as they had in case of the corn, to make due
+payment to the owners whenever they should be found, a promise most
+conscientiously performed at a later day.
+
+By the time these matters were fully examined night was falling, and
+the Pilgrims, strong in their own good intentions and also in their
+weapons, encamped a short distance from the Indian village, and although
+keeping diligent guard all night saw nor heard naught to disturb their
+slumbers. Rousing betimes next morning, their first attention was given
+to prayers, and their next to making as good a breakfast as possible
+with the aid of some wild fowl and little birds shot during the previous
+day's march, and then the "meat and mass" which "hinder no man" thus
+attended to, they set forth in the direction of the river where they
+were to be picked up by the shallop. Toward noon this point was nearly
+reached, in fact the clearing with the European cabin was close at hand,
+when Billington paused beside a mound carefully laid up with a border of
+beach stones and rounded high and smooth with sods, over which were laid
+hewn planks such as composed the cabin.
+
+"It is another store of corn of choicer variety," declared he greedily;
+but Hopkins shook his head.
+
+"It is the grave of some great sachem, or haply from these planks above
+him it is the grave of whoever built yon cabin and palisado."
+
+"Belike there is treasure of some wrecked vessel which brought him
+hither, and which he stored away thus, until his rescue," said Rigdale.
+
+"Should not we cautiously open it, Captain, and certify ourselves what
+is therein?" asked Bradford. "If it prove a grave we can but reverently
+cover it again, and if it be food, we need all that we can gather for
+food and seed."
+
+"Ay, Master Bradford," replied Standish thoughtfully. "I like not
+meddling with graves for despite or for curiosity, but sith it much
+imports us to understand this country where we are to dwell, I think we
+may examine this mound, and, as thou sayest, if it be a grave of white
+man or of red, we will leave it as honorable as we find it."
+
+Permission thus given, swords, bayonets, and hatchets were set to work,
+and in a few moments, the upper surface of sand and earth being removed,
+the explorers came upon a large bow, strong, tough, and beautifully
+carved and pointed.
+
+"It is a sachem, and a mighty man of valor if he wielded this bow and
+shot these arrows," said Hopkins handling them respectfully.
+
+"It seemeth to me like a white man's touch in this carving," said
+Winslow examining the bow.
+
+"Here lieth a goodly mat, stained with red and blue in a fair pattern,"
+said Bradford drawing it off the grave, as it now seemed certain to be.
+
+"And what is this?" exclaimed Alden raising something which lay beneath
+the mat. Brushing away the mould that clung to it, this proved to be a
+piece of plank some twenty-seven inches in length, carefully smoothed
+upon one side, and painted with what seemed an heraldic achievement,
+while the top was cut into something of the fashion of a crest
+consisting of three spikes or tines.
+
+"It is a hatchment over a noble's grave," cried Standish. "Say you not
+so, Master Winslow? See you, here is a shield, although I know not the
+device, and here is surely a crest."
+
+"So it beseemeth, Captain," replied Winslow cautiously. "And to my mind
+this crest is a rude presentment of the lilies of France. See you now,
+Master Bradford!"
+
+"Nay, I know naught of such toys," replied Bradford sturdily. "To my
+mind it looketh as much like Neptune's trident as aught else."
+
+"Or like a muck-fork," suggested Rigdale in his broad Lancashire
+dialect, and with a coarse laugh resented by Standish, who, an
+aristocrat to his heart's core, ill brooked contempt of chivalrous
+emblems, especially by a rustic of his own shire.
+
+"Well, let us get on with this business," said he peremptorily, and
+pulling away another mat he disclosed a store of bowls, plates, dishes,
+and such matters, all new and beautifully carved and decorated.
+
+"For the dead man to cook and eat on his journey to the happy hunting
+grounds, which the salvages place in the room of heaven," said Hopkins
+sanctimoniously. Beneath these lay another mat, and beneath this a crypt
+carefully bedded with dry white sand, upon which lay two packages
+carefully sewn up in sailcloth, the one more than six feet in length,
+the other barely three.
+
+"The body of a man and child," said Bradford softly, as he helped to
+raise them from their pure white cell and lay them upon the earth.
+
+"Open them with care, friends," said Standish uncovering his head. "It
+is some white man buried in such honor as they had knowledge of by those
+who loved him."
+
+The many folds of canvas removed, there lay a strange sight before the
+Pilgrims' eyes. Inclosed in a great quantity of fine red powder,
+emitting a pungent but agreeable odor, lay the skeleton of a man,
+fleshless, except upon the skull, where clung the skin and a mass of
+beautiful hair, yellow as gold, and curling closely as if in life.
+
+"Is the flesh turned to this red powder?" asked Alden fingering it
+dubiously.
+
+"Dost know, Hopkins?" asked Standish, but the veteran shook his head.
+
+"I have seen naught like this in all my life," confessed he. "See, here
+is a parcel at his feet done up in another bit of the old sail."
+
+"Shall I open it, Captain?" asked Alden eagerly.
+
+"Ay, an' thou wilt."
+
+"'T is clothes. A sailor's jerkin and breeches, a knife, a sail needle
+threaded with somewhat like a bowstring"--
+
+"A deer's sinew. They still use it as our women do linen thread," said
+Hopkins taking it in his hand.
+
+"And some bits of wrought iron," continued Alden turning them over.
+
+"Ay, ay, ay, the poor fellow's chiefest treasures in his exile among the
+salvages," said Bradford gently.
+
+"And still he was finding some comfort, you may well be sure," suggested
+Hopkins. "For it was a savage woman who laid him thus carefully to his
+rest, and yon package be sure is the bones of her child."
+
+"Belike. Open it, John," said Standish briefly, and in effect the
+smaller package contained the same red and pungent powder encasing the
+bones of a little child, his head covered with a thinner thatch of the
+father's yellow curls, and the wrists, ankles, and neck surrounded with
+strings of fine white beads. Beside it lay a little bow and arrows
+ornamented with all the loving elaboration of Indian art.
+
+"A boy, and his mother's darling, be she red or white, savage or
+Christian," said Bradford softly, as his thoughts flew to the baby boy
+left in Holland under charge of his wife Dorothy's parents.
+
+"Yes," replied Standish gently. "Cover them reverently, and lay them in
+their grave again. God send comfort to that poor woman's heart."
+
+"Certes they are no salvages," said Hopkins positively. "Never saw I
+yellow hair on any but a white man's head, nor do red men wear
+breeches."
+
+"Ay, he was a white man, but, as I opine, a Frenchman," declared Winslow
+thoughtfully.
+
+"French surely, masters, for this is French," said Robert Cartier
+timidly, as he handled the pointed board. "These are indeed the lilies
+of France. I have seen them full oft."
+
+"Say you so, lad?" asked Standish kindly. "Well, I suppose a man loves
+his country's ensign though he be naught but a Frenchman. There, place
+all as we found it, and let us go our ways."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+AN AWFUL DANGER.
+
+
+"Found you a good burial place in yonder wilderness?" asked Dorothy
+Bradford of her husband the next morning as he sat beside her in their
+little cabin on the high quarter deck of the Mayflower.
+
+"Ay truly, wife," replied the husband cheerily. "And much did we muse as
+to the remains so honorably interred. One of those we found was a little
+lad scarce as old as our baby John, and almost mine eyes grew wet in
+thinking of him so far away."
+
+"Cruel that thou art to speak of him," exclaimed the young mother
+wildly, "when thou knowest I am dying for sight of the child and of home
+and my mother and all that I hold dear. I asked, hadst thou found a
+grave for poor me in this wilderness whither thou hast brought me to
+die."
+
+"Nay, then, dear wife"--
+
+"Mock me not with fair words, for they are naught. If I indeed am dear
+take me home to all I love. Here I have naught but thee, and one might
+as well love one of these cold gray rocks as thee."
+
+"Have I not been kind and gentle to thee, Dorothy?" asked Bradford
+bowing his face upon his hands.
+
+"Ay, kind enow," replied she sullenly. "And gentle, as brave men still
+must be to helpless women, but as for love! Tell me now, William
+Bradford, dost thou to-day love me as thou couldst have loved Alice
+Carpenter who flouted thee and married Edward Southworth instead? Nay,
+now, them darest not deny that thou dost love her still!"
+
+"Peace, woman!" exclaimed Bradford raising his face, stern and pale as
+his wife had seldom seen it, and then as he marked her fragile features
+and woe-begone expression his tone changed to a gentle one. "Nay,
+Dorothy, thou wrongest thyself and me. I told thee of certain passages,
+past before I knew thee, because I would have no secret between my wife
+and me, and it is ill-done of thee to use my confidence as a weapon
+against me. And again thou wrongest me grievously; Edward Southworth's
+wife is naught to us; we twain are made one, and our lives are to run in
+the one channel while both shall last. It is for me to shape and hew
+that channel, and for thee to see that its waters run clear and sweet,
+and, if you will, to plant posies on the banks. Let us never speak again
+of these matters, Dorothy, but rather turn our minds to making a fair
+home of the place whither God hath brought us, and doing our best by
+each other. Trust me, wife, thou shalt never have cause to complain for
+lack of aught I can win for thee or do for thee. Nay, Dorothy, my wife,
+weep not so bitterly!"
+
+"Master Bradford, are you within?" asked John Howland's voice outside
+the door.
+
+"Ay. What is thy errand, John?"
+
+"The governor prays you to attend a Council convened in the great
+cabin."
+
+"I will come," and laying his hand tenderly yet solemnly upon the bowed
+head of his wife Bradford murmured,--
+
+"God help thee, Dorothy, God help us both!" and without waiting for a
+reply so left her.
+
+In the cabin he found the principal men of the company seated around a
+table covered with charts, scrolls, and instruments of various sorts.
+Standish with a brief nod made room for the new-comer, and Carver in his
+measured tones explained: "Some of us were talking with Master Jones
+upon the question of seating ourselves by yonder river as he strongly
+adviseth, and I thought it best, Master Bradford, to call a general
+Council and settle the matter out of hand. Here are such charts as the
+Mayflower saileth by, and here is Master Smith's maps whereon we find
+this bay, and much of the coast beyond, laid fairly down. Master Hopkins
+counseleth a place called Agawam[2] some twenty leagues to the
+northward, whereof he hath heard as a good harbor and fishing ground.
+Others say that we should explore yet farther along the shores of this
+land which Smith calleth Cape Cod, even as he nameth the whole district
+New England, which is verily a pleasant reminder for us, who in spite of
+persecution and harshness must still love the name of the land wherein
+we have left the bones of our sires."
+
+[2] Ipswich.
+
+"It needs not so many words, Governor," interrupted Jones rudely. "If ye
+will not be satisfied with the place ye saw yesterday, Coppin, our
+pilot, knoweth of another river with plenty of cleared land about it,
+and a harbor fit for a war-fleet to ride in, lying two or three leagues
+to the southwest of this place. What think you of taking your pinnace
+and going to look at it?"
+
+"We will have in the pilot and hear his story for ourselves before we
+answer that query," said Carver with dignity, while Standish less
+temperately demanded,--
+
+"And why, Master Jones, didst not tell us this at first rather than at
+last? Well nigh hadst thou forced us to land where we could if only to
+be rid of thy importunity."
+
+"Why of course I had rather landed you here, and been off for home
+rather than to carry you further and be burdened with your queasy
+fancies," retorted Jones brutally. "I'm no man's fool I'd have thee to
+know my little fire-eater, and thou 'lt be no gladder to say good-by
+when the time comes than I."
+
+"Here is Robert Coppin, friends," interposed Brewster mildly, as a hardy
+fellow entered the cabin and nodded with scant ceremony to the company.
+
+"Sit thee down, Coppin," said Carver making room for the pilot beside
+him. "We would have thee show us upon the chart this river whereof
+Master Jones says thou knowest."
+
+"Well, it should be hereaway methinks," replied Coppin bending over the
+map and tracing the coast line with a horny forefinger. "Is it yon? Nay,
+I am no scholar and steer not by a chart I cannot make out. I know the
+place when I see it, and I'll find it again if I'm set to it."
+
+"Thou 'st been there, then?"
+
+"Ay, we lay there three weeks when I sailed in the whaler Scotsman out
+of Glasgow, and more by token we named the place Thievish Harbor, for
+one of the Indians stole a harpoon out of our boat and away with it
+before we could reach him. 'T is a goodly river, broader and deeper than
+yon, and has a broad safe harbor."[3]
+
+[3] Jones River, Duxbury.
+
+"And why didst thou not tell us of this place sooner, Master Coppin,
+sith thou art our pilot?" sternly demanded Winslow.
+
+"Well, master," returned Coppin slowly, and casting a furtive look at
+Jones who was draining a pewter flagon of beer, "I did tell Master Jones
+yonder, but he said he had liefer you seated here, and I was to hold my
+tongue"--
+
+"Thou liest, knave," roared Jones menacing him with the flagon. "Thou
+liest in thy throat. Or if thou didst mumble some nonsense in mine ears,
+I paid no heed, doubting not that thou hadst told it all before to thy
+gossips among these pious folk. But, Governor, if it is your pleasure to
+seek out this place, I will lend you some of my men and set you forward
+at your own pleasure."
+
+"Thanks for your good will, master," replied Carver coldly. "What say
+you, friends? Shall we try it?"
+
+Murmurs and words of assent were heard on all sides, and Standish
+said,--
+
+"My mind, if you will have it, is that this matter should be shrewdly
+pressed, and an end made of it as soon as may be. Our people dwindle
+daily; they who were well a se'nnight since are ill to-day, and may be
+dead to-morrow. Our provision waxeth short and poor, and be it once
+spent our good friend Jones will give us none of his we may be sure. We
+are no babes to be cast down by these things, nor frighted at facing
+them, but sure it is the part of wisdom to use our strength while it is
+left to us, and to explore this place, and any other whereof we may
+hear, with no farther delay. My counsel is to tell off a company of our
+soundest men, and set forth with Coppin this very hour, or as soon as we
+may."
+
+"Well and manfully spoken, Captain Standish," replied Carver, and from
+more than one bearded throat came a grim murmur of approval, while
+Hopkins significantly added,--
+
+"Let them who will, be treated as babes and set down here or there
+without their own consent. I for one am with thee, Captain, in the
+bolder course."
+
+"If thou 'rt with me, thou 'rt with the governor and the brethren. I
+have no separate design, Master Hopkins," replied Standish coldly. "I
+did but give my mind subject to the approval of the rest."
+
+"And so good a mind it seemeth to me, that I propose we follow it
+without delay. What say ye, friends?"
+
+"I like the scheme so well that I fain would set forth this moment,"
+said Bradford, over whom the depression of his interview with Dorothy
+still hung.
+
+"Then in God's name let the thing go forward," said Carver solemnly
+raising his hand. "And, it is my mind that such among us as have in some
+sort the charge of the rest should be the men to go upon this emprise,
+both because they are best fitted to judge what is needed, and because
+they will be hampered by no need of orders from headquarters. I propose,
+then, that leaving Elder Brewster in charge of those who remain aboard,
+the party should consist of me as your governor, and Captain Standish as
+our man of war, with Master Winslow, Master Bradford, and the Brothers
+Tilley from the Leyden brethren, to whom we will join Master Hopkins,
+Master Warren, and Edward Dotey of London."
+
+"Will it please your excellency to add my name?" asked John Howland
+eagerly. "Well I wot I am not a principal man, but I have a strong arm,
+and would fain follow thee, if I may."
+
+"A strong arm, a stout heart, and a ready wit," replied Carver looking
+kindly at his retainer. "And gladly do I number thee of the company.
+That then counts ten of us, and we shall have Thomas English in charge
+of the pinnace with John Alderton our seaman, and that methinks is
+enough."
+
+"Enough to meet the danger if there be danger, and to divide the glory
+if there be glory," said Myles placidly, and Bradford softly and
+pensively replied,
+
+"No such glory as thou didst win in Flanders, friend, but truly the
+'glory that fadeth not away.'"
+
+"Hm!" retorted Myles as softly, but pulling his red beard with a grim
+smile. "I'm not greedy, Will, and I'll leave those honors for thee."
+
+"Nay," began Bradford rousing himself, but at that moment the whole brig
+was shaken, and the councilors startled from their dignity by a
+tremendous explosion which drove them from their seats, while the air
+was rent by yells and shrieks in various tones and degrees, and a
+stifling smoke and smell of gunpowder filled the cabin.
+
+"The magazine has blown up!" shouted Standish. "Man the boats, and fetch
+the women and children!" And he rushed to his own cabin where Rose lay,
+not well enough to rise. But Bradford, seated near the companion-way,
+had already sprung down and presently returned leading by the ear a
+blubbering boy, his hands and face besmirched with gunpowder.
+
+"Here is the culprit, Master Carver," announced he placing him in front
+of the governor.
+
+"John Billington!" exclaimed Carver sternly. "Ever in mischief, what
+hast thou done now? Speak the truth, boy, or 't is the worse for thee."
+
+"I did but take dad's gun from the hooks in our cabin, and she went off
+in my hands," whimpered the boy.
+
+"Nay, 'twas more than that, for we heard not one but several
+explosions," persisted the governor.
+
+"There was a keg of gunpowder under the bed," confessed the boy
+reluctantly, "and--and--some of it flew out upon the floor."
+
+"Flew out without hands!" exclaimed Hopkins, but Carver raised his
+finger and asked mildly,--
+
+"And what didst thou with the powder on the floor, John?"
+
+"I made some squibs as father did last Guy Fawkes Day," muttered the
+boy.
+
+"And dropped the fire among the loose powder on the floor, and so sent
+all off together!" broke in Hopkins again. "And if the keg had caught,
+thou wouldst have blown the ship to pieces! Thou unwhipt rascal,
+thou 'rt enough to corrupt a whole colony of boys. If my Bartholomew
+ever speaks to thee again I'll break every bone in his body, as I'd well
+like to thine, and will"--
+
+"Nay, nay, Master Hopkins!" interposed the governor sternly. "It is
+never well to threaten what we cannot perform. We break not bones nor
+put to the torture in our new community; but, John Billington, I shall
+counsel thy father to take thee ashore and whip thee so soundly as shall
+make thee long remember that gunpowder is for thee forbidden fruit. Go,
+now, to thy cabin, and remain there till he comes, while I go to see
+what harm thou hast wrought."
+
+"Mistress Carver would fain see the governor without delay," announced
+Lois, Mistress Carver's maid, in a quavering voice. "Jasper More was so
+frighted by the noise that he is in convulsions, and we know not but he
+is dying."
+
+"Is Doctor Fuller here?" demanded another voice. "Mistress White would
+see him presently."
+
+"And this is thy work, boy!" exclaimed Carver solemnly. "Go!"
+
+And the boy crept miserably away, foreboding the whipping of which he
+was not disappointed.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+THE FIRST ENCOUNTER.
+
+
+So thoroughly were the bolder spirits among the Pilgrims impressed with
+the necessity of haste in finding an abiding place that by afternoon of
+the next day the pinnace was victualed and fitted for a voyage of ten
+days or more, and the adventurers ready to embark. To the twelve men
+previously named, all of whom were signers of the Constitution already
+drawn up to quell symptoms of insubordination on the part of Hopkins and
+others, were added Clarke and Coppin, acting as pilots, with the rank of
+master's mate, three sailors, and the master gunner, who, uninvited,
+thrust himself into the company in hopes of making something by traffic,
+or, as he phrased it, _trucking_ with the Indians.
+
+But hasten as they might many things delayed them, some of them as
+important as the death of Jasper More, an orphan in charge of the
+Carvers, and the birth of a son to Mistress White, whom his father and
+Doctor Fuller whimsically named Peregrine, latest of the Pilgrims, and
+first of native born American white men. When at last the shallop left
+the Mayflower's side it was in teeth of such bad weather as left the
+former expedition far in the shade, for not only was the northeast wind
+more bitter, but the temperature so low that the spray froze upon the
+rigging and the men's jerkins, turning them into coats of mail almost
+impossible to bend.
+
+It was soon found impossible for Master English to lay his proposed
+course, and finally the Pilgrims resolved to land and encamp for the
+night, partly for the sake of the greedy gunner, who had turned so
+deadly sick that it was feared he would die, and for Edward Tilley, who
+lay in the bottom of the boat in a dead swoon, while his brother John
+crouched beside him covered with John Howland's coat, which he declared
+was but an impediment to him in rowing.
+
+"They should never have come. Had I guessed their unfitness I would have
+hindered it, but now alack it is too late, and I fear they have come to
+their death," said Carver in Bradford's ear, and indeed it was so. The
+brothers, never divided in body or soul since their birth, had as one
+man given their substance, their strength, their faith, to the common
+cause, and now were giving their lives as simply and as willingly as
+heroes ever will go to their death, so giving life to many.
+
+The second night found them only as far as what we now call Eastham, and
+again building a "randevous" and gathering firewood, a difficult task at
+any time in this vicinity, for the trees were lofty and the underbrush
+annually burned away by the Indians to facilitate hunting. But it was
+finally done, as all things will be when such men set about them, the
+fire was built, the supper eaten, the prayer said, and the psalm sung,
+its rude melody rising from that wilderness to the wintry sky with the
+assurance of Daniel's song in the den of lions. Then all slept except
+Edward Dotey, to whom was committed the first watch, to last while three
+inches of the slow-match attached to his piece were consuming.
+
+Striding up and down his appointed beat the young man hummed again the
+evening psalm, mildly anathematized the cold, peered into the blackness
+of the forest, and glanced enviously at his comrades sound asleep about
+the fire.
+
+"'T is all but burned," muttered he stooping to examine the match, and
+thrusting a fallen log back into the fire with his boot. But in that
+very instant upon the intense stillness of the night burst suddenly a
+discordant clamor, a confusion of horrible and unknown sounds, unlike,
+in simple Edward Dotey's mind, to anything possible this side of hell.
+Undaunted even thus, he answered the assault with a yell of quivering
+defiance, fired his matchlock into the air, and shouted at the top of
+his voice,--
+
+"Arm! arm! arm! The fiend is upon us!"
+
+All sprang to their feet alert and ready, and two or three pieces were
+shot off, but no foe appeared, and no reply was made to their shouts of
+defiance.
+
+Dotey, questioned by Standish, was fain to confess he had seen nothing,
+and Coppin averred that he had more than once heard similar sounds upon
+the coast of Newfoundland, and that they were commonly thought to be the
+voices of sirens or mermaids who haunted lonely shores.
+
+"If naught more imminent than mermaids is upon us I'll e'en go back to
+sleep," said Winslow in good-natured derision, while Standish, lighting
+his slow-match, said pleasantly to Dotey,--
+
+"Lay thee down, man, and sleep. If thy fiend comes again I'll give
+account of him."
+
+A few grim jests, a little laughter, and the camp was again quiet, until
+Standish, sure that no enemy could be at hand, resigned his watch to
+Howland, and he to English, until at five o'clock William Bradford
+aroused his comrades, reminding them that on account of the tide they
+must embark within the hour, and had still to breakfast.
+
+A wintry fog, piercing in its chill, had closed down upon the camp,
+covering everything with a half-frozen rime, dropping sullenly like rain
+from such things as came near the fire, and stiffening into ice in the
+shade.
+
+"I fear me our pieces will hang fire after this soaking," remarked
+Carver examining his matchlock.
+
+"It were well to try them before there is need," said Winslow firing his
+into the thicket behind the camp. His example was followed by several,
+until Standish good-humoredly cried,--
+
+"Enough, enough, friends! Save powder and shot for the enemy if there be
+one. Such grapes grow not on these vines."
+
+"Well, since the pieces are ready, and the twilight breaks, it were well
+for some of us to carry them and the other armor down to the boat, while
+the rest set out the breakfast," suggested Hopkins, always anxious to be
+stirring.
+
+"Nay, 't is but poor soldiership to part from our arms even for so brief
+a space," said Winslow. "There be other matters, cloaks and haversacks,
+and such like, that can be carried, but the arms and armor should abide
+with them who wear them."
+
+"Master Winslow may do as seemeth good in his own eyes, but my armor
+goeth now," retorted Hopkins in a belligerent tone. And loading himself
+with his breastplate, steel cap, matchlock, and bullet pouch, he strode
+obstinately away to the boat, lying some three or four hundred yards
+distant, waiting for the tide to float her.
+
+Standish watched him disapprovingly, and, turning to Carver, he inquired
+significantly,--
+
+"What saith our governor?"
+
+"Let each man do as seemeth good to himself," replied Carver placably.
+"'T is of no great import."
+
+"My snaphance goes nowhere out of reach of my right hand," announced
+Standish somewhat sharply, for the want of discipline grieved him, and
+Bradford, Winslow, and Howland silently indorsed both his action and his
+feeling. The courteous Carver said nothing, and did nothing, but a
+sailor seeing the governor's armor lying together, carried it down to
+the boat, thinking to do him a service.
+
+Reaching the shore, Hopkins found the boat surrounded by a few inches of
+water, and, not caring to wade out to her, laid his load upon the shore,
+to wait until she fairly floated,--an example followed by the rest, some
+of whom strolled back to the camp, while others stood talking to those
+who had slept on board, until a summons to breakfast quickened their
+motions; but just as the laggards entered the randevous the same
+horrible noise that had so startled Edward Dotey burst forth again,
+while one of the sailors yet lingering by the shore came rushing up,
+shouting like a madman,--
+
+"Salvages! Indians! They are men!" and, as if to prove his words, a
+shower of arrows came rattling into the randevous, one of them
+transfixing the lump of boiled beef laid ready for breakfast.
+
+"Why didn't you bring up your pieces again, ye fools!" cried Standish
+angrily. "Run, now, and recover them before the enemy seizes them, while
+we men of wit cover your course."
+
+Not waiting to dispute the style of this command, the unarmed men
+hastened to obey it, while Standish, taking position at the open
+entrance of the barricade, fired his shaphance in the direction where
+the sailor pointed; Bradford followed suit; but as Winslow and Howland
+stepped forward Standish held up his hand,--
+
+"Hold your fire, men, until we see the foe, and Bradford load again with
+all speed! We must hold the randevous at all odds, for here is half our
+stuff, and our lives depend upon not losing it. Hasten ye laggards! Run
+Tilley! Run men!"
+
+"He is spent!" cried John Howland, throwing down his piece and dashing
+out into the open, where he seized John Tilley round the waist and half
+carried, half dragged him into the inclosure.
+
+"They will seize the shallop!" cried Carver, and springing on the
+barricade, heedless of his own exposure, he shouted to those in the
+boat,--
+
+"Ho, Warren! English! Coppin! Are you safe and on your watch?"
+
+"Ay, well! All is well!" cried the rough voices of the seamen, and
+Warren's manly tones added, "Be of good courage, brethren!"
+
+"And quit yourselves like men," muttered Standish, his snaphance at his
+shoulder, his eager eyes scanning the covert.
+
+Three shots from the pinnace rang bravely through the wood, and then
+came a hail,--
+
+"Ho, comrades, bring us a light! We have no fire to set off our pieces!"
+
+"Their matches are not alight!" exclaimed Howland, and snatching a brand
+from the camp-fire he again dashed out, down the wooded slope, and
+splashing mid-leg deep through the freezing brine, he gave the brand
+into Warren's hand, then rushed back as he came, the arrows whistling
+around his head and two sticking in his heavy frieze jerkin.
+
+"Well done, John! well done!" cried Carver clapping the young man on the
+shoulder as, breathless and glowing, he stooped to pick up his
+matchlock. "The sight of such valor will daunten the Indians more than a
+whole flight of bullets."
+
+And in fact there was for a moment a lull in the enemy's movements, but
+rather of rage than dismay, for the savage outcry burst forth the next
+moment with more ferocity than ever, and as it died away a single voice
+shouted in a tone of command some words, to which the rest responded by
+such a yell as later on curdled the blood of the hapless settlers at
+Deerfield and other places.
+
+"Aha! There is a leader, there!" growled Standish, his eyes glittering
+and his strong teeth clenched. "Let him show himself!"
+
+As if in answer to the wish a stalwart figure leaped from behind a large
+tree to the shelter of a smaller one, about half a gunshot from the
+camp.
+
+"That's your man, Captain!" exclaimed Howland, who stood next him.
+
+"Ay, leave him to me!" growled Standish. "Ha!" for an arrow well and
+strongly aimed hit squarely above his heart, and rebounded from the coat
+of mail Rose had insisted upon his putting on.
+
+"For thee, wife!" murmured the captain, and fired.
+
+Bark and splinters flew from the tree where the crown of the warrior's
+head had showed for an instant, but a shriek of derisive laughter told
+that no further harm was done. Standish, with a grim smile, reloaded
+his snaphance, while two more arrows vigorously flew, one piercing the
+right sleeve of his doublet, the other aimed at his face, which he
+avoided by moving his head. Then for one instant a dusky arm was seen
+reaching over the shoulder for another arrow, and in that instant the
+snaphance rang cheerily out, the arm fell with a convulsive movement,
+and a piercing cry rang through the wood, followed by the pattering of
+many moccasoned feet, as dusky shadows slipped from tree to tree, and
+were lost in the dim recesses of the forest.
+
+"They are routed! They fly!" cried Howland firing his piece into a
+rustling thicket.
+
+"Yes, that last cry was the retreat," said Standish half regretfully
+plucking the arrow from his sleeve. "The chief finds his courage cooled
+by a broken elbow. I doubt me if ever he speed arrow again."
+
+"Body o' me!" continued he examining the shaft in his hand. "See you,
+John, 't is pointed with naught but a bird's talon, curiously bound on
+with its own sinews. To be scratched to death by a fowl were but a poor
+ending for a man that has fought Alva!"
+
+"Pursue them, Captain, pursue and terrify, but kill not, if you can help
+it," ordered Carver eagerly. "Let the heathen know that they are but
+men, and that the Lord of Hosts is on our side."
+
+"Forward then, men! At the double-quick! Run!" and, waving his sword,
+Standish rushed after the flying savages, followed by all but Carver,
+English, and the sailors who stayed to guard the randevous and the
+pinnace. But even as he ran Myles muttered, perhaps to the sword
+Gideon,--
+
+"Beshrew me if I see how I am to hurl yon text in the heathen's teeth,
+sith we have no common tongue, and they will not stop for parley! A good
+man, and a gentle, but no soldier, is our governor!"
+
+As might have been expected, the Pilgrims, in their heavy clothing and
+armor, proved no match for the Indians in a foot-race, and after
+pursuing them for about a quarter of a mile Standish called a halt, and
+ordered his men to raise a shout of mingled triumph and defiance,
+followed by a volley of three, each three reloading as the next fired.
+
+The victory thus asserted, and the foe offering no response, the little
+army retired in good order upon the randevous, where they only tarried
+long enough to pick up the rest of their possessions and make a sheaf of
+arrows, pointed not only with eagle's claws, but with the tips of deer's
+horns and bits of brass and iron gathered from the various European
+vessels touching for provisions or traffic at these shores.
+
+It was indeed to the treachery of one of these commanders that the
+present attack of the savages was due. Thomas Hunt, visiting these
+shores in 1614 to procure a cargo of dried fish for Spain, recompensed
+the kindness and hospitality of the savages by cajoling four-and-twenty
+of them on board his ship and carrying them as slaves to Malaga, where
+he sold several, the rest being claimed for purposes of conversion by
+the Franciscan Friars of those parts.
+
+One of these captives, named Tisquantum, or Squanto, escaped from Hunt,
+and remained for a while in England, where he was kindly treated and
+learned the language with something of the mode of life. He was brought
+back to Cape Cod as an interpreter by an adventurer named Dermer, and
+finally returned to his own people, who were so enraged by his story of
+Hunt's treachery and cruelty, that they resolved by way of revenge to
+sacrifice the first white men who fell into their hands, and had they
+proved themselves better men than the Pilgrims would have inflicted not
+only death, but the most cruel torments upon them.
+
+The goods and weapons on hoard, Carver, by a word, gathered the men
+around him upon the sands, and in a few fervent and hearty words
+returned thanks to the God of battles for His aid and protection,
+invoking at the same time protection and counsel for the farther dangers
+of the exploration. Then embarking with all speed the shallop was pushed
+off and flew merrily on before the strong east wind.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+CLARKE'S ISLAND.
+
+
+"And now, Master Coppin, let us bear up for Thievish Harbor without more
+delays," said Carver as the boat settled to her work, and the men into
+their places.
+
+"Ay, ay, master," responded the pilot cheerily. "And a good harbor and a
+good seat shall you find it in spite of its ill-favored name."
+
+But as the day went on the stormy sky lowered yet more and more blackly,
+the wind, shifting between east and north, swooped in angry gusts across
+the black waters, or blew in so fierce a gale that the shallop scarcely
+bore her close-reefed sails, and more than once careened so as to ship
+alarming seas. The air, filled with sleet and icy snow, cut like a knife
+through the thickest clothing, and again Edward Tilley, swooning with
+exhaustion and cold, lay lifeless in the bottom of the boat, sadly
+watched by his brother in hardly better plight and by Carver, who, like
+the father of a family, carried all his children in his heart.
+
+About the middle of the afternoon these skirmishes of the storm
+concentrated in one furious and irresistible attack, before which even
+the hardy sailors lowered their heads and clung to whatever lay nearest,
+while Clarke, who was steering, suddenly reeled violently against the
+bulwark, and recovering himself with a fearful oath seized an oar and
+thrusting it out astern shouted,--
+
+"We be all dead men! The rudder has broke, and no man can steer in such
+a sea as this with an oar!"
+
+"Two men may, so they be men and not cowards!" shouted John Alderton in
+retort, and springing to the stern he thrust out his own oar, calling to
+a comrade,--"Here, Cornish Jim, come you and help me, and so long as ash
+blades and stout arms hold we two will steer the craft."
+
+"Good cheer, men!" hailed Coppin from the bows where he was on the
+lookout. "I see the harbor straight ahead! We are all but in! Carry on,
+carry on with your sails there, Clarke, and let us make the haven before
+the gale rises to its height."
+
+"She'll never carry another inch of canvas," expostulated English as the
+mate shook out a reef in the mainsail, but Coppin and Clarke were now in
+command, since only they professed to know the coast, and the warning
+was unheeded, especially as the wind had for a moment lulled or rather
+drawn back for a more formidable spring, swooping down as the last reef
+point was loosed with a force that snatched the great sail from the
+men's hands, and buried the nose of the shallop deep under water. The
+sail cracked and filled until it was tense as iron, but the honest
+Holland duck could not give way, and it was the mast that had to go,
+breaking into three pieces and falling overboard with a splintering
+crash. Nor was this the worst, for with the mast went the great sail
+with all its hamper of blocks and cordage, which, half in and half out
+the boat, threatened to capsize and swamp her before it could be cut
+away.
+
+"Save the sail, men!" cried English through all the hubbub. "As good
+lose all as lose our sail! Gather it in and stow it as best we may. Keep
+her before the wind, you lubbers! Handle your oars for your lives!"
+
+For now the great boat, losing her sail, must depend upon oars, and with
+two men at each, and Alderton and the Cornish giant steering as best
+they might against a sea howling and leaping like wild beasts around
+them, the shattered craft drove on past the headland of Manomet,
+steering straight for the deadly rocks off the Gurnet's Head, which
+Coppin espying from the bows, he uttered a cry of dismay, shouting,--
+
+"The Lord be merciful to our sinful souls, for I never saw this place
+before!"
+
+"Breakers ahead!" shouted Clarke. "Beach her, Alderton! Run her ashore
+on yon headland! We that can swim may save ourselves! Beach her, I say!"
+
+"And I say no such coward thing," retorted Alderton. "About with her,
+men! Row, row for your lives! Bend down to it! So! Pull, pull! I see a
+channel ahead and smooth water! Hold on here, Jim, till I get out
+another oar, this cracks! Now then! Yeo-ho! Here we go past the reef!"
+
+And weathering Brown's Island and the Gurnet Rocks, the brave fellow
+steering more by instinct than sight, for darkness had fallen with the
+storm, the shallop struck the channel then dividing Saquish from the
+Gurnet, flew through it like a hunted creature, and forging past the
+north headland of a small densely wooded island found herself in calm
+water close under its lee.
+
+"There, men, ye are safe, thanks to stout hearts and arms and good ashen
+blades!" exclaimed Alderton drawing his first full breath since seizing
+the steering oar.
+
+"Thanks to God Almighty who still giveth His servants the victory,"
+amended Carver, who had toiled with the sturdiest.
+
+"And now, where are we and what is to do next?" demanded Standish
+clenching his blistered hands.
+
+"We are between two shores, maybe islands both, maybe the lee shore is
+the main," replied Coppin peering through the darkness. "And more I know
+not."
+
+"And I for one am minded to get ashore and see if there be stuff for a
+fire and shelter, whatever name the place may hold," cried Hopkins
+dashing the drops of salt water from his face and beard.
+
+"And I," added Standish heartily. "What say you, Master Carver? Shall we
+land and make some sort of randevous upon the shore?"
+
+"The place may be full of salvages, who, drawn by the light of a fire,
+can come upon us unaware," replied Carver hesitatingly.
+
+"As well risk another encounter as to perish here of cold and
+exhaustion," suggested Winslow.
+
+"Safety most often lies on the side of courage," declared Standish
+sententiously.
+
+"And Master Tilley will die if naught be done for him," pleaded Howland,
+and to this consideration Carver at once yielded his careful scruples.
+
+"Ay, John, thou 'rt right to mind me of that," said he. "Some of us will
+go ashore and make a fire, whereat to comfort those who are overborne by
+cold and weariness, and some shall keep the boat until the first are
+refreshed, and so hold watch and watch."
+
+"And I will be of the first watch ashore," cried Clarke, the master's
+mate; "for I'd twice liefer meet all the salvages of the Indies than to
+freeze like a clod, so here goes." And stepping upon the gunwale he made
+a spring in the dark, alighting upon a slippery rock and measuring his
+length upon the sand. Nothing daunted, however, he grasped a handful of
+sand in each fist, as if his prostration had been voluntary, and
+springing to his feet cried in a braggadocio voice,--
+
+"I seize this land for King James of England and for myself."
+
+"Thyself!" growled Coppin, jealously. "We'll call it Clarke's Land,
+then; for truly 't is all thou 'rt ever likely to be master of."
+
+"Nay, then, thou 'rt welcome to the six feet they'll give thee after
+thou 'rt hung," retorted Clarke, and the sailors chuckled at the jest,
+while the Pilgrims gravely arranged which watch should first land, and
+which keep the boat.
+
+Peering around in the obscurity, the pioneers soon found a sheltered
+nook close under the bluff, and built their fire and made their camp
+very near the spot where a little wharf now lies, and where generation
+after generation of their children has stood to meditate, to dream, to
+drink in the glory of summer seas and skies, or beneath the August moon
+to whisper in each others ears the old, old story, never so fresh and
+never so real as it has come to some of them on the shores of Clarke's
+Island.
+
+No rosy dreams, no moonlit passages were theirs however, who in that
+stormy December night first trod that pleasant shore, but rather the
+sternest realities of life and death, as with numb and icy fingers they
+struck a light and sheltered the feeble blaze loth to catch upon the wet
+twigs and leaves hastily collected.
+
+"Either there are no Indians or this is an island too small for
+hunting," said Hopkins as he groped in the thicket at the top of the
+bluff for small wood.
+
+"And how know you that?" inquired Howland who helped him.
+
+"By this undergrowth that we are gathering, lad. The Indians burn it off
+year by year in the haunts of the deer, so that they may course there
+freely, but here thou seest are plenty of old and dry twigs."
+
+"The better for our fire," returned Howland philosophically, not so much
+interested at that moment in the habits of Indians as in providing for
+Elizabeth Tilley's father.
+
+The more cautious brethren in the pinnace meantime had anchored and made
+things as snug as possible on board, but as the fire blazed up, and one
+after another on shore showed signs of its genial influence, the dangers
+of abandoning the boat grew less and less formidable, until Standish,
+rubbing his hands and turning to toast the other side of his person,
+cried exultingly,--
+
+"Aha, I am warm! I have seen the fire!"
+
+"So have I seen it, and here goes to feel it!" cried Coppin jumping as
+far toward land as he could, and splashing the rest of the way, for he
+had sulkily remained on board when Clarke leaped ashore and claimed the
+island.
+
+"Methinks the example is good if the manner be uncourteous," said
+Winslow wistfully.
+
+"Ay," replied Carver a little annoyed by Coppin's action, although he
+claimed no authority over the rough fellow. "I was just about to say
+that it were as well that we landed, taking our arms with us and
+standing on our guard, for truly we are perishing here."
+
+The permission calmly waited for was thankfully received, and in a few
+moments the whole party was gathered about the now jubilant fire which,
+fed with cedar logs, sent up clouds of perfumed smoke to float like
+incense among the crests of the shivering parent trees.
+
+The next morning broke calm and 'sunshining,' and the Pilgrims, renewing
+their fire, offered a solemn prayer of thanksgiving and confidence, and
+sat down to breakfast.
+
+After this came an exploration, which showed the small size and compact
+nature of the island, as well as its total lack of inhabitants. This
+tour was followed by an informal council about the fire, wherein it was
+resolved to remain during the day, which was Saturday, upon the island,
+drying and cleaning their weapons, rigging a temporary mast for the
+shallop, baling and drying her, and restoring by rest and comfort some
+measure of strength to the feebler members of the party. Also, and this
+not the least consideration, the next day being Sunday, they would thus
+be prepared to observe it with that decency and recollection which were
+part of their religion.
+
+The plan arranged, all set heartily to work to carry it out, the sailors
+going aboard to bale the boat, and Clarke and Alderton undertaking to
+fit the new mast. A proud young cedar, growing straight and tall among
+his slender admirers, was soon found, and as the white man's axe for the
+first time since cedars grew upon Clarke's Island bit into the heart of
+one of their number, we well might fancy that, mingling with the east
+wind and the sound of the surf on Salthouse Beach rose the echo of the
+dirge, startling the sailors of Egean shores, long before,--
+
+    "Pan is dead! Great Pan is dead!"
+
+Late in the afternoon when all the work was done, and the men sat or lay
+around the fire enjoying the Sabbatical repose long distinguishing the
+New England Saturday evening, Carver, Standish, Bradford, and Winslow
+climbed the hill rising sharply above their camping-ground, and paused
+by what is now called Sunset Rock to look about them.
+
+"Clarke's Island is but a small addition to King James's territory,"
+said Winslow with his subtle smile, as he glanced over the ninety acres
+of woodland lying around him.
+
+"Our own England is not very large," replied Carver quietly, "but she
+hath long arms."
+
+"And I," cried Standish gayly, "am but a little fellow, and yet am not
+in the way of calling upon bigger men to protect me! Despise not the day
+of small things, Master Winslow, albeit you carry your head some inches
+higher than mine."
+
+"There is a great rock showing above the scrub oaks to the north," said
+Bradford pointing in that direction. "Let us climb it and see what lieth
+beyond."
+
+"Have with you, brother!" responded Standish, and forcing their way
+through the stunted growth covering this higher and bleaker portion of
+the island the four men soon stood at the base of an enormous bowlder
+about thirty feet in height, brought hither in some glacial overflow of
+the forgotten years.
+
+On the southern side a deep crevice, worn by many rains, offered a
+foothold, even as it does to-day, and in a moment the four Pilgrim
+chiefs stood upon the summit and looked about them.
+
+The sun was setting in lavish gorgeousness, while in the deep blue vault
+arching overhead tiny points of light showed where the stars waited
+impatiently to take their places and glorify the night.
+
+The sea, almost black in its depth of color, dashed mournfully upon the
+rocks fallen from the high northern and western bluffs, and across the
+wintry flood lay the shores of what was to be Duxbury, running out at
+the south into a peninsula, terminating in a bold summit. This was
+Captain's Hill, and the Captain standing there looked at it all
+unconsciously and said:--
+
+"Yonder is a spot that might be made into a goodly hold against any foe.
+With a piece or two properly mounted on that fair height, and a palisado
+cutting off the headland from the main, it would fall into as pretty a
+little fortalice as could be asked."
+
+"Too small a seat for our whole company, howbeit," said Carver
+scrutinizing the spot.
+
+"And we must seek a river with commodious harbor for our fishing fleet,"
+added Winslow, not knowing the capacities then of Jones's River and
+Green Bay, hard by Captain's Hill, where he was to spend the honorable
+evening of his days.
+
+"Fishing!" echoed Standish contemptuously. "It is like those good
+dry-salters and drapers of London town, who have helped out our
+enterprise, to expect us, landing on this barren shore in the depth of
+winter, to fall on fishing before we break our fast, or build a shelter
+for our wives and children. Our first work is to subdue the salvages, to
+cut down the forest, to build houses, and plant crops. If we reach the
+fishing by this day twelvemonth we shall have done well."
+
+"I fear me the Adventurers of whom you speak so slightingly will hardly
+be of your mind," replied Winslow coldly.
+
+"Then let them come over here and collect their profits for themselves,"
+retorted Standish. "And well would I like to see Thomas Weston and
+Robert Cushman, with some of those smug London traders who think to buy
+good men's lives and swords for the price of a red herring, set down
+here to battle with the frost and snow, and sea and swamps, not to
+mention the salvages. We should hear their tune change from 'Fish, fish,
+fish!' I warrant me."
+
+But at this speech Winslow, even more of a diplomatist than a soldier,
+looked grave, and Bradford, in whose harmonious character valor was ever
+in accord with reason, laid a hand upon the little Captain's shoulder,
+and said affectionately:--
+
+"Thy courage is still so keen, Myles, that when thine enemies are put to
+flight thou 'rt tempted to turn upon thy friends! Doubtless the
+Adventurers, mostly men of peace, traders, if thou wilt have it so, yet
+none the worse for that, do somewhat fail to fathom the perils of this
+our undertaking; still no man is to be condemned for an honest
+misconception, and these same traders have freely risked their money to
+furnish us forth. We, too, had never stood on this rock to-night had not
+those men thrust their hands deep into their pockets, and is it out of
+reason for them to ask to see some return for their money as soon as may
+be?"
+
+"Not out of reason for traders, mayhap," replied Myles obstinately. "I
+would that we had come at our own charges altogether."
+
+"Those of us who had a little money were not enough to furnish forth
+those who had none," interposed Carver gravely; "and we have none too
+many hands as it is to do the work laid out for us."
+
+"Thou 'rt right, as thou mainly art, Governor," replied Standish
+good-humoredly; "and haply 't is well that my hot head is linked with
+thy cool one."
+
+"We were all ill sped, lacking thy skill and valor in war, Captain,"
+replied Carver kindly, and after a moment's meditative silence he slowly
+added,--
+
+"It ill befits finite man to intrude upon the Councils of infinite
+wisdom, and yet it seemeth borne strangely in upon my mind that God hath
+carefully chosen His weapons for the mighty conquest He hath set Himself
+to make in this wilderness, and, if I may say it without grieving your
+modesty, brethren, I seem to see in you, standing with me here, three
+chosen leaders.
+
+"A man of war, trained from childhood in martial tactics, and in the use
+of weapons, and of a singular courage and determination, you, Standish,
+are the strong right arm of the body corporate.
+
+"And you, Winslow, bred among courtiers and statesmen, subtle of
+intellect, ready of speech, cool of temper, and sound in judgment, in
+you I see our ambassador, our spokesman, our counselor and adviser, our
+Chrysostom of the golden mouth."
+
+"And Bradford," jealously demanded Standish laying a hand upon the arm
+of the future governor, for whom he ever entertained a mighty affection.
+
+Carver turned and looked full into Bradford's steadfast eyes upraised to
+his, and his own gaze became rapt and well-nigh prophetic. When he spoke
+again it was in a lower and less spontaneous voice.
+
+"The arm strikes, the tongue parleys, but both must be in accord with
+the brain, or all is lost. The father of his people must think for all,
+plan for all, encourage, restrain, cherish, discipline all. Standish for
+the camp, Winslow for the council, but for you, Bradford, the sleepless
+vigil, the constant watch, the self-forgetting energy, whose fruits are
+safety, honor, and prosperity, for those who lean on you."
+
+"But, dear friend, it is you who still must be our governor, our
+reliance, our father!" exclaimed Bradford eagerly, but Carver turned
+away and began the steep descent.
+
+Those whom he left looked earnestly in each other's faces, yet said
+nothing. A future grander, and more terrible than they had imagined,
+seemed suddenly defined before them, and each dimly felt the burden and
+the honor of his own part therein laid upon him.
+
+As thus they stood, three noble figures clearly defined against the
+amber of the evening sky, Richard Warren and Stephen Hopkins appeared
+upon the crest of the hill and paused to look about them.
+
+"See yonder figures, looking as cut out of stone, and set up for idols
+in the high places of Baal," sneered Hopkins. "These be our masters,
+Warren, if so be we yield to them."
+
+Warren, a genial, honest gentleman of London, who had thrown his entire
+patrimony, as well as his earnest soul, into this enterprise, shook his
+head and laughingly replied,--
+
+"Thou 'rt ever too jealous, Stephen, for thine own comfort. Our
+brethren, all unconscious that they make so fine a show up there, are
+giving their best and their all to the common weal, and so are we. If
+their best, chance to be gold, and ours but iron, think 'st thou God
+will value the one offering above the other? I trow not man, and I am
+for my part well content as matters stand."
+
+"Nay," persisted Hopkins, "but mark you how constantly they slight us
+and Dotey, because we are out of England, and not of Holland, and so not
+of Robinson's congregation?"
+
+"Nay," replied Warren pacifically; "I had liefer mark the many times we
+are called to Council and to share in whatever good may be toward. And
+mark you, Hopkins, you and I are the fathers of many children, and those
+men have none as yet, and this land whose foundations must be laid in
+our blood, if need be, shall become the inheritance of those we leave
+behind. Please God, my five girls, coming hither so soon as I have a
+roof to shelter them, shall become the mothers of soldiers and
+statesmen, maybe of kings, for who knoweth what is to come when the seed
+sown in tears shall be reaped in joy!"
+
+Hopkins answered only by a contemptuous sniff, and the triumvirate
+descending from their pedestal, all six men returned amicably to the
+camp.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+BURYING HILL.
+
+
+Much has been said and written of the Sunday spent by the advanced guard
+of Pilgrims upon Clarke's Island, and a very modern tradition points to
+the great rock in the centre of the island as the scene of their
+devotions. Nothing, however, is less probable than that this handful of
+men, with no pastor or even presiding elder among them, should leave
+their encampment under the bluff, and the neighborhood of their boat, to
+travel inland to this bleak and exposed bowlder, there to set one of
+their number to exhort the rest. Carver certainly was a deacon of
+Robinson's congregation, yet this office gave him no spiritual
+authority, but rather the duties of a warden in the mother church, nor
+was the governor a man to assume any authority not his own; so although
+he led the informal service held in that sheltered nook, upon the shore,
+Winslow and Bradford and Hopkins were the chief speakers, while John
+Howland in his melodious and powerful voice raised a psalm that made the
+welkin ring, and Richard Warren stoutly cried Amen to all the rest.
+
+Standish, his arms folded and one hand resting upon the hilt of Gideon,
+stood a little apart, his head reverently bared in the prayers, and with
+a rough attempt at melody echoing Howland's psalm; but during the
+exhortations or prophesyings, he strode softly up and down the beach,
+or mounting upon the bluff swept sea and land with the keen glances of
+eyes that nothing escaped. Occasionally a fervent word would be sped in
+his direction from one or another, and many a prayer, as before and
+after that hour, was urged that this bulwark of the church against her
+secular foes might become her obedient son. When thus exhorted or prayed
+for the captain's face became a study, sometimes so impenetrably obtuse,
+sometimes so rigid in its obstinacy, sometimes touched with shrewd
+amusement, and sometimes moved to tender sympathy, but never to
+conviction or even doubt, and as the years went on, those who loved him
+most, even Bradford and Alden and Brewster, ceased all effort to bring
+this precious comrade into their own fold, but learned to accept him as
+he was.
+
+Monday broke with clear and gracious skies and a sea only pleasantly
+rippled with its late commotion. Refreshed and cheered by their long
+rest the Pilgrims were early afoot, and at a good hour the cleaned and
+furbished arms were packed in the shallop, the sail, bent to its new
+mast, was unfurled to its fullest spread, and the eighteen men, each at
+his own post, eager and hopeful. It had been resolved to proceed no
+farther in search of Coppin's harbor, which afterward proved to be Cut
+River and the site of Marshfield, but to explore the landlocked harbor
+lying before them.
+
+Carefully sounding as she went, the shallop felt her way through the Cow
+Yard or Horse Market, around Beach Point, and having the flood tide with
+her rode triumphantly over Dick's Flat and Mother White's Guzzle, until
+finally, with furled sails and her head to the wind, she lay within a
+biscuit toss of the shore.
+
+"See, there are cleared fields and a river full of fish, and all things
+ready to our hand," cried Howland excitedly.
+
+"Bring her up to the beach, then, and we will land and explore," replied
+Carver, smiling at the young man's enthusiasm.
+
+"There is a rock a few rods ahead set ready for a stepping-stone,"
+announced Howland standing in the bows.
+
+"Lay her up to it, men," growled English, and in a moment the bows of
+the shallop caressingly touched the cheek of that great gray Rock,
+itself a pilgrim, as has well been said, from some far northern shore,
+brought here by the vast forces of Nature, and laid to wait in grand
+patience, until the ages should bring it a name, a use, and a nation's
+love and honor.
+
+"Jump then, lad, and see thou jump not five fadom deep, as thou didst
+out there in mid-seas!" cried Hopkins, and Howland leaping lightly from
+the boat to the rock cried in his blithe voice,--
+
+"And I seize this mainland for King James, even as Master Clarke did yon
+island."
+
+"Only thou dost not claim it for thine own under the king as he did,"
+replied Coppin.
+
+"It seemeth to me," said Carver as he stepped on shore, "as if this
+place were fairly laid down on Smith's map that we were studying. Think
+you not so, Master Winslow?"
+
+"Ay, I believe it is the place he hath called Plymouth after our English
+town."
+
+"Why, then, if we are minded to tarry here, it were well befitting that
+we should continue the name, for our Plymouth brethren cheered and
+comforted us marvelously in our sad outsetting," replied the governor,
+and Bradford added,--
+
+"They were in very truth kinder than our own."
+
+"'T is a better harbor than English Plymouth can boast," said Coppin
+turning to survey the bay.
+
+"Harbor! English Plymouth's harbor is no better than a slaughter pen!
+Not less than ten good ships were pounded to pieces there in the last
+year," said the sailor Alderton.
+
+"Yes, 't is worse than the Goodwin Sands, if that can be," echoed
+English.
+
+"While here is a haven most artificially contrived for safety, with its
+overlapping arms and islands," cried Clarke.
+
+"Ay, the islands, Clarke's Island above all, are such as all England
+cannot match!" jeered Coppin, while Howland, followed by the rest, began
+to climb the bluff in front of them, choosing almost by instinct the
+easy ascent around its base, now known as Leyden Street. A little above
+the future site of the Common house they paused to take breath and to
+consult.
+
+"Yes, here is cleared land enow for any crop we can plant in a year to
+come," said Dotey, looking approvingly along Cole's Hill.
+
+"And I hear the tinkle of water falling upon water," cried Bradford
+gazing down toward the outlet of Town Brook. "There must be springs
+yonder."
+
+"But fuel would needs be lugged on men's backs further than I for one
+could fancy," grumbled Hopkins glancing at the woods nowhere very near.
+
+"We can scarce hope for arable land and dense forest in one plot of
+ground," remarked Winslow dryly.
+
+"Let us march into the land and explore it fully," suggested Carver.
+"Every man should carry his piece with lighted match, but the rest of
+the gear may well be left in the boat under charge of the shipmen.
+Master Gunner I advise thee to stay behind also. If we meet with the
+Indians and there is any opening for trucking I promise thee thy full
+share and advantage."
+
+"He who stays by the stuff shall share with him who goeth to the
+battle," quoted Standish, who was well versed in what may be called the
+military history of the Bible.
+
+"'T is a venerable law, Captain, and out of a faultless code," replied
+Carver reverently.
+
+"Come on, then, brethren!" cried Hopkins striding up the steep face of
+Burying Hill. The rest followed, and on the crest stopped to admire the
+magnificent view spread out in the clear light of the wintry morning.
+
+"Yon is a sightly point for a town," said Warren pointing to Watson's
+Hill.
+
+"Too far from the shore," replied Carver.
+
+"And from those tinkling springs for whose water I already am athirst,"
+added Bradford.
+
+"Hm! hm!" growled Standish plucking at his beard and pacing to and fro;
+"here is the place for a stronghold, Master Carver, just here where we
+are standing. See you now, from a breastwork thrown up hereabout and
+mounted with a minion or two a man could sweep off an army. 'T is but a
+pretty shot to the rock whereon we landed, and where any but a fool
+would choose to land, since it is the only dry-shod landing on the
+beach; and here we have Bradford's springs well in range, and this
+ascent by which we have clomb thither. Why, it is a little Gibraltar
+ready to our hand. Then if the salvages approach by land, from yon fair
+hill which Warren advises, our heavier guns will meet them half way,
+and our smaller metal mow them down at close quarters. We are well set
+forth in gun-metal, Governor, for I saw to it myself; not only minions,
+but sakers and falcons and bases, not to mention each man's piece, which
+I fain would have had all snaphances like mine own. Ay, we are well
+armed, and here is our fortalice."
+
+"But not to my mind our dwelling, Captain," replied Carver pleasantly.
+"Mind you, half our company are women and children, and it were hard for
+them to be cooped up in a fort or to descend and climb again this shrewd
+ascent whenever they were athirst. I say not but that a fortification
+here were admirable when we come at it, but methinks our dwellings were
+better placed under its protection than within it."
+
+"Along this course we have just trod from the rock," suggested Winslow.
+
+"And tending toward the springs," added Bradford with a smile.
+
+"Nay, man, come and drink since thou 'rt so sore athirst," cried Hopkins
+clapping him on the back. "If 't were a spring of Hollands now, or even
+a double strike of English ale, I'd race thee for it, but never yet did
+I find my stomach clamor for cold water."
+
+"'T is very delicate water for all that," declared Bradford as the two
+men, stumbling down the steep descent of Spring Lane, reached and
+stooped to drink of the spring at its foot.
+
+"Too delicate for me," retorted Hopkins; "fitter for maids than men."
+
+"Well, beer is brewed of water as well as of barley and hops," declared
+Bradford; "and thou 'st only to raise the grain and this fair spring
+will turn it into beer for thee at thy pleasure."
+
+"And here be blackberry briers for my dame to brew her wild-berry wines,
+and lo you now, this is sassafras whose roots are worth their weight in
+gold to the chirurgeons, and these are strawberry leaves."
+
+"And we have seen cherry and plum stocks in abundance the way we came,"
+declared Bradford as the rest of the party straggled down the hill.
+
+"Excellent sand and gravel for building," said Warren crumbling the soil
+around the spring. "Ay, and here is clay to shape into pots and pans
+when the goodwives have broken all they bring."
+
+"Methinks it hath a look of fuller's clay, and so is almost as well for
+us as soap," said Howland taking up some and washing his hands in the
+brook. "There, now, see you its use!"
+
+"Have with you, friend," cried Winslow, daintiest of the pioneers.
+"Surely cleanliness being next to godliness tendeth somewhat to the same
+satisfaction!"
+
+The exploration, carried as far as Eel River at the south and Murdoch's
+Pond westerly, lasted until night, when the Pilgrims bivouacked on the
+shore, supping merrily on some great clams dug by the sailors and wild
+fowl shot by Howland and Dotey. Before they slept under the sheltering
+brow of Cole's Hill it was pretty well decided that Plymouth, as they
+began at once to call it, should be their permanent dwelling-place, more
+especially as in their day-long explorations they had seen no natives or
+even their dwellings, and the site seemed for some reason abandoned to
+their occupancy.
+
+But the joyous return with good news to those on board the Mayflower was
+turned into grief and dismay by the tidings awaiting the explorers.
+
+Dorothy Bradford was dead. How it could have happened, or just when, no
+one knew, but on the very day after her husband's departure she had gone
+quietly on deck while the rest of the company were at supper and never
+was seen again; nor till the sea gives up its dead shall any know the
+story of that poor overwrought soul's last fierce struggle and defeat.
+
+Nor can we speak of the young husband's anguish, and it may be
+self-reproach, in that awful hour. He speaks not himself of this matter
+in his journal, save in briefest words; nor dare we intrude upon such
+matters as lie between a man and his God. But this we may say, that as
+Jacob, wrestling with the angel and overcoming, went halting all his
+days from the wound of that strange conflict, so Bradford's face when he
+again took his place among his fellows told of years forever consumed in
+one terrible struggle.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+
+ROSE.
+
+
+"Myles!"
+
+"Ay, sweetheart, here am I."
+
+"A little drink--nay, I want it not. I was dreaming thy cousin Barbara
+was making a sallet, and I was fain to taste it, it looked so cool and
+fresh,--and I wakened. I would well like some sallet, Myles."
+
+"As soon as the day dawns, my Rose, I will go and look for herbs. I
+marked some sorrel on the hill yester e'en, albeit something dry and
+sere."
+
+"Why doth the ship roll so sorely, Myles?"
+
+"Thou 'rt not on shipboard, child, but in our little hospital here
+ashore. Mindest thou not how thou didst mourn and cry to me, 'Take me
+ashore, Myles, take me ashore, that I may breathe sweet air and live.'
+So I lapped thee in blankets and brought thee, to-morrow is a se'nnight.
+Like you not this sweet new dwelling?"
+
+"Well enow; but sweet air will not make me live if the time hath come
+for me to die." And the sick girl smiled wanly, inscrutably, the smile
+of one who knows what he will not say.
+
+The face of the fearless soldier grew white with terror, and almost
+angrily he replied,--
+
+"Hush, child! Thy time to die hath not come. Never think it, for it
+shall not be."
+
+"Nay, Myles, thou canst not daunten Death with thy stern voice and
+masterful eye, though thou canst quell a score of other foes with one
+glance."
+
+And Rose, moving her frail little hand toward the sinewy fist clenched
+upon the bed-covering, slid a finger within its grasp, and went softly
+on with a pathetic ring of gayety in her voice,--
+
+"I was dreaming, too, of home, mine own old home. I was gathering
+cowslips in the meadow at St. Mary's, and mother stood by with little
+Maudlin in her arms. They smiled, both of them, ah how sweetly they
+smiled upon me, and I filled my pinafore with the cowslips, soft, cool,
+wet cowslips,--I feel them in my hand now, so cool, so wet! Myles, I
+fain would have those cowslips, may I not?"
+
+"Child! Child! Thou 'lt break my heart!"
+
+"Mother and Maudlin both died the year I saw thee first, dost remember,
+Myles?"
+
+"Try to sleep a little, my darling. I will say thee a psalm, or perhaps
+one of those old Manx ballads thou didst use to lilt so lightly."
+
+"Mistress White says they are ungodly, and a snare of Satan," replied
+Rose dreamily, and before Myles could utter the wrathful comment that
+quivered upon his lips she went on,--
+
+"It was across her grave I saw thee, dear, dost mind thee of that hour?"
+
+"Thy mother's grave? ay, I mind me."
+
+"Yes, thou camest with thy cousin Barbara to seek thy grandsire's
+gravestone and to search out the muniments of thy race. Thou 'lt never
+lay hands on that inheritance, Myles."
+
+"I care not, so thou wilt get strong and well again, my Rose, my Rose!"
+And with a groan but half driven back upon his heart, the soldier
+turned his head aside and set his teeth upon his trembling lip. But
+Rose, more alive in the past than the present, rambled on in her sweet,
+weak voice,--
+
+"'Not only this wild hunting ground and ruined lodge where we abide, but
+many a fair manor in England, and many a stately home is his,' that was
+what Barbara told me about thee afterward; and when I praised thy
+presence, for I loved thee or ever I knew it myself, she straightened
+her neck and said full proudly, 'Ay, and not only a goodly man, but a
+brave soldier and noble soul.' 'Twas she who first saw that thou lovedst
+me, Myles, and came and wept for joy upon my neck."
+
+"Peace, peace, dear child. Thou wastest thy strength in talking
+overmuch. Sleep, canst thou not, dear heart?"
+
+"Dost think that Barbara will come hither? She promised me surefast that
+she would so soon as there was a company ready. She said it was so
+lonely there in Man when I was gone. Will she come, think you, Myles?"
+
+"Like enow, sweetheart. Barbara mostly carries out what she promises.
+But"--
+
+"And thou 'lt be very, very good to thy cousin, wilt thou not, Myles?
+Thou 'rt all she has now."
+
+"Surely both of us will be good to our kinswoman, dear wife, and all the
+more that, as thou sayest, it was by going to visit her that I first saw
+thee, blooming like a very rose in that gray old Manx churchyard."
+
+"I was ever friends with Barbara, but I loved her all the more for thy
+sake, dear. And she was well pleased that we two should wed--leastways
+she said so."
+
+"And if she said it she meant it, for in all the years she tarried in my
+mother's house I never knew her tell a lie or wear two faces. But now,
+verily, child, I must have thee rest. Speak not again unless thou
+needest somewhat. I will have it so, my Rose."
+
+"Then let me lay my hand in thine. There, then, good-night."
+
+"Good-night, mine own."
+
+And while the winter night lapsed through hours of deadly chill and
+darkness into the sad twilight of early morning the soldier sat
+motionless, holding that fragile hand, gazing upon that lovely face,
+lovely yet so changed from the cherubic beauty that had won his heart
+amid the summer fields of Man but three short years before.
+
+What he thought, what he felt in those hours, he could not himself have
+revealed, for a man's emotion is usually in inverse proportion to its
+expression, and Myles Standish was essentially a man of action and not
+of words; but God only knows how these strong inarticulate natures
+suffer in the agony that divides bone from marrow, and yet leaves the
+sufferer conscious of the capacity to live and to suffer yet again and
+again.
+
+In some respects this vigil resembled that of Bradford in hearing of
+Dorothy's death, in some it was widely different, for with Bradford's
+grief was mingled self-reproach and keen introspection; he weighed his
+own life, he found it wanting, he condemned it, and offering his
+suffering as righteous penance, he extolled the justice of God, and
+submitted himself as a culprit to the scourge.
+
+But Standish thought neither of the justice of God nor of his own
+demerits, nor had he skill or practice for introspection. "A man under
+authority and having soldiers under him," he both rendered and expected
+obedience, prompt, entire, and unquestioning. His was a nature of
+loyalty so magnificent as to need no buttresses of reason, or of
+self-distrust, a loyalty so sweet as to be unconscious of itself, a
+loyalty so entire that the soul could not get outside of it to consider
+it objectively.
+
+The order came from the King of kings, and it was to be obeyed, or
+endured; the King could do no wrong.
+
+Nor indeed had he been skilled to search, could Myles have found matter
+for self-reproach in all his dealings with the child dying at his side.
+
+Busy from his boyhood in the pursuit of arms, and loving his mother with
+all the force of his great nature, the man had cared little for other
+women, turning with scorn from the meretricious charms of those he
+encountered in camp or among his comrades, and finding no time or
+inclination to seek others, so that except for the light fancies of an
+hour, or the calm affection for his cousin Barbara, whom he found on one
+of his visits to his home in Chorley giving a daughter's tendance to his
+mother, Standish had passed his three and thirtieth birthday ignorant of
+the nature of love, and mocking at its power.
+
+But the first glance at the lovely girl weeping beside her mother's
+grave warned him that a new hour had struck, and a new foe opposed him;
+nor was he long in making full and frank surrender to an authority as
+strong as it was gentle, and as tyrannous as sweet.
+
+Motionless and erect the soldier sat the long night through, and as if
+she gathered strength from the grasp of his healthy hand, Rose slept
+quietly until the sun rose, and the women still well enough to wait upon
+the sick came softly in.
+
+Then she opened her eyes, fixed them upon his with a tender smile, and
+said,--
+
+"Poor Myles! Thou hast watched all night while selfish I held thee and
+slept. But now begone and get thine own rest and food. I shall do well
+with these kind friends."
+
+"I'll leave thee, then, for a little, but I shall not be far away, and
+if thou needest, send," replied her husband releasing his hand from the
+frail yet burning grasp that still held him. "Dame Turner, thou 'lt see
+that I am called if she asks for me, wilt thou?"
+
+"Surely, Captain, but she is doing bravely this morning, and you had
+better rest."
+
+"Nay, but let her not ask twice for me, or aught else."
+
+Leaving the house, and drawing one or two eager breaths of fresh air,
+Standish climbed the hill where already the fortification he had
+proposed was nearly complete, though not yet armed. Stepping upon a
+great beam, squared but not laid in place, he stood looking around him
+as if to see what Nature and his own work could offer to fill the great
+gulf opening in the future.
+
+A light fog still clung to the face of the water and hung in the hollows
+of the hills; shrouded in its folds the Mayflower lay like a spectre
+ship, ugly, unsafe, full of discomfort and misery, but yet the only link
+between this handful of dying men and their home. Standish gazed at her
+with a gathering darkness upon his face, until the burden of his thought
+broke out in a savage murmur,--
+
+"_Couldst_ not make thy way through yonder shoals and bring us to the
+fair shores I told her of! If it be thy fault, Thomas Jones!"--
+
+The slow clenching of a jaw square and strong as a mastiff's finished
+the sentence, and Standish's eyes came back to the rude hut where all
+he loved lay dying, perhaps through this man's fault. At his feet lay
+the sketch as it were of the town he and his comrades had laid down in
+outline, and intended to build up as time and strength allowed. Already
+Leyden Street, or The Street, as it was at first called, lay a distinct
+thoroughfare from the Rock to the Fort, the eastern and western
+extremities of the village. Along this street were staked out plots of
+land, some larger and some smaller in the proportion of eight feet
+frontage to each person in a family, the single men, and those women and
+children already left desolate, being divided among the householders,
+and the whole company reduced to nineteen families.
+
+Standish's own house, not yet finished, lay nearest to the Fort, which
+with its armament were to be his especial charge, and several of the
+single men had been appointed to his family. Their own illness, and that
+of Mistress Standish had, however, interfered with this arrangement, and
+only John Alden shared the house as yet with Standish, the two men
+sometimes eating at the Common house, the only one except the hospital
+really finished, and sometimes cooking for themselves such food as they
+could lay hands upon, for the house, unlike some of the others, already
+boasted a chimney laid up of sticks and clay, and showed a generous
+fireplace in the larger or living room which, with two little
+sleeping-rooms and a loft, comprised the whole accommodation.
+
+Upon this little home so hopefully begun, so neglected during the last
+ten days, Myles gazed long and wistfully, smiling sadly as he saw Alden
+come out and look up and down the street for him, finally going to seek
+him in the Common house, a substantial structure some twenty feet
+square, built of hewn oaken logs, fitted together as closely as
+possible, and the crevices stopped with clay, which freely washed out in
+stormy weather.
+
+The roof, like all the rest, was covered with thatch formed of dried
+reeds and grasses, and the windows were filled with oiled linen instead
+of glass, still an article of costly luxury. Above the Common house
+stood the building which the increasing mortality of the colony had
+demanded as a hospital, and below it was the storehouse, where most of
+the common stock of goods was collected, although some of the passengers
+and their possessions still remained on board the brig, where Jones gave
+them but scant hospitality or kindness.
+
+Folding his arms more closely as the chill wind of February swept in
+from seaward, Standish gazed upon all these objects as if they for the
+first time attracted his attention, and then, as the lifting fog
+revealed the distant landscape, he turned and fixedly regarded Captain's
+Hill rising in its bold isolation to the north. Long he gazed, and then,
+slightly shaking his head, stepped down from the beam and paced about
+the little enclosure, half unconsciously examining the work of platform
+and parapet, and following with a gunner's eye the range of the pieces
+yet unmounted; pausing longest before the eastern front, he marked with
+satisfaction how well the minion there to be placed would guard the
+landing and sweep the solitary street, and even knelt to look along its
+imaginary barrel.
+
+Rising he brushed the soil from his knees with almost a smile,
+muttering,--
+
+"Ay, lad, thou 'rt needed, thou 'rt needed, and he who is needed has no
+right to desert his post."
+
+But suddenly the smile faded, for as he turned to leave the Fort his
+eyes fell upon Cole's Hill, where but a few rods from the Common house,
+and under its protection, they had dug the graves of those already dead,
+and where lay room enough for many more. But his battle fought, and his
+mind resolved, Myles was too much master of himself to need a second
+conflict, and setting his lips firmly beneath the tawny moustache that
+shaded them, he strode down the hill, and at his own door found John
+Alden waiting for him and changing greetings with a party of four men
+armed with sickles and attended by two dogs.
+
+"Wish you good-morrow, Captain," said the foremost, a sturdy young
+fellow with a pleasant English face.
+
+"Good-morrow Peter Browne, and you, John Goodman," replied the captain
+cordially. "Whither away?"
+
+"To cut thatch in the fields nigh yon little pond," replied Browne
+pointing in a westerly direction. "And I am taking Nero along to give
+account of any Indians that may be lurking there."
+
+"And John Goodman's spaniel to rouse the game for Nero to pull down,"
+said Standish with a smile. "Well, God speed you."
+
+And turning into the unfinished house he found Alden watching him with a
+look of silent friendliness and sympathy more eloquent than words;
+returning the greeting as mutely and as heartily, Standish would have
+passed into his own bedroom, but the younger man interposed,--
+
+"Thou 'lt break thy fast, Captain, wilt thou not? All is ready and
+waiting your coming; some of the bean soup you liked yester even, and
+some fish"--
+
+"Presently, presently, good John! I would but bathe and refresh myself.
+Nay, look not so doubtingly after me, friend. I am a man, and know a
+man's devoir."
+
+He spoke with a smile as brave as it was gentle, and passing in closed
+the door.
+
+"Doth he know she is dying!" muttered John throwing himself upon a
+bench; "and Priscilla sickening and her mother dead!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X.
+
+A TERRIBLE NIGHT.
+
+
+As Standish entered his own house the four men to whom he had spoken
+passed on around the base of the hill, and reaching a tract of swampy
+land covered with reeds and rushes suitable for thatching, they set to
+work cutting them and binding in bundles ready for use. For some hours
+they wrought industriously, until Peter Browne, commander of the
+expedition, straightened his back, stretched his cramped arms, and
+gazing at the sun announced,--
+
+"Noontime, men. We'll e'en rest and eat our snack."
+
+"Art thou o' mind to come and show me the pond where thou sawest wild
+fowl t' other day?" asked John Goodman, townsman and friend of Browne's.
+
+"Ay, will I. Take thy meat in thy hand and come along," replied Browne.
+"And we may as well finish our day there, sith this spot is well nigh
+stripped. Margeson and Britteridge, when you have fed, you can bind the
+rushes that are cut, and then come after us as far as a little pond
+behind that hill, due west from here I should say. You'll find it easily
+enough."
+
+"Oh, ay, we'll find it," replied Margeson, a rough companion, but a good
+worker. "Go on mates, and take your dogs with you, for they're smelling
+at the victuals enough to turn a man's stomach. Get out you beast!" and
+raising his foot he offered to kick Nero, who growled menacingly and
+showed a formidable set of teeth.
+
+"Have a care, man!" cried Browne angrily. "Meddle with that dog and
+he'll make victual of thee before thou knowest what ails thee. 'T is
+ever a poor sign when a man cannot abear dogs or children."
+
+And the two friends, followed by the mastiff and spaniel, walked rapidly
+away. Two hours passed while Margeson and Britteredge, not greatly in
+haste, finished their lunch and tied and stacked the reeds already cut.
+Then shouldering their sickles they leisurely skirted the hill in front
+of them, and after a little search came upon the pretty sheet of water
+now called Murdoch's Pond.
+
+"This will be the place," said Margeson looking about him; "but where is
+pepperpot Browne?"
+
+"Or his dog?" suggested Britteridge slyly.
+
+"Whistle and the beasts will hear us if the men do not," said Margeson
+suiting the action to the word. No answer followed, and both men
+together raised a yet shriller note, followed by shouts, halloos, and
+various noises supposed to carry sound to the farthest limits of space.
+But each effort died away in dim and distant echoes among the hills, and
+after a while the men looked at each other in half angry discouragement.
+
+"They've played us a trick," said Margeson; "they're hiding to mock at
+us, or they've gone back to the village some other way."
+
+"Nay," replied Britteridge pacifically; "they're not such babes as to
+play tricks like that. See, here are goodly reeds; let us cut and bind
+some while we tarry, and Browne will be back anon."
+
+Grumbling and unconvinced Margeson still complied, and for a while
+longer the two worked fitfully, pausing now and again to look about
+them, to listen, or to shout.
+
+At last, by tacit consent, both threw down their tools, and with slow,
+half-fearful gaze surveyed the scene. It was a dismal one. The sun had
+reached the tops of the pines, and already the water lay in black shadow
+at their feet, rippled by the small, bitter breeze creeping in from
+seaward, and stirring the sedge into faint whisperings and moanings;
+night birds, awaking in the depths of the forest, uttered querulous
+cries, and strange, vague sounds within the covert suggested prowling
+beast or savage creeping near and nearer.
+
+"Ugh! 't is a grewsome spot as ever I saw," said Margeson as softly as
+if he feared to be overheard. "Certes the men have gone home some other
+way, and the sun is setting. Let us be after them, say I."
+
+"And say I," replied Britteridge readily, and without more words the two
+men hurried away, and in a brief half hour presented themselves before
+the governor with news that their comrades were not to be found, either
+in the field or the town, and doubtless were lost in the forest or
+captured by the Indians.
+
+Carver, ever as ready to act as to command, armed himself at once, and
+summoning such men as were on shore led them to the wood, where by
+calling, firing their pieces, and kindling torches they protracted the
+search far into the night, and when forced to give it up until daylight
+returned to the Common house for united and fervent prayers and
+supplications.
+
+Early in the morning another search party, headed by Stephen Hopkins,
+with Billington as scout, entered the woods, but having traversed a
+radius of seven or eight miles returned at night weary, footsore, and
+with no tidings.
+
+News of the loss was carried on board the Mayflower, and a heavy sense
+of misfortune and danger settled upon the little community already
+depressed by disease and want.
+
+The men thus mourned were meantime in nearly as evil case as was feared.
+
+Just before arriving at the pond, while munching their frugal lunch and
+discussing the prospect of game, they espied a splendid stag who had
+evidently been disturbed while drinking, and stood with head erect and
+dilated eyes gazing upon the first white men he had ever seen, and
+perhaps foreboding the war of extermination they had come to wage on him
+and his.
+
+"Oh for a piece!" cried Browne raising an imaginary gun to his shoulder.
+"Seize him, Nero! Take him, good dog! Hi! Away, away!"
+
+Nero needing no second invitation uttered a deep bay and set off,
+followed by the spaniel, yelping to the extent of her powers, while the
+two men, reckless of the fact that they were unarmed save with sickles,
+and could never hope to overtake the deer on foot, bounded after as fast
+as they could lay legs to the ground, nor paused until utterly blown and
+exhausted and the chase out of sight and hearing.
+
+"Hah!" panted Browne flinging himself upon the ground; "I haven't been
+breathed like that since I ran in the foot-race at home in Yorkshire
+five year agone. Phew!"
+
+Goodman only replied by inarticulate groans and wheezes, and while he
+yet struggled for breath Nero came trotting back through the woods with
+a mortified and contrite expression pervading his body from eloquent
+eyes to abject tail, while Pike, as the spaniel was called, followed at
+some distance with an affected carelessness of demeanor as if she would
+have it clearly understood that she had been running solely for her own
+pleasure, with no idea of chasing the deer. The men laughed, and patting
+their favorites allowed them to lie and rest for some moments; then as
+the air grew chill they rose and strolled in the direction, as they
+supposed, of the clearing where they had left their comrades. But the
+wood was thick, and several swampy hollows induced detours; the sun was
+obscured by the gathering snow clouds, and neither man was skilled in
+woodcraft; while the dogs, roaming at pleasure, were more intent upon
+tracing various scents of game than of finding the way home. Thus it
+came that as darkness began to gather visibly among the crowding
+evergreens, and the last tinge of sunlight was buried in thickening
+clouds, the two men stopped and looked each other squarely in the face.
+
+"Yes, John," said Browne reading the frightened eyes of his younger and
+less courageous companion. "Yes, lad, we're lost, and I doubt me must
+pass the night in the woods."
+
+"And we lack not only food but cloaks and weapons!" exclaimed Goodman
+looking forlornly about him, and stooping to pat Pike, who scenting
+disaster in the air had returned whimpering to her master's side.
+
+"If we could but find some deserted hut of the salvages, or some of
+their stored grain, or even the venison we disdained the other day,"
+suggested Browne.
+
+"We've seen no trace of such a thing to-day," replied Goodman
+disconsolately.
+
+"Come on, then, and let us look while daylight lingers. Mayhap the dogs
+will lead us out if we put them to it. Hi, Nero! Home boy, home! Seek!"
+
+Nero whimpered intelligently and trotted on for a mile or so, but with
+none of that appearance of conviction which sometimes gives to an
+animal's proceedings the force of an inspiration. Browne, who knew his
+dog well, felt the discouragement of his movement, and finally stopped
+abruptly.
+
+"Nay, he knows no home in this wilderness and feels no call to one place
+more than another. 'T is past praying for, John; we must e'en make up
+our minds to sleep here. Suppose that we lie down in the lee of these
+nut-bushes, call the dogs to curl up beside us, and try to keep life
+going till morning; no doubt we shall find the way out then, or at least
+somewhat to eat."
+
+"My blood is like ice already," murmured Goodman burying his hands in
+the spaniel's curly hair.
+
+"If we had but flint and steel to make a fire it were something!"
+exclaimed Browne. "What Jack-o'-Bedlams we were to set off thus
+unprovided. Catch me so again!"
+
+"But we came out to cut thatch, not to chase deer and get lost in the
+woods," suggested Goodman trying to laugh, though his teeth chattered
+like castanets.
+
+"It will never do for thee to lie down as chilled as thou art,"
+exclaimed Browne anxiously. "I promised thy old mother I'd have an eye
+to thee, and lo it is I that have led thee into this mischance! What
+shall I do for thee? I have it, lad! Sith it is too dark and rough to
+walk farther I'll try a fall with thee; there's naught warms a man's
+blood like a good wrestling match. Come on, then!"
+
+"I'm no match for thee, Peter, but here goes!" replied Goodman
+struggling to his feet, and the two men joined there in the darkness and
+the wilderness in what might truly be called a "joust of courtesy,"
+moved only by mutual love and good will, for the event proved Goodman's
+modesty well founded, and it was only a few moments before Browne,
+raising his slender opponent in his arms, set him down sharply two or
+three times upon his feet, saying,--
+
+"I'll not throw thee, for that might prove small kindness. Art warmer?"
+
+But before Goodman could answer a snarling cry broke from the thicket
+close at hand, and was answered by another and another voice until the
+air seemed filled with the cries of howling fiends.
+
+Nero started to his feet, his eyes glowing, the hair bristling stiffly
+upon his neck, and with a fierce growl of defiance would have sprung
+forward had not his master seized him by the collar exclaiming,--
+
+"Nay, fool! wouldst rush on thy destruction!"
+
+"'T is the salvages!" stammered Goodman staring about him in the
+darkness.
+
+"Nay, 't is lions," replied Browne. "Hopkins saith they swarm about
+here. We must climb a tree, John. Here is a stout one; up with thee,
+man, as fast as may be!"
+
+"But thou, Peter?" asked John clambering into the oak his friend pointed
+out.
+
+"I cannot leave Nero. He'll be gone to the lion so soon as I quit my
+hold of his collar, and I'll not lose him but in sorer need than this.
+Here, take thou the spaniel and hold her to thee for warmth."
+
+"Nay, I'll not be safe and thou in danger," replied the young man
+springing down; "and, moreover, it is deadly cold perching in a tree."
+
+"Well, then, we'll both stand on our guard here, and if the lions come
+we'll e'en up in the tree hand over hand and leave the poor beasts to
+their fate. Stamp thy feet on the ground and walk a few paces up and
+down, John. I fear me thou 'lt swound with the cold like poor Tilley."
+
+"I could not well be colder and live," replied Goodman faintly, as he
+tried to follow his friend's injunction.
+
+The night crept on, with frost and snow and icy rain and heavy darkness,
+and still the wolves prowled howling around their prey, and the good dog
+held them at bay with savage growls and deep-throated yelps of defiance,
+and his master, caring more for the humble friend he had reared and
+brought over seas from his English home than for his own safety, held
+him all night by the collar, and the spaniel whimpered with cold and
+terror in her master's arms, and he, poor lad, suffered all the anguish
+of death as his feet and legs chilled and stiffened and froze like ice.
+A night not to be numbered in those men's lives by hours but years, a
+night of exhaustion, terror, and agony, a night hopeless of morning save
+through the exceeding mercy of God.
+
+The gray light broke at last, however, and with it the wolves grew mute
+and slunk away, Nero quieted into obedience, and Browne carefully
+straightening his own stiffened joints and rising to his feet looked
+into his comrade's face and shook his head.
+
+"John, hearken to me, lad! We're in a sore strait but we're not dead,
+and daylight hath broken. Hold up thy face to the sky, man, and say 'I
+WILL win through this, so help me God!' and having said it, stick to it,
+even as Nero would have stuck to yon lion's throat until he was clawed
+away in shreds. Come, try it, my lad, try it!"
+
+Catching something of his friend's heroic spirit the poor fellow did as
+he was bidden, but followed the brave resolve with a piteous look into
+the other's face while he said,--
+
+"My feet are froze, Peter; there is no feeling nor power in them. But
+lead on, and I will follow if I must crawl."
+
+"Tarry a bit till I see"--
+
+And not pausing to finish his sentence Browne set himself to climb the
+tree beneath which they had passed the night. His cramped limbs and
+benumbed fingers made this no easy task and more than once he was near
+losing his grasp and finishing the story by a headlong fall to the
+frozen earth, but this danger was passed also, and presently hastening
+down he said,--
+
+"Well, heavy though the clouds be I can see that east is that-a-way, and
+not far from us rises a high hill. Come, then, lean on me; pass thy arm
+around my shoulders this fashion and I will help thee on. Then I will
+leave thee at the foot of the hill and myself climb it, and if need be
+some tree upon its summit. From that I shall surely catch sight of the
+sea, and knowing that we know all we need."
+
+Goodman silently laid his arm around the stalwart shoulders presented to
+him, but found himself too weak and spent for other reply, and Browne,
+passing an arm around his waist, looked anxiously into his face,
+saying,--
+
+"Courage, lad, courage!"
+
+"Ay, I WILL, by God's help!" murmured the poor lad as with agony
+inexpressible he forced his stiffened limbs to follow one after the
+other.
+
+The hill, more distant than Browne had supposed, was only reached after
+two hours of agonizing effort, and at the foot Goodman sank speechless
+and exhausted, his eyes closed, his parted lips white and drawn. Browne
+looked at him despairingly, and calling the dogs made one crouch at
+either side close to the heart and lungs of the prostrate body, and then
+hastened on up the hill muttering,--
+
+"'T is best kindness to leave him." Half an hour later he came crashing
+down again through underbrush and fallen branches shouting,--
+
+"Courage, John; courage, man! From the top of the biggest tree on this
+hill I've seen not only the sea, but our own harbor, and the old brig
+rocking away as peacefully as may be. Think of the good friends and the
+good Hollands gin and the good fires aboard of her. Come, rouse up, lad!
+Once more pluck up thy courage and remember thy resolve! 'T is but
+another hour or so and we are there!"
+
+And yet the good fellow knew that not one but many hours lay before
+them, and that it was for him to find strength and endurance for both.
+
+Once more his cheery voice and assured courage conveyed power for
+another effort to the half-dead lad he almost carried in his arms, and
+so, with frequent pauses for rest and encouragement, the day wore past,
+until at last on the brow of Watson's Hill, Browne, his own strength all
+but spent, cried tremulously,--
+
+"Now God be praised! here is the harbor at our feet, yonder is the
+Mayflower, below is the village, and but a few moments more will bring
+thee, John, to a bed and Surgeon Fuller's care, and me to a fire and
+some boiling schnapps."
+
+"God indeed be praised!" murmured Goodman rousing himself for the final
+effort; and so it came to pass that just at sunset the two crossed the
+brook and came hobbling down The Street amid a clamorous and joyful
+crowd of friends who lifted Goodman from his feet, nor paused until they
+brought them both into the house where abode Carver and also Fuller, the
+shrewd and crabbed physician and philanthropist. Here Goodman was laid
+upon a bed, his shoes cut from his feet, and in a few moments the
+governor on one side and the doctor on the other were vigorously rubbing
+the frozen limbs with alcohol.
+
+"Shall I lose my feet, Doctor?" asked the patient feebly.
+
+"Lose them!" cried the doctor indignantly. "Nay! what use would a
+footless man be to the Adventurers who sent thee out? 'T were but a
+knave's trick for thee to shed thy feet first thing, and I'll see to it
+thou dost not."
+
+"And that's a comfortable saying, Master Fuller," said Browne standing
+anxiously by.
+
+"Thou here, Peter Browne!" exclaimed the doctor glancing up under his
+shaggy brows. "What art doing here, blockhead? Get thee into bed beside
+a good fire, and bid Hopkins mix thee a posset such as he would have for
+himself. Be off, I say!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI.
+
+THE COLONISTS OF COLE'S HILL.
+
+
+The next day both Carver and Bradford were forced to succumb under the
+epidemic already raging among the colonists, and in another fortnight
+the hospital and Common house were crowded to their utmost capacity with
+the beds of the ill and dying. The terrible colds taken in the various
+explorations, the vile food and bad air of the brig, with the want of
+ordinary comforts on shore, were at last bearing their fruit in a
+combination of scurvy, rheumatism, and typhoid fever of a malignant
+type. On board ship matters were even worse than on shore, and Jones,
+who would willingly have abandoned the settlers as soon as they were
+debarked, found himself, perforce, a sharer in their distress through
+the illness and death of his crew, and the danger of running short of
+provisions.
+
+The day came at length when of all the company, numbering a hundred and
+one when they landed, only seven remained able either to nurse the sick
+or bury the dead, and hour by hour, as these met about their complicated
+duties, they studied each others faces, in terror of seeing the fatal
+signs that yet one more was stricken down, and the annihilation of the
+settlement one step farther advanced.
+
+Of these seven, two were Elder Brewster and Myles Standish, and well did
+they prove themselves fit to be rulers among the people, for they
+became servants of all, without hesitation and without affectation,
+nursing, cooking, dressing loathsome wounds, and ministering in all
+those homely ways repugnant to refined senses, and especially, perhaps,
+to the dignity of man. The doctor also kept on foot, although terribly
+worn with sleeplessness, fatigue, and rheumatism; Peter Browne, none the
+worse for his day and night in the woods, with Francis Eaton to help
+him, took charge of digging the graves and burying the dead, already in
+their silent colony along the brow of Cole's Hill, almost equaling their
+yet suffering comrades. The two remaining sound ones were Stephen
+Hopkins and Helen Billington, who, as the only female nurse, was called
+upon to attend the sick women, so far as she could; this, of course,
+gave but little time for each patient, and one night the doctor
+hurriedly said to Standish,--
+
+"Captain, wilt have an eye to-night to those two beds in the corner?
+'T is Priscilla Molines and Desire Minter, both shrewdly burned with
+fever, and needing medicine and care lest they should fall to raving
+before morning. I'd not ask thee, knowing all thou hast on hand, but
+goodwife Billington must not quit"--
+
+"Nay, nay, what needs so many words," interrupted Standish. "Give me
+their medicine and directions, I can care for them well enow and for
+Bradford whose huckle-bone[4] giveth him sore distress to-night."
+
+[4] Hip-bone.
+
+"I doubt me if he wins through," said the Doctor softly; "and White and
+Molines will never see the morning, and Mistress Winslow is going
+fast--well, I leave the maids and Bradford to thee."
+
+"Ay, I'll do my best," replied Standish briefly.
+
+And so it came to pass that Priscilla Molines, moaning in her feverish
+unrest, felt a moist linen laid upon her brow and a cup held to her
+parched lips.
+
+"Petite maman!" murmured she, and with those moistened lips kissed the
+hand that held the cup.
+
+Standish sadly smiled a little, and passed on to the next bed where lay
+Desire Minter, not so ill, but far more requiring than Priscilla.
+
+"Here is thy draught, child," said the nurse kindly, as he raised her
+head and put the cup to her lips. Swallowing it eagerly, she lifted her
+jealous eyes and with a smile half cunning, half pathetic, whispered,--
+
+"I love thee too, but I think it not maidenly to kiss thee till I'm
+asked."
+
+"Nay, girl, thou 'rt dreaming or wild," said the Captain soothingly.
+"She, poor maid, is distraught, and took me for her mother. She loves me
+not, nor dost thou, nor do I ask any woman's love."
+
+"Nay, then, thou 'rt mocking me. Thou dost love her, and she loves thee,
+for I've heard her say as much; but still I know one that loves thee
+better."
+
+"If thou were not so ill, Desire, I'd find it in my heart to say--but
+there, sleep poor child, sleep! Thou knowst not what thou sayst."
+
+And Standish turned impatiently away to Bradford who suffered
+excruciatingly that night with inflammatory rheumatism in the hip-joint.
+
+The next morning Priscilla awaking refreshed, and for the moment quite
+herself, found her neighbor weeping passionately, yet from time to time
+regarding her in so peculiar a fashion that she said softly,--
+
+"What is it, Desire? Art thou in sore pain?"
+
+"It ill fits thee to pity me when it is thou that hast done me such
+despite," whimpered Desire sullenly.
+
+"I! what dost thou mean?"
+
+"Why, I have ever liked our Captain since first I saw him, and now his
+wife is dead and buried, why should he not marry me as well as another?"
+
+"Why not, if it pleaseth him? I forbid not the banns," replied
+Priscilla, the dim wraith of her old smile passing across her face.
+
+"Why not? Because thou hast bewitched him, thou naughty sprite, and thou
+knowest it."
+
+"What dost thou mean, Desire? Speak out and done with it, for thou
+weariest me sore," exclaimed Priscilla impatiently, while the fever
+began to streak her pallid cheek and flame in her great eyes.
+
+"Why, I saw you two kissing last night, and I suppose you're promised to
+each other," muttered the other sulkily, and Priscilla, rising on her
+elbow, fixed on her a glance beneath which the coward quailed, yet
+sullenly murmured,--
+
+"Well, you did!"
+
+"Desire Minter, thou art lying, and thou knowest it, or else thy wits
+are distraught, or mine."
+
+"Ah, 't is well to try to edge out of it by brow-beating me, but thou
+canst not. I saw you two kissing. When he first came in he went and
+stood beside thy bed and looked down at it, biting at his beard, as is
+his wont when he is moved; and then he fell upon his knees, whispering
+something, and kissed the pillow, over and over, and when he stood up he
+drew his hand across his eyes, and all for love of thee. So now, then!"
+
+"Is that true, Desire? Can it be true that he cares for me in that
+fashion?" asked Priscilla falling back bewildered, for she knew no more
+than did Desire that hers was the bed where Rose Standish had breathed
+her last sigh, and her husband had looked his last on her sweet face.
+
+"Certes, 't is true, and thou knowest it better than I, for when, later
+on, he came to give thee a drink and wet thy forehead and lips, thou
+didst give him back his kiss right tenderly, and mutter something of
+'love' and 'darling.'"
+
+"I kissed Myles Standish!" cried Priscilla wildly.
+
+"Ay, kissed the hand that held the cup, and when he came to me I told
+him I had seen it all, and that I knew before that thou lovedst him."
+
+"Thou saidst I loved him!"
+
+"Ay, and he said he loved thee not, nor any woman, but 't was a blind,
+for such a weary sigh as he fetched, and turned to look again at thee."
+
+"I kissed him, and thou saidst I loved him, and he said he loved me
+not!" cried Priscilla blindly; and then with a wild cry she burst into a
+delirious laugh, ending in a shriek that brought Doctor Fuller from the
+next room.
+
+"What is this! what is toward!" demanded he glancing from Priscilla to
+Desire, who replied in her sullen tones,--
+
+"I know not, except that Captain Standish and Priscilla are sweethearts,
+and I told her I saw them kissing last night, and haply she is shamed as
+well she may be."
+
+"And well mayst thou be doubly shamed," replied the doctor sternly, "to
+torment her into frenzy with thy jealous fancies, and she already at
+death's door. Thou sawest naught, whatever thou mayst have dreamed; and
+mark me now, Desire Minter, I forbid thee to speak one word more, good
+or bad, to Priscilla Molines while thou stayest here; and if thou
+heedest not, I'll put thee in another house and leave thee to shift for
+thyself."
+
+Thoroughly cowed, the mischief maker promised obedience, and the doctor
+turned to the delirious girl, whom he finally quieted to a moaning
+sleep, in which he left her, muttering to himself as he went,--
+
+"Not a month since his wife died in that bed--well--'t is no concern of
+mine."
+
+And so it came about that the idea of love between Priscilla and
+Standish was planted in four active minds, and in time bore strange and
+bitter fruit.
+
+And so the gloomy days crept on, and the sufferers and the mourners of
+the village which lay half-built beneath the hill passed on to take up
+their dwelling in the village upon the bluff, where, silent pilgrims,
+they lay, row upon row, hands meekly folded, lips close set, and eyes
+forever shut, but yet attaining all that they sought in this their
+pilgrimage, freedom from tyranny even of time and circumstance, freedom
+to worship God in spirit and in truth.
+
+When a conqueror or a tyrant decimates his captives or his subjects, the
+world cries out in horror of such disregard of life, but in this
+instance God spared one half His people from the sorrows and the
+hardships they had come forth to seek, and gave them at once the reward,
+for which their brethren still must toil. Of the hundred and one men,
+women, and children, who followed Gideon to the battle, but fifty were
+chosen to achieve the final conquest.
+
+Among those who survived for a little time was John Goodman, who, after
+lying for weeks at death's door, came slowly back for a while, and in
+the early spring crept out in the sunshine with the faithful Pike at
+his heels. Trying his strength from day to day, he at last hobbled down
+to the brook and across, but was no sooner beyond hail of the village
+than two great gray wolves, stealing from a thicket, sprang upon the
+dog, who, not so venturesome as Nero, ran to take refuge between her
+master's still tender feet, causing them not a little pain.
+
+"Fool! Again without a weapon!" exclaimed John apostrophizing himself,
+and picking up a good-sized stone he threw it, with a shout, at the
+foremost wolf, who retreated snarling to the bushes. Stumbling back
+toward the village as fast as he could, Goodman came presently to a pile
+of stout palings cut for fencing, and arming himself with one cast an
+anxious look behind. It was time, for the wolves, recovering courage as
+he retreated, were in full pursuit, with glaring eyes and lolling
+tongues.
+
+Ordering Pike to crouch behind him, the young fellow stood at bay,
+hooting, shouting, and waving his stave in a semicircle, within whose
+sweep the creatures were not anxious to intrude. Weary at length of
+trying to surprise the fortress by a flank movement, yet reluctant to
+abandon the hope of seizing Pike, the wolves finally seated themselves
+upon their haunches at a little distance and seemed to consult, grinning
+and snapping their teeth from time to time at the spaniel, who cowered
+almost into the ground, whimpering piteously, while her master leaned
+upon his paling and laughed aloud, an insult to which the wolves
+responded by throwing back their heads and uttering howls like those of
+a dog baying the moon. Then suddenly leaping into the bushes they
+disappeared as quickly as they came, leaving Goodman, still chuckling,
+to resume his path to the village.
+
+"We'll have a merry tale for Peter Browne this evening, won't we, Pike!"
+
+But while the brave young fellow climbed the little hill from the brook
+to The Street, this smiling expression gave place to one of
+consternation, as he beheld a column of smoke and flame issuing from the
+roof of the house set apart as hospital, and heard a terrified shout
+of,--
+
+"Fire! Fire!"
+
+"Fire! Fire!" echoed Goodman running toward the spot as fast as his
+tender feet would allow.
+
+Sounder men were before him, however, and when he arrived a ladder was
+placed against the side of the burning house, and Alden, with Billington
+at his heels, was about to mount it, when Brewster exclaiming,--
+
+"Here's no place for sick men," pushed both aside, ran up the ladder,
+and tearing the blazing thatch from the roof flung it down in handfuls
+so rapidly and effectually that in five minutes the threatened
+conflagration was subdued to smoking embers and a few fugitive flames
+here and there, where already the fire had fastened upon the poles laid
+to support the thatch. Some buckets of water passed up by the little
+crowd below soon extinguished these, and then the Elder, peeping down
+through the damaged roof into the room below, cried cheerily,--
+
+"All is safe, friends, and no great harm done."
+
+"God be praised!" exclaimed Bradford's voice from within, and Brewster
+softly said, "Amen!" as he descended the ladder less easily than he had
+mounted it. At the foot he encountered Doctor Fuller, who with Standish
+had just been to Cole's Hill arranging for another line of graves.
+
+"Let me see your hands, Elder," demanded the physician in his usual dry
+fashion.
+
+"No need,'t is naught. Go look after your sick folk," replied the Elder
+trying to push past, but Fuller caught him by the sleeve, exclaiming
+sharply,--
+
+"A man whose hands are needed for others as oft as thine are, has no
+right to let them become useless, and 't is not in reason but they are
+burned."
+
+"You're right, Fuller, and I'm but a froward child," said Brewster, a
+sudden smile replacing the frown of pain upon his face, and obediently
+opening out his burned and bleeding palms. "Come to the Common house, so
+as not to fright my wife within there, and do them up with some of your
+wonderful balsam."
+
+"And were it not for thought of your work, you would not have let me see
+them," said Fuller glancing from under his penthouse brows with a look
+of cynical admiration.
+
+"One cannot give thought to every pin-prick with such deadly sickness on
+all sides," replied Brewster simply. "Best go into the hospital and see
+if thy poor dying folk have taken any harm of the fright before thou
+lookest after me."
+
+"The Captain has gone into the sick-house. I'll hold on to you,"
+returned the Doctor curtly, and Brewster yielded with his ever gracious
+smile.
+
+That evening as the Elder with his bandaged hands, Carver, gaunt and
+pale from an attack of fever, Standish, Winslow, John Howland, and
+Doctor Fuller sat at supper in the Common house, Master Jones, followed
+by a sailor heavily laden, presented himself at the door.
+
+"Good e'en, Masters, and how are your sick folk?" demanded he, in a
+would-be cordial voice.
+
+"Thanks for your courtesy, Master Jones," replied the governor with
+grave politeness. "They are doing reasonably well, except some few who
+do not seem like to mend in this world."
+
+"And Master Bradford? Sure he is not going to die?" pursued Jones in a
+voice of strange anxiety, as he sank into the great arm-chair Carver had
+proffered him.
+
+"He is as low as a man can be and live," broke in the doctor gruffly, as
+he fixed Jones with a glance of angry reproach, beneath which even that
+rough companion quailed.
+
+"He sent aboard yesterday begging a can of beer," blurted he, his brown
+face reddening a little.
+
+"Yes," replied the governor sternly, "and you made answer that though it
+were your own father needing it, you would not stint yourself."
+
+"I said it, and I don't deny it," retorted Jones with a feeble attempt
+at bluster. "But any man has a right to change his mind if he find
+cause, and I've changed mine as you will see, for I've brought not a
+can, but a runlet of beer for Bradford, and any others who crave it and
+are like to die wanting it; and when that is gone if Master Carver will
+send on board asking it for the sick folk, he shall have it though I be
+forced to drink water myself on the voyage home. I'll have no dead men
+haunting me and bringing a plague upon the ship."
+
+"Truly we are greatly beholden to you, Master Jones," began Carver in
+great surprise, but the mariner raised his hand and continued,--
+
+"Nay, hear me out, for that's not all. I went ashore to-day and shot
+five geese, and here they are, all of them, not one spared, though I
+could have well fancied a bit of goose to my supper, but I brought all
+to you, and more than that, even, for here is the better half of a buck
+we found in the wood ready shot to our hand. The Indians had cut off his
+horns and carried them away, and doubtless were gone for help to carry
+the carcase home when we came upon it; haply they saw us coming and made
+a run for it; at all odds they had left him as he fell, and Sir Wolf was
+already tearing at his throat so busily that he knew not friends were
+nigh, until a bullet through his head heralded our coming. So here are
+the haunches for you, and I content myself with the poorer parts."
+
+Taking the articles named from a bag which the sailor had at his
+direction laid upon the floor, Jones ranged them in an imposing line in
+the centre of the room, and resuming his chair looked at his hosts still
+in that conciliatory and half timid manner so utterly new to them and
+foreign to his usual demeanor.
+
+"We are, indeed, deeply beholden to you, Master Jones," said Carver at
+length in his grave and courteous tones. "But if I may freely speak my
+thought, and if I read my brethren's minds aright, we cannot but muse
+curiously upon this sudden and marvelous change in your dealings with
+us, and would fain know its meaning."
+
+"Feeling certain that Master Jones is not one to give something for
+nothing, and so in common prudence wishing to know at the outset what
+price he expects for bearing himself in Christian charity, as he seemeth
+desirous to do," suggested Standish with more candor than diplomacy.
+
+"Thou 'rt ever ready with thy gibes on better men than thyself, art
+not?" exclaimed Jones turning angrily upon him. For reply Standish
+leaned back in his chair, pulled at his red beard, and laughed
+contemptuously; but Winslow hastily interposed with a voice like oil
+upon the waves.
+
+"Our captain will still have his jest upon all of us, Master Jones, but
+in truth as the governor hath said, we cannot but admire at this
+wonderful generosity on thy part, and fain would know whence it
+ariseth."
+
+"Why, sure 't is not far to seek," replied Jones with a hideous grimace
+intended for a conciliatory smile; "we have ever been good friends, have
+we not, and you all wish me well, as I do all of you. Certes, none of
+you would try to bring evil upon our heads, lest it fall upon your own
+instead, for still those who wish ill to others fall upon ill luck
+themselves. Is it not so, Elder?"
+
+"Art speaking of Christian doctrine, or of heathen superstition, Master
+Jones?" inquired the Elder fixing his mild, yet penetrating eyes upon
+the seaman, who slunk beneath their gaze.
+
+"Nay, then!" blustered he rising to his feet, "I came hither when I
+would fain have stayed in my own cabin aboard, and I came not to chop
+logic nor to be put to the question like a malefactor, but to bring help
+to my sick neighbors, who, to be sure, cried out for it lustily enough
+before they got it, but now pick and question at my good meat and drink
+as if 't were like to poison them. Well, that's an end on 't, and you
+can take it or leave it, as you will. Good e'en to you."
+
+"Nay, nay, Master Jones," interposed Carver hastily, as the angry man
+made toward the door. "Let us not part thus, especially in view of thy
+great kindness toward us, for which, in good sooth, we are more
+grateful than we have yet expressed. Let pass the over curious queries
+we have ventured, and sit up at the table for a little meat and drink,
+such as it may be. Here is some broiled fish, and here some clams"--
+
+"I care not for eating, having finished mine own supper but now,"
+grumbled Jones sinking back into Carver's arm-chair; "still if you'll
+broach yon runlet of beer I'll taste a mug on 't, for my throat is as
+dry as a chimbley."
+
+"The beer is for our sick folk who crave it as they gather their
+strength," said Carver pleasantly; "but we have here a case of strong
+waters of our own, if that will serve thy turn."
+
+"Why, ay, 't will serve my turn better than t' other," replied Jones
+drawing his hairy hand across his mouth with an agreeable smile, as he
+added,--
+
+"I did but ask for the beer, thinking you who are well needed the
+spirits for yourselves."
+
+"We can spare what we need for ourselves more lightly than what we need
+for others," said Carver in that grand simplicity of nature which fails
+to perceive the magnificence of its own impulses. And from a shelf above
+his head the governor took a square bottle of spirits, while Howland
+poured water from a kettle over the fire into a pewter flagon, and
+produced a sugar bason from a chest in the corner of the room. These,
+with a smaller pewter cup, he placed before the seaman who eagerly mixed
+himself a stiff dram, drank it, and prepared another, which he sipped
+luxuriously, as leaning back in his chair he looked slowly around the
+circle of his entertainers, and finally burst forth,--
+
+"The plain truth is, there are no folk like these in any latitude I've
+sailed, and a man must deal with them accordingly. 'T is what I told
+Clarke and Coppin before I came ashore. What men but you would give
+another what you want yourselves, and lacking it may find yourselves in
+worse case than him you help? And 't is not all chat, for still I've
+marked it both afloat and ashore, and the poor wretches you've left in
+the ship will pluck the morsel from their own lips to put it to
+another's.
+
+"So it is, that with all your losses, a kind of good luck aye follows
+you, and I shall not marvel if, in the end, you build up your colony
+here, and see good days when I am--well, it matters not where--I doubt
+me if priests or parsons know. But they who flout you or do you a
+churlish turn find no good luck resting on them, but rather a
+curse,--yea, I've marked that too. 'T is better to be friends than foes
+with some folk."
+
+"'Timeo Daneos et dona ferentes,'" quoted Winslow in the ear of Elder
+Brewster, who sat watching the sailor curiously, and now suddenly
+said,--
+
+"And so thy shipmen are very ill too, Master Jones!"
+
+"Lo you, now! I said naught of it, and how well you knew. What dost
+mean, Elder?"
+
+"Naught but friendly interest like thine own," replied the Elder gently,
+yet never removing that steadfast gaze, beneath which Jones fidgeted
+impatiently, and finally cried in a sort of desperate surrender,--
+
+"Well, then, as well you know already, 't is that matter brought me here
+to-night. My men have sickened daily, and everything hath gone awry,
+since we bundled you and your goods ashore a month or so agone, when
+some of you were fain to tarry aboard, or at least leave your stuff
+there, and come and go."
+
+"But thou wast afeard we should drink thy beer by stealth. Nay, thou
+saidst it," declared Standish disdainfully.
+
+"Well, yes, I'll not go back of saying it," retorted Jones half abashed
+and half defiant. "For where else shall you find me men who will drink
+water if another man hath beer where they may get it?"
+
+"We heard from our friends on board that scurvy had broken out among the
+shipmen," said Carver motioning Standish to hold his peace.
+
+"Scurvy, and fever, and rheumaticks, and flux, and the foul fiend
+knoweth what beside," replied Jones desperately. "Now Clarke hath still
+been warning me that you were so sib with the saints"--
+
+"Nay, God forbid!" ejaculated Brewster.
+
+Jones looked at him in astonishment, then nodding his head as one who
+yields a point he cannot understand continued: "Well, if not the saints,
+whosoever you have put in their room; but Clarke says you are e'en like
+the warlocks of olden time who called fire out of heaven on their
+enemies, and it came as oft as they called; and he says Master Brewster
+is like some Messire Moses who dealt all manner of ill to those who
+crossed him; and I marked, and so did Clarke, how yester morn when I
+denied Bradford the beer he craved, and answered the governor in so
+curst a humor, three men fell ill before night, and two, who were
+mending, died in torment. And Clarke said, and so it seemed most like to
+me, that 't was you had done it, and might yet do worse; and so I would
+fain be friends, and I come myself to bring the beer and the meat, and
+I'll promise to do as much again and again; nay, I'll swear it by the
+toe of St. Hubert, that my mother paid gold to kiss for me or ever I
+was born, yea, I'll swear it, if you masters will take off the curse,
+and promise to say masses, nay, nay, to say sermons and make mention of
+me to the Lord."
+
+"Knowest thou what the Apostle Peter said to one Simon Magus when he
+would have bought the grace of God for gold?" demanded Brewster sternly.
+
+"Nay, I never knew any of thy folk before," replied Jones humbly; but
+Winslow consulting the pacific governor with his eyes smoothly
+interposed,--
+
+"Surely we will pray for thee and for thy men, Master Jones, albeit our
+prayers have no more weight than those of any other sinful men, and our
+Elder hath neither the power nor the will to bring plagues upon our
+enemies. There is naught of art-magic in our practices, I do assure
+thee, master."
+
+"Well, I know not; but in all honesty I'd rather be friends than foes
+with men like you."
+
+"And friends we are most heartily," said Carver. "Our folk on board are
+still mending, are they not?"
+
+"Rigdale and Tinker are yet in bed, and their wives wait upon them, hand
+and foot, though fitter to be in their own beds. And not only on them,
+but now and again find time to run and give a drink or some such
+tendance to our men lying groaning at the other side the bulkhead. You
+mind that knave boatswain who still scoffed and swore at thy prayers,
+Elder, and so grievously flouted the first who fell sick among you?"
+
+Brewster nodded, and Standish bringing his clenched fist down upon the
+table growled,--
+
+"I mind him so well that I've promised him a skin full of broken bones
+the first time I catch him ashore."
+
+"Then thou 'lt be glad to know that he lies a-dying to-night," replied
+Jones with horrible naïvété.
+
+"Dying!"
+
+"No question on 't; and this morning as he lay groaning in sore
+distress, and calling upon one and another to wait on him, and none had
+time or stomach for it, goodwife Rigdale came to the caboose for a
+morsel of meat after her night's watch, and hearing him she cried,
+'Alack, poor soul!' and hasted to him with the very cup she was just
+putting to her own lips. The dog fastened to it, I promise you, and
+drank every drop, then gazing up at her asked a bit too late,--
+
+"'Hast any left for thyself?'
+
+"She smiled on him with that white face she wears nowadays and said,--
+
+"'Nay, but thou 'rt more than welcome.' Then says Master Boatswain, not
+knowing that I heard him,--
+
+"'Oh, if I was set to get over this, as well do I know I am not, I would
+ask no better than to join your company and forswear all I have held
+dear. For now do I see how true Christians carry themselves to each
+other when they are in trouble, while we heathen let each other lie and
+die like dogs.'
+
+"So the poor wench, fit to drop as she was, knelt and began praying for
+him, and I stole away."
+
+"But do not those men care one for another in their sickness?" asked
+Brewster indignantly.
+
+"As yonder wolf tended upon the dying buck," replied Jones with a
+careless laugh. "To drink his blood while it was warm was his chief
+care, and my men part the gear of their dying messmates before their
+eyes. Why, one of the quartermasters, Williams, thou knowest, would fain
+have hired Bowman, the other quartermaster, to befriend him to the last,
+and promised him all his goods if he should die, and money if he got
+well; but the knave did but make him two messes of broth, and some kind
+of posset to drink o' nights, and then left him, swearing all over the
+ship that Williams was cozening him by living so long, and he would do
+no more for him though he starved, and yet the poor soul lay a-dying
+then."
+
+"And Bowman had his goods?" demanded Howland sternly.
+
+"Ay had he, or ever the breath was out of the body. Then there was
+Cooper, who died cursing and swearing at his wife, and her spendthrift
+ways, that wasted all his wage and still sent him to gather more. And
+there was the gunner whose whole thought was that he must quit his gear,
+and would have his chest stand where he could see it, and the key under
+his pillow to the last; and when one of your men asked would he listen
+to a bit of a prayer he bawled out with a curse, 'Nay, what profit was
+there in prayers, or who would pay him for hearkening.'
+
+"I tell you, masters, 't is the worst port ever I made, and albeit I'm
+not a man of dainty or queasy stomach, it turns me sick to see and hear
+such things, and know that I'm master of a crew bound for hell though we
+called it Virginia."
+
+"Mayhap if the Mayflower's crew had used more diligence in seeking to
+land us in Virginia they had not themselves made the port thou speakest
+of," said Standish bitterly, while Carver, sighing profoundly, pushed
+back from the table in sign that the conference was ended, but said in a
+voice of unfeigned friendliness,--
+
+"Truly, Master Jones, thou needest and shall have our kindliest
+sympathy, and our prayers, for this that you tell of is a fearful
+condition, and a fatal for both body and soul, and well may you call
+upon Almighty God for pardon and for mercy. If any of your men are fain
+to come on shore we will receive them and give such tendance as we do to
+our own, and right certain am I that those of our company yet on board
+will do all that they are able for you. Forgetting the past, about which
+we might justly murmur if we would, we are ready in your necessity to
+reckon you as brothers, and to spend and to be spent in your service, as
+God giveth ability.
+
+"Will it please thee to tarry while we hold our evening devotions, and
+join thy prayers to ours, that the Lord will have mercy upon all of us?"
+
+"Yes, I'll tarry, though 't is not greatly in my way. Haply He might
+take it amiss if I went," muttered Jones looking about him uneasily,
+while Carver regarded his hopeless neophyte with divine compassion, and
+Elder Brewster prayed long and fervently that not only the children
+should be fed, but that the dogs might eat of the crumbs that fell from
+the table, and that in the end even the sons of Belial might be forgiven
+their blindness and hardness of heart, and receive even though
+undeservingly the uncovenanted mercies of God.
+
+Fortunately for his good intentions the object of many of these
+petitions quite failed to comprehend them, and when the devotion was
+over rose and went away far more gently than he had come.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII.
+
+THE HEADLESS ARROW.
+
+
+"Where is the governor? Hast seen him of late, Mistress Priscilla?"
+
+"Nay, Peter Browne, not since breakfast; but what is thy great haste?
+Have the skies fallen, or our friends the lions eaten up Nero?"
+
+"Nay, then, 't is worse than lions; ay, here is Master Carver."
+
+"Here am I, Peter, and what wouldst thou with me in such haste?"
+
+"Why, sir, I have ill news. This morning I went a-fowling to a pond
+beyond that where we cut thatch and fell into such mishap, and as I lay
+quiet at my stand waiting till the ducks might swim my way, I saw, for I
+heard naught, twelve stout salvages all painted and trimmed up, carrying
+bows and arrows and every man his little axe at his girdle. Each glided
+after each like shadows upon the water, so still and smooth, and they
+seemed making for the town. Then as I bent my ear to the quarter whence
+they came I caught the far-off echo of that same fiendish cry that
+saluted us at the First Encounter, and would seem to be their war-cry or
+slogan."
+
+"And then?"
+
+"I waited till all were past and all sound died away, and then I fetched
+a compass, and ran home as fast as I might to warn the company and the
+captain."
+
+"And thou didst well, Peter," replied Carver musingly, while Priscilla
+standing in the doorway behind him, with Mary Chilton at her side,
+nodded mockingly, and clapped her hands in silent applause.
+
+Turning suddenly, the governor surprised her antics, but smiling,
+asked,--
+
+"Dost know, Priscilla, whither Captain Standish went this morning?"
+
+"He and Francis Cooke went a-field so soon as they had done breakfast,
+sir, and as they carried axes and wedges in hand, it would seem they had
+gone to rive timber," replied Priscilla demurely.
+
+"Ay, like enough; but as 't is near noon, when they will be home for
+dinner, we will e'en wait till we have the captain's counsel, and
+meantime I'll see that all have their arms in readiness."
+
+"And I will go help to make the dinner ready," said Priscilla. "Thou
+canst lay the table, Mary."
+
+"Ay," replied the girl listlessly, and turning suddenly to hide the
+tears that filled her blue eyes. Priscilla looked after her, and the
+forced gayety faded from her own face as she put her arm about her
+friend's waist and led her away.
+
+"Nay, then, nay, then," whispered she; "no more crying, poppet! Didst
+thou not cry half the night in spite of all I could say?"
+
+"But how can I be gay, and father and mother both dead, and I so weak
+and ailing, and alone."
+
+"But, Mary, I have lost more than that," said Priscilla in a low voice,
+and with that hard constraint of manner common to those who seldom speak
+of their emotions.
+
+"I know thou hast lost father, mother, brother"--
+
+"And even the faithful servant whom I remember in the dear old home when
+I was a toddling child," said Priscilla gloomily.
+
+"Ay, but some have tenderer hearts than others and feel these things
+more cruelly," persisted Mary weeping unrestrainedly.
+
+Priscilla removed her arm from the others waist and stood for a moment
+looking out at the open door with a mirthless smile upon her lips. Then,
+with one long sigh, she turned, and patting Mary's heaving shoulder said
+gently enough,--
+
+"I'm more grieved for thee than I can tell, dear Mary; but still I find
+that to busy one's self in many ways, and to put on as light-hearted a
+look as one can muster, is a help to grief. See now poor Elizabeth
+Tilley. She hath cried herself ill, and must tarry in bed where is
+naught to divert her grief. Is it not better to keep afoot and be of use
+to others, at least?"
+
+"Ay, I suppose so," replied Mary disconsolately.
+
+"Well, then, lay the table, while I try if the meat is boiled. Oh, if we
+had but some turnips, or a cabbage, or aught beside beans to eat with
+it."
+
+"Canst not make a sauce of biscuit crumbs and butter and an onion, as
+thou didst for the birds?" asked Mary drying her eyes.
+
+"Sauce for birds is not sauce for boiled beef," replied Priscilla, her
+artistic taste shocked not a little; "but if thou 'lt be good, I'll toss
+thee up a dainty bit for thyself."
+
+"And me, too!" exclaimed Desire Minter, who had just come in at the
+door.
+
+"And thee, too," echoed Priscilla. "But, Desire, dost know the Indians
+are upon us, and they'll no doubt eat thee first of all, for thou 'rt
+both fat and tender, and will prove a dainty bit thyself, I doubt not."
+
+"Well, dear maids, is the noon-meat ready?" asked Mistress Brewster's
+gentle voice at the door. "Dame Carver would fain have some porridge,
+and if thou 'lt move thy kettle a bit, Priscilla, I will make it
+myself."
+
+"Now, dear mother, why should you do aught but rest, with three great
+girls standing idle before you?" cried Priscilla gently seating the
+weary woman in her husband's arm-chair. "I will make the porridge while
+Desire lifts the beef from the pot, and Mary lays the table. Our mother
+is more than tired with last night's watching beside Mistress Carver."
+
+"Nay, then, child, I'll rest a minute, since I have such willing hands
+to wait on me, and well I know thou art the most delicate cook among us.
+Dame Carver will be the gainer."
+
+And leaning her head against the back of the chair, poor, weary Mistress
+Brewster closed her eyes, and even dozed, while the three girls busily
+carried on their tasks, with low-voiced murmurs of talk that rather
+soothed than disturbed the sleeper.
+
+The first plan, of dividing the settlers into nineteen families and
+building a house for each, had been abandoned before more than two or
+three of the houses were begun, and now that the prostrating sickness
+interrupting their plans was past, and the survivors counted, it was
+found that sadly few dwellings were needed to contain them, so that at
+present all were divided among four or five houses, although as the men
+gained strength for labor each wrought upon his future home in all the
+time to be spared from the common needs.
+
+The house where we have found Priscilla was that of Elder Brewster,
+situated on the corner of The Street and the King's Highway, as the
+Pilgrims called the path crossing The Street at right angles, and
+leading down to the brook, although to-day we should say that the
+elder's house stood on the corner of Leyden and Market streets; like all
+others built at this time, it was a low structure covered in with planks
+hewn from the forest trees, and roofed with thatch. At each side of the
+entrance door lay a tolerably large room, that on the right hand,
+nearest to the brook, used as kitchen, dining, and general living room,
+while the other was the family sleeping room, and also used as a
+withdrawing room, where the elder held counsel with the governor, or
+other friends, and studied his exhortation for the coming Sunday; here,
+also, Mistress Brewster led her boys, or the maidens she guided, for
+reproof, counsel, or tender comforting. At the back of this room,
+partitioned by a curtain, was a nook, where Wrestling, a delicate child
+of six, and Love, his sturdier brother, two years older, nestled like
+kittens in a little cot. Above in the loft, reached by a ladder-like
+staircase, was a comfortable room appropriated to Mary Chilton,
+Priscilla Molines, and Elizabeth Tilley, all orphaned within three
+months, and at once adopted by the Elder's wife as her especial charge.
+
+In the next house, on a lot of land appropriated at first to John
+Goodman and some others, the governor had taken up his abode with his
+delicate wife, her maid Lois, Desire Minter their ward, and several
+children whom she cared for. John Howland, the governor's secretary and
+right-hand man, also lived here, and, like the manly man he was,
+hesitated not to give help wherever it was needed.
+
+Owing to Mrs. Carver's very delicate health, it had been arranged that
+this family should share the table at Elder Brewster's, where the young
+girls just mentioned were ready and glad to take charge of the household
+labors, leaving their elders free for other matters.
+
+In another house, placed in charge of Stephen Hopkins and his bustling
+wife, nearly all the unmarried men were gathered, and made a hearty and
+soberly jocund family. The third house, headed by Isaac Allerton and his
+daughters, was the home of Bradford, Winslow, Mistress Susannah White,
+with her children, Resolved and Peregrine, and her brother, Doctor
+Fuller, with their little nephew, Samuel Fuller, whose father and mother
+both lay on Cole's Hill.
+
+In the Common house, under charge of Master Warren, with the Billingtons
+as officials, were gathered the rest of the company except Standish, who
+slept in his own house on the hill, but had his place at Elder
+Brewster's table when he chose to take it.
+
+Hither he now came, silent and grave as was his wont since Rose died,
+but ever ready to give his aid and sympathy, whether in handicraft or
+counsel, to the governor, the elder, or the women struggling with
+unwonted labors. Of lamentation there was none, and since the day the
+soldier stood beside that open grave and watched the mould piled upon
+the coffin his own hands had fashioned no man, not even the elder, had
+heard his wife's name, or any allusion to his loss, pass his lips; yet
+those who knew him best marked well the line that had deepened between
+his brows, the still endurance of his eyes, and the sadness underlying
+every intonation of his voice; and those who knew him not, and had in
+their shallower natures no chord to vibrate in sympathy with this grand
+patience, comprehended it not, and seeing him thus ready and helpful,
+not evading such pleasant talk as lightened the toil of his comrades,
+not preoccupied or gloomy, these thought the light wound was already
+healed, and more than one beside Desire Minter speculated upon his
+second choice.
+
+Listening to the governor's report of Browne's discovery, Standish
+nodded, as not surprised, and said,--
+
+"Ay, 't is sure to come, soon or late, and a peace won by arms is
+stronger than one framed of words. When the salvages have made their
+onset and we have chastised them roundly, we shall be right good
+friends. Meantime, Francis Cooke and I left our adzes and wedges where
+we were hewing plank, and so soon as I have taken bite and sup I'll
+forth to look for them with my snaphance."
+
+"We've heard of locking the stable door when the steed was stolen,"
+murmured Priscilla to Mary, and the captain, whose ear was quick as a
+hare's, half turned toward her with a glint of laughter in his eyes.
+
+But the jibe was prophetic, for when, half an hour later, Standish and
+Cooke returned to the tree they had felled, the tools were all gone, and
+a headless arrow was left standing derisively in the cleft of a log.
+
+"Hm! A cartel of defiance," said the captain drawing it out and grimly
+examining it. "Well, 't is like our savage forefathers of Britain
+challenging Julius Cæsar and the Roman power. But come, Cooke, 't is
+certain we cannot rive plank with our naked hands, and since our tools
+are gone, we had best go home and work at the housen. To-morrow we'll
+take some order with these masters."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII.
+
+THE CAPTAIN'S PROMOTION.
+
+
+The afternoon and evening were devoted to a thorough review and
+furbishing of weapons, many of which had suffered from exposure and
+neglect during the press of building and of sickness.
+
+And surely never could artist find better subject for his painting than
+the scene at Elder Brewster's fireside that night where upon the hearth
+Standish and Alden moulded a heap of silvery bullets, while Priscilla
+and Mary and Elizabeth Tilley twirled their spinning-wheels, or knitted
+the long woolen hose worn both by men and women in those days, looking
+demurely from time to time toward the hearth, where Alden occasionally
+dropped a little boiling lead into a skillet of hot water, and nodded to
+one or other of the girls as he drew out the emblems thus formed.
+
+At the back of the room gathered Brewster and Winslow and Carver and
+Bradford, discussing plans of defense in low and eager tones, while over
+all fell the broad and ruddy light of the floods of flame that rushed
+weltering up the chimney and out upon the night, carrying tidings to the
+wild woods and wilder men crouching in their depths that here were
+encamped a little band of invaders stronger than the primeval forest,
+stronger than the primeval man, stronger than Nature, stronger than
+Tradition.
+
+"Then it is well resolved," said Carver rising at last and coming toward
+the fire, "that to-morrow, so soon as we have committed ourselves to
+God's protection, and broken our fast, we will assemble with all the men
+of our company in the Common house, and take counsel for the safety and
+guidance of the colony. Does this movement suit you, Captain Standish?"
+
+"Ay, Governor. A council of war is ever fitting prelude to action,"
+replied Standish laying down his bullet-mould and standing up.
+
+"And this is a council _coram populo_," said Winslow smiling. "A
+congress of the whole people."
+
+"Our first town-meeting, if indeed we be a town," said Bradford,
+answering Winslow's smile.
+
+"Alden, we name you sheriff _pro tempore_, to warn the brethren of this
+convention. All the men, mind you," said the governor quietly.
+
+"But none of the women, mark you!" whispered Priscilla to John as Carver
+turned aside.
+
+"Nay, who ever heard of women clamoring to be heard among men in
+council," suggested Mary Chilton, while Alden, with a side glance and
+smile at the merry maids, followed the governor a step and said,--
+
+"Ay, sir, and I will moreover warn goodwife Billington to-night, that
+she may have the Common house redded betimes."
+
+"Well thought on, John," replied Carver smiling, for goodwife
+Billington's untidiness was but too notorious among her associates.
+
+"Thou 'lt have to lay a hand to 't thyself, John," murmured Priscilla as
+the young man returned to the fire to gather up the bullets and moulds,
+and if it must be confessed to seize the chance of one more word with
+Priscilla; "best bring up two or three buckets of sand from the beach,
+and when yon slattern hath done her best, spill you the sand over all,
+and so hide her shortcomings."
+
+"'T is good advice, as thine ever is," returned the lover, and so
+energetic did Goody Billington find both his reminders and his help that
+evening and the next morning, that the Common house was set in order at
+a good hour, and by nine o'clock the Council, consisting of nineteen
+men, all that were left of the forty-one who signed the original compact
+on board the Mayflower, gathered around the table, where beside the
+governor sat Howland, ready to take minutes of the proceedings of the
+meeting, and, as it were, to open the Town Records of Plymouth.
+
+The governor in a short address set forth the danger which evidently
+menaced the little colony, and invited the opinion of the freemen
+assembled as to the means of meeting it. One and another offered his
+brief remarks, and at last Bradford in a few strong and sensible words
+proposed that the whole company there present should be resolved into a
+military body, and properly exercised in the use of arms and tactics of
+defense.
+
+"That is my own thought, Master Bradford," replied Carver eagerly; "and
+this course is the more feasible that we have among us a man so skilled
+in warfare, and so judicious in counsel as our brother Standish, who
+hath already the rank of Captain in the armies of our sovereign King
+James, and hath for love of liberty and the truth given up the sure
+prospect of advancement in the king's armies, now that the hordes of
+Spain are again let loose upon our Dutch allies, and every British
+soldier is called to their defense. I therefore propose that we appoint
+Captain Standish our military commander-in-chief, with full power to
+organize, order, and enforce his authority as he shall see best for the
+interests of the community, and I for one place myself in all such
+matters under his command, and promise to answer to his summons, and
+yield to his counsel in all things appertaining to warfare, offensive or
+defensive."
+
+"And I say as doth the governor," added Winslow, turning his astute and
+thoughtful face to Standish, with a smile of brotherly confidence.
+
+"And I," added Bradford heartily, and the word of assent went round the
+table, until each man had given his personal adherence to the new
+commander-in-chief, and Brewster closed the list by saying with a
+benevolent smile,--
+
+"And I, although a man of peace, and too well stricken in years to
+become an active soldier, will in time of need refuse not to strike a
+blow under our captain's command for the defense of those God hath
+entrusted to our care."
+
+"And shall we call Master Standish General, or how shall we mark his new
+dignity?" asked Hopkins a little pompously.
+
+"Nay, I'll be naught but Captain," replied Standish hastily. "So runneth
+my commission from good Queen Bess, heaven rest her soul, and here have
+we neither parchment nor seals, no, nor authority for making out new
+commissions. I have that I tell of, and 't is enough: 'Our well beloved
+Captain, Myles Standish,' it runneth, and by that name I'll live and
+die. But aside from that, I would say, friends, that I am well pleased
+at the trust you place in me, and that so long as God giveth me life and
+strength I will heartily place them at the service of this"--
+
+But a shriek, followed by a hubbub of voices, and the pattering of many
+light feet, broke off the captain's sentence, and brought several of the
+Council to their feet, and to the door, just as it was burst open by a
+crowd of women and children all clamoring,--
+
+"The Indians! They are upon us! They are coming into the housen! Haste!
+Haste if ye be men!"
+
+Not waiting to question farther, Standish seized his snaphance which in
+these days seldom was out of reach, and briefly shouting, "Follow me!"
+rushed out, looked about him, and seeing nothing seized young John
+Billington by the arm and demanded, "Where are these Indians, thou
+yelping cur! Didst rouse that hubbub for naught?"
+
+"Nay, Bart Allerton and Johnny Cooke and I all saw them"--
+
+"Well, lead on, and show them to me too," demanded the captain sternly,
+and preceded by the half-frightened, half-delighted boys, and followed
+in more or less order by his new army, he marched up Leyden and down
+Market streets, until across the brook on the crest of a little hill two
+savages in full panoply of war suddenly appeared, and gazed defiantly
+upon the white men.
+
+"Governor, the advance guard of the enemy is in sight, and I propose
+that I with another, cross the brook and parley with him," said Standish
+turning to Carver and unconsciously resuming the stiff military manner
+and habit of a trained soldier in actual service.
+
+"Your powers are discretionary, Captain Standish," replied Carver with
+gentle dignity. "All is left in your own hands, always remembering that
+we desire peace rather than war, if so be we may have it in honor."
+
+"Hopkins, wilt volunteer to come with me?" asked the captain briefly,
+and as briefly the veteran answered, "Ay, Captain," and followed.
+
+But as the party of parley approached, the Indian scouts withdrew, and
+before Standish could reach the spot where they had stood no creature
+was in sight, although the stir and murmur of a multitude not seeking to
+conceal itself were heard from the woods densely clothing Watson's Hill
+and the valley between.
+
+Returning with this report to the town, the captain gave it as his
+opinion that so long as the enemy held off he should be left undisturbed
+while the colony devoted itself to works of defense, especially
+finishing and arming the Fort upon the hill, and making it ready for
+immediate use.
+
+"It were well that you and I, Governor, went aboard this morning and
+stirred up Master Jones to get out our ordnance and help fetch it
+ashore," concluded he. "Shall we go at once?"
+
+"So soon as the tide makes, Captain; for when the water is out, our
+harbor is somewhat wet for walking, yet by no means suited for
+navigation," replied Carver casting a whimsical glance at the verdant
+flats, then as now replacing the tides of Plymouth Harbor.
+
+"A wise provision of Nature whereby the clams are twice a day left
+within our reach," replied Standish in the same tone. "After noon-meat
+then, we will go."
+
+But when the governor and the captain arrived on board the Mayflower
+they found Jones too stupid with liquor to listen to any plans, and too
+short-handed when he had been made to understand to carry them out with
+half the dispatch the ardent spirit of Standish prompted, so that all
+they effected was to have two of the larger pieces hoisted out of the
+hold, and one landed and left upon the sand. The next day was devoted
+to finishing the preparations on shore, and finally on Wednesday, the
+third day of March, Captain Jones with all of his men fit for service
+came on shore with the rest of the ordnance, and, aided by the Pilgrims,
+dragged the clumsy pieces to the top of the eminence now called Burying
+Hill, and mounted them in the positions carefully marked out beforehand
+by Standish. The two minions, each eight feet long, a thousand pounds in
+weight, and carrying a three-pound ball, were planted, the one to
+command the landing at the rock, and the other the crest of Watson's
+Hill, where the savages had twice appeared. The saker, a still heavier
+piece, commanded the north, where the dense coverts of an evergreen
+forest hid what was soon to be known as the Massachusetts trail, and a
+very menacing quarter. The two other pieces called bases, and of much
+lighter calibre, were set at the western face of the Fort, where they
+would do good service should an enemy attempt to skirt the hill and
+approach at that side. The pieces were heavy, the appliances crude and
+clumsy, a shrewd east wind was driving in a sea-fog of the chillest
+description, and Standish, although he toiled and tugged with the best,
+proved himself a martinet in his requirements, not sparing in the heat
+of the struggle some of those curious oaths for which "our army in
+Flanders" gained a name. But the elder turned a deaf ear at these
+moments, and neither the truly devout Carver, nor the elegant Winslow,
+nor formal Allerton, nor self-restrained Bradford, chose to notice these
+lapses on the part of him who was giving all his energies and all his
+experience to their defense. As the sun set, Master Jones straightened
+his back, and setting his hands upon his hips exclaimed,--
+
+"There, then, my little generalissimo, thy guns are set, and by thine
+own ordering, not mine. And let me tell thee now, 't is lucky thou and I
+do not often train in company, for I'd sooner serve in an Algerian
+galley than under thee, and if thou wast under me, I'd shoot thee in the
+first half day."
+
+Standish, who was on his knees sighting his saker, did not hurry himself
+to rise, but when he did so turned and eyed his ally with a grim smile.
+
+"Thou 'rt right, Jones. Two game-cocks seldom agree until they have
+fought a main or two. Yet methinks I could train thee to something after
+a while."
+
+Jones's red face grew redder yet, but before his slow wit had compassed
+a retort, Carver interposed,--
+
+"And now that our good day's work is done, it is seemly that we should
+soberly rejoice and exult. Master Jones, wilt thou and thy men sup with
+us?"
+
+The sailor's face cleared directly, and with a roar of jovial merriment
+he replied,--
+
+"Marry will we, Master Governor, an' if you had not bidden us, I had
+bidden you to the feast, for I brought more than cold iron ashore, I
+promise you."
+
+"What, then? Some beer and strong waters?" demanded Hopkins eagerly.
+
+"Ay, man, and a fat goose ten pound weight, and some wild fowl beside,
+and a whole runlet of beer and a pottle of Hollands. I brought them that
+we should all make merry for once, and forget all that's come and gone,
+and that you should wish me a fair passage home, and good luck on
+getting there."
+
+"Thou 'rt a good fellow, after all, Jones, and I for one will meet thee
+half way, and pledge thee in mine own liquor, and change a bit of my
+tender crane shot yesterday for a leg of thy goose." So saying,
+Standish smote the sailor upon his shoulder, and took his great paw into
+the grasp of a hand small and shapely, but of such iron grip that the
+burly fellow winced, and wringing away his fingers cried,--
+
+"Nay, then, thou 'rt more cruel as a friend than thou 'rt maddening as a
+master. I'll none of thee."
+
+"And where are thy generous gifts now bestowed?" asked Bradford
+practically.
+
+"In the Common house. I bade Clarke go down the hill after our snack at
+noon, and take them all out of the boat's cuddy and carry them up to
+goodwife Billington, who is a famous cook, of wild fowl in particular"--
+
+"She hath had practice while her goodman was poach--nay, then, I mean
+gamekeeper on my Lord the Marquis of Carrabas's estates," put in
+Standish gravely, and Billington, who stood by, started, tried to look
+fierce, but ended with a craven laugh.
+
+"Then Alden," suggested the Governor, "thou hadst best tell the women at
+the elder's house to send over their own vivers, or a portion of them,
+to the Common house, and we will all sup together. We have the captain's
+crane and a brace of mallards, and a salted neat's tongue, with some
+other matters, Master Jones, and can methinks well forget for one night
+that hunger and cold and danger are lying at the door. 'T is wise to be
+merry at times that we may better bear trouble at others."
+
+"Ay, 't is a poor heart that never rejoices," replied the Master, in
+what for him was a pleasant voice, although with a suspicious look
+around, lest anybody should be jeering at his unwonted amenity.
+
+But Standish was casting a comprehensive look about his little fortalice
+to see if all was ready to be left for the night, and the younger men
+were already going down the hill, and Carver and Bradford stood awaiting
+their guest with cheerful and open countenance, devoid of mischief or
+guile. So the old sea-dog sheathed his fangs, restrained his growl, and
+assumed the bearing of coarse good humor which was his rare concession
+to the claims of good society.
+
+And now Alden hasting upon his errand found that Priscilla had already
+been warned by Helen Billington of the proposed feast, and with Mistress
+Brewster's consent had arranged the tables in the Common house, and
+added to the heavier viands some delicate dishes of her own composition,
+finishing by making a kettle of plum-porridge whereon the women were to
+regale themselves in the Brewster kitchen while their lords feasted in
+the Common house.
+
+And thus with sober mirth and honest friendliness closed a day so
+important in the annals of the settlement.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV.
+
+SECOND MARRIAGES.
+
+
+Doubtless the Indians lurking in the woods of Watson's Hill had watched
+with wonder and alarm the process of mounting and securing the ordnance
+of the Fort, itself a novel structure in their eyes, and wisely
+concluded to consider the question of peace or war a little further
+before bringing it to an open issue. At any rate, they were no more seen
+at present, and the colonists wasted no time in pursuing them, but as
+the ground dried and warmed hastened to put in such grain and garden
+seeds as they had provided, and to lay out the little plots of ground
+attached to each house. Among the other crops was one whose harvest no
+man, woman, or child of that well-nigh famished company would have
+eaten, a crop of wheat whose ripened seeds were allowed to fall as they
+would, to sink again into the earth, or to feed the birds of heaven, for
+it was sown above the leveled graves of that half the Pilgrims who in
+the first four months found the city that they sought. So numerous and
+so prominent upon the bold bluff of Cole's Hill were these graves
+becoming, that Standish, overlooking the town from the Fort and his home
+close beneath its walls, pointed out to Carver and Bradford that the
+savages, doubtless as keen-eyed as himself, would in seeing how many of
+the invaders were under ground find courage to attack those still
+living, and it was his proposal that the earth should be leveled and
+planted.
+
+"To what crop?" asked Bradford.
+
+"It matters not," replied Standish a little impatiently. "No man will
+care to eat of it, knowing what lies beneath."
+
+"'Thou sowest not that body that shall be, but bare grain, it may chance
+of wheat or of some other grain, but God giveth it a body,'" quoted
+Carver in a low voice, and Standish reverently answered,--
+
+"Ay. Let it be wheat, since that is Paul's order."
+
+But that night as the sun was setting behind the gloomy evergreen forest
+closing the western horizon, the captain, avoiding his comrades, went
+quietly up the hill to the Fort, and thence made a circuit northward and
+eastward so as to come out upon the bluff of Cole's Hill. Passing among
+the graves with careful feet he presently stood beside one, mounded and
+shaped with care, and protected by willow rods bent over it and into the
+ground at either side. Recently cut, these boughs yet bore their pretty
+catkins, and the leaves which had already started seemed inclined to
+persist in life and growth.
+
+Removing his buff-cap and folding his arms Standish stood long beside
+this grave, silent and almost stern of look, but his heart eloquent with
+that deep and inarticulate language in which great souls commune with
+God, and with those mysteries of life so far transcending man's
+comprehension or powers of definition.
+
+At last he gently pulled up the ends of the willow rods at one side, and
+passing round to the other would have done the same, but seeing how
+fresh and green they looked held his hand.
+
+"They would grow an' I left them," muttered he; but then with a mournful
+gesture added in the same tone, "Nay, then, what need. I shall know
+where thou liest, Rose, and"--
+
+Not ungently he drew the twigs from the earth, and stood holding them in
+his hand as a voice behind him said,--
+
+"Ay, brother, we must say good-by even to the graves we have loved.
+Stern necessity is our master."
+
+Standish, ill pleased at the interruption, turned a dark face upon the
+new-comer.
+
+"And yet I have heard, Master Winslow, that thou art already speaking of
+marriage with Mistress White. Is stern necessity master there also?"
+
+"Yes, Standish," replied Winslow frowning a little and speaking more
+coldly than at first. "You may see it for yourself. Here are we, a scant
+threescore souls, not one score grown men, come to people a savage land
+and make terms with hordes of savage inhabitants. Is it not the
+clearest, ay, sternest necessity that those of us who are unwived, to
+our sorrow though it be, should take the women who remain, be they maids
+or widows, in honorable wedlock, and rear up children to fill our places
+when we are gone? Have we a right, man, to follow our own fantasies and
+mourn and mourn like cushat doves over the graves of our lost mates
+while the women we ought to cherish struggle on uncared for?"
+
+"Hast put the matter in this light to William White's widow?" asked
+Standish sarcastically.
+
+"Nay," returned Winslow with his usual calm. "Words that suit men are
+not always for women's ears. What I may say to Susanna White is not of
+necessity the business of the Council"--
+
+"Any more than my errand here to-night," retorted Standish, the spark
+kindling in his brown eyes.
+
+"Softly, brother, softly," replied Winslow in his measured tones, and
+laying a finger upon the other's arm. "It would ill befit us two to
+quarrel here between thy wife's grave and mine. We are brethren, and if
+I said aught that mispleased thee I am right sorry"--
+
+"Nay, then, 't is I was hasty," interrupted Standish. "Surely thy
+marriage is thine own affair, not mine, and I wish you godspeed with all
+my heart."
+
+"And yet, brother, I am not all content lacking thine approval, for
+there is neither head nor heart in the colony more honorable than
+thine."
+
+"'He who praises thee to the face is a false friend; the true one
+reproveth thee,'" quoted Standish with his peculiar grim smile.
+
+"And am not I reproving thee for thy selfish disregard of the common
+weal?" persisted Winslow, his own smile a little forced. "Nay, then,
+must I bewray confidence and tell thee that one who knows assures me
+that Priscilla Molines would not say thee nay wert thou to ask her?"
+
+"Pst! What folly art thou at now, Master Winslow? This is no more than
+woman's gossip. Some of thy new love's havers, I'll be bound."
+
+"Did not William Molines send to seek speech with thee the night he
+died?" asked Winslow fixing his keen eyes upon the soldier's perturbed
+face.
+
+"Ay, but it was he and I alone."
+
+"Well, then, he had taken counsel first with a godly matron, in whose
+judgment he trusted."
+
+"Mistress White?"
+
+"Ay."
+
+"I would I had known it that day." And with no farther good-by the
+Captain turned and strode down the hill ill pleased.
+
+The next day rose warm and misty. The veiled sun seemed smiling behind
+the soft vapors, and the earth throbbing with the sweet hopes of spring
+smiled back at him. The leaves of willow, and alder, and birch, and
+maple, and elm, uncurled their delicate fronds and shyly held out hands
+of welcome to the south wind; the birds sang clear and sweet in the
+woods, and the delicate springs of sweet water answered back with
+rippling laughter and joyous dance.
+
+"A goodly scene, a veritable garden of the Lord," said William Bradford
+standing outside the elder's door, and gazing down upon the valley of
+Town Brook, and across at the wood-covered hillside beyond. Standish,
+whom he addressed, was just coming out of the house, after his
+breakfast, and without reply laid his hand upon the younger man's arm
+and led him up the hill.
+
+"Whither bound this fair morning my Captain?" asked Bradford, in whose
+blood the brave morning air worked like wine.
+
+"First to fetch my snaphance, and then I will have thee into the wood
+for a stroll to enjoy thy fine day, and to hold counsel with thy
+friend."
+
+"And that is ever to mine own advantage," replied Bradford with
+affectionate honesty. Standish glanced at him with the rare sweetness
+sometimes lighting the rigor of his soldierly face, and as they had
+reached the door of the cabin nestled beneath the Fort, where John Alden
+and his friend abode, Standish entered, leaving the future governor to
+feast his eyes upon the wider view outspread at his feet. Climbing still
+further to the platform of the Fort, he stood lost in reverie, his eyes
+fixed upon the lonely Mayflower, sole occupant of the harbor, as she
+clumsily rode at anchor tossing upon the flood tide.
+
+"We shall miss the crazy craft when she is gone," said Standish
+rejoining him.
+
+"Ay. She is the last bit of Old England," replied Bradford, musingly.
+For a few moments the two men stood intently gazing upon the vessel,
+each heart busy with its own thoughts, then, as by a common impulse
+turned, descending the side of the hill toward the lower spring, and
+passed into the forest.
+
+"What is thy matter for counsel, friend?" asked Bradford finding that
+Standish strode on in what seemed gloomy silence.
+
+"Yon ship."
+
+"The Mayflower?"
+
+"What other? She brought a hundred souls to these shores some six months
+agone."
+
+"Ay, and now we are fifty."
+
+"Fifty alive, and fifty under the sea, or on yon headland where to-day
+we level the mounds over their poor bodies and plant wheat to cheat the
+salvages."
+
+"'T is too true, good friend, and well I wot that the delight of thine
+eyes lies buried there"--
+
+"And thine beneath the waters of our first harbor," interrupted Standish
+harshly, for the proud, tender heart could not bear even so light a
+touch.
+
+"Yes," replied Bradford briefly, and over his face passed a cloud
+blotting out all the boyish enjoyment of scene and hour that had
+enlivened its ordinarily thoughtful features. Was Dorothy May indeed the
+delight of his eyes and heart?
+
+"Yes, we two men came hither husbands, and to-day we stand as widowers,
+and 't is in that matter I seek counsel," exclaimed Standish suddenly
+as he turned to face his friend. "Last night, Master Winslow standing
+between the graves of his wife and mine, read me a lecture upon the duty
+unwived men owe to the community. He says it is naught but selfishness
+to let our private griefs rule our lives, that we are bound to seek new
+mates and raise up children to carry on the work we have begun. Nor can
+we doubt his own patriotism, or the honesty of his counsels, for already
+he has spoken to the widow of William White, and his own wife but six
+weeks under ground."
+
+"Yes, I know--they will be wed shortly," replied Bradford a little
+embarrassed. Standish eyed him keenly.
+
+"And thou art of his mind, and mayhap thine own new mate is already
+bespoken?" demanded he in angry surprise.
+
+"Nay, Standish, thou 'rt not reasonable to quarrel with another man's
+conscience so that it thwarts not thine," replied Bradford patiently,
+although the color rose to his cheek as he felt the scorn of his
+comrade's voice. "Neither Winslow nor I would do aught that we could not
+answer for to God, and have not we come to this wilderness that we might
+be free to serve Him only, in matters of conscience?"
+
+"I meant not to forget courtesy, nay, nor friendship neither, Bradford;
+but my speech is ever hasty and none too smooth. So thou wilt marry,
+anon?"
+
+"I'll tell thee friend, and thou 'rt the first I've told. There is a
+lady in the old country"--
+
+"Which old country? The Netherlands or England?"
+
+"She is in England now, or was when we set forth. Thou must have seen
+her, Standish,--Alice Carpenter, who wedded Edward Southworth in
+Amsterdam."
+
+"Oh, ay. A goodly crop of daughters had Father Carpenter, and not one
+hung on hand so soon as she was marriageable. Truly, I remember Mistress
+Southworth well, a fair and discreet dame. And she was left a widow not
+many days before we left England, if I mistake not."
+
+"Ay. One little week."
+
+"And didst thou woo her as in the play I saw when last I was in London,
+King Richard wooed the widow of him he had slain, following her
+husband's corse to the grave? Nay then, nay then, man, I meant it not
+awry. But to ask a woman within one week of her widowhood, and thou
+still wived"--
+
+"Nay, nay, nay, Myles, thou 'rt all aglee and I doubt me if I had not
+better kept mine own counsel. I have not looked upon Alice Carpenter's
+face nor heard her voice since she was Southworth's wife."
+
+"Oh, ay--I see, I see--'t is an old flame and thou 'rt of mind to try to
+kindle it once more. You were sweethearts of old, eh, lad?"
+
+"Something so,--though I meant not to say so much, and now must leave
+the secret in thine honor, Captain."
+
+"Dost doubt the ward, Bradford?"
+
+"Nay. I trust thee as myself, and thou knowest it. Why must thou ever be
+so hot, Myles? Yes, when Master Carpenter and his fair troop of
+daughters came to Leyden it was not long until I saw that Alice was both
+fairest and sweetest of them all; but thou knowest the fight we had for
+bread, winning it by strange and unaccustomed labors: I, who knew naught
+but my books, and something of husbandry, becoming a weaver of baize;
+Brewster a ribbon weaver, Tilley a silk worker, Cushman a wool comber,
+Eaton a carpenter, and so on; well, goodman Carpenter was loth to trust
+his maid to such scant living as I could offer, nor would he let us even
+call ourselves troth-plight; and Alice, the gentle, timid maid that she
+was, yielded all to her father's will, and I, in the naughty pride of a
+young man's heart, was angered that she would not promise to hold
+herself against all importunities, and we quarreled, or forsooth I
+should say I quarreled, and flung away, and I knew Dorothy May and her
+kin, and she, poor soul, was ready to wed as her father willed"--
+
+"Enough Will, enough; it is not good to put all that is in one's heart
+into words. I see the whole story. And now thou 'lt write to Mistress
+Southworth and ask her to come out with the residue of our company, and
+become thy wife?"
+
+"Ay, dear friend, that is my plan," said Bradford, wringing the hand
+Standish extended, and turning his flushed face aside.
+
+"And why not?" asked Myles heartily. "'T is no new affair, no hasty
+furnishing forth of a marriage feast with the cold vivers of the funeral
+tables, as yon fellow said in the play. 'T is marvelous like one of
+those old romaunts my kinswoman Barbara used to tell over to me and the
+dear lass that's gone. There now--and thou hadst not this matter in
+hand, I'd wive thee to Barbara Standish--'t is the best wench alive, I
+do believe, and full of quip, and crank as a jest book."
+
+"Thy cousin?" asked Bradford rather absently.
+
+"Ay, but I know not just how nigh. Her father held for his lifetime a
+little place of ours on the Isle of Man, and I, trying to find an old
+record that should give me a fair estate feloniously held from me now,
+went over there once and again, and so met Rose, and went yet again and
+again, until we two wed, and I carried her away to my friends in the
+Netherlands."
+
+"And is thy cousin wed?"
+
+"Nay, did not I say I'd like to give her to thee to wife? But barring
+that, I'll send for her to come with the next company, perchance under
+charge of thy sober widow, Will, and I'll marry her to one of these our
+good friends here. So if I do not marry myself, for the weal of the
+community as Winslow says, I shall purvey for some one of them a wife
+and mother of children in my stead."
+
+"'T is well thought on, Captain," replied Bradford laughing, "and I can
+promise that if Mistress Southworth makes the voyage she will gladly
+take charge of thy cousin, for whom we will choose a husband of our
+best. But why wilt not thou marry again, thyself? Was not that in thy
+mind in speaking of counsel?"
+
+"Ay--nay--in good sooth I know not, lad. I fain would know thine own
+intentions, and I have them, but for myself--truth to tell, I care not
+to wed again. I lived many years with only my good sword here as
+sweetheart and comrade, and I was well stead, and--none can make good
+the treasure late found and soon lost--but yet--come now, Will,
+confidence for confidence, I'll tell thee somewhat"--
+
+"Touching fair Mistress Priscilla?" asked Bradford with a smile of quiet
+humor.
+
+"Aha!" exclaimed Standish, a swarthy color mounting to his cheek. "'T is
+common talk, then!"
+
+"Well, I know not--certes I have heard it spoken on more than once, but
+to say 'common talk'--we who are left alive are so few and so bound
+together that 't is no more than a family, and the weal of each is
+common to all."
+
+"But what hast thou heard, in very truth?"
+
+"Why, naught, except that Priscilla hath a sort of kindness for thee,
+and thou hast, in a way, made her affairs thine own, and so 't was
+naught but likely"--
+
+"Ay, ay, I see, I ever had but an ill idea of great families, having
+been born into one myself,--as thou sayest, the affairs of one are the
+gossip of all."
+
+"Nay, I said"--
+
+"Pst, man, I know what thou saidst, and what I think, so hold thy peace.
+Nay, then, this idle prating hath a certain foundation, as smoke aye
+shows some little fire beneath, and I'll tell it thee. When William
+Molines lay a-dying his mind was sore distraught at leaving his poor,
+motherless maid alone, for his son Joseph had gone before him, so he
+sent for me to watch with him that night, and somewhere in the small
+hours we thought his time had come, and he besought me to promise that I
+would take the maid under my keeping and not let her come to want. He
+said naught of marriage, nor did I, for my wife was but then at rest,
+and such speech would have been unseemly for him and hateful to me. I
+took his words as they were spoken, and I gave my promise, and so far as
+there was need I have kept it, and seen that the maid was housed and fed
+and looked after by Mistress Brewster, but more, I thought not on."
+
+"Master Molines was a discreet and careful man and seldom told out all
+his thought," said Bradford astutely. "Methinks he counted upon 'the way
+of a man with a maid,' and left it to thee to find out the most perfect
+plan of caring for a young gentlewoman."
+
+"Dost think so, Will? Dost think he meant me to take her to wife? Dost
+think she so considers it?" and Myles snatching off his barret-cap
+pushed up the hair from his suddenly heated and burning forehead.
+Bradford looked at him with his peculiar smile of subtle humor and
+shrewd kindliness.
+
+"Why, Myles, thou lookst fairly frightened! Thou who never counted the
+foe, or thought twice ere leading a forlorn hope, or asked quarter of
+Turk or Spaniard"--
+
+"Nay, nay, nay, Will, spare thy gibes! Here is a moil, here is an
+ambushment! Here am I, going fair and softly on mine own way, and of a
+sudden the trap is sprung, and Honor starts up and cries, 'There's but
+one way out of it, take it, willy-nilly!' If the maid is of her father's
+mind I am bound to her."
+
+"I think she would not say thee nay," said Bradford demurely.
+
+"Thou hast no right to avow that, Will, and I were but a sorry knave to
+believe it. A lady's yea-say is an honor to any man, and he who receives
+it must do so in all reverence. No man hath a right to fancy or to say
+that a modest maid is ready with yea or nay before she is asked."
+
+"Thou art right, and I wrong, Myles, and in truth I know naught of
+Mistress Priscilla's mind."
+
+"But I will, and that ere many days are past. Thou hast done me a good
+turn, Will, in showing me where I stand. I dreamed not that Molines
+was--well,--he died peacefully and I will not disturb his rest. Yes, I
+will but wait until the Mayflower is gone and my cabin weather-tight,
+and the garden sown, and then I will speak with Priscilla. If Barbara
+comes she'll be rare good company for both of us."
+
+Again Bradford smiled very quietly, and the two men walked on in
+silence.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV.
+
+SAMOSET.
+
+
+Once more the freemen of the colony were convened in Council around the
+well-scoured table in the principal room of the Common house, become for
+the nonce a House of Commons, and Captain Standish was explaining the
+scheme he had arranged for organizing his little army, when again the
+solemnity of the meeting was invaded by shrill cries of alarm and anger,
+this time, however, in a solo rather than chorus, for goodwife
+Billington having taken the field, her more timid sisters were abashed
+into silence.
+
+"Thou foul beast, I say begone! Scat! Avaunt! Nay, grin not at me thou
+devil straight from hell! Wait but till I fetch a bucket of boiling
+water to throw over thee, thou Cheshire cat! I'll soon see how much of
+thy nasty color is fast dye"--
+
+"What means this unseemly brawling?" sternly demanded Elder Brewster as
+Standish ceased speaking, and all eyes involuntarily turned toward the
+door.
+
+"Billington, the voice is that of thy wife. Go, and warn her that we
+tolerate no common scolds in our midst, and that the cucking-stool and
+the pillory"--
+
+But the elder's threats and Billington's shamefaced obedience and the
+wonder of all who had listened to the outbreak were cut short by a
+startling apparition upon the threshold; the savages had really come at
+last, or at least one of them, for here stood, tall and erect, the
+splendid figure of a man, naked except for a waistband of buckskin
+fringe, his skin of a bright copper color glistening in the morning sun,
+and forming a rich background for the vari-colored paints with which it
+was decorated; his coarse, black hair, cut square above the eyebrows,
+fell upon his shoulders at the back, and was ornamented by three
+eagle-feathers woven into its tresses; in his hand he carried a bow
+nearly as tall as himself, and two arrows; a sharp little hatchet,
+evidently of European make, was thrust into his girdle, but the keenness
+of its edge was less than that of the glances with which he watched the
+slightest movement of the armed men who started to their feet at his
+approach.
+
+The savage was the first to speak, and his utterance has become as
+classic as Cæsar's "Veni,"--for it was,--
+
+"Welcome!"
+
+As he pronounced it, and looked about him with kindly, if wary eyes, the
+Pilgrims drew a long breath, and the tense anxiety of the moment lapsed
+into aspects various as the temperaments of the men.
+
+"What! Do these men speak English, then!" exclaimed Allerton bewildered,
+while Standish muttered,--
+
+"Look to your side-arms, men. He may mean treachery," and noble Carver,
+extending his hand, said,--
+
+"Thanks for your courtesy, friend. How know you our language?"
+
+"I am Samoset. I am friend of Englishmen. I come to say welcome."
+
+"Truly 't is a marvel to hear him speak in our own tongue and so glibly
+too. Mark you how he chooses his words as one of some dignity himself,"
+said Bradford softly, but the quick ears of the savage caught the
+substance of his words, and tapping his broad chest lightly with his
+fingers he proudly replied,--
+
+"Samoset, sachem of Monhegan. Samoset do well to many Englishmen in his
+own country."
+
+"And where is Monhegan, friend Samoset?" asked Carver pleasantly. "Might
+it be this place?"
+
+"This place Patuxet. Monhegan nearer to the sunrise," replied Samoset
+pointing eastward.
+
+"And how far?"
+
+"Suppose walk, five days; big wind in ship, one day."
+
+"And how camest thou, and when?"
+
+"Ship. Three, four moons ago."
+
+"Ah, then it is not an armed assault upon us," said Carver aside and in
+a tone of relief.
+
+"Nay, these salvages are more treacherous than a quicksand. Try him with
+more questions," suggested Hopkins, the other men murmuring assent,
+while the Indian glancing with his opaque, black eyes from one to
+another showed not how much he understood of what went on about him.
+
+"'In vino veritas,'" suggested Bradford with a smile. "Were it not well
+to give him something by way of welcome?"
+
+"Samoset like beer. Much talk make throat dry like brook in summer,"
+remarked the guest, but whether in response or not no one could say.
+
+"Thou 'rt right, man, and though thy skin's tawny, thy inside is very
+like a white man's," exclaimed Standish with a laugh. "John Alden, thou
+knowest the cupboards of this place passing well; find our friend
+wherewith to fill yon dry brook-bed of a throat; that is with the
+governor's permission."
+
+"Surely, surely, Captain Standish," replied Carver with gentle alacrity.
+"Your word is enough. And while Alden finds wherewithal to feed and
+quench his thirst, John Howland shall bring a mantle or cloak from my
+house to throw about him, for it is not seemly that our people should
+see us entertaining a man stark as he was born."
+
+"'T is well said, Master Carver. I had some such thought myself," said
+Allerton rather primly, while Hopkins and Billington exchanged an
+irreverent grin, and Standish stroked his moustache.
+
+The cloak was brought, and gracefully accepted by Samoset, who evidently
+regarded it as a ceremonial robe of state, designed to mark his
+admittance as an honored guest at the white men's board, and draping it
+toga-wise across his shoulder, he sat down to a plentiful repast of cold
+duck, biscuit, butter, cheese, and a kind of sausage called black
+pudding. To these solids was added a comfortable tankard of spirits and
+water, from which Samoset at once imbibed a protracted draught.
+
+"Englishman have better drink than poor Indian," remarked he placing the
+tankard close beside his plate, and seizing a leg of the duck in his
+hands.
+
+"'T is sure enough that he has been much with white men,--yes, and
+Englishmen, too, by the way he takes down his liquor," remarked Hopkins.
+
+"Nay, methinks our Dutch brethren could take down a deep draught, too,
+and this is their own liquor," said Bradford, while Winslow muttered in
+Carver's ear,--
+
+"Let not Alden leave the case-bottle within reach of the savage. Enough
+will loosen his tongue, but a little more will bind it."
+
+"True," assented the Governor, nodding to Alden, who quietly replaced
+the bottle in the case whence he had taken it. Samoset followed it with
+longing eyes, but his own dignity prevented remonstrance except by
+finishing the flagon and ostentatiously turning it upside down.
+
+After this, the meal was soon finished, and the conversation resumed,
+partly by signs and inference, partly by Samoset's limited stock of
+English. By one means and the other the Pilgrims presently learned that
+Monhegan was a large island near to the mainland in a northeasterly
+direction, and a great resort of fishing vessels, mostly English, with
+whose masters Samoset, as sachem of the Indians in those parts, had both
+traded and feasted, learning their language, their manners, and, what
+was worse, their habits of strong drink and profanity, neither of which
+however seemed to have taken any great hold upon him, being reserved
+rather as accomplishments and proofs that he too had studied men and
+manners.
+
+The master of one of these fishing craft some few months previously had
+invited the sachem to accompany him across the bay to Cape Cod, where
+the sailor wished to traffic with the natives, and Samoset had since
+remained in this part of the country visiting Massasoit, sachem of the
+Wampanoags, who with a large party of his warriors was now lying in the
+forest outside of the settlement, waiting apparently for the result of
+Samoset's reconnoissance before he should determine on his own line of
+action.
+
+Farther inquiry elicited the fact that the former inhabitants of
+Plymouth, or Patuxet, a people tributary to Massasoit, but living under
+their own sachem, had been totally exterminated by a plague, perhaps
+small-pox, which had swept over the country two or three years before
+the landing of the Pilgrims, leaving, so far as Samoset could tell, only
+one man alive; this man seeking refuge among the Nausets, the tribe to
+the east of Patuxet, was one of the victims entrapped by Hunt, escaping
+from whom, he lived a long time in England with a merchant of London
+named Slaney, who finally sent him in a fishing vessel to Newfoundland,
+whence he had made his way back to his friends on Cape Cod.
+
+"And this man," demanded Winslow eagerly. "Where is he now? Do ye not
+perceive, friends, that this is an instrument shaped and fitted to our
+hands by the Providence of God, who hath also sent His plague to sweep
+away the inhabitants of this spot whither He would lead His chosen
+people?"
+
+"Of a truth it seemeth so," replied Carver reverently, while Standish
+muttered in his beard,--
+
+"Pity but the salvages had known 't was Providence! 'T would have
+converted them out of hand."
+
+The elder who had his own opinion of the soldier's orthodoxy looked
+askance at the half-heard murmuring, and suddenly demanded,--
+
+"Where, then, is this man? How call you him?"
+
+"Tisquantum he name. English trader across big water call him other fool
+name. Red man not know it."
+
+"Tisquantum is well enough for a name, but why did he not come hither
+with you, Samoset?"
+
+"Tisquantum much wise. He like see other fox put his paw in trap first
+before he try it." And as he thus betrayed his comrade's diplomacy the
+savage allowed a subtle smile to lighten his eyes, which, with the
+instinct that in simple mental organizations is so much surer than
+reason, he fixed upon Winslow, who laughed outright as he replied,--
+
+"Wiser than thou, Samoset, me-seemeth. How is it thou wast so much more
+daring than thy fellow?"
+
+"Samoset poor fool. He not know enough to be afraid of anything. Not
+wise like white man and Tisquantum." And the sachem with a superb smile
+settled the tomahawk at his girdle, and threw off the folds of his
+horseman's cloak. But the grim smile upon most of the faces around the
+board showed that the jest had given no offense to men who knew their
+own and each other's courage, and the conference presently broke up, the
+visitor amusing himself by strolling around the village, discreetly
+wrapped in his cloak, and taking a malicious delight in encountering
+Helen Billington, who never failed to greet him with a fusillade of
+suppressed wrath, to which he listened attentively, as if desirous of
+storing up some of the objurgations for his own future use. As night
+fell, and the guest showed no intention of departure, some of the more
+cautious settlers suggested that he should be put on board the Mayflower
+for safe keeping, a plan which met Samoset's ready approval, for as he
+sententiously remarked,--
+
+"Captain-man have much strong waters."
+
+But then, as now, he who would navigate Plymouth Harbor must take both
+wind and tide into account, and when Samoset with Cooke, Browne, and
+Eaton to row him reached the shallop, they found her high and dry, with
+a stiff east wind in her teeth. The next plan was to bestow the
+dangerous guest safely on shore, and this was finally done in the loft
+of Stephen Hopkins's house, the veteran host grimly promising that he
+should not stir so much as a finger-nail but he would know it; and in
+spite of goodwife Billington's assurance to her sisters that they should
+one and all be murdered in their beds before morning, the sun arose upon
+them in peace and safety, and soon after breakfast the Indian was
+dismissed with some small gifts, and an agreement that he should come
+again the next day, bringing Squanto, and such others as desired to
+trade with the white men, and could offer skins of beaver, martin, or
+other valuable fur.
+
+"Could not they fetch a few ermine and miniver skins while they are at
+it," suggested Priscilla. "Methinks in this wilderness we women might at
+least solace ourselves with the show of royalty, sith we are too far
+from the throne to have our right disputed."
+
+"Who knows but that we may found a new kingdom here in the New World,"
+replied John Alden playfully. "And where should we find a fitter
+sovereign than Queen Priscilla?"
+
+But Saturday passed over quietly, and it was not until Sunday morning
+that the Pilgrims coming out of the Common house after the morning
+service met Samoset stalking into the village followed by five other
+tall fellows, powerful but unarmed, Standish having sternly warned
+Samoset that neither he nor his companions must bring any weapon into
+the white man's settlement without permission. Much to the relief of the
+women who encountered these guests, it was at once seen that Samoset had
+understood and communicated the hint involved in lending him a cloak to
+wear during his previous visit, for all were fully dressed in deerskin
+robes with leggings fastened to the girdle and disappearing at the ankle
+within moccasons of a style very familiar to our eyes, although a great
+marvel to those of the Pilgrims, who, however soon adopted and enjoyed
+them highly. Samoset and another savage, who seemed to be his especial
+associate, also carried each a finely dressed wild-cat skin as a sort of
+shield upon the left arm, and all were profusely decorated with paint,
+feathers, strings of shells, and one man with the tail of a fox
+gracefully draped across his forehead. All wore the hair in the cavalier
+style, long upon the shoulders and cut square across the brow, and all
+were comely and dignified looking warriors.
+
+The governor, elder, captain, with some other of the principal men,
+stood still in the open space where the King's Highway crossed The
+Street, and greeted, soberly as befitted the day, yet cordially as
+befitted charity and hospitality, their guests, who watched with wary
+eyes every movement of the hosts whom they hardly trusted, while
+Samoset, stepping forward, unrolled a fine mat, or wrapping-rug, in his
+arm, and ceremoniously laid two axes and a wedge at the feet of
+Standish, saying briefly,--
+
+"The white chief has his own again."
+
+"Our tools. Yes, that is as it should be," replied the captain,
+"although we may not use them to-day."
+
+"Six hungry guests to divide the dinner with us!" exclaimed Priscilla in
+dismay as she stood at Mistress Brewster's side, her glowing brunette
+beauty shining out in contrast with the soft ashen tints of the older
+woman's face.
+
+"Ay 't will put us to our trumps to make ready enough hot victual for
+all," replied the elder's wife.
+
+"They shall have none of the marchpane thou didst make yestere'en,
+Priscilla!" expostulated Desire Minter anxiously. "There is no more than
+enow for us that be women."
+
+"That will rest as our dear mother says," replied Priscilla smiling into
+Dame Brewster's face.
+
+"Nay, it needs not the marchpane thou madest so toilsomely to entertain
+these salvages to whom our ship-biscuit are a treat," and the elder
+woman smiled tenderly back into the glowing face so near her own.
+
+So presently the table in the Common house was spread with what to the
+red men was a feast of the gods, and they gravely ate enough for twelve
+men, evidently carrying out the time-honored policy of Dugald Dalgetty
+and of the camel, to lay in as there is opportunity provision not only
+for the present, but the future. Dinner ended, both red and white men
+assembled in the open space before mentioned, now in Plymouth called the
+Town Square, and the Indians grouping themselves in the centre began
+what may be called a dance, although from the gravity of their faces and
+solemnity of their movements the elder was seized with a suspicion that
+fairly turned him pale.
+
+"Are the heathen creatures practicing their incantations and
+warlock-work in our very midst, and on the Lord's Day?" demanded he.
+"Stephen Hopkins, thou knowest their devices, how is it?"
+
+"Nay, Elder," replied Hopkins chuckling in spite of his efforts at
+Sunday sobriety. "It is a feast-dance, a manner of thanksgiving"--
+
+"A sort of grace after meat," suggested Billington in an aside; but the
+elder heard him, and turning the current of his wrath in that direction
+exclaimed,--
+
+"Peace, ribald! Thou art worse than the heathen in making sport of holy
+things."
+
+"I knew not yon antics were holy things, Elder," retorted the reckless
+jester; but Standish ranging up alongside of him muttered,--
+
+"One word more and thou 'lt deal with me, John Billington," and though
+the reprobate affected to laugh contemptuously he remained silent.
+
+To the solemn feast-dance succeeded a more lively measure accompanied
+with barbarous sounds intended for singing, and the performance ended
+with gestures and pantomime obviously suggesting a treaty of amity and
+peace, as indeed Samoset presently interpreted it, closing the scene
+with the offer of such skins as the men wore upon their arms, and
+promises of more furs in the near future.
+
+But the Sunday-keeping Pilgrims would not enter even into the semblance
+of trade upon that day, and, although they could not explain the reason
+to the Indians, made them understand that their dances, their singing,
+and their gifts, which were of course to be repaid, were all impossible
+for them to consider upon that day, and that, in fact, the sooner they
+withdrew from the village the better their hosts would be pleased.
+Adding however the wisdom of the serpent to the guilelessness of the
+dove, they coupled with this dismissal a very earnest invitation for the
+savages to return on the morrow and bring more skins, indeed all that
+they could spare, the white men promising to purchase them at a fair
+price.
+
+The Indians listened gravely to so much of this harangue as Samoset
+translated to them, and the five new-comers at once, and with no
+ceremony of farewell, glided one after the other down the path leading
+past the spring to Watson's Hill, and were no more seen; but Samoset
+throwing himself upon the ground pressed his hands upon his stomach
+moaning loudly and declaring himself in great agony.
+
+"He has a colic from over-feeding. Give him a dose of strong waters and
+capsicum," said the elder compassionately; and Standish with a grim
+smile remarked, "Truly the man hath been an apt scholar in the ways of
+civilization. He minds me of a varlet of mine own, whose colics I
+effectually cured after a while by mingling a certain drug with the
+strong waters he craved. 'T was better than a sea-voyage for clearing
+his stomach."
+
+"Nay, Captain, we'll not deal so harshly with the poor fellow at the
+beginning, whatever may come at the end," said the Governor smiling.
+"Howland, get the man his dram, and if he will not go, put him to sleep
+in Hopkins's house and under his ward."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI.
+
+PRISCILLA MOLINES' LETTER.
+
+
+"John Alden, the captain says thou 'rt a ready writer. Didst learn that
+along with coopering?"
+
+"Nay, Mistress Priscilla, I was not dubbed cooper until I was a
+se'nnight old, or so."
+
+"Oho! Then thy schoolcraft all came in the first week of thy life. Eh?"
+
+"Have thy way, Priscilla. Thou knowst well enow thou canst not anger
+me."
+
+"Truly? Well I never cared to see a man maiden-meek. But thou canst
+write?"
+
+"Ay, and so canst thou, I have heard."
+
+"Heed not all thou hearest, John; no, nor believe all thou seest."
+
+"But what about my pencraft? Can I do aught for thee, Priscilla?"
+
+"Mayhap."
+
+"And what is it, maid? Well thou knowest that it is more than joy for me
+to do thy bidding."
+
+"Nay, I know not what feeling 'more than joy' can be, unless haply it
+topple over t' other side and become woe, and I would be loth to breed
+thee woe."
+
+"And I am as loth to let thee; but still thou dost it and will do it."
+
+"Verily!"
+
+"Ay, verily; but what is thy bidding, Priscilla? for I have an errand on
+hand."
+
+"And what weighty matter claims thee for its guardian?"
+
+"Nay, 't is no such weighty matter, nor is it a secret. The governor
+will have me warn the men to gather in the Common house to-morrow to
+complete the affairs twice broken off by the visit of our red-skinned
+neighbors."
+
+"And mark my words, John, they'll come again to-morrow so sure as you
+try to hold council. 'T is a fate, and you'll not escape it."
+
+"Pooh, child! Dost believe in signs and fates?"
+
+"My forbears did. Haply thou hadst none, and so escaped the corruption
+of such folly."
+
+"Nay now, Priscilla, each one of us has just as many grandsires as
+another all the way back to Adam, only some of us have had more
+important matter in hand than to reckon up their names, and 't will
+never spoil a night's rest for me that I know not if my great-grandam
+was Cicely or Phyllis. But tell me, mistress, what my pen can do for
+thee?"
+
+"Thy pen! Then 't is not thy heart or thy hand that is at my service?"
+and Priscilla raised a pair of such melting and velvety brown eyes to
+the somewhat offended face of the young giant that he at once tumbled
+into the depths of abject submission, and trying to seize her hand
+exclaimed,--
+
+"Oh sweetheart, thou knowest only too well that hand and heart and all I
+have are thine if thou wilt but take them."
+
+"Nay, John, thou must not speak so, no, nor touch my hand until I give
+it thee of mine own free will"--
+
+"Until? Nay, that means that some time thou wilt give it!"
+
+"Well, then, I don't say until, and if thou dost pester me I'll say
+never. And I'll ask John Howland to write my letter."
+
+"Stay, stay Priscilla! If 't is a letter to be written let me write it,
+for I was the first one asked, and I'll not pester thee, lass. I am a
+patient man by nature, and I'll bide thy good pleasure."
+
+"There, now, that's more sensible, and as my own time runs short as well
+as thine, sit down at the corner of the table here--hast thy ink-horn
+with thee? Ay, well, here is paper ready, and we have time before I must
+make supper."
+
+"Yes, an hour or more," said John looking at some marks upon the window
+ledge cut to show the shadows cast at noon, at sunrise, and at sunset at
+this time in the year. Priscilla meantime had arranged the writing
+materials upon the corner of the heavy oaken table with its twisted legs
+and cross pieces still to be seen in Pilgrim Hall in Plymouth as Elder
+Brewster's table, and drawing up two new-made oaken stools, for the
+elder's chair in the chimney-corner was not to be lightly or profanely
+occupied, she said,--
+
+"Come now, Master Alden, I am ready."
+
+"I would thou wert ready," murmured John, but as the blooming face
+remained bent over the table, and the very shoulders showed cold
+indifference, he continued hastily as he seated himself,--
+
+"And so am I ready. To whom shall I address the letter?"
+
+"Methinks I would first put time and place at the head of the sheet. So
+have I noted that letters are most commonly begun."
+
+"Ay. Well, then, here is:--
+
+"'The Settlement of New Plymouth, March the 21st inst. A. D. 1620.'" For
+thus in Old Style did John Alden count the date we now should set at
+March 31st, 1621. And having written it in the queer crabbed Saxon
+script we find so hard to decipher he inquired,--
+
+"And what next, Mistress Priscilla?"
+
+"Next, Master John, thou mayest set down,"--
+
+"'My well beloved'"--
+
+"Well, who is thy well beloved?" demanded John pen in hand and flame on
+cheek.
+
+"Nay, the name is of no importance," replied Priscilla coldly. "Let us
+go on."
+
+"Very well, 'My well beloved,' is set down."
+
+"'I promised thee news of my welfare so soon as opportunity should serve
+to send it.'"--
+
+"Well?"
+
+--"'And now I would have thee know that I find none to take thy place in
+my heart or eyes'"--
+
+The young man laid down his pen, and with a sterner look upon his face
+than the teasing girl had ever seen there, rose from the table saying,--
+
+"I did not deem thee so unmaidenly, Priscilla, as to ask a man who loves
+thee to write thy love-messages to one thou favorest more highly. 'T is
+not well done, mistress, neither modest nor kind."
+
+"I wonder at thy hardihood, John Alden, putting such reproach upon me.
+Never think again that I will listen to thy wooing after such insult,
+and thou stupid oaf, did I not tell thee that the letter was to Jeanne
+De la Noye, my dear girl-friend in Leyden?"
+
+"Nay, thou toldst me no such thing."
+
+"Well, I tell thee now, and thou mayst put Jeanne after 'my
+well-beloved' at the top, an' thou wilt. Art satisfied now, thou
+quarrelsome fellow?"
+
+"Satisfied that thou wilt bring me to an untimely grave, thou wicked
+girl!"
+
+"Well, then sit down and finish my letter before thou seekest that same
+grave, for the shadow creeps on apace. Nay, now, I will be good, good
+John."
+
+"Ah well-a-day, I am indeed an oaf, as thou sayest, to be so wrought
+upon by a coy maid's smiles or frowns, but have thy will mistress, have
+thy will."
+
+"Nay now, John, cannot a big, brave fellow like thee take a poor maid's
+folly more gently? Think then, dear John, of how forlorn a maid it is;
+think of the graves under yon springing wheat"--
+
+"There, there, dear heart, forgive my rude brutishness; forgive me,
+sweet one, or I shall go out and do some injury to myself or another,
+thou hast so stirred my sluggish heart"--
+
+But a peal of laughter, rich and sweet as a bob-o-link's song, cut short
+his speech, and Priscilla dashing away the tears that hung in her archly
+curved eyelashes exclaimed,--
+
+"_Thy_ sluggish heart, John! Why, thy heart is like an open tub of
+gunpowder, and all my poor thoughtless words seem sparks to kindle it!
+Well, then, sith both are sorry, and both fain would be friends, let us
+get on with my fond messages to Jeanne and her sister Marie, or I shall
+have to put away my paper hardly the worse for thy work."
+
+"Well, then, thou honey bee, as sweet as thy sting is sharp, what next?"
+
+"Tell her in thine own words how long we were cooped in yon
+vile-smelling old tub, and how when we landed, Mary Chilton and not I
+was first of all the women to leap upon the rock we call our threshold;
+and oh John, tell her how I am orphaned of father and mother and
+brother, and even the dear old servant who carried me in his arms, and
+many a time in Leyden walked behind us three malapert maids--oh me, oh
+me!"--
+
+She turned away to the window and bowed her face in her hands,
+smothering the sobs that she could not quite restrain. John sat still,
+looking at her, his own eyes dim and his face very pale. At this moment
+the door was suddenly thrust open, and Standish entered the room
+exclaiming,--
+
+"Is Alden here?"
+
+"Ay, Captain," replied the young man rising and coming forward. Standish
+cast a hasty glance at the figure of the young girl, another at the
+young man's face, and motioned him to follow outside.
+
+"Hast thou done aught to offend Mistress Molines?" demanded he as John
+drew the door close after him.
+
+"Not I," replied he somewhat indignantly. "She asked me to write for her
+to some maid of her acquaintance in Leyden, and when it came to telling
+of her orphanage and desolate estate her woman-heart gave way, and she
+was moved to tears."
+
+"Ay, ay, poor child! 'T is sad enow, but we will put all that right
+presently--yes, I promised William Molines, and so let him die at ease,
+and I will keep my word to the dead. A husband and a home, and haply a
+troop of little rogues and wenches at her knees will soon comfort her
+orphanhood, eh, John?"
+
+"I know not, sir--I--doth she know of this compact betwixt her father
+and you?"
+
+"Come, now, thou 'rt not my father confessor, lad, nor yet my general,"
+replied Standish with peremptory good humor. "Get thee back to thy
+pencraft, and when it is done come to me at the Fort, I have work for
+thee."
+
+"Yes, sir." And the young man turned again into the house where
+Priscilla, quite calm, but a little subdued in manner, awaited him.
+
+"And now wilt thou set thy name at the foot, Priscilla?" asked the
+scribe when the fourth side of the paper was nearly covered.
+
+"Let me see. Ah, there is yet a little room. Say, 'My friendly
+salutation to thy brothers, Jacques, Philip, and little Guillaume; and
+now I think on 't, Jacques asked me to advise him if this were a good
+place for a young man to settle, and as I promised, I will now bid thee
+say that to my mind it is a place of goodly promise, and I were glad
+indeed to see all my friends of the house of De la Noye coming hither in
+the next ship.'"
+
+"I have heard ere now that the pith of a woman's letter was in the post
+scriptum, just as the sting of a honey bee cometh at the latter end,"
+said John dryly. "And now wilt thou sign?"
+
+"Yes. Give me the quill. _Ciel_, how it sputters and spatters! 'T is a
+wondrous poor pen, John."
+
+"It served my turn well enow," replied John surveying with a grim smile
+the childish signature surrounded with a halo of ink-spatters; but as
+not one third of the women in the company could have done as well,
+Priscilla felt no more chagrin at not being a clerk, than a young lady
+of to-day would at not knowing trigonometry.
+
+"And now address it to the Sieur Jacques De la Noye for Mademoiselle
+Jeanne De la Noye, and I will trust thee to put it with the letters
+already writ to go by the Mayflower. And thank thee kindly, John, for
+thy trouble."
+
+"Thou 'rt more than welcome, Priscilla."
+
+"But why so grave upon 't, lad?"
+
+"'The heart knoweth its own bitterness,' and mine hath no lack of bitter
+food, Priscilla."
+
+"Nay, perhaps thou turn 'st sweet into bitter. A kind word to the
+brother of my gossip Jeanne"--
+
+"Ah, that's not all, nor the worst. But there, I'll fetch thee some
+water from the spring." And seizing the bucket, the young man went
+hastily out, leaving Priscilla staring at the folded letter upon the
+table, while she half murmured,--
+
+"Handsome Jacques with his quick wit and gentle breeding, and our brave
+Captain, the pink of knightly chivalry, and--John!"--
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII.
+
+AN INTERNATIONAL TREATY.
+
+
+Priscilla's prophecy proved a true one, for hardly were the
+one-and-twenty men of the colony assembled around the table in the
+Common house to hold a final Council upon their new orders, than young
+Cooke came rapping at the door to announce that a large body of Indians
+had appeared on Watson's Hill, and seemed advancing on the village. The
+Council once more was hastily broken up, Carver only pausing to say with
+a glance around the circle,--
+
+"It is clearly understood that Captain Standish is in full control of
+all military proceedings in this community, and we are all bound to
+follow his orders without cavil or delay."
+
+"Ay," responded a score of deep-throated voices lacking that of Myles
+himself, who said,--
+
+"The governor's authority is above that of the commandant unless martial
+law be proclaimed, and I shall be the first man to submit to it."
+
+"'When gentlefolks meets, compliments passes,'" muttered Billington with
+a sneer, while Edward Dotey and Edward Lister, nominally servants to
+Stephen Hopkins, but already ruffling with the best, tittered and nudged
+each other as they followed their betters out of the house.
+
+Now Dame Nature in compounding a leader does not often omit to furnish
+him with five extra-keen senses, as well as a certain sixth sense
+called intuition, quickwittedness, or, if you please, instinct; and
+Standish, born for a leader, was fully furnished forth with all six of
+these videttes, and seldom failed to see, hear, and understand all that
+went on in his vicinity. So did he now, and although his stern visage
+showed no shadow of change, he inwardly made the comment,--
+
+"Hopkins's varlets, eh? Like master, like man. And Billington--wait a
+bit, Master Poacher!"
+
+"Ah, here is our friend Samoset coming up the hill, and another with
+him," remarked Bradford as the little group of authorities paused at the
+head of the path leading to the spring and to Watson's Hill.
+
+"Tisquantum, I'll be bound. He looks to have a certain veneer of
+civilization over his savagery," remarked Winslow, and in another minute
+the two savages arrived within speaking distance, and the stranger
+tapping his breast grandiloquently exclaimed,--
+
+"This is Tisquantum, friend of Englishmen."
+
+"Tisquantum is welcome, and so is Samoset," replied Carver gravely.
+"Have they brought furs to truck for the white men's goods?"
+
+But hereupon Squanto, as Tisquantum (He-who-is-angry) was familiarly
+designated, began a long and very flowery harangue, from which the
+Pilgrims gathered that the present was more of a diplomatic and
+international affair than a trading expedition, and that Massasoit, the
+sachem or chief of all this region, had come in royal progress, attended
+by his brother Quadequina and sixty chosen warriors, to greet the white
+men, and to settle upon what terms he would admit them to his territory.
+
+So soon as the importance of this embassage was made plain, the Pilgrims
+prepared to meet the occasion with suitable formalities, and while
+Samoset and Squanto refreshed themselves in Stephen Hopkins's house,
+Standish hastened to put his entire command under arms, excepting the
+elder, who constituted the reserved force only to be called out in great
+emergencies. The military band, composed of four of the well-grown lads
+of the colony, Giles Hopkins, Bartholomew Allerton, John Crakstone, and
+John Cooke, was also called out and equipped with its two drums, a
+trumpet, and a fife, while a house just roofed in and not yet portioned
+into rooms, was hastily prepared as an audience chamber by clearing it
+of litter, and spreading at the upper end a large green rug belonging to
+Edward Winslow, and various cushions and mats, while a high-backed
+settle in the place of honor covered with some scarlet broadcloth cloaks
+stood ready to receive the king and the governor in equal honor.
+Everything being thus in readiness, Samoset and Squanto were dispatched
+with a courteous message to the king as the Pilgrims chose to translate
+the Indian term of sachem, inviting him to a conference, but the envoys,
+soon returning, brought an intricate greeting, from which Winslow the
+diplomatist at last evolved the meaning that Massasoit declined to trust
+himself among the white men without adequate hostages for his safety,
+and desired that one of the principal of the strangers should come to
+him while Samoset and Squanto remained in the village.
+
+"Zounds! And does the barbarian fancy that two of his naked salvages
+count as one of our meanest, not to say our principal men!" exclaimed
+Standish angrily, but Winslow interposed,--
+
+"If the governor and the brethren consider me as a fit man to answer the
+demand I will go and convey what message is decided upon to this
+potentate, and if he accepts me will remain as hostage while he visits
+the settlement."
+
+"Nay, Winslow, I claim the post of danger, if danger there be. It is the
+right of mine office," exclaimed Standish.
+
+"Not so, Captain; thy duty is to do us right in a quarrel, mine to keep
+us out of a quarrel. Each man to his own work, say you not so Governor?"
+
+"Master Winslow is right, Captain Standish, and furthermore we need your
+protection here, should an attack be made upon the village."
+
+"I submit, and my good will go with thee, Master Ambassador," replied
+Standish cordially; "but be sure if thy skill at keeping the peace fails
+of saving thy scalp, thou shalt have a royal guard of salvages to escort
+thee whither thou wilt go."
+
+"Gramercy for thy courtesy good my Valiant," replied Winslow in the same
+tone. "But I hope my wit shall avail to save my scalp."
+
+And a few moments later the courtly Winslow, armed cap-a-pie and
+carrying a haversack of gifts at his back, strode down the hill, and
+across the brook to a point where a knot of dusky warriors awaited him,
+and with them passed out of sight, leaving his comrades to an hour of
+extreme solicitude and impatience.
+
+Although out of sight their comrade, however, was in reality close at
+hand, for Massasoit had with Indian cunning selected a spot for the
+interview whence himself unseen he could through the branches of the
+shielding shrubbery overlook the approach from the village, and perceive
+any movement upon the side of the other party long before it could be
+made effectual. Standing in the middle of a little glade to receive
+Winslow, resting lightly upon the strung bow in his right hand,
+Massasoit presented the ideal figure of an Indian chief, uncorrupted by
+the vulgar vices of civilization. Lofty of stature and of mien, his
+expression grave and even haughty, his frame replete with the easy
+strength of vigorous maturity, he looked, as Winslow decided in the
+first quick glance, more worthy to be the king of red men than James the
+First of England did to be the king of white men.
+
+For costume the Indian wore buckskin leggings, highly ornamented
+moccasons, a belt with fringe several inches long, and a curious skin,
+dressed and ornamented upon the inside with elaborate designs, slung
+over his left shoulder by way of cloak. He also wore a necklace of white
+beads carved from bone, and depending from it at the back of his neck a
+pouch from which as a mark of royal favor he occasionally bestowed a
+little tobacco upon his followers, most of whom were provided with
+pipes. In his carefully dressed hair the chief wore three beautiful
+eagle-feathers, and his comely face was disfigured by a broad stripe of
+dark red or murray-colored paint.
+
+Removing his hat and bowing courteously before this grave and silent
+figure, Winslow unfastened his haversack, and produced two sheath knives
+and a copper chain with a glittering pendant which might have been of
+jewels, but really was of glass.
+
+These he laid at one side, and at the other a pocket-knife with a
+brilliant earring. Finally he set by themselves a parcel of biscuit, a
+little pot of butter, and a flask of strong waters. Having arranged all
+these matters with great deliberation under the gravely observant eyes
+of the king, Winslow stood upright and demanded who could speak English.
+It proving that nobody could, another delay ensued while a _pniese_, or
+as we might say a noble of the king's suite, was dispatched to the
+village to summon Squanto and to remain as hostage in his place. During
+the half hour of this exchange, Massasoit remained standing precisely as
+Winslow had found him with his warriors half hid among the trees as
+motionless as himself. Winslow leaning against a great white birch on
+the edge of the little glade rested his left hand upon the hilt of his
+sword, and setting the other upon his hip imitated the immobility of the
+savages, and in his glistening steel cap and hauberk, his gauntlets and
+greaves, his bristling moustache and steady outlook, presented the
+fitting counterpart to the savage grandeur of Massasoit. It was one of
+those momentary tableaux in which History occasionally foreshadows or
+defines her policy, and had an artist been privileged to study the scene
+he should have given us a noble picture of this first meeting of the
+Powers of the Old World and the New.
+
+Squanto at last returned, and Massasoit for the first time opening his
+lips said gravely,--
+
+"Tell the white man he is welcome."
+
+"Thank your king for his courtesy," replied Winslow bowing toward the
+chief; "and tell him that my sovereign lord and master King James the
+First of Great Britain salutes him by me, and will be ready to make
+terms of peace and amity with him." Waiting a moment for this message to
+be delivered the ambassador went on,--
+
+"And tell him furthermore, that Governor Carver, the chief man of our
+settlement, is desirous of seeing him, and of arranging with him terms
+of alliance and of trade. Our desire is to purchase peltrie of every
+sort, and we are ready to pay for all that we receive, but it is best
+that the governor and the king should arrange these matters together.
+Meantime the governor begs your king's acceptance of this little gift,"
+designating the two knives, the copper chain, and the provisions, "for
+his own use; while to his brother the Prince Quadequina he offers this
+knife for his pocket,--nay,--for his girdle, and this jewel for his ear.
+And if the king will now go to the village to confer with our governor,
+I, who am not ranked the lowest among our company, will remain here as
+surety until his return."
+
+This speech having been somewhat lamely and laboriously translated into
+the vernacular by Squanto, Winslow wiped his brow and wished that it
+consisted with his dignity to throw off his armor and stretch himself
+upon the pine needles at his feet, but it evidently did not; and in a
+moment or two Squanto delivered to him the king's reply that he was very
+willing to become an ally of King James, and that he would go into the
+village to meet the governor leaving Winslow as guest of Quadequina, but
+that first he was ready to exchange for some very valuable peltrie the
+armor and weapons now worn by his guest, and as he observed by the other
+men of the colony.
+
+To this proposition Winslow returned a most decided negative, adding
+that among his people no soldier relinquished his weapons except with
+his life, which chivalrous boast Squanto after a moment's consideration
+translated,--
+
+"White man says these things to him all one as red man's scalp-lock to
+him," and Massasoit replied by a guttural sound sometimes rendered
+"Hugh!" although no letters can express it, and its intent is to convey
+comprehension, approbation, contempt, or assent, according to the
+intonation. In the present instance it conveyed approbation mingled with
+disappointment, and Massasoit drawing forward his tobacco pouch filled
+his pipe, lighted it with a sort of slow match made of bark, and having
+drawn two or three whiffs passed it to Winslow who gravely accepted it.
+Next the chief tasting the dainties offered him by one of his officers
+distributed the remainder among his followers, excepting the flask of
+gin, which having cautiously tried he laid aside, evidently not
+understanding it, and unwilling to offend the donor by showing his
+distaste for it. And here let it be said that Massasoit, although he
+learned to drink the "fire-water" of the white men, never became its
+victim like so many of his brethren.
+
+These ceremonies over, Winslow, already a little uneasy lest Standish
+and his musketeers should come to seek him and disturb the harmony he
+was endeavoring to establish between this dusky potentate and his own
+people, suggested to Squanto that the governor would be growing
+impatient to receive his guest, and that the day was getting on.
+
+This hint the interpreter conveyed in his own fashion to the king, who
+simply drawing his puma robe a little farther forward, muttered a word
+to Quadequina who stood beside him, and moved toward the village
+followed by about twenty warriors.
+
+Winslow, somewhat startled by the suddenness of this departure would
+have followed at least for a few steps, but Quadequina, a younger and
+handsomer copy of his brother, stopped him by a single finger laid upon
+his breast, and a few guttural sounds which Squanto paused to interpret
+as a direction that the white man should remain where he was until the
+return of the sachem.
+
+"Certainly. It is as a hostage that I am here. I would but move to a
+spot whence I may see the progress of his majesty and his greeting. Tell
+the prince that he has my parole not to escape."
+
+But neither the words nor the spirit of this chivalrous utterance were
+familiar to Squanto, across whose red and yellow and oily countenance a
+gleam of humor shot and was gone, while he gravely reported to
+Quadequina,--
+
+"The white man does but place himself to see the head men of his village
+fall to the ground before Massasoit and his sachems. He trembles before
+Quadequina and entreats his kindness."
+
+"Hugh! I think thou liest, Squanto," sententiously replied the young
+sachem. "I see no trembling in this warrior's face, nor do I believe his
+people will fall down before Massasoit. Go, and see that thou dost speak
+more truly in the sachem's presence, or he will hang thy scalp in his
+wigwam to-night."
+
+Squanto a little depressed at this suggestion, attempted no reply, but
+hastened after the chief who already was nearing the brook, while from
+the side of the town approached Standish, preceded by drum and fife and
+followed by six musketeers. Arriving first at the dividing line the
+captain halted his men, and summoning Squanto by name, bid him demand
+that the twenty followers of the king should leave their bows, arrows,
+and tomahawks where they now stood and come over unarmed, adding that
+the importance of their hostage might well cover this further
+concession. Massasoit after gazing for a moment into his opponent's face
+conceded the point without parley, and at a sign from him the warriors
+threw their weapons in a pile and followed him unarmed through the
+shallow ford of the brook. Standish meantime deployed his men into guard
+of honor so that the chief passed between two lines of men who presented
+arms, and closing in behind him escorted him with drum and fife to the
+unfinished house where he was seated in state at one end of the settle,
+and his followers upon the cushions at the right hand of the Green Rug,
+which may be said to have distinguished this meeting as the Cloth of
+Gold, just a hundred years before, had that of the interview between
+Henry VIII. and Francis I.
+
+Hardly was the chief seated when the sonorous sounds of the trumpet,
+well supported by the larger drum, replaced the shriller notes of fife
+and small drum, and Governor Carver in full armor and wearing a plumed
+hat, made his appearance, followed by six more musketeers, the two
+guards exhausting pretty nearly the whole available force of the Pilgrim
+army at this time.
+
+Massasoit rose as the governor approached, and when Carver extended his
+hand laid his own in it, each potentate saluting the other with a
+punctilious gravity much to be admired. Carver then seated himself at
+the other end of the settle, and turning to Howland, who stood as a sort
+of Aid at his elbow, he requested some strong waters to be brought that
+he and the king might pledge health and amity to each other. This
+request having been foreseen was immediately complied with, and a great
+silver loving-cup with two handles and filled with a compound of Holland
+gin, sugar, and spice, with a moderate amount of water, was brought and
+presented to the governor who tasted decorously, and then passed it to
+the sachem, who seizing both handles carried it to his mouth and drank
+with an air of stern determination, as one who would not allow personal
+distaste to interfere with public obligations. The cup was then passed
+to the other guests, and replenished more than once until all had
+tasted, Squanto remarking to his next neighbor as he handed him the
+cup,--
+
+"It is the witch water to make a man brave that I have told you of
+drinking in the house of Slaney in the land of these Englishmen."
+
+"Hugh! It is like the sun in summer," muttered the neighbor passing it
+on in his turn.
+
+"John Howland!" whispered a low voice at the unglazed window near which
+the young man stood, and as he leaned hastily out he nearly bumped heads
+with pretty Elizabeth Tilley, who laughing said,--
+
+"Nay, 't is no such great alarm, but Priscilla bade me tell thee to keep
+an eye upon the governor's loving-cup, lest some of these wild men steal
+it."
+
+"Nay, they have no pockets to hide it in," replied John laughing. "Still
+I will have an eye to it, for we have none so much silverware in the
+colony that we should be willing to spare it."
+
+The ceremony of welcome over, the business of the meeting began, and
+Massasoit, albeit a little incommoded by his strange potation, showed
+himself both dignified and friendly in his intentions. Carver on his
+side was as honorable as he was shrewd, and in the course of an hour the
+first American International Treaty was harmoniously concluded, and so
+much to the advantage of both sides, that not only was it sacredly
+observed in the beginning, but nineteen years later, when Massasoit felt
+his own days drawing to a close, he brought his sons, Alexander and
+Philip, to Plymouth, where this "Auncient League and Confederacy" was
+formally renewed and ratified before the court then in session.
+
+Business over, the sachem produced his pipe, filled it, smoked a little,
+and passed it to the governor, and in this manner it went round the
+assembly, red men and white together each taking a few whiffs, and when
+it was empty returning it to Massasoit, who seemed to be custodian of
+the tribal stock of tobacco.
+
+Facts are stubborn things and History is sacred, and the scene just
+described is in all its details simple matter of History, but is it not
+a singular irony of fate that we who spend our lives in a crusade
+against strong drink and tobacco must, nevertheless, despair of rivaling
+the virtues of these men, who began their solemn covenant with the
+savages they had come to Christianize, by giving them gin, and ended it
+by accepting from them tobacco?
+
+After the Council came a feast of the simple dainties furnished by the
+Pilgrim commissariat, and after that an informal mingling of the two
+companies, during which the Indians examined and essayed to sound the
+trumpet whose notes had so startled them, although the fife had seemed
+to them only the older brother of the whistles they so often made of
+willow twigs.
+
+Before Massasoit took leave he requested that Winslow might remain while
+Quadequina came to view the wonders of the white man's village, and this
+favor being good-naturedly conceded, the prince, as our Englishmen
+called him, soon arrived with a fresh troop of followers, all of whom
+expected and received both meat, drink, and attention. But as the sun
+was setting Winslow appeared on the other side of the brook, and the
+savages were hastily dismissed, except Squanto and Samoset, both of
+whom insisted upon staying, not only for the night, but declared that
+they were ready to leave their own people and remain with the white men,
+whose way of life they so much approved, and to whom they could be of
+much use in many ways. Squanto in especial pleaded that this place was
+his own home, and that he had only left it for the village of the
+Nausets whence Hunt had stolen him, because all his people were dead of
+the plague, and he was afraid of their ghosts. His wigwam had once stood
+as he declared at the head of the King's Highway, and the Town Brook was
+his stewpond for the fish on which he mostly fed. Altogether it was
+quite evident that Squanto was rather the host than the guest of the
+Pilgrims, and as such they with grave jest and solemn fun consented to
+accept him. As for Samoset, he already had helped himself to the freedom
+of the town, and these two, with Hobomok, the especial retainer of
+Standish, remained the faithful and useful friends of the white men
+until death divided them.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII.
+
+THE LAST LINK BROKEN.
+
+
+"Ho Jack! Where's thy master?"
+
+"In heaven, Master Jones, or mayhap thou meanest King James, who by last
+accounts was in London."
+
+"I crave thy pardon, worshipful Master Alden!" and the shipmaster bowed
+in ludicrous parody of reverence. "I would fain know where thy servant
+Carver, and thine other retainers, Winslow, and Standish, and Allerton,
+and the dominie may be."
+
+"'T is a large question, Master Jones, for I do not keep them in my
+pocket as a general thing, and they are just now about their own
+business. Might I ask thine?"
+
+"Were I not in such haste 't would be to cudgel some manners into thy
+big carcase, Master Insolent; but come now, prythee be a good lad and
+bring me to the governor, the captain, and the elder, for time and tide
+are pressing, and I would fain be gone."
+
+"In that direction our fancies pull together rarely, and if thou 'lt
+find a seat in the Common house I'll see if I can come upon the
+Fathers."
+
+With an inarticulate growl the master of the Mayflower did as he was
+bid, and by the time goodwife Billington had cleared and wiped the
+benches and table, the men he had requested to see, along with Winslow,
+Allerton, Bradford, and Doctor Fuller, came in together, for the hour
+was just past noon, and the people collected for dinner had not yet
+dispersed.
+
+"Good-morrow, Captain Jones," said Carver courteously; "John Alden tells
+me thou wouldst have speech of all of us together."
+
+"Yes, Master Governor, and glad am I that peevish boy did my errand so
+largely, for what I have to say concerns every man, ay, and woman and
+child, in your settlement."
+
+"In truth! And what may it be, Master Jones? Sit you down, and goodwife
+Billington set on some beer for our guest."
+
+"Well thought on, and I'll not forget to send you another can or so
+before I sail."
+
+"Is the sailing day fixed as yet?"
+
+"To-morrow's flood will see me off, wind and weather permitting."
+
+"And God willing," sternly interposed the elder; but Jones fixing his
+twinkling eyes upon Brewster's face over the edge of the pewter pot
+covering the lower half of his face answered scoffingly as he set the
+flagon down,--
+
+"If as you say God guides the wind and weather, reverend sir, fair
+weather speaks His willingness for me to sail, doth it not?"
+
+"Sith thy time is so short, Jones, mayhap thou 'lt spare it, and tell
+thine errand at once," interposed Standish sharply, and Jones turned
+upon him with a leer.
+
+"So cock-a-hoop still, my little Captain! Hard work and starving do not
+cool thy temper, do they? But hold, man, hold. 'T is indeed true that I
+am scant for time and mine errand is just this: Ye have been good
+friends and true to me when I was in need, with my men half down and
+half ready to mutiny, and your women have well-nigh brought me to
+believe in saints and angels and such like gear, and so I am come to
+offer such of you as will take it, a free passage home, if the men will
+help to handle the ship and the women cook, and nurse such as may be
+ailing. Or if you choose to give up the emprize and load in your stuff
+and yourselves as ye were before, I'll take the stuff for passage money
+and trust Master Carver's word for the rest."
+
+The Pilgrims paused on their reply, and man looked at man, each reading
+his own thought in the other's eyes. Then Carver spoke in grave
+deliberateness,--
+
+"Brethren, ye have heard Master Jones's proffer, and I doubt not ye
+agree with me that it is kindly and generously spoken and meant. What
+say ye to it man by man? Elder Brewster?"
+
+"I say, Cursed be he who having put his hand to the plough turneth
+back."
+
+"And Master Allerton?"
+
+"I will abide the decision of the rest."
+
+"And Master Winslow?"
+
+"I and mine remain here."
+
+"And thou, Captain Standish?"
+
+"Our trumpeter has not been taught to sound the retreat."
+
+"And Bradford?"
+
+"I fain would stay here."
+
+"And thou, Doctor?"
+
+"I' faith I see better hope of practice here than in the old countries.
+I'll stay."
+
+"And I have come here to live and to die," said Carver in conclusion.
+"So you see good Master Jones, that while kindly grateful for your offer
+and your heartiness, we cannot accept the first, but will requite the
+last with equal good will."
+
+"Ay, I want your good will, and perhaps you'll give me a prayer or two
+just for luck, dominie?"
+
+"Surely we will pray for thee, Master Jones," replied Brewster with fine
+reticence of tone.
+
+"But before we say more, brethren," resumed the governor, "we must not
+forget that, as the master hath said, this question concerns every man,
+woman, and child in the colony; and while we would not send unprotected
+women or children upon a long voyage with such a crew as man the
+Mayflower,"--
+
+"Nay, they're not psalm singers," muttered Jones half exultant half
+ashamed,
+
+--"every man in the company has a right to decide for himself and those
+belonging to him," calmly concluded the governor, "and I will ask our
+captain, as equal in authority to myself, to bid the attendance of every
+man over twenty years old in the company, here at once."
+
+"It shall be done, Governor," replied Standish rising, and ten minutes
+later a dozen or so more of men comprising all that were left alive of
+the Pilgrim Fathers crowded into the Common house and stood attentive
+while Carver briefly but distinctly conveyed to them Master Jones's
+offer.
+
+"Ye understand, brethren," said he in conclusion, "that any one of you,
+or all of you are free to accept this offer without reproach. We seven
+men, to whom the message first was conveyed, have for ourselves refused
+it, but our will is not binding upon you or any of you. Master Hopkins,
+Master Warren, Cooke, Soule, Eaton, Howland, Alden, Gilbert Winslow,
+Browne, Dotey, and Lister, Billington, Goodman, Gardner, I call upon
+each of you to answer in turn, will you and those belonging to you
+return to England in the Mayflower, or will you abide here and trust in
+God to sustain us in the undertaking we have entered upon in His name.
+Master Warren and Master Hopkins will you declare your wishes?"
+
+"I have no desire but to stay, and I have writ to my wife to come to me
+and bring our five daughters," said Warren without hesitation, and
+Hopkins gruffly added his sentence,--
+
+"I am no idle maid with a yea-say and a nay-say. I am here with all
+belonging to me, and here I abide."
+
+And so in effect said every man there, each gently questioned by Carver,
+and each speaking his mind without fear or force, until at the end the
+governor turned to the grim old sea-dog who stood looking incredulously
+on, and with a cheek tinged by honorable pride declared,--
+
+"We thank you, friend, for your kindly invitation to take passage with
+you for our old home, but not one among us will give up the hope of our
+new home. Not one having set hand to the plough will turn back!"
+
+"Not one?" asked the master looking slowly around.
+
+"Not one," replied the elder exultantly; and like the breaking of a
+great wave upon the Rock a score of deep-throated voices echoed back the
+boast,--
+
+"NOT ONE."
+
+The next morning broke clear and lovely, and with the sun rose a
+southwest wind, best of all winds for those who would extricate
+themselves from the somewhat tyrannous triple embrace of Plymouth Beach,
+The Gurnet, and Manomet. Directly after breakfast the Pilgrims' pinnace
+went out manned by half the men of the colony, some carrying a last
+letter, some a little additional package of furs or curiosities for
+those at home, some only to say good-by and take a last look at the
+dingy quarters that had been their home for so many months. Captain
+Jones, hearty and hospitable in these last hours, had provided what he
+called a snack, and both beer and strong waters were freely set out upon
+the cabin table, nor did even the Elder refuse to do him right in a
+parting glass of Nantz.
+
+"Had I known you for such good fellows when first we joined company
+there had never been ill-will between us," said the master of the
+Mayflower. "But at least we will drown it now."
+
+"It is drowned deep as Pharaoh's host in the Red Sea," responded Myles
+heartily, and the elder cried Amen.
+
+An hour or so later, as the pinnace slowly beat back to her moorings, a
+group of women followed by some stragglers of the other sex climbed the
+hill and seated themselves about the Fort to watch the departure of the
+Mayflower. Priscilla and Mary Chilton as usual were close together, and
+Desire Minter seated herself beside them saying wearily,--
+
+"Would I were a man!"
+
+"Thou a man my Desirée!" exclaimed Priscilla turning upon her eyes
+sparkling with fun, although a suspicious red lingered around the lids.
+"Wouldst woo me for thy wife?"
+
+"Thou 'rt ever looking for every man to woo thee, but I'd have thee know
+there's one man, and his house not so far away, that's as near wooing me
+as thee."
+
+"Oh cruel, cruel Desirée to wound my fond hopes so savagely," began
+Priscilla; but Mary ever more practical than humorous interrupted
+her,--
+
+"Why dost want to be a man, Desire?"
+
+"Because we women were not asked would we accept Master Jones's
+hospitality and go home, and so I had no chance to say 'Ay and thank y'
+sir?'"
+
+"Would you have so said Desirée?" asked Priscilla serious in a minute.
+
+"Why sure I would," replied the girl pettishly. "Why should any of us
+want to stay? There's plenty of hard work and plenty of prayers I grant
+you, and when you have said that you've said all. No decent housen, no
+butcher's meat, or milk, or garden stuff, or so much as a huckster's
+shop where one might cheapen a ribbon or a stay-lace--what is there here
+to live for?"
+
+"Naught for thee, my poor Desirée, I'm afraid," said Priscilla almost
+tenderly. "And I wish thou couldst go home, but a maid may not venture
+herself alone."
+
+"I know she may not, and I tried to make my cousin Carver think as I do,
+that so she might persuade the Governor to go, but wow! at the first
+word she fell upon me with such a storm of words"--
+
+"Sweet Mistress Carver storm!" cried the two girls derisively, and
+Priscilla added more gravely,--
+
+"I can fancy what she tried to make thee feel, Desirée; but thou couldst
+not feel it, and mayhap most young maids like us could not, but thou
+seest Mary and I are different; our fathers and our mothers came hither
+with their lives in their hands to do a work, and we came to help them.
+Well, the lives were paid down and the work was not done, so we who
+remain, simple maids though we be, are in a manner bound to carry on
+that work, and not let them have died quite in vain. And their graves
+are here."
+
+Mary Chilton bowed her head upon her knees, and for a moment there was a
+great silence, then Desire said querulously,--
+
+"Well, but what is there for me to do?"
+
+"Come home and help me cook the dinner!" cried Priscilla jumping to her
+feet, while practical Mary added, "And I dare say some man will marry
+thee, Desire, and thou mayest have children."
+
+"I! I'll marry no man here--save one!" protested Desire tossing her head
+and rising more slowly.
+
+"Save one! Now is that happy he named John Howland?" asked a merry voice
+at her elbow, and Desire with a start and a laugh exclaimed,--
+
+"Fie on thee, John, to take a poor maid at her word so shortly."
+
+"Thou shouldst not shout thy resolves into a man's ear didst not thou
+want him to hear them," replied John carelessly, and forgot the idle
+words which were to bear an ill and unexpected crop for him at no
+distant date.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX.
+
+SOWED AND REAPED IN ONE DAY.
+
+
+"Bradford thou wast bred to the land wast not?" demanded Hopkins
+bursting into the house where William Bradford, ill and crippled with
+rheumatism in his "huckle-bone" or hip-joint, sat beside the fire
+reading an old Latin copy of the Georgics.
+
+"Bred to the land? Well, my forbears were husbandmen, and the uncle who
+cared for me as an orphan boy was a yeoman, but as I had some estate and
+not very rugged health, they aye left me alone with my books in my young
+days. But why?"
+
+"Didst thou ever hear then, or didst thou ever read in thy books, of
+planting fish along with corn?"
+
+"Nay. Didst thou?"
+
+"That is what I am coming at. A lot of the men are talking with this
+Squanto about the place and time and manner of setting corn. Naturally
+the poor brute knoweth somewhat of the place and its customs, seeing
+that he hath always lived here, and still it irks me to see a salvage
+giving lessons to his white masters. He saith too that corn is to be
+planted when the oak leaves are as large as a mouse's ear. Such rotten
+rubbish!"
+
+"But doth he aver that his people were used to plant fish with the
+corn?"
+
+"Ay, and he went down to the brook yester even and set some manner of
+snare, and this morning hath taken a peck or so of little fish, for all
+the world like a Dutch herring only bigger, and of these he says two
+must go into every hill of the corn, that is, this corn of theirs, for
+of wheat or rye or barley he knoweth nothing."
+
+"By way of enrichment, I suppose."
+
+"Ay, for in his gibberish he saith that corn hath been raised hereabout
+again and again, and now the land is hungry. Ha, ha, man, fancy the
+salvage calling the dead earth hungry, as if it were alive."
+
+"Our dear mother Earth dead, sayst thou!" exclaimed Bradford smiling
+dreamily and glancing at his Virgil. "Nay, man, she is the vigorous
+fecund mother of all outward life, and when she dieth, the end of all
+things hath come."
+
+"A pest on thy dreaming and thy bookish phantasies!" roared Hopkins
+kicking the smouldering log upon the hearth until a river of sparks
+flowed up and out of the wide chimney. "Dost thou agree to putting fish
+to decay amid the corn we are to eat by and by?"
+
+"We are not to live by what we plant, but by what we reap, friend
+Hopkins," replied Bradford still smiling in the inscrutable fashion of a
+man who pursues his own train of thought far down beneath his surface
+conversation.
+
+"Dost thou agree to the herring?" roared Hopkins smiting the table with
+his brawny fist.
+
+"Why yes, Hopkins, if it needs that I give my sanction. It striketh my
+fancy that the man who hath raised and eaten his bread on this spot for
+some thirty years is like to know better how to do it than we who have
+just come. But what matter as to my opinion?"
+
+"Oh ay, I did not tell it as I should, but the governor sent me out of
+the field to ask thee, knowing that thou wast yeoman born."
+
+"Then I pray thee tell the Governor that in my poor mind it were well to
+follow the native customs in these matters at least for the first. I
+would that I could get a-field and do my share of the work."
+
+"Thou 'rt as well off here. 'T is woundy hot on that hill-side. I've
+known July cooler than this April."
+
+"And still my rheumatism hugs the fire," said Bradford taking up the
+tongs and readjusting the scattered logs, while bustling Dame Hopkins
+hung her dinner-pot upon the crane in the farthest corner, and began a
+clatter of tongue before which her husband fled apace.
+
+That night when the men came home from the field all spoke of the
+unusual and exhaustive heat of the weather, for it was now one of those
+periods of unseasonable sultriness which from time to time afflict our
+spring season, as on April 19, 1775, when the wheat stood high enough
+above ground to bend before the breeze, and the British soldiers fell
+down beside the road, overcome by heat in their rapid flight from the
+"embattled farmers" of Concord and Lexington. But the next morning rose
+even sultrier and more debilitating, and Mistress Katharine Carver
+following her husband to the door laid a hand upon his shoulder
+saying,--
+
+"Go not a-field to-day, John. It is even more cruelly hot than
+yesterday, and thou art overborne with toil already. Stay with me, I
+pray thee."
+
+"Nay, Kate, I were indeed unfit for the leader of the brethren could I
+send them forth to labor that I counted too heavy for myself. Let me go,
+sweetheart, and if thou wilt, say a prayer that I faint not by the way."
+
+"That will I truly, and yet"--
+
+The rest died on her lips for he was gone, yet for a few minutes longer
+she stood watching the tall figure as it disappeared up the hill path
+and listening to the murmur of a spinning-wheel in Elder Brewster's
+house, fitfully accompanied by a blithe tune lilted now and again by the
+spinner.
+
+"Priscilla is early at her work," thought the dame. "I would I might
+sing and spin like that!" and with a little sigh she leaned her head
+against the door-post and closed her eyes; a sweet, pale face, colorless
+and pure as an Easter lily, and eyes whose blueness seemed to show
+through the weary lids with their deep golden fringe. A fair woman, a
+lovely woman, delicately bred, for her father was one of those English
+bishops whose authority her husband and his friends so resolutely
+denied, and both she and her sister, Pastor Robinson's wife, had "lain
+in the lilies and fed on the roses of life" until love led them to
+ardent sympathy with the Separatist movement, and they had wed with two
+of its most powerful leaders, while their brother, Roger White, became
+one himself.
+
+"From heat to heat the day increased," and Katharine Carver lay faint
+and exhausted upon a settle drawn close beside the open door, when a
+strange sound of both assured and stumbling feet drew near, and as she
+started up it was to meet John Howland, half leading, half supporting
+her husband, whose face, deeply flushed, lay upon the other's shoulder.
+
+"Be not over startled, dear lady!" exclaimed Howland. "The governor
+findeth himself a little overborne by the heat, and hath come"--
+
+"John! Dear heart, what is it! Nay, try not to speak! Here, good John
+Howland, help me to lay him upon the bed--there then, dear one"--
+
+"Fret not thyself, Kate, 't is but a pain in my head--ah--'t is shrewd
+enough, but it will pass--there, there, good wife, fret not thyself!"
+
+"John Howland, wilt thou find Surgeon Fuller, and mayhap Dame Brewster,
+but no more. I will wring a napkin out of fair water and lay to his
+head, for it burneth like fire."
+
+"Ay, it burneth like fire," muttered the sick man wearily moving the
+poor head from side to side, and Katharine left alone dropped for one
+moment upon her knees and raised streaming eyes and clasped hands to
+Heaven, then rose, and when the Doctor and gentle Mary Brewster entered
+she stood white and calm at her husband's head.
+
+"Ay, ay, he hath sunstroke," muttered the surgeon, laying a hand upon
+the patient's forehead, "and no wonder, for it is shrewdly hot to-day,
+and he toiling away like any Hodge of them all. I must let him blood.
+Canst get me a basin and a bandage, Mistress?"
+
+"I will fetch them, Katharine. Sit you down." And the Elder's wife
+slipped out of the door and back again before even impatient Doctor
+Fuller could wonder where she was.
+
+An hour later Carver arousing from the stupor that was growing upon him,
+asked to see William Bradford, who at once hobbled in from the
+neighboring house, although himself hardly able to sit up.
+
+"It grieves me to find thee in such evil case, brother," said he
+painfully seating himself beside the sick man's pillow.
+
+"Thy sorrows will last longer than mine, Will. I must set my house in
+order so far as I have time. Dost mind, Bradford, what I said to thee
+and Winslow and Standish, the time I saw ye standing upon the great rock
+in yon island before we landed in this place?"
+
+"Yes, dear friend, I do remember."
+
+"Well, 't was borne in upon me then, that I was only to look upon the
+Promised Land, and then for my sins to die, and that thou wert the
+Joshua who should conquer our Canaan and make the people to dwell safely
+therein. Thou shalt be their governor, Bradford, and--their servant."
+
+"As thou hast ever been! Chief of all because the helper of all."
+
+"Send for Winslow and Standish and the elder. I cannot long command my
+senses, and fain would speak--nay, 't was but a passing pang. Send for
+them, and meanwhile call John Howland and Kate, my wife. I must
+hasten--hasten"--
+
+Again the stupor crept over him, but steadily fighting it off, and
+holding his consciousness in the grasp of a strong man's will, he again
+opened his eyes as his wife, so pale, so still, so self-controlled,
+leaned over him and laid her cool fingers upon his brow.
+
+"Ay, sweetheart, 't is thy touch. I could tell it among a hundred. Dear,
+wilt thou go home to thy father's house? He'll have thee, now thy poor
+'Brownist' is gone. Or wilt thou go to thy sister Robinson? She will be
+fain to have thee."
+
+"'Whither thou goest I will go,' my husband."
+
+"Say you so, Dame? Ay, thou wast ever of a high heart, and a brave.
+Mayhap our Lord will be merciful to both of us,--but His will be done.
+Thou 'lt be submissive to thy God, Kate, as thou hast ever been to thy
+lord?"
+
+"Ay, dear, my lord, I will try to do thy bidding even thus far."
+
+"Ah, Kate, Kate, thou hast never failed in all our happy wedded
+life--fail not now--promise--promise"--
+
+"Dear love, I promise to bow myself in all loving submission to
+whatsoever our God shall send."
+
+"Ay, that is right, that is well, that is mine own noble Kate. And
+Howland, I leave her to thy care--be a brother, a leal and true
+friend--thou knowest what that word means--I can no more--my senses
+reel"--
+
+"It needs no more, dear master, dear friend, if I may call my master
+so"--
+
+"My friend," murmured Carver.
+
+"Then I do pledge my word as a God-fearing man, that from this moment
+the first care, the chiefest duty of my life shall be to serve and
+shield and comfort my dear lady so far as God gives me power. I will be
+her servant, her brother, her friend, in all ways, and under all
+comings, and so help me God, as I shall keep this my promise."
+
+"Thou dost comfort my soul, even as it enters upon the valley of the
+shadow. Stand ye two aside and bring in my brethren."
+
+Howland quietly opened the door, and the three who had stood grouped
+against the golden sky on that December evening on Clarke's Island
+silently entered the room and stood around the bed, where in the awful
+hush that clings about the last hour their chief lay half unconscious
+and yet able to rally his energies for one more mighty effort.
+
+"Brethren, I go--God remaineth--His blessing be upon you, and all His
+Israel here.--Forgive my shortcomings--forgive if I have offended any,
+knowing or unknowing"--
+
+"Thou hast ever been our best and dearest earthly friend--pardon thou
+us, dear saint!" murmured Winslow.
+
+--"And if ye will follow my counsel, make William Bradford your
+Governor--and set aside all jealousy, all heart burning--Winslow dost
+promise?"
+
+"Ay, friend, I promise right heartily."
+
+"Standish?"
+
+"Ay, Governor."
+
+"Good-by--I can no more--Elder, say a prayer--yet cease before I die"--
+
+And with a long, quivering sigh as of one who relinquishes his grasp of
+a burden too mighty for his strength, the first Governor of Plymouth
+Colony went to render an account of his stewardship.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX.
+
+FUNERAL--BAKED MEATS AND MARRIAGE FEASTS.
+
+
+"Methinks our governor should not be buried with as little ceremony as
+we perforce have showed our meanest servant," said Captain Standish
+gloomily to Elder Brewster the evening of Carver's death. "You
+Separatists despise the ministering of the Church, but what have ye set
+in its place?"
+
+"We clothe not the coffins of the dead with the filthy rags of Popery,
+and we pray not for the souls of them whom God hath taken into His own
+hand, for that were of the sins of presumption against which David doth
+specially pray, but yet,"--and the Elder's face softened, "I am of your
+mind, Captain, that we should honor our chief magistrate in the last
+service we can render him, and although by his own wish I ceased to pray
+for him ere the last breath was sped, and will never again pray for him
+or any parted soul, I well approve of such military honors as we are
+able to pay to his memory, and I will carry my musket with the rest, and
+fire it as you shall direct."
+
+"Why, that's more than ever I would have looked for, Elder," exclaimed
+Standish in amaze. "But since you so proffer, I gladly accept your aid
+and countenance, and by your leave, since as yet we have no governor in
+place of him who is gone, I will order the funeral by mine own ideas."
+
+"As a military man?"
+
+"Surely. I claim no spiritual powers," and with a curious expression of
+content and disapproval upon his face the captain went away to so
+arrange and order his plan, that at sunrise on the third day a guard of
+twelve men, including the elder, presented themselves at the house of
+mourning, and receiving the coffin upon the crossed barrels of their
+muskets carried it along the brow of the hill to the grave newly opened
+amid the springing wheat.
+
+Mistress Carver had made but one request, and that of piteous
+earnestness,--
+
+"See that they make his grave where another may be dug close beside,"
+pleaded she, and John Howland had seen that it was as she desired.
+
+Earth to earth was reverently and silently laid, the grave was covered
+in, and then, at the captain's signal, the twelve muskets were fired in
+relays of four, and their mournful echo mingled with the sobbing dirge
+of the waves breaking upon the Pilgrim Rock, while the dense column of
+smoke rising grandly to heaven was the only monument then or ever
+erected to John Carver, that willing martyr and gallant gentleman who
+had indeed "given his life for the brethren."
+
+Returning to the Common house the Guard of Honor joined with the rest of
+the townsmen in a Council, whereat they elected William Bradford to be
+their second Governor, and as he now lay ill in his bed, Isaac Allerton
+was chosen to be his Assistant and mouthpiece.
+
+Bradford, neither over elated nor daunted by his new dignities, accepted
+the nomination, and with few and brief intervals retained it until his
+own death some four-and-thirty years later, and nobly and faithfully
+did he perform its duties.
+
+About a week after Carver's funeral the new governor, now convalescent,
+received a visit from Edward Winslow, who sought him with the formal
+request that he as chief magistrate of the colony would perform the
+marriage ceremony between him and Susanna, widow of William White.
+
+For the Separatists during their sojourn in Holland had accepted the
+creed of that nation of traders, and held with them that marriage is
+merely a civil contract, requiring a magistrate to secure the proper
+amount of goods to each party, and make sure that neither defrauded the
+other. As for the sacramental blessing of the Church, said the Dutchman
+and the Separatist, it costs money and bestows none, and priests are
+ever dangerous associates, so we'll none of them or their craft.
+
+Apart from this view of the matter however, the civil authority was the
+only one available in this case, since Pastor Robinson had been detained
+in Leyden with the rest of his flock, and Elder Brewster had no
+authority except to preach.
+
+"It will be my first essay at such an office, Winslow, and I know not
+precisely how to go about it," replied Bradford smilingly when his
+friend had somewhat formally declared his errand.
+
+"But you were yourself wed that way," replied the bridegroom
+impatiently. "For me, my first wife held to her early teaching in that
+particular, and would be married in a church and by a minister."
+
+"Yes, I was wed by a magistrate in Amsterdam," replied Bradford
+reluctantly; "but the old Dutchman did so mumble and mouth his words
+that I gathered not the sense of half. Likely it is, however, Master
+Carver hath left some Manual for such occasion. He was warned or ever he
+left England that he was like to be our Governor for longer than the
+voyage."
+
+"Doubtless, then, he had some such office-book. Shall I bid John Howland
+search for it?" asked Winslow.
+
+"Nay, the widow hath already sent me a box of papers and some little
+books, which she said should be the governor's. I have not yet searched
+them, but I will do so before I sleep. What day have you set for your
+wedding, Winslow?"
+
+"Why, we would not seem to fail in respect to our dear departed brother,
+and would leave a clear fortnight between his funeral and our wedding;
+so an' it please you we will set the marriage for Thursday of next
+week."
+
+"And at what hour?"
+
+"At even when all may rest from their labor it seemeth best. After
+supper we will be ready."
+
+"Wilt come to me or I to thee?"
+
+"The dame saith she would fain be wed in her new home. It is just
+finished to-day, and such gear as we have will be carried thither
+to-morrow."
+
+"I mind me that Mistress White hath a fair cradle of her own," suggested
+Bradford dryly.
+
+"Ay. Peregrine lieth in it now."
+
+"May it never stand idle. I will come to thy new house then on Thursday
+of next week, after supper."
+
+As Winslow departed, Desire Minter met him on the threshold, and with a
+hasty reverence asked,--
+
+"Is the governor within, and can I see him?"
+
+"Ay, lass, he is within, and I know not why thou shouldst not see him.
+Knock and enter."
+
+And Bradford still languid from his late illness raised his head from
+the back of his chair with a patient smile as the knock was immediately
+followed by Desire's broad and comely face.
+
+"Can your worship grant me a few moments if it please your honor?"
+
+"Nay, Desire, it needs not so much ceremony to speak to William
+Bradford. What wouldst thou?"
+
+"Well, worshipful sir, 't is a little advice. Your honor sees that I am
+a poor lonely lass, bereft now of even my cousin Carver's husband"--
+
+"Nay, my girl, our late governor was more than 'even my cousin's
+husband.' Pay honor to him rather than to me."
+
+"Ay, but he is dead and cannot help me, and thou art alive."
+
+"'And better a live dog than a dead lion,'" murmured Bradford looking
+sorrowfully at the girl whose selfish cunning was not keen enough to
+disguise itself.
+
+"Well?"
+
+"Why, I fain would know your honor's judgment upon my marriage."
+
+"Thou marry! And who is the man?"
+
+"Why, there now is the question, sir? Captain Standish hath showed me
+that he fain would ask me to wife, did not Priscilla Molines woo him so
+desperately"--
+
+"Peace, child! How dare one Christian woman speak thus of another!"
+
+"But 't is so, your worship; 't is so, indeed, and how can I gainsay
+it?" whimpered the girl. "She as good as asked him when we were sick
+together in the hospital, and she wrought upon her father to ask him,
+and what could he do between them, and still he would rather have had me
+to wife, and I would have not said him nay."
+
+"Well, and what can I do about it?"
+
+"Bid Priscilla give him up, your honor, and bid him speak out to me, and
+quickly, for else John Howland will have me to wife."
+
+"Ah, and hath Howland also asked thee?"
+
+"Yes, your honor, he asked me as the Mayflower was sailing out of the
+harbor, and I told my cousin Carver, and she says it will be an ease to
+her mind to leave me with so good a man to my husband, but for me I had
+rather have the Captain."
+
+"And thou callest upon me to straighten this coil, and marry thee to
+whichever man will have thee, eh?"
+
+"Yes, your honor."
+
+"Thou 'rt a simple lass, and knowst not half thou sayest. Go now, and I
+will send for thee in a day or two. But see thou keep a quiet tongue.
+Say not one word so much as to the rushes, or thou shalt have no husband
+at all. Mind that!"
+
+"Oh, I'll not speak, I'll not forget, trust me to do all your honor's
+bidding," cried the girl joyfully, and Bradford gazing at her in
+compassionate wonder rejoined,--
+
+"Well, go now, and remember. Stay, send me one of the lads, no matter
+which. The first one thou seest."
+
+And when Giles Hopkins presently appeared he sent him to crave the
+presence of Captain Standish when he should have finished his noon-meat.
+The Captain came at once, and after a few friendly words the governor
+calmly inquired,--
+
+"Dost wish to wed with Desire Minter, Myles?"
+
+"Desire Minter! Has thy fever come back and turned thy brain, Bradford?"
+
+"Nay, but wilt thou wed with her?"
+
+"Not if there was no other woman upon earth. Dost catch my meaning,
+Will?"
+
+"Ay, I fear me that I do."
+
+"Fearest! Why, dost thou desire so monstrous a sacrifice to the common
+weal, as Winslow words it? If the wench must be wed there are men enow
+who are not of thy nearest friends, Bradford. And, besides, thou knowest
+I am to marry Priscilla Molines, and now I think on 't, 't is time to
+arrange it. I did but wait for the brig to be gone, but then the
+governor's death put all thought of marriage gear out of my head."
+
+"Oh ay, I mind me now that thou didst speak of Priscilla. Hast ever
+spoken to her?"
+
+"Not I. I have no skill in such matters, nor time, nor thought. I'll
+write her a cartel, I mean a letter of proposals"--
+
+"But can she read? Not many of our women are so deeply learned."
+
+"I know not, I hope not. The only woman I ever cared to speak to of love
+could do no more than sign her name and 't was enough."
+
+"Well, then, settle it thine own way, only let it be soon, for I fain
+would see thee with a home and children about thy hearth, old friend."
+
+"Ay, I suppose 't is a duty,--a man who hath given all beside, may well
+give his own way into the bargain. I'll marry before your new old love
+can reach here, Governor."
+
+"Nay, when thou sayest 'Governor,' I note that thou art ill pleased with
+somewhat, Myles. Is it with me?"
+
+"Nay, Will, 't is with thy words."
+
+And laughing in his own grim way the Captain left the house, and strode
+up the hill to solace his spirit by examining and petting his big guns.
+
+That same evening Bradford walked painfully across the little space
+dividing Hopkins's house from that where Katharine Carver sat alone
+beside the little fire still comfortable to an invalid, and after some
+conversation said,--
+
+"Dame, hast any plan for marrying thy kinswoman Desire Minter to any of
+our young fellows?"
+
+"I am glad you have spoken of it, Governor Bradford," replied the widow
+eagerly. "For it is a matter largely in my thoughts. I do not think I am
+to tarry very long behind my dear lord,--nay, do not speak of that I
+beseech you, kind sir,--but it hath dwelt painfully on my mind that the
+poor silly maid would be left alone, and none so ill-fitted to care for
+herself have I ever seen. But she tells me that John Howland hath spoken
+to her, and she is not ill inclined to him. Would not it be approved of
+your judgment, Governor?"
+
+"Ay, if in truth both parties desire it, dame. Suppose we have Howland
+in before us now, and ask him his will? Thou canst deal with the maid
+after."
+
+"He is just without, cleaving some fuel for this fire, if your
+excellency will please to call him."
+
+"I will, but first, Dame, let me beg thee, of our old friendship, of the
+love I bore thy husband and he to me, treat me not with such cruel
+formality. True it is that his honors have fallen upon me, and that his
+place knoweth him no more; and yet it is his spirit, his counsel, and
+his ensample that rules my poor actions at every turn. Be not jealous,
+be not resentful, mistress, though well I wot so loving and so faithful
+a heart as thine cannot well escape such weakness, for 't is part of
+woman's nature. But canst not be a little mindful of thine old friend's
+feelings too, and soften somewhat of this stately ceremony in speaking
+to him?"
+
+"Yes, he loved thee, he loved thee well, and he would have chidden me"--
+
+"Nay, nay, weep not, Dame Katharine. I did not mean to grieve thee but
+only to tell how I was grieved; but then, we men are still too clumsy to
+meddle with women's tender natures. Be what thou wilt, speak as thou
+wilt to me dear Dame, I am and ever shall be thy faithful friend and
+servant."
+
+He went out as he spoke, and when a few moments later Howland and he
+returned together the lady had resumed her usual quietude of manner.
+
+"Sit thee down, John. Mistress Carver and I have somewhat to ask of
+thee. Art thou minded to wed?"
+
+"Not while my mistress needeth my service."
+
+"Mayhap 't will further her comfort, John."
+
+"Is it thy wish, Dame?" and the young man turned so eager a face toward
+her, and spoke so brightly, that a smile stirred the widow's pale lips
+as she replied,--
+
+"'T is plain enough that 't is thy wish, John, and it will wonderfully
+content my conscience in the matter of bringing Desire Minter away from
+the home she had, poor though it then seemed."
+
+"Desire Minter!" echoed Howland.
+
+"Why yes, she told me how you spoke to her the day the Mayflower sailed,
+and she modestly avows that she is well content to be thy wife."
+
+"But"--
+
+"What is it, Howland? Speak out, man," interposed Bradford with
+authority. "Thou seemest dazed."
+
+"Why, truth to tell, sir, and my dear Dame, I thought not of Desire as
+my wife"--
+
+"Didst thou not speak to her of marriage?"
+
+"Surely not,--or--there was some idle jest between us, I mind not what,
+and I never thought on 't again."
+
+"But she did, thou seest," said the Governor sternly. "Thou knowest how
+'idle jesting that is not convenient' is condemned in Holy Writ, and now
+is the saying proven. The maid believed thee in earnest, and hath set
+her mind upon thee"--
+
+But of a sudden Bradford remembering Desire's plainly expressed
+preference for the Captain, if he might be had, paused abruptly, and
+Dame Carver took up the word,--
+
+"It would much comfort my mind, John, if thou wouldst consent to this
+thing. The maiden's future is a fardel upon my shoulders now, and they
+are not over strong. 'T is a good wench, John, if not over brilliant."
+
+"Say no more, dame, say no more. If it will be a pleasure and a comfort
+to thee, it is enough."
+
+"But hast thou any other choice, John? Wouldst thou have chosen
+Priscilla, like thy friend Alden?"
+
+"Nay, Dame."
+
+"But thou hast something in thy mind, good John. Tell it out, I pray
+thee."
+
+"Well, then, to speak all my mind, Mistress, there is no maid among us
+so fair in my eyes, and so sweet, and pure, and true, as Elizabeth
+Tilley, and I had"--
+
+"Why, she is scarce turned sixteen, dear boy," exclaimed the widow.
+
+"I had thought to wait a year or two for her," faltered Howland, but
+Bradford interposed,--
+
+"Nay, nay, John, we cannot have our sturdy men waiting for little maids
+to grow up. There are boys enow coming on for them, and as for thee, why
+man, thou 'rt five-and-twenty, art not?"
+
+"Seven-and-twenty, sir. But all this is beside the matter. If my dear
+mistress asks me to marry Desire Minter as a comfort to her, I will do
+it to-day."
+
+"I thank thee heartily, John." And in the affectionate glance and smile
+his lily-like dame turned upon him Howland felt more than repaid for his
+sacrifice.
+
+"And yet," continued she, "I will not let thee marry to-day, nor for a
+year. But if thou wilt call thyself betrothed to her, and promise me on
+thy faith to deal truly by her, and at the year's end marry her if you
+both are still so minded, I will be content. I shall leave her in thy
+care, even as he who is gone left me in thy care, and a good and
+faithful guardian hast thou been, dear friend."
+
+"I pledged my life to him that I would do my best, and now I pledge it
+in your hands, my honored mistress and dear lady, that I will so deal
+with this maid as shall most pleasure you."
+
+And so John Howland and Desire Minter were formally betrothed; and
+before the month of May was gone the wheat upon the hill-side was again
+disturbed as John Carver's wife came to lay herself down to rest close
+beside him in sweet content.
+
+"They tell of broken hearts," said Surgeon Fuller musing above that
+double grave; "and were I asked to name Dame Katharine's complaint I
+know no name for it but that."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI.
+
+AN AFFAIR OF HONOR.
+
+
+"Thou liest foully, Edward Dotey! Thou liest even as Ananias and
+Sapphira lied."
+
+"Liest, thou son of Belial! 'T is thou that liest, and art a cock-a-hoop
+braggart into the bargain, Master Edward Lister! Tell me that our
+master's daughter gave thee that kerchief"--
+
+"If thou couldst read, I'd show thee 'Constance Hopkins' fairly wrought
+upon it by the young mistress's own hand."
+
+"Then thou stolest it, and I will straight to our master and tell him
+on 't!"
+
+"Hi, hi, my springalds! what meaneth all this vaporing and noise? What's
+amiss, Lister?"
+
+"It matters not what's amiss John Billington. Pass on and attend to
+thine own affairs."
+
+"Lister's afraid to tell that he carrieth stolen goods in his doublet
+and lies about them into the bargain," sneered Edward Dotey.
+
+"I lie do I, thou base-born coward! Lie thou there, then!"
+
+And Edward Lister with one generous buffet stretched his opponent upon
+the pile of firewood they had been hewing a little way from the town.
+
+Billington who had wandered in that direction with his gun upon his
+shoulder looking for game, helped the fallen man to his feet and
+officiously fingered a bruise rising upon his cheek.
+
+"Hi! Hi! But here's a coil! He's wounded thee sorely, Dotey! I'm witness
+that he assaulted thee, with intent to kill like enough. Canst stand?"
+
+"Let me go, let me at him, leave go of my arm John Billington! I'll soon
+show thee"--
+
+"Nay Ned," interposed Lister, as Billington with a malignant grin upon
+his face half hindered, half permitted Dotey's struggles to free himself
+from the poacher's sinewy arms. "Nay, man, I meant not to draw e'en so
+much blood as trickles down thy cheek"--
+
+"He meant to draw it by the bucketful and not in drops," interpreted
+Billington. "And now he tries to crawl off. Take thy knife to him, man;
+nay, get ye both your swords and hack away at each other until we see
+which is the better bird. 'T is long since I saw a main"--
+
+"Ay, we'll fight it out, Lister, and see which is the better man in the
+matter you wot of." And Dotey, who was furiously jealous lest his fellow
+retainer should have made more progress in the regard of Constance
+Hopkins than himself, nodded meaningly toward him, while Billington
+watched both with Mephistophilean glee.
+
+"Agreed," replied Lister more coolly. "Although thou knowest private
+quarrels are forbidden by the Captain."
+
+"Hah! Thou 'rt afraid of our peppery little Captain!" cried Billington.
+"Some day thou 'lt see me take him between thumb and finger and crack
+him like a flea if he mells too much with me."
+
+"I heard thee flout at his command t' other day, and I heard him tell
+thee the next time thou didst so let loose thy tongue, he'd take order
+with thee," exclaimed Lister hotly, and Billington snapping his fingers
+contemptuously retorted,--
+
+"'T is no use, Dotey. Lister's afraid of thee and will not fight. 'T is
+a good boy, but not over-brave."
+
+"Stay you here, you two, till I can go and come, and we will see who is
+the coward!" retorted Lister furiously, and before either could reply he
+sped away in the direction of the village.
+
+"'T is like a bull-fight," cried Billington with a coarse laugh. "The
+creature is hard to wake, but when he hath darts enough quivering in his
+hide he rouses up and showeth rare sport. Now let us find a fair, smooth
+field for our sword play. 'T is not so easy in this wild land."
+
+"I know not why our captain should forbid the duello; 't is ever the way
+of gentles to settle their disputes at the point of the sword," said
+Dotey musingly.
+
+"Ay, and in this place we all are gentles, or all simples, I know not
+which," added Billington. "Certes, one man should here count as good as
+another, and 't is often in my mind to say so, and to cry, Down with
+governors, and captains, and elders"--
+
+"Nay, nay, such talk smacks too strong of treason to suit my ear,"
+exclaimed Dotey, who was, after all, an honest, well-meaning young
+fellow, a little carried away just now by jealousy and by the
+intoxicating air of liberty and freedom, but by no means to the extent
+of joining or desiring a revolt against the appointed powers of Church
+or State.
+
+"Well, here is Lister, and with not only swords but daggers if I can see
+aright. Ay, that's a good lad, that's a brave lad, Lister! There's no
+craven in thy skin, is there, and I shrewdly nip mine own tongue for so
+calling thee. Come now, my merry men, let me place you fairly, each with
+his shoulder to the sun, each planted firmly on sound footing. There
+then, that is as well as may be, and well enow. Come, one, two, three,
+and lay on!"
+
+But careful as Lister had been in securing and bringing away his
+weapons, he had not escaped the scrutiny of two bright eyes hidden
+behind the curtain dividing the nook where Constance Hopkins and her
+sister Damaris slept, from the main room of the dwelling, and no sooner
+had the young man left the house than Constance hastily followed, and
+running lightly up the hill to where the Captain with John Alden at his
+side was roofing in an addition to his half-built house she cried,--
+
+"Captain Standish, I fear me there's mischief afoot with Edward Dotey
+and Edward Lister!"
+
+"Ay? And what makes thee think so, my lass?" asked Standish peering down
+from his coign of vantage. "Where are they?"
+
+"My father sent them afield this morning to rive and pile firewood, but
+a few minutes agone Edward Lister came creeping into the house and up to
+the loft where they two and Bartholomew sleep, and I who was below heard
+the clank of steel, and peeping saw that he brought down two swords and
+had stuck two daggers in his belt"--
+
+"Aha! Swords and daggers, my young masters!" exclaimed the Captain,
+hastily descending the ladder beside which Constance stood. "John, drop
+thy hammer and take thy piece; nay, take a good stick in hand, and we
+will soon bring these springalds to order. Whereaway are they, girl?"
+
+"That-a-way, sir; nay, see you not Lister's cap bob up and down as he
+runneth behind yon bushes?"
+
+"Ay, lass, thou hast a sharp eye. Go home and rest content--thou 'rt a
+wise and good child."
+
+Ten minutes later the captain and his follower plunging through the
+underwood fringing Watson's Hill heard the clash of steel upon steel and
+a coarse voice crying,--
+
+"Well played, Dotey! Nay, 't is naught but a scratch--don't give over
+for that, Lister; up and at him again, boy! Get thy revenge on him!"
+
+"That knave Billington!" growled Standish: "I could have sworn he was in
+it! Here you! Stop that! Drop your blades, men! Drop them!"
+
+Lister and Dotey, nothing loth, for both were wounded, obeyed the
+summons, and staggering back from each other stood leaning upon their
+swords and panting desperately, while Billington dexterously stepping
+backward behind an elder bush made his way forest-ward with a stealthy
+footstep, and a shrewd use of cover, suggestive of his former calling.
+
+"And now what meaneth this, ye young fools!" sternly demanded Standish.
+"Are ye aping the sins of your betters and claiming the rights of the
+duello? Rights say I! Nay, 't is forbidden to any man in this colony,
+and ye know it well, ha?"
+
+"Yea, Captain, we knew 't was forbidden, but we had a quarrel"--
+
+"And why if ye must fight did ye take to deadly weapons? Have ye not a
+pair of fists apiece, or if that could not content ye, are there not
+single-sticks enow in these woods? I've a mind to take my ramrod in hand
+and show ye the virtue of a good stick, but I promise you that if not I,
+some other shall give you a lesson you'll not forget. Come, march!"
+
+"I'm shrewdly slashed in the leg, Captain," expostulated Dotey; "and
+fear me I cannot walk."
+
+"Ay? Sit down, then, and let me see. Thou 'st a sore wound in thy
+leather breeches, but--ay, there's a scratch beneath, but naught to
+hinder your moving. Here, I'll plaster it up in a twinkling."
+
+And from the pocket of his doublet the old soldier produced a case
+containing some of the most essential requisites of surgery, and with a
+deftness and delicacy of touch, surprising to one who had not seen him
+beside a sick-bed, he soon had the wound safe and comfortable.
+
+"There, man, thou 'rt fit to walk from here to Cape Cod. Many a mile
+have I marched with a worse wound than that, and no better than a rag or
+at best my belt bound round it. Now you sirrah! Hast a scratch, too?"
+
+For reply Lister silently held out a hand whence the blood dripped
+freely from a cut across the palm.
+
+"Tried to grasp 't other fool's dagger in thy naked hand, eh?" coolly
+remarked the Captain as he cut a strip of plaster to fit the wound. "Now
+the next time take my counsel and catch it in the leathern sleeve of thy
+jerkin. Better wound a dead calf than a live one."
+
+"Next time, sayst he!" commented Dotey in a mock aside to his companion.
+"So we were not so far astray this time."
+
+"Next time thou meetest a dagger, I should have said," retorted the
+Captain with his grimmest smile. "I never said ye were not to fight, for
+I trow ye'll have chance enough at that before I'm done with ye; but
+when a handful of men are set as we are to garrison a little post on the
+frontier of a savage country, for one to fall afoul of another and to
+risk two lives out of a dozen for some senseless feud of their own is to
+my mind little short of treason to the government they've sworn to
+defend. Now then, march! Alden, give Dotey thy arm to lean upon if he
+needs it. Forward!"
+
+That night Dotey and Lister slept in two rooms under guard, and the next
+morning the freemen of the colony were convened in the Common house to
+judge their case. With them Billington was also summoned, although
+neither Dotey nor Lister had betrayed his complicity.
+
+Accused of deliberate assault upon each other with deadly weapons both
+men humbly pleaded guilty and expressed their penitence, but to this
+Bradford gravely replied,--
+
+"Glad are we to know that ye are penitent, and resolved upon amendment,
+but ne'er the less we cannot therefore omit some signal punishment both
+to make a serious impression upon your own memories, and to advertise to
+all other evil-doers that we bear not the sword of justice in vain.
+Brethren, I pray you speak your minds. What ought to be done to these
+would-be murderers?"
+
+"In the army they would have earned a flogging," remarked the captain
+sitting at the governor's right hand.
+
+"Perhaps solitary confinement with fasting would subdue the angry heat
+of their blood most effectually," said the elder at Bradford's other
+side.
+
+"Had we a pillory or a pair of stocks I would advise that public
+disgrace," said Winslow; and Allerton suggested,--
+
+"They might be fined for the benefit of the public purse."
+
+"If the Governor will leave them to me I'll promise to trounce them
+well, and after, to set them extra tasks for a month or so," offered
+Hopkins; and Alden murmured to Howland,--
+
+"Allerton is treasurer of the public purse, and Hopkins will profit by
+the extra labor, mark you!"
+
+"What is thy counsel, Surgeon Fuller?" inquired Bradford, and the
+whimsical doctor replied,--
+
+"I once saw two fellows in a little village of Sussex lying upon the
+stones of the market-place, tied neck and heels, and methinks I never
+have heard such ingenious profanity as those men were yelling each at
+his unseen comrade. I asked the publican where I baited my horse the
+cause of so strange a spectacle, and he said this was their manner of
+disciplining brawlers in the ale-house. They were to lie there
+four-and-twenty hours without bite or sup, and so I left them. Methinks
+it were a suitable discipline in this case, but I may fairly hope the
+profanity of those unenlightened rustics will give place with our erring
+brethren to sighs of penitence and sorrow."
+
+"What think you, brethren, of our good surgeon's suggestion?" asked
+Bradford, restraining the smile tempting the corners of his mouth. "It
+approves itself to me as a fair sentence. Will those who are so minded
+raise their right hands?"
+
+The larger number of right hands rose in the air, and the sentence was
+pronounced that so soon as the doctor assured the authorities that the
+wounded men would take no harm from the exposure, the duelists, bound
+neck and heels, should be laid at the meeting of the four roads, there
+to remain four-and-twenty hours without food or water, and until that
+time each was to remain locked in a separate chamber.
+
+"And now John Billington," continued Bradford sternly, as the younger
+men were removed, "how hast thou to defend thyself from the charge of
+blood guiltiness in stirring up strife between these two?"
+
+"Nay, your worship, it was their own quarrel," replied Billington
+hardily. "I did but chance to pass and saw them at it, and so tarried a
+moment to see fair play."
+
+"And to hound them on at each other, as if it were a bull-baiting for
+thine own amusement," interposed Standish in a contemptuous tone. "Nay,
+lie not about it, man! I heard thee, and saw thee!"
+
+"Surely, Billington," resumed the governor, "thou hast not so soon
+forgotten how thou wast convened before us some weeks since, charged
+with insolence and disobedience to our captain, and with seditious
+speech anent the government. We did then speak of some such punishment
+as this for thee, but thy outcry of penitence and promise of amendment,
+coupled with the shame of chastising thee in sight of thine own wife and
+sons, was so great that we forgave thee, the more that Captain Standish
+passed over the affront to himself; but now we see that the penitence
+was but feigned, and the amendment a thing of naught, and much I fear
+me, John Billington, that an' thou amend not thy ways, harsher
+discipline than we would willingly inflict will be thy portion in time
+to come."
+
+The governor spoke with more than usual solemnity fixing upon the
+offender a gaze severe yet pitiful and reluctant, as one who foresees
+for another a fate deserved indeed, and yet too terrible to contemplate.
+Perhaps before that astute and reflective mind there rose a vision of
+the gallows nine years later to be erected by his own order, whereon
+John Billington, deliberate murderer of John Newcomen, should expiate
+his crime and open the gloomy record of capital punishment in New
+England.
+
+At the present moment, however, the offender slunk away with his
+reproof, and the meeting proceeded to consider other matters, for, while
+the new government felt itself competent to deal with matters of life
+and death, it also found no matter too trifling for its attention.
+
+Four days later Edward Dotey and Edward Lister, their wounds comfortably
+healed, were brought out into the market place as in fond reminiscence
+of home the Pilgrims called what is now the Town Square of Plymouth, and
+each offender was solemnly tied neck and heels together,--an attitude at
+once ignominious and painful.
+
+The governor, with Allerton his assistant, the captain, the elder,
+Winslow, Hopkins, and Warren stood formally arrayed to witness the
+execution of the sentence, which Billington was forced to carry out. The
+less important members of the community surrounded the scene, and from
+amid the fluctuating crowd murmurs of amaze, of pity, of approval, or
+the reverse became from time to time audible.
+
+"Nay, then, 't is a shame to see Christian men so served, and they so
+scarce a commodity in these parts," declared Helen Billington to her
+neighbor Mistress Hopkins, who nippingly replied,--
+
+"Mayhap we've mistook the men we've put in power."
+
+"Ay," returned the coarser malcontent. "They passed by thy goodman, and
+put worse men over his head."
+
+"Master Hopkins careth naught for such honors as these have to bestow.
+His name was made or ever he came hither," replied Elizabeth a little
+coldly as she moved away.
+
+"Glad am I to see that thy goodman leaveth the cord as slack as may be,
+Goody Billington," whispered Lois, late maid to Mistress Carver, but now
+the promised second wife of Francis Eaton, who stood beside her, and
+overhearing the whisper said reprovingly,--
+
+"Nay, wench, thou speakest foolishly. If evil-doers are to go unwhipt of
+justice how long shall this colony endure. See you not that if these
+roysterers had each killed the other, there had been two men the less to
+stand between your silly throats and the hatchets of the salvages?"
+
+"Ay, there's sound sense in that, Francis," replied Lois yielding
+admiringly to the superior wisdom of her betrothed, but Helen Billington
+nodding and blinking, muttered to her boy John, as she leaned upon his
+shoulder,--
+
+"Wait but till dark, when all the wiseacres are asleep, and see if thy
+daddy sets not these men free, ay, and puts weapons in their hands like
+enough, to revenge themselves withal."
+
+The offenders bound, and laid each upon his side on the bare ground, the
+court withdrew and the crowd dispersed. But scarce an hour had passed
+ere Hopkins presented himself before the governor and his assistant, at
+work over the colony's records, those precious first minutes, now
+forever lost, and with an elaborately quiet and restrained demeanor
+said,--
+
+"Master Bradford, yon poor knaves of mine are suffering shrewdly from
+cramps and shooting pains as well as from the ache of their scarce
+healed wounds. They promise in sad sincerity to amend their ways, and
+when all is said, they are good and kindly lads, and did but ape the
+fashions of their betters in the Old World. May not I persuade your
+worship to look over their offense for this time, and to remit their
+pains and penalties as soon as may be?"
+
+"Thou sayest they are penitent, good Master Hopkins?" asked Bradford
+judicially.
+
+"Ay, and to my mind honestly so."
+
+"We will speak with them, Master Allerton, and if the captain and the
+elder agree with me, Master Hopkins, thy petition is granted, for indeed
+it is to me more pain to make another suffer than to suffer myself, even
+as a father feels the rod upon his own heart the while he lays it on his
+son's back."
+
+"And yet the warning that to spare the rod will spoil the child applies
+to the children of the State as well as to the household," remarked
+Allerton, whose lively son Bartholomew could have testified to his
+father's strict obedience to Solomon's precept.
+
+The chiefs of the colony were soon reassembled about the grotesque
+figures of the suffering duelists, and with their approval, the governor
+having demanded and received ample professions of contrition, and
+promises of amendment, ordered Billington to release the prisoners, who
+shamefacedly crept away to their master's house, and thus ended the
+first and for many years the only duel fought upon New England soil.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII.
+
+THE CAPTAIN'S PIPE.
+
+
+It was a lovely evening in June, and, the labors of the day being ended,
+while the hour for nightly devotion had not yet come, Plymouth enjoyed
+an hour of rest.
+
+Seven houses now lined The Street, leading from the Rock to the Fort,
+and of these the highest on the northerly side was that of Captain
+Standish, built so near to the Fort indeed, that John Alden, if so idly
+minded to amuse himself, could easily salute each gun of the little
+battery with a pebble upon its nose. He was in fact thus occupied on
+this especial evening, while the captain sitting upon a bench beside the
+cottage door smoked a pipe wondrously carved from a block of chalcedony
+by some "Ancient Arrowmaker" of forgotten fame, and presented to
+Standish by his admiring friend Hobomok, who, having silently studied at
+his leisure the half dozen principal men among the Pilgrims, had settled
+upon Standish as most nearly representing his ideal of combined courage,
+wisdom, and endurance, so that he already was beginning to be known as
+"the Captain's Indian," just as Squanto was especially Bradford's
+henchman.
+
+"'T is a goodly sight--a sweet and fair country," said the Captain half
+aloud, and Alden just pausing to note that his last pebble had gone down
+the throat of the saker, turned to inquire,--
+
+"What is it, master?"
+
+For reply the captain took the pipe from his mouth, and with the stem
+pointed to Manomet, where mile after mile of fresh young verdure rose
+steeply against the rosy eastern sky, while the sun sinking behind what
+was to be the Captain's Hill shot a flood of golden glory across the
+placid bay cresting each little wave with radiance, and burying itself
+at last among the whispering foliage of the mount.
+
+"Saw you ever a fairer sight, lad?"
+
+"Nay, 't is fair as the Hills of Beulah whereof the elder spake last
+night," softly replied John.
+
+"And fairer, for we can see it with our eyes of to-day," replied the
+captain dryly. The younger man glanced briefly at his master's face, and
+failing to read its complex expression, contented himself with a
+somewhat uneasy smile as he turned to gaze upon the scene in thoughtful
+silence.
+
+Standish noting with one of his quick glances his follower's
+embarrassment, took counsel with himself, and as he quietly refilled his
+pipe said,--
+
+"Mark me well, lad, I mean not to cast aught of discredit on the elder's
+teaching, nor to shake any man's faith in Beulahs, or Canaans, or hills
+of Paradise, for doubtless Holy Writ gives warrant for such forecasting;
+and surely approved masters of strategy, and warfare both offensive and
+defensive, like Moses, and David, and Joshua, did not fight for the
+guerdon of a fool's bauble, or a May-queen's garland. But yet, mind
+thee, John, there are other great soldiers given us as ensamples in that
+same Holy Writ who seemed to set no store upon the Beulahs, and cared
+naught for milk or honey; men like Gideon, and Samson, and Saul, and
+Joab; and still the Lord of Hosts led these men forth, and fought for
+them and fended them, so long as they fought for themselves and were
+careful to catch the order and obey it. I know not, Jack, these matters
+are too mighty for a poor soldier like me to handle understandingly; and
+still somehow it seemeth me that this same Lord of Hosts will know how
+to deal mercifully even with a rough, war-worn fellow like me, who
+repenteth him of his sins and hath freely given himself to do battle in
+Christ's name against all Heathenesse, and to stand forth with this
+handful of saints against His foes and theirs, and that, although he
+cannot clearly see the Hills of Beulah, nor cares for such luscious
+cates as suit some stomachs. Dost catch my meaning, boy?"
+
+"Ay, master, and well do I wish my hope of God's favor were as fairly
+founded"--
+
+"Nay now, nay now, did not I this minute tell thee that I care naught
+for sweets? Save thy honey for some maiden's lips. Ah, and now I think
+on 't, here is a quiet and leisure time wherein to study out the
+strategy of that wooing emprise I was telling thee of--nay, did I tell
+thee?"
+
+"Wooing--what--I--I know not fairly," stammered John Alden, but the
+captain still gazing upon Hither Manomet, where now the purple bloom of
+twilight was replacing the glory of the sunset, marked not the pallor
+stealing the red from beneath the brown of the young fellow's cheek, nor
+heard the discordant falter of his voice.
+
+"Ay," replied he thoughtfully,--"my wooing of Priscilla Molines, thou
+knowest. I thought I spoke to thee of it, but at all odds the time has
+now well come when I should address the maid. I ought indeed to have
+done it long ago, and mayhap she will be a bit peevish at the delay, for
+doubtless her father told her ere he died of our compact, but there has
+been no convenient season, and truth to tell, Jack, I have no great
+heart toward the matter--yon green plateau lies betwixt me and"--
+
+And in the sudden silence John Alden's gaze went out over the steel gray
+waters, out and out to the far horizon line where the rose tint had
+faded from the sky and a low line of fog gathered slowly and sadly.
+
+"I'll tell thee, boy," suddenly resumed the captain rising from the
+bench and confronting his companion, while lightly touching his breast
+with the mouthpiece of the pipe upon whose cold ashes John mechanically
+fixed his eyes,--"thou shalt woo her for me."
+
+"I--I woo her--nay, master, nay"--
+
+"And why nay, thou foolish boy? 'T will be rare practice for thee
+against some of these lasses grow up, and thou wouldst fain go a-wooing
+on thine own account. Nay, then, can it be that a young fellow who would
+gayly go forth against Goliath of Gath were he in these parts is craven
+before the bright eyes and nimble tongue of a little maid? Dost think
+Priscilla will box thine ears?"
+
+"Nay, but"--
+
+"Nay me no buts and but me no nays, for the scheme tickles my fancy
+hugely, and so it shall be. Thou seest, Jack, it were more than a little
+awkward for me to show reason why I have not spoken sooner, and the fair
+lady's angry dignity will be appeased by seeing that I stand in awe of
+her, and woo her as princesses are wooed, by proxy. Thou shalt be my
+proxy, Jack, and see thou serve me not so scurvy a trick as--ha, here
+cometh the governor."
+
+And, in effect, Bradford striding up the hill with all the vigor of his
+one-and-thirty years was already so close at hand as to save John Alden
+the pain of a reply.
+
+"Good e'en, Governor," cried Standish going a step or two to meet his
+guest.
+
+"Good e'en, Captain,--Alden. There's more trouble toward about the
+Billingtons."
+
+"What now?" demanded the captain with a stern brevity auguring ill for
+the frequent offender.
+
+"Nay, 't is no willful offense this time, nor is the father to blame
+except for not training his boys better; but the son John hath run away
+to go to the salvages his brother says, and the mother saith he is
+stolen, and whichever way it may be, he has been missing since yester
+even at bedtime, and now we have to go and look him up."
+
+"'Ill bird of an ill egg,'" growled Standish. "Mayhap 't were better not
+to find him."
+
+"And yet we must," replied Bradford gently. "And as Squanto reports that
+the boy shaped his course for Manomet, my idea is that it were well for
+us to take our boat and coast along the headland and so on in the course
+we came at first, observing the shore, and noting such points as may be
+of use in the future. Mayhap we shall come as far as the First
+Encounter, and make out whether those salvages whom Squanto calls the
+Nausets are still so dangerously disposed toward us. At any rate we will
+try to discover our creditors for the seed-corn springing so greenly
+over yonder."
+
+"Pity that Winslow hath gone to Sowams to visit Massasoit," remarked the
+captain dryly. "We shall miss his subtle wit in these delicate affairs
+of state."
+
+"Yes, and if it comes to blows we shall miss no less Stephen Hopkins's
+doughty arm," replied Bradford. "But sith both are gone, we had better
+leave the Elder in charge of the settlement along with Master Allerton,
+John Howland, who is a stout man-at-arms, John Alden, Gilbert Winslow,
+Dotey, and Cooke."
+
+"Seven men in all."
+
+"Yes, and with Winslow and Hopkins away, that leaves ten of us to go on
+this expedition, and I shall take Lister lest he brawl with Dotey, and
+Billington not only that he is the boy's father, but lest he raise a
+sedition in the camp."
+
+"Well thought on. I tell thee thou hast a head-piece of thine own, Will,
+though thou art so mild spoken."
+
+Bradford laughed with a glance of affectionate recognition of the
+soldier's compliment, and then the two arranged the details of the
+proposed expedition, while Alden standing straight and still as a statue
+watched the gloom of night blotting all the color from sky, and sea, and
+shore, even as the fog crept stealthily in swallowing all before it, and
+a great dumb wave of sorrow and dismay surged up from his own heart, and
+swallowed all the brightness of his life.
+
+Suddenly from the Town Square at the foot of the hill rose the sound of
+a drum not inartistically touched, and both the governor and the captain
+rose to their feet.
+
+"Bart Allerton hath learned to use the drumsticks as if he had served
+with us in Flanders," said the soldier complacently, as they turned down
+the little sinuous footpath.
+
+"Yes," replied the governor gravely. "He does credit to thy teaching,
+Captain, and yet methinks there may be danger that a vain delight in
+his own performance may cause the lad, and haply others, to forget that
+this, for lack of a bell, is our call to prayer. Couldst thou find it in
+thy heart, Myles, to direct that in future the drum shall sound but
+three heavy and unmodulated beats?"
+
+"Oh ay, if it will please thee better, Will. Didst ever read of the
+tyrant Procrustes?"
+
+"What of him?"
+
+"Only that he would force all men to fit to one measure, though he
+dragged the life out of them. Dost fancy the God to whom we shall
+presently pray is better pleased with a dreary noise than with some hint
+at melody? Alden, come on, lad, 't is time for prayers, and thy woesome
+face suits the occasion. What's amiss, lad?"
+
+"Naught's amiss, master," replied the youth more briefly than his wont,
+and with a sudden spring from a projecting bowlder he passed the two
+elder men and arrived first at the Common house.
+
+"That younker's face and voice are not so blithe as might be. Hast been
+chiding him, Myles?" asked Bradford as they followed down the hill.
+
+"Nay," replied the captain. "But like enough he's thwarted at missing
+the chance of a brush with the redskins to-morrow, and 't is a pity."
+
+"Nay, Myles, look not so pensive on 't," responded the governor
+laughing. "There are men, believe it if you can, who love the smell of
+roses better than of blood. To my fancy John Alden--but there, light
+jesting is surely ill befitting the hour of prayer."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII.
+
+"SPEAK FOR YOURSELF, JOHN!"
+
+
+Further information gathered by Squanto and Hobomok from the Indian
+guests who were constantly in and out of the village proved that John
+Billington had wandered as far as Manomet, and that Canacum, the sachem
+of that place, had sent him on with some Nauset braves who were visiting
+him, as a present or perhaps hostage to Aspinet, chief of the Nausets
+and Pamets. The course of the rescuing party was thus determined, and,
+apart from the recovery of little Billington, Bradford was glad of the
+opportunity of offering payment to the Nausets for the corn borrowed
+from the mysterious granary near the First Encounter, and also much
+desired to hear an explanation of the grave containing the bones of the
+French sailor and little child.
+
+It was, therefore, with considerable satisfaction that he next morning
+led his little party to the water side, and embarked them just as the
+sun rising joyously from out the blue, blue sea, sent a handful of merry
+shafts to tip each wave with glory and glance in harmless flame from
+every point of armor or of weapon in the pinnace, as the crew moved
+every man to his appointed place, the captain pushing sturdily with an
+oar while John Alden, half in, half out the water, heaved mightily at
+the bows hanging at the foot of the Rock.
+
+"Once more! Now again! There she floats!" cried the captain. "One more
+shove, John! There, there, enough! Fare thee well, lad, and mind the
+business I bade thee take in hand!"
+
+"Ay, master," replied the youth, but as he stepped upon the Rock, and
+shook the waters from his mighty limbs, he heaved a sigh so ponderous
+that surely it helped to fill the mainsail now curving grandly to the
+gathering breeze.
+
+But the summer day ripened to noon, and waned until the sun all but
+touched the crest of Captain's Hill, before the young man gave over the
+work at which he had labored like a Titan all day long, and going down
+to the brook at a point where the captain and he had dug a semicircular
+basin and paved it about with white sea-pebbles by way of a lavatory, he
+made his toilet, chiefly by throwing the clear cool water in bucketfuls
+over his head and neck, and then rubbing himself with a coarse towel
+until the crisp hair curled vivaciously, and the fair skin glowed out
+from under its coat of sunbrown in strong relief to the white teeth and
+blue eyes that made the face so comely in its strength.
+
+A little brushing of the dark doublet and leathern small-clothes, the
+low russet boots and knitted hose that completed his costume, and the
+unwilling envoy strolled down the hill to Elder Brewster's cottage and
+paused unseen and unheard outside the open door. It was the quiet time
+in the afternoon when the rougher labors of the day were ended, and the
+housewife might rest herself with the more delicate tasks of spinning,
+knitting, or needlework, for it was in these, "the good old days" we all
+so plaintively lament, that the distich--
+
+    "Man may work from sun to sun
+     But woman's work is never done"--
+
+originated, and was something more than a bitter jest.
+
+In the elder's busy household all the women were using this hour for
+their own refreshment. Mistress Brewster was lying upon her bed, Mary
+Chilton had taken her knitting and gone to sit awhile with Desire Minter
+and Elizabeth Tilley, and Priscilla drawing her quaintly carved
+spinning-wheel into the middle of the room so that she could look out of
+the window giving upon the brook and distant Manomet, was spinning some
+exquisitely fine linen thread, with which she purposed to weave cambric
+delicate enough for kerchiefs and caps. As she spun, she sang as the
+birds sing, that is from the heart, and not from the score; and now it
+was a blithe chanson brought by her mother from her French home, and now
+it was a snatch of some Dutch folks-lied or some Flemish drinking-song,
+and again the rude melody of an old Huguenot hymn, the half devout, half
+defiant invocation of men who prayed with naked swords in their hands.
+But suddenly into the sonorous strains of Luther's Hymn broke the joyous
+trill of a linnet's song, and the bird alighting upon a neighboring
+poplar seemed challenging the unseen songster to a trial of skill. The
+stately hymn broke off in a little burst of laughter; and then accepting
+the challenge, the girl took up the linnet's strain in an unworded song,
+sweeter, richer, more full of joy, and love, and sunshine than his own,
+until the little fellow with an angry chirp and flirt of the wings flew
+onward to the forest where he knew no such unequal contest awaited him.
+
+"Well done, maid!" exclaimed Alden stepping in at the open door. "Thou
+hast so outsung the bird that he hath flown."
+
+"Nay, methinks he flew because he saw an owl abroad, and owls are ever
+grewsome neighbors to poor little songsters," replied Priscilla dryly,
+and, pressing the treadle swiftly she drew out her cobweb thread with
+such earnest care that she could not look up at the tall and comely
+guest who awkwardly stood awaiting some more hospitable greeting.
+Receiving none, he presently subsided upon a stool hard by the
+spinning-wheel, and after watching its steady whirl for some moments
+said,--
+
+"What a fine thread thou drawest, Priscilla."
+
+"'T is hardly stout enough to hang a man, and yet stout enough for my
+purposes, good John."
+
+"Wilt weave it on Master Allerton's loom when 't is done?"
+
+"Mayhap I'll weave it on a pillow into lace, as the maids in fair
+Holland are used to do."
+
+"Dost know their art?"
+
+"Ay. Jeanne De la Noye to whom I writ a letter by thy hand, John, she
+taught me, and I overpassed my teacher ere I was done. What thinkst
+thou, John, would be said or done should I weave some ells of spanwide
+lace and trim my Sunday kirtle therewith? Mistress White, nay, Mistress
+Winslow that is now, would rend it away with her own fingers."
+
+"And yet Master Winslow weareth cambric ruffs on occasion, and his dame
+hath a paduasoy kirtle and mantle, and so had Mistress Carver, and some
+others of our company."
+
+"Marry come up! How wise the lad hath grown! Hast been pondering women's
+clothes instead of the books the Captain gives thee to study, John?"
+
+A change passed over the young man's face. The careless allusion had
+recalled his errand, and moreover linked itself with a memory Priscilla
+had willfully evoked. He was silent for a moment, and then pushing his
+seat a little farther from the wheel he quietly said,--
+
+"Well do I like thy merry mood, Priscilla, and care not though thou
+flout me ever so sharply, but mine errand to-day is somewhat of
+importance, and I pray thee to listen seriously."
+
+"Nay, good lad, waste not such solemnities on me. 'T will be Sunday in
+three days, and thou canst take the elder's place, and let him learn of
+thee how soberly and seriously to exhort a sinner."
+
+"Priscilla, wilt thou be serious?"
+
+"As death, John. What is it?"
+
+"I writ a letter for thee to thy friend Jeanne De la Noye"--
+
+"'T is a sad truth, John."
+
+"And methought there was in it some word that pointed to--to"--
+
+"Yes; good youth, that pointed to--to--and what then?"
+
+"That pointed to some contract, or mayhap naught more than some
+understanding"--
+
+"If 't was a word that pointed to any understanding of thee and thy
+stammerings, John Alden, I pray thee speak it without more ado. Say out
+what is in thy mind if indeed there is aught there."
+
+"Well then, art thou promised to Jacques De la Noye, and is he coming
+here to wed thee?"
+
+The rich color of Priscilla's cheek deepened to crimson and the slender
+thread in her hand snapped sharply, but in an instant she recovered
+herself, and deftly joining the thread exclaimed.--
+
+"See now what mischief thy folly hath wrought! Of a truth there's no
+call to complain of blindness in thy speech now, Master Alden. But
+still I have noted that if thou canst drive a bashful youth out of his
+bashfulness, there are no bounds to his forwardness."
+
+"Loth were I to offend thee, Priscilla, and that thou knowest right
+well, but I fain would have an answer to my query. If 't is a secret,
+thou knowest I will keep it."
+
+"Nay, I'll keep it myself, and not trouble thee with what proved too
+burdensome for myself."
+
+"But Priscilla, I am sent to thee with a proffer of marriage, and if
+thou 'rt already bespoke 't is not fitting that thou shouldst hear it."
+
+"Thou 'rt sent, John Alden!" exclaimed the girl dropping the thread, and
+pressing her foot upon the treadle until it creaked. "Who sent thee?"
+
+"Captain Standish."
+
+"Sent thee! Was it too much honor to a poor maid for him to do his own
+errand?"
+
+"Nay, be not angered, Priscilla, although he feared thou wouldst be."
+
+"Ah, he did fear it, did he. Then why did he do it?"
+
+"Why, he feared that thou wert angry already, and he would have thee
+know he stood in terror, and dared not present himself"--
+
+"John Alden, art thou and thy master joined in league to flout and
+insult me, an orphaned maid? If thou hast an errand from Captain
+Standish to me, say it out in as few words as may be, or I will never
+speak word to thee again."
+
+Perhaps the sight of that suddenly pallid face, those blazing eyes and
+brave scornful mouth, steadied the young man's nerves, as cowards in the
+camp have been known to become heroes in the field; at any rate his
+brow cleared, his voice grew assured, and rising to his feet with a
+certain solemnity he said,--
+
+"Thou 'rt right, Priscilla, and I have done sore discredit thus far to
+the honorable master on whose errand I come. Captain Standish, as no
+doubt thou knowest, spake with thy father before he died of a marriage
+in time to come between him and thee"--
+
+"Nay, I knew it not, nor am bound by any such speech," interposed
+Priscilla hastily; but Alden continued unmoved,--
+
+"Captain Standish took it that thou didst know, and feared that thou
+hadst felt his silence to be some want of eagerness"--
+
+"Ay, I see! He feared that I was angered that he had not wooed me across
+his wife's and my father's graves, and so thrust thee forward to bear
+the first outburst of my fury! 'T was kindly thought on if not
+over-valiant, and 't is an honorable, a noble office for thee, John, who
+hast at odd times thrown me a soft word thyself."
+
+"Oh maiden, maiden, wilt thou trample to death the poor heart that thou
+knowest is all thine own! I 'throw thee a soft word now and again'! Why,
+thou knowest but too well how I hang like a beggar on thy footsteps to
+catch even a careless word that thou mayst fling to me! Thou knowest
+that I love thee, maid, as blind men love sight, and dying men water,
+and"--
+
+"_Then why don't you speak for yourself, John?_" demanded Priscilla
+quietly, and a dainty smile softened the proud curve of her lips, and a
+gleam of tenderness quenched the fire of her eyes; but John, his eyes
+fixed upon the ground, saw it not.
+
+"Ah Priscilla, 't is not kind to try me thus!" cried he. "Sure thou hast
+triumphed often enough in despising my humble suit, without wounding me
+afresh to-day, and when I fain would rally my poor wits to honorably
+fulfill the embassage that brings me here. Sith I may not hope to call
+thee mine, maiden, I could better bear to see thee the wife of the noble
+soldier whom I serve than of any other man, be he Fleming or Dutchman or
+what not, so that thou art not promised."
+
+"Go on, then, and say thy knight's message most worthy squire, and let
+us make an end on 't."
+
+"Thou knowest the captain for thyself, Priscilla, but mayhap thou
+knowest not that he cometh of noble lineage, a race that hath borne
+coat-armor since Norman William led them across the Channel"--
+
+"Didst not bring some heraldic tree or chart to dazzle mine eyes
+withal?" inquired Priscilla, mockingly; but the ambassador, determined
+not again to be turned from his purpose, went on,--
+
+"Among his ancestors are men of noble deeds and proud achievements who
+have carried the name of Standish of Standish in the forefront of
+battle, and in King's Councils, and have ranked among the princes of the
+idolatrous Church to which they still cling; but among them all,
+Priscilla, hath never risen a braver, or a nobler, or a more honorable
+man than he who woos thee"--
+
+"Did he bid thee say all that also?"
+
+"Nay, Priscilla, there's a time for all things, and I must feel it
+unworthy of thy womanhood to so perversely jeer and flout at a good
+man's love, when 't is honestly offered thee."
+
+"Nor would I, John. But I have heard naught of any love offered me by
+Myles Standish. Thou hast offered in his name some coat-armor, and a
+long lineage, and courage both ancestral and of his own person,
+and--what else? I forget, but surely there was no love among these
+commodities. Didst drop it by the way, or did the captain forget to send
+it, John?"
+
+"Mayhap, he kept it back to give it thee by word of mouth, Priscilla,
+and if he did, it is a treasure even thou shouldst not despise, for
+never did I see a nature at once so brave, so strong, and so tender.
+Thou knowest how sorely ill I was six weeks or so by-gone, and none did
+a hand's turn for me but the captain, nor needed to, for never was nurse
+so delicate of touch, so unwearied, so cheerful, and so full of device
+as he. No woman ever equaled him in those matters where we long for
+woman's tendance, and yet never a soldier played the man more valiantly
+where man's work was in hand. Ah Priscilla, 't is a heart of gold, a man
+among ten thousand, a tower of strength in danger, and a tender
+comforter in suffering that is offered thee--be wise beyond thy years,
+and answer him comfortably."
+
+"And hast thou done, John? Hast said all thy say?"
+
+"Ay, maid."
+
+"Then clear thy memory of it all, and make room for the answer I will
+give thee."
+
+"And let it be a gentle one, Priscilla."
+
+"Oh, thou knowest how to dress an unwelcome message in comely phrase
+better than any man of mine acquaintance, unless it be Master Winslow,"
+retorted Priscilla bitterly. "So try thy skill on simple NO, for 't is
+all I have to say."
+
+"But Priscilla, but maiden, bethink thee--be not so shrewd of tongue"--
+
+"Nay, wilt have my reasons, Master Envoy? Well then, I care not for a
+man who cares not to do his own wooing. I care not for a man so well
+assured that I will be held by what he avers is my dead father's
+bidding, that he can let weeks and months roll by or ever he finds time
+to convince himself of the matter. I care naught for coat-armor, nor for
+pedigree, I, whose forbears were honest bourgeoisie of Lyons who
+scrupled not to give up all for conscience sake, while this man is
+neither Papist like his kinsfolk, nor Independent like these he lives
+among. And I care not for a red beard, nor for widowers, nor for men old
+enough to be my sire"--
+
+"Nay, he is but six-and-thirty, maiden."
+
+"And I am naught-and-twenty, and I am a-weary of thy chat, John Alden,
+and I fain would be alone, so I wish thee good e'en--and a keener wit."
+
+"But Priscilla," gasped the poor fellow as the wheel was pushed so
+suddenly aside that he had to spring out of its way, while its mistress
+whirled past him and up the clumsy stair leading to her nook in the loft
+of the cabin.
+
+"But Priscilla!" came back in wrathful mimicry from the head of the
+stair, and while Alden still stood bewildered, in at the open door
+flocked Mary Chilton, and Desire, and Elizabeth, their girlish laughter
+bubbling over at some girlish jest, and with a muttered greeting Alden
+stalked through their midst and was gone.
+
+"He came looking for Priscilla, and is grumly at not finding her,"
+whispered Elizabeth Tilley; but Mary Chilton with a wise nod replied, as
+one who knows,--
+
+"Did he but know it, she's not ill inclined to him when all is said.
+Unless I sore mistake she'll say yea next time he asks her."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV.
+
+THE MYSTERIOUS GRAVE.
+
+
+"A fair and goodly day!" exclaimed Standish ever sensitive to the
+aspects of nature, although never allowing himself to be mastered by any
+extremity of weather.
+
+"Ay," replied Bradford. "And yet methinks that cloud rising over Manomet
+hath a stormy look."
+
+"Let us once weather the Gurnet's Nose, and a south wind will not harm
+us," ventured Billington, whose out-of-door prowlings had at least made
+him weatherwise.
+
+"Ay, if south wind is all that it means," said Doctor Fuller gravely.
+"But to my mind yon cloud is of no common kind. It minds me shrewdly of
+those whirlwind or cyclone clouds that used to fright us in the China
+Seas when I sailed them as a lad."
+
+"Say you so, Surgeon!" replied Bradford looking uneasily at the cloud
+rapidly rising and enlarging in the southern horizon. "Be ready with the
+sheets, Peter Browne and Cooke, and Francis Eaton had best stand with
+Latham at the helm."
+
+"Look! Look you there! 'T is a waterspout!" cried Fuller, pointing
+excitedly at the cloud, which, driven on with furious force by an upper
+current of wind unfelt below, was now bellying in a marked and abnormal
+fashion, while from the lowest point of the convexity appeared a spiral
+column of dense vapor rapidly elongating itself toward the sea whose
+waters assumed a black and sullen aspect, disturbed by chopping counter
+currents of short waves, which gradually, as the waterspout neared them,
+fell into its rotary motion, rising at the centre of the whirlpool into
+a column of foaming water, a liquid stalagmite climbing to meet the
+stalactite bending to it from above.
+
+"If we had but a heavy gun!" cried Warren. "They say to hit the
+waterspout in the centre where it joins the other from below will
+disperse it."
+
+"Knocks the wind out of it," explained Billington.
+
+"But we have nothing better than these bird guns," cried Standish
+contemptuously touching with his foot the pile of weapons covered with a
+tarpaulin lying in the bottom of the boat. "And it drives down upon us
+like a charge of horse. Here, let me to the helm."
+
+"There is no way upon the boat, Captain," expostulated Eaton. "No man
+can steer without a wind."
+
+"Thou 'rt right, friend," replied the captain gravely, as he felt the
+rudder give beneath his hand. "There's naught to do but tarry until
+Master Waterspout declareth his pleasure."
+
+"Until God declareth His pleasure," amended Bradford quietly. "Men, let
+us pray."
+
+And baring his head the governor poured forth a strong and manful
+petition to Him who rideth upon the wings of the wind and reigneth a
+King forever over His own creation.
+
+Standish standing upright beside the useless tiller bared his head and
+listened reverently, but always with an eye to the waterspout and to the
+clouds, and as a deep-throated Amen rose from his comrades he gave the
+tiller a shove and joyously cried,--
+
+"A puff, a breath! Enough to steer us past!" And the boat feeling her
+helm again careened gently to the little gust of wind out of the west,
+and slid away upon her course, while the waterspout, more furious in its
+speed at every instant, swept past and out to sea, where it presently
+broke and fell with a thunderous explosion.
+
+"Another crowning mercy!" exclaimed Bradford devoutly, and Standish
+answered with his reticent smile,--
+
+"Had Master Jones of the Mayflower been here, he would have more than
+ever felt 't is better to be friends than foes with prayerful men."
+
+To the waterspout succeeded light and baffling winds so that labor as
+they might, it was fully dark when the Pilgrim pinnace entered what is
+now Barnstable, then Cummaquid Harbor. Anchoring for safety, they lay
+down to get such rest as the position afforded, and woke betimes in the
+morning to find themselves high and dry in the centre of the harbor, the
+channel encircling them and making up toward the land. Upon the shore as
+seen across this channel appeared some savages gathering clams and
+muscles.
+
+Bradford at once dispatched Squanto and Tockamahamon, who had come along
+as guides and interpreters, to interview these men and barter for some
+of the shellfish, but in a very short time the envoys came splashing
+merrily back with an invitation for the white men to land and breakfast
+with Janno, the chief of the Mattakees, who was, the fishermen said,
+close at hand. They also corroborated the statement that the missing boy
+had gone down the Cape with the Nausets, and would be found at Eastham,
+Aspinet's headquarters.
+
+"I see no reason for gainsaying such a comfortable proposal," said
+Bradford turning with a smile to Standish who cheerily replied,--
+
+"Nor I, so that they leave hostages aboard, and we carry every man his
+piece ashore."
+
+"We must e'en wade for it, sith there is neither dry ground for footing
+nor water for swimming," suggested Browne stripping off hose and shoon;
+but as Bradford and Standish began to follow his example they were
+prevented by the Indians, who offered each a back to the two chiefs, at
+the same time intimating to the others that if they would but wait all
+the company should be similarly accommodated. The doctor accepted, but
+Browne and the rest preferred their own legs as a dependence, and the
+whole party presently reached shore, where Janno, the handsome and
+courteous young chief of the Mattakees, stood with several of his
+pnieses or nobles around him ready to receive them. Squanto at once
+stood forth as interpreter, and so flowery and mellifluous were the
+phrases of welcome that he interpreted, that the captain edging toward
+Bradford muttered,--
+
+"I hope Master Warren will look well after the hostages left aboard, for
+all this is too sweet to be wholesome. I mistrust treachery, Governor."
+
+"Nay, I mistrust Squanto, Captain," replied Bradford laughing. "The poor
+fellow doth glorify himself at some cost to the truth, I fancy."
+
+"Beshrew me but before another month I'll know enough of their jargon to
+need no lying interpreter," muttered Standish, and he kept his word.
+
+The Indian breakfast, already nearly ready, proved both toothsome and
+plentiful. It consisted of lobsters, clams, and muscles, both cooked and
+raw, ears of green maize roasted in the husk, and no-cake, that is to
+say, pounded corn mixed with water and baked in the ashes, the germ and
+animus of hoe-cake, bannocks, Johnnycake, and all the various forms of
+maize-bread so well known throughout our land.
+
+Breakfast over Janno rather timidly inquired if the white chiefs would
+permit the visit of an old squaw of his tribe who much desired to see
+them.
+
+"Surely if the good woman hath occasion to speak with us," replied
+Bradford amiably. "Why doth the chief seem to mistrust our willingness?"
+
+"Squaw no speak to brave in council," explained Squanto with an air of
+shocked propriety; but before he could further explain a bowed and
+decrepit figure emerged from one of the little huts on the edge of the
+woods and slowly approached the white men who stepped forward to meet
+her, desiring Squanto to assure her of welcome. Coming so close to the
+little group that Standish muttered, "Sure she is minded to salute us,"
+the poor old crone peered into the face of one after another of the
+white men, then wofully shook her head and began to mutter in her own
+tongue with strange gesticulations, but as he heard them Squanto uttered
+a shrill cry of terror, and the sachem stepping forward spoke some words
+of stern command, before which the old woman humbly bowed and became
+silent.
+
+"What is it? Would she curse us? What is her grievance? What is her
+story?" demanded Bradford half indignantly, and Squanto, after some
+conference with the sachem, informed them that this woman, once called
+Sunlight-upon-the-Waters, but now known as The-Night-in-Winter, had
+been mother of seven tall sons who filled her wigwam with venison,
+and shared their corn and tobacco with her; but three of these sons
+were among the captives entrapped and sold to slavery by Hunt, and
+the other four had perished in the plague brought down upon the red men
+by the curse of The-White-Fool who died about the same time; and thus
+The-Night-in-Winter, having just cause, hated the white men as she hated
+death and the devil, and wished to curse them as The-White-Fool had
+cursed her people, but the sachem would not let her, and now she was
+doubly bereft of her children, since she might not even avenge them.
+
+"'T is a piteous tale," said Bradford gently when Squanto had finished.
+"And we cannot be amazed that this poor heathen mother should thus feel.
+There is warrant for it among the classics, Surgeon; Medea and others
+were moved in the same fashion. But Squanto, explain to her that we and
+all honest white men abhor the course of Master Hunt, and had we found
+him at such commerce we would have delivered her sons, and thee too,
+Squanto, out of his hands. Tell her our mind is to deal honestly and
+Christianly by all men, and here, give her this fair chain, and this
+length of red cloth. Tell her that she would do ill to curse us, for we
+are friends to her and her people."
+
+"And ask who was The-White-Fool, and what his story," demanded Standish
+as Squanto finished rendering the governor's message.
+
+"Squanto know that in himself. Every Pokanoket know that," replied
+Squanto, while Janno muttered gloomily in his own tongue,--
+
+"All red men know The-White-Fool's curse. All feel it." So Squanto in
+his broken yet picturesque phrases told how "many snows ago" a large
+French ship was wrecked farther down the Cape and nearly everything
+aboard was lost. Several of her crew, however, came safely ashore and
+made a sort of camp with some earthwork defenses on the mouth of the
+Pamet River.
+
+"Why men, we saw it, and mused upon the marks of European skill and
+training," exclaimed Standish.
+
+"Ay, and the house hard by, and the marvelous grave with the fair-haired
+man and infant so curiously embalmed," added Fuller.
+
+"Truly, this is passing strange!" murmured Bradford. "But get on with
+thy story, Tisquantum."
+
+The Frenchmen were quiet and peaceable enough, Tisquantum could not but
+allow, and yet his people would not permit them to dwell unmolested,
+perhaps from some vague fear of ancient prophecy that a pale-faced race
+should come from the rising sun and drive the red men into the western
+seas; perhaps from some race-hatred lying below the savage's power of
+expression; at any rate, as Tisquantum finally declared with a
+significant gesture,--
+
+"Sagamore, powahs, pnieses, braves, all men say, It is not good for pale
+men with hair like the sunrise to live among the red men whose hair is
+like the night. Let them be gone!"
+
+"And what did the red men do about it, Squanto?" asked Standish sternly,
+while in his eyes kindled the danger light before which Squanto quailed,
+yet sullenly replied,--
+
+"Red man find what you call wolf around his wigwam, red man send arrow
+through his head."
+
+"Do you mean, you heathen, that you murdered these helpless, shipwrecked
+white men? Murdered them in cold blood?" demanded Standish, seizing
+Gideon's hilt and half drawing him from his scabbard.
+
+"Tisquantum not here. Tisquantum not Mattakee, not Nauset; Tisquantum
+Patuxet, where white men live," hastily replied Squanto; while Bradford
+suggested in a rapid aside, "Best leave go thy sword and restrain thy
+wrath, Captain, or we be but dead men. Look at the faces of those men
+behind the sachem. Already they finger their tomahawks."
+
+"More like, thy timidity will give the savages courage to fall upon us,
+and we shall share the fate of these, who though naught but Frenchmen
+were at least white, and wore breeches," retorted Standish angrily. The
+color flashed into Bradford's cheek, but after an instant's silence he
+quietly replied,--
+
+"Thou knowest well enow, Standish, that my timidity is not for myself
+but for these, and yet more for the helpless ones we have left behind. I
+trust when it comes to blows, the Governor of Plymouth will be found
+where he belongs, next to her fiery Captain."
+
+"Be content, Will, be content. Once more thou 'rt right and I all wrong.
+'T is not the first time nor the last, but let us ask in all patience
+what these fellows mean with their White-Fool. Sure they have not made
+me out so suddenly as this, have they?"
+
+"Nay, Myles, I trow no man but thyself will ever call thee fool, nay,
+nor overly white, either!" and glancing at the Captain's bronzed face
+lighted once more by its smile of grim humor, Bradford turned to Squanto
+and bade him explain in the hearing of both savages and white men the
+meaning of this reference, and also the fate of the French mariners cast
+ashore at Eastham.
+
+Squanto nothing loth to display his oratory struck an attitude, and with
+native eloquence and much gesticulation described, first, the storm
+which four years ago had driven the French brig upon the sands; then the
+efforts of the mariners to launch their boats, their defeat, and the
+breaking up both of boats and brig; then the arrival upon shore of
+thirteen men, two of whom died of wounds and exhaustion. The eleven
+survivors finding some wreckage upon the beach proceeded the next
+morning to build themselves a shelter, and finally erected the cabin and
+threw up the earthwork discovered by the Pilgrims in their second
+exploration.
+
+Up to this point the Indians had been content to curiously watch the
+proceedings of these interlopers, but finding that they were
+establishing themselves permanently, they held a council and resolved
+that they should die, partly in atonement for the outrage done to the
+red men some two years before by Hunt the kidnapper, and partly from
+some vague fear lest the strangers with their superior knowledge and
+appliances should conquer and injure the proper owners of the soil.
+
+Not choosing to assault them openly, for the men were brave, alert, and
+well armed, the Indians laid in wait around the spring where they must
+daily go for water, watched them as they went afield in pursuit of game,
+in fact harassed them at every turn, until of the eleven but three were
+left alive, and they, so broken in strength, courage, and hope, that
+they were easily captured and reduced to slavery. One remained here at
+Nauset, and the other two were sent, one to the Massachusetts, the other
+to the Namasket tribes, where they were kept as the mock and victims of
+the brutal sport of the savages. The one who remained at Nauset was the
+best looking, and evidently the most attractive of the three, and from
+Squanto's description seemed to have been an officer, and a very
+attractive young man. The-White-Birch, sister of Aspinet, chief of the
+Nausets, having fixed her regards upon the prisoner, discovered these
+peculiarities, and one day when the boys of the village were amusing
+themselves with seeing how near they could shoot their blunted arrows to
+the prisoner's eyes without putting them out, she stepped forward, and,
+Pocahontas-like, announced that she took this man for her husband, and
+as such claimed his release from torture. Her demand was complied with,
+and the half dead victim unbound and informed of his new honors; but it
+was too late--want, misery, and cruelty had done their work, and the
+poor fellow's wits had fled. He accepted the tender care and affection
+of The-White-Birch as a child might have done, but the joyous gallantry
+of the debonair young French officer was a thing of the past, and the
+bridegroom had become as completely the child of nature as his bride. He
+was adopted into the tribe, and the Indian name given him, in no spirit
+of taunt or contempt, but simply as a descriptive appellation, meant
+The-White-Fool.
+
+They were married, these two strange lovers, and lived in the cabin
+built of ship's planks by The-White-Fool's dead comrades. In due time a
+son was born to them, the idol of his mother's heart, and the constant
+companion of the father, who seemed to find in the child some link with
+his own stray wits; but when the boy was about three years old the poor
+exile was seized with a fever, and in his delirium escaping from his
+tender nurse stalked naked through the village proclaiming in the native
+tongue that the wrath of God hung over this people and this land,
+because of the cruel wrong they had done to him and to his comrades; and
+he foretold that before seven snows had covered his grave, white men
+from over the sea should come like the wildfowl in the spring and settle
+down upon the creeks and ponds, and fill the forest with their cry, and
+the red men should melt away as the snow melts and their place be no
+more seen.
+
+It was really worth something to hear Squanto declaim this wild prophecy
+with the shrill voice and fevered gestures of the delirious captive; and
+as they caught his meaning the pnieses around Janno stirred in their
+places, laid hand upon the tomahawk at each man's girdle, and cast
+menacing looks upon the strangers.
+
+"Have a care, Squanto! Say no more on that head, or thou 'lt stir up
+strife afresh," muttered Bradford in the interpreter's ear, while
+Standish fixed his eyes upon Janno ready to sacrifice him at the first
+hostile movement. But the young chief casting a meaning glance around
+the circle said quietly,--
+
+"The-White-Birch was of the blood of Aspinet my brother, and
+The-White-Fool was her husband."
+
+"Well said, Chief!" exclaimed Standish who had already mastered much of
+the Indian language, and in accordance with his late resolve soon became
+the most expert interpreter in the colony, while Bradford nodding said,
+"Go on, Squanto!"
+
+Little however remained to tell. The ill-starred Frenchman died within a
+few hours of his prophecy, and hardly had The-White-Birch laid him in
+his honored grave when she was called to bury her little boy, whom the
+father had named Louis, along with him. Then she set off alone to find
+the comrades of her lost love at Namasket, and Shawmut, that they might
+with her lament his death; but whether illness came upon her and she
+crept aside to die, or haply some wild creature slew and devoured her,
+or in her maze of grief she strayed away and starved in the limitless
+woods, none ever knew; she never was heard of again.
+
+"And the other two captives?" inquired Standish.
+
+"The Feast-of-Green-Corn before the last one, Captain Dermer carried
+them away in his ship," replied Squanto proud of his English and his
+information.
+
+"Ay, ay, and now we understand why these Nauset Indians attacked us at
+the First Encounter," said Standish.
+
+"Especially as they had probably watched us stealing their corn," added
+Fuller dryly.
+
+"Borrowing, not stealing, Surgeon," retorted Bradford briskly. "And a
+part of our errand to the First Encounter is to satisfy our creditor for
+the debt. Let us be going."
+
+An hour later the shallop, now riding gayly upon the flood tide, put
+forth from Barnstable Harbor, carrying not only its own crew, but Janno
+with several of his followers, he having volunteered as guide and
+negotiator with Aspinet for the restoration of little Billington.
+
+The voyage prospered, and before night the boy, decked with strings of
+beads and various savage ornaments, was restored to his guardians by
+Aspinet himself; while the first red man allowed to come on board the
+shallop was the owner of the corn "borrowed" by the Pilgrims, who now
+repaid its value twofold by an order for goods to be delivered at
+Plymouth. But more important than boy or corn, at any rate to the ears
+of Standish, was a report here received that the Narragansetts, their
+friend Massasoit's neighbors and deadly foes, had made a raid upon his
+domains and carried him away prisoner. Also that one of Massasoit's
+pnieses called Corbitant had become an ally of the Narragansetts, and
+was now at Namasket, only fourteen miles from Plymouth, trying to raise
+a revolt against both his chief and the white men their allies. He was
+also fiercely denouncing Squanto, Hobomok, and Tockamahamon as renegades
+and traitors to their own people, who should be at once put to death.
+
+This news was so alarming that without waiting for trade, or for the
+feast offered to them, the Pilgrims at once set sail, and after stormy
+weather and sundry adventures arrived safely at home toward night of the
+third day from their departure. John Billington was received with
+vociferous joy by his mother, treated to a lithe bundle of birch rods by
+his father, and assaulted by his brother, who at once fought him for the
+possession of the bead necklaces and other gauds he had brought home.
+The men of the colony were meantime hearing the report brought in by
+Nepeof, a sachem just from Namasket, of the treacherous proceedings
+there, and before they had been three hours at home Squanto and Hobomok
+were dispatched to discover the truth of the matter, while Nepeof was
+held as a hostage.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV.
+
+A LITTLE DISCIPLINE.
+
+
+"And how sped you in your errand, Master Envoy?" inquired Standish as,
+lighted pipe in hand, he once more seated himself upon the bench outside
+his cabin door to enjoy the sunset hour.
+
+But at the sudden question John Alden's face flushed deeper than the
+sunset, and he stammered, "I am so blundering, Master--I told the maiden
+all you bade me, but--but"--
+
+"But what, thou stammering idiot!" roared the captain, his serene brow
+suddenly overcast, and the red surging up to his own brow. "Dost mean to
+say the girl flouted the suit of--nay, then, what dost thou mean? Speak
+out, man, and be not so timorous!"
+
+"Here is Giles Hopkins!" exclaimed John, as feet were heard running up
+the hill, and the captain angrily turned to meet the new-comer,
+shouting,--
+
+"Well, what dost thou want, youngster? Is a man never to be rid of
+half-wit boys in this place!"
+
+"Please, Captain, the governor desires you to come in haste to a sudden
+Council. The Indians are come in, and methinks"--
+
+"And who in Beelzebub's name cares what thou thinkst!" shouted the
+captain. "Begone before I box thy malapert ears." And driving the lad
+before him he strode down the hill without another word or look at John,
+who grinding his heel into the turf muttered,--
+
+"And now he's angered, and beshrew me if I could not find it in my heart
+to wish Priscilla had said him yea, rather than nay. It were easier to
+bear her scorn of me if I knew that he was content. 'T is not so hard to
+suffer loss if a dear friend gains by that same loss."
+
+Meantime Standish striding wrathfully down the hill met Priscilla as she
+darted out of the door of the elder's house. At sight of him she stopped
+short, coloring scarlet, and yet her whole face gleaming with a wicked
+inclination to laugh.
+
+The captain also hesitated a moment, and then removing his barret cap
+with a bow whose stately courtesy recalled his lineage he said,--
+
+"Pardon me, Mistress Molines, for what it seems was undue presumption.
+May I ask if the Council is convened here or at the Common house?"
+
+"At the Common house, Captain; but indeed and by my faith I know not"--
+
+"Pardon if I venture to cut you short, Mistress, but I am summoned in
+haste to the Council."
+
+And with another formal bow the captain hastened on, leaving Priscilla
+biting her lip and staring after him, half angry, half amused. "One
+could be proud of him--if--if--Oh heart, heart! What is 't thou 'rt
+clamoring for! Well--at least I can go and make a posset for my dear
+dame, and the rest may wait." And with a sigh and a smile and a blush
+the girl turned back to the things of the hour.
+
+"Now here's a coil, Captain!" exclaimed Bradford as Standish entered the
+large room where about a dozen of the men of the colony were assembled
+in informal council, while in the midst stood Hobomok, his red skin
+streaming with perspiration and stained with travel, while his usually
+impassive face bore an expression of genuine grief and dismay.
+
+"What is it? Ha, Hobomok returned alone!"
+
+"Yes, and with evil tidings," replied the Governor. "He and Squanto
+reached Namasket early this morning and sought to conceal themselves in
+a house belonging to Squanto, though now lent to a kinsman. But some one
+betrayed them to Corbitant, who was vaporing around the village calling
+upon the men to rise in revolt against Massasoit and deliver him up to
+the Narragansetts, and saying that we white men should all be slain, and
+also those who have made alliance with us, for already he had news of
+our visit to Nauset, and the contract made with Aspinet, and Canacum,
+and Iyanough. While yet he raved against Squanto, and Hobomok, and
+Tockamahamon, a traitor told him that the two first were hiding in the
+village, and he swore a great oath by all his gods that they should die,
+especially Squanto, in whom, said he, the white men will lose their
+tongue"--
+
+"What meant he by that, Governor?" demanded Warren.
+
+"Why, that he is our interpreter," sharply replied Standish. "What else
+should he mean? What next, Governor?"
+
+"Next they circumvented Squanto in his cabin, and Corbitant seizing him
+held a knife to his throat, mocking and taunting him as is their
+fashion, while two fell upon Hobomok, but he being a lusty fellow and
+quick, broke from them and fled hither so fast as legs could carry him.
+You see the condition he is in."
+
+"And left thy comrade to die!" ejaculated Standish looking scornfully at
+the Indian, who humbly replied in his own tongue,--
+
+"Hobomok only one man. Corbitant many men. Squanto perhaps dead, but the
+white man will send a hundred of his enemies to be his servants in the
+Happy Land. A brave fears not to die, if he may be avenged."
+
+"Ha! 'T is the savage philosophy, and not a bad one," said Standish, and
+although the elder raised stern eyes of rebuke upon the reckless soldier
+he continued,--
+
+"And I shall lead our forces to avenge both the death of our servant and
+Massasoit's capture, shall I not, brethren? What is your will?"
+
+"Sound policy dictates that if our allies are to respect us, or our
+enemies fear us, we should not suffer such an affront as this to pass,"
+declared Winslow. "England hath never yet borne that her flag should be
+insulted, and we are Englishmen."
+
+"You are right, Winslow," replied Bradford solemnly. "And loth though we
+may be to shed the blood of these men, whom we fain would convert to
+friends and Christians, it is my mind that in this instance we are bound
+to deal with them as with our own children, whom we indeed chastise, but
+still with an eye to their own future happiness."
+
+"'Now no chastening for the present seemeth to be joyous but grievous:
+nevertheless afterward it yieldeth the peaceable fruit of righteousness
+to them which are exercised thereby,'" quoted the Elder sententiously,
+while Standish stood impatiently twisting his moustache, and glancing
+around the assembly as if selecting his men.
+
+"And now, having chapter and verse for avenging this affront, let us set
+about doing it," exclaimed he as several of the company murmured Amen to
+the Elder's approved quotation. But Bradford fixed his steady eyes upon
+the soldier's face for a moment before he somewhat coldly asked,--
+
+"How many men do you think it best to take, Captain Standish?"
+
+"Ten. Hopkins, the Surgeon, Winslow, Browne, Howland, Gilbert Winslow,
+Billington, Eaton, Dotey, and Lister," replied Standish promptly, and
+then with his peculiarly winning smile he added,--
+
+"You see I leave the governor, with Master Allerton his assistant, to
+guide the colony, and the elder to pray for our success, and Master
+Warren for a councilor, and the rest to carry on our various labors and
+protect the weaklings."
+
+"It is a good division it seemeth to me. What say you all, brethren?"
+asked the governor still gravely, and one by one each man signified his
+assent, only Howland coming close to the captain asked,--
+
+"May not Alden go with us, Captain? He hath a very pretty fashion with
+his weapon."
+
+"Am I captain, or art thou, John Howland?" growled the leader, and as
+all turned out of the house to prepare for the march in the following
+dawn, Bradford laid his hand upon his friend's shoulder and walked along
+with him.
+
+"What ails thee, Myles? Thou 'rt sorely chafed at something. Is aught
+amiss that I can help?"
+
+"Nay, Will, 't is naught, and less than naught. 'T is but a new
+knowledge of mine own unworthiness. Sure 'never such a fool as an old
+fool' is a good proverb."
+
+"'T is not to a fool that we trust the lives of ten out of our nineteen
+men," said Bradford quietly.
+
+"Oh, I can fight well enow," replied the soldier bitterly. "'T is my
+trade, and all I'm fit for. Ay, and in my mood to-day I'll be fain to
+fight. I only fear this knave Corbitant hath run away."
+
+"If so, he confesses his defeat without the need of bloodshed,"
+suggested Bradford. "And at all odds, Standish, our policy is to make
+friends by fair means if we may. Remember, if Squanto is not harmed,
+Corbitant is not to be touched. If indeed our poor friend is slain, then
+have you warrant for Corbitant's head, and the lives of all who helped
+to murder Squanto. Thou 'rt too honorable a man and too good a Christian
+to let thine own chafed humor interfere with justice."
+
+"I am too well drilled a soldier to disobey orders, Governor," replied
+the Captain briefly, and so they parted, nor did Standish and Alden
+exchange a sentence that night save barely these,--
+
+"In one word, John, was the answer to my message yes or no?"
+
+"Dear Master, it was no."
+
+"I bade thee answer in one word, and thou hast disobeyed me in using
+five."
+
+The next morning brought one of those furious summer storms peculiar to
+August, and the little force, loaded with armor, weapons, and knapsacks,
+found themselves much distressed by the humid heat. Reaching a sheltered
+spot about a mile from Namasket, Standish resolved to remain there until
+dark, giving the men opportunity for rest and refreshment, and trusting
+to the storm and the night to cover his attack upon a foe ten times his
+own number.
+
+As darkness closed in upon the encampment, the captain roused himself
+from a soldier's nap, and briefly ordered,--
+
+"Eat what provisions you have left in your knapsacks, men, and empty
+your flasks. Then pile and leave both beside this rock. Those of us who
+are alive in the morning will subsist upon the enemy. Those who are not
+will feel no lack."
+
+Soon after dark the little troop set forth, but Hobomok, deceived by the
+darkness and the rain, missed the route, and for three weary hours the
+men floundered around in the dripping forest, the guide wisely keeping
+out of the captain's reach, until in a gleam of watery moonlight Winslow
+recognized a peculiar clump of trees which he had noticed upon his late
+journey with Hopkins to visit Massasoit; and Hobomok recovering from his
+bewilderment led the way as fast as the men could follow him, until in
+the edge of a large clearing he paused, and pointing to a detached hut
+whispered,--
+
+"Corbitant sleep there."
+
+"Now God be praised that there is a chance of fighting rather than
+floundering!" piously exclaimed Standish, and with brief exact phrases
+he proceeded to set the battle in array. Eight men were to silently
+surround the house, their pieces ready, and their orders to cut down if
+necessary any who should attempt to escape from the house. Standish and
+Winslow, followed by Hobomok, marched meantime straight into a hut, and
+the captain in a loud voice demanded,--
+
+"Where is Corbitant? Give him up and no one else shall be harmed!"
+
+A moment of panic-stricken silence ensued, and then through the darkness
+was heard the indefinite rustling sound of living creatures seeking
+covertly to escape from an enclosure.
+
+"Look to it, outside!" shouted Standish. "Let no man pass your guard!
+Hobomok, tell them that we will harm none if they give up Corbitant and
+those who helped him to murder Tisquantum!"
+
+But the hubbub increased momently, and presently a shout of "Back!
+Back!" from without was followed by a loud shriek in a woman's voice.
+
+"Fools!" roared Standish in the native tongue. "Keep still. Stay in the
+house. We hurt none but Corbitant!"
+
+Yet still the tumult grew; the savages trusting no promises, endeavored
+to escape through the various openings of the wigwam, and although the
+sentinels were as careful as possible, and heartily desirous of avoiding
+bloodshed, several of the Indians were more or less hurt, while the
+half-grown boys perceiving the immunity of the women from harm, ran from
+one door to the other crying out,--
+
+"Neen squaes! Neen squaes!" (I am a girl! I am a girl!)
+
+The women also hung around Hobomok, pulling at his hands and clothing,
+for attention, while they shrieked, "Oh Hobomok, I am thy friend! Thou
+knowest I am thy friend!"
+
+Winslow meantime had stirred up the embers of a fire near the doorway of
+the hut, and the flame leaping out cast a wild and fitful glare over the
+scene, in the midst of which Hobomok, climbing the stout pole in the
+centre of the cabin, thrust his head through the smoke-hole at the top,
+and after emitting a hideous war-whoop shouted the names of Tisquantum
+and Tockamahamon at the top of his voice, for one of the women had
+assured him that the former was alive, and that Corbitant was already
+many miles on his homeward way.
+
+Not two minutes had elapsed, when an answering whoop was heard from the
+cluster of huts forming the village of Namasket, now the town of
+Middleboro', and an irregular stream of warriors, headed by Tisquantum
+in person, came running toward the beleaguered hut.
+
+The struggle was now over, for so soon as the _casus belli_ was
+disproved by Squanto's appearance, the capture of Corbitant was no
+longer desirable, and Standish ordered his men to sheathe their swords
+and release their prisoners. Those who had been wounded by persisting in
+trying to escape were attended to by Surgeon Fuller, and by Standish's
+invitation returned to Plymouth with their friendly conquerors to
+receive a certain amount of petting by way of compensation for their
+wounds, although the captain did not fail to point out that if they had
+believed and obeyed him, they need not have been hurt at all.
+
+Tisquantum shrewdly flattered at the importance set upon his life by his
+white friends, seated himself with them around the new-fed fire, and
+with much gesticulation and flowery forms of speech related how, by his
+combined prowess and subtlety, he had forced Corbitant to release him,
+and finally to leave Namasket with his warriors, not, however, without
+hideous threats of what should befall that village if it persisted in an
+alliance with the white men, who were soon to be exterminated with all
+their friends.
+
+"Ha! We will send an embassage to this haughty sachem, with some counter
+promises and warnings," exclaimed Standish in hearing this part of the
+report; and at the last moment, before the little army with its captives
+left the place upon the following morning, a runner was dispatched to
+follow Corbitant, and assure him from The-Sword-of-the-White-Men, as
+Standish now began to be called among the Indians, that unless Massasoit
+returned in safety from the country of the Narragansetts, whither he had
+been beguiled, the death of the great sachem should be visited upon
+Corbitant and all his tribe to the uttermost, and that if anything more
+was heard of sedition and treachery as preached either among the
+Namaskets or elsewhere, Corbitant should find that no distance and no
+concealment should avail to save him from punishment.
+
+The message was duly delivered, and so convincing did its terrors,
+combined with the prompt action of the white men prove, that various
+sachems who had hitherto held aloof, even those of the Isles of
+Capawack, now called Martha's Vineyard, sent to beg for a treaty of
+peace and mutual support; and in the end Corbitant prayed the kind
+offices of Massasoit, now restored to his kingdom, to make his
+submission to the white men.
+
+But though so fair in outward seeming, this peace was but a hollow one,
+and one more lesson was needed before the Indians became in very truth
+the friends and allies of the white men.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVI.
+
+THE FIRST THANKSGIVING DAY OF NEW ENGLAND.
+
+
+"Oh Priscilla, girl, what thinkst thou is toward now?" demanded Mary
+Chilton, running down to the spring where her friend was sprinkling and
+turning a piece of coarse linen spun and woven by her own hands for
+domestic use; but straightening herself at the merry summons, her dark
+eyes lighted with animation as she responded in the same tone,--
+
+"The governor is fain to marry thee, and the elder is ready to give his
+blessing. Is 't so?"
+
+"Thou foolish girl! It's not at me Master Bradford looks oftenest, not
+nigh as often as the captain looks at thee, nay but John Alden"--
+
+"What is it! What's thy news! Speak quick or I'll sprinkle thee rather
+than the linen!" and raising the wooden dipper Priscilla whirled it so
+rapidly round her head that not a drop was spilled, while Mary shrieking
+and laughing darted back and crouched behind an alder bush.
+
+"Maids! Maids! Whence this unseemly mirth! Know ye not that the laughter
+of fools is like the crackling of thorns under the pot, a sure sign of
+the fire they are hasting to? The devil goeth about like a roaring
+lion"--
+
+"Sometimes methinks he seemeth more like an ass," murmured Priscilla in
+Mary's ear, setting her off into convulsions of repressed laughter,
+while her naughty tormentor looked demurely up the bank to the angular
+figure defined against the evening sky and said,--
+
+"We are beholden to you for the admonition, Master Allerton, and it must
+be a marvelous comfort to you that Mary and Remember Allerton weep so
+much oftener than they laugh."
+
+"I would, thou froward wench, that I had the training of thee for a
+while. Mayhap thou wouldst find cause for weeping"--
+
+"Nay, I'm sure on 't. The very thought well-nigh makes me weep now,"
+retorted Priscilla blithely, as the sour-visaged Councilor went on his
+way, and Mary half frightened, half delighted, came forward saying,--
+
+"Oh Priscilla, how dost thou dare flout Master Allerton in that style!
+He'll have thee before the Church."
+
+"Not he!" replied Priscilla coolly. "Hist now, poppet, and I'll tell
+thee something--thou 'lt not repeat it though?"
+
+"Not I," replied Mary stoutly.
+
+"Well, then, dost think I should make a fitting stepdame for Bartholomew
+and Mary and Remember?"
+
+"Dost mean"--
+
+"Ay do I, just that. And because I could not but laugh merrily at the
+notion when 't was placed before me last Sunday night, the Assistant
+looketh sourly enough but dareth not meddle with me lest I make others
+laugh as well as myself."
+
+"Priscilla! Mary!" called Elizabeth Tilley's voice from the doorstep.
+"Mistress Brewster would have you in to see about noon-meat."
+
+"But thy news, poppet, quick!" exclaimed Priscilla as gathering up her
+gear she slowly led the way up the hill.
+
+"Why, the governor hath resolved upon a day, or rather a week, of
+holiday and of thanksgiving for the mercies God hath showed us. Think of
+it, Pris! A whole week of feasting and holiday!"
+
+"Hm!" dryly responded Priscilla. "It sounds well enow, but who is to
+make ready this feasting?"
+
+"Why--all of us--and chiefly you, dear wench, for none can season a
+delicate dish or"--
+
+"Ay, ay, I know that song full well; but dost really think, Molly, that
+to do a good deal more, and a good deal harder cooking than our wont,
+will be so very sprightly a holiday?"
+
+"But 't will be doing our part to make holiday for the others," replied
+Mary simply.
+
+"Now, then, if thou 'rt not at thy old tricks of shaming my selfish
+frowardness!" exclaimed Priscilla, and laughing they entered the house
+where all the women of the community were assembled in eager debate over
+their share in the approaching festival.
+
+"The governor hath already ordered my man, with Dotey and Soule and
+Latham, to go afield to-morrow with their guns, and to spend two days in
+gathering game," announced Helen Billington with an air of importance.
+
+"And it was determined to invite King Massasoit and his train to the
+feast," eagerly added Mistress Winslow, who, with her baby Peregrine
+White in her arms, had run across the street to join the council.
+
+"Methinks another party should go to the beach to dig clams," suggested
+Dame Hopkins. "For though not so toothsome as venison and birds 't is a
+prey more surely to be come by."
+
+"The elder saith the God of Jacob sendeth us the clams as he did manna
+to those other children of his in the desert," added the weak sweet
+voice of the elder's wife. "At morning and at night we may gather them
+in certainty."
+
+"But they hold not sweet over Sunday, that is if the day be hot,"
+suggested Desire Minter ruefully.
+
+"And Priscilla we shall look to thee for marchpanes and manchets and
+plum-porridge and possets and all manner of tasty cates, such as only
+thou canst make," said the dame hastily, and fixing her eyes upon the
+girl's face as if to hinder any irreverent laughter at Desire's speech.
+
+"All that I can do I will do blithely and steadfastly if it will
+pleasure you, mother," replied Priscilla gently, as she knelt down
+beside the invalid and rested against the arm of that old chair which
+you may see to-day reverently preserved in Plymouth.
+
+"I know thou wilt, sweetheart," replied the dame laying her frail hand
+upon the girl's abundant hair. "But I fear me our men cannot dine to-day
+on the promise of the coming feast."
+
+"Well thought on, mother. Come maids to work, to work!"
+
+That same afternoon Squanto was dispatched to Namasket to send from
+thence a runner to Massasoit inviting him, with his brother and a
+fitting escort, to the feast of Thanksgiving now fixed for the following
+Thursday; and so cordially did the great sachem respond, that about
+sunrise on the appointed day the laggards of the settlement were aroused
+by the terrific whoop and succession of unearthly shrieks with which the
+guests announced at once their arrival and their festive and playful
+condition of mind.
+
+Three of the leaders were ready even at this hour to receive the over
+punctual guests: the elder, who had risen early to prepare a few brief
+remarks suited to the occasion; Standish, who was always afoot to fire
+his sunrise gun; and Bradford, who valued the quiet morning hour in
+which he might allow his mind to dwell upon those abstruse and profound
+subjects so dear to his heart, and yet never allowed to intrude upon the
+business of the working day. So, while Winslow with his wife's
+assistance did on his more festive doublet and hose, and Allerton spake
+bitter words to Remember who had forgotten to replace the button that
+should hold her father's collar in place, and gentle Warren, the gruff
+Surgeon, and the rest made ready as they might, these three stood forth
+to receive Massasoit and Quadequina, who with a dozen or so of their
+principal pnieses came forward with considerable dignity, and through
+Squanto and Hobomok made their compliments in truly regal style, while
+their followers to the number of about ninety men with a few women
+remained modestly in the background.
+
+Presently when the village was well afoot, and a big fire started
+between the elder's house and the brook for cooking purposes, the roll
+of the drum announced the morning prayers, with which the Pilgrims began
+every day, and more especially this Feast of Thanksgiving. The Indians
+stood reverently around, Massasoit explaining in low gutturals to a
+chieftain who had never visited Plymouth before, that the white men thus
+propitiated the Great Spirit, and engaged Him both to prosper them and
+kill their enemies.
+
+Prayers ended, Priscilla with her attendants flew back to the fire, and
+presently a long table spread in the open air for the men was covered
+with great wooden bowls full of what a later generation named
+hasty-pudding, to be eaten with butter and treacle, for milk was not to
+be had for more than one year to come. Other bowls contained an
+excellent clam chowder with plenty of sea biscuit swimming in the savory
+broth, while great pieces of cold boiled beef with mustard, flanked by
+dishes of turnips, offered solid resistance to those who so joyfully
+attacked them.
+
+Another table in the Common house offered somewhat more delicate food to
+the women and children, chief among it a great pewter bowl of
+plum-porridge with bits of toasted cracker floating upon it.
+
+The meal was a rude one looked upon with the dainty eyes and languid
+appetites of to-day, but to those sturdy and heroic men and women it was
+a veritable feast, and at its close Quadequina with an amiable smile
+nodded to one of his attendants, who produced and poured upon the table
+something like a bushel of popped corn,--a dainty hitherto unseen and
+unknown by most of the Pilgrims.
+
+All tasted, and John Howland hastily gathering up a portion upon a
+wooden plate carried it to the Common house for the delectation of the
+women, that is to say, for Elizabeth Tilley, whose firm young teeth
+craunched it with much gusto.
+
+Breakfast over, with a grace after meat that amounted to another
+service, the governor announced that some military exercises under the
+direction of Captain Standish would now take place, and the guests were
+invited to seat themselves in the vicinity of a fire kindled on the
+ground at the northerly part of the village about at the head of Middle
+Street, and designed more as a common centre and social feature than
+for need since the weather was mild and lovely, so peculiarly so that
+when it recurred the next November and the next, the people remembering
+that first feast said, "Why, here is the Indians' summer again!" But on
+that day the only thought was that God accepted their thanksgiving and
+smiled His approval.
+
+Hardly had the guests comprehended the announcement and placed
+themselves in order, when a wild fanfare of trumpets, an imposing roll
+of drums was heard from the vicinity of the Fort, and down the hill in
+orderly array marched the little army of nineteen men, preceded by the
+military band and led by their doughty Captain. Above their heads
+floated the banner of Old England, and beneath their corselets beat true
+English hearts; and yet here stood the nucleus of that power which a
+century and a half later was to successfully defy and throw off the rule
+of that magnificent but cruel stepdame; here stood the first American
+army; and then, as since, that score of determined souls struck terror
+into the hearts of five times their number.
+
+"If they have beguiled us here to destroy us!" murmured Quadequina in
+his brother's ear.
+
+"Canst not tell an eagle from a carrion-crow?" returned the wiser man.
+"Would Winsnow, or The-Sword, or the Chief, or the powah, do this?
+Peace, my brother."
+
+But as the military manoeuvres accompanied with frequent discharges of
+musketry, and accented at one point with a tremendous roar from the
+cannon of the Fort progressed, not only Quadequina, but many other of
+the braves became very uneasy; and to this cause as well as benevolence,
+may be attributed the offer made at dinner time by Quadequina to lead a
+hunting party of his own people into the woods to look for deer, whose
+haunts they well knew.
+
+Standish alone suspected this _arrière pensée_, and when Bradford mildly
+applauded the generous kindness of their guests, he answered with a
+chuckle,--
+
+"Ay, as kind as the traveler who begs the highwayman to let him go home
+and fetch a larger treasure."
+
+But in spite of his doubts the prince intended and made a _bonâ fide_
+hunt, and returned early in the next day with as much venison as lasted
+the entire company four days.
+
+"Oh, if I had but some Spanish chestnuts to stuff these turkeys, they
+might seem more like their brethren across the seas," exclaimed
+Priscilla as she turned over a pile of the wild birds and chose those to
+be first cooked.
+
+"Nay, but to me the flavor is better, and the meat more succulent of
+these than of any I ever saw at home," replied John Alden. "And the
+size! Do but look at this fellow, he will scale well-nigh twenty pound
+if an ounce."
+
+"If 't were a goose I would name it John, 't would be so prodigious a
+goose," replied Priscilla with a glance so saucy and so bewitching that
+her adorer forgot to reply, and she went briskly on,--
+
+"Come now, young man, there's much to do and scant time to talk of it.
+Call me some of those gaping boys yonder and let them pluck these fowl,
+and bid John Billington come and break up these deer. And I must have
+wood and water galore to make meat for a hundred men. Stir thyself!"
+
+"I was thinking, Priscilla--why not stuff the turkeys with beechnuts?
+There is store of them up at our cottage."
+
+"How came they there? Doth our doughty Captain go birds-nesting and
+nutting in his by-times?"
+
+"Nay, but I did, that is, I gathered the nuts for thee, and then--then
+feared if I offered them thou 'dst only flout me"--
+
+"Oh, sure never was a poor maid so bestead with blind men--well, fetch
+thy beechnuts."
+
+"Nay, Priscilla, but blind, blind? How then am I blind, maiden, say?"
+
+"Why, not to have discovered ere this how I dote upon beechnuts. There,
+get thee gone for them."
+
+The dressing of beechnuts proved a rare success, but the preparation
+proved so long a process that only the delicate young bird made ready
+for the table where Mistress Brewster presided was thus honored,
+although in after times Priscilla often made what she called
+goose-dressing; and when a few years later some sweet potatoes were
+brought to Plymouth from the Carolinas, she at once adopted them for the
+same purpose.
+
+And so the festival went on for its appointed length of three days, and
+perhaps the hearty fellowship and good will manifested by the white men
+toward their guests, and their determination to meet them on the ground
+of common interests and sympathies, went quite as far as their evident
+superiority in arms and resources toward establishing the deep-founded
+and highly valued peace, without which the handful of white men could
+never have made good their footing upon that stern and sterile coast.
+
+On the Saturday the feast was closed by a state dinner whose composition
+taxed Priscilla as head cook to the limit of her resources, and with
+flushed cheek and knitted brow she moved about among her willing
+assitants with all the importance of a Bechamel, a Felix, the
+_maître-d'hôtel_ of Cardinal Fesch with his two turbots, or luckless
+Vatel who fell upon his sword and died because he had no turbot at all;
+or even, rising in the grandeur of the comparison, we may liken her to
+Domitian, who, weary of persecuting Christians, one day called the Roman
+Senate together to decide with him upon the sauce with which another
+historic turbot should be dressed.
+
+Some late arrivals among the Indians had that morning brought in several
+large baskets of the delicious oysters for which Wareham is still
+famous, and although it was an unfamiliar delicacy to her, Priscilla,
+remembering a tradition brought from Ostend to Leyden by some travelers,
+compounded these with biscuit-crumbs, spices, and wine, and was looking
+about for an iron pan wherein to bake them, when Elizabeth Tilley
+brought forward some great clam and scallop shells which John Howland
+had presented to her, just as now a young man might offer a unique
+Sèvres tea-set to the lady of his love.
+
+"Wouldn't it do to fill these with thy oyster compote, and so set them
+in the ashes to roast?" inquired she. "Being many they can be laid at
+every man's place at table."
+
+"Why, 't is a noble idea, child," exclaimed Priscilla eagerly. "'T will
+be a novelty, and will set off the board famously. Say you not so,
+John?"
+
+"Ay," returned Alden, who was busily opening the oysters at her side.
+"And more by token there is a magnificence in the idea that thou hast
+not thought on; for as at a great man's table the silver dishes each
+bear the crest of his arms, so we being Pilgrims and thus privileged to
+wear the scallop shell in our hats, do rather choose to display it upon
+our board."
+
+"Ah, John, thou hast an excellent wit--in _some_ things," replied
+Priscilla with a half sigh which set the young fellow wondering for an
+hour.
+
+By noon the long tables were spread, and still the sweet warm air of the
+"Indian Summer" made the out-of-door feast not only possible but
+charming, for the gauzy veil upon the distant forest, and the marine
+horizon, and the curves of Captain's Hill, seemed to shut in this little
+scene from all the world of turmoil and danger and fatigue, while the
+thick yellow sunshine filtered through with just warmth enough for
+comfort, and the sighing southerly breeze brought wafts of perfume from
+the forest, and bore away, as it wandered northward, the peals of
+laughter, the merry yet discreet songs, and the multitudinous hum of
+blithe voices, Saxon and savage, male and female, adult and childish,
+that filled the dreamy air.
+
+The oysters in their scallop shells were a singular success, and so were
+the mighty venison pasties, and the savory stew compounded of all that
+flies the air, and all that flies the hunter in Plymouth woods, no
+longer flying now but swimming in a glorious broth cunningly seasoned by
+Priscilla's anxious hand, and thick bestead with dumplings of barley
+flour, light, toothsome, and satisfying. Beside these were roasts of
+various kinds, and thin cakes of bread or manchets, and bowls of salad
+set off with wreaths of autumn leaves laid around them, and great
+baskets of grapes, white and purple, and of the native plum, so
+delicious when fully ripe in its three colors of black, white, and red.
+With these were plentiful flagons of ale, for already the housewives had
+laid down the first brewing of the native brand, and had moreover
+learned of the Indians to concoct a beverage akin to what is now called
+root beer, well flavored with sassafras, of which the Pilgrims had been
+glad to find good store since it brought a great price in the English
+market.
+
+It was during the last half hour of this feast that Desire Minter, who
+with the other girls served the tables where the men sat at meat, placed
+a little silver cup at Captain Standish's right hand saying,--
+
+"Priscilla sends you some shrub, kind sir, of her own composition, and
+prays you drink her health."
+
+"Why, then, 't is kind of her who hath been most unkind of late,"
+returned Myles, upon whose seasoned brain the constant potations of
+three days had wrought to lull suspicion and reserve, and taking the cup
+he tossed off its contents at a draught, and rising bowed toward
+Priscilla who was flitting in and out among the tables. She returned the
+salute with a little air of surprise, and Myles reseating himself turned
+to question Desire again, but she had departed carrying the cup with
+her.
+
+"Nay, then, I'll be toyed with no longer," muttered the Captain angrily,
+and although he bore his part in the closing ceremonies with which the
+governor bade a cordial and even affectionate farewell to the king, the
+prince, their nobles, and their following, there was a glint in his eye
+and a set to his lips that would have told one who knew him well that
+the spirit of the man was roused and not lightly to be laid to rest
+again.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVII.
+
+A LOVE PHILTRE.
+
+
+The last pniese had made his uncouth obeisance and departed, and busy
+hands were removing all signs of the late commotion in haste that the
+setting sun should find the village ready for its Sunday rest and peace,
+when Myles Standish suddenly presented himself before Priscilla Molines
+as she came up from the spring with a pile of wooden trenchers in her
+hands.
+
+"Mistress Molines a word with you," began he with an unconscious
+imperiousness that at once aroused the girl's rebellious spirit.
+
+"Nay, Captain, I am not of your train band, and your business must await
+my pleasure and convenience. Now, I am over busy."
+
+"Nay, then, if I spoke amiss I crave your pardon, mistress, and had we
+more time I would beat my brains for some of the flowery phrases I used
+to hear among the court gallants who came to learn war in Flanders. But
+I also have business almost as weighty as thine and as little able to
+brook delay. So I pray you of your courtesy to set down your platters on
+this clean sod, and listen patiently to me for a matter of five
+minutes."
+
+"I am listening, sir."
+
+"Nay, put down the platters or let me put them down."
+
+"There then, and glad am I"--
+
+"Of what, mistress?"
+
+"That I'm not often under thy orders, sir."
+
+"Ah! But we'll waste no time in skirmishing, fair enemy. Tell me rather
+what didst mean by the loving-cup thou sendst me? May I take it sooth
+and truly as relenting on thy part?"
+
+"I send you a loving-cup, sir!" exclaimed the girl, her eyes flashing,
+and her color rising.
+
+"Yes. Call it by what name you will; I mean the cup Desire Minter
+brought me from thee, with a message that I should drink thy health."
+
+"Loth were I to think, Captain Standish, that you would willfully insult
+a maid with none to defend her, and so I will charitably suppose that
+you have been forced to drink too many healths to guard well thine own.
+Good e'en, sir."
+
+"Now by the God that made us both, wench, I'll have an end of this. Nay,
+not one step dost thou stir until you or I are laid in a lie."
+
+"A lie, Captain Standish!"
+
+"Mayhap my own lie. I say that Desire Minter brought me a silver cup of
+some sweet posset, such as you have made for our sick folk time and
+again, and bade me from you quaff it to your health."
+
+"And that is God's truth, say you, sir?"
+
+"Mistress Molines, my word has not often been doubted, and you force me
+to remind you that I come not of mechanical"--
+
+"Nay, nay, stop there, an' it please you, sir! We'll unwind this coil
+before we snarl another. Fear not that my base mechanical blood shall
+ever sully your noble strain; but mean though I be, my habit is a
+tolerably truthful one, and I tell you once and for all that I sent you
+no cup, I made you no posset, I desired no health drunk by you."
+
+"Nay, then, what hath this girl Desire wrought? And truth to tell
+Priscilla, I fear me 't is poison, for a shrewd pain seizeth me ever and
+anon, and a strange heaviness is in my head."
+
+"And there's a sultry color on your cheek--nay, then, we'll see the
+surgeon"--
+
+"And thou 'lt forgive whatever I have said amiss, Priscilla, for mayhap
+I'll trouble thee no more. Like enough she hath revenged herself"--
+
+"For your scorn of her love," interposed Priscilla vivaciously. "Like
+enough, like enough. Come to the house, Captain, and let us take counsel
+with the dear mother. She still knows best."
+
+"Go thou, Priscilla. It hardly beseems a man and a soldier to seek
+redress for a wench's love scratch at the hands of an old woman--nay,
+nay, fire not up afresh! No one can honor Mistress Brewster more than I
+do, but tell me, is she a man or is she young? Sooth now, Priscilla!"
+
+"And still in thy masterful mood thou 'lt have the last word, doughty
+Captain. But go you home, then, and bid John Alden make a fire and heat
+a good kettle of water, and I'll away to the mother who will deal with
+Desire in short measure."
+
+"'T is good counsel and I'll follow it, for in sober sadness I feel
+strangely amiss." And the soldier, who now was as livid as he had been
+flushed, strode away up the hill, while Priscilla picking up the
+trenchers fled like a lapwing into the house where she found Desire
+seated sullenly in a corner, while the elder, his wife, and the governor
+were gathered together near the fire cozily discussing the events of
+the day. Standing before them and restraining her natural vivacity that
+it might not discredit the importance of her story, Priscilla in brief
+and pungent phrases told the story of the loving draught, and as Desire
+rose and stole toward the door laid a hand upon her arm that effectually
+detained her until the elder sternly said,--
+
+"Remain you here, Desire Minter, until this report is sifted."
+
+"Were it not well to send at once for our good physician, that he may
+know what hath been done before he sees the captain?" suggested Bradford
+mildly, and the elder assenting, Priscilla was dispatched for doctor
+Fuller, who arrived within the minute, and listened with profound
+attention, while Mistress Brewster, to whom alone the girl would reply,
+extracted from her a most startling story.
+
+"The captain first of all asked me to wife, and if he had not been wiled
+away from me by artful"--
+
+"Nay, nay, Desire, thou 'rt not to say such things as that," interposed
+the dame with gentle severity, and Bradford added in much the same
+tone,--
+
+"'T was thine own idle fancy, girl, that set thee on such a notion. The
+captain hath averred to me as Christian man that he never made proffer
+to thee nor wished so to do since first he set eyes on thee."
+
+"He did then," muttered Desire sullenly, and Mistress Brewster
+interposed.
+
+"Leaving that aside, tell us, Desire, what didst thou give the captain
+to drink, and why didst say that Priscilla sent it?"
+
+"Marry, because she hath bewitched him, and I wot well he would take it
+from her without gainsaying."
+
+"But what was it thou gavest him?"
+
+"'T was--there was a wench here with the savages, and Squanto told me
+she was a wise woman and knew how to work spells"--
+
+"Well then, go on, Desire."
+
+"And so I went with her pulling herbs in the fields and swamps, and with
+one word English and one of jabber, we knew each other's meaning, and I
+gave her the buckle of my belt which was broke and none here could mend
+it."
+
+"A generous gift, truly," interposed the elder, but his wife beseeching
+silence with a gesture asked,--
+
+"And what gave she thee, Desire?"
+
+"Some herbs, mother."
+
+"And what were the herbs to do?"
+
+"She said steep them well, and give the broth to any man I fancied, and
+it would turn his fancy on me."
+
+"A love philtre! _Vade retrograde Sathanas!_" exclaimed the elder half
+rising from his chair, but here the doctor eagerly interposed,--
+
+"What like was the herb, girl? Hast any of it in store for a second
+dose?"
+
+"Mayhap--a little," muttered Desire twisting and turning, but seeing no
+means of escape.
+
+"Go and fetch it," commanded the elder. "And Priscilla do thou go too
+and see that the wretched creature doth not make way with it."
+
+"And sith John Howland is after a sort betrothed to the poor bemused
+child, I think it well to summon him, that he may advise with us as to
+the sequela of this folly. I will call him to the Council." And Bradford
+followed the two girls from the room.
+
+"If she hath murdered the captain, she shall die the death," exclaimed
+the elder striding about the room, and pausing before the great chair
+where his pale and fragile wife sat looking up at him with beseeching
+eyes.
+
+"Nay, William, she is hardly older than our own dear girls, and it would
+ill become us who still carry our own lives in our hands to deprive a
+poor silly maid of hers."
+
+"So the best road out of the maze is to cure the captain," remarked
+Doctor Fuller dryly. "After that we'll marry the girl to John Howland,
+and trust him to keep her quiet. Here they come."
+
+And in at the open door came the governor and Howland, Desire and
+Priscilla, who carried in her hand a little box full of half-dried
+leaves, which she presented to the doctor, who solemnly pulling from his
+pocket a pair of clumsy iron-bowed spectacles put them astride his nose,
+and taking the herbs to the window carefully examined them, while all
+the rest stood anxiously around staring with all their might.
+
+"Hm! Hah! Yes, well yes, I see, I see!" murmured the botanist, and then
+turning to Bradford he fixed him with a meditative gaze over the tops of
+his barnacles and said,--
+
+"You know something of botany, Governor. Say you not that this is the
+_Platanthera Satyrion_, the herb supposed to give vigor to the hearts of
+those wild men whom the mythologists celebrate?"
+
+"Is it? I should have taken it for the iris whose flower I have noted in
+these swamps."
+
+"'T is akin, ay, distant kin, but with the difference that maketh one
+harmless, and 't other deadly. I will take it to Sister Winslow's house
+and examine it with my books, but still I can aver at once that 't is
+Platanthera; and if it is also Satyrion I will promise that it shall
+prove only nauseous and distasteful to our good Captain, and by no means
+deadly. I will go to see him."
+
+"And John Howland," said the Governor turning toward the young man who
+stood looking with aversion at the figure of Desire, who with her head
+in her apron wept loud and angrily, "it seemeth to me that since this
+maid is betrothed to you, and is manifestly unfit to guide herself, that
+it is best for you to marry her here, and now, and after that train her
+into more discretion than she naturally showeth."
+
+"May it please you, Master Bradford, and you, Elder," replied Howland
+coldly, "it seemeth to me that a woman who shows so little modesty in
+the pursuit of one man is scarce fit wife for another. I did indeed
+promise my late dear mistress whose ward this girl was, that I would
+care for her, and if need be take her to wife; but sure am I that if
+that godly and discreet matron could know of all this, she would hold me
+free of my bonds, the rather that I have never looked upon her with that
+tenderness that God putteth in our hearts toward those"--
+
+"Nay, then, if it comes to that," interposed Desire, snatching away her
+apron and showing a swollen and tear-stained face, "I hate and despise
+thee, John Howland, and always have and always will; and if I took thee
+for my bachelor at all it was only in hope that 't would give a jealous
+twinge to the heart of a better man, and if at the last I failed of him
+thou wouldst be better than none; but I've changed my mind, and now I'll
+none of thee, not if ne'er another man"--
+
+"Peace, shameless wench!" thundered the elder, striking the table with
+his hand. "Profane not the ears of a decent matron with such talk. John
+Howland, it is my rede that thou art free of thy pledge to marry this
+woman. What say you, Governor?"
+
+"I agree with you, Elder Brewster, that since both man and maid desire
+to render back their troth that they should be permitted so to do; and I
+further suggest that by the first occasion presenting, Desire Minter be
+sent back to her friends in England, who will, as Mistress Carver told
+me, be content to receive her."
+
+"Amen!" ejaculated John Howland with such unction that Bradford gravely
+smiled as he followed him from the room, and murmured under his
+breath,--"He will wed Elizabeth Tilley, an' I'm not mistaken."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVIII.
+
+PHILIP DE LA NOYE.
+
+
+"'T is a year agone to-day since we in the Mayflower sighted land in
+this place," said Bradford to Standish, as the two stood beside the gun
+just fired for sunset when all obligatory labor ended in the village.
+
+"Ay, is it so? Well, it hath been a year of note in more ways than one,
+and the next is like to be as adventurous. Ha! Look you there, Bradford!
+Dost see that Indian runner breasting the hill. Some great news,
+surely,--come, let us go to meet him."
+
+"Squanto is before us. See him leap the brook"--
+
+But Standish was already half way down the hill, and presently in the
+open space already spoken of as the Town Square he and two or three of
+the other leaders met the runner, who escorted by Squanto came panting
+up the hill from the brook, and after the usual salutations informed the
+governor that he was sent from Aspinet, sachem of the Nausets, to inform
+the white men that a vessel had been watched feeling her way through the
+shoals around Cape Cod, and was now laying her course apparently for
+Plymouth. Not knowing whether this might be good or bad news, the sachem
+had felt it a friendly act to convey it to his new allies with the
+greatest possible dispatch.
+
+"And he did well, and both he and thou shall see that we are not
+ungrateful," replied Bradford courteously. "Tisquantum, take this man
+to the Common house, and see that he is suitably refreshed. And now,
+brethren, what meaneth this? Is it indeed good news or bad?"
+
+"Bad," replied Standish promptly. "For well do we know that no relief
+was to be sent us until our friends the traders had seen the first
+fruits of their Adventure, and as we perforce sent home the Mayflower
+empty, I for one expect to hear no more from Cheapside unless it be a
+rating."
+
+"There hath not been time for the Mayflower to go and return, were our
+friends never so willing to aid us," suggested the elder pacifically.
+
+"Then what think you, men?" persisted Bradford. "Allerton, Winslow,
+Warren, what say ye all?"
+
+"We know that the French are at war with England," suggested Winslow.
+"And this may be a privateer coming to harry the settlement."
+
+"In that case it were well to hide whatever we have of value and retreat
+to the woods with the women and children," said Allerton turning pale.
+
+"And leave our housen, and the Fort and its armament, and our boats!"
+exclaimed Standish contemptuously. "Nay, Governor, my counsel is that we
+at once arm ourselves, train what guns we can upon the offing, and if
+these indeed be buccaneers, French, Spanish, or Turks, receive them with
+a volley that shall leave little work for a second one. The women and
+children may retreat to the woods, and he who has any pots, or cups, or
+pans of value may bury them an' he chooses. My best treasures are Gideon
+and my snaphance, and I cannot spare them so long as I live to wield
+them."
+
+"That's the chat that suits me, neighbor," declared Hopkins in his
+usual rough, hearty fashion, while Allerton, an unwonted tinge of color
+upon his sallow cheek, hastened to avow himself as ready for fighting as
+any man since fighting was decided to be the best policy.
+
+And now Standish assumed control of the occasion and showed himself in
+his most becoming attitude. His quick eyes and ready hands were
+everywhere, and the somewhat sharp and terse military orders that
+sometimes had seemed a thought arbitrary now carried assurance in their
+tone, and strengthened the hearts of some and supported the
+determination of others, who left to themselves would have scattered
+like sheep without a leader.
+
+"Let each man arm and harness himself and report for inspection in the
+Town Square," was the first order, and while it was obeyed the Captain
+climbed the hill carrying the "perspective glass" made by Galileo
+himself during his exile in Holland, and brought to the new world by
+Governor Carver, whose widow bequeathed it to the colony as one of its
+chief treasures.
+
+He was followed by William Trevor, one of the seamen hired by the colony
+for a year, a fellow of quick eyesight and undaunted courage. The
+Captain silently and carefully adjusted his lenses, and then handed the
+glass to Trevor.
+
+"Now you, Bill, clap your eye to that and get it on yon headland,
+Farther Manomet, d' ye see?"
+
+"Ay, Captain, I have it, and can count the squirrels on the tree tops."
+
+"Canst tell a ship's topmast from a squirrel if one should heave in
+sight?"
+
+"Mayhap I could, master."
+
+"Well, then, watch for it, and so soon as any craft of any color, be it
+one of your squirrels on a chip, an Indian in a canoe, or a French
+man-of-war, send this boy Cooke tumbling down the hill to bring the
+news. Now, man, show thy discretion and thy wit."
+
+"Ay, ay, Captain, you may trust Bill Trevor for a keen lookout. When I
+sailed aboard a whaler"--
+
+But already the Captain was out of hearing, and presently was inspecting
+his little army, mustered in the Town Square, each man armed and
+armored.
+
+Drawn up in two ranks the twenty men presented a striking array, for in
+the forefront stood the governor, the elder, the surgeon, Winslow,
+Allerton, Warren, Hopkins, Howland, Alden, and Peter Browne, ancestor of
+John Brown of Ossawatomie; while the file closers, if not men of equal
+note in affairs, were each one a sturdy and determined Englishman, ready
+to fight till the death and never guess that he could be conquered.
+
+The inspection over, the train band was dismissed with orders to stand
+ready to reassemble at a moment's warning, and meantime to make such
+dispositions of private property as seemed good to each man.
+
+Hardly was this order obeyed when from the Fort came Trevor's sonorous
+hail,--
+
+"Sail ho!" and presently young Cooke came pelting down the hill
+reporting with a military salute to the captain.
+
+"Trevor saith, sir, that a ship of not over sixty ton is drawing around
+Manomet, and that she flieth no colors as yet."
+
+"Ha! Let us see then, let us see!" cried the captain, and two minutes
+later was at the top of the hill, glass in hand.
+
+"Hm! Square rigged, slender built--what say you, Trevor, is she a
+Frenchman?"
+
+"More like a Dutchman to my mind, sir."
+
+"Ah, then were we all right, and with a goodly new store of schnapps to
+comfort our souls, but my mind misdoubts me. Now let us see if we can
+train this saker to command the offing. Boy, run down the hill and fetch
+Billington and Master Hopkins. 'T will do no harm, and may--ay, this
+minion will sweep the Rock like a new broom. Here, Billington, come on
+man and lend me thy bull's neck and shoulders. I would shift the
+carriage of this saker. Ho, Hopkins, give us a little help here. There
+yeo-ho, men! Again, now then--yeo-ho! Now we have it, now! There, settle
+her in place, that's it, there! Now then, Trevor, how about the
+Frenchman?"
+
+"She is laying her course for this harbor, Captain. You may see her
+without the glass well enow, for she's going about to fetch Beach
+Point."
+
+"Is tide high enow to carry her over Brown's Islands, as Champlain
+calleth the outer flats?" asked Hopkins, who by fits liked to appear
+erudite.
+
+"Ay, 't is full water at noon to-day," replied Trevor, his eye glued to
+the glass.
+
+"Now then, now then, here she is making straight into the harbor,"
+exclaimed Standish excitedly, and plunging down the hill followed by the
+rest, he made signal to Bart Allerton standing expectant at his own door
+to sound the "assembly" upon the trumpet which he had learned to manage
+with great precision.
+
+Ten minutes later the whole array of fighting men stood steady in their
+ranks, with the larger boys hanging in the rear, each carrying a spare
+gun, or some other weapon, and all eyes fixed upon the point where the
+stranger would appear as she beat her way into the harbor.
+
+Suddenly the captain waved his hand above his head, glancing up at the
+Fort where, under the folds of the British standard, stood Trevor,
+linstock in hand. Another moment, and out from the hoarse throat of the
+saker roared a defiant peal echoing grandly from hill to hill, startling
+the savages who covertly watched the arrival of new foes or new friends
+as the case might be, and rolling ominously across the waters of the
+harbor to demand the name of the intruder.
+
+"They be busy with their ancient-staff," reported Trevor presently, as
+he resumed the spy-glass. "There goes the bunting--ha--ay--run boy, and
+tell the captain 't is the red cross of Merrie England; 't is the home
+colors, boy!"
+
+But already the eager eyes in the Town Square had recognized the flag,
+and Standish lapsing from the martinet into the exile waved Gideon above
+his head shouting,--
+
+"'T is our own flag, men; 't is the red cross of Old England! Three
+cheers boys, three cheers for the dear old flag! Now then!"
+
+And the glad shout arose, and again and again, not only from the bearded
+throats of men, but in the shrill treble of boys, and the dainty voices
+of girls, who just out of sight watched as women do, when life and honor
+hang in the balance.
+
+"Oh Mary, Mary maid, why art thou crying! Silly wench"--
+
+"Nay, but thou 'rt crying thyself, Priscilla! Nay, now thou 'rt
+laughing!"
+
+"To think how John Alden turned white as any maid when the good news
+came!" sobbed Priscilla running in to fling her arms around Dame
+Brewster, who sat with folded hands and rapt face praying to the God of
+battles.
+
+"Oh mother, mother, they all are safe, and 't is an English ship.
+Belike, Fear and Patience and their brother are aboard."
+
+"Nay, dear maid, nay, be not so carried away. If indeed God sendeth my
+children"--
+
+But the mere thought of such joy was too much for the self-control the
+poor mother so struggled for, and when the elder hastened into the house
+he found his wife weeping for joy upon Priscilla's heaving breast.
+
+"Nay then, wife, nay then, doest thou well?--and yet mine own eyes might
+but too easily rain with gratitude. Dame, wife I say, nay then--let us
+pray that in all things His will be done."
+
+And in less than an hour Mary Brewster was sobbing afresh in the
+stalwart embrace of her eldest son Jonathan, a young fellow of
+five-and-thirty, who full of health and courage was come to be the staff
+of her old age, and to bring news of the fair sisters who would come
+anon.
+
+For this was the Fortune, a little ship of fifty-five tons, dispatched
+by the Adventurers in London to carry over some of the colonists
+disappointed of a passage in the Mayflower, but principally to convey
+Robert Cushman, who came pledged to obtain the consent of the Pilgrims
+to a contract more favorable to their English friends than that they
+were disposed to undertake. With him came his son Thomas, a boy of
+fourteen, whom his father upon his hasty return in the Fortune left
+behind under charge of the governor, to whom he subsequently wrote, "I
+pray you care for my son as for your own;" and so well did Bradford
+train the boy soon orphaned and left entirely to his charge, that
+Thomas Cushman became successor of William Brewster as Ruling Elder of
+the Pilgrim Church, and now lies on Burying Hill beneath a goodly
+monument erected by his numerous descendants.
+
+But little on that bleak November day recked the boy of future honors or
+proud posterities, for he and his friend Thomas Prence, future governor
+of the colony, but then a merry youth of nineteen, were hand and glove
+with a gay company of lads and young men who had accepted the adventure
+of Pilgrimage as they would have sailed with Drake, or Hawkins, or
+Captain Cooke,--any leader who promised novelty, excitement, and the
+chance of hard knocks and treasure.
+
+So little responsible for their own welfare were many of these younkers
+that, although fairly fitted out for the voyage, they had while
+weather-bound in the British Channel gone ashore at Old Plymouth and
+"brushed away" even their cloaks and extra doublets, in some cases their
+very bedding and such cooking utensils as passengers were then expected
+to provide themselves with. So far from bringing fresh supplies of food
+to the colony, these runagates had devoured perforce the provisions that
+should have victualed the Fortune on her return voyage, and the
+colonists were forced for humanity's sake, to supply her out of their
+own scanty stock.
+
+Among these young fellows was a slight, dark-eyed lad of about nineteen,
+who so soon as he had landed asked for the Demoiselle Molines.
+
+"Priscilla Molines? Dost thou know her then?" inquired Alden who heard
+the question, although addressed to Billington, who only grinned at the
+lad's French accent and made no reply.
+
+"Certainly, yes. My sister is of her closest friends."
+
+"Ay? Is thy name De la Noye?"
+
+"Truly!" exclaimed the boy, his face lighting vivaciously. "I am Philip
+de la Noye."
+
+"Hm, and your brother Jacques--is he in the company, or coming in the
+next ship?" asked Alden grimly; but at that moment Priscilla coming
+swiftly forward, held out both hands to the new-comer exclaiming
+joyously in French,--
+
+"Philip, dear lad! Glad am I to see thee."
+
+"She will have news now from her lover," muttered Alden bitterly, but
+just then the captain hailed,--
+
+"Here Jack, put thy long legs and brawny thews to service in bringing
+some of these budgets up the hill. Here's a poor soul with three little
+children tugging at her skirts and she a widow, and fit to be put to bed
+herself."
+
+"I'll help her up the hill, Captain," interposed Peter Browne hastily,
+and as he carefully aided the Widow Ford to climb the steep ascent some
+sprite might have whispered in his ear that this was his own future
+wife. That night was born Martha Ford, who should from similarity of
+history have married Peregrine White, but who instead wedded William
+Nelson.
+
+Not until the last bale or packet unloaded from the Fortune had been
+disposed of in the Common storehouse, or in some one of the houses all
+hospitably thrown open to the new-comers, did John Alden cease his
+labors or exchange more than a brief word with those about him, until at
+last Bradford cheerily declared labor over for the day and added,--
+
+"Come friends to my house, and hear what Master Cushman will have to
+tell us of affairs in the old home. Come Alden, and reward thy labors
+with a good flagon of beer."
+
+Muttering some reply, the young man followed the rest up Leyden Street,
+but as they reached the governor's house, a somewhat larger and more
+important cabin than the rest, he passed quickly on and up the hill.
+Pausing but a moment at the Fort, he struck down the steep southerly
+side to the brook, and having performed his simple toilet strode moodily
+on toward the forest, but had only gone a few rods when a familiar voice
+called his name, and turning he saw Priscilla with Mary Chilton and the
+young Frenchman, to whom they seemed to be showing the brook and its
+springs of "delicate water."
+
+Very reluctantly Alden turned and moved toward them.
+
+"Did you speak, Mistress Mary?" inquired he as the party approached.
+
+"I--I," stammered Mary blushing vividly.
+
+"It was I who bade her do so," interposed Priscilla with an impatient
+glance at the English girl whose honesty had spoiled her little finesse.
+"We thought you looked but dull, and I would fain bring my new-arrived
+friend Philip De la Noye to your acquaintance."
+
+The two men exchanged salutations, Philip with the ready grace of a
+Latin, John with that distinguishing a Saxon, especially if displeased.
+
+"We are strolling about a bit before making ready for supper," added
+Priscilla. "Philip is curious as to our manner of life in these wilds."
+
+"'T is but ill suited to slender folk," replied Alden glancing
+superciliously at the slight stripling, who, for his part, surveyed with
+a sort of amused wonder the thews and stature of the young giant
+striding sullenly at Priscilla's other hand.
+
+"Nay, we do not pack diamonds in bales like hay," retorted Priscilla
+stingingly, and then turning to Philip she inquired eagerly,--
+
+"And Jacques and Guillaume are well, quite, quite well, are they?"
+
+"Yes, and Marie and Jeanne," replied Philip placidly.
+
+"And have you news from friends at home, Mary?" asked John decidedly
+moving to her side.
+
+"Nay, there are none left there of my nearest kin," replied the girl
+sadly. "We came all of us together, and only I am left."
+
+"Nay, Mary, so fair and so good a maid as thou, will never stay long
+without friends. Thou wouldst never flout an honest fellow's love and
+draw him on, and turn him back, and use him worse than a baby doth its
+puppet. The man who loves thee will never rue it."
+
+So meaning were his glances and his tone, that for a moment the simple
+maid stood aghast. Could it be that Alden's constancy had given out, and
+he was now ready to woo her instead of her friend; but in another moment
+the truth dawned upon her, and with more diplomacy than she often showed
+Mary smiled and shook her head.
+
+"I know not, for love and sweethearts have not come my way yet. 'T is
+Priscilla whom all men seek, and she in merry mood listeth to all and
+still keepeth her own mind secret. She is well content to-night, for
+this lad hath brought news of his brother's marriage."
+
+"What, the fellow they call Jacques?" demanded John glancing eagerly
+toward the other couple now walking some paces in advance.
+
+"Ay, and Guillaume is betrothed, and Jeanne. They are dear friends of
+our Priscilla."
+
+"But--but--nay, then, maid Mary, have compassion on a poor stupid oaf
+who is no match for her or you or any woman in subtlety and fence, and
+yet loveth yon maid as it is not well for man to love aught but his
+Maker. Tell me, doth she care aught for me?"
+
+"Nay, John, that is a question none but she should answer, but yet I may
+tell thee thus much. The news she hath to-day may embolden thee to ask
+again."
+
+"Good wench, true friend!" exclaimed Alden, his whole face lighting with
+a new hope. "And now as we turn toward home, if thou wouldst but engage
+yon boy's attention, and let me essay while hope is strong and courage
+fresh, I will put my fate once more to the touch and know if joy and I
+are henceforth partners, or the coldest of strangers."
+
+"Ah, lad, thou lovest her overmuch," replied Mary, letting her placid
+blue eyes rest upon him half curiously, half enviously. "No man will
+ever care for me like that, for I have not the skill to hide my mind as
+Priscilla hath. But I'll help thee, John, for I do believe thou 'lt make
+the dear maid happy if she will but stay in one mind long enough to wed
+thee."
+
+And in a few moments when the setting sun warned Priscilla that it was
+time to turn homeward, and the two parties came together, Mary showed
+Philip De la Noye the strawberry plants of which he had asked, and so
+detained him for a moment, while John walking on with Priscilla
+impatiently began,--
+
+"Wilt answer me one little question in good faith, mistress?"
+
+"In good faith if at all, John."
+
+"Then, what bond is there betwixt thee and this lad's brother Jacques?"
+
+"None save good will and old acquaintance."
+
+"But there was."
+
+"Was there?"
+
+"Nay now, Priscilla, I speak to thee in sober sadness, and I ask such
+reply as honest maid should give to honest man who woos her for his
+wife. If we fall to quips and cranks and wordy play, thou 'rt so far out
+of my reach that I know not if I ever come near thee, for I'm but a
+plain simple fellow, Priscilla, and I love thee more than I love aught
+else but God and the truth. Give me now a plain answer and have pity of
+my misery. Has aught of this lad's news changed thy will or thy intent
+toward me?"
+
+And Priscilla moving slowly along beside her wooer shot a rapid sidelong
+glance at his white face, and for the first time in their acquaintance
+felt a thrill of respect akin to fear, sweep in his direction across her
+gay self-assertive nature.
+
+"Yes, John, I will answer thee truly and soberly," replied she in a
+voice he had never heard from her before. "Philip De la Noye hath
+brought news that sets me free from a teasing obligation of which no man
+knows. Marie and Jeanne, his sisters, are my dear friends and gossips,
+and their brother Jacques would fain have been my bachelor in Leyden,
+but I was too young my father said to listen to such talk, and he cared
+not greatly for Jacques, who was to tell truth somewhat gay and debonair
+of temper, and no church member, no, not he. So when we parted from
+Leyden to come hither, and I went to bid good-by to my friends, James,
+as you call him in English, would fain have me promise to wed no man but
+him, and he would come hither so soon as he was his own master."
+
+"And didst promise, Priscilla?"
+
+"Well, nay and yea, John. I said I knew not what might meet me here,
+and--but at long and at last I promised to wait until the first ship had
+followed us, and if Jacques came in her I would--would listen to him
+again."
+
+"And that was all thy promise, maiden?"
+
+"Ay, and enough, for before we landed on yonder Rock, and 't was Mary
+Chilton and not thee, John, who first skipt ashore"--
+
+"Oh, mind not that just now, Priscilla."
+
+"Well, before I myself came ashore I knew that I cared not for Jacques
+De la Noye. Beside the deathbed of my mother, and again by that of my
+brother, I knew that life was darker and deeper than he could fathom."
+
+"Ay, maid, and nobly didst thou bear that sorry load of woe and care."
+
+Priscilla's color rose, and her dark eyes flashed a message of thanks,
+but without other reply she went steadily on,--
+
+"And so soon as Philip saw me, he delivered himself of the news that
+Jacques, some three months since, was wed at Saint Peter's Church to
+Gertrude Bartholmei, a merry Flemish maid, who ever looked kindly on
+him, and now is welcome to him."
+
+"Say you that honestly, Priscilla?"
+
+"As honestly as thyself could speak, lad."
+
+"And thou 'rt heart-whole?"
+
+"Nay, I said not exactly that."
+
+"What! Dost really care for the captain?"
+
+"As I care for the governor and the doctor; no more, no less."
+
+"Priscilla, wilt be my wife?"
+
+"Nay then, John, why didst not ask that at first rather than at last?
+Thou 'rt too fond of quip and quirk and wordy warfare, John, too much
+given to fence and intrigue."
+
+"I, Priscilla! Nay then, I'll not be turned aside again, try as thou
+wilt. Priscilla, wilt be my wife?"
+
+"Nay then, I never could bear a cuckoo song all on two notes, and if
+thou 'rt bound to say that phrase over and over till 't is answered"--
+
+"'T is just what I am bound to do. Priscilla, wilt be my wife?"
+
+"Yes, John, I will, and now I hope thou 'rt content."
+
+"Wait till I see thee alone this evening, and I'll tell thee how
+content. Oh, maiden"--
+
+"I will wait in what patience I may until that threatened evening hour,"
+interrupted Priscilla as restively as the young colt who, after long
+coquetting, at last feels the bridle slipped over his head. "Mary, an'
+thou hasten not there'll be little done toward supper at supper time.
+Desire is naught and less than naught now that she's going home, and
+Bessy Tilley thinketh only of John Howland, and the dear mother hath her
+son, so who is left but thee and me to do a hand's turn."
+
+"Here am I, Priscilla, and I'll help thee in any way thou 'lt say,"
+suggested John Alden a little presuming upon his recent acceptance, and
+for his pains receiving a snub that made him wince again, for Priscilla
+coldly replied,--
+
+"They say they came nigh bringing a Jack in the Fortune, but had no room
+for him; so thou mayst take his place, and fetch me a bucket of water
+from the spring. There's no mighty difference betwixt Jack and John."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIX.
+
+KEEPING CHRISTMAS.
+
+
+And now began a new epoch in the life of the colony. The passengers of
+the Fortune, thirty-five in number, although nominally of the same
+belief and manners as the Mayflower Pilgrims, were in effect a new
+element which, in spite of the generous efforts of the new-comers, did
+not readily assimilate with the sober and restrained tone natural to men
+who had suffered and struggled and conquered at such terrible loss to
+themselves, as had the first comers.
+
+A score of gay young fellows upon whom life sat so lightly that they
+cared not how they periled it, was no doubt a valuable acquisition to
+the fighting force of the colony, and almost upon the day of their
+arrival the Captain enrolled, divided, and began to train them, forming
+four companies of twelve men each, for some of the larger boys of the
+Mayflower were now enlisted, and this force of fifty men was at least
+once in every week led over to the Training Green across the brook, and
+there inspected, manoeuvred, marched and counter-marched, disciplined
+in prompt obedience and rapid movement; until the birds of the air who
+watched from the neighboring forest should have carried a warning to
+their co-aborigines, the Narragansetts, the Neponsets, the Namaskets,
+and the Manomets, not yet convinced, spite of the late warning, that the
+white man was their Fate against which it was but bitter defeat to
+struggle. The training over, each company in turn escorted the captain
+to his own quarters, and fired a salute of honor as he dismissed them.
+
+"'T is not for mine own glory, Will, as thou who knowest me will
+believe," said Standish, while the governor and he smoking a placid pipe
+on the evening of the first training, discussed the events of the day.
+"But in matters military even more than civil, it needs that one man
+should be at the head, and command the respectful observance as well as
+the obedience of those under his command. It is not Myles Standish whom
+the soldiers of Plymouth salute as he enters this poor hut, but the
+Captain of the Colony's forces."
+
+"Ay, ay, Myles, I know thy humility," replied Bradford with his smile of
+gentle subtlety. The captain shot an inquiring glance out of his
+red-brown eyes, and in turn laughed a little uncomfortably.
+
+"Nay now, thou 'rt laughing at me, Will. I claim no great meed of
+humility to be sure, and yet thou knowest lad, that if I could serve
+this emprise better by carrying a musket in the ranks"--
+
+"Nay now, old friend, may not I smile at some jest between myself and my
+pipe, but thou must tack more meaning to it than Brewster says hung on
+Lord Burleigh's nod? And yet in sober sadness, Myles, 't is marvel to me
+how thou, born to a great name and to such observance as awaits the
+children of wealthy houses, and then, when hardly more than a boy,
+placed in authority such as appertaineth to an English army officer in
+time of war, how thou hast failed to become more arrogant and peremptory
+than thou art. And as for a musket in the ranks, what were that to such
+offices as not yet a year agone I saw thee fill around the beds of the
+sick and dying in our first great plague? When had we a tenderer nurse,
+a more patient watcher? What office was too loathly for thee, what
+tendence too tiring?"--
+
+"Will, an' thou holdst not thy tongue I'll leave thee to thyself."
+
+"Thou 'lt never be so rude in thine own house, Myles. Such manners would
+ill befit a Standish of Standish."
+
+"Come now, Governor, do you disapprove of the salute, or of any other of
+my military ordonnances?"
+
+"I disapprove of naught, old comrade, but of a certain want of patience
+beneath a friend's jest which I have sometimes marked, and haply it is I
+who am at fault to try thee so; but Myles, there's enow to make the
+governor of this colony sorry and sober, and thou shouldst not grudge
+him a moment of merriment even at thine own cost."
+
+"Nor do I, as well thou knowest, Will. 'T is only that I am as ever a
+hot-headed fool and ill deserve a friend like thee. And now what thinkst
+thou of Master Cushman's errand, and the chidings of those London
+traders that we sent them not a cargo by the Mayflower? We who had much
+ado to dig the graves of half our company and to find food for the rest,
+to be rated like laggard servants because we laded not that old hulk
+with merchandise for their benefit."
+
+"Ay, Master Weston's letter was somewhat hard to bear, albeit we should
+excuse much to his ignorance of our surroundings," said Bradford
+placably, although the color rose to his cheek at thought of the
+injustice he and his friends had suffered. "I have writ a reply,"
+continued he, laying down his pipe and drawing a roll of paper from the
+pocket of his leathern jerkin, "and am fain to have your mind upon it,
+for I would not be over bitter, and yet was shrewdly wounded that John
+Carver lying in his honored grave should be so rudely attacked. Shall I
+read it?"
+
+"Ay, an' thou wilt, though I'm more than half in mind to take passage by
+the Fortune, and give Master Weston and the rest a reply after mine own
+fashion."
+
+"What, and leave the train band to its own destruction! But here you
+have my poor script:--
+
+   "To the worshipful Master Thos: Weston:
+
+   "Sir,--Your large letter written to Mr. Carver and dated the 16th of
+ July 1621 I have received the 20th of Nov'br, wherein you lay many
+ heavy imputations upon him and us all. Touching him he is departed this
+ life, and now is at rest in the Lord from all those troubles and
+ incumbrances with which we are yet to strive. He needs not my apology;
+ for his care and pains were so great for the common good both ours and
+ yours, as that therewith it is thought, he oppressed himself and
+ shortened his days of whose loss we cannot sufficiently complain. At
+ great charges in this Adventure I confess you have been, and many
+ losses you may sustain; but the loss of his and many other honest and
+ industrious mens lives cannot be valued at any price. Of the one there
+ may be hope of recovery, but the other no recompence can make good."
+
+"Oh, you're too mild, Bradford," burst out the captain as the reader
+paused and looked up for approval. "You should bombard him with red-hot
+shot, hurl a flight of grape, a volley of canister into his midst--nay
+then, but I'll go myself and with a blow of my gauntlet across Master
+Weston's ears"--
+
+"Captain--Captain Standish! Master Warren hath sent me to warn your
+worship that some of the new-comers are building a bonfire in the Town
+Square, and sprinkling the pile with powder"--
+
+"There, Myles, thou seest how well we can spare thee! Wouldst leave me
+at the mercy of these rough companions who"--
+
+But already the captain armed with a stout stick was half way down the
+hill, and, smiling quaintly to himself Bradford relighted his pipe and
+went home to finish his letter.
+
+A week later the Fortune sailed on her return voyage carrying Cushman,
+who left his son Thomas under Bradford's care until he should come
+again, not knowing that his next voyage should be across the shoreless
+sea whence no bark hath yet returned. Under his charge traveled Desire
+Minter, loudly proclaiming her joy at returning to regions "where a body
+might at least look for decent victual," and Humility Cooper, Elizabeth
+Tilley's little cousin. The two seamen, Trevor and Ely, also returned,
+their year of service having expired; but in spite of the dearth of
+provision, already imminent owing to the unprovided condition of the
+new-comers, not one of the Pilgrims embraced this opportunity of escape.
+
+Besides her passengers, the Fortune carried valuable freight consigned
+to Weston as agent of the Adventurers. The best room was given to
+sassafras root, of which the colonists had gathered great store, and
+with much rejoicing, for being just then the panacea of both French and
+English physicians, it was worth something like forty dollars of our
+present money per pound. Besides the sassafras were several hogsheads of
+beaver skins, also very valuable at that time, and the rest of the hold
+was filled with clapboards and other finished lumber, the whole cargo
+worth at least twenty-five hundred dollars. The most precious thing on
+board that little vessel however, if we except human life, was a
+manuscript journal written by William Bradford and Edward Winslow, and
+sent home to their friend George Morton in London, who, finding it too
+good to be kept to himself, had it printed the very same year by "John
+Bellamy at his shop at the Two Greyhounds, near the Royal Exchange,
+London," and as he did not give the names of its authors, nor bestow any
+distinctive title upon it, it came to be called "Mourt's Relation," and
+was the first book ever printed about that insignificant knot of
+emigrants in whom we now glory as the Forefathers of New England. But
+alas for human hopes, alas for the honest rejoicings of the Pilgrims in
+their goodly cargo, just before the Fortune sighted the English coast
+she was captured by a French cruiser and carried into Isle Dieu. Two
+weeks later the vessel, crew, and passengers were released, but the
+sassafras, the beaver skins, and the lumber went to heal and warm and
+house Frenchmen instead of Englishmen, and Thomas Weston's pockets still
+cried out with their emptiness. Happily for the world, however, the
+Frenchmen did not appreciate the "Relation," and it went peacefully on
+in Robert Cushman's mails, and reached good George Morton's hands.
+
+About a week after the sailing of the Fortune came Christmas Day, and
+Bradford doing on his clothing for a good day at lumbering allowed
+himself a half regretful memory of the sports and revelings with which
+he and the other youth of Austerfield had been wont to observe the
+Feast; but presently remembering his new beliefs, the Separatist leader
+murmured something about "rags of Popery," and went down to his
+breakfast.
+
+"Call the men together, Howland," ordered he in some displeasure as
+leaving his house axe in hand he found only his older comrades awaiting
+him. "Where are the new-comers? I see none of them."
+
+"An' it please you, Governor, Hicks and the rest of them say it goeth
+against their conscience to work on Christmas Day," reported Howland
+with a grim smile.
+
+For a moment Bradford frowned, but as he caught the gay glint of
+Standish's eyes his own softened, and after a brief pause he answered
+temperately,--
+
+"We will force no man's conscience. Tell Robert Hicks and the rest that
+I excuse them until they be better informed."
+
+At noon the wood-choppers returned to the village weary and hungry, for
+already had the entire company been placed upon half rations of food, so
+to continue until another cargo should arrive, or the next year's crop
+be ripe. Well for their endurance that they could not foresee that no
+farther cargo of provisions should ever arrive for them, from those who
+had undertaken to support them, and that the next year's crop should
+prove a failure. But now as they wearily toiled up the hill from the
+brookside, eager for the hour of rest and the scanty meal they were
+learning to value so highly, sounds of loud revelry and boisterous mirth
+fell upon their ears, sounds alien to their mood, their necessities, and
+on this day to their principles.
+
+"Those runagates are holding Christmas revels in spite of you,
+Governor," remarked Standish half jeeringly; while Hopkins, whose humor
+just now was not far removed from mutiny, muttered that if godless men
+were to play, he saw not why good Christians should be forced to work,
+call it Christmas Day or any other.
+
+"You are right, Hopkins, although somewhat discourteous in your
+rectitude," replied Bradford, and hasting forward he came in sight of
+the Town Square, where some fifteen or twenty of the Fortune passengers
+were amusing themselves at "stool-ball," a kind of cricket, at pitching
+the bar, wrestling, hopping-matches, and various other old English
+sports, many of which had been encouraged and even led by the governor
+in the late week of Thanksgiving. But now advancing into the midst, his
+air of serene authority as much as his uplifted hand imposing silence
+upon the merry rebels, who dropped their various implements, and tried
+in vain to appear at ease, Bradford looking from one to another quietly
+said,--
+
+"I told you this morning that if you made the keeping of Christmas Day
+matter of conscience, I should leave you alone until you were better
+informed; now, however, I warn you that it goeth against my conscience
+as governor of this colony to let idle men play while others work, and
+if indeed you find matter of devotion in the day ye shall keep it
+quietly and soberly in your housen. There shall be neither reveling nor
+gaming in the streets, and that I promise you. Let whosoever owneth
+these toys take them away and store them out of sight; and remember,
+men, that the Apostle saith, 'If a man will not work neither shall he
+eat.'"
+
+Silently and shamefacedly the revelers collected bats and balls, cricket
+stools, bars, poles, and iron weights, carrying them each man to his own
+house, and in the afternoon the chopping party was augmented by nearly
+every one of the new-comers.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXX.
+
+A SOLDIER'S INSTINCT.
+
+
+A year and more from that Christmas Day has sped, and again we find
+Bradford and Standish with Winslow gathered together at the governor's
+house, resting after the labors of the day, smoking the consoling pipe,
+and even tasting from time to time the contents of a square case bottle,
+which, with a jug of hot water and a basin of sugar were set forth upon
+a curious little clawfooted table worth to-day its weight in gold if
+only it could have survived.
+
+None of the three look younger than they did when they first stepped
+upon the Rock; sun and wind, and winter storm and summer heat have
+bronzed their English complexions and deepened the lines about the quiet
+steadfast lips and anxious eyes. Already Bradford's shoulders were a
+little bowed, partly by the burden of his responsibility, partly by
+arduous manual labor, but upon his face had grown the serenity and
+somewhat of the impassiveness into which the Egyptians loved to mould
+the features of their kings,--that expression which of all others
+belongs to a man who uses great power firmly and decisively, and yet
+looks upon himself as but a steward, who soon or late shall be called to
+render a strict account of his stewardship.
+
+And Winslow, courtly, learned, and fit for lofty emprise, how bore he
+this life of toil and privation, this constant contention with such
+foes as famine, and disease, and squalor, and uncouth savagery? Look at
+the portrait painted of him in London some years later, and see if there
+is not an infinite weariness, a brooding _Cui bono?_ set as a seal upon
+those haughty features. Can one after studying that face much wonder
+that when the Massachusetts Bay authorities in 1646 besought Plymouth to
+spare their sometime governor, their wise and astute statesman, to
+arrange the Bay's quarrel with the Home government, Winslow eagerly
+accepted the mission, although as Bradford sadly records, his going
+was--"much to the weakening of this government, without whose consent he
+took these employments upon him."
+
+So well, however, did he fill the larger sphere for which his ambitious
+nature perhaps had secretly pined, that after four years of arduous
+service when the Massachusetts quarrel was well adjusted, and Winslow
+would have returned home, President Steele, whom he had helped to found
+the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel, wrote to the Colonial
+Commissioners in New England that although Winslow was unwilling to be
+kept longer from his family, he could not yet be spared, because his
+great acquaintance and influence with members of Parliament made him
+invaluable to the work in hand.
+
+Then in 1652 the Protector, Oliver Cromwell, placed him at the head of a
+committee for settling a Dutch quarrel; and in 1655 the same power named
+him governor of Hispaniola, and dispatched him thither with a fleet and
+body of soldiers to conquer and take possession of his new territory.
+But General Venable in command of the soldiers, and Admiral Penn in
+command of the fleet, fell to loggerheads as to which was the other's
+superior, and even Winslow's diplomacy could not heal the breach; so the
+attack upon Hispaniola proved a disgraceful failure, and as the fleet
+sailed away to attack Jamaica, the Great Commissioner, as they called
+him fell ill of chagrin and worry, and after a few days of wild delirium
+wherein he stood upon Burying Hill, and drank of the Pilgrims' Spring,
+and spoke loving words to the wife and children he should see no more,
+he died, and was committed to the great deep with a salute of
+two-and-forty guns, and never a kiss or tear, for all who loved him were
+far away.
+
+But all this honor, all this disaster, lies in the future, for as yet
+Winslow is only seven-and-twenty, and yet the lines of ambition, of
+weariness, of hauteur are foreshadowed upon his face; already Time with
+his light indelible pencil has faintly traced the furrows he by and by
+will plow that all who run may read.
+
+Perhaps the least change of all is that upon the captain's face, for
+before ever he landed on the Rock full twenty years of a soldier's life
+had set those firm lips, and steadied those marvelous eyes, and
+impressed upon every line of the deep bronzed face the air of the
+vigilant commander who was both born and bred for the post he fills so
+thoroughly. If any change, perhaps there is a softening one, for those
+keen eyes have looked so often upon misery and need, and so little upon
+bloodshed in these three last years, that they have gained somewhat of
+tenderness, somewhat of human sympathy; and the look that dying men and
+women have strained their glazing eyes to see to the last, is not so far
+from the surface as once it was. But the governor is speaking,--
+
+"Yes, my friends, I will confess to feeling more than a little uneasy
+over the matter. This party whom our sometime friend Weston hath sent
+over to settle at our very doors as it were, and to steal our trade with
+the Indians, and so hold us from paying off our debt to the
+Adventurers"--
+
+"With whom he was still to abide as our Advocate," growled Standish.
+
+"Ay. He hath doubtless served us a sorry turn by not only dividing
+himself from the Adventurers, but setting up a rival trading-post of his
+own," remarked Winslow.
+
+"And worse than that is this news Squanto brings in to-day," resumed the
+governor. "I mean the dealings of those new-comers with the Indians."
+
+"Yes, they carry themselves like both knaves and fools, and will
+presently find their own necks in the noose," said Standish rapping the
+ashes out of his pipe with such force as to break it.
+
+"But worse again than that," suggested Winslow quietly, "is the danger
+they bring upon us. Hobomok warneth me that there is a wide discontent
+growing among the red men, springing from the conduct of these men at
+Weymouth as they call it. The Neponsets have suffered robbery, and
+insult, and outrage at their hands, and both the Massachusetts on the
+one hand and the Pokanokets on the other are in sympathy with them. Then
+you will see, brethren, that Canonicus with his Narragansetts, who
+already hath sent us his cartel of defiance, will make brief alliance
+with Massasoit, and all will combine to drive every white man from the
+country. There is hardly any bound to the mischief these roysterers at
+Weymouth have set on foot."
+
+"And Massasoit no longer our friend, since we refused to send him poor
+Squanto's head," said Bradford meditatively.
+
+"Yes," laughed the captain. "'T is food for mirth, were a man dying, to
+see Squanto skulk at our heels like a dog who sees a lion in the path.
+He hardly dares step outside the palisado, for fear some envoy of
+Massasoit's shall pounce upon him."
+
+"'T is a good lesson to teach him discretion," said Winslow. "Certes he
+stirred up strife between us and the sachem with his cock-and-bull
+stories."
+
+"Especially when he sent his squaw to warn us that Canonicus with
+Massasoit and Corbitant were on the way from Namasket to devour us."
+
+"Ay, no wonder Massasoit was aggrieved at being so slandered, and could
+he have got Tisquantum once within his clutches 't would have gone hard
+with the poor fool. But never burnt child dreaded fire as he now doth
+the outside of the palisado."
+
+"Didst hear, Winslow, that t' other day when some of us were unearthing
+a keg of powder buried there in the Fort, Squanto and a savage guest of
+his clomb the hill to see what was going on? The magazine is passably
+deep as you know, and Squanto himself had never seen it opened; so when
+they saw Alden hand up the keg to Hopkins, the guest asked in the Indian
+tongue what was in it, and Squanto told him 't was the plague which just
+before our coming swept the land, and that the white men had captured it
+and buried it here upon the hill to let loose upon their enemies; and in
+the end the knave got a goodly price from his visitor for assurance that
+the plague should not be liberated till he had time to reach Sandwich."
+
+All three men laughed, but Bradford said,--"I fear me Squanto hath done
+us no little harm with his double dealings, his jealousy of Hobomok, and
+his craving for bribes; but withal he hath been so good a friend to us,
+more than useful at the first when we knew naught of the place or how to
+live, or plant, or fish, that I thought right to risk even Massasoit's
+enmity rather than to give our poor knave up to his wrath."
+
+"And then I never can forget," said Winslow, "that Squanto as only
+survivor of the Patuxets was in some sort lord of the soil whereon we
+pitched."
+
+"Yes truly," responded the captain with a short laugh. "Like myself he
+was born to great estates and sees them enjoyed by others."
+
+"Well then, since nothing is imminent in this matter of the Weymouth
+colonists and their quarrel with the Indians, we had better, now that
+the palisado around the town is complete"--
+
+"Gates, bolts, bastions, all complete from the great rock around to the
+brook," interposed Standish, his figure visibly dilating with
+satisfaction. Bradford smiled and allowed his eyes to rest
+affectionately for an instant upon his comrade, then continued in a
+lighter tone,--
+
+"So having fortified your hold, Captain, it is now fitting that you
+should provision it. Thou knowest how in my journeyings last month I
+bought and stored corn at Nauset, and Manomet, and Barnstable, and now
+that we have a moment's breathing space, it were well that some one
+should take the pinnace and fetch it. At the same time there will be
+good occasion to feel the pulse of the various chiefs, and determine
+what is their intended course and so settle our own."
+
+"Nay, Winslow is the man for that work, Governor," replied the captain
+bluntly. "I will go and get the corn, and if need be teach the savages a
+lesson upon the dangers of plotting and conniving, but as to talking
+smoothly with men who are lying to me"--
+
+"But why prejudge them, Captain," began Winslow, when with a tap upon
+the door Squanto himself appeared ushering in a strange Indian whom he
+fluently presented as a friend of his who had come with great news.
+Bidden to deliver it, the stranger stated that a great Dutch ship had
+gone ashore at Sowams (Bristol), and would be wrecked unless help could
+be had, and this could not be given by the Indians, for Massasoit lay
+dying and no one would stir without his command.
+
+This news changed the aspect of affairs, and Winslow was at once
+appointed to pay Massasoit a visit of inquiry, and in case of his death
+to make an alliance if possible with Corbitant, his probable successor
+as sachem of the Pokanokets. He also was to see the commander of the
+Dutch vessel, and in case of a wreck to offer the hospitality of
+Plymouth to the sufferers, for in case of the famine narrowly impending
+over the colony, the friendship and aid of the Dutch might become of the
+last importance. Besides this, the dangerous Narragansetts were known to
+have made alliance with the Dutch, and might by them be deterred from
+molesting the Plymouth settlers if they were known to be their friends.
+
+"And so, Myles," declared Bradford finding himself alone with his friend
+at the end of the informal council, "thou must e'en go by thyself for
+the corn, with what men thou dost call for, and I doubt not we shall
+find thee burgeon into a diplomatist equal at least to the great Cecil
+or to Sir Walter Raleigh"--
+
+"Ay, and that minds me," interrupted Standish "of the news sent us by
+good Master Huddlestone of the Betsey, how the Virginia savages had
+massacred three hundred and forty-seven of Raleigh's settlers, and would
+have made an end of them but for warning given by a friendly Indian."
+
+"Ay, it was heavy news, and a timely warning," said the governor losing
+his air of gayety and sighing deeply. "And if indeed Weston's men have
+angered the Neponsets to the pitch we fear, the news of this Virginia
+success will embolden them to undertake the same revenge. Be wary,
+Standish, and very gentle in thy dealings. If war is determined, let it
+be entered upon deliberately and formally; take not the matter into
+thine own hands and mayhap lose us our commander just at the onset."
+
+"Ay Will, 'I'll roar thee gently' as any sucking dove, an' there seemeth
+need to roar at all."
+
+"Best not roar at all until all thy comrades may join in unison," and
+once more Bradford's face lighted with its peculiar smile, the sort of
+smile one might bestow upon his double should he meet him and address
+him with a jest unknown to any other.
+
+And so it came to pass that the next morning's rising sun saw two
+important expeditions leaving the hamlet in opposite directions. Toward
+the dark and almost pathless woods at the North marched Winslow
+accompanied by Master John Hampden, then visiting the colony and
+studying the science of republican government in its most perfect,
+because most simple, development. With them went Hobomok as guide and
+interpreter, and after them went the tearful prayers of Susanna Winslow,
+who loved her new lord better than she had the father of baby Peregrine
+toddling at her side, as she stood in the cabin door to gaze after the
+little group already almost out of sight, and making now for the
+"Massachusetts trail" where it crosses Jones's River in Kingston. And as
+one driving over that pleasant road which now intersects the old trail
+pauses to look up its green ascent, or on across the placid stream it
+forded, does he not almost catch sight of the goodly forms of those
+young men, quaintly clad in doublet and hose and the wide hats or the
+close barret caps of the day, led by the sleek slender savage who
+patiently stood by, while Winslow turned and pointed out the beauties of
+sea and shore to his thoughtful companion.
+
+"A pleasant sight, a goodly scene," said Hampden, as at last they turned
+away and struck into the dense forest. "If it be God's will I for one
+shall be well content to return hither and end my days."
+
+"And yet there is world's work to do yonder for a man with an eye to
+read the times," said Winslow flinging a hand eastward.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"No wife or child to see me off, Mistress Winslow," said the captain as
+he passed the door where Susanna lingered, and she, smiling with the
+tear in her eye, answered pleasantly,--
+
+"Then why not purvey thee one, Captain Standish? Well I wot you need not
+long go a-begging."
+
+"Nay, none will look on a battered old soldier when fresh young faces
+are at hand," replied Standish casting a whimsical glance after Alden
+who preceded him down the hill, while the matron shook her head
+murmuring,--"Such fools as maids will be!"
+
+Besides Alden, the captain had chosen five men, enough to man the boat,
+and to make a good defense in case of attack, but among these he had
+included none of the fire-eaters, none of the independent souls of the
+little colony. Alden, to whom the captain had given the names of those
+to be summoned, had noted this feature of the selection, and ventured to
+comment upon it approvingly.
+
+"Ay, lad," replied his master with a grim smile. "'T is a service of
+danger, and a service of diplomacy, and I must have my force well in
+hand with no danger of a baulk from within. Dost know how the Romans
+conquered the world? I bade thee study my Cæsar in thy leisure moments."
+
+"By power to command, Master?"
+
+"Nay, boy, but by power to obey. Their forces moved as one man, as a
+grand machine, and so they carried the Roman eagles to all the known
+world. There's the model of a Roman soldier in that big Book yonder. He
+says to his Sovereign Lord, 'Give not yourself the inconvenience of
+coming to heal my servant, but send some spirit to carry the command. I
+know how it is; I also am under the commands of my general, and men are
+under me. I say to this one, Go, and he goeth; and to the other, Come,
+and he cometh; and to my servant, Do this, and he doeth it.' There's the
+model of a soldier for you, John Alden; perfect obedience rendered,
+perfect obedience expected, perfect faith in the commander-in-chief.
+Now, then, off upon your errand, sir, and mind you tarry not at the
+Elder's house. There is no errand there."
+
+The shallop's first port was Nauset, and here, although the corn was
+obtained and loaded without difficulty, a thief stole some clothes from
+the boat while it was for the moment unguarded; and finding mild words
+of no avail in their recovery, Standish sought Aspinet, who was
+encamped at a little distance from the shore, and refusing all
+hospitality or friendly conversation roundly announced that unless the
+missing articles were restored without delay he should at once make sail
+for Plymouth and declare war upon the whole tribe.
+
+Marching down to his boat closely followed by Alden the captain suddenly
+paused and struck his heel upon the ground.
+
+"Now then, I was to roar like a dove, and I have howled like any wolf!
+And I to preach obedience! nay then, John, thou 'rt free to flout me as
+thou wilt."
+
+"But, Captain, so far as I heard the governor's command it was only to
+fetch some corn," suggested Alden slyly. "All else was left at your
+discretion, as indeed all matters military are. Such was the tenor of
+the vote that made you our Captain."
+
+"Come, now, John, that's not ill thought on; that's not so dull as might
+be," replied the captain glancing merrily at his follower. "Thou 'st
+been studying under Winslow as well as Standish. Well, then, let us wait
+and see what comes of my roar."
+
+An hour later as the boat's crew sat around their camp-fire eating their
+frugal dinner, the sound of many feet was heard breaking through the
+neighboring thickets, and Standish with a glance at Alden said
+quietly,--
+
+"Stand to your arms, men, but softly and without offense until we see
+the need. The savages are in force."
+
+But as it turned out the force was but a guard of honor to Aspinet, who
+came in state, followed by two women bringing the stolen coats
+elaborately bound around with gayly colored withes; these they at once
+took on board and laid in the cuddy, while Aspinet improving upon
+Tisquantum's former lessons as to the mode of saluting sovereigns seized
+upon Standish's hand, and much to his disgust licked it from wrist to
+fingers, at the same time bending his knee in uncouth genuflection.
+
+"Enough, enough, Aspinet," exclaimed the captain half laughing, half
+revolted at the homage. "The coats are returned I see"--
+
+"And I have much beaten him who took them," averred Aspinet
+complacently. "And Aspinet is the friend of the white men though all
+other Indians turn against them."
+
+"Why, that is well, sachem," replied Standish, who was already able to
+converse freely with the red men in their own tongue. "Keep you to that
+mind, and hold your tribe to it, and no harm's done. And now men, all
+aboard, and we will be off."
+
+With a fair wind the shallop soon made Barnstable or Mattachiest, and
+here Iyanough (or Janno) met them on landing with protestations of
+welcome so profuse and unusual that the captain was at once upon his
+guard, especially as he noticed among the crowd many new faces which he
+was confident belonged to Massachusetts Indians. Night falling before
+the corn could be loaded, and ice making so suddenly as to freeze the
+shallop in before she fairly floated, the captain was obliged to accept
+an invitation for himself and crew to sleep in one of the Indian huts;
+but as the chief with some of his principal men escorted them to it,
+Standish's quick eye surprised a glance between one of the strangers and
+a Pamet Indian called Kamuso, who had always appeared to be one of the
+warmest friends of the white men, but in whose manner to-night Standish
+felt something of treachery and evil intention.
+
+And he was right, for Kamuso had been won over to the conspiracy
+beginning with the Narragansetts and extending all the way down the
+Cape, and so soon as runners from the Nausets had warned the Mattakees
+that Standish and a small crew were about to land among them, it was
+agreed that now was the best time to cut off The-Sword-of-the-White-Men,
+and so deprive the colony of one of its principal safeguards. Janno
+himself would fain have spared Standish, with whom he had ever been on
+friendly terms; but Kamuso so wrought upon the Mattakee warriors that
+their sachem was forced either to drop the reins altogether or to suffer
+his unruly steeds to take their own course. Like Pontius Pilate he chose
+the latter course, and to his own destruction. Before the pinnace was
+anchored, the plan of the massacre was fully laid, and Kamuso had
+claimed the glory of killing The Sword with his own hand.
+
+But the subtle instinct which was Standish's sixth sense warned him of
+some unknown danger, and having carefully inspected the wigwam offered
+to his use, he directed that the fire newly kindled outside the door
+should be extinguished; and while the Indians officiously busied
+themselves in doing this, the captain by a word, a look, a sign, drew
+his men inside the hut, and rapidly conveyed to them his suspicions, and
+enjoined the greatest caution upon all.
+
+"The fire would have bewrayed our forms to archers hidden in yonder
+thicket," added he. "And as I will have half to watch while the others
+sleep, the watch must keep themselves under shelter of the cabin and
+away from any chance of ambush."
+
+Murmurs of wrath, of wonder, but of acquiescence arose from the half
+dozen bearded throats around, and the captain at once set the watch, to
+be relieved every two hours. In vain Janno offered another wigwam if
+this were too small, and urged that all his white brothers should sleep
+at once while his own men watched; in vain Kamuso tried to attach
+himself to the party inside, meaning to stab the captain in his sleep;
+without a show of anger or suspicion Standish put both attempts aside,
+and finally with a jeering laugh advised Janno to retire to his own
+wigwam and to order his braves to do the same, for some of the white men
+as he averred were given to discharging their pieces in their sleep, or
+at any shadow that came within range, and it might happen that some of
+his friends should thus come by harm, which would be a great grief to
+him.
+
+"The Sword has pierced our intention," said Janno to Kamuso in their own
+tongue as the two withdrew. "Better give it up. He has eyes all around
+him."
+
+"I will kill him," retorted Kamuso sullenly. "To-night, to-morrow, next
+week,--I will kill him."
+
+The next day so soon as the shallop floated and was loaded Standish
+embarked, sick at heart as he received the slavish homage of Janno, whom
+he had liked and trusted so much, and who even while he yielded to the
+plot for the captain's death and that of all his friends really clung to
+him in love and reverence. Poor Janno, weak but not wicked, his
+punishment was both swift and stern; for fleeing a little later from the
+vengeance of the white men, he perished miserably among the swamps and
+thickets of Barnstable, and his lonely grave was only lately discovered.
+Go and look at his bones in Pilgrim Hall at Plymouth and muse upon the
+dangers of cowardice and weakness.
+
+As the shallop pushed off from shore, an Indian came running down the
+beach, and with a cat-like spring leaped upon the deck. It was Kamuso,
+who said he was bound for Sandwich and would beg a passage in the
+pinnace.
+
+A sudden spark kindled in the captain's red-brown eyes and one hand
+tugged impatiently at his moustache, but he said nothing, and the Indian
+proceeded to make himself useful in a variety of ways; and as the wind
+was favorable and the distance short, Standish made no open objection to
+the company of the spy, but busied himself with freshly charging his
+weapons, and curiously examining every inch of Gideon's shining blade.
+
+A little after noon the shallop made the harbor of Sandwich, or as the
+Pilgrims called it Manomet, and Standish at once went ashore, eager to
+see if Canacum shared in the wide-spread disaffection of the Indians.
+But ten minutes in the sachem's wigwam convinced the wary observer that
+something was wrong, for the old friendliness of manner had given place
+to restraint and formality; and although Canacum was very ready to
+deliver the corn, and professed great pleasure at the captain's visit,
+his voice and manner were both cold and false, and such of his braves as
+came into the wigwam showed a very different face from what Standish had
+hitherto encountered.
+
+Suddenly a sound was heard without, and as the captain sprang to his
+feet and laid his hand upon Gideon's hilt, the door-mat was thrust
+aside, and two Indians recognized by their paint as Neponsets entered
+the cabin. Canacum received them with effusive cordiality, and presented
+the principal one to Standish as Wituwamat a pniese of the Neponsets.
+
+Standish received the careless salutation of the new-comer in silent
+gravity, and stepping to the door summoned Howland and Alden to his
+side, first however sending a message to the boat-keepers to be well on
+guard against a surprise.
+
+Returning into the hut with his two friends, the captain found Wituwamat
+upon his feet beginning an impassioned harangue to Canacum, who listened
+uneasily. Standish was already an excellent Indian scholar, and could
+converse in several dialects with great ease; but so soon as he appeared
+Wituwamat fell into a style so figurative and blind, and took pains to
+use such unusual and obsolete expressions, that Canacum himself could
+hardly understand him, and Standish was soon left hopelessly in the
+background. At a later day, however, one of the warriors then present
+repeated to the captain the amount of the Neponset's message, which was
+that Obtakiest, sachem of the Neponsets, had entered into a solemn
+compact with Canonicus, sachem of the Narragansetts, to cut off the
+Weymouth colonists, root and branch; but that as the Plymouth men would
+assuredly revenge their brethren, it was necessary that they should
+perish as well, and that while the two chiefs mentioned advanced upon
+the settlement from the west, they invited Canacum, Janno, and Aspinet
+to fall upon them from the east, and having slain man and boy to equably
+divide the women and other plunder. As earnest of his authority
+Wituwamat here presented Canacum with a knife stolen or bought from the
+Weymouth settlers, and jeeringly said the coward pale faces had brought
+over the weapons that should cut their own throats.
+
+Having thus delivered his message, the Neponset indulged himself in a
+burst of self-glorification, boasting that he had in his day killed
+both French and Englishmen, and that he found the sport very amusing,
+for they died crying and making wry faces more like children than men.
+
+"What is the impudent villain saying, and what means that knife,
+Captain?" muttered Howland in the captain's ear, but he shaking his head
+impatiently replied,--
+
+"He means violence and treachery of some sort, but what form it takes I
+wot not. Be on your guard, John."
+
+The harangue ended, refreshments were served, but the Neponsets were now
+treated with so much more courtesy and attention than the white men that
+Standish refusing the poorer portion offered to him and his comrades,
+rose and indignantly left the cabin, ordering his men to construct a
+shelter near the beach, and there cook some of the provisions they had
+brought. But they had hardly begun to do this when Kamuso appeared, full
+of indignant protests at Canacum's inhospitality, and loudly declaring
+that an affront to his friends was an affront to him, and he should
+desert the wigwam where the red men were feasting, and share the humbler
+fare of his white friends.
+
+"Well, I wish thou hadst brought along a kettle to cook some corn in!"
+exclaimed Standish with something of his old joviality of manner, for
+his suspicions in falling upon Canacum had in some degree lifted from
+Kamuso, who certainly played his part with wonderful skill, and had he
+been white instead of red, and civilized instead of savage, might have
+left his name on record as a diplomatist beside that of Machiavelli or
+Ignatius Loyola.
+
+"A kettle! My brother would like a kettle!" exclaimed he now. "Nay, a
+friend of mine hath one which I will buy of him and present to The
+Sword. I am rich, I Kamuso, and can make rich presents to those I love."
+
+And rushing back to the wigwams, he presently returned with a good-sized
+brass kettle, which he ostentatiously laid at the captain's feet,
+refusing the handful of beads Standish offered in return.
+
+"Hm!" growled the captain. "That's not in nature. Alden use the kettle
+an' thou wilt, but after, return it to the Pamet. We'll not have them
+making a Benjamin's sack of our shallop."
+
+After dinner Standish so peremptorily demanded that his corn should at
+once be put aboard that Canacum could do nothing but yield. The squaws
+were summoned, and John Alden stood by with pencil and paper, keeping
+tally as each delivered her basket-full on the beach, while Howland
+standing mid-leg deep in the icy water shot it over the gunwale.
+
+"Here men, bear a hand, and let us get this thing over and be off,"
+commanded Standish, himself seizing a full basket and motioning Dotey to
+another.
+
+"And I, and I, my brother!" exclaimed Kamuso in his loud braggadocio
+manner as he awkwardly lifted a third. "Never in all my life have I done
+squaw's work, for I am a brave, I am a pniese, but what my brother does
+I do."
+
+"Nay, 't is too much honor!" replied Standish with his grimmest smile;
+"especially as thou art somewhat awkward"--
+
+And in effect the Pamet as he tried to swing the full basket off his
+shoulder lost his hold, and the corn came showering down upon the sand.
+At length, however, the tale was complete, and as the tide was out, and
+night coming on, the captain decided to camp once more upon the beach,
+refusing somewhat curtly the pressing invitation sent by Canacum that
+the white men should sleep in his house. And once more Kamuso loudly
+proclaimed that he was of the white men's party and should share their
+quarters wherever they might be. Standish silently permitted him to do
+as he would, but, as on the previous evening, he divided the little
+company into watches, one to sleep and one to stand on guard.
+
+"So soon as he sleeps I shall kill him," muttered Kamuso to Wituwamat,
+as they secretly met behind Canacum's wigwam. "Give me now the knife
+sent by Obtakiest."
+
+"Here it is, brother, and when it is red with the blood of The Sword it
+shall be thine own. Else it returns to him who sends it."
+
+"It shall be red, it shall drink, it shall drip with the brave blood, it
+shall shine as the sun rising across the waters! It shall feast, and
+Kamuso shall be chief of Obtakiest's pnieses; yes, he shall be sachem of
+the Massachusetts!"
+
+Wituwamat made no reply in words, but as he turned away shivered
+heavily. Perhaps a premonition of his own terrible fate crossed his
+brain, perhaps the hooting of the owl just then skimming across the
+thicket stirred his superstitious fancy, but without a word he reëntered
+the wigwam; and Kamuso concealing the knife went back to the randevous,
+where already the first watch slept, and Standish, in command of the
+second, stood beside the fire leaning on his snaphance, and, deep in
+meditation fixed his eyes upon the approaching savage so sternly that he
+believing that all was discovered was on the point of springing at his
+prey, and risking all upon one sudden blow, when the captain, awaking
+from his reverie, sighed profoundly, and perceiving for the first time
+Kamuso's approach quietly said,--
+
+"So it is thee, Pamet! Go back and sleep warm in the wigwams of the
+Mattakees. We need no help here."
+
+"Kamuso is no Mattakee; Kamuso is the friend of the white men. While The
+Sword wakes, Kamuso will gaze upon him and learn how to become the
+terror of his foes."
+
+"'T is easier to be the terror of one's foes than the delight of one's
+friends," muttered Standish gloomily, and then pulling himself together
+he stirred the embers with his heel, and throwing on more wood said
+carelessly,--
+
+"E'en as thou wilt. Kamuso, go or stay, watch or sleep, 't is all one to
+me."
+
+And marching up and down the strip of level beach the soldier hummed an
+old ballad song of Man, which Rose had loved to sing, and clean forgot
+the savage who, crouching in the shadow, fingered the knife hilt hidden
+in his waist cloth, and never removed the gaze of his snaky eyes from
+the figure of his destined prey.
+
+The night went on, and Standish waked the second watch and dismissed the
+first, but still himself took no rest, nor felt the need of it, as he
+paced up and down, his outward senses alert to the smallest sign, and
+his memory roaming at will over scenes for many years forgot; over
+boyhood's eager days, his mother's tenderness, his father's death upon a
+French battle-field, his own early days as a soldier, his home-coming
+to find Barbara acting a daughter's part to the dying mother--Rose--ah
+Rose! He stood a moment at the point of his promenade furthest from the
+randevous, his back to the fire, his gaze fixed upon the sea whose lapping
+waves seemed whispering with sobbing sighs, Rose!--Rose!--Rose!--
+
+A faint sound upon the shingle caught the outward ear of the soldier,
+and wheeling instinctively he faced the Pamet, who with his hand upon
+the hilt of the dagger had crept up to within six feet of his victim,
+and already had selected the spot between those square shoulders where
+the fatal blow should be planted.
+
+"Ha savage! What does this mean! Why are you tracking me!" demanded the
+captain angrily, but the wily Indian, instead of starting back and
+betraying himself by terror, advanced quietly, not even removing his
+hand from the hidden knife hilt, and answered smoothly in his own
+tongue,--
+
+"The red man's moccason sounds not upon the sand as the white man's
+boot. I did but come to ask my lord if he will not rest at all. Midnight
+is long past, and the day must bring its labors. Will not The Sword
+sheath for a while his intolerable splendor in sleep, while his slave
+watches for him?"
+
+"Why, Kamuso, thou 'rt more than eloquent! Pity but thou shouldst be
+trained, and brought to London to show off before the King!" laughed
+Standish. "But sleep and I have quarreled for to-night. I know not how
+it is, but never after a sound night's rest did I feel more fresh and on
+the alert. Go thou and sleep if thou 'rt sleepy, but come not creeping
+after me again, or I'll send thee packing! I like not such surprises."
+
+"The will of my lord is the will of his slave," meekly replied Kamuso,
+and crept back to his former sheltered nook beside the fire. The chill
+March night grew on toward morning, the east reddened with an angry
+glare, the solemn stars wheeled on their appointed courses, and Mars,
+who had held the morning watch, gave way to Sol, bidding him have a care
+of his son, whom he had left gazing with sleepless eyes across the
+waters to the East.
+
+"Up, men! 'T is morning at last, and surely never was a night so long as
+this. Up, and let us break our fast and be off within the hour!"
+
+So cried the captain, and in a moment all his command was afoot and
+active. Kamuso, his face black with sullen rage, retreated to the
+wigwams to confess his defeat to Wituwamat and Canacum, who listening
+said quietly,--
+
+"His totem is too strong for us. The Sword will never fall before the
+tomahawk."
+
+"It is because he is so strong that Obtakiest took a knife of the white
+man's make and use, and sent it. The powah that charmed the weapons of
+The Sword may have charmed this knife also."
+
+And Kamuso drawing the Weymouth knife from his belt regarded it with
+disgust for a moment, then thrusting it back into his belt doggedly
+declared,--
+
+"But all is not over. Wait, my brothers, wait for the end, and then say
+if Kamuso is a fool."
+
+As the pinnace drew out of Manomet Harbor Standish for the first time
+perceived that the Pamet was aboard her, and rather sharply demanded,--
+
+"Whither bound now, Kamuso? Thou didst but ask passage to Manomet."
+
+"My white brothers have not all the corn they need, have they?" asked
+the Indian, an air of humble sympathy pervading his voice and manner.
+
+"Nay. If the famine we forebode is upon us we need twice, thrice, as
+much as this, before the harvest not yet sown is ready for use."
+
+"For that then is Kamuso here. At Nauset, Aspinet hath great store of
+corn hidden from the white men, but it is not his alone, it is mine, it
+is the tribe's, it is The Sword's. Let my lord come to Nauset and I will
+have his canoe filled to the brim, there shall not be room to put in one
+grain more--Kamuso says it."
+
+"Hm! That would be a matter of fifty bushels or more," replied Standish
+literally. "What say you, Howland? What is your mind, men?"
+
+Various brief replies showed that the mind of the crew was to obey the
+captain's orders, and after a moment's thought he muttered to Howland in
+Dutch,--
+
+"I like not this fellow's carriage. He is too smooth to be honest, and
+yet what can one wretched savage do against seven men armed and on their
+watch? But pass the word among the rest to be wary, and Alden, I leave
+it in charge to thee, lad, in case the savage treacherously smites me as
+I think he meant last night, do thou avenge me."
+
+"He'll not breathe thrice after his blow, Master," replied Alden in his
+deepest tones.
+
+"Well said, lad; but gentle thy face and eke thy voice, or he'll
+suspect. Now then, lads, put her before this western wind, and ho for
+Nauset once more!"
+
+The command was obeyed, but lo the wind, which had since sunrise blown
+softly from the south of west making a fair breeze for Nauset near the
+end of the Cape, now suddenly hauled round with angry gusts and
+gathering mists, until it stood in the northeast right in the teeth of
+the shallop's course, while every sign of sky and sea foreboded a
+gathering storm.
+
+"His totem is too strong," muttered the Pamet in his throat, and the
+hand beneath his garment clinching the handle of the dagger seized with
+it a handful of his own flesh and gripped it savagely, while in silence
+he called upon his gods for help.
+
+But none came, more than to the priests of Baal what time Elijah jeered
+them, and after a brief consultation with his crew Standish once more
+altered his course, and the pinnace with double-reefed sails flew before
+the rising wind like a hunted creature to her covert, bearing
+The-Sword-of-the-White-Men safely to his post.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXI.
+
+A POT OF BROTH.
+
+
+Yes, a Pot of Broth, and one more classic than any black broth ever
+supped by Spartan; more pregnant of Fate than the hell-broth compounded
+by Macbeth's witches; broth in which was brewed the destiny of a great
+nation, broth but for whose brewing I certainly, and you, if you be of
+Pilgrim strain, had never been, for in its seething liquid was dissolved
+a wide-spread and most powerful conspiracy that in its fruition would
+have left Plymouth Rock a funeral monument in a field of blood.
+
+Hardly an hour after the pinnace had landed its passengers at the Rock,
+and the Pamet, sullenly declining farther hospitality, had proceeded on
+his way to meet Obtakiest and report his ill success, when Winslow with
+John Hampden and Hobomok entered the village from the north, sore spent
+with travel and scanty food, but laden with matter of the profoundest
+interest. A Council of the chiefs, including nearly all of the Mayflower
+men, was immediately called together in the Common house, now used
+altogether for these assemblages and for divine worship, and first
+Standish and then Winslow were called upon for their reports.
+
+The captain's was given with military brevity.
+
+"I have brought a hundred bushels of corn and all the men I carried
+away. The savages are no doubt disaffected, and a notorious
+blood-thirsty rascal called Wituwamat, a Neponset, brought Canacum a
+knife wherewith to kill some one, and I fancy 't is myself; but though
+he impudently delivered both knife and message in my presence, he so
+wrapped up his meaning in new and strange phrases, that I could make but
+little of it. Perhaps Master Winslow can read my riddle as well as tell
+his own story."
+
+"Methinks I can, Captain," replied Winslow pleasantly; and then in
+smooth and polished phrase bearing such resemblance to Standish's rough
+and brief utterances as a rapier doth to a battle-axe, the future Grand
+Commissioner narrated how he had found Massasoit as it seemed already
+dying, for he could neither see, nor swallow either medicine or food.
+
+The sachem's wigwam was so crowded with visitors that the white men
+could scarcely edge their way in, and around the bed circled the powahs
+at their incantations, "making," said Winslow, "such a hellish noise as
+distempered us that were well, and was therefore unlike to ease him that
+was sick."
+
+This ended, and about half the guests persuaded to withdraw, the dying
+chief was with difficulty made to understand who were his visitors, and
+feebly groping with his hand he faintly murmured,--
+
+"_Winsnow, keen Winsnow?_" (Is it you Winsnow?) To which Winslow gently
+replied, grasping the cold hand,--
+
+"It is Winslow who is come to see you, sachem."
+
+"I shall never see thee again, Winsnow," muttered the dying man, and
+those standing by explained that the sight had left his eyes some hours
+before.
+
+But Winslow, after patiently repeating over and over the message of
+sympathy and friendship delivered him by the governor, produced a little
+pot of what he calls a confection of many comfortable conserves, and
+with the point of his knife inserted a portion between the sick man's
+teeth.
+
+"It will kill him! He cannot swallow," declared the favorite wife, who
+stood chafing her lord's hands; but presently as the conserve, prepared
+by Doctor Fuller and of rare virtue, melted, it trickled down the
+patient's throat, who presently whispered, "More!" and Winslow well
+pleased administered several doses. Then, finding the mouth whose
+muscles had now relaxed, foul with fever, this courtly and haughty
+gentleman, this necessity of the Lord Protector of England, this Grand
+Commissioner of the future, with his own hands performed a nurse's
+loathly work, and ceased not until the sachem, refreshed, relieved,
+rescued from death, was able to ask for drink, when Hampden prepared
+some of the confection with water, and Winslow administered it. All
+night this work went on, and when morning broke, the sick man could see
+and hear and swallow as well as ever he could, and his appetite
+returning he demanded broth such as he had tasted at Plymouth.
+
+Now that especial broth was a delicious compound of Priscilla's
+compounding, and Winslow knew no more of its recipe than you or I do,
+nor were any materials such as should go to the making of white man's
+broth at hand. Worst of all, Winslow had never taken note or share in
+culinary labors, for Susanna was a notable housewife and had both men
+and maids at her command; but a willing mind is a powerful teacher, and
+not only Winslow the man, was full of Christian charity, but Winslow the
+statesman desired intensely that Massasoit should remain sachem of the
+Pokanokets, instead of making way for Corbitant, who had once declared
+his enmity to the white men, and had only been put down by the strong
+hand.
+
+So Winslow leaving his patient for a moment went into the fresh air,
+both to revive himself and to write a hasty note, begging Doctor Fuller
+to send not only some medicine suited to the case, but a pair of
+chickens, and a recipe for making them into broth, with such other
+material as might be needed.
+
+Fifty miles of forest lay between Sowams and Plymouth, but a swift
+runner was dispatched at once with the missive, and the promise of a
+rich reward if he hastened his return; then Winslow turned to his
+fellow-statesman who stood looking on with an amused smile.
+
+"Master Hampden, know you how to make broth?" demanded he.
+
+"I have no teaching but mother wit," replied Hampden. "And you are
+richer in that than I."
+
+"Nay then--here Pibayo, is that thy name?"
+
+"Ahhe," replied the squaw modestly.
+
+"Thou hast corn in store?"
+
+"Ahhe," again replied the woman, and Winslow making the most of his
+little stock of Indian words directed her to bruise some of the maize in
+her stone mortar, and meantime calling for one of the egg-shaped earthen
+stew-pans used by the natives, he half filled it with water, and settled
+it into the hot ashes of the open air fire. The maize ready, he winnowed
+it in his hands, blowing away the husks and chaff, and poured the rest
+into the boiling water.
+
+"So far well," remarked he gayly to Hampden; "but what next? I remember
+in the garden of our home at Droitwich there was a gay plot of golden
+bloom that my mother called broth marigolds, but we shall hardly come by
+such in this wilderness."
+
+"Methinks there are turnips in broth," ventured Hampden.
+
+"And there are turnips in Plymouth, but that is not here," retorted
+Winslow. "Come, let us see what herbs Dame Nature will afford."
+
+A little search and some questioning showed the herbalists a goodly bush
+of sassafras, and Winslow, who with the rest of his generation ascribed
+almost magical virtues to this plant, enthusiastically tugged up several
+of its roots, and cleansing them in the brook, sliced them thinly into
+his broth. Finally he added a handful of strawberry leaves, the only
+green thing to be found, and leaving the mess to stew for a while, he
+strained it through his handkerchief, and presented it to his patient
+who eagerly drank a pint of it.
+
+Perhaps there really is magic in sassafras, perhaps the child of nature
+throve upon this strictly Pre-Raphaelitish composition, perhaps Indian
+gruel with strawberry leaves in it and strained through a pocket
+handkerchief is the disguise under which the Elixir Vitæ masquerades
+among us; certain it is that beneath its benign influence the sachem of
+the Pokanokets revived so rapidly that when, twenty-four hours from his
+departure, the runner arrived with the chickens and the physic, his
+master frankly threw the physic to the dogs, and handed over the fowls
+to Pibayo, bidding her guard them carefully, feed them well, and order
+them to lay eggs and provide chickens for future illnesses.
+
+So this was the fateful broth of which we spoke but now, and its results
+were immediate, for although Massasoit himself said nothing more
+than,--
+
+"Now I perceive that the English are my friends and love me, and while I
+live I will never forget this kindness that they have showed me," he in
+a private conclave with some of his most trusted pnieses solemnly
+charged Hobomok with a message for Winslow, only to be delivered however
+as upon their return they came within sight of Plymouth. This message,
+to hear which the Council had been convened, was to the effect that the
+Neponsets had fully determined to fall upon the Weymouth settlers and
+cut them off root and branch so soon as two of them, who were
+ship-carpenters, had completed some boats they were now building to the
+order of the Indians.
+
+The forty braves of the Neponset tribe were fully equal to this task,
+and if the Plymouth Colony would remain neutral they had no desire to
+injure them; but knowing full well that they would not, and having
+moreover a superstitious dread of Standish's prowess and abilities, they
+had arranged with all the tribes lying near Plymouth to join with them,
+and on an appointed day to massacre the entire colony.
+
+"Ay, ay," interrupted Standish at this point of Winslow's narrative.
+"Now do I comprehend some of the figures and parables of Wituwamat's
+impudent speech, what time he delivered the knife to Canacum. The bloody
+hound--well, brother, get on with thy narrative."
+
+So Winslow told how Massasoit had been urged again and again to join the
+conspiracy, but never would, although his pride had been indeed sore
+wounded by a lying story of how the governor and captain and Winslow,
+his especial friend, having been told of his desperate illness, cared
+naught for it, not even enough to send Hobomok his own pniese to inquire
+for him; and now, being undeceived, he would himself have killed the
+liar, whose name was Pecksuot, but on second thought left him to the
+white men whom he earnestly charged to take the matter into their own
+hands, and with no warning, no parley, to go and kill Pecksuot,
+Wituwamat, Obtakiest, and several other ringleaders of the conspiracy,
+for, as he assured them most earnestly and solemnly, unless these men
+were promptly and effectually dealt with, both the Weymouth colony and
+themselves would be overwhelmed and massacred without mercy. Finally,
+the sachem added that he as Sagamore of the Pokanokets, and as it were
+regent of the Massachusetts, had authority to order the punishment of
+these rebels to his expressed commands for peace, and he hereby did so.
+
+"And very sensible and good the sachem's counsel seemeth in my ears,"
+remarked Standish complacently.
+
+"Nay, Captain," replied the Elder sternly. "Men's lives are not so
+lightly to be dealt withal. We came among these salvages to convert them
+to the knowledge of God, not to slaughter them."
+
+"Meseemeth, Elder," returned Standish impatiently, "it is a question of
+our lives or theirs. I should be loth to see your gray hairs dabbled in
+blood, and Mistress Brewster carried into captivity to drudge as the
+slave of a squaw."
+
+The elder turned even paler than his wont and covered his eyes with his
+hand, but murmured,--
+
+"God His will be done."
+
+"Ay, so say I," replied the captain more gently. "But as I read Holy
+Writ the chosen folk were often punished for sparing their foes, but
+never for laying roundly on. 'Go and smite me Amalek and spare not,' is
+one of many orders, and if the commander-in-chief obeyed not he was
+cashiered without so much as a court-martial."
+
+Several eager voices rose in reply, but Bradford lightly tapping the
+table around which the Council was gathered said decisively,--
+
+"These matters are too large, brethren, to be thus discussed. Let each
+one declare his mind soberly and briefly, and without controversy.
+To-morrow is the day appointed for our town meeting and annual election
+of officers, and I will then lay the case before the whole, and also
+will rehearse our own conclusions. Then, the voice of the majority shall
+decide the matter."
+
+And so began the reign of "the people" in America, for this was the
+first great question to be decided since the coming of the Fortune had
+so enlarged the colony that the Council was no longer composed of the
+whole, as it was when the treaty with Massasoit was concluded.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXII.
+
+THE SUNSET GUN.
+
+
+The town meeting was over, and its decisions if important were
+unanimous, even Elder Brewster, converted perhaps by Standish's Biblical
+references, giving his voice for the stringent measures rendered
+necessary by the growth and magnitude of the conspiracy.
+
+Captain Standish with what force he might select was to take the
+pinnace, and under cover of a trading expedition make a landing at
+Weymouth, and first of all discover from the colonists themselves the
+truth of their condition. If it should prove as represented he was to at
+once attack whatever leaders of the conspiracy might be found, and in
+especial he was to slay Wituwamat, of whom Massasoit had spoken as the
+heart of the conspiracy, and to bring his head to Plymouth to be set
+over the gate of the Fort as a proof and a warning to their neighbors on
+the east, whom they would not now punish, but hoped rather to persuade.
+
+"And now, Captain Standish, it were well that you should select those
+whom you will have of your company, while we are all gathered together
+here," said the governor when the primary question had been finally
+decided.
+
+Standish rose and looked thoughtfully from face to face.
+
+"'T is a hard matter," said he at last with a gleam of pride in his
+eye. "Here be fifty good men and true, and I need no more than half a
+dozen."
+
+"The Neponsets number forty warriors," suggested Winslow.
+
+"Yes, but they will not be gathered together, having no knowledge of our
+purpose, and if the shallop is watched from shore, as belike it will be,
+a large force of armed men would bewray our intent, and runners would
+gather the braves in a few hours and so bring down a great slaughter
+upon the tribe," replied the captain in confident simplicity. "But if we
+go no more in number than ordinary, no more than in our late voyage to
+Nauset for corn, they will suspect nothing, and the matter may be well
+concluded with no more than five or six examples, Wituwamat being the
+principal."
+
+"And glad am I, brother, to see a certain tenderness of human life in
+your counsels," said the elder approvingly.
+
+"Nay, elder, I am not all out a cannibal and ogre," replied the captain.
+"So now I will choose me Hopkins and Howland and Billington, and Eaton
+and Browne and Cooke and Soule, seven hearts of oak and arms of steel:
+it is enough."
+
+"And not one of us Fortune men, Captain?" demanded Robert Hicks, a
+stalwart fellow who afterward became almost a rebel to the colony's
+authority.
+
+"Nay, Master Hicks," replied the captain gravely. "I mean no discredit
+to the courage or the good will of the new-comers, of whom you are a
+principal; but this service is one of strategy as well as daring, and so
+soon as the pinnace leaves yon Rock, there must be but one mind and one
+will in her, and that is mine. The men whom I have chosen, my comrades
+of the Mayflower, I know as I know mine own sword, and I can trust them
+as I do him. There's no offense Master Hicks, but a stricken field is no
+place to learn to handle a new sword or a new comrade."
+
+"And not me, Master," said a low voice as the captain stepped out of the
+Common house and turned his face homeward.
+
+"Nay, Jack, I've a text for thee too. 'I have married a wife and cannot
+come.'" And with a somewhat bitter laugh he strode on up the hill,
+leaving John Alden looking sadly after him.
+
+That night as Standish slowly entered the Fort to fire his sunset gun,
+he was startled at seeing a muffled figure seated upon an empty powder
+keg in an angle of the works. As he appeared she rose, and pushing back
+her hood showed the beautiful face of Priscilla Molines, now strangely
+pale and distraught.
+
+"You here, Mistress Molines," exclaimed the captain somewhat sternly.
+"Alden is not coming."
+
+"It is not Alden but Captain Standish I fain would speak withal, and I
+hope he will pardon my forwardness in seeking him here."
+
+The captain briefly waved the apology aside. "Your commands, madam?"
+inquired he.
+
+"Nay, nay sir, my father's dear loved friend, my brother's tender
+nurse,--mine--oh what shall I say, how shall I plead for a little
+kindness. Have pity on a froward maid's distress"--
+
+"What Priscilla, thou canst weep!"
+
+"And why not when my heart is sorrowful unto death."
+
+"But--there then, child, wipe thine eyes and look up and let me see thee
+smile as thou art wont. What is it, maid? What is thy sorrow?"
+
+"That you will not forgive me, sir."
+
+"Forgive thee for what?" But the captain dropped the hand he had seized
+in his sympathy, and the dark look crept back to his face.
+
+"Thou 'rt going to a terrible danger--my friend--and it may be to thy
+death."
+
+"Well girl, 't is not worth crying for if I am. Life is not so sweet to
+me that I should over much dread to lay it down with honor."
+
+"Oh, oh, and it is my fault!"--sobbed Priscilla.
+
+The captain strode up and down the narrow space pulling at his red beard
+and frowning thoughtfully; then stopping before the girl who stood as he
+had left her, he quietly said,--
+
+"Priscilla, I was indeed thy father's friend, and I am thine, and I fain
+would have wed thee, and thou didst refuse, preferring John Alden, who
+also is my friend, even as my younger brother, whose honor and well
+being are dear to me as mine own. What then is the meaning of thy grief,
+and what is thy request?"
+
+"My grief is that since the day I gave John Alden my promise, you, sir,
+have been no more my friend, but ever looked upon me with coldness and
+disdain; and now that you go, it may be to your death, it breaketh my
+heart to have it so, and I fain would beg your forgiveness for aught I
+have done to offend you, though I know not what it may be."
+
+"Know not--well, well, let it pass--'t is but one more traverse. Yes
+child, I forgive thee for what to me seemed like something of scorn and
+slight, something of double dealing and treachery--nay, we'll say no
+more on 't. Here is my hand, Priscilla--and surely thy father's friend
+may for once taste thy cheek. Now child, we're friends and dear friends,
+and if yon savage sheathes his knife in my heart perhaps thou 'lt shed
+a tear or two, and say a prayer for the soul of--thy father's friend.
+And now thy petition, for time presses."
+
+"That thou wilt take John Alden with thee."
+
+"What then! Who shall read a woman's will aright! I left him at home for
+thy sake, Priscilla."
+
+"So I guessed and I thank you--nay, I thank you not for so misjudging
+me." And the fire in the hazel eyes upraised to his, dried the tears
+sharply.
+
+"Why, what now! Dost want thy troth-plight lover slain?"
+
+"No in truth, nor do I want my troth-plight friend, for thou art that
+now, slain; but neither do I want the one nor the other to lurk safely
+at home when his brothers are at the war. There's no coward's blood in
+my heart more than in yours, Captain Standish, and I care not to shelter
+any man behind my petticoats. I have not wed John Alden all this long
+year and more, because I would not wed with your frown black upon my
+heart, and I will not wed him now until he hath showed himself a man
+upon that same field whence you do not greatly care to come alive."
+
+"Nay, Priscilla, I care more now for life than I did an hour since, for
+I have a friend."
+
+"And you will take John, and if he comes home alive you'll smile upon
+our marriage?"
+
+"Yes girl, yes to both. God bless you, Priscilla, for a brave and true
+woman. And now--good-night."
+
+A moment later as the dark clad figure flitted down the hill Standish
+stood with bared head and fixed eyes silent for a little space, and then
+the boom of the sunset gun sounded in solemn Amen to the soldier's
+silent prayer.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIII.
+
+PECKSUOT'S KNIFE.
+
+
+The next morning as the village sat at breakfast, two men at half an
+hour's interval passed hastily down the forest trail, and entering the
+town sought the governor's house.
+
+The first was Wassapinewat, brother of Obtakiest, chief of the
+Neponsets, who, having suffered both wounds and terror in Corbitant's
+attempted rebellion, now hastened to turn State's evidence, and while
+warning the white men of his brother's intended attack wash his hands of
+any share in it.
+
+The other visitor was a long lank Caucasian, Phineas Pratt by name,
+carpenter by trade, Weymouth settler by position. This man half dead
+with suffering of various sorts, footsore and weary, came stumbling down
+the King's Highway just as Bradford came out of his own door followed by
+Wassapinewat, at sight of whom Phineas started and trembled, then
+pointing a finger at him shrieked,--
+
+"Have a care, Governor! 'T is one of the bloody salvages sworn to take
+all our lives!"
+
+"Nay, friend Pratt, for I remember thee well, 't is a penitent robber
+now, come to warn us of danger. Methinks thine errand may be the same.
+Come in, and after due refreshment tell us the truth of this matter."
+
+But weary as he was, the excited fugitive would pause for neither rest
+nor refreshment until he had poured out his story of the wrongs, the
+insults, the threats with which the Neponsets had harassed the Weymouth
+men in their weakness, in part revenging the foul wrongs they while
+strong had put upon the savages, until in an Indian council of the day
+before, it had been formally resolved to wait only for two days' more
+work upon the boats which Phineas and another were finishing, and then
+to inaugurate the massacre.
+
+Both Pratt and Wassapinewat had by different channels learned the result
+of this council, and each had resolved to not only save himself from the
+explosion of this mine, but to warn the Plymouth colonists of their
+danger, and each had set out by a slightly different route from the
+other and made the journey in ignorance of the other's movements.
+
+It was afterward discovered, however, that Pratt's flight was at once
+discovered, and an Indian dispatched to overtake and kill him, a
+catastrophe averted by the carpenter's straying from the path in the
+darkness, so that his pursuer reached Plymouth, and went on to Manomet
+before the village was astir.
+
+These two confirmatory reports were very welcome to Bradford, upon whom
+the nominal responsibility of the expedition rested, and to the elder
+whose reverend face was very pale and grave in these days.
+
+Standish, however, as he had felt no doubts, now felt no added impulse,
+but went quietly on, seeing his command and his stores embarked, and
+examining personally the arms of his eight soldiers.
+
+At last all was ready, the men seated each at his post, Hobomok in the
+bow, and Standish at the stern, the men and boys who stayed behind
+grouped upon the shore, while a vague cloud of skirts and kirtles
+hovered upon the brow of Cole's Hill, when Elder Brewster, baring his
+white head, stepped upon the Rock, and raising his hands to heaven
+prayed loud and fervently that the God of battles, the God of victory,
+the God of their fathers, would bless, protect, and prosper those who
+went forth in His name to do battle for His Right; and as the old man's
+voice rose clear and sonorous in its impassioned appeal, the first
+breath of a favoring wind came out of the South, and the lapping waves
+of the incoming tide answered melodiously to the deep diapason of the
+Amen sent up from fifty bearded throats.
+
+"And now we may go home and make our mourning weeds," said Priscilla
+with a petulant half-sob, half-laugh, as she and Mary Chilton turned
+away from the wheatfield on the hill.
+
+"Nay, John Alden will come home safe, I'm sure on 't," said Mary gently,
+but her vivacious friend turned sharply upon her.
+
+"And if he comes not at all, I'd liefer know him dead in honor, than
+lingering here among the women like some others."
+
+"Gilbert Winslow, or his brother John if you mean him, would have gone
+as gladly as any man had the captain chosen him," replied Mary
+composedly, if coldly, and Priscilla turned and clipped her in a sharp
+embrace, crying out that indeed her friend were no more than right to
+beat her for a froward child.
+
+The prosperous wind lasted all the way, and before noon the shallop lay
+at anchor close beside the Swan, a small craft owned by the Weymouth
+men, and intended for their use in trading and fishing. Standish's
+first visit was to her, and much to his surprise he found her both
+undefended and deserted. Landing with four of his men he next proceeded
+to the plantation, as it was called, where some ten or twelve
+substantial buildings surrounded with a stockade established a very
+defensible position, but here again neglect and suicidal folly stared
+him in the face.
+
+The settlers were dispersed in every direction: three had that very
+morning gone to live among the Indians; many were roaming the woods and
+shore in search of food; one poor fellow going to dig clams on the
+previous day had stuck fast in the mud by reason of weakness, and though
+the Indians stood upon the shore watching him with shouts of derisive
+laughter, not one put out a hand to help him, and he perished miserably
+at the flow of the tide.
+
+The master of the Swan, stricken with the folly of strong drink, met all
+Standish's expostulations with a fatuous laugh, and the declaration that
+there was no danger,--no danger whatever; that he and the Indians were
+such friends that he carried no arms, and never closed the gates of the
+stockade; that all the stories reaching Plymouth were lies or blunders;
+and that although they were short of provisions, and especially of
+strong waters, they asked nothing more of the Plymouth people than some
+fresh supplies to last until Sanders, the head of the colony, should
+return from Monhegan on the coast of Maine, whither he had gone for
+corn.
+
+Leaving the drunken captain in disgust, Standish at once took the
+command of the post upon himself, and dispatched Hobomok and two of the
+settlers who came to place themselves under his orders, to bring in all
+of the others whom they could reach, sending word that he would feed
+them. Many of them, including Sanders' lieutenant named Manning, came at
+the summons, and before night all who would were safe within the
+stockade, and were served each man with a pint of shelled corn, all that
+could be spared, for it was taken from the Pilgrims' stock of seed-corn.
+
+Then in a brief and vigorous address Standish told the colonists why he
+had come, and repeated to them the assurance given him by Hobomok that
+the day but one after his arrival was the day fixed upon for the
+massacre, the boats needing but the one day's work to complete them.
+Furthermore, he assured them that he needed nor would accept any help
+from them in his punishment of the savages, the danger and the
+responsibility being no more than Plymouth could endure, and, as he
+significantly added, "The savages were not like to flee before men who
+had so often fled before them."
+
+Hardly was the harangue ended when a Neponset bringing a few hastily
+collected furs entered the stockade, and warily approaching the captain
+offered them for sale. Standish controlling all appearance of
+indignation parleyed with him and paid a fair price for the furs, but as
+the Indian turned toward one of the houses, he called him back, and
+dismissed him somewhat peremptorily.
+
+"To spy out the land hath he come," remarked he to Alden. "And I will
+not have him glean our purpose." But the savage had already learned
+something, and went back to his comrades to report that
+The-Sword-of-the-White-Men "spoke smoothly, but his eyes showed that
+there was anger in his heart."
+
+The second morning so soon as the gates were opened several Indians
+entered together. One of them named Pecksuot, a pniese of great
+celebrity, greeted Hobomok jeeringly, and told him that he supposed his
+master had come to kill all the Neponsets including himself, and
+added,--
+
+"Tell him to begin if he dare; we are not afraid of him, nor shall we
+run away and hide. Let him begin unless he is afraid. Is he afraid?"
+
+Hobomok repeated the message word for word, but Standish only replied,--
+
+"Tell the pniese I would speak with his sachem, Obtakiest."
+
+"Obtakiest is busy, or he is feasting, or he is sleeping," replied
+Pecksuot disdainfully. "He does not trouble himself to run about after
+any little fellow who sends for him."
+
+Again Hobomok translated the insult, but added in a low voice,--
+
+"Obtakiest is waiting for some of his braves who are gone to the
+Shawmuts for help. When they return he will attack the white men."
+
+"So! Then we will not wait for them, but so soon as we can gather the
+heads in one place we will return some of their courtly challenges." And
+Standish ground his strong teeth together in the pain of self-restraint
+under insult.
+
+Perceiving that he did not mean to act, some of the Indians who had
+lingered a little behind at first, now came forward, hopping and dancing
+around Standish, whetting their knives upon their palms, making
+insulting gestures, and shouting all sorts of jeers and taunts at him
+and the white men generally.
+
+Then Wituwamat came forward and in his own tongue cried out,--
+
+"The Captain Sword-of-the-White-Men escaped the knife I carried to
+Canacum for him, but he will not escape this." And he showed a dagger
+hung around his neck by a deer's sinew, on whose wooden handle a woman's
+face was not inartistically carved.
+
+"This is Wituwamat's squaw-knife," declared he. "At home he has another
+with a man's face upon it which has already killed both French and
+English; by and by they will marry, and there shall be a knife ready for
+every white man's heart; they can see, they can eat, and they make no
+childish noise like the white man's weapons. But the squaw knife is
+enough for the white pniese."
+
+"Hm! Methinks I cannot much longer keep Gideon in his scabbard--he will
+fly out of his own accord," muttered Standish, a deadly pallor showing
+beneath the bronze of his skin. Pecksuot saw it, and mistook it for the
+hue of fear. With a savage smile he approached and stood close beside
+the Captain, towering above his head, for he was a giant in stature and
+strength.
+
+"The Sword-of-the-White-Men may be a great pniese, but he is a very
+little man," said he contemptuously. "Now I am a pniese as well as he,
+and I am besides a very big man, and a very brave warrior. The Sword had
+better run away before I devour him."
+
+Without reply Standish turned and walked into the principal house of the
+village, and looked around the large lower room.
+
+"It will do as well as another place," said he briefly. "Alden and
+Howland remove me this great table to the side of the room, and pitch
+out this settle and the stools. Now John Alden get you gone and send me
+Hopkins and Billington. Tarry you with Cooke and Browne at the gate;
+bid Soule and Eaton stand on guard, and if they hear me cry Rescue! make
+in to my help. Let no more of the salvages into the stockade until we
+have settled with these. Hobomok, tell Pecksuot, Kamuso, whom I saw
+behind the rest, Wituwamat, and that notorious ruffian his brother, that
+I fain would speak with them in this place."
+
+"Four to four," remarked Billington with grewsome relish.
+
+"Ay. Take you Wituwamat; Hopkins, I leave you to deal with Kamuso;
+Howland, take the young fellow, and I will deal with Pecksuot, for in
+truth he is a bigger man than I, but we will see if he is a better."
+
+What story Hobomok may have invented to bring the four ringleaders into
+the house we know not, but as five white men remained outside with at
+least an equal number of Indians, they could not fear being overmatched,
+and presently came stalking impudently in, exchanging jeers and laughter
+of the most irritating nature.
+
+Hobomok followed, and closing the door stood with his back against it,
+calmly observing the scene, but taking no part in it.
+
+Then at last the captain loosed the reins of the fiery spirit struggling
+and chafing beneath the curb so long, and fixing his eyes red with the
+blaze of anger upon Pecksuot, he cried,--
+
+"On guard, O Pecksuot!" and sprang upon him, seizing the squaw-knife,
+which was sharpened at the back as well as at the front, and ground at
+the tip to a needle point. With a coarse laugh Pecksuot snatched at the
+captain's throat with his left hand, while his right closed like iron
+over the captain's grasp of the hilt and tried to turn it against him.
+But the rebound from his forced inaction had strung the soldier's
+muscles like steel and thrilled along his nerves like fire. A roar like
+that of a lion broke from his panting chest, and with one mighty effort
+he wrung the knife from the grasp of the giant, and turning its point
+drove it deep into the heart of the boaster. A wild cry of death and
+defeat rung through the room as he fell headlong, and Wituwamat turning
+his head to look, gave Billington his chance and received his own mortal
+wound; while Kamuso fighting with the silent courage of a great warrior
+only succumbed at last beneath a dozen wounds from Hopkins's short
+sword, and Howland having disarmed and wounded his opponent presented
+him as prisoner under Standish's orders.
+
+"Should'st have slain him in the heat of the onset, Howland," panted the
+captain, wiping his hands and looking around him. "Now--take him out,
+Billington, and hang him to the tree in the middle of the parade. We
+shall leave him there as an example for the others. Open the door,
+Hobomok."
+
+Hobomok did as he was bid, but then advancing with slow step to the side
+of the fallen Pecksuot he placed a foot upon his chest and softly
+said,--
+
+"Yes, my brother, thou wast a very big man, but I have seen a little man
+bring thee low."
+
+It was the giant's funeral elegy.
+
+"I have notched my sword on yon villain's skull," exclaimed Hopkins
+wiping and examining his blade, and the Captain smiling shrewdly said,--
+
+"I risked not Gideon in such ignoble warfare, though he clattered in his
+scabbord. Savage weapons for savage hearts, say I."
+
+"Ha! There's fighting without!" cried Hopkins, rushing to the door,
+where in effect Soule and Browne had shot down two stout savages, who
+hearing Pecksuot's death cry had tried to avenge him; while another
+rushing upon Alden with uplifted knife was caught in mid career by a
+bullet from the captain's snaphance snatched up at Hopkins's warning.
+
+So fell seven of the savages, who would if they could have barbarously
+murdered seventy white men, women, and children, and thus did the
+Captain of the Pilgrim forces teach the red men a lesson that lasted in
+vivid force until the men of that generation had given way to those of
+poor weak Sachem Philip's day.
+
+That night one of the three colonists who had gone to live among the
+Indians returned to the village bringing news that in the evening a
+runner had arrived at the place where he was, and had delivered a "short
+and sad" message to his hosts, probably the news of Pecksuot's and
+Wituwamat's death. The Indians had begun at once to collect and arm, and
+he foreboding evil had slunk away after vainly trying to persuade his
+comrades to do the same.
+
+"They will be slain out of revenge," declared Hobomok in his own tongue,
+and the event proved him a true prophet.
+
+In the early gray of morning the watch reported a file of Indians
+emerging from the forest, and Standish with four of his own men, and two
+settlers who implored permission to join him, went to meet them. A bushy
+hillock lay midway between the two parties, and the Indians were making
+for its shelter, when the Pilgrims breaking into a double run
+forestalled them, and reached the summit where, as Standish declared, he
+was ready to welcome the whole Neponset tribe.
+
+The Indians at once fell behind each man his tree, and a flight of
+arrows aimed chiefly at Standish and Hobomok ensued.
+
+"Let no man shoot until he hath a fair mark," ordered the Captain.
+"'T is useless to waste ammunition upon tree-trunks."
+
+"Both their pnieses are dead, and Obtakiest himself is none!" suddenly
+declared Hobomok. "I alone can drive them!" and throwing off his coat,
+leaving his chest with its gleaming "totem" bare, he extended wide his
+arms and rushed down the hill shouting at the top of his voice,--
+
+"Hobomok the pniese! Hobomok the devil! Hobomok is awake! Hobomok has
+come!"
+
+"The fool will be shot! Hath he gone mad!" shouted Billington, but
+Hopkins grasped his arm.
+
+"Let be, let be! He knows what he is about. Himself told me that his
+name Hobomok answereth to our word Devil, and that while every pniese
+through fasting and self-torture gains much power over demons and is
+greatly feared by all who are not pnieses, he having taken the foul
+fiend's name, had gained double the power of the rest, and could when
+put to it summon Sathanas and all his brood to aid him. Those others
+know it, and--lo, you now, see them scatter, see them fly!" and with a
+loud laugh he pointed to the savage crew, who panic stricken were
+fleeing before the pniese like a flock of frightened sheep.
+
+"Have after them! Follow me, men!" shouted Standish rushing down the
+hill, the others following as fast as they could, but not fast enough,
+for before they came within shot, the party was halted by Hobomok's
+return, who half glorious, half laughing, reported the enemy hidden in a
+swamp, whither he led his friends.
+
+"We will slay no more if we can help it," declared the captain. "Alden,
+show a flag of truce. Haply they will understand it."
+
+But although as Standish drew near the thicket, Alden carrying the white
+flag beside him, the savages refrained from firing, his invitation to
+parley was received with a volley of abuse and defiance renewed at every
+attempt of his to speak.
+
+"Obtakiest is there. I know his voice," declared Hobomok who had crept
+up behind. "He will not show himself lest I curse him."
+
+"Obtakiest! Sachem! Art thou there?" demanded Standish. "Come forth then
+like a man, and we two will fight it out here in the midst. I challenge
+thee, sachem!"
+
+A hoarse laugh and a volley of obscene abuse was the reply, and Standish
+indignantly cried,--
+
+"Dost not know how base and cowardly it is to hide there and tongue it
+like an angry woman! Thou 'rt not fit to be called a man!"
+
+A shower of arrows was the only response to this, and presently the
+movement of the bushes showed that the Indians were retreating to a
+deeper fastness, and Standish deeply disgusted marched his own men back
+to the village, the only casualty on either side being the broken arm of
+the powah or priest, who with Wituwamat and Pecksuot were really the
+heart of the conspiracy; for Obtakiest after a while sent a squaw to
+Plymouth abjectly begging for peace, and declaring that he had since
+Standish's visit changed his camp every night for fear of receiving
+another one.
+
+"And now, Master Manning, and you, master of the Swan and friend of the
+Neponsets," demanded Standish, as he arrayed the Weymouth men before
+him, and declared his success in their quarrel, "what shall I do more
+for your comfort or safety before my return to Plymouth? For myself, I
+should never fear to remain in this plantation had I the half of your
+men, but for yourselves ye must judge. Only I will add that I am charged
+by Governor Bradford to say that any who will come to settle in Plymouth
+and abide by its laws and governance shall be kindly welcomed."
+
+The settlers debated the matter among themselves for a while, and
+although a few and those of the best, decided to accept the invitation
+to Plymouth albeit somewhat coldly given, the majority decided to desert
+the post where they had suffered so much, and to join some other of
+Weston's men at Monhegan. The Pilgrims cheerfully lent their help, and
+before night the settlers had loaded all their portable property into
+the Swan, Standish had seen the gates of the stockade securely bolted
+and barred, and Hobomok with some red paint had traced upon each a
+hideous emblem, which he assured the white men would frighten away any
+predatory Indian.
+
+Standish only laughed, but Hopkins nodded sagely.
+
+"The rogue is right--I know the symbol, and have seen the terror it
+carries," said he; and true it is that whether from superstitious or
+from martial terrors, that stockade and the houses it enclosed, and the
+body of the savage left swinging from the tree in their midst, were
+never molested or apparently visited by the red men again. As the heavy
+laden Swan weltered out of the harbor, victualed with all that remained
+of Standish's seed corn except a scanty ration apiece to his own men,
+the pinnace bore gallantly up for Plymouth, and in due course joyfully
+arrived there bringing home all her crew victorious and unscathed.
+
+With them came Wituwamat's head to be set on a pike over the gateway of
+the Fort, for these our Fathers were not of our day or thought in such
+matters; and these Englishmen did but follow the usage of England, when
+so lately as 1747 the heads of the unhappy Pretender's more unhappy
+followers defiled the air of London's busiest street.
+
+Standish for one never doubted of the justice of his course either in
+the slaying of the colony's avowed enemies, or the exposure of the
+ringleader's head; not even when a year or so later Bradford sorrowfully
+placed in his hands a letter just received from his revered Pastor
+Robinson at Leyden, who in commenting on the death of the Indians
+said,--
+
+"Oh how happy a thing it had been had you converted some before you had
+killed any. Let me be bold to exhort you seriously to consider of the
+disposition of your captain, whom I love;--but there is cause to fear
+that by occasion, especially of provocation, there may be wanting in him
+that tenderness of the life of man made after God's image, that is
+meet."
+
+Standish read the letter, and returning it without a word went out from
+his friend's presence, nor did he ever after allude to it, but a blow
+had been struck upon that loyal loving heart from which it never in this
+life recovered.
+
+Thirty years later as the hero set his house in order, his failing hand
+wrote these words,--
+
+"I give 3£. to Mercy Robinson whom I tenderly love for her grandfather's
+sake."
+
+And that was his revenge.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIV.
+
+THE WOLF AT THE DOOR.
+
+
+Midsummer was upon the land, and the heat and drought were intense. Day
+after day the sun rose fierce and pitiless, drinking up at a draught
+what scanty dews had distilled in a night so brief and heated that it
+brought no refreshment to herbage or to man. Day after day wistful eyes
+searched the horizon for a cloud if no bigger than a man's hand, and
+still only the hard blue above and the palpitating horizon line stared
+blankly back. The crops languished in the field, some already dead, and
+the scanty store saved from the seed corn quite gone. Many a day a few
+clams, a lobster, or a piece of fish without bread or any vegetable, was
+a family's whole subsistence.
+
+Early in July the ship Plantation had touched at Plymouth having on
+board two hogsheads of dried peas for sale, but seeing the bitter need
+of the colonists the shipmaster raised the price to £8 per hogshead, and
+although they had the money, the Fathers refused to submit to the
+extortion, and the peas sailed southward.
+
+It is but forty miles from Plymouth to Boston Harbor, where about a
+hundred and fifty years later the women signed a declaration that they
+would forego the use of tea rather than submit to extortion, and their
+fathers and husbands and lovers flung a goodly cargo into the sea.
+
+But a stout spirit although it keeps a man up puts no flesh on his
+bones, and soon it became a piteous sight to stand in the Town Square
+and mark the faces and figures of those who passed by. Strong men
+staggered from weakness as they walked, women glided along like mournful
+white wraiths, even the little children in their quaint garb looked worn
+and emaciated. Standish, who relying upon his iron constitution and long
+training in a soldier's endurance, had regularly divided his rations
+with some woman or child, had grown so gaunt and worn that he might well
+have posed as The Skeleton in Armor, when he held his monthly muster,
+and Mistress Brewster, although some private provision was made for her,
+wasted away piteously.
+
+"Where is the ship spoken by the master of the Plantation?" was the
+daily cry, and daily Hobomok climbed the great tulip-tree on the crest
+of Watson's Hill and swept the horizon line with eyes keener than any
+white man's.
+
+"The Lord abaseth us for our sins," declared the elder. "Call a solemn
+assembly, proclaim a fast, let us entreat our God to have mercy, and our
+Lord to pardon. Who can tell but He yet may turn and have compassion,
+and spare the remnant of His people. Even as a servant looketh to the
+hand of his master even so let us wait upon our God, beseeching that He
+spare, that He pardon, that He restore us, who for our sins are
+appointed to die."
+
+So spake the elder after the evening prayers of a day even more
+exhausting than its predecessors, and Myles Standish, leaning against
+the wall for very weakness, muttered,--
+
+"Nay, what sin have these women and children wrought? What odds between
+a God like that and the Shietan of the salvages? Nay, Elder, thou hast
+not bettered the faith my mother lived and died by."
+
+But the fast was appointed for the next day, which fell on a Thursday,
+and as the sun sprang up with even an added blaze of pitiless heat, he
+saw a mournful procession winding up the hill to the Fort, now so
+completed as to offer a large lower room for purposes of devotion or of
+refuge, while the ordnance mounted on the roof gained a wider range, and
+presented a more formidable aspect.
+
+At the head walked Elder Brewster, but the shadowy form of Mary his wife
+reclined in the old chair set beside the window, whence she could watch
+the procession she was unable to join except in spirit. Then came the
+Governor and the Captain, Allerton and Winslow, Warren and Fuller,
+Hopkins and Howland, Alden and Browne, and the rest of the glorious
+band, the least of whom has his name written in the Libro d'Oro of the
+men posterity delighteth to honor. After the men came the women, meek
+and gentle, yet strong and courageous, and the children, poor little
+heroes and heroines, involuntary martyrs like the Holy Innocents of
+Bethlehem.
+
+"Get thee to the roof, Hobomok," ordered the captain, "and say the
+prayers the elder hath so painfully taught thee; but mind me, lad, keep
+thine eyes upon the horizon and watch for the answer, whether it be a
+sail, or whether it be a rain cloud. Shalt play the part of Elijah's
+servant, and the elder is the very moral of the stern old prophet."
+
+No morsel of food, no drop of drink, had passed the lips of that wan
+company since the pittance of the night before, and yet for nine long
+hours of that fearful day, the air so heated that it hardly fed the
+lungs, and the sun blazing so pitilessly upon the log structure that a
+faint odor of parching wood mingled with the torrid air within the Fort,
+yes, for nine long hours the elder prayed, or preached, or recited aloud
+the deep abasement of the penitential psalms, and the wail of the
+prophets, proclaiming, yet deprecating, the wrath of an offended God.
+
+In the intervals others spoke; Doctor Fuller, himself a deacon in the
+church, and Bradford, whose petition less abject than that of the elder,
+called confidently for help, upon Him who twice fed a starving
+multitude, who promised that no petition in His name should go
+unanswered, who hungering in the wilderness knew the extremity of
+famine, who cried aloud, I Thirst, who has promised to be with His own
+in all time till Time shall be no more.
+
+Standish, like the statue of a sentinel in bronze, stood at the door
+leaning upon his snaphance, listening intently to all, and breathing a
+deep-throated Amen to the governor's prayer.
+
+Noon blazed overhead, and Priscilla, ah, poor white, attenuate
+Priscilla, crept down the hill to the elder's house, and gathering a
+handful of fire-wood warmed some broth made from a rabbit snared by
+Alden the day before, and silently brought a cup to the mother, who
+drank it with the tears brimming over her patient, faded eyes.
+
+"I am not worthy to fast with the rest of you. I am an unprofitable
+servant," whispered she handing back the cup and covering her face.
+
+"Oh, mother, mother, do not break my heart," cried the girl, whom the
+smell of food had turned sick and faint. "It is not so, dear saint. The
+Lord will not have thee fast because He knows thou art already
+perfected"--
+
+"Hush, hush, my child; thy words are both wild and wicked. Get thee back
+to the House of Prayer, and beg our God to forgive thy sin of
+presumption. Fare thee well--nay, one moment,--doth,--doth the elder
+look sadly spent?--he is not over strong--and Jonathan? Didst mark him
+and the boys? Wrestling is but puny."
+
+"They are all in such strength as can be looked for, mother dear, and
+will hold out as well as any." And Priscilla wanly smiled in the poor
+pinched face, adjusted the cushions and the foot-rest, and without so
+much as a drop of cold water for herself, wearily climbed the hill. The
+captain making room for her to pass looked with anxious sympathy into
+her face, but spake no word, and again the withering hours passed on,
+and the elder prayed in a husky and broken whisper, and his hearers
+muttered an Amen, hollow and mournful as the echo from an open tomb.
+
+Three o'clock, and Hobomok scrambled down from the roof, and stood in
+the open doorway. His master saw and went out to him. In a moment he
+came again, and passing between the banks of rude benches stood before
+the elder, who, pausing suddenly, fixed upon him a gaze of piteous
+inquiry, while a little movement among the hundred starving souls
+watching and praying heralded his news.
+
+"The answer has come, Elder," announced the soldier briefly. "A full
+rigged ship has just cleared Manomet headland, and a cloud black with
+rain is rolling up out of the Southwest."
+
+"Let us pray!" said the elder softly; and Standish bowed his head with
+the rest as the holy man, his voice strong and fervent once more, poured
+out for himself and his people such gratitude as perhaps is only
+possible from those "appointed to die," and suddenly rescued by the hand
+of a merciful Father.
+
+A few moments later, as the procession wound down the hill, somewhat
+less formally than it had gone up, the southern and western sky were
+black with clouds already veiling the sun, and within an hour a soft and
+tender rain began to fall, soaking quietly into the earth gaping all
+over with the wounds of drought, and reviving, as Bradford quaintly
+phrased it, both their drooping affections and their withered corn.
+
+"The white man's God is better than the red man's," remarked Hobomok
+privately to Wanalancet, who was visiting Plymouth. "When our powahs
+pray for rain, and cut themselves, and offer sacrifice, it comes
+sometimes, but in noisy floods that tear up the earth, and beat down the
+maize, and do more harm than good. Wanalancet better turn praying Indian
+like Hobomok."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXV.
+
+THE BRIDES' SHIP.
+
+
+The rain proved as persistent as it was gentle, and under its influence
+the wind sighed itself asleep, leaving at sunset the ship espied by
+Hobomok becalmed outside Beach Point. Some of the Pilgrims would have
+rowed out to her, but Bradford knew from his own feelings how unfit they
+were for such heavy labor.
+
+"A little patience should not be hard for men who have patiently waited
+so long," said he smiling. "Let us all break our fast with
+thanksgiving."
+
+"One more cup of broth and a bit of the hare," said Priscilla gayly, as
+she set a little table beside her precious invalid. "And to-morrow I
+doubt not but I can offer you a posset of white flour and sugar and
+spice and all sorts of comfortable things. Whatever the ship may be
+'t is sure to have the making of a posset in her."
+
+"Oh Priscilla, dear maid, if it might be,--if I dared think of my two
+girls"--
+
+The trembling voice gave way, and for a moment Priscilla could not
+speak. Then she cheerily said,--
+
+"If not themselves there is sure to be news of them, and God is very
+good. Pr'ythee take the broth."
+
+"There then, good child. Now go to thine own supper. Mary is placing it
+upon the board."
+
+Dropping a light kiss upon the face lovingly upturned, Priscilla passed
+into the outer room where upon the great table standing to-day in
+Pilgrim Hall rested a wooden bowl filled with boiled clams, and beside
+it a dish of coarse salt and a pewter flagon of water. Only this, no
+bread, no vegetable, no after course; but at the head of the table stood
+the elder, his worn face radiant with gratitude, as, uplifting his
+voice, he gave thanks to God for that he and his might "suck of the
+abundance of the seas and of the treasures hid in the sand."
+
+After midnight a breeze sprung up, but the master of the Anne cautiously
+waited for the full tide to float him over the many flats then as now
+obstructing Plymouth Harbor, and it was not until another sunrise that
+the travel-worn and over-crowded bark folded her patched sails and
+dropped her anchor not far from the old anchorage ground of the
+Mayflower.
+
+The governor no longer tried to restrain the enthusiasm of his townsmen;
+in fact, he himself helped to drag up the anchor of the pinnace and make
+her ready for a visit to the stranger. With him went Jonathan Brewster
+to see if perchance his sisters might be on board; and Doctor Fuller,
+and Robert Hicks, and Francis Cooke, and William Palmer, and Master
+Warren, albeit not fit even for so small an exertion, for every one of
+these men thought it possible that his wife might be aboard, nor was one
+of them disappointed, for the Anne, might well have dropped her anchor
+to the tune of "Sweethearts and Wives," so laden was she with those
+precious commodities.
+
+"Come Captain!" called Bradford as the dory lay ready to transport the
+last three to the pinnace already under sail.
+
+"No," somewhat morosely returned Standish. "I shall only be in the way
+of other men's rejoicings. There's naught for me aboard that or any
+other ship that floats. No, I say,--push off, Cooke!"
+
+And the captain strode up the hill, and climbed the roof of the Fort to
+cover and pet his big guns and see that the dampness did them no
+mischief.
+
+Below, Alden helped Priscilla to make ready all the food remaining in
+the village, for surely the new-comer had brought supplies, and the
+famine was at an end.
+
+"If this ship might bring him a wife as perchance it hath to our good
+surgeon," said John after describing his master's mood.
+
+"Ay, but I fear me he'll be hard to suit," replied Priscilla.
+
+"Natheless, remember sweetheart, you promised me that so soon as the
+famine was over and our new house finished"--
+
+"And the captain cheerful as his wont."
+
+"Ay, well so soon as all these matters were settled fairly, you
+promised"--
+
+"Oh sooth, good lad, stand not gaping there and minding me of last
+winter's snow and last summer's roses! Go and call the captain and the
+elder to their breakfast while I see to the dear mother."
+
+But breakfast was hardly over when Mistress Winslow ran across the
+street to the elder's wife.
+
+"Lo you now, dear mother," cried she excitedly. "There are three boats
+rowing toward the Rock, and in every one of them you may make out
+women's gear, and who knows but Patience and Fear are of the company.
+All the men have gone down to the Rock, and I am going."
+
+Out she ran again, and Priscilla quickly moved to the mother's side, but
+great joys do not kill even though they startle, and presently the white
+white face was raised with a smile almost of heaven illuminating it, and
+the dame softly said,--
+
+"Yes, they have come. I knew it in the night. They have come, but
+Priscilla thou 'rt none the less my dear and duteous daughter. Now get
+you to the Rock with the rest. I shall be well alone."
+
+"Now is Will Bradford well content; now is comedy ready to tread upon
+the heels of tragedy, and funeral dirges to end in marriage chimes,"
+muttered the captain as he plunged down the steep of Leyden Street, and
+stood with overcast face and compressed lips watching the boats sweeping
+merrily up to the landing.
+
+In the foremost sat the governor, and close beside him two female
+figures their backs to the shore. On the next thwart Surgeon Fuller, his
+whimsical face for once honestly glad, leaned an elbow on his knee and
+peered up into the comely face of Bridget, his young wife, for Agnes
+Carpenter lay asleep beneath St. Peter's Church in old Leyden town. But
+her sister Juliana had come with her husband, George Morton, and their
+five children, Patience already a winsome lass of fifteen, soon to marry
+John Faunce and become mother of the last ruling Elder of Plymouth
+Church.
+
+Later on, two more of these fair Carpenter girls were to come over to
+the home of their sister Alice: Priscilla, who married William Wright,
+one of the joyous passengers of the Fortune; and Mary, of whom the
+Chronicles say that she died "a godly old maid" in her sister's home.
+
+Pardon the interlude, but there is something very fascinating in the
+story of this family of five beautiful girls so eagerly sought in
+marriage by the best men of the colony, and of her who was the flower of
+all and yet died "a godly old maid."
+
+The governor's boat was at the Rock, and willing hands on shore caught
+at the rope thrown from the bows, and dragged her up so that the
+passengers could step out dry shod. Standish drew back a little, and
+with folded arms stood watching the debarkation. Last of all came
+Bradford and the two ladies he had escorted.
+
+"So that is Mistress Alice Carpenter Southworth, is it," muttered the
+soldier grasping a handful of his ruddy beard. "Well, it is a winsome
+dame and a gentle; I wonder not that Will hath"--
+
+But the calm comment ended abruptly in an exclamation of incredulity and
+pleasure, for when Mistress Southworth stood safely upon the strand,
+Bradford turned and gave his hand to her companion, a girl of some four
+or five and twenty years old, with one of those rounded and supple
+figures which combine strength and delicacy, endurance and elasticity,
+and are very slow in yielding to the attacks of Time. A demure hood tied
+under the chin framed a round face, whose firm fair skin had defied the
+tarnish of the sea, and only gained a somewhat warmer glow in cheek and
+lip than its native tone. Little tendrils of sunny brown hair pushed
+their laughing way from beneath the edge of the hood and curled joyously
+to the fingers of the toying wind. Straight dark brows and long
+eyelashes of the same deep tint gave character to the face, and shaded a
+pair of eyes whose beauty has stamped itself upon every generation of
+this woman's descendants. Large, and peculiarly opened, these eyes were
+of a clear violet blue, but with pupils whose frequent dilatation gave
+such range of tint and expression, and such extraordinary brilliancy
+that many were found to insist that the eyes themselves were black,
+while others vowed that no such intensity of blue had ever been seen in
+human orbs before. But neither in the shape, nor the color, nor the
+brilliancy, nor the pathetic curve of the upper lid, did the wonderful
+beauty of these eyes abide; it was a fascination, a compelling power in
+their regard; the power of appeal or of assurance, of love or wrath, of
+promise or of trust, that dwelt in their depths, and leaped or stole
+thence bending to their service the will of all who gazed steadfastly
+upon them. Weapons more dangerous in a woman's hands than was Gideon the
+Sword, in the hands of the Captain of Plymouth.
+
+As their owner lightly leaping from the gunwale of the boat alighted
+upon the Rock, these eyes sought and rested merrily upon Myles'
+wonder-stricken face, while a joyous smile illuminated the features and
+showed bright and pretty teeth.
+
+"Barbara!" exclaimed the captain, leaping down from the hillock where he
+had so unsympathetically posted himself to observe the landing.
+
+"Yes, Barbara," returned a blithe voice. "Come all this way to look
+after her cousin, who cared not to come so far as the ship to greet
+her."
+
+"But how was I to know thou wert coming, lass? Ever and always at thine
+old trick of laying me in some blunder! Well, thou 'rt welcome, Bab,
+welcome as flowers in May." And seizing the round face between his two
+hands Myles pressed a hearty salute upon either cheek.
+
+"And Captain," broke in Bradford's well pleased voice, "let me bring you
+to the notice of Mistress Southworth, in whose matronly company your
+cousin has journeyed."
+
+A fair and gentle English face, albeit not without a quiet
+determination in its lines, was turned upon the soldier as Alice
+Southworth held out her hand saying,--
+
+"And greatly beholden am I to Mistress Standish for her companionship. I
+know not quite how we could have borne some of our discomfiture had not
+she cheered and upheld us as she did."
+
+"Ay, 't is a way the wench hath of old," replied the captain gayly. "I
+mind me of a home across the seas where one declared that naught but
+Barbara's care kept her in life at all. But in good sooth, girl, why
+didst not warn me of thy coming?"
+
+"I would fain take thee by surprise, cousin, and methinks I have."
+
+"A total, an utter surprise."
+
+"We had fared but ill here in the colony had yon sachem surprised thee
+as effectually, Myles," laughed the governor as the little party climbed
+The Street, a long procession of jocund men, women, and children
+streaming after them, the joy of reunion and the flood of loving
+greetings sweeping away the conventional barriers wherein the
+Separatists attempted to imprison Nature.
+
+"Ah! There are the elder's girls!" said Bradford, as they halted before
+his gate and looked back upon the busy street.
+
+"Yes, Fear and Patience, sweet maids both of them," replied Alice.
+
+"And those five merry Warren girls have found their father," said
+Barbara. "But he looks not over strong."
+
+"No," replied the governor sadly. "He hath not grudged both to spend and
+to be spent for the common weal, and glad am I that his wife hath come
+to restrain his zeal. But come in, come in, dear friends, and Mistress
+Eaton, who cares for me and my house until I can purvey me another
+housekeeper, will make you welcome."
+
+"I would not say nay to some breakfast, nor I think would you, maid
+Barbara, eh?" laughed Alice, and the governor's face clouded.
+
+"I fear me there is but sorry cheer to set before you, dear friends,"
+said he. "Mistress Eaton warned me last night that a few clams were all
+she had, or could compass, in her larder."
+
+"Something was told aboard of a famine in the place," said Barbara
+quietly, "and I fancied it could do no harm to put some provant left
+over of my stores into a bag and carry it ashore. If none wanted it I
+could leave it hid, and--but here it is--the bag, Myles?"
+
+"What, this sack I have tugged up the hill? All this, provision?"
+
+"Ay, for the cook gave me a good bit of boiled beef, and a hen to boot."
+
+"Beef!" exclaimed the captain involuntarily, but in a tone of such
+amazed delight that Barbara's eyes dwelt upon him in pity and wonder.
+
+"Myles! Thou dost not mean that thou hast been actually a-hungered!"
+said she. "Oh Alice, they are starving."
+
+"Starving!" echoed Alice in the same tone of dismay. "Oh Will!"
+
+"Nay, nay, nay!" protested the governor with a somewhat hollow laugh.
+"We have not feasted of late, perhaps, and the word beef hath a strange
+sound in our ears, since no meat save a little wild game hath been seen
+among us for a year or more, but still, thank God, we are well and
+hearty"--
+
+"Well and hearty!" repeated Alice Southworth. "Look at him, Barbara;
+look at his cheeks, his temples, look at that hand, all as one with the
+skeleton in the museum of Leyden. Oh Barbara, to think that we should
+find them starving after all!"
+
+"Better starving than starved," replied Barbara calmly. "And if the
+governor will give me warrant, and this same Mistress Eaton will lend me
+her aid, I will soon set forth a table that shall make hungry men's
+hearts leap within them."
+
+"There, Will," exclaimed Alice generously. "That is the sort of maid she
+is, never stopping to lament and wring her hands as silly I do, but ever
+looking for the way to mend the evil, and finding it, too."
+
+Dame Eaton, whom we have known as Lois, maid to Mistress Carver, but now
+married to Francis Eaton and promoted on her marriage to be the
+governor's housekeeper, soon made her appearance, and the three women
+were not long in setting forth a breakfast whereunto the governor
+invited as many of his neighbors as the table could accommodate, and
+over which he offered a thanksgiving, glowing with loving gratitude to
+Him who giveth all.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXVI.
+
+MARRIAGE BELLS.
+
+
+"And now, Governor, we have to billet all these new-comers as best we
+may. Six-and-ninety names the captain of the Anne reports on his roster,
+and that fairly doubles the population of Plymouth. Where shall we
+bestow them all?"
+
+"Why, Captain, you know that many of our men expecting their wives and
+children have built housen and now will occupy them; and for the rest, I
+am minded, if you will have me, to impose myself upon you and Alden, and
+leave mine own house to Mistress Southworth and your cousin. Then, as
+the elder's daughters now have come, Priscilla Molines, whom my dame
+knoweth and loveth well, and Mary Chilton and Elizabeth Tilley can all
+find room here also, and the rest we will dispose of among the other
+families. Mayhap for a while the young men may sleep at the Fort."
+
+"Nay, Governor, we'll have no rantipoles at the Fort meddling and making
+among the ammunition, and playing tricks with the guns. Alden and you
+and I and Howland, and some other of the ancients, will swing our
+hammocks at the Fort if you will, and my house may be turned into a
+billet for the bachelors, until we can help them to knock up housen for
+themselves."
+
+"So be it, comrade, and yet 't is hardly worth while to make great
+changes or fatigues until"--
+
+"Until?"--
+
+"Until some among us are wed, Myles."
+
+"Why, truly yes. I had forgot, and yet I have heard the jingle of
+marriage bells in thy voice since ever yon ship rounded Manomet. How
+soon will it be, Will?"
+
+"So soon as my dame agreeth," replied Bradford contentedly. "At all odds
+before the Anne returneth. We have magistrates enow among us, however,
+for Master Oldham and Master Hatherly both carry the king's patent as
+justices; and this Master Lyford who cometh in Oldham's train is
+preacher in the Church of England."
+
+"Ha! Say you so, Will? One of the 'hireling priests' of such noisome
+odour in the nostrils of thy friends of the stricter sort at Leyden!"
+
+"Nay, Captain, but you will remember that Pastor Robinson did receive
+members of England's Church to the Lord's Table, and did counsel us to
+live in brotherly love and communion with them."
+
+"And so fell into disfavor with his old friends the Brownists," remarked
+Standish carelessly. "Well, 't is all one to me, who am no church
+member, and deny not due respect to the old faith of mine house. And you
+will be wed anon, Will?"
+
+"Ay, and we will have your Barbara to stay with us until she finds
+another home, if you and she consent. Dame Alice loves her passing
+well."
+
+"'T is a good wench and a comfortable one," replied Standish well
+pleased. "Had Rose lived, or had Priscilla said me yea, I had taken
+Barbara under mine own roof; but now I must wait until she makes her
+choice of the swains that soon will come a-wooing, and then she and her
+husband shall come to me."
+
+"Ay," returned Bradford musingly, and checking upon his lips the smile
+that danced in his eyes. "Thy plans are ever wisely laid, Myles."
+
+Turning into his own house Bradford found Alice with her wimple and
+scarf on just about to leave it.
+
+"Whither away, mistress?" asked he gayly.
+
+"Only to breathe a mouthful of fresh air, Master Governor. I have been
+so long ashipboard that four walls seem a prison to me. Mayhap I'll take
+passage back again with good Master Pierce."
+
+"Mayhap thou 'lt do naught of the sort. I have thee now, and I'll not
+let thee go, as I did sometime in Leyden."
+
+"Thou didst anger me sore, Will, when thou 'dst not close with that good
+man's offer of half his business, though it was but a merchant's. And my
+father crying up Edward Southworth"--
+
+"Nay, Alice, we'll not go pulling open old wounds to see if they be
+healed. I would not, I could not do violence to my English name and
+blood and become a Dutch trader though it were to gain thy hand, nor did
+I think thou wouldst in thine anger go so far--but there, sweetheart,
+we'll say no more on 't, now or ever. God has been exceeding gracious in
+bringing us once more together, and we will not be ungrateful. Thy boys
+shall find a father in me, Alice, and should Elder May give me again my
+little John"--
+
+"Nay, the boy is well with his grandsire in Leyden, and my Constant and
+Thomas must abide with their father's folk for a while. They would not
+part from me unless I left the boys for a year or two."
+
+"And still thou wouldst come, Alice."
+
+"Dost mind what words Ruth said to Naomi, Will?"
+
+"Truly do I, Alice."
+
+And as the two long-parted lovers looked deep into each other's eyes
+there needed no further speech to show that the long winter was over and
+the time of the singing of birds had come.
+
+Two weeks from the arrival of the Anne all Plymouth put on festal gear
+and merry faces. Good cheer abounded in place of famine, for the
+new-comers were well stored with provision, and although this was not
+turned into the common stock, those who had promising crops--and since
+the Fast Day there had been no stint of rain, and the corn promised
+marvelously well--could always obtain dry provisions for the promise of
+a share in the green meat when it should be gathered.
+
+And fitting it was that Plymouth should keep holiday, for not only was
+it the governor's marriage morn, but Priscilla Molines, whom all her
+townsfolk loved, was to become John Alden's wife; and as the two friends
+could not be parted, Mary Chilton had promised upon the day of
+Priscilla's marriage to give her hand to John Winslow, one of the
+Fortune's pilgrims and brother of Edward and Gilbert. Finally John
+Howland so strongly pleaded his cause before the elder and his wife that
+they consented to give him Elizabeth Tilley to wife, young though she
+was, and to allow him to take her to the pretty cottage he had built
+upon The Street, next to Stephen Hopkins's substantial house on the
+corner of The Street and the King's Highway. John Alden also had built a
+cottage between the captain's house and the governor's; and Eaton with
+his wife Lois was to share a house with Peter Browne, who had manfully
+assumed the charge of Widow Martha Ford and her three children.
+
+Christian Penn, a stalwart lass, passenger of the Anne, was to make one
+of the governor's family, and literally to be "help" to his wife in the
+duties of the household, while Mary Becket consented to fill the same
+place in Edward Winslow's home.
+
+Barbara, cordially invited both by Alice Southworth and by Priscilla to
+become their perpetual guest, laughingly accepted both invitations,
+saying to Priscilla,--
+
+"When I find too much pepper in thy soup, Pris, I'll e'en go cool my
+tongue with Dame Alice's comfitures; and when I fancy one new-wed pair
+were as content without me, I'll e'en go and inflict myself upon
+t' other."
+
+"And the captain will keep house with only Hobomok," said Priscilla
+dubiously.
+
+"Nay, Kit Conant is to 'bide with them, and do certain service, and I
+shall still be in and out," said Barbara briskly. "Like enough the most
+they eat will be of my brewing. We shall do well enow for the captain.
+But, Priscilla, what ailed thee not to wed him, since his comfort sits
+so nigh thy heart?"
+
+"Why, 't is but Christian to pity them who are in need, yet none can wed
+with more than one man at a time, and from the first I knew that John
+Alden was the one for me. Wed him thyself, Barbara, and send Kit Conant
+about his business."
+
+A sudden color surged all over Barbara's face, and the wonderful eyes
+shot out an angry spark, but after a moment she quietly said,--
+
+"Myles and I have ever been more like brother and sister than cousins.
+His mother was all as one with mine own."
+
+"Ay, and so it is. Yes, yes, I see," said Priscilla hurriedly, but when
+Barbara had left her she stood for many minutes drumming on the table,
+and thoughtfully gazing through the open door at the blue wonder of the
+sea.
+
+And now the wedding day had come, a glorious golden summer day, and some
+of the older folk, whose habits of early life held rigidly to the soil
+since planted anew to a Separatist crop, remembered that it was Lammas
+Day. One of these was Elizabeth, Master Warren's new-come wife, and as
+she looked abroad in the early morning, she sighed a bit and said,--
+
+"A year agone, Richard, I looked upon another guess sort of scene than
+this. The church bells were ringing and the people trooping in, and many
+was the goodwife who brought her loaf baked of the first-fruit wheat to
+offer it for the parson's table if not for the Communion"--
+
+"Nay wife, nay, remember Lot's wife," chided the husband, already so far
+upon his way to that abode of Light where shall be no Separatism and no
+uncharity.
+
+As all the world would fain be present at one or the other of the four
+marriages, it was concluded that they should be held in the open air,
+and the captain with much enthusiasm directed the spreading of an open
+tent, or, more properly, a canopy upon the greensward stretching across
+the King's Highway from Bradford's house to Hopkins's.
+
+This completed, and the military band paraded ready to salute the
+governor upon his arrival, Standish stood aside, wiping his brow, and
+looking jovially about him at the tables already spread with the wedding
+feast, which was thriftily to take the place of the villagers' ordinary
+dinner.
+
+"A cheerful and a refreshing season, Captain," said a staid voice at his
+elbow.
+
+"Ay," replied Standish briefly and with something of the good-humor gone
+from his face, for he had no great love for Isaac Allerton, Assistant of
+the Governor, and one of the principal men of the colony, though he was.
+
+"Methinks you and I might be principals instead of spectators at some
+such solemnity, and offend no law of God or man."
+
+"I know no law against your being wed if it pleases you, Master
+Allerton," replied the soldier briefly.
+
+"No--no, as you justly say, no law, Captain, and truth to tell I had it
+in my mind to speak to you this morning"--
+
+"To me, to me!" exclaimed the captain, wheeling round and staring at the
+smooth face and narrow figure of the assistant. "Dost fancy that I am a
+pretty maid hid within a buff jerkin?"
+
+"Ha! ha! Our good captain still must have his joke. Nay then, in sober
+earnest my dear brother, your cousin, Mistress Barbara Standish, doth
+much commend herself to my mind as a discreet and godly maiden, notable
+in household ways, and of a mild and biddable nature. I fain would have
+her to wife, Standish, if I may do so with your consent."
+
+"Nay now, Master Allerton, your eyes are keener after a good chance for
+trucking than ever a pair in the colony, and I'm not saying that the
+governor could find a better assistant in his weighty affairs of State,
+but you've no more eye for a gentlewoman's good qualities than I have
+for a peddler's. 'Mild and biddable,' forsooth! Those virtues were left
+out when they brewed the Standish blood, Master Allerton, and courage
+and honor and some other trifles thrown in to make amends. Why man,
+should you wed Barbara Standish and raise a hand upon her as I've seen
+you do upon your daughters, woman-grown, I'd not answer but she'd have
+your life's blood for it; and if you bade her stint the measure of the
+corn she sold to your neighbors, she'd quit your roof and you, before
+you could say whiskerando! No, no, Master Allerton, best not try to mate
+yourself with a Standish. No luck would come on 't I promise you."
+
+"Methinks, Captain Standish," replied the councilor smoothly, although
+his pale face had taken a livid cast harmonizing with a green light in
+his narrow eyes,--"methinks you take over much upon yourself in this our
+land of liberty and God-given rights. Why should you decide so
+absolutely for Mistress Standish? Why may not she speak her own mind.
+She at least has no narrow and ignorant prejudice against me, unless
+indeed you have already instilled it into her mind."
+
+"Nay now, Allerton, dost in sober sadness suppose that in meeting my
+kinswoman after a five years' parting I chose you as my theme of
+discourse? As for the rest, I lay no constraint upon Mistress Standish.
+Speak to her if you will and as soon as you will, but tell her all the
+story, tell her of your grown children, and of your years"--
+
+"They are no more than yours," sharply interrupted the councilor.
+
+"Did I say they were? Well, speak to her I say--ha, here come the
+brides. Now trumpets!"
+
+And as the trumpets blew a joyous fanfare and the drums and fife burst
+forth in a blithe jargon intended for the good old tune of Haste to the
+Wedding, out from the door of the governor's house came Bradford leading
+Alice Southworth, fair and delicate and sweet, yet with a little air of
+state about her, as one who had already known the honors of matronhood
+and now was called to become the wife of a ruler. Next came Priscilla,
+dressed in a fair white gown trimmed with old Flemish lace at which
+Mistress Winslow looked askance, her rich color a little subdued, and a
+somewhat tremulous curve to her ripe lips, while the great brown eyes
+were filled with a dreamy haze not far from tears. She was wedding the
+man of her love, but she stood all alone beside him, this brave yet
+tender-hearted Priscilla of ours,--she stood alone, and she thought of
+her mother, the mother so loved, so mourned, so near to that faithful
+heart to-day.
+
+Then came well-born, well-nurtured John Winslow and Mary Chilton, the
+fair English May whose sweet blossoms are ever upheld by such a sturdy
+and healthy stock, ay, and are protected by substantial thorns from
+meddling fingers even while its fragrance is graciously shed abroad for
+all the world to glory in.
+
+And last of all came John Howland, that "lusty yonge man" who on the
+voyage had been washed overboard and carried fathoms deep beneath the
+sea, yet by his courage and endurance survived the ordeal, and lived to
+found one of the chiefest Plymouth families. By the hand he led
+Elizabeth Tilley, a sweet slip of a girl, with true and loving eyes ever
+and anon glancing proudly at the stalwart form of the only man she ever
+loved, and yet never thought to win.
+
+Four noble and comely couple pacing through the grassy street and taking
+their places under the canopy where Elder Brewster, a magistrate, if not
+an ordained minister, stood beside a little table whereon was laid the
+colony's first Record Book brought by the Anne, and now to be used for
+the first time, for hitherto the "scanty annals of the poor" settlement
+had been kept in Governor Bradford's note-book, now alas lost to
+posterity.
+
+The simple ceremony was soon over, and as the Separatists denied
+themselves the privilege of a religious service lest some taint of
+Papistry might lurk therein, Elder Brewster closed his magisterial
+office with a prayer in which Isaac and Rebecca were not forgotten, and
+about which hung a curious flavor of the Church of England service so
+familiar to the elder's youth.
+
+"Priscilla! Mine at last! My very own," whispered John Alden in his
+bride's ear as the group broke up and all the world pressed in to offer
+congratulations.
+
+"There, there, John, if thou hast but just discovered that notable fact
+I'll leave thee to digest it while I go to see that the dinner is served
+as it should be."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXVII.
+
+"AND TO BE WROTH WITH ONE WE LOVE."
+
+
+"Barbara, hath Master Allerton asked thee to be his wife?" inquired
+Myles, as he and his cousin sat together upon the bench in front of his
+own house some few evenings after the weddings.
+
+"He spoke to the governor, and he to me," replied Barbara, a little
+spark of mirth glinting in her blue eyes.
+
+"And thou saidst?"--
+
+"I said that I hardly knew Master Allerton by sight as yet, and was in
+no haste to wed."
+
+"What sort of yea-nay answer was that, thou silly wench? Why didst not
+say No, round and full?"
+
+"Because No, wrapped in gentle words, served my turn as well, cousin."
+
+"Come now, I do remember that tone of old, soft as snow and unbendable
+as ice. So 't is the same Barbara I quarreled with so oft, is it? Ever
+quite sure that her own way is the best, and ever watchful lest any
+should lay a finger on her free will."
+
+"Methinks, Myles, you give your kinswoman a somewhat unlovely temper of
+her own. How is it about Captain Standish in these days? Hath he grown
+meek and mild, and afraid to carry himself after his own mind?"
+
+"Why so tart, Barbara? Because I chid thee for trifling with Allerton?"
+
+"Nay Myles, I made not yon weary voyage for the sake of quarreling with
+thee. Well dost thou know, cousin, I would not trifle with any man, and
+I begged the governor to enforce out of his own mouth the no-say that I
+worded gently, for truly there is no reason for me to flout the
+gentleman. How could he honor me more than to ask me to wife?"
+
+"Well, well, so long as thou hast said No and will stick to No, all is
+well; but I like not this man Allerton; he is too shrewd a trader for a
+simple gentleman to cope with. He sold me corn and gave scant measure,
+and I told him of it too. He likes me not better than I like him."
+
+"Rest easy, Myles, I'll never make him thy cousin. I care not if I never
+wed."
+
+"Nay, that's too far on t' other side the hedge. A comely and a winsome
+lass like thee is sure to wed, but what runs in my head, Barbara, is
+that there is none left here fit for thee. I would that Bradford had not
+been so constant to his old-time sweetheart. I would have given thee to
+him, for though his folk were but yeomen of the better sort there at
+home, here he is the Governor and playeth his part as well as any Howard
+or Percy of them all. Winslow cometh of good lineage and carrieth his
+coat-armor; but he and now his brother John are wed, and Gilbert will
+leave us anon, so that verily I see no man left with whom a Standish
+might fitly wed."
+
+A peal of merry laughter broke in upon the captain's meditative pause,
+and his indignant and astonished regard only seemed to aggravate the
+matter, until at last Barbara breathlessly exclaimed,--
+
+"Nay Myles, for sweet pity's sake look not so glum, nor devour me all
+at one mouthful. Dost remember how I used to tell thee to beware, for 'a
+little pot is soon hot,' and thine own wrath will choke thee some day?"
+
+"Glad am I to amuse you so pleasantly Mistress Standish, but may I ask
+the exact provocation to mirth I have just now offered?"
+
+"Oh Myles, I meant not to chafe thy temper so sorely, and I pray thee
+hold me excused for untimely laughter; but in good sooth it so tickled
+my fancy to hear thee airing thine old world quips and quiddities about
+coat-armor, and one with whom a Standish might fitly wed, and yeomen
+snatched from oblivion by the saving grace of a governor's title! And
+look upon these rocks and wild woods and swart savages and thine own
+rude labors--nay then, but I must laugh or burst!"
+
+And giving way to her humor the girl trolled out peal after peal of
+delicious laughter, while her cousin folding his arms sat regarding her
+with an iron visage, which whenever she caught sight of it set her off
+again. At last, however, she wiped her eyes and penitently cried,--
+
+"I did not think myself so rude, Myles. Pr'ythee forgive me, cousin.
+Nay, look not so ungently upon me! Here's my hand on 't I am sorry."
+
+But the captain took not the offered hand nor unbent his angry brow.
+Rising from the bench he paced up and down for a moment, then stopping
+in front of Barbara calmly said,--
+
+"Nay, I'm not angry. At first I was astonied that a gentlewoman could so
+forget herself; but I do remember that Thomas Standish, your father,
+married beneath his station, and so imported a strain into the blood of
+his noble house that will crop out now and again in his children. I
+should not therefore too much admire at such derelictions from courtesy
+and gentlehood as I but now have seen."
+
+As he slowly spoke his bitter words the lingering gleams of laughter and
+the softening lines of penitence faded from Barbara's face. Rising to
+her height, nearly equal with that of her cousin, she gazed full into
+his angry eyes with the blue splendor of her own all ablaze with
+indignation and contempt.
+
+"You dare to make light of my mother, do you, Captain Standish! My dear
+and dearly honored mother, who in her brave love endured the poverty and
+the labors that my father had no skill to save her from. My mother, who
+carried her noble husband upon her shoulders as it were, and would not
+even die till he was dead. Myles Standish, I take shame to myself that I
+am kin to you, and if ever I do wed, it shall be to lose my name and
+forget my lineage."
+
+She passed him going down the hill, but with a long step he overtook
+her, saying almost timidly,--
+
+"Nay, nay, thou 'rt over sharp with me, Barbara! I said, and I meant, no
+word against thy mother, of whom I ever heard report as one of the
+sweetest and faithfullest of wives"--
+
+"There, that will do, sir. My mother needs no praise of yours, and,
+thanks be to God, hath gone where she may rest from the burden of her
+high marriage. Let me pass an 't please you, Master Captain."
+
+"But Barbara, nay Barbara, stay but to hear a word"--
+
+"There have been words enow and to spare. I go now to tell the governor
+that I am minded to take passage in the Anne once more. My mother's folk
+in Bedfordshire, yeomen all of them, Captain Standish, will make me gay
+and welcome, and with them and such as them will I live and die."
+
+"And fill thy leisure with fashioning silk purses out of fabric thou 'lt
+find to hand," cried the captain, his temper flashing up again; but
+Barbara neither turned nor replied as she fled down the hill to hide the
+tears she could no longer restrain.
+
+Howbeit she said no word to Bradford of the return passage, a fact which
+Standish easily discovered when early next morning he met the governor
+and stopped to say to him,--
+
+"Well met, Will; I was on my road to seek thee, man."
+
+"Ay, and for what, brother?"
+
+"Why, Will, I'm moped with naught to do, and all these strange faces at
+every turn. I liked it better when we were to ourselves and it was only
+to fight the Neponsets now and again. I fain would find some work
+further agate than yon palisado."
+
+"Why, then, thy wish and my desire fit together as cup and ball, for
+here is the Little James unladen and idle. She is to stay with us, thou
+knowest, for use in trading and fishing, but Bridges, her master, saith
+some of his men are grumbling already at prospect of such peaceful
+emprises. They fain would go buccaneering in the Spanish Seas, or
+discover some such road to hasty fortune, albeit bloody and violent.
+Master Bridges and I agreed that it was best to find work for these
+uneasy souls withouten too much delay, and I told him we had been
+thinking to send a party to look after the fishing-stage we built last
+year at Cape Ann. Gloucester, they say Roger Conant hath named the place
+already. Now what say you, Myles? Will take some men and join them to
+Bridges' buccaneers, and hold all in hand and start them on fishing?"
+
+"'T will suit me woundy well, governor. Howbeit, 't is not the time for
+cod, is it?"
+
+"No, but mackerel and bluefish are in season, and at all odds 't is well
+to be on hand to claim the staging, for Conant hath sent word by an
+Indian that some English ships were harrying our fishermen at Monhegan,
+and we had best look to our properties in those regions."
+
+"Ay, ay, 't is as thou sayest, Will, like cup and ball, thy need and my
+desire. How soon can we sail?"
+
+"Why, to-night, an' it pleaseth thee. Bridges is in haste to get off,
+and the sooner the Little James is afloat the more content he will find
+himself. And as to thy company. Here is a minute of the men I had
+thought on."
+
+"H--m, h--m," muttered the captain glancing over the list handed him by
+Bradford. "Yes, these are sound good fellows all, and none of them
+burthened with wives. And by that same token, Will, thou and thy dame
+will care for my kinswoman, and bar Master Allerton from persecuting her
+with his most mawkish suit while I am gone?"
+
+"Surely, Myles, we'll care for Mistress Barbara, who is to my wife as
+one of her own sisters."
+
+"Yes, the Carpenters are gentlefolk, if not a county family like ours,"
+said Standish simply. Bradford stared a little, but only replied,--
+
+"Then I put the command in your hands, Captain, and you will order
+matters as suits your own convenience and pleasure. Master Bridges will
+welcome you right gladly."
+
+And before the sun, just risen over Manomet, sank behind Captain's Hill,
+the Little James had rounded the Gurnet, and was standing on for Cape
+Ann, with Myles Standish leaning against her mainmast, and smoking the
+pipe Hobomok had bestowed upon him with the assurance that he who used
+it carried a charmed life so long as it remained unbroken. The captain's
+arms were folded and his eyes fixed upon the fort-crowned hill where lay
+his home, but it was not of fort or home that he mused as at the last he
+muttered,--
+
+"And yet I glory in thy spirit, thou proud peat!"
+
+Early the next morning Standish was somewhat roughly roused from his
+slumbers by Master Bridges, who, shaking his shoulder, cried,--
+
+"Here, Captain, here's gear for thee. Rouse thee, Master!"
+
+"What is 't, Bridges? What's to do, man? Are the savages upon us?"
+
+"Nay, but pirates, or as good."
+
+"Ha! That's well. Send all your small arms on deck, Master Bridges, pipe
+to quarters, train your falcon--I'll be on deck anon"--
+
+"Nay, but you do somewhat mistake, Captain. I said indeed pirates, but
+that's not sure. There is a little ship anchored within a cable's length
+of the James, and her men are busy on shore with the fishing-stage which
+Lister saith is yours"--
+
+"And so it is, every sliver of it."
+
+"Mayhap, then, you'll come on deck and tell these merry men as much, for
+they do only jeer at me."
+
+"They'll not jeer long when my snaphance joins in the debate," said
+Standish grimly as he followed the master up the companion way.
+
+"Hail me yon craft, and ask for her commandant," ordered he, glancing
+rapidly over the scene. Bridges obeyed, and got reply that Master Hewes,
+captain of the Fisherman out of Southampton, was on shore with all his
+men except the ship-keeper, who, however, spared the jibes with which he
+had seasoned his reply to Bridges' first informal hail.
+
+"The wind is fair, the tide flood. Carry your craft further in-shore,
+Master Bridges, that we may parley with these pirates from the vantage
+ground of our own deck," ordered the captain, and was obeyed so fairly
+that the Little James presently lay hove-to within a biscuit-toss of the
+staging, where some fifteen or twenty men were diligently employed in
+curing a take of fish.
+
+A short sharp colloquy ensued, Standish claiming the erection and its
+precincts as the property of Plymouth, and ordering the interlopers to
+at once release it, and to carry away their fish and their utensils,
+leaving room for the lawful owners' occupancy.
+
+To this demand Hewes impudently replied that when he had done with the
+fish-flakes he cared not who used them, and that he would abandon the
+place when it suited his own convenience, and not before.
+
+"Well and good; then we shall come and take it," shouted the captain in
+conclusion, and turning his attention in-board, he rapidly divided his
+men and Bridges' into two storming parties, while a watch left on board
+was to take charge of the light falcon mounted on deck, and at a signal
+from shore to begin the dance by firing upon the staging which Hewes was
+already barricading with a row of barrels, behind which he rapidly
+posted his men, musket in hand, and matches alight.
+
+"Now by St. Lawrence!" cried Standish, watching these preparations. "But
+the fellow hath a pretty notion of a barricado! I could not have done so
+very much better in his place. 'T is fairer fortune than we could look
+for, to meet so ready a fellow, and you shall see some pretty sport
+anon, Master Bridges."
+
+But at this moment a little group of men hastening from the fishing huts
+marking the present site of Gloucester, appeared upon the scene, and in
+their leader both Standish and Bridges recognized Roger Conant, a friend
+and sometime visitor of Plymouth, who immediately upon arrival of the
+Anne had gone to join some friends fishing at Monhegan, and now, with
+them, was establishing a sister station at Gloucester. Warned by the
+Indians that Hewes had seized the Plymouth fishing-stage, and seeing the
+Little James entering the bay, Conant hastened to collect his friends
+and present himself upon the scene of action to act as mediator, or ally
+of Plymouth, as circumstances might direct.
+
+"We have come none too soon, men!" exclaimed Conant breathlessly as at a
+run he rounded the headland closing in the cove, and saw upon the
+barricaded staging Hewes and his men blowing at their matches, while
+Standish, his eyes aflame and an angry smile upon his lips, sprang
+ashore and hurried his men out of the boat.
+
+"Now glad am I to see you, Master Conant," cried Bridges, already
+waiting upon the beach, and hastening toward him he said in a lower
+voice. "Our captain hath got on his fighting cap, and thrown discretion
+to the winds. 'T will be an ill day for Plymouth if her men are led on
+to kill Englishmen fishing with the king's license."
+
+"Ay indeed will it. Bide a bit till I can parley with both thy captain
+and Hewes, who is not an ill fellow if one handleth him gingerly."
+
+"Gingerly goeth not smoothly with peppery, and 't is but half the truth
+to call our captain that," said Bridges with a dry smile, as Conant
+passed him to reach Standish who was marshaling his men upon the sands.
+
+Too long it were to detail the arguments of the man of peace, the
+delicate manipulation of the tempers of both parties, the concessions
+wrung from the one side and the other, until after several hours' debate
+Standish moodily said,--
+
+"Well Conant, sith you put it so, sith you make it out that by enforcing
+the colony's right I do but attack the colony's life, I yield, for I am
+sworn defender and champion of Plymouth and her prosperity, and never
+shall it be said that Myles Standish preferred his own quarrel to the
+well-being of those he had sworn to protect. To leave yon fellow
+unscathed for his insolence, sits like a blister on a raw wound, but go
+and make what terms you can with him. I suppose you require not that I
+abandon the colony's property altogether to him."
+
+"Nay, nay, Captain, but I am thinking that my comrades and I, with some
+of the Little James' men and Master Hewes' company, should clap to and
+run up another staging in a few hours either for the new-comers or the
+Plymouth men"--
+
+"For Plymouth if you would pleasure me. I would not my men should take
+the leavings of yon rabble at any price," interrupted Standish
+haughtily.
+
+"So be it, and if Hewes with his men will do their best, and Master
+Bridges and you will send your crew to help, we also will labor in the
+common cause until each party shall have a staging of its own, and the
+bond of Christian charity need not be broken."
+
+"That same bond will be all the safer if I may get away from here with
+as small delay as may be," retorted Standish.
+
+"And that too shall be," replied Conant cheerfully. "For I fain would
+speak with the Master of the Anne before she sails, and I'll e'en take
+our own pinnace and set you across the bay, and be back again before my
+mates have well missed me."
+
+"So wilt thou save me from some such explosion as befalls when a little
+pot is tightly closed and its contents overheated," replied Myles with a
+grim smile, and although Conant stared at the odd simile, he paused not
+to ask its solution, but so hastened the building of the stage and the
+other business of the day that when sunset fell, the two men, leaving
+the rest at an amicable supper eaten in common, spread the wide sails of
+their pinnace to a fitful western wind, and skimmed southward under the
+soothing and chastening light of the new-risen moon.
+
+The western wind though often sighing in capricious languor never quite
+deserted those who trusted to it, and at a good hour next morning the
+pinnace dropped her anchor beside the Anne, and her dory carried the two
+mew ashore just as Plymouth woke to a new day.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXVIII.
+
+BARBARA.
+
+
+"Wilt give me some breakfast, Priscilla?" asked a well-known voice, as
+Mistress Alden bent to uncover her bake kettle, or Dutch oven, to see if
+the manchets of fine flour her husband liked so heartily were well
+browned.
+
+"Lord-a-mercy!" cried she nearly dropping the cover and springing to her
+feet. "What, 't is truly thee, Captain, and not thy spook? Why 't was
+but yester e'en Dame Bradford told me thou wert away with Master Bridges
+on a fishing adventure, and none might guess the day of thy return."
+
+"She said so, did she?" replied the captain; "and who heard it beside
+thee, Priscilla?"
+
+"Why--now let me think--yea and verily, Christian Penn was in the room
+and no doubt heard the sad tidings though she said naught."
+
+"And none beside, Mistress Alden?"
+
+"None--nay, now I think on 't, thy kinswoman Barbara was in presence.
+But there, my manchets will be burnt to crusts. Sit thee down, Captain,
+sit thee down."
+
+"And what said Mistress Standish anent my going?" asked Myles seating
+himself upon a three-legged stool and doffing his slouched hat.
+
+Priscilla looked at him with one of the keen glances which John declared
+counted the cockles of a man's heart. Then she smiled with an air of
+satisfaction and replied,--
+
+"Barbara said naught, and so told me much."
+
+"Told thee much? Come now, Priscilla, spare me thine old-time jibes and
+puzzlements and show thyself true womanly, and mine own honest friend.
+I'm sore bestead, Priscilla--I have a quarrel with Myles Standish, and
+'t is as big a fardel as my shoulders will bear. Tell me what Barbara's
+silence meant to thee?"
+
+"It meant that it was her doings that thou hadst gone, and that thy
+going both angered and grieved her, Captain."
+
+"Angered, mayhap."
+
+"Yea, and grieved. She ate no supper, although I prayed her to taste a
+new confection of mine own invention."
+
+"Priscilla, dost think Master Allerton would be--would make a"--
+
+"Would be the right goodman for Barbara? No, and no again, I think
+naught of the kind."
+
+"Ah! You women are so quick upon the trigger, Priscilla. I would my
+snaphance went to the aim as lightly and as surely as your or Barbara's
+thought."
+
+"Come now, Captain, the manchets are done, and the fish is broiled, and
+the porridge made. Wait but till I call the goodman and open a pottle of
+my summer beer; 't is dear Dame Brewster's diet-drink, with a thought
+more flavor to it, and John says--ah, here thou art, thou big sluggard.
+We need no horn to call thee to thy meat."
+
+Entering the cottage with a grin upon his lips and the promise of a kiss
+in his eyes, Alden started joyfully at sight of the Captain, and at
+Priscilla's impatient summons he bashfully took the head of the table
+and asked the blessing upon his family and their daily bread, which was
+then the undisputed duty of every head of a household. The captain ate
+well, as Priscilla slyly noted; and as she rose from the table and began
+rapidly to carry the few pewter and wooden dishes to the scullery John
+had added to the two rooms and loft comprising the cottage, she
+muttered,--
+
+"What fools we women be! When they care for us the most, a savory dish
+will comfort them, and we must pule, and pine, and pale--ah!"
+
+For the captain had followed and stood at the housewife's elbow with a
+confused and somewhat foolish smile upon his face.
+
+"Wilt do me a favour, Priscilla?"
+
+"Gladly, as thou knowest, sir."
+
+"Nay, sir me no sirs, Priscilla! Take me for thine own familiar friend
+as already I am Alden's."
+
+"'T is an ill-advised quotation, Captain, for the 'own familiar friend'
+of the Psalmist proved a false one. But ne'ertheless I'll wear the cap,
+and haply prove as true as another to my promise. What can I do for
+thee, Captain?"
+
+"Why--as thou dost seem to surmise, Priscilla, there is a question
+between Barbara and me--truth to tell I gave her just matter of offense,
+and now I've thought better on 't and fain would tell her so, and yet I
+fear me if I ask outright she'll not let me come to speech of her."
+
+"Ay, ay, good friend, I see," exclaimed Priscilla, holding up her
+slender shapely hand. "And here's the cat's-paw that's to pull thy
+chestnuts from the fire!"
+
+"Nay Priscilla"--
+
+"Yea Captain! Put not thy wit to further distress, good friend, for it
+needs not; I see all and more than all thou couldst tell me. Go thy way
+to the Fort, and look over thy dear guns and wait until thou seest--what
+thou wilt see."
+
+And with a little push the young matron thrust her guest out of the open
+door of the scullery, and hasted to finish her own labors.
+
+Almost an hour passed and the Captain of the Armies of New England had
+uncovered and examined and sighted and petted each gun in his armament
+more than once; had considered the range of the saker, the minion, the
+falcon, and the bases; and had stood gazing blankly at the whitened
+skull of Wituwamat above the gate of the Fort until the wrens who nested
+there began to fly restlessly in and out, fancying that the captain
+planned an invasion of their territory. He still stood in this posture
+when the rustle of a footfall among the dried herbage reached his quick
+ear, and turning he confronted Barbara, whose down-dropt eyes hid the
+gleam of amusement the sight of his melancholy attitude had kindled in
+their depths.
+
+"Priscilla says that you have returned home from the fishing because you
+were but poorly, cousin, and she would have me come and ask if you cared
+to speak with the chirurgeon who is going afield presently."
+
+"So chill, so frozen, Barbara? Is 't so a kinswoman should speak with
+one ill at ease both in mind and body?"
+
+"I came but as a messenger, sir, and venture not to presume upon any
+claim of kindred to one who joins the blood of Percivale to that of
+Standish."
+
+"Nay now, nay now, Barbara!--Here, come to the shaded side of the Fort,
+and sit you down where we two sat"--
+
+"We two sat on the bench without your door the last parley that we had,
+good cousin."
+
+"'Gentle tongues aye give the sharpest wounds,' and it is thou who
+provest the proverb true, Barbara."
+
+"Nay, I'll sit me down and listen with all meekness to what thou hast to
+say, Captain Standish."
+
+"Thanks for even so much courtesy, Barbara, for I have sought thee to
+say that I deserve none at thy hands. I, to whose protection and
+comforting thou hast come across the sea, have treated thee as no
+base-born churl hath warrant for treating the meanest of woman-kind. I,
+to pride myself upon gentle blood and knightly training, and then throw
+insult and taunt upon a woman's unshielded head! Nay, Barbara, had any
+man three days agone forecast my doing such a thing, I had hurled the
+lie in his teeth, and haply crammed it down with Gideon's hilt. Nay--the
+good sword may well be ashamed of his master; well may I look for him to
+shiver in my grasp when next I draw him"--
+
+"Myles! Myles, I'll hear no more! Nay then, not a word, or I shall hold
+it proven that my wish is naught to thee, for all thy contrite sayings.
+I fear me Priscilla is right, and thou 'rt truly ill. This hot sun hath
+touched thy head with some such distemper as sped poor Master Carver.
+Sit thee down here beside me, and I'll fetch cool water from the spring
+to bathe thy temples."
+
+"It needs not, cousin. My distemper is of the mind, the heart; nay, it
+is wounded honor, lass, and there's no ill of body can sting a man so
+shrewdly as that. Say that I have thy pardon, Barbara, if thou canst say
+it in truth, and 't will be better than any med'cine in Fuller's
+chest."
+
+"Why, certes, Myles, thou hast my forgiveness and over and over for any
+rough word thou mayst have said, and in sober sadness I mind not what
+they were, for all my thought hath been of my unkindness to thee. Myles,
+I never told thee, but when thy mother lay a-dying, and thou far away,
+fighting the Spaniards in Holland, she bade me care for thee even as she
+would have done, and fill a sister's place--and more, and I laid my hand
+in hers and promised sacredly, and so she rested content."
+
+"And why didst never tell me this before, cousin?"
+
+"I know not--nay, but that's not all out true, and I'll tell thee no
+lies, Myles. When next thou camest to our poor home at Man, thou didst
+see Rose, and from the first I knew well enow that there'd be no need of
+sister-care for one who found so sweet a wife."
+
+"Ay, she was sweet,--sweet as her pretty name. Dost know, Barbara, when
+these bushes burgeon in early summer with their soft and fragrant bloom
+it ever minds me of that sweet and fragile Rose that lies beneath."
+
+But Barbara was silent.
+
+"Ah well, ah well, 't is a brief chapter strangely at odds with the rude
+life wherein it found itself, and now 't is closed, and better so for
+her. She could not have bloomed among these dreary sands and savage
+woods; it was not fitting."
+
+He paced a few steps back and forward, and Barbara rose, her clear eyes
+full of a woman's noble and patient strength.
+
+"And so, Myles, we are at peace again, and I at least will make it my
+endeavor that there shall be no such breach of charity in the future.'"
+
+"Nay, Barbara, stay a little, I pray thee. I have somewhat to say, for
+which in advance I must ask thy patience and indulgence. Thou 'lt not be
+angered at me so soon again, Barbara?"
+
+"Nay, I'll not be angered, cousin." But Barbara's voice was very sad.
+
+"'T is this, and I thought of it all last night as we flitted in the
+moonlight across the bay, and what thou sayest of my mother's charge to
+thee fits my thought like hand and glove. Why should not we two wed,
+Barbara?"
+
+He turned and looked at her, and stood amazed to see how the steadfast
+calm of her face broke up in a tempest of indignation, of grief, of
+outraged womanhood.
+
+"Why, Barbara! Why, cousin! What is it, what have I said? What ails
+thee, dear? What works upon thee so cruelly?"
+
+"That any man should dare fancy it of me--there, there, let be, let me
+pass, let me go!"
+
+"Nay, then, I'll not let thee go. I'm but a rude bungler in these
+women-ways, and I've said or done somewhat that wounds thee sorely, and
+I'll not let thee go till 't is all outsaid and I have once more cleared
+myself of at least willful offense toward thee."
+
+"Wilt keep me by force, sir?"
+
+"Ay maid I will, for 't is only in bodily strength that I'm thy match,
+and so for the moment I will e'en use it. Sit thee here now and listen
+yet again, as I say, Why may not we two wed, cousin Barbara? Thou 'rt
+not mine own cousin, thou knowest, child; 't was thy father and mine
+were in that bond; and--now bear with me, Barbara--I've a shrewd
+suspicion that my mother bade thee be not a sister but a wife to me.
+Truth now, did she not, maid?"
+
+"She could not guide either my love or thine, so why would she try?"
+
+"Nay, that's no answer, lass, but we'll let the question go. There's not
+a woman alive, Barbara, so dear to me as thou; there's none I hold in
+greater reverence or trust; there's none with whom I would so gladly
+live out my days, and--though now I risk thy scorn,--there's none whose
+lineage I so respect"--
+
+"What, the Henley lineage?" murmured Barbara, with face averted to hide
+a smile.
+
+"Nay, thou 'rt all Standish, Barbara! Thou 'rt more Standish than I, for
+thou hast the eyes of those old portraits my poor father vainly tried to
+wrest from his cousin Alexander. Let me look at those eyes, Barbara!"
+
+"And so because it suits thy convenience to make me thy wife, thou takst
+no heed of mine own fancies," said Barbara, not heeding this request.
+"And I pray thee unhand me, for I promise to patiently abide till thou
+hast said thy say."
+
+"Now there again thou dost me wrong, lass, for as I told thee t' other
+day there's no bachelor here fit to wed with thee, there's none I'd give
+thee to, nor would I see thee wither away unwed."
+
+"Gramercy cousin, but methinks that is a question I well might settle
+for myself."
+
+"Why nay, sith there is no gentleman unwed among our company, save
+Allerton, whom I love as little as thou dost."
+
+"I care not for any"--
+
+"I know it, Barbara, I know it well. Thou 'rt that rare marvel, a woman
+sufficing unto herself, for as I believe, thou hast never fancied any
+man, though more than one hath fancied thee."
+
+"'T is my cold heart," murmured Barbara with a little smile strangled in
+its birth.
+
+"Nay," replied her cousin thoughtfully as he pulled at his moustache and
+gazed upon the ground at his feet. "Nay, I call thee not so much
+heartless as fancy-free. Thou 'rt kind and gentle, ay, and loving as my
+dear mother knew. I'm well content with thy heart for such as it is,
+Barbara, if thou 'lt but give it me."
+
+"Nay, Myles, I'm deadly sure I've none to give, and out of nothing
+nothing comes."
+
+"Thou ne'er canst love me, Barbara?"
+
+"No more than I love thee now, Myles."
+
+"With calm cousin-love thou meanest?"
+
+"I am ill skilled at logic, Myles. I cannot set out my feelings in class
+and order, as our chirurgeon doth his herbs and flowers."
+
+"Well, Barbara, I'm grieved that thou lookest upon me so coldly, but I
+draw not back from my petition. I'd liefer have thy calm tenderness than
+another's hot love, for I can trust thee as I trust mine own honor, and
+I know full well that thou 'lt ever be better than thy word. So take me,
+Barbara, for thy husband, and fulfill the dear mother's last desire, and
+give me the hope of teaching thee in the days to come to love me even as
+I love thee."
+
+But for all answer Barbara only turned and laid her hands in his, and
+slowly raised the wonder of her eyes until they looked straight into
+his; and the man whose front had never quailed in face of death or
+danger grew pallid beneath his bronze, and trembled like a leaf in the
+wind.
+
+"What!--Barbara!--Dost really love me, maid? Nay, cheat me not--speak!
+Dost love me, sweetheart, already?"
+
+But Barbara said never a word, nor did Myles ever know more of the
+secret of her life than in that one supreme moment he read in her
+steadfast eyes.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIX.
+
+A MILITARY WEDDING.
+
+
+"And thou 'rt not amazed, Elsie, that our captain and his kinswoman will
+wed?" asked Governor Bradford of his wife in the privacy of the family
+bedroom.
+
+"No more than at the sun's rising in the East," replied Alice with a
+demure little smile.
+
+"Hm! Master Galileo saith the sun riseth not at all, and though the
+power of Rome caused him to gainsay it, he did tell me privily in
+Amsterdam that it was sooth, and the sun bided forever in the one place
+while this round world turned over daily."
+
+"I ever thought the good man was a little crazed," replied Mistress
+Bradford serenely. "Like Paul, much learning had made him mad."
+
+"Nay wife, 't was Festus charged Paul with madness, because the apostle
+knew more than himself. Haply 't is so with Master Galileo."
+
+"It may be, William. These be not matters for women to meddle withal,"
+replied Alice meekly.
+
+"But anent our captain's wooing of his cousin, Elsie? How is 't thou 'rt
+not amazed like the rest of us?"
+
+"Because I saw long since that Barbara would never wed another than her
+cousin, and thou knowest, Will, how like draws to like, even across the
+waste of ocean."
+
+"Ay dame, I know it well and sweetly, and never shall I forget to give
+thanks to Him whose wisdom reacheth from end to end, sweetly ordering
+all things. But how chanced Mistress Barbara to confess her fondness to
+thee, sweetheart?"
+
+"Nay now! Though men do be our masters in most things, how dull they
+still show themselves in others. As if a maid, or for that matter a
+widow, would ever 'confess her fondness' for any man till he had wooed
+her so to do, and but coyly then, if she be wise."
+
+"Too coyly for him to credit her with overmuch tenderness," suggested
+the bridegroom.
+
+"Facts speak louder than words, and if a woman will set herself upon far
+and perilous journeys, and compass sea and land to come to him who
+calleth her, methinks he need not doubt her friendship for him. Nay now,
+nay now, we talk of Barbara and the Captain, and I'll tell thee. Since I
+was left alone in London,--so lonely too in my wide house in Duke's
+Place,--I have taken dear and sweet counsel with Barbara, whom I first
+knew in the congregation of Pastor Jacob, and she hath been my guest for
+weeks and months at a time, so that if any two women know each other
+well, their names are Barbara and Alice."
+
+"But yet she never told thee that she loved her cousin? Now that is
+passing strange."
+
+"'T would to my mind have been far stranger had she so bewrayed
+herself."
+
+"But still those gentle eyes of thine read the secret of her heart?"
+
+"I did mistrust it for long, but when I had thy letter, Will, and
+settled my mind to come to thee, I told Barbara somewhat of the old
+story"--
+
+"Of how thou wast minded to spite thy comely face by cutting off its
+nose?"
+
+But Mistress Bradford had no smile for her husband's somewhat coarse
+jest, and went quietly on,--
+
+"And I told her, too, that her kinsman, Myles, had lost the sweet wife
+of whom she had so often and so gently spoken; and at the last I told
+her I was minded to sell all that I had and go to our folk in New
+England, and I asked her would she go, to be ever and always my dear
+sister if no other home should offer, and though we said no word that
+day of Captain Standish, sure am I that he was in both our minds. And
+now, dear man, dost see through the millstone?"
+
+"Ay, since woman's wit hath delved a hole, I can see through it as well
+as another." And the governor kissed his wife as merrily as another man,
+while she adjusting the demure matron's cap about her fair young face
+went out to see that the breakfast was fairly spread.
+
+A fortnight later when the Anne had sailed, and the Little James had
+returned and gone again upon a luckless fishing trip, and the new-comers
+had settled into their appointed places, and the town was once more
+quiet, there came a fair September day when work was laid aside, and
+after breakfast the armies of the colony, at least a hundred souls in
+all,--if we count the trumpeters, the buglers, the fifers, and the
+drummers,--assembled on the Training Green just across the brook, and
+after some evolutions marched in orderly array back again past the
+spring and up the hill to the governor's house, where they were joined
+by him and the elder. Then up and on to the captain's house, where a
+guard of honor presented itself at the door, and ushered forth the
+chief, carefully dressed in his uniform of state, while at his side
+merrily clanked Gideon, resplendent, though none but he and his master
+knew it, in such a furbishing and polishing as seldom had fallen to his
+lot before.
+
+Saluting his comrades gravely and with somewhat more of dignity than his
+wont, the captain took his place, and the procession climbed the short
+ascent remaining to the door of the Fort, where entered the dignitaries
+and as many more as could find room. Here in the great room now used as
+a place of worship a group of matrons and maids awaited them, with
+Barbara in their midst, fair and stately in her white robes, the glory
+of her eyes outvying any jewels she could have worn.
+
+The meagre civil service was spoken by the governor, but at the request
+of both bride and bridegroom the elder made a prayer to which the
+captain listened more reverently than his wont, and cried Amen more
+heartily.
+
+Then they came forth these two Standishes made one, and the train band
+escorted them to their home, and fired a salute of honor, whose
+reverberating waves rolling across the waters broke at last upon the
+foot of Captain's Hill, sighing away into silence over the quiet plain
+where one day should be dug a warrior's grave, marked head and foot with
+a great three-cornered stone.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XL.
+
+"PARTING IS SUCH SWEET SORROW."
+
+
+And so, tenderly, reluctantly, lingeringly we leave them, these dear
+ones whose memory we cherish so lovingly, and in the sober reality of
+whose lives lies a charm no romance can ever reach.
+
+Would you know more of them, for there are, as the Sultana promised
+morning by morning, stranger and better things to come than these that
+have been told, go read the annals of the Pilgrims, those precious
+fragments left to us by Bradford and by Winslow, and a letter written by
+De Rasières, Secretary of the Dutch Colony at Manhattan, who, visiting
+Plymouth upon a diplomatic errand in 1627, wrote to his superiors a
+letter preserved in the Royal Library of Holland wherein he draws this
+little picture of the town we have tried to reproduce, and mentions some
+of these dear friends whose lives we know so much better than he did.
+
+"New Plymouth lies on the slope of a hill, stretching east toward the
+sea-coast with a broad street about a cannon shot long, leading down the
+hill with a cross street in the middle going southward to the rivulet,
+and northward to the land. The houses are constructed of hewn planks,
+with gardens also enclosed behind, and at the sides, with hewn planks,
+so that their houses and court-yards are arranged in very good order,
+with a stockade against a sudden attack; and at the ends of the streets
+there are three wooden gates. In the centre on the cross street stands
+the Governor's house, before which is a square erection upon which four
+patereros are mounted so as to flank along the streets.
+
+"Upon the hill they have a large square house, with a flat roof made of
+thick sawn planks stayed with oak beams, upon the top of which they have
+six cannons which shoot iron balls of four or five pounds and command
+the surrounding country. The lower part they use for their church, where
+they preach on Sundays and the usual holidays. They assemble by beat of
+drum, each with his musket or firelock, in front of the Captain's door;
+they have their cloaks on, and place themselves in order three abreast,
+and are led by a sergeant without beat of drum. Behind comes the
+Governor in a long robe; beside him on the right hand comes the preacher
+with his cloak on, and on the left hand the Captain with his side-arms
+and cloak on, and with a small cane in his hand; and so they march in
+good order, and each sets his arms down near him. Thus they are
+constantly on their guard night and day."
+
+But after all, glad as we are of this little loophole pierced through
+the mists of antiquity, the fashion of our friends' houses and
+court-yards, their cloaks and muskets and quaint Sunday procession are
+not as valuable to us as the story of their individual lives: the story
+of Priscilla and John Alden and their children; of Myles, military power
+of the colony, beyond his threescore years and ten; of Barbara, called
+his "dear wife" in the dignified Last Will, wherein he bequeaths
+"Ormistic, Bousconge, Wrightington, Maudesley" and the rest, to
+Alexander his "son and heir," sturdily proclaiming with as it were his
+last breath, that these fair domains were "surreptitiously detained"
+from him. And Lora Standish, fair sweet shadow upon the mirror of the
+past; and Mary Dingley, beloved of the grand old warrior; and Alice
+Bradford, of whom at the last Morton wrote,--
+
+    "Adoe my loving friend, my aunt, my mother,
+     Of those that's left I have not such another."
+
+And Bradford himself, and Brewster, and Winslow, and Howland, each one
+of whom hath left behind him enough of achievement to fill a dozen of
+the degenerate lives of a butterfly of to-day; and the women they loved,
+and the young men and maidens who rose up around them: ah, how can we
+leave them, how can we say good-by! Shall we not the rather cherish them
+and study them more than we ever yet have done, feeling in our hearts
+that those virtues, that courage, and that nobility of life may be ours
+as well as theirs, may illustrate the easy life of to-day, and make it
+less unworthy to be the fruit of the Tree of Liberty, planted in the
+blood and watered by the tears of our Fathers.
+
+
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+Transcriber's Notes:
+
+   Page 58, Comma added after "Thou liest, knave"
+
+   Page 102, Comma added after "Good-morrow"
+
+   Page 144, Hyphen added to "commander in-chief"
+
+   Page 149, Period added after "his unwonted amenity"
+
+   Page 179, Double quote added after "thou mayest set down"
+
+   Page 304, Period added after "Glad am I to see thee"
+
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+<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=ISO-8859-1" />
+<title>The Project Gutenberg eBook of Standish of Standish, by Jane G. Austin</title>
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+<body>
+<h1>The Project Gutenberg eBook, Standish of Standish, by Jane G. Austin</h1>
+<pre>
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at <a href = "http://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a></pre>
+<p>Title: Standish of Standish</p>
+<p>       A story of the Pilgrims</p>
+<p>Author: Jane G. Austin</p>
+<p>Release Date: July 12, 2007  [eBook #22052]</p>
+<p>Language: English</p>
+<p>Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1</p>
+<p>***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK STANDISH OF STANDISH***</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<h3>E-text prepared by Susan Carr, Suzanne Shell,<br />
+    and the Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team<br />
+    (http://www.pgdp.net)</h3>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<div class="notes">
+<p class="center">Transcriber's Notes</p>
+
+<ol>
+<li>Inconsistencies in hyphenation have been maintained. Archaic usage of
+words such as "salvage" for "savage" and "randevous" for "rendezvous"
+have been maintained.</li>
+<li>Footnotes are located <a href="#footnotes">here</a>.</li>
+<li>Several misprints and punctuation errors have been corrected. Hover over an
+underlined <ins title="Like this">word</ins> in the text to see the corrections made. A list of
+corrections can be found at <a href="#corrections">the end</a> of the text.</li>
+
+</ol>
+
+</div>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<hr class="full" />
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 396px;">
+<img src="images/illio1.png" width="396" height="600" alt="Book Cover" title="" />
+</div>
+
+<hr />
+
+<h4>By Jane G. Austin</h4>
+
+<h5>STANDISH OF STANDISH. A Novel. 16mo, $1.25.<br />
+BETTY ALDEN. A Novel. 16mo, $1.25.<br />
+A NAMELESS NOBLEMAN. A Novel. 16mo, $1.25; paper, 50 cents.<br />
+DR. LE BARON AND HIS DAUGHTERS. A Novel. 16mo, $1.25.<br />
+THE DESMOND HUNDRED. A Novel. 16mo, $1.00; paper, 50 cents.<br />
+NANTUCKET SCRAPS. Being the Experiences of an Off-Islander In Season and
+Out of Season. 16mo, $1.50.</h5>
+
+<h4>HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN &amp; COMPANY, <span class="smcap">Boston and New York</span>.</h4>
+
+<hr />
+
+<h1>Standish of Standish</h1>
+
+<h2>A Story of the Pilgrims</h2>
+
+<h3>By</h3>
+
+<h2>Jane G. Austin</h2>
+
+<p class="center">AUTHOR OF "A NAMELESS NOBLEMAN," "THE DESMOND HUNDRED,"<br />
+"MRS. BEAUCHAMP BROWN," "NANTUCKET SCRAPS,"<br />
+"MOON FOLK," ETC., ETC.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 232px;">
+<img src="images/illio2.png" width="232" height="300" alt="Bookplate" title="" />
+</div>
+
+<h4>BOSTON AND NEW YORK<br />
+HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY<br />
+The Riverside Press, Cambridge<br />
+1892</h4>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p class="center">Copyright, 1889,<br />
+By JANE G. AUSTIN.</p>
+
+<p class="center"><i>All rights reserved</i>.</p>
+
+<p class="center">ELEVENTH EDITION.</p>
+
+<p class="center"><i>The Riverside Press, Cambridge, Mass., U. S. A.</i><br />
+Electrotyped and Printed by H. O. Houghton &amp; Co.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<h3>Dedication.</h3>
+
+<h4>TO THE MEMORY OF MY DEAR BROTHER,</h4>
+
+<h3>JOHN A. GOODWIN,</h3>
+
+<h4>WHO MORE THAN ANY MAN HAS CONSERVED FOR OUR DELIGHT<br />
+THE STORY OF THOSE PILGRIM FATHERS<br />
+"WITHOUT WHOSE LIVES OURS HAD NOT BEEN."</h4>
+
+<hr />
+
+<h2>A PREFATORY NOTE.</h2>
+
+
+<p>The history of the Old Colony includes, among some very stern facts, a
+deal of sweet and tender romance, hitherto hardly known except to those
+who have learned it at their mother's knee.</p>
+
+<p>But in these days many persons seem disposed to pause for a moment in
+the eager race after the golden fruits of the Pilgrims' husbandry, and
+to look curiously back at the spot where the seed was sown.</p>
+
+<p>To such I offer this story of Myles Standish,
+The-Sword-of-the-White-Men, the hero, who not for gain, not from
+necessity, not even from religious zeal, but purely in the knightly
+fervor of his blood, forsook home, and heritage, and glory, and
+ambition, to company that helpless band of exiles, and to be the
+Great-Heart of their Pilgrimage to the City that they sought.</p>
+
+<p>To such students I will promise that they shall not be misled as to
+facts, though these be strung upon a slender thread of romance; and I
+will beg them to ground themselves well upon the solid Pilgrim Rock,
+that they may the better understand the story of Lazarus LeBaron, son of
+A Nameless Nobleman, to be offered them in due time, unless Time shall
+be no more for the Author.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Boston</span>, <i>October</i>, 1889.</p>
+<p class="right">JANE G. AUSTIN.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<h2>CONTENTS.</h2>
+
+<ol class="toc">
+<li>The Battle of the Tubs<span class="ralign"><a href="#Page_1">1</a></span></li>
+<li>The Launch of the Pinnace<span class="ralign"><a href="#Page_19">19</a></span></li>
+<li>The Sword of Standish<span class="ralign"><a href="#Page_27">27</a></span></li>
+<li>The Lilies of France<span class="ralign"><a href="#Page_41">41</a></span></li>
+<li>An Awful Danger<span class="ralign"><a href="#Page_54">54</a></span></li>
+<li>The First Encounter<span class="ralign"><a href="#Page_63">63</a></span></li>
+<li>Clarke's Island<span class="ralign"><a href="#Page_73">73</a></span></li>
+<li>Burying Hill<span class="ralign"><a href="#Page_86">86</a></span></li>
+<li>Rose<span class="ralign"><a href="#Page_94">94</a></span></li>
+<li>A Terrible Night<span class="ralign"><a href="#Page_104">104</a></span></li>
+<li>The Colonists of Cole's Hill<span class="ralign"><a href="#Page_115">115</a></span></li>
+<li>The Headless Arrow<span class="ralign"><a href="#Page_134">134</a></span></li>
+<li>The Captain's Promotion<span class="ralign"><a href="#Page_141">141</a></span></li>
+<li>Second Marriages<span class="ralign"><a href="#Page_151">151</a></span></li>
+<li>Samoset<span class="ralign"><a href="#Page_164">164</a></span></li>
+<li>Priscilla Molines' Letter<span class="ralign"><a href="#Page_176">176</a></span></li>
+<li>An International Treaty<span class="ralign"><a href="#Page_184">184</a></span></li>
+<li>The Last Link Broken<span class="ralign"><a href="#Page_197">197</a></span></li>
+<li>Sowed and Reaped in One Day<span class="ralign"><a href="#Page_205">205</a></span></li>
+<li>Funeral-baked Meats and Marriage Feasts<span class="ralign"><a href="#Page_213">213</a></span></li>
+<li>An Affair of Honor<span class="ralign"><a href="#Page_224">224</a></span></li>
+<li>The Captain's Pipe<span class="ralign"><a href="#Page_236">236</a></span></li>
+<li>"Speak for Yourself, John!"<span class="ralign"><a href="#Page_243">243</a></span></li>
+<li>The Mysterious Grave<span class="ralign"><a href="#Page_253">253</a></span></li>
+<li>A Little Discipline<span class="ralign"><a href="#Page_266">266</a></span></li>
+<li>The First Thanksgiving Day of New England<span class="ralign"><a href="#Page_276">276</a></span></li>
+<li>A Love Philtre<span class="ralign"><a href="#Page_288">288</a></span></li>
+<li>Philip De La Noye<span class="ralign"><a href="#Page_296">296</a></span></li>
+<li>Keeping Christmas<span class="ralign"><a href="#Page_311">311</a></span></li>
+<li>A Soldier's Instinct<span class="ralign"><a href="#Page_319">319</a></span></li>
+<li>A Pot of Broth<span class="ralign"><a href="#Page_343">343</a></span></li>
+<li>The Sunset Gun<span class="ralign"><a href="#Page_351">351</a></span></li>
+<li>Pecksuot's Knife<span class="ralign"><a href="#Page_356">356</a></span></li>
+<li>The Wolf at the Door<span class="ralign"><a href="#Page_370">370</a></span></li>
+<li>The Brides' Ship<span class="ralign"><a href="#Page_376">376</a></span></li>
+<li>Marriage Bells<span class="ralign"><a href="#Page_385">385</a></span></li>
+<li>"And to be Wroth with one we Love!"<span class="ralign"><a href="#Page_395">395</a></span></li>
+<li>Barbara<span class="ralign"><a href="#Page_406">406</a></span></li>
+<li>A Military Wedding<span class="ralign"><a href="#Page_416">416</a></span></li>
+<li>"Parting is such Sweet Sorrow!"<span class="ralign"><a href="#Page_420">420</a></span></li>
+</ol>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_1" id="Page_1">[Pg 1]</a></span></p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<h1>STANDISH OF STANDISH.</h1>
+
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_I" id="CHAPTER_I"></a>CHAPTER I.</h2>
+
+<h3>THE BATTLE OF THE TUBS.</h3>
+
+
+<p>It was Monday morning.</p>
+
+<p>It was also the twenty-third day of November in the year of our Lord
+1620; but this latter fact was either unknown or matter of profound
+indifference to the two-and-twenty women who stood ready to make the day
+memorable in the world's history, while the fact of Monday was to them
+one of paramount importance.</p>
+
+<p>Do you ask why this was thus?</p>
+
+<p>The answer is duplex: first, the two-and-twenty women were not aware of
+their own importance, nor could guess that History would ever concern
+herself with the date of their present undertaking; and second, for a
+reason whose roots are prehistoric, for they spring from the
+unfathomable depths of the feminine soul wherein abides inherently the
+love of purity, of order, and of tradition. Yes, in two hundred and
+seventy years the face of Nature, of empires, and of peoples has changed
+almost beyond recognition in this our New World; but the grand law at
+whose practical establishment in the New World we now assist, abides
+to-day:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>Monday is Washing Day.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_2" id="Page_2">[Pg 2]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Does some caviler here suggest that although the human female soul is
+embodied in the children of Ham, Shem, and Japhet, the mighty law
+referred to is binding only upon that Anglo-British-Saxon-Norman
+division of Japhet's daughters domiciled in and emanating from the
+British Isles? Let us proudly reply that in considering the result of a
+process we consider the whole; and let us meekly add that to our mind
+the Anglo-British-Saxon-Norman woman, perfected under an American sky,
+is the woman of the world; and finally, let us point to the
+two-and-twenty heroines of that Monday as chief among American women,
+for they were the Pilgrim Mothers of the New World.</p>
+
+<p>The Pilgrim Fathers were there also; and they, too, were exemplifying a
+law of nature, that is to say, a law of male nature in every clime and
+every age. They did not love Washing Day. They felt no joy in the
+possibility of its observance, they felt no need of its processes. And
+yet again <i>more humano</i>, they did not openly set themselves against it,
+they did not frankly express their unworthy content in their present
+estate, but they feebly suggested that as the observance had been some
+weeks omitted, with no sensible loss of comfort to themselves, it might
+well be farther postponed; that the facilities were by no means
+remarkable; that rain was very possible, and that they had to apply
+themselves without delay to unshipping the pinnace from the hold of the
+Mayflower, and fitting her for the immediate service of exploration.</p>
+
+<p>To these arguments the women meekly responded that in the nature of
+things they were better fitted to judge of the emergency than their
+lords, whose attention must be absorbed in matters of so much higher
+import;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_3" id="Page_3">[Pg 3]</a></span> that they did not require the help of any man whose work
+upon the pinnace would be at all important, and that the sandy beach,
+the pool of fresh water, and the clumps of stunted shrubs fairly spread
+upon the shore in front of them were all the facilities they required.
+As for the weather, as Dame Hopkins piously remarked:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"If Monday's weather be not fit for washing, there is no promise in Holy
+Writ of anything better in the rest of the week."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, if thou r't bent on washing, the shrewdest storm that ever swept
+the Zuyder Zee will never stop thee; so get thy rags together as soon as
+may be," growled her husband, a grizzled, hard-visaged veteran some
+twenty years older than this his second wife of whom he was very fond.</p>
+
+<p>"Nay, then," interposed another voice, as a shrewd, kindly looking man,
+albeit with a certain whimsical cast to his thin features, approached
+the pair; "Mistress Hopkins will do no washing to-day; no, nor even go
+on shore to gather chill and weariness for my little friend Oceanus."</p>
+
+<p>"'Will not,' shall not? Marry and who is to hinder, if you please, good
+Master Fuller?" asked the young woman in a somewhat shrewish voice.</p>
+
+<p>"I, Samuel Fuller, Licentiate of Cambridge, late practitioner of
+Bartlemy's Hospital, London, and your medical adviser, madam," replied
+the doctor with a dry smile and mocking bow. "Recall, if you please,
+that Oceanus is not yet a fortnight old, and that both mother and child
+are still my responsibility. Would you ruin my reputation, madam, not to
+mention risking your own life and the boy's?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4" id="Page_4">[Pg 4]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Have a care, Doctor, or some fine day you'll trip in your own quips,
+and break your neck," replied Mistress Hopkins half sullenly, while her
+husband cried,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"He's right there, Bess. Thou&nbsp;'rt in no case for such rough sport
+as this is like to prove, and thou&nbsp;'lt stay aboard whoever goes
+ashore."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, stay thou aboard and mind thy babe, and I'll take thy clothes
+along with my own, so thou&nbsp;'lt let Constance come to help me,"
+suggested the somewhat coarse voice of a woman standing by.</p>
+
+<p>"Thank you kindly, goodwife Billington," replied Elizabeth Hopkins
+coldly. "But Alice Rigdale hath already promised to do what is needed,
+and Constance must stay with me to mind Damaris and Oceanus."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, if goodwife Rigdale has taken it in hand, I will step back,"
+replied Mistress Billington sharply; and as she descended the
+companion-way, Hopkins muttered in his wife's ear,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Now thou showest some sense, wench. The least thou hast to do with the
+Billington brood the better I'll be pleased."</p>
+
+<p>"That's worth working for, surely," retorted his wife, tossing her head
+pettishly.</p>
+
+<p>"I tell you there's no boat to be spared, and no man to row it, and I'll
+have naught to say to it," exclaimed a surly voice from the
+companion-way, and Captain Thomas Jones, master of the Mayflower, but
+not of the Pilgrims, appeared on deck.</p>
+
+<p>Captain Jones was not an amiable man, his training as buccaneer and
+slaver having possibly blunted his finer feelings, and his consciousness
+of present treachery probably increasing the irritability often
+succeeding to a murdered conscience.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5" id="Page_5">[Pg 5]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Such as he was, however, this man was the Inventor of Plymouth Rock,
+since by his collusion with the Dutch who wished to keep the profits of
+their Manhattan Colony to themselves, the Mayflower had found it
+impossible to make her way southward around Cape Cod, and after nearly
+going to wreck upon the shoals off Malabar, or Tucker's Terror had been
+driven within the embrace of the curving arm thrown out by the New World
+to welcome and shelter the homeless children of the Old. There she lay
+now, the weather-beaten, clumsy, strained, and groaning old bark whose
+name is glorious in the annals of our country while Time shall endure,
+and whose merest splinter would to-day be enshrined in gold; there she
+lay swinging gently to the send of the great Atlantic whose waves broke
+sonorously upon the beach outside, and came racing around the point a
+flood of shattered and harmless monsters, moaning and hissing, to find
+their prey escaped and safely landlocked.</p>
+
+<p>"There's no boat, I say, and there's an end on&nbsp;'t," repeated Master
+Jones truculently as he stepped on deck, and two men who had been
+earnestly conversing at the stern of the brig turned round and came
+toward him. They were John Carver, already governor of the colony, and
+William Bradford, his lieutenant and successor. The governor was the
+first to speak, and the somewhat measured accents of his voice, with its
+inflections at once kindly and haughty, told of gentle breeding, of a
+calm and dignified temper, and of an aptness at command.</p>
+
+<p>"And why no boat, Master Jones?" asked he quietly. "Methought by the
+terms of our agreement you were to aid us in every way in making our
+settlement."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_6" id="Page_6">[Pg 6]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"And I'm not going back of my word, am I, master?" demanded Jones
+peevishly. "A pack of wenches going ashore with tubs and kettles and
+bales and such gear is not a settlement, is it?"</p>
+
+<p>"Nay, but a means thereto if haply they find the place convenient,"
+replied Carver pleasantly. "At any rate, we will send them, since it has
+been promised, and the same boat will serve to transport them with their
+gear that is already fitted to help us ashore with the pinnace."</p>
+
+<p>"And our own men will do all that is required in lading and rowing the
+boat," added Bradford in his mild, persuasive voice. Jones, overborne by
+a calm authority against which he could not bluster, turned on his heel
+muttering some surly assent. Carver slightly smiled as he watched the
+square and clumsy form expressing in every line of its back the futile
+rage of an overborne coward, and, turning toward the companion way, he
+called,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Howland, John Howland, a word with thee!"</p>
+
+<p>"Ay, sir," replied a blithe young voice; and presently a handsome head
+of pure Saxon type, as indeed were both Bradford's and Carver's,
+appeared above the hatchway, and a strong young fellow swinging himself
+upon deck approached the governor, saying apologetically,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"I was helping to get out the pinnace, and there is a mort of dust and
+dirt about her."</p>
+
+<p>"I'll give thee a pleasanter task, John," replied Carver, smiling
+affectionately upon his young retainer. "Thou and John Alden and Gilbert
+Winslow shall take charge of the women who fain would go ashore to wash
+their clothes. They will use the boat already lying alongside, and thou
+hadst better advise with Mistress Brewster for the rest. I leave it all
+with you twain."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7">[Pg 7]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"I will do my best, sir," replied Howland with a smile that showed his
+short, strong teeth and made his blue eyes twinkle pleasantly; then
+returning to the hatchway he called down,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Ho, Alden! You're wanted, man, and so is Gilbert Winslow."</p>
+
+<p>"He's not here, then," responded a heavier voice, as a splendid young
+giant swung himself up on deck and ran his fingers through a shock of
+curling chestnut hair; a glorious youth, six feet and over in his hose
+of hodden gray, with the shoulders and sinews of an athlete, and the
+calm, strong face of an Egyptian god.</p>
+
+<p>"What is it, John?" asked he, fixing his dark eyes upon Howland with the
+affectionate gladness one reads in the eyes of a dog called to his
+master's side, but of which few human natures are capable.</p>
+
+<p>"Why, Jack, thou and I and Gilbert Winslow are appointed squires of
+dames to some of the women who would fain go ashore to wash clothes, and
+we are to pack them into yonder boat, row them ashore, and then purvey
+wood, water, and such like for them."</p>
+
+<p>"I'd liefer haul out the pinnace," replied Alden with a grimace. "But
+your will is mine."</p>
+
+<p>"Nay, the governor's will is thine and mine, and it is he set us this
+task. Where is Winslow?"</p>
+
+<p>"In the cabin belike, chatting with Mary Chilton. It's the work he best
+loves," replied Alden grimly. "But I'll find him."</p>
+
+<p>"And some of the boys, Jack," suggested Howland, as the younger man
+turned away. "Bart Allerton and Love Brewster, Giles Hopkins and
+Crakstone and Cooke, any of the lads that you fall foul of, except the
+Billingtons,&mdash;of them I'll have none."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_8" id="Page_8">[Pg 8]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"And why not the Billingtons, worshipful Master Howland, lackey of the
+governor, and page-boy to his wife," demanded the voice that had
+interrupted Mistress Hopkins, and turning toward it, Howland confronted
+a short, square woman, not without a certain vulgar comeliness of her
+own, although now her buxom complexion was florid with anger and her
+black eyes snapping angrily, while the arms akimbo, the swaying figure,
+and raised voice betrayed Helena Billington for precisely what she was,
+a common scold and shrew. Howland was a brave man; he had already showed
+both strength and prowess when, washed overboard in a "seel" of the
+ship, and carried fathoms deep in mid-ocean, he caught the
+topsail-halyards swept over with him and clung to them until he was
+rescued in spite of the raging wind and waves that repeatedly dragged
+him under; nor in the face of savage foe, or savage beast, or peril by
+land or sea, was John Howland ever known less than the foremost; but now
+in face of this angry woman he found naught to say, and blushing and
+stammering and half laughing fairly turned and ran away, springing up
+the stairs to the elevated deck cabins, in one of which Elder Brewster
+and his family had their lodging.</p>
+
+<p>Mistress Brewster, a pale, sweet-faced woman, already at fifty-four
+dressing and behaving as the venerable mother in Israel, came forward to
+meet him, and smiling indulgently asked,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Now what hast thou done to goodwife Billington, thou naughty lad? I
+hear thy name in her complaint, and indeed all the company can hear it,
+if they will."</p>
+
+<p>"I did but say I would none of her boys in my party, dear Mistress
+Brewster, and I hope you'll say so<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">[Pg 9]</a></span> too," replied Howland,
+uncovering his yellow head. "They are the greatest marplots and
+scapegraces"&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Nay, nay, John! Say no evil, or thou&nbsp;'lt make me think thou hast
+'scaped grace thyself," suggested the elder's wife with her gentle
+smile. "And prithee, what is thy party? Are my boys bidden, or must they
+e'en bide with the Billingtons?"</p>
+
+<p>"The party is your party, dear dame, for the governor sent me to ask
+your commands upon it, and if Love and Wrestling will give us such aid
+as their years allow, I shall be most grateful."</p>
+
+<p>And then in simple phrase Howland repeated the governor's instructions,
+and requested those of the dame, who at once convened an informal
+council of matrons, and so well advised them that in a scant hour the
+clumsy boat, rolling and bumping against the side of the brig, was laden
+with bales of clothing, tubs whose hoops John Alden, a cooper by trade,
+was hurriedly overlooking, and sundry great brass and copper kettles,
+household necessities of that epoch, and descending as relics to us who
+look upon them with respectful wonder as memorial brasses of the "giants
+of those days."</p>
+
+<p>A flock of women, all demurely and plainly dressed, although the most of
+them were under thirty years of age, stood waiting at the head of the
+ladder until the cargo was stored, and Howland, sending his assistants
+back on deck, planted himself upon the gunwale of the boat, and holding
+out his hand to a stout, solid-looking woman with a young girl beside
+her said,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Mistress Tilley, you had best come first, for you will be apt at
+helping the others, as I hand them down. And thou, too, Elizabeth, if
+thou wilt."</p>
+
+<p>"And Constance Hopkins and Remember Allerton,"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">[Pg 10]</a></span> pleaded the girl,
+lifting a sweet, saucy face to the young man; "we never are separated,
+for we're all of an age, all going on sixteen you know."</p>
+
+<p>"Hush, Bess, thou&nbsp;'rt malapert," chided her mother, descending
+heavily into the boat, while a mutinous young voice above called
+out,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Nay, I'm not going. Stepmother won't spare me."</p>
+
+<p>"Now Constance Hopkins, thou naughty hussy, wilt thou grumble at
+tarrying with me to care for thine own dear sister and brother? Fie on
+thee, girl!"</p>
+
+<p>"They're not my own," grumbled Constance in Remember Allerton's ear.
+"Giles is my own brother and he is to go, and Damaris and Oceanus are
+but half sister and brother, and she's but my stepmother."</p>
+
+<p>"Hush, now, or she'll hear and thou&nbsp;'lt come by a whipping,"
+whispered Remember hastily, as Dame Hopkins turned from Mistress Winslow
+who had spoken to her, and came toward the girls. "I'll stay aboard with
+thee, Constance, and help thee with the babies."</p>
+
+<p>"Thou&nbsp;'rt a dear good wench and I love thee," replied Constance in
+the same tone, and, as the stepmother placed the muffled baby in her
+arms, she took him without comment, and went below followed by Elizabeth
+Tilley.</p>
+
+<p>Two trips of the capacious boat sufficed to carry women, clothes,
+utensils, and assistants across the three quarters of a mile of shallow
+water lying between the brig and the shore, and the boys who went in the
+first boat were at once set to work to gather dry stuff from the
+thickets of scrub oak and pine sparsely clothing the beach, and to build
+several fires along the margin of a large pool or perhaps pond of fresh
+water divided from the harbor by a narrow beach of firm white sand.
+Beach and pond have long since been devoured by the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">[Pg 11]</a></span> hungry sea,
+but stumps of good-sized trees are still dug from the dreary sands
+environing Provincetown, to show what once has been.</p>
+
+<p>The second boat-load arrived, and by help of Alden's stalwart arm,
+Howland's cool decision and prompt action, and Winslow's quick eye and
+ready aid to any woman needing assistance, the apparatus was soon
+adjusted, and a dozen pairs of strong white arms were plunged in the
+suds, or throwing the clothes into the great caldrons bubbling over the
+fires which the boys gayly replenished.</p>
+
+<p>Not all the women of the Mayflower were thus engaged, however, for
+several were delicate in health, and several others had servants who
+took this ungentle labor upon themselves; but those who did not labor
+with their hands felt no superiority, and those who did had no shame in
+so doing; and although the manners of the day inculcated a certain
+deference of manner and speech from the lower rank to the higher, and
+from youth to age, the very fact that every one of these persons had
+abandoned home and friends and comfort that they might secure liberty,
+induced a sense of self respect and respect for others, which is the
+very root and basis of a true republic. Thus Katharine Carver, wife of
+the governor, daughter of Bishop White, and sister of Robinson, the
+pastor of the community left behind in Leyden, although she sent her
+maid Lois, and her man-servant Roger Wilder, to do the required work,
+came ashore with the rest, and by a touch here and a word there, and her
+interest and sympathy, took her part in the labor of the whole, and
+delicate woman and well-born lady though she was, made each of those
+hard-working sisters feel that it was only her weakness, and not her
+station, that prevented her doing all that they did.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">[Pg 12]</a></span> "Eleven o'
+the clock," said John Alden, as the Mayflower's cracked bell told six
+hoarse strokes. "They said they'd bring our dinner ashore for us," and
+he looked wistfully toward the ship.</p>
+
+<p>"Who said?" asked Howland; "for I've more faith in some say-sos than in
+some others."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, if I remember,&nbsp;'t was Mistress Molines who told me," replied
+Alden carefully careless.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, ay," assented Howland, his blue eyes twinkling. "But I thought she
+was ill, poor woman."</p>
+
+<p>"Nay, I meant Mistress Priscilla Molines," retorted the giant, blushing.
+"She said somewhat to me of an onion soup which she flavors marvelously
+well."</p>
+
+<p>"Ah, yes, onion soup," retorted Howland gravely. "Methought it must be
+some such moving theme you discussed yester even as you sat on the
+cable. I noted even at that distance the tears in your eyes."</p>
+
+<p>"And if there were tears in mine eyes it is no matter of mocking, for
+Mistress Priscilla was telling me that her mother is sick as she fears
+unto death, and"&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"John Howland, the boat is coming off with the rest of our company and
+noon-meat for us all. Wilt thou and John Alden receive and help them
+ashore, while Gilbert helps us to make ready here?"</p>
+
+<p>"Surely we will, Mistress Carver," replied Howland heartily, for his
+relationship toward the governor and his beautiful wife was rather that
+of a younger brother than of a retainer; and although the smallness of
+his fortune had induced him to accept the patronage of the older and
+wealthier man, it was much as a lad of noble lineage was content a few
+years before this to become first the page and then the squire of a
+belted knight.</p>
+
+<p>The boat, unable to reach the shore on account of the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">[Pg 13]</a></span> flatness
+of the beach, stuck fast about a bow-shot from dry land, and the men and
+boys at once tumbled over the edge and prepared to carry not only the
+luggage, but the female passengers ashore. Alden seeing this prospect,
+tore off his boots and stockings, and plunging into the chill water
+hastened to the stern of the boat where a slender, vivacious girl,
+brown, dark-eyed, and with cheeks glowing with the dusky richness of a
+peach, stood balancing herself like a bird and giving orders to a young
+man already in the water.</p>
+
+<p>"Now have a care, Robert Cartier, of that kettle. If thou spillst the
+soup"&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"The onion soup, Mistress Priscilla?" asked Alden approaching
+unperceived. Priscilla cast a look at him from the corners of her long
+eyes, and replied carelessly,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, Master Alden, an onion soup. Is that a favorite dish with your
+worship?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why, thou knowest,"&mdash;began the young man with an air of
+bewilderment, but Priscilla interrupted him.</p>
+
+<p>"Since thou art here with thy broad shoulders, John Alden, thou wilt do
+well to make them of use. There is Mistress Allerton struggling with a
+hamper beyond her strength, and there are bales of clothes that must not
+be wet. Load thyself, good mule, and plod shoreward."</p>
+
+<p>"To be sure I will and gladly, fair mistress," replied Alden patiently.
+"But first let me take thee ashore dry-shod, and then I will bring all
+the rest."</p>
+
+<p>"Beshrew thee for a modest youth," retorted Priscilla, the peach color
+of her cheeks deepening to pomegranate; "when I go ashore I will convey
+myself, or my brother will carry me; and thou, since thou art so
+picksome, may set thyself to work, and ask naught of me."</p>
+
+<p>"But why art thou so tart when I meant naught,"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[Pg 14]</a></span> began Alden,
+bewildered; but again the girl cut him short with a stinging little
+laugh.</p>
+
+<p>"Thou never meanest aught, poor John; but I have no time to waste with
+thee. Here, Robert, these come next, and take Mistress Allerton's hamper
+as well."</p>
+
+<p>"Nay, that is for me," growled Alden, seizing the basket from the hands
+of the astonished servant who relinquished it with a stare and a
+muttered exclamation in French; for William Molines, called Mullins by
+the Pilgrims, his wife, son, daughter, and servant were all of the
+French Huguenots, who fleeing from their native land planted a colony
+upon the river Waal in Holland, and were at this time known as Walloons.
+Learning enough of Dutch to carry on the business of daily life, and of
+English to communicate with their co-religionists of the Pilgrim church
+in Leyden, they retained French as the dear home language of their
+birth, and the young people, like Priscilla and her brother Joseph, used
+the three languages with equal facility.</p>
+
+<p>A little offended and a good deal puzzled by the change in Priscilla's
+manner since their last interview, Alden devoted himself to unloading
+the boat without again addressing her, until he saw her confide herself
+to the arms of her brother to be taken ashore; then seizing an armful of
+parcels, he strode along close behind the slender stripling whose thews
+and sinews were obviously unequal to his courage, and who floundered
+painfully over the uneven sands. At last he stumbled, recovered himself,
+plunged wildly forward, and fell flat upon his face, while his sister,
+suddenly seized and held aloft in two strong arms, did not so much as
+wet the hem of her garment, until with a few swift strides her rescuer
+set her on dry land and turned to help the boy<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[Pg 15]</a></span> who came
+floundering after them with a rueful and angry countenance.</p>
+
+<p>"'T&nbsp;was all thy fault, Priscilla," began he. "Twisting and
+squirming to see who was coming after us."</p>
+
+<p>"Nay,&nbsp;'t was the fault of some great monster who came trampling on
+our heels, and making the water wash round my feet. Some whale or
+griffin belike, though he has hid himself again," and the girl affected
+to shade her eyes and scan the sparkling waters, while Alden strode
+moodily away. Priscilla glanced after his retreating figure, and spoke
+again to her brother in a voice whose cooing softness poor John had
+never heard.</p>
+
+<p>"Thou poor dripping lad! And such a cough as thou hast already! Come
+with me sweetheart, and I'll set thee between two fires, and put my
+duffle cloak about thee, and heat some soup scalding hot. I would I had
+a sup of strong waters for thee&mdash;ah yes, I see!"</p>
+
+<p>And hurriedly leading her brother to a sheltered nook between two great
+fires, she cast her cloak over his shoulders, and then sprang up the
+sand-hill with the graceful strength of an antelope to the spot where
+Doctor Fuller stood talking with a man whose appearance demands a word
+of description. Short and square built, the figure bespoke strength and
+long training in athletic exercises, while the haughty set of the head,
+the well-shaped hands and feet, and the clear cut of the features told
+of gentle blood and the habit of predominance. The bare head was covered
+with thick chestnut hair, worn at the temples by pressure of a steel
+cap, and well matched in color by eyes whose strong, stern glances
+carried defeat to the hearts of his savage foes even before his quick
+blows fell. The mouth, firmly closed beneath its drooping moustache, was
+like the eyes, stern<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[Pg 16]</a></span> and terrible in anger, but like them it was
+capable of a winning sweetness and charm only known to those he loved,
+those he pitied, and to the life-long friends whose loving description
+has come down to us; for this was Myles Standish, the soldier and hero
+of the Pilgrims; their dauntless defender in battle, their gentle nurse
+in illness, their councilor and envoy and shining example in peace; the
+right arm of the colony, its modest commander, and its intelligent
+servant.</p>
+
+<p>As Priscilla approached, the two men ceased their conversation and
+turned toward her, neither of them unconscious of the beauty, grace, and
+vigor which clothed her as a garment, yet each restrained by inborn
+chivalry and respect from expressing his opinion.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Doctor, or you, Captain Standish, have either of you a flask of
+strong waters about you? My poor Joseph has fallen in the water, and it
+is so cold, and he has already a cough."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, we saw him fall. He was overloaded for such a stripling," said the
+doctor, with his dry smile, while Standish, hastily pulling a flask from
+his pocket, said,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Here is some well-approved Hollands gin, Mistress Priscilla; and I
+would advise a good draught as soon as may be, and have it heated if it
+may be."</p>
+
+<p>"Here, hand it me. I will go and give my friend Joseph a rating for
+undertaking tasks beyond his strength, though belike the fault was none
+of his!" And the doctor seizing the flask strode down the hill, while
+Priscilla lingered to ask,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"How doth Mistress Standish find herself to-day? I heard she was but
+poorly."</p>
+
+<p>"Ay, poorly enough," replied the Captain with a shadow chasing the smile
+from his eyes. "She is hardly<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[Pg 17]</a></span> strong enough for these shrewd
+winds and rough adventures. I had done better to leave her in England
+until we are established somewhere."</p>
+
+<p>"There's more than one in our company, I fear me, that has adventured
+beyond their strength," replied Priscilla sadly, as she remembered her
+mother's hectic flush and wasting strength and her brother's cough.</p>
+
+<p>"A forlorn hope, perhaps, set to garrison this by-corner of the world,
+but not forgotten by the Commander-in-chief, remember that, maid
+Priscilla," said the captain kindly and cheerily. "There in the Low
+Countries our worst trouble was that the home government never backed us
+as they should, and more than once we felt we were forgot and neglected;
+but in the warfare we have to wage here in the wilderness we can never
+fear that."</p>
+
+<p>"Yet soldiers may die at their post here as well as there," said
+Priscilla, turning to go down the hill.</p>
+
+<p>"So long as the work is done it matters little what becomes of the
+soldier," replied Myles briefly, and the two rejoined the group around
+the fires.</p>
+
+<p>Before nightfall the clothes, dried and sweet with the sunshine and pure
+air, were carefully folded into the tubs and kettles, the dinner was
+neatly cleared away, and the whole company in several trips of the boats
+conveyed on board, while the carpenters and their volunteer aids
+remained to work while daylight lasted upon the pinnace, the Pilgrims'
+own craft, intended for exploration along the shore, and for fishing
+when they should have made a settlement.</p>
+
+<p>But Joseph Molines had not shaken off his chill by means of the
+captain's Hollands gin, nor did his mother or Rose Standish find
+themselves better in the evening<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[Pg 18]</a></span> than they had been in the
+morning, and as the darkness of the November night closed around the
+lonely bark, gaunt shadowy forms, Disease and Famine and Death, seemed
+shaping themselves among the clouds and brooding menacingly over the
+Forlorn Hope, as its soldiers slept or watched beneath.<span class='pagenum'><a
+name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[Pg 19]</a></span></p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<h2>CHAPTER II.</h2>
+
+<h3>THE LAUNCH OF THE PINNACE.</h3>
+
+
+<p>"Mary! Mary Chilton! Maid Mary mine!" called Priscilla Molines in her
+clear bird-voice, as she ran down the steps leading to the principal
+cabin. "Come on deck and see the launch of the pinnace! The carpenters
+call her fit for use if not finished, and the men have gone ashore to
+launch her. Where art thou, poppet!"</p>
+
+<p>"Here," replied a gentler and sweeter voice, as Mary Chilton came
+forward, a long gray stocking dangling from her hands, and stood in a
+slant ray of sunshine which lighted her golden hair to a glory, and
+showed the pure tints of her May-bloom face and clear blue eyes; a
+lovely English face in its first fresh rapture of morning beauty.</p>
+
+<p>"Right merrily will I come, Priscilla, if there be aught to see,"
+continued she, throwing down the stocking which she was knitting for her
+father. "Truly my eyes ache with staring at nothingness."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, there's a trifle this side of nothingness on the beach at this
+minute," retorted Priscilla, pinching her friend's ear. "Men call it
+Gilbert Winslow."</p>
+
+<p>"Hush, hush, Priscilla!" whispered Mary, with a scared look toward her
+mother's cabin. "If anybody heard such folly! And Mistress White already
+tells my mother that we two are over-light in our carriage and
+conversation."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[Pg 20]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Mistress White"&mdash;began Priscilla sharply, but ended the
+exclamation with a saucy laugh and said instead, "Yes, truly as thou
+sayest, my May, mine eyes ache with gazing upon nothingness and my
+tongue aches with speaking naught but wisdom. It is out of nature for
+young maids to be as staid as their elders, and methinks I do not care
+to be. Let us be young while we have youth, say I."</p>
+
+<p>She looked perilously pretty as she arched her brows and pouted her ripe
+lips, and Mary looked at her in loving admiration, while she answered
+sagely,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"You and yours are French, Priscilla, and I am all English like my
+forbears; so thou mayst well be lighter natured than I&mdash;I mean no
+harm, dear."</p>
+
+<p>"No harm is done, dear mother in Israel," replied Priscilla half
+mockingly, and seizing Mary's hand she led her on deck, where many of
+the women and children were collected, watching the preparations on
+shore for the launch of the pinnace, which, much strained by bad stowage
+between decks, had needed about a fortnight's work done upon her before
+she was fit for service.</p>
+
+<p>"They only wait for her to set forth on a second exploration," said
+Priscilla confidentially; "and a little bird sang in my ear that they
+would go to-morrow."</p>
+
+<p>"What little bird?" asked Mary curiously; but before Priscilla could
+reply another voice interposed; it was that of Bridget Tilley, who had
+come on deck to seek her daughter Elizabeth, and now sharply
+inquired,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Another expedition, say you? And my goodman scarce brought back from
+death's door, whither the first jaunt led him! Nay, now, 't&nbsp;is not
+right, 't&nbsp;is all one as murder, to hale dying men out of their beds
+and into that wilderness. No blessing will follow such work, and<span class='pagenum'><a
+name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[Pg 21]</a></span> I'll cry upon the governor or the
+captain or the elder to stop it!"</p>
+
+<p>"What is it, Mistress Tilley? Any wrong that I can help set right?"
+asked a sweet voice, and Bridget turned toward the speaker with a
+somewhat more subdued manner, lowering her voice as she said,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Thank you kindly, Mistress Standish, and God be praised that you can be
+on deck; but my matter is this," and again she poured out her anxieties
+and her fears, until Rose Standish, a fair white rose now, and trembling
+in the shrewd autumn air so soon to scatter her petals and bear the pure
+fragrance of her life down through the centuries, until men to-day love
+her whom they never knew, leaned wearily against the bulkhead and
+said,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Rest easy, dear dame. Thou&nbsp;'rt all in the right, and it behooves
+us to protect our lords from their own rash courage, just as it befits
+their courage to protect us against salvages and wild beasts. I will
+whisper in my husband's ear that Master Tilley is all unfit to carry out
+his own brave impulses, and I will conspire with Mistress Carver and
+Mistress Bradford, and, above all, with our dear mother, the elder's
+wife, that each shall make petition to her lord to see that no sick or
+overborne man be allowed to adventure himself on the expedition. Will
+that satisfy thee, dame?"</p>
+
+<p>"Right well, and you are all one with the saints we used to honor,
+though we do know better now."</p>
+
+<p>"'T&nbsp;is the most comfortable promise I've heard in many a day, dear
+Mistress Standish," cried Priscilla vivaciously. "And well do I believe
+that the whispers of the wives are more weighty than the shouts of the
+husbands. I've never proved it myself, being but a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[Pg 22]</a></span> maid; yet I
+have ere now marked how the prancing of the noblest steed is full deftly
+checked by a silken rein."</p>
+
+<p>"It were well if a rein were put upon thy tongue, girl," severely
+interposed a comely matron sitting near. "Thou&nbsp;'rt over forward for
+thy years, Priscilla. Shamefastness and meekness become a maid, and when
+thou knowest more thou&nbsp;'lt say less."</p>
+
+<p>"Thanks, Mistress White, I will try to profit by your discourse,"
+replied Priscilla demurely; but her tone did not satisfy the matron, who
+sharply rejoined,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"See that thou do, Mistress Malapert, or I'll ask the elder to deal with
+thee. Here he is now."</p>
+
+<p>And, in fact, Elder Brewster, who had caught the tone of Mistress
+White's voice, drew near to the group, saying pleasantly, "A goodly
+sight yonder, is it not? And how well our strong fellows set their
+shoulders to the toil! What shall we call the pinnace when she is
+launched, Mistress White?"</p>
+
+<p>"Methinks Discretion would be a good name, Elder," replied the lady with
+a glance at the two girls. "Surely, we have room for it in our company."</p>
+
+<p>"Truth, my daughter, and yet to my mind Charity is a sweeter name, and
+one more likely to float us over troubled waters." And the elder's
+pleasant smile disarmed his words of all sting. "Priscilla," continued
+he, turning to the girl, "I hear that thy father keeps his bed to-day,
+and thy mother is but poorly."</p>
+
+<p>"Indeed, sir, they are both in evil case," replied Priscilla sadly.
+"Neither of them has stomach for such food as is at hand, and so they
+weaken daily. John Alden shot some little birds yesterday, and I made
+broth of them, but, saving that, my mother has taken no meat for
+days."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[Pg 23]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"I will go and visit them," said the elder, and forgetting the launch he
+had come up to see, he went at once.</p>
+
+<p>"See! See! There she goes!" cried Elizabeth Tilley, as the great boat
+slid gracefully down her ways to the water, dipped her bows deeply, and
+finding her level rode upon an even keel.</p>
+
+<p>"There she goes!" echoed Constance Hopkins and Remember Allerton, who
+with Elizabeth Tilley constituted what may be called the rosebud
+division of the Pilgrim girls, all glowing in the freshness of early
+youth, all comely, strong, and vivacious. Priscilla Molines and Mary
+Chilton with Desire Minter, a distant relative and charge of Governor
+Carver's, made another little group of older girls, and then came the
+young matrons of whom there were many, while Mistress Brewster in the
+dignity of middle life was the recognized head and guide of all.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, there she goes," cried Priscilla, clapping her hands and dancing
+upon her slender feet. "And Mary," continued she, dropping her voice to
+a whisper, "it was Captain Standish who gave that last mighty
+shove"&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Nay, it was John Alden," interrupted Mary innocently.</p>
+
+<p>"I tell thee, girl, it was the captain. John Alden is ever at his elbow
+and striving to imitate him, but our captain is still the leader, and I
+do honour a man who can think as well as do, and act as well as talk. Of
+talkers we have enow, the dear knows; Master Winslow and Master Allerton
+can so argue that they would force you to swear black was white and the
+moon a good Dutch cheese an they chose, and they can lay out work
+marvelously well for others to carry out, but I mark that their own
+hands abide in their pockets for the most part. Then there are plenty of
+strong arms with<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[Pg 24]</a></span> no head-pieces, like John Alden and your good
+friend Gilbert Winslow and John Howland and"&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Nay, nay, Priscilla, thou shalt not wrong good men so," interrupted
+Mary, her fair face coloring a little. "The leaders aye must lead, and
+the younger and simpler aye must follow in every community, and I mark
+not that those you flout for speaking so well fail of their share in the
+labor, nor do I think John Alden or the rest would do well to thrust
+their advice upon their betters. At all rates, yon boat had not slid
+down so merrily if John Alden had not put his shoulder to the work."</p>
+
+<p>"Yea, put his shoulder where the captain laid his hand," retorted
+Priscilla with her mocking laugh, and then putting her arm around Mary's
+shoulders, she added affectionately,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"What a wise little woman thou art, ever looking at both sides of the
+matter while I see but one! And in truth, perhaps, it is better that
+there be these varied excellences, so that all comers may be suited,
+just as thou art fond of porridge while I would liefer have soup."</p>
+
+<p>"And art a rare hand at compounding it," replied Mary admiringly. "How
+Desire Minter smacked her lips over the dish thou gavest her the other
+day."</p>
+
+<p>"That poor Desir&eacute;e, as my gossip Jeanne De la Noye used to call
+her! I like well to give her some tasty bit, for it makes her so happy
+at so little trouble to myself, since I am ever cooking."</p>
+
+<p>"Dost thou really like cooking, Priscilla; or dost thou do it because
+thou ought, as I do?" asked Mary, who hated the culinary art, and yet
+was called upon to practice it, as were all young women of the day.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, I love it," replied Priscilla, with enthusiasm.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[Pg 25]</a></span> "My mother
+and my grandmother and all my aunts were notable cooks, and in the good
+old days in France before I was born, they say my grandmother's
+pat&eacute;s and conserves and ragouts were famous all through Lyons,
+where my grandfather and his father before him were great silk
+manufacturers with plenty of men and maids and money at their command."</p>
+
+<p>"Ah, Priscilla, thou&nbsp;'rt hankering after the flesh-pots again!
+Remember Lot's wife!" and Mary laughed, but gently stole a hand into
+that of Priscilla, who pressed it tenderly as she replied,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Lot's wife spoiled all her cookery with salt, and I'll at least distill
+none from mine own eyes. How shall I make Robert Cartier know that I
+want him to come aboard and help me with my father's supper?"</p>
+
+<p>"Beckon to John Alden to send him," retorted Mary promptly. Priscilla
+turned and fixed her long dark eyes in mock bewilderment upon the
+other's face.</p>
+
+<p>"And why is it easier to beckon to John Alden than to Robert Cartier,
+thou foolish girl?" asked she.</p>
+
+<p>"Because Robert is only thy father's servant, and John is thine own and
+ever waiting thy command," replied Mary demurely, and Priscilla's rich
+color mounted to her brow as she laughingly retorted,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Now, maid Mary, that quip was more like me than thee, and I'll have
+none of it. 'T is for thee to carry the honey-bag to mollify the stings
+my naughty tongue must aye inflict. I would I were not so waspish, Mary
+mine!"</p>
+
+<p>"Thou&nbsp;'rt naught but what is dear and lovely, and I care for thee
+beyond any man that ever walked, saving my father," cried Mary, pressing
+close to her friend's side.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">[Pg 26]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Then will I be jealous of Master Chilton," murmured Priscilla, the
+teasing mood again rising to the surface. "For I'll have no rival in thy
+heart, save only Gilbert Winslow, whom I hope not to oust."</p>
+
+<p>"See, there is John Alden steadfastly regarding us," cried Mary, a
+little annoyed. "Point thy finger at Robert as he stands staring at the
+boat, and then beckon. My word for it, John will read the signal
+aright."</p>
+
+<p>"Why, then, so be it, and if Dame White sees me I'll swear 'twas thee,
+Mary," and Priscilla half proudly, half shyly made the signal, which was
+at once understood and acted upon by Alden, who, truth to tell, seldom
+lost sight of Priscilla when in her company. Cartier receiving the
+message waded after a boat just leaving the beach, and came aboard
+dripping wet, an imprudence so common among the younger men of the
+Pilgrims on that flat coast as to become a serious factor in the
+terrible mortality which was to sweep off half their number within a few
+months.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[Pg 27]</a></span></p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<h2>CHAPTER III.</h2>
+
+<h3>THE SWORD OF STANDISH.</h3>
+
+
+<p>The "little bird," probably John Alden, constant companion of Standish,
+had sung truly in Priscilla's ear of a second exploring party about to
+leave the Mayflower in quest of a favorable site for the town and colony
+the Pilgrims had come forth to found.</p>
+
+<p>To this step they were urged not only by their own wishes, but by the
+importunities of Captain Jones, who having obeyed his Dutch employers
+and brought his passengers to a point well removed from the Virginian or
+Manhattan shores whereon they intended to land, was now only desirous to
+put them ashore almost anywhere, and make sail for England while the
+winter storms held off and his provisions lasted. His own interest,
+therefore, made him zealous in the Pilgrims' service, and so heartily
+had he offered his men, boats, and provisions for the expedition that
+the Pilgrims had made him its leader, some of them still believing in
+his honesty and friendliness, and some others feeling that the surest
+way to effect their plans was to induce the surly commander to make them
+his own. The event proved their shrewdness, for Jones accepted the
+appointment with great satisfaction, and told off ten of his best seamen
+to add to the four-and-twenty sound men who were nearly all that the
+Pilgrims could muster, since, thanks to the secret councils of Rose
+Standish and her associates, all sick or weakly candidates were weeded
+out from the volunteers, and the Tilley<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">[Pg 28]</a></span> brothers, William
+Molines, James Chilton, William White, and several others were kindly
+bidden to remain on board and nurse their strength for the next
+expedition.</p>
+
+<p>About noon the tide serving, the four-and-thirty adventurers, divided
+between the ship's long-boat and their own pinnace, took the sea in
+teeth of a freezing northeasterly gale, and under low-lying clouds whose
+gray bosoms teemed with snow and sleet.</p>
+
+<p>Thomas English, a mariner engaged as master of the shallop, held the
+helm, while as many willing hands as could grasp the oars pulled lustily
+in the direction of what is now called the Pamet River, a stream
+discovered some days previously by a foot expedition under charge of
+Standish, and considered as a possible seat for their colony. The
+crowded state of the boats and the head wind rendered the sails useless,
+and oars proved inefficient to propel so large a boat as the pinnace,
+while the sea, rapidly rising with the rising wind, broke so dangerously
+over the quarter that English refused to proceed, and it was hastily
+resolved to run into what is now called East Harbor, land the
+passengers, and allow the long-boat to return to the ship, while the
+pinnace lay to until the gale moderated. This was done, but owing to the
+shoals, the men were obliged to wade knee-deep to reach land, and the
+cold was now so intense that their clothes froze upon them as they
+resumed their journey on foot. Well may we believe what William Bradford
+later said: "Some of our people who are dead took the original of their
+death on that day."</p>
+
+<p>Marching six or seven miles on foot, the party encamped, building a
+barricade, or as they called it a "randevous," of pine boughs to protect
+them from savage<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[Pg 29]</a></span> beasts or men, and within it kindling a fire
+beside which they sat down to eat such provisions as they had brought,
+and to solace themselves with modest draughts of the strong waters they
+used but not abused.</p>
+
+<p>The next day the exploration was continued both by sea and land, the
+hardy adventurers marching through snow six inches deep, or upon the
+loose sands of the beach where the wind flogged them with lashes of icy
+spray and stinging shards. In passing through a belt of woods traces of
+human presence were to be seen, especially certain young trees bent down
+and their tops made fast to the earth. Stepping aside to examine one of
+these, William Bradford suddenly found his leg inclosed in a noose,
+while the tree, released and springing upward, would have carried him
+ignominiously with it had not he seized the trunk of another sapling,
+and lustily shouted for help. His comrades came running back, and not
+without laughter and some grim pleasantries released him. Stephen
+Hopkins alone understood the trap, and cutting from it a piece of smooth
+fine cord twisted of wood fibres handed it to Bradford, saying,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Here, man, keep it by way of horn-book to teach thee wood-lore in these
+salvage countries. It is the moral of what we used to see among the
+Bermoothes some ten years gone by. Ay, and the traps too. I've seen many
+a wild thing, deer or what not, jerked up by the leg and hanging from a
+tree like Absalom, until its master came along to cut its throat and
+dress it, as it hung."</p>
+
+<p>"Glad am I that no such master came to release me," said Bradford
+laughing ruefully as he rubbed his leg and limped along.</p>
+
+<p>"So thou wert in the Bermudas, Hopkins?" asked<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[Pg 30]</a></span> Standish who was
+of the walking party; "wast buccaneering?"</p>
+
+<p>"Nay, Captain, all men do not follow thy trade," replied Hopkins with
+his boisterous laugh. "Mine was quite another office, for I was
+lay-reader to Parson Buck, and he was chaplain to Gates who was to be
+governor of a Virginia colony an' he could have reached it. But like our
+own adventure it miscarried, and we were wrecked on the Bermoothes. We
+abode there six months, and the Indians showed us how to trap deer just
+as Bradford was trapped but now, ho, ho!"</p>
+
+<p>"Lay-reader wast thou?" asked Standish surveying the burly veteran with
+whimsical interest. "Well, now, I'd never take thee for a parson's
+lieutenant, Hopkins! I can hardly fancy thee meek and mild with bands
+under that unkempt beard, and a gown over thy buff jacket. Wert meek and
+mild in those days, Hopkins, and thy tongue, was&nbsp;'t innocent of
+strange oaths?"</p>
+
+<p>"A truce to thy jibes, master Captain," retorted Hopkins not half
+pleased at receiving the jests he so freely offered. "If thou didst but
+know, my voice was more for war than peace, sith it seemed to me then
+even as it did before we landed here, that an expedition gone astray is
+an expedition ended, and that all compacts cease when their conditions
+cannot be fulfilled. We shipped to go to Virginia, and Gates was to be
+our governor; well and good, but here we were wrecked on Bermuda, and my
+rede was that every man was thus released from his promises and free to
+set forth anew for himself."</p>
+
+<p>"So! Yonder threatening on the Mayflower was not thy first experience in
+raising sedition and discontent, and trying to turn a God-fearing
+community into a nest<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[Pg 31]</a></span> of pirates!" exclaimed Standish
+scornfully. "Well, what came of it in that instance?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why, Gates called a court-martial, tried me for treason by an authority
+I denied, and sentenced me to death."</p>
+
+<p>"Ay, and what then?"</p>
+
+<p>"Then Parson Buck who could ill spare me, since I writ half his
+discourses, and the admiral who would not see murder done under cloak of
+law, they went to Gates and so wrought upon his temper that he set me
+free and bade me begone, and I went right merrily."</p>
+
+<p>"Thou mindst me of an officer under me, down there by Utrecht," said
+Standish meditatively. "He, too, was for setting up every man for
+himself in the plunder of a village we had taken, and I had given orders
+about."</p>
+
+<p>"And what became of him?" asked Hopkins, as the captain seemed to have
+finished.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, there was no parson just there to make use of him, and no admiral
+to judge about my authority, and he was shot," replied Standish quietly.
+Hopkins scowled and laid his hand upon his sword hilt, but Bradford, who
+had listened with both interest and amusement to the conversation,
+deftly interposed with some question about the route, and Hopkins, who
+prided himself upon his wood-lore, took the lead, and conducted the
+party by the easiest route to the spot where they would rejoin their
+brethren of the boat.</p>
+
+<p>The Pamet River, reached at length, proved unsatisfactory for a
+settlement, but at its mouth were found sundry matters of
+interest,&mdash;the remains of a palisade formed apparently by civilized
+hands, the ruins of a log<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[Pg 32]</a></span> hut, quite different from the wigwams
+of the savages, and a large mound which when opened proved full of
+Indian corn, some shelled, some on the ear, the yellow kernels
+variegated with red and blue ones, like the maize still grown in that
+vicinity. The snow upon the ground would have concealed this "barn," as
+rustic John Rigdale called it, had not the previous expedition noted and
+marked it, and the ground was so hard frozen that it must be hewed with
+the stout cutlasses and axes of the Pilgrims, and the clods pried up
+with levers. Standish drew his sword with the rest, but after watching
+for a moment thrust it back into the sheath, saying to Alden who as
+usual was close beside him,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Nay, I'll none of it! What mine own thews and sinews may compass, I'll
+undertake right joyfully, but I'll never ask Gideon to risk his edge or
+his backbone in such rude labors as yon. Every man to his trade, and
+these are the sappers and miners with whom he has no concern."</p>
+
+<p>"Is Gideon the name of your sword then, Master?" asked Alden half
+timidly, for Standish had the habit of command and was impatient of much
+questioning.</p>
+
+<p>Alden however was a favorite, and the captain, like a lover, was won by
+the admiring glance the young man threw at the sword, as its owner
+unsheathed it and laid the blade fondly across his palm.</p>
+
+<p>"Why ay," replied he smiling down at it, "I have christened him so; but
+methinks, like other converts, he finds the new name sit uneasily at
+times, and would fain hear the old one."</p>
+
+<p>"And what might that be?"</p>
+
+<p>"Ah, that is what no man alive can tell. He who forged it of that rare
+metal which now and again falls<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">[Pg 33]</a></span> from the skies, and he who first
+wielded and named it, have lain in the dust well nigh a thousand years,
+if old tales be true."</p>
+
+<p>"A thousand years! But what is its story,&mdash;if you will tell it,
+Master Standish?" and the young man's face grew bright with excitement
+as he glanced from the soldier's face to the blade glittering across his
+palm, and seeming to laugh in the wintry sunshine.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, it was an old armorer in Ghent for whom I had done some service
+in protecting his daughter and saving some mails which my men would have
+plundered, and the old man was more grateful than need be, and came one
+night to my lodgings bringing this sword wrapped in his mantle, to offer
+me as a gift, for he said he would not sell it, valuing it above all
+price."</p>
+
+<p>"And still you would have him take a price," suggested Alden exultantly,
+but Standish answered gently,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Nay, John, that is but poor pride that cannot allow another to be its
+benefactor. I took the old man's gift and thanked him heartily. Later
+on, as chance befell, I did him a good turn in a contract for arms,
+while he knew it not. But that is beside the matter, which is the sword.
+He told me, that old man did, a story fit to set in the ancient romaunts
+of chivalry, how he as a young fellow full of heart and lustihood went
+out to fight the Turks or some other heathen of those parts, and was a
+prisoner, and a lady loved him and he loved her not, having a sweetheart
+waiting for him at home. And she had a noble heart and forgave him his
+despite, and set him free at risk of her own life, nor gave him freedom
+only, but a purse of gold and this sword, which she averred had been
+captured from the Persian people<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">[Pg 34]</a></span> hundreds of years before, and
+was a true Damascus blade forged from meteor iron, and of the curious
+tempering now forgotten. And she said, moreover, that there was a charm
+upon it that made him who carried it invincible and scathless, and she,
+poor maid, had robbed her father's house of this great treasure, and
+brought it to him who loved another woman better than her, and so with
+tears and smiles she gave it over, and he for very ruth gave her a
+tender kiss, and thus they parted."</p>
+
+<p>"Nay, I pity her not. She was overbold to offer her love before it had
+been asked," said Alden hastily.</p>
+
+<p>"Ah, boy, thou&nbsp;'rt in all the hardness of thy callow youth, and
+nought's more hard. Wait some fifteen years till thou comest to my age,
+and thou&nbsp;'lt pity the poor heathen maid as I do to-day. Well, my
+armorer took the sword and played it some forty years or more, and then,
+too old to wield arms, he took to dealing in them, but never sold this,
+for it had proved all that the lady claimed for it, and had slain his
+enemies, and fended his friends, and saved his own head more times than
+he could number, and now he gave it to me who had, he said, saved more
+than his life."</p>
+
+<p>"And these outlandish signs and marks upon the blade?" asked Alden,
+peering down at the sword.</p>
+
+<p>"There, now, thou callest for another tale," replied Standish smiling
+good-naturedly. "But as they seem to need us not in disemboweling yon
+granary, and here we are guard against surprise from whoever may rightly
+own the treasure and come to claim it, I will e'en tell thee the rest.</p>
+
+<p>"Thou knowest Pastor Robinson of Leyden, though thou wast never out of
+England thyself?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">[Pg 35]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"I know his fame as a pious teacher and a learned man, well beloved of
+his people."</p>
+
+<p>"Beloved? Ay, none more so," exclaimed Standish heartily. "I ever wished
+I might see him in some great peril and prove my love by cutting down a
+round dozen of his foes. And learned! Why, man, he disputed with the
+most learned among their Dutch scholars openly in the big church, and
+left them not a leg to stand on, or a tongue to wag. Why, 't&nbsp;Isa no
+more to him to read Hebrew than for me to spell out my Bible. So then,
+knowing his learning and his love of all that is old and curious, I one
+day showed him my sword and asked if he could rede me fairly the
+mystical texts or whatever they might be upon the blade. But mind thee I
+said naught to him of any charm or amulet about it, lest I might wound
+his conscience, which is tender as a maid's. Thou shouldst have seen the
+dear old man, barnacles on nose, peering and peeping and muttering over
+the queer device, all at one as he were a wizard himself and working
+some spell. But at the last he heaved a mighty sigh, and gave me back
+the sword saying, nay, he could not make out more than that there were
+two legends in two different tongues and by different hands, and that
+the effigies of the sun and moon and stars pointed, he feared, to
+idolatrous emblems, and were not such as a Christian man might safely
+deal withal. So I asked him would it be better should I have the Holy
+Rood wrought above them as did the Crusaders of old, and beshrew me, but
+this device seemed to please him less than the other."</p>
+
+<p>"Nay, our teachers like not the look of the Cross, nor use it as our
+fathers used. It savoreth of Popery, they<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">[Pg 36]</a></span> say," interposed Alden
+glancing at the captain's face for sure approval, but to his surprise he
+saw it overcast and frowning.</p>
+
+<p>"Thou knowest," replied he a little haughtily, "that I am not of the
+Separatist Church, nor agree in all its teachings. The Standishes were
+ever good Catholics, since they came over from Normandy with William the
+Baseborn, and if I hold not to the religion of my fathers I accept no
+other, nor can I ever esteem lightly those things my mother venerated."</p>
+
+<p>The younger man, perplexed and mortified, remained silent, but in a
+moment Standish smiled and resumed his story.</p>
+
+<p>"So, Pastor Robinson confessed his own want of skill, as so wise a man
+need not shame to do, but told me of a certain aged scholar in
+Amsterdam, well versed in Eastern lore, and able, if any man alive could
+do it, to rede me the riddle aright, and he wrote down his name and
+lodging and a line to recommend me to his kindly attention, and so gave
+me fair good-night.</p>
+
+<p>"Not long after, my occasions called me to Amsterdam, and be sure I took
+the time to find the old ancient scholar, a queer, dried-up graybeard,
+with skin like the parchment covers of his folios; but he gave me
+courteous welcome, and I laid the sword upon the table under his nose.
+Faith, John, I thought that same nose would grow to my blade, for a good
+half hour passed away, or ever he stirred or spoke. Then he looked
+askance at me and said,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"'How old art thou in very truth?'"</p>
+
+<p>"I told him some thirty years, and he stared and stared until had he
+been a young man and a soldier I had asked him his intent. But as it
+was, I did but<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">[Pg 37]</a></span> stare back again, until at the last his parchment
+cheeks creased and crackled in what may have been meant for a smile, and
+he said,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"'Thou mightst have been a score of thirties if thou hadst been born
+when this blade was forged.'</p>
+
+<p>"'And why?' asked I, wondering if Pastor Robinson could have known the
+man was an old wizard.</p>
+
+<p>"'Because there's that on this blade would have kept thee from all harm
+if thou hadst made it thine own,' said he, tapping that circle."</p>
+
+<p>And turning the blade, Standish showed upon the reverse from the sun,
+moon, and stars, an ornamented medallion close to the hilt, containing
+certain cabalistic signs and marks. Below this was an inscription of
+several lines in totally different characters.<a name="FNanchor_1_1" id="FNanchor_1_1"></a><a href="#Footnote_1_1" class="fnanchor">[1]</a></p>
+
+<p>"And that is a charm to keep a man alive?" asked Alden with bated breath
+and eager eyes.</p>
+
+<p>"So that old man said," replied Standish, "but I concern myself little
+with such matters, having ever found my own right arm enough to keep my
+head, and the grace of God better than any heathen charm."</p>
+
+<p>"And did he read it, and the rest?" pursued Alden.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, he read it, or at the least he muttered something in some
+outlandish gibberish," replied the captain, laughing a little
+shamefacedly. "And he told me its meaning, partly in Latin, for we spoke
+together in that tongue, but I am such a dullard that I forgot the words
+as soon as he spoke them, and so asked him to write them down. Then he
+fell a pondering again, and said like the pastor, that the two
+inscriptions differed in every way, and he must muse awhile and look in
+his books before he could <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">[Pg 38]</a></span>read them fairly, and he asked me to
+leave the sword with him. So seeing him so venerable and honorable a man
+I consented, although not willingly, and went my way. The next morning I
+sought him again not certain but that in the night he and my sword and
+the charm had all flown out of window together and gone to join the
+Witch of Endor. But no, there he sat, and the sword before him, as if
+they never had stirred since I left. And the old man gave me a bit of
+parchment covered with crabbed Latin script, and told me I should find
+therein the sense of my two inscriptions, though there were words even
+he could not decipher. So I put the parchment in my pouch, and reached
+my hand to the sword, when he withheld it and said,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"'This charm avails nothing for thee, my son, because it was not framed
+for thee, nor dost thou swear by the powers therein invoked; but I can
+frame one that will avail, and will protect thee from any weapon raised
+against thee. I have learned somewhat I never knew, in studying thy
+sword, and I would fain repay thee in kind.'</p>
+
+<p>"Now lad, as he spoke, a certain terror seized me lest I should be found
+dabbling in the black art, and I said, with more than enough vehemence,
+that I wanted no charm, nor did I fear mortal weapon or mortal foe, for
+in God was my trust, and He was able to hold me scathless, or to take me
+when He would. And then, John, a fancy seized me, a foolish fancy of
+romance perhaps, but still I mind not thy knowing, so thou&nbsp;'lt not
+babble of it to others. I asked the old man could he put what I had just
+said into the same tongue with that heathen charm, and so shape it that
+I could have it carved upon my blade above the sun and moon and<span class='pagenum'><a
+name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[Pg 39]</a></span> stars, which those Persian idolaters
+worship and had graved there almost as idols. And he smiled again in
+that grewsome fashion of his, and said ay he could do that much, and
+that as three possessors had already put invocations to their gods upon
+the blade it was but fit I should do so in my turn.</p>
+
+<p>"I liked not the quip, nor the evening of a Christian man's belief to
+idolatrous worship, but yet the idea of the Christian charm, if one
+might call it so, had taken fast possession of my mind, and I felt as
+though it were snatching the good blade from the powers of heathenesse
+and giving it to God. So I put what I would say in few words, and the
+old man wrought upon it till he had it to his mind, and at the last took
+a pencil dipped in some wizard's ink or other and drew these signs upon
+the sword as you see them, bidding me take it to an armorer and have
+them cut in just as they stood. So I did, choosing, you may be sure, the
+armorer who had given me the sword, and showing him, as I have you, that
+this is no heathen charm, but the sign of a Christian man's faith."</p>
+
+<p>"And what do they mean, all three of them?" asked Alden reverently. "I
+see the figures 1149 graved clearly enough, but what mean the other two
+rows?"</p>
+
+<p>"My lad, thou seest wrong. The 1 and 4 and 9 are but symbols of letters
+not there set down, and the whole, partly from that same foolish fancy I
+told thee of, and partly because the old scholar bade me never tell it
+lest some other man should steal his learning, and partly because Gideon
+hath kept the first secret so many years that I feel like trusting him
+with another, for all these reasons I promised myself and the scholar
+and Gideon that I would never tell the thing to mortal man, nor
+even<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[Pg 40]</a></span> the rendering of the other devices; and lest I should be
+tempted to forego my word, sith I claim to be no stronger than Samson,
+or lest some one should surprise the secret unawares, I cut the piece of
+parchment in two pieces, and handed them back to the old scholar, who
+disguised not his huge content thereat. So thou seest, John, two of the
+three inscriptions I could not unravel to thee if I would, and of the
+third thou wilt not ask me, since it is guarded by a promise."</p>
+
+<p>"Surely, Master, it is not I who would ask you to break it," said John
+simply. "But the name of Gideon?"</p>
+
+<p>"Didst never read of Gideon in Holy Writ, John? A mighty soldier before
+the Lord who hewed down his father's idol-grove and came out from among
+his own people and carved his own way in the world. Ever as I read his
+story, I mind me of a man I knew in Lancashire who went to the house of
+his fathers to claim what was his own, and when he gat it not, he threw
+down the idols he had been trained to worship, and shook off the dust of
+that idol-grove where Mammon and Rank and the world's opinion were set
+up as gods, and went out into the world to hew out his own fortunes by
+the might of his own right arm, and his trust in the God of Israel. So
+now, John Alden, thou knowest more about my good sword than any man
+alive, for I doubt me if the scholar remembereth, and the armorer is
+dead. And when we go into battle, if such good luck await us, and thou
+hearest me cry, The Sword of the Lord and of Gideon! thou&nbsp;'lt know
+my meaning."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">[Pg 41]</a></span></p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<h2>CHAPTER IV.</h2>
+
+<h3>THE LILIES OF FRANCE.</h3>
+
+
+<p>"Ho Captain Standish, thou&nbsp;'rt wanted here!" cried the coarse voice
+of Thomas Jones as the two men approached the group gathered about the
+corn heap. "Come hither and teach these gentle maids the usages of war.
+They speak forsooth of making payment to these unbreeched salvages for
+the corn we are taking from this hole in the ground. Was it the way of
+your bold fellows in Flanders to make payment to the Spaniards if you
+surprised and sacked their camp?"</p>
+
+<p>"The Spaniards were our declared enemies," replied Standish coldly; "and
+not only their gear but their lives were ours if we could take them, and
+so were ours theirs an' they approved themselves the better men. But
+here it is not so; we have no quarrel as yet with the salvages, nor is
+it wise to provoke one. We are but a handful, and they in their own
+country of unknown strength. Besides, why should we harm those who have
+done us no wrong? Is it not wiser to make friends and allies if we may?
+So Master Jones you must e'en rank me with the gentle maids who speak
+for honesty and justice in this matter."</p>
+
+<p>"As you will, it is no concern of mine," retorted Jones with a surly
+laugh; "but never before did I sail in such saintly company, or find
+bearded men with swords at their sides carrying themselves like milk-fed
+babes."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">[Pg 42]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"And in sad seriousness, good Master Jones, do you intend to cast a slur
+upon our courage?" demanded Standish, a cold smile upon his lips, while
+his right hand toyed with Gideon's hilt, and his right foot planted
+itself more firmly.</p>
+
+<p>"Nay, he's no such ass," interposed Hopkins hastily. "He did but mean a
+merry joke, and we would have you Captain Standish tell off such men as
+had best remain on shore for further exploration while the rest shall
+return to the ship with Master Jones, who is in mind to go back before
+night."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, he is overdone with the work we babes have scarce begun," muttered
+Standish with a wrathful laugh. "Glad am I to spare him."</p>
+
+<p>"And I," said Bradford joining them. "And we are all of one mind that
+Captain Standish shall take command of those who remain, since the
+governor and several others find themselves but ailing and will return
+with Jones, who forebodes foul weather and needs must take his men
+aboard to meet it."</p>
+
+<p>"Why, that's no more than his duty, and mayhap I wronged him," said
+Standish generously. "Well, who tarries with me?"</p>
+
+<p>The division was soon made, and as the boats left the shore, beneath the
+same cold and stormy sky that had led them forth, and feebly breasted
+the hissing waves which seemed to sneer at their puny efforts, the
+eighteen men who remained on shore drew closer together.</p>
+
+<p>"Methinks our men are to be sifted like Gideon's army at Mount Moreh,"
+said Edward Winslow running his eye over the little group as he linked
+his arm with Bradford's. "They went forth twenty-and-two hundred and
+fell away to three hundred."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">[Pg 43]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"By the three hundred who lap the water with their hands will I conquer
+Midian," quoted Bradford in a clear and ringing voice.</p>
+
+<p>"Hear you that, John?" asked Standish of the young man who followed him
+closely. "It is a good omen that the grand old story should have come
+into Winslow's head. And now, men, my opinion is that we should strike
+inland, and see if we cannot come upon some settlement or stronghold of
+the natives, for certes, these barns and graves were not made without
+hands, nor were the stubble-fields reaped by ghosts. The tract lying
+north and east of this river is yet new to us, and, since you will be
+led by me, we will march for some hours hither and yon through its
+length and breadth, making our randevous where night may overtake us,
+and returning hither to meet the shallop to-morrow."</p>
+
+<p>"It is good counsel, and we will follow you, Captain," said Winslow,
+while a consenting murmur stirred the russet beards around, and Hopkins
+said, "He among us who best knows the ways of woodlands, and how to
+steer the plainest course through these swamps and thickets, should be
+on the lead, it seemeth to me, Captain."</p>
+
+<p>"Ay, Hopkins, I have thought of all that," interrupted Standish rather
+curtly; "and I have chosen my scout already. Billington, where art thou,
+man?"</p>
+
+<p>"Here, Captain," responded a coarse voice, and a man whose mean and
+truculent face contrasted forcibly with those about him pushed forward
+and stood before the captain, who gave him a comprehensive glance,
+noting not only the mean and bad face, but the wiry and well-knit
+figure, and the eyes quick and watchful as a rat's.</p>
+
+<p>"Billington," repeated he at last, "I've noticed on these expeditions
+that thou hast a pretty knack at wood<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">[Pg 44]</a></span>craft, and can smell thy
+way among these bogs and thorny coppices with marvelous good judgment."</p>
+
+<p>"I learned such woodcraft and more while I was gamekeeper to my Lord
+Lovell in the old country," interrupted Billington with an impudent
+grin. The captain again regarded him with that penetrating glance whose
+power is matter of history and replied,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"I suppose it was in such service that thou camest by that ugly scar
+across thy nose. Thou hast never been a soldier, well I wot."</p>
+
+<p>"Thou&nbsp;'rt right, Captain," said Billington putting his hand to his
+face with an unabashed laugh. "It was a poacher"&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Ay, I thought it was a poacher," interrupted Standish dryly. "Well,
+master gamekeeper Billington, to-day thou&nbsp;'rt under my orders, and
+I desire thee to lead us through this wood in an easterly course, and to
+keep a diligent eye upon all signs of occupation by the enemy, that is
+to say, our friends the salvages. Be very careful in this matter, an'
+please thee, good Billington, for shouldst thou think it a merry jest to
+lead us into danger of any sort, I fear me thou&nbsp;'dst find it but a
+poor bargain for thyself."</p>
+
+<p>"Nay, Captain, the man means no harm and feels that we are all comrades
+in this matter," said Winslow pacifically, while Hopkins muttered
+discontentedly,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"O'er many masters to my mind."</p>
+
+<p>Standish answered neither, except by a glance from his penetrating eyes,
+and Billington taking the lead the little party struck into the woods
+and marched rapidly and in silence for an hour or more, when Allerton,
+the oldest and feeblest man of the party, suddenly halted, and called to
+Standish that he must perforce rest for a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">[Pg 45]</a></span> few minutes, and was,
+moreover, sadly athirst. This want was immediately echoed by all, for
+the flasks at every man's belt contained spirits or strong beer, and the
+toil of the march, sometimes in spite of Billington's skill through
+thickets whose thorny branches tore even the armor from the Pilgrims'
+backs, and sometimes through half frozen morasses, had induced a thirst
+craving plentiful draughts of pure water.</p>
+
+<p>"We've passed neither spring nor runlet on our course, for I've looked
+for such," said Billington removing his leather cap and wiping his brow
+upon his sleeve. "And though 't&nbsp;is frosty weather, such a diligent
+march as ours heats the blood shrewdly."</p>
+
+<p>"We will halt beside this coppice for a space," ordered Standish
+glancing at Allerton's pallid face; "and do thou search yonder hollow,
+Billington, for water. Alden go you with him, and keep an eye on his
+course."</p>
+
+<p>The two men thus detailed plunged into the little hollow where indeed
+water should have been, but found only a pool so shallow and so
+sheltered as to have frozen quite solid; from this they brought some
+pieces of ice with which Allerton was so revived as to resume his course
+for another mile when he again broke down, while all the rest suffered
+so sensibly from thirst that they could not conceal their distress.
+Another halt was called, and all the younger men dispersed in various
+directions, while Allerton lay stretched upon the ground, his parched
+mouth open, and his eyes half closed. Beside him stood Standish, real
+concern upon his usually stern features, and in his hand a flask of
+spirits, from which the exhausted and fevered man turned loathingly.</p>
+
+<p>"'T&nbsp;is as good schnapps as ever came through a still," said
+Standish wistfully; "and if thou couldst stomach it must surely do thee
+good."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">[Pg 46]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Water, water!" moaned Allerton.</p>
+
+<p>"Ay, a little water mingled with it were better for thee just now,"
+replied the Captain soothingly. "But sith water may not be had"&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Ho, men! Water, water, a running brook!" cried Alden's hearty voice, as
+he came bursting his way through the thicket. "A running brook and a
+deer drinking at its spring."</p>
+
+<p>"And why didst not shoot the deer instead of hallooing him away, thou
+great idiot?" demanded Standish in jesting anger, while, with such a
+rush as the animal sore athirst makes when he scents the water springs,
+all the men but three of the party burst through the undergrowth and
+found themselves in a lovely little dale so sheltered by hills and trees
+as to offer only a southern exposure to the weather. The snow of the
+previous day had already disappeared from this favored spot, and the
+little runlet with its welling spring sparkled free from frost among the
+long grasses, sweet-gale, and low shrubbery of the place; among these
+shrubs more than one dainty track leading from the forest to the runlet
+showed that here the deer came daily down to drink, and Alden in his
+heart felt he had done well not to lift a hand against the pretty
+creature he had surprised there. But neither the poetic Bradford, the
+polished Winslow, nor the meditative Howland paused any more than their
+brethren to note the beauty of the spot, but one and all plunging
+forward threw themselves upon their knees thrusting their faces into the
+water, and only pausing to draw breath and drink again.</p>
+
+<p>"We there drank our first New England water, and with as much delight as
+ever we drunk drink in all our lives," wrote Bradford at a later day,
+and no doubt the memory of its refreshment lasted all his life.<span class='pagenum'><a
+name="Page_47" id="Page_47">[Pg 47]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>All but three, and these three were Allerton who could not go, Standish
+who would not leave him, and Alden who would not leave Standish until
+the latter said,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"But dost not see, John, that thou&nbsp;'rt hindering me from quenching
+my thirst? Go thou and bring thy steel cap full of water for Master
+Allerton, and when I see him revived I'll go right gladly to lap water
+out of my hand among my three hundred."</p>
+
+<p>"You are ever right, master," replied Alden briefly, and ran to do as he
+was bid.</p>
+
+<p>An hour's rest and the food they had been unable to swallow while
+athirst, so refreshed the Pilgrims that even Allerton resumed the march
+with fresh courage and pursued it steadily until Billington, suddenly
+pausing and pointing down at a narrow path intersecting their own, said
+in a low voice to Standish who came close behind him,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Men's feet, not beasts. It will lead belike to a village."</p>
+
+<p>"Ay," responded the captain briefly. "Look well to your weapons men, and
+light your matches, but let no man fire his piece without command." And
+drawing his sword, Standish strode eagerly forward close to Billington,
+who with all his faults was no coward, and blithely blew his match to a
+fiery glow, while glancing with his ferret eyes behind every tree and
+into every covert he passed.</p>
+
+<p>Nothing, however, was to be seen, and suddenly the path came to an end
+in a large clearing covered with the stubble of maize recently gathered,
+while at the farther side stood several huts formed by a circle of
+elastic poles, the butts thrust in the ground and the tops bound
+together leaving a hole through which the smoke<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">[Pg 48]</a></span> was invited to
+escape, and sometimes did so. The outside was protected by heavy mats of
+skins or braided of bark, while a more highly decorated one closed the
+doorway. All were evidently deserted, and after some cautious advances,
+the captain leaving three men on guard permitted the rest to extinguish
+their matches and explore the wigwams so curious to European eyes and so
+familiar to our own.</p>
+
+<p>The interior of each showed a cooking hearth or platform framed of
+sticks and stones, and an assortment of wooden cooking utensils rudely
+carved. Among these the explorers noticed an English bucket without a
+bale and a copper kettle, both linking themselves in their minds to the
+traces of civilization already noted in the palisades and ruined cabin
+near which the store of corn had been found. Many baskets, both for use
+and ornament, were found, and sundry boxes curiously wrought with bits
+of clam shell, such as were used for wampum, and also little crab shells
+and colored pebbles, seemed to show the presence of women and their
+proficiency in the fancy work of their own time and taste. Several deer
+heads, one of them freshly killed, showed that the inmates of the
+wigwams were not far distant, and in a hollow tree by way of larder was
+hung the carcass of a deer, so well ripened that even Hopkins pronounced
+it "fitter for dogs than men."</p>
+
+<p>From all these novelties and curiosities the Pilgrims selected a few of
+the prettier specimens to carry to their comrades on board, formally
+promising each other, as they had in case of the corn, to make due
+payment to the owners whenever they should be found, a promise most
+conscientiously performed at a later day.</p>
+
+<p>By the time these matters were fully examined night<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">[Pg 49]</a></span> was falling,
+and the Pilgrims, strong in their own good intentions and also in their
+weapons, encamped a short distance from the Indian village, and although
+keeping diligent guard all night saw nor heard naught to disturb their
+slumbers. Rousing betimes next morning, their first attention was given
+to prayers, and their next to making as good a breakfast as possible
+with the aid of some wild fowl and little birds shot during the previous
+day's march, and then the "meat and mass" which "hinder no man" thus
+attended to, they set forth in the direction of the river where they
+were to be picked up by the shallop. Toward noon this point was nearly
+reached, in fact the clearing with the European cabin was close at hand,
+when Billington paused beside a mound carefully laid up with a border of
+beach stones and rounded high and smooth with sods, over which were laid
+hewn planks such as composed the cabin.</p>
+
+<p>"It is another store of corn of choicer variety," declared he greedily;
+but Hopkins shook his head.</p>
+
+<p>"It is the grave of some great sachem, or haply from these planks above
+him it is the grave of whoever built yon cabin and palisado."</p>
+
+<p>"Belike there is treasure of some wrecked vessel which brought him
+hither, and which he stored away thus, until his rescue," said Rigdale.</p>
+
+<p>"Should not we cautiously open it, Captain, and certify ourselves what
+is therein?" asked Bradford. "If it prove a grave we can but reverently
+cover it again, and if it be food, we need all that we can gather for
+food and seed."</p>
+
+<p>"Ay, Master Bradford," replied Standish thoughtfully. "I like not
+meddling with graves for despite or for curiosity, but sith it much
+imports us to understand<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">[Pg 50]</a></span> this country where we are to dwell, I
+think we may examine this mound, and, as thou sayest, if it be a grave
+of white man or of red, we will leave it as honorable as we find it."</p>
+
+<p>Permission thus given, swords, bayonets, and hatchets were set to work,
+and in a few moments, the upper surface of sand and earth being removed,
+the explorers came upon a large bow, strong, tough, and beautifully
+carved and pointed.</p>
+
+<p>"It is a sachem, and a mighty man of valor if he wielded this bow and
+shot these arrows," said Hopkins handling them respectfully.</p>
+
+<p>"It seemeth to me like a white man's touch in this carving," said
+Winslow examining the bow.</p>
+
+<p>"Here lieth a goodly mat, stained with red and blue in a fair pattern,"
+said Bradford drawing it off the grave, as it now seemed certain to be.</p>
+
+<p>"And what is this?" exclaimed Alden raising something which lay beneath
+the mat. Brushing away the mould that clung to it, this proved to be a
+piece of plank some twenty-seven inches in length, carefully smoothed
+upon one side, and painted with what seemed an heraldic achievement,
+while the top was cut into something of the fashion of a crest
+consisting of three spikes or tines.</p>
+
+<p>"It is a hatchment over a noble's grave," cried Standish. "Say you not
+so, Master Winslow? See you, here is a shield, although I know not the
+device, and here is surely a crest."</p>
+
+<p>"So it beseemeth, Captain," replied Winslow cautiously. "And to my mind
+this crest is a rude presentment of the lilies of France. See you now,
+Master Bradford!"</p>
+
+<p>"Nay, I know naught of such toys," replied Bradford<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">[Pg 51]</a></span> sturdily.
+"To my mind it looketh as much like Neptune's trident as aught else."</p>
+
+<p>"Or like a muck-fork," suggested Rigdale in his broad Lancashire
+dialect, and with a coarse laugh resented by Standish, who, an
+aristocrat to his heart's core, ill brooked contempt of chivalrous
+emblems, especially by a rustic of his own shire.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, let us get on with this business," said he peremptorily, and
+pulling away another mat he disclosed a store of bowls, plates, dishes,
+and such matters, all new and beautifully carved and decorated.</p>
+
+<p>"For the dead man to cook and eat on his journey to the happy hunting
+grounds, which the salvages place in the room of heaven," said Hopkins
+sanctimoniously. Beneath these lay another mat, and beneath this a crypt
+carefully bedded with dry white sand, upon which lay two packages
+carefully sewn up in sailcloth, the one more than six feet in length,
+the other barely three.</p>
+
+<p>"The body of a man and child," said Bradford softly, as he helped to
+raise them from their pure white cell and lay them upon the earth.</p>
+
+<p>"Open them with care, friends," said Standish uncovering his head. "It
+is some white man buried in such honor as they had knowledge of by those
+who loved him."</p>
+
+<p>The many folds of canvas removed, there lay a strange sight before the
+Pilgrims' eyes. Inclosed in a great quantity of fine red powder,
+emitting a pungent but agreeable odor, lay the skeleton of a man,
+fleshless, except upon the skull, where clung the skin and a mass of
+beautiful hair, yellow as gold, and curling closely as if in life.</p>
+
+<p>"Is the flesh turned to this red powder?" asked Alden fingering it
+dubiously.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">[Pg 52]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Dost know, Hopkins?" asked Standish, but the veteran shook his head.</p>
+
+<p>"I have seen naught like this in all my life," confessed he. "See, here
+is a parcel at his feet done up in another bit of the old sail."</p>
+
+<p>"Shall I open it, Captain?" asked Alden eagerly.</p>
+
+<p>"Ay, an' thou wilt."</p>
+
+<p>"'T&nbsp;is clothes. A sailor's jerkin and breeches, a knife, a sail
+needle threaded with somewhat like a bowstring"&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"A deer's sinew. They still use it as our women do linen thread," said
+Hopkins taking it in his hand.</p>
+
+<p>"And some bits of wrought iron," continued Alden turning them over.</p>
+
+<p>"Ay, ay, ay, the poor fellow's chiefest treasures in his exile among the
+salvages," said Bradford gently.</p>
+
+<p>"And still he was finding some comfort, you may well be sure," suggested
+Hopkins. "For it was a savage woman who laid him thus carefully to his
+rest, and yon package be sure is the bones of her child."</p>
+
+<p>"Belike. Open it, John," said Standish briefly, and in effect the
+smaller package contained the same red and pungent powder encasing the
+bones of a little child, his head covered with a thinner thatch of the
+father's yellow curls, and the wrists, ankles, and neck surrounded with
+strings of fine white beads. Beside it lay a little bow and arrows
+ornamented with all the loving elaboration of Indian art.</p>
+
+<p>"A boy, and his mother's darling, be she red or white, savage or
+Christian," said Bradford softly, as his thoughts flew to the baby boy
+left in Holland under charge of his wife Dorothy's parents.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," replied Standish gently. "Cover them rev<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">[Pg 53]</a></span>erently, and lay
+them in their grave again. God send comfort to that poor woman's heart."</p>
+
+<p>"Certes they are no salvages," said Hopkins positively. "Never saw I
+yellow hair on any but a white man's head, nor do red men wear
+breeches."</p>
+
+<p>"Ay, he was a white man, but, as I opine, a Frenchman," declared Winslow
+thoughtfully.</p>
+
+<p>"French surely, masters, for this is French," said Robert Cartier
+timidly, as he handled the pointed board. "These are indeed the lilies
+of France. I have seen them full oft."</p>
+
+<p>"Say you so, lad?" asked Standish kindly. "Well, I suppose a man loves
+his country's ensign though he be naught but a Frenchman. There, place
+all as we found it, and let us go our ways."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">[Pg 54]</a></span></p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<h2>CHAPTER V.</h2>
+
+<h3>AN AWFUL DANGER.</h3>
+
+
+<p>"Found you a good burial place in yonder wilderness?" asked Dorothy
+Bradford of her husband the next morning as he sat beside her in their
+little cabin on the high quarter deck of the Mayflower.</p>
+
+<p>"Ay truly, wife," replied the husband cheerily. "And much did we muse as
+to the remains so honorably interred. One of those we found was a little
+lad scarce as old as our baby John, and almost mine eyes grew wet in
+thinking of him so far away."</p>
+
+<p>"Cruel that thou art to speak of him," exclaimed the young mother
+wildly, "when thou knowest I am dying for sight of the child and of home
+and my mother and all that I hold dear. I asked, hadst thou found a
+grave for poor me in this wilderness whither thou hast brought me to
+die."</p>
+
+<p>"Nay, then, dear wife"&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Mock me not with fair words, for they are naught. If I indeed am dear
+take me home to all I love. Here I have naught but thee, and one might
+as well love one of these cold gray rocks as thee."</p>
+
+<p>"Have I not been kind and gentle to thee, Dorothy?" asked Bradford
+bowing his face upon his hands.</p>
+
+<p>"Ay, kind enow," replied she sullenly. "And gentle, as brave men still
+must be to helpless women, but as for love! Tell me now, William
+Bradford, dost thou to-day love me as thou couldst have loved Alice
+Carpenter who<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">[Pg 55]</a></span> flouted thee and married Edward Southworth
+instead? Nay, now, them darest not deny that thou dost love her still!"</p>
+
+<p>"Peace, woman!" exclaimed Bradford raising his face, stern and pale as
+his wife had seldom seen it, and then as he marked her fragile features
+and woe-begone expression his tone changed to a gentle one. "Nay,
+Dorothy, thou wrongest thyself and me. I told thee of certain passages,
+past before I knew thee, because I would have no secret between my wife
+and me, and it is ill-done of thee to use my confidence as a weapon
+against me. And again thou wrongest me grievously; Edward Southworth's
+wife is naught to us; we twain are made one, and our lives are to run in
+the one channel while both shall last. It is for me to shape and hew
+that channel, and for thee to see that its waters run clear and sweet,
+and, if you will, to plant posies on the banks. Let us never speak again
+of these matters, Dorothy, but rather turn our minds to making a fair
+home of the place whither God hath brought us, and doing our best by
+each other. Trust me, wife, thou shalt never have cause to complain for
+lack of aught I can win for thee or do for thee. Nay, Dorothy, my wife,
+weep not so bitterly!"</p>
+
+<p>"Master Bradford, are you within?" asked John Howland's voice outside
+the door.</p>
+
+<p>"Ay. What is thy errand, John?"</p>
+
+<p>"The governor prays you to attend a Council convened in the great
+cabin."</p>
+
+<p>"I will come," and laying his hand tenderly yet solemnly upon the bowed
+head of his wife Bradford murmured,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"God help thee, Dorothy, God help us both!" and without waiting for a
+reply so left her.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">[Pg 56]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>In the cabin he found the principal men of the company seated around a
+table covered with charts, scrolls, and instruments of various sorts.
+Standish with a brief nod made room for the new-comer, and Carver in his
+measured tones explained: "Some of us were talking with Master Jones
+upon the question of seating ourselves by yonder river as he strongly
+adviseth, and I thought it best, Master Bradford, to call a general
+Council and settle the matter out of hand. Here are such charts as the
+Mayflower saileth by, and here is Master Smith's maps whereon we find
+this bay, and much of the coast beyond, laid fairly down. Master Hopkins
+counseleth a place called Agawam<a name="FNanchor_2_2" id="FNanchor_2_2"></a><a href="#Footnote_2_2" class="fnanchor">[2]</a> some twenty leagues to the
+northward, whereof he hath heard as a good harbor and fishing ground.
+Others say that we should explore yet farther along the shores of this
+land which Smith calleth Cape Cod, even as he nameth the whole district
+New England, which is verily a pleasant reminder for us, who in spite of
+persecution and harshness must still love the name of the land wherein
+we have left the bones of our sires."</p>
+
+<p>"It needs not so many words, Governor," interrupted Jones rudely. "If ye
+will not be satisfied with the place ye saw yesterday, Coppin, our
+pilot, knoweth of another river with plenty of cleared land about it,
+and a harbor fit for a war-fleet to ride in, lying two or three leagues
+to the southwest of this place. What think you of taking your pinnace
+and going to look at it?"</p>
+
+<p>"We will have in the pilot and hear his story for ourselves before we
+answer that query," said Carver with dignity, while Standish less
+temperately demanded,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">[Pg 57]</a></span></p><p>"And why, Master Jones, didst not tell us this at first rather
+than at last? Well nigh hadst thou forced us to land where we could if
+only to be rid of thy importunity."</p>
+
+<p>"Why of course I had rather landed you here, and been off for home
+rather than to carry you further and be burdened with your queasy
+fancies," retorted Jones brutally. "I'm no man's fool I'd have thee to
+know my little fire-eater, and thou&nbsp;'lt be no gladder to say
+good-by when the time comes than I."</p>
+
+<p>"Here is Robert Coppin, friends," interposed Brewster mildly, as a hardy
+fellow entered the cabin and nodded with scant ceremony to the company.</p>
+
+<p>"Sit thee down, Coppin," said Carver making room for the pilot beside
+him. "We would have thee show us upon the chart this river whereof
+Master Jones says thou knowest."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, it should be hereaway methinks," replied Coppin bending over the
+map and tracing the coast line with a horny forefinger. "Is it yon? Nay,
+I am no scholar and steer not by a chart I cannot make out. I know the
+place when I see it, and I'll find it again if I'm set to it."</p>
+
+<p>"Thou&nbsp;'st been there, then?"</p>
+
+<p>"Ay, we lay there three weeks when I sailed in the whaler Scotsman out
+of Glasgow, and more by token we named the place Thievish Harbor, for
+one of the Indians stole a harpoon out of our boat and away with it
+before we could reach him. 'T&nbsp;is a goodly river, broader and deeper
+than yon, and has a broad safe harbor."<a name="FNanchor_3_3" id="FNanchor_3_3"></a><a href="#Footnote_3_3" class="fnanchor">[3]</a></p>
+
+<p>"And why didst thou not tell us of this place sooner, Master Coppin,
+sith thou art our pilot?" sternly demanded Winslow.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">[Pg 58]</a></span></p><p>"Well, master," returned Coppin slowly, and casting a furtive
+look at Jones who was draining a pewter flagon of beer, "I did tell
+Master Jones yonder, but he said he had liefer you seated here, and I
+was to hold my tongue"&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Thou liest, <ins title="Transcriber's note: Comma added after 'knave'">knave,</ins>" roared Jones menacing him with the flagon. "Thou
+liest in thy throat. Or if thou didst mumble some nonsense in mine ears,
+I paid no heed, doubting not that thou hadst told it all before to thy
+gossips among these pious folk. But, Governor, if it is your pleasure to
+seek out this place, I will lend you some of my men and set you forward
+at your own pleasure."</p>
+
+<p>"Thanks for your good will, master," replied Carver coldly. "What say
+you, friends? Shall we try it?"</p>
+
+<p>Murmurs and words of assent were heard on all sides, and Standish
+said,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"My mind, if you will have it, is that this matter should be shrewdly
+pressed, and an end made of it as soon as may be. Our people dwindle
+daily; they who were well a se'nnight since are ill to-day, and may be
+dead to-morrow. Our provision waxeth short and poor, and be it once
+spent our good friend Jones will give us none of his we may be sure. We
+are no babes to be cast down by these things, nor frighted at facing
+them, but sure it is the part of wisdom to use our strength while it is
+left to us, and to explore this place, and any other whereof we may
+hear, with no farther delay. My counsel is to tell off a company of our
+soundest men, and set forth with Coppin this very hour, or as soon as we
+may."</p>
+
+<p>"Well and manfully spoken, Captain Standish," replied Carver, and from
+more than one bearded throat<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">[Pg 59]</a></span> came a grim murmur of approval,
+while Hopkins significantly added,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Let them who will, be treated as babes and set down here or there
+without their own consent. I for one am with thee, Captain, in the
+bolder course."</p>
+
+<p>"If thou&nbsp;'rt with me, thou&nbsp;'rt with the governor and the
+brethren. I have no separate design, Master Hopkins," replied Standish
+coldly. "I did but give my mind subject to the approval of the rest."</p>
+
+<p>"And so good a mind it seemeth to me, that I propose we follow it
+without delay. What say ye, friends?"</p>
+
+<p>"I like the scheme so well that I fain would set forth this moment,"
+said Bradford, over whom the depression of his interview with Dorothy
+still hung.</p>
+
+<p>"Then in God's name let the thing go forward," said Carver solemnly
+raising his hand. "And, it is my mind that such among us as have in some
+sort the charge of the rest should be the men to go upon this emprise,
+both because they are best fitted to judge what is needed, and because
+they will be hampered by no need of orders from headquarters. I propose,
+then, that leaving Elder Brewster in charge of those who remain aboard,
+the party should consist of me as your governor, and Captain Standish as
+our man of war, with Master Winslow, Master Bradford, and the Brothers
+Tilley from the Leyden brethren, to whom we will join Master Hopkins,
+Master Warren, and Edward Dotey of London."</p>
+
+<p>"Will it please your excellency to add my name?" asked John Howland
+eagerly. "Well I wot I am not a principal man, but I have a strong arm,
+and would fain follow thee, if I may."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">[Pg 60]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"A strong arm, a stout heart, and a ready wit," replied Carver looking
+kindly at his retainer. "And gladly do I number thee of the company.
+That then counts ten of us, and we shall have Thomas English in charge
+of the pinnace with John Alderton our seaman, and that methinks is
+enough."</p>
+
+<p>"Enough to meet the danger if there be danger, and to divide the glory
+if there be glory," said Myles placidly, and Bradford softly and
+pensively replied,</p>
+
+<p>"No such glory as thou didst win in Flanders, friend, but truly the
+'glory that fadeth not away.'"</p>
+
+<p>"Hm!" retorted Myles as softly, but pulling his red beard with a grim
+smile. "I'm not greedy, Will, and I'll leave those honors for thee."</p>
+
+<p>"Nay," began Bradford rousing himself, but at that moment the whole brig
+was shaken, and the councilors startled from their dignity by a
+tremendous explosion which drove them from their seats, while the air
+was rent by yells and shrieks in various tones and degrees, and a
+stifling smoke and smell of gunpowder filled the cabin.</p>
+
+<p>"The magazine has blown up!" shouted Standish. "Man the boats, and fetch
+the women and children!" And he rushed to his own cabin where Rose lay,
+not well enough to rise. But Bradford, seated near the companion-way,
+had already sprung down and presently returned leading by the ear a
+blubbering boy, his hands and face besmirched with gunpowder.</p>
+
+<p>"Here is the culprit, Master Carver," announced he placing him in front
+of the governor.</p>
+
+<p>"John Billington!" exclaimed Carver sternly. "Ever in mischief, what
+hast thou done now? Speak the truth, boy, or&nbsp;'t is the worse for
+thee."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">[Pg 61]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"I did but take dad's gun from the hooks in our cabin, and she went off
+in my hands," whimpered the boy.</p>
+
+<p>"Nay, 'twas more than that, for we heard not one but several
+explosions," persisted the governor.</p>
+
+<p>"There was a keg of gunpowder under the bed," confessed the boy
+reluctantly, "and&mdash;and&mdash;some of it flew out upon the floor."</p>
+
+<p>"Flew out without hands!" exclaimed Hopkins, but Carver raised his
+finger and asked mildly,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"And what didst thou with the powder on the floor, John?"</p>
+
+<p>"I made some squibs as father did last Guy Fawkes Day," muttered the
+boy.</p>
+
+<p>"And dropped the fire among the loose powder on the floor, and so sent
+all off together!" broke in Hopkins again. "And if the keg had caught,
+thou wouldst have blown the ship to pieces! Thou unwhipt rascal,
+thou&nbsp;'rt enough to corrupt a whole colony of boys. If my
+Bartholomew ever speaks to thee again I'll break every bone in his body,
+as I'd well like to thine, and will"&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Nay, nay, Master Hopkins!" interposed the governor sternly. "It is
+never well to threaten what we cannot perform. We break not bones nor
+put to the torture in our new community; but, John Billington, I shall
+counsel thy father to take thee ashore and whip thee so soundly as shall
+make thee long remember that gunpowder is for thee forbidden fruit. Go,
+now, to thy cabin, and remain there till he comes, while I go to see
+what harm thou hast wrought."</p>
+
+<p>"Mistress Carver would fain see the governor without delay," announced
+Lois, Mistress Carver's maid, in a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">[Pg 62]</a></span> quavering voice. "Jasper More
+was so frighted by the noise that he is in convulsions, and we know not
+but he is dying."</p>
+
+<p>"Is Doctor Fuller here?" demanded another voice. "Mistress White would
+see him presently."</p>
+
+<p>"And this is thy work, boy!" exclaimed Carver solemnly. "Go!"</p>
+
+<p>And the boy crept miserably away, foreboding the whipping of which he
+was not disappointed.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">[Pg 63]</a></span></p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<h2>CHAPTER VI.</h2>
+
+<h3>THE FIRST ENCOUNTER.</h3>
+
+
+<p>So thoroughly were the bolder spirits among the Pilgrims impressed with
+the necessity of haste in finding an abiding place that by afternoon of
+the next day the pinnace was victualed and fitted for a voyage of ten
+days or more, and the adventurers ready to embark. To the twelve men
+previously named, all of whom were signers of the Constitution already
+drawn up to quell symptoms of insubordination on the part of Hopkins and
+others, were added Clarke and Coppin, acting as pilots, with the rank of
+master's mate, three sailors, and the master gunner, who, uninvited,
+thrust himself into the company in hopes of making something by traffic,
+or, as he phrased it, <i>trucking</i> with the Indians.</p>
+
+<p>But hasten as they might many things delayed them, some of them as
+important as the death of Jasper More, an orphan in charge of the
+Carvers, and the birth of a son to Mistress White, whom his father and
+Doctor Fuller whimsically named Peregrine, latest of the Pilgrims, and
+first of native born American white men. When at last the shallop left
+the Mayflower's side it was in teeth of such bad weather as left the
+former expedition far in the shade, for not only was the northeast wind
+more bitter, but the temperature so low that the spray froze upon the
+rigging and the men's jerkins, turning them into coats of mail almost
+impossible to bend.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">[Pg 64]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>It was soon found impossible for Master English to lay his proposed
+course, and finally the Pilgrims resolved to land and encamp for the
+night, partly for the sake of the greedy gunner, who had turned so
+deadly sick that it was feared he would die, and for Edward Tilley, who
+lay in the bottom of the boat in a dead swoon, while his brother John
+crouched beside him covered with John Howland's coat, which he declared
+was but an impediment to him in rowing.</p>
+
+<p>"They should never have come. Had I guessed their unfitness I would have
+hindered it, but now alack it is too late, and I fear they have come to
+their death," said Carver in Bradford's ear, and indeed it was so. The
+brothers, never divided in body or soul since their birth, had as one
+man given their substance, their strength, their faith, to the common
+cause, and now were giving their lives as simply and as willingly as
+heroes ever will go to their death, so giving life to many.</p>
+
+<p>The second night found them only as far as what we now call Eastham, and
+again building a "randevous" and gathering firewood, a difficult task at
+any time in this vicinity, for the trees were lofty and the underbrush
+annually burned away by the Indians to facilitate hunting. But it was
+finally done, as all things will be when such men set about them, the
+fire was built, the supper eaten, the prayer said, and the psalm sung,
+its rude melody rising from that wilderness to the wintry sky with the
+assurance of Daniel's song in the den of lions. Then all slept except
+Edward Dotey, to whom was committed the first watch, to last while three
+inches of the slow-match attached to his piece were consuming.</p>
+
+<p>Striding up and down his appointed beat the young<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65">[Pg 65]</a></span> man hummed
+again the evening psalm, mildly anathematized the cold, peered into the
+blackness of the forest, and glanced enviously at his comrades sound
+asleep about the fire.</p>
+
+<p>"'T&nbsp;is all but burned," muttered he stooping to examine the match,
+and thrusting a fallen log back into the fire with his boot. But in that
+very instant upon the intense stillness of the night burst suddenly a
+discordant clamor, a confusion of horrible and unknown sounds, unlike,
+in simple Edward Dotey's mind, to anything possible this side of hell.
+Undaunted even thus, he answered the assault with a yell of quivering
+defiance, fired his matchlock into the air, and shouted at the top of
+his voice,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Arm! arm! arm! The fiend is upon us!"</p>
+
+<p>All sprang to their feet alert and ready, and two or three pieces were
+shot off, but no foe appeared, and no reply was made to their shouts of
+defiance.</p>
+
+<p>Dotey, questioned by Standish, was fain to confess he had seen nothing,
+and Coppin averred that he had more than once heard similar sounds upon
+the coast of Newfoundland, and that they were commonly thought to be the
+voices of sirens or mermaids who haunted lonely shores.</p>
+
+<p>"If naught more imminent than mermaids is upon us I'll e'en go back to
+sleep," said Winslow in good-natured derision, while Standish, lighting
+his slow-match, said pleasantly to Dotey,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Lay thee down, man, and sleep. If thy fiend comes again I'll give
+account of him."</p>
+
+<p>A few grim jests, a little laughter, and the camp was again quiet, until
+Standish, sure that no enemy could be at hand, resigned his watch to
+Howland, and he to Eng<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66">[Pg 66]</a></span>lish, until at five o'clock William
+Bradford aroused his comrades, reminding them that on account of the
+tide they must embark within the hour, and had still to breakfast.</p>
+
+<p>A wintry fog, piercing in its chill, had closed down upon the camp,
+covering everything with a half-frozen rime, dropping sullenly like rain
+from such things as came near the fire, and stiffening into ice in the
+shade.</p>
+
+<p>"I fear me our pieces will hang fire after this soaking," remarked
+Carver examining his matchlock.</p>
+
+<p>"It were well to try them before there is need," said Winslow firing his
+into the thicket behind the camp. His example was followed by several,
+until Standish good-humoredly cried,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Enough, enough, friends! Save powder and shot for the enemy if there be
+one. Such grapes grow not on these vines."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, since the pieces are ready, and the twilight breaks, it were well
+for some of us to carry them and the other armor down to the boat, while
+the rest set out the breakfast," suggested Hopkins, always anxious to be
+stirring.</p>
+
+<p>"Nay, 't&nbsp;is but poor soldiership to part from our arms even for so
+brief a space," said Winslow. "There be other matters, cloaks and
+haversacks, and such like, that can be carried, but the arms and armor
+should abide with them who wear them."</p>
+
+<p>"Master Winslow may do as seemeth good in his own eyes, but my armor
+goeth now," retorted Hopkins in a belligerent tone. And loading himself
+with his breastplate, steel cap, matchlock, and bullet pouch, he strode
+obstinately away to the boat, lying some three or four hundred yards
+distant, waiting for the tide to float her.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67">[Pg 67]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Standish watched him disapprovingly, and, turning to Carver, he inquired
+significantly,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"What saith our governor?"</p>
+
+<p>"Let each man do as seemeth good to himself," replied Carver placably.
+"'T&nbsp;is of no great import."</p>
+
+<p>"My snaphance goes nowhere out of reach of my right hand," announced
+Standish somewhat sharply, for the want of discipline grieved him, and
+Bradford, Winslow, and Howland silently indorsed both his action and his
+feeling. The courteous Carver said nothing, and did nothing, but a
+sailor seeing the governor's armor lying together, carried it down to
+the boat, thinking to do him a service.</p>
+
+<p>Reaching the shore, Hopkins found the boat surrounded by a few inches of
+water, and, not caring to wade out to her, laid his load upon the shore,
+to wait until she fairly floated,&mdash;an example followed by the rest,
+some of whom strolled back to the camp, while others stood talking to
+those who had slept on board, until a summons to breakfast quickened
+their motions; but just as the laggards entered the randevous the same
+horrible noise that had so startled Edward Dotey burst forth again,
+while one of the sailors yet lingering by the shore came rushing up,
+shouting like a madman,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Salvages! Indians! They are men!" and, as if to prove his words, a
+shower of arrows came rattling into the randevous, one of them
+transfixing the lump of boiled beef laid ready for breakfast.</p>
+
+<p>"Why didn't you bring up your pieces again, ye fools!" cried Standish
+angrily. "Run, now, and recover them before the enemy seizes them, while
+we men of wit cover your course."</p>
+
+<p>Not waiting to dispute the style of this command, the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68">[Pg 68]</a></span> unarmed
+men hastened to obey it, while Standish, taking position at the open
+entrance of the barricade, fired his shaphance in the direction where
+the sailor pointed; Bradford followed suit; but as Winslow and Howland
+stepped forward Standish held up his hand,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Hold your fire, men, until we see the foe, and Bradford load again with
+all speed! We must hold the randevous at all odds, for here is half our
+stuff, and our lives depend upon not losing it. Hasten ye laggards! Run
+Tilley! Run men!"</p>
+
+<p>"He is spent!" cried John Howland, throwing down his piece and dashing
+out into the open, where he seized John Tilley round the waist and half
+carried, half dragged him into the inclosure.</p>
+
+<p>"They will seize the shallop!" cried Carver, and springing on the
+barricade, heedless of his own exposure, he shouted to those in the
+boat,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Ho, Warren! English! Coppin! Are you safe and on your watch?"</p>
+
+<p>"Ay, well! All is well!" cried the rough voices of the seamen, and
+Warren's manly tones added, "Be of good courage, brethren!"</p>
+
+<p>"And quit yourselves like men," muttered Standish, his snaphance at his
+shoulder, his eager eyes scanning the covert.</p>
+
+<p>Three shots from the pinnace rang bravely through the wood, and then
+came a hail,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Ho, comrades, bring us a light! We have no fire to set off our pieces!"</p>
+
+<p>"Their matches are not alight!" exclaimed Howland, and snatching a brand
+from the camp-fire he again dashed out, down the wooded slope, and
+splashing mid-leg deep through the freezing brine, he gave the
+brand<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">[Pg 69]</a></span> into Warren's hand, then rushed back as he came, the
+arrows whistling around his head and two sticking in his heavy frieze
+jerkin.</p>
+
+<p>"Well done, John! well done!" cried Carver clapping the young man on the
+shoulder as, breathless and glowing, he stooped to pick up his
+matchlock. "The sight of such valor will daunten the Indians more than a
+whole flight of bullets."</p>
+
+<p>And in fact there was for a moment a lull in the enemy's movements, but
+rather of rage than dismay, for the savage outcry burst forth the next
+moment with more ferocity than ever, and as it died away a single voice
+shouted in a tone of command some words, to which the rest responded by
+such a yell as later on curdled the blood of the hapless settlers at
+Deerfield and other places.</p>
+
+<p>"Aha! There is a leader, there!" growled Standish, his eyes glittering
+and his strong teeth clenched. "Let him show himself!"</p>
+
+<p>As if in answer to the wish a stalwart figure leaped from behind a large
+tree to the shelter of a smaller one, about half a gunshot from the
+camp.</p>
+
+<p>"That's your man, Captain!" exclaimed Howland, who stood next him.</p>
+
+<p>"Ay, leave him to me!" growled Standish. "Ha!" for an arrow well and
+strongly aimed hit squarely above his heart, and rebounded from the coat
+of mail Rose had insisted upon his putting on.</p>
+
+<p>"For thee, wife!" murmured the captain, and fired.</p>
+
+<p>Bark and splinters flew from the tree where the crown of the warrior's
+head had showed for an instant, but a shriek of derisive laughter told
+that no further harm was done. Standish, with a grim smile,
+reloaded<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70">[Pg 70]</a></span> his snaphance, while two more arrows vigorously flew,
+one piercing the right sleeve of his doublet, the other aimed at his
+face, which he avoided by moving his head. Then for one instant a dusky
+arm was seen reaching over the shoulder for another arrow, and in that
+instant the snaphance rang cheerily out, the arm fell with a convulsive
+movement, and a piercing cry rang through the wood, followed by the
+pattering of many moccasoned feet, as dusky shadows slipped from tree to
+tree, and were lost in the dim recesses of the forest.</p>
+
+<p>"They are routed! They fly!" cried Howland firing his piece into a
+rustling thicket.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, that last cry was the retreat," said Standish half regretfully
+plucking the arrow from his sleeve. "The chief finds his courage cooled
+by a broken elbow. I doubt me if ever he speed arrow again."</p>
+
+<p>"Body o' me!" continued he examining the shaft in his hand. "See you,
+John, 't&nbsp;is pointed with naught but a bird's talon, curiously bound
+on with its own sinews. To be scratched to death by a fowl were but a
+poor ending for a man that has fought Alva!"</p>
+
+<p>"Pursue them, Captain, pursue and terrify, but kill not, if you can help
+it," ordered Carver eagerly. "Let the heathen know that they are but
+men, and that the Lord of Hosts is on our side."</p>
+
+<p>"Forward then, men! At the double-quick! Run!" and, waving his sword,
+Standish rushed after the flying savages, followed by all but Carver,
+English, and the sailors who stayed to guard the randevous and the
+pinnace. But even as he ran Myles muttered, perhaps to the sword
+Gideon,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Beshrew me if I see how I am to hurl yon text in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71">[Pg 71]</a></span> the heathen's
+teeth, sith we have no common tongue, and they will not stop for parley!
+A good man, and a gentle, but no soldier, is our governor!"</p>
+
+<p>As might have been expected, the Pilgrims, in their heavy clothing and
+armor, proved no match for the Indians in a foot-race, and after
+pursuing them for about a quarter of a mile Standish called a halt, and
+ordered his men to raise a shout of mingled triumph and defiance,
+followed by a volley of three, each three reloading as the next fired.</p>
+
+<p>The victory thus asserted, and the foe offering no response, the little
+army retired in good order upon the randevous, where they only tarried
+long enough to pick up the rest of their possessions and make a sheaf of
+arrows, pointed not only with eagle's claws, but with the tips of deer's
+horns and bits of brass and iron gathered from the various European
+vessels touching for provisions or traffic at these shores.</p>
+
+<p>It was indeed to the treachery of one of these commanders that the
+present attack of the savages was due. Thomas Hunt, visiting these
+shores in 1614 to procure a cargo of dried fish for Spain, recompensed
+the kindness and hospitality of the savages by cajoling four-and-twenty
+of them on board his ship and carrying them as slaves to Malaga, where
+he sold several, the rest being claimed for purposes of conversion by
+the Franciscan Friars of those parts.</p>
+
+<p>One of these captives, named Tisquantum, or Squanto, escaped from Hunt,
+and remained for a while in England, where he was kindly treated and
+learned the language with something of the mode of life. He was brought
+back to Cape Cod as an interpreter by an adventurer named Dermer, and
+finally returned to his own<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72">[Pg 72]</a></span> people, who were so enraged by his
+story of Hunt's treachery and cruelty, that they resolved by way of
+revenge to sacrifice the first white men who fell into their hands, and
+had they proved themselves better men than the Pilgrims would have
+inflicted not only death, but the most cruel torments upon them.</p>
+
+<p>The goods and weapons on hoard, Carver, by a word, gathered the men
+around him upon the sands, and in a few fervent and hearty words
+returned thanks to the God of battles for His aid and protection,
+invoking at the same time protection and counsel for the farther dangers
+of the exploration. Then embarking with all speed the shallop was pushed
+off and flew merrily on before the strong east wind.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73">[Pg 73]</a></span></p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<h2>CHAPTER VII.</h2>
+
+<h3>CLARKE'S ISLAND.</h3>
+
+
+<p>"And now, Master Coppin, let us bear up for Thievish Harbor without more
+delays," said Carver as the boat settled to her work, and the men into
+their places.</p>
+
+<p>"Ay, ay, master," responded the pilot cheerily. "And a good harbor and a
+good seat shall you find it in spite of its ill-favored name."</p>
+
+<p>But as the day went on the stormy sky lowered yet more and more blackly,
+the wind, shifting between east and north, swooped in angry gusts across
+the black waters, or blew in so fierce a gale that the shallop scarcely
+bore her close-reefed sails, and more than once careened so as to ship
+alarming seas. The air, filled with sleet and icy snow, cut like a knife
+through the thickest clothing, and again Edward Tilley, swooning with
+exhaustion and cold, lay lifeless in the bottom of the boat, sadly
+watched by his brother in hardly better plight and by Carver, who, like
+the father of a family, carried all his children in his heart.</p>
+
+<p>About the middle of the afternoon these skirmishes of the storm
+concentrated in one furious and irresistible attack, before which even
+the hardy sailors lowered their heads and clung to whatever lay nearest,
+while Clarke, who was steering, suddenly reeled violently against the
+bulwark, and recovering himself with a fearful oath seized an oar and
+thrusting it out astern shouted,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74">[Pg 74]</a></span>&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"We be all dead men! The rudder has broke, and no man can steer in such
+a sea as this with an oar!"</p>
+
+<p>"Two men may, so they be men and not cowards!" shouted John Alderton in
+retort, and springing to the stern he thrust out his own oar, calling to
+a comrade,&mdash;"Here, Cornish Jim, come you and help me, and so long
+as ash blades and stout arms hold we two will steer the craft."</p>
+
+<p>"Good cheer, men!" hailed Coppin from the bows where he was on the
+lookout. "I see the harbor straight ahead! We are all but in! Carry on,
+carry on with your sails there, Clarke, and let us make the haven before
+the gale rises to its height."</p>
+
+<p>"She'll never carry another inch of canvas," expostulated English as the
+mate shook out a reef in the mainsail, but Coppin and Clarke were now in
+command, since only they professed to know the coast, and the warning
+was unheeded, especially as the wind had for a moment lulled or rather
+drawn back for a more formidable spring, swooping down as the last reef
+point was loosed with a force that snatched the great sail from the
+men's hands, and buried the nose of the shallop deep under water. The
+sail cracked and filled until it was tense as iron, but the honest
+Holland duck could not give way, and it was the mast that had to go,
+breaking into three pieces and falling overboard with a splintering
+crash. Nor was this the worst, for with the mast went the great sail
+with all its hamper of blocks and cordage, which, half in and half out
+the boat, threatened to capsize and swamp her before it could be cut
+away.</p>
+
+<p>"Save the sail, men!" cried English through all the hubbub. "As good
+lose all as lose our sail! Gather it in and stow it as best we may. Keep
+her before the wind, you lubbers! Handle your oars for your
+lives!"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75">[Pg 75]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>For now the great boat, losing her sail, must depend upon oars, and with
+two men at each, and Alderton and the Cornish giant steering as best
+they might against a sea howling and leaping like wild beasts around
+them, the shattered craft drove on past the headland of Manomet,
+steering straight for the deadly rocks off the Gurnet's Head, which
+Coppin espying from the bows, he uttered a cry of dismay,
+shouting,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"The Lord be merciful to our sinful souls, for I never saw this place
+before!"</p>
+
+<p>"Breakers ahead!" shouted Clarke. "Beach her, Alderton! Run her ashore
+on yon headland! We that can swim may save ourselves! Beach her, I say!"</p>
+
+<p>"And I say no such coward thing," retorted Alderton. "About with her,
+men! Row, row for your lives! Bend down to it! So! Pull, pull! I see a
+channel ahead and smooth water! Hold on here, Jim, till I get out
+another oar, this cracks! Now then! Yeo-ho! Here we go past the reef!"</p>
+
+<p>And weathering Brown's Island and the Gurnet Rocks, the brave fellow
+steering more by instinct than sight, for darkness had fallen with the
+storm, the shallop struck the channel then dividing Saquish from the
+Gurnet, flew through it like a hunted creature, and forging past the
+north headland of a small densely wooded island found herself in calm
+water close under its lee.</p>
+
+<p>"There, men, ye are safe, thanks to stout hearts and arms and good ashen
+blades!" exclaimed Alderton drawing his first full breath since seizing
+the steering oar.</p>
+
+<p>"Thanks to God Almighty who still giveth His servants the victory,"
+amended Carver, who had toiled with the sturdiest.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76">[Pg 76]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"And now, where are we and what is to do next?" demanded Standish
+clenching his blistered hands.</p>
+
+<p>"We are between two shores, maybe islands both, maybe the lee shore is
+the main," replied Coppin peering through the darkness. "And more I know
+not."</p>
+
+<p>"And I for one am minded to get ashore and see if there be stuff for a
+fire and shelter, whatever name the place may hold," cried Hopkins
+dashing the drops of salt water from his face and beard.</p>
+
+<p>"And I," added Standish heartily. "What say you, Master Carver? Shall we
+land and make some sort of randevous upon the shore?"</p>
+
+<p>"The place may be full of salvages, who, drawn by the light of a fire,
+can come upon us unaware," replied Carver hesitatingly.</p>
+
+<p>"As well risk another encounter as to perish here of cold and
+exhaustion," suggested Winslow.</p>
+
+<p>"Safety most often lies on the side of courage," declared Standish
+sententiously.</p>
+
+<p>"And Master Tilley will die if naught be done for him," pleaded Howland,
+and to this consideration Carver at once yielded his careful scruples.</p>
+
+<p>"Ay, John, thou&nbsp;'rt right to mind me of that," said he. "Some of us
+will go ashore and make a fire, whereat to comfort those who are
+overborne by cold and weariness, and some shall keep the boat until the
+first are refreshed, and so hold watch and watch."</p>
+
+<p>"And I will be of the first watch ashore," cried Clarke, the master's
+mate; "for I'd twice liefer meet all the salvages of the Indies than to
+freeze like a clod, so here goes." And stepping upon the gunwale he made
+a spring in the dark, alighting upon a slippery rock and measuring his
+length upon the sand. Nothing daunted,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77">[Pg 77]</a></span> however, he grasped a
+handful of sand in each fist, as if his prostration had been voluntary,
+and springing to his feet cried in a braggadocio voice,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"I seize this land for King James of England and for myself."</p>
+
+<p>"Thyself!" growled Coppin, jealously. "We'll call it Clarke's Land,
+then; for truly 't&nbsp;is all thou&nbsp;'rt ever likely to be master
+of."</p>
+
+<p>"Nay, then, thou&nbsp;'rt welcome to the six feet they'll give thee
+after thou&nbsp;'rt hung," retorted Clarke, and the sailors chuckled at
+the jest, while the Pilgrims gravely arranged which watch should first
+land, and which keep the boat.</p>
+
+<p>Peering around in the obscurity, the pioneers soon found a sheltered
+nook close under the bluff, and built their fire and made their camp
+very near the spot where a little wharf now lies, and where generation
+after generation of their children has stood to meditate, to dream, to
+drink in the glory of summer seas and skies, or beneath the August moon
+to whisper in each others ears the old, old story, never so fresh and
+never so real as it has come to some of them on the shores of Clarke's
+Island.</p>
+
+<p>No rosy dreams, no moonlit passages were theirs however, who in that
+stormy December night first trod that pleasant shore, but rather the
+sternest realities of life and death, as with numb and icy fingers they
+struck a light and sheltered the feeble blaze loth to catch upon the wet
+twigs and leaves hastily collected.</p>
+
+<p>"Either there are no Indians or this is an island too small for
+hunting," said Hopkins as he groped in the thicket at the top of the
+bluff for small wood.</p>
+
+<p>"And how know you that?" inquired Howland who helped him.<span class='pagenum'><a
+name="Page_78" id="Page_78">[Pg 78]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"By this undergrowth that we are gathering, lad. The Indians burn it off
+year by year in the haunts of the deer, so that they may course there
+freely, but here thou seest are plenty of old and dry twigs."</p>
+
+<p>"The better for our fire," returned Howland philosophically, not so much
+interested at that moment in the habits of Indians as in providing for
+Elizabeth Tilley's father.</p>
+
+<p>The more cautious brethren in the pinnace meantime had anchored and made
+things as snug as possible on board, but as the fire blazed up, and one
+after another on shore showed signs of its genial influence, the dangers
+of abandoning the boat grew less and less formidable, until Standish,
+rubbing his hands and turning to toast the other side of his person,
+cried exultingly,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Aha, I am warm! I have seen the fire!"</p>
+
+<p>"So have I seen it, and here goes to feel it!" cried Coppin jumping as
+far toward land as he could, and splashing the rest of the way, for he
+had sulkily remained on board when Clarke leaped ashore and claimed the
+island.</p>
+
+<p>"Methinks the example is good if the manner be uncourteous," said
+Winslow wistfully.</p>
+
+<p>"Ay," replied Carver a little annoyed by Coppin's action, although he
+claimed no authority over the rough fellow. "I was just about to say
+that it were as well that we landed, taking our arms with us and
+standing on our guard, for truly we are perishing here."</p>
+
+<p>The permission calmly waited for was thankfully received, and in a few
+moments the whole party was gathered about the now jubilant fire which,
+fed with cedar logs, sent up clouds of perfumed smoke to float like
+incense among the crests of the shivering parent trees.</p> <p><span class='pagenum'><a
+name="Page_79" id="Page_79">[Pg 79]</a></span></p> <p>The next morning broke calm and
+'sunshining,' and the Pilgrims, renewing their fire, offered a solemn
+prayer of thanksgiving and confidence, and sat down to breakfast.</p>
+
+<p>After this came an exploration, which showed the small size and compact
+nature of the island, as well as its total lack of inhabitants. This
+tour was followed by an informal council about the fire, wherein it was
+resolved to remain during the day, which was Saturday, upon the island,
+drying and cleaning their weapons, rigging a temporary mast for the
+shallop, baling and drying her, and restoring by rest and comfort some
+measure of strength to the feebler members of the party. Also, and this
+not the least consideration, the next day being Sunday, they would thus
+be prepared to observe it with that decency and recollection which were
+part of their religion.</p>
+
+<p>The plan arranged, all set heartily to work to carry it out, the sailors
+going aboard to bale the boat, and Clarke and Alderton undertaking to
+fit the new mast. A proud young cedar, growing straight and tall among
+his slender admirers, was soon found, and as the white man's axe for the
+first time since cedars grew upon Clarke's Island bit into the heart of
+one of their number, we well might fancy that, mingling with the east
+wind and the sound of the surf on Salthouse Beach rose the echo of the
+dirge, startling the sailors of Egean shores, long before,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p class="center">"Pan is dead! Great Pan is dead!"</p>
+
+<p>Late in the afternoon when all the work was done, and the men sat or lay
+around the fire enjoying the Sabbatical repose long distinguishing the
+New England<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80">[Pg 80]</a></span> Saturday evening, Carver, Standish, Bradford, and
+Winslow climbed the hill rising sharply above their camping-ground, and
+paused by what is now called Sunset Rock to look about them.</p>
+
+<p>"Clarke's Island is but a small addition to King James's territory,"
+said Winslow with his subtle smile, as he glanced over the ninety acres
+of woodland lying around him.</p>
+
+<p>"Our own England is not very large," replied Carver quietly, "but she
+hath long arms."</p>
+
+<p>"And I," cried Standish gayly, "am but a little fellow, and yet am not
+in the way of calling upon bigger men to protect me! Despise not the day
+of small things, Master Winslow, albeit you carry your head some inches
+higher than mine."</p>
+
+<p>"There is a great rock showing above the scrub oaks to the north," said
+Bradford pointing in that direction. "Let us climb it and see what lieth
+beyond."</p>
+
+<p>"Have with you, brother!" responded Standish, and forcing their way
+through the stunted growth covering this higher and bleaker portion of
+the island the four men soon stood at the base of an enormous bowlder
+about thirty feet in height, brought hither in some glacial overflow of
+the forgotten years.</p>
+
+<p>On the southern side a deep crevice, worn by many rains, offered a
+foothold, even as it does to-day, and in a moment the four Pilgrim
+chiefs stood upon the summit and looked about them.</p>
+
+<p>The sun was setting in lavish gorgeousness, while in the deep blue vault
+arching overhead tiny points of light showed where the stars waited
+impatiently to take their places and glorify the night.</p>
+
+<p>The sea, almost black in its depth of color, dashed<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81">[Pg 81]</a></span> mournfully
+upon the rocks fallen from the high northern and western bluffs, and
+across the wintry flood lay the shores of what was to be Duxbury,
+running out at the south into a peninsula, terminating in a bold summit.
+This was Captain's Hill, and the Captain standing there looked at it all
+unconsciously and said:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Yonder is a spot that might be made into a goodly hold against any foe.
+With a piece or two properly mounted on that fair height, and a palisado
+cutting off the headland from the main, it would fall into as pretty a
+little fortalice as could be asked."</p>
+
+<p>"Too small a seat for our whole company, howbeit," said Carver
+scrutinizing the spot.</p>
+
+<p>"And we must seek a river with commodious harbor for our fishing fleet,"
+added Winslow, not knowing the capacities then of Jones's River and
+Green Bay, hard by Captain's Hill, where he was to spend the honorable
+evening of his days.</p>
+
+<p>"Fishing!" echoed Standish contemptuously. "It is like those good
+dry-salters and drapers of London town, who have helped out our
+enterprise, to expect us, landing on this barren shore in the depth of
+winter, to fall on fishing before we break our fast, or build a shelter
+for our wives and children. Our first work is to subdue the salvages, to
+cut down the forest, to build houses, and plant crops. If we reach the
+fishing by this day twelvemonth we shall have done well."</p>
+
+<p>"I fear me the Adventurers of whom you speak so slightingly will hardly
+be of your mind," replied Winslow coldly.</p>
+
+<p>"Then let them come over here and collect their profits for themselves,"
+retorted Standish. "And well would I like to see Thomas Weston and
+Robert Cush<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82">[Pg 82]</a></span>man, with some of those smug London traders who think
+to buy good men's lives and swords for the price of a red herring, set
+down here to battle with the frost and snow, and sea and swamps, not to
+mention the salvages. We should hear their tune change from 'Fish, fish,
+fish!' I warrant me."</p>
+
+<p>But at this speech Winslow, even more of a diplomatist than a soldier,
+looked grave, and Bradford, in whose harmonious character valor was ever
+in accord with reason, laid a hand upon the little Captain's shoulder,
+and said affectionately:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Thy courage is still so keen, Myles, that when thine enemies are put to
+flight thou&nbsp;'rt tempted to turn upon thy friends! Doubtless the
+Adventurers, mostly men of peace, traders, if thou wilt have it so, yet
+none the worse for that, do somewhat fail to fathom the perils of this
+our undertaking; still no man is to be condemned for an honest
+misconception, and these same traders have freely risked their money to
+furnish us forth. We, too, had never stood on this rock to-night had not
+those men thrust their hands deep into their pockets, and is it out of
+reason for them to ask to see some return for their money as soon as may
+be?"</p>
+
+<p>"Not out of reason for traders, mayhap," replied Myles obstinately. "I
+would that we had come at our own charges altogether."</p>
+
+<p>"Those of us who had a little money were not enough to furnish forth
+those who had none," interposed Carver gravely; "and we have none too
+many hands as it is to do the work laid out for us."</p>
+
+<p>"Thou&nbsp;'rt right, as thou mainly art, Governor," replied Standish
+good-humoredly; "and haply 't&nbsp;is well that my hot head is linked
+with thy cool one."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83">[Pg 83]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"We were all ill sped, lacking thy skill and valor in war, Captain,"
+replied Carver kindly, and after a moment's meditative silence he slowly
+added,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"It ill befits finite man to intrude upon the Councils of infinite
+wisdom, and yet it seemeth borne strangely in upon my mind that God hath
+carefully chosen His weapons for the mighty conquest He hath set Himself
+to make in this wilderness, and, if I may say it without grieving your
+modesty, brethren, I seem to see in you, standing with me here, three
+chosen leaders.</p>
+
+<p>"A man of war, trained from childhood in martial tactics, and in the use
+of weapons, and of a singular courage and determination, you, Standish,
+are the strong right arm of the body corporate.</p>
+
+<p>"And you, Winslow, bred among courtiers and statesmen, subtle of
+intellect, ready of speech, cool of temper, and sound in judgment, in
+you I see our ambassador, our spokesman, our counselor and adviser, our
+Chrysostom of the golden mouth."</p>
+
+<p>"And Bradford," jealously demanded Standish laying a hand upon the arm
+of the future governor, for whom he ever entertained a mighty affection.</p>
+
+<p>Carver turned and looked full into Bradford's steadfast eyes upraised to
+his, and his own gaze became rapt and well-nigh prophetic. When he spoke
+again it was in a lower and less spontaneous voice.</p>
+
+<p>"The arm strikes, the tongue parleys, but both must be in accord with
+the brain, or all is lost. The father of his people must think for all,
+plan for all, encourage, restrain, cherish, discipline all. Standish for
+the camp, Winslow for the council, but for you, Bradford, the sleepless
+vigil, the constant watch, the self-forgetting energy, whose fruits are
+safety, honor, and prosperity, for those who lean on you."<span class='pagenum'><a
+name="Page_84" id="Page_84">[Pg 84]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"But, dear friend, it is you who still must be our governor, our
+reliance, our father!" exclaimed Bradford eagerly, but Carver turned
+away and began the steep descent.</p>
+
+<p>Those whom he left looked earnestly in each other's faces, yet said
+nothing. A future grander, and more terrible than they had imagined,
+seemed suddenly defined before them, and each dimly felt the burden and
+the honor of his own part therein laid upon him.</p>
+
+<p>As thus they stood, three noble figures clearly defined against the
+amber of the evening sky, Richard Warren and Stephen Hopkins appeared
+upon the crest of the hill and paused to look about them.</p>
+
+<p>"See yonder figures, looking as cut out of stone, and set up for idols
+in the high places of Baal," sneered Hopkins. "These be our masters,
+Warren, if so be we yield to them."</p>
+
+<p>Warren, a genial, honest gentleman of London, who had thrown his entire
+patrimony, as well as his earnest soul, into this enterprise, shook his
+head and laughingly replied,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Thou&nbsp;'rt ever too jealous, Stephen, for thine own comfort. Our
+brethren, all unconscious that they make so fine a show up there, are
+giving their best and their all to the common weal, and so are we. If
+their best, chance to be gold, and ours but iron, think&nbsp;'st thou
+God will value the one offering above the other? I trow not man, and I
+am for my part well content as matters stand."</p>
+
+<p>"Nay," persisted Hopkins, "but mark you how constantly they slight us
+and Dotey, because we are out of England, and not of Holland, and so not
+of Robinson's congregation?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85">[Pg 85]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Nay," replied Warren pacifically; "I had liefer mark the many times we
+are called to Council and to share in whatever good may be toward. And
+mark you, Hopkins, you and I are the fathers of many children, and those
+men have none as yet, and this land whose foundations must be laid in
+our blood, if need be, shall become the inheritance of those we leave
+behind. Please God, my five girls, coming hither so soon as I have a
+roof to shelter them, shall become the mothers of soldiers and
+statesmen, maybe of kings, for who knoweth what is to come when the seed
+sown in tears shall be reaped in joy!"</p>
+
+<p>Hopkins answered only by a contemptuous sniff, and the triumvirate
+descending from their pedestal, all six men returned amicably to the
+camp.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86">[Pg 86]</a></span></p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<h2>CHAPTER VIII.</h2>
+
+<h3>BURYING HILL.</h3>
+
+
+<p>Much has been said and written of the Sunday spent by the advanced guard
+of Pilgrims upon Clarke's Island, and a very modern tradition points to
+the great rock in the centre of the island as the scene of their
+devotions. Nothing, however, is less probable than that this handful of
+men, with no pastor or even presiding elder among them, should leave
+their encampment under the bluff, and the neighborhood of their boat, to
+travel inland to this bleak and exposed bowlder, there to set one of
+their number to exhort the rest. Carver certainly was a deacon of
+Robinson's congregation, yet this office gave him no spiritual
+authority, but rather the duties of a warden in the mother church, nor
+was the governor a man to assume any authority not his own; so although
+he led the informal service held in that sheltered nook, upon the shore,
+Winslow and Bradford and Hopkins were the chief speakers, while John
+Howland in his melodious and powerful voice raised a psalm that made the
+welkin ring, and Richard Warren stoutly cried Amen to all the rest.</p>
+
+<p>Standish, his arms folded and one hand resting upon the hilt of Gideon,
+stood a little apart, his head reverently bared in the prayers, and with
+a rough attempt at melody echoing Howland's psalm; but during the
+exhortations or prophesyings, he strode softly up and down the
+beach,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87">[Pg 87]</a></span> or mounting upon the bluff swept sea and land with the
+keen glances of eyes that nothing escaped. Occasionally a fervent word
+would be sped in his direction from one or another, and many a prayer,
+as before and after that hour, was urged that this bulwark of the church
+against her secular foes might become her obedient son. When thus
+exhorted or prayed for the captain's face became a study, sometimes so
+impenetrably obtuse, sometimes so rigid in its obstinacy, sometimes
+touched with shrewd amusement, and sometimes moved to tender sympathy,
+but never to conviction or even doubt, and as the years went on, those
+who loved him most, even Bradford and Alden and Brewster, ceased all
+effort to bring this precious comrade into their own fold, but learned
+to accept him as he was.</p>
+
+<p>Monday broke with clear and gracious skies and a sea only pleasantly
+rippled with its late commotion. Refreshed and cheered by their long
+rest the Pilgrims were early afoot, and at a good hour the cleaned and
+furbished arms were packed in the shallop, the sail, bent to its new
+mast, was unfurled to its fullest spread, and the eighteen men, each at
+his own post, eager and hopeful. It had been resolved to proceed no
+farther in search of Coppin's harbor, which afterward proved to be Cut
+River and the site of Marshfield, but to explore the landlocked harbor
+lying before them.</p>
+
+<p>Carefully sounding as she went, the shallop felt her way through the Cow
+Yard or Horse Market, around Beach Point, and having the flood tide with
+her rode triumphantly over Dick's Flat and Mother White's Guzzle, until
+finally, with furled sails and her head to the wind, she lay within a
+biscuit toss of the shore.</p>
+
+<p>"See, there are cleared fields and a river full of fish,<span class='pagenum'><a
+name="Page_88" id="Page_88">[Pg 88]</a></span> and all things ready to our hand,"
+cried Howland excitedly.</p>
+
+<p>"Bring her up to the beach, then, and we will land and explore," replied
+Carver, smiling at the young man's enthusiasm.</p>
+
+<p>"There is a rock a few rods ahead set ready for a stepping-stone,"
+announced Howland standing in the bows.</p>
+
+<p>"Lay her up to it, men," growled English, and in a moment the bows of
+the shallop caressingly touched the cheek of that great gray Rock,
+itself a pilgrim, as has well been said, from some far northern shore,
+brought here by the vast forces of Nature, and laid to wait in grand
+patience, until the ages should bring it a name, a use, and a nation's
+love and honor.</p>
+
+<p>"Jump then, lad, and see thou jump not five fadom deep, as thou didst
+out there in mid-seas!" cried Hopkins, and Howland leaping lightly from
+the boat to the rock cried in his blithe voice,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"And I seize this mainland for King James, even as Master Clarke did yon
+island."</p>
+
+<p>"Only thou dost not claim it for thine own under the king as he did,"
+replied Coppin.</p>
+
+<p>"It seemeth to me," said Carver as he stepped on shore, "as if this
+place were fairly laid down on Smith's map that we were studying. Think
+you not so, Master Winslow?"</p>
+
+<p>"Ay, I believe it is the place he hath called Plymouth after our English
+town."</p>
+
+<p>"Why, then, if we are minded to tarry here, it were well befitting that
+we should continue the name, for our Plymouth brethren cheered and
+comforted us marvelously in our sad outsetting," replied the governor,
+and Bradford added,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_89" id="Page_89">[Pg 89]</a></span>&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"They were in very truth kinder than our own."</p>
+
+<p>"'T&nbsp;is a better harbor than English Plymouth can boast," said
+Coppin turning to survey the bay.</p>
+
+<p>"Harbor! English Plymouth's harbor is no better than a slaughter pen!
+Not less than ten good ships were pounded to pieces there in the last
+year," said the sailor Alderton.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, 't&nbsp;is worse than the Goodwin Sands, if that can be," echoed
+English.</p>
+
+<p>"While here is a haven most artificially contrived for safety, with its
+overlapping arms and islands," cried Clarke.</p>
+
+<p>"Ay, the islands, Clarke's Island above all, are such as all England
+cannot match!" jeered Coppin, while Howland, followed by the rest, began
+to climb the bluff in front of them, choosing almost by instinct the
+easy ascent around its base, now known as Leyden Street. A little above
+the future site of the Common house they paused to take breath and to
+consult.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, here is cleared land enow for any crop we can plant in a year to
+come," said Dotey, looking approvingly along Cole's Hill.</p>
+
+<p>"And I hear the tinkle of water falling upon water," cried Bradford
+gazing down toward the outlet of Town Brook. "There must be springs
+yonder."</p>
+
+<p>"But fuel would needs be lugged on men's backs further than I for one
+could fancy," grumbled Hopkins glancing at the woods nowhere very near.</p>
+
+<p>"We can scarce hope for arable land and dense forest in one plot of
+ground," remarked Winslow dryly.</p>
+
+<p>"Let us march into the land and explore it fully," suggested Carver.
+"Every man should carry his piece with lighted match, but the rest of
+the gear may well be<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_90" id="Page_90">[Pg 90]</a></span> left in the boat under charge of the
+shipmen. Master Gunner I advise thee to stay behind also. If we meet
+with the Indians and there is any opening for trucking I promise thee
+thy full share and advantage."</p>
+
+<p>"He who stays by the stuff shall share with him who goeth to the
+battle," quoted Standish, who was well versed in what may be called the
+military history of the Bible.</p>
+
+<p>"'T&nbsp;is a venerable law, Captain, and out of a faultless code,"
+replied Carver reverently.</p>
+
+<p>"Come on, then, brethren!" cried Hopkins striding up the steep face of
+Burying Hill. The rest followed, and on the crest stopped to admire the
+magnificent view spread out in the clear light of the wintry morning.</p>
+
+<p>"Yon is a sightly point for a town," said Warren pointing to Watson's
+Hill.</p>
+
+<p>"Too far from the shore," replied Carver.</p>
+
+<p>"And from those tinkling springs for whose water I already am athirst,"
+added Bradford.</p>
+
+<p>"Hm! hm!" growled Standish plucking at his beard and pacing to and fro;
+"here is the place for a stronghold, Master Carver, just here where we
+are standing. See you now, from a breastwork thrown up hereabout and
+mounted with a minion or two a man could sweep off an army. 'T&nbsp;is
+but a pretty shot to the rock whereon we landed, and where any but a
+fool would choose to land, since it is the only dry-shod landing on the
+beach; and here we have Bradford's springs well in range, and this
+ascent by which we have clomb thither. Why, it is a little Gibraltar
+ready to our hand. Then if the salvages approach by land, from yon fair
+hill which Warren advises, our heavier guns will meet<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91">[Pg 91]</a></span> them half
+way, and our smaller metal mow them down at close quarters. We are well
+set forth in gun-metal, Governor, for I saw to it myself; not only
+minions, but sakers and falcons and bases, not to mention each man's
+piece, which I fain would have had all snaphances like mine own. Ay, we
+are well armed, and here is our fortalice."</p>
+
+<p>"But not to my mind our dwelling, Captain," replied Carver pleasantly.
+"Mind you, half our company are women and children, and it were hard for
+them to be cooped up in a fort or to descend and climb again this shrewd
+ascent whenever they were athirst. I say not but that a fortification
+here were admirable when we come at it, but methinks our dwellings were
+better placed under its protection than within it."</p>
+
+<p>"Along this course we have just trod from the rock," suggested Winslow.</p>
+
+<p>"And tending toward the springs," added Bradford with a smile.</p>
+
+<p>"Nay, man, come and drink since thou&nbsp;'rt so sore athirst," cried
+Hopkins clapping him on the back. "If 't&nbsp;were a spring of Hollands
+now, or even a double strike of English ale, I'd race thee for it, but
+never yet did I find my stomach clamor for cold water."</p>
+
+<p>"'T&nbsp;is very delicate water for all that," declared Bradford as the
+two men, stumbling down the steep descent of Spring Lane, reached and
+stooped to drink of the spring at its foot.</p>
+
+<p>"Too delicate for me," retorted Hopkins; "fitter for maids than men."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, beer is brewed of water as well as of barley and hops," declared
+Bradford; "and thou&nbsp;'st only to raise the grain and this fair
+spring will turn it into beer for thee at thy pleasure."<span class='pagenum'><a
+name="Page_92" id="Page_92">[Pg 92]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"And here be blackberry briers for my dame to brew her wild-berry wines,
+and lo you now, this is sassafras whose roots are worth their weight in
+gold to the chirurgeons, and these are strawberry leaves."</p>
+
+<p>"And we have seen cherry and plum stocks in abundance the way we came,"
+declared Bradford as the rest of the party straggled down the hill.</p>
+
+<p>"Excellent sand and gravel for building," said Warren crumbling the soil
+around the spring. "Ay, and here is clay to shape into pots and pans
+when the goodwives have broken all they bring."</p>
+
+<p>"Methinks it hath a look of fuller's clay, and so is almost as well for
+us as soap," said Howland taking up some and washing his hands in the
+brook. "There, now, see you its use!"</p>
+
+<p>"Have with you, friend," cried Winslow, daintiest of the pioneers.
+"Surely cleanliness being next to godliness tendeth somewhat to the same
+satisfaction!"</p>
+
+<p>The exploration, carried as far as Eel River at the south and Murdoch's
+Pond westerly, lasted until night, when the Pilgrims bivouacked on the
+shore, supping merrily on some great clams dug by the sailors and wild
+fowl shot by Howland and Dotey. Before they slept under the sheltering
+brow of Cole's Hill it was pretty well decided that Plymouth, as they
+began at once to call it, should be their permanent dwelling-place, more
+especially as in their day-long explorations they had seen no natives or
+even their dwellings, and the site seemed for some reason abandoned to
+their occupancy.</p>
+
+<p>But the joyous return with good news to those on board the Mayflower was
+turned into grief and dismay by the tidings awaiting the explorers.</p>
+
+<p>Dorothy Bradford was dead. How it could have<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_93" id="Page_93">[Pg 93]</a></span> happened, or just
+when, no one knew, but on the very day after her husband's departure she
+had gone quietly on deck while the rest of the company were at supper
+and never was seen again; nor till the sea gives up its dead shall any
+know the story of that poor overwrought soul's last fierce struggle and
+defeat.</p>
+
+<p>Nor can we speak of the young husband's anguish, and it may be
+self-reproach, in that awful hour. He speaks not himself of this matter
+in his journal, save in briefest words; nor dare we intrude upon such
+matters as lie between a man and his God. But this we may say, that as
+Jacob, wrestling with the angel and overcoming, went halting all his
+days from the wound of that strange conflict, so Bradford's face when he
+again took his place among his fellows told of years forever consumed in
+one terrible struggle.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_94" id="Page_94">[Pg 94]</a></span></p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<h2>CHAPTER IX.</h2>
+
+<h3>ROSE.</h3>
+
+
+<p>"Myles!"</p>
+
+<p>"Ay, sweetheart, here am I."</p>
+
+<p>"A little drink&mdash;nay, I want it not. I was dreaming thy cousin
+Barbara was making a sallet, and I was fain to taste it, it looked so
+cool and fresh,&mdash;and I wakened. I would well like some sallet,
+Myles."</p>
+
+<p>"As soon as the day dawns, my Rose, I will go and look for herbs. I
+marked some sorrel on the hill yester e'en, albeit something dry and
+sere."</p>
+
+<p>"Why doth the ship roll so sorely, Myles?"</p>
+
+<p>"Thou&nbsp;'rt not on shipboard, child, but in our little hospital here
+ashore. Mindest thou not how thou didst mourn and cry to me, 'Take me
+ashore, Myles, take me ashore, that I may breathe sweet air and live.'
+So I lapped thee in blankets and brought thee, to-morrow is a se'nnight.
+Like you not this sweet new dwelling?"</p>
+
+<p>"Well enow; but sweet air will not make me live if the time hath come
+for me to die." And the sick girl smiled wanly, inscrutably, the smile
+of one who knows what he will not say.</p>
+
+<p>The face of the fearless soldier grew white with terror, and almost
+angrily he replied,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Hush, child! Thy time to die hath not come. Never think it, for it
+shall not be."</p>
+
+<p>"Nay, Myles, thou canst not daunten Death with thy<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_95" id="Page_95">[Pg 95]</a></span> stern voice
+and masterful eye, though thou canst quell a score of other foes with
+one glance."</p>
+
+<p>And Rose, moving her frail little hand toward the sinewy fist clenched
+upon the bed-covering, slid a finger within its grasp, and went softly
+on with a pathetic ring of gayety in her voice,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"I was dreaming, too, of home, mine own old home. I was gathering
+cowslips in the meadow at St. Mary's, and mother stood by with little
+Maudlin in her arms. They smiled, both of them, ah how sweetly they
+smiled upon me, and I filled my pinafore with the cowslips, soft, cool,
+wet cowslips,&mdash;I feel them in my hand now, so cool, so wet! Myles,
+I fain would have those cowslips, may I not?"</p>
+
+<p>"Child! Child! Thou&nbsp;'lt break my heart!"</p>
+
+<p>"Mother and Maudlin both died the year I saw thee first, dost remember,
+Myles?"</p>
+
+<p>"Try to sleep a little, my darling. I will say thee a psalm, or perhaps
+one of those old Manx ballads thou didst use to lilt so lightly."</p>
+
+<p>"Mistress White says they are ungodly, and a snare of Satan," replied
+Rose dreamily, and before Myles could utter the wrathful comment that
+quivered upon his lips she went on,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"It was across her grave I saw thee, dear, dost mind thee of that hour?"</p>
+
+<p>"Thy mother's grave? ay, I mind me."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, thou camest with thy cousin Barbara to seek thy grandsire's
+gravestone and to search out the muniments of thy race. Thou&nbsp;'lt
+never lay hands on that inheritance, Myles."</p>
+
+<p>"I care not, so thou wilt get strong and well again, my Rose, my Rose!"
+And with a groan but half<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_96" id="Page_96">[Pg 96]</a></span> driven back upon his heart, the
+soldier turned his head aside and set his teeth upon his trembling lip.
+But Rose, more alive in the past than the present, rambled on in her
+sweet, weak voice,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"'Not only this wild hunting ground and ruined lodge where we abide, but
+many a fair manor in England, and many a stately home is his,' that was
+what Barbara told me about thee afterward; and when I praised thy
+presence, for I loved thee or ever I knew it myself, she straightened
+her neck and said full proudly, 'Ay, and not only a goodly man, but a
+brave soldier and noble soul.' 'Twas she who first saw that thou lovedst
+me, Myles, and came and wept for joy upon my neck."</p>
+
+<p>"Peace, peace, dear child. Thou wastest thy strength in talking
+overmuch. Sleep, canst thou not, dear heart?"</p>
+
+<p>"Dost think that Barbara will come hither? She promised me surefast that
+she would so soon as there was a company ready. She said it was so
+lonely there in Man when I was gone. Will she come, think you, Myles?"</p>
+
+<p>"Like enow, sweetheart. Barbara mostly carries out what she promises.
+But"&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"And thou&nbsp;'lt be very, very good to thy cousin, wilt thou not,
+Myles? Thou&nbsp;'rt all she has now."</p>
+
+<p>"Surely both of us will be good to our kinswoman, dear wife, and all the
+more that, as thou sayest, it was by going to visit her that I first saw
+thee, blooming like a very rose in that gray old Manx churchyard."</p>
+
+<p>"I was ever friends with Barbara, but I loved her all the more for thy
+sake, dear. And she was well pleased that we two should
+wed&mdash;leastways she said so."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_97" id="Page_97">[Pg 97]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"And if she said it she meant it, for in all the years she tarried in my
+mother's house I never knew her tell a lie or wear two faces. But now,
+verily, child, I must have thee rest. Speak not again unless thou
+needest somewhat. I will have it so, my Rose."</p>
+
+<p>"Then let me lay my hand in thine. There, then, good-night."</p>
+
+<p>"Good-night, mine own."</p>
+
+<p>And while the winter night lapsed through hours of deadly chill and
+darkness into the sad twilight of early morning the soldier sat
+motionless, holding that fragile hand, gazing upon that lovely face,
+lovely yet so changed from the cherubic beauty that had won his heart
+amid the summer fields of Man but three short years before.</p>
+
+<p>What he thought, what he felt in those hours, he could not himself have
+revealed, for a man's emotion is usually in inverse proportion to its
+expression, and Myles Standish was essentially a man of action and not
+of words; but God only knows how these strong inarticulate natures
+suffer in the agony that divides bone from marrow, and yet leaves the
+sufferer conscious of the capacity to live and to suffer yet again and
+again.</p>
+
+<p>In some respects this vigil resembled that of Bradford in hearing of
+Dorothy's death, in some it was widely different, for with Bradford's
+grief was mingled self-reproach and keen introspection; he weighed his
+own life, he found it wanting, he condemned it, and offering his
+suffering as righteous penance, he extolled the justice of God, and
+submitted himself as a culprit to the scourge.</p>
+
+<p>But Standish thought neither of the justice of God nor of his own
+demerits, nor had he skill or practice for introspection. "A man under
+authority and having soldiers under him," he both rendered and
+expected<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_98" id="Page_98">[Pg 98]</a></span> obedience, prompt, entire, and unquestioning. His was a
+nature of loyalty so magnificent as to need no buttresses of reason, or
+of self-distrust, a loyalty so sweet as to be unconscious of itself, a
+loyalty so entire that the soul could not get outside of it to consider
+it objectively.</p>
+
+<p>The order came from the King of kings, and it was to be obeyed, or
+endured; the King could do no wrong.</p>
+
+<p>Nor indeed had he been skilled to search, could Myles have found matter
+for self-reproach in all his dealings with the child dying at his side.</p>
+
+<p>Busy from his boyhood in the pursuit of arms, and loving his mother with
+all the force of his great nature, the man had cared little for other
+women, turning with scorn from the meretricious charms of those he
+encountered in camp or among his comrades, and finding no time or
+inclination to seek others, so that except for the light fancies of an
+hour, or the calm affection for his cousin Barbara, whom he found on one
+of his visits to his home in Chorley giving a daughter's tendance to his
+mother, Standish had passed his three and thirtieth birthday ignorant of
+the nature of love, and mocking at its power.</p>
+
+<p>But the first glance at the lovely girl weeping beside her mother's
+grave warned him that a new hour had struck, and a new foe opposed him;
+nor was he long in making full and frank surrender to an authority as
+strong as it was gentle, and as tyrannous as sweet.</p>
+
+<p>Motionless and erect the soldier sat the long night through, and as if
+she gathered strength from the grasp of his healthy hand, Rose slept
+quietly until the sun rose, and the women still well enough to wait upon
+the sick came softly in.</p>
+
+<p>Then she opened her eyes, fixed them upon his with a tender smile, and
+said,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_99" id="Page_99">[Pg 99]</a></span>&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Poor Myles! Thou hast watched all night while selfish I held thee and
+slept. But now begone and get thine own rest and food. I shall do well
+with these kind friends."</p>
+
+<p>"I'll leave thee, then, for a little, but I shall not be far away, and
+if thou needest, send," replied her husband releasing his hand from the
+frail yet burning grasp that still held him. "Dame Turner, thou&nbsp;'lt
+see that I am called if she asks for me, wilt thou?"</p>
+
+<p>"Surely, Captain, but she is doing bravely this morning, and you had
+better rest."</p>
+
+<p>"Nay, but let her not ask twice for me, or aught else."</p>
+
+<p>Leaving the house, and drawing one or two eager breaths of fresh air,
+Standish climbed the hill where already the fortification he had
+proposed was nearly complete, though not yet armed. Stepping upon a
+great beam, squared but not laid in place, he stood looking around him
+as if to see what Nature and his own work could offer to fill the great
+gulf opening in the future.</p>
+
+<p>A light fog still clung to the face of the water and hung in the hollows
+of the hills; shrouded in its folds the Mayflower lay like a spectre
+ship, ugly, unsafe, full of discomfort and misery, but yet the only link
+between this handful of dying men and their home. Standish gazed at her
+with a gathering darkness upon his face, until the burden of his thought
+broke out in a savage murmur,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Couldst</i> not make thy way through yonder shoals and bring us to the
+fair shores I told her of! If it be thy fault, Thomas Jones!"&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>The slow clenching of a jaw square and strong as a mastiff's finished
+the sentence, and Standish's eyes came<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_100" id="Page_100">[Pg 100]</a></span> back to the rude hut
+where all he loved lay dying, perhaps through this man's fault. At his
+feet lay the sketch as it were of the town he and his comrades had laid
+down in outline, and intended to build up as time and strength allowed.
+Already Leyden Street, or The Street, as it was at first called, lay a
+distinct thoroughfare from the Rock to the Fort, the eastern and western
+extremities of the village. Along this street were staked out plots of
+land, some larger and some smaller in the proportion of eight feet
+frontage to each person in a family, the single men, and those women and
+children already left desolate, being divided among the householders,
+and the whole company reduced to nineteen families.</p>
+
+<p>Standish's own house, not yet finished, lay nearest to the Fort, which
+with its armament were to be his especial charge, and several of the
+single men had been appointed to his family. Their own illness, and that
+of Mistress Standish had, however, interfered with this arrangement, and
+only John Alden shared the house as yet with Standish, the two men
+sometimes eating at the Common house, the only one except the hospital
+really finished, and sometimes cooking for themselves such food as they
+could lay hands upon, for the house, unlike some of the others, already
+boasted a chimney laid up of sticks and clay, and showed a generous
+fireplace in the larger or living room which, with two little
+sleeping-rooms and a loft, comprised the whole accommodation.</p>
+
+<p>Upon this little home so hopefully begun, so neglected during the last
+ten days, Myles gazed long and wistfully, smiling sadly as he saw Alden
+come out and look up and down the street for him, finally going to seek
+him in the Common house, a substantial structure some<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_101" id="Page_101">[Pg 101]</a></span> twenty
+feet square, built of hewn oaken logs, fitted together as closely as
+possible, and the crevices stopped with clay, which freely washed out in
+stormy weather.</p>
+
+<p>The roof, like all the rest, was covered with thatch formed of dried
+reeds and grasses, and the windows were filled with oiled linen instead
+of glass, still an article of costly luxury. Above the Common house
+stood the building which the increasing mortality of the colony had
+demanded as a hospital, and below it was the storehouse, where most of
+the common stock of goods was collected, although some of the passengers
+and their possessions still remained on board the brig, where Jones gave
+them but scant hospitality or kindness.</p>
+
+<p>Folding his arms more closely as the chill wind of February swept in
+from seaward, Standish gazed upon all these objects as if they for the
+first time attracted his attention, and then, as the lifting fog
+revealed the distant landscape, he turned and fixedly regarded Captain's
+Hill rising in its bold isolation to the north. Long he gazed, and then,
+slightly shaking his head, stepped down from the beam and paced about
+the little enclosure, half unconsciously examining the work of platform
+and parapet, and following with a gunner's eye the range of the pieces
+yet unmounted; pausing longest before the eastern front, he marked with
+satisfaction how well the minion there to be placed would guard the
+landing and sweep the solitary street, and even knelt to look along its
+imaginary barrel.</p>
+
+<p>Rising he brushed the soil from his knees with almost a smile,
+muttering,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Ay, lad, thou&nbsp;'rt needed, thou&nbsp;'rt needed, and he who is
+needed has no right to desert his post."</p>
+
+<p>But suddenly the smile faded, for as he turned to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_102" id="Page_102">[Pg 102]</a></span> leave the
+Fort his eyes fell upon Cole's Hill, where but a few rods from the
+Common house, and under its protection, they had dug the graves of those
+already dead, and where lay room enough for many more. But his battle
+fought, and his mind resolved, Myles was too much master of himself to
+need a second conflict, and setting his lips firmly beneath the tawny
+moustache that shaded them, he strode down the hill, and at his own door
+found John Alden waiting for him and changing greetings with a party of
+four men armed with sickles and attended by two dogs.</p>
+
+<p>"Wish you <ins title="Transcriber's note: Comma added after 'good-morrow'">good-morrow,</ins> Captain," said the foremost, a sturdy young
+fellow with a pleasant English face.</p>
+
+<p>"Good-morrow Peter Browne, and you, John Goodman," replied the captain
+cordially. "Whither away?"</p>
+
+<p>"To cut thatch in the fields nigh yon little pond," replied Browne
+pointing in a westerly direction. "And I am taking Nero along to give
+account of any Indians that may be lurking there."</p>
+
+<p>"And John Goodman's spaniel to rouse the game for Nero to pull down,"
+said Standish with a smile. "Well, God speed you."</p>
+
+<p>And turning into the unfinished house he found Alden watching him with a
+look of silent friendliness and sympathy more eloquent than words;
+returning the greeting as mutely and as heartily, Standish would have
+passed into his own bedroom, but the younger man interposed,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Thou&nbsp;'lt break thy fast, Captain, wilt thou not? All is ready and
+waiting your coming; some of the bean soup you liked yester even, and
+some fish"&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Presently, presently, good John! I would but bathe and refresh myself.
+Nay, look not so doubt<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_103" id="Page_103">[Pg 103]</a></span>ingly after me, friend. I am a man, and
+know a man's devoir."</p>
+
+<p>He spoke with a smile as brave as it was gentle, and passing in closed
+the door.</p>
+
+<p>"Doth he know she is dying!" muttered John throwing himself upon a
+bench; "and Priscilla sickening and her mother dead!"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_104" id="Page_104">[Pg 104]</a></span></p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<h2>CHAPTER X.</h2>
+
+<h3>A TERRIBLE NIGHT.</h3>
+
+
+<p>As Standish entered his own house the four men to whom he had spoken
+passed on around the base of the hill, and reaching a tract of swampy
+land covered with reeds and rushes suitable for thatching, they set to
+work cutting them and binding in bundles ready for use. For some hours
+they wrought industriously, until Peter Browne, commander of the
+expedition, straightened his back, stretched his cramped arms, and
+gazing at the sun announced,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Noontime, men. We'll e'en rest and eat our snack."</p>
+
+<p>"Art thou o' mind to come and show me the pond where thou sawest wild
+fowl t'&nbsp;other day?" asked John Goodman, townsman and friend of
+Browne's.</p>
+
+<p>"Ay, will I. Take thy meat in thy hand and come along," replied Browne.
+"And we may as well finish our day there, sith this spot is well nigh
+stripped. Margeson and Britteridge, when you have fed, you can bind the
+rushes that are cut, and then come after us as far as a little pond
+behind that hill, due west from here I should say. You'll find it easily
+enough."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, ay, we'll find it," replied Margeson, a rough companion, but a good
+worker. "Go on mates, and take your dogs with you, for they're smelling
+at the victuals enough to turn a man's stomach. Get out you beast!" and
+raising his foot he offered to kick Nero,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_105" id="Page_105">[Pg 105]</a></span> who growled
+menacingly and showed a formidable set of teeth.</p>
+
+<p>"Have a care, man!" cried Browne angrily. "Meddle with that dog and
+he'll make victual of thee before thou knowest what ails thee.
+'T&nbsp;is ever a poor sign when a man cannot abear dogs or children."</p>
+
+<p>And the two friends, followed by the mastiff and spaniel, walked rapidly
+away. Two hours passed while Margeson and Britteredge, not greatly in
+haste, finished their lunch and tied and stacked the reeds already cut.
+Then shouldering their sickles they leisurely skirted the hill in front
+of them, and after a little search came upon the pretty sheet of water
+now called Murdoch's Pond.</p>
+
+<p>"This will be the place," said Margeson looking about him; "but where is
+pepperpot Browne?"</p>
+
+<p>"Or his dog?" suggested Britteridge slyly.</p>
+
+<p>"Whistle and the beasts will hear us if the men do not," said Margeson
+suiting the action to the word. No answer followed, and both men
+together raised a yet shriller note, followed by shouts, halloos, and
+various noises supposed to carry sound to the farthest limits of space.
+But each effort died away in dim and distant echoes among the hills, and
+after a while the men looked at each other in half angry discouragement.</p>
+
+<p>"They've played us a trick," said Margeson; "they're hiding to mock at
+us, or they've gone back to the village some other way."</p>
+
+<p>"Nay," replied Britteridge pacifically; "they're not such babes as to
+play tricks like that. See, here are goodly reeds; let us cut and bind
+some while we tarry, and Browne will be back anon."</p>
+
+<p>Grumbling and unconvinced Margeson still complied, and for a while
+longer the two worked fitfully, paus<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_106" id="Page_106">[Pg 106]</a></span>ing now and again to look
+about them, to listen, or to shout.</p>
+
+<p>At last, by tacit consent, both threw down their tools, and with slow,
+half-fearful gaze surveyed the scene. It was a dismal one. The sun had
+reached the tops of the pines, and already the water lay in black shadow
+at their feet, rippled by the small, bitter breeze creeping in from
+seaward, and stirring the sedge into faint whisperings and moanings;
+night birds, awaking in the depths of the forest, uttered querulous
+cries, and strange, vague sounds within the covert suggested prowling
+beast or savage creeping near and nearer.</p>
+
+<p>"Ugh! 't&nbsp;is a grewsome spot as ever I saw," said Margeson as softly
+as if he feared to be overheard. "Certes the men have gone home some
+other way, and the sun is setting. Let us be after them, say I."</p>
+
+<p>"And say I," replied Britteridge readily, and without more words the two
+men hurried away, and in a brief half hour presented themselves before
+the governor with news that their comrades were not to be found, either
+in the field or the town, and doubtless were lost in the forest or
+captured by the Indians.</p>
+
+<p>Carver, ever as ready to act as to command, armed himself at once, and
+summoning such men as were on shore led them to the wood, where by
+calling, firing their pieces, and kindling torches they protracted the
+search far into the night, and when forced to give it up until daylight
+returned to the Common house for united and fervent prayers and
+supplications.</p>
+
+<p>Early in the morning another search party, headed by Stephen Hopkins,
+with Billington as scout, entered the woods, but having traversed a
+radius of seven or eight miles returned at night weary, footsore, and
+with no tidings.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_107" id="Page_107">[Pg 107]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>News of the loss was carried on board the Mayflower, and a heavy sense
+of misfortune and danger settled upon the little community already
+depressed by disease and want.</p>
+
+<p>The men thus mourned were meantime in nearly as evil case as was feared.</p>
+
+<p>Just before arriving at the pond, while munching their frugal lunch and
+discussing the prospect of game, they espied a splendid stag who had
+evidently been disturbed while drinking, and stood with head erect and
+dilated eyes gazing upon the first white men he had ever seen, and
+perhaps foreboding the war of extermination they had come to wage on him
+and his.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh for a piece!" cried Browne raising an imaginary gun to his shoulder.
+"Seize him, Nero! Take him, good dog! Hi! Away, away!"</p>
+
+<p>Nero needing no second invitation uttered a deep bay and set off,
+followed by the spaniel, yelping to the extent of her powers, while the
+two men, reckless of the fact that they were unarmed save with sickles,
+and could never hope to overtake the deer on foot, bounded after as fast
+as they could lay legs to the ground, nor paused until utterly blown and
+exhausted and the chase out of sight and hearing.</p>
+
+<p>"Hah!" panted Browne flinging himself upon the ground; "I haven't been
+breathed like that since I ran in the foot-race at home in Yorkshire
+five year agone. Phew!"</p>
+
+<p>Goodman only replied by inarticulate groans and wheezes, and while he
+yet struggled for breath Nero came trotting back through the woods with
+a mortified and contrite expression pervading his body from eloquent
+eyes to abject tail, while Pike, as the spaniel was called,<span class='pagenum'><a
+name="Page_108" id="Page_108">[Pg 108]</a></span> followed at some distance with an
+affected carelessness of demeanor as if she would have it clearly
+understood that she had been running solely for her own pleasure, with
+no idea of chasing the deer. The men laughed, and patting their
+favorites allowed them to lie and rest for some moments; then as the air
+grew chill they rose and strolled in the direction, as they supposed, of
+the clearing where they had left their comrades. But the wood was thick,
+and several swampy hollows induced detours; the sun was obscured by the
+gathering snow clouds, and neither man was skilled in woodcraft; while
+the dogs, roaming at pleasure, were more intent upon tracing various
+scents of game than of finding the way home. Thus it came that as
+darkness began to gather visibly among the crowding evergreens, and the
+last tinge of sunlight was buried in thickening clouds, the two men
+stopped and looked each other squarely in the face.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, John," said Browne reading the frightened eyes of his younger and
+less courageous companion. "Yes, lad, we're lost, and I doubt me must
+pass the night in the woods."</p>
+
+<p>"And we lack not only food but cloaks and weapons!" exclaimed Goodman
+looking forlornly about him, and stooping to pat Pike, who scenting
+disaster in the air had returned whimpering to her master's side.</p>
+
+<p>"If we could but find some deserted hut of the salvages, or some of
+their stored grain, or even the venison we disdained the other day,"
+suggested Browne.</p>
+
+<p>"We've seen no trace of such a thing to-day," replied Goodman
+disconsolately.</p>
+
+<p>"Come on, then, and let us look while daylight lingers. Mayhap the dogs
+will lead us out if we put them to it. Hi, Nero! Home boy, home!
+Seek!"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_109" id="Page_109">[Pg 109]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Nero whimpered intelligently and trotted on for a mile or so, but with
+none of that appearance of conviction which sometimes gives to an
+animal's proceedings the force of an inspiration. Browne, who knew his
+dog well, felt the discouragement of his movement, and finally stopped
+abruptly.</p>
+
+<p>"Nay, he knows no home in this wilderness and feels no call to one place
+more than another. 'T is past praying for, John; we must e'en make up
+our minds to sleep here. Suppose that we lie down in the lee of these
+nut-bushes, call the dogs to curl up beside us, and try to keep life
+going till morning; no doubt we shall find the way out then, or at least
+somewhat to eat."</p>
+
+<p>"My blood is like ice already," murmured Goodman burying his hands in
+the spaniel's curly hair.</p>
+
+<p>"If we had but flint and steel to make a fire it were something!"
+exclaimed Browne. "What Jack-o'-Bedlams we were to set off thus
+unprovided. Catch me so again!"</p>
+
+<p>"But we came out to cut thatch, not to chase deer and get lost in the
+woods," suggested Goodman trying to laugh, though his teeth chattered
+like castanets.</p>
+
+<p>"It will never do for thee to lie down as chilled as thou art,"
+exclaimed Browne anxiously. "I promised thy old mother I'd have an eye
+to thee, and lo it is I that have led thee into this mischance! What
+shall I do for thee? I have it, lad! Sith it is too dark and rough to
+walk farther I'll try a fall with thee; there's naught warms a man's
+blood like a good wrestling match. Come on, then!"</p>
+
+<p>"I'm no match for thee, Peter, but here goes!" replied Goodman
+struggling to his feet, and the two men joined there in the darkness and
+the wilderness in what<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_110" id="Page_110">[Pg 110]</a></span> might truly be called a "joust of
+courtesy," moved only by mutual love and good will, for the event proved
+Goodman's modesty well founded, and it was only a few moments before
+Browne, raising his slender opponent in his arms, set him down sharply
+two or three times upon his feet, saying,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"I'll not throw thee, for that might prove small kindness. Art warmer?"</p>
+
+<p>But before Goodman could answer a snarling cry broke from the thicket
+close at hand, and was answered by another and another voice until the
+air seemed filled with the cries of howling fiends.</p>
+
+<p>Nero started to his feet, his eyes glowing, the hair bristling stiffly
+upon his neck, and with a fierce growl of defiance would have sprung
+forward had not his master seized him by the collar exclaiming,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Nay, fool! wouldst rush on thy destruction!"</p>
+
+<p>"'T&nbsp;is the salvages!" stammered Goodman staring about him in the
+darkness.</p>
+
+<p>"Nay, 't&nbsp;is lions," replied Browne. "Hopkins saith they swarm about
+here. We must climb a tree, John. Here is a stout one; up with thee,
+man, as fast as may be!"</p>
+
+<p>"But thou, Peter?" asked John clambering into the oak his friend pointed
+out.</p>
+
+<p>"I cannot leave Nero. He'll be gone to the lion so soon as I quit my
+hold of his collar, and I'll not lose him but in sorer need than this.
+Here, take thou the spaniel and hold her to thee for warmth."</p>
+
+<p>"Nay, I'll not be safe and thou in danger," replied the young man
+springing down; "and, moreover, it is deadly cold perching in a tree."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, then, we'll both stand on our guard here,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_111" id="Page_111">[Pg 111]</a></span> and if the
+lions come we'll e'en up in the tree hand over hand and leave the poor
+beasts to their fate. Stamp thy feet on the ground and walk a few paces
+up and down, John. I fear me thou&nbsp;'lt swound with the cold like
+poor Tilley."</p>
+
+<p>"I could not well be colder and live," replied Goodman faintly, as he
+tried to follow his friend's injunction.</p>
+
+<p>The night crept on, with frost and snow and icy rain and heavy darkness,
+and still the wolves prowled howling around their prey, and the good dog
+held them at bay with savage growls and deep-throated yelps of defiance,
+and his master, caring more for the humble friend he had reared and
+brought over seas from his English home than for his own safety, held
+him all night by the collar, and the spaniel whimpered with cold and
+terror in her master's arms, and he, poor lad, suffered all the anguish
+of death as his feet and legs chilled and stiffened and froze like ice.
+A night not to be numbered in those men's lives by hours but years, a
+night of exhaustion, terror, and agony, a night hopeless of morning save
+through the exceeding mercy of God.</p>
+
+<p>The gray light broke at last, however, and with it the wolves grew mute
+and slunk away, Nero quieted into obedience, and Browne carefully
+straightening his own stiffened joints and rising to his feet looked
+into his comrade's face and shook his head.</p>
+
+<p>"John, hearken to me, lad! We're in a sore strait but we're not dead,
+and daylight hath broken. Hold up thy face to the sky, man, and say 'I
+<span class="smcap">will</span> win through this, so help me God!' and having said it, stick to it,
+even as Nero would have stuck to yon lion's throat until he was clawed
+away in shreds. Come, try it, my lad, try it!"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_112" id="Page_112">[Pg 112]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Catching something of his friend's heroic spirit the poor fellow did as
+he was bidden, but followed the brave resolve with a piteous look into
+the other's face while he said,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"My feet are froze, Peter; there is no feeling nor power in them. But
+lead on, and I will follow if I must crawl."</p>
+
+<p>"Tarry a bit till I see"&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>And not pausing to finish his sentence Browne set himself to climb the
+tree beneath which they had passed the night. His cramped limbs and
+benumbed fingers made this no easy task and more than once he was near
+losing his grasp and finishing the story by a headlong fall to the
+frozen earth, but this danger was passed also, and presently hastening
+down he said,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Well, heavy though the clouds be I can see that east is that-a-way, and
+not far from us rises a high hill. Come, then, lean on me; pass thy arm
+around my shoulders this fashion and I will help thee on. Then I will
+leave thee at the foot of the hill and myself climb it, and if need be
+some tree upon its summit. From that I shall surely catch sight of the
+sea, and knowing that we know all we need."</p>
+
+<p>Goodman silently laid his arm around the stalwart shoulders presented to
+him, but found himself too weak and spent for other reply, and Browne,
+passing an arm around his waist, looked anxiously into his face,
+saying,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Courage, lad, courage!"</p>
+
+<p>"Ay, I <span class="smcap">will</span>, by God's help!" murmured the poor lad as with agony
+inexpressible he forced his stiffened limbs to follow one after the
+other.</p>
+
+<p>The hill, more distant than Browne had supposed, was<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_113" id="Page_113">[Pg 113]</a></span> only
+reached after two hours of agonizing effort, and at the foot Goodman
+sank speechless and exhausted, his eyes closed, his parted lips white
+and drawn. Browne looked at him despairingly, and calling the dogs made
+one crouch at either side close to the heart and lungs of the prostrate
+body, and then hastened on up the hill muttering,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"'T&nbsp;is best kindness to leave him." Half an hour later he came
+crashing down again through underbrush and fallen branches
+shouting,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Courage, John; courage, man! From the top of the biggest tree on this
+hill I've seen not only the sea, but our own harbor, and the old brig
+rocking away as peacefully as may be. Think of the good friends and the
+good Hollands gin and the good fires aboard of her. Come, rouse up, lad!
+Once more pluck up thy courage and remember thy resolve! 'T&nbsp;is but
+another hour or so and we are there!"</p>
+
+<p>And yet the good fellow knew that not one but many hours lay before
+them, and that it was for him to find strength and endurance for both.</p>
+
+<p>Once more his cheery voice and assured courage conveyed power for
+another effort to the half-dead lad he almost carried in his arms, and
+so, with frequent pauses for rest and encouragement, the day wore past,
+until at last on the brow of Watson's Hill, Browne, his own strength all
+but spent, cried tremulously,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Now God be praised! here is the harbor at our feet, yonder is the
+Mayflower, below is the village, and but a few moments more will bring
+thee, John, to a bed and Surgeon Fuller's care, and me to a fire and
+some boiling schnapps."</p>
+
+<p>"God indeed be praised!" murmured Goodman<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_114" id="Page_114">[Pg 114]</a></span> rousing himself for
+the final effort; and so it came to pass that just at sunset the two
+crossed the brook and came hobbling down The Street amid a clamorous and
+joyful crowd of friends who lifted Goodman from his feet, nor paused
+until they brought them both into the house where abode Carver and also
+Fuller, the shrewd and crabbed physician and philanthropist. Here
+Goodman was laid upon a bed, his shoes cut from his feet, and in a few
+moments the governor on one side and the doctor on the other were
+vigorously rubbing the frozen limbs with alcohol.</p>
+
+<p>"Shall I lose my feet, Doctor?" asked the patient feebly.</p>
+
+<p>"Lose them!" cried the doctor indignantly. "Nay! what use would a
+footless man be to the Adventurers who sent thee out?&nbsp;'T&nbsp;were
+but a knave's trick for thee to shed thy feet first thing, and I'll see
+to it thou dost not."</p>
+
+<p>"And that's a comfortable saying, Master Fuller," said Browne standing
+anxiously by.</p>
+
+<p>"Thou here, Peter Browne!" exclaimed the doctor glancing up under his
+shaggy brows. "What art doing here, blockhead? Get thee into bed beside
+a good fire, and bid Hopkins mix thee a posset such as he would have for
+himself. Be off, I say!"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_115" id="Page_115">[Pg 115]</a></span></p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<h2>CHAPTER XI.</h2>
+
+<h3>THE COLONISTS OF COLE'S HILL.</h3>
+
+
+<p>The next day both Carver and Bradford were forced to succumb under the
+epidemic already raging among the colonists, and in another fortnight
+the hospital and Common house were crowded to their utmost capacity with
+the beds of the ill and dying. The terrible colds taken in the various
+explorations, the vile food and bad air of the brig, with the want of
+ordinary comforts on shore, were at last bearing their fruit in a
+combination of scurvy, rheumatism, and typhoid fever of a malignant
+type. On board ship matters were even worse than on shore, and Jones,
+who would willingly have abandoned the settlers as soon as they were
+debarked, found himself, perforce, a sharer in their distress through
+the illness and death of his crew, and the danger of running short of
+provisions.</p>
+
+<p>The day came at length when of all the company, numbering a hundred and
+one when they landed, only seven remained able either to nurse the sick
+or bury the dead, and hour by hour, as these met about their complicated
+duties, they studied each others faces, in terror of seeing the fatal
+signs that yet one more was stricken down, and the annihilation of the
+settlement one step farther advanced.</p>
+
+<p>Of these seven, two were Elder Brewster and Myles Standish, and well did
+they prove themselves fit to be<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_116" id="Page_116">[Pg 116]</a></span> rulers among the people, for
+they became servants of all, without hesitation and without affectation,
+nursing, cooking, dressing loathsome wounds, and ministering in all
+those homely ways repugnant to refined senses, and especially, perhaps,
+to the dignity of man. The doctor also kept on foot, although terribly
+worn with sleeplessness, fatigue, and rheumatism; Peter Browne, none the
+worse for his day and night in the woods, with Francis Eaton to help
+him, took charge of digging the graves and burying the dead, already in
+their silent colony along the brow of Cole's Hill, almost equaling their
+yet suffering comrades. The two remaining sound ones were Stephen
+Hopkins and Helen Billington, who, as the only female nurse, was called
+upon to attend the sick women, so far as she could; this, of course,
+gave but little time for each patient, and one night the doctor
+hurriedly said to Standish,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Captain, wilt have an eye to-night to those two beds in the corner?
+'T&nbsp;is Priscilla Molines and Desire Minter, both shrewdly burned
+with fever, and needing medicine and care lest they should fall to
+raving before morning. I'd not ask thee, knowing all thou hast on hand,
+but goodwife Billington must not quit"&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Nay, nay, what needs so many words," interrupted Standish. "Give me
+their medicine and directions, I can care for them well enow and for
+Bradford whose huckle-bone<a name="FNanchor_4_4" id="FNanchor_4_4"></a><a href="#Footnote_4_4" class="fnanchor">[4]</a> giveth him sore distress to-night."</p>
+
+<p>"I doubt me if he wins through," said the Doctor softly; "and White and
+Molines will never see the morning, and Mistress Winslow is going
+fast&mdash;well, I leave the maids and Bradford to thee."</p>
+
+<p>"Ay, I'll do my best," replied Standish briefly.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_117" id="Page_117">[Pg 117]</a></span></p><p>And so it came to pass that Priscilla Molines, moaning in her
+feverish unrest, felt a moist linen laid upon her brow and a cup held to
+her parched lips.</p>
+
+<p>"Petite maman!" murmured she, and with those moistened lips kissed the
+hand that held the cup.</p>
+
+<p>Standish sadly smiled a little, and passed on to the next bed where lay
+Desire Minter, not so ill, but far more requiring than Priscilla.</p>
+
+<p>"Here is thy draught, child," said the nurse kindly, as he raised her
+head and put the cup to her lips. Swallowing it eagerly, she lifted her
+jealous eyes and with a smile half cunning, half pathetic,
+whispered,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"I love thee too, but I think it not maidenly to kiss thee till I'm
+asked."</p>
+
+<p>"Nay, girl, thou&nbsp;'rt dreaming or wild," said the Captain
+soothingly. "She, poor maid, is distraught, and took me for her mother.
+She loves me not, nor dost thou, nor do I ask any woman's love."</p>
+
+<p>"Nay, then, thou&nbsp;'rt mocking me. Thou dost love her, and she loves
+thee, for I've heard her say as much; but still I know one that loves
+thee better."</p>
+
+<p>"If thou were not so ill, Desire, I'd find it in my heart to
+say&mdash;but there, sleep poor child, sleep! Thou knowst not what thou
+sayst."</p>
+
+<p>And Standish turned impatiently away to Bradford who suffered
+excruciatingly that night with inflammatory rheumatism in the hip-joint.</p>
+
+<p>The next morning Priscilla awaking refreshed, and for the moment quite
+herself, found her neighbor weeping passionately, yet from time to time
+regarding her in so peculiar a fashion that she said softly,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"What is it, Desire? Art thou in sore pain?"</p>
+
+<p>"It ill fits thee to pity me when it is thou that hast done me such
+despite," whimpered Desire sullenly.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_118" id="Page_118">[Pg 118]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"I! what dost thou mean?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why, I have ever liked our Captain since first I saw him, and now his
+wife is dead and buried, why should he not marry me as well as another?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why not, if it pleaseth him? I forbid not the banns," replied
+Priscilla, the dim wraith of her old smile passing across her face.</p>
+
+<p>"Why not? Because thou hast bewitched him, thou naughty sprite, and thou
+knowest it."</p>
+
+<p>"What dost thou mean, Desire? Speak out and done with it, for thou
+weariest me sore," exclaimed Priscilla impatiently, while the fever
+began to streak her pallid cheek and flame in her great eyes.</p>
+
+<p>"Why, I saw you two kissing last night, and I suppose you're promised to
+each other," muttered the other sulkily, and Priscilla, rising on her
+elbow, fixed on her a glance beneath which the coward quailed, yet
+sullenly murmured,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Well, you did!"</p>
+
+<p>"Desire Minter, thou art lying, and thou knowest it, or else thy wits
+are distraught, or mine."</p>
+
+<p>"Ah, 't&nbsp;is well to try to edge out of it by brow-beating me, but
+thou canst not. I saw you two kissing. When he first came in he went and
+stood beside thy bed and looked down at it, biting at his beard, as is
+his wont when he is moved; and then he fell upon his knees, whispering
+something, and kissed the pillow, over and over, and when he stood up he
+drew his hand across his eyes, and all for love of thee. So now, then!"</p>
+
+<p>"Is that true, Desire? Can it be true that he cares for me in that
+fashion?" asked Priscilla falling back bewildered, for she knew no more
+than did Desire that hers was the bed where Rose Standish had breathed
+her<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_119" id="Page_119">[Pg 119]</a></span> last sigh, and her husband had looked his last on her sweet
+face.</p>
+
+<p>"Certes, 't&nbsp;is true, and thou knowest it better than I, for when,
+later on, he came to give thee a drink and wet thy forehead and lips,
+thou didst give him back his kiss right tenderly, and mutter something
+of 'love' and 'darling.'"</p>
+
+<p>"I kissed Myles Standish!" cried Priscilla wildly.</p>
+
+<p>"Ay, kissed the hand that held the cup, and when he came to me I told
+him I had seen it all, and that I knew before that thou lovedst him."</p>
+
+<p>"Thou saidst I loved him!"</p>
+
+<p>"Ay, and he said he loved thee not, nor any woman, but 't&nbsp;was a
+blind, for such a weary sigh as he fetched, and turned to look again at
+thee."</p>
+
+<p>"I kissed him, and thou saidst I loved him, and he said he loved me
+not!" cried Priscilla blindly; and then with a wild cry she burst into a
+delirious laugh, ending in a shriek that brought Doctor Fuller from the
+next room.</p>
+
+<p>"What is this! what is toward!" demanded he glancing from Priscilla to
+Desire, who replied in her sullen tones,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"I know not, except that Captain Standish and Priscilla are sweethearts,
+and I told her I saw them kissing last night, and haply she is shamed as
+well she may be."</p>
+
+<p>"And well mayst thou be doubly shamed," replied the doctor sternly, "to
+torment her into frenzy with thy jealous fancies, and she already at
+death's door. Thou sawest naught, whatever thou mayst have dreamed; and
+mark me now, Desire Minter, I forbid thee to speak one word more, good
+or bad, to Priscilla<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_120" id="Page_120">[Pg 120]</a></span> Molines while thou stayest here; and if
+thou heedest not, I'll put thee in another house and leave thee to shift
+for thyself."</p>
+
+<p>Thoroughly cowed, the mischief maker promised obedience, and the doctor
+turned to the delirious girl, whom he finally quieted to a moaning
+sleep, in which he left her, muttering to himself as he went,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Not a month since his wife died in that bed&mdash;well&mdash;'t&nbsp;is
+no concern of mine."</p>
+
+<p>And so it came about that the idea of love between Priscilla and
+Standish was planted in four active minds, and in time bore strange and
+bitter fruit.</p>
+
+<p>And so the gloomy days crept on, and the sufferers and the mourners of
+the village which lay half-built beneath the hill passed on to take up
+their dwelling in the village upon the bluff, where, silent pilgrims,
+they lay, row upon row, hands meekly folded, lips close set, and eyes
+forever shut, but yet attaining all that they sought in this their
+pilgrimage, freedom from tyranny even of time and circumstance, freedom
+to worship God in spirit and in truth.</p>
+
+<p>When a conqueror or a tyrant decimates his captives or his subjects, the
+world cries out in horror of such disregard of life, but in this
+instance God spared one half His people from the sorrows and the
+hardships they had come forth to seek, and gave them at once the reward,
+for which their brethren still must toil. Of the hundred and one men,
+women, and children, who followed Gideon to the battle, but fifty were
+chosen to achieve the final conquest.</p>
+
+<p>Among those who survived for a little time was John Goodman, who, after
+lying for weeks at death's door, came slowly back for a while, and in
+the early spring<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_121" id="Page_121">[Pg 121]</a></span> crept out in the sunshine with the faithful
+Pike at his heels. Trying his strength from day to day, he at last
+hobbled down to the brook and across, but was no sooner beyond hail of
+the village than two great gray wolves, stealing from a thicket, sprang
+upon the dog, who, not so venturesome as Nero, ran to take refuge
+between her master's still tender feet, causing them not a little pain.</p>
+
+<p>"Fool! Again without a weapon!" exclaimed John apostrophizing himself,
+and picking up a good-sized stone he threw it, with a shout, at the
+foremost wolf, who retreated snarling to the bushes. Stumbling back
+toward the village as fast as he could, Goodman came presently to a pile
+of stout palings cut for fencing, and arming himself with one cast an
+anxious look behind. It was time, for the wolves, recovering courage as
+he retreated, were in full pursuit, with glaring eyes and lolling
+tongues.</p>
+
+<p>Ordering Pike to crouch behind him, the young fellow stood at bay,
+hooting, shouting, and waving his stave in a semicircle, within whose
+sweep the creatures were not anxious to intrude. Weary at length of
+trying to surprise the fortress by a flank movement, yet reluctant to
+abandon the hope of seizing Pike, the wolves finally seated themselves
+upon their haunches at a little distance and seemed to consult, grinning
+and snapping their teeth from time to time at the spaniel, who cowered
+almost into the ground, whimpering piteously, while her master leaned
+upon his paling and laughed aloud, an insult to which the wolves
+responded by throwing back their heads and uttering howls like those of
+a dog baying the moon. Then suddenly leaping into the bushes they
+disappeared as quickly as they came,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_122" id="Page_122">[Pg 122]</a></span> leaving Goodman, still
+chuckling, to resume his path to the village.</p>
+
+<p>"We'll have a merry tale for Peter Browne this evening, won't we, Pike!"</p>
+
+<p>But while the brave young fellow climbed the little hill from the brook
+to The Street, this smiling expression gave place to one of
+consternation, as he beheld a column of smoke and flame issuing from the
+roof of the house set apart as hospital, and heard a terrified shout
+of,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Fire! Fire!"</p>
+
+<p>"Fire! Fire!" echoed Goodman running toward the spot as fast as his
+tender feet would allow.</p>
+
+<p>Sounder men were before him, however, and when he arrived a ladder was
+placed against the side of the burning house, and Alden, with Billington
+at his heels, was about to mount it, when Brewster exclaiming,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Here's no place for sick men," pushed both aside, ran up the ladder,
+and tearing the blazing thatch from the roof flung it down in handfuls
+so rapidly and effectually that in five minutes the threatened
+conflagration was subdued to smoking embers and a few fugitive flames
+here and there, where already the fire had fastened upon the poles laid
+to support the thatch. Some buckets of water passed up by the little
+crowd below soon extinguished these, and then the Elder, peeping down
+through the damaged roof into the room below, cried cheerily,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"All is safe, friends, and no great harm done."</p>
+
+<p>"God be praised!" exclaimed Bradford's voice from within, and Brewster
+softly said, "Amen!" as he descended the ladder less easily than he had
+mounted it. At the foot he encountered Doctor Fuller, who with<span class='pagenum'><a
+name="Page_123" id="Page_123">[Pg 123]</a></span> Standish had just been to Cole's
+Hill arranging for another line of graves.</p>
+
+<p>"Let me see your hands, Elder," demanded the physician in his usual dry
+fashion.</p>
+
+<p>"No need,'t&nbsp;is naught. Go look after your sick folk," replied the
+Elder trying to push past, but Fuller caught him by the sleeve,
+exclaiming sharply,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"A man whose hands are needed for others as oft as thine are, has no
+right to let them become useless, and 't&nbsp;is not in reason but they
+are burned."</p>
+
+<p>"You're right, Fuller, and I'm but a froward child," said Brewster, a
+sudden smile replacing the frown of pain upon his face, and obediently
+opening out his burned and bleeding palms. "Come to the Common house, so
+as not to fright my wife within there, and do them up with some of your
+wonderful balsam."</p>
+
+<p>"And were it not for thought of your work, you would not have let me see
+them," said Fuller glancing from under his penthouse brows with a look
+of cynical admiration.</p>
+
+<p>"One cannot give thought to every pin-prick with such deadly sickness on
+all sides," replied Brewster simply. "Best go into the hospital and see
+if thy poor dying folk have taken any harm of the fright before thou
+lookest after me."</p>
+
+<p>"The Captain has gone into the sick-house. I'll hold on to you,"
+returned the Doctor curtly, and Brewster yielded with his ever gracious
+smile.</p>
+
+<p>That evening as the Elder with his bandaged hands, Carver, gaunt and
+pale from an attack of fever, Standish, Winslow, John Howland, and
+Doctor Fuller sat at supper in the Common house, Master Jones, followed
+by a sailor heavily laden, presented himself at the door.<span class='pagenum'><a
+name="Page_124" id="Page_124">[Pg 124]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Good e'en, Masters, and how are your sick folk?" demanded he, in a
+would-be cordial voice.</p>
+
+<p>"Thanks for your courtesy, Master Jones," replied the governor with
+grave politeness. "They are doing reasonably well, except some few who
+do not seem like to mend in this world."</p>
+
+<p>"And Master Bradford? Sure he is not going to die?" pursued Jones in a
+voice of strange anxiety, as he sank into the great arm-chair Carver had
+proffered him.</p>
+
+<p>"He is as low as a man can be and live," broke in the doctor gruffly, as
+he fixed Jones with a glance of angry reproach, beneath which even that
+rough companion quailed.</p>
+
+<p>"He sent aboard yesterday begging a can of beer," blurted he, his brown
+face reddening a little.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," replied the governor sternly, "and you made answer that though it
+were your own father needing it, you would not stint yourself."</p>
+
+<p>"I said it, and I don't deny it," retorted Jones with a feeble attempt
+at bluster. "But any man has a right to change his mind if he find
+cause, and I've changed mine as you will see, for I've brought not a
+can, but a runlet of beer for Bradford, and any others who crave it and
+are like to die wanting it; and when that is gone if Master Carver will
+send on board asking it for the sick folk, he shall have it though I be
+forced to drink water myself on the voyage home. I'll have no dead men
+haunting me and bringing a plague upon the ship."</p>
+
+<p>"Truly we are greatly beholden to you, Master Jones," began Carver in
+great surprise, but the mariner raised his hand and continued,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Nay, hear me out, for that's not all. I went ashore<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_125" id="Page_125">[Pg 125]</a></span> to-day and
+shot five geese, and here they are, all of them, not one spared, though
+I could have well fancied a bit of goose to my supper, but I brought all
+to you, and more than that, even, for here is the better half of a buck
+we found in the wood ready shot to our hand. The Indians had cut off his
+horns and carried them away, and doubtless were gone for help to carry
+the carcase home when we came upon it; haply they saw us coming and made
+a run for it; at all odds they had left him as he fell, and Sir Wolf was
+already tearing at his throat so busily that he knew not friends were
+nigh, until a bullet through his head heralded our coming. So here are
+the haunches for you, and I content myself with the poorer parts."</p>
+
+<p>Taking the articles named from a bag which the sailor had at his
+direction laid upon the floor, Jones ranged them in an imposing line in
+the centre of the room, and resuming his chair looked at his hosts still
+in that conciliatory and half timid manner so utterly new to them and
+foreign to his usual demeanor.</p>
+
+<p>"We are, indeed, deeply beholden to you, Master Jones," said Carver at
+length in his grave and courteous tones. "But if I may freely speak my
+thought, and if I read my brethren's minds aright, we cannot but muse
+curiously upon this sudden and marvelous change in your dealings with
+us, and would fain know its meaning."</p>
+
+<p>"Feeling certain that Master Jones is not one to give something for
+nothing, and so in common prudence wishing to know at the outset what
+price he expects for bearing himself in Christian charity, as he seemeth
+desirous to do," suggested Standish with more candor than diplomacy.</p>
+
+<p>"Thou&nbsp;'rt ever ready with thy gibes on better men<span class='pagenum'><a
+name="Page_126" id="Page_126">[Pg 126]</a></span> than thyself, art not?" exclaimed
+Jones turning angrily upon him. For reply Standish leaned back in his
+chair, pulled at his red beard, and laughed contemptuously; but Winslow
+hastily interposed with a voice like oil upon the waves.</p>
+
+<p>"Our captain will still have his jest upon all of us, Master Jones, but
+in truth as the governor hath said, we cannot but admire at this
+wonderful generosity on thy part, and fain would know whence it
+ariseth."</p>
+
+<p>"Why, sure 't&nbsp;is not far to seek," replied Jones with a hideous
+grimace intended for a conciliatory smile; "we have ever been good
+friends, have we not, and you all wish me well, as I do all of you.
+Certes, none of you would try to bring evil upon our heads, lest it fall
+upon your own instead, for still those who wish ill to others fall upon
+ill luck themselves. Is it not so, Elder?"</p>
+
+<p>"Art speaking of Christian doctrine, or of heathen superstition, Master
+Jones?" inquired the Elder fixing his mild, yet penetrating eyes upon
+the seaman, who slunk beneath their gaze.</p>
+
+<p>"Nay, then!" blustered he rising to his feet, "I came hither when I
+would fain have stayed in my own cabin aboard, and I came not to chop
+logic nor to be put to the question like a malefactor, but to bring help
+to my sick neighbors, who, to be sure, cried out for it lustily enough
+before they got it, but now pick and question at my good meat and drink
+as if 't&nbsp;were like to poison them. Well, that's an end on&nbsp;'t,
+and you can take it or leave it, as you will. Good e'en to you."</p>
+
+<p>"Nay, nay, Master Jones," interposed Carver hastily, as the angry man
+made toward the door. "Let us not part thus, especially in view of thy
+great kindness<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_127" id="Page_127">[Pg 127]</a></span> toward us, for which, in good sooth, we are more
+grateful than we have yet expressed. Let pass the over curious queries
+we have ventured, and sit up at the table for a little meat and drink,
+such as it may be. Here is some broiled fish, and here some
+clams"&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"I care not for eating, having finished mine own supper but now,"
+grumbled Jones sinking back into Carver's arm-chair; "still if you'll
+broach yon runlet of beer I'll taste a mug on&nbsp;'t, for my throat is
+as dry as a chimbley."</p>
+
+<p>"The beer is for our sick folk who crave it as they gather their
+strength," said Carver pleasantly; "but we have here a case of strong
+waters of our own, if that will serve thy turn."</p>
+
+<p>"Why, ay,&nbsp;'t&nbsp;will serve my turn better than t'&nbsp;other,"
+replied Jones drawing his hairy hand across his mouth with an agreeable
+smile, as he added,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"I did but ask for the beer, thinking you who are well needed the
+spirits for yourselves."</p>
+
+<p>"We can spare what we need for ourselves more lightly than what we need
+for others," said Carver in that grand simplicity of nature which fails
+to perceive the magnificence of its own impulses. And from a shelf above
+his head the governor took a square bottle of spirits, while Howland
+poured water from a kettle over the fire into a pewter flagon, and
+produced a sugar bason from a chest in the corner of the room. These,
+with a smaller pewter cup, he placed before the seaman who eagerly mixed
+himself a stiff dram, drank it, and prepared another, which he sipped
+luxuriously, as leaning back in his chair he looked slowly around the
+circle of his entertainers, and finally burst forth,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"The plain truth is, there are no folk like these in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_128" id="Page_128">[Pg 128]</a></span> any
+latitude I've sailed, and a man must deal with them accordingly.
+'T&nbsp;is what I told Clarke and Coppin before I came ashore. What men
+but you would give another what you want yourselves, and lacking it may
+find yourselves in worse case than him you help? And&nbsp;'t&nbsp;is not
+all chat, for still I've marked it both afloat and ashore, and the poor
+wretches you've left in the ship will pluck the morsel from their own
+lips to put it to another's.</p>
+
+<p>"So it is, that with all your losses, a kind of good luck aye follows
+you, and I shall not marvel if, in the end, you build up your colony
+here, and see good days when I am&mdash;well, it matters not
+where&mdash;I doubt me if priests or parsons know. But they who flout
+you or do you a churlish turn find no good luck resting on them, but
+rather a curse,&mdash;yea, I've marked that too. 'T&nbsp;is better to be
+friends than foes with some folk."</p>
+
+<p>"'Timeo Daneos et dona ferentes,'" quoted Winslow in the ear of Elder
+Brewster, who sat watching the sailor curiously, and now suddenly
+said,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"And so thy shipmen are very ill too, Master Jones!"</p>
+
+<p>"Lo you, now! I said naught of it, and how well you knew. What dost
+mean, Elder?"</p>
+
+<p>"Naught but friendly interest like thine own," replied the Elder gently,
+yet never removing that steadfast gaze, beneath which Jones fidgeted
+impatiently, and finally cried in a sort of desperate surrender,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Well, then, as well you know already,&nbsp;'t&nbsp;is that matter
+brought me here to-night. My men have sickened daily, and everything
+hath gone awry, since we bundled you and your goods ashore a month or so
+agone, when some of you were fain to tarry aboard, or at least leave
+your stuff there, and come and go."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_129" id="Page_129">[Pg 129]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"But thou wast afeard we should drink thy beer by stealth. Nay, thou
+saidst it," declared Standish disdainfully.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, yes, I'll not go back of saying it," retorted Jones half abashed
+and half defiant. "For where else shall you find me men who will drink
+water if another man hath beer where they may get it?"</p>
+
+<p>"We heard from our friends on board that scurvy had broken out among the
+shipmen," said Carver motioning Standish to hold his peace.</p>
+
+<p>"Scurvy, and fever, and rheumaticks, and flux, and the foul fiend
+knoweth what beside," replied Jones desperately. "Now Clarke hath still
+been warning me that you were so sib with the saints"&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Nay, God forbid!" ejaculated Brewster.</p>
+
+<p>Jones looked at him in astonishment, then nodding his head as one who
+yields a point he cannot understand continued: "Well, if not the saints,
+whosoever you have put in their room; but Clarke says you are e'en like
+the warlocks of olden time who called fire out of heaven on their
+enemies, and it came as oft as they called; and he says Master Brewster
+is like some Messire Moses who dealt all manner of ill to those who
+crossed him; and I marked, and so did Clarke, how yester morn when I
+denied Bradford the beer he craved, and answered the governor in so
+curst a humor, three men fell ill before night, and two, who were
+mending, died in torment. And Clarke said, and so it seemed most like to
+me, that&nbsp;'t&nbsp;was you had done it, and might yet do worse; and
+so I would fain be friends, and I come myself to bring the beer and the
+meat, and I'll promise to do as much again and again; nay, I'll swear it
+by the toe of St. Hubert, that my mother paid gold<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_130" id="Page_130">[Pg 130]</a></span> to kiss for
+me or ever I was born, yea, I'll swear it, if you masters will take off
+the curse, and promise to say masses, nay, nay, to say sermons and make
+mention of me to the Lord."</p>
+
+<p>"Knowest thou what the Apostle Peter said to one Simon Magus when he
+would have bought the grace of God for gold?" demanded Brewster sternly.</p>
+
+<p>"Nay, I never knew any of thy folk before," replied Jones humbly; but
+Winslow consulting the pacific governor with his eyes smoothly
+interposed,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Surely we will pray for thee and for thy men, Master Jones, albeit our
+prayers have no more weight than those of any other sinful men, and our
+Elder hath neither the power nor the will to bring plagues upon our
+enemies. There is naught of art-magic in our practices, I do assure
+thee, master."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I know not; but in all honesty I'd rather be friends than foes
+with men like you."</p>
+
+<p>"And friends we are most heartily," said Carver. "Our folk on board are
+still mending, are they not?"</p>
+
+<p>"Rigdale and Tinker are yet in bed, and their wives wait upon them, hand
+and foot, though fitter to be in their own beds. And not only on them,
+but now and again find time to run and give a drink or some such
+tendance to our men lying groaning at the other side the bulkhead. You
+mind that knave boatswain who still scoffed and swore at thy prayers,
+Elder, and so grievously flouted the first who fell sick among you?"</p>
+
+<p>Brewster nodded, and Standish bringing his clenched fist down upon the
+table growled,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"I mind him so well that I've promised him a skin full of broken bones
+the first time I catch him ashore."</p>
+
+<p>"Then thou&nbsp;'lt be glad to know that he lies a-dying to-night,"
+replied Jones with horrible na&iuml;v&eacute;t&eacute;.<span class='pagenum'><a
+name="Page_131" id="Page_131">[Pg 131]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Dying!"</p>
+
+<p>"No question on&nbsp;'t; and this morning as he lay groaning in sore
+distress, and calling upon one and another to wait on him, and none had
+time or stomach for it, goodwife Rigdale came to the caboose for a
+morsel of meat after her night's watch, and hearing him she cried,
+'Alack, poor soul!' and hasted to him with the very cup she was just
+putting to her own lips. The dog fastened to it, I promise you, and
+drank every drop, then gazing up at her asked a bit too late,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"'Hast any left for thyself?'</p>
+
+<p>"She smiled on him with that white face she wears nowadays and
+said,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"'Nay, but thou&nbsp;'rt more than welcome.' Then says Master Boatswain,
+not knowing that I heard him,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"'Oh, if I was set to get over this, as well do I know I am not, I would
+ask no better than to join your company and forswear all I have held
+dear. For now do I see how true Christians carry themselves to each
+other when they are in trouble, while we heathen let each other lie and
+die like dogs.'</p>
+
+<p>"So the poor wench, fit to drop as she was, knelt and began praying for
+him, and I stole away."</p>
+
+<p>"But do not those men care one for another in their sickness?" asked
+Brewster indignantly.</p>
+
+<p>"As yonder wolf tended upon the dying buck," replied Jones with a
+careless laugh. "To drink his blood while it was warm was his chief
+care, and my men part the gear of their dying messmates before their
+eyes. Why, one of the quartermasters, Williams, thou knowest, would fain
+have hired Bowman, the other quartermaster, to befriend him to the last,
+and promised him all his goods if he should die, and money if he got
+well;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_132" id="Page_132">[Pg 132]</a></span> but the knave did but make him two messes of broth, and
+some kind of posset to drink o' nights, and then left him, swearing all
+over the ship that Williams was cozening him by living so long, and he
+would do no more for him though he starved, and yet the poor soul lay
+a-dying then."</p>
+
+<p>"And Bowman had his goods?" demanded Howland sternly.</p>
+
+<p>"Ay had he, or ever the breath was out of the body. Then there was
+Cooper, who died cursing and swearing at his wife, and her spendthrift
+ways, that wasted all his wage and still sent him to gather more. And
+there was the gunner whose whole thought was that he must quit his gear,
+and would have his chest stand where he could see it, and the key under
+his pillow to the last; and when one of your men asked would he listen
+to a bit of a prayer he bawled out with a curse, 'Nay, what profit was
+there in prayers, or who would pay him for hearkening.'</p>
+
+<p>"I tell you, masters, 't&nbsp;is the worst port ever I made, and albeit
+I'm not a man of dainty or queasy stomach, it turns me sick to see and
+hear such things, and know that I'm master of a crew bound for hell
+though we called it Virginia."</p>
+
+<p>"Mayhap if the Mayflower's crew had used more diligence in seeking to
+land us in Virginia they had not themselves made the port thou speakest
+of," said Standish bitterly, while Carver, sighing profoundly, pushed
+back from the table in sign that the conference was ended, but said in a
+voice of unfeigned friendliness,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Truly, Master Jones, thou needest and shall have our kindliest
+sympathy, and our prayers, for this that you tell of is a fearful
+condition, and a fatal for both<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_133" id="Page_133">[Pg 133]</a></span> body and soul, and well may you
+call upon Almighty God for pardon and for mercy. If any of your men are
+fain to come on shore we will receive them and give such tendance as we
+do to our own, and right certain am I that those of our company yet on
+board will do all that they are able for you. Forgetting the past, about
+which we might justly murmur if we would, we are ready in your necessity
+to reckon you as brothers, and to spend and to be spent in your service,
+as God giveth ability.</p>
+
+<p>"Will it please thee to tarry while we hold our evening devotions, and
+join thy prayers to ours, that the Lord will have mercy upon all of us?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, I'll tarry, though 't&nbsp;is not greatly in my way. Haply He
+might take it amiss if I went," muttered Jones looking about him
+uneasily, while Carver regarded his hopeless neophyte with divine
+compassion, and Elder Brewster prayed long and fervently that not only
+the children should be fed, but that the dogs might eat of the crumbs
+that fell from the table, and that in the end even the sons of Belial
+might be forgiven their blindness and hardness of heart, and receive
+even though undeservingly the uncovenanted mercies of God.</p>
+
+<p>Fortunately for his good intentions the object of many of these
+petitions quite failed to comprehend them, and when the devotion was
+over rose and went away far more gently than he had come.<span class='pagenum'><a
+name="Page_134" id="Page_134">[Pg 134]</a></span></p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<h2>CHAPTER XII.</h2>
+
+<h3>THE HEADLESS ARROW.</h3>
+
+
+<p>"Where is the governor? Hast seen him of late, Mistress Priscilla?"</p>
+
+<p>"Nay, Peter Browne, not since breakfast; but what is thy great haste?
+Have the skies fallen, or our friends the lions eaten up Nero?"</p>
+
+<p>"Nay, then, 't&nbsp;is worse than lions; ay, here is Master Carver."</p>
+
+<p>"Here am I, Peter, and what wouldst thou with me in such haste?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why, sir, I have ill news. This morning I went a-fowling to a pond
+beyond that where we cut thatch and fell into such mishap, and as I lay
+quiet at my stand waiting till the ducks might swim my way, I saw, for I
+heard naught, twelve stout salvages all painted and trimmed up, carrying
+bows and arrows and every man his little axe at his girdle. Each glided
+after each like shadows upon the water, so still and smooth, and they
+seemed making for the town. Then as I bent my ear to the quarter whence
+they came I caught the far-off echo of that same fiendish cry that
+saluted us at the First Encounter, and would seem to be their war-cry or
+slogan."</p>
+
+<p>"And then?"</p>
+
+<p>"I waited till all were past and all sound died away, and then I fetched
+a compass, and ran home as fast as I might to warn the company and the
+captain."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_135" id="Page_135">[Pg 135]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"And thou didst well, Peter," replied Carver musingly, while Priscilla
+standing in the doorway behind him, with Mary Chilton at her side,
+nodded mockingly, and clapped her hands in silent applause.</p>
+
+<p>Turning suddenly, the governor surprised her antics, but smiling,
+asked,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Dost know, Priscilla, whither Captain Standish went this morning?"</p>
+
+<p>"He and Francis Cooke went a-field so soon as they had done breakfast,
+sir, and as they carried axes and wedges in hand, it would seem they had
+gone to rive timber," replied Priscilla demurely.</p>
+
+<p>"Ay, like enough; but as 't&nbsp;is near noon, when they will be home
+for dinner, we will e'en wait till we have the captain's counsel, and
+meantime I'll see that all have their arms in readiness."</p>
+
+<p>"And I will go help to make the dinner ready," said Priscilla. "Thou
+canst lay the table, Mary."</p>
+
+<p>"Ay," replied the girl listlessly, and turning suddenly to hide the
+tears that filled her blue eyes. Priscilla looked after her, and the
+forced gayety faded from her own face as she put her arm about her
+friend's waist and led her away.</p>
+
+<p>"Nay, then, nay, then," whispered she; "no more crying, poppet! Didst
+thou not cry half the night in spite of all I could say?"</p>
+
+<p>"But how can I be gay, and father and mother both dead, and I so weak
+and ailing, and alone."</p>
+
+<p>"But, Mary, I have lost more than that," said Priscilla in a low voice,
+and with that hard constraint of manner common to those who seldom speak
+of their emotions.</p>
+
+<p>"I know thou hast lost father, mother, brother"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_136" id="Page_136">[Pg 136]</a></span>&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"And even the faithful servant whom I remember in the dear old home when
+I was a toddling child," said Priscilla gloomily.</p>
+
+<p>"Ay, but some have tenderer hearts than others and feel these things
+more cruelly," persisted Mary weeping unrestrainedly.</p>
+
+<p>Priscilla removed her arm from the others waist and stood for a moment
+looking out at the open door with a mirthless smile upon her lips. Then,
+with one long sigh, she turned, and patting Mary's heaving shoulder said
+gently enough,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"I'm more grieved for thee than I can tell, dear Mary; but still I find
+that to busy one's self in many ways, and to put on as light-hearted a
+look as one can muster, is a help to grief. See now poor Elizabeth
+Tilley. She hath cried herself ill, and must tarry in bed where is
+naught to divert her grief. Is it not better to keep afoot and be of use
+to others, at least?"</p>
+
+<p>"Ay, I suppose so," replied Mary disconsolately.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, then, lay the table, while I try if the meat is boiled. Oh, if we
+had but some turnips, or a cabbage, or aught beside beans to eat with
+it."</p>
+
+<p>"Canst not make a sauce of biscuit crumbs and butter and an onion, as
+thou didst for the birds?" asked Mary drying her eyes.</p>
+
+<p>"Sauce for birds is not sauce for boiled beef," replied Priscilla, her
+artistic taste shocked not a little; "but if thou&nbsp;'lt be good, I'll
+toss thee up a dainty bit for thyself."</p>
+
+<p>"And me, too!" exclaimed Desire Minter, who had just come in at the
+door.</p>
+
+<p>"And thee, too," echoed Priscilla. "But, Desire, dost know the Indians
+are upon us, and they'll no doubt<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_137" id="Page_137">[Pg 137]</a></span> eat thee first of all, for
+thou&nbsp;'rt both fat and tender, and will prove a dainty bit thyself,
+I doubt not."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, dear maids, is the noon-meat ready?" asked Mistress Brewster's
+gentle voice at the door. "Dame Carver would fain have some porridge,
+and if thou&nbsp;'lt move thy kettle a bit, Priscilla, I will make it
+myself."</p>
+
+<p>"Now, dear mother, why should you do aught but rest, with three great
+girls standing idle before you?" cried Priscilla gently seating the
+weary woman in her husband's arm-chair. "I will make the porridge while
+Desire lifts the beef from the pot, and Mary lays the table. Our mother
+is more than tired with last night's watching beside Mistress Carver."</p>
+
+<p>"Nay, then, child, I'll rest a minute, since I have such willing hands
+to wait on me, and well I know thou art the most delicate cook among us.
+Dame Carver will be the gainer."</p>
+
+<p>And leaning her head against the back of the chair, poor, weary Mistress
+Brewster closed her eyes, and even dozed, while the three girls busily
+carried on their tasks, with low-voiced murmurs of talk that rather
+soothed than disturbed the sleeper.</p>
+
+<p>The first plan, of dividing the settlers into nineteen families and
+building a house for each, had been abandoned before more than two or
+three of the houses were begun, and now that the prostrating sickness
+interrupting their plans was past, and the survivors counted, it was
+found that sadly few dwellings were needed to contain them, so that at
+present all were divided among four or five houses, although as the men
+gained strength for labor each wrought upon his future home in all the
+time to be spared from the common needs.</p>
+
+<p>The house where we have found Priscilla was that of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_138" id="Page_138">[Pg 138]</a></span> Elder
+Brewster, situated on the corner of The Street and the King's Highway,
+as the Pilgrims called the path crossing The Street at right angles, and
+leading down to the brook, although to-day we should say that the
+elder's house stood on the corner of Leyden and Market streets; like all
+others built at this time, it was a low structure covered in with planks
+hewn from the forest trees, and roofed with thatch. At each side of the
+entrance door lay a tolerably large room, that on the right hand,
+nearest to the brook, used as kitchen, dining, and general living room,
+while the other was the family sleeping room, and also used as a
+withdrawing room, where the elder held counsel with the governor, or
+other friends, and studied his exhortation for the coming Sunday; here,
+also, Mistress Brewster led her boys, or the maidens she guided, for
+reproof, counsel, or tender comforting. At the back of this room,
+partitioned by a curtain, was a nook, where Wrestling, a delicate child
+of six, and Love, his sturdier brother, two years older, nestled like
+kittens in a little cot. Above in the loft, reached by a ladder-like
+staircase, was a comfortable room appropriated to Mary Chilton,
+Priscilla Molines, and Elizabeth Tilley, all orphaned within three
+months, and at once adopted by the Elder's wife as her especial charge.</p>
+
+<p>In the next house, on a lot of land appropriated at first to John
+Goodman and some others, the governor had taken up his abode with his
+delicate wife, her maid Lois, Desire Minter their ward, and several
+children whom she cared for. John Howland, the governor's secretary and
+right-hand man, also lived here, and, like the manly man he was,
+hesitated not to give help wherever it was needed.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_139" id="Page_139">[Pg 139]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Owing to Mrs. Carver's very delicate health, it had been arranged that
+this family should share the table at Elder Brewster's, where the young
+girls just mentioned were ready and glad to take charge of the household
+labors, leaving their elders free for other matters.</p>
+
+<p>In another house, placed in charge of Stephen Hopkins and his bustling
+wife, nearly all the unmarried men were gathered, and made a hearty and
+soberly jocund family. The third house, headed by Isaac Allerton and his
+daughters, was the home of Bradford, Winslow, Mistress Susannah White,
+with her children, Resolved and Peregrine, and her brother, Doctor
+Fuller, with their little nephew, Samuel Fuller, whose father and mother
+both lay on Cole's Hill.</p>
+
+<p>In the Common house, under charge of Master Warren, with the Billingtons
+as officials, were gathered the rest of the company except Standish, who
+slept in his own house on the hill, but had his place at Elder
+Brewster's table when he chose to take it.</p>
+
+<p>Hither he now came, silent and grave as was his wont since Rose died,
+but ever ready to give his aid and sympathy, whether in handicraft or
+counsel, to the governor, the elder, or the women struggling with
+unwonted labors. Of lamentation there was none, and since the day the
+soldier stood beside that open grave and watched the mould piled upon
+the coffin his own hands had fashioned no man, not even the elder, had
+heard his wife's name, or any allusion to his loss, pass his lips; yet
+those who knew him best marked well the line that had deepened between
+his brows, the still endurance of his eyes, and the sadness underlying
+every intonation of his voice; and those who knew him not, and had in
+their shallower natures no chord to vibrate in sympathy with this
+grand<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_140" id="Page_140">[Pg 140]</a></span> patience, comprehended it not, and seeing him thus ready
+and helpful, not evading such pleasant talk as lightened the toil of his
+comrades, not preoccupied or gloomy, these thought the light wound was
+already healed, and more than one beside Desire Minter speculated upon
+his second choice.</p>
+
+<p>Listening to the governor's report of Browne's discovery, Standish
+nodded, as not surprised, and said,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Ay,&nbsp;'t&nbsp;is sure to come, soon or late, and a peace won by arms
+is stronger than one framed of words. When the salvages have made their
+onset and we have chastised them roundly, we shall be right good
+friends. Meantime, Francis Cooke and I left our adzes and wedges where
+we were hewing plank, and so soon as I have taken bite and sup I'll
+forth to look for them with my snaphance."</p>
+
+<p>"We've heard of locking the stable door when the steed was stolen,"
+murmured Priscilla to Mary, and the captain, whose ear was quick as a
+hare's, half turned toward her with a glint of laughter in his eyes.</p>
+
+<p>But the jibe was prophetic, for when, half an hour later, Standish and
+Cooke returned to the tree they had felled, the tools were all gone, and
+a headless arrow was left standing derisively in the cleft of a log.</p>
+
+<p>"Hm! A cartel of defiance," said the captain drawing it out and grimly
+examining it. "Well,&nbsp;'t&nbsp;is like our savage forefathers of
+Britain challenging Julius C&aelig;sar and the Roman power. But come,
+Cooke,&nbsp;'t&nbsp;is certain we cannot rive plank with our naked
+hands, and since our tools are gone, we had best go home and work at the
+housen. To-morrow we'll take some order with these masters."<span class='pagenum'><a
+name="Page_141" id="Page_141">[Pg 141]</a></span></p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<h2>CHAPTER XIII.</h2>
+
+<h3>THE CAPTAIN'S PROMOTION.</h3>
+
+
+<p>The afternoon and evening were devoted to a thorough review and
+furbishing of weapons, many of which had suffered from exposure and
+neglect during the press of building and of sickness.</p>
+
+<p>And surely never could artist find better subject for his painting than
+the scene at Elder Brewster's fireside that night where upon the hearth
+Standish and Alden moulded a heap of silvery bullets, while Priscilla
+and Mary and Elizabeth Tilley twirled their spinning-wheels, or knitted
+the long woolen hose worn both by men and women in those days, looking
+demurely from time to time toward the hearth, where Alden occasionally
+dropped a little boiling lead into a skillet of hot water, and nodded to
+one or other of the girls as he drew out the emblems thus formed.</p>
+
+<p>At the back of the room gathered Brewster and Winslow and Carver and
+Bradford, discussing plans of defense in low and eager tones, while over
+all fell the broad and ruddy light of the floods of flame that rushed
+weltering up the chimney and out upon the night, carrying tidings to the
+wild woods and wilder men crouching in their depths that here were
+encamped a little band of invaders stronger than the primeval forest,
+stronger than the primeval man, stronger than Nature, stronger than
+Tradition.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_142" id="Page_142">[Pg 142]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Then it is well resolved," said Carver rising at last and coming toward
+the fire, "that to-morrow, so soon as we have committed ourselves to
+God's protection, and broken our fast, we will assemble with all the men
+of our company in the Common house, and take counsel for the safety and
+guidance of the colony. Does this movement suit you, Captain Standish?"</p>
+
+<p>"Ay, Governor. A council of war is ever fitting prelude to action,"
+replied Standish laying down his bullet-mould and standing up.</p>
+
+<p>"And this is a council <i>coram populo</i>," said Winslow smiling. "A
+congress of the whole people."</p>
+
+<p>"Our first town-meeting, if indeed we be a town," said Bradford,
+answering Winslow's smile.</p>
+
+<p>"Alden, we name you sheriff <i>pro tempore</i>, to warn the brethren of this
+convention. All the men, mind you," said the governor quietly.</p>
+
+<p>"But none of the women, mark you!" whispered Priscilla to John as Carver
+turned aside.</p>
+
+<p>"Nay, who ever heard of women clamoring to be heard among men in
+council," suggested Mary Chilton, while Alden, with a side glance and
+smile at the merry maids, followed the governor a step and said,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Ay, sir, and I will moreover warn goodwife Billington to-night, that
+she may have the Common house redded betimes."</p>
+
+<p>"Well thought on, John," replied Carver smiling, for goodwife
+Billington's untidiness was but too notorious among her associates.</p>
+
+<p>"Thou&nbsp;'lt have to lay a hand to&nbsp;'t&nbsp;thyself, John,"
+murmured Priscilla as the young man returned to the fire to gather up
+the bullets and moulds, and if it must be confessed to seize the chance
+of one more word with<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_143" id="Page_143">[Pg 143]</a></span> Priscilla; "best bring up two or three
+buckets of sand from the beach, and when yon slattern hath done her
+best, spill you the sand over all, and so hide her shortcomings."</p>
+
+<p>"'T&nbsp;is good advice, as thine ever is," returned the lover, and so
+energetic did Goody Billington find both his reminders and his help that
+evening and the next morning, that the Common house was set in order at
+a good hour, and by nine o'clock the Council, consisting of nineteen
+men, all that were left of the forty-one who signed the original compact
+on board the Mayflower, gathered around the table, where beside the
+governor sat Howland, ready to take minutes of the proceedings of the
+meeting, and, as it were, to open the Town Records of Plymouth.</p>
+
+<p>The governor in a short address set forth the danger which evidently
+menaced the little colony, and invited the opinion of the freemen
+assembled as to the means of meeting it. One and another offered his
+brief remarks, and at last Bradford in a few strong and sensible words
+proposed that the whole company there present should be resolved into a
+military body, and properly exercised in the use of arms and tactics of
+defense.</p>
+
+<p>"That is my own thought, Master Bradford," replied Carver eagerly; "and
+this course is the more feasible that we have among us a man so skilled
+in warfare, and so judicious in counsel as our brother Standish, who
+hath already the rank of Captain in the armies of our sovereign King
+James, and hath for love of liberty and the truth given up the sure
+prospect of advancement in the king's armies, now that the hordes of
+Spain are again let loose upon our Dutch allies, and every British
+soldier is called to their defense. I therefore propose<span class='pagenum'><a
+name="Page_144" id="Page_144">[Pg 144]</a></span> that we appoint Captain Standish
+our military <ins title="Transcriber's note: Hyphen added to 'commander in-chief'">commander-in-chief</ins>, with full power to organize, order, and
+enforce his authority as he shall see best for the interests of the
+community, and I for one place myself in all such matters under his
+command, and promise to answer to his summons, and yield to his counsel
+in all things appertaining to warfare, offensive or defensive."</p>
+
+<p>"And I say as doth the governor," added Winslow, turning his astute and
+thoughtful face to Standish, with a smile of brotherly confidence.</p>
+
+<p>"And I," added Bradford heartily, and the word of assent went round the
+table, until each man had given his personal adherence to the new
+commander-in-chief, and Brewster closed the list by saying with a
+benevolent smile,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"And I, although a man of peace, and too well stricken in years to
+become an active soldier, will in time of need refuse not to strike a
+blow under our captain's command for the defense of those God hath
+entrusted to our care."</p>
+
+<p>"And shall we call Master Standish General, or how shall we mark his new
+dignity?" asked Hopkins a little pompously.</p>
+
+<p>"Nay, I'll be naught but Captain," replied Standish hastily. "So runneth
+my commission from good Queen Bess, heaven rest her soul, and here have
+we neither parchment nor seals, no, nor authority for making out new
+commissions. I have that I tell of, and 't&nbsp;is enough: 'Our well
+beloved Captain, Myles Standish,' it runneth, and by that name I'll live
+and die. But aside from that, I would say, friends, that I am well
+pleased at the trust you place in me, and that so long as God giveth me
+life and strength I will heartily place them at the service of
+this"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_145" id="Page_145">[Pg 145]</a></span>&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>But a shriek, followed by a hubbub of voices, and the pattering of many
+light feet, broke off the captain's sentence, and brought several of the
+Council to their feet, and to the door, just as it was burst open by a
+crowd of women and children all clamoring,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"The Indians! They are upon us! They are coming into the housen! Haste!
+Haste if ye be men!"</p>
+
+<p>Not waiting to question farther, Standish seized his snaphance which in
+these days seldom was out of reach, and briefly shouting, "Follow me!"
+rushed out, looked about him, and seeing nothing seized young John
+Billington by the arm and demanded, "Where are these Indians, thou
+yelping cur! Didst rouse that hubbub for naught?"</p>
+
+<p>"Nay, Bart Allerton and Johnny Cooke and I all saw them"&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Well, lead on, and show them to me too," demanded the captain sternly,
+and preceded by the half-frightened, half-delighted boys, and followed
+in more or less order by his new army, he marched up Leyden and down
+Market streets, until across the brook on the crest of a little hill two
+savages in full panoply of war suddenly appeared, and gazed defiantly
+upon the white men.</p>
+
+<p>"Governor, the advance guard of the enemy is in sight, and I propose
+that I with another, cross the brook and parley with him," said Standish
+turning to Carver and unconsciously resuming the stiff military manner
+and habit of a trained soldier in actual service.</p>
+
+<p>"Your powers are discretionary, Captain Standish," replied Carver with
+gentle dignity. "All is left in your own hands, always remembering that
+we desire peace rather than war, if so be we may have it in honor."</p>
+
+<p>"Hopkins, wilt volunteer to come with me?" asked<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_146" id="Page_146">[Pg 146]</a></span> the captain
+briefly, and as briefly the veteran answered, "Ay, Captain," and
+followed.</p>
+
+<p>But as the party of parley approached, the Indian scouts withdrew, and
+before Standish could reach the spot where they had stood no creature
+was in sight, although the stir and murmur of a multitude not seeking to
+conceal itself were heard from the woods densely clothing Watson's Hill
+and the valley between.</p>
+
+<p>Returning with this report to the town, the captain gave it as his
+opinion that so long as the enemy held off he should be left undisturbed
+while the colony devoted itself to works of defense, especially
+finishing and arming the Fort upon the hill, and making it ready for
+immediate use.</p>
+
+<p>"It were well that you and I, Governor, went aboard this morning and
+stirred up Master Jones to get out our ordnance and help fetch it
+ashore," concluded he. "Shall we go at once?"</p>
+
+<p>"So soon as the tide makes, Captain; for when the water is out, our
+harbor is somewhat wet for walking, yet by no means suited for
+navigation," replied Carver casting a whimsical glance at the verdant
+flats, then as now replacing the tides of Plymouth Harbor.</p>
+
+<p>"A wise provision of Nature whereby the clams are twice a day left
+within our reach," replied Standish in the same tone. "After noon-meat
+then, we will go."</p>
+
+<p>But when the governor and the captain arrived on board the Mayflower
+they found Jones too stupid with liquor to listen to any plans, and too
+short-handed when he had been made to understand to carry them out with
+half the dispatch the ardent spirit of Standish prompted, so that all
+they effected was to have two of the larger pieces hoisted out of the
+hold, and one landed<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_147" id="Page_147">[Pg 147]</a></span> and left upon the sand. The next day was
+devoted to finishing the preparations on shore, and finally on
+Wednesday, the third day of March, Captain Jones with all of his men fit
+for service came on shore with the rest of the ordnance, and, aided by
+the Pilgrims, dragged the clumsy pieces to the top of the eminence now
+called Burying Hill, and mounted them in the positions carefully marked
+out beforehand by Standish. The two minions, each eight feet long, a
+thousand pounds in weight, and carrying a three-pound ball, were
+planted, the one to command the landing at the rock, and the other the
+crest of Watson's Hill, where the savages had twice appeared. The saker,
+a still heavier piece, commanded the north, where the dense coverts of
+an evergreen forest hid what was soon to be known as the Massachusetts
+trail, and a very menacing quarter. The two other pieces called bases,
+and of much lighter calibre, were set at the western face of the Fort,
+where they would do good service should an enemy attempt to skirt the
+hill and approach at that side. The pieces were heavy, the appliances
+crude and clumsy, a shrewd east wind was driving in a sea-fog of the
+chillest description, and Standish, although he toiled and tugged with
+the best, proved himself a martinet in his requirements, not sparing in
+the heat of the struggle some of those curious oaths for which "our army
+in Flanders" gained a name. But the elder turned a deaf ear at these
+moments, and neither the truly devout Carver, nor the elegant Winslow,
+nor formal Allerton, nor self-restrained Bradford, chose to notice these
+lapses on the part of him who was giving all his energies and all his
+experience to their defense. As the sun set, Master Jones straightened
+his back, and setting his hands upon his hips exclaimed,<span class='pagenum'><a
+name="Page_148" id="Page_148">[Pg 148]</a></span>&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"There, then, my little generalissimo, thy guns are set, and by thine
+own ordering, not mine. And let me tell thee now, 't&nbsp;is lucky thou
+and I do not often train in company, for I'd sooner serve in an Algerian
+galley than under thee, and if thou wast under me, I'd shoot thee in the
+first half day."</p>
+
+<p>Standish, who was on his knees sighting his saker, did not hurry himself
+to rise, but when he did so turned and eyed his ally with a grim smile.</p>
+
+<p>"Thou&nbsp;'rt right, Jones. Two game-cocks seldom agree until they have
+fought a main or two. Yet methinks I could train thee to something after
+a while."</p>
+
+<p>Jones's red face grew redder yet, but before his slow wit had compassed
+a retort, Carver interposed,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"And now that our good day's work is done, it is seemly that we should
+soberly rejoice and exult. Master Jones, wilt thou and thy men sup with
+us?"</p>
+
+<p>The sailor's face cleared directly, and with a roar of jovial merriment
+he replied,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Marry will we, Master Governor, an' if you had not bidden us, I had
+bidden you to the feast, for I brought more than cold iron ashore, I
+promise you."</p>
+
+<p>"What, then? Some beer and strong waters?" demanded Hopkins eagerly.</p>
+
+<p>"Ay, man, and a fat goose ten pound weight, and some wild fowl beside,
+and a whole runlet of beer and a pottle of Hollands. I brought them that
+we should all make merry for once, and forget all that's come and gone,
+and that you should wish me a fair passage home, and good luck on
+getting there."</p>
+
+<p>"Thou&nbsp;'rt a good fellow, after all, Jones, and I for one will meet
+thee half way, and pledge thee in mine own liquor, and change a bit of
+my tender crane shot<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_149" id="Page_149">[Pg 149]</a></span> yesterday for a leg of thy goose." So
+saying, Standish smote the sailor upon his shoulder, and took his great
+paw into the grasp of a hand small and shapely, but of such iron grip
+that the burly fellow winced, and wringing away his fingers
+cried,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Nay, then, thou&nbsp;'rt more cruel as a friend than thou&nbsp;'rt
+maddening as a master. I'll none of thee."</p>
+
+<p>"And where are thy generous gifts now bestowed?" asked Bradford
+practically.</p>
+
+<p>"In the Common house. I bade Clarke go down the hill after our snack at
+noon, and take them all out of the boat's cuddy and carry them up to
+goodwife Billington, who is a famous cook, of wild fowl in
+particular"&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"She hath had practice while her goodman was poach&mdash;nay, then, I
+mean gamekeeper on my Lord the Marquis of Carrabas's estates," put in
+Standish gravely, and Billington, who stood by, started, tried to look
+fierce, but ended with a craven laugh.</p>
+
+<p>"Then Alden," suggested the Governor, "thou hadst best tell the women at
+the elder's house to send over their own vivers, or a portion of them,
+to the Common house, and we will all sup together. We have the captain's
+crane and a brace of mallards, and a salted neat's tongue, with some
+other matters, Master Jones, and can methinks well forget for one night
+that hunger and cold and danger are lying at the door. 'T&nbsp;is wise
+to be merry at times that we may better bear trouble at others."</p>
+
+<p>"Ay, 't&nbsp;is a poor heart that never rejoices," replied the Master,
+in what for him was a pleasant voice, although with a suspicious look
+around, lest anybody should be jeering at his unwonted <ins
+title="Transcriber's note: Period added after 'amenity'">amenity.</ins><span class='pagenum'><a
+name="Page_150" id="Page_150">[Pg 150]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>But Standish was casting a comprehensive look about his little fortalice
+to see if all was ready to be left for the night, and the younger men
+were already going down the hill, and Carver and Bradford stood awaiting
+their guest with cheerful and open countenance, devoid of mischief or
+guile. So the old sea-dog sheathed his fangs, restrained his growl, and
+assumed the bearing of coarse good humor which was his rare concession
+to the claims of good society.</p>
+
+<p>And now Alden hasting upon his errand found that Priscilla had already
+been warned by Helen Billington of the proposed feast, and with Mistress
+Brewster's consent had arranged the tables in the Common house, and
+added to the heavier viands some delicate dishes of her own composition,
+finishing by making a kettle of plum-porridge whereon the women were to
+regale themselves in the Brewster kitchen while their lords feasted in
+the Common house.</p>
+
+<p>And thus with sober mirth and honest friendliness closed a day so
+important in the annals of the settlement.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_151" id="Page_151">[Pg 151]</a></span></p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<h2>CHAPTER XIV.</h2>
+
+<h3>SECOND MARRIAGES.</h3>
+
+
+<p>Doubtless the Indians lurking in the woods of Watson's Hill had watched
+with wonder and alarm the process of mounting and securing the ordnance
+of the Fort, itself a novel structure in their eyes, and wisely
+concluded to consider the question of peace or war a little further
+before bringing it to an open issue. At any rate, they were no more seen
+at present, and the colonists wasted no time in pursuing them, but as
+the ground dried and warmed hastened to put in such grain and garden
+seeds as they had provided, and to lay out the little plots of ground
+attached to each house. Among the other crops was one whose harvest no
+man, woman, or child of that well-nigh famished company would have
+eaten, a crop of wheat whose ripened seeds were allowed to fall as they
+would, to sink again into the earth, or to feed the birds of heaven, for
+it was sown above the leveled graves of that half the Pilgrims who in
+the first four months found the city that they sought. So numerous and
+so prominent upon the bold bluff of Cole's Hill were these graves
+becoming, that Standish, overlooking the town from the Fort and his home
+close beneath its walls, pointed out to Carver and Bradford that the
+savages, doubtless as keen-eyed as himself, would in seeing how many of
+the invaders were under ground find courage to attack those still
+living, and it was his proposal that the earth should be leveled and
+planted.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_152" id="Page_152">[Pg 152]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"To what crop?" asked Bradford.</p>
+
+<p>"It matters not," replied Standish a little impatiently. "No man will
+care to eat of it, knowing what lies beneath."</p>
+
+<p>"'Thou sowest not that body that shall be, but bare grain, it may chance
+of wheat or of some other grain, but God giveth it a body,'" quoted
+Carver in a low voice, and Standish reverently answered,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Ay. Let it be wheat, since that is Paul's order."</p>
+
+<p>But that night as the sun was setting behind the gloomy evergreen forest
+closing the western horizon, the captain, avoiding his comrades, went
+quietly up the hill to the Fort, and thence made a circuit northward and
+eastward so as to come out upon the bluff of Cole's Hill. Passing among
+the graves with careful feet he presently stood beside one, mounded and
+shaped with care, and protected by willow rods bent over it and into the
+ground at either side. Recently cut, these boughs yet bore their pretty
+catkins, and the leaves which had already started seemed inclined to
+persist in life and growth.</p>
+
+<p>Removing his buff-cap and folding his arms Standish stood long beside
+this grave, silent and almost stern of look, but his heart eloquent with
+that deep and inarticulate language in which great souls commune with
+God, and with those mysteries of life so far transcending man's
+comprehension or powers of definition.</p>
+
+<p>At last he gently pulled up the ends of the willow rods at one side, and
+passing round to the other would have done the same, but seeing how
+fresh and green they looked held his hand.</p>
+
+<p>"They would grow an' I left them," muttered he; but then with a mournful
+gesture added in the same tone,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_153" id="Page_153">[Pg 153]</a></span> "Nay, then, what need. I shall
+know where thou liest, Rose, and"&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>Not ungently he drew the twigs from the earth, and stood holding them in
+his hand as a voice behind him said,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Ay, brother, we must say good-by even to the graves we have loved.
+Stern necessity is our master."</p>
+
+<p>Standish, ill pleased at the interruption, turned a dark face upon the
+new-comer.</p>
+
+<p>"And yet I have heard, Master Winslow, that thou art already speaking of
+marriage with Mistress White. Is stern necessity master there also?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, Standish," replied Winslow frowning a little and speaking more
+coldly than at first. "You may see it for yourself. Here are we, a scant
+threescore souls, not one score grown men, come to people a savage land
+and make terms with hordes of savage inhabitants. Is it not the
+clearest, ay, sternest necessity that those of us who are unwived, to
+our sorrow though it be, should take the women who remain, be they maids
+or widows, in honorable wedlock, and rear up children to fill our places
+when we are gone? Have we a right, man, to follow our own fantasies and
+mourn and mourn like cushat doves over the graves of our lost mates
+while the women we ought to cherish struggle on uncared for?"</p>
+
+<p>"Hast put the matter in this light to William White's widow?" asked
+Standish sarcastically.</p>
+
+<p>"Nay," returned Winslow with his usual calm. "Words that suit men are
+not always for women's ears. What I may say to Susanna White is not of
+necessity the business of the Council"&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Any more than my errand here to-night," retorted Standish, the spark
+kindling in his brown eyes.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_154" id="Page_154">[Pg 154]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Softly, brother, softly," replied Winslow in his measured tones, and
+laying a finger upon the other's arm. "It would ill befit us two to
+quarrel here between thy wife's grave and mine. We are brethren, and if
+I said aught that mispleased thee I am right sorry"&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Nay, then, 't&nbsp;is I was hasty," interrupted Standish. "Surely thy
+marriage is thine own affair, not mine, and I wish you godspeed with all
+my heart."</p>
+
+<p>"And yet, brother, I am not all content lacking thine approval, for
+there is neither head nor heart in the colony more honorable than
+thine."</p>
+
+<p>"'He who praises thee to the face is a false friend; the true one
+reproveth thee,'" quoted Standish with his peculiar grim smile.</p>
+
+<p>"And am not I reproving thee for thy selfish disregard of the common
+weal?" persisted Winslow, his own smile a little forced. "Nay, then,
+must I bewray confidence and tell thee that one who knows assures me
+that Priscilla Molines would not say thee nay wert thou to ask her?"</p>
+
+<p>"Pst! What folly art thou at now, Master Winslow? This is no more than
+woman's gossip. Some of thy new love's havers, I'll be bound."</p>
+
+<p>"Did not William Molines send to seek speech with thee the night he
+died?" asked Winslow fixing his keen eyes upon the soldier's perturbed
+face.</p>
+
+<p>"Ay, but it was he and I alone."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, then, he had taken counsel first with a godly matron, in whose
+judgment he trusted."</p>
+
+<p>"Mistress White?"</p>
+
+<p>"Ay."</p>
+
+<p>"I would I had known it that day." And with no farther good-by the
+Captain turned and strode down the hill ill pleased.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_155" id="Page_155">[Pg 155]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>The next day rose warm and misty. The veiled sun seemed smiling behind
+the soft vapors, and the earth throbbing with the sweet hopes of spring
+smiled back at him. The leaves of willow, and alder, and birch, and
+maple, and elm, uncurled their delicate fronds and shyly held out hands
+of welcome to the south wind; the birds sang clear and sweet in the
+woods, and the delicate springs of sweet water answered back with
+rippling laughter and joyous dance.</p>
+
+<p>"A goodly scene, a veritable garden of the Lord," said William Bradford
+standing outside the elder's door, and gazing down upon the valley of
+Town Brook, and across at the wood-covered hillside beyond. Standish,
+whom he addressed, was just coming out of the house, after his
+breakfast, and without reply laid his hand upon the younger man's arm
+and led him up the hill.</p>
+
+<p>"Whither bound this fair morning my Captain?" asked Bradford, in whose
+blood the brave morning air worked like wine.</p>
+
+<p>"First to fetch my snaphance, and then I will have thee into the wood
+for a stroll to enjoy thy fine day, and to hold counsel with thy
+friend."</p>
+
+<p>"And that is ever to mine own advantage," replied Bradford with
+affectionate honesty. Standish glanced at him with the rare sweetness
+sometimes lighting the rigor of his soldierly face, and as they had
+reached the door of the cabin nestled beneath the Fort, where John Alden
+and his friend abode, Standish entered, leaving the future governor to
+feast his eyes upon the wider view outspread at his feet. Climbing still
+further to the platform of the Fort, he stood lost in reverie, his eyes
+fixed upon the lonely Mayflower, sole occupant of the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_156" id="Page_156">[Pg 156]</a></span> harbor,
+as she clumsily rode at anchor tossing upon the flood tide.</p>
+
+<p>"We shall miss the crazy craft when she is gone," said Standish
+rejoining him.</p>
+
+<p>"Ay. She is the last bit of Old England," replied Bradford, musingly.
+For a few moments the two men stood intently gazing upon the vessel,
+each heart busy with its own thoughts, then, as by a common impulse
+turned, descending the side of the hill toward the lower spring, and
+passed into the forest.</p>
+
+<p>"What is thy matter for counsel, friend?" asked Bradford finding that
+Standish strode on in what seemed gloomy silence.</p>
+
+<p>"Yon ship."</p>
+
+<p>"The Mayflower?"</p>
+
+<p>"What other? She brought a hundred souls to these shores some six months
+agone."</p>
+
+<p>"Ay, and now we are fifty."</p>
+
+<p>"Fifty alive, and fifty under the sea, or on yon headland where to-day
+we level the mounds over their poor bodies and plant wheat to cheat the
+salvages."</p>
+
+<p>"'T&nbsp;is too true, good friend, and well I wot that the delight of
+thine eyes lies buried there"&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"And thine beneath the waters of our first harbor," interrupted Standish
+harshly, for the proud, tender heart could not bear even so light a
+touch.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," replied Bradford briefly, and over his face passed a cloud
+blotting out all the boyish enjoyment of scene and hour that had
+enlivened its ordinarily thoughtful features. Was Dorothy May indeed the
+delight of his eyes and heart?</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, we two men came hither husbands, and to-day we stand as widowers,
+and 't&nbsp;is in that matter I seek<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_157" id="Page_157">[Pg 157]</a></span> counsel," exclaimed
+Standish suddenly as he turned to face his friend. "Last night, Master
+Winslow standing between the graves of his wife and mine, read me a
+lecture upon the duty unwived men owe to the community. He says it is
+naught but selfishness to let our private griefs rule our lives, that we
+are bound to seek new mates and raise up children to carry on the work
+we have begun. Nor can we doubt his own patriotism, or the honesty of
+his counsels, for already he has spoken to the widow of William White,
+and his own wife but six weeks under ground."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, I know&mdash;they will be wed shortly," replied Bradford a little
+embarrassed. Standish eyed him keenly.</p>
+
+<p>"And thou art of his mind, and mayhap thine own new mate is already
+bespoken?" demanded he in angry surprise.</p>
+
+<p>"Nay, Standish, thou&nbsp;'rt not reasonable to quarrel with another
+man's conscience so that it thwarts not thine," replied Bradford
+patiently, although the color rose to his cheek as he felt the scorn of
+his comrade's voice. "Neither Winslow nor I would do aught that we could
+not answer for to God, and have not we come to this wilderness that we
+might be free to serve Him only, in matters of conscience?"</p>
+
+<p>"I meant not to forget courtesy, nay, nor friendship neither, Bradford;
+but my speech is ever hasty and none too smooth. So thou wilt marry,
+anon?"</p>
+
+<p>"I'll tell thee friend, and thou&nbsp;'rt the first I've told. There is
+a lady in the old country"&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Which old country? The Netherlands or England?"</p>
+
+<p>"She is in England now, or was when we set forth.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_158" id="Page_158">[Pg 158]</a></span> Thou must
+have seen her, Standish,&mdash;Alice Carpenter, who wedded Edward
+Southworth in Amsterdam."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, ay. A goodly crop of daughters had Father Carpenter, and not one
+hung on hand so soon as she was marriageable. Truly, I remember Mistress
+Southworth well, a fair and discreet dame. And she was left a widow not
+many days before we left England, if I mistake not."</p>
+
+<p>"Ay. One little week."</p>
+
+<p>"And didst thou woo her as in the play I saw when last I was in London,
+King Richard wooed the widow of him he had slain, following her
+husband's corse to the grave? Nay then, nay then, man, I meant it not
+awry. But to ask a woman within one week of her widowhood, and thou
+still wived"&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Nay, nay, nay, Myles, thou&nbsp;'rt all aglee and I doubt me if I had
+not better kept mine own counsel. I have not looked upon Alice
+Carpenter's face nor heard her voice since she was Southworth's wife."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, ay&mdash;I see, I see&mdash;'t&nbsp;is an old flame and
+thou&nbsp;'rt of mind to try to kindle it once more. You were
+sweethearts of old, eh, lad?"</p>
+
+<p>"Something so,&mdash;though I meant not to say so much, and now must
+leave the secret in thine honor, Captain."</p>
+
+<p>"Dost doubt the ward, Bradford?"</p>
+
+<p>"Nay. I trust thee as myself, and thou knowest it. Why must thou ever be
+so hot, Myles? Yes, when Master Carpenter and his fair troop of
+daughters came to Leyden it was not long until I saw that Alice was both
+fairest and sweetest of them all; but thou knowest the fight we had for
+bread, winning it by strange and unaccustomed labors: I, who knew naught
+but my books,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_159" id="Page_159">[Pg 159]</a></span> and something of husbandry, becoming a weaver of
+baize; Brewster a ribbon weaver, Tilley a silk worker, Cushman a wool
+comber, Eaton a carpenter, and so on; well, goodman Carpenter was loth
+to trust his maid to such scant living as I could offer, nor would he
+let us even call ourselves troth-plight; and Alice, the gentle, timid
+maid that she was, yielded all to her father's will, and I, in the
+naughty pride of a young man's heart, was angered that she would not
+promise to hold herself against all importunities, and we quarreled, or
+forsooth I should say I quarreled, and flung away, and I knew Dorothy
+May and her kin, and she, poor soul, was ready to wed as her father
+willed"&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Enough Will, enough; it is not good to put all that is in one's heart
+into words. I see the whole story. And now thou&nbsp;'lt write to
+Mistress Southworth and ask her to come out with the residue of our
+company, and become thy wife?"</p>
+
+<p>"Ay, dear friend, that is my plan," said Bradford, wringing the hand
+Standish extended, and turning his flushed face aside.</p>
+
+<p>"And why not?" asked Myles heartily. "'T&nbsp;is no new affair, no hasty
+furnishing forth of a marriage feast with the cold vivers of the funeral
+tables, as yon fellow said in the play. 'T&nbsp;is marvelous like one of
+those old romaunts my kinswoman Barbara used to tell over to me and the
+dear lass that's gone. There now&mdash;and thou hadst not this matter in
+hand, I'd wive thee to Barbara Standish&mdash;'t&nbsp;is the best wench
+alive, I do believe, and full of quip, and crank as a jest book."</p>
+
+<p>"Thy cousin?" asked Bradford rather absently.</p>
+
+<p>"Ay, but I know not just how nigh. Her father held for his lifetime a
+little place of ours on the Isle of Man,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_160" id="Page_160">[Pg 160]</a></span> and I, trying to find
+an old record that should give me a fair estate feloniously held from me
+now, went over there once and again, and so met Rose, and went yet again
+and again, until we two wed, and I carried her away to my friends in the
+Netherlands."</p>
+
+<p>"And is thy cousin wed?"</p>
+
+<p>"Nay, did not I say I'd like to give her to thee to wife? But barring
+that, I'll send for her to come with the next company, perchance under
+charge of thy sober widow, Will, and I'll marry her to one of these our
+good friends here. So if I do not marry myself, for the weal of the
+community as Winslow says, I shall purvey for some one of them a wife
+and mother of children in my stead."</p>
+
+<p>"'T&nbsp;is well thought on, Captain," replied Bradford laughing, "and I
+can promise that if Mistress Southworth makes the voyage she will gladly
+take charge of thy cousin, for whom we will choose a husband of our
+best. But why wilt not thou marry again, thyself? Was not that in thy
+mind in speaking of counsel?"</p>
+
+<p>"Ay&mdash;nay&mdash;in good sooth I know not, lad. I fain would know
+thine own intentions, and I have them, but for myself&mdash;truth to
+tell, I care not to wed again. I lived many years with only my good
+sword here as sweetheart and comrade, and I was well stead,
+and&mdash;none can make good the treasure late found and soon
+lost&mdash;but yet&mdash;come now, Will, confidence for confidence, I'll
+tell thee somewhat"&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Touching fair Mistress Priscilla?" asked Bradford with a smile of quiet
+humor.</p>
+
+<p>"Aha!" exclaimed Standish, a swarthy color mounting to his cheek.
+"'T&nbsp;is common talk, then!"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I know not&mdash;certes I have heard it spoken<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_161" id="Page_161">[Pg 161]</a></span> on more
+than once, but to say 'common talk'&mdash;we who are left alive are so
+few and so bound together that 't&nbsp;is no more than a family, and the
+weal of each is common to all."</p>
+
+<p>"But what hast thou heard, in very truth?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why, naught, except that Priscilla hath a sort of kindness for thee,
+and thou hast, in a way, made her affairs thine own, and so 't&nbsp;was
+naught but likely"&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Ay, ay, I see, I ever had but an ill idea of great families, having
+been born into one myself,&mdash;as thou sayest, the affairs of one are
+the gossip of all."</p>
+
+<p>"Nay, I said"&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Pst, man, I know what thou saidst, and what I think, so hold thy peace.
+Nay, then, this idle prating hath a certain foundation, as smoke aye
+shows some little fire beneath, and I'll tell it thee. When William
+Molines lay a-dying his mind was sore distraught at leaving his poor,
+motherless maid alone, for his son Joseph had gone before him, so he
+sent for me to watch with him that night, and somewhere in the small
+hours we thought his time had come, and he besought me to promise that I
+would take the maid under my keeping and not let her come to want. He
+said naught of marriage, nor did I, for my wife was but then at rest,
+and such speech would have been unseemly for him and hateful to me. I
+took his words as they were spoken, and I gave my promise, and so far as
+there was need I have kept it, and seen that the maid was housed and fed
+and looked after by Mistress Brewster, but more, I thought not on."</p>
+
+<p>"Master Molines was a discreet and careful man and seldom told out all
+his thought," said Bradford astutely. "Methinks he counted upon 'the way
+of a man with a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_162" id="Page_162">[Pg 162]</a></span> maid,' and left it to thee to find out the most
+perfect plan of caring for a young gentlewoman."</p>
+
+<p>"Dost think so, Will? Dost think he meant me to take her to wife? Dost
+think she so considers it?" and Myles snatching off his barret-cap
+pushed up the hair from his suddenly heated and burning forehead.
+Bradford looked at him with his peculiar smile of subtle humor and
+shrewd kindliness.</p>
+
+<p>"Why, Myles, thou lookst fairly frightened! Thou who never counted the
+foe, or thought twice ere leading a forlorn hope, or asked quarter of
+Turk or Spaniard"&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Nay, nay, nay, Will, spare thy gibes! Here is a moil, here is an
+ambushment! Here am I, going fair and softly on mine own way, and of a
+sudden the trap is sprung, and Honor starts up and cries, 'There's but
+one way out of it, take it, willy-nilly!' If the maid is of her father's
+mind I am bound to her."</p>
+
+<p>"I think she would not say thee nay," said Bradford demurely.</p>
+
+<p>"Thou hast no right to avow that, Will, and I were but a sorry knave to
+believe it. A lady's yea-say is an honor to any man, and he who receives
+it must do so in all reverence. No man hath a right to fancy or to say
+that a modest maid is ready with yea or nay before she is asked."</p>
+
+<p>"Thou art right, and I wrong, Myles, and in truth I know naught of
+Mistress Priscilla's mind."</p>
+
+<p>"But I will, and that ere many days are past. Thou hast done me a good
+turn, Will, in showing me where I stand. I dreamed not that Molines
+was&mdash;well,&mdash;he died peacefully and I will not disturb his
+rest. Yes, I will but wait until the Mayflower is gone and my
+cabin<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_163" id="Page_163">[Pg 163]</a></span> weather-tight, and the garden sown, and then I will speak
+with Priscilla. If Barbara comes she'll be rare good company for both of
+us."</p>
+
+<p>Again Bradford smiled very quietly, and the two men walked on in
+silence.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_164" id="Page_164">[Pg 164]</a></span></p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<h2>CHAPTER XV.</h2>
+
+<h3>SAMOSET.</h3>
+
+
+<p>Once more the freemen of the colony were convened in Council around the
+well-scoured table in the principal room of the Common house, become for
+the nonce a House of Commons, and Captain Standish was explaining the
+scheme he had arranged for organizing his little army, when again the
+solemnity of the meeting was invaded by shrill cries of alarm and anger,
+this time, however, in a solo rather than chorus, for goodwife
+Billington having taken the field, her more timid sisters were abashed
+into silence.</p>
+
+<p>"Thou foul beast, I say begone! Scat! Avaunt! Nay, grin not at me thou
+devil straight from hell! Wait but till I fetch a bucket of boiling
+water to throw over thee, thou Cheshire cat! I'll soon see how much of
+thy nasty color is fast dye"&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"What means this unseemly brawling?" sternly demanded Elder Brewster as
+Standish ceased speaking, and all eyes involuntarily turned toward the
+door.</p>
+
+<p>"Billington, the voice is that of thy wife. Go, and warn her that we
+tolerate no common scolds in our midst, and that the cucking-stool and
+the pillory"&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>But the elder's threats and Billington's shamefaced obedience and the
+wonder of all who had listened to the outbreak were cut short by a
+startling apparition upon the threshold; the savages had really come at
+last, or at least one of them, for here stood, tall and erect,<span class='pagenum'><a
+name="Page_165" id="Page_165">[Pg 165]</a></span> the splendid figure of a man,
+naked except for a waistband of buckskin fringe, his skin of a bright
+copper color glistening in the morning sun, and forming a rich
+background for the vari-colored paints with which it was decorated; his
+coarse, black hair, cut square above the eyebrows, fell upon his
+shoulders at the back, and was ornamented by three eagle-feathers woven
+into its tresses; in his hand he carried a bow nearly as tall as
+himself, and two arrows; a sharp little hatchet, evidently of European
+make, was thrust into his girdle, but the keenness of its edge was less
+than that of the glances with which he watched the slightest movement of
+the armed men who started to their feet at his approach.</p>
+
+<p>The savage was the first to speak, and his utterance has become as
+classic as C&aelig;sar's "Veni,"&mdash;for it was,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Welcome!"</p>
+
+<p>As he pronounced it, and looked about him with kindly, if wary eyes, the
+Pilgrims drew a long breath, and the tense anxiety of the moment lapsed
+into aspects various as the temperaments of the men.</p>
+
+<p>"What! Do these men speak English, then!" exclaimed Allerton bewildered,
+while Standish muttered,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Look to your side-arms, men. He may mean treachery," and noble Carver,
+extending his hand, said,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Thanks for your courtesy, friend. How know you our language?"</p>
+
+<p>"I am Samoset. I am friend of Englishmen. I come to say welcome."</p>
+
+<p>"Truly 't&nbsp;is a marvel to hear him speak in our own tongue and so
+glibly too. Mark you how he chooses his words as one of some dignity
+himself," said Brad<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_166" id="Page_166">[Pg 166]</a></span>ford softly, but the quick ears of the
+savage caught the substance of his words, and tapping his broad chest
+lightly with his fingers he proudly replied,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Samoset, sachem of Monhegan. Samoset do well to many Englishmen in his
+own country."</p>
+
+<p>"And where is Monhegan, friend Samoset?" asked Carver pleasantly. "Might
+it be this place?"</p>
+
+<p>"This place Patuxet. Monhegan nearer to the sunrise," replied Samoset
+pointing eastward.</p>
+
+<p>"And how far?"</p>
+
+<p>"Suppose walk, five days; big wind in ship, one day."</p>
+
+<p>"And how camest thou, and when?"</p>
+
+<p>"Ship. Three, four moons ago."</p>
+
+<p>"Ah, then it is not an armed assault upon us," said Carver aside and in
+a tone of relief.</p>
+
+<p>"Nay, these salvages are more treacherous than a quicksand. Try him with
+more questions," suggested Hopkins, the other men murmuring assent,
+while the Indian glancing with his opaque, black eyes from one to
+another showed not how much he understood of what went on about him.</p>
+
+<p>"'In vino veritas,'" suggested Bradford with a smile. "Were it not well
+to give him something by way of welcome?"</p>
+
+<p>"Samoset like beer. Much talk make throat dry like brook in summer,"
+remarked the guest, but whether in response or not no one could say.</p>
+
+<p>"Thou&nbsp;'rt right, man, and though thy skin's tawny, thy inside is
+very like a white man's," exclaimed Standish with a laugh. "John Alden,
+thou knowest the cupboards of this place passing well; find our friend
+wherewith to fill yon dry brook-bed of a throat; that is with the
+governor's permission."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_167" id="Page_167">[Pg 167]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Surely, surely, Captain Standish," replied Carver with gentle alacrity.
+"Your word is enough. And while Alden finds wherewithal to feed and
+quench his thirst, John Howland shall bring a mantle or cloak from my
+house to throw about him, for it is not seemly that our people should
+see us entertaining a man stark as he was born."</p>
+
+<p>"'T&nbsp;is well said, Master Carver. I had some such thought myself,"
+said Allerton rather primly, while Hopkins and Billington exchanged an
+irreverent grin, and Standish stroked his moustache.</p>
+
+<p>The cloak was brought, and gracefully accepted by Samoset, who evidently
+regarded it as a ceremonial robe of state, designed to mark his
+admittance as an honored guest at the white men's board, and draping it
+toga-wise across his shoulder, he sat down to a plentiful repast of cold
+duck, biscuit, butter, cheese, and a kind of sausage called black
+pudding. To these solids was added a comfortable tankard of spirits and
+water, from which Samoset at once imbibed a protracted draught.</p>
+
+<p>"Englishman have better drink than poor Indian," remarked he placing the
+tankard close beside his plate, and seizing a leg of the duck in his
+hands.</p>
+
+<p>"'T&nbsp;is sure enough that he has been much with white men,&mdash;yes,
+and Englishmen, too, by the way he takes down his liquor," remarked
+Hopkins.</p>
+
+<p>"Nay, methinks our Dutch brethren could take down a deep draught, too,
+and this is their own liquor," said Bradford, while Winslow muttered in
+Carver's ear,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Let not Alden leave the case-bottle within reach of the savage. Enough
+will loosen his tongue, but a little more will bind it."</p>
+
+<p>"True," assented the Governor, nodding to Alden,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_168" id="Page_168">[Pg 168]</a></span> who quietly
+replaced the bottle in the case whence he had taken it. Samoset followed
+it with longing eyes, but his own dignity prevented remonstrance except
+by finishing the flagon and ostentatiously turning it upside down.</p>
+
+<p>After this, the meal was soon finished, and the conversation resumed,
+partly by signs and inference, partly by Samoset's limited stock of
+English. By one means and the other the Pilgrims presently learned that
+Monhegan was a large island near to the mainland in a northeasterly
+direction, and a great resort of fishing vessels, mostly English, with
+whose masters Samoset, as sachem of the Indians in those parts, had both
+traded and feasted, learning their language, their manners, and, what
+was worse, their habits of strong drink and profanity, neither of which
+however seemed to have taken any great hold upon him, being reserved
+rather as accomplishments and proofs that he too had studied men and
+manners.</p>
+
+<p>The master of one of these fishing craft some few months previously had
+invited the sachem to accompany him across the bay to Cape Cod, where
+the sailor wished to traffic with the natives, and Samoset had since
+remained in this part of the country visiting Massasoit, sachem of the
+Wampanoags, who with a large party of his warriors was now lying in the
+forest outside of the settlement, waiting apparently for the result of
+Samoset's reconnoissance before he should determine on his own line of
+action.</p>
+
+<p>Farther inquiry elicited the fact that the former inhabitants of
+Plymouth, or Patuxet, a people tributary to Massasoit, but living under
+their own sachem, had been totally exterminated by a plague, perhaps
+small-pox,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_169" id="Page_169">[Pg 169]</a></span> which had swept over the country two or three years
+before the landing of the Pilgrims, leaving, so far as Samoset could
+tell, only one man alive; this man seeking refuge among the Nausets, the
+tribe to the east of Patuxet, was one of the victims entrapped by Hunt,
+escaping from whom, he lived a long time in England with a merchant of
+London named Slaney, who finally sent him in a fishing vessel to
+Newfoundland, whence he had made his way back to his friends on Cape
+Cod.</p>
+
+<p>"And this man," demanded Winslow eagerly. "Where is he now? Do ye not
+perceive, friends, that this is an instrument shaped and fitted to our
+hands by the Providence of God, who hath also sent His plague to sweep
+away the inhabitants of this spot whither He would lead His chosen
+people?"</p>
+
+<p>"Of a truth it seemeth so," replied Carver reverently, while Standish
+muttered in his beard,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Pity but the salvages had known&nbsp;'t was
+Providence!&nbsp;'T&nbsp;would have converted them out of hand."</p>
+
+<p>The elder who had his own opinion of the soldier's orthodoxy looked
+askance at the half-heard murmuring, and suddenly demanded,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Where, then, is this man? How call you him?"</p>
+
+<p>"Tisquantum he name. English trader across big water call him other fool
+name. Red man not know it."</p>
+
+<p>"Tisquantum is well enough for a name, but why did he not come hither
+with you, Samoset?"</p>
+
+<p>"Tisquantum much wise. He like see other fox put his paw in trap first
+before he try it." And as he thus betrayed his comrade's diplomacy the
+savage allowed a subtle smile to lighten his eyes, which, with the
+instinct that in simple mental organizations is so much surer<span class='pagenum'><a
+name="Page_170" id="Page_170">[Pg 170]</a></span> than reason, he fixed upon
+Winslow, who laughed outright as he replied,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Wiser than thou, Samoset, me-seemeth. How is it thou wast so much more
+daring than thy fellow?"</p>
+
+<p>"Samoset poor fool. He not know enough to be afraid of anything. Not
+wise like white man and Tisquantum." And the sachem with a superb smile
+settled the tomahawk at his girdle, and threw off the folds of his
+horseman's cloak. But the grim smile upon most of the faces around the
+board showed that the jest had given no offense to men who knew their
+own and each other's courage, and the conference presently broke up, the
+visitor amusing himself by strolling around the village, discreetly
+wrapped in his cloak, and taking a malicious delight in encountering
+Helen Billington, who never failed to greet him with a fusillade of
+suppressed wrath, to which he listened attentively, as if desirous of
+storing up some of the objurgations for his own future use. As night
+fell, and the guest showed no intention of departure, some of the more
+cautious settlers suggested that he should be put on board the Mayflower
+for safe keeping, a plan which met Samoset's ready approval, for as he
+sententiously remarked,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Captain-man have much strong waters."</p>
+
+<p>But then, as now, he who would navigate Plymouth Harbor must take both
+wind and tide into account, and when Samoset with Cooke, Browne, and
+Eaton to row him reached the shallop, they found her high and dry, with
+a stiff east wind in her teeth. The next plan was to bestow the
+dangerous guest safely on shore, and this was finally done in the loft
+of Stephen Hopkins's house, the veteran host grimly promising that he
+should not stir so much as a finger-nail but he would know it; and<span class='pagenum'><a
+name="Page_171" id="Page_171">[Pg 171]</a></span> in spite of goodwife Billington's
+assurance to her sisters that they should one and all be murdered in
+their beds before morning, the sun arose upon them in peace and safety,
+and soon after breakfast the Indian was dismissed with some small gifts,
+and an agreement that he should come again the next day, bringing
+Squanto, and such others as desired to trade with the white men, and
+could offer skins of beaver, martin, or other valuable fur.</p>
+
+<p>"Could not they fetch a few ermine and miniver skins while they are at
+it," suggested Priscilla. "Methinks in this wilderness we women might at
+least solace ourselves with the show of royalty, sith we are too far
+from the throne to have our right disputed."</p>
+
+<p>"Who knows but that we may found a new kingdom here in the New World,"
+replied John Alden playfully. "And where should we find a fitter
+sovereign than Queen Priscilla?"</p>
+
+<p>But Saturday passed over quietly, and it was not until Sunday morning
+that the Pilgrims coming out of the Common house after the morning
+service met Samoset stalking into the village followed by five other
+tall fellows, powerful but unarmed, Standish having sternly warned
+Samoset that neither he nor his companions must bring any weapon into
+the white man's settlement without permission. Much to the relief of the
+women who encountered these guests, it was at once seen that Samoset had
+understood and communicated the hint involved in lending him a cloak to
+wear during his previous visit, for all were fully dressed in deerskin
+robes with leggings fastened to the girdle and disappearing at the ankle
+within moccasons of a style very familiar to our eyes, although a great
+marvel to those of the Pilgrims, who, however soon adopted and enjoyed
+them<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_172" id="Page_172">[Pg 172]</a></span> highly. Samoset and another savage, who seemed to be his
+especial associate, also carried each a finely dressed wild-cat skin as
+a sort of shield upon the left arm, and all were profusely decorated
+with paint, feathers, strings of shells, and one man with the tail of a
+fox gracefully draped across his forehead. All wore the hair in the
+cavalier style, long upon the shoulders and cut square across the brow,
+and all were comely and dignified looking warriors.</p>
+
+<p>The governor, elder, captain, with some other of the principal men,
+stood still in the open space where the King's Highway crossed The
+Street, and greeted, soberly as befitted the day, yet cordially as
+befitted charity and hospitality, their guests, who watched with wary
+eyes every movement of the hosts whom they hardly trusted, while
+Samoset, stepping forward, unrolled a fine mat, or wrapping-rug, in his
+arm, and ceremoniously laid two axes and a wedge at the feet of
+Standish, saying briefly,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"The white chief has his own again."</p>
+
+<p>"Our tools. Yes, that is as it should be," replied the captain,
+"although we may not use them to-day."</p>
+
+<p>"Six hungry guests to divide the dinner with us!" exclaimed Priscilla in
+dismay as she stood at Mistress Brewster's side, her glowing brunette
+beauty shining out in contrast with the soft ashen tints of the older
+woman's face.</p>
+
+<p>"Ay 't&nbsp;will put us to our trumps to make ready enough hot victual
+for all," replied the elder's wife.</p>
+
+<p>"They shall have none of the marchpane thou didst make yestere'en,
+Priscilla!" expostulated Desire Minter anxiously. "There is no more than
+enow for us that be women."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_173" id="Page_173">[Pg 173]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"That will rest as our dear mother says," replied Priscilla smiling into
+Dame Brewster's face.</p>
+
+<p>"Nay, it needs not the marchpane thou madest so toilsomely to entertain
+these salvages to whom our ship-biscuit are a treat," and the elder
+woman smiled tenderly back into the glowing face so near her own.</p>
+
+<p>So presently the table in the Common house was spread with what to the
+red men was a feast of the gods, and they gravely ate enough for twelve
+men, evidently carrying out the time-honored policy of Dugald Dalgetty
+and of the camel, to lay in as there is opportunity provision not only
+for the present, but the future. Dinner ended, both red and white men
+assembled in the open space before mentioned, now in Plymouth called the
+Town Square, and the Indians grouping themselves in the centre began
+what may be called a dance, although from the gravity of their faces and
+solemnity of their movements the elder was seized with a suspicion that
+fairly turned him pale.</p>
+
+<p>"Are the heathen creatures practicing their incantations and
+warlock-work in our very midst, and on the Lord's Day?" demanded he.
+"Stephen Hopkins, thou knowest their devices, how is it?"</p>
+
+<p>"Nay, Elder," replied Hopkins chuckling in spite of his efforts at
+Sunday sobriety. "It is a feast-dance, a manner of thanksgiving"&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"A sort of grace after meat," suggested Billington in an aside; but the
+elder heard him, and turning the current of his wrath in that direction
+exclaimed,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Peace, ribald! Thou art worse than the heathen in making sport of holy
+things."</p>
+
+<p>"I knew not yon antics were holy things, Elder," retorted the reckless
+jester; but Standish ranging up alongside of him muttered,<span class='pagenum'><a
+name="Page_174" id="Page_174">[Pg 174]</a></span>&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"One word more and thou&nbsp;'lt deal with me, John Billington," and
+though the reprobate affected to laugh contemptuously he remained
+silent.</p>
+
+<p>To the solemn feast-dance succeeded a more lively measure accompanied
+with barbarous sounds intended for singing, and the performance ended
+with gestures and pantomime obviously suggesting a treaty of amity and
+peace, as indeed Samoset presently interpreted it, closing the scene
+with the offer of such skins as the men wore upon their arms, and
+promises of more furs in the near future.</p>
+
+<p>But the Sunday-keeping Pilgrims would not enter even into the semblance
+of trade upon that day, and, although they could not explain the reason
+to the Indians, made them understand that their dances, their singing,
+and their gifts, which were of course to be repaid, were all impossible
+for them to consider upon that day, and that, in fact, the sooner they
+withdrew from the village the better their hosts would be pleased.
+Adding however the wisdom of the serpent to the guilelessness of the
+dove, they coupled with this dismissal a very earnest invitation for the
+savages to return on the morrow and bring more skins, indeed all that
+they could spare, the white men promising to purchase them at a fair
+price.</p>
+
+<p>The Indians listened gravely to so much of this harangue as Samoset
+translated to them, and the five new-comers at once, and with no
+ceremony of farewell, glided one after the other down the path leading
+past the spring to Watson's Hill, and were no more seen; but Samoset
+throwing himself upon the ground pressed his hands upon his stomach
+moaning loudly and declaring himself in great agony.</p>
+
+<p>"He has a colic from over-feeding. Give him a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_175" id="Page_175">[Pg 175]</a></span> dose of strong
+waters and capsicum," said the elder compassionately; and Standish with
+a grim smile remarked, "Truly the man hath been an apt scholar in the
+ways of civilization. He minds me of a varlet of mine own, whose colics
+I effectually cured after a while by mingling a certain drug with the
+strong waters he craved. 'T&nbsp;was better than a sea-voyage for
+clearing his stomach."</p>
+
+<p>"Nay, Captain, we'll not deal so harshly with the poor fellow at the
+beginning, whatever may come at the end," said the Governor smiling.
+"Howland, get the man his dram, and if he will not go, put him to sleep
+in Hopkins's house and under his ward."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_176" id="Page_176">[Pg 176]</a></span></p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<h2>CHAPTER XVI.</h2>
+
+<h3>PRISCILLA MOLINES' LETTER.</h3>
+
+
+<p>"John Alden, the captain says thou&nbsp;'rt a ready writer. Didst learn
+that along with coopering?"</p>
+
+<p>"Nay, Mistress Priscilla, I was not dubbed cooper until I was a
+se'nnight old, or so."</p>
+
+<p>"Oho! Then thy schoolcraft all came in the first week of thy life. Eh?"</p>
+
+<p>"Have thy way, Priscilla. Thou knowst well enow thou canst not anger
+me."</p>
+
+<p>"Truly? Well I never cared to see a man maiden-meek. But thou canst
+write?"</p>
+
+<p>"Ay, and so canst thou, I have heard."</p>
+
+<p>"Heed not all thou hearest, John; no, nor believe all thou seest."</p>
+
+<p>"But what about my pencraft? Can I do aught for thee, Priscilla?"</p>
+
+<p>"Mayhap."</p>
+
+<p>"And what is it, maid? Well thou knowest that it is more than joy for me
+to do thy bidding."</p>
+
+<p>"Nay, I know not what feeling 'more than joy' can be, unless haply it
+topple over t'&nbsp;other side and become woe, and I would be loth to
+breed thee woe."</p>
+
+<p>"And I am as loth to let thee; but still thou dost it and will do it."</p>
+
+<p>"Verily!"</p>
+
+<p>"Ay, verily; but what is thy bidding, Priscilla? for I have an errand on
+hand."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_177" id="Page_177">[Pg 177]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"And what weighty matter claims thee for its guardian?"</p>
+
+<p>"Nay, 't&nbsp;is no such weighty matter, nor is it a secret. The
+governor will have me warn the men to gather in the Common house
+to-morrow to complete the affairs twice broken off by the visit of our
+red-skinned neighbors."</p>
+
+<p>"And mark my words, John, they'll come again to-morrow so sure as you
+try to hold council. 'T&nbsp;is a fate, and you'll not escape it."</p>
+
+<p>"Pooh, child! Dost believe in signs and fates?"</p>
+
+<p>"My forbears did. Haply thou hadst none, and so escaped the corruption
+of such folly."</p>
+
+<p>"Nay now, Priscilla, each one of us has just as many grandsires as
+another all the way back to Adam, only some of us have had more
+important matter in hand than to reckon up their names, and 't&nbsp;will
+never spoil a night's rest for me that I know not if my great-grandam
+was Cicely or Phyllis. But tell me, mistress, what my pen can do for
+thee?"</p>
+
+<p>"Thy pen! Then 't&nbsp;is not thy heart or thy hand that is at my
+service?" and Priscilla raised a pair of such melting and velvety brown
+eyes to the somewhat offended face of the young giant that he at once
+tumbled into the depths of abject submission, and trying to seize her
+hand exclaimed,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Oh sweetheart, thou knowest only too well that hand and heart and all I
+have are thine if thou wilt but take them."</p>
+
+<p>"Nay, John, thou must not speak so, no, nor touch my hand until I give
+it thee of mine own free will"&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Until? Nay, that means that some time thou wilt give it!"<span class='pagenum'><a
+name="Page_178" id="Page_178">[Pg 178]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Well, then, I don't say until, and if thou dost pester me I'll say
+never. And I'll ask John Howland to write my letter."</p>
+
+<p>"Stay, stay Priscilla! If 't&nbsp;is a letter to be written let me write
+it, for I was the first one asked, and I'll not pester thee, lass. I am
+a patient man by nature, and I'll bide thy good pleasure."</p>
+
+<p>"There, now, that's more sensible, and as my own time runs short as well
+as thine, sit down at the corner of the table here&mdash;hast thy
+ink-horn with thee? Ay, well, here is paper ready, and we have time
+before I must make supper."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, an hour or more," said John looking at some marks upon the window
+ledge cut to show the shadows cast at noon, at sunrise, and at sunset at
+this time in the year. Priscilla meantime had arranged the writing
+materials upon the corner of the heavy oaken table with its twisted legs
+and cross pieces still to be seen in Pilgrim Hall in Plymouth as Elder
+Brewster's table, and drawing up two new-made oaken stools, for the
+elder's chair in the chimney-corner was not to be lightly or profanely
+occupied, she said,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Come now, Master Alden, I am ready."</p>
+
+<p>"I would thou wert ready," murmured John, but as the blooming face
+remained bent over the table, and the very shoulders showed cold
+indifference, he continued hastily as he seated himself,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"And so am I ready. To whom shall I address the letter?"</p>
+
+<p>"Methinks I would first put time and place at the head of the sheet. So
+have I noted that letters are most commonly begun."</p>
+
+<p>"Ay. Well, then, here is:<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_179" id="Page_179">[Pg 179]</a></span>&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"'The Settlement of New Plymouth, March the 21st inst. <span class="smcap">a. d.</span> 1620.'" For
+thus in Old Style did John Alden count the date we now should set at
+March 31st, 1621. And having written it in the queer crabbed Saxon
+script we find so hard to decipher he inquired,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"And what next, Mistress Priscilla?"</p>
+
+<p>"Next, Master John, thou mayest set <ins title="Transcriber's note:
+Double quote added after 'down'">down,</ins>"&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"'My well beloved'"&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Well, who is thy well beloved?" demanded John pen in hand and flame on
+cheek.</p>
+
+<p>"Nay, the name is of no importance," replied Priscilla coldly. "Let us
+go on."</p>
+
+<p>"Very well, 'My well beloved,' is set down."</p>
+
+<p>"'I promised thee news of my welfare so soon as opportunity should serve
+to send it.'"&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Well?"</p>
+
+<p>&mdash;"'And now I would have thee know that I find none to take thy
+place in my heart or eyes'"&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>The young man laid down his pen, and with a sterner look upon his face
+than the teasing girl had ever seen there, rose from the table
+saying,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"I did not deem thee so unmaidenly, Priscilla, as to ask a man who loves
+thee to write thy love-messages to one thou favorest more highly.
+'T&nbsp;is not well done, mistress, neither modest nor kind."</p>
+
+<p>"I wonder at thy hardihood, John Alden, putting such reproach upon me.
+Never think again that I will listen to thy wooing after such insult,
+and thou stupid oaf, did I not tell thee that the letter was to Jeanne
+De la Noye, my dear girl-friend in Leyden?"</p>
+
+<p>"Nay, thou toldst me no such thing."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I tell thee now, and thou mayst put Jeanne after 'my
+well-beloved' at the top, an' thou wilt. Art satisfied now, thou
+quarrelsome fellow?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_180" id="Page_180">[Pg 180]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Satisfied that thou wilt bring me to an untimely grave, thou wicked
+girl!"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, then sit down and finish my letter before thou seekest that same
+grave, for the shadow creeps on apace. Nay, now, I will be good, good
+John."</p>
+
+<p>"Ah well-a-day, I am indeed an oaf, as thou sayest, to be so wrought
+upon by a coy maid's smiles or frowns, but have thy will mistress, have
+thy will."</p>
+
+<p>"Nay now, John, cannot a big, brave fellow like thee take a poor maid's
+folly more gently? Think then, dear John, of how forlorn a maid it is;
+think of the graves under yon springing wheat"&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"There, there, dear heart, forgive my rude brutishness; forgive me,
+sweet one, or I shall go out and do some injury to myself or another,
+thou hast so stirred my sluggish heart"&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>But a peal of laughter, rich and sweet as a bob-o-link's song, cut short
+his speech, and Priscilla dashing away the tears that hung in her archly
+curved eyelashes exclaimed,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Thy</i> sluggish heart, John! Why, thy heart is like an open tub of
+gunpowder, and all my poor thoughtless words seem sparks to kindle it!
+Well, then, sith both are sorry, and both fain would be friends, let us
+get on with my fond messages to Jeanne and her sister Marie, or I shall
+have to put away my paper hardly the worse for thy work."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, then, thou honey bee, as sweet as thy sting is sharp, what next?"</p>
+
+<p>"Tell her in thine own words how long we were cooped in yon
+vile-smelling old tub, and how when we landed, Mary Chilton and not I
+was first of all the women to leap upon the rock we call our threshold;
+and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_181" id="Page_181">[Pg 181]</a></span> oh John, tell her how I am orphaned of father and mother
+and brother, and even the dear old servant who carried me in his arms,
+and many a time in Leyden walked behind us three malapert maids&mdash;oh
+me, oh me!"&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>She turned away to the window and bowed her face in her hands,
+smothering the sobs that she could not quite restrain. John sat still,
+looking at her, his own eyes dim and his face very pale. At this moment
+the door was suddenly thrust open, and Standish entered the room
+exclaiming,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Is Alden here?"</p>
+
+<p>"Ay, Captain," replied the young man rising and coming forward. Standish
+cast a hasty glance at the figure of the young girl, another at the
+young man's face, and motioned him to follow outside.</p>
+
+<p>"Hast thou done aught to offend Mistress Molines?" demanded he as John
+drew the door close after him.</p>
+
+<p>"Not I," replied he somewhat indignantly. "She asked me to write for her
+to some maid of her acquaintance in Leyden, and when it came to telling
+of her orphanage and desolate estate her woman-heart gave way, and she
+was moved to tears."</p>
+
+<p>"Ay, ay, poor child! 'T&nbsp;is sad enow, but we will put all that right
+presently&mdash;yes, I promised William Molines, and so let him die at
+ease, and I will keep my word to the dead. A husband and a home, and
+haply a troop of little rogues and wenches at her knees will soon
+comfort her orphanhood, eh, John?"</p>
+
+<p>"I know not, sir&mdash;I&mdash;doth she know of this compact betwixt her
+father and you?"</p>
+
+<p>"Come, now, thou&nbsp;'rt not my father confessor, lad, nor yet my
+general," replied Standish with peremptory<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_182" id="Page_182">[Pg 182]</a></span> good humor. "Get
+thee back to thy pencraft, and when it is done come to me at the Fort, I
+have work for thee."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, sir." And the young man turned again into the house where
+Priscilla, quite calm, but a little subdued in manner, awaited him.</p>
+
+<p>"And now wilt thou set thy name at the foot, Priscilla?" asked the
+scribe when the fourth side of the paper was nearly covered.</p>
+
+<p>"Let me see. Ah, there is yet a little room. Say, 'My friendly
+salutation to thy brothers, Jacques, Philip, and little Guillaume; and
+now I think on&nbsp;'t, Jacques asked me to advise him if this were a
+good place for a young man to settle, and as I promised, I will now bid
+thee say that to my mind it is a place of goodly promise, and I were
+glad indeed to see all my friends of the house of De la Noye coming
+hither in the next ship.'"</p>
+
+<p>"I have heard ere now that the pith of a woman's letter was in the post
+scriptum, just as the sting of a honey bee cometh at the latter end,"
+said John dryly. "And now wilt thou sign?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. Give me the quill. <i>Ciel</i>, how it sputters and spatters!
+'T&nbsp;is a wondrous poor pen, John."</p>
+
+<p>"It served my turn well enow," replied John surveying with a grim smile
+the childish signature surrounded with a halo of ink-spatters; but as
+not one third of the women in the company could have done as well,
+Priscilla felt no more chagrin at not being a clerk, than a young lady
+of to-day would at not knowing trigonometry.</p>
+
+<p>"And now address it to the Sieur Jacques De la Noye for Mademoiselle
+Jeanne De la Noye, and I will trust thee to put it with the letters
+already writ to go by the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_183" id="Page_183">[Pg 183]</a></span> Mayflower. And thank thee kindly,
+John, for thy trouble."</p>
+
+<p>"Thou&nbsp;'rt more than welcome, Priscilla."</p>
+
+<p>"But why so grave upon&nbsp;'t, lad?"</p>
+
+<p>"'The heart knoweth its own bitterness,' and mine hath no lack of bitter
+food, Priscilla."</p>
+
+<p>"Nay, perhaps thou turn&nbsp;'st sweet into bitter. A kind word to the
+brother of my gossip Jeanne"&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Ah, that's not all, nor the worst. But there, I'll fetch thee some
+water from the spring." And seizing the bucket, the young man went
+hastily out, leaving Priscilla staring at the folded letter upon the
+table, while she half murmured,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Handsome Jacques with his quick wit and gentle breeding, and our brave
+Captain, the pink of knightly chivalry, and&mdash;John!"<span class='pagenum'><a
+name="Page_184" id="Page_184">[Pg 184]</a></span>&mdash;</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<h2>CHAPTER XVII.</h2>
+
+<h3>AN INTERNATIONAL TREATY.</h3>
+
+
+<p>Priscilla's prophecy proved a true one, for hardly were the
+one-and-twenty men of the colony assembled around the table in the
+Common house to hold a final Council upon their new orders, than young
+Cooke came rapping at the door to announce that a large body of Indians
+had appeared on Watson's Hill, and seemed advancing on the village. The
+Council once more was hastily broken up, Carver only pausing to say with
+a glance around the circle,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"It is clearly understood that Captain Standish is in full control of
+all military proceedings in this community, and we are all bound to
+follow his orders without cavil or delay."</p>
+
+<p>"Ay," responded a score of deep-throated voices lacking that of Myles
+himself, who said,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"The governor's authority is above that of the commandant unless martial
+law be proclaimed, and I shall be the first man to submit to it."</p>
+
+<p>"'When gentlefolks meets, compliments passes,'" muttered Billington with
+a sneer, while Edward Dotey and Edward Lister, nominally servants to
+Stephen Hopkins, but already ruffling with the best, tittered and nudged
+each other as they followed their betters out of the house.</p>
+
+<p>Now Dame Nature in compounding a leader does not often omit to furnish
+him with five extra-keen senses, as<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_185" id="Page_185">[Pg 185]</a></span> well as a certain sixth
+sense called intuition, quickwittedness, or, if you please, instinct;
+and Standish, born for a leader, was fully furnished forth with all six
+of these videttes, and seldom failed to see, hear, and understand all
+that went on in his vicinity. So did he now, and although his stern
+visage showed no shadow of change, he inwardly made the comment,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Hopkins's varlets, eh? Like master, like man. And Billington&mdash;wait
+a bit, Master Poacher!"</p>
+
+<p>"Ah, here is our friend Samoset coming up the hill, and another with
+him," remarked Bradford as the little group of authorities paused at the
+head of the path leading to the spring and to Watson's Hill.</p>
+
+<p>"Tisquantum, I'll be bound. He looks to have a certain veneer of
+civilization over his savagery," remarked Winslow, and in another minute
+the two savages arrived within speaking distance, and the stranger
+tapping his breast grandiloquently exclaimed,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"This is Tisquantum, friend of Englishmen."</p>
+
+<p>"Tisquantum is welcome, and so is Samoset," replied Carver gravely.
+"Have they brought furs to truck for the white men's goods?"</p>
+
+<p>But hereupon Squanto, as Tisquantum (He-who-is-angry) was familiarly
+designated, began a long and very flowery harangue, from which the
+Pilgrims gathered that the present was more of a diplomatic and
+international affair than a trading expedition, and that Massasoit, the
+sachem or chief of all this region, had come in royal progress, attended
+by his brother Quadequina and sixty chosen warriors, to greet the white
+men, and to settle upon what terms he would admit them to his territory.</p>
+
+<p>So soon as the importance of this embassage was made plain, the Pilgrims
+prepared to meet the occasion with<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_186" id="Page_186">[Pg 186]</a></span> suitable formalities, and
+while Samoset and Squanto refreshed themselves in Stephen Hopkins's
+house, Standish hastened to put his entire command under arms, excepting
+the elder, who constituted the reserved force only to be called out in
+great emergencies. The military band, composed of four of the well-grown
+lads of the colony, Giles Hopkins, Bartholomew Allerton, John Crakstone,
+and John Cooke, was also called out and equipped with its two drums, a
+trumpet, and a fife, while a house just roofed in and not yet portioned
+into rooms, was hastily prepared as an audience chamber by clearing it
+of litter, and spreading at the upper end a large green rug belonging to
+Edward Winslow, and various cushions and mats, while a high-backed
+settle in the place of honor covered with some scarlet broadcloth cloaks
+stood ready to receive the king and the governor in equal honor.
+Everything being thus in readiness, Samoset and Squanto were dispatched
+with a courteous message to the king as the Pilgrims chose to translate
+the Indian term of sachem, inviting him to a conference, but the envoys,
+soon returning, brought an intricate greeting, from which Winslow the
+diplomatist at last evolved the meaning that Massasoit declined to trust
+himself among the white men without adequate hostages for his safety,
+and desired that one of the principal of the strangers should come to
+him while Samoset and Squanto remained in the village.</p>
+
+<p>"Zounds! And does the barbarian fancy that two of his naked salvages
+count as one of our meanest, not to say our principal men!" exclaimed
+Standish angrily, but Winslow interposed,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"If the governor and the brethren consider me as a fit man to answer the
+demand I will go and convey<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_187" id="Page_187">[Pg 187]</a></span> what message is decided upon to
+this potentate, and if he accepts me will remain as hostage while he
+visits the settlement."</p>
+
+<p>"Nay, Winslow, I claim the post of danger, if danger there be. It is the
+right of mine office," exclaimed Standish.</p>
+
+<p>"Not so, Captain; thy duty is to do us right in a quarrel, mine to keep
+us out of a quarrel. Each man to his own work, say you not so Governor?"</p>
+
+<p>"Master Winslow is right, Captain Standish, and furthermore we need your
+protection here, should an attack be made upon the village."</p>
+
+<p>"I submit, and my good will go with thee, Master Ambassador," replied
+Standish cordially; "but be sure if thy skill at keeping the peace fails
+of saving thy scalp, thou shalt have a royal guard of salvages to escort
+thee whither thou wilt go."</p>
+
+<p>"Gramercy for thy courtesy good my Valiant," replied Winslow in the same
+tone. "But I hope my wit shall avail to save my scalp."</p>
+
+<p>And a few moments later the courtly Winslow, armed cap-a-pie and
+carrying a haversack of gifts at his back, strode down the hill, and
+across the brook to a point where a knot of dusky warriors awaited him,
+and with them passed out of sight, leaving his comrades to an hour of
+extreme solicitude and impatience.</p>
+
+<p>Although out of sight their comrade, however, was in reality close at
+hand, for Massasoit had with Indian cunning selected a spot for the
+interview whence himself unseen he could through the branches of the
+shielding shrubbery overlook the approach from the village, and perceive
+any movement upon the side of the other party long before it could be
+made effectual. Standing in the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_188" id="Page_188">[Pg 188]</a></span> middle of a little glade to
+receive Winslow, resting lightly upon the strung bow in his right hand,
+Massasoit presented the ideal figure of an Indian chief, uncorrupted by
+the vulgar vices of civilization. Lofty of stature and of mien, his
+expression grave and even haughty, his frame replete with the easy
+strength of vigorous maturity, he looked, as Winslow decided in the
+first quick glance, more worthy to be the king of red men than James the
+First of England did to be the king of white men.</p>
+
+<p>For costume the Indian wore buckskin leggings, highly ornamented
+moccasons, a belt with fringe several inches long, and a curious skin,
+dressed and ornamented upon the inside with elaborate designs, slung
+over his left shoulder by way of cloak. He also wore a necklace of white
+beads carved from bone, and depending from it at the back of his neck a
+pouch from which as a mark of royal favor he occasionally bestowed a
+little tobacco upon his followers, most of whom were provided with
+pipes. In his carefully dressed hair the chief wore three beautiful
+eagle-feathers, and his comely face was disfigured by a broad stripe of
+dark red or murray-colored paint.</p>
+
+<p>Removing his hat and bowing courteously before this grave and silent
+figure, Winslow unfastened his haversack, and produced two sheath knives
+and a copper chain with a glittering pendant which might have been of
+jewels, but really was of glass.</p>
+
+<p>These he laid at one side, and at the other a pocket-knife with a
+brilliant earring. Finally he set by themselves a parcel of biscuit, a
+little pot of butter, and a flask of strong waters. Having arranged all
+these matters with great deliberation under the gravely obser<span class='pagenum'><a
+name="Page_189" id="Page_189">[Pg 189]</a></span>vant eyes of the king, Winslow
+stood upright and demanded who could speak English. It proving that
+nobody could, another delay ensued while a <i>pniese</i>, or as we might say
+a noble of the king's suite, was dispatched to the village to summon
+Squanto and to remain as hostage in his place. During the half hour of
+this exchange, Massasoit remained standing precisely as Winslow had
+found him with his warriors half hid among the trees as motionless as
+himself. Winslow leaning against a great white birch on the edge of the
+little glade rested his left hand upon the hilt of his sword, and
+setting the other upon his hip imitated the immobility of the savages,
+and in his glistening steel cap and hauberk, his gauntlets and greaves,
+his bristling moustache and steady outlook, presented the fitting
+counterpart to the savage grandeur of Massasoit. It was one of those
+momentary tableaux in which History occasionally foreshadows or defines
+her policy, and had an artist been privileged to study the scene he
+should have given us a noble picture of this first meeting of the Powers
+of the Old World and the New.</p>
+
+<p>Squanto at last returned, and Massasoit for the first time opening his
+lips said gravely,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Tell the white man he is welcome."</p>
+
+<p>"Thank your king for his courtesy," replied Winslow bowing toward the
+chief; "and tell him that my sovereign lord and master King James the
+First of Great Britain salutes him by me, and will be ready to make
+terms of peace and amity with him." Waiting a moment for this message to
+be delivered the ambassador went on,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"And tell him furthermore, that Governor Carver, the chief man of our
+settlement, is desirous of seeing<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_190" id="Page_190">[Pg 190]</a></span> him, and of arranging with
+him terms of alliance and of trade. Our desire is to purchase peltrie of
+every sort, and we are ready to pay for all that we receive, but it is
+best that the governor and the king should arrange these matters
+together. Meantime the governor begs your king's acceptance of this
+little gift," designating the two knives, the copper chain, and the
+provisions, "for his own use; while to his brother the Prince Quadequina
+he offers this knife for his pocket,&mdash;nay,&mdash;for his girdle,
+and this jewel for his ear. And if the king will now go to the village
+to confer with our governor, I, who am not ranked the lowest among our
+company, will remain here as surety until his return."</p>
+
+<p>This speech having been somewhat lamely and laboriously translated into
+the vernacular by Squanto, Winslow wiped his brow and wished that it
+consisted with his dignity to throw off his armor and stretch himself
+upon the pine needles at his feet, but it evidently did not; and in a
+moment or two Squanto delivered to him the king's reply that he was very
+willing to become an ally of King James, and that he would go into the
+village to meet the governor leaving Winslow as guest of Quadequina, but
+that first he was ready to exchange for some very valuable peltrie the
+armor and weapons now worn by his guest, and as he observed by the other
+men of the colony.</p>
+
+<p>To this proposition Winslow returned a most decided negative, adding
+that among his people no soldier relinquished his weapons except with
+his life, which chivalrous boast Squanto after a moment's consideration
+translated,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"White man says these things to him all one as red man's scalp-lock to
+him," and Massasoit replied by<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_191" id="Page_191">[Pg 191]</a></span> a guttural sound sometimes
+rendered "Hugh!" although no letters can express it, and its intent is
+to convey comprehension, approbation, contempt, or assent, according to
+the intonation. In the present instance it conveyed approbation mingled
+with disappointment, and Massasoit drawing forward his tobacco pouch
+filled his pipe, lighted it with a sort of slow match made of bark, and
+having drawn two or three whiffs passed it to Winslow who gravely
+accepted it. Next the chief tasting the dainties offered him by one of
+his officers distributed the remainder among his followers, excepting
+the flask of gin, which having cautiously tried he laid aside, evidently
+not understanding it, and unwilling to offend the donor by showing his
+distaste for it. And here let it be said that Massasoit, although he
+learned to drink the "fire-water" of the white men, never became its
+victim like so many of his brethren.</p>
+
+<p>These ceremonies over, Winslow, already a little uneasy lest Standish
+and his musketeers should come to seek him and disturb the harmony he
+was endeavoring to establish between this dusky potentate and his own
+people, suggested to Squanto that the governor would be growing
+impatient to receive his guest, and that the day was getting on.</p>
+
+<p>This hint the interpreter conveyed in his own fashion to the king, who
+simply drawing his puma robe a little farther forward, muttered a word
+to Quadequina who stood beside him, and moved toward the village
+followed by about twenty warriors.</p>
+
+<p>Winslow, somewhat startled by the suddenness of this departure would
+have followed at least for a few steps, but Quadequina, a younger and
+handsomer copy of his brother, stopped him by a single finger laid upon
+his<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_192" id="Page_192">[Pg 192]</a></span> breast, and a few guttural sounds which Squanto paused to
+interpret as a direction that the white man should remain where he was
+until the return of the sachem.</p>
+
+<p>"Certainly. It is as a hostage that I am here. I would but move to a
+spot whence I may see the progress of his majesty and his greeting. Tell
+the prince that he has my parole not to escape."</p>
+
+<p>But neither the words nor the spirit of this chivalrous utterance were
+familiar to Squanto, across whose red and yellow and oily countenance a
+gleam of humor shot and was gone, while he gravely reported to
+Quadequina,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"The white man does but place himself to see the head men of his village
+fall to the ground before Massasoit and his sachems. He trembles before
+Quadequina and entreats his kindness."</p>
+
+<p>"Hugh! I think thou liest, Squanto," sententiously replied the young
+sachem. "I see no trembling in this warrior's face, nor do I believe his
+people will fall down before Massasoit. Go, and see that thou dost speak
+more truly in the sachem's presence, or he will hang thy scalp in his
+wigwam to-night."</p>
+
+<p>Squanto a little depressed at this suggestion, attempted no reply, but
+hastened after the chief who already was nearing the brook, while from
+the side of the town approached Standish, preceded by drum and fife and
+followed by six musketeers. Arriving first at the dividing line the
+captain halted his men, and summoning Squanto by name, bid him demand
+that the twenty followers of the king should leave their bows, arrows,
+and tomahawks where they now stood and come over unarmed, adding that
+the importance of their hostage might well cover this further
+concession. Massasoit after gazing for a moment into his opponent's face
+con<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_193" id="Page_193">[Pg 193]</a></span>ceded the point without parley, and at a sign from him the
+warriors threw their weapons in a pile and followed him unarmed through
+the shallow ford of the brook. Standish meantime deployed his men into
+guard of honor so that the chief passed between two lines of men who
+presented arms, and closing in behind him escorted him with drum and
+fife to the unfinished house where he was seated in state at one end of
+the settle, and his followers upon the cushions at the right hand of the
+Green Rug, which may be said to have distinguished this meeting as the
+Cloth of Gold, just a hundred years before, had that of the interview
+between Henry VIII. and Francis I.</p>
+
+<p>Hardly was the chief seated when the sonorous sounds of the trumpet,
+well supported by the larger drum, replaced the shriller notes of fife
+and small drum, and Governor Carver in full armor and wearing a plumed
+hat, made his appearance, followed by six more musketeers, the two
+guards exhausting pretty nearly the whole available force of the Pilgrim
+army at this time.</p>
+
+<p>Massasoit rose as the governor approached, and when Carver extended his
+hand laid his own in it, each potentate saluting the other with a
+punctilious gravity much to be admired. Carver then seated himself at
+the other end of the settle, and turning to Howland, who stood as a sort
+of Aid at his elbow, he requested some strong waters to be brought that
+he and the king might pledge health and amity to each other. This
+request having been foreseen was immediately complied with, and a great
+silver loving-cup with two handles and filled with a compound of Holland
+gin, sugar, and spice, with a moderate amount of water, was brought and
+presented to the governor who tasted decorously, and then passed<span class='pagenum'><a
+name="Page_194" id="Page_194">[Pg 194]</a></span> it to the sachem, who seizing
+both handles carried it to his mouth and drank with an air of stern
+determination, as one who would not allow personal distaste to interfere
+with public obligations. The cup was then passed to the other guests,
+and replenished more than once until all had tasted, Squanto remarking
+to his next neighbor as he handed him the cup,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"It is the witch water to make a man brave that I have told you of
+drinking in the house of Slaney in the land of these Englishmen."</p>
+
+<p>"Hugh! It is like the sun in summer," muttered the neighbor passing it
+on in his turn.</p>
+
+<p>"John Howland!" whispered a low voice at the unglazed window near which
+the young man stood, and as he leaned hastily out he nearly bumped heads
+with pretty Elizabeth Tilley, who laughing said,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Nay, 't&nbsp;is no such great alarm, but Priscilla bade me tell thee to
+keep an eye upon the governor's loving-cup, lest some of these wild men
+steal it."</p>
+
+<p>"Nay, they have no pockets to hide it in," replied John laughing. "Still
+I will have an eye to it, for we have none so much silverware in the
+colony that we should be willing to spare it."</p>
+
+<p>The ceremony of welcome over, the business of the meeting began, and
+Massasoit, albeit a little incommoded by his strange potation, showed
+himself both dignified and friendly in his intentions. Carver on his
+side was as honorable as he was shrewd, and in the course of an hour the
+first American International Treaty was harmoniously concluded, and so
+much to the advantage of both sides, that not only was it sacredly
+observed in the beginning, but nineteen years later, when Massasoit felt
+his own days drawing to a close, he brought his sons,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_195" id="Page_195">[Pg 195]</a></span> Alexander
+and Philip, to Plymouth, where this "Auncient League and Confederacy"
+was formally renewed and ratified before the court then in session.</p>
+
+<p>Business over, the sachem produced his pipe, filled it, smoked a little,
+and passed it to the governor, and in this manner it went round the
+assembly, red men and white together each taking a few whiffs, and when
+it was empty returning it to Massasoit, who seemed to be custodian of
+the tribal stock of tobacco.</p>
+
+<p>Facts are stubborn things and History is sacred, and the scene just
+described is in all its details simple matter of History, but is it not
+a singular irony of fate that we who spend our lives in a crusade
+against strong drink and tobacco must, nevertheless, despair of rivaling
+the virtues of these men, who began their solemn covenant with the
+savages they had come to Christianize, by giving them gin, and ended it
+by accepting from them tobacco?</p>
+
+<p>After the Council came a feast of the simple dainties furnished by the
+Pilgrim commissariat, and after that an informal mingling of the two
+companies, during which the Indians examined and essayed to sound the
+trumpet whose notes had so startled them, although the fife had seemed
+to them only the older brother of the whistles they so often made of
+willow twigs.</p>
+
+<p>Before Massasoit took leave he requested that Winslow might remain while
+Quadequina came to view the wonders of the white man's village, and this
+favor being good-naturedly conceded, the prince, as our Englishmen
+called him, soon arrived with a fresh troop of followers, all of whom
+expected and received both meat, drink, and attention. But as the sun
+was setting Winslow appeared on the other side of the brook, and the
+savages<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_196" id="Page_196">[Pg 196]</a></span> were hastily dismissed, except Squanto and Samoset,
+both of whom insisted upon staying, not only for the night, but declared
+that they were ready to leave their own people and remain with the white
+men, whose way of life they so much approved, and to whom they could be
+of much use in many ways. Squanto in especial pleaded that this place
+was his own home, and that he had only left it for the village of the
+Nausets whence Hunt had stolen him, because all his people were dead of
+the plague, and he was afraid of their ghosts. His wigwam had once stood
+as he declared at the head of the King's Highway, and the Town Brook was
+his stewpond for the fish on which he mostly fed. Altogether it was
+quite evident that Squanto was rather the host than the guest of the
+Pilgrims, and as such they with grave jest and solemn fun consented to
+accept him. As for Samoset, he already had helped himself to the freedom
+of the town, and these two, with Hobomok, the especial retainer of
+Standish, remained the faithful and useful friends of the white men
+until death divided them.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_197" id="Page_197">[Pg 197]</a></span></p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<h2>CHAPTER XVIII.</h2>
+
+<h3>THE LAST LINK BROKEN.</h3>
+
+
+<p>"Ho Jack! Where's thy master?"</p>
+
+<p>"In heaven, Master Jones, or mayhap thou meanest King James, who by last
+accounts was in London."</p>
+
+<p>"I crave thy pardon, worshipful Master Alden!" and the shipmaster bowed
+in ludicrous parody of reverence. "I would fain know where thy servant
+Carver, and thine other retainers, Winslow, and Standish, and Allerton,
+and the dominie may be."</p>
+
+<p>"'T&nbsp;is a large question, Master Jones, for I do not keep them in my
+pocket as a general thing, and they are just now about their own
+business. Might I ask thine?"</p>
+
+<p>"Were I not in such haste 't&nbsp;would be to cudgel some manners into
+thy big carcase, Master Insolent; but come now, prythee be a good lad
+and bring me to the governor, the captain, and the elder, for time and
+tide are pressing, and I would fain be gone."</p>
+
+<p>"In that direction our fancies pull together rarely, and if
+thou&nbsp;'lt find a seat in the Common house I'll see if I can come
+upon the Fathers."</p>
+
+<p>With an inarticulate growl the master of the Mayflower did as he was
+bid, and by the time goodwife Billington had cleared and wiped the
+benches and table, the men he had requested to see, along with Winslow,
+Allerton, Bradford, and Doctor Fuller, came in together, for the hour
+was just past noon, and the people collected for dinner had not yet
+dispersed.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_198" id="Page_198">[Pg 198]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Good-morrow, Captain Jones," said Carver courteously; "John Alden tells
+me thou wouldst have speech of all of us together."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, Master Governor, and glad am I that peevish boy did my errand so
+largely, for what I have to say concerns every man, ay, and woman and
+child, in your settlement."</p>
+
+<p>"In truth! And what may it be, Master Jones? Sit you down, and goodwife
+Billington set on some beer for our guest."</p>
+
+<p>"Well thought on, and I'll not forget to send you another can or so
+before I sail."</p>
+
+<p>"Is the sailing day fixed as yet?"</p>
+
+<p>"To-morrow's flood will see me off, wind and weather permitting."</p>
+
+<p>"And God willing," sternly interposed the elder; but Jones fixing his
+twinkling eyes upon Brewster's face over the edge of the pewter pot
+covering the lower half of his face answered scoffingly as he set the
+flagon down,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"If as you say God guides the wind and weather, reverend sir, fair
+weather speaks His willingness for me to sail, doth it not?"</p>
+
+<p>"Sith thy time is so short, Jones, mayhap thou&nbsp;'lt spare it, and
+tell thine errand at once," interposed Standish sharply, and Jones
+turned upon him with a leer.</p>
+
+<p>"So cock-a-hoop still, my little Captain! Hard work and starving do not
+cool thy temper, do they? But hold, man, hold. 'T&nbsp;is indeed true
+that I am scant for time and mine errand is just this: Ye have been good
+friends and true to me when I was in need, with my men half down and
+half ready to mutiny, and your women have well-nigh brought me to
+believe in saints and angels<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_199" id="Page_199">[Pg 199]</a></span> and such like gear, and so I am
+come to offer such of you as will take it, a free passage home, if the
+men will help to handle the ship and the women cook, and nurse such as
+may be ailing. Or if you choose to give up the emprize and load in your
+stuff and yourselves as ye were before, I'll take the stuff for passage
+money and trust Master Carver's word for the rest."</p>
+
+<p>The Pilgrims paused on their reply, and man looked at man, each reading
+his own thought in the other's eyes. Then Carver spoke in grave
+deliberateness,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Brethren, ye have heard Master Jones's proffer, and I doubt not ye
+agree with me that it is kindly and generously spoken and meant. What
+say ye to it man by man? Elder Brewster?"</p>
+
+<p>"I say, Cursed be he who having put his hand to the plough turneth
+back."</p>
+
+<p>"And Master Allerton?"</p>
+
+<p>"I will abide the decision of the rest."</p>
+
+<p>"And Master Winslow?"</p>
+
+<p>"I and mine remain here."</p>
+
+<p>"And thou, Captain Standish?"</p>
+
+<p>"Our trumpeter has not been taught to sound the retreat."</p>
+
+<p>"And Bradford?"</p>
+
+<p>"I fain would stay here."</p>
+
+<p>"And thou, Doctor?"</p>
+
+<p>"I' faith I see better hope of practice here than in the old countries.
+I'll stay."</p>
+
+<p>"And I have come here to live and to die," said Carver in conclusion.
+"So you see good Master Jones, that while kindly grateful for your offer
+and your heartiness, we cannot accept the first, but will requite the
+last with equal good will."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_200" id="Page_200">[Pg 200]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Ay, I want your good will, and perhaps you'll give me a prayer or two
+just for luck, dominie?"</p>
+
+<p>"Surely we will pray for thee, Master Jones," replied Brewster with fine
+reticence of tone.</p>
+
+<p>"But before we say more, brethren," resumed the governor, "we must not
+forget that, as the master hath said, this question concerns every man,
+woman, and child in the colony; and while we would not send unprotected
+women or children upon a long voyage with such a crew as man the
+Mayflower,"&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Nay, they're not psalm singers," muttered Jones half exultant half
+ashamed,</p>
+
+<p>&mdash;"every man in the company has a right to decide for himself and
+those belonging to him," calmly concluded the governor, "and I will ask
+our captain, as equal in authority to myself, to bid the attendance of
+every man over twenty years old in the company, here at once."</p>
+
+<p>"It shall be done, Governor," replied Standish rising, and ten minutes
+later a dozen or so more of men comprising all that were left alive of
+the Pilgrim Fathers crowded into the Common house and stood attentive
+while Carver briefly but distinctly conveyed to them Master Jones's
+offer.</p>
+
+<p>"Ye understand, brethren," said he in conclusion, "that any one of you,
+or all of you are free to accept this offer without reproach. We seven
+men, to whom the message first was conveyed, have for ourselves refused
+it, but our will is not binding upon you or any of you. Master Hopkins,
+Master Warren, Cooke, Soule, Eaton, Howland, Alden, Gilbert Winslow,
+Browne, Dotey, and Lister, Billington, Goodman, Gardner, I call upon
+each of you to answer in turn, will you and those<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_201" id="Page_201">[Pg 201]</a></span> belonging to
+you return to England in the Mayflower, or will you abide here and trust
+in God to sustain us in the undertaking we have entered upon in His
+name. Master Warren and Master Hopkins will you declare your wishes?"</p>
+
+<p>"I have no desire but to stay, and I have writ to my wife to come to me
+and bring our five daughters," said Warren without hesitation, and
+Hopkins gruffly added his sentence,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"I am no idle maid with a yea-say and a nay-say. I am here with all
+belonging to me, and here I abide."</p>
+
+<p>And so in effect said every man there, each gently questioned by Carver,
+and each speaking his mind without fear or force, until at the end the
+governor turned to the grim old sea-dog who stood looking incredulously
+on, and with a cheek tinged by honorable pride declared,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"We thank you, friend, for your kindly invitation to take passage with
+you for our old home, but not one among us will give up the hope of our
+new home. Not one having set hand to the plough will turn back!"</p>
+
+<p>"Not one?" asked the master looking slowly around.</p>
+
+<p>"Not one," replied the elder exultantly; and like the breaking of a
+great wave upon the Rock a score of deep-throated voices echoed back the
+boast,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"NOT ONE."</p>
+
+<p>The next morning broke clear and lovely, and with the sun rose a
+southwest wind, best of all winds for those who would extricate
+themselves from the somewhat tyrannous triple embrace of Plymouth Beach,
+The Gurnet, and Manomet. Directly after breakfast the Pilgrims' pinnace
+went out manned by half the men of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_202" id="Page_202">[Pg 202]</a></span> the colony, some carrying a
+last letter, some a little additional package of furs or curiosities for
+those at home, some only to say good-by and take a last look at the
+dingy quarters that had been their home for so many months. Captain
+Jones, hearty and hospitable in these last hours, had provided what he
+called a snack, and both beer and strong waters were freely set out upon
+the cabin table, nor did even the Elder refuse to do him right in a
+parting glass of Nantz.</p>
+
+<p>"Had I known you for such good fellows when first we joined company
+there had never been ill-will between us," said the master of the
+Mayflower. "But at least we will drown it now."</p>
+
+<p>"It is drowned deep as Pharaoh's host in the Red Sea," responded Myles
+heartily, and the elder cried Amen.</p>
+
+<p>An hour or so later, as the pinnace slowly beat back to her moorings, a
+group of women followed by some stragglers of the other sex climbed the
+hill and seated themselves about the Fort to watch the departure of the
+Mayflower. Priscilla and Mary Chilton as usual were close together, and
+Desire Minter seated herself beside them saying wearily,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Would I were a man!"</p>
+
+<p>"Thou a man my Desir&eacute;e!" exclaimed Priscilla turning upon her
+eyes sparkling with fun, although a suspicious red lingered around the
+lids. "Wouldst woo me for thy wife?"</p>
+
+<p>"Thou&nbsp;'rt ever looking for every man to woo thee, but I'd have thee
+know there's one man, and his house not so far away, that's as near
+wooing me as thee."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh cruel, cruel Desir&eacute;e to wound my fond hopes so savagely,"
+began Priscilla; but Mary ever more practical than humorous interrupted
+her,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_203" id="Page_203">[Pg 203]</a></span>&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Why dost want to be a man, Desire?"</p>
+
+<p>"Because we women were not asked would we accept Master Jones's
+hospitality and go home, and so I had no chance to say 'Ay and thank y'
+sir?'"</p>
+
+<p>"Would you have so said Desir&eacute;e?" asked Priscilla serious in a
+minute.</p>
+
+<p>"Why sure I would," replied the girl pettishly. "Why should any of us
+want to stay? There's plenty of hard work and plenty of prayers I grant
+you, and when you have said that you've said all. No decent housen, no
+butcher's meat, or milk, or garden stuff, or so much as a huckster's
+shop where one might cheapen a ribbon or a stay-lace&mdash;what is there
+here to live for?"</p>
+
+<p>"Naught for thee, my poor Desir&eacute;e, I'm afraid," said Priscilla
+almost tenderly. "And I wish thou couldst go home, but a maid may not
+venture herself alone."</p>
+
+<p>"I know she may not, and I tried to make my cousin Carver think as I do,
+that so she might persuade the Governor to go, but wow! at the first
+word she fell upon me with such a storm of words"&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Sweet Mistress Carver storm!" cried the two girls derisively, and
+Priscilla added more gravely,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"I can fancy what she tried to make thee feel, Desir&eacute;e; but thou
+couldst not feel it, and mayhap most young maids like us could not, but
+thou seest Mary and I are different; our fathers and our mothers came
+hither with their lives in their hands to do a work, and we came to help
+them. Well, the lives were paid down and the work was not done, so we
+who remain, simple maids though we be, are in a manner bound to carry on
+that work, and not let them have died quite in vain. And their graves
+are here."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_204" id="Page_204">[Pg 204]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Mary Chilton bowed her head upon her knees, and for a moment there was a
+great silence, then Desire said querulously,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Well, but what is there for me to do?"</p>
+
+<p>"Come home and help me cook the dinner!" cried Priscilla jumping to her
+feet, while practical Mary added, "And I dare say some man will marry
+thee, Desire, and thou mayest have children."</p>
+
+<p>"I! I'll marry no man here&mdash;save one!" protested Desire tossing her
+head and rising more slowly.</p>
+
+<p>"Save one! Now is that happy he named John Howland?" asked a merry voice
+at her elbow, and Desire with a start and a laugh exclaimed,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Fie on thee, John, to take a poor maid at her word so shortly."</p>
+
+<p>"Thou shouldst not shout thy resolves into a man's ear didst not thou
+want him to hear them," replied John carelessly, and forgot the idle
+words which were to bear an ill and unexpected crop for him at no
+distant date.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_205" id="Page_205">[Pg 205]</a></span></p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<h2>CHAPTER XIX.</h2>
+
+<h3>SOWED AND REAPED IN ONE DAY.</h3>
+
+
+<p>"Bradford thou wast bred to the land wast not?" demanded Hopkins
+bursting into the house where William Bradford, ill and crippled with
+rheumatism in his "huckle-bone" or hip-joint, sat beside the fire
+reading an old Latin copy of the Georgics.</p>
+
+<p>"Bred to the land? Well, my forbears were husbandmen, and the uncle who
+cared for me as an orphan boy was a yeoman, but as I had some estate and
+not very rugged health, they aye left me alone with my books in my young
+days. But why?"</p>
+
+<p>"Didst thou ever hear then, or didst thou ever read in thy books, of
+planting fish along with corn?"</p>
+
+<p>"Nay. Didst thou?"</p>
+
+<p>"That is what I am coming at. A lot of the men are talking with this
+Squanto about the place and time and manner of setting corn. Naturally
+the poor brute knoweth somewhat of the place and its customs, seeing
+that he hath always lived here, and still it irks me to see a salvage
+giving lessons to his white masters. He saith too that corn is to be
+planted when the oak leaves are as large as a mouse's ear. Such rotten
+rubbish!"</p>
+
+<p>"But doth he aver that his people were used to plant fish with the
+corn?"</p>
+
+<p>"Ay, and he went down to the brook yester even and set some manner of
+snare, and this morning hath taken<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_206" id="Page_206">[Pg 206]</a></span> a peck or so of little fish,
+for all the world like a Dutch herring only bigger, and of these he says
+two must go into every hill of the corn, that is, this corn of theirs,
+for of wheat or rye or barley he knoweth nothing."</p>
+
+<p>"By way of enrichment, I suppose."</p>
+
+<p>"Ay, for in his gibberish he saith that corn hath been raised hereabout
+again and again, and now the land is hungry. Ha, ha, man, fancy the
+salvage calling the dead earth hungry, as if it were alive."</p>
+
+<p>"Our dear mother Earth dead, sayst thou!" exclaimed Bradford smiling
+dreamily and glancing at his Virgil. "Nay, man, she is the vigorous
+fecund mother of all outward life, and when she dieth, the end of all
+things hath come."</p>
+
+<p>"A pest on thy dreaming and thy bookish phantasies!" roared Hopkins
+kicking the smouldering log upon the hearth until a river of sparks
+flowed up and out of the wide chimney. "Dost thou agree to putting fish
+to decay amid the corn we are to eat by and by?"</p>
+
+<p>"We are not to live by what we plant, but by what we reap, friend
+Hopkins," replied Bradford still smiling in the inscrutable fashion of a
+man who pursues his own train of thought far down beneath his surface
+conversation.</p>
+
+<p>"Dost thou agree to the herring?" roared Hopkins smiting the table with
+his brawny fist.</p>
+
+<p>"Why yes, Hopkins, if it needs that I give my sanction. It striketh my
+fancy that the man who hath raised and eaten his bread on this spot for
+some thirty years is like to know better how to do it than we who have
+just come. But what matter as to my opinion?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh ay, I did not tell it as I should, but the governor sent me out of
+the field to ask thee, knowing that thou wast yeoman born."<span class='pagenum'><a
+name="Page_207" id="Page_207">[Pg 207]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Then I pray thee tell the Governor that in my poor mind it were well to
+follow the native customs in these matters at least for the first. I
+would that I could get a-field and do my share of the work."</p>
+
+<p>"Thou&nbsp;'rt as well off here. 'T&nbsp;is woundy hot on that
+hill-side. I've known July cooler than this April."</p>
+
+<p>"And still my rheumatism hugs the fire," said Bradford taking up the
+tongs and readjusting the scattered logs, while bustling Dame Hopkins
+hung her dinner-pot upon the crane in the farthest corner, and began a
+clatter of tongue before which her husband fled apace.</p>
+
+<p>That night when the men came home from the field all spoke of the
+unusual and exhaustive heat of the weather, for it was now one of those
+periods of unseasonable sultriness which from time to time afflict our
+spring season, as on April 19, 1775, when the wheat stood high enough
+above ground to bend before the breeze, and the British soldiers fell
+down beside the road, overcome by heat in their rapid flight from the
+"embattled farmers" of Concord and Lexington. But the next morning rose
+even sultrier and more debilitating, and Mistress Katharine Carver
+following her husband to the door laid a hand upon his shoulder
+saying,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Go not a-field to-day, John. It is even more cruelly hot than
+yesterday, and thou art overborne with toil already. Stay with me, I
+pray thee."</p>
+
+<p>"Nay, Kate, I were indeed unfit for the leader of the brethren could I
+send them forth to labor that I counted too heavy for myself. Let me go,
+sweetheart, and if thou wilt, say a prayer that I faint not by the way."</p>
+
+<p>"That will I truly, and yet"&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>The rest died on her lips for he was gone, yet for a few minutes longer
+she stood watching the tall figure<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_208" id="Page_208">[Pg 208]</a></span> as it disappeared up the
+hill path and listening to the murmur of a spinning-wheel in Elder
+Brewster's house, fitfully accompanied by a blithe tune lilted now and
+again by the spinner.</p>
+
+<p>"Priscilla is early at her work," thought the dame. "I would I might
+sing and spin like that!" and with a little sigh she leaned her head
+against the door-post and closed her eyes; a sweet, pale face, colorless
+and pure as an Easter lily, and eyes whose blueness seemed to show
+through the weary lids with their deep golden fringe. A fair woman, a
+lovely woman, delicately bred, for her father was one of those English
+bishops whose authority her husband and his friends so resolutely
+denied, and both she and her sister, Pastor Robinson's wife, had "lain
+in the lilies and fed on the roses of life" until love led them to
+ardent sympathy with the Separatist movement, and they had wed with two
+of its most powerful leaders, while their brother, Roger White, became
+one himself.</p>
+
+<p>"From heat to heat the day increased," and Katharine Carver lay faint
+and exhausted upon a settle drawn close beside the open door, when a
+strange sound of both assured and stumbling feet drew near, and as she
+started up it was to meet John Howland, half leading, half supporting
+her husband, whose face, deeply flushed, lay upon the other's shoulder.</p>
+
+<p>"Be not over startled, dear lady!" exclaimed Howland. "The governor
+findeth himself a little overborne by the heat, and hath come"&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"John! Dear heart, what is it! Nay, try not to speak! Here, good John
+Howland, help me to lay him upon the bed&mdash;there then, dear
+one"&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Fret not thyself, Kate, 't&nbsp;is but a pain in my head<span class='pagenum'><a
+name="Page_209" id="Page_209">[Pg 209]</a></span>&mdash;ah&mdash;'t&nbsp;is shrewd
+enough, but it will pass&mdash;there, there, good wife, fret not
+thyself!"</p>
+
+<p>"John Howland, wilt thou find Surgeon Fuller, and mayhap Dame Brewster,
+but no more. I will wring a napkin out of fair water and lay to his
+head, for it burneth like fire."</p>
+
+<p>"Ay, it burneth like fire," muttered the sick man wearily moving the
+poor head from side to side, and Katharine left alone dropped for one
+moment upon her knees and raised streaming eyes and clasped hands to
+Heaven, then rose, and when the Doctor and gentle Mary Brewster entered
+she stood white and calm at her husband's head.</p>
+
+<p>"Ay, ay, he hath sunstroke," muttered the surgeon, laying a hand upon
+the patient's forehead, "and no wonder, for it is shrewdly hot to-day,
+and he toiling away like any Hodge of them all. I must let him blood.
+Canst get me a basin and a bandage, Mistress?"</p>
+
+<p>"I will fetch them, Katharine. Sit you down." And the Elder's wife
+slipped out of the door and back again before even impatient Doctor
+Fuller could wonder where she was.</p>
+
+<p>An hour later Carver arousing from the stupor that was growing upon him,
+asked to see William Bradford, who at once hobbled in from the
+neighboring house, although himself hardly able to sit up.</p>
+
+<p>"It grieves me to find thee in such evil case, brother," said he
+painfully seating himself beside the sick man's pillow.</p>
+
+<p>"Thy sorrows will last longer than mine, Will. I must set my house in
+order so far as I have time. Dost mind, Bradford, what I said to thee
+and Winslow and Standish, the time I saw ye standing upon the great rock
+in yon island before we landed in this place?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_210" id="Page_210">[Pg 210]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Yes, dear friend, I do remember."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, 't&nbsp;was borne in upon me then, that I was only to look upon
+the Promised Land, and then for my sins to die, and that thou wert the
+Joshua who should conquer our Canaan and make the people to dwell safely
+therein. Thou shalt be their governor, Bradford, and&mdash;their
+servant."</p>
+
+<p>"As thou hast ever been! Chief of all because the helper of all."</p>
+
+<p>"Send for Winslow and Standish and the elder. I cannot long command my
+senses, and fain would speak&mdash;nay, 't&nbsp;was but a passing pang.
+Send for them, and meanwhile call John Howland and Kate, my wife. I must
+hasten&mdash;hasten"&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>Again the stupor crept over him, but steadily fighting it off, and
+holding his consciousness in the grasp of a strong man's will, he again
+opened his eyes as his wife, so pale, so still, so self-controlled,
+leaned over him and laid her cool fingers upon his brow.</p>
+
+<p>"Ay, sweetheart, 't&nbsp;is thy touch. I could tell it among a hundred.
+Dear, wilt thou go home to thy father's house? He'll have thee, now thy
+poor 'Brownist' is gone. Or wilt thou go to thy sister Robinson? She
+will be fain to have thee."</p>
+
+<p>"'Whither thou goest I will go,' my husband."</p>
+
+<p>"Say you so, Dame? Ay, thou wast ever of a high heart, and a brave.
+Mayhap our Lord will be merciful to both of us,&mdash;but His will be
+done. Thou&nbsp;'lt be submissive to thy God, Kate, as thou hast ever
+been to thy lord?"</p>
+
+<p>"Ay, dear, my lord, I will try to do thy bidding even thus far."</p>
+
+<p>"Ah, Kate, Kate, thou hast never failed in all our<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_211" id="Page_211">[Pg 211]</a></span> happy wedded
+life&mdash;fail not now&mdash;promise&mdash;promise"&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Dear love, I promise to bow myself in all loving submission to
+whatsoever our God shall send."</p>
+
+<p>"Ay, that is right, that is well, that is mine own noble Kate. And
+Howland, I leave her to thy care&mdash;be a brother, a leal and true
+friend&mdash;thou knowest what that word means&mdash;I can no
+more&mdash;my senses reel"&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"It needs no more, dear master, dear friend, if I may call my master
+so"&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"My friend," murmured Carver.</p>
+
+<p>"Then I do pledge my word as a God-fearing man, that from this moment
+the first care, the chiefest duty of my life shall be to serve and
+shield and comfort my dear lady so far as God gives me power. I will be
+her servant, her brother, her friend, in all ways, and under all
+comings, and so help me God, as I shall keep this my promise."</p>
+
+<p>"Thou dost comfort my soul, even as it enters upon the valley of the
+shadow. Stand ye two aside and bring in my brethren."</p>
+
+<p>Howland quietly opened the door, and the three who had stood grouped
+against the golden sky on that December evening on Clarke's Island
+silently entered the room and stood around the bed, where in the awful
+hush that clings about the last hour their chief lay half unconscious
+and yet able to rally his energies for one more mighty effort.</p>
+
+<p>"Brethren, I go&mdash;God remaineth&mdash;His blessing be upon you, and
+all His Israel here.&mdash;Forgive my shortcomings&mdash;forgive if I
+have offended any, knowing or unknowing"&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Thou hast ever been our best and dearest earthly<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_212" id="Page_212">[Pg 212]</a></span>
+friend&mdash;pardon thou us, dear saint!" murmured Winslow.</p>
+
+<p>&mdash;"And if ye will follow my counsel, make William Bradford your
+Governor&mdash;and set aside all jealousy, all heart
+burning&mdash;Winslow dost promise?"</p>
+
+<p>"Ay, friend, I promise right heartily."</p>
+
+<p>"Standish?"</p>
+
+<p>"Ay, Governor."</p>
+
+<p>"Good-by&mdash;I can no more&mdash;Elder, say a prayer&mdash;yet cease
+before I die"&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>And with a long, quivering sigh as of one who relinquishes his grasp of
+a burden too mighty for his strength, the first Governor of Plymouth
+Colony went to render an account of his stewardship.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_213" id="Page_213">[Pg 213]</a></span></p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<h2>CHAPTER XX.</h2>
+
+<h3>FUNERAL&mdash;BAKED MEATS AND MARRIAGE FEASTS.</h3>
+
+
+<p>"Methinks our governor should not be buried with as little ceremony as
+we perforce have showed our meanest servant," said Captain Standish
+gloomily to Elder Brewster the evening of Carver's death. "You
+Separatists despise the ministering of the Church, but what have ye set
+in its place?"</p>
+
+<p>"We clothe not the coffins of the dead with the filthy rags of Popery,
+and we pray not for the souls of them whom God hath taken into His own
+hand, for that were of the sins of presumption against which David doth
+specially pray, but yet,"&mdash;and the Elder's face softened, "I am of
+your mind, Captain, that we should honor our chief magistrate in the
+last service we can render him, and although by his own wish I ceased to
+pray for him ere the last breath was sped, and will never again pray for
+him or any parted soul, I well approve of such military honors as we are
+able to pay to his memory, and I will carry my musket with the rest, and
+fire it as you shall direct."</p>
+
+<p>"Why, that's more than ever I would have looked for, Elder," exclaimed
+Standish in amaze. "But since you so proffer, I gladly accept your aid
+and countenance, and by your leave, since as yet we have no governor in
+place of him who is gone, I will order the funeral by mine own
+ideas."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_214" id="Page_214">[Pg 214]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"As a military man?"</p>
+
+<p>"Surely. I claim no spiritual powers," and with a curious expression of
+content and disapproval upon his face the captain went away to so
+arrange and order his plan, that at sunrise on the third day a guard of
+twelve men, including the elder, presented themselves at the house of
+mourning, and receiving the coffin upon the crossed barrels of their
+muskets carried it along the brow of the hill to the grave newly opened
+amid the springing wheat.</p>
+
+<p>Mistress Carver had made but one request, and that of piteous
+earnestness,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"See that they make his grave where another may be dug close beside,"
+pleaded she, and John Howland had seen that it was as she desired.</p>
+
+<p>Earth to earth was reverently and silently laid, the grave was covered
+in, and then, at the captain's signal, the twelve muskets were fired in
+relays of four, and their mournful echo mingled with the sobbing dirge
+of the waves breaking upon the Pilgrim Rock, while the dense column of
+smoke rising grandly to heaven was the only monument then or ever
+erected to John Carver, that willing martyr and gallant gentleman who
+had indeed "given his life for the brethren."</p>
+
+<p>Returning to the Common house the Guard of Honor joined with the rest of
+the townsmen in a Council, whereat they elected William Bradford to be
+their second Governor, and as he now lay ill in his bed, Isaac Allerton
+was chosen to be his Assistant and mouthpiece.</p>
+
+<p>Bradford, neither over elated nor daunted by his new dignities, accepted
+the nomination, and with few and brief intervals retained it until his
+own death some<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_215" id="Page_215">[Pg 215]</a></span> four-and-thirty years later, and nobly and
+faithfully did he perform its duties.</p>
+
+<p>About a week after Carver's funeral the new governor, now convalescent,
+received a visit from Edward Winslow, who sought him with the formal
+request that he as chief magistrate of the colony would perform the
+marriage ceremony between him and Susanna, widow of William White.</p>
+
+<p>For the Separatists during their sojourn in Holland had accepted the
+creed of that nation of traders, and held with them that marriage is
+merely a civil contract, requiring a magistrate to secure the proper
+amount of goods to each party, and make sure that neither defrauded the
+other. As for the sacramental blessing of the Church, said the Dutchman
+and the Separatist, it costs money and bestows none, and priests are
+ever dangerous associates, so we'll none of them or their craft.</p>
+
+<p>Apart from this view of the matter however, the civil authority was the
+only one available in this case, since Pastor Robinson had been detained
+in Leyden with the rest of his flock, and Elder Brewster had no
+authority except to preach.</p>
+
+<p>"It will be my first essay at such an office, Winslow, and I know not
+precisely how to go about it," replied Bradford smilingly when his
+friend had somewhat formally declared his errand.</p>
+
+<p>"But you were yourself wed that way," replied the bridegroom
+impatiently. "For me, my first wife held to her early teaching in that
+particular, and would be married in a church and by a minister."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, I was wed by a magistrate in Amsterdam," replied Bradford
+reluctantly; "but the old Dutchman<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_216" id="Page_216">[Pg 216]</a></span> did so mumble and mouth his
+words that I gathered not the sense of half. Likely it is, however,
+Master Carver hath left some Manual for such occasion. He was warned or
+ever he left England that he was like to be our Governor for longer than
+the voyage."</p>
+
+<p>"Doubtless, then, he had some such office-book. Shall I bid John Howland
+search for it?" asked Winslow.</p>
+
+<p>"Nay, the widow hath already sent me a box of papers and some little
+books, which she said should be the governor's. I have not yet searched
+them, but I will do so before I sleep. What day have you set for your
+wedding, Winslow?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why, we would not seem to fail in respect to our dear departed brother,
+and would leave a clear fortnight between his funeral and our wedding;
+so an' it please you we will set the marriage for Thursday of next
+week."</p>
+
+<p>"And at what hour?"</p>
+
+<p>"At even when all may rest from their labor it seemeth best. After
+supper we will be ready."</p>
+
+<p>"Wilt come to me or I to thee?"</p>
+
+<p>"The dame saith she would fain be wed in her new home. It is just
+finished to-day, and such gear as we have will be carried thither
+to-morrow."</p>
+
+<p>"I mind me that Mistress White hath a fair cradle of her own," suggested
+Bradford dryly.</p>
+
+<p>"Ay. Peregrine lieth in it now."</p>
+
+<p>"May it never stand idle. I will come to thy new house then on Thursday
+of next week, after supper."</p>
+
+<p>As Winslow departed, Desire Minter met him on the threshold, and with a
+hasty reverence asked,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Is the governor within, and can I see him?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_217" id="Page_217">[Pg 217]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Ay, lass, he is within, and I know not why thou shouldst not see him.
+Knock and enter."</p>
+
+<p>And Bradford still languid from his late illness raised his head from
+the back of his chair with a patient smile as the knock was immediately
+followed by Desire's broad and comely face.</p>
+
+<p>"Can your worship grant me a few moments if it please your honor?"</p>
+
+<p>"Nay, Desire, it needs not so much ceremony to speak to William
+Bradford. What wouldst thou?"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, worshipful sir, 't&nbsp;is a little advice. Your honor sees that
+I am a poor lonely lass, bereft now of even my cousin Carver's
+husband"&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Nay, my girl, our late governor was more than 'even my cousin's
+husband.' Pay honor to him rather than to me."</p>
+
+<p>"Ay, but he is dead and cannot help me, and thou art alive."</p>
+
+<p>"'And better a live dog than a dead lion,'" murmured Bradford looking
+sorrowfully at the girl whose selfish cunning was not keen enough to
+disguise itself.</p>
+
+<p>"Well?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why, I fain would know your honor's judgment upon my marriage."</p>
+
+<p>"Thou marry! And who is the man?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why, there now is the question, sir? Captain Standish hath showed me
+that he fain would ask me to wife, did not Priscilla Molines woo him so
+desperately"&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Peace, child! How dare one Christian woman speak thus of another!"</p>
+
+<p>"But 't&nbsp;is so, your worship; 't&nbsp;is so, indeed, and how can I
+gainsay it?" whimpered the girl. "She as good as asked him when we were
+sick together in the hospi<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_218" id="Page_218">[Pg 218]</a></span>tal, and she wrought upon her father
+to ask him, and what could he do between them, and still he would rather
+have had me to wife, and I would have not said him nay."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, and what can I do about it?"</p>
+
+<p>"Bid Priscilla give him up, your honor, and bid him speak out to me, and
+quickly, for else John Howland will have me to wife."</p>
+
+<p>"Ah, and hath Howland also asked thee?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, your honor, he asked me as the Mayflower was sailing out of the
+harbor, and I told my cousin Carver, and she says it will be an ease to
+her mind to leave me with so good a man to my husband, but for me I had
+rather have the Captain."</p>
+
+<p>"And thou callest upon me to straighten this coil, and marry thee to
+whichever man will have thee, eh?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, your honor."</p>
+
+<p>"Thou&nbsp;'rt a simple lass, and knowst not half thou sayest. Go now,
+and I will send for thee in a day or two. But see thou keep a quiet
+tongue. Say not one word so much as to the rushes, or thou shalt have no
+husband at all. Mind that!"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, I'll not speak, I'll not forget, trust me to do all your honor's
+bidding," cried the girl joyfully, and Bradford gazing at her in
+compassionate wonder rejoined,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Well, go now, and remember. Stay, send me one of the lads, no matter
+which. The first one thou seest."</p>
+
+<p>And when Giles Hopkins presently appeared he sent him to crave the
+presence of Captain Standish when he should have finished his noon-meat.
+The Captain came at once, and after a few friendly words the governor
+calmly inquired,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Dost wish to wed with Desire Minter, Myles?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_219" id="Page_219">[Pg 219]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Desire Minter! Has thy fever come back and turned thy brain, Bradford?"</p>
+
+<p>"Nay, but wilt thou wed with her?"</p>
+
+<p>"Not if there was no other woman upon earth. Dost catch my meaning,
+Will?"</p>
+
+<p>"Ay, I fear me that I do."</p>
+
+<p>"Fearest! Why, dost thou desire so monstrous a sacrifice to the common
+weal, as Winslow words it? If the wench must be wed there are men enow
+who are not of thy nearest friends, Bradford. And, besides, thou knowest
+I am to marry Priscilla Molines, and now I think on&nbsp;'t, 't&nbsp;is
+time to arrange it. I did but wait for the brig to be gone, but then the
+governor's death put all thought of marriage gear out of my head."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh ay, I mind me now that thou didst speak of Priscilla. Hast ever
+spoken to her?"</p>
+
+<p>"Not I. I have no skill in such matters, nor time, nor thought. I'll
+write her a cartel, I mean a letter of proposals"&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"But can she read? Not many of our women are so deeply learned."</p>
+
+<p>"I know not, I hope not. The only woman I ever cared to speak to of love
+could do no more than sign her name and 't&nbsp;was enough."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, then, settle it thine own way, only let it be soon, for I fain
+would see thee with a home and children about thy hearth, old friend."</p>
+
+<p>"Ay, I suppose 't&nbsp;is a duty,&mdash;a man who hath given all beside,
+may well give his own way into the bargain. I'll marry before your new
+old love can reach here, Governor."</p>
+
+<p>"Nay, when thou sayest 'Governor,' I note that thou art ill pleased with
+somewhat, Myles. Is it with me?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_220" id="Page_220">[Pg 220]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Nay, Will, 't&nbsp;is with thy words."</p>
+
+<p>And laughing in his own grim way the Captain left the house, and strode
+up the hill to solace his spirit by examining and petting his big guns.</p>
+
+<p>That same evening Bradford walked painfully across the little space
+dividing Hopkins's house from that where Katharine Carver sat alone
+beside the little fire still comfortable to an invalid, and after some
+conversation said,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Dame, hast any plan for marrying thy kinswoman Desire Minter to any of
+our young fellows?"</p>
+
+<p>"I am glad you have spoken of it, Governor Bradford," replied the widow
+eagerly. "For it is a matter largely in my thoughts. I do not think I am
+to tarry very long behind my dear lord,&mdash;nay, do not speak of that
+I beseech you, kind sir,&mdash;but it hath dwelt painfully on my mind
+that the poor silly maid would be left alone, and none so ill-fitted to
+care for herself have I ever seen. But she tells me that John Howland
+hath spoken to her, and she is not ill inclined to him. Would not it be
+approved of your judgment, Governor?"</p>
+
+<p>"Ay, if in truth both parties desire it, dame. Suppose we have Howland
+in before us now, and ask him his will? Thou canst deal with the maid
+after."</p>
+
+<p>"He is just without, cleaving some fuel for this fire, if your
+excellency will please to call him."</p>
+
+<p>"I will, but first, Dame, let me beg thee, of our old friendship, of the
+love I bore thy husband and he to me, treat me not with such cruel
+formality. True it is that his honors have fallen upon me, and that his
+place knoweth him no more; and yet it is his spirit, his counsel, and
+his ensample that rules my poor actions at every turn. Be not jealous,
+be not resentful, mistress, though well I<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_221" id="Page_221">[Pg 221]</a></span> wot so loving and so
+faithful a heart as thine cannot well escape such weakness, for
+'t&nbsp;is part of woman's nature. But canst not be a little mindful of
+thine old friend's feelings too, and soften somewhat of this stately
+ceremony in speaking to him?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, he loved thee, he loved thee well, and he would have chidden
+me"&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Nay, nay, weep not, Dame Katharine. I did not mean to grieve thee but
+only to tell how I was grieved; but then, we men are still too clumsy to
+meddle with women's tender natures. Be what thou wilt, speak as thou
+wilt to me dear Dame, I am and ever shall be thy faithful friend and
+servant."</p>
+
+<p>He went out as he spoke, and when a few moments later Howland and he
+returned together the lady had resumed her usual quietude of manner.</p>
+
+<p>"Sit thee down, John. Mistress Carver and I have somewhat to ask of
+thee. Art thou minded to wed?"</p>
+
+<p>"Not while my mistress needeth my service."</p>
+
+<p>"Mayhap&nbsp;'t will further her comfort, John."</p>
+
+<p>"Is it thy wish, Dame?" and the young man turned so eager a face toward
+her, and spoke so brightly, that a smile stirred the widow's pale lips
+as she replied,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"'T&nbsp;is plain enough that 't&nbsp;is thy wish, John, and it will
+wonderfully content my conscience in the matter of bringing Desire
+Minter away from the home she had, poor though it then seemed."</p>
+
+<p>"Desire Minter!" echoed Howland.</p>
+
+<p>"Why yes, she told me how you spoke to her the day the Mayflower sailed,
+and she modestly avows that she is well content to be thy wife."</p>
+
+<p>"But"&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"What is it, Howland? Speak out, man," interposed Bradford with
+authority. "Thou seemest dazed."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_222" id="Page_222">[Pg 222]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Why, truth to tell, sir, and my dear Dame, I thought not of Desire as
+my wife"&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Didst thou not speak to her of marriage?"</p>
+
+<p>"Surely not,&mdash;or&mdash;there was some idle jest between us, I mind
+not what, and I never thought on&nbsp;'t again."</p>
+
+<p>"But she did, thou seest," said the Governor sternly. "Thou knowest how
+'idle jesting that is not convenient' is condemned in Holy Writ, and now
+is the saying proven. The maid believed thee in earnest, and hath set
+her mind upon thee"&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>But of a sudden Bradford remembering Desire's plainly expressed
+preference for the Captain, if he might be had, paused abruptly, and
+Dame Carver took up the word,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"It would much comfort my mind, John, if thou wouldst consent to this
+thing. The maiden's future is a fardel upon my shoulders now, and they
+are not over strong. 'T&nbsp;is a good wench, John, if not over
+brilliant."</p>
+
+<p>"Say no more, dame, say no more. If it will be a pleasure and a comfort
+to thee, it is enough."</p>
+
+<p>"But hast thou any other choice, John? Wouldst thou have chosen
+Priscilla, like thy friend Alden?"</p>
+
+<p>"Nay, Dame."</p>
+
+<p>"But thou hast something in thy mind, good John. Tell it out, I pray
+thee."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, then, to speak all my mind, Mistress, there is no maid among us
+so fair in my eyes, and so sweet, and pure, and true, as Elizabeth
+Tilley, and I had"&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Why, she is scarce turned sixteen, dear boy," exclaimed the widow.</p>
+
+<p>"I had thought to wait a year or two for her," faltered Howland, but
+Bradford interposed,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Nay, nay, John, we cannot have our sturdy men<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_223" id="Page_223">[Pg 223]</a></span> waiting for
+little maids to grow up. There are boys enow coming on for them, and as
+for thee, why man, thou&nbsp;'rt five-and-twenty, art not?"</p>
+
+<p>"Seven-and-twenty, sir. But all this is beside the matter. If my dear
+mistress asks me to marry Desire Minter as a comfort to her, I will do
+it to-day."</p>
+
+<p>"I thank thee heartily, John." And in the affectionate glance and smile
+his lily-like dame turned upon him Howland felt more than repaid for his
+sacrifice.</p>
+
+<p>"And yet," continued she, "I will not let thee marry to-day, nor for a
+year. But if thou wilt call thyself betrothed to her, and promise me on
+thy faith to deal truly by her, and at the year's end marry her if you
+both are still so minded, I will be content. I shall leave her in thy
+care, even as he who is gone left me in thy care, and a good and
+faithful guardian hast thou been, dear friend."</p>
+
+<p>"I pledged my life to him that I would do my best, and now I pledge it
+in your hands, my honored mistress and dear lady, that I will so deal
+with this maid as shall most pleasure you."</p>
+
+<p>And so John Howland and Desire Minter were formally betrothed; and
+before the month of May was gone the wheat upon the hill-side was again
+disturbed as John Carver's wife came to lay herself down to rest close
+beside him in sweet content.</p>
+
+<p>"They tell of broken hearts," said Surgeon Fuller musing above that
+double grave; "and were I asked to name Dame Katharine's complaint I
+know no name for it but that."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_224" id="Page_224">[Pg 224]</a></span></p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<h2>CHAPTER XXI.</h2>
+
+<h3>AN AFFAIR OF HONOR.</h3>
+
+
+<p>"Thou liest foully, Edward Dotey! Thou liest even as Ananias and
+Sapphira lied."</p>
+
+<p>"Liest, thou son of Belial! 'T&nbsp;is thou that liest, and art a
+cock-a-hoop braggart into the bargain, Master Edward Lister! Tell me
+that our master's daughter gave thee that kerchief"&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"If thou couldst read, I'd show thee 'Constance Hopkins' fairly wrought
+upon it by the young mistress's own hand."</p>
+
+<p>"Then thou stolest it, and I will straight to our master and tell him
+on&nbsp;'t!"</p>
+
+<p>"Hi, hi, my springalds! what meaneth all this vaporing and noise? What's
+amiss, Lister?"</p>
+
+<p>"It matters not what's amiss John Billington. Pass on and attend to
+thine own affairs."</p>
+
+<p>"Lister's afraid to tell that he carrieth stolen goods in his doublet
+and lies about them into the bargain," sneered Edward Dotey.</p>
+
+<p>"I lie do I, thou base-born coward! Lie thou there, then!"</p>
+
+<p>And Edward Lister with one generous buffet stretched his opponent upon
+the pile of firewood they had been hewing a little way from the town.</p>
+
+<p>Billington who had wandered in that direction with his gun upon his
+shoulder looking for game, helped the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_225" id="Page_225">[Pg 225]</a></span> fallen man to his feet
+and officiously fingered a bruise rising upon his cheek.</p>
+
+<p>"Hi! Hi! But here's a coil! He's wounded thee sorely, Dotey! I'm witness
+that he assaulted thee, with intent to kill like enough. Canst stand?"</p>
+
+<p>"Let me go, let me at him, leave go of my arm John Billington! I'll soon
+show thee"&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Nay Ned," interposed Lister, as Billington with a malignant grin upon
+his face half hindered, half permitted Dotey's struggles to free himself
+from the poacher's sinewy arms. "Nay, man, I meant not to draw e'en so
+much blood as trickles down thy cheek"&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"He meant to draw it by the bucketful and not in drops," interpreted
+Billington. "And now he tries to crawl off. Take thy knife to him, man;
+nay, get ye both your swords and hack away at each other until we see
+which is the better bird. 'T&nbsp;is long since I saw a main"&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Ay, we'll fight it out, Lister, and see which is the better man in the
+matter you wot of." And Dotey, who was furiously jealous lest his fellow
+retainer should have made more progress in the regard of Constance
+Hopkins than himself, nodded meaningly toward him, while Billington
+watched both with Mephistophilean glee.</p>
+
+<p>"Agreed," replied Lister more coolly. "Although thou knowest private
+quarrels are forbidden by the Captain."</p>
+
+<p>"Hah! Thou&nbsp;'rt afraid of our peppery little Captain!" cried
+Billington. "Some day thou&nbsp;'lt see me take him between thumb and
+finger and crack him like a flea if he mells too much with me."</p>
+
+<p>"I heard thee flout at his command t'&nbsp;other day, and I heard him
+tell thee the next time thou didst so let<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_226" id="Page_226">[Pg 226]</a></span> loose thy tongue,
+he'd take order with thee," exclaimed Lister hotly, and Billington
+snapping his fingers contemptuously retorted,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"'T&nbsp;is no use, Dotey. Lister's afraid of thee and will not fight.
+'T&nbsp;is a good boy, but not over-brave."</p>
+
+<p>"Stay you here, you two, till I can go and come, and we will see who is
+the coward!" retorted Lister furiously, and before either could reply he
+sped away in the direction of the village.</p>
+
+<p>"'T&nbsp;is like a bull-fight," cried Billington with a coarse laugh.
+"The creature is hard to wake, but when he hath darts enough quivering
+in his hide he rouses up and showeth rare sport. Now let us find a fair,
+smooth field for our sword play. 'T&nbsp;is not so easy in this wild
+land."</p>
+
+<p>"I know not why our captain should forbid the duello; 't&nbsp;is ever
+the way of gentles to settle their disputes at the point of the sword,"
+said Dotey musingly.</p>
+
+<p>"Ay, and in this place we all are gentles, or all simples, I know not
+which," added Billington. "Certes, one man should here count as good as
+another, and 't&nbsp;is often in my mind to say so, and to cry, Down
+with governors, and captains, and elders"&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Nay, nay, such talk smacks too strong of treason to suit my ear,"
+exclaimed Dotey, who was, after all, an honest, well-meaning young
+fellow, a little carried away just now by jealousy and by the
+intoxicating air of liberty and freedom, but by no means to the extent
+of joining or desiring a revolt against the appointed powers of Church
+or State.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, here is Lister, and with not only swords but daggers if I can see
+aright. Ay, that's a good lad, that's a brave lad, Lister! There's no
+craven in thy<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_227" id="Page_227">[Pg 227]</a></span> skin, is there, and I shrewdly nip mine own
+tongue for so calling thee. Come now, my merry men, let me place you
+fairly, each with his shoulder to the sun, each planted firmly on sound
+footing. There then, that is as well as may be, and well enow. Come,
+one, two, three, and lay on!"</p>
+
+<p>But careful as Lister had been in securing and bringing away his
+weapons, he had not escaped the scrutiny of two bright eyes hidden
+behind the curtain dividing the nook where Constance Hopkins and her
+sister Damaris slept, from the main room of the dwelling, and no sooner
+had the young man left the house than Constance hastily followed, and
+running lightly up the hill to where the Captain with John Alden at his
+side was roofing in an addition to his half-built house she
+cried,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Captain Standish, I fear me there's mischief afoot with Edward Dotey
+and Edward Lister!"</p>
+
+<p>"Ay? And what makes thee think so, my lass?" asked Standish peering down
+from his coign of vantage. "Where are they?"</p>
+
+<p>"My father sent them afield this morning to rive and pile firewood, but
+a few minutes agone Edward Lister came creeping into the house and up to
+the loft where they two and Bartholomew sleep, and I who was below heard
+the clank of steel, and peeping saw that he brought down two swords and
+had stuck two daggers in his belt"&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Aha! Swords and daggers, my young masters!" exclaimed the Captain,
+hastily descending the ladder beside which Constance stood. "John, drop
+thy hammer and take thy piece; nay, take a good stick in hand, and we
+will soon bring these springalds to order. Whereaway are they,
+girl?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_228" id="Page_228">[Pg 228]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"That-a-way, sir; nay, see you not Lister's cap bob up and down as he
+runneth behind yon bushes?"</p>
+
+<p>"Ay, lass, thou hast a sharp eye. Go home and rest
+content&mdash;thou&nbsp;'rt a wise and good child."</p>
+
+<p>Ten minutes later the captain and his follower plunging through the
+underwood fringing Watson's Hill heard the clash of steel upon steel and
+a coarse voice crying,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Well played, Dotey! Nay, 't&nbsp;is naught but a scratch&mdash;don't
+give over for that, Lister; up and at him again, boy! Get thy revenge on
+him!"</p>
+
+<p>"That knave Billington!" growled Standish: "I could have sworn he was in
+it! Here you! Stop that! Drop your blades, men! Drop them!"</p>
+
+<p>Lister and Dotey, nothing loth, for both were wounded, obeyed the
+summons, and staggering back from each other stood leaning upon their
+swords and panting desperately, while Billington dexterously stepping
+backward behind an elder bush made his way forest-ward with a stealthy
+footstep, and a shrewd use of cover, suggestive of his former calling.</p>
+
+<p>"And now what meaneth this, ye young fools!" sternly demanded Standish.
+"Are ye aping the sins of your betters and claiming the rights of the
+duello? Rights say I! Nay, 't&nbsp;is forbidden to any man in this
+colony, and ye know it well, ha?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yea, Captain, we knew&nbsp;'t&nbsp;was forbidden, but we had a
+quarrel"&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"And why if ye must fight did ye take to deadly weapons? Have ye not a
+pair of fists apiece, or if that could not content ye, are there not
+single-sticks enow in these woods? I've a mind to take my ramrod in hand
+and show ye the virtue of a good stick, but I promise you that if not I,
+some other shall give you a lesson you'll not forget. Come,
+march!"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_229" id="Page_229">[Pg 229]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"I'm shrewdly slashed in the leg, Captain," expostulated Dotey; "and
+fear me I cannot walk."</p>
+
+<p>"Ay? Sit down, then, and let me see. Thou&nbsp;'st a sore wound in thy
+leather breeches, but&mdash;ay, there's a scratch beneath, but naught to
+hinder your moving. Here, I'll plaster it up in a twinkling."</p>
+
+<p>And from the pocket of his doublet the old soldier produced a case
+containing some of the most essential requisites of surgery, and with a
+deftness and delicacy of touch, surprising to one who had not seen him
+beside a sick-bed, he soon had the wound safe and comfortable.</p>
+
+<p>"There, man, thou&nbsp;'rt fit to walk from here to Cape Cod. Many a
+mile have I marched with a worse wound than that, and no better than a
+rag or at best my belt bound round it. Now you sirrah! Hast a scratch,
+too?"</p>
+
+<p>For reply Lister silently held out a hand whence the blood dripped
+freely from a cut across the palm.</p>
+
+<p>"Tried to grasp&nbsp;'t&nbsp;other fool's dagger in thy naked hand, eh?"
+coolly remarked the Captain as he cut a strip of plaster to fit the
+wound. "Now the next time take my counsel and catch it in the leathern
+sleeve of thy jerkin. Better wound a dead calf than a live one."</p>
+
+<p>"Next time, sayst he!" commented Dotey in a mock aside to his companion.
+"So we were not so far astray this time."</p>
+
+<p>"Next time thou meetest a dagger, I should have said," retorted the
+Captain with his grimmest smile. "I never said ye were not to fight, for
+I trow ye'll have chance enough at that before I'm done with ye; but
+when a handful of men are set as we are to garrison a little post on the
+frontier of a savage country, for one to fall afoul of another and to
+risk two lives out of a dozen for some senseless feud of their own is to
+my mind<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_230" id="Page_230">[Pg 230]</a></span> little short of treason to the government they've sworn
+to defend. Now then, march! Alden, give Dotey thy arm to lean upon if he
+needs it. Forward!"</p>
+
+<p>That night Dotey and Lister slept in two rooms under guard, and the next
+morning the freemen of the colony were convened in the Common house to
+judge their case. With them Billington was also summoned, although
+neither Dotey nor Lister had betrayed his complicity.</p>
+
+<p>Accused of deliberate assault upon each other with deadly weapons both
+men humbly pleaded guilty and expressed their penitence, but to this
+Bradford gravely replied,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Glad are we to know that ye are penitent, and resolved upon amendment,
+but ne'er the less we cannot therefore omit some signal punishment both
+to make a serious impression upon your own memories, and to advertise to
+all other evil-doers that we bear not the sword of justice in vain.
+Brethren, I pray you speak your minds. What ought to be done to these
+would-be murderers?"</p>
+
+<p>"In the army they would have earned a flogging," remarked the captain
+sitting at the governor's right hand.</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps solitary confinement with fasting would subdue the angry heat
+of their blood most effectually," said the elder at Bradford's other
+side.</p>
+
+<p>"Had we a pillory or a pair of stocks I would advise that public
+disgrace," said Winslow; and Allerton suggested,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"They might be fined for the benefit of the public purse."</p>
+
+<p>"If the Governor will leave them to me I'll promise to trounce them
+well, and after, to set them extra tasks<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_231" id="Page_231">[Pg 231]</a></span> for a month or so,"
+offered Hopkins; and Alden murmured to Howland,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Allerton is treasurer of the public purse, and Hopkins will profit by
+the extra labor, mark you!"</p>
+
+<p>"What is thy counsel, Surgeon Fuller?" inquired Bradford, and the
+whimsical doctor replied,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"I once saw two fellows in a little village of Sussex lying upon the
+stones of the market-place, tied neck and heels, and methinks I never
+have heard such ingenious profanity as those men were yelling each at
+his unseen comrade. I asked the publican where I baited my horse the
+cause of so strange a spectacle, and he said this was their manner of
+disciplining brawlers in the ale-house. They were to lie there
+four-and-twenty hours without bite or sup, and so I left them. Methinks
+it were a suitable discipline in this case, but I may fairly hope the
+profanity of those unenlightened rustics will give place with our erring
+brethren to sighs of penitence and sorrow."</p>
+
+<p>"What think you, brethren, of our good surgeon's suggestion?" asked
+Bradford, restraining the smile tempting the corners of his mouth. "It
+approves itself to me as a fair sentence. Will those who are so minded
+raise their right hands?"</p>
+
+<p>The larger number of right hands rose in the air, and the sentence was
+pronounced that so soon as the doctor assured the authorities that the
+wounded men would take no harm from the exposure, the duelists, bound
+neck and heels, should be laid at the meeting of the four roads, there
+to remain four-and-twenty hours without food or water, and until that
+time each was to remain locked in a separate chamber.</p>
+
+<p>"And now John Billington," continued Bradford<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_232" id="Page_232">[Pg 232]</a></span> sternly, as the
+younger men were removed, "how hast thou to defend thyself from the
+charge of blood guiltiness in stirring up strife between these two?"</p>
+
+<p>"Nay, your worship, it was their own quarrel," replied Billington
+hardily. "I did but chance to pass and saw them at it, and so tarried a
+moment to see fair play."</p>
+
+<p>"And to hound them on at each other, as if it were a bull-baiting for
+thine own amusement," interposed Standish in a contemptuous tone. "Nay,
+lie not about it, man! I heard thee, and saw thee!"</p>
+
+<p>"Surely, Billington," resumed the governor, "thou hast not so soon
+forgotten how thou wast convened before us some weeks since, charged
+with insolence and disobedience to our captain, and with seditious
+speech anent the government. We did then speak of some such punishment
+as this for thee, but thy outcry of penitence and promise of amendment,
+coupled with the shame of chastising thee in sight of thine own wife and
+sons, was so great that we forgave thee, the more that Captain Standish
+passed over the affront to himself; but now we see that the penitence
+was but feigned, and the amendment a thing of naught, and much I fear
+me, John Billington, that an' thou amend not thy ways, harsher
+discipline than we would willingly inflict will be thy portion in time
+to come."</p>
+
+<p>The governor spoke with more than usual solemnity fixing upon the
+offender a gaze severe yet pitiful and reluctant, as one who foresees
+for another a fate deserved indeed, and yet too terrible to contemplate.
+Perhaps before that astute and reflective mind there rose a vision of
+the gallows nine years later to be erected by his own order, whereon
+John Billington, deliberate murderer of John Newcomen, should expiate
+his crime and open the gloomy record of capital punishment in New
+England.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_233" id="Page_233">[Pg 233]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>At the present moment, however, the offender slunk away with his
+reproof, and the meeting proceeded to consider other matters, for, while
+the new government felt itself competent to deal with matters of life
+and death, it also found no matter too trifling for its attention.</p>
+
+<p>Four days later Edward Dotey and Edward Lister, their wounds comfortably
+healed, were brought out into the market place as in fond reminiscence
+of home the Pilgrims called what is now the Town Square of Plymouth, and
+each offender was solemnly tied neck and heels together,&mdash;an
+attitude at once ignominious and painful.</p>
+
+<p>The governor, with Allerton his assistant, the captain, the elder,
+Winslow, Hopkins, and Warren stood formally arrayed to witness the
+execution of the sentence, which Billington was forced to carry out. The
+less important members of the community surrounded the scene, and from
+amid the fluctuating crowd murmurs of amaze, of pity, of approval, or
+the reverse became from time to time audible.</p>
+
+<p>"Nay, then, 't&nbsp;is a shame to see Christian men so served, and they
+so scarce a commodity in these parts," declared Helen Billington to her
+neighbor Mistress Hopkins, who nippingly replied,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Mayhap we've mistook the men we've put in power."</p>
+
+<p>"Ay," returned the coarser malcontent. "They passed by thy goodman, and
+put worse men over his head."</p>
+
+<p>"Master Hopkins careth naught for such honors as these have to bestow.
+His name was made or ever he came hither," replied Elizabeth a little
+coldly as she moved away.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_234" id="Page_234">[Pg 234]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Glad am I to see that thy goodman leaveth the cord as slack as may be,
+Goody Billington," whispered Lois, late maid to Mistress Carver, but now
+the promised second wife of Francis Eaton, who stood beside her, and
+overhearing the whisper said reprovingly,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Nay, wench, thou speakest foolishly. If evil-doers are to go unwhipt of
+justice how long shall this colony endure. See you not that if these
+roysterers had each killed the other, there had been two men the less to
+stand between your silly throats and the hatchets of the salvages?"</p>
+
+<p>"Ay, there's sound sense in that, Francis," replied Lois yielding
+admiringly to the superior wisdom of her betrothed, but Helen Billington
+nodding and blinking, muttered to her boy John, as she leaned upon his
+shoulder,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Wait but till dark, when all the wiseacres are asleep, and see if thy
+daddy sets not these men free, ay, and puts weapons in their hands like
+enough, to revenge themselves withal."</p>
+
+<p>The offenders bound, and laid each upon his side on the bare ground, the
+court withdrew and the crowd dispersed. But scarce an hour had passed
+ere Hopkins presented himself before the governor and his assistant, at
+work over the colony's records, those precious first minutes, now
+forever lost, and with an elaborately quiet and restrained demeanor
+said,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Master Bradford, yon poor knaves of mine are suffering shrewdly from
+cramps and shooting pains as well as from the ache of their scarce
+healed wounds. They promise in sad sincerity to amend their ways, and
+when all is said, they are good and kindly lads, and did but ape the
+fashions of their betters in the Old World.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_235" id="Page_235">[Pg 235]</a></span> May not I persuade
+your worship to look over their offense for this time, and to remit
+their pains and penalties as soon as may be?"</p>
+
+<p>"Thou sayest they are penitent, good Master Hopkins?" asked Bradford
+judicially.</p>
+
+<p>"Ay, and to my mind honestly so."</p>
+
+<p>"We will speak with them, Master Allerton, and if the captain and the
+elder agree with me, Master Hopkins, thy petition is granted, for indeed
+it is to me more pain to make another suffer than to suffer myself, even
+as a father feels the rod upon his own heart the while he lays it on his
+son's back."</p>
+
+<p>"And yet the warning that to spare the rod will spoil the child applies
+to the children of the State as well as to the household," remarked
+Allerton, whose lively son Bartholomew could have testified to his
+father's strict obedience to Solomon's precept.</p>
+
+<p>The chiefs of the colony were soon reassembled about the grotesque
+figures of the suffering duelists, and with their approval, the governor
+having demanded and received ample professions of contrition, and
+promises of amendment, ordered Billington to release the prisoners, who
+shamefacedly crept away to their master's house, and thus ended the
+first and for many years the only duel fought upon New England
+soil.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_236" id="Page_236">[Pg 236]</a></span></p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<h2>CHAPTER XXII.</h2>
+
+<h3>THE CAPTAIN'S PIPE.</h3>
+
+
+<p>It was a lovely evening in June, and, the labors of the day being ended,
+while the hour for nightly devotion had not yet come, Plymouth enjoyed
+an hour of rest.</p>
+
+<p>Seven houses now lined The Street, leading from the Rock to the Fort,
+and of these the highest on the northerly side was that of Captain
+Standish, built so near to the Fort indeed, that John Alden, if so idly
+minded to amuse himself, could easily salute each gun of the little
+battery with a pebble upon its nose. He was in fact thus occupied on
+this especial evening, while the captain sitting upon a bench beside the
+cottage door smoked a pipe wondrously carved from a block of chalcedony
+by some "Ancient Arrowmaker" of forgotten fame, and presented to
+Standish by his admiring friend Hobomok, who, having silently studied at
+his leisure the half dozen principal men among the Pilgrims, had settled
+upon Standish as most nearly representing his ideal of combined courage,
+wisdom, and endurance, so that he already was beginning to be known as
+"the Captain's Indian," just as Squanto was especially Bradford's
+henchman.</p>
+
+<p>"'T&nbsp;is a goodly sight&mdash;a sweet and fair country," said the
+Captain half aloud, and Alden just pausing to note that his last pebble
+had gone down the throat of the saker, turned to inquire,<span class='pagenum'><a
+name="Page_237" id="Page_237">[Pg 237]</a></span>&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"What is it, master?"</p>
+
+<p>For reply the captain took the pipe from his mouth, and with the stem
+pointed to Manomet, where mile after mile of fresh young verdure rose
+steeply against the rosy eastern sky, while the sun sinking behind what
+was to be the Captain's Hill shot a flood of golden glory across the
+placid bay cresting each little wave with radiance, and burying itself
+at last among the whispering foliage of the mount.</p>
+
+<p>"Saw you ever a fairer sight, lad?"</p>
+
+<p>"Nay, 't&nbsp;is fair as the Hills of Beulah whereof the elder spake
+last night," softly replied John.</p>
+
+<p>"And fairer, for we can see it with our eyes of to-day," replied the
+captain dryly. The younger man glanced briefly at his master's face, and
+failing to read its complex expression, contented himself with a
+somewhat uneasy smile as he turned to gaze upon the scene in thoughtful
+silence.</p>
+
+<p>Standish noting with one of his quick glances his follower's
+embarrassment, took counsel with himself, and as he quietly refilled his
+pipe said,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Mark me well, lad, I mean not to cast aught of discredit on the elder's
+teaching, nor to shake any man's faith in Beulahs, or Canaans, or hills
+of Paradise, for doubtless Holy Writ gives warrant for such forecasting;
+and surely approved masters of strategy, and warfare both offensive and
+defensive, like Moses, and David, and Joshua, did not fight for the
+guerdon of a fool's bauble, or a May-queen's garland. But yet, mind
+thee, John, there are other great soldiers given us as ensamples in that
+same Holy Writ who seemed to set no store upon the Beulahs, and cared
+naught for milk or honey; men like Gideon, and Samson, and Saul,
+and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_238" id="Page_238">[Pg 238]</a></span> Joab; and still the Lord of Hosts led these men forth, and
+fought for them and fended them, so long as they fought for themselves
+and were careful to catch the order and obey it. I know not, Jack, these
+matters are too mighty for a poor soldier like me to handle
+understandingly; and still somehow it seemeth me that this same Lord of
+Hosts will know how to deal mercifully even with a rough, war-worn
+fellow like me, who repenteth him of his sins and hath freely given
+himself to do battle in Christ's name against all Heathenesse, and to
+stand forth with this handful of saints against His foes and theirs, and
+that, although he cannot clearly see the Hills of Beulah, nor cares for
+such luscious cates as suit some stomachs. Dost catch my meaning, boy?"</p>
+
+<p>"Ay, master, and well do I wish my hope of God's favor were as fairly
+founded"&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Nay now, nay now, did not I this minute tell thee that I care naught
+for sweets? Save thy honey for some maiden's lips. Ah, and now I think
+on&nbsp;'t, here is a quiet and leisure time wherein to study out the
+strategy of that wooing emprise I was telling thee of&mdash;nay, did I
+tell thee?"</p>
+
+<p>"Wooing&mdash;what&mdash;I&mdash;I know not fairly," stammered John
+Alden, but the captain still gazing upon Hither Manomet, where now the
+purple bloom of twilight was replacing the glory of the sunset, marked
+not the pallor stealing the red from beneath the brown of the young
+fellow's cheek, nor heard the discordant falter of his voice.</p>
+
+<p>"Ay," replied he thoughtfully,&mdash;"my wooing of Priscilla Molines,
+thou knowest. I thought I spoke to thee of it, but at all odds the time
+has now well come when I should address the maid. I ought indeed
+to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_239" id="Page_239">[Pg 239]</a></span> have done it long ago, and mayhap she will be a bit peevish
+at the delay, for doubtless her father told her ere he died of our
+compact, but there has been no convenient season, and truth to tell,
+Jack, I have no great heart toward the matter&mdash;yon green plateau
+lies betwixt me and"&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>And in the sudden silence John Alden's gaze went out over the steel gray
+waters, out and out to the far horizon line where the rose tint had
+faded from the sky and a low line of fog gathered slowly and sadly.</p>
+
+<p>"I'll tell thee, boy," suddenly resumed the captain rising from the
+bench and confronting his companion, while lightly touching his breast
+with the mouthpiece of the pipe upon whose cold ashes John mechanically
+fixed his eyes,&mdash;"thou shalt woo her for me."</p>
+
+<p>"I&mdash;I woo her&mdash;nay, master, nay"&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"And why nay, thou foolish boy? 'T&nbsp;will be rare practice for thee
+against some of these lasses grow up, and thou wouldst fain go a-wooing
+on thine own account. Nay, then, can it be that a young fellow who would
+gayly go forth against Goliath of Gath were he in these parts is craven
+before the bright eyes and nimble tongue of a little maid? Dost think
+Priscilla will box thine ears?"</p>
+
+<p>"Nay, but"&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Nay me no buts and but me no nays, for the scheme tickles my fancy
+hugely, and so it shall be. Thou seest, Jack, it were more than a little
+awkward for me to show reason why I have not spoken sooner, and the fair
+lady's angry dignity will be appeased by seeing that I stand in awe of
+her, and woo her as princesses are wooed, by proxy. Thou shalt be my
+proxy, Jack, and see thou serve me not so scurvy a trick as&mdash;ha,
+here cometh the governor."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_240" id="Page_240">[Pg 240]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>And, in effect, Bradford striding up the hill with all the vigor of his
+one-and-thirty years was already so close at hand as to save John Alden
+the pain of a reply.</p>
+
+<p>"Good e'en, Governor," cried Standish going a step or two to meet his
+guest.</p>
+
+<p>"Good e'en, Captain,&mdash;Alden. There's more trouble toward about the
+Billingtons."</p>
+
+<p>"What now?" demanded the captain with a stern brevity auguring ill for
+the frequent offender.</p>
+
+<p>"Nay, 't&nbsp;is no willful offense this time, nor is the father to
+blame except for not training his boys better; but the son John hath run
+away to go to the salvages his brother says, and the mother saith he is
+stolen, and whichever way it may be, he has been missing since yester
+even at bedtime, and now we have to go and look him up."</p>
+
+<p>"'Ill bird of an ill egg,'" growled Standish. "Mayhap 't&nbsp;were
+better not to find him."</p>
+
+<p>"And yet we must," replied Bradford gently. "And as Squanto reports that
+the boy shaped his course for Manomet, my idea is that it were well for
+us to take our boat and coast along the headland and so on in the course
+we came at first, observing the shore, and noting such points as may be
+of use in the future. Mayhap we shall come as far as the First
+Encounter, and make out whether those salvages whom Squanto calls the
+Nausets are still so dangerously disposed toward us. At any rate we will
+try to discover our creditors for the seed-corn springing so greenly
+over yonder."</p>
+
+<p>"Pity that Winslow hath gone to Sowams to visit Massasoit," remarked the
+captain dryly. "We shall miss his subtle wit in these delicate affairs
+of state."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_241" id="Page_241">[Pg 241]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Yes, and if it comes to blows we shall miss no less Stephen Hopkins's
+doughty arm," replied Bradford. "But sith both are gone, we had better
+leave the Elder in charge of the settlement along with Master Allerton,
+John Howland, who is a stout man-at-arms, John Alden, Gilbert Winslow,
+Dotey, and Cooke."</p>
+
+<p>"Seven men in all."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, and with Winslow and Hopkins away, that leaves ten of us to go on
+this expedition, and I shall take Lister lest he brawl with Dotey, and
+Billington not only that he is the boy's father, but lest he raise a
+sedition in the camp."</p>
+
+<p>"Well thought on. I tell thee thou hast a head-piece of thine own, Will,
+though thou art so mild spoken."</p>
+
+<p>Bradford laughed with a glance of affectionate recognition of the
+soldier's compliment, and then the two arranged the details of the
+proposed expedition, while Alden standing straight and still as a statue
+watched the gloom of night blotting all the color from sky, and sea, and
+shore, even as the fog crept stealthily in swallowing all before it, and
+a great dumb wave of sorrow and dismay surged up from his own heart, and
+swallowed all the brightness of his life.</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly from the Town Square at the foot of the hill rose the sound of
+a drum not inartistically touched, and both the governor and the captain
+rose to their feet.</p>
+
+<p>"Bart Allerton hath learned to use the drumsticks as if he had served
+with us in Flanders," said the soldier complacently, as they turned down
+the little sinuous footpath.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," replied the governor gravely. "He does credit to thy teaching,
+Captain, and yet methinks there<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_242" id="Page_242">[Pg 242]</a></span> may be danger that a vain
+delight in his own performance may cause the lad, and haply others, to
+forget that this, for lack of a bell, is our call to prayer. Couldst
+thou find it in thy heart, Myles, to direct that in future the drum
+shall sound but three heavy and unmodulated beats?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh ay, if it will please thee better, Will. Didst ever read of the
+tyrant Procrustes?"</p>
+
+<p>"What of him?"</p>
+
+<p>"Only that he would force all men to fit to one measure, though he
+dragged the life out of them. Dost fancy the God to whom we shall
+presently pray is better pleased with a dreary noise than with some hint
+at melody? Alden, come on, lad, 't&nbsp;is time for prayers, and thy
+woesome face suits the occasion. What's amiss, lad?"</p>
+
+<p>"Naught's amiss, master," replied the youth more briefly than his wont,
+and with a sudden spring from a projecting bowlder he passed the two
+elder men and arrived first at the Common house.</p>
+
+<p>"That younker's face and voice are not so blithe as might be. Hast been
+chiding him, Myles?" asked Bradford as they followed down the hill.</p>
+
+<p>"Nay," replied the captain. "But like enough he's thwarted at missing
+the chance of a brush with the redskins to-morrow, and 't&nbsp;is a
+pity."</p>
+
+<p>"Nay, Myles, look not so pensive on&nbsp;'t," responded the governor
+laughing. "There are men, believe it if you can, who love the smell of
+roses better than of blood. To my fancy John Alden&mdash;but there,
+light jesting is surely ill befitting the hour of prayer."<span class='pagenum'><a
+name="Page_243" id="Page_243">[Pg 243]</a></span></p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<h2>CHAPTER XXIII.</h2>
+
+<h3>"SPEAK FOR YOURSELF, JOHN!"</h3>
+
+
+<p>Further information gathered by Squanto and Hobomok from the Indian
+guests who were constantly in and out of the village proved that John
+Billington had wandered as far as Manomet, and that Canacum, the sachem
+of that place, had sent him on with some Nauset braves who were visiting
+him, as a present or perhaps hostage to Aspinet, chief of the Nausets
+and Pamets. The course of the rescuing party was thus determined, and,
+apart from the recovery of little Billington, Bradford was glad of the
+opportunity of offering payment to the Nausets for the corn borrowed
+from the mysterious granary near the First Encounter, and also much
+desired to hear an explanation of the grave containing the bones of the
+French sailor and little child.</p>
+
+<p>It was, therefore, with considerable satisfaction that he next morning
+led his little party to the water side, and embarked them just as the
+sun rising joyously from out the blue, blue sea, sent a handful of merry
+shafts to tip each wave with glory and glance in harmless flame from
+every point of armor or of weapon in the pinnace, as the crew moved
+every man to his appointed place, the captain pushing sturdily with an
+oar while John Alden, half in, half out the water, heaved mightily at
+the bows hanging at the foot of the Rock.</p>
+
+<p>"Once more! Now again! There she floats!" cried the captain. "One more
+shove, John! There, there,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_244" id="Page_244">[Pg 244]</a></span> enough! Fare thee well, lad, and
+mind the business I bade thee take in hand!"</p>
+
+<p>"Ay, master," replied the youth, but as he stepped upon the Rock, and
+shook the waters from his mighty limbs, he heaved a sigh so ponderous
+that surely it helped to fill the mainsail now curving grandly to the
+gathering breeze.</p>
+
+<p>But the summer day ripened to noon, and waned until the sun all but
+touched the crest of Captain's Hill, before the young man gave over the
+work at which he had labored like a Titan all day long, and going down
+to the brook at a point where the captain and he had dug a semicircular
+basin and paved it about with white sea-pebbles by way of a lavatory, he
+made his toilet, chiefly by throwing the clear cool water in bucketfuls
+over his head and neck, and then rubbing himself with a coarse towel
+until the crisp hair curled vivaciously, and the fair skin glowed out
+from under its coat of sunbrown in strong relief to the white teeth and
+blue eyes that made the face so comely in its strength.</p>
+
+<p>A little brushing of the dark doublet and leathern small-clothes, the
+low russet boots and knitted hose that completed his costume, and the
+unwilling envoy strolled down the hill to Elder Brewster's cottage and
+paused unseen and unheard outside the open door. It was the quiet time
+in the afternoon when the rougher labors of the day were ended, and the
+housewife might rest herself with the more delicate tasks of spinning,
+knitting, or needlework, for it was in these, "the good old days" we all
+so plaintively lament, that the distich&mdash;</p>
+
+<p class="center">"Man may work from sun to sun<br />
+But woman's work is never done"&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>originated, and was something more than a bitter jest.<span class='pagenum'><a
+name="Page_245" id="Page_245">[Pg 245]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>In the elder's busy household all the women were using this hour for
+their own refreshment. Mistress Brewster was lying upon her bed, Mary
+Chilton had taken her knitting and gone to sit awhile with Desire Minter
+and Elizabeth Tilley, and Priscilla drawing her quaintly carved
+spinning-wheel into the middle of the room so that she could look out of
+the window giving upon the brook and distant Manomet, was spinning some
+exquisitely fine linen thread, with which she purposed to weave cambric
+delicate enough for kerchiefs and caps. As she spun, she sang as the
+birds sing, that is from the heart, and not from the score; and now it
+was a blithe chanson brought by her mother from her French home, and now
+it was a snatch of some Dutch folks-lied or some Flemish drinking-song,
+and again the rude melody of an old Huguenot hymn, the half devout, half
+defiant invocation of men who prayed with naked swords in their hands.
+But suddenly into the sonorous strains of Luther's Hymn broke the joyous
+trill of a linnet's song, and the bird alighting upon a neighboring
+poplar seemed challenging the unseen songster to a trial of skill. The
+stately hymn broke off in a little burst of laughter; and then accepting
+the challenge, the girl took up the linnet's strain in an unworded song,
+sweeter, richer, more full of joy, and love, and sunshine than his own,
+until the little fellow with an angry chirp and flirt of the wings flew
+onward to the forest where he knew no such unequal contest awaited him.</p>
+
+<p>"Well done, maid!" exclaimed Alden stepping in at the open door. "Thou
+hast so outsung the bird that he hath flown."</p>
+
+<p>"Nay, methinks he flew because he saw an owl abroad, and owls are ever
+grewsome neighbors to poor<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_246" id="Page_246">[Pg 246]</a></span> little songsters," replied Priscilla
+dryly, and, pressing the treadle swiftly she drew out her cobweb thread
+with such earnest care that she could not look up at the tall and comely
+guest who awkwardly stood awaiting some more hospitable greeting.
+Receiving none, he presently subsided upon a stool hard by the
+spinning-wheel, and after watching its steady whirl for some moments
+said,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"What a fine thread thou drawest, Priscilla."</p>
+
+<p>"'T&nbsp;is hardly stout enough to hang a man, and yet stout enough for
+my purposes, good John."</p>
+
+<p>"Wilt weave it on Master Allerton's loom when 't&nbsp;is done?"</p>
+
+<p>"Mayhap I'll weave it on a pillow into lace, as the maids in fair
+Holland are used to do."</p>
+
+<p>"Dost know their art?"</p>
+
+<p>"Ay. Jeanne De la Noye to whom I writ a letter by thy hand, John, she
+taught me, and I overpassed my teacher ere I was done. What thinkst
+thou, John, would be said or done should I weave some ells of spanwide
+lace and trim my Sunday kirtle therewith? Mistress White, nay, Mistress
+Winslow that is now, would rend it away with her own fingers."</p>
+
+<p>"And yet Master Winslow weareth cambric ruffs on occasion, and his dame
+hath a paduasoy kirtle and mantle, and so had Mistress Carver, and some
+others of our company."</p>
+
+<p>"Marry come up! How wise the lad hath grown! Hast been pondering women's
+clothes instead of the books the Captain gives thee to study, John?"</p>
+
+<p>A change passed over the young man's face. The careless allusion had
+recalled his errand, and moreover linked itself with a memory Priscilla
+had willfully<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_247" id="Page_247">[Pg 247]</a></span> evoked. He was silent for a moment, and then
+pushing his seat a little farther from the wheel he quietly said,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Well do I like thy merry mood, Priscilla, and care not though thou
+flout me ever so sharply, but mine errand to-day is somewhat of
+importance, and I pray thee to listen seriously."</p>
+
+<p>"Nay, good lad, waste not such solemnities on me. 'T&nbsp;will be Sunday
+in three days, and thou canst take the elder's place, and let him learn
+of thee how soberly and seriously to exhort a sinner."</p>
+
+<p>"Priscilla, wilt thou be serious?"</p>
+
+<p>"As death, John. What is it?"</p>
+
+<p>"I writ a letter for thee to thy friend Jeanne De la Noye"&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"'T&nbsp;is a sad truth, John."</p>
+
+<p>"And methought there was in it some word that pointed
+to&mdash;to"&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Yes; good youth, that pointed to&mdash;to&mdash;and what then?"</p>
+
+<p>"That pointed to some contract, or mayhap naught more than some
+understanding"&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"If&nbsp;'t was a word that pointed to any understanding of thee and thy
+stammerings, John Alden, I pray thee speak it without more ado. Say out
+what is in thy mind if indeed there is aught there."</p>
+
+<p>"Well then, art thou promised to Jacques De la Noye, and is he coming
+here to wed thee?"</p>
+
+<p>The rich color of Priscilla's cheek deepened to crimson and the slender
+thread in her hand snapped sharply, but in an instant she recovered
+herself, and deftly joining the thread exclaimed.&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"See now what mischief thy folly hath wrought! Of a truth there's no
+call to complain of blindness in thy<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_248" id="Page_248">[Pg 248]</a></span> speech now, Master Alden.
+But still I have noted that if thou canst drive a bashful youth out of
+his bashfulness, there are no bounds to his forwardness."</p>
+
+<p>"Loth were I to offend thee, Priscilla, and that thou knowest right
+well, but I fain would have an answer to my query. If 't&nbsp;is a
+secret, thou knowest I will keep it."</p>
+
+<p>"Nay, I'll keep it myself, and not trouble thee with what proved too
+burdensome for myself."</p>
+
+<p>"But Priscilla, I am sent to thee with a proffer of marriage, and if
+thou&nbsp;'rt already bespoke 't&nbsp;is not fitting that thou shouldst
+hear it."</p>
+
+<p>"Thou&nbsp;'rt sent, John Alden!" exclaimed the girl dropping the
+thread, and pressing her foot upon the treadle until it creaked. "Who
+sent thee?"</p>
+
+<p>"Captain Standish."</p>
+
+<p>"Sent thee! Was it too much honor to a poor maid for him to do his own
+errand?"</p>
+
+<p>"Nay, be not angered, Priscilla, although he feared thou wouldst be."</p>
+
+<p>"Ah, he did fear it, did he. Then why did he do it?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why, he feared that thou wert angry already, and he would have thee
+know he stood in terror, and dared not present himself"&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"John Alden, art thou and thy master joined in league to flout and
+insult me, an orphaned maid? If thou hast an errand from Captain
+Standish to me, say it out in as few words as may be, or I will never
+speak word to thee again."</p>
+
+<p>Perhaps the sight of that suddenly pallid face, those blazing eyes and
+brave scornful mouth, steadied the young man's nerves, as cowards in the
+camp have been<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_249" id="Page_249">[Pg 249]</a></span> known to become heroes in the field; at any rate
+his brow cleared, his voice grew assured, and rising to his feet with a
+certain solemnity he said,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Thou&nbsp;'rt right, Priscilla, and I have done sore discredit thus far
+to the honorable master on whose errand I come. Captain Standish, as no
+doubt thou knowest, spake with thy father before he died of a marriage
+in time to come between him and thee"&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Nay, I knew it not, nor am bound by any such speech," interposed
+Priscilla hastily; but Alden continued unmoved,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Captain Standish took it that thou didst know, and feared that thou
+hadst felt his silence to be some want of eagerness"&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Ay, I see! He feared that I was angered that he had not wooed me across
+his wife's and my father's graves, and so thrust thee forward to bear
+the first outburst of my fury! 'T&nbsp;was kindly thought on if not
+over-valiant, and 't&nbsp;is an honorable, a noble office for thee,
+John, who hast at odd times thrown me a soft word thyself."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh maiden, maiden, wilt thou trample to death the poor heart that thou
+knowest is all thine own! I 'throw thee a soft word now and again'! Why,
+thou knowest but too well how I hang like a beggar on thy footsteps to
+catch even a careless word that thou mayst fling to me! Thou knowest
+that I love thee, maid, as blind men love sight, and dying men water,
+and"&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Then why don't you speak for yourself, John?</i>" demanded Priscilla
+quietly, and a dainty smile softened the proud curve of her lips, and a
+gleam of tenderness quenched the fire of her eyes; but John, his eyes
+fixed upon the ground, saw it not.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_250" id="Page_250">[Pg 250]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Ah Priscilla, 't&nbsp;is not kind to try me thus!" cried he. "Sure thou
+hast triumphed often enough in despising my humble suit, without
+wounding me afresh to-day, and when I fain would rally my poor wits to
+honorably fulfill the embassage that brings me here. Sith I may not hope
+to call thee mine, maiden, I could better bear to see thee the wife of
+the noble soldier whom I serve than of any other man, be he Fleming or
+Dutchman or what not, so that thou art not promised."</p>
+
+<p>"Go on, then, and say thy knight's message most worthy squire, and let
+us make an end on&nbsp;'t."</p>
+
+<p>"Thou knowest the captain for thyself, Priscilla, but mayhap thou
+knowest not that he cometh of noble lineage, a race that hath borne
+coat-armor since Norman William led them across the Channel"&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Didst not bring some heraldic tree or chart to dazzle mine eyes
+withal?" inquired Priscilla, mockingly; but the ambassador, determined
+not again to be turned from his purpose, went on,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Among his ancestors are men of noble deeds and proud achievements who
+have carried the name of Standish of Standish in the forefront of
+battle, and in King's Councils, and have ranked among the princes of the
+idolatrous Church to which they still cling; but among them all,
+Priscilla, hath never risen a braver, or a nobler, or a more honorable
+man than he who woos thee"&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Did he bid thee say all that also?"</p>
+
+<p>"Nay, Priscilla, there's a time for all things, and I must feel it
+unworthy of thy womanhood to so perversely jeer and flout at a good
+man's love, when 't&nbsp;is honestly offered thee."</p>
+
+<p>"Nor would I, John. But I have heard naught of any love offered me by
+Myles Standish. Thou hast<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_251" id="Page_251">[Pg 251]</a></span> offered in his name some coat-armor,
+and a long lineage, and courage both ancestral and of his own person,
+and&mdash;what else? I forget, but surely there was no love among these
+commodities. Didst drop it by the way, or did the captain forget to send
+it, John?"</p>
+
+<p>"Mayhap, he kept it back to give it thee by word of mouth, Priscilla,
+and if he did, it is a treasure even thou shouldst not despise, for
+never did I see a nature at once so brave, so strong, and so tender.
+Thou knowest how sorely ill I was six weeks or so by-gone, and none did
+a hand's turn for me but the captain, nor needed to, for never was nurse
+so delicate of touch, so unwearied, so cheerful, and so full of device
+as he. No woman ever equaled him in those matters where we long for
+woman's tendance, and yet never a soldier played the man more valiantly
+where man's work was in hand. Ah Priscilla, 't&nbsp;is a heart of gold,
+a man among ten thousand, a tower of strength in danger, and a tender
+comforter in suffering that is offered thee&mdash;be wise beyond thy
+years, and answer him comfortably."</p>
+
+<p>"And hast thou done, John? Hast said all thy say?"</p>
+
+<p>"Ay, maid."</p>
+
+<p>"Then clear thy memory of it all, and make room for the answer I will
+give thee."</p>
+
+<p>"And let it be a gentle one, Priscilla."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, thou knowest how to dress an unwelcome message in comely phrase
+better than any man of mine acquaintance, unless it be Master Winslow,"
+retorted Priscilla bitterly. "So try thy skill on simple NO, for
+'t&nbsp;is all I have to say."</p>
+
+<p>"But Priscilla, but maiden, bethink thee&mdash;be not so shrewd of
+tongue"&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Nay, wilt have my reasons, Master Envoy? Well<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_252" id="Page_252">[Pg 252]</a></span> then, I care not
+for a man who cares not to do his own wooing. I care not for a man so
+well assured that I will be held by what he avers is my dead father's
+bidding, that he can let weeks and months roll by or ever he finds time
+to convince himself of the matter. I care naught for coat-armor, nor for
+pedigree, I, whose forbears were honest bourgeoisie of Lyons who
+scrupled not to give up all for conscience sake, while this man is
+neither Papist like his kinsfolk, nor Independent like these he lives
+among. And I care not for a red beard, nor for widowers, nor for men old
+enough to be my sire"&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Nay, he is but six-and-thirty, maiden."</p>
+
+<p>"And I am naught-and-twenty, and I am a-weary of thy chat, John Alden,
+and I fain would be alone, so I wish thee good e'en&mdash;and a keener
+wit."</p>
+
+<p>"But Priscilla," gasped the poor fellow as the wheel was pushed so
+suddenly aside that he had to spring out of its way, while its mistress
+whirled past him and up the clumsy stair leading to her nook in the loft
+of the cabin.</p>
+
+<p>"But Priscilla!" came back in wrathful mimicry from the head of the
+stair, and while Alden still stood bewildered, in at the open door
+flocked Mary Chilton, and Desire, and Elizabeth, their girlish laughter
+bubbling over at some girlish jest, and with a muttered greeting Alden
+stalked through their midst and was gone.</p>
+
+<p>"He came looking for Priscilla, and is grumly at not finding her,"
+whispered Elizabeth Tilley; but Mary Chilton with a wise nod replied, as
+one who knows,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Did he but know it, she's not ill inclined to him when all is said.
+Unless I sore mistake she'll say yea next time he asks her."<span class='pagenum'><a
+name="Page_253" id="Page_253">[Pg 253]</a></span></p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<h2>CHAPTER XXIV.</h2>
+
+<h3>THE MYSTERIOUS GRAVE.</h3>
+
+
+<p>"A fair and goodly day!" exclaimed Standish ever sensitive to the
+aspects of nature, although never allowing himself to be mastered by any
+extremity of weather.</p>
+
+<p>"Ay," replied Bradford. "And yet methinks that cloud rising over Manomet
+hath a stormy look."</p>
+
+<p>"Let us once weather the Gurnet's Nose, and a south wind will not harm
+us," ventured Billington, whose out-of-door prowlings had at least made
+him weatherwise.</p>
+
+<p>"Ay, if south wind is all that it means," said Doctor Fuller gravely.
+"But to my mind yon cloud is of no common kind. It minds me shrewdly of
+those whirlwind or cyclone clouds that used to fright us in the China
+Seas when I sailed them as a lad."</p>
+
+<p>"Say you so, Surgeon!" replied Bradford looking uneasily at the cloud
+rapidly rising and enlarging in the southern horizon. "Be ready with the
+sheets, Peter Browne and Cooke, and Francis Eaton had best stand with
+Latham at the helm."</p>
+
+<p>"Look! Look you there! 'T&nbsp;is a waterspout!" cried Fuller, pointing
+excitedly at the cloud, which, driven on with furious force by an upper
+current of wind unfelt below, was now bellying in a marked and abnormal
+fashion, while from the lowest point of the convexity appeared a spiral
+column of dense vapor rapidly elongating itself toward the sea whose
+waters<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_254" id="Page_254">[Pg 254]</a></span> assumed a black and sullen aspect, disturbed by chopping
+counter currents of short waves, which gradually, as the waterspout
+neared them, fell into its rotary motion, rising at the centre of the
+whirlpool into a column of foaming water, a liquid stalagmite climbing
+to meet the stalactite bending to it from above.</p>
+
+<p>"If we had but a heavy gun!" cried Warren. "They say to hit the
+waterspout in the centre where it joins the other from below will
+disperse it."</p>
+
+<p>"Knocks the wind out of it," explained Billington.</p>
+
+<p>"But we have nothing better than these bird guns," cried Standish
+contemptuously touching with his foot the pile of weapons covered with a
+tarpaulin lying in the bottom of the boat. "And it drives down upon us
+like a charge of horse. Here, let me to the helm."</p>
+
+<p>"There is no way upon the boat, Captain," expostulated Eaton. "No man
+can steer without a wind."</p>
+
+<p>"Thou&nbsp;'rt right, friend," replied the captain gravely, as he felt
+the rudder give beneath his hand. "There's naught to do but tarry until
+Master Waterspout declareth his pleasure."</p>
+
+<p>"Until God declareth His pleasure," amended Bradford quietly. "Men, let
+us pray."</p>
+
+<p>And baring his head the governor poured forth a strong and manful
+petition to Him who rideth upon the wings of the wind and reigneth a
+King forever over His own creation.</p>
+
+<p>Standish standing upright beside the useless tiller bared his head and
+listened reverently, but always with an eye to the waterspout and to the
+clouds, and as a deep-throated Amen rose from his comrades he gave the
+tiller a shove and joyously cried,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"A puff, a breath! Enough to steer us past!" And<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_255" id="Page_255">[Pg 255]</a></span> the boat
+feeling her helm again careened gently to the little gust of wind out of
+the west, and slid away upon her course, while the waterspout, more
+furious in its speed at every instant, swept past and out to sea, where
+it presently broke and fell with a thunderous explosion.</p>
+
+<p>"Another crowning mercy!" exclaimed Bradford devoutly, and Standish
+answered with his reticent smile,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Had Master Jones of the Mayflower been here, he would have more than
+ever felt 't&nbsp;is better to be friends than foes with prayerful men."</p>
+
+<p>To the waterspout succeeded light and baffling winds so that labor as
+they might, it was fully dark when the Pilgrim pinnace entered what is
+now Barnstable, then Cummaquid Harbor. Anchoring for safety, they lay
+down to get such rest as the position afforded, and woke betimes in the
+morning to find themselves high and dry in the centre of the harbor, the
+channel encircling them and making up toward the land. Upon the shore as
+seen across this channel appeared some savages gathering clams and
+muscles.</p>
+
+<p>Bradford at once dispatched Squanto and Tockamahamon, who had come along
+as guides and interpreters, to interview these men and barter for some
+of the shellfish, but in a very short time the envoys came splashing
+merrily back with an invitation for the white men to land and breakfast
+with Janno, the chief of the Mattakees, who was, the fishermen said,
+close at hand. They also corroborated the statement that the missing boy
+had gone down the Cape with the Nausets, and would be found at Eastham,
+Aspinet's headquarters.</p>
+
+<p>"I see no reason for gainsaying such a comfortable proposal," said
+Bradford turning with a smile to Standish who cheerily replied,<span class='pagenum'><a
+name="Page_256" id="Page_256">[Pg 256]</a></span>&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Nor I, so that they leave hostages aboard, and we carry every man his
+piece ashore."</p>
+
+<p>"We must e'en wade for it, sith there is neither dry ground for footing
+nor water for swimming," suggested Browne stripping off hose and shoon;
+but as Bradford and Standish began to follow his example they were
+prevented by the Indians, who offered each a back to the two chiefs, at
+the same time intimating to the others that if they would but wait all
+the company should be similarly accommodated. The doctor accepted, but
+Browne and the rest preferred their own legs as a dependence, and the
+whole party presently reached shore, where Janno, the handsome and
+courteous young chief of the Mattakees, stood with several of his
+pnieses or nobles around him ready to receive them. Squanto at once
+stood forth as interpreter, and so flowery and mellifluous were the
+phrases of welcome that he interpreted, that the captain edging toward
+Bradford muttered,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"I hope Master Warren will look well after the hostages left aboard, for
+all this is too sweet to be wholesome. I mistrust treachery, Governor."</p>
+
+<p>"Nay, I mistrust Squanto, Captain," replied Bradford laughing. "The poor
+fellow doth glorify himself at some cost to the truth, I fancy."</p>
+
+<p>"Beshrew me but before another month I'll know enough of their jargon to
+need no lying interpreter," muttered Standish, and he kept his word.</p>
+
+<p>The Indian breakfast, already nearly ready, proved both toothsome and
+plentiful. It consisted of lobsters, clams, and muscles, both cooked and
+raw, ears of green maize roasted in the husk, and no-cake, that is to
+say, pounded corn mixed with water and baked in the ashes, the germ and
+animus of hoe-cake, bannocks, Johnny<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_257" id="Page_257">[Pg 257]</a></span>cake, and all the various
+forms of maize-bread so well known throughout our land.</p>
+
+<p>Breakfast over Janno rather timidly inquired if the white chiefs would
+permit the visit of an old squaw of his tribe who much desired to see
+them.</p>
+
+<p>"Surely if the good woman hath occasion to speak with us," replied
+Bradford amiably. "Why doth the chief seem to mistrust our willingness?"</p>
+
+<p>"Squaw no speak to brave in council," explained Squanto with an air of
+shocked propriety; but before he could further explain a bowed and
+decrepit figure emerged from one of the little huts on the edge of the
+woods and slowly approached the white men who stepped forward to meet
+her, desiring Squanto to assure her of welcome. Coming so close to the
+little group that Standish muttered, "Sure she is minded to salute us,"
+the poor old crone peered into the face of one after another of the
+white men, then wofully shook her head and began to mutter in her own
+tongue with strange gesticulations, but as he heard them Squanto uttered
+a shrill cry of terror, and the sachem stepping forward spoke some words
+of stern command, before which the old woman humbly bowed and became
+silent.</p>
+
+<p>"What is it? Would she curse us? What is her grievance? What is her
+story?" demanded Bradford half indignantly, and Squanto, after some
+conference with the sachem, informed them that this woman, once called
+Sunlight-upon-the-Waters, but now known as The-Night-in-Winter, had been
+mother of seven tall sons who filled her wigwam with venison, and shared
+their corn and tobacco with her; but three of these sons were among the
+captives entrapped and sold to slavery by Hunt, and the other four had
+perished in the plague<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_258" id="Page_258">[Pg 258]</a></span> brought down upon the red men by the
+curse of The-White-Fool who died about the same time; and thus
+The-Night-in-Winter, having just cause, hated the white men as she hated
+death and the devil, and wished to curse them as The-White-Fool had
+cursed her people, but the sachem would not let her, and now she was
+doubly bereft of her children, since she might not even avenge them.</p>
+
+<p>"'T&nbsp;is a piteous tale," said Bradford gently when Squanto had
+finished. "And we cannot be amazed that this poor heathen mother should
+thus feel. There is warrant for it among the classics, Surgeon; Medea
+and others were moved in the same fashion. But Squanto, explain to her
+that we and all honest white men abhor the course of Master Hunt, and
+had we found him at such commerce we would have delivered her sons, and
+thee too, Squanto, out of his hands. Tell her our mind is to deal
+honestly and Christianly by all men, and here, give her this fair chain,
+and this length of red cloth. Tell her that she would do ill to curse
+us, for we are friends to her and her people."</p>
+
+<p>"And ask who was The-White-Fool, and what his story," demanded Standish
+as Squanto finished rendering the governor's message.</p>
+
+<p>"Squanto know that in himself. Every Pokanoket know that," replied
+Squanto, while Janno muttered gloomily in his own tongue,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"All red men know The-White-Fool's curse. All feel it." So Squanto in
+his broken yet picturesque phrases told how "many snows ago" a large
+French ship was wrecked farther down the Cape and nearly everything
+aboard was lost. Several of her crew, however, came safely ashore and
+made a sort of camp with some earthwork defenses on the mouth of the
+Pamet River.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_259" id="Page_259">[Pg 259]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Why men, we saw it, and mused upon the marks of European skill and
+training," exclaimed Standish.</p>
+
+<p>"Ay, and the house hard by, and the marvelous grave with the fair-haired
+man and infant so curiously embalmed," added Fuller.</p>
+
+<p>"Truly, this is passing strange!" murmured Bradford. "But get on with
+thy story, Tisquantum."</p>
+
+<p>The Frenchmen were quiet and peaceable enough, Tisquantum could not but
+allow, and yet his people would not permit them to dwell unmolested,
+perhaps from some vague fear of ancient prophecy that a pale-faced race
+should come from the rising sun and drive the red men into the western
+seas; perhaps from some race-hatred lying below the savage's power of
+expression; at any rate, as Tisquantum finally declared with a
+significant gesture,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Sagamore, powahs, pnieses, braves, all men say, It is not good for pale
+men with hair like the sunrise to live among the red men whose hair is
+like the night. Let them be gone!"</p>
+
+<p>"And what did the red men do about it, Squanto?" asked Standish sternly,
+while in his eyes kindled the danger light before which Squanto quailed,
+yet sullenly replied,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Red man find what you call wolf around his wigwam, red man send arrow
+through his head."</p>
+
+<p>"Do you mean, you heathen, that you murdered these helpless, shipwrecked
+white men? Murdered them in cold blood?" demanded Standish, seizing
+Gideon's hilt and half drawing him from his scabbard.</p>
+
+<p>"Tisquantum not here. Tisquantum not Mattakee, not Nauset; Tisquantum
+Patuxet, where white men live," hastily replied Squanto; while Bradford
+suggested in a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_260" id="Page_260">[Pg 260]</a></span> rapid aside, "Best leave go thy sword and
+restrain thy wrath, Captain, or we be but dead men. Look at the faces of
+those men behind the sachem. Already they finger their tomahawks."</p>
+
+<p>"More like, thy timidity will give the savages courage to fall upon us,
+and we shall share the fate of these, who though naught but Frenchmen
+were at least white, and wore breeches," retorted Standish angrily. The
+color flashed into Bradford's cheek, but after an instant's silence he
+quietly replied,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Thou knowest well enow, Standish, that my timidity is not for myself
+but for these, and yet more for the helpless ones we have left behind. I
+trust when it comes to blows, the Governor of Plymouth will be found
+where he belongs, next to her fiery Captain."</p>
+
+<p>"Be content, Will, be content. Once more thou&nbsp;'rt right and I all
+wrong. 'T&nbsp;is not the first time nor the last, but let us ask in all
+patience what these fellows mean with their White-Fool. Sure they have
+not made me out so suddenly as this, have they?"</p>
+
+<p>"Nay, Myles, I trow no man but thyself will ever call thee fool, nay,
+nor overly white, either!" and glancing at the Captain's bronzed face
+lighted once more by its smile of grim humor, Bradford turned to Squanto
+and bade him explain in the hearing of both savages and white men the
+meaning of this reference, and also the fate of the French mariners cast
+ashore at Eastham.</p>
+
+<p>Squanto nothing loth to display his oratory struck an attitude, and with
+native eloquence and much gesticulation described, first, the storm
+which four years ago had driven the French brig upon the sands; then the
+efforts of the mariners to launch their boats, their defeat,<span class='pagenum'><a
+name="Page_261" id="Page_261">[Pg 261]</a></span> and the breaking up both of boats
+and brig; then the arrival upon shore of thirteen men, two of whom died
+of wounds and exhaustion. The eleven survivors finding some wreckage
+upon the beach proceeded the next morning to build themselves a shelter,
+and finally erected the cabin and threw up the earthwork discovered by
+the Pilgrims in their second exploration.</p>
+
+<p>Up to this point the Indians had been content to curiously watch the
+proceedings of these interlopers, but finding that they were
+establishing themselves permanently, they held a council and resolved
+that they should die, partly in atonement for the outrage done to the
+red men some two years before by Hunt the kidnapper, and partly from
+some vague fear lest the strangers with their superior knowledge and
+appliances should conquer and injure the proper owners of the soil.</p>
+
+<p>Not choosing to assault them openly, for the men were brave, alert, and
+well armed, the Indians laid in wait around the spring where they must
+daily go for water, watched them as they went afield in pursuit of game,
+in fact harassed them at every turn, until of the eleven but three were
+left alive, and they, so broken in strength, courage, and hope, that
+they were easily captured and reduced to slavery. One remained here at
+Nauset, and the other two were sent, one to the Massachusetts, the other
+to the Namasket tribes, where they were kept as the mock and victims of
+the brutal sport of the savages. The one who remained at Nauset was the
+best looking, and evidently the most attractive of the three, and from
+Squanto's description seemed to have been an officer, and a very
+attractive young man. The-White-Birch, sister of Aspinet, chief of the
+Nausets, having fixed her regards upon the prisoner, discovered<span class='pagenum'><a
+name="Page_262" id="Page_262">[Pg 262]</a></span> these peculiarities, and one day
+when the boys of the village were amusing themselves with seeing how
+near they could shoot their blunted arrows to the prisoner's eyes
+without putting them out, she stepped forward, and, Pocahontas-like,
+announced that she took this man for her husband, and as such claimed
+his release from torture. Her demand was complied with, and the half
+dead victim unbound and informed of his new honors; but it was too
+late&mdash;want, misery, and cruelty had done their work, and the poor
+fellow's wits had fled. He accepted the tender care and affection of
+The-White-Birch as a child might have done, but the joyous gallantry of
+the debonair young French officer was a thing of the past, and the
+bridegroom had become as completely the child of nature as his bride. He
+was adopted into the tribe, and the Indian name given him, in no spirit
+of taunt or contempt, but simply as a descriptive appellation, meant
+The-White-Fool.</p>
+
+<p>They were married, these two strange lovers, and lived in the cabin
+built of ship's planks by The-White-Fool's dead comrades. In due time a
+son was born to them, the idol of his mother's heart, and the constant
+companion of the father, who seemed to find in the child some link with
+his own stray wits; but when the boy was about three years old the poor
+exile was seized with a fever, and in his delirium escaping from his
+tender nurse stalked naked through the village proclaiming in the native
+tongue that the wrath of God hung over this people and this land,
+because of the cruel wrong they had done to him and to his comrades; and
+he foretold that before seven snows had covered his grave, white men
+from over the sea should come like the wildfowl in the spring and settle
+down upon the creeks and ponds, and fill the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_263" id="Page_263">[Pg 263]</a></span> forest with their
+cry, and the red men should melt away as the snow melts and their place
+be no more seen.</p>
+
+<p>It was really worth something to hear Squanto declaim this wild prophecy
+with the shrill voice and fevered gestures of the delirious captive; and
+as they caught his meaning the pnieses around Janno stirred in their
+places, laid hand upon the tomahawk at each man's girdle, and cast
+menacing looks upon the strangers.</p>
+
+<p>"Have a care, Squanto! Say no more on that head, or thou&nbsp;'lt stir
+up strife afresh," muttered Bradford in the interpreter's ear, while
+Standish fixed his eyes upon Janno ready to sacrifice him at the first
+hostile movement. But the young chief casting a meaning glance around
+the circle said quietly,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"The-White-Birch was of the blood of Aspinet my brother, and
+The-White-Fool was her husband."</p>
+
+<p>"Well said, Chief!" exclaimed Standish who had already mastered much of
+the Indian language, and in accordance with his late resolve soon became
+the most expert interpreter in the colony, while Bradford nodding said,
+"Go on, Squanto!"</p>
+
+<p>Little however remained to tell. The ill-starred Frenchman died within a
+few hours of his prophecy, and hardly had The-White-Birch laid him in
+his honored grave when she was called to bury her little boy, whom the
+father had named Louis, along with him. Then she set off alone to find
+the comrades of her lost love at Namasket, and Shawmut, that they might
+with her lament his death; but whether illness came upon her and she
+crept aside to die, or haply some wild creature slew and devoured her,
+or in her maze of grief she strayed away and starved in the limitless
+woods, none ever knew; she never was heard of again.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_264" id="Page_264">[Pg 264]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"And the other two captives?" inquired Standish.</p>
+
+<p>"The Feast-of-Green-Corn before the last one, Captain Dermer carried
+them away in his ship," replied Squanto proud of his English and his
+information.</p>
+
+<p>"Ay, ay, and now we understand why these Nauset Indians attacked us at
+the First Encounter," said Standish.</p>
+
+<p>"Especially as they had probably watched us stealing their corn," added
+Fuller dryly.</p>
+
+<p>"Borrowing, not stealing, Surgeon," retorted Bradford briskly. "And a
+part of our errand to the First Encounter is to satisfy our creditor for
+the debt. Let us be going."</p>
+
+<p>An hour later the shallop, now riding gayly upon the flood tide, put
+forth from Barnstable Harbor, carrying not only its own crew, but Janno
+with several of his followers, he having volunteered as guide and
+negotiator with Aspinet for the restoration of little Billington.</p>
+
+<p>The voyage prospered, and before night the boy, decked with strings of
+beads and various savage ornaments, was restored to his guardians by
+Aspinet himself; while the first red man allowed to come on board the
+shallop was the owner of the corn "borrowed" by the Pilgrims, who now
+repaid its value twofold by an order for goods to be delivered at
+Plymouth. But more important than boy or corn, at any rate to the ears
+of Standish, was a report here received that the Narragansetts, their
+friend Massasoit's neighbors and deadly foes, had made a raid upon his
+domains and carried him away prisoner. Also that one of Massasoit's
+pnieses called Corbitant had become an ally of the Narragansetts, and
+was now at Namasket, only fourteen miles from Plymouth, trying to raise
+a revolt against both his<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_265" id="Page_265">[Pg 265]</a></span> chief and the white men their allies.
+He was also fiercely denouncing Squanto, Hobomok, and Tockamahamon as
+renegades and traitors to their own people, who should be at once put to
+death.</p>
+
+<p>This news was so alarming that without waiting for trade, or for the
+feast offered to them, the Pilgrims at once set sail, and after stormy
+weather and sundry adventures arrived safely at home toward night of the
+third day from their departure. John Billington was received with
+vociferous joy by his mother, treated to a lithe bundle of birch rods by
+his father, and assaulted by his brother, who at once fought him for the
+possession of the bead necklaces and other gauds he had brought home.
+The men of the colony were meantime hearing the report brought in by
+Nepeof, a sachem just from Namasket, of the treacherous proceedings
+there, and before they had been three hours at home Squanto and Hobomok
+were dispatched to discover the truth of the matter, while Nepeof was
+held as a hostage.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_266" id="Page_266">[Pg 266]</a></span></p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<h2>CHAPTER XXV.</h2>
+
+<h3>A LITTLE DISCIPLINE.</h3>
+
+
+<p>"And how sped you in your errand, Master Envoy?" inquired Standish as,
+lighted pipe in hand, he once more seated himself upon the bench outside
+his cabin door to enjoy the sunset hour.</p>
+
+<p>But at the sudden question John Alden's face flushed deeper than the
+sunset, and he stammered, "I am so blundering, Master&mdash;I told the
+maiden all you bade me, but&mdash;but"&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"But what, thou stammering idiot!" roared the captain, his serene brow
+suddenly overcast, and the red surging up to his own brow. "Dost mean to
+say the girl flouted the suit of&mdash;nay, then, what dost thou mean?
+Speak out, man, and be not so timorous!"</p>
+
+<p>"Here is Giles Hopkins!" exclaimed John, as feet were heard running up
+the hill, and the captain angrily turned to meet the new-comer,
+shouting,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Well, what dost thou want, youngster? Is a man never to be rid of
+half-wit boys in this place!"</p>
+
+<p>"Please, Captain, the governor desires you to come in haste to a sudden
+Council. The Indians are come in, and methinks"&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"And who in Beelzebub's name cares what thou thinkst!" shouted the
+captain. "Begone before I box thy malapert ears." And driving the lad
+before him he strode down the hill without another word or look at John,
+who grinding his heel into the turf muttered,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_267" id="Page_267">[Pg 267]</a></span>&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"And now he's angered, and beshrew me if I could not find it in my heart
+to wish Priscilla had said him yea, rather than nay. It were easier to
+bear her scorn of me if I knew that he was content. 'T&nbsp;is not so
+hard to suffer loss if a dear friend gains by that same loss."</p>
+
+<p>Meantime Standish striding wrathfully down the hill met Priscilla as she
+darted out of the door of the elder's house. At sight of him she stopped
+short, coloring scarlet, and yet her whole face gleaming with a wicked
+inclination to laugh.</p>
+
+<p>The captain also hesitated a moment, and then removing his barret cap
+with a bow whose stately courtesy recalled his lineage he said,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Pardon me, Mistress Molines, for what it seems was undue presumption.
+May I ask if the Council is convened here or at the Common house?"</p>
+
+<p>"At the Common house, Captain; but indeed and by my faith I know
+not"&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Pardon if I venture to cut you short, Mistress, but I am summoned in
+haste to the Council."</p>
+
+<p>And with another formal bow the captain hastened on, leaving Priscilla
+biting her lip and staring after him, half angry, half amused. "One
+could be proud of him&mdash;if&mdash;if&mdash;Oh heart, heart! What
+is&nbsp;'t thou&nbsp;'rt clamoring for! Well&mdash;at least I can go and
+make a posset for my dear dame, and the rest may wait." And with a sigh
+and a smile and a blush the girl turned back to the things of the hour.</p>
+
+<p>"Now here's a coil, Captain!" exclaimed Bradford as Standish entered the
+large room where about a dozen of the men of the colony were assembled
+in informal council, while in the midst stood Hobomok, his red skin
+streaming with perspiration and stained with travel,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_268" id="Page_268">[Pg 268]</a></span> while his
+usually impassive face bore an expression of genuine grief and dismay.</p>
+
+<p>"What is it? Ha, Hobomok returned alone!"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, and with evil tidings," replied the Governor. "He and Squanto
+reached Namasket early this morning and sought to conceal themselves in
+a house belonging to Squanto, though now lent to a kinsman. But some one
+betrayed them to Corbitant, who was vaporing around the village calling
+upon the men to rise in revolt against Massasoit and deliver him up to
+the Narragansetts, and saying that we white men should all be slain, and
+also those who have made alliance with us, for already he had news of
+our visit to Nauset, and the contract made with Aspinet, and Canacum,
+and Iyanough. While yet he raved against Squanto, and Hobomok, and
+Tockamahamon, a traitor told him that the two first were hiding in the
+village, and he swore a great oath by all his gods that they should die,
+especially Squanto, in whom, said he, the white men will lose their
+tongue"&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"What meant he by that, Governor?" demanded Warren.</p>
+
+<p>"Why, that he is our interpreter," sharply replied Standish. "What else
+should he mean? What next, Governor?"</p>
+
+<p>"Next they circumvented Squanto in his cabin, and Corbitant seizing him
+held a knife to his throat, mocking and taunting him as is their
+fashion, while two fell upon Hobomok, but he being a lusty fellow and
+quick, broke from them and fled hither so fast as legs could carry him.
+You see the condition he is in."</p>
+
+<p>"And left thy comrade to die!" ejaculated Standish looking scornfully at
+the Indian, who humbly replied in his own tongue,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_269" id="Page_269">[Pg 269]</a></span>&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Hobomok only one man. Corbitant many men. Squanto perhaps dead, but the
+white man will send a hundred of his enemies to be his servants in the
+Happy Land. A brave fears not to die, if he may be avenged."</p>
+
+<p>"Ha! 'T&nbsp;is the savage philosophy, and not a bad one," said
+Standish, and although the elder raised stern eyes of rebuke upon the
+reckless soldier he continued,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"And I shall lead our forces to avenge both the death of our servant and
+Massasoit's capture, shall I not, brethren? What is your will?"</p>
+
+<p>"Sound policy dictates that if our allies are to respect us, or our
+enemies fear us, we should not suffer such an affront as this to pass,"
+declared Winslow. "England hath never yet borne that her flag should be
+insulted, and we are Englishmen."</p>
+
+<p>"You are right, Winslow," replied Bradford solemnly. "And loth though we
+may be to shed the blood of these men, whom we fain would convert to
+friends and Christians, it is my mind that in this instance we are bound
+to deal with them as with our own children, whom we indeed chastise, but
+still with an eye to their own future happiness."</p>
+
+<p>"'Now no chastening for the present seemeth to be joyous but grievous:
+nevertheless afterward it yieldeth the peaceable fruit of righteousness
+to them which are exercised thereby,'" quoted the Elder sententiously,
+while Standish stood impatiently twisting his moustache, and glancing
+around the assembly as if selecting his men.</p>
+
+<p>"And now, having chapter and verse for avenging this affront, let us set
+about doing it," exclaimed he as several of the company murmured Amen to
+the Elder's approved quotation. But Bradford fixed his steady<span class='pagenum'><a
+name="Page_270" id="Page_270">[Pg 270]</a></span> eyes upon the soldier's face for
+a moment before he somewhat coldly asked,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"How many men do you think it best to take, Captain Standish?"</p>
+
+<p>"Ten. Hopkins, the Surgeon, Winslow, Browne, Howland, Gilbert Winslow,
+Billington, Eaton, Dotey, and Lister," replied Standish promptly, and
+then with his peculiarly winning smile he added,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"You see I leave the governor, with Master Allerton his assistant, to
+guide the colony, and the elder to pray for our success, and Master
+Warren for a councilor, and the rest to carry on our various labors and
+protect the weaklings."</p>
+
+<p>"It is a good division it seemeth to me. What say you all, brethren?"
+asked the governor still gravely, and one by one each man signified his
+assent, only Howland coming close to the captain asked,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"May not Alden go with us, Captain? He hath a very pretty fashion with
+his weapon."</p>
+
+<p>"Am I captain, or art thou, John Howland?" growled the leader, and as
+all turned out of the house to prepare for the march in the following
+dawn, Bradford laid his hand upon his friend's shoulder and walked along
+with him.</p>
+
+<p>"What ails thee, Myles? Thou&nbsp;'rt sorely chafed at something. Is
+aught amiss that I can help?"</p>
+
+<p>"Nay, Will, 't&nbsp;is naught, and less than naught. 'T&nbsp;is but a
+new knowledge of mine own unworthiness. Sure 'never such a fool as an
+old fool' is a good proverb."</p>
+
+<p>"'T&nbsp;is not to a fool that we trust the lives of ten out of our
+nineteen men," said Bradford quietly.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, I can fight well enow," replied the soldier bitterly. "'T&nbsp;is
+my trade, and all I'm fit for. Ay, and in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_271" id="Page_271">[Pg 271]</a></span> my mood to-day I'll
+be fain to fight. I only fear this knave Corbitant hath run away."</p>
+
+<p>"If so, he confesses his defeat without the need of bloodshed,"
+suggested Bradford. "And at all odds, Standish, our policy is to make
+friends by fair means if we may. Remember, if Squanto is not harmed,
+Corbitant is not to be touched. If indeed our poor friend is slain, then
+have you warrant for Corbitant's head, and the lives of all who helped
+to murder Squanto. Thou&nbsp;'rt too honorable a man and too good a
+Christian to let thine own chafed humor interfere with justice."</p>
+
+<p>"I am too well drilled a soldier to disobey orders, Governor," replied
+the Captain briefly, and so they parted, nor did Standish and Alden
+exchange a sentence that night save barely these,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"In one word, John, was the answer to my message yes or no?"</p>
+
+<p>"Dear Master, it was no."</p>
+
+<p>"I bade thee answer in one word, and thou hast disobeyed me in using
+five."</p>
+
+<p>The next morning brought one of those furious summer storms peculiar to
+August, and the little force, loaded with armor, weapons, and knapsacks,
+found themselves much distressed by the humid heat. Reaching a sheltered
+spot about a mile from Namasket, Standish resolved to remain there until
+dark, giving the men opportunity for rest and refreshment, and trusting
+to the storm and the night to cover his attack upon a foe ten times his
+own number.</p>
+
+<p>As darkness closed in upon the encampment, the captain roused himself
+from a soldier's nap, and briefly ordered,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Eat what provisions you have left in your knap<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_272" id="Page_272">[Pg 272]</a></span>sacks, men, and
+empty your flasks. Then pile and leave both beside this rock. Those of
+us who are alive in the morning will subsist upon the enemy. Those who
+are not will feel no lack."</p>
+
+<p>Soon after dark the little troop set forth, but Hobomok, deceived by the
+darkness and the rain, missed the route, and for three weary hours the
+men floundered around in the dripping forest, the guide wisely keeping
+out of the captain's reach, until in a gleam of watery moonlight Winslow
+recognized a peculiar clump of trees which he had noticed upon his late
+journey with Hopkins to visit Massasoit; and Hobomok recovering from his
+bewilderment led the way as fast as the men could follow him, until in
+the edge of a large clearing he paused, and pointing to a detached hut
+whispered,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Corbitant sleep there."</p>
+
+<p>"Now God be praised that there is a chance of fighting rather than
+floundering!" piously exclaimed Standish, and with brief exact phrases
+he proceeded to set the battle in array. Eight men were to silently
+surround the house, their pieces ready, and their orders to cut down if
+necessary any who should attempt to escape from the house. Standish and
+Winslow, followed by Hobomok, marched meantime straight into a hut, and
+the captain in a loud voice demanded,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Where is Corbitant? Give him up and no one else shall be harmed!"</p>
+
+<p>A moment of panic-stricken silence ensued, and then through the darkness
+was heard the indefinite rustling sound of living creatures seeking
+covertly to escape from an enclosure.</p>
+
+<p>"Look to it, outside!" shouted Standish. "Let no man pass your guard!
+Hobomok, tell them that we<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_273" id="Page_273">[Pg 273]</a></span> will harm none if they give up
+Corbitant and those who helped him to murder Tisquantum!"</p>
+
+<p>But the hubbub increased momently, and presently a shout of "Back!
+Back!" from without was followed by a loud shriek in a woman's voice.</p>
+
+<p>"Fools!" roared Standish in the native tongue. "Keep still. Stay in the
+house. We hurt none but Corbitant!"</p>
+
+<p>Yet still the tumult grew; the savages trusting no promises, endeavored
+to escape through the various openings of the wigwam, and although the
+sentinels were as careful as possible, and heartily desirous of avoiding
+bloodshed, several of the Indians were more or less hurt, while the
+half-grown boys perceiving the immunity of the women from harm, ran from
+one door to the other crying out,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Neen squaes! Neen squaes!" (I am a girl! I am a girl!)</p>
+
+<p>The women also hung around Hobomok, pulling at his hands and clothing,
+for attention, while they shrieked, "Oh Hobomok, I am thy friend! Thou
+knowest I am thy friend!"</p>
+
+<p>Winslow meantime had stirred up the embers of a fire near the doorway of
+the hut, and the flame leaping out cast a wild and fitful glare over the
+scene, in the midst of which Hobomok, climbing the stout pole in the
+centre of the cabin, thrust his head through the smoke-hole at the top,
+and after emitting a hideous war-whoop shouted the names of Tisquantum
+and Tockamahamon at the top of his voice, for one of the women had
+assured him that the former was alive, and that Corbitant was already
+many miles on his homeward way.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_274" id="Page_274">[Pg 274]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Not two minutes had elapsed, when an answering whoop was heard from the
+cluster of huts forming the village of Namasket, now the town of
+Middleboro', and an irregular stream of warriors, headed by Tisquantum
+in person, came running toward the beleaguered hut.</p>
+
+<p>The struggle was now over, for so soon as the <i>casus belli</i> was
+disproved by Squanto's appearance, the capture of Corbitant was no
+longer desirable, and Standish ordered his men to sheathe their swords
+and release their prisoners. Those who had been wounded by persisting in
+trying to escape were attended to by Surgeon Fuller, and by Standish's
+invitation returned to Plymouth with their friendly conquerors to
+receive a certain amount of petting by way of compensation for their
+wounds, although the captain did not fail to point out that if they had
+believed and obeyed him, they need not have been hurt at all.</p>
+
+<p>Tisquantum shrewdly flattered at the importance set upon his life by his
+white friends, seated himself with them around the new-fed fire, and
+with much gesticulation and flowery forms of speech related how, by his
+combined prowess and subtlety, he had forced Corbitant to release him,
+and finally to leave Namasket with his warriors, not, however, without
+hideous threats of what should befall that village if it persisted in an
+alliance with the white men, who were soon to be exterminated with all
+their friends.</p>
+
+<p>"Ha! We will send an embassage to this haughty sachem, with some counter
+promises and warnings," exclaimed Standish in hearing this part of the
+report; and at the last moment, before the little army with its captives
+left the place upon the following morning, a runner was dispatched to
+follow Corbitant, and assure him from<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_275" id="Page_275">[Pg 275]</a></span>
+The-Sword-of-the-White-Men, as Standish now began to be called among the
+Indians, that unless Massasoit returned in safety from the country of
+the Narragansetts, whither he had been beguiled, the death of the great
+sachem should be visited upon Corbitant and all his tribe to the
+uttermost, and that if anything more was heard of sedition and treachery
+as preached either among the Namaskets or elsewhere, Corbitant should
+find that no distance and no concealment should avail to save him from
+punishment.</p>
+
+<p>The message was duly delivered, and so convincing did its terrors,
+combined with the prompt action of the white men prove, that various
+sachems who had hitherto held aloof, even those of the Isles of
+Capawack, now called Martha's Vineyard, sent to beg for a treaty of
+peace and mutual support; and in the end Corbitant prayed the kind
+offices of Massasoit, now restored to his kingdom, to make his
+submission to the white men.</p>
+
+<p>But though so fair in outward seeming, this peace was but a hollow one,
+and one more lesson was needed before the Indians became in very truth
+the friends and allies of the white men.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_276" id="Page_276">[Pg 276]</a></span></p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<h2>CHAPTER XXVI.</h2>
+
+<h3>THE FIRST THANKSGIVING DAY OF NEW ENGLAND.</h3>
+
+
+<p>"Oh Priscilla, girl, what thinkst thou is toward now?" demanded Mary
+Chilton, running down to the spring where her friend was sprinkling and
+turning a piece of coarse linen spun and woven by her own hands for
+domestic use; but straightening herself at the merry summons, her dark
+eyes lighted with animation as she responded in the same tone,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"The governor is fain to marry thee, and the elder is ready to give his
+blessing. Is&nbsp;'t so?"</p>
+
+<p>"Thou foolish girl! It's not at me Master Bradford looks oftenest, not
+nigh as often as the captain looks at thee, nay but John Alden"&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"What is it! What's thy news! Speak quick or I'll sprinkle thee rather
+than the linen!" and raising the wooden dipper Priscilla whirled it so
+rapidly round her head that not a drop was spilled, while Mary shrieking
+and laughing darted back and crouched behind an alder bush.</p>
+
+<p>"Maids! Maids! Whence this unseemly mirth! Know ye not that the laughter
+of fools is like the crackling of thorns under the pot, a sure sign of
+the fire they are hasting to? The devil goeth about like a roaring
+lion"&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Sometimes methinks he seemeth more like an ass," murmured Priscilla in
+Mary's ear, setting her off into<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_277" id="Page_277">[Pg 277]</a></span> convulsions of repressed
+laughter, while her naughty tormentor looked demurely up the bank to the
+angular figure defined against the evening sky and said,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"We are beholden to you for the admonition, Master Allerton, and it must
+be a marvelous comfort to you that Mary and Remember Allerton weep so
+much oftener than they laugh."</p>
+
+<p>"I would, thou froward wench, that I had the training of thee for a
+while. Mayhap thou wouldst find cause for weeping"&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Nay, I'm sure on&nbsp;'t. The very thought well-nigh makes me weep
+now," retorted Priscilla blithely, as the sour-visaged Councilor went on
+his way, and Mary half frightened, half delighted, came forward
+saying,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Oh Priscilla, how dost thou dare flout Master Allerton in that style!
+He'll have thee before the Church."</p>
+
+<p>"Not he!" replied Priscilla coolly. "Hist now, poppet, and I'll tell
+thee something&mdash;thou&nbsp;'lt not repeat it though?"</p>
+
+<p>"Not I," replied Mary stoutly.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, then, dost think I should make a fitting stepdame for Bartholomew
+and Mary and Remember?"</p>
+
+<p>"Dost mean"&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Ay do I, just that. And because I could not but laugh merrily at the
+notion when 't&nbsp;was placed before me last Sunday night, the
+Assistant looketh sourly enough but dareth not meddle with me lest I
+make others laugh as well as myself."</p>
+
+<p>"Priscilla! Mary!" called Elizabeth Tilley's voice from the doorstep.
+"Mistress Brewster would have you in to see about noon-meat."</p>
+
+<p>"But thy news, poppet, quick!" exclaimed Priscilla as gathering up her
+gear she slowly led the way up the hill.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_278" id="Page_278">[Pg 278]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Why, the governor hath resolved upon a day, or rather a week, of
+holiday and of thanksgiving for the mercies God hath showed us. Think of
+it, Pris! A whole week of feasting and holiday!"</p>
+
+<p>"Hm!" dryly responded Priscilla. "It sounds well enow, but who is to
+make ready this feasting?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why&mdash;all of us&mdash;and chiefly you, dear wench, for none can
+season a delicate dish or"&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Ay, ay, I know that song full well; but dost really think, Molly, that
+to do a good deal more, and a good deal harder cooking than our wont,
+will be so very sprightly a holiday?"</p>
+
+<p>"But 't&nbsp;will be doing our part to make holiday for the others,"
+replied Mary simply.</p>
+
+<p>"Now, then, if thou&nbsp;'rt not at thy old tricks of shaming my selfish
+frowardness!" exclaimed Priscilla, and laughing they entered the house
+where all the women of the community were assembled in eager debate over
+their share in the approaching festival.</p>
+
+<p>"The governor hath already ordered my man, with Dotey and Soule and
+Latham, to go afield to-morrow with their guns, and to spend two days in
+gathering game," announced Helen Billington with an air of importance.</p>
+
+<p>"And it was determined to invite King Massasoit and his train to the
+feast," eagerly added Mistress Winslow, who, with her baby Peregrine
+White in her arms, had run across the street to join the council.</p>
+
+<p>"Methinks another party should go to the beach to dig clams," suggested
+Dame Hopkins. "For though not so toothsome as venison and birds
+'t&nbsp;is a prey more surely to be come by."</p>
+
+<p>"The elder saith the God of Jacob sendeth us the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_279" id="Page_279">[Pg 279]</a></span> clams as he
+did manna to those other children of his in the desert," added the weak
+sweet voice of the elder's wife. "At morning and at night we may gather
+them in certainty."</p>
+
+<p>"But they hold not sweet over Sunday, that is if the day be hot,"
+suggested Desire Minter ruefully.</p>
+
+<p>"And Priscilla we shall look to thee for marchpanes and manchets and
+plum-porridge and possets and all manner of tasty cates, such as only
+thou canst make," said the dame hastily, and fixing her eyes upon the
+girl's face as if to hinder any irreverent laughter at Desire's speech.</p>
+
+<p>"All that I can do I will do blithely and steadfastly if it will
+pleasure you, mother," replied Priscilla gently, as she knelt down
+beside the invalid and rested against the arm of that old chair which
+you may see to-day reverently preserved in Plymouth.</p>
+
+<p>"I know thou wilt, sweetheart," replied the dame laying her frail hand
+upon the girl's abundant hair. "But I fear me our men cannot dine to-day
+on the promise of the coming feast."</p>
+
+<p>"Well thought on, mother. Come maids to work, to work!"</p>
+
+<p>That same afternoon Squanto was dispatched to Namasket to send from
+thence a runner to Massasoit inviting him, with his brother and a
+fitting escort, to the feast of Thanksgiving now fixed for the following
+Thursday; and so cordially did the great sachem respond, that about
+sunrise on the appointed day the laggards of the settlement were aroused
+by the terrific whoop and succession of unearthly shrieks with which the
+guests announced at once their arrival and their festive and playful
+condition of mind.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_280" id="Page_280">[Pg 280]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Three of the leaders were ready even at this hour to receive the over
+punctual guests: the elder, who had risen early to prepare a few brief
+remarks suited to the occasion; Standish, who was always afoot to fire
+his sunrise gun; and Bradford, who valued the quiet morning hour in
+which he might allow his mind to dwell upon those abstruse and profound
+subjects so dear to his heart, and yet never allowed to intrude upon the
+business of the working day. So, while Winslow with his wife's
+assistance did on his more festive doublet and hose, and Allerton spake
+bitter words to Remember who had forgotten to replace the button that
+should hold her father's collar in place, and gentle Warren, the gruff
+Surgeon, and the rest made ready as they might, these three stood forth
+to receive Massasoit and Quadequina, who with a dozen or so of their
+principal pnieses came forward with considerable dignity, and through
+Squanto and Hobomok made their compliments in truly regal style, while
+their followers to the number of about ninety men with a few women
+remained modestly in the background.</p>
+
+<p>Presently when the village was well afoot, and a big fire started
+between the elder's house and the brook for cooking purposes, the roll
+of the drum announced the morning prayers, with which the Pilgrims began
+every day, and more especially this Feast of Thanksgiving. The Indians
+stood reverently around, Massasoit explaining in low gutturals to a
+chieftain who had never visited Plymouth before, that the white men thus
+propitiated the Great Spirit, and engaged Him both to prosper them and
+kill their enemies.</p>
+
+<p>Prayers ended, Priscilla with her attendants flew back to the fire, and
+presently a long table spread in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_281" id="Page_281">[Pg 281]</a></span> the open air for the men was
+covered with great wooden bowls full of what a later generation named
+hasty-pudding, to be eaten with butter and treacle, for milk was not to
+be had for more than one year to come. Other bowls contained an
+excellent clam chowder with plenty of sea biscuit swimming in the savory
+broth, while great pieces of cold boiled beef with mustard, flanked by
+dishes of turnips, offered solid resistance to those who so joyfully
+attacked them.</p>
+
+<p>Another table in the Common house offered somewhat more delicate food to
+the women and children, chief among it a great pewter bowl of
+plum-porridge with bits of toasted cracker floating upon it.</p>
+
+<p>The meal was a rude one looked upon with the dainty eyes and languid
+appetites of to-day, but to those sturdy and heroic men and women it was
+a veritable feast, and at its close Quadequina with an amiable smile
+nodded to one of his attendants, who produced and poured upon the table
+something like a bushel of popped corn,&mdash;a dainty hitherto unseen
+and unknown by most of the Pilgrims.</p>
+
+<p>All tasted, and John Howland hastily gathering up a portion upon a
+wooden plate carried it to the Common house for the delectation of the
+women, that is to say, for Elizabeth Tilley, whose firm young teeth
+craunched it with much gusto.</p>
+
+<p>Breakfast over, with a grace after meat that amounted to another
+service, the governor announced that some military exercises under the
+direction of Captain Standish would now take place, and the guests were
+invited to seat themselves in the vicinity of a fire kindled on the
+ground at the northerly part of the village about at the head of Middle
+Street, and designed more as a com<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_282" id="Page_282">[Pg 282]</a></span>mon centre and social feature
+than for need since the weather was mild and lovely, so peculiarly so
+that when it recurred the next November and the next, the people
+remembering that first feast said, "Why, here is the Indians' summer
+again!" But on that day the only thought was that God accepted their
+thanksgiving and smiled His approval.</p>
+
+<p>Hardly had the guests comprehended the announcement and placed
+themselves in order, when a wild fanfare of trumpets, an imposing roll
+of drums was heard from the vicinity of the Fort, and down the hill in
+orderly array marched the little army of nineteen men, preceded by the
+military band and led by their doughty Captain. Above their heads
+floated the banner of Old England, and beneath their corselets beat true
+English hearts; and yet here stood the nucleus of that power which a
+century and a half later was to successfully defy and throw off the rule
+of that magnificent but cruel stepdame; here stood the first American
+army; and then, as since, that score of determined souls struck terror
+into the hearts of five times their number.</p>
+
+<p>"If they have beguiled us here to destroy us!" murmured Quadequina in
+his brother's ear.</p>
+
+<p>"Canst not tell an eagle from a carrion-crow?" returned the wiser man.
+"Would Winsnow, or The-Sword, or the Chief, or the powah, do this?
+Peace, my brother."</p>
+
+<p>But as the military man&oelig;uvres accompanied with frequent discharges of
+musketry, and accented at one point with a tremendous roar from the
+cannon of the Fort progressed, not only Quadequina, but many other of
+the braves became very uneasy; and to this cause as well as benevolence,
+may be attributed the offer made at dinner time by Quadequina to lead a
+hunting party of his<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_283" id="Page_283">[Pg 283]</a></span> own people into the woods to look for
+deer, whose haunts they well knew.</p>
+
+<p>Standish alone suspected this <i>arri&egrave;re pens&eacute;e</i>, and when
+Bradford mildly applauded the generous kindness of their guests, he
+answered with a chuckle,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Ay, as kind as the traveler who begs the highwayman to let him go home
+and fetch a larger treasure."</p>
+
+<p>But in spite of his doubts the prince intended and made a <i>bon&acirc;
+fide</i> hunt, and returned early in the next day with as much venison as
+lasted the entire company four days.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, if I had but some Spanish chestnuts to stuff these turkeys, they
+might seem more like their brethren across the seas," exclaimed
+Priscilla as she turned over a pile of the wild birds and chose those to
+be first cooked.</p>
+
+<p>"Nay, but to me the flavor is better, and the meat more succulent of
+these than of any I ever saw at home," replied John Alden. "And the
+size! Do but look at this fellow, he will scale well-nigh twenty pound
+if an ounce."</p>
+
+<p>"If 't&nbsp;were a goose I would name it John, 't&nbsp;would be so
+prodigious a goose," replied Priscilla with a glance so saucy and so
+bewitching that her adorer forgot to reply, and she went briskly
+on,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Come now, young man, there's much to do and scant time to talk of it.
+Call me some of those gaping boys yonder and let them pluck these fowl,
+and bid John Billington come and break up these deer. And I must have
+wood and water galore to make meat for a hundred men. Stir thyself!"</p>
+
+<p>"I was thinking, Priscilla&mdash;why not stuff the turkeys with
+beechnuts? There is store of them up at our cottage."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_284" id="Page_284">[Pg 284]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"How came they there? Doth our doughty Captain go birds-nesting and
+nutting in his by-times?"</p>
+
+<p>"Nay, but I did, that is, I gathered the nuts for thee, and
+then&mdash;then feared if I offered them thou&nbsp;'dst only flout
+me"&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, sure never was a poor maid so bestead with blind men&mdash;well,
+fetch thy beechnuts."</p>
+
+<p>"Nay, Priscilla, but blind, blind? How then am I blind, maiden, say?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why, not to have discovered ere this how I dote upon beechnuts. There,
+get thee gone for them."</p>
+
+<p>The dressing of beechnuts proved a rare success, but the preparation
+proved so long a process that only the delicate young bird made ready
+for the table where Mistress Brewster presided was thus honored,
+although in after times Priscilla often made what she called
+goose-dressing; and when a few years later some sweet potatoes were
+brought to Plymouth from the Carolinas, she at once adopted them for the
+same purpose.</p>
+
+<p>And so the festival went on for its appointed length of three days, and
+perhaps the hearty fellowship and good will manifested by the white men
+toward their guests, and their determination to meet them on the ground
+of common interests and sympathies, went quite as far as their evident
+superiority in arms and resources toward establishing the deep-founded
+and highly valued peace, without which the handful of white men could
+never have made good their footing upon that stern and sterile coast.</p>
+
+<p>On the Saturday the feast was closed by a state dinner whose composition
+taxed Priscilla as head cook to the limit of her resources, and with
+flushed cheek and knitted brow she moved about among her willing
+assi<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_285" id="Page_285">[Pg 285]</a></span>tants with all the importance of a Bechamel, a Felix, the
+<i>ma&icirc;tre-d'h&ocirc;tel</i> of Cardinal Fesch with his two turbots, or
+luckless Vatel who fell upon his sword and died because he had no turbot
+at all; or even, rising in the grandeur of the comparison, we may liken
+her to Domitian, who, weary of persecuting Christians, one day called
+the Roman Senate together to decide with him upon the sauce with which
+another historic turbot should be dressed.</p>
+
+<p>Some late arrivals among the Indians had that morning brought in several
+large baskets of the delicious oysters for which Wareham is still
+famous, and although it was an unfamiliar delicacy to her, Priscilla,
+remembering a tradition brought from Ostend to Leyden by some travelers,
+compounded these with biscuit-crumbs, spices, and wine, and was looking
+about for an iron pan wherein to bake them, when Elizabeth Tilley
+brought forward some great clam and scallop shells which John Howland
+had presented to her, just as now a young man might offer a unique
+S&egrave;vres tea-set to the lady of his love.</p>
+
+<p>"Wouldn't it do to fill these with thy oyster compote, and so set them
+in the ashes to roast?" inquired she. "Being many they can be laid at
+every man's place at table."</p>
+
+<p>"Why, 't&nbsp;is a noble idea, child," exclaimed Priscilla eagerly.
+"'T&nbsp;will be a novelty, and will set off the board famously. Say you
+not so, John?"</p>
+
+<p>"Ay," returned Alden, who was busily opening the oysters at her side.
+"And more by token there is a magnificence in the idea that thou hast
+not thought on; for as at a great man's table the silver dishes each
+bear the crest of his arms, so we being Pilgrims and thus<span class='pagenum'><a
+name="Page_286" id="Page_286">[Pg 286]</a></span> privileged to wear the scallop
+shell in our hats, do rather choose to display it upon our board."</p>
+
+<p>"Ah, John, thou hast an excellent wit&mdash;in <i>some</i> things," replied
+Priscilla with a half sigh which set the young fellow wondering for an
+hour.</p>
+
+<p>By noon the long tables were spread, and still the sweet warm air of the
+"Indian Summer" made the out-of-door feast not only possible but
+charming, for the gauzy veil upon the distant forest, and the marine
+horizon, and the curves of Captain's Hill, seemed to shut in this little
+scene from all the world of turmoil and danger and fatigue, while the
+thick yellow sunshine filtered through with just warmth enough for
+comfort, and the sighing southerly breeze brought wafts of perfume from
+the forest, and bore away, as it wandered northward, the peals of
+laughter, the merry yet discreet songs, and the multitudinous hum of
+blithe voices, Saxon and savage, male and female, adult and childish,
+that filled the dreamy air.</p>
+
+<p>The oysters in their scallop shells were a singular success, and so were
+the mighty venison pasties, and the savory stew compounded of all that
+flies the air, and all that flies the hunter in Plymouth woods, no
+longer flying now but swimming in a glorious broth cunningly seasoned by
+Priscilla's anxious hand, and thick bestead with dumplings of barley
+flour, light, toothsome, and satisfying. Beside these were roasts of
+various kinds, and thin cakes of bread or manchets, and bowls of salad
+set off with wreaths of autumn leaves laid around them, and great
+baskets of grapes, white and purple, and of the native plum, so
+delicious when fully ripe in its three colors of black, white, and red.
+With these were plentiful flagons of ale, for already the housewives had
+laid<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_287" id="Page_287">[Pg 287]</a></span> down the first brewing of the native brand, and had
+moreover learned of the Indians to concoct a beverage akin to what is
+now called root beer, well flavored with sassafras, of which the
+Pilgrims had been glad to find good store since it brought a great price
+in the English market.</p>
+
+<p>It was during the last half hour of this feast that Desire Minter, who
+with the other girls served the tables where the men sat at meat, placed
+a little silver cup at Captain Standish's right hand saying,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Priscilla sends you some shrub, kind sir, of her own composition, and
+prays you drink her health."</p>
+
+<p>"Why, then, 't&nbsp;is kind of her who hath been most unkind of late,"
+returned Myles, upon whose seasoned brain the constant potations of
+three days had wrought to lull suspicion and reserve, and taking the cup
+he tossed off its contents at a draught, and rising bowed toward
+Priscilla who was flitting in and out among the tables. She returned the
+salute with a little air of surprise, and Myles reseating himself turned
+to question Desire again, but she had departed carrying the cup with
+her.</p>
+
+<p>"Nay, then, I'll be toyed with no longer," muttered the Captain angrily,
+and although he bore his part in the closing ceremonies with which the
+governor bade a cordial and even affectionate farewell to the king, the
+prince, their nobles, and their following, there was a glint in his eye
+and a set to his lips that would have told one who knew him well that
+the spirit of the man was roused and not lightly to be laid to rest
+again.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_288" id="Page_288">[Pg 288]</a></span></p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<h2>CHAPTER XXVII.</h2>
+
+<h3>A LOVE PHILTRE.</h3>
+
+
+<p>The last pniese had made his uncouth obeisance and departed, and busy
+hands were removing all signs of the late commotion in haste that the
+setting sun should find the village ready for its Sunday rest and peace,
+when Myles Standish suddenly presented himself before Priscilla Molines
+as she came up from the spring with a pile of wooden trenchers in her
+hands.</p>
+
+<p>"Mistress Molines a word with you," began he with an unconscious
+imperiousness that at once aroused the girl's rebellious spirit.</p>
+
+<p>"Nay, Captain, I am not of your train band, and your business must await
+my pleasure and convenience. Now, I am over busy."</p>
+
+<p>"Nay, then, if I spoke amiss I crave your pardon, mistress, and had we
+more time I would beat my brains for some of the flowery phrases I used
+to hear among the court gallants who came to learn war in Flanders. But
+I also have business almost as weighty as thine and as little able to
+brook delay. So I pray you of your courtesy to set down your platters on
+this clean sod, and listen patiently to me for a matter of five
+minutes."</p>
+
+<p>"I am listening, sir."</p>
+
+<p>"Nay, put down the platters or let me put them down."</p>
+
+<p>"There then, and glad am I"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_289" id="Page_289">[Pg 289]</a></span>&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Of what, mistress?"</p>
+
+<p>"That I'm not often under thy orders, sir."</p>
+
+<p>"Ah! But we'll waste no time in skirmishing, fair enemy. Tell me rather
+what didst mean by the loving-cup thou sendst me? May I take it sooth
+and truly as relenting on thy part?"</p>
+
+<p>"I send you a loving-cup, sir!" exclaimed the girl, her eyes flashing,
+and her color rising.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. Call it by what name you will; I mean the cup Desire Minter
+brought me from thee, with a message that I should drink thy health."</p>
+
+<p>"Loth were I to think, Captain Standish, that you would willfully insult
+a maid with none to defend her, and so I will charitably suppose that
+you have been forced to drink too many healths to guard well thine own.
+Good e'en, sir."</p>
+
+<p>"Now by the God that made us both, wench, I'll have an end of this. Nay,
+not one step dost thou stir until you or I are laid in a lie."</p>
+
+<p>"A lie, Captain Standish!"</p>
+
+<p>"Mayhap my own lie. I say that Desire Minter brought me a silver cup of
+some sweet posset, such as you have made for our sick folk time and
+again, and bade me from you quaff it to your health."</p>
+
+<p>"And that is God's truth, say you, sir?"</p>
+
+<p>"Mistress Molines, my word has not often been doubted, and you force me
+to remind you that I come not of mechanical"&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Nay, nay, stop there, an' it please you, sir! We'll unwind this coil
+before we snarl another. Fear not that my base mechanical blood shall
+ever sully your noble strain; but mean though I be, my habit is a
+tolerably truthful one, and I tell you once and for all that<span class='pagenum'><a
+name="Page_290" id="Page_290">[Pg 290]</a></span> I sent you no cup, I made you no
+posset, I desired no health drunk by you."</p>
+
+<p>"Nay, then, what hath this girl Desire wrought? And truth to tell
+Priscilla, I fear me 't&nbsp;is poison, for a shrewd pain seizeth me
+ever and anon, and a strange heaviness is in my head."</p>
+
+<p>"And there's a sultry color on your cheek&mdash;nay, then, we'll see the
+surgeon"&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"And thou&nbsp;'lt forgive whatever I have said amiss, Priscilla, for
+mayhap I'll trouble thee no more. Like enough she hath revenged
+herself"&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"For your scorn of her love," interposed Priscilla vivaciously. "Like
+enough, like enough. Come to the house, Captain, and let us take counsel
+with the dear mother. She still knows best."</p>
+
+<p>"Go thou, Priscilla. It hardly beseems a man and a soldier to seek
+redress for a wench's love scratch at the hands of an old
+woman&mdash;nay, nay, fire not up afresh! No one can honor Mistress
+Brewster more than I do, but tell me, is she a man or is she young?
+Sooth now, Priscilla!"</p>
+
+<p>"And still in thy masterful mood thou&nbsp;'lt have the last word,
+doughty Captain. But go you home, then, and bid John Alden make a fire
+and heat a good kettle of water, and I'll away to the mother who will
+deal with Desire in short measure."</p>
+
+<p>"'T&nbsp;is good counsel and I'll follow it, for in sober sadness I feel
+strangely amiss." And the soldier, who now was as livid as he had been
+flushed, strode away up the hill, while Priscilla picking up the
+trenchers fled like a lapwing into the house where she found Desire
+seated sullenly in a corner, while the elder, his wife, and the governor
+were gathered together near the fire cozily<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_291" id="Page_291">[Pg 291]</a></span> discussing the
+events of the day. Standing before them and restraining her natural
+vivacity that it might not discredit the importance of her story,
+Priscilla in brief and pungent phrases told the story of the loving
+draught, and as Desire rose and stole toward the door laid a hand upon
+her arm that effectually detained her until the elder sternly
+said,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Remain you here, Desire Minter, until this report is sifted."</p>
+
+<p>"Were it not well to send at once for our good physician, that he may
+know what hath been done before he sees the captain?" suggested Bradford
+mildly, and the elder assenting, Priscilla was dispatched for doctor
+Fuller, who arrived within the minute, and listened with profound
+attention, while Mistress Brewster, to whom alone the girl would reply,
+extracted from her a most startling story.</p>
+
+<p>"The captain first of all asked me to wife, and if he had not been wiled
+away from me by artful"&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Nay, nay, Desire, thou&nbsp;'rt not to say such things as that,"
+interposed the dame with gentle severity, and Bradford added in much the
+same tone,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"'T&nbsp;was thine own idle fancy, girl, that set thee on such a notion.
+The captain hath averred to me as Christian man that he never made
+proffer to thee nor wished so to do since first he set eyes on thee."</p>
+
+<p>"He did then," muttered Desire sullenly, and Mistress Brewster
+interposed.</p>
+
+<p>"Leaving that aside, tell us, Desire, what didst thou give the captain
+to drink, and why didst say that Priscilla sent it?"</p>
+
+<p>"Marry, because she hath bewitched him, and I wot well he would take it
+from her without gainsaying."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_292" id="Page_292">[Pg 292]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"But what was it thou gavest him?"</p>
+
+<p>"'T&nbsp;was&mdash;there was a wench here with the savages, and Squanto
+told me she was a wise woman and knew how to work spells"&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Well then, go on, Desire."</p>
+
+<p>"And so I went with her pulling herbs in the fields and swamps, and with
+one word English and one of jabber, we knew each other's meaning, and I
+gave her the buckle of my belt which was broke and none here could mend
+it."</p>
+
+<p>"A generous gift, truly," interposed the elder, but his wife beseeching
+silence with a gesture asked,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"And what gave she thee, Desire?"</p>
+
+<p>"Some herbs, mother."</p>
+
+<p>"And what were the herbs to do?"</p>
+
+<p>"She said steep them well, and give the broth to any man I fancied, and
+it would turn his fancy on me."</p>
+
+<p>"A love philtre! <i>Vade retrograde Sathanas!</i>" exclaimed the elder half
+rising from his chair, but here the doctor eagerly interposed,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"What like was the herb, girl? Hast any of it in store for a second
+dose?"</p>
+
+<p>"Mayhap&mdash;a little," muttered Desire twisting and turning, but
+seeing no means of escape.</p>
+
+<p>"Go and fetch it," commanded the elder. "And Priscilla do thou go too
+and see that the wretched creature doth not make way with it."</p>
+
+<p>"And sith John Howland is after a sort betrothed to the poor bemused
+child, I think it well to summon him, that he may advise with us as to
+the sequela of this folly. I will call him to the Council." And Bradford
+followed the two girls from the room.</p>
+
+<p>"If she hath murdered the captain, she shall die the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_293" id="Page_293">[Pg 293]</a></span> death,"
+exclaimed the elder striding about the room, and pausing before the
+great chair where his pale and fragile wife sat looking up at him with
+beseeching eyes.</p>
+
+<p>"Nay, William, she is hardly older than our own dear girls, and it would
+ill become us who still carry our own lives in our hands to deprive a
+poor silly maid of hers."</p>
+
+<p>"So the best road out of the maze is to cure the captain," remarked
+Doctor Fuller dryly. "After that we'll marry the girl to John Howland,
+and trust him to keep her quiet. Here they come."</p>
+
+<p>And in at the open door came the governor and Howland, Desire and
+Priscilla, who carried in her hand a little box full of half-dried
+leaves, which she presented to the doctor, who solemnly pulling from his
+pocket a pair of clumsy iron-bowed spectacles put them astride his nose,
+and taking the herbs to the window carefully examined them, while all
+the rest stood anxiously around staring with all their might.</p>
+
+<p>"Hm! Hah! Yes, well yes, I see, I see!" murmured the botanist, and then
+turning to Bradford he fixed him with a meditative gaze over the tops of
+his barnacles and said,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"You know something of botany, Governor. Say you not that this is the
+<i>Platanthera Satyrion</i>, the herb supposed to give vigor to the hearts of
+those wild men whom the mythologists celebrate?"</p>
+
+<p>"Is it? I should have taken it for the iris whose flower I have noted in
+these swamps."</p>
+
+<p>"'T&nbsp;is akin, ay, distant kin, but with the difference that maketh
+one harmless, and&nbsp;'t&nbsp;other deadly. I will take it to Sister
+Winslow's house and examine it with my books, but still I can aver at
+once that 't&nbsp;is Platanthera; and if it is also Satyrion I will
+promise that it<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_294" id="Page_294">[Pg 294]</a></span> shall prove only nauseous and distasteful to
+our good Captain, and by no means deadly. I will go to see him."</p>
+
+<p>"And John Howland," said the Governor turning toward the young man who
+stood looking with aversion at the figure of Desire, who with her head
+in her apron wept loud and angrily, "it seemeth to me that since this
+maid is betrothed to you, and is manifestly unfit to guide herself, that
+it is best for you to marry her here, and now, and after that train her
+into more discretion than she naturally showeth."</p>
+
+<p>"May it please you, Master Bradford, and you, Elder," replied Howland
+coldly, "it seemeth to me that a woman who shows so little modesty in
+the pursuit of one man is scarce fit wife for another. I did indeed
+promise my late dear mistress whose ward this girl was, that I would
+care for her, and if need be take her to wife; but sure am I that if
+that godly and discreet matron could know of all this, she would hold me
+free of my bonds, the rather that I have never looked upon her with that
+tenderness that God putteth in our hearts toward those"&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Nay, then, if it comes to that," interposed Desire, snatching away her
+apron and showing a swollen and tear-stained face, "I hate and despise
+thee, John Howland, and always have and always will; and if I took thee
+for my bachelor at all it was only in hope that 't&nbsp;would give a
+jealous twinge to the heart of a better man, and if at the last I failed
+of him thou wouldst be better than none; but I've changed my mind, and
+now I'll none of thee, not if ne'er another man"&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Peace, shameless wench!" thundered the elder, striking the table with
+his hand. "Profane not the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_295" id="Page_295">[Pg 295]</a></span> ears of a decent matron with such
+talk. John Howland, it is my rede that thou art free of thy pledge to
+marry this woman. What say you, Governor?"</p>
+
+<p>"I agree with you, Elder Brewster, that since both man and maid desire
+to render back their troth that they should be permitted so to do; and I
+further suggest that by the first occasion presenting, Desire Minter be
+sent back to her friends in England, who will, as Mistress Carver told
+me, be content to receive her."</p>
+
+<p>"Amen!" ejaculated John Howland with such unction that Bradford gravely
+smiled as he followed him from the room, and murmured under his
+breath,&mdash;"He will wed Elizabeth Tilley, an' I'm not
+mistaken."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_296" id="Page_296">[Pg 296]</a></span></p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<h2>CHAPTER XXVIII.</h2>
+
+<h3>PHILIP DE LA NOYE.</h3>
+
+
+<p>"'T&nbsp;is a year agone to-day since we in the Mayflower sighted land
+in this place," said Bradford to Standish, as the two stood beside the
+gun just fired for sunset when all obligatory labor ended in the
+village.</p>
+
+<p>"Ay, is it so? Well, it hath been a year of note in more ways than one,
+and the next is like to be as adventurous. Ha! Look you there, Bradford!
+Dost see that Indian runner breasting the hill. Some great news,
+surely,&mdash;come, let us go to meet him."</p>
+
+<p>"Squanto is before us. See him leap the brook"&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>But Standish was already half way down the hill, and presently in the
+open space already spoken of as the Town Square he and two or three of
+the other leaders met the runner, who escorted by Squanto came panting
+up the hill from the brook, and after the usual salutations informed the
+governor that he was sent from Aspinet, sachem of the Nausets, to inform
+the white men that a vessel had been watched feeling her way through the
+shoals around Cape Cod, and was now laying her course apparently for
+Plymouth. Not knowing whether this might be good or bad news, the sachem
+had felt it a friendly act to convey it to his new allies with the
+greatest possible dispatch.</p>
+
+<p>"And he did well, and both he and thou shall see that we are not
+ungrateful," replied Bradford cour<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_297" id="Page_297">[Pg 297]</a></span>teously. "Tisquantum, take
+this man to the Common house, and see that he is suitably refreshed. And
+now, brethren, what meaneth this? Is it indeed good news or bad?"</p>
+
+<p>"Bad," replied Standish promptly. "For well do we know that no relief
+was to be sent us until our friends the traders had seen the first
+fruits of their Adventure, and as we perforce sent home the Mayflower
+empty, I for one expect to hear no more from Cheapside unless it be a
+rating."</p>
+
+<p>"There hath not been time for the Mayflower to go and return, were our
+friends never so willing to aid us," suggested the elder pacifically.</p>
+
+<p>"Then what think you, men?" persisted Bradford. "Allerton, Winslow,
+Warren, what say ye all?"</p>
+
+<p>"We know that the French are at war with England," suggested Winslow.
+"And this may be a privateer coming to harry the settlement."</p>
+
+<p>"In that case it were well to hide whatever we have of value and retreat
+to the woods with the women and children," said Allerton turning pale.</p>
+
+<p>"And leave our housen, and the Fort and its armament, and our boats!"
+exclaimed Standish contemptuously. "Nay, Governor, my counsel is that we
+at once arm ourselves, train what guns we can upon the offing, and if
+these indeed be buccaneers, French, Spanish, or Turks, receive them with
+a volley that shall leave little work for a second one. The women and
+children may retreat to the woods, and he who has any pots, or cups, or
+pans of value may bury them an' he chooses. My best treasures are Gideon
+and my snaphance, and I cannot spare them so long as I live to wield
+them."</p>
+
+<p>"That's the chat that suits me, neighbor," declared<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_298" id="Page_298">[Pg 298]</a></span> Hopkins in
+his usual rough, hearty fashion, while Allerton, an unwonted tinge of
+color upon his sallow cheek, hastened to avow himself as ready for
+fighting as any man since fighting was decided to be the best policy.</p>
+
+<p>And now Standish assumed control of the occasion and showed himself in
+his most becoming attitude. His quick eyes and ready hands were
+everywhere, and the somewhat sharp and terse military orders that
+sometimes had seemed a thought arbitrary now carried assurance in their
+tone, and strengthened the hearts of some and supported the
+determination of others, who left to themselves would have scattered
+like sheep without a leader.</p>
+
+<p>"Let each man arm and harness himself and report for inspection in the
+Town Square," was the first order, and while it was obeyed the Captain
+climbed the hill carrying the "perspective glass" made by Galileo
+himself during his exile in Holland, and brought to the new world by
+Governor Carver, whose widow bequeathed it to the colony as one of its
+chief treasures.</p>
+
+<p>He was followed by William Trevor, one of the seamen hired by the colony
+for a year, a fellow of quick eyesight and undaunted courage. The
+Captain silently and carefully adjusted his lenses, and then handed the
+glass to Trevor.</p>
+
+<p>"Now you, Bill, clap your eye to that and get it on yon headland,
+Farther Manomet, d'&nbsp;ye see?"</p>
+
+<p>"Ay, Captain, I have it, and can count the squirrels on the tree tops."</p>
+
+<p>"Canst tell a ship's topmast from a squirrel if one should heave in
+sight?"</p>
+
+<p>"Mayhap I could, master."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, then, watch for it, and so soon as any craft of<span class='pagenum'><a
+name="Page_299" id="Page_299">[Pg 299]</a></span> any color, be it one of your
+squirrels on a chip, an Indian in a canoe, or a French man-of-war, send
+this boy Cooke tumbling down the hill to bring the news. Now, man, show
+thy discretion and thy wit."</p>
+
+<p>"Ay, ay, Captain, you may trust Bill Trevor for a keen lookout. When I
+sailed aboard a whaler"&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>But already the Captain was out of hearing, and presently was inspecting
+his little army, mustered in the Town Square, each man armed and
+armored.</p>
+
+<p>Drawn up in two ranks the twenty men presented a striking array, for in
+the forefront stood the governor, the elder, the surgeon, Winslow,
+Allerton, Warren, Hopkins, Howland, Alden, and Peter Browne, ancestor of
+John Brown of Ossawatomie; while the file closers, if not men of equal
+note in affairs, were each one a sturdy and determined Englishman, ready
+to fight till the death and never guess that he could be conquered.</p>
+
+<p>The inspection over, the train band was dismissed with orders to stand
+ready to reassemble at a moment's warning, and meantime to make such
+dispositions of private property as seemed good to each man.</p>
+
+<p>Hardly was this order obeyed when from the Fort came Trevor's sonorous
+hail,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Sail ho!" and presently young Cooke came pelting down the hill
+reporting with a military salute to the captain.</p>
+
+<p>"Trevor saith, sir, that a ship of not over sixty ton is drawing around
+Manomet, and that she flieth no colors as yet."</p>
+
+<p>"Ha! Let us see then, let us see!" cried the captain, and two minutes
+later was at the top of the hill, glass in hand.</p>
+
+<p>"Hm! Square rigged, slender built&mdash;what say you, Trevor, is she a
+Frenchman?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_300" id="Page_300">[Pg 300]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"More like a Dutchman to my mind, sir."</p>
+
+<p>"Ah, then were we all right, and with a goodly new store of schnapps to
+comfort our souls, but my mind misdoubts me. Now let us see if we can
+train this saker to command the offing. Boy, run down the hill and fetch
+Billington and Master Hopkins. 'T&nbsp;will do no harm, and
+may&mdash;ay, this minion will sweep the Rock like a new broom. Here,
+Billington, come on man and lend me thy bull's neck and shoulders. I
+would shift the carriage of this saker. Ho, Hopkins, give us a little
+help here. There yeo-ho, men! Again, now then&mdash;yeo-ho! Now we have
+it, now! There, settle her in place, that's it, there! Now then, Trevor,
+how about the Frenchman?"</p>
+
+<p>"She is laying her course for this harbor, Captain. You may see her
+without the glass well enow, for she's going about to fetch Beach
+Point."</p>
+
+<p>"Is tide high enow to carry her over Brown's Islands, as Champlain
+calleth the outer flats?" asked Hopkins, who by fits liked to appear
+erudite.</p>
+
+<p>"Ay, 't&nbsp;is full water at noon to-day," replied Trevor, his eye
+glued to the glass.</p>
+
+<p>"Now then, now then, here she is making straight into the harbor,"
+exclaimed Standish excitedly, and plunging down the hill followed by the
+rest, he made signal to Bart Allerton standing expectant at his own door
+to sound the "assembly" upon the trumpet which he had learned to manage
+with great precision.</p>
+
+<p>Ten minutes later the whole array of fighting men stood steady in their
+ranks, with the larger boys hanging in the rear, each carrying a spare
+gun, or some other weapon, and all eyes fixed upon the point where the
+stranger would appear as she beat her way into the harbor.<span class='pagenum'><a
+name="Page_301" id="Page_301">[Pg 301]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Suddenly the captain waved his hand above his head, glancing up at the
+Fort where, under the folds of the British standard, stood Trevor,
+linstock in hand. Another moment, and out from the hoarse throat of the
+saker roared a defiant peal echoing grandly from hill to hill, startling
+the savages who covertly watched the arrival of new foes or new friends
+as the case might be, and rolling ominously across the waters of the
+harbor to demand the name of the intruder.</p>
+
+<p>"They be busy with their ancient-staff," reported Trevor presently, as
+he resumed the spy-glass. "There goes the
+bunting&mdash;ha&mdash;ay&mdash;run boy, and tell the captain 't&nbsp;is
+the red cross of Merrie England; 't&nbsp;is the home colors, boy!"</p>
+
+<p>But already the eager eyes in the Town Square had recognized the flag,
+and Standish lapsing from the martinet into the exile waved Gideon above
+his head shouting,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"'T&nbsp;is our own flag, men; 't&nbsp;is the red cross of Old England!
+Three cheers boys, three cheers for the dear old flag! Now then!"</p>
+
+<p>And the glad shout arose, and again and again, not only from the bearded
+throats of men, but in the shrill treble of boys, and the dainty voices
+of girls, who just out of sight watched as women do, when life and honor
+hang in the balance.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh Mary, Mary maid, why art thou crying! Silly wench"&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Nay, but thou&nbsp;'rt crying thyself, Priscilla! Nay, now
+thou&nbsp;'rt laughing!"</p>
+
+<p>"To think how John Alden turned white as any maid when the good news
+came!" sobbed Priscilla running in to fling her arms around Dame
+Brewster, who<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_302" id="Page_302">[Pg 302]</a></span> sat with folded hands and rapt face praying to
+the God of battles.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh mother, mother, they all are safe, and 't&nbsp;is an English ship.
+Belike, Fear and Patience and their brother are aboard."</p>
+
+<p>"Nay, dear maid, nay, be not so carried away. If indeed God sendeth my
+children"&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>But the mere thought of such joy was too much for the self-control the
+poor mother so struggled for, and when the elder hastened into the house
+he found his wife weeping for joy upon Priscilla's heaving breast.</p>
+
+<p>"Nay then, wife, nay then, doest thou well?&mdash;and yet mine own eyes
+might but too easily rain with gratitude. Dame, wife I say, nay
+then&mdash;let us pray that in all things His will be done."</p>
+
+<p>And in less than an hour Mary Brewster was sobbing afresh in the
+stalwart embrace of her eldest son Jonathan, a young fellow of
+five-and-thirty, who full of health and courage was come to be the staff
+of her old age, and to bring news of the fair sisters who would come
+anon.</p>
+
+<p>For this was the Fortune, a little ship of fifty-five tons, dispatched
+by the Adventurers in London to carry over some of the colonists
+disappointed of a passage in the Mayflower, but principally to convey
+Robert Cushman, who came pledged to obtain the consent of the Pilgrims
+to a contract more favorable to their English friends than that they
+were disposed to undertake. With him came his son Thomas, a boy of
+fourteen, whom his father upon his hasty return in the Fortune left
+behind under charge of the governor, to whom he subsequently wrote, "I
+pray you care for my son as for your own;" and so well did Bradford
+train the boy soon orphaned and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_303" id="Page_303">[Pg 303]</a></span> left entirely to his charge,
+that Thomas Cushman became successor of William Brewster as Ruling Elder
+of the Pilgrim Church, and now lies on Burying Hill beneath a goodly
+monument erected by his numerous descendants.</p>
+
+<p>But little on that bleak November day recked the boy of future honors or
+proud posterities, for he and his friend Thomas Prence, future governor
+of the colony, but then a merry youth of nineteen, were hand and glove
+with a gay company of lads and young men who had accepted the adventure
+of Pilgrimage as they would have sailed with Drake, or Hawkins, or
+Captain Cooke,&mdash;any leader who promised novelty, excitement, and
+the chance of hard knocks and treasure.</p>
+
+<p>So little responsible for their own welfare were many of these younkers
+that, although fairly fitted out for the voyage, they had while
+weather-bound in the British Channel gone ashore at Old Plymouth and
+"brushed away" even their cloaks and extra doublets, in some cases their
+very bedding and such cooking utensils as passengers were then expected
+to provide themselves with. So far from bringing fresh supplies of food
+to the colony, these runagates had devoured perforce the provisions that
+should have victualed the Fortune on her return voyage, and the
+colonists were forced for humanity's sake, to supply her out of their
+own scanty stock.</p>
+
+<p>Among these young fellows was a slight, dark-eyed lad of about nineteen,
+who so soon as he had landed asked for the Demoiselle Molines.</p>
+
+<p>"Priscilla Molines? Dost thou know her then?" inquired Alden who heard
+the question, although addressed to Billington, who only grinned at the
+lad's French accent and made no reply.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_304" id="Page_304">[Pg 304]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Certainly, yes. My sister is of her closest friends."</p>
+
+<p>"Ay? Is thy name De la Noye?"</p>
+
+<p>"Truly!" exclaimed the boy, his face lighting vivaciously. "I am Philip
+de la Noye."</p>
+
+<p>"Hm, and your brother Jacques&mdash;is he in the company, or coming in
+the next ship?" asked Alden grimly; but at that moment Priscilla coming
+swiftly forward, held out both hands to the new-comer exclaiming
+joyously in French,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Philip, dear lad! Glad am I to see <ins title="Transcriber's note:
+Period added after 'thee'">thee.</ins>"</p>
+
+<p>"She will have news now from her lover," muttered Alden bitterly, but
+just then the captain hailed,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Here Jack, put thy long legs and brawny thews to service in bringing
+some of these budgets up the hill. Here's a poor soul with three little
+children tugging at her skirts and she a widow, and fit to be put to bed
+herself."</p>
+
+<p>"I'll help her up the hill, Captain," interposed Peter Browne hastily,
+and as he carefully aided the Widow Ford to climb the steep ascent some
+sprite might have whispered in his ear that this was his own future
+wife. That night was born Martha Ford, who should from similarity of
+history have married Peregrine White, but who instead wedded William
+Nelson.</p>
+
+<p>Not until the last bale or packet unloaded from the Fortune had been
+disposed of in the Common storehouse, or in some one of the houses all
+hospitably thrown open to the new-comers, did John Alden cease his
+labors or exchange more than a brief word with those about him, until at
+last Bradford cheerily declared labor over for the day and added,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Come friends to my house, and hear what Master Cushman will have to
+tell us of affairs in the old home.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_305" id="Page_305">[Pg 305]</a></span> Come Alden, and reward thy
+labors with a good flagon of beer."</p>
+
+<p>Muttering some reply, the young man followed the rest up Leyden Street,
+but as they reached the governor's house, a somewhat larger and more
+important cabin than the rest, he passed quickly on and up the hill.
+Pausing but a moment at the Fort, he struck down the steep southerly
+side to the brook, and having performed his simple toilet strode moodily
+on toward the forest, but had only gone a few rods when a familiar voice
+called his name, and turning he saw Priscilla with Mary Chilton and the
+young Frenchman, to whom they seemed to be showing the brook and its
+springs of "delicate water."</p>
+
+<p>Very reluctantly Alden turned and moved toward them.</p>
+
+<p>"Did you speak, Mistress Mary?" inquired he as the party approached.</p>
+
+<p>"I&mdash;I," stammered Mary blushing vividly.</p>
+
+<p>"It was I who bade her do so," interposed Priscilla with an impatient
+glance at the English girl whose honesty had spoiled her little finesse.
+"We thought you looked but dull, and I would fain bring my new-arrived
+friend Philip De la Noye to your acquaintance."</p>
+
+<p>The two men exchanged salutations, Philip with the ready grace of a
+Latin, John with that distinguishing a Saxon, especially if displeased.</p>
+
+<p>"We are strolling about a bit before making ready for supper," added
+Priscilla. "Philip is curious as to our manner of life in these wilds."</p>
+
+<p>"'T&nbsp;is but ill suited to slender folk," replied Alden glancing
+superciliously at the slight stripling, who, for his part, surveyed with
+a sort of amused wonder the thews and stature of the young giant
+striding sullenly at Priscilla's other hand.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_306" id="Page_306">[Pg 306]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Nay, we do not pack diamonds in bales like hay," retorted Priscilla
+stingingly, and then turning to Philip she inquired eagerly,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"And Jacques and Guillaume are well, quite, quite well, are they?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, and Marie and Jeanne," replied Philip placidly.</p>
+
+<p>"And have you news from friends at home, Mary?" asked John decidedly
+moving to her side.</p>
+
+<p>"Nay, there are none left there of my nearest kin," replied the girl
+sadly. "We came all of us together, and only I am left."</p>
+
+<p>"Nay, Mary, so fair and so good a maid as thou, will never stay long
+without friends. Thou wouldst never flout an honest fellow's love and
+draw him on, and turn him back, and use him worse than a baby doth its
+puppet. The man who loves thee will never rue it."</p>
+
+<p>So meaning were his glances and his tone, that for a moment the simple
+maid stood aghast. Could it be that Alden's constancy had given out, and
+he was now ready to woo her instead of her friend; but in another moment
+the truth dawned upon her, and with more diplomacy than she often showed
+Mary smiled and shook her head.</p>
+
+<p>"I know not, for love and sweethearts have not come my way yet.
+'T&nbsp;is Priscilla whom all men seek, and she in merry mood listeth to
+all and still keepeth her own mind secret. She is well content to-night,
+for this lad hath brought news of his brother's marriage."</p>
+
+<p>"What, the fellow they call Jacques?" demanded John glancing eagerly
+toward the other couple now walking some paces in advance.</p>
+
+<p>"Ay, and Guillaume is betrothed, and Jeanne. They are dear friends of
+our Priscilla."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_307" id="Page_307">[Pg 307]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"But&mdash;but&mdash;nay, then, maid Mary, have compassion on a poor
+stupid oaf who is no match for her or you or any woman in subtlety and
+fence, and yet loveth yon maid as it is not well for man to love aught
+but his Maker. Tell me, doth she care aught for me?"</p>
+
+<p>"Nay, John, that is a question none but she should answer, but yet I may
+tell thee thus much. The news she hath to-day may embolden thee to ask
+again."</p>
+
+<p>"Good wench, true friend!" exclaimed Alden, his whole face lighting with
+a new hope. "And now as we turn toward home, if thou wouldst but engage
+yon boy's attention, and let me essay while hope is strong and courage
+fresh, I will put my fate once more to the touch and know if joy and I
+are henceforth partners, or the coldest of strangers."</p>
+
+<p>"Ah, lad, thou lovest her overmuch," replied Mary, letting her placid
+blue eyes rest upon him half curiously, half enviously. "No man will
+ever care for me like that, for I have not the skill to hide my mind as
+Priscilla hath. But I'll help thee, John, for I do believe thou&nbsp;'lt
+make the dear maid happy if she will but stay in one mind long enough to
+wed thee."</p>
+
+<p>And in a few moments when the setting sun warned Priscilla that it was
+time to turn homeward, and the two parties came together, Mary showed
+Philip De la Noye the strawberry plants of which he had asked, and so
+detained him for a moment, while John walking on with Priscilla
+impatiently began,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Wilt answer me one little question in good faith, mistress?"</p>
+
+<p>"In good faith if at all, John."</p>
+
+<p>"Then, what bond is there betwixt thee and this lad's brother
+Jacques?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_308" id="Page_308">[Pg 308]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"None save good will and old acquaintance."</p>
+
+<p>"But there was."</p>
+
+<p>"Was there?"</p>
+
+<p>"Nay now, Priscilla, I speak to thee in sober sadness, and I ask such
+reply as honest maid should give to honest man who woos her for his
+wife. If we fall to quips and cranks and wordy play, thou&nbsp;'rt so
+far out of my reach that I know not if I ever come near thee, for I'm
+but a plain simple fellow, Priscilla, and I love thee more than I love
+aught else but God and the truth. Give me now a plain answer and have
+pity of my misery. Has aught of this lad's news changed thy will or thy
+intent toward me?"</p>
+
+<p>And Priscilla moving slowly along beside her wooer shot a rapid sidelong
+glance at his white face, and for the first time in their acquaintance
+felt a thrill of respect akin to fear, sweep in his direction across her
+gay self-assertive nature.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, John, I will answer thee truly and soberly," replied she in a
+voice he had never heard from her before. "Philip De la Noye hath
+brought news that sets me free from a teasing obligation of which no man
+knows. Marie and Jeanne, his sisters, are my dear friends and gossips,
+and their brother Jacques would fain have been my bachelor in Leyden,
+but I was too young my father said to listen to such talk, and he cared
+not greatly for Jacques, who was to tell truth somewhat gay and debonair
+of temper, and no church member, no, not he. So when we parted from
+Leyden to come hither, and I went to bid good-by to my friends, James,
+as you call him in English, would fain have me promise to wed no man but
+him, and he would come hither so soon as he was his own master."<span class='pagenum'><a
+name="Page_309" id="Page_309">[Pg 309]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"And didst promise, Priscilla?"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, nay and yea, John. I said I knew not what might meet me here,
+and&mdash;but at long and at last I promised to wait until the first
+ship had followed us, and if Jacques came in her I would&mdash;would
+listen to him again."</p>
+
+<p>"And that was all thy promise, maiden?"</p>
+
+<p>"Ay, and enough, for before we landed on yonder Rock, and 't&nbsp;was
+Mary Chilton and not thee, John, who first skipt ashore"&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, mind not that just now, Priscilla."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, before I myself came ashore I knew that I cared not for Jacques
+De la Noye. Beside the deathbed of my mother, and again by that of my
+brother, I knew that life was darker and deeper than he could fathom."</p>
+
+<p>"Ay, maid, and nobly didst thou bear that sorry load of woe and care."</p>
+
+<p>Priscilla's color rose, and her dark eyes flashed a message of thanks,
+but without other reply she went steadily on,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"And so soon as Philip saw me, he delivered himself of the news that
+Jacques, some three months since, was wed at Saint Peter's Church to
+Gertrude Bartholmei, a merry Flemish maid, who ever looked kindly on
+him, and now is welcome to him."</p>
+
+<p>"Say you that honestly, Priscilla?"</p>
+
+<p>"As honestly as thyself could speak, lad."</p>
+
+<p>"And thou&nbsp;'rt heart-whole?"</p>
+
+<p>"Nay, I said not exactly that."</p>
+
+<p>"What! Dost really care for the captain?"</p>
+
+<p>"As I care for the governor and the doctor; no more, no less."<span class='pagenum'><a
+name="Page_310" id="Page_310">[Pg 310]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Priscilla, wilt be my wife?"</p>
+
+<p>"Nay then, John, why didst not ask that at first rather than at last?
+Thou&nbsp;'rt too fond of quip and quirk and wordy warfare, John, too
+much given to fence and intrigue."</p>
+
+<p>"I, Priscilla! Nay then, I'll not be turned aside again, try as thou
+wilt. Priscilla, wilt be my wife?"</p>
+
+<p>"Nay then, I never could bear a cuckoo song all on two notes, and if
+thou&nbsp;'rt bound to say that phrase over and over till 't&nbsp;is
+answered"&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"'T&nbsp;is just what I am bound to do. Priscilla, wilt be my wife?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, John, I will, and now I hope thou&nbsp;'rt content."</p>
+
+<p>"Wait till I see thee alone this evening, and I'll tell thee how
+content. Oh, maiden"&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"I will wait in what patience I may until that threatened evening hour,"
+interrupted Priscilla as restively as the young colt who, after long
+coquetting, at last feels the bridle slipped over his head. "Mary, an'
+thou hasten not there'll be little done toward supper at supper time.
+Desire is naught and less than naught now that she's going home, and
+Bessy Tilley thinketh only of John Howland, and the dear mother hath her
+son, so who is left but thee and me to do a hand's turn."</p>
+
+<p>"Here am I, Priscilla, and I'll help thee in any way thou&nbsp;'lt say,"
+suggested John Alden a little presuming upon his recent acceptance, and
+for his pains receiving a snub that made him wince again, for Priscilla
+coldly replied,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"They say they came nigh bringing a Jack in the Fortune, but had no room
+for him; so thou mayst take his place, and fetch me a bucket of water
+from the spring. There's no mighty difference betwixt Jack and
+John."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_311" id="Page_311">[Pg 311]</a></span></p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<h2>CHAPTER XXIX.</h2>
+
+<h3>KEEPING CHRISTMAS.</h3>
+
+
+<p>And now began a new epoch in the life of the colony. The passengers of
+the Fortune, thirty-five in number, although nominally of the same
+belief and manners as the Mayflower Pilgrims, were in effect a new
+element which, in spite of the generous efforts of the new-comers, did
+not readily assimilate with the sober and restrained tone natural to men
+who had suffered and struggled and conquered at such terrible loss to
+themselves, as had the first comers.</p>
+
+<p>A score of gay young fellows upon whom life sat so lightly that they
+cared not how they periled it, was no doubt a valuable acquisition to
+the fighting force of the colony, and almost upon the day of their
+arrival the Captain enrolled, divided, and began to train them, forming
+four companies of twelve men each, for some of the larger boys of the
+Mayflower were now enlisted, and this force of fifty men was at least
+once in every week led over to the Training Green across the brook, and
+there inspected, man&oelig;uvred, marched and counter-marched, disciplined
+in prompt obedience and rapid movement; until the birds of the air who
+watched from the neighboring forest should have carried a warning to
+their co-aborigines, the Narragansetts, the Neponsets, the Namaskets,
+and the Manomets, not yet convinced, spite of the late warning, that the
+white man was their Fate against which it was but bitter defeat to
+struggle.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_312" id="Page_312">[Pg 312]</a></span> The training over, each company in turn escorted the
+captain to his own quarters, and fired a salute of honor as he dismissed
+them.</p>
+
+<p>"'T&nbsp;is not for mine own glory, Will, as thou who knowest me will
+believe," said Standish, while the governor and he smoking a placid pipe
+on the evening of the first training, discussed the events of the day.
+"But in matters military even more than civil, it needs that one man
+should be at the head, and command the respectful observance as well as
+the obedience of those under his command. It is not Myles Standish whom
+the soldiers of Plymouth salute as he enters this poor hut, but the
+Captain of the Colony's forces."</p>
+
+<p>"Ay, ay, Myles, I know thy humility," replied Bradford with his smile of
+gentle subtlety. The captain shot an inquiring glance out of his
+red-brown eyes, and in turn laughed a little uncomfortably.</p>
+
+<p>"Nay now, thou&nbsp;'rt laughing at me, Will. I claim no great meed of
+humility to be sure, and yet thou knowest lad, that if I could serve
+this emprise better by carrying a musket in the ranks"&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Nay now, old friend, may not I smile at some jest between myself and my
+pipe, but thou must tack more meaning to it than Brewster says hung on
+Lord Burleigh's nod? And yet in sober sadness, Myles, 't&nbsp;is marvel
+to me how thou, born to a great name and to such observance as awaits
+the children of wealthy houses, and then, when hardly more than a boy,
+placed in authority such as appertaineth to an English army officer in
+time of war, how thou hast failed to become more arrogant and peremptory
+than thou art. And as for a musket in the ranks, what were that to such
+offices as not yet a year agone I saw thee fill around the beds of<span class='pagenum'><a
+name="Page_313" id="Page_313">[Pg 313]</a></span> the sick and dying in our first
+great plague? When had we a tenderer nurse, a more patient watcher? What
+office was too loathly for thee, what tendence too tiring?"&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Will, an' thou holdst not thy tongue I'll leave thee to thyself."</p>
+
+<p>"Thou&nbsp;'lt never be so rude in thine own house, Myles. Such manners
+would ill befit a Standish of Standish."</p>
+
+<p>"Come now, Governor, do you disapprove of the salute, or of any other of
+my military ordonnances?"</p>
+
+<p>"I disapprove of naught, old comrade, but of a certain want of patience
+beneath a friend's jest which I have sometimes marked, and haply it is I
+who am at fault to try thee so; but Myles, there's enow to make the
+governor of this colony sorry and sober, and thou shouldst not grudge
+him a moment of merriment even at thine own cost."</p>
+
+<p>"Nor do I, as well thou knowest, Will. 'T&nbsp;is only that I am as ever
+a hot-headed fool and ill deserve a friend like thee. And now what
+thinkst thou of Master Cushman's errand, and the chidings of those
+London traders that we sent them not a cargo by the Mayflower? We who
+had much ado to dig the graves of half our company and to find food for
+the rest, to be rated like laggard servants because we laded not that
+old hulk with merchandise for their benefit."</p>
+
+<p>"Ay, Master Weston's letter was somewhat hard to bear, albeit we should
+excuse much to his ignorance of our surroundings," said Bradford
+placably, although the color rose to his cheek at thought of the
+injustice he and his friends had suffered. "I have writ a reply,"
+continued he, laying down his pipe and drawing a roll of paper from the
+pocket of his leathern jerkin, "and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_314" id="Page_314">[Pg 314]</a></span> am fain to have your mind
+upon it, for I would not be over bitter, and yet was shrewdly wounded
+that John Carver lying in his honored grave should be so rudely
+attacked. Shall I read it?"</p>
+
+<p>"Ay, an' thou wilt, though I'm more than half in mind to take passage by
+the Fortune, and give Master Weston and the rest a reply after mine own
+fashion."</p>
+
+<p>"What, and leave the train band to its own destruction! But here you
+have my poor script:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"> <p>"To the worshipful Master Thos: Weston:</p>
+
+<p>"Sir,&mdash;Your large letter written to Mr. Carver and dated the 16<sup>th</sup>
+of July 1621 I have received the 20<sup>th</sup> of Nov'br, wherein you lay many
+heavy imputations upon him and us all. Touching him he is departed this
+life, and now is at rest in the Lord from all those troubles and
+incumbrances with which we are yet to strive. He needs not my apology;
+for his care and pains were so great for the common good both ours and
+yours, as that therewith it is thought, he oppressed himself and
+shortened his days of whose loss we cannot sufficiently complain. At
+great charges in this Adventure I confess you have been, and many losses
+you may sustain; but the loss of his and many other honest and
+industrious mens lives cannot be valued at any price. Of the one there
+may be hope of recovery, but the other no recompence can make good." </p></div>
+
+<p>"Oh, you're too mild, Bradford," burst out the captain as the reader
+paused and looked up for approval. "You should bombard him with red-hot
+shot, hurl a flight of grape, a volley of canister into his
+midst&mdash;nay then, but I'll go myself and with a blow of my gauntlet
+across Master Weston's ears"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_315" id="Page_315">[Pg 315]</a></span>&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Captain&mdash;Captain Standish! Master Warren hath sent me to warn your
+worship that some of the new-comers are building a bonfire in the Town
+Square, and sprinkling the pile with powder"&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"There, Myles, thou seest how well we can spare thee! Wouldst leave me
+at the mercy of these rough companions who"&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>But already the captain armed with a stout stick was half way down the
+hill, and, smiling quaintly to himself Bradford relighted his pipe and
+went home to finish his letter.</p>
+
+<p>A week later the Fortune sailed on her return voyage carrying Cushman,
+who left his son Thomas under Bradford's care until he should come
+again, not knowing that his next voyage should be across the shoreless
+sea whence no bark hath yet returned. Under his charge traveled Desire
+Minter, loudly proclaiming her joy at returning to regions "where a body
+might at least look for decent victual," and Humility Cooper, Elizabeth
+Tilley's little cousin. The two seamen, Trevor and Ely, also returned,
+their year of service having expired; but in spite of the dearth of
+provision, already imminent owing to the unprovided condition of the
+new-comers, not one of the Pilgrims embraced this opportunity of escape.</p>
+
+<p>Besides her passengers, the Fortune carried valuable freight consigned
+to Weston as agent of the Adventurers. The best room was given to
+sassafras root, of which the colonists had gathered great store, and
+with much rejoicing, for being just then the panacea of both French and
+English physicians, it was worth something like forty dollars of our
+present money per pound. Besides the sassafras were several hogsheads of
+beaver skins, also very valuable at that time, and the rest of the
+hold<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_316" id="Page_316">[Pg 316]</a></span> was filled with clapboards and other finished lumber, the
+whole cargo worth at least twenty-five hundred dollars. The most
+precious thing on board that little vessel however, if we except human
+life, was a manuscript journal written by William Bradford and Edward
+Winslow, and sent home to their friend George Morton in London, who,
+finding it too good to be kept to himself, had it printed the very same
+year by "John Bellamy at his shop at the Two Greyhounds, near the Royal
+Exchange, London," and as he did not give the names of its authors, nor
+bestow any distinctive title upon it, it came to be called "Mourt's
+Relation," and was the first book ever printed about that insignificant
+knot of emigrants in whom we now glory as the Forefathers of New
+England. But alas for human hopes, alas for the honest rejoicings of the
+Pilgrims in their goodly cargo, just before the Fortune sighted the
+English coast she was captured by a French cruiser and carried into Isle
+Dieu. Two weeks later the vessel, crew, and passengers were released,
+but the sassafras, the beaver skins, and the lumber went to heal and
+warm and house Frenchmen instead of Englishmen, and Thomas Weston's
+pockets still cried out with their emptiness. Happily for the world,
+however, the Frenchmen did not appreciate the "Relation," and it went
+peacefully on in Robert Cushman's mails, and reached good George
+Morton's hands.</p>
+
+<p>About a week after the sailing of the Fortune came Christmas Day, and
+Bradford doing on his clothing for a good day at lumbering allowed
+himself a half regretful memory of the sports and revelings with which
+he and the other youth of Austerfield had been wont to observe the
+Feast; but presently remembering his new<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_317" id="Page_317">[Pg 317]</a></span> beliefs, the
+Separatist leader murmured something about "rags of Popery," and went
+down to his breakfast.</p>
+
+<p>"Call the men together, Howland," ordered he in some displeasure as
+leaving his house axe in hand he found only his older comrades awaiting
+him. "Where are the new-comers? I see none of them."</p>
+
+<p>"An' it please you, Governor, Hicks and the rest of them say it goeth
+against their conscience to work on Christmas Day," reported Howland
+with a grim smile.</p>
+
+<p>For a moment Bradford frowned, but as he caught the gay glint of
+Standish's eyes his own softened, and after a brief pause he answered
+temperately,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"We will force no man's conscience. Tell Robert Hicks and the rest that
+I excuse them until they be better informed."</p>
+
+<p>At noon the wood-choppers returned to the village weary and hungry, for
+already had the entire company been placed upon half rations of food, so
+to continue until another cargo should arrive, or the next year's crop
+be ripe. Well for their endurance that they could not foresee that no
+farther cargo of provisions should ever arrive for them, from those who
+had undertaken to support them, and that the next year's crop should
+prove a failure. But now as they wearily toiled up the hill from the
+brookside, eager for the hour of rest and the scanty meal they were
+learning to value so highly, sounds of loud revelry and boisterous mirth
+fell upon their ears, sounds alien to their mood, their necessities, and
+on this day to their principles.</p>
+
+<p>"Those runagates are holding Christmas revels in spite of you,
+Governor," remarked Standish half jeeringly; while Hopkins, whose humor
+just now was not far removed from mutiny, muttered that if godless<span class='pagenum'><a
+name="Page_318" id="Page_318">[Pg 318]</a></span> men were to play, he saw not why
+good Christians should be forced to work, call it Christmas Day or any
+other.</p>
+
+<p>"You are right, Hopkins, although somewhat discourteous in your
+rectitude," replied Bradford, and hasting forward he came in sight of
+the Town Square, where some fifteen or twenty of the Fortune passengers
+were amusing themselves at "stool-ball," a kind of cricket, at pitching
+the bar, wrestling, hopping-matches, and various other old English
+sports, many of which had been encouraged and even led by the governor
+in the late week of Thanksgiving. But now advancing into the midst, his
+air of serene authority as much as his uplifted hand imposing silence
+upon the merry rebels, who dropped their various implements, and tried
+in vain to appear at ease, Bradford looking from one to another quietly
+said,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"I told you this morning that if you made the keeping of Christmas Day
+matter of conscience, I should leave you alone until you were better
+informed; now, however, I warn you that it goeth against my conscience
+as governor of this colony to let idle men play while others work, and
+if indeed you find matter of devotion in the day ye shall keep it
+quietly and soberly in your housen. There shall be neither reveling nor
+gaming in the streets, and that I promise you. Let whosoever owneth
+these toys take them away and store them out of sight; and remember,
+men, that the Apostle saith, 'If a man will not work neither shall he
+eat.'"</p>
+
+<p>Silently and shamefacedly the revelers collected bats and balls, cricket
+stools, bars, poles, and iron weights, carrying them each man to his own
+house, and in the afternoon the chopping party was augmented by nearly
+every one of the new-comers.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_319" id="Page_319">[Pg 319]</a></span></p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<h2>CHAPTER XXX.</h2>
+
+<h3>A SOLDIER'S INSTINCT.</h3>
+
+
+<p>A year and more from that Christmas Day has sped, and again we find
+Bradford and Standish with Winslow gathered together at the governor's
+house, resting after the labors of the day, smoking the consoling pipe,
+and even tasting from time to time the contents of a square case bottle,
+which, with a jug of hot water and a basin of sugar were set forth upon
+a curious little clawfooted table worth to-day its weight in gold if
+only it could have survived.</p>
+
+<p>None of the three look younger than they did when they first stepped
+upon the Rock; sun and wind, and winter storm and summer heat have
+bronzed their English complexions and deepened the lines about the quiet
+steadfast lips and anxious eyes. Already Bradford's shoulders were a
+little bowed, partly by the burden of his responsibility, partly by
+arduous manual labor, but upon his face had grown the serenity and
+somewhat of the impassiveness into which the Egyptians loved to mould
+the features of their kings,&mdash;that expression which of all others
+belongs to a man who uses great power firmly and decisively, and yet
+looks upon himself as but a steward, who soon or late shall be called to
+render a strict account of his stewardship.</p>
+
+<p>And Winslow, courtly, learned, and fit for lofty emprise, how bore he
+this life of toil and privation, this<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_320" id="Page_320">[Pg 320]</a></span> constant contention with
+such foes as famine, and disease, and squalor, and uncouth savagery?
+Look at the portrait painted of him in London some years later, and see
+if there is not an infinite weariness, a brooding <i>Cui bono?</i> set as a
+seal upon those haughty features. Can one after studying that face much
+wonder that when the Massachusetts Bay authorities in 1646 besought
+Plymouth to spare their sometime governor, their wise and astute
+statesman, to arrange the Bay's quarrel with the Home government,
+Winslow eagerly accepted the mission, although as Bradford sadly
+records, his going was&mdash;"much to the weakening of this government,
+without whose consent he took these employments upon him."</p>
+
+<p>So well, however, did he fill the larger sphere for which his ambitious
+nature perhaps had secretly pined, that after four years of arduous
+service when the Massachusetts quarrel was well adjusted, and Winslow
+would have returned home, President Steele, whom he had helped to found
+the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel, wrote to the Colonial
+Commissioners in New England that although Winslow was unwilling to be
+kept longer from his family, he could not yet be spared, because his
+great acquaintance and influence with members of Parliament made him
+invaluable to the work in hand.</p>
+
+<p>Then in 1652 the Protector, Oliver Cromwell, placed him at the head of a
+committee for settling a Dutch quarrel; and in 1655 the same power named
+him governor of Hispaniola, and dispatched him thither with a fleet and
+body of soldiers to conquer and take possession of his new territory.
+But General Venable in command of the soldiers, and Admiral Penn in
+command of the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_321" id="Page_321">[Pg 321]</a></span> fleet, fell to loggerheads as to which was the
+other's superior, and even Winslow's diplomacy could not heal the
+breach; so the attack upon Hispaniola proved a disgraceful failure, and
+as the fleet sailed away to attack Jamaica, the Great Commissioner, as
+they called him fell ill of chagrin and worry, and after a few days of
+wild delirium wherein he stood upon Burying Hill, and drank of the
+Pilgrims' Spring, and spoke loving words to the wife and children he
+should see no more, he died, and was committed to the great deep with a
+salute of two-and-forty guns, and never a kiss or tear, for all who
+loved him were far away.</p>
+
+<p>But all this honor, all this disaster, lies in the future, for as yet
+Winslow is only seven-and-twenty, and yet the lines of ambition, of
+weariness, of hauteur are foreshadowed upon his face; already Time with
+his light indelible pencil has faintly traced the furrows he by and by
+will plow that all who run may read.</p>
+
+<p>Perhaps the least change of all is that upon the captain's face, for
+before ever he landed on the Rock full twenty years of a soldier's life
+had set those firm lips, and steadied those marvelous eyes, and
+impressed upon every line of the deep bronzed face the air of the
+vigilant commander who was both born and bred for the post he fills so
+thoroughly. If any change, perhaps there is a softening one, for those
+keen eyes have looked so often upon misery and need, and so little upon
+bloodshed in these three last years, that they have gained somewhat of
+tenderness, somewhat of human sympathy; and the look that dying men and
+women have strained their glazing eyes to see to the last, is not so far
+from the surface as once it was. But the governor is speaking,<span class='pagenum'><a
+name="Page_322" id="Page_322">[Pg 322]</a></span>&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, my friends, I will confess to feeling more than a little uneasy
+over the matter. This party whom our sometime friend Weston hath sent
+over to settle at our very doors as it were, and to steal our trade with
+the Indians, and so hold us from paying off our debt to the
+Adventurers"&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"With whom he was still to abide as our Advocate," growled Standish.</p>
+
+<p>"Ay. He hath doubtless served us a sorry turn by not only dividing
+himself from the Adventurers, but setting up a rival trading-post of his
+own," remarked Winslow.</p>
+
+<p>"And worse than that is this news Squanto brings in to-day," resumed the
+governor. "I mean the dealings of those new-comers with the Indians."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, they carry themselves like both knaves and fools, and will
+presently find their own necks in the noose," said Standish rapping the
+ashes out of his pipe with such force as to break it.</p>
+
+<p>"But worse again than that," suggested Winslow quietly, "is the danger
+they bring upon us. Hobomok warneth me that there is a wide discontent
+growing among the red men, springing from the conduct of these men at
+Weymouth as they call it. The Neponsets have suffered robbery, and
+insult, and outrage at their hands, and both the Massachusetts on the
+one hand and the Pokanokets on the other are in sympathy with them. Then
+you will see, brethren, that Canonicus with his Narragansetts, who
+already hath sent us his cartel of defiance, will make brief alliance
+with Massasoit, and all will combine to drive every white man from the
+country. There is hardly any bound to the mischief these roysterers at
+Weymouth have set on foot."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_323" id="Page_323">[Pg 323]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"And Massasoit no longer our friend, since we refused to send him poor
+Squanto's head," said Bradford meditatively.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," laughed the captain. "'T&nbsp;is food for mirth, were a man
+dying, to see Squanto skulk at our heels like a dog who sees a lion in
+the path. He hardly dares step outside the palisado, for fear some envoy
+of Massasoit's shall pounce upon him."</p>
+
+<p>"'T&nbsp;is a good lesson to teach him discretion," said Winslow.
+"Certes he stirred up strife between us and the sachem with his
+cock-and-bull stories."</p>
+
+<p>"Especially when he sent his squaw to warn us that Canonicus with
+Massasoit and Corbitant were on the way from Namasket to devour us."</p>
+
+<p>"Ay, no wonder Massasoit was aggrieved at being so slandered, and could
+he have got Tisquantum once within his clutches&nbsp;'t would have gone
+hard with the poor fool. But never burnt child dreaded fire as he now
+doth the outside of the palisado."</p>
+
+<p>"Didst hear, Winslow, that t'&nbsp;other day when some of us were
+unearthing a keg of powder buried there in the Fort, Squanto and a
+savage guest of his clomb the hill to see what was going on? The
+magazine is passably deep as you know, and Squanto himself had never
+seen it opened; so when they saw Alden hand up the keg to Hopkins, the
+guest asked in the Indian tongue what was in it, and Squanto told
+him&nbsp;'t&nbsp;was the plague which just before our coming swept the
+land, and that the white men had captured it and buried it here upon the
+hill to let loose upon their enemies; and in the end the knave got a
+goodly price from his visitor for assurance that the plague should not
+be liberated till he had time to reach Sandwich."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_324" id="Page_324">[Pg 324]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>All three men laughed, but Bradford said,&mdash;"I fear me Squanto hath
+done us no little harm with his double dealings, his jealousy of
+Hobomok, and his craving for bribes; but withal he hath been so good a
+friend to us, more than useful at the first when we knew naught of the
+place or how to live, or plant, or fish, that I thought right to risk
+even Massasoit's enmity rather than to give our poor knave up to his
+wrath."</p>
+
+<p>"And then I never can forget," said Winslow, "that Squanto as only
+survivor of the Patuxets was in some sort lord of the soil whereon we
+pitched."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes truly," responded the captain with a short laugh. "Like myself he
+was born to great estates and sees them enjoyed by others."</p>
+
+<p>"Well then, since nothing is imminent in this matter of the Weymouth
+colonists and their quarrel with the Indians, we had better, now that
+the palisado around the town is complete"&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Gates, bolts, bastions, all complete from the great rock around to the
+brook," interposed Standish, his figure visibly dilating with
+satisfaction. Bradford smiled and allowed his eyes to rest
+affectionately for an instant upon his comrade, then continued in a
+lighter tone,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"So having fortified your hold, Captain, it is now fitting that you
+should provision it. Thou knowest how in my journeyings last month I
+bought and stored corn at Nauset, and Manomet, and Barnstable, and now
+that we have a moment's breathing space, it were well that some one
+should take the pinnace and fetch it. At the same time there will be
+good occasion to feel the pulse of the various chiefs, and determine
+what is their intended course and so settle our own."</p>
+
+<p>"Nay, Winslow is the man for that work, Governor,"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_325" id="Page_325">[Pg 325]</a></span> replied the
+captain bluntly. "I will go and get the corn, and if need be teach the
+savages a lesson upon the dangers of plotting and conniving, but as to
+talking smoothly with men who are lying to me"&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"But why prejudge them, Captain," began Winslow, when with a tap upon
+the door Squanto himself appeared ushering in a strange Indian whom he
+fluently presented as a friend of his who had come with great news.
+Bidden to deliver it, the stranger stated that a great Dutch ship had
+gone ashore at Sowams (Bristol), and would be wrecked unless help could
+be had, and this could not be given by the Indians, for Massasoit lay
+dying and no one would stir without his command.</p>
+
+<p>This news changed the aspect of affairs, and Winslow was at once
+appointed to pay Massasoit a visit of inquiry, and in case of his death
+to make an alliance if possible with Corbitant, his probable successor
+as sachem of the Pokanokets. He also was to see the commander of the
+Dutch vessel, and in case of a wreck to offer the hospitality of
+Plymouth to the sufferers, for in case of the famine narrowly impending
+over the colony, the friendship and aid of the Dutch might become of the
+last importance. Besides this, the dangerous Narragansetts were known to
+have made alliance with the Dutch, and might by them be deterred from
+molesting the Plymouth settlers if they were known to be their friends.</p>
+
+<p>"And so, Myles," declared Bradford finding himself alone with his friend
+at the end of the informal council, "thou must e'en go by thyself for
+the corn, with what men thou dost call for, and I doubt not we shall
+find thee burgeon into a diplomatist equal at least to the great Cecil
+or to Sir Walter Raleigh"&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Ay, and that minds me," interrupted Standish "of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_326" id="Page_326">[Pg 326]</a></span> the news sent
+us by good Master Huddlestone of the Betsey, how the Virginia savages
+had massacred three hundred and forty-seven of Raleigh's settlers, and
+would have made an end of them but for warning given by a friendly
+Indian."</p>
+
+<p>"Ay, it was heavy news, and a timely warning," said the governor losing
+his air of gayety and sighing deeply. "And if indeed Weston's men have
+angered the Neponsets to the pitch we fear, the news of this Virginia
+success will embolden them to undertake the same revenge. Be wary,
+Standish, and very gentle in thy dealings. If war is determined, let it
+be entered upon deliberately and formally; take not the matter into
+thine own hands and mayhap lose us our commander just at the onset."</p>
+
+<p>"Ay Will, 'I'll roar thee gently' as any sucking dove, an' there seemeth
+need to roar at all."</p>
+
+<p>"Best not roar at all until all thy comrades may join in unison," and
+once more Bradford's face lighted with its peculiar smile, the sort of
+smile one might bestow upon his double should he meet him and address
+him with a jest unknown to any other.</p>
+
+<p>And so it came to pass that the next morning's rising sun saw two
+important expeditions leaving the hamlet in opposite directions. Toward
+the dark and almost pathless woods at the North marched Winslow
+accompanied by Master John Hampden, then visiting the colony and
+studying the science of republican government in its most perfect,
+because most simple, development. With them went Hobomok as guide and
+interpreter, and after them went the tearful prayers of Susanna Winslow,
+who loved her new lord better than she had the father of baby Peregrine
+toddling at her side, as she<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_327" id="Page_327">[Pg 327]</a></span> stood in the cabin door to gaze
+after the little group already almost out of sight, and making now for
+the "Massachusetts trail" where it crosses Jones's River in Kingston.
+And as one driving over that pleasant road which now intersects the old
+trail pauses to look up its green ascent, or on across the placid stream
+it forded, does he not almost catch sight of the goodly forms of those
+young men, quaintly clad in doublet and hose and the wide hats or the
+close barret caps of the day, led by the sleek slender savage who
+patiently stood by, while Winslow turned and pointed out the beauties of
+sea and shore to his thoughtful companion.</p>
+
+<p>"A pleasant sight, a goodly scene," said Hampden, as at last they turned
+away and struck into the dense forest. "If it be God's will I for one
+shall be well content to return hither and end my days."</p>
+
+<p>"And yet there is world's work to do yonder for a man with an eye to
+read the times," said Winslow flinging a hand eastward.</p>
+
+<hr class="thought" />
+
+<p>"No wife or child to see me off, Mistress Winslow," said the captain as
+he passed the door where Susanna lingered, and she, smiling with the
+tear in her eye, answered pleasantly,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Then why not purvey thee one, Captain Standish? Well I wot you need not
+long go a-begging."</p>
+
+<p>"Nay, none will look on a battered old soldier when fresh young faces
+are at hand," replied Standish casting a whimsical glance after Alden
+who preceded him down the hill, while the matron shook her head
+murmuring,&mdash;"Such fools as maids will be!"</p>
+
+<p>Besides Alden, the captain had chosen five men, enough to man the boat,
+and to make a good defense in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_328" id="Page_328">[Pg 328]</a></span> case of attack, but among these
+he had included none of the fire-eaters, none of the independent souls
+of the little colony. Alden, to whom the captain had given the names of
+those to be summoned, had noted this feature of the selection, and
+ventured to comment upon it approvingly.</p>
+
+<p>"Ay, lad," replied his master with a grim smile. "'T&nbsp;is a service
+of danger, and a service of diplomacy, and I must have my force well in
+hand with no danger of a baulk from within. Dost know how the Romans
+conquered the world? I bade thee study my C&aelig;sar in thy leisure
+moments."</p>
+
+<p>"By power to command, Master?"</p>
+
+<p>"Nay, boy, but by power to obey. Their forces moved as one man, as a
+grand machine, and so they carried the Roman eagles to all the known
+world. There's the model of a Roman soldier in that big Book yonder. He
+says to his Sovereign Lord, 'Give not yourself the inconvenience of
+coming to heal my servant, but send some spirit to carry the command. I
+know how it is; I also am under the commands of my general, and men are
+under me. I say to this one, Go, and he goeth; and to the other, Come,
+and he cometh; and to my servant, Do this, and he doeth it.' There's the
+model of a soldier for you, John Alden; perfect obedience rendered,
+perfect obedience expected, perfect faith in the commander-in-chief.
+Now, then, off upon your errand, sir, and mind you tarry not at the
+Elder's house. There is no errand there."</p>
+
+<p>The shallop's first port was Nauset, and here, although the corn was
+obtained and loaded without difficulty, a thief stole some clothes from
+the boat while it was for the moment unguarded; and finding mild words
+of no<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_329" id="Page_329">[Pg 329]</a></span> avail in their recovery, Standish sought Aspinet, who was
+encamped at a little distance from the shore, and refusing all
+hospitality or friendly conversation roundly announced that unless the
+missing articles were restored without delay he should at once make sail
+for Plymouth and declare war upon the whole tribe.</p>
+
+<p>Marching down to his boat closely followed by Alden the captain suddenly
+paused and struck his heel upon the ground.</p>
+
+<p>"Now then, I was to roar like a dove, and I have howled like any wolf!
+And I to preach obedience! nay then, John, thou&nbsp;'rt free to flout
+me as thou wilt."</p>
+
+<p>"But, Captain, so far as I heard the governor's command it was only to
+fetch some corn," suggested Alden slyly. "All else was left at your
+discretion, as indeed all matters military are. Such was the tenor of
+the vote that made you our Captain."</p>
+
+<p>"Come, now, John, that's not ill thought on; that's not so dull as might
+be," replied the captain glancing merrily at his follower.
+"Thou&nbsp;'st been studying under Winslow as well as Standish. Well,
+then, let us wait and see what comes of my roar."</p>
+
+<p>An hour later as the boat's crew sat around their camp-fire eating their
+frugal dinner, the sound of many feet was heard breaking through the
+neighboring thickets, and Standish with a glance at Alden said
+quietly,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Stand to your arms, men, but softly and without offense until we see
+the need. The savages are in force."</p>
+
+<p>But as it turned out the force was but a guard of honor to Aspinet, who
+came in state, followed by two women bringing the stolen coats
+elaborately bound around with gayly colored withes; these they at once
+took on board and laid in the cuddy, while Aspinet<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_330" id="Page_330">[Pg 330]</a></span> improving
+upon Tisquantum's former lessons as to the mode of saluting sovereigns
+seized upon Standish's hand, and much to his disgust licked it from
+wrist to fingers, at the same time bending his knee in uncouth
+genuflection.</p>
+
+<p>"Enough, enough, Aspinet," exclaimed the captain half laughing, half
+revolted at the homage. "The coats are returned I see"&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"And I have much beaten him who took them," averred Aspinet
+complacently. "And Aspinet is the friend of the white men though all
+other Indians turn against them."</p>
+
+<p>"Why, that is well, sachem," replied Standish, who was already able to
+converse freely with the red men in their own tongue. "Keep you to that
+mind, and hold your tribe to it, and no harm's done. And now men, all
+aboard, and we will be off."</p>
+
+<p>With a fair wind the shallop soon made Barnstable or Mattachiest, and
+here Iyanough (or Janno) met them on landing with protestations of
+welcome so profuse and unusual that the captain was at once upon his
+guard, especially as he noticed among the crowd many new faces which he
+was confident belonged to Massachusetts Indians. Night falling before
+the corn could be loaded, and ice making so suddenly as to freeze the
+shallop in before she fairly floated, the captain was obliged to accept
+an invitation for himself and crew to sleep in one of the Indian huts;
+but as the chief with some of his principal men escorted them to it,
+Standish's quick eye surprised a glance between one of the strangers and
+a Pamet Indian called Kamuso, who had always appeared to be one of the
+warmest friends of the white men, but in whose manner to-night Standish
+felt something of treachery and evil intention.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_331" id="Page_331">[Pg 331]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>And he was right, for Kamuso had been won over to the conspiracy
+beginning with the Narragansetts and extending all the way down the
+Cape, and so soon as runners from the Nausets had warned the Mattakees
+that Standish and a small crew were about to land among them, it was
+agreed that now was the best time to cut off The-Sword-of-the-White-Men,
+and so deprive the colony of one of its principal safeguards. Janno
+himself would fain have spared Standish, with whom he had ever been on
+friendly terms; but Kamuso so wrought upon the Mattakee warriors that
+their sachem was forced either to drop the reins altogether or to suffer
+his unruly steeds to take their own course. Like Pontius Pilate he chose
+the latter course, and to his own destruction. Before the pinnace was
+anchored, the plan of the massacre was fully laid, and Kamuso had
+claimed the glory of killing The Sword with his own hand.</p>
+
+<p>But the subtle instinct which was Standish's sixth sense warned him of
+some unknown danger, and having carefully inspected the wigwam offered
+to his use, he directed that the fire newly kindled outside the door
+should be extinguished; and while the Indians officiously busied
+themselves in doing this, the captain by a word, a look, a sign, drew
+his men inside the hut, and rapidly conveyed to them his suspicions, and
+enjoined the greatest caution upon all.</p>
+
+<p>"The fire would have bewrayed our forms to archers hidden in yonder
+thicket," added he. "And as I will have half to watch while the others
+sleep, the watch must keep themselves under shelter of the cabin and
+away from any chance of ambush."</p>
+
+<p>Murmurs of wrath, of wonder, but of acquiescence<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_332" id="Page_332">[Pg 332]</a></span> arose from the
+half dozen bearded throats around, and the captain at once set the
+watch, to be relieved every two hours. In vain Janno offered another
+wigwam if this were too small, and urged that all his white brothers
+should sleep at once while his own men watched; in vain Kamuso tried to
+attach himself to the party inside, meaning to stab the captain in his
+sleep; without a show of anger or suspicion Standish put both attempts
+aside, and finally with a jeering laugh advised Janno to retire to his
+own wigwam and to order his braves to do the same, for some of the white
+men as he averred were given to discharging their pieces in their sleep,
+or at any shadow that came within range, and it might happen that some
+of his friends should thus come by harm, which would be a great grief to
+him.</p>
+
+<p>"The Sword has pierced our intention," said Janno to Kamuso in their own
+tongue as the two withdrew. "Better give it up. He has eyes all around
+him."</p>
+
+<p>"I will kill him," retorted Kamuso sullenly. "To-night, to-morrow, next
+week,&mdash;I will kill him."</p>
+
+<p>The next day so soon as the shallop floated and was loaded Standish
+embarked, sick at heart as he received the slavish homage of Janno, whom
+he had liked and trusted so much, and who even while he yielded to the
+plot for the captain's death and that of all his friends really clung to
+him in love and reverence. Poor Janno, weak but not wicked, his
+punishment was both swift and stern; for fleeing a little later from the
+vengeance of the white men, he perished miserably among the swamps and
+thickets of Barnstable, and his lonely grave was only lately discovered.
+Go and look at his bones in Pilgrim Hall at Plymouth and muse upon the
+dangers of cowardice and weakness.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_333" id="Page_333">[Pg 333]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>As the shallop pushed off from shore, an Indian came running down the
+beach, and with a cat-like spring leaped upon the deck. It was Kamuso,
+who said he was bound for Sandwich and would beg a passage in the
+pinnace.</p>
+
+<p>A sudden spark kindled in the captain's red-brown eyes and one hand
+tugged impatiently at his moustache, but he said nothing, and the Indian
+proceeded to make himself useful in a variety of ways; and as the wind
+was favorable and the distance short, Standish made no open objection to
+the company of the spy, but busied himself with freshly charging his
+weapons, and curiously examining every inch of Gideon's shining blade.</p>
+
+<p>A little after noon the shallop made the harbor of Sandwich, or as the
+Pilgrims called it Manomet, and Standish at once went ashore, eager to
+see if Canacum shared in the wide-spread disaffection of the Indians.
+But ten minutes in the sachem's wigwam convinced the wary observer that
+something was wrong, for the old friendliness of manner had given place
+to restraint and formality; and although Canacum was very ready to
+deliver the corn, and professed great pleasure at the captain's visit,
+his voice and manner were both cold and false, and such of his braves as
+came into the wigwam showed a very different face from what Standish had
+hitherto encountered.</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly a sound was heard without, and as the captain sprang to his
+feet and laid his hand upon Gideon's hilt, the door-mat was thrust
+aside, and two Indians recognized by their paint as Neponsets entered
+the cabin. Canacum received them with effusive cordiality, and presented
+the principal one to Standish as Wituwamat a pniese of the
+Neponsets.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_334" id="Page_334">[Pg 334]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Standish received the careless salutation of the new-comer in silent
+gravity, and stepping to the door summoned Howland and Alden to his
+side, first however sending a message to the boat-keepers to be well on
+guard against a surprise.</p>
+
+<p>Returning into the hut with his two friends, the captain found Wituwamat
+upon his feet beginning an impassioned harangue to Canacum, who listened
+uneasily. Standish was already an excellent Indian scholar, and could
+converse in several dialects with great ease; but so soon as he appeared
+Wituwamat fell into a style so figurative and blind, and took pains to
+use such unusual and obsolete expressions, that Canacum himself could
+hardly understand him, and Standish was soon left hopelessly in the
+background. At a later day, however, one of the warriors then present
+repeated to the captain the amount of the Neponset's message, which was
+that Obtakiest, sachem of the Neponsets, had entered into a solemn
+compact with Canonicus, sachem of the Narragansetts, to cut off the
+Weymouth colonists, root and branch; but that as the Plymouth men would
+assuredly revenge their brethren, it was necessary that they should
+perish as well, and that while the two chiefs mentioned advanced upon
+the settlement from the west, they invited Canacum, Janno, and Aspinet
+to fall upon them from the east, and having slain man and boy to equably
+divide the women and other plunder. As earnest of his authority
+Wituwamat here presented Canacum with a knife stolen or bought from the
+Weymouth settlers, and jeeringly said the coward pale faces had brought
+over the weapons that should cut their own throats.</p>
+
+<p>Having thus delivered his message, the Neponset indulged himself in a
+burst of self-glorification, boasting<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_335" id="Page_335">[Pg 335]</a></span> that he had in his day
+killed both French and Englishmen, and that he found the sport very
+amusing, for they died crying and making wry faces more like children
+than men.</p>
+
+<p>"What is the impudent villain saying, and what means that knife,
+Captain?" muttered Howland in the captain's ear, but he shaking his head
+impatiently replied,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"He means violence and treachery of some sort, but what form it takes I
+wot not. Be on your guard, John."</p>
+
+<p>The harangue ended, refreshments were served, but the Neponsets were now
+treated with so much more courtesy and attention than the white men that
+Standish refusing the poorer portion offered to him and his comrades,
+rose and indignantly left the cabin, ordering his men to construct a
+shelter near the beach, and there cook some of the provisions they had
+brought. But they had hardly begun to do this when Kamuso appeared, full
+of indignant protests at Canacum's inhospitality, and loudly declaring
+that an affront to his friends was an affront to him, and he should
+desert the wigwam where the red men were feasting, and share the humbler
+fare of his white friends.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I wish thou hadst brought along a kettle to cook some corn in!"
+exclaimed Standish with something of his old joviality of manner, for
+his suspicions in falling upon Canacum had in some degree lifted from
+Kamuso, who certainly played his part with wonderful skill, and had he
+been white instead of red, and civilized instead of savage, might have
+left his name on record as a diplomatist beside that of Machiavelli or
+Ignatius Loyola.</p>
+
+<p>"A kettle! My brother would like a kettle!" ex<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_336" id="Page_336">[Pg 336]</a></span>claimed he now.
+"Nay, a friend of mine hath one which I will buy of him and present to
+The Sword. I am rich, I Kamuso, and can make rich presents to those I
+love."</p>
+
+<p>And rushing back to the wigwams, he presently returned with a good-sized
+brass kettle, which he ostentatiously laid at the captain's feet,
+refusing the handful of beads Standish offered in return.</p>
+
+<p>"Hm!" growled the captain. "That's not in nature. Alden use the kettle
+an' thou wilt, but after, return it to the Pamet. We'll not have them
+making a Benjamin's sack of our shallop."</p>
+
+<p>After dinner Standish so peremptorily demanded that his corn should at
+once be put aboard that Canacum could do nothing but yield. The squaws
+were summoned, and John Alden stood by with pencil and paper, keeping
+tally as each delivered her basket-full on the beach, while Howland
+standing mid-leg deep in the icy water shot it over the gunwale.</p>
+
+<p>"Here men, bear a hand, and let us get this thing over and be off,"
+commanded Standish, himself seizing a full basket and motioning Dotey to
+another.</p>
+
+<p>"And I, and I, my brother!" exclaimed Kamuso in his loud braggadocio
+manner as he awkwardly lifted a third. "Never in all my life have I done
+squaw's work, for I am a brave, I am a pniese, but what my brother does
+I do."</p>
+
+<p>"Nay, 't&nbsp;is too much honor!" replied Standish with his grimmest
+smile; "especially as thou art somewhat awkward"&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>And in effect the Pamet as he tried to swing the full basket off his
+shoulder lost his hold, and the corn came showering down upon the sand.
+At length, however,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_337" id="Page_337">[Pg 337]</a></span> the tale was complete, and as the tide was
+out, and night coming on, the captain decided to camp once more upon the
+beach, refusing somewhat curtly the pressing invitation sent by Canacum
+that the white men should sleep in his house. And once more Kamuso
+loudly proclaimed that he was of the white men's party and should share
+their quarters wherever they might be. Standish silently permitted him
+to do as he would, but, as on the previous evening, he divided the
+little company into watches, one to sleep and one to stand on guard.</p>
+
+<p>"So soon as he sleeps I shall kill him," muttered Kamuso to Wituwamat,
+as they secretly met behind Canacum's wigwam. "Give me now the knife
+sent by Obtakiest."</p>
+
+<p>"Here it is, brother, and when it is red with the blood of The Sword it
+shall be thine own. Else it returns to him who sends it."</p>
+
+<p>"It shall be red, it shall drink, it shall drip with the brave blood, it
+shall shine as the sun rising across the waters! It shall feast, and
+Kamuso shall be chief of Obtakiest's pnieses; yes, he shall be sachem of
+the Massachusetts!"</p>
+
+<p>Wituwamat made no reply in words, but as he turned away shivered
+heavily. Perhaps a premonition of his own terrible fate crossed his
+brain, perhaps the hooting of the owl just then skimming across the
+thicket stirred his superstitious fancy, but without a word he
+re&euml;ntered the wigwam; and Kamuso concealing the knife went back to
+the randevous, where already the first watch slept, and Standish, in
+command of the second, stood beside the fire leaning on his snaphance,
+and, deep in meditation fixed his eyes upon the approaching savage so
+sternly that he believing that all was discovered was<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_338" id="Page_338">[Pg 338]</a></span> on the
+point of springing at his prey, and risking all upon one sudden blow,
+when the captain, awaking from his reverie, sighed profoundly, and
+perceiving for the first time Kamuso's approach quietly said,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"So it is thee, Pamet! Go back and sleep warm in the wigwams of the
+Mattakees. We need no help here."</p>
+
+<p>"Kamuso is no Mattakee; Kamuso is the friend of the white men. While The
+Sword wakes, Kamuso will gaze upon him and learn how to become the
+terror of his foes."</p>
+
+<p>"'T&nbsp;is easier to be the terror of one's foes than the delight of
+one's friends," muttered Standish gloomily, and then pulling himself
+together he stirred the embers with his heel, and throwing on more wood
+said carelessly,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"E'en as thou wilt. Kamuso, go or stay, watch or sleep, 't&nbsp;is all
+one to me."</p>
+
+<p>And marching up and down the strip of level beach the soldier hummed an
+old ballad song of Man, which Rose had loved to sing, and clean forgot
+the savage who, crouching in the shadow, fingered the knife hilt hidden
+in his waist cloth, and never removed the gaze of his snaky eyes from
+the figure of his destined prey.</p>
+
+<p>The night went on, and Standish waked the second watch and dismissed the
+first, but still himself took no rest, nor felt the need of it, as he
+paced up and down, his outward senses alert to the smallest sign, and
+his memory roaming at will over scenes for many years forgot; over
+boyhood's eager days, his mother's tenderness, his father's death upon a
+French battle-field, his own early days as a soldier, his home-coming to
+find Barbara acting a daughter's part to the dying
+mother&mdash;Rose&mdash;ah Rose! He stood a moment at the point of his
+promenade<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_339" id="Page_339">[Pg 339]</a></span> furthest from the randevous, his back to the fire,
+his gaze fixed upon the sea whose lapping waves seemed whispering with
+sobbing sighs, Rose!&mdash;Rose!&mdash;Rose!&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>A faint sound upon the shingle caught the outward ear of the soldier,
+and wheeling instinctively he faced the Pamet, who with his hand upon
+the hilt of the dagger had crept up to within six feet of his victim,
+and already had selected the spot between those square shoulders where
+the fatal blow should be planted.</p>
+
+<p>"Ha savage! What does this mean! Why are you tracking me!" demanded the
+captain angrily, but the wily Indian, instead of starting back and
+betraying himself by terror, advanced quietly, not even removing his
+hand from the hidden knife hilt, and answered smoothly in his own
+tongue,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"The red man's moccason sounds not upon the sand as the white man's
+boot. I did but come to ask my lord if he will not rest at all. Midnight
+is long past, and the day must bring its labors. Will not The Sword
+sheath for a while his intolerable splendor in sleep, while his slave
+watches for him?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why, Kamuso, thou&nbsp;'rt more than eloquent! Pity but thou shouldst
+be trained, and brought to London to show off before the King!" laughed
+Standish. "But sleep and I have quarreled for to-night. I know not how
+it is, but never after a sound night's rest did I feel more fresh and on
+the alert. Go thou and sleep if thou&nbsp;'rt sleepy, but come not
+creeping after me again, or I'll send thee packing! I like not such
+surprises."</p>
+
+<p>"The will of my lord is the will of his slave," meekly replied Kamuso,
+and crept back to his former sheltered nook beside the fire. The chill
+March night grew on toward morning, the east reddened with an angry
+glare,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_340" id="Page_340">[Pg 340]</a></span> the solemn stars wheeled on their appointed courses, and
+Mars, who had held the morning watch, gave way to Sol, bidding him have
+a care of his son, whom he had left gazing with sleepless eyes across
+the waters to the East.</p>
+
+<p>"Up, men! 'T&nbsp;is morning at last, and surely never was a night so
+long as this. Up, and let us break our fast and be off within the hour!"</p>
+
+<p>So cried the captain, and in a moment all his command was afoot and
+active. Kamuso, his face black with sullen rage, retreated to the
+wigwams to confess his defeat to Wituwamat and Canacum, who listening
+said quietly,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"His totem is too strong for us. The Sword will never fall before the
+tomahawk."</p>
+
+<p>"It is because he is so strong that Obtakiest took a knife of the white
+man's make and use, and sent it. The powah that charmed the weapons of
+The Sword may have charmed this knife also."</p>
+
+<p>And Kamuso drawing the Weymouth knife from his belt regarded it with
+disgust for a moment, then thrusting it back into his belt doggedly
+declared,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"But all is not over. Wait, my brothers, wait for the end, and then say
+if Kamuso is a fool."</p>
+
+<p>As the pinnace drew out of Manomet Harbor Standish for the first time
+perceived that the Pamet was aboard her, and rather sharply
+demanded,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Whither bound now, Kamuso? Thou didst but ask passage to Manomet."</p>
+
+<p>"My white brothers have not all the corn they need, have they?" asked
+the Indian, an air of humble sympathy pervading his voice and manner.</p>
+
+<p>"Nay. If the famine we forebode is upon us we need<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_341" id="Page_341">[Pg 341]</a></span> twice,
+thrice, as much as this, before the harvest not yet sown is ready for
+use."</p>
+
+<p>"For that then is Kamuso here. At Nauset, Aspinet hath great store of
+corn hidden from the white men, but it is not his alone, it is mine, it
+is the tribe's, it is The Sword's. Let my lord come to Nauset and I will
+have his canoe filled to the brim, there shall not be room to put in one
+grain more&mdash;Kamuso says it."</p>
+
+<p>"Hm! That would be a matter of fifty bushels or more," replied Standish
+literally. "What say you, Howland? What is your mind, men?"</p>
+
+<p>Various brief replies showed that the mind of the crew was to obey the
+captain's orders, and after a moment's thought he muttered to Howland in
+Dutch,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"I like not this fellow's carriage. He is too smooth to be honest, and
+yet what can one wretched savage do against seven men armed and on their
+watch? But pass the word among the rest to be wary, and Alden, I leave
+it in charge to thee, lad, in case the savage treacherously smites me as
+I think he meant last night, do thou avenge me."</p>
+
+<p>"He'll not breathe thrice after his blow, Master," replied Alden in his
+deepest tones.</p>
+
+<p>"Well said, lad; but gentle thy face and eke thy voice, or he'll
+suspect. Now then, lads, put her before this western wind, and ho for
+Nauset once more!"</p>
+
+<p>The command was obeyed, but lo the wind, which had since sunrise blown
+softly from the south of west making a fair breeze for Nauset near the
+end of the Cape, now suddenly hauled round with angry gusts and
+gathering mists, until it stood in the northeast right in the teeth of
+the shallop's course, while every sign of sky and sea foreboded a
+gathering storm.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_342" id="Page_342">[Pg 342]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"His totem is too strong," muttered the Pamet in his throat, and the
+hand beneath his garment clinching the handle of the dagger seized with
+it a handful of his own flesh and griped it savagely, while in silence
+he called upon his gods for help.</p>
+
+<p>But none came, more than to the priests of Baal what time Elijah jeered
+them, and after a brief consultation with his crew Standish once more
+altered his course, and the pinnace with double-reefed sails flew before
+the rising wind like a hunted creature to her covert, bearing
+The-Sword-of-the-White-Men safely to his post.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_343" id="Page_343">[Pg 343]</a></span></p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<h2>CHAPTER XXXI.</h2>
+
+<h3>A POT OF BROTH.</h3>
+
+
+<p>Yes, a Pot of Broth, and one more classic than any black broth ever
+supped by Spartan; more pregnant of Fate than the hell-broth compounded
+by Macbeth's witches; broth in which was brewed the destiny of a great
+nation, broth but for whose brewing I certainly, and you, if you be of
+Pilgrim strain, had never been, for in its seething liquid was dissolved
+a wide-spread and most powerful conspiracy that in its fruition would
+have left Plymouth Rock a funeral monument in a field of blood.</p>
+
+<p>Hardly an hour after the pinnace had landed its passengers at the Rock,
+and the Pamet, sullenly declining farther hospitality, had proceeded on
+his way to meet Obtakiest and report his ill success, when Winslow with
+John Hampden and Hobomok entered the village from the north, sore spent
+with travel and scanty food, but laden with matter of the profoundest
+interest. A Council of the chiefs, including nearly all of the Mayflower
+men, was immediately called together in the Common house, now used
+altogether for these assemblages and for divine worship, and first
+Standish and then Winslow were called upon for their reports.</p>
+
+<p>The captain's was given with military brevity.</p>
+
+<p>"I have brought a hundred bushels of corn and all the men I carried
+away. The savages are no doubt<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_344" id="Page_344">[Pg 344]</a></span> disaffected, and a notorious
+blood-thirsty rascal called Wituwamat, a Neponset, brought Canacum a
+knife wherewith to kill some one, and I fancy&nbsp;'t is myself; but
+though he impudently delivered both knife and message in my presence, he
+so wrapped up his meaning in new and strange phrases, that I could make
+but little of it. Perhaps Master Winslow can read my riddle as well as
+tell his own story."</p>
+
+<p>"Methinks I can, Captain," replied Winslow pleasantly; and then in
+smooth and polished phrase bearing such resemblance to Standish's rough
+and brief utterances as a rapier doth to a battle-axe, the future Grand
+Commissioner narrated how he had found Massasoit as it seemed already
+dying, for he could neither see, nor swallow either medicine or food.</p>
+
+<p>The sachem's wigwam was so crowded with visitors that the white men
+could scarcely edge their way in, and around the bed circled the powahs
+at their incantations, "making," said Winslow, "such a hellish noise as
+distempered us that were well, and was therefore unlike to ease him that
+was sick."</p>
+
+<p>This ended, and about half the guests persuaded to withdraw, the dying
+chief was with difficulty made to understand who were his visitors, and
+feebly groping with his hand he faintly murmured,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Winsnow, keen Winsnow?</i>" (Is it you Winsnow?) To which Winslow gently
+replied, grasping the cold hand,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"It is Winslow who is come to see you, sachem."</p>
+
+<p>"I shall never see thee again, Winsnow," muttered the dying man, and
+those standing by explained that the sight had left his eyes some hours
+before.</p>
+
+<p>But Winslow, after patiently repeating over and over<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_345" id="Page_345">[Pg 345]</a></span> the
+message of sympathy and friendship delivered him by the governor,
+produced a little pot of what he calls a confection of many comfortable
+conserves, and with the point of his knife inserted a portion between
+the sick man's teeth.</p>
+
+<p>"It will kill him! He cannot swallow," declared the favorite wife, who
+stood chafing her lord's hands; but presently as the conserve, prepared
+by Doctor Fuller and of rare virtue, melted, it trickled down the
+patient's throat, who presently whispered, "More!" and Winslow well
+pleased administered several doses. Then, finding the mouth whose
+muscles had now relaxed, foul with fever, this courtly and haughty
+gentleman, this necessity of the Lord Protector of England, this Grand
+Commissioner of the future, with his own hands performed a nurse's
+loathly work, and ceased not until the sachem, refreshed, relieved,
+rescued from death, was able to ask for drink, when Hampden prepared
+some of the confection with water, and Winslow administered it. All
+night this work went on, and when morning broke, the sick man could see
+and hear and swallow as well as ever he could, and his appetite
+returning he demanded broth such as he had tasted at Plymouth.</p>
+
+<p>Now that especial broth was a delicious compound of Priscilla's
+compounding, and Winslow knew no more of its recipe than you or I do,
+nor were any materials such as should go to the making of white man's
+broth at hand. Worst of all, Winslow had never taken note or share in
+culinary labors, for Susanna was a notable housewife and had both men
+and maids at her command; but a willing mind is a powerful teacher, and
+not only Winslow the man, was full of Christian charity, but Winslow the
+statesman desired intensely that Mas<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_346" id="Page_346">[Pg 346]</a></span>sasoit should remain sachem
+of the Pokanokets, instead of making way for Corbitant, who had once
+declared his enmity to the white men, and had only been put down by the
+strong hand.</p>
+
+<p>So Winslow leaving his patient for a moment went into the fresh air,
+both to revive himself and to write a hasty note, begging Doctor Fuller
+to send not only some medicine suited to the case, but a pair of
+chickens, and a recipe for making them into broth, with such other
+material as might be needed.</p>
+
+<p>Fifty miles of forest lay between Sowams and Plymouth, but a swift
+runner was dispatched at once with the missive, and the promise of a
+rich reward if he hastened his return; then Winslow turned to his
+fellow-statesman who stood looking on with an amused smile.</p>
+
+<p>"Master Hampden, know you how to make broth?" demanded he.</p>
+
+<p>"I have no teaching but mother wit," replied Hampden. "And you are
+richer in that than I."</p>
+
+<p>"Nay then&mdash;here Pibayo, is that thy name?"</p>
+
+<p>"Ahhe," replied the squaw modestly.</p>
+
+<p>"Thou hast corn in store?"</p>
+
+<p>"Ahhe," again replied the woman, and Winslow making the most of his
+little stock of Indian words directed her to bruise some of the maize in
+her stone mortar, and meantime calling for one of the egg-shaped earthen
+stew-pans used by the natives, he half filled it with water, and settled
+it into the hot ashes of the open air fire. The maize ready, he winnowed
+it in his hands, blowing away the husks and chaff, and poured the rest
+into the boiling water.</p>
+
+<p>"So far well," remarked he gayly to Hampden; "but what next? I remember
+in the garden of our home at<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_347" id="Page_347">[Pg 347]</a></span> Droitwich there was a gay plot of
+golden bloom that my mother called broth marigolds, but we shall hardly
+come by such in this wilderness."</p>
+
+<p>"Methinks there are turnips in broth," ventured Hampden.</p>
+
+<p>"And there are turnips in Plymouth, but that is not here," retorted
+Winslow. "Come, let us see what herbs Dame Nature will afford."</p>
+
+<p>A little search and some questioning showed the herbalists a goodly bush
+of sassafras, and Winslow, who with the rest of his generation ascribed
+almost magical virtues to this plant, enthusiastically tugged up several
+of its roots, and cleansing them in the brook, sliced them thinly into
+his broth. Finally he added a handful of strawberry leaves, the only
+green thing to be found, and leaving the mess to stew for a while, he
+strained it through his handkerchief, and presented it to his patient
+who eagerly drank a pint of it.</p>
+
+<p>Perhaps there really is magic in sassafras, perhaps the child of nature
+throve upon this strictly Pre-Raphaelitish composition, perhaps Indian
+gruel with strawberry leaves in it and strained through a pocket
+handkerchief is the disguise under which the Elixir Vit&aelig;
+masquerades among us; certain it is that beneath its benign influence
+the sachem of the Pokanokets revived so rapidly that when, twenty-four
+hours from his departure, the runner arrived with the chickens and the
+physic, his master frankly threw the physic to the dogs, and handed over
+the fowls to Pibayo, bidding her guard them carefully, feed them well,
+and order them to lay eggs and provide chickens for future illnesses.</p>
+
+<p>So this was the fateful broth of which we spoke but now, and its results
+were immediate, for although Massasoit himself said nothing more
+than,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_348" id="Page_348">[Pg 348]</a></span>&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Now I perceive that the English are my friends and love me, and while I
+live I will never forget this kindness that they have showed me," he in
+a private conclave with some of his most trusted pnieses solemnly
+charged Hobomok with a message for Winslow, only to be delivered however
+as upon their return they came within sight of Plymouth. This message,
+to hear which the Council had been convened, was to the effect that the
+Neponsets had fully determined to fall upon the Weymouth settlers and
+cut them off root and branch so soon as two of them, who were
+ship-carpenters, had completed some boats they were now building to the
+order of the Indians.</p>
+
+<p>The forty braves of the Neponset tribe were fully equal to this task,
+and if the Plymouth Colony would remain neutral they had no desire to
+injure them; but knowing full well that they would not, and having
+moreover a superstitious dread of Standish's prowess and abilities, they
+had arranged with all the tribes lying near Plymouth to join with them,
+and on an appointed day to massacre the entire colony.</p>
+
+<p>"Ay, ay," interrupted Standish at this point of Winslow's narrative.
+"Now do I comprehend some of the figures and parables of Wituwamat's
+impudent speech, what time he delivered the knife to Canacum. The bloody
+hound&mdash;well, brother, get on with thy narrative."</p>
+
+<p>So Winslow told how Massasoit had been urged again and again to join the
+conspiracy, but never would, although his pride had been indeed sore
+wounded by a lying story of how the governor and captain and Winslow,
+his especial friend, having been told of his desperate illness, cared
+naught for it, not even enough to send Hobomok his own pniese to inquire
+for him; and now, being undeceived, he would himself have killed the
+liar,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_349" id="Page_349">[Pg 349]</a></span> whose name was Pecksuot, but on second thought left him
+to the white men whom he earnestly charged to take the matter into their
+own hands, and with no warning, no parley, to go and kill Pecksuot,
+Wituwamat, Obtakiest, and several other ringleaders of the conspiracy,
+for, as he assured them most earnestly and solemnly, unless these men
+were promptly and effectually dealt with, both the Weymouth colony and
+themselves would be overwhelmed and massacred without mercy. Finally,
+the sachem added that he as Sagamore of the Pokanokets, and as it were
+regent of the Massachusetts, had authority to order the punishment of
+these rebels to his expressed commands for peace, and he hereby did so.</p>
+
+<p>"And very sensible and good the sachem's counsel seemeth in my ears,"
+remarked Standish complacently.</p>
+
+<p>"Nay, Captain," replied the Elder sternly. "Men's lives are not so
+lightly to be dealt withal. We came among these salvages to convert them
+to the knowledge of God, not to slaughter them."</p>
+
+<p>"Meseemeth, Elder," returned Standish impatiently, "it is a question of
+our lives or theirs. I should be loth to see your gray hairs dabbled in
+blood, and Mistress Brewster carried into captivity to drudge as the
+slave of a squaw."</p>
+
+<p>The elder turned even paler than his wont and covered his eyes with his
+hand, but murmured,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"God His will be done."</p>
+
+<p>"Ay, so say I," replied the captain more gently. "But as I read Holy
+Writ the chosen folk were often punished for sparing their foes, but
+never for laying roundly on. 'Go and smite me Amalek and spare not,' is
+one of many orders, and if the commander-in-chief obeyed not he was
+cashiered without so much as a court-martial."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_350" id="Page_350">[Pg 350]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Several eager voices rose in reply, but Bradford lightly tapping the
+table around which the Council was gathered said decisively,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"These matters are too large, brethren, to be thus discussed. Let each
+one declare his mind soberly and briefly, and without controversy.
+To-morrow is the day appointed for our town meeting and annual election
+of officers, and I will then lay the case before the whole, and also
+will rehearse our own conclusions. Then, the voice of the majority shall
+decide the matter."</p>
+
+<p>And so began the reign of "the people" in America, for this was the
+first great question to be decided since the coming of the Fortune had
+so enlarged the colony that the Council was no longer composed of the
+whole, as it was when the treaty with Massasoit was concluded.<span class='pagenum'><a
+name="Page_351" id="Page_351">[Pg 351]</a></span></p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<h2>CHAPTER XXXII.</h2>
+
+<h3>THE SUNSET GUN.</h3>
+
+
+<p>The town meeting was over, and its decisions if important were
+unanimous, even Elder Brewster, converted perhaps by Standish's Biblical
+references, giving his voice for the stringent measures rendered
+necessary by the growth and magnitude of the conspiracy.</p>
+
+<p>Captain Standish with what force he might select was to take the
+pinnace, and under cover of a trading expedition make a landing at
+Weymouth, and first of all discover from the colonists themselves the
+truth of their condition. If it should prove as represented he was to at
+once attack whatever leaders of the conspiracy might be found, and in
+especial he was to slay Wituwamat, of whom Massasoit had spoken as the
+heart of the conspiracy, and to bring his head to Plymouth to be set
+over the gate of the Fort as a proof and a warning to their neighbors on
+the east, whom they would not now punish, but hoped rather to persuade.</p>
+
+<p>"And now, Captain Standish, it were well that you should select those
+whom you will have of your company, while we are all gathered together
+here," said the governor when the primary question had been finally
+decided.</p>
+
+<p>Standish rose and looked thoughtfully from face to face.</p>
+
+<p>"'T&nbsp;is a hard matter," said he at last with a gleam of<span class='pagenum'><a
+name="Page_352" id="Page_352">[Pg 352]</a></span> pride in his eye. "Here be fifty
+good men and true, and I need no more than half a dozen."</p>
+
+<p>"The Neponsets number forty warriors," suggested Winslow.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, but they will not be gathered together, having no knowledge of our
+purpose, and if the shallop is watched from shore, as belike it will be,
+a large force of armed men would bewray our intent, and runners would
+gather the braves in a few hours and so bring down a great slaughter
+upon the tribe," replied the captain in confident simplicity. "But if we
+go no more in number than ordinary, no more than in our late voyage to
+Nauset for corn, they will suspect nothing, and the matter may be well
+concluded with no more than five or six examples, Wituwamat being the
+principal."</p>
+
+<p>"And glad am I, brother, to see a certain tenderness of human life in
+your counsels," said the elder approvingly.</p>
+
+<p>"Nay, elder, I am not all out a cannibal and ogre," replied the captain.
+"So now I will choose me Hopkins and Howland and Billington, and Eaton
+and Browne and Cooke and Soule, seven hearts of oak and arms of steel:
+it is enough."</p>
+
+<p>"And not one of us Fortune men, Captain?" demanded Robert Hicks, a
+stalwart fellow who afterward became almost a rebel to the colony's
+authority.</p>
+
+<p>"Nay, Master Hicks," replied the captain gravely. "I mean no discredit
+to the courage or the good will of the new-comers, of whom you are a
+principal; but this service is one of strategy as well as daring, and so
+soon as the pinnace leaves yon Rock, there must be but one mind and one
+will in her, and that is mine. The men whom I have chosen, my comrades
+of the Mayflower, I<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_353" id="Page_353">[Pg 353]</a></span> know as I know mine own sword, and I can
+trust them as I do him. There's no offense Master Hicks, but a stricken
+field is no place to learn to handle a new sword or a new comrade."</p>
+
+<p>"And not me, Master," said a low voice as the captain stepped out of the
+Common house and turned his face homeward.</p>
+
+<p>"Nay, Jack, I've a text for thee too. 'I have married a wife and cannot
+come.'" And with a somewhat bitter laugh he strode on up the hill,
+leaving John Alden looking sadly after him.</p>
+
+<p>That night as Standish slowly entered the Fort to fire his sunset gun,
+he was startled at seeing a muffled figure seated upon an empty powder
+keg in an angle of the works. As he appeared she rose, and pushing back
+her hood showed the beautiful face of Priscilla Molines, now strangely
+pale and distraught.</p>
+
+<p>"You here, Mistress Molines," exclaimed the captain somewhat sternly.
+"Alden is not coming."</p>
+
+<p>"It is not Alden but Captain Standish I fain would speak withal, and I
+hope he will pardon my forwardness in seeking him here."</p>
+
+<p>The captain briefly waved the apology aside. "Your commands, madam?"
+inquired he.</p>
+
+<p>"Nay, nay sir, my father's dear loved friend, my brother's tender
+nurse,&mdash;mine&mdash;oh what shall I say, how shall I plead for a
+little kindness. Have pity on a froward maid's distress"&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"What Priscilla, thou canst weep!"</p>
+
+<p>"And why not when my heart is sorrowful unto death."</p>
+
+<p>"But&mdash;there then, child, wipe thine eyes and look up and let me see
+thee smile as thou art wont. What is it, maid? What is thy
+sorrow?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_354" id="Page_354">[Pg 354]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"That you will not forgive me, sir."</p>
+
+<p>"Forgive thee for what?" But the captain dropped the hand he had seized
+in his sympathy, and the dark look crept back to his face.</p>
+
+<p>"Thou&nbsp;'rt going to a terrible danger&mdash;my friend&mdash;and it
+may be to thy death."</p>
+
+<p>"Well girl, 't&nbsp;is not worth crying for if I am. Life is not so
+sweet to me that I should over much dread to lay it down with honor."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, oh, and it is my fault!"&mdash;sobbed Priscilla.</p>
+
+<p>The captain strode up and down the narrow space pulling at his red beard
+and frowning thoughtfully; then stopping before the girl who stood as he
+had left her, he quietly said,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Priscilla, I was indeed thy father's friend, and I am thine, and I fain
+would have wed thee, and thou didst refuse, preferring John Alden, who
+also is my friend, even as my younger brother, whose honor and well
+being are dear to me as mine own. What then is the meaning of thy grief,
+and what is thy request?"</p>
+
+<p>"My grief is that since the day I gave John Alden my promise, you, sir,
+have been no more my friend, but ever looked upon me with coldness and
+disdain; and now that you go, it may be to your death, it breaketh my
+heart to have it so, and I fain would beg your forgiveness for aught I
+have done to offend you, though I know not what it may be."</p>
+
+<p>"Know not&mdash;well, well, let it pass&mdash;'t&nbsp;is but one more
+traverse. Yes child, I forgive thee for what to me seemed like something
+of scorn and slight, something of double dealing and
+treachery&mdash;nay, we'll say no more on&nbsp;'t. Here is my hand,
+Priscilla&mdash;and surely thy father's friend may for once taste thy
+cheek. Now child, we're friends and dear friends, and if yon
+savage<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_355" id="Page_355">[Pg 355]</a></span> sheathes his knife in my heart perhaps thou&nbsp;'lt
+shed a tear or two, and say a prayer for the soul of&mdash;thy father's
+friend. And now thy petition, for time presses."</p>
+
+<p>"That thou wilt take John Alden with thee."</p>
+
+<p>"What then! Who shall read a woman's will aright! I left him at home for
+thy sake, Priscilla."</p>
+
+<p>"So I guessed and I thank you&mdash;nay, I thank you not for so
+misjudging me." And the fire in the hazel eyes upraised to his, dried
+the tears sharply.</p>
+
+<p>"Why, what now! Dost want thy troth-plight lover slain?"</p>
+
+<p>"No in truth, nor do I want my troth-plight friend, for thou art that
+now, slain; but neither do I want the one nor the other to lurk safely
+at home when his brothers are at the war. There's no coward's blood in
+my heart more than in yours, Captain Standish, and I care not to shelter
+any man behind my petticoats. I have not wed John Alden all this long
+year and more, because I would not wed with your frown black upon my
+heart, and I will not wed him now until he hath showed himself a man
+upon that same field whence you do not greatly care to come alive."</p>
+
+<p>"Nay, Priscilla, I care more now for life than I did an hour since, for
+I have a friend."</p>
+
+<p>"And you will take John, and if he comes home alive you'll smile upon
+our marriage?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes girl, yes to both. God bless you, Priscilla, for a brave and true
+woman. And now&mdash;good-night."</p>
+
+<p>A moment later as the dark clad figure flitted down the hill Standish
+stood with bared head and fixed eyes silent for a little space, and then
+the boom of the sunset gun sounded in solemn Amen to the soldier's
+silent prayer.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_356" id="Page_356">[Pg 356]</a></span></p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<h2>CHAPTER XXXIII.</h2>
+
+<h3>PECKSUOT'S KNIFE.</h3>
+
+
+<p>The next morning as the village sat at breakfast, two men at half an
+hour's interval passed hastily down the forest trail, and entering the
+town sought the governor's house.</p>
+
+<p>The first was Wassapinewat, brother of Obtakiest, chief of the
+Neponsets, who, having suffered both wounds and terror in Corbitant's
+attempted rebellion, now hastened to turn State's evidence, and while
+warning the white men of his brother's intended attack wash his hands of
+any share in it.</p>
+
+<p>The other visitor was a long lank Caucasian, Phineas Pratt by name,
+carpenter by trade, Weymouth settler by position. This man half dead
+with suffering of various sorts, footsore and weary, came stumbling down
+the King's Highway just as Bradford came out of his own door followed by
+Wassapinewat, at sight of whom Phineas started and trembled, then
+pointing a finger at him shrieked,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Have a care, Governor! 'T&nbsp;is one of the bloody salvages sworn to
+take all our lives!"</p>
+
+<p>"Nay, friend Pratt, for I remember thee well, 't&nbsp;is a penitent
+robber now, come to warn us of danger. Methinks thine errand may be the
+same. Come in, and after due refreshment tell us the truth of this
+matter."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_357" id="Page_357">[Pg 357]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>But weary as he was, the excited fugitive would pause for neither rest
+nor refreshment until he had poured out his story of the wrongs, the
+insults, the threats with which the Neponsets had harassed the Weymouth
+men in their weakness, in part revenging the foul wrongs they while
+strong had put upon the savages, until in an Indian council of the day
+before, it had been formally resolved to wait only for two days' more
+work upon the boats which Phineas and another were finishing, and then
+to inaugurate the massacre.</p>
+
+<p>Both Pratt and Wassapinewat had by different channels learned the result
+of this council, and each had resolved to not only save himself from the
+explosion of this mine, but to warn the Plymouth colonists of their
+danger, and each had set out by a slightly different route from the
+other and made the journey in ignorance of the other's movements.</p>
+
+<p>It was afterward discovered, however, that Pratt's flight was at once
+discovered, and an Indian dispatched to overtake and kill him, a
+catastrophe averted by the carpenter's straying from the path in the
+darkness, so that his pursuer reached Plymouth, and went on to Manomet
+before the village was astir.</p>
+
+<p>These two confirmatory reports were very welcome to Bradford, upon whom
+the nominal responsibility of the expedition rested, and to the elder
+whose reverend face was very pale and grave in these days.</p>
+
+<p>Standish, however, as he had felt no doubts, now felt no added impulse,
+but went quietly on, seeing his command and his stores embarked, and
+examining personally the arms of his eight soldiers.</p>
+
+<p>At last all was ready, the men seated each at his post, Hobomok in the
+bow, and Standish at the stern,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_358" id="Page_358">[Pg 358]</a></span> the men and boys who stayed
+behind grouped upon the shore, while a vague cloud of skirts and kirtles
+hovered upon the brow of Cole's Hill, when Elder Brewster, baring his
+white head, stepped upon the Rock, and raising his hands to heaven
+prayed loud and fervently that the God of battles, the God of victory,
+the God of their fathers, would bless, protect, and prosper those who
+went forth in His name to do battle for His Right; and as the old man's
+voice rose clear and sonorous in its impassioned appeal, the first
+breath of a favoring wind came out of the South, and the lapping waves
+of the incoming tide answered melodiously to the deep diapason of the
+Amen sent up from fifty bearded throats.</p>
+
+<p>"And now we may go home and make our mourning weeds," said Priscilla
+with a petulant half-sob, half-laugh, as she and Mary Chilton turned
+away from the wheatfield on the hill.</p>
+
+<p>"Nay, John Alden will come home safe, I'm sure on&nbsp;'t," said Mary
+gently, but her vivacious friend turned sharply upon her.</p>
+
+<p>"And if he comes not at all, I'd liefer know him dead in honor, than
+lingering here among the women like some others."</p>
+
+<p>"Gilbert Winslow, or his brother John if you mean him, would have gone
+as gladly as any man had the captain chosen him," replied Mary
+composedly, if coldly, and Priscilla turned and clipped her in a sharp
+embrace, crying out that indeed her friend were no more than right to
+beat her for a froward child.</p>
+
+<p>The prosperous wind lasted all the way, and before noon the shallop lay
+at anchor close beside the Swan, a small craft owned by the Weymouth
+men, and intended for their use in trading and fishing. Standish's<span class='pagenum'><a
+name="Page_359" id="Page_359">[Pg 359]</a></span> first visit was to her, and much
+to his surprise he found her both undefended and deserted. Landing with
+four of his men he next proceeded to the plantation, as it was called,
+where some ten or twelve substantial buildings surrounded with a
+stockade established a very defensible position, but here again neglect
+and suicidal folly stared him in the face.</p>
+
+<p>The settlers were dispersed in every direction: three had that very
+morning gone to live among the Indians; many were roaming the woods and
+shore in search of food; one poor fellow going to dig clams on the
+previous day had stuck fast in the mud by reason of weakness, and though
+the Indians stood upon the shore watching him with shouts of derisive
+laughter, not one put out a hand to help him, and he perished miserably
+at the flow of the tide.</p>
+
+<p>The master of the Swan, stricken with the folly of strong drink, met all
+Standish's expostulations with a fatuous laugh, and the declaration that
+there was no danger,&mdash;no danger whatever; that he and the Indians
+were such friends that he carried no arms, and never closed the gates of
+the stockade; that all the stories reaching Plymouth were lies or
+blunders; and that although they were short of provisions, and
+especially of strong waters, they asked nothing more of the Plymouth
+people than some fresh supplies to last until Sanders, the head of the
+colony, should return from Monhegan on the coast of Maine, whither he
+had gone for corn.</p>
+
+<p>Leaving the drunken captain in disgust, Standish at once took the
+command of the post upon himself, and dispatched Hobomok and two of the
+settlers who came to place themselves under his orders, to bring in all
+of the others whom they could reach, sending word that he<span class='pagenum'><a
+name="Page_360" id="Page_360">[Pg 360]</a></span> would feed them. Many of them,
+including Sanders' lieutenant named Manning, came at the summons, and
+before night all who would were safe within the stockade, and were
+served each man with a pint of shelled corn, all that could be spared,
+for it was taken from the Pilgrims' stock of seed-corn.</p>
+
+<p>Then in a brief and vigorous address Standish told the colonists why he
+had come, and repeated to them the assurance given him by Hobomok that
+the day but one after his arrival was the day fixed upon for the
+massacre, the boats needing but the one day's work to complete them.
+Furthermore, he assured them that he needed nor would accept any help
+from them in his punishment of the savages, the danger and the
+responsibility being no more than Plymouth could endure, and, as he
+significantly added, "The savages were not like to flee before men who
+had so often fled before them."</p>
+
+<p>Hardly was the harangue ended when a Neponset bringing a few hastily
+collected furs entered the stockade, and warily approaching the captain
+offered them for sale. Standish controlling all appearance of
+indignation parleyed with him and paid a fair price for the furs, but as
+the Indian turned toward one of the houses, he called him back, and
+dismissed him somewhat peremptorily.</p>
+
+<p>"To spy out the land hath he come," remarked he to Alden. "And I will
+not have him glean our purpose." But the savage had already learned
+something, and went back to his comrades to report that
+The-Sword-of-the-White-Men "spoke smoothly, but his eyes showed that
+there was anger in his heart."</p>
+
+<p>The second morning so soon as the gates were opened several Indians
+entered together. One of them named<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_361" id="Page_361">[Pg 361]</a></span> Pecksuot, a pniese of great
+celebrity, greeted Hobomok jeeringly, and told him that he supposed his
+master had come to kill all the Neponsets including himself, and
+added,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Tell him to begin if he dare; we are not afraid of him, nor shall we
+run away and hide. Let him begin unless he is afraid. Is he afraid?"</p>
+
+<p>Hobomok repeated the message word for word, but Standish only
+replied,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Tell the pniese I would speak with his sachem, Obtakiest."</p>
+
+<p>"Obtakiest is busy, or he is feasting, or he is sleeping," replied
+Pecksuot disdainfully. "He does not trouble himself to run about after
+any little fellow who sends for him."</p>
+
+<p>Again Hobomok translated the insult, but added in a low voice,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Obtakiest is waiting for some of his braves who are gone to the
+Shawmuts for help. When they return he will attack the white men."</p>
+
+<p>"So! Then we will not wait for them, but so soon as we can gather the
+heads in one place we will return some of their courtly challenges." And
+Standish ground his strong teeth together in the pain of self-restraint
+under insult.</p>
+
+<p>Perceiving that he did not mean to act, some of the Indians who had
+lingered a little behind at first, now came forward, hopping and dancing
+around Standish, whetting their knives upon their palms, making
+insulting gestures, and shouting all sorts of jeers and taunts at him
+and the white men generally.</p>
+
+<p>Then Wituwamat came forward and in his own tongue cried out,<span class='pagenum'><a
+name="Page_362" id="Page_362">[Pg 362]</a></span>&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"The Captain Sword-of-the-White-Men escaped the knife I carried to
+Canacum for him, but he will not escape this." And he showed a dagger
+hung around his neck by a deer's sinew, on whose wooden handle a woman's
+face was not inartistically carved.</p>
+
+<p>"This is Wituwamat's squaw-knife," declared he. "At home he has another
+with a man's face upon it which has already killed both French and
+English; by and by they will marry, and there shall be a knife ready for
+every white man's heart; they can see, they can eat, and they make no
+childish noise like the white man's weapons. But the squaw knife is
+enough for the white pniese."</p>
+
+<p>"Hm! Methinks I cannot much longer keep Gideon in his scabbard&mdash;he
+will fly out of his own accord," muttered Standish, a deadly pallor
+showing beneath the bronze of his skin. Pecksuot saw it, and mistook it
+for the hue of fear. With a savage smile he approached and stood close
+beside the Captain, towering above his head, for he was a giant in
+stature and strength.</p>
+
+<p>"The Sword-of-the-White-Men may be a great pniese, but he is a very
+little man," said he contemptuously. "Now I am a pniese as well as he,
+and I am besides a very big man, and a very brave warrior. The Sword had
+better run away before I devour him."</p>
+
+<p>Without reply Standish turned and walked into the principal house of the
+village, and looked around the large lower room.</p>
+
+<p>"It will do as well as another place," said he briefly. "Alden and
+Howland remove me this great table to the side of the room, and pitch
+out this settle and the stools. Now John Alden get you gone and send me
+Hopkins and Billington. Tarry you with Cooke and Browne at<span class='pagenum'><a
+name="Page_363" id="Page_363">[Pg 363]</a></span> the gate; bid Soule and Eaton
+stand on guard, and if they hear me cry Rescue! make in to my help. Let
+no more of the salvages into the stockade until we have settled with
+these. Hobomok, tell Pecksuot, Kamuso, whom I saw behind the rest,
+Wituwamat, and that notorious ruffian his brother, that I fain would
+speak with them in this place."</p>
+
+<p>"Four to four," remarked Billington with grewsome relish.</p>
+
+<p>"Ay. Take you Wituwamat; Hopkins, I leave you to deal with Kamuso;
+Howland, take the young fellow, and I will deal with Pecksuot, for in
+truth he is a bigger man than I, but we will see if he is a better."</p>
+
+<p>What story Hobomok may have invented to bring the four ringleaders into
+the house we know not, but as five white men remained outside with at
+least an equal number of Indians, they could not fear being overmatched,
+and presently came stalking impudently in, exchanging jeers and laughter
+of the most irritating nature.</p>
+
+<p>Hobomok followed, and closing the door stood with his back against it,
+calmly observing the scene, but taking no part in it.</p>
+
+<p>Then at last the captain loosed the reins of the fiery spirit struggling
+and chafing beneath the curb so long, and fixing his eyes red with the
+blaze of anger upon Pecksuot, he cried,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"On guard, O Pecksuot!" and sprang upon him, seizing the squaw-knife,
+which was sharpened at the back as well as at the front, and ground at
+the tip to a needle point. With a coarse laugh <ins title="Transcriber's
+note: 'Pecksnot' changed to 'Pecksuot'">Pecksuot</ins> snatched at the
+captain's throat with his left hand, while his right closed like iron
+over the captain's grasp of the hilt and tried to turn it against him.
+But the rebound from<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_364" id="Page_364">[Pg 364]</a></span> his forced inaction had strung the
+soldier's muscles like steel and thrilled along his nerves like fire. A
+roar like that of a lion broke from his panting chest, and with one
+mighty effort he wrung the knife from the grasp of the giant, and
+turning its point drove it deep into the heart of the boaster. A wild
+cry of death and defeat rung through the room as he fell headlong, and
+Wituwamat turning his head to look, gave Billington his chance and
+received his own mortal wound; while Kamuso fighting with the silent
+courage of a great warrior only succumbed at last beneath a dozen wounds
+from Hopkins's short sword, and Howland having disarmed and wounded his
+opponent presented him as prisoner under Standish's orders.</p>
+
+<p>"Should'st have slain him in the heat of the onset, Howland," panted the
+captain, wiping his hands and looking around him. "Now&mdash;take him
+out, Billington, and hang him to the tree in the middle of the parade.
+We shall leave him there as an example for the others. Open the door,
+Hobomok."</p>
+
+<p>Hobomok did as he was bid, but then advancing with slow step to the side
+of the fallen Pecksuot he placed a foot upon his chest and softly
+said,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, my brother, thou wast a very big man, but I have seen a little man
+bring thee low."</p>
+
+<p>It was the giant's funeral elegy.</p>
+
+<p>"I have notched my sword on yon villain's skull," exclaimed Hopkins
+wiping and examining his blade, and the Captain smiling shrewdly
+said,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"I risked not Gideon in such ignoble warfare, though he clattered in his
+scabbord. Savage weapons for savage hearts, say I."</p>
+
+<p>"Ha! There's fighting without!" cried Hopkins,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_365" id="Page_365">[Pg 365]</a></span> rushing to the
+door, where in effect Soule and Browne had shot down two stout savages,
+who hearing Pecksuot's death cry had tried to avenge him; while another
+rushing upon Alden with uplifted knife was caught in mid career by a
+bullet from the captain's snaphance snatched up at Hopkins's warning.</p>
+
+<p>So fell seven of the savages, who would if they could have barbarously
+murdered seventy white men, women, and children, and thus did the
+Captain of the Pilgrim forces teach the red men a lesson that lasted in
+vivid force until the men of that generation had given way to those of
+poor weak Sachem Philip's day.</p>
+
+<p>That night one of the three colonists who had gone to live among the
+Indians returned to the village bringing news that in the evening a
+runner had arrived at the place where he was, and had delivered a "short
+and sad" message to his hosts, probably the news of Pecksuot's and
+Wituwamat's death. The Indians had begun at once to collect and arm, and
+he foreboding evil had slunk away after vainly trying to persuade his
+comrades to do the same.</p>
+
+<p>"They will be slain out of revenge," declared Hobomok in his own tongue,
+and the event proved him a true prophet.</p>
+
+<p>In the early gray of morning the watch reported a file of Indians
+emerging from the forest, and Standish with four of his own men, and two
+settlers who implored permission to join him, went to meet them. A bushy
+hillock lay midway between the two parties, and the Indians were making
+for its shelter, when the Pilgrims breaking into a double run
+forestalled them, and reached the summit where, as Standish declared, he
+was ready to welcome the whole Neponset tribe.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_366" id="Page_366">[Pg 366]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>The Indians at once fell behind each man his tree, and a flight of
+arrows aimed chiefly at Standish and Hobomok ensued.</p>
+
+<p>"Let no man shoot until he hath a fair mark," ordered the Captain.
+"'T&nbsp;is useless to waste ammunition upon tree-trunks."</p>
+
+<p>"Both their pnieses are dead, and Obtakiest himself is none!" suddenly
+declared Hobomok. "I alone can drive them!" and throwing off his coat,
+leaving his chest with its gleaming "totem" bare, he extended wide his
+arms and rushed down the hill shouting at the top of his voice,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Hobomok the pniese! Hobomok the devil! Hobomok is awake! Hobomok has
+come!"</p>
+
+<p>"The fool will be shot! Hath he gone mad!" shouted Billington, but
+Hopkins grasped his arm.</p>
+
+<p>"Let be, let be! He knows what he is about. Himself told me that his
+name Hobomok answereth to our word Devil, and that while every pniese
+through fasting and self-torture gains much power over demons and is
+greatly feared by all who are not pnieses, he having taken the foul
+fiend's name, had gained double the power of the rest, and could when
+put to it summon Sathanas and all his brood to aid him. Those others
+know it, and&mdash;lo, you now, see them scatter, see them fly!" and
+with a loud laugh he pointed to the savage crew, who panic stricken were
+fleeing before the pniese like a flock of frightened sheep.</p>
+
+<p>"Have after them! Follow me, men!" shouted Standish rushing down the
+hill, the others following as fast as they could, but not fast enough,
+for before they came within shot, the party was halted by Hobomok's
+return, who half glorious, half laughing, reported the enemy hidden in a
+swamp, whither he led his friends.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_367" id="Page_367">[Pg 367]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"We will slay no more if we can help it," declared the captain. "Alden,
+show a flag of truce. Haply they will understand it."</p>
+
+<p>But although as Standish drew near the thicket, Alden carrying the white
+flag beside him, the savages refrained from firing, his invitation to
+parley was received with a volley of abuse and defiance renewed at every
+attempt of his to speak.</p>
+
+<p>"Obtakiest is there. I know his voice," declared Hobomok who had crept
+up behind. "He will not show himself lest I curse him."</p>
+
+<p>"Obtakiest! Sachem! Art thou there?" demanded Standish. "Come forth then
+like a man, and we two will fight it out here in the midst. I challenge
+thee, sachem!"</p>
+
+<p>A hoarse laugh and a volley of obscene abuse was the reply, and Standish
+indignantly cried,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Dost not know how base and cowardly it is to hide there and tongue it
+like an angry woman! Thou&nbsp;'rt not fit to be called a man!"</p>
+
+<p>A shower of arrows was the only response to this, and presently the
+movement of the bushes showed that the Indians were retreating to a
+deeper fastness, and Standish deeply disgusted marched his own men back
+to the village, the only casualty on either side being the broken arm of
+the powah or priest, who with Wituwamat and Pecksuot were really the
+heart of the conspiracy; for Obtakiest after a while sent a squaw to
+Plymouth abjectly begging for peace, and declaring that he had since
+Standish's visit changed his camp every night for fear of receiving
+another one.</p>
+
+<p>"And now, Master Manning, and you, master of the Swan and friend of the
+Neponsets," demanded Standish,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_368" id="Page_368">[Pg 368]</a></span> as he arrayed the Weymouth men
+before him, and declared his success in their quarrel, "what shall I do
+more for your comfort or safety before my return to Plymouth? For
+myself, I should never fear to remain in this plantation had I the half
+of your men, but for yourselves ye must judge. Only I will add that I am
+charged by Governor Bradford to say that any who will come to settle in
+Plymouth and abide by its laws and governance shall be kindly welcomed."</p>
+
+<p>The settlers debated the matter among themselves for a while, and
+although a few and those of the best, decided to accept the invitation
+to Plymouth albeit somewhat coldly given, the majority decided to desert
+the post where they had suffered so much, and to join some other of
+Weston's men at Monhegan. The Pilgrims cheerfully lent their help, and
+before night the settlers had loaded all their portable property into
+the Swan, Standish had seen the gates of the stockade securely bolted
+and barred, and Hobomok with some red paint had traced upon each a
+hideous emblem, which he assured the white men would frighten away any
+predatory Indian.</p>
+
+<p>Standish only laughed, but Hopkins nodded sagely.</p>
+
+<p>"The rogue is right&mdash;I know the symbol, and have seen the terror it
+carries," said he; and true it is that whether from superstitious or
+from martial terrors, that stockade and the houses it enclosed, and the
+body of the savage left swinging from the tree in their midst, were
+never molested or apparently visited by the red men again. As the heavy
+laden Swan weltered out of the harbor, victualed with all that remained
+of Standish's seed corn except a scanty ration apiece to his own men,
+the pinnace bore gallantly up for Plymouth, and in due<span class='pagenum'><a
+name="Page_369" id="Page_369">[Pg 369]</a></span> course joyfully arrived there
+bringing home all her crew victorious and unscathed.</p>
+
+<p>With them came Wituwamat's head to be set on a pike over the gateway of
+the Fort, for these our Fathers were not of our day or thought in such
+matters; and these Englishmen did but follow the usage of England, when
+so lately as 1747 the heads of the unhappy Pretender's more unhappy
+followers defiled the air of London's busiest street.</p>
+
+<p>Standish for one never doubted of the justice of his course either in
+the slaying of the colony's avowed enemies, or the exposure of the
+ringleader's head; not even when a year or so later Bradford sorrowfully
+placed in his hands a letter just received from his revered Pastor
+Robinson at Leyden, who in commenting on the death of the Indians
+said,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Oh how happy a thing it had been had you converted some before you had
+killed any. Let me be bold to exhort you seriously to consider of the
+disposition of your captain, whom I love;&mdash;but there is cause to
+fear that by occasion, especially of provocation, there may be wanting
+in him that tenderness of the life of man made after God's image, that
+is meet."</p>
+
+<p>Standish read the letter, and returning it without a word went out from
+his friend's presence, nor did he ever after allude to it, but a blow
+had been struck upon that loyal loving heart from which it never in this
+life recovered.</p>
+
+<p>Thirty years later as the hero set his house in order, his failing hand
+wrote these words,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"I give 3&pound;. to Mercy Robinson whom I tenderly love for her
+grandfather's sake."</p>
+
+<p>And that was his revenge.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_370" id="Page_370">[Pg 370]</a></span></p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<h2>CHAPTER XXXIV.</h2>
+
+<h3>THE WOLF AT THE DOOR.</h3>
+
+
+<p>Midsummer was upon the land, and the heat and drought were intense. Day
+after day the sun rose fierce and pitiless, drinking up at a draught
+what scanty dews had distilled in a night so brief and heated that it
+brought no refreshment to herbage or to man. Day after day wistful eyes
+searched the horizon for a cloud if no bigger than a man's hand, and
+still only the hard blue above and the palpitating horizon line stared
+blankly back. The crops languished in the field, some already dead, and
+the scanty store saved from the seed corn quite gone. Many a day a few
+clams, a lobster, or a piece of fish without bread or any vegetable, was
+a family's whole subsistence.</p>
+
+<p>Early in July the ship Plantation had touched at Plymouth having on
+board two hogsheads of dried peas for sale, but seeing the bitter need
+of the colonists the shipmaster raised the price to &pound;8 per
+hogshead, and although they had the money, the Fathers refused to submit
+to the extortion, and the peas sailed southward.</p>
+
+<p>It is but forty miles from Plymouth to Boston Harbor, where about a
+hundred and fifty years later the women signed a declaration that they
+would forego the use of tea rather than submit to extortion, and their
+fathers and husbands and lovers flung a goodly cargo into the sea.<span class='pagenum'><a
+name="Page_371" id="Page_371">[Pg 371]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>But a stout spirit although it keeps a man up puts no flesh on his
+bones, and soon it became a piteous sight to stand in the Town Square
+and mark the faces and figures of those who passed by. Strong men
+staggered from weakness as they walked, women glided along like mournful
+white wraiths, even the little children in their quaint garb looked worn
+and emaciated. Standish, who relying upon his iron constitution and long
+training in a soldier's endurance, had regularly divided his rations
+with some woman or child, had grown so gaunt and worn that he might well
+have posed as The Skeleton in Armor, when he held his monthly muster,
+and Mistress Brewster, although some private provision was made for her,
+wasted away piteously.</p>
+
+<p>"Where is the ship spoken by the master of the Plantation?" was the
+daily cry, and daily Hobomok climbed the great tulip-tree on the crest
+of Watson's Hill and swept the horizon line with eyes keener than any
+white man's.</p>
+
+<p>"The Lord abaseth us for our sins," declared the elder. "Call a solemn
+assembly, proclaim a fast, let us entreat our God to have mercy, and our
+Lord to pardon. Who can tell but He yet may turn and have compassion,
+and spare the remnant of His people. Even as a servant looketh to the
+hand of his master even so let us wait upon our God, beseeching that He
+spare, that He pardon, that He restore us, who for our sins are
+appointed to die."</p>
+
+<p>So spake the elder after the evening prayers of a day even more
+exhausting than its predecessors, and Myles Standish, leaning against
+the wall for very weakness, muttered,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Nay, what sin have these women and children<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_372" id="Page_372">[Pg 372]</a></span> wrought? What odds
+between a God like that and the Shietan of the salvages? Nay, Elder,
+thou hast not bettered the faith my mother lived and died by."</p>
+
+<p>But the fast was appointed for the next day, which fell on a Thursday,
+and as the sun sprang up with even an added blaze of pitiless heat, he
+saw a mournful procession winding up the hill to the Fort, now so
+completed as to offer a large lower room for purposes of devotion or of
+refuge, while the ordnance mounted on the roof gained a wider range, and
+presented a more formidable aspect.</p>
+
+<p>At the head walked Elder Brewster, but the shadowy form of Mary his wife
+reclined in the old chair set beside the window, whence she could watch
+the procession she was unable to join except in spirit. Then came the
+Governor and the Captain, Allerton and Winslow, Warren and Fuller,
+Hopkins and Howland, Alden and Browne, and the rest of the glorious
+band, the least of whom has his name written in the Libro d'Oro of the
+men posterity delighteth to honor. After the men came the women, meek
+and gentle, yet strong and courageous, and the children, poor little
+heroes and heroines, involuntary martyrs like the Holy Innocents of
+Bethlehem.</p>
+
+<p>"Get thee to the roof, Hobomok," ordered the captain, "and say the
+prayers the elder hath so painfully taught thee; but mind me, lad, keep
+thine eyes upon the horizon and watch for the answer, whether it be a
+sail, or whether it be a rain cloud. Shalt play the part of Elijah's
+servant, and the elder is the very moral of the stern old prophet."</p>
+
+<p>No morsel of food, no drop of drink, had passed the lips of that wan
+company since the pittance of the night before, and yet for nine long
+hours of that fearful day,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_373" id="Page_373">[Pg 373]</a></span> the air so heated that it hardly fed
+the lungs, and the sun blazing so pitilessly upon the log structure that
+a faint odor of parching wood mingled with the torrid air within the
+Fort, yes, for nine long hours the elder prayed, or preached, or recited
+aloud the deep abasement of the penitential psalms, and the wail of the
+prophets, proclaiming, yet deprecating, the wrath of an offended God.</p>
+
+<p>In the intervals others spoke; Doctor Fuller, himself a deacon in the
+church, and Bradford, whose petition less abject than that of the elder,
+called confidently for help, upon Him who twice fed a starving
+multitude, who promised that no petition in His name should go
+unanswered, who hungering in the wilderness knew the extremity of
+famine, who cried aloud, I Thirst, who has promised to be with His own
+in all time till Time shall be no more.</p>
+
+<p>Standish, like the statue of a sentinel in bronze, stood at the door
+leaning upon his snaphance, listening intently to all, and breathing a
+deep-throated Amen to the governor's prayer.</p>
+
+<p>Noon blazed overhead, and Priscilla, ah, poor white, attenuate
+Priscilla, crept down the hill to the elder's house, and gathering a
+handful of fire-wood warmed some broth made from a rabbit snared by
+Alden the day before, and silently brought a cup to the mother, who
+drank it with the tears brimming over her patient, faded eyes.</p>
+
+<p>"I am not worthy to fast with the rest of you. I am an unprofitable
+servant," whispered she handing back the cup and covering her face.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, mother, mother, do not break my heart," cried the girl, whom the
+smell of food had turned sick and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_374" id="Page_374">[Pg 374]</a></span> faint. "It is not so, dear
+saint. The Lord will not have thee fast because He knows thou art
+already perfected"&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Hush, hush, my child; thy words are both wild and wicked. Get thee back
+to the House of Prayer, and beg our God to forgive thy sin of
+presumption. Fare thee well&mdash;nay, one
+moment,&mdash;doth,&mdash;doth the elder look sadly spent?&mdash;he is
+not over strong&mdash;and Jonathan? Didst mark him and the boys?
+Wrestling is but puny."</p>
+
+<p>"They are all in such strength as can be looked for, mother dear, and
+will hold out as well as any." And Priscilla wanly smiled in the poor
+pinched face, adjusted the cushions and the foot-rest, and without so
+much as a drop of cold water for herself, wearily climbed the hill. The
+captain making room for her to pass looked with anxious sympathy into
+her face, but spake no word, and again the withering hours passed on,
+and the elder prayed in a husky and broken whisper, and his hearers
+muttered an Amen, hollow and mournful as the echo from an open tomb.</p>
+
+<p>Three o'clock, and Hobomok scrambled down from the roof, and stood in
+the open doorway. His master saw and went out to him. In a moment he
+came again, and passing between the banks of rude benches stood before
+the elder, who, pausing suddenly, fixed upon him a gaze of piteous
+inquiry, while a little movement among the hundred starving souls
+watching and praying heralded his news.</p>
+
+<p>"The answer has come, Elder," announced the soldier briefly. "A full
+rigged ship has just cleared Manomet headland, and a cloud black with
+rain is rolling up out of the Southwest."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_375" id="Page_375">[Pg 375]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Let us pray!" said the elder softly; and Standish bowed his head with
+the rest as the holy man, his voice strong and fervent once more, poured
+out for himself and his people such gratitude as perhaps is only
+possible from those "appointed to die," and suddenly rescued by the hand
+of a merciful Father.</p>
+
+<p>A few moments later, as the procession wound down the hill, somewhat
+less formally than it had gone up, the southern and western sky were
+black with clouds already veiling the sun, and within an hour a soft and
+tender rain began to fall, soaking quietly into the earth gaping all
+over with the wounds of drought, and reviving, as Bradford quaintly
+phrased it, both their drooping affections and their withered corn.</p>
+
+<p>"The white man's God is better than the red man's," remarked Hobomok
+privately to Wanalancet, who was visiting Plymouth. "When our powahs
+pray for rain, and cut themselves, and offer sacrifice, it comes
+sometimes, but in noisy floods that tear up the earth, and beat down the
+maize, and do more harm than good. Wanalancet better turn praying Indian
+like Hobomok."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_376" id="Page_376">[Pg 376]</a></span></p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<h2>CHAPTER XXXV.</h2>
+
+<h3>THE BRIDES' SHIP.</h3>
+
+
+<p>The rain proved as persistent as it was gentle, and under its influence
+the wind sighed itself asleep, leaving at sunset the ship espied by
+Hobomok becalmed outside Beach Point. Some of the Pilgrims would have
+rowed out to her, but Bradford knew from his own feelings how unfit they
+were for such heavy labor.</p>
+
+<p>"A little patience should not be hard for men who have patiently waited
+so long," said he smiling. "Let us all break our fast with
+thanksgiving."</p>
+
+<p>"One more cup of broth and a bit of the hare," said Priscilla gayly, as
+she set a little table beside her precious invalid. "And to-morrow I
+doubt not but I can offer you a posset of white flour and sugar and
+spice and all sorts of comfortable things. Whatever the ship may be
+'t&nbsp;is sure to have the making of a posset in her."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh Priscilla, dear maid, if it might be,&mdash;if I dared think of my
+two girls"&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>The trembling voice gave way, and for a moment Priscilla could not
+speak. Then she cheerily said,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"If not themselves there is sure to be news of them, and God is very
+good. Pr'ythee take the broth."</p>
+
+<p>"There then, good child. Now go to thine own supper. Mary is placing it
+upon the board."</p>
+
+<p>Dropping a light kiss upon the face lovingly upturned, Priscilla passed
+into the outer room where upon the great table standing to-day in
+Pilgrim Hall rested a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_377" id="Page_377">[Pg 377]</a></span> wooden bowl filled with boiled clams, and
+beside it a dish of coarse salt and a pewter flagon of water. Only this,
+no bread, no vegetable, no after course; but at the head of the table
+stood the elder, his worn face radiant with gratitude, as, uplifting his
+voice, he gave thanks to God for that he and his might "suck of the
+abundance of the seas and of the treasures hid in the sand."</p>
+
+<p>After midnight a breeze sprung up, but the master of the Anne cautiously
+waited for the full tide to float him over the many flats then as now
+obstructing Plymouth Harbor, and it was not until another sunrise that
+the travel-worn and over-crowded bark folded her patched sails and
+dropped her anchor not far from the old anchorage ground of the
+Mayflower.</p>
+
+<p>The governor no longer tried to restrain the enthusiasm of his townsmen;
+in fact, he himself helped to drag up the anchor of the pinnace and make
+her ready for a visit to the stranger. With him went Jonathan Brewster
+to see if perchance his sisters might be on board; and Doctor Fuller,
+and Robert Hicks, and Francis Cooke, and William Palmer, and Master
+Warren, albeit not fit even for so small an exertion, for every one of
+these men thought it possible that his wife might be aboard, nor was one
+of them disappointed, for the Anne, might well have dropped her anchor
+to the tune of "Sweethearts and Wives," so laden was she with those
+precious commodities.</p>
+
+<p>"Come Captain!" called Bradford as the dory lay ready to transport the
+last three to the pinnace already under sail.</p>
+
+<p>"No," somewhat morosely returned Standish. "I shall only be in the way
+of other men's rejoicings. There's naught for me aboard that or any
+other ship that floats. No, I say,&mdash;push off, Cooke!"<span class='pagenum'><a
+name="Page_378" id="Page_378">[Pg 378]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>And the captain strode up the hill, and climbed the roof of the Fort to
+cover and pet his big guns and see that the dampness did them no
+mischief.</p>
+
+<p>Below, Alden helped Priscilla to make ready all the food remaining in
+the village, for surely the new-comer had brought supplies, and the
+famine was at an end.</p>
+
+<p>"If this ship might bring him a wife as perchance it hath to our good
+surgeon," said John after describing his master's mood.</p>
+
+<p>"Ay, but I fear me he'll be hard to suit," replied Priscilla.</p>
+
+<p>"Natheless, remember sweetheart, you promised me that so soon as the
+famine was over and our new house finished"&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"And the captain cheerful as his wont."</p>
+
+<p>"Ay, well so soon as all these matters were settled fairly, you
+promised"&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Oh sooth, good lad, stand not gaping there and minding me of last
+winter's snow and last summer's roses! Go and call the captain and the
+elder to their breakfast while I see to the dear mother."</p>
+
+<p>But breakfast was hardly over when Mistress Winslow ran across the
+street to the elder's wife.</p>
+
+<p>"Lo you now, dear mother," cried she excitedly. "There are three boats
+rowing toward the Rock, and in every one of them you may make out
+women's gear, and who knows but Patience and Fear are of the company.
+All the men have gone down to the Rock, and I am going."</p>
+
+<p>Out she ran again, and Priscilla quickly moved to the mother's side, but
+great joys do not kill even though they startle, and presently the white
+white face was raised with a smile almost of heaven illuminating it, and
+the dame softly said,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_379" id="Page_379">[Pg 379]</a></span>&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, they have come. I knew it in the night. They have come, but
+Priscilla thou&nbsp;'rt none the less my dear and duteous daughter. Now
+get you to the Rock with the rest. I shall be well alone."</p>
+
+<p>"Now is Will Bradford well content; now is comedy ready to tread upon
+the heels of tragedy, and funeral dirges to end in marriage chimes,"
+muttered the captain as he plunged down the steep of Leyden Street, and
+stood with overcast face and compressed lips watching the boats sweeping
+merrily up to the landing.</p>
+
+<p>In the foremost sat the governor, and close beside him two female
+figures their backs to the shore. On the next thwart Surgeon Fuller, his
+whimsical face for once honestly glad, leaned an elbow on his knee and
+peered up into the comely face of Bridget, his young wife, for Agnes
+Carpenter lay asleep beneath St. Peter's Church in old Leyden town. But
+her sister Juliana had come with her husband, George Morton, and their
+five children, Patience already a winsome lass of fifteen, soon to marry
+John Faunce and become mother of the last ruling Elder of Plymouth
+Church.</p>
+
+<p>Later on, two more of these fair Carpenter girls were to come over to
+the home of their sister Alice: Priscilla, who married William Wright,
+one of the joyous passengers of the Fortune; and Mary, of whom the
+Chronicles say that she died "a godly old maid" in her sister's home.</p>
+
+<p>Pardon the interlude, but there is something very fascinating in the
+story of this family of five beautiful girls so eagerly sought in
+marriage by the best men of the colony, and of her who was the flower of
+all and yet died "a godly old maid."</p>
+
+<p>The governor's boat was at the Rock, and willing<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_380" id="Page_380">[Pg 380]</a></span> hands on shore
+caught at the rope thrown from the bows, and dragged her up so that the
+passengers could step out dry shod. Standish drew back a little, and
+with folded arms stood watching the debarkation. Last of all came
+Bradford and the two ladies he had escorted.</p>
+
+<p>"So that is Mistress Alice Carpenter Southworth, is it," muttered the
+soldier grasping a handful of his ruddy beard. "Well, it is a winsome
+dame and a gentle; I wonder not that Will hath"&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>But the calm comment ended abruptly in an exclamation of incredulity and
+pleasure, for when Mistress Southworth stood safely upon the strand,
+Bradford turned and gave his hand to her companion, a girl of some four
+or five and twenty years old, with one of those rounded and supple
+figures which combine strength and delicacy, endurance and elasticity,
+and are very slow in yielding to the attacks of Time. A demure hood tied
+under the chin framed a round face, whose firm fair skin had defied the
+tarnish of the sea, and only gained a somewhat warmer glow in cheek and
+lip than its native tone. Little tendrils of sunny brown hair pushed
+their laughing way from beneath the edge of the hood and curled joyously
+to the fingers of the toying wind. Straight dark brows and long
+eyelashes of the same deep tint gave character to the face, and shaded a
+pair of eyes whose beauty has stamped itself upon every generation of
+this woman's descendants. Large, and peculiarly opened, these eyes were
+of a clear violet blue, but with pupils whose frequent dilatation gave
+such range of tint and expression, and such extraordinary brilliancy
+that many were found to insist that the eyes themselves were black,
+while others vowed that no such intensity<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_381" id="Page_381">[Pg 381]</a></span> of blue had ever been
+seen in human orbs before. But neither in the shape, nor the color, nor
+the brilliancy, nor the pathetic curve of the upper lid, did the
+wonderful beauty of these eyes abide; it was a fascination, a compelling
+power in their regard; the power of appeal or of assurance, of love or
+wrath, of promise or of trust, that dwelt in their depths, and leaped or
+stole thence bending to their service the will of all who gazed
+steadfastly upon them. Weapons more dangerous in a woman's hands than
+was Gideon the Sword, in the hands of the Captain of Plymouth.</p>
+
+<p>As their owner lightly leaping from the gunwale of the boat alighted
+upon the Rock, these eyes sought and rested merrily upon Myles'
+wonder-stricken face, while a joyous smile illuminated the features and
+showed bright and pretty teeth.</p>
+
+<p>"Barbara!" exclaimed the captain, leaping down from the hillock where he
+had so unsympathetically posted himself to observe the landing.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, Barbara," returned a blithe voice. "Come all this way to look
+after her cousin, who cared not to come so far as the ship to greet
+her."</p>
+
+<p>"But how was I to know thou wert coming, lass? Ever and always at thine
+old trick of laying me in some blunder! Well, thou&nbsp;'rt welcome,
+Bab, welcome as flowers in May." And seizing the round face between his
+two hands Myles pressed a hearty salute upon either cheek.</p>
+
+<p>"And Captain," broke in Bradford's well pleased voice, "let me bring you
+to the notice of Mistress Southworth, in whose matronly company your
+cousin has journeyed."</p>
+
+<p>A fair and gentle English face, albeit not without a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_382" id="Page_382">[Pg 382]</a></span> quiet
+determination in its lines, was turned upon the soldier as Alice
+Southworth held out her hand saying,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"And greatly beholden am I to Mistress Standish for her companionship. I
+know not quite how we could have borne some of our discomfiture had not
+she cheered and upheld us as she did."</p>
+
+<p>"Ay, 't&nbsp;is a way the wench hath of old," replied the captain gayly.
+"I mind me of a home across the seas where one declared that naught but
+Barbara's care kept her in life at all. But in good sooth, girl, why
+didst not warn me of thy coming?"</p>
+
+<p>"I would fain take thee by surprise, cousin, and methinks I have."</p>
+
+<p>"A total, an utter surprise."</p>
+
+<p>"We had fared but ill here in the colony had yon sachem surprised thee
+as effectually, Myles," laughed the governor as the little party climbed
+The Street, a long procession of jocund men, women, and children
+streaming after them, the joy of reunion and the flood of loving
+greetings sweeping away the conventional barriers wherein the
+Separatists attempted to imprison Nature.</p>
+
+<p>"Ah! There are the elder's girls!" said Bradford, as they halted before
+his gate and looked back upon the busy street.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, Fear and Patience, sweet maids both of them," replied Alice.</p>
+
+<p>"And those five merry Warren girls have found their father," said
+Barbara. "But he looks not over strong."</p>
+
+<p>"No," replied the governor sadly. "He hath not grudged both to spend and
+to be spent for the common weal, and glad am I that his wife hath come
+to restrain his zeal. But come in, come in, dear friends, and Mis<span class='pagenum'><a
+name="Page_383" id="Page_383">[Pg 383]</a></span>tress Eaton, who cares for me and
+my house until I can purvey me another housekeeper, will make you
+welcome."</p>
+
+<p>"I would not say nay to some breakfast, nor I think would you, maid
+Barbara, eh?" laughed Alice, and the governor's face clouded.</p>
+
+<p>"I fear me there is but sorry cheer to set before you, dear friends,"
+said he. "Mistress Eaton warned me last night that a few clams were all
+she had, or could compass, in her larder."</p>
+
+<p>"Something was told aboard of a famine in the place," said Barbara
+quietly, "and I fancied it could do no harm to put some provant left
+over of my stores into a bag and carry it ashore. If none wanted it I
+could leave it hid, and&mdash;but here it is&mdash;the bag, Myles?"</p>
+
+<p>"What, this sack I have tugged up the hill? All this, provision?"</p>
+
+<p>"Ay, for the cook gave me a good bit of boiled beef, and a hen to boot."</p>
+
+<p>"Beef!" exclaimed the captain involuntarily, but in a tone of such
+amazed delight that Barbara's eyes dwelt upon him in pity and wonder.</p>
+
+<p>"Myles! Thou dost not mean that thou hast been actually a-hungered!"
+said she. "Oh Alice, they are starving."</p>
+
+<p>"Starving!" echoed Alice in the same tone of dismay. "Oh Will!"</p>
+
+<p>"Nay, nay, nay!" protested the governor with a somewhat hollow laugh.
+"We have not feasted of late, perhaps, and the word beef hath a strange
+sound in our ears, since no meat save a little wild game hath been seen
+among us for a year or more, but still, thank God, we are well and
+hearty"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_384" id="Page_384">[Pg 384]</a></span>&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Well and hearty!" repeated Alice Southworth. "Look at him, Barbara;
+look at his cheeks, his temples, look at that hand, all as one with the
+skeleton in the museum of Leyden. Oh Barbara, to think that we should
+find them starving after all!"</p>
+
+<p>"Better starving than starved," replied Barbara calmly. "And if the
+governor will give me warrant, and this same Mistress Eaton will lend me
+her aid, I will soon set forth a table that shall make hungry men's
+hearts leap within them."</p>
+
+<p>"There, Will," exclaimed Alice generously. "That is the sort of maid she
+is, never stopping to lament and wring her hands as silly I do, but ever
+looking for the way to mend the evil, and finding it, too."</p>
+
+<p>Dame Eaton, whom we have known as Lois, maid to Mistress Carver, but now
+married to Francis Eaton and promoted on her marriage to be the
+governor's housekeeper, soon made her appearance, and the three women
+were not long in setting forth a breakfast whereunto the governor
+invited as many of his neighbors as the table could accommodate, and
+over which he offered a thanksgiving, glowing with loving gratitude to
+Him who giveth all.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_385" id="Page_385">[Pg 385]</a></span></p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<h2>CHAPTER XXXVI.</h2>
+
+<h3>MARRIAGE BELLS.</h3>
+
+
+<p>"And now, Governor, we have to billet all these new-comers as best we
+may. Six-and-ninety names the captain of the Anne reports on his roster,
+and that fairly doubles the population of Plymouth. Where shall we
+bestow them all?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why, Captain, you know that many of our men expecting their wives and
+children have built housen and now will occupy them; and for the rest, I
+am minded, if you will have me, to impose myself upon you and Alden, and
+leave mine own house to Mistress Southworth and your cousin. Then, as
+the elder's daughters now have come, Priscilla Molines, whom my dame
+knoweth and loveth well, and Mary Chilton and Elizabeth Tilley can all
+find room here also, and the rest we will dispose of among the other
+families. Mayhap for a while the young men may sleep at the Fort."</p>
+
+<p>"Nay, Governor, we'll have no rantipoles at the Fort meddling and making
+among the ammunition, and playing tricks with the guns. Alden and you
+and I and Howland, and some other of the ancients, will swing our
+hammocks at the Fort if you will, and my house may be turned into a
+billet for the bachelors, until we can help them to knock up housen for
+themselves."</p>
+
+<p>"So be it, comrade, and yet 't&nbsp;is hardly worth while to make great
+changes or fatigues until"&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Until?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_386" id="Page_386">[Pg 386]</a></span>&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Until some among us are wed, Myles."</p>
+
+<p>"Why, truly yes. I had forgot, and yet I have heard the jingle of
+marriage bells in thy voice since ever yon ship rounded Manomet. How
+soon will it be, Will?"</p>
+
+<p>"So soon as my dame agreeth," replied Bradford contentedly. "At all odds
+before the Anne returneth. We have magistrates enow among us, however,
+for Master Oldham and Master Hatherly both carry the king's patent as
+justices; and this Master Lyford who cometh in Oldham's train is
+preacher in the Church of England."</p>
+
+<p>"Ha! Say you so, Will? One of the 'hireling priests' of such noisome
+odour in the nostrils of thy friends of the stricter sort at Leyden!"</p>
+
+<p>"Nay, Captain, but you will remember that Pastor Robinson did receive
+members of England's Church to the Lord's Table, and did counsel us to
+live in brotherly love and communion with them."</p>
+
+<p>"And so fell into disfavor with his old friends the Brownists," remarked
+Standish carelessly. "Well, 't&nbsp;is all one to me, who am no church
+member, and deny not due respect to the old faith of mine house. And you
+will be wed anon, Will?"</p>
+
+<p>"Ay, and we will have your Barbara to stay with us until she finds
+another home, if you and she consent. Dame Alice loves her passing
+well."</p>
+
+<p>"'T&nbsp;is a good wench and a comfortable one," replied Standish well
+pleased. "Had Rose lived, or had Priscilla said me yea, I had taken
+Barbara under mine own roof; but now I must wait until she makes her
+choice of the swains that soon will come a-wooing, and then she and her
+husband shall come to me."</p>
+
+<p>"Ay," returned Bradford musingly, and checking<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_387" id="Page_387">[Pg 387]</a></span> upon his lips
+the smile that danced in his eyes. "Thy plans are ever wisely laid,
+Myles."</p>
+
+<p>Turning into his own house Bradford found Alice with her wimple and
+scarf on just about to leave it.</p>
+
+<p>"Whither away, mistress?" asked he gayly.</p>
+
+<p>"Only to breathe a mouthful of fresh air, Master Governor. I have been
+so long ashipboard that four walls seem a prison to me. Mayhap I'll take
+passage back again with good Master Pierce."</p>
+
+<p>"Mayhap thou&nbsp;'lt do naught of the sort. I have thee now, and I'll
+not let thee go, as I did sometime in Leyden."</p>
+
+<p>"Thou didst anger me sore, Will, when thou&nbsp;'dst not close with that
+good man's offer of half his business, though it was but a merchant's.
+And my father crying up Edward Southworth"&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Nay, Alice, we'll not go pulling open old wounds to see if they be
+healed. I would not, I could not do violence to my English name and
+blood and become a Dutch trader though it were to gain thy hand, nor did
+I think thou wouldst in thine anger go so far&mdash;but there,
+sweetheart, we'll say no more on&nbsp;'t, now or ever. God has been
+exceeding gracious in bringing us once more together, and we will not be
+ungrateful. Thy boys shall find a father in me, Alice, and should Elder
+May give me again my little John"&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Nay, the boy is well with his grandsire in Leyden, and my Constant and
+Thomas must abide with their father's folk for a while. They would not
+part from me unless I left the boys for a year or two."</p>
+
+<p>"And still thou wouldst come, Alice."</p>
+
+<p>"Dost mind what words Ruth said to Naomi, Will?"</p>
+
+<p>"Truly do I, Alice."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_388" id="Page_388">[Pg 388]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>And as the two long-parted lovers looked deep into each other's eyes
+there needed no further speech to show that the long winter was over and
+the time of the singing of birds had come.</p>
+
+<p>Two weeks from the arrival of the Anne all Plymouth put on festal gear
+and merry faces. Good cheer abounded in place of famine, for the
+new-comers were well stored with provision, and although this was not
+turned into the common stock, those who had promising crops&mdash;and
+since the Fast Day there had been no stint of rain, and the corn
+promised marvelously well&mdash;could always obtain dry provisions for
+the promise of a share in the green meat when it should be gathered.</p>
+
+<p>And fitting it was that Plymouth should keep holiday, for not only was
+it the governor's marriage morn, but Priscilla Molines, whom all her
+townsfolk loved, was to become John Alden's wife; and as the two friends
+could not be parted, Mary Chilton had promised upon the day of
+Priscilla's marriage to give her hand to John Winslow, one of the
+Fortune's pilgrims and brother of Edward and Gilbert. Finally John
+Howland so strongly pleaded his cause before the elder and his wife that
+they consented to give him Elizabeth Tilley to wife, young though she
+was, and to allow him to take her to the pretty cottage he had built
+upon The Street, next to Stephen Hopkins's substantial house on the
+corner of The Street and the King's Highway. John Alden also had built a
+cottage between the captain's house and the governor's; and Eaton with
+his wife Lois was to share a house with Peter Browne, who had manfully
+assumed the charge of Widow Martha Ford and her three children.</p>
+
+<p>Christian Penn, a stalwart lass, passenger of the Anne, was to make one
+of the governor's family, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_389" id="Page_389">[Pg 389]</a></span> literally to be "help" to his
+wife in the duties of the household, while Mary Becket consented to fill
+the same place in Edward Winslow's home.</p>
+
+<p>Barbara, cordially invited both by Alice Southworth and by Priscilla to
+become their perpetual guest, laughingly accepted both invitations,
+saying to Priscilla,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"When I find too much pepper in thy soup, Pris, I'll e'en go cool my
+tongue with Dame Alice's comfitures; and when I fancy one new-wed pair
+were as content without me, I'll e'en go and inflict myself upon
+t'&nbsp;other."</p>
+
+<p>"And the captain will keep house with only Hobomok," said Priscilla
+dubiously.</p>
+
+<p>"Nay, Kit Conant is to 'bide with them, and do certain service, and I
+shall still be in and out," said Barbara briskly. "Like enough the most
+they eat will be of my brewing. We shall do well enow for the captain.
+But, Priscilla, what ailed thee not to wed him, since his comfort sits
+so nigh thy heart?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why, 't&nbsp;is but Christian to pity them who are in need, yet none
+can wed with more than one man at a time, and from the first I knew that
+John Alden was the one for me. Wed him thyself, Barbara, and send Kit
+Conant about his business."</p>
+
+<p>A sudden color surged all over Barbara's face, and the wonderful eyes
+shot out an angry spark, but after a moment she quietly said,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Myles and I have ever been more like brother and sister than cousins.
+His mother was all as one with mine own."</p>
+
+<p>"Ay, and so it is. Yes, yes, I see," said Priscilla hurriedly, but when
+Barbara had left her she stood for many minutes drumming on the table,
+and thoughtfully<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_390" id="Page_390">[Pg 390]</a></span> gazing through the open door at the blue
+wonder of the sea.</p>
+
+<p>And now the wedding day had come, a glorious golden summer day, and some
+of the older folk, whose habits of early life held rigidly to the soil
+since planted anew to a Separatist crop, remembered that it was Lammas
+Day. One of these was Elizabeth, Master Warren's new-come wife, and as
+she looked abroad in the early morning, she sighed a bit and
+said,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"A year agone, Richard, I looked upon another guess sort of scene than
+this. The church bells were ringing and the people trooping in, and many
+was the goodwife who brought her loaf baked of the first-fruit wheat to
+offer it for the parson's table if not for the Communion"&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Nay wife, nay, remember Lot's wife," chided the husband, already so far
+upon his way to that abode of Light where shall be no Separatism and no
+uncharity.</p>
+
+<p>As all the world would fain be present at one or the other of the four
+marriages, it was concluded that they should be held in the open air,
+and the captain with much enthusiasm directed the spreading of an open
+tent, or, more properly, a canopy upon the greensward stretching across
+the King's Highway from Bradford's house to Hopkins's.</p>
+
+<p>This completed, and the military band paraded ready to salute the
+governor upon his arrival, Standish stood aside, wiping his brow, and
+looking jovially about him at the tables already spread with the wedding
+feast, which was thriftily to take the place of the villagers' ordinary
+dinner.</p>
+
+<p>"A cheerful and a refreshing season, Captain," said a staid voice at his
+elbow.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_391" id="Page_391">[Pg 391]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Ay," replied Standish briefly and with something of the good-humor gone
+from his face, for he had no great love for Isaac Allerton, Assistant of
+the Governor, and one of the principal men of the colony, though he was.</p>
+
+<p>"Methinks you and I might be principals instead of spectators at some
+such solemnity, and offend no law of God or man."</p>
+
+<p>"I know no law against your being wed if it pleases you, Master
+Allerton," replied the soldier briefly.</p>
+
+<p>"No&mdash;no, as you justly say, no law, Captain, and truth to tell I
+had it in my mind to speak to you this morning"&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"To me, to me!" exclaimed the captain, wheeling round and staring at the
+smooth face and narrow figure of the assistant. "Dost fancy that I am a
+pretty maid hid within a buff jerkin?"</p>
+
+<p>"Ha! ha! Our good captain still must have his joke. Nay then, in sober
+earnest my dear brother, your cousin, Mistress Barbara Standish, doth
+much commend herself to my mind as a discreet and godly maiden, notable
+in household ways, and of a mild and biddable nature. I fain would have
+her to wife, Standish, if I may do so with your consent."</p>
+
+<p>"Nay now, Master Allerton, your eyes are keener after a good chance for
+trucking than ever a pair in the colony, and I'm not saying that the
+governor could find a better assistant in his weighty affairs of State,
+but you've no more eye for a gentlewoman's good qualities than I have
+for a peddler's. 'Mild and biddable,' forsooth! Those virtues were left
+out when they brewed the Standish blood, Master Allerton, and courage
+and honor and some other trifles thrown in to make amends. Why man,
+should you wed Barbara Standish and raise<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_392" id="Page_392">[Pg 392]</a></span> a hand upon her as
+I've seen you do upon your daughters, woman-grown, I'd not answer but
+she'd have your life's blood for it; and if you bade her stint the
+measure of the corn she sold to your neighbors, she'd quit your roof and
+you, before you could say whiskerando! No, no, Master Allerton, best not
+try to mate yourself with a Standish. No luck would come on&nbsp;'t I
+promise you."</p>
+
+<p>"Methinks, Captain Standish," replied the councilor smoothly, although
+his pale face had taken a livid cast harmonizing with a green light in
+his narrow eyes,&mdash;"methinks you take over much upon yourself in
+this our land of liberty and God-given rights. Why should you decide so
+absolutely for Mistress Standish? Why may not she speak her own mind.
+She at least has no narrow and ignorant prejudice against me, unless
+indeed you have already instilled it into her mind."</p>
+
+<p>"Nay now, Allerton, dost in sober sadness suppose that in meeting my
+kinswoman after a five years' parting I chose you as my theme of
+discourse? As for the rest, I lay no constraint upon Mistress Standish.
+Speak to her if you will and as soon as you will, but tell her all the
+story, tell her of your grown children, and of your years"&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"They are no more than yours," sharply interrupted the councilor.</p>
+
+<p>"Did I say they were? Well, speak to her I say&mdash;ha, here come the
+brides. Now trumpets!"</p>
+
+<p>And as the trumpets blew a joyous fanfare and the drums and fife burst
+forth in a blithe jargon intended for the good old tune of Haste to the
+Wedding, out from the door of the governor's house came Bradford leading
+Alice Southworth, fair and delicate and sweet, yet with a little air of
+state about her, as one who had already<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_393" id="Page_393">[Pg 393]</a></span> known the honors of
+matronhood and now was called to become the wife of a ruler. Next came
+Priscilla, dressed in a fair white gown trimmed with old Flemish lace at
+which Mistress Winslow looked askance, her rich color a little subdued,
+and a somewhat tremulous curve to her ripe lips, while the great brown
+eyes were filled with a dreamy haze not far from tears. She was wedding
+the man of her love, but she stood all alone beside him, this brave yet
+tender-hearted Priscilla of ours,&mdash;she stood alone, and she thought
+of her mother, the mother so loved, so mourned, so near to that faithful
+heart to-day.</p>
+
+<p>Then came well-born, well-nurtured John Winslow and Mary Chilton, the
+fair English May whose sweet blossoms are ever upheld by such a sturdy
+and healthy stock, ay, and are protected by substantial thorns from
+meddling fingers even while its fragrance is graciously shed abroad for
+all the world to glory in.</p>
+
+<p>And last of all came John Howland, that "lusty yonge man" who on the
+voyage had been washed overboard and carried fathoms deep beneath the
+sea, yet by his courage and endurance survived the ordeal, and lived to
+found one of the chiefest Plymouth families. By the hand he led
+Elizabeth Tilley, a sweet slip of a girl, with true and loving eyes ever
+and anon glancing proudly at the stalwart form of the only man she ever
+loved, and yet never thought to win.</p>
+
+<p>Four noble and comely couple pacing through the grassy street and taking
+their places under the canopy where Elder Brewster, a magistrate, if not
+an ordained minister, stood beside a little table whereon was laid the
+colony's first Record Book brought by the Anne, and now to be used for
+the first time, for hitherto the "scanty an<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_394" id="Page_394">[Pg 394]</a></span>nals of the poor"
+settlement had been kept in Governor Bradford's note-book, now alas lost
+to posterity.</p>
+
+<p>The simple ceremony was soon over, and as the Separatists denied
+themselves the privilege of a religious service lest some taint of
+Papistry might lurk therein, Elder Brewster closed his magisterial
+office with a prayer in which Isaac and Rebecca were not forgotten, and
+about which hung a curious flavor of the Church of England service so
+familiar to the elder's youth.</p>
+
+<p>"Priscilla! Mine at last! My very own," whispered John Alden in his
+bride's ear as the group broke up and all the world pressed in to offer
+congratulations.</p>
+
+<p>"There, there, John, if thou hast but just discovered that notable fact
+I'll leave thee to digest it while I go to see that the dinner is served
+as it should be."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_395" id="Page_395">[Pg 395]</a></span></p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<h2>CHAPTER XXXVII.</h2>
+
+<h3>"AND TO BE WROTH WITH ONE WE LOVE."</h3>
+
+
+<p>"Barbara, hath Master Allerton asked thee to be his wife?" inquired
+Myles, as he and his cousin sat together upon the bench in front of his
+own house some few evenings after the weddings.</p>
+
+<p>"He spoke to the governor, and he to me," replied Barbara, a little
+spark of mirth glinting in her blue eyes.</p>
+
+<p>"And thou saidst?"&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"I said that I hardly knew Master Allerton by sight as yet, and was in
+no haste to wed."</p>
+
+<p>"What sort of yea-nay answer was that, thou silly wench? Why didst not
+say No, round and full?"</p>
+
+<p>"Because No, wrapped in gentle words, served my turn as well, cousin."</p>
+
+<p>"Come now, I do remember that tone of old, soft as snow and unbendable
+as ice. So 't&nbsp;is the same Barbara I quarreled with so oft, is it?
+Ever quite sure that her own way is the best, and ever watchful lest any
+should lay a finger on her free will."</p>
+
+<p>"Methinks, Myles, you give your kinswoman a somewhat unlovely temper of
+her own. How is it about Captain Standish in these days? Hath he grown
+meek and mild, and afraid to carry himself after his own mind?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why so tart, Barbara? Because I chid thee for trifling with
+Allerton?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_396" id="Page_396">[Pg 396]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Nay Myles, I made not yon weary voyage for the sake of quarreling with
+thee. Well dost thou know, cousin, I would not trifle with any man, and
+I begged the governor to enforce out of his own mouth the no-say that I
+worded gently, for truly there is no reason for me to flout the
+gentleman. How could he honor me more than to ask me to wife?"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, well, so long as thou hast said No and will stick to No, all is
+well; but I like not this man Allerton; he is too shrewd a trader for a
+simple gentleman to cope with. He sold me corn and gave scant measure,
+and I told him of it too. He likes me not better than I like him."</p>
+
+<p>"Rest easy, Myles, I'll never make him thy cousin. I care not if I never
+wed."</p>
+
+<p>"Nay, that's too far on t'&nbsp;other side the hedge. A comely and a
+winsome lass like thee is sure to wed, but what runs in my head,
+Barbara, is that there is none left here fit for thee. I would that
+Bradford had not been so constant to his old-time sweetheart. I would
+have given thee to him, for though his folk were but yeomen of the
+better sort there at home, here he is the Governor and playeth his part
+as well as any Howard or Percy of them all. Winslow cometh of good
+lineage and carrieth his coat-armor; but he and now his brother John are
+wed, and Gilbert will leave us anon, so that verily I see no man left
+with whom a Standish might fitly wed."</p>
+
+<p>A peal of merry laughter broke in upon the captain's meditative pause,
+and his indignant and astonished regard only seemed to aggravate the
+matter, until at last Barbara breathlessly exclaimed,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Nay Myles, for sweet pity's sake look not so glum,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_397" id="Page_397">[Pg 397]</a></span> nor devour
+me all at one mouthful. Dost remember how I used to tell thee to beware,
+for 'a little pot is soon hot,' and thine own wrath will choke thee some
+day?"</p>
+
+<p>"Glad am I to amuse you so pleasantly Mistress Standish, but may I ask
+the exact provocation to mirth I have just now offered?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh Myles, I meant not to chafe thy temper so sorely, and I pray thee
+hold me excused for untimely laughter; but in good sooth it so tickled
+my fancy to hear thee airing thine old world quips and quiddities about
+coat-armor, and one with whom a Standish might fitly wed, and yeomen
+snatched from oblivion by the saving grace of a governor's title! And
+look upon these rocks and wild woods and swart savages and thine own
+rude labors&mdash;nay then, but I must laugh or burst!"</p>
+
+<p>And giving way to her humor the girl trolled out peal after peal of
+delicious laughter, while her cousin folding his arms sat regarding her
+with an iron visage, which whenever she caught sight of it set her off
+again. At last, however, she wiped her eyes and penitently cried,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"I did not think myself so rude, Myles. Pr'ythee forgive me, cousin.
+Nay, look not so ungently upon me! Here's my hand on&nbsp;'t I am
+sorry."</p>
+
+<p>But the captain took not the offered hand nor unbent his angry brow.
+Rising from the bench he paced up and down for a moment, then stopping
+in front of Barbara calmly said,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Nay, I'm not angry. At first I was astonied that a gentlewoman could so
+forget herself; but I do remember that Thomas Standish, your father,
+married<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_398" id="Page_398">[Pg 398]</a></span> beneath his station, and so imported a strain into the
+blood of his noble house that will crop out now and again in his
+children. I should not therefore too much admire at such derelictions
+from courtesy and gentlehood as I but now have seen."</p>
+
+<p>As he slowly spoke his bitter words the lingering gleams of laughter and
+the softening lines of penitence faded from Barbara's face. Rising to
+her height, nearly equal with that of her cousin, she gazed full into
+his angry eyes with the blue splendor of her own all ablaze with
+indignation and contempt.</p>
+
+<p>"You dare to make light of my mother, do you, Captain Standish! My dear
+and dearly honored mother, who in her brave love endured the poverty and
+the labors that my father had no skill to save her from. My mother, who
+carried her noble husband upon her shoulders as it were, and would not
+even die till he was dead. Myles Standish, I take shame to myself that I
+am kin to you, and if ever I do wed, it shall be to lose my name and
+forget my lineage."</p>
+
+<p>She passed him going down the hill, but with a long step he overtook
+her, saying almost timidly,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Nay, nay, thou&nbsp;'rt over sharp with me, Barbara! I said, and I
+meant, no word against thy mother, of whom I ever heard report as one of
+the sweetest and faithfullest of wives"&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"There, that will do, sir. My mother needs no praise of yours, and,
+thanks be to God, hath gone where she may rest from the burden of her
+high marriage. Let me pass an&nbsp;'t please you, Master Captain."</p>
+
+<p>"But Barbara, nay Barbara, stay but to hear a word"&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"There have been words enow and to spare. I go<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_399" id="Page_399">[Pg 399]</a></span> now to tell the
+governor that I am minded to take passage in the Anne once more. My
+mother's folk in Bedfordshire, yeomen all of them, Captain Standish,
+will make me gay and welcome, and with them and such as them will I live
+and die."</p>
+
+<p>"And fill thy leisure with fashioning silk purses out of fabric
+thou&nbsp;'lt find to hand," cried the captain, his temper flashing up
+again; but Barbara neither turned nor replied as she fled down the hill
+to hide the tears she could no longer restrain.</p>
+
+<p>Howbeit she said no word to Bradford of the return passage, a fact which
+Standish easily discovered when early next morning he met the governor
+and stopped to say to him,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Well met, Will; I was on my road to seek thee, man."</p>
+
+<p>"Ay, and for what, brother?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why, Will, I'm moped with naught to do, and all these strange faces at
+every turn. I liked it better when we were to ourselves and it was only
+to fight the Neponsets now and again. I fain would find some work
+further agate than yon palisado."</p>
+
+<p>"Why, then, thy wish and my desire fit together as cup and ball, for
+here is the Little James unladen and idle. She is to stay with us, thou
+knowest, for use in trading and fishing, but Bridges, her master, saith
+some of his men are grumbling already at prospect of such peaceful
+emprises. They fain would go buccaneering in the Spanish Seas, or
+discover some such road to hasty fortune, albeit bloody and violent.
+Master Bridges and I agreed that it was best to find work for these
+uneasy souls withouten too much delay, and I told him we had been
+thinking to send a party to look after the fishing-<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_400" id="Page_400">[Pg 400]</a></span>stage we
+built last year at Cape Ann. Gloucester, they say Roger Conant hath
+named the place already. Now what say you, Myles? Will take some men and
+join them to Bridges' buccaneers, and hold all in hand and start them on
+fishing?"</p>
+
+<p>"'T&nbsp;will suit me woundy well, governor. Howbeit, 't&nbsp;is not the
+time for cod, is it?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, but mackerel and bluefish are in season, and at all odds 't&nbsp;is
+well to be on hand to claim the staging, for Conant hath sent word by an
+Indian that some English ships were harrying our fishermen at Monhegan,
+and we had best look to our properties in those regions."</p>
+
+<p>"Ay, ay, 't&nbsp;is as thou sayest, Will, like cup and ball, thy need
+and my desire. How soon can we sail?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why, to-night, an' it pleaseth thee. Bridges is in haste to get off,
+and the sooner the Little James is afloat the more content he will find
+himself. And as to thy company. Here is a minute of the men I had
+thought on."</p>
+
+<p>"H&mdash;m, h&mdash;m," muttered the captain glancing over the list
+handed him by Bradford. "Yes, these are sound good fellows all, and none
+of them burthened with wives. And by that same token, Will, thou and thy
+dame will care for my kinswoman, and bar Master Allerton from
+persecuting her with his most mawkish suit while I am gone?"</p>
+
+<p>"Surely, Myles, we'll care for Mistress Barbara, who is to my wife as
+one of her own sisters."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, the Carpenters are gentlefolk, if not a county family like ours,"
+said Standish simply. Bradford stared a little, but only replied,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Then I put the command in your hands, Captain, and you will order
+matters as suits your own con<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_401" id="Page_401">[Pg 401]</a></span>venience and pleasure. Master
+Bridges will welcome you right gladly."</p>
+
+<p>And before the sun, just risen over Manomet, sank behind Captain's Hill,
+the Little James had rounded the Gurnet, and was standing on for Cape
+Ann, with Myles Standish leaning against her mainmast, and smoking the
+pipe Hobomok had bestowed upon him with the assurance that he who used
+it carried a charmed life so long as it remained unbroken. The captain's
+arms were folded and his eyes fixed upon the fort-crowned hill where lay
+his home, but it was not of fort or home that he mused as at the last he
+muttered,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"And yet I glory in thy spirit, thou proud peat!"</p>
+
+<p>Early the next morning Standish was somewhat roughly roused from his
+slumbers by Master Bridges, who, shaking his shoulder, cried,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Here, Captain, here's gear for thee. Rouse thee, Master!"</p>
+
+<p>"What is&nbsp;'t, Bridges? What's to do, man? Are the savages upon us?"</p>
+
+<p>"Nay, but pirates, or as good."</p>
+
+<p>"Ha! That's well. Send all your small arms on deck, Master Bridges, pipe
+to quarters, train your falcon&mdash;I'll be on deck anon"&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Nay, but you do somewhat mistake, Captain. I said indeed pirates, but
+that's not sure. There is a little ship anchored within a cable's length
+of the James, and her men are busy on shore with the fishing-stage which
+Lister saith is yours"&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"And so it is, every sliver of it."</p>
+
+<p>"Mayhap, then, you'll come on deck and tell these merry men as much, for
+they do only jeer at me."</p>
+
+<p>"They'll not jeer long when my snaphance joins in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_402" id="Page_402">[Pg 402]</a></span> the debate,"
+said Standish grimly as he followed the master up the companion way.</p>
+
+<p>"Hail me yon craft, and ask for her commandant," ordered he, glancing
+rapidly over the scene. Bridges obeyed, and got reply that Master Hewes,
+captain of the Fisherman out of Southampton, was on shore with all his
+men except the ship-keeper, who, however, spared the jibes with which he
+had seasoned his reply to Bridges' first informal hail.</p>
+
+<p>"The wind is fair, the tide flood. Carry your craft further in-shore,
+Master Bridges, that we may parley with these pirates from the vantage
+ground of our own deck," ordered the captain, and was obeyed so fairly
+that the Little James presently lay hove-to within a biscuit-toss of the
+staging, where some fifteen or twenty men were diligently employed in
+curing a take of fish.</p>
+
+<p>A short sharp colloquy ensued, Standish claiming the erection and its
+precincts as the property of Plymouth, and ordering the interlopers to
+at once release it, and to carry away their fish and their utensils,
+leaving room for the lawful owners' occupancy.</p>
+
+<p>To this demand Hewes impudently replied that when he had done with the
+fish-flakes he cared not who used them, and that he would abandon the
+place when it suited his own convenience, and not before.</p>
+
+<p>"Well and good; then we shall come and take it," shouted the captain in
+conclusion, and turning his attention in-board, he rapidly divided his
+men and Bridges' into two storming parties, while a watch left on board
+was to take charge of the light falcon mounted on deck, and at a signal
+from shore to begin the dance by firing upon the staging which Hewes was
+already barricading with a row of barrels, behind which he rapidly
+posted his men, musket in hand, and matches alight.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_403" id="Page_403">[Pg 403]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Now by St. Lawrence!" cried Standish, watching these preparations. "But
+the fellow hath a pretty notion of a barricado! I could not have done so
+very much better in his place. 'T&nbsp;is fairer fortune than we could
+look for, to meet so ready a fellow, and you shall see some pretty sport
+anon, Master Bridges."</p>
+
+<p>But at this moment a little group of men hastening from the fishing huts
+marking the present site of Gloucester, appeared upon the scene, and in
+their leader both Standish and Bridges recognized Roger Conant, a friend
+and sometime visitor of Plymouth, who immediately upon arrival of the
+Anne had gone to join some friends fishing at Monhegan, and now, with
+them, was establishing a sister station at Gloucester. Warned by the
+Indians that Hewes had seized the Plymouth fishing-stage, and seeing the
+Little James entering the bay, Conant hastened to collect his friends
+and present himself upon the scene of action to act as mediator, or ally
+of Plymouth, as circumstances might direct.</p>
+
+<p>"We have come none too soon, men!" exclaimed Conant breathlessly as at a
+run he rounded the headland closing in the cove, and saw upon the
+barricaded staging Hewes and his men blowing at their matches, while
+Standish, his eyes aflame and an angry smile upon his lips, sprang
+ashore and hurried his men out of the boat.</p>
+
+<p>"Now glad am I to see you, Master Conant," cried Bridges, already
+waiting upon the beach, and hastening toward him he said in a lower
+voice. "Our captain hath got on his fighting cap, and thrown discretion
+to the winds. 'T&nbsp;will be an ill day for Plymouth if her men are led
+on to kill Englishmen fishing with the king's license."<span class='pagenum'><a
+name="Page_404" id="Page_404">[Pg 404]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Ay indeed will it. Bide a bit till I can parley with both thy captain
+and Hewes, who is not an ill fellow if one handleth him gingerly."</p>
+
+<p>"Gingerly goeth not smoothly with peppery, and&nbsp;'t is but half the
+truth to call our captain that," said Bridges with a dry smile, as
+Conant passed him to reach Standish who was marshaling his men upon the
+sands.</p>
+
+<p>Too long it were to detail the arguments of the man of peace, the
+delicate manipulation of the tempers of both parties, the concessions
+wrung from the one side and the other, until after several hours' debate
+Standish moodily said,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Well Conant, sith you put it so, sith you make it out that by enforcing
+the colony's right I do but attack the colony's life, I yield, for I am
+sworn defender and champion of Plymouth and her prosperity, and never
+shall it be said that Myles Standish preferred his own quarrel to the
+well-being of those he had sworn to protect. To leave yon fellow
+unscathed for his insolence, sits like a blister on a raw wound, but go
+and make what terms you can with him. I suppose you require not that I
+abandon the colony's property altogether to him."</p>
+
+<p>"Nay, nay, Captain, but I am thinking that my comrades and I, with some
+of the Little James' men and Master Hewes' company, should clap to and
+run up another staging in a few hours either for the new-comers or the
+Plymouth men"&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"For Plymouth if you would pleasure me. I would not my men should take
+the leavings of yon rabble at any price," interrupted Standish
+haughtily.</p>
+
+<p>"So be it, and if Hewes with his men will do their best, and Master
+Bridges and you will send your crew to help, we also will labor in the
+common cause until<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_405" id="Page_405">[Pg 405]</a></span> each party shall have a staging of its own,
+and the bond of Christian charity need not be broken."</p>
+
+<p>"That same bond will be all the safer if I may get away from here with
+as small delay as may be," retorted Standish.</p>
+
+<p>"And that too shall be," replied Conant cheerfully. "For I fain would
+speak with the Master of the Anne before she sails, and I'll e'en take
+our own pinnace and set you across the bay, and be back again before my
+mates have well missed me."</p>
+
+<p>"So wilt thou save me from some such explosion as befalls when a little
+pot is tightly closed and its contents overheated," replied Myles with a
+grim smile, and although Conant stared at the odd simile, he paused not
+to ask its solution, but so hastened the building of the stage and the
+other business of the day that when sunset fell, the two men, leaving
+the rest at an amicable supper eaten in common, spread the wide sails of
+their pinnace to a fitful western wind, and skimmed southward under the
+soothing and chastening light of the new-risen moon.</p>
+
+<p>The western wind though often sighing in capricious languor never quite
+deserted those who trusted to it, and at a good hour next morning the
+pinnace dropped her anchor beside the Anne, and her dory carried the two
+mew ashore just as Plymouth woke to a new day.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_406" id="Page_406">[Pg 406]</a></span></p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<h2>CHAPTER XXXVIII.</h2>
+
+<h3>BARBARA.</h3>
+
+
+<p>"Wilt give me some breakfast, Priscilla?" asked a well-known voice, as
+Mistress Alden bent to uncover her bake kettle, or Dutch oven, to see if
+the manchets of fine flour her husband liked so heartily were well
+browned.</p>
+
+<p>"Lord-a-mercy!" cried she nearly dropping the cover and springing to her
+feet. "What, 't&nbsp;is truly thee, Captain, and not thy spook? Why
+'t&nbsp;was but yester e'en Dame Bradford told me thou wert away with
+Master Bridges on a fishing adventure, and none might guess the day of
+thy return."</p>
+
+<p>"She said so, did she?" replied the captain; "and who heard it beside
+thee, Priscilla?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why&mdash;now let me think&mdash;yea and verily, Christian Penn was in
+the room and no doubt heard the sad tidings though she said naught."</p>
+
+<p>"And none beside, Mistress Alden?"</p>
+
+<p>"None&mdash;nay, now I think on&nbsp;'t, thy kinswoman Barbara was in
+presence. But there, my manchets will be burnt to crusts. Sit thee down,
+Captain, sit thee down."</p>
+
+<p>"And what said Mistress Standish anent my going?" asked Myles seating
+himself upon a three-legged stool and doffing his slouched hat.</p>
+
+<p>Priscilla looked at him with one of the keen glances which John declared
+counted the cockles of a man's<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_407" id="Page_407">[Pg 407]</a></span> heart. Then she smiled with an
+air of satisfaction and replied,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Barbara said naught, and so told me much."</p>
+
+<p>"Told thee much? Come now, Priscilla, spare me thine old-time jibes and
+puzzlements and show thyself true womanly, and mine own honest friend.
+I'm sore bestead, Priscilla&mdash;I have a quarrel with Myles Standish,
+and 't&nbsp;is as big a fardel as my shoulders will bear. Tell me what
+Barbara's silence meant to thee?"</p>
+
+<p>"It meant that it was her doings that thou hadst gone, and that thy
+going both angered and grieved her, Captain."</p>
+
+<p>"Angered, mayhap."</p>
+
+<p>"Yea, and grieved. She ate no supper, although I prayed her to taste a
+new confection of mine own invention."</p>
+
+<p>"Priscilla, dost think Master Allerton would be&mdash;would make
+a"&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Would be the right goodman for Barbara? No, and no again, I think
+naught of the kind."</p>
+
+<p>"Ah! You women are so quick upon the trigger, Priscilla. I would my
+snaphance went to the aim as lightly and as surely as your or Barbara's
+thought."</p>
+
+<p>"Come now, Captain, the manchets are done, and the fish is broiled, and
+the porridge made. Wait but till I call the goodman and open a pottle of
+my summer beer; 't&nbsp;is dear Dame Brewster's diet-drink, with a
+thought more flavor to it, and John says&mdash;ah, here thou art, thou
+big sluggard. We need no horn to call thee to thy meat."</p>
+
+<p>Entering the cottage with a grin upon his lips and the promise of a kiss
+in his eyes, Alden started joyfully at sight of the Captain, and at
+Priscilla's impatient<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_408" id="Page_408">[Pg 408]</a></span> summons he bashfully took the head of the
+table and asked the blessing upon his family and their daily bread,
+which was then the undisputed duty of every head of a household. The
+captain ate well, as Priscilla slyly noted; and as she rose from the
+table and began rapidly to carry the few pewter and wooden dishes to the
+scullery John had added to the two rooms and loft comprising the
+cottage, she muttered,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"What fools we women be! When they care for us the most, a savory dish
+will comfort them, and we must pule, and pine, and pale&mdash;ah!"</p>
+
+<p>For the captain had followed and stood at the housewife's elbow with a
+confused and somewhat foolish smile upon his face.</p>
+
+<p>"Wilt do me a favour, Priscilla?"</p>
+
+<p>"Gladly, as thou knowest, sir."</p>
+
+<p>"Nay, sir me no sirs, Priscilla! Take me for thine own familiar friend
+as already I am Alden's."</p>
+
+<p>"'T&nbsp;is an ill-advised quotation, Captain, for the 'own familiar
+friend' of the Psalmist proved a false one. But ne'ertheless I'll wear
+the cap, and haply prove as true as another to my promise. What can I do
+for thee, Captain?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why&mdash;as thou dost seem to surmise, Priscilla, there is a question
+between Barbara and me&mdash;truth to tell I gave her just matter of
+offense, and now I've thought better on&nbsp;'t and fain would tell her
+so, and yet I fear me if I ask outright she'll not let me come to speech
+of her."</p>
+
+<p>"Ay, ay, good friend, I see," exclaimed Priscilla, holding up her
+slender shapely hand. "And here's the cat's-paw that's to pull thy
+chestnuts from the fire!"</p>
+
+<p>"Nay Priscilla"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_409" id="Page_409">[Pg 409]</a></span>&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Yea Captain! Put not thy wit to further distress, good friend, for it
+needs not; I see all and more than all thou couldst tell me. Go thy way
+to the Fort, and look over thy dear guns and wait until thou
+seest&mdash;what thou wilt see."</p>
+
+<p>And with a little push the young matron thrust her guest out of the open
+door of the scullery, and hasted to finish her own labors.</p>
+
+<p>Almost an hour passed and the Captain of the Armies of New England had
+uncovered and examined and sighted and petted each gun in his armament
+more than once; had considered the range of the saker, the minion, the
+falcon, and the bases; and had stood gazing blankly at the whitened
+skull of Wituwamat above the gate of the Fort until the wrens who nested
+there began to fly restlessly in and out, fancying that the captain
+planned an invasion of their territory. He still stood in this posture
+when the rustle of a footfall among the dried herbage reached his quick
+ear, and turning he confronted Barbara, whose down-dropt eyes hid the
+gleam of amusement the sight of his melancholy attitude had kindled in
+their depths.</p>
+
+<p>"Priscilla says that you have returned home from the fishing because you
+were but poorly, cousin, and she would have me come and ask if you cared
+to speak with the chirurgeon who is going afield presently."</p>
+
+<p>"So chill, so frozen, Barbara? Is&nbsp;'t so a kinswoman should speak
+with one ill at ease both in mind and body?"</p>
+
+<p>"I came but as a messenger, sir, and venture not to presume upon any
+claim of kindred to one who joins the blood of Percivale to that of
+Standish."</p>
+
+<p>"Nay now, nay now, Barbara!&mdash;Here, come to the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_410" id="Page_410">[Pg 410]</a></span> shaded side
+of the Fort, and sit you down where we two sat"&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"We two sat on the bench without your door the last parley that we had,
+good cousin."</p>
+
+<p>"'Gentle tongues aye give the sharpest wounds,' and it is thou who
+provest the proverb true, Barbara."</p>
+
+<p>"Nay, I'll sit me down and listen with all meekness to what thou hast to
+say, Captain Standish."</p>
+
+<p>"Thanks for even so much courtesy, Barbara, for I have sought thee to
+say that I deserve none at thy hands. I, to whose protection and
+comforting thou hast come across the sea, have treated thee as no
+base-born churl hath warrant for treating the meanest of woman-kind. I,
+to pride myself upon gentle blood and knightly training, and then throw
+insult and taunt upon a woman's unshielded head! Nay, Barbara, had any
+man three days agone forecast my doing such a thing, I had hurled the
+lie in his teeth, and haply crammed it down with Gideon's hilt.
+Nay&mdash;the good sword may well be ashamed of his master; well may I
+look for him to shiver in my grasp when next I draw him"&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Myles! Myles, I'll hear no more! Nay then, not a word, or I shall hold
+it proven that my wish is naught to thee, for all thy contrite sayings.
+I fear me Priscilla is right, and thou&nbsp;'rt truly ill. This hot sun
+hath touched thy head with some such distemper as sped poor Master
+Carver. Sit thee down here beside me, and I'll fetch cool water from the
+spring to bathe thy temples."</p>
+
+<p>"It needs not, cousin. My distemper is of the mind, the heart; nay, it
+is wounded honor, lass, and there's no ill of body can sting a man so
+shrewdly as that. Say that I have thy pardon, Barbara, if thou canst say
+it in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_411" id="Page_411">[Pg 411]</a></span> truth, and 't&nbsp;will be better than any med'cine in
+Fuller's chest."</p>
+
+<p>"Why, certes, Myles, thou hast my forgiveness and over and over for any
+rough word thou mayst have said, and in sober sadness I mind not what
+they were, for all my thought hath been of my unkindness to thee. Myles,
+I never told thee, but when thy mother lay a-dying, and thou far away,
+fighting the Spaniards in Holland, she bade me care for thee even as she
+would have done, and fill a sister's place&mdash;and more, and I laid my
+hand in hers and promised sacredly, and so she rested content."</p>
+
+<p>"And why didst never tell me this before, cousin?"</p>
+
+<p>"I know not&mdash;nay, but that's not all out true, and I'll tell thee
+no lies, Myles. When next thou camest to our poor home at Man, thou
+didst see Rose, and from the first I knew well enow that there'd be no
+need of sister-care for one who found so sweet a wife."</p>
+
+<p>"Ay, she was sweet,&mdash;sweet as her pretty name. Dost know, Barbara,
+when these bushes burgeon in early summer with their soft and fragrant
+bloom it ever minds me of that sweet and fragile Rose that lies
+beneath."</p>
+
+<p>But Barbara was silent.</p>
+
+<p>"Ah well, ah well, 't&nbsp;is a brief chapter strangely at odds with the
+rude life wherein it found itself, and now 't&nbsp;is closed, and better
+so for her. She could not have bloomed among these dreary sands and
+savage woods; it was not fitting."</p>
+
+<p>He paced a few steps back and forward, and Barbara rose, her clear eyes
+full of a woman's noble and patient strength.</p>
+
+<p>"And so, Myles, we are at peace again, and I at least will make it my
+endeavor that there shall be no such breach of charity in the
+future.'"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_412" id="Page_412">[Pg 412]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Nay, Barbara, stay a little, I pray thee. I have somewhat to say, for
+which in advance I must ask thy patience and indulgence. Thou&nbsp;'lt
+not be angered at me so soon again, Barbara?"</p>
+
+<p>"Nay, I'll not be angered, cousin." But Barbara's voice was very sad.</p>
+
+<p>"'T&nbsp;is this, and I thought of it all last night as we flitted in
+the moonlight across the bay, and what thou sayest of my mother's charge
+to thee fits my thought like hand and glove. Why should not we two wed,
+Barbara?"</p>
+
+<p>He turned and looked at her, and stood amazed to see how the steadfast
+calm of her face broke up in a tempest of indignation, of grief, of
+outraged womanhood.</p>
+
+<p>"Why, Barbara! Why, cousin! What is it, what have I said? What ails
+thee, dear? What works upon thee so cruelly?"</p>
+
+<p>"That any man should dare fancy it of me&mdash;there, there, let be, let
+me pass, let me go!"</p>
+
+<p>"Nay, then, I'll not let thee go. I'm but a rude bungler in these
+women-ways, and I've said or done somewhat that wounds thee sorely, and
+I'll not let thee go till 't&nbsp;is all outsaid and I have once more
+cleared myself of at least willful offense toward thee."</p>
+
+<p>"Wilt keep me by force, sir?"</p>
+
+<p>"Ay maid I will, for 't&nbsp;is only in bodily strength that I'm thy
+match, and so for the moment I will e'en use it. Sit thee here now and
+listen yet again, as I say, Why may not we two wed, cousin Barbara?
+Thou&nbsp;'rt not mine own cousin, thou knowest, child;&nbsp;'t&nbsp;was
+thy father and mine were in that bond; and&mdash;now bear with me,
+Barbara&mdash;I've a shrewd suspicion that my mother bade thee be not a
+sister but a wife to me. Truth now, did she not, maid?"<span class='pagenum'><a
+name="Page_413" id="Page_413">[Pg 413]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"She could not guide either my love or thine, so why would she try?"</p>
+
+<p>"Nay, that's no answer, lass, but we'll let the question go. There's not
+a woman alive, Barbara, so dear to me as thou; there's none I hold in
+greater reverence or trust; there's none with whom I would so gladly
+live out my days, and&mdash;though now I risk thy scorn,&mdash;there's
+none whose lineage I so respect"&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"What, the Henley lineage?" murmured Barbara, with face averted to hide
+a smile.</p>
+
+<p>"Nay, thou&nbsp;'rt all Standish, Barbara! Thou&nbsp;'rt more Standish
+than I, for thou hast the eyes of those old portraits my poor father
+vainly tried to wrest from his cousin Alexander. Let me look at those
+eyes, Barbara!"</p>
+
+<p>"And so because it suits thy convenience to make me thy wife, thou takst
+no heed of mine own fancies," said Barbara, not heeding this request.
+"And I pray thee unhand me, for I promise to patiently abide till thou
+hast said thy say."</p>
+
+<p>"Now there again thou dost me wrong, lass, for as I told thee
+t'&nbsp;other day there's no bachelor here fit to wed with thee, there's
+none I'd give thee to, nor would I see thee wither away unwed."</p>
+
+<p>"Gramercy cousin, but methinks that is a question I well might settle
+for myself."</p>
+
+<p>"Why nay, sith there is no gentleman unwed among our company, save
+Allerton, whom I love as little as thou dost."</p>
+
+<p>"I care not for any"&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"I know it, Barbara, I know it well. Thou&nbsp;'rt that rare marvel, a
+woman sufficing unto herself, for as I<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_414" id="Page_414">[Pg 414]</a></span> believe, thou hast never
+fancied any man, though more than one hath fancied thee."</p>
+
+<p>"'T&nbsp;is my cold heart," murmured Barbara with a little smile
+strangled in its birth.</p>
+
+<p>"Nay," replied her cousin thoughtfully as he pulled at his moustache and
+gazed upon the ground at his feet. "Nay, I call thee not so much
+heartless as fancy-free. Thou&nbsp;'rt kind and gentle, ay, and loving
+as my dear mother knew. I'm well content with thy heart for such as it
+is, Barbara, if thou&nbsp;'lt but give it me."</p>
+
+<p>"Nay, Myles, I'm deadly sure I've none to give, and out of nothing
+nothing comes."</p>
+
+<p>"Thou ne'er canst love me, Barbara?"</p>
+
+<p>"No more than I love thee now, Myles."</p>
+
+<p>"With calm cousin-love thou meanest?"</p>
+
+<p>"I am ill skilled at logic, Myles. I cannot set out my feelings in class
+and order, as our chirurgeon doth his herbs and flowers."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, Barbara, I'm grieved that thou lookest upon me so coldly, but I
+draw not back from my petition. I'd liefer have thy calm tenderness than
+another's hot love, for I can trust thee as I trust mine own honor, and
+I know full well that thou&nbsp;'lt ever be better than thy word. So
+take me, Barbara, for thy husband, and fulfill the dear mother's last
+desire, and give me the hope of teaching thee in the days to come to
+love me even as I love thee."</p>
+
+<p>But for all answer Barbara only turned and laid her hands in his, and
+slowly raised the wonder of her eyes until they looked straight into
+his; and the man whose front had never quailed in face of death or
+danger grew pallid beneath his bronze, and trembled like a leaf in the
+wind.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_415" id="Page_415">[Pg 415]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"What!&mdash;Barbara!&mdash;Dost really love me, maid? Nay, cheat me
+not&mdash;speak! Dost love me, sweetheart, already?"</p>
+
+<p>But Barbara said never a word, nor did Myles ever know more of the
+secret of her life than in that one supreme moment he read in her
+steadfast eyes.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_416" id="Page_416">[Pg 416]</a></span></p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<h2>CHAPTER XXXIX.</h2>
+
+<h3>A MILITARY WEDDING.</h3>
+
+
+<p>"And thou&nbsp;'rt not amazed, Elsie, that our captain and his kinswoman
+will wed?" asked Governor Bradford of his wife in the privacy of the
+family bedroom.</p>
+
+<p>"No more than at the sun's rising in the East," replied Alice with a
+demure little smile.</p>
+
+<p>"Hm! Master Galileo saith the sun riseth not at all, and though the
+power of Rome caused him to gainsay it, he did tell me privily in
+Amsterdam that it was sooth, and the sun bided forever in the one place
+while this round world turned over daily."</p>
+
+<p>"I ever thought the good man was a little crazed," replied Mistress
+Bradford serenely. "Like Paul, much learning had made him mad."</p>
+
+<p>"Nay wife,&nbsp;'t was Festus charged Paul with madness, because the
+apostle knew more than himself. Haply&nbsp;'t is so with Master
+Galileo."</p>
+
+<p>"It may be, William. These be not matters for women to meddle withal,"
+replied Alice meekly.</p>
+
+<p>"But anent our captain's wooing of his cousin, Elsie? How is&nbsp;'t
+thou&nbsp;'rt not amazed like the rest of us?"</p>
+
+<p>"Because I saw long since that Barbara would never wed another than her
+cousin, and thou knowest, Will, how like draws to like, even across the
+waste of ocean."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_417" id="Page_417">[Pg 417]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Ay dame, I know it well and sweetly, and never shall I forget to give
+thanks to Him whose wisdom reacheth from end to end, sweetly ordering
+all things. But how chanced Mistress Barbara to confess her fondness to
+thee, sweetheart?"</p>
+
+<p>"Nay now! Though men do be our masters in most things, how dull they
+still show themselves in others. As if a maid, or for that matter a
+widow, would ever 'confess her fondness' for any man till he had wooed
+her so to do, and but coyly then, if she be wise."</p>
+
+<p>"Too coyly for him to credit her with overmuch tenderness," suggested
+the bridegroom.</p>
+
+<p>"Facts speak louder than words, and if a woman will set herself upon far
+and perilous journeys, and compass sea and land to come to him who
+calleth her, methinks he need not doubt her friendship for him. Nay now,
+nay now, we talk of Barbara and the Captain, and I'll tell thee. Since I
+was left alone in London,&mdash;so lonely too in my wide house in Duke's
+Place,&mdash;I have taken dear and sweet counsel with Barbara, whom I
+first knew in the congregation of Pastor Jacob, and she hath been my
+guest for weeks and months at a time, so that if any two women know each
+other well, their names are Barbara and Alice."</p>
+
+<p>"But yet she never told thee that she loved her cousin? Now that is
+passing strange."</p>
+
+<p>"'T would to my mind have been far stranger had she so bewrayed
+herself."</p>
+
+<p>"But still those gentle eyes of thine read the secret of her heart?"</p>
+
+<p>"I did mistrust it for long, but when I had thy letter, Will, and
+settled my mind to come to thee, I told Barbara somewhat of the old
+story"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_418" id="Page_418">[Pg 418]</a></span>&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Of how thou wast minded to spite thy comely face by cutting off its
+nose?"</p>
+
+<p>But Mistress Bradford had no smile for her husband's somewhat coarse
+jest, and went quietly on,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"And I told her, too, that her kinsman, Myles, had lost the sweet wife
+of whom she had so often and so gently spoken; and at the last I told
+her I was minded to sell all that I had and go to our folk in New
+England, and I asked her would she go, to be ever and always my dear
+sister if no other home should offer, and though we said no word that
+day of Captain Standish, sure am I that he was in both our minds. And
+now, dear man, dost see through the millstone?"</p>
+
+<p>"Ay, since woman's wit hath delved a hole, I can see through it as well
+as another." And the governor kissed his wife as merrily as another man,
+while she adjusting the demure matron's cap about her fair young face
+went out to see that the breakfast was fairly spread.</p>
+
+<p>A fortnight later when the Anne had sailed, and the Little James had
+returned and gone again upon a luckless fishing trip, and the new-comers
+had settled into their appointed places, and the town was once more
+quiet, there came a fair September day when work was laid aside, and
+after breakfast the armies of the colony, at least a hundred souls in
+all,&mdash;if we count the trumpeters, the buglers, the fifers, and the
+drummers,&mdash;assembled on the Training Green just across the brook,
+and after some evolutions marched in orderly array back again past the
+spring and up the hill to the governor's house, where they were joined
+by him and the elder. Then up and on to the captain's house, where a
+guard of honor presented itself at the door, and ushered forth<span class='pagenum'><a
+name="Page_419" id="Page_419">[Pg 419]</a></span> the chief, carefully dressed in
+his uniform of state, while at his side merrily clanked Gideon,
+resplendent, though none but he and his master knew it, in such a
+furbishing and polishing as seldom had fallen to his lot before.</p>
+
+<p>Saluting his comrades gravely and with somewhat more of dignity than his
+wont, the captain took his place, and the procession climbed the short
+ascent remaining to the door of the Fort, where entered the dignitaries
+and as many more as could find room. Here in the great room now used as
+a place of worship a group of matrons and maids awaited them, with
+Barbara in their midst, fair and stately in her white robes, the glory
+of her eyes outvying any jewels she could have worn.</p>
+
+<p>The meagre civil service was spoken by the governor, but at the request
+of both bride and bridegroom the elder made a prayer to which the
+captain listened more reverently than his wont, and cried Amen more
+heartily.</p>
+
+<p>Then they came forth these two Standishes made one, and the train band
+escorted them to their home, and fired a salute of honor, whose
+reverberating waves rolling across the waters broke at last upon the
+foot of Captain's Hill, sighing away into silence over the quiet plain
+where one day should be dug a warrior's grave, marked head and foot with
+a great three-cornered stone.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_420" id="Page_420">[Pg 420]</a></span></p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<h2>CHAPTER XL.</h2>
+
+<h3>"PARTING IS SUCH SWEET SORROW."</h3>
+
+
+<p>And so, tenderly, reluctantly, lingeringly we leave them, these dear
+ones whose memory we cherish so lovingly, and in the sober reality of
+whose lives lies a charm no romance can ever reach.</p>
+
+<p>Would you know more of them, for there are, as the Sultana promised
+morning by morning, stranger and better things to come than these that
+have been told, go read the annals of the Pilgrims, those precious
+fragments left to us by Bradford and by Winslow, and a letter written by
+De Rasi&egrave;res, Secretary of the Dutch Colony at Manhattan, who,
+visiting Plymouth upon a diplomatic errand in 1627, wrote to his
+superiors a letter preserved in the Royal Library of Holland wherein he
+draws this little picture of the town we have tried to reproduce, and
+mentions some of these dear friends whose lives we know so much better
+than he did.</p>
+
+<p>"New Plymouth lies on the slope of a hill, stretching east toward the
+sea-coast with a broad street about a cannon shot long, leading down the
+hill with a cross street in the middle going southward to the rivulet,
+and northward to the land. The houses are constructed of hewn planks,
+with gardens also enclosed behind, and at the sides, with hewn planks,
+so that their houses and court-yards are arranged in very good order,
+with a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_421" id="Page_421">[Pg 421]</a></span> stockade against a sudden attack; and at the ends of the
+streets there are three wooden gates. In the centre on the cross street
+stands the Governor's house, before which is a square erection upon
+which four patereros are mounted so as to flank along the streets.</p>
+
+<p>"Upon the hill they have a large square house, with a flat roof made of
+thick sawn planks stayed with oak beams, upon the top of which they have
+six cannons which shoot iron balls of four or five pounds and command
+the surrounding country. The lower part they use for their church, where
+they preach on Sundays and the usual holidays. They assemble by beat of
+drum, each with his musket or firelock, in front of the Captain's door;
+they have their cloaks on, and place themselves in order three abreast,
+and are led by a sergeant without beat of drum. Behind comes the
+Governor in a long robe; beside him on the right hand comes the preacher
+with his cloak on, and on the left hand the Captain with his side-arms
+and cloak on, and with a small cane in his hand; and so they march in
+good order, and each sets his arms down near him. Thus they are
+constantly on their guard night and day."</p>
+
+<p>But after all, glad as we are of this little loophole pierced through
+the mists of antiquity, the fashion of our friends' houses and
+court-yards, their cloaks and muskets and quaint Sunday procession are
+not as valuable to us as the story of their individual lives: the story
+of Priscilla and John Alden and their children; of Myles, military power
+of the colony, beyond his threescore years and ten; of Barbara, called
+his "dear wife" in the dignified Last Will, wherein he bequeaths
+"Ormistic, Bousconge, Wrightington, Maudesley" and the rest, to
+Alexander his "son and heir," sturdily proclaiming<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_422" id="Page_422">[Pg 422]</a></span> with as it
+were his last breath, that these fair domains were "surreptitiously
+detained" from him. And Lora Standish, fair sweet shadow upon the mirror
+of the past; and Mary Dingley, beloved of the grand old warrior; and
+Alice Bradford, of whom at the last Morton wrote,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p class="center">"Adoe my loving <ins title="Transcriber's
+note: 'freind' changed to 'friend'">friend</ins>, my aunt, my mother,<br />
+Of those that's left I have not such another."</p>
+
+<p>And Bradford himself, and Brewster, and Winslow, and Howland, each one
+of whom hath left behind him enough of achievement to fill a dozen of
+the degenerate lives of a butterfly of to-day; and the women they loved,
+and the young men and maidens who rose up around them: ah, how can we
+leave them, how can we say good-by! Shall we not the rather cherish them
+and study them more than we ever yet have done, feeling in our hearts
+that those virtues, that courage, and that nobility of life may be ours
+as well as theirs, may illustrate the easy life of to-day, and make it
+less unworthy to be the fruit of the Tree of Liberty, planted in the
+blood and watered by the tears of our Fathers.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<div class="footnotes">
+<a name="footnotes" id="footnotes"></a>
+<p class="center">Footnotes:</p>
+
+<ul>
+<li><a name="Footnote_1_1" id="Footnote_1_1"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1_1">[1]</a> This sword may still be seen in Pilgrim Hall, Plymouth, Massachusetts.</li>
+<li><a name="Footnote_2_2" id="Footnote_2_2"></a><a href="#FNanchor_2_2">[2]</a> Ipswich.</li>
+<li><a name="Footnote_3_3" id="Footnote_3_3"></a><a href="#FNanchor_3_3">[3]</a> Jones River, Duxbury.</li>
+<li><a name="Footnote_4_4" id="Footnote_4_4"></a><a href="#FNanchor_4_4">[4]</a> Hip-bone.</li>
+</ul>
+
+</div>
+
+<hr />
+
+<div class="notes">
+<a name="corrections" id="corrections"></a><p class="center">Corrections</p>
+
+<ul>
+<li><a href="#Page_58">Page 58</a>, Comma added after "Thou liest, knave"</li>
+<li><a href="#Page_102">Page 102</a>, Comma added after "Good-morrow"</li>
+<li><a href="#Page_144">Page 144</a>, Hyphen added to "commander in-chief"</li>
+<li><a href="#Page_149">Page 149</a>, Period added after "his unwonted amenity"</li>
+<li><a href="#Page_179">Page 179</a>, Double quote added after "thou mayest set down"</li>
+<li><a href="#Page_304">Page 304</a>, Period added after "Glad am I to see thee"</li>
+<li><a href="#Page_363">Page 363</a>, "Pecksnot" changed to "Pecksuot"</li>
+<li><a href="#Page_422">Page 422</a>, "freind" changed to "friend"</li>
+</ul>
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+The Project Gutenberg eBook, Standish of Standish, by Jane G. Austin
+
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+
+
+
+Title: Standish of Standish
+       A story of the Pilgrims
+
+
+Author: Jane G. Austin
+
+
+
+Release Date: July 12, 2007  [eBook #22052]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII)
+
+
+***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK STANDISH OF STANDISH***
+
+
+E-text prepared by Susan Carr, Suzanne Shell, and the Project Gutenberg
+Online Distributed Proofreading Team (http://www.pgdp.net)
+
+
+
+Transcriber's note:
+
+   Inconsistencies in hyphenation have been maintained. Archaic
+   usage of words such as "salvage" for "savage" and "randevous"
+   for "rendezvous" have been maintained. Several misprints and
+   punctuation errors have been corrected. A list of corrections
+   can be found at the end of the text.
+
+
+
+
+
+STANDISH OF STANDISH
+
+A Story of the Pilgrims
+
+by
+
+Jane G. Austin
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+By Jane G. Austin
+
+STANDISH OF STANDISH. A Novel. 16mo, $1.25.
+
+BETTY ALDEN. A Novel. 16mo, $1.25.
+
+A NAMELESS NOBLEMAN. A Novel. 16mo, $1.25; paper, 50 cents.
+
+DR. LE BARON AND HIS DAUGHTERS. A Novel. 16mo, $1.25.
+
+THE DESMOND HUNDRED. A Novel. 16mo, $1.00; paper, 50 cents.
+
+NANTUCKET SCRAPS. Being the Experiences of an Off-Islander In Season and
+Out of Season. 16mo, $1.50.
+
+HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN & COMPANY, on and New York.
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+STANDISH OF STANDISH
+
+A Story of the Pilgrims
+
+by
+
+JANE G. AUSTIN
+
+Author of "A Nameless Nobleman," "The Desmond Hundred," "Mrs. Beauchamp
+Brown," "Nantucket Scraps," "Moon Folk," Etc., Etc.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+Boston and New York Houghton, Mifflin and Company The Riverside Press,
+Cambridge 1892
+
+Copyright, 1889,
+by Jane G. Austin.
+All rights reserved
+
+Eleventh Edition.
+
+The Riverside Press, Cambridge, Mass., U. S. A.
+Electrotyped and Printed by H. O. Houghton & Co.
+
+
+
+
+
+Dedication.
+
+
+TO THE MEMORY OF MY DEAR BROTHER,
+
+JOHN A. GOODWIN,
+
+WHO MORE THAN ANY MAN HAS CONSERVED FOR OUR DELIGHT THE STORY OF THOSE
+PILGRIM FATHERS "WITHOUT WHOSE LIVES OURS HAD NOT BEEN."
+
+
+
+
+
+A PREFATORY NOTE.
+
+The history of the Old Colony includes, among some very stern facts, a
+deal of sweet and tender romance, hitherto hardly known except to those
+who have learned it at their mother's knee.
+
+But in these days many persons seem disposed to pause for a moment in
+the eager race after the golden fruits of the Pilgrims' husbandry, and
+to look curiously back at the spot where the seed was sown.
+
+To such I offer this story of Myles Standish,
+The-Sword-of-the-White-Men, the hero, who not for gain, not from
+necessity, not even from religious zeal, but purely in the knightly
+fervor of his blood, forsook home, and heritage, and glory, and
+ambition, to company that helpless band of exiles, and to be the
+Great-Heart of their Pilgrimage to the City that they sought.
+
+To such students I will promise that they shall not be misled as to
+facts, though these be strung upon a slender thread of romance; and I
+will beg them to ground themselves well upon the solid Pilgrim Rock,
+that they may the better understand the story of Lazarus LeBaron, son of
+A Nameless Nobleman, to be offered them in due time, unless Time shall
+be no more for the Author.
+
+Boston, _October_, 1889. JANE G. AUSTIN.
+
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS.
+
+
+                CHAPTER                                    PAGE
+
+  I.            The Battle of the Tubs                        1
+  II.           The Launch of the Pinnace                    19
+  III.          The Sword of Standish                        27
+  IV.           The Lilies of France                         41
+  V.            An Awful Danger                              54
+  VI.           The First Encounter                          63
+  VII.          Clarke's Island                              73
+  VIII.         Burying Hill                                 86
+  IX.           Rose                                         94
+  X.            A Terrible Night                            104
+  XI.           The Colonists of Cole's Hill                115
+  XII.          The Headless Arrow                          134
+  XIII.         The Captain's Promotion                     141
+  XIV.          Second Marriages                            151
+  XV.           Samoset                                     164
+  XVI.          Priscilla Molines' Letter                   176
+  XVII.         An International Treaty                     184
+  XVIII.        The Last Link Broken                        197
+  XIX.          Sowed and Reaped in One Day                 205
+  XX.           Funeral-baked Meats and Marriage Feasts     213
+  XXI.          An Affair of Honor                          224
+  XXII.         The Captain's Pipe                          236
+  XXIII.        "Speak for Yourself, John!"                 243
+  XXIV.         The Mysterious Grave                        253
+  XXV.          A Little Discipline                         266
+  XXVI.         The First Thanksgiving Day of New England   276
+  XXVII.        A Love Philtre                              288
+  XXVIII.       Philip De La Noye                           296
+  XXIX.         Keeping Christmas                           311
+  XXX.          A Soldier's Instinct                        319
+  XXXI.         A Pot of Broth                              343
+  XXXII.        The Sunset Gun                              351
+  XXXIII.       Pecksuot's Knife                            356
+  XXXIV.        The Wolf at the Door                        370
+  XXXV.         The Brides' Ship                            376
+  XXXVI.        Marriage Bells                              385
+  XXXVII.       "And to be Wroth with one we Love!"         395
+  XXXVIII.      Barbara                                     406
+  XXXIX.        A Military Wedding                          416
+  XL.           "Parting is such Sweet Sorrow!"             420
+
+
+
+
+
+STANDISH OF STANDISH.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+THE BATTLE OF THE TUBS.
+
+
+It was Monday morning.
+
+It was also the twenty-third day of November in the year of our Lord
+1620; but this latter fact was either unknown or matter of profound
+indifference to the two-and-twenty women who stood ready to make the day
+memorable in the world's history, while the fact of Monday was to them
+one of paramount importance.
+
+Do you ask why this was thus?
+
+The answer is duplex: first, the two-and-twenty women were not aware of
+their own importance, nor could guess that History would ever concern
+herself with the date of their present undertaking; and second, for a
+reason whose roots are prehistoric, for they spring from the
+unfathomable depths of the feminine soul wherein abides inherently the
+love of purity, of order, and of tradition. Yes, in two hundred and
+seventy years the face of Nature, of empires, and of peoples has changed
+almost beyond recognition in this our New World; but the grand law at
+whose practical establishment in the New World we now assist, abides
+to-day:--
+
+Monday is Washing Day.
+
+Does some caviler here suggest that although the human female soul is
+embodied in the children of Ham, Shem, and Japhet, the mighty law
+referred to is binding only upon that Anglo-British-Saxon-Norman
+division of Japhet's daughters domiciled in and emanating from the
+British Isles? Let us proudly reply that in considering the result of a
+process we consider the whole; and let us meekly add that to our mind
+the Anglo-British-Saxon-Norman woman, perfected under an American sky,
+is the woman of the world; and finally, let us point to the
+two-and-twenty heroines of that Monday as chief among American women,
+for they were the Pilgrim Mothers of the New World.
+
+The Pilgrim Fathers were there also; and they, too, were exemplifying a
+law of nature, that is to say, a law of male nature in every clime and
+every age. They did not love Washing Day. They felt no joy in the
+possibility of its observance, they felt no need of its processes. And
+yet again _more humano_, they did not openly set themselves against it,
+they did not frankly express their unworthy content in their present
+estate, but they feebly suggested that as the observance had been some
+weeks omitted, with no sensible loss of comfort to themselves, it might
+well be farther postponed; that the facilities were by no means
+remarkable; that rain was very possible, and that they had to apply
+themselves without delay to unshipping the pinnace from the hold of the
+Mayflower, and fitting her for the immediate service of exploration.
+
+To these arguments the women meekly responded that in the nature of
+things they were better fitted to judge of the emergency than their
+lords, whose attention must be absorbed in matters of so much higher
+import; that they did not require the help of any man whose work upon
+the pinnace would be at all important, and that the sandy beach, the
+pool of fresh water, and the clumps of stunted shrubs fairly spread upon
+the shore in front of them were all the facilities they required. As for
+the weather, as Dame Hopkins piously remarked:--
+
+"If Monday's weather be not fit for washing, there is no promise in Holy
+Writ of anything better in the rest of the week."
+
+"Oh, if thou r't bent on washing, the shrewdest storm that ever swept
+the Zuyder Zee will never stop thee; so get thy rags together as soon as
+may be," growled her husband, a grizzled, hard-visaged veteran some
+twenty years older than this his second wife of whom he was very fond.
+
+"Nay, then," interposed another voice, as a shrewd, kindly looking man,
+albeit with a certain whimsical cast to his thin features, approached
+the pair; "Mistress Hopkins will do no washing to-day; no, nor even go
+on shore to gather chill and weariness for my little friend Oceanus."
+
+"'Will not,' shall not? Marry and who is to hinder, if you please, good
+Master Fuller?" asked the young woman in a somewhat shrewish voice.
+
+"I, Samuel Fuller, Licentiate of Cambridge, late practitioner of
+Bartlemy's Hospital, London, and your medical adviser, madam," replied
+the doctor with a dry smile and mocking bow. "Recall, if you please,
+that Oceanus is not yet a fortnight old, and that both mother and child
+are still my responsibility. Would you ruin my reputation, madam, not to
+mention risking your own life and the boy's?"
+
+"Have a care, Doctor, or some fine day you'll trip in your own quips,
+and break your neck," replied Mistress Hopkins half sullenly, while her
+husband cried,--
+
+"He's right there, Bess. Thou 'rt in no case for such rough sport as
+this is like to prove, and thou 'lt stay aboard whoever goes ashore."
+
+"Yes, stay thou aboard and mind thy babe, and I'll take thy clothes
+along with my own, so thou 'lt let Constance come to help me," suggested
+the somewhat coarse voice of a woman standing by.
+
+"Thank you kindly, goodwife Billington," replied Elizabeth Hopkins
+coldly. "But Alice Rigdale hath already promised to do what is needed,
+and Constance must stay with me to mind Damaris and Oceanus."
+
+"Oh, if goodwife Rigdale has taken it in hand, I will step back,"
+replied Mistress Billington sharply; and as she descended the
+companion-way, Hopkins muttered in his wife's ear,--
+
+"Now thou showest some sense, wench. The least thou hast to do with the
+Billington brood the better I'll be pleased."
+
+"That's worth working for, surely," retorted his wife, tossing her head
+pettishly.
+
+"I tell you there's no boat to be spared, and no man to row it, and I'll
+have naught to say to it," exclaimed a surly voice from the
+companion-way, and Captain Thomas Jones, master of the Mayflower, but
+not of the Pilgrims, appeared on deck.
+
+Captain Jones was not an amiable man, his training as buccaneer and
+slaver having possibly blunted his finer feelings, and his consciousness
+of present treachery probably increasing the irritability often
+succeeding to a murdered conscience.
+
+Such as he was, however, this man was the Inventor of Plymouth Rock,
+since by his collusion with the Dutch who wished to keep the profits of
+their Manhattan Colony to themselves, the Mayflower had found it
+impossible to make her way southward around Cape Cod, and after nearly
+going to wreck upon the shoals off Malabar, or Tucker's Terror had been
+driven within the embrace of the curving arm thrown out by the New World
+to welcome and shelter the homeless children of the Old. There she lay
+now, the weather-beaten, clumsy, strained, and groaning old bark whose
+name is glorious in the annals of our country while Time shall endure,
+and whose merest splinter would to-day be enshrined in gold; there she
+lay swinging gently to the send of the great Atlantic whose waves broke
+sonorously upon the beach outside, and came racing around the point a
+flood of shattered and harmless monsters, moaning and hissing, to find
+their prey escaped and safely landlocked.
+
+"There's no boat, I say, and there's an end on 't," repeated Master
+Jones truculently as he stepped on deck, and two men who had been
+earnestly conversing at the stern of the brig turned round and came
+toward him. They were John Carver, already governor of the colony, and
+William Bradford, his lieutenant and successor. The governor was the
+first to speak, and the somewhat measured accents of his voice, with its
+inflections at once kindly and haughty, told of gentle breeding, of a
+calm and dignified temper, and of an aptness at command.
+
+"And why no boat, Master Jones?" asked he quietly. "Methought by the
+terms of our agreement you were to aid us in every way in making our
+settlement."
+
+"And I'm not going back of my word, am I, master?" demanded Jones
+peevishly. "A pack of wenches going ashore with tubs and kettles and
+bales and such gear is not a settlement, is it?"
+
+"Nay, but a means thereto if haply they find the place convenient,"
+replied Carver pleasantly. "At any rate, we will send them, since it has
+been promised, and the same boat will serve to transport them with their
+gear that is already fitted to help us ashore with the pinnace."
+
+"And our own men will do all that is required in lading and rowing the
+boat," added Bradford in his mild, persuasive voice. Jones, overborne by
+a calm authority against which he could not bluster, turned on his heel
+muttering some surly assent. Carver slightly smiled as he watched the
+square and clumsy form expressing in every line of its back the futile
+rage of an overborne coward, and, turning toward the companion way, he
+called,--
+
+"Howland, John Howland, a word with thee!"
+
+"Ay, sir," replied a blithe young voice; and presently a handsome head
+of pure Saxon type, as indeed were both Bradford's and Carver's,
+appeared above the hatchway, and a strong young fellow swinging himself
+upon deck approached the governor, saying apologetically,--
+
+"I was helping to get out the pinnace, and there is a mort of dust and
+dirt about her."
+
+"I'll give thee a pleasanter task, John," replied Carver, smiling
+affectionately upon his young retainer. "Thou and John Alden and Gilbert
+Winslow shall take charge of the women who fain would go ashore to wash
+their clothes. They will use the boat already lying alongside, and thou
+hadst better advise with Mistress Brewster for the rest. I leave it all
+with you twain."
+
+"I will do my best, sir," replied Howland with a smile that showed his
+short, strong teeth and made his blue eyes twinkle pleasantly; then
+returning to the hatchway he called down,--
+
+"Ho, Alden! You're wanted, man, and so is Gilbert Winslow."
+
+"He's not here, then," responded a heavier voice, as a splendid young
+giant swung himself up on deck and ran his fingers through a shock of
+curling chestnut hair; a glorious youth, six feet and over in his hose
+of hodden gray, with the shoulders and sinews of an athlete, and the
+calm, strong face of an Egyptian god.
+
+"What is it, John?" asked he, fixing his dark eyes upon Howland with the
+affectionate gladness one reads in the eyes of a dog called to his
+master's side, but of which few human natures are capable.
+
+"Why, Jack, thou and I and Gilbert Winslow are appointed squires of
+dames to some of the women who would fain go ashore to wash clothes, and
+we are to pack them into yonder boat, row them ashore, and then purvey
+wood, water, and such like for them."
+
+"I'd liefer haul out the pinnace," replied Alden with a grimace. "But
+your will is mine."
+
+"Nay, the governor's will is thine and mine, and it is he set us this
+task. Where is Winslow?"
+
+"In the cabin belike, chatting with Mary Chilton. It's the work he best
+loves," replied Alden grimly. "But I'll find him."
+
+"And some of the boys, Jack," suggested Howland, as the younger man
+turned away. "Bart Allerton and Love Brewster, Giles Hopkins and
+Crakstone and Cooke, any of the lads that you fall foul of, except the
+Billingtons,--of them I'll have none."
+
+"And why not the Billingtons, worshipful Master Howland, lackey of the
+governor, and page-boy to his wife," demanded the voice that had
+interrupted Mistress Hopkins, and turning toward it, Howland confronted
+a short, square woman, not without a certain vulgar comeliness of her
+own, although now her buxom complexion was florid with anger and her
+black eyes snapping angrily, while the arms akimbo, the swaying figure,
+and raised voice betrayed Helena Billington for precisely what she was,
+a common scold and shrew. Howland was a brave man; he had already showed
+both strength and prowess when, washed overboard in a "seel" of the
+ship, and carried fathoms deep in mid-ocean, he caught the
+topsail-halyards swept over with him and clung to them until he was
+rescued in spite of the raging wind and waves that repeatedly dragged
+him under; nor in the face of savage foe, or savage beast, or peril by
+land or sea, was John Howland ever known less than the foremost; but now
+in face of this angry woman he found naught to say, and blushing and
+stammering and half laughing fairly turned and ran away, springing up
+the stairs to the elevated deck cabins, in one of which Elder Brewster
+and his family had their lodging.
+
+Mistress Brewster, a pale, sweet-faced woman, already at fifty-four
+dressing and behaving as the venerable mother in Israel, came forward to
+meet him, and smiling indulgently asked,--
+
+"Now what hast thou done to goodwife Billington, thou naughty lad? I
+hear thy name in her complaint, and indeed all the company can hear it,
+if they will."
+
+"I did but say I would none of her boys in my party, dear Mistress
+Brewster, and I hope you'll say so too," replied Howland, uncovering
+his yellow head. "They are the greatest marplots and scapegraces"--
+
+"Nay, nay, John! Say no evil, or thou 'lt make me think thou hast
+'scaped grace thyself," suggested the elder's wife with her gentle
+smile. "And prithee, what is thy party? Are my boys bidden, or must they
+e'en bide with the Billingtons?"
+
+"The party is your party, dear dame, for the governor sent me to ask
+your commands upon it, and if Love and Wrestling will give us such aid
+as their years allow, I shall be most grateful."
+
+And then in simple phrase Howland repeated the governor's instructions,
+and requested those of the dame, who at once convened an informal
+council of matrons, and so well advised them that in a scant hour the
+clumsy boat, rolling and bumping against the side of the brig, was laden
+with bales of clothing, tubs whose hoops John Alden, a cooper by trade,
+was hurriedly overlooking, and sundry great brass and copper kettles,
+household necessities of that epoch, and descending as relics to us who
+look upon them with respectful wonder as memorial brasses of the "giants
+of those days."
+
+A flock of women, all demurely and plainly dressed, although the most of
+them were under thirty years of age, stood waiting at the head of the
+ladder until the cargo was stored, and Howland, sending his assistants
+back on deck, planted himself upon the gunwale of the boat, and holding
+out his hand to a stout, solid-looking woman with a young girl beside
+her said,--
+
+"Mistress Tilley, you had best come first, for you will be apt at
+helping the others, as I hand them down. And thou, too, Elizabeth, if
+thou wilt."
+
+"And Constance Hopkins and Remember Allerton," pleaded the girl,
+lifting a sweet, saucy face to the young man; "we never are separated,
+for we're all of an age, all going on sixteen you know."
+
+"Hush, Bess, thou 'rt malapert," chided her mother, descending heavily
+into the boat, while a mutinous young voice above called out,--
+
+"Nay, I'm not going. Stepmother won't spare me."
+
+"Now Constance Hopkins, thou naughty hussy, wilt thou grumble at
+tarrying with me to care for thine own dear sister and brother? Fie on
+thee, girl!"
+
+"They're not my own," grumbled Constance in Remember Allerton's ear.
+"Giles is my own brother and he is to go, and Damaris and Oceanus are
+but half sister and brother, and she's but my stepmother."
+
+"Hush, now, or she'll hear and thou 'lt come by a whipping," whispered
+Remember hastily, as Dame Hopkins turned from Mistress Winslow who had
+spoken to her, and came toward the girls. "I'll stay aboard with thee,
+Constance, and help thee with the babies."
+
+"Thou 'rt a dear good wench and I love thee," replied Constance in the
+same tone, and, as the stepmother placed the muffled baby in her arms,
+she took him without comment, and went below followed by Elizabeth
+Tilley.
+
+Two trips of the capacious boat sufficed to carry women, clothes,
+utensils, and assistants across the three quarters of a mile of shallow
+water lying between the brig and the shore, and the boys who went in the
+first boat were at once set to work to gather dry stuff from the
+thickets of scrub oak and pine sparsely clothing the beach, and to build
+several fires along the margin of a large pool or perhaps pond of fresh
+water divided from the harbor by a narrow beach of firm white sand.
+Beach and pond have long since been devoured by the hungry sea, but
+stumps of good-sized trees are still dug from the dreary sands
+environing Provincetown, to show what once has been.
+
+The second boat-load arrived, and by help of Alden's stalwart arm,
+Howland's cool decision and prompt action, and Winslow's quick eye and
+ready aid to any woman needing assistance, the apparatus was soon
+adjusted, and a dozen pairs of strong white arms were plunged in the
+suds, or throwing the clothes into the great caldrons bubbling over the
+fires which the boys gayly replenished.
+
+Not all the women of the Mayflower were thus engaged, however, for
+several were delicate in health, and several others had servants who
+took this ungentle labor upon themselves; but those who did not labor
+with their hands felt no superiority, and those who did had no shame in
+so doing; and although the manners of the day inculcated a certain
+deference of manner and speech from the lower rank to the higher, and
+from youth to age, the very fact that every one of these persons had
+abandoned home and friends and comfort that they might secure liberty,
+induced a sense of self respect and respect for others, which is the
+very root and basis of a true republic. Thus Katharine Carver, wife of
+the governor, daughter of Bishop White, and sister of Robinson, the
+pastor of the community left behind in Leyden, although she sent her
+maid Lois, and her man-servant Roger Wilder, to do the required work,
+came ashore with the rest, and by a touch here and a word there, and her
+interest and sympathy, took her part in the labor of the whole, and
+delicate woman and well-born lady though she was, made each of those
+hard-working sisters feel that it was only her weakness, and not her
+station, that prevented her doing all that they did. "Eleven o' the
+clock," said John Alden, as the Mayflower's cracked bell told six hoarse
+strokes. "They said they'd bring our dinner ashore for us," and he
+looked wistfully toward the ship.
+
+"Who said?" asked Howland; "for I've more faith in some say-sos than in
+some others."
+
+"Well, if I remember, 't was Mistress Molines who told me," replied
+Alden carefully careless.
+
+"Oh, ay," assented Howland, his blue eyes twinkling. "But I thought she
+was ill, poor woman."
+
+"Nay, I meant Mistress Priscilla Molines," retorted the giant, blushing.
+"She said somewhat to me of an onion soup which she flavors marvelously
+well."
+
+"Ah, yes, onion soup," retorted Howland gravely. "Methought it must be
+some such moving theme you discussed yester even as you sat on the
+cable. I noted even at that distance the tears in your eyes."
+
+"And if there were tears in mine eyes it is no matter of mocking, for
+Mistress Priscilla was telling me that her mother is sick as she fears
+unto death, and"--
+
+"John Howland, the boat is coming off with the rest of our company and
+noon-meat for us all. Wilt thou and John Alden receive and help them
+ashore, while Gilbert helps us to make ready here?"
+
+"Surely we will, Mistress Carver," replied Howland heartily, for his
+relationship toward the governor and his beautiful wife was rather that
+of a younger brother than of a retainer; and although the smallness of
+his fortune had induced him to accept the patronage of the older and
+wealthier man, it was much as a lad of noble lineage was content a few
+years before this to become first the page and then the squire of a
+belted knight.
+
+The boat, unable to reach the shore on account of the flatness of the
+beach, stuck fast about a bow-shot from dry land, and the men and boys
+at once tumbled over the edge and prepared to carry not only the
+luggage, but the female passengers ashore. Alden seeing this prospect,
+tore off his boots and stockings, and plunging into the chill water
+hastened to the stern of the boat where a slender, vivacious girl,
+brown, dark-eyed, and with cheeks glowing with the dusky richness of a
+peach, stood balancing herself like a bird and giving orders to a young
+man already in the water.
+
+"Now have a care, Robert Cartier, of that kettle. If thou spillst the
+soup"--
+
+"The onion soup, Mistress Priscilla?" asked Alden approaching
+unperceived. Priscilla cast a look at him from the corners of her long
+eyes, and replied carelessly,--
+
+"Yes, Master Alden, an onion soup. Is that a favorite dish with your
+worship?"
+
+"Why, thou knowest,"--began the young man with an air of bewilderment,
+but Priscilla interrupted him.
+
+"Since thou art here with thy broad shoulders, John Alden, thou wilt do
+well to make them of use. There is Mistress Allerton struggling with a
+hamper beyond her strength, and there are bales of clothes that must not
+be wet. Load thyself, good mule, and plod shoreward."
+
+"To be sure I will and gladly, fair mistress," replied Alden patiently.
+"But first let me take thee ashore dry-shod, and then I will bring all
+the rest."
+
+"Beshrew thee for a modest youth," retorted Priscilla, the peach color
+of her cheeks deepening to pomegranate; "when I go ashore I will convey
+myself, or my brother will carry me; and thou, since thou art so
+picksome, may set thyself to work, and ask naught of me."
+
+"But why art thou so tart when I meant naught," began Alden,
+bewildered; but again the girl cut him short with a stinging little
+laugh.
+
+"Thou never meanest aught, poor John; but I have no time to waste with
+thee. Here, Robert, these come next, and take Mistress Allerton's hamper
+as well."
+
+"Nay, that is for me," growled Alden, seizing the basket from the hands
+of the astonished servant who relinquished it with a stare and a
+muttered exclamation in French; for William Molines, called Mullins by
+the Pilgrims, his wife, son, daughter, and servant were all of the
+French Huguenots, who fleeing from their native land planted a colony
+upon the river Waal in Holland, and were at this time known as Walloons.
+Learning enough of Dutch to carry on the business of daily life, and of
+English to communicate with their co-religionists of the Pilgrim church
+in Leyden, they retained French as the dear home language of their
+birth, and the young people, like Priscilla and her brother Joseph, used
+the three languages with equal facility.
+
+A little offended and a good deal puzzled by the change in Priscilla's
+manner since their last interview, Alden devoted himself to unloading
+the boat without again addressing her, until he saw her confide herself
+to the arms of her brother to be taken ashore; then seizing an armful of
+parcels, he strode along close behind the slender stripling whose thews
+and sinews were obviously unequal to his courage, and who floundered
+painfully over the uneven sands. At last he stumbled, recovered himself,
+plunged wildly forward, and fell flat upon his face, while his sister,
+suddenly seized and held aloft in two strong arms, did not so much as
+wet the hem of her garment, until with a few swift strides her rescuer
+set her on dry land and turned to help the boy who came floundering
+after them with a rueful and angry countenance.
+
+"'T was all thy fault, Priscilla," began he. "Twisting and squirming to
+see who was coming after us."
+
+"Nay, 't was the fault of some great monster who came trampling on our
+heels, and making the water wash round my feet. Some whale or griffin
+belike, though he has hid himself again," and the girl affected to shade
+her eyes and scan the sparkling waters, while Alden strode moodily away.
+Priscilla glanced after his retreating figure, and spoke again to her
+brother in a voice whose cooing softness poor John had never heard.
+
+"Thou poor dripping lad! And such a cough as thou hast already! Come
+with me sweetheart, and I'll set thee between two fires, and put my
+duffle cloak about thee, and heat some soup scalding hot. I would I had
+a sup of strong waters for thee--ah yes, I see!"
+
+And hurriedly leading her brother to a sheltered nook between two great
+fires, she cast her cloak over his shoulders, and then sprang up the
+sand-hill with the graceful strength of an antelope to the spot where
+Doctor Fuller stood talking with a man whose appearance demands a word
+of description. Short and square built, the figure bespoke strength and
+long training in athletic exercises, while the haughty set of the head,
+the well-shaped hands and feet, and the clear cut of the features told
+of gentle blood and the habit of predominance. The bare head was covered
+with thick chestnut hair, worn at the temples by pressure of a steel
+cap, and well matched in color by eyes whose strong, stern glances
+carried defeat to the hearts of his savage foes even before his quick
+blows fell. The mouth, firmly closed beneath its drooping moustache, was
+like the eyes, stern and terrible in anger, but like them it was
+capable of a winning sweetness and charm only known to those he loved,
+those he pitied, and to the life-long friends whose loving description
+has come down to us; for this was Myles Standish, the soldier and hero
+of the Pilgrims; their dauntless defender in battle, their gentle nurse
+in illness, their councilor and envoy and shining example in peace; the
+right arm of the colony, its modest commander, and its intelligent
+servant.
+
+As Priscilla approached, the two men ceased their conversation and
+turned toward her, neither of them unconscious of the beauty, grace, and
+vigor which clothed her as a garment, yet each restrained by inborn
+chivalry and respect from expressing his opinion.
+
+"Oh, Doctor, or you, Captain Standish, have either of you a flask of
+strong waters about you? My poor Joseph has fallen in the water, and it
+is so cold, and he has already a cough."
+
+"Yes, we saw him fall. He was overloaded for such a stripling," said the
+doctor, with his dry smile, while Standish, hastily pulling a flask from
+his pocket, said,--
+
+"Here is some well-approved Hollands gin, Mistress Priscilla; and I
+would advise a good draught as soon as may be, and have it heated if it
+may be."
+
+"Here, hand it me. I will go and give my friend Joseph a rating for
+undertaking tasks beyond his strength, though belike the fault was none
+of his!" And the doctor seizing the flask strode down the hill, while
+Priscilla lingered to ask,--
+
+"How doth Mistress Standish find herself to-day? I heard she was but
+poorly."
+
+"Ay, poorly enough," replied the Captain with a shadow chasing the smile
+from his eyes. "She is hardly strong enough for these shrewd winds and
+rough adventures. I had done better to leave her in England until we are
+established somewhere."
+
+"There's more than one in our company, I fear me, that has adventured
+beyond their strength," replied Priscilla sadly, as she remembered her
+mother's hectic flush and wasting strength and her brother's cough.
+
+"A forlorn hope, perhaps, set to garrison this by-corner of the world,
+but not forgotten by the Commander-in-chief, remember that, maid
+Priscilla," said the captain kindly and cheerily. "There in the Low
+Countries our worst trouble was that the home government never backed us
+as they should, and more than once we felt we were forgot and neglected;
+but in the warfare we have to wage here in the wilderness we can never
+fear that."
+
+"Yet soldiers may die at their post here as well as there," said
+Priscilla, turning to go down the hill.
+
+"So long as the work is done it matters little what becomes of the
+soldier," replied Myles briefly, and the two rejoined the group around
+the fires.
+
+Before nightfall the clothes, dried and sweet with the sunshine and pure
+air, were carefully folded into the tubs and kettles, the dinner was
+neatly cleared away, and the whole company in several trips of the boats
+conveyed on board, while the carpenters and their volunteer aids
+remained to work while daylight lasted upon the pinnace, the Pilgrims'
+own craft, intended for exploration along the shore, and for fishing
+when they should have made a settlement.
+
+But Joseph Molines had not shaken off his chill by means of the
+captain's Hollands gin, nor did his mother or Rose Standish find
+themselves better in the evening than they had been in the morning, and
+as the darkness of the November night closed around the lonely bark,
+gaunt shadowy forms, Disease and Famine and Death, seemed shaping
+themselves among the clouds and brooding menacingly over the Forlorn
+Hope, as its soldiers slept or watched beneath.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+THE LAUNCH OF THE PINNACE.
+
+
+"Mary! Mary Chilton! Maid Mary mine!" called Priscilla Molines in her
+clear bird-voice, as she ran down the steps leading to the principal
+cabin. "Come on deck and see the launch of the pinnace! The carpenters
+call her fit for use if not finished, and the men have gone ashore to
+launch her. Where art thou, poppet!"
+
+"Here," replied a gentler and sweeter voice, as Mary Chilton came
+forward, a long gray stocking dangling from her hands, and stood in a
+slant ray of sunshine which lighted her golden hair to a glory, and
+showed the pure tints of her May-bloom face and clear blue eyes; a
+lovely English face in its first fresh rapture of morning beauty.
+
+"Right merrily will I come, Priscilla, if there be aught to see,"
+continued she, throwing down the stocking which she was knitting for her
+father. "Truly my eyes ache with staring at nothingness."
+
+"Well, there's a trifle this side of nothingness on the beach at this
+minute," retorted Priscilla, pinching her friend's ear. "Men call it
+Gilbert Winslow."
+
+"Hush, hush, Priscilla!" whispered Mary, with a scared look toward her
+mother's cabin. "If anybody heard such folly! And Mistress White already
+tells my mother that we two are over-light in our carriage and
+conversation."
+
+"Mistress White"--began Priscilla sharply, but ended the exclamation
+with a saucy laugh and said instead, "Yes, truly as thou sayest, my May,
+mine eyes ache with gazing upon nothingness and my tongue aches with
+speaking naught but wisdom. It is out of nature for young maids to be as
+staid as their elders, and methinks I do not care to be. Let us be young
+while we have youth, say I."
+
+She looked perilously pretty as she arched her brows and pouted her ripe
+lips, and Mary looked at her in loving admiration, while she answered
+sagely,--
+
+"You and yours are French, Priscilla, and I am all English like my
+forbears; so thou mayst well be lighter natured than I--I mean no harm,
+dear."
+
+"No harm is done, dear mother in Israel," replied Priscilla half
+mockingly, and seizing Mary's hand she led her on deck, where many of
+the women and children were collected, watching the preparations on
+shore for the launch of the pinnace, which, much strained by bad stowage
+between decks, had needed about a fortnight's work done upon her before
+she was fit for service.
+
+"They only wait for her to set forth on a second exploration," said
+Priscilla confidentially; "and a little bird sang in my ear that they
+would go to-morrow."
+
+"What little bird?" asked Mary curiously; but before Priscilla could
+reply another voice interposed; it was that of Bridget Tilley, who had
+come on deck to seek her daughter Elizabeth, and now sharply inquired,--
+
+"Another expedition, say you? And my goodman scarce brought back from
+death's door, whither the first jaunt led him! Nay, now, 't is not
+right, 't is all one as murder, to hale dying men out of their beds and
+into that wilderness. No blessing will follow such work, and I'll cry
+upon the governor or the captain or the elder to stop it!"
+
+"What is it, Mistress Tilley? Any wrong that I can help set right?"
+asked a sweet voice, and Bridget turned toward the speaker with a
+somewhat more subdued manner, lowering her voice as she said,--
+
+"Thank you kindly, Mistress Standish, and God be praised that you can be
+on deck; but my matter is this," and again she poured out her anxieties
+and her fears, until Rose Standish, a fair white rose now, and trembling
+in the shrewd autumn air so soon to scatter her petals and bear the pure
+fragrance of her life down through the centuries, until men to-day love
+her whom they never knew, leaned wearily against the bulkhead and
+said,--
+
+"Rest easy, dear dame. Thou 'rt all in the right, and it behooves us to
+protect our lords from their own rash courage, just as it befits their
+courage to protect us against salvages and wild beasts. I will whisper
+in my husband's ear that Master Tilley is all unfit to carry out his own
+brave impulses, and I will conspire with Mistress Carver and Mistress
+Bradford, and, above all, with our dear mother, the elder's wife, that
+each shall make petition to her lord to see that no sick or overborne
+man be allowed to adventure himself on the expedition. Will that satisfy
+thee, dame?"
+
+"Right well, and you are all one with the saints we used to honor,
+though we do know better now."
+
+"'T is the most comfortable promise I've heard in many a day, dear
+Mistress Standish," cried Priscilla vivaciously. "And well do I believe
+that the whispers of the wives are more weighty than the shouts of the
+husbands. I've never proved it myself, being but a maid; yet I have ere
+now marked how the prancing of the noblest steed is full deftly checked
+by a silken rein."
+
+"It were well if a rein were put upon thy tongue, girl," severely
+interposed a comely matron sitting near. "Thou 'rt over forward for thy
+years, Priscilla. Shamefastness and meekness become a maid, and when
+thou knowest more thou 'lt say less."
+
+"Thanks, Mistress White, I will try to profit by your discourse,"
+replied Priscilla demurely; but her tone did not satisfy the matron, who
+sharply rejoined,--
+
+"See that thou do, Mistress Malapert, or I'll ask the elder to deal with
+thee. Here he is now."
+
+And, in fact, Elder Brewster, who had caught the tone of Mistress
+White's voice, drew near to the group, saying pleasantly, "A goodly
+sight yonder, is it not? And how well our strong fellows set their
+shoulders to the toil! What shall we call the pinnace when she is
+launched, Mistress White?"
+
+"Methinks Discretion would be a good name, Elder," replied the lady with
+a glance at the two girls. "Surely, we have room for it in our company."
+
+"Truth, my daughter, and yet to my mind Charity is a sweeter name, and
+one more likely to float us over troubled waters." And the elder's
+pleasant smile disarmed his words of all sting. "Priscilla," continued
+he, turning to the girl, "I hear that thy father keeps his bed to-day,
+and thy mother is but poorly."
+
+"Indeed, sir, they are both in evil case," replied Priscilla sadly.
+"Neither of them has stomach for such food as is at hand, and so they
+weaken daily. John Alden shot some little birds yesterday, and I made
+broth of them, but, saving that, my mother has taken no meat for days."
+
+"I will go and visit them," said the elder, and forgetting the launch he
+had come up to see, he went at once.
+
+"See! See! There she goes!" cried Elizabeth Tilley, as the great boat
+slid gracefully down her ways to the water, dipped her bows deeply, and
+finding her level rode upon an even keel.
+
+"There she goes!" echoed Constance Hopkins and Remember Allerton, who
+with Elizabeth Tilley constituted what may be called the rosebud
+division of the Pilgrim girls, all glowing in the freshness of early
+youth, all comely, strong, and vivacious. Priscilla Molines and Mary
+Chilton with Desire Minter, a distant relative and charge of Governor
+Carver's, made another little group of older girls, and then came the
+young matrons of whom there were many, while Mistress Brewster in the
+dignity of middle life was the recognized head and guide of all.
+
+"Yes, there she goes," cried Priscilla, clapping her hands and dancing
+upon her slender feet. "And Mary," continued she, dropping her voice to
+a whisper, "it was Captain Standish who gave that last mighty shove"--
+
+"Nay, it was John Alden," interrupted Mary innocently.
+
+"I tell thee, girl, it was the captain. John Alden is ever at his elbow
+and striving to imitate him, but our captain is still the leader, and I
+do honour a man who can think as well as do, and act as well as talk. Of
+talkers we have enow, the dear knows; Master Winslow and Master Allerton
+can so argue that they would force you to swear black was white and the
+moon a good Dutch cheese an they chose, and they can lay out work
+marvelously well for others to carry out, but I mark that their own
+hands abide in their pockets for the most part. Then there are plenty of
+strong arms with no head-pieces, like John Alden and your good friend
+Gilbert Winslow and John Howland and"--
+
+"Nay, nay, Priscilla, thou shalt not wrong good men so," interrupted
+Mary, her fair face coloring a little. "The leaders aye must lead, and
+the younger and simpler aye must follow in every community, and I mark
+not that those you flout for speaking so well fail of their share in the
+labor, nor do I think John Alden or the rest would do well to thrust
+their advice upon their betters. At all rates, yon boat had not slid
+down so merrily if John Alden had not put his shoulder to the work."
+
+"Yea, put his shoulder where the captain laid his hand," retorted
+Priscilla with her mocking laugh, and then putting her arm around Mary's
+shoulders, she added affectionately,--
+
+"What a wise little woman thou art, ever looking at both sides of the
+matter while I see but one! And in truth, perhaps, it is better that
+there be these varied excellences, so that all comers may be suited,
+just as thou art fond of porridge while I would liefer have soup."
+
+"And art a rare hand at compounding it," replied Mary admiringly. "How
+Desire Minter smacked her lips over the dish thou gavest her the other
+day."
+
+"That poor Desiree, as my gossip Jeanne De la Noye used to call her! I
+like well to give her some tasty bit, for it makes her so happy at so
+little trouble to myself, since I am ever cooking."
+
+"Dost thou really like cooking, Priscilla; or dost thou do it because
+thou ought, as I do?" asked Mary, who hated the culinary art, and yet
+was called upon to practice it, as were all young women of the day.
+
+"Oh, I love it," replied Priscilla, with enthusiasm. "My mother and my
+grandmother and all my aunts were notable cooks, and in the good old
+days in France before I was born, they say my grandmother's pates and
+conserves and ragouts were famous all through Lyons, where my
+grandfather and his father before him were great silk manufacturers with
+plenty of men and maids and money at their command."
+
+"Ah, Priscilla, thou 'rt hankering after the flesh-pots again! Remember
+Lot's wife!" and Mary laughed, but gently stole a hand into that of
+Priscilla, who pressed it tenderly as she replied,--
+
+"Lot's wife spoiled all her cookery with salt, and I'll at least distill
+none from mine own eyes. How shall I make Robert Cartier know that I
+want him to come aboard and help me with my father's supper?"
+
+"Beckon to John Alden to send him," retorted Mary promptly. Priscilla
+turned and fixed her long dark eyes in mock bewilderment upon the
+other's face.
+
+"And why is it easier to beckon to John Alden than to Robert Cartier,
+thou foolish girl?" asked she.
+
+"Because Robert is only thy father's servant, and John is thine own and
+ever waiting thy command," replied Mary demurely, and Priscilla's rich
+color mounted to her brow as she laughingly retorted,--
+
+"Now, maid Mary, that quip was more like me than thee, and I'll have
+none of it. 'T is for thee to carry the honey-bag to mollify the stings
+my naughty tongue must aye inflict. I would I were not so waspish, Mary
+mine!"
+
+"Thou 'rt naught but what is dear and lovely, and I care for thee beyond
+any man that ever walked, saving my father," cried Mary, pressing close
+to her friend's side.
+
+"Then will I be jealous of Master Chilton," murmured Priscilla, the
+teasing mood again rising to the surface. "For I'll have no rival in thy
+heart, save only Gilbert Winslow, whom I hope not to oust."
+
+"See, there is John Alden steadfastly regarding us," cried Mary, a
+little annoyed. "Point thy finger at Robert as he stands staring at the
+boat, and then beckon. My word for it, John will read the signal
+aright."
+
+"Why, then, so be it, and if Dame White sees me I'll swear 'twas thee,
+Mary," and Priscilla half proudly, half shyly made the signal, which was
+at once understood and acted upon by Alden, who, truth to tell, seldom
+lost sight of Priscilla when in her company. Cartier receiving the
+message waded after a boat just leaving the beach, and came aboard
+dripping wet, an imprudence so common among the younger men of the
+Pilgrims on that flat coast as to become a serious factor in the
+terrible mortality which was to sweep off half their number within a few
+months.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+THE SWORD OF STANDISH.
+
+
+The "little bird," probably John Alden, constant companion of Standish,
+had sung truly in Priscilla's ear of a second exploring party about to
+leave the Mayflower in quest of a favorable site for the town and colony
+the Pilgrims had come forth to found.
+
+To this step they were urged not only by their own wishes, but by the
+importunities of Captain Jones, who having obeyed his Dutch employers
+and brought his passengers to a point well removed from the Virginian or
+Manhattan shores whereon they intended to land, was now only desirous to
+put them ashore almost anywhere, and make sail for England while the
+winter storms held off and his provisions lasted. His own interest,
+therefore, made him zealous in the Pilgrims' service, and so heartily
+had he offered his men, boats, and provisions for the expedition that
+the Pilgrims had made him its leader, some of them still believing in
+his honesty and friendliness, and some others feeling that the surest
+way to effect their plans was to induce the surly commander to make them
+his own. The event proved their shrewdness, for Jones accepted the
+appointment with great satisfaction, and told off ten of his best seamen
+to add to the four-and-twenty sound men who were nearly all that the
+Pilgrims could muster, since, thanks to the secret councils of Rose
+Standish and her associates, all sick or weakly candidates were weeded
+out from the volunteers, and the Tilley brothers, William Molines,
+James Chilton, William White, and several others were kindly bidden to
+remain on board and nurse their strength for the next expedition.
+
+About noon the tide serving, the four-and-thirty adventurers, divided
+between the ship's long-boat and their own pinnace, took the sea in
+teeth of a freezing northeasterly gale, and under low-lying clouds whose
+gray bosoms teemed with snow and sleet.
+
+Thomas English, a mariner engaged as master of the shallop, held the
+helm, while as many willing hands as could grasp the oars pulled lustily
+in the direction of what is now called the Pamet River, a stream
+discovered some days previously by a foot expedition under charge of
+Standish, and considered as a possible seat for their colony. The
+crowded state of the boats and the head wind rendered the sails useless,
+and oars proved inefficient to propel so large a boat as the pinnace,
+while the sea, rapidly rising with the rising wind, broke so dangerously
+over the quarter that English refused to proceed, and it was hastily
+resolved to run into what is now called East Harbor, land the
+passengers, and allow the long-boat to return to the ship, while the
+pinnace lay to until the gale moderated. This was done, but owing to the
+shoals, the men were obliged to wade knee-deep to reach land, and the
+cold was now so intense that their clothes froze upon them as they
+resumed their journey on foot. Well may we believe what William Bradford
+later said: "Some of our people who are dead took the original of their
+death on that day."
+
+Marching six or seven miles on foot, the party encamped, building a
+barricade, or as they called it a "randevous," of pine boughs to protect
+them from savage beasts or men, and within it kindling a fire beside
+which they sat down to eat such provisions as they had brought, and to
+solace themselves with modest draughts of the strong waters they used
+but not abused.
+
+The next day the exploration was continued both by sea and land, the
+hardy adventurers marching through snow six inches deep, or upon the
+loose sands of the beach where the wind flogged them with lashes of icy
+spray and stinging shards. In passing through a belt of woods traces of
+human presence were to be seen, especially certain young trees bent down
+and their tops made fast to the earth. Stepping aside to examine one of
+these, William Bradford suddenly found his leg inclosed in a noose,
+while the tree, released and springing upward, would have carried him
+ignominiously with it had not he seized the trunk of another sapling,
+and lustily shouted for help. His comrades came running back, and not
+without laughter and some grim pleasantries released him. Stephen
+Hopkins alone understood the trap, and cutting from it a piece of smooth
+fine cord twisted of wood fibres handed it to Bradford, saying,--
+
+"Here, man, keep it by way of horn-book to teach thee wood-lore in these
+salvage countries. It is the moral of what we used to see among the
+Bermoothes some ten years gone by. Ay, and the traps too. I've seen many
+a wild thing, deer or what not, jerked up by the leg and hanging from a
+tree like Absalom, until its master came along to cut its throat and
+dress it, as it hung."
+
+"Glad am I that no such master came to release me," said Bradford
+laughing ruefully as he rubbed his leg and limped along.
+
+"So thou wert in the Bermudas, Hopkins?" asked Standish who was of the
+walking party; "wast buccaneering?"
+
+"Nay, Captain, all men do not follow thy trade," replied Hopkins with
+his boisterous laugh. "Mine was quite another office, for I was
+lay-reader to Parson Buck, and he was chaplain to Gates who was to be
+governor of a Virginia colony an' he could have reached it. But like our
+own adventure it miscarried, and we were wrecked on the Bermoothes. We
+abode there six months, and the Indians showed us how to trap deer just
+as Bradford was trapped but now, ho, ho!"
+
+"Lay-reader wast thou?" asked Standish surveying the burly veteran with
+whimsical interest. "Well, now, I'd never take thee for a parson's
+lieutenant, Hopkins! I can hardly fancy thee meek and mild with bands
+under that unkempt beard, and a gown over thy buff jacket. Wert meek and
+mild in those days, Hopkins, and thy tongue, was 't innocent of strange
+oaths?"
+
+"A truce to thy jibes, master Captain," retorted Hopkins not half
+pleased at receiving the jests he so freely offered. "If thou didst but
+know, my voice was more for war than peace, sith it seemed to me then
+even as it did before we landed here, that an expedition gone astray is
+an expedition ended, and that all compacts cease when their conditions
+cannot be fulfilled. We shipped to go to Virginia, and Gates was to be
+our governor; well and good, but here we were wrecked on Bermuda, and my
+rede was that every man was thus released from his promises and free to
+set forth anew for himself."
+
+"So! Yonder threatening on the Mayflower was not thy first experience in
+raising sedition and discontent, and trying to turn a God-fearing
+community into a nest of pirates!" exclaimed Standish scornfully.
+"Well, what came of it in that instance?"
+
+"Why, Gates called a court-martial, tried me for treason by an authority
+I denied, and sentenced me to death."
+
+"Ay, and what then?"
+
+"Then Parson Buck who could ill spare me, since I writ half his
+discourses, and the admiral who would not see murder done under cloak of
+law, they went to Gates and so wrought upon his temper that he set me
+free and bade me begone, and I went right merrily."
+
+"Thou mindst me of an officer under me, down there by Utrecht," said
+Standish meditatively. "He, too, was for setting up every man for
+himself in the plunder of a village we had taken, and I had given orders
+about."
+
+"And what became of him?" asked Hopkins, as the captain seemed to have
+finished.
+
+"Oh, there was no parson just there to make use of him, and no admiral
+to judge about my authority, and he was shot," replied Standish quietly.
+Hopkins scowled and laid his hand upon his sword hilt, but Bradford, who
+had listened with both interest and amusement to the conversation,
+deftly interposed with some question about the route, and Hopkins, who
+prided himself upon his wood-lore, took the lead, and conducted the
+party by the easiest route to the spot where they would rejoin their
+brethren of the boat.
+
+The Pamet River, reached at length, proved unsatisfactory for a
+settlement, but at its mouth were found sundry matters of interest,--the
+remains of a palisade formed apparently by civilized hands, the ruins of
+a log hut, quite different from the wigwams of the savages, and a large
+mound which when opened proved full of Indian corn, some shelled, some
+on the ear, the yellow kernels variegated with red and blue ones, like
+the maize still grown in that vicinity. The snow upon the ground would
+have concealed this "barn," as rustic John Rigdale called it, had not
+the previous expedition noted and marked it, and the ground was so hard
+frozen that it must be hewed with the stout cutlasses and axes of the
+Pilgrims, and the clods pried up with levers. Standish drew his sword
+with the rest, but after watching for a moment thrust it back into the
+sheath, saying to Alden who as usual was close beside him,--
+
+"Nay, I'll none of it! What mine own thews and sinews may compass, I'll
+undertake right joyfully, but I'll never ask Gideon to risk his edge or
+his backbone in such rude labors as yon. Every man to his trade, and
+these are the sappers and miners with whom he has no concern."
+
+"Is Gideon the name of your sword then, Master?" asked Alden half
+timidly, for Standish had the habit of command and was impatient of much
+questioning.
+
+Alden however was a favorite, and the captain, like a lover, was won by
+the admiring glance the young man threw at the sword, as its owner
+unsheathed it and laid the blade fondly across his palm.
+
+"Why ay," replied he smiling down at it, "I have christened him so; but
+methinks, like other converts, he finds the new name sit uneasily at
+times, and would fain hear the old one."
+
+"And what might that be?"
+
+"Ah, that is what no man alive can tell. He who forged it of that rare
+metal which now and again falls from the skies, and he who first
+wielded and named it, have lain in the dust well nigh a thousand years,
+if old tales be true."
+
+"A thousand years! But what is its story,--if you will tell it, Master
+Standish?" and the young man's face grew bright with excitement as he
+glanced from the soldier's face to the blade glittering across his palm,
+and seeming to laugh in the wintry sunshine.
+
+"Well, it was an old armorer in Ghent for whom I had done some service
+in protecting his daughter and saving some mails which my men would have
+plundered, and the old man was more grateful than need be, and came one
+night to my lodgings bringing this sword wrapped in his mantle, to offer
+me as a gift, for he said he would not sell it, valuing it above all
+price."
+
+"And still you would have him take a price," suggested Alden exultantly,
+but Standish answered gently,--
+
+"Nay, John, that is but poor pride that cannot allow another to be its
+benefactor. I took the old man's gift and thanked him heartily. Later
+on, as chance befell, I did him a good turn in a contract for arms,
+while he knew it not. But that is beside the matter, which is the sword.
+He told me, that old man did, a story fit to set in the ancient romaunts
+of chivalry, how he as a young fellow full of heart and lustihood went
+out to fight the Turks or some other heathen of those parts, and was a
+prisoner, and a lady loved him and he loved her not, having a sweetheart
+waiting for him at home. And she had a noble heart and forgave him his
+despite, and set him free at risk of her own life, nor gave him freedom
+only, but a purse of gold and this sword, which she averred had been
+captured from the Persian people hundreds of years before, and was a
+true Damascus blade forged from meteor iron, and of the curious
+tempering now forgotten. And she said, moreover, that there was a charm
+upon it that made him who carried it invincible and scathless, and she,
+poor maid, had robbed her father's house of this great treasure, and
+brought it to him who loved another woman better than her, and so with
+tears and smiles she gave it over, and he for very ruth gave her a
+tender kiss, and thus they parted."
+
+"Nay, I pity her not. She was overbold to offer her love before it had
+been asked," said Alden hastily.
+
+"Ah, boy, thou 'rt in all the hardness of thy callow youth, and nought's
+more hard. Wait some fifteen years till thou comest to my age, and
+thou 'lt pity the poor heathen maid as I do to-day. Well, my armorer
+took the sword and played it some forty years or more, and then, too old
+to wield arms, he took to dealing in them, but never sold this, for it
+had proved all that the lady claimed for it, and had slain his enemies,
+and fended his friends, and saved his own head more times than he could
+number, and now he gave it to me who had, he said, saved more than his
+life."
+
+"And these outlandish signs and marks upon the blade?" asked Alden,
+peering down at the sword.
+
+"There, now, thou callest for another tale," replied Standish smiling
+good-naturedly. "But as they seem to need us not in disemboweling yon
+granary, and here we are guard against surprise from whoever may rightly
+own the treasure and come to claim it, I will e'en tell thee the rest.
+
+"Thou knowest Pastor Robinson of Leyden, though thou wast never out of
+England thyself?"
+
+"I know his fame as a pious teacher and a learned man, well beloved of
+his people."
+
+"Beloved? Ay, none more so," exclaimed Standish heartily. "I ever wished
+I might see him in some great peril and prove my love by cutting down a
+round dozen of his foes. And learned! Why, man, he disputed with the
+most learned among their Dutch scholars openly in the big church, and
+left them not a leg to stand on, or a tongue to wag. Why, 't is no more
+to him to read Hebrew than for me to spell out my Bible. So then,
+knowing his learning and his love of all that is old and curious, I one
+day showed him my sword and asked if he could rede me fairly the
+mystical texts or whatever they might be upon the blade. But mind thee I
+said naught to him of any charm or amulet about it, lest I might wound
+his conscience, which is tender as a maid's. Thou shouldst have seen the
+dear old man, barnacles on nose, peering and peeping and muttering over
+the queer device, all at one as he were a wizard himself and working
+some spell. But at the last he heaved a mighty sigh, and gave me back
+the sword saying, nay, he could not make out more than that there were
+two legends in two different tongues and by different hands, and that
+the effigies of the sun and moon and stars pointed, he feared, to
+idolatrous emblems, and were not such as a Christian man might safely
+deal withal. So I asked him would it be better should I have the Holy
+Rood wrought above them as did the Crusaders of old, and beshrew me, but
+this device seemed to please him less than the other."
+
+"Nay, our teachers like not the look of the Cross, nor use it as our
+fathers used. It savoreth of Popery, they say," interposed Alden
+glancing at the captain's face for sure approval, but to his surprise he
+saw it overcast and frowning.
+
+"Thou knowest," replied he a little haughtily, "that I am not of the
+Separatist Church, nor agree in all its teachings. The Standishes were
+ever good Catholics, since they came over from Normandy with William the
+Baseborn, and if I hold not to the religion of my fathers I accept no
+other, nor can I ever esteem lightly those things my mother venerated."
+
+The younger man, perplexed and mortified, remained silent, but in a
+moment Standish smiled and resumed his story.
+
+"So, Pastor Robinson confessed his own want of skill, as so wise a man
+need not shame to do, but told me of a certain aged scholar in
+Amsterdam, well versed in Eastern lore, and able, if any man alive could
+do it, to rede me the riddle aright, and he wrote down his name and
+lodging and a line to recommend me to his kindly attention, and so gave
+me fair good-night.
+
+"Not long after, my occasions called me to Amsterdam, and be sure I took
+the time to find the old ancient scholar, a queer, dried-up graybeard,
+with skin like the parchment covers of his folios; but he gave me
+courteous welcome, and I laid the sword upon the table under his nose.
+Faith, John, I thought that same nose would grow to my blade, for a good
+half hour passed away, or ever he stirred or spoke. Then he looked
+askance at me and said,--
+
+"'How old art thou in very truth?'"
+
+"I told him some thirty years, and he stared and stared until had he
+been a young man and a soldier I had asked him his intent. But as it
+was, I did but stare back again, until at the last his parchment cheeks
+creased and crackled in what may have been meant for a smile, and he
+said,--
+
+"'Thou mightst have been a score of thirties if thou hadst been born
+when this blade was forged.'
+
+"'And why?' asked I, wondering if Pastor Robinson could have known the
+man was an old wizard.
+
+"'Because there's that on this blade would have kept thee from all harm
+if thou hadst made it thine own,' said he, tapping that circle."
+
+And turning the blade, Standish showed upon the reverse from the sun,
+moon, and stars, an ornamented medallion close to the hilt, containing
+certain cabalistic signs and marks. Below this was an inscription of
+several lines in totally different characters.[1]
+
+[1] This sword may still be seen in Pilgrim Hall, Plymouth,
+Massachusetts.
+
+"And that is a charm to keep a man alive?" asked Alden with bated breath
+and eager eyes.
+
+"So that old man said," replied Standish, "but I concern myself little
+with such matters, having ever found my own right arm enough to keep my
+head, and the grace of God better than any heathen charm."
+
+"And did he read it, and the rest?" pursued Alden.
+
+"Yes, he read it, or at the least he muttered something in some
+outlandish gibberish," replied the captain, laughing a little
+shamefacedly. "And he told me its meaning, partly in Latin, for we spoke
+together in that tongue, but I am such a dullard that I forgot the words
+as soon as he spoke them, and so asked him to write them down. Then he
+fell a pondering again, and said like the pastor, that the two
+inscriptions differed in every way, and he must muse awhile and look in
+his books before he could read them fairly, and he asked me to leave
+the sword with him. So seeing him so venerable and honorable a man I
+consented, although not willingly, and went my way. The next morning I
+sought him again not certain but that in the night he and my sword and
+the charm had all flown out of window together and gone to join the
+Witch of Endor. But no, there he sat, and the sword before him, as if
+they never had stirred since I left. And the old man gave me a bit of
+parchment covered with crabbed Latin script, and told me I should find
+therein the sense of my two inscriptions, though there were words even
+he could not decipher. So I put the parchment in my pouch, and reached
+my hand to the sword, when he withheld it and said,--
+
+"'This charm avails nothing for thee, my son, because it was not framed
+for thee, nor dost thou swear by the powers therein invoked; but I can
+frame one that will avail, and will protect thee from any weapon raised
+against thee. I have learned somewhat I never knew, in studying thy
+sword, and I would fain repay thee in kind.'
+
+"Now lad, as he spoke, a certain terror seized me lest I should be found
+dabbling in the black art, and I said, with more than enough vehemence,
+that I wanted no charm, nor did I fear mortal weapon or mortal foe, for
+in God was my trust, and He was able to hold me scathless, or to take me
+when He would. And then, John, a fancy seized me, a foolish fancy of
+romance perhaps, but still I mind not thy knowing, so thou 'lt not
+babble of it to others. I asked the old man could he put what I had just
+said into the same tongue with that heathen charm, and so shape it that
+I could have it carved upon my blade above the sun and moon and stars,
+which those Persian idolaters worship and had graved there almost as
+idols. And he smiled again in that grewsome fashion of his, and said ay
+he could do that much, and that as three possessors had already put
+invocations to their gods upon the blade it was but fit I should do so
+in my turn.
+
+"I liked not the quip, nor the evening of a Christian man's belief to
+idolatrous worship, but yet the idea of the Christian charm, if one
+might call it so, had taken fast possession of my mind, and I felt as
+though it were snatching the good blade from the powers of heathenesse
+and giving it to God. So I put what I would say in few words, and the
+old man wrought upon it till he had it to his mind, and at the last took
+a pencil dipped in some wizard's ink or other and drew these signs upon
+the sword as you see them, bidding me take it to an armorer and have
+them cut in just as they stood. So I did, choosing, you may be sure, the
+armorer who had given me the sword, and showing him, as I have you, that
+this is no heathen charm, but the sign of a Christian man's faith."
+
+"And what do they mean, all three of them?" asked Alden reverently. "I
+see the figures 1149 graved clearly enough, but what mean the other two
+rows?"
+
+"My lad, thou seest wrong. The 1 and 4 and 9 are but symbols of letters
+not there set down, and the whole, partly from that same foolish fancy I
+told thee of, and partly because the old scholar bade me never tell it
+lest some other man should steal his learning, and partly because Gideon
+hath kept the first secret so many years that I feel like trusting him
+with another, for all these reasons I promised myself and the scholar
+and Gideon that I would never tell the thing to mortal man, nor even
+the rendering of the other devices; and lest I should be tempted to
+forego my word, sith I claim to be no stronger than Samson, or lest some
+one should surprise the secret unawares, I cut the piece of parchment in
+two pieces, and handed them back to the old scholar, who disguised not
+his huge content thereat. So thou seest, John, two of the three
+inscriptions I could not unravel to thee if I would, and of the third
+thou wilt not ask me, since it is guarded by a promise."
+
+"Surely, Master, it is not I who would ask you to break it," said John
+simply. "But the name of Gideon?"
+
+"Didst never read of Gideon in Holy Writ, John? A mighty soldier before
+the Lord who hewed down his father's idol-grove and came out from among
+his own people and carved his own way in the world. Ever as I read his
+story, I mind me of a man I knew in Lancashire who went to the house of
+his fathers to claim what was his own, and when he gat it not, he threw
+down the idols he had been trained to worship, and shook off the dust of
+that idol-grove where Mammon and Rank and the world's opinion were set
+up as gods, and went out into the world to hew out his own fortunes by
+the might of his own right arm, and his trust in the God of Israel. So
+now, John Alden, thou knowest more about my good sword than any man
+alive, for I doubt me if the scholar remembereth, and the armorer is
+dead. And when we go into battle, if such good luck await us, and thou
+hearest me cry, The Sword of the Lord and of Gideon! thou 'lt know my
+meaning."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+THE LILIES OF FRANCE.
+
+
+"Ho Captain Standish, thou 'rt wanted here!" cried the coarse voice of
+Thomas Jones as the two men approached the group gathered about the corn
+heap. "Come hither and teach these gentle maids the usages of war. They
+speak forsooth of making payment to these unbreeched salvages for the
+corn we are taking from this hole in the ground. Was it the way of your
+bold fellows in Flanders to make payment to the Spaniards if you
+surprised and sacked their camp?"
+
+"The Spaniards were our declared enemies," replied Standish coldly; "and
+not only their gear but their lives were ours if we could take them, and
+so were ours theirs an' they approved themselves the better men. But
+here it is not so; we have no quarrel as yet with the salvages, nor is
+it wise to provoke one. We are but a handful, and they in their own
+country of unknown strength. Besides, why should we harm those who have
+done us no wrong? Is it not wiser to make friends and allies if we may?
+So Master Jones you must e'en rank me with the gentle maids who speak
+for honesty and justice in this matter."
+
+"As you will, it is no concern of mine," retorted Jones with a surly
+laugh; "but never before did I sail in such saintly company, or find
+bearded men with swords at their sides carrying themselves like milk-fed
+babes."
+
+"And in sad seriousness, good Master Jones, do you intend to cast a slur
+upon our courage?" demanded Standish, a cold smile upon his lips, while
+his right hand toyed with Gideon's hilt, and his right foot planted
+itself more firmly.
+
+"Nay, he's no such ass," interposed Hopkins hastily. "He did but mean a
+merry joke, and we would have you Captain Standish tell off such men as
+had best remain on shore for further exploration while the rest shall
+return to the ship with Master Jones, who is in mind to go back before
+night."
+
+"Oh, he is overdone with the work we babes have scarce begun," muttered
+Standish with a wrathful laugh. "Glad am I to spare him."
+
+"And I," said Bradford joining them. "And we are all of one mind that
+Captain Standish shall take command of those who remain, since the
+governor and several others find themselves but ailing and will return
+with Jones, who forebodes foul weather and needs must take his men
+aboard to meet it."
+
+"Why, that's no more than his duty, and mayhap I wronged him," said
+Standish generously. "Well, who tarries with me?"
+
+The division was soon made, and as the boats left the shore, beneath the
+same cold and stormy sky that had led them forth, and feebly breasted
+the hissing waves which seemed to sneer at their puny efforts, the
+eighteen men who remained on shore drew closer together.
+
+"Methinks our men are to be sifted like Gideon's army at Mount Moreh,"
+said Edward Winslow running his eye over the little group as he linked
+his arm with Bradford's. "They went forth twenty-and-two hundred and
+fell away to three hundred."
+
+"By the three hundred who lap the water with their hands will I conquer
+Midian," quoted Bradford in a clear and ringing voice.
+
+"Hear you that, John?" asked Standish of the young man who followed him
+closely. "It is a good omen that the grand old story should have come
+into Winslow's head. And now, men, my opinion is that we should strike
+inland, and see if we cannot come upon some settlement or stronghold of
+the natives, for certes, these barns and graves were not made without
+hands, nor were the stubble-fields reaped by ghosts. The tract lying
+north and east of this river is yet new to us, and, since you will be
+led by me, we will march for some hours hither and yon through its
+length and breadth, making our randevous where night may overtake us,
+and returning hither to meet the shallop to-morrow."
+
+"It is good counsel, and we will follow you, Captain," said Winslow,
+while a consenting murmur stirred the russet beards around, and Hopkins
+said, "He among us who best knows the ways of woodlands, and how to
+steer the plainest course through these swamps and thickets, should be
+on the lead, it seemeth to me, Captain."
+
+"Ay, Hopkins, I have thought of all that," interrupted Standish rather
+curtly; "and I have chosen my scout already. Billington, where art thou,
+man?"
+
+"Here, Captain," responded a coarse voice, and a man whose mean and
+truculent face contrasted forcibly with those about him pushed forward
+and stood before the captain, who gave him a comprehensive glance,
+noting not only the mean and bad face, but the wiry and well-knit
+figure, and the eyes quick and watchful as a rat's.
+
+"Billington," repeated he at last, "I've noticed on these expeditions
+that thou hast a pretty knack at woodcraft, and can smell thy way among
+these bogs and thorny coppices with marvelous good judgment."
+
+"I learned such woodcraft and more while I was gamekeeper to my Lord
+Lovell in the old country," interrupted Billington with an impudent
+grin. The captain again regarded him with that penetrating glance whose
+power is matter of history and replied,--
+
+"I suppose it was in such service that thou camest by that ugly scar
+across thy nose. Thou hast never been a soldier, well I wot."
+
+"Thou 'rt right, Captain," said Billington putting his hand to his face
+with an unabashed laugh. "It was a poacher"--
+
+"Ay, I thought it was a poacher," interrupted Standish dryly. "Well,
+master gamekeeper Billington, to-day thou 'rt under my orders, and I
+desire thee to lead us through this wood in an easterly course, and to
+keep a diligent eye upon all signs of occupation by the enemy, that is
+to say, our friends the salvages. Be very careful in this matter, an'
+please thee, good Billington, for shouldst thou think it a merry jest to
+lead us into danger of any sort, I fear me thou 'dst find it but a poor
+bargain for thyself."
+
+"Nay, Captain, the man means no harm and feels that we are all comrades
+in this matter," said Winslow pacifically, while Hopkins muttered
+discontentedly,--
+
+"O'er many masters to my mind."
+
+Standish answered neither, except by a glance from his penetrating eyes,
+and Billington taking the lead the little party struck into the woods
+and marched rapidly and in silence for an hour or more, when Allerton,
+the oldest and feeblest man of the party, suddenly halted, and called to
+Standish that he must perforce rest for a few minutes, and was,
+moreover, sadly athirst. This want was immediately echoed by all, for
+the flasks at every man's belt contained spirits or strong beer, and the
+toil of the march, sometimes in spite of Billington's skill through
+thickets whose thorny branches tore even the armor from the Pilgrims'
+backs, and sometimes through half frozen morasses, had induced a thirst
+craving plentiful draughts of pure water.
+
+"We've passed neither spring nor runlet on our course, for I've looked
+for such," said Billington removing his leather cap and wiping his brow
+upon his sleeve. "And though 't is frosty weather, such a diligent march
+as ours heats the blood shrewdly."
+
+"We will halt beside this coppice for a space," ordered Standish
+glancing at Allerton's pallid face; "and do thou search yonder hollow,
+Billington, for water. Alden go you with him, and keep an eye on his
+course."
+
+The two men thus detailed plunged into the little hollow where indeed
+water should have been, but found only a pool so shallow and so
+sheltered as to have frozen quite solid; from this they brought some
+pieces of ice with which Allerton was so revived as to resume his course
+for another mile when he again broke down, while all the rest suffered
+so sensibly from thirst that they could not conceal their distress.
+Another halt was called, and all the younger men dispersed in various
+directions, while Allerton lay stretched upon the ground, his parched
+mouth open, and his eyes half closed. Beside him stood Standish, real
+concern upon his usually stern features, and in his hand a flask of
+spirits, from which the exhausted and fevered man turned loathingly.
+
+"'T is as good schnapps as ever came through a still," said Standish
+wistfully; "and if thou couldst stomach it must surely do thee good."
+
+"Water, water!" moaned Allerton.
+
+"Ay, a little water mingled with it were better for thee just now,"
+replied the Captain soothingly. "But sith water may not be had"--
+
+"Ho, men! Water, water, a running brook!" cried Alden's hearty voice, as
+he came bursting his way through the thicket. "A running brook and a
+deer drinking at its spring."
+
+"And why didst not shoot the deer instead of hallooing him away, thou
+great idiot?" demanded Standish in jesting anger, while, with such a
+rush as the animal sore athirst makes when he scents the water springs,
+all the men but three of the party burst through the undergrowth and
+found themselves in a lovely little dale so sheltered by hills and trees
+as to offer only a southern exposure to the weather. The snow of the
+previous day had already disappeared from this favored spot, and the
+little runlet with its welling spring sparkled free from frost among the
+long grasses, sweet-gale, and low shrubbery of the place; among these
+shrubs more than one dainty track leading from the forest to the runlet
+showed that here the deer came daily down to drink, and Alden in his
+heart felt he had done well not to lift a hand against the pretty
+creature he had surprised there. But neither the poetic Bradford, the
+polished Winslow, nor the meditative Howland paused any more than their
+brethren to note the beauty of the spot, but one and all plunging
+forward threw themselves upon their knees thrusting their faces into the
+water, and only pausing to draw breath and drink again.
+
+"We there drank our first New England water, and with as much delight as
+ever we drunk drink in all our lives," wrote Bradford at a later day,
+and no doubt the memory of its refreshment lasted all his life.
+
+All but three, and these three were Allerton who could not go, Standish
+who would not leave him, and Alden who would not leave Standish until
+the latter said,--
+
+"But dost not see, John, that thou 'rt hindering me from quenching my
+thirst? Go thou and bring thy steel cap full of water for Master
+Allerton, and when I see him revived I'll go right gladly to lap water
+out of my hand among my three hundred."
+
+"You are ever right, master," replied Alden briefly, and ran to do as he
+was bid.
+
+An hour's rest and the food they had been unable to swallow while
+athirst, so refreshed the Pilgrims that even Allerton resumed the march
+with fresh courage and pursued it steadily until Billington, suddenly
+pausing and pointing down at a narrow path intersecting their own, said
+in a low voice to Standish who came close behind him,--
+
+"Men's feet, not beasts. It will lead belike to a village."
+
+"Ay," responded the captain briefly. "Look well to your weapons men, and
+light your matches, but let no man fire his piece without command." And
+drawing his sword, Standish strode eagerly forward close to Billington,
+who with all his faults was no coward, and blithely blew his match to a
+fiery glow, while glancing with his ferret eyes behind every tree and
+into every covert he passed.
+
+Nothing, however, was to be seen, and suddenly the path came to an end
+in a large clearing covered with the stubble of maize recently gathered,
+while at the farther side stood several huts formed by a circle of
+elastic poles, the butts thrust in the ground and the tops bound
+together leaving a hole through which the smoke was invited to escape,
+and sometimes did so. The outside was protected by heavy mats of skins
+or braided of bark, while a more highly decorated one closed the
+doorway. All were evidently deserted, and after some cautious advances,
+the captain leaving three men on guard permitted the rest to extinguish
+their matches and explore the wigwams so curious to European eyes and so
+familiar to our own.
+
+The interior of each showed a cooking hearth or platform framed of
+sticks and stones, and an assortment of wooden cooking utensils rudely
+carved. Among these the explorers noticed an English bucket without a
+bale and a copper kettle, both linking themselves in their minds to the
+traces of civilization already noted in the palisades and ruined cabin
+near which the store of corn had been found. Many baskets, both for use
+and ornament, were found, and sundry boxes curiously wrought with bits
+of clam shell, such as were used for wampum, and also little crab shells
+and colored pebbles, seemed to show the presence of women and their
+proficiency in the fancy work of their own time and taste. Several deer
+heads, one of them freshly killed, showed that the inmates of the
+wigwams were not far distant, and in a hollow tree by way of larder was
+hung the carcass of a deer, so well ripened that even Hopkins pronounced
+it "fitter for dogs than men."
+
+From all these novelties and curiosities the Pilgrims selected a few of
+the prettier specimens to carry to their comrades on board, formally
+promising each other, as they had in case of the corn, to make due
+payment to the owners whenever they should be found, a promise most
+conscientiously performed at a later day.
+
+By the time these matters were fully examined night was falling, and
+the Pilgrims, strong in their own good intentions and also in their
+weapons, encamped a short distance from the Indian village, and although
+keeping diligent guard all night saw nor heard naught to disturb their
+slumbers. Rousing betimes next morning, their first attention was given
+to prayers, and their next to making as good a breakfast as possible
+with the aid of some wild fowl and little birds shot during the previous
+day's march, and then the "meat and mass" which "hinder no man" thus
+attended to, they set forth in the direction of the river where they
+were to be picked up by the shallop. Toward noon this point was nearly
+reached, in fact the clearing with the European cabin was close at hand,
+when Billington paused beside a mound carefully laid up with a border of
+beach stones and rounded high and smooth with sods, over which were laid
+hewn planks such as composed the cabin.
+
+"It is another store of corn of choicer variety," declared he greedily;
+but Hopkins shook his head.
+
+"It is the grave of some great sachem, or haply from these planks above
+him it is the grave of whoever built yon cabin and palisado."
+
+"Belike there is treasure of some wrecked vessel which brought him
+hither, and which he stored away thus, until his rescue," said Rigdale.
+
+"Should not we cautiously open it, Captain, and certify ourselves what
+is therein?" asked Bradford. "If it prove a grave we can but reverently
+cover it again, and if it be food, we need all that we can gather for
+food and seed."
+
+"Ay, Master Bradford," replied Standish thoughtfully. "I like not
+meddling with graves for despite or for curiosity, but sith it much
+imports us to understand this country where we are to dwell, I think we
+may examine this mound, and, as thou sayest, if it be a grave of white
+man or of red, we will leave it as honorable as we find it."
+
+Permission thus given, swords, bayonets, and hatchets were set to work,
+and in a few moments, the upper surface of sand and earth being removed,
+the explorers came upon a large bow, strong, tough, and beautifully
+carved and pointed.
+
+"It is a sachem, and a mighty man of valor if he wielded this bow and
+shot these arrows," said Hopkins handling them respectfully.
+
+"It seemeth to me like a white man's touch in this carving," said
+Winslow examining the bow.
+
+"Here lieth a goodly mat, stained with red and blue in a fair pattern,"
+said Bradford drawing it off the grave, as it now seemed certain to be.
+
+"And what is this?" exclaimed Alden raising something which lay beneath
+the mat. Brushing away the mould that clung to it, this proved to be a
+piece of plank some twenty-seven inches in length, carefully smoothed
+upon one side, and painted with what seemed an heraldic achievement,
+while the top was cut into something of the fashion of a crest
+consisting of three spikes or tines.
+
+"It is a hatchment over a noble's grave," cried Standish. "Say you not
+so, Master Winslow? See you, here is a shield, although I know not the
+device, and here is surely a crest."
+
+"So it beseemeth, Captain," replied Winslow cautiously. "And to my mind
+this crest is a rude presentment of the lilies of France. See you now,
+Master Bradford!"
+
+"Nay, I know naught of such toys," replied Bradford sturdily. "To my
+mind it looketh as much like Neptune's trident as aught else."
+
+"Or like a muck-fork," suggested Rigdale in his broad Lancashire
+dialect, and with a coarse laugh resented by Standish, who, an
+aristocrat to his heart's core, ill brooked contempt of chivalrous
+emblems, especially by a rustic of his own shire.
+
+"Well, let us get on with this business," said he peremptorily, and
+pulling away another mat he disclosed a store of bowls, plates, dishes,
+and such matters, all new and beautifully carved and decorated.
+
+"For the dead man to cook and eat on his journey to the happy hunting
+grounds, which the salvages place in the room of heaven," said Hopkins
+sanctimoniously. Beneath these lay another mat, and beneath this a crypt
+carefully bedded with dry white sand, upon which lay two packages
+carefully sewn up in sailcloth, the one more than six feet in length,
+the other barely three.
+
+"The body of a man and child," said Bradford softly, as he helped to
+raise them from their pure white cell and lay them upon the earth.
+
+"Open them with care, friends," said Standish uncovering his head. "It
+is some white man buried in such honor as they had knowledge of by those
+who loved him."
+
+The many folds of canvas removed, there lay a strange sight before the
+Pilgrims' eyes. Inclosed in a great quantity of fine red powder,
+emitting a pungent but agreeable odor, lay the skeleton of a man,
+fleshless, except upon the skull, where clung the skin and a mass of
+beautiful hair, yellow as gold, and curling closely as if in life.
+
+"Is the flesh turned to this red powder?" asked Alden fingering it
+dubiously.
+
+"Dost know, Hopkins?" asked Standish, but the veteran shook his head.
+
+"I have seen naught like this in all my life," confessed he. "See, here
+is a parcel at his feet done up in another bit of the old sail."
+
+"Shall I open it, Captain?" asked Alden eagerly.
+
+"Ay, an' thou wilt."
+
+"'T is clothes. A sailor's jerkin and breeches, a knife, a sail needle
+threaded with somewhat like a bowstring"--
+
+"A deer's sinew. They still use it as our women do linen thread," said
+Hopkins taking it in his hand.
+
+"And some bits of wrought iron," continued Alden turning them over.
+
+"Ay, ay, ay, the poor fellow's chiefest treasures in his exile among the
+salvages," said Bradford gently.
+
+"And still he was finding some comfort, you may well be sure," suggested
+Hopkins. "For it was a savage woman who laid him thus carefully to his
+rest, and yon package be sure is the bones of her child."
+
+"Belike. Open it, John," said Standish briefly, and in effect the
+smaller package contained the same red and pungent powder encasing the
+bones of a little child, his head covered with a thinner thatch of the
+father's yellow curls, and the wrists, ankles, and neck surrounded with
+strings of fine white beads. Beside it lay a little bow and arrows
+ornamented with all the loving elaboration of Indian art.
+
+"A boy, and his mother's darling, be she red or white, savage or
+Christian," said Bradford softly, as his thoughts flew to the baby boy
+left in Holland under charge of his wife Dorothy's parents.
+
+"Yes," replied Standish gently. "Cover them reverently, and lay them in
+their grave again. God send comfort to that poor woman's heart."
+
+"Certes they are no salvages," said Hopkins positively. "Never saw I
+yellow hair on any but a white man's head, nor do red men wear
+breeches."
+
+"Ay, he was a white man, but, as I opine, a Frenchman," declared Winslow
+thoughtfully.
+
+"French surely, masters, for this is French," said Robert Cartier
+timidly, as he handled the pointed board. "These are indeed the lilies
+of France. I have seen them full oft."
+
+"Say you so, lad?" asked Standish kindly. "Well, I suppose a man loves
+his country's ensign though he be naught but a Frenchman. There, place
+all as we found it, and let us go our ways."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+AN AWFUL DANGER.
+
+
+"Found you a good burial place in yonder wilderness?" asked Dorothy
+Bradford of her husband the next morning as he sat beside her in their
+little cabin on the high quarter deck of the Mayflower.
+
+"Ay truly, wife," replied the husband cheerily. "And much did we muse as
+to the remains so honorably interred. One of those we found was a little
+lad scarce as old as our baby John, and almost mine eyes grew wet in
+thinking of him so far away."
+
+"Cruel that thou art to speak of him," exclaimed the young mother
+wildly, "when thou knowest I am dying for sight of the child and of home
+and my mother and all that I hold dear. I asked, hadst thou found a
+grave for poor me in this wilderness whither thou hast brought me to
+die."
+
+"Nay, then, dear wife"--
+
+"Mock me not with fair words, for they are naught. If I indeed am dear
+take me home to all I love. Here I have naught but thee, and one might
+as well love one of these cold gray rocks as thee."
+
+"Have I not been kind and gentle to thee, Dorothy?" asked Bradford
+bowing his face upon his hands.
+
+"Ay, kind enow," replied she sullenly. "And gentle, as brave men still
+must be to helpless women, but as for love! Tell me now, William
+Bradford, dost thou to-day love me as thou couldst have loved Alice
+Carpenter who flouted thee and married Edward Southworth instead? Nay,
+now, them darest not deny that thou dost love her still!"
+
+"Peace, woman!" exclaimed Bradford raising his face, stern and pale as
+his wife had seldom seen it, and then as he marked her fragile features
+and woe-begone expression his tone changed to a gentle one. "Nay,
+Dorothy, thou wrongest thyself and me. I told thee of certain passages,
+past before I knew thee, because I would have no secret between my wife
+and me, and it is ill-done of thee to use my confidence as a weapon
+against me. And again thou wrongest me grievously; Edward Southworth's
+wife is naught to us; we twain are made one, and our lives are to run in
+the one channel while both shall last. It is for me to shape and hew
+that channel, and for thee to see that its waters run clear and sweet,
+and, if you will, to plant posies on the banks. Let us never speak again
+of these matters, Dorothy, but rather turn our minds to making a fair
+home of the place whither God hath brought us, and doing our best by
+each other. Trust me, wife, thou shalt never have cause to complain for
+lack of aught I can win for thee or do for thee. Nay, Dorothy, my wife,
+weep not so bitterly!"
+
+"Master Bradford, are you within?" asked John Howland's voice outside
+the door.
+
+"Ay. What is thy errand, John?"
+
+"The governor prays you to attend a Council convened in the great
+cabin."
+
+"I will come," and laying his hand tenderly yet solemnly upon the bowed
+head of his wife Bradford murmured,--
+
+"God help thee, Dorothy, God help us both!" and without waiting for a
+reply so left her.
+
+In the cabin he found the principal men of the company seated around a
+table covered with charts, scrolls, and instruments of various sorts.
+Standish with a brief nod made room for the new-comer, and Carver in his
+measured tones explained: "Some of us were talking with Master Jones
+upon the question of seating ourselves by yonder river as he strongly
+adviseth, and I thought it best, Master Bradford, to call a general
+Council and settle the matter out of hand. Here are such charts as the
+Mayflower saileth by, and here is Master Smith's maps whereon we find
+this bay, and much of the coast beyond, laid fairly down. Master Hopkins
+counseleth a place called Agawam[2] some twenty leagues to the
+northward, whereof he hath heard as a good harbor and fishing ground.
+Others say that we should explore yet farther along the shores of this
+land which Smith calleth Cape Cod, even as he nameth the whole district
+New England, which is verily a pleasant reminder for us, who in spite of
+persecution and harshness must still love the name of the land wherein
+we have left the bones of our sires."
+
+[2] Ipswich.
+
+"It needs not so many words, Governor," interrupted Jones rudely. "If ye
+will not be satisfied with the place ye saw yesterday, Coppin, our
+pilot, knoweth of another river with plenty of cleared land about it,
+and a harbor fit for a war-fleet to ride in, lying two or three leagues
+to the southwest of this place. What think you of taking your pinnace
+and going to look at it?"
+
+"We will have in the pilot and hear his story for ourselves before we
+answer that query," said Carver with dignity, while Standish less
+temperately demanded,--
+
+"And why, Master Jones, didst not tell us this at first rather than at
+last? Well nigh hadst thou forced us to land where we could if only to
+be rid of thy importunity."
+
+"Why of course I had rather landed you here, and been off for home
+rather than to carry you further and be burdened with your queasy
+fancies," retorted Jones brutally. "I'm no man's fool I'd have thee to
+know my little fire-eater, and thou 'lt be no gladder to say good-by
+when the time comes than I."
+
+"Here is Robert Coppin, friends," interposed Brewster mildly, as a hardy
+fellow entered the cabin and nodded with scant ceremony to the company.
+
+"Sit thee down, Coppin," said Carver making room for the pilot beside
+him. "We would have thee show us upon the chart this river whereof
+Master Jones says thou knowest."
+
+"Well, it should be hereaway methinks," replied Coppin bending over the
+map and tracing the coast line with a horny forefinger. "Is it yon? Nay,
+I am no scholar and steer not by a chart I cannot make out. I know the
+place when I see it, and I'll find it again if I'm set to it."
+
+"Thou 'st been there, then?"
+
+"Ay, we lay there three weeks when I sailed in the whaler Scotsman out
+of Glasgow, and more by token we named the place Thievish Harbor, for
+one of the Indians stole a harpoon out of our boat and away with it
+before we could reach him. 'T is a goodly river, broader and deeper than
+yon, and has a broad safe harbor."[3]
+
+[3] Jones River, Duxbury.
+
+"And why didst thou not tell us of this place sooner, Master Coppin,
+sith thou art our pilot?" sternly demanded Winslow.
+
+"Well, master," returned Coppin slowly, and casting a furtive look at
+Jones who was draining a pewter flagon of beer, "I did tell Master Jones
+yonder, but he said he had liefer you seated here, and I was to hold my
+tongue"--
+
+"Thou liest, knave," roared Jones menacing him with the flagon. "Thou
+liest in thy throat. Or if thou didst mumble some nonsense in mine ears,
+I paid no heed, doubting not that thou hadst told it all before to thy
+gossips among these pious folk. But, Governor, if it is your pleasure to
+seek out this place, I will lend you some of my men and set you forward
+at your own pleasure."
+
+"Thanks for your good will, master," replied Carver coldly. "What say
+you, friends? Shall we try it?"
+
+Murmurs and words of assent were heard on all sides, and Standish
+said,--
+
+"My mind, if you will have it, is that this matter should be shrewdly
+pressed, and an end made of it as soon as may be. Our people dwindle
+daily; they who were well a se'nnight since are ill to-day, and may be
+dead to-morrow. Our provision waxeth short and poor, and be it once
+spent our good friend Jones will give us none of his we may be sure. We
+are no babes to be cast down by these things, nor frighted at facing
+them, but sure it is the part of wisdom to use our strength while it is
+left to us, and to explore this place, and any other whereof we may
+hear, with no farther delay. My counsel is to tell off a company of our
+soundest men, and set forth with Coppin this very hour, or as soon as we
+may."
+
+"Well and manfully spoken, Captain Standish," replied Carver, and from
+more than one bearded throat came a grim murmur of approval, while
+Hopkins significantly added,--
+
+"Let them who will, be treated as babes and set down here or there
+without their own consent. I for one am with thee, Captain, in the
+bolder course."
+
+"If thou 'rt with me, thou 'rt with the governor and the brethren. I
+have no separate design, Master Hopkins," replied Standish coldly. "I
+did but give my mind subject to the approval of the rest."
+
+"And so good a mind it seemeth to me, that I propose we follow it
+without delay. What say ye, friends?"
+
+"I like the scheme so well that I fain would set forth this moment,"
+said Bradford, over whom the depression of his interview with Dorothy
+still hung.
+
+"Then in God's name let the thing go forward," said Carver solemnly
+raising his hand. "And, it is my mind that such among us as have in some
+sort the charge of the rest should be the men to go upon this emprise,
+both because they are best fitted to judge what is needed, and because
+they will be hampered by no need of orders from headquarters. I propose,
+then, that leaving Elder Brewster in charge of those who remain aboard,
+the party should consist of me as your governor, and Captain Standish as
+our man of war, with Master Winslow, Master Bradford, and the Brothers
+Tilley from the Leyden brethren, to whom we will join Master Hopkins,
+Master Warren, and Edward Dotey of London."
+
+"Will it please your excellency to add my name?" asked John Howland
+eagerly. "Well I wot I am not a principal man, but I have a strong arm,
+and would fain follow thee, if I may."
+
+"A strong arm, a stout heart, and a ready wit," replied Carver looking
+kindly at his retainer. "And gladly do I number thee of the company.
+That then counts ten of us, and we shall have Thomas English in charge
+of the pinnace with John Alderton our seaman, and that methinks is
+enough."
+
+"Enough to meet the danger if there be danger, and to divide the glory
+if there be glory," said Myles placidly, and Bradford softly and
+pensively replied,
+
+"No such glory as thou didst win in Flanders, friend, but truly the
+'glory that fadeth not away.'"
+
+"Hm!" retorted Myles as softly, but pulling his red beard with a grim
+smile. "I'm not greedy, Will, and I'll leave those honors for thee."
+
+"Nay," began Bradford rousing himself, but at that moment the whole brig
+was shaken, and the councilors startled from their dignity by a
+tremendous explosion which drove them from their seats, while the air
+was rent by yells and shrieks in various tones and degrees, and a
+stifling smoke and smell of gunpowder filled the cabin.
+
+"The magazine has blown up!" shouted Standish. "Man the boats, and fetch
+the women and children!" And he rushed to his own cabin where Rose lay,
+not well enough to rise. But Bradford, seated near the companion-way,
+had already sprung down and presently returned leading by the ear a
+blubbering boy, his hands and face besmirched with gunpowder.
+
+"Here is the culprit, Master Carver," announced he placing him in front
+of the governor.
+
+"John Billington!" exclaimed Carver sternly. "Ever in mischief, what
+hast thou done now? Speak the truth, boy, or 't is the worse for thee."
+
+"I did but take dad's gun from the hooks in our cabin, and she went off
+in my hands," whimpered the boy.
+
+"Nay, 'twas more than that, for we heard not one but several
+explosions," persisted the governor.
+
+"There was a keg of gunpowder under the bed," confessed the boy
+reluctantly, "and--and--some of it flew out upon the floor."
+
+"Flew out without hands!" exclaimed Hopkins, but Carver raised his
+finger and asked mildly,--
+
+"And what didst thou with the powder on the floor, John?"
+
+"I made some squibs as father did last Guy Fawkes Day," muttered the
+boy.
+
+"And dropped the fire among the loose powder on the floor, and so sent
+all off together!" broke in Hopkins again. "And if the keg had caught,
+thou wouldst have blown the ship to pieces! Thou unwhipt rascal,
+thou 'rt enough to corrupt a whole colony of boys. If my Bartholomew
+ever speaks to thee again I'll break every bone in his body, as I'd well
+like to thine, and will"--
+
+"Nay, nay, Master Hopkins!" interposed the governor sternly. "It is
+never well to threaten what we cannot perform. We break not bones nor
+put to the torture in our new community; but, John Billington, I shall
+counsel thy father to take thee ashore and whip thee so soundly as shall
+make thee long remember that gunpowder is for thee forbidden fruit. Go,
+now, to thy cabin, and remain there till he comes, while I go to see
+what harm thou hast wrought."
+
+"Mistress Carver would fain see the governor without delay," announced
+Lois, Mistress Carver's maid, in a quavering voice. "Jasper More was so
+frighted by the noise that he is in convulsions, and we know not but he
+is dying."
+
+"Is Doctor Fuller here?" demanded another voice. "Mistress White would
+see him presently."
+
+"And this is thy work, boy!" exclaimed Carver solemnly. "Go!"
+
+And the boy crept miserably away, foreboding the whipping of which he
+was not disappointed.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+THE FIRST ENCOUNTER.
+
+
+So thoroughly were the bolder spirits among the Pilgrims impressed with
+the necessity of haste in finding an abiding place that by afternoon of
+the next day the pinnace was victualed and fitted for a voyage of ten
+days or more, and the adventurers ready to embark. To the twelve men
+previously named, all of whom were signers of the Constitution already
+drawn up to quell symptoms of insubordination on the part of Hopkins and
+others, were added Clarke and Coppin, acting as pilots, with the rank of
+master's mate, three sailors, and the master gunner, who, uninvited,
+thrust himself into the company in hopes of making something by traffic,
+or, as he phrased it, _trucking_ with the Indians.
+
+But hasten as they might many things delayed them, some of them as
+important as the death of Jasper More, an orphan in charge of the
+Carvers, and the birth of a son to Mistress White, whom his father and
+Doctor Fuller whimsically named Peregrine, latest of the Pilgrims, and
+first of native born American white men. When at last the shallop left
+the Mayflower's side it was in teeth of such bad weather as left the
+former expedition far in the shade, for not only was the northeast wind
+more bitter, but the temperature so low that the spray froze upon the
+rigging and the men's jerkins, turning them into coats of mail almost
+impossible to bend.
+
+It was soon found impossible for Master English to lay his proposed
+course, and finally the Pilgrims resolved to land and encamp for the
+night, partly for the sake of the greedy gunner, who had turned so
+deadly sick that it was feared he would die, and for Edward Tilley, who
+lay in the bottom of the boat in a dead swoon, while his brother John
+crouched beside him covered with John Howland's coat, which he declared
+was but an impediment to him in rowing.
+
+"They should never have come. Had I guessed their unfitness I would have
+hindered it, but now alack it is too late, and I fear they have come to
+their death," said Carver in Bradford's ear, and indeed it was so. The
+brothers, never divided in body or soul since their birth, had as one
+man given their substance, their strength, their faith, to the common
+cause, and now were giving their lives as simply and as willingly as
+heroes ever will go to their death, so giving life to many.
+
+The second night found them only as far as what we now call Eastham, and
+again building a "randevous" and gathering firewood, a difficult task at
+any time in this vicinity, for the trees were lofty and the underbrush
+annually burned away by the Indians to facilitate hunting. But it was
+finally done, as all things will be when such men set about them, the
+fire was built, the supper eaten, the prayer said, and the psalm sung,
+its rude melody rising from that wilderness to the wintry sky with the
+assurance of Daniel's song in the den of lions. Then all slept except
+Edward Dotey, to whom was committed the first watch, to last while three
+inches of the slow-match attached to his piece were consuming.
+
+Striding up and down his appointed beat the young man hummed again the
+evening psalm, mildly anathematized the cold, peered into the blackness
+of the forest, and glanced enviously at his comrades sound asleep about
+the fire.
+
+"'T is all but burned," muttered he stooping to examine the match, and
+thrusting a fallen log back into the fire with his boot. But in that
+very instant upon the intense stillness of the night burst suddenly a
+discordant clamor, a confusion of horrible and unknown sounds, unlike,
+in simple Edward Dotey's mind, to anything possible this side of hell.
+Undaunted even thus, he answered the assault with a yell of quivering
+defiance, fired his matchlock into the air, and shouted at the top of
+his voice,--
+
+"Arm! arm! arm! The fiend is upon us!"
+
+All sprang to their feet alert and ready, and two or three pieces were
+shot off, but no foe appeared, and no reply was made to their shouts of
+defiance.
+
+Dotey, questioned by Standish, was fain to confess he had seen nothing,
+and Coppin averred that he had more than once heard similar sounds upon
+the coast of Newfoundland, and that they were commonly thought to be the
+voices of sirens or mermaids who haunted lonely shores.
+
+"If naught more imminent than mermaids is upon us I'll e'en go back to
+sleep," said Winslow in good-natured derision, while Standish, lighting
+his slow-match, said pleasantly to Dotey,--
+
+"Lay thee down, man, and sleep. If thy fiend comes again I'll give
+account of him."
+
+A few grim jests, a little laughter, and the camp was again quiet, until
+Standish, sure that no enemy could be at hand, resigned his watch to
+Howland, and he to English, until at five o'clock William Bradford
+aroused his comrades, reminding them that on account of the tide they
+must embark within the hour, and had still to breakfast.
+
+A wintry fog, piercing in its chill, had closed down upon the camp,
+covering everything with a half-frozen rime, dropping sullenly like rain
+from such things as came near the fire, and stiffening into ice in the
+shade.
+
+"I fear me our pieces will hang fire after this soaking," remarked
+Carver examining his matchlock.
+
+"It were well to try them before there is need," said Winslow firing his
+into the thicket behind the camp. His example was followed by several,
+until Standish good-humoredly cried,--
+
+"Enough, enough, friends! Save powder and shot for the enemy if there be
+one. Such grapes grow not on these vines."
+
+"Well, since the pieces are ready, and the twilight breaks, it were well
+for some of us to carry them and the other armor down to the boat, while
+the rest set out the breakfast," suggested Hopkins, always anxious to be
+stirring.
+
+"Nay, 't is but poor soldiership to part from our arms even for so brief
+a space," said Winslow. "There be other matters, cloaks and haversacks,
+and such like, that can be carried, but the arms and armor should abide
+with them who wear them."
+
+"Master Winslow may do as seemeth good in his own eyes, but my armor
+goeth now," retorted Hopkins in a belligerent tone. And loading himself
+with his breastplate, steel cap, matchlock, and bullet pouch, he strode
+obstinately away to the boat, lying some three or four hundred yards
+distant, waiting for the tide to float her.
+
+Standish watched him disapprovingly, and, turning to Carver, he inquired
+significantly,--
+
+"What saith our governor?"
+
+"Let each man do as seemeth good to himself," replied Carver placably.
+"'T is of no great import."
+
+"My snaphance goes nowhere out of reach of my right hand," announced
+Standish somewhat sharply, for the want of discipline grieved him, and
+Bradford, Winslow, and Howland silently indorsed both his action and his
+feeling. The courteous Carver said nothing, and did nothing, but a
+sailor seeing the governor's armor lying together, carried it down to
+the boat, thinking to do him a service.
+
+Reaching the shore, Hopkins found the boat surrounded by a few inches of
+water, and, not caring to wade out to her, laid his load upon the shore,
+to wait until she fairly floated,--an example followed by the rest, some
+of whom strolled back to the camp, while others stood talking to those
+who had slept on board, until a summons to breakfast quickened their
+motions; but just as the laggards entered the randevous the same
+horrible noise that had so startled Edward Dotey burst forth again,
+while one of the sailors yet lingering by the shore came rushing up,
+shouting like a madman,--
+
+"Salvages! Indians! They are men!" and, as if to prove his words, a
+shower of arrows came rattling into the randevous, one of them
+transfixing the lump of boiled beef laid ready for breakfast.
+
+"Why didn't you bring up your pieces again, ye fools!" cried Standish
+angrily. "Run, now, and recover them before the enemy seizes them, while
+we men of wit cover your course."
+
+Not waiting to dispute the style of this command, the unarmed men
+hastened to obey it, while Standish, taking position at the open
+entrance of the barricade, fired his shaphance in the direction where
+the sailor pointed; Bradford followed suit; but as Winslow and Howland
+stepped forward Standish held up his hand,--
+
+"Hold your fire, men, until we see the foe, and Bradford load again with
+all speed! We must hold the randevous at all odds, for here is half our
+stuff, and our lives depend upon not losing it. Hasten ye laggards! Run
+Tilley! Run men!"
+
+"He is spent!" cried John Howland, throwing down his piece and dashing
+out into the open, where he seized John Tilley round the waist and half
+carried, half dragged him into the inclosure.
+
+"They will seize the shallop!" cried Carver, and springing on the
+barricade, heedless of his own exposure, he shouted to those in the
+boat,--
+
+"Ho, Warren! English! Coppin! Are you safe and on your watch?"
+
+"Ay, well! All is well!" cried the rough voices of the seamen, and
+Warren's manly tones added, "Be of good courage, brethren!"
+
+"And quit yourselves like men," muttered Standish, his snaphance at his
+shoulder, his eager eyes scanning the covert.
+
+Three shots from the pinnace rang bravely through the wood, and then
+came a hail,--
+
+"Ho, comrades, bring us a light! We have no fire to set off our pieces!"
+
+"Their matches are not alight!" exclaimed Howland, and snatching a brand
+from the camp-fire he again dashed out, down the wooded slope, and
+splashing mid-leg deep through the freezing brine, he gave the brand
+into Warren's hand, then rushed back as he came, the arrows whistling
+around his head and two sticking in his heavy frieze jerkin.
+
+"Well done, John! well done!" cried Carver clapping the young man on the
+shoulder as, breathless and glowing, he stooped to pick up his
+matchlock. "The sight of such valor will daunten the Indians more than a
+whole flight of bullets."
+
+And in fact there was for a moment a lull in the enemy's movements, but
+rather of rage than dismay, for the savage outcry burst forth the next
+moment with more ferocity than ever, and as it died away a single voice
+shouted in a tone of command some words, to which the rest responded by
+such a yell as later on curdled the blood of the hapless settlers at
+Deerfield and other places.
+
+"Aha! There is a leader, there!" growled Standish, his eyes glittering
+and his strong teeth clenched. "Let him show himself!"
+
+As if in answer to the wish a stalwart figure leaped from behind a large
+tree to the shelter of a smaller one, about half a gunshot from the
+camp.
+
+"That's your man, Captain!" exclaimed Howland, who stood next him.
+
+"Ay, leave him to me!" growled Standish. "Ha!" for an arrow well and
+strongly aimed hit squarely above his heart, and rebounded from the coat
+of mail Rose had insisted upon his putting on.
+
+"For thee, wife!" murmured the captain, and fired.
+
+Bark and splinters flew from the tree where the crown of the warrior's
+head had showed for an instant, but a shriek of derisive laughter told
+that no further harm was done. Standish, with a grim smile, reloaded
+his snaphance, while two more arrows vigorously flew, one piercing the
+right sleeve of his doublet, the other aimed at his face, which he
+avoided by moving his head. Then for one instant a dusky arm was seen
+reaching over the shoulder for another arrow, and in that instant the
+snaphance rang cheerily out, the arm fell with a convulsive movement,
+and a piercing cry rang through the wood, followed by the pattering of
+many moccasoned feet, as dusky shadows slipped from tree to tree, and
+were lost in the dim recesses of the forest.
+
+"They are routed! They fly!" cried Howland firing his piece into a
+rustling thicket.
+
+"Yes, that last cry was the retreat," said Standish half regretfully
+plucking the arrow from his sleeve. "The chief finds his courage cooled
+by a broken elbow. I doubt me if ever he speed arrow again."
+
+"Body o' me!" continued he examining the shaft in his hand. "See you,
+John, 't is pointed with naught but a bird's talon, curiously bound on
+with its own sinews. To be scratched to death by a fowl were but a poor
+ending for a man that has fought Alva!"
+
+"Pursue them, Captain, pursue and terrify, but kill not, if you can help
+it," ordered Carver eagerly. "Let the heathen know that they are but
+men, and that the Lord of Hosts is on our side."
+
+"Forward then, men! At the double-quick! Run!" and, waving his sword,
+Standish rushed after the flying savages, followed by all but Carver,
+English, and the sailors who stayed to guard the randevous and the
+pinnace. But even as he ran Myles muttered, perhaps to the sword
+Gideon,--
+
+"Beshrew me if I see how I am to hurl yon text in the heathen's teeth,
+sith we have no common tongue, and they will not stop for parley! A good
+man, and a gentle, but no soldier, is our governor!"
+
+As might have been expected, the Pilgrims, in their heavy clothing and
+armor, proved no match for the Indians in a foot-race, and after
+pursuing them for about a quarter of a mile Standish called a halt, and
+ordered his men to raise a shout of mingled triumph and defiance,
+followed by a volley of three, each three reloading as the next fired.
+
+The victory thus asserted, and the foe offering no response, the little
+army retired in good order upon the randevous, where they only tarried
+long enough to pick up the rest of their possessions and make a sheaf of
+arrows, pointed not only with eagle's claws, but with the tips of deer's
+horns and bits of brass and iron gathered from the various European
+vessels touching for provisions or traffic at these shores.
+
+It was indeed to the treachery of one of these commanders that the
+present attack of the savages was due. Thomas Hunt, visiting these
+shores in 1614 to procure a cargo of dried fish for Spain, recompensed
+the kindness and hospitality of the savages by cajoling four-and-twenty
+of them on board his ship and carrying them as slaves to Malaga, where
+he sold several, the rest being claimed for purposes of conversion by
+the Franciscan Friars of those parts.
+
+One of these captives, named Tisquantum, or Squanto, escaped from Hunt,
+and remained for a while in England, where he was kindly treated and
+learned the language with something of the mode of life. He was brought
+back to Cape Cod as an interpreter by an adventurer named Dermer, and
+finally returned to his own people, who were so enraged by his story of
+Hunt's treachery and cruelty, that they resolved by way of revenge to
+sacrifice the first white men who fell into their hands, and had they
+proved themselves better men than the Pilgrims would have inflicted not
+only death, but the most cruel torments upon them.
+
+The goods and weapons on hoard, Carver, by a word, gathered the men
+around him upon the sands, and in a few fervent and hearty words
+returned thanks to the God of battles for His aid and protection,
+invoking at the same time protection and counsel for the farther dangers
+of the exploration. Then embarking with all speed the shallop was pushed
+off and flew merrily on before the strong east wind.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+CLARKE'S ISLAND.
+
+
+"And now, Master Coppin, let us bear up for Thievish Harbor without more
+delays," said Carver as the boat settled to her work, and the men into
+their places.
+
+"Ay, ay, master," responded the pilot cheerily. "And a good harbor and a
+good seat shall you find it in spite of its ill-favored name."
+
+But as the day went on the stormy sky lowered yet more and more blackly,
+the wind, shifting between east and north, swooped in angry gusts across
+the black waters, or blew in so fierce a gale that the shallop scarcely
+bore her close-reefed sails, and more than once careened so as to ship
+alarming seas. The air, filled with sleet and icy snow, cut like a knife
+through the thickest clothing, and again Edward Tilley, swooning with
+exhaustion and cold, lay lifeless in the bottom of the boat, sadly
+watched by his brother in hardly better plight and by Carver, who, like
+the father of a family, carried all his children in his heart.
+
+About the middle of the afternoon these skirmishes of the storm
+concentrated in one furious and irresistible attack, before which even
+the hardy sailors lowered their heads and clung to whatever lay nearest,
+while Clarke, who was steering, suddenly reeled violently against the
+bulwark, and recovering himself with a fearful oath seized an oar and
+thrusting it out astern shouted,--
+
+"We be all dead men! The rudder has broke, and no man can steer in such
+a sea as this with an oar!"
+
+"Two men may, so they be men and not cowards!" shouted John Alderton in
+retort, and springing to the stern he thrust out his own oar, calling to
+a comrade,--"Here, Cornish Jim, come you and help me, and so long as ash
+blades and stout arms hold we two will steer the craft."
+
+"Good cheer, men!" hailed Coppin from the bows where he was on the
+lookout. "I see the harbor straight ahead! We are all but in! Carry on,
+carry on with your sails there, Clarke, and let us make the haven before
+the gale rises to its height."
+
+"She'll never carry another inch of canvas," expostulated English as the
+mate shook out a reef in the mainsail, but Coppin and Clarke were now in
+command, since only they professed to know the coast, and the warning
+was unheeded, especially as the wind had for a moment lulled or rather
+drawn back for a more formidable spring, swooping down as the last reef
+point was loosed with a force that snatched the great sail from the
+men's hands, and buried the nose of the shallop deep under water. The
+sail cracked and filled until it was tense as iron, but the honest
+Holland duck could not give way, and it was the mast that had to go,
+breaking into three pieces and falling overboard with a splintering
+crash. Nor was this the worst, for with the mast went the great sail
+with all its hamper of blocks and cordage, which, half in and half out
+the boat, threatened to capsize and swamp her before it could be cut
+away.
+
+"Save the sail, men!" cried English through all the hubbub. "As good
+lose all as lose our sail! Gather it in and stow it as best we may. Keep
+her before the wind, you lubbers! Handle your oars for your lives!"
+
+For now the great boat, losing her sail, must depend upon oars, and with
+two men at each, and Alderton and the Cornish giant steering as best
+they might against a sea howling and leaping like wild beasts around
+them, the shattered craft drove on past the headland of Manomet,
+steering straight for the deadly rocks off the Gurnet's Head, which
+Coppin espying from the bows, he uttered a cry of dismay, shouting,--
+
+"The Lord be merciful to our sinful souls, for I never saw this place
+before!"
+
+"Breakers ahead!" shouted Clarke. "Beach her, Alderton! Run her ashore
+on yon headland! We that can swim may save ourselves! Beach her, I say!"
+
+"And I say no such coward thing," retorted Alderton. "About with her,
+men! Row, row for your lives! Bend down to it! So! Pull, pull! I see a
+channel ahead and smooth water! Hold on here, Jim, till I get out
+another oar, this cracks! Now then! Yeo-ho! Here we go past the reef!"
+
+And weathering Brown's Island and the Gurnet Rocks, the brave fellow
+steering more by instinct than sight, for darkness had fallen with the
+storm, the shallop struck the channel then dividing Saquish from the
+Gurnet, flew through it like a hunted creature, and forging past the
+north headland of a small densely wooded island found herself in calm
+water close under its lee.
+
+"There, men, ye are safe, thanks to stout hearts and arms and good ashen
+blades!" exclaimed Alderton drawing his first full breath since seizing
+the steering oar.
+
+"Thanks to God Almighty who still giveth His servants the victory,"
+amended Carver, who had toiled with the sturdiest.
+
+"And now, where are we and what is to do next?" demanded Standish
+clenching his blistered hands.
+
+"We are between two shores, maybe islands both, maybe the lee shore is
+the main," replied Coppin peering through the darkness. "And more I know
+not."
+
+"And I for one am minded to get ashore and see if there be stuff for a
+fire and shelter, whatever name the place may hold," cried Hopkins
+dashing the drops of salt water from his face and beard.
+
+"And I," added Standish heartily. "What say you, Master Carver? Shall we
+land and make some sort of randevous upon the shore?"
+
+"The place may be full of salvages, who, drawn by the light of a fire,
+can come upon us unaware," replied Carver hesitatingly.
+
+"As well risk another encounter as to perish here of cold and
+exhaustion," suggested Winslow.
+
+"Safety most often lies on the side of courage," declared Standish
+sententiously.
+
+"And Master Tilley will die if naught be done for him," pleaded Howland,
+and to this consideration Carver at once yielded his careful scruples.
+
+"Ay, John, thou 'rt right to mind me of that," said he. "Some of us will
+go ashore and make a fire, whereat to comfort those who are overborne by
+cold and weariness, and some shall keep the boat until the first are
+refreshed, and so hold watch and watch."
+
+"And I will be of the first watch ashore," cried Clarke, the master's
+mate; "for I'd twice liefer meet all the salvages of the Indies than to
+freeze like a clod, so here goes." And stepping upon the gunwale he made
+a spring in the dark, alighting upon a slippery rock and measuring his
+length upon the sand. Nothing daunted, however, he grasped a handful of
+sand in each fist, as if his prostration had been voluntary, and
+springing to his feet cried in a braggadocio voice,--
+
+"I seize this land for King James of England and for myself."
+
+"Thyself!" growled Coppin, jealously. "We'll call it Clarke's Land,
+then; for truly 't is all thou 'rt ever likely to be master of."
+
+"Nay, then, thou 'rt welcome to the six feet they'll give thee after
+thou 'rt hung," retorted Clarke, and the sailors chuckled at the jest,
+while the Pilgrims gravely arranged which watch should first land, and
+which keep the boat.
+
+Peering around in the obscurity, the pioneers soon found a sheltered
+nook close under the bluff, and built their fire and made their camp
+very near the spot where a little wharf now lies, and where generation
+after generation of their children has stood to meditate, to dream, to
+drink in the glory of summer seas and skies, or beneath the August moon
+to whisper in each others ears the old, old story, never so fresh and
+never so real as it has come to some of them on the shores of Clarke's
+Island.
+
+No rosy dreams, no moonlit passages were theirs however, who in that
+stormy December night first trod that pleasant shore, but rather the
+sternest realities of life and death, as with numb and icy fingers they
+struck a light and sheltered the feeble blaze loth to catch upon the wet
+twigs and leaves hastily collected.
+
+"Either there are no Indians or this is an island too small for
+hunting," said Hopkins as he groped in the thicket at the top of the
+bluff for small wood.
+
+"And how know you that?" inquired Howland who helped him.
+
+"By this undergrowth that we are gathering, lad. The Indians burn it off
+year by year in the haunts of the deer, so that they may course there
+freely, but here thou seest are plenty of old and dry twigs."
+
+"The better for our fire," returned Howland philosophically, not so much
+interested at that moment in the habits of Indians as in providing for
+Elizabeth Tilley's father.
+
+The more cautious brethren in the pinnace meantime had anchored and made
+things as snug as possible on board, but as the fire blazed up, and one
+after another on shore showed signs of its genial influence, the dangers
+of abandoning the boat grew less and less formidable, until Standish,
+rubbing his hands and turning to toast the other side of his person,
+cried exultingly,--
+
+"Aha, I am warm! I have seen the fire!"
+
+"So have I seen it, and here goes to feel it!" cried Coppin jumping as
+far toward land as he could, and splashing the rest of the way, for he
+had sulkily remained on board when Clarke leaped ashore and claimed the
+island.
+
+"Methinks the example is good if the manner be uncourteous," said
+Winslow wistfully.
+
+"Ay," replied Carver a little annoyed by Coppin's action, although he
+claimed no authority over the rough fellow. "I was just about to say
+that it were as well that we landed, taking our arms with us and
+standing on our guard, for truly we are perishing here."
+
+The permission calmly waited for was thankfully received, and in a few
+moments the whole party was gathered about the now jubilant fire which,
+fed with cedar logs, sent up clouds of perfumed smoke to float like
+incense among the crests of the shivering parent trees.
+
+The next morning broke calm and 'sunshining,' and the Pilgrims, renewing
+their fire, offered a solemn prayer of thanksgiving and confidence, and
+sat down to breakfast.
+
+After this came an exploration, which showed the small size and compact
+nature of the island, as well as its total lack of inhabitants. This
+tour was followed by an informal council about the fire, wherein it was
+resolved to remain during the day, which was Saturday, upon the island,
+drying and cleaning their weapons, rigging a temporary mast for the
+shallop, baling and drying her, and restoring by rest and comfort some
+measure of strength to the feebler members of the party. Also, and this
+not the least consideration, the next day being Sunday, they would thus
+be prepared to observe it with that decency and recollection which were
+part of their religion.
+
+The plan arranged, all set heartily to work to carry it out, the sailors
+going aboard to bale the boat, and Clarke and Alderton undertaking to
+fit the new mast. A proud young cedar, growing straight and tall among
+his slender admirers, was soon found, and as the white man's axe for the
+first time since cedars grew upon Clarke's Island bit into the heart of
+one of their number, we well might fancy that, mingling with the east
+wind and the sound of the surf on Salthouse Beach rose the echo of the
+dirge, startling the sailors of Egean shores, long before,--
+
+    "Pan is dead! Great Pan is dead!"
+
+Late in the afternoon when all the work was done, and the men sat or lay
+around the fire enjoying the Sabbatical repose long distinguishing the
+New England Saturday evening, Carver, Standish, Bradford, and Winslow
+climbed the hill rising sharply above their camping-ground, and paused
+by what is now called Sunset Rock to look about them.
+
+"Clarke's Island is but a small addition to King James's territory,"
+said Winslow with his subtle smile, as he glanced over the ninety acres
+of woodland lying around him.
+
+"Our own England is not very large," replied Carver quietly, "but she
+hath long arms."
+
+"And I," cried Standish gayly, "am but a little fellow, and yet am not
+in the way of calling upon bigger men to protect me! Despise not the day
+of small things, Master Winslow, albeit you carry your head some inches
+higher than mine."
+
+"There is a great rock showing above the scrub oaks to the north," said
+Bradford pointing in that direction. "Let us climb it and see what lieth
+beyond."
+
+"Have with you, brother!" responded Standish, and forcing their way
+through the stunted growth covering this higher and bleaker portion of
+the island the four men soon stood at the base of an enormous bowlder
+about thirty feet in height, brought hither in some glacial overflow of
+the forgotten years.
+
+On the southern side a deep crevice, worn by many rains, offered a
+foothold, even as it does to-day, and in a moment the four Pilgrim
+chiefs stood upon the summit and looked about them.
+
+The sun was setting in lavish gorgeousness, while in the deep blue vault
+arching overhead tiny points of light showed where the stars waited
+impatiently to take their places and glorify the night.
+
+The sea, almost black in its depth of color, dashed mournfully upon the
+rocks fallen from the high northern and western bluffs, and across the
+wintry flood lay the shores of what was to be Duxbury, running out at
+the south into a peninsula, terminating in a bold summit. This was
+Captain's Hill, and the Captain standing there looked at it all
+unconsciously and said:--
+
+"Yonder is a spot that might be made into a goodly hold against any foe.
+With a piece or two properly mounted on that fair height, and a palisado
+cutting off the headland from the main, it would fall into as pretty a
+little fortalice as could be asked."
+
+"Too small a seat for our whole company, howbeit," said Carver
+scrutinizing the spot.
+
+"And we must seek a river with commodious harbor for our fishing fleet,"
+added Winslow, not knowing the capacities then of Jones's River and
+Green Bay, hard by Captain's Hill, where he was to spend the honorable
+evening of his days.
+
+"Fishing!" echoed Standish contemptuously. "It is like those good
+dry-salters and drapers of London town, who have helped out our
+enterprise, to expect us, landing on this barren shore in the depth of
+winter, to fall on fishing before we break our fast, or build a shelter
+for our wives and children. Our first work is to subdue the salvages, to
+cut down the forest, to build houses, and plant crops. If we reach the
+fishing by this day twelvemonth we shall have done well."
+
+"I fear me the Adventurers of whom you speak so slightingly will hardly
+be of your mind," replied Winslow coldly.
+
+"Then let them come over here and collect their profits for themselves,"
+retorted Standish. "And well would I like to see Thomas Weston and
+Robert Cushman, with some of those smug London traders who think to buy
+good men's lives and swords for the price of a red herring, set down
+here to battle with the frost and snow, and sea and swamps, not to
+mention the salvages. We should hear their tune change from 'Fish, fish,
+fish!' I warrant me."
+
+But at this speech Winslow, even more of a diplomatist than a soldier,
+looked grave, and Bradford, in whose harmonious character valor was ever
+in accord with reason, laid a hand upon the little Captain's shoulder,
+and said affectionately:--
+
+"Thy courage is still so keen, Myles, that when thine enemies are put to
+flight thou 'rt tempted to turn upon thy friends! Doubtless the
+Adventurers, mostly men of peace, traders, if thou wilt have it so, yet
+none the worse for that, do somewhat fail to fathom the perils of this
+our undertaking; still no man is to be condemned for an honest
+misconception, and these same traders have freely risked their money to
+furnish us forth. We, too, had never stood on this rock to-night had not
+those men thrust their hands deep into their pockets, and is it out of
+reason for them to ask to see some return for their money as soon as may
+be?"
+
+"Not out of reason for traders, mayhap," replied Myles obstinately. "I
+would that we had come at our own charges altogether."
+
+"Those of us who had a little money were not enough to furnish forth
+those who had none," interposed Carver gravely; "and we have none too
+many hands as it is to do the work laid out for us."
+
+"Thou 'rt right, as thou mainly art, Governor," replied Standish
+good-humoredly; "and haply 't is well that my hot head is linked with
+thy cool one."
+
+"We were all ill sped, lacking thy skill and valor in war, Captain,"
+replied Carver kindly, and after a moment's meditative silence he slowly
+added,--
+
+"It ill befits finite man to intrude upon the Councils of infinite
+wisdom, and yet it seemeth borne strangely in upon my mind that God hath
+carefully chosen His weapons for the mighty conquest He hath set Himself
+to make in this wilderness, and, if I may say it without grieving your
+modesty, brethren, I seem to see in you, standing with me here, three
+chosen leaders.
+
+"A man of war, trained from childhood in martial tactics, and in the use
+of weapons, and of a singular courage and determination, you, Standish,
+are the strong right arm of the body corporate.
+
+"And you, Winslow, bred among courtiers and statesmen, subtle of
+intellect, ready of speech, cool of temper, and sound in judgment, in
+you I see our ambassador, our spokesman, our counselor and adviser, our
+Chrysostom of the golden mouth."
+
+"And Bradford," jealously demanded Standish laying a hand upon the arm
+of the future governor, for whom he ever entertained a mighty affection.
+
+Carver turned and looked full into Bradford's steadfast eyes upraised to
+his, and his own gaze became rapt and well-nigh prophetic. When he spoke
+again it was in a lower and less spontaneous voice.
+
+"The arm strikes, the tongue parleys, but both must be in accord with
+the brain, or all is lost. The father of his people must think for all,
+plan for all, encourage, restrain, cherish, discipline all. Standish for
+the camp, Winslow for the council, but for you, Bradford, the sleepless
+vigil, the constant watch, the self-forgetting energy, whose fruits are
+safety, honor, and prosperity, for those who lean on you."
+
+"But, dear friend, it is you who still must be our governor, our
+reliance, our father!" exclaimed Bradford eagerly, but Carver turned
+away and began the steep descent.
+
+Those whom he left looked earnestly in each other's faces, yet said
+nothing. A future grander, and more terrible than they had imagined,
+seemed suddenly defined before them, and each dimly felt the burden and
+the honor of his own part therein laid upon him.
+
+As thus they stood, three noble figures clearly defined against the
+amber of the evening sky, Richard Warren and Stephen Hopkins appeared
+upon the crest of the hill and paused to look about them.
+
+"See yonder figures, looking as cut out of stone, and set up for idols
+in the high places of Baal," sneered Hopkins. "These be our masters,
+Warren, if so be we yield to them."
+
+Warren, a genial, honest gentleman of London, who had thrown his entire
+patrimony, as well as his earnest soul, into this enterprise, shook his
+head and laughingly replied,--
+
+"Thou 'rt ever too jealous, Stephen, for thine own comfort. Our
+brethren, all unconscious that they make so fine a show up there, are
+giving their best and their all to the common weal, and so are we. If
+their best, chance to be gold, and ours but iron, think 'st thou God
+will value the one offering above the other? I trow not man, and I am
+for my part well content as matters stand."
+
+"Nay," persisted Hopkins, "but mark you how constantly they slight us
+and Dotey, because we are out of England, and not of Holland, and so not
+of Robinson's congregation?"
+
+"Nay," replied Warren pacifically; "I had liefer mark the many times we
+are called to Council and to share in whatever good may be toward. And
+mark you, Hopkins, you and I are the fathers of many children, and those
+men have none as yet, and this land whose foundations must be laid in
+our blood, if need be, shall become the inheritance of those we leave
+behind. Please God, my five girls, coming hither so soon as I have a
+roof to shelter them, shall become the mothers of soldiers and
+statesmen, maybe of kings, for who knoweth what is to come when the seed
+sown in tears shall be reaped in joy!"
+
+Hopkins answered only by a contemptuous sniff, and the triumvirate
+descending from their pedestal, all six men returned amicably to the
+camp.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+BURYING HILL.
+
+
+Much has been said and written of the Sunday spent by the advanced guard
+of Pilgrims upon Clarke's Island, and a very modern tradition points to
+the great rock in the centre of the island as the scene of their
+devotions. Nothing, however, is less probable than that this handful of
+men, with no pastor or even presiding elder among them, should leave
+their encampment under the bluff, and the neighborhood of their boat, to
+travel inland to this bleak and exposed bowlder, there to set one of
+their number to exhort the rest. Carver certainly was a deacon of
+Robinson's congregation, yet this office gave him no spiritual
+authority, but rather the duties of a warden in the mother church, nor
+was the governor a man to assume any authority not his own; so although
+he led the informal service held in that sheltered nook, upon the shore,
+Winslow and Bradford and Hopkins were the chief speakers, while John
+Howland in his melodious and powerful voice raised a psalm that made the
+welkin ring, and Richard Warren stoutly cried Amen to all the rest.
+
+Standish, his arms folded and one hand resting upon the hilt of Gideon,
+stood a little apart, his head reverently bared in the prayers, and with
+a rough attempt at melody echoing Howland's psalm; but during the
+exhortations or prophesyings, he strode softly up and down the beach,
+or mounting upon the bluff swept sea and land with the keen glances of
+eyes that nothing escaped. Occasionally a fervent word would be sped in
+his direction from one or another, and many a prayer, as before and
+after that hour, was urged that this bulwark of the church against her
+secular foes might become her obedient son. When thus exhorted or prayed
+for the captain's face became a study, sometimes so impenetrably obtuse,
+sometimes so rigid in its obstinacy, sometimes touched with shrewd
+amusement, and sometimes moved to tender sympathy, but never to
+conviction or even doubt, and as the years went on, those who loved him
+most, even Bradford and Alden and Brewster, ceased all effort to bring
+this precious comrade into their own fold, but learned to accept him as
+he was.
+
+Monday broke with clear and gracious skies and a sea only pleasantly
+rippled with its late commotion. Refreshed and cheered by their long
+rest the Pilgrims were early afoot, and at a good hour the cleaned and
+furbished arms were packed in the shallop, the sail, bent to its new
+mast, was unfurled to its fullest spread, and the eighteen men, each at
+his own post, eager and hopeful. It had been resolved to proceed no
+farther in search of Coppin's harbor, which afterward proved to be Cut
+River and the site of Marshfield, but to explore the landlocked harbor
+lying before them.
+
+Carefully sounding as she went, the shallop felt her way through the Cow
+Yard or Horse Market, around Beach Point, and having the flood tide with
+her rode triumphantly over Dick's Flat and Mother White's Guzzle, until
+finally, with furled sails and her head to the wind, she lay within a
+biscuit toss of the shore.
+
+"See, there are cleared fields and a river full of fish, and all things
+ready to our hand," cried Howland excitedly.
+
+"Bring her up to the beach, then, and we will land and explore," replied
+Carver, smiling at the young man's enthusiasm.
+
+"There is a rock a few rods ahead set ready for a stepping-stone,"
+announced Howland standing in the bows.
+
+"Lay her up to it, men," growled English, and in a moment the bows of
+the shallop caressingly touched the cheek of that great gray Rock,
+itself a pilgrim, as has well been said, from some far northern shore,
+brought here by the vast forces of Nature, and laid to wait in grand
+patience, until the ages should bring it a name, a use, and a nation's
+love and honor.
+
+"Jump then, lad, and see thou jump not five fadom deep, as thou didst
+out there in mid-seas!" cried Hopkins, and Howland leaping lightly from
+the boat to the rock cried in his blithe voice,--
+
+"And I seize this mainland for King James, even as Master Clarke did yon
+island."
+
+"Only thou dost not claim it for thine own under the king as he did,"
+replied Coppin.
+
+"It seemeth to me," said Carver as he stepped on shore, "as if this
+place were fairly laid down on Smith's map that we were studying. Think
+you not so, Master Winslow?"
+
+"Ay, I believe it is the place he hath called Plymouth after our English
+town."
+
+"Why, then, if we are minded to tarry here, it were well befitting that
+we should continue the name, for our Plymouth brethren cheered and
+comforted us marvelously in our sad outsetting," replied the governor,
+and Bradford added,--
+
+"They were in very truth kinder than our own."
+
+"'T is a better harbor than English Plymouth can boast," said Coppin
+turning to survey the bay.
+
+"Harbor! English Plymouth's harbor is no better than a slaughter pen!
+Not less than ten good ships were pounded to pieces there in the last
+year," said the sailor Alderton.
+
+"Yes, 't is worse than the Goodwin Sands, if that can be," echoed
+English.
+
+"While here is a haven most artificially contrived for safety, with its
+overlapping arms and islands," cried Clarke.
+
+"Ay, the islands, Clarke's Island above all, are such as all England
+cannot match!" jeered Coppin, while Howland, followed by the rest, began
+to climb the bluff in front of them, choosing almost by instinct the
+easy ascent around its base, now known as Leyden Street. A little above
+the future site of the Common house they paused to take breath and to
+consult.
+
+"Yes, here is cleared land enow for any crop we can plant in a year to
+come," said Dotey, looking approvingly along Cole's Hill.
+
+"And I hear the tinkle of water falling upon water," cried Bradford
+gazing down toward the outlet of Town Brook. "There must be springs
+yonder."
+
+"But fuel would needs be lugged on men's backs further than I for one
+could fancy," grumbled Hopkins glancing at the woods nowhere very near.
+
+"We can scarce hope for arable land and dense forest in one plot of
+ground," remarked Winslow dryly.
+
+"Let us march into the land and explore it fully," suggested Carver.
+"Every man should carry his piece with lighted match, but the rest of
+the gear may well be left in the boat under charge of the shipmen.
+Master Gunner I advise thee to stay behind also. If we meet with the
+Indians and there is any opening for trucking I promise thee thy full
+share and advantage."
+
+"He who stays by the stuff shall share with him who goeth to the
+battle," quoted Standish, who was well versed in what may be called the
+military history of the Bible.
+
+"'T is a venerable law, Captain, and out of a faultless code," replied
+Carver reverently.
+
+"Come on, then, brethren!" cried Hopkins striding up the steep face of
+Burying Hill. The rest followed, and on the crest stopped to admire the
+magnificent view spread out in the clear light of the wintry morning.
+
+"Yon is a sightly point for a town," said Warren pointing to Watson's
+Hill.
+
+"Too far from the shore," replied Carver.
+
+"And from those tinkling springs for whose water I already am athirst,"
+added Bradford.
+
+"Hm! hm!" growled Standish plucking at his beard and pacing to and fro;
+"here is the place for a stronghold, Master Carver, just here where we
+are standing. See you now, from a breastwork thrown up hereabout and
+mounted with a minion or two a man could sweep off an army. 'T is but a
+pretty shot to the rock whereon we landed, and where any but a fool
+would choose to land, since it is the only dry-shod landing on the
+beach; and here we have Bradford's springs well in range, and this
+ascent by which we have clomb thither. Why, it is a little Gibraltar
+ready to our hand. Then if the salvages approach by land, from yon fair
+hill which Warren advises, our heavier guns will meet them half way,
+and our smaller metal mow them down at close quarters. We are well set
+forth in gun-metal, Governor, for I saw to it myself; not only minions,
+but sakers and falcons and bases, not to mention each man's piece, which
+I fain would have had all snaphances like mine own. Ay, we are well
+armed, and here is our fortalice."
+
+"But not to my mind our dwelling, Captain," replied Carver pleasantly.
+"Mind you, half our company are women and children, and it were hard for
+them to be cooped up in a fort or to descend and climb again this shrewd
+ascent whenever they were athirst. I say not but that a fortification
+here were admirable when we come at it, but methinks our dwellings were
+better placed under its protection than within it."
+
+"Along this course we have just trod from the rock," suggested Winslow.
+
+"And tending toward the springs," added Bradford with a smile.
+
+"Nay, man, come and drink since thou 'rt so sore athirst," cried Hopkins
+clapping him on the back. "If 't were a spring of Hollands now, or even
+a double strike of English ale, I'd race thee for it, but never yet did
+I find my stomach clamor for cold water."
+
+"'T is very delicate water for all that," declared Bradford as the two
+men, stumbling down the steep descent of Spring Lane, reached and
+stooped to drink of the spring at its foot.
+
+"Too delicate for me," retorted Hopkins; "fitter for maids than men."
+
+"Well, beer is brewed of water as well as of barley and hops," declared
+Bradford; "and thou 'st only to raise the grain and this fair spring
+will turn it into beer for thee at thy pleasure."
+
+"And here be blackberry briers for my dame to brew her wild-berry wines,
+and lo you now, this is sassafras whose roots are worth their weight in
+gold to the chirurgeons, and these are strawberry leaves."
+
+"And we have seen cherry and plum stocks in abundance the way we came,"
+declared Bradford as the rest of the party straggled down the hill.
+
+"Excellent sand and gravel for building," said Warren crumbling the soil
+around the spring. "Ay, and here is clay to shape into pots and pans
+when the goodwives have broken all they bring."
+
+"Methinks it hath a look of fuller's clay, and so is almost as well for
+us as soap," said Howland taking up some and washing his hands in the
+brook. "There, now, see you its use!"
+
+"Have with you, friend," cried Winslow, daintiest of the pioneers.
+"Surely cleanliness being next to godliness tendeth somewhat to the same
+satisfaction!"
+
+The exploration, carried as far as Eel River at the south and Murdoch's
+Pond westerly, lasted until night, when the Pilgrims bivouacked on the
+shore, supping merrily on some great clams dug by the sailors and wild
+fowl shot by Howland and Dotey. Before they slept under the sheltering
+brow of Cole's Hill it was pretty well decided that Plymouth, as they
+began at once to call it, should be their permanent dwelling-place, more
+especially as in their day-long explorations they had seen no natives or
+even their dwellings, and the site seemed for some reason abandoned to
+their occupancy.
+
+But the joyous return with good news to those on board the Mayflower was
+turned into grief and dismay by the tidings awaiting the explorers.
+
+Dorothy Bradford was dead. How it could have happened, or just when, no
+one knew, but on the very day after her husband's departure she had gone
+quietly on deck while the rest of the company were at supper and never
+was seen again; nor till the sea gives up its dead shall any know the
+story of that poor overwrought soul's last fierce struggle and defeat.
+
+Nor can we speak of the young husband's anguish, and it may be
+self-reproach, in that awful hour. He speaks not himself of this matter
+in his journal, save in briefest words; nor dare we intrude upon such
+matters as lie between a man and his God. But this we may say, that as
+Jacob, wrestling with the angel and overcoming, went halting all his
+days from the wound of that strange conflict, so Bradford's face when he
+again took his place among his fellows told of years forever consumed in
+one terrible struggle.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+
+ROSE.
+
+
+"Myles!"
+
+"Ay, sweetheart, here am I."
+
+"A little drink--nay, I want it not. I was dreaming thy cousin Barbara
+was making a sallet, and I was fain to taste it, it looked so cool and
+fresh,--and I wakened. I would well like some sallet, Myles."
+
+"As soon as the day dawns, my Rose, I will go and look for herbs. I
+marked some sorrel on the hill yester e'en, albeit something dry and
+sere."
+
+"Why doth the ship roll so sorely, Myles?"
+
+"Thou 'rt not on shipboard, child, but in our little hospital here
+ashore. Mindest thou not how thou didst mourn and cry to me, 'Take me
+ashore, Myles, take me ashore, that I may breathe sweet air and live.'
+So I lapped thee in blankets and brought thee, to-morrow is a se'nnight.
+Like you not this sweet new dwelling?"
+
+"Well enow; but sweet air will not make me live if the time hath come
+for me to die." And the sick girl smiled wanly, inscrutably, the smile
+of one who knows what he will not say.
+
+The face of the fearless soldier grew white with terror, and almost
+angrily he replied,--
+
+"Hush, child! Thy time to die hath not come. Never think it, for it
+shall not be."
+
+"Nay, Myles, thou canst not daunten Death with thy stern voice and
+masterful eye, though thou canst quell a score of other foes with one
+glance."
+
+And Rose, moving her frail little hand toward the sinewy fist clenched
+upon the bed-covering, slid a finger within its grasp, and went softly
+on with a pathetic ring of gayety in her voice,--
+
+"I was dreaming, too, of home, mine own old home. I was gathering
+cowslips in the meadow at St. Mary's, and mother stood by with little
+Maudlin in her arms. They smiled, both of them, ah how sweetly they
+smiled upon me, and I filled my pinafore with the cowslips, soft, cool,
+wet cowslips,--I feel them in my hand now, so cool, so wet! Myles, I
+fain would have those cowslips, may I not?"
+
+"Child! Child! Thou 'lt break my heart!"
+
+"Mother and Maudlin both died the year I saw thee first, dost remember,
+Myles?"
+
+"Try to sleep a little, my darling. I will say thee a psalm, or perhaps
+one of those old Manx ballads thou didst use to lilt so lightly."
+
+"Mistress White says they are ungodly, and a snare of Satan," replied
+Rose dreamily, and before Myles could utter the wrathful comment that
+quivered upon his lips she went on,--
+
+"It was across her grave I saw thee, dear, dost mind thee of that hour?"
+
+"Thy mother's grave? ay, I mind me."
+
+"Yes, thou camest with thy cousin Barbara to seek thy grandsire's
+gravestone and to search out the muniments of thy race. Thou 'lt never
+lay hands on that inheritance, Myles."
+
+"I care not, so thou wilt get strong and well again, my Rose, my Rose!"
+And with a groan but half driven back upon his heart, the soldier
+turned his head aside and set his teeth upon his trembling lip. But
+Rose, more alive in the past than the present, rambled on in her sweet,
+weak voice,--
+
+"'Not only this wild hunting ground and ruined lodge where we abide, but
+many a fair manor in England, and many a stately home is his,' that was
+what Barbara told me about thee afterward; and when I praised thy
+presence, for I loved thee or ever I knew it myself, she straightened
+her neck and said full proudly, 'Ay, and not only a goodly man, but a
+brave soldier and noble soul.' 'Twas she who first saw that thou lovedst
+me, Myles, and came and wept for joy upon my neck."
+
+"Peace, peace, dear child. Thou wastest thy strength in talking
+overmuch. Sleep, canst thou not, dear heart?"
+
+"Dost think that Barbara will come hither? She promised me surefast that
+she would so soon as there was a company ready. She said it was so
+lonely there in Man when I was gone. Will she come, think you, Myles?"
+
+"Like enow, sweetheart. Barbara mostly carries out what she promises.
+But"--
+
+"And thou 'lt be very, very good to thy cousin, wilt thou not, Myles?
+Thou 'rt all she has now."
+
+"Surely both of us will be good to our kinswoman, dear wife, and all the
+more that, as thou sayest, it was by going to visit her that I first saw
+thee, blooming like a very rose in that gray old Manx churchyard."
+
+"I was ever friends with Barbara, but I loved her all the more for thy
+sake, dear. And she was well pleased that we two should wed--leastways
+she said so."
+
+"And if she said it she meant it, for in all the years she tarried in my
+mother's house I never knew her tell a lie or wear two faces. But now,
+verily, child, I must have thee rest. Speak not again unless thou
+needest somewhat. I will have it so, my Rose."
+
+"Then let me lay my hand in thine. There, then, good-night."
+
+"Good-night, mine own."
+
+And while the winter night lapsed through hours of deadly chill and
+darkness into the sad twilight of early morning the soldier sat
+motionless, holding that fragile hand, gazing upon that lovely face,
+lovely yet so changed from the cherubic beauty that had won his heart
+amid the summer fields of Man but three short years before.
+
+What he thought, what he felt in those hours, he could not himself have
+revealed, for a man's emotion is usually in inverse proportion to its
+expression, and Myles Standish was essentially a man of action and not
+of words; but God only knows how these strong inarticulate natures
+suffer in the agony that divides bone from marrow, and yet leaves the
+sufferer conscious of the capacity to live and to suffer yet again and
+again.
+
+In some respects this vigil resembled that of Bradford in hearing of
+Dorothy's death, in some it was widely different, for with Bradford's
+grief was mingled self-reproach and keen introspection; he weighed his
+own life, he found it wanting, he condemned it, and offering his
+suffering as righteous penance, he extolled the justice of God, and
+submitted himself as a culprit to the scourge.
+
+But Standish thought neither of the justice of God nor of his own
+demerits, nor had he skill or practice for introspection. "A man under
+authority and having soldiers under him," he both rendered and expected
+obedience, prompt, entire, and unquestioning. His was a nature of
+loyalty so magnificent as to need no buttresses of reason, or of
+self-distrust, a loyalty so sweet as to be unconscious of itself, a
+loyalty so entire that the soul could not get outside of it to consider
+it objectively.
+
+The order came from the King of kings, and it was to be obeyed, or
+endured; the King could do no wrong.
+
+Nor indeed had he been skilled to search, could Myles have found matter
+for self-reproach in all his dealings with the child dying at his side.
+
+Busy from his boyhood in the pursuit of arms, and loving his mother with
+all the force of his great nature, the man had cared little for other
+women, turning with scorn from the meretricious charms of those he
+encountered in camp or among his comrades, and finding no time or
+inclination to seek others, so that except for the light fancies of an
+hour, or the calm affection for his cousin Barbara, whom he found on one
+of his visits to his home in Chorley giving a daughter's tendance to his
+mother, Standish had passed his three and thirtieth birthday ignorant of
+the nature of love, and mocking at its power.
+
+But the first glance at the lovely girl weeping beside her mother's
+grave warned him that a new hour had struck, and a new foe opposed him;
+nor was he long in making full and frank surrender to an authority as
+strong as it was gentle, and as tyrannous as sweet.
+
+Motionless and erect the soldier sat the long night through, and as if
+she gathered strength from the grasp of his healthy hand, Rose slept
+quietly until the sun rose, and the women still well enough to wait upon
+the sick came softly in.
+
+Then she opened her eyes, fixed them upon his with a tender smile, and
+said,--
+
+"Poor Myles! Thou hast watched all night while selfish I held thee and
+slept. But now begone and get thine own rest and food. I shall do well
+with these kind friends."
+
+"I'll leave thee, then, for a little, but I shall not be far away, and
+if thou needest, send," replied her husband releasing his hand from the
+frail yet burning grasp that still held him. "Dame Turner, thou 'lt see
+that I am called if she asks for me, wilt thou?"
+
+"Surely, Captain, but she is doing bravely this morning, and you had
+better rest."
+
+"Nay, but let her not ask twice for me, or aught else."
+
+Leaving the house, and drawing one or two eager breaths of fresh air,
+Standish climbed the hill where already the fortification he had
+proposed was nearly complete, though not yet armed. Stepping upon a
+great beam, squared but not laid in place, he stood looking around him
+as if to see what Nature and his own work could offer to fill the great
+gulf opening in the future.
+
+A light fog still clung to the face of the water and hung in the hollows
+of the hills; shrouded in its folds the Mayflower lay like a spectre
+ship, ugly, unsafe, full of discomfort and misery, but yet the only link
+between this handful of dying men and their home. Standish gazed at her
+with a gathering darkness upon his face, until the burden of his thought
+broke out in a savage murmur,--
+
+"_Couldst_ not make thy way through yonder shoals and bring us to the
+fair shores I told her of! If it be thy fault, Thomas Jones!"--
+
+The slow clenching of a jaw square and strong as a mastiff's finished
+the sentence, and Standish's eyes came back to the rude hut where all
+he loved lay dying, perhaps through this man's fault. At his feet lay
+the sketch as it were of the town he and his comrades had laid down in
+outline, and intended to build up as time and strength allowed. Already
+Leyden Street, or The Street, as it was at first called, lay a distinct
+thoroughfare from the Rock to the Fort, the eastern and western
+extremities of the village. Along this street were staked out plots of
+land, some larger and some smaller in the proportion of eight feet
+frontage to each person in a family, the single men, and those women and
+children already left desolate, being divided among the householders,
+and the whole company reduced to nineteen families.
+
+Standish's own house, not yet finished, lay nearest to the Fort, which
+with its armament were to be his especial charge, and several of the
+single men had been appointed to his family. Their own illness, and that
+of Mistress Standish had, however, interfered with this arrangement, and
+only John Alden shared the house as yet with Standish, the two men
+sometimes eating at the Common house, the only one except the hospital
+really finished, and sometimes cooking for themselves such food as they
+could lay hands upon, for the house, unlike some of the others, already
+boasted a chimney laid up of sticks and clay, and showed a generous
+fireplace in the larger or living room which, with two little
+sleeping-rooms and a loft, comprised the whole accommodation.
+
+Upon this little home so hopefully begun, so neglected during the last
+ten days, Myles gazed long and wistfully, smiling sadly as he saw Alden
+come out and look up and down the street for him, finally going to seek
+him in the Common house, a substantial structure some twenty feet
+square, built of hewn oaken logs, fitted together as closely as
+possible, and the crevices stopped with clay, which freely washed out in
+stormy weather.
+
+The roof, like all the rest, was covered with thatch formed of dried
+reeds and grasses, and the windows were filled with oiled linen instead
+of glass, still an article of costly luxury. Above the Common house
+stood the building which the increasing mortality of the colony had
+demanded as a hospital, and below it was the storehouse, where most of
+the common stock of goods was collected, although some of the passengers
+and their possessions still remained on board the brig, where Jones gave
+them but scant hospitality or kindness.
+
+Folding his arms more closely as the chill wind of February swept in
+from seaward, Standish gazed upon all these objects as if they for the
+first time attracted his attention, and then, as the lifting fog
+revealed the distant landscape, he turned and fixedly regarded Captain's
+Hill rising in its bold isolation to the north. Long he gazed, and then,
+slightly shaking his head, stepped down from the beam and paced about
+the little enclosure, half unconsciously examining the work of platform
+and parapet, and following with a gunner's eye the range of the pieces
+yet unmounted; pausing longest before the eastern front, he marked with
+satisfaction how well the minion there to be placed would guard the
+landing and sweep the solitary street, and even knelt to look along its
+imaginary barrel.
+
+Rising he brushed the soil from his knees with almost a smile,
+muttering,--
+
+"Ay, lad, thou 'rt needed, thou 'rt needed, and he who is needed has no
+right to desert his post."
+
+But suddenly the smile faded, for as he turned to leave the Fort his
+eyes fell upon Cole's Hill, where but a few rods from the Common house,
+and under its protection, they had dug the graves of those already dead,
+and where lay room enough for many more. But his battle fought, and his
+mind resolved, Myles was too much master of himself to need a second
+conflict, and setting his lips firmly beneath the tawny moustache that
+shaded them, he strode down the hill, and at his own door found John
+Alden waiting for him and changing greetings with a party of four men
+armed with sickles and attended by two dogs.
+
+"Wish you good-morrow, Captain," said the foremost, a sturdy young
+fellow with a pleasant English face.
+
+"Good-morrow Peter Browne, and you, John Goodman," replied the captain
+cordially. "Whither away?"
+
+"To cut thatch in the fields nigh yon little pond," replied Browne
+pointing in a westerly direction. "And I am taking Nero along to give
+account of any Indians that may be lurking there."
+
+"And John Goodman's spaniel to rouse the game for Nero to pull down,"
+said Standish with a smile. "Well, God speed you."
+
+And turning into the unfinished house he found Alden watching him with a
+look of silent friendliness and sympathy more eloquent than words;
+returning the greeting as mutely and as heartily, Standish would have
+passed into his own bedroom, but the younger man interposed,--
+
+"Thou 'lt break thy fast, Captain, wilt thou not? All is ready and
+waiting your coming; some of the bean soup you liked yester even, and
+some fish"--
+
+"Presently, presently, good John! I would but bathe and refresh myself.
+Nay, look not so doubtingly after me, friend. I am a man, and know a
+man's devoir."
+
+He spoke with a smile as brave as it was gentle, and passing in closed
+the door.
+
+"Doth he know she is dying!" muttered John throwing himself upon a
+bench; "and Priscilla sickening and her mother dead!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X.
+
+A TERRIBLE NIGHT.
+
+
+As Standish entered his own house the four men to whom he had spoken
+passed on around the base of the hill, and reaching a tract of swampy
+land covered with reeds and rushes suitable for thatching, they set to
+work cutting them and binding in bundles ready for use. For some hours
+they wrought industriously, until Peter Browne, commander of the
+expedition, straightened his back, stretched his cramped arms, and
+gazing at the sun announced,--
+
+"Noontime, men. We'll e'en rest and eat our snack."
+
+"Art thou o' mind to come and show me the pond where thou sawest wild
+fowl t' other day?" asked John Goodman, townsman and friend of Browne's.
+
+"Ay, will I. Take thy meat in thy hand and come along," replied Browne.
+"And we may as well finish our day there, sith this spot is well nigh
+stripped. Margeson and Britteridge, when you have fed, you can bind the
+rushes that are cut, and then come after us as far as a little pond
+behind that hill, due west from here I should say. You'll find it easily
+enough."
+
+"Oh, ay, we'll find it," replied Margeson, a rough companion, but a good
+worker. "Go on mates, and take your dogs with you, for they're smelling
+at the victuals enough to turn a man's stomach. Get out you beast!" and
+raising his foot he offered to kick Nero, who growled menacingly and
+showed a formidable set of teeth.
+
+"Have a care, man!" cried Browne angrily. "Meddle with that dog and
+he'll make victual of thee before thou knowest what ails thee. 'T is
+ever a poor sign when a man cannot abear dogs or children."
+
+And the two friends, followed by the mastiff and spaniel, walked rapidly
+away. Two hours passed while Margeson and Britteredge, not greatly in
+haste, finished their lunch and tied and stacked the reeds already cut.
+Then shouldering their sickles they leisurely skirted the hill in front
+of them, and after a little search came upon the pretty sheet of water
+now called Murdoch's Pond.
+
+"This will be the place," said Margeson looking about him; "but where is
+pepperpot Browne?"
+
+"Or his dog?" suggested Britteridge slyly.
+
+"Whistle and the beasts will hear us if the men do not," said Margeson
+suiting the action to the word. No answer followed, and both men
+together raised a yet shriller note, followed by shouts, halloos, and
+various noises supposed to carry sound to the farthest limits of space.
+But each effort died away in dim and distant echoes among the hills, and
+after a while the men looked at each other in half angry discouragement.
+
+"They've played us a trick," said Margeson; "they're hiding to mock at
+us, or they've gone back to the village some other way."
+
+"Nay," replied Britteridge pacifically; "they're not such babes as to
+play tricks like that. See, here are goodly reeds; let us cut and bind
+some while we tarry, and Browne will be back anon."
+
+Grumbling and unconvinced Margeson still complied, and for a while
+longer the two worked fitfully, pausing now and again to look about
+them, to listen, or to shout.
+
+At last, by tacit consent, both threw down their tools, and with slow,
+half-fearful gaze surveyed the scene. It was a dismal one. The sun had
+reached the tops of the pines, and already the water lay in black shadow
+at their feet, rippled by the small, bitter breeze creeping in from
+seaward, and stirring the sedge into faint whisperings and moanings;
+night birds, awaking in the depths of the forest, uttered querulous
+cries, and strange, vague sounds within the covert suggested prowling
+beast or savage creeping near and nearer.
+
+"Ugh! 't is a grewsome spot as ever I saw," said Margeson as softly as
+if he feared to be overheard. "Certes the men have gone home some other
+way, and the sun is setting. Let us be after them, say I."
+
+"And say I," replied Britteridge readily, and without more words the two
+men hurried away, and in a brief half hour presented themselves before
+the governor with news that their comrades were not to be found, either
+in the field or the town, and doubtless were lost in the forest or
+captured by the Indians.
+
+Carver, ever as ready to act as to command, armed himself at once, and
+summoning such men as were on shore led them to the wood, where by
+calling, firing their pieces, and kindling torches they protracted the
+search far into the night, and when forced to give it up until daylight
+returned to the Common house for united and fervent prayers and
+supplications.
+
+Early in the morning another search party, headed by Stephen Hopkins,
+with Billington as scout, entered the woods, but having traversed a
+radius of seven or eight miles returned at night weary, footsore, and
+with no tidings.
+
+News of the loss was carried on board the Mayflower, and a heavy sense
+of misfortune and danger settled upon the little community already
+depressed by disease and want.
+
+The men thus mourned were meantime in nearly as evil case as was feared.
+
+Just before arriving at the pond, while munching their frugal lunch and
+discussing the prospect of game, they espied a splendid stag who had
+evidently been disturbed while drinking, and stood with head erect and
+dilated eyes gazing upon the first white men he had ever seen, and
+perhaps foreboding the war of extermination they had come to wage on him
+and his.
+
+"Oh for a piece!" cried Browne raising an imaginary gun to his shoulder.
+"Seize him, Nero! Take him, good dog! Hi! Away, away!"
+
+Nero needing no second invitation uttered a deep bay and set off,
+followed by the spaniel, yelping to the extent of her powers, while the
+two men, reckless of the fact that they were unarmed save with sickles,
+and could never hope to overtake the deer on foot, bounded after as fast
+as they could lay legs to the ground, nor paused until utterly blown and
+exhausted and the chase out of sight and hearing.
+
+"Hah!" panted Browne flinging himself upon the ground; "I haven't been
+breathed like that since I ran in the foot-race at home in Yorkshire
+five year agone. Phew!"
+
+Goodman only replied by inarticulate groans and wheezes, and while he
+yet struggled for breath Nero came trotting back through the woods with
+a mortified and contrite expression pervading his body from eloquent
+eyes to abject tail, while Pike, as the spaniel was called, followed at
+some distance with an affected carelessness of demeanor as if she would
+have it clearly understood that she had been running solely for her own
+pleasure, with no idea of chasing the deer. The men laughed, and patting
+their favorites allowed them to lie and rest for some moments; then as
+the air grew chill they rose and strolled in the direction, as they
+supposed, of the clearing where they had left their comrades. But the
+wood was thick, and several swampy hollows induced detours; the sun was
+obscured by the gathering snow clouds, and neither man was skilled in
+woodcraft; while the dogs, roaming at pleasure, were more intent upon
+tracing various scents of game than of finding the way home. Thus it
+came that as darkness began to gather visibly among the crowding
+evergreens, and the last tinge of sunlight was buried in thickening
+clouds, the two men stopped and looked each other squarely in the face.
+
+"Yes, John," said Browne reading the frightened eyes of his younger and
+less courageous companion. "Yes, lad, we're lost, and I doubt me must
+pass the night in the woods."
+
+"And we lack not only food but cloaks and weapons!" exclaimed Goodman
+looking forlornly about him, and stooping to pat Pike, who scenting
+disaster in the air had returned whimpering to her master's side.
+
+"If we could but find some deserted hut of the salvages, or some of
+their stored grain, or even the venison we disdained the other day,"
+suggested Browne.
+
+"We've seen no trace of such a thing to-day," replied Goodman
+disconsolately.
+
+"Come on, then, and let us look while daylight lingers. Mayhap the dogs
+will lead us out if we put them to it. Hi, Nero! Home boy, home! Seek!"
+
+Nero whimpered intelligently and trotted on for a mile or so, but with
+none of that appearance of conviction which sometimes gives to an
+animal's proceedings the force of an inspiration. Browne, who knew his
+dog well, felt the discouragement of his movement, and finally stopped
+abruptly.
+
+"Nay, he knows no home in this wilderness and feels no call to one place
+more than another. 'T is past praying for, John; we must e'en make up
+our minds to sleep here. Suppose that we lie down in the lee of these
+nut-bushes, call the dogs to curl up beside us, and try to keep life
+going till morning; no doubt we shall find the way out then, or at least
+somewhat to eat."
+
+"My blood is like ice already," murmured Goodman burying his hands in
+the spaniel's curly hair.
+
+"If we had but flint and steel to make a fire it were something!"
+exclaimed Browne. "What Jack-o'-Bedlams we were to set off thus
+unprovided. Catch me so again!"
+
+"But we came out to cut thatch, not to chase deer and get lost in the
+woods," suggested Goodman trying to laugh, though his teeth chattered
+like castanets.
+
+"It will never do for thee to lie down as chilled as thou art,"
+exclaimed Browne anxiously. "I promised thy old mother I'd have an eye
+to thee, and lo it is I that have led thee into this mischance! What
+shall I do for thee? I have it, lad! Sith it is too dark and rough to
+walk farther I'll try a fall with thee; there's naught warms a man's
+blood like a good wrestling match. Come on, then!"
+
+"I'm no match for thee, Peter, but here goes!" replied Goodman
+struggling to his feet, and the two men joined there in the darkness and
+the wilderness in what might truly be called a "joust of courtesy,"
+moved only by mutual love and good will, for the event proved Goodman's
+modesty well founded, and it was only a few moments before Browne,
+raising his slender opponent in his arms, set him down sharply two or
+three times upon his feet, saying,--
+
+"I'll not throw thee, for that might prove small kindness. Art warmer?"
+
+But before Goodman could answer a snarling cry broke from the thicket
+close at hand, and was answered by another and another voice until the
+air seemed filled with the cries of howling fiends.
+
+Nero started to his feet, his eyes glowing, the hair bristling stiffly
+upon his neck, and with a fierce growl of defiance would have sprung
+forward had not his master seized him by the collar exclaiming,--
+
+"Nay, fool! wouldst rush on thy destruction!"
+
+"'T is the salvages!" stammered Goodman staring about him in the
+darkness.
+
+"Nay, 't is lions," replied Browne. "Hopkins saith they swarm about
+here. We must climb a tree, John. Here is a stout one; up with thee,
+man, as fast as may be!"
+
+"But thou, Peter?" asked John clambering into the oak his friend pointed
+out.
+
+"I cannot leave Nero. He'll be gone to the lion so soon as I quit my
+hold of his collar, and I'll not lose him but in sorer need than this.
+Here, take thou the spaniel and hold her to thee for warmth."
+
+"Nay, I'll not be safe and thou in danger," replied the young man
+springing down; "and, moreover, it is deadly cold perching in a tree."
+
+"Well, then, we'll both stand on our guard here, and if the lions come
+we'll e'en up in the tree hand over hand and leave the poor beasts to
+their fate. Stamp thy feet on the ground and walk a few paces up and
+down, John. I fear me thou 'lt swound with the cold like poor Tilley."
+
+"I could not well be colder and live," replied Goodman faintly, as he
+tried to follow his friend's injunction.
+
+The night crept on, with frost and snow and icy rain and heavy darkness,
+and still the wolves prowled howling around their prey, and the good dog
+held them at bay with savage growls and deep-throated yelps of defiance,
+and his master, caring more for the humble friend he had reared and
+brought over seas from his English home than for his own safety, held
+him all night by the collar, and the spaniel whimpered with cold and
+terror in her master's arms, and he, poor lad, suffered all the anguish
+of death as his feet and legs chilled and stiffened and froze like ice.
+A night not to be numbered in those men's lives by hours but years, a
+night of exhaustion, terror, and agony, a night hopeless of morning save
+through the exceeding mercy of God.
+
+The gray light broke at last, however, and with it the wolves grew mute
+and slunk away, Nero quieted into obedience, and Browne carefully
+straightening his own stiffened joints and rising to his feet looked
+into his comrade's face and shook his head.
+
+"John, hearken to me, lad! We're in a sore strait but we're not dead,
+and daylight hath broken. Hold up thy face to the sky, man, and say 'I
+WILL win through this, so help me God!' and having said it, stick to it,
+even as Nero would have stuck to yon lion's throat until he was clawed
+away in shreds. Come, try it, my lad, try it!"
+
+Catching something of his friend's heroic spirit the poor fellow did as
+he was bidden, but followed the brave resolve with a piteous look into
+the other's face while he said,--
+
+"My feet are froze, Peter; there is no feeling nor power in them. But
+lead on, and I will follow if I must crawl."
+
+"Tarry a bit till I see"--
+
+And not pausing to finish his sentence Browne set himself to climb the
+tree beneath which they had passed the night. His cramped limbs and
+benumbed fingers made this no easy task and more than once he was near
+losing his grasp and finishing the story by a headlong fall to the
+frozen earth, but this danger was passed also, and presently hastening
+down he said,--
+
+"Well, heavy though the clouds be I can see that east is that-a-way, and
+not far from us rises a high hill. Come, then, lean on me; pass thy arm
+around my shoulders this fashion and I will help thee on. Then I will
+leave thee at the foot of the hill and myself climb it, and if need be
+some tree upon its summit. From that I shall surely catch sight of the
+sea, and knowing that we know all we need."
+
+Goodman silently laid his arm around the stalwart shoulders presented to
+him, but found himself too weak and spent for other reply, and Browne,
+passing an arm around his waist, looked anxiously into his face,
+saying,--
+
+"Courage, lad, courage!"
+
+"Ay, I WILL, by God's help!" murmured the poor lad as with agony
+inexpressible he forced his stiffened limbs to follow one after the
+other.
+
+The hill, more distant than Browne had supposed, was only reached after
+two hours of agonizing effort, and at the foot Goodman sank speechless
+and exhausted, his eyes closed, his parted lips white and drawn. Browne
+looked at him despairingly, and calling the dogs made one crouch at
+either side close to the heart and lungs of the prostrate body, and then
+hastened on up the hill muttering,--
+
+"'T is best kindness to leave him." Half an hour later he came crashing
+down again through underbrush and fallen branches shouting,--
+
+"Courage, John; courage, man! From the top of the biggest tree on this
+hill I've seen not only the sea, but our own harbor, and the old brig
+rocking away as peacefully as may be. Think of the good friends and the
+good Hollands gin and the good fires aboard of her. Come, rouse up, lad!
+Once more pluck up thy courage and remember thy resolve! 'T is but
+another hour or so and we are there!"
+
+And yet the good fellow knew that not one but many hours lay before
+them, and that it was for him to find strength and endurance for both.
+
+Once more his cheery voice and assured courage conveyed power for
+another effort to the half-dead lad he almost carried in his arms, and
+so, with frequent pauses for rest and encouragement, the day wore past,
+until at last on the brow of Watson's Hill, Browne, his own strength all
+but spent, cried tremulously,--
+
+"Now God be praised! here is the harbor at our feet, yonder is the
+Mayflower, below is the village, and but a few moments more will bring
+thee, John, to a bed and Surgeon Fuller's care, and me to a fire and
+some boiling schnapps."
+
+"God indeed be praised!" murmured Goodman rousing himself for the final
+effort; and so it came to pass that just at sunset the two crossed the
+brook and came hobbling down The Street amid a clamorous and joyful
+crowd of friends who lifted Goodman from his feet, nor paused until they
+brought them both into the house where abode Carver and also Fuller, the
+shrewd and crabbed physician and philanthropist. Here Goodman was laid
+upon a bed, his shoes cut from his feet, and in a few moments the
+governor on one side and the doctor on the other were vigorously rubbing
+the frozen limbs with alcohol.
+
+"Shall I lose my feet, Doctor?" asked the patient feebly.
+
+"Lose them!" cried the doctor indignantly. "Nay! what use would a
+footless man be to the Adventurers who sent thee out? 'T were but a
+knave's trick for thee to shed thy feet first thing, and I'll see to it
+thou dost not."
+
+"And that's a comfortable saying, Master Fuller," said Browne standing
+anxiously by.
+
+"Thou here, Peter Browne!" exclaimed the doctor glancing up under his
+shaggy brows. "What art doing here, blockhead? Get thee into bed beside
+a good fire, and bid Hopkins mix thee a posset such as he would have for
+himself. Be off, I say!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI.
+
+THE COLONISTS OF COLE'S HILL.
+
+
+The next day both Carver and Bradford were forced to succumb under the
+epidemic already raging among the colonists, and in another fortnight
+the hospital and Common house were crowded to their utmost capacity with
+the beds of the ill and dying. The terrible colds taken in the various
+explorations, the vile food and bad air of the brig, with the want of
+ordinary comforts on shore, were at last bearing their fruit in a
+combination of scurvy, rheumatism, and typhoid fever of a malignant
+type. On board ship matters were even worse than on shore, and Jones,
+who would willingly have abandoned the settlers as soon as they were
+debarked, found himself, perforce, a sharer in their distress through
+the illness and death of his crew, and the danger of running short of
+provisions.
+
+The day came at length when of all the company, numbering a hundred and
+one when they landed, only seven remained able either to nurse the sick
+or bury the dead, and hour by hour, as these met about their complicated
+duties, they studied each others faces, in terror of seeing the fatal
+signs that yet one more was stricken down, and the annihilation of the
+settlement one step farther advanced.
+
+Of these seven, two were Elder Brewster and Myles Standish, and well did
+they prove themselves fit to be rulers among the people, for they
+became servants of all, without hesitation and without affectation,
+nursing, cooking, dressing loathsome wounds, and ministering in all
+those homely ways repugnant to refined senses, and especially, perhaps,
+to the dignity of man. The doctor also kept on foot, although terribly
+worn with sleeplessness, fatigue, and rheumatism; Peter Browne, none the
+worse for his day and night in the woods, with Francis Eaton to help
+him, took charge of digging the graves and burying the dead, already in
+their silent colony along the brow of Cole's Hill, almost equaling their
+yet suffering comrades. The two remaining sound ones were Stephen
+Hopkins and Helen Billington, who, as the only female nurse, was called
+upon to attend the sick women, so far as she could; this, of course,
+gave but little time for each patient, and one night the doctor
+hurriedly said to Standish,--
+
+"Captain, wilt have an eye to-night to those two beds in the corner?
+'T is Priscilla Molines and Desire Minter, both shrewdly burned with
+fever, and needing medicine and care lest they should fall to raving
+before morning. I'd not ask thee, knowing all thou hast on hand, but
+goodwife Billington must not quit"--
+
+"Nay, nay, what needs so many words," interrupted Standish. "Give me
+their medicine and directions, I can care for them well enow and for
+Bradford whose huckle-bone[4] giveth him sore distress to-night."
+
+[4] Hip-bone.
+
+"I doubt me if he wins through," said the Doctor softly; "and White and
+Molines will never see the morning, and Mistress Winslow is going
+fast--well, I leave the maids and Bradford to thee."
+
+"Ay, I'll do my best," replied Standish briefly.
+
+And so it came to pass that Priscilla Molines, moaning in her feverish
+unrest, felt a moist linen laid upon her brow and a cup held to her
+parched lips.
+
+"Petite maman!" murmured she, and with those moistened lips kissed the
+hand that held the cup.
+
+Standish sadly smiled a little, and passed on to the next bed where lay
+Desire Minter, not so ill, but far more requiring than Priscilla.
+
+"Here is thy draught, child," said the nurse kindly, as he raised her
+head and put the cup to her lips. Swallowing it eagerly, she lifted her
+jealous eyes and with a smile half cunning, half pathetic, whispered,--
+
+"I love thee too, but I think it not maidenly to kiss thee till I'm
+asked."
+
+"Nay, girl, thou 'rt dreaming or wild," said the Captain soothingly.
+"She, poor maid, is distraught, and took me for her mother. She loves me
+not, nor dost thou, nor do I ask any woman's love."
+
+"Nay, then, thou 'rt mocking me. Thou dost love her, and she loves thee,
+for I've heard her say as much; but still I know one that loves thee
+better."
+
+"If thou were not so ill, Desire, I'd find it in my heart to say--but
+there, sleep poor child, sleep! Thou knowst not what thou sayst."
+
+And Standish turned impatiently away to Bradford who suffered
+excruciatingly that night with inflammatory rheumatism in the hip-joint.
+
+The next morning Priscilla awaking refreshed, and for the moment quite
+herself, found her neighbor weeping passionately, yet from time to time
+regarding her in so peculiar a fashion that she said softly,--
+
+"What is it, Desire? Art thou in sore pain?"
+
+"It ill fits thee to pity me when it is thou that hast done me such
+despite," whimpered Desire sullenly.
+
+"I! what dost thou mean?"
+
+"Why, I have ever liked our Captain since first I saw him, and now his
+wife is dead and buried, why should he not marry me as well as another?"
+
+"Why not, if it pleaseth him? I forbid not the banns," replied
+Priscilla, the dim wraith of her old smile passing across her face.
+
+"Why not? Because thou hast bewitched him, thou naughty sprite, and thou
+knowest it."
+
+"What dost thou mean, Desire? Speak out and done with it, for thou
+weariest me sore," exclaimed Priscilla impatiently, while the fever
+began to streak her pallid cheek and flame in her great eyes.
+
+"Why, I saw you two kissing last night, and I suppose you're promised to
+each other," muttered the other sulkily, and Priscilla, rising on her
+elbow, fixed on her a glance beneath which the coward quailed, yet
+sullenly murmured,--
+
+"Well, you did!"
+
+"Desire Minter, thou art lying, and thou knowest it, or else thy wits
+are distraught, or mine."
+
+"Ah, 't is well to try to edge out of it by brow-beating me, but thou
+canst not. I saw you two kissing. When he first came in he went and
+stood beside thy bed and looked down at it, biting at his beard, as is
+his wont when he is moved; and then he fell upon his knees, whispering
+something, and kissed the pillow, over and over, and when he stood up he
+drew his hand across his eyes, and all for love of thee. So now, then!"
+
+"Is that true, Desire? Can it be true that he cares for me in that
+fashion?" asked Priscilla falling back bewildered, for she knew no more
+than did Desire that hers was the bed where Rose Standish had breathed
+her last sigh, and her husband had looked his last on her sweet face.
+
+"Certes, 't is true, and thou knowest it better than I, for when, later
+on, he came to give thee a drink and wet thy forehead and lips, thou
+didst give him back his kiss right tenderly, and mutter something of
+'love' and 'darling.'"
+
+"I kissed Myles Standish!" cried Priscilla wildly.
+
+"Ay, kissed the hand that held the cup, and when he came to me I told
+him I had seen it all, and that I knew before that thou lovedst him."
+
+"Thou saidst I loved him!"
+
+"Ay, and he said he loved thee not, nor any woman, but 't was a blind,
+for such a weary sigh as he fetched, and turned to look again at thee."
+
+"I kissed him, and thou saidst I loved him, and he said he loved me
+not!" cried Priscilla blindly; and then with a wild cry she burst into a
+delirious laugh, ending in a shriek that brought Doctor Fuller from the
+next room.
+
+"What is this! what is toward!" demanded he glancing from Priscilla to
+Desire, who replied in her sullen tones,--
+
+"I know not, except that Captain Standish and Priscilla are sweethearts,
+and I told her I saw them kissing last night, and haply she is shamed as
+well she may be."
+
+"And well mayst thou be doubly shamed," replied the doctor sternly, "to
+torment her into frenzy with thy jealous fancies, and she already at
+death's door. Thou sawest naught, whatever thou mayst have dreamed; and
+mark me now, Desire Minter, I forbid thee to speak one word more, good
+or bad, to Priscilla Molines while thou stayest here; and if thou
+heedest not, I'll put thee in another house and leave thee to shift for
+thyself."
+
+Thoroughly cowed, the mischief maker promised obedience, and the doctor
+turned to the delirious girl, whom he finally quieted to a moaning
+sleep, in which he left her, muttering to himself as he went,--
+
+"Not a month since his wife died in that bed--well--'t is no concern of
+mine."
+
+And so it came about that the idea of love between Priscilla and
+Standish was planted in four active minds, and in time bore strange and
+bitter fruit.
+
+And so the gloomy days crept on, and the sufferers and the mourners of
+the village which lay half-built beneath the hill passed on to take up
+their dwelling in the village upon the bluff, where, silent pilgrims,
+they lay, row upon row, hands meekly folded, lips close set, and eyes
+forever shut, but yet attaining all that they sought in this their
+pilgrimage, freedom from tyranny even of time and circumstance, freedom
+to worship God in spirit and in truth.
+
+When a conqueror or a tyrant decimates his captives or his subjects, the
+world cries out in horror of such disregard of life, but in this
+instance God spared one half His people from the sorrows and the
+hardships they had come forth to seek, and gave them at once the reward,
+for which their brethren still must toil. Of the hundred and one men,
+women, and children, who followed Gideon to the battle, but fifty were
+chosen to achieve the final conquest.
+
+Among those who survived for a little time was John Goodman, who, after
+lying for weeks at death's door, came slowly back for a while, and in
+the early spring crept out in the sunshine with the faithful Pike at
+his heels. Trying his strength from day to day, he at last hobbled down
+to the brook and across, but was no sooner beyond hail of the village
+than two great gray wolves, stealing from a thicket, sprang upon the
+dog, who, not so venturesome as Nero, ran to take refuge between her
+master's still tender feet, causing them not a little pain.
+
+"Fool! Again without a weapon!" exclaimed John apostrophizing himself,
+and picking up a good-sized stone he threw it, with a shout, at the
+foremost wolf, who retreated snarling to the bushes. Stumbling back
+toward the village as fast as he could, Goodman came presently to a pile
+of stout palings cut for fencing, and arming himself with one cast an
+anxious look behind. It was time, for the wolves, recovering courage as
+he retreated, were in full pursuit, with glaring eyes and lolling
+tongues.
+
+Ordering Pike to crouch behind him, the young fellow stood at bay,
+hooting, shouting, and waving his stave in a semicircle, within whose
+sweep the creatures were not anxious to intrude. Weary at length of
+trying to surprise the fortress by a flank movement, yet reluctant to
+abandon the hope of seizing Pike, the wolves finally seated themselves
+upon their haunches at a little distance and seemed to consult, grinning
+and snapping their teeth from time to time at the spaniel, who cowered
+almost into the ground, whimpering piteously, while her master leaned
+upon his paling and laughed aloud, an insult to which the wolves
+responded by throwing back their heads and uttering howls like those of
+a dog baying the moon. Then suddenly leaping into the bushes they
+disappeared as quickly as they came, leaving Goodman, still chuckling,
+to resume his path to the village.
+
+"We'll have a merry tale for Peter Browne this evening, won't we, Pike!"
+
+But while the brave young fellow climbed the little hill from the brook
+to The Street, this smiling expression gave place to one of
+consternation, as he beheld a column of smoke and flame issuing from the
+roof of the house set apart as hospital, and heard a terrified shout
+of,--
+
+"Fire! Fire!"
+
+"Fire! Fire!" echoed Goodman running toward the spot as fast as his
+tender feet would allow.
+
+Sounder men were before him, however, and when he arrived a ladder was
+placed against the side of the burning house, and Alden, with Billington
+at his heels, was about to mount it, when Brewster exclaiming,--
+
+"Here's no place for sick men," pushed both aside, ran up the ladder,
+and tearing the blazing thatch from the roof flung it down in handfuls
+so rapidly and effectually that in five minutes the threatened
+conflagration was subdued to smoking embers and a few fugitive flames
+here and there, where already the fire had fastened upon the poles laid
+to support the thatch. Some buckets of water passed up by the little
+crowd below soon extinguished these, and then the Elder, peeping down
+through the damaged roof into the room below, cried cheerily,--
+
+"All is safe, friends, and no great harm done."
+
+"God be praised!" exclaimed Bradford's voice from within, and Brewster
+softly said, "Amen!" as he descended the ladder less easily than he had
+mounted it. At the foot he encountered Doctor Fuller, who with Standish
+had just been to Cole's Hill arranging for another line of graves.
+
+"Let me see your hands, Elder," demanded the physician in his usual dry
+fashion.
+
+"No need,'t is naught. Go look after your sick folk," replied the Elder
+trying to push past, but Fuller caught him by the sleeve, exclaiming
+sharply,--
+
+"A man whose hands are needed for others as oft as thine are, has no
+right to let them become useless, and 't is not in reason but they are
+burned."
+
+"You're right, Fuller, and I'm but a froward child," said Brewster, a
+sudden smile replacing the frown of pain upon his face, and obediently
+opening out his burned and bleeding palms. "Come to the Common house, so
+as not to fright my wife within there, and do them up with some of your
+wonderful balsam."
+
+"And were it not for thought of your work, you would not have let me see
+them," said Fuller glancing from under his penthouse brows with a look
+of cynical admiration.
+
+"One cannot give thought to every pin-prick with such deadly sickness on
+all sides," replied Brewster simply. "Best go into the hospital and see
+if thy poor dying folk have taken any harm of the fright before thou
+lookest after me."
+
+"The Captain has gone into the sick-house. I'll hold on to you,"
+returned the Doctor curtly, and Brewster yielded with his ever gracious
+smile.
+
+That evening as the Elder with his bandaged hands, Carver, gaunt and
+pale from an attack of fever, Standish, Winslow, John Howland, and
+Doctor Fuller sat at supper in the Common house, Master Jones, followed
+by a sailor heavily laden, presented himself at the door.
+
+"Good e'en, Masters, and how are your sick folk?" demanded he, in a
+would-be cordial voice.
+
+"Thanks for your courtesy, Master Jones," replied the governor with
+grave politeness. "They are doing reasonably well, except some few who
+do not seem like to mend in this world."
+
+"And Master Bradford? Sure he is not going to die?" pursued Jones in a
+voice of strange anxiety, as he sank into the great arm-chair Carver had
+proffered him.
+
+"He is as low as a man can be and live," broke in the doctor gruffly, as
+he fixed Jones with a glance of angry reproach, beneath which even that
+rough companion quailed.
+
+"He sent aboard yesterday begging a can of beer," blurted he, his brown
+face reddening a little.
+
+"Yes," replied the governor sternly, "and you made answer that though it
+were your own father needing it, you would not stint yourself."
+
+"I said it, and I don't deny it," retorted Jones with a feeble attempt
+at bluster. "But any man has a right to change his mind if he find
+cause, and I've changed mine as you will see, for I've brought not a
+can, but a runlet of beer for Bradford, and any others who crave it and
+are like to die wanting it; and when that is gone if Master Carver will
+send on board asking it for the sick folk, he shall have it though I be
+forced to drink water myself on the voyage home. I'll have no dead men
+haunting me and bringing a plague upon the ship."
+
+"Truly we are greatly beholden to you, Master Jones," began Carver in
+great surprise, but the mariner raised his hand and continued,--
+
+"Nay, hear me out, for that's not all. I went ashore to-day and shot
+five geese, and here they are, all of them, not one spared, though I
+could have well fancied a bit of goose to my supper, but I brought all
+to you, and more than that, even, for here is the better half of a buck
+we found in the wood ready shot to our hand. The Indians had cut off his
+horns and carried them away, and doubtless were gone for help to carry
+the carcase home when we came upon it; haply they saw us coming and made
+a run for it; at all odds they had left him as he fell, and Sir Wolf was
+already tearing at his throat so busily that he knew not friends were
+nigh, until a bullet through his head heralded our coming. So here are
+the haunches for you, and I content myself with the poorer parts."
+
+Taking the articles named from a bag which the sailor had at his
+direction laid upon the floor, Jones ranged them in an imposing line in
+the centre of the room, and resuming his chair looked at his hosts still
+in that conciliatory and half timid manner so utterly new to them and
+foreign to his usual demeanor.
+
+"We are, indeed, deeply beholden to you, Master Jones," said Carver at
+length in his grave and courteous tones. "But if I may freely speak my
+thought, and if I read my brethren's minds aright, we cannot but muse
+curiously upon this sudden and marvelous change in your dealings with
+us, and would fain know its meaning."
+
+"Feeling certain that Master Jones is not one to give something for
+nothing, and so in common prudence wishing to know at the outset what
+price he expects for bearing himself in Christian charity, as he seemeth
+desirous to do," suggested Standish with more candor than diplomacy.
+
+"Thou 'rt ever ready with thy gibes on better men than thyself, art
+not?" exclaimed Jones turning angrily upon him. For reply Standish
+leaned back in his chair, pulled at his red beard, and laughed
+contemptuously; but Winslow hastily interposed with a voice like oil
+upon the waves.
+
+"Our captain will still have his jest upon all of us, Master Jones, but
+in truth as the governor hath said, we cannot but admire at this
+wonderful generosity on thy part, and fain would know whence it
+ariseth."
+
+"Why, sure 't is not far to seek," replied Jones with a hideous grimace
+intended for a conciliatory smile; "we have ever been good friends, have
+we not, and you all wish me well, as I do all of you. Certes, none of
+you would try to bring evil upon our heads, lest it fall upon your own
+instead, for still those who wish ill to others fall upon ill luck
+themselves. Is it not so, Elder?"
+
+"Art speaking of Christian doctrine, or of heathen superstition, Master
+Jones?" inquired the Elder fixing his mild, yet penetrating eyes upon
+the seaman, who slunk beneath their gaze.
+
+"Nay, then!" blustered he rising to his feet, "I came hither when I
+would fain have stayed in my own cabin aboard, and I came not to chop
+logic nor to be put to the question like a malefactor, but to bring help
+to my sick neighbors, who, to be sure, cried out for it lustily enough
+before they got it, but now pick and question at my good meat and drink
+as if 't were like to poison them. Well, that's an end on 't, and you
+can take it or leave it, as you will. Good e'en to you."
+
+"Nay, nay, Master Jones," interposed Carver hastily, as the angry man
+made toward the door. "Let us not part thus, especially in view of thy
+great kindness toward us, for which, in good sooth, we are more
+grateful than we have yet expressed. Let pass the over curious queries
+we have ventured, and sit up at the table for a little meat and drink,
+such as it may be. Here is some broiled fish, and here some clams"--
+
+"I care not for eating, having finished mine own supper but now,"
+grumbled Jones sinking back into Carver's arm-chair; "still if you'll
+broach yon runlet of beer I'll taste a mug on 't, for my throat is as
+dry as a chimbley."
+
+"The beer is for our sick folk who crave it as they gather their
+strength," said Carver pleasantly; "but we have here a case of strong
+waters of our own, if that will serve thy turn."
+
+"Why, ay, 't will serve my turn better than t' other," replied Jones
+drawing his hairy hand across his mouth with an agreeable smile, as he
+added,--
+
+"I did but ask for the beer, thinking you who are well needed the
+spirits for yourselves."
+
+"We can spare what we need for ourselves more lightly than what we need
+for others," said Carver in that grand simplicity of nature which fails
+to perceive the magnificence of its own impulses. And from a shelf above
+his head the governor took a square bottle of spirits, while Howland
+poured water from a kettle over the fire into a pewter flagon, and
+produced a sugar bason from a chest in the corner of the room. These,
+with a smaller pewter cup, he placed before the seaman who eagerly mixed
+himself a stiff dram, drank it, and prepared another, which he sipped
+luxuriously, as leaning back in his chair he looked slowly around the
+circle of his entertainers, and finally burst forth,--
+
+"The plain truth is, there are no folk like these in any latitude I've
+sailed, and a man must deal with them accordingly. 'T is what I told
+Clarke and Coppin before I came ashore. What men but you would give
+another what you want yourselves, and lacking it may find yourselves in
+worse case than him you help? And 't is not all chat, for still I've
+marked it both afloat and ashore, and the poor wretches you've left in
+the ship will pluck the morsel from their own lips to put it to
+another's.
+
+"So it is, that with all your losses, a kind of good luck aye follows
+you, and I shall not marvel if, in the end, you build up your colony
+here, and see good days when I am--well, it matters not where--I doubt
+me if priests or parsons know. But they who flout you or do you a
+churlish turn find no good luck resting on them, but rather a
+curse,--yea, I've marked that too. 'T is better to be friends than foes
+with some folk."
+
+"'Timeo Daneos et dona ferentes,'" quoted Winslow in the ear of Elder
+Brewster, who sat watching the sailor curiously, and now suddenly
+said,--
+
+"And so thy shipmen are very ill too, Master Jones!"
+
+"Lo you, now! I said naught of it, and how well you knew. What dost
+mean, Elder?"
+
+"Naught but friendly interest like thine own," replied the Elder gently,
+yet never removing that steadfast gaze, beneath which Jones fidgeted
+impatiently, and finally cried in a sort of desperate surrender,--
+
+"Well, then, as well you know already, 't is that matter brought me here
+to-night. My men have sickened daily, and everything hath gone awry,
+since we bundled you and your goods ashore a month or so agone, when
+some of you were fain to tarry aboard, or at least leave your stuff
+there, and come and go."
+
+"But thou wast afeard we should drink thy beer by stealth. Nay, thou
+saidst it," declared Standish disdainfully.
+
+"Well, yes, I'll not go back of saying it," retorted Jones half abashed
+and half defiant. "For where else shall you find me men who will drink
+water if another man hath beer where they may get it?"
+
+"We heard from our friends on board that scurvy had broken out among the
+shipmen," said Carver motioning Standish to hold his peace.
+
+"Scurvy, and fever, and rheumaticks, and flux, and the foul fiend
+knoweth what beside," replied Jones desperately. "Now Clarke hath still
+been warning me that you were so sib with the saints"--
+
+"Nay, God forbid!" ejaculated Brewster.
+
+Jones looked at him in astonishment, then nodding his head as one who
+yields a point he cannot understand continued: "Well, if not the saints,
+whosoever you have put in their room; but Clarke says you are e'en like
+the warlocks of olden time who called fire out of heaven on their
+enemies, and it came as oft as they called; and he says Master Brewster
+is like some Messire Moses who dealt all manner of ill to those who
+crossed him; and I marked, and so did Clarke, how yester morn when I
+denied Bradford the beer he craved, and answered the governor in so
+curst a humor, three men fell ill before night, and two, who were
+mending, died in torment. And Clarke said, and so it seemed most like to
+me, that 't was you had done it, and might yet do worse; and so I would
+fain be friends, and I come myself to bring the beer and the meat, and
+I'll promise to do as much again and again; nay, I'll swear it by the
+toe of St. Hubert, that my mother paid gold to kiss for me or ever I
+was born, yea, I'll swear it, if you masters will take off the curse,
+and promise to say masses, nay, nay, to say sermons and make mention of
+me to the Lord."
+
+"Knowest thou what the Apostle Peter said to one Simon Magus when he
+would have bought the grace of God for gold?" demanded Brewster sternly.
+
+"Nay, I never knew any of thy folk before," replied Jones humbly; but
+Winslow consulting the pacific governor with his eyes smoothly
+interposed,--
+
+"Surely we will pray for thee and for thy men, Master Jones, albeit our
+prayers have no more weight than those of any other sinful men, and our
+Elder hath neither the power nor the will to bring plagues upon our
+enemies. There is naught of art-magic in our practices, I do assure
+thee, master."
+
+"Well, I know not; but in all honesty I'd rather be friends than foes
+with men like you."
+
+"And friends we are most heartily," said Carver. "Our folk on board are
+still mending, are they not?"
+
+"Rigdale and Tinker are yet in bed, and their wives wait upon them, hand
+and foot, though fitter to be in their own beds. And not only on them,
+but now and again find time to run and give a drink or some such
+tendance to our men lying groaning at the other side the bulkhead. You
+mind that knave boatswain who still scoffed and swore at thy prayers,
+Elder, and so grievously flouted the first who fell sick among you?"
+
+Brewster nodded, and Standish bringing his clenched fist down upon the
+table growled,--
+
+"I mind him so well that I've promised him a skin full of broken bones
+the first time I catch him ashore."
+
+"Then thou 'lt be glad to know that he lies a-dying to-night," replied
+Jones with horrible naivete.
+
+"Dying!"
+
+"No question on 't; and this morning as he lay groaning in sore
+distress, and calling upon one and another to wait on him, and none had
+time or stomach for it, goodwife Rigdale came to the caboose for a
+morsel of meat after her night's watch, and hearing him she cried,
+'Alack, poor soul!' and hasted to him with the very cup she was just
+putting to her own lips. The dog fastened to it, I promise you, and
+drank every drop, then gazing up at her asked a bit too late,--
+
+"'Hast any left for thyself?'
+
+"She smiled on him with that white face she wears nowadays and said,--
+
+"'Nay, but thou 'rt more than welcome.' Then says Master Boatswain, not
+knowing that I heard him,--
+
+"'Oh, if I was set to get over this, as well do I know I am not, I would
+ask no better than to join your company and forswear all I have held
+dear. For now do I see how true Christians carry themselves to each
+other when they are in trouble, while we heathen let each other lie and
+die like dogs.'
+
+"So the poor wench, fit to drop as she was, knelt and began praying for
+him, and I stole away."
+
+"But do not those men care one for another in their sickness?" asked
+Brewster indignantly.
+
+"As yonder wolf tended upon the dying buck," replied Jones with a
+careless laugh. "To drink his blood while it was warm was his chief
+care, and my men part the gear of their dying messmates before their
+eyes. Why, one of the quartermasters, Williams, thou knowest, would fain
+have hired Bowman, the other quartermaster, to befriend him to the last,
+and promised him all his goods if he should die, and money if he got
+well; but the knave did but make him two messes of broth, and some kind
+of posset to drink o' nights, and then left him, swearing all over the
+ship that Williams was cozening him by living so long, and he would do
+no more for him though he starved, and yet the poor soul lay a-dying
+then."
+
+"And Bowman had his goods?" demanded Howland sternly.
+
+"Ay had he, or ever the breath was out of the body. Then there was
+Cooper, who died cursing and swearing at his wife, and her spendthrift
+ways, that wasted all his wage and still sent him to gather more. And
+there was the gunner whose whole thought was that he must quit his gear,
+and would have his chest stand where he could see it, and the key under
+his pillow to the last; and when one of your men asked would he listen
+to a bit of a prayer he bawled out with a curse, 'Nay, what profit was
+there in prayers, or who would pay him for hearkening.'
+
+"I tell you, masters, 't is the worst port ever I made, and albeit I'm
+not a man of dainty or queasy stomach, it turns me sick to see and hear
+such things, and know that I'm master of a crew bound for hell though we
+called it Virginia."
+
+"Mayhap if the Mayflower's crew had used more diligence in seeking to
+land us in Virginia they had not themselves made the port thou speakest
+of," said Standish bitterly, while Carver, sighing profoundly, pushed
+back from the table in sign that the conference was ended, but said in a
+voice of unfeigned friendliness,--
+
+"Truly, Master Jones, thou needest and shall have our kindliest
+sympathy, and our prayers, for this that you tell of is a fearful
+condition, and a fatal for both body and soul, and well may you call
+upon Almighty God for pardon and for mercy. If any of your men are fain
+to come on shore we will receive them and give such tendance as we do to
+our own, and right certain am I that those of our company yet on board
+will do all that they are able for you. Forgetting the past, about which
+we might justly murmur if we would, we are ready in your necessity to
+reckon you as brothers, and to spend and to be spent in your service, as
+God giveth ability.
+
+"Will it please thee to tarry while we hold our evening devotions, and
+join thy prayers to ours, that the Lord will have mercy upon all of us?"
+
+"Yes, I'll tarry, though 't is not greatly in my way. Haply He might
+take it amiss if I went," muttered Jones looking about him uneasily,
+while Carver regarded his hopeless neophyte with divine compassion, and
+Elder Brewster prayed long and fervently that not only the children
+should be fed, but that the dogs might eat of the crumbs that fell from
+the table, and that in the end even the sons of Belial might be forgiven
+their blindness and hardness of heart, and receive even though
+undeservingly the uncovenanted mercies of God.
+
+Fortunately for his good intentions the object of many of these
+petitions quite failed to comprehend them, and when the devotion was
+over rose and went away far more gently than he had come.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII.
+
+THE HEADLESS ARROW.
+
+
+"Where is the governor? Hast seen him of late, Mistress Priscilla?"
+
+"Nay, Peter Browne, not since breakfast; but what is thy great haste?
+Have the skies fallen, or our friends the lions eaten up Nero?"
+
+"Nay, then, 't is worse than lions; ay, here is Master Carver."
+
+"Here am I, Peter, and what wouldst thou with me in such haste?"
+
+"Why, sir, I have ill news. This morning I went a-fowling to a pond
+beyond that where we cut thatch and fell into such mishap, and as I lay
+quiet at my stand waiting till the ducks might swim my way, I saw, for I
+heard naught, twelve stout salvages all painted and trimmed up, carrying
+bows and arrows and every man his little axe at his girdle. Each glided
+after each like shadows upon the water, so still and smooth, and they
+seemed making for the town. Then as I bent my ear to the quarter whence
+they came I caught the far-off echo of that same fiendish cry that
+saluted us at the First Encounter, and would seem to be their war-cry or
+slogan."
+
+"And then?"
+
+"I waited till all were past and all sound died away, and then I fetched
+a compass, and ran home as fast as I might to warn the company and the
+captain."
+
+"And thou didst well, Peter," replied Carver musingly, while Priscilla
+standing in the doorway behind him, with Mary Chilton at her side,
+nodded mockingly, and clapped her hands in silent applause.
+
+Turning suddenly, the governor surprised her antics, but smiling,
+asked,--
+
+"Dost know, Priscilla, whither Captain Standish went this morning?"
+
+"He and Francis Cooke went a-field so soon as they had done breakfast,
+sir, and as they carried axes and wedges in hand, it would seem they had
+gone to rive timber," replied Priscilla demurely.
+
+"Ay, like enough; but as 't is near noon, when they will be home for
+dinner, we will e'en wait till we have the captain's counsel, and
+meantime I'll see that all have their arms in readiness."
+
+"And I will go help to make the dinner ready," said Priscilla. "Thou
+canst lay the table, Mary."
+
+"Ay," replied the girl listlessly, and turning suddenly to hide the
+tears that filled her blue eyes. Priscilla looked after her, and the
+forced gayety faded from her own face as she put her arm about her
+friend's waist and led her away.
+
+"Nay, then, nay, then," whispered she; "no more crying, poppet! Didst
+thou not cry half the night in spite of all I could say?"
+
+"But how can I be gay, and father and mother both dead, and I so weak
+and ailing, and alone."
+
+"But, Mary, I have lost more than that," said Priscilla in a low voice,
+and with that hard constraint of manner common to those who seldom speak
+of their emotions.
+
+"I know thou hast lost father, mother, brother"--
+
+"And even the faithful servant whom I remember in the dear old home when
+I was a toddling child," said Priscilla gloomily.
+
+"Ay, but some have tenderer hearts than others and feel these things
+more cruelly," persisted Mary weeping unrestrainedly.
+
+Priscilla removed her arm from the others waist and stood for a moment
+looking out at the open door with a mirthless smile upon her lips. Then,
+with one long sigh, she turned, and patting Mary's heaving shoulder said
+gently enough,--
+
+"I'm more grieved for thee than I can tell, dear Mary; but still I find
+that to busy one's self in many ways, and to put on as light-hearted a
+look as one can muster, is a help to grief. See now poor Elizabeth
+Tilley. She hath cried herself ill, and must tarry in bed where is
+naught to divert her grief. Is it not better to keep afoot and be of use
+to others, at least?"
+
+"Ay, I suppose so," replied Mary disconsolately.
+
+"Well, then, lay the table, while I try if the meat is boiled. Oh, if we
+had but some turnips, or a cabbage, or aught beside beans to eat with
+it."
+
+"Canst not make a sauce of biscuit crumbs and butter and an onion, as
+thou didst for the birds?" asked Mary drying her eyes.
+
+"Sauce for birds is not sauce for boiled beef," replied Priscilla, her
+artistic taste shocked not a little; "but if thou 'lt be good, I'll toss
+thee up a dainty bit for thyself."
+
+"And me, too!" exclaimed Desire Minter, who had just come in at the
+door.
+
+"And thee, too," echoed Priscilla. "But, Desire, dost know the Indians
+are upon us, and they'll no doubt eat thee first of all, for thou 'rt
+both fat and tender, and will prove a dainty bit thyself, I doubt not."
+
+"Well, dear maids, is the noon-meat ready?" asked Mistress Brewster's
+gentle voice at the door. "Dame Carver would fain have some porridge,
+and if thou 'lt move thy kettle a bit, Priscilla, I will make it
+myself."
+
+"Now, dear mother, why should you do aught but rest, with three great
+girls standing idle before you?" cried Priscilla gently seating the
+weary woman in her husband's arm-chair. "I will make the porridge while
+Desire lifts the beef from the pot, and Mary lays the table. Our mother
+is more than tired with last night's watching beside Mistress Carver."
+
+"Nay, then, child, I'll rest a minute, since I have such willing hands
+to wait on me, and well I know thou art the most delicate cook among us.
+Dame Carver will be the gainer."
+
+And leaning her head against the back of the chair, poor, weary Mistress
+Brewster closed her eyes, and even dozed, while the three girls busily
+carried on their tasks, with low-voiced murmurs of talk that rather
+soothed than disturbed the sleeper.
+
+The first plan, of dividing the settlers into nineteen families and
+building a house for each, had been abandoned before more than two or
+three of the houses were begun, and now that the prostrating sickness
+interrupting their plans was past, and the survivors counted, it was
+found that sadly few dwellings were needed to contain them, so that at
+present all were divided among four or five houses, although as the men
+gained strength for labor each wrought upon his future home in all the
+time to be spared from the common needs.
+
+The house where we have found Priscilla was that of Elder Brewster,
+situated on the corner of The Street and the King's Highway, as the
+Pilgrims called the path crossing The Street at right angles, and
+leading down to the brook, although to-day we should say that the
+elder's house stood on the corner of Leyden and Market streets; like all
+others built at this time, it was a low structure covered in with planks
+hewn from the forest trees, and roofed with thatch. At each side of the
+entrance door lay a tolerably large room, that on the right hand,
+nearest to the brook, used as kitchen, dining, and general living room,
+while the other was the family sleeping room, and also used as a
+withdrawing room, where the elder held counsel with the governor, or
+other friends, and studied his exhortation for the coming Sunday; here,
+also, Mistress Brewster led her boys, or the maidens she guided, for
+reproof, counsel, or tender comforting. At the back of this room,
+partitioned by a curtain, was a nook, where Wrestling, a delicate child
+of six, and Love, his sturdier brother, two years older, nestled like
+kittens in a little cot. Above in the loft, reached by a ladder-like
+staircase, was a comfortable room appropriated to Mary Chilton,
+Priscilla Molines, and Elizabeth Tilley, all orphaned within three
+months, and at once adopted by the Elder's wife as her especial charge.
+
+In the next house, on a lot of land appropriated at first to John
+Goodman and some others, the governor had taken up his abode with his
+delicate wife, her maid Lois, Desire Minter their ward, and several
+children whom she cared for. John Howland, the governor's secretary and
+right-hand man, also lived here, and, like the manly man he was,
+hesitated not to give help wherever it was needed.
+
+Owing to Mrs. Carver's very delicate health, it had been arranged that
+this family should share the table at Elder Brewster's, where the young
+girls just mentioned were ready and glad to take charge of the household
+labors, leaving their elders free for other matters.
+
+In another house, placed in charge of Stephen Hopkins and his bustling
+wife, nearly all the unmarried men were gathered, and made a hearty and
+soberly jocund family. The third house, headed by Isaac Allerton and his
+daughters, was the home of Bradford, Winslow, Mistress Susannah White,
+with her children, Resolved and Peregrine, and her brother, Doctor
+Fuller, with their little nephew, Samuel Fuller, whose father and mother
+both lay on Cole's Hill.
+
+In the Common house, under charge of Master Warren, with the Billingtons
+as officials, were gathered the rest of the company except Standish, who
+slept in his own house on the hill, but had his place at Elder
+Brewster's table when he chose to take it.
+
+Hither he now came, silent and grave as was his wont since Rose died,
+but ever ready to give his aid and sympathy, whether in handicraft or
+counsel, to the governor, the elder, or the women struggling with
+unwonted labors. Of lamentation there was none, and since the day the
+soldier stood beside that open grave and watched the mould piled upon
+the coffin his own hands had fashioned no man, not even the elder, had
+heard his wife's name, or any allusion to his loss, pass his lips; yet
+those who knew him best marked well the line that had deepened between
+his brows, the still endurance of his eyes, and the sadness underlying
+every intonation of his voice; and those who knew him not, and had in
+their shallower natures no chord to vibrate in sympathy with this grand
+patience, comprehended it not, and seeing him thus ready and helpful,
+not evading such pleasant talk as lightened the toil of his comrades,
+not preoccupied or gloomy, these thought the light wound was already
+healed, and more than one beside Desire Minter speculated upon his
+second choice.
+
+Listening to the governor's report of Browne's discovery, Standish
+nodded, as not surprised, and said,--
+
+"Ay, 't is sure to come, soon or late, and a peace won by arms is
+stronger than one framed of words. When the salvages have made their
+onset and we have chastised them roundly, we shall be right good
+friends. Meantime, Francis Cooke and I left our adzes and wedges where
+we were hewing plank, and so soon as I have taken bite and sup I'll
+forth to look for them with my snaphance."
+
+"We've heard of locking the stable door when the steed was stolen,"
+murmured Priscilla to Mary, and the captain, whose ear was quick as a
+hare's, half turned toward her with a glint of laughter in his eyes.
+
+But the jibe was prophetic, for when, half an hour later, Standish and
+Cooke returned to the tree they had felled, the tools were all gone, and
+a headless arrow was left standing derisively in the cleft of a log.
+
+"Hm! A cartel of defiance," said the captain drawing it out and grimly
+examining it. "Well, 't is like our savage forefathers of Britain
+challenging Julius Caesar and the Roman power. But come, Cooke, 't is
+certain we cannot rive plank with our naked hands, and since our tools
+are gone, we had best go home and work at the housen. To-morrow we'll
+take some order with these masters."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII.
+
+THE CAPTAIN'S PROMOTION.
+
+
+The afternoon and evening were devoted to a thorough review and
+furbishing of weapons, many of which had suffered from exposure and
+neglect during the press of building and of sickness.
+
+And surely never could artist find better subject for his painting than
+the scene at Elder Brewster's fireside that night where upon the hearth
+Standish and Alden moulded a heap of silvery bullets, while Priscilla
+and Mary and Elizabeth Tilley twirled their spinning-wheels, or knitted
+the long woolen hose worn both by men and women in those days, looking
+demurely from time to time toward the hearth, where Alden occasionally
+dropped a little boiling lead into a skillet of hot water, and nodded to
+one or other of the girls as he drew out the emblems thus formed.
+
+At the back of the room gathered Brewster and Winslow and Carver and
+Bradford, discussing plans of defense in low and eager tones, while over
+all fell the broad and ruddy light of the floods of flame that rushed
+weltering up the chimney and out upon the night, carrying tidings to the
+wild woods and wilder men crouching in their depths that here were
+encamped a little band of invaders stronger than the primeval forest,
+stronger than the primeval man, stronger than Nature, stronger than
+Tradition.
+
+"Then it is well resolved," said Carver rising at last and coming toward
+the fire, "that to-morrow, so soon as we have committed ourselves to
+God's protection, and broken our fast, we will assemble with all the men
+of our company in the Common house, and take counsel for the safety and
+guidance of the colony. Does this movement suit you, Captain Standish?"
+
+"Ay, Governor. A council of war is ever fitting prelude to action,"
+replied Standish laying down his bullet-mould and standing up.
+
+"And this is a council _coram populo_," said Winslow smiling. "A
+congress of the whole people."
+
+"Our first town-meeting, if indeed we be a town," said Bradford,
+answering Winslow's smile.
+
+"Alden, we name you sheriff _pro tempore_, to warn the brethren of this
+convention. All the men, mind you," said the governor quietly.
+
+"But none of the women, mark you!" whispered Priscilla to John as Carver
+turned aside.
+
+"Nay, who ever heard of women clamoring to be heard among men in
+council," suggested Mary Chilton, while Alden, with a side glance and
+smile at the merry maids, followed the governor a step and said,--
+
+"Ay, sir, and I will moreover warn goodwife Billington to-night, that
+she may have the Common house redded betimes."
+
+"Well thought on, John," replied Carver smiling, for goodwife
+Billington's untidiness was but too notorious among her associates.
+
+"Thou 'lt have to lay a hand to 't thyself, John," murmured Priscilla as
+the young man returned to the fire to gather up the bullets and moulds,
+and if it must be confessed to seize the chance of one more word with
+Priscilla; "best bring up two or three buckets of sand from the beach,
+and when yon slattern hath done her best, spill you the sand over all,
+and so hide her shortcomings."
+
+"'T is good advice, as thine ever is," returned the lover, and so
+energetic did Goody Billington find both his reminders and his help that
+evening and the next morning, that the Common house was set in order at
+a good hour, and by nine o'clock the Council, consisting of nineteen
+men, all that were left of the forty-one who signed the original compact
+on board the Mayflower, gathered around the table, where beside the
+governor sat Howland, ready to take minutes of the proceedings of the
+meeting, and, as it were, to open the Town Records of Plymouth.
+
+The governor in a short address set forth the danger which evidently
+menaced the little colony, and invited the opinion of the freemen
+assembled as to the means of meeting it. One and another offered his
+brief remarks, and at last Bradford in a few strong and sensible words
+proposed that the whole company there present should be resolved into a
+military body, and properly exercised in the use of arms and tactics of
+defense.
+
+"That is my own thought, Master Bradford," replied Carver eagerly; "and
+this course is the more feasible that we have among us a man so skilled
+in warfare, and so judicious in counsel as our brother Standish, who
+hath already the rank of Captain in the armies of our sovereign King
+James, and hath for love of liberty and the truth given up the sure
+prospect of advancement in the king's armies, now that the hordes of
+Spain are again let loose upon our Dutch allies, and every British
+soldier is called to their defense. I therefore propose that we appoint
+Captain Standish our military commander-in-chief, with full power to
+organize, order, and enforce his authority as he shall see best for the
+interests of the community, and I for one place myself in all such
+matters under his command, and promise to answer to his summons, and
+yield to his counsel in all things appertaining to warfare, offensive or
+defensive."
+
+"And I say as doth the governor," added Winslow, turning his astute and
+thoughtful face to Standish, with a smile of brotherly confidence.
+
+"And I," added Bradford heartily, and the word of assent went round the
+table, until each man had given his personal adherence to the new
+commander-in-chief, and Brewster closed the list by saying with a
+benevolent smile,--
+
+"And I, although a man of peace, and too well stricken in years to
+become an active soldier, will in time of need refuse not to strike a
+blow under our captain's command for the defense of those God hath
+entrusted to our care."
+
+"And shall we call Master Standish General, or how shall we mark his new
+dignity?" asked Hopkins a little pompously.
+
+"Nay, I'll be naught but Captain," replied Standish hastily. "So runneth
+my commission from good Queen Bess, heaven rest her soul, and here have
+we neither parchment nor seals, no, nor authority for making out new
+commissions. I have that I tell of, and 't is enough: 'Our well beloved
+Captain, Myles Standish,' it runneth, and by that name I'll live and
+die. But aside from that, I would say, friends, that I am well pleased
+at the trust you place in me, and that so long as God giveth me life and
+strength I will heartily place them at the service of this"--
+
+But a shriek, followed by a hubbub of voices, and the pattering of many
+light feet, broke off the captain's sentence, and brought several of the
+Council to their feet, and to the door, just as it was burst open by a
+crowd of women and children all clamoring,--
+
+"The Indians! They are upon us! They are coming into the housen! Haste!
+Haste if ye be men!"
+
+Not waiting to question farther, Standish seized his snaphance which in
+these days seldom was out of reach, and briefly shouting, "Follow me!"
+rushed out, looked about him, and seeing nothing seized young John
+Billington by the arm and demanded, "Where are these Indians, thou
+yelping cur! Didst rouse that hubbub for naught?"
+
+"Nay, Bart Allerton and Johnny Cooke and I all saw them"--
+
+"Well, lead on, and show them to me too," demanded the captain sternly,
+and preceded by the half-frightened, half-delighted boys, and followed
+in more or less order by his new army, he marched up Leyden and down
+Market streets, until across the brook on the crest of a little hill two
+savages in full panoply of war suddenly appeared, and gazed defiantly
+upon the white men.
+
+"Governor, the advance guard of the enemy is in sight, and I propose
+that I with another, cross the brook and parley with him," said Standish
+turning to Carver and unconsciously resuming the stiff military manner
+and habit of a trained soldier in actual service.
+
+"Your powers are discretionary, Captain Standish," replied Carver with
+gentle dignity. "All is left in your own hands, always remembering that
+we desire peace rather than war, if so be we may have it in honor."
+
+"Hopkins, wilt volunteer to come with me?" asked the captain briefly,
+and as briefly the veteran answered, "Ay, Captain," and followed.
+
+But as the party of parley approached, the Indian scouts withdrew, and
+before Standish could reach the spot where they had stood no creature
+was in sight, although the stir and murmur of a multitude not seeking to
+conceal itself were heard from the woods densely clothing Watson's Hill
+and the valley between.
+
+Returning with this report to the town, the captain gave it as his
+opinion that so long as the enemy held off he should be left undisturbed
+while the colony devoted itself to works of defense, especially
+finishing and arming the Fort upon the hill, and making it ready for
+immediate use.
+
+"It were well that you and I, Governor, went aboard this morning and
+stirred up Master Jones to get out our ordnance and help fetch it
+ashore," concluded he. "Shall we go at once?"
+
+"So soon as the tide makes, Captain; for when the water is out, our
+harbor is somewhat wet for walking, yet by no means suited for
+navigation," replied Carver casting a whimsical glance at the verdant
+flats, then as now replacing the tides of Plymouth Harbor.
+
+"A wise provision of Nature whereby the clams are twice a day left
+within our reach," replied Standish in the same tone. "After noon-meat
+then, we will go."
+
+But when the governor and the captain arrived on board the Mayflower
+they found Jones too stupid with liquor to listen to any plans, and too
+short-handed when he had been made to understand to carry them out with
+half the dispatch the ardent spirit of Standish prompted, so that all
+they effected was to have two of the larger pieces hoisted out of the
+hold, and one landed and left upon the sand. The next day was devoted
+to finishing the preparations on shore, and finally on Wednesday, the
+third day of March, Captain Jones with all of his men fit for service
+came on shore with the rest of the ordnance, and, aided by the Pilgrims,
+dragged the clumsy pieces to the top of the eminence now called Burying
+Hill, and mounted them in the positions carefully marked out beforehand
+by Standish. The two minions, each eight feet long, a thousand pounds in
+weight, and carrying a three-pound ball, were planted, the one to
+command the landing at the rock, and the other the crest of Watson's
+Hill, where the savages had twice appeared. The saker, a still heavier
+piece, commanded the north, where the dense coverts of an evergreen
+forest hid what was soon to be known as the Massachusetts trail, and a
+very menacing quarter. The two other pieces called bases, and of much
+lighter calibre, were set at the western face of the Fort, where they
+would do good service should an enemy attempt to skirt the hill and
+approach at that side. The pieces were heavy, the appliances crude and
+clumsy, a shrewd east wind was driving in a sea-fog of the chillest
+description, and Standish, although he toiled and tugged with the best,
+proved himself a martinet in his requirements, not sparing in the heat
+of the struggle some of those curious oaths for which "our army in
+Flanders" gained a name. But the elder turned a deaf ear at these
+moments, and neither the truly devout Carver, nor the elegant Winslow,
+nor formal Allerton, nor self-restrained Bradford, chose to notice these
+lapses on the part of him who was giving all his energies and all his
+experience to their defense. As the sun set, Master Jones straightened
+his back, and setting his hands upon his hips exclaimed,--
+
+"There, then, my little generalissimo, thy guns are set, and by thine
+own ordering, not mine. And let me tell thee now, 't is lucky thou and I
+do not often train in company, for I'd sooner serve in an Algerian
+galley than under thee, and if thou wast under me, I'd shoot thee in the
+first half day."
+
+Standish, who was on his knees sighting his saker, did not hurry himself
+to rise, but when he did so turned and eyed his ally with a grim smile.
+
+"Thou 'rt right, Jones. Two game-cocks seldom agree until they have
+fought a main or two. Yet methinks I could train thee to something after
+a while."
+
+Jones's red face grew redder yet, but before his slow wit had compassed
+a retort, Carver interposed,--
+
+"And now that our good day's work is done, it is seemly that we should
+soberly rejoice and exult. Master Jones, wilt thou and thy men sup with
+us?"
+
+The sailor's face cleared directly, and with a roar of jovial merriment
+he replied,--
+
+"Marry will we, Master Governor, an' if you had not bidden us, I had
+bidden you to the feast, for I brought more than cold iron ashore, I
+promise you."
+
+"What, then? Some beer and strong waters?" demanded Hopkins eagerly.
+
+"Ay, man, and a fat goose ten pound weight, and some wild fowl beside,
+and a whole runlet of beer and a pottle of Hollands. I brought them that
+we should all make merry for once, and forget all that's come and gone,
+and that you should wish me a fair passage home, and good luck on
+getting there."
+
+"Thou 'rt a good fellow, after all, Jones, and I for one will meet thee
+half way, and pledge thee in mine own liquor, and change a bit of my
+tender crane shot yesterday for a leg of thy goose." So saying,
+Standish smote the sailor upon his shoulder, and took his great paw into
+the grasp of a hand small and shapely, but of such iron grip that the
+burly fellow winced, and wringing away his fingers cried,--
+
+"Nay, then, thou 'rt more cruel as a friend than thou 'rt maddening as a
+master. I'll none of thee."
+
+"And where are thy generous gifts now bestowed?" asked Bradford
+practically.
+
+"In the Common house. I bade Clarke go down the hill after our snack at
+noon, and take them all out of the boat's cuddy and carry them up to
+goodwife Billington, who is a famous cook, of wild fowl in particular"--
+
+"She hath had practice while her goodman was poach--nay, then, I mean
+gamekeeper on my Lord the Marquis of Carrabas's estates," put in
+Standish gravely, and Billington, who stood by, started, tried to look
+fierce, but ended with a craven laugh.
+
+"Then Alden," suggested the Governor, "thou hadst best tell the women at
+the elder's house to send over their own vivers, or a portion of them,
+to the Common house, and we will all sup together. We have the captain's
+crane and a brace of mallards, and a salted neat's tongue, with some
+other matters, Master Jones, and can methinks well forget for one night
+that hunger and cold and danger are lying at the door. 'T is wise to be
+merry at times that we may better bear trouble at others."
+
+"Ay, 't is a poor heart that never rejoices," replied the Master, in
+what for him was a pleasant voice, although with a suspicious look
+around, lest anybody should be jeering at his unwonted amenity.
+
+But Standish was casting a comprehensive look about his little fortalice
+to see if all was ready to be left for the night, and the younger men
+were already going down the hill, and Carver and Bradford stood awaiting
+their guest with cheerful and open countenance, devoid of mischief or
+guile. So the old sea-dog sheathed his fangs, restrained his growl, and
+assumed the bearing of coarse good humor which was his rare concession
+to the claims of good society.
+
+And now Alden hasting upon his errand found that Priscilla had already
+been warned by Helen Billington of the proposed feast, and with Mistress
+Brewster's consent had arranged the tables in the Common house, and
+added to the heavier viands some delicate dishes of her own composition,
+finishing by making a kettle of plum-porridge whereon the women were to
+regale themselves in the Brewster kitchen while their lords feasted in
+the Common house.
+
+And thus with sober mirth and honest friendliness closed a day so
+important in the annals of the settlement.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV.
+
+SECOND MARRIAGES.
+
+
+Doubtless the Indians lurking in the woods of Watson's Hill had watched
+with wonder and alarm the process of mounting and securing the ordnance
+of the Fort, itself a novel structure in their eyes, and wisely
+concluded to consider the question of peace or war a little further
+before bringing it to an open issue. At any rate, they were no more seen
+at present, and the colonists wasted no time in pursuing them, but as
+the ground dried and warmed hastened to put in such grain and garden
+seeds as they had provided, and to lay out the little plots of ground
+attached to each house. Among the other crops was one whose harvest no
+man, woman, or child of that well-nigh famished company would have
+eaten, a crop of wheat whose ripened seeds were allowed to fall as they
+would, to sink again into the earth, or to feed the birds of heaven, for
+it was sown above the leveled graves of that half the Pilgrims who in
+the first four months found the city that they sought. So numerous and
+so prominent upon the bold bluff of Cole's Hill were these graves
+becoming, that Standish, overlooking the town from the Fort and his home
+close beneath its walls, pointed out to Carver and Bradford that the
+savages, doubtless as keen-eyed as himself, would in seeing how many of
+the invaders were under ground find courage to attack those still
+living, and it was his proposal that the earth should be leveled and
+planted.
+
+"To what crop?" asked Bradford.
+
+"It matters not," replied Standish a little impatiently. "No man will
+care to eat of it, knowing what lies beneath."
+
+"'Thou sowest not that body that shall be, but bare grain, it may chance
+of wheat or of some other grain, but God giveth it a body,'" quoted
+Carver in a low voice, and Standish reverently answered,--
+
+"Ay. Let it be wheat, since that is Paul's order."
+
+But that night as the sun was setting behind the gloomy evergreen forest
+closing the western horizon, the captain, avoiding his comrades, went
+quietly up the hill to the Fort, and thence made a circuit northward and
+eastward so as to come out upon the bluff of Cole's Hill. Passing among
+the graves with careful feet he presently stood beside one, mounded and
+shaped with care, and protected by willow rods bent over it and into the
+ground at either side. Recently cut, these boughs yet bore their pretty
+catkins, and the leaves which had already started seemed inclined to
+persist in life and growth.
+
+Removing his buff-cap and folding his arms Standish stood long beside
+this grave, silent and almost stern of look, but his heart eloquent with
+that deep and inarticulate language in which great souls commune with
+God, and with those mysteries of life so far transcending man's
+comprehension or powers of definition.
+
+At last he gently pulled up the ends of the willow rods at one side, and
+passing round to the other would have done the same, but seeing how
+fresh and green they looked held his hand.
+
+"They would grow an' I left them," muttered he; but then with a mournful
+gesture added in the same tone, "Nay, then, what need. I shall know
+where thou liest, Rose, and"--
+
+Not ungently he drew the twigs from the earth, and stood holding them in
+his hand as a voice behind him said,--
+
+"Ay, brother, we must say good-by even to the graves we have loved.
+Stern necessity is our master."
+
+Standish, ill pleased at the interruption, turned a dark face upon the
+new-comer.
+
+"And yet I have heard, Master Winslow, that thou art already speaking of
+marriage with Mistress White. Is stern necessity master there also?"
+
+"Yes, Standish," replied Winslow frowning a little and speaking more
+coldly than at first. "You may see it for yourself. Here are we, a scant
+threescore souls, not one score grown men, come to people a savage land
+and make terms with hordes of savage inhabitants. Is it not the
+clearest, ay, sternest necessity that those of us who are unwived, to
+our sorrow though it be, should take the women who remain, be they maids
+or widows, in honorable wedlock, and rear up children to fill our places
+when we are gone? Have we a right, man, to follow our own fantasies and
+mourn and mourn like cushat doves over the graves of our lost mates
+while the women we ought to cherish struggle on uncared for?"
+
+"Hast put the matter in this light to William White's widow?" asked
+Standish sarcastically.
+
+"Nay," returned Winslow with his usual calm. "Words that suit men are
+not always for women's ears. What I may say to Susanna White is not of
+necessity the business of the Council"--
+
+"Any more than my errand here to-night," retorted Standish, the spark
+kindling in his brown eyes.
+
+"Softly, brother, softly," replied Winslow in his measured tones, and
+laying a finger upon the other's arm. "It would ill befit us two to
+quarrel here between thy wife's grave and mine. We are brethren, and if
+I said aught that mispleased thee I am right sorry"--
+
+"Nay, then, 't is I was hasty," interrupted Standish. "Surely thy
+marriage is thine own affair, not mine, and I wish you godspeed with all
+my heart."
+
+"And yet, brother, I am not all content lacking thine approval, for
+there is neither head nor heart in the colony more honorable than
+thine."
+
+"'He who praises thee to the face is a false friend; the true one
+reproveth thee,'" quoted Standish with his peculiar grim smile.
+
+"And am not I reproving thee for thy selfish disregard of the common
+weal?" persisted Winslow, his own smile a little forced. "Nay, then,
+must I bewray confidence and tell thee that one who knows assures me
+that Priscilla Molines would not say thee nay wert thou to ask her?"
+
+"Pst! What folly art thou at now, Master Winslow? This is no more than
+woman's gossip. Some of thy new love's havers, I'll be bound."
+
+"Did not William Molines send to seek speech with thee the night he
+died?" asked Winslow fixing his keen eyes upon the soldier's perturbed
+face.
+
+"Ay, but it was he and I alone."
+
+"Well, then, he had taken counsel first with a godly matron, in whose
+judgment he trusted."
+
+"Mistress White?"
+
+"Ay."
+
+"I would I had known it that day." And with no farther good-by the
+Captain turned and strode down the hill ill pleased.
+
+The next day rose warm and misty. The veiled sun seemed smiling behind
+the soft vapors, and the earth throbbing with the sweet hopes of spring
+smiled back at him. The leaves of willow, and alder, and birch, and
+maple, and elm, uncurled their delicate fronds and shyly held out hands
+of welcome to the south wind; the birds sang clear and sweet in the
+woods, and the delicate springs of sweet water answered back with
+rippling laughter and joyous dance.
+
+"A goodly scene, a veritable garden of the Lord," said William Bradford
+standing outside the elder's door, and gazing down upon the valley of
+Town Brook, and across at the wood-covered hillside beyond. Standish,
+whom he addressed, was just coming out of the house, after his
+breakfast, and without reply laid his hand upon the younger man's arm
+and led him up the hill.
+
+"Whither bound this fair morning my Captain?" asked Bradford, in whose
+blood the brave morning air worked like wine.
+
+"First to fetch my snaphance, and then I will have thee into the wood
+for a stroll to enjoy thy fine day, and to hold counsel with thy
+friend."
+
+"And that is ever to mine own advantage," replied Bradford with
+affectionate honesty. Standish glanced at him with the rare sweetness
+sometimes lighting the rigor of his soldierly face, and as they had
+reached the door of the cabin nestled beneath the Fort, where John Alden
+and his friend abode, Standish entered, leaving the future governor to
+feast his eyes upon the wider view outspread at his feet. Climbing still
+further to the platform of the Fort, he stood lost in reverie, his eyes
+fixed upon the lonely Mayflower, sole occupant of the harbor, as she
+clumsily rode at anchor tossing upon the flood tide.
+
+"We shall miss the crazy craft when she is gone," said Standish
+rejoining him.
+
+"Ay. She is the last bit of Old England," replied Bradford, musingly.
+For a few moments the two men stood intently gazing upon the vessel,
+each heart busy with its own thoughts, then, as by a common impulse
+turned, descending the side of the hill toward the lower spring, and
+passed into the forest.
+
+"What is thy matter for counsel, friend?" asked Bradford finding that
+Standish strode on in what seemed gloomy silence.
+
+"Yon ship."
+
+"The Mayflower?"
+
+"What other? She brought a hundred souls to these shores some six months
+agone."
+
+"Ay, and now we are fifty."
+
+"Fifty alive, and fifty under the sea, or on yon headland where to-day
+we level the mounds over their poor bodies and plant wheat to cheat the
+salvages."
+
+"'T is too true, good friend, and well I wot that the delight of thine
+eyes lies buried there"--
+
+"And thine beneath the waters of our first harbor," interrupted Standish
+harshly, for the proud, tender heart could not bear even so light a
+touch.
+
+"Yes," replied Bradford briefly, and over his face passed a cloud
+blotting out all the boyish enjoyment of scene and hour that had
+enlivened its ordinarily thoughtful features. Was Dorothy May indeed the
+delight of his eyes and heart?
+
+"Yes, we two men came hither husbands, and to-day we stand as widowers,
+and 't is in that matter I seek counsel," exclaimed Standish suddenly
+as he turned to face his friend. "Last night, Master Winslow standing
+between the graves of his wife and mine, read me a lecture upon the duty
+unwived men owe to the community. He says it is naught but selfishness
+to let our private griefs rule our lives, that we are bound to seek new
+mates and raise up children to carry on the work we have begun. Nor can
+we doubt his own patriotism, or the honesty of his counsels, for already
+he has spoken to the widow of William White, and his own wife but six
+weeks under ground."
+
+"Yes, I know--they will be wed shortly," replied Bradford a little
+embarrassed. Standish eyed him keenly.
+
+"And thou art of his mind, and mayhap thine own new mate is already
+bespoken?" demanded he in angry surprise.
+
+"Nay, Standish, thou 'rt not reasonable to quarrel with another man's
+conscience so that it thwarts not thine," replied Bradford patiently,
+although the color rose to his cheek as he felt the scorn of his
+comrade's voice. "Neither Winslow nor I would do aught that we could not
+answer for to God, and have not we come to this wilderness that we might
+be free to serve Him only, in matters of conscience?"
+
+"I meant not to forget courtesy, nay, nor friendship neither, Bradford;
+but my speech is ever hasty and none too smooth. So thou wilt marry,
+anon?"
+
+"I'll tell thee friend, and thou 'rt the first I've told. There is a
+lady in the old country"--
+
+"Which old country? The Netherlands or England?"
+
+"She is in England now, or was when we set forth. Thou must have seen
+her, Standish,--Alice Carpenter, who wedded Edward Southworth in
+Amsterdam."
+
+"Oh, ay. A goodly crop of daughters had Father Carpenter, and not one
+hung on hand so soon as she was marriageable. Truly, I remember Mistress
+Southworth well, a fair and discreet dame. And she was left a widow not
+many days before we left England, if I mistake not."
+
+"Ay. One little week."
+
+"And didst thou woo her as in the play I saw when last I was in London,
+King Richard wooed the widow of him he had slain, following her
+husband's corse to the grave? Nay then, nay then, man, I meant it not
+awry. But to ask a woman within one week of her widowhood, and thou
+still wived"--
+
+"Nay, nay, nay, Myles, thou 'rt all aglee and I doubt me if I had not
+better kept mine own counsel. I have not looked upon Alice Carpenter's
+face nor heard her voice since she was Southworth's wife."
+
+"Oh, ay--I see, I see--'t is an old flame and thou 'rt of mind to try to
+kindle it once more. You were sweethearts of old, eh, lad?"
+
+"Something so,--though I meant not to say so much, and now must leave
+the secret in thine honor, Captain."
+
+"Dost doubt the ward, Bradford?"
+
+"Nay. I trust thee as myself, and thou knowest it. Why must thou ever be
+so hot, Myles? Yes, when Master Carpenter and his fair troop of
+daughters came to Leyden it was not long until I saw that Alice was both
+fairest and sweetest of them all; but thou knowest the fight we had for
+bread, winning it by strange and unaccustomed labors: I, who knew naught
+but my books, and something of husbandry, becoming a weaver of baize;
+Brewster a ribbon weaver, Tilley a silk worker, Cushman a wool comber,
+Eaton a carpenter, and so on; well, goodman Carpenter was loth to trust
+his maid to such scant living as I could offer, nor would he let us even
+call ourselves troth-plight; and Alice, the gentle, timid maid that she
+was, yielded all to her father's will, and I, in the naughty pride of a
+young man's heart, was angered that she would not promise to hold
+herself against all importunities, and we quarreled, or forsooth I
+should say I quarreled, and flung away, and I knew Dorothy May and her
+kin, and she, poor soul, was ready to wed as her father willed"--
+
+"Enough Will, enough; it is not good to put all that is in one's heart
+into words. I see the whole story. And now thou 'lt write to Mistress
+Southworth and ask her to come out with the residue of our company, and
+become thy wife?"
+
+"Ay, dear friend, that is my plan," said Bradford, wringing the hand
+Standish extended, and turning his flushed face aside.
+
+"And why not?" asked Myles heartily. "'T is no new affair, no hasty
+furnishing forth of a marriage feast with the cold vivers of the funeral
+tables, as yon fellow said in the play. 'T is marvelous like one of
+those old romaunts my kinswoman Barbara used to tell over to me and the
+dear lass that's gone. There now--and thou hadst not this matter in
+hand, I'd wive thee to Barbara Standish--'t is the best wench alive, I
+do believe, and full of quip, and crank as a jest book."
+
+"Thy cousin?" asked Bradford rather absently.
+
+"Ay, but I know not just how nigh. Her father held for his lifetime a
+little place of ours on the Isle of Man, and I, trying to find an old
+record that should give me a fair estate feloniously held from me now,
+went over there once and again, and so met Rose, and went yet again and
+again, until we two wed, and I carried her away to my friends in the
+Netherlands."
+
+"And is thy cousin wed?"
+
+"Nay, did not I say I'd like to give her to thee to wife? But barring
+that, I'll send for her to come with the next company, perchance under
+charge of thy sober widow, Will, and I'll marry her to one of these our
+good friends here. So if I do not marry myself, for the weal of the
+community as Winslow says, I shall purvey for some one of them a wife
+and mother of children in my stead."
+
+"'T is well thought on, Captain," replied Bradford laughing, "and I can
+promise that if Mistress Southworth makes the voyage she will gladly
+take charge of thy cousin, for whom we will choose a husband of our
+best. But why wilt not thou marry again, thyself? Was not that in thy
+mind in speaking of counsel?"
+
+"Ay--nay--in good sooth I know not, lad. I fain would know thine own
+intentions, and I have them, but for myself--truth to tell, I care not
+to wed again. I lived many years with only my good sword here as
+sweetheart and comrade, and I was well stead, and--none can make good
+the treasure late found and soon lost--but yet--come now, Will,
+confidence for confidence, I'll tell thee somewhat"--
+
+"Touching fair Mistress Priscilla?" asked Bradford with a smile of quiet
+humor.
+
+"Aha!" exclaimed Standish, a swarthy color mounting to his cheek. "'T is
+common talk, then!"
+
+"Well, I know not--certes I have heard it spoken on more than once, but
+to say 'common talk'--we who are left alive are so few and so bound
+together that 't is no more than a family, and the weal of each is
+common to all."
+
+"But what hast thou heard, in very truth?"
+
+"Why, naught, except that Priscilla hath a sort of kindness for thee,
+and thou hast, in a way, made her affairs thine own, and so 't was
+naught but likely"--
+
+"Ay, ay, I see, I ever had but an ill idea of great families, having
+been born into one myself,--as thou sayest, the affairs of one are the
+gossip of all."
+
+"Nay, I said"--
+
+"Pst, man, I know what thou saidst, and what I think, so hold thy peace.
+Nay, then, this idle prating hath a certain foundation, as smoke aye
+shows some little fire beneath, and I'll tell it thee. When William
+Molines lay a-dying his mind was sore distraught at leaving his poor,
+motherless maid alone, for his son Joseph had gone before him, so he
+sent for me to watch with him that night, and somewhere in the small
+hours we thought his time had come, and he besought me to promise that I
+would take the maid under my keeping and not let her come to want. He
+said naught of marriage, nor did I, for my wife was but then at rest,
+and such speech would have been unseemly for him and hateful to me. I
+took his words as they were spoken, and I gave my promise, and so far as
+there was need I have kept it, and seen that the maid was housed and fed
+and looked after by Mistress Brewster, but more, I thought not on."
+
+"Master Molines was a discreet and careful man and seldom told out all
+his thought," said Bradford astutely. "Methinks he counted upon 'the way
+of a man with a maid,' and left it to thee to find out the most perfect
+plan of caring for a young gentlewoman."
+
+"Dost think so, Will? Dost think he meant me to take her to wife? Dost
+think she so considers it?" and Myles snatching off his barret-cap
+pushed up the hair from his suddenly heated and burning forehead.
+Bradford looked at him with his peculiar smile of subtle humor and
+shrewd kindliness.
+
+"Why, Myles, thou lookst fairly frightened! Thou who never counted the
+foe, or thought twice ere leading a forlorn hope, or asked quarter of
+Turk or Spaniard"--
+
+"Nay, nay, nay, Will, spare thy gibes! Here is a moil, here is an
+ambushment! Here am I, going fair and softly on mine own way, and of a
+sudden the trap is sprung, and Honor starts up and cries, 'There's but
+one way out of it, take it, willy-nilly!' If the maid is of her father's
+mind I am bound to her."
+
+"I think she would not say thee nay," said Bradford demurely.
+
+"Thou hast no right to avow that, Will, and I were but a sorry knave to
+believe it. A lady's yea-say is an honor to any man, and he who receives
+it must do so in all reverence. No man hath a right to fancy or to say
+that a modest maid is ready with yea or nay before she is asked."
+
+"Thou art right, and I wrong, Myles, and in truth I know naught of
+Mistress Priscilla's mind."
+
+"But I will, and that ere many days are past. Thou hast done me a good
+turn, Will, in showing me where I stand. I dreamed not that Molines
+was--well,--he died peacefully and I will not disturb his rest. Yes, I
+will but wait until the Mayflower is gone and my cabin weather-tight,
+and the garden sown, and then I will speak with Priscilla. If Barbara
+comes she'll be rare good company for both of us."
+
+Again Bradford smiled very quietly, and the two men walked on in
+silence.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV.
+
+SAMOSET.
+
+
+Once more the freemen of the colony were convened in Council around the
+well-scoured table in the principal room of the Common house, become for
+the nonce a House of Commons, and Captain Standish was explaining the
+scheme he had arranged for organizing his little army, when again the
+solemnity of the meeting was invaded by shrill cries of alarm and anger,
+this time, however, in a solo rather than chorus, for goodwife
+Billington having taken the field, her more timid sisters were abashed
+into silence.
+
+"Thou foul beast, I say begone! Scat! Avaunt! Nay, grin not at me thou
+devil straight from hell! Wait but till I fetch a bucket of boiling
+water to throw over thee, thou Cheshire cat! I'll soon see how much of
+thy nasty color is fast dye"--
+
+"What means this unseemly brawling?" sternly demanded Elder Brewster as
+Standish ceased speaking, and all eyes involuntarily turned toward the
+door.
+
+"Billington, the voice is that of thy wife. Go, and warn her that we
+tolerate no common scolds in our midst, and that the cucking-stool and
+the pillory"--
+
+But the elder's threats and Billington's shamefaced obedience and the
+wonder of all who had listened to the outbreak were cut short by a
+startling apparition upon the threshold; the savages had really come at
+last, or at least one of them, for here stood, tall and erect, the
+splendid figure of a man, naked except for a waistband of buckskin
+fringe, his skin of a bright copper color glistening in the morning sun,
+and forming a rich background for the vari-colored paints with which it
+was decorated; his coarse, black hair, cut square above the eyebrows,
+fell upon his shoulders at the back, and was ornamented by three
+eagle-feathers woven into its tresses; in his hand he carried a bow
+nearly as tall as himself, and two arrows; a sharp little hatchet,
+evidently of European make, was thrust into his girdle, but the keenness
+of its edge was less than that of the glances with which he watched the
+slightest movement of the armed men who started to their feet at his
+approach.
+
+The savage was the first to speak, and his utterance has become as
+classic as Caesar's "Veni,"--for it was,--
+
+"Welcome!"
+
+As he pronounced it, and looked about him with kindly, if wary eyes, the
+Pilgrims drew a long breath, and the tense anxiety of the moment lapsed
+into aspects various as the temperaments of the men.
+
+"What! Do these men speak English, then!" exclaimed Allerton bewildered,
+while Standish muttered,--
+
+"Look to your side-arms, men. He may mean treachery," and noble Carver,
+extending his hand, said,--
+
+"Thanks for your courtesy, friend. How know you our language?"
+
+"I am Samoset. I am friend of Englishmen. I come to say welcome."
+
+"Truly 't is a marvel to hear him speak in our own tongue and so glibly
+too. Mark you how he chooses his words as one of some dignity himself,"
+said Bradford softly, but the quick ears of the savage caught the
+substance of his words, and tapping his broad chest lightly with his
+fingers he proudly replied,--
+
+"Samoset, sachem of Monhegan. Samoset do well to many Englishmen in his
+own country."
+
+"And where is Monhegan, friend Samoset?" asked Carver pleasantly. "Might
+it be this place?"
+
+"This place Patuxet. Monhegan nearer to the sunrise," replied Samoset
+pointing eastward.
+
+"And how far?"
+
+"Suppose walk, five days; big wind in ship, one day."
+
+"And how camest thou, and when?"
+
+"Ship. Three, four moons ago."
+
+"Ah, then it is not an armed assault upon us," said Carver aside and in
+a tone of relief.
+
+"Nay, these salvages are more treacherous than a quicksand. Try him with
+more questions," suggested Hopkins, the other men murmuring assent,
+while the Indian glancing with his opaque, black eyes from one to
+another showed not how much he understood of what went on about him.
+
+"'In vino veritas,'" suggested Bradford with a smile. "Were it not well
+to give him something by way of welcome?"
+
+"Samoset like beer. Much talk make throat dry like brook in summer,"
+remarked the guest, but whether in response or not no one could say.
+
+"Thou 'rt right, man, and though thy skin's tawny, thy inside is very
+like a white man's," exclaimed Standish with a laugh. "John Alden, thou
+knowest the cupboards of this place passing well; find our friend
+wherewith to fill yon dry brook-bed of a throat; that is with the
+governor's permission."
+
+"Surely, surely, Captain Standish," replied Carver with gentle alacrity.
+"Your word is enough. And while Alden finds wherewithal to feed and
+quench his thirst, John Howland shall bring a mantle or cloak from my
+house to throw about him, for it is not seemly that our people should
+see us entertaining a man stark as he was born."
+
+"'T is well said, Master Carver. I had some such thought myself," said
+Allerton rather primly, while Hopkins and Billington exchanged an
+irreverent grin, and Standish stroked his moustache.
+
+The cloak was brought, and gracefully accepted by Samoset, who evidently
+regarded it as a ceremonial robe of state, designed to mark his
+admittance as an honored guest at the white men's board, and draping it
+toga-wise across his shoulder, he sat down to a plentiful repast of cold
+duck, biscuit, butter, cheese, and a kind of sausage called black
+pudding. To these solids was added a comfortable tankard of spirits and
+water, from which Samoset at once imbibed a protracted draught.
+
+"Englishman have better drink than poor Indian," remarked he placing the
+tankard close beside his plate, and seizing a leg of the duck in his
+hands.
+
+"'T is sure enough that he has been much with white men,--yes, and
+Englishmen, too, by the way he takes down his liquor," remarked Hopkins.
+
+"Nay, methinks our Dutch brethren could take down a deep draught, too,
+and this is their own liquor," said Bradford, while Winslow muttered in
+Carver's ear,--
+
+"Let not Alden leave the case-bottle within reach of the savage. Enough
+will loosen his tongue, but a little more will bind it."
+
+"True," assented the Governor, nodding to Alden, who quietly replaced
+the bottle in the case whence he had taken it. Samoset followed it with
+longing eyes, but his own dignity prevented remonstrance except by
+finishing the flagon and ostentatiously turning it upside down.
+
+After this, the meal was soon finished, and the conversation resumed,
+partly by signs and inference, partly by Samoset's limited stock of
+English. By one means and the other the Pilgrims presently learned that
+Monhegan was a large island near to the mainland in a northeasterly
+direction, and a great resort of fishing vessels, mostly English, with
+whose masters Samoset, as sachem of the Indians in those parts, had both
+traded and feasted, learning their language, their manners, and, what
+was worse, their habits of strong drink and profanity, neither of which
+however seemed to have taken any great hold upon him, being reserved
+rather as accomplishments and proofs that he too had studied men and
+manners.
+
+The master of one of these fishing craft some few months previously had
+invited the sachem to accompany him across the bay to Cape Cod, where
+the sailor wished to traffic with the natives, and Samoset had since
+remained in this part of the country visiting Massasoit, sachem of the
+Wampanoags, who with a large party of his warriors was now lying in the
+forest outside of the settlement, waiting apparently for the result of
+Samoset's reconnoissance before he should determine on his own line of
+action.
+
+Farther inquiry elicited the fact that the former inhabitants of
+Plymouth, or Patuxet, a people tributary to Massasoit, but living under
+their own sachem, had been totally exterminated by a plague, perhaps
+small-pox, which had swept over the country two or three years before
+the landing of the Pilgrims, leaving, so far as Samoset could tell, only
+one man alive; this man seeking refuge among the Nausets, the tribe to
+the east of Patuxet, was one of the victims entrapped by Hunt, escaping
+from whom, he lived a long time in England with a merchant of London
+named Slaney, who finally sent him in a fishing vessel to Newfoundland,
+whence he had made his way back to his friends on Cape Cod.
+
+"And this man," demanded Winslow eagerly. "Where is he now? Do ye not
+perceive, friends, that this is an instrument shaped and fitted to our
+hands by the Providence of God, who hath also sent His plague to sweep
+away the inhabitants of this spot whither He would lead His chosen
+people?"
+
+"Of a truth it seemeth so," replied Carver reverently, while Standish
+muttered in his beard,--
+
+"Pity but the salvages had known 't was Providence! 'T would have
+converted them out of hand."
+
+The elder who had his own opinion of the soldier's orthodoxy looked
+askance at the half-heard murmuring, and suddenly demanded,--
+
+"Where, then, is this man? How call you him?"
+
+"Tisquantum he name. English trader across big water call him other fool
+name. Red man not know it."
+
+"Tisquantum is well enough for a name, but why did he not come hither
+with you, Samoset?"
+
+"Tisquantum much wise. He like see other fox put his paw in trap first
+before he try it." And as he thus betrayed his comrade's diplomacy the
+savage allowed a subtle smile to lighten his eyes, which, with the
+instinct that in simple mental organizations is so much surer than
+reason, he fixed upon Winslow, who laughed outright as he replied,--
+
+"Wiser than thou, Samoset, me-seemeth. How is it thou wast so much more
+daring than thy fellow?"
+
+"Samoset poor fool. He not know enough to be afraid of anything. Not
+wise like white man and Tisquantum." And the sachem with a superb smile
+settled the tomahawk at his girdle, and threw off the folds of his
+horseman's cloak. But the grim smile upon most of the faces around the
+board showed that the jest had given no offense to men who knew their
+own and each other's courage, and the conference presently broke up, the
+visitor amusing himself by strolling around the village, discreetly
+wrapped in his cloak, and taking a malicious delight in encountering
+Helen Billington, who never failed to greet him with a fusillade of
+suppressed wrath, to which he listened attentively, as if desirous of
+storing up some of the objurgations for his own future use. As night
+fell, and the guest showed no intention of departure, some of the more
+cautious settlers suggested that he should be put on board the Mayflower
+for safe keeping, a plan which met Samoset's ready approval, for as he
+sententiously remarked,--
+
+"Captain-man have much strong waters."
+
+But then, as now, he who would navigate Plymouth Harbor must take both
+wind and tide into account, and when Samoset with Cooke, Browne, and
+Eaton to row him reached the shallop, they found her high and dry, with
+a stiff east wind in her teeth. The next plan was to bestow the
+dangerous guest safely on shore, and this was finally done in the loft
+of Stephen Hopkins's house, the veteran host grimly promising that he
+should not stir so much as a finger-nail but he would know it; and in
+spite of goodwife Billington's assurance to her sisters that they should
+one and all be murdered in their beds before morning, the sun arose upon
+them in peace and safety, and soon after breakfast the Indian was
+dismissed with some small gifts, and an agreement that he should come
+again the next day, bringing Squanto, and such others as desired to
+trade with the white men, and could offer skins of beaver, martin, or
+other valuable fur.
+
+"Could not they fetch a few ermine and miniver skins while they are at
+it," suggested Priscilla. "Methinks in this wilderness we women might at
+least solace ourselves with the show of royalty, sith we are too far
+from the throne to have our right disputed."
+
+"Who knows but that we may found a new kingdom here in the New World,"
+replied John Alden playfully. "And where should we find a fitter
+sovereign than Queen Priscilla?"
+
+But Saturday passed over quietly, and it was not until Sunday morning
+that the Pilgrims coming out of the Common house after the morning
+service met Samoset stalking into the village followed by five other
+tall fellows, powerful but unarmed, Standish having sternly warned
+Samoset that neither he nor his companions must bring any weapon into
+the white man's settlement without permission. Much to the relief of the
+women who encountered these guests, it was at once seen that Samoset had
+understood and communicated the hint involved in lending him a cloak to
+wear during his previous visit, for all were fully dressed in deerskin
+robes with leggings fastened to the girdle and disappearing at the ankle
+within moccasons of a style very familiar to our eyes, although a great
+marvel to those of the Pilgrims, who, however soon adopted and enjoyed
+them highly. Samoset and another savage, who seemed to be his especial
+associate, also carried each a finely dressed wild-cat skin as a sort of
+shield upon the left arm, and all were profusely decorated with paint,
+feathers, strings of shells, and one man with the tail of a fox
+gracefully draped across his forehead. All wore the hair in the cavalier
+style, long upon the shoulders and cut square across the brow, and all
+were comely and dignified looking warriors.
+
+The governor, elder, captain, with some other of the principal men,
+stood still in the open space where the King's Highway crossed The
+Street, and greeted, soberly as befitted the day, yet cordially as
+befitted charity and hospitality, their guests, who watched with wary
+eyes every movement of the hosts whom they hardly trusted, while
+Samoset, stepping forward, unrolled a fine mat, or wrapping-rug, in his
+arm, and ceremoniously laid two axes and a wedge at the feet of
+Standish, saying briefly,--
+
+"The white chief has his own again."
+
+"Our tools. Yes, that is as it should be," replied the captain,
+"although we may not use them to-day."
+
+"Six hungry guests to divide the dinner with us!" exclaimed Priscilla in
+dismay as she stood at Mistress Brewster's side, her glowing brunette
+beauty shining out in contrast with the soft ashen tints of the older
+woman's face.
+
+"Ay 't will put us to our trumps to make ready enough hot victual for
+all," replied the elder's wife.
+
+"They shall have none of the marchpane thou didst make yestere'en,
+Priscilla!" expostulated Desire Minter anxiously. "There is no more than
+enow for us that be women."
+
+"That will rest as our dear mother says," replied Priscilla smiling into
+Dame Brewster's face.
+
+"Nay, it needs not the marchpane thou madest so toilsomely to entertain
+these salvages to whom our ship-biscuit are a treat," and the elder
+woman smiled tenderly back into the glowing face so near her own.
+
+So presently the table in the Common house was spread with what to the
+red men was a feast of the gods, and they gravely ate enough for twelve
+men, evidently carrying out the time-honored policy of Dugald Dalgetty
+and of the camel, to lay in as there is opportunity provision not only
+for the present, but the future. Dinner ended, both red and white men
+assembled in the open space before mentioned, now in Plymouth called the
+Town Square, and the Indians grouping themselves in the centre began
+what may be called a dance, although from the gravity of their faces and
+solemnity of their movements the elder was seized with a suspicion that
+fairly turned him pale.
+
+"Are the heathen creatures practicing their incantations and
+warlock-work in our very midst, and on the Lord's Day?" demanded he.
+"Stephen Hopkins, thou knowest their devices, how is it?"
+
+"Nay, Elder," replied Hopkins chuckling in spite of his efforts at
+Sunday sobriety. "It is a feast-dance, a manner of thanksgiving"--
+
+"A sort of grace after meat," suggested Billington in an aside; but the
+elder heard him, and turning the current of his wrath in that direction
+exclaimed,--
+
+"Peace, ribald! Thou art worse than the heathen in making sport of holy
+things."
+
+"I knew not yon antics were holy things, Elder," retorted the reckless
+jester; but Standish ranging up alongside of him muttered,--
+
+"One word more and thou 'lt deal with me, John Billington," and though
+the reprobate affected to laugh contemptuously he remained silent.
+
+To the solemn feast-dance succeeded a more lively measure accompanied
+with barbarous sounds intended for singing, and the performance ended
+with gestures and pantomime obviously suggesting a treaty of amity and
+peace, as indeed Samoset presently interpreted it, closing the scene
+with the offer of such skins as the men wore upon their arms, and
+promises of more furs in the near future.
+
+But the Sunday-keeping Pilgrims would not enter even into the semblance
+of trade upon that day, and, although they could not explain the reason
+to the Indians, made them understand that their dances, their singing,
+and their gifts, which were of course to be repaid, were all impossible
+for them to consider upon that day, and that, in fact, the sooner they
+withdrew from the village the better their hosts would be pleased.
+Adding however the wisdom of the serpent to the guilelessness of the
+dove, they coupled with this dismissal a very earnest invitation for the
+savages to return on the morrow and bring more skins, indeed all that
+they could spare, the white men promising to purchase them at a fair
+price.
+
+The Indians listened gravely to so much of this harangue as Samoset
+translated to them, and the five new-comers at once, and with no
+ceremony of farewell, glided one after the other down the path leading
+past the spring to Watson's Hill, and were no more seen; but Samoset
+throwing himself upon the ground pressed his hands upon his stomach
+moaning loudly and declaring himself in great agony.
+
+"He has a colic from over-feeding. Give him a dose of strong waters and
+capsicum," said the elder compassionately; and Standish with a grim
+smile remarked, "Truly the man hath been an apt scholar in the ways of
+civilization. He minds me of a varlet of mine own, whose colics I
+effectually cured after a while by mingling a certain drug with the
+strong waters he craved. 'T was better than a sea-voyage for clearing
+his stomach."
+
+"Nay, Captain, we'll not deal so harshly with the poor fellow at the
+beginning, whatever may come at the end," said the Governor smiling.
+"Howland, get the man his dram, and if he will not go, put him to sleep
+in Hopkins's house and under his ward."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI.
+
+PRISCILLA MOLINES' LETTER.
+
+
+"John Alden, the captain says thou 'rt a ready writer. Didst learn that
+along with coopering?"
+
+"Nay, Mistress Priscilla, I was not dubbed cooper until I was a
+se'nnight old, or so."
+
+"Oho! Then thy schoolcraft all came in the first week of thy life. Eh?"
+
+"Have thy way, Priscilla. Thou knowst well enow thou canst not anger
+me."
+
+"Truly? Well I never cared to see a man maiden-meek. But thou canst
+write?"
+
+"Ay, and so canst thou, I have heard."
+
+"Heed not all thou hearest, John; no, nor believe all thou seest."
+
+"But what about my pencraft? Can I do aught for thee, Priscilla?"
+
+"Mayhap."
+
+"And what is it, maid? Well thou knowest that it is more than joy for me
+to do thy bidding."
+
+"Nay, I know not what feeling 'more than joy' can be, unless haply it
+topple over t' other side and become woe, and I would be loth to breed
+thee woe."
+
+"And I am as loth to let thee; but still thou dost it and will do it."
+
+"Verily!"
+
+"Ay, verily; but what is thy bidding, Priscilla? for I have an errand on
+hand."
+
+"And what weighty matter claims thee for its guardian?"
+
+"Nay, 't is no such weighty matter, nor is it a secret. The governor
+will have me warn the men to gather in the Common house to-morrow to
+complete the affairs twice broken off by the visit of our red-skinned
+neighbors."
+
+"And mark my words, John, they'll come again to-morrow so sure as you
+try to hold council. 'T is a fate, and you'll not escape it."
+
+"Pooh, child! Dost believe in signs and fates?"
+
+"My forbears did. Haply thou hadst none, and so escaped the corruption
+of such folly."
+
+"Nay now, Priscilla, each one of us has just as many grandsires as
+another all the way back to Adam, only some of us have had more
+important matter in hand than to reckon up their names, and 't will
+never spoil a night's rest for me that I know not if my great-grandam
+was Cicely or Phyllis. But tell me, mistress, what my pen can do for
+thee?"
+
+"Thy pen! Then 't is not thy heart or thy hand that is at my service?"
+and Priscilla raised a pair of such melting and velvety brown eyes to
+the somewhat offended face of the young giant that he at once tumbled
+into the depths of abject submission, and trying to seize her hand
+exclaimed,--
+
+"Oh sweetheart, thou knowest only too well that hand and heart and all I
+have are thine if thou wilt but take them."
+
+"Nay, John, thou must not speak so, no, nor touch my hand until I give
+it thee of mine own free will"--
+
+"Until? Nay, that means that some time thou wilt give it!"
+
+"Well, then, I don't say until, and if thou dost pester me I'll say
+never. And I'll ask John Howland to write my letter."
+
+"Stay, stay Priscilla! If 't is a letter to be written let me write it,
+for I was the first one asked, and I'll not pester thee, lass. I am a
+patient man by nature, and I'll bide thy good pleasure."
+
+"There, now, that's more sensible, and as my own time runs short as well
+as thine, sit down at the corner of the table here--hast thy ink-horn
+with thee? Ay, well, here is paper ready, and we have time before I must
+make supper."
+
+"Yes, an hour or more," said John looking at some marks upon the window
+ledge cut to show the shadows cast at noon, at sunrise, and at sunset at
+this time in the year. Priscilla meantime had arranged the writing
+materials upon the corner of the heavy oaken table with its twisted legs
+and cross pieces still to be seen in Pilgrim Hall in Plymouth as Elder
+Brewster's table, and drawing up two new-made oaken stools, for the
+elder's chair in the chimney-corner was not to be lightly or profanely
+occupied, she said,--
+
+"Come now, Master Alden, I am ready."
+
+"I would thou wert ready," murmured John, but as the blooming face
+remained bent over the table, and the very shoulders showed cold
+indifference, he continued hastily as he seated himself,--
+
+"And so am I ready. To whom shall I address the letter?"
+
+"Methinks I would first put time and place at the head of the sheet. So
+have I noted that letters are most commonly begun."
+
+"Ay. Well, then, here is:--
+
+"'The Settlement of New Plymouth, March the 21st inst. A. D. 1620.'" For
+thus in Old Style did John Alden count the date we now should set at
+March 31st, 1621. And having written it in the queer crabbed Saxon
+script we find so hard to decipher he inquired,--
+
+"And what next, Mistress Priscilla?"
+
+"Next, Master John, thou mayest set down,"--
+
+"'My well beloved'"--
+
+"Well, who is thy well beloved?" demanded John pen in hand and flame on
+cheek.
+
+"Nay, the name is of no importance," replied Priscilla coldly. "Let us
+go on."
+
+"Very well, 'My well beloved,' is set down."
+
+"'I promised thee news of my welfare so soon as opportunity should serve
+to send it.'"--
+
+"Well?"
+
+--"'And now I would have thee know that I find none to take thy place in
+my heart or eyes'"--
+
+The young man laid down his pen, and with a sterner look upon his face
+than the teasing girl had ever seen there, rose from the table saying,--
+
+"I did not deem thee so unmaidenly, Priscilla, as to ask a man who loves
+thee to write thy love-messages to one thou favorest more highly. 'T is
+not well done, mistress, neither modest nor kind."
+
+"I wonder at thy hardihood, John Alden, putting such reproach upon me.
+Never think again that I will listen to thy wooing after such insult,
+and thou stupid oaf, did I not tell thee that the letter was to Jeanne
+De la Noye, my dear girl-friend in Leyden?"
+
+"Nay, thou toldst me no such thing."
+
+"Well, I tell thee now, and thou mayst put Jeanne after 'my
+well-beloved' at the top, an' thou wilt. Art satisfied now, thou
+quarrelsome fellow?"
+
+"Satisfied that thou wilt bring me to an untimely grave, thou wicked
+girl!"
+
+"Well, then sit down and finish my letter before thou seekest that same
+grave, for the shadow creeps on apace. Nay, now, I will be good, good
+John."
+
+"Ah well-a-day, I am indeed an oaf, as thou sayest, to be so wrought
+upon by a coy maid's smiles or frowns, but have thy will mistress, have
+thy will."
+
+"Nay now, John, cannot a big, brave fellow like thee take a poor maid's
+folly more gently? Think then, dear John, of how forlorn a maid it is;
+think of the graves under yon springing wheat"--
+
+"There, there, dear heart, forgive my rude brutishness; forgive me,
+sweet one, or I shall go out and do some injury to myself or another,
+thou hast so stirred my sluggish heart"--
+
+But a peal of laughter, rich and sweet as a bob-o-link's song, cut short
+his speech, and Priscilla dashing away the tears that hung in her archly
+curved eyelashes exclaimed,--
+
+"_Thy_ sluggish heart, John! Why, thy heart is like an open tub of
+gunpowder, and all my poor thoughtless words seem sparks to kindle it!
+Well, then, sith both are sorry, and both fain would be friends, let us
+get on with my fond messages to Jeanne and her sister Marie, or I shall
+have to put away my paper hardly the worse for thy work."
+
+"Well, then, thou honey bee, as sweet as thy sting is sharp, what next?"
+
+"Tell her in thine own words how long we were cooped in yon
+vile-smelling old tub, and how when we landed, Mary Chilton and not I
+was first of all the women to leap upon the rock we call our threshold;
+and oh John, tell her how I am orphaned of father and mother and
+brother, and even the dear old servant who carried me in his arms, and
+many a time in Leyden walked behind us three malapert maids--oh me, oh
+me!"--
+
+She turned away to the window and bowed her face in her hands,
+smothering the sobs that she could not quite restrain. John sat still,
+looking at her, his own eyes dim and his face very pale. At this moment
+the door was suddenly thrust open, and Standish entered the room
+exclaiming,--
+
+"Is Alden here?"
+
+"Ay, Captain," replied the young man rising and coming forward. Standish
+cast a hasty glance at the figure of the young girl, another at the
+young man's face, and motioned him to follow outside.
+
+"Hast thou done aught to offend Mistress Molines?" demanded he as John
+drew the door close after him.
+
+"Not I," replied he somewhat indignantly. "She asked me to write for her
+to some maid of her acquaintance in Leyden, and when it came to telling
+of her orphanage and desolate estate her woman-heart gave way, and she
+was moved to tears."
+
+"Ay, ay, poor child! 'T is sad enow, but we will put all that right
+presently--yes, I promised William Molines, and so let him die at ease,
+and I will keep my word to the dead. A husband and a home, and haply a
+troop of little rogues and wenches at her knees will soon comfort her
+orphanhood, eh, John?"
+
+"I know not, sir--I--doth she know of this compact betwixt her father
+and you?"
+
+"Come, now, thou 'rt not my father confessor, lad, nor yet my general,"
+replied Standish with peremptory good humor. "Get thee back to thy
+pencraft, and when it is done come to me at the Fort, I have work for
+thee."
+
+"Yes, sir." And the young man turned again into the house where
+Priscilla, quite calm, but a little subdued in manner, awaited him.
+
+"And now wilt thou set thy name at the foot, Priscilla?" asked the
+scribe when the fourth side of the paper was nearly covered.
+
+"Let me see. Ah, there is yet a little room. Say, 'My friendly
+salutation to thy brothers, Jacques, Philip, and little Guillaume; and
+now I think on 't, Jacques asked me to advise him if this were a good
+place for a young man to settle, and as I promised, I will now bid thee
+say that to my mind it is a place of goodly promise, and I were glad
+indeed to see all my friends of the house of De la Noye coming hither in
+the next ship.'"
+
+"I have heard ere now that the pith of a woman's letter was in the post
+scriptum, just as the sting of a honey bee cometh at the latter end,"
+said John dryly. "And now wilt thou sign?"
+
+"Yes. Give me the quill. _Ciel_, how it sputters and spatters! 'T is a
+wondrous poor pen, John."
+
+"It served my turn well enow," replied John surveying with a grim smile
+the childish signature surrounded with a halo of ink-spatters; but as
+not one third of the women in the company could have done as well,
+Priscilla felt no more chagrin at not being a clerk, than a young lady
+of to-day would at not knowing trigonometry.
+
+"And now address it to the Sieur Jacques De la Noye for Mademoiselle
+Jeanne De la Noye, and I will trust thee to put it with the letters
+already writ to go by the Mayflower. And thank thee kindly, John, for
+thy trouble."
+
+"Thou 'rt more than welcome, Priscilla."
+
+"But why so grave upon 't, lad?"
+
+"'The heart knoweth its own bitterness,' and mine hath no lack of bitter
+food, Priscilla."
+
+"Nay, perhaps thou turn 'st sweet into bitter. A kind word to the
+brother of my gossip Jeanne"--
+
+"Ah, that's not all, nor the worst. But there, I'll fetch thee some
+water from the spring." And seizing the bucket, the young man went
+hastily out, leaving Priscilla staring at the folded letter upon the
+table, while she half murmured,--
+
+"Handsome Jacques with his quick wit and gentle breeding, and our brave
+Captain, the pink of knightly chivalry, and--John!"--
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII.
+
+AN INTERNATIONAL TREATY.
+
+
+Priscilla's prophecy proved a true one, for hardly were the
+one-and-twenty men of the colony assembled around the table in the
+Common house to hold a final Council upon their new orders, than young
+Cooke came rapping at the door to announce that a large body of Indians
+had appeared on Watson's Hill, and seemed advancing on the village. The
+Council once more was hastily broken up, Carver only pausing to say with
+a glance around the circle,--
+
+"It is clearly understood that Captain Standish is in full control of
+all military proceedings in this community, and we are all bound to
+follow his orders without cavil or delay."
+
+"Ay," responded a score of deep-throated voices lacking that of Myles
+himself, who said,--
+
+"The governor's authority is above that of the commandant unless martial
+law be proclaimed, and I shall be the first man to submit to it."
+
+"'When gentlefolks meets, compliments passes,'" muttered Billington with
+a sneer, while Edward Dotey and Edward Lister, nominally servants to
+Stephen Hopkins, but already ruffling with the best, tittered and nudged
+each other as they followed their betters out of the house.
+
+Now Dame Nature in compounding a leader does not often omit to furnish
+him with five extra-keen senses, as well as a certain sixth sense
+called intuition, quickwittedness, or, if you please, instinct; and
+Standish, born for a leader, was fully furnished forth with all six of
+these videttes, and seldom failed to see, hear, and understand all that
+went on in his vicinity. So did he now, and although his stern visage
+showed no shadow of change, he inwardly made the comment,--
+
+"Hopkins's varlets, eh? Like master, like man. And Billington--wait a
+bit, Master Poacher!"
+
+"Ah, here is our friend Samoset coming up the hill, and another with
+him," remarked Bradford as the little group of authorities paused at the
+head of the path leading to the spring and to Watson's Hill.
+
+"Tisquantum, I'll be bound. He looks to have a certain veneer of
+civilization over his savagery," remarked Winslow, and in another minute
+the two savages arrived within speaking distance, and the stranger
+tapping his breast grandiloquently exclaimed,--
+
+"This is Tisquantum, friend of Englishmen."
+
+"Tisquantum is welcome, and so is Samoset," replied Carver gravely.
+"Have they brought furs to truck for the white men's goods?"
+
+But hereupon Squanto, as Tisquantum (He-who-is-angry) was familiarly
+designated, began a long and very flowery harangue, from which the
+Pilgrims gathered that the present was more of a diplomatic and
+international affair than a trading expedition, and that Massasoit, the
+sachem or chief of all this region, had come in royal progress, attended
+by his brother Quadequina and sixty chosen warriors, to greet the white
+men, and to settle upon what terms he would admit them to his territory.
+
+So soon as the importance of this embassage was made plain, the Pilgrims
+prepared to meet the occasion with suitable formalities, and while
+Samoset and Squanto refreshed themselves in Stephen Hopkins's house,
+Standish hastened to put his entire command under arms, excepting the
+elder, who constituted the reserved force only to be called out in great
+emergencies. The military band, composed of four of the well-grown lads
+of the colony, Giles Hopkins, Bartholomew Allerton, John Crakstone, and
+John Cooke, was also called out and equipped with its two drums, a
+trumpet, and a fife, while a house just roofed in and not yet portioned
+into rooms, was hastily prepared as an audience chamber by clearing it
+of litter, and spreading at the upper end a large green rug belonging to
+Edward Winslow, and various cushions and mats, while a high-backed
+settle in the place of honor covered with some scarlet broadcloth cloaks
+stood ready to receive the king and the governor in equal honor.
+Everything being thus in readiness, Samoset and Squanto were dispatched
+with a courteous message to the king as the Pilgrims chose to translate
+the Indian term of sachem, inviting him to a conference, but the envoys,
+soon returning, brought an intricate greeting, from which Winslow the
+diplomatist at last evolved the meaning that Massasoit declined to trust
+himself among the white men without adequate hostages for his safety,
+and desired that one of the principal of the strangers should come to
+him while Samoset and Squanto remained in the village.
+
+"Zounds! And does the barbarian fancy that two of his naked salvages
+count as one of our meanest, not to say our principal men!" exclaimed
+Standish angrily, but Winslow interposed,--
+
+"If the governor and the brethren consider me as a fit man to answer the
+demand I will go and convey what message is decided upon to this
+potentate, and if he accepts me will remain as hostage while he visits
+the settlement."
+
+"Nay, Winslow, I claim the post of danger, if danger there be. It is the
+right of mine office," exclaimed Standish.
+
+"Not so, Captain; thy duty is to do us right in a quarrel, mine to keep
+us out of a quarrel. Each man to his own work, say you not so Governor?"
+
+"Master Winslow is right, Captain Standish, and furthermore we need your
+protection here, should an attack be made upon the village."
+
+"I submit, and my good will go with thee, Master Ambassador," replied
+Standish cordially; "but be sure if thy skill at keeping the peace fails
+of saving thy scalp, thou shalt have a royal guard of salvages to escort
+thee whither thou wilt go."
+
+"Gramercy for thy courtesy good my Valiant," replied Winslow in the same
+tone. "But I hope my wit shall avail to save my scalp."
+
+And a few moments later the courtly Winslow, armed cap-a-pie and
+carrying a haversack of gifts at his back, strode down the hill, and
+across the brook to a point where a knot of dusky warriors awaited him,
+and with them passed out of sight, leaving his comrades to an hour of
+extreme solicitude and impatience.
+
+Although out of sight their comrade, however, was in reality close at
+hand, for Massasoit had with Indian cunning selected a spot for the
+interview whence himself unseen he could through the branches of the
+shielding shrubbery overlook the approach from the village, and perceive
+any movement upon the side of the other party long before it could be
+made effectual. Standing in the middle of a little glade to receive
+Winslow, resting lightly upon the strung bow in his right hand,
+Massasoit presented the ideal figure of an Indian chief, uncorrupted by
+the vulgar vices of civilization. Lofty of stature and of mien, his
+expression grave and even haughty, his frame replete with the easy
+strength of vigorous maturity, he looked, as Winslow decided in the
+first quick glance, more worthy to be the king of red men than James the
+First of England did to be the king of white men.
+
+For costume the Indian wore buckskin leggings, highly ornamented
+moccasons, a belt with fringe several inches long, and a curious skin,
+dressed and ornamented upon the inside with elaborate designs, slung
+over his left shoulder by way of cloak. He also wore a necklace of white
+beads carved from bone, and depending from it at the back of his neck a
+pouch from which as a mark of royal favor he occasionally bestowed a
+little tobacco upon his followers, most of whom were provided with
+pipes. In his carefully dressed hair the chief wore three beautiful
+eagle-feathers, and his comely face was disfigured by a broad stripe of
+dark red or murray-colored paint.
+
+Removing his hat and bowing courteously before this grave and silent
+figure, Winslow unfastened his haversack, and produced two sheath knives
+and a copper chain with a glittering pendant which might have been of
+jewels, but really was of glass.
+
+These he laid at one side, and at the other a pocket-knife with a
+brilliant earring. Finally he set by themselves a parcel of biscuit, a
+little pot of butter, and a flask of strong waters. Having arranged all
+these matters with great deliberation under the gravely observant eyes
+of the king, Winslow stood upright and demanded who could speak English.
+It proving that nobody could, another delay ensued while a _pniese_, or
+as we might say a noble of the king's suite, was dispatched to the
+village to summon Squanto and to remain as hostage in his place. During
+the half hour of this exchange, Massasoit remained standing precisely as
+Winslow had found him with his warriors half hid among the trees as
+motionless as himself. Winslow leaning against a great white birch on
+the edge of the little glade rested his left hand upon the hilt of his
+sword, and setting the other upon his hip imitated the immobility of the
+savages, and in his glistening steel cap and hauberk, his gauntlets and
+greaves, his bristling moustache and steady outlook, presented the
+fitting counterpart to the savage grandeur of Massasoit. It was one of
+those momentary tableaux in which History occasionally foreshadows or
+defines her policy, and had an artist been privileged to study the scene
+he should have given us a noble picture of this first meeting of the
+Powers of the Old World and the New.
+
+Squanto at last returned, and Massasoit for the first time opening his
+lips said gravely,--
+
+"Tell the white man he is welcome."
+
+"Thank your king for his courtesy," replied Winslow bowing toward the
+chief; "and tell him that my sovereign lord and master King James the
+First of Great Britain salutes him by me, and will be ready to make
+terms of peace and amity with him." Waiting a moment for this message to
+be delivered the ambassador went on,--
+
+"And tell him furthermore, that Governor Carver, the chief man of our
+settlement, is desirous of seeing him, and of arranging with him terms
+of alliance and of trade. Our desire is to purchase peltrie of every
+sort, and we are ready to pay for all that we receive, but it is best
+that the governor and the king should arrange these matters together.
+Meantime the governor begs your king's acceptance of this little gift,"
+designating the two knives, the copper chain, and the provisions, "for
+his own use; while to his brother the Prince Quadequina he offers this
+knife for his pocket,--nay,--for his girdle, and this jewel for his ear.
+And if the king will now go to the village to confer with our governor,
+I, who am not ranked the lowest among our company, will remain here as
+surety until his return."
+
+This speech having been somewhat lamely and laboriously translated into
+the vernacular by Squanto, Winslow wiped his brow and wished that it
+consisted with his dignity to throw off his armor and stretch himself
+upon the pine needles at his feet, but it evidently did not; and in a
+moment or two Squanto delivered to him the king's reply that he was very
+willing to become an ally of King James, and that he would go into the
+village to meet the governor leaving Winslow as guest of Quadequina, but
+that first he was ready to exchange for some very valuable peltrie the
+armor and weapons now worn by his guest, and as he observed by the other
+men of the colony.
+
+To this proposition Winslow returned a most decided negative, adding
+that among his people no soldier relinquished his weapons except with
+his life, which chivalrous boast Squanto after a moment's consideration
+translated,--
+
+"White man says these things to him all one as red man's scalp-lock to
+him," and Massasoit replied by a guttural sound sometimes rendered
+"Hugh!" although no letters can express it, and its intent is to convey
+comprehension, approbation, contempt, or assent, according to the
+intonation. In the present instance it conveyed approbation mingled with
+disappointment, and Massasoit drawing forward his tobacco pouch filled
+his pipe, lighted it with a sort of slow match made of bark, and having
+drawn two or three whiffs passed it to Winslow who gravely accepted it.
+Next the chief tasting the dainties offered him by one of his officers
+distributed the remainder among his followers, excepting the flask of
+gin, which having cautiously tried he laid aside, evidently not
+understanding it, and unwilling to offend the donor by showing his
+distaste for it. And here let it be said that Massasoit, although he
+learned to drink the "fire-water" of the white men, never became its
+victim like so many of his brethren.
+
+These ceremonies over, Winslow, already a little uneasy lest Standish
+and his musketeers should come to seek him and disturb the harmony he
+was endeavoring to establish between this dusky potentate and his own
+people, suggested to Squanto that the governor would be growing
+impatient to receive his guest, and that the day was getting on.
+
+This hint the interpreter conveyed in his own fashion to the king, who
+simply drawing his puma robe a little farther forward, muttered a word
+to Quadequina who stood beside him, and moved toward the village
+followed by about twenty warriors.
+
+Winslow, somewhat startled by the suddenness of this departure would
+have followed at least for a few steps, but Quadequina, a younger and
+handsomer copy of his brother, stopped him by a single finger laid upon
+his breast, and a few guttural sounds which Squanto paused to interpret
+as a direction that the white man should remain where he was until the
+return of the sachem.
+
+"Certainly. It is as a hostage that I am here. I would but move to a
+spot whence I may see the progress of his majesty and his greeting. Tell
+the prince that he has my parole not to escape."
+
+But neither the words nor the spirit of this chivalrous utterance were
+familiar to Squanto, across whose red and yellow and oily countenance a
+gleam of humor shot and was gone, while he gravely reported to
+Quadequina,--
+
+"The white man does but place himself to see the head men of his village
+fall to the ground before Massasoit and his sachems. He trembles before
+Quadequina and entreats his kindness."
+
+"Hugh! I think thou liest, Squanto," sententiously replied the young
+sachem. "I see no trembling in this warrior's face, nor do I believe his
+people will fall down before Massasoit. Go, and see that thou dost speak
+more truly in the sachem's presence, or he will hang thy scalp in his
+wigwam to-night."
+
+Squanto a little depressed at this suggestion, attempted no reply, but
+hastened after the chief who already was nearing the brook, while from
+the side of the town approached Standish, preceded by drum and fife and
+followed by six musketeers. Arriving first at the dividing line the
+captain halted his men, and summoning Squanto by name, bid him demand
+that the twenty followers of the king should leave their bows, arrows,
+and tomahawks where they now stood and come over unarmed, adding that
+the importance of their hostage might well cover this further
+concession. Massasoit after gazing for a moment into his opponent's face
+conceded the point without parley, and at a sign from him the warriors
+threw their weapons in a pile and followed him unarmed through the
+shallow ford of the brook. Standish meantime deployed his men into guard
+of honor so that the chief passed between two lines of men who presented
+arms, and closing in behind him escorted him with drum and fife to the
+unfinished house where he was seated in state at one end of the settle,
+and his followers upon the cushions at the right hand of the Green Rug,
+which may be said to have distinguished this meeting as the Cloth of
+Gold, just a hundred years before, had that of the interview between
+Henry VIII. and Francis I.
+
+Hardly was the chief seated when the sonorous sounds of the trumpet,
+well supported by the larger drum, replaced the shriller notes of fife
+and small drum, and Governor Carver in full armor and wearing a plumed
+hat, made his appearance, followed by six more musketeers, the two
+guards exhausting pretty nearly the whole available force of the Pilgrim
+army at this time.
+
+Massasoit rose as the governor approached, and when Carver extended his
+hand laid his own in it, each potentate saluting the other with a
+punctilious gravity much to be admired. Carver then seated himself at
+the other end of the settle, and turning to Howland, who stood as a sort
+of Aid at his elbow, he requested some strong waters to be brought that
+he and the king might pledge health and amity to each other. This
+request having been foreseen was immediately complied with, and a great
+silver loving-cup with two handles and filled with a compound of Holland
+gin, sugar, and spice, with a moderate amount of water, was brought and
+presented to the governor who tasted decorously, and then passed it to
+the sachem, who seizing both handles carried it to his mouth and drank
+with an air of stern determination, as one who would not allow personal
+distaste to interfere with public obligations. The cup was then passed
+to the other guests, and replenished more than once until all had
+tasted, Squanto remarking to his next neighbor as he handed him the
+cup,--
+
+"It is the witch water to make a man brave that I have told you of
+drinking in the house of Slaney in the land of these Englishmen."
+
+"Hugh! It is like the sun in summer," muttered the neighbor passing it
+on in his turn.
+
+"John Howland!" whispered a low voice at the unglazed window near which
+the young man stood, and as he leaned hastily out he nearly bumped heads
+with pretty Elizabeth Tilley, who laughing said,--
+
+"Nay, 't is no such great alarm, but Priscilla bade me tell thee to keep
+an eye upon the governor's loving-cup, lest some of these wild men steal
+it."
+
+"Nay, they have no pockets to hide it in," replied John laughing. "Still
+I will have an eye to it, for we have none so much silverware in the
+colony that we should be willing to spare it."
+
+The ceremony of welcome over, the business of the meeting began, and
+Massasoit, albeit a little incommoded by his strange potation, showed
+himself both dignified and friendly in his intentions. Carver on his
+side was as honorable as he was shrewd, and in the course of an hour the
+first American International Treaty was harmoniously concluded, and so
+much to the advantage of both sides, that not only was it sacredly
+observed in the beginning, but nineteen years later, when Massasoit felt
+his own days drawing to a close, he brought his sons, Alexander and
+Philip, to Plymouth, where this "Auncient League and Confederacy" was
+formally renewed and ratified before the court then in session.
+
+Business over, the sachem produced his pipe, filled it, smoked a little,
+and passed it to the governor, and in this manner it went round the
+assembly, red men and white together each taking a few whiffs, and when
+it was empty returning it to Massasoit, who seemed to be custodian of
+the tribal stock of tobacco.
+
+Facts are stubborn things and History is sacred, and the scene just
+described is in all its details simple matter of History, but is it not
+a singular irony of fate that we who spend our lives in a crusade
+against strong drink and tobacco must, nevertheless, despair of rivaling
+the virtues of these men, who began their solemn covenant with the
+savages they had come to Christianize, by giving them gin, and ended it
+by accepting from them tobacco?
+
+After the Council came a feast of the simple dainties furnished by the
+Pilgrim commissariat, and after that an informal mingling of the two
+companies, during which the Indians examined and essayed to sound the
+trumpet whose notes had so startled them, although the fife had seemed
+to them only the older brother of the whistles they so often made of
+willow twigs.
+
+Before Massasoit took leave he requested that Winslow might remain while
+Quadequina came to view the wonders of the white man's village, and this
+favor being good-naturedly conceded, the prince, as our Englishmen
+called him, soon arrived with a fresh troop of followers, all of whom
+expected and received both meat, drink, and attention. But as the sun
+was setting Winslow appeared on the other side of the brook, and the
+savages were hastily dismissed, except Squanto and Samoset, both of
+whom insisted upon staying, not only for the night, but declared that
+they were ready to leave their own people and remain with the white men,
+whose way of life they so much approved, and to whom they could be of
+much use in many ways. Squanto in especial pleaded that this place was
+his own home, and that he had only left it for the village of the
+Nausets whence Hunt had stolen him, because all his people were dead of
+the plague, and he was afraid of their ghosts. His wigwam had once stood
+as he declared at the head of the King's Highway, and the Town Brook was
+his stewpond for the fish on which he mostly fed. Altogether it was
+quite evident that Squanto was rather the host than the guest of the
+Pilgrims, and as such they with grave jest and solemn fun consented to
+accept him. As for Samoset, he already had helped himself to the freedom
+of the town, and these two, with Hobomok, the especial retainer of
+Standish, remained the faithful and useful friends of the white men
+until death divided them.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII.
+
+THE LAST LINK BROKEN.
+
+
+"Ho Jack! Where's thy master?"
+
+"In heaven, Master Jones, or mayhap thou meanest King James, who by last
+accounts was in London."
+
+"I crave thy pardon, worshipful Master Alden!" and the shipmaster bowed
+in ludicrous parody of reverence. "I would fain know where thy servant
+Carver, and thine other retainers, Winslow, and Standish, and Allerton,
+and the dominie may be."
+
+"'T is a large question, Master Jones, for I do not keep them in my
+pocket as a general thing, and they are just now about their own
+business. Might I ask thine?"
+
+"Were I not in such haste 't would be to cudgel some manners into thy
+big carcase, Master Insolent; but come now, prythee be a good lad and
+bring me to the governor, the captain, and the elder, for time and tide
+are pressing, and I would fain be gone."
+
+"In that direction our fancies pull together rarely, and if thou 'lt
+find a seat in the Common house I'll see if I can come upon the
+Fathers."
+
+With an inarticulate growl the master of the Mayflower did as he was
+bid, and by the time goodwife Billington had cleared and wiped the
+benches and table, the men he had requested to see, along with Winslow,
+Allerton, Bradford, and Doctor Fuller, came in together, for the hour
+was just past noon, and the people collected for dinner had not yet
+dispersed.
+
+"Good-morrow, Captain Jones," said Carver courteously; "John Alden tells
+me thou wouldst have speech of all of us together."
+
+"Yes, Master Governor, and glad am I that peevish boy did my errand so
+largely, for what I have to say concerns every man, ay, and woman and
+child, in your settlement."
+
+"In truth! And what may it be, Master Jones? Sit you down, and goodwife
+Billington set on some beer for our guest."
+
+"Well thought on, and I'll not forget to send you another can or so
+before I sail."
+
+"Is the sailing day fixed as yet?"
+
+"To-morrow's flood will see me off, wind and weather permitting."
+
+"And God willing," sternly interposed the elder; but Jones fixing his
+twinkling eyes upon Brewster's face over the edge of the pewter pot
+covering the lower half of his face answered scoffingly as he set the
+flagon down,--
+
+"If as you say God guides the wind and weather, reverend sir, fair
+weather speaks His willingness for me to sail, doth it not?"
+
+"Sith thy time is so short, Jones, mayhap thou 'lt spare it, and tell
+thine errand at once," interposed Standish sharply, and Jones turned
+upon him with a leer.
+
+"So cock-a-hoop still, my little Captain! Hard work and starving do not
+cool thy temper, do they? But hold, man, hold. 'T is indeed true that I
+am scant for time and mine errand is just this: Ye have been good
+friends and true to me when I was in need, with my men half down and
+half ready to mutiny, and your women have well-nigh brought me to
+believe in saints and angels and such like gear, and so I am come to
+offer such of you as will take it, a free passage home, if the men will
+help to handle the ship and the women cook, and nurse such as may be
+ailing. Or if you choose to give up the emprize and load in your stuff
+and yourselves as ye were before, I'll take the stuff for passage money
+and trust Master Carver's word for the rest."
+
+The Pilgrims paused on their reply, and man looked at man, each reading
+his own thought in the other's eyes. Then Carver spoke in grave
+deliberateness,--
+
+"Brethren, ye have heard Master Jones's proffer, and I doubt not ye
+agree with me that it is kindly and generously spoken and meant. What
+say ye to it man by man? Elder Brewster?"
+
+"I say, Cursed be he who having put his hand to the plough turneth
+back."
+
+"And Master Allerton?"
+
+"I will abide the decision of the rest."
+
+"And Master Winslow?"
+
+"I and mine remain here."
+
+"And thou, Captain Standish?"
+
+"Our trumpeter has not been taught to sound the retreat."
+
+"And Bradford?"
+
+"I fain would stay here."
+
+"And thou, Doctor?"
+
+"I' faith I see better hope of practice here than in the old countries.
+I'll stay."
+
+"And I have come here to live and to die," said Carver in conclusion.
+"So you see good Master Jones, that while kindly grateful for your offer
+and your heartiness, we cannot accept the first, but will requite the
+last with equal good will."
+
+"Ay, I want your good will, and perhaps you'll give me a prayer or two
+just for luck, dominie?"
+
+"Surely we will pray for thee, Master Jones," replied Brewster with fine
+reticence of tone.
+
+"But before we say more, brethren," resumed the governor, "we must not
+forget that, as the master hath said, this question concerns every man,
+woman, and child in the colony; and while we would not send unprotected
+women or children upon a long voyage with such a crew as man the
+Mayflower,"--
+
+"Nay, they're not psalm singers," muttered Jones half exultant half
+ashamed,
+
+--"every man in the company has a right to decide for himself and those
+belonging to him," calmly concluded the governor, "and I will ask our
+captain, as equal in authority to myself, to bid the attendance of every
+man over twenty years old in the company, here at once."
+
+"It shall be done, Governor," replied Standish rising, and ten minutes
+later a dozen or so more of men comprising all that were left alive of
+the Pilgrim Fathers crowded into the Common house and stood attentive
+while Carver briefly but distinctly conveyed to them Master Jones's
+offer.
+
+"Ye understand, brethren," said he in conclusion, "that any one of you,
+or all of you are free to accept this offer without reproach. We seven
+men, to whom the message first was conveyed, have for ourselves refused
+it, but our will is not binding upon you or any of you. Master Hopkins,
+Master Warren, Cooke, Soule, Eaton, Howland, Alden, Gilbert Winslow,
+Browne, Dotey, and Lister, Billington, Goodman, Gardner, I call upon
+each of you to answer in turn, will you and those belonging to you
+return to England in the Mayflower, or will you abide here and trust in
+God to sustain us in the undertaking we have entered upon in His name.
+Master Warren and Master Hopkins will you declare your wishes?"
+
+"I have no desire but to stay, and I have writ to my wife to come to me
+and bring our five daughters," said Warren without hesitation, and
+Hopkins gruffly added his sentence,--
+
+"I am no idle maid with a yea-say and a nay-say. I am here with all
+belonging to me, and here I abide."
+
+And so in effect said every man there, each gently questioned by Carver,
+and each speaking his mind without fear or force, until at the end the
+governor turned to the grim old sea-dog who stood looking incredulously
+on, and with a cheek tinged by honorable pride declared,--
+
+"We thank you, friend, for your kindly invitation to take passage with
+you for our old home, but not one among us will give up the hope of our
+new home. Not one having set hand to the plough will turn back!"
+
+"Not one?" asked the master looking slowly around.
+
+"Not one," replied the elder exultantly; and like the breaking of a
+great wave upon the Rock a score of deep-throated voices echoed back the
+boast,--
+
+"NOT ONE."
+
+The next morning broke clear and lovely, and with the sun rose a
+southwest wind, best of all winds for those who would extricate
+themselves from the somewhat tyrannous triple embrace of Plymouth Beach,
+The Gurnet, and Manomet. Directly after breakfast the Pilgrims' pinnace
+went out manned by half the men of the colony, some carrying a last
+letter, some a little additional package of furs or curiosities for
+those at home, some only to say good-by and take a last look at the
+dingy quarters that had been their home for so many months. Captain
+Jones, hearty and hospitable in these last hours, had provided what he
+called a snack, and both beer and strong waters were freely set out upon
+the cabin table, nor did even the Elder refuse to do him right in a
+parting glass of Nantz.
+
+"Had I known you for such good fellows when first we joined company
+there had never been ill-will between us," said the master of the
+Mayflower. "But at least we will drown it now."
+
+"It is drowned deep as Pharaoh's host in the Red Sea," responded Myles
+heartily, and the elder cried Amen.
+
+An hour or so later, as the pinnace slowly beat back to her moorings, a
+group of women followed by some stragglers of the other sex climbed the
+hill and seated themselves about the Fort to watch the departure of the
+Mayflower. Priscilla and Mary Chilton as usual were close together, and
+Desire Minter seated herself beside them saying wearily,--
+
+"Would I were a man!"
+
+"Thou a man my Desiree!" exclaimed Priscilla turning upon her eyes
+sparkling with fun, although a suspicious red lingered around the lids.
+"Wouldst woo me for thy wife?"
+
+"Thou 'rt ever looking for every man to woo thee, but I'd have thee know
+there's one man, and his house not so far away, that's as near wooing me
+as thee."
+
+"Oh cruel, cruel Desiree to wound my fond hopes so savagely," began
+Priscilla; but Mary ever more practical than humorous interrupted
+her,--
+
+"Why dost want to be a man, Desire?"
+
+"Because we women were not asked would we accept Master Jones's
+hospitality and go home, and so I had no chance to say 'Ay and thank y'
+sir?'"
+
+"Would you have so said Desiree?" asked Priscilla serious in a minute.
+
+"Why sure I would," replied the girl pettishly. "Why should any of us
+want to stay? There's plenty of hard work and plenty of prayers I grant
+you, and when you have said that you've said all. No decent housen, no
+butcher's meat, or milk, or garden stuff, or so much as a huckster's
+shop where one might cheapen a ribbon or a stay-lace--what is there here
+to live for?"
+
+"Naught for thee, my poor Desiree, I'm afraid," said Priscilla almost
+tenderly. "And I wish thou couldst go home, but a maid may not venture
+herself alone."
+
+"I know she may not, and I tried to make my cousin Carver think as I do,
+that so she might persuade the Governor to go, but wow! at the first
+word she fell upon me with such a storm of words"--
+
+"Sweet Mistress Carver storm!" cried the two girls derisively, and
+Priscilla added more gravely,--
+
+"I can fancy what she tried to make thee feel, Desiree; but thou couldst
+not feel it, and mayhap most young maids like us could not, but thou
+seest Mary and I are different; our fathers and our mothers came hither
+with their lives in their hands to do a work, and we came to help them.
+Well, the lives were paid down and the work was not done, so we who
+remain, simple maids though we be, are in a manner bound to carry on
+that work, and not let them have died quite in vain. And their graves
+are here."
+
+Mary Chilton bowed her head upon her knees, and for a moment there was a
+great silence, then Desire said querulously,--
+
+"Well, but what is there for me to do?"
+
+"Come home and help me cook the dinner!" cried Priscilla jumping to her
+feet, while practical Mary added, "And I dare say some man will marry
+thee, Desire, and thou mayest have children."
+
+"I! I'll marry no man here--save one!" protested Desire tossing her head
+and rising more slowly.
+
+"Save one! Now is that happy he named John Howland?" asked a merry voice
+at her elbow, and Desire with a start and a laugh exclaimed,--
+
+"Fie on thee, John, to take a poor maid at her word so shortly."
+
+"Thou shouldst not shout thy resolves into a man's ear didst not thou
+want him to hear them," replied John carelessly, and forgot the idle
+words which were to bear an ill and unexpected crop for him at no
+distant date.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX.
+
+SOWED AND REAPED IN ONE DAY.
+
+
+"Bradford thou wast bred to the land wast not?" demanded Hopkins
+bursting into the house where William Bradford, ill and crippled with
+rheumatism in his "huckle-bone" or hip-joint, sat beside the fire
+reading an old Latin copy of the Georgics.
+
+"Bred to the land? Well, my forbears were husbandmen, and the uncle who
+cared for me as an orphan boy was a yeoman, but as I had some estate and
+not very rugged health, they aye left me alone with my books in my young
+days. But why?"
+
+"Didst thou ever hear then, or didst thou ever read in thy books, of
+planting fish along with corn?"
+
+"Nay. Didst thou?"
+
+"That is what I am coming at. A lot of the men are talking with this
+Squanto about the place and time and manner of setting corn. Naturally
+the poor brute knoweth somewhat of the place and its customs, seeing
+that he hath always lived here, and still it irks me to see a salvage
+giving lessons to his white masters. He saith too that corn is to be
+planted when the oak leaves are as large as a mouse's ear. Such rotten
+rubbish!"
+
+"But doth he aver that his people were used to plant fish with the
+corn?"
+
+"Ay, and he went down to the brook yester even and set some manner of
+snare, and this morning hath taken a peck or so of little fish, for all
+the world like a Dutch herring only bigger, and of these he says two
+must go into every hill of the corn, that is, this corn of theirs, for
+of wheat or rye or barley he knoweth nothing."
+
+"By way of enrichment, I suppose."
+
+"Ay, for in his gibberish he saith that corn hath been raised hereabout
+again and again, and now the land is hungry. Ha, ha, man, fancy the
+salvage calling the dead earth hungry, as if it were alive."
+
+"Our dear mother Earth dead, sayst thou!" exclaimed Bradford smiling
+dreamily and glancing at his Virgil. "Nay, man, she is the vigorous
+fecund mother of all outward life, and when she dieth, the end of all
+things hath come."
+
+"A pest on thy dreaming and thy bookish phantasies!" roared Hopkins
+kicking the smouldering log upon the hearth until a river of sparks
+flowed up and out of the wide chimney. "Dost thou agree to putting fish
+to decay amid the corn we are to eat by and by?"
+
+"We are not to live by what we plant, but by what we reap, friend
+Hopkins," replied Bradford still smiling in the inscrutable fashion of a
+man who pursues his own train of thought far down beneath his surface
+conversation.
+
+"Dost thou agree to the herring?" roared Hopkins smiting the table with
+his brawny fist.
+
+"Why yes, Hopkins, if it needs that I give my sanction. It striketh my
+fancy that the man who hath raised and eaten his bread on this spot for
+some thirty years is like to know better how to do it than we who have
+just come. But what matter as to my opinion?"
+
+"Oh ay, I did not tell it as I should, but the governor sent me out of
+the field to ask thee, knowing that thou wast yeoman born."
+
+"Then I pray thee tell the Governor that in my poor mind it were well to
+follow the native customs in these matters at least for the first. I
+would that I could get a-field and do my share of the work."
+
+"Thou 'rt as well off here. 'T is woundy hot on that hill-side. I've
+known July cooler than this April."
+
+"And still my rheumatism hugs the fire," said Bradford taking up the
+tongs and readjusting the scattered logs, while bustling Dame Hopkins
+hung her dinner-pot upon the crane in the farthest corner, and began a
+clatter of tongue before which her husband fled apace.
+
+That night when the men came home from the field all spoke of the
+unusual and exhaustive heat of the weather, for it was now one of those
+periods of unseasonable sultriness which from time to time afflict our
+spring season, as on April 19, 1775, when the wheat stood high enough
+above ground to bend before the breeze, and the British soldiers fell
+down beside the road, overcome by heat in their rapid flight from the
+"embattled farmers" of Concord and Lexington. But the next morning rose
+even sultrier and more debilitating, and Mistress Katharine Carver
+following her husband to the door laid a hand upon his shoulder
+saying,--
+
+"Go not a-field to-day, John. It is even more cruelly hot than
+yesterday, and thou art overborne with toil already. Stay with me, I
+pray thee."
+
+"Nay, Kate, I were indeed unfit for the leader of the brethren could I
+send them forth to labor that I counted too heavy for myself. Let me go,
+sweetheart, and if thou wilt, say a prayer that I faint not by the way."
+
+"That will I truly, and yet"--
+
+The rest died on her lips for he was gone, yet for a few minutes longer
+she stood watching the tall figure as it disappeared up the hill path
+and listening to the murmur of a spinning-wheel in Elder Brewster's
+house, fitfully accompanied by a blithe tune lilted now and again by the
+spinner.
+
+"Priscilla is early at her work," thought the dame. "I would I might
+sing and spin like that!" and with a little sigh she leaned her head
+against the door-post and closed her eyes; a sweet, pale face, colorless
+and pure as an Easter lily, and eyes whose blueness seemed to show
+through the weary lids with their deep golden fringe. A fair woman, a
+lovely woman, delicately bred, for her father was one of those English
+bishops whose authority her husband and his friends so resolutely
+denied, and both she and her sister, Pastor Robinson's wife, had "lain
+in the lilies and fed on the roses of life" until love led them to
+ardent sympathy with the Separatist movement, and they had wed with two
+of its most powerful leaders, while their brother, Roger White, became
+one himself.
+
+"From heat to heat the day increased," and Katharine Carver lay faint
+and exhausted upon a settle drawn close beside the open door, when a
+strange sound of both assured and stumbling feet drew near, and as she
+started up it was to meet John Howland, half leading, half supporting
+her husband, whose face, deeply flushed, lay upon the other's shoulder.
+
+"Be not over startled, dear lady!" exclaimed Howland. "The governor
+findeth himself a little overborne by the heat, and hath come"--
+
+"John! Dear heart, what is it! Nay, try not to speak! Here, good John
+Howland, help me to lay him upon the bed--there then, dear one"--
+
+"Fret not thyself, Kate, 't is but a pain in my head--ah--'t is shrewd
+enough, but it will pass--there, there, good wife, fret not thyself!"
+
+"John Howland, wilt thou find Surgeon Fuller, and mayhap Dame Brewster,
+but no more. I will wring a napkin out of fair water and lay to his
+head, for it burneth like fire."
+
+"Ay, it burneth like fire," muttered the sick man wearily moving the
+poor head from side to side, and Katharine left alone dropped for one
+moment upon her knees and raised streaming eyes and clasped hands to
+Heaven, then rose, and when the Doctor and gentle Mary Brewster entered
+she stood white and calm at her husband's head.
+
+"Ay, ay, he hath sunstroke," muttered the surgeon, laying a hand upon
+the patient's forehead, "and no wonder, for it is shrewdly hot to-day,
+and he toiling away like any Hodge of them all. I must let him blood.
+Canst get me a basin and a bandage, Mistress?"
+
+"I will fetch them, Katharine. Sit you down." And the Elder's wife
+slipped out of the door and back again before even impatient Doctor
+Fuller could wonder where she was.
+
+An hour later Carver arousing from the stupor that was growing upon him,
+asked to see William Bradford, who at once hobbled in from the
+neighboring house, although himself hardly able to sit up.
+
+"It grieves me to find thee in such evil case, brother," said he
+painfully seating himself beside the sick man's pillow.
+
+"Thy sorrows will last longer than mine, Will. I must set my house in
+order so far as I have time. Dost mind, Bradford, what I said to thee
+and Winslow and Standish, the time I saw ye standing upon the great rock
+in yon island before we landed in this place?"
+
+"Yes, dear friend, I do remember."
+
+"Well, 't was borne in upon me then, that I was only to look upon the
+Promised Land, and then for my sins to die, and that thou wert the
+Joshua who should conquer our Canaan and make the people to dwell safely
+therein. Thou shalt be their governor, Bradford, and--their servant."
+
+"As thou hast ever been! Chief of all because the helper of all."
+
+"Send for Winslow and Standish and the elder. I cannot long command my
+senses, and fain would speak--nay, 't was but a passing pang. Send for
+them, and meanwhile call John Howland and Kate, my wife. I must
+hasten--hasten"--
+
+Again the stupor crept over him, but steadily fighting it off, and
+holding his consciousness in the grasp of a strong man's will, he again
+opened his eyes as his wife, so pale, so still, so self-controlled,
+leaned over him and laid her cool fingers upon his brow.
+
+"Ay, sweetheart, 't is thy touch. I could tell it among a hundred. Dear,
+wilt thou go home to thy father's house? He'll have thee, now thy poor
+'Brownist' is gone. Or wilt thou go to thy sister Robinson? She will be
+fain to have thee."
+
+"'Whither thou goest I will go,' my husband."
+
+"Say you so, Dame? Ay, thou wast ever of a high heart, and a brave.
+Mayhap our Lord will be merciful to both of us,--but His will be done.
+Thou 'lt be submissive to thy God, Kate, as thou hast ever been to thy
+lord?"
+
+"Ay, dear, my lord, I will try to do thy bidding even thus far."
+
+"Ah, Kate, Kate, thou hast never failed in all our happy wedded
+life--fail not now--promise--promise"--
+
+"Dear love, I promise to bow myself in all loving submission to
+whatsoever our God shall send."
+
+"Ay, that is right, that is well, that is mine own noble Kate. And
+Howland, I leave her to thy care--be a brother, a leal and true
+friend--thou knowest what that word means--I can no more--my senses
+reel"--
+
+"It needs no more, dear master, dear friend, if I may call my master
+so"--
+
+"My friend," murmured Carver.
+
+"Then I do pledge my word as a God-fearing man, that from this moment
+the first care, the chiefest duty of my life shall be to serve and
+shield and comfort my dear lady so far as God gives me power. I will be
+her servant, her brother, her friend, in all ways, and under all
+comings, and so help me God, as I shall keep this my promise."
+
+"Thou dost comfort my soul, even as it enters upon the valley of the
+shadow. Stand ye two aside and bring in my brethren."
+
+Howland quietly opened the door, and the three who had stood grouped
+against the golden sky on that December evening on Clarke's Island
+silently entered the room and stood around the bed, where in the awful
+hush that clings about the last hour their chief lay half unconscious
+and yet able to rally his energies for one more mighty effort.
+
+"Brethren, I go--God remaineth--His blessing be upon you, and all His
+Israel here.--Forgive my shortcomings--forgive if I have offended any,
+knowing or unknowing"--
+
+"Thou hast ever been our best and dearest earthly friend--pardon thou
+us, dear saint!" murmured Winslow.
+
+--"And if ye will follow my counsel, make William Bradford your
+Governor--and set aside all jealousy, all heart burning--Winslow dost
+promise?"
+
+"Ay, friend, I promise right heartily."
+
+"Standish?"
+
+"Ay, Governor."
+
+"Good-by--I can no more--Elder, say a prayer--yet cease before I die"--
+
+And with a long, quivering sigh as of one who relinquishes his grasp of
+a burden too mighty for his strength, the first Governor of Plymouth
+Colony went to render an account of his stewardship.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX.
+
+FUNERAL--BAKED MEATS AND MARRIAGE FEASTS.
+
+
+"Methinks our governor should not be buried with as little ceremony as
+we perforce have showed our meanest servant," said Captain Standish
+gloomily to Elder Brewster the evening of Carver's death. "You
+Separatists despise the ministering of the Church, but what have ye set
+in its place?"
+
+"We clothe not the coffins of the dead with the filthy rags of Popery,
+and we pray not for the souls of them whom God hath taken into His own
+hand, for that were of the sins of presumption against which David doth
+specially pray, but yet,"--and the Elder's face softened, "I am of your
+mind, Captain, that we should honor our chief magistrate in the last
+service we can render him, and although by his own wish I ceased to pray
+for him ere the last breath was sped, and will never again pray for him
+or any parted soul, I well approve of such military honors as we are
+able to pay to his memory, and I will carry my musket with the rest, and
+fire it as you shall direct."
+
+"Why, that's more than ever I would have looked for, Elder," exclaimed
+Standish in amaze. "But since you so proffer, I gladly accept your aid
+and countenance, and by your leave, since as yet we have no governor in
+place of him who is gone, I will order the funeral by mine own ideas."
+
+"As a military man?"
+
+"Surely. I claim no spiritual powers," and with a curious expression of
+content and disapproval upon his face the captain went away to so
+arrange and order his plan, that at sunrise on the third day a guard of
+twelve men, including the elder, presented themselves at the house of
+mourning, and receiving the coffin upon the crossed barrels of their
+muskets carried it along the brow of the hill to the grave newly opened
+amid the springing wheat.
+
+Mistress Carver had made but one request, and that of piteous
+earnestness,--
+
+"See that they make his grave where another may be dug close beside,"
+pleaded she, and John Howland had seen that it was as she desired.
+
+Earth to earth was reverently and silently laid, the grave was covered
+in, and then, at the captain's signal, the twelve muskets were fired in
+relays of four, and their mournful echo mingled with the sobbing dirge
+of the waves breaking upon the Pilgrim Rock, while the dense column of
+smoke rising grandly to heaven was the only monument then or ever
+erected to John Carver, that willing martyr and gallant gentleman who
+had indeed "given his life for the brethren."
+
+Returning to the Common house the Guard of Honor joined with the rest of
+the townsmen in a Council, whereat they elected William Bradford to be
+their second Governor, and as he now lay ill in his bed, Isaac Allerton
+was chosen to be his Assistant and mouthpiece.
+
+Bradford, neither over elated nor daunted by his new dignities, accepted
+the nomination, and with few and brief intervals retained it until his
+own death some four-and-thirty years later, and nobly and faithfully
+did he perform its duties.
+
+About a week after Carver's funeral the new governor, now convalescent,
+received a visit from Edward Winslow, who sought him with the formal
+request that he as chief magistrate of the colony would perform the
+marriage ceremony between him and Susanna, widow of William White.
+
+For the Separatists during their sojourn in Holland had accepted the
+creed of that nation of traders, and held with them that marriage is
+merely a civil contract, requiring a magistrate to secure the proper
+amount of goods to each party, and make sure that neither defrauded the
+other. As for the sacramental blessing of the Church, said the Dutchman
+and the Separatist, it costs money and bestows none, and priests are
+ever dangerous associates, so we'll none of them or their craft.
+
+Apart from this view of the matter however, the civil authority was the
+only one available in this case, since Pastor Robinson had been detained
+in Leyden with the rest of his flock, and Elder Brewster had no
+authority except to preach.
+
+"It will be my first essay at such an office, Winslow, and I know not
+precisely how to go about it," replied Bradford smilingly when his
+friend had somewhat formally declared his errand.
+
+"But you were yourself wed that way," replied the bridegroom
+impatiently. "For me, my first wife held to her early teaching in that
+particular, and would be married in a church and by a minister."
+
+"Yes, I was wed by a magistrate in Amsterdam," replied Bradford
+reluctantly; "but the old Dutchman did so mumble and mouth his words
+that I gathered not the sense of half. Likely it is, however, Master
+Carver hath left some Manual for such occasion. He was warned or ever he
+left England that he was like to be our Governor for longer than the
+voyage."
+
+"Doubtless, then, he had some such office-book. Shall I bid John Howland
+search for it?" asked Winslow.
+
+"Nay, the widow hath already sent me a box of papers and some little
+books, which she said should be the governor's. I have not yet searched
+them, but I will do so before I sleep. What day have you set for your
+wedding, Winslow?"
+
+"Why, we would not seem to fail in respect to our dear departed brother,
+and would leave a clear fortnight between his funeral and our wedding;
+so an' it please you we will set the marriage for Thursday of next
+week."
+
+"And at what hour?"
+
+"At even when all may rest from their labor it seemeth best. After
+supper we will be ready."
+
+"Wilt come to me or I to thee?"
+
+"The dame saith she would fain be wed in her new home. It is just
+finished to-day, and such gear as we have will be carried thither
+to-morrow."
+
+"I mind me that Mistress White hath a fair cradle of her own," suggested
+Bradford dryly.
+
+"Ay. Peregrine lieth in it now."
+
+"May it never stand idle. I will come to thy new house then on Thursday
+of next week, after supper."
+
+As Winslow departed, Desire Minter met him on the threshold, and with a
+hasty reverence asked,--
+
+"Is the governor within, and can I see him?"
+
+"Ay, lass, he is within, and I know not why thou shouldst not see him.
+Knock and enter."
+
+And Bradford still languid from his late illness raised his head from
+the back of his chair with a patient smile as the knock was immediately
+followed by Desire's broad and comely face.
+
+"Can your worship grant me a few moments if it please your honor?"
+
+"Nay, Desire, it needs not so much ceremony to speak to William
+Bradford. What wouldst thou?"
+
+"Well, worshipful sir, 't is a little advice. Your honor sees that I am
+a poor lonely lass, bereft now of even my cousin Carver's husband"--
+
+"Nay, my girl, our late governor was more than 'even my cousin's
+husband.' Pay honor to him rather than to me."
+
+"Ay, but he is dead and cannot help me, and thou art alive."
+
+"'And better a live dog than a dead lion,'" murmured Bradford looking
+sorrowfully at the girl whose selfish cunning was not keen enough to
+disguise itself.
+
+"Well?"
+
+"Why, I fain would know your honor's judgment upon my marriage."
+
+"Thou marry! And who is the man?"
+
+"Why, there now is the question, sir? Captain Standish hath showed me
+that he fain would ask me to wife, did not Priscilla Molines woo him so
+desperately"--
+
+"Peace, child! How dare one Christian woman speak thus of another!"
+
+"But 't is so, your worship; 't is so, indeed, and how can I gainsay
+it?" whimpered the girl. "She as good as asked him when we were sick
+together in the hospital, and she wrought upon her father to ask him,
+and what could he do between them, and still he would rather have had me
+to wife, and I would have not said him nay."
+
+"Well, and what can I do about it?"
+
+"Bid Priscilla give him up, your honor, and bid him speak out to me, and
+quickly, for else John Howland will have me to wife."
+
+"Ah, and hath Howland also asked thee?"
+
+"Yes, your honor, he asked me as the Mayflower was sailing out of the
+harbor, and I told my cousin Carver, and she says it will be an ease to
+her mind to leave me with so good a man to my husband, but for me I had
+rather have the Captain."
+
+"And thou callest upon me to straighten this coil, and marry thee to
+whichever man will have thee, eh?"
+
+"Yes, your honor."
+
+"Thou 'rt a simple lass, and knowst not half thou sayest. Go now, and I
+will send for thee in a day or two. But see thou keep a quiet tongue.
+Say not one word so much as to the rushes, or thou shalt have no husband
+at all. Mind that!"
+
+"Oh, I'll not speak, I'll not forget, trust me to do all your honor's
+bidding," cried the girl joyfully, and Bradford gazing at her in
+compassionate wonder rejoined,--
+
+"Well, go now, and remember. Stay, send me one of the lads, no matter
+which. The first one thou seest."
+
+And when Giles Hopkins presently appeared he sent him to crave the
+presence of Captain Standish when he should have finished his noon-meat.
+The Captain came at once, and after a few friendly words the governor
+calmly inquired,--
+
+"Dost wish to wed with Desire Minter, Myles?"
+
+"Desire Minter! Has thy fever come back and turned thy brain, Bradford?"
+
+"Nay, but wilt thou wed with her?"
+
+"Not if there was no other woman upon earth. Dost catch my meaning,
+Will?"
+
+"Ay, I fear me that I do."
+
+"Fearest! Why, dost thou desire so monstrous a sacrifice to the common
+weal, as Winslow words it? If the wench must be wed there are men enow
+who are not of thy nearest friends, Bradford. And, besides, thou knowest
+I am to marry Priscilla Molines, and now I think on 't, 't is time to
+arrange it. I did but wait for the brig to be gone, but then the
+governor's death put all thought of marriage gear out of my head."
+
+"Oh ay, I mind me now that thou didst speak of Priscilla. Hast ever
+spoken to her?"
+
+"Not I. I have no skill in such matters, nor time, nor thought. I'll
+write her a cartel, I mean a letter of proposals"--
+
+"But can she read? Not many of our women are so deeply learned."
+
+"I know not, I hope not. The only woman I ever cared to speak to of love
+could do no more than sign her name and 't was enough."
+
+"Well, then, settle it thine own way, only let it be soon, for I fain
+would see thee with a home and children about thy hearth, old friend."
+
+"Ay, I suppose 't is a duty,--a man who hath given all beside, may well
+give his own way into the bargain. I'll marry before your new old love
+can reach here, Governor."
+
+"Nay, when thou sayest 'Governor,' I note that thou art ill pleased with
+somewhat, Myles. Is it with me?"
+
+"Nay, Will, 't is with thy words."
+
+And laughing in his own grim way the Captain left the house, and strode
+up the hill to solace his spirit by examining and petting his big guns.
+
+That same evening Bradford walked painfully across the little space
+dividing Hopkins's house from that where Katharine Carver sat alone
+beside the little fire still comfortable to an invalid, and after some
+conversation said,--
+
+"Dame, hast any plan for marrying thy kinswoman Desire Minter to any of
+our young fellows?"
+
+"I am glad you have spoken of it, Governor Bradford," replied the widow
+eagerly. "For it is a matter largely in my thoughts. I do not think I am
+to tarry very long behind my dear lord,--nay, do not speak of that I
+beseech you, kind sir,--but it hath dwelt painfully on my mind that the
+poor silly maid would be left alone, and none so ill-fitted to care for
+herself have I ever seen. But she tells me that John Howland hath spoken
+to her, and she is not ill inclined to him. Would not it be approved of
+your judgment, Governor?"
+
+"Ay, if in truth both parties desire it, dame. Suppose we have Howland
+in before us now, and ask him his will? Thou canst deal with the maid
+after."
+
+"He is just without, cleaving some fuel for this fire, if your
+excellency will please to call him."
+
+"I will, but first, Dame, let me beg thee, of our old friendship, of the
+love I bore thy husband and he to me, treat me not with such cruel
+formality. True it is that his honors have fallen upon me, and that his
+place knoweth him no more; and yet it is his spirit, his counsel, and
+his ensample that rules my poor actions at every turn. Be not jealous,
+be not resentful, mistress, though well I wot so loving and so faithful
+a heart as thine cannot well escape such weakness, for 't is part of
+woman's nature. But canst not be a little mindful of thine old friend's
+feelings too, and soften somewhat of this stately ceremony in speaking
+to him?"
+
+"Yes, he loved thee, he loved thee well, and he would have chidden me"--
+
+"Nay, nay, weep not, Dame Katharine. I did not mean to grieve thee but
+only to tell how I was grieved; but then, we men are still too clumsy to
+meddle with women's tender natures. Be what thou wilt, speak as thou
+wilt to me dear Dame, I am and ever shall be thy faithful friend and
+servant."
+
+He went out as he spoke, and when a few moments later Howland and he
+returned together the lady had resumed her usual quietude of manner.
+
+"Sit thee down, John. Mistress Carver and I have somewhat to ask of
+thee. Art thou minded to wed?"
+
+"Not while my mistress needeth my service."
+
+"Mayhap 't will further her comfort, John."
+
+"Is it thy wish, Dame?" and the young man turned so eager a face toward
+her, and spoke so brightly, that a smile stirred the widow's pale lips
+as she replied,--
+
+"'T is plain enough that 't is thy wish, John, and it will wonderfully
+content my conscience in the matter of bringing Desire Minter away from
+the home she had, poor though it then seemed."
+
+"Desire Minter!" echoed Howland.
+
+"Why yes, she told me how you spoke to her the day the Mayflower sailed,
+and she modestly avows that she is well content to be thy wife."
+
+"But"--
+
+"What is it, Howland? Speak out, man," interposed Bradford with
+authority. "Thou seemest dazed."
+
+"Why, truth to tell, sir, and my dear Dame, I thought not of Desire as
+my wife"--
+
+"Didst thou not speak to her of marriage?"
+
+"Surely not,--or--there was some idle jest between us, I mind not what,
+and I never thought on 't again."
+
+"But she did, thou seest," said the Governor sternly. "Thou knowest how
+'idle jesting that is not convenient' is condemned in Holy Writ, and now
+is the saying proven. The maid believed thee in earnest, and hath set
+her mind upon thee"--
+
+But of a sudden Bradford remembering Desire's plainly expressed
+preference for the Captain, if he might be had, paused abruptly, and
+Dame Carver took up the word,--
+
+"It would much comfort my mind, John, if thou wouldst consent to this
+thing. The maiden's future is a fardel upon my shoulders now, and they
+are not over strong. 'T is a good wench, John, if not over brilliant."
+
+"Say no more, dame, say no more. If it will be a pleasure and a comfort
+to thee, it is enough."
+
+"But hast thou any other choice, John? Wouldst thou have chosen
+Priscilla, like thy friend Alden?"
+
+"Nay, Dame."
+
+"But thou hast something in thy mind, good John. Tell it out, I pray
+thee."
+
+"Well, then, to speak all my mind, Mistress, there is no maid among us
+so fair in my eyes, and so sweet, and pure, and true, as Elizabeth
+Tilley, and I had"--
+
+"Why, she is scarce turned sixteen, dear boy," exclaimed the widow.
+
+"I had thought to wait a year or two for her," faltered Howland, but
+Bradford interposed,--
+
+"Nay, nay, John, we cannot have our sturdy men waiting for little maids
+to grow up. There are boys enow coming on for them, and as for thee, why
+man, thou 'rt five-and-twenty, art not?"
+
+"Seven-and-twenty, sir. But all this is beside the matter. If my dear
+mistress asks me to marry Desire Minter as a comfort to her, I will do
+it to-day."
+
+"I thank thee heartily, John." And in the affectionate glance and smile
+his lily-like dame turned upon him Howland felt more than repaid for his
+sacrifice.
+
+"And yet," continued she, "I will not let thee marry to-day, nor for a
+year. But if thou wilt call thyself betrothed to her, and promise me on
+thy faith to deal truly by her, and at the year's end marry her if you
+both are still so minded, I will be content. I shall leave her in thy
+care, even as he who is gone left me in thy care, and a good and
+faithful guardian hast thou been, dear friend."
+
+"I pledged my life to him that I would do my best, and now I pledge it
+in your hands, my honored mistress and dear lady, that I will so deal
+with this maid as shall most pleasure you."
+
+And so John Howland and Desire Minter were formally betrothed; and
+before the month of May was gone the wheat upon the hill-side was again
+disturbed as John Carver's wife came to lay herself down to rest close
+beside him in sweet content.
+
+"They tell of broken hearts," said Surgeon Fuller musing above that
+double grave; "and were I asked to name Dame Katharine's complaint I
+know no name for it but that."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI.
+
+AN AFFAIR OF HONOR.
+
+
+"Thou liest foully, Edward Dotey! Thou liest even as Ananias and
+Sapphira lied."
+
+"Liest, thou son of Belial! 'T is thou that liest, and art a cock-a-hoop
+braggart into the bargain, Master Edward Lister! Tell me that our
+master's daughter gave thee that kerchief"--
+
+"If thou couldst read, I'd show thee 'Constance Hopkins' fairly wrought
+upon it by the young mistress's own hand."
+
+"Then thou stolest it, and I will straight to our master and tell him
+on 't!"
+
+"Hi, hi, my springalds! what meaneth all this vaporing and noise? What's
+amiss, Lister?"
+
+"It matters not what's amiss John Billington. Pass on and attend to
+thine own affairs."
+
+"Lister's afraid to tell that he carrieth stolen goods in his doublet
+and lies about them into the bargain," sneered Edward Dotey.
+
+"I lie do I, thou base-born coward! Lie thou there, then!"
+
+And Edward Lister with one generous buffet stretched his opponent upon
+the pile of firewood they had been hewing a little way from the town.
+
+Billington who had wandered in that direction with his gun upon his
+shoulder looking for game, helped the fallen man to his feet and
+officiously fingered a bruise rising upon his cheek.
+
+"Hi! Hi! But here's a coil! He's wounded thee sorely, Dotey! I'm witness
+that he assaulted thee, with intent to kill like enough. Canst stand?"
+
+"Let me go, let me at him, leave go of my arm John Billington! I'll soon
+show thee"--
+
+"Nay Ned," interposed Lister, as Billington with a malignant grin upon
+his face half hindered, half permitted Dotey's struggles to free himself
+from the poacher's sinewy arms. "Nay, man, I meant not to draw e'en so
+much blood as trickles down thy cheek"--
+
+"He meant to draw it by the bucketful and not in drops," interpreted
+Billington. "And now he tries to crawl off. Take thy knife to him, man;
+nay, get ye both your swords and hack away at each other until we see
+which is the better bird. 'T is long since I saw a main"--
+
+"Ay, we'll fight it out, Lister, and see which is the better man in the
+matter you wot of." And Dotey, who was furiously jealous lest his fellow
+retainer should have made more progress in the regard of Constance
+Hopkins than himself, nodded meaningly toward him, while Billington
+watched both with Mephistophilean glee.
+
+"Agreed," replied Lister more coolly. "Although thou knowest private
+quarrels are forbidden by the Captain."
+
+"Hah! Thou 'rt afraid of our peppery little Captain!" cried Billington.
+"Some day thou 'lt see me take him between thumb and finger and crack
+him like a flea if he mells too much with me."
+
+"I heard thee flout at his command t' other day, and I heard him tell
+thee the next time thou didst so let loose thy tongue, he'd take order
+with thee," exclaimed Lister hotly, and Billington snapping his fingers
+contemptuously retorted,--
+
+"'T is no use, Dotey. Lister's afraid of thee and will not fight. 'T is
+a good boy, but not over-brave."
+
+"Stay you here, you two, till I can go and come, and we will see who is
+the coward!" retorted Lister furiously, and before either could reply he
+sped away in the direction of the village.
+
+"'T is like a bull-fight," cried Billington with a coarse laugh. "The
+creature is hard to wake, but when he hath darts enough quivering in his
+hide he rouses up and showeth rare sport. Now let us find a fair, smooth
+field for our sword play. 'T is not so easy in this wild land."
+
+"I know not why our captain should forbid the duello; 't is ever the way
+of gentles to settle their disputes at the point of the sword," said
+Dotey musingly.
+
+"Ay, and in this place we all are gentles, or all simples, I know not
+which," added Billington. "Certes, one man should here count as good as
+another, and 't is often in my mind to say so, and to cry, Down with
+governors, and captains, and elders"--
+
+"Nay, nay, such talk smacks too strong of treason to suit my ear,"
+exclaimed Dotey, who was, after all, an honest, well-meaning young
+fellow, a little carried away just now by jealousy and by the
+intoxicating air of liberty and freedom, but by no means to the extent
+of joining or desiring a revolt against the appointed powers of Church
+or State.
+
+"Well, here is Lister, and with not only swords but daggers if I can see
+aright. Ay, that's a good lad, that's a brave lad, Lister! There's no
+craven in thy skin, is there, and I shrewdly nip mine own tongue for so
+calling thee. Come now, my merry men, let me place you fairly, each with
+his shoulder to the sun, each planted firmly on sound footing. There
+then, that is as well as may be, and well enow. Come, one, two, three,
+and lay on!"
+
+But careful as Lister had been in securing and bringing away his
+weapons, he had not escaped the scrutiny of two bright eyes hidden
+behind the curtain dividing the nook where Constance Hopkins and her
+sister Damaris slept, from the main room of the dwelling, and no sooner
+had the young man left the house than Constance hastily followed, and
+running lightly up the hill to where the Captain with John Alden at his
+side was roofing in an addition to his half-built house she cried,--
+
+"Captain Standish, I fear me there's mischief afoot with Edward Dotey
+and Edward Lister!"
+
+"Ay? And what makes thee think so, my lass?" asked Standish peering down
+from his coign of vantage. "Where are they?"
+
+"My father sent them afield this morning to rive and pile firewood, but
+a few minutes agone Edward Lister came creeping into the house and up to
+the loft where they two and Bartholomew sleep, and I who was below heard
+the clank of steel, and peeping saw that he brought down two swords and
+had stuck two daggers in his belt"--
+
+"Aha! Swords and daggers, my young masters!" exclaimed the Captain,
+hastily descending the ladder beside which Constance stood. "John, drop
+thy hammer and take thy piece; nay, take a good stick in hand, and we
+will soon bring these springalds to order. Whereaway are they, girl?"
+
+"That-a-way, sir; nay, see you not Lister's cap bob up and down as he
+runneth behind yon bushes?"
+
+"Ay, lass, thou hast a sharp eye. Go home and rest content--thou 'rt a
+wise and good child."
+
+Ten minutes later the captain and his follower plunging through the
+underwood fringing Watson's Hill heard the clash of steel upon steel and
+a coarse voice crying,--
+
+"Well played, Dotey! Nay, 't is naught but a scratch--don't give over
+for that, Lister; up and at him again, boy! Get thy revenge on him!"
+
+"That knave Billington!" growled Standish: "I could have sworn he was in
+it! Here you! Stop that! Drop your blades, men! Drop them!"
+
+Lister and Dotey, nothing loth, for both were wounded, obeyed the
+summons, and staggering back from each other stood leaning upon their
+swords and panting desperately, while Billington dexterously stepping
+backward behind an elder bush made his way forest-ward with a stealthy
+footstep, and a shrewd use of cover, suggestive of his former calling.
+
+"And now what meaneth this, ye young fools!" sternly demanded Standish.
+"Are ye aping the sins of your betters and claiming the rights of the
+duello? Rights say I! Nay, 't is forbidden to any man in this colony,
+and ye know it well, ha?"
+
+"Yea, Captain, we knew 't was forbidden, but we had a quarrel"--
+
+"And why if ye must fight did ye take to deadly weapons? Have ye not a
+pair of fists apiece, or if that could not content ye, are there not
+single-sticks enow in these woods? I've a mind to take my ramrod in hand
+and show ye the virtue of a good stick, but I promise you that if not I,
+some other shall give you a lesson you'll not forget. Come, march!"
+
+"I'm shrewdly slashed in the leg, Captain," expostulated Dotey; "and
+fear me I cannot walk."
+
+"Ay? Sit down, then, and let me see. Thou 'st a sore wound in thy
+leather breeches, but--ay, there's a scratch beneath, but naught to
+hinder your moving. Here, I'll plaster it up in a twinkling."
+
+And from the pocket of his doublet the old soldier produced a case
+containing some of the most essential requisites of surgery, and with a
+deftness and delicacy of touch, surprising to one who had not seen him
+beside a sick-bed, he soon had the wound safe and comfortable.
+
+"There, man, thou 'rt fit to walk from here to Cape Cod. Many a mile
+have I marched with a worse wound than that, and no better than a rag or
+at best my belt bound round it. Now you sirrah! Hast a scratch, too?"
+
+For reply Lister silently held out a hand whence the blood dripped
+freely from a cut across the palm.
+
+"Tried to grasp 't other fool's dagger in thy naked hand, eh?" coolly
+remarked the Captain as he cut a strip of plaster to fit the wound. "Now
+the next time take my counsel and catch it in the leathern sleeve of thy
+jerkin. Better wound a dead calf than a live one."
+
+"Next time, sayst he!" commented Dotey in a mock aside to his companion.
+"So we were not so far astray this time."
+
+"Next time thou meetest a dagger, I should have said," retorted the
+Captain with his grimmest smile. "I never said ye were not to fight, for
+I trow ye'll have chance enough at that before I'm done with ye; but
+when a handful of men are set as we are to garrison a little post on the
+frontier of a savage country, for one to fall afoul of another and to
+risk two lives out of a dozen for some senseless feud of their own is to
+my mind little short of treason to the government they've sworn to
+defend. Now then, march! Alden, give Dotey thy arm to lean upon if he
+needs it. Forward!"
+
+That night Dotey and Lister slept in two rooms under guard, and the next
+morning the freemen of the colony were convened in the Common house to
+judge their case. With them Billington was also summoned, although
+neither Dotey nor Lister had betrayed his complicity.
+
+Accused of deliberate assault upon each other with deadly weapons both
+men humbly pleaded guilty and expressed their penitence, but to this
+Bradford gravely replied,--
+
+"Glad are we to know that ye are penitent, and resolved upon amendment,
+but ne'er the less we cannot therefore omit some signal punishment both
+to make a serious impression upon your own memories, and to advertise to
+all other evil-doers that we bear not the sword of justice in vain.
+Brethren, I pray you speak your minds. What ought to be done to these
+would-be murderers?"
+
+"In the army they would have earned a flogging," remarked the captain
+sitting at the governor's right hand.
+
+"Perhaps solitary confinement with fasting would subdue the angry heat
+of their blood most effectually," said the elder at Bradford's other
+side.
+
+"Had we a pillory or a pair of stocks I would advise that public
+disgrace," said Winslow; and Allerton suggested,--
+
+"They might be fined for the benefit of the public purse."
+
+"If the Governor will leave them to me I'll promise to trounce them
+well, and after, to set them extra tasks for a month or so," offered
+Hopkins; and Alden murmured to Howland,--
+
+"Allerton is treasurer of the public purse, and Hopkins will profit by
+the extra labor, mark you!"
+
+"What is thy counsel, Surgeon Fuller?" inquired Bradford, and the
+whimsical doctor replied,--
+
+"I once saw two fellows in a little village of Sussex lying upon the
+stones of the market-place, tied neck and heels, and methinks I never
+have heard such ingenious profanity as those men were yelling each at
+his unseen comrade. I asked the publican where I baited my horse the
+cause of so strange a spectacle, and he said this was their manner of
+disciplining brawlers in the ale-house. They were to lie there
+four-and-twenty hours without bite or sup, and so I left them. Methinks
+it were a suitable discipline in this case, but I may fairly hope the
+profanity of those unenlightened rustics will give place with our erring
+brethren to sighs of penitence and sorrow."
+
+"What think you, brethren, of our good surgeon's suggestion?" asked
+Bradford, restraining the smile tempting the corners of his mouth. "It
+approves itself to me as a fair sentence. Will those who are so minded
+raise their right hands?"
+
+The larger number of right hands rose in the air, and the sentence was
+pronounced that so soon as the doctor assured the authorities that the
+wounded men would take no harm from the exposure, the duelists, bound
+neck and heels, should be laid at the meeting of the four roads, there
+to remain four-and-twenty hours without food or water, and until that
+time each was to remain locked in a separate chamber.
+
+"And now John Billington," continued Bradford sternly, as the younger
+men were removed, "how hast thou to defend thyself from the charge of
+blood guiltiness in stirring up strife between these two?"
+
+"Nay, your worship, it was their own quarrel," replied Billington
+hardily. "I did but chance to pass and saw them at it, and so tarried a
+moment to see fair play."
+
+"And to hound them on at each other, as if it were a bull-baiting for
+thine own amusement," interposed Standish in a contemptuous tone. "Nay,
+lie not about it, man! I heard thee, and saw thee!"
+
+"Surely, Billington," resumed the governor, "thou hast not so soon
+forgotten how thou wast convened before us some weeks since, charged
+with insolence and disobedience to our captain, and with seditious
+speech anent the government. We did then speak of some such punishment
+as this for thee, but thy outcry of penitence and promise of amendment,
+coupled with the shame of chastising thee in sight of thine own wife and
+sons, was so great that we forgave thee, the more that Captain Standish
+passed over the affront to himself; but now we see that the penitence
+was but feigned, and the amendment a thing of naught, and much I fear
+me, John Billington, that an' thou amend not thy ways, harsher
+discipline than we would willingly inflict will be thy portion in time
+to come."
+
+The governor spoke with more than usual solemnity fixing upon the
+offender a gaze severe yet pitiful and reluctant, as one who foresees
+for another a fate deserved indeed, and yet too terrible to contemplate.
+Perhaps before that astute and reflective mind there rose a vision of
+the gallows nine years later to be erected by his own order, whereon
+John Billington, deliberate murderer of John Newcomen, should expiate
+his crime and open the gloomy record of capital punishment in New
+England.
+
+At the present moment, however, the offender slunk away with his
+reproof, and the meeting proceeded to consider other matters, for, while
+the new government felt itself competent to deal with matters of life
+and death, it also found no matter too trifling for its attention.
+
+Four days later Edward Dotey and Edward Lister, their wounds comfortably
+healed, were brought out into the market place as in fond reminiscence
+of home the Pilgrims called what is now the Town Square of Plymouth, and
+each offender was solemnly tied neck and heels together,--an attitude at
+once ignominious and painful.
+
+The governor, with Allerton his assistant, the captain, the elder,
+Winslow, Hopkins, and Warren stood formally arrayed to witness the
+execution of the sentence, which Billington was forced to carry out. The
+less important members of the community surrounded the scene, and from
+amid the fluctuating crowd murmurs of amaze, of pity, of approval, or
+the reverse became from time to time audible.
+
+"Nay, then, 't is a shame to see Christian men so served, and they so
+scarce a commodity in these parts," declared Helen Billington to her
+neighbor Mistress Hopkins, who nippingly replied,--
+
+"Mayhap we've mistook the men we've put in power."
+
+"Ay," returned the coarser malcontent. "They passed by thy goodman, and
+put worse men over his head."
+
+"Master Hopkins careth naught for such honors as these have to bestow.
+His name was made or ever he came hither," replied Elizabeth a little
+coldly as she moved away.
+
+"Glad am I to see that thy goodman leaveth the cord as slack as may be,
+Goody Billington," whispered Lois, late maid to Mistress Carver, but now
+the promised second wife of Francis Eaton, who stood beside her, and
+overhearing the whisper said reprovingly,--
+
+"Nay, wench, thou speakest foolishly. If evil-doers are to go unwhipt of
+justice how long shall this colony endure. See you not that if these
+roysterers had each killed the other, there had been two men the less to
+stand between your silly throats and the hatchets of the salvages?"
+
+"Ay, there's sound sense in that, Francis," replied Lois yielding
+admiringly to the superior wisdom of her betrothed, but Helen Billington
+nodding and blinking, muttered to her boy John, as she leaned upon his
+shoulder,--
+
+"Wait but till dark, when all the wiseacres are asleep, and see if thy
+daddy sets not these men free, ay, and puts weapons in their hands like
+enough, to revenge themselves withal."
+
+The offenders bound, and laid each upon his side on the bare ground, the
+court withdrew and the crowd dispersed. But scarce an hour had passed
+ere Hopkins presented himself before the governor and his assistant, at
+work over the colony's records, those precious first minutes, now
+forever lost, and with an elaborately quiet and restrained demeanor
+said,--
+
+"Master Bradford, yon poor knaves of mine are suffering shrewdly from
+cramps and shooting pains as well as from the ache of their scarce
+healed wounds. They promise in sad sincerity to amend their ways, and
+when all is said, they are good and kindly lads, and did but ape the
+fashions of their betters in the Old World. May not I persuade your
+worship to look over their offense for this time, and to remit their
+pains and penalties as soon as may be?"
+
+"Thou sayest they are penitent, good Master Hopkins?" asked Bradford
+judicially.
+
+"Ay, and to my mind honestly so."
+
+"We will speak with them, Master Allerton, and if the captain and the
+elder agree with me, Master Hopkins, thy petition is granted, for indeed
+it is to me more pain to make another suffer than to suffer myself, even
+as a father feels the rod upon his own heart the while he lays it on his
+son's back."
+
+"And yet the warning that to spare the rod will spoil the child applies
+to the children of the State as well as to the household," remarked
+Allerton, whose lively son Bartholomew could have testified to his
+father's strict obedience to Solomon's precept.
+
+The chiefs of the colony were soon reassembled about the grotesque
+figures of the suffering duelists, and with their approval, the governor
+having demanded and received ample professions of contrition, and
+promises of amendment, ordered Billington to release the prisoners, who
+shamefacedly crept away to their master's house, and thus ended the
+first and for many years the only duel fought upon New England soil.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII.
+
+THE CAPTAIN'S PIPE.
+
+
+It was a lovely evening in June, and, the labors of the day being ended,
+while the hour for nightly devotion had not yet come, Plymouth enjoyed
+an hour of rest.
+
+Seven houses now lined The Street, leading from the Rock to the Fort,
+and of these the highest on the northerly side was that of Captain
+Standish, built so near to the Fort indeed, that John Alden, if so idly
+minded to amuse himself, could easily salute each gun of the little
+battery with a pebble upon its nose. He was in fact thus occupied on
+this especial evening, while the captain sitting upon a bench beside the
+cottage door smoked a pipe wondrously carved from a block of chalcedony
+by some "Ancient Arrowmaker" of forgotten fame, and presented to
+Standish by his admiring friend Hobomok, who, having silently studied at
+his leisure the half dozen principal men among the Pilgrims, had settled
+upon Standish as most nearly representing his ideal of combined courage,
+wisdom, and endurance, so that he already was beginning to be known as
+"the Captain's Indian," just as Squanto was especially Bradford's
+henchman.
+
+"'T is a goodly sight--a sweet and fair country," said the Captain half
+aloud, and Alden just pausing to note that his last pebble had gone down
+the throat of the saker, turned to inquire,--
+
+"What is it, master?"
+
+For reply the captain took the pipe from his mouth, and with the stem
+pointed to Manomet, where mile after mile of fresh young verdure rose
+steeply against the rosy eastern sky, while the sun sinking behind what
+was to be the Captain's Hill shot a flood of golden glory across the
+placid bay cresting each little wave with radiance, and burying itself
+at last among the whispering foliage of the mount.
+
+"Saw you ever a fairer sight, lad?"
+
+"Nay, 't is fair as the Hills of Beulah whereof the elder spake last
+night," softly replied John.
+
+"And fairer, for we can see it with our eyes of to-day," replied the
+captain dryly. The younger man glanced briefly at his master's face, and
+failing to read its complex expression, contented himself with a
+somewhat uneasy smile as he turned to gaze upon the scene in thoughtful
+silence.
+
+Standish noting with one of his quick glances his follower's
+embarrassment, took counsel with himself, and as he quietly refilled his
+pipe said,--
+
+"Mark me well, lad, I mean not to cast aught of discredit on the elder's
+teaching, nor to shake any man's faith in Beulahs, or Canaans, or hills
+of Paradise, for doubtless Holy Writ gives warrant for such forecasting;
+and surely approved masters of strategy, and warfare both offensive and
+defensive, like Moses, and David, and Joshua, did not fight for the
+guerdon of a fool's bauble, or a May-queen's garland. But yet, mind
+thee, John, there are other great soldiers given us as ensamples in that
+same Holy Writ who seemed to set no store upon the Beulahs, and cared
+naught for milk or honey; men like Gideon, and Samson, and Saul, and
+Joab; and still the Lord of Hosts led these men forth, and fought for
+them and fended them, so long as they fought for themselves and were
+careful to catch the order and obey it. I know not, Jack, these matters
+are too mighty for a poor soldier like me to handle understandingly; and
+still somehow it seemeth me that this same Lord of Hosts will know how
+to deal mercifully even with a rough, war-worn fellow like me, who
+repenteth him of his sins and hath freely given himself to do battle in
+Christ's name against all Heathenesse, and to stand forth with this
+handful of saints against His foes and theirs, and that, although he
+cannot clearly see the Hills of Beulah, nor cares for such luscious
+cates as suit some stomachs. Dost catch my meaning, boy?"
+
+"Ay, master, and well do I wish my hope of God's favor were as fairly
+founded"--
+
+"Nay now, nay now, did not I this minute tell thee that I care naught
+for sweets? Save thy honey for some maiden's lips. Ah, and now I think
+on 't, here is a quiet and leisure time wherein to study out the
+strategy of that wooing emprise I was telling thee of--nay, did I tell
+thee?"
+
+"Wooing--what--I--I know not fairly," stammered John Alden, but the
+captain still gazing upon Hither Manomet, where now the purple bloom of
+twilight was replacing the glory of the sunset, marked not the pallor
+stealing the red from beneath the brown of the young fellow's cheek, nor
+heard the discordant falter of his voice.
+
+"Ay," replied he thoughtfully,--"my wooing of Priscilla Molines, thou
+knowest. I thought I spoke to thee of it, but at all odds the time has
+now well come when I should address the maid. I ought indeed to have
+done it long ago, and mayhap she will be a bit peevish at the delay, for
+doubtless her father told her ere he died of our compact, but there has
+been no convenient season, and truth to tell, Jack, I have no great
+heart toward the matter--yon green plateau lies betwixt me and"--
+
+And in the sudden silence John Alden's gaze went out over the steel gray
+waters, out and out to the far horizon line where the rose tint had
+faded from the sky and a low line of fog gathered slowly and sadly.
+
+"I'll tell thee, boy," suddenly resumed the captain rising from the
+bench and confronting his companion, while lightly touching his breast
+with the mouthpiece of the pipe upon whose cold ashes John mechanically
+fixed his eyes,--"thou shalt woo her for me."
+
+"I--I woo her--nay, master, nay"--
+
+"And why nay, thou foolish boy? 'T will be rare practice for thee
+against some of these lasses grow up, and thou wouldst fain go a-wooing
+on thine own account. Nay, then, can it be that a young fellow who would
+gayly go forth against Goliath of Gath were he in these parts is craven
+before the bright eyes and nimble tongue of a little maid? Dost think
+Priscilla will box thine ears?"
+
+"Nay, but"--
+
+"Nay me no buts and but me no nays, for the scheme tickles my fancy
+hugely, and so it shall be. Thou seest, Jack, it were more than a little
+awkward for me to show reason why I have not spoken sooner, and the fair
+lady's angry dignity will be appeased by seeing that I stand in awe of
+her, and woo her as princesses are wooed, by proxy. Thou shalt be my
+proxy, Jack, and see thou serve me not so scurvy a trick as--ha, here
+cometh the governor."
+
+And, in effect, Bradford striding up the hill with all the vigor of his
+one-and-thirty years was already so close at hand as to save John Alden
+the pain of a reply.
+
+"Good e'en, Governor," cried Standish going a step or two to meet his
+guest.
+
+"Good e'en, Captain,--Alden. There's more trouble toward about the
+Billingtons."
+
+"What now?" demanded the captain with a stern brevity auguring ill for
+the frequent offender.
+
+"Nay, 't is no willful offense this time, nor is the father to blame
+except for not training his boys better; but the son John hath run away
+to go to the salvages his brother says, and the mother saith he is
+stolen, and whichever way it may be, he has been missing since yester
+even at bedtime, and now we have to go and look him up."
+
+"'Ill bird of an ill egg,'" growled Standish. "Mayhap 't were better not
+to find him."
+
+"And yet we must," replied Bradford gently. "And as Squanto reports that
+the boy shaped his course for Manomet, my idea is that it were well for
+us to take our boat and coast along the headland and so on in the course
+we came at first, observing the shore, and noting such points as may be
+of use in the future. Mayhap we shall come as far as the First
+Encounter, and make out whether those salvages whom Squanto calls the
+Nausets are still so dangerously disposed toward us. At any rate we will
+try to discover our creditors for the seed-corn springing so greenly
+over yonder."
+
+"Pity that Winslow hath gone to Sowams to visit Massasoit," remarked the
+captain dryly. "We shall miss his subtle wit in these delicate affairs
+of state."
+
+"Yes, and if it comes to blows we shall miss no less Stephen Hopkins's
+doughty arm," replied Bradford. "But sith both are gone, we had better
+leave the Elder in charge of the settlement along with Master Allerton,
+John Howland, who is a stout man-at-arms, John Alden, Gilbert Winslow,
+Dotey, and Cooke."
+
+"Seven men in all."
+
+"Yes, and with Winslow and Hopkins away, that leaves ten of us to go on
+this expedition, and I shall take Lister lest he brawl with Dotey, and
+Billington not only that he is the boy's father, but lest he raise a
+sedition in the camp."
+
+"Well thought on. I tell thee thou hast a head-piece of thine own, Will,
+though thou art so mild spoken."
+
+Bradford laughed with a glance of affectionate recognition of the
+soldier's compliment, and then the two arranged the details of the
+proposed expedition, while Alden standing straight and still as a statue
+watched the gloom of night blotting all the color from sky, and sea, and
+shore, even as the fog crept stealthily in swallowing all before it, and
+a great dumb wave of sorrow and dismay surged up from his own heart, and
+swallowed all the brightness of his life.
+
+Suddenly from the Town Square at the foot of the hill rose the sound of
+a drum not inartistically touched, and both the governor and the captain
+rose to their feet.
+
+"Bart Allerton hath learned to use the drumsticks as if he had served
+with us in Flanders," said the soldier complacently, as they turned down
+the little sinuous footpath.
+
+"Yes," replied the governor gravely. "He does credit to thy teaching,
+Captain, and yet methinks there may be danger that a vain delight in
+his own performance may cause the lad, and haply others, to forget that
+this, for lack of a bell, is our call to prayer. Couldst thou find it in
+thy heart, Myles, to direct that in future the drum shall sound but
+three heavy and unmodulated beats?"
+
+"Oh ay, if it will please thee better, Will. Didst ever read of the
+tyrant Procrustes?"
+
+"What of him?"
+
+"Only that he would force all men to fit to one measure, though he
+dragged the life out of them. Dost fancy the God to whom we shall
+presently pray is better pleased with a dreary noise than with some hint
+at melody? Alden, come on, lad, 't is time for prayers, and thy woesome
+face suits the occasion. What's amiss, lad?"
+
+"Naught's amiss, master," replied the youth more briefly than his wont,
+and with a sudden spring from a projecting bowlder he passed the two
+elder men and arrived first at the Common house.
+
+"That younker's face and voice are not so blithe as might be. Hast been
+chiding him, Myles?" asked Bradford as they followed down the hill.
+
+"Nay," replied the captain. "But like enough he's thwarted at missing
+the chance of a brush with the redskins to-morrow, and 't is a pity."
+
+"Nay, Myles, look not so pensive on 't," responded the governor
+laughing. "There are men, believe it if you can, who love the smell of
+roses better than of blood. To my fancy John Alden--but there, light
+jesting is surely ill befitting the hour of prayer."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII.
+
+"SPEAK FOR YOURSELF, JOHN!"
+
+
+Further information gathered by Squanto and Hobomok from the Indian
+guests who were constantly in and out of the village proved that John
+Billington had wandered as far as Manomet, and that Canacum, the sachem
+of that place, had sent him on with some Nauset braves who were visiting
+him, as a present or perhaps hostage to Aspinet, chief of the Nausets
+and Pamets. The course of the rescuing party was thus determined, and,
+apart from the recovery of little Billington, Bradford was glad of the
+opportunity of offering payment to the Nausets for the corn borrowed
+from the mysterious granary near the First Encounter, and also much
+desired to hear an explanation of the grave containing the bones of the
+French sailor and little child.
+
+It was, therefore, with considerable satisfaction that he next morning
+led his little party to the water side, and embarked them just as the
+sun rising joyously from out the blue, blue sea, sent a handful of merry
+shafts to tip each wave with glory and glance in harmless flame from
+every point of armor or of weapon in the pinnace, as the crew moved
+every man to his appointed place, the captain pushing sturdily with an
+oar while John Alden, half in, half out the water, heaved mightily at
+the bows hanging at the foot of the Rock.
+
+"Once more! Now again! There she floats!" cried the captain. "One more
+shove, John! There, there, enough! Fare thee well, lad, and mind the
+business I bade thee take in hand!"
+
+"Ay, master," replied the youth, but as he stepped upon the Rock, and
+shook the waters from his mighty limbs, he heaved a sigh so ponderous
+that surely it helped to fill the mainsail now curving grandly to the
+gathering breeze.
+
+But the summer day ripened to noon, and waned until the sun all but
+touched the crest of Captain's Hill, before the young man gave over the
+work at which he had labored like a Titan all day long, and going down
+to the brook at a point where the captain and he had dug a semicircular
+basin and paved it about with white sea-pebbles by way of a lavatory, he
+made his toilet, chiefly by throwing the clear cool water in bucketfuls
+over his head and neck, and then rubbing himself with a coarse towel
+until the crisp hair curled vivaciously, and the fair skin glowed out
+from under its coat of sunbrown in strong relief to the white teeth and
+blue eyes that made the face so comely in its strength.
+
+A little brushing of the dark doublet and leathern small-clothes, the
+low russet boots and knitted hose that completed his costume, and the
+unwilling envoy strolled down the hill to Elder Brewster's cottage and
+paused unseen and unheard outside the open door. It was the quiet time
+in the afternoon when the rougher labors of the day were ended, and the
+housewife might rest herself with the more delicate tasks of spinning,
+knitting, or needlework, for it was in these, "the good old days" we all
+so plaintively lament, that the distich--
+
+    "Man may work from sun to sun
+     But woman's work is never done"--
+
+originated, and was something more than a bitter jest.
+
+In the elder's busy household all the women were using this hour for
+their own refreshment. Mistress Brewster was lying upon her bed, Mary
+Chilton had taken her knitting and gone to sit awhile with Desire Minter
+and Elizabeth Tilley, and Priscilla drawing her quaintly carved
+spinning-wheel into the middle of the room so that she could look out of
+the window giving upon the brook and distant Manomet, was spinning some
+exquisitely fine linen thread, with which she purposed to weave cambric
+delicate enough for kerchiefs and caps. As she spun, she sang as the
+birds sing, that is from the heart, and not from the score; and now it
+was a blithe chanson brought by her mother from her French home, and now
+it was a snatch of some Dutch folks-lied or some Flemish drinking-song,
+and again the rude melody of an old Huguenot hymn, the half devout, half
+defiant invocation of men who prayed with naked swords in their hands.
+But suddenly into the sonorous strains of Luther's Hymn broke the joyous
+trill of a linnet's song, and the bird alighting upon a neighboring
+poplar seemed challenging the unseen songster to a trial of skill. The
+stately hymn broke off in a little burst of laughter; and then accepting
+the challenge, the girl took up the linnet's strain in an unworded song,
+sweeter, richer, more full of joy, and love, and sunshine than his own,
+until the little fellow with an angry chirp and flirt of the wings flew
+onward to the forest where he knew no such unequal contest awaited him.
+
+"Well done, maid!" exclaimed Alden stepping in at the open door. "Thou
+hast so outsung the bird that he hath flown."
+
+"Nay, methinks he flew because he saw an owl abroad, and owls are ever
+grewsome neighbors to poor little songsters," replied Priscilla dryly,
+and, pressing the treadle swiftly she drew out her cobweb thread with
+such earnest care that she could not look up at the tall and comely
+guest who awkwardly stood awaiting some more hospitable greeting.
+Receiving none, he presently subsided upon a stool hard by the
+spinning-wheel, and after watching its steady whirl for some moments
+said,--
+
+"What a fine thread thou drawest, Priscilla."
+
+"'T is hardly stout enough to hang a man, and yet stout enough for my
+purposes, good John."
+
+"Wilt weave it on Master Allerton's loom when 't is done?"
+
+"Mayhap I'll weave it on a pillow into lace, as the maids in fair
+Holland are used to do."
+
+"Dost know their art?"
+
+"Ay. Jeanne De la Noye to whom I writ a letter by thy hand, John, she
+taught me, and I overpassed my teacher ere I was done. What thinkst
+thou, John, would be said or done should I weave some ells of spanwide
+lace and trim my Sunday kirtle therewith? Mistress White, nay, Mistress
+Winslow that is now, would rend it away with her own fingers."
+
+"And yet Master Winslow weareth cambric ruffs on occasion, and his dame
+hath a paduasoy kirtle and mantle, and so had Mistress Carver, and some
+others of our company."
+
+"Marry come up! How wise the lad hath grown! Hast been pondering women's
+clothes instead of the books the Captain gives thee to study, John?"
+
+A change passed over the young man's face. The careless allusion had
+recalled his errand, and moreover linked itself with a memory Priscilla
+had willfully evoked. He was silent for a moment, and then pushing his
+seat a little farther from the wheel he quietly said,--
+
+"Well do I like thy merry mood, Priscilla, and care not though thou
+flout me ever so sharply, but mine errand to-day is somewhat of
+importance, and I pray thee to listen seriously."
+
+"Nay, good lad, waste not such solemnities on me. 'T will be Sunday in
+three days, and thou canst take the elder's place, and let him learn of
+thee how soberly and seriously to exhort a sinner."
+
+"Priscilla, wilt thou be serious?"
+
+"As death, John. What is it?"
+
+"I writ a letter for thee to thy friend Jeanne De la Noye"--
+
+"'T is a sad truth, John."
+
+"And methought there was in it some word that pointed to--to"--
+
+"Yes; good youth, that pointed to--to--and what then?"
+
+"That pointed to some contract, or mayhap naught more than some
+understanding"--
+
+"If 't was a word that pointed to any understanding of thee and thy
+stammerings, John Alden, I pray thee speak it without more ado. Say out
+what is in thy mind if indeed there is aught there."
+
+"Well then, art thou promised to Jacques De la Noye, and is he coming
+here to wed thee?"
+
+The rich color of Priscilla's cheek deepened to crimson and the slender
+thread in her hand snapped sharply, but in an instant she recovered
+herself, and deftly joining the thread exclaimed.--
+
+"See now what mischief thy folly hath wrought! Of a truth there's no
+call to complain of blindness in thy speech now, Master Alden. But
+still I have noted that if thou canst drive a bashful youth out of his
+bashfulness, there are no bounds to his forwardness."
+
+"Loth were I to offend thee, Priscilla, and that thou knowest right
+well, but I fain would have an answer to my query. If 't is a secret,
+thou knowest I will keep it."
+
+"Nay, I'll keep it myself, and not trouble thee with what proved too
+burdensome for myself."
+
+"But Priscilla, I am sent to thee with a proffer of marriage, and if
+thou 'rt already bespoke 't is not fitting that thou shouldst hear it."
+
+"Thou 'rt sent, John Alden!" exclaimed the girl dropping the thread, and
+pressing her foot upon the treadle until it creaked. "Who sent thee?"
+
+"Captain Standish."
+
+"Sent thee! Was it too much honor to a poor maid for him to do his own
+errand?"
+
+"Nay, be not angered, Priscilla, although he feared thou wouldst be."
+
+"Ah, he did fear it, did he. Then why did he do it?"
+
+"Why, he feared that thou wert angry already, and he would have thee
+know he stood in terror, and dared not present himself"--
+
+"John Alden, art thou and thy master joined in league to flout and
+insult me, an orphaned maid? If thou hast an errand from Captain
+Standish to me, say it out in as few words as may be, or I will never
+speak word to thee again."
+
+Perhaps the sight of that suddenly pallid face, those blazing eyes and
+brave scornful mouth, steadied the young man's nerves, as cowards in the
+camp have been known to become heroes in the field; at any rate his
+brow cleared, his voice grew assured, and rising to his feet with a
+certain solemnity he said,--
+
+"Thou 'rt right, Priscilla, and I have done sore discredit thus far to
+the honorable master on whose errand I come. Captain Standish, as no
+doubt thou knowest, spake with thy father before he died of a marriage
+in time to come between him and thee"--
+
+"Nay, I knew it not, nor am bound by any such speech," interposed
+Priscilla hastily; but Alden continued unmoved,--
+
+"Captain Standish took it that thou didst know, and feared that thou
+hadst felt his silence to be some want of eagerness"--
+
+"Ay, I see! He feared that I was angered that he had not wooed me across
+his wife's and my father's graves, and so thrust thee forward to bear
+the first outburst of my fury! 'T was kindly thought on if not
+over-valiant, and 't is an honorable, a noble office for thee, John, who
+hast at odd times thrown me a soft word thyself."
+
+"Oh maiden, maiden, wilt thou trample to death the poor heart that thou
+knowest is all thine own! I 'throw thee a soft word now and again'! Why,
+thou knowest but too well how I hang like a beggar on thy footsteps to
+catch even a careless word that thou mayst fling to me! Thou knowest
+that I love thee, maid, as blind men love sight, and dying men water,
+and"--
+
+"_Then why don't you speak for yourself, John?_" demanded Priscilla
+quietly, and a dainty smile softened the proud curve of her lips, and a
+gleam of tenderness quenched the fire of her eyes; but John, his eyes
+fixed upon the ground, saw it not.
+
+"Ah Priscilla, 't is not kind to try me thus!" cried he. "Sure thou hast
+triumphed often enough in despising my humble suit, without wounding me
+afresh to-day, and when I fain would rally my poor wits to honorably
+fulfill the embassage that brings me here. Sith I may not hope to call
+thee mine, maiden, I could better bear to see thee the wife of the noble
+soldier whom I serve than of any other man, be he Fleming or Dutchman or
+what not, so that thou art not promised."
+
+"Go on, then, and say thy knight's message most worthy squire, and let
+us make an end on 't."
+
+"Thou knowest the captain for thyself, Priscilla, but mayhap thou
+knowest not that he cometh of noble lineage, a race that hath borne
+coat-armor since Norman William led them across the Channel"--
+
+"Didst not bring some heraldic tree or chart to dazzle mine eyes
+withal?" inquired Priscilla, mockingly; but the ambassador, determined
+not again to be turned from his purpose, went on,--
+
+"Among his ancestors are men of noble deeds and proud achievements who
+have carried the name of Standish of Standish in the forefront of
+battle, and in King's Councils, and have ranked among the princes of the
+idolatrous Church to which they still cling; but among them all,
+Priscilla, hath never risen a braver, or a nobler, or a more honorable
+man than he who woos thee"--
+
+"Did he bid thee say all that also?"
+
+"Nay, Priscilla, there's a time for all things, and I must feel it
+unworthy of thy womanhood to so perversely jeer and flout at a good
+man's love, when 't is honestly offered thee."
+
+"Nor would I, John. But I have heard naught of any love offered me by
+Myles Standish. Thou hast offered in his name some coat-armor, and a
+long lineage, and courage both ancestral and of his own person,
+and--what else? I forget, but surely there was no love among these
+commodities. Didst drop it by the way, or did the captain forget to send
+it, John?"
+
+"Mayhap, he kept it back to give it thee by word of mouth, Priscilla,
+and if he did, it is a treasure even thou shouldst not despise, for
+never did I see a nature at once so brave, so strong, and so tender.
+Thou knowest how sorely ill I was six weeks or so by-gone, and none did
+a hand's turn for me but the captain, nor needed to, for never was nurse
+so delicate of touch, so unwearied, so cheerful, and so full of device
+as he. No woman ever equaled him in those matters where we long for
+woman's tendance, and yet never a soldier played the man more valiantly
+where man's work was in hand. Ah Priscilla, 't is a heart of gold, a man
+among ten thousand, a tower of strength in danger, and a tender
+comforter in suffering that is offered thee--be wise beyond thy years,
+and answer him comfortably."
+
+"And hast thou done, John? Hast said all thy say?"
+
+"Ay, maid."
+
+"Then clear thy memory of it all, and make room for the answer I will
+give thee."
+
+"And let it be a gentle one, Priscilla."
+
+"Oh, thou knowest how to dress an unwelcome message in comely phrase
+better than any man of mine acquaintance, unless it be Master Winslow,"
+retorted Priscilla bitterly. "So try thy skill on simple NO, for 't is
+all I have to say."
+
+"But Priscilla, but maiden, bethink thee--be not so shrewd of tongue"--
+
+"Nay, wilt have my reasons, Master Envoy? Well then, I care not for a
+man who cares not to do his own wooing. I care not for a man so well
+assured that I will be held by what he avers is my dead father's
+bidding, that he can let weeks and months roll by or ever he finds time
+to convince himself of the matter. I care naught for coat-armor, nor for
+pedigree, I, whose forbears were honest bourgeoisie of Lyons who
+scrupled not to give up all for conscience sake, while this man is
+neither Papist like his kinsfolk, nor Independent like these he lives
+among. And I care not for a red beard, nor for widowers, nor for men old
+enough to be my sire"--
+
+"Nay, he is but six-and-thirty, maiden."
+
+"And I am naught-and-twenty, and I am a-weary of thy chat, John Alden,
+and I fain would be alone, so I wish thee good e'en--and a keener wit."
+
+"But Priscilla," gasped the poor fellow as the wheel was pushed so
+suddenly aside that he had to spring out of its way, while its mistress
+whirled past him and up the clumsy stair leading to her nook in the loft
+of the cabin.
+
+"But Priscilla!" came back in wrathful mimicry from the head of the
+stair, and while Alden still stood bewildered, in at the open door
+flocked Mary Chilton, and Desire, and Elizabeth, their girlish laughter
+bubbling over at some girlish jest, and with a muttered greeting Alden
+stalked through their midst and was gone.
+
+"He came looking for Priscilla, and is grumly at not finding her,"
+whispered Elizabeth Tilley; but Mary Chilton with a wise nod replied, as
+one who knows,--
+
+"Did he but know it, she's not ill inclined to him when all is said.
+Unless I sore mistake she'll say yea next time he asks her."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV.
+
+THE MYSTERIOUS GRAVE.
+
+
+"A fair and goodly day!" exclaimed Standish ever sensitive to the
+aspects of nature, although never allowing himself to be mastered by any
+extremity of weather.
+
+"Ay," replied Bradford. "And yet methinks that cloud rising over Manomet
+hath a stormy look."
+
+"Let us once weather the Gurnet's Nose, and a south wind will not harm
+us," ventured Billington, whose out-of-door prowlings had at least made
+him weatherwise.
+
+"Ay, if south wind is all that it means," said Doctor Fuller gravely.
+"But to my mind yon cloud is of no common kind. It minds me shrewdly of
+those whirlwind or cyclone clouds that used to fright us in the China
+Seas when I sailed them as a lad."
+
+"Say you so, Surgeon!" replied Bradford looking uneasily at the cloud
+rapidly rising and enlarging in the southern horizon. "Be ready with the
+sheets, Peter Browne and Cooke, and Francis Eaton had best stand with
+Latham at the helm."
+
+"Look! Look you there! 'T is a waterspout!" cried Fuller, pointing
+excitedly at the cloud, which, driven on with furious force by an upper
+current of wind unfelt below, was now bellying in a marked and abnormal
+fashion, while from the lowest point of the convexity appeared a spiral
+column of dense vapor rapidly elongating itself toward the sea whose
+waters assumed a black and sullen aspect, disturbed by chopping counter
+currents of short waves, which gradually, as the waterspout neared them,
+fell into its rotary motion, rising at the centre of the whirlpool into
+a column of foaming water, a liquid stalagmite climbing to meet the
+stalactite bending to it from above.
+
+"If we had but a heavy gun!" cried Warren. "They say to hit the
+waterspout in the centre where it joins the other from below will
+disperse it."
+
+"Knocks the wind out of it," explained Billington.
+
+"But we have nothing better than these bird guns," cried Standish
+contemptuously touching with his foot the pile of weapons covered with a
+tarpaulin lying in the bottom of the boat. "And it drives down upon us
+like a charge of horse. Here, let me to the helm."
+
+"There is no way upon the boat, Captain," expostulated Eaton. "No man
+can steer without a wind."
+
+"Thou 'rt right, friend," replied the captain gravely, as he felt the
+rudder give beneath his hand. "There's naught to do but tarry until
+Master Waterspout declareth his pleasure."
+
+"Until God declareth His pleasure," amended Bradford quietly. "Men, let
+us pray."
+
+And baring his head the governor poured forth a strong and manful
+petition to Him who rideth upon the wings of the wind and reigneth a
+King forever over His own creation.
+
+Standish standing upright beside the useless tiller bared his head and
+listened reverently, but always with an eye to the waterspout and to the
+clouds, and as a deep-throated Amen rose from his comrades he gave the
+tiller a shove and joyously cried,--
+
+"A puff, a breath! Enough to steer us past!" And the boat feeling her
+helm again careened gently to the little gust of wind out of the west,
+and slid away upon her course, while the waterspout, more furious in its
+speed at every instant, swept past and out to sea, where it presently
+broke and fell with a thunderous explosion.
+
+"Another crowning mercy!" exclaimed Bradford devoutly, and Standish
+answered with his reticent smile,--
+
+"Had Master Jones of the Mayflower been here, he would have more than
+ever felt 't is better to be friends than foes with prayerful men."
+
+To the waterspout succeeded light and baffling winds so that labor as
+they might, it was fully dark when the Pilgrim pinnace entered what is
+now Barnstable, then Cummaquid Harbor. Anchoring for safety, they lay
+down to get such rest as the position afforded, and woke betimes in the
+morning to find themselves high and dry in the centre of the harbor, the
+channel encircling them and making up toward the land. Upon the shore as
+seen across this channel appeared some savages gathering clams and
+muscles.
+
+Bradford at once dispatched Squanto and Tockamahamon, who had come along
+as guides and interpreters, to interview these men and barter for some
+of the shellfish, but in a very short time the envoys came splashing
+merrily back with an invitation for the white men to land and breakfast
+with Janno, the chief of the Mattakees, who was, the fishermen said,
+close at hand. They also corroborated the statement that the missing boy
+had gone down the Cape with the Nausets, and would be found at Eastham,
+Aspinet's headquarters.
+
+"I see no reason for gainsaying such a comfortable proposal," said
+Bradford turning with a smile to Standish who cheerily replied,--
+
+"Nor I, so that they leave hostages aboard, and we carry every man his
+piece ashore."
+
+"We must e'en wade for it, sith there is neither dry ground for footing
+nor water for swimming," suggested Browne stripping off hose and shoon;
+but as Bradford and Standish began to follow his example they were
+prevented by the Indians, who offered each a back to the two chiefs, at
+the same time intimating to the others that if they would but wait all
+the company should be similarly accommodated. The doctor accepted, but
+Browne and the rest preferred their own legs as a dependence, and the
+whole party presently reached shore, where Janno, the handsome and
+courteous young chief of the Mattakees, stood with several of his
+pnieses or nobles around him ready to receive them. Squanto at once
+stood forth as interpreter, and so flowery and mellifluous were the
+phrases of welcome that he interpreted, that the captain edging toward
+Bradford muttered,--
+
+"I hope Master Warren will look well after the hostages left aboard, for
+all this is too sweet to be wholesome. I mistrust treachery, Governor."
+
+"Nay, I mistrust Squanto, Captain," replied Bradford laughing. "The poor
+fellow doth glorify himself at some cost to the truth, I fancy."
+
+"Beshrew me but before another month I'll know enough of their jargon to
+need no lying interpreter," muttered Standish, and he kept his word.
+
+The Indian breakfast, already nearly ready, proved both toothsome and
+plentiful. It consisted of lobsters, clams, and muscles, both cooked and
+raw, ears of green maize roasted in the husk, and no-cake, that is to
+say, pounded corn mixed with water and baked in the ashes, the germ and
+animus of hoe-cake, bannocks, Johnnycake, and all the various forms of
+maize-bread so well known throughout our land.
+
+Breakfast over Janno rather timidly inquired if the white chiefs would
+permit the visit of an old squaw of his tribe who much desired to see
+them.
+
+"Surely if the good woman hath occasion to speak with us," replied
+Bradford amiably. "Why doth the chief seem to mistrust our willingness?"
+
+"Squaw no speak to brave in council," explained Squanto with an air of
+shocked propriety; but before he could further explain a bowed and
+decrepit figure emerged from one of the little huts on the edge of the
+woods and slowly approached the white men who stepped forward to meet
+her, desiring Squanto to assure her of welcome. Coming so close to the
+little group that Standish muttered, "Sure she is minded to salute us,"
+the poor old crone peered into the face of one after another of the
+white men, then wofully shook her head and began to mutter in her own
+tongue with strange gesticulations, but as he heard them Squanto uttered
+a shrill cry of terror, and the sachem stepping forward spoke some words
+of stern command, before which the old woman humbly bowed and became
+silent.
+
+"What is it? Would she curse us? What is her grievance? What is her
+story?" demanded Bradford half indignantly, and Squanto, after some
+conference with the sachem, informed them that this woman, once called
+Sunlight-upon-the-Waters, but now known as The-Night-in-Winter, had
+been mother of seven tall sons who filled her wigwam with venison,
+and shared their corn and tobacco with her; but three of these sons
+were among the captives entrapped and sold to slavery by Hunt, and
+the other four had perished in the plague brought down upon the red men
+by the curse of The-White-Fool who died about the same time; and thus
+The-Night-in-Winter, having just cause, hated the white men as she hated
+death and the devil, and wished to curse them as The-White-Fool had
+cursed her people, but the sachem would not let her, and now she was
+doubly bereft of her children, since she might not even avenge them.
+
+"'T is a piteous tale," said Bradford gently when Squanto had finished.
+"And we cannot be amazed that this poor heathen mother should thus feel.
+There is warrant for it among the classics, Surgeon; Medea and others
+were moved in the same fashion. But Squanto, explain to her that we and
+all honest white men abhor the course of Master Hunt, and had we found
+him at such commerce we would have delivered her sons, and thee too,
+Squanto, out of his hands. Tell her our mind is to deal honestly and
+Christianly by all men, and here, give her this fair chain, and this
+length of red cloth. Tell her that she would do ill to curse us, for we
+are friends to her and her people."
+
+"And ask who was The-White-Fool, and what his story," demanded Standish
+as Squanto finished rendering the governor's message.
+
+"Squanto know that in himself. Every Pokanoket know that," replied
+Squanto, while Janno muttered gloomily in his own tongue,--
+
+"All red men know The-White-Fool's curse. All feel it." So Squanto in
+his broken yet picturesque phrases told how "many snows ago" a large
+French ship was wrecked farther down the Cape and nearly everything
+aboard was lost. Several of her crew, however, came safely ashore and
+made a sort of camp with some earthwork defenses on the mouth of the
+Pamet River.
+
+"Why men, we saw it, and mused upon the marks of European skill and
+training," exclaimed Standish.
+
+"Ay, and the house hard by, and the marvelous grave with the fair-haired
+man and infant so curiously embalmed," added Fuller.
+
+"Truly, this is passing strange!" murmured Bradford. "But get on with
+thy story, Tisquantum."
+
+The Frenchmen were quiet and peaceable enough, Tisquantum could not but
+allow, and yet his people would not permit them to dwell unmolested,
+perhaps from some vague fear of ancient prophecy that a pale-faced race
+should come from the rising sun and drive the red men into the western
+seas; perhaps from some race-hatred lying below the savage's power of
+expression; at any rate, as Tisquantum finally declared with a
+significant gesture,--
+
+"Sagamore, powahs, pnieses, braves, all men say, It is not good for pale
+men with hair like the sunrise to live among the red men whose hair is
+like the night. Let them be gone!"
+
+"And what did the red men do about it, Squanto?" asked Standish sternly,
+while in his eyes kindled the danger light before which Squanto quailed,
+yet sullenly replied,--
+
+"Red man find what you call wolf around his wigwam, red man send arrow
+through his head."
+
+"Do you mean, you heathen, that you murdered these helpless, shipwrecked
+white men? Murdered them in cold blood?" demanded Standish, seizing
+Gideon's hilt and half drawing him from his scabbard.
+
+"Tisquantum not here. Tisquantum not Mattakee, not Nauset; Tisquantum
+Patuxet, where white men live," hastily replied Squanto; while Bradford
+suggested in a rapid aside, "Best leave go thy sword and restrain thy
+wrath, Captain, or we be but dead men. Look at the faces of those men
+behind the sachem. Already they finger their tomahawks."
+
+"More like, thy timidity will give the savages courage to fall upon us,
+and we shall share the fate of these, who though naught but Frenchmen
+were at least white, and wore breeches," retorted Standish angrily. The
+color flashed into Bradford's cheek, but after an instant's silence he
+quietly replied,--
+
+"Thou knowest well enow, Standish, that my timidity is not for myself
+but for these, and yet more for the helpless ones we have left behind. I
+trust when it comes to blows, the Governor of Plymouth will be found
+where he belongs, next to her fiery Captain."
+
+"Be content, Will, be content. Once more thou 'rt right and I all wrong.
+'T is not the first time nor the last, but let us ask in all patience
+what these fellows mean with their White-Fool. Sure they have not made
+me out so suddenly as this, have they?"
+
+"Nay, Myles, I trow no man but thyself will ever call thee fool, nay,
+nor overly white, either!" and glancing at the Captain's bronzed face
+lighted once more by its smile of grim humor, Bradford turned to Squanto
+and bade him explain in the hearing of both savages and white men the
+meaning of this reference, and also the fate of the French mariners cast
+ashore at Eastham.
+
+Squanto nothing loth to display his oratory struck an attitude, and with
+native eloquence and much gesticulation described, first, the storm
+which four years ago had driven the French brig upon the sands; then the
+efforts of the mariners to launch their boats, their defeat, and the
+breaking up both of boats and brig; then the arrival upon shore of
+thirteen men, two of whom died of wounds and exhaustion. The eleven
+survivors finding some wreckage upon the beach proceeded the next
+morning to build themselves a shelter, and finally erected the cabin and
+threw up the earthwork discovered by the Pilgrims in their second
+exploration.
+
+Up to this point the Indians had been content to curiously watch the
+proceedings of these interlopers, but finding that they were
+establishing themselves permanently, they held a council and resolved
+that they should die, partly in atonement for the outrage done to the
+red men some two years before by Hunt the kidnapper, and partly from
+some vague fear lest the strangers with their superior knowledge and
+appliances should conquer and injure the proper owners of the soil.
+
+Not choosing to assault them openly, for the men were brave, alert, and
+well armed, the Indians laid in wait around the spring where they must
+daily go for water, watched them as they went afield in pursuit of game,
+in fact harassed them at every turn, until of the eleven but three were
+left alive, and they, so broken in strength, courage, and hope, that
+they were easily captured and reduced to slavery. One remained here at
+Nauset, and the other two were sent, one to the Massachusetts, the other
+to the Namasket tribes, where they were kept as the mock and victims of
+the brutal sport of the savages. The one who remained at Nauset was the
+best looking, and evidently the most attractive of the three, and from
+Squanto's description seemed to have been an officer, and a very
+attractive young man. The-White-Birch, sister of Aspinet, chief of the
+Nausets, having fixed her regards upon the prisoner, discovered these
+peculiarities, and one day when the boys of the village were amusing
+themselves with seeing how near they could shoot their blunted arrows to
+the prisoner's eyes without putting them out, she stepped forward, and,
+Pocahontas-like, announced that she took this man for her husband, and
+as such claimed his release from torture. Her demand was complied with,
+and the half dead victim unbound and informed of his new honors; but it
+was too late--want, misery, and cruelty had done their work, and the
+poor fellow's wits had fled. He accepted the tender care and affection
+of The-White-Birch as a child might have done, but the joyous gallantry
+of the debonair young French officer was a thing of the past, and the
+bridegroom had become as completely the child of nature as his bride. He
+was adopted into the tribe, and the Indian name given him, in no spirit
+of taunt or contempt, but simply as a descriptive appellation, meant
+The-White-Fool.
+
+They were married, these two strange lovers, and lived in the cabin
+built of ship's planks by The-White-Fool's dead comrades. In due time a
+son was born to them, the idol of his mother's heart, and the constant
+companion of the father, who seemed to find in the child some link with
+his own stray wits; but when the boy was about three years old the poor
+exile was seized with a fever, and in his delirium escaping from his
+tender nurse stalked naked through the village proclaiming in the native
+tongue that the wrath of God hung over this people and this land,
+because of the cruel wrong they had done to him and to his comrades; and
+he foretold that before seven snows had covered his grave, white men
+from over the sea should come like the wildfowl in the spring and settle
+down upon the creeks and ponds, and fill the forest with their cry, and
+the red men should melt away as the snow melts and their place be no
+more seen.
+
+It was really worth something to hear Squanto declaim this wild prophecy
+with the shrill voice and fevered gestures of the delirious captive; and
+as they caught his meaning the pnieses around Janno stirred in their
+places, laid hand upon the tomahawk at each man's girdle, and cast
+menacing looks upon the strangers.
+
+"Have a care, Squanto! Say no more on that head, or thou 'lt stir up
+strife afresh," muttered Bradford in the interpreter's ear, while
+Standish fixed his eyes upon Janno ready to sacrifice him at the first
+hostile movement. But the young chief casting a meaning glance around
+the circle said quietly,--
+
+"The-White-Birch was of the blood of Aspinet my brother, and
+The-White-Fool was her husband."
+
+"Well said, Chief!" exclaimed Standish who had already mastered much of
+the Indian language, and in accordance with his late resolve soon became
+the most expert interpreter in the colony, while Bradford nodding said,
+"Go on, Squanto!"
+
+Little however remained to tell. The ill-starred Frenchman died within a
+few hours of his prophecy, and hardly had The-White-Birch laid him in
+his honored grave when she was called to bury her little boy, whom the
+father had named Louis, along with him. Then she set off alone to find
+the comrades of her lost love at Namasket, and Shawmut, that they might
+with her lament his death; but whether illness came upon her and she
+crept aside to die, or haply some wild creature slew and devoured her,
+or in her maze of grief she strayed away and starved in the limitless
+woods, none ever knew; she never was heard of again.
+
+"And the other two captives?" inquired Standish.
+
+"The Feast-of-Green-Corn before the last one, Captain Dermer carried
+them away in his ship," replied Squanto proud of his English and his
+information.
+
+"Ay, ay, and now we understand why these Nauset Indians attacked us at
+the First Encounter," said Standish.
+
+"Especially as they had probably watched us stealing their corn," added
+Fuller dryly.
+
+"Borrowing, not stealing, Surgeon," retorted Bradford briskly. "And a
+part of our errand to the First Encounter is to satisfy our creditor for
+the debt. Let us be going."
+
+An hour later the shallop, now riding gayly upon the flood tide, put
+forth from Barnstable Harbor, carrying not only its own crew, but Janno
+with several of his followers, he having volunteered as guide and
+negotiator with Aspinet for the restoration of little Billington.
+
+The voyage prospered, and before night the boy, decked with strings of
+beads and various savage ornaments, was restored to his guardians by
+Aspinet himself; while the first red man allowed to come on board the
+shallop was the owner of the corn "borrowed" by the Pilgrims, who now
+repaid its value twofold by an order for goods to be delivered at
+Plymouth. But more important than boy or corn, at any rate to the ears
+of Standish, was a report here received that the Narragansetts, their
+friend Massasoit's neighbors and deadly foes, had made a raid upon his
+domains and carried him away prisoner. Also that one of Massasoit's
+pnieses called Corbitant had become an ally of the Narragansetts, and
+was now at Namasket, only fourteen miles from Plymouth, trying to raise
+a revolt against both his chief and the white men their allies. He was
+also fiercely denouncing Squanto, Hobomok, and Tockamahamon as renegades
+and traitors to their own people, who should be at once put to death.
+
+This news was so alarming that without waiting for trade, or for the
+feast offered to them, the Pilgrims at once set sail, and after stormy
+weather and sundry adventures arrived safely at home toward night of the
+third day from their departure. John Billington was received with
+vociferous joy by his mother, treated to a lithe bundle of birch rods by
+his father, and assaulted by his brother, who at once fought him for the
+possession of the bead necklaces and other gauds he had brought home.
+The men of the colony were meantime hearing the report brought in by
+Nepeof, a sachem just from Namasket, of the treacherous proceedings
+there, and before they had been three hours at home Squanto and Hobomok
+were dispatched to discover the truth of the matter, while Nepeof was
+held as a hostage.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV.
+
+A LITTLE DISCIPLINE.
+
+
+"And how sped you in your errand, Master Envoy?" inquired Standish as,
+lighted pipe in hand, he once more seated himself upon the bench outside
+his cabin door to enjoy the sunset hour.
+
+But at the sudden question John Alden's face flushed deeper than the
+sunset, and he stammered, "I am so blundering, Master--I told the maiden
+all you bade me, but--but"--
+
+"But what, thou stammering idiot!" roared the captain, his serene brow
+suddenly overcast, and the red surging up to his own brow. "Dost mean to
+say the girl flouted the suit of--nay, then, what dost thou mean? Speak
+out, man, and be not so timorous!"
+
+"Here is Giles Hopkins!" exclaimed John, as feet were heard running up
+the hill, and the captain angrily turned to meet the new-comer,
+shouting,--
+
+"Well, what dost thou want, youngster? Is a man never to be rid of
+half-wit boys in this place!"
+
+"Please, Captain, the governor desires you to come in haste to a sudden
+Council. The Indians are come in, and methinks"--
+
+"And who in Beelzebub's name cares what thou thinkst!" shouted the
+captain. "Begone before I box thy malapert ears." And driving the lad
+before him he strode down the hill without another word or look at John,
+who grinding his heel into the turf muttered,--
+
+"And now he's angered, and beshrew me if I could not find it in my heart
+to wish Priscilla had said him yea, rather than nay. It were easier to
+bear her scorn of me if I knew that he was content. 'T is not so hard to
+suffer loss if a dear friend gains by that same loss."
+
+Meantime Standish striding wrathfully down the hill met Priscilla as she
+darted out of the door of the elder's house. At sight of him she stopped
+short, coloring scarlet, and yet her whole face gleaming with a wicked
+inclination to laugh.
+
+The captain also hesitated a moment, and then removing his barret cap
+with a bow whose stately courtesy recalled his lineage he said,--
+
+"Pardon me, Mistress Molines, for what it seems was undue presumption.
+May I ask if the Council is convened here or at the Common house?"
+
+"At the Common house, Captain; but indeed and by my faith I know not"--
+
+"Pardon if I venture to cut you short, Mistress, but I am summoned in
+haste to the Council."
+
+And with another formal bow the captain hastened on, leaving Priscilla
+biting her lip and staring after him, half angry, half amused. "One
+could be proud of him--if--if--Oh heart, heart! What is 't thou 'rt
+clamoring for! Well--at least I can go and make a posset for my dear
+dame, and the rest may wait." And with a sigh and a smile and a blush
+the girl turned back to the things of the hour.
+
+"Now here's a coil, Captain!" exclaimed Bradford as Standish entered the
+large room where about a dozen of the men of the colony were assembled
+in informal council, while in the midst stood Hobomok, his red skin
+streaming with perspiration and stained with travel, while his usually
+impassive face bore an expression of genuine grief and dismay.
+
+"What is it? Ha, Hobomok returned alone!"
+
+"Yes, and with evil tidings," replied the Governor. "He and Squanto
+reached Namasket early this morning and sought to conceal themselves in
+a house belonging to Squanto, though now lent to a kinsman. But some one
+betrayed them to Corbitant, who was vaporing around the village calling
+upon the men to rise in revolt against Massasoit and deliver him up to
+the Narragansetts, and saying that we white men should all be slain, and
+also those who have made alliance with us, for already he had news of
+our visit to Nauset, and the contract made with Aspinet, and Canacum,
+and Iyanough. While yet he raved against Squanto, and Hobomok, and
+Tockamahamon, a traitor told him that the two first were hiding in the
+village, and he swore a great oath by all his gods that they should die,
+especially Squanto, in whom, said he, the white men will lose their
+tongue"--
+
+"What meant he by that, Governor?" demanded Warren.
+
+"Why, that he is our interpreter," sharply replied Standish. "What else
+should he mean? What next, Governor?"
+
+"Next they circumvented Squanto in his cabin, and Corbitant seizing him
+held a knife to his throat, mocking and taunting him as is their
+fashion, while two fell upon Hobomok, but he being a lusty fellow and
+quick, broke from them and fled hither so fast as legs could carry him.
+You see the condition he is in."
+
+"And left thy comrade to die!" ejaculated Standish looking scornfully at
+the Indian, who humbly replied in his own tongue,--
+
+"Hobomok only one man. Corbitant many men. Squanto perhaps dead, but the
+white man will send a hundred of his enemies to be his servants in the
+Happy Land. A brave fears not to die, if he may be avenged."
+
+"Ha! 'T is the savage philosophy, and not a bad one," said Standish, and
+although the elder raised stern eyes of rebuke upon the reckless soldier
+he continued,--
+
+"And I shall lead our forces to avenge both the death of our servant and
+Massasoit's capture, shall I not, brethren? What is your will?"
+
+"Sound policy dictates that if our allies are to respect us, or our
+enemies fear us, we should not suffer such an affront as this to pass,"
+declared Winslow. "England hath never yet borne that her flag should be
+insulted, and we are Englishmen."
+
+"You are right, Winslow," replied Bradford solemnly. "And loth though we
+may be to shed the blood of these men, whom we fain would convert to
+friends and Christians, it is my mind that in this instance we are bound
+to deal with them as with our own children, whom we indeed chastise, but
+still with an eye to their own future happiness."
+
+"'Now no chastening for the present seemeth to be joyous but grievous:
+nevertheless afterward it yieldeth the peaceable fruit of righteousness
+to them which are exercised thereby,'" quoted the Elder sententiously,
+while Standish stood impatiently twisting his moustache, and glancing
+around the assembly as if selecting his men.
+
+"And now, having chapter and verse for avenging this affront, let us set
+about doing it," exclaimed he as several of the company murmured Amen to
+the Elder's approved quotation. But Bradford fixed his steady eyes upon
+the soldier's face for a moment before he somewhat coldly asked,--
+
+"How many men do you think it best to take, Captain Standish?"
+
+"Ten. Hopkins, the Surgeon, Winslow, Browne, Howland, Gilbert Winslow,
+Billington, Eaton, Dotey, and Lister," replied Standish promptly, and
+then with his peculiarly winning smile he added,--
+
+"You see I leave the governor, with Master Allerton his assistant, to
+guide the colony, and the elder to pray for our success, and Master
+Warren for a councilor, and the rest to carry on our various labors and
+protect the weaklings."
+
+"It is a good division it seemeth to me. What say you all, brethren?"
+asked the governor still gravely, and one by one each man signified his
+assent, only Howland coming close to the captain asked,--
+
+"May not Alden go with us, Captain? He hath a very pretty fashion with
+his weapon."
+
+"Am I captain, or art thou, John Howland?" growled the leader, and as
+all turned out of the house to prepare for the march in the following
+dawn, Bradford laid his hand upon his friend's shoulder and walked along
+with him.
+
+"What ails thee, Myles? Thou 'rt sorely chafed at something. Is aught
+amiss that I can help?"
+
+"Nay, Will, 't is naught, and less than naught. 'T is but a new
+knowledge of mine own unworthiness. Sure 'never such a fool as an old
+fool' is a good proverb."
+
+"'T is not to a fool that we trust the lives of ten out of our nineteen
+men," said Bradford quietly.
+
+"Oh, I can fight well enow," replied the soldier bitterly. "'T is my
+trade, and all I'm fit for. Ay, and in my mood to-day I'll be fain to
+fight. I only fear this knave Corbitant hath run away."
+
+"If so, he confesses his defeat without the need of bloodshed,"
+suggested Bradford. "And at all odds, Standish, our policy is to make
+friends by fair means if we may. Remember, if Squanto is not harmed,
+Corbitant is not to be touched. If indeed our poor friend is slain, then
+have you warrant for Corbitant's head, and the lives of all who helped
+to murder Squanto. Thou 'rt too honorable a man and too good a Christian
+to let thine own chafed humor interfere with justice."
+
+"I am too well drilled a soldier to disobey orders, Governor," replied
+the Captain briefly, and so they parted, nor did Standish and Alden
+exchange a sentence that night save barely these,--
+
+"In one word, John, was the answer to my message yes or no?"
+
+"Dear Master, it was no."
+
+"I bade thee answer in one word, and thou hast disobeyed me in using
+five."
+
+The next morning brought one of those furious summer storms peculiar to
+August, and the little force, loaded with armor, weapons, and knapsacks,
+found themselves much distressed by the humid heat. Reaching a sheltered
+spot about a mile from Namasket, Standish resolved to remain there until
+dark, giving the men opportunity for rest and refreshment, and trusting
+to the storm and the night to cover his attack upon a foe ten times his
+own number.
+
+As darkness closed in upon the encampment, the captain roused himself
+from a soldier's nap, and briefly ordered,--
+
+"Eat what provisions you have left in your knapsacks, men, and empty
+your flasks. Then pile and leave both beside this rock. Those of us who
+are alive in the morning will subsist upon the enemy. Those who are not
+will feel no lack."
+
+Soon after dark the little troop set forth, but Hobomok, deceived by the
+darkness and the rain, missed the route, and for three weary hours the
+men floundered around in the dripping forest, the guide wisely keeping
+out of the captain's reach, until in a gleam of watery moonlight Winslow
+recognized a peculiar clump of trees which he had noticed upon his late
+journey with Hopkins to visit Massasoit; and Hobomok recovering from his
+bewilderment led the way as fast as the men could follow him, until in
+the edge of a large clearing he paused, and pointing to a detached hut
+whispered,--
+
+"Corbitant sleep there."
+
+"Now God be praised that there is a chance of fighting rather than
+floundering!" piously exclaimed Standish, and with brief exact phrases
+he proceeded to set the battle in array. Eight men were to silently
+surround the house, their pieces ready, and their orders to cut down if
+necessary any who should attempt to escape from the house. Standish and
+Winslow, followed by Hobomok, marched meantime straight into a hut, and
+the captain in a loud voice demanded,--
+
+"Where is Corbitant? Give him up and no one else shall be harmed!"
+
+A moment of panic-stricken silence ensued, and then through the darkness
+was heard the indefinite rustling sound of living creatures seeking
+covertly to escape from an enclosure.
+
+"Look to it, outside!" shouted Standish. "Let no man pass your guard!
+Hobomok, tell them that we will harm none if they give up Corbitant and
+those who helped him to murder Tisquantum!"
+
+But the hubbub increased momently, and presently a shout of "Back!
+Back!" from without was followed by a loud shriek in a woman's voice.
+
+"Fools!" roared Standish in the native tongue. "Keep still. Stay in the
+house. We hurt none but Corbitant!"
+
+Yet still the tumult grew; the savages trusting no promises, endeavored
+to escape through the various openings of the wigwam, and although the
+sentinels were as careful as possible, and heartily desirous of avoiding
+bloodshed, several of the Indians were more or less hurt, while the
+half-grown boys perceiving the immunity of the women from harm, ran from
+one door to the other crying out,--
+
+"Neen squaes! Neen squaes!" (I am a girl! I am a girl!)
+
+The women also hung around Hobomok, pulling at his hands and clothing,
+for attention, while they shrieked, "Oh Hobomok, I am thy friend! Thou
+knowest I am thy friend!"
+
+Winslow meantime had stirred up the embers of a fire near the doorway of
+the hut, and the flame leaping out cast a wild and fitful glare over the
+scene, in the midst of which Hobomok, climbing the stout pole in the
+centre of the cabin, thrust his head through the smoke-hole at the top,
+and after emitting a hideous war-whoop shouted the names of Tisquantum
+and Tockamahamon at the top of his voice, for one of the women had
+assured him that the former was alive, and that Corbitant was already
+many miles on his homeward way.
+
+Not two minutes had elapsed, when an answering whoop was heard from the
+cluster of huts forming the village of Namasket, now the town of
+Middleboro', and an irregular stream of warriors, headed by Tisquantum
+in person, came running toward the beleaguered hut.
+
+The struggle was now over, for so soon as the _casus belli_ was
+disproved by Squanto's appearance, the capture of Corbitant was no
+longer desirable, and Standish ordered his men to sheathe their swords
+and release their prisoners. Those who had been wounded by persisting in
+trying to escape were attended to by Surgeon Fuller, and by Standish's
+invitation returned to Plymouth with their friendly conquerors to
+receive a certain amount of petting by way of compensation for their
+wounds, although the captain did not fail to point out that if they had
+believed and obeyed him, they need not have been hurt at all.
+
+Tisquantum shrewdly flattered at the importance set upon his life by his
+white friends, seated himself with them around the new-fed fire, and
+with much gesticulation and flowery forms of speech related how, by his
+combined prowess and subtlety, he had forced Corbitant to release him,
+and finally to leave Namasket with his warriors, not, however, without
+hideous threats of what should befall that village if it persisted in an
+alliance with the white men, who were soon to be exterminated with all
+their friends.
+
+"Ha! We will send an embassage to this haughty sachem, with some counter
+promises and warnings," exclaimed Standish in hearing this part of the
+report; and at the last moment, before the little army with its captives
+left the place upon the following morning, a runner was dispatched to
+follow Corbitant, and assure him from The-Sword-of-the-White-Men, as
+Standish now began to be called among the Indians, that unless Massasoit
+returned in safety from the country of the Narragansetts, whither he had
+been beguiled, the death of the great sachem should be visited upon
+Corbitant and all his tribe to the uttermost, and that if anything more
+was heard of sedition and treachery as preached either among the
+Namaskets or elsewhere, Corbitant should find that no distance and no
+concealment should avail to save him from punishment.
+
+The message was duly delivered, and so convincing did its terrors,
+combined with the prompt action of the white men prove, that various
+sachems who had hitherto held aloof, even those of the Isles of
+Capawack, now called Martha's Vineyard, sent to beg for a treaty of
+peace and mutual support; and in the end Corbitant prayed the kind
+offices of Massasoit, now restored to his kingdom, to make his
+submission to the white men.
+
+But though so fair in outward seeming, this peace was but a hollow one,
+and one more lesson was needed before the Indians became in very truth
+the friends and allies of the white men.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVI.
+
+THE FIRST THANKSGIVING DAY OF NEW ENGLAND.
+
+
+"Oh Priscilla, girl, what thinkst thou is toward now?" demanded Mary
+Chilton, running down to the spring where her friend was sprinkling and
+turning a piece of coarse linen spun and woven by her own hands for
+domestic use; but straightening herself at the merry summons, her dark
+eyes lighted with animation as she responded in the same tone,--
+
+"The governor is fain to marry thee, and the elder is ready to give his
+blessing. Is 't so?"
+
+"Thou foolish girl! It's not at me Master Bradford looks oftenest, not
+nigh as often as the captain looks at thee, nay but John Alden"--
+
+"What is it! What's thy news! Speak quick or I'll sprinkle thee rather
+than the linen!" and raising the wooden dipper Priscilla whirled it so
+rapidly round her head that not a drop was spilled, while Mary shrieking
+and laughing darted back and crouched behind an alder bush.
+
+"Maids! Maids! Whence this unseemly mirth! Know ye not that the laughter
+of fools is like the crackling of thorns under the pot, a sure sign of
+the fire they are hasting to? The devil goeth about like a roaring
+lion"--
+
+"Sometimes methinks he seemeth more like an ass," murmured Priscilla in
+Mary's ear, setting her off into convulsions of repressed laughter,
+while her naughty tormentor looked demurely up the bank to the angular
+figure defined against the evening sky and said,--
+
+"We are beholden to you for the admonition, Master Allerton, and it must
+be a marvelous comfort to you that Mary and Remember Allerton weep so
+much oftener than they laugh."
+
+"I would, thou froward wench, that I had the training of thee for a
+while. Mayhap thou wouldst find cause for weeping"--
+
+"Nay, I'm sure on 't. The very thought well-nigh makes me weep now,"
+retorted Priscilla blithely, as the sour-visaged Councilor went on his
+way, and Mary half frightened, half delighted, came forward saying,--
+
+"Oh Priscilla, how dost thou dare flout Master Allerton in that style!
+He'll have thee before the Church."
+
+"Not he!" replied Priscilla coolly. "Hist now, poppet, and I'll tell
+thee something--thou 'lt not repeat it though?"
+
+"Not I," replied Mary stoutly.
+
+"Well, then, dost think I should make a fitting stepdame for Bartholomew
+and Mary and Remember?"
+
+"Dost mean"--
+
+"Ay do I, just that. And because I could not but laugh merrily at the
+notion when 't was placed before me last Sunday night, the Assistant
+looketh sourly enough but dareth not meddle with me lest I make others
+laugh as well as myself."
+
+"Priscilla! Mary!" called Elizabeth Tilley's voice from the doorstep.
+"Mistress Brewster would have you in to see about noon-meat."
+
+"But thy news, poppet, quick!" exclaimed Priscilla as gathering up her
+gear she slowly led the way up the hill.
+
+"Why, the governor hath resolved upon a day, or rather a week, of
+holiday and of thanksgiving for the mercies God hath showed us. Think of
+it, Pris! A whole week of feasting and holiday!"
+
+"Hm!" dryly responded Priscilla. "It sounds well enow, but who is to
+make ready this feasting?"
+
+"Why--all of us--and chiefly you, dear wench, for none can season a
+delicate dish or"--
+
+"Ay, ay, I know that song full well; but dost really think, Molly, that
+to do a good deal more, and a good deal harder cooking than our wont,
+will be so very sprightly a holiday?"
+
+"But 't will be doing our part to make holiday for the others," replied
+Mary simply.
+
+"Now, then, if thou 'rt not at thy old tricks of shaming my selfish
+frowardness!" exclaimed Priscilla, and laughing they entered the house
+where all the women of the community were assembled in eager debate over
+their share in the approaching festival.
+
+"The governor hath already ordered my man, with Dotey and Soule and
+Latham, to go afield to-morrow with their guns, and to spend two days in
+gathering game," announced Helen Billington with an air of importance.
+
+"And it was determined to invite King Massasoit and his train to the
+feast," eagerly added Mistress Winslow, who, with her baby Peregrine
+White in her arms, had run across the street to join the council.
+
+"Methinks another party should go to the beach to dig clams," suggested
+Dame Hopkins. "For though not so toothsome as venison and birds 't is a
+prey more surely to be come by."
+
+"The elder saith the God of Jacob sendeth us the clams as he did manna
+to those other children of his in the desert," added the weak sweet
+voice of the elder's wife. "At morning and at night we may gather them
+in certainty."
+
+"But they hold not sweet over Sunday, that is if the day be hot,"
+suggested Desire Minter ruefully.
+
+"And Priscilla we shall look to thee for marchpanes and manchets and
+plum-porridge and possets and all manner of tasty cates, such as only
+thou canst make," said the dame hastily, and fixing her eyes upon the
+girl's face as if to hinder any irreverent laughter at Desire's speech.
+
+"All that I can do I will do blithely and steadfastly if it will
+pleasure you, mother," replied Priscilla gently, as she knelt down
+beside the invalid and rested against the arm of that old chair which
+you may see to-day reverently preserved in Plymouth.
+
+"I know thou wilt, sweetheart," replied the dame laying her frail hand
+upon the girl's abundant hair. "But I fear me our men cannot dine to-day
+on the promise of the coming feast."
+
+"Well thought on, mother. Come maids to work, to work!"
+
+That same afternoon Squanto was dispatched to Namasket to send from
+thence a runner to Massasoit inviting him, with his brother and a
+fitting escort, to the feast of Thanksgiving now fixed for the following
+Thursday; and so cordially did the great sachem respond, that about
+sunrise on the appointed day the laggards of the settlement were aroused
+by the terrific whoop and succession of unearthly shrieks with which the
+guests announced at once their arrival and their festive and playful
+condition of mind.
+
+Three of the leaders were ready even at this hour to receive the over
+punctual guests: the elder, who had risen early to prepare a few brief
+remarks suited to the occasion; Standish, who was always afoot to fire
+his sunrise gun; and Bradford, who valued the quiet morning hour in
+which he might allow his mind to dwell upon those abstruse and profound
+subjects so dear to his heart, and yet never allowed to intrude upon the
+business of the working day. So, while Winslow with his wife's
+assistance did on his more festive doublet and hose, and Allerton spake
+bitter words to Remember who had forgotten to replace the button that
+should hold her father's collar in place, and gentle Warren, the gruff
+Surgeon, and the rest made ready as they might, these three stood forth
+to receive Massasoit and Quadequina, who with a dozen or so of their
+principal pnieses came forward with considerable dignity, and through
+Squanto and Hobomok made their compliments in truly regal style, while
+their followers to the number of about ninety men with a few women
+remained modestly in the background.
+
+Presently when the village was well afoot, and a big fire started
+between the elder's house and the brook for cooking purposes, the roll
+of the drum announced the morning prayers, with which the Pilgrims began
+every day, and more especially this Feast of Thanksgiving. The Indians
+stood reverently around, Massasoit explaining in low gutturals to a
+chieftain who had never visited Plymouth before, that the white men thus
+propitiated the Great Spirit, and engaged Him both to prosper them and
+kill their enemies.
+
+Prayers ended, Priscilla with her attendants flew back to the fire, and
+presently a long table spread in the open air for the men was covered
+with great wooden bowls full of what a later generation named
+hasty-pudding, to be eaten with butter and treacle, for milk was not to
+be had for more than one year to come. Other bowls contained an
+excellent clam chowder with plenty of sea biscuit swimming in the savory
+broth, while great pieces of cold boiled beef with mustard, flanked by
+dishes of turnips, offered solid resistance to those who so joyfully
+attacked them.
+
+Another table in the Common house offered somewhat more delicate food to
+the women and children, chief among it a great pewter bowl of
+plum-porridge with bits of toasted cracker floating upon it.
+
+The meal was a rude one looked upon with the dainty eyes and languid
+appetites of to-day, but to those sturdy and heroic men and women it was
+a veritable feast, and at its close Quadequina with an amiable smile
+nodded to one of his attendants, who produced and poured upon the table
+something like a bushel of popped corn,--a dainty hitherto unseen and
+unknown by most of the Pilgrims.
+
+All tasted, and John Howland hastily gathering up a portion upon a
+wooden plate carried it to the Common house for the delectation of the
+women, that is to say, for Elizabeth Tilley, whose firm young teeth
+craunched it with much gusto.
+
+Breakfast over, with a grace after meat that amounted to another
+service, the governor announced that some military exercises under the
+direction of Captain Standish would now take place, and the guests were
+invited to seat themselves in the vicinity of a fire kindled on the
+ground at the northerly part of the village about at the head of Middle
+Street, and designed more as a common centre and social feature than
+for need since the weather was mild and lovely, so peculiarly so that
+when it recurred the next November and the next, the people remembering
+that first feast said, "Why, here is the Indians' summer again!" But on
+that day the only thought was that God accepted their thanksgiving and
+smiled His approval.
+
+Hardly had the guests comprehended the announcement and placed
+themselves in order, when a wild fanfare of trumpets, an imposing roll
+of drums was heard from the vicinity of the Fort, and down the hill in
+orderly array marched the little army of nineteen men, preceded by the
+military band and led by their doughty Captain. Above their heads
+floated the banner of Old England, and beneath their corselets beat true
+English hearts; and yet here stood the nucleus of that power which a
+century and a half later was to successfully defy and throw off the rule
+of that magnificent but cruel stepdame; here stood the first American
+army; and then, as since, that score of determined souls struck terror
+into the hearts of five times their number.
+
+"If they have beguiled us here to destroy us!" murmured Quadequina in
+his brother's ear.
+
+"Canst not tell an eagle from a carrion-crow?" returned the wiser man.
+"Would Winsnow, or The-Sword, or the Chief, or the powah, do this?
+Peace, my brother."
+
+But as the military manoeuvres accompanied with frequent discharges of
+musketry, and accented at one point with a tremendous roar from the
+cannon of the Fort progressed, not only Quadequina, but many other of
+the braves became very uneasy; and to this cause as well as benevolence,
+may be attributed the offer made at dinner time by Quadequina to lead a
+hunting party of his own people into the woods to look for deer, whose
+haunts they well knew.
+
+Standish alone suspected this _arriere pensee_, and when Bradford mildly
+applauded the generous kindness of their guests, he answered with a
+chuckle,--
+
+"Ay, as kind as the traveler who begs the highwayman to let him go home
+and fetch a larger treasure."
+
+But in spite of his doubts the prince intended and made a _bona fide_
+hunt, and returned early in the next day with as much venison as lasted
+the entire company four days.
+
+"Oh, if I had but some Spanish chestnuts to stuff these turkeys, they
+might seem more like their brethren across the seas," exclaimed
+Priscilla as she turned over a pile of the wild birds and chose those to
+be first cooked.
+
+"Nay, but to me the flavor is better, and the meat more succulent of
+these than of any I ever saw at home," replied John Alden. "And the
+size! Do but look at this fellow, he will scale well-nigh twenty pound
+if an ounce."
+
+"If 't were a goose I would name it John, 't would be so prodigious a
+goose," replied Priscilla with a glance so saucy and so bewitching that
+her adorer forgot to reply, and she went briskly on,--
+
+"Come now, young man, there's much to do and scant time to talk of it.
+Call me some of those gaping boys yonder and let them pluck these fowl,
+and bid John Billington come and break up these deer. And I must have
+wood and water galore to make meat for a hundred men. Stir thyself!"
+
+"I was thinking, Priscilla--why not stuff the turkeys with beechnuts?
+There is store of them up at our cottage."
+
+"How came they there? Doth our doughty Captain go birds-nesting and
+nutting in his by-times?"
+
+"Nay, but I did, that is, I gathered the nuts for thee, and then--then
+feared if I offered them thou 'dst only flout me"--
+
+"Oh, sure never was a poor maid so bestead with blind men--well, fetch
+thy beechnuts."
+
+"Nay, Priscilla, but blind, blind? How then am I blind, maiden, say?"
+
+"Why, not to have discovered ere this how I dote upon beechnuts. There,
+get thee gone for them."
+
+The dressing of beechnuts proved a rare success, but the preparation
+proved so long a process that only the delicate young bird made ready
+for the table where Mistress Brewster presided was thus honored,
+although in after times Priscilla often made what she called
+goose-dressing; and when a few years later some sweet potatoes were
+brought to Plymouth from the Carolinas, she at once adopted them for the
+same purpose.
+
+And so the festival went on for its appointed length of three days, and
+perhaps the hearty fellowship and good will manifested by the white men
+toward their guests, and their determination to meet them on the ground
+of common interests and sympathies, went quite as far as their evident
+superiority in arms and resources toward establishing the deep-founded
+and highly valued peace, without which the handful of white men could
+never have made good their footing upon that stern and sterile coast.
+
+On the Saturday the feast was closed by a state dinner whose composition
+taxed Priscilla as head cook to the limit of her resources, and with
+flushed cheek and knitted brow she moved about among her willing
+assitants with all the importance of a Bechamel, a Felix, the
+_maitre-d'hotel_ of Cardinal Fesch with his two turbots, or luckless
+Vatel who fell upon his sword and died because he had no turbot at all;
+or even, rising in the grandeur of the comparison, we may liken her to
+Domitian, who, weary of persecuting Christians, one day called the Roman
+Senate together to decide with him upon the sauce with which another
+historic turbot should be dressed.
+
+Some late arrivals among the Indians had that morning brought in several
+large baskets of the delicious oysters for which Wareham is still
+famous, and although it was an unfamiliar delicacy to her, Priscilla,
+remembering a tradition brought from Ostend to Leyden by some travelers,
+compounded these with biscuit-crumbs, spices, and wine, and was looking
+about for an iron pan wherein to bake them, when Elizabeth Tilley
+brought forward some great clam and scallop shells which John Howland
+had presented to her, just as now a young man might offer a unique
+Sevres tea-set to the lady of his love.
+
+"Wouldn't it do to fill these with thy oyster compote, and so set them
+in the ashes to roast?" inquired she. "Being many they can be laid at
+every man's place at table."
+
+"Why, 't is a noble idea, child," exclaimed Priscilla eagerly. "'T will
+be a novelty, and will set off the board famously. Say you not so,
+John?"
+
+"Ay," returned Alden, who was busily opening the oysters at her side.
+"And more by token there is a magnificence in the idea that thou hast
+not thought on; for as at a great man's table the silver dishes each
+bear the crest of his arms, so we being Pilgrims and thus privileged to
+wear the scallop shell in our hats, do rather choose to display it upon
+our board."
+
+"Ah, John, thou hast an excellent wit--in _some_ things," replied
+Priscilla with a half sigh which set the young fellow wondering for an
+hour.
+
+By noon the long tables were spread, and still the sweet warm air of the
+"Indian Summer" made the out-of-door feast not only possible but
+charming, for the gauzy veil upon the distant forest, and the marine
+horizon, and the curves of Captain's Hill, seemed to shut in this little
+scene from all the world of turmoil and danger and fatigue, while the
+thick yellow sunshine filtered through with just warmth enough for
+comfort, and the sighing southerly breeze brought wafts of perfume from
+the forest, and bore away, as it wandered northward, the peals of
+laughter, the merry yet discreet songs, and the multitudinous hum of
+blithe voices, Saxon and savage, male and female, adult and childish,
+that filled the dreamy air.
+
+The oysters in their scallop shells were a singular success, and so were
+the mighty venison pasties, and the savory stew compounded of all that
+flies the air, and all that flies the hunter in Plymouth woods, no
+longer flying now but swimming in a glorious broth cunningly seasoned by
+Priscilla's anxious hand, and thick bestead with dumplings of barley
+flour, light, toothsome, and satisfying. Beside these were roasts of
+various kinds, and thin cakes of bread or manchets, and bowls of salad
+set off with wreaths of autumn leaves laid around them, and great
+baskets of grapes, white and purple, and of the native plum, so
+delicious when fully ripe in its three colors of black, white, and red.
+With these were plentiful flagons of ale, for already the housewives had
+laid down the first brewing of the native brand, and had moreover
+learned of the Indians to concoct a beverage akin to what is now called
+root beer, well flavored with sassafras, of which the Pilgrims had been
+glad to find good store since it brought a great price in the English
+market.
+
+It was during the last half hour of this feast that Desire Minter, who
+with the other girls served the tables where the men sat at meat, placed
+a little silver cup at Captain Standish's right hand saying,--
+
+"Priscilla sends you some shrub, kind sir, of her own composition, and
+prays you drink her health."
+
+"Why, then, 't is kind of her who hath been most unkind of late,"
+returned Myles, upon whose seasoned brain the constant potations of
+three days had wrought to lull suspicion and reserve, and taking the cup
+he tossed off its contents at a draught, and rising bowed toward
+Priscilla who was flitting in and out among the tables. She returned the
+salute with a little air of surprise, and Myles reseating himself turned
+to question Desire again, but she had departed carrying the cup with
+her.
+
+"Nay, then, I'll be toyed with no longer," muttered the Captain angrily,
+and although he bore his part in the closing ceremonies with which the
+governor bade a cordial and even affectionate farewell to the king, the
+prince, their nobles, and their following, there was a glint in his eye
+and a set to his lips that would have told one who knew him well that
+the spirit of the man was roused and not lightly to be laid to rest
+again.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVII.
+
+A LOVE PHILTRE.
+
+
+The last pniese had made his uncouth obeisance and departed, and busy
+hands were removing all signs of the late commotion in haste that the
+setting sun should find the village ready for its Sunday rest and peace,
+when Myles Standish suddenly presented himself before Priscilla Molines
+as she came up from the spring with a pile of wooden trenchers in her
+hands.
+
+"Mistress Molines a word with you," began he with an unconscious
+imperiousness that at once aroused the girl's rebellious spirit.
+
+"Nay, Captain, I am not of your train band, and your business must await
+my pleasure and convenience. Now, I am over busy."
+
+"Nay, then, if I spoke amiss I crave your pardon, mistress, and had we
+more time I would beat my brains for some of the flowery phrases I used
+to hear among the court gallants who came to learn war in Flanders. But
+I also have business almost as weighty as thine and as little able to
+brook delay. So I pray you of your courtesy to set down your platters on
+this clean sod, and listen patiently to me for a matter of five
+minutes."
+
+"I am listening, sir."
+
+"Nay, put down the platters or let me put them down."
+
+"There then, and glad am I"--
+
+"Of what, mistress?"
+
+"That I'm not often under thy orders, sir."
+
+"Ah! But we'll waste no time in skirmishing, fair enemy. Tell me rather
+what didst mean by the loving-cup thou sendst me? May I take it sooth
+and truly as relenting on thy part?"
+
+"I send you a loving-cup, sir!" exclaimed the girl, her eyes flashing,
+and her color rising.
+
+"Yes. Call it by what name you will; I mean the cup Desire Minter
+brought me from thee, with a message that I should drink thy health."
+
+"Loth were I to think, Captain Standish, that you would willfully insult
+a maid with none to defend her, and so I will charitably suppose that
+you have been forced to drink too many healths to guard well thine own.
+Good e'en, sir."
+
+"Now by the God that made us both, wench, I'll have an end of this. Nay,
+not one step dost thou stir until you or I are laid in a lie."
+
+"A lie, Captain Standish!"
+
+"Mayhap my own lie. I say that Desire Minter brought me a silver cup of
+some sweet posset, such as you have made for our sick folk time and
+again, and bade me from you quaff it to your health."
+
+"And that is God's truth, say you, sir?"
+
+"Mistress Molines, my word has not often been doubted, and you force me
+to remind you that I come not of mechanical"--
+
+"Nay, nay, stop there, an' it please you, sir! We'll unwind this coil
+before we snarl another. Fear not that my base mechanical blood shall
+ever sully your noble strain; but mean though I be, my habit is a
+tolerably truthful one, and I tell you once and for all that I sent you
+no cup, I made you no posset, I desired no health drunk by you."
+
+"Nay, then, what hath this girl Desire wrought? And truth to tell
+Priscilla, I fear me 't is poison, for a shrewd pain seizeth me ever and
+anon, and a strange heaviness is in my head."
+
+"And there's a sultry color on your cheek--nay, then, we'll see the
+surgeon"--
+
+"And thou 'lt forgive whatever I have said amiss, Priscilla, for mayhap
+I'll trouble thee no more. Like enough she hath revenged herself"--
+
+"For your scorn of her love," interposed Priscilla vivaciously. "Like
+enough, like enough. Come to the house, Captain, and let us take counsel
+with the dear mother. She still knows best."
+
+"Go thou, Priscilla. It hardly beseems a man and a soldier to seek
+redress for a wench's love scratch at the hands of an old woman--nay,
+nay, fire not up afresh! No one can honor Mistress Brewster more than I
+do, but tell me, is she a man or is she young? Sooth now, Priscilla!"
+
+"And still in thy masterful mood thou 'lt have the last word, doughty
+Captain. But go you home, then, and bid John Alden make a fire and heat
+a good kettle of water, and I'll away to the mother who will deal with
+Desire in short measure."
+
+"'T is good counsel and I'll follow it, for in sober sadness I feel
+strangely amiss." And the soldier, who now was as livid as he had been
+flushed, strode away up the hill, while Priscilla picking up the
+trenchers fled like a lapwing into the house where she found Desire
+seated sullenly in a corner, while the elder, his wife, and the governor
+were gathered together near the fire cozily discussing the events of
+the day. Standing before them and restraining her natural vivacity that
+it might not discredit the importance of her story, Priscilla in brief
+and pungent phrases told the story of the loving draught, and as Desire
+rose and stole toward the door laid a hand upon her arm that effectually
+detained her until the elder sternly said,--
+
+"Remain you here, Desire Minter, until this report is sifted."
+
+"Were it not well to send at once for our good physician, that he may
+know what hath been done before he sees the captain?" suggested Bradford
+mildly, and the elder assenting, Priscilla was dispatched for doctor
+Fuller, who arrived within the minute, and listened with profound
+attention, while Mistress Brewster, to whom alone the girl would reply,
+extracted from her a most startling story.
+
+"The captain first of all asked me to wife, and if he had not been wiled
+away from me by artful"--
+
+"Nay, nay, Desire, thou 'rt not to say such things as that," interposed
+the dame with gentle severity, and Bradford added in much the same
+tone,--
+
+"'T was thine own idle fancy, girl, that set thee on such a notion. The
+captain hath averred to me as Christian man that he never made proffer
+to thee nor wished so to do since first he set eyes on thee."
+
+"He did then," muttered Desire sullenly, and Mistress Brewster
+interposed.
+
+"Leaving that aside, tell us, Desire, what didst thou give the captain
+to drink, and why didst say that Priscilla sent it?"
+
+"Marry, because she hath bewitched him, and I wot well he would take it
+from her without gainsaying."
+
+"But what was it thou gavest him?"
+
+"'T was--there was a wench here with the savages, and Squanto told me
+she was a wise woman and knew how to work spells"--
+
+"Well then, go on, Desire."
+
+"And so I went with her pulling herbs in the fields and swamps, and with
+one word English and one of jabber, we knew each other's meaning, and I
+gave her the buckle of my belt which was broke and none here could mend
+it."
+
+"A generous gift, truly," interposed the elder, but his wife beseeching
+silence with a gesture asked,--
+
+"And what gave she thee, Desire?"
+
+"Some herbs, mother."
+
+"And what were the herbs to do?"
+
+"She said steep them well, and give the broth to any man I fancied, and
+it would turn his fancy on me."
+
+"A love philtre! _Vade retrograde Sathanas!_" exclaimed the elder half
+rising from his chair, but here the doctor eagerly interposed,--
+
+"What like was the herb, girl? Hast any of it in store for a second
+dose?"
+
+"Mayhap--a little," muttered Desire twisting and turning, but seeing no
+means of escape.
+
+"Go and fetch it," commanded the elder. "And Priscilla do thou go too
+and see that the wretched creature doth not make way with it."
+
+"And sith John Howland is after a sort betrothed to the poor bemused
+child, I think it well to summon him, that he may advise with us as to
+the sequela of this folly. I will call him to the Council." And Bradford
+followed the two girls from the room.
+
+"If she hath murdered the captain, she shall die the death," exclaimed
+the elder striding about the room, and pausing before the great chair
+where his pale and fragile wife sat looking up at him with beseeching
+eyes.
+
+"Nay, William, she is hardly older than our own dear girls, and it would
+ill become us who still carry our own lives in our hands to deprive a
+poor silly maid of hers."
+
+"So the best road out of the maze is to cure the captain," remarked
+Doctor Fuller dryly. "After that we'll marry the girl to John Howland,
+and trust him to keep her quiet. Here they come."
+
+And in at the open door came the governor and Howland, Desire and
+Priscilla, who carried in her hand a little box full of half-dried
+leaves, which she presented to the doctor, who solemnly pulling from his
+pocket a pair of clumsy iron-bowed spectacles put them astride his nose,
+and taking the herbs to the window carefully examined them, while all
+the rest stood anxiously around staring with all their might.
+
+"Hm! Hah! Yes, well yes, I see, I see!" murmured the botanist, and then
+turning to Bradford he fixed him with a meditative gaze over the tops of
+his barnacles and said,--
+
+"You know something of botany, Governor. Say you not that this is the
+_Platanthera Satyrion_, the herb supposed to give vigor to the hearts of
+those wild men whom the mythologists celebrate?"
+
+"Is it? I should have taken it for the iris whose flower I have noted in
+these swamps."
+
+"'T is akin, ay, distant kin, but with the difference that maketh one
+harmless, and 't other deadly. I will take it to Sister Winslow's house
+and examine it with my books, but still I can aver at once that 't is
+Platanthera; and if it is also Satyrion I will promise that it shall
+prove only nauseous and distasteful to our good Captain, and by no means
+deadly. I will go to see him."
+
+"And John Howland," said the Governor turning toward the young man who
+stood looking with aversion at the figure of Desire, who with her head
+in her apron wept loud and angrily, "it seemeth to me that since this
+maid is betrothed to you, and is manifestly unfit to guide herself, that
+it is best for you to marry her here, and now, and after that train her
+into more discretion than she naturally showeth."
+
+"May it please you, Master Bradford, and you, Elder," replied Howland
+coldly, "it seemeth to me that a woman who shows so little modesty in
+the pursuit of one man is scarce fit wife for another. I did indeed
+promise my late dear mistress whose ward this girl was, that I would
+care for her, and if need be take her to wife; but sure am I that if
+that godly and discreet matron could know of all this, she would hold me
+free of my bonds, the rather that I have never looked upon her with that
+tenderness that God putteth in our hearts toward those"--
+
+"Nay, then, if it comes to that," interposed Desire, snatching away her
+apron and showing a swollen and tear-stained face, "I hate and despise
+thee, John Howland, and always have and always will; and if I took thee
+for my bachelor at all it was only in hope that 't would give a jealous
+twinge to the heart of a better man, and if at the last I failed of him
+thou wouldst be better than none; but I've changed my mind, and now I'll
+none of thee, not if ne'er another man"--
+
+"Peace, shameless wench!" thundered the elder, striking the table with
+his hand. "Profane not the ears of a decent matron with such talk. John
+Howland, it is my rede that thou art free of thy pledge to marry this
+woman. What say you, Governor?"
+
+"I agree with you, Elder Brewster, that since both man and maid desire
+to render back their troth that they should be permitted so to do; and I
+further suggest that by the first occasion presenting, Desire Minter be
+sent back to her friends in England, who will, as Mistress Carver told
+me, be content to receive her."
+
+"Amen!" ejaculated John Howland with such unction that Bradford gravely
+smiled as he followed him from the room, and murmured under his
+breath,--"He will wed Elizabeth Tilley, an' I'm not mistaken."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVIII.
+
+PHILIP DE LA NOYE.
+
+
+"'T is a year agone to-day since we in the Mayflower sighted land in
+this place," said Bradford to Standish, as the two stood beside the gun
+just fired for sunset when all obligatory labor ended in the village.
+
+"Ay, is it so? Well, it hath been a year of note in more ways than one,
+and the next is like to be as adventurous. Ha! Look you there, Bradford!
+Dost see that Indian runner breasting the hill. Some great news,
+surely,--come, let us go to meet him."
+
+"Squanto is before us. See him leap the brook"--
+
+But Standish was already half way down the hill, and presently in the
+open space already spoken of as the Town Square he and two or three of
+the other leaders met the runner, who escorted by Squanto came panting
+up the hill from the brook, and after the usual salutations informed the
+governor that he was sent from Aspinet, sachem of the Nausets, to inform
+the white men that a vessel had been watched feeling her way through the
+shoals around Cape Cod, and was now laying her course apparently for
+Plymouth. Not knowing whether this might be good or bad news, the sachem
+had felt it a friendly act to convey it to his new allies with the
+greatest possible dispatch.
+
+"And he did well, and both he and thou shall see that we are not
+ungrateful," replied Bradford courteously. "Tisquantum, take this man
+to the Common house, and see that he is suitably refreshed. And now,
+brethren, what meaneth this? Is it indeed good news or bad?"
+
+"Bad," replied Standish promptly. "For well do we know that no relief
+was to be sent us until our friends the traders had seen the first
+fruits of their Adventure, and as we perforce sent home the Mayflower
+empty, I for one expect to hear no more from Cheapside unless it be a
+rating."
+
+"There hath not been time for the Mayflower to go and return, were our
+friends never so willing to aid us," suggested the elder pacifically.
+
+"Then what think you, men?" persisted Bradford. "Allerton, Winslow,
+Warren, what say ye all?"
+
+"We know that the French are at war with England," suggested Winslow.
+"And this may be a privateer coming to harry the settlement."
+
+"In that case it were well to hide whatever we have of value and retreat
+to the woods with the women and children," said Allerton turning pale.
+
+"And leave our housen, and the Fort and its armament, and our boats!"
+exclaimed Standish contemptuously. "Nay, Governor, my counsel is that we
+at once arm ourselves, train what guns we can upon the offing, and if
+these indeed be buccaneers, French, Spanish, or Turks, receive them with
+a volley that shall leave little work for a second one. The women and
+children may retreat to the woods, and he who has any pots, or cups, or
+pans of value may bury them an' he chooses. My best treasures are Gideon
+and my snaphance, and I cannot spare them so long as I live to wield
+them."
+
+"That's the chat that suits me, neighbor," declared Hopkins in his
+usual rough, hearty fashion, while Allerton, an unwonted tinge of color
+upon his sallow cheek, hastened to avow himself as ready for fighting as
+any man since fighting was decided to be the best policy.
+
+And now Standish assumed control of the occasion and showed himself in
+his most becoming attitude. His quick eyes and ready hands were
+everywhere, and the somewhat sharp and terse military orders that
+sometimes had seemed a thought arbitrary now carried assurance in their
+tone, and strengthened the hearts of some and supported the
+determination of others, who left to themselves would have scattered
+like sheep without a leader.
+
+"Let each man arm and harness himself and report for inspection in the
+Town Square," was the first order, and while it was obeyed the Captain
+climbed the hill carrying the "perspective glass" made by Galileo
+himself during his exile in Holland, and brought to the new world by
+Governor Carver, whose widow bequeathed it to the colony as one of its
+chief treasures.
+
+He was followed by William Trevor, one of the seamen hired by the colony
+for a year, a fellow of quick eyesight and undaunted courage. The
+Captain silently and carefully adjusted his lenses, and then handed the
+glass to Trevor.
+
+"Now you, Bill, clap your eye to that and get it on yon headland,
+Farther Manomet, d' ye see?"
+
+"Ay, Captain, I have it, and can count the squirrels on the tree tops."
+
+"Canst tell a ship's topmast from a squirrel if one should heave in
+sight?"
+
+"Mayhap I could, master."
+
+"Well, then, watch for it, and so soon as any craft of any color, be it
+one of your squirrels on a chip, an Indian in a canoe, or a French
+man-of-war, send this boy Cooke tumbling down the hill to bring the
+news. Now, man, show thy discretion and thy wit."
+
+"Ay, ay, Captain, you may trust Bill Trevor for a keen lookout. When I
+sailed aboard a whaler"--
+
+But already the Captain was out of hearing, and presently was inspecting
+his little army, mustered in the Town Square, each man armed and
+armored.
+
+Drawn up in two ranks the twenty men presented a striking array, for in
+the forefront stood the governor, the elder, the surgeon, Winslow,
+Allerton, Warren, Hopkins, Howland, Alden, and Peter Browne, ancestor of
+John Brown of Ossawatomie; while the file closers, if not men of equal
+note in affairs, were each one a sturdy and determined Englishman, ready
+to fight till the death and never guess that he could be conquered.
+
+The inspection over, the train band was dismissed with orders to stand
+ready to reassemble at a moment's warning, and meantime to make such
+dispositions of private property as seemed good to each man.
+
+Hardly was this order obeyed when from the Fort came Trevor's sonorous
+hail,--
+
+"Sail ho!" and presently young Cooke came pelting down the hill
+reporting with a military salute to the captain.
+
+"Trevor saith, sir, that a ship of not over sixty ton is drawing around
+Manomet, and that she flieth no colors as yet."
+
+"Ha! Let us see then, let us see!" cried the captain, and two minutes
+later was at the top of the hill, glass in hand.
+
+"Hm! Square rigged, slender built--what say you, Trevor, is she a
+Frenchman?"
+
+"More like a Dutchman to my mind, sir."
+
+"Ah, then were we all right, and with a goodly new store of schnapps to
+comfort our souls, but my mind misdoubts me. Now let us see if we can
+train this saker to command the offing. Boy, run down the hill and fetch
+Billington and Master Hopkins. 'T will do no harm, and may--ay, this
+minion will sweep the Rock like a new broom. Here, Billington, come on
+man and lend me thy bull's neck and shoulders. I would shift the
+carriage of this saker. Ho, Hopkins, give us a little help here. There
+yeo-ho, men! Again, now then--yeo-ho! Now we have it, now! There, settle
+her in place, that's it, there! Now then, Trevor, how about the
+Frenchman?"
+
+"She is laying her course for this harbor, Captain. You may see her
+without the glass well enow, for she's going about to fetch Beach
+Point."
+
+"Is tide high enow to carry her over Brown's Islands, as Champlain
+calleth the outer flats?" asked Hopkins, who by fits liked to appear
+erudite.
+
+"Ay, 't is full water at noon to-day," replied Trevor, his eye glued to
+the glass.
+
+"Now then, now then, here she is making straight into the harbor,"
+exclaimed Standish excitedly, and plunging down the hill followed by the
+rest, he made signal to Bart Allerton standing expectant at his own door
+to sound the "assembly" upon the trumpet which he had learned to manage
+with great precision.
+
+Ten minutes later the whole array of fighting men stood steady in their
+ranks, with the larger boys hanging in the rear, each carrying a spare
+gun, or some other weapon, and all eyes fixed upon the point where the
+stranger would appear as she beat her way into the harbor.
+
+Suddenly the captain waved his hand above his head, glancing up at the
+Fort where, under the folds of the British standard, stood Trevor,
+linstock in hand. Another moment, and out from the hoarse throat of the
+saker roared a defiant peal echoing grandly from hill to hill, startling
+the savages who covertly watched the arrival of new foes or new friends
+as the case might be, and rolling ominously across the waters of the
+harbor to demand the name of the intruder.
+
+"They be busy with their ancient-staff," reported Trevor presently, as
+he resumed the spy-glass. "There goes the bunting--ha--ay--run boy, and
+tell the captain 't is the red cross of Merrie England; 't is the home
+colors, boy!"
+
+But already the eager eyes in the Town Square had recognized the flag,
+and Standish lapsing from the martinet into the exile waved Gideon above
+his head shouting,--
+
+"'T is our own flag, men; 't is the red cross of Old England! Three
+cheers boys, three cheers for the dear old flag! Now then!"
+
+And the glad shout arose, and again and again, not only from the bearded
+throats of men, but in the shrill treble of boys, and the dainty voices
+of girls, who just out of sight watched as women do, when life and honor
+hang in the balance.
+
+"Oh Mary, Mary maid, why art thou crying! Silly wench"--
+
+"Nay, but thou 'rt crying thyself, Priscilla! Nay, now thou 'rt
+laughing!"
+
+"To think how John Alden turned white as any maid when the good news
+came!" sobbed Priscilla running in to fling her arms around Dame
+Brewster, who sat with folded hands and rapt face praying to the God of
+battles.
+
+"Oh mother, mother, they all are safe, and 't is an English ship.
+Belike, Fear and Patience and their brother are aboard."
+
+"Nay, dear maid, nay, be not so carried away. If indeed God sendeth my
+children"--
+
+But the mere thought of such joy was too much for the self-control the
+poor mother so struggled for, and when the elder hastened into the house
+he found his wife weeping for joy upon Priscilla's heaving breast.
+
+"Nay then, wife, nay then, doest thou well?--and yet mine own eyes might
+but too easily rain with gratitude. Dame, wife I say, nay then--let us
+pray that in all things His will be done."
+
+And in less than an hour Mary Brewster was sobbing afresh in the
+stalwart embrace of her eldest son Jonathan, a young fellow of
+five-and-thirty, who full of health and courage was come to be the staff
+of her old age, and to bring news of the fair sisters who would come
+anon.
+
+For this was the Fortune, a little ship of fifty-five tons, dispatched
+by the Adventurers in London to carry over some of the colonists
+disappointed of a passage in the Mayflower, but principally to convey
+Robert Cushman, who came pledged to obtain the consent of the Pilgrims
+to a contract more favorable to their English friends than that they
+were disposed to undertake. With him came his son Thomas, a boy of
+fourteen, whom his father upon his hasty return in the Fortune left
+behind under charge of the governor, to whom he subsequently wrote, "I
+pray you care for my son as for your own;" and so well did Bradford
+train the boy soon orphaned and left entirely to his charge, that
+Thomas Cushman became successor of William Brewster as Ruling Elder of
+the Pilgrim Church, and now lies on Burying Hill beneath a goodly
+monument erected by his numerous descendants.
+
+But little on that bleak November day recked the boy of future honors or
+proud posterities, for he and his friend Thomas Prence, future governor
+of the colony, but then a merry youth of nineteen, were hand and glove
+with a gay company of lads and young men who had accepted the adventure
+of Pilgrimage as they would have sailed with Drake, or Hawkins, or
+Captain Cooke,--any leader who promised novelty, excitement, and the
+chance of hard knocks and treasure.
+
+So little responsible for their own welfare were many of these younkers
+that, although fairly fitted out for the voyage, they had while
+weather-bound in the British Channel gone ashore at Old Plymouth and
+"brushed away" even their cloaks and extra doublets, in some cases their
+very bedding and such cooking utensils as passengers were then expected
+to provide themselves with. So far from bringing fresh supplies of food
+to the colony, these runagates had devoured perforce the provisions that
+should have victualed the Fortune on her return voyage, and the
+colonists were forced for humanity's sake, to supply her out of their
+own scanty stock.
+
+Among these young fellows was a slight, dark-eyed lad of about nineteen,
+who so soon as he had landed asked for the Demoiselle Molines.
+
+"Priscilla Molines? Dost thou know her then?" inquired Alden who heard
+the question, although addressed to Billington, who only grinned at the
+lad's French accent and made no reply.
+
+"Certainly, yes. My sister is of her closest friends."
+
+"Ay? Is thy name De la Noye?"
+
+"Truly!" exclaimed the boy, his face lighting vivaciously. "I am Philip
+de la Noye."
+
+"Hm, and your brother Jacques--is he in the company, or coming in the
+next ship?" asked Alden grimly; but at that moment Priscilla coming
+swiftly forward, held out both hands to the new-comer exclaiming
+joyously in French,--
+
+"Philip, dear lad! Glad am I to see thee."
+
+"She will have news now from her lover," muttered Alden bitterly, but
+just then the captain hailed,--
+
+"Here Jack, put thy long legs and brawny thews to service in bringing
+some of these budgets up the hill. Here's a poor soul with three little
+children tugging at her skirts and she a widow, and fit to be put to bed
+herself."
+
+"I'll help her up the hill, Captain," interposed Peter Browne hastily,
+and as he carefully aided the Widow Ford to climb the steep ascent some
+sprite might have whispered in his ear that this was his own future
+wife. That night was born Martha Ford, who should from similarity of
+history have married Peregrine White, but who instead wedded William
+Nelson.
+
+Not until the last bale or packet unloaded from the Fortune had been
+disposed of in the Common storehouse, or in some one of the houses all
+hospitably thrown open to the new-comers, did John Alden cease his
+labors or exchange more than a brief word with those about him, until at
+last Bradford cheerily declared labor over for the day and added,--
+
+"Come friends to my house, and hear what Master Cushman will have to
+tell us of affairs in the old home. Come Alden, and reward thy labors
+with a good flagon of beer."
+
+Muttering some reply, the young man followed the rest up Leyden Street,
+but as they reached the governor's house, a somewhat larger and more
+important cabin than the rest, he passed quickly on and up the hill.
+Pausing but a moment at the Fort, he struck down the steep southerly
+side to the brook, and having performed his simple toilet strode moodily
+on toward the forest, but had only gone a few rods when a familiar voice
+called his name, and turning he saw Priscilla with Mary Chilton and the
+young Frenchman, to whom they seemed to be showing the brook and its
+springs of "delicate water."
+
+Very reluctantly Alden turned and moved toward them.
+
+"Did you speak, Mistress Mary?" inquired he as the party approached.
+
+"I--I," stammered Mary blushing vividly.
+
+"It was I who bade her do so," interposed Priscilla with an impatient
+glance at the English girl whose honesty had spoiled her little finesse.
+"We thought you looked but dull, and I would fain bring my new-arrived
+friend Philip De la Noye to your acquaintance."
+
+The two men exchanged salutations, Philip with the ready grace of a
+Latin, John with that distinguishing a Saxon, especially if displeased.
+
+"We are strolling about a bit before making ready for supper," added
+Priscilla. "Philip is curious as to our manner of life in these wilds."
+
+"'T is but ill suited to slender folk," replied Alden glancing
+superciliously at the slight stripling, who, for his part, surveyed with
+a sort of amused wonder the thews and stature of the young giant
+striding sullenly at Priscilla's other hand.
+
+"Nay, we do not pack diamonds in bales like hay," retorted Priscilla
+stingingly, and then turning to Philip she inquired eagerly,--
+
+"And Jacques and Guillaume are well, quite, quite well, are they?"
+
+"Yes, and Marie and Jeanne," replied Philip placidly.
+
+"And have you news from friends at home, Mary?" asked John decidedly
+moving to her side.
+
+"Nay, there are none left there of my nearest kin," replied the girl
+sadly. "We came all of us together, and only I am left."
+
+"Nay, Mary, so fair and so good a maid as thou, will never stay long
+without friends. Thou wouldst never flout an honest fellow's love and
+draw him on, and turn him back, and use him worse than a baby doth its
+puppet. The man who loves thee will never rue it."
+
+So meaning were his glances and his tone, that for a moment the simple
+maid stood aghast. Could it be that Alden's constancy had given out, and
+he was now ready to woo her instead of her friend; but in another moment
+the truth dawned upon her, and with more diplomacy than she often showed
+Mary smiled and shook her head.
+
+"I know not, for love and sweethearts have not come my way yet. 'T is
+Priscilla whom all men seek, and she in merry mood listeth to all and
+still keepeth her own mind secret. She is well content to-night, for
+this lad hath brought news of his brother's marriage."
+
+"What, the fellow they call Jacques?" demanded John glancing eagerly
+toward the other couple now walking some paces in advance.
+
+"Ay, and Guillaume is betrothed, and Jeanne. They are dear friends of
+our Priscilla."
+
+"But--but--nay, then, maid Mary, have compassion on a poor stupid oaf
+who is no match for her or you or any woman in subtlety and fence, and
+yet loveth yon maid as it is not well for man to love aught but his
+Maker. Tell me, doth she care aught for me?"
+
+"Nay, John, that is a question none but she should answer, but yet I may
+tell thee thus much. The news she hath to-day may embolden thee to ask
+again."
+
+"Good wench, true friend!" exclaimed Alden, his whole face lighting with
+a new hope. "And now as we turn toward home, if thou wouldst but engage
+yon boy's attention, and let me essay while hope is strong and courage
+fresh, I will put my fate once more to the touch and know if joy and I
+are henceforth partners, or the coldest of strangers."
+
+"Ah, lad, thou lovest her overmuch," replied Mary, letting her placid
+blue eyes rest upon him half curiously, half enviously. "No man will
+ever care for me like that, for I have not the skill to hide my mind as
+Priscilla hath. But I'll help thee, John, for I do believe thou 'lt make
+the dear maid happy if she will but stay in one mind long enough to wed
+thee."
+
+And in a few moments when the setting sun warned Priscilla that it was
+time to turn homeward, and the two parties came together, Mary showed
+Philip De la Noye the strawberry plants of which he had asked, and so
+detained him for a moment, while John walking on with Priscilla
+impatiently began,--
+
+"Wilt answer me one little question in good faith, mistress?"
+
+"In good faith if at all, John."
+
+"Then, what bond is there betwixt thee and this lad's brother Jacques?"
+
+"None save good will and old acquaintance."
+
+"But there was."
+
+"Was there?"
+
+"Nay now, Priscilla, I speak to thee in sober sadness, and I ask such
+reply as honest maid should give to honest man who woos her for his
+wife. If we fall to quips and cranks and wordy play, thou 'rt so far out
+of my reach that I know not if I ever come near thee, for I'm but a
+plain simple fellow, Priscilla, and I love thee more than I love aught
+else but God and the truth. Give me now a plain answer and have pity of
+my misery. Has aught of this lad's news changed thy will or thy intent
+toward me?"
+
+And Priscilla moving slowly along beside her wooer shot a rapid sidelong
+glance at his white face, and for the first time in their acquaintance
+felt a thrill of respect akin to fear, sweep in his direction across her
+gay self-assertive nature.
+
+"Yes, John, I will answer thee truly and soberly," replied she in a
+voice he had never heard from her before. "Philip De la Noye hath
+brought news that sets me free from a teasing obligation of which no man
+knows. Marie and Jeanne, his sisters, are my dear friends and gossips,
+and their brother Jacques would fain have been my bachelor in Leyden,
+but I was too young my father said to listen to such talk, and he cared
+not greatly for Jacques, who was to tell truth somewhat gay and debonair
+of temper, and no church member, no, not he. So when we parted from
+Leyden to come hither, and I went to bid good-by to my friends, James,
+as you call him in English, would fain have me promise to wed no man but
+him, and he would come hither so soon as he was his own master."
+
+"And didst promise, Priscilla?"
+
+"Well, nay and yea, John. I said I knew not what might meet me here,
+and--but at long and at last I promised to wait until the first ship had
+followed us, and if Jacques came in her I would--would listen to him
+again."
+
+"And that was all thy promise, maiden?"
+
+"Ay, and enough, for before we landed on yonder Rock, and 't was Mary
+Chilton and not thee, John, who first skipt ashore"--
+
+"Oh, mind not that just now, Priscilla."
+
+"Well, before I myself came ashore I knew that I cared not for Jacques
+De la Noye. Beside the deathbed of my mother, and again by that of my
+brother, I knew that life was darker and deeper than he could fathom."
+
+"Ay, maid, and nobly didst thou bear that sorry load of woe and care."
+
+Priscilla's color rose, and her dark eyes flashed a message of thanks,
+but without other reply she went steadily on,--
+
+"And so soon as Philip saw me, he delivered himself of the news that
+Jacques, some three months since, was wed at Saint Peter's Church to
+Gertrude Bartholmei, a merry Flemish maid, who ever looked kindly on
+him, and now is welcome to him."
+
+"Say you that honestly, Priscilla?"
+
+"As honestly as thyself could speak, lad."
+
+"And thou 'rt heart-whole?"
+
+"Nay, I said not exactly that."
+
+"What! Dost really care for the captain?"
+
+"As I care for the governor and the doctor; no more, no less."
+
+"Priscilla, wilt be my wife?"
+
+"Nay then, John, why didst not ask that at first rather than at last?
+Thou 'rt too fond of quip and quirk and wordy warfare, John, too much
+given to fence and intrigue."
+
+"I, Priscilla! Nay then, I'll not be turned aside again, try as thou
+wilt. Priscilla, wilt be my wife?"
+
+"Nay then, I never could bear a cuckoo song all on two notes, and if
+thou 'rt bound to say that phrase over and over till 't is answered"--
+
+"'T is just what I am bound to do. Priscilla, wilt be my wife?"
+
+"Yes, John, I will, and now I hope thou 'rt content."
+
+"Wait till I see thee alone this evening, and I'll tell thee how
+content. Oh, maiden"--
+
+"I will wait in what patience I may until that threatened evening hour,"
+interrupted Priscilla as restively as the young colt who, after long
+coquetting, at last feels the bridle slipped over his head. "Mary, an'
+thou hasten not there'll be little done toward supper at supper time.
+Desire is naught and less than naught now that she's going home, and
+Bessy Tilley thinketh only of John Howland, and the dear mother hath her
+son, so who is left but thee and me to do a hand's turn."
+
+"Here am I, Priscilla, and I'll help thee in any way thou 'lt say,"
+suggested John Alden a little presuming upon his recent acceptance, and
+for his pains receiving a snub that made him wince again, for Priscilla
+coldly replied,--
+
+"They say they came nigh bringing a Jack in the Fortune, but had no room
+for him; so thou mayst take his place, and fetch me a bucket of water
+from the spring. There's no mighty difference betwixt Jack and John."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIX.
+
+KEEPING CHRISTMAS.
+
+
+And now began a new epoch in the life of the colony. The passengers of
+the Fortune, thirty-five in number, although nominally of the same
+belief and manners as the Mayflower Pilgrims, were in effect a new
+element which, in spite of the generous efforts of the new-comers, did
+not readily assimilate with the sober and restrained tone natural to men
+who had suffered and struggled and conquered at such terrible loss to
+themselves, as had the first comers.
+
+A score of gay young fellows upon whom life sat so lightly that they
+cared not how they periled it, was no doubt a valuable acquisition to
+the fighting force of the colony, and almost upon the day of their
+arrival the Captain enrolled, divided, and began to train them, forming
+four companies of twelve men each, for some of the larger boys of the
+Mayflower were now enlisted, and this force of fifty men was at least
+once in every week led over to the Training Green across the brook, and
+there inspected, manoeuvred, marched and counter-marched, disciplined
+in prompt obedience and rapid movement; until the birds of the air who
+watched from the neighboring forest should have carried a warning to
+their co-aborigines, the Narragansetts, the Neponsets, the Namaskets,
+and the Manomets, not yet convinced, spite of the late warning, that the
+white man was their Fate against which it was but bitter defeat to
+struggle. The training over, each company in turn escorted the captain
+to his own quarters, and fired a salute of honor as he dismissed them.
+
+"'T is not for mine own glory, Will, as thou who knowest me will
+believe," said Standish, while the governor and he smoking a placid pipe
+on the evening of the first training, discussed the events of the day.
+"But in matters military even more than civil, it needs that one man
+should be at the head, and command the respectful observance as well as
+the obedience of those under his command. It is not Myles Standish whom
+the soldiers of Plymouth salute as he enters this poor hut, but the
+Captain of the Colony's forces."
+
+"Ay, ay, Myles, I know thy humility," replied Bradford with his smile of
+gentle subtlety. The captain shot an inquiring glance out of his
+red-brown eyes, and in turn laughed a little uncomfortably.
+
+"Nay now, thou 'rt laughing at me, Will. I claim no great meed of
+humility to be sure, and yet thou knowest lad, that if I could serve
+this emprise better by carrying a musket in the ranks"--
+
+"Nay now, old friend, may not I smile at some jest between myself and my
+pipe, but thou must tack more meaning to it than Brewster says hung on
+Lord Burleigh's nod? And yet in sober sadness, Myles, 't is marvel to me
+how thou, born to a great name and to such observance as awaits the
+children of wealthy houses, and then, when hardly more than a boy,
+placed in authority such as appertaineth to an English army officer in
+time of war, how thou hast failed to become more arrogant and peremptory
+than thou art. And as for a musket in the ranks, what were that to such
+offices as not yet a year agone I saw thee fill around the beds of the
+sick and dying in our first great plague? When had we a tenderer nurse,
+a more patient watcher? What office was too loathly for thee, what
+tendence too tiring?"--
+
+"Will, an' thou holdst not thy tongue I'll leave thee to thyself."
+
+"Thou 'lt never be so rude in thine own house, Myles. Such manners would
+ill befit a Standish of Standish."
+
+"Come now, Governor, do you disapprove of the salute, or of any other of
+my military ordonnances?"
+
+"I disapprove of naught, old comrade, but of a certain want of patience
+beneath a friend's jest which I have sometimes marked, and haply it is I
+who am at fault to try thee so; but Myles, there's enow to make the
+governor of this colony sorry and sober, and thou shouldst not grudge
+him a moment of merriment even at thine own cost."
+
+"Nor do I, as well thou knowest, Will. 'T is only that I am as ever a
+hot-headed fool and ill deserve a friend like thee. And now what thinkst
+thou of Master Cushman's errand, and the chidings of those London
+traders that we sent them not a cargo by the Mayflower? We who had much
+ado to dig the graves of half our company and to find food for the rest,
+to be rated like laggard servants because we laded not that old hulk
+with merchandise for their benefit."
+
+"Ay, Master Weston's letter was somewhat hard to bear, albeit we should
+excuse much to his ignorance of our surroundings," said Bradford
+placably, although the color rose to his cheek at thought of the
+injustice he and his friends had suffered. "I have writ a reply,"
+continued he, laying down his pipe and drawing a roll of paper from the
+pocket of his leathern jerkin, "and am fain to have your mind upon it,
+for I would not be over bitter, and yet was shrewdly wounded that John
+Carver lying in his honored grave should be so rudely attacked. Shall I
+read it?"
+
+"Ay, an' thou wilt, though I'm more than half in mind to take passage by
+the Fortune, and give Master Weston and the rest a reply after mine own
+fashion."
+
+"What, and leave the train band to its own destruction! But here you
+have my poor script:--
+
+   "To the worshipful Master Thos: Weston:
+
+   "Sir,--Your large letter written to Mr. Carver and dated the 16th of
+ July 1621 I have received the 20th of Nov'br, wherein you lay many
+ heavy imputations upon him and us all. Touching him he is departed this
+ life, and now is at rest in the Lord from all those troubles and
+ incumbrances with which we are yet to strive. He needs not my apology;
+ for his care and pains were so great for the common good both ours and
+ yours, as that therewith it is thought, he oppressed himself and
+ shortened his days of whose loss we cannot sufficiently complain. At
+ great charges in this Adventure I confess you have been, and many
+ losses you may sustain; but the loss of his and many other honest and
+ industrious mens lives cannot be valued at any price. Of the one there
+ may be hope of recovery, but the other no recompence can make good."
+
+"Oh, you're too mild, Bradford," burst out the captain as the reader
+paused and looked up for approval. "You should bombard him with red-hot
+shot, hurl a flight of grape, a volley of canister into his midst--nay
+then, but I'll go myself and with a blow of my gauntlet across Master
+Weston's ears"--
+
+"Captain--Captain Standish! Master Warren hath sent me to warn your
+worship that some of the new-comers are building a bonfire in the Town
+Square, and sprinkling the pile with powder"--
+
+"There, Myles, thou seest how well we can spare thee! Wouldst leave me
+at the mercy of these rough companions who"--
+
+But already the captain armed with a stout stick was half way down the
+hill, and, smiling quaintly to himself Bradford relighted his pipe and
+went home to finish his letter.
+
+A week later the Fortune sailed on her return voyage carrying Cushman,
+who left his son Thomas under Bradford's care until he should come
+again, not knowing that his next voyage should be across the shoreless
+sea whence no bark hath yet returned. Under his charge traveled Desire
+Minter, loudly proclaiming her joy at returning to regions "where a body
+might at least look for decent victual," and Humility Cooper, Elizabeth
+Tilley's little cousin. The two seamen, Trevor and Ely, also returned,
+their year of service having expired; but in spite of the dearth of
+provision, already imminent owing to the unprovided condition of the
+new-comers, not one of the Pilgrims embraced this opportunity of escape.
+
+Besides her passengers, the Fortune carried valuable freight consigned
+to Weston as agent of the Adventurers. The best room was given to
+sassafras root, of which the colonists had gathered great store, and
+with much rejoicing, for being just then the panacea of both French and
+English physicians, it was worth something like forty dollars of our
+present money per pound. Besides the sassafras were several hogsheads of
+beaver skins, also very valuable at that time, and the rest of the hold
+was filled with clapboards and other finished lumber, the whole cargo
+worth at least twenty-five hundred dollars. The most precious thing on
+board that little vessel however, if we except human life, was a
+manuscript journal written by William Bradford and Edward Winslow, and
+sent home to their friend George Morton in London, who, finding it too
+good to be kept to himself, had it printed the very same year by "John
+Bellamy at his shop at the Two Greyhounds, near the Royal Exchange,
+London," and as he did not give the names of its authors, nor bestow any
+distinctive title upon it, it came to be called "Mourt's Relation," and
+was the first book ever printed about that insignificant knot of
+emigrants in whom we now glory as the Forefathers of New England. But
+alas for human hopes, alas for the honest rejoicings of the Pilgrims in
+their goodly cargo, just before the Fortune sighted the English coast
+she was captured by a French cruiser and carried into Isle Dieu. Two
+weeks later the vessel, crew, and passengers were released, but the
+sassafras, the beaver skins, and the lumber went to heal and warm and
+house Frenchmen instead of Englishmen, and Thomas Weston's pockets still
+cried out with their emptiness. Happily for the world, however, the
+Frenchmen did not appreciate the "Relation," and it went peacefully on
+in Robert Cushman's mails, and reached good George Morton's hands.
+
+About a week after the sailing of the Fortune came Christmas Day, and
+Bradford doing on his clothing for a good day at lumbering allowed
+himself a half regretful memory of the sports and revelings with which
+he and the other youth of Austerfield had been wont to observe the
+Feast; but presently remembering his new beliefs, the Separatist leader
+murmured something about "rags of Popery," and went down to his
+breakfast.
+
+"Call the men together, Howland," ordered he in some displeasure as
+leaving his house axe in hand he found only his older comrades awaiting
+him. "Where are the new-comers? I see none of them."
+
+"An' it please you, Governor, Hicks and the rest of them say it goeth
+against their conscience to work on Christmas Day," reported Howland
+with a grim smile.
+
+For a moment Bradford frowned, but as he caught the gay glint of
+Standish's eyes his own softened, and after a brief pause he answered
+temperately,--
+
+"We will force no man's conscience. Tell Robert Hicks and the rest that
+I excuse them until they be better informed."
+
+At noon the wood-choppers returned to the village weary and hungry, for
+already had the entire company been placed upon half rations of food, so
+to continue until another cargo should arrive, or the next year's crop
+be ripe. Well for their endurance that they could not foresee that no
+farther cargo of provisions should ever arrive for them, from those who
+had undertaken to support them, and that the next year's crop should
+prove a failure. But now as they wearily toiled up the hill from the
+brookside, eager for the hour of rest and the scanty meal they were
+learning to value so highly, sounds of loud revelry and boisterous mirth
+fell upon their ears, sounds alien to their mood, their necessities, and
+on this day to their principles.
+
+"Those runagates are holding Christmas revels in spite of you,
+Governor," remarked Standish half jeeringly; while Hopkins, whose humor
+just now was not far removed from mutiny, muttered that if godless men
+were to play, he saw not why good Christians should be forced to work,
+call it Christmas Day or any other.
+
+"You are right, Hopkins, although somewhat discourteous in your
+rectitude," replied Bradford, and hasting forward he came in sight of
+the Town Square, where some fifteen or twenty of the Fortune passengers
+were amusing themselves at "stool-ball," a kind of cricket, at pitching
+the bar, wrestling, hopping-matches, and various other old English
+sports, many of which had been encouraged and even led by the governor
+in the late week of Thanksgiving. But now advancing into the midst, his
+air of serene authority as much as his uplifted hand imposing silence
+upon the merry rebels, who dropped their various implements, and tried
+in vain to appear at ease, Bradford looking from one to another quietly
+said,--
+
+"I told you this morning that if you made the keeping of Christmas Day
+matter of conscience, I should leave you alone until you were better
+informed; now, however, I warn you that it goeth against my conscience
+as governor of this colony to let idle men play while others work, and
+if indeed you find matter of devotion in the day ye shall keep it
+quietly and soberly in your housen. There shall be neither reveling nor
+gaming in the streets, and that I promise you. Let whosoever owneth
+these toys take them away and store them out of sight; and remember,
+men, that the Apostle saith, 'If a man will not work neither shall he
+eat.'"
+
+Silently and shamefacedly the revelers collected bats and balls, cricket
+stools, bars, poles, and iron weights, carrying them each man to his own
+house, and in the afternoon the chopping party was augmented by nearly
+every one of the new-comers.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXX.
+
+A SOLDIER'S INSTINCT.
+
+
+A year and more from that Christmas Day has sped, and again we find
+Bradford and Standish with Winslow gathered together at the governor's
+house, resting after the labors of the day, smoking the consoling pipe,
+and even tasting from time to time the contents of a square case bottle,
+which, with a jug of hot water and a basin of sugar were set forth upon
+a curious little clawfooted table worth to-day its weight in gold if
+only it could have survived.
+
+None of the three look younger than they did when they first stepped
+upon the Rock; sun and wind, and winter storm and summer heat have
+bronzed their English complexions and deepened the lines about the quiet
+steadfast lips and anxious eyes. Already Bradford's shoulders were a
+little bowed, partly by the burden of his responsibility, partly by
+arduous manual labor, but upon his face had grown the serenity and
+somewhat of the impassiveness into which the Egyptians loved to mould
+the features of their kings,--that expression which of all others
+belongs to a man who uses great power firmly and decisively, and yet
+looks upon himself as but a steward, who soon or late shall be called to
+render a strict account of his stewardship.
+
+And Winslow, courtly, learned, and fit for lofty emprise, how bore he
+this life of toil and privation, this constant contention with such
+foes as famine, and disease, and squalor, and uncouth savagery? Look at
+the portrait painted of him in London some years later, and see if there
+is not an infinite weariness, a brooding _Cui bono?_ set as a seal upon
+those haughty features. Can one after studying that face much wonder
+that when the Massachusetts Bay authorities in 1646 besought Plymouth to
+spare their sometime governor, their wise and astute statesman, to
+arrange the Bay's quarrel with the Home government, Winslow eagerly
+accepted the mission, although as Bradford sadly records, his going
+was--"much to the weakening of this government, without whose consent he
+took these employments upon him."
+
+So well, however, did he fill the larger sphere for which his ambitious
+nature perhaps had secretly pined, that after four years of arduous
+service when the Massachusetts quarrel was well adjusted, and Winslow
+would have returned home, President Steele, whom he had helped to found
+the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel, wrote to the Colonial
+Commissioners in New England that although Winslow was unwilling to be
+kept longer from his family, he could not yet be spared, because his
+great acquaintance and influence with members of Parliament made him
+invaluable to the work in hand.
+
+Then in 1652 the Protector, Oliver Cromwell, placed him at the head of a
+committee for settling a Dutch quarrel; and in 1655 the same power named
+him governor of Hispaniola, and dispatched him thither with a fleet and
+body of soldiers to conquer and take possession of his new territory.
+But General Venable in command of the soldiers, and Admiral Penn in
+command of the fleet, fell to loggerheads as to which was the other's
+superior, and even Winslow's diplomacy could not heal the breach; so the
+attack upon Hispaniola proved a disgraceful failure, and as the fleet
+sailed away to attack Jamaica, the Great Commissioner, as they called
+him fell ill of chagrin and worry, and after a few days of wild delirium
+wherein he stood upon Burying Hill, and drank of the Pilgrims' Spring,
+and spoke loving words to the wife and children he should see no more,
+he died, and was committed to the great deep with a salute of
+two-and-forty guns, and never a kiss or tear, for all who loved him were
+far away.
+
+But all this honor, all this disaster, lies in the future, for as yet
+Winslow is only seven-and-twenty, and yet the lines of ambition, of
+weariness, of hauteur are foreshadowed upon his face; already Time with
+his light indelible pencil has faintly traced the furrows he by and by
+will plow that all who run may read.
+
+Perhaps the least change of all is that upon the captain's face, for
+before ever he landed on the Rock full twenty years of a soldier's life
+had set those firm lips, and steadied those marvelous eyes, and
+impressed upon every line of the deep bronzed face the air of the
+vigilant commander who was both born and bred for the post he fills so
+thoroughly. If any change, perhaps there is a softening one, for those
+keen eyes have looked so often upon misery and need, and so little upon
+bloodshed in these three last years, that they have gained somewhat of
+tenderness, somewhat of human sympathy; and the look that dying men and
+women have strained their glazing eyes to see to the last, is not so far
+from the surface as once it was. But the governor is speaking,--
+
+"Yes, my friends, I will confess to feeling more than a little uneasy
+over the matter. This party whom our sometime friend Weston hath sent
+over to settle at our very doors as it were, and to steal our trade with
+the Indians, and so hold us from paying off our debt to the
+Adventurers"--
+
+"With whom he was still to abide as our Advocate," growled Standish.
+
+"Ay. He hath doubtless served us a sorry turn by not only dividing
+himself from the Adventurers, but setting up a rival trading-post of his
+own," remarked Winslow.
+
+"And worse than that is this news Squanto brings in to-day," resumed the
+governor. "I mean the dealings of those new-comers with the Indians."
+
+"Yes, they carry themselves like both knaves and fools, and will
+presently find their own necks in the noose," said Standish rapping the
+ashes out of his pipe with such force as to break it.
+
+"But worse again than that," suggested Winslow quietly, "is the danger
+they bring upon us. Hobomok warneth me that there is a wide discontent
+growing among the red men, springing from the conduct of these men at
+Weymouth as they call it. The Neponsets have suffered robbery, and
+insult, and outrage at their hands, and both the Massachusetts on the
+one hand and the Pokanokets on the other are in sympathy with them. Then
+you will see, brethren, that Canonicus with his Narragansetts, who
+already hath sent us his cartel of defiance, will make brief alliance
+with Massasoit, and all will combine to drive every white man from the
+country. There is hardly any bound to the mischief these roysterers at
+Weymouth have set on foot."
+
+"And Massasoit no longer our friend, since we refused to send him poor
+Squanto's head," said Bradford meditatively.
+
+"Yes," laughed the captain. "'T is food for mirth, were a man dying, to
+see Squanto skulk at our heels like a dog who sees a lion in the path.
+He hardly dares step outside the palisado, for fear some envoy of
+Massasoit's shall pounce upon him."
+
+"'T is a good lesson to teach him discretion," said Winslow. "Certes he
+stirred up strife between us and the sachem with his cock-and-bull
+stories."
+
+"Especially when he sent his squaw to warn us that Canonicus with
+Massasoit and Corbitant were on the way from Namasket to devour us."
+
+"Ay, no wonder Massasoit was aggrieved at being so slandered, and could
+he have got Tisquantum once within his clutches 't would have gone hard
+with the poor fool. But never burnt child dreaded fire as he now doth
+the outside of the palisado."
+
+"Didst hear, Winslow, that t' other day when some of us were unearthing
+a keg of powder buried there in the Fort, Squanto and a savage guest of
+his clomb the hill to see what was going on? The magazine is passably
+deep as you know, and Squanto himself had never seen it opened; so when
+they saw Alden hand up the keg to Hopkins, the guest asked in the Indian
+tongue what was in it, and Squanto told him 't was the plague which just
+before our coming swept the land, and that the white men had captured it
+and buried it here upon the hill to let loose upon their enemies; and in
+the end the knave got a goodly price from his visitor for assurance that
+the plague should not be liberated till he had time to reach Sandwich."
+
+All three men laughed, but Bradford said,--"I fear me Squanto hath done
+us no little harm with his double dealings, his jealousy of Hobomok, and
+his craving for bribes; but withal he hath been so good a friend to us,
+more than useful at the first when we knew naught of the place or how to
+live, or plant, or fish, that I thought right to risk even Massasoit's
+enmity rather than to give our poor knave up to his wrath."
+
+"And then I never can forget," said Winslow, "that Squanto as only
+survivor of the Patuxets was in some sort lord of the soil whereon we
+pitched."
+
+"Yes truly," responded the captain with a short laugh. "Like myself he
+was born to great estates and sees them enjoyed by others."
+
+"Well then, since nothing is imminent in this matter of the Weymouth
+colonists and their quarrel with the Indians, we had better, now that
+the palisado around the town is complete"--
+
+"Gates, bolts, bastions, all complete from the great rock around to the
+brook," interposed Standish, his figure visibly dilating with
+satisfaction. Bradford smiled and allowed his eyes to rest
+affectionately for an instant upon his comrade, then continued in a
+lighter tone,--
+
+"So having fortified your hold, Captain, it is now fitting that you
+should provision it. Thou knowest how in my journeyings last month I
+bought and stored corn at Nauset, and Manomet, and Barnstable, and now
+that we have a moment's breathing space, it were well that some one
+should take the pinnace and fetch it. At the same time there will be
+good occasion to feel the pulse of the various chiefs, and determine
+what is their intended course and so settle our own."
+
+"Nay, Winslow is the man for that work, Governor," replied the captain
+bluntly. "I will go and get the corn, and if need be teach the savages a
+lesson upon the dangers of plotting and conniving, but as to talking
+smoothly with men who are lying to me"--
+
+"But why prejudge them, Captain," began Winslow, when with a tap upon
+the door Squanto himself appeared ushering in a strange Indian whom he
+fluently presented as a friend of his who had come with great news.
+Bidden to deliver it, the stranger stated that a great Dutch ship had
+gone ashore at Sowams (Bristol), and would be wrecked unless help could
+be had, and this could not be given by the Indians, for Massasoit lay
+dying and no one would stir without his command.
+
+This news changed the aspect of affairs, and Winslow was at once
+appointed to pay Massasoit a visit of inquiry, and in case of his death
+to make an alliance if possible with Corbitant, his probable successor
+as sachem of the Pokanokets. He also was to see the commander of the
+Dutch vessel, and in case of a wreck to offer the hospitality of
+Plymouth to the sufferers, for in case of the famine narrowly impending
+over the colony, the friendship and aid of the Dutch might become of the
+last importance. Besides this, the dangerous Narragansetts were known to
+have made alliance with the Dutch, and might by them be deterred from
+molesting the Plymouth settlers if they were known to be their friends.
+
+"And so, Myles," declared Bradford finding himself alone with his friend
+at the end of the informal council, "thou must e'en go by thyself for
+the corn, with what men thou dost call for, and I doubt not we shall
+find thee burgeon into a diplomatist equal at least to the great Cecil
+or to Sir Walter Raleigh"--
+
+"Ay, and that minds me," interrupted Standish "of the news sent us by
+good Master Huddlestone of the Betsey, how the Virginia savages had
+massacred three hundred and forty-seven of Raleigh's settlers, and would
+have made an end of them but for warning given by a friendly Indian."
+
+"Ay, it was heavy news, and a timely warning," said the governor losing
+his air of gayety and sighing deeply. "And if indeed Weston's men have
+angered the Neponsets to the pitch we fear, the news of this Virginia
+success will embolden them to undertake the same revenge. Be wary,
+Standish, and very gentle in thy dealings. If war is determined, let it
+be entered upon deliberately and formally; take not the matter into
+thine own hands and mayhap lose us our commander just at the onset."
+
+"Ay Will, 'I'll roar thee gently' as any sucking dove, an' there seemeth
+need to roar at all."
+
+"Best not roar at all until all thy comrades may join in unison," and
+once more Bradford's face lighted with its peculiar smile, the sort of
+smile one might bestow upon his double should he meet him and address
+him with a jest unknown to any other.
+
+And so it came to pass that the next morning's rising sun saw two
+important expeditions leaving the hamlet in opposite directions. Toward
+the dark and almost pathless woods at the North marched Winslow
+accompanied by Master John Hampden, then visiting the colony and
+studying the science of republican government in its most perfect,
+because most simple, development. With them went Hobomok as guide and
+interpreter, and after them went the tearful prayers of Susanna Winslow,
+who loved her new lord better than she had the father of baby Peregrine
+toddling at her side, as she stood in the cabin door to gaze after the
+little group already almost out of sight, and making now for the
+"Massachusetts trail" where it crosses Jones's River in Kingston. And as
+one driving over that pleasant road which now intersects the old trail
+pauses to look up its green ascent, or on across the placid stream it
+forded, does he not almost catch sight of the goodly forms of those
+young men, quaintly clad in doublet and hose and the wide hats or the
+close barret caps of the day, led by the sleek slender savage who
+patiently stood by, while Winslow turned and pointed out the beauties of
+sea and shore to his thoughtful companion.
+
+"A pleasant sight, a goodly scene," said Hampden, as at last they turned
+away and struck into the dense forest. "If it be God's will I for one
+shall be well content to return hither and end my days."
+
+"And yet there is world's work to do yonder for a man with an eye to
+read the times," said Winslow flinging a hand eastward.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"No wife or child to see me off, Mistress Winslow," said the captain as
+he passed the door where Susanna lingered, and she, smiling with the
+tear in her eye, answered pleasantly,--
+
+"Then why not purvey thee one, Captain Standish? Well I wot you need not
+long go a-begging."
+
+"Nay, none will look on a battered old soldier when fresh young faces
+are at hand," replied Standish casting a whimsical glance after Alden
+who preceded him down the hill, while the matron shook her head
+murmuring,--"Such fools as maids will be!"
+
+Besides Alden, the captain had chosen five men, enough to man the boat,
+and to make a good defense in case of attack, but among these he had
+included none of the fire-eaters, none of the independent souls of the
+little colony. Alden, to whom the captain had given the names of those
+to be summoned, had noted this feature of the selection, and ventured to
+comment upon it approvingly.
+
+"Ay, lad," replied his master with a grim smile. "'T is a service of
+danger, and a service of diplomacy, and I must have my force well in
+hand with no danger of a baulk from within. Dost know how the Romans
+conquered the world? I bade thee study my Caesar in thy leisure moments."
+
+"By power to command, Master?"
+
+"Nay, boy, but by power to obey. Their forces moved as one man, as a
+grand machine, and so they carried the Roman eagles to all the known
+world. There's the model of a Roman soldier in that big Book yonder. He
+says to his Sovereign Lord, 'Give not yourself the inconvenience of
+coming to heal my servant, but send some spirit to carry the command. I
+know how it is; I also am under the commands of my general, and men are
+under me. I say to this one, Go, and he goeth; and to the other, Come,
+and he cometh; and to my servant, Do this, and he doeth it.' There's the
+model of a soldier for you, John Alden; perfect obedience rendered,
+perfect obedience expected, perfect faith in the commander-in-chief.
+Now, then, off upon your errand, sir, and mind you tarry not at the
+Elder's house. There is no errand there."
+
+The shallop's first port was Nauset, and here, although the corn was
+obtained and loaded without difficulty, a thief stole some clothes from
+the boat while it was for the moment unguarded; and finding mild words
+of no avail in their recovery, Standish sought Aspinet, who was
+encamped at a little distance from the shore, and refusing all
+hospitality or friendly conversation roundly announced that unless the
+missing articles were restored without delay he should at once make sail
+for Plymouth and declare war upon the whole tribe.
+
+Marching down to his boat closely followed by Alden the captain suddenly
+paused and struck his heel upon the ground.
+
+"Now then, I was to roar like a dove, and I have howled like any wolf!
+And I to preach obedience! nay then, John, thou 'rt free to flout me as
+thou wilt."
+
+"But, Captain, so far as I heard the governor's command it was only to
+fetch some corn," suggested Alden slyly. "All else was left at your
+discretion, as indeed all matters military are. Such was the tenor of
+the vote that made you our Captain."
+
+"Come, now, John, that's not ill thought on; that's not so dull as might
+be," replied the captain glancing merrily at his follower. "Thou 'st
+been studying under Winslow as well as Standish. Well, then, let us wait
+and see what comes of my roar."
+
+An hour later as the boat's crew sat around their camp-fire eating their
+frugal dinner, the sound of many feet was heard breaking through the
+neighboring thickets, and Standish with a glance at Alden said
+quietly,--
+
+"Stand to your arms, men, but softly and without offense until we see
+the need. The savages are in force."
+
+But as it turned out the force was but a guard of honor to Aspinet, who
+came in state, followed by two women bringing the stolen coats
+elaborately bound around with gayly colored withes; these they at once
+took on board and laid in the cuddy, while Aspinet improving upon
+Tisquantum's former lessons as to the mode of saluting sovereigns seized
+upon Standish's hand, and much to his disgust licked it from wrist to
+fingers, at the same time bending his knee in uncouth genuflection.
+
+"Enough, enough, Aspinet," exclaimed the captain half laughing, half
+revolted at the homage. "The coats are returned I see"--
+
+"And I have much beaten him who took them," averred Aspinet
+complacently. "And Aspinet is the friend of the white men though all
+other Indians turn against them."
+
+"Why, that is well, sachem," replied Standish, who was already able to
+converse freely with the red men in their own tongue. "Keep you to that
+mind, and hold your tribe to it, and no harm's done. And now men, all
+aboard, and we will be off."
+
+With a fair wind the shallop soon made Barnstable or Mattachiest, and
+here Iyanough (or Janno) met them on landing with protestations of
+welcome so profuse and unusual that the captain was at once upon his
+guard, especially as he noticed among the crowd many new faces which he
+was confident belonged to Massachusetts Indians. Night falling before
+the corn could be loaded, and ice making so suddenly as to freeze the
+shallop in before she fairly floated, the captain was obliged to accept
+an invitation for himself and crew to sleep in one of the Indian huts;
+but as the chief with some of his principal men escorted them to it,
+Standish's quick eye surprised a glance between one of the strangers and
+a Pamet Indian called Kamuso, who had always appeared to be one of the
+warmest friends of the white men, but in whose manner to-night Standish
+felt something of treachery and evil intention.
+
+And he was right, for Kamuso had been won over to the conspiracy
+beginning with the Narragansetts and extending all the way down the
+Cape, and so soon as runners from the Nausets had warned the Mattakees
+that Standish and a small crew were about to land among them, it was
+agreed that now was the best time to cut off The-Sword-of-the-White-Men,
+and so deprive the colony of one of its principal safeguards. Janno
+himself would fain have spared Standish, with whom he had ever been on
+friendly terms; but Kamuso so wrought upon the Mattakee warriors that
+their sachem was forced either to drop the reins altogether or to suffer
+his unruly steeds to take their own course. Like Pontius Pilate he chose
+the latter course, and to his own destruction. Before the pinnace was
+anchored, the plan of the massacre was fully laid, and Kamuso had
+claimed the glory of killing The Sword with his own hand.
+
+But the subtle instinct which was Standish's sixth sense warned him of
+some unknown danger, and having carefully inspected the wigwam offered
+to his use, he directed that the fire newly kindled outside the door
+should be extinguished; and while the Indians officiously busied
+themselves in doing this, the captain by a word, a look, a sign, drew
+his men inside the hut, and rapidly conveyed to them his suspicions, and
+enjoined the greatest caution upon all.
+
+"The fire would have bewrayed our forms to archers hidden in yonder
+thicket," added he. "And as I will have half to watch while the others
+sleep, the watch must keep themselves under shelter of the cabin and
+away from any chance of ambush."
+
+Murmurs of wrath, of wonder, but of acquiescence arose from the half
+dozen bearded throats around, and the captain at once set the watch, to
+be relieved every two hours. In vain Janno offered another wigwam if
+this were too small, and urged that all his white brothers should sleep
+at once while his own men watched; in vain Kamuso tried to attach
+himself to the party inside, meaning to stab the captain in his sleep;
+without a show of anger or suspicion Standish put both attempts aside,
+and finally with a jeering laugh advised Janno to retire to his own
+wigwam and to order his braves to do the same, for some of the white men
+as he averred were given to discharging their pieces in their sleep, or
+at any shadow that came within range, and it might happen that some of
+his friends should thus come by harm, which would be a great grief to
+him.
+
+"The Sword has pierced our intention," said Janno to Kamuso in their own
+tongue as the two withdrew. "Better give it up. He has eyes all around
+him."
+
+"I will kill him," retorted Kamuso sullenly. "To-night, to-morrow, next
+week,--I will kill him."
+
+The next day so soon as the shallop floated and was loaded Standish
+embarked, sick at heart as he received the slavish homage of Janno, whom
+he had liked and trusted so much, and who even while he yielded to the
+plot for the captain's death and that of all his friends really clung to
+him in love and reverence. Poor Janno, weak but not wicked, his
+punishment was both swift and stern; for fleeing a little later from the
+vengeance of the white men, he perished miserably among the swamps and
+thickets of Barnstable, and his lonely grave was only lately discovered.
+Go and look at his bones in Pilgrim Hall at Plymouth and muse upon the
+dangers of cowardice and weakness.
+
+As the shallop pushed off from shore, an Indian came running down the
+beach, and with a cat-like spring leaped upon the deck. It was Kamuso,
+who said he was bound for Sandwich and would beg a passage in the
+pinnace.
+
+A sudden spark kindled in the captain's red-brown eyes and one hand
+tugged impatiently at his moustache, but he said nothing, and the Indian
+proceeded to make himself useful in a variety of ways; and as the wind
+was favorable and the distance short, Standish made no open objection to
+the company of the spy, but busied himself with freshly charging his
+weapons, and curiously examining every inch of Gideon's shining blade.
+
+A little after noon the shallop made the harbor of Sandwich, or as the
+Pilgrims called it Manomet, and Standish at once went ashore, eager to
+see if Canacum shared in the wide-spread disaffection of the Indians.
+But ten minutes in the sachem's wigwam convinced the wary observer that
+something was wrong, for the old friendliness of manner had given place
+to restraint and formality; and although Canacum was very ready to
+deliver the corn, and professed great pleasure at the captain's visit,
+his voice and manner were both cold and false, and such of his braves as
+came into the wigwam showed a very different face from what Standish had
+hitherto encountered.
+
+Suddenly a sound was heard without, and as the captain sprang to his
+feet and laid his hand upon Gideon's hilt, the door-mat was thrust
+aside, and two Indians recognized by their paint as Neponsets entered
+the cabin. Canacum received them with effusive cordiality, and presented
+the principal one to Standish as Wituwamat a pniese of the Neponsets.
+
+Standish received the careless salutation of the new-comer in silent
+gravity, and stepping to the door summoned Howland and Alden to his
+side, first however sending a message to the boat-keepers to be well on
+guard against a surprise.
+
+Returning into the hut with his two friends, the captain found Wituwamat
+upon his feet beginning an impassioned harangue to Canacum, who listened
+uneasily. Standish was already an excellent Indian scholar, and could
+converse in several dialects with great ease; but so soon as he appeared
+Wituwamat fell into a style so figurative and blind, and took pains to
+use such unusual and obsolete expressions, that Canacum himself could
+hardly understand him, and Standish was soon left hopelessly in the
+background. At a later day, however, one of the warriors then present
+repeated to the captain the amount of the Neponset's message, which was
+that Obtakiest, sachem of the Neponsets, had entered into a solemn
+compact with Canonicus, sachem of the Narragansetts, to cut off the
+Weymouth colonists, root and branch; but that as the Plymouth men would
+assuredly revenge their brethren, it was necessary that they should
+perish as well, and that while the two chiefs mentioned advanced upon
+the settlement from the west, they invited Canacum, Janno, and Aspinet
+to fall upon them from the east, and having slain man and boy to equably
+divide the women and other plunder. As earnest of his authority
+Wituwamat here presented Canacum with a knife stolen or bought from the
+Weymouth settlers, and jeeringly said the coward pale faces had brought
+over the weapons that should cut their own throats.
+
+Having thus delivered his message, the Neponset indulged himself in a
+burst of self-glorification, boasting that he had in his day killed
+both French and Englishmen, and that he found the sport very amusing,
+for they died crying and making wry faces more like children than men.
+
+"What is the impudent villain saying, and what means that knife,
+Captain?" muttered Howland in the captain's ear, but he shaking his head
+impatiently replied,--
+
+"He means violence and treachery of some sort, but what form it takes I
+wot not. Be on your guard, John."
+
+The harangue ended, refreshments were served, but the Neponsets were now
+treated with so much more courtesy and attention than the white men that
+Standish refusing the poorer portion offered to him and his comrades,
+rose and indignantly left the cabin, ordering his men to construct a
+shelter near the beach, and there cook some of the provisions they had
+brought. But they had hardly begun to do this when Kamuso appeared, full
+of indignant protests at Canacum's inhospitality, and loudly declaring
+that an affront to his friends was an affront to him, and he should
+desert the wigwam where the red men were feasting, and share the humbler
+fare of his white friends.
+
+"Well, I wish thou hadst brought along a kettle to cook some corn in!"
+exclaimed Standish with something of his old joviality of manner, for
+his suspicions in falling upon Canacum had in some degree lifted from
+Kamuso, who certainly played his part with wonderful skill, and had he
+been white instead of red, and civilized instead of savage, might have
+left his name on record as a diplomatist beside that of Machiavelli or
+Ignatius Loyola.
+
+"A kettle! My brother would like a kettle!" exclaimed he now. "Nay, a
+friend of mine hath one which I will buy of him and present to The
+Sword. I am rich, I Kamuso, and can make rich presents to those I love."
+
+And rushing back to the wigwams, he presently returned with a good-sized
+brass kettle, which he ostentatiously laid at the captain's feet,
+refusing the handful of beads Standish offered in return.
+
+"Hm!" growled the captain. "That's not in nature. Alden use the kettle
+an' thou wilt, but after, return it to the Pamet. We'll not have them
+making a Benjamin's sack of our shallop."
+
+After dinner Standish so peremptorily demanded that his corn should at
+once be put aboard that Canacum could do nothing but yield. The squaws
+were summoned, and John Alden stood by with pencil and paper, keeping
+tally as each delivered her basket-full on the beach, while Howland
+standing mid-leg deep in the icy water shot it over the gunwale.
+
+"Here men, bear a hand, and let us get this thing over and be off,"
+commanded Standish, himself seizing a full basket and motioning Dotey to
+another.
+
+"And I, and I, my brother!" exclaimed Kamuso in his loud braggadocio
+manner as he awkwardly lifted a third. "Never in all my life have I done
+squaw's work, for I am a brave, I am a pniese, but what my brother does
+I do."
+
+"Nay, 't is too much honor!" replied Standish with his grimmest smile;
+"especially as thou art somewhat awkward"--
+
+And in effect the Pamet as he tried to swing the full basket off his
+shoulder lost his hold, and the corn came showering down upon the sand.
+At length, however, the tale was complete, and as the tide was out, and
+night coming on, the captain decided to camp once more upon the beach,
+refusing somewhat curtly the pressing invitation sent by Canacum that
+the white men should sleep in his house. And once more Kamuso loudly
+proclaimed that he was of the white men's party and should share their
+quarters wherever they might be. Standish silently permitted him to do
+as he would, but, as on the previous evening, he divided the little
+company into watches, one to sleep and one to stand on guard.
+
+"So soon as he sleeps I shall kill him," muttered Kamuso to Wituwamat,
+as they secretly met behind Canacum's wigwam. "Give me now the knife
+sent by Obtakiest."
+
+"Here it is, brother, and when it is red with the blood of The Sword it
+shall be thine own. Else it returns to him who sends it."
+
+"It shall be red, it shall drink, it shall drip with the brave blood, it
+shall shine as the sun rising across the waters! It shall feast, and
+Kamuso shall be chief of Obtakiest's pnieses; yes, he shall be sachem of
+the Massachusetts!"
+
+Wituwamat made no reply in words, but as he turned away shivered
+heavily. Perhaps a premonition of his own terrible fate crossed his
+brain, perhaps the hooting of the owl just then skimming across the
+thicket stirred his superstitious fancy, but without a word he reentered
+the wigwam; and Kamuso concealing the knife went back to the randevous,
+where already the first watch slept, and Standish, in command of the
+second, stood beside the fire leaning on his snaphance, and, deep in
+meditation fixed his eyes upon the approaching savage so sternly that he
+believing that all was discovered was on the point of springing at his
+prey, and risking all upon one sudden blow, when the captain, awaking
+from his reverie, sighed profoundly, and perceiving for the first time
+Kamuso's approach quietly said,--
+
+"So it is thee, Pamet! Go back and sleep warm in the wigwams of the
+Mattakees. We need no help here."
+
+"Kamuso is no Mattakee; Kamuso is the friend of the white men. While The
+Sword wakes, Kamuso will gaze upon him and learn how to become the
+terror of his foes."
+
+"'T is easier to be the terror of one's foes than the delight of one's
+friends," muttered Standish gloomily, and then pulling himself together
+he stirred the embers with his heel, and throwing on more wood said
+carelessly,--
+
+"E'en as thou wilt. Kamuso, go or stay, watch or sleep, 't is all one to
+me."
+
+And marching up and down the strip of level beach the soldier hummed an
+old ballad song of Man, which Rose had loved to sing, and clean forgot
+the savage who, crouching in the shadow, fingered the knife hilt hidden
+in his waist cloth, and never removed the gaze of his snaky eyes from
+the figure of his destined prey.
+
+The night went on, and Standish waked the second watch and dismissed the
+first, but still himself took no rest, nor felt the need of it, as he
+paced up and down, his outward senses alert to the smallest sign, and
+his memory roaming at will over scenes for many years forgot; over
+boyhood's eager days, his mother's tenderness, his father's death upon a
+French battle-field, his own early days as a soldier, his home-coming
+to find Barbara acting a daughter's part to the dying mother--Rose--ah
+Rose! He stood a moment at the point of his promenade furthest from the
+randevous, his back to the fire, his gaze fixed upon the sea whose lapping
+waves seemed whispering with sobbing sighs, Rose!--Rose!--Rose!--
+
+A faint sound upon the shingle caught the outward ear of the soldier,
+and wheeling instinctively he faced the Pamet, who with his hand upon
+the hilt of the dagger had crept up to within six feet of his victim,
+and already had selected the spot between those square shoulders where
+the fatal blow should be planted.
+
+"Ha savage! What does this mean! Why are you tracking me!" demanded the
+captain angrily, but the wily Indian, instead of starting back and
+betraying himself by terror, advanced quietly, not even removing his
+hand from the hidden knife hilt, and answered smoothly in his own
+tongue,--
+
+"The red man's moccason sounds not upon the sand as the white man's
+boot. I did but come to ask my lord if he will not rest at all. Midnight
+is long past, and the day must bring its labors. Will not The Sword
+sheath for a while his intolerable splendor in sleep, while his slave
+watches for him?"
+
+"Why, Kamuso, thou 'rt more than eloquent! Pity but thou shouldst be
+trained, and brought to London to show off before the King!" laughed
+Standish. "But sleep and I have quarreled for to-night. I know not how
+it is, but never after a sound night's rest did I feel more fresh and on
+the alert. Go thou and sleep if thou 'rt sleepy, but come not creeping
+after me again, or I'll send thee packing! I like not such surprises."
+
+"The will of my lord is the will of his slave," meekly replied Kamuso,
+and crept back to his former sheltered nook beside the fire. The chill
+March night grew on toward morning, the east reddened with an angry
+glare, the solemn stars wheeled on their appointed courses, and Mars,
+who had held the morning watch, gave way to Sol, bidding him have a care
+of his son, whom he had left gazing with sleepless eyes across the
+waters to the East.
+
+"Up, men! 'T is morning at last, and surely never was a night so long as
+this. Up, and let us break our fast and be off within the hour!"
+
+So cried the captain, and in a moment all his command was afoot and
+active. Kamuso, his face black with sullen rage, retreated to the
+wigwams to confess his defeat to Wituwamat and Canacum, who listening
+said quietly,--
+
+"His totem is too strong for us. The Sword will never fall before the
+tomahawk."
+
+"It is because he is so strong that Obtakiest took a knife of the white
+man's make and use, and sent it. The powah that charmed the weapons of
+The Sword may have charmed this knife also."
+
+And Kamuso drawing the Weymouth knife from his belt regarded it with
+disgust for a moment, then thrusting it back into his belt doggedly
+declared,--
+
+"But all is not over. Wait, my brothers, wait for the end, and then say
+if Kamuso is a fool."
+
+As the pinnace drew out of Manomet Harbor Standish for the first time
+perceived that the Pamet was aboard her, and rather sharply demanded,--
+
+"Whither bound now, Kamuso? Thou didst but ask passage to Manomet."
+
+"My white brothers have not all the corn they need, have they?" asked
+the Indian, an air of humble sympathy pervading his voice and manner.
+
+"Nay. If the famine we forebode is upon us we need twice, thrice, as
+much as this, before the harvest not yet sown is ready for use."
+
+"For that then is Kamuso here. At Nauset, Aspinet hath great store of
+corn hidden from the white men, but it is not his alone, it is mine, it
+is the tribe's, it is The Sword's. Let my lord come to Nauset and I will
+have his canoe filled to the brim, there shall not be room to put in one
+grain more--Kamuso says it."
+
+"Hm! That would be a matter of fifty bushels or more," replied Standish
+literally. "What say you, Howland? What is your mind, men?"
+
+Various brief replies showed that the mind of the crew was to obey the
+captain's orders, and after a moment's thought he muttered to Howland in
+Dutch,--
+
+"I like not this fellow's carriage. He is too smooth to be honest, and
+yet what can one wretched savage do against seven men armed and on their
+watch? But pass the word among the rest to be wary, and Alden, I leave
+it in charge to thee, lad, in case the savage treacherously smites me as
+I think he meant last night, do thou avenge me."
+
+"He'll not breathe thrice after his blow, Master," replied Alden in his
+deepest tones.
+
+"Well said, lad; but gentle thy face and eke thy voice, or he'll
+suspect. Now then, lads, put her before this western wind, and ho for
+Nauset once more!"
+
+The command was obeyed, but lo the wind, which had since sunrise blown
+softly from the south of west making a fair breeze for Nauset near the
+end of the Cape, now suddenly hauled round with angry gusts and
+gathering mists, until it stood in the northeast right in the teeth of
+the shallop's course, while every sign of sky and sea foreboded a
+gathering storm.
+
+"His totem is too strong," muttered the Pamet in his throat, and the
+hand beneath his garment clinching the handle of the dagger seized with
+it a handful of his own flesh and gripped it savagely, while in silence
+he called upon his gods for help.
+
+But none came, more than to the priests of Baal what time Elijah jeered
+them, and after a brief consultation with his crew Standish once more
+altered his course, and the pinnace with double-reefed sails flew before
+the rising wind like a hunted creature to her covert, bearing
+The-Sword-of-the-White-Men safely to his post.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXI.
+
+A POT OF BROTH.
+
+
+Yes, a Pot of Broth, and one more classic than any black broth ever
+supped by Spartan; more pregnant of Fate than the hell-broth compounded
+by Macbeth's witches; broth in which was brewed the destiny of a great
+nation, broth but for whose brewing I certainly, and you, if you be of
+Pilgrim strain, had never been, for in its seething liquid was dissolved
+a wide-spread and most powerful conspiracy that in its fruition would
+have left Plymouth Rock a funeral monument in a field of blood.
+
+Hardly an hour after the pinnace had landed its passengers at the Rock,
+and the Pamet, sullenly declining farther hospitality, had proceeded on
+his way to meet Obtakiest and report his ill success, when Winslow with
+John Hampden and Hobomok entered the village from the north, sore spent
+with travel and scanty food, but laden with matter of the profoundest
+interest. A Council of the chiefs, including nearly all of the Mayflower
+men, was immediately called together in the Common house, now used
+altogether for these assemblages and for divine worship, and first
+Standish and then Winslow were called upon for their reports.
+
+The captain's was given with military brevity.
+
+"I have brought a hundred bushels of corn and all the men I carried
+away. The savages are no doubt disaffected, and a notorious
+blood-thirsty rascal called Wituwamat, a Neponset, brought Canacum a
+knife wherewith to kill some one, and I fancy 't is myself; but though
+he impudently delivered both knife and message in my presence, he so
+wrapped up his meaning in new and strange phrases, that I could make but
+little of it. Perhaps Master Winslow can read my riddle as well as tell
+his own story."
+
+"Methinks I can, Captain," replied Winslow pleasantly; and then in
+smooth and polished phrase bearing such resemblance to Standish's rough
+and brief utterances as a rapier doth to a battle-axe, the future Grand
+Commissioner narrated how he had found Massasoit as it seemed already
+dying, for he could neither see, nor swallow either medicine or food.
+
+The sachem's wigwam was so crowded with visitors that the white men
+could scarcely edge their way in, and around the bed circled the powahs
+at their incantations, "making," said Winslow, "such a hellish noise as
+distempered us that were well, and was therefore unlike to ease him that
+was sick."
+
+This ended, and about half the guests persuaded to withdraw, the dying
+chief was with difficulty made to understand who were his visitors, and
+feebly groping with his hand he faintly murmured,--
+
+"_Winsnow, keen Winsnow?_" (Is it you Winsnow?) To which Winslow gently
+replied, grasping the cold hand,--
+
+"It is Winslow who is come to see you, sachem."
+
+"I shall never see thee again, Winsnow," muttered the dying man, and
+those standing by explained that the sight had left his eyes some hours
+before.
+
+But Winslow, after patiently repeating over and over the message of
+sympathy and friendship delivered him by the governor, produced a little
+pot of what he calls a confection of many comfortable conserves, and
+with the point of his knife inserted a portion between the sick man's
+teeth.
+
+"It will kill him! He cannot swallow," declared the favorite wife, who
+stood chafing her lord's hands; but presently as the conserve, prepared
+by Doctor Fuller and of rare virtue, melted, it trickled down the
+patient's throat, who presently whispered, "More!" and Winslow well
+pleased administered several doses. Then, finding the mouth whose
+muscles had now relaxed, foul with fever, this courtly and haughty
+gentleman, this necessity of the Lord Protector of England, this Grand
+Commissioner of the future, with his own hands performed a nurse's
+loathly work, and ceased not until the sachem, refreshed, relieved,
+rescued from death, was able to ask for drink, when Hampden prepared
+some of the confection with water, and Winslow administered it. All
+night this work went on, and when morning broke, the sick man could see
+and hear and swallow as well as ever he could, and his appetite
+returning he demanded broth such as he had tasted at Plymouth.
+
+Now that especial broth was a delicious compound of Priscilla's
+compounding, and Winslow knew no more of its recipe than you or I do,
+nor were any materials such as should go to the making of white man's
+broth at hand. Worst of all, Winslow had never taken note or share in
+culinary labors, for Susanna was a notable housewife and had both men
+and maids at her command; but a willing mind is a powerful teacher, and
+not only Winslow the man, was full of Christian charity, but Winslow the
+statesman desired intensely that Massasoit should remain sachem of the
+Pokanokets, instead of making way for Corbitant, who had once declared
+his enmity to the white men, and had only been put down by the strong
+hand.
+
+So Winslow leaving his patient for a moment went into the fresh air,
+both to revive himself and to write a hasty note, begging Doctor Fuller
+to send not only some medicine suited to the case, but a pair of
+chickens, and a recipe for making them into broth, with such other
+material as might be needed.
+
+Fifty miles of forest lay between Sowams and Plymouth, but a swift
+runner was dispatched at once with the missive, and the promise of a
+rich reward if he hastened his return; then Winslow turned to his
+fellow-statesman who stood looking on with an amused smile.
+
+"Master Hampden, know you how to make broth?" demanded he.
+
+"I have no teaching but mother wit," replied Hampden. "And you are
+richer in that than I."
+
+"Nay then--here Pibayo, is that thy name?"
+
+"Ahhe," replied the squaw modestly.
+
+"Thou hast corn in store?"
+
+"Ahhe," again replied the woman, and Winslow making the most of his
+little stock of Indian words directed her to bruise some of the maize in
+her stone mortar, and meantime calling for one of the egg-shaped earthen
+stew-pans used by the natives, he half filled it with water, and settled
+it into the hot ashes of the open air fire. The maize ready, he winnowed
+it in his hands, blowing away the husks and chaff, and poured the rest
+into the boiling water.
+
+"So far well," remarked he gayly to Hampden; "but what next? I remember
+in the garden of our home at Droitwich there was a gay plot of golden
+bloom that my mother called broth marigolds, but we shall hardly come by
+such in this wilderness."
+
+"Methinks there are turnips in broth," ventured Hampden.
+
+"And there are turnips in Plymouth, but that is not here," retorted
+Winslow. "Come, let us see what herbs Dame Nature will afford."
+
+A little search and some questioning showed the herbalists a goodly bush
+of sassafras, and Winslow, who with the rest of his generation ascribed
+almost magical virtues to this plant, enthusiastically tugged up several
+of its roots, and cleansing them in the brook, sliced them thinly into
+his broth. Finally he added a handful of strawberry leaves, the only
+green thing to be found, and leaving the mess to stew for a while, he
+strained it through his handkerchief, and presented it to his patient
+who eagerly drank a pint of it.
+
+Perhaps there really is magic in sassafras, perhaps the child of nature
+throve upon this strictly Pre-Raphaelitish composition, perhaps Indian
+gruel with strawberry leaves in it and strained through a pocket
+handkerchief is the disguise under which the Elixir Vitae masquerades
+among us; certain it is that beneath its benign influence the sachem of
+the Pokanokets revived so rapidly that when, twenty-four hours from his
+departure, the runner arrived with the chickens and the physic, his
+master frankly threw the physic to the dogs, and handed over the fowls
+to Pibayo, bidding her guard them carefully, feed them well, and order
+them to lay eggs and provide chickens for future illnesses.
+
+So this was the fateful broth of which we spoke but now, and its results
+were immediate, for although Massasoit himself said nothing more
+than,--
+
+"Now I perceive that the English are my friends and love me, and while I
+live I will never forget this kindness that they have showed me," he in
+a private conclave with some of his most trusted pnieses solemnly
+charged Hobomok with a message for Winslow, only to be delivered however
+as upon their return they came within sight of Plymouth. This message,
+to hear which the Council had been convened, was to the effect that the
+Neponsets had fully determined to fall upon the Weymouth settlers and
+cut them off root and branch so soon as two of them, who were
+ship-carpenters, had completed some boats they were now building to the
+order of the Indians.
+
+The forty braves of the Neponset tribe were fully equal to this task,
+and if the Plymouth Colony would remain neutral they had no desire to
+injure them; but knowing full well that they would not, and having
+moreover a superstitious dread of Standish's prowess and abilities, they
+had arranged with all the tribes lying near Plymouth to join with them,
+and on an appointed day to massacre the entire colony.
+
+"Ay, ay," interrupted Standish at this point of Winslow's narrative.
+"Now do I comprehend some of the figures and parables of Wituwamat's
+impudent speech, what time he delivered the knife to Canacum. The bloody
+hound--well, brother, get on with thy narrative."
+
+So Winslow told how Massasoit had been urged again and again to join the
+conspiracy, but never would, although his pride had been indeed sore
+wounded by a lying story of how the governor and captain and Winslow,
+his especial friend, having been told of his desperate illness, cared
+naught for it, not even enough to send Hobomok his own pniese to inquire
+for him; and now, being undeceived, he would himself have killed the
+liar, whose name was Pecksuot, but on second thought left him to the
+white men whom he earnestly charged to take the matter into their own
+hands, and with no warning, no parley, to go and kill Pecksuot,
+Wituwamat, Obtakiest, and several other ringleaders of the conspiracy,
+for, as he assured them most earnestly and solemnly, unless these men
+were promptly and effectually dealt with, both the Weymouth colony and
+themselves would be overwhelmed and massacred without mercy. Finally,
+the sachem added that he as Sagamore of the Pokanokets, and as it were
+regent of the Massachusetts, had authority to order the punishment of
+these rebels to his expressed commands for peace, and he hereby did so.
+
+"And very sensible and good the sachem's counsel seemeth in my ears,"
+remarked Standish complacently.
+
+"Nay, Captain," replied the Elder sternly. "Men's lives are not so
+lightly to be dealt withal. We came among these salvages to convert them
+to the knowledge of God, not to slaughter them."
+
+"Meseemeth, Elder," returned Standish impatiently, "it is a question of
+our lives or theirs. I should be loth to see your gray hairs dabbled in
+blood, and Mistress Brewster carried into captivity to drudge as the
+slave of a squaw."
+
+The elder turned even paler than his wont and covered his eyes with his
+hand, but murmured,--
+
+"God His will be done."
+
+"Ay, so say I," replied the captain more gently. "But as I read Holy
+Writ the chosen folk were often punished for sparing their foes, but
+never for laying roundly on. 'Go and smite me Amalek and spare not,' is
+one of many orders, and if the commander-in-chief obeyed not he was
+cashiered without so much as a court-martial."
+
+Several eager voices rose in reply, but Bradford lightly tapping the
+table around which the Council was gathered said decisively,--
+
+"These matters are too large, brethren, to be thus discussed. Let each
+one declare his mind soberly and briefly, and without controversy.
+To-morrow is the day appointed for our town meeting and annual election
+of officers, and I will then lay the case before the whole, and also
+will rehearse our own conclusions. Then, the voice of the majority shall
+decide the matter."
+
+And so began the reign of "the people" in America, for this was the
+first great question to be decided since the coming of the Fortune had
+so enlarged the colony that the Council was no longer composed of the
+whole, as it was when the treaty with Massasoit was concluded.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXII.
+
+THE SUNSET GUN.
+
+
+The town meeting was over, and its decisions if important were
+unanimous, even Elder Brewster, converted perhaps by Standish's Biblical
+references, giving his voice for the stringent measures rendered
+necessary by the growth and magnitude of the conspiracy.
+
+Captain Standish with what force he might select was to take the
+pinnace, and under cover of a trading expedition make a landing at
+Weymouth, and first of all discover from the colonists themselves the
+truth of their condition. If it should prove as represented he was to at
+once attack whatever leaders of the conspiracy might be found, and in
+especial he was to slay Wituwamat, of whom Massasoit had spoken as the
+heart of the conspiracy, and to bring his head to Plymouth to be set
+over the gate of the Fort as a proof and a warning to their neighbors on
+the east, whom they would not now punish, but hoped rather to persuade.
+
+"And now, Captain Standish, it were well that you should select those
+whom you will have of your company, while we are all gathered together
+here," said the governor when the primary question had been finally
+decided.
+
+Standish rose and looked thoughtfully from face to face.
+
+"'T is a hard matter," said he at last with a gleam of pride in his
+eye. "Here be fifty good men and true, and I need no more than half a
+dozen."
+
+"The Neponsets number forty warriors," suggested Winslow.
+
+"Yes, but they will not be gathered together, having no knowledge of our
+purpose, and if the shallop is watched from shore, as belike it will be,
+a large force of armed men would bewray our intent, and runners would
+gather the braves in a few hours and so bring down a great slaughter
+upon the tribe," replied the captain in confident simplicity. "But if we
+go no more in number than ordinary, no more than in our late voyage to
+Nauset for corn, they will suspect nothing, and the matter may be well
+concluded with no more than five or six examples, Wituwamat being the
+principal."
+
+"And glad am I, brother, to see a certain tenderness of human life in
+your counsels," said the elder approvingly.
+
+"Nay, elder, I am not all out a cannibal and ogre," replied the captain.
+"So now I will choose me Hopkins and Howland and Billington, and Eaton
+and Browne and Cooke and Soule, seven hearts of oak and arms of steel:
+it is enough."
+
+"And not one of us Fortune men, Captain?" demanded Robert Hicks, a
+stalwart fellow who afterward became almost a rebel to the colony's
+authority.
+
+"Nay, Master Hicks," replied the captain gravely. "I mean no discredit
+to the courage or the good will of the new-comers, of whom you are a
+principal; but this service is one of strategy as well as daring, and so
+soon as the pinnace leaves yon Rock, there must be but one mind and one
+will in her, and that is mine. The men whom I have chosen, my comrades
+of the Mayflower, I know as I know mine own sword, and I can trust them
+as I do him. There's no offense Master Hicks, but a stricken field is no
+place to learn to handle a new sword or a new comrade."
+
+"And not me, Master," said a low voice as the captain stepped out of the
+Common house and turned his face homeward.
+
+"Nay, Jack, I've a text for thee too. 'I have married a wife and cannot
+come.'" And with a somewhat bitter laugh he strode on up the hill,
+leaving John Alden looking sadly after him.
+
+That night as Standish slowly entered the Fort to fire his sunset gun,
+he was startled at seeing a muffled figure seated upon an empty powder
+keg in an angle of the works. As he appeared she rose, and pushing back
+her hood showed the beautiful face of Priscilla Molines, now strangely
+pale and distraught.
+
+"You here, Mistress Molines," exclaimed the captain somewhat sternly.
+"Alden is not coming."
+
+"It is not Alden but Captain Standish I fain would speak withal, and I
+hope he will pardon my forwardness in seeking him here."
+
+The captain briefly waved the apology aside. "Your commands, madam?"
+inquired he.
+
+"Nay, nay sir, my father's dear loved friend, my brother's tender
+nurse,--mine--oh what shall I say, how shall I plead for a little
+kindness. Have pity on a froward maid's distress"--
+
+"What Priscilla, thou canst weep!"
+
+"And why not when my heart is sorrowful unto death."
+
+"But--there then, child, wipe thine eyes and look up and let me see thee
+smile as thou art wont. What is it, maid? What is thy sorrow?"
+
+"That you will not forgive me, sir."
+
+"Forgive thee for what?" But the captain dropped the hand he had seized
+in his sympathy, and the dark look crept back to his face.
+
+"Thou 'rt going to a terrible danger--my friend--and it may be to thy
+death."
+
+"Well girl, 't is not worth crying for if I am. Life is not so sweet to
+me that I should over much dread to lay it down with honor."
+
+"Oh, oh, and it is my fault!"--sobbed Priscilla.
+
+The captain strode up and down the narrow space pulling at his red beard
+and frowning thoughtfully; then stopping before the girl who stood as he
+had left her, he quietly said,--
+
+"Priscilla, I was indeed thy father's friend, and I am thine, and I fain
+would have wed thee, and thou didst refuse, preferring John Alden, who
+also is my friend, even as my younger brother, whose honor and well
+being are dear to me as mine own. What then is the meaning of thy grief,
+and what is thy request?"
+
+"My grief is that since the day I gave John Alden my promise, you, sir,
+have been no more my friend, but ever looked upon me with coldness and
+disdain; and now that you go, it may be to your death, it breaketh my
+heart to have it so, and I fain would beg your forgiveness for aught I
+have done to offend you, though I know not what it may be."
+
+"Know not--well, well, let it pass--'t is but one more traverse. Yes
+child, I forgive thee for what to me seemed like something of scorn and
+slight, something of double dealing and treachery--nay, we'll say no
+more on 't. Here is my hand, Priscilla--and surely thy father's friend
+may for once taste thy cheek. Now child, we're friends and dear friends,
+and if yon savage sheathes his knife in my heart perhaps thou 'lt shed
+a tear or two, and say a prayer for the soul of--thy father's friend.
+And now thy petition, for time presses."
+
+"That thou wilt take John Alden with thee."
+
+"What then! Who shall read a woman's will aright! I left him at home for
+thy sake, Priscilla."
+
+"So I guessed and I thank you--nay, I thank you not for so misjudging
+me." And the fire in the hazel eyes upraised to his, dried the tears
+sharply.
+
+"Why, what now! Dost want thy troth-plight lover slain?"
+
+"No in truth, nor do I want my troth-plight friend, for thou art that
+now, slain; but neither do I want the one nor the other to lurk safely
+at home when his brothers are at the war. There's no coward's blood in
+my heart more than in yours, Captain Standish, and I care not to shelter
+any man behind my petticoats. I have not wed John Alden all this long
+year and more, because I would not wed with your frown black upon my
+heart, and I will not wed him now until he hath showed himself a man
+upon that same field whence you do not greatly care to come alive."
+
+"Nay, Priscilla, I care more now for life than I did an hour since, for
+I have a friend."
+
+"And you will take John, and if he comes home alive you'll smile upon
+our marriage?"
+
+"Yes girl, yes to both. God bless you, Priscilla, for a brave and true
+woman. And now--good-night."
+
+A moment later as the dark clad figure flitted down the hill Standish
+stood with bared head and fixed eyes silent for a little space, and then
+the boom of the sunset gun sounded in solemn Amen to the soldier's
+silent prayer.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIII.
+
+PECKSUOT'S KNIFE.
+
+
+The next morning as the village sat at breakfast, two men at half an
+hour's interval passed hastily down the forest trail, and entering the
+town sought the governor's house.
+
+The first was Wassapinewat, brother of Obtakiest, chief of the
+Neponsets, who, having suffered both wounds and terror in Corbitant's
+attempted rebellion, now hastened to turn State's evidence, and while
+warning the white men of his brother's intended attack wash his hands of
+any share in it.
+
+The other visitor was a long lank Caucasian, Phineas Pratt by name,
+carpenter by trade, Weymouth settler by position. This man half dead
+with suffering of various sorts, footsore and weary, came stumbling down
+the King's Highway just as Bradford came out of his own door followed by
+Wassapinewat, at sight of whom Phineas started and trembled, then
+pointing a finger at him shrieked,--
+
+"Have a care, Governor! 'T is one of the bloody salvages sworn to take
+all our lives!"
+
+"Nay, friend Pratt, for I remember thee well, 't is a penitent robber
+now, come to warn us of danger. Methinks thine errand may be the same.
+Come in, and after due refreshment tell us the truth of this matter."
+
+But weary as he was, the excited fugitive would pause for neither rest
+nor refreshment until he had poured out his story of the wrongs, the
+insults, the threats with which the Neponsets had harassed the Weymouth
+men in their weakness, in part revenging the foul wrongs they while
+strong had put upon the savages, until in an Indian council of the day
+before, it had been formally resolved to wait only for two days' more
+work upon the boats which Phineas and another were finishing, and then
+to inaugurate the massacre.
+
+Both Pratt and Wassapinewat had by different channels learned the result
+of this council, and each had resolved to not only save himself from the
+explosion of this mine, but to warn the Plymouth colonists of their
+danger, and each had set out by a slightly different route from the
+other and made the journey in ignorance of the other's movements.
+
+It was afterward discovered, however, that Pratt's flight was at once
+discovered, and an Indian dispatched to overtake and kill him, a
+catastrophe averted by the carpenter's straying from the path in the
+darkness, so that his pursuer reached Plymouth, and went on to Manomet
+before the village was astir.
+
+These two confirmatory reports were very welcome to Bradford, upon whom
+the nominal responsibility of the expedition rested, and to the elder
+whose reverend face was very pale and grave in these days.
+
+Standish, however, as he had felt no doubts, now felt no added impulse,
+but went quietly on, seeing his command and his stores embarked, and
+examining personally the arms of his eight soldiers.
+
+At last all was ready, the men seated each at his post, Hobomok in the
+bow, and Standish at the stern, the men and boys who stayed behind
+grouped upon the shore, while a vague cloud of skirts and kirtles
+hovered upon the brow of Cole's Hill, when Elder Brewster, baring his
+white head, stepped upon the Rock, and raising his hands to heaven
+prayed loud and fervently that the God of battles, the God of victory,
+the God of their fathers, would bless, protect, and prosper those who
+went forth in His name to do battle for His Right; and as the old man's
+voice rose clear and sonorous in its impassioned appeal, the first
+breath of a favoring wind came out of the South, and the lapping waves
+of the incoming tide answered melodiously to the deep diapason of the
+Amen sent up from fifty bearded throats.
+
+"And now we may go home and make our mourning weeds," said Priscilla
+with a petulant half-sob, half-laugh, as she and Mary Chilton turned
+away from the wheatfield on the hill.
+
+"Nay, John Alden will come home safe, I'm sure on 't," said Mary gently,
+but her vivacious friend turned sharply upon her.
+
+"And if he comes not at all, I'd liefer know him dead in honor, than
+lingering here among the women like some others."
+
+"Gilbert Winslow, or his brother John if you mean him, would have gone
+as gladly as any man had the captain chosen him," replied Mary
+composedly, if coldly, and Priscilla turned and clipped her in a sharp
+embrace, crying out that indeed her friend were no more than right to
+beat her for a froward child.
+
+The prosperous wind lasted all the way, and before noon the shallop lay
+at anchor close beside the Swan, a small craft owned by the Weymouth
+men, and intended for their use in trading and fishing. Standish's
+first visit was to her, and much to his surprise he found her both
+undefended and deserted. Landing with four of his men he next proceeded
+to the plantation, as it was called, where some ten or twelve
+substantial buildings surrounded with a stockade established a very
+defensible position, but here again neglect and suicidal folly stared
+him in the face.
+
+The settlers were dispersed in every direction: three had that very
+morning gone to live among the Indians; many were roaming the woods and
+shore in search of food; one poor fellow going to dig clams on the
+previous day had stuck fast in the mud by reason of weakness, and though
+the Indians stood upon the shore watching him with shouts of derisive
+laughter, not one put out a hand to help him, and he perished miserably
+at the flow of the tide.
+
+The master of the Swan, stricken with the folly of strong drink, met all
+Standish's expostulations with a fatuous laugh, and the declaration that
+there was no danger,--no danger whatever; that he and the Indians were
+such friends that he carried no arms, and never closed the gates of the
+stockade; that all the stories reaching Plymouth were lies or blunders;
+and that although they were short of provisions, and especially of
+strong waters, they asked nothing more of the Plymouth people than some
+fresh supplies to last until Sanders, the head of the colony, should
+return from Monhegan on the coast of Maine, whither he had gone for
+corn.
+
+Leaving the drunken captain in disgust, Standish at once took the
+command of the post upon himself, and dispatched Hobomok and two of the
+settlers who came to place themselves under his orders, to bring in all
+of the others whom they could reach, sending word that he would feed
+them. Many of them, including Sanders' lieutenant named Manning, came at
+the summons, and before night all who would were safe within the
+stockade, and were served each man with a pint of shelled corn, all that
+could be spared, for it was taken from the Pilgrims' stock of seed-corn.
+
+Then in a brief and vigorous address Standish told the colonists why he
+had come, and repeated to them the assurance given him by Hobomok that
+the day but one after his arrival was the day fixed upon for the
+massacre, the boats needing but the one day's work to complete them.
+Furthermore, he assured them that he needed nor would accept any help
+from them in his punishment of the savages, the danger and the
+responsibility being no more than Plymouth could endure, and, as he
+significantly added, "The savages were not like to flee before men who
+had so often fled before them."
+
+Hardly was the harangue ended when a Neponset bringing a few hastily
+collected furs entered the stockade, and warily approaching the captain
+offered them for sale. Standish controlling all appearance of
+indignation parleyed with him and paid a fair price for the furs, but as
+the Indian turned toward one of the houses, he called him back, and
+dismissed him somewhat peremptorily.
+
+"To spy out the land hath he come," remarked he to Alden. "And I will
+not have him glean our purpose." But the savage had already learned
+something, and went back to his comrades to report that
+The-Sword-of-the-White-Men "spoke smoothly, but his eyes showed that
+there was anger in his heart."
+
+The second morning so soon as the gates were opened several Indians
+entered together. One of them named Pecksuot, a pniese of great
+celebrity, greeted Hobomok jeeringly, and told him that he supposed his
+master had come to kill all the Neponsets including himself, and
+added,--
+
+"Tell him to begin if he dare; we are not afraid of him, nor shall we
+run away and hide. Let him begin unless he is afraid. Is he afraid?"
+
+Hobomok repeated the message word for word, but Standish only replied,--
+
+"Tell the pniese I would speak with his sachem, Obtakiest."
+
+"Obtakiest is busy, or he is feasting, or he is sleeping," replied
+Pecksuot disdainfully. "He does not trouble himself to run about after
+any little fellow who sends for him."
+
+Again Hobomok translated the insult, but added in a low voice,--
+
+"Obtakiest is waiting for some of his braves who are gone to the
+Shawmuts for help. When they return he will attack the white men."
+
+"So! Then we will not wait for them, but so soon as we can gather the
+heads in one place we will return some of their courtly challenges." And
+Standish ground his strong teeth together in the pain of self-restraint
+under insult.
+
+Perceiving that he did not mean to act, some of the Indians who had
+lingered a little behind at first, now came forward, hopping and dancing
+around Standish, whetting their knives upon their palms, making
+insulting gestures, and shouting all sorts of jeers and taunts at him
+and the white men generally.
+
+Then Wituwamat came forward and in his own tongue cried out,--
+
+"The Captain Sword-of-the-White-Men escaped the knife I carried to
+Canacum for him, but he will not escape this." And he showed a dagger
+hung around his neck by a deer's sinew, on whose wooden handle a woman's
+face was not inartistically carved.
+
+"This is Wituwamat's squaw-knife," declared he. "At home he has another
+with a man's face upon it which has already killed both French and
+English; by and by they will marry, and there shall be a knife ready for
+every white man's heart; they can see, they can eat, and they make no
+childish noise like the white man's weapons. But the squaw knife is
+enough for the white pniese."
+
+"Hm! Methinks I cannot much longer keep Gideon in his scabbard--he will
+fly out of his own accord," muttered Standish, a deadly pallor showing
+beneath the bronze of his skin. Pecksuot saw it, and mistook it for the
+hue of fear. With a savage smile he approached and stood close beside
+the Captain, towering above his head, for he was a giant in stature and
+strength.
+
+"The Sword-of-the-White-Men may be a great pniese, but he is a very
+little man," said he contemptuously. "Now I am a pniese as well as he,
+and I am besides a very big man, and a very brave warrior. The Sword had
+better run away before I devour him."
+
+Without reply Standish turned and walked into the principal house of the
+village, and looked around the large lower room.
+
+"It will do as well as another place," said he briefly. "Alden and
+Howland remove me this great table to the side of the room, and pitch
+out this settle and the stools. Now John Alden get you gone and send me
+Hopkins and Billington. Tarry you with Cooke and Browne at the gate;
+bid Soule and Eaton stand on guard, and if they hear me cry Rescue! make
+in to my help. Let no more of the salvages into the stockade until we
+have settled with these. Hobomok, tell Pecksuot, Kamuso, whom I saw
+behind the rest, Wituwamat, and that notorious ruffian his brother, that
+I fain would speak with them in this place."
+
+"Four to four," remarked Billington with grewsome relish.
+
+"Ay. Take you Wituwamat; Hopkins, I leave you to deal with Kamuso;
+Howland, take the young fellow, and I will deal with Pecksuot, for in
+truth he is a bigger man than I, but we will see if he is a better."
+
+What story Hobomok may have invented to bring the four ringleaders into
+the house we know not, but as five white men remained outside with at
+least an equal number of Indians, they could not fear being overmatched,
+and presently came stalking impudently in, exchanging jeers and laughter
+of the most irritating nature.
+
+Hobomok followed, and closing the door stood with his back against it,
+calmly observing the scene, but taking no part in it.
+
+Then at last the captain loosed the reins of the fiery spirit struggling
+and chafing beneath the curb so long, and fixing his eyes red with the
+blaze of anger upon Pecksuot, he cried,--
+
+"On guard, O Pecksuot!" and sprang upon him, seizing the squaw-knife,
+which was sharpened at the back as well as at the front, and ground at
+the tip to a needle point. With a coarse laugh Pecksuot snatched at the
+captain's throat with his left hand, while his right closed like iron
+over the captain's grasp of the hilt and tried to turn it against him.
+But the rebound from his forced inaction had strung the soldier's
+muscles like steel and thrilled along his nerves like fire. A roar like
+that of a lion broke from his panting chest, and with one mighty effort
+he wrung the knife from the grasp of the giant, and turning its point
+drove it deep into the heart of the boaster. A wild cry of death and
+defeat rung through the room as he fell headlong, and Wituwamat turning
+his head to look, gave Billington his chance and received his own mortal
+wound; while Kamuso fighting with the silent courage of a great warrior
+only succumbed at last beneath a dozen wounds from Hopkins's short
+sword, and Howland having disarmed and wounded his opponent presented
+him as prisoner under Standish's orders.
+
+"Should'st have slain him in the heat of the onset, Howland," panted the
+captain, wiping his hands and looking around him. "Now--take him out,
+Billington, and hang him to the tree in the middle of the parade. We
+shall leave him there as an example for the others. Open the door,
+Hobomok."
+
+Hobomok did as he was bid, but then advancing with slow step to the side
+of the fallen Pecksuot he placed a foot upon his chest and softly
+said,--
+
+"Yes, my brother, thou wast a very big man, but I have seen a little man
+bring thee low."
+
+It was the giant's funeral elegy.
+
+"I have notched my sword on yon villain's skull," exclaimed Hopkins
+wiping and examining his blade, and the Captain smiling shrewdly said,--
+
+"I risked not Gideon in such ignoble warfare, though he clattered in his
+scabbord. Savage weapons for savage hearts, say I."
+
+"Ha! There's fighting without!" cried Hopkins, rushing to the door,
+where in effect Soule and Browne had shot down two stout savages, who
+hearing Pecksuot's death cry had tried to avenge him; while another
+rushing upon Alden with uplifted knife was caught in mid career by a
+bullet from the captain's snaphance snatched up at Hopkins's warning.
+
+So fell seven of the savages, who would if they could have barbarously
+murdered seventy white men, women, and children, and thus did the
+Captain of the Pilgrim forces teach the red men a lesson that lasted in
+vivid force until the men of that generation had given way to those of
+poor weak Sachem Philip's day.
+
+That night one of the three colonists who had gone to live among the
+Indians returned to the village bringing news that in the evening a
+runner had arrived at the place where he was, and had delivered a "short
+and sad" message to his hosts, probably the news of Pecksuot's and
+Wituwamat's death. The Indians had begun at once to collect and arm, and
+he foreboding evil had slunk away after vainly trying to persuade his
+comrades to do the same.
+
+"They will be slain out of revenge," declared Hobomok in his own tongue,
+and the event proved him a true prophet.
+
+In the early gray of morning the watch reported a file of Indians
+emerging from the forest, and Standish with four of his own men, and two
+settlers who implored permission to join him, went to meet them. A bushy
+hillock lay midway between the two parties, and the Indians were making
+for its shelter, when the Pilgrims breaking into a double run
+forestalled them, and reached the summit where, as Standish declared, he
+was ready to welcome the whole Neponset tribe.
+
+The Indians at once fell behind each man his tree, and a flight of
+arrows aimed chiefly at Standish and Hobomok ensued.
+
+"Let no man shoot until he hath a fair mark," ordered the Captain.
+"'T is useless to waste ammunition upon tree-trunks."
+
+"Both their pnieses are dead, and Obtakiest himself is none!" suddenly
+declared Hobomok. "I alone can drive them!" and throwing off his coat,
+leaving his chest with its gleaming "totem" bare, he extended wide his
+arms and rushed down the hill shouting at the top of his voice,--
+
+"Hobomok the pniese! Hobomok the devil! Hobomok is awake! Hobomok has
+come!"
+
+"The fool will be shot! Hath he gone mad!" shouted Billington, but
+Hopkins grasped his arm.
+
+"Let be, let be! He knows what he is about. Himself told me that his
+name Hobomok answereth to our word Devil, and that while every pniese
+through fasting and self-torture gains much power over demons and is
+greatly feared by all who are not pnieses, he having taken the foul
+fiend's name, had gained double the power of the rest, and could when
+put to it summon Sathanas and all his brood to aid him. Those others
+know it, and--lo, you now, see them scatter, see them fly!" and with a
+loud laugh he pointed to the savage crew, who panic stricken were
+fleeing before the pniese like a flock of frightened sheep.
+
+"Have after them! Follow me, men!" shouted Standish rushing down the
+hill, the others following as fast as they could, but not fast enough,
+for before they came within shot, the party was halted by Hobomok's
+return, who half glorious, half laughing, reported the enemy hidden in a
+swamp, whither he led his friends.
+
+"We will slay no more if we can help it," declared the captain. "Alden,
+show a flag of truce. Haply they will understand it."
+
+But although as Standish drew near the thicket, Alden carrying the white
+flag beside him, the savages refrained from firing, his invitation to
+parley was received with a volley of abuse and defiance renewed at every
+attempt of his to speak.
+
+"Obtakiest is there. I know his voice," declared Hobomok who had crept
+up behind. "He will not show himself lest I curse him."
+
+"Obtakiest! Sachem! Art thou there?" demanded Standish. "Come forth then
+like a man, and we two will fight it out here in the midst. I challenge
+thee, sachem!"
+
+A hoarse laugh and a volley of obscene abuse was the reply, and Standish
+indignantly cried,--
+
+"Dost not know how base and cowardly it is to hide there and tongue it
+like an angry woman! Thou 'rt not fit to be called a man!"
+
+A shower of arrows was the only response to this, and presently the
+movement of the bushes showed that the Indians were retreating to a
+deeper fastness, and Standish deeply disgusted marched his own men back
+to the village, the only casualty on either side being the broken arm of
+the powah or priest, who with Wituwamat and Pecksuot were really the
+heart of the conspiracy; for Obtakiest after a while sent a squaw to
+Plymouth abjectly begging for peace, and declaring that he had since
+Standish's visit changed his camp every night for fear of receiving
+another one.
+
+"And now, Master Manning, and you, master of the Swan and friend of the
+Neponsets," demanded Standish, as he arrayed the Weymouth men before
+him, and declared his success in their quarrel, "what shall I do more
+for your comfort or safety before my return to Plymouth? For myself, I
+should never fear to remain in this plantation had I the half of your
+men, but for yourselves ye must judge. Only I will add that I am charged
+by Governor Bradford to say that any who will come to settle in Plymouth
+and abide by its laws and governance shall be kindly welcomed."
+
+The settlers debated the matter among themselves for a while, and
+although a few and those of the best, decided to accept the invitation
+to Plymouth albeit somewhat coldly given, the majority decided to desert
+the post where they had suffered so much, and to join some other of
+Weston's men at Monhegan. The Pilgrims cheerfully lent their help, and
+before night the settlers had loaded all their portable property into
+the Swan, Standish had seen the gates of the stockade securely bolted
+and barred, and Hobomok with some red paint had traced upon each a
+hideous emblem, which he assured the white men would frighten away any
+predatory Indian.
+
+Standish only laughed, but Hopkins nodded sagely.
+
+"The rogue is right--I know the symbol, and have seen the terror it
+carries," said he; and true it is that whether from superstitious or
+from martial terrors, that stockade and the houses it enclosed, and the
+body of the savage left swinging from the tree in their midst, were
+never molested or apparently visited by the red men again. As the heavy
+laden Swan weltered out of the harbor, victualed with all that remained
+of Standish's seed corn except a scanty ration apiece to his own men,
+the pinnace bore gallantly up for Plymouth, and in due course joyfully
+arrived there bringing home all her crew victorious and unscathed.
+
+With them came Wituwamat's head to be set on a pike over the gateway of
+the Fort, for these our Fathers were not of our day or thought in such
+matters; and these Englishmen did but follow the usage of England, when
+so lately as 1747 the heads of the unhappy Pretender's more unhappy
+followers defiled the air of London's busiest street.
+
+Standish for one never doubted of the justice of his course either in
+the slaying of the colony's avowed enemies, or the exposure of the
+ringleader's head; not even when a year or so later Bradford sorrowfully
+placed in his hands a letter just received from his revered Pastor
+Robinson at Leyden, who in commenting on the death of the Indians
+said,--
+
+"Oh how happy a thing it had been had you converted some before you had
+killed any. Let me be bold to exhort you seriously to consider of the
+disposition of your captain, whom I love;--but there is cause to fear
+that by occasion, especially of provocation, there may be wanting in him
+that tenderness of the life of man made after God's image, that is
+meet."
+
+Standish read the letter, and returning it without a word went out from
+his friend's presence, nor did he ever after allude to it, but a blow
+had been struck upon that loyal loving heart from which it never in this
+life recovered.
+
+Thirty years later as the hero set his house in order, his failing hand
+wrote these words,--
+
+"I give 3L. to Mercy Robinson whom I tenderly love for her grandfather's
+sake."
+
+And that was his revenge.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIV.
+
+THE WOLF AT THE DOOR.
+
+
+Midsummer was upon the land, and the heat and drought were intense. Day
+after day the sun rose fierce and pitiless, drinking up at a draught
+what scanty dews had distilled in a night so brief and heated that it
+brought no refreshment to herbage or to man. Day after day wistful eyes
+searched the horizon for a cloud if no bigger than a man's hand, and
+still only the hard blue above and the palpitating horizon line stared
+blankly back. The crops languished in the field, some already dead, and
+the scanty store saved from the seed corn quite gone. Many a day a few
+clams, a lobster, or a piece of fish without bread or any vegetable, was
+a family's whole subsistence.
+
+Early in July the ship Plantation had touched at Plymouth having on
+board two hogsheads of dried peas for sale, but seeing the bitter need
+of the colonists the shipmaster raised the price to L8 per hogshead, and
+although they had the money, the Fathers refused to submit to the
+extortion, and the peas sailed southward.
+
+It is but forty miles from Plymouth to Boston Harbor, where about a
+hundred and fifty years later the women signed a declaration that they
+would forego the use of tea rather than submit to extortion, and their
+fathers and husbands and lovers flung a goodly cargo into the sea.
+
+But a stout spirit although it keeps a man up puts no flesh on his
+bones, and soon it became a piteous sight to stand in the Town Square
+and mark the faces and figures of those who passed by. Strong men
+staggered from weakness as they walked, women glided along like mournful
+white wraiths, even the little children in their quaint garb looked worn
+and emaciated. Standish, who relying upon his iron constitution and long
+training in a soldier's endurance, had regularly divided his rations
+with some woman or child, had grown so gaunt and worn that he might well
+have posed as The Skeleton in Armor, when he held his monthly muster,
+and Mistress Brewster, although some private provision was made for her,
+wasted away piteously.
+
+"Where is the ship spoken by the master of the Plantation?" was the
+daily cry, and daily Hobomok climbed the great tulip-tree on the crest
+of Watson's Hill and swept the horizon line with eyes keener than any
+white man's.
+
+"The Lord abaseth us for our sins," declared the elder. "Call a solemn
+assembly, proclaim a fast, let us entreat our God to have mercy, and our
+Lord to pardon. Who can tell but He yet may turn and have compassion,
+and spare the remnant of His people. Even as a servant looketh to the
+hand of his master even so let us wait upon our God, beseeching that He
+spare, that He pardon, that He restore us, who for our sins are
+appointed to die."
+
+So spake the elder after the evening prayers of a day even more
+exhausting than its predecessors, and Myles Standish, leaning against
+the wall for very weakness, muttered,--
+
+"Nay, what sin have these women and children wrought? What odds between
+a God like that and the Shietan of the salvages? Nay, Elder, thou hast
+not bettered the faith my mother lived and died by."
+
+But the fast was appointed for the next day, which fell on a Thursday,
+and as the sun sprang up with even an added blaze of pitiless heat, he
+saw a mournful procession winding up the hill to the Fort, now so
+completed as to offer a large lower room for purposes of devotion or of
+refuge, while the ordnance mounted on the roof gained a wider range, and
+presented a more formidable aspect.
+
+At the head walked Elder Brewster, but the shadowy form of Mary his wife
+reclined in the old chair set beside the window, whence she could watch
+the procession she was unable to join except in spirit. Then came the
+Governor and the Captain, Allerton and Winslow, Warren and Fuller,
+Hopkins and Howland, Alden and Browne, and the rest of the glorious
+band, the least of whom has his name written in the Libro d'Oro of the
+men posterity delighteth to honor. After the men came the women, meek
+and gentle, yet strong and courageous, and the children, poor little
+heroes and heroines, involuntary martyrs like the Holy Innocents of
+Bethlehem.
+
+"Get thee to the roof, Hobomok," ordered the captain, "and say the
+prayers the elder hath so painfully taught thee; but mind me, lad, keep
+thine eyes upon the horizon and watch for the answer, whether it be a
+sail, or whether it be a rain cloud. Shalt play the part of Elijah's
+servant, and the elder is the very moral of the stern old prophet."
+
+No morsel of food, no drop of drink, had passed the lips of that wan
+company since the pittance of the night before, and yet for nine long
+hours of that fearful day, the air so heated that it hardly fed the
+lungs, and the sun blazing so pitilessly upon the log structure that a
+faint odor of parching wood mingled with the torrid air within the Fort,
+yes, for nine long hours the elder prayed, or preached, or recited aloud
+the deep abasement of the penitential psalms, and the wail of the
+prophets, proclaiming, yet deprecating, the wrath of an offended God.
+
+In the intervals others spoke; Doctor Fuller, himself a deacon in the
+church, and Bradford, whose petition less abject than that of the elder,
+called confidently for help, upon Him who twice fed a starving
+multitude, who promised that no petition in His name should go
+unanswered, who hungering in the wilderness knew the extremity of
+famine, who cried aloud, I Thirst, who has promised to be with His own
+in all time till Time shall be no more.
+
+Standish, like the statue of a sentinel in bronze, stood at the door
+leaning upon his snaphance, listening intently to all, and breathing a
+deep-throated Amen to the governor's prayer.
+
+Noon blazed overhead, and Priscilla, ah, poor white, attenuate
+Priscilla, crept down the hill to the elder's house, and gathering a
+handful of fire-wood warmed some broth made from a rabbit snared by
+Alden the day before, and silently brought a cup to the mother, who
+drank it with the tears brimming over her patient, faded eyes.
+
+"I am not worthy to fast with the rest of you. I am an unprofitable
+servant," whispered she handing back the cup and covering her face.
+
+"Oh, mother, mother, do not break my heart," cried the girl, whom the
+smell of food had turned sick and faint. "It is not so, dear saint. The
+Lord will not have thee fast because He knows thou art already
+perfected"--
+
+"Hush, hush, my child; thy words are both wild and wicked. Get thee back
+to the House of Prayer, and beg our God to forgive thy sin of
+presumption. Fare thee well--nay, one moment,--doth,--doth the elder
+look sadly spent?--he is not over strong--and Jonathan? Didst mark him
+and the boys? Wrestling is but puny."
+
+"They are all in such strength as can be looked for, mother dear, and
+will hold out as well as any." And Priscilla wanly smiled in the poor
+pinched face, adjusted the cushions and the foot-rest, and without so
+much as a drop of cold water for herself, wearily climbed the hill. The
+captain making room for her to pass looked with anxious sympathy into
+her face, but spake no word, and again the withering hours passed on,
+and the elder prayed in a husky and broken whisper, and his hearers
+muttered an Amen, hollow and mournful as the echo from an open tomb.
+
+Three o'clock, and Hobomok scrambled down from the roof, and stood in
+the open doorway. His master saw and went out to him. In a moment he
+came again, and passing between the banks of rude benches stood before
+the elder, who, pausing suddenly, fixed upon him a gaze of piteous
+inquiry, while a little movement among the hundred starving souls
+watching and praying heralded his news.
+
+"The answer has come, Elder," announced the soldier briefly. "A full
+rigged ship has just cleared Manomet headland, and a cloud black with
+rain is rolling up out of the Southwest."
+
+"Let us pray!" said the elder softly; and Standish bowed his head with
+the rest as the holy man, his voice strong and fervent once more, poured
+out for himself and his people such gratitude as perhaps is only
+possible from those "appointed to die," and suddenly rescued by the hand
+of a merciful Father.
+
+A few moments later, as the procession wound down the hill, somewhat
+less formally than it had gone up, the southern and western sky were
+black with clouds already veiling the sun, and within an hour a soft and
+tender rain began to fall, soaking quietly into the earth gaping all
+over with the wounds of drought, and reviving, as Bradford quaintly
+phrased it, both their drooping affections and their withered corn.
+
+"The white man's God is better than the red man's," remarked Hobomok
+privately to Wanalancet, who was visiting Plymouth. "When our powahs
+pray for rain, and cut themselves, and offer sacrifice, it comes
+sometimes, but in noisy floods that tear up the earth, and beat down the
+maize, and do more harm than good. Wanalancet better turn praying Indian
+like Hobomok."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXV.
+
+THE BRIDES' SHIP.
+
+
+The rain proved as persistent as it was gentle, and under its influence
+the wind sighed itself asleep, leaving at sunset the ship espied by
+Hobomok becalmed outside Beach Point. Some of the Pilgrims would have
+rowed out to her, but Bradford knew from his own feelings how unfit they
+were for such heavy labor.
+
+"A little patience should not be hard for men who have patiently waited
+so long," said he smiling. "Let us all break our fast with
+thanksgiving."
+
+"One more cup of broth and a bit of the hare," said Priscilla gayly, as
+she set a little table beside her precious invalid. "And to-morrow I
+doubt not but I can offer you a posset of white flour and sugar and
+spice and all sorts of comfortable things. Whatever the ship may be
+'t is sure to have the making of a posset in her."
+
+"Oh Priscilla, dear maid, if it might be,--if I dared think of my two
+girls"--
+
+The trembling voice gave way, and for a moment Priscilla could not
+speak. Then she cheerily said,--
+
+"If not themselves there is sure to be news of them, and God is very
+good. Pr'ythee take the broth."
+
+"There then, good child. Now go to thine own supper. Mary is placing it
+upon the board."
+
+Dropping a light kiss upon the face lovingly upturned, Priscilla passed
+into the outer room where upon the great table standing to-day in
+Pilgrim Hall rested a wooden bowl filled with boiled clams, and beside
+it a dish of coarse salt and a pewter flagon of water. Only this, no
+bread, no vegetable, no after course; but at the head of the table stood
+the elder, his worn face radiant with gratitude, as, uplifting his
+voice, he gave thanks to God for that he and his might "suck of the
+abundance of the seas and of the treasures hid in the sand."
+
+After midnight a breeze sprung up, but the master of the Anne cautiously
+waited for the full tide to float him over the many flats then as now
+obstructing Plymouth Harbor, and it was not until another sunrise that
+the travel-worn and over-crowded bark folded her patched sails and
+dropped her anchor not far from the old anchorage ground of the
+Mayflower.
+
+The governor no longer tried to restrain the enthusiasm of his townsmen;
+in fact, he himself helped to drag up the anchor of the pinnace and make
+her ready for a visit to the stranger. With him went Jonathan Brewster
+to see if perchance his sisters might be on board; and Doctor Fuller,
+and Robert Hicks, and Francis Cooke, and William Palmer, and Master
+Warren, albeit not fit even for so small an exertion, for every one of
+these men thought it possible that his wife might be aboard, nor was one
+of them disappointed, for the Anne, might well have dropped her anchor
+to the tune of "Sweethearts and Wives," so laden was she with those
+precious commodities.
+
+"Come Captain!" called Bradford as the dory lay ready to transport the
+last three to the pinnace already under sail.
+
+"No," somewhat morosely returned Standish. "I shall only be in the way
+of other men's rejoicings. There's naught for me aboard that or any
+other ship that floats. No, I say,--push off, Cooke!"
+
+And the captain strode up the hill, and climbed the roof of the Fort to
+cover and pet his big guns and see that the dampness did them no
+mischief.
+
+Below, Alden helped Priscilla to make ready all the food remaining in
+the village, for surely the new-comer had brought supplies, and the
+famine was at an end.
+
+"If this ship might bring him a wife as perchance it hath to our good
+surgeon," said John after describing his master's mood.
+
+"Ay, but I fear me he'll be hard to suit," replied Priscilla.
+
+"Natheless, remember sweetheart, you promised me that so soon as the
+famine was over and our new house finished"--
+
+"And the captain cheerful as his wont."
+
+"Ay, well so soon as all these matters were settled fairly, you
+promised"--
+
+"Oh sooth, good lad, stand not gaping there and minding me of last
+winter's snow and last summer's roses! Go and call the captain and the
+elder to their breakfast while I see to the dear mother."
+
+But breakfast was hardly over when Mistress Winslow ran across the
+street to the elder's wife.
+
+"Lo you now, dear mother," cried she excitedly. "There are three boats
+rowing toward the Rock, and in every one of them you may make out
+women's gear, and who knows but Patience and Fear are of the company.
+All the men have gone down to the Rock, and I am going."
+
+Out she ran again, and Priscilla quickly moved to the mother's side, but
+great joys do not kill even though they startle, and presently the white
+white face was raised with a smile almost of heaven illuminating it, and
+the dame softly said,--
+
+"Yes, they have come. I knew it in the night. They have come, but
+Priscilla thou 'rt none the less my dear and duteous daughter. Now get
+you to the Rock with the rest. I shall be well alone."
+
+"Now is Will Bradford well content; now is comedy ready to tread upon
+the heels of tragedy, and funeral dirges to end in marriage chimes,"
+muttered the captain as he plunged down the steep of Leyden Street, and
+stood with overcast face and compressed lips watching the boats sweeping
+merrily up to the landing.
+
+In the foremost sat the governor, and close beside him two female
+figures their backs to the shore. On the next thwart Surgeon Fuller, his
+whimsical face for once honestly glad, leaned an elbow on his knee and
+peered up into the comely face of Bridget, his young wife, for Agnes
+Carpenter lay asleep beneath St. Peter's Church in old Leyden town. But
+her sister Juliana had come with her husband, George Morton, and their
+five children, Patience already a winsome lass of fifteen, soon to marry
+John Faunce and become mother of the last ruling Elder of Plymouth
+Church.
+
+Later on, two more of these fair Carpenter girls were to come over to
+the home of their sister Alice: Priscilla, who married William Wright,
+one of the joyous passengers of the Fortune; and Mary, of whom the
+Chronicles say that she died "a godly old maid" in her sister's home.
+
+Pardon the interlude, but there is something very fascinating in the
+story of this family of five beautiful girls so eagerly sought in
+marriage by the best men of the colony, and of her who was the flower of
+all and yet died "a godly old maid."
+
+The governor's boat was at the Rock, and willing hands on shore caught
+at the rope thrown from the bows, and dragged her up so that the
+passengers could step out dry shod. Standish drew back a little, and
+with folded arms stood watching the debarkation. Last of all came
+Bradford and the two ladies he had escorted.
+
+"So that is Mistress Alice Carpenter Southworth, is it," muttered the
+soldier grasping a handful of his ruddy beard. "Well, it is a winsome
+dame and a gentle; I wonder not that Will hath"--
+
+But the calm comment ended abruptly in an exclamation of incredulity and
+pleasure, for when Mistress Southworth stood safely upon the strand,
+Bradford turned and gave his hand to her companion, a girl of some four
+or five and twenty years old, with one of those rounded and supple
+figures which combine strength and delicacy, endurance and elasticity,
+and are very slow in yielding to the attacks of Time. A demure hood tied
+under the chin framed a round face, whose firm fair skin had defied the
+tarnish of the sea, and only gained a somewhat warmer glow in cheek and
+lip than its native tone. Little tendrils of sunny brown hair pushed
+their laughing way from beneath the edge of the hood and curled joyously
+to the fingers of the toying wind. Straight dark brows and long
+eyelashes of the same deep tint gave character to the face, and shaded a
+pair of eyes whose beauty has stamped itself upon every generation of
+this woman's descendants. Large, and peculiarly opened, these eyes were
+of a clear violet blue, but with pupils whose frequent dilatation gave
+such range of tint and expression, and such extraordinary brilliancy
+that many were found to insist that the eyes themselves were black,
+while others vowed that no such intensity of blue had ever been seen in
+human orbs before. But neither in the shape, nor the color, nor the
+brilliancy, nor the pathetic curve of the upper lid, did the wonderful
+beauty of these eyes abide; it was a fascination, a compelling power in
+their regard; the power of appeal or of assurance, of love or wrath, of
+promise or of trust, that dwelt in their depths, and leaped or stole
+thence bending to their service the will of all who gazed steadfastly
+upon them. Weapons more dangerous in a woman's hands than was Gideon the
+Sword, in the hands of the Captain of Plymouth.
+
+As their owner lightly leaping from the gunwale of the boat alighted
+upon the Rock, these eyes sought and rested merrily upon Myles'
+wonder-stricken face, while a joyous smile illuminated the features and
+showed bright and pretty teeth.
+
+"Barbara!" exclaimed the captain, leaping down from the hillock where he
+had so unsympathetically posted himself to observe the landing.
+
+"Yes, Barbara," returned a blithe voice. "Come all this way to look
+after her cousin, who cared not to come so far as the ship to greet
+her."
+
+"But how was I to know thou wert coming, lass? Ever and always at thine
+old trick of laying me in some blunder! Well, thou 'rt welcome, Bab,
+welcome as flowers in May." And seizing the round face between his two
+hands Myles pressed a hearty salute upon either cheek.
+
+"And Captain," broke in Bradford's well pleased voice, "let me bring you
+to the notice of Mistress Southworth, in whose matronly company your
+cousin has journeyed."
+
+A fair and gentle English face, albeit not without a quiet
+determination in its lines, was turned upon the soldier as Alice
+Southworth held out her hand saying,--
+
+"And greatly beholden am I to Mistress Standish for her companionship. I
+know not quite how we could have borne some of our discomfiture had not
+she cheered and upheld us as she did."
+
+"Ay, 't is a way the wench hath of old," replied the captain gayly. "I
+mind me of a home across the seas where one declared that naught but
+Barbara's care kept her in life at all. But in good sooth, girl, why
+didst not warn me of thy coming?"
+
+"I would fain take thee by surprise, cousin, and methinks I have."
+
+"A total, an utter surprise."
+
+"We had fared but ill here in the colony had yon sachem surprised thee
+as effectually, Myles," laughed the governor as the little party climbed
+The Street, a long procession of jocund men, women, and children
+streaming after them, the joy of reunion and the flood of loving
+greetings sweeping away the conventional barriers wherein the
+Separatists attempted to imprison Nature.
+
+"Ah! There are the elder's girls!" said Bradford, as they halted before
+his gate and looked back upon the busy street.
+
+"Yes, Fear and Patience, sweet maids both of them," replied Alice.
+
+"And those five merry Warren girls have found their father," said
+Barbara. "But he looks not over strong."
+
+"No," replied the governor sadly. "He hath not grudged both to spend and
+to be spent for the common weal, and glad am I that his wife hath come
+to restrain his zeal. But come in, come in, dear friends, and Mistress
+Eaton, who cares for me and my house until I can purvey me another
+housekeeper, will make you welcome."
+
+"I would not say nay to some breakfast, nor I think would you, maid
+Barbara, eh?" laughed Alice, and the governor's face clouded.
+
+"I fear me there is but sorry cheer to set before you, dear friends,"
+said he. "Mistress Eaton warned me last night that a few clams were all
+she had, or could compass, in her larder."
+
+"Something was told aboard of a famine in the place," said Barbara
+quietly, "and I fancied it could do no harm to put some provant left
+over of my stores into a bag and carry it ashore. If none wanted it I
+could leave it hid, and--but here it is--the bag, Myles?"
+
+"What, this sack I have tugged up the hill? All this, provision?"
+
+"Ay, for the cook gave me a good bit of boiled beef, and a hen to boot."
+
+"Beef!" exclaimed the captain involuntarily, but in a tone of such
+amazed delight that Barbara's eyes dwelt upon him in pity and wonder.
+
+"Myles! Thou dost not mean that thou hast been actually a-hungered!"
+said she. "Oh Alice, they are starving."
+
+"Starving!" echoed Alice in the same tone of dismay. "Oh Will!"
+
+"Nay, nay, nay!" protested the governor with a somewhat hollow laugh.
+"We have not feasted of late, perhaps, and the word beef hath a strange
+sound in our ears, since no meat save a little wild game hath been seen
+among us for a year or more, but still, thank God, we are well and
+hearty"--
+
+"Well and hearty!" repeated Alice Southworth. "Look at him, Barbara;
+look at his cheeks, his temples, look at that hand, all as one with the
+skeleton in the museum of Leyden. Oh Barbara, to think that we should
+find them starving after all!"
+
+"Better starving than starved," replied Barbara calmly. "And if the
+governor will give me warrant, and this same Mistress Eaton will lend me
+her aid, I will soon set forth a table that shall make hungry men's
+hearts leap within them."
+
+"There, Will," exclaimed Alice generously. "That is the sort of maid she
+is, never stopping to lament and wring her hands as silly I do, but ever
+looking for the way to mend the evil, and finding it, too."
+
+Dame Eaton, whom we have known as Lois, maid to Mistress Carver, but now
+married to Francis Eaton and promoted on her marriage to be the
+governor's housekeeper, soon made her appearance, and the three women
+were not long in setting forth a breakfast whereunto the governor
+invited as many of his neighbors as the table could accommodate, and
+over which he offered a thanksgiving, glowing with loving gratitude to
+Him who giveth all.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXVI.
+
+MARRIAGE BELLS.
+
+
+"And now, Governor, we have to billet all these new-comers as best we
+may. Six-and-ninety names the captain of the Anne reports on his roster,
+and that fairly doubles the population of Plymouth. Where shall we
+bestow them all?"
+
+"Why, Captain, you know that many of our men expecting their wives and
+children have built housen and now will occupy them; and for the rest, I
+am minded, if you will have me, to impose myself upon you and Alden, and
+leave mine own house to Mistress Southworth and your cousin. Then, as
+the elder's daughters now have come, Priscilla Molines, whom my dame
+knoweth and loveth well, and Mary Chilton and Elizabeth Tilley can all
+find room here also, and the rest we will dispose of among the other
+families. Mayhap for a while the young men may sleep at the Fort."
+
+"Nay, Governor, we'll have no rantipoles at the Fort meddling and making
+among the ammunition, and playing tricks with the guns. Alden and you
+and I and Howland, and some other of the ancients, will swing our
+hammocks at the Fort if you will, and my house may be turned into a
+billet for the bachelors, until we can help them to knock up housen for
+themselves."
+
+"So be it, comrade, and yet 't is hardly worth while to make great
+changes or fatigues until"--
+
+"Until?"--
+
+"Until some among us are wed, Myles."
+
+"Why, truly yes. I had forgot, and yet I have heard the jingle of
+marriage bells in thy voice since ever yon ship rounded Manomet. How
+soon will it be, Will?"
+
+"So soon as my dame agreeth," replied Bradford contentedly. "At all odds
+before the Anne returneth. We have magistrates enow among us, however,
+for Master Oldham and Master Hatherly both carry the king's patent as
+justices; and this Master Lyford who cometh in Oldham's train is
+preacher in the Church of England."
+
+"Ha! Say you so, Will? One of the 'hireling priests' of such noisome
+odour in the nostrils of thy friends of the stricter sort at Leyden!"
+
+"Nay, Captain, but you will remember that Pastor Robinson did receive
+members of England's Church to the Lord's Table, and did counsel us to
+live in brotherly love and communion with them."
+
+"And so fell into disfavor with his old friends the Brownists," remarked
+Standish carelessly. "Well, 't is all one to me, who am no church
+member, and deny not due respect to the old faith of mine house. And you
+will be wed anon, Will?"
+
+"Ay, and we will have your Barbara to stay with us until she finds
+another home, if you and she consent. Dame Alice loves her passing
+well."
+
+"'T is a good wench and a comfortable one," replied Standish well
+pleased. "Had Rose lived, or had Priscilla said me yea, I had taken
+Barbara under mine own roof; but now I must wait until she makes her
+choice of the swains that soon will come a-wooing, and then she and her
+husband shall come to me."
+
+"Ay," returned Bradford musingly, and checking upon his lips the smile
+that danced in his eyes. "Thy plans are ever wisely laid, Myles."
+
+Turning into his own house Bradford found Alice with her wimple and
+scarf on just about to leave it.
+
+"Whither away, mistress?" asked he gayly.
+
+"Only to breathe a mouthful of fresh air, Master Governor. I have been
+so long ashipboard that four walls seem a prison to me. Mayhap I'll take
+passage back again with good Master Pierce."
+
+"Mayhap thou 'lt do naught of the sort. I have thee now, and I'll not
+let thee go, as I did sometime in Leyden."
+
+"Thou didst anger me sore, Will, when thou 'dst not close with that good
+man's offer of half his business, though it was but a merchant's. And my
+father crying up Edward Southworth"--
+
+"Nay, Alice, we'll not go pulling open old wounds to see if they be
+healed. I would not, I could not do violence to my English name and
+blood and become a Dutch trader though it were to gain thy hand, nor did
+I think thou wouldst in thine anger go so far--but there, sweetheart,
+we'll say no more on 't, now or ever. God has been exceeding gracious in
+bringing us once more together, and we will not be ungrateful. Thy boys
+shall find a father in me, Alice, and should Elder May give me again my
+little John"--
+
+"Nay, the boy is well with his grandsire in Leyden, and my Constant and
+Thomas must abide with their father's folk for a while. They would not
+part from me unless I left the boys for a year or two."
+
+"And still thou wouldst come, Alice."
+
+"Dost mind what words Ruth said to Naomi, Will?"
+
+"Truly do I, Alice."
+
+And as the two long-parted lovers looked deep into each other's eyes
+there needed no further speech to show that the long winter was over and
+the time of the singing of birds had come.
+
+Two weeks from the arrival of the Anne all Plymouth put on festal gear
+and merry faces. Good cheer abounded in place of famine, for the
+new-comers were well stored with provision, and although this was not
+turned into the common stock, those who had promising crops--and since
+the Fast Day there had been no stint of rain, and the corn promised
+marvelously well--could always obtain dry provisions for the promise of
+a share in the green meat when it should be gathered.
+
+And fitting it was that Plymouth should keep holiday, for not only was
+it the governor's marriage morn, but Priscilla Molines, whom all her
+townsfolk loved, was to become John Alden's wife; and as the two friends
+could not be parted, Mary Chilton had promised upon the day of
+Priscilla's marriage to give her hand to John Winslow, one of the
+Fortune's pilgrims and brother of Edward and Gilbert. Finally John
+Howland so strongly pleaded his cause before the elder and his wife that
+they consented to give him Elizabeth Tilley to wife, young though she
+was, and to allow him to take her to the pretty cottage he had built
+upon The Street, next to Stephen Hopkins's substantial house on the
+corner of The Street and the King's Highway. John Alden also had built a
+cottage between the captain's house and the governor's; and Eaton with
+his wife Lois was to share a house with Peter Browne, who had manfully
+assumed the charge of Widow Martha Ford and her three children.
+
+Christian Penn, a stalwart lass, passenger of the Anne, was to make one
+of the governor's family, and literally to be "help" to his wife in the
+duties of the household, while Mary Becket consented to fill the same
+place in Edward Winslow's home.
+
+Barbara, cordially invited both by Alice Southworth and by Priscilla to
+become their perpetual guest, laughingly accepted both invitations,
+saying to Priscilla,--
+
+"When I find too much pepper in thy soup, Pris, I'll e'en go cool my
+tongue with Dame Alice's comfitures; and when I fancy one new-wed pair
+were as content without me, I'll e'en go and inflict myself upon
+t' other."
+
+"And the captain will keep house with only Hobomok," said Priscilla
+dubiously.
+
+"Nay, Kit Conant is to 'bide with them, and do certain service, and I
+shall still be in and out," said Barbara briskly. "Like enough the most
+they eat will be of my brewing. We shall do well enow for the captain.
+But, Priscilla, what ailed thee not to wed him, since his comfort sits
+so nigh thy heart?"
+
+"Why, 't is but Christian to pity them who are in need, yet none can wed
+with more than one man at a time, and from the first I knew that John
+Alden was the one for me. Wed him thyself, Barbara, and send Kit Conant
+about his business."
+
+A sudden color surged all over Barbara's face, and the wonderful eyes
+shot out an angry spark, but after a moment she quietly said,--
+
+"Myles and I have ever been more like brother and sister than cousins.
+His mother was all as one with mine own."
+
+"Ay, and so it is. Yes, yes, I see," said Priscilla hurriedly, but when
+Barbara had left her she stood for many minutes drumming on the table,
+and thoughtfully gazing through the open door at the blue wonder of the
+sea.
+
+And now the wedding day had come, a glorious golden summer day, and some
+of the older folk, whose habits of early life held rigidly to the soil
+since planted anew to a Separatist crop, remembered that it was Lammas
+Day. One of these was Elizabeth, Master Warren's new-come wife, and as
+she looked abroad in the early morning, she sighed a bit and said,--
+
+"A year agone, Richard, I looked upon another guess sort of scene than
+this. The church bells were ringing and the people trooping in, and many
+was the goodwife who brought her loaf baked of the first-fruit wheat to
+offer it for the parson's table if not for the Communion"--
+
+"Nay wife, nay, remember Lot's wife," chided the husband, already so far
+upon his way to that abode of Light where shall be no Separatism and no
+uncharity.
+
+As all the world would fain be present at one or the other of the four
+marriages, it was concluded that they should be held in the open air,
+and the captain with much enthusiasm directed the spreading of an open
+tent, or, more properly, a canopy upon the greensward stretching across
+the King's Highway from Bradford's house to Hopkins's.
+
+This completed, and the military band paraded ready to salute the
+governor upon his arrival, Standish stood aside, wiping his brow, and
+looking jovially about him at the tables already spread with the wedding
+feast, which was thriftily to take the place of the villagers' ordinary
+dinner.
+
+"A cheerful and a refreshing season, Captain," said a staid voice at his
+elbow.
+
+"Ay," replied Standish briefly and with something of the good-humor gone
+from his face, for he had no great love for Isaac Allerton, Assistant of
+the Governor, and one of the principal men of the colony, though he was.
+
+"Methinks you and I might be principals instead of spectators at some
+such solemnity, and offend no law of God or man."
+
+"I know no law against your being wed if it pleases you, Master
+Allerton," replied the soldier briefly.
+
+"No--no, as you justly say, no law, Captain, and truth to tell I had it
+in my mind to speak to you this morning"--
+
+"To me, to me!" exclaimed the captain, wheeling round and staring at the
+smooth face and narrow figure of the assistant. "Dost fancy that I am a
+pretty maid hid within a buff jerkin?"
+
+"Ha! ha! Our good captain still must have his joke. Nay then, in sober
+earnest my dear brother, your cousin, Mistress Barbara Standish, doth
+much commend herself to my mind as a discreet and godly maiden, notable
+in household ways, and of a mild and biddable nature. I fain would have
+her to wife, Standish, if I may do so with your consent."
+
+"Nay now, Master Allerton, your eyes are keener after a good chance for
+trucking than ever a pair in the colony, and I'm not saying that the
+governor could find a better assistant in his weighty affairs of State,
+but you've no more eye for a gentlewoman's good qualities than I have
+for a peddler's. 'Mild and biddable,' forsooth! Those virtues were left
+out when they brewed the Standish blood, Master Allerton, and courage
+and honor and some other trifles thrown in to make amends. Why man,
+should you wed Barbara Standish and raise a hand upon her as I've seen
+you do upon your daughters, woman-grown, I'd not answer but she'd have
+your life's blood for it; and if you bade her stint the measure of the
+corn she sold to your neighbors, she'd quit your roof and you, before
+you could say whiskerando! No, no, Master Allerton, best not try to mate
+yourself with a Standish. No luck would come on 't I promise you."
+
+"Methinks, Captain Standish," replied the councilor smoothly, although
+his pale face had taken a livid cast harmonizing with a green light in
+his narrow eyes,--"methinks you take over much upon yourself in this our
+land of liberty and God-given rights. Why should you decide so
+absolutely for Mistress Standish? Why may not she speak her own mind.
+She at least has no narrow and ignorant prejudice against me, unless
+indeed you have already instilled it into her mind."
+
+"Nay now, Allerton, dost in sober sadness suppose that in meeting my
+kinswoman after a five years' parting I chose you as my theme of
+discourse? As for the rest, I lay no constraint upon Mistress Standish.
+Speak to her if you will and as soon as you will, but tell her all the
+story, tell her of your grown children, and of your years"--
+
+"They are no more than yours," sharply interrupted the councilor.
+
+"Did I say they were? Well, speak to her I say--ha, here come the
+brides. Now trumpets!"
+
+And as the trumpets blew a joyous fanfare and the drums and fife burst
+forth in a blithe jargon intended for the good old tune of Haste to the
+Wedding, out from the door of the governor's house came Bradford leading
+Alice Southworth, fair and delicate and sweet, yet with a little air of
+state about her, as one who had already known the honors of matronhood
+and now was called to become the wife of a ruler. Next came Priscilla,
+dressed in a fair white gown trimmed with old Flemish lace at which
+Mistress Winslow looked askance, her rich color a little subdued, and a
+somewhat tremulous curve to her ripe lips, while the great brown eyes
+were filled with a dreamy haze not far from tears. She was wedding the
+man of her love, but she stood all alone beside him, this brave yet
+tender-hearted Priscilla of ours,--she stood alone, and she thought of
+her mother, the mother so loved, so mourned, so near to that faithful
+heart to-day.
+
+Then came well-born, well-nurtured John Winslow and Mary Chilton, the
+fair English May whose sweet blossoms are ever upheld by such a sturdy
+and healthy stock, ay, and are protected by substantial thorns from
+meddling fingers even while its fragrance is graciously shed abroad for
+all the world to glory in.
+
+And last of all came John Howland, that "lusty yonge man" who on the
+voyage had been washed overboard and carried fathoms deep beneath the
+sea, yet by his courage and endurance survived the ordeal, and lived to
+found one of the chiefest Plymouth families. By the hand he led
+Elizabeth Tilley, a sweet slip of a girl, with true and loving eyes ever
+and anon glancing proudly at the stalwart form of the only man she ever
+loved, and yet never thought to win.
+
+Four noble and comely couple pacing through the grassy street and taking
+their places under the canopy where Elder Brewster, a magistrate, if not
+an ordained minister, stood beside a little table whereon was laid the
+colony's first Record Book brought by the Anne, and now to be used for
+the first time, for hitherto the "scanty annals of the poor" settlement
+had been kept in Governor Bradford's note-book, now alas lost to
+posterity.
+
+The simple ceremony was soon over, and as the Separatists denied
+themselves the privilege of a religious service lest some taint of
+Papistry might lurk therein, Elder Brewster closed his magisterial
+office with a prayer in which Isaac and Rebecca were not forgotten, and
+about which hung a curious flavor of the Church of England service so
+familiar to the elder's youth.
+
+"Priscilla! Mine at last! My very own," whispered John Alden in his
+bride's ear as the group broke up and all the world pressed in to offer
+congratulations.
+
+"There, there, John, if thou hast but just discovered that notable fact
+I'll leave thee to digest it while I go to see that the dinner is served
+as it should be."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXVII.
+
+"AND TO BE WROTH WITH ONE WE LOVE."
+
+
+"Barbara, hath Master Allerton asked thee to be his wife?" inquired
+Myles, as he and his cousin sat together upon the bench in front of his
+own house some few evenings after the weddings.
+
+"He spoke to the governor, and he to me," replied Barbara, a little
+spark of mirth glinting in her blue eyes.
+
+"And thou saidst?"--
+
+"I said that I hardly knew Master Allerton by sight as yet, and was in
+no haste to wed."
+
+"What sort of yea-nay answer was that, thou silly wench? Why didst not
+say No, round and full?"
+
+"Because No, wrapped in gentle words, served my turn as well, cousin."
+
+"Come now, I do remember that tone of old, soft as snow and unbendable
+as ice. So 't is the same Barbara I quarreled with so oft, is it? Ever
+quite sure that her own way is the best, and ever watchful lest any
+should lay a finger on her free will."
+
+"Methinks, Myles, you give your kinswoman a somewhat unlovely temper of
+her own. How is it about Captain Standish in these days? Hath he grown
+meek and mild, and afraid to carry himself after his own mind?"
+
+"Why so tart, Barbara? Because I chid thee for trifling with Allerton?"
+
+"Nay Myles, I made not yon weary voyage for the sake of quarreling with
+thee. Well dost thou know, cousin, I would not trifle with any man, and
+I begged the governor to enforce out of his own mouth the no-say that I
+worded gently, for truly there is no reason for me to flout the
+gentleman. How could he honor me more than to ask me to wife?"
+
+"Well, well, so long as thou hast said No and will stick to No, all is
+well; but I like not this man Allerton; he is too shrewd a trader for a
+simple gentleman to cope with. He sold me corn and gave scant measure,
+and I told him of it too. He likes me not better than I like him."
+
+"Rest easy, Myles, I'll never make him thy cousin. I care not if I never
+wed."
+
+"Nay, that's too far on t' other side the hedge. A comely and a winsome
+lass like thee is sure to wed, but what runs in my head, Barbara, is
+that there is none left here fit for thee. I would that Bradford had not
+been so constant to his old-time sweetheart. I would have given thee to
+him, for though his folk were but yeomen of the better sort there at
+home, here he is the Governor and playeth his part as well as any Howard
+or Percy of them all. Winslow cometh of good lineage and carrieth his
+coat-armor; but he and now his brother John are wed, and Gilbert will
+leave us anon, so that verily I see no man left with whom a Standish
+might fitly wed."
+
+A peal of merry laughter broke in upon the captain's meditative pause,
+and his indignant and astonished regard only seemed to aggravate the
+matter, until at last Barbara breathlessly exclaimed,--
+
+"Nay Myles, for sweet pity's sake look not so glum, nor devour me all
+at one mouthful. Dost remember how I used to tell thee to beware, for 'a
+little pot is soon hot,' and thine own wrath will choke thee some day?"
+
+"Glad am I to amuse you so pleasantly Mistress Standish, but may I ask
+the exact provocation to mirth I have just now offered?"
+
+"Oh Myles, I meant not to chafe thy temper so sorely, and I pray thee
+hold me excused for untimely laughter; but in good sooth it so tickled
+my fancy to hear thee airing thine old world quips and quiddities about
+coat-armor, and one with whom a Standish might fitly wed, and yeomen
+snatched from oblivion by the saving grace of a governor's title! And
+look upon these rocks and wild woods and swart savages and thine own
+rude labors--nay then, but I must laugh or burst!"
+
+And giving way to her humor the girl trolled out peal after peal of
+delicious laughter, while her cousin folding his arms sat regarding her
+with an iron visage, which whenever she caught sight of it set her off
+again. At last, however, she wiped her eyes and penitently cried,--
+
+"I did not think myself so rude, Myles. Pr'ythee forgive me, cousin.
+Nay, look not so ungently upon me! Here's my hand on 't I am sorry."
+
+But the captain took not the offered hand nor unbent his angry brow.
+Rising from the bench he paced up and down for a moment, then stopping
+in front of Barbara calmly said,--
+
+"Nay, I'm not angry. At first I was astonied that a gentlewoman could so
+forget herself; but I do remember that Thomas Standish, your father,
+married beneath his station, and so imported a strain into the blood of
+his noble house that will crop out now and again in his children. I
+should not therefore too much admire at such derelictions from courtesy
+and gentlehood as I but now have seen."
+
+As he slowly spoke his bitter words the lingering gleams of laughter and
+the softening lines of penitence faded from Barbara's face. Rising to
+her height, nearly equal with that of her cousin, she gazed full into
+his angry eyes with the blue splendor of her own all ablaze with
+indignation and contempt.
+
+"You dare to make light of my mother, do you, Captain Standish! My dear
+and dearly honored mother, who in her brave love endured the poverty and
+the labors that my father had no skill to save her from. My mother, who
+carried her noble husband upon her shoulders as it were, and would not
+even die till he was dead. Myles Standish, I take shame to myself that I
+am kin to you, and if ever I do wed, it shall be to lose my name and
+forget my lineage."
+
+She passed him going down the hill, but with a long step he overtook
+her, saying almost timidly,--
+
+"Nay, nay, thou 'rt over sharp with me, Barbara! I said, and I meant, no
+word against thy mother, of whom I ever heard report as one of the
+sweetest and faithfullest of wives"--
+
+"There, that will do, sir. My mother needs no praise of yours, and,
+thanks be to God, hath gone where she may rest from the burden of her
+high marriage. Let me pass an 't please you, Master Captain."
+
+"But Barbara, nay Barbara, stay but to hear a word"--
+
+"There have been words enow and to spare. I go now to tell the governor
+that I am minded to take passage in the Anne once more. My mother's folk
+in Bedfordshire, yeomen all of them, Captain Standish, will make me gay
+and welcome, and with them and such as them will I live and die."
+
+"And fill thy leisure with fashioning silk purses out of fabric thou 'lt
+find to hand," cried the captain, his temper flashing up again; but
+Barbara neither turned nor replied as she fled down the hill to hide the
+tears she could no longer restrain.
+
+Howbeit she said no word to Bradford of the return passage, a fact which
+Standish easily discovered when early next morning he met the governor
+and stopped to say to him,--
+
+"Well met, Will; I was on my road to seek thee, man."
+
+"Ay, and for what, brother?"
+
+"Why, Will, I'm moped with naught to do, and all these strange faces at
+every turn. I liked it better when we were to ourselves and it was only
+to fight the Neponsets now and again. I fain would find some work
+further agate than yon palisado."
+
+"Why, then, thy wish and my desire fit together as cup and ball, for
+here is the Little James unladen and idle. She is to stay with us, thou
+knowest, for use in trading and fishing, but Bridges, her master, saith
+some of his men are grumbling already at prospect of such peaceful
+emprises. They fain would go buccaneering in the Spanish Seas, or
+discover some such road to hasty fortune, albeit bloody and violent.
+Master Bridges and I agreed that it was best to find work for these
+uneasy souls withouten too much delay, and I told him we had been
+thinking to send a party to look after the fishing-stage we built last
+year at Cape Ann. Gloucester, they say Roger Conant hath named the place
+already. Now what say you, Myles? Will take some men and join them to
+Bridges' buccaneers, and hold all in hand and start them on fishing?"
+
+"'T will suit me woundy well, governor. Howbeit, 't is not the time for
+cod, is it?"
+
+"No, but mackerel and bluefish are in season, and at all odds 't is well
+to be on hand to claim the staging, for Conant hath sent word by an
+Indian that some English ships were harrying our fishermen at Monhegan,
+and we had best look to our properties in those regions."
+
+"Ay, ay, 't is as thou sayest, Will, like cup and ball, thy need and my
+desire. How soon can we sail?"
+
+"Why, to-night, an' it pleaseth thee. Bridges is in haste to get off,
+and the sooner the Little James is afloat the more content he will find
+himself. And as to thy company. Here is a minute of the men I had
+thought on."
+
+"H--m, h--m," muttered the captain glancing over the list handed him by
+Bradford. "Yes, these are sound good fellows all, and none of them
+burthened with wives. And by that same token, Will, thou and thy dame
+will care for my kinswoman, and bar Master Allerton from persecuting her
+with his most mawkish suit while I am gone?"
+
+"Surely, Myles, we'll care for Mistress Barbara, who is to my wife as
+one of her own sisters."
+
+"Yes, the Carpenters are gentlefolk, if not a county family like ours,"
+said Standish simply. Bradford stared a little, but only replied,--
+
+"Then I put the command in your hands, Captain, and you will order
+matters as suits your own convenience and pleasure. Master Bridges will
+welcome you right gladly."
+
+And before the sun, just risen over Manomet, sank behind Captain's Hill,
+the Little James had rounded the Gurnet, and was standing on for Cape
+Ann, with Myles Standish leaning against her mainmast, and smoking the
+pipe Hobomok had bestowed upon him with the assurance that he who used
+it carried a charmed life so long as it remained unbroken. The captain's
+arms were folded and his eyes fixed upon the fort-crowned hill where lay
+his home, but it was not of fort or home that he mused as at the last he
+muttered,--
+
+"And yet I glory in thy spirit, thou proud peat!"
+
+Early the next morning Standish was somewhat roughly roused from his
+slumbers by Master Bridges, who, shaking his shoulder, cried,--
+
+"Here, Captain, here's gear for thee. Rouse thee, Master!"
+
+"What is 't, Bridges? What's to do, man? Are the savages upon us?"
+
+"Nay, but pirates, or as good."
+
+"Ha! That's well. Send all your small arms on deck, Master Bridges, pipe
+to quarters, train your falcon--I'll be on deck anon"--
+
+"Nay, but you do somewhat mistake, Captain. I said indeed pirates, but
+that's not sure. There is a little ship anchored within a cable's length
+of the James, and her men are busy on shore with the fishing-stage which
+Lister saith is yours"--
+
+"And so it is, every sliver of it."
+
+"Mayhap, then, you'll come on deck and tell these merry men as much, for
+they do only jeer at me."
+
+"They'll not jeer long when my snaphance joins in the debate," said
+Standish grimly as he followed the master up the companion way.
+
+"Hail me yon craft, and ask for her commandant," ordered he, glancing
+rapidly over the scene. Bridges obeyed, and got reply that Master Hewes,
+captain of the Fisherman out of Southampton, was on shore with all his
+men except the ship-keeper, who, however, spared the jibes with which he
+had seasoned his reply to Bridges' first informal hail.
+
+"The wind is fair, the tide flood. Carry your craft further in-shore,
+Master Bridges, that we may parley with these pirates from the vantage
+ground of our own deck," ordered the captain, and was obeyed so fairly
+that the Little James presently lay hove-to within a biscuit-toss of the
+staging, where some fifteen or twenty men were diligently employed in
+curing a take of fish.
+
+A short sharp colloquy ensued, Standish claiming the erection and its
+precincts as the property of Plymouth, and ordering the interlopers to
+at once release it, and to carry away their fish and their utensils,
+leaving room for the lawful owners' occupancy.
+
+To this demand Hewes impudently replied that when he had done with the
+fish-flakes he cared not who used them, and that he would abandon the
+place when it suited his own convenience, and not before.
+
+"Well and good; then we shall come and take it," shouted the captain in
+conclusion, and turning his attention in-board, he rapidly divided his
+men and Bridges' into two storming parties, while a watch left on board
+was to take charge of the light falcon mounted on deck, and at a signal
+from shore to begin the dance by firing upon the staging which Hewes was
+already barricading with a row of barrels, behind which he rapidly
+posted his men, musket in hand, and matches alight.
+
+"Now by St. Lawrence!" cried Standish, watching these preparations. "But
+the fellow hath a pretty notion of a barricado! I could not have done so
+very much better in his place. 'T is fairer fortune than we could look
+for, to meet so ready a fellow, and you shall see some pretty sport
+anon, Master Bridges."
+
+But at this moment a little group of men hastening from the fishing huts
+marking the present site of Gloucester, appeared upon the scene, and in
+their leader both Standish and Bridges recognized Roger Conant, a friend
+and sometime visitor of Plymouth, who immediately upon arrival of the
+Anne had gone to join some friends fishing at Monhegan, and now, with
+them, was establishing a sister station at Gloucester. Warned by the
+Indians that Hewes had seized the Plymouth fishing-stage, and seeing the
+Little James entering the bay, Conant hastened to collect his friends
+and present himself upon the scene of action to act as mediator, or ally
+of Plymouth, as circumstances might direct.
+
+"We have come none too soon, men!" exclaimed Conant breathlessly as at a
+run he rounded the headland closing in the cove, and saw upon the
+barricaded staging Hewes and his men blowing at their matches, while
+Standish, his eyes aflame and an angry smile upon his lips, sprang
+ashore and hurried his men out of the boat.
+
+"Now glad am I to see you, Master Conant," cried Bridges, already
+waiting upon the beach, and hastening toward him he said in a lower
+voice. "Our captain hath got on his fighting cap, and thrown discretion
+to the winds. 'T will be an ill day for Plymouth if her men are led on
+to kill Englishmen fishing with the king's license."
+
+"Ay indeed will it. Bide a bit till I can parley with both thy captain
+and Hewes, who is not an ill fellow if one handleth him gingerly."
+
+"Gingerly goeth not smoothly with peppery, and 't is but half the truth
+to call our captain that," said Bridges with a dry smile, as Conant
+passed him to reach Standish who was marshaling his men upon the sands.
+
+Too long it were to detail the arguments of the man of peace, the
+delicate manipulation of the tempers of both parties, the concessions
+wrung from the one side and the other, until after several hours' debate
+Standish moodily said,--
+
+"Well Conant, sith you put it so, sith you make it out that by enforcing
+the colony's right I do but attack the colony's life, I yield, for I am
+sworn defender and champion of Plymouth and her prosperity, and never
+shall it be said that Myles Standish preferred his own quarrel to the
+well-being of those he had sworn to protect. To leave yon fellow
+unscathed for his insolence, sits like a blister on a raw wound, but go
+and make what terms you can with him. I suppose you require not that I
+abandon the colony's property altogether to him."
+
+"Nay, nay, Captain, but I am thinking that my comrades and I, with some
+of the Little James' men and Master Hewes' company, should clap to and
+run up another staging in a few hours either for the new-comers or the
+Plymouth men"--
+
+"For Plymouth if you would pleasure me. I would not my men should take
+the leavings of yon rabble at any price," interrupted Standish
+haughtily.
+
+"So be it, and if Hewes with his men will do their best, and Master
+Bridges and you will send your crew to help, we also will labor in the
+common cause until each party shall have a staging of its own, and the
+bond of Christian charity need not be broken."
+
+"That same bond will be all the safer if I may get away from here with
+as small delay as may be," retorted Standish.
+
+"And that too shall be," replied Conant cheerfully. "For I fain would
+speak with the Master of the Anne before she sails, and I'll e'en take
+our own pinnace and set you across the bay, and be back again before my
+mates have well missed me."
+
+"So wilt thou save me from some such explosion as befalls when a little
+pot is tightly closed and its contents overheated," replied Myles with a
+grim smile, and although Conant stared at the odd simile, he paused not
+to ask its solution, but so hastened the building of the stage and the
+other business of the day that when sunset fell, the two men, leaving
+the rest at an amicable supper eaten in common, spread the wide sails of
+their pinnace to a fitful western wind, and skimmed southward under the
+soothing and chastening light of the new-risen moon.
+
+The western wind though often sighing in capricious languor never quite
+deserted those who trusted to it, and at a good hour next morning the
+pinnace dropped her anchor beside the Anne, and her dory carried the two
+mew ashore just as Plymouth woke to a new day.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXVIII.
+
+BARBARA.
+
+
+"Wilt give me some breakfast, Priscilla?" asked a well-known voice, as
+Mistress Alden bent to uncover her bake kettle, or Dutch oven, to see if
+the manchets of fine flour her husband liked so heartily were well
+browned.
+
+"Lord-a-mercy!" cried she nearly dropping the cover and springing to her
+feet. "What, 't is truly thee, Captain, and not thy spook? Why 't was
+but yester e'en Dame Bradford told me thou wert away with Master Bridges
+on a fishing adventure, and none might guess the day of thy return."
+
+"She said so, did she?" replied the captain; "and who heard it beside
+thee, Priscilla?"
+
+"Why--now let me think--yea and verily, Christian Penn was in the room
+and no doubt heard the sad tidings though she said naught."
+
+"And none beside, Mistress Alden?"
+
+"None--nay, now I think on 't, thy kinswoman Barbara was in presence.
+But there, my manchets will be burnt to crusts. Sit thee down, Captain,
+sit thee down."
+
+"And what said Mistress Standish anent my going?" asked Myles seating
+himself upon a three-legged stool and doffing his slouched hat.
+
+Priscilla looked at him with one of the keen glances which John declared
+counted the cockles of a man's heart. Then she smiled with an air of
+satisfaction and replied,--
+
+"Barbara said naught, and so told me much."
+
+"Told thee much? Come now, Priscilla, spare me thine old-time jibes and
+puzzlements and show thyself true womanly, and mine own honest friend.
+I'm sore bestead, Priscilla--I have a quarrel with Myles Standish, and
+'t is as big a fardel as my shoulders will bear. Tell me what Barbara's
+silence meant to thee?"
+
+"It meant that it was her doings that thou hadst gone, and that thy
+going both angered and grieved her, Captain."
+
+"Angered, mayhap."
+
+"Yea, and grieved. She ate no supper, although I prayed her to taste a
+new confection of mine own invention."
+
+"Priscilla, dost think Master Allerton would be--would make a"--
+
+"Would be the right goodman for Barbara? No, and no again, I think
+naught of the kind."
+
+"Ah! You women are so quick upon the trigger, Priscilla. I would my
+snaphance went to the aim as lightly and as surely as your or Barbara's
+thought."
+
+"Come now, Captain, the manchets are done, and the fish is broiled, and
+the porridge made. Wait but till I call the goodman and open a pottle of
+my summer beer; 't is dear Dame Brewster's diet-drink, with a thought
+more flavor to it, and John says--ah, here thou art, thou big sluggard.
+We need no horn to call thee to thy meat."
+
+Entering the cottage with a grin upon his lips and the promise of a kiss
+in his eyes, Alden started joyfully at sight of the Captain, and at
+Priscilla's impatient summons he bashfully took the head of the table
+and asked the blessing upon his family and their daily bread, which was
+then the undisputed duty of every head of a household. The captain ate
+well, as Priscilla slyly noted; and as she rose from the table and began
+rapidly to carry the few pewter and wooden dishes to the scullery John
+had added to the two rooms and loft comprising the cottage, she
+muttered,--
+
+"What fools we women be! When they care for us the most, a savory dish
+will comfort them, and we must pule, and pine, and pale--ah!"
+
+For the captain had followed and stood at the housewife's elbow with a
+confused and somewhat foolish smile upon his face.
+
+"Wilt do me a favour, Priscilla?"
+
+"Gladly, as thou knowest, sir."
+
+"Nay, sir me no sirs, Priscilla! Take me for thine own familiar friend
+as already I am Alden's."
+
+"'T is an ill-advised quotation, Captain, for the 'own familiar friend'
+of the Psalmist proved a false one. But ne'ertheless I'll wear the cap,
+and haply prove as true as another to my promise. What can I do for
+thee, Captain?"
+
+"Why--as thou dost seem to surmise, Priscilla, there is a question
+between Barbara and me--truth to tell I gave her just matter of offense,
+and now I've thought better on 't and fain would tell her so, and yet I
+fear me if I ask outright she'll not let me come to speech of her."
+
+"Ay, ay, good friend, I see," exclaimed Priscilla, holding up her
+slender shapely hand. "And here's the cat's-paw that's to pull thy
+chestnuts from the fire!"
+
+"Nay Priscilla"--
+
+"Yea Captain! Put not thy wit to further distress, good friend, for it
+needs not; I see all and more than all thou couldst tell me. Go thy way
+to the Fort, and look over thy dear guns and wait until thou seest--what
+thou wilt see."
+
+And with a little push the young matron thrust her guest out of the open
+door of the scullery, and hasted to finish her own labors.
+
+Almost an hour passed and the Captain of the Armies of New England had
+uncovered and examined and sighted and petted each gun in his armament
+more than once; had considered the range of the saker, the minion, the
+falcon, and the bases; and had stood gazing blankly at the whitened
+skull of Wituwamat above the gate of the Fort until the wrens who nested
+there began to fly restlessly in and out, fancying that the captain
+planned an invasion of their territory. He still stood in this posture
+when the rustle of a footfall among the dried herbage reached his quick
+ear, and turning he confronted Barbara, whose down-dropt eyes hid the
+gleam of amusement the sight of his melancholy attitude had kindled in
+their depths.
+
+"Priscilla says that you have returned home from the fishing because you
+were but poorly, cousin, and she would have me come and ask if you cared
+to speak with the chirurgeon who is going afield presently."
+
+"So chill, so frozen, Barbara? Is 't so a kinswoman should speak with
+one ill at ease both in mind and body?"
+
+"I came but as a messenger, sir, and venture not to presume upon any
+claim of kindred to one who joins the blood of Percivale to that of
+Standish."
+
+"Nay now, nay now, Barbara!--Here, come to the shaded side of the Fort,
+and sit you down where we two sat"--
+
+"We two sat on the bench without your door the last parley that we had,
+good cousin."
+
+"'Gentle tongues aye give the sharpest wounds,' and it is thou who
+provest the proverb true, Barbara."
+
+"Nay, I'll sit me down and listen with all meekness to what thou hast to
+say, Captain Standish."
+
+"Thanks for even so much courtesy, Barbara, for I have sought thee to
+say that I deserve none at thy hands. I, to whose protection and
+comforting thou hast come across the sea, have treated thee as no
+base-born churl hath warrant for treating the meanest of woman-kind. I,
+to pride myself upon gentle blood and knightly training, and then throw
+insult and taunt upon a woman's unshielded head! Nay, Barbara, had any
+man three days agone forecast my doing such a thing, I had hurled the
+lie in his teeth, and haply crammed it down with Gideon's hilt. Nay--the
+good sword may well be ashamed of his master; well may I look for him to
+shiver in my grasp when next I draw him"--
+
+"Myles! Myles, I'll hear no more! Nay then, not a word, or I shall hold
+it proven that my wish is naught to thee, for all thy contrite sayings.
+I fear me Priscilla is right, and thou 'rt truly ill. This hot sun hath
+touched thy head with some such distemper as sped poor Master Carver.
+Sit thee down here beside me, and I'll fetch cool water from the spring
+to bathe thy temples."
+
+"It needs not, cousin. My distemper is of the mind, the heart; nay, it
+is wounded honor, lass, and there's no ill of body can sting a man so
+shrewdly as that. Say that I have thy pardon, Barbara, if thou canst say
+it in truth, and 't will be better than any med'cine in Fuller's
+chest."
+
+"Why, certes, Myles, thou hast my forgiveness and over and over for any
+rough word thou mayst have said, and in sober sadness I mind not what
+they were, for all my thought hath been of my unkindness to thee. Myles,
+I never told thee, but when thy mother lay a-dying, and thou far away,
+fighting the Spaniards in Holland, she bade me care for thee even as she
+would have done, and fill a sister's place--and more, and I laid my hand
+in hers and promised sacredly, and so she rested content."
+
+"And why didst never tell me this before, cousin?"
+
+"I know not--nay, but that's not all out true, and I'll tell thee no
+lies, Myles. When next thou camest to our poor home at Man, thou didst
+see Rose, and from the first I knew well enow that there'd be no need of
+sister-care for one who found so sweet a wife."
+
+"Ay, she was sweet,--sweet as her pretty name. Dost know, Barbara, when
+these bushes burgeon in early summer with their soft and fragrant bloom
+it ever minds me of that sweet and fragile Rose that lies beneath."
+
+But Barbara was silent.
+
+"Ah well, ah well, 't is a brief chapter strangely at odds with the rude
+life wherein it found itself, and now 't is closed, and better so for
+her. She could not have bloomed among these dreary sands and savage
+woods; it was not fitting."
+
+He paced a few steps back and forward, and Barbara rose, her clear eyes
+full of a woman's noble and patient strength.
+
+"And so, Myles, we are at peace again, and I at least will make it my
+endeavor that there shall be no such breach of charity in the future.'"
+
+"Nay, Barbara, stay a little, I pray thee. I have somewhat to say, for
+which in advance I must ask thy patience and indulgence. Thou 'lt not be
+angered at me so soon again, Barbara?"
+
+"Nay, I'll not be angered, cousin." But Barbara's voice was very sad.
+
+"'T is this, and I thought of it all last night as we flitted in the
+moonlight across the bay, and what thou sayest of my mother's charge to
+thee fits my thought like hand and glove. Why should not we two wed,
+Barbara?"
+
+He turned and looked at her, and stood amazed to see how the steadfast
+calm of her face broke up in a tempest of indignation, of grief, of
+outraged womanhood.
+
+"Why, Barbara! Why, cousin! What is it, what have I said? What ails
+thee, dear? What works upon thee so cruelly?"
+
+"That any man should dare fancy it of me--there, there, let be, let me
+pass, let me go!"
+
+"Nay, then, I'll not let thee go. I'm but a rude bungler in these
+women-ways, and I've said or done somewhat that wounds thee sorely, and
+I'll not let thee go till 't is all outsaid and I have once more cleared
+myself of at least willful offense toward thee."
+
+"Wilt keep me by force, sir?"
+
+"Ay maid I will, for 't is only in bodily strength that I'm thy match,
+and so for the moment I will e'en use it. Sit thee here now and listen
+yet again, as I say, Why may not we two wed, cousin Barbara? Thou 'rt
+not mine own cousin, thou knowest, child; 't was thy father and mine
+were in that bond; and--now bear with me, Barbara--I've a shrewd
+suspicion that my mother bade thee be not a sister but a wife to me.
+Truth now, did she not, maid?"
+
+"She could not guide either my love or thine, so why would she try?"
+
+"Nay, that's no answer, lass, but we'll let the question go. There's not
+a woman alive, Barbara, so dear to me as thou; there's none I hold in
+greater reverence or trust; there's none with whom I would so gladly
+live out my days, and--though now I risk thy scorn,--there's none whose
+lineage I so respect"--
+
+"What, the Henley lineage?" murmured Barbara, with face averted to hide
+a smile.
+
+"Nay, thou 'rt all Standish, Barbara! Thou 'rt more Standish than I, for
+thou hast the eyes of those old portraits my poor father vainly tried to
+wrest from his cousin Alexander. Let me look at those eyes, Barbara!"
+
+"And so because it suits thy convenience to make me thy wife, thou takst
+no heed of mine own fancies," said Barbara, not heeding this request.
+"And I pray thee unhand me, for I promise to patiently abide till thou
+hast said thy say."
+
+"Now there again thou dost me wrong, lass, for as I told thee t' other
+day there's no bachelor here fit to wed with thee, there's none I'd give
+thee to, nor would I see thee wither away unwed."
+
+"Gramercy cousin, but methinks that is a question I well might settle
+for myself."
+
+"Why nay, sith there is no gentleman unwed among our company, save
+Allerton, whom I love as little as thou dost."
+
+"I care not for any"--
+
+"I know it, Barbara, I know it well. Thou 'rt that rare marvel, a woman
+sufficing unto herself, for as I believe, thou hast never fancied any
+man, though more than one hath fancied thee."
+
+"'T is my cold heart," murmured Barbara with a little smile strangled in
+its birth.
+
+"Nay," replied her cousin thoughtfully as he pulled at his moustache and
+gazed upon the ground at his feet. "Nay, I call thee not so much
+heartless as fancy-free. Thou 'rt kind and gentle, ay, and loving as my
+dear mother knew. I'm well content with thy heart for such as it is,
+Barbara, if thou 'lt but give it me."
+
+"Nay, Myles, I'm deadly sure I've none to give, and out of nothing
+nothing comes."
+
+"Thou ne'er canst love me, Barbara?"
+
+"No more than I love thee now, Myles."
+
+"With calm cousin-love thou meanest?"
+
+"I am ill skilled at logic, Myles. I cannot set out my feelings in class
+and order, as our chirurgeon doth his herbs and flowers."
+
+"Well, Barbara, I'm grieved that thou lookest upon me so coldly, but I
+draw not back from my petition. I'd liefer have thy calm tenderness than
+another's hot love, for I can trust thee as I trust mine own honor, and
+I know full well that thou 'lt ever be better than thy word. So take me,
+Barbara, for thy husband, and fulfill the dear mother's last desire, and
+give me the hope of teaching thee in the days to come to love me even as
+I love thee."
+
+But for all answer Barbara only turned and laid her hands in his, and
+slowly raised the wonder of her eyes until they looked straight into
+his; and the man whose front had never quailed in face of death or
+danger grew pallid beneath his bronze, and trembled like a leaf in the
+wind.
+
+"What!--Barbara!--Dost really love me, maid? Nay, cheat me not--speak!
+Dost love me, sweetheart, already?"
+
+But Barbara said never a word, nor did Myles ever know more of the
+secret of her life than in that one supreme moment he read in her
+steadfast eyes.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIX.
+
+A MILITARY WEDDING.
+
+
+"And thou 'rt not amazed, Elsie, that our captain and his kinswoman will
+wed?" asked Governor Bradford of his wife in the privacy of the family
+bedroom.
+
+"No more than at the sun's rising in the East," replied Alice with a
+demure little smile.
+
+"Hm! Master Galileo saith the sun riseth not at all, and though the
+power of Rome caused him to gainsay it, he did tell me privily in
+Amsterdam that it was sooth, and the sun bided forever in the one place
+while this round world turned over daily."
+
+"I ever thought the good man was a little crazed," replied Mistress
+Bradford serenely. "Like Paul, much learning had made him mad."
+
+"Nay wife, 't was Festus charged Paul with madness, because the apostle
+knew more than himself. Haply 't is so with Master Galileo."
+
+"It may be, William. These be not matters for women to meddle withal,"
+replied Alice meekly.
+
+"But anent our captain's wooing of his cousin, Elsie? How is 't thou 'rt
+not amazed like the rest of us?"
+
+"Because I saw long since that Barbara would never wed another than her
+cousin, and thou knowest, Will, how like draws to like, even across the
+waste of ocean."
+
+"Ay dame, I know it well and sweetly, and never shall I forget to give
+thanks to Him whose wisdom reacheth from end to end, sweetly ordering
+all things. But how chanced Mistress Barbara to confess her fondness to
+thee, sweetheart?"
+
+"Nay now! Though men do be our masters in most things, how dull they
+still show themselves in others. As if a maid, or for that matter a
+widow, would ever 'confess her fondness' for any man till he had wooed
+her so to do, and but coyly then, if she be wise."
+
+"Too coyly for him to credit her with overmuch tenderness," suggested
+the bridegroom.
+
+"Facts speak louder than words, and if a woman will set herself upon far
+and perilous journeys, and compass sea and land to come to him who
+calleth her, methinks he need not doubt her friendship for him. Nay now,
+nay now, we talk of Barbara and the Captain, and I'll tell thee. Since I
+was left alone in London,--so lonely too in my wide house in Duke's
+Place,--I have taken dear and sweet counsel with Barbara, whom I first
+knew in the congregation of Pastor Jacob, and she hath been my guest for
+weeks and months at a time, so that if any two women know each other
+well, their names are Barbara and Alice."
+
+"But yet she never told thee that she loved her cousin? Now that is
+passing strange."
+
+"'T would to my mind have been far stranger had she so bewrayed
+herself."
+
+"But still those gentle eyes of thine read the secret of her heart?"
+
+"I did mistrust it for long, but when I had thy letter, Will, and
+settled my mind to come to thee, I told Barbara somewhat of the old
+story"--
+
+"Of how thou wast minded to spite thy comely face by cutting off its
+nose?"
+
+But Mistress Bradford had no smile for her husband's somewhat coarse
+jest, and went quietly on,--
+
+"And I told her, too, that her kinsman, Myles, had lost the sweet wife
+of whom she had so often and so gently spoken; and at the last I told
+her I was minded to sell all that I had and go to our folk in New
+England, and I asked her would she go, to be ever and always my dear
+sister if no other home should offer, and though we said no word that
+day of Captain Standish, sure am I that he was in both our minds. And
+now, dear man, dost see through the millstone?"
+
+"Ay, since woman's wit hath delved a hole, I can see through it as well
+as another." And the governor kissed his wife as merrily as another man,
+while she adjusting the demure matron's cap about her fair young face
+went out to see that the breakfast was fairly spread.
+
+A fortnight later when the Anne had sailed, and the Little James had
+returned and gone again upon a luckless fishing trip, and the new-comers
+had settled into their appointed places, and the town was once more
+quiet, there came a fair September day when work was laid aside, and
+after breakfast the armies of the colony, at least a hundred souls in
+all,--if we count the trumpeters, the buglers, the fifers, and the
+drummers,--assembled on the Training Green just across the brook, and
+after some evolutions marched in orderly array back again past the
+spring and up the hill to the governor's house, where they were joined
+by him and the elder. Then up and on to the captain's house, where a
+guard of honor presented itself at the door, and ushered forth the
+chief, carefully dressed in his uniform of state, while at his side
+merrily clanked Gideon, resplendent, though none but he and his master
+knew it, in such a furbishing and polishing as seldom had fallen to his
+lot before.
+
+Saluting his comrades gravely and with somewhat more of dignity than his
+wont, the captain took his place, and the procession climbed the short
+ascent remaining to the door of the Fort, where entered the dignitaries
+and as many more as could find room. Here in the great room now used as
+a place of worship a group of matrons and maids awaited them, with
+Barbara in their midst, fair and stately in her white robes, the glory
+of her eyes outvying any jewels she could have worn.
+
+The meagre civil service was spoken by the governor, but at the request
+of both bride and bridegroom the elder made a prayer to which the
+captain listened more reverently than his wont, and cried Amen more
+heartily.
+
+Then they came forth these two Standishes made one, and the train band
+escorted them to their home, and fired a salute of honor, whose
+reverberating waves rolling across the waters broke at last upon the
+foot of Captain's Hill, sighing away into silence over the quiet plain
+where one day should be dug a warrior's grave, marked head and foot with
+a great three-cornered stone.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XL.
+
+"PARTING IS SUCH SWEET SORROW."
+
+
+And so, tenderly, reluctantly, lingeringly we leave them, these dear
+ones whose memory we cherish so lovingly, and in the sober reality of
+whose lives lies a charm no romance can ever reach.
+
+Would you know more of them, for there are, as the Sultana promised
+morning by morning, stranger and better things to come than these that
+have been told, go read the annals of the Pilgrims, those precious
+fragments left to us by Bradford and by Winslow, and a letter written by
+De Rasieres, Secretary of the Dutch Colony at Manhattan, who, visiting
+Plymouth upon a diplomatic errand in 1627, wrote to his superiors a
+letter preserved in the Royal Library of Holland wherein he draws this
+little picture of the town we have tried to reproduce, and mentions some
+of these dear friends whose lives we know so much better than he did.
+
+"New Plymouth lies on the slope of a hill, stretching east toward the
+sea-coast with a broad street about a cannon shot long, leading down the
+hill with a cross street in the middle going southward to the rivulet,
+and northward to the land. The houses are constructed of hewn planks,
+with gardens also enclosed behind, and at the sides, with hewn planks,
+so that their houses and court-yards are arranged in very good order,
+with a stockade against a sudden attack; and at the ends of the streets
+there are three wooden gates. In the centre on the cross street stands
+the Governor's house, before which is a square erection upon which four
+patereros are mounted so as to flank along the streets.
+
+"Upon the hill they have a large square house, with a flat roof made of
+thick sawn planks stayed with oak beams, upon the top of which they have
+six cannons which shoot iron balls of four or five pounds and command
+the surrounding country. The lower part they use for their church, where
+they preach on Sundays and the usual holidays. They assemble by beat of
+drum, each with his musket or firelock, in front of the Captain's door;
+they have their cloaks on, and place themselves in order three abreast,
+and are led by a sergeant without beat of drum. Behind comes the
+Governor in a long robe; beside him on the right hand comes the preacher
+with his cloak on, and on the left hand the Captain with his side-arms
+and cloak on, and with a small cane in his hand; and so they march in
+good order, and each sets his arms down near him. Thus they are
+constantly on their guard night and day."
+
+But after all, glad as we are of this little loophole pierced through
+the mists of antiquity, the fashion of our friends' houses and
+court-yards, their cloaks and muskets and quaint Sunday procession are
+not as valuable to us as the story of their individual lives: the story
+of Priscilla and John Alden and their children; of Myles, military power
+of the colony, beyond his threescore years and ten; of Barbara, called
+his "dear wife" in the dignified Last Will, wherein he bequeaths
+"Ormistic, Bousconge, Wrightington, Maudesley" and the rest, to
+Alexander his "son and heir," sturdily proclaiming with as it were his
+last breath, that these fair domains were "surreptitiously detained"
+from him. And Lora Standish, fair sweet shadow upon the mirror of the
+past; and Mary Dingley, beloved of the grand old warrior; and Alice
+Bradford, of whom at the last Morton wrote,--
+
+    "Adoe my loving friend, my aunt, my mother,
+     Of those that's left I have not such another."
+
+And Bradford himself, and Brewster, and Winslow, and Howland, each one
+of whom hath left behind him enough of achievement to fill a dozen of
+the degenerate lives of a butterfly of to-day; and the women they loved,
+and the young men and maidens who rose up around them: ah, how can we
+leave them, how can we say good-by! Shall we not the rather cherish them
+and study them more than we ever yet have done, feeling in our hearts
+that those virtues, that courage, and that nobility of life may be ours
+as well as theirs, may illustrate the easy life of to-day, and make it
+less unworthy to be the fruit of the Tree of Liberty, planted in the
+blood and watered by the tears of our Fathers.
+
+
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+Transcriber's Notes:
+
+   Page 58, Comma added after "Thou liest, knave"
+
+   Page 102, Comma added after "Good-morrow"
+
+   Page 144, Hyphen added to "commander in-chief"
+
+   Page 149, Period added after "his unwonted amenity"
+
+   Page 179, Double quote added after "thou mayest set down"
+
+   Page 304, Period added after "Glad am I to see thee"
+
+   Page 363, "Pecksnot" changed to "Pecksuot"
+
+   Page 422, "freind" changed to "friend"
+
+
+
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