FOOTNOTE:

ToMaster John Winthrop,Honourable Governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony these:

Master John Winthrop,Honourable Governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony these:

As he turned the package over and over in his hands,the knight, who at first had glanced at it in moody indifference, roused to intense attention, and finally, while a streak of dusky red animated his sallow cheek, extended his hand, saying as carelessly as he could,—

“Let me look at the governor’s seal, captain. Has it an heraldic device?”

“Nay, I know naught of such follies,” returned Underhill, holding out the packet; but even as his fingers touched those of the knight, trembling with impatience, a glance at his face, or perhaps only the soldier’s instinct of peril at hand, suddenly diverted his attention, and snatching back the dispatch, he began to replace it in his doublet, saying gruffly,—

“Marry, ’tis no business of mine or thine what these governors say to one another.”

“Nay, but I’m sick—make way, man, make way”—and throwing himself across Underhill, as if to reach the side of the boat, Sir Christopher, what with his long arms flying all abroad, and what with the great cloak that swept across Underhill’s face and breast, came very near knocking the packet out of his hand and sweeping it overboard.

“Have a care, man! Have a care!” cried the captain angrily. “Though you’re squalmish all of a sudden, you needn’t fling yourself nor me overboard.” And thrusting the inclosure containing Sir Christopher’s notebook and the kind and gentle letter accompanying it deep into his pocket, the future slayer of “Pequods” recovered his equilibrium and made room for Sir Christopher, who, leaning his head upon the gunwale of the boat, effectually hid his face from view, and made no reply to further efforts at conversation.

A week or so later another Boston boat came downto Plymouth, and brought John Alden’s cloak and a letter to Bradford from Governor Winthrop. It tells its own story in its own quaint phraseology:—

SR.: It hath pleased God to bring Sr.Christopher Gardener safe to us with thos that came with him. And howsoever I never intended any hard measure to him, but to respecte and use him according to his qualitie, yet I let him know your care of him, and ythe shall speed yebetter for your mediation. It was a spetiall providence of God to bring those notes of his to our hands; I desire ytyou will please to speake to all ytare privie to them not to discover them to any one for ytmay frustrate yemeans of any farder use to be made of them. The good Lord our God who hath allways ordered things for yegood of his poore churches here directe us in this arighte, and dispose it to a good issue. I am sorie we put you to so much trouble about this gentleman, espetialy at this time of greate imploymente, but I know not how to avoyed it. I must again intreate you to let me know what charge & troble any of your people have been at aboute him, ytmay be recompenced. So with the trew affection of a frind desiring all happines to your selfe & yours, and to all my worthy friends with you (whome I love in yeLord) I comende you to his grace & good providence & restyour most assured friendJohn Winthrop[4]BostonMay 5, 1631

your most assured friendJohn Winthrop[4]

BostonMay 5, 1631

[4]True copy.

A MUCH-MARRIED MAN.

The spring had ripened into midsummer, and under the sad and foreboding eyes of Governor Bradford a most ominous hegira of some of his dearest friends and Plymouth’s most valued townsmen had taken place, nominally for the summer only, but as Bradford too plainly foresaw not to end with the summer.

Standish’s house upon the foot of his own hill was complete, and not far away Jonathan Brewster, the Elder’s oldest son, had put up a summer cottage and established his wife and children. This might have passed, but when the Elder himself, with his two sons Love and Wrestling, also built a cottage close beside Jonathan’s upon a pretty inlet called Eagle’s Creek, the governor’s heart sank within him, and, calling a Court of the People, he proposed a legal enactment to the effect that those colonists who should build houses outside the town limits for the convenience of grazing or farming should return to the town at the beginning of winter, and abide there until spring; also, that they should week by week come into town to attend divine service on the Lord’s Day.

To this all consented, even Winslow, who, in spite of his frequent and protracted absences in England, had found time to view the land beyond Duxbury, and to appropriate a lovely and fertile tract at Green Harborin what is now Marshfield. Building a temporary cottage here, he named the estate Careswell after his ancestral home in England, and in true family spirit gathered around him his brothers: John, now husband of Mary Chilton, Josias, and Kenelm, who, married to Ellinor Newton of the Fortune, settled upon a gentle eminence by the sea in a spot so fertile and so beautiful that it was fitly named Eden.

Where Standish chose to lead, John Alden was in the habit of following, nor was this migration to Duxbury an exception, for in this very summer of 1631 Alden took up a large tract of land on the south side of Bluefish River, and built his house upon a pleasant rise of land near Eagletree Pond; and although two other houses have at different dates replaced the one he built, his children of the eighth generation live to-day upon the spot where Betty Alden grew into her fair maidenhood, and brothers and sisters made home happy, and life a quiet joy.

All these things and more had William Bradford been rehearsing to his friend Captain William Pierce of the Lyon, who had looked into Plymouth to leave some passengers and merchandise before proceeding upon his voyage to England, until the sailor, sorry for the depression and foreboding Bradford did not disguise from him, cast about for some pleasanter topic, and finally cried,—

“Oh, let me tell you, Governor, of the hornets’ nest I found myself caught in, awhile ago in Lun’on; and by the way, Master Isaac Allerton was in it as well. Didn’t he tell you here of the two wives of Sir Christopher Gardiner?”

“Nay, we have had but little pleasant converse withMaster Allerton for a long time past,” replied Bradford heavily, and Pierce hastened to proceed:—

“I know, I know, it would seem as if Allerton with all his pious texts had never learned that the man who faileth to care for his own is worse than a beast; for he cozened his own old father as much as he did you. But this is another matter. It was in February that I was stopping at the Three Anchors down by Wapping Old Stairs, and Allerton came in and said he had a message from a woman calling herself Lady Gardiner, who fain would have speech with him because he came out of New England; but he, prudent man, would go to see no fair ladies unknown to himself without a reputable witness to his honest intent, and so he was come for me. Be sure, Bradford, I did not let the chance slip to pass some merry jests upon our sour-visaged friend, and brought the blood to his tallow cheeks as it has not been seen for many a day; but in the end I gave my word to go and protect him as best I might from any designing Lindabrides who might assail him. So at once we went to the address written on the billet that was sent him, smelling of musk and ambergris and civet, worse than the hold of the Lyon after a ten weeks’ voyage. Coming to the house in the Strand, we found in a very fair lodging not one but two fair dames; and the merry jest of it is that both the one and the other are honest women, and married by ring, book, and bell to this same gay knight whom Winthrop found living so meekly in the woods of Neponset River with his cousin Mary Grove.”

“Nay, Pierce, but this passes a jest!” exclaimed Bradford, much disturbed as he recalled his little sister’s pale face, and his wife’s anxieties on her account. Butthe jolly mariner mopped his red face and laughed amain while he replied,—

“Nay, nay, Governor, I’m no church-member, and I suppose you saints were men before you were saints, and how can you help to see the mirth of it?”

“Well, tell me how it was.”

“Why, the first fair dame,—and a pretty creature she was, with soft eyes like those of your wife’s pet doe, and yellow hair, but a mouth too sad for kisses, and a cheek too thin and white for my taste,—she showed us her marriage lines, and told how she was married some six years ago to this Sir Christopher in Paris, and there abode until a few weeks before that speaking, when, hearing strange rumors of her husband’s proceedings, she came over to seek him in Lun’on, and found the scent warm indeed, but Master Reynard fled over seas; and as she sought him up and down, her quest crossed that of this other lady, who had been indeed more deeply wronged than herself. And at that word, Number Two, a fine bouncing well-set-up figure of a woman, black eyes and hair, and a cheek like a sturdy rose, and a mouth I’d rather have seen at peace than trembling with rage, she took up the word, and told how not six months before, she too had wed Sir Christopher Gardiner, and she too showed her marriage lines, which if not so binding as the first ones had at least the merit of being writ in English; and furthermore she showed us schedules of jewels and coin, and silver- and goldsmith’s work, and much rare and costly apparel both for men and women, for she was a widow, and all of it gone over seas with Sir Christopher, who, it seems, after sending her for a day or two to visit friends in the country, had made a clean sweep of everything, and thesame night set sail for Monhegan with Mary Grove, for whom, poor wench, she could find no name vile enough, laying all the blame, as is the wont of women, upon her, and making Sir Kit a victim of her wiles.”

“You saw the marriage lines of both these women?” asked Bradford, leaning his forehead upon his hand as he sat beside the table, and sighing heavily.

“Oh, yes,” returned Pierce, wondering at the effect of his story, but rather attributing it to the morbid sensitiveness of a church-member. “Yes, they were both of them as safe as a chain-cable; and though Sir Kit does seem to have slipped them, he couldn’t have parted them so long as the anchor of common law found holding-ground. Well, both women were clamoring to have us two catch the man and bring him back; but while the soft sweet first wife would have him brought back to duty and gently wooed into a better life, the full-rigged to’-gallant-s’il gallant buccaneer of a second wife only yearned to get him within reach that she might write the ten commandments on his face with her pretty little nails, and if she couldn’t recover her jewels, plate, and apparel, she would have the worth of them out of his hair and hide, and as for Mary Grove,—wow! man, you should have heard her! The ducking-stool, and the bilboes, and the white sheet, and the cart’s tail, and I know not what, were but the beginning of the blessings she longed to pour upon that poor little sinner’s head, oh me, oh me!”

And again the sailor, recalling the scene, threw back his head and laughed aloud, but meeting no response checked himself suddenly and continued:—

“Well, Allerton and I, when we might be heard, assured both the one and the other dame that wecompassionated their sad estate most heartily and would willingly see them avenged, but that we had no power except to bring the matter before Governor Winthrop, within whose jurisdiction Sir Christopher had settled, and in the end both ladies resolved to write to His Excellency, and promised to send the letters betimes next day to the Three Anchors at Wapping; which, to cut the yarn short, they did, and I gave them to Winthrop, and he as you know coursed the hare, or rather, hunted the fox, and ran him down, here at Plymouth.”

“But he has not been sent home, or so I heard the other day!” exclaimed Bradford.

“No; and why, I know not,” replied Pierce. “They kept him clapt up for a while, but finding nothing worse against him than that he is a friend to Sir Ferdinando Gorges, who wants the Massachusetts lands for himself, they gave him the run of the town, and he has been vaporing up and down there for months more than one or two. But now, Bradford, now here’s a merry jest that even you cannot but smile at if there’s a drop of red blood in your veins.

“A week or two ago a stalwart fellow called Thomas Purchase, who has taken up land at the eastward at a place called Sagadahoc, on the Kennebec River,—or is it the Androscoggin?”

“Both, since they come to a confluence. We have been thither trading for beaver, and will have a port there soon, if God will.”

“Well, this Purchase is a big man down there, and meaning to be bigger; so, having a house, he came to Boston to purvey himself a wife; and who should he pick from among all the fair and godly maids and widows of that pious village but Mary Grove, who hasbeen waiting there until the magistrates should settle within their own minds which of the Lady Gardiners might claim the plucking of her feathers. Yes, sir; Thomas Purchase, with his eyes and his ears open, chose Mary Grove to be his wife, Sir Christopher gave his consent and his blessing, and the lord’s brethren, as Blackstone calls them, hailed with joy so clear a course out of the muddle they’d fallen into with this woman. So Winthrop himself married them, and Purchase, having his boat at hand, well stocked with the barter of the beaver he had brought up, carried his bride aboard, and also,—now mark you well, for here’s the very moral of the jest,—also he took aboard Sir Christopher Gardiner himself, and away they all sailed for Sagadahoc. There, what think you of that, gossip?”

“I think Master Thomas Purchase a singularly charitable man,” replied Bradford with a dry smile. “But let us hope that Mary Grove convinced him that she was more sinned against than sinning, and had not done the wrong this villain’s second wife imputed to her.”

“Ay, ay, doubtless you as a church-member are bound to find some such way out of the thing; but to the mind of a plain old sea-dog like Bill Pierce ’tis a marvelous merry tale, with no moral tacked to the end on’t.”

And possibly this conversation had something to do with the fact that when Thanksgiving Day came round, Priscilla Carpenter became the wife of William Wright.

BETTY’S JOURNEY AND THE GARRETT WRECK.

“Betty, child, thou’rt not well. Thy little face is so peaked and pined I hardly know my winsome lassie. What is’t, maiden?”

“Oh, father, I don’t know”—

“Nay, don’t cry, my poppet! Come here and tell daddy all the trouble.”

“Well, father, I’m so tired of seeing our neighbors carried up the hill, and I’m looking for them to carry us too.”

“What! Here, mother, come and tell me what our little maid may mean. She says she’s tired of seeing our neighbors going up the hill, and she cries as if her little heart would break.”

The mother did not at once reply, but, laying her hand upon the child’s head as it nestled upon her father’s breast, she looked sadly out of the window, and said, “We had better have stayed over at Duxbury another month, John.”

“Why, so we would have done, wife, and indeed ’tis a loss to come back to the town so early; but you know the governor desired it, because in so much sickness our good doctor could not go far afield, and when Jo was taken down he bade me bring you all in. Another year, if God will, I mean to establish our home for winter as well as summer by the Bluefish. But what about thehill, Betty?” persisted the father. “Why does it daunt thee to see the folk go up the hill?”

“Because they’re dead, father, and they carry them up to bury them!” cried Betty in a wild burst of sobs; and Priscilla, nodding, pointed out of the window to a little procession just passing the house, where four men bore upon a rude hand-bier a coffin covered with a black pall, the corners held by four younger men. Behind walked a score or so of mourners, all men, with long crape scarfs tied around their hats. No clergyman attended, for religious solemnities at funerals were studiously avoided by the Separatists, lest haply they might seem to infringe upon the hidden councils of the Almighty in regard to souls withdrawn from the sphere of human influence. A gloomy and a hopeless affair they made of death, those men who dreaded popery as they did Satan, and loved John Calvin, recently gone to test his own sunless theories.

“Betty, dear,” exclaimed the mother suddenly, “there’s little Molly crying in her cradle! Run, dear, and hush her, and sit by the cradle till I come.”

The obedient child sprang to obey, and so soon as she was gone Priscilla softly said,—

“’Tis all these buryings, John, that work on the child’s tender heart, and she heard us talking last night of poor Fear Allerton’s passing. ’Tis she that’s going up the hill now; and see! they’ve got Thomas Prence and Philip De la Noye and Thomas Cushman and John Faunce for pall-bearers, and Isaac Allerton and the Elder are chief mourners. You should have been there, John, for Allerton was ship-fellow with us in the Mayflower, and she was a dear gossip of mine always.”

“And so I would have been but for that spikerunning into my foot and making a cripple of me,” replied Alden with a rueful look at his bandaged foot.

“Shouldst not have left thy harrow lying on ’s back with its teeth grinning up to the sky,” suggested Priscilla absently, and then taking from the mantelshelf a bit of stick and a sheath knife she cut a notch at the end of a long line, and counting said,—“Eleven on my tally-stick already, and some of the best, alas! Peter Browne,—mind you, John, how he and Goodman roosted in a tree all night for fear of the ‘lions,’ and ne’er a one here? And Francis Eaton, he’s gone, and left Christian Penn a widow. I’ll warrant me she’ll go back to the governor’s kitchen. Then there’s the captain’s two little boys. Poor Barbara! Truly I believe, John, of the hundred Mayflowers that came ashore there’s not a score left.”

“There’s two and twenty of us, counting them who were children, like Henry Samson and Peregrine White,” said John sadly.

“Ah, you’ve kept the tally in your head better than I with my stick,” said Priscilla, laying it aside. “And to think of Pris Carpenter, widowed almost as soon as she’s wed. William Wright has left her all that he had, Alice Bradford says.”

“Ay; and glad am I that Sir Christopher Gardiner hath gone back to his two wives in England before she came into her fair estate.”

“Nay, Pris would not have looked crosswise at him after she heard the story Captain Pierce gave the governor. She was too sound a maid to listen to any such golightly cavaliers as this man proved himself. But, John, did you hear of the will that Widow Ring has made, and tied up everything on her boy Andrew? Andthere’s Susanna Clark and Betsey Deane been the best of daughters, and tended her hand and foot, and she as full of whims as an egg is of meat; and when she’d for very shame’ sake given Susan a pair of pillows, she had to tuck in that Andrew was to have the feathers out of ’em. Think of that for a mother! And Susan Clark, she’s to have the making of a baby’s bearing-cloth out of a piece of red cloth the widow had laid up, and Betsey Deane’s child, she’s to have the rest on’t. And who’s to have the widow’s three say gowns, one of green and two of black, I mind not, but all Betty told me of getting was one ruffle that her mother bought of Goodman Gyles, who had it out of England in a present, and she gave him four shillings for it, but”—

“But what’s to be done with our Betty?” calmly inquired John, stemming the tide of his wife’s eloquence, apparently all unconsciously.

She, standing open-mouthed for a moment, looked at him, colored a little, then laughed, and nipping his arm retorted,—

“What’s to be done with our goodman, that’s lost his wits as well as lamed his foot? Didst not know that I was discoursing of Widow Ring’s will?”

“But she’s left naught to us that I’ve heard, nor are we even called to distribute her goods as I can hear, so were it not the part of wisdom to attend to our own concerns instead of hers, good wife?”

“Well, as for Betty, the child’s growing too fast, and mayhap has been a little too straitly tied at home, what with little Molly’s coming, and Jo’s fever, and the rest. So now that you’re laid up from work, John, why don’t you take her up to Boston in the governor’s boat that’s set to go two days from now, and tarry the nightat Parson Wilson’s, as he so kindly asked you when he was down here with Governor Winthrop and his folk? Marry come up, ’twas a good supper I set before their high mightinesses that night, and our own governor did thank me kindly for so pleasantly entertaining the guests of the colony. ’Twas a better supper than they had at the Winslows’ or the Howlands’ or the Allertons’, for I know all about it. As for the Standishes, I was helping Barbara all day, and the merit of that feast lay between us, but”—

“And dost think Mistress Wilson would welcome our little maid?”

“Surely she would, and why not? You’ll not find our Betty’s marrow among the pick of the Bay maidens, not forgetting Master Winthrop’s own; no, nor Simon Bradstreet’s Anne that you were so taken with when we went up to see Mistress Winthrop.”

“Then if you’ll make her packet ready I’ll see the governor about the boat,” concluded John, carefully putting his wounded foot to the ground, taking a cane in each hand, and hobbling out of the room, just as the roll of a muffled drum announced the death of Samuel Fuller, the much-prized and well-beloved physician of Plymouth, deacon of her church, brother by marriage to Bradford and Wright; the constant friend of his townsmen, and valued by many an one in the new settlements about Boston Bay. Faithful to the last, he had attended the sick-beds of those who were only a trifle worse than himself, until of a sudden he succumbed, and died almost before his friends knew that he was ill. Few deaths could have been more deeply felt in that little colony, and few were noted in William Bradford’s diary with more solemn and affectionate feeling.

But before the doctor was laid to rest in his nameless grave on Burying Hill, Betty Alden, full of delight, and yet soberly attentive to her mother’s last charges, both as to her own conduct and her care of her father’s foot, was on her way to Boston, where she saw many new faces and made many new friends. Of one of these, a girl of her own age named Christian Garrett, there is more to tell, for so close was the friendship springing up between herself and Betty, and so good and commendable a little maid did Christian prove herself, that John Alden, on parting with Richard Garrett, the father, cordially invited him to visit Plymouth at some near date and bring his little girl to visit Betty, and this he promised to do.

Why the luckless man should have selected mid-winter for this expedition no man now can say, but so he did, and in spite of urgent warnings sailed from what is now Long Wharf upon a bitter-cold morning, with a north wind catching the crests off the waves, and hurling them in needlepoints of ice in the teeth of the doomed company whom Richard Garrett had persuaded to accompany him. One of these, named Henry Harwood, was a passenger, and the other three were Garrett’s hired servants. As the day wore on, the wind freshened, working round to the northwest, so that arriving toward night off the Gurnet the exhausted men thought best to anchor until morning. The killock, a rude anchor consisting simply of a stone bound in a network of rope, was thrown over in twenty fathoms of water, and not resting upon the bottom the stone soon worked out of the rope, and left the boat to drive. No lighthouse upon the Gurnet, no beacon upon the beach, then protected the mariner of Plymouth Bay, andas the horror of thick darkness fell upon the scene, and the boat flew before the wind which now came laden with sleet, freezing as it fell, Garrett exclaimed,—

“Now may the Lord have mercy upon our sinful souls, and forgive me that has brought my motherless child here to die!”

“And more than that, Richard Garrett, you that have involved us in the same disaster,” replied Harwood angrily. “Do you suppose, man, I would have adventured with you and paid my two shilling for a passage, had I known what manner of shallop this is, and nothing but a stone and a rope for killock?”

“Peace, man!” retorted Garrett sternly. “How dare you go before your Judge with revilings in your mouth! Get you to your prayers, or be silent.”

“Father, the water freezes around my feet!” moaned Christian, nestling close to his side in the darkness.

“My poor little maid! Here, sit on my knees and I’ll lap thee in my cloak!”

“Nay, thou’lt take it from thyself, daddy,” remonstrated the child; but the father had his way, and all through that cruel night sheltered the little maid upon his knees and under his cloak, while his own feet first ached bitterly, and then grew numb, and then died.

“Let us pray!” cried a voice from the forward part of the boat, and, mingled with the howling of the storm, the hissing of the brine as it rushed savagely past the wreck, and the rattling of the frozen rigging, there rose upon the midnight air one of those stern, strong, abject yet self-assertive prayers that the Puritans were wont to address to their vindictive and implacable Deity; confessing their own enormity of sin, yet beseeching Him to forego his rightful vengeance and to lift his scourgefrom their backs because his Son had already borne the penalty of their sins, and suffered to appease the Father’s annihilating wrath.

The prayer was strong and eloquent after its own rugged fashion, and as the hearers breathed “A-men” they felt that their chances were better than before, and were not surprised when, as morning broke, the low line of Cape Cod lay before them, and the sail, partially blown from the gaskets, filled just enough to carry them gently upon the shallow beach.

“We are saved!” exclaimed Harwood, staggering to his feet and clinging to the mast. “Come, men, tumble over and wade ashore! We can be no wetter than we are.”

As he spoke he stepped over the gunwale into water almost up to his middle and turned shoreward, but Garrett cried to him,—

“Hold, man, if you have a heart of flesh and not of stone! Take my child out of my arms and carry her ashore, for I am utterly spent. I shall never reach that land.”

“Give her to me, then, some of you,” replied Harwood grudgingly. “I know not if I can hold her in my numbed arms, but I’ll try it, though she never should have been here.”

“Tut! Prut! Master Harwood!” retorted Joseph Pierce, Garrett’s foreman. “None but a sour temper would flout the master with his misfortunes just now! I’d carry little mistress myself and spare you the trouble, but my feet are froze fast into the wash at the bottom of the boat.”

“And so are mine!” exclaimed another, making ineffectual efforts to release himself from his icy bonds.

“And I know not if I have feet or not,” added Garrett drowsily. “But I beseech you, men, to care for my little maid.”

“Be sure we will, master,” replied Pierce cheerily. “Here, Brastow, give me that hatchet to cut away the ice from my feet; but no, first help Mistress Christian over the side. Now, then, Harwood, take her, and God’s blessing if you get her safe ashore. Have you a hold? Put your arms round his neck, there’s a brave maid. Now hold fast.”

No sooner was Harwood off than the others began to move, and although Garrett himself only reached the shore by the help of two men, and at once fell down never to rise again, all at length stood upon the barren and shelterless sand-bank, at that point running down from the scrub forest to the water, and looked around them in dismay. Garrett, the leader of the expedition, was evidently dying, and one of his men was in scarce better case. Harwood and Pierce, the strongest of those who remained, yet hardly able to bestir themselves, gathered some sticks and lighted a fire, but for want of a hatchet could not cut any substantial fuel. “We must e’en wade it again to the boat, and fetch off some victual, the hatchet, and some rugs, if nothing more,” declared Pierce, when the fire had a little revived his chilled frame and flagging spirit; and Harwood gloomily acquiescing, the two once more made their perilous journey, and so loaded themselves that the hatchet, most precious item of all he carried, dropped from Pierce’s numbed fingers and fell somewhere among the rocks upon which the boat had now drifted. To find it was impossible, and to stay longer in the freezing and rising water was as impossible, so the twowere fain to stagger ashore, and fall with their burdens upon their backs beside the fire, where their companions lay mutely regarding them with the apathy of dying men.

The day passed, and the night, those who survived could never quite tell how, but in the morning Joseph Pierce and Thomas Barstow set out to walk toward Plymouth, lying as they supposed some six or seven miles to the westward, but in reality about fifty. Several miles on their journey these two encountered two Indian women, who ran away from them, but carried intelligence of the encounter to their husbands, encamped near at hand.

And now Plymouth’s just and generous policy toward the Indians bore fruit. The savages both loved and feared the white men of the Old Colony; they knew that kindness would be rewarded, and offenses surely punished; so acting accordingly, they hastened to overtake the footsore wanderers, and discovering whither they would go, one of the Indians went forward as their guide, while the other turned back to the camp, where beside the last embers of a fire lay the lifeless body of Garrett, his child crouching beside him, dazed and dumb with cold and terror. At the other side of the exhausted fire lay Harwood and the other man, only half conscious, and quite unable to move or to help themselves. The Indian, making the most of his few words of English, stopped only to promise help and to assure the sufferers that their comrades were safe, and then sped away to his wigwam, whence he presently returned laden with rugs, a hatchet, and some sort of reviving draught which he heated over the renewed fire, and administered to each in turn. Then, covering them warmly, he cutsaplings, pointed them, and built a hut over the prostrate bodies of the sufferers. Last of all he hewed a grave in the frozen soil with his hatchet, and respectfully raising Richard Garrett’s dead body in his arms laid it to rest, carefully crumbling the soil to cover it, and raising a cairn of stones and brushwood to protect it from the beasts of prey then prowling up and down the waste of Cape Cod.

As the warmth increased, however, the apathy of the frozen men turned to anguish and torture, and Harwood, dragging himself out of the hut, had the resolution to thaw his feet in the water of a neighboring pool, and so kept life in them; but his companion, too far gone, remained by the fire, and when the pain was eased died, so that Harwood and the little girl remained alone with the Indian.

The two men who had gone toward Plymouth were no more fortunate. One died upon the road; the other so soon as he had told his piteous story to Bradford and the rest who ministered to him so tenderly, yet could do nothing to detain him. Within the hour a boat well manned, and carrying the Indian for guide, was on its way to the scene of the disaster, and the next day returned, bringing Christian Garrett, Henry Harwood, the body of their comrade, and the Indian who had so faithfully cared for them, and whom Bradford liberally rewarded and praised for his benevolence.

Harwood was billeted upon Stephen Hopkins, but Betty Alden pleaded with her parents that Christian Garrett might come to their house and be her own especial charge; and this boon being easily granted, the spare-room where Sir Christopher Gardiner had wearied and plotted became the happy abiding-place of these twoinnocent young creatures, the one so active and helpful, the other so languid and so sorrowful, and yet both of them the happier and the better for their companionship.

When the spring had come, Harwood, with a good crew of Plymouth men to help him, attempted to sail Garrett’s boat up to Boston, but caught in a wild spring storm was nearly wrecked again; and with some strange gloomy idea of having suffered from his association with Garrett he sued his estate for damages, and actually recovered twenty nobles, or about thirty-three dollars, which was duly paid to him out of the pittance left to Christian, who, although she went back to Boston and the care of an aunt, never ceased to be one of Betty’s dearest and most intimate friends.

“AH, BROTHER OLDHAME, IS IT THOU!”

It was a day in June, one of those lovely, nay, perfect days when heaven appears at once nearer and farther off than ever before: nearer, for we seem already to taste its delights; farther off, because earth has suddenly become so satisfying that we ask for nothing better.

A little southwest breeze loitered over Burying Hill, stirring the long grasses, wooing sweet kisses and incense from the balm o’ Gilead trees, and finally floated down The Hill, past the closed and deserted homes of Standish and Alden to the governor’s house, grown wide and stately in these days, boasting two parlors besides the great common room, and furthermore a recent extension toward The Hill consisting of one wide low room with an outside door and a loft overhead. This was the governor’s study or office, where he kept his books and papers and transacted the colony’s business. More than this, in the large closet and in the loft overhead were stored the colony’s goods, both the peltrie for export, and the shoes, textile fabrics, and other matters which were brought back from England in exchange; and as every man or woman who had obtained a beaver, or mink, or otter skin brought it to the governor and asked him to send to England for a pair of shoes, a new doublet or kirtle, pewter platter, or horn comb, theadjusting these accounts, and remembering every one’s wishes and instructions, consumed so large a part of the gubernatorial time that one cannot wonder that now and again Bradford “by importunity gat off” from reëlection, especially as his services were altogether gratuitous, and must have interfered with the necessity of living, pressing not only upon every man individually, but on husbands and fathers very imperatively. The casement window of the study was swung open to the soft June air, and the little breeze, peeping in, shrank back dismayed, yet, mustering the courage of a petted child, gathered a handful of perfume from Alice Bradford’s bed of early pinks close at hand, flung it in at the open window, and then, laughing softly, flew round the corner and in at another casement, where Alice herself sat embroidering in green crewels the cover of a stool, and talking softly to her daughter Mercy, Desire Howland, and Betty Alden, who sat demure as kittens on three crickets, stitching fine seams or embroidering muslin or silk under Dame Bradford’s skillful tuition; for among the fair memories this gracious woman left behind her, none seem fairer than her attention and kindly offices toward the young maids of the town.

A very different group was that at which the naughty breeze had peeped and flung perfume behind the swinging casement of the study: a group of men, mature and austere, as the fathers of unruly families are apt to become by the time the children wish to leave home and set up for themselves.

At the head of the old oak table with its twisted legs and lion’s claw-feet sat William Bradford, his cheek resting on his left hand, while with the right he drew idle lines or figures upon a sheet of coarse paper. Aninkstand hollowed from a square block of ebony stood before him, bristling with a thicket of quill pens standing in the sockets bored around the edge, and the Record Book of the colony, that same yellow and tattered book we reverently handle to-day, lay open beside it. Some papers and slips of parchment were scattered over the board, and one lay under Winslow’s hand as he turned to speak to Myles Standish, whose flushed face and wrathful eyes showed that his hasty temper was stirred more than was its wont, now that Time had set his half-century mark upon the thinning hair and lined features.

Next to Standish sat Timothy Hatherley, his intimate friend and future executor, and opposite them were Thomas Prence, and John Jenney the miller, a man of substance and position, and father of two very pretty daughters. These five were the governor’s assistants for the year, and to them, on this morning, was added the venerable presence of Elder Brewster, who, sitting at the foot of the table, and fixing his wintry blue eyes upon each speaker in succession, seemed to act as counterpoise and moderator to the more vehement moods of the younger men. A venerable figure truly, for the threescore and ten years of the promise were more than run out, and yet a form and face full of life and strength, and with a cleanly freshness of complexion and eye betokening a simple and abstemious life, enjoyed in fresh air and with moderate labor. Upon this reassuring face the eyes of the governor rested almost yearningly, as he listened to the captain’s fiery words:—

“Yes, sirs, the Bay Colony and their friends have brought themselves into the mire by their own blundering, and now cry to Plymouth, ‘Good Lord, deliverus!’ Whose fault is it that the Pequots are risen upon them?”

“They have murdered John Oldhame, I tell you, Captain!” exclaimed Winslow impatiently. “Will you listen while I read Governor Winthrop’s letter?”

“Yes, Captain Standish, I pray you to listen, and allow us to do so,” added Prence in so peremptory a tone that the old soldier turned hotly upon him:—

“Thomas Prence, they say you are a dabster at handling the Bible in prayer-meetings and prophesyings; do you remember how King Rehoboam took counsel as to his dealings with the oppressed people of his realm, and the old men said, ‘Deal softly and kindly with thy servants and they will remain thy servants for aye;’ but with the folly of youth, Rehoboam turned to men with their beards still in the silk, and said, ‘How shall I answer this people?’ and they gave their counsel: ‘Whereas thy father hath beaten them with whips, thou shalt scourge them with scorpions, and if thy father’s yoke was heavy upon their necks, thou shalt add to it until they sink under it.’ The boy king listened to his boy counselors, and the result was that ten tribes of—Pequots, we will call them, became his bloody foes instead of his cheerful servitors. We of Plymouth have held the whip behind our backs”—

“Yet brought it forward at Wessagusset,” interrupted Prence good-humoredly, and in the moment of not displeased silence on Standish’s part, Bradford hurriedly interposed,—

“Nay, Captain, let us hear the letter before we discuss this matter further.”

“So be it, Governor; but naught that Master Winthrop can pen or Master Winslow read, clever craftsmenthough they be, will fetch my consent to this wholesale slaughter of the Indians, Pequots, Narragansetts, or Pokanokets.”

“Will you read, Master Winslow?” asked the governor in a patient voice, and, rather hastily, as if forestalling farther discussion, Winslow proceeded to read aloud the missive of the governor of Massachusetts Bay, who after certain grave greetings proceeded to tell the story, which we will enlarge a little from other sources, of how one John Gallop, founder of the guild of Boston pilots, and occupant of the island bearing his name in Boston Harbor, while trading to the plantation of Saybrooke in the Connecticut Colony, had been attracted by the strange manœuvres of a pinnace lying to off Block Island, and running in that direction recognized her as belonging to John Oldhame, late of Watertown, in the Massachusetts Colony, who had, about a week before, left Boston upon a trading tour, his crew consisting only of two English lads, his kinsmen, and two Narragansett Indians.

“John Oldhame must be very drunk to let his craft yaw about in that fashion,” commented Gallop, watching the bark; and his sons, John and James, boys of twelve and fourteen, and Zebedee Palmer, his hired man, who composed the entire ship’s company, dutifully assented, Zebedee suggesting that in the cold March wind then blowing he should not himself object to a drop of something comfortable.

“When is the day you would, Zeb?” inquired his master. “But lo you now! There goes a canoe from the pinnace to the shore heavy laden, and manned only by redskins. Be sure there’s some Indian deviltry going on, and though the wind be contrary we will beat down and hail her.”

But arrived within hailing distance, Gallop perceived the deck of the pinnace to be crowded with savages, who, so far from returning his hail, at once dropped their occupation of loading another canoe, and proceeded to make sail in so clumsy a fashion that the pilot’s fears of the pinnace having been seized by Indians were reduced to certainty, and putting his own bark before the wind blowing off the land he pursued the captured craft, now driving wildly toward the Narragansett shore. Bringing up the two guns and two pistols comprising his entire armament, Gallop charged them with the duckshot he had brought along for purposes of sport, and so soon as they came within range began firing with no farther formalities into the dense throng of Indians, who on their part stood armed with guns, pikes, and swords, and as Gallop’s bark drew near fired a scattering volley, happily of no effect; and then, as the incessant rain of duckshot—for the two boys loaded as fast as their father fired—became intolerable, they all fled below hatches, leaving the vessel to drift as she would. Seeing this, the pilot hit upon a new method of attack, and standing off a little he set his craft dead before the wind, now blowing half a gale, and coming down with full force upon the pinnace “stemmed her upon the quarter,” as Winthrop has it, “and almost overset her. This so frighted the Indians that five or six ran on deck, and leaping overboard were drowned.” Encouraged by this beginning, the pilot repeated his manœuvre, only this time so fitting his anchor to the heel of his bowsprit as to make a very good imitation of an iron-clad ram; then again striking the pinnace he crushed in her forward bulwarks, and sticking fast, began pouring in charges of his heaviest shot at such shortrange that they penetrated decks and sheathing, and reached the pirates skulking below. Finding that they refused to be driven out, and his two guns growing too warm to work, Gallop disengaged his anchor and again stood off; but this was enough, and five more Indians rushed up and threw themselves into the sea, preferring a death they well understood, to the tender mercies of a man who fought in such unknown fashions.

There being now but four of the savages left, Gallop boarded the pinnace, whereupon one of the survivors yielded, and was bound and stowed in the cabin for safe-keeping; another yielded, but leaving Zebedee to bind him the pilot dragged away a seine huddled in the stern sheets under which he had from his own deck perceived some horror to be hidden. It was the body of a white man, still warm, the head cleft, the hands and feet nearly cut off, and the face so covered with blood as to be unrecognizable, until Gallop, dipping one of the garments stripped off but lying near, into the salt water flooding the decks, washed it and put aside the long hair; then gazing down into the staring eyes, he said as if in answer to their piteous appeal, “Ah, Brother Oldhame, is it thou! Truly I am resolved to avenge thy blood!” And, while Zebedee managed as best he could to fasten a tow-rope to the pinnace and make sail upon the bark, and John and James, pistol in hand, watched the hatches in case the Indians below should make a sortie, the pilot bound the mangled body of his friend in its clothes and in the private ensign lying at the foot of the mast, and launched it overboard.

“This man is wriggling his hands free, father,” reported John Gallop, presenting his pistol at the last captive, a sachem of the Narragansetts and a very determined fellow.

“Say you so, Jack!” replied his father, turning back from the bulwark over which he had just reverently dropped the shrouded form of his murdered friend. “We’ll take no chances! Lift you his feet and I his head and we’ll put him in John Oldhame’s keeping. Jim, stand you to your watch till our hands are free.” And the sachem, stolid and silent now that the worst had come, went to rejoin his comrades. Two of the pirates remained below, but as they were armed and entrenched in the hold Gallop left them there as prisoners, although the night coming on and the sea and wind growing very violent, he was after a time compelled to cast off the pinnace, which drove ashore on the Narragansett coast.

Arriving in Boston, Gallop at once placed the matter in the hands of the government, who through Roger Williams and Miantonimo demanded the surrender of the murderers who had come safely ashore in the pinnace. In the end, Oldhame’s two cousins, who had been kept prisoners at Block Island, were safely returned, and some of the stolen goods; but tedious negotiations revealed the fact that nearly all the Narragansett sachems had been privy to the conspiracy, and that some of them were in alliance with the Pequots to cut off the English and resume the country only sixteen years before absolutely their own. Not unnaturally alarmed at this report, Governor Vane and his council resolved upon what they at first called reprisals, but which soon became a stern scheme of extermination involving the entire Pequot nation, and such of the Narragansetts as refused to become tributaries and subjects of the English.

The murder of Captain Stone, the death by torture of Butterfield, and John Tilley and his man, came into theaccount and gave the air of righteous retribution to the Puritan severities; but the wrongs of the Indians, their natural temperament, their standard of morality, their ignorance of the gracious influences of Christianity,—none of these seem to have been considered or weighed in the councils of Vane and his associates, although more liberal Plymouth had set them the example of making friends rather than enemies of a people who had surely great cause of complaint in the loss of their homes and rights, and who simply sought to defend themselves according to their traditional methods.

It was in pursuance of this resolve that Winthrop, acting this year as deputy to Governor Vane, had written to Plymouth, setting forth all the causes of the war already begun, and requesting of Plymouth that aid and coöperation which one colony of white men and Christians would naturally afford to another.

The letter was read and laid upon the council board, and Bradford in his own grave, thoughtful, and well-considered manner took up the word:—

“Doubtless, brethren, we must find that there hath been much provocation offered to these Pequens and Narraganseds. We know somewhat of John Oldhame”—

“And naught that’s good,” muttered Standish in his red beard.

—“and we may be sure there was cause of complaint on the part of the Block Islanders before they so assaulted him. Jonathan Brewster hath held our post on the Connecticut River—Windsor, as the settlers from the Bay have named the place—for some four years now, and there has been no trouble worth the mention”—

“Save when the Narragansetts chased our friend Massasoit into the trading-house at Sowams, and I sent a runner for powder, but the enemy ran faster the other way than he,” put in Standish. “And mind you, though John Winthrop let us have the powder out of his private store, that sour-visaged Dudley hauled him over the coals for it. Ever niggardly and domineering is the Bay, and my counsel is, let them fight out their own battles for themselves. When Plymouth has cause to complain of the savages, Pequens or who you please, I’ll lead a handful of Plymouth men out to give them a lesson, and till then I say let-a-be. You have my counsel, Governor.”

“And mine jumps with it, sir,” added John Jenney heartily, but Winslow shook his head thoughtfully.

“It were but poor policy for us to fall out with our brethren of the Bay, seeing that they are so much stronger than we, and it may well chance that we shall need their countenance in some quarrel”—

“Like that of Kennebec when we called upon them to help us drive out the Frenchmen who had seized our post, and they did most civilly decline,” suggested Standish, and Prence added,—

“Ay, that was but a scurvy trick they played us then.”

And so the council went on, debating the question warmly, and yet with a brotherly love and harmony covering all differences, until in the end it was resolved that Winslow the diplomatist should be sent as envoy to Boston to declare in the first place the willingness of Plymouth to help her younger but more powerful sister against the common foe, yet at the same time bringing forward various causes of complaint as yet unredressed,and demanding more consideration in the future. These complaints were, first, the refusal of the Bay government to help Plymouth against the French who had seized her trading-post at Kennebec; second, their allowing their people to fraternize and trade with the usurpers; third, the insult and injury done to the Pilgrims at Windsor in Connecticut, where a great body of people from Watertown and Cambridge had swooped down upon the land bought by Plymouth from the Indians, and occupied by them as a trading-post, retaining forcible possession of it, and encouraged by the Bay to do so.

To these three unredressed complaints Winslow was to add a reminder of the fact, seldom forgotten by the Bay Colony, that they were much more numerous and much more wealthy than Plymouth, and apparently quite able to conduct their own quarrel through their own resources. For, as the envoy was especially directed to say, the Colony of Plymouth had hitherto lived at peace with the aborigines, and had no complaint to make of either the Pequots or any other tribe.

And now, this matter arranged for the moment, although much further trouble was to come of it, the Court turned its attention to a subject so much more personal, and near to their hearts as old friends and associates, that its presence in their minds had added austerity to Brewster’s mien, and thoughtfulness to that of Bradford, while it acted as a spur to the captain’s fiery temper.

Upon the table lay a formal petition, drawn by Edward Winslow, and signed by Myles Standish, John Alden, Elder Brewster and his two sons Jonathan and Love, Eaton, Soule, Samson, Bassett, Collier, Cudworth,De la Noye, and half a dozen more substantial men, who in decorous and respectful language represented that they and their families already composed a community equaling that of Plymouth, and begged to be incorporated as a town under the name of Duxbury, and to have the approval of the mother-church in their choice of the Rev. Ralph Partridge as their minister.

The petition had first been presented some four years before this time, but so deep and heartfelt was Bradford’s opposition to this distinct separation of the original colony, and so varied his expedients to prevent it, that the motion had never fairly been carried until now, when an opportunity offered to secure the eloquent and devout Cambridge scholar as pastor, and it was essential that the town should have an assured being and resources.

Very few words were used upon this occasion, for all had been said that could be said, not once but many times before; and now as Bradford, after a brief and formal discussion, signed the act of incorporation, he laid down the pen, and looking around the council board solemnly said,—

“May this rending of his garment not provoke the Lord to wrath, as well I fear it may!”

Not even Elder Brewster found a word to reply, and the deed was done.

An hour later, as the Duxbury men prepared to return to their new home, Standish linked his arm in that of his old friend and led him up the hill, saying,—

“Nay, Will, for old time’s sake put a better face on ’t, man. Come over with us to Captain’s Hill, as they call it, and tarry the night. We’ll crush a kindly cup to the new town, and you shall be its godfather. Neverlook so glum, I pr’ythee, Will! You take all the heart out of me, old friend.”

“See there, Myles, see that!”

“What, mine own old house? ’Tis going to ruin already, is it not, and yet ’tis no more than seventeen years since these hands with John Alden’s aid laid it beam to beam.”

“And why does it go to ruin, Myles?”

“Why? Why, because no man careth for it, I suppose.”

“Ay, you’ve answered me, friend. No man careth for that home, nor for John Alden’s hard by, nor for Edward Winslow’s, and the Elder’s great house is now but a half-hearted home, for he is more at Duxbury than here. I speak not of the rest, for they are of less account to me; and that is a fault which I confess, but nature is strong, and the carnal heart of man clings to its own.”

“And why should not a man’s heart cling to his old friends and comrades, Will, and why should not you value the Elder, and Winslow, and Alden, and a few more of us more than you do all these nimble Jacks that have sprung up to push us old ones from our places? Be a saint an’ you please, old comrade, but don’t strive to cease to be a man.”

“And here is the Fort you loved so well, Myles. Shall you have a new Fort at Duxbury?”

The captain stopped, and squaring round laid a finger upon the governor’s breast, and fixed his keen brown eyes upon the other’s fairer face.

“Friend,” said he in a tenderer voice than was his wont, “where a man is all but as good and as godly as a woman, he is apt to have some trace of woman’s faultsand follies, and that last speech of yours savors of woman’s jealousy and spite. Play the man, Will, play the man, and smite me with thy fist an’ thou lik’st not what I do and say, but never lower thyself to stinging with thy tongue.”

The Governor of Plymouth turned his back and steadfastly looked over toward Manomet, green and glowing in the sunset of a June afternoon, her graceful young trees in their tender foliage as airy and as gay, and her forest monarchs as stately, as they had been before the white men saw these shores, or as they are to-day when Bradford and Standish are dust and ashes, and as they will be when the hand that writes and the eyes that read are even as those of the fathers. We love Nature so passionately and so persistently because it is an unrequited affection; at the most she only holds up the cheek for us to kiss.

This little interlude is but a piece of delicacy that Bradford may have time to recover himself, and now he turns, and folding Standish’s patrician hand in a larger grasp slowly says,—

“‘Let the righteous smite me friendly, but let not his precious balms break my head.’ Come, Myles, let us mount the Fort.”

“Yes, I must see if Lieutenant Holmes is carrying out my directions, for I promise you, Master Bradford, I’m meaning to hold a tight hand over you here in military matters. Mind you, I am always generalissimo of the colony’s forces, whether of Plymouth, or Scituate, or Duxbury.”

“I thank thee, Myles,” said the governor quietly, and so they passed into the dusky Fort, over whose portal the skull of Wituwamat still stood, bleached bysummer sun and winter snow, and sheltering year by year the wrens who had an hereditary nest in its hollow.

“And you’ll come home with me, Will?” said the captain wistfully, as, a little later, they descended the hill.

“No, Myles, no; I’m not an Abraham. I can give my Isaac with submission and faith, but I cannot offer him up, nor feast upon the sacrifice.”

THE MOONLIGHT AND THE DAWN.

A clumsy boat, very different from the trim racing craft that to-day skim the waters of Plymouth Bay weltered slowly toward the rude pier just below the new home of Myles Standish.

The passengers were also very different from those of to-day, and perhaps a parallel might be drawn in both cases between passengers and boat, but as it would not be in our own favor I will not pursue it, merely mentioning that the solidly built, honest, safe, capacious, and unpretending boat first mentioned contained Elder Brewster, Captain Standish, Edward Winslow, John Alden, Thomas Prence, William Collier, and two or three more of the “Immortals” from whom we are so glad to claim descent, and so sorry to confess that it has been such a tremendous descent.

Upon the bluff where stood the captain’s house, and scattered down the path to the shore, a path graded with military skill and precision, a merry crowd of men, women, and children stood waving hats and handkerchiefs and shouting words of welcome, whereat Standish smiled and Winslow remarked,—

“All Duxbury seems gathered to greet us; but how are they so sure that we bring the charter after so many disappointments?”

“I told them if we had it I would fly my privateensign,” replied Standish a little complacently; and Winslow, glancing at the mainmast, perceived a small flag whereon was deftly embroidered the owl with a rat in his talons, then as now the crest of the elder house of Standish.

“Ha! That is something new, is ’t not?” asked the master of Careswell, not well pleased that another should make heraldic pretensions before himself.

“Yes. My Lora embroidered it, and I told them all that if our errand to-day was successful I would fly it for the first time in honor of the birth of Duxbury.”

“Daughter of our dear mother Plymouth,” remarked Thomas Prence; and the captain somewhat uneasily replied,—

“God grant the daughter’s birth may not cost the mother’s life, as our good governor seems to forebode.”

“Nay, Master Bradford would have the sun stand still in heaven, and lucky is it for Duxbury that he is no Joshua,” retorted Winslow with a smile so near a sneer that Standish flushed angrily, and shouted with quite unnecessary vehemence to John Howard, who was steering,—

“Luff, man alive, luff! You’ll never fetch the pier! Can’t you see where you’re going?”

“There’s Hobomok waiting to catch the bowline,” resumed Winslow pacifically. “What a good faithful creature he has proved, and how fond of you, Captain!”

“He is my friend, and I am one that looks for faithfulness in a friend,” replied the captain significantly.

“You have a right to ask for what you give. And lo you now! there’s a pretty sight!” pursued thediplomat, undisturbed. “Those little maids all in white and flower-crowned mind one of the maids of Israel coming forth to meet the captain of Judah.”

“Or ‘Benjamin our little ruler,’ more aptly,” laughed Standish, whose pride had no taint of personal vanity.

“Those two slips of May are your Lora, and Betty Alden, are they not?” pursued Winslow.

“Yes; they are fast friends, and always together. Fair lasses enow, eh, John?”

“Methinks we’ve naught to complain of, Captain,” returned Alden placidly.

“They mind one of moonlight and dawn,” said Winslow with honest admiration in his voice. “Lora does not look like a colonist’s child, Captain.”

“No. She favors her forbears. There’s an old picture at Standish Hall that might have been painted for her likeness. Mayhap some day”—

“And Betty is a real rosebud of Old England. She does not copy her comely mother, Alden, and yet is as comely.”

“No. Sally is more like her mother,” replied John simply, and as the boat drew in to the wharf all three men looked approvingly at the two young girls just budding into maidenhood, and forming as sweet and pure a contrast as the moonlight and the dawn to which the courtly Winslow had compared them; for Betty in her wholesome growth had as it were absorbed color from the sunshine, willowy strength from the sea breeze, and fragrance from the epigæa, until her brown eyes sparkled and glinted like the sea in a sunny morning, and her crisp hair had netted the summer into its meshes, and her cheeks and lips throbbed with softbright color like the petals of a wild rose. But Lora, as tall already as her friend, although several years younger, was slight as a flower stalk, her pale gold hair almost too heavy for her little head, her soft gray eyes almost too large for the pure oval of her face, the sweet color of her mouth too faintly reproduced in her cheeks. If Betty Alden resembled the dawn of a summer morning upon sea-girt field and forest, Lora Standish brought to mind a garden of annunciation lilies bathed in moonlight.

And now as the fond fathers gazed, and Winslow’s golden tongue dropped phrases sweet in their ears as honey of Hymettus, John Howard, ancestor of a grand line of Bridgewater yeomen, but at present in the household of Standish, deftly gave his tiller a turn that laid the boat’s nose softly against the pier, while Hobomok, with an inarticulate grunt of welcome, seized the line tossed him by John Alden and made it fast around an oaken pile well bedded in the wharf.

In a few moments the boat was empty, and its passengers mingled with the eager crowd who pressed forward to greet them. Chief of these was the new pastor, Ralph Partridge, a “gracious and learned man,” an alumnus of Cambridge and for twenty years a clergyman of the Established Church of England, but now, as Mather quaintly has it, he, “being distressed by the ecclesiastical setters, had no defence neither of beak nor claw, but a flight over the ocean. The place where he took covert was the Colony of Plymouth, and the Town of Duxbury in that Colony. This Partridge had not only the innocence of the dove, but also the loftiness of the eagle in the great soar of his intellectual abilities,” etc.

To this gentleman as the principal person among hisguests Standish addressed himself, and taking from the breast of his doublet a package carefully enveloped in oiled silk, opened it and showed a sheet of parchment, brief as to its contents and crude as to its chirography, but bearing some very distinguished autographs, and carrying with it an importance to that group of people similar to that possessed in the eyes of a young wife by the title deeds of her new home, her dower house, and the birthplace of her future children.

“Here is the charter, reverend sir, and now the people of Duxbury have a right to invite you to become their pastor,” said the captain bluntly; but as Partridge took the parchment he looked at the man who gave it and said softly,—

“Shall I be your pastor, Captain Standish?”

“Nay, sir, this is no time for such questions,” replied Standish, rather displeased, and turning away he entered the house to lay aside some of his heavy clothes and don festal attire. In the principal room, deep in whispered council, stood Barbara Standish and Priscilla Alden, two comely and gracious matrons, at sight of whom the captain’s face softened into a merry smile.

“Now what mischief are you plotting, you two with your heads together like Guy Fawkes and Tyrrell?” exclaimed he. “Priscilla, never teach your rebel fashions to my well-trained dame, or I shall have her snatching at the reins!”

“And you’d rather she’d ride the pillion and cling to your belt with a ‘Good master, have a care of me’!” cried Priscilla, her dark eyes flashing as brightly as they had done some sixteen years before while she said, “Why don’t you speak for yourself, John?”

“’Tis a woman’s rightful place, and I’ll be bound,when all’s said, you came over here to-day on a pillion with only your boy Jack to cling to.”

“Nay, we all came in the boat, down Bluefish River and so round. You see there’s so many of us,—John and Jo and Betty and David and Jonathan and Sally and Ruth and Molly; for I could not leave the babies at home without keeping Betty and Sally to mind them, and that was not to be thought of, says my Betty, who aye has her own way.”

“And marvelous that she should, seeing she comes of so weak a mother.”

“Oh, she takes after her father, poor child, and he would ever be aping the ways of his captain.”

Doubtless the captain would soon have provided himself with a retort, but Barbara laid a hand upon his arm.

“While you two are changing your merry quips and cranks, the supper waits,” said she. “Surely, Myles, you will wash your hands and straighten your hair; and Priscilla, is’t not time for you to put the last touch to the whips and syllabub?”

“True enough, Barbara, and lo, I’m gone!” cried Priscilla, and disappeared into the great cool dairy with its northern exposure, where the milk of the red cow and the two young daughters now added to her was manufactured by Barbara into not only butter, but all sorts of dainty confections. On this occasion, however, Priscilla Alden had as of old been summoned to help the housewife, and lend not only her hands but her incomparable culinary skill to the work of providing entertainment for the two or three score persons who had gathered to celebrate the birthday of their town. With most of these, or at least with the heads of the families, we are already acquainted, but in the seventeen yearssince the landing of the Mayflower many who were then children have grown to maturity and married; as for instance, Love Brewster, who has been for three years husband of Sarah, daughter of that William Collier the only man among the London Adventurers who proved his faith in the Pilgrims by coming to live among them. See him as he stands talking with Elder Brewster, his four fair daughters all within sight: Sarah Brewster, Elizabeth Southworth, Rebecca Cole, and Mary, whose sweet face and ample dowry have already comforted Thomas Prence for the loss of his first wife, gentle Patience Brewster.

So many of our friends are here collected that we may not mention half their names: Henry Samson, the little boy passenger of the Mayflower, with his bride, and his later come brother Abraham, soon to marry the daughter of Lieutenant Nash; the Howlands, not only stanch John and Elizabeth Tilley his wife, but John and Jabez their sons, and pretty Desire, fast friend of Betty Alden and Lora Standish. And here are some new-comers, the Pabodies, settled near John Alden on Bluefish River, but already owning land in The Nook, where the father promises to build a house for the first of his sons who shall marry. Three of the lads are here to-day, and William, a fine, manly young fellow of seventeen years, hangs around the group of laughing girls, and watches Betty Alden with all his eyes.

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