Slept as a soldier sleeps in his bivouac, ready for action.

But with the dawn he arose ; in the twilight Alden beheld him

Put on his corselet of steel, and all the rest of his armor,

Buckle about his waist his trusty blade of Damascus,

Take from the corner his musket, and so stride out of the chamber.

Often the heart of the youth had burned

and yearned to embrace him, Often his lips had essayed to speak, imploring for pardon;

All the old friendship came back, with its

tender and grateful emotions; But his pride overmastered the nobler nature within him, —

Pride, and the sense of his wrong, and the

burning fire of the insult.

So he beheld his friend departing in anger, but spake not,

Saw him go forth to danger, perhaps to death, and he spake not! Then he arose from his bed, and heard what the people were saying,

Joined in the talk at the door, with Stephen and Richard and Gilbert,

Joined in the morning prayer, and in the reading of Scripture,

And, with the others, in haste went hurrying down to the sea-shore, Down to the Plymouth Rock, that had been to their feet as a doorstep Into a world unknown, the corner-stone of a nation!

There with his boat was the Master, already a little impatient

Lest he should lose the tide, or the wind might shift to the eastward, Square-built, hearty, and strong, with an odor of ocean about him,

Speaking with this one and that, and cramming letters and parcels

Into his pockets capacious, and messages mingled together

Into his narrow brain, till at last he was wholly bewildered.

Nearer the boat stood Alden, with one foot placed on the gunwale,

One still firm on the rock, and talking at times with the sailors,

Seated erect on the thwarts, all ready and eager for starting.

He too was eager to go, and thus put an end to his anguish,

Thinking to fly from despair, that swifter than keel is or canvas,

Thinking to drown in the sea the ghost that would rise and pursue him. But as he gazed on the crowd, he beheld the form of Priscilla

Standing dejected among them, unconscious of all that was passing. Fixed were her eyes upon his, as if she divined his intention,

Fixed with a look so sad, so reproachful, imploring, and patient,

That with a sudden revulsion his heart recoiled from its purpose, As from the verge of a crag, where one step more is destruction. Strange is the heart of man, with its quick, mysterious instincts!

Strange is the life of man, and fatal or fated are moments,

Whereupon turn, as on hinges, the gates of

the wall adamantine! "Here I remain!" he exclaimed, as he looked at the heavens above him,

As is the air she breathes, and the soil that is pressed by her footsteps. Here for her sake will I stay, and like an invisible presence

Hover around her forever, protecting, supporting her weakness;

Yes! as my foot was the first that stepped on this rock at the landing, So, with the blessing of God, shall it be the last at the leaving!"

Meanwhile the Master alert, but with dig

nified air and important, Scanning with watchful eye the tide and the wind and the weather, Walked about on the sands, and the people crowded around him

Saying a few last words, and enforcing his careful remembrance.

Then, taking each by the hand, as if he

were grasping a tiller,

Into the boat he sprang, and in haste shoved off to his vessel,

Glad in his heart to get rid of all this worry and flurry,

Glad to be gone from a land of sand and

sickness and sorrow,

Short allowance of victual, and plenty of nothing but Gospel!

Lost in the sound of the oars was the last

farewell of the Pilgrims.

O strong hearts and true! not one went back in the Mayflower! No, not one looked back, who had set his hand to this ploughing!

Soon were heard on board the shouts and songs of the sailors

Heaving the windlass round, and hoisting the ponderous anchor.

Then the yards were braced, and all sails set to the west-wind,

Blowing steady and strong; and the Mayflower sailed from the harbor, Rounded the point of the Gurnet, and leaving far to the southward

Island and cape of sand, and the Field of the First Encounter,

Took the wind on her quarter, and stood for the open Atlantic,

Borne on the send of the sea, and the swelling hearts of the Pilgrims.

Long in silence they watched the receding sail of the vessel,

Much endeared to them all, as something living and human ;

Then, as if filled with the spirit, and wrapt in a vision prophetic,

Baring his hoary head, the excellent Elder of Plymouth

Said, "Let us pray!" and they prayed, and thanked the Lord and took

courage.

Mournfully sobbed the waves at the base of the rock, and above them Bowed and whispered the wheat on the hill of death, and their kindred Seemed to awake in their graves, and to join in the prayer that they uttered.

Sun-illumined and white, on the eastern verge of the ocean

Gleamed the departing sail, like a marble slab in a graveyard;

Buried beneath it lay forever all hope of escaping.

Lo! as they turned to depart, they saw the form of an Indian,

Watching them from the hill; but while they spake with each other, Pointing with outstretched hands, and saying, "Look!" he had vanished. So they returned to their homes; but Alden lingered a little,

Musing alone on the shore, and watching the wash of the billows

Round the base of the rock, and the sparkle and flash of the sunshine, Like the spirit of God, moving visibly over the waters.

VI

PRISCILLA

THUS for a while he stood, and mused by the shore of the ocean,

Thinking of many things, and most of all of Priscilla ;

And as if thought had the power to draw to itself, like the loadstone, Whatsoever it touches, by subtile laws of its nature,

Lo! as he turned to depart, Priscilla was standing beside him.

"Are you so much offended, you will not

speak to me?" said she.

my heart,

"Am I so much to blame, that yesterday, when you were pleading Warmly the cause of another, impulsive and wayward, Pleaded your own, and spake out, forgetful perhaps of decorum ?

Certainly you can forgive me for speaking so frankly, for saying

What I ought not to have said, yet now I can never unsay it ;

For there are moments in life, when the heart is so full of emotion,

That if by chance it be shaken, or into its depths like a pebble

Drops some careless word, it overflows, and

its secret,

Spilt on the ground like water, can never

be gathered together. Yesterday I was shocked, when I heard you speak of Miles Standish, Praising his virtues, transforming his very defects into virtues,

Praising his courage and strength, and even his fighting in Flanders,

As if by fighting alone you could win the heart of a woman,

Quite overlooking yourself and the rest, in exalting your hero. Therefore I spake as I did, by an irresistible impulse.

You will forgive me, I hope, for the sake of the friendship between us, Which is too true and too sacred to be so easily broken!"

Thereupon answered John Alden, the scholar, the friend of Miles Standish :

"I was not angry with you, with myself alone I was angry,

Seeing how badly I managed the matter I had in my keeping."

"No!" interrupted the maiden, with answer prompt and decisive;

"No; you were angry with me, for speaking so frankly and freely.

It was wrong, I acknowledge; for it is the fate of a woman

Long to be patient and silent, to wait like a ghost that is speechless,

Till some questioning voice dissolves the spell of its silence.

Hence is the inner life of so many suffering

women

Sunless and silent and deep, like subterranean rivers

Running through caverns of darkness, unheard, unseen, and unfruitful, Chafing their channels of stone, with endless and profitless murmurs." Thereupon answered John Alden, the young man, the lover of women: "Heaven forbid it, Priscilla; and truly they seem to me always More like the beautiful rivers that watered the garden of Eden,

More like the river Euphrates, through deserts of Havilah flowing, Filling the land with delight, and memories sweet of the garden!"

"Ah, by these words, I can see," again interrupted the maiden,

"How very little you prize me, or care for what I am saying.

When from the depths of my heart, in pain and with secret misgiving, Frankly I speak to you, asking for sympathy only and kindness,

Straightway you take up my words, that are plain and direct and in ear

nest,

Turn them away from their meaning, and answer with flattering phrases.

This is not right, is not just, is not true to the best that is in you;

For I know and esteem you, and feel that your nature is noble,

Lifting mine up to a higher, a more ethereal level.

Therefore I value your friendship, and feel it perhaps the more keenly If you say aught that implies I am only as one among many,

If you make use of those common and complimentary phrases

Most men think so fine, in dealing and speaking with women,

But which women reject as insipid, if not as insulting."

Mute and amazed was Alden; and listened and looked at Priscilla,

Thinking he never had seen her more fair, more divine in her beauty.

He who but yesterday pleaded so glibly the cause of another,

Stood there embarrassed and silent, and seeking in vain for an answer.

So the maiden went on, and little divined or imagined

What was at work in his heart, that made him so awkward and speechless. "Let us, then, be what we are, and speak what we think, and in all things Keep ourselves loyal to truth, and the sacred professions of friendship.

It is no secret I tell you, nor am I ashamed to declare it:

I have liked to be with you, to see you, to speak with you always.

So I was hurt at your words, and a little affronted to hear you Urge me to marry your friend, though he were the Captain Miles Standish.

For I must tell you the truth: much more to me is your friendship

Than all the love he could give, were he twice the hero you think him." Then she extended her hand, and Alden, who eagerly grasped it, Felt all the wounds in his heart, that were

aching and bleeding so sorely, Healed by the touch of that hand, and he said, with a voice full of feeling : "Yes, we must ever be friends; and of all who offer you friendship

Let me be ever the first, the truest, the nearest and dearest!"

Casting a farewell look at the glimmering sail of the Mayflower, Distant, but still in sight, and sinking below the horizon,

Homeward together they walked, with a strange, indefinite feeling, That all the rest had departed and left them alone in the desert.

But, as they went through the fields in the blessing and smile of the sunshine, Lighter grew their hearts, and Priscilla said very archly :

"Now that our terrible Captain has gone in pursuit of the Indians, Where he is happier far than he would be commanding a household,

You may speak boldly, and tell me of all that happened between you, When you returned last night, and said how ungrateful you found me." Thereupon answered John Alden, and told her the whole of the story,

Told her his own despair, and the direful wrath of Miles Standish.

Whereat the maiden smiled, and said between laughing and earnest, "He is a little chimney, and heated hot in a moment!"

But as he gently rebuked her, and told her how he had suffered,

How he had even determined to sail that day in the Mayflower,

And had remained for her sake, on hearing the dangers that threatened, All her manner was changed, and she said with a faltering accent,

"Truly I thank you for this: how good you have been to me always!"

Thus, as a pilgrim devout, who toward Jerusalem journeys,

Taking three steps in advance, and one reluctantly backward,

Urged by importunate zeal, and withheld by pangs of contrition;

Slowly but steadily onward, receding yet ever advancing,

Journeyed this Puritan youth to the Holy Land of his longings,

Urged by the fervor of love, and withheld by remorseful misgivings.

VII

THE MARCH OF MILES STANDISH

MEANWHILE the stalwart Miles Standish

was marching steadily northward, Winding through forest and swamp, and along the trend of the sea-shore, All day long, with hardly a halt, the fire of his anger

After a three days' march he came to an

Indian encampment Pitched on the edge of a meadow, between the sea and the forest;

Women at work by the tents, and warriors,

horrid with war-paint,

Seated about a fire, and smoking and talking together;

Who, when they saw from afar the sudden

approach of the white men, Saw the flash of the sun on breastplate and sabre and musket, Straightway leaped to their feet, and two,

from among them advancing, Came to parley with Standish, and offer him furs as a present; Friendship was in their looks, but in their hearts there was hatred.

Touching at times on the coast, to barter and chaffer for peltries.

Then in their native tongue they began to parley with Standish,

Through his guide and interpreter, Hobomok, friend of the white man, Begging for blankets and knives, but mostly for muskets and powder,

Kept by the white man, they said, concealed, with the plague, in his cellars,

Ready to be let loose, and destroy his brother the red man!

But when Standish refused, and said he would give them the Bible, Suddenly changing their tone, they began to boast and to bluster.

Then Wattawamat advanced with a stride in front of the other,

And, with a lofty demeanor, thus vauntingly spake to the Captain: "Now Wattawamat can see, by the fiery eyes of the Captain,

Angry is he in his heart; but the heart of the brave Wattawamat

Is not afraid at the sight. He was not born of a woman,

But on a mountain at night, from an oaktree riven by lightning,

Forth he sprang at a bound, with all his weapons about him,

Shouting, Who is there here to fight with the brave Wattawamat?'" Then he unsheathed his knife, and, whetting the blade on his left hand, Held it aloft and displayed a woman's face on the handle;

Saying, with bitter expression and look of sinister meaning: