Who had advanced to the table, and thus continued discoursing:

"Leave this matter to me, for to me by right it pertaineth.

War is a terrible trade; but in the cause that is righteous,

Sweet is the smell of powder; and thus I answer the challenge!"

Then from the rattlesnake's skin, with a sud

den, contemptuous gesture, Jerking the Indian arrows, he filled it with powder and bullets

Full to the very jaws, and handed it back to the savage,

Saying, in thundering tones: "Here, take it! this is your answer!"

Silently out of the room then glided the glistening savage,

Bearing the serpent's skin, and seeming himself like a serpent,

Winding his sinuous way in the dark to the depths of the forest.

V.

THE SAILING OF THE MAY-FLOWER. JUST in the gray of the dawn, as the mists uprose from the meadows,

There was a stir and a sound in the slumbering village of Plymouth :

Clanging and clicking of arms, and the order imperative, Forward!"

Given in tone suppressed. a tramp of feet, and then silence.

Figures ten, in the mist, marched slowly out of the village.

Standish the stalwart it was, with eight of his valorous army,

Led by their Indian guide, by Hobomok, friend of the white men,

Northward marching to quell the sudden revolt of the savage.

Giants they seemed in the mist, or the mighty men of King David;

Giants in heart they were, who believed in God and the Bible,

Ay, who believed in the smiting of Midianites and Philistines.

Over thom gleamed far off the crimson banners

of morning;

Under them loud on tho sands, the scrried billows, advancing,

Fired along the line, and in regular order retreated.

Many a mile had they marched, when at length the village of Plymouth

Woke from its sleep, and arose, intent on its manifold labours

Sweet was the air and soft and slowly the smoke from the chimneys

Rose over roofs of thatch, and pointed steadily eastward;

Men came for.h from the doors, and paused and talked of the weather,

Said that the wind had changed, and was blowing fair for the May Flower; Talked of their Captain's departure, and all the dangers that menaced.'"

He being gone, the town, and what should be done in his absence.

Merrily sang the birds, and the tender voices of women

Consecrated with hymns the common cares of the household.

Out of the sea rose the sun, and the billows rejoiced at his coming:

Beautiful were his feet on the purple tops of the mountains;

Beautiful on the sails of the May-Flower riding at anchor,

Battered and blackened and worn by all the storms of the winter,

Loosely against her masts was hanging and flapping her canvass,

Rent by so many gales, and patched by the hands of the sailors.

Darted a puff of smoke, and floated seaward; anou rang

Loud over field and forest the cannon's roar, and the echoes

Heard and repeated the sound, the signal-gun of departure!

Ah! but with louder echoes replied the hearts of the people!

Meekly, in voices subdued, the chapter was read fom the Bible,

Meekly the prayer was begun, but ended in fervent entreaty!

Then from their houses in haste came forth the Pilgrims of Plymouth,

Men and women and children, all hurrying down to the sea-shore,

Eager, with tearful eyes, to say farewell to the May-Flower,

Homeward bound o'er the sea, and leaving them here in the desert.

Foremost among them was Alden. All night he had lain without slumber.

Turning and tossing about in the heat and unrest of his fever.

He had beheld Miles Standish, who came back late from the council.

Stalking into the room, and heard him mutter and murmur,

Sometimes it seemed a prayer, and sometimes it sounded like swearing.

Once he had come to the bed, and stood there a moment in silence ;

Then he turned away, and said: "I will not awake him!

Let him sleep on; it is best for what is the use of more talking?"

Then he extinguished the light, and threw himself down on his pallet,

Dressed as he was, and ready to start at the break of the morning,

Covered himself with the cloak he had won in his campaign in Flanders.

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 corslet of steel, and all the rest of his armour,

Buckle above his waist his trusty blade of Da

mascus,

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 noble 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 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,

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 canvass,

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, im

more is destruction.

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 May-Flower.

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 harbour,

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 sand of the sea, and the swelling

hearts of the Pilgrims

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

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,

Thanking the Lord whose breath had scattered the mist and the madness,

Wherein, blind and lost, to death he was staggering headlong.

"Yonder snow-white cloud, that floats in the ether above me,

Seems like a hand, that is pointing and beckoning over the ocean,

There is another hand that is not so spectral and ghost-like,

Holding me, drawing me back, and clasping mine for protection.

Float, O hand of cloud, and vanish away in the ether!

Roll thyself up like a fist, to threaten and daunt me; I heed not

Either your warning or menace, or any omen of evil!

There is no land so sacred, no air so pure and so wholesome,

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 for ever, 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 dignified air and important, Scanning with watchful eye the tide and the wind and the weather,

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 tl.eir 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 for ever 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 subtle 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.

"Am I so much to blame, that yesterday, when you were pleading

Warmly the cause of another, my heart, 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 exhalting 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

Frankly I speak to yon, asking for sympathy only and kindness,

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

Turn them away from their meaning, and anwer 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!"

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 much he had suffered,-

How he had even determined to sail that day in the May-Flower,

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 longing,

Urged by the fervour of love, and withheld by remorseless misgivings."

VII.

THE MARCH OF MILES STANDISHI, MEANWHILE the stalwart Miles Standish was marching steadily northward, Winding through forest and swamp, and along the tread of the sea-shore,

All day long, with hardly a halt, the fire of his anger

Burning and crackling within, and the sulphurous odour of powder.

Seeming more sweet to his nostrils than all the scents of the forest.

Silent and moody he went, and much he revolved his discomfort!

He who was used to success, and to easy victories always,

Thus to be flouted, rejected, and laughed to scorn by a maiden,

Thus to be mocked and betrayed by the friend whom most he trusted!

Ah! 'twas too much to be borne, and he fretted and chafed in his armour!

"I alone am to blame," he muttered, "for mine was the folly.

What has a rough old soldier, grown grim and gray in the harness,

Used to the camp and its ways, to do with the wooing of maidens ?

"Twas but a dream,-let it pass,-let it vanish like so many others!

What I thought was a flower is only a weed, and is worthless;

Out of my heart will I pluck it, and throw it away, and henceforward

Be but a fighter of battles, a lover and woer of dangers?"

Thus he revolved in his mind his sorry defeat and discomfort,

While he was marching by day or lying at night in the forest,

Looking up at the trees, and the constellations beyond them.

After a three days' march he came to an In

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 leapt 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.

Braves of the tribe were these, and brothers gigantic in stature,

Huge as Goliath of Gath, or the terrible Og, king of Bashan;

One was Pecksout named, and the other was called Wattawamat.

Round their necks were suspended their knives in scabbards of wampum,

Two-edged, trenchant knives, with points as sharp as a needle.

Other arms had they none, for they were cunning and crafty.

"Welcome English!" they said- these words they had learned from the traders

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 demeanour, 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 oak-tree 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 the blade on his left hand,

Held it aloft and displayed a woman's face on the handle.

Saying, with bitter expressions, and look of sinister meaning:

I have another at home, with the face of a man on the handle;

By and by they shall marry; and there will be plenty of children!"

Then stood Pecksuot forth, self-vaunting, in sulting Miles Standish:

While with his fingers he patted the knife that hung at his bosom,

Drawing it half from his sheath, and plunging it back, as he muttered,

"By and by it shall see; it shall eat; ah, ha! but shall speak not!

This is the mighty Captain the white men have sent to destroy us!

He is a little man; let him go and work with the

women!"

But undaunted he stood, and dissembled and treated them smoothly;

So the old chronicles say, that were writ in the days of the fathers.

But when he heard their defiance, the boast, the taunt, and the insult,

All the hot blood of his race, of Sir Hugh and of Thurston de Standish,

Boiled and beat in his heart, and swelled in the veins of his temples,

Headlong he leaped on the boaster, and, snatching his knife from its scabbard, Plunged it into his heart, and, recling backward, the savage

Fell with his face to the sky, and a fiend-like fierceness upon it.

Straight there arose from the forest the awful sound of the war-whoop,

And, like a flurry of snow on the whisting wind

of December,

Swift and sudden and keen came a flight of feathery arrows.

Then came a cloud of smoke, and out of the cloud came the lightning:

Out of the lightning thunder; and death unseen ran before it.

Frightened the savages fled for shelter in swamp and in thicket,

Hotly pursued and beset; but their sachem, the brave Wattamamat,

Fled not; he was dead. Unswerving and swift had a bullet

Passed through his brain, and he fell with both hands clutching the greensward, Seeming in death to hold back from his foe the land of his fathers.

There on the flowers of the meadow the warriors, lay, and above them, Silent, with folded arms, stood Hobomok, friend of the white man,

Smiling at length he exclaimed to the stalwart Captain of Plymouth :

"Pecksuot bragged very loud of his courage, his strength, and his stature,

Mocked the great Captain, and called him a little man; but I see now

Big enough have you been to lay him speechless before you!"

Thus the first battle was fought and won by the stalwart Miles Standish,

When the tidings thereof were brought to the village of Plymouth,

And as a trophy of war the head of the brave Wattawamat

Scowled from the roof of the fort, which at once was a church and a fortress,

All who beheld it rejoiced, and praised the Lord, and took courage.

Only Priscilla averted her face from this spectre of terror,

Thanking God in her heart that she had not married Miles Standish:

Shrinking, fearing almost, lest, coming home from his battles,

He should lay claim to her hand, as the prize and reward of his valour.

VIII.

THE SPINNING-WHEEL.

MONTH after month passed away, and in Autumn the ships of the merchants

Came with kindred and friends, with cattle and corn for the Pilgrims.

All in the village was peace; the men were intent on their labours.

Busy with hewing and building, with gardenplot and with merestead,

Busy with breaking the glebe, and mowing the grass in the meadows, Searching the sea for its fish, and hunting the

deer in the forest.

All in the village was peace; but at times the rumour of warfare

Filled the air with alarm, and the apprehension of danger.

Bravely the stalwart Miles Standish was scour ing the land with his forces,

Waxing valiant in fight and defeating the alien armies,

Till his name had become a sound of fear to the nations.

Anger was still in his heart, but at times the remorse and contrition

Which in all noble natures succeed the passionate outbreak,

Came like a rising tide, that encounters the rush of a river,

Staying its current awhile, but making it bitter

and brackish.

Meanwhile Alden at home had built him a new habitation,

Solid, substantial, of timber rough-hewn from the firs of the forest,

Wooden-barred was the door, and the roof was covered with rushes;

Latticed the windows were, and the windowpanes were of paper.

Oiled to admit the light, while wind and rain were excluded.

There too he dug a well, and around it planted an orchard:

Still may be seen to this day some trace of the well and the orchard.

Close to the house was the stall, where, safe and secure from annoyance,

Raghorn, the snow-white steer, that had fallen to Alden's allotment

In the division of cattle, might ruminate in the night-time

Over the pastures he cropped, made fragrant by sweet pennyroyal.

Oft when his labour was finished, with eager feet would the dreamer

Follow the path-way that ran through the woods to the house of Priscilla,

Led by illusions romantic and subtile deceptions of fancy,

Pleasure disguised as duty, and love in the semblance of friendship.

Ever of her he thought, when he fashioned the walls of his dwelling:

Ever of her he thought, when he delved in the soil of his garden;

Ever of her he thought, when he read in his Bible on Sunday

Praise of virtuous women, as she is described in the Proverbs,

How the heart of her husband doth safely trust in her always,

How all the days of her life she will do him good, and not evil,

How she seeketh the wool and the flax and worketh with gladness.

How she layeth her hand to the spindle and holdeth the distaff,

How she is not afraid of the snow for herself or her household,

Knowing her household are clothed with the scarlet cloth of her weaving!

So as she sat at her wheel one afternoon in Autumn,

Alden, who opposite sat, and was watching her dexterous fingers,

As if the thread she was spinning were that of his life and his fortune