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twg_000012924000 | the scene of their devotions. Nothing, however, is less probable than that this handful of men, with no pastor or even presiding elder among them, should leave their encampment under the bluff, and the neighborhood of their boat, to travel inland to this bleak and exposed bowlder, there to set one of their number to exhort the rest. Carver certainly | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012924001 | was a deacon of Robinson's congregation, yet this office gave him no spiritual authority, but rather the duties of a warden in the mother church, nor was the governor a man to assume any authority not his own; so although he led the informal service held in that sheltered nook, upon the shore, Winslow and Bradford and Hopkins were the | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012924002 | chief speakers, while John Howland in his melodious and powerful voice raised a psalm that made the welkin ring, and Richard Warren stoutly cried Amen to all the rest. Standish, his arms folded and one hand resting upon the hilt of Gideon, stood a little apart, his head reverently bared in the prayers, and with a rough attempt at melody | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012924003 | echoing Howland's psalm; but during the exhortations or prophesyings, he strode softly up and down the beach, or mounting upon the bluff swept sea and land with the keen glances of eyes that nothing escaped. Occasionally a fervent word would be sped in his direction from one or another, and many a prayer, as before and after that hour, was | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012924004 | urged that this bulwark of the church against her secular foes might become her obedient son. When thus exhorted or prayed for the captain's face became a study, sometimes so impenetrably obtuse, sometimes so rigid in its obstinacy, sometimes touched with shrewd amusement, and sometimes moved to tender sympathy, but never to conviction or even doubt, and as the years | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012924005 | went on, those who loved him most, even Bradford and Alden and Brewster, ceased all effort to bring this precious comrade into their own fold, but learned to accept him as he was. Monday broke with clear and gracious skies and a sea only pleasantly rippled with its late commotion. Refreshed and cheered by their long rest the Pilgrims were | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012924006 | early afoot, and at a good hour the cleaned and furbished arms were packed in the shallop, the sail, bent to its new mast, was unfurled to its fullest spread, and the eighteen men, each at his own post, eager and hopeful. It had been resolved to proceed no farther in search of Coppin's harbor, which afterward proved to be | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012924007 | Cut River and the site of Marshfield, but to explore the landlocked harbor lying before them. Carefully sounding as she went, the shallop felt her way through the Cow Yard or Horse Market, around Beach Point, and having the flood tide with her rode triumphantly over Dick's Flat and Mother White's Guzzle, until finally, with furled sails and her head | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012924008 | to the wind, she lay within a biscuit toss of the shore. "See, there are cleared fields and a river full of fish, and all things ready to our hand," cried Howland excitedly. "Bring her up to the beach, then, and we will land and explore," replied Carver, smiling at the young man's enthusiasm. "There is a rock a few | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012924009 | rods ahead set ready for a stepping-stone," announced Howland standing in the bows. "Lay her up to it, men," growled English, and in a moment the bows of the shallop caressingly touched the cheek of that great gray Rock, itself a pilgrim, as has well been said, from some far northern shore, brought here by the vast forces of Nature, | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012924010 | and laid to wait in grand patience, until the ages should bring it a name, a use, and a nation's love and honor. "Jump then, lad, and see thou jump not five fadom deep, as thou didst out there in mid-seas!" cried Hopkins, and Howland leaping lightly from the boat to the rock cried in his blithe voice,-- "And I | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012924011 | seize this mainland for King James, even as Master Clarke did yon island." "Only thou dost not claim it for thine own under the king as he did," replied Coppin. "It seemeth to me," said Carver as he stepped on shore, "as if this place were fairly laid down on Smith's map that we were studying. Think you not so, | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012924012 | Master Winslow?" "Ay, I believe it is the place he hath called Plymouth after our English town." "Why, then, if we are minded to tarry here, it were well befitting that we should continue the name, for our Plymouth brethren cheered and comforted us marvelously in our sad outsetting," replied the governor, and Bradford added,-- "They were in very truth | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012924013 | kinder than our own." "'T is a better harbor than English Plymouth can boast," said Coppin turning to survey the bay. "Harbor! English Plymouth's harbor is no better than a slaughter pen! Not less than ten good ships were pounded to pieces there in the last year," said the sailor Alderton. "Yes, 't is worse than the Goodwin Sands, if | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012924014 | that can be," echoed English. "While here is a haven most artificially contrived for safety, with its overlapping arms and islands," cried Clarke. "Ay, the islands, Clarke's Island above all, are such as all England cannot match!" jeered Coppin, while Howland, followed by the rest, began to climb the bluff in front of them, choosing almost by instinct the easy | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012924015 | ascent around its base, now known as Leyden Street. A little above the future site of the Common house they paused to take breath and to consult. "Yes, here is cleared land enow for any crop we can plant in a year to come," said Dotey, looking approvingly along Cole's Hill. "And I hear the tinkle of water falling upon | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012924016 | water," cried Bradford gazing down toward the outlet of Town Brook. "There must be springs yonder." "But fuel would needs be lugged on men's backs further than I for one could fancy," grumbled Hopkins glancing at the woods nowhere very near. "We can scarce hope for arable land and dense forest in one plot of ground," remarked Winslow dryly. "Let | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012924017 | us march into the land and explore it fully," suggested Carver. "Every man should carry his piece with lighted match, but the rest of the gear may well be left in the boat under charge of the shipmen. Master Gunner I advise thee to stay behind also. If we meet with the Indians and there is any opening for trucking | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012924018 | I promise thee thy full share and advantage." "He who stays by the stuff shall share with him who goeth to the battle," quoted Standish, who was well versed in what may be called the military history of the Bible. "'T is a venerable law, Captain, and out of a faultless code," replied Carver reverently. "Come on, then, brethren!" cried | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012924019 | Hopkins striding up the steep face of Burying Hill. The rest followed, and on the crest stopped to admire the magnificent view spread out in the clear light of the wintry morning. "Yon is a sightly point for a town," said Warren pointing to Watson's Hill. "Too far from the shore," replied Carver. "And from those tinkling springs for whose | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012924020 | water I already am athirst," added Bradford. "Hm! hm!" growled Standish plucking at his beard and pacing to and fro; "here is the place for a stronghold, Master Carver, just here where we are standing. See you now, from a breastwork thrown up hereabout and mounted with a minion or two a man could sweep off an army. 'T is | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012924021 | but a pretty shot to the rock whereon we landed, and where any but a fool would choose to land, since it is the only dry-shod landing on the beach; and here we have Bradford's springs well in range, and this ascent by which we have clomb thither. Why, it is a little Gibraltar ready to our hand. Then if | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012924022 | the salvages approach by land, from yon fair hill which Warren advises, our heavier guns will meet them half way, and our smaller metal mow them down at close quarters. We are well set forth in gun-metal, Governor, for I saw to it myself; not only minions, but sakers and falcons and bases, not to mention each man's piece, which | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012924023 | I fain would have had all snaphances like mine own. Ay, we are well armed, and here is our fortalice." "But not to my mind our dwelling, Captain," replied Carver pleasantly. "Mind you, half our company are women and children, and it were hard for them to be cooped up in a fort or to descend and climb again this | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012924024 | shrewd ascent whenever they were athirst. I say not but that a fortification here were admirable when we come at it, but methinks our dwellings were better placed under its protection than within it." "Along this course we have just trod from the rock," suggested Winslow. "And tending toward the springs," added Bradford with a smile. "Nay, man, come and | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012924025 | drink since thou 'rt so sore athirst," cried Hopkins clapping him on the back. "If 't were a spring of Hollands now, or even a double strike of English ale, I'd race thee for it, but never yet did I find my stomach clamor for cold water." "'T is very delicate water for all that," declared Bradford as the two | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012924026 | men, stumbling down the steep descent of Spring Lane, reached and stooped to drink of the spring at its foot. "Too delicate for me," retorted Hopkins; "fitter for maids than men." "Well, beer is brewed of water as well as of barley and hops," declared Bradford; "and thou 'st only to raise the grain and this fair spring will turn | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012924027 | it into beer for thee at thy pleasure." "And here be blackberry briers for my dame to brew her wild-berry wines, and lo you now, this is sassafras whose roots are worth their weight in gold to the chirurgeons, and these are strawberry leaves." "And we have seen cherry and plum stocks in abundance the way we came," declared Bradford | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012924028 | as the rest of the party straggled down the hill. "Excellent sand and gravel for building," said Warren crumbling the soil around the spring. "Ay, and here is clay to shape into pots and pans when the goodwives have broken all they bring." "Methinks it hath a look of fuller's clay, and so is almost as well for us as | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012924029 | soap," said Howland taking up some and washing his hands in the brook. "There, now, see you its use!" "Have with you, friend," cried Winslow, daintiest of the pioneers. "Surely cleanliness being next to godliness tendeth somewhat to the same satisfaction!" The exploration, carried as far as Eel River at the south and Murdoch's Pond westerly, lasted until night, when | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012924030 | the Pilgrims bivouacked on the shore, supping merrily on some great clams dug by the sailors and wild fowl shot by Howland and Dotey. Before they slept under the sheltering brow of Cole's Hill it was pretty well decided that Plymouth, as they began at once to call it, should be their permanent dwelling-place, more especially as in their day-long | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012924031 | explorations they had seen no natives or even their dwellings, and the site seemed for some reason abandoned to their occupancy. But the joyous return with good news to those on board the Mayflower was turned into grief and dismay by the tidings awaiting the explorers. Dorothy Bradford was dead. How it could have happened, or just when, no one | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012924032 | knew, but on the very day after her husband's departure she had gone quietly on deck while the rest of the company were at supper and never was seen again; nor till the sea gives up its dead shall any know the story of that poor overwrought soul's last fierce struggle and defeat. Nor can we speak of the young | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012924033 | husband's anguish, and it may be self-reproach, in that awful hour. He speaks not himself of this matter in his journal, save in briefest words; nor dare we intrude upon such matters as lie between a man and his God. But this we may say, that as Jacob, wrestling with the angel and overcoming, went halting all his days from | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012924034 | the wound of that strange conflict, so Bradford's face when he again took his place among his fellows told of years forever consumed in one terrible struggle. . ROSE. "Myles!" "Ay, sweetheart, here am I." "A little drink--nay, I want it not. I was dreaming thy cousin Barbara was making a sallet, and I was fain to taste it, it | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012924035 | looked so cool and fresh,--and I wakened. I would well like some sallet, Myles." "As soon as the day dawns, my Rose, I will go and look for herbs. I marked some sorrel on the hill yester e'en, albeit something dry and sere." "Why doth the ship roll so sorely, Myles?" "Thou 'rt not on shipboard, child, but in our | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012924036 | little hospital here ashore. Mindest thou not how thou didst mourn and cry to me, 'Take me ashore, Myles, take me ashore, that I may breathe sweet air and live.' So I lapped thee in blankets and brought thee, to-morrow is a se'nnight. Like you not this sweet new dwelling?" "Well enow; but sweet air will not make me live | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012924037 | if the time hath come for me to die." And the sick girl smiled wanly, inscrutably, the smile of one who knows what he will not say. The face of the fearless soldier grew white with terror, and almost angrily he replied,-- "Hush, child! Thy time to die hath not come. Never think it, for it shall not be." "Nay, | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012924038 | Myles, thou canst not daunten Death with thy stern voice and masterful eye, though thou canst quell a score of other foes with one glance." And Rose, moving her frail little hand toward the sinewy fist clenched upon the bed-covering, slid a finger within its grasp, and went softly on with a pathetic ring of gayety in her voice,-- "I | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012924039 | was dreaming, too, of home, mine own old home. I was gathering cowslips in the meadow at St. Mary's, and mother stood by with little Maudlin in her arms. They smiled, both of them, ah how sweetly they smiled upon me, and I filled my pinafore with the cowslips, soft, cool, wet cowslips,--I feel them in my hand now, so | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012924040 | cool, so wet! Myles, I fain would have those cowslips, may I not?" "Child! Child! Thou 'lt break my heart!" "Mother and Maudlin both died the year I saw thee first, dost remember, Myles?" "Try to sleep a little, my darling. I will say thee a psalm, or perhaps one of those old Manx ballads thou didst use to lilt | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012924041 | so lightly." "Mistress White says they are ungodly, and a snare of Satan," replied Rose dreamily, and before Myles could utter the wrathful comment that quivered upon his lips she went on,-- "It was across her grave I saw thee, dear, dost mind thee of that hour?" "Thy mother's grave? ay, I mind me." "Yes, thou camest with thy cousin | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012924042 | Barbara to seek thy grandsire's gravestone and to search out the muniments of thy race. Thou 'lt never lay hands on that inheritance, Myles." "I care not, so thou wilt get strong and well again, my Rose, my Rose!" And with a groan but half driven back upon his heart, the soldier turned his head aside and set his teeth | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012924043 | upon his trembling lip. But Rose, more alive in the past than the present, rambled on in her sweet, weak voice,-- "'Not only this wild hunting ground and ruined lodge where we abide, but many a fair manor in England, and many a stately home is his,' that was what Barbara told me about thee afterward; and when I praised | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012924044 | thy presence, for I loved thee or ever I knew it myself, she straightened her neck and said full proudly, 'Ay, and not only a goodly man, but a brave soldier and noble soul.' 'Twas she who first saw that thou lovedst me, Myles, and came and wept for joy upon my neck." "Peace, peace, dear child. Thou wastest thy | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012924045 | strength in talking overmuch. Sleep, canst thou not, dear heart?" "Dost think that Barbara will come hither? She promised me surefast that she would so soon as there was a company ready. She said it was so lonely there in Man when I was gone. Will she come, think you, Myles?" "Like enow, sweetheart. Barbara mostly carries out what she | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012924046 | promises. But"-- "And thou 'lt be very, very good to thy cousin, wilt thou not, Myles? Thou 'rt all she has now." "Surely both of us will be good to our kinswoman, dear wife, and all the more that, as thou sayest, it was by going to visit her that I first saw thee, blooming like a very rose in | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012924047 | that gray old Manx churchyard." "I was ever friends with Barbara, but I loved her all the more for thy sake, dear. And she was well pleased that we two should wed--leastways she said so." "And if she said it she meant it, for in all the years she tarried in my mother's house I never knew her tell a | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012924048 | lie or wear two faces. But now, verily, child, I must have thee rest. Speak not again unless thou needest somewhat. I will have it so, my Rose." "Then let me lay my hand in thine. There, then, good-night." "Good-night, mine own." And while the winter night lapsed through hours of deadly chill and darkness into the sad twilight of | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012924049 | early morning the soldier sat motionless, holding that fragile hand, gazing upon that lovely face, lovely yet so changed from the cherubic beauty that had won his heart amid the summer fields of Man but three short years before. What he thought, what he felt in those hours, he could not himself have revealed, for a man's emotion is usually | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012924050 | in inverse proportion to its expression, and Myles Standish was essentially a man of action and not of words; but God only knows how these strong inarticulate natures suffer in the agony that divides bone from marrow, and yet leaves the sufferer conscious of the capacity to live and to suffer yet again and again. In some respects this vigil | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012924051 | resembled that of Bradford in hearing of Dorothy's death, in some it was widely different, for with Bradford's grief was mingled self-reproach and keen introspection; he weighed his own life, he found it wanting, he condemned it, and offering his suffering as righteous penance, he extolled the justice of God, and submitted himself as a culprit to the scourge. But | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012924052 | Standish thought neither of the justice of God nor of his own demerits, nor had he skill or practice for introspection. "A man under authority and having soldiers under him," he both rendered and expected obedience, prompt, entire, and unquestioning. His was a nature of loyalty so magnificent as to need no buttresses of reason, or of self-distrust, a loyalty | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012924053 | so sweet as to be unconscious of itself, a loyalty so entire that the soul could not get outside of it to consider it objectively. The order came from the King of kings, and it was to be obeyed, or endured; the King could do no wrong. Nor indeed had he been skilled to search, could Myles have found matter | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012924054 | for self-reproach in all his dealings with the child dying at his side. Busy from his boyhood in the pursuit of arms, and loving his mother with all the force of his great nature, the man had cared little for other women, turning with scorn from the meretricious charms of those he encountered in camp or among his comrades, and | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012924055 | finding no time or inclination to seek others, so that except for the light fancies of an hour, or the calm affection for his cousin Barbara, whom he found on one of his visits to his home in Chorley giving a daughter's tendance to his mother, Standish had passed his three and thirtieth birthday ignorant of the nature of love, | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012924056 | and mocking at its power. But the first glance at the lovely girl weeping beside her mother's grave warned him that a new hour had struck, and a new foe opposed him; nor was he long in making full and frank surrender to an authority as strong as it was gentle, and as tyrannous as sweet. Motionless and erect the | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012924057 | soldier sat the long night through, and as if she gathered strength from the grasp of his healthy hand, Rose slept quietly until the sun rose, and the women still well enough to wait upon the sick came softly in. Then she opened her eyes, fixed them upon his with a tender smile, and said,-- "Poor Myles! Thou hast watched | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012924058 | all night while selfish I held thee and slept. But now begone and get thine own rest and food. I shall do well with these kind friends." "I'll leave thee, then, for a little, but I shall not be far away, and if thou needest, send," replied her husband releasing his hand from the frail yet burning grasp that still | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012924059 | held him. "Dame Turner, thou 'lt see that I am called if she asks for me, wilt thou?" "Surely, Captain, but she is doing bravely this morning, and you had better rest." "Nay, but let her not ask twice for me, or aught else." Leaving the house, and drawing one or two eager breaths of fresh air, Standish climbed the | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012924060 | hill where already the fortification he had proposed was nearly complete, though not yet armed. Stepping upon a great beam, squared but not laid in place, he stood looking around him as if to see what Nature and his own work could offer to fill the great gulf opening in the future. A light fog still clung to the face | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012924061 | of the water and hung in the hollows of the hills; shrouded in its folds the Mayflower lay like a spectre ship, ugly, unsafe, full of discomfort and misery, but yet the only link between this handful of dying men and their home. Standish gazed at her with a gathering darkness upon his face, until the burden of his thought | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012924062 | broke out in a savage murmur,-- "_Couldst_ not make thy way through yonder shoals and bring us to the fair shores I told her of! If it be thy fault, Thomas Jones!"-- The slow clenching of a jaw square and strong as a mastiff's finished the sentence, and Standish's eyes came back to the rude hut where all he loved | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012924063 | lay dying, perhaps through this man's fault. At his feet lay the sketch as it were of the town he and his comrades had laid down in outline, and intended to build up as time and strength allowed. Already Leyden Street, or The Street, as it was at first called, lay a distinct thoroughfare from the Rock to the Fort, | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012924064 | the eastern and western extremities of the village. Along this street were staked out plots of land, some larger and some smaller in the proportion of eight feet frontage to each person in a family, the single men, and those women and children already left desolate, being divided among the householders, and the whole company reduced to nineteen families. Standish's | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012924065 | own house, not yet finished, lay nearest to the Fort, which with its armament were to be his especial charge, and several of the single men had been appointed to his family. Their own illness, and that of Mistress Standish had, however, interfered with this arrangement, and only John Alden shared the house as yet with Standish, the two men | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012924066 | sometimes eating at the Common house, the only one except the hospital really finished, and sometimes cooking for themselves such food as they could lay hands upon, for the house, unlike some of the others, already boasted a chimney laid up of sticks and clay, and showed a generous fireplace in the larger or living room which, with two little | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012924067 | sleeping-rooms and a loft, comprised the whole accommodation. Upon this little home so hopefully begun, so neglected during the last ten days, Myles gazed long and wistfully, smiling sadly as he saw Alden come out and look up and down the street for him, finally going to seek him in the Common house, a substantial structure some twenty feet square, | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012924068 | built of hewn oaken logs, fitted together as closely as possible, and the crevices stopped with clay, which freely washed out in stormy weather. The roof, like all the rest, was covered with thatch formed of dried reeds and grasses, and the windows were filled with oiled linen instead of glass, still an article of costly luxury. Above the Common | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012924069 | house stood the building which the increasing mortality of the colony had demanded as a hospital, and below it was the storehouse, where most of the common stock of goods was collected, although some of the passengers and their possessions still remained on board the brig, where Jones gave them but scant hospitality or kindness. Folding his arms more closely | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012924070 | as the chill wind of February swept in from seaward, Standish gazed upon all these objects as if they for the first time attracted his attention, and then, as the lifting fog revealed the distant landscape, he turned and fixedly regarded Captain's Hill rising in its bold isolation to the north. Long he gazed, and then, slightly shaking his head, | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012924071 | stepped down from the beam and paced about the little enclosure, half unconsciously examining the work of platform and parapet, and following with a gunner's eye the range of the pieces yet unmounted; pausing longest before the eastern front, he marked with satisfaction how well the minion there to be placed would guard the landing and sweep the solitary street, | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012924072 | and even knelt to look along its imaginary barrel. Rising he brushed the soil from his knees with almost a smile, muttering,-- "Ay, lad, thou 'rt needed, thou 'rt needed, and he who is needed has no right to desert his post." But suddenly the smile faded, for as he turned to leave the Fort his eyes fell upon Cole's | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012924073 | Hill, where but a few rods from the Common house, and under its protection, they had dug the graves of those already dead, and where lay room enough for many more. But his battle fought, and his mind resolved, Myles was too much master of himself to need a second conflict, and setting his lips firmly beneath the tawny moustache | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012924074 | that shaded them, he strode down the hill, and at his own door found John Alden waiting for him and changing greetings with a party of four men armed with sickles and attended by two dogs. "Wish you good-morrow, Captain," said the foremost, a sturdy young fellow with a pleasant English face. "Good-morrow Peter Browne, and you, John Goodman," replied | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012924075 | the captain cordially. "Whither away?" "To cut thatch in the fields nigh yon little pond," replied Browne pointing in a westerly direction. "And I am taking Nero along to give account of any Indians that may be lurking there." "And John Goodman's spaniel to rouse the game for Nero to pull down," said Standish with a smile. "Well, God speed | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012924076 | you." And turning into the unfinished house he found Alden watching him with a look of silent friendliness and sympathy more eloquent than words; returning the greeting as mutely and as heartily, Standish would have passed into his own bedroom, but the younger man interposed,-- "Thou 'lt break thy fast, Captain, wilt thou not? All is ready and waiting your | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012924077 | coming; some of the bean soup you liked yester even, and some fish"-- "Presently, presently, good John! I would but bathe and refresh myself. Nay, look not so doubtingly after me, friend. I am a man, and know a man's devoir." He spoke with a smile as brave as it was gentle, and passing in closed the door. "Doth he | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012924078 | know she is dying!" muttered John throwing himself upon a bench; "and Priscilla sickening and her mother dead!" . A TERRIBLE NIGHT. As Standish entered his own house the four men to whom he had spoken passed on around the base of the hill, and reaching a tract of swampy land covered with reeds and rushes suitable for thatching, they | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012924079 | set to work cutting them and binding in bundles ready for use. For some hours they wrought industriously, until Peter Browne, commander of the expedition, straightened his back, stretched his cramped arms, and gazing at the sun announced,-- "Noontime, men. We'll e'en rest and eat our snack." "Art thou o' mind to come and show me the pond where thou | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012924080 | sawest wild fowl t' other day?" asked John Goodman, townsman and friend of Browne's. "Ay, will I. Take thy meat in thy hand and come along," replied Browne. "And we may as well finish our day there, sith this spot is well nigh stripped. Margeson and Britteridge, when you have fed, you can bind the rushes that are cut, and | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012924081 | then come after us as far as a little pond behind that hill, due west from here I should say. You'll find it easily enough." "Oh, ay, we'll find it," replied Margeson, a rough companion, but a good worker. "Go on mates, and take your dogs with you, for they're smelling at the victuals enough to turn a man's stomach. | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012924082 | Get out you beast!" and raising his foot he offered to kick Nero, who growled menacingly and showed a formidable set of teeth. "Have a care, man!" cried Browne angrily. "Meddle with that dog and he'll make victual of thee before thou knowest what ails thee. 'T is ever a poor sign when a man cannot abear dogs or children." | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012924083 | And the two friends, followed by the mastiff and spaniel, walked rapidly away. Two hours passed while Margeson and Britteredge, not greatly in haste, finished their lunch and tied and stacked the reeds already cut. Then shouldering their sickles they leisurely skirted the hill in front of them, and after a little search came upon the pretty sheet of water | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012924084 | now called Murdoch's Pond. "This will be the place," said Margeson looking about him; "but where is pepperpot Browne?" "Or his dog?" suggested Britteridge slyly. "Whistle and the beasts will hear us if the men do not," said Margeson suiting the action to the word. No answer followed, and both men together raised a yet shriller note, followed by shouts, | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012924085 | halloos, and various noises supposed to carry sound to the farthest limits of space. But each effort died away in dim and distant echoes among the hills, and after a while the men looked at each other in half angry discouragement. "They've played us a trick," said Margeson; "they're hiding to mock at us, or they've gone back to the | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012924086 | village some other way." "Nay," replied Britteridge pacifically; "they're not such babes as to play tricks like that. See, here are goodly reeds; let us cut and bind some while we tarry, and Browne will be back anon." Grumbling and unconvinced Margeson still complied, and for a while longer the two worked fitfully, pausing now and again to look about | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012924087 | them, to listen, or to shout. At last, by tacit consent, both threw down their tools, and with slow, half-fearful gaze surveyed the scene. It was a dismal one. The sun had reached the tops of the pines, and already the water lay in black shadow at their feet, rippled by the small, bitter breeze creeping in from seaward, and | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012924088 | stirring the sedge into faint whisperings and moanings; night birds, awaking in the depths of the forest, uttered querulous cries, and strange, vague sounds within the covert suggested prowling beast or savage creeping near and nearer. "Ugh! 't is a grewsome spot as ever I saw," said Margeson as softly as if he feared to be overheard. "Certes the men | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012924089 | have gone home some other way, and the sun is setting. Let us be after them, say I." "And say I," replied Britteridge readily, and without more words the two men hurried away, and in a brief half hour presented themselves before the governor with news that their comrades were not to be found, either in the field or the | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012924090 | town, and doubtless were lost in the forest or captured by the Indians. Carver, ever as ready to act as to command, armed himself at once, and summoning such men as were on shore led them to the wood, where by calling, firing their pieces, and kindling torches they protracted the search far into the night, and when forced to | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012924091 | give it up until daylight returned to the Common house for united and fervent prayers and supplications. Early in the morning another search party, headed by Stephen Hopkins, with Billington as scout, entered the woods, but having traversed a radius of seven or eight miles returned at night weary, footsore, and with no tidings. News of the loss was carried | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012924092 | on board the Mayflower, and a heavy sense of misfortune and danger settled upon the little community already depressed by disease and want. The men thus mourned were meantime in nearly as evil case as was feared. Just before arriving at the pond, while munching their frugal lunch and discussing the prospect of game, they espied a splendid stag who | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012924093 | had evidently been disturbed while drinking, and stood with head erect and dilated eyes gazing upon the first white men he had ever seen, and perhaps foreboding the war of extermination they had come to wage on him and his. "Oh for a piece!" cried Browne raising an imaginary gun to his shoulder. "Seize him, Nero! Take him, good dog! | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012924094 | Hi! Away, away!" Nero needing no second invitation uttered a deep bay and set off, followed by the spaniel, yelping to the extent of her powers, while the two men, reckless of the fact that they were unarmed save with sickles, and could never hope to overtake the deer on foot, bounded after as fast as they could lay legs | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012924095 | to the ground, nor paused until utterly blown and exhausted and the chase out of sight and hearing. "Hah!" panted Browne flinging himself upon the ground; "I haven't been breathed like that since I ran in the foot-race at home in Yorkshire five year agone. Phew!" Goodman only replied by inarticulate groans and wheezes, and while he yet struggled for | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012924096 | breath Nero came trotting back through the woods with a mortified and contrite expression pervading his body from eloquent eyes to abject tail, while Pike, as the spaniel was called, followed at some distance with an affected carelessness of demeanor as if she would have it clearly understood that she had been running solely for her own pleasure, with no | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012924097 | idea of chasing the deer. The men laughed, and patting their favorites allowed them to lie and rest for some moments; then as the air grew chill they rose and strolled in the direction, as they supposed, of the clearing where they had left their comrades. But the wood was thick, and several swampy hollows induced detours; the sun was | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012924098 | obscured by the gathering snow clouds, and neither man was skilled in woodcraft; while the dogs, roaming at pleasure, were more intent upon tracing various scents of game than of finding the way home. Thus it came that as darkness began to gather visibly among the crowding evergreens, and the last tinge of sunlight was buried in thickening clouds, the | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012924099 | two men stopped and looked each other squarely in the face. "Yes, John," said Browne reading the frightened eyes of his younger and less courageous companion. "Yes, lad, we're lost, and I doubt me must pass the night in the woods." "And we lack not only food but cloaks and weapons!" exclaimed Goodman looking forlornly about him, and stooping to | 60 | gutenberg |
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