Eighteen shillings a month, together with diet and pillage,

And, like Cæsar, I know the name of each of my soldiers!"

This he said with a smile, that danced in his eyes, as the sunbeams

Dance on the waves of the sea, and vanish again in a

moment.

Alden laughed as he wrote, and still the Captain

continued:

45

"Look! you can see from this window my brazen howitzer planted

High on the roof of the church, a preacher who speaks to the purpose,

Steady, straightforward, and strong, with irresistible

logic,

Orthodox, flashing conviction right into the hearts of the heathen.

Now we are ready, I think, for any assault of the

Indians:

50

Let them come, if they like, and the sooner they try it

the better,

Let them come if they like, be it sagamore, sachem, or

pow-wow,

Aspinet, Samoset, Corbitant, Squanto, or Tokamaha

mon!"

47. One of the earliest structures raised by the Pilgrims was a platform upon the hill overlooking the settlement, where they mounted five guns. They had also a common house for rendezvous, nineteen feet square, but the planting of guns upon the log-built meeting-house belongs to a later date.

52. The sagamore was an Indian chief of the subordinate class; the sachem a principal chief; the pow-wow a medicine man or conjurer.

53. Names of Indians who are mentioned in the early chronicles.

Long at the window he stood, and wistfully gazed on the landscape,

Washed with a cold gray mist, the vapory breath of the east-wind,

55

Forest and meadow and hill, and the steel-blue rim of

the ocean,

Lying silent and sad, in the afternoon shadows and

sunshine.

Over his countenance flitted a shadow like those on the landscape,

Gloom intermingled with light; and his voice was subdued with emotion,

Tenderness, pity, regret, as after a pause he pro

ceeded:

60

"Yonder there, on the hill by the sea, lies buried Rose Standish;

Beautiful rose of love, that bloomed for me by the wayside!

She was the first to die of all who came in the Mayflower!

Green above her is growing the field of wheat we have sown there,

Better to hide from the Indian scouts the graves of

our people,

65

Lest they should count them and see how many already have perished!"

Sadly his face he averted, and strode up and down, and was thoughtful.

Fixed to the opposite wall was a shelf of books, and among them

64. The dead were buried on a bluff by the water-side during that first terrible winter, and the marks of burial were carefully effaced, lest the Indians should discover how the colony had been weakened. The tradition is preserved in Holmes's Annals.

And, as if guarded by these, between them was standing the Bible.

Musing a moment before them, Miles Standish paused, as if doubtful

Which of the three he should choose for his consolation and comfort,

Whether the wars of the Hebrews, the famous campaigns of the Romans,

75

Or the Artillery practice, designed for belligerent

Christians.

Finally down from its shelf he dragged the ponderous Roman,

Seated himself at the window, and opened the book, and in silence

70. The elaborate title of Standish's military book was : “Militarie Discipline: or the Young Artillery Man, Wherein is Discoursed and Shown the Postures both of Musket and Pike, the Exactest way, &c., Together with the Exercise of the Foot in their Motions, with much variety: As also, diverse and several Forms for the Imbatteling small or great Bodies demonstrated by the number of a single Company with their Reducements. Very necessary for all such as are Studious in the Art Military. Whereunto is also added the Postures and Beneficiall Use of the Halfe-Pike joyned with the Musket. With the way to draw up the Swedish Brigade. By Colonel William Barriffe." Barriffe was a Puritan, and added to his title-page: "Psalmes 144: 1. Blessed be the Lord my Strength which teacheth my hands to warre and my fingers to fight."

71. Goldinge was a voluminous translator, and his translation of Ovid's Metamorphoses was highly regarded. He was patronized by Sir Philip Sidney.

Turned o'er the well-worn leaves, where thumb-marks thick on the margin,

Like the trample of feet, proclaimed the battle was

hottest.

80

Nothing was heard in the room but the hurrying pen of the stripling,

Busily writing epistles important, to go by the Mayflower,

Ready to sail on the morrow, or next day at latest, God willing!

Homeward bound with the tidings of all that terrible winter,

Letters written by Alden, and full of the name of

Priscilla,

85

Full of the name and the fame of the Puritan maiden Priscilla !

II.

LOVE AND FRIENDSHIP.

Nothing was heard in the room but the hurrying pen of the stripling,

Or an occasional sigh from the laboring heart of the

Captain,

Reading the marvellous words and achievements of Julius Cæsar.

After a while he exclaimed, as he smote with his hand,

palm downwards,

90

82. The Mayflower began her return voyage April 5, 1621. Not a single one of the emigrants returned in her, in spite of the "terrible winter."

85. Among the names of the Mayflower company are those of "Mr. William Mullines and his wife, and 2 children, Joseph and Priscila; and a servant, Robart Carter."

"A wonderful man was this

Heavily on the page:

Cæsar!

You are a writer, and I am a fighter, but here is a fellow

Who could both write and fight, and in both was equally skilful!"

Straightway answered and spake John Alden, the comely, the youthful:

"Yes, he was equally skilled, as you say, with his pen and his weapons.

95

Somewhere have I read, but where I forget, he could

dictate

Seven letters at once, at the same time writing his memoirs."

"Truly," continued the Captain, not heeding or hear

66

ing the other,

100

Truly a wonderful man was Caius Julius Cæsar! Better be first, he said, in a little Iberian village, Than be second in Rome, and I think he was right when he said it.

Twice was he married before he was twenty, and many times after;

Battles five hundred he fought, and a thousand cities he conquered;

He, too, fought in Flanders, as he himself has recorded;

100. "In his journey, as he was crossing the Alps and passing by a small village of the barbarians with but few inhabitants, and those wretchedly poor, his companions asked the question among themselves by way of mockery if there were any canvassing for offices there; any contention which should be uppermost, or feuds of great men one against another. To which Cæsar made answer seriously, 'For my part I had rather be the first man among these fellows, than the second man in Rome."" Plutarch's Life

of Cæsar, A. H. Clough's translation.