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:

66

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 !

دو

Casting a farewell look at the glimmering sail of the May Flower,

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 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 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

Burning and crackling within, and the sulphurous odor 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 had trusted!

Ah! 't was too much to be borne, and he fretted and chafed in his armor!

"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 ?

"T was 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 wooer 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 Indian encampment

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

Women at work by the tents, and the 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.

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 Pecksuot 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,