15 Near him was seated John Alden, his friend, and household companion,

Writing with diligent speed at a table of pine by the window;

Fair-haired, azure-eyed, with delicate Saxon com

plexion,

Having the dew of his youth, and the beauty
thereof, as the captives

Whom Saint Gregory saw, and exclaimed, "Not
Angles but Angels."

20 Youngest of all was he of the men who came in the Mayflower.

66

Suddenly breaking the silence, the diligent scribe interrupting,

15. Bradford, the historian of the Plymouth Plantation, says that John Alden, who was one of the Mayflower company, was hired for a cooper, at Southampton, where the ship victualled; and being a hopeful young man, was much desired, but left to his own liking to go or stay when he came here [to Plymouth, that is]; but he stayed and married here." In this picture of Miles Standish and John Alden, some have professed to see a miniature likeness to Oliver Cromwell and John Milton.

18. The story of the first mission to heathen England is :eferred to here. A monk named Gregory, in the sixth century, passed through the slave-market at Rome, and there amongst other captives he saw three fair-complexioned and fair-haired boys, in striking contrast to the dusky captives about them. He asked whence they came, and was answered, "From Britain," and that they were called Angli, which was the Latin form of the name by which they called themselves, and from which Anglo, England. and Engiish are derived. "Non Angli sed Angeli," replied Gregory; they have the face of angels, not of Angles, and they ought to be fellow heirs of heaven." fears afterward the story runs when Gregory was pope, he remembered the fair captives, and sent St. Augustine to carry Christianity to them. The story will be found at length ir E. A. Freeman's Old English History for Children, p. 41.

Spake, in the pride of his heart, Miles Standishi the Captain of Plymouth.

"Look at these arms," he said, "the warlike weapons that hang here

Burnished and bright and clean, as if for parade or inspection!

25 This is the sword of Damascus I fought with in Flanders; this breastplate,

Well I remember the day! once saved my life in a

skirmish;

Here in front you can see the very dint of the

bullet

Fired point-blank at my heart by a Spanish arca

bucero.

Had it not been of sheer steel, the forgotten bones of Miles Standish

30 Would at this moment be mould, in their grave in the Flemish morasses."

35

Thereupon answered John Alden, but looked not up from his writing:

"Truly the breath of the Lord hath slackened the speed of the bullet;

He in his mercy preserved you, to be our shield and our weapon!"

Still the Captain continued, unheeding the words

of the stripling:

"See, how bright they are burnished, as if in an arsenal hanging;

25. The history of Miles Standish is not clearly known, but he was a soldier in the Low Countries during the defence of the Netherlands against the Spanish power, and the poet has made much of this little knowledge that we have.

28. Arcabucero is Spanish for archer, and the same term passed over, as weapons changed, into a musketeer and gun.

smith.

That is because I have done it myself, and not left it to others.

Serve yourself, would you be well served, is an excellent adage;

So I take care of my arms, as you of your pens and your inkhorn.

Then, too, there are my soldiers, my great, invincible army,

4c Twelve men, all equipped, having each his rest and his matchlock,

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.

45 Alden laughed as he wrote, and still the Captain continued:

"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,

38. There is some uncertainty about the derivation of the word inkhorn. The usual interpretation refers to the custom of scribes carrying ink in a horn attached to their dress, but some etymologists make it a corruption from inkern, the terminations erne and eron coming from the Saxon ern, earn, a secret place to put anything in, inkern being thus a little vessel into which we put ink.

39. The formation of the military company was due chiefly to the serious losses that befel the Pilgrims during the first winter, leading them to make careful provision against surprises and attacks from the Indians.

47. One of the earliest structures raised by the Pilgrims was

Steady, straightforward, and strong, with irresistible logic,

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

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

Indians;

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 Tokamahamon!"

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

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

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,

60 Tenderness, pity, regret, as after a pause he proceeded:

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 conjuror.

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

"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,

55 Better to hide from the Indian scouts the graves of our people,

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

Prominent three, distinguished alike for bulk and for binding;

70 Bariffe's Artillery Guide, and the Commentaries of Cæsar

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.

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 Beneficial Use of the Halfe-Pike joyned with the Musket. With