Standish of Standish: A Story of the Pilgrims

E-text prepared by Susan Carr, Suzanne Shell, and the Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team (http://www.pgdp.net)
Transcriber's Notes
AUTHOR OF A NAMELESS NOBLEMAN, THE DESMOND HUNDRED, MRS. BEAUCHAMP BROWN, NANTUCKET SCRAPS, MOON FOLK, ETC., ETC.
Copyright, 1889, By JANE G. AUSTIN.
All rights reserved .
ELEVENTH EDITION.
The Riverside Press, Cambridge, Mass., U. S. A. Electrotyped and Printed by H. O. Houghton & Co.
The history of the Old Colony includes, among some very stern facts, a deal of sweet and tender romance, hitherto hardly known except to those who have learned it at their mother's knee.
But in these days many persons seem disposed to pause for a moment in the eager race after the golden fruits of the Pilgrims' husbandry, and to look curiously back at the spot where the seed was sown.
To such I offer this story of Myles Standish, The-Sword-of-the-White-Men, the hero, who not for gain, not from necessity, not even from religious zeal, but purely in the knightly fervor of his blood, forsook home, and heritage, and glory, and ambition, to company that helpless band of exiles, and to be the Great-Heart of their Pilgrimage to the City that they sought.
To such students I will promise that they shall not be misled as to facts, though these be strung upon a slender thread of romance; and I will beg them to ground themselves well upon the solid Pilgrim Rock, that they may the better understand the story of Lazarus LeBaron, son of A Nameless Nobleman, to be offered them in due time, unless Time shall be no more for the Author.
Boston, October , 1889.