Silvers its wave, its rustling wave
Soft folded on the shelving floor.
“O lonely moon, a lonely place
Is this thou cheerest with thy face;
Three sand-side houses, and afar
The steady beacon’s faithful star”—
only, instead of the three sand-side houses it was “the Seven Houses of Plymouth,” and all the beacon was the light in the “Mayflower’s” or the “Fortune’s” shrouds.
That the betrothal did not impair the friendship of the lovers with the impetuous Captain Standish, we can understand from the fact that when, subsequently, the Captain built his house over on Duxbury Hill, John Alden’s house stood near it; and that later,—and unhindered, for aught we know,—John Alden’s daughter married the Captain’s son. It pleases me to think that the dear daughter-in-law, by whom, in his last will and testament, the old Captain desired to be buried, was the daughter of Priscilla Mullins.
Priscilla and John must have had time enough for this sweet acceptance of life and nature together, for although in other instances courtship was brief, yet we know that their wedding certainly did not take place till May, as Governor Winslow then married Mrs. White, and that marriage was recorded as the first in the colony. There is indeed some probability that the engagement of the young people was of quite another character from the incomprehensibly brief one just mentioned. Perhaps John Alden was building his house, and it may be that it had to be more or less commodious, since he probably became the protector of the family which Mr. Mullins left, and which is registered as numbering five persons upon landing. But if we accept the legend regarding the wedding journey, we might have to postpone the bridal for some seasons, as it was not until three years after their arrival that Edward Winslow, having gone to England and returned with cattle, made such a thing possible as that traditional ride on the back of the gentle white bull with its crimson cloth and cushion.
