Bradford, who was just coming out of his house with Alice and Christian Penn, her buxom handmaiden, following meekly behind, stopped and looked sternly at the intruder until he, turning his back, walked down Leyden Street toward the old Common House, disused now except for storage.
“Shall I arrest the varlet, and clap him up in the strong-room?” asked Bart Allerton eagerly, as he swung the drum-gear off his shoulder.
“Nay, my son; it is the Lord’s Day and we will not farther disturb its peace. This rebel has ceased his summons and you may do so also, lest worse come of it.”
“Does your honor see Master Lyford in gown and bands coming out of Master Oldhame’s house?”
“Nay, Bart, I see him not, for I look not at him. Now no more, good youth, but fall into rank with your fellows.”
And fifty men or more, each armed and ready for battle either with men or the Ghostly Enemy who inspirits men, moved in solemn procession of threes up Burying Hill to the Fort, the rear closed by the governor in his robe of office, with the Elder in his gown at his right hand, and the captain in full uniform at his left.
Not a word was exchanged between the leaders upon the events of the morning, but it was no news to any of them, when the long service was over and in the seclusion of home the women’s tongues were let loose, to hear that Lyford, in spite of his abject repudiation of his Episcopal ordination, and membership with the Separatist Church, had gathered a congregation, read the English Service, preached a vituperative sermon against the leaders of the colony, and administered the Communion.
Such open bravado and schism as this could not be allowed to continue, for although the Pilgrims never persecuted any man for honest difference of religious belief, and were on very cordial terms with many members of the English Church, whom their pastor Robinson received to Communion and fellowship, it was hardly to be expected that they would permit a double apostate like Lyford to gather a body of malcontents in their midst, and hold services avowedly antagonistic to the church of the Pilgrims.
Nobody, therefore, was surprised when, on the Monday following this Sunday, the governor’s message went forth summoning all the men of the colony, whether church-members, citizens, or only temporary residents, to assemble at the Fort at nine of the clock on Tuesday morning in a Court of the People, the colony not yet having outgrown this, the ideal mode of popular government.