But all this honor, all this disaster, lies in the future, for as yet Winslow is only seven-and-twenty, and yet the lines of ambition, of weariness, of hauteur are foreshadowed upon his face; already Time with his light indelible pencil has faintly traced the furrows he by and by will plow that all who run may read.
Perhaps the least change of all is that upon the captain's face, for before ever he landed on the Rock full twenty years of a soldier's life had set those firm lips, and steadied those marvelous eyes, and impressed upon every line of the deep bronzed face the air of the vigilant commander who was both born and bred for the post he fills so thoroughly. If any change, perhaps there is a softening one, for those keen eyes have looked so often upon misery and need, and so little upon bloodshed in these three last years, that they have gained somewhat of tenderness, somewhat of human sympathy; and the look that dying men and women have strained their glazing eyes to see to the last, is not so far from the surface as once it was. But the governor is speaking,—
"Yes, my friends, I will confess to feeling more than a little uneasy over the matter. This party whom our sometime friend Weston hath sent over to settle at our very doors as it were, and to steal our trade with the Indians, and so hold us from paying off our debt to the Adventurers"—
"With whom he was still to abide as our Advocate," growled Standish.
"Ay. He hath doubtless served us a sorry turn by not only dividing himself from the Adventurers, but setting up a rival trading-post of his own," remarked Winslow.
"And worse than that is this news Squanto brings in to-day," resumed the governor. "I mean the dealings of those new-comers with the Indians."
"Yes, they carry themselves like both knaves and fools, and will presently find their own necks in the noose," said Standish rapping the ashes out of his pipe with such force as to break it.
"But worse again than that," suggested Winslow quietly, "is the danger they bring upon us. Hobomok warneth me that there is a wide discontent growing among the red men, springing from the conduct of these men at Weymouth as they call it. The Neponsets have suffered robbery, and insult, and outrage at their hands, and both the Massachusetts on the one hand and the Pokanokets on the other are in sympathy with them. Then you will see, brethren, that Canonicus with his Narragansetts, who already hath sent us his cartel of defiance, will make brief alliance with Massasoit, and all will combine to drive every white man from the country. There is hardly any bound to the mischief these roysterers at Weymouth have set on foot."
"And Massasoit no longer our friend, since we refused to send him poor Squanto's head," said Bradford meditatively.
"Yes," laughed the captain. "'T is food for mirth, were a man dying, to see Squanto skulk at our heels like a dog who sees a lion in the path. He hardly dares step outside the palisado, for fear some envoy of Massasoit's shall pounce upon him."