"And now we may go home and make our mourning weeds," said Priscilla with a petulant half-sob, half-laugh, as she and Mary Chilton turned away from the wheatfield on the hill.
"Nay, John Alden will come home safe, I'm sure on 't," said Mary gently, but her vivacious friend turned sharply upon her.
"And if he comes not at all, I'd liefer know him dead in honor, than lingering here among the women like some others."
"Gilbert Winslow, or his brother John if you mean him, would have gone as gladly as any man had the captain chosen him," replied Mary composedly, if coldly, and Priscilla turned and clipped her in a sharp embrace, crying out that indeed her friend were no more than right to beat her for a froward child.
The prosperous wind lasted all the way, and before noon the shallop lay at anchor close beside the Swan, a small craft owned by the Weymouth men, and intended for their use in trading and fishing. Standish's first visit was to her, and much to his surprise he found her both undefended and deserted. Landing with four of his men he next proceeded to the plantation, as it was called, where some ten or twelve substantial buildings surrounded with a stockade established a very defensible position, but here again neglect and suicidal folly stared him in the face.
The settlers were dispersed in every direction: three had that very morning gone to live among the Indians; many were roaming the woods and shore in search of food; one poor fellow going to dig clams on the previous day had stuck fast in the mud by reason of weakness, and though the Indians stood upon the shore watching him with shouts of derisive laughter, not one put out a hand to help him, and he perished miserably at the flow of the tide.
The master of the Swan, stricken with the folly of strong drink, met all Standish's expostulations with a fatuous laugh, and the declaration that there was no danger,—no danger whatever; that he and the Indians were such friends that he carried no arms, and never closed the gates of the stockade; that all the stories reaching Plymouth were lies or blunders; and that although they were short of provisions, and especially of strong waters, they asked nothing more of the Plymouth people than some fresh supplies to last until Sanders, the head of the colony, should return from Monhegan on the coast of Maine, whither he had gone for corn.
Leaving the drunken captain in disgust, Standish at once took the command of the post upon himself, and dispatched Hobomok and two of the settlers who came to place themselves under his orders, to bring in all of the others whom they could reach, sending word that he would feed them. Many of them, including Sanders' lieutenant named Manning, came at the summons, and before night all who would were safe within the stockade, and were served each man with a pint of shelled corn, all that could be spared, for it was taken from the Pilgrims' stock of seed-corn.
Then in a brief and vigorous address Standish told the colonists why he had come, and repeated to them the assurance given him by Hobomok that the day but one after his arrival was the day fixed upon for the massacre, the boats needing but the one day's work to complete them. Furthermore, he assured them that he needed nor would accept any help from them in his punishment of the savages, the danger and the responsibility being no more than Plymouth could endure, and, as he significantly added, "The savages were not like to flee before men who had so often fled before them."
Hardly was the harangue ended when a Neponset bringing a few hastily collected furs entered the stockade, and warily approaching the captain offered them for sale. Standish controlling all appearance of indignation parleyed with him and paid a fair price for the furs, but as the Indian turned toward one of the houses, he called him back, and dismissed him somewhat peremptorily.