All at once, down the forest glade, treading noiselessly on moccasined feet, came a tall, wild, unfamiliar figure, with feathers in his black hair, and black eyes gleaming above his high cheekbones. An Indian, at last! He had come so silently that he had emerged from the shadow of the forest and was almost amid them before he was seen. Some of the settlers, perhaps, felt a momentary tightening round the heart; for though we are always in the hollow of God's hand, there are times when we are surprised into forgetfulness of that security, and are concerned about carnal perils. Captain Standish, who had taken a flying shot at some of these heathen four or five months ago, caught up a loaded musket leaning against the corner of a hut, and stood on his guard, doubting that more of the savages were lurking behind the trees. He had even thus early in American history come to the view long afterward formulated in the epigram that the only good Indians are the dead ones.
But the keen, spare savage made no hostile demonstration; he paused before the captain, with the dignity of his race, and held out his empty hands. And then, to the vast astonishment of Standish and of the others who had gathered to his support, he opened his mouth and spoke English: "Welcome, Englishmen!" said he. They must have fancied, for an instant, that the Lord had wrought a special miracle for them, in bestowing upon this native of the primeval forest the gift of tongues.
There was, however, nothing miraculous about Samoset, who had picked up his linguistic accomplishment, such as it was, from a fellow savage who had been kidnapped and taken to England, whom he afterward introduced to the colony, where he made himself useful. Samoset's present business was as embassador from the great chief and sachem, Massasoit, lord of everything thereabout, who sent friendly greetings, and would be pleased to confer with the new comers, at their convenience, and arrange an alliance.
These were good words, and they must have taken a weight from every heart there; not only the dread of immediate attack, but the omnipresent and abiding anxiety that the time would come when they would have to fight for their lives, and defend the persecuted church of the Lord against foes who knew nothing of conformist or nonconformist, but who were as proficient as Queen Mary herself in the use of fire and torture. These misgivings might now be dismissed; if the ruler of so many tribes was willing to stand their friend, who should harm them? So they all gathered round Samoset on that sunny spring morning; the women observing curiously and in silence his strange aspect and gestures, and occasionally exchanging glances with one another at some turn of the talk; while the sturdy Miles, and Governor Carver, pale with illness which within a month reunited him with the son he had loved, and Elder Brewster, with his serious mien, and Bradford, who was to succeed Carver, with his strong, authoritative features and thoughtful forehead;—these and more than a score more of the brethren stood eying their visitor, questioning him earnestly and trying to make out his meaning from his imperfect English gruntings. And they spoke one to another of the action that should be taken on his message, or commented with pious exclamations on the mercy of the Lord in thus raising up for them protectors even in the wilderness. Meanwhile a chipmunk flitted along the bole of a fallen tree, a thrush chirped in the brake, a deer, passing airy-footed across an opening in the forest, looked an instant and then turned and plunged fleetly away amid the boughs, and a lean-bellied wolf, prospecting for himself and his friends, stuck his sinister snout through a clump of underbrush, and curled his lips above the long row of his white teeth in an ugly grin. This friendship boded no good to him.
The coming of Samoset was followed after a while by the introduction of Squanto, the worthy savage who had enjoyed the refining influences of distant England, whose services as interpreter were of much value in that juncture; and after a short time Massasoit himself accepted the settlers' invitation to become their guest during the making of the treaty. He was received with becoming honor; the diplomatists proceeded at once to business, and before twilight the state paper had been drawn up, signed and sealed. Its provisions ran that both parties were to abstain from harming each other, were to observe an offensive and defensive alliance, and to deliver up offenders. These terms were religiously kept for half a century; by which time the colonists were able to take care of themselves. Its good effects were illustrated in the case of the chief Canonicus, who was disposed to pick a quarrel with the Englishmen, and sent them, as a symbol of his attitude, a rattlesnake's skin wrapped round a sheaf of arrows. Bradford, to indicate that he also understood the language of emblems, sent the skin back stuffed with powder and bullets. Canonicus seems to have fancied that these substances were capable of destroying him spontaneously, and returned them with pacific assurances. Such weapons, combined with the alliance, were too much for him. Canonicus was chief of the Narragansetts; Massasoit, of the Wampanoags. In 1676 the son of Massasoit, for some fancied slight, made war upon the settlers, and the Narragansetts helped him; in this war, known as King Philip's, the settlers suffered severely, though they were victorious. But had it come during the early years of their sojourn, not one of them would have survived, and New England might never have become what she is now.
Meantime the Pilgrims, pilgrims no longer, settled down to make the wilderness blossom as the rose. At their first landing they had agreed, like the colonists of Virginia, to own their land and work it in common; but they were much quicker than the Jamestown folk to perceive the inexpediency of this plan, and reformed it by giving each man or family a private plot of ground. Agriculture then developed so rapidly that corn enough was raised to supply the Indians as well as the English; and the importation of neat cattle increased the home look as well as the prosperity of the farms. There was also a valuable trade in furs, which stimulated an abortive attempt at rivalry. None could compete with the Pilgrims on their own ground; for were they not growing up with the country, and the Lord—was He not with them? More troublesome than this effort of Weston was the obstruction of the Company in England, and its usurious practices; the colonists finally bought them out, and relied henceforth wholly on themselves, with the best results. As years went by their numbers increased, though but slowly. They did not invite the co-operation of persons not of their way of thinking, and the world was never over-supplied with Separatists. On the other hand, they were active and full of enterprise, and sent out branches in all directions, which shared the vitality of the parent stock. Every man of them was trained to self-government, and where he went order and equity accompanied him. A purer democracy could not be framed; for years the elections were made by the entire body of the assembled citizens; His Dread Majesty, King James, never sent them his royal Charter, but the charter provided by their own love of justice and solid good sense served them far better. Their governors were responsible directly to the people, and were further restrained by a council of seven members. This political basis is that upon which our present form of government rests; but it is strange to see what Daedalian complications, and wheels within wheels, we have contrived to work into the superstructure. A modern ward heeler in New York could have taken up the whole frame of government in Seventeenth Century New England by the butt end, and cracked it like a whip—provided of course the Pilgrim fathers had allowed him to attend the primaries.
But it is more probable that the ward heeler would have found himself promptly in the presence of one of those terrific magistrates whose grim decrees gave New England naughty children the nightmare a century after the stern-browed promulgators of them were dust. The early laws against crime in New England were severe, though death was seldom or never inflicted save for murder. But more irksome to one used to the lax habits of to-day would have been the punctilious rigidity with which they guarded the personal bearing, speech, and dress of the members of their community. Yet we may thank them for having done so; it was a wise precaution; they knew the frailties of the flesh, and how easily license takes an ell if an inch be given it. Nothing less iron than was their self-restraint could have provided material stanch enough to build up the framework of our nation. One might not have enjoyed living with them; but we may be heartily glad that they lived; and we should be the better off if more of their stamp were alive still.
But these iron people had their tender and sentimental side as well, and the self-command which they habitually exercised made the softening, when it came, the more beautiful. One of the love romances of this little colony has come down to us, and may be taken as the substantial truth; it has entered into our literature and poetry, and touches us more nearly even than the tale of Pocahontas. Its telling by our most popular poet has brought it to the knowledge of a greater circle of readers than it could otherwise have reached; but the elaboration of his treatment could add nothing to the human charm of it, or sharpen our conception of the leading characters in the drama. Miles Standish had been a soldier in the Netherlands before joining the Pilgrims, and to him they gave the military guardianship of the colony, with the title of captain. He was then about thirty-six years of age, a bluff, straightforward soldier, whom a life of hardship had made older than his years. He had known little of women's society, but during the long voyage he came to love Priscilla Mullens, and when the spring came to the survivors at Plymouth, he wished to marry her. But he would not trust, as Othello did, to the simple art of a soldier to woo her; and Priscilla was probably no Desdemona. But there was a youth among the colonists, just come of age, whom Standish had liked and befriended, and who, though a cooper and ship-carpenter by trade, was gifted with what seemed to Standish especial graces of person and speech. Alden had not been one of the original pilgrims; he had been hired to repair the "Mayflower" while she lay at Southampton, and decided to sail on her when she sailed; perhaps with the hope of making his fortune in the new world, perhaps because he wished to go where Priscilla went. She was a girl whom any man might rejoice to make his wife; vigorous and wholesome as well as comely, and endowed with a strong character, sweetened by a touch of humor. John had never spoken to her of his love, any more than Miles had; whether Priscilla's clear eyes had divined it, we know not; but it is likely that she saw through the cooper and the soldier both.
The honest soldier was a fool, and saw nothing but Priscilla, and felt nothing but his love for her. He took John Alden by the arm, and, leading him apart into the forest, proposed to him to go to young Mistress Mullens and ask her if she would become the wife of Captain Standish. Alden was honest, too; but he was dominated by his older friend, and lacked the courage to tell him that he had hoped for Priscilla for himself; he let the critical moment for this explanation pass, and then there was nothing for it but to accept the Captain's commission. We can imagine how this situation would be handled by the analytic novelists of our day; how they would spread Alden's heart and conscience out on paper, and dry them, and pick them to pieces. The young fellow certainly had a hard thing to do; he must tread down his own passion, and win the girl for his rival into the bargain. To her he went, and spoke. But the only way he could spur himself to eloquence was to imagine that he was Standish, and then woo her as he would have done had Standish been he.
Maidens of rounded nature, like Priscilla, pay less attention to what a man says than to the tones of his voice, the look in his eyes, and his unconscious movements. As Alden warmed to his work, she glanced at him occasionally, and not only wished that Heaven had made her such a man, but decided that it had. So, when the youth had finished off an ardent peroration, in which the Captain was made to appear in a guise of heroic gallantry that did not suit him in the least, but which was the best John could do for him: there was a pause, while the vicarious wooer wiped his brow, and felt very miserable, remembering that if she yielded, it would be to Miles and not to him. She divined what was in his mind, and sent him to Heaven with one of the womanliest and loveliest things that ever woman said to man: "Why don't you speak for yourself, John?" she asked, gazing straight at him, with a quiver of her lips that was half humor and half the promise of tears.