Rose Standish's tears were softly falling and her voice was silent, but Constance Hopkins chanted bravely, and the children joined her with Priscilla Mullins's strong contralto upholding them.
Even Giles sang, and the two scamps of Billington boys looked serious for once, and helped the chant.
Myles Standish raised his soldier's hat and turned to Stephen Hopkins, holding out his right hand.
"We're fairly off this time, friend Stephen," he said. "God speed us."
"Amen, Captain Myles, for else we'll speed not, returned Stephen Hopkins.
"Oh, Daddy, we're together anyway!" cried Constance, with one of her sudden bursts of emotion which her stepmother so severely condemned, and she threw herself on her father's breast.
Mr. Hopkins did not share his wife's view of his beloved little girl's demonstrativeness. He patted her head gently, tucking a stray wisp of hair under her Puritan cap.
"There, there, my child, there, there, Connie! Surely we're together and shall be. So it can't be a wilderness for us, can it?" he said.
An hour later, the wind still favouring, the Mayflower dropped sunsetward, out of old Plymouth Harbour.