The Pilgrims went to work in Boston with a will. Winter impended; a shelter must be provided against the December sleet and the chilly braw. But the task was hard; the vis inertiæ of nature was to be overcome; and, without tools, carts, or experienced joiners, all hands began to realize that the carpenter was not inferior to the priest or the poet.[708]
Some few grew discouraged. Of the seven hundred whom Winthrop brought out, ninety went back to England.[709] But this gap was soon closed by fresh arrivals. Quite a fleet lay moored in Massachusetts bay; from Beacon hill seventeen ships might have been counted, all of which came in 1630;[710] and these had disgorged some fifteen hundred earnest, devout emigrants, “the best” that Britain could produce.[711]
As a body, the Pilgrims were full of courage, and their faith at all times bubbled over into song or into prayer. “We here enjoy God and Jesus Christ,” wrote Winthrop to his wife, whom sickness had detained in England, “and is not that enough? I thank God I like so well to be here as not to repent coming. I would not have altered my course, though I had foreseen all these afflictions. I never had more content of mind.”[712]
Before such a spirit—the right spirit—all obstacles were certain to succumb. It was sure to
——“sway the future,
While God stood behind the shadow,
Keeping watch above his own.”