BURYING HILL.
Much has been said and written of the Sunday spent by the advanced guard
of Pilgrims upon Clarke's Island, and a very modern tradition points to
the great rock in the centre of the island as the scene of their
devotions. Nothing, however, is less probable than that this handful of
men, with no pastor or even presiding elder among them, should leave
their encampment under the bluff, and the neighborhood of their boat, to
travel inland to this bleak and exposed bowlder, there to set one of
their number to exhort the rest. Carver certainly was a deacon of
Robinson's congregation, yet this office gave him no spiritual
authority, but rather the duties of a warden in the mother church, nor
was the governor a man to assume any authority not his own; so although
he led the informal service held in that sheltered nook, upon the shore,
Winslow and Bradford and Hopkins were the chief speakers, while John
Howland in his melodious and powerful voice raised a psalm that made the
welkin ring, and Richard Warren stoutly cried Amen to all the rest.
Standish, his arms folded and one hand resting upon the hilt of Gideon,
stood a little apart, his head reverently bared in the prayers, and with
a rough attempt at melody echoing Howland's psalm; but during the
exhortations or prophesyings, he strode softly up and down the beach,
or mounting upon the bluff swept sea and land with the keen glances of
eyes that nothing escaped. Occasionally a fervent word would be sped in
his direction from one or another, and many a prayer, as before and
after that hour, was urged that this bulwark of the church against her
secular foes might become her obedient son. When thus exhorted or prayed
for the captain's face became a study, sometimes so impenetrably obtuse,
sometimes so rigid in its obstinacy, sometimes touched with shrewd
amusement, and sometimes moved to tender sympathy, but never to
conviction or even doubt, and as the years went on, those who loved him
most, even Bradford and Alden and Brewster, ceased all effort to bring
this precious comrade into their own fold, but learned to accept him as
he was.
Monday broke with clear and gracious skies and a sea only pleasantly
rippled with its late commotion. Refreshed and cheered by their long
rest the Pilgrims were early afoot, and at a good hour the cleaned and
furbished arms were packed in the shallop, the sail, bent to its new
mast, was unfurled to its fullest spread, and the eighteen men, each at
his own post, eager and hopeful. It had been resolved to proceed no
farther in search of Coppin's harbor, which afterward proved to be Cut
River and the site of Marshfield, but to explore the landlocked harbor
lying before them.
Carefully sounding as she went, the shallop felt her way through the Cow
Yard or Horse Market, around Beach Point, and having the flood tide with
her rode triumphantly over Dick's Flat and Mother White's Guzzle, until
finally, with furled sails and her head to the wind, she lay within a
biscuit toss of the shore.
"See, there are cleared fields and a river full of fish, and all things
ready to our hand," cried Howland excitedly.
"Bring her up to the beach, then, and we will land and explore," replied
Carver, smiling at the young man's enthusiasm.
"There is a rock a few rods ahead set ready for a stepping-stone,"
announced Howland standing in the bows.
"Lay her up to it, men," growled English, and in a moment the bows of
the shallop caressingly touched the cheek of that great gray Rock,
itself a pilgrim, as has well been said, from some far northern shore,
brought here by the vast forces of Nature, and laid to wait in grand
patience, until the ages should bring it a name, a use, and a nation's
love and honor.
"Jump then, lad, and see thou jump not five fadom deep, as thou didst
out there in mid-seas!" cried Hopkins, and Howland leaping lightly from
the boat to the rock cried in his blithe voice,--
"And I seize this mainland for King James, even as Master Clarke did yon
island."
"Only thou dost not claim it for thine own under the king as he did,"
replied Coppin.
"It seemeth to me," said Carver as he stepped on shore, "as if this
place were fairly laid down on Smith's map that we were studying. Think
you not so, Master Winslow?"
"Ay, I believe it is the place he hath called Plymouth after our English
town."
"Why, then, if we are minded to tarry here, it were well befitting that
we should continue the name, for our Plymouth brethren cheered and
comforted us marvelously in our sad outsetting," replied the governor,
and Bradford added,--
"They were in very truth kinder than our own."
"'T is a better harbor than English Plymouth can boast," said Coppin
turning to survey the bay.
"Harbor! English Plymouth's harbor is no better than a slaughter pen!
Not less than ten good ships were pounded to pieces there in the last
year," said the sailor Alderton.
"Yes, 't is worse than the Goodwin Sands, if that can be," echoed
English.
"While here is a haven most artificially contrived for safety, with its
overlapping arms and islands," cried Clarke.
"Ay, the islands, Clarke's Island above all, are such as all England
cannot match!" jeered Coppin, while Howland, followed by the rest, began
to climb the bluff in front of them, choosing almost by instinct the
easy ascent around its base, now known as Leyden Street. A little above
the future site of the Common house they paused to take breath and to
consult.
"Yes, here is cleared land enow for any crop we can plant in a year to
come," said Dotey, looking approvingly along Cole's Hill.
"And I hear the tinkle of water falling upon water," cried Bradford
gazing down toward the outlet of Town Brook. "There must be springs
yonder."
"But fuel would needs be lugged on men's backs further than I for one
could fancy," grumbled Hopkins glancing at the woods nowhere very near.
"We can scarce hope for arable land and dense forest in one plot of
ground," remarked Winslow dryly.
"Let us march into the land and explore it fully," suggested Carver.
"Every man should carry his piece with lighted match, but the rest of
the gear may well be left in the boat under charge of the shipmen.
Master Gunner I advise thee to stay behind also. If we meet with the
Indians and there is any opening for trucking I promise thee thy full
share and advantage."
"He who stays by the stuff shall share with him who goeth to the
battle," quoted Standish, who was well versed in what may be called the
military history of the Bible.
"'T is a venerable law, Captain, and out of a faultless code," replied
Carver reverently.
"Come on, then, brethren!" cried Hopkins striding up the steep face of
Burying Hill. The rest followed, and on the crest stopped to admire the
magnificent view spread out in the clear light of the wintry morning.
"Yon is a sightly point for a town," said Warren pointing to Watson's
Hill.
"Too far from the shore," replied Carver.
"And from those tinkling springs for whose water I already am athirst,"
added Bradford.
"Hm! hm!" growled Standish plucking at his beard and pacing to and fro;
"here is the place for a stronghold, Master Carver, just here where we
are standing. See you now, from a breastwork thrown up hereabout and
mounted with a minion or two a man could sweep off an army. 'T is but a
pretty shot to the rock whereon we landed, and where any but a fool
would choose to land, since it is the only dry-shod landing on the
beach; and here we have Bradford's springs well in range, and this
ascent by which we have clomb thither. Why, it is a little Gibraltar
ready to our hand. Then if the salvages approach by land, from yon fair
hill which Warren advises, our heavier guns will meet them half way,
and our smaller metal mow them down at close quarters. We are well set
forth in gun-metal, Governor, for I saw to it myself; not only minions,
but sakers and falcons and bases, not to mention each man's piece, which
I fain would have had all snaphances like mine own. Ay, we are well
armed, and here is our fortalice."
"But not to my mind our dwelling, Captain," replied Carver pleasantly.
"Mind you, half our company are women and children, and it were hard for
them to be cooped up in a fort or to descend and climb again this shrewd
ascent whenever they were athirst. I say not but that a fortification
here were admirable when we come at it, but methinks our dwellings were
better placed under its protection than within it."
"Along this course we have just trod from the rock," suggested Winslow.
"And tending toward the springs," added Bradford with a smile.
"Nay, man, come and drink since thou 'rt so sore athirst," cried Hopkins
clapping him on the back. "If 't were a spring of Hollands now, or even
a double strike of English ale, I'd race thee for it, but never yet did
I find my stomach clamor for cold water."
"'T is very delicate water for all that," declared Bradford as the two
men, stumbling down the steep descent of Spring Lane, reached and
stooped to drink of the spring at its foot.
"Too delicate for me," retorted Hopkins; "fitter for maids than men."
"Well, beer is brewed of water as well as of barley and hops," declared
Bradford; "and thou 'st only to raise the grain and this fair spring
will turn it into beer for thee at thy pleasure."
"And here be blackberry briers for my dame to brew her wild-berry wines,
and lo you now, this is sassafras whose roots are worth their weight in
gold to the chirurgeons, and these are strawberry leaves."
"And we have seen cherry and plum stocks in abundance the way we came,"
declared Bradford as the rest of the party straggled down the hill.
"Excellent sand and gravel for building," said Warren crumbling the soil
around the spring. "Ay, and here is clay to shape into pots and pans
when the goodwives have broken all they bring."
"Methinks it hath a look of fuller's clay, and so is almost as well for
us as soap," said Howland taking up some and washing his hands in the
brook. "There, now, see you its use!"
"Have with you, friend," cried Winslow, daintiest of the pioneers.
"Surely cleanliness being next to godliness tendeth somewhat to the same
satisfaction!"
The exploration, carried as far as Eel River at the south and Murdoch's
Pond westerly, lasted until night, when the Pilgrims bivouacked on the
shore, supping merrily on some great clams dug by the sailors and wild
fowl shot by Howland and Dotey. Before they slept under the sheltering
brow of Cole's Hill it was pretty well decided that Plymouth, as they
began at once to call it, should be their permanent dwelling-place, more
especially as in their day-long explorations they had seen no natives or
even their dwellings, and the site seemed for some reason abandoned to
their occupancy.
But the joyous return with good news to those on board the Mayflower was
turned into grief and dismay by the tidings awaiting the explorers.
Dorothy Bradford was dead. How it could have happened, or just when, no
one knew, but on the very day after her husband's departure she had gone
quietly on deck while the rest of the company were at supper and never
was seen again; nor till the sea gives up its dead shall any know the
story of that poor overwrought soul's last fierce struggle and defeat.
Nor can we speak of the young husband's anguish, and it may be
self-reproach, in that awful hour. He speaks not himself of this matter
in his journal, save in briefest words; nor dare we intrude upon such
matters as lie between a man and his God. But this we may say, that as
Jacob, wrestling with the angel and overcoming, went halting all his
days from the wound of that strange conflict, so Bradford's face when he
again took his place among his fellows told of years forever consumed in
one terrible struggle.