"PARTING IS SUCH SWEET SORROW."
And so, tenderly, reluctantly, lingeringly we leave them, these dear
ones whose memory we cherish so lovingly, and in the sober reality of
whose lives lies a charm no romance can ever reach.
Would you know more of them, for there are, as the Sultana promised
morning by morning, stranger and better things to come than these that
have been told, go read the annals of the Pilgrims, those precious
fragments left to us by Bradford and by Winslow, and a letter written by
De Rasières, Secretary of the Dutch Colony at Manhattan, who, visiting
Plymouth upon a diplomatic errand in 1627, wrote to his superiors a
letter preserved in the Royal Library of Holland wherein he draws this
little picture of the town we have tried to reproduce, and mentions some
of these dear friends whose lives we know so much better than he did.
"New Plymouth lies on the slope of a hill, stretching east toward the
sea-coast with a broad street about a cannon shot long, leading down the
hill with a cross street in the middle going southward to the rivulet,
and northward to the land. The houses are constructed of hewn planks,
with gardens also enclosed behind, and at the sides, with hewn planks,
so that their houses and court-yards are arranged in very good order,
with a stockade against a sudden attack; and at the ends of the streets
there are three wooden gates. In the centre on the cross street stands
the Governor's house, before which is a square erection upon which four
patereros are mounted so as to flank along the streets.
"Upon the hill they have a large square house, with a flat roof made of
thick sawn planks stayed with oak beams, upon the top of which they have
six cannons which shoot iron balls of four or five pounds and command
the surrounding country. The lower part they use for their church, where
they preach on Sundays and the usual holidays. They assemble by beat of
drum, each with his musket or firelock, in front of the Captain's door;
they have their cloaks on, and place themselves in order three abreast,
and are led by a sergeant without beat of drum. Behind comes the
Governor in a long robe; beside him on the right hand comes the preacher
with his cloak on, and on the left hand the Captain with his side-arms
and cloak on, and with a small cane in his hand; and so they march in
good order, and each sets his arms down near him. Thus they are
constantly on their guard night and day."
But after all, glad as we are of this little loophole pierced through
the mists of antiquity, the fashion of our friends' houses and
court-yards, their cloaks and muskets and quaint Sunday procession are
not as valuable to us as the story of their individual lives: the story
of Priscilla and John Alden and their children; of Myles, military power
of the colony, beyond his threescore years and ten; of Barbara, called
his "dear wife" in the dignified Last Will, wherein he bequeaths
"Ormistic, Bousconge, Wrightington, Maudesley" and the rest, to
Alexander his "son and heir," sturdily proclaiming with as it were his
last breath, that these fair domains were "surreptitiously detained"
from him. And Lora Standish, fair sweet shadow upon the mirror of the
past; and Mary Dingley, beloved of the grand old warrior; and Alice
Bradford, of whom at the last Morton wrote,--
"Adoe my loving friend, my aunt, my mother,
Of those that's left I have not such another."
And Bradford himself, and Brewster, and Winslow, and Howland, each one
of whom hath left behind him enough of achievement to fill a dozen of
the degenerate lives of a butterfly of to-day; and the women they loved,
and the young men and maidens who rose up around them: ah, how can we
leave them, how can we say good-by! Shall we not the rather cherish them
and study them more than we ever yet have done, feeling in our hearts
that those virtues, that courage, and that nobility of life may be ours
as well as theirs, may illustrate the easy life of to-day, and make it
less unworthy to be the fruit of the Tree of Liberty, planted in the
blood and watered by the tears of our Fathers.
* * * * *
Transcriber's Notes:
Page 58, Comma added after "Thou liest, knave"
Page 102, Comma added after "Good-morrow"
Page 144, Hyphen added to "commander in-chief"
Page 149, Period added after "his unwonted amenity"
Page 179, Double quote added after "thou mayest set down"
Page 304, Period added after "Glad am I to see thee"
Page 363, "Pecksnot" changed to "Pecksuot"
Page 422, "freind" changed to "friend"