honor, and prosperity, for those who lean on you."

"But, dear friend, it is you who still must be our governor, our
reliance, our father!" exclaimed Bradford eagerly, but Carver turned
away and began the steep descent.

Those whom he left looked earnestly in each other's faces, yet said
nothing. A future grander, and more terrible than they had imagined,
seemed suddenly defined before them, and each dimly felt the burden and
the honor of his own part therein laid upon him.

As thus they stood, three noble figures clearly defined against the
amber of the evening sky, Richard Warren and Stephen Hopkins appeared
upon the crest of the hill and paused to look about them.

"See yonder figures, looking as cut out of stone, and set up for idols
in the high places of Baal," sneered Hopkins. "These be our masters,
Warren, if so be we yield to them."

Warren, a genial, honest gentleman of London, who had thrown his entire
patrimony, as well as his earnest soul, into this enterprise, shook his
head and laughingly replied,--

"Thou 'rt ever too jealous, Stephen, for thine own comfort. Our
brethren, all unconscious that they make so fine a show up there, are
giving their best and their all to the common weal, and so are we. If
their best, chance to be gold, and ours but iron, think 'st thou God
will value the one offering above the other? I trow not man, and I am
for my part well content as matters stand."

"Nay," persisted Hopkins, "but mark you how constantly they slight us
and Dotey, because we are out of England, and not of Holland, and so not
of Robinson's congregation?"

"Nay," replied Warren pacifically; "I had liefer mark the many times we
are called to Council and to share in whatever good may be toward. And
mark you, Hopkins, you and I are the fathers of many children, and those
men have none as yet, and this land whose foundations must be laid in
our blood, if need be, shall become the inheritance of those we leave
behind. Please God, my five girls, coming hither so soon as I have a
roof to shelter them, shall become the mothers of soldiers and
statesmen, maybe of kings, for who knoweth what is to come when the seed
sown in tears shall be reaped in joy!"

Hopkins answered only by a contemptuous sniff, and the triumvirate
descending from their pedestal, all six men returned amicably to the
camp.

CHAPTER VIII.

BURYING HILL.

Much has been said and written of the Sunday spent by the advanced guard
o