f 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
farth