not be far away, and
if thou needest, send," replied her husband releasing his hand from the
frail yet burning grasp that still held him. "Dame Turner, thou 'lt see
that I am called if she asks for me, wilt thou?"

"Surely, Captain, but she is doing bravely this morning, and you had
better rest."

"Nay, but let her not ask twice for me, or aught else."

Leaving the house, and drawing one or two eager breaths of fresh air,
Standish climbed the hill where already the fortification he had
proposed was nearly complete, though not yet armed. Stepping upon a
great beam, squared but not laid in place, he stood looking around him
as if to see what Nature and his own work could offer to fill the great
gulf opening in the future.

A light fog still clung to the face of the water and hung in the hollows
of the hills; shrouded in its folds the Mayflower lay like a spectre
ship, ugly, unsafe, full of discomfort and misery, but yet the only link
between this handful of dying men and their home. Standish gazed at her
with a gathering darkness upon his face, until the burden of his thought
broke out in a savage murmur,--

"_Couldst_ not make thy way through yonder shoals and bring us to the
fair shores I told her of! If it be thy fault, Thomas Jones!"--

The slow clenching of a jaw square and strong as a mastiff's finished
the sentence, and Standish's eyes came back to the rude hut where all
he loved lay dying, perhaps through this man's fault. At his feet lay
the sketch as it were of the town he and his comrades had laid down in
outline, and intended to build up as time and strength allowed. Already
Leyden Street, or The Street, as it was at first called, lay a distinct
thoroughfare from the Rock to the Fort, the eastern and western
extremities of the village. Along this street were staked out plots of
land, some larger and some smaller in the proportion of eight feet
frontage to each person in a family, the single men, and those women and
children already left desolate, being divided among the householders,
and the whole company reduced to nineteen families.

Standish's own house, not yet finished, lay nearest to the Fort, which
with its armament were to be his especial charge, and several of the
single men had been appointed to his family. Their own illness, and that
of Mistress Standish had, however, interfered with this arrangement, and
only John Alden shared the house as yet with Standish, the two men
sometimes eating at