Common house,
and under its protection, they had dug the graves of those already dead,
and where lay room enough for many more. But his battle fought, and his
mind resolved, Myles was too much master of himself to need a second
conflict, and setting his lips firmly beneath the tawny moustache that
shaded them, he strode down the hill, and at his own door found John
Alden waiting for him and changing greetings with a party of four men
armed with sickles and attended by two dogs.

"Wish you good-morrow, Captain," said the foremost, a sturdy young
fellow with a pleasant English face.

"Good-morrow Peter Browne, and you, John Goodman," replied the captain
cordially. "Whither away?"

"To cut thatch in the fields nigh yon little pond," replied Browne
pointing in a westerly direction. "And I am taking Nero along to give
account of any Indians that may be lurking there."

"And John Goodman's spaniel to rouse the game for Nero to pull down,"
said Standish with a smile. "Well, God speed you."

And turning into the unfinished house he found Alden watching him with a
look of silent friendliness and sympathy more eloquent than words;
returning the greeting as mutely and as heartily, Standish would have
passed into his own bedroom, but the younger man interposed,--

"Thou 'lt break thy fast, Captain, wilt thou not? All is ready and
waiting your coming; some of the bean soup you liked yester even, and
some fish"--

"Presently, presently, good John! I would but bathe and refresh myself.
Nay, look not so doubtingly after me, friend. I am a man, and know a
man's devoir."

He spoke with a smile as brave as it was gentle, and passing in closed
the door.

"Doth he know she is dying!" muttered John throwing himself upon a
bench; "and Priscilla sickening and her mother dead!"

CHAPTER X.

A TERRIBLE NIGHT.

As Standish entered his own house the four men to whom he had spoken
passed on around the base of the hill, and reaching a tract of swampy
land covered with reeds and rushes suitable for thatching, they set to
work cutting them and binding in bundles ready for use. For some hours
they wrought industriously, until Peter Browne, commander of the
expedition, straightened his back, stretched his cramped arms, and
gazing at the sun announced,--

"Noontime, men. We'll e'en rest and eat our snack."

"Art thou o' mind to come and show me the pond where thou sawest wild
fowl t' other day?" asked John Goodman, townsman an