hem to
ardent sympathy with the Separatist movement, and they had wed with two
of its most powerful leaders, while their brother, Roger White, became
one himself.

"From heat to heat the day increased," and Katharine Carver lay faint
and exhausted upon a settle drawn close beside the open door, when a
strange sound of both assured and stumbling feet drew near, and as she
started up it was to meet John Howland, half leading, half supporting
her husband, whose face, deeply flushed, lay upon the other's shoulder.

"Be not over startled, dear lady!" exclaimed Howland. "The governor
findeth himself a little overborne by the heat, and hath come"--

"John! Dear heart, what is it! Nay, try not to speak! Here, good John
Howland, help me to lay him upon the bed--there then, dear one"--

"Fret not thyself, Kate, 't is but a pain in my head--ah--'t is shrewd
enough, but it will pass--there, there, good wife, fret not thyself!"

"John Howland, wilt thou find Surgeon Fuller, and mayhap Dame Brewster,
but no more. I will wring a napkin out of fair water and lay to his
head, for it burneth like fire."

"Ay, it burneth like fire," muttered the sick man wearily moving the
poor head from side to side, and Katharine left alone dropped for one
moment upon her knees and raised streaming eyes and clasped hands to
Heaven, then rose, and when the Doctor and gentle Mary Brewster entered
she stood white and calm at her husband's head.

"Ay, ay, he hath sunstroke," muttered the surgeon, laying a hand upon
the patient's forehead, "and no wonder, for it is shrewdly hot to-day,
and he toiling away like any Hodge of them all. I must let him blood.
Canst get me a basin and a bandage, Mistress?"

"I will fetch them, Katharine. Sit you down." And the Elder's wife
slipped out of the door and back again before even impatient Doctor
Fuller could wonder where she was.

An hour later Carver arousing from the stupor that was growing upon him,
asked to see William Bradford, who at once hobbled in from the
neighboring house, although himself hardly able to sit up.

"It grieves me to find thee in such evil case, brother," said he
painfully seating himself beside the sick man's pillow.

"Thy sorrows will last longer than mine, Will. I must set my house in
order so far as I have time. Dost mind, Bradford, what I said to thee
and Winslow and Standish, the time I saw ye standing upon the great rock
in yon island before we landed in this place?"

"Yes, d