oor, and the three who had stood grouped
against the golden sky on that December evening on Clarke's Island
silently entered the room and stood around the bed, where in the awful
hush that clings about the last hour their chief lay half unconscious
and yet able to rally his energies for one more mighty effort.

"Brethren, I go--God remaineth--His blessing be upon you, and all His
Israel here.--Forgive my shortcomings--forgive if I have offended any,
knowing or unknowing"--

"Thou hast ever been our best and dearest earthly friend--pardon thou
us, dear saint!" murmured Winslow.

--"And if ye will follow my counsel, make William Bradford your
Governor--and set aside all jealousy, all heart burning--Winslow dost
promise?"

"Ay, friend, I promise right heartily."

"Standish?"

"Ay, Governor."

"Good-by--I can no more--Elder, say a prayer--yet cease before I die"--

And with a long, quivering sigh as of one who relinquishes his grasp of
a burden too mighty for his strength, the first Governor of Plymouth
Colony went to render an account of his stewardship.

CHAPTER XX.

FUNERAL--BAKED MEATS AND MARRIAGE FEASTS.

"Methinks our governor should not be buried with as little ceremony as
we perforce have showed our meanest servant," said Captain Standish
gloomily to Elder Brewster the evening of Carver's death. "You
Separatists despise the ministering of the Church, but what have ye set
in its place?"

"We clothe not the coffins of the dead with the filthy rags of Popery,
and we pray not for the souls of them whom God hath taken into His own
hand, for that were of the sins of presumption against which David doth
specially pray, but yet,"--and the Elder's face softened, "I am of your
mind, Captain, that we should honor our chief magistrate in the last
service we can render him, and although by his own wish I ceased to pray
for him ere the last breath was sped, and will never again pray for him
or any parted soul, I well approve of such military honors as we are
able to pay to his memory, and I will carry my musket with the rest, and
fire it as you shall direct."

"Why, that's more than ever I would have looked for, Elder," exclaimed
Standish in amaze. "But since you so proffer, I gladly accept your aid
and countenance, and by your leave, since as yet we have no governor in
place of him who is gone, I will order the funeral by mine own ideas."

"As a military man?"

"Surely. I claim no spiritual powers,"