The Governor of Plymouth turned his back and steadfastly looked over toward Manomet, green and glowing in the sunset of a June afternoon, her graceful young trees in their tender foliage as airy and as gay, and her forest monarchs as stately, as they had been before the white men saw these shores, or as they are to-day when Bradford and Standish are dust and ashes, and as they will be when the hand that writes and the eyes that read are even as those of the fathers. We love Nature so passionately and so persistently because it is an unrequited affection; at the most she only holds up the cheek for us to kiss. This little interlude is but a piece of delicacy that Bradford may have time to recover himself, and now he turns, and folding Standish’s patrician hand in a larger grasp slowly says,-- “‘Let the righteous smite me friendly, but let not his precious balms break my head.’ Come, Myles, let us mount the Fort.” “Yes, I must see if Lieutenant Holmes is carrying out my directions, for I promise you, Master Bradford, I’m meaning to hold a tight hand over you here in military matters. Mind you, I am always generalissimo of the colony’s forces, whether of Plymouth, or Scituate, or Duxbury.” “I thank thee, Myles,” said the governor quietly, and so they passed into the dusky Fort, over whose portal the skull of Wituwamat still stood, bleached by summer sun and winter snow, and sheltering year by year the wrens who had an hereditary nest in its hollow. “And you’ll come home with me, Will?” said the captain wistfully, as, a little later, they descended the hill. “No, Myles, no; I’m not an Abraham. I can give my Isaac with submission and faith, but I cannot offer him up, nor feast upon the sacrifice.” CHAPTER XXII. THE MOONLIGHT AND THE DAWN. A clumsy boat, very different from the trim racing craft that to-day skim the waters of Plymouth Bay weltered slowly toward the rude pier just below the new home of Myles Standish. The passengers were also very different from those of to-day, and perhaps a parallel might be drawn in both cases between passengers and boat, but as it would not be in our own favor I will not pursue it, merely mentioning that the solidly built, honest, safe, capacious, and unpretending boat first mentioned contained Elder Brewster, Captain Standish, Edward Winslow, John Alden, Thomas Prence, William Collier, and two or three more of the “Immortals” from whom we are so glad to claim descent, and so sorry to confess that it has been such a tremendous descent. Upon the bluff where stood the captain’s house, and scattered down the path to the shore, a path graded with military skill and precision, a merry crowd of men, women, and children stood waving hats and handkerchiefs and shouting words of welcome, whereat Standish smiled and Winslow remarked,-- “All Duxbury seems gathered to greet us; but how are they so sure that we bring the charter after so many disappointments?”