I am not of those who experience a thrill of joy at destroying the illusions of long-hoarded family traditions. What of romance has been interwoven with the singularly austere lives of the Puritans, gracious reader, let us cherish and protect. The province of the Dryasdust of to-day is to bewilder, to deny the existence of facts that have passed without challenge for centuries. The farther he is from the event, the nearer he accounts himself to truth. Historic accuracy becomes another name for historic anarchy. Nothing is settled. The grand old characters he strips of their hard-earned fame can not confront him. Would they might! Columbus, Tell, Pocahontas, are impostors: Ireson's Ride and Standish's Courtship are rudely handled. His tactics would destroy the Christian religion. Without doubt mere historic truth is better written in prose, but by all means let us put a stop to the slaughter of all the first-born of New England poesy. Let us have Puritan lovers and sweethearts while we may. "What is your authority?" asked a visitor of the guide who was relating the story of a ruined castle. "We have tradition, and if you have any thing better we will be glad of it." The position of Standish in the colony was in a degree anomalous, for he was neither a church member nor a devout man. But the Pilgrims, who knew on occasion how to smite with the sword, did not put too trifling an estimate upon the value of the little iron man. He seems to have deserved, as he certainly received, their confidence, as well in those affairs arising out of religious disorders among them as in those of a purely military character. When wanted, they knew where he was to be found. After his fruitless embassy to England, Standish seems to have turned his sword into a pruning-hook, leading a life of rural simplicity, perhaps of comparative ease. He had, as the times went, a goodly estate. There is little doubt he was something "splenetic and rash," or that the elders feared he would bring them into trouble by his impetuous temper. He was of a race of soldiers.[210] Hubbard calls him a little chimney soon fired. Lyford speaks of him as looking like a silly boy, and in utter contempt. The Pilgrims managed his infirmities with address, and he served them faithfully as soldier and magistrate. It is passing strange a man of such consequence as he should sleep in an unknown grave.