"I told you this morning that if you made the keeping of Christmas Day matter of conscience, I should leave you alone until you were better informed; now, however, I warn you that it goeth against my conscience as governor of this colony to let idle men play while others work, and if indeed you find matter of devotion in the day ye shall keep it quietly and soberly in your housen. There shall be neither reveling nor gaming in the streets, and that I promise you. Let whosoever owneth these toys take them away and store them out of sight; and remember, men, that the Apostle saith, 'If a man will not work neither shall he eat.'" Silently and shamefacedly the revelers collected bats and balls, cricket stools, bars, poles, and iron weights, carrying them each man to his own house, and in the afternoon the chopping party was augmented by nearly every one of the new-comers. CHAPTER XXX. A SOLDIER'S INSTINCT. A year and more from that Christmas Day has sped, and again we find Bradford and Standish with Winslow gathered together at the governor's house, resting after the labors of the day, smoking the consoling pipe, and even tasting from time to time the contents of a square case bottle, which, with a jug of hot water and a basin of sugar were set forth upon a curious little clawfooted table worth to-day its weight in gold if only it could have survived. None of the three look younger than they did when they first stepped upon the Rock; sun and wind, and winter storm and summer heat have bronzed their English complexions and deepened the lines about the quiet steadfast lips and anxious eyes. Already Bradford's shoulders were a little bowed, partly by the burden of his responsibility, partly by arduous manual labor, but upon his face had grown the serenity and somewhat of the impassiveness into which the Egyptians loved to mould the features of their kings,--that expression which of all others belongs to a man who uses great power firmly and decisively, and yet looks upon himself as but a steward, who soon or late shall be called to render a strict account of his stewardship. And Winslow, courtly, learned, and fit for lofty emprise, how bore he this life of toil and privation, this constant contention with such foes as famine, and disease, and squalor, and uncouth savagery? Look at the portrait painted of him in London some years later, and see if there is not an infinite weariness, a brooding _Cui bono?_ set as a seal upon those haughty features. Can one after studying that face much wonder that when the Massachusetts Bay authorities in 1646 besought Plymouth to spare their sometime governor, their wise and astute statesman, to arrange the Bay's quarrel with the Home government, Winslow eagerly accepted the mission, although as Bradford sadly records, his going was--"much to the weakening of this government, without whose consent he took these employments upon him."