At last all was ready, the men seated each at his post, Hobomok in the bow, and Standish at the stern, the men and boys who stayed behind grouped upon the shore, while a vague cloud of skirts and kirtles hovered upon the brow of Cole's Hill, when Elder Brewster, baring his white head, stepped upon the Rock, and raising his hands to heaven prayed loud and fervently that the God of battles, the God of victory, the God of their fathers, would bless, protect, and prosper those who went forth in His name to do battle for His Right; and as the old man's voice rose clear and sonorous in its impassioned appeal, the first breath of a favoring wind came out of the South, and the lapping waves of the incoming tide answered melodiously to the deep diapason of the Amen sent up from fifty bearded throats. "And now we may go home and make our mourning weeds," said Priscilla with a petulant half-sob, half-laugh, as she and Mary Chilton turned away from the wheatfield on the hill. "Nay, John Alden will come home safe, I'm sure on 't," said Mary gently, but her vivacious friend turned sharply upon her. "And if he comes not at all, I'd liefer know him dead in honor, than lingering here among the women like some others." "Gilbert Winslow, or his brother John if you mean him, would have gone as gladly as any man had the captain chosen him," replied Mary composedly, if coldly, and Priscilla turned and clipped her in a sharp embrace, crying out that indeed her friend were no more than right to beat her for a froward child. The prosperous wind lasted all the way, and before noon the shallop lay at anchor close beside the Swan, a small craft owned by the Weymouth men, and intended for their use in trading and fishing. Standish's first visit was to her, and much to his surprise he found her both undefended and deserted. Landing with four of his men he next proceeded to the plantation, as it was called, where some ten or twelve substantial buildings surrounded with a stockade established a very defensible position, but here again neglect and suicidal folly stared him in the face. The settlers were dispersed in every direction: three had that very morning gone to live among the Indians; many were roaming the woods and shore in search of food; one poor fellow going to dig clams on the previous day had stuck fast in the mud by reason of weakness, and though the Indians stood upon the shore watching him with shouts of derisive laughter, not one put out a hand to help him, and he perished miserably at the flow of the tide.