"The arm strikes, the tongue parleys, but both must be in accord with the brain, or all is lost. The father of his people must think for all, plan for all, encourage, restrain, cherish, discipline all. Standish for the camp, Winslow for the council, but for you, Bradford, the sleepless vigil, the constant watch, the self-forgetting energy, whose fruits are safety, honor, and prosperity, for those who lean on you." "But, dear friend, it is you who still must be our governor, our reliance, our father!" exclaimed Bradford eagerly, but Carver turned away and began the steep descent. Those whom he left looked earnestly in each other's faces, yet said nothing. A future grander, and more terrible than they had imagined, seemed suddenly defined before them, and each dimly felt the burden and the honor of his own part therein laid upon him. As thus they stood, three noble figures clearly defined against the amber of the evening sky, Richard Warren and Stephen Hopkins appeared upon the crest of the hill and paused to look about them. "See yonder figures, looking as cut out of stone, and set up for idols in the high places of Baal," sneered Hopkins. "These be our masters, Warren, if so be we yield to them." Warren, a genial, honest gentleman of London, who had thrown his entire patrimony, as well as his earnest soul, into this enterprise, shook his head and laughingly replied,-- "Thou 'rt ever too jealous, Stephen, for thine own comfort. Our brethren, all unconscious that they make so fine a show up there, are giving their best and their all to the common weal, and so are we. If their best, chance to be gold, and ours but iron, think 'st thou God will value the one offering above the other? I trow not man, and I am for my part well content as matters stand." "Nay," persisted Hopkins, "but mark you how constantly they slight us and Dotey, because we are out of England, and not of Holland, and so not of Robinson's congregation?" "Nay," replied Warren pacifically; "I had liefer mark the many times we are called to Council and to share in whatever good may be toward. And mark you, Hopkins, you and I are the fathers of many children, and those men have none as yet, and this land whose foundations must be laid in our blood, if need be, shall become the inheritance of those we leave behind. Please God, my five girls, coming hither so soon as I have a roof to shelter them, shall become the mothers of soldiers and statesmen, maybe of kings, for who knoweth what is to come when the seed sown in tears shall be reaped in joy!" Hopkins answered only by a contemptuous sniff, and the triumvirate descending from their pedestal, all six men returned amicably to the camp. CHAPTER VIII. BURYING HILL.