In the latter part of March, 1621, an event occurred which evinced alike the promptitude and the decision of the self-governed Puritan colony. It has been said that “God sifted three kingdoms to get the Pilgrim wheat” of the New England enterprise; yet despite this care the chaff was not all gotten rid of. It seems that one John Billington, a “lewd fellow of the baser sort,” had come from London and smuggled himself on board the “Mayflower,” for the purpose of stealing a voyage to the new world. He had no sympathy with the religious feelings of the Pilgrims, nor did he share their love of order and civil liberty.[188] He had frequently given offence, and now he was convicted of “contempt of the captain’s lawful command, and of making opprobrious speeches.”[189] His sentence was peculiar: “he was to have his neck and heels tied together.”[190] He begged so hard that he was forgiven on this occasion; but he continued to be a profane, ungovernable, vicious knave, and finally came to a bad end. At about this same time another offence was committed against the civil peace of the colony. Two servants of Stephen Hopkins met and fought a duel with sword and dagger. Both combatants were wounded; but they were immediately seized, convicted, and sentenced “to have their head and feet tied together, and so to lie for twenty-four hours without meat or drink.”[191] The hostile lackeys were bound, in exact accordance with the verdict; but “after lying an hour they begged piteously for mercy; whereon the governor, on the entreaty of their master, released them, they promising to keep the peace in future.”[192] These sentences convinced the refractory that the colonial government was something more than the shadow of a name; and it held them in awe of provoking its severity. Through all these months disease was busy among the Pilgrims. But though pain racked many a weakened form, no one spoke of returning to England. As winter faded into spring the mortality became dreadful. Every house was a hospital. “There was no hearthstone, howsoe’er defended, But had one vacant chair.” “Death,” says Elliot, “had reaped a ripe, fat harvest, and of the one hundred scarce fifty remained. Six had died in December; eight in January; seventeen in February; thirteen in March.”[193] Yet the Pilgrims kissed the rod; and though “the searching sharpness of that pure climate had crept into the crevices of their crazed bodies, causing death,”[194] they said “the Lord gave and the Lord hath taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord.” The dead were buried in a bank, at a little distance from Plymouth rock; and lest the Indians should learn the weakened condition of the colony, the graves were levelled, and sown with grass.[195] Over these the unflinching survivors locked hands, and wiping their eyes, looked up, firm, devout, hopeful as ever.