At sunrise, the soldiers met on 'the Burying Hill,' and the staff of office was given, with much solemnity, to Captain Standish, by the pious and venerable Brewster. They had already taken leave of their wives and families, who did not altogether share the cheerful exultation displayed by the Puritan warriors; and who were not permitted to be present at this final ceremony, lest their anxious fears should disturb the composure of their husbands and fathers. Notwithstanding this characteristic prohibition, Helen, and her younger daughter Edith, had ventured to station themselves in the path that led down 'the Burying Hill,' in the direction in which Standish and his men were to march, that they might take one more farewell of Rodolph before he left them on an expedition which, to their minds, seemed fraught with danger and uncertainty; and where they feared he might again be exposed to the vengeance of his untiring foe. The gallant little band marched down the hill, and came where Edith and her child stood waiting, beneath a tree, for what might be their last look on one most dearly loved; and when Rodolph saw them he forgot the strictness of discipline and order required by his commander, and left the ranks to indulge the feelings of his heart, by again embracing his weeping wife and child. The stern captain instantly recalled him; and when he saw a tear glistening in the eye of the husband and father, a slight expression of wonder and contempt passed over his countenance. He marveled that so brave a soldier and so strict a Puritan as Rodolph Maitland should still remain subject to so much worldly weakness. But Standish was not, at that time, a married man; and he was very deeply imbued with all the severe and unbending principles of his sect, which even went so far as to demand the suppression of all natural feelings--making it a fault for a mother to kiss her children on the Lord's day--and inflicting actual punishment on the captain of a ship for having embraced his wife on 5 Sunday, when, after a long separation, she hurried to meet him, as he landed from the vessel! To such puerile littlenesses will even great minds descend. Rodolph was unmoved by the commander's contemptuous glance. He knew his own unflinching Puritan principles, and his own undaunted courage; and he knew his value in the eyes of Standish. The captain knew it also, for he never liked to go on any enterprise that required bravery and cool judgement without securing the aid of Maitland; and although the tenderness of his friend's feelings, and the warmth of his domestic attachments--so different to the coolness and apathy which was so prevalent in the community--were a continual subject of surprise and pity to the iron-hearted leader, yet he highly respected him, and even loved him, as much as such a gentle feeling as love of any kind could find admittance to his breast.