e malefactors whom we have described and the diseased or
infirm persons, the whole male population of the town, between sixteen
years and sixty were seen in the ranks of the train-band. A few
stately savages in all the pomp and dignity of the primeval Indian
stood gazing at the spectacle. Their flint-headed arrows were but
childish weapons, compared with the matchlocks of the Puritans, and
would have rattled harmlessly against the steel caps and hammered iron
breastplates which enclosed each soldier in an individual fortress.
The valiant John Endicott glanced with an eye of pride at his sturdy
followers, and prepared to renew the martial toils of the day.

"Come, my stout hearts!" quoth he, drawing his sword. "Let us show
these poor heathen that we can handle our weapons like men of might.
Well for them if they put us not to prove it in earnest!"

The iron-breasted company straightened their line, and each man drew
the heavy butt of his matchlock close to his left foot, thus awaiting
the orders of the captain. But as Endicott glanced right and left
along the front he discovered a personage at some little distance with
whom it behoved him to hold a parley. It was an elderly gentleman
wearing a black cloak and band and a high-crowned hat beneath which
was a velvet skull-cap, the whole being the garb of a Puritan
minister. This reverend person bore a staff which seemed to have been
recently cut in the forest, and his shoes were bemired, as if he had
been travelling on foot through the swamps of the wilderness. His
aspect was perfectly that of a pilgrim, heightened also by an
apostolic dignity. Just as Endicott perceived him he laid aside his
staff and stooped to drink at a bubbling fountain which gushed into
the sunshine about a score of yards from the corner of the
meeting-house. But ere the good man drank he turned his face
heavenward in thankfulness, and then, holding back his gray beard with
one hand, he scooped up his simple draught in the hollow of the other.

"What ho, good Mr. Williams!" shouted Endicott. "You are welcome back
again to our town of peace. How does our worthy Governor Winthrop? And
what news from Boston?"

"The governor hath his health, worshipful sir," answered Roger
Williams, now resuming his staff and drawing near. "And, for the news,
here is a letter which, knowing I was to travel hitherward to-day, His
Excellency committed to my charge. Belike it contains tidings of much
import, for a ship a