. They
were, every man and woman of them, English to the back-bone. From Captain
Jones who commanded the ship to Elder Brewster who ruled and guided in
spiritual affairs, all alike were of that stock and breeding which made
the Englishman of the days of Bacon and Shakespeare, and in those days
Christmas was knit into the heart of every one of them by a thousand
threads, which no after years could untie.

Christmas carols had been sung to them by nurses and mothers and
grandmothers; the Christmas holly spoke to them from every berry and
prickly leaf, full of dearest household memories. Some of them had been
men of substance among the English gentry, and in their prosperous days
had held high festival in ancestral halls in the season of good cheer.
Elder Brewster himself had been a rising young diplomat in the court of
Elizabeth, in the days when the Lord Keeper of the Seals led the revels
of Christmas as Lord of Misrule.

So that, though this Sunday morning arose gray and lowering, with snow-
flakes hovering through the air, there was Christmas in the thoughts of
every man and woman among them--albeit it was the Christmas of wanderers
and exiles in a wilderness looking back to bright home-fires across
stormy waters.

The men had come back from their work on shore with branches of green
pine and holly, and the women had, stuck them about the ship, not without
tearful thoughts of old home-places, where their childhood fathers and
mothers did the same.

Bits and snatches of Christmas carols were floating all around the ship,
like land-birds blown far out to sea. In the forecastle Master Coppin was
singing:

"Come, bring with a noise,
My merry boys,
The Christmas log to the firing;
While my good dame, she
Bids ye all be free,
And drink to your hearts' desiring.
Drink now the strong beer,
Cut the white loaf here.
The while the meat is shredding
For the rare minced pie,
And the plums stand by
To fill the paste that's a-kneading."

"Ah, well-a-day, Master Jones, it is dull cheer to sing Christmas songs
here in the woods, with only the owls and the bears for choristers. I
wish I could hear the bells of merry England once more."

And down in the cabin Rose Standish was hushing little Peregrine, the
first American-born baby, with a Christmas lullaby:

"This winter's night
I saw a sight--
A star as bright as day;
And ever among
A maiden sung,
Lullay, by-by, lullay!

"This lovely laydie s