his friend's presence, nor did he ever after allude to it, but a blow
had been struck upon that loyal loving heart from which it never in this
life recovered.

Thirty years later as the hero set his house in order, his failing hand
wrote these words,--

"I give 3L. to Mercy Robinson whom I tenderly love for her grandfather's
sake."

And that was his revenge.

CHAPTER XXXIV.

THE WOLF AT THE DOOR.

Midsummer was upon the land, and the heat and drought were intense. Day
after day the sun rose fierce and pitiless, drinking up at a draught
what scanty dews had distilled in a night so brief and heated that it
brought no refreshment to herbage or to man. Day after day wistful eyes
searched the horizon for a cloud if no bigger than a man's hand, and
still only the hard blue above and the palpitating horizon line stared
blankly back. The crops languished in the field, some already dead, and
the scanty store saved from the seed corn quite gone. Many a day a few
clams, a lobster, or a piece of fish without bread or any vegetable, was
a family's whole subsistence.

Early in July the ship Plantation had touched at Plymouth having on
board two hogsheads of dried peas for sale, but seeing the bitter need
of the colonists the shipmaster raised the price to L8 per hogshead, and
although they had the money, the Fathers refused to submit to the
extortion, and the peas sailed southward.

It is but forty miles from Plymouth to Boston Harbor, where about a
hundred and fifty years later the women signed a declaration that they
would forego the use of tea rather than submit to extortion, and their
fathers and husbands and lovers flung a goodly cargo into the sea.

But a stout spirit although it keeps a man up puts no flesh on his
bones, and soon it became a piteous sight to stand in the Town Square
and mark the faces and figures of those who passed by. Strong men
staggered from weakness as they walked, women glided along like mournful
white wraiths, even the little children in their quaint garb looked worn
and emaciated. Standish, who relying upon his iron constitution and long
training in a soldier's endurance, had regularly divided his rations
with some woman or child, had grown so gaunt and worn that he might well
have posed as The Skeleton in Armor, when he held his monthly muster,
and Mistress Brewster, although some private provision was made for her,
wasted away piteously.

"Where is the ship spoken by the master