CHAPTER XXI

       STRANGERS AND PILGRIMS

       Table of Contents

      THOSE poor people from Scrooby and Austerfield, when they reached Holland, were in a sad condition. Their property was nearly all destroyed. they found themselves in a strange land. They could not speak a word of the language of Holland. They found the country intersected by canals, and that the people carried their cabbages and cheeses to market by water. the canals were the highways. Women, and children, and dogs tugged at the boats. A boy or girl and a dog made a little team, a woman and a donkey a big team.

       A HIGHWAY IN HOLLAND.

      The fugitives find friends in Amsterdam — people from London who have sought refuge there. Some of them have queer ideas in regard to dress, and say that no person should wear a collar or a ruff, or any ornament upon the person, and are greatly troubled because Mrs. Johnson, their minister's wife, wears whalebone in her stays, and high-heeled cork-soled shoes. The fugitives from Scrooby and Austerfield are not in a condition to indulge in any superfluity of dress, for they are very poor. They remain at Amsterdam a short time, and then remove to Leyden — the town that made such a brave resistance to the Spaniards.

      William Brewster, who used to entertain them in the old manor-house, is so poor that he has to teach school for a living, and while teaching he learns to set type, and establishes a printing-office. William Bradford becomes a weaver, and makes fustian cloth. One man learns to lay brick; another is a carpenter, another a blacksmith. In England they were all farmers, and it is hard work for them, while learning their trades, to keep the wolf from the door.

       ST. PETER'S CHURCH.

      On Sunday, instead of carousing in the beer-houses and going out to have a dance in the fields, they meet at the house which they have purchased for their pastor, John Robinson, which stands just across the street from St. Peter's Church, which has been standing there for five hundred years, and from the top of which the people looked with longing eyes to see if the sea were coming in to drown out the Spaniards when the Silent Man cut the dikes. They sing and pray, and listen to the reading of the Bible; and after John Robinson has finished his sermon, they eat dinner together, they call themselves Strangers and Pilgrims in the land, hoping that eve long times will change in England, and that then they can go hack. They live in peace and quietness with their Dutch neighbors, who, though they think the English are odd in dress, and rather peculiar in regard to keeping Sunday, yet like them because they are honest and truthful, and are very particular about paying their debts.

      As the years go by, the Pilgrims are troubled about their children. There are no English schools, and they are too poor to educate them. They are disturbed at the thought of their becoming like the Dutch. They love the dear old land that gave them birth, even though they are exiles. What shall they do? The men who have made such sacrifices for liberty talk over the great question, and, after much deliberation, resolve to find a home beyond the sea, where they can train their children to love and reverence those truths and principles which are dearer than life. Perhaps, now that they are out of England, James will permit them to go. John Carver and Robert Cushman visit London, where they confer with the merchants who have aided in settling the colony at Jamestown. The merchants obtain permission; but the king stipulates that they must conform to all the articles of the Church creed. That they will not do. Having left all in England for the sake of their principles, will they now surrender them? Not they.

      Two years pass, and the exiles go on working at their trades. They have, by their industry, driven the wolf from their doors, and are bettering their condition. They are still thinking of the home in that far-off land, when Thomas Weston, a merchant of London, comes to see them. A new company of speculators has been formed' in England, called the Plymouth Company. Earls and lords belong to it, and they have induced James to give them all the land which Captain John Smith called New England. They are anxious to send out a colony. William Brewster and two others go to London to see what the adventurers, as the speculators call themselves, will do. They are influential enough to get the king to promise not to molest the Pilgrims. An agreement is made, and a company formed. The shares of the company are fixed at fifty dollars. Every settler sixteen years of age shall be considered as equal to one share; every man who furnishes an outfit worth fifty dollars shall be entitled to an additional share; children between ten and sixteen years of age shall he counted as half a share. All the settlers bind themselves to work together for seven years, during which time all shall be supported from the common fund, and all their labor shall go into it. At the end of the seven years, the property shall be divided according to the shares. These are hard conditions. For seven years not a penny of their earnings can they claim; they must endure all the hardships, encounter all the dangers, do all the work — putting life, labor, health, on an equality with the dollars advanced by Weston and his fellow-speculators. Yet, for the sake of being free, for the sake of bringing up their children in the principles that are so dear to them, they accept the conditions. The merchants obtain two vessels — the Mayflower, of one hundred and eighty tons, and the Speedwell, o£ sixty. All of the company at Leyden cannot go, but those wlio can make preparations for their departure. They are to sail across the Channel to Southampton, where once more they may look upon the green fields of their native land.

      On July 21st they meet for the last time at the house of their pastor, John Robinson, who will stay with those who remain. They spend the morning in fasting and prayer, and the good minister preaches a solemn sermon. After the fasting, they sit down to a frugal feast, and sing once more, with the tears streaming down their cheeks, the psalms they used to sing in the manor-house at Scrooby, and which are sweeter and dearer than ever, now that they are about to take leave of their friends forever.

       DELFTSHAVEN.

      The Speedwell lies at Delftshaven, fourteen miles from Leyden. In the morning they go on board the canal-boats with their friends, who accompany them to the ship. Some come all the way from Amsterdam to bid them farewell. They spend the night in conversing with their friends, who provide a feast for them. The last hour has come, the wind is fair, and the captain in haste to be away. The beloved pastor is with them.

       THE FAREWELL MEETING.

      They kneel upon the deck, and he offers once more a prayer. With tears upon their cheeks, they bid each other farewell. The vessel swings from the quay, the wind fills the sails. But there is joy in their sorrow; they are departing in obedience to their profoundest convictions of duty. Little know they of what is before them, or what they are about to do. God knows what will come of it, and in him they trust. They fire a parting salute with their muskets and their three pieces of cannon.

      At Southampton they join the Mayflower, on board of which are those who have come from England. Some of them are from London, hired by the speculators. One is John Billington, a graceless fellow, so wild and reckless that his friends are rejoiced to ship him to