146 LITERARY PILGRIMAGES 



The Pilgrims had their seasons of storm and 

 stress, but there came to them too halcyon days 

 like this when the mayflower bloomed in all the 

 woodland about them, the mourning cloak butter- 

 flies danced with joy down the sunny glades, and 

 the bay spread its wonderful blue beneath their 

 feet in the delicious promise of June. Nor is it 

 any wonder that in spite of hardships and disasters 

 manifold they yet found heart to write home that 

 it was a " fayere lande and bountiful." 



But for all the lure of Plymouth woods with 

 their fragrance of trailing arbutus, from all the 

 grandeur of the wide outlook from Manomet 

 Heights, the hearts of all who come to Plymouth 

 must lead them back to the resting place of the 

 fathers on the brow of the little hill in the midst 

 of the town. There where the grass was not yet 

 green and the buttercups that will later shine in 

 gold have put forth but the tiniest beginnings of 

 their fuzzy, three-parted leaves, I watched the 

 sun sink, big and red in a golden mist, over a land 

 of whose coming material greatness Bradford 

 and his fellow Pilgrims could have had no inkling. 

 Seaward the tropic bloom of the water was all 



