The stern captain instantly recalled him; and when he saw a tear glistening in the eye of the husband and father, a slight expression of wonder and contempt passed over his countenance.  He marveled that so brave a soldier and so strict a Puritan as Rodolph Maitland should still remain subject to so much worldly weakness.  But Standish was not, at that time, a married man; and he was very deeply imbued with all the severe and unbending principles of his sect, which even went so far as to demand the suppression of all natural feelings—­making it a fault for a mother to kiss her children on the Lord’s day—­and inflicting actual punishment on the captain of a ship for having embraced his wife on 5 Sunday, when, after a long separation, she hurried to meet him, as he landed from the vessel!  To such puerile littlenesses will even great minds descend.

Rodolph was unmoved by the commander’s contemptuous glance.  He knew his own unflinching Puritan principles, and his own undaunted courage; and he knew his value in the eyes of Standish.  The captain knew it also, for he never liked to go on any enterprise that required bravery and cool judgement without securing the aid of Maitland; and although the tenderness of his friend’s feelings, and the warmth of his domestic attachments—­so different to the coolness and apathy which was so prevalent in the community—­were a continual subject of surprise and pity to the iron-hearted leader, yet he highly respected him, and even loved him, as much as such a gentle feeling as love of any kind could find admittance to his breast.

They journeyed on then—­that stern captain, who had no tie to life, and deemed it a privilege to die with ‘the sword of the Lord and of Gideon’ in his hand, fighting for the cause of his own peculiar sect, in which alone he thought salvation could be found; and that warm-hearted husband and father, who felt that he had left behind him what was far dearer than life itself—­those who alone made life precious to him-and who yet was willing to sacrifice all, if honor and duty demanded it.  Which was the braver man of the two?

Both were brave; but Standish was the most unscrupulous.  He considered that any stratagem was lawful which could place his heathen enemies in his power; and no arguments of the high-minded and truthful Maitland could convince him that deceit and treachery, even towards their infidel foes, were unworthy of Christian warriors.  Miles Standish was resolved to use some device to get the chiefs of the conspiracy off their guard, and, by destroying them, to break up the hostile confederacy altogether:  and as Maitland was bound to obey his orders, and also knew the utter impossibility either of changing the resolves of his captain or of deserting the enterprise, he was compelled to join in proceedings that he could not approve.