"Is it?" the boy questioned, with some misgivings. "I'd lost count of the days. Why, I have been cutting poles and begun my wigwam—"
"Then you are a Sabbath-breaker," Dolly said relentlessly. "If you be so wicked, I doubt if ever God let us go back to Plymouth. And I've been praying Him earnestly. Miles, have you said your prayers o' nights?"
"N—no," the boy faltered, "last night I forgot 'em, and night before I was weary."
"Come, we'll say them now," Dolly announced, and fell on her knees in the wet sand.
Miles obediently knelt beside her; his father had looked somewhat askance at this practice, but Miles's mother had first taught the children to say their evening prayer on their knees, and, for her sake, the boy held obstinately to that usage.
The thought of her came clearly to him now, and how she had bidden him be good to Dolly, so, when he had prayed "Our Father," he added an extemporaneous appeal, that the English folk might soon come in search of them. "Not for my sake, O Lord," he explained carefully, "but Thou knowest Dolly is but a wench and were better at Plymouth, perhaps. And, O Lord, I'd near be willing to go thither myself, if Thou wouldst put it in their minds not to flog me."
Indeed, as he prayed, his heart grew very tender toward the tiny settlement; he would have liked well to open his eyes and see the sandy street of the little village stretching away up the hillside, the ordered cottages, the grave men about their tasks, even Master Hopkins—perhaps.
Rather subdued, he set himself by Dolly on the wet log. "Now I'll tell you somewhat out of the Bible, since there is no one to preach us a discourse," he said, and set forth to her what he remembered of the last portion of the Scriptures which Master Hopkins had made him read. It was all about how Moses let loose the plagues upon the wicked king of Egypt, flies and boils and frogs,—Miles was not quite sure of the order of events, but he detailed them with much gusto.
"I do not think there is a great deal of doctrine therein," Dolly commented, with a mournful shake of the head. "Elder Brewster, he did not discourse thus; and Mistress Brewster and Priscilla and the boys will have bread for dinner to-day, and maybe butter, and lobster, and, if I were home, I should sleep in my own bed with Priscilla, and put on a clean gown in the morning. I wish I were home now."
Miles squeezed Dolly's fingers, and sat staring away from her into the fleecy fog that still shivered through the camp. So intent was he on gulping down his home-sickness that he started in surprise when a hand was laid on his shoulder, and he looked up into the face of one of Canacum's warriors.