"I am right sorry, for your sake, I was not dealt with less mercifully," Lister said bitterly, and Miles, glancing up at him, was checked in his lamentation; truly, Ned looked miserable, with his face white and a noticeable limp in his gait, and Dotey, too, had one hand bandaged, but, most awe-inspiring of all, Miles noted, as Ned unfastened his shirt, a vivid red mark about the base of his neck. "What was it they did to you, then?" he asked, but neither of the Edwards seemed eager to explain.
"They just tied 'em neck and heels," Giles volunteered presently, as he began undressing. "And before they'd kept them so an hour, they promised amendment and—Hey, Ed Dotey, make Ned cease throwing shoes at me."
With a wrangling word or two peace was restored, and the young men took themselves to rest; Miles noted that the ex-duellists drew the line at sharing one bed, for Ned Lister lay down beside him, while Giles and Dotey slept together.
How quiet and clean it seemed in the little chamber, Miles thought; and how blessed it was that the Indians had not fallen on Plymouth! Involuntarily he sighed for very peace and happiness, then lost all sense of comfort at the recollection of the morrow and the punishment deferred that yet would surely come. "Ned, O Ned," he began, and shook Lister, who was lying with his head between his arms. "Tell me, Ned, how greatly does it hurt to be tied neck and heels?"
"Um-m-m!" groaned the exasperated Lister. "Miley, if you say 'neck and heels' to me again, I'll wake up and thrash you."
CHAPTER XX
A SON OF PERDITION
MILES was not fated, however, to learn by experience how it felt to be tied neck and heels; for all his double sin of abetting a duel and running away from the settlement, he suffered no unusual punishment. Instead, next day at noon, when Master Hopkins returned from the fields, he ordered him into the closet, and there gave him as thorough a flogging as even the boy's tormented fancy had conjured up.