Miles came out, with his shoulders quivering, and, not staying for dinner, slouched away through the fields to the shore, where he stood a time blinking out to sea. He had been bidden go present himself to the Elder and be admonished for his sins, but he did not hold it necessary to go just yet.
At last he had himself tolerably in hand, and, with no great heart for what was before him, was loitering along the shingle to the village, when a shrill voice hailed him, and, looking up, he saw Jack and Joe and Francis running toward him. So Miles put on an unconcerned bearing, and, making the pebbles clatter beneath his tread, swaggered to meet them.
Oh, yes, he could tell them brave tales of how he had lived with the Indians, he bragged, but not now; he had to go now and be admonished by the Elder, he explained, as if he took pride in such awful depths of iniquity.
"And Stephen Hopkins has admonished you ere this, I'll warrant," chuckled Francis. "How heavily did he lam you?"
With melancholy satisfaction, Miles pulled off his shirt and exhibited his stripes to his admiring companions.
"Big red weals," quoth Jack. "I'm glad 'twas not I must bear such a banging. Here's more than one stroke has broken the skin."
Miles twisted his neck, in a vain effort to study his smarting shoulders, while his estimate of himself rose surprisingly.
"And for each whang Miles cried out, I'll be bound," added Francis.
"I did not open my lips," boasted Miles. "A' could not make me. You can talk, if you will, Francie. We know if you'd borne the half of this, we'd 'a' heard you roaring from the Fort Hill clear to the Rock. But I mind not a beating, nor aught they can do to me or say. 'Twas so brave a life I led among the Indians—"