In the days since the landing at Plymouth, Giles had grown a responsible youth, but Miles, who had been so much with him that he held himself near as old, was quite jealous at his last speech and wondered if no one would offer him a musket.
He took himself forth from the chamber into the living room, where Ned Lister, who was cleaning his fowling piece and was in a good temper, as he usually was when he was busied over his weapons, let him meddle in the work till his fingers were blacked. "I'm going northward to-morrow morning, where Squanto tells me a flock of geese are astir," Ned spoke further. "If Master Hopkins is willing, I'll take you with me, Miley; 'tis months since we've gone about any labor together."
Disappointingly, Master Hopkins was not willing, for, when he came to his supper, he had to report an evil rumor, which one of Miles's old enemies, the Nauset Indians, had just brought to the town, that a great ship had been seen on their coast. It might be some English trader, or it might be a French ship of war, come to dispossess the colonists, just as the English had driven the French, at an earlier time, from their northern settlements.
Still, even if 'twere a Frenchman, Ned argued, men must eat, and must kill their food ere they could eat it, so, at the last, his master said he might go fowling, and even, if he did not roam too far, take Miles with him.
Early next morning the two hunters set out in lively spirits, in spite of the fact that the woods were sombre and the sky rough with clouds that looked, should they thrust a hand deep into them, as if they would strike something hard and cold. Already there had been bitter frosts, and the thick fallen leaves, on the northward trail, rustled crisply beneath the tread of the fowlers. Ned wore his red cap, which blazed out bravely under the dull trees, and his buff-jacket, too, which gave him the martial look he liked. Miles had no such warlike equipments, but Ned generously suffered him to carry the fowling piece, so he felt quite like a soldier. "I do but wish the French would come upon us now," he panted boastfully, as he shouldered the gun.
"There's small danger you'll find a Frenchman, unless you cross the water to seek him," Ned answered. "I'll do it, so soon as my time's out. Go into Bohemia and fight—" There he turned off into discourse on the joys of a life where a man never fetched and carried, but handled a sword like a gentleman, which lasted them for a mile along the bare trail.
By then they came from among the leafless trees of the level land to a thick piny growth at the base of a tall hill, that blocked off sight of the ocean. Ned was for climbing it out of hand, for, on the other side, by the shore, he thought to find the wild fowl, so up he scrambled, quite nimbly, since he had long legs and tramped unburdened, while Miles toiled after with the fowling piece. A mighty steep hill, where the pine needles lay slippery, so Miles stumbled and near fell, and, when he came at last to the little barren stretch of the summit, where the lowering sky seemed to bend down to him, he could only drop flat and lie panting.
Ned cast himself down beside him, although he did not seem weary, and, half smiling at Miles's breathlessness, let his eyes at last turn seaward. Lying back, Miles, too, looked out upon the gray water, beneath the hill, that far away to eastward merged into the gray sky, and then a sudden exclamation made him glance at his companion.
Ned was sitting erect with his hand shading his eyes, and the lines of his face were sharpened with a sudden tenseness. "What d'ye see?" Miles began carelessly, but the other, springing to his feet, spoke to him in a curt tone: "Jump you up, Miles. Look yonder, if you see aught in the offing."
Ned's hands turned Miles's head eastward, but, though the boy yielded himself obediently and gazed whither he was told, he saw only dull water and brooding sky. Yet he was beginning to guess the meaning of it all, and, with the heart fluttering into his throat, he cried, "Ned, sure, you do not think—that French ship—"