"In short, you wish to go to the Captain," Master Hopkins interrupted. "Very well, Miles Rigdale. Be it as you wish."
Then he walked away, and Miles, gathering up his armful of wood for the last time, wondered that, now he had his desire, he felt a half sorrow that it was granted him.
But when he entered the house, different thoughts came to him. All was stir and bustle within, for Mistress Hopkins was cooking supper for the men with sea-appetites, who were to eat there that night, and suddenly Miles felt it quite a part of the day's upheaval that he should leave his old home. All afire with the pleasure of it, he went into the chamber, where he tied up his few clothes in his cloak.
Ned Lister, who was stretched upon his bed, pulled himself up on his elbow to watch him. "So you're going to live with the Captain, Miley," he repeated the boy's news. "Well, it's far better that you should; there'll be no one in his house to lead you into mischief." Ned's face grew serious and he was silent a moment, then broke out, "On my soul, I have liked you, lad, and I shall miss you."
"I shall see you every day," Miles answered, setting himself down on the edge of the bed.
"Hm!" Lister retorted. "Your Captain doesn't like me, Miles. Though he did trouble himself to see how I was faring, when he came to speak with Hopkins this afternoon; after all, he's a good fellow, though I've no liking for the punishments he gives. But that'll change now. There's a pack of jolly good fellows come in the Fortune, they say, will keep him busy. Plague of this ankle! I might 'a' gone out and made friends with them, and I'm sick to have speech again with an ungodly rascal like myself."
Just there Constance pushed open the door and came in to bring Ned his supper, so Miles gathered up his bundle to go forth. But Constance had to kiss him good-bye, right before Ned, and tell him to come back often. "I will," Miles promised soberly. "You've been good to me, Constance, and—and if 'twill help you, I'll come tend Damaris—once in a while."
"No, you shan't, dear, ever again," Constance said, laughing, and pushed him out of the room.
He took the Bible that had been his father's from the chimneypiece, and, while Mistress Hopkins was busy talking to her kinsman, a grave young man who found no opportunity to answer her, thought to slip quietly out of the house. But Elizabeth Hopkins spied him. "Where are your manners, child, that you cannot say 'God be wi' you'?" she assailed him. "After what I've borne from your carelessness, Miles, and I'm sure your clothes never will be tidily mended now, and—"