"We are not! Grandmother, I——"
"You won't find me failing in understanding, Benjamin, but pray understand this once and for all: your failure last night to tell me about that fellow Plum was a lie—a lie of silence.... Oh, when word came yesterday I did pray that you and your brother might be brands from the burning. I do pray for it yet. I made plans for you, I searched my heart, I sought guidance, I even trusted I had found it. D'you think me cold, unnatural? D'you imagine I don't love you, my grandson?" She brushed with dry impatience at sudden tears. Footsteps sounded on the stairs. Ben tried to catch a glimpse of Reuben, but the bulk of the Lloyds hid him as they passed the doorway. "Benjamin, what am I to do with you? What do you yourself think would be right for me to do with you, a liar, a wilderness child who hath something like the conversation of a savage?"
"Grandmother, about Jesse——"
"Plum again! And thus I'm answered! Why, the constable will see after all that."
"Constable?"
"Town authorities, boy. Burial. Is that what you meant?"
"A pauper's burial."
"Thankful heart, boy, I can't understand you. You wish the creature buried among the Saints?"
"No, I...." Ben searched his mind hopelessly. During the night many polite convincing speeches had been prepared—scattered, one and all. He blurted the one thought his mind could hold: "Reuben and I must go to Uncle John Kenny at Roxbury."
"What!" She was whitely horrified. "You don't know what you say."