“They will find a subject in due time, I’ll be bound.”
“That they will. The way they tell about running pins and needles into the flesh of some poor old thing is awful. I think the women, not going to war, let their minds run on these kind of torments instead. Now, Nancy is as kind as the best, but I’ve heard her tell how they’d do. They were in doubt whether they would burn or hang Hope.”
John Bonyton shuddered, and ejaculated between his teeth a compound which we will not repeat; but it was “she-”— something, and a term which many a woman has well deserved.
Ephraim looked aghast at the fierce passion of his friend and droned on again:
“You was al’ays violent and kind o’ unreasonable, John. But it’s nothing here nor there to talk. Howsomever you can fix it, women ain’t over’n above tender. They kinder enjoy sufferin’. See ’em cry. They enjoy it. I’m more tender to our baby than Nancy is.”
It is doubtful if the sagamore heard half of this philosophical tirade of the kind-hearted Ephraim. The sun was now up, and admonished him that if he would escape observation at such a time and place, he must take his departure. Seeing this, Ephraim broke in again:
“Come home with me, John, and eat breakfast—bread and ham and potatoes, John, Christian food, with a grace before meat.”
“I have renounced the colony, as you well know, Ephraim. I can not go with you; but I thank you none the less.”
“Come, now, don’t turn your back upon me, John Bonyton. It goes to my heart to see you go away from kith and kin, and everybody’s hand agin’ you.”
But, before he had ceased to speak, the sagamore grasped his hand, and even, in an unwonted fit of softness, clasped his arms around his one simple, devoted friend, and without a word, was gone.