Eunice laughed. “Hal is mighty like his father, Master Tremayne. He hath a stout will of his own, nor should you quickly turn him thence.”
“Lo you, now, what conditions doth this jade give me!” laughed Underhill. “A stubborn old brute, that will hear no reason!”
“Hal will not hear o’ermuch, when he is set on aught,” said Eunice.
“Well,” said Mr Tremayne thoughtfully, “so being, I would guess that he had set his heart, to be Archbishop of Canterbury, or else Lord Privy Seal.”
“Ma foi!” interposed Mrs Rose, “but I would guess that no son of Mr Underhill should tarry short of a king. Mind you not, hermano, that I did once hear you to say that you would not trust your own self, had you the chance to make your Annette a queen?”
“Dear heart, Mistress Rose! I would the lad had stayed him at nought worser. Nay, he is not for going up the ladder, but down. Conceive you, nought will serve him but a journey o’er seas, and to set him up a home in the Queen’s Majesty’s country of Virginia—yea, away in the plantations, amongst all the savages and wild beasts, and men worser than either, that have been of late carried thither from this land, for to be rid of them. ‘Come, lad,’ said I to him, ‘content thee with eating of batatas (the Spanish word of which potato is a corruption) and drinking of tobacco (smoking tobacco was originally termed drinking it), and leave alone this mad fantasy.’ But not he, in good sooth! Verily, for to go thither as a preacher and teacher, with hope to reform the ill men,—that had been matter of sore peril, and well to be thought on; yet would I not have said him nay, had the Lord called him to it;—but to make his home!”
And Mr Underhill stopped short, as if words were too weak adequately to convey his feelings.
“Maybe the Lord hath called him to that, old friend,” said the Rector. “His eyes be on Virginia, no less than England.”
“God forbid I should deny it! Yet there is such gear as tempting the Lord. For my part,—but la! I am an old man, and the old be less venturesome than the young,—yet for me, I see not what should move a man to dwell any whither out of his own country, without he must needs fly to save his life.”
“Had all men been of your mind,” observed Mr Tremayne with a smile, “there had ne’er been any country inhabited save one, until men were fairly pushed thence by lack of room.”