“I know no hills called Duxbury in England,” objected Wright cautiously.
“Nay, the hills are called Pennine, but the place where I first saw them is in the manor of Duxbury. Ha! look you here, Wright, here’s matter close at hand more nearly concerning us than the Pennine hills. See you yonder?”
“’Tis Mistress Carpenter and—and the man Gardiner,” stammered Wright, staring down into the valley at his feet.
“Ay, and little Betty Alden picking posies so far away that she might as well be at home. Mind you, now, my friend, how close the rascal walks to the maiden’s side, and how those hawk’s eyen of his stare into her fair face; and by my faith, he’s grasping her hand and she, poor maid, knows not how to pull it away!”
“She might an’ she would,” muttered William Wright jealously.
“Oh, I know not, I know not,” retorted Myles, teasing him. “She’s but a withy lass, and mayhap afraid of him. Is it true she’s troth-plight to you, Wright?”
“Yes—that is no; she never would give her promise sure and fast, but I had hoped”—
“Then, man, if you will be said by my advice, you’ll make down to the brook at best speed and secure that faltering hope before it is floated away like the flowers the silly maid is stripping off and flinging into the brook, not knowing what she’s about. Go down, Wright, and claim your own.”
“Nay, Captain,” returned Wright, whose thin face had grown tallow-pale, and whose thin lips refused to take moisture from a tongue almost as dry. “If Mistress Carpenter finds her pleasure in such company and such folly I’ll not trouble her with mine. No, I’m not for a young gentlewoman who brings such manners and such morals from the wicked courts of kings.”
“Come, come, Wright, I’ll not listen to your light-lying of Mistress Bradford’s sister. ’Tis a good girl as ever stepped and a pure maid as lives in Plymouth, but she’s young, man, a score of years younger than you, and doubtless she’s known the man in England, and they’ve met by chance, and he is parley-vooing after the fashion of his kind, and she knows not how to be rid of him. Come, go you down, man! Or go with me, if it suits you better.”