“Ay, he was reconciled, as they call it, on such a day and”— But as Alden pored over the scribbled entry, murmuring vaguely such words as more clearly presented themselves, his impetuous wife interrupted him:—
“I gave him fish for his dinner to-day, sith I would not have a dog lack meat to his mind in mine own house, but still I remember how those fiends of Catholics murdered my grandsire in cold blood, and his wife after him, for naught but that they were Huguenots, as we are, and I must hate Catholics forevermore.”
“Nay, wife, not hate them,—not hate whom God has made and still spares for repentance,” suggested John; but Priscilla impatiently tossed her head.
“God is God, and I’m but poor Priscilla, his creature. I cannot love and hate all in one breath the same thing.”
“Nay, wife, but thou didst give the man what meat his conscience called for on a Friday?”
“Yes, of course I did.”
“And now will deliver him to death, if so it be?”
“Oh, I cannot tell; but I hate Catholics; my father bade me do so.”
“And yet thou dost feed them, and I’ll be bound thou’lt see that this man’s tender wounds are well covered from the cold before he goes aboard.”