So cowardly; and but for these vile guns,
He would himself have been a soldier.’
Oh, well, well, but I must laugh, and laugh again as I mind me of the day when Will Shakespeare first mouthed those lines at me, and I stood staring like a stuck pig to hear mine own words so bedded in his poesy, like flies in amber in very sooth, for ’twas a story I had told him of a matter that happened to myself in the Low Countries”—
“Alas, my son,” interposed the Elder, raising his hand, “such memories suit but ill with the lives of ‘pilgrims and strangers’ like ourselves.”
“And for that very reason, Elder,” replied Standish a little hotly, “when you and Master Partridge and the rest besiege me to become a church-member, I will listen to naught of it. The old leaven is still a-working by fits and starts, and I’ll do no such despite to the saints as to count myself into their company. ‘Nay, nay, mine ancient,’ says Will to me one time when we stood side by side in Paul’s Walk, and saw a grand procession pass us by, ‘’tis better to watch the lightning than to handle it.’”
With a mischievous glance at the Rev. Ralph Partridge, Standish resumed his pipe, and the parson wisely remained silent.
CHAPTER XXV.
JEPHTHAH’S DAUGHTER.