“You may be under Satan’s orders or under a monkey’s orders for aught I care, Giles, my boy, but if you dare come nigh me with any more of Captain Shrimp’s orders I’ll wring your neck for you, master bantam cockerel, mark you that.”
“I will report to the captain,” calmly replied Hopkins, who, despite his father’s restless example, was fast becoming one of the colony’s most valued young citizens.
A profane exclamation was Oldhame’s only reply, but as the ensign strode away he turned his head and called into the house at whose door he sat,—
“Lyford! Lyford! Here’s some merry-making afoot! Captain Shrimp has summoned me to stand on watch to-night, and I have sent him and his errand-boy to the devil. Aha! here he comes himself with fury stiffening every hair of his red beard and snapping out of his eyes. Stand behind the door and hearken”—
“Good-even, Master Oldhame,” struck in the firm and repressed tones of a voice at sound of which Lyford cringed closer in his corner, and Oldhame blustered uneasily,—
“Good-even, Myles Standish.”
“It is your turn in regular rotation, Master Oldhame, to stand sentry-watch to-night as you have done before, and as every man in the colony is called upon to do. Will you kindly report at the Fort after gun-fire this evening?”
“No, I won’t, Captain Shrimp.”
“You refuse to obey the law of the colony?”