“Ay, I can guess it.”
“And fain would hear no more on’t?”
“I know not, Elder, I know not; of a truth my soul is vexed within me, and shapes of wrath and bloodshed that I had thought buried with the old life have wakened and are thundering at the gate of my will. Had I that man here on this convenient sod, and I with Gideon in mine hand”—
The grating of strong teeth, set all unconsciously, closed the sentence, and in the soft gray of the twilight hour the Elder examined the face of his companion with anxious scrutiny, then sternly spoke:—
“Man! Satan is at your shoulder and whispering in your ear! I can all but see and hear him.”
“All but!” laughed Standish. “There is no peradventure about it to me.”
“Call that pure maid to your side, and the Evil One will flee.”
“Nay. Tell me what your boy says. Haply ’tis a better time than you could guess.”
The old man once more examined the face Standish would neither avert nor soften, and then, unable to comprehend, yet following meekly the intuitions that guide faithful souls in such matters, he drew from his breast a folded sheet of the coarse rough paper Spielmann had in England taught the men of Dartford to manufacture at a cost which would terrify Marcus Ward to-day, and slowly unfolding it said,—
“I will read you my lad’s own words. The first page doth but tell of his voyage and his situation in fair lodgings with Edward Winslow, who is as a father to him, and then he goes on:—