“I’ll manage it, but not of a sudden.”
“No, no; only so that I may get a quiet word with Betty before I leave.”
“Ay, it’s in that quarter the storm is brewing, is it? Well, in an hour or so I’ll manage it.”
But before the hour was over Gillian herself, for after all she was as yet but a young maid, and not seasoned in such matters as another ten years might have seasoned her, came to William, and resting on his arm said plaintively,—
“I’m very weary, Will. When might we be leaving?”
“They’re just going to supper, and while they sit down we can slip away if you like, and in sooth you do look weary,” said Bradford not unkindly, and Gillian, in a little impulse of womanliness, replied with a wan smile,—
“Nay, I’ll not take you from your supper. There’s a roast pig and apple-sauce, I hear.”
“Oh, that’s naught, that’s naught,” protested the young man; but his healthy appetite so rose up in approval of the roasted suckling that it looked out at his eyes, and Gillian, laughing a little, scoffingly said,—
“If it’s naught to you, it’s something to me, and I’ll not stir till I’ve had roast pig and seed-cake and a glass of sweet wine, and mayhap a little taste of arrack punch. May I sit by you, Will, and sip out of your glass?”
“Yes, that will be fine,” cried Will, seeing a happy compromise open before him. “If you’ll sit by me and look at no other fellow but me, I’ll stay; but if you’re going to tease me, I’ll not.”