“My faith! they could never have taken me alive, had not they beat my last weapon out of my hands,” broke in the knight. “When they are gone and I am a little refreshed I will tell you the whole story, gentlemen; but if you indeed wish me well, drive away these assassins and leave me to this comely matron’s tendance for a while, at least.”
“’Tis well spoken,” replied the governor in his usual placable voice. “John Alden, will it suit you to keep this man over-night, if no longer, and will you, Priscilla, give him the care he needs and you so well understand?”
“If the goodwife says yes, I’ll not say no,” declared Alden; and Priscilla added a little sharply,—
“’Tis the best word said yet.”
CHAPTER XV.
AND DESCRIBES IT.
Not until the next afternoon did Priscilla Alden allow her husband to report the patient ready to receive the visitors who awaited her summons, but when the governor, the captain, the Elder, and the doctor were finally admitted they found him a very different looking person from the captive driven into town by the Indians, who had already been paid their reward and dismissed.
Like most of the colonists, John Alden had enlarged his house from the rude shelter of the earliest years to a dwelling suited to a growing and thrifty family, so that at the other side of the door opening into the great cheerful kitchen with its southern and eastern windows lay a new room, more carefully finished than the first, its floor nearly covered with rugs of Priscilla’s own manufacture, its fireplace decorated with Dutch tiles, its woodwork painted, and its casement window set with real glass in leaden bands, instead of the oiled paper or linen which sufficed for the kitchen windows.