“Enough of this!” exclaimed the governor, silencing with a gesture not only the captain, who had sprung to his feet, but the Elder, who with a slow red mounting to his cheek where it showed like the color in a hardy apple frozen and withered, yet clinging to the parent tree, seemed about to speak.
“Sir Christopher Gardiner, if that is indeed your name and degree, we men of Plymouth claim no titles, nor are we courtiers, skilled in cunning fence of word, but we have our own dignity as rulers of this little commonalty, and our self-respect as men. Be pleased, therefore, to lay aside all these quips and cranks, and tell us briefly who you are, and why you are found fleeing from the Bay, even at risk of your life.”
Somewhat impressed by the simple dignity of Bradford’s manner, and perhaps a little ashamed of his own levity, the knight at once threw it off, sat more upright in his chair, and fixing his eyes steadily upon Bradford’s face as if to avoid the challenge of Standish’s eager gaze, replied courteously,—
“I have already told you, Sir Governor, that I am Christopher Gardiner, son of a worthy gentleman of Gloucester in England. Early in youth I wandered away from home, and sojourned so many years among Jews, Turks, and other infidels, as the Prayer Book hath it, that my father disinherited me and gave my estates to a brother who clung to him—and to them. On the other hand, a certain potentate whose name you love not made me a Knight of the Holy Sepulchre and a Cavalier of the Milizia Aureata, commonly called the Golden Melice.”
“The Pope of Rome has no power to appoint a Knight of the Holy Sepulchre!” exclaimed Brewster, recalling worldly lore which he had thought forgotten. Gardiner bowed low and mockingly.
“Pardon! No doubt, reverend sir, you are better acquainted with His Holiness than I can be, but I go on with mine account of myself. Coming back to England after well-nigh thirty years’ absence, I find my father dead, my brother and his brood in possession, and naught left for the poor exile, should he ever return, but a beggarly thousand crowns and a nook beside the hall-fire so long as he should behave himself!
“Well, well, ’t is not good for me to dwell on those days; so to cut the matter short, I took my thousand crowns, and a few more that had hidden among the tatters of my knightly robes, and came hither to the New World, hoping to escape from men and the weariness of their ways. I bought a bit of land from a copper-colored gentleman calling himself Chickatawbut who professed to own it, and who made much complaint that the men of Plymouth had stolen from his mother’s grave the choice bearskins laid over it to keep the good gentlewoman warm through the storms of winter”—
“We bought some bearskins of a native, but knew not where he got them,” said Bradford with an air of annoyance, and Sir Christopher’s great mustache stirred in malicious glee at seeing that the pin-prick had reached the quick.
“I bought my land, and I built mine house, and I planted my garden, and I hired some Indian guides to show me the haunts of the game and fish, and I began to live much such an innocent and beneficent life as that of Adam in Paradise”—
“With yon fair lady as your Eve?” demanded Standish. The knight turned his eyes upon him and the spark kindled in their depths, but again Bradford interposed,—