"Ay, ay, poor child! 'T is sad enow, but we will put all that right presently—yes, I promised William Molines, and so let him die at ease, and I will keep my word to the dead. A husband and a home, and haply a troop of little rogues and wenches at her knees will soon comfort her orphanhood, eh, John?"
"I know not, sir—I—doth she know of this compact betwixt her father and you?"
"Come, now, thou 'rt not my father confessor, lad, nor yet my general," replied Standish with peremptory good humor. "Get thee back to thy pencraft, and when it is done come to me at the Fort, I have work for thee."
"Yes, sir." And the young man turned again into the house where Priscilla, quite calm, but a little subdued in manner, awaited him.
"And now wilt thou set thy name at the foot, Priscilla?" asked the scribe when the fourth side of the paper was nearly covered.
"Let me see. Ah, there is yet a little room. Say, 'My friendly salutation to thy brothers, Jacques, Philip, and little Guillaume; and now I think on 't, Jacques asked me to advise him if this were a good place for a young man to settle, and as I promised, I will now bid thee say that to my mind it is a place of goodly promise, and I were glad indeed to see all my friends of the house of De la Noye coming hither in the next ship.'"
"I have heard ere now that the pith of a woman's letter was in the post scriptum, just as the sting of a honey bee cometh at the latter end," said John dryly. "And now wilt thou sign?"
"Yes. Give me the quill. Ciel, how it sputters and spatters! 'T is a wondrous poor pen, John."
"It served my turn well enow," replied John surveying with a grim smile the childish signature surrounded with a halo of ink-spatters; but as not one third of the women in the company could have done as well, Priscilla felt no more chagrin at not being a clerk, than a young lady of to-day would at not knowing trigonometry.
"And now address it to the Sieur Jacques De la Noye for Mademoiselle Jeanne De la Noye, and I will trust thee to put it with the letters already writ to go by the Mayflower. And thank thee kindly, John, for thy trouble."