"Peace, shameless wench!" thundered the elder, striking the table with his hand. "Profane not the ears of a decent matron with such talk. John Howland, it is my rede that thou art free of thy pledge to marry this woman. What say you, Governor?"
"I agree with you, Elder Brewster, that since both man and maid desire to render back their troth that they should be permitted so to do; and I further suggest that by the first occasion presenting, Desire Minter be sent back to her friends in England, who will, as Mistress Carver told me, be content to receive her."
"Amen!" ejaculated John Howland with such unction that Bradford gravely smiled as he followed him from the room, and murmured under his breath,—"He will wed Elizabeth Tilley, an' I'm not mistaken."
CHAPTER XXVIII.
PHILIP DE LA NOYE.
"'T is a year agone to-day since we in the Mayflower sighted land in this place," said Bradford to Standish, as the two stood beside the gun just fired for sunset when all obligatory labor ended in the village.
"Ay, is it so? Well, it hath been a year of note in more ways than one, and the next is like to be as adventurous. Ha! Look you there, Bradford! Dost see that Indian runner breasting the hill. Some great news, surely,—come, let us go to meet him."
"Squanto is before us. See him leap the brook"—
But Standish was already half way down the hill, and presently in the open space already spoken of as the Town Square he and two or three of the other leaders met the runner, who escorted by Squanto came panting up the hill from the brook, and after the usual salutations informed the governor that he was sent from Aspinet, sachem of the Nausets, to inform the white men that a vessel had been watched feeling her way through the shoals around Cape Cod, and was now laying her course apparently for Plymouth. Not knowing whether this might be good or bad news, the sachem had felt it a friendly act to convey it to his new allies with the greatest possible dispatch.