The child evidently caused this change in his mind, for Mrs. Alice Stevens, who from her window was watching the pair with no little interest, thought the little girl looked hungry and tired. She was on the point of going out to offer her some refreshments and ask the wanderers to come in and rest, when they went on. The travellers must have been very thirsty, for the children who followed them saw them pause at the town-pump and drink again.
There was at this time in Boston a very respectable inn, at which Bradford the governor of New Plymouth had been entertained by the elder governor Winthrop. The man and child proceeded to this inn, the best in the town, and entered the broad piazza which was on a level with the street. All the ovens were heated, and the host, who was also chief cook, was preparing supper. The savory smell of cooked meats and vegetables filled the air with an odor which seemed to increase the child's hunger. The man and child without a word sank down upon the wooden benches and listened to the conversation of some men who were drinking in the tap-room. The peals of laughter and loud talk certainly were very unlike the staid Puritans of New England. Anon, one of them struck up a cavalier song very popular among that sect at the period, and ended with:
"God save the King!"
No war-horse ever heard the blast of a trumpet with more fire in his soul than did the stranger sitting on the porch holding his child by one hand, and his knotted stick in the other, hear that cry. His hand involuntarily clutched the stick as if it were a sword, and his breath came hard and quick, as if he were eager to rush into battle. The child seemed instinctively to catch the idea of her father and clutched his arm with both her hands, while her soft brown eyes were fixed on his in mute appeal, and he sat enduring the insult without a murmur.
The kitchen was not so far away but that the partridges, grouse and trout on spits and in the oven gave forth their fumes as they browned to tempting perfection. The little girl had not yet spoken since they had entered the town; but now she fixed her eyes on her parent and whispered:
"I am very hungry."
He turned his great brown eyes on her tenderly, and made no answer. At this moment a tow-headed son of the host espied the strangers on the porch and went to his father to report. The landlord, with flushed face and greasy apron, appeared on the porch and asked:
"What do you want?"
"Supper and bed," was the answer, and the little girl raised her eyes to the host, giving him a tired hungry stare.
The proprietor of the inn looked at them suspiciously for a moment, and then, as if doubting their ability to remunerate him for his accommodations, asked: