"Zounds! Eaton," he cried. "I know that an Englishman's house is his castle, on whichever side of the ocean he builds it, and that I will not brook your coming into it to tell me—you to tell me, forsooth!—that I am sinning! Look to your own affairs, sir, but keep your hands off mine. If you are too ignorant to know more of Shakespeare than to think him harmful, well, then, sir, you confess to an ignorance that is in itself a sin against the Providence that gave us poets."
"As to that, Francis Eaton," said Mr. Allerton, "Mr. Hopkins hath the best of it. We who strive after the highest virtue do not indulge in worldly reading, but there be those among us who would not condemn Shakespeare. But what is the noise I hear? Permit us to go yonder into your outer room, Mr. Hopkins, to satisfy ourselves that worse than play-reading is not carried on within this house."
"Noise? I heard no noise till now, being too much occupied to note it, but it is easy to decide upon its cause from here, though if you desire to go yonder, or to share the play, I'll not prevent you," said Mr. Hopkins, his anger mounting.
"Say, rather, as I seriously fear, that you are too accustomed to the sound to note it. I will pass over, as unworthy of you and of my profession, the insult you proffered me in suggesting that I would bear part in a wicked game," said Mr. Allerton, going toward the door.
He threw it open with a magnificent gesture and stalked through it, followed close by the other two, and by Hecate's growl and Puck's sharp barking.
Constance had dropped her work and sat rigidly regarding her father with amazed and frightened eyes.
Stephen Hopkins went after them, purple with rage. What they saw was a table marked off at its farther end by lines drawn in chalk. At the nearer end sat Edward Doty and Edward Lister, the men whom Stephen Hopkins had brought over with him on the Mayflower to serve him. Beside them sat tankards of home-made beer, and a small pile of coins lay, one at each man's right hand.
Just as Francis Eaton threw open the door, Edward Lister leaned forward, balanced a coin carefully between his thumb and finger, and shot it forward over one of the lines at the other end.
"Aimed, by St. George! Well shot, Ted!" cried Edward Doty.
"See that thou beatest me not, Ned; thou art a better man than me at it," said Lister, and they both took a draught of beer, wiping their lips on their sleeve in high satisfaction with the flavour, the game, and each other.