"And for what other use should they be carried ashore? Or would they keep us warm left on the ship?" demanded Mistress Eliza. "Truly, Stephen Hopkins, you are a test of the patience of a saint!"
"Which needs no testing, since the patience of the saints has passed into a proverb," commented Stephen Hopkins. "But with all humility I would answer 'yes' to your question, Eliza: the blankets would surely keep you warmer when on the ship than if they were ashore, since it is on the ship that you are to remain."
"Remain! On the ship? For how long, pray? And why? Do you not think that I have had enough and to spare of this ship after more than two months within her straitened cabin, and Oceanus crying, poor child, and wearing upon me as if he felt the hardship of his birthplace? Nor is Mistress White's baby, Peregrine, happier than my child in being born on this Mayflower. When one is not crying, the other is and oftener than not in concert. Why should I not go ashore with the others?" demanded Mistress Eliza, in quick anger.
"Ah, wife, wife, my poor Eliza," sighed Mr. Hopkins, raising his hand to stem the torrent. "Leave not all the patience of the saints to those in paradise! You, with all the other women, will remain on the ship while certain of the men—the rest being left to guard you—go in the shallop to explore our new country and pick the fittest place for our settlement. How long we may be gone, I do not know. Rest assured it will not be an absence wilfully prolonged. You will be more comfortable here than ashore. It is likely that when you do go ashore to begin the new home you will look back regretfully at the straitened quarters of the little ship that has served us well, in spite of sundry weaknesses which she developed. Be that as it may, this delay is necessary, as reflection will show you, so let us not weary ourselves with useless discussion of it."
Mistress Hopkins knew that when her husband spoke in this manner, discussion of his decision was indeed useless. She had an awe of his wisdom, his amused toleration of her, of his superior birth and education, and, though she ventured to goad him in small affairs, when it came to greater ones she dared not dispute him. So now she bit her lip, as angry and disappointed tears sprang to her eyes, but did not reply.
Stephen Hopkins produced from his inner pocket an oblong packet sewn in an oilskin wrapper.
"Here, Eliza," he said, "are papers of value to this expedition, together with some important only to ourselves, but to us sufficiently so to guard them carefully. The public papers were entrusted to me just before we sailed from Southampton by one interested in the welfare of this settlement. My own papers relate to the English inheritance that will be my children's should they care to claim it. These papers I must leave in your care now that I am to go on this exploring party ashore. I will not risk carrying them where savages might attack us, though I have kept them upon me throughout the voyage. Guard them well. Not for worlds would I lose the papers relating to the community, sorry as I should be to lose my own, for those were a trust, and personal loss would be nothing compared to the loss of them."
He handed the packet to his wife as he spoke and she took it, turning it curiously over and about.
"I hope the English inheritance will one day come to Damaris and Oceanus," she said, bitterly, her jealousy of the two children of her husband's first wife plain to be seen. "Here's Giles," she added, hastily thrusting the packet into her bosom with a violence that her husband noted and wondered at.
"Father," said Giles, coming up, "take me with you."