Mistress Eliza, who had been watching and listening to what was said with scornful impatience, broke in.
"Let the lad go. He will not be helpful here, and your little children need your protection, not to speak of your wife, Mr. Hopkins."
At the first syllable Giles had hastened away. Stephen Hopkins turned on her. "The boy is more precious than I am. It is settled; he is to stay. Take great care of the packet I have entrusted to you," he said.
For four days the ship's carpenters had busied themselves in putting together and making ready the shallop which the Mayflower had carried for the pilgrims to use in sailing the shallow waters of the bays and rivers of the new land, to discover the spot upon which they should decide to make their beginning.
The small craft was ready now, and in the morning set out, taking a small band of the men who had crossed on the Mayflower, as much ammunition and provisions as her capacity allowed them, to proceed no one knew whither, to encounter no one knew what.
Constance stood wistfully, anxiously, watching the prim white sail disappear.
Humility Cooper and Elizabeth Tilley—the cousins, who, though Constance's age, seemed so much younger—and Priscilla Mullins—who though older, seemed but Constance's age—were close beside her, and, seated on a roll of woollen cloth, sat Rose Standish, drooping as now she always drooped, often coughing, watching with her unnaturally clear eyes, as the girls watched, the departure of the little craft that bore their beloved protectors away.
The country that lay before them looked "wild and weather-beaten." All that they could see was woods and more woods, stretching westward to meet the bleak November sky, hiding who could say what dangers of wild beasts and yet more-savage men?
Behind them lay the heaving ocean, dark under the scudding clouds, and which they had just sailed for two months of torture of body and mind.
If the little shallop were but sailing toward one single friend, if there were but one friendly English-built house beside whose hearth the adventurers might warm themselves after a handclasp of welcome! Desolation and still more desolation behind and before them! What awful secrets did that low-lying, mysterious coast conceal? What could the future hold for this handful of pilgrims who were to grapple without human aid with the cruelties of a severe clime, of preying creatures, both beast and human?