Stephen Hopkins looked ready to burst out into hot wrath, but Myles Standish gave him a humorous glance, and shrugged his shoulders.
"What would you?" he seemed to say. "Old friend, bad temper seizes every opportunity to wreak itself, and we who have seen the world can afford to let the women fume. Jealousy is a worse vice than an oath of the Stuart reign."
Stephen Hopkins harkened to this unspoken philosophy; Myles Standish had great influence over him. This, with the rapid gathering on deck of the rest of the pilgrims, served to avert what threatened to be an explosion of pardonable wrath. They came crowding up from the cabins, this courageous band of determined men and women, and gathered silently to look their last on home, and not merely on home, but on the comforts of the established life which to many among them were necessary to their existence.
There were many children, sober little men and women, in unchildlike caricatures of their elders' garb and with solemn round faces looking scared by the gravity around them.
Priscilla Mullins gathered the children together and led them over to join Constance Hopkins. She and Constance divided the love of the child pilgrims between them. Priscilla, round of face, smooth and rosy of cheek, wholesome and sensible, was good to look upon. It often happened that her duty brought her near to wherever John Alden might chance to be, but no one had ever suspected that John objected.
John Alden had been taken on as cooper from Southampton when the Mayflower first sailed. It was not certain that the pilgrims could keep him with them. Already they had learned to value him, and many a glance was now exchanged that told the hope that sunny little Priscilla might help to hold the young man on this hard expedition.
The crew of the Mayflower pulled up her sails, but without the usual sailor songs. Silently they pulled, working in unison to the sharp words of command uttered by their officers, till every shred of canvas, under which they were to set forth under a favouring wind, was strained into place and set.
On the shore was gathered a crowd gazing, wondering, at this departure. Some there were who were to have been of the company in the lesser ship, the Speedwell, which had been remanded from the voyage as unfit for it. These lingered to see the setting forth for the New World which was not to be their world, after all.
There were many who gazed, pityingly, awe-struck, but bewildered by the spirit that led these severe-looking people away from England first, and then from Holland, to try their fortunes where no fortune promised.
Others there were who laughed merrily over the absurdity of the quest, and these called all sorts of jests and quips to the pilgrims on the ship, inviting to a contest of wit which the pilgrims utterly disdained.