"But how were you on the road to a bishop's see? Not surely by writing of misspelled letters and holding of ladies' hands against their wills."
"No, but in spite of it, for I had influence and the Archbishop was a friend of my father's, and I had his promise of preferment, which was good for its face value in those days, and I might have risen to anything; but when Margaret Brent cast scorn at me like that it maddened me—and what was she to hold herself above me? What are the Calverts themselves? Why, Leonard Calvert's grandfather was a grazier, and Leonard himself was a dolt when we were at school together."
Huntoon, not seeing exactly what answer was expected, wisely attempted none, but made a feint of helping himself from the jug at his elbow, and then shoved it across the table. Ingle shook it and finding it still heavy, set it down with a contented thump.
"Bide you there, my beauty!" he said jovially, "till I'm ready for you. I'll have you yet. Yes, and Margaret Brent too, for all her fine-lady airs. Who ever heard of the Brents till they sprang up like mushrooms in this new world? While the Ingles—my grandfather did oft tell me how all England took its name from them."
"Faith!" said Huntoon to himself, "your spelling is not much improved since the days when you wrote Mistress Brent." Aloud he said, "And did the disappointment drive you out of England, the country named after your forefathers?"
"It did," answered Ingle, with a hiccough, and fell into drunken weeping, "but perhaps I might have lost my head if I'd tarried, so maybe 'tis all for the best, and the life o' the sea is a merry one; but I've never forgotten nor forgiven, and for Margaret Brent's sake I've sworn an oath to make a hell of Maryland to all her kith and kin."
With this Ingle came to himself a little and feared the confidences he was making this stranger in his cups might have gone too far, so he burst into tipsy laughter and shook the jug, which was made of leather, and then poured its contents to the last dregs into his silver-rimmed skull, and finally waving it above his head burst out singing,—
"'Oh, a leather bottel we know is good,
Far better than glasses or cans of wood.