"Well, I'm no judge of songs, and as to rhyming I could match cat and rat if it was put to me to do, but no more. Yet it seemeth me that is a pretty song, with exactly the truth for its burden, and it trippeth as sweetly as the robin whistles. Do you know, Constance, it seems to me to run more into smooth cadences than the Metrical Psalms themselves!" Priscilla dropped her voice as she said this, as if she hoped to be unheard by the vengeance which might swoop down on her.
Constance's laugh rang out merrily, quite unafraid.
"Oh, dear Prissy, the Metrical Version was not meant to run in smooth cadences!" she cried. "Do you see why we should not sing as the robin whistles, being young and God's creatures, surely not less than the birds? Priscilla Mullins, there is John Alden awaiting us in the very spot where we are to work! How did he happen there, when no other man is about?"
"He spoke to me of helping us with the first heavy turning of the soil," said Priscilla, exceedingly red and uncomfortable, but constrained to be truthful. "Oh, Constance, never look at me like that! Can I help it that Master Alden is so considerate of us?"
"Sure-ly not!" declared Constance emphatically. "What about his returning home, Pris? He was hired but as cooper for the voyage, and would return. Will he go, think you?"
"He seems not fully decided. He said somewhat to me of staying." Poor Priscilla looked more than miserable as she said this, yet was forced to laugh.
"I will speak to my father and Captain Standish to get them to offer him work a-plenty this summer, so mayhap they can persuade him to let the _Mayflower_ sail without him--next week she goes. Or perhaps you could bring arguments to bear upon him, Priscilla! He never seems stiff-necked, nor unbiddable." Constance said this with a great effect of innocence, as if a new thought had struck her, and Priscilla had barely time to murmur:
"Thou art a sad tease, Constance," before they came up with John Alden, who looked as embarrassed as Priscilla when he met Constance's dancing eyes.
Nevertheless it was not long before John Alden and Priscilla Mullins were working together at a little distance apart from the rest, leaving Constance to dig and rake in company with Humility Cooper, Elizabeth Tilley, and the little girls. Thus at work they saw approaching from the end of the road that was lost in the woods beyond a small but imposing procession of tall figures, wrapped in gaudy colored blankets, their heads surmounted with banded feathers which streamed down their backs, softly waving in the light breeze.