"Had I known you for such good fellows when first we joined company there had never been ill-will between us," said the master of the Mayflower. "But at least we will drown it now."
"It is drowned deep as Pharaoh's host in the Red Sea," responded Myles heartily, and the elder cried Amen.
An hour or so later, as the pinnace slowly beat back to her moorings, a group of women followed by some stragglers of the other sex climbed the hill and seated themselves about the Fort to watch the departure of the Mayflower. Priscilla and Mary Chilton as usual were close together, and Desire Minter seated herself beside them saying wearily,--
"Thou a man my Desirée!" exclaimed Priscilla turning upon her eyes sparkling with fun, although a suspicious red lingered around the lids. "Wouldst woo me for thy wife?"
"Thou 'rt ever looking for every man to woo thee, but I'd have thee know there's one man, and his house not so far away, that's as near wooing me as thee."
"Oh cruel, cruel Desirée to wound my fond hopes so savagely," began Priscilla; but Mary ever more practical than humorous interrupted her,--
"Because we women were not asked would we accept Master Jones's hospitality and go home, and so I had no chance to say 'Ay and thank y' sir?'"
"Would you have so said Desirée?" asked Priscilla serious in a minute.
"Why sure I would," replied the girl pettishly. "Why should any of us want to stay? There's plenty of hard work and plenty of prayers I grant you, and when you have said that you've said all. No decent housen, no butcher's meat, or milk, or garden stuff, or so much as a huckster's shop where one might cheapen a ribbon or a stay-lace--what is there here to live for?"
"Naught for thee, my poor Desirée, I'm afraid," said Priscilla almost tenderly. "And I wish thou couldst go home, but a maid may not venture herself alone."
"I know she may not, and I tried to make my cousin Carver think as I do, that so she might persuade the Governor to go, but wow! at the first word she fell upon me with such a storm of words"--
"Sweet Mistress Carver storm!" cried the two girls derisively, and Priscilla added more gravely,--
"I can fancy what she tried to make thee feel, Desirée; but thou couldst not feel it, and mayhap most young maids like us could not, but thou seest Mary and I are different; our fathers and our mothers came hither with their lives in their hands to do a work, and we came to help them. Well, the lives were paid down and the work was not done, so we who remain, simple maids though we be, are in a manner bound to carry on that work, and not let them have died quite in vain. And their graves are here."