"'T is well said, Master Carver. I had some such thought myself," said Allerton rather primly, while Hopkins and Billington exchanged an irreverent grin, and Standish stroked his moustache.
The cloak was brought, and gracefully accepted by Samoset, who evidently regarded it as a ceremonial robe of state, designed to mark his admittance as an honored guest at the white men's board, and draping it toga-wise across his shoulder, he sat down to a plentiful repast of cold duck, biscuit, butter, cheese, and a kind of sausage called black pudding. To these solids was added a comfortable tankard of spirits and water, from which Samoset at once imbibed a protracted draught.
"Englishman have better drink than poor Indian," remarked he placing the tankard close beside his plate, and seizing a leg of the duck in his hands.
"'T is sure enough that he has been much with white men,--yes, and Englishmen, too, by the way he takes down his liquor," remarked Hopkins.
"Nay, methinks our Dutch brethren could take down a deep draught, too, and this is their own liquor," said Bradford, while Winslow muttered in Carver's ear,--
"Let not Alden leave the case-bottle within reach of the savage. Enough will loosen his tongue, but a little more will bind it."
"True," assented the Governor, nodding to Alden, who quietly replaced the bottle in the case whence he had taken it. Samoset followed it with longing eyes, but his own dignity prevented remonstrance except by finishing the flagon and ostentatiously turning it upside down.
After this, the meal was soon finished, and the conversation resumed, partly by signs and inference, partly by Samoset's limited stock of English. By one means and the other the Pilgrims presently learned that Monhegan was a large island near to the mainland in a northeasterly direction, and a great resort of fishing vessels, mostly English, with whose masters Samoset, as sachem of the Indians in those parts, had both traded and feasted, learning their language, their manners, and, what was worse, their habits of strong drink and profanity, neither of which however seemed to have taken any great hold upon him, being reserved rather as accomplishments and proofs that he too had studied men and manners.