"I say: Bless you, and thrice over bless you, Captain Myles Standish!" cried Constance. "It is the very solution! Oh, I am thankful! I shall be anxious every hour till you return, but with all my heart I say: Take Giles with you and teach him sense. What should we ever do here without you, Captain, dear 'Arm-of-the-Colony'?"
"I doubt you ever have a chance to try that dire lack, my Con," said Captain Myles, with a humorous look at her. "I think I'm chained here by the interest that has grown in me day by day, and that I shall die among you. Though, by my sword, it's a curious thing to think of Myles Standish dying among strict Puritans!"
Stephen Hopkins and his son drew no nearer together as the days went by.
Hurt and angry, Giles would not bend his stiff young neck to humble himself, checking any impulse to do so by reminding himself that his father had been unjust to him.
Yet Doctor Fuller, good, kind, and wise, had the right of it when he said to the lad one day, laying his arm across Giles's shoulders, caressingly:
"Remember, lad, that who is right, or who is wrong in a quarrel, or an estrangement, matters little, since we are all insects of a day and our dignity at best a poor thing, measured by Infinite standards. But he is always right who ends a quarrel; ten thousand times right if he does it at the sacrifice of his own sense of injury, laying down his pride to lift a far greater possession. There may be a difference of opinion as to which is right when two have fallen out, but however that be, the situation is in itself wrong beyond dispute, and all the honour is his who ends it."
Giles heard him with lowered head, and knit brows, but he did not resent the brief sermon. Doctor Fuller was a gentle spirit; all his days were given over to healing and helping; he was free from the condemnatory sternness of most of the colonists, and Giles, as all others did, loved him.
Giles kicked at the pebbles in the way, the slow colour mounting in his face. Then he threw back his head and looked the good doctor squarely in the eyes.
"Ah, well, Doctor Fuller," he said. "I'd welcome peace, but what would you? My father condemns me, sees no good in me, nor would he welcome back the old days when we were close friends. There will be a ship come here from home some time on which I can sail back to England. It will be better to rid my father of my hateful presence; yet should I hate to leave Sis--Constance."