"A lucky thing for him, too," interposed Giles's father proudly. "I have seen Myles; he hath told me how, when you and he were fallen behind your companions, investigating a deep ravine, he had slipped and would have been killed by his own matchlock as it struck against the rock, but that you, risking your life, threw yourself forward on a narrow ledge and struck up the muzzle of the gun. The colony is in your debt, my son, that your arm warded death from the man it calls, justly, its Arm." "Prithee, father!" expostulated Giles, turning crimson. "Who could do less for a lesser man? And who would not do far more for Myles Standish? I would be a fool to hesitate over risk to a life no more valuable than mine, if such as he were in danger. Besides which the captain exaggerates my danger. I don't want that prated here. Please help me silence Myles Standish." Stephen Hopkins nodded in satisfaction. "Right, Giles. A blast on one's own horn produces much the sound of the bray of an ass. Yet am I glad that I know of this," he said. Little Love Brewster, who was often a messenger from one Plymouth house to another, came running in at that moment. "My father sends me," he panted. "The men of Plymouth are to sit this afternoon at our house to hear the tale of the adventurers to the Massachusetts. You will come? Giles, did you bring us new kinds of arrows from the strange savages? My father saith that Squanto was the best guide and helper on this expedition that white men ever had." "So he was, Love. I brought no new arrows, but I have in my sack something for each little lad in the colony. And for the girls I have wondrous beads," added Giles, seeing Damaris's crestfallen face. "I will risk a reprimand; it can be no worse than disapproval from Elder Brewster, and belike they will spare me because of the occasion," thought Constance in her own room, making ready to go to the assembly that was to gather to welcome the explorers, but which to her mind was gathered chiefly to honour Giles. Thus deliberately she violated the rule of the colony; let her beautiful hair curl around her flushed face; put on a collar of her mother's finest lace, tied in such wise by a knot of rose-coloured ribbon that it looked like a cluster of buds under her decided little chin. And, surveying herself in the glass, which was over small and hazy for her merits, that chin raised itself in a hitch of defiance. "Why should I not be young, and fair and happy?" Constance demanded of her unjust reflection. "At the worst, and if I am forced to remove it, I shall have been gay and bonny--a wee bit so!--for a little while." With which this unworthy pilgrim maid danced down the stairs, seized by the hand Damaris, who looked beside her like a small brown grub, and set out for Elder Brewster's house.