And again the sailor, recalling the scene, threw back his head and laughed aloud, but meeting no response checked himself suddenly and continued:-- “Well, Allerton and I, when we might be heard, assured both the one and the other dame that we compassionated their sad estate most heartily and would willingly see them avenged, but that we had no power except to bring the matter before Governor Winthrop, within whose jurisdiction Sir Christopher had settled, and in the end both ladies resolved to write to His Excellency, and promised to send the letters betimes next day to the Three Anchors at Wapping; which, to cut the yarn short, they did, and I gave them to Winthrop, and he as you know coursed the hare, or rather, hunted the fox, and ran him down, here at Plymouth.” “But he has not been sent home, or so I heard the other day!” exclaimed Bradford. “No; and why, I know not,” replied Pierce. “They kept him clapt up for a while, but finding nothing worse against him than that he is a friend to Sir Ferdinando Gorges, who wants the Massachusetts lands for himself, they gave him the run of the town, and he has been vaporing up and down there for months more than one or two. But now, Bradford, now here’s a merry jest that even you cannot but smile at if there’s a drop of red blood in your veins. “A week or two ago a stalwart fellow called Thomas Purchase, who has taken up land at the eastward at a place called Sagadahoc, on the Kennebec River,--or is it the Androscoggin?” “Both, since they come to a confluence. We have been thither trading for beaver, and will have a port there soon, if God will.” “Well, this Purchase is a big man down there, and meaning to be bigger; so, having a house, he came to Boston to purvey himself a wife; and who should he pick from among all the fair and godly maids and widows of that pious village but Mary Grove, who has been waiting there until the magistrates should settle within their own minds which of the Lady Gardiners might claim the plucking of her feathers. Yes, sir; Thomas Purchase, with his eyes and his ears open, chose Mary Grove to be his wife, Sir Christopher gave his consent and his blessing, and the lord’s brethren, as Blackstone calls them, hailed with joy so clear a course out of the muddle they’d fallen into with this woman. So Winthrop himself married them, and Purchase, having his boat at hand, well stocked with the barter of the beaver he had brought up, carried his bride aboard, and also,--now mark you well, for here’s the very moral of the jest,--also he took aboard Sir Christopher Gardiner himself, and away they all sailed for Sagadahoc. There, what think you of that, gossip?” “I think Master Thomas Purchase a singularly charitable man,” replied Bradford with a dry smile. “But let us hope that Mary Grove convinced him that she was more sinned against than sinning, and had not done the wrong this villain’s second wife imputed to her.”