Very few words were used upon this occasion, for all had been said that could be said, not once but many times before; and now as Bradford, after a brief and formal discussion, signed the act of incorporation, he laid down the pen, and looking around the council board solemnly said,-- “May this rending of his garment not provoke the Lord to wrath, as well I fear it may!” Not even Elder Brewster found a word to reply, and the deed was done. An hour later, as the Duxbury men prepared to return to their new home, Standish linked his arm in that of his old friend and led him up the hill, saying,-- “Nay, Will, for old time’s sake put a better face on ’t, man. Come over with us to Captain’s Hill, as they call it, and tarry the night. We’ll crush a kindly cup to the new town, and you shall be its godfather. Never look so glum, I pr’ythee, Will! You take all the heart out of me, old friend.” “See there, Myles, see that!” “What, mine own old house? ’Tis going to ruin already, is it not, and yet ’tis no more than seventeen years since these hands with John Alden’s aid laid it beam to beam.” “And why does it go to ruin, Myles?” “Why? Why, because no man careth for it, I suppose.” “Ay, you’ve answered me, friend. No man careth for that home, nor for John Alden’s hard by, nor for Edward Winslow’s, and the Elder’s great house is now but a half-hearted home, for he is more at Duxbury than here. I speak not of the rest, for they are of less account to me; and that is a fault which I confess, but nature is strong, and the carnal heart of man clings to its own.” “And why should not a man’s heart cling to his old friends and comrades, Will, and why should not you value the Elder, and Winslow, and Alden, and a few more of us more than you do all these nimble Jacks that have sprung up to push us old ones from our places? Be a saint an’ you please, old comrade, but don’t strive to cease to be a man.” “And here is the Fort you loved so well, Myles. Shall you have a new Fort at Duxbury?” The captain stopped, and squaring round laid a finger upon the governor’s breast, and fixed his keen brown eyes upon the other’s fairer face. “Friend,” said he in a tenderer voice than was his wont, “where a man is all but as good and as godly as a woman, he is apt to have some trace of woman’s faults and follies, and that last speech of yours savors of woman’s jealousy and spite. Play the man, Will, play the man, and smite me with thy fist an’ thou lik’st not what I do and say, but never lower thyself to stinging with thy tongue.”