“Ne’ertheless, Master Thacher, I do withdraw my petition, and beg you instead of that story to tell us how you like our fashion of holding court by deputies rather than _pro coram publico_ as hath been our wont until this year.” “Nay, Captain Standish, one matter at a time an’t please you, and I have no mind to be balked of the glory of mine adventure. What say you, friends? Shall not I tell you of the shipwreck?” “It would give me singular pleasure to hear it, Brother Thacher,” replied the parson, while the elder smiled approval, Jonathan Brewster murmured “Ay!” and the captain, lifting his shaggy beard and taking the pipe from his mouth, said with a merry gesture,-- “It were churlish to refuse to listen to a man who fain would tell his own adventures, so I will e’en put all scruples in my pocket and hearken with the rest of you.” “Well spoke, mine host, and I can comfort you by saying truthfully that the qualm hath passed and I would rather tell the tale than be silent. “You men of Plymouth have not forgotten the great storm of August in the year of grace 1635, for it was then that the French villain D’Aulney seized upon your rich trading-post at Castine which they now call Bragaduce, and turned John Willet adrift with only a shallop and a worthless due-bill. The terrific storm that wrecked Willet’s shallop and also the armed ship Angel Gabriel, bound to Boston in the Bay, overtook the humbler craft in which my cousin Dominie John Avery, his wife and six children, and I with my wife and four children, nine mariners, and other persons were making the voyage from Ipswich to Marblehead.” “It was a bark of Isaac Allerton’s in which you voyaged, was it not?” asked Standish. “Ay, he was owner, but not master.” “Never mind who played master, if Allerton was owner, the boat was sure of ill luck,” growled Standish; but the Elder interposed serenely,-- “Your speech savors of superstition as well as uncharity, Captain Standish, and I had held you singularly free from both those vices.” “I crave your pardon, Elder. I had clean forgot that Allerton was for a while your son-in-law. Go on an’ it please you, Master Thacher.” But again the power of those memories he had so resolutely evoked overmastered the speaker, and it was in a hurried and broken voice and with a furtive gesture of the hand across the eyes that he again began:--