“You’re right, Cooke, and I sore mistrust our fathers’ chairs will prove too wide for us. I know mine is, and often enough I wish the old man back.” “Ha! That was a shrewd twist of the wind! It seemed to snatch my breath. Well, here we are.” And raising the heavy iron latch, the two men precipitated themselves into the great lower room of the Fort, where once we saw the Pilgrims hold their fast when drought and famine were sore upon them, and once we assisted at the trial of John Oldhame. The religious services of the town were still held in this place, although it had long been Pastor Rayner’s urgent appeal to the people that they should build a suitable meeting-house for the worship of God, and no longer mingle ecclesiastical and secular pursuits in the same building. But since the removal of some of the colony’s wealthiest and most influential townsmen to Duxbury, Scituate, Marshfield, and the Cape towns, poor Plymouth had become so destitute that her sons could barely provide food for the body, and had little money or energy to spare in suitably serving the soul’s aliment. And now help was to come, and from a most unexpected source. Upon the platform at the top of the Fort the two visitors found Lieutenant Holmes, sheltered from the wind behind a sentry-box, and absorbed in the use of the spy-glass they had come to seek. “Well, and what do you see, Livetenant?” demanded Cooke, ever ready with his tongue. The soldier, who after the manner of most men when absorbed in the use of one sense was slow to occupy himself with another (it being one of the privileges of womanhood to do two things at once and do both well), did not reply at once, and Jenney, screening his eyes with his hand, looked out to seaward for a long moment, and then cried,-- “Surely there’s a sail in the scurry off the Gurnet! Isn’t it so, Livetenant?” “A sail, say you?” replied Holmes slowly, and in the mechanical tone of one whose eye is glued to a spy-glass. “Well, double it, and thribble it, and mayhap you’ll hit closer to the bull’s eye.” “Three sail!” exclaimed Cooke, fairly dancing with excitement. “Come, now, let’s have a squint, Holmes, just a cast of the eye, and I’ll give back the glass in a jiffy. Let’s have it, there’s a Christian!” “Well, then, Jake, take your squint, and tell me what you make of it.” And the lieutenant, laughing a little, rose to his feet, handed the glass to Cooke, and rubbed his eyes, which, in fact, had declined to serve any longer in that one-sided fashion. “You’re right, Holmes, you’re right! ’Tis three sail, and sizable craft, too; brigantines, I should say.” “Come, come, Jake!” expostulated the lieutenant jealously. “A man’s not going to tell a brigantine from a bark at this distance, and with such a spoor flying.”