“Yes--that is, you goose, I fired toward it, just to see how far the saker would carry.” “Nay, I think it was a sort of salute you were giving to some fancy of your own, Myles, anent that hill.” “Well, then, since you will have me make myself out no older than Alick, I had been marking how the headland stood up against the gold of the western sky, and it minded me so of Birkenclyffe at Duxbury, and of my boyhood at Chorley and Wigan, and of fair days gone by”-- He paused, and Barbara knew that his thought was of Rose, the sweet blossom of his youth, Rose, whom he had carried in his pride to the neighborhood of the stately domain that ought to have been his and hers, and spent there with her almost the only idle month of his life. She knew, and her heart contracted with a slow, miserable pang, but she only said,-- “Yes, it does look like Birkenclyffe. And you think you could be happy in living there, Myles?” “Happy!” echoed the soldier moodily. “I should be happy if the wars would break out afresh, and Gideon and I might hear once more the music that we love. We rust here, we two.” “But the children, Myles! The boys so like their father, and Lora--would you have them orphans, and me”-- “Ah, Lora! I did not tell you when I came home from England, wife, for I did not want to hear any jibes and gainsaying”-- “Oh, Myles, do I jibe at you?” “Well, no,--no Bab, not jibes; but you know, lass, we never were quite of a mind about the Standish dignities”-- “Dear heart, we have left all that behind us in the Old World! Here we Standishes have dignity and observance in full measure, because we belong to thee, love. Captain Standish, head of the colony’s strong men, is the founder of a new race in this New World.” “Nay, nay, Barbara, you talk but as a woman, and you never did rise up to the lawful pride of your birth”-- And the captain all unconsciously put his wife off his knee, and rising, strode up and down the room, tugging at his red beard, and frowning portentously. Barbara, her hands folded in her lap, and a sad smile upon her lips, sat watching him. “It is as well to tell you now as to keep it for years,” broke out the captain suddenly. “Nothing will change it, that is, nothing but Alexander’s death”-- “Alexander’s death! Not our boy, Myles!” “No, no, no, child! Alexander, son of my cousin Ralph Standish of Standish Hall. When I was in England I went to see him as I told you.” “Yes, dear.” “I went to enforce upon him, newly come to the estates, my just and honest claim to my grandfather’s inheritance which Ralph’s grandfather juggled out of the orphan boy’s hands, and which they have kept ever since.” “I supposed that was your errand, but as I saw naught had come of it I asked you no questions, Myles.”