“Commend me to a good woman for thrusts both deep and sure when once she is angered,” cried Myles, flinging out of the house and up the hill to his den in the Fort. But when Alick and Betty Alden raced each other thither to tell him that supper was ready, the choleric captain had fully recovered his temper, and found his wife so placid and quietly cheerful that he supposed she also had both forgiven and forgotten. Which shows that the great Captain of Plymouth understood the strategy of battle better than that of a woman’s heart. Nor did he ever note, that from that day Barbara never spoke her daughter’s name if it could possibly be avoided, calling her generally “my little maid,” and as the child grew, addressing her as May, the sweet old English contraction of maiden. A few weeks later, as Barbara set the stirabout that sometimes served instead of furmety upon the table, her husband entered, and throwing his hat into Lora’s lap said in a tone of well deserving,-- “There, Bab, I’ve bought out Winslow’s share in the red cow for five pounds and ten shillings, to be paid in corn, and I’ve satisfied Pierce and Clark for their shares with a ewe lamb apiece, so now it is mine, and I give it to you. She’s not the kyloe cow you were longing for, but she’s your own.” “Thank you, Myles,” replied Barbara, flushing with pleasure. “And is it quite settled that we are to go over to the Captain’s Hill as they begin to call it?” “Duxbury, I mean to call it in due time. Yes, dame, the men and I are going over to-morrow morning to fell timber, and you shall have some sort of shelter of your own over there before you’re a month older.” CHAPTER X. THE UNEXPECTED. It was just as true in 1625 as it will be in 1895 that nothing is certain to occur except the unexpected; but the idea had not yet been phrased, and even if it had been, William Bradford’s turn of mind was absolutely opposed to the epigrammatic, so it was in sober commonplace that he remarked,-- “I never thought to have spoken with you again in Plymouth, Master Oldhame, but sith you urge pressing business as your excuse for coming hither, I am ready to hear it.” The governor sat in his chair of office, and the Assistants were ranged each man in his place. At the end of the platform stood John Oldhame, and behind him Bartholomew Allerton and Gyles Hopkins, each carrying a pike, and looking very important. But except for these nine men the great chamber where we assisted at the Court of the People was empty, and the sad afternoon light fell across the vacant benches, and glimmered upon the low-browed wall upheld by sturdy knees of oak, with a sort of mournful curiosity quite pathetic; this curiosity was, however, reflected in the minds of the townsfolk of Plymouth in a degree far more ludicrous than pathetic, man often falling short of the dignity of nature.