“Ay, so they do, yet at that moment I tarried not to discover if Winthrop’s men had learned its name as well as its navigation, but, throwing my shot-pouch and powder-flask around my neck, thrusting my compass into one pocket and a full flask into the other, I bade my poor little cousin good-by, and well armed, as you may be assured, I plunged into the forest, and set out for the New Netherlands, some sixty or seventy leagues to the southwest of Boston Bay.” “They thought you would try to reach Piscataqua, where Hilton and others are seated. Church of England men, they, and more of your own fashion.” “Why, of course they so thought, Master Governor, and that is why I went not thither; nor did I seek to come here because I felt myself in need of some air less pure and less attenuate than that which circles round a conventicle; I pined for the company of ordinary mortals like myself.” “You hardly reached the New Netherlands, however,” suggested Bradford dryly. “No. I fell sick the first night, from sleeping on the bare ground in a pitiless storm of rain and sleet, and I rested for a day or so with some natives whom I knew. Besides, had they much harmed her I left behind, I would have gone back and revenged her by at least John Winthrop’s life.” “Come, now, that’s spoken man fashion!” exclaimed Standish, and the two soldiers exchanged an almost friendly glance and smile. But the smile quickly faded from the knight’s face as his thoughts went back to his terrible experience in the wilderness, and resting his elbow on his knee, with his chin in the cup of his hand, he stared gloomily into the fire, and went on:--