"Dear heart, Mistress Rose! I would the lad had stayed him at nought worser. Nay, he is not for going up the ladder, but down. Conceive you, nought will serve him but a journey o'er seas, and to set him up a home in the Queen's Majesty's country of Virginia--yea, away in the plantations, amongst all the savages and wild beasts, and men worser than either, that have been of late carried thither from this land, for to be rid of them. `Come, lad,' said I to him, `content thee with eating of batatas [the Spanish word of which _potato_ is a corruption] and drinking of tobacco [smoking tobacco was originally termed _drinking_ it], and leave alone this mad fantasy.' But not he, in good sooth! Verily, for to go thither as a preacher and teacher, with hope to reform the ill men,--that had been matter of sore peril, and well to be thought on; yet would I not have said him nay, had the Lord called him to it;--but to make his _home_!" And Mr Underhill stopped short, as if words were too weak adequately to convey his feelings. "Maybe the Lord hath called him to that, old friend," said the Rector. "His eyes be on Virginia, no less than England." "God forbid I should deny it! Yet there is such gear as tempting the Lord. For my part,--but la! I am an old man, and the old be less venturesome than the young,--yet for me, I see not what should move a man to dwell any whither out of his own country, without he must needs fly to save his life." "Had all men been of your mind," observed Mr Tremayne with a smile, "there had ne'er been any country inhabited save one, until men were fairly pushed thence by lack of room." "Well!--and wherefore should any quit home until he be pushed out?" "Ask at Hal," said the Rector laughing. "No have I so? Yea, twenty times twice told: but all I may win from the young ne'er-do-well is wise saws that the world must be peopled (why so, I marvel?),--and that there is pleasure in aventure (a deal more, I reckon, in keeping of one's carcase safe and sound!)--and that some men must needs dwell in strange lands, and the like. Well-a-day! wherefore should they so? Tell me that, Robin Tremayne." "I will, old friend, when mine amaze is o'er at hearing of such words from one Ned Underhill." "Amaze!--what need, trow?" "But little need, when one doth call to mind that the most uncommon of all things is consistency. Only when one hath been used for forty years and more to see a man (I name him not) ever foremost in all perilous aventure, and thrusting him forward into whatsoever danger there were as into a bath of rosewater, 'tis some little surprise that taketh one to hear from the self-same party that 'tis never so much sweeter to keep safe and sound at home." Mr Underhill threw his head back, and indulged in a hearty peal of laughter. "On my word, Robin, thou ticklest me sore! But what, lad!--may a man not grow prudent in his old age?"