They saw, at first, only a smooth square of grass, rolled and cut close like the lawns in England. Four cypress trees, dug up in the forest and trimmed to some semblance of the clipped yews that grace formal gardens, stood in a square about the hewn stone column that bore a sundial. Quiet, peaceful and innocent enough the place seemed—but there again was that terrible scream. Out from behind a shrub came strutting slowly the chief ornament of the place, Margeret’s pet, Master Simon’s secret, a full-grown, glittering peacock. Seeing a proper company of spectators assembled, the stately bird spread its tail and walked up and down, turning itself this way and that to show off its glories, the very spirit of shallow and empty vanity. For pure amazement and horror, the Governor and his companions stood motionless and without speech. But if the Englishmen were frozen to the spot, it was far otherwise with the Indians. They flung themselves upon their faces before the terrifying apparition, they held up their hands in supplication that it would do them no harm. Then, after a moment of stricken fear and upon the peacock’s raising its terrible voice again, they sprang to their feet, fled through the gate and up the lane, and paused not once in their headlong flight until they had disappeared into the sheltering forest. The Governor drew a long breath, caught Master Simon’s eye and burst into a great roar of laughter. “You have done us a good turn, you and your silly, empty-headed bird,” he said, “though I was of a mind for a moment to put it to death and to set you in the pillory for harbouring such a creature of vanity. Yet for the sake of his help against a dreaded foe, you shall both be spared. Now see that you order your garden more soberly and that no further complaints come to my ears.” He turned to go. “If you please, may we keep the tulips?” begged Margeret, curtseying low, her voice shaking with anxiety. “Yes, little maid,” was the gracious answer, “you may keep your tulips since you cannot use them for gold as those poor savages thought they could. And go, pluck me a branch of that hawthorn blossom that smells so sweet. It grew—ah, how it grew in the fair green lanes of my own dear Nottinghamshire.” With the sprig of hawthorn in his grey coat, and with a bow to Margeret as though she had been some great lady, the Governor passed out into the lane followed by all his company, deacons, Assistants and Master Hapgood. Only the minister, Jeremiah Macrae, lingered inside the gate. Suddenly he lifted both his arms toward heaven and spoke out loudly in his great, harsh voice. With his dark cloak flying about him and his deep-set eyes lit by a very flame of wrath, he looked to Margeret like one of the prophets of old, such as were pictured in her mother’s great Bible. She trembled and crept nearer to her father.