"I know his fame as a pious teacher and a learned man, well beloved of his people." "Beloved? Ay, none more so," exclaimed Standish heartily. "I ever wished I might see him in some great peril and prove my love by cutting down a round dozen of his foes. And learned! Why, man, he disputed with the most learned among their Dutch scholars openly in the big church, and left them not a leg to stand on, or a tongue to wag. Why, 't is no more to him to read Hebrew than for me to spell out my Bible. So then, knowing his learning and his love of all that is old and curious, I one day showed him my sword and asked if he could rede me fairly the mystical texts or whatever they might be upon the blade. But mind thee I said naught to him of any charm or amulet about it, lest I might wound his conscience, which is tender as a maid's. Thou shouldst have seen the dear old man, barnacles on nose, peering and peeping and muttering over the queer device, all at one as he were a wizard himself and working some spell. But at the last he heaved a mighty sigh, and gave me back the sword saying, nay, he could not make out more than that there were two legends in two different tongues and by different hands, and that the effigies of the sun and moon and stars pointed, he feared, to idolatrous emblems, and were not such as a Christian man might safely deal withal. So I asked him would it be better should I have the Holy Rood wrought above them as did the Crusaders of old, and beshrew me, but this device seemed to please him less than the other." "Nay, our teachers like not the look of the Cross, nor use it as our fathers used. It savoreth of Popery, they say," interposed Alden glancing at the captain's face for sure approval, but to his surprise he saw it overcast and frowning. "Thou knowest," replied he a little haughtily, "that I am not of the Separatist Church, nor agree in all its teachings. The Standishes were ever good Catholics, since they came over from Normandy with William the Baseborn, and if I hold not to the religion of my fathers I accept no other, nor can I ever esteem lightly those things my mother venerated." The younger man, perplexed and mortified, remained silent, but in a moment Standish smiled and resumed his story. "So, Pastor Robinson confessed his own want of skill, as so wise a man need not shame to do, but told me of a certain aged scholar in Amsterdam, well versed in Eastern lore, and able, if any man alive could do it, to rede me the riddle aright, and he wrote down his name and lodging and a line to recommend me to his kindly attention, and so gave me fair good-night.