s is my dead father's
bidding, that he can let weeks and months roll by or ever he finds time
to convince himself of the matter. I care naught for coat-armor, nor for
pedigree, I, whose forbears were honest bourgeoisie of Lyons who
scrupled not to give up all for conscience sake, while this man is
neither Papist like his kinsfolk, nor Independent like these he lives
among. And I care not for a red beard, nor for widowers, nor for men old
enough to be my sire"--

"Nay, he is but six-and-thirty, maiden."

"And I am naught-and-twenty, and I am a-weary of thy chat, John Alden,
and I fain would be alone, so I wish thee good e'en--and a keener wit."

"But Priscilla," gasped the poor fellow as the wheel was pushed so
suddenly aside that he had to spring out of its way, while its mistress
whirled past him and up the clumsy stair leading to her nook in the loft
of the cabin.

"But Priscilla!" came back in wrathful mimicry from the head of the
stair, and while Alden still stood bewildered, in at the open door
flocked Mary Chilton, and Desire, and Elizabeth, their girlish laughter
bubbling over at some girlish jest, and with a muttered greeting Alden
stalked through their midst and was gone.

"He came looking for Priscilla, and is grumly at not finding her,"
whispered Elizabeth Tilley; but Mary Chilton with a wise nod replied, as
one who knows,--

"Did he but know it, she's not ill inclined to him when all is said.
Unless I sore mistake she'll say yea next time he asks her."

CHAPTER XXIV.

THE MYSTERIOUS GRAVE.

"A fair and goodly day!" exclaimed Standish ever sensitive to the
aspects of nature, although never allowing himself to be mastered by any
extremity of weather.

"Ay," replied Bradford. "And yet methinks that cloud rising over Manomet
hath a stormy look."

"Let us once weather the Gurnet's Nose, and a south wind will not harm
us," ventured Billington, whose out-of-door prowlings had at least made
him weatherwise.

"Ay, if south wind is all that it means," said Doctor Fuller gravely.
"But to my mind yon cloud is of no common kind. It minds me shrewdly of
those whirlwind or cyclone clouds that used to fright us in the China
Seas when I sailed them as a lad."

"Say you so, Surgeon!" replied Bradford looking uneasily at the cloud
rapidly rising and enlarging in the southern horizon. "Be ready with the
sheets, Peter Browne and Cooke, and Francis Eaton had best stand with
Latham at the helm."

"Look!