“Alas!  I fear,” rejoined Winthrop, taking a seat, after first formally seating the other, “alas!  I fear that my shoulders are too weak for so great a burden.  Were it not for the prize of the high calling set before me, and the sweet refreshment sometimes breathed into me by the Spirit, I should faint beneath its weight.”

“We are commanded neither to faint nor to be weary of well-doing,” said Sir Christopher, “with comfortable assurances that as is our need, so shall our strength be.  But, honored sir, I much mistake the nobility of your mind, if you would be willing to exchange your high place for a meaner lot.  I thank God that you are placed upon an eminence to be a tower of strength to those who do well, and a terror to the evil.”

“Better,” replied Winthrop, “is the humble cottage than the lordly structure whereunto your poetical and extravagant politeness hath likened me.  Remember,” he added, with a smile, wherein there was some bitterness mingled with its melancholy, for he had of late been annoyed by the rougher nature of Dudley, and the jealousy of some of the Assistants, “altoe turres cadunt dum humiles casoe stant.”

“Noble sir,” said Sir Christopher, “be not cast down.  The foundations of your house are built upon a basis too broad and firm to be blown down by the disorderly breaths of lackeys and trencher-scrapers.  Pardon me, if in my zeal I apply ignominious terms to your enemies.”

“There be those to be ranked in that category who yet in no wise deserve such epithets,” answered the generous Governor.  “Were opposition to come only from so base a quarter, little should I heed, and rather consider it an incitement to keener action; but there are also choice spirits, elect vessels, pillars of the congregation, men inspired with godly zeal, who are persuaded themselves, and would persuade others, that I am lukewarm in the cause, and bear the sword in vain.”

“If the peevish captiousness of these persons is greatly to influence, I will not say over-awe you, noble sir,” said Sir Christopher, “I tremble lest the errand of mercy whereon I come should fail of its purpose.”

“Ever true to the principle of the [Greek:  Melissa],” said the Governor, smiling “what can the Knight of the Golden Melice crave which John Winthrop can deny?”

The Knight of the Golden [Greek:  Melissa], or Melice, as he was commonly called, meaning thereby the Knight of the Golden Honey-Bee, and who, by wearing conspicuously about his person the device or badge adopted when he received the order of knighthood, only complied with the fantastic notions of the times, gazed a moment at the figure of the bee on the handle of his sword, before replying: 

“The golden bee does indeed remind me,” he said, “that even as he, in the summer of his days, collects the yellow treasure which is to sustain him in the death of winter, so should I, while the day is mine, be busy to perform the will of Him who hath called me to a post in his creation, that I be not ashamed in the grave.  I came to ask a favor in behalf of the soldier Philip Joy.”