“There be them among the elders and magistrates who be of a different opinion.  Beshrew me! (may the Lord forgive me,” he added, looking round in alarm.  “I hope no one hears me,) but, according to my thinking, it is only because Master Winthrop asks for no pay, and spends so much out of his own purse for other folk, that they choose him Governor.”

“What can anybody have against so sweet-tempered and liberal a gentleman?” inquired Margery.

“Well, then, the elders complain that he is not so zealous, even unto slaying, as becomes a leader of the Lord’s host, which he is, like Moses and Joshua; and some of the deputies pretend that he takes too much state on him, and means to make himself a king, or least-wise, a lord.”

“And I trow, good man, I know no reason why, when the Commonwealth, as they call it, gets big enough, we should not have a king as well as the folk on the other side of the water.  It was always a pleasure to see his Majesty in the streets of London, with the grand lords and ladies all in their silks and satins, and jewels and feathers.  It will be long, I am afraid,” sighed the good woman, “before we shall see such fine sights in these woods.”

“Hush, goody,” said Sam, “take care your tongue do not get you into trouble.  Speak lower, an you will talk about things you know nothing about.  You love kings and lords better than some folk,” he concluded, with a laugh.

“Take care of your own tongue, Sam Bars; I warrant you mine will take care of itself.  But wherefore should I not love the king?  Is it not written—­touch not mine anointed, and do my prophets no harm?  And I will let you know, Sam Bars? that I will say what I please about him, God bless him!  Marry, come up, a fine time of day truly, if a woman may not speak her mind!  I should like to see the man or woman either, forsooth, to stop me.  My tongue and ten commandments (stretching out her fingers) know how to take care of one another, I can tell you.  My tongue get me into trouble!  O, Sam, why do you aggravate me so?  Me, the quietest and peaceablest and silentest wife in the world!  Why dost not speak?  Art as dumb as the bench your heavy carcass almost breaks down?  Speak, I say, Sam, speak, or I shall go crazy.”

But her husband, whom long experience had taught the best mode of weathering such storms, only shook his head in silence, until the good woman, after a variety of ejaculations and expletives, finding that she made no more impression on him than children’s pop-guns on a sand-bank, concluded to cool down, when she asked what the Governor said to him.

Sam, glad that the current had taken another direction, answered readily “a mountain of questions about Philip.  And he wanted to know why I put so many irons on him—­how he found it out, the Lord only knows, unless”—­here Bars sunk his voice, so that the words were inaudible to the listener, and he lost a sentence or two—­“and when he dismissed me, he ordered that I should never do it again without his consent, and then sent me into the kitchen, where I had a pottle of sack.”