But if he must come to the wilderness I
will come with him. Gracious me! what noise is that?" she exclaimed, as a
sudden report of firearms from below struck her ear. "I do believe there
is that Frank Billington at the gunpowder; that boy will never leave, I
do believe, till he hath blown up the ship's company."
In fact, it appeared that young master Frank, impatient of the absence of
his father, had toled Wrestling Brewster and two other of the boys down
into the cabin to show them his skill in managing his father's fowling-
piece, had burst the gun, scattering the pieces about the cabin.
Margery soon appeared, dragging the culprit after her. "Look here now,
Master Malapert, see what you'll get when your father comes home! Lord a
mercy! here was half a keg of powder standing open! Enough to have blown
us all up! Here, Master Clarke, Master Clarke, come and keep this boy
with you till his father come back, or we be all sent sky high before we
know."
* * * *
At even tide the boat came back laden to the water's edge with the first
gettings and givings from the new soil of America. There is a richness
and sweetness gleaming through the brief records of these men in their
journals, which shows how the new land was seen through a fond and tender
medium, half poetic; and its new products lend a savor to them of
somewhat foreign and rare.
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