a sugar bason from a chest in the corner of the room. These,
with a smaller pewter cup, he placed before the seaman who eagerly mixed
himself a stiff dram, drank it, and prepared another, which he sipped
luxuriously, as leaning back in his chair he looked slowly around the
circle of his entertainers, and finally burst forth,--

"The plain truth is, there are no folk like these in any latitude I've
sailed, and a man must deal with them accordingly. 'T is what I told
Clarke and Coppin before I came ashore. What men but you would give
another what you want yourselves, and lacking it may find yourselves in
worse case than him you help? And 't is not all chat, for still I've
marked it both afloat and ashore, and the poor wretches you've left in
the ship will pluck the morsel from their own lips to put it to
another's.

"So it is, that with all your losses, a kind of good luck aye follows
you, and I shall not marvel if, in the end, you build up your colony
here, and see good days when I am--well, it matters not where--I doubt
me if priests or parsons know. But they who flout you or do you a
churlish turn find no good luck resting on them, but rather a
curse,--yea, I've marked that too. 'T is better to be friends than foes
with some folk."

"'Timeo Daneos et dona ferentes,'" quoted Winslow in the ear of Elder
Brewster, who sat watching the sailor curiously, and now suddenly
said,--

"And so thy shipmen are very ill too, Master Jones!"

"Lo you, now! I said naught of it, and how well you knew. What dost
mean, Elder?"

"Naught but friendly interest like thine own," replied the Elder gently,
yet never removing that steadfast gaze, beneath which Jones fidgeted
impatiently, and finally cried in a sort of desperate surrender,--

"Well, then, as well you know already, 't is that matter brought me here
to-night. My men have sickened daily, and everything hath gone awry,
since we bundled you and your goods ashore a month or so agone, when
some of you were fain to tarry aboard, or at least leave your stuff
there, and come and go."

"But thou wast afeard we should drink thy beer by stealth. Nay, thou
saidst it," declared Standish disdainfully.

"Well, yes, I'll not go back of saying it," retorted Jones half abashed
and half defiant. "For where else shall you find me men who will drink
water if another man hath beer where they may get it?"

"We heard from our friends on board that scurvy had broken out among the
shipmen," sa