face clean?"

Captain Standish looked down at him with a funny expression in his eyes. "I think 'twill serve in a half light, if you slip directly into your father's cabin."

"Thank you, sir," Miles answered; then added hastily, "You see, there was something flew into my eye, and one that did not know might think—I had been crying."

[30]

[30]

CHAPTER III THIEVISH HARBOR

Trug was the big, grizzled mastiff, who had guarded the house and the cattle faithfully for so many years that even stern John Rigdale had not the heart to leave him to strangers; and Solomon, with the wise eyes of royal yellow, was the fat house-cat, whom Dolly had insisted on bringing with her to the new home.

[31]

[31]

"If it had been my pet, 'twould 'a' had to bide in England," Miles had told himself, in one bitter, jealous moment, of which he was justly ashamed. For, without question, Goodman Rigdale cared equally for his two children, only he held Miles, being a stubborn chip of manhood, needed frequent beatings, such as the Scriptures enjoined on good fathers to give their sons, whereas Dolly was just a little wench, with gray eyes like her mother, so she received very gentle whippings and triumphantly lugged Solomon on shipboard.

The sleek, striped creature lay beside her now, for Dolly, still ailing with her cough, was resting on the bunk beneath the blankets. Wrestling Brewster, a big-eyed, silent child, sat by her, and, sorry to tell, joined forces with the little girl in rumpling poor Solomon's fur. "You are the best pussy," Dolly purred meantime, and, either because of her flattery or because the warm blankets were comfortable, the cat made no movement to leave her.

Ordinarily Miles sniffed at the conversation of eight-year-olds, such as his sister, but this afternoon he gladly lingered in the cabin, for the accomplishments of the Brewster lads were amazing enough to lift them to the rank of companions. Both could jabber Dutch quite as fast as Miles could speak English, and Love, the talkative one, could tell wonderful stories of the queer Low Country city[32] of Leyden, where all his short life had been spent. It was of Leyden he spoke 

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