"He
taketh his exercise alone, in order that none need discover the failing.
I think he be much disposed to go over sea, in order to become a trooper."
Until now, the subject of these mirthful attacks had listened like one too
confident of his established reputation to feel concern; but at the sound
of the last speaker's voice, he grasped the bushy covering of one entire
cheek in his hand, and turning a reproachful and irritated glance at the
already half-repentant eye of Faith Ring, all his natural spirit returned.
"It may be that my skill hath left me," he said, "and that I love to be
alone, rather than to be troubled with the company of some that might
readily be named, no reference being had to such gallants as ride up and
down the colony, putting evil opinions into the thoughts of honest men's
daughters; but why is Eben Dudley to bear all the small shot of your
humors, when there is another who, it might seem, hath strayed even
further from your trail than he?"
Eye sought eye, and each youth by hasty glances endeavored to read the
countenances of all the rest in company, in order to learn who the
absentee might be.
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