Читать книгу Ye Lyttle Salem Maide. A Story of Witchcraft онлайн

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“Good sir,” said the little maid, solemnly, when he had finished, “my King be next to God and I will keep the faith. But now and ye will be pleased to excuse me, as it be past the supper hour, I will hasten home.” Saying which, she slipped down from the trunk of the tree and bobbed him a courtesy.

“Nay, not so fast, not so fast away,” he cried. “I would show you a picture of my sweetest daughter, Elizabeth, of whom you mind me, giving me a great heart-sickness for her bonny face far across the seas in Merry England.” From inside his doublet he drew forth a locket, swung on a slender gold chain, and opened it. Within was a miniature on ivory of a young girl in court dress, with dark curls falling about a face which smiled back at them in the soft twilight.

“She be good to look upon and has a comely smile, I wot,” said the little Puritan maid; “haps it she has seen as many summers as I, who be turned fourteen and for a year past a teacher in the Dame School.”

“Sixteen summers has she lived,” answered the Cavalier. “Eftsoons, she will count in gloomier fashion, for with years come woes and we say so many winters have we known. But how comes it you are a teacher in the Dame School?”