‘To go plant-hunting in the meantime,’ John replied mildly. ‘Captain Pett said he was short-handed for officers and he would take me. I told him that I would want the ship’s boat to call on shore wherever we could. It’s a bargain on both sides.’

‘You won’t take part in any battles?’ Elizabeth pressed him.

‘I shall do my duty,’ John said firmly. ‘I shall do whatever Captain Pett commands.’

Elizabeth curbed her anger and put her arms around her husband’s broadening middle. ‘You’re not a young man any more,’ she reminded him gently.

‘For shame,’ John said. ‘When my wife is a girl still.’

She smiled at that but he could not divert her. ‘I wanted you to stay home with us.’

He shook his head and gently kissed the warm top of her white cap. ‘I know, my love, but I have to go when there is a chance for me like this one. Be generous and send me away with a smile.’

She looked up at his face and he saw that she was closer to tears than to smiles. ‘I hate it when you go,’ she repeated passionately.

John kissed her on the mouth, on the forehead as he had first done when they were betrothed, and then again on the lips. ‘Forgive me,’ he said. ‘And give me your blessing. I have to go now.’

‘God bless you,’ she said reluctantly. ‘And bring you safe home to me.’

‘Amen,’ he replied and before she could say more he had slipped out of her arms and run up the gangplank to the pinnace Mercury.

She did not wait to see his ship sail this time. She had good reason to hurry home. J would be back from school in the afternoon and she had planned to take a lift on the Canterbury wagon which went from Gravesend at midday. But in truth she did not wait because she was angry and resentful, and because she did not want to stand on the quayside like a lovelorn girl to wave her husband goodbye. She could not help but think that it was an infidelity to her and to his promise to stay home and dig his garden. She could not help but think the less of him that he could not resist the temptation of adventure.