The Real America in Romance, Volume 6 | Page 3

through the densest throngs to witness the executions. Those wives and maidens of English birth and breeding were morally and materially of coarser fibre than their fair descendants, who would swoon at the thought of torture and punishment. They were not all hard-featured amazons in that throng, for, mingled with the stout, broad-shouldered dames, were maids naturally shy, timid and beautiful. The ruddy cheeks and ruby lips indicated health, and the brawny arms of many women bore evidence of physical toil.
The cavaliers were jesting and laughing, while the Puritans were silent, or conversing in low, measured tones on the purpose of the assembly.
There was enough of gloom and solemnity in the one party to prove that the execution was not to be a farce, and enough merriment in the other to convince a beholder that the punishment was not capital. A young cavalier, all silk and lace, with heavy riding-boots, galloped up to the scene and, dismounting, handed the rein to a negro slave, who had run himself out of breath to keep up with his master, and hastened down to the water.
"Good morrow, Roger!" said the new-comer to a young man of about twenty-five years of age, like himself a gentleman of ease.
"Good morrow, Hugh," Roger answered.
"What gala scene have they prepared for our amusement?" asked Hugh, his dark gray eyes twinkling with merriment. "I trow it is one that you and I need never fear."
"The magistrates have adjudged Ann Linkon to be ducked."
"Marry! what hath she done?"
"Divers offences, all petty, but aggravating in themselves. She is not only a common scold, but a babbling woman, who often hath slandered and scandalized her neighbors, for which her poor husband is often brought into chargeable and vexatious suits and cast in great damages."
Hugh gave utterance to a genuine cavalier-like laugh, and, striking his boot-top with his riding-whip, returned:
"Marry! but she will make a merry sight soaring through the air like a fisher-bird to be plunged beneath the water."
"It will be a goodly sight, Hugh, and one I knew you would wish to see; therefore I sent for you."
"You have my thanks; but where is the culprit?"
"They have not arrived with her yet. Did you come from Greenspring Manor this morn?"
"Yes."
"How is Sir William Berkeley?"
"He is well, and still lives in the hope of seeing the king restored to his throne."
"Hath he invited our wandering prince to Virginia?"
"Sh--! speak not so loud," said Hugh in an undertone. "There are some of those Puritans, the cursed Roundheads, near, and it would mean death to Sir William if it were known that he but breathed such thoughts."
The two young men walked a little apart from the others and sat down upon the green, mossy banks, where they might converse uninterrupted and still be near enough to witness the ducking when the officers arrived with the victim.
"Keep a still tongue in your head, Roger," said Hugh when they were seated. "Greenspring Manor is beset with spies, and the Roundheads long for some pretext to hang Sir William for his devotion to our king; but Sir William says that the commonwealth will end with Cromwell and the son of our murdered king will be restored."
"The rule of the Roundheads is mild."
"Mild, bah!" interrupted Hugh, in contempt. "They are men without force, groundlings, the common trash from the earth with whom the best do not mingle."
"But they permit the people to send royalists to the House of Burgesses."
"That they do; yet there they must mingle with leet-men and indented slaves whose terms have expired," and Hugh heaved a sigh and dug his boot heel into the ground, adding, "It was not a merry day for old England when they struck off the king's head."
While the young royalists were discussing politics and awaiting the arrival of the guard with Ann Linkon, the women were not all silent.
"Good wives," said a hard-featured dame of fifty, "I will tell you a piece of my mind. It would be greatly for the public behoof, if we women being of mature age and church members in good repute like Ann Linkon might speak our minds of such baggage as Dorothe Stevens without being adjudged and sent to the ducking-stool as she is to be done. Wherefore is Dorothe Stevens so great that one must not say ill of her that they be plunged in the pond? Did she but have her deserts, would she be at home and Ann Linkon on the stool? Marry! I trow not!"
"Prythee, good dame Woodley, be more chary of your tongue, lest you be brought to judgment," interposed a more cautious sister.
Dame Woodley scowled and ground her teeth in silence for a short interval, and then resumed:
"I speak only to you five who know the wife of John Stevens truly. Despite all her airs and efforts