ssoluteness of hair and unseemly broideries and bright colours,
showing the lightness of her mind," and a third averred that "a
cucking-stool would teach a maid to walk more shamefacedly," I whirled
upon them in a fury that had disinherited me from Eli Kirke's graces
ere I spake ten words.

"Sirs," said I, "your slatternly wenches may be dead ere they match
Mistress Hortense! As for wearing light colours, the devil himself is
painted black. Let them who are doing shameful acts to the innocent
walk shamefacedly! For shame, sirs, to cloak malice and jealousy of M.
Picot under religion! New England will remember this blot against you
and curse you for it! An you listen to Deliverance Dobbins's lies,
what hinders any lying wench sending good men to the scaffold?"

At first they listened agape, but now the hot blood rushed to their
faces.

"Hold thy tongue, lad!" roared Eli Kirke. Then, as if to atone for
that violence: "The Lord rebuke thee," he added solemnly.

And I flung from the house dumb with impotent rage.

My thoughts were as the snatched sleep of a sick man's dreams. Again
the hideous nightmare of the old martyr at the shambles; but now the
shambles were in the New World and the martyr was M. Picot. Something
cold touched my hand through the dark, and there crouched M. Picot's
hound, whining for its master. Automatically I followed across the
commons to the court-house square. It stopped at the prison gate,
sniffing and whining and begging in. Poor dog! What could I do? I
tried to coax it away, but it lay at the wall like a stone.

Of the long service in the new-built meeting-house I remember very
little. Beat of drums, not bells, called to church in those days, and
the beat was to me as a funeral march. The pale face of the preacher
in the high pulpit overtowering us all was alight with stern zeal. The
elders, sitting in a row below the pulpit facing us, listened to the
fierce diatribe against the dark arts with looks of approbation that
boded ill for M. Picot; and at every fresh fusillade of texts to
bolster his argument, the line of deacons below the elders glanced back
at the preacher approvingly. Rebecca sat on that side of the
congregation assigned to the women with a dumb look of sympathy on the
sweet hooded face. The prisoners were not present. At the end of the
service the preacher paused; and there fell a great hush in which men
scarce breathed, for sentence was to be pronounced.