Faunch! Down with your trumpery, Simon! The Puritans
are upon us--Pritchard and Norcross and Warren and Hilton--all a-
marching up the hill! Armed to the teeth they are, Simon, and there's
not an ounce of shot amongst us!

SCARLETT
(as Puritans begin to appear, right).
Zounds! They're upon us!

GILLIAN PRITCHARD
(as he and his followers come forward from right background).
Make no resistance, ye scum of Dagon's brood, or Merrymount and all
that is within it shall be sacked within the hour! Where is the maid ye
stole?

RESOLUTE
(dearly).
Here, Gillian Pritchard! Here, safe and sound, and courteously treated
by the folk of Merrymount. Why use ye such words as stole? 'Tis most
unseemly. And why come ye here unbidden? Sure, none sent for you?

GILLIAN PRITCHARD
(amazed: disapproving).
Resolute!

RESOLUTE
(haughtily).
Mistress Endicott, so please you, and the governor's cousin!

GILLIAN PRITCHARD
(more and more pained).
Resolute!

RESOLUTE
(continuing quickly).
May I not step from my door to do a deed of kindness for an old woman
but what the whole of Wollaston is at my heels? Or give a lesson in
spinning without a cry being raised that I am stolen? I do not take it
kindly of you, Amos Warren; no, nor of you, Ebenezer Matthews. Pick up
my spinning-wheel, Frugal Hilton, and let Fight-for-Right Norcross
carry my chair. (To Sarah.) There are herbs in that pocket for your
gran'am.

[Gives her herb pocket.

[The Puritans, including Resolute Endicott, exeunt right.

SCARLETT
(breaking forth).
She saved us! Saved us! Zounds! Was there ever anything like unto it!
What dost thou make of it, Sarah?

SARAH.
I make of it that Mistress Endicott hath a warm heart beneath her cold
white Puritan kerchief, and that in this new land of ours we should
better strive to understand each other; for, though our ways be
different, are we not beset by the same hopes and fears, doth not the
same sky arch above us all? (To Simon.) Think you not so, my brother?
(As all begin to go towards background where the feast is in
readiness.) Come, gran'am, lean on me. Our feast must be near to
readiness. A Puritan hearthstone--sooth, it must be a goodly place; yet
right glad am I that we live beneath the stars, and are still the light
free-hearted folk o' Merrymount!

COSTUMES

The costumes are those of the seventeenth-century cavaliers for the
Merrymount lads. Slashed jerkins, full sleeves with puffs and
slashings, or bishop's sle