settler's wife, within
the cabin, was in danger of immolation. That seemed logical and right,
and for days thereafter young men on astonished farm horses went
sweeping down Tiverton Street, alternately pursuing and pursued, while
Isabel North, as Priscilla, the Puritan maiden, trembled realistically
at the cabin door. Just why she was to be Priscilla, a daughter of
Massachusetts, Isabel never knew; the name had struck the popular fancy,
and she made her costume accordingly. But one day, when young Tiverton
was galloping about the town, to the sound of ecstatic yells, a farmer
drew up his horse to inquire:--

"Now see here! there's one thing that's got to be settled. When the day
comes, who's goin' to beat?"

An Indian, his face scarlet with much sound, and his later state not yet
apparent, in that his wampum, blanket, and horsehair wig lay at home, on
the best-room bed, made answer hoarsely, "We be!"

"Not by a long chalk!" returned the other, and the settlers growled in
unison. They had all a patriot's pride in upholding white blood against
red.

"Well, by gum! then you can look out for your own Injuns!" returned
their chief. "_My_ last gun's fired."

Settlers and Indians turned sulkily about; they rode home in two
separate factions, and the streets were stilled. Isabel North went
faithfully on, making her Priscilla dress, but it seemed, in those days,
as if she might remain in her log cabin, unattacked and undefended.
Tiverton was to be deprived of its one dramatic spectacle. Young men met
one another in the streets, remarked gloomily, "How are ye?" and passed
by. There were no more curdling yells at which even the oxen lifted
their dull ears; and one youth went so far as to pack his Indian suit
sadly away in the garret, as a jilted girl might lay aside her wedding
gown. It was a sullen and all but universal feud.

Now in all this time two prominent citizens had let public opinion riot
as it would,--the minister and the doctor. The minister, a grave-faced,
brown-bearded young man, had seen fit to get run down, and have an
attack of slow fever, from which he was just recovering; and the doctor
had been spending most of his time in Saltash, with an epidemic of
mumps. But the mumps subsided, and the minister gained strength; so,
being public-spirited men, these two at once concerned themselves in
village affairs. The first thing the minister did was to call on
Nicholas Oldfield, and Young Nick's Hattie saw him the