a shrew, seized upon him by both of his little shoulders, and shook
him until his face wagged like a rag baby with an utter limpness of
helplessness, and shouted out, amid peals of laughter that seemed to
shake the roof, that here was a pretty man, here forsooth was a
pretty man. Here was her own husband, who let his own lawful wife go
clad in such wise and lifted not a finger! Yes, lifted not a finger,
and had to be dragged into the present doings by the very hair of
his head by his wife, and that was not all. Yes, that was not all.
Then, with that, up she flung one stout foot, and lo, a great hole
was in the heel of her stocking, and the other, and then she flirted
the hem of her petticoat into sight, and that was all of a fringe
with rags. "Look, look!" she shrieked out. "I tell ye, Thomas
Longman, I will have them look, and see to what a pass that cursed
Navigation Act and the selling of the tobacco for naught, hath
brought a decent woman. How long is it since I had a new petticoat?
How long, I pray? Oh, Lord, had the men of this colony but the
spirit of the women! Had but brave Nat Bacon lived!" With that, this
woman, who had been perchance drinking too much beer for her head,
though she was well used to it, burst into a storm of tears, and
sprang to her feet, and cried out in a wild voice like a furious
cat's: "Up with ye, I say! And why do ye stop and parley? And why do
ye wait for my Lord Culpeper to sail? I trow the women be not
afraid of the governor, if the men be! Up with ye, and this very
night cut down the young tobacco-plants, and cheat the king of
England, who reigns but to rob his subjects. Who cares for the
Governor of Virginia? Who cares for the king? Up with ye, I say!"
With that she snatched a sword from a peg on the wall and swung it
in a circle of flame around her head, and what with her glowing eyes
and streaming black locks, and burning beauty of cheeks, and
cat-like shriek of voice, she was enough to have made the governor,
and even the king himself, quail, had he been there, and all the
time that mild husband of hers was plucking vainly at her gown. But
the men only shouted with laughter, and presently the woman, with a
savage glare at them, sank into her chair again, and Mistress
Allgood went up to her, and the two whispered with handsome,
fiercely wagging heads. Then entered another woman, after a clatter
of horse's hoofs in the drive, and she had a presence that compelled
all the men exce