es, of age
and experience to defy the serpent. These were different. Ninety slender
figures decked in all the bravery they could assume; ninety comely
faces, pink and white, or clear brown with the rich blood showing
through; ninety pair of eyes, laughing and alluring, or downcast with
long fringes sweeping rounded cheeks; ninety pair of ripe red lips,--the
crowd shouted itself hoarse and would not be restrained, brushing aside
like straws the staves of the marshal and his men, and surging in upon
the line of adventurous damsels. I saw young men, panting, seize hand or
arm and strive to pull toward them some reluctant fair; others snatched
kisses, or fell on their knees and began speeches out of Euphues; others
commenced an inventory of their possessions,--acres, tobacco, servants,
household plenishing. All was hubbub, protestation, frightened cries,
and hysterical laughter. The officers ran to and fro, threatening and
commanding; Master Pory alternately cried "Shame!" and laughed his
loudest; and I plucked away a jackanapes of sixteen who had his hand
upon a girl's ruff, and shook him until the breath was well-nigh out of
him. The clamor did but increase.

"Way for the Governor!" cried the marshal. "Shame on you, my masters!
Way for his Honor and the worshipful Council!"

The three wooden steps leading down from the door of the Governor's
house suddenly blossomed into crimson and gold, as his Honor with the
attendant Councilors emerged from the hall and stood staring at the mob
below.

The Governor's honest moon face was quite pale with passion. "What a
devil is this?" he cried wrathfully. "Did you never see a woman before?
Where's the marshal? I'll imprison the last one of you for rioters!"

Upon the platform of the pillory, which stood in the centre of the
market place, suddenly appeared a man of a gigantic frame, with a strong
face deeply lined and a great shock of grizzled hair,--a strange thing,
for he was not old. I knew him to be one Master Jeremy Sparrow, a
minister brought by the Southampton a month before, and as yet without
a charge, but at that time I had not spoken with him. Without word of
warning he thundered into a psalm of thanksgiving, singing it at the
top of a powerful and yet sweet and tender voice, and with a fervor and
exaltation that caught the heart of the riotous crowd. The two ministers
in the throng beneath took up the strain; Master Pory added a husky
tenor, eloquent of much sack; prese