| Show A al canche C iiri 44 in it aal 0 the fh ial wilderness W cl a tale of the beginning of new england br a baft BBB W by biving bacheller copyright by irvine service chiu THE STORY robert heathen and william wllliam heydon hayden leave kv england in kit 1634 for the th nw now world they are welcomed at box boton ton by rv doctor docter cotton and make acquaintance with aillon vt atran ran soldier and nil woodsman hoyden heydon falls in n love lov with elizabeth Ellb th brinle brads the th young men settle fettle down to the life ike of the th colonists colon lt adverse comment forces them to dispense dla penie with their pretty cook mabel hartley Kart ly robert nobert ts lilt peggy weld who to li engaged to james jamea rosewell noa ewell mbel mabel hartley and a youth whom she ahe says bay was hoyden are accused of adultery hoyden and In therB disappear hoyden heydon to Is apprehended and retiring refusing to talk Is in found guilty heathers and head for new A amsterdam m ster da m and suspicion begins to point to the former tor belief grows brows that heydon la in shielding his friend elizabeth and hr her parents mall ball for england I 1 CHAPTER VI Contin continued tiled 12 it there had been any doubt of that it passed when lie he addressed the court in behalf of the prisoner ills ilia was the hrat of many new voices that were to bo be long and lovingly remembered on that coash coast of the new anew world it was a curious thing to see this youth not twenty tour four years of age stand rebuking those grave learned and venerable men before him any one of whom was old enough to be his father with a tongue which spoke for the silence of the martyrs and the vision of a prophet A great spirit speaks always with a rhythm of its own with a noble dignity and courtesy so he spoke and so he won his hearers ue ile surprised them also seeing far beyond their position in the little traveled and somewhat lonely path of liberty and human progress lie he reminded them of the danger of haste in reaching a verdict lest the law surfer suffer more from the magistrates than it had suffered from the accused they pretended to be find and ought to be the administrators of the will of god and as such the eyes not of new england only but of all the world were fixed upon them the great need of mankind was a new example of passionless and scrupulous regard for the rights of a prisoner they and their fathers had suffered from hasty judgments inspired by bitter feeling and imperfect knowledge these judgments hall had come ot of men pretending also to administer the will of god men who could find tn in his great heart it would appear only a cruel sternness and severity nothing could be surer than the knowledge that these men had bad misjudged the will of god was there one in the hearing of his voice whose kin ha had burned at the stake or had had their ears cut oft off and their noses slit who could en entertain the slightest doubt that men do a gross injustice to their creator when they forget his abundant mercy his ala kindness and the slowness of bit hi wrath however it was not mercy that he was seeking then but justice and that calmness of judgment without which no righteous verdict was possible he was proud to tell them that the prisoner had been his friend now made dearer by hla his failure to plead which had so aggravated the court ile he reminded them that there was nothing more sacred in the view of a well bred gentleman than friendship it if william cleydon could not plead without incriminating a friend was it not easy to understand why he had failed to plead there was a thing dearer than life to some men it was the sanctity of friendship a view approved by the savior of the world undoubtedly the crime was committed by william heydon or robert heathers william knowing that had gone away set out tor for his camp that night to appoint a new master for ills his men ile he wandered from his path in the darkness and finding himself lost loat lay down and slept where he was discovered next day meanwhile robert with all possible speed had put himself safely outside the jurisdiction of the court it might even be that he had taken ship and was then far out at sea on his way to some foreign port from such conduct only one conclusion was possible lie ile presented a document signed by mabel hartley then III in bed and duly attested therein she declared that she ehe had not seen her paramour and that after deliberate thought of the matter she bad decided that she might have been in error in identifying william ns as the guilty man lie he called sir mr grout the constable to the witness chair and examined him before the court to the surprise of f till all the constable admitted that in toe the b dim light of the lantern he might have mistaken one lad for the other ile he called to the chair margaret hooper the housekeeper of the young men by whom he proved that they often wore the same coat sir harry said in conclusion in view of the good character of this young man in view of these cen nod and uncertainties you ca cannot n n ot convict william heydon and be just to your own consciences and to the colony you serve I 1 ask aik therefore that judgment be suspended until further and more decisive evidence has haa been secured the plea was granted these stern men were more open to pero persuasion ulon than roswell arde for fear of exciting opposition sir harry had been modest in hla his demand believing thit that when bt his yeast hid had had an opportunity to works work in the public mind all that he could ask tor for would be ac the speech was presently in many mouths it was the theme of every fireside in the peninsula and the deputies u carried it to remote towns A strong reaction in favor of the prisoner set in let us now survey the scene of this spreading ferment poston was a comely growing town spreading backward from a deep cove between two long arms of the promontory its largest structure well out to deep water was at the point of the cove it was the receiving and shipping center of the town beyond the shipping house were etwo two towering hills on whose summits were beacons lighted at night and loud iud babbling guns A third hill stood r 53 there were wars three kinds of people in the town farther inland there were handsome houses on the grecu slopes back 0 of f the cove cov e come built of stone and roofed with slate some of brick and of wood they stood on cleanly well kept kepf streets called lanes and roads there were green lane prison lane parson lane church lane hill road and others in summer their door yards were grassed and adorned with flowers the aeeti meeting ll 11 g house on a terrace of the hillside e was waa built of planks plank s and roofed with them it was the tallest structure in boston its gallery and main room could accommodate seven hundred people etwas it was filled ailed with the odor of resinous pine on the main street directly back of the shipping house in the midst of the town were the stores beores and shops ot of brick and wood and stone plank Bide sidewalks walks had been laid in deference to the women mud having been the cause ot of great domestic infelicity on these walks in fair weather were silent indians in paint and feathers somber clad sober faced churchmen goodmen going to and from their work in aberry vallies slattern fishwives fish wives young ladles ladies in filmy fellmy silks and dainty slippers brawny rough clad sailor men with weathered skins and gentlemen as well dressed and educated as aa any to be met in london the magistrates and the ministers were complaining that it was an evil back sliding generation given over to sinful extravagance there were three kinds of people in the town gentlemen among whom were many learned graduates of english universities goodmen and hand to mouth who lived in huts and cabins with the sea folk along t the h e shores certain of the families sat with their white help nt at table in the center of which was the tha saltcellar the servants sitting bitting below the salt only a few women of high birth could read or write the fornale female part of the population was mostly ignorant and high tempered they were vena also cruel to the indentured slaves who ho served in their houses there were same come who beat them severely and a servant in bad standing was compelled to kneel when he came into the presence prea enco of his bin mistress there were numbers of women of the type of margaret winthrop who had bad the fine manners and graceful talk of the best In England bu buta a narrow learning confined to reading writing the simplest processes of 0 arithmetic and the knowledge derived from her study of sacred history A book was a rare and a highly prized possession counting the bibles there ther were probably not a thousand booke in boston on Mairia margarets reading table tabla were the bible a plea for infants a garland of virtuous dames the book the tha aulne ot of rome a of the chirch ot of amsterdam humphrey bakers well spring of sciences the foundation of christian religion gathered into dixe principles such an opulence 0 supply excited the envy of her hei fr friends lendiL most of these wellborn well born ladles wire were discontented with the loneliness the tha poor tare fare the stern climate the confined and dreary monotony of ufa life in this little town on the edge of ll 11 a great wilderness they longed albeit secretly tor for the pomp and splendor the beauty the stir the color the tha gossip and excitement which they had left in the abundant life of the old cpr world d but in behind them was tho tha mighty deep with its terrors its innumerable delays ind and torments it was like the dreaded abed valley of thet tha shadow of death and they were as those come to a purgatory beyond it some begged to be taken back but their husbands whose savings had been flun flung ginto into the great hazard were lu in no mood to surrender so man and wife turned to the consolations of the tha church thus it came about that even gentle hearted women followed the tha counse lothe ministers and set thel their facet sternly against all things likely t to 0 defeat their hope of another chance chanca t to 0 live and be happy they had felt a degree of sympathy for handsome youth accused of adultery who had given them a topic of conversation which had been the solace of urea breary r y win winter t er days nearly all of them were secretly against hanging banging as a penalty for this crime but they had not dared to oppose the minister and the magistrates until harry vane had spoken out in the hearing of certain of their number the gossip which follows la Is in large larga part from the diary of a lady with a gift of humor who was one of a knitting party it Is rich with the flavor of that little segment of time peggy weld had held her peace ln la all the counsels of the gentlewomen now she opened her mind think of the tha circumstances she sh said Wil william billiani liani had just come from his sweetheart and the two were neat near their wedding day and he a warn warm lover the pretty wench was laying for him like a cat for a mouse on his hl way home well he Is a comely lad said the stout red cheekes cheeked mrs deayne wife of the merchant without the stay of religion what a lot of cats we would he e III I 1 lie ife fell peggy went on it wax was dark and there was that devilish abdor of musk ile he slipped well you know what want the best people would say gay of that in england I 1 do not try to excuse his act still I 1 feel for him I 1 reckon that abany was not married but the lord did not hang him 11 it Is the worst temptation that the devil can put upon one and may god have merey mercy on us said an honest old lady ln in her lace cap we all have the corrupt mind which cometh naturally of adam Th theford eLord the lord has been good to us ile he might have hava cast us ua I 1 nto into hell in our own mothers wombs womba the gossip of the older people was wai always flavored with piety and th the ever present tear fear of that vengeful tyranny which was above all others TO ME BB CONTINUED |
