Show I 1 I 1 its i ll 11 s A A landie 0 it U e an in the dr f wad aw wi erness ol 01 tale of the begian beginning ing of new england BB SS BW vim iriti Irv Bac bacheller Bachel hefler lep fee by DV ay irving arving ti copyright by irving i THE STORY robert heathers and william heydon hayden leave england in 1634 for the tha new world they are welcomed at boston by rev doctor docter cotton and make acquaintance with amos amog veteran soldier and woodsman heydon falls in n I 1 love ve with i alth elizabeth brade the young men settle down to the it lit fe of the colonists adverse comment forces them to dispense with their pretty cook mabel hartley robert Is smitten with peggy weld who is engaged to james jamea Ro bonewell Koa ewell newell mabel hartley and ft a youth whom she says say was heydon are accused of adultery heydon and heathers disappear heydon Is apprehended and refilling to talk Is found guilty heathers and head for new amsterdam Amiter dam and s suspicion begins to point to the former belief grows that heydon la Is his friend eliza beth bath and her parents sail ball for england CHAPTER VI continued 12 it if there had been any doubt of that it passed when lie addressed the court in behalf of the prisoner his was the first of many new voices that were to be long and lovingly remembered on that coast coffit of the new world it was wag a curious thing to see this youth not twenty four years of ago age stand rebuking those grave learned and ven yen veni i erable 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 pr prophet ophel A great spirit speaks always with a rhythm of its own with a noble dignity and courtesy so he spoke and so he won ills his hearers ile he surprised them also seeing far beyond their position in the little traveled and somewhat path of liberty and human progress lie ile reminded them of the danger of haste in reaching a verdict lest the law suffer more from the magistrates than it had suffered from the accused they pretended to be and ought to be bc ilie 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 had come of men pretending also to administer the will of god men who could find in his great heart it would appear only a cruel sternness and severity nothing could be surer than the knowledge t that ha t these men had misjudged the of god was there one in the hearing of his voice whose kin had burned at the stake or had had their ears cars cut off and their noses slit who could entertain tile the slightest doubt that men do a gross injustice to their creator when they forget his abundant mercy ills his kindness and the slowness of his 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 his failure to plead which had so aggravated the court he reminded them thein that there was nothing more sacred in the view of a well bred gentleman than friendship if william heydon could not plead without incriminating a friend was it not easy to understand why lie ha had failed to plead there was a thing dearer than life to some men it was wag the e sanctity of friendship a view approved proved by the savior of the world undoubtedly the crime was committed by william heydon or robert heathers william knowing that had bad gone away set out tor for his camp that night to appoint a new master for ills his men he wandered from ills his path in the darkness and finding himself lost lay down and slept where lie he was discovered next day meanwhile robert with all possible speed had bad put himself safely outside the jurisdiction of tho the court it might even be that he had bad taken ship and was then far out at sea on his way to some foreign port from such conduct only one conclusion was possible ile he presented a document signed by mabel hartley then ill III in bed and duly attested therein she declared that she had not seen her paramour and that after deliberate thought of tile matter she had bad decided that she might have hae been in error in identifying william as tile the guilty man ile he called mr grout the constable to the witness chair and examined him before the court to the surprise of nil all the constable admitted that in the dim light of the lantern he might hive have mistaken one lad for the other lie he called to tho the chair margaret hooper the housekeeper of the young men by whom lie be proved that they often wore the same coat sir harr harry said eald fn an conclusion in view of the good character of tills this young man in view of these cen taintless taint les nad uncertainties you cannot convict william heydon and be just to your own consciences and to the colony you serve I 1 ask therefore that judgment be suspended until further and more decisive evidence has been secured the plea was granted these stern men were more open to persuasion than roswell brade blade for fear of exciting opposition sir harry had been modest in his demand believing that when ills yeast had had an opportunity to work in the public mind all that he could ask for would be accomplished complis hed I 1 the speech was presently in many mouths it was the theme of every fireside in the peninsula and the deputies 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 boston 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 wa was s the receiving and shipping center of the town beyond the shipping house were two towering hills on whose summits were beacons lighted at night and loud babbling guns A third hill bill stood of 4 rk I 1 1 r Y n I 1 there ther were three thee kinds of people in the town farther inland there were handsome houses on the green slopes back of the cove some built of stone and roofed with slate some of brick and I 1 of wood they stood on cleanly well kept 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 meeting house on a terrace of the hillside was built of planks and roofed with them it was the tallest structure in boston its ge gallery allery and main room could accommodate seven hundred people it was filled with the tha odor of resinous pine anthe on the main street directly back of the shipping house in the midst of the town were the stores and shops of brick and wood and stone plank sidewalks had been laid in deference to the women mud having been the cause 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 slattern fishwives fish wives young ladles indies in filmy silks and dainty slippers brawny rough clad sailor men with weathered skins and gentlemen as well dressed and educated as 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 lish universities goodmen and hand to mouth who lived in huts and cabins with the sea folk along the shores certain of the families sat with their white help at table in the center of bf which was the saltcellar the servants sitting bitting below tile the salt only a few women of high birth could read or write the female part of the population was mostly ignorant and high tempered they were also cruel indentured slaves who served in their houses there were some awl wiio io beat them severely and a servant in bad standing was compelled to kneel when he be came into the presence of hla his mistress there were numbers of women of the type of margaret winthrop wynthrop who had the fine manners and graceful talk of the b best est in england but a narrow learning confined to reading writing the simplest processes of arithmetic and the knowledge derived from her study of sacred history A book wai was a rare and a highly prized possession counting tile the bibles there were probably not a thousand books in boston on margarets reading table were tile the bible a plea pica for infants a garland of virtuous dames the book the aulne of 0 rome a of the cherch of amsterdam humphrey bakers well spring of sciences the foundation of christian religion gathered into dixe principles such nn an opulence of supply excited the envy of her friends lende fr most of these wellborn well born ladles were discontented with the loneliness tho the poor fare the stern climate the confined and dreary monotony ot e t life in this little town on the edge of a great wilderness they longed albeit secretly tor for the pomp and splendor the beauty the stir the color the gossip and excitement which they had left in the abundant life of the old world but behind them was the mighty deep with its terrors its innumerable delays and torments it was like the dreaded valley of the shadow of death and they were ai as those come to a purgatory beyond it some bogged begged to be taken back but their husbands whose savings had been flung filing into the great hazard were in no mood to surrender so man and wife turned to the consolations of the church thus it came about that even gentle hearted women followed the counsel of the ministers and set thelt thel faces sternly against all thinks things likely to defeat their hope of another chance chanca to live and be happy they had felt a degree of sympathy for the handsome youth accused of adultery who wha had given them a topic of conversation which had been the solace or of dreary winter days nearly all of them were sec secretly against hanging as aa 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 Is in large part from the diary of a lady with a gift of humor who was one of a knitting party it Is rich r ach with the flavor of that little segment of time peggy weld had held her peace in all the counsels of the gentlewomen now slie she opened her mind think of the circumstances she said william had just come from ills his sweetheart and the two were near their wedding day and he a warm lover the pretty wench was laying for him like a eat cat for a mouse on hla his way home well he Is a n comely lad said the tha stout mout red cheeked checked mrs Ker berlyne lyne wife of the merchant with the stay of religion what a lot of cats we would be I 1 lie ile fell peggy went on it was dark and there was that devilish odor of musk ile he slipped well you know what the best people would say of that in england I 1 do not try to excuse his act still I 1 feel for him I 1 reckon that adam was not married but the tha lord did not hang him it Is tile the worst temptation that the tha devil can put upon ono one and may god have lave mercy on us said an honest old bady lady in her lace cap we till all have the corrupt mind which cometh naturally of adam the lord has been good to us he might have lave cast us ua into hell bell in our own mothers wombs the gossip of the older people wa always flavored with piety and the ever present fear of that vengeful tyranny which was above all others TO BE CONTINUED |