with the victim.

"Keep a still tongue in your head, Roger," said Hugh when they were
seated. "Greenspring Manor is beset with spies, and the Roundheads long
for some pretext to hang Sir William for his devotion to our king; but
Sir William says that the commonwealth will end with Cromwell and the
son of our murdered king will be restored."

"The rule of the Roundheads is mild."

"Mild, bah!" interrupted Hugh, in contempt. "They are men without force,
groundlings, the common trash from the earth with whom the best do
not mingle."

"But they permit the people to send royalists to the House of
Burgesses."

"That they do; yet there they must mingle with leet-men and indented
slaves whose terms have expired," and Hugh heaved a sigh and dug his
boot heel into the ground, adding, "It was not a merry day for old
England when they struck off the king's head."

While the young royalists were discussing politics and awaiting the
arrival of the guard with Ann Linkon, the women were not all silent.

"Good wives," said a hard-featured dame of fifty, "I will tell you a
piece of my mind. It would be greatly for the public behoof, if we women
being of mature age and church members in good repute like Ann Linkon
might speak our minds of such baggage as Dorothe Stevens without being
adjudged and sent to the ducking-stool as she is to be done. Wherefore