will? John Stevens hath two children, whom he loves as ardently as ever
parent loved."

"I have known Dorothe Stevens to be kind and gentle," interposed a woman
who had not spoken before.

"Yet she is haughty, and she would have all the world believe her of
superior flesh and blood to ourselves. Doth not the Scriptures say that
'Pride goeth before destruction and a haughty spirit before a fall'?
Yea, verily, I wish she would break her neck when she doth fall."

At this moment, one of the petty officers came to the group of gossipers
and cried:

"Go to! hold your peace, you prating dames! The prisoner comes."

A confused murmur swelled to a general hubbub as two men appeared over
the hill leading between them a woman about fifty-five years of age. She
was a strong, thin-visaged woman, whose cheek had been bronzed by sun
and weather. She was bareheaded, and her hair was gathered in a knot at
the back. Her gown, of a thick woollen stuff, fit closely to her
person, as if it had been made on purpose for the punishment she had
been adjudged to receive. She was talking in a loud voice and
gesticulating angrily with her head, for her arms were confined.

"I will give ye a piece of my mind," she declared to her guards.

"Hold your peace, Ann!" cried the eldest of the guards.

"Hold my peace! Verily, I will, not hold my peace about such a hussy as