at hand, I would resist to the death; being powerless, I entreat. Do
with me as thou wilt, but let Edith go untouched."

"Not so," replied the immitigable zealot. "We are not wont to show an
idle courtesy to that sex which requireth the stricter discipline.--What
sayest thou, maid? Shall thy silken bridegroom suffer thy share of the
penalty besides his own?"

"Be it death," said Edith, "and lay it all on me."

Truly, as Endicott had said, the poor lovers stood in a woeful case.
Their foes were triumphant, their friends captive and abased, their
home desolate, the benighted wilderness around them, and a rigorous
destiny in the shape of the Puritan leader their only guide. Yet the
deepening twilight could not altogether conceal that the iron man was
softened. He smiled at the fair spectacle of early love; he almost
sighed for the inevitable blight of early hopes.

"The troubles of life have come hastily on this young couple,"
observed Endicott. "We will see how they comport themselves under
their present trials ere we burden them with greater. If among the
spoil there be any garments of a more decent fashion, let them be put
upon this May-lord and his Lady instead of their glistening vanities.
Look to it, some of you."

"And shall not the youth's hair be cut?" asked Peter Palfrey, looking
with abhorrence at the lovelock and long glossy curls of the young
man.

"Crop it forthwith, and that in the true pumpkin-shell fashion,"