"For shame!" whispered Sarah Drummond.

"Yea, verily."

"I wonder he could witness the wrong she hath done."

At this a young wife with a babe in her arms interposed:

"They do say that John Stevens had naught to do with the matter and did
protest against having one so old as Ann Linkon ducked."

"John Stevens is a godly man," remarked still another. "He would not
wrong any one."

"If he were my dearest foe," whispered goodwife Woodley, "he would have
my sympathy for living with Dorothe Stevens."

"Whist, Dame Woodley; speak not your mind so freely," whispered Sarah
Drummond, "for there be those in hearing on whose ears your words had
best not fall."

All the while, Ann Linkon had been struggling with her executioners; but
now, helpless and exhausted, she was bound in the chair. The sheriff,
who was a humane man as well as a stern official, remonstrated with her.

"Ann Linkon, do not so exert and heat yourself, or else when you be
plunged into the water you will take your death."

"Death! Take my death! That is what you want, wretch!" she screamed in