Giles Peram felt the retort most keenly, and, as usual, raged and fumed and swore vengeance after the stranger was out of sight and hearing. Sir Albert strolled down to a pond or lake that was near to the town, on the banks of which was an ancient ducking-stool. Three or four idlers were sitting on the bank, and of one of them he asked:
"For what is that ugly machine used?"
"It is a ducking-stool for scolds," was the answer. The fellow, feeling complimented at being addressed by the celebrated stranger, went on, "Well do I remember, good sir, when and for whom the stool was constructed."
"For whom was it built?" asked Sir Albert.
"It was made for Ann Linkon, who had slandered goodwife Stevens as was, but who has, since her husband was drowned at sea, married Hugh Price, the royalist and friend of the governor. Oh, how Ann did scold and rave, and it was a merry sight to see her plunged beneath the water."
The stranger asked some questions about Ann Linkon and was informed that she had died several years before. "But to the last," the narrator resumed, "she hated Dorothe Stevens. She rejoiced when poverty assailed her, brought on by her own extravagance, after her husband had gone away. Then when goodwife Stevens received the fortune from the grandfather of her dead husband, the old Spaniard at St. Augustine, she again went among the cavaliers and was enabled to marry Hugh Price. It is not a happy life she leads now, though, for there is continual trouble between the husband and the children, so she is grievously harassed in mind continually."
Sir Albert listened as an uninterested person might, then asked some questions about Hugh Price and his good wife Dorothe, and the refractory children, who were causing so much trouble. He found the Virginian voluble and willing to impart all the information he had; but he grew heartily tired of the loafer and at last left him.
No one was more interested in the stranger from across the sea than Rebecca Stevens. She had not seen him; but she had heard so much of him from her brother and others, that her girlish curiosity was aroused. One evening, as she was taking her favorite walk about the village, having wandered farther than she intended, she found herself in the wood above the town, near the old building, which Captain John Smith had called the glass-house. She turned and began at once retracing her steps, for already the sun had set, and the shades of night were gathering over the landscape. She was in sight of the church, when a short, fat little man suddenly met her. He was out of breath, as if he had been running. In the gathering twilight she recognized him as her persecutor.
"Ah! Miss Stevens, this is truly extraordinary. Believe me, this meeting is quite providential, for it enables me to pour into your ear my tale of love."
"Mr. Peram, begone, leave me!"