Osmund’s voice rose above the uproar. “What, shall not a woman learn, and if she will, teach? What, shall we give only to men the good fruit, learning? Shall we build schools, uphold universities, for men only? And what, Great Meadow! If a woman having sought and found God, wishes to speak and teach of her travel thither, of the ocean and the ship across and the haven and the new world, shall she not have freedom to do so? A man, having made that voyage and knowing the pricelessness of that land, displayeth his charts and persuadeth others to become travellers! Shall not woman, voyager and pilgrim as is man, have here man’s liberty? So cry George Fox and the people called Friends and they are right!”
“Ha, ha!” cried the rougher folk. “He looks like a man, but mayhap he is a woman! A woman preaching!” A hand went down to earth, picked up a stone and flung it. It missed Osmund, struck the church gate. There arose gross laughter.
“We have overthrown the King and the Lords. They may come again, because they are not out of our nature. But now we say that they are overthrown! And we say that the Commons of England are to be supreme. We say, ‘They govern because we choose them, and if they govern not aright, we may take them back!’ We say, ‘They are ourselves, sitting there; we have chosen them ourselves from ourselves.’... But all are men, chosen by men. O England, there should be women there no less than men! Women and men should be there, chosen by women and men!”
The more hostile element uttered a kind of roar. A second stone was thrown. The constable and his men consulted among themselves if they should at once arrest Osmund.
“The King!—What use to kill one king, when, as many men as are in England, so many kings! Kings over children—but children grow up and pass from under! But kings over women—from the woman child to the woman, white-haired in her coffin! Generation after generation, thousand years after thousand, sometimes kindly and sometimes not, and always unjust! Foolishness when we cry, ‘We will have no king!’ then, going home, stamp foot upon the threshold, crying, ‘Here am I king!’ Mockery when we cry, ‘The land is without kings!’ and lo, the law gives everywhere the woman to the man, saying, ‘Here is the king!’”
Rose a voice. “It is enough! He is speaking against law and good manners! In the name of the Commonwealth!”
“We have sinned. We the men, and we the women, we the one—”
The constable’s hand fell upon Osmund’s arm.... “Making a disturbance and stirring up sedition! Come away you to Justice Thorne....”
He and his men came about Osmund, pushed him from the steps. Ere he went, he saw suddenly, in a great rift of the angry cloud, the woman, darkness mixed with rose, of the thatcher’s cottage. Her lips were parted, her brows drawn inward and upward, and many a thing was written upon her face.
At the foot of the steps he lost sight of her. Here the violent among the crowd would have taken hold of him. But the constable was a huge, brawny fellow, and he and his helpers beat off the throng. “Let him alone! Let him to Justice Thorne! He ain’t a friend to such, now is he?”