Good ale is a traffic within.
It will drown your woes
And thaw the old snow
That grows on a frosty chin,
That grows on a frosty chin.”
“Enough, enough, sirs!” Master Ronald cried sharply; “down with your mugs! Are ye to drink and be merry when murder—murder, I say—is being done in the name of the church and the law?”
The students turned in open-mouthed amazement, several still holding their mugs suspended in the air. At first they were evidently disposed to be merry as people accustomed to all manner of jesting, but the pallor and rigid lines of the young man’s face checked any such demonstration, as well as the unusual appearance of a little maid in their midst.
Then one tall and powerful fellow rose. “Murder,” he said slowly, shaking back his hair, “murder—under sanction of the church and law. How comes that?”
Master Ronald made a gesture commanding silence, for the others had risen, and a confused hubbub of questions was rising. Then he pointed to Abigail, who was near to sinking to the floor with mortification, as all eyes were turned upon her.
“This little maid,” he continued, when the room was again silent, “journeyed alone from Salem to Boston Town, to find and tell me that in Salem prison there is confined another maid condemned for witchery and under sentence of being hanged on the morrow.”