“I call on you, Earthly Potter, and you, Preserved Green, and you, Faithful Wanton,” cried Desire, as he came within hearing, pausing to catch a morsel of breath, before she proceeded in her affecting appeal to the neighbourhood; “and you too, Upright Crook, and you too, Relent Flint, and you, Wealthy Poor, to be witnesses and testimonials in my behalf.  You, and all and each of you, can qualify if need should be, that I have ever been a slaving and loving consort of this man who has deserted me in my age, leaving so many of his own children on my hands, to feed and to rear, besides”—­

“What certainty is it,” interrupted the landlord of the “Foul Anchor” most inopportunely, “that the good-man has absconded?  It was a merry day the one that is just gone, and it is quite in reason to believe your husband was, like some others I can name—­a thing I shall not be so unwise as to do—­a little of what I call how-come-ye-so, and that his nap holds on longer than common.  I’ll engage we shall all see the honest tailor creeping out of some of the barns shortly, as fresh and as ready for his bitters as if he had not wet his throat with cold water since the last time of general rej’icing.”

A low but pretty general laugh followed this effort of tavern wit, though it failed in exciting even a smile on the disturbed visage of Desire, which, by its doleful outline, appeared to have taken leave of all its risible properties for ever.

“Not he, not he,” exclaimed the disconsolate consort of the good-man; “he has not the heart to get himself courageous, in loyal drinking, on such an occasion as a merry-making on account of his Majesty’s glory; he was a man altogether for work; and it is chiefly for his hard labour that I have reason to complain.  After being so long used to rely on his toil, it is a sore cross to a dependant woman to be thrown suddenly and altogether on herself for support.  But I’ll be revenged on him, if there’s law to be found in Rhode Island, or in the Providence Plantations!  Let him dare to keep his pitiful image out of my sight the lawful time, and then, when he returns, he shall find himself, as many a vagabond has been before him, without wife, as he will be without house to lay his graceless head in."[1] Then, catching a glimpse of the inquiring face of the old seaman, who by this time had worked his way to her very side, she abruptly added, “Here is a stranger in the place, and one who has lately arrived!  Did you meet a straggling runaway, friend, in your journey hither?”

[Footnote 1:  It would seem, from this declaration, that certain legal antiquarians, who have contended that the community is indebted to Desire for the unceremonious manner of clipping the nuptial knot, which is so well known to exist, even to this hour, in the community of which she was a member, are entirely in the wrong.  It evidently did not take its rise in her example, since she clearly alludes to it, as a means before resorted