Keziah’s hesitation was at an end.  Her face lit up.

“I say good!” she cried.  “And I’ll be thankful to you all the rest of my life.  But for the dear mercy sakes, don’t say ‘duty’ to me again.  Oh, doctor, if you only knew what it means to me to be fightin’ at last for somethin’ that ain’t just duty, but what I really want!  I do honestly believe we can win.  Glory, hallelujah!  And now I want to give you a piece of advice, your course for the first leg, as you might say:  you see Cap’n Zebedee Mayo.”

“Humph!  Cap’n Zeb is the first man I mean to see.”

Captain Zeb listened with his mouth and eyes and ears open.  Mrs. Mayo was with him when the doctor called, and she, too, listened.

“Well!” exclaimed the captain, when the plea for support was ended.  “Well, by the flukes of Jonah’s whale!  Talk about surprises!  Old lady, what do you say?”

“I say go ahead, Zebedee.  Go ahead!  If Mr. Ellery wanted to marry Jezebel’s sister, and I knew he really wanted to, I’d—­I do believe I’d help him get her.  And Grace Van Horne is a good girl.  Go ahead.”

“Of course,” put in Parker, profiting by a hint of Mrs. Coffin’s, “of course Daniels will fight tooth and nail against us.  He’ll be for discharging Ellery at once.  And he really runs the parish committee.”

“He does, hey?  Well, I cal’late he don’t.  Not if I’m on deck, he don’t.  All right, doctor, I’m with you.  He, he, he!” he chuckled.  “Say, doc, do you know I sort of love a good lively row.  That’s been the only trouble with our society sence Mr. Ellery took command of it—­there ain’t been any rows.  He, he, he!  Well, there’ll be one now.”

There was, and it was lively enough to suit even Captain Zeb.  Dr. Parker, on his calls that day, was assailed with a multitude of questions concerning Grace’s presence at the shanty.  He answered them cheerfully, dilating upon the girl’s bravery, her good sense, and the fact that she had saved Mr. Ellery’s life.  Then he confided, as a strict secret, the fact that the two were engaged.  Before his hearers had recovered from the shock of this explosion, he was justifying the engagement.  Why shouldn’t they marry if they wanted to?  It was a free country.  The girl wasn’t a Come-Outer any longer, and, besides—­and this carried weight in a good many households—­what a black eye the marriage would be for that no-account crowd at the chapel.

Captain Zebedee, having shipped with the insurgents, worked for them from sunrise to sunset and after.  Zeb was something of a politician and knew whom to “get at.”  He sought his fellows on the parish committee and labored with them.  Mrs. Mayo and the doctor’s wife championed the cause at sewing circle.  They were lively, those sewing meetings, and the fur flew.  Didama Rogers and Lavinia Pepper were everywhere and ready to agree with whichever side seemed likely to win.  Lavinia was so deeply interested that she forgot to catechise Abishai further about his untimely reference to Peters’s grove.  And Kyan, puzzled but thankful, kept silence.