Page:Anne Bradstreet and her time.djvu/359

Rh ," the swine declined to come under this head, and rooted their way into desirable garden patches to the wrath and confusion of their owners, all persons at last, save innholders, being forbidden to keep more than ten of the obnoxious animals. Horses, also, broke loose at times, and Mr. Bradstreet was not the only one who suffered loss, one of the first tragedies in the little town, being a hand to hand fight, ending in a stabbing of one of the parties, both of whom belonged to good families and were but lightly judged in the trial which followed. They were by no means a peaceful community, and if the full truth be told, a week of colonial life would prove to hold almost as large a proportion of squabbles as any town record of to-day.

The second one gives some difficulties connected with the marriage of Governor Bradstreet's daughter Mercy, which took place Oct. 31, 1672, but not till various high words had passed, and sufficient hard feeling been engendered to compel the preparing of the affidavit, which probably, whatever its effect may have been on the parents, did not touch the happiness of the young pair for whose respective rights they had debated. "When Mr. Johnathan Wade of Ipsw$ch$ came first to my house att Andov$r$ in the | yeare 72, to make a motion of marriage betwixt his son Nathaniel and | my daughter Mercy hee freely of himself told mee what he would | give to his soñ vz. one halfe of his Farme att Mistick and one third p't of his | land in England when hee dyed, and that hee should have liberty to make | use of p't of the imp'ved and broken upp ground upon the sd Farme, till | hee could