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 mob which has been swayed to violence by a bitter tongue. Hawtree approached her roughly.

"Where be thy brother?" he shouted above the whirr of the wheel.

Mehitable stopped her spinning long enough to answer. "John?" she inquired. "Oh, he has been gone since early morn."

She started her spinning wheel again; but Hawtree caught the spokes of it with brutal hand and stared down at her, his face working with hatred and passion.

"Ye lie!" he said then.

Mehitable leaped to her feet. Anger leaped to meet anger. Her eyes were fully as vindictive as Hawtree's when she snatched up a glove left upon a near by table by Mistress Nancy and, reaching a-tiptoe, slapped the cruel, malicious face before her.

Hawtree staggered back with a smothered cry. Then Mehitable felt her arm wrenched in a grip of steel and there was no telling what might have happened had not one of the men muttered protest.

"Be we here to fight petticoats?" he grumbled. And Squire Briggs's hurried voice broke in.

"Be not a fool again, Hawtree!" he snapped. "The girl be young and ye angered her. Now, look you, Hitty"—he turned to Mehitable—"we know that John is here hidden, so bid him come forth!"

"I tell ye he be gone," insisted Mehitable stonily, scarcely knowing why she was keeping up the farce, since capture seemed inevitable.

"Where be your mother?" asked Squire Briggs shortly.