This she spake aloud, so that all
about could hear, whereat Captain Oliver bid the drums to beat and drown
her voice. Now, when they did come to the gallows ladder, on each side
of which the officers and chief people stood, the two men kept on their
hats, as is the ill manner of their sort, which so provoked Mr. Wilson,
the minister, that he cried out to them: 'What! shall such Jacks as you
come before authority with your hats on?' To which one of them said:
'Mind you, it is for not putting off our hats that we are put to death.'
The two men then went up the ladder, and tried to speak; but I could not
catch a word, being outside of the soldiers, and much fretted and
worried by the crowd. They were presently turned off, and then the
woman went up the ladder, and they tied her coats down to her feet, and
put the halter on her neck, and, lacking a handkerchief to tie over her
face, the minister lent the hangman his. Just then your Uncle Rawson
comes a-riding up to the gallows, waving his hand, and crying out,
'Stop! she is reprieved!' So they took her down, although she said she
was ready to die as her brethren did, unless they would undo their
bloody laws.
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