GOLDSMITH. 
                God bless you, Simon!

KEMPTHORN. 
Now let us make a straight wake for the tavern
Of the Three Mariners, Samuel Cole commander;
Where we can take our ease, and see the shipping,
And talk about old times.

GOLDSMITH. 
                      First I must pay
My duty to the Governor, and take him
His letters and despatches.  Come with me.

KEMPTHORN. 
I’d rather not.  I saw him yesterday.

GOLDSMITH. 
Then wait for me at the Three Nuns and Comb.

KEMPTHORN. 
I thank you.  That’s too near to the town pump. 
I will go with you to the Governor’s,
And wait outside there, sailing off and on;
If I am wanted, you can hoist a signal.

MERRY. 
Shall I go with you and point out the way?

GOLDSMITH. 
Oh no, I thank you.  I am not a stranger
Here in your crooked little town.

MERRY. 
                         How now, sir? 
Do you abuse our town? [Exit.

GOLDSMITH. 
                     Oh, no offence.

KEMPTHORN. 
Ralph, I am under bonds for a hundred pound.

GOLDSMITH. 
Hard lines.  What for?

KEMPTHORN. 
            To take some Quakers back
I brought here from Barbadoes in the Swallow. 
And how to do it I don’t clearly see,
For one of them is banished, and another
Is sentenced to be hanged!  What shall I do?

GOLDSMITH. 
Just slip your hawser on some cloudy night;
Sheer off, and pay it with the topsail, Simon!
                                   [Exeunt.

SCENE II. —­ Street in front of the prison.  In the background a gateway and several flights of steps leading up terraces to the Governor’s house.  A pump on one side of the street.  JOHN ENDICOTT, MERRY, UPSALL, and others.  A drum beats.

JOHN ENDICOTT. 
Oh shame, shame, shame!

MERRY. 
             Yes, it would be a shame
But for the damnable sin of Heresy!

JOHN ENDICOTT. 
A woman scourged and dragged about our streets!

MERRY. 
Well, Roxbury and Dorchester must take
Their share of shame.  She will be whipped in each! 
Three towns, and Forty Stripes save one; that makes
Thirteen in each.

JOHN ENDICOTT. 
      And are we Jews or Christians? 
See where she comes, amid a gaping crowd! 
And she a child.  Oh, pitiful! pitiful! 
There’s blood upon her clothes, her hands, her feet!

Enter MARSHAL and a drummer.  EDITH, stripped to the waist, followed by the hangman with a scourge, and a noisy crowd.

EDITH. 
Here let me rest one moment.  I am tired. 
Will some one give me water?

MERRY. 
                         At his peril.

UPSALL. 
Alas! that I should live to see this day!

A WOMAN. 
Did I forsake my father and my mother
And come here to New England to see this?