Peter Hopkins was considered a somewhat ungodly but a very just man, and while the Deacon most highly disapproved of his spiritual state, and doubted that he and 'vital piety' were strangers, he still respected Peter's rugged honesty and directness of purpose, and ranked him foremost among the 'world's people.' He was a man of powerful frame and strong impulses, and when his feelings were aroused he stood in awe of no man, high or low. When he forced his way into the arbor, therefore, the Deacon paused in his invective and made no remonstrance. Peter Hopkins at once put the worst construction on the scene before him. He saw in the son of Deacon Fletcher only a seducer, in poor Hannah Lee only a victim, and his blood rose to boiling heat. Without pausing to ask any question, grasping at one guess, as he supposed, the whole sad history, he seized Jason by the collar, and, lifting him up, dashed him violently down again, the boy's head striking a corner of the bench as he fell. Then he took the girl tenderly up and faced about upon the father, actually foaming with wrath. 'This comes of psalm singing,' he cried. 'Clear the way there!' and he bore the still unconscious maiden toward his own house. Then a sudden and strange revulsion came over Deacon Fletcher. For the first time, perhaps, in twenty-one years, the father's heart triumphed over the Deacon's prejudices. As he saw his son--his only son--lying pale and bleeding on the ground, all recollection of his offense, all thought of sinfulness or godliness in connection with his conduct, vanished, and he only considered whether this pride of his, this strong and beautiful son, were to die there, or to live and bless him. He stooped, sobbing, over the boy, reconciled, at last, to humanity, and conscious of a strong human love. Not more tenderly was poor Hannah Lee borne to the house of Peter Hopkins than the father carried the son he had only just received into his own dwelling. There were no thoughts of husks now, but only a sorrowful joy that one so long dead to him was at length alive, that a new heart, full of human instincts, had found birth within his bosom. But mingled with this joy was the fear that he had only, at length, possessed his son to lose him. While Jason Fletcher lay tossing, week after week, through the fever that followed the scene of violence in the arbor, poor Hannah went sadly but patiently about the light duties that farmer Hopkins and his wife allowed her to perform. Thoroughly convinced, through his wife's communications with Hannah, of the innocence of the pair, Peter Hopkins had gone to Deacon Fletcher and remonstrated with him on his outrageous conduct.