The Heart

I truly think that if Parson Downs had informed me that I was to be

put to the rack or lose my head it would not have so cut me to the

heart. Something there was about a gentleman of England being set in

the stocks which detracted not only from the dignity of the

punishment, but that of the offence. I would not have believed they

would have done that to me, and can hardly believe it now. Such a

punishment had never entered into my imagination, I being a

gentleman born and bred, and my crime being a grave one, whereas the

stocks were commonly regarded for the common folk, who had committed

petty offences, such as swearing or Sabbath-breaking. I could not

for some time realise it, and lay staring at Parson Downs, while he

tried to force the Burgundy upon me and stared in alarm at my

paleness.

"Why, confound it, Harry," he cried, "I tell thee, lad, do not look

so. Hadst thou killed Rob Waller instead of wounding him, it would

have been thy life instead of thy pride thou hadst forfeited."

"I wish to God I had!" I burst out, yet dully, for still I only half

realised it all.

"Nay, Harry," declared the parson, "thy life is of more moment than

thy pride, and as to that, what will it hurt thee to sit in the

stocks an hour or so for such a cause? 'Twill be forgot in a week's

time. I pray thee have some Burgundy, Harry, 'twill put some life

into thee."

"'Twill never be forgot by me," said I, and indeed it never has

been, and I know not why it seemed then, and seems now, of a finer

sting of bitterness than my transportation for theft.

Presently I, growing fully alive to the state of the matters,

wrought up myself into such a fever of wrath and remonstrance that

it was a wonder that my wounds did not open. I swore that submit to

such an indignity I would not, that all the authorities in the

Colony should not force me to sit in the stocks, that I would have

my life first, and I looked about wildly for my own sword or

pistols, and seeing them not, besought the parson for his. He strove

in vain to comfort me. I was weakened by my wounds, and there was, I

suppose, something of fever still lingering in my veins for all the

bleeding, and for a space I was like a madman at the thought of the

ignominy to which they would put me. I besought that the

lieutenant-governor should be summoned and be petitioned to make my

offence a capital one. I strove to rise from my couch, and the vague

thought of finding a weapon and committing some crime so grave that

the stocks would be out of the question as a punishment for it, was

in my fevered brain.