Then came a great challenge of drums, and the parson was in his
saddle and the horses off on the three-mile course, my eyes
following them into the dust-clouded distance, and seeing the parson
come riding in ahead to the winning post, with that curious
uncertainty as to the reality, which had been upon me all the
morning. That is, of the uncertainty of aught save my shameful
abiding in the stocks.
As I said before, it was a hot day, and all around the field waved
fruit boughs nearly past their bloom, with the green of new
leaves overcoming the white and red, and the air was heavy with
honey-sweet, and, as steady as a clock-tick through all the roaring
of the merrymakers, came the hum of the bees and the calls of the
birds. A great flag was streaming thirty feet high, and the gay
dresses of the women who had congregated to see the sports were like
a flower-garden, and the waistcoats of the men were as brilliant as
the breasts of birds, and nearly everybody wore the green oak-sprig
which celebrated the Restoration.
Then again, the horses, after the challenge of the drums, sped
around the three-mile course, and attention was diverted somewhat
from me. There had been mischievous boys enough for my torment, had
it not been for my brother John, who stood beside the stocks, his
face white and his hand at his sword. Many a grinning urchin drew
near with a stone in hand and looked at him, and looked again, then
slunk away, and made as if he had no intention of throwing aught
at me. After the horse-racing came music of drums, trumpets, and
hautboys, and then in spite of my brother, the crowd pressed close
about me, and many scurrilous things were said and many grinning
faces thrust in mine, and thinking of it now, I would that I had
them all in open battlefield, for how can a man fight ridicule?
Verily it is like duelling with a man of feathers. Quite still I
sat, but felt that dignity and severity of bearing but made me more
vulnerable to ridicule. Utterly weaponless I was against such odds.
I was glad enough when the drums challenged again for a race of
boys, who were to run one hundred and twelve yards for a hat.
Everybody turned from me to see that, and I watched wearily the
straining backs and elbows of the little fellows, and the shouts of
encouragement and of triumph when the winner came in smote my ears
as through water, with curious shocks of sound.
Then ten fiddlers played for a prize, and while they played, the
people gathered around me again, for races more than music have the
ability to divert the minds of English folk; but they left me again,
when there was a wrestling for a pair of silver knee-buckles. I
remember to this day with a curious dizziness of recollection, the
straining of those two stout wrestlers over the field, each forcing
the other with all his might, and each scarce yielding a foot, and
finally ending the strife in the same spot as where begun. I can see
now those knotted arms and writhing necks of strength, and hear
those quick pants of breath, and again it seems as then, a picture
passing before my awful reality of shame. Then two young men danced
for a pair of shoes, and the crowd gathered around them, and I was
quite deserted, and could scarcely see for the throng the rhythmic
flings of heels and tosses of heads. But when that sport was over,
and the winner dancing merrily away in his new shoes, the crowd
gathered about me again, and in spite of my brother, clods of mud
began to fly, and urchins to tweak at my two extended feet.