The Heart

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.