Part 5 (2/2)

'Not about Captain Knowlton?' I cried, for it seemed that there was really no one else in the world for whom I very much cared.

'What was the name of his vessel?' asked Mr. Turton.

'The _Seagull_. You don't mean that she has been wrecked?' I faltered.

'Unfortunately, that is the fact,' was the answer.

Turning aside, I leaned against the door with my face buried in my sleeve.

Mr. Turton spoke kindly, as did Mrs. Turton in her rather cold, unsympathetic way; but nothing that any one could say made the slightest difference. I felt that I had lost my best and, indeed, my only friend.

(_Continued on page 22._)

A HUNDRED YEARS AGO.

True Tales of the Year 1805.

I.--IN THE PILLORY.

One summer's day in the year 1805, a farmer's wife, carrying a heavy basket of eggs, was slowly trudging along a lane leading to the market town, when a woman ran hastily to her, calling out as she pa.s.sed, 'You are in luck to-day, Mrs. Hodge! Eggs are so scarce that you can ask any price you like.'

'Why is that?' asked Mrs. Hodge, surprised.

'Why?' laughed the woman. 'Because every one wants them! A man has just been put in the pillory for speaking against the King, or the Parliament, I don't rightly know which; but at any rate he is safe in the pillory, and folk are having rare fun pelting him,' and the woman pa.s.sed on to join in what she called 'the fun!'

Mrs. Hodge, however, was a woman of a different sort. 'I will sell none of my eggs for such cruel work as that,' she said resolutely. 'Sooner, by far, would I take the whole lot back unsold, that I would, than ill-treat an unfortunate man in that way.'

She had now reached the market-place, and there, on a platform raised several feet above the ground, stood a wide wooden post, with three round holes in it, through which appeared a man's head and his two hands. Thus imprisoned and utterly unable to protect himself in any way, he furnished sport for a thoughtless, cruel mob, who were aiming at him with rotten eggs, cabbage-stalks, and any rubbish that came to hand.

Mrs. Hodge's blood boiled with indignation as she saw the terror and agony in the poor man's eyes, as missile after missile hit him, each hit being greeted with a shout of delight from the populace.

'Shame on you!' cried the honest woman, and hastily leaving her basket at a shop-door, she somehow pushed her way through the ma.s.ses, and climbing the platform, stood right in front of the pillory. 'Shame on you all, to hit a helpless man!' she cried again.

'Get down! get down!' shouted the mob, furious at any one interfering with their fun. 'Get down, or we will treat you the same!'

'More shame to you,' said the dauntless woman. 'I shall not leave for all your threats! Surely there will be one amongst you all who will not see a helpless man tortured.'

'But he is a bad man. He was trying to set folk against the Government.

He deserves to be punished!' was shouted by different voices in the crowd.

'If he has done wrong he is being punished for it,' said the woman firmly, still continuing to shelter the man by standing before him. 'It is bad enough for him to stand all day in the pillory under this broiling sun, without having his eyes blinded and his nose broken. We shall all, maybe, want a friend one day, so let us help this poor fellow now. Here, Ralph,' she continued, catching the eye of the chief leader of the rioting, 'you said, when I saved you from bleeding to death in the hay-field last summer, that you owed me a good turn. Pay it me now!

Leave this poor fellow alone, and get your friends to do the same.'

The man stood irresolute one minute; then his feeling of grat.i.tude conquered him, and he said, half-sheepishly, 'Have your own way, Mother!

I will see that no one throws any more at him.'

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