She was grabbed by so many hands that Comstock wondered if anything would be left of her. One man, bigger and stronger than the rest of the crowd roared out, "To the stocks with her!"
There was no way that Comstock could fight his way to her side, and even if he could have there was little he could have done but be attacked in his turn.
"The stocks," he kept thinking. They were outside in the square, just to one side of a statue of The Grandfather, where the graven image could look down in its infinite wisdom and be soothed and assuaged by the sight of its recalcitrant grandchildren being punished in the stocks.
If he waited, Comstock thought, till she was in them, there would be little he could do, for few ever lived through more than an hour of that treatment. The rocks and stones thrown by the good, lawful citizens of the community made sure of that.
No he could not wait, and yet what could he do as of that moment? What had possessed her to make her speak out in the meeting? The little fool. He'd shake some of the nonsense out of her, if he ever got her away from those menacing hands.
The crowd surged out of the meeting house, down the stairs and toward the statue. There was still no sign of any R.A. But then, why should there have been? Once everyone was at meeting, the R.A.'s could relax, having done their duty for the evening.
But how long could the rumble, the frightening mutter of an outraged mob continue before some R.A. heard it?
Comstock came to a sudden decision, as a ferocious and even more elderly woman than most reached forward and ripped the girl's dress from her neck to her navel, screeching, "The hussy! Put her in the stocks! I've got a stone for her! A big one ... perhaps one of you young sirs would help me throw it?" She looked about her coquettishly and her plea did not fall on empty air.