"It's all for the good cause, Dicon," he said. "Art not thou ashamed to speak with one who is to be tied to the cart's tail yonder?"
"Ashamed of thee, Will? I would I were half the man that thou art!" And then coming a little nearer, I whispered in his ear,—
"He will make thy punishment as light as he can, Will; and after the Judge be safely gone back out of the West, men say that prisoners will have little to fear. The Mayors and people of the towns will have none of his brutal sentences carried out. Thou wilt not be sent from town to town as he said."
Will gave a nod, but could say no more; for the executioner had come to tie him to the cart, and Mr. Blewer came hurrying up that he might witness the pain and shame of the boy he hated. But this was too much for the crowd. Whether or not this man was a friend of the dreaded Judge who had not yet left the town, the crowd was not to be quelled. A storm of groans and hisses arose at sight of him; women shook their fists in his face, and children took up stones, and would have cast them at him but for the restraining hands of their mothers. One great brawny blacksmith came forward with his hammer in his hand and stood right in front of the white-faced poltroon, who was looking this way and that, as though he knew not whether to fly or to hurl threats and defiance at the mob.
"Look you here, sir," said the man, speaking loud enough for everybody to hear. "You'd better watch this thing from somewhere else than the public streets, if you don't want the coat, which you're a disgrace to, to be torn off your back! I tell you, sir, that it would not take more than a few words from some amongst us to get you stripped and set where that poor lad is now; and there's not a man amongst us but would be glad to lay lashes on your back—ay, and we would too, if once our blood was up. So if you value a sound skin, go while there is yet time! Taunton Town is not trodden so much in the dust yet that she cannot rise in revolt against a monster like you!"
Yells, hisses, and groans filled the air, and Mr. Blewer's face turned from white to purple, and again faded to an ashen grey. If ever man looked cowed and beaten, he did then. But he took the hint, and made off as fast as his legs would carry him; and I verily believe had it been any other time—had the sense of fear inspired by recent events not been still strong upon the people—that he would have been pounced upon then and there, and whipped at the cart's tail through the streets of Taunton by the infuriated populace.
As it was, it was poor Will who was whipped, though the lashes were but lightly laid on; and I think the boy scarce felt the pain in the sense of triumph at the discomfiture of his foe, and in the encouragement and sympathy of his townsmen. I walked beside him all the way, and he looked at me every now and then with a smile. All sense of shame—which to some natures is the bitterest part of such a punishment—was saved him; for he was regarded by the people as a sufferer in a noble cause, and as a youthful martyr might have been in days of old. Women wept and blessed him; men called out brave words of praise and encouragement. He held his head up to the very last; and though he sometimes winced and shrank, he did not utter a cry the whole way through the town and back.
But alas, alas! we had only raised in the breast of his implacable foe a spirit of hostility which would not be satisfied without a speedy vengeance. As we entered the yard of the prison again, there was Mr. Blewer waiting for us; and as he cast a scrutinizing glance upon poor Will's back lined with blue wales, he uttered a snort of contempt and anger, and turned upon the executioner with an air of stern displeasure.
Will was led away by the jailer, who treated him kindly enough; but the hangman was detained by Mr. Blewer, who said severely,—