A swarm of small white animals ran wildly past them from behind, and after them came a howling, laughing, scrambling mob that filled the street. Someone had loosed a few score rabbits for the delight of the rabble.
There was no time for reflection. With one accord, Jock and the two women ran with all speed toward the pillory and the bridge, driven forward by the crowd behind them. To have held their ground would have been to risk broken bones at least.
Fortunately the hunted beasts turned sharply to the right and left at the first cross street, and soon the three human fugitives could halt and draw breath.
They found themselves in the outskirts of a crowd surrounding the pillory, and above the heads of those in front they could see a huge red face under a thatch of tousled hair protruding stiffly through a hole in a beam supported at right angles to a vertical post about five feet high. On each side of the head a large and dirty hand hung through an appropriate opening in the beam.
Under the prisoner's head was hung an account of his misdeeds, placed there by some of his cronies. These crimes were in the nature of certain breaches of public decorum and decency, the details of which the bystanders were discussing with relish and good-humor.
"Let's get out o' here," said Rebecca, suddenly, when the purport of what she heard pierced her nineteenth-century understanding. "These folks beat me!"
She turned, grasping Phœbe's arm to enforce her request, but she found that others had crowded in behind them and had hemmed them in. This would not have deterred her but, unaccountably, Phœbe did not seem inclined to move.
"Nay—nay!" she said. "'Tis a wanton wastrel, and he well deserves the pillory. But, Rebecca, I've a mind to see what observance these people will give the varlet. Last time I saw one pilloried, alas! they slew him with shards and paving-stones. This fellow is liker to be pelted with nosegays, methinks."
"Mercy me, Phœbe! Whatever—what—oh, goodness gracious grandmother, child!" Poor Rebecca could find only exclamations wherein to express her feelings. She began to wonder if she were dreaming.
At this moment a sprightly, dashing lad, in ragged clothing and bareheaded, sprang to the platform beside the prisoner and waved his arms for silence.