The Heart's Highway: A Romance of Virginia in the Seventeenth Century

by Mary Eleanor Wilkins Freeman

"It is of no use, sir," said the man, whose name was Will Wickett. "Poor Master Wingfield cannot ride a horse; he is far too weak." And with that verily the tears rolled down his cheeks, so womanish had he grown by reason of the sore trials to which he had been put.

"Faith, and I believe he would fall off at the first motion of the horse," agreed Parson Downs with a great scowl. I looked at, and listened to them both, with a curious feeling that they were talking about some one else, such was my weakness and giddiness from that last blood-letting.

Then Parson Downs, with an exclamation which might have sounded oddly enough if heard from the pulpit, but which may, after all, have done honour to his heart, fetched out a flask of brandy from his pocket, and bade Will Wickett find a mug somewhere, which he did speedily, and he gave me a drink which put new life into me, though it was still out of the question for me to ride that fiery horse which stood pawing outside the prison. And just here I would like to say that I never forgot, nor ceased to be grateful for the kindly interest in me, and the risk which the parson was disposed to take for my sake that day. A great risk indeed it would have been, and would doubtless have cost him his living, had I ridden across country on that famous horse of his; but he seemed not to think of that, but shook his head sadly after I had swallowed the brandy, and then my brother John came in and he turned to him.

"A fine plan for escape I had with the jailer drunk and the sentries blinded by my last winnings at cards, but Harry is too weak to ride," he said.

Then I, being somewhat restored by the brandy, mustered up strength enough to have a mind and speak it, and declared that I would not in any case avail myself of his aid to escape, since I should only bring trouble upon him who aided me, and should in the end be caught. And just as I spoke came a company of soldiers to escort me to the stocks, and the chance, for what it was worth, was over.

This much however had my brother gained for me, since I was manifestly unable to walk or ride: one of the Cavendish chairs which they had brought from England, was at the prison door, and some of our black men for bearers, half blubbering at the errand upon which they were bound.

Somebody had rigged a curtain of thin silk for the chair, so that I, when I was set therein, had great privacy, though I knew by the sounds that I was attended by the motley crowd which usually is in following at such affairs, beside the little troop of horse which was my escort, and my brother and Parson Downs riding on either side. Parson Downs, though some might reckon him as being somewhat contumelious in his manner of leaving the tobacco-cutting, yet was not so when there was anything to be gained by his service. He was moreover quit of any blame by his office of spiritual adviser, though it was not customary for a criminal to be attended to the stocks by a clergyman, but only to the scaffold. But, as I began to gather some strength through that fiery draught which I had swallowed, and the fresh air, it verily seemed to me, though I had done with any vain complaints and was of a mind to bear my ignominy with as much bravery as though it were death, that it was as much of an occasion for spiritual consolation. I could not believe—when we were arrived at the New Field, and I was assisted from my chair in the midst of that hooting and jeering throng, which even the soldiers and the threatening gestures of the parson and my brother served but little to restrain—that I was myself, and still more so, when I was at last seated in that shameful instrument, the stocks.

Ever since that time I have wondered whether mankind hath any bodily ills which are not dependent upon the mind for their existence, and are so curable by some sore stress of it. For verily, though my wounds were not healed, and though I had not left my bed for a long time, and my seat was both rough and hard, and my feet were rudely pinioned between the boards, and the sun was blistering with that damp blister which frets the soul as well as the flesh, I seemed to sense nothing, except the shame and disgrace of my estate. As for my bodily ailments, they might have been cured, for aught I knew of them. To this time, when I lay me down to sleep after a harder day's work than ordinary, I can see and hear the jeers of that rude crowd around the stocks. Truly, after all, a man's vanity is his point of vantage, and I wonder greatly if that be not the true meaning of the vulnerable spot in Achilles's heel. Some slight dignity, though I had not so understood it, I had maintained in the midst of my misfortunes. To be a convict of one's free will, to protect the maid of one's love from grief, was one thing, but to sit in the stocks, exposed to the jibes of a common crowd, was another. And more than aught else, I felt the sting of the comedy in it. To sit there with my two feet straight out, soles to the people, through those rude holes in the boards, and all at liberty to gaze and laugh at me, was infinitely worse than to welter in my blood upon the scaffold. How many times, as I sat there, it came to me that if it had been the scaffold, Mary Cavendish could at least have held my memory in some respect; as it was, she could but laugh. Full easy it may be for any man with the courage of a man to figure in tragedy, but try him in comedy, if you would prove his mettle.

Shortly after I arrived there in the New Field, which was a wide, open space, the sports began, and I saw them all as in a dream, or worse than a dream, a nightmare. First came Parson Downs, whispering to me that as long as he could do me no good, and was in sore need of money, and, moreover, since he would by so doing divert somewhat the public attention from me, he would enter the race which was shortly to come off for a prize of five pounds.

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.