"Won't that be fun?" continued Quidd. "Let us do it—let us do it. There is no law against it; the thing was never thought of. It is just like the law that was never made among the Romans that I read about in my lessons yesterday: there was no law against a child killing his own father. I tell you," said he, "if there were twenty old women to be seized and burnt, nobody could be hurt for it. But you do not mean to burn her, I suppose, do you?"
"Oh no," said we; "we only want to have some fun. We should like to make a guy of her, that is all, and rare fun it will be."
"Let me join you," said one; "Let me join," said another, till at last the whole school entered into the plot.
We all forgot what we should have remembered—namely, that, instead of despising or ridiculing people who are old and helpless and poor, we ought to treat them with kindness, respect, and consideration. We forgot that we, if suffered to live long enough, should also become old, and that it would be hard for us to bear the coldness and neglect of the world, but much harder to endure the ridicule and ill-behavior of wicked children. Ay, we were thoughtless lads, and so we suffered for it, as you will afterwards hear.
The old lady whom I had seen sitting in the church porch, who was so ugly, as I thought, and so withered and old, was a very poor widow. Her husband had died in battle long ago, and she had from year to year supported herself by her spinning wheel and the little relief she had from the parish. She lived in a little hut on a piece of waste ground, and kept a little poultry, and now and then a pig or two.
Among other animals, the old lady kept an enormous goat, or, rather, he kept himself. It was one her husband had brought her from abroad, of the Syrian breed. It was quite young when it came over, but at last grew and grew so, as to become a very formidable animal, so strong and fierce, that every dog was afraid of it, being, no doubt, terrified by the sight of its large horns and undaunted aspect. The name of this dread animal was Hannibal.
Poor old Goody Clackett—for that was her name—had little thoughts of ever being "smugged," as it was termed, by our schoolfellows to make a guy on the fifth of November, and sat quietly enough spinning her wheel and drawing out her yarn. Sometimes the thrum of the old wheel would send her soundly to sleep, and then she never dreamed of such a thing as was to happen to her.
Every boy was delighted with this proposition, and it was arranged that on the following evening I and my cousin Simon should assist in the endeavor to get the chair from the outhouse to a convenient place, while Hardy was to provide lantern, matches, cap, and feathers, with red and black paint to disfigure the features of the poor old creature.
"We will make her amends," said Quidd, "all the money we get shall be hers."