Читать книгу A Century Too Soon: The Age of Tyranny - John R. Musick - Страница 5

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THE DUCKING-STOOL.

Blow, wind, and crack your cheeks! rage! blow!

You cataracts and hurricanes, spout

Till you have drenched our steeples, drowned the cocks!

You sulphurous and thought-executing fires,

Vaunt couriers to oak-cleaving thunderbolts,

Singe my white head! And thou, all-shaking thunder,

Strike flat the thick rotundity o' the world.

--SHAKESPEARE.

[Illustration: ducking stool]

A crowd of bearded men, some in the sad-colored clothes and steeple-crowned hats of Puritans, others in loose top-boots, scarlet coats, lace and periwigs of the cavaliers of the Cromwellian period, intermixed with women, some wearing hoods and others bareheaded, was assembled on the banks of a deep pond within sight of Jamestown, Va. A curious machine, one which at the present day would puzzle the beholder to guess its use, had been constructed near the edge of the water. It was a simple contrivance and rude in structure; but the freshly hewn timbers were proof of its virgin newness. This machine was a long pole fastened upon an upright post, almost at the water's edge, so that it could revolve or dip at the will of the manipulators. On the heavy end of the pole was a seat or chair fastened, with a rest for the feet, and straps and buckles so arranged that when one was buckled down escape was impossible. On the opposite end of the pole a rope was tied, the end hanging down to the ground. This contrivance, to-day unknown, was once quite familiar to English civilization, and was called the "ducking-stool." The founders of the American, colonies, whatever may have been their original designs for the promotion of universal happiness, found it necessary very soon to allot a portion of the virgin soil to the humiliation, punishment and degradation of their fellow creatures.

Thus we find, in addition to the prison, the whipping-post and the pillory, the ducking-stool. From the vast throng assembled about the pond on that mild June day in 1653, one might suppose that the entire colony had turned out to witness some great event. Nearly four years before the opening of our story, Cromwell had established the "Commonwealth" in England; but it was not until 1653 that the Parliament party, or "Roundheads," as they were contemptuously termed, conquered the colony of Virginia. Many of the royalists were still elected to the House of Burgesses, and the cavaliers in boots and lace, with riding-whips in hand, predominated in the throng we have just described. The continual neighing of horses in the woods told of the arrival of fresh troops of planters and fox-hunting cavaliers.

The merry cavalier was easily distinguished from the sedate Puritan. The latter gazed solemnly on the instrument of torture as a thing essential to the performance of a duty, while the cavaliers seemed to have come more for the enjoyment of some rare sport, than to witness an execution of the law. Occasionally a snake-eyed aborigine mingled with the throng, gazing in wonder on the scene, or a negro, granted a half-holiday, stood grinning with barbarous delight on what was more sport than punishment in his eyes.

There is something hideous about the ducking-stool in the present age of reason and enlightenment, more especially as it was designed to punish the weaker sex and usually those advanced in years. Before the ugly machine and between it and the road which ran past the pond to the village was a grass-plot, much overgrown with burdock, pigweed, plantain and such unsightly vegetation, which seemed to find something congenial in the soil that bore an instrument for the torture of the gentler sex; but on one side of the post and leaning against it was a wild rosebush covered with fragrant flowers.

It was still an early hour, for the morning dew sparkled in the deeper recesses of the grand old forest, and the moisture of dawn yet lingered on the air. Strange as it may seem, that instrument was regarded with careless indifference, even by the gentler sex of this period.

Meagre and cold was the sympathy which a transgressor might expect from the assembly at the pond. The women mingled freely with the crowd and appeared to take a peculiar interest in the punishment about to be inflicted. The age had not so much refinement, that any sense of impropriety kept the wearers of petticoats and farthingales from elbowing their way through the densest throngs to witness the executions. Those wives and maidens of English birth and breeding were morally and materially of coarser fibre than their fair descendants, who would swoon at the thought of torture and punishment. They were not all hard-featured amazons in that throng, for, mingled with the stout, broad-shouldered dames, were maids naturally shy, timid and beautiful. The ruddy cheeks and ruby lips indicated health, and the brawny arms of many women bore evidence of physical toil.

The cavaliers were jesting and laughing, while the Puritans were silent, or conversing in low, measured tones on the purpose of the assembly.

There was enough of gloom and solemnity in the one party to prove that the execution was not to be a farce, and enough merriment in the other to convince a beholder that the punishment was not capital. A young cavalier, all silk and lace, with heavy riding-boots, galloped up to the scene and, dismounting, handed the rein to a negro slave, who had run himself out of breath to keep up with his master, and hastened down to the water.

"Good morrow, Roger!" said the new-comer to a young man of about twenty-five years of age, like himself a gentleman of ease.

"Good morrow, Hugh," Roger answered.

"What gala scene have they prepared for our amusement?" asked Hugh, his dark gray eyes twinkling with merriment. "I trow it is one that you and I need never fear."

"The magistrates have adjudged Ann Linkon to be ducked."

"Marry! what hath she done?"

"Divers offences, all petty, but aggravating in themselves. She is not only a common scold, but a babbling woman, who often hath slandered and scandalized her neighbors, for which her poor husband is often brought into chargeable and vexatious suits and cast in great damages."

Hugh gave utterance to a genuine cavalier-like laugh, and, striking his boot-top with his riding-whip, returned:

"Marry! but she will make a merry sight soaring through the air like a fisher-bird to be plunged beneath the water."

"It will be a goodly sight, Hugh, and one I knew you would wish to see; therefore I sent for you."

"You have my thanks; but where is the culprit?"

"They have not arrived with her yet. Did you come from Greenspring Manor this morn?"

"Yes."

"How is Sir William Berkeley?"

"He is well, and still lives in the hope of seeing the king restored to his throne."

"Hath he invited our wandering prince to Virginia?"

"Sh--! speak not so loud," said Hugh in an undertone. "There are some of those Puritans, the cursed Roundheads, near, and it would mean death to Sir William if it were known that he but breathed such thoughts."

The two young men walked a little apart from the others and sat down upon the green, mossy banks, where they might converse uninterrupted and still be near enough to witness the ducking when the officers arrived with the victim.

"Keep a still tongue in your head, Roger," said Hugh when they were seated. "Greenspring Manor is beset with spies, and the Roundheads long for some pretext to hang Sir William for his devotion to our king; but Sir William says that the commonwealth will end with Cromwell and the son of our murdered king will be restored."

"The rule of the Roundheads is mild."

"Mild, bah!" interrupted Hugh, in contempt. "They are men without force, groundlings, the common trash from the earth with whom the best do not mingle."

"But they permit the people to send royalists to the House of Burgesses."

"That they do; yet there they must mingle with leet-men and indented slaves whose terms have expired," and Hugh heaved a sigh and dug his boot heel into the ground, adding, "It was not a merry day for old England when they struck off the king's head."

While the young royalists were discussing politics and awaiting the arrival of the guard with Ann Linkon, the women were not all silent.

"Good wives," said a hard-featured dame of fifty, "I will tell you a piece of my mind. It would be greatly for the public behoof, if we women being of mature age and church members in good repute like Ann Linkon might speak our minds of such baggage as Dorothe Stevens without being adjudged and sent to the ducking-stool as she is to be done. Wherefore is Dorothe Stevens so great that one must not say ill of her that they be plunged in the pond? Did she but have her deserts, would she be at home and Ann Linkon on the stool? Marry! I trow not!"

"Prythee, good dame Woodley, be more chary of your tongue, lest you be brought to judgment," interposed a more cautious sister.

Dame Woodley scowled and ground her teeth in silence for a short interval, and then resumed:

"I speak only to you five who know the wife of John Stevens truly. Despite all her airs and efforts to assume to herself a superiority, we know full well she hath her faults."

"Verily, she hath," interposed a female who had her hood drawn low over her face to protect it from the morning sun.

"And I have heard that she does lead poor John Stevens a miserable life. What with her extravagance, her temper, and the way she does hate his old mother whom he loves, his life must be a burden?" continued dame Woodley,

"Little the pity for him, though," interposed the woman whose weak eyes were half-hidden by her hood.

"Why say ye so, Sarah Drummond?"

"The more fool he to maintain such a creature."

"Marry! think you, Sarah, that a wife is like a shoe to be cast off at will? John Stevens hath two children, whom he loves as ardently as ever parent loved."

"I have known Dorothe Stevens to be kind and gentle," interposed a woman who had not spoken before.

"Yet she is haughty, and she would have all the world believe her of superior flesh and blood to ourselves. Doth not the Scriptures say that 'Pride goeth before destruction and a haughty spirit before a fall'? Yea, verily, I wish she would break her neck when she doth fall."

At this moment, one of the petty officers came to the group of gossipers and cried:

"Go to! hold your peace, you prating dames! The prisoner comes."

A confused murmur swelled to a general hubbub as two men appeared over the hill leading between them a woman about fifty-five years of age. She was a strong, thin-visaged woman, whose cheek had been bronzed by sun and weather. She was bareheaded, and her hair was gathered in a knot at the back. Her gown, of a thick woollen stuff, fit closely to her person, as if it had been made on purpose for the punishment she had been adjudged to receive. She was talking in a loud voice and gesticulating angrily with her head, for her arms were confined.

"I will give ye a piece of my mind," she declared to her guards.

"Hold your peace, Ann!" cried the eldest of the guards.

"Hold my peace! Verily, I will, not hold my peace about such a hussy as Dorothe Stevens. That I, a Christian and Puritan, should be ducked for slandering one so foul as she! I choke at the thought."

"Marry! I wish you were silent."

"Silent, Joshua Chard, silent, indeed! Think ye that the fear of all the water in James River will awe me to silence?"

"No, by the mass, it will not," answered his companion.

"Lawrence Evans, unholy papist, do not touch me!"

"I am not a papist."

"Come, Ann Linkon, let us have this execution done with," put in Joshua, dragging the woman along.

The scene was now ridiculous enough to excite the laughter of even the gravest Puritans. The pond and ducking-stool were in sight, and Ann Linkon, with a persistence and strength that was marvellous, began to pull back, and when she had set her heels firmly in the ground it required the united strength of both guards to move her.

"I won't go! I won't be ducked! I won't! I won't!" she screamed at the top of her voice.

"Nay, Ann, bright flower of loveliness, you shall have a soft seat."

"Shame on you, Joshua, to drag an old woman like me by the arm."

"Marry! I am not dragging you, dame Linkon. Your heels do stick like a ploughshare in the ground."

The woman continued in her sharp, shrill voice to upbraid him:

"Ungrateful wretch, is it thus you serve one who fed you in your infancy, when your mother had deserted you? Unhand me, indented slave, and go back to your master, wretch--wretch--wretch!" she hissed, as she went sliding on her heels, her toes horizontal and her knees rigid. Her feet ploughed up the earth and stones, and the crowd hooted and jeered.

"Come on, Dame Linkon, and take your bath," cried some idle urchins, waiting at the water in anticipation of rare sport.

The victim continued to scream in her shrill voice:

"It's for that hussy! She bore false witness against me at the court and had me condemned. I will be avenged for this!"

"Marry! we will be more damp than you," said Joshua, wiping the perspiration from his forehead with the cuff of his coat.

"Joshua, is this payment for what I have done for you? When you were sick with fever I sat by your bedside and cared for you; when no one else would cook your food, it was I who did it, and is it thus you requite me?"

"Peace, good dame, I have my duty to perform."

"Duty; but such a duty!"

She still braced her heels against the ground, and it required all the strength of her guards to push and pull her along.

"Verily, I say such a duty," answered Joshua, on whose grave features there came a smile. "Dame Linkon, if you would limber your joints we could make more speed."

"I am in no hurry," she answered.

"I believe you; yet if you had not detained us, this affair would have been over."

The urchins and older persons began to cry:

"Hold back, Dame Linkon; make them earn their fees."

"I will scratch your eyes out!" she hissed, as she was forced down to the bank and made to sit in the chair. Joshua wound a strap about her waist and stooped to buckle it, when, with her freed hand, she seized his hair, causing him to yell with pain.

"Prythee, hold her hands, lest she make good her threat!" he cried to his companion.

The appearance of the victim and her guards brought everybody to their--feet, and a silence fell over the group. The matrons ceased to gossip; the royalists left off talking politics, and all gathered about to witness the scene. Joshua's companion held the woman's arms, and he stooped to bind her feet to the chair, when one flew out like a bolt from a catapult, planting the toe in the pit of poor Joshua's stomach, causing him to roll over on the ground and howl with pain. The sheriff by this time came on the scene and summoned sufficient help to bind her to the chair.

"See to it that every strap and cord is secure, for if she should fall she would drown," said the sheriff, and the men drew the leather straps tight, while Ann Linkon continued to rail and abuse all about her.

"'Tis for the hussy that I am to suffer this," she cried. "Dorothe Stevens bore me false witness. I never slandered her. There--there is Hugh Price. Verily I spoke truly, as he knows."

Hugh Price, the young royalist, who had been talking politics with his friend Roger, blushed.

At this moment, there appeared on the scene a young man twenty-eight years of age, whose light blue eyes and frank, open face spoke honesty and humanity. His knit brows and distressed features showed that he was not in accord with the proceedings. He led the sheriff aside and spoke hurriedly with him in an undertone, which no one could hear. It was quite evident that he was making some request which the sheriff would not grant, for he shook his head in a very emphatic manner, and those nearest heard the official answer:

"No, no, the judgment of the court, the judgment of the court."

Dame Woodley, turning to a matron near, whispered: "Sarah Drummond, there is John Stevens, the husband of the woman who had Ann Linkon adjudged. How dare he come here?"

"For shame!" whispered Sarah Drummond.

"Yea, verily."

"I wonder he could witness the wrong she hath done."

At this a young wife with a babe in her arms interposed:

"They do say that John Stevens had naught to do with the matter and did protest against having one so old as Ann Linkon ducked."

"John Stevens is a godly man," remarked still another. "He would not wrong any one."

"If he were my dearest foe," whispered goodwife Woodley, "he would have my sympathy for living with Dorothe Stevens."

"Whist, Dame Woodley; speak not your mind so freely," whispered Sarah Drummond, "for there be those in hearing on whose ears your words had best not fall."

All the while, Ann Linkon had been struggling with her executioners; but now, helpless and exhausted, she was bound in the chair. The sheriff, who was a humane man as well as a stern official, remonstrated with her.

"Ann Linkon, do not so exert and heat yourself, or else when you be plunged into the water you will take your death."

"Death! Take my death! That is what you want, wretch!" she screamed in her shrill voice.

"Peace, dame; be still!"

"I will not be silent. She is a hussy. John Stevens, I defy your wife," she added as her eyes lighted on Stevens who was near. "I told no falsehood on her. Go to your friend Hugh Price, and if he will speak the truth, he will say I spoke no falsehood."

Again Stevens was seen talking with the sheriff; but he shook his head with the inexorable:

"The judgment of the court--the judgment of the court."

Stevens turned away with a look of disappointment on his face. The sight of him seemed to increase the anger of Ann Linkon, and she railed and struggled until, exhausted, she panted for breath. The sheriff fanned her with his hat until she had partially cooled; but as soon as she regained her breath, she began again:

"It's a merry sight to you all to watch an old woman. Verily, I wish Satan would rend you limb from limb, all of ye."

"Go to! hold your peace, Ann!" said the sheriff.

"I will not," she screamed, the froth appearing upon her lips.

"Then you shall be plunged hot."

"I care not."

"It may be your death."

"That's what ye want."

"We don't."

"Ye lie, ye wretch!"

"Ann, I will duck you the full sentence if you don't hold your peace."

"You are a wretch!" she screamed.

The sheriff at this moment motioned the crowd to stand back and gave the signal to his two assistants, who went to the other end of the pole and seized the rope dangling there.

"You are a white-livered wretch!" the scold again yelled. At this moment she went soaring off into the air. A piercing shriek came from her lips as she found herself swinging out over the pond. "I'll scratch your eyes out!"

"Let her down," commanded the sheriff, and the men holding the rope allowed it to slip through their hands, and the woman in the chair darted down toward the water.

"I said it, as I say it yet; she's a hussy! she's a hussy!" shrieked the woman, whose vocabulary was insufficient for her rage. The chair rapidly descended until it struck the water with a splash, pushing the waves on either side and letting the scold down, down into the cold liquid. She gave utterance to a yell when she found the water coming up over her breast, almost taking her breath.

She was drawn all dripping from the pond and elevated high in the air so everybody could see her. A wild yell went up from the crowd, and an impudent urchin cried:

"Ann Linkon, how like you your bath?"

"I'll scratch your eyes out!" she shrieked, then again began to denounce her prosecutor as she once more descended, repeating, "She's a hussy!"

Down, down she went into the water, until it came to her chin, causing her to utter another shriek. Again she was lifted high in the air. The sheriff, who was superintending the enforcement of the sentence, turned to his assistants and said:

"You do not dip her under; let the stool go lower."

As Ann Linkon descended for the last time, she seemed to gather up all her energies and, in a voice overflowing with hate, shrieked:

"It's true! She is a hussy!"

Plunging down, down, down, until ducking-stool and occupant were completely buried beneath the water, sank the victim, and on the air came a gurgling sound: "She's a hussy!" The sheriff's assistants gave the rope a sudden pull, and in an instant the choking, strangling creature soared up in the air, gasping for breath with the water running in streams from her garments. She made several efforts to speak, but in vain. Her mouth, nostrils, eyes and ears were full of water, and she could only gasp. Poor Ann Linkon was humiliated and crushed. A ducking was a light punishment, yet the disgrace which attached to it was sufficient to break the spirit of one possessing any pride. The sheriff turned to his assistants and said:

"Put her on shore."

The people gave way, and the stool swung round on the pivot and was lowered to the sands. The sport was over, and the cavaliers began to jest and laugh over the scene, which, to them, had been one of amusement. Hugh and Roger once more retired to talk of politics, and the Dame Woodley, turning to Sarah Drummond, asked if she thought public morals had been improved by such a disgraceful scene. But few expressions of sympathy were offered to the coughing, shivering, dripping woman, who sat silently in the chair upon the sands. She was meek enough now when the guards came to unbuckle the straps and free her. Even after she was released, she sat in the chair, strangling, coughing and shivering.

John Stevens made his way through the crowd and, going up to the woman, who seemed almost lifeless, began:

"Dame Linkon, I am most truly sorry that this has been done--"

At sound of his voice, the half-inanimate form seemed suddenly inspired with life and vigor, and, bounding to her feet with a shriek of rage, she dealt him a blow with her open hand on the side of his head, which made him see more stars than can usually be discerned on the clearest night. He staggered and, but for the sheriff, would have fallen.