n 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