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.

As I said before, it was a hot day, and all around the field waved
fruit boughs nearly past their bloom, with the green of new
leaves overcoming the white and red, and the air was heavy with
honey-sweet, and, as steady as a clock-tick through all the roaring
of the merrymakers, came the hum of the bees and the calls of the
birds. A great flag was streaming thirty feet high, and the gay
dresses of the women who had congregated to see the sports were like
a flower-garden, and the waistcoats of the men were as brilliant as
the breasts of birds, and nearly everybody wore the green oak-sprig
which celebrated the Restoration.

Then again, the horses, after the challenge of the drums, sped
around the three-mile course, and attention was diverted somewhat
from me. There had been mischievous boys enough for my torment, had
it not been for my brother John, who stood beside the stocks, his
face white and his hand at his sword. Many a grinning urchin drew
near with a stone in hand and looked at him, and looked again, then
slunk away, and made as if he had no intention of throwing aught
at me. After the horse-racing came music of drums, trumpets, and
hautboys, and then in spite of my brother, the crowd pressed close
about me, and many scurrilous things