Unaffectedly I say it--upon the honor of a gentleman, and the reputation
of an author, unaffectedly I say it--no words of mine can do justice to
the sensations experienced by Lenny Fairfield, as he sat alone in that
place of penance. He felt no more the physical pain of his bruises; the
anguish of his mind stifled and over-bore all corporeal suffering--an
anguish as great as the childish breast is capable of holding. For first
and deepest of all, and earliest felt, was the burning sense of
injustice. He had, it might be with erring judgment, but with all
honesty, earnestness, and zeal, executed the commission intrusted to
him; he had stood forth manfully in discharge of his duty; he had fought
for it, suffered for it, bled for it. This was his reward! Now, in
Lenny's mind there was pre-eminently that quality which distinguishes
the Anglo-Saxon race--the sense of justice. It was perhaps the strongest
principle in his moral constitution; and the principle had never lost
its virgin bloom and freshness by any of the minor acts of oppression
and iniquity which boys of higher birth often suffer from harsh parents,
or in tyrannical schools. So that it was for the first time that that
iron entered into his soul, and with it came its attendant feeling--the
wrathful galling sense of impotence. He had been wronged, and he had no
means to right himself. Then came another sensation, if not so deep, yet
more smarting and envenomed for the time--shame! He, the good boy of all
good boys--he, the pattern of the school, and the pride of the
parson--he, whom the Squire, in sight of all his contemporaries, had
often singled out to slap on the back, and the grand Squire's lady to
pat on the head, with a smiling gratulation on his young and fair
repute--he, who had already learned so dearly to prize the sweets of an
honorable name--he, to be made, as it were, in the twinkling of an eye,
a mark for opprobrium, a butt of scorn, a jeer, and a byword! The
streams of his life were poisoned at the fountain. And then came a
tenderer thought of his mother! of the shock this would be to her--she
who had already begun to look up to him as her stay and support: he
bowed his head, and the tears, long suppressed, rolled down.
Then he wrestled and struggled, and strove to wrench his limbs from that
hateful bondage; for he heard steps approaching. And he began to picture
to himself the arrival of all the villagers from church, the sad gaze of
the Parson, the bent brow of the Squire, the idle, ill-suppressed titter
of all the boys, jealous of his unblotted character--character of which
the original whiteness could never, never be restored! He would always
be the boy who had sat in the Stocks! And the words uttered by the
Squire came back on his soul, like the voice of conscience in the ears
of some doomed Macbeth. "A sad disgrace Lenny--you'll never be in such a
quandary." "Quandary," the word was unfamiliar to him; it must mean
something awfully discreditable. The poor boy could have prayed for the
earth to swallow him.