A CENTURY TOO SOON.


CHAPTER I.

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