farmer's cart, far down the street, as it brought in a belated load of
insurgents from Sheffield, was distinctly audible. Then somebody in
the back part of the crowd, impressed with a certain ludicrousness in
the situation, tittered. Somebody else tittered, then a number, and
presently a hoarse haw haw of derision, growing momentarily louder,
and soon after mingled with yells, hoots and catcalls, burst forth
from a thousand throats. The prestige of the honorable justices of the
Court of Common Pleas, was gone.

A moment still they hesitated. Then the sheriff turned and said
something to them in a low voice, and they forthwith faced about and
deliberately marched back toward their lodgings. In this retrograde
movement the sheriff acted as rear guard, and he had not gone above a
dozen steps, before a rotten egg burst on one shoulder of his fine new
coat, and as he wheeled around an apple took him in the stomach, and
at the same moment the cocked hat of Justice Goodrich of Pittsfield,
was knocked off with a stone. His honor did not apparently think it
expedient to stop just then to pick it up, and Obadiah Weeks, leaping
forward, made it a prey, and instantly elevated it on a pole, amid
roars of derisive laughter. The retreat of the justices had indeed so
emboldened the more ruffianly and irresponsible element of the crowd,
many of whom were drunk, that it was just as well for the bodily
safety of their honors that the distance to their lodgings was no
greater. As it was, stones were flying fast, and the mob was close
on the heels of the sheriff when the house was gained, and as he
attempted to shut the door after him, there was a rush of men, bent on
entering with him. He knocked down the first, but would have been
instantly overpowered and trampled on, had not Perez Hamlin, followed
by Abner, Peleg, Abe Konkapot and half a dozen other Stockbridge men,
shouldered their way through the crowd, and come to his relief. Where