darted forth like a bird from a cage, halted a moment as if for breath,
or in joy; and then, taking at once to his heels, fled, as a hare to its
form, fast to his mother's home.

Dr. Riccabocca dropped the yawning wood into its place, picked up his
handkerchief and restored it to his pocket; and then, with some
curiosity, began to examine the nature of that place of duress which had
caused so much painful emotion to its rescued victim. "Man is a very
irrational animal at best," quoth the sage, soliloquizing, "and is
frightened by strange buggaboos! 'T is but a piece of wood! how little
it really injures! And, after all, the holes are but rests to the legs,
and keep the feet out of the dirt. And this green bank to sit upon,
under the shade of the elm-tree-verily the position must be more pleasant
than otherwise! I've a; great mind--" Here the doctor looked around,
and seeing the coast still clear, the oddest notion imaginable took
possession of him; yet, not indeed a notion so odd, considered
philosophically,--for all philosophy is based on practical experiment,--
and Dr. Riccabocca felt an irresistible desire practically to experience
what manner of thing that punishment of the stocks really was. "I can
but try! only for a moment," said he apologetically to his own
expostulating sense of dignity. "I have time to do it, before any one
comes." He lifted up the partition again: but stocks are built on the
true principle of English law, and don't easily allow a man to criminate
himself,--it was hard to get into them without the help of a friend.
However, as we before noticed, obstacles only whetted Dr. Riccabocca's
invention. He looked round, and saw a withered bit of stick under the
tree; this he inserted in the division of the stocks, somewhat in the
manner in which boys place a stick under a sieve for the purpose of
ensnaring sparrows; the fatal wood thus propped, Dr. Riceabocca sat
gravely down on the bank, and thrust his feet through the apertures.