Creative Books

Be it drum, bell, or horn, which gives the summons, we will draw near to
this important building, the centre of the village, the one public
edifice,--meeting-house, town-house, school-house, watch-house, all in
one. So important is it, that no one can legally dwell more than a
half-mile from it. And yet the people ride to meeting, short though the
distance be, for at yonder oaken block a wife dismounts from behind her
husband;--and has it not, moreover, been found needful to impose a fine
of forty shillings on fast trotting to and fro? All sins are not modern
ones, young gentlemen.
We approach nearer still, and come among the civic institutions. This is
the pillory, yonder the stocks, and there is a large wooden cage, a
terror to evil-doers, but let us hope empty now. Round the meeting-house
is a high wooden paling, to which the law permits citizens to tie their
horses, provided it be not done too near the passage-way. For at that
opening stands a sentry, clothed in a suit of armor which is painted
black, and cost the town twenty-four shillings by the bill.


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