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But male rebels were specially treated, as may be seen from the sentence passed upon them until the reign of George III. These were the words that Judge Jeffreys and Scroggs, for instance, used to roll out with enjoyable eloquence upon the dazed agricultural labourer before them: "The sentence of the Court now is that you be conveyed from hence to the place from where you came, and from there be drawn to the place of execution upon hurdles; that you be hanged by the neck; that you be cut down alive; that your bowels be taken out and burnt in your view; that your head be severed from your body; that your body be divided into four quarters, and your quarters be at the disposition of the King: and may the God of infinite mercy be merciful to your soul.
We looked at her with hunted looks. Scroggs looked at all of us. "Martha," he said at last, "each one of these four young idiots says he is engaged to you. Which of them shall I throw out?" The jig was up! The college was ruined! Each one of us had the same bright thought! For a moment I thought Martha was going to faint. She looked at the mob with a dazed expression.
Scroggs looked more uncomfortable than we felt. He took her in his arms and there was a family reconciliation. Every little while Martha would look over his shoulder at us four hopefuls sitting up against the wall as lively as wooden Indians, and then she would bury her face in her handkerchief again and shake her shoulders and writhe with grief or maybe it was something else.
The first to grapple with him was a herculean, thick-ribbed man, of extraordinary stature, taller than the soldier, if not so well-knit; a Goliath, indeed, as Scroggs had deemed him, with arms long as windmills. "Stand back, lads," he roared, "and let me throw him!"
They had to enlarge the workhouse to take care of them, and four of our best football players were retired from circulation all through October. Think what that meant! The whole college went up, just before the game with Hambletonian, and knelt on the sidewalk before Judge Scroggs' house. He set the dog on us. Said afterwards he wished the dog had been larger and hadn't had his supper.
I have seen a fox terrier who had been lying perfectly happy on the sidewalk, get up after Scroggs had passed him and go over and bite an automobile tire. He lived on gloom and law-suits and the last time he smiled was 1878 that was when a small boy fell nineteen feet out of a tree while robbing his orchard, and the doctor said he would never be able to rob any more orchards.
All these unhappy men went to execution, protesting their innocence; a circumstance which made no impression on the spectators. * December 3. * Sir William Scroggs. It was forgotten, that all the conspirators engaged in the gunpowder treason, and Garnet, the Jesuit among the rest, had freely on the scaffold made confession of their guilt.
"To-day he was trying to decide just what sort of vine would thrive best on this sunny side of the house. His name is not nearly so picturesque as Bonfanti. It is Jonathan Scroggs. Not a fine name, surely, but his name has never hindered him in his profession. He is one of the best florists in the country, he knows all about beautiful vines and trees, and he is also a landscape gardener.
Old Scroggs glared at us the way an unusually hungry tiger might look at a lamb that was being taken away to get a little riper. "I cannot object to a reasonable continuance," he said sourly. "And I don't deny that you will need all the defense you can get. The case is an atrocious one, and I propose to do my small part toward putting down arson and riot in this unhappy town.
With Scroggs or Jeffreys on the bench, it might have been argued that Waltheof's confession to the King did not, in strictness of law, wipe out the guilt of his original promise to the conspirators; but William the Great did not commonly act after the fashion of Scroggs and Jeffreys.
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