"With a ran, tan, tan, On my old tin can, Mrs. Mooley and her good man, She banged him, she banged him, For spending a penny when he stood in need. She up with a three-footed stool; She struck him so hard, and cut him so deep, Till the blood ran down like a new-stuck sheep."
A shouting, jeering rabble accompanied the cavalcade, making uproar with marrow-bones and cleavers, tongs, gridirons, and kettles, and 'some half-score of barking and yelping curs swelled the din. A prominent figure in the rout was Ducker's wife, who had gone crazy through the loss of her child. She skipped and screamed and laughed, now here, now there, almost as much the object of amusement to the mob as the henpecked husband and his shrew of a wife.
If the mad woman caught sight of Anna there would be trouble, I felt sure; so I pushed on, hoping to avoid touch with the crowd, who would most likely turn by the road we had come, to make the circuit of the town. But the spectacle had some attraction for Vliet, who stood to see the crowd go by, saying with a laugh, "Ah! justitia de los cornudos!" from which I surmised he had seen the riding of the stang in Spain.
I asked Anna to urge the five Dutchmen forward, the boat being yet some four hundred yards away. As I feared, some of the mob stopped to stare at Vliet in his foreign costume, and this led to Ducker's wife perceiving Anna and me. She raised the cry, "Witches! witches!" and the crowd took it up instantly. I saw the vixen leap down from her charger to join the blacksmith's wife in the leadership of the gang, which followed us pell-mell. Then I ran for the boat, half carrying Anna, who at first hung back, imploring me to go to her father's rescue. As he had six men well armed to defend him--for the Dutchmen had faced about and behaved manfully, the two who had borne the baggage pitching it into the reed-bed that bordered the road, and taking to their weapons--I attended to nothing but Anna's safety. I had put her into the boat, and made the man understand that he must push out into the stream, and take shelter under the reeds, when the rest of our party came up, the mob at their heels, brandishing their pokers, gridirons, cleavers, and what not, encouraging one another with shouts of "The witch! Tear her to scotticks!" and savage curses.