They had been too frequently the losers by the cunning practice of the pedler, to doubt for a moment the perfect propriety--nay, the very moderate measure--of that wild justice which they were dealing out to his misdeeds.

And with this even, they were not satisfied.

As the perishable calicoes roared up and went down in the flames, as the pans and pots and cups melted away in the furnace heat, and the painted faces of the wooden clocks, glared out like those of John Rogers at the stake, enveloped in fire, the cries of the crowd were mingled in with a rude, wild chorus, in which the pedler was made to understand that he stood himself in a peril almost as great as his consuming chattels.

It was the famous ballad of the _regulators_ that he heard, and it smote his heart with a consciousness of his personal danger that made him shiver in his shoes.

The uncouth doggrel, recited in a lilting sort of measure, the peculiar and various pleasures of a canter upon a pine rail.