We went to see the bridge which crossed the small stream known as the
River Swift, for it was there that Wiclif's bones were burned and the
ashes thrown into the stream. The historian related that they did not
remain there, for the waters of the Swift conveyed them to the River
Avon, the River Avon to the River Severn, the Severn to the narrow seas,
and thence into the wide ocean, thus becoming emblematic of Wiclif's
doctrines, which in later years spread over the wide, wide world.
A well-known writer once humorously observed that the existence of a
gallows in any country was one of the signs of civilisation, but
although we did not see or hear of any gallows at Lutterworth, there
were other articles, named in the old books of the constables, which
might have had an equally civilising influence, especially if they had
been used as extensively as the stocks and whipping-post as recorded in
a list of vagrants who had been taken up and whipped by Constables
Cattell and Pope, from October 15th, 1657, to September 30th, 1658. The
records of the amounts paid for repairs to the various instruments of
torture, which included a lock-up cage for prisoners and a cuck, or
ducking-stool, in which the constables ducked scolding wives and other
women in a deep hole near the river bridge, led us to conclude that they
must have been extensively used.
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