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“‘I did not know that there was any such law, your Honor; else I would have obeyed it.’

“You may see that he had a true heart, like a robin on a cherry bough.

“‘I must condemn you to have thirty lashes at the whipping-post,’ said the judge—‘No, twenty lashes—no, considering all the points of the case, ten; or five will do. Five lashes at the whipping-post. This is the lightest sentence that I ever imposed. But he did not know the law; and he was a married man, and he had not seen his wife for nearly three years; I must be merciful in this particular case, and I will not say in this same case how hard the lashes shall be laid on.’

“So the young sailor was whipped, and Mr. Legality said that five lashes would not have scampered a cat.

“Rufus, the wanderer, prepared to go whaling again.

“Now, the captain of the ship had caused a chalk-mark to be drawn across the deck of the ship, and had made a ship law that if any one but an officer of the ship should cross the mark, the person violating the law should be whipped with a cat-o’-nine-tails.