The tale was told to me by an old man in a pub in Liverpool. I do not know if it is true, but it was well worth the price of a pint for the telling.
He told me that he had been a merchant seaman and had sailed the world around. Between voyages he had been content to be a vagabond, wandering the continents in search of lustful adventures. He confessed that women and ale had always been his weaknesses. I saw by his lined and wizened visage that at least the latter was true.
He related that once he explored deep into Australia where the customs and language of Englishmen were most unusual. He stopped in a remote village for a pint and was served by a winsome wench of generous form and thick black tresses. She was a cheeky girl who deviled the patrons with her wit and impertinence. Her name was Auna.
He was quite taken by her charms, and she was smitten by him, as he was quite handsome in his youth. They engaged in a tryst and he lingered in the village. One night after a round of lustful rutting they lay abed in the girl's crude quarters and she became pouty. He inquired as to the reason for her change of demeanor.
She said that she was poor and sometimes resorted to asking a price for the favors she bestowed so freely upon him. The sailor said that he had suspected such and assured her that he did not find such commerce offensive. She was appreciative of his understanding, but her dilemma was that the constable had caught her in liaison with a patron behind the pub. Because such behavior was unlawful, she was to pay a penalty the following day.
The sailor was enamored by the girl and offered to await her return from confinement or perhaps contribute what little he could toward her fine.
"Alas, I wish confinement or a fine were the penance!. I would gladly pay!" Auna replied.
Then she told him that the village had a peculiar way of punishing miscreants and enhancing its coffers. She said that on assigned days, the women accused of misdemeanors were summoned to the town square. Their offenses might range from whoring to adultery to indebtedness. They were required to bend themselves over so that their skirts could be lifted and their drawers pinned open. Villagers could pay the constable to cane the offenders upon their bared behinds. Their arses were made available for such use for a half an hour.
The sailor was astonished by the primitive method of atonement and asked if she had ever been punished thusly. She said that she had not, but she had witnessed others bear the penalty and that the lashes, shrieks and tears were dreadful.
He asked if the prospect of such abuse distressed her greatly. She replied that while she abhorred the abasement and mistreatment that was soon to be her lot, she would bear it bravely and vowed not to show the villagers her tears.
Later, as he laid in his own bed, he thought of what the morning would bring. The image of the lass bent and exposed both saddened and aroused him, and he spent a fitful night.
He arose early and loitered about the square as the villagers assembled. They were in high spirits, as if gathering for a festival rather than a prosecution of justice. Some brought baskets and broke fast on bread and meats as they waited for the execution to commence. At last the old constable appeared leading three women. He was accompanied by a young lad who carried a wooden box, a large glass bowl, and a bundle of young limbs tossed over his shoulder.
The first woman was a solid but handsome villager. Her face was grim and her eyes smoldered with indignation as the townspeople hailed the little parade cheers and whistles.
The second was a slender girl with comely features who appeared to be no more than eighteen. She had honey-colored hair and child-like blue eyes that were wide with trepidation.
Auna was last. She walked with her head held high in an impertinent manner and ignored the whistles and cat-calls that greeted her arrival.
The constable bade the women to stand before a long, sturdy table. He produced a document from his coat and read a litany of crimes.
The village woman was guilty of indebtedness. Her husband was a known lout and drunkard who did not pay his arrears and ought to be jailed. But as his incarceration would stop his wages, his wife had come forth to pay the penalty. The woman bent her head in disgrace as the charge was delivered.
The comely girl was guilty of adultery. She had breeched the contract of marriage arranged by the families in order to seek comfort in the arms of a lover. The lass blinked her lovely blue eyes and seemed bewildered by the circumstances befalling her.
Auna was guilty of prostitution. She shook her long thick hair back contemptuously as the charge was read and raised a middle finger to the hoots that followed its pronouncement.
The constable ordered the women to turn and face the table. Then he knelt at the feet of the village woman and produced a length of rope from the box his young assistant held. He instructed her to spread her feet slightly and then deftly wrapped the rope about her sturdy ankles and secured them tightly to a cross beam that ran the length of the table near the ground. He repeated the procedure with the young bride and Auna.
He commanded that the women bend themselves across the table and reach their hands straight forward. Their obedience to the order stirred mirthful murmurs among the crowd to whom they presented their backsides. The constable moved to the opposite side of the table, retrieved longer pieces of rope, and wrapped the wrists of the village woman tightly. He secured the end to the crossbar on that side. Again, he repeated the procedure on the young bride and Auna. When he concluded, the women were bent taut and tied tight, capable only of moving their heads.
The constable turned his attention once more to the village woman. He lifted her skirt and petticoats, rolling them up into neat folds. As the woman's stockinged legs came into view, the murmurs of the crowd drew louder and were interspersed with whistles, cat-calls and hoots. The constable was compelled to admonish the onlookers to silence lest their some of them share the women's fate.
Then he continued, bringing into view the woman's plump derrière covered by cotton drawers. He tucked the folds of the skirts beneath the her waist. A tear rolled down her broad cheek as the humiliation was administered..
He moved to the young bride where the raising of the skirt revealed the shapely and slender legs of youth. The girl turned her head from side to side, mouth agape and eyes wide as those of a frightened fawn.
Lastly, he raised Auna's skirt and the sailor again viewed the voluptuous calves and thighs and the red garters he had so enjoyed removing. Auna did not object, but her eyes shone with an impudent glare.
The constable fetched a handful of pins from the box and clenched them in his lips as he returned to the village woman. He knelt at her behind and, much as a tailor plying his trade, opened her drawers and pinned them back. The exposure of her bare bottom elicited applause, hoots and laughter from the crowd, and prompted the constable to cast a menacing scowl.
The woman sobbed aloud.
The sailor saw that her bared quarter was large and robust with a deeply shadowed valley. The thighs that descended from it were sturdy but shapely, and her plump, darkly-haired womanhood with its generous cleft gave testament to the bearing of many children.
A group of young boys gathered as closely behind the vision as the constable would allow and stared and pointed at the mysterious and revered object of schoolyard gossip - which few of them had actually witnessed before. They whispered and giggled and the woman's face reddened. Her tears flowed. The sailor felt sorry that she must endure the humiliation that was rightfully that of her besotted husband.
The onlookers gathered behind the bride as the constable opened her drawers, for they were most eager to witness her charms. She gasped as the cool morning air touched her skin. The sailor swore that in all his years of adventure he had not seen a more splendid bottom. It was small and taut, but the cheeks were most perfectly formed and emerged from the drawers as golden pears ripened to the point of bursting. Her tiny sex was mossed with a golden down and peeked demurely from between the slender alabaster columns of her thighs. The girl protested, but the constable ignored her entreaties as he went about his task.
Auna did not protest when the time came for her baring. She bore the exposure stoically. The sailor recognized many of the men gathered round her as patrons of the pub. They whistled and laughed as Auna's naked bottom came into view.
"Much as I remember it," one of them said, "but the cunt's grown larger from regular use."
His taunt drew laughter.
"If it's stretched, it's not of your doing, Charley," Auna shot back. Her retort brought greater laughter.
"She wouldn't let me have it for a shilling," said another patron. "Now I shall have at it for a tuppence!"
"A waste of good money when your lambs require nothing more than a kind word, Trevor," Auna replied.
The man's face reddened as his comrades laughed at the barb.
The sailor examined Auna's offering. The bottom was neither large nor small, but well-formed and firm. He had liked its rubbery weight in his hands. Her womanhood did not display as prominently as the village woman's, but the haired mound was easily viewed and the vermillion lips were vulnerable to the eyes of the villagers. The thought of Auna's cunt and the remembrance of her moist womanhood grasping his shaft aroused a cockstand that pressed against his trousers.
With the stripping of the women done, the constable took the large glass bowl and the limbs from his aide. The limbs were young and willowy and had all been cut to precisely equal lengths. They were shaved of their knots, twigs, and bark and appeared to have been steeped in an oily substance that left them shining.
The men and boys in the crowd formed into a queue and coins clattered into the glass bowl as the villagers prepared to administer their justice.
The first to take cane in hand was a hardy farm lad of perhaps seventeen years. His companions urged him to his task with merry shouts. He went straight away to the village woman and positioned the cane upon her bottom. He made several preparatory strokes much as a Scotsman does when addressing his golfing ball. The woman gasped at the touch of the rod and clinched her nether-cheeks.
"Be about it, Willy!" one of his chums exhorted. "Even you shan't miss an arse that big!"
The youths laughed and the boy drew back the cane and delivered his blow. It landed with a fleshy smack that caused the globes to quiver and drew a bright red welt. The woman yelped and the lads applauded.
"Ahh! Mercy! I cannot bear such - " she cried, and wriggled her bum in a vain attempt to assuage the sting.
Her protestation was cut short as the lad administered a second cut below the first. The woman howled and the youths cheered their comrade's art. The lad stooped to examine the results of his labor upon the squirming derrière, then made a deep bow to his companions and tossed the limb to the next administrator.
The young bride watched the performance with mouth agape. So entranced was she by the misfortune of her neighbor that she did not notice a hulking man who took position behind her own derrière. She did not hear the whistle of his cane. Only when the cut landed did she become aware that her own atonement had begun.
"Aaayyeeee!"
The girl shrieked and her body jerked against the cords as the stripe was laid. Her lovely face became reddened and contorted. More blows followed the first hard and quick.
Thwick! Thwick! Thwick!
The hiss of the cane was nearly sharp as its bite. Weals rose at once on the girl's quavering spheres.
"Aaayyeee! No! No more! Please, I beg!"
She broke into sobs as the fellow handed his task over to another young man who appeared equally severe.
The sailor saw that each luckless woman had drawn a cadre of attendants. The youth gravitated to the village woman. The bride drew a coterie of ruffians who had as their captain a most grave and baneful brute whom the sailor took to be the cuckolded husband.
