As for the knight—he was a knight, and must be treated as such, although an enemy. As for the burgher—well, we have discussed the case. As for the friar—they did not like to meddle with the Church. They dreaded excommunication, men of Belial though they were.
The knight was confined in a chamber high up in the tower, from whence he could see:
The forest dark and gloomy,
And under poetic inspiration compose odes upon liberty. The burgher and friar were taken downstairs to gloomy dungeons, adjacent to each other, where they were left to solitude and silence.
Solitary confinement! it has driven many men mad: to be the inmate of a narrow cell, without a ray of light, groping in one corner for a rotten bed of straw, groping in the other for a water jug and loaf of black bread, feeling unclean insects and reptiles struggle beneath one’s feet: oh, horrible!
And such was our Martin’s fate.
But he was not alone, his God was with him, as with Daniel in the lion’s den, and he never for one moment gave way to despair. He accepted the trial as best he might, and bore the chilling atmosphere and scanty fare like a hero. Yet he was a prisoner in the castle of his fathers.
And the unjust accusation of Drogo gave him deep pain. The very thought that his hand actually had administered the fatal draught was in itself sufficiently painful.
“Vengeance is mine, I will repay,” and Martin left it.
The poor burgher in the next cell, groaning in spirit, needs far more compassion. He was Mayor of Hamelsham, and great in the wool trade. He had at home a bustling, active wife, mighty at the spindle and loom. He had two sons, one of twelve, one of five; three daughters, one almost marriageable; he had six apprentices and twelve workmen carding wool; he had the town business to discharge; he sat upon the bench in the town hall and administered justice to petty offenders. And here was he, torn from all this, and consigned to a dungeon in the hold of a fierce marauding young “noble.”