This was their first journey in the new wilderness; it was winter time, and probably there was snow on the ground and hanging heavy on the trees-more snow than they had ever seen in England. Most of the road between Boston and New Haven was a trail through forests where a guide was necessary. They stopped at Hartford, were kindly received there, and reached New Haven early in March. For three weeks they were guests of the minister, Reverend John Davenport. He was their friend and is said to have preached a sermon from the text, “Hide the outcasts; betray not him that wandereth,” to prepare people for their coming. Whalley’s sister had once lived in New Haven and they had other friends there too. But it was very dangerous for these friends to try to protect them, and when word came that a reward had been offered in England for their arrest, the hunted judges left New Haven as they had left Boston before, pretending, this time, to go to New York. However, they only went as far as Milford and turned back secretly in the night to New Haven where the minister received them again and hid them, in his own house and in the houses of other friends, until May, when a still greater danger threatened them.
The royal order for their arrest at last reached Boston and the governor there was obliged to forward it. He gave it to two young royalists, Thomas Kellond and Thomas Kirk, and on Saturday, May 11, they arrived with it in Guilford at the house of William Leete, the Governor of the New Haven Colony. Governor Leete took the paper and began to read it aloud, hoping some one in the room would overhear it and send word to warn the judges. Kirk and Kellond interrupted him and said the paper was too important to read in public. Then they asked for horses and a search-warrant to carry with them to New Haven. It took a long time to get the horses; there was one delay after another, and the governor said he could not give them the warrant without consulting the other magistrates, but he would write a letter. It took a long time also to write the letter, and when both horses and letter were ready it was too late to start that night. The next day was Sunday and nobody was allowed to travel on Sunday in the New Haven Colony. So the messengers waited impatiently for Monday, and meantime they heard rumors that the judges had been seen in New Haven, and that Mr. Davenport must be protecting them still, because he had lately put ten pounds’ worth of fresh provisions in his house; all of which made them still more impatient.
On Monday, at last, they got to New Haven, and some hours later Governor Leete followed them—very slowly—and called the magistrates together. It took the magistrates so long to decide what to do that Kellond and Kirk asked bluntly whether they meant to honor and obey the king or not. The governor answered, “We honor his Majesty, but we have tender consciences.” At last a search was ordered to be made for the regicides, but Kirk and Kellond were convinced by this time that it would be useless, and they left in disgust for New York.
They were right, it was useless; for an Indian runner had come quickly from Guilford on Saturday, and Goffe and Whalley had disappeared.
Several stories are told of their narrow escapes at this time. One says they were on the Neck Bridge over Mill River on State Street when they heard the horses of their pursuers behind them and had only time to slip under the bridge and lie there hidden while the men rode over their heads. Another tells how a woman hid them in her house, in a closet whose door looked like a part of the wall with kitchen pots and pans hung on it. When they left the settlement they took refuge in the wild forest, and most of that summer they lived in a cave in a pile of boulders on the top of West Rock. The cave is there still, and is called “Judges’ Cave” to-day. Richard Sperry carried food to them or sent it by one of his boys, and sometimes on very stormy nights they crept secretly down to his house and stayed with him. Once, in June, they went back to New Haven and offered to give themselves up to save their friends, if necessary, and arranged that Governor Leete should always know where to find them. Most people thought they had left the colony altogther then, but they were back in their cave on the Rock, or in some other hiding-place in the deep woods. Rewards were still offered for them and they dared not venture out. They called West Rock “Providence Hill,” because God had provided for them there. And now these two men, who had led such stirring, active lives in England, lived in a great loneliness and silence, with no friends near them, no sounds but the distant crash of a falling tree, or the wind sighing in the forest branches. There were prowling Indians and prowling wild beasts. Once, so the story says, a panther crept up stealthily to the cave at night as they lay in bed and put his head in at the opening, his eyes burning in the darkness like two fires.
In August, when the search for them was pretty much over, they went to Milford. They stayed there very secretly for three years, until, in 1664, there was danger of another search being made. Then they went back to their cave on the Rock; but it was no longer a safe place for them, because “some Indians in their hunting discovered the cave with the bed,” and their friends made a different plan for their concealment.
The exiles set out on another long journey. They traveled only at night, stopping and hiding in the daytime. The trail they followed led them up the valley of the Connecticut River, beyond Hartford and far into the north, until they came to what is now the town of Hadley in Massachusetts. This was then one of the farthest settlements in the wilderness and very remote and lonely. Reverend John Russell, the minister there, gave them shelter and took care of them. There was a cellar under part of his house, and, by taking up some loose boards in the floor above it, they could drop down quickly into it if visitors came unexpectedly. In spite of the danger to himself, Mr. Russell kept them safe in Hadley for twelve or fifteen years. A few friends wrote to them and sent them money, but no one else in the world outside knew what had become of them or whether or not they were still alive.
There is a famous story about one of the regicides in Hadley. Once, it says, in King Philip’s War the Indians attacked the place. They burst out of the woods and rushed upon the settlement on a Sunday morning while every one was at church. Terror-stricken and thrown into wild confusion by the sight of the yelling savages the people of Hadley were helpless, when, all at once, an unknown man, with whitening hair and strange garments, appeared in the midst of them and took command. He rallied them and led them out against the Indians and drove them back into the forest. “As suddenly as he had come, the deliverer of Hadley disappeared.” No one ever saw him again, and the people said God must have sent an angel to help them. Long afterward they learned that it was General Goffe.
There is not much more to tell about the judges after this. Whalley was an an old man now, and Goffe wrote to his wife, who was Whalley’s daughter, “Your old friend” (he dared not say her father, and he signed himself Walter Goldsmith instead of William Goffe) “is yet living, but continues in a very weak condition and seems not to take much notice of anything that is done or said, but patiently bears all things and never complains of anything. The common and very frequent question is to know how he doth and his answer for the most part is, ’Very well, I praise God,’ which he utters with a very low and weak voice.”