“I thank you; you are very kind, indeed; but I do not require anything.”
“Well, if you won’t take the gin, you must lie down and rest anyhow; for you look just about ready to faint away. We’ll make you the best bed as we can in this miserable place. Here, Nance, lend me your shawl; and lend me yours, Peg; we must be good to a poor girl as is in a thousand times deeper trouble nor we are ourselves, ’cause our lives is not in danger as her’s be,” said Poll, stripping the shawl from her own shoulders and folding and laying it on the rude bench, and rolling Nance’s shawl into a pillow and retaining Peg’s for a blanket.
“Now, my darling, take off your bonnet, and loosen your clothes, and spread your pocket handkerchief over this rum pillow, and try to take some rest, and you’ll be all the better able to face the beaks to-morrow.”
“I thank you; you are very, very good to me; and I know that the best thing I can do is to lie down as you advise me,” said Eudora, with much emotion, for she had scarcely hoped to meet such tender sympathy from such rude natures.
And she took off her bonnet, unhooked the bodice of her dress, and laid her weary frame down on the little bed that their kindness had prepared for her.
Poll covered her carefully with Peg’s shawl, and then bidding her good-night, drew off her companions to the farthest end of the room, where they conversed in low whispers, for fear of disturbing “the poor young lady.”
Left to herself, Eudora composed her mind to prayer; and as the prayers of innocence always bring peace, notwithstanding all the shame, grief and terror of her position, the poor girl sank into a strange calm, and thence into a deep sleep.
CHAPTER XV.
IN PRISON.
Oh, God! that one might see the book of fate,
And read the revolution of the times—