JUST IN TIME.
Days fled by apace. Mistress Mary and I continued our daily morning ride till every sentry and guard within the place must have seen us. Often we were stopped and questioned at first, or looked at with suspicion; but by degrees less and less notice was taken of us, and at last we came and went unmolested, and we knew our object was gained.
Meantime my lord steadily regained his strength, but not so fast as our impatience wished. We were ever in fear lest something should go wrong, lest something should happen to remove our friendly warder from the charge of my lord; and every day as it passed was crowded with anxieties and terrors.
These terrors were not lessened by what was happening all around us.
Every day arrests were made of persons suddenly accused of favouring the rebellion of the Duke. The Bridewell by Tone Bridge was crowded to suffocation with helpless, hapless prisoners awaiting the coming of the merciless Judge; and one day, to my horror and amaze, I heard from the weeping Lizzie Simpson that Will Wiseman had been haled off to prison that very day, she was certain at the instance of that wicked man the Rev. Nicholas Blewer!
I might well tremble with fear on hearing that news; for if Will's youth did not protect him from the malice of his enemy or the penalty of the law, neither would mine protect me; and the rancour of Mr. Blewer against me might be, for all I knew, as great as it had always been against Will since that unlucky drawing of his. I shook in my shoes as I heard the news, and I said to myself in breathless gasps,—
"Suppose they came and took me—before my lord was safe!"
Already the implacable Judge Jeffreys had reached Winchester, and with shuddering horror and many deep-toned execrations we heard of his vile and inhuman treatment of the noble and innocent old Lady Lisle. If an aged and honoured matron of high birth and spotless character could be ruthlessly condemned to a fiery death, and a reluctant jury bullied and coerced into passing a verdict against her, what could we of Taunton hope? A thrill of terror and horror ran through the whole place, and every face one saw was white and stern and set.