I got back to Taunton to give the other twenty guineas to the kindly jailer, and to be in time for the terrible pageant which was to take place now within its environs.
THE TERRIBLE JUDGE.
"Dicon, my father says he has heard that that terrible man will have up Miss Blake and the Taunton maids who made and presented the colours. Heaven alone knows what fearful thing will happen to them then! Dicon, let me have speech with Mary! She must be got away; she must be hidden till the storm be overpast! I have an hour to spare, whilst my father has business with Sir William. Dicon, dost thou know that Lord Jeffreys abides with him in his house here in the town? But he has sent all his women folk to Orchard Portman. He will not let them meet yon wicked and terrible man. Methinks a King who can use such instruments is little fit for his place! Dicon," lowering her voice to a whisper, her eyes flashing with a noble indignation as she spoke, "dost thou know what is said?—that if only this monster in human shape slays enough men here in the West to satisfy that bloody tyrant his master, he is to be rewarded with the great seal of the Chancellor! Truly the people had right on their side when they rebelled against such a tyrant; only they needed one to lead them whose title was above reproach, and who came not under false pretences. Surely the day will come when such a champion will arise, and England will free herself from the hateful yoke of an unjust, an illegal, and a cruel tyranny."
The speaker was Mistress Mary Bridges, and since her heroic act, of which I have already spoken, she had become an idol of the people of Taunton and a companion to her father such as she had never been before. She had ridden in with him that day, and now was all eagerness to see Mistress Mary Mead; but when she returned to the inn-yard after her visit was paid, it was with a grave face and anxious mien.
"Dicon, I have argued and entreated in vain. She will not fly! She will not leave Miss Blake to meet the storm alone. Her pupils are nearly all of them fled. Some few remain in Taunton, but many are conveyed away I know not whither. Mary says that she had as much to do with those banners as Miss Blake, and she will not flee and leave her. She says were all to be done again she would do as she has done. She has no fear. She is not afraid even of the wicked Jeffreys. She will stay and confront him, and will not let herself be hidden. But, O Dicon, though I love her the more for her courage, I fear that ill will come of it!"
"What can they do to her?" I asked with a shudder. "They will not kill her?"
"Oh no, no!" answered Mary. "I asked my father just now, and he said that the penalty for such an offence was not like to be more than a heavy fine. Even that monster would not dare to condemn a maid to worse than that. But it is the being brought before him, being subjected to his brutal words and looks, his hideous jibes and his inhuman threats. O Dicon, the stories of yon man in other places make my blood run cold! To think of Mary exposed to his baleful glance. But she knows no fear; she will not let Miss Blake bear it alone."