The mother's tears ran over, although there was something of joy in hearing such an assurance.
"But we must save them, daughter!—we must save them!"
"We will try," answered Hannah steadily, yet without the brightness of hope in her eyes. "We will leave no stone unturned. We will accomplish what can be accomplished. But——"
The last word was little more than a sigh. It was not meant to reach her mother's ears, yet it did: and Mrs. Hewling exclaimed:
"But what, daughter, but what? What hast thou heard more?"
"I have heard nought that we have not been told before; only, mother mine, when the grim walls of a prison are about one, and grim gaolers are talking with that cool certainty of things they have grown familiar with, the horrible reality seems to come over one like a flood; and the awful doom comes ever nearer and nearer. The boys have heard much—the implacable temper of the King; his bloodthirsty mood; his choice of the Judge who is to arraign them. In Newgate it is whispered that there will be such a slaughter in the West as has not been heard of in this land. I felt myself shaking all over at the things I heard there. Oh, I fear for my brothers, I fear, I fear!"
The mother clasped her in her arms, and they mingled their tears together. Hannah told in broken words of all that she had gleaned from her brothers, of what they had dared and done, how they looked, how they had stood the journey and the prison; and how they were soon to be sent down to the West Country, to be tried at those places where they had been seen in arms against the King.
"That is the worst of it!" cried the mother. "Had it been here in London town our friends and the influence of our party might have had weight. But over yonder—so far away! Ah, if I could but go there with them!"
"Mother, I will go!" said Hannah, speaking firmly and resolutely. "I have thought of it all the way home. I have plans of all sorts in my head. Grandfather will soon be here, and then he will tell you more, and we will talk it over together. But I must be there. I must go with them. I must—I must!"