True Stories of Girl Heroines

by Evelyn Everett-Green

"Madam, your brothers are a pair of pestilent rogues, who come from a pestilent nest of dissenters. I would I had the power to send you to the gallows with them! That is the only place for a cursed brood like yours!"

And as Hannah, fired by wrath and by her sisterly despair, would not even then be silenced, but continued her petition with her hands upon the window frame of his coach, he leaned out upon the other side and roared to his charioteer to cut at that pestilent woman with his whip; and the lash drew blood from Hannah's white fingers as she sank half fainting into the arms of her friends.

And yet that very evening, to her immense astonishment, she received a courteous summons to the presence of the Judge, and on presenting herself at his lodging in the castle, with the friend in whose care she was at that time living, she found Jeffreys in an extraordinarily different mood. He had, in fact, just made the discovery that the woman he had treated so brutally was one of the family specially recommended to him by his relative, who had said that the ultimate benefits he might expect from him would largely depend on what efforts he made to save the two Hewling brothers. If the Judge had not been so drunk overnight when this missive reached him, he might possibly have acted differently in Court that day; but now he assured Hannah that he would do all in his power to obtain a respite of the capital sentence for her brothers, though he implied that this might be an affair of money, and practically demanded three hundred pounds for his services, which Hannah in her bewilderment and by the advice of her friend was ready to pay.

But the days dragged on and no message came from the King. The gentle William, who had been sentenced to die at Lyme Regis almost immediately after his trial, met his doom upon the scaffold with unflinching fortitude, and all the grace his sister could obtain was that she might take possession of the unmutilated body, which was interred in consecrated ground, two hundred brave young maidens of the place incurring the possible displeasure of the King by walking in white robes at his funeral, and singing hymns over his grave.

But Hannah had no time for vain lamentations. The fire of despair was in her heart. Benjamin yet lived. He was not to die till the last day of the month. There was yet time to plead for him. She knew not whether Judge Jeffreys had been true to his promise or no; but at least she, his sister, would strain every nerve, would know no rest day or night till she had obtained his pardon, even though she should have to seek it from the King himself.

In vain her friends warned her of the uselessness and peril of her task; go she would, and as fast as horse could speed her. And with the last touching letter from her brother William in her pocket, and the scene of his death photographed upon her memory, she posted to London, to achieve what all men told her was impossible.

She scarcely paused to mingle her tears with her mother's. A fever was in her heart. Her grandfather had influence enough to obtain for her admission to the palace, and there she was met and kindly spoken to by a gentleman, whose name she knew not at the time, but who was no other than Lord Churchill, afterwards the great Duke of Marlborough.

Churchill regarded her with a look of exceeding compassion; Hannah presented indeed a touching picture in her girl's grief and sisterly devotion; and her unusual beauty had not been dimmed by all the troubles through which she had passed. Something of her story was known even at Whitehall, and known also was the character of the merciless man before whom her brothers had been tried, and the merciless monarch who had sent him forth to this work.

"Madam," said Lord Churchill, as the summons came for Hannah to be received by the King, and as he spoke he laid his hand upon the marble of the carved mantelpiece upon which he leaned, "my wishes for success go with you, and my most hearty sorrow for your distress; yet I dare not speak any word of hope to buoy up your sinking spirits; for this marble is not harder nor more susceptible of compassion than is the heart of the King."