But certain prisoners, those that people without the prison thought too poisonous or were willing vengefully to make suffer, were not allowed the hallway or the court or speech with fellow misery. These were put into small, twilight chambers or dungeons.
Aderhold paced twelve feet by six—twelve feet by six. He was shackled, a chain from ankle to ankle, another from wrist to wrist. But they were not heavy, and there was slack enough, so that one might walk and to some extent use the hands. Twelve feet by six—twelve feet by six. What light fell through the loophole window fell in one thin shaft of gold-dust. The walls were damp to the touch, and scratched over with names, ribaldry, and prayers. He himself, with a bit of pointed stone that he had found, was graving in Latin upon an unmarked breadth. Twelve by six—twelve by six—where the straw pallet was flung, not more than three feet clear.
He knew well how to avail himself of the escape of the mind and thereby to defeat the hours. He had no books, but memory and imagination were to him landscape and library, while the searching thought worked here as elsewhere. Memory and imagination could become his foes; Aderhold had known that from of old. Oftenest friends and great genii, but sometimes foes with mowing faces and stabbing, icy fingers. But strangely to him, in these days, no hostile side appeared; or if it came, it came in lessened strength; or if its strength was the same, then the opposing forces within him had themselves gathered power to overcome. It seemed to him that of late he had come to a turning; fear, shrinking, and dismay, that had often met him full course in life, often lurked for him at corners he must pass, seemed now themselves somewhat shrunken and sinewless. He had known that there was further growth within him—oh, further, further!—and that some day he would turn and look them in the face and see them for the pygmies that they were. It seemed that the dawn of that day had been nearer than he knew.... Twelve feet by six—twelve feet by six—with as even and steady a pace as the irons would allow, and all the time to fancy that he walked free in Hawthorn Wood. Then, for a change, to draw himself up and see what might be seen through the slit of window. What might be seen was the topmost branch of a tree and a gargoyled angle of the great church tower, and above all a scimitar breadth of blue sky. From that to turn and grave at a letter upon the wall; then to walk again; then to rest upon the straw while the subtile body went free, passed like an emanation through the prison walls and wandered in foreign lands, and where there was neither land nor water underfoot. At times he took under consideration his own present predicament and earthly future. But the sting and terror were gone. That they were so he thanked his higher self, his widening, deepening, marching consciousness.
His present case.... There had been the examination immediately after his arrest and commitment to this gaol, the examination when he had admitted the apostasy and denied the sorcery. But that had been weeks ago, and since then naught. Day after day in this dusk place, and only the turnkey had entered.
This gaoler was a battered, sometime soldier, red-faced and wry-mouthed. What romance had been in his life appeared to have come to him with the dykes and green levels and waters of the Low Countries. Chance leading him one day to the discovery that his prisoner knew Zutphen, Utrecht, and Amsterdam, he had henceforth, at each visit, plunged back for one short moment into the good old wars and renewed a lurid happiness. The reflex, striking upon Aderhold, lightened his lot as prisoner. The gaoler, after the first few days, exhibited toward him no personal brutality. Once he made, unexpectedly, the remark that he had seen good fighting done by all manner of people, and that the Devil must have some virtue in order to make so good a stand. But the gaoler’s visits were of the briefest, and he was close-mouthed as to all things save the wars. If he knew when assizes would be, he chose not to impart it. One day only he had been communicative enough to speak of the commission named by the Privy Council. Who were the commissioners? He named the members from this side of the county—two or three of the clergy, several considerable country gentlemen. From the Hawthorn end Squire Carthew and his brother and Master Clement the minister. It had been at work, the commission, meeting and meeting and taking people up. The matter was become a big matter, making a noise through the country. They said the King himself was interested. A bishop was coming—and the Witch Judge.
“The Witch Judge?”
“Aye, the Witch Judge.”
But the gaoler would say no more—Aderhold was not sure that he knew much more. He left the cell, and at no other visit would he speak of anything but the Dutch and the good wars.... What he had said had left a sharp thorn of anxiety,—not for the prisoner’s self. Aderhold knew perfectly well how palely hope gleamed upon Gilbert Aderhold. He would be done to death. But he knew also, from much observation, how they dragged the net so as to take in unallied forms. He tried to think of any at Hawthorn or thereabouts who might be endangered. He had been intimate with no one; none there had been confidant or disciple. How many that could save he had had occasion to note in France and Italy. Speech with such an one, acts of mere neighbourliness, the sheerest accidental crossing of paths—anything served for prosecution and ruin.... In the lack of all knowledge he was chiefly anxious about old Dorothy and the boy her nephew, and the youth to whom he had given books. He never thought of Joan as being in peril.
Counting the days, he gathered that assizes could now be no great way off. Then would he hear and know, be judged and suffer. After that—continuance, persistence, being, yet and for ever, though he knew not the mode nor the manner of experience.... The gold light lay across the cell like a fairy road. He turned upon his side, eased wrist and ankle as best he might, and with the chain across his breast fell half asleep. Ocean waves seemed to bear him up, a strong warm wind to blow upon him, birds to be flying toward him from some beautiful, friendly strand....