“Do you remember my cousin Roger? Well, they were forced to put him out of gaol; perhaps they will do the same with me,” he said, smiling. The dreadful position in which he found himself had not taken the ruddy color out of his face, nor the laughing light from his eye.
Diggory shook his head; he knew more of the fate which might befall a prisoner in Newgate than Dicky did. It might be thought that a prison turnkey must in time lose all human feeling. Not so. Diggory Hutchinson, whose heart was not bad, performed his duties with the same exactness, and in the same spirit, that the head master of a school does.
After a time he grew sufficiently intimate with Dicky to ask, in a stuttering voice, and with something as near a blush as his complexion would allow,—
“Did you ever hear, sir, or see, a lass by—by—the name o’ Lukens?—Bess Lukens; as some said, followed Mr. Roger Egremont to France.”
“I know her well,” cried Dicky, “and a better girl never lived. She did, in truth, go to France; but she did not follow my cousin or any other man there.” And then he gave Diggory a rosy description of Bess’s condition and success.
Diggory went away very thoughtful.
Within two weeks the trial of the conspirators began, and among the nine men convicted was “Richard Egremont, some time of the parish of Egremont and county of Devon, by profession a popish priest and of the Jesuit order.” Sir John Fenwick was sentenced to be beheaded, but Richard Egremont, Sir John Friend, and Sir William Perkins,—the last two wealthy London merchants,—were sentenced to be hanged, to be cut down while still alive, to be quartered, and their heads and dismembered bodies to be displayed at Temple Bar.
This sentence was pronounced in Westminster Hall, at dusk on a spring evening. It was received in silence. When the young priest rose, however, in spite of their grotesque fear of his order, a wave of pity swept over the assembled audience. He was so young and boyish looking,—he had never looked his twenty-six years less than at that moment. Having listened with perfect composure to his sentence, the young priest asked permission to speak. Chief Justice Holt, noted for his mildness toward prisoners, and who had, seven years before, ordered the chains struck from the limbs of Roger Egremont, readily gave permission, saying,—
“A man in your condition, sir, should ever be allowed to make such justification as he can, no matter how clearly he may have transgressed the laws of the land.”
“I humbly thank your lordship,” replied Dicky; “I desire only to say, on the word of a priest, a gentleman, and an Egremont, that those who turned King’s evidence, and swore that I was concerned in any scheme to murder, swore falsely. But that I did all I could, which was but the carrying of some letters back and forth, to assist in the restoration of King James, I own; nor have I any apologies to make. And I shall suffer death cheerfully, my conscience being clear.”