“Oh dear me, no,” corrected Mrs. Weaver. “The two taken by daylight are together in the southern exposure, while the last one was thrust in the dungeon. Oh Lauk, Mistress, but he is a terrible man!”
Garde felt her heart sink, even though it never ceased for a moment to beat so hard that it pained her. Adam in a dungeon! How in the world could she ever manage to get the keys to him now? Dungeons, she knew, were under the ground; they were dank, death-dealing places, with moldy straw in one corner and with slimy rocks for walls. She could have cried in her sudden wretchedness of spirit, although it could never mean anything to her, whether Adam lived or died, in prison or out. However, she mastered herself splendidly.
“A dungeon?” she said. “Oh, I didn’t know you had a dungeon here. It must be very deep down in the earth.”
“It’s a creepy place; oh lauk, it’s that creepy!” said the woman. “But it’s not so deep, dearie. It’s nine steps down. I’ve counted the steps many’s the time. But it is where we puts the monstrously wicked rogues, such as this bloodthirsty man! And it’s that dark, my dear—oh lauk, what a place to spend the night!”
“Of course it must be dark,” said Garde, suppressing her eagerness. “They couldn’t have a window in such a place as that.”
“Indeed we have, though; we’ve a window in every room in the place,” corrected the jailer’s wife, with commendable pride in the architectural arrangements. “Oh yes, it has its window, no bigger than my hand, lassie, and slanting up through the rock, but it’s a rare little light it lets in to the poor gentlemen down below!”
“I’m glad he—the prisoners here have some light,” said Garde, honestly, “but I don’t see where such a window could be.”
“It’s on the dark side of the house, night and day the same,” explained Mrs. Weaver. “It’s around on the dark side, where no one would find it in a month of Sundays, just about the length of my foot above the ground. Such a small thing it is, and the light it lets in is that little! Oh lauk, I’m feeling worse to be thinking upon it!”
“Then you mustn’t talk about it any more,” Garde assured her, sympathetically. “And I must be going home. I do hope the simples will make you better, and I’m so glad I came. I must say good night, for I suppose you will all be going to bed very soon.”
“I shall be there directly,” Mrs. Weaver informed her, “but dear me, Blessedness won’t be touching a pillow for an hour, and then he’ll sleep with his stockings on. He always does the first night with new rogues in the house. Good night, dearie, and God bless you for a sweet child.”