“In the dungeon, lass,” said the jailer. “I was over sorry, but it could not be helped. We are full everywhere else. But I shall leave you the light, and anything you like for comfort. Only, if you hear any one coming, blow out the candle straightway, or I shall be in a peck of troubles.”
Quelling her sense of terror, and thinking of Goody, alone in that darkness, with such dreadful fates awaiting her reappearance among the people, she promised herself again it would soon be over, and so followed resolutely down into the hole where Adam had once been locked, in those long-past days of despair.
CHAPTER XV.
THE MIDNIGHT TRIAL.
Goody Dune was a frightened and pitiable spectacle, with her age and the terrors of the dungeon and coming execution upon her. She struggled in an effort to maintain a show of composure, at sight of Garde and the jailer. Nevertheless she would not, at first, listen to a word of the plan of substitution, to get her away from the prison.
When at last she had fairly overridden Goody’s objections, and had made her complete the exchange of garments, Garde kissed her with all the affection of a daughter, and sent her forth to Adam’s protection. She then heard the lock in the dungeon-door shoot squeakingly into place with a little thrill of fear, which nothing human and womanly could have escaped.
She listened to the footfalls receding down the corridor, and then the utter silence of the place began to make itself ring in her ears. She looked about her, by the aid of the flickering light which the tallow dip was furnishing, at the barren walls, the shadows, and the heap of straw in the corner. At all this she gave a little shiver of dread.
All the excitement which had buoyed her up to make this moment possible escaped from her rapidly. She began to think how Goody must have felt, till her moment of deliverance came. Then she thought of what Adam had endured when, lame, hungry, exhausted and defamed, he had been thrown with violence into this horrible hole, from which he could have had no thought of being rescued.
She took the candle in hand and went in search of the tiny window, down through which she had dropped him the keys. When she saw it, she gave a little shudder, to note how small it was, and how it permitted no light to enter the place.
Returning then to a paper, filled with bread and butter, pie, cake and cold meat, which Weaver had fetched her, while she and Goody had been exchanging garments, she tried to eat a little, to occupy her time and her thoughts. But she could only take a sip of the milk, which stood beside the paper, and a nibble at the bread. To eat, while in her present state of mind, was out of the question.