“Your grief for me will do me about as much good as mine will poor William!" and here Margaret burst into a flood of tears, which words could not in any way repress.
A post-chaise was ordered to the inn-door, and Margaret, apparently more dead than alive, was placed within it, and the gaoler taking his seat beside her, they were conveyed immediately to Ipswich.
She was once more confined within those walls which she had so recently scaled; she made no secret of the manner in which she had effected her escape; she fully confessed her own work, and perfectly exonerated every other person in the gaol.
It was well for the poor turnkey that she was captured. He was immediately released from confinement, and reinstated in his office.
Margaret was now kept in almost solitary confinement, to mourn over her unhappy lot, and to reflect upon the death of one whom she had loved too well.
[CHAPTER XXVII
SECOND TRIAL, AND SECOND TIME CONDEMNED TO DEATH]
After the arrival of Margaret at the Ipswich gaol, several magistrates attended, at the request of Mr. Ripshaw, to take the deposition of the prisoner. She was summoned into the gaoler’s parlour, or, as it was more properly called, the “Magistrates’ Room” $2quo; The depositions of Mr. Ripshaw and of the constable of Sudbourn, were first taken down. The nature of the offence was then for the first time explained to Margaret, and its most dreadful consequences at once exposed. She was taken completely by surprise. She had no idea that, in doing as she had done, she had been guilty of anything worthy of death, and made no hesitation in telling the magistrates so. She told them, moreover, that her conscience did not accuse her of any crime in the attempt, and that she thought it a cruel and bloody law which could condemn her to death for such an act.
“But are you aware,” said Mr. Gibson, one of the visiting magistrates, "that you have broken that confidence with Mr. Ripshaw which he placed in you, and that you subjected him and his sureties to the penalty of five hundred pounds each, had he not recovered you, and brought you back to prison?”
“Had I been aware of such a thing, I should then have thought myself as bad as if I had stolen the money, and should, indeed, have broken the confidence which, with such a knowledge, would have been placed in me, but I knew nothing of such a fact. My master, Mr. Ripshaw, was always kind and indulgent to me, and my mistress the same, but they never hinted such a thing to me. I was not aware that, with regard to my personal liberty, there was any bond of mutual obligation between me and my master. I was always locked up at the usual time, and it never was said to me, ‘Margaret, I will rely upon your honour that you will never attempt to escape.’ No promise was exacted from me, and I did not think that it was any breach of confidence to do as I have done.”