CHAPTER XXVI.
SIR CHRISTOPHER.
I know not whom I expected to find in consequence of Barnaby's words, as we went up the dark and dirty stairs which led to the upper room. Robin was not a prisoner. Why—then—but I knew not what I thought, all being strange and dreadful.
At the top of the stairs we found ourselves in a room of the same size as the lower chamber, but not so high, and darker, being a gloomy place indeed, insomuch that it was not for some minutes that one could plainly discern things. It was lighted by a low, long window, set very close with thick bars, the shutters thrown open so that all the light and air possible to be admitted might come in. It had a great fireplace, but there was no fire burning, and the air of the room struck raw, though outside it was a warm and sunny day. The roof was supported, as in the room below, by means of thick square pillars, studded with great nails set close together, for what purpose I know not. Every part of the woodwork in the room was in the same way stuck full of nails. On the floor lay half a score mattresses, the property of those who could afford to pay the warders an exorbitant fee for the luxury. At Ilminster, as I am told, at Newgate, the chief prison of the country, the same custom obtains of exacting heavy fees from the poor wretches clapped into ward. It is, I suppose, no sin to rob the criminal, the debtor, the traitor, or the rebel. For those who had nothing to pay there were only a few bundles of straw, and on these were lying half a dozen wretches, whose white faces and glazed eyes showed that they would indeed cheat Tom the Hangman, though not in the way that Barnaby hoped. These were wounded either in the Sedgemoor fight or in their attempt to escape.
My father lay on a pallet bed. His face showed not the least change; his eyes were closed, and you would have thought him dead; and beside him, also on a pallet, sat, to my astonishment, none other than Sir Christopher himself.
He rose and came to meet us, smiling sadly.
'Madam,' he said, taking my mother's hand, 'we meet in a doleful place, and we are, indeed, in wretched plight. I cannot bid you welcome; I cannot say that I am glad to see you. There is nothing that I can say of comfort or of hope, except, which you know already, that we are always in the hands of the Lord.'