For Faith and Freedom

by Walter Besant

Then we sat down and waited. 'Twas all that we could do. Day after day we went to the prison, where my mother sat by my father, whose condition never changed in the least, being always that of one who slept, or, if his eyes were open, was unconscious, and though he might utter a few rambling words, had no command of his mind or of his speech. Wherefore we hoped that he suffered nothing. ''Twas a musket ball had struck,' the surgeon said, 'in his backbone between the shoulders, whereby his powers of motion and of thought were suspended.' I know not whether anyone attempted to remove the ball, or whether it was lodged there at all, because I am ignorant of such matters; and to me, whether he had been struck in the back or no, it was to my mind sure and certain that the Lord had granted my father's earnest prayer that he should again be permitted to deliver openly the message that was upon his soul; nay, had given him three weeks of continual and faithful preaching, the fruits of which, could we perceive them, should be abundant. That prayer granted, the Lord, I thought, was calling him to rest. Therefore, I looked for no improvement.

One other letter came from Robin, inclosing one for me, with which (because I could not leave my mother at such a time) I was forced to stay my soul, as the lover in the Canticle stayeth his soul with apples. I have that letter still; it hath been with me always; it lay hanging from my neck in the little leathern bag in which I carried the Duke's ring; I read it again and again until I knew it by heart; yet still I read it again, because even to look at my lover's writing had in it something of comfort even when things were at their worst, and Egyptian darkness lay upon my soul. But this letter I cannot endure to copy out or suffer others to read it, because it was written for mine own eye in such a time of trouble. 'Oh! my love!' he said. 'Oh, my tender heart!' and then a hundred prayers for my happiness, and tears for my tears, and hopes for the future (which would be not the earthly life but the future reserved by merciful Heaven for those who have been called and chosen). As for the sharp and painful passage by which we must travel from this world to the next, Robin bade me take no thought of that at all, but to think of him either as my lover walking with me as of old beside the stream at home, or as a spirit waiting for me to join him in the heavenly choir. And so ending with as many farewells (the letter being written when he expected the Judges to arrive and the Assize to begin) as showed his tender love for me. No—I cannot write down this letter for the eyes of all to read. There are things which must be kept hidden in our own hearts; and, without doubt, every woman to whom good fortune hath given a lover such as Robin, with a heart as fond and a pen as ready (though he could never, like Humphrey, write sweet verses), hath received an epistle or two like unto mine for its love and tenderness, but (I hope) without the sadness of impending death.

It was four weeks after we were brought to Ilminster that the news came to us of the coming trials. There were five Judges—but the world knows but of one, namely, George Lord Jeffreys, Chief Justice of England—and now, indeed, we began to understand the true misery of our situation. For everyone knew the character of the Judge, who, though a young man still, was already the terror alike of prisoners, witnesses, and juries. It promised to be a black and bloody Assize indeed, since this man was to be the Judge.

The aspect of the prison by this time was changed. The songs and merriment, the horseplay and loud laughter by which the men had at first endeavoured to keep up their hearts were gone. The country lads pined and languished in confinement; their cheeks grew pale and their eyes heavy. Then, the prison was so crowded that there was barely room for all to lie at night, and the yard was too small for all to walk therein by day. In the morning, though they opened all the shutters, the air was so foul that in going into it from the open one felt sick and giddy, and was sometimes fain to run out and drink cold water. Oh! the terrible place for an old man such as Sir Christopher! Yet he endured without murmuring the foulness and the hardness, comforting the sick, still reproving blasphemies, and setting an example of cheerfulness. The wounded men all died, I believe; which, as the event proved, was lucky for them. It would have saved the rest much suffering if they had all died as well. And to think that this was only one of many prisons thus crowded with poor captives! At Wells, Philip's Norton, Shepton Mallet, Bath, Bridgwater, Taunton, Ilchester, Somerton, Langport, Bristol and Exeter, there was a like assemblage of poor wretches thus awaiting their trials.

I said that there was now little singing. There was, however, drinking enough, and more than enough. They drank to drown their sorrows, and to forget the horrid place in which they lay and the future which awaited them. When they were drunk they would bellow some of their old songs; but the brawling of a drunkard will not communicate to his companions the same joy as the music of a merry heart.

While we were expecting to hear that the Judge had arrived at Salisbury, the fever broke out in the prison of Ilminster. At Wells they were afflicted with the small-pox, but at Ilminster it was jail fever which fell upon the poor prisoners. Everybody hath heard of this terrible disorder, which is communicated by those who have it to those who go among them—namely, to the warders and turnkeys, and even to the judges and the juries. On the first day after it broke out—which was with an extraordinary virulence—four poor men died and were buried the next morning. After this, no day passed but there were funerals at the churchyard, and the mounds of their graves—the graves of these poor countrymen who thought to fight the battles of the Lord—stood side by side in a long row, growing continually longer. We—that is, good Mrs. Prior and myself—sat at the window and watched the funerals, praying for the safety of those we loved.

So great was the fear of infection in the town that no one was henceforth allowed within the prison, nor were the warders allowed to come out of it. This was a sad order for me, because my mother chose to remain within the prison, finding a garret at the house of the Chief Constable, and I could no longer visit that good old man, Sir Christopher, whose only pleasure left had been to converse with me daily, and, as I now understand, by the refreshment the society of youth brings to age, to lighten the tedium of his imprisonment.

Henceforth, therefore, I went to the prison door every morning and sent in my basket of provisions, but was not suffered to enter; and though I could have speech with my mother or with Barnaby, they were on one side the bars and I on the other.