'Benjamin is now our only friend,' she replied without looking up. 'It is out of his kindness—yes—his kindness of heart that he hath come.'
'I do not understand. If Robin is to die what kindness can he show?'
'Tell her, Benjamin,' said Madam, 'tell her of the trials at Exeter.'
'His Lordship came to Exeter,' Benjamin began, 'on the evening of September the Thirteenth, escorted by many country gentlemen and a troop of horse. I had the honour of riding with him. The trials began the day before yesterday, the Fourteenth.'
'Pray, good Sir,' asked the poor woman who had lost her sons, 'did you observe my boys among the prisoners?'
'How the devil should I know your boys?' he replied, turning upon her roughly, so that she asked no more questions. 'If they were rebels they deserve hanging'—here she shrieked aloud, and fled the room. 'The trials began with two fellows who pleaded "Not guilty," but were quickly proved to have been in arms, and were condemned to death, one of them being sent out to instant execution. The rest who were brought up that day—among whom were Robin and Humphrey—pleaded "Guilty," being partly terrified and partly persuaded that it was their only chance of escape. So they, too, were condemned—two hundred and forty in all—every man Jack of them, to be hanged, drawn, and quartered, and their limbs to be afterwards stuck on poles for the greater terror of evildoers'—he said these words with such a fire in his eyes, and in such a dreadful threatening voice, as made me tremble. 'Then they were all taken back to jail, where they will lie until the day of execution, and the Lord have mercy upon their souls!'
The terrible Judge Jeffreys himself could not look more terrible than Benjamin when he uttered the prayer with which a sentence to death is concluded.
'Benjamin, were you in the court to see and hear the condemnation of your own cousins?'
'I was. I sat in the body of the court, in the place reserved for Counsel.'