'Oh, Sir!' I said, 'this goodness overwhelms me.'
'Then, Madam, for greater privacy, let us go back into the house and converse there.'
So we went back into the empty house and sat in the back parlour.
'As for the nature of your trouble, Madam,' he began, 'I hope you have no dear brothers or cousins among those poor fellows in Taunton Jail.'
'No, Sir; my only brother is at Ilminster, and my cousins are far away in New England.'
'That is well. One who, like myself, is of a compassionate disposition, cannot but bewail the grievous waste in jail fever, smallpox, scarlet fever, or putrid throat (to say nothing of the hangings), which now daily happens in the prison. What doth it avail to hang and quarter a man, when he might be usefully set to work upon his Majesty's Plantations? It is a most sinful and foolish waste, I say'—he spoke with great sincerity and warmth—'and a robbing of the pockets of honest merchants.'
'Indeed, Sir,' I said, 'your words prove the goodness of your heart.'
'Let my deeds rather than my words prove that. How fare the prisoners with whom you are most concerned?'
'Alas! Sir Christopher is dead! and my father hath also died of his wound.'