Orders were then given by Sheriff Woodrooffe that he should be taken to Lewes, under a sufficient guard, for immediate execution, and on the following day the little cavalcade set out on its journey, stopping for the first night at Croydon. The inhabitants of the place flocked forth to see the prisoner, and many of them expressed great commiseration for him, but he was not permitted by the guard to speak to them, or to receive any refreshments offered him.
“Avoid him!” cried Father Josfrid, a Dominican friar by whom he was accompanied; “he is excommunicated,[excommunicated,] and if ye give him aught, ye will share in the heavy curse under which he labours.”
From the exhortations of this zealous monk Carver was never for a moment free, though they produced no other effect upon him than annoyance. The escort was commanded by an officer named Brand, who had been selected for the business by Sheriff Woodrooffe on account of his hatred to the Protestant party. He was a sullen, sour-tempered personage, and showed his ill will to the prisoner both by word and blow. Carver, however, bore this harsh usage without a murmur.
On the second day the party reached East Grinstead, where they passed the night, a cellar with a truss of straw laid on the floor being allotted to Carver; and starting early on the following morning, they reached Ditchling about noon, and, after an hour’s halt, commenced the ascent of the downs.
On arriving at Ditchling, the prisoner earnestly besought Captain Brand to take him to Brightelmstone, in order that he might bid farewell to his wife and children, and aged mother; but the petition was refused, the officer declaring he would not go half-a-dozen miles out of his way to pleasure a heretic.
“They can come and see you burned at Lewes to-morrow, if they list,” he added, with a savage grin.
Hearing what passed, a young man, mounted on a strong iron-grey horse, who had entered the inn-yard almost immediately after the little cavalcade, inquired the nearest road to Brightelmstone, and immediately galloped off in that direction.
Having mounted the steep hill-side, and passed Ditchling Beacon, the party proceeded along the brow of the downs, whence such magnificent views of the weald of Sussex are obtained, though these now received little attention, until they came to Mount Harry, on whose verdant slopes was fought the great battle between Henry III. and the Barons under Simon de Montfort, when the ancient and picturesque town of Lewes, with its towering castle and ruined priory, its numerous churches, gates, and circling walls, burst upon their view.
“Welcome! thou city of refuge,” exclaimed Carver, stretching out his hands towards the town. “Thou art gladsome to mine eyes as was Ramoth Gilead to the fugitives from Jordan. There shall I be at rest.”
“There will be a rare bonfire in that old town to-morrow,” observed Captain Brand, in a jeering tone, to the prisoner—“a bonfire such as the townsfolk have seldom seen, and which they are likely long to recollect. ’Twill be a grand spectacle to those who look on,” he added with stern significance.