“Of course, young masters, all who come hither consider themselves brought here unjustly. You shall have an upper chamber, or at least a portion of one, as perchance you may have companions, whence you can enjoy a view of the Fleet river, and the barges passing up and down it. Such bedding as many a dignitary of the Church has had to rest on, and food from my own buttery. More, surely, you cannot desire; and, hark you! these two marks are very well as a beginning, but I must see more of them, or you will find your quarters and your fare changed pretty speedily.” The sub-warden having thus, as he said, examined his prisoners, summoned the jailer to conduct them to the apartments he indicated.
Chapter Seven.
Deliverance.
Ernst and A’Dale were led through many passages, in which the air was close and heavy, and their nostrils were assailed with many foul odours. At length the jailer unlocked a door at the end of a long passage, and, pointing to the inside of the room, told them they might walk in. With sinking hearts they entered, and the man, without more ado, turned the lock upon them.
The room was almost destitute of furniture, and dirty in the extreme, evidently not having been cleaned out since its last occupant was dismissed. In one corner was a truckle bed, covered with a cloth and a pile of loose straw. There was a rickety table of rough boards, with three legs, and a couple of stools of the same character. The window was long and narrow, with bars across it; though a moderately stout man could not have squeezed through, even had the bars been wanting. It was only by standing on one of the stools they could look out of the window, whence, as the warden had told them, they could see the muddy waters of the Fleet flowing by, with Fleet Street beyond, winding its way to Temple Bar.
“This is a scurvy place to put us in,” observed A’Dale, “we who are innocent of any crime.”
“Better men have been placed in a worse situation,” answered Ernst. “In my country hundreds, nay thousands, of persons, for no crime but that of worshipping God according to their consciences, have been not only committed to prison and tortured, but burned, and otherwise put to death.”
“Surely the people of England would never submit to such tyranny as that!” exclaimed A’Dale.