For Faith and Freedom

CHAPTER XXV.

ILMINSTER CLINK

How can I tell – oh! how can I sit down to tell in cold blood the story of all that followed? Some parts of it for very pity I must pass over. All that has been told or written of the Bloody Assize is most true, and yet not half that happened can be told. There are things, I mean, which the historian cannot, for the sake of pity, decency, and consideration for living people, relate, even if he hath seen them. You who read the printed page may learn how in one place so many were hanged; in another place so many; how some were hung in gemmaces, so that at every cross-road there was a frightful gibbet with a dead man on it; how some died of small-pox in the crowded prisons, and some of fever; and how Judge Jeffreys rode from town to town, followed by gangs of miserable prisoners driven after him to stand their trial in towns where they would be known; how the wretched sufferers were drawn and quartered, and their limbs seethed in pitch, and stuck up over the whole country; how the women and boys of tender years were flogged through market-towns – you, I say, who read these things on the cold page presently (even if you be a stickler for the Right Divine and hold rebellion as a mortal sin) feel your blood to boil with righteous wrath. The hand of the Lord was afterwards heavy upon those who ordered these things; nay, at the very time (this is a most remarkable Judgment, and one little known) when this inhuman Judge was thundering at his victims – so that some went mad and even dropped down dead with fear – he was himself, as Humphrey hath assured me, suffering the most horrible pain from a dire disease; so that the terrors of his voice and of his fiery eyes were partly due to the agony of his disease, and he was enduring all through that Assize, in his own body, pangs greater than any that he ordered! As for his miserable end, and the fate that overtook his master, that we know; and candid souls cannot but confess that here were truly Judgments of God, visible for all to see and acknowledge. But no pen can truly depict what the eye saw and the ear heard during that terrible time. And, think you, if it was a terrible and a wretched time for those who had no relations among the rebels, and only looked on and saw these bloody executions and heard the lamentations of the poor women who lost their lovers or their husbands, what must it have been for me, and those like me, whose friends and all whom they loved – yea, all, all! – were overwhelmed in one common ruin, and expected nothing but death?

Our own misery I cannot truly set forth. Sometimes the memory of it comes back to me, and it is as if long afterwards one should feel again the sharpness of the surgeon's knife. Oh! since I must write down what happened, let me be brief. And you who read it, if you find the words cold where you would have looked for fire; if you find no tears where there should have been weeping and wailing, remember that in the mere writing have been shed again (but these you cannot see) the tears which belonged to that time, and in the writing have been renewed (but these you cannot hear) the sobbings and wailings and terrors of that dreadful autumn.

The soldiers belonged to a company of Grenadiers of Trelawny's Regiment, stationed at Ilminster, whither they carried the prisoners. First they handcuffed Barnaby, but, on his giving his parole not to escape, they let him go free; and he proved useful in the handling of the cart on which my unhappy father lay. And, though the soldiers' talk was ribald, their jests unseemly, and their cursing and swearing seemed verily to invite the wrath of God, yet they proved honest fellows in the main. They offered no rudeness to us, nor did they object to our going with the prisoners; nay, they even gave us bread and meat and cider from their own provisions when they halted for dinner at noon. Barnaby walked sometimes with the soldiers, and sometimes with us; with them he talked freely, and as if he were their comrade and not their prisoner: with us he put in a word of encouragement or consolation, such as 'Mother, we shall find a way out of this coil yet;' or 'Sister, we shall cheat Tom Hangman. Look not so gloomy upon it;' or, again, he reminded us that many a shipwrecked sailor gets safe ashore, and that where there are so many they cannot hang all. 'Would the King,' he asked, 'hang up the whole county of Somerset?' But he had already told me too much. In his heart I knew he had small hope of escape; yet he preserved his cheerfulness, and walked towards his prison (to outward seeming) as insensible of fear, and with as unconcerned a countenance as if he were going to a banquet or a wedding. This cheerfulness of his was due to a happy confidence in the ordering of things rather than to insensibility. A sailor sees men die in many ways, yet himself remains alive. This gives him something of the disposition of the Oriental, who accepts his fate with outward unconcern, whatever it may be. Perhaps (I know not) there may have been in his mind that religious Assurance of which he had told me. Did Barnaby at this period, when death was very near unto him, really believe that there was one religion for landsmen and another for sailors – one way to heaven for ministers, another for seamen? Indeed, I cannot tell; yet how otherwise account for his courage and cheerfulness at all times – even in the very presence of death?

'Brother,' he asked the Sergeant, 'we have been lying hid for a fortnight, and have heard no news. Tell me, how go the hangings?'

'Why, Captain,' the fellow replied with a grin, 'in this respect there is little for the rebels to complain of. They ought to be satisfied, so far, with the attentions paid to them. Lord Feversham hanged twenty odd to begin with. Captain Adlan and three others are trussed up in chains for their greater honour; and, in order to put the rest in good heart, one of them ran a race with a horse, being promised his life if he should win. When he had beaten the horse, his Lordship, who was ever a merry man, ordered him to be hanged just to laugh at him. And hanged he was.'

'Ay,' said Barnaby, 'thus do the Indians in America torture their prisoners first and kill them afterwards.'

'There are two hundred prisoners laying in Weston Zoyland church,' the Sergeant went on; 'they would have been hanged, too, but the Bishop interfered. Now they are waiting to be tried. Lord! what signifies trial, except to give them longer rope?'

'Ay, ay; and how go things in Bridgwater and Taunton?'

'From Weston to Bridgwater there is a line of gibbets already; in Taunton, twenty, I believe, have swung – twenty, at least. The drums beat, the fifes played, and the trumpets sounded, and Colonel Kirke drank to the health of every man (such was his condescension!) before he was turned off. 'Twould have done your heart good, Captain, only to see the brave show.'

'Ay, ay,' said Barnaby, unmoved; 'very like, very like. Perhaps I shall have the opportunity of playing first part in another brave show if all goes well. Hath the Duke escaped?'

'We heard yesterday that he is taken somewhere near the New Forest. So that he will before long lay his lovely head upon the block. Captain, your friends have brought their pigs to a pretty market.'

'They have, Brother; they have,' replied Barnaby, still with unmoved countenance. 'Yet many a man hath recovered from worse straits than these.'

I listened with sinking heart. Much I longed to ask if the Sergeant knew aught of Robin; but I refrained, lest merely to name him might put the soldiers on the look-out for him, should he, happily, be in hiding.

Next the Sergeant told us (which terrified me greatly) that there was no part of the country where they were not scouring for fugitives; that they were greatly assisted by the clergy, who, he said, were red-hot for King James; that the men were found hiding, as we had hidden, in linneys, in hedges, in barns, in woods; that they were captured by treachery – by information laid, and even, most cruel thing of all, by watching and following the men's sweethearts who were found taking food to them. He said also that, at the present rate, they would have to enlarge their prisons to admit ten times their number, for they were haling into them not only the men who had followed Monmouth, but also those who had helped him with money, arms, or men. The Sergeant was a brutal fellow, yet there was about him something of good nature, and even of compassion for the men he had captured. But he seemed to take delight in speaking of the sufferings of the unfortunate prisoners. The soldiers, he told us, were greatly enraged towards the rebels – not, I suppose, on account of their rebellion, because three years later they themselves showed how skin-deep was their loyalty, but because the rustics, whom they thought contemptible, had surprised and nearly beaten them. And this roused in them the spirit of revenge.

'Captain,' said the Sergeant, ''tis pity that so lusty a gentleman as thou shouldst die. Hast thou no friends at Court? No? Nor any who would speak for thee? 'Tis pity. Yet a man can die but once. With such a thick neck as thine, bespeak, if so much grace be accorded thee, a long rope and a high gallows. Else, when it comes to the quartering' – he stopped and shook his head – 'but there – I wish you well out of it, Captain.'

In the evening, just before sunset, we arrived at Ilminster, after a sad and weary march of ten miles, at least; but we could not leave the prisoners until we knew how and where they were bestowed; and during all this time my mother, who commonly walked not abroad from one Sabbath to the next, was possessed with such a spirit that she seemed to feel no weariness. When we rode all night in order to join the Duke she complained not; when we rode painfully across the hills to Taunton she murmured not; nor when we carried our wounded man up the rough and steep comb; no, nor on this day, when she walked beside her husband's head, careful lest the motion of the cart should cause him pain. But he felt nothing, poor soul! He would feel nothing any more.

Ilminster is a goodly town, rich and prosperous with its spinners and weavers. This evening, however, there was no one in the streets except the troopers, who swaggered up and down or sat drinking at the tavern door. There is a broad open place before the market, which stands upon great stone pillars. Outside the market is the Clink, whither the soldiers were taking their prisoners. The troopers paid not the least heed to our mournful little procession – a wounded man; a prisoner in scarlet and lace, but the cloth tattered and stained and the lace torn. They were only two more men on their way to death. What doth a soldier care for the sight of a man about to die?

'Mother,' said Barnaby when we drew near the prison gates, 'come not within. I will do all that I can for him. Go now and find a decent lodging, and, Sister, hark ye, the lads in our army were rough, but they were as lambs compared with these swaggering troopers. Keep snug, therefore, and venture not far abroad.'

I whispered in his ear that I had his bag of money safe, so that he could have whatever he wanted if that could be bought. Then the prison gates were closed, and we stood without.

It would have been hard indeed if the wife and daughter of Dr. Comfort Eykin could not find a lodging among godly people, of whom there are always many in every town of Somerset. We presently obtained a room in the house of one Martha Prior, widow of the learned and pious Joshua Prior, whilom preacher and ejected minister. Her case was as hard as our own. This poor woman had two sons only, and both had gone to join the Duke; one already risen to be a Master Serge-maker and one a Draper of the town. Of her sons she could hear no news at all: whether they were alive or dead. If they were already dead, or if they should be hanged, she would have no means of support, and so must starve or eat the bread of charity. (I learned afterwards that she never did hear anything of them, so that it is certain that they must have been killed on the battle-field or cut down by the dragoons in trying to escape. But the poor soul survived not long their loss.)

The church of Ilminster stands upon a rising ground; on the north of the church is the grammar school, and on the other three sides are houses of the better sort, of which Mrs. Prior had one. The place, which surrounds the churchyard, and hath no inn or ale-house in it, is quiet and retired. The soldiers came not thither, except once or twice, with orders to search the houses (and with a private resolution to drink everything that they might lay their hands upon), so that, for two poor women in our miserable circumstances, we could not have a more quiet lodging.

Despite our troubles, I slept so well that night that it was past seven in the morning when I awoke. The needs of the body do sometimes overcome the cares of the spirit. For a whole fortnight had we been making our beds on the heather, and, therefore, without taking off our clothes; and that day we had walked ten miles, at least, with the soldiers, so that I slept without moving or waking all the night. In the morning, I dressed quickly and hurried to the jail, not knowing whether I might be admitted or should be allowed speech of Barnaby. Outside the gate, however, I found a crowd of people going into the prison and coming out of it. Some of them, women like ourselves, were weeping – they were those whose brothers or lovers, husbands or sons, were in those gloomy walls. Others there were who brought, for such of the prisoners as had money to buy them, eggs, butter, white bread, chickens, fruit, and all kinds of provisions; some brought wine, cider, and ale; some, tobacco. The warders who stood at the gates made no opposition to those who would enter. I pressed in with a beating heart, prepared for a scene of the most dreadful repentance and gloomy forebodings. What I saw was quite otherwise.

The gates of the prison opened upon a courtyard, not very big, where the people were selling their wares, and some of the prisoners were walking about, and some were chaffering with the women who had the baskets. On the right-hand side of the yard was the Clink itself; on the left hand were houses for the warders or officers of the prison. In general, a single warder, constable, or head-borough is enough for a town such as Ilminster, to keep the peace of the prison, which is for the most part empty, save when they enforce some new Act against Nonconformists and fill it with them or with Quakers. Now, however, so great was the press that, instead of two, there were a dozen guards, and, while a stout cudgel had always been weapon enough, now every man went armed with pike and cutlass to keep order and prevent escapes. Six of them occupied the gate-house; other six were within, in a sort of guard-house, where they slept on the left hand of the court.

The ground floor of the Clink we found to be a large room, at least forty feet each side in bigness. On one side of it was a great fireplace, where, though it was the month of July, there was burning a great fire of Welsh coal, partly for cooking purposes, because all that the prisoners ate was cooked at this fire; and partly because a great fire kept continually burning sweetens the air, and wards off jail fever. On another side was a long table and several benches. Thick wooden pillars supported the joists of the rooms above; the windows were heavily barred, but the shutters had been taken down, and there was no glass in them. In spite of fire and open windows, the place was stifling, and smelt most horrible. Never have I breathed so foul an air. There lived in this room about eighty prisoners (later on the numbers were doubled); some were smoking tobacco and drinking cider or ale; some were frying pieces of meat or smoked herrings over the fire; and the tobacco, the ale, the wine, the cooking, and the people themselves – nearly all country lads, unwashed, who had slept since Sedgemoor, at least, in the same clothes without once changing – made so foul an air that jail fever, putrid throats, and small-pox (all of which afterwards broke out) should have been expected sooner.

They were all talking, laughing, and even singing, so that, in addition to the noisome stench of the place, there was such a din as one may hear at Sherborne Fair of an evening. I expected, as I have said, a gloomy silence with the rattling of chains, the groans of those who looked for death, and, perhaps, a godly repentance visible upon every countenance. Yet they were all laughing, except a few who sat retired and who were wounded. I say that they were all laughing. They had nothing to expect but death, or at the best to be horribly flogged, to be transported, to be fined, branded, and ruined. Yet they laughed! What means this hardness and indifference in men? Could they not think of the women they had left at home? I warrant that none of them were laughing.

Among them – a pipe of tobacco in his lips and a mug of strong ale before him on the table, his hat flung backwards – sat Barnaby, his face showing, apparently, complete satisfaction with his lot.

When he saw us at the door, he rose and came to meet us.

'Welcome,' he said. 'This is one of the places where King Monmouth's men are to receive the honour due to them. Courage, gentle hearts. Be not cast down. Everywhere the prisons are full, and more are brought in every day. Our very numbers are our safety. They cannot hang us all. And hark!' here he whispered, 'Sister, we now know that Colonel Kirke hath been selling pardons at ten pounds, twenty pounds, and thirty pounds apiece. Wherefore we are well assured that somehow or other we shall be able to buy our release. There are plenty besides Colonel Kirke who will sell a prisoner his freedom.'

'Where is your father?' asked my mother.

'He is bestowed above, where it is quieter, except for the groaning of the wounded. Go up-stairs, and you will find him. And there is a surprise for you, besides. You will find with him one you little expect to see.'

'Oh! Barnaby, is there new misery for me? Is Robin a prisoner?'

'Robin is not here, Sis; and as for misery, why, that is as you take it. To be sure the man above is in prison, but no harm will happen to him. Why should it? He did not go out with Monmouth's men. But go up-stairs – go up-stairs, and see for yourselves.'

CHAPTER XXVI.

SIR CHRISTOPHER

I know not whom I expected to find in consequence of Barnaby's words, as we went up the dark and dirty stairs which led to the upper room. Robin was not a prisoner. Why – then – but I knew not what I thought, all being strange and dreadful.

At the top of the stairs we found ourselves in a room of the same size as the lower chamber, but not so high, and darker, being a gloomy place indeed, insomuch that it was not for some minutes that one could plainly discern things. It was lighted by a low, long window, set very close with thick bars, the shutters thrown open so that all the light and air possible to be admitted might come in. It had a great fireplace, but there was no fire burning, and the air of the room struck raw, though outside it was a warm and sunny day. The roof was supported, as in the room below, by means of thick square pillars, studded with great nails set close together, for what purpose I know not. Every part of the woodwork in the room was in the same way stuck full of nails. On the floor lay half a score mattresses, the property of those who could afford to pay the warders an exorbitant fee for the luxury. At Ilminster, as I am told, at Newgate, the chief prison of the country, the same custom obtains of exacting heavy fees from the poor wretches clapped into ward. It is, I suppose, no sin to rob the criminal, the debtor, the traitor, or the rebel. For those who had nothing to pay there were only a few bundles of straw, and on these were lying half a dozen wretches, whose white faces and glazed eyes showed that they would indeed cheat Tom the Hangman, though not in the way that Barnaby hoped. These were wounded either in the Sedgemoor fight or in their attempt to escape.

My father lay on a pallet bed. His face showed not the least change; his eyes were closed, and you would have thought him dead; and beside him, also on a pallet, sat, to my astonishment, none other than Sir Christopher himself.

He rose and came to meet us, smiling sadly.

'Madam,' he said, taking my mother's hand, 'we meet in a doleful place, and we are, indeed, in wretched plight. I cannot bid you welcome; I cannot say that I am glad to see you. There is nothing that I can say of comfort or of hope, except, which you know already, that we are always in the hands of the Lord.'

'Sir Christopher,' said my mother, 'it was kind and neighbourly in you to come. But you were always his best friend. Look at his poor white face!' she only thought upon her husband. 'You would think him dead! More than a fortnight he hath lain thus – motionless. I think he feels no pain. Husband, if thou canst hear me, make some sign – if it be but to open one eye! No!' she cried. 'Day after day have I thus entreated him and he makes no answer! He neither sees nor hears! Yet he doth not die; wherefore I think that he may yet recover speech and sit up again, and presently, perhaps, walk about, and address himself again unto his studies.'

She waited not for any answer, but knelt down beside him and poured some drops of milk into the mouth of the sick man. Sir Christopher looked at her mournfully and shook his head.

Then he turned to me, and kissed me without saying a word.

'Oh! Sir,' I cried, 'how could you know that my father would be brought unto this place? With what goodness of heart have you come to our help!'

'Nay, child,' he replied gravely, 'I came because I had no choice but to come. Like your father and your brother, Alice, I am a prisoner.'

'You, Sir? You a prisoner? Why, you were not with the Duke.'

'That is most true. And yet a prisoner. Why, after the news of Sedgemoor fight I looked for nothing else. They tried to arrest Mr. Speke, but he has fled; they have locked up Mr. Prideaux, of Ford Abbey; Mr. Trenchard has retired across the seas. Why should they pass me over? Nay, there were abundant proofs of my zeal for the Duke. My grandson and my grandnephew had joined the rebels. Your father and brother rode over to Lyme on my horses; with my grandson rode off a dozen lads of the village. What more could they want? Moreover, I am an old soldier of Lord Essex's army; and, to finish, they found in the window-seat a copy of Monmouth's Declaration – which, indeed, I had forgotten, or I might have destroyed it.'