Great Britain -- History -- Fiction; Man-woman relationships -- Fiction
One of the first to be called was Mistress Mary Dale, the poor young
bride. The lovers parted in silence, all eternity in their glance.
When she was summoned from the prison he took up his station by the
door, to await her return. He waited in vain. In her case—the one
instance perhaps in which it was unsolicited—mercy was shown. Her fine
was paid and she was free, free to go whither she would, save only back
to the prison where she had left her heart. Free, when freedom was
banishment, alive when life had nothing to offer save utter loneliness.
Throughout the day the dreary exodus of the prisoners continued. For
some there was no return, punishment following close upon conviction,
others returned calm and quiet in the certain expectation of death on
the morrow, or of that yet more terrible death in life which lay in the
sentence of banishment to the Plantations.
The pathos of the scene struck Barbara deeply, and the sense of her
helplessness in sight of injustice and wrong awoke in her a state of
subdued fury.
But she had her work to do. The morning had brought new terror to the
heart of the delicate child, Katherine Keene, and strive as Barbara
would, by all means in her power, to soothe and cheer the terrified
girl, her panic but increased as the day drew on, and when at last she
and her sister were summoned before the court, she clung passionately to
her protectress, sobbing in a very frenzy of terror, imploring her not
to allow them to take her away.
Even Barbara’s firmness gave way under the strain, she wept out of pure
pity for a terror which as yet she could not comprehend.
"Brutes!" she muttered between her clenched teeth, when at last the
terrified children were marched away. "Brutes! devils! Can they not see
the child is half demented. Ah, were I but king for one day, I would
teach them a lesson they should not forget."
But later in the day, when a compassionate gaoler brought her news of
the children’s fate, her indignation rose to fury. For Judge Jeffreys,
recognising in the panic-stricken girls a fit object for an exhibition
of his fiercest passion, had so bullied and tormented them, so raged, so
sworn, so threatened them, that the delicate Katherine could endure no
more. Scarcely had she reached the door of the court house, after her
trial, when she fell fainting to the ground, and an hour later died from
sheer excess of terror. Her younger sister was freed indeed, after
payment of a heavy fine, but she never recovered from the shock and fear
of that day. Thus suffered these innocents whose sole offence had been
in the embroidering of a banner for the Duke of Monmouth, under the
direction of their school-mistress.
Barbara having no longer an object on which to lavish her protecting
tenderness, there remained nothing for her to do save to sit in
idleness, watching that silent procession of prisoners passing ever
through the prison door, while the heart within her breast burned and
raged with impotent fury.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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