Constance Sherwood: An Autobiography of the Sixteenth CenturyFullerton, Georgiana
History
Constance Sherwood: An Autobiography of the Sixteenth Century
Fullerton, Georgiana
Great Britain -- History -- Elizabeth, 1558-1603 -- Fiction
I fell into a heavy, albeit troubled, sleep, and when I awoke it was
broad daylight. When the waiting-maid came in, she told me Lady
l'Estrange had been delivered of a dead child and Sir Hammond was
almost beside himself with grief. My lady's mind had wandered ever
since; but she was more tranquil than in the night. Soon after he sent
to ask if he could see me, and I went down to him into the parlor. A
more changed man, in a few hours, I ween, could not be seen, than this
poor gentleman. He spoke not of his lady; but briefly told me he had
sent in the night a messenger on horseback to Norwich, with a letter
to the governor of the gaol, praying him to show as much
consideration, and allow so much liberty as should consist with
prudence, to the prisoner in his custody, sent by him a few hours
before, for that he had discovered him not to be one of the common
sort, nor a lewd person, albeit by his own confession amenable to the
laws, and escaped from another prison. Then he added, that if I wished
to go to Norwich, and visit this prisoner, he would give me a letter
to the governor, and one to a lady, who would conveniently harbor me
for a while in that city, and his coach should take me there, or he
would lend me a horse and a servant to attend me. I answered, I should
be glad to go, and then said somewhat of his lady, hoping she should
now do well. He made no reply for a moment, and then only said,
"God knoweth! she is not like herself at the present."
The words she had so mournfully spoken the day before came into
my mind, "I shall never be like myself again, and there shall be no
more joy in this house." And, methinks, they did haunt him also.
I sat for some time by her bedside that day. She seemed not ill at
ease, but there was something changed in her aspect, and her words
when she spoke had no sense or connection. And here I will set down,
before I relate the events which followed my brief sojourn under their
roof, what I have heard touching the sequel of Sir Hammond and his
wife's lives.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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