'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.' 'Alas! alas!' I cried, wringing my hands. 'Your Honour, too, a prisoner!' Since the Sergeant spoke to Barnaby about the interest of friends, I had been thinking that Sir Christopher, whose power and interest, I fondly thought, must be equal to those of any Lord in the land, would interpose to save us all. And he was now a prisoner himself, involved in the common ruin! One who stands upon a bridge and sees with terror the last support carried away by the raging flood feels such despair as fell upon my soul. 'Oh, Sir!' I cried again. 'It is Line upon Line--Woe upon Woe!' He took my hand in his, and held it tenderly. 'My child,' he said, 'to an old man of seventy-five what doth it matter whether he die in his bed or whether he die upon a scaffold? Through the pains of death, as through a gate, we enter upon our rest.' 'It is dreadful!' I cried again. 'I cannot endure it!'