But when the constables had brought us back to Swannington, it being harvest-time, it was hard to get anybody to go with us. The people were loth to take their neighbors to prison, especially in such a busy time. They would have given us our mittimus to carry ourselves to the jail; for it had been usual for constables to give Friends their own mittimuses, and they have gone themselves with them to the jailer. But we told them that, though our Friends had sometimes done so, we would not take this mittimus; but some of them should go with us to the jail. At last they hired a poor labouring man, who was loth to go, though hired. So we rode to Leicester, being five in number; some carried their Bibles open in their hands, declaring Truth to the people as we rode in the fields and through the towns, and telling them we were prisoners of the Lord Jesus Christ, going to suffer bonds for His name and Truth. One woman Friend carried her wheel on her lap to spin on in prison; and the people were mightily affected. At Leicester we went to an inn. The master of the house seemed troubled that we should go to the prison; and being himself in commission, he sent for lawyers in the town to advise with, and would have taken up the mittimus, kept us in his own house, and not have let us go into the jail. But I told Friends it would be a great charge to lie at an inn; and many Friends and people would be coming to visit us, and it might be hard for him to bear our having meetings in his house. Besides, we had many Friends in the prison already, and we had rather be with them. So we let the man know that we were sensible of his kindness, and to prison we went; the poor man that brought us thither delivering both the mittimus and us to the jailer. This jailer had been a very wicked, cruel man. Six or seven Friends being in prison before we came, he had taken some occasion to quarrel with them, and had thrust them into the dungeon amongst the felons, where there was hardly room for them to lie down. We stayed all that day in the prison-yard, and desired the jailer to let us have some straw. He surlily answered, "You do not look like men that would lie on straw." After a while William Smith, a Friend, came to me, and he being acquainted in the house, I asked him what rooms there were in it, and what rooms Friends had usually been put into before they were put into the dungeon. I asked him also whether the jailer or his wife was the master. He said that the wife was master; and that, though she was lame, and sat mostly in her chair, being only able to go on crutches, yet she would beat her husband when he came within her reach if he did not do as she would have him.