The thirty days ensuing November 2d, were days of great anxiety for the Virginia authorities. It was natural that they should suspect that schemes would be formed to rescue Brown from his impending fate. In this they were not mistaken. In fact the planning to effect his rescue was begun as soon as it became known that he was not seriously wounded; and it is probable that something in this direction might have been attempted, if the schemers had received any encouragement from the prisoner. But to the man who had planned and dreamed of conquest, as Brown had planned, and dreamed, their scheming was the merest of trifling; they had no conception of daring and striving, as he had dared and striven. As to heroics, he was blasé. In the collapse of his great undertaking he had had a surfeit of tragedies and disappointments. The heart of the man of iron was subdued. And there can be no doubt that, at this supreme hour in his life, the world looked small to John Brown. He had toyed with it as with a bauble, and was ready to throw it away. Besides, he had too often measured situations, and calculated the chances for success against formidable odds, to waste any time with adventures such as, in his opinion, his rescuers were capable of executing. Hence, when Mr. Hoyt informed Brown, October 28th, that a plan was being formed to storm the jail and set the prisoners free, he promptly refused to encourage the attempt. Conveying Brown's reply to Mr. Le Barnes, October 30th, Mr. Hoyt wrote: _There is no chance of_ his (Brown's) ultimate escape: there is nothing but the most unmitigated failure, and the saddest consequences which it is possible to conjure, to ensue upon an attempt at _rescue_. The country all around is guarded by armed patrols and a large body of troops are constantly under arms. If you hear anything about such an attempt, for Heaven's sake do not _fail to restrain the enterprise_. The planning for his rescue, however, did not cease because Brown disapproved of any attempt being made to execute such plans. Mr. Villard, on pages 511 to 528, gives a full and very interesting account of various schemes that were proposed to accomplish something, by force, in Brown's behalf; as well as of the precautionary measures that were taken by the Virginians to prevent the possibility of a rescue. Mr. Stearns, thinking that Charles Jennison was a co-philanthropist, sought to enlist him and James Stewart in one of these schemes. Naturally he received no reply. The plan for another Kansas rescue measure was to be communicated to Brown by a young Kansas woman--Miss Mary Partridge. She was to visit Brown in his cell at Charlestown; embrace him affectionately and, incidentally, put a paper containing the plan of the rescue into his mouth.[478]