They drove to Mt. Bly, where they stopped to change horses, and the two
men on horseback remained there, while the other two mounted the wagon
and drove to Sorel. Here the box was taken out and carried on board a
boat, where two priests were waiting for me. When the boat started, they
took me out for the first time after I was put into it at St. Albans.
Three days we had been on the way, and I had tasted neither food nor
drink. How little did I think when I took my tea at Mr. Branard's the
night I left that it was the last refreshment I would have for SEVEN
DAYS; yet such was the fact. And how little did they think, as they lay
in their quiet beds that night, that the poor fugitive they had taken to
their home was fleeing for life, or for that which, to her, was better
than life. Yet so it was. Bitterly did I reproach myself for leaving
those kind friends as I did, for I thought perhaps if I had remained
there, they would not have dared to touch me. Such were my feelings
then; but as I now look back, I can see that it would have made little
difference whether I left or remained. They were bound to get me, at all
events, and if I had stopped there until they despaired of catching me
secretly, they would undoubtedly have come with an officer, and accused
me of some crime, as a pretext for taking me away. Then, had any one
been so far interested for me as to insist on my having a fair trial,
how easy for them to produce witnesses enough to condemn me! Those
priests have many ways to accomplish their designs. The American people
don't know them yet; God grant they never may.
On my arrival at the nunnery I was taken down the coal grate, and
fastened to an iron ring in the back part of a cell. The Archbishop then
came down and read my punishment. Notwithstanding the bitter grief that
oppressed my spirit, I could not repress a smile of contempt as the
great man entered my cell. I remembered that before I ran away, my
punishments were assigned by a priest, but the first time I fled from
them a Bishop condescended to read my sentence, and now his honor the
Archbishop graciously deigned to illume my dismal cell with the light of
his countenance, and his own august lips pronounced the words of doom.
Was I rising in their esteem, or did they think to frighten me into
obedience by the grandeur of his majestic mien?
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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