What recks this Samson of their paltry “goal”? Somehow, without show of physical force (the least sign of which would surely have been entered on the court record), he makes the sheriff quail. The lightning in his eyes, perchance, the deep tones of a voice that never breathes an oath, even to swear by in a court; uttering ominous words to some such effect as that he “will seal his quarrel with his blood.” Should he attempt escape from the sheriff his death could be accomplished, then and there. The sheriff returns to the court-room (meeting-house) and reports to the court that John Rogers is conducting himself in a “furious” manner, “threatening that the jail shall not hold him and that he will seal his quarrel with his blood”; the sheriff “fears he will break out of jail and do mischief to some of her Majesty’s subjects.” What subject but himself, through punishment which can be inflicted upon him for breaking away from an officer, which is a capital crime on the law book. The quickly forthcoming order of the court (Judge Saltonstall) that John Rogers shall be placed in irons at need, “for preventing mischief,” is but the beginning of the plot now in contemplation. By further order of the judge and governor (one and the same) John Rogers is to be conducted from the ordinary prison to the “inner” prison.[114] The latter is not yet finished, and is half a mile from the house of the jailer. It has as yet no underpinning, but stands above the ground on blocks. The green planks of which the floor was made are much shrunken, leaving large cracks for the entrance of the wind, and there is “an open window towards the northwest.” There is no fireplace, nor any means for making a fire; moreover, by the orders, no fire is to be allowed this prisoner.[114] It is October and unusually cold and stormy for this time of year. Footnote 114: For John Roger’s description of this prison and his imprisonment, see Part I., Chapter V. How does John Rogers, Jr., manage to communicate with his father in this place? He must scale the high fence surrounding the prison yard, to make his way to the “open window” of the prison, whose grates will not admit the passage of any fuel, even if a place could be found within in which to make a fire. This son comes, under cover of the darkness, to give such aid and comfort as he may, and especially in the cold nights, which indicates that he contrives to furnish some slight means of warmth. Until November 16 of this unusually inclement season, John Rogers, at the age of sixty-three, is a solitary prisoner in this inner prison, with such apology for a fire as his son can provide, by coming two miles after dark to the prison window. Governor Saltonstall, sitting beside his beaming hearth, already furnished with its huge back-log, gives no pitiful thought to the man whom he has denied an honest trial, and now forbids so much as a fire to keep him from death’s door.