The morning of the 16th broke bright and fresh from the thin September mists. The sunbeams shot across the rosy sky, and sparkled in the clear dewdrops, the late roses raised their glowing heads to meet the light, and the birds in the woods chorused joyously their Autumn serenade. But in the City of Taunton the morning light revealed the grey and careworn faces of many who, hoping little from the morrow, had watched throughout the night in an anguish of doubt and suspense, and a passion of hopeless prayer. Be the morning sunbeams never so bright, they could not dispel the darkness of that day for Taunton.
The sun climbed over the roofs, and peered into the high windows of the prisons, where the captives roused themselves and prepared to stand their trial.
The newly wedded bride lay sleeping in the arms of her husband, who for many hours had watched in silence, till the pale grey dawn had stolen into the wool-shed, to light the face he loved. She had fallen asleep in the happiness of the present, but when she awoke and looked into his face she knew that the dream had passed, and stern reality was before them. She sat up with a start, gazed despairingly around her, then turned again to meet the hopeless glance of the eyes that yesterday had looked but love. With a deep sob of bitterness she flung her arms around him, and buried her face on his shoulder; for now it seemed that the angel of doom stood at the gate of their Eden to drive them forth into the outer darkness, where each must wander alone. And he had no comfort for her pain.
Barbara was ever strangely susceptible to the influence of sunshine. The depression of the previous night had moderated and her spirits danced lightly as the flickering sunbeams. The freshness of the morning was in her glance and she looked as much out of place in those gloomy surroundings as a delicate wild rose dropped in the mire of a city street. Her cheerful spirits were infectious, the men warmed at sight of her bright glances, and for a moment a sense of happiness gleamed faintly in their hearts.
But not for long. The shadow of the king of terrors lay too heavy to be effaced. The gleam of light grew fainter and more distant, until it vanished in the dark mists of grim reality.
The sitting of the court was postponed till noon, owing to the indisposition of the chief justice, but when the trial at length opened, the work went busily forward. These first days of the Assize were devoted to the trial of the more notable prisoners, the bulk of the peasants taken at, or soon after Sedgemoor fight, being reserved for trial in batches of from fifty to a hundred, later in the week.
One of the first to be called was Mistress Mary Dale, the poor young bride. The lovers parted in silence, all eternity in their glance. When she was summoned from the prison he took up his station by the door, to await her return. He waited in vain. In her case—the one instance perhaps in which it was unsolicited—mercy was shown. Her fine was paid and she was free, free to go whither she would, save only back to the prison where she had left her heart. Free, when freedom was banishment, alive when life had nothing to offer save utter loneliness.
Throughout the day the dreary exodus of the prisoners continued. For some there was no return, punishment following close upon conviction, others returned calm and quiet in the certain expectation of death on the morrow, or of that yet more terrible death in life which lay in the sentence of banishment to the Plantations.
The pathos of the scene struck Barbara deeply, and the sense of her helplessness in sight of injustice and wrong awoke in her a state of subdued fury.
But she had her work to do. The morning had brought new terror to the heart of the delicate child, Katherine Keene, and strive as Barbara would, by all means in her power, to soothe and cheer the terrified girl, her panic but increased as the day drew on, and when at last she and her sister were summoned before the court, she clung passionately to her protectress, sobbing in a very frenzy of terror, imploring her not to allow them to take her away.
Even Barbara's firmness gave way under the strain, she wept out of pure pity for a terror which as yet she could not comprehend.
"Brutes!" she muttered between her clenched teeth, when at last the terrified children were marched away. "Brutes! devils! Can they not see the child is half demented. Ah, were I but king for one day, I would teach them a lesson they should not forget."
But later in the day, when a compassionate gaoler brought her news of the children's fate, her indignation rose to fury. For Judge Jeffreys, recognising in the panic-stricken girls a fit object for an exhibition of his fiercest passion, had so bullied and tormented them, so raged, so sworn, so threatened them, that the delicate Katherine could endure no more. Scarcely had she reached the door of the court house, after her trial, when she fell fainting to the ground, and an hour later died from sheer excess of terror. Her younger sister was freed indeed, after payment of a heavy fine, but she never recovered from the shock and fear of that day. Thus suffered these innocents whose sole offence had been in the embroidering of a banner for the Duke of Monmouth, under the direction of their school-mistress.
Barbara having no longer an object on which to lavish her protecting tenderness, there remained nothing for her to do save to sit in idleness, watching that silent procession of prisoners passing ever through the prison door, while the heart within her breast burned and raged with impotent fury.
The day passed slowly on, and at length, towards six o'clock in the evening, the summons came for Mistress Barbara Winslow to attend court. She was the last prisoner for trial that day.
Barbara rose to her feet with alacrity on hearing her name, and throwing on her cloak, made haste to follow her guards. Here at length was something to be done, some change from impotent watching and waiting. Now, at length, she was to meet face to face with these tyrant judges, to whom she might at least speak her thoughts. All concern for her own case, her own danger, had fled, prudence had no place in her thoughts, her mind was filled with a wild hatred of the perpetrators of this barbarous cruelty, with a mad desire to fling defiance at their threats, and to cry aloud to their faces what she, Barbara Winslow, thought of their sentences.
Escorted by a file of soldiers she was marched rapidly across the market-square and into the court house. There was no great concourse of people in the streets. The majority of the townsfolk sympathised with the prisoners, but dared not openly show their sympathy lest they, too, be accounted rebels; they deemed it more prudent, therefore, to remain quietly within doors, while such as sought merely to derive sensational amusement from the trial had found places within the crowded court.
While Barbara waited in the hall outside the chamber where the court was sitting, a prisoner passed her, hurried along between his guards. He was a young man scarcely twenty years of age, slenderly built, with delicate handsome features, but the look on his face made the girl start back with an exclamation of horror.
"In Heaven's name, what hath befallen him? Who is he?" she gasped.
"'Tis young Master Tutchin," answered one of her guards carelessly. "A hard sentence, for sure, 'tis scarce likely he will live to see the end o't."
"What is it?" questioned Barbara in horror.
"To be imprisoned seven years, and once a year to be flogged through every market town of Dorset, which by calculation should be a flogging twice a month. Aye, aye, 'tis a hard sentence," he continued, meeting her glance; "but what would you? He is a proved rebel."
"Oh! that such devils of judges should go unpunished," was Barbara's fierce rejoinder. It was with a heart burning with rage that she entered the court.
And yet, so strange and uncontrollable are the feelings of women that her first thought, when she found herself face to face with the dreaded chief justice, was one of astonishment and pity.
She had expected, like Cicely on the previous evening, to behold a coarse, brutal ruffian, ferocity and hatred stamped on every feature. When, in place of such a creature, she beheld the handsome face and noble bearing of her judge, she gave a gasp of surprise. Pity also filled her heart, for his eyes were half closed, and there were traces of suffering on his face, as he lay back in his chair with an air of extreme exhaustion. The terrible malady to which he was a victim tortured him, and the long day in court had tried him severely; but no amount of physical suffering could overcome the iron will, or prevent him even for a day from pursuing that strange course of relentless cruelty which he had elected to follow.
When Barbara took her place in the dock he roused himself with an effort, and looked at her with a sharp piercing glance.
"What!" he exclaimed. "Yet another of these women rebels. Are we never to have an end of them? Can they not find mischief enow to do in their own homes, but they must needs interfere in affairs of state? What is the prisoner's name?"
"Mistress Barbara Winslow, my lord."
"Winslow! Winslow!"
"Aye, my lord," answered one of the crown lawyers. "Her brother followed the rebel duke, but through her connivance, so it is submitted, he hath escaped the country."
"Ah, ha! so she comes of a fine rebel stock, eh?"
The several counts in the indictment were furnished by Barbara's participation in the escape of Sir Peter Dare, her interference with the whipping of the boy at Durford, and other incidents of a trifling character in themselves, but of which the prosecuting counsel did not fail to take full advantage. The first witness called Corporal Crutch, who took no pains to conceal his malignant satisfaction in prejudicing the chances of the prisoner by every means in his power. Barbara's pride, and her contempt for the man forbade her to question the corporal's evidence, even though she was urged to do so by Sir William Montague, the chief baron of the court; and after corroboration of the corporal's story by other troopers the case for the crown being closed, Barbara was asked whether she had anything to say in her defence before the jury considered their verdict and the court pronounced sentence.
"So please you, my lords," answered Barbara, ignoring Jeffreys pointedly, and addressing herself to the three judges who sat with him, "that I am a traitor I deny utterly. As for the stories these men tell of me, why, they are true enough I must admit. But what then? I did but give food and assistance to those in dire distress and misery, I did no more than we are e'en commanded in the Gospels."
"The Gospels! The Gospels!" interrupted Jeffreys scornfully.
"Aye, my lord," answered Barbara, turning on him sharply. "The Gospels. In which books methinks your lordship hath made but scant study."
Judge Jeffreys started forward, and stared at her in astonishment, then his face grew purple and distorted with fury, and his eyes gleamed ho............