was carried to Ringwood, in Hampshire.
Strange rumours reached us concerning his behaviour--rumours which came
to our ears through the coarse jests of our guards. Some said that he
had gone on his knees to the yokels who had seized him. Others that he
had written to the King offering to do anything, even to throw over the
Protestant cause, to save his head from the scaffold.(Note L, Appendix.)
We laughed at these stories at the time, and set them down as inventions
of our enemies. It seemed too impossible that at a time when his
supporters were so sternly and so loyally standing true to him, he,
their leader, with the eyes of all men upon him, should be showing less
courage than every little drummer-boy displays, who trips along at the
head of his regiment upon the field of battle. Alas! time showed that
the stories were indeed true, and that there was no depth of infamy to
which this unhappy man would not descend, in the hope of prolonging
for a few years that existence which had proved a curse to so many who
trusted him.

Of Saxon no news had come, good or bad, which encouraged me to hope that
he had found a hiding-place for himself. Reuben was still confined to
his couch by his wound, and was under the care and protection of
Major Ogilvy. The good gentleman came to see me more than once, and
endeavoured to add to my comfort, until I made him understand that it
pained me to find myself upon a different footing to the brave fellows
with whom I had shared the perils of the campaign. One great favour he
did me in writing to my father, and informing him that I was well and
in no pressing danger. In reply to this letter I had a stout Christian
answer from the old man, bidding me to be of good courage, and quoting
largely from a sermon on patience by the Reverend Josiah Seaton of
Petersfield. My mother, he said, was in deep distress at my position,
but was held up by her confidence in the decrees of Providence. He
enclosed a draft for Major Ogilvy, commissioning him to use it in
whatever way I should suggest. This money, together with the small hoard
which my mother had sewed into my collar, proved to be invaluable, for
when the gaol fever broke out amongst us I was able to get fitting food
for the sick, and also to pay for the services of physicians, so that
the disease was stamped out ere it had time to spread.

Early in August we were brought from Bridgewater to Taunton, where we
were thrown with hundreds of others into