them with a quick,
malicious gleam of his white teeth, then settled down again amongst the
cushions. I observed that as he passed not a hat was raised among the
crowd, and that even the rude soldiers appeared to look upon him half
in terror, half in disgust, as a lion might look upon some foul,
blood-sucking bat which battened upon the prey which he had himself
struck down.

(1) The painting of Jeffreys in the National Portrait Gallery more
than bears out Micah Clarke's remarks. He is the handsomest man in the
collection.

Chapter XXXV. Of the Devil in Wig and Gown

There was no delay in the work of slaughter. That very night the great
gallows was erected outside the White Hart inn. Hour after hour we could
hear the blows of mallets and the sawing of beams, mingled with the
shoutings and the ribald choruses of the Chief Justice's suite, who were
carousing with the officers of the Tangiers regiment in the front room,
which overlooked the gibbet. Amongst the prisoners the night was passed
in prayer and meditation, the stout-hearted holding forth to their
weaker brethren, and exhorting them to play the man, and to go to
their death in a fashion which should be an example to true Protestants
throughout the world. The Puritan divines had been mostly strung up
off-hand immediately after the battle, but a few were left to sustain
the courage of their flocks, and to show them the way upon the scaffold.
Never have I seen anything so admirable as the cool and cheerful bravery
wherewith these poor clowns faced their fate. Their courage on the
battlefield paled before that which they showed in the shambles of the
law. So amid the low murmur of prayer and appeals for mercy to God from
tongues which never yet asked mercy from man, the morning broke, the
last morning which many of us were to spend upon earth.

The court should have opened at nine, but my Lord Chief Justice was
indisposed, having sat up somewhat late with Colonel Kirke. It was
nearly eleven before the trumpeters and criers announced that he had
taken his seat. One by one my fellow-prisoners were called out by name,
the more prominent being chosen first. They went out from amongst us
amid hand-shakings and blessings, but we saw and heard no more of them,
save that a sudden fierce rattle of kettledrums would rise up now and
again, which was, as our guards told us, to drown any dying words which
might fall from the sufferers and bear fruit in the breasts of those