The Heart

My brother John's man, however, whom he had brought from England,

and whom I had known as a boy, and sometimes stolen away to hunt

with, he being one of the village-lads, shaved me as if it had been

for my execution, and often I, somewhat dazed by the loss of blood,

looking at him, saw the great tears trickling down his cheeks. A

soft-hearted man he was, who had met with sore troubles, having lost

his family, a wife and three little ones, after which he returned to

England and entered my brother's service, though he had been brought

up independently, being the son of an inn-keeper.

Something there was about this gentle, downcast man, adding the

weight of my sorrow to his own, which would have aroused me to

courage, if, as I said before, I had not been in such a state of

body, that for the time my consciousness of what was to come was

clouded.

There I sat on my bench, leaning stiffly back against the prison

wall, a strange buzzing in my ears, and I scarcely knew nor sensed

it when Parson Downs entered hurriedly, and leant over me,

whispering that if I would, and could, my chance to escape was

outside.

"The fleetest horse in the Colony," said he, "and, Harry, I have

seen Dick Barry, and if thou canst but ride to the turn of the road,

thou wilt be met by Black Betty and guided to a safe place; and the

jailer hath drank over much Burgundy to which I treated him,

and--and if thou canst, Harry--"

Then he stopped and looked at me and turned angrily to the physician

who was packing up his lancets and vials to depart. "My God, sir,"

he cried, "do you kill or cure? You have not bled him again? Lord,

Lord, had I but a lancet and a purge for the spirit as you for the

flesh, there would be not only no sin but no souls left in the

Colony! You have not bled him again, sir?"

But Martyn Jennings paid no more heed to him than if he had been a

part of the prison wall, and, indeed, I doubt if he ever heeded any

one who had not need of either his nostrums or his lancet, and after

a last look at my bandages he went away.

Then Parson Downs and my brother's man looked at each other.

"It is of no use, sir," said the man, whose name was Will Wickett.

"Poor Master Wingfield cannot ride a horse; he is far too weak." And

with that verily the tears rolled down his cheeks, so womanish had

he grown by reason of the sore trials to which he had been put.