After this disappointment, she went unto Judge Bester, who, in the mild presence of Judge Hale, stood and declared loudly and angrily that I was convicted by the court and that I was a hot spirited fellow, whereat he waved the petition in the air above his head and shouted that he would not meddle therewith.
But yet my wife, being encouraged by the seeming kindly face and manner of Judge Hale, did persist, saying that I had been indicted merely and had confessed to no crime and had not been tried, yet I was both confined to prison and at the same time was not to receive the indulgences prompted by the solstice that all other prisoners were to be granted. The place where this interview took place was called the Lion’s Chamber, where there were then situated the two judges and also many gentry and officers of the several towns in the parish. My wife, coming into them with a bashed face and a trembling heart and voice, began her errand to them in this manner:
Woman: My Lord (directing herself to Judge Hale), I make bold to come once again to your Lordship to know what may be done with my husband.
Hale: Woman, I have told you that I can do you and your husband no good, because they have taken that for a conviction which your husband has already spoken at the indictment. And unless there be something done to un-do that, I can do you no good.
Woman: My Lord, he was clapped into prison…
One of the gentry in the room, interrupting her: My Lord, the man was lawfully convicted! Why waste your precious time?
Woman: False! False!
Whereupon Judge Bester answered very angrily, saying that my wife must think that judges could do whatever they wished, whereas it seemed instead that her husband, meaning me, was the one who at this very moment was standing at prison for attempting to do whatever he wished. Did she desire that they too, meaning the judges and various gentry in the room, should end standing in prison alongside her husband? He laughed loudly at this.
Woman: But my Lord, he was not lawfully convicted.
Bester: He was.
Woman: No, he was not.
Bester: Indeed he was!
Hale: He was.
One of the gentry: Get this woman from out the room! She is a disrupter!
Bester: He was convicted! It is recorded! It is recorded! he continued crying, as if it must be of necessity true because it was so recorded. With which words, he and the others in the chamber, for they had taken up the cry, attempted to stop up her mouth, having no other argument to convince her but, It is recorded! It is recorded!
Here Judge Hale, trying to restore order, but not so greatly interested in restoring justice, interrupted and declared that none should talk about this matter any further, for he (meaning me) cannot do whatever he wishes, and he (meaning me again) has proved himself a breaker of the peace if not a heretic.
Woman: He only desired to live peaceably and that he follow his calling, both that his life and his family’s be properly maintained, and moreover, my Lord, I have five small children that cannot help themselves, of which one is born blind, and they and I now have nothing to live upon but the charity of good people.
Hale: You have five children? You are but a young woman to have five children. And a slender woman to have five children. (He seemed to wish her proven a liar of some sort.)
Woman: I am, my Lord, but stepmother to them, having not been married to him yet two full years when he was first arrested. Indeed, I was with child when my husband was first apprehended, but being young and unaccustomed to such things then, I was smayed at the news and fell into labor and so continued for eight days, then was delivered, but my child died.
Whereat Judge Hale, looking very soberly on the matter, said, Alas, poor woman!
But Judge Bester declared that she made poverty and pain her cloak and its lining.
Here the woman fell to weeping, albeit in silence, for while she had up to now endured great woe and tribulation, this attack upon her very integrity, coming as it did from such a height and, as it seemed to her then and to me now, with no other cause than that of idle malice, came with a heaviness all out of proportion to its mass, as if it were a chain cast from lead and placed around her narrow shoulders solely to bear her down.
When she had left this place called the Lion’s Chamber and had brought herself directly to my cell and had recounted to me the details of her several interviews with these mighty persons, I saw that it would be this way with me now for my life time, unless I could contrive to get my name placed upon the calendar for the quarter-sessions of the meeting of the court and thus could come to trial and either be found innocent, and freed in that way, or else be convicted, and thence freed by the power of the general amnesty associated with the solstice. While my wife wept in despair, for she had at last given up the fight for my freedom, I negotiated with my jailor, who, at my direction, had determined to obtain the calendar for the quarter-sessions of the meeting of the court and place my name thereon, thus compelling the justices to hear my case, for, with my name upon that calendar, they would have no choice but to call me to come forward. I allowed myself the pleasure of admiring the symmetry between their claim that my confession and judgement were already recorded and my own new claim that my name was recorded upon the calendar. Their foolish worship of the record would compel them to proceed in a manner that they had earlier deemed undesirable if not wholly repellent.
My jailor, John Bethel, here proved his devotion to my cause, as well as to my method, for he went out from me and under the cover of darkness stole into the courthouse where the records were kept and added my name to the calendar, so that the following day, when he was instructed by an officer of the court to deliver the various named prisoners who were to be tried that day, he was able to come to my cell and bring me forth. As I passed him in the hallway, I whispered unto him that he would soon have the coffin he required, and together, I and seven other prisoners, under the careful guard of my brother John Bethel and his two assistants, came to the courthouse, there to present ourselves for trial.
I was not at first noticed standing among the others in the docket, but before long one of the justices, Judge Bester, saw me there and signalled in whispers to the other two judges that I was present, whereupon all three began to glare heatedly at me while they listened to the various cases being put before them. This glaring of theirs distracted them somewhat, for on several occasions they compelled the prisoner before them to repeat his testimony of defense, and in all seven cases they were able to agree unanimously on the guilt of the prisoner before them, even without the usual discussion amongst themselves, so as to hurry toward the calling out of my name. This calling duly came, whereupon Judge Bester reddened with fury and with a roar charged that I had somehow contrived to alter the calendar and that he would see me punished horribly for such a crime. Judge Hale, more calmly than his brother judge but in a rage none the less, called my jailor forth and put to him these questions:
Hale: John Bethel, you were posted throughout the night in your office at the prison, were you not?
Jailor: It is my duty, Sir.
Hale: Did this man pass you or was he in any way absent from his cell during the night?
Jailor: No, Sir, he did not and he was not.
Hale: How, then, do you think he altered the calendar?
Jailor: I am but a jailor, Sir, and thus I have no thoughts on the matter. Since, however, it was recorded that he was to be brought to trial here today, I did not know what else to do with him but to bring him straightway here so that you might try him. To delay or otherwise obstruct his being tried, Sir, would be to foul the law and the numerous statutes of procedure.