At the Three Cups all was hurry and confusion. A great banquet was being prepared in the long upper chamber with the balcony which looked up the Fore Street and towards the Cornhill. But we scarce dared look out of the window ourselves, for just outside, a little to the right, where the space was wide and free, soldiers were hastily setting up a scaffold and gibbet. Close beside this gibbet had halted a cart filled with groaning and wounded prisoners, amongst whom was good Master Mason; and a whisper had already run through the crowd that they were to be hanged and dismembered that very day as an accompaniment to the Colonel's banquet.
I am proud to say that no Somersetshire man could be found to do the hideous work of executioner here. The Colonel had had to send for the executioner from Exeter to do his horrid work. This functionary, whose gigantic frame and scowling face were enough to inspire terror in the hearts of all beholders, was already preparing for his bloody task. He had a great axe and two or three sharp long butcher's knives laid out before him, and he was calling to the people to bring faggots and billets for the making of a great fire.
We knew not for what the fire was intended, but we were to know all too soon.
Sounds of revelry and mirth soon arose from the upper chamber where the Colonel and his officers were feasting. Little recked those fierce men of the horror and terror and agony that reigned in Taunton. They had come to punish rebellion, and to strike terror into the hearts of all who had been concerned in this thing; and Taunton above all places had been most deeply implicated.
How shall I speak of the horrors of that day? When the carouse was at its height, the Colonel, inflamed with wine, appeared upon the balcony, and his half-drunk officers with him, and gave the signal to the executioner to commence his task. Already a row of twenty gibbets had been erected, and the twenty white and wounded prisoners upon the carts had been set in order beside them. Master John Mason, whom all Taunton knew and loved, was kneeling devoutly, praying for himself and his fellow-sufferers, and heeding nothing of what was passing. Some of those near to him followed his words with tears and ejaculations, and most of these were calm and resigned; though some, seeing their dear ones weeping in the crowd, could not keep back their own tears, though all striving to face death bravely.