"EDW. COKE "WILL. DANYELL. "EDW. VAUGHAN. "R. WATSON. "RYC. YOUNG."
"On learning the seizure of our house at London," Father Gerard continues, "and my host's imprisonment, I went down to his country house to settle with his wife and friends what was to be done, and put all our effects in safe keeping. As we wanted the altar furniture for the approaching Easter, we sent very little of it to our friends. Of course I could not stay away from my entertainers at so holy a time, especially as they were in sorrow and trouble. In Holy Week the treacherous servant came from London with a letter from his master, wherein the latter set forth all that had befallen him, the questions that had been put to him, and his answers. This letter, though seen, had been let pass for the credit of the bearer, to give him a chance of seeing whether I was in the house at this solemn season. He brought me another letter from my servant, whose capture I spoke of above. When from the traitor's information they knew him to be my servant, hoping to wrest from him the disclosure of his friends and abettors, they kept him in solitary confinement in the loathsome prison of Bridewell. The purport of the letter was how he had denied everything,(53) what threats had been held out to him, and what his sufferings were in prison. He had, he said, hardly enough black bread to keep him from starving; his abode was a narrow strongly-built cell, in which there was no bed, so that he had to sleep sitting on the window-sill, and was months without taking off his clothes. There was a little straw in the place, but it was so trodden down and swarming with vermin that he could not lie on it. But what was most intolerable to him was their leaving all that came from him in an open vessel in that narrow den, so that he was continually distressed and almost stifled by the smell. Besides all this, he was daily awaiting an examination by torture.
"While reading the letter to my hostess in presence of the traitor, I chanced to say at this last part, 'I wish I could bear some of his tortures, so that there might be less for him.' It was these words of mine that let us know later on who was the traitor, and author of all our woes. For when I was taken and questioned, and declared I was quite unacquainted with the family, those who were examining me forgot their secret, and cried out, 'What lies you tell!--did you not say so-and-so before such a lady, as you read your servant's letter?' But I still denied it, giving them good reasons, however, why, even if it had been true, I could and ought to have denied it.(54) But to take up the thread of my story.