Judges."[1] It would show proofs of devotion and self-sacrifice for the outlawed, hunted, hungry Whalley, Goffe, and Dickinson as brave, unswerving, and unselfish as the loyalty of the Penderels to their fugitive sovereign. It would disclose the same expedients for their security; how one stout-hearted woman had a false floor made, or two floors for her garret so deep between the joists that the three men might lie in it by night and day if need were; how she strewed the upper floor with reeds, and wiled away the soldiers from their frequent search; how the fugitive judges, when they transferred their hiding-place to the cave, were startled on the first night by two fiery eyes that glared at them more fiercely than any human pursuers could do, but felt relieved when they found that it was a panther instead of one of the soldiers of Charles II. I am sure that book would now have a wide reading in England, if republished here; for it is full of that romance of adventure, heroism, and fidelity which few modern novels present in their fictitious experiences.
Capern essayed to descend through the trap door into this apartment, but although many ladies had squeezed through the narrow passage, in all the amplitude of the late fashion, he, being less compressible, though not "more fat than bard beseems," stuck midway, and wriggled up again
- ↑ "A History of Three of the Judges of King Charles I" (1794), by Ezra Stiles. (Wikisource contributor note)
