Page:An English Garner Ingatherings from Our History and Literature (Volume 1 1877).pdf/392

 and fellow-prisoner Master JOHN LOVELAND, lived together in one house. For by this time, not many of our people were as we were, that is, single men: but seeing so little hope, despaired of their liberty; and had taken wives or bedfellows.

At our first coming into this town, we were very much dismayed: it being one of the most dismal places that I have seen upon that land. It stands alone upon the top of a mountain and no other town near it, and has not above four or five houses in it. And oftentimes into this town, did the King use to send such malefactors as he was minded suddenly to cut off. Upon these accounts, our being brought to this place, could not but scare us; and the more because it was the King's special order and command to place us in this very town.

But this our trouble and dejection, thanks be to GOD! lasted but a day; for the King seemed to apprehend into what a fit of fear and sorrow, this our remove would cast us; and to be sensible, how sadly we must needs take it to change a sweet and pleasant country such as Handapondoun and the country adjacent was, for this most sad and dismal mountain. And therefore the next day came a comfortable message from the King's own mouth, sent by no less a man than he who had the chief power and command over those people, who were appointed to give us our victuals, where we were. This message which, as he said himself, he was ordered by the King to deliver to the people in our hearing, was this, "That they should not think that we were malefactors, that is, such, who having incurred the King's displeasure, were sent to be kept prisoners there; but men whom his Majesty did highly esteem and meant to promote to great honour in his service; and that they should respect us as such, and entertain us accordingly. And if their ability would not reach thereunto, it was the King's order," he said, "to bid them sell their cattle and goods, and when that was done, their wives and children: rather than we should want of our due allowance," which he ordered should be as formerly we used to have: "and if we had not houses thatched and sufficient for us to dwell in," he said, "we should change and take theirs."

This kind order from the King coming so suddenly, did not a little comfort and encourage us: for then we did perceive