Page:Memoirs of a Huguenot Family.djvu/72

 66 tones, "Hang them! hang them!" The others felt for us deeply, they stood aloof and wept.

My companion was greatly alarmed; I tried to impart comfort by speaking kindly, and taking his hand and pressing it affectionately, which seemed to give him courage, but it made the papists very angry, for when they noticed it they re-doubled their threats. We were taken straight to the prison, where many of the principal Protestants came that very evening to show their compassionate interest. They were without any minister at the time, both of theirs being in confinement at La Reolle.

I told the good people they would probably soon have an opportunity of showing the strength of their sympathy by action, but, in the mean time, I felt grateful for their kind words, I then told them that I felt assured it would not be long before my poor neighbors would be my companions in prison, and then I should look to them for contributions towards their support. After they had left me, I made a bargain with the jailer to pay him so much a day for a bed for myself, and for the use of his private apartment.

I could easily have avoided imprisonment, by flight, but I had resolved to stand my ground, for the benefit of the poor people to whom I had ministered. I thought that by sharing their confinement I might be able to prevent those who should be hereafter brought to prison from changing their religion.

I determined, without loss of time, and before suspicion of my object could be aroused, to make the only arrangement by which I could hope to be useful to them, and that was, to obtain permission to pray aloud night and morning in the prison, an undertaking which hitherto, so far as I knew, no minister had dared to attempt.