CHAPTER XIV.


I was conducted to the keeper's room for that night, and the two men sat
up with me. I was accosted with many interrogatories, to which I gave
little answer, but complained of the hurt in my leg. To this I could
obtain no reply, except "Curse you, my lad! if that be all, we will give
you some ointment for that; we will anoint it with a little cold iron."
They were indeed excessively sulky with me, for having broken their
night's rest, and given them all this trouble. In the morning they were
as good as their word, fixing a pair of fetters upon both my legs,
regardless of the ankle which was now swelled to a considerable size,
and then fastening me, with a padlock, to a staple in the floor of my
dungeon. I expostulated with warmth upon this treatment, and told them,
that I was a man upon whom the law as yet had passed no censure, and who
therefore, in the eye of the law, was innocent. But they bid me keep
such fudge for people who knew no better; they knew what they did, and
would answer it to any court in England.

The pain of the fetter was intolerable. I endeavoured in various ways to
relieve it, and even privily to free my leg; but the more it was
swelled, the more was this rendered impossible. I then resolved to bear
it with patience: still, the longer it continued, the worse it grew.
After two days and two nights, I entreated the turnkey to go and ask the
surgeon, who usually attended the prison, to look at it, for, if it
continued longer as it was, I was convinced it would mortify. But he
glared surlily at me, and said, "Damn my blood! I should like to see