Russell Banks - Outer Banks

I believe that the clerk of the court was a weak and easily frightened man, for at this he turned and stalked furiously from my presence. My jailor was at first moved to laughter, but after a moment, when he saw that mirth had not been my intent, he sombered and declared his affection for my methods, though he said he was repelled by my cause. This did not dismay or discourage me, for I had long ago undergone the type of self-scrutiny that weds method to cause; and therefore I knew my jailor’s lack of affection for my cause was only due to his ignorance of it, whereas his appreciation of what he called my methods could only be due to a clear readiness for conversion.

And indeed, before the next quarter-sessions came to term, my jailor, whose name was John Bethel, had begun to open his heart and understanding to the mystery of the dead and had commenced joining me in my cell for evening prayer and contemplation. He had not yet his own coffin and therefore was compelled to close himself in his arms where two walls meet, as is the custom for those among the brethren who, for reasons, have not their own coffins at ready access. But when he had frequently observed my emergence from prayer and had glimpsed indirectly thereby the grace and relief obtained, he thereupon had each time attempted to elicit from me the name of one by whom he himself might have a coffin built.

I greeted his repeated request with deeply troubled feelings. On the one hand, I took delight from what appeared to be a case of genuine conversion to the understanding that supercedes all understanding, and I knew that without his own coffin in which to closet himself for prayer and contemplation, my brother John Bethel would eventually see his questing fall back upon itself, like a vine with nothing to attach itself to, there to wither and die. This possibility, nay, this likelihood! grieved me, and I would determine at once to provide him with the name of one of those among us who would build him a coffin, when, as I paced my cell waiting for my jailor to make his evening round and appear to me, it would seem to me that his request for information, such as the name of one who would build him a coffin, was but a subtle ruse designed to induce me to expose and incriminate and thereby condemn one of my beloved brethren to the fate I now endured. And thus I would close my mind as if it were a fist, and I would swear never to reveal the names of my fellow worshippers of the dead, even if tortured and brought to the very gateway of death itself. I had no fear of torture in those years, any more than I do today, for I was filled with the knowledge that if one among the living were to bring me to the very gateway of death and there threaten to hurl me through, it would be as if he were threatening to hurl me into the arms of my dead parents and long-departed ancestors, and I would at such a moment urge him onward, not to confound him, as I am sure it would do, but so as to end this agony of separation.

While I was yet enduring this quandary with regard to the question of the conversion of my jailor John Bethel, as it was now some weeks beyond the second quarter-sessions of the meeting of the justices of the parish for the purposes of trying all those previously indicted and not yet tried in public court and still I had not yet been called forth so to be tried, though I continued to languish in jail fully as if I had indeed been tried and convicted of those crimes for which I had merely been indicted and had not confessed (except as to argue against the legitimacy of the laws which prohibit acts of worship of the dead such as my brethren are known to participate in), came the time of the solstice. Now at the solstice there is usually a general releasement of divers prisoners, by virtue since ancient days of the high feelings surrounding the event, in which privilege I also should have had my share. But they would not take me for a convicted person, unless I were willing to sue out a pardon (as they called it), by means of which I would recant all my previous statements and activities as had got me indicted in the first place. Therefore, since I was no more willing under these new circumstances to recant and deny than I had been when under more durable and oppressing circumstances twenty weeks before, I could have no benefit of the solstice. Whereupon, while I continued in prison, my good wife went unto the several justices, that I might be heard and that they would impartially take my case into public consideration.

There were three, and the first that my wife did plead unto was Judge Hale, who was celebrated for his learning and deep probity and who was known for his leniency towards dissenters of various sorts. He very mildly received her, telling her that he would do her and me the best good he could, but he feared, said he, that he could do none.

The following day, lest the judges should, by the multitude of their business, forget me, she did throw another petition onto the table of Judge Twisdom, who, when he saw it and had read it through, snapped her up and angrily informed her that I was a convicted person already and could not be released unless I would promise to make no more coffins and not to teach others, &c.

After this disappointment, she went unto Judge Bester, who, in the mild presence of Judge Hale, stood and declared loudly and angrily that I was convicted by the court and that I was a hot spirited fellow, whereat he waved the petition in the air above his head and shouted that he would not meddle therewith.

But yet my wife, being encouraged by the seeming kindly face and manner of Judge Hale, did persist, saying that I had been indicted merely and had confessed to no crime and had not been tried, yet I was both confined to prison and at the same time was not to receive the indulgences prompted by the solstice that all other prisoners were to be granted. The place where this interview took place was called the Lion’s Chamber, where there were then situated the two judges and also many gentry and officers of the several towns in the parish. My wife, coming into them with a bashed face and a trembling heart and voice, began her errand to them in this manner:

Woman: My Lord (directing herself to Judge Hale), I make bold to come once again to your Lordship to know what may be done with my husband.

Hale: Woman, I have told you that I can do you and your husband no good, because they have taken that for a conviction which your husband has already spoken at the indictment. And unless there be something done to un-do that, I can do you no good.

Woman: My Lord, he was clapped into prison…

One of the gentry in the room, interrupting her: My Lord, the man was lawfully convicted! Why waste your precious time?

Woman: False! False!

Whereupon Judge Bester answered very angrily, saying that my wife must think that judges could do whatever they wished, whereas it seemed instead that her husband, meaning me, was the one who at this very moment was standing at prison for attempting to do whatever he wished. Did she desire that they too, meaning the judges and various gentry in the room, should end standing in prison alongside her husband? He laughed loudly at this.

Woman: But my Lord, he was not lawfully convicted.

Bester: He was.

Woman: No, he was not.

Bester: Indeed he was!

Hale: He was.

One of the gentry: Get this woman from out the room! She is a disrupter!

Bester: He was convicted! It is recorded! It is recorded! he continued crying, as if it must be of necessity true because it was so recorded. With which words, he and the others in the chamber, for they had taken up the cry, attempted to stop up her mouth, having no other argument to convince her but, It is recorded! It is recorded!

Here Judge Hale, trying to restore order, but not so greatly interested in restoring justice, interrupted and declared that none should talk about this matter any further, for he (meaning me) cannot do whatever he wishes, and he (meaning me again) has proved himself a breaker of the peace if not a heretic.