e no
submission. "I am an aged man," he said, "and what remains to me of life
is not worth a falsehood or a baseness. I have always been a republican;
and I am so still." He was sent back to the West and hanged. The people
remarked with awe and wonder that the beasts which were to drag him to
the gallows became restive and went back. Holmes himself doubted not
that the Angel of the Lord, as in the old time, stood in the way sword
in hand, invisible to human eyes, but visible to the inferior animals.
"Stop, gentlemen," he cried: "let me go on foot. There is more in this
than you think. Remember how the ass saw him whom the prophet could not
see." He walked manfully to the gallows, harangued the people with a
smile, prayed fervently that God would hasten the downfall of Antichrist
and the deliverance of England, and went up the ladder with an apology
for mounting so awkwardly. "You see," he said, "I have but one arm."
[450]

Not less courageously died Christopher Balttiscombe, a young Templar
of good family and fortune, who, at Dorchester, an agreeable provincial
town proud of its taste and refinement, was regarded by all as the
model of a fine gentleman. Great interest was made to save him. It was
believed through the West of England that he was engaged to a young lady
of gentle blood, the sister of the Sheriff, that she threw herself at
the feet of Jeffreys to beg for mercy, and that Jeffreys drove her from
him with a jest so hideous that to repeat it would be an offence
against decency and humanity. Her lover suffered at Lyme piously and
courageously. [451]

A still deeper interest was excited by the fate of two gallant brothers,
William and Benjamin Hewling. They were young, handsome, accomplished,
and well connected. Their maternal grandfather was named Kiffin. He was
one of the first merchants in London, and was generally considered as
the head of the Baptists. The Chief Justice behaved to William Hewling
on the trial with characteristic brutality. "You have a grandfather,"
he said, "who deserves to be hanged as richly as you." The poor lad, who
was only nineteen, suffered death with so much meekness and fortitude,
that an officer of the army who attended the execution, and who had made
himself remarkable by rudeness and severity, was strangely melted, and
said, "I do not believe that my Lord Chief Justice himself could be
proof against this." Hopes were entertained that Benjamin would be
pardoned. One victim of t