to Tickhill,
where I was moved to go to the steeple-house. But when I began to speak
they fell upon me, and the clerk took up his Bible and struck me in the
face with it, so that it gushed out with blood, and I bled exceedingly
in the steeple-house. Then the people got me out and beat me
exceedingly, stoning me as they drew me along, so that I was besmeared
all over with blood and dirt. Yet when I got upon my legs again I
declared to them the word of life. Some moderate justices, hearing of
it, came to hear and examine the business, and he that shed my blood was
afraid of having his hand cut off for striking me in the church (as they
called it), but I forgave him, and would not appear against him.

Then I went to Swarthmore to Judge Fell's, and from there to Ulverstone,
where the people heard me gladly, until Justice Sawrey--the first
stirrer-up of cruel persecution in the North--incensed them against me,
to hale, beat, and bruise me, and the rude multitude, some with staves
and others with holly-bushes, beat me on the head, arms, and shoulders
till they deprived me of sense. And my body and arms were yellow, black,
and blue with the blows I received that day, and I was not able to bear
the shaking of a horse without much pain. And Judge Fell, coming home,
asked me to give him a relation of my persecution, but I made light of
it--as he told his wife--as a man that had not been concerned, for,
indeed, the Lord's power healed me again.

_V.--Encounters with Cromwell_

When I came to Leicester I was carried up a prisoner by Captain Drury,
one of the Protector's life-guards, who brought me to London and lodged
me at the Mermaid, over against the Mews at Charing Cross. And I was
moved of the Lord to write a paper to Oliver Cromwell, wherein I
declared against all violence, and that I was sent of God to bring the
people from the causes of war and fighting to a peaceable gospel. After
some time Captain Drury brought me before the Protector himself at
Whitehall, and I spoke much to him of truth and religion, wherein he
carried himself very moderately; and as I spoke he several times said it
was very good and it was truth, and he wished me no more ill than he did
his own soul.

When I went into Cornwall I was seized and brought to Launceston to be
tried, and being settled in prison upon such a commitment that we were
not likely to be soon released, we were put down into Doomsdale, a
nasty, stinking place where they put m