The quickly forthcoming order of the court (Judge Saltonstall) that John Rogers shall be placed in irons at need, “for preventing mischief,” is but the beginning of the plot now in contemplation.
By further order of the judge and governor (one and the same) John Rogers is to be conducted from the ordinary prison to the “inner” prison.[114] The latter is not yet finished, and is half a mile from the house of the jailer. It has as yet no underpinning, but stands above the ground on blocks. The green planks of which the floor was made are much shrunken, leaving large cracks for the entrance of the wind, and there is “an open window towards the northwest.” There is no fireplace, nor any means for making a fire; moreover, by the orders, no fire is to be allowed this prisoner.[114] It is October and unusually cold and stormy for this time of year.
For John Roger’s description of this prison and his imprisonment, see Part I., Chapter V.
How does John Rogers, Jr., manage to communicate with his father in this place? He must scale the high fence surrounding the prison yard, to make his way to the “open window” of the prison, whose grates will not admit the passage of any fuel, even if a place could be found within in which to make a fire. This son comes, under cover of the darkness, to give such aid and comfort as he may, and especially in the cold nights, which indicates that he contrives to furnish some slight means of warmth.
Until November 16 of this unusually inclement season, John Rogers, at the age of sixty-three, is a solitary prisoner in this inner prison, with such apology for a fire as his son can provide, by coming two miles after dark to the prison window.
Governor Saltonstall, sitting beside his beaming hearth, already furnished with its huge back-log, gives no pitiful thought to the man whom he has denied an honest trial, and now forbids so much as a fire to keep him from death’s door.
On the bitter cold night of November 16, John, Jr., coming the long two miles over the rough Mohegan road, and making his way, by scaling the prison fence, to the grated, open window, finds his father incapable of the usual intelligent response. Over the fence again he hurries, and out into the streets of the sleeping town, calling loudly at the sheriff’s house: “You have murdered my father in prison to-night!!!” “The Authority has murdered my father!!!” (County Court Record.) Not only are the sheriff, his instigators and their sympathizers aroused by this loud and ringing cry of alarm in the dead of night, but also some of the many who are friendly to the prisoner. These latter spring with alacrity from their beds, at the news that John Rogers is dead, or dying, on this wild night, in the distant and fireless inner prison, through which the bitter winds are whistling.