I had soon read all the tracts that were left there, and
examined where former prisoners had broken out, and where a grate
had been sawed off, and heard the history of the various occupants
of that room; for I found that even here there was a history and a
gossip which never circulated beyond the walls of the jail. Probably
this is the only house in the town where verses are composed, which
are afterward printed in a circular form, but not published. I was
shown quite a long list of verses which were composed by some young
men who had been detected in an attempt to escape, who avenged
themselves by singing them.
I pumped my fellow-prisoner as dry as I could, for fear I should
never see him again; but at length he showed me which was my bed,
and left me to blow out the lamp.
It was like travelling into a far country, such as I had never
expected to behold, to lie there for one night. It seemed to me that I
never had heard the town clock strike before, nor the evening sounds
of the village; for we slept with the windows open, which were
inside the grating. It was to see my native village in the light of
the Middle Ages, and our Concord was turned into a Rhine stream, and
visions of knights and castles passed before me.
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