Dunham

July 4, 1776, Newgate Prison, London

cold

wet

dark

hunger

filth

stench

humiliation

pain

madness

death

England’s traitor awaited the court’s verdict sitting in a puddle of his own filth on freezing stone, even in summer, barely able to move for cold and pain:

his back against the equally freezing stone wall,

his knees up and his arms propped across them,

his head hung low,

his ankles with bracelets of iron, a short length of chain betwixt them to hobble him; a matching set gracing his wrists—the two chains connected by a third to keep him secure from escape,

his waist-length hair matted, filthy, crawling with lice and maggots,

his beard, thick and coarse, itching and crawling with the same vermin as his hair,

his body emaciated and weak, his stomach aching from hunger.

Two years.

He had been sitting thusly for two years here whilst his trial lumbered toward the inevitable conclusion of his execution.

To keep his mind sharp, he created word puzzles and riddles. He made lists of the books in the library at home and which ones he had read. He named the names of every tenant, villager, and boarder on his estate.

To make himself laugh, he recited by memory long passages from Pope’s Dunciad; following that, the works that had inspired such brilliant insults. He stood in the middle of his cell and delivered monologues from Shakespeare and Marlowe, twisting them beyond recognition into bad puns that made him cackle at his own jokes.

To keep his sanity, he recalled his boyhood, spent running hither and yon with his older siblings, racing their horses through the woods, hunting small animals with primitive snares and weapons, playing games with the village children, sneaking into the sea caves to hunt pirate treasure.

To keep hope alive, he flew far away from this place, to the Ohio river valley he had found and made his home for a fortnight, land he had coveted so much he had paced it off as if to verify a purchase. Upon reflection, he should have known it could never have been his, but in this time and place, as it had for the last two years, it was.

He split logs for the fences that corralled his bleating, stinking sheep. He walked behind yoked oxen guiding a plow, his feet bare in the cool, damp, rich black dirt that had never before met steel. He dug precise holes into which he carefully set saplings for apples and pears, then carried water and mulch with which to nurture them. He mucked his horses’ stalls and milked his cows, and when he emerged from his stables, he looked over acres and acres of grain, pastureland, and meadows to the horizon—all his, as far as he could see.

He turned and saw his home, his beautiful home, the one he had built with his own hands, along with equally beautiful furnishings inside. Here, a rocking chair he had labored over. There, a well-designed roof hip he was particularly proud of.

A simply dressed woman waved to him from the porch, called his name, and returned the smile that grew upon his face. He could not see her very well, though, for he was rather far away. He could, however, hear his children squawking at one another over this favored toy or that—one he had made.