And singular
it is, that the suspicion was due entirely to his own folly. Williams
lodged, in company with other men of various nations, at a public-house.
In a large dormitory there were arranged five or six beds; these were
occupied by artisans, generally of respectable character. One or two
Englishmen there were, one or two Scotchmen, three or four Germans, and
Williams, whose birth-place was not certainly known. On the fatal Saturday
night, about half-past one o'clock, when Williams returned from his
dreadful labors, he found the English and Scotch party asleep, but the
Germans awake: one of them was sitting up with a lighted candle in his
hands, and reading aloud to the other two. Upon this, Williams said, in an
angry and very peremptory tone, 'Oh, put that candle out; put it out
directly; we shall all be burned in our beds.' Had the British party in
the room been awake, Mr. Williams would have roused a mutinous protest
against this arrogant mandate. But Germans are generally mild and facile
in their tempers; so the light was complaisantly extinguished. Yet, as
there were no curtains, it struck the Germans that the danger was really
none at all; for bed-clothes, massed upon each other, will no more burn
than the leaves of a closed book. Privately, therefore, the Germans drew
an inference, that Mr. Williams must have had some urgent motive for
withdrawing his own person and dress from observation.
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