Breaking the silence they had hitherto preserved, they raised a
great cry as soon as they were ranged before the jail, and demanded to speak to
the governor. This visit was not wholly unexpected, for his house, which fronted
the street, was strongly barricaded, the wicket-gate of the prison was closed
up, and at no loophole or grating was any person to be seen. Before they had
repeated their summons many times, a man appeared upon the roof of the
governor's house, and asked what it was they wanted.
Some said one thing, some another, and some only groaned and hissed. It being
now nearly dark, and the house high, many persons in the throng were not aware
that any one had come to answer them, and continued their clamour until the
intelligence was gradually diffused through the whole concourse. Ten minutes or
more elapsed before any one voice could be heard with tolerable distinctness;
during which interval the figure remained perched alone, against the
summer-evening sky, looking down into the troubled street.
'Are you,' said Hugh at length, 'Mr Akerman, the head jailer here?'
'Of course he is, brother,' whispered Dennis. But Hugh, without minding him,
took his answer from the man himself.
'Yes,' he said. 'I am.'
'You have got some friends of ours in your custody, master.'
'I have a good many people in my custody.' He glanced downward, as he spoke,
into the jail: and the feeling that he could see into the different yards, and
that he overlooked everything which was hidden from their view by the rugged
walls, so lashed and goaded the mob, that they howled like wolves.
'Deliver up our friends,' said Hugh, 'and you may keep the rest.'
'It's my duty to keep them all. I shall do my duty.'
'If you don't throw the doors open, we shall break 'em down,' said Hugh; 'for
we will have the rioters out.'
'All I can do, good people,' Akerman replied, 'is to exhort you to disperse;
and to remind you that the consequences of any disturbance in this place, will
be very severe, and bitterly repented by most of you, when it is too late.'
He made as though he would retire when he said these words, but he was
checked by the voice of the locksmith.
'Mr Akerman,' cried Gabriel, 'Mr Akerman.'
'I will hear no more from any of you,' replied the governor, turning towards
the speaker, and waving his hand.
'But I am not one of them,' said Gabriel. 'I am an honest man, Mr Akerman; a
respectable tradesman--Gabriel Varden, the locksmith. You know me?'
'You among the crowd!' cried the governor in an altered voice.
'Brought here by force--brought here to pick the lock of the great door for
them,' rejoined the locksmith. 'Bear witness for me, Mr Akerman, that I refuse
to do it; and that I will not do it, come what may of my refusal. If any
violence is done to me, please to remember this.'
'Is there no way (if helping you?' said the governor.
'None, Mr Akerman. You'll do your duty, and I'll do mine. Once again, you
robbers and cut-throats,' said the locksmith, turning round upon them, 'I
refuse. Ah! Howl till you're hoarse. I refuse.'
'Stay--stay!' said the jailer, hastily. 'Mr Varden, I know you for a worthy
man, and one who would do no unlawful act except upon compulsion--'
'Upon compulsion, sir,' interposed the locksmith, who felt that the tone in
which this was said, conveyed the speaker's impression that he had ample excuse
for yielding to the furious multitude who beset and hemmed him in, on every
side, and among whom he stood, an old man, quite alone; 'upon compulsion, sir,
I'll do nothing.'
'Where is that man,' said the keeper, anxiously, 'who spoke to me just now?'
'Here!' Hugh replied.
'Do you know what the guilt of murder is, and that by keeping that honest
tradesman at your side you endanger his life!'
'We know it very well,' he answered, 'for what else did we bring him here?
Let's have our friends, master, and you shall have your friend. Is that fair,
lads?'
The mob replied to him with a loud Hurrah!
'You see how it is, sir?' cried Varden. 'Keep 'em out, in King George's name.
Remember what I have said. Good night!'
There was no more parley. A shower of stones and other missiles compelled the
keeper of the jail to retire; and the mob, pressing on, and swarming round the
walls, forced Gabriel Varden close up to the door.
In vain the basket of tools was laid upon the ground before him, and he was
urged in turn by promises, by blows, by offers of reward, and threats of instant
death, to do the office for which they had brought him there. 'No,' cried the
sturdy locksmith, 'I will not!'
He had never loved his life so well as then, but nothing could move him. The
savage faces that glared upon him, look where he would; the cries of those who
thirsted, like wild animals, for his blood; the sight of men pressing forward,
and trampling down their fellows, as they strove to reach him, and struck at him
above the heads of other men, with axes and with iron bars; all failed to daunt
him. He looked from man to man, and face to face, and still, with quickened
breath and lessening colour, cried firmly, 'I will not!'
Dennis dealt him a blow upon the face which felled him to the ground. He
sprung up again like a man in the prime of life, and with blood upon his
forehead, caught him by the throat.
'You cowardly dog!' he said: 'Give me my daughter. Give me my daughter.'
They struggled together. Some cried 'Kill him,' and some (but they were not
near enough) strove to trample him to death. Tug as he would at the old man's
wrists, the hangman could not force him to unclench his hands.
'Is this all the return you make me, you ungrateful monster?' he articulated
with great difficulty, and with many oaths.
'Give me my daughter!' cried the locksmith, who was now as fierce as those
who gathered round him: 'Give me my daughter!'
He was down again, and up, and down once more, and buffeting with a score of
them, who bandied him from hand to hand, when one tall fellow, fresh from a
slaughter-house, whose dress and great thigh- boots smoked hot with grease and
blood, raised a pole-axe, and swearing a horrible oath, aimed it at the old
man's uncovered head. At that instant, and in the very act, he fell himself, as
if struck by lightning, and over his body a one-armed man came darting to the
locksmith's side. Another man was with him, and both caught the locksmith
roughly in their grasp.
'Leave him to us!' they cried to Hugh--struggling, as they spoke, to force a
passage backward through the crowd. 'Leave him to us. Why do you waste your
whole strength on such as he, when a couple of men can finish him in as many
minutes! You lose time. Remember the prisoners! remember Barnaby!'
The cry ran through the mob. Hammers began to rattle on the walls; and every
man strove to reach the prison, and be among the foremost rank. Fighting their
way through the press and struggle, as desperately as if they were in the midst
of enemies rather than their own friends, the two men retreated with the
locksmith between them, and dragged him through the very heart of the concourse.
And now the strokes began to fall like hail upon the gate, and on the strong
building; for those who could not reach the door, spent their fierce rage on
anything--even on the great blocks of stone, which shivered their weapons into
fragments, and made their hands and arms to tingle as if the walls were active
in their stout resistance, and dealt them back their blows. The clash of iron
ringing upon iron, mingled with the deafening tumult and sounded high above it,
as the great sledge-hammers rattled on the nailed and plated door: the sparks
flew off in showers; men worked in gangs, and at short intervals relieved each
other, that all their strength might be devoted to the work; but there stood the
portal still, as grim and dark and strong as ever, and, saving for the dints
upon its battered surface, quite unchanged.
While some brought all their energies to bear upon this toilsome task; and
some, rearing ladders against the prison, tried to clamber to the summit of the
walls they were too short to scale; and some again engaged a body of police a
hundred strong, and beat them back and trod them under foot by force of numbers;
others besieged the house on which the jailer had appeared, and driving in the
door, brought out his furniture, and piled it up against the prison-gate, to
make a bonfire which should burn it down. As soon as this device was understood,
all those who had laboured hitherto, cast down their tools and helped to swell
the heap; which reached half-way across the street, and was so high, that those
who threw more fuel on the top, got up by ladders. When all the keeper's goods
were flung upon this costly pile, to the last fragment, they smeared it with the
pitch, and tar, and rosin they had brought, and sprinkled it with turpentine. To
all the woodwork round the prison-doors they did the like, leaving not a joist
or beam untouched. This infernal christening performed, they fired the pile with
lighted matches and with blazing tow, and then stood by, awaiting the result.
The furniture being very dry, and rendered more combustible by wax and oil,
besides the arts they had used, took fire at once. The flames roared high and
fiercely, blackening the prison-wall, and twining up its loftly front like
burning serpents. At first they crowded round the blaze, and vented their
exultation only in their looks: but when it grew hotter and fiercer--when it
crackled, leaped, and roared, like a great furnace--when it shone upon the
opposite houses, and lighted up not only the pale and wondering faces at the
windows, but the inmost corners of each habitation-- when through the deep red
heat and glow, the fire was seen sporting and toying with the door, now clinging
to its obdurate surface, now gliding off with fierce inconstancy and soaring
high into the sky, anon returning to fold it in its burning grasp and lure it to
its ruin--when it shone and gleamed so brightly that the church clock of St
Sepulchre's so often pointing to the hour of death, was legible as in broad day,
and the vane upon its steeple-top glittered in the unwonted light like something
richly jewelled-- when blackened stone and sombre brick grew ruddy in the deep
reflection, and windows shone like burnished gold, dotting the longest distance
in the fiery vista with their specks of brightness--when wall and tower, and
roof and chimney-stack, seemed drunk, and in the flickering glare appeared to
reel and stagger-- when scores of objects, never seen before, burst out upon the
view, and things the most familiar put on some new aspect--then the mob began to
join the whirl, and with loud yells, and shouts, and clamour, such as happily is
seldom heard, bestirred themselves to feed the fire, and keep it at its height.
Although the heat was so intense that the paint on the houses over against
the prison, parched and crackled up, and swelling into boils, as it were from
excess of torture, broke and crumbled away; although the glass fell from the
window-sashes, and the lead and iron on the roofs blistered the incautious hand
that touched them, and the sparrows in the eaves took wing, and rendered giddy
by the smoke, fell fluttering down upon the blazing pile; still the fire was
tended unceasingly by busy hands, and round it, men were going always. They
never slackened in their zeal, or kept aloof, but pressed upon the flames so
hard, that those in front had much ado to save themselves from being thrust in;
if one man swooned or dropped, a dozen struggled for his place, and that
although they knew the pain, and thirst, and pressure to be unendurable. Those
who fell down in fainting-fits, and were not crushed or burnt, were carried to
an inn-yard close at hand, and dashed with water from a pump; of which buckets
full were passed from man to man among the crowd; but such was the strong desire
of all to drink, and such the fighting to be first, that, for the most part, the
whole contents were spilled upon the ground, without the lips of one man being
moistened.
Meanwhile, and in the midst of all the roar and outcry, those who were
nearest to the pile, heaped up again the burning fragments that came toppling
down, and raked the fire about the door, which, although a sheet of flame, was
still a door fast locked and barred, and kept them out. Great pieces of blazing
wood were passed, besides, above the people's heads to such as stood about the
ladders, and some of these, climbing up to the topmost stave, and holding on
with one hand by the prison wall, exerted all their skill and force to cast
these fire-brands on the roof, or down into the yards within. In many instances
their efforts were successful; which occasioned a new and appalling addition to
the horrors of the scene: for the prisoners within, seeing from between their
bars that the fire caught in many places and thrived fiercely, and being all
locked up in strong cells for the night, began to know that they were in danger
of being burnt alive. This terrible fear, spreading from cell to cell and from
yard to yard, vented itself in such dismal cries and wailings, and in such
dreadful shrieks for help, that the whole jail resounded with the noise; which
was loudly heard even above the shouting of the mob and roaring of the flames,
and was so full of agony and despair, that it made the boldest tremble.
It was remarkable that these cries began in that quarter of the jail which
fronted Newgate Street, where, it was well known, the men who were to suffer
death on Thursday were confined. And not only were these four who had so short a
time to live, the first to whom the dread of being burnt occurred, but they
were, throughout, the most importunate of all: for they could be plainly heard,
notwithstanding the great thickness of the walls, crying that the wind set that
way, and that the flames would shortly reach them; and calling to the officers
of the jail to come and quench the fire from a cistern which was in their yard,
and full of water. Judging from what the crowd outside the walls could hear from
time to time, these four doomed wretches never ceased to call for help; and that
with as much distraction, and in as great a frenzy of attachment to existence,
as though each had an honoured, happy life before him, instead of
eight-and-forty hours of miserable imprisonment, and then a violent and shameful
death.
But the anguish and suffering of the two sons of one of these men, when they
heard, or fancied that they heard, their father's voice, is past description.
After wringing their hands and rushing to and fro as if they were stark mad, one
mounted on the shoulders of his brother, and tried to clamber up the face of the
high wall, guarded at the top with spikes and points of iron. And when he fell
among the crowd, he was not deterred by his bruises, but mounted up again, and
fell again, and, when he found the feat impossible, began to beat the stones and
tear them with his hands, as if he could that way make a breach in the strong
building, and force a passage in. At last, they cleft their way among the mob
about the door, though many men, a dozen times their match, had tried in vain to
do so, and were seen, in--yes, in--the fire, striving to prize it down, with
crowbars.
Nor were they alone affected by the outcry from within the prison. The women
who were looking on, shrieked loudly, beat their hands together, stopped their
ears; and many fainted: the men who were not near the walls and active in the
siege, rather than do nothing, tore up the pavement of the street, and did so
with a haste and fury they could not have surpassed if that had been the jail,
and they were near their object. Not one living creature in the throng was for
an instant still. The whole great mass were mad.
A shout! Another! Another yet, though few knew why, or what it meant. But
those around the gate had seen it slowly yield, and drop from its topmost hinge.
It hung on that side by but one, but it was upright still, because of the bar,
and its having sunk, of its own weight, into the heap of ashes at its foot.
There was now a gap at the top of the doorway, through which could be descried a
gloomy passage, cavernous and dark. Pile up the fire!
It burnt fiercely. The door was red-hot, and the gap wider. They vainly tried
to shield their faces with their hands, and standing as if in readiness for a
spring, watched the place. Dark figures, some crawling on their hands and knees,
some carried in the arms of others, were seen to pass along the roof. It was
plain the jail could hold out no longer. The keeper, and his officers, and their
wives and children, were escaping. Pile up the fire!
The door sank down again: it settled deeper in the cinders--
tottered--yielded--was down!
As they shouted again, they fell back, for a moment, and left a clear space
about the fire that lay between them and the jail entry. Hugh leapt upon the
blazing heap, and scattering a train of sparks into the air, and making the dark
lobby glitter with those
that hung upon his dress, dashed into the jail.
The hangman followed. And then so many rushed upon their track, that the fire
got trodden down and thinly strewn about the street; but there was no need of it
now, for, inside and out, the prison was in flames.
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