As the locksmith walked slowly away from Sir John Chester's
chambers, he lingered under the trees which shaded the path, almost hoping that
he might be summoned to return. He had turned back thrice, and still loitered at
the corner, when the clock struck twelve.
It was a solemn sound, and not merely for its reference to to- morrow; for he
knew that in that chime the murderer's knell was rung. He had seen him pass
along the crowded street, amidst the execration of the throng; and marked his
quivering lip, and trembling limbs; the ashy hue upon his face, his clammy brow,
the wild distraction of his eye--the fear of death that swallowed up all other
thoughts, and gnawed without cessation at his heart and brain. He had marked the
wandering look, seeking for hope, and finding, turn where it would, despair. He
had seen the remorseful, pitiful, desolate creature, riding, with his coffin by
his side, to the gibbet. He knew that, to the last, he had been an unyielding,
obdurate man; that in the savage terror of his condition he had hardened, rather
than relented, to his wife and child; and that the last words which had passed
his white lips were curses on them as his enemies.
Mr Haredale had determined to be there, and see it done. Nothing but the
evidence of his own senses could satisfy that gloomy thirst for retribution
which had been gathering upon him for so many years. The locksmith knew this,
and when the chimes had ceased to vibrate, hurried away to meet him.
'For these two men,' he said, as he went, 'I can do no more. Heaven have
mercy on them!--Alas! I say I can do no more for them, but whom can I help? Mary
Rudge will have a home, and a firm friend when she most wants one; but
Barnaby--poor Barnaby--willing Barnaby--what aid can I render him? There are
many, many men of sense, God forgive me,' cried the honest locksmith, stopping
in a narrow count to pass his hand across his eyes, 'I could better afford to
lose than Barnaby. We have always been good friends, but I never knew, till now,
how much I loved the lad.'
There were not many in the great city who thought of Barnaby that day,
otherwise than as an actor in a show which was to take place to-morrow. But if
the whole population had had him in their minds, and had wished his life to be
spared, not one among them could have done so with a purer zeal or greater
singleness of heart than the good locksmith.
Barnaby was to die. There was no hope. It is not the least evil attendant
upon the frequent exhibition of this last dread punishment, of Death, that it
hardens the minds of those who deal it out, and makes them, though they be
amiable men in other respects, indifferent to, or unconscious of, their great
responsibility. The word had gone forth that Barnaby was to die. It went forth,
every month, for lighter crimes. It was a thing so common, that very few were
startled by the awful sentence, or cared to question its propriety. Just then,
too, when the law had been so flagrantly outraged, its dignity must be asserted.
The symbol of its dignity,--stamped upon every page of the criminal
statute-book,--was the gallows; and Barnaby was to die.
They had tried to save him. The locksmith had carried petitions and memorials
to the fountain-head, with his own hands. But the well was not one of mercy, and
Barnaby was to die.
From the first his mother had never left him, save at night; and with her
beside him, he was as usual contented. On this last day, he was more elated and
more proud than he had been yet; and when she dropped the book she had been
reading to him aloud, and fell upon his neck, he stopped in his busy task of
folding a piece of crape about his hat, and wondered at her anguish. Grip
uttered a feeble croak, half in encouragement, it seemed, and half in
remonstrance, but he wanted heart to sustain it, and lapsed abruptly into
silence.
With them who stood upon the brink of the great gulf which none can see
beyond, Time, so soon to lose itself in vast Eternity, rolled on like a mighty
river, swollen and rapid as it nears the sea. It was morning but now; they had
sat and talked together in a dream; and here was evening. The dreadful hour of
separation, which even yesterday had seemed so distant, was at hand.
They walked out into the courtyard, clinging to each other, but not speaking.
Barnaby knew that the jail was a dull, sad, miserable place, and looked forward
to to-morrow, as to a passage from it to something bright and beautiful. He had
a vague impression too, that he was expected to be brave--that he was a man of
great consequence, and that the prison people would be glad to make him weep. He
trod the ground more firmly as he thought of this, and bade her take heart and
cry no more, and feel how steady his hand was. 'They call me silly, mother. They
shall see to-morrow!'
Dennis and Hugh were in the courtyard. Hugh came forth from his cell as they
did, stretching himself as though he had been sleeping. Dennis sat upon a bench
in a corner, with his knees and chin huddled together, and rocked himself to and
fro like a person in severe pain.
The mother and son remained on one side of the court, and these two men upon
the other. Hugh strode up and down, glancing fiercely every now and then at the
bright summer sky, and looking round, when he had done so, at the walls.
'No reprieve, no reprieve! Nobody comes near us. There's only the night left
now!' moaned Dennis faintly, as he wrung his hands. 'Do you think they'll
reprieve me in the night, brother? I've known reprieves come in the night, afore
now. I've known 'em come as late as five, six, and seven o'clock in the morning.
Don't you think there's a good chance yet,--don't you? Say you do. Say you do,
young man,' whined the miserable creature, with an imploring gesture towards
Barnaby, 'or I shall go mad!'
'Better be mad than sane, here,' said Hugh. 'GO mad.'
'But tell me what you think. Somebody tell me what he thinks!' cried the
wretched object,--so mean, and wretched, and despicable, that even Pity's self
might have turned away, at sight of such a being in the likeness of a
man--'isn't there a chance for me,-- isn't there a good chance for me? Isn't it
likely they may be doing this to frighten me? Don't you think it is? Oh!' he
almost shrieked, as he wrung his hands, 'won't anybody give me comfort!'
'You ought to be the best, instead of the worst,' said Hugh, stopping before
him. 'Ha, ha, ha! See the hangman, when it comes home to him!'
'You don't know what it is,' cried Dennis, actually writhing as he spoke: 'I
do. That I should come to be worked off! I! I! That I should come!'
'And why not?' said Hugh, as he thrust back his matted hair to get a better
view of his late associate. 'How often, before I knew your trade, did I hear you
talking of this as if it was a treat?'
'I an't unconsistent,' screamed the miserable creature; 'I'd talk so again,
if I was hangman. Some other man has got my old opinions at this minute. That
makes it worse. Somebody's longing to work me off. I know by myself that
somebody must be!'
'He'll soon have his longing,' said Hugh, resuming his walk. 'Think of that,
and be quiet.'
Although one of these men displayed, in his speech and bearing, the most
reckless hardihood; and the other, in his every word and action, testified such
an extreme of abject cowardice that it was humiliating to see him; it would be
difficult to say which of them would most have repelled and shocked an observer.
Hugh's was the dogged desperation of a savage at the stake; the hangman was
reduced to a condition little better, if any, than that of a hound with the
halter round his neck. Yet, as Mr Dennis knew and could have told them, these
were the two commonest states of mind in persons brought to their pass. Such was
the wholesome growth of the seed sown by the law, that this kind of harvest was
usually looked for, as a matter of course.
In one respect they all agreed. The wandering and uncontrollable train of
thought, suggesting sudden recollections of things distant and long forgotten
and remote from each other--the vague restless craving for something undefined,
which nothing could satisfy--the swift flight of the minutes, fusing themselves
into hours, as if by enchantment--the rapid coming of the solemn night--the
shadow of death always upon them, and yet so dim and faint, that objects the
meanest and most trivial started from the gloom beyond, and forced themselves
upon the view--the impossibility of holding the mind, even if they had been so
disposed, to penitence and preparation, or of keeping it to any point while one
hideous fascination tempted it away--these things were common to them all, and
varied only in their outward tokens.
'Fetch me the book I left within--upon your bed,' she said to Barnaby, as the
clock struck. 'Kiss me first.'
He looked in her face, and saw there, that the time was come. After a long
embrace, he tore himself away, and ran to bring it to her; bidding her not stir
till he came back. He soon returned, for a shriek recalled him,--but she was
gone.
He ran to the yard-gate, and looked through. They were carrying her away. She
had said her heart would break. It was better so.
'Don't you think,' whimpered Dennis, creeping up to him, as he stood with his
feet rooted to the ground, gazing at the blank walls--'don't you think there's
still a chance? It's a dreadful end; it's a terrible end for a man like me.
Don't you think there's a chance? I don't mean for you, I mean for me. Don't let
HIM hear us (meaning Hugh); 'he's so desperate.'
Now then,' said the officer, who had been lounging in and out with his hands
in his pockets, and yawning as if he were in the last extremity for some subject
of interest: 'it's time to turn in, boys.'
'Not yet,' cried Dennis, 'not yet. Not for an hour yet.'
'I say,--your watch goes different from what it used to,' returned the man.
'Once upon a time it was always too fast. It's got the other fault now.'
'My friend,' cried the wretched creature, falling on his knees, 'my dear
friend--you always were my dear friend--there's some mistake. Some letter has
been mislaid, or some messenger has been stopped upon the way. He may have
fallen dead. I saw a man once, fall down dead in the street, myself, and he had
papers in his pocket. Send to inquire. Let somebody go to inquire. They never
will hang me. They never can.--Yes, they will,' he cried, starting to his feet
with a terrible scream. 'They'll hang me by a trick, and keep the pardon back.
It's a plot against me. I shall lose my life!' And uttering another yell, he
fell in a fit upon the ground.
'See the hangman when it comes home to him!' cried Hugh again, as they bore
him away--'Ha ha ha! Courage, bold Barnaby, what care we? Your hand! They do
well to put us out of the world, for if we got loose a second time, we wouldn't
let them off so easy, eh? Another shake! A man can die but once. If you wake in
the night, sing that out lustily, and fall asleep again. Ha ha ha!'
Barnaby glanced once more through the grate into the empty yard; and then
watched Hugh as he strode to the steps leading to his sleeping-cell. He heard
him shout, and burst into a roar of laughter, and saw him flourish his hat. Then
he turned away himself, like one who walked in his sleep; and, without any sense
of fear or sorrow, lay down on his pallet, listening for the clock to strike
again.
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