The time wore on. The noises in the streets became less
frequent by degrees, until silence was scarcely broken save by the bells in
church towers, marking the progress--softer and more stealthy while the city
slumbered--of that Great Watcher with the hoary head, who never sleeps or rests.
In the brief interval of darkness and repose which feverish towns enjoy, all
busy sounds were hushed; and those who awoke from dreams lay listening in their
beds, and longed for dawn, and wished the dead of the night were past.
Into the street outside the jail's main wall, workmen came straggling at this
solemn hour, in groups of two or three, and meeting in the centre, cast their
tools upon the ground and spoke in whispers. Others soon issued from the jail
itself, bearing on their shoulders planks and beams: these materials being all
brought forth, the rest bestirred themselves, and the dull sound of hammers
began to echo through the stillness.
Here and there among this knot of labourers, one, with a lantern or a smoky
link, stood by to light his fellows at their work; and by its doubtful aid, some
might be dimly seen taking up the pavement of the road, while others held great
upright posts, or fixed them in the holes thus made for their reception. Some
dragged slowly on, towards the rest, an empty cart, which they brought rumbling
from the prison-yard; while others erected strong barriers across the street.
All were busily engaged. Their dusky figures moving to and fro, at that unusual
hour, so active and so silent, might have been taken for those of shadowy
creatures toiling at midnight on some ghostly unsubstantial work, which, like
themselves, would vanish with the first gleam of day, and leave but morning mist
and vapour.
While it was yet dark, a few lookers-on collected, who had plainly come there
for the purpose and intended to remain: even those who had to pass the spot on
their way to some other place, lingered, and lingered yet, as though the
attraction of that were irresistible. Meanwhile the noise of saw and mallet went
on briskly, mingled with the clattering of boards on the stone pavement of the
road, and sometimes with the workmen's voices as they called to one another.
Whenever the chimes of the neighbouring church were heard--and that was every
quarter of an hour--a strange sensation, instantaneous and indescribable, but
perfectly obvious, seemed to pervade them all.
Gradually, a faint brightness appeared in the east, and the air, which had
been very warm all through the night, felt cool and chilly. Though there was no
daylight yet, the darkness was diminished, and the stars looked pale. The
prison, which had been a mere black mass with little shape or form, put on its
usual aspect; and ever and anon a solitary watchman could be seen upon its roof,
stopping to look down upon the preparations in the street. This man, from
forming, as it were, a part of the jail, and knowing or being supposed to know
all that was passing within, became an object of as much interest, and was as
eagerly looked for, and as awfully pointed out, as if he had been a spirit.
By and by, the feeble light grew stronger, and the houses with their
signboards and inscriptions, stood plainly out, in the dull grey morning. Heavy
stage waggons crawled from the inn-yard opposite; and travellers peeped out; and
as they rolled sluggishly away, cast many a backward look towards the jail. And
now, the sun's first beams came glancing into the street; and the night's work,
which, in its various stages and in the varied fancies of the lookers-on had
taken a hundred shapes, wore its own proper form--a scaffold, and a gibbet.
As the warmth of the cheerful day began to shed itself upon the scanty crowd,
the murmur of tongues was heard, shutters were thrown open, and blinds drawn up,
and those who had slept in rooms over against the prison, where places to see
the execution were let at high prices, rose hastily from their beds. In some of
the houses, people were busy taking out the window-sashes for the better
accommodation of spectators; in others, the spectators were already seated, and
beguiling the time with cards, or drink, or jokes among themselves. Some had
purchased seats upon the house-tops, and were already crawling to their stations
from parapet and garret- window. Some were yet bargaining for good places, and
stood in them in a state of indecision: gazing at the slowly-swelling crowd, and
at the workmen as they rested listlessly against the scaffold-- affecting to
listen with indifference to the proprietor's eulogy of the commanding view his
house afforded, and the surpassing cheapness of his terms.
A fairer morning never shone. From the roofs and upper stories of these
buildings, the spires of city churches and the great cathedral dome were
visible, rising up beyond the prison, into the blue sky, and clad in the colour
of light summer clouds, and showing in the clear atmosphere their every scrap of
tracery and fretwork, and every niche and loophole. All was brightness and
promise, excepting in the street below, into which (for it yet lay in shadow)
the eye looked down as into a dark trench, where, in the midst of so much life,
and hope, and renewal of existence, stood the terrible instrument of death. It
seemed as if the very sun forbore to look upon it.
But it was better, grim and sombre in the shade, than when, the day being
more advanced, it stood confessed in the full glare and glory of the sun, with
its black paint blistering, and its nooses dangling in the light like loathsome
garlands. It was better in the solitude and gloom of midnight with a few forms
clustering about it, than in the freshness and the stir of morning: the centre
of an eager crowd. It was better haunting the street like a spectre, when men
were in their beds, and influencing perchance the city's dreams, than braving
the broad day, and thrusting its obscene presence upon their waking senses.
Five o'clock had struck--six--seven--and eight. Along the two main streets at
either end of the cross-way, a living stream had now set in, rolling towards the
marts of gain and business. Carts, coaches, waggons, trucks, and barrows, forced
a passage through the outskirts of the throng, and clattered onward in the same
direction. Some of these which were public conveyances and had come from a short
distance in the country, stopped; and the driver pointed to the gibbet with his
whip, though he might have spared himself the pains, for the heads of all the
passengers were turned that way without his help, and the coach-windows were
stuck full of staring eyes. In some of the carts and waggons, women might be
seen, glancing fearfully at the same unsightly thing; and even little children
were held up above the people's heads to see what kind of a toy a gallows was,
and learn how men were hanged.
Two rioters were to die before the prison, who had been concerned in the
attack upon it; and one directly afterwards in Bloomsbury Square. At nine
o'clock, a strong body of military marched into the street, and formed and lined
a narrow passage into Holborn, which had been indifferently kept all night by
constables. Through this, another cart was brought (the one already mentioned
had been employed in the construction of the scaffold), and wheeled up to the
prison-gate. These preparations made, the soldiers stood at ease; the officers
lounged to and fro, in the alley they had made, or talked together at the
scaffold's foot; and the concourse, which had been rapidly augmenting for some
hours, and still received additions every minute, waited with an impatience
which increased with every chime of St Sepulchre's clock, for twelve at noon.
Up to this time they had been very quiet, comparatively silent, save when the
arrival of some new party at a window, hitherto unoccupied, gave them something
new to look at or to talk of. But, as the hour approached, a buzz and hum arose,
which, deepening every moment, soon swelled into a roar, and seemed to fill the
air. No words or even voices could be distinguished in this clamour, nor did
they speak much to each other; though such as were better informed upon the
topic than the rest, would tell their neighbours, perhaps, that they might know
the hangman when he came out, by his being the shorter one: and that the man who
was to suffer with him was named Hugh: and that it was Barnaby Rudge who would
be hanged in Bloomsbury Square.
The hum grew, as the time drew near, so loud, that those who were at the
windows could not hear the church-clock strike, though it was close at hand. Nor
had they any need to hear it, either, for they could see it in the people's
faces. So surely as another quarter chimed, there was a movement in the
crowd--as if something had passed over it--as if the light upon them had been
changed--in which the fact was readable as on a brazen dial, figured by a
giant's hand.
Three quarters past eleven! The murmur now was deafening, yet every man
seemed mute. Look where you would among the crowd, you saw strained eyes and
lips compressed; it would have been difficult for the most vigilant observer to
point this way or that, and say that yonder man had cried out. It were as easy
to detect the motion of lips in a sea-shell.
Three quarters past eleven! Many spectators who had retired from the windows,
came back refreshed, as though their watch had just begun. Those who had fallen
asleep, roused themselves; and every person in the crowd made one last effort to
better his position-- which caused a press against the sturdy barriers that made
them bend and yield like twigs. The officers, who until now had kept together,
fell into their several positions, and gave the words of command. Swords were
drawn, muskets shouldered, and the bright steel winding its way among the crowd,
gleamed and glittered in the sun like a river. Along this shining path, two men
came hurrying on, leading a horse, which was speedily harnessed to the cart at
the prison-door. Then, a profound silence replaced the tumult that had so long
been gathering, and a breathless pause ensued. Every window was now choked up
with heads; the house-tops teemed with people--clinging to chimneys, peering
over gable-ends, and holding on where the sudden loosening of any brick or stone
would dash them down into the street. The church tower, the church roof, the
church yard, the prison leads, the very water-spouts and lampposts--every inch
of room--swarmed with human life.
At the first stroke of twelve the prison-bell began to toll. Then the
roar--mingled now with cries of 'Hats off!' and 'Poor fellows!' and, from some
specks in the great concourse, with a shriek or groan--burst forth again. It was
terrible to see--if any one in that distraction of excitement could have
seen--the world of eager eyes, all strained upon the scaffold and the beam.
The hollow murmuring was heard within the jail as plainly as without. The
three were brought forth into the yard, together, as it resounded through the
air. They knew its import well.
'D'ye hear?' cried Hugh, undaunted by the sound. 'They expect us! I heard
them gathering when I woke in the night, and turned over on t'other side and
fell asleep again. We shall see how they welcome the hangman, now that it comes
home to him. Ha, ha, ha!'
The Ordinary coming up at this moment, reproved him for his indecent mirth,
and advised him to alter his demeanour.
'And why, master?' said Hugh. 'Can I do better than bear it easily? YOU bear
it easily enough. Oh! never tell me,' he cried, as the other would have spoken,
'for all your sad look and your
solemn air, you think little enough of it! They say you're the best maker of
lobster salads in London. Ha, ha! I've heard that, you see, before now. Is it a
good one, this morning--is your hand in? How does the breakfast look? I hope
there's enough, and to spare, for all this hungry company that'll sit down to
it, when the sight's over.'
'I fear,' observed the clergyman, shaking his head, 'that you are
incorrigible.'
'You're right. I am,' rejoined Hugh sternly. 'Be no hypocrite, master! You
make a merry-making of this, every month; let me be merry, too. If you want a
frightened fellow there's one that'll suit you. Try your hand upon him.'
He pointed, as he spoke, to Dennis, who, with his legs trailing on the
ground, was held between two men; and who trembled so, that all his joints and
limbs seemed racked by spasms. Turning from this wretched spectacle, he called
to Barnaby, who stood apart.
'What cheer, Barnaby? Don't be downcast, lad. Leave that to HIM.'
'Bless you,' cried Barnaby, stepping lightly towards him, 'I'm not
frightened, Hugh. I'm quite happy. I wouldn't desire to live now, if they'd let
me. Look at me! Am I afraid to die? Will they see ME tremble?'
Hugh gazed for a moment at his face, on which there was a strange, unearthly
smile; and at his eye, which sparkled brightly; and interposing between him and
the Ordinary, gruffly whispered to the latter:
'I wouldn't say much to him, master, if I was you. He may spoil your appetite
for breakfast, though you ARE used to it.'
He was the only one of the three who had washed or trimmed himself that
morning. Neither of the others had done so, since their doom was pronounced. He
still wore the broken peacock's feathers in his hat; and all his usual scraps of
finery were carefully disposed about his person. His kindling eye, his firm
step, his proud and resolute bearing, might have graced some lofty act of
heroism; some voluntary sacrifice, born of a noble cause and pure enthusiasm;
rather than that felon's death.
But all these things increased his guilt. They were mere assumptions. The law
had declared it so, and so it must be. The good minister had been greatly
shocked, not a quarter of an hour before, at his parting with Grip. For one in
his condition, to fondle a bird!--The yard was filled with people; bluff civic
functionaries, officers of justice, soldiers, the curious in such matters, and
guests who had been bidden as to a wedding. Hugh looked about him, nodded
gloomily to some person in authority, who indicated with his hand in what
direction he was to proceed; and clapping Barnaby on the shoulder, passed out
with the gait of a lion.
They entered a large room, so near to the scaffold that the voices of those
who stood about it, could be plainly heard: some beseeching the javelin-men to
take them out of the crowd: others crying to those behind, to stand back, for
they were pressed to death, and suffocating for want of air.
In the middle of this chamber, two smiths, with hammers, stood beside an
anvil. Hugh walked straight up to them, and set his foot upon it with a sound as
though it had been struck by a heavy weapon. Then, with folded arms, he stood to
have his irons knocked off: scowling haughtily round, as those who were present
eyed him narrowly and whispered to each other.
It took so much time to drag Dennis in, that this ceremony was over with
Hugh, and nearly over with Barnaby, before he appeared. He no sooner came into
the place he knew so well, however, and among faces with which he was so
familiar, than he recovered strength and sense enough to clasp his hands and
make a last appeal.
'Gentlemen, good gentlemen,' cried the abject creature, grovelling down upon
his knees, and actually prostrating himself upon the stone floor: 'Governor,
dear governor--honourable sheriffs--worthy gentlemen--have mercy upon a wretched
man that has served His Majesty, and the Law, and Parliament, for so many years,
and don't-- don't let me die--because of a mistake.'
'Dennis,' said the governor of the jail, 'you know what the course is, and
that the order came with the rest. You know that we could do nothing, even if we
would.'
'All I ask, sir,--all I want and beg, is time, to make it sure,' cried the
trembling wretch, looking wildly round for sympathy. 'The King and Government
can't know it's me; I'm sure they can't know it's me; or they never would bring
me to this dreadful slaughterhouse. They know my name, but they don't know it's
the same man. Stop my execution--for charity's sake stop my execution,
gentlemen--till they can be told that I've been hangman here, nigh thirty year.
Will no one go and tell them?' he implored, clenching his hands and glaring
round, and round, and round again--'will no charitable person go and tell them!'
'Mr Akerman,' said a gentleman who stood by, after a moment's pause, 'since
it may possibly produce in this unhappy man a better frame of mind, even at this
last minute, let me assure him that he was well known to have been the hangman,
when his sentence was considered.'
'--But perhaps they think on that account that the punishment's not so
great,' cried the criminal, shuffling towards this speaker on his knees, and
holding up his folded hands; 'whereas it's worse, it's worse a hundred times, to
me than any man. Let them know that, sir. Let them know that. They've made it
worse to me by giving me so much to do. Stop my execution till they know that!'
The governor beckoned with his hand, and the two men, who had supported him
before, approached. He uttered a piercing cry:
'Wait! Wait. Only a moment--only one moment more! Give me a last chance of
reprieve. One of us three is to go to Bloomsbury Square. Let me be the one. It
may come in that time; it's sure to come. In the Lord's name let me be sent to
Bloomsbury Square. Don't hang me here. It's murder.'
They took him to the anvil: but even then he could he heard above the
clinking of the smiths' hammers, and the hoarse raging of the crowd, crying that
he knew of Hugh's birth--that his father was living, and was a gentleman of
influence and rank--that he had family secrets in his possession--that he could
tell nothing unless they gave him time, but must die with them on his mind; and
he continued to rave in this sort until his voice failed him, and he sank down a
mere heap of clothes between the two attendants.
It was at this moment that the clock struck the first stroke of twelve, and
the bell began to toll. The various officers, with the two sheriffs at their
head, moved towards the door. All was ready when the last chime came upon the
ear.
They told Hugh this, and asked if he had anything to say.
'To say!' he cried. 'Not I. I'm ready.--Yes,' he added, as his eye fell upon
Barnaby, 'I have a word to say, too. Come hither, lad.'
There was, for the moment, something kind, and even tender, struggling in his
fierce aspect, as he wrung his poor companion by the hand.
'I'll say this,' he cried, looking firmly round, 'that if I had ten lives to
lose, and the loss of each would give me ten times the agony of the hardest
death, I'd lay them all down--ay, I would, though you gentlemen may not believe
it--to save this one. This one,' he added, wringing his hand again, 'that will
be lost through me.'
'Not through you,' said the idiot, mildly. 'Don't say that. You were not to
blame. You have always been very good to me.--Hugh, we shall know what makes the
stars shine, NOW!'
'I took him from her in a reckless mood, and didn't think what harm would
come of it,' said Hugh, laying his hand upon his head, and speaking in a lower
voice. 'I ask her pardon; and his.--Look here,' he added roughly, in his former
tone. 'You see this lad?'
They murmured 'Yes,' and seemed to wonder why he asked.
'That gentleman yonder--' pointing to the clergyman--'has often in the last
few days spoken to me of faith, and strong belief. You see what I am--more brute
than man, as I have been often told--but I had faith enough to believe, and did
believe as strongly as any of you gentlemen can believe anything, that this one
life would be spared. See what he is!--Look at him!'
Barnaby had moved towards the door, and stood beckoning him to follow.
'If this was not faith, and strong belief!' cried Hugh, raising his right arm
aloft, and looking upward like a savage prophet whom the near approach of Death
had filled with inspiration, 'where are they! What else should teach me--me,
born as I was born, and reared as I have been reared--to hope for any mercy in
this hardened, cruel, unrelenting place! Upon these human shambles, I, who never
raised this hand in prayer till now, call down the wrath of God! On that black
tree, of which I am the ripened fruit, I do invoke the curse of all its victims,
past, and present, and to come. On the head of that man, who, in his conscience,
owns me for his son, I leave the wish that he may never sicken on his bed of
down, but die a violent death as I do now, and have the night-wind for his only
mourner. To this I say, Amen, amen!'
His arm fell downward by his side; he turned; and moved towards them with a
steady step, the man he had been before.
'There is nothing more?' said the governor.
Hugh motioned Barnaby not to come near him (though without looking in the
direction where he stood) and answered, 'There is nothing more.'
'Move forward!'
'--Unless,' said Hugh, glancing hurriedly back,--'unless any person here has
a fancy for a dog; and not then, unless he means to use him well. There's one,
belongs to me, at the house I came from, and it wouldn't be easy to find a
better. He'll whine at first, but he'll soon get over that.--You wonder that I
think about a dog just now, he added, with a kind of laugh. 'If any man deserved
it of me half as well, I'd think of HIM.'
He spoke no more, but moved onward in his place, with a careless air, though
listening at the same time to the Service for the Dead, with something between
sullen attention, and quickened curiosity. As soon as he had passed the door,
his miserable associate was carried out; and the crowd beheld the rest.
Barnaby would have mounted the steps at the same time--indeed he would have
gone before them, but in both attempts he was restrained, as he was to undergo
the sentence elsewhere. In a few minutes the sheriffs reappeared, the same
procession was again formed, and they passed through various rooms and passages
to another door--that at which the cart was waiting. He held down his head to
avoid seeing what he knew his eyes must otherwise encounter, and took his seat
sorrowfully,--and yet with something of a childish pride and pleasure,--in the
vehicle. The officers fell into their places at the sides, in front and in the
rear; the sheriffs' carriages rolled on; a guard of soldiers surrounded the
whole; and they moved slowly forward through the throng and pressure toward Lord
Mansfield's ruined house.
It was a sad sight--all the show, and strength, and glitter, assembled round
one helpless creature--and sadder yet to note, as he rode along, how his
wandering thoughts found strange encouragement in the crowded windows and the
concourse in the streets; and how, even then, he felt the influence of the
bright sky, and looked up, smiling, into its deep unfathomable blue. But there
had been many such sights since the riots were over--some so moving in their
nature, and so repulsive too, that they were far more calculated to awaken pity
for the sufferers, than respect for that law whose strong arm seemed in more
than one case to be as wantonly stretched forth now that all was safe, as it had
been basely paralysed in time of danger.
Two cripples--both mere boys--one with a leg of wood, one who dragged his
twisted limbs along by the help of a crutch, were hanged in this same Bloomsbury
Square. As the cart was about to glide from under them, it was observed that
they stood with their faces from, not to, the house they had assisted to
despoil; and their misery was protracted that this omission might be remedied.
Another boy was hanged in Bow Street; other young lads in various quarters of
the town. Four wretched women, too, were put to death. In a word, those who
suffered as rioters were, for the most part, the weakest, meanest, and most
miserable among them. It was a most exquisite satire upon the false religious
cry which had led to so much misery, that some of these people owned themselves
to be Catholics, and begged to be attended by their own priests.
One young man was hanged in Bishopsgate Street, whose aged grey- headed
father waited for him at the gallows, kissed him at its foot when he arrived,
and sat there, on the ground, till they took him down. They would have given him
the body of his child; but he had no hearse, no coffin, nothing to remove it in,
being too poor--and walked meekly away beside the cart that took it back to
prison, trying, as he went, to touch its lifeless hand.
But the crowd had forgotten these matters, or cared little about them if they
lived in their memory: and while one great multitude fought and hustled to get
near the gibbet before Newgate, for a parting look, another followed in the
train of poor lost Barnaby, to swell the throng that waited for him on the spot.
|