THE recommendation to mercy was very strong; almost all the principal
people in the town interested themselves, and the judge himself
had been persuaded to add a potent word; but as he did so he shook
his head, and told the petitioners that their arguments were all
sentimental. “What does your lordship say then to the doctor’s
testimony?” was asked him, upon which he shook his head more and more.
“The doctor’s testimony, above all,” he said. “Mind you, I think that
probably the doctor was right, but it is not a solid argument, it is
all sentiment; and that is what the Home Office makes no account of.”
This was very discouraging. But still there was a certain enthusiasm
in the town in Jim’s favour, as well as a natural horror that one
who really belonged (if he had kept his position) to the best class,
should come to such an end; and the chief people who got up this
recommendation to mercy were warm supporters of the Government. That,
too, they felt convinced must tell for something. And there reigned in
Poolborough a certain hope which Dr. Barrère sometimes shared.
Sometimes; for on many occasions he took the darker view--the view
so universal and generally received, that the more important it is
for you that a certain thing should come to pass, the more you desire
it, the less likely it is to happen. And then he would ask himself
was it so important that it should come to pass? At the best it was
still true that Jim had killed this man. If he were not hanged for it
he would be imprisoned for life; and whether it is worse to have a
relative who has been hanged for a crime or one who is lingering out
a long term of imprisonment for it, it is hard to tell. There did not
seem much to choose between them. Perhaps even the hanging would be
forgotten soonest--and it would be less of a burden. For to think of a
brother in prison, who might emerge years hence with a ticket-of-leave,
a disgraced and degraded man, was something terrible. Perhaps on
the whole it would be best that he should die. And then Dr. Barrère
shuddered. Die! Ah! if that might be, quietly, without demonstration.
But as it was--And then he would begin again, against his will, that
painful circle of thought--”the brother was hanged.” That was what
people would say. After the horror of it had died out fantastic
patients would cry, “The brother of a man who was hanged! Oh, no!
don’t let us call in such a person.” The ladies would say this: they
would shudder yet perhaps even laugh, for the pity would be forgotten,
even the horror would be forgotten, and there would remain only this
suggestion of discomfort--just enough to make the women feel that they
would not like to have him, the brother of a man who was hanged, for
their doctor. Dr. Barrère tried all he could to escape from this circle
of fatal thought; but however hard he worked, and however much he
occupied himself, he could not do so always. And the thought went near
sometimes to make him mad.
He had, however, much to occupy him, to keep thought away. He was
the only element of comfort in the life of the two miserable women
who lived under the shadow of death, their minds entirely absorbed
in the approaching catastrophe, living through it a hundred times in
anticipation, in despair which was made more ghastly and sickening by a
flicker of terrible hope. Mrs. Surtees said that she had no hope; she
would not allow the possibility to be named; but secretly dwelt upon
it with an intensity of suspense which was more unendurable than any
calamity. And when Agnes and her lover were alone this was the subject
that occupied them to the exclusion of all others. Their own hopes and
prospects were all blotted out as if they had never been. He brought
her reports of what was said, and what was thought on the subject among
the people who had influence, those who were straining every nerve
to obtain a reprieve: and she hung upon his words breathless with an
all-absorbing interest. He never got beyond the awful shadow, or could
forget it, and went about all day with that cloud hanging over him, and
frightened his patients with his stern and serious looks. “Dr. Barrère
is not an encouraging doctor,” they began to say, “he makes you think
you are going to die;” for the sick people could not divest themselves
of the idea that it was their complaints that were foremost in the
doctor’s mind and produced that severity in his looks.
But all this was light and easy to the last of the many occupations
which filled Dr. Barrère’s time and thoughts, and that was Jim--Jim
alone in his prison, he who never had been alone, who had been
surrounded all day long with his companions--the companions who had led
him astray. No, they had not led him astray. Langton, who was dead,
whom he had killed, had not led him astray, though he now thought
so, or said so, bemoaning himself. Such a thing would be too heavy
a burden for any human spirit. A man cannot ruin any more than he
can save his brother. His own inclinations, his own will, his love
for the forbidden, his idle wishes and follies--these were what had
led him astray. And now he was left alone to think of all that, with
the shadow before him of a hideous death at a fixed moment--a moment
drawing nearer and nearer, which he could no more escape than he could
forget it. Jim had many good qualities amid his evil ones. He was not a
bad man; his sins were rather those of a foolish, self-indulgent boy.
His character was that of a boy. A certain innocency, if that word
may be used, lay under the surface of his vices, and long confinement
away from all temptation had wrought a change in him like that that
came over the leper in the Scriptures, whose flesh came again as the
flesh of a little child. This was what happened to Jim, both bodily
and mentally. He languished in health from his confinement, but yet
his eyes regained the clearness of his youth, and his mind, all its
ingenuousness, its power of affection. Lying under sentence of death he
became once more the lovable human creature, the winning and attractive
youth he had been in the days before trouble came. All clouds save the
one cloud rolled off his soul. In all likelihood he himself forgot
the course of degradation through which he had gone; everything was
obliterated to him by the impossibility of sinning more--everything
except the one thing which no self-delusion could obliterate, the
unchangeable doom to which he was approaching day by day. Jim had
none of the tremors of a murderer. He concealed nothing; he admitted
freely that the verdict was just, that it was he who had lurked in the
dark and awaited the villain--but only he had never meant more than
to punish him. “It is all quite true what the doctor says. I knocked
him down. I meant to beat him within an inch of his life. God knows
if he deserved it at my hands, or any honest man’s hands. And then it
came over me in a moment that he never moved, that he never made a
struggle. It was not because there were people coming up that I ran
away. It was horror, as the doctor says. Nothing can ever happen to
me again so dreadful as that,” said Jim, putting up his handkerchief
to wipe his damp forehead. And yet he could tell even that story with
tolerable calm. He was not conscious of guilt; he had meant to do what
he felt quite justifiable--rather laudable than otherwise--to thrash a
rascal “within an inch of his life.” He had expected the man to defend
himself; he had been full of what he felt to be righteous rage, and he
did not feel himself guilty now. He was haunted by no ghost; he had
ceased even to shudder at the recollection of the horrible moment in
which he became aware that instead of chastising he had killed. But
when his momentary occupation with other thoughts died away and the
recollection of what lay before him came back, the condition of poor
Jim was a dreadful one. To die--for that!--to die on Thursday, the 3rd
of September, at a horrible moment fixed and unchangeable. To feel the
days running past remorselessly, swift, without an event to break their
monotonous flying pace--those days which were so endlessly long from
dawn to twilight, which seemed as if they would never be done, which
had so little night, yet which flew noiselessly, silently, bringing
him ever nearer and nearer to the end. Poor Jim broke down entirely
under the pressure of this intolerable certainty. Had it been done at
once, the moment the sentence had been pronounced; but to sit and wait
for it, look for it, anticipate it, know that every hour was bringing
it nearer, that through the dark and through the day, and through all
the endless circles of thoughts that surmounted and surrounded it, it
was coming, always coming, not to be escaped! Jim’s nerves broke down
under this intolerable thing that had to be borne. He kept command of
himself when he saw his mother and sister, but with Dr. Barrère he let
himself go. It was a relief to him for the wretched moment. Save for
the moment, nothing, alas, could be a relief--for whether he contrived
to smile and subdue himself, or whether he dashed himself against the
wall of impossibility that shut him in, whether he raved in anguish or
madness, or slept, or tried to put a brave face upon it, it was coming
all the time.
“It is sitting and waiting that is the horrible thing,” he said; “to
think there is nothing you can do. That’s true, you know, doctor, in
_Don Juan_, about the people that plunged into the sea to get drowned
a little sooner and be done with it--in the shipwreck, you know. It’s
waiting and seeing it coming that is horrible. It is just thirteen days
to-day. Death isn’t what I mind! it’s waiting for it. Will it be--will
it be very--horrible, do you think--at the moment--when it comes?”
“No,” said Dr. Barrère, “if it comes to that, not horrible at all--a
moment, no more.”
“A moment--but you can’t tell till you try what may be in a moment.
I don’t mind, doctor; something sharp and soon would be a sort of
relief. It is the sitting and waiting, counting the days, seeing it
coming--always coming. Nobody has a right to torture a fellow like
that--let them take him and hang him as the lynchers do, straight off.”
Then Jim was seized with a slight convulsive shudder. “And then the
afterwards, doctor? for all your science you can’t tell anything about
that. Perhaps you don’t believe in it at all. I do.”
Dr. Barrère made no reply. He was not quite clear about what he
believed; and he had nothing to say on such a subject to this young man
standing upon the verge, with all the uncertainties and possibilities
of life still so warm in him, and yet so near the one unalterable
certainty. After a minute Jim resumed.
“I do,” he said firmly. “I’ve never been what you call a skeptic. I
don’t believe men are: they only pretend, or perhaps think so, till it
comes upon them. I wonder what they’ll say to a poor fellow _up there_,
doctor? I’ve always been told they understand up there--there can’t be
injustice done like here. And I’ve always been a true believer. I’ve
never been led away--like that.”
“It isn’t a subject on which I can talk,” said the doctor, unsteadily;
“your mother and Agnes, they know. But, Jim, for the love of God don’t
talk to them as you are doing now. Put on a good face for their sakes.”
“Poor mother!” said Jim. He turned all at once almost to
crying--softened entirely out of his wild talk. “What has she done to
have a thing like this happen to her? She is a real good woman--and to
have a son hanged, good Lord!” Again he shivered convulsively. “She
won’t live long, that’s one thing; and perhaps it’ll be explained to
her satisfaction up there. But that’s what I call unjust, Barrère, to
torture a poor soul like that, that has never done anything but good
all her life. You’ll take care of Agnes. But mother will not live long,
poor dear. Poor dear!” he repeated with a tremulous smile. “I suppose
she had a happy life till I grew up--till I--I wonder what I could be
born for, a fellow like me, to be hanged!” he cried with a sudden,
sharp anguish in which there was the laughter of misery and the groan
of despair.
Dr. Barrère left the prison with his heart bleeding; but he did not
abandon Jim. On the contrary, there was a terrible attraction which
drew him to the presence of the unfortunate young man. The doctor of
Poolborough jail, though not so high in the profession as himself,
was one of Dr. Barrère’s acquaintances, and to him he went when he
left the condemned cell. The doctor told his professional brother that
Surtees was in a very bad state of health. “His nerves have broken down
entirely. His heart--haven’t you remarked?--his heart is in such a
state that he might go at any moment.”
“Dear me,” said the other, “he has never complained that I know of. And
a very good thing, too, Barrère; you don’t mean to say that you would
regret it if anything did happen, before--”
“No,” said the doctor, “but the poor fellow may suffer. I wonder if
you’d let me have the charge of him, Maxwell? I know you’re a busy man.
And it would please his mother to think that I was looking after him.
What do you say?”
The one medical man looked at the other. Doctor Barrère was pale, but
he did not shrink from the look turned upon him. “I’ll tell you what
I’ll do, Barrère,” said the prison doctor at last. “I’m getting all
wrong for want of a little rest. Feel my hand--my nerves are as much
shaken as Surtees’! If you’ll take the whole for a fortnight, so that
I may take my holiday--”
Dr. Barrère thought for a moment. “A fortnight? That will be till
after--I don’t know how I’m to do it with my practice; but I will do
it, for the sake of--your health, Maxwell: for I see you are in a bad
way.”
“Hurrah!” said the other, “a breath of air will set me all right, and I
shall be forever obliged to you, Barrère.” Then he stopped for a moment
and looked keenly in his face. “You’re a better man than I am, and know
more: but for God’s sake, Barrère, no tricks--no tricks. You know what
I mean,” he said.
“No, I don’t know what you mean. I know you want a holiday, and I want
to take care of a case in which I am interested. It suits us both. Let
me have all the details you can,” said Dr. Barrère.