Unfit to live or die--O marble heart!
After him, fellows, drag him to the block.
Measure for Measure.
The jail at the county town of the shire of----was one of those
old-fashioned dungeons which disgraced Scotland until of late years. When
the prisoners and their guard arrived there, Hatteraick, whose violence
and strength were well known, was secured in what was called the
condemned ward. This was a large apartment near the top of the prison. A
round bar of iron,[Footnote: See Note 9.] about the thickness of a man’s
arm above the elbow, crossed the apartment horizontally at the height of
about six inches from the floor; and its extremities were strongly built
into the wall at either end. Hatteraick’s ankles were secured within
shackles, which were connected by a chain, at the distance of about four
feet, with a large iron ring, which travelled upon the bar we have
described. Thus a prisoner might shuffle along the length of the bar from
one side of the room to another, but could not retreat farther from it in
any other direction than the brief length of the chain admitted. When his
feet had been thus secured, the keeper removed his handcuffs and left his
person at liberty in other respects. A pallet-bed was placed close to the
bar of iron, so that the shackled prisoner might lie down at pleasure,
still fastened to the iron bar in the manner described.
Hatteraick had not been long in this place of confinement before Glossin
arrived at the same prison-house. In respect to his comparative rank and
education, he was not ironed, but placed in a decent apartment, under the
inspection of Mac-Guffog, who, since the destruction of the bridewell of
Portanferry by the mob, had acted here as an under-turnkey. When Glossin
was enclosed within this room, and had solitude and leisure to calculate
all the chances against him and in his favour, he could not prevail upon
himself to consider the game as desperate.
‘The estate is lost,’ he said, ‘that must go; and, between Pleydell and
Mac-Morlan, they’ll cut down my claim on it to a trifle. My
character--but if I get off with life and liberty I’ll win money yet and
varnish that over again. I knew not of the gauger’s job until the rascal
had done the deed, and, though I had some advantage by the contraband,
that is no felony. But the kidnapping of the boy--there they touch me
closer. Let me see. This Bertram was a child at the time; his evidence
must be imperfect. The other fellow is a deserter, a gipsy, and an
outlaw. Meg Merrilies, d-n her, is dead. These infernal bills! Hatteraick
brought them with him, I suppose, to have the means of threatening me or
extorting money from me. I must endeavour to see the rascal; must get him
to stand steady; must persuade him to put some other colour upon the
business.’
His mind teeming with schemes of future deceit to cover former villainy,
he spent the time in arranging and combining them until the hour of
supper. Mac-Guffog attended as turnkey on this occasion. He was, as we
know, the old and special acquaintance of the prisoner who was now under
his charge. After giving the turnkey a glass of brandy, and sounding him
with one or two cajoling speeches, Glossin made it his request that he
would help him to an interview with Dirk Hatteraick. ‘Impossible! utterly
impossible! it’s contrary to the express orders of Mr. Mac-Morlan, and
the captain (as the head jailor of a county jail is called in Scotland)
would never forgie me.’
‘But why should he know of it?’ said Glossin, slipping a couple of
guineas into Mac-Guffog’s hand.
The turnkey weighed the gold and looked sharp at Glossin. ‘Ay, ay, Mr.
Glossin, ye ken the ways o’ this place. Lookee, at lock-up hour I’ll
return and bring ye upstairs to him. But ye must stay a’ night in his
cell, for I am under needcessity to carry the keys to the captain for the
night, and I cannot let you out again until morning; then I’ll visit the
wards half an hour earlier than usual, and ye may get out and be snug in
your ain birth when the captain gangs his rounds.’
When the hour of ten had pealed from the neighbouring steeple Mac-Guffog
came prepared with a small dark lantern. He said softly to Glossin, ‘Slip
your shoes off and follow me.’ When Glossin was out of the door,
Mac-Guffog, as if in the execution of his ordinary duty, and speaking to
a prisoner within, called aloud, ‘Good-night to you, sir,’ and locked the
door, clattering the bolts with much ostentatious noise. He then guided
Glossin up a steep and narrow stair, at the top of which was the door of
the condemned ward; he unbarred and unlocked it, and, giving Glossin the
lantern, made a sign to him to enter, and locked the door behind him with
the same affected accuracy.
In the large dark cell into which he was thus introduced Glossin’s feeble
light for some time enabled him to discover nothing. At length he could
dimly distinguish the pallet-bed stretched on the floor beside the great
iron bar which traversed the room, and on that pallet reposed the figure
of a man. Glossin approached him. ‘Dirk Hatteraick!’
‘Donner and hagel! it is his voice,’ said the prisoner, sitting up and
clashing his fetters as he rose; ‘then my dream is true! Begone, and
leave me to myself; it will be your best.’
‘What! my good friend,’ said Glossin, ‘will you allow the prospect of a
few weeks’ confinement to depress your spirit?’
‘Yes,’ answered the ruffian, sullenly, ‘when I am only to be released by
a halter! Let me alone; go about your business, and turn the lamp from my
face!’
‘Psha! my dear Dirk, don’t be afraid,’ said Glossin; ‘I have a glorious
plan to make all right.’
‘To the bottomless pit with your plans!’ replied his accomplice; ‘you
have planned me out of ship, cargo, and life; and I dreamt this moment
that Meg Merrilies dragged you here by the hair and gave me the long
clasped knife she used to wear; you don’t know what she said.
Sturmwetter! it will be your wisdom not to tempt me!’
‘But, Hatteraick, my good friend, do but rise and speak to me,’ said
Glossin.
‘I will not!’ answered the savage, doggedly. ‘You have caused all the
mischief; you would not let Meg keep the boy; she would have returned him
after he had forgot all.’
‘Why, Hatteraick, you are turned driveller!’
‘Wetter! will you deny that all that cursed attempt at Portanferry, which
lost both sloop and crew, was your device for your own job?’
‘But the goods, you know--’
‘Curse the goods!’ said the smuggler, ‘we could have got plenty more;
but, der deyvil! to lose the ship and the fine fellows, and my own life,
for a cursed coward villain, that always works his own mischief with
other people’s hands! Speak to me no more; I’m dangerous.’
‘But, Dirk--but, Hatteraick, hear me only a few words.’
‘Hagel! nein.’
‘Only one sentence.’
‘Tousand curses! nein.’
‘At least get up, for an obstinate Dutch brute!’ said Glossin, losing his
temper and pushing Hatteraick with his foot.
‘Donner and blitzen!’ said Hatteraick, springing up and grappling with
him; ‘you WILL have it then?’
Glossin struggled and resisted; but, owing to his surprise at the fury of
the assault, so ineffectually that he fell under Hatteraick, the back
part of his neck coming full upon the iron bar with stunning violence.
The death-grapple continued. The room immediately below the condemned
ward, being that of Glossin, was, of course, empty; but the inmates of
the second apartment beneath felt the shock of Glossin’s heavy fall, and
heard a noise as of struggling and of groans. But all sounds of horror
were too congenial to this place to excite much curiosity or interest.
In the morning, faithful to his promise, Mac-Guffog came. ‘Mr. Glossin,’
said he, in a whispering voice.
‘Call louder,’ answered Dirk Hatteraick.
‘Mr. Glossin, for God’s sake come away!’
‘He’ll hardly do that without help,’ said Hatteraick.
‘What are you chattering there for, Mac-Guffog?’ called out the captain
from below.
‘Come away, for God’s sake, Mr. Glossin!’ repeated the turnkey.
At this moment the jailor made his appearance with a light. Great was his
surprise, and even horror, to observe Glossin’s body lying doubled across
the iron bar, in a posture that excluded all idea of his being alive.
Hatteraick was quietly stretched upon his pallet within a yard of his
victim. On lifting Glossin it was found he had been dead for some hours.
His body bore uncommon marks of violence. The spine where it joins the
skull had received severe injury by his first fall. There were distinct
marks of strangulation about the throat, which corresponded with the
blackened state of his face. The head was turned backward over the
shoulder, as if the neck had been wrung round with desperate violence. So
that it would seem that his inveterate antagonist had fixed a fatal gripe
upon the wretch’s throat, and never quitted it while life lasted. The
lantern, crushed and broken to pieces, lay beneath the body.
Mac-Morlan was in the town, and came instantly to examine the corpse.
‘What brought Glossin here?’ he said to Hatteraick.
‘The devil!’ answered the ruffian.
‘And what did you do to him?’
‘Sent him to hell before me!’ replied the miscreant.
‘Wretch,’ said Mac-Morlan, ‘you have crowned a life spent without a
single virtue with the murder of your own miserable accomplice!’
‘Virtue?’ exclaimed the prisoner. ‘Donner! I was always faithful to my
shipowners--always accounted for cargo to the last stiver. Hark ye! let
me have pen and ink and I’ll write an account of the whole to our house,
and leave me alone a couple of hours, will ye; and let them take away
that piece of carrion, donnerwetter!’
Mac-Morlan deemed it the best way to humour the savage; he was furnished
with writing materials and left alone. When they again opened the door it
was found that this determined villain had anticipated justice. He had
adjusted a cord taken from the truckle-bed, and attached it to a bone,
the relic of his yesterday’s dinner, which he had contrived to drive into
a crevice between two stones in the wall at a height as great as he could
reach, standing upon the bar. Having fastened the noose, he had the
resolution to drop his body as if to fall on his knees, and to retain
that posture until resolution was no longer necessary. The letter he had
written to his owners, though chiefly upon the business of their trade,
contained many allusions to the younker of Ellangowan, as he called him,
and afforded absolute confirmation of all Meg Merrilies and her nephew
had told.
To dismiss the catastrophe of these two wretched men, I shall only add,
that Mac-Guffog was turned out of office, notwithstanding his declaration
(which he offered to attest by oath), that he had locked Glossin safely
in his own room upon the night preceding his being found dead in Dirk
Hatteraick’s cell. His story, however, found faith with the worthy Mr.
Skriegh and other lovers of the marvellous, who still hold that the Enemy
of Mankind brought these two wretches together upon that night by
supernatural interference, that they might fill up the cup of their guilt
and receive its meed by murder and suicide.