and time soon wrought its accustomed amelioration. I never saw one who
seemed more certainly doomed to the fate of the heart-stricken; and,
however fanciful it may seem, I attribute to the mistake of his son the
restoration of the father.
THE CONDEMNED.
I believe it was Fontenelle who said that, if he were to have been
permitted to pass his life over again, he would have done everything he did
in the world, and, of course, consented to suffer what he had suffered, in
consideration of what he had enjoyed. I have heard the same statement from
others. A very learned and ingenious professor in the north, whose
lucubrations have often cast the effulgence of his rare genius over the
pages of the Border Tales, has no hesitation in declaring that he would
gladly consent to receive another tack of existence in this strange world,
with all its pains and penalties, were it for nothing but to be allowed to
witness the curious scenes, the startling occurrences, the humorous
bizarrerie of cross-purposes, the conceits, the foibles, the triumphs of
the creature man. Moore the poet has somewhere said, that he would not
consent to live his life over again, except upon the condition that he were
to be gifted with less love and more judgment--probably forgetting that in
that case he would not have been the author of "Lallah Rookh;" though,
mayhap, of a still drier life of Sheridan than that which came from his
pen. I have often put the question to patients, and have found the answer
to be regulated by the state of their disease. Upon the whole, it requires
a very sharp, bitter pang, indeed, to extort the confession, that they
would not accept another lease of life. If men were not Christians, they
would choose, I think, to be Pythagoreans, were it for nothing but the
slight chance they would enjoy of passing into some state of existence not
in a remote degree different from that which they have declared themselves
sick of a thousand times before they died. Sick of it as many, however, say
they are, they would all live "a little and a little longer still," when
the dread hour comes that calls them home. These remarks have been
suggested by the following passage in my note-book:--"17th August, ----,
case of Eugene D----, in the jail of ----. Extraordinary example of the
_amor vitae_." I find I had jotted a number of the details; but such was the
impression the scene of that tragedy of life produced in me, that even now,
though many years have passed, I recollect the minutiae of the drama as
distinctly as if I had witnessed it yesterday. I was indeed interested in
the case more than professionally; for the subject of it was an early
companion of my own, and was, besides, calculated, from his acquirements,
and a free, open generosity of spirit, to produce a deep interest in the
fate which, in an unhappy hour, he brought upon himself. It was on the
forenoon of the day I have mentioned, that the under turnkey of the prison
of ---- came in breathless haste, and called me to a prisoner. It was
Eugene D----. I was at the moment occupied in thinking of the youth. He had
forged a bill upon his father, Mr. D----, a wealthy merchant; and it was
very clearly brought out, in evidence that he applied the money to
extricate a friend from pecuniary embarrassments. The father had paid the
bill; but the legal authorities had prosecuted the case; and he, at that
moment, lay in jail a criminal, condemned to die. The gallows was standing
ready to exact its victim within two hours; the post from London would
arrive in an hour with or without a reprieve. His father and mother, what
were they then doing, thinking, suffering? On them and him I was meditating
when the words of the turnkey fell upon my ear.
"What has occurred?" was my question to the messenger.
"Eugene D----, the condemned criminal, has taken some poisonous drug," said
he, "and the provost has sent me for you to come to his relief."
I meditated a moment. It might have been as well, I thought, for all
parties, that I had not been called, and that the drug, whatever it was,
might be allowed to anticipate the law, but I had no alternative; I was
called in my official capacity; and then a messenger might still arrive
from London. I provided myself with the necessary counteracting agents, and
followed the man. I passed the house of his father. The blinds were drawn,
and all seemed wrapped in dead silence, as if there had been a corpse in
the house. Several people were passing the door, and cast, as they went, a
melancholy look at the windows. They had, in all likelihood, seen the
gallows; at least, they knew the precise posture of affairs within the
house. I was inclined to have entered; but I could see no benefit to be
derived from my visit, and hurried forwards to the jail, from the window of
which the black apparatus projected in ghastly array. The post-office in
---- Street was in the neighbourhood, and an assembly of people was
beginning to collect, to wait for the incoming of the mail. There was
sympathy in every face; for the fate of the youth, who had been well
esteemed over the town, for a handsome, generous-minded young man, and the
situation of his parents--wealthy and respectable citizens--had called
forth an extraordinary feeling in his favour. Indeed, thousands had signed
the petition to the King, but forgery was, at that time, a crime of
frequent occurrence, and the doubts that were entertained as to the success
of the application were apparently justified by the arrival of the eleventh
hour. On passing through the jail, I saw the various preparations in
progress for the execution; the chaplain was in attendance; and, in a small
cell, at the end of the apartment from which the fatal erection projected,
there sat, guarded by an officer, from a fear that he would escape, the
executioner himself--
"Grim as the mighty Polypheme."
My guide led me forward, and, in a few minutes, I stood beside Eugene, who,
dressed in a suit of black, lay twisting his body in a chair, making the
chains by which he was bound clank in a fearful manner. A small phial was
on the floor. I took it up, and ascertained, in an instant, that he had
betaken himself to the drug most commonly resorted to by suicides.
"Laudanum!" I exclaimed.
"Yes, yes--as much as would kill two men!" he cried wildly.
The poison had not had time to operate; or rather, its narcotic power had
been suspended by the terrors of an awakened love and hope of life, that
had followed close upon the prospect of death caused by his own act.
"You had a chance for life, Eugene," said I, hurriedly. "A courier may yet
arrive, independently of the mail, which has not yet come."
"Chance or no chance," he cried, as I proceeded with my assistant, who now
entered, to apply the remedies; "I would yet live the two hours! I had no
sooner swallowed the drug, than I thought I had intercepted the mercy of
heaven; life seemed--and, oh, it even now seems--sweeter than ever, and
death still more dreadful! Quick--quick--quick! The poison is busy with my
heart. I would give a world for even these two hours of life and
hope--small, small as that is!"
I proceeded with the application of the usual remedies. A portion, but only
a portion of the laudanum, had been taken off; and the next efficient
remedy was motion, to keep off the sleepy lethargy that drinks up the
fountain of life. Two men were got to drag him as violently as possible
along the floor, leaving him enough of his own weight to force him to use
his limbs. I noticed that he struggled with terrible energy against the
onset of the subtle agent; exhibiting the most signal instance I ever
beheld of the power of that hope which seems to be consistent with life
itself. Already an eighth part of the apparent period of his sojourn upon
earth had passed. Seven quarters more would, in all likelihood, bring him
to the scaffold, and, by resisting my energies to counteract the effects of
the poison, he might have eluded the grim arm of the law, by a death a
thousand times less dreadful. Every now and then, as the men dragged him
along, he turned his eyes to me, and asked the hour. Sometimes he repeated
the question within two minutes of my answer. As often was his ear directed
to the street, to try to catch the sounds of a coach, or the feet of a
horse; and then he redoubled his energies to keep off the onset of the
lethargy, which I told him was most to be feared. The operation was
persevered in; but the men informed me they thought he was gradually
getting heavier on their hands, and I noticed his eye, at times, get so
dull that he seemed to be on the eve of falling asleep and sinking. Another
quarter of an hour soon passed; and in a little further time, the bailies
and chaplain would find it their duty to come and prepare him for his
fate--alas! now indeed so certain, that no reasonable thought could suggest
even the shadow of a hope; a reprieve, so near the time of execution, would
not have been trusted to the mail, and a messenger would have arrived, by
quick stages, long before; unless there had, indeed, been any fault in the
government authorities, in tampering with a man's life within an hour of
his execution. If I had not been under the strict law of professional
discipline, I would certainly have allowed him to lie down and pass into
death or oblivion. I had, however, my duty to perform; and, strange as it
may appear, that duty quadrated with the wishes of the young man himself;
who, as he struggled with the demon that threatened to overpower him,
seemed to rise in hope as every minute diminished the chance of his
salvation. By the increased energies of the men, he was again roused into a
less dull perception of sounds, and I could perceive him start as the
rattle of the wheels of a carriage was heard at the jail door. He fixed his
half-dead, staring eye in my face, and muttered, with a difficult effort of
his sinking jaws--
"Is that it--is that it?--I hear a carriage wheels, and they have stopped
at the door."
As he uttered the words, it appeared as if he again exerted himself to keep
the enemy, who still threatened him, at bay. I replied nothing; for I
suspected that the carriage brought only some official, or, probably, some
mourner, to see him, previous to the fatal scene--that scene which, in all
likelihood, I was endeavouring to render more heart-rending to his friends
and spectators, by keeping alive the vital spark, that might only serve to
make him conscious of pain. It appeared to be too evident that he had
increased tenfold the misery of his situation; for the stern law would
admit of no excuse, and if he was not able to walk to the scaffold he would
be carried; yet, if I remitted my endeavours to keep in life, I might, in
the event of the looked-for reprieve still arriving, be liable to be
accused, by my own conscience, of having been as cruel as the law itself.
The door of the jail now opened, and a turnkey told me that the usual time
had arrived when the officials began their preparatory duties. I replied
that it was in vain to attempt, at present, the performance of these sacred
rites; the prisoner was wrestling with death; and, if the exertions of the
men, who kept still dragging him backwards and forwards, were remitted, he
would sink, in a few minutes, into insensibility. I noticed the eye of poor
Eugene turned imploringly upon me, as if he wished to know who it was that
had arrived in the carriage. I merely shook my head; and the sign was no
sooner made than his chin fell down on his breast; his limbs became weaker,
his knees bent, and if the supporters had not exerted themselves still
farther, he would have sunk. But the men still performed their duty, and
dragged him hurriedly along, scarcely now with any aid from his feet,
which, obeying no impulse of the loose and flaccid muscles, were thrown
about in every direction, with, a shuffling, lumbering noise, and a
clanking of the chain, that must have produced an extraordinary effect on
those who waited in the adjoining cells. The noise thus produced was indeed
all that was heard; for the effect of the poison was such as to take away
all power of groaning. I was now doubtful if all the working of the men
would be able to keep off much longer the sleepy incubus, for he seemed to
have lost almost all power of seconding their efforts; but the door of the
jail again opened, and the sound of the grating hinges made him again lift
his head. His eye seemed to indicate that he had lost all sense of the
passing of the moments, and I could not discover whether he looked for the
entry of one bearing his letter of salvation, or of the jailor with his
hammer, to knock the chain from his feet, and lead him forth to the
scaffold. He again muttered some words as the turnkey was proceeding
forward to where I was. I could not make them out, so faint had his voice
now become; but one of the men said he wished to know the hour. I told him
it was one o'clock--that was just one hour from the appointed termination
of his life. The turnkey, meanwhile, whispered in my ear that his father,
mother, and sister had arrived. It was the sound of their carriage wheels
that we had heard. I enjoined upon the men the necessity of continuing
their labours, and went out to prevent the entry of his parents to the
witnessing of a scene transcending all their powers of bearing. I found the
three standing in the recess where the executioner was sitting in gloomy
silence. I took the father and mother by the arms, and hurried them away to
the empty cell, where the chaplain and several officials were collected.
The turnkey saw his error, and excused himself, on the ground that he was
confused by the extraordinary state of affairs within the prison. I
ascertained that no notice had been made to his parents of his having taken
the drug. They had come to take farewell of him. The mail had arrived, but
had brought no intelligence--not even of the petition having been disposed
of; and, having given up all hope, their intention was that the mother and
daughter should, after the last act of parting, fly to the country, to be
as far as possible from the scene of the impending tragedy. I was the first
who communicated the tidings of the condition of their son; and the noise
in the prisoner's cell, as the men still continued their operations, was a
sad commentary on my words. The sister, who was veiled, uttered a shrill
scream, and fell back on the floor. The father stood like
"Wo's bleak, voiceless petrifaction,"
moving neither limb nor countenance; his eye was fixed steadfastly on the
ground, and a deadly paleness was over his face. The mother, who was also
veiled, staggered to a bench--recovering herself suddenly, as some thought,
rising wildly, stung her to a broken utterance of some words. I approached
her, while Mr H----, the chaplain, was assisting in getting Miss D---- to a
chair.
"Let him die!--let him die!" she exclaimed. "Is not his doom inevitable?
You will torture my Eugene by keeping in his life till the law demands its
victim, and he may be carried--carried! O God!--to a second death, ten
times more cruel than that which he is now suffering."
"No rejection of the petition has been intimated," I replied; "and there is
hope to the last grain in life's ebbing glass. It is not yet two years
since a reprieve came to a prisoner, in this very jail, within three hours
of the appointed term of his life. You have spoken from the impulse of an
agony which has overcome the truer feelings of a mother and the better
dictates of prudence."
"Small, small, indeed, is that hope which a mother may not see through the
gloom of a despair such as mine," she replied. "But what means that
dreadful noise in Eugene's cell?"
"Only the efforts of the men to keep him awake," replied I. "My duty
requires my efforts in behalf of a fellow-creature to the last moment.
Reflect for an instant, and the proper feeling will again vindicate its
place in the heart of a parent."
"Dreadful alternative!" she replied. "But, sir, hear me. I am his mother,
and I tell you, from the divination of a mother's heart, that there will
now be no respite. I say it again; it would be a relief to me if I heard,
at this moment, that he had escaped by death that tragedy which will now be
rendered a thousand times more painful to him and dreadful to me."
The father moved his eyes, and fixed them on the face of the mother of his
boy, who, in her agony, thus called for his death in a form which bore even
a shade of relief from the horror of what awaited the victim. It was,
indeed, an extraordinary request; and told, as no words spoken by mortal
had ever told, the pregnancy of an anguish that could seek for alleviation
(if I may use so inadequate a phrase) from so fearful an alternative. All
were, for a time, now silent, and there was no sound to be heard but the
deep sobs of the daughter, as she recovered from her swoon; the struggle in
the throat of the mother; and the shuffling and tramping in the cell of the
prisoner.
"There is still hope," I whispered in the ear of the mother.
"None--none!" she ejaculated again. "My Eugene! my Eugene!"
She reclined back, with her hands over her face, still sobbing out the name
of her son. I pointed to the father to assist her, while I should go again
to ascertain the state of the son; but he did not seem to understand
me--retaining still his rigid position, and looking with the calmness of
despair on the scene around him. Her silence continued but a few moments;
and when she opened her eyes again, it was to fix them on me.
"What are you doing?" she exclaimed again. "What, in the name of heaven,
are you doing to my Eugene?--Saving him for second, and still more cruel
death. It might have been all over. Let me see him--let me see him!"
And she rose to proceed to the cell where her son was confined; but her
strength failed her, and she again reclined helplessly back in her seat.
The clergyman's ministrations were called for by these uttered sentiments,
which seemed so little in accordance with the precepts of Holy Writ,
however natural to the bursting heart of the mother, to whom the reported
death of her son, in his unparalleled situation might almost have been
termed a boon. Retreating from a scene so fraught with misery, I hastened
back to Eugene, who was still in the arms of the men. One of them whispered
to me that he had spoken when he heard the shrill cry of his sister; but,
immediately after, he relapsed again into stupor. The men complained of
being exhausted by their efforts to keep him moving. His weight was now
almost that of a dead body; and it was only at intervals that he made any
struggles to move himself by the aid of his paralysed limbs. Two other
individuals were got to relieve them; and the compulsory motions were
continued. The lethargy had not altogether mastered the sentient powers;
and, the operation having been stopped that I might examine his condition,
he lifted his head slowly, looked round him with a vacant stare, and, after
a few moments, muttered again the word "hour." I pulled out my watch, and
told him that it was twenty minutes past one, he understood me, as I
thought; and pronouncing indistinctly "mother," he again sank into apparent
listlessness. The men again resumed their work.
Meanwhile, a buzz from without intimated too distinctly that the mob was
collecting to witness the fate of their townsman. There was no distinct
sound, save that which a mass of people, under the depressing feelings of
sorrow, seem to send forth involuntarily--making the air, as it were,
thick, and yet with no articulation or distinct noise which can be caught
by the ear of one at a distance, or within the walls of a house. Eugene, I
am satisfied, was unable to recognise the faint indication. It was well for
him. I learned, from the turnkey, that the sound of the hammer in the
erection of the gallows had put him almost distracted, and precipitated the
execution of the purpose, which he had wished to delay till after the
arrival of the mail. I had little doubt that he might now be kept from the
grasp of the death-stupor for the remaining three quarters of an hour; but,
alas! what would be my triumph? Every minute added to the certainty that I
was only preparing for him and his relations greater pain; for, in any
view, he could not walk to the fatal spot without as much aid as might have
sufficed to carry him; and it was even more than probable that he would be
so overcome that that latter operation would require to be resorted to,
under the stern sanction of a law that behoved to be put in force within a
given time, or not at all. The case I am now describing might suggest some
consideration worthy of the attention of our legislators, who, arrogating
to themselves a license as wide as the limits of the human mind, deny all
manner of discretion to the superintendents of the last execution of the
law. We profess to be abhorrent from scenes of torture, as well as, on
grounds of policy, hostile to a species of punishment which, indeed,
defeats its own ends; and yet I could give more than one case where the
substance has been retained in all its atrocity, while the form was veiled
by flimsy excuses of a false necessity. My situation was now a very painful
one indeed. I was training and supporting the victim for the altar;
rescuing from death only to sacrifice him with more bloody rites and a
crueller spirit of immolation. The words of his mother, wrung from the
agony of a parent's love, rang in my ears; the look of the father--that of
imbecile despair--was imprinted on my mind; the hour was fast on the wing;
all hope had perished; and before me was the unfortunate youth, handsome,
elegant, and interesting, even in the writhings of the master-fiend,
suffering a death which was to be, in effect, repeated in another and a
crueller form. I had seen him under circumstances of friendship, and the
ebullitions of his generous spirit; and I was become, as I pictured to
myself, his enemy, who would not allow him to die, to escape from shame and
an increased agony of dissolving nature. Will I admit it? For a moment or
two I hesitated; and, indeed, had half-resolved to tell the men to
stop--the time might yet have sufficed for finishing what he had begun. If
he was not dead before two, he would, at least be beyond feeling; and, if
the officials chose to take the last step of getting him carried to the
gallows, they would in effect be immolating a corpse.
My better and calmer thoughts of duty, however, prevailed; and, in the
meantime, I saw the prudence of preventing any meeting between Eugene and
his parents, which could tend to nothing but an increase of pain on the
side of those who were still able to feel--for, as regarded the young man
himself, he was beyond the impulse of the feelings that might otherwise
have been called up, even by such a scene. I was not even ill pleased to
hear from the under turnkey, that the magistrates had given orders for the
departure of the friends; though, for my own satisfaction, I wished that
the father, who had still some command of himself, might visit his son for
a few minutes, and sanction my proceedings with his approbation. I was
informed also by the turnkey, that the father was resisting to the utmost
of his power the efforts of the mother to get into the cell. He probably
saw too clearly that in the excited condition in which she still remained,
the scene might prove disastrous, as affecting either life or reason; and,
if I could judge from what I myself felt in spite of the blunting effects
of a long acquaintanceship with misery in its various phases, there was
good reason for his fears. The scene presented features
"Direr than incubus's haggard train."