"Yes, sir."
"Then take care and draw the bolt out smartly.--Now, don't bungle it."
"No, sir--you may depend upon it," was the answer. And the obsequious
anxiety of the hangman to seem polite and obliging, his apparent zeal
to give satisfaction, though very natural seemed to me not a little
curious.
Prayers, which had been interrupted for a moment, while the last awful
ceremony was in progress, were resumed. As he read them, I saw the
clergyman fix his eye on the executioner with a peculiar expression. He
drew his handkerchief from his pocket, and passed it slightly over his
upper lip. This was the fatal signal. A lumbering noise, occasioned by
the falling of part of the apparatus, announced that it had been obeyed.
In that moment, a rush from the scaffold forced me from the door.
The sheriffs, the under-sheriff, the ordinary, the gentleman who had
assisted him in preparing the sufferers for eternity, and several other
persons quitted the platform as expeditiously as possible, that they
might not behold the final agonies of the unhappy men. Sir Thomas took
me by the arm as he passed, and signified that he wished me to accompany
him. I did so. Again I marched through the passages which I had recently
traversed. Two minutes brought me to the door of the room to which I had
first been conducted. Here my friend accosted me with his natural
firmness of tone, which before had been considerably subdued by humane
emotions, and said--
"You must breakfast with us."
I started at the unsentimental idea of eating the moment after quitting
so awful a spectacle, as that which I have attempted to describe. But
I had not sufficient energy to resist the good will which rather
unceremoniously handed me in. Here I found the other sheriff, the
ordinary, the under-sheriff, the city-marshal, and one or two of the
individuals I had previously met, already seated.
"Well, it is all over," said Sir Thomas, as he took his seat at the
table.
"Yes, it is," said the ordinary, in the same tone which I had heard a
few moments before, and admired as appropriately solemn. "It is all
over, and--" putting his cup and saucer to the under-sheriff, who
prepared to pour out the tea--"I am very glad of it."
"I hope you do not mean the breakfast is all over," remarked the
sheriff, whose wit I had previously admired, "for I have had none yet."
The moment had not arrived at which humour like this could be duly
appreciated, and I did not observe that any of the company gave even
that sort of _note of face_ for a laugh which we had all used half an
hour before.
Our conversation turned naturally on the manner in which the sufferers
had conducted themselves; on the wishes they had expressed, and the
confessions they had made.
But while I looked on the hospitably spread table, I could not help
connecting operations rather different in their character, which must
have been going on at the same moment. "In my mind's eye," I saw the
attendants carrying the fowl and eggs to the breakfast table, while the
sheriffs and their guests were conducting the sufferers to the scaffold.
From what I have already said, it must be inferred that the first
speeches which accomplished the circuit of the table, were of a very
serious character. But, mingled with them, some common breakfast-table
requests and civilities caught my attention, as singular from their
association. The performance of duties the most important cannot relieve
man from the necessity of claiming his "daily bread," and I do not know
that it is any reproach to a clergyman that he is not distinguished by
versatility of manner. The abrupt transition from the gravity of the
pulpit to the flippancy of the bar I should not admire; but the
consistency of the reverend gentleman here attracted my notice.
I had been just listening to him while he repeated, with devotional
elongation, the solemn words of the burial service; and when I heard him
with the same elongation of sound, address himself to me--"Shall I
trouble you to cut up the fowl--can I help you to some tongue, sir?"
I confess that I felt tempted not to laugh, but to comment on the
oddly-contrasted feelings which the same voice, thus variously exerted,
inspired.
Horror-struck, as I had been, at the first mention of the unfeeling word
"breakfast," my excuse for staying was to see if others could eat. That
_I_ should take food was quite out of the question. But the wing of a
fowl having been put on my plate, I thought it would be rudeness to
reject it. I began to eat, inwardly reflecting that my abstinence would
nothing benefit those whose sufferings I had still in my memory; and
improving on this reconciling thought, I presently detected myself
holding my plate for a second supply. "O sentiment!" I mentally
exclaimed, "what art thou when opposed to a breakfast?"
By the time we had disposed of our first cup of tea, we had got through
the pious reflections which each of us had to offer on the particular
occasion which had brought us together, and conversation started in a
livelier vein. The gentleman who had assisted the ordinary, by praying
with the culprits, gaily remarked to him, with a benevolent chuckle on
his face, that _they_ (meaning himself and the reverend gentleman) had
succeeded in refuting the Unitarian principles which A---- (one of the
sufferers) had for some time avowed. The look which answered this
speech, reminded me, I know not why, of the _organist's_ comment on the
_organ blower's_ assertion that _they_ had played famously well.
"Ay," said the minister, "I knew it would be so. I told him so
immediately after sentence. But, after all, what can we say for a
recantation dictated by the dread of early death?"
"Very true!" was my exclamation, as the reverend gentleman looked as if
he expected me to say something.
"At any rate," whispered a gentleman well-known in the city, with whom
I had formerly done a little business in the funds, "it gives a man
something of an _option_."
This technical application of a favourite stock-exchange word produced a
general smile round the table, and I could not help contributing to
lengthen it by replying--
"You mean, perhaps, that it gives him a _call_." But the lively sheriff,
of whose witticisms I have already made honourable mention, cut me out
of my share of applause altogether, as clean as a whistle, by instantly
rejoining--
"The _put_ you mean, for, in this case, the party was going for the
_fall_."
Of course there was no standing this, and we all joined in the laugh.
We were however brought back to gravity through the alarm expressed by
the minister, at the idea of his having taken cold through officiating
that morning without his wig. This introduced, I cannot tell how, some
remarks on the head, which led to a disquisition on craniology. On this
subject the witty sheriff was very amusing. _I_ said some tolerably
lively things; but the ordinary beat us all hollow, when it was
contended that the disposition and the mind might be known from the
exterior of the skull, by remarking that he had now an additional reason
to regret having come there without his wig.
With this epigrammatic touch he took his leave, I and the rest of the
company laughing heartily, and having eaten as heartily as we then
laughed. The facetious sheriff now had it all his own way, and said
several things, nearly, or perhaps, quite as good as those which I have
already placed on record. We were thus pleasantly engaged, when the
aide-de-camp of the gallant officer in the blue and gold,--one of the
city marshal's-men, entered to announce that it was past nine o'clock,
and to ask if any of the company chose to see the bodies taken down.
"The bodies!" I repeated to myself, and the application of that word to
those whom I had previously heard mentioned but by their names, recalled
my thoughts which had somehow strayed from the business of the morning
into unlooked-for cheerfulness, and presented, in that simple
expression, an epitome of all that had moved my wonder, curiosity, and
commiseration.
Again we passed through those parts of the prison which I had twice
before traversed. We advanced with a quicker step than when following
those whom we now expected to see brought to us. But with all the
expedition we could use, on reaching the room from which the scaffold
could be seen, we found the "bodies" already there. Nor was this, in my
opinion, the least striking scene which the morning brought under my
observation. The dead men were extended side by side, on the stone
floor. The few persons present gazed on them in silence, duly impressed
with the melancholy spectacle. But in this part of the building a copper
is established, in which a portion of the provisions for its inmates is
prepared. There was a savoury smell of soup, which we could not help
inhaling while we gazed on death. The cooks too were in attendance, and
though they, as became them, did all in their power to look decorously
dismal, well as they managed their faces, they could not so divest
themselves of their professional peculiarities, as not to awaken
thoughts which involuntarily turned to ludicrous or festive scenes.
Their very costume was at variance with the general gloom, and no
sympathy could at once repress the jolly rotundity of their persons.
I turned my eyes from them, wishing to give myself wholly up to
religious meditation during the moments of my stay. Just then the
executioner approach, ed. Sir Thomas desired him to remove the cap from
the face of one of the sufferers. He prepared to comply--but his first
act was to place his hand on the more prominent features and press them
together. This, on inquiry being made, I learned was done that the
bystanders might not be shocked by witnessing any distortion of
countenance. Sir Thomas smiled at the anxiety of the man to make it
appear that his work had been well performed. The cap was then
withdrawn. There was nothing terrific in the aspect of the deceased.
I recognized the features of the young man who had been so wildly,
so violently agitated, when about to suffer. Now pain was at an end,
apprehension was no more, and he seemed in the enjoyment of sweet
repose. His countenance was tranquil as that of a sleeping infant, and
happier than the infant, his rest was not in danger of being disturbed.
While reflecting on the change which a single hour had sufficed to
produce, I could hardly help regarding as idle the the sorrow, the pity,
and the self-reproach for momentary forgetfulness of these, which I had
felt and breathed within that period. I almost accused the sufferers of
weakness, for showing themselves depressed as they had been, while I
felt disposed, seeing their griefs were, to all appearance, terminated
for ever, to demand with the poet,
"And what is death we so unwisely fear?"
and to answer as he replies to himself,
"An end of all our busy tumults here."
_Knight's Quarterly Magazine._
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