Gallows Thief

by Bernard Cornwell

  ‘You’re hurting me,’ she wailed.

  ‘Botting?’ the Keeper intervened.

  ‘Shouldn’t be my job to do the pinioning,’ Botting snarled, but he loosened some of the tension from the cord holding her elbows and the girl nodded in pathetic thanks.

  ‘She’d be a pretty thing,’ Logan said, ‘if she was cleaned up.’

  Sir Henry was counting the pots in the hearth. Everything seemed unreal. God help me, he thought, God help me.

  ‘Jemmy!’ The highwayman, his leg irons struck off, greeted the hangman with a sneer.

  ‘Come here, lad,’ Botting ignored the familiarity. ‘Drink that. Then put your arms by your side.’

  The highwayman put a coin on the table beside the brandy beaker. ‘For you, Jemmy.’

  ‘Good lad,’ the hangman said quietly. The coin would ensure that the highwayman’s arms would not be pinioned too tightly, and that his death would be as swift as Botting could make it.

  ‘Eleanor tells me she’s recovered from the engagement,’ Sir Henry said, his back still to the prisoners, ‘but I don’t believe her. She’s very unhappy. I can tell. Mind you, I sometimes wonder if she’s being perverse.’

  ‘Perverse?’

  ‘It occurs to me, Logan, that her attraction to Sandman has only increased since the engagement was broken.’

  ‘He was a very decent young man,’ Logan said.

  ‘He is a very decent young man,’ Sir Henry agreed.

  ‘But scrupulous,’ Logan said, ‘to a fault.’

  ‘To a fault indeed,’ Sir Henry said. He was staring down at the floor now, trying to ignore the girl’s soft sobbing. ‘Young Sandman is a good man, a very good man, but quite without prospects now. Utterly without prospects! And Eleanor cannot marry into a disgraced family.’

  ‘Indeed she cannot,’ Logan agreed.

  ‘She says she can, but then, Eleanor would,’ Sir Henry said, then shook his head. ‘And none of it is Rider Sandman’s fault, but he’s penniless now. Quite penniless.’

  Logan frowned. ‘He’s on half-pay, surely?’

  Sir Henry shook his head. ‘He sold his commission, gave the money towards the keep of his mother and sister.’

  ‘He keeps his mother? That dreadful woman? Poor Sandman.’ Logan laughed softly. ‘But Eleanor, surely, is not without suitors?’

  ‘Far from it,’ Sir Henry sounded gloomy. ‘They queue up in the street, Logan, but Eleanor finds fault.’

  ‘She’s good at that,’ Logan said softly, though without malice for he was fond of his friend’s daughter, though he thought her over-indulged. It was true that Eleanor was clever and too well read, but that was no reason to spare her the bridle, whip and spur. ‘Still,’ he said, ‘doubtless she’ll marry soon?’

  ‘Doubtless she will,’ Sir Henry said drily, for his daughter was not only attractive but it was also well known that Sir Henry would settle a generous income on her future husband. Which was why Sir Henry was sometimes tempted to let her marry Rider Sandman, but her mother would not hear of it. Florence wanted Eleanor to have a title, and Rider Sandman had none and now he had no fortune either, and so the marriage between Captain Sandman and Miss Forrest would not now take place – Sir Henry’s thoughts about his daughter’s prospects were driven away by a shriek from the doomed girl, a wailing shriek so pitiful that Sir Henry turned in shocked enquiry to see that James Botting had hung one of the heavy noosed ropes about her shoulders and the girl was shrinking from its touch as though the Bridport hemp was soaked in acid.

  ‘Quiet, my dear,’ the Reverend Cotton said, then he opened his prayer book and took a step back from the four prisoners who were all now pinioned.

  ‘This was never the hangman’s job,’ James Botting complained before the Ordinary could begin reading the service for the burial of the dead. ‘The irons was struck and the pinioning was done in the yard – in the yard – by the Yeoman of the Halter! By the Yeoman of the Halter. It was never the hangman’s job to do the pinioning!’

  ‘He means it was done by his assistant,’ Logan muttered.

  ‘So he does know why we’re here?’ Sir Henry commented as the Sheriff and Under-Sheriff, both in floor-length robes and wearing chains of office and both carrying silver-tipped staves, and both evidently satisfied that the prisoners were properly prepared, went to the Keeper who formally bowed to them before presenting the Sheriff with a sheet of paper.

  ‘“I am the resurrection and the life,”’ the Reverend Cotton intoned in a loud voice, ‘“he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live.”’

  The Sheriff glanced at the paper, nodded in satisfaction and thrust it into a pocket of his fur-trimmed robe. Until now the four prisoners had been in the care of the Keeper of Newgate, but now they belonged to the Sheriff of the City of London who, formalities over, crossed to Sir Henry with an outstretched hand and a welcoming smile. ‘You’ve come for the breakfast, Sir Henry?’

  ‘I’ve come as a matter of duty,’ Sir Henry said sternly, ‘but it’s very good to see you, Rothwell.’

  ‘You must certainly stay for the breakfast,’ the Sheriff said, as the Ordinary recited the prayers for the burial of the dead. ‘They’re very good devilled kidneys.’

  ‘I could get a good breakfast at home,’ Sir Henry said. ‘No, I came because Botting has petitioned for an assistant and we thought, before justifying the expenditure, that we should judge for ourselves whether or not one was needed. You know Mister Logan?’

  ‘The alderman and I are old acquaintances,’ the Sheriff said, shaking Logan’s hand. ‘The advantage of giving the man an assistant,’ he added to Sir Henry in a low voice, ‘is that his replacement is already trained. And if there is trouble on the scaffold, well, two men are better than one. It’s good to see you, Sir Henry, and you, Mister Logan.’ He composed his face and turned to Botting. ‘Are you ready, Botting?’

  ‘Quite ready, sir, quite ready,’ Botting said, scooping up the four white bags and thrusting them into a pocket.

  ‘We can talk at breakfast,’ the Sheriff said to Sir Henry. ‘Devilled kidneys! I smelt them cooking as I came through.’ He hauled a turnip watch from a fob pocket and clicked open its lid. ‘Time to go, I think, time to go.’

  The Sheriff led the procession out of the Association Room and across the narrow Press Yard. The Reverend Cotton had a hand on the girl’s neck, guiding her as he read the burial service aloud, the same service that he had intoned to the condemned prisoners in the chapel the day before. The four prisoners had been in the famous Black Pew, grouped about the coffin on the table, and the Ordinary had read them their burial service and then preached that they were being punished for their sin as God had decreed men and women should be punished. He had described the waiting flames of hell, told them of the devilish torments that were even then being prepared for them, and he had reduced the girl and one of the two murderers to tears. The chapel’s gallery had been filled with folk who had paid one shilling and sixpence apiece to witness the four doomed souls at their last church service.

  The prisoners in the cells overlooking the Press Yard shouted protests and farewells as the procession passed. Sir Henry was alarmed by the noise and surprised to hear a woman’s voice calling insults. ‘Surely men and women don’t share the cells?’ he asked.

  ‘Not any longer,’ Logan said, then saw where his friend was looking, ‘and I assume she’s no prisoner, but a lady of the night, Sir Henry. They pay what’s called “bad money” to the turnkeys so they can come and earn their living here.’

  ‘Bad money? Good Lord!’ Sir Henry looked pained. ‘And we allow that?’

  ‘We ignore it,’ Logan said quietly, ‘on the understanding that it’s better to have whores in the prison than prisoners rioting.’ The Sheriff had led the procession down a flight of stone stairs into a tunnel that ran beneath the main prison to emerge at the Lodge, and the gloomy passage passed an empty cell with an open door. ‘That’s where they spent their last night,’ Logan poin
ted into the cell. The doomed girl was swaying and a turnkey took her elbow and hurried her along.

  ‘“We brought nothing into this world,”’ the Reverend Cotton’s voice echoed from the tunnel’s damp granite walls, ‘“and it is certain we can carry nothing out. The Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away, blessed be the Name of the Lord.”’

  ‘I didn’t steal anything!’ the girl suddenly screamed.

  ‘Quiet, lass, quiet,’ the Keeper growled. All the men were nervous. They wanted the prisoners to cooperate and the girl was very close to hysteria.

  ‘“Lord, let me know mine end,”’ the Ordinary prayed, ‘“and the number of my days.”’

  ‘Please!’ the girl wailed. ‘No, no! Please.’ A second turnkey closed on her in case she collapsed and had to be carried the rest of the way, but she stumbled on.

  ‘If they struggle too much,’ Logan told Sir Henry, ‘then they’re tied to a chair and hung that way, but I confess I haven’t seen that happen in many many years, though I do remember that Langley had to do it once.’

  ‘Langley?’

  ‘Botting’s predecessor.’

  ‘You’ve seen a number of these things?’ Sir Henry asked.

  ‘A good few,’ Logan admitted. ‘And you?’

  ‘Never. I just conceived today as a duty.’ Sir Henry watched the prisoners climb the steps at the end of the tunnel and wished he had not come. He had never seen a violent death. Rider Sandman, who was to have been his son-in-law, had seen much violent death because he had been a soldier and Sir Henry rather wished the younger man was here. He had always liked Sandman. Such a shame about his family.

  At the top of the stairs was the Lodge, a cavernous entrance chamber that gave access to the street called the Old Bailey. The door that led to the street was the Debtor’s Door and it stood open, but no daylight showed for the scaffold had been built directly outside. The noise of the crowd was loud now and the prison bell was muffled, but the bell of Saint Sepulchre’s on the far side of Newgate Street was also tolling for the imminent deaths.

  ‘Gentlemen?’ The Sheriff, who was now in charge of the morning’s proceedings, turned to the breakfast guests. ‘If you’ll climb the steps to the scaffold, gentlemen, you’ll find chairs to right and left. Just leave two at the front for us, if you’d be so kind?’

  Sir Henry, as he passed through the towering arch of the high Debtor’s Door, saw in front of him the dark hollow underside of the scaffold and he thought how it was like being behind and underneath a stage supported by raw wooden beams. Black baize shrouded the planks at the front and side of the stage which meant that the only light came from the chinks between the timbers that formed the scaffold’s elevated platform. Wooden stairs climbed to Sir Henry’s right, going up into the shadows before turning sharply left to emerge in a roofed pavilion that stood at the scaffold’s rear. The stairs and the platform all looked very substantial and it was hard to remember that the scaffold was only erected the day before an execution and dismantled immediately after. The roofed pavilion was there to keep the honoured guests dry in inclement weather, but today the morning sun shone on Old Bailey and was bright enough to make Sir Henry blink as he turned the corner of the stairs and emerged into the pavilion.

  A huge cheer greeted the guests’ arrival. No one cared who they were, but their appearance presaged the coming of the prisoners. Old Bailey was crowded. Every window that overlooked the street was crammed and there were even folk on the rooftops.

  ‘Ten shillings,’ Logan said.

  ‘Ten shillings?’ Sir Henry was bemused again.

  ‘To rent a window,’ Logan explained, ‘unless it’s a celebrated crime being punished in which case the price goes up to two or even three guineas.’ He pointed at a tavern that stood directly opposite the scaffold. ‘The Magpie and Stump has the most expensive windows because you can see right down into the pit where they drop.’ He chuckled. ‘You can rent a telescope from the landlord and watch ’em die. But we, of course, get the best view.’

  Sir Henry wanted to sit in the shadows at the back of the pavilion, but Logan had already taken one of the front chairs and Sir Henry just sat. His head was ringing with the terrible noise that came from the street. It was, he decided, just like being on a theatre’s stage. He was overwhelmed and dazzled. So many people! Everywhere faces looking up at the black-draped platform. The scaffold proper, in front of the roofed pavilion, was thirty feet long and fifteen feet wide and topped by a great beam that ran from the pavilion’s roof to the platform’s end. Black iron butcher’s hooks were screwed into the beam’s underside and a ladder was propped against it.

  A second ironic cheer greeted the sheriffs in their fur-trimmed robes. Sir Henry was sitting on a hard wooden chair that was slightly too small and desperately uncomfortable. ‘It’ll be the girl first,’ Logan said.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘She’s the one they’ve come to see,’ Logan said. He was evidently enjoying himself and Sir Henry was surprised by that. How little we know our friends, he thought, then he again wished that Rider Sandman was here because he suspected that the soldier would not approve of death made this easy. Or had Sandman been hardened to violence?

  ‘I should let him marry her,’ he said.

  ‘What?’ Logan had to raise his voice because the crowd was shouting for the prisoners to be brought on.

  ‘Nothing,’ Sir Henry said.

  ‘“I will keep my mouth as it were with a bridle,”’ the Reverend Cotton’s voice grew louder as he climbed the stairs behind the girl, ‘“while the ungodly is in my sight.”’

  A turnkey came first, then the girl, and she was awkward on the steps because her legs were still not used to being without irons and the turnkey had to steady her when she half tripped on the top step.

  Then the crowd saw her. ‘Hats off! Hats off!’ The shout began at the front and echoed back. It was not respect that caused the cry, but rather because the taller hats of the folk in front obscured the view for those behind. The roar of the crowd was massive, crushing, and then the people surged forward so that the City Marshal and his men who protected the scaffold raised their staves and spears. Sir Henry felt besieged by noise and by the thousands of people with open mouths, shouting. There were as many women as men in the crowd. Sir Henry saw a respectable-looking matron stooping to a telescope in one of the windows of the Magpie and Stump. Beside her a man was eating bread and fried egg. Another woman had opera glasses. A pie-seller had set up his wares in a doorway. Pigeons, red kites and sparrows circled the sky in panic because of the noise. Sir Henry, his mind swimming, suddenly noticed the four open coffins that lay on the scaffold’s edge. They were made of rough pine and were unplaned and resinous. The girl’s mouth was open and her face, which had been pale, was now red and distorted. Tears ran down her cheeks as Botting took her by a pinioned elbow and led her onto the planks at the platform’s centre. That centre was a trapdoor and it creaked under their weight. The girl was shaking and gasping as Botting positioned her under the beam at the platform’s far end. Once she was in place Botting took a cotton bag from his pocket and pulled it over her hair so that it looked like a hat. She screamed at his touch and tried to twist away from him, but the Reverend Cotton put a hand on her arm as the hangman took the rope from her shoulders and clambered up the ladder. He was heavy and the rungs creaked alarmingly. He slotted the small spliced eye over one of the big black butcher’s hooks, then climbed awkwardly back down, red-faced and breathing hard. ‘I need an assistant, don’t I?’ he grumbled. ‘Ain’t fair. Man always has an assistant. Don’t fidget, missy! Go like a Christian!’ He looked the girl in the eyes as he pulled the noose down around her head. He tightened the slip knot under her left ear, then gave the rope a small jerk as if to satisfy himself that it would take her weight. She gasped at the jerk, then screamed because Botting had his hands on her hair. ‘Keep still, girl!’ he snarled, then pulled down the white cotton bag so that it covered her face.

  She scre
amed. ‘I want to see!’

  Sir Henry closed his eyes.

  ‘“For a thousand years in thy sight are but as yesterday.”’ The Ordinary had raised his voice so he could be heard above the crowd’s seething din. The second prisoner, the highwayman, was on the scaffold now and Botting stood him beside the girl, crammed the bag on his head and climbed the ladder to fix the rope. ‘“O teach us to number our days,”’ the Reverend Cotton read in a singsong voice, ‘“that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom.”’

  ‘Amen,’ Sir Henry said fervently, too fervently.

  ‘Here,’ Logan nudged Sir Henry, whose eyes were still closed, and held out a flask. ‘Good brandy. Smuggled.’

  The highwayman had flowers in his buttonhole. He bowed to the crowd that cheered him, but his bravado was forced for Sir Henry could see the man’s leg trembling and his bound hands twitching. ‘Head up, darling,’ he told the girl beside him.

  Children were in the crowd. One girl, she could not have been a day over six years of age, sat on her father’s shoulders and sucked her thumb. The crowd cheered each arriving prisoner. A group of sailors with long tarred pigtails shouted at Botting to pull down the girl’s dress. ‘Show us her bubbies, Jemmy! Go on, flop ’em out!’

  ‘Be over soon,’ the highwayman told the girl, ‘you and I’ll be with the angels, girl.’

  ‘I didn’t steal anything!’ the girl wailed.

  ‘Admit your guilt! Confess your sins!’ the Reverend Cotton urged the four prisoners, who were all now lined up on the trapdoor. The girl was furthest from Sir Henry and she was shaking. All four had cotton bags over their faces and all had nooses about their necks. ‘Go to God with a clean breast!’ the Ordinary urged them. ‘Cleanse your conscience, abase yourselves before God!’

  ‘Go on, Jemmy!’ a sailor called. ‘Strip the frow’s frock off!’