Gibbet clasped his hands together, and raised his eyes in an imploring manner, as much as to say, “Oh, how I wish they would!”
Fortunately for him, his father did not perceive this expression of emotion, for the executioner had approached the candle to the model-gallows, and was now busily occupied in arranging the figure for his son’s practice.
“I’ll tell you who are the patrons of my business—profession, I mean,” continued the executioner: “and if you had a grain of feeling for your father, you’d go down on your knees night and morning and pray for them. The old Tories and the Clergy are my friends; and, thank God! I’m a stanch Tory, too. I hate changes. What have changes done? Why swept away the good old laws that used to hang a man for stealing anything above forty shillings. Ah! George the Third was the best king we ever had! He used to tuck ’em up—three, four, five, six—aye, seven at once! Folks may well talk of the good old times—when an executioner could make his twenty or thirty guineas of a morning! I’d sooner take two guineas for each man under such an excellent system, than have the ten pounds as I do now.”
While Smithers was thus talking he had lowered the figure until it stood upon the drop. He then took off the halter; but the puppet still retained its upright position, because it was well stiffened and had heavy plates of lead fastened to the soles of its feet.
“Now what a cry the rascally radical Sunday papers make against the people they call the saints,” continued Smithers, as he unfastened the cord which pinioned the arms of the puppet; “and yet those very saints are the ones that are most in favour of punishment of death. For my part, I adore the saints—I do. When Fitzmorris Shelley brought forward his measure to do away with capital penalty, didn’t Dinglis and Cherrytree and all those pious men make a stand against him? And don’t they know what’s right and proper? Of course they do! Ah! I never read so much of House of Commons’ business before, as I did then:—but I was in a precious fright, it’s true. I thought of calling a public meeting of all the executioners in the kingdom to petition Parliament against the measure; but I didn’t do it—because the House of Commons might have thought that we was interested.”
Smithers paused for a moment, and contemplated the puppet and the model-gallows with great admiration. He had fashioned the one and built the latter himself; and he was not a little proud of his handiwork.
“Now, come, Gibbet,” he at length exclaimed; “it’s all ready. Do you hear me, you infernal hump-back?”
“And if I am a hump-back, father,” returned the lad, bursting into tears, “you know——”
“What?” cried the executioner, his countenance assuming an expression truly ferocious.
“You know that it isn’t my fault,” added the unfortunate youth, shrinking from the glance of his savage parent.
“None of this nonsense, Gibbet,” said the man, a little softened by the reminiscence that he himself had made his son the object of the very reproach levelled against his personal deformity. “Come and try your hand at this work for a few minutes before breakfast; and then we’ll go down yonder together.”
Gibbet approached the model-gallows; but his countenance still denoted the most profoundly-rooted disgust and abhorrence.
“Let’s suppose that the culprit is as yet in his own cell, Gibbet,” continued the executioner. “Well, it’s time to pinion him, we’ll say; there’s the sheriffs standing there—and here’s the chaplain. Now you go for’ard and begin.”
Gibbet took the whip-cord which his father handed to him.
“That’s right. Now you won’t bounce up to the poor devil just like a wild elephant: remember that he’s more or less in an interesting situation—as the ladies say. You’ll rather glide behind him, and insinivate the cord between his arms, whispering at the same time, ‘Beg pardon.’ Mind and don’t forget that: because we’re under an obligation to him to some extent, as he’s the means of putting money in our pocket, and we get the reversion of his clothes.”
Here Gibbet cast a hasty but terrified glance towards his father’s attire.
“Ah! I know what you’re looking at, youngster,” said Smithers, with a coarse laugh; “you want to see if I’ve got on my usual toggery. To be sure I have. I wear it as a compliment to the gentleman that we’re to operate on this morning. This coat was the one that Pegsworth cut his last fling in: this waistcoat was Greenacre’s; and these breeches was William Lees’s. But go on—we mustn’t waste time in this way.”
Gibbet approached the puppet, and endeavoured to manipulate the string as his father instructed him; but his hand trembled so convulsively that he could not even pass it between the arms of the figure.
While he was still fumbling with the cord, and vainly endeavouring to master his emotions, the leathern thong descended with tremendous violence upon his back.
An appalling cry burst from the poor lad; but the executioner only showered down curses on his head.
At length Gibbet contrived, through fear of another blow, to pinion the figure in a manner satisfactory to his brutal parent.
“There!” exclaimed Smithers; “I shall make something of you at last. What virtue there must be in an old bit of leather: it seems to put the right spirit into you, at all events. Well, that’s all you shall do this morning down at Newgate; and mind and do it as if the thong was hanging over your head—or it will be all the worse for you when we get home. Try and keep up the credit of your father’s name, and show the Sheriffs and the Chaplain how you can truss their pigeon for them. They always take great notice—they do. Last time there was an execution, the Chaplain says to me, says he, ‘Smithers, I don’t think you had your hand nicely in this morning?’—‘Don’t you, sir?’ says I.—‘No,’ says he; ‘I’ve seen you do it more genteel than that.’—‘Well, sir,’ says I, ‘I’ll do my best to please you next time.’—‘Ah! do, there’s a good fellow, Smithers,’ says the Chaplain and off he goes to breakfast with the Sheriffs and Governor, a-smacking his lips at the idea of the cold fowl and ham that he meant to pitch into. But I only mention that anecdote, to show you how close the authorities take notice—that’s all. So mind and do your best, boy.”
“Yes, father,” returned Gibbet.
“So now we’ve done the pinioning,” continued Smithers, once more busying himself with the puppet, which he surveyed with an admiration almost amounting to a kind of love. “Well, we can suppose that our chap has marched from the cell, and has just got on the scaffold. So far, so good. We can’t do better than to polish him off decently now that he is here,” proceeded Smithers, alluding to the figure, and rather musing aloud than addressing himself to his son. “Now all we’ve got to do is to imagine that the bell’s a-ringing:—there stands the parson, reading the funeral service. Here I am. I take the halter that’s already tied nicely round the poor devil’s neck—I fix the loop on this hook that hangs down from the beam of the gibbet—then I leave the scaffold—I go underneath—I pull the bolt—and down he falls so!”
“O God!” cried Gibbet, literally writhing with mental agony, as the drop fell with a crashing sound, and the jerking noise of the halter met his ear a moment afterwards.
“Now, then, coward!” exclaimed the executioner; and again the leathern thong elicited horrible screams from the hump-back.
The lad was still crying, and his father was in the midst of sundry fearful anathemas, levelled against what he called his son’s cowardice, when a knock was heard at the door of the loft.
“Come in!” shouted the executioner.
The invitation was obeyed; and an elderly man, dressed in a shabby suit of black, entered the room with an affected solemnity of gait.
CHAPTER CXLIII
MORBID FEELINGS.—KATHERINE.
“Holloa, Banks!” exclaimed the executioner. “Got scent of this morning’s work—eh, old feller?”
“Alas! my dear Mr. Smit
hers,” returned the undertaker, shaking his head in a lachrymose manner, “if men will perpetrate such enormities, they must expect to go to their last home by means of a dance upon nothing.”
And, according to a custom which years had rendered a part of Mr. Banks’s nature, he wiped his eyes with a dingy white pocket-handkerchief.
“There he is again, the old fool!” ejaculated Smithers, with a coarse guffaw; “always a-whimpering! Why, you don’t mean to say, Banks, that you care two straws about the feller that’s going to be tucked up this morning?”
“Ah! Smithers, you don’t know my heart: I weeps for frail human natur’, and not only for the unhappy being that’s so soon to be a blessed defunct carkiss. But, Smithers—my boy——”
“Well?” cried the executioner.
“How much is it to be this time for the rope?” asked Mr. Banks, in a tremulous tone and with another solemn shake of the head.
“Five shillings—not a mag under,” was the prompt reply.
“That’s too much, Mr. Smithers—too much,” observed the undertaker of Globe Lane. “The last one I bought I lost by: times is changed, Mr. Smithers—sadly changed.”
“Ain’t the morbid feelings, as the press calls ’em, as powerful as ever?” demanded the executioner savagely.
“The morbid feelings, thank God, is right as a trivet,” answered Banks; “but it’s the blunt that falls off, Smithers—the blunt! And what’s the use of the morbid feelings if there’s no blunt to gratify ’em?”
“Do you mean to tell me, Mr. Banks,” cried the executioner, “that you can’t get as ready a sale for the halters as you used to do?”
“I’m afraid that such is the actiwal case, my dear friend,” responded Mr. Banks, turning up his eyes in a melancholy manner. “The last blessed wictim that you operated on, Mr. Smithers, you remember, I gived you five shillings for the rope; and I will say, in justice to him as spun it and them as bought it, that a nicer, stronger, or compacter bit of cord never supported carkiss to cross-beam. But wain was it that I coiled it neat up in my winder;—wain was it that I wrote on a half sheet of foolscap, ‘This is the halter that hung poor William Lees;’—the morbid feelings was strong, ’cos the crowd collected opposite my house; but the filthy lucre, Smithers, was wanting. Well,—there the damned—I beg its pardon—the blessed cord stayed for a matter of three weeks; and I do believe it never would have gone at all, if some swell that was passing quite promiscuously one day didn’t take a fancy to it——”
“Well, and what did he give you?” demanded the executioner impatiently.
“Only twelve shillings, as true as I’m a woful sinner that hopes to be saved!” answered the undertaker.
“Twelve shillings—eh? And how much would you have had for the rope?”
“When the blunt doesn’t fall short of the morbid feelings, I calkilates upon a guinea,” answered Mr. Banks.
“Why, you old rogue,” shouted the executioner, “you know that you sold William Lees’s rope a dozen times over. The moment the real one was disposed of, you shoved a counterfeit into your winder; and that went off so well, that you kept on till you’d sold a dozen.”
“No, Smithers—never no such luck as that since Greenacre’s business,” said the undertaker, with a solemn shake of the head; “and then I believe I really did sell nineteen ropes in less than a week.”
“I only wonder people is such fools as to be gulled so,” observed Smithers.
“What can they say, when they see your certifikit that the rope’s the true one?” demanded Banks. “There was one old gen’leman that dealt with me for a many—many years; and he bought the rope of every blessed defunct that had danced on nothing at Newgate for upwards of twenty year! I quite entered into his feelings, I did—I admired that man; and so I always sold him the real ropes. But time’s passing, while I’m chattering here. Come, my dear Smithers—shall we say three shillings for the rope and certifikit this morning?”
“Not a mag less than five,” was the dogged answer.
“Four, my dear friend Smithers?” said the undertaker, with a whining, coaxing tone and manner.
“No—five, I tell you.”
“Well—five then,” said Banks. “I’ll be there at a few minits ’afore nine: I s’pose you’ll cut the carkiss down at the usual hour?”
“Yes—yes,” answered Smithers. “I’m always punctiwal with the dead as well as the living.”
The undertaker muttered something about “blessed defuncts,” smoothed down the limp ends of his dirty cravat, and slowly withdrew, shaking his head more solemnly than ever.
“See what it is to be a Public Executioner!” cried Smithers, turning with an air of triumph towards his son: “look at the perk-visits—look at the priweleges! And yet you go snivelling about like a young gal, ’cos I want to make you fit to succeed me in my honourable profession.”
“O father!” cried the lad, unable to restrain his feelings any longer: “instead of being respected, we are abhorred—instead of being honoured, our very touch is contamination! You yourself know, dear father, that you scarcely or never go abroad; if you enter the public-house tap-room, even in a neighbourhood so low as this, the people get up and walk away on different excuses. When I step out for an errand, the boys in the streets point at me; and those who are well-behaved, pass me with stealthy looks of horror and dread. Even that canting hypocrite who has just left us—even he never crosses your threshold except when his interest is concerned;—and yet he, they say, is connected with body-snatchers, and does not bear an over-excellent character in his neighbourhood. Yet such a sneaking old wretch as that approaches our door with loathing—Oh! I know that he does! You see, father—dear father, that it is a horrible employment; then pray don’t make me embrace it—Oh! don’t—pray don’t, father—dear father: say you won’t—and I’ll do anything else you tell me! I’ll pick up rags and bones from the gutters—I’ll sweep chimnies—I’ll break stones from dawn to darkness;—but do not—do not make me an executioner!”
Smithers was so astounded at this appeal that he had allowed it to proceed without interruption. He was accustomed to be addressed on the same subject, but never to such a length, nor with such arguments; so that the manner and matter of that prayer produced a strange impression on the man who constantly sought, by means of rude sophistries, to veil from himself and his family the true estimation in which his calling was held.
Gibbet, mistaking his father’s astonishment for a more favourable impression, threw himself at his feet, clasped his hands, and exclaimed, “Oh! do not turn a deaf ear to my prayer! And think not, dear father, that I confound you with that pursuit which I abhor;—think not that I see other in you than my parent—a parent whom——”
“Whom you shall obey!” cried the executioner, now recovering the use of his tongue: “or, by God!” he added, pointing with terrible ferocity towards the model-gallows, “I’ll serve you as I did that puppet just now—and as I shall do the man down in the Old Bailey presently.”
Gibbet rose—disappointed, dispirited, and with a heart agitated by the most painful emotions.
But why had not Smithers recourse to the leathern weapon as usual? why had he spared the poor hump-back on this occasion?
Gibbet himself marvelled that such forbearance should have been shown towards him, since he now comprehended but too well that his father was inexorable in his determination with regard to him.
The truth was that Smithers was so far struck by his son’s appeal as to deem it of more serious import than any previously manifested aversion to his horrible calling; and he accordingly met it with a menace which he deemed to be more efficacious than the old discipline of the thong.
“Now mind me,” said the executioner, after a few moments’ pause, “you needn’t try any more of these snivelling antics: they won’t succeed with me, I tell
you before-hand if you don’t do as I order you, I’ll hang you up to that beam as soon as yonder mouse in the noose on the mantel. So let one word be enough. Hark! there’s seven o’clock: we’ve only just time to get a mouthful before we must be off.”
Smithers proceeded downstairs, followed by Gibbet.
They entered a little parlour, where Katherine was preparing breakfast.
It being still dark, a candle stood on the table; and its light was reflected in the polished metal teapot, milk-jug, and sugar-basin. The table napkin was of dazzling whiteness: the knives and forks were bright as steel could be;—in a word, an air of exquisite neatness and cleanliness pervaded the board on which the morning’s repast was spread.
Nor was this appearance confined to the table. The little room itself was a model of domestic propriety. Not a speck of dust was to be seen on the simple furniture, which was also disposed with taste: the windows were set off with a clean muslin curtain; and the mantel was covered with fancy ornaments all indicative of female industry.
Then Kate herself!—her appearance was in perfect keeping with that of the room which owed its cleanliness and air of simple comfort to her. A neat cap set off her chesnut hair, which was arranged in plain bands; her dark stuff gown was made high in the body and long in the skirt, but did not conceal the gracefulness of her slender form, nor altogether prevent a little foot in a neat shoe and a well-turned ankle in a lily-white cotton stocking from occasionally revealing themselves. Then her hands were so slightly brown, her fingers so taper, and her nails so carefully kept, that no one, to look at them, would conceive how much hard work Katherine was compelled to do.
The Mysteries of London, Vol. II [Unabridged & Illustrated] (Valancourt Classics) Page 7
