Chapter 76
As the locksmith walked slowly away from Sir John Chester's chambers,he lingered under the trees which shaded the path, almost hoping thathe might be summoned to return. He had turned back thrice, and stillloitered at the corner, when the clock struck twelve.
It was a solemn sound, and not merely for its reference to to-morrow;for he knew that in that chime the murderer's knell was rung. He hadseen him pass along the crowded street, amidst the execration of thethrong; and marked his quivering lip, and trembling limbs; the ashy hueupon his face, his clammy brow, the wild distraction of his eye--thefear of death that swallowed up all other thoughts, and gnawed withoutcessation at his heart and brain. He had marked the wandering look,seeking for hope, and finding, turn where it would, despair. He had seenthe remorseful, pitiful, desolate creature, riding, with his coffinby his side, to the gibbet. He knew that, to the last, he had been anunyielding, obdurate man; that in the savage terror of his condition hehad hardened, rather than relented, to his wife and child; and that thelast words which had passed his white lips were curses on them as hisenemies.
Mr Haredale had determined to be there, and see it done. Nothing butthe evidence of his own senses could satisfy that gloomy thirst forretribution which had been gathering upon him for so many years. Thelocksmith knew this, and when the chimes had ceased to vibrate, hurriedaway to meet him.
'For these two men,' he said, as he went, 'I can do no more. Heaven havemercy on them!--Alas! I say I can do no more for them, but whom can Ihelp? Mary Rudge will have a home, and a firm friend when she most wantsone; but Barnaby--poor Barnaby--willing Barnaby--what aid can I renderhim? There are many, many men of sense, God forgive me,' cried thehonest locksmith, stopping in a narrow court to pass his hand across hiseyes, 'I could better afford to lose than Barnaby. We have always beengood friends, but I never knew, till now, how much I loved the lad.'
There were not many in the great city who thought of Barnaby that day,otherwise than as an actor in a show which was to take place to-morrow.But if the whole population had had him in their minds, and had wishedhis life to be spared, not one among them could have done so with apurer zeal or greater singleness of heart than the good locksmith.
Barnaby was to die. There was no hope. It is not the least evilattendant upon the frequent exhibition of this last dread punishment,of Death, that it hardens the minds of those who deal it out, and makesthem, though they be amiable men in other respects, indifferent to, orunconscious of, their great responsibility. The word had gone forth thatBarnaby was to die. It went forth, every month, for lighter crimes.It was a thing so common, that very few were startled by the awfulsentence, or cared to question its propriety. Just then, too, when thelaw had been so flagrantly outraged, its dignity must be asserted.The symbol of its dignity,--stamped upon every page of the criminalstatute-book,--was the gallows; and Barnaby was to die.
They had tried to save him. The locksmith had carried petitions andmemorials to the fountain-head, with his own hands. But the well was notone of mercy, and Barnaby was to die.
From the first his mother had never left him, save at night; and withher beside him, he was as usual contented. On this last day, he was moreelated and more proud than he had been yet; and when she dropped thebook she had been reading to him aloud, and fell upon his neck, hestopped in his busy task of folding a piece of crape about his hat,and wondered at her anguish. Grip uttered a feeble croak, half inencouragement, it seemed, and half in remonstrance, but he wanted heartto sustain it, and lapsed abruptly into silence.
With them who stood upon the brink of the great gulf which none can seebeyond, Time, so soon to lose itself in vast Eternity, rolled on like amighty river, swollen and rapid as it nears the sea. It was morning butnow; they had sat and talked together in a dream; and here was evening.The dreadful hour of separation, which even yesterday had seemed sodistant, was at hand.
They walked out into the courtyard, clinging to each other, but notspeaking. Barnaby knew that the jail was a dull, sad, miserable place,and looked forward to to-morrow, as to a passage from it to somethingbright and beautiful. He had a vague impression too, that he wasexpected to be brave--that he was a man of great consequence, and thatthe prison people would be glad to make him weep. He trod the groundmore firmly as he thought of this, and bade her take heart and cry nomore, and feel how steady his hand was. 'They call me silly, mother.They shall see to-morrow!'
Dennis and Hugh were in the courtyard. Hugh came forth from his cell asthey did, stretching himself as though he had been sleeping. Dennis satupon a bench in a corner, with his knees and chin huddled together, androcked himself to and fro like a person in severe pain.
The mother and son remained on one side of the court, and these two menupon the other. Hugh strode up and down, glancing fiercely every now andthen at the bright summer sky, and looking round, when he had done so,at the walls.
'No reprieve, no reprieve! Nobody comes near us. There's only the nightleft now!' moaned Dennis faintly, as he wrung his hands. 'Do you thinkthey'll reprieve me in the night, brother? I've known reprieves comein the night, afore now. I've known 'em come as late as five, six, andseven o'clock in the morning. Don't you think there's a good chanceyet,--don't you? Say you do. Say you do, young man,' whined themiserable creature, with an imploring gesture towards Barnaby, 'or Ishall go mad!'
'Better be mad than sane, here,' said Hugh. 'GO mad.'
'But tell me what you think. Somebody tell me what he thinks!' criedthe wretched object,--so mean, and wretched, and despicable, that evenPity's self might have turned away, at sight of such a being in thelikeness of a man--'isn't there a chance for me,--isn't there a goodchance for me? Isn't it likely they may be doing this to frighten me?Don't you think it is? Oh!' he almost shrieked, as he wrung his hands,'won't anybody give me comfort!'
'You ought to be the best, instead of the worst,' said Hugh, stoppingbefore him. 'Ha, ha, ha! See the hangman, when it comes home to him!'
'You don't know what it is,' cried Dennis, actually writhing as hespoke: 'I do. That I should come to be worked off! I! I! That I shouldcome!'
'And why not?' said Hugh, as he thrust back his matted hair to get abetter view of his late associate. 'How often, before I knew your trade,did I hear you talking of this as if it was a treat?'
'I an't unconsistent,' screamed the miserable creature; 'I'd talk soagain, if I was hangman. Some other man has got my old opinions at thisminute. That makes it worse. Somebody's longing to work me off. I knowby myself that somebody must be!'
'He'll soon have his longing,' said Hugh, resuming his walk. 'Think ofthat, and be quiet.'
Although one of these men displayed, in his speech and bearing, themost reckless hardihood; and the other, in his every word and action,testified such an extreme of abject cowardice that it was humiliatingto see him; it would be difficult to say which of them would most haverepelled and shocked an observer. Hugh's was the dogged desperation ofa savage at the stake; the hangman was reduced to a condition littlebetter, if any, than that of a hound with the halter round his neck.Yet, as Mr Dennis knew and could have told them, these were the twocommonest states of mind in persons brought to their pass. Such was thewholesome growth of the seed sown by the law, that this kind of harvestwas usually looked for, as a matter of course.
In one respect they all agreed. The wandering and uncontrollable trainof thought, suggesting sudden recollections of things distant and longforgotten and remote from each other--the vague restless craving forsomething undefined, which nothing could satisfy--the swift flight ofthe minutes, fusing themselves into hours, as if by enchantment--therapid coming of the solemn night--the shadow of death always upon them,and yet so dim and faint, that objects the meanest and most trivialstarted from the gloom beyond, and forced themselves upon the view--theimpossibility of holding the mind, even if they had been so disposed,to penitence and preparation, or of keeping it to any point while onehideous fascination tempted it away--these things were common to themall,
and varied only in their outward tokens.
'Fetch me the book I left within--upon your bed,' she said to Barnaby,as the clock struck. 'Kiss me first.'
He looked in her face, and saw there, that the time was come. After along embrace, he tore himself away, and ran to bring it to her; biddingher not stir till he came back. He soon returned, for a shriek recalledhim,--but she was gone.
He ran to the yard-gate, and looked through. They were carrying heraway. She had said her heart would break. It was better so.
'Don't you think,' whimpered Dennis, creeping up to him, as he stoodwith his feet rooted to the ground, gazing at the blank walls--'don'tyou think there's still a chance? It's a dreadful end; it's a terribleend for a man like me. Don't you think there's a chance? I don't meanfor you, I mean for me. Don't let HIM hear us (meaning Hugh); 'he's sodesperate.'
'Now then,' said the officer, who had been lounging in and out with hishands in his pockets, and yawning as if he were in the last extremityfor some subject of interest: 'it's time to turn in, boys.'
'Not yet,' cried Dennis, 'not yet. Not for an hour yet.'
'I say,--your watch goes different from what it used to,' returned theman. 'Once upon a time it was always too fast. It's got the other faultnow.'
'My friend,' cried the wretched creature, falling on his knees, 'mydear friend--you always were my dear friend--there's some mistake. Someletter has been mislaid, or some messenger has been stopped upon theway. He may have fallen dead. I saw a man once, fall down dead in thestreet, myself, and he had papers in his pocket. Send to inquire. Letsomebody go to inquire. They never will hang me. They never can.--Yes,they will,' he cried, starting to his feet with a terrible scream.'They'll hang me by a trick, and keep the pardon back. It's a plotagainst me. I shall lose my life!' And uttering another yell, he fell ina fit upon the ground.
'See the hangman when it comes home to him!' cried Hugh again, as theybore him away--'Ha ha ha! Courage, bold Barnaby, what care we? Yourhand! They do well to put us out of the world, for if we got loose asecond time, we wouldn't let them off so easy, eh? Another shake! A mancan die but once. If you wake in the night, sing that out lustily, andfall asleep again. Ha ha ha!'
Barnaby glanced once more through the grate into the empty yard;and then watched Hugh as he strode to the steps leading to hissleeping-cell. He heard him shout, and burst into a roar of laughter,and saw him flourish his hat. Then he turned away himself, like one whowalked in his sleep; and, without any sense of fear or sorrow, lay downon his pallet, listening for the clock to strike again.
Barnaby Rudge: A Tale of the Riots of 'Eighty Page 76
