CHAPTER XXI.I COME TO TYBURN TREE.
“Sevenof the clock, your la’ship!”
I opened my heavy eyes, saw Emblem’s pale face, then shuddered.
“Hope you’ve slept well,” says the maid, in a way that told me that, whatever I had done, she certainly had not.
“Remarkably,” says I, determined to practise for the terrible exhibition of fortitude that I must display. “If all those dear friends of mine have slept as properly, they will need to have less powder on than usual. And now, my Emblem,” says I, taking the cup of chocolate from her, “mind that you dress me to the utmost of your art. Not a stitch must be out of place. My head-dress must be a marvel of perfection, and put ’em in a towering rage. And I’ll wear the plum-coloured taffety, faced with pink. Or stay, I’ll have a more sanguine colour; I think it should well consort with an interesting paleness.”
“You have a black velvet that will do beautifully, my lady. Yet you do not wish to wear a mourning air?”
“No, girl,” says I, “anything save that. Pale, but spirited, you know, as one who confronts adversity,yet sets her foot upon it. For to-day, if all things fail, I am persuaded that I’ll receive my enemies and outface them every one.”
I was robed, therefore, with much care, and it pleased me, and also braced my resolution up, to know that my personal charms could not have been displayed to more delicate advantage. I knew that to meet the fierce eyes of my enemies would be the severest ordeal that I had undergone; and yet I did not shrink, but rejoiced rather in the self-elected task. They would expect to see me spiritless and crushed with woe; for they were not aware that I meant to show them what a fortitude was mine. None the less, the time that intervened between now and the coming of the coach that was to bear me to the final scene of all was passed in morbidity and wretchedness. For several days I had sent letters of vague comfort and encouragement to young Anthony, yet the Governor of Newgate refused to allow them to be delivered, and had sent them back again. And now at the last, as the rebel must be ignorant of the efforts I was making, I became haunted with the fear that he might have made an attempt upon his life, for I was certain that, to a person of his high temper, any death was preferable to the one he was doomed to undergo. And then there was the sincerity of Mr. Snark, whose possibilities were ever present, and harrowing my thoughts. Ten minutes before the coach arrived I wrung my hands and cried to the already weeping Mrs. Polly:
“I know for certain that that horrid little man will fail me. He’s got my money, and therefore all he does desire. Oh, why did I give it him! Surely I might have known that he’d undo me!”
“Oh, no, I’m sure he won’t!” says poor Emblem, breaking out in sobs. “I am sure he is a good man, and an honest. I would trust that man under any circumstances.”
“Do you really think so?” cries I, clinging to the weakest straw.
“Yes,” wept Emblem more bitterly than ever, “I am sure Mr. Snark is a good and honest man.”
Very soon the coach was at the door. Even this was a relief, for activity took some of the tension from our minds, and now the very imminence of the thing numbed their aches in some degree. I paid not the slightest heed to the way we went, or to the appearance of the streets, my senses all being deadened with their gloominess. Presently the jolting of the coach grew less, the horses reduced their pace, and the low murmur of the mob uprose. My voice shook pitifully when I said to Emblem, who would insist on accompanying me through everything:
“Are we in good time?”
“The cart is not due for nearly an hour yet,” she answered.
To avoid the press, the coachman turned his horses into an unfrequented by-street, and shortly afterwards brought them to a stand before a door in a row of dismal-looking houses. I sprang out lightlyand unconcernedly, not without a signal effort, though, but above all things I was resolved not to give one sign of weakness to the world. It annoyed and somewhat disconcerted me to find that a small company of the vulgar curious was collected about the coach, and more particularly when a fat and dirty-aproned housewife nudged a neighbour and exclaimed, with outstretched finger pointed straight at me: “That’s her! That’s her ladyship! ’aven’t she got a face!”
As I was passing through the throng, a groom came up the street riding a sorrel mare. This was cheering in a measure, as it told me that thus far all arrangements were being religiously observed. But immediately the door was opened and then closed upon my entrance, and I found myself standing with Emblem excluded from the crowd in the dark kitchen of the houses. I was suddenly aroused by a highly propitious circumstance. I was surprised to find at my side a little, very villainous-looking person dressed in the decent plain suit of an attorney, with a remarkably clean cravat, and a neat tie wig that somewhat softened his extremely wicked countenance. But at his first word, that came from behind his hand in a wheezing whisper, I felt my blood move quicker, for to my joy I identified him as the celebrated Mr. Snark.
“How d’ye do, Miss! Pretty bobbish are ye?” he said in my ear. “Pretty spry upon the perch, eh? And I say, Miss, there’s a wonderful sweet set of parsons, clergymen, and etceteria assembled inthe front. A wonderful sweet set, Miss, wiv plenty o’ good old ale and stingo in ’em; and on’y a hundred sojers on duty too. And who do you think’s the Chapling, Miss? Why, the Reverend Willum Vickerstaff, the drunkenest old crimp wot ever sat in church. By thunder, Missy, I fair envies you, I does, a-sittin’ at that window a-lookin’ at the musick. I wouldn’t give fourpence for them redcoats. For I tell you, Missy, old Snark’s a-going to do the thing in style, not a-going to spare a farden of expense, for when Snark does a thing he does it gaudy. By gum, won’t them blessed traps at Bow Street just a’ bat their eyes.”
At that moment I think I could have taken this outrageous little villain in my arms and incontinently hugged him. Instead, however, I fervently apostrophised him.
“God requite you, Mr. Snark,” I cried, “for a good man and a true.”
I pressed him to accept a purse of fifty guineas over and above the sum agreed upon.
“No, not a blessed head,” he replied. “Snark’s not a dirty screw, but a man o’ fambly and a proper hartiss at his work. Takes a fair pride in it, he does, which is the reason why his reppitation seizes all Bow Street by the belly.”
Upon this the worthy creature conducted me up the gloomy stairs to the window that commanded the execution ground. The sight that then confronted me I have often met again in dreams. The immediate look of it was enough to produce a coldsweat on my brow. The whole of England seemed already collected in that square. Tier upon tier, multitude on multitude, were swaying, elbowing, and jostling below, marvellously cheerful but awfully intent. The tall, gaunt scaffold raised upon a platform in their midst, with a treble file of bright-armed and red-coated soldiers standing round it, was a very lodestone that drew every face thereto. The blood went slow within me as I gazed at this fretful mass, whose heavy buzz of talk was at intervals succeeded by the brisk roaring of a pot-house song. The cold, grey winter morning appeared a proper background for this sordid scene, I thought, whilst the high dun-coloured houses that reared themselves on every side, quick with their throngs of eager witnesses, seemed quite in harmony with the horrid gloom of the tragedy so soon to be enacted.
I was still in excellent good time. The condemned man was not due for a full half-hour yet. My invited guests were beginning to arrive, however, but everything had been ordered excellently well. The room was large enough to accommodate two windows, and these had been removed, and several rows of chairs had been placed behind their apertures, and so skilfully arranged that twenty persons could be gratified with a view.
The first of my kind friends to appear was a certain Mrs. Jennings, an obese and comfortable person, with a perfect confidence in, and admiration for, herself. This was not assumption either, seeingthat she had snared four different coronets for a corresponding number of her female progeny. She brought her husband too; a quite tame creature, whom she led about to routs and parties and called “Dear Harry” in a simpering, caressing manner. “Dear Harry’s” conversation was limited to “’Pon my soul!” and it was his pleasure to retire to a corner early and sit bolt upright on the extreme edge of his chair. And I think I found him to be the most fascinating being that I ever met, for I would gaze at him a desperate length of time, since it really seemed a miracle how such a large amount of man could be possibly supported by such a small amount of chair. This pair were pretty soon augmented by a parcel of the high grandees. The incomparable Countess of Pushington minced in, a perfect phenomenon of youth, considering that she brought the youngest daughter of her second marriage with her, my Lady Crabstock Parker, who, to do her justice, looked really very little older than her adorable mamma. Mrs. Laura Wigging came, of course; a very whimsical, amusing mixture of Christianity and criticism. She was most desirous to drop a prayer-book, which she had brought for the purpose, from the window into the cart as it passed by. She thought it might shed a little light on the dark way that the dear criminal had to tread. The Duchess of Rabies was truly condescending and most affable. The men who accompanied this galaxy of talent, beauty, and good nature betrayed almost immediately, I regret to say, the exceedingmasculinity of their minds. They began at once to lay and to take bets regarding the number of kicks the sufferer would make at space before he perished. However the mere presence of these enemies proved a tonic to my nerves. Having to play a part before those I despised, and to combat their hostility, I was thereby enabled to forget in some degree the peculiar horror of my situation. Before ten o’clock the full number of guests were present, seventeen in all, and I could feel instinctively the zest with which they noted and minutely analysed my most trivial actions. They used a certain tone of sympathetic consideration towards me, which in itself was irony, and carefully refrained from saying a harsh or unkind thing of the rebel, as if to show that they were fully acquainted with my exceeding tenderness towards him, and that their native delicacy would not permit them to distress it. They agreed with the sweetest unanimity that he must be a charming person. Yet it should be recorded to my eternal praise, I think, and as an instance of the mind’s strength conquering the weakness of the heart, that I received all these covert taunts without one betrayal of my secret rage. I laughed and jested with the men, and caressed all these dear women with my prettiest phrases. I do not think there was a solitary person present who could have divined that my very heart was bursting with a suppressed agony of terror. Snark might be as faithful as the day, all things might be ordered perfectly, and there be no ground for fear whatever; but I could not divest my mind ofthe knowledge that tens of thousands were assembled roaring and surging down below, and packed as thick as summer flies in a rotten carcase. I could not expel the grim image of the scaffold from my eyes, the densely populated windows, the strained awaiting eagerness of the mob; nor could I fail to hear all the sounds of portent; the deliberate slow tolling of the passing bell of an adjacent church, the striking of the hour of ten, and directly afterwards the new commotion that went up, as the tidings travelled in a murmur from mouth to mouth the whole length of the multitude, “It’s coming!”
“Do they mean the cart, my dear?” one dear creature inquired innocently of me.
“Yes,” said I, with animation, “my dear Duchess, I really believe they do. We are coming to the fun now, are we not? ’Twill be highly entertaining presently.”
The Duchess’s eyes burned in her head to discover a flaw in the utter nonchalance of my demeanour, but grievous was her disappointment. My bold look fairly challenged her to find one, and I think I can safely say that not the Duchess alone but this whole assembly of dear friends was chagrined that I had not the consideration to regale it with my pain. The gruesome vehicle was already close at hand. It was coming at a foot pace down the Uxbridge Road, and the throng parted readily before it to let it pass. Conversation ceased now, and we took our seats at the windows. And I think it was well for me that this new diversion held theattention of my friends, for I doubt whether, with my lover before my eyes, I could have kept up the bitter farce. Certainly, no sooner did I behold the slow-coming vehicle, with its pale young occupant, and the procession of prison officers, soldiers, the chaplain, and the executioner, than I had to stifle an involuntary cry that sprang into my throat, and for support was compelled to cling an instant to the window-sill in front.
Even as the cart appeared, a tentative beam of the wintry sun struggled into the cold grey morning. Its effect was very weird and strange upon that great company of expectant, upturned faces, gazing with a kind of rapt horror at the poor young creature who was to die.
The rebel and his escort were now quite near, and I could see the full disposition of his features very plain. I looked down upon him from my vantage involuntarily almost, and raked his face again and again with my eyes to discover one flaw in the perfect demeanour of my hero. And somehow as I looked I felt the vain pride rise in my heart, for a king could not have gone forth to his doom with more propriety. There was no hint of bravado in his bearing, but his head was carried nobly, without undue defiance and without undue humility; his mouth was resolute, and his eyes alert and clear. In all my life I never saw a man look so firm, so spirited, so proud.
As he approached more nearly I discerned a look of expectation and inquiry on his face, and hiseyes scanned the houses and the mob searchingly and quickly as though they fervently desired the sight of someone whom they could not see. Indeed, to me these questioning glances grew painfully apparent, until I remembered suddenly the person who had inspired them, whereon a strange mad happiness trembled in my blood. ’Twas then I forgot the world entirely—yea, even its uncharity, my sneering and rejoicing enemies, and the grievous comedy that I was condemned to play. I became oblivious to everything but the pitiless fact that the one man in the world was proceeding with noble simplicity and patience to his doom, and that I was the one of all those thousands there assembled that he craved to see.
In an instant I jumped up and leant as far out of the window as I could, waving my handkerchief most wildly several times, and then cried out at the very topmost of my voice:
“I am here, child! Here I am! God be with you, lad! God bless you!”
Such a singular stillness had taken the curious multitude at the apparition of the cart that my tones rang out clearly as a bell, and by the startled movement of a thousand heads were heard, indeed, by all in the vicinity. And, amongst others, the poor rebel heard, and swiftly looking up he saw my outstretched form and my handkerchief still fluttering. Thereupon the blood painted his white cheeks most eloquent in crimson; his face spread out in fine animated sparkles, and he plucked off his hat andwaved it in reply. Almost immediately thereafter the cart was stopped and placed carefully into its position under the noose that dangled from the beam; the soldiers closed up, promptly cleared a convenient space, and stood in a ring with bayonets drawn, whilst the Sheriff, the Chaplain, the Governor of Newgate, and various high dignitaries took up their stations on the scaffold. ’Twas astonishing the brisk precision with which everything was done. Before I could grasp the idea that the condemned was actually at the point of death, the executioner was standing with one foot on the scaffold and another in the cart, tying the criminal’s hands behind him. At the same moment the Chaplain produced a greasy, black-backed tome, and began to mumble indistinctly the service for the dead. The whole matter was so fascinating that I could not pluck my eyes from the scene, and though I had a certain dim idea that some strange, vague power was about to intervene, for my life I could not have told just then what it was to be; nay, and should not have greatly felt the loss of it until the bloody drama had been played.
All this time the mob below had been striving towards the scaffold, only to be forced back by the vigorous measures of the guard of soldiers. This, however, was no more than the natural eagerness of a crowd to procure a fuller view, and was perfectly appropriate and good-humoured on the side of both. But as soon as the executioner had confined his victim’s wrists, and was engaged in opening hisshirt that he might adjust the rope around his throat, one portion of the mob quite adjacent to the scaffold grew suddenly obstreperous; sticks went up, and cries arose. Thereupon the Sheriff and the officials of the prison situate upon the platform began to behave in a most excited fashion, dancing and throwing their arms about and crying orders to the guard, whilst for the nonce the executioner suspended his employ. In an instant the mob began to violently surge, oaths were screamed, and staves began to crack and to descend. Down went a redcoat, and then another; thereupon the fight grew general all about the cart, but it soon became apparent that not only were the troops outnumbered, but that they were so confined and encumbered in by the press that their heavy weapons would assist them little, as they could not force them into a position to be of service. And in very conscience the riot had started with rare decision and effect. A solid phalanx of lusty, well-primed rogues had been concentrated all on one point by their clever general, and the promptitude with which they did their business really was surprising. Crack! crack! smacked the cudgels, loud howled the mob, and down went the soldiers of the King. Inside a minute the ring was completely broken up, and the rioters had assumed entire control of the scaffold and the cart, whilst the guard was so hopelessly disordered that their coats of red appeared in twenty isolated places amongst a throng, which, to do it justice, certainly did its best to restrict themin every way it could. Its sympathies, as usual, were by no means on the side of the law. Pretty soon half a dozen rioters were mishandling the cart and freeing its pinioned occupant. One cut the cords that bound him, a second pressed a stave into his liberated fist, a third engaged in a hand-to-hand encounter with the executioner; a fourth struck at the Sheriff, who was highly valiant and active for an alderman, missed him and hit the inoffensive chaplain, and “tapped the claret” of the reverend gentleman, whose bottle-nose must have been really very difficult to avoid. ’Twas quite exhilarating to witness the glorious conduct of it all. Everything seemed to be performed like clock-work, and with incredible brutality and zest. Had I been unable to realise the exceeding brilliancy of the tactics that were adopted throughout the whole affair, certain observations of the presiding genius must have made me do so. For to round and finish the matter in a consummate way, no sooner had the fight begun than I became conscious that Mr. Snark had cleft through the throng of fashionables about me, and was standing at my side, emitting a stream of counsel, criticism, and encouragement.
“Got ’em on a hook!” he cried. “That’s it, Parker; hit! Give ’em pepper! Hit that fat hulk of a Sheriff over the bleeding hat! Very nice indeed.”
Mr. Snark rubbed his hands with satisfaction. Meantime down below, the inevitable consequence had followed the flowing blood and the free exchangeof blows. The guard had entirely lost control of the crowd collected about the scaffold, which immediately seized its opportunity of getting even with the law. Not only did it offer the rebel and his escort every facility to escape, but was at equal pains to impede the soldiers, the Sheriff, and the officials of the gaol in their efforts to arrest the condemned man’s flight. And this they succeeded very well in doing. A bodyguard of hard-hitting rogues formed about the rescued rebel and hurried him at a double through the friendly mob, that gave way right gallantly before them.
It made me almost wild with joy to behold my young lover and his company of sturdy dogs cleave through the kind-intentioned press till they came in safety to the door of the very house in which I was. At the moment that he approached the threshold, I wheeled about, and almost overturned a lord as I ran from the chamber and darted down the stairs. His liberators, faithful to the implicit instructions of Mr. Snark, had already got him in the house.
There was a great press of people on his heels pouring in through the open door as I came down the stairs. However, I was able to breast my progress through the throng, and fervently clasp my intrepid lover’s hand.
“Quick! quick!” I whispered. “Do not dally. Get through to the back. A horse awaits you. Do not draw rein till you are at the ‘White Hart,’ Dover. Here’s a purse to meet your needs; andhere is Mr. Snark. Heed every word of his instructions. Good-bye, lad, and God go with you!”
Straightway Mr. Snark stepped forth, and led his charge to where the horse awaited him, whilst as he did so, he threw a cloak about his shoulders, and poured a volume of instructions into his receptive ear. And with such alacrity was the full affair accomplished that the soldiers were yet wrestling with the mob, and I had barely time to reascend the stairs, and withdraw with divers of my friends to an adjacent chamber which commanded a view of Piper’s Alley instead of Tyburn Tree, ere the rebel was on his horse, and fleeing through London for his life. It seemed that there was also a second horse in readiness, and he who mounted it was no less a person than the celebrated Mr. Snark. ’Twas he that accompanied my dearest Anthony.
“There he goes!” cries I to my dear friend Hilda Flummery as the sorrel’s hoofs rang out upon the stones. “There goes my future husband! He’ll be in France before to-morrow.”
“Your future what, dear Bab?” cries she.
“My future husband, dear,” says I, demurely.
All who heard shook their heads, of course, or smiled broadly at the jest that they chose to call it. But they were not aware that I had made my mind up on this point, and I have writ a little epilogue to this strange memoir of my wooing to prove to those who may not know, how formidable I do become when I make my mind up on any point soever.