Then the Lord Justice-Clerk, putting on the black cap, said:—“William Burke, you now stand convicted, by the verdict of a most respectable jury of your country, of the atrocious murder charged against you in this indictment, upon evidence which carried conviction to the mind of every man that heard it, in establishing your guilt in that offence. I agree so completely with my brother on my right hand, who has so fully and eloquently described the nature of your offence, that I will not occupy the time of the Court in commenting any further than by saying that one of a blacker description, more atrocious in pointof cool-blooded deliberation and systematic arrangement, and where the motives were so comparatively base, never was exhibited in the annals of this or of any other court of justice. I have no intention of detaining this audience by repeating what has been so well expressed by my brother; my duty is of a different nature, for if ever it was clear beyond all possibility of a doubt that the sentence of a criminal court will be carried into execution in any case, yours is that one, and you may rest assured that you have now no other duty to perform on earth but to prepare in the most suitable manner to appear before the throne of Almighty God to answer for this crime, and for every other you have been guilty of during your life. The necessity of repressing offences of this most extraordinary and alarming description, precludes the possibility of your entertaining the slightest hope that there will be any alteration upon your sentence. In regard to your case, the only doubt that has come across my mind is, whether, to mark the sense which the Court entertains of your offence, and which the violated laws of the country entertain respecting it, your body should not be exhibited in chains, in order to deter others from the like crimes in time coming. But taking into consideration that the public eye would be offended by so dismal an exhibition, I am disposed to agree that your sentence shall be put into execution in the usual way, but unaccompanied by the statutory attendant of the punishmentof the crime of murder—viz., that your body should be publicly dissected and anatomised, and I trust that if it ever is customary to preserve skeletons, yours will be preserved, in order that posterity may keep in remembrance your atrocious crimes. I would entreat you to betake yourself immediately to a thorough repentance, and to humble yourself in the sight of Almighty God. Call instantly to your aid the ministers of religion, of whatever persuasion you are; avail yourself from this hour forward of their instructions, so that you may be brought in a suitable manner urgently to implore pardon from an offended God. I need not allude to any other case than that which has occupied your attention these many hours. You are conscious in your own mind whether the other charges which were exhibited against you yesterday were such as might be established against you or not. I refer to them merely for the purpose of again recommending you to devote the few days that you are on earth to imploring forgiveness from Almighty God.” The written sentence was in conformity.
Such was the sentence of Burke, sending very appropriately his body where he had sent so many others. The people were so far pleased that they had got an instalment;[14]but, in spite of the approbation bestowed on the jury by Lord Boyle, the finding of “Not proven” against Helen M‘Dougal was looked upon as a mere bilking ofjustice. No man could have any doubt of her guilt, as being art and part, and if ever a jury acted in defiance of their consciences, it was in liberating this woman; nor do we believe that they did not think the charge proven against her—they were simply desirous that they should not afford an opportunity for the application of an old law seldom put into execution. This motive might have been looked upon as humane in an ordinary case, for assuredly the law of art and part is apt to take on cruel forms, but to withdraw Helen M‘Dougal from its power was, at the very best, a squeamish and sickly humanity. So, too, thought the public, and their anger rang through the city, even in the midst of the satisfaction universally felt at having got, at least, an instalment of justice. But were the other murderers also to get free?
We may find an interest in following this unexampled criminal to the Lock-up, whither he was conveyed immediately after sentence, and where, too, M‘Dougal, for the sake of safety, was placed till an opportunity was afforded of sending her away unknown to the mob. As for Hare and his wife, they behoved to continue as prisoners. No sooner had Burke been removed to the prison and placed in his separate apartment, than the old devil in him broke out. “This is a d——d cold place you have brought me till.” One of the men rebuked him, but as yet it was of no use. The spirit of the man had not been touched, and as yet he lay under the gloomy weight of anger at having been betrayed, frequently bursting out in maledictions, and saying that Hare was the more guilty of the two. “He murdered the first woman,” he continued. “He persuaded me to join him, and now he has murdered me; and I will regret to the last hour of my existence that he did not share the same fate.” He then threw himself upon the stone bed, and lay with clenched hands,occasionally starting, as if the desire to wreak vengeance upon his betrayer had flashed through his mind, and nerved his arms to his customary assaults. While in this fit, one of the officers, not relishing the idea that he wished to excuse himself by casting even more than his share upon his colleague, made the remark, “I think I could never wish to see that man forgiven who could murder that poor, harmless, good-natured idiot, Daft Jamie,” whereupon the prostrate man started, and said, “My days are numbered. I am soon to die by the hands of man. I have no more to fear, and can have no interest in telling a lie, and I declare that I am as innocent of Daft Jamie’s blood as you are. He was taken into Hare’s house, and murdered by him and his wife. To be sure, I was guilty in so far, for I assisted to carry his body to Dr Knox, and got a share of the money.” And how often do we find even the condemned, and how much more often the still successful criminal, anointing with the saliva of their own lying tongues their own ears, ay, even with the whine of self-sympathy!
As the day advanced, the perturbations produced by revenge gradually subsided, giving place to others more connected with the condition in which he now found himself, and his state of mind was attempted to be taken advantage of by the officers, always anxious to get their curiosity gratified by confessions, which they know, too, will be welcome to their superiors. But they weresuccessful only so far that he no longer denied his guilt, even going the length of admitting a general scheme of watching poor and wretched strangers who were not likely to be inquired after by friends. Beyond this he would not go, expressing even a determination to withhold all particulars, unless counselled otherwise by his priest. Even this shewed that a great change had come over him, and shortly there was to be a still more undoubted sign, for, after remaining silent and meditative, he inquired, with an appearance of humility, and even of that politeness which was said to have formed a feature of his character at a prior period of his life, whether he would be permitted to offer up a prayer. And upon the permission having been given, this man who, only a few hours before, had exhibited the same continued impenetrability of heart manifested through the long period of his confinement, dropt upon his knees, imploring forgiveness from Almighty God for the wicked life he had led, and especially for that great crime for which he was to suffer on the gibbet; entreating, also, that his wretched partner in guilt might be brought to a full sense of her guilt—that she might repent and atone, as far as it was in her power to do so in this world, by a life of quietness, piety, and honest industry. On rising, he requested the officer to read to him a part of the Scriptures; chapter after chapter, till they amounted to six, were listened to, if not greedily accepted, withoccasional remarks of the applicableness of particular passages to his crimes. Withal he had, as yet, indicated no fear—the first emotion after sentence having been revenge, and that which followed, humility and resignation, which were to remain as the prevailing condition of his mind up to the final day.
Meanwhile, the usual anxiety as to the state of the criminal’s soul produced outside that conflict between the Calvinists and the Indifferents which is so common in Scotland. The one party maintained the possibility as well as the merits of the new birth, even up to the throwing away of the handkerchief; the other did not consider it either possible or probable: and while the one wished for, and waited for, the proof, the other thought, and with some reason, that so easy a way of getting quit of the consequences of the murders would not be very favourable to their non-repetition. All this Burke settled in his own Roman way, by satisfying himself that, if he wished, he could get to heaven through the ear of his confessor but there was not much evidence to shew that he entertained any strong wish on the subject, if he did not suspect that he was not a very proper person to appear in heaven. We have no wish to be irreverent, but, setting aside the old question as being inscrutable and insoluble, it is all but certain that this man never shewed a trace of that anguish of spirit under the mordacious fangs of remorse which can be accepted as the only sign of anapproach to the saving faith which is in Jesus. The approvers founded upon a statement he was said to have made, that he would not accept a pardon if it had been granted. If he had been tempted by an offer, we would likely have had another tale; nor would he have been to blame, unless we are to suppose that true conversion brings along with it a predilection for being hanged, and that, while it prepares a man for death, it incapacitates him for worthily continuing in life. Independently of the total want of any signs of the real pathology of repentance, there are positive proofs that his thoughts were continually recurring to earth. He thought more of Helen M‘Dougal than of a Saviour; and otherwise, we have even a ludicrous example of his sublunary grovellings. On one occasion, his mind seemed to one who was sitting by his bed to be occupied by thoughts of eternity, as he lay silent and meditative. The omen was propitious, and the pious assistant waited for the sign, which could not be less than a burst of tears, not one of which he had yet shed, or had ever been seen to shed. The sign came.
“I think,” said he, with a start, “I am entitled, and ought to get that five pounds from Dr Knox which is still unpaid on the body of the woman Docherty.”
“Why,” replied the astonished pietist, “Dr Knox lost by the transaction, as the body was taken from him.”
“That was not my business,” said Burke sharply. “I delivered the subject, and he ought to have kept it.”
“But you forget,” said the other, “that were the money paid, Hare would have the right to a half of it.”
And then came, after a little meditation, the explanation.
“I have got a tolerable pair of trousers,” he continued; “and since I am to appear before the public, I should like to berespectable. I have not a coat and waistcoat that I can appear in, and if I got the £5 I could buy them.”
But it is to be admitted that while he shewed no real signs of penitence in a Calvinistic sense,—so different these we suspect, from what are found in a votary of the confessional,—he evinced none of the dogged surliness of the hardened sinner, if his general mildness and continued politeness were not remarkable. Indeed, as we have seen, these characteristics were always, when he was not intoxicated, the prevailing features of his demeanour, from which many inferred that he purposely roused himself by large draughts of whisky to the fury which he found necessary to the perpetration of his onslaughts. This would seem to receive confirmation from the statement of a witness, who said that on these occasions he did not drink out of an ordinary measure, but used a strong-ale glass, which he would fill almost to the brim. Were this true, it would be no abatement from the malignity and sternness of the sober purpose which assuredly he must have entertained, while his external aspect was stillas composed, if not as mild, as it was said to be. As a consequence of this placability, he gave way alternately to those solicitations with which he was daily pursued to utter a confession. He first made one and then another, but while these documents exhibit many discrepancies, they shew, from their curtness and desultoriness, that they were the result of a mere carelessness, only brought up to the point by pestering solicitations. Ten lines are devoted to the whole story of the murder of a human being, and if it had not been that circumstances came out on all sides, often from unknown sources, no more would have ever been known, at least as regards many of the victims, than simply that they perished. Even for these the gaping mouth of curiosity, and not less the hopeful heart of piety, was sufficiently thankful, while the hardened sceptics still refused to see the sign of the new birth.
Nor, as the short days passed to usher in the last morning, for which he said “he would not greatly weary,” was there any other more signal appearance of a radical change. No doubt he received the visits of clergymen, not caring much whether of one denomination or another, and none of them were gratified with more than very ordinary manifestations of regret. There always haunted him a desire to have Hare brought to trial, yet he had art enough to place this, not to the account of revenge, but that ofhumanity. Even Burke became a philanthropist, or, what is often the same thing, could use the hackneyed wordswhich are the fashionable tribute paid by vice to virtue. If he was not thus unable to forget the enormous debt due by his fearful associate, he was, and continued to the end to be, not less mindful of his paramour. He sent his watch and what money he possessed to her—“Poor thing, it is all I have to give to her; it will be of some use to her, and I will not need it.” Yet no moisture of the eyes—the pity was only the bastard offspring of animal love.
Withal, we are frank to admit that even the breaking down of the adamant, to the extent of confession and regret, in a man like Burke, was a triumph to religion. There is no natural way of accounting for that phenomenon of which every man is doomed to feel the experience, that while death asserts his power over the body, he extorts a contribution from the soul. Turn the question in any way you please, your final cause is nowhere, unless it be that the experience of agonised death-beds is the opportunity of virtue—a poor back-handed way of making people better, and certainly bought at a terrible expense. But even taking the advantage in this limited form, it does not exhaust the conditions of the question; for while the dying sinner is altogether unconscious that his agonies will go forth to the world and be an example, his mind is in another direction. He looks forward, and the more keenly, that he cannot look backwards. Where is the final cause now? Try again, and we suspect you will find it only in heaven.
We are so apt to take signs for things, and so glibly too do the one pass into the other, that we find almost all descriptions of individuals previous to execution very much the same; and so they must needs be, for fate is the great man-tamer, and man only: the brutes merely feel the stroke when it falls—man sees it coming, knows its necessity, and therefore commits himself to resignation. Then, resignation is so grave an affair that it is often mistaken for genuine seriousness, if not for religious impression; but even here we have exceptions of men who could be merry under the gibbet or the axe—strange beings these, and more often of the virtuous than the vicious; for vice in the clutch is but a sorry affair. This doomed man, who was represented as having behaved so decently, could sing and dance the minute before he braced his cruel sinews to the work of death; and if he had been consistent, he would have acted Macpherson under the cross-beam; but the Highlander only stole cattle, while the Irishman immolated human beings, and so we findhim grave and decorous because he was now to be throttled in his turn.
At four o’clock on the morning of Tuesday the 27th,—that previous to the day of execution,—he was taken off thegadand removed to the Lock-up in Liberton’s Wynd. The reason of the early hour is evident, for the excitement of the people was such that the authorities were not satisfied that he would not be claimed by a furious mob, and dealt with as he had dealt by so many others. Notwithstanding the long period he had been in jail, there was no great change in his appearance, except a slight paleness, which, with some weakness of body, was the result of a peculiar external malady with which he had for a considerable time been afflicted;[15]nor could the sharpest observation of Captain Rose, who accompanied him, detect any diminution of that composedness, or, if you please, insensibility, which had marked his demeanour all along. If there was a flutter at all, it was when he was presented with his new suit of black—either the passing feeling of the ominous dress, or satisfaction of his wish to appear respectable. In the course of the day the Catholic priests, Messrs Reid and Stewart, as well as the Protestant ministers, Messrs Marshall and Porteous, paid him a visit, and were rewarded with the usual amount ofearthly regret; but with how much of remorse or faith in the Redeemer, even they could not tell, immovable as he was, and apparently unconcerned. Indeed the sole animating feeling was a desire to have the business over. “Oh, that the hour were come that is to separate me from the world!” but not a word of faith, and far less of hope. In the morning, too, when the jailer took off his heavy fetters, and they fell with a clank upon the floor,—“So may all earthly chains fall from me.”
At seven, and after having experienced a sound and unbroken rest for at least five hours, Burke walked with a steady step into the keeper’s room, followed by the confessor; nor yet was there any appearance of agitation or dismay. He took his seat in an arm-chair by the side of the fire, and twice or thrice arrived at that point of distress which is marked by two or three sighs. Then commenced the Catholic devotions, in which, as he had done before, he engaged with an appearance of fervour. The Protestant ministers followed up the Catholic service with some serious exhortations, in the course of which, Mr Porteous having dwelt on the words, “You must trust in the mercy of God,” the doomed man exhibited symptoms of anguish; but as for anything like that “awe which is illumined by hope,” he seemed to have a secret feeling that he was too deeply sunk in crime even to think of the infinite mercy of Heaven. After this portion of the exercises was gone through, he was on his way to an adjoiningapartment when the executioner met and stood before him. Even this apparition, generally so fearful to a criminal when he first makes his appearance, did not dismay him. “I am not ready for you yet,” was the brief salutation; and in a short time after, when he was pinioned, he bore the operation composedly, and without uttering a word. He was now asked to take a glass of wine, and having accepted the offer, he bowed to the company, and drank “Farewell to all present, and the rest of my friends.” The magistrates having now gone out, returned in their robes, with their rods of office, and Burke, before going forth, expressed his gratitude to the bailies and all the other officials for the kindness and attention he had received at their hands.
Meanwhile the crowd outside had attained its greatest density. At ten o’clock on the previous night, the ceremony of setting up the scaffold had commenced. This has always been a scene in Edinburgh, but now it was a festival. The din of the workmen, and the clang of the hammers, were mingled with the shouts of the assembled people to the amount of thousands. Whenever an important part of the erection was completed in the light of the torches, up rose the cheer, as if so much had been done towards the satisfaction of their vengeance. When all was finished, and the transverse beam looked so ready for its weight, the event was honoured by three of these cheers so loud and prolonged that they were heardin Princes Street. Even the services of the workmen, always averse as they are to gallows-work, were on this occasion, and certainly never before, volunteered with emulation. By this hour, two in the morning, the closes and stairs near the spot were blocked up by masses of people, who had resolved, at the expense of so many hours’ watch, to secure a good view. The inclemency of the weather drove them to any shelter that could be obtained,—in very few cases homeward,—where the morning broke upon them in gray dawn, but with the inspiration of hope. In addition to all this confusion, a constant bustle was kept up by those who, either for favour or for money,—and high prices were paid for good stances,—had procured the envied windows. After this a solemn stillness pervaded the whole scene, broken only by the splashing of the rain, which fell in torrents, accompanied with gusts of wind which whistled and moaned through the long closes.
As the morning advanced, the groups were seen hastening to their windows, and about five, the people generally began to pour in, taking their stations in front of the gallows, and upwards towards the Castlehill, while large parties of policemen and patrols successively arrived, to be posted in a strong line in front of the railing—the space left free being much larger than ordinary. Nor were the crowd on this occasion in their ordinary humour of annoying or retarding the constables in the executionof their duty, which they rather viewed as a common cause. From six to seven the concourse increased, thronging every avenue to the High Street, and hurrying in from every quarter, till the whole space, from the Tron to the Bow, threatened to be too small to hold them. Nor were the masses entirely composed of the class that usually attend such scenes. There were included, especially about the windows, not only of the dingy houses of the Lawnmarket, but also of the County Buildings, great numbers of well-dressed ladies, imparting a variety, scarcely to have been expected, to the scene, already otherwise picturesque. After seven, and when the rain, which had been excessive some hours before, began to cease, the crowd became rapidly larger still, and at eight, the entire area between the two points we have mentioned presented the aspect of an immense and closely-wedged mass of human beings, all still and watchful, never before seen there, except, perhaps, on the occasion of the King’s visit. All round the scaffold you saw the crowd was composed of men—gradually outwards giving place to women, many of whom, being pressed by the dense mass around them, sent forth screams of distress; and where the pressure got less, chiefly about the circumference, the numbers of that sex were still considerable—the entire assemblage, as is the case where density is great, being moved, as it seemed, all throughout by the same impulse, coming from whatever direction. Thenumbers at this time were computed at 20,000 or 30,000. But there was one feature of this crowd which was more extraordinary than its extent or composition. In ordinary cases, at least in Scotland, there is usually manifested sympathy for the sufferer, or at least a sedate and solemn manner, as if the occasion were melancholy and instructive. All this was changed now. There was on every face an expression of something approaching to joy, as if the heart felt it was to get quit of a painful feeling of revenge, and that the relief was near. It is now eight,—St Giles’s rolls forth the sounds, and every noise is stilled.
Precisely at the hour Burke was on his feet, eager to be dead, and the procession moved. He was supported by the two Catholic priests, more from the difficulty he experienced in walking with his arms so closely pinioned, than from any weakness or faltering of step. In the progress towards and up Liberton’s Wynd he shewed even increased coolness and self-possession, turning from side to side in conversation, and at one part, where the ground was wet, carefully picking his steps; but at the head of the entry, where he was to get a view of the crowd, he winced, and half-closing his eyes, hurried on, as if more eager still to be out of the roar of that terrible assemblage. Nor was that roar long delayed. Upon Bailies Crichton and Small issuing from the wynd, the shout was raised in one long-continued yell, and when Burkehimself was seen ascending the stair, the roar was repeated with double intensity, mixed with articulated execrations,—“Burke him!” “Choke him!” “No mercy, hangie!” Yet amidst all, Burke walked with steady step, and stood coolly below the apparatus of death. If he was much moved at all, it was to cast a look at the crowd of fierce and desperate defiance, as if he could have felt it in his heart to repeat upon every one of them his old experiment, and we suspect that he would have done it if he had had the liberty and the power.
Having taken his station in front of the drop, he kneeled with his back towards the spectators, his confessor on his right hand, and the other Catholic clergyman on the left, and repeated a form of prayer dictated by one of these reverend gentlemen. Mr Marshall, meanwhile, offered up a supplication on his behalf, the bailies and other officials joining in the devotions, with the exception of the executioner (Williams) and his assistant, who stood at the back of the drop. During all this time there was silence. On rising from his kneeling posture, Burke was observed to lift a silk handkerchief, on which his knees had rested, and put it into his pocket. There was now some hesitation in his manner, as if loath to mount; and one of the persons who assisted him to ascend, having, perhaps inadvertently, pushed him somewhat roughly to a side, that he might be placed exactly on the spot, he looked round with a withering scowl.He thenranup the steps, as if he hurried to death, to get beyond the reach of these terrible howls. Some further delay took place, from the circumstance of Williams, who stood behind him, endeavouring to loose his handkerchief, in which he found some difficulty. “The knot is behind,” said Burke,—the only words not devotional uttered by him on the scaffold. When Williams succeeded in removing the neckcloth, he proceeded to fasten the rope round his neck, pulling it tightly, and, after adjusting and fixing it, he put upon his head a white cotton night-cap, but without pulling it over his face. While this was going on, the yells became fiercer and fiercer, mixed with the ejaculations, “Where’s Hare? Hang him, too.” “Don’t waste rope on him.” “You ——, you will see Daft Jamie in a minute.” The Rev. Mr Reid then advanced, and conversed with him shortly, but earnestly, and directed him to say the Creed, which he did. As he muttered the words, his face was pale and livid, but he was still composed, unflinching, and motionless. The next act was the advance of Williams to draw the cap over his face. He manifested a repugnance to this, as if he would brave the yelling crowd even to the last extremity, and it was with some difficulty this was accomplished. Everything is now ready. He utters an ejaculation to his Maker, imploring mercy, and throws away the handkerchief with a jerk of impatience, the bolt is drawn, and Burke swings in the air amidstthe deafening roar of thirty thousand people.[16]But Burke was not yet dead. He must be dead before that crowd is satisfied. From the limited length of the fall, there had been no dislocation; and for five minutes the body hung motionless, except from the impetus given by the fall, when a convulsive motion of the feet, and a general heaving, indicated a still lingering vitality. Upon observing this, the crowd raised another cheer. Twice these motions were renewed, and twice again rose the shout.
Generally, the scene of an execution is soon deserted; people give a shudder, and run away, like one who has been obliged to obey a feeling which is not pleasant, and yet is inevitable, and who enjoys a relief from the emotion. This did not occur on this occasion. The people shewed no disposition to disperse. They seemed desirous of prolonging their gratification by gloating on the ghastly spectacle, as, driven by the wind, it swung to and fro. At five minutes to nine, the bailies again came up Liberton’s Wynd, still in their robes, and with their rods, and stood round the scaffold. Williams then mounted and lowered the body, and this, the last act,was celebrated by the finishing yell. The crowd then separated.
The public prints got immediately into a discussion as to the propriety of these demonstrations of feeling among a civilised people. It was by one party represented as barbarous and shocking, opposed to Christian forgiveness, and indicative of a fierce and relentless nature. The crowd was described as if made up of thediables,diablesses, anddiabletonsof the old dramas, and their cries got the name of hell-yells. There are people who, their throats being safe and their bellies well filled, look upon sin, even in its most devilish form of cruelty, as something to be dandled and conciliated into virtue like their own by sugar-plums. Those who feel no natural detestation of cruelty are not far from those that could be cruel. But supposing that these good people were as great haters of cruel men as those who shouted in the crowd, but that they felt their feeling satisfied by the arm of the law, they could only say that these people felt more satisfied than they, and that, in place of concealing their satisfaction, they expressed it openly, if you like, noisefully; and if this satisfaction must be held to be in the ratio of detestation, they were better haters of sin than those who impeached them with barbarity. So the good people get into a metaphysical net, out of which it is not very easy to get. But the question was very well settled by theTimes, who took and shook the simperers, tellingthem that virtue has two sides, like everything else—one, a love for the good, and another, a hatred of what is evil, neither of which can exist without the other, and that the roused hearts of those who made the welkin ring with their roar, were just the hearts from which one might expect indications of pity for the miserable victims of that man’s cruelty. It may be well for us to remember, amidst all the affected refinement of our times, that the churlishness of the honest man is the impatience of shuffling deceit and hypocrisy. When we get behind the frieze veil of the sanctuary of his affections, we often find kindness sanctified by trust,—a generosity which does not see itself, and is too often cheated by its object, and a pity, which is the more beautiful, that it wells from the stern rock of honesty and justice.
The earthly destiny of this marvellous man was not yet finished—the celebration of justice did not terminate by the dispersion of the thirty thousand who had assembled in the hall of the goddess Nature’s own arena. They had more to do. They knew that the goddess had other forms than that in which she sends down her fiery-eyed priestess Nemesis, even that in which she despatches her moral retributions, and works them through her votaries, and that, too, wherein she is called poetical Justice, and wherein she relaxes the stern brow, and smiles with a little satire upon her beautiful lips. It is in this last form she is best loved by the imaginative; yea, and even those who, cultivating the muses, have yet a spice of humour, not inconsistent with the gravity of virtue. Had not this man sent a score of human beings to the dissecting-room? Let it be that they served the purpose of a physical science, might not he serve also the purpose of a moral cult?
During the whole of Wednesday the College wassurrounded by hundreds, whose curiosity prompted them to see once more him who had immolated so many of their kind; but Dr Monro did not choose to run the risk of losing his subject, and the authorities were still afraid of a seizure, and so it was not till Thursday morning that the body was removed from the Lock-up to the dissecting-rooms of the College. At an early hour, several men dedicated to science, and among the rest Mr Liston, Mr George Combe, and his opponent Sir Wm. Hamilton, and Mr Joseph, the eminent sculptor, went to have the advantage of an examination, before the rush of the students should put that out of their power. Mr Joseph took a cast for a bust, and several amateur students gratified their curiosity by sketches. The body was that of a thick-set muscular man, with a bull-neck, great development about the upper parts, with immense thighs and calves, so full as to have the appearance of globular masses. The countenance, as we saw it, was very far from being placid, as was commonly represented, if you could not have perceived easily that there remained upon it the bitter expression of the very scorn with which he had looked upon that world which pushed him out of it, as having in his person defaced the image of his Maker.[17]Laid upon the table, the body became the subject of alecture by the professor, and, in order to implement the sentence of the court, without so much mutilation as would interfere with the object of future inspection, the investigation was limited to the brain, laid open by removing the upper part of the cranium; the part sawed off to be subsequently replaced, so that the division could scarcely be noticed.
So far, all had proceeded in peace and with decorum; but the College was, by and by, to be the scene of a renewed excitement. About half-past two, a body of young men, consisting chiefly of students, assembled in the area, and becoming clamorous for admission, it was found necessary to send for the police,—a class of men of whose interference within the walls of the College these assertors of scholastic liberty have always shewn themselves impatient. Indignant at the opposition they had met with in the rooms, and still more angry at the conduct of the police, they made several sorties, in which they nearly succeeded in overpowering the opposition arrayed against them, at the same time that they smashed the windows at either side of the entry to the anatomical theatre. The police, finding themselves hard pressed, retreated, merely brandishing their batons; but blows received by several of them raised, in its turn, their anger, and the official weapon was used with more vigour than the magistrates, and especially the Lord Provost, who was present, seemed to relish. That dignitary accordingly got up to haranguethe inflamed youths,—a liberty which could be brooked still less than the use of the batons, and amidst the cries of most opprobrious epithets, he, and along with him Bailie Small, were obliged to fly. Attempts were now made by the police to cross the square and seize prisoners; and so far they succeeded, but it was only to be left to witness the capturedélèvesreclaimed, and carried off amidst shouts of triumph. Even some, whom the police got conveyed to Dr Monro’s rooms, were searched for, and pulled out into liberty, adding, in their turn, to the shouts of the liberators. It was then attempted to make a dash, and clear the area of the assembled collegians by a promiscuous pell-mell, but the police again found themselves overmatched, and could not even retain their own ground in the open area. The contest was renewed more than once with varying success, and no man could tell how long the battle would last, as time, in place of moderating the passion of the students, served only to increase it, and every sortie and shout threatened some issue involving life. One or two of the police were carried off wounded, amidst cries of victory, and the battle, which had now lasted from half-past two to four, threatened even worse consequences than had yet resulted, when the professors got alarmed. Dr Christison at length made his appearance with the olive, and intimated to the youths that he had made arrangements whereby they would be admitted to see the body of Burke infifties, giving his personal guarantee for their good conduct.
This intimation, which was in fact a victory,—achieved, too, with a compliment to their honour,—was received with loud cheers of “Hurrah for Christison!” and “Burke’s our own!” and presently all their fury subsided amidst the returning hilarity of loud laughter. But matters were not at all satisfactory outside in the street. The people had been restless all day. The sight of the hanging, in place of allaying their passion against Burke, seemed to have inflamed them into a desire to gloat their eyes on his remains; and many intimated their design, in the event of being defeated, of forcing an entry into the anatomical theatre, and dragging the body out, to tear it in pieces. To this, the news of the success of the students inflamed them the more, but as it was now getting dark, and several scouts sent among them by the authorities having circulated the report that the magistrates and Dr Monro would make arrangements for general admission to the anatomical theatre next day, the crowd began to separate, but each carrying away the determination, which they growled out as they went, that unless the terms were adhered to, their purpose would be executed on the morrow.
On Friday the arrangements were made for a grand public exhibition. The body of the hanged man was placed on the black marble table of the theatre, so as tobe seen by the visitors as they passed from one door to another, from which they could get exit in another direction. The news meanwhile had spread through both the Old and New Towns that the body of Burke was to be seen by all and sundry, and the commotion throughout all ranks, high and low, was only equalled by that of the day of execution. The Old Town presented the appearance of a holiday. Thousands took their way to the College, where they found the doors open and the exhibition begun, but as the stream of entrants was necessarily narrow, and of slow movement, the street and the area inside soon presented an appearance scarcely less crowded than on the day previous. The programme was very soon understood, and was indeed so simple and easily wrought, however tedious as regards time, that the people had only to try to get into the moving stream when they were pushed forward quietly and orderly enough to the envied scene. There on the table lay the victim naked, with the part of the scull which had been sawed off so artistically restored that the mark of the junction could scarcely be observed. The spectacle was sufficiently ghastly to gratify the most epicurean appetite for horrors. There was as yet no sign of corruption, so that the death pallor, as it contrasted with the black marble table, shewed strongly to the inquiring and often revolting eye; but the face had become more blue, and the shaved head, with marks of blood not entirely wiped off, rather gave effect to the grin into whichthe features had settled at the moment of death. However inviting to lovers of this kind of the picturesque the broad chest that had lain with deadly pressure on so many victims—the large thighs and round calves, indicating so much power—it was the face, embodying a petrified scowl, and the wide-staring eyes, so fixed and spectre-like, to which the attention was chiefly directed.
As the stream moved on with recurring pauses, when some, more intent than others, held back to have a moment or two’s more time, it was curious to view the ever-varying emotions of the spectators. Many were there who could not in any other circumstances have looked upon a corpse at all, and you might have seen some half-irresolute adventurers who, as they neared, feared the sight, and would have backed out but that they were compelled to proceed, when the unsteady eye, anxious to avert itself, was caught by the horrible charm and fixed. No one, so far as we could see, however nervous, either shut the eyes or turned them away altogether; nor could you detect a single trace of pity—the prevailing expression, a malign satisfaction, strangely and staringly returned, as it were, by the grin of the corpse, which had the advantage of eternal persistency. Extraordinary as all this moving scene was,—and certainly nothing of the kind had ever been witnessed in Edinburgh before,—it was rendered more so by the occurrence among the close stream of a few women, amounting in all, we understood, to seven oreight, who, having made their way up-stairs, not perhaps with the intention of going altogether forward, were moved on and could not escape. The caught virgins, true to their nature, struggled so well in the net of their curiosity, that you would have said they were really anxious to get back, and yet somehow their struggles seemed unaccountably rather to help them on; but at any rate it was certain they were modest, and shrank at the thought of the coming sight, for they held down their heads to avoid the stare of the men, and when they arrived at the point, only looked with a squint, sufficient at once for entire gratification as well as for immunity from the charge of not being feminine and delicate. It is doubtful, notwithstanding, however influenced by the sense of thenil dulcius quam omnia scire, whether they would venture again upon such another Junonian venture; for the males, who reserve to themselves the exclusive right of witnessing such spectacles, bestowed on them such and so many tokens of indignation as might have cured them for ever of their original sin.
The numbers who supplied this continued stream may be judged of when it is mentioned that by actual enumeration it was found that upwards of sixty per minute passed the corpse. This continued from ten in the morning till darkening, and as the crowd, when we saw it at three o’clock, was still increasing, as one told another of what he had seen, we cannot compute the numbers at lessthan twenty-five thousand persons; add to this those who had a private interview, and we arrive again at the number present at the execution, thirty thousand—a greater number than ever visited royalty lying in state, at least within the kingdom of Scotland. Nor did the entire day suffice for the satisfaction of this curiosity. As many were ready for the following day; but, to the disappointment of these, it was announced that all further ingress would be denied. Next day, Saturday, the front of the College again presented a scene of confusion. Another crowd had collected—growling at the conduct of the officials—crying for the opening of the anatomical theatre; and long after they had ascertained that no further exhibition would be permitted, the people stood and continued to gaze at the College walls, till, exhausted of their patience, they reluctantly departed, leaving fresh arrivals, which continued during the entire day to occupy their places.[18]
One might have thought that the excitement, at least in so far as regarded Burke—for the other culprits were a precious reserve, whose fortunes might fill a volume of great interest—would have thus ended; but at that time the science of phrenology was in its zenith, the Combe-and-Hamilton controversy in full vigour; and so, next came the battle of the phrenologists and the old Scotch school of mental philosophers. Burke’s head, so ingenious in devising a new species of murder, which should bear his immortal name, as well as in discovering a new estimate of the value of the human body, was measured and mapped into philoprogenitiveness, veneration, destructiveness, and all the rest, so as to be in all time coming the example and test of the character possessed by the genuineà prioriandà posteriorimurderer. And it was a solemn occasion. The measurements were recorded and published. The accuracy of the mere figures was not denied, but the inferences were disputed with such acrimony that the scientific battle commenced. Everywhere there was a measuring of craniums, and even wise people, who never had any doubt of the smallness of theirdestructiveness, were startled into the conviction that they required not only to take care of themselves, but to be taken care of by others. Mr Combe bade fair to be the only man who was to be benefited by the labours of Burke. A considerable number of people, who were not sure of their harmlessness, notwithstanding they were very timid, and to others and themselves very innocent, waited upon him to ascertain what they in reality were; and if you had stood at his door, you might have judged by the faces of his consultors how much they were above or below the fatal 6·125—the most marvellous bump that had ever been seen on the head of man since the days of that great man-killer Hercules. It was in vain that the Hamiltonians brought forward the measurements of men scarcely less famous in their philanthropic way than Howard. The great development of destructiveness had in their cases been accompanied byinactivity, and the examples went for nought; and so, in like manner, the examples of other murderers who could not boast of more than 5·4, were satisfactorily set aside for the reason ofactivity. The Hamiltonians pushed their advantage, and demanded a return to the old doctrines and common sense; but the Combeans would not admit the demand. The frying-pan sued for could not be returned or paid for—1st, Because it was an old one with holes in it; 2dly, Because it was returned long before; and, 3dly, Because itwas never borrowed. If one thing won’t do, another will: if you drive us out of size, we fall back upon activity; if from activity, we flee to size. Burke, in addition to all his other achievements, thus killed a science. Having wrought so assiduously for anatomy, he ended by burking phrenology.
The public had got only an instalment; and the fingering of the money produced only desire for more, to make up the debt to justice. Whatever might become of the women, Hare must be hanged, dissected, and exhibited in the same way as Burke, otherwise the peace of the city would be again in jeopardy. He was the greater criminal of the two, and the people had no moral vision to comprehend how the Lord Advocate could bargain with, and feel himself bound to keep honour with, one who, having lost the form and features of the sacred “image,” was beyond the pale of humanity. You don’t think of the moral obligation to refrain from killing a tiger merely because he left in your way another cruel animal, which, for want of a lamb eaten by the more rapacious, you found it convenient to dine off.
After his examination, and when the officers were removing Hare from the court-house to the Calton Jail, they were struck with dismay to find that he had beenseized with a fit of glee, which, for want of an epithet derived from humanity, we may term diabolical; but the officers were simple, and so was he: they should have known the man, and he knew himself—a creature in whom there being no good to produce the variety which constitutes character, there could be nothing but pure and unmixed evil. If the devil is not a simpleton,—father of lies and master of devices as he is,—it is just because having once known the good he could hate it. Hare never knew even that, and could not be said to hate what he could not understand. Yet he laughed, not heartily, that would be a misnomer, but hepatically, from the liver, because he fancied that he had escaped from justice at the expense of the life of his accomplice. The public, much as they cried for his blood, were simple too, in so far as they believed that while in jail he shunned the public gaze, and muffled himself up in the bed-clothes when visited by the authorities; whereas the man, instead of thinking he had done anything shameful or even wrong, was rather proud of his ingenuity, not only amusing himself in the public ground attached to the ward, but exhibiting rather satisfaction at being looked at.[19]Nor, while in the very height of his effrontery, didhe construe the marked dislike of the prisoners, every one of whom shrank from his touch or even approach, into anything short of spite because he was now free—being only there as under the protection of the authorities—and his companions poor bond devils. So far we may believe; but there might have been a small tax on the credulity of the time, when it was believed that he construed in the same way the conduct of those companions when, upon the occasion of there being more onlookers from without than the shame of the jail-birds relished, they were in the habit of hitching him forward as a great spectacle, by the attraction of whom their merely comparative merits might be overlooked.
By and by, as the vengeful feeling of the public against the man increased, and nothing for a time was heard but the stifled groans for the second victim, it came out that the public prosecutor, having procured Hare’s co-operation as asocius criministo convict Burke, and all the information which was necessary to bring home to the latter the three charges in the indictment, the Crown was pledged in honour not to proceed against him on any one of these counts. This was, in effect, to say that he was free whenever he could get out of the hands of the infuriated people; because, in so far as regarded the othercases, there was no evidence independently of his, and he would take precious care to withhold every word to criminate himself. It is needless to say that the most sensible of the editors, and all the thinking and honourable of the people, considered this statement of the authorities as reasonable and proper. They would stand upon the honour of the Crown and the dignity of human nature, even at the expense of giving liberation to a man who, by his own confession, was a murderer. They would therefore leave the vulgar to thecharum lumenof their prejudices, and so they were left. But, while thus taking this high and dignified ground against those whom a natural hatred of atrocity was said to make low, some ingenious one of their ranks struck out the idea that, though the Crown was shut up to let Hare off, some relative of one of the murdered persons might prosecute for assythment, or a compensation for the loss of life; and immediately it was found that Daft Jamie’s mother, Mrs Wilson, with his sister, Janet Wilson, would be willing, if not anxious, to take the post of prosecutor—a piece of intelligence which pleased the public wondrously.
This proposition was brought to bear by an application presented to the Sheriff on the part of the Wilsons, praying for liberty to precognosce witnesses with a view to the prosecution of Hare; on the deliverance upon which progress was being rapidly made in the examination of several persons, when immediately there was presentedto his lordship a petition for Hare, craving to be set at liberty. On the 21st of January, the Sheriff pronounced an interlocutor refusing the prayer of Hare’s petition, on the ground that there was no decision finding that the right of the private party to prosecute is barred by any guarantee or promise of indemnity given by the public prosecutor; but, in consequence of the novelty of the case, he superseded further progress with the precognitions, in order that Hare might have an opportunity of applying to the Court of Justiciary.
This judgment was accordingly brought under review of the High Court by what is technically called a bill of advocation, suspension, and liberation—the meaning of which is simply that Hare tried another chance for freedom by applying to the highest tribunal. The Lord Justice-Clerk, who saw at once that the question was so far new, and of the first importance, not only in its merits, but viewed in relation to the state of the public mind, wished to have it judged of by all the Lords, and he therefore called upon the public prosecutor to answer the request of Hare. The Lord Advocate, who, no doubt, felt himself placed in a delicate position, but still determined to stand by the law and the dignity of the Crown, accordingly presented his answer; and long pleadings, called informations, having been lodged, the case came to be tried before the Court on the 2d February. The celebrated Jeffrey appeared for Mrs Wilson, and DuncanM‘Neill for Hare. It was maintained on the part of Hare, said Mr Jeffrey, that the public prosecutor was entitled to make a compact, to which compact their Lordships were bound to give effect; that their Lordships had no discretion, but that it rested entirely with the Lord Advocate to enter into such compact, and to extend immunity to any number of cases, without the control of the judge; in short, that the Lord Advocate possessed the uncontrolled power of exercising the royal prerogative. And this he might do, not merely in respect of the particular crime as to which asocius criminiswas to be used as a witness, but might, if he chose, extend it to all other crimes of which he might have been guilty. Whenever the Lord Advocate stipulated an immunity, it seemed to be maintained, on the other side, that a sufferer by housebreaking, fire-raising, and other crimes, was to be deprived of his right, as a private party, to prosecute the guilty perpetrator of the wrong, and that the Lord Advocate had a power to enter into a compact by which he could grant immunity for offences, past or future, known or unknown. Such a prerogative would be to invest the public prosecutor with a power of pardon which only belonged to the Crown, and this, too, without a tittle of authority, amounting to an assumption of the authority of Parliament; and so forth. But all the eloquence of Jeffrey would not do. The judges had, long before this day of judgment, been down in the deep wells ofauthority, and, as one of the enraged people said, came up drunk with law, and kicked sober justice out of court. Certainly, if such a profane expression could be used, these learned men might have been in that state, for seldom had they appeared so surcharged with authorities. They seem to have rummaged every corner of the Advocates’ Library and the Register-Office to find out the origin of the law of king’s evidence, and to have hunted out every decision bearing upon the case, so that, it would seem, Hare should be rendered as famous for settling a great and hitherto doubtful point of law, as Burke was destined to be for putting an end to a science. After all, the judges who decided for Hare were found to be right; and, indeed, any one looking at the subject, could not fail to see that, as the Lord Advocate represented the king, and the king, as the great public protector of his subjects and prosecutor of their wrongs, represented his people, and Mrs Janet Wilson and her daughter among the rest, the immunity promised by his lordship to Hare really included an immunity implied as given by Mrs Wilson and her daughter.
While the case was going on, and Hare anxious to get out, he founded his hope on an extraordinary delusion, which could have occurred to nobody but himself. He understood well enough the meaning of the long word assythment, and asked his agent, with one of his leers, what was the value of Daft Jamie. The price given bythe doctors, he said, was too much, because, if he had been offered alive to any one, he would not have been bought at any price, so that his mother had no claim, and the judges were just trifling away both their time and their brains about a thing of no value. Incredible as this may seem,—and doubtless many reports passed that were not true,—it is not unlike the man; for it never was asserted, by those who had access to him, that he had the slightest notion of having done anything that was wrong. He was, indeed, one of those men, not so uncommon as the optimists may think, or so impossible as the Christian philosophers maintain, whose consciences are entirely turned round about, and who, when they come to think seriously, find the worm gnawing on the wrong side. Their pain is for any good they may have been tempted to do, their relief for any evil they have been fortunate enough to perpetrate, so true is it that nature is jealous of man’s having it in his power to say that any proposition is absolutely true, and without an exception. But such phenomena, which, after all, are so uncommon as to deserve the name of monstrosities, need not flutter the faith of such men as Chalmers, who found upon the universality of the law of conscience as proving the goodness, if not also the existence, of God. It is only a matter of curiosity that, while such advocates recognise and explain alone the exceptional cases, where there is simply awantof the faculty, they do not seem to think thatthere can occur, or ever could have occurred, a case where its decrees are absolutely reversed. But, after all, we have to keep in view that the whole conditions, even of Hare’s nature, were not exhausted. For aught we know, if he had been condemned to die, Providence would have vindicated her rule even as to him, and the faculty been observed to right itself. Hare was, at any rate, declared at liberty.
We take up the end of the thread of our last chapter, and say, that as the potential developments of a man’s heart cannot be exhausted except by death, we cannot pronounce, until that issue arrives, of God’s purpose with him. We have known many men who, by a redundancy of the oil of self-satisfaction, have kept the lamp of jovial humour, or light recklessness, or flippant egotism, burning for a long period of years, and indulging all the while in the boast of an indomitable persistiveness. There are many such, but we suspect they are generally mere actors; and we are the more satisfied of the hollowness of their pretensions when we learn the account of them from those who have access to their privacy, and are apt to verify the saying that, as no man is a hero to his valet, so no jolly fellow,pococurante, or devil-darer is always such to his wife, children, servants, or friends. Even were it so, we would still say that the conditions have not been exhausted by some calamity whichmaycome, or by death, whomustcome; and as there are worse evils than evendeath, the power of holding out is only an inverse mode of expressing the power of what is held out against. These remarks occur to us as we are now to follow the fortunes of the remaining three of the quaternity.
Hare was still Hare up to the hour of his freedom, and that freedom, for which he had sacrificed the life of the man whom he had taught the trade of murder, was to be the test to try his obduracy, and prove the ruin of that persistency in evil which had mocked the ghosts of a score of murdered beings. He was let loose only to flee, and to flee under the only terror he felt—the uplifted hands of an avenging people. At a little past eight on the Thursday night, after the decision of the High Court of Justiciary, he was relieved from his cell in the Calton Hill Jail. It was a night of bitter frost, just such a one as Vejove would select for sending a Cain-marked murderer out upon the world. After being muffled up in an old camlet cloak, he walked, in company with the head turnkey, as far as the Post-office in Waterloo Bridge without meeting with the slightest molestation. At this point his companion called a coach, and conveyed him to Newington, where the two waited till the mail came up. The guard’s edition of the story varies thus far, that he took up an unknown passenger in Nicolson Street, where he was ordered to blow the horn. But the difference is immaterial, and might easily arise from Hare’s state of mind. Be this as it may, he got safely seated on the topof the coach without challenge and without suspicion. In the way-bill he figured as a Mr Black—not an inappropriate name—and the tall man who came to see him off, exclaimed, when the guard cried, “All’s right,” “Good-bye, Mr Black, and I wish you well home.”[20]At Noble-house, the second stage on the Edinburgh road, twenty minutes were allowed for supper; and when the inside passengers alighted and went into the inn, Hare was infatuated enough to follow their example. At first he sat down near the door, behind their backs, with his hat on, and his cloak closely muffled about him. But this backwardness was ascribed to his modesty, and one of the passengers, by way of encouraging him, asked if he was not perishing with cold. Hare replied in the affirmative, and then, moving forward, took off his hat, and commenced toasting his paws at the fire—a piece of indiscretion which can only be accounted for by his characteristic recklessness, not yet cured; and little, indeed, was he aware that Mr Sandford, advocate, one of the counsel employed against him in the prosecution at the instance of Daft Jamie’s relations was then standing almost at his elbow. A single glance served all the purpose of the fullest recognition, and, as Hare naively enough remarked, “He shook his head at me,” somewhat after the fashion, we suppose, of the ghost in Macbeth.
On the horn being blown, he contrived, after the manner of the Greek slayer, who was always ahead of the three Furies, to be first at the coach door, and finding an empty seat inside, he actually occupied it. “Take that fellow out,” cried the indignant counsel, and out accordingly he was taken, and transferred to the top, whereupon Mr Sandford, eager, perhaps, to justify what had the appearance of cruelty on so bitter a night, revealed to his fellow-travellers what, perhaps, he ought not to have done. A secret is like gas, it spreads without burning, and at Beattock, the guard as well as the driver, knew all. They were only obliged to conceal it because there was no one to tell it to; but on the arrival of the coach at Dumfries, the servants who attended to take the inside passengers’ luggage, got the hint, and the news flew like a fire-flaught. Meanwhile, Hare had slunk into the coach-office of the King’s Arms. People were seen hurrying thither from every direction, crying, “Hare’s in the King’s Arms!” By eight o’clock, a large crowd had collected, and by ten it was perfectly overwhelming. You might have walked over the heads of a mass of people in the High Street and Buccleuch Street, amounting to 8000, reminding us of a great fair, when the country empties itself into the town. Their object they did not tell, nor was it necessary, except in so far as having known that he was for Port-Patrick, they proposed to do the great man honourin their own way. If Hare hadgot among these people, he would assuredly have been sacrificed, for the dissatisfaction at his release was not confined to the metropolis. Meantime, the man, considering himself safe inside, and having from the first been surrounded by a knot of coachmen and guards, who handed him part of their ale, he clattered away, drinking absurd toasts, such as “Bad luck to bad fortune,” and not denying his identity: “No use for that now;” but all questions about his crimes he evaded; “he had said enough before;” “he had done his duty in Edinburgh.” Yet we suspect that the light talk was the effect of the ale, for, to a gentleman who visited him, with a view to know something of his early history, he complained that he had no money, and when a guinea was handed to him, “he burst into tears.” Yes, the time had come, or was approaching, when the hitherto maintained conditions of insensibility were to be broken, not for penitence, not even for remorse, but for regret, if not despair.
When this visitor retired, the people forced the door, and in an instant Hare was squeezed into a corner, reminding one of a hunted fox when, getting into acul de sac, he turns round, shews his teeth, and vainly attempts to keep the jowlers at bay. In the absence of the police, his situation was far from being free from peril. The torrent of imprecations was fearful, and “Burke him!” came so savagely from so many throats, that he seemed on the very eve of being laid hold of and torn asunder.It is reported that one old woman was not only wonderfully emphatic and ferocious in her gestures, but strove to get forward to strike “the villain” with the end of her umbrella. And lucky it was that she did not get in the front, for mischief, like fire, needs only a beginning, and if one individual had lifted a hand, his fate would have been sealed. When the police arrived, the room was cleared, and Hare conveyed to a safer place till the Galway mail should start. With a view to this the inn-yard was closed with difficulty, the horses put too, and the coach brought out. But the mob, with rather more eyes than the old watcher, had previously taken their plans, as if by instinct, and their aspect appeared so threatening that it was impossible to drive the mail along the High Street with the “fearful man” either inside or out. The coach accordingly started perfectly empty, two passengers having been sent forward a few miles in a gig. The crowd opened and recoiled—the tremendous rush, the appalling waves on waves of people, heaving to and fro; and now the coach is again surrounded, amidst yells the doors opened, the interior exposed, even the boot examined. The people were still more exasperated because their plan was defeated—no other than to stop the mail at the middle of the bridge, and precipitate Hare from the parapet down into the river. Failing in this, they had determined to waylay the coach at Cassylands toll-bar, and there execute their purpose in anotherway, and as a preparation they had forcibly barricaded the gates. The crowd now rolled back in one continuous wave; and when the fact became known that he was still in the room of the inn, he was again broken in upon, forced to sit and stand in all positions and postures, turned round and back again, so that cool, insensate, and apathetic as he was, he was now stimulated into terror. Amidst all this the imprecations were repeated, and another woman, after having exhausted her ingenuity in words, seized him by the collar, and tugged so manfully that he was nearly strangled. At one moment the voice of a sturdy ostler got ascendancy over the noise:—“Whaur are ye gaun, man? or whaur can ye gang to? Hell’s ower gude for ye. The very deevils, for fear o’ mischief, wadna daur to let ye in; and as for heaven, that’s entirely oot o’ the question.” Others, who wanted to drive matters to extremity, pretended to take his part, and urged him on. The old spirit came again, and he called out, “to come on, and give him fair play;” but this was a spurt, for despair was extending over him her dark wings, and so crucified was he, that he started, took his bundle, determined to “let the mob tak their will o’ him”—a resolution in which he was checked by a medical man.
The innkeeper, Mr Fraser, in the meantime, apprehensive for the safety of his premises, was anxious to eject his dangerous customer. The entire town was, in short,so completely convulsed that it was impossible to tell what would happen next, and, after deliberation, the magistrates, who had a very onerous duty to perform, hit upon an expedient for getting quit of him, which, though successfully executed, had ten chances to one against it. Betwixt two and three, a chaise and pair were brought to the door of the King’s Arms, a trunk buckled on, and a great fuss made; and while these means were employed as a decoy-duck, another chaise was got ready almost at the bottom of the back entry, and completely excluded from the view of the mob. The next step was to clear the room, and, after this, to get Hare to clamber, or, rather, jump out of the window of his prison, and crouch, cat-like, along the wall facing the stables. The task was well executed: the moment he got to the bottom and sprang into the chaise, the doors were closed and the whip cracked. Never before did a chaise rattle so furiously along the streets of Dumfries. To pass Mr Rankin’s and round the corner of Richardson’s brewery occupied only moments; but here the turn was taken so sharply that the chaise ran for a time on two side wheels. Had it upset, Hare was doomed; but the driver recovered the position of the coach, and away again at even a more rapid rate. The mob by this time had become suspicious of a manœuvre, and, as the driver had a considerable round to make, they rushed in a twinkling and in prodigious masses to intercept him at the middle of thesands. A rush down Bank Street like the letting out of waters, and from the opposite side of the river, numbers, suspecting the cause, hurried with such fury over the old bridge that the driver seemed destined to be outflanked and surrounded; nor could he have avoided this had it not been for the mettle of his horses and the willing arm that urged them on. Once again his charge is saved from instant death.
Even yet the flight was far from being accomplished. At every instant, he was intercepted and threatened, and, though he cowered down, stones threatened him on every side. Some stood still from inability to run, but others immediately supplied their places, filling up with almost the speed of thought the wake of the careering coach. An impression now prevailed that the driver meant to gallop out the Galloway road, and a rush was made to the western angle of the new bridge—a mistake which operated as a diversion in favour of the driver—nor were the few moments gained misemployed. The sharp corner of Dr Wood’s laboratory was cleared almost at a single bound, and as he had now a broad street before him, nothing could exceed the fury with which he drove up to the jail door. Mr Hunter had previously received his cue, and, though a strong chain was placed behind the door, an opening was left to admit the fugitive. A spring over the gulf, and Hare is again safe.
His escape enraged the mob still more. As thenumbers increased, they laid regular siege to the place of safety, preventing all ingress or egress. From four to eight, all was clamour and execration, and at nightfall, for reasons of their own, they smashed and extinguished the neighbouring lamps. A ponderous piece of iron was used as a battering-ram, aided by heavy stones, the rebound of which was so incessant and long-continued, that every fear was entertained they would succeed in forcing the jail. It was next proposed to apply tar barrels and peats for the purpose of forcing the door. By this time the magistrates were thoroughly roused. The militia staff and police had done their best without avail, and it was not till one hundred special constables were sworn in and marched to the spot, with batons, that the peace of the city was restored. Still the streets were in commotion, and it was afterwards ascertained that the mob still retained the intention of forcing the prison; but as the night waxed, their resolution waned, and at one o’clock on Saturday morning not an individual was seen in Buccleuch Street. As the opportunity was too good to be lost, Hare was roused from his bed, where he had so long shivered, and ordered to prepare. While putting on his clothes, he trembled violently, yet inquired eagerly for his cloak and bundle; but as these articles were not at hand, he was told he must go without them. As the whole population of Galloway were in arms, and as the mail had been surrounded and searched at Crocketfordtoll-bar, and probably at every other stage betwixt Dumfries and Port-Patrick, it would have been madness to send him across the bridge, and he was recommended to take another route. At three o’clock he was seen by a boy passing Dedbeck, and must have been beyond the border by the break of day. The driver of the mail reported that he saw him at a quarter-past five sitting on a heap of stones within two miles of Carlisle. It seems he had been again recognised, and told that the people of Carlisle were prepared to kill him; and although he appeared completely done up, he turned by the Newcastle road, and doubtless made his bed in the open fields. Little more was ever heard of Hare. If the Almighty, as Mr M‘Diarmid added, when He appeared specially in the affairs of the world, left Cain to wander hopeless on the face of the earth, why should not Hare have been subjected to the same species of punishment? and, without wishing to refine too far, we may say, as the Roman said long ago, “Everything must bow to the majesty of the law; and that, from the weightiest circumstance down to the smallest, there is a medium course—a middle path—beyond which no rectitude and no safety to mortals can exist.”