Charles Dickens - Barnaby Rudge — A Tale Of The Riots Of Eighty

“Dennis,” said the governor of the jail, “you know what the course is, and that the order came with the rest. You know that we could do nothing, even if we would.”

“All I ask, sir,—all I want and beg, is time, to make it sure,” cried the trembling wretch, looking wildly round for sympathy. “The King and Government can't know it's me; I'm sure they can't know it's me; or they never would bring me to this dreadful slaughterhouse. They know my name, but they don't know it's the same man. Stop my execution—for charity's sake stop my execution, gentlemen—till they can be told that I've been hangman here, nigh thirty year. Will no one go and tell them?” he implored, clenching his hands and glaring round, and round, and round again—'will no charitable person go and tell them!”

“Mr Akerman,” said a gentleman who stood by, after a moment's pause, “since it may possibly produce in this unhappy man a better frame of mind, even at this last minute, let me assure him that he was well known to have been the hangman, when his sentence was considered.”

“—But perhaps they think on that account that the punishment's not so great,” cried the criminal, shuffling towards this speaker on his knees, and holding up his folded hands; “whereas it's worse, it's worse a hundred times, to me than any man. Let them know that, sir. Let them know that. They've made it worse to me by giving me so much to do. Stop my execution till they know that!”

The governor beckoned with his hand, and the two men, who had supported him before, approached. He uttered a piercing cry:

“Wait! Wait. Only a moment—only one moment more! Give me a last chance of reprieve. One of us three is to go to Bloomsbury Square. Let me be the one. It may come in that time; it's sure to come. In the Lord's name let me be sent to Bloomsbury Square. Don't hang me here. It's murder.”

They took him to the anvil: but even then he could he heard above the clinking of the smiths” hammers, and the hoarse raging of the crowd, crying that he knew of Hugh's birth—that his father was living, and was a gentleman of influence and rank—that he had family secrets in his possession—that he could tell nothing unless they gave him time, but must die with them on his mind; and he continued to rave in this sort until his voice failed him, and he sank down a mere heap of clothes between the two attendants.

It was at this moment that the clock struck the first stroke of twelve, and the bell began to toll. The various officers, with the two sheriffs at their head, moved towards the door. All was ready when the last chime came upon the ear.

They told Hugh this, and asked if he had anything to say.

“To say!” he cried. “Not I. I'm ready. —Yes,” he added, as his eye fell upon Barnaby, “I have a word to say, too. Come hither, lad.”

There was, for the moment, something kind, and even tender, struggling in his fierce aspect, as he wrung his poor companion by the hand.

“I'll say this,” he cried, looking firmly round, “that if I had ten lives to lose, and the loss of each would give me ten times the agony of the hardest death, I'd lay them all down—ay, I would, though you gentlemen may not believe it—to save this one. This one,” he added, wringing his hand again, “that will be lost through me.”

“Not through you,” said the idiot, mildly. “Don't say that. You were not to blame. You have always been very good to me. —Hugh, we shall know what makes the stars shine, NOW!”

“I took him from her in a reckless mood, and didn't think what harm would come of it,” said Hugh, laying his hand upon his head, and speaking in a lower voice. “I ask her pardon; and his. —Look here,” he added roughly, in his former tone. “You see this lad?”

They murmured “Yes,” and seemed to wonder why he asked.

“That gentleman yonder—” pointing to the clergyman—'has often in the last few days spoken to me of faith, and strong belief. You see what I am—more brute than man, as I have been often told—but I had faith enough to believe, and did believe as strongly as any of you gentlemen can believe anything, that this one life would be spared. See what he is!—Look at him!”

Barnaby had moved towards the door, and stood beckoning him to follow.

“If this was not faith, and strong belief!” cried Hugh, raising his right arm aloft, and looking upward like a savage prophet whom the near approach of Death had filled with inspiration, “where are they! What else should teach me—me, born as I was born, and reared as I have been reared—to hope for any mercy in this hardened, cruel, unrelenting place! Upon these human shambles, I, who never raised this hand in prayer till now, call down the wrath of God! On that black tree, of which I am the ripened fruit, I do invoke the curse of all its victims, past, and present, and to come. On the head of that man, who, in his conscience, owns me for his son, I leave the wish that he may never sicken on his bed of down, but die a violent death as I do now, and have the night-wind for his only mourner. To this I say, Amen, amen!”

His arm fell downward by his side; he turned; and moved towards them with a steady step, the man he had been before.

“There is nothing more?” said the governor.

Hugh motioned Barnaby not to come near him (though without looking in the direction where he stood) and answered, “There is nothing more.”

“Move forward!”

“—Unless,” said Hugh, glancing hurriedly back,—'unless any person here has a fancy for a dog; and not then, unless he means to use him well. There's one, belongs to me, at the house I came from, and it wouldn't be easy to find a better. He'll whine at first, but he'll soon get over that. —You wonder that I think about a dog just now, he added, with a kind of laugh. “If any man deserved it of me half as well, I'd think of HIM.”

He spoke no more, but moved onward in his place, with a careless air, though listening at the same time to the Service for the Dead, with something between sullen attention, and quickened curiosity. As soon as he had passed the door, his miserable associate was carried out; and the crowd beheld the rest.

Barnaby would have mounted the steps at the same time—indeed he would have gone before them, but in both attempts he was restrained, as he was to undergo the sentence elsewhere. In a few minutes the sheriffs reappeared, the same procession was again formed, and they passed through various rooms and passages to another door—that at which the cart was waiting. He held down his head to avoid seeing what he knew his eyes must otherwise encounter, and took his seat sorrowfully,—and yet with something of a childish pride and pleasure,—in the vehicle. The officers fell into their places at the sides, in front and in the rear; the sheriffs” carriages rolled on; a guard of soldiers surrounded the whole; and they moved slowly forward through the throng and pressure toward Lord Mansfield's ruined house.

It was a sad sight—all the show, and strength, and glitter, assembled round one helpless creature—and sadder yet to note, as he rode along, how his wandering thoughts found strange encouragement in the crowded windows and the concourse in the streets; and how, even then, he felt the influence of the bright sky, and looked up, smiling, into its deep unfathomable blue. But there had been many such sights since the riots were over—some so moving in their nature, and so repulsive too, that they were far more calculated to awaken pity for the sufferers, than respect for that law whose strong arm seemed in more than one case to be as wantonly stretched forth now that all was safe, as it had been basely paralysed in time of danger.

Two cripples—both mere boys—one with a leg of wood, one who dragged his twisted limbs along by the help of a crutch, were hanged in this same Bloomsbury Square. As the cart was about to glide from under them, it was observed that they stood with their faces from, not to, the house they had assisted to despoil; and their misery was protracted that this omission might be remedied. Another boy was hanged in Bow Street; other young lads in various quarters of the town. Four wretched women, too, were put to death. In a word, those who suffered as rioters were, for the most part, the weakest, meanest, and most miserable among them. It was a most exquisite satire upon the false religious cry which had led to so much misery, that some of these people owned themselves to be Catholics, and begged to be attended by their own priests.