CHAPTER L. NEXT MORNING.
Next morning at daybreak the hammering of the carpenters had ceased in the Market Place, and their lamps, that burned dim in their sockets, like lights across a misty sea, were one by one put out. Draped in black, the ghastly thing that they had built during the night stood between the turrets of the guard-house.
Already the townspeople were awake. People were hurrying to and fro. Many were entering the houses that looked on to the market. They were eager to secure their points of vantage from which to view that morning's spectacle.
The light came slowly. It was a frosty morning. At seven o'clock a thin vapor hung in the air and waved to and fro like a veil. It blurred the face of the houses, softened their sharp outlines, and seemed at some moments to carry them away into the distance. The sun rose soft and white as an autumn moon behind a scarf of cloud.
At half past seven the Market Place was thronged. On every inch of the ground, on every balcony, in every window, over every portico, along the roofs of the houses north, south, east, and west, clinging to the chimney-stacks, hanging high up on the pyramidical turrets of the guard-house itself, astride the arms of the old cross, peering from between the battlements of the cathedral tower and the musket lancets of the castle, were crowded, huddled, piled, the spectators of that morning's tragedy.
What a motley throng! Some in yellow and red, some in black; men, women, and children lifted shoulder-high. Some with pale faces and bloodshot eyes, some with rubicund complexion and laughing lips, some bantering as if at a fair, some on the ground hailing their fellows on the roofs. What a spectacle were they in themselves!
There at the northeast of the Market Place, between Scotch Street amid English Street, were half a hundred men and boys in blouses, seated on the overhanging roof of the wooden shambles. They were shouting sorry jests at half a dozen hoydenish women who looked out of the windows of a building raised on pillars over a well, known as Carnaby's Folly.
On the roof of the guard-house stood five or six soldiers in red coats. One fellow, with a pipe between his lips, leaned over the parapet to kiss his hand to a little romping serving-wench who giggled at him from behind a curtain in a house opposite. There was an open carriage in the very heart of that throng below. Seated within it was a stately gentleman with a gray peaked beard, and dressed in black velvet cloak and doublet, having lace collar and ruffles; and side by side with him was a delicate young maiden muffled to the throat in fur. The morning was bitterly cold, but even this frail flower of humanity had been drawn forth by the business that was now at hand. Where is she now, and what?
A spectacle indeed, and for the eye of the mind a spectacle no less various than for the bodily organ.
Bosoms seared and foul and sick with uncleanliness. Hearts bound in the fetters of crime. Hot passions broken loose. Discord rampant. Some that smote the breast nightly in the anguish of remorse. Some that knew not where to hide from the eye of conscience the secret sin that corroded the soul.
Lonely, utterly lonely, in this dense throng were some that shuddered and laughed by turns.
There were blameless men and women, too, drawn by curiosity and by another and stronger magnet that they knew of. How would the condemned meet their end? Would it be with craven timidity or with the intrepidity of heroes, or again with the insensibility of brutes? Death was at hand—the inexorable, the all-powerful. How could mortal man encounter it face to face? This was the great problem then; it is the great problem now.
Two men were to be executed at eight that morning. Again and again the people turned to look at the clock. It hung by the side of the dial in the cupola of the old Town Hall. How slowly moved its tardy figures! God forgive them, there were those in that crowd who would have helped forward, if they could, its passionless pulse. And a few minutes more or fewer in this world or the next, of what account were they in the great audit of men who were doomed to die?
In a room of the guard-house the condemned sat together. They had been brought from the castle in the night.
“We shall fight our last battle to-day,” said Ralph. “The enemy will take our camp, but, God willing, we shall have the victory. Never lower the flag. Cheer up! Keep a brave heart! A few swift minutes more, and all will be well!”
Sim was crouching at a fire, wringing his lean hands or clutching his long gray hair.
“Ralph, it shall never be! God will never see it done!”
“Put away the thought,” replied Ralph. “God has brought us here.”
Sim jumped to his feet and cried, “Then I will never witness it— never!”
Ralph put his hand gently but firmly on Sim's arm and drew him back to his seat.
The sound of singing came from without, mingled with laughter and jeers.
“Hark!” cried Sim, “hearken to them again; nay, hark!”
Sim put his head aside and listened. Then, leaping up, he shouted yet more wildly than before, “No, no! never, never!”
Ralph took him once more by the arm, and the poor worn creature sank into his seat with a low wail.
There was commotion in the corridors and chief chamber of the guard-house.
“Where is the sheriff?” was the question asked on every hand.
Willy Ray was there, and had been for hours closeted with the sheriff's assistant.
“Here is the confession duly signed,” he said for the fiftieth time, as he walked nervously to and fro.
“No use, none. Without the King's pardon or reprieve, the thing must be done.”
“But the witnesses will be with us within the hour. Put it back but one little hour and they must be here.”
“Impossible. We hold the King's warrant, and must obey it to the letter.”
“God in heaven! Do you not see yourself, do you not think that if this thing is done, two innocent men will die?”
“It is not for me to think. My part is to act.”
“Where is your chief? Can you go on without him?”
“We can and must.”
The clock in the Market Place registered ten minutes to eight. A pale-faced man in the crowd started a hymn.
“Stop his mouth,” cried a voice from the roof of the shambles, “the Quaker rascal!” And the men in blouses started a catch. But the singing continued; others joined in it, and soon it swelled to a long wave of song and flowed over that human sea.
But the clock was striking, and before its last bell had ceased to ring, between the lines of the hymn, a window of the guard-house was thrown open and a number of men stepped out.
In a moment the vast concourse was hushed to the stillness of death.
“Where is Wilfrey Lawson?” whispered one.
The sheriff was not there. The under sheriff and a burly fellow in black were standing side by side.
Among those who were near to the scaffold on the ground in front of it was one we know. Robbie Anderson had tramped the Market Place the long night through. He had not been able to tear himself from the spot. His eye was the first to catch sight of two men who came behind the chaplain. One of these walked with a firm step, a broad-breasted man, with an upturned face. Supported on his arm the other staggered along, his head on his breast, his hair whiter, and his step feebler than of old. Necks were craned forward to catch a glimpse of them.
“This is terrible,” Sim whispered.
“Only a minute more, and it will be over,” answered Ralph.
Sim burst into tears that shook his whole frame.
“Bravely, old friend,” Ralph said, melted himself, despite his words of cheer. “One minute, and we shall meet again. Bravely, then, and fear not.”
Sim was struggling to regain composure. He succeeded. His tears were gone, but a wild look came into his face. Ralph dreaded this more than tears.
“Be quiet, Sim,” he whispered; “be still, and say no word.”
The under sheriff approached Ralph.
“Have you any statement to make?” he said.
“None.”
“Nor you?” said the officer, turning to Ralph's companion.
Sim was trying to overcome his emotion.
“He has nothing to say,” said Ralph quietly. Then he whispered again in Sim's ear, “Bravely.”
Removing his arm from Sim's convulsive grasp, he threw off his long coat. At that moment the bleared sun lit up his lifted face. There was a hush of awe.
Then, with a frantic gesture, Sim sprang forward, and seizing the arm of the under sheriff, he cried hysterically,—
“Ay, but I have something to say. He is innocent—take me back and let me prove it—he is innocent—it's true—it's true—I say it's true—let me prove it.”
With a face charged with sorrow, Ralph walked to Sim and said, “One moment more and we had clasped hands in heaven.”
But now there was a movement at the back. The sheriff himself was seen stepping from the window to the scaffold. He was followed by Willy Ray and John Jackson. Two women stood together behind, Rotha and Mrs. Garth.
Willy came forward and fell on his brother's neck.
“God has had mercy upon us,” he cried, amid a flood of tears.
Ralph looked amazed. The sheriff said something to him which he did not hear. The words were inaudible to the crowd, but the quick sympathy of the great heart of the people caught the unheard message.
“A reprieve! a reprieve!” shouted fifty voices.
A woman fainted at the window behind. It was Rotha.
The two men were led off with staring eyes. They walked like men in a dream.
Saved! saved! saved!
Then there went up a mighty shout. It was one vast voice, more loud than the blast on the mountains, more deep than the roar of the sea!