The whistles blow forlorn,
And trains all night groan on the rail
To men who die at morn.
The sociability of Tyburn, if somewhat vehement in character, was a jocund thing by the side of such solitude as this.
Parish registers make curious reading. They tell so much in words so scant and bald that they set us wondering on our own accounts over the unknown details of tragedies which even in their day won no wide hearing, and which have been wholly forgotten for centuries. Mr. Lang quotes two entries that are briefly comprehensive; the first from the register of Saint Nicholas, Durham, August 8, 1592: “Simson, Arington, Featherston, Fenwick, and Lancaster, were hanged for being Egyptians.”
Featherston and Fenwick might have been hanged on the evidence of their names, good gypsy names both of them, and famous for years in the dark annals of the race; but were these men guilty of no other crime, no indiscretion even, that has escaped recording? Five stalwart rogues might have served the queen in better fashion than by dangling idly on a gallows. The second entry, from the parish church of Richmond in Yorkshire, 1558, is still shorter, a model of conciseness: “Richard Snell b’rnt, bur. 9 Sept.”
Was Snell a martyr, unglorified by Fox, or a particularly desperate sinner; and if a sinner, what was the nature of his sin? Warlocks were commonly hanged in the sixteenth century, even when their sister witches were burned. “C’est la loi de l’homme.” In fact, burning was an unusual, and—save in Queen Mary’s mind—an unpopular mode of punishment. “You are burnt for heresy,” says Mr. Birrell with great good humour. “That is right enough. No one would complain of that. Hanging is a different matter. It is very easy to get hung; but to be burnt requires a combination of circumstances not always forthcoming.”
Yet Richard Snell, yeoman of Yorkshire, mastered these circumstances; and a single line in a parish register is his meagre share of fame.
CONSECRATED TO CRIME
The breathless fellow at the altar-foot,