Yet even the most callous were silent for a moment as the dying man spoke his last words from the ladder of the gallows, asserting once more that he was wrongfully charged with murder and bloodshed.
"I must tell you I have kept a good conscience towards God, neither did I act maliciously toward any person, but as I judged them to be enemies to God and his people."
And when his nephew came near for a last farewell, he repeated once more—
"It's hard for most to follow God in such a dispensation as this, and yet my Lord and Master is as sweet and glorious to me now as He was in the time of my greatest prosperity;" and then, embracing his friends in farewell, he committed his spirit into the hands of God and was, the bystanders declared, "not so much thrown off the ladder by the executioner, but went readily off himself."
The butchery of the sentence for treason was carried out to the bitter end, yet of the onlookers there were but a few women who sobbed hysterically or fainted, and but one or two men who pushed their way back, sick with the sight and smell of the shambles.
A smartly dressed little gentleman, with a carefully curled wig, had forced his way as near as possible to the place of execution. His bold curious eyes let nothing pass unnoticed, yet when the torture of the half-dead victim was ended even his lips were somewhat white, though he shouted and waved his hat with the loyal rabble who cheered and cheered again at the headsman's final speech: "So perish all King Charles's enemies."
"So perish all his enemies," he repeated, "a very just vengeance, and 'tis my chance to see it, as it was to see the king die at Whitehall. But Lord, 'tis a bloody business—and to see how cheerful he bore it!" He rapped on his snuff-box and hemmed away his emotion. "Gad!" he said, suddenly staring at a face that rose above the crowd near him, "I was almost fool enough to think the fanatic's prophecy was come true, and there was General Harrison come alive again! That young fellow yonder is the very marrow of him! Some one of his family, I dare be sworn, poor wretch, and doubtless of the same way of thinking. But 'tis as handsome a young sprig as I have seen this long time. Lord, how time flies, and how one forgets business when there is any pleasuring toward; my lord will be in a fine fume;" and Mr. Samuel Pepys walked off towards the Admiralty offices without wasting another glance at Richard Harrison.
He also pushed blindly on out of the crowd, with the groping step of a sleep-walker, but as he neared the outskirts of the throng a tap on his shoulder seemed to awake him, and he straightened himself as he turned sharply round.
"Come under this archway till the crowd be past," said a short man muffled in a horseman's cloak. "You are too noticeable, Dick, to walk abroad to-day."
"It is as safe for me as for you, Mr. Rogers," returned Dick.