As I was passing through the throng, a groom came up the street riding a sorrel mare. This was cheering in a measure, as it told me that thus far all arrangements were being religiously observed. But immediately the door was opened and then closed upon my entrance, and I found myself standing with Emblem excluded from the crowd in the dark kitchen of the houses. I was suddenly aroused by a highly propitious circumstance. I was surprised to find at my side a little, very villainous-looking person dressed in the decent plain suit of an attorney, with a remarkably clean cravat, and a neat tie wig that somewhat softened his extremely wicked countenance. But at his first word, that came from behind his hand in a wheezing whisper, I felt my blood move quicker, for to my joy I identified him as the celebrated Mr. Snark.
“How d’ye do, Miss! Pretty bobbish are ye?” he said in my ear. “Pretty spry upon the perch, eh? And I say, Miss, there’s a wonderful sweet set of parsons, clergymen, and etceteria assembled in the front. A wonderful sweet set, Miss, wiv plenty o’ good old ale and stingo in ’em; and on’y a hundred sojers on duty too. And who do you think’s the Chapling, Miss? Why, the Reverend Willum Vickerstaff, the drunkenest old crimp wot ever sat in church. By thunder, Missy, I fair envies you, I does, a-sittin’ at that window a-lookin’ at the musick. I wouldn’t give fourpence for them redcoats. For I tell you, Missy, old Snark’s a-going to do the thing in style, not a-going to spare a farden of expense, for when Snark does a thing he does it gaudy. By gum, won’t them blessed traps at Bow Street just a’ bat their eyes.”
At that moment I think I could have taken this outrageous little villain in my arms and incontinently hugged him. Instead, however, I fervently apostrophised him.
“God requite you, Mr. Snark,” I cried, “for a good man and a true.”
I pressed him to accept a purse of fifty guineas over and above the sum agreed upon.
“No, not a blessed head,” he replied. “Snark’s not a dirty screw, but a man o’ fambly and a proper hartiss at his work. Takes a fair pride in it, he does, which is the reason why his reppitation seizes all Bow Street by the belly.”
Upon this the worthy creature conducted me up the gloomy stairs to the window that commanded the execution ground. The sight that then confronted me I have often met again in dreams. The immediate look of it was enough to produce a cold sweat on my brow. The whole of England seemed already collected in that square. Tier upon tier, multitude on multitude, were swaying, elbowing, and jostling below, marvellously cheerful but awfully intent. The tall, gaunt scaffold raised upon a platform in their midst, with a treble file of bright-armed and red-coated soldiers standing round it, was a very lodestone that drew every face thereto. The blood went slow within me as I gazed at this fretful mass, whose heavy buzz of talk was at intervals succeeded by the brisk roaring of a pot-house song. The cold, grey winter morning appeared a proper background for this sordid scene, I thought, whilst the high dun-coloured houses that reared themselves on every side, quick with their throngs of eager witnesses, seemed quite in harmony with the horrid gloom of the tragedy so soon to be enacted.
I was still in excellent good time. The condemned man was not due for a full half-hour yet. My invited guests were beginning to arrive, however, but everything had been ordered excellently well. The room was large enough to accommodate two windows, and these had been removed, and several rows of chairs had been placed behind their apertures, and so skilfully arranged that twenty persons could be gratified with a view.
The first of my kind friends to appear was a certain Mrs. Jennings, an obese and comfortable person, with a perfect confidence in, and admiration for, herself. This was not assumption either, seeing that she had snared four different coronets for a corresponding number of her female progeny. She brought her husband too; a quite tame creature, whom she led about to routs and parties and called “Dear Harry” in a simpering, caressing manner. “Dear Harry’s” conversation was limited to “’Pon my soul!” and it was his pleasure to retire to a corner early and sit bolt upright on the extreme edge of his chair. And I think I found him to be the most fascinating being that I ever met, for I would gaze at him a desperate length of time, since it really seemed a miracle how such a large amount of man could be possibly supported by such a small amount of chair. This pair were pretty soon augmented by a parcel of the high grandees. The incomparable Countess of Pushington minced in, a perfect phenomenon of youth, considering that she brought the youngest daughter of her second marriage with her, my Lady Crabstock Parker, who, to do her justice, looked really very little older than her adorable mamma. Mrs. Laura Wigging came, of course; a very whimsical, amusing mixture of Christianity and criticism. She was most desirous to drop a prayer-book, which she had brought for the purpose, from the window into the cart as it passed by. She thought it might shed a little light on the dark way that the dear criminal had to tread. The Duchess of Rabies was truly condescending and most affable. The men who accompanied this galaxy of talent, beauty, and good nature betrayed almost immediately, I regret to say, the exceeding masculinity of their minds. They began at once to lay and to take bets regarding the number of kicks the sufferer would make at space before he perished. However the mere presence of these enemies proved a tonic to my nerves. Having to play a part before those I despised, and to combat their hostility, I was thereby enabled to forget in some degree the peculiar horror of my situation. Before ten o’clock the full number of guests were present, seventeen in all, and I could feel instinctively the zest with which they noted and minutely analysed my most trivial actions. They used a certain tone of sympathetic consideration towards me, which in itself was irony, and carefully refrained from saying a harsh or unkind thing of the rebel, as if to show that they were fully acquainted with my exceeding tenderness towards him, and that their native delicacy would not permit them to distress it. They agreed with the sweetest unanimity that he must be a charming person. Yet it should be recorded to my eternal praise, I think, and as an instance of the mind’s strength conquering the weakness of the heart, that I received all these covert taunts without one betrayal of my secret rage. I laughed and jested with the men, and caressed all these dear women with my prettiest phrases. I do not think there was a solitary person present who could have divined that my very heart was bursting with a suppressed agony of terror. Snark might be as faithful as the day, all things might be ordered perfectly, and there be no ground for fear whatever; but I could not divest my mind of the knowledge that tens of thousands were assembled roaring and surging down below, and packed as thick as summer flies in a rotten carcase. I could not expel the grim image of the scaffold from my eyes, the densely populated windows, the strained awaiting eagerness of the mob; nor could I fail to hear all the sounds of portent; the deliberate slow tolling of the passing bell of an adjacent church, the striking of the hour of ten, and directly afterwards the new commotion that went up, as the tidings travelled in a murmur from mouth to mouth the whole length of the multitude, “It’s coming!”
“Do they mean the cart, my dear?” one dear creature inquired innocently of me.