"What do you mean, Stokes?" he asked, taken aback at this sudden turn. "No reprieve has come. The prisoner is to be hanged without fail to-day in accordance with his sentence. It says so in the warrant: 'wherein fail not at your peril.'"
Jerry looked round him with an air of expectation. "No reprieve hasn't come yet," he answered, in a stolid way; "but I'm expecting one presently. I've done my duty all my life, sheriff, I tell you, and I'll do it now. I ain't a-going to hang this man at all—because I know he's innocent."
"I AIN'T A-GOING TO HANG THIS MAN."
The prisoner gasped, and turned round to him in amaze. "Yes, I'm innocent!" he said slowly, looking him over from head to foot; "but you—how do you know it?"
"I know it by your face," Jerry answered sturdily; "and I know by the other one's face it was him that did it."
The sheriff looked on in puzzled wonderment. This was a hitch in the proceedings he had never expected. "Your conduct is most irregular, Stokes," he said at last, stroking his chin in his embarrassment; "most irregular and disconcerting. If you had a conscientious scruple against hanging the prisoner, you should have told us before. Then we might have arranged for some other executioner to serve in your place. As it is, the delay is most unseemly and painful: especially for the prisoner. Your action can only cause him unnecessary suspense. Sooner or later this morning, somebody must hang him."
But Jerry only looked back at him with an approving nod. The sheriff had supplied him, all inarticulate that he was, with suitable speech. "Ah, that's just it, don't you see," he made answer promptly, "it's a conscientious scruple. That's why I won't hang him. No man can't be expected to go agin his conscience. I never hanged an innocent man yet—least-ways not to my knowledge; and s'help me heaven, I won't hang one now, not for the Queen nor for nobody!"
The sheriff paused. The sheriff deliberated. "What on earth am I to do?" he exclaimed, in despair. "If you won't hang him, how on earth at this hour can I secure a substitute?"
Jerry stared at him stolidly once more, after his wont. "If I don't hang him," he answered, with the air of one who knows his ground well, "it's your business to do it with your own hands. 'Wherein fail not at your peril.' And I give you warning beforehand, sheriff, if you do hang him—why, you'll have to remember all your life long that you helped to get rid of an innocent man, when the common hangman refused to execute him!"