RETRIBUTION. PENAL JUSTICE.
He that is born to be hanged will never be drowned.
The water will ne'er waur the woodie.—Scotch.
That is, the water will never defraud the gallows of its due. Gonzago, in The Tempest, says of the boatswain, "I have great comfort from this fellow; methinks he hath no drowning mark upon him; his complexion is perfect gallows. Stand fast, good fate, to his hanging! Make the rope of his destiny our cable, for our own doth little advantage. If he be not born to be hanged our case is miserable."
The Danes say, "He that is to be hanged will never be drowned, unless the water goes over the gallows."[695] Such punctilious accuracy in fixing the limits of the proposition considerably enhances its grim humour. There is a fine touch of ghastly horror in its Dutch equivalent, "What belongs to the raven does not drown."[696] The platform on which criminals were executed and gibbeted was called, in the picturesque language of the middle ages, the "ravenstone." "He that is to die by the gallows may dance on the river" (Italian).[697]
"He'll be hang'd yet,
Though every drop of water swear against it,
And gape at wid'st to glut him."
Give a thief rope enough and he'll hang himself.
Every fox must pay his own skin to the flayer.
Air day or late day, the tod's [fox's] hide finds aye the flaying knife.—Scotch.