“I had no friends, if any in such a case could have been of use to me—no relatives but two; by whom—I could not complain of them—I was at once disowned.—There was but one person then in all the world that seemed to belong to me; and that one was Elizabeth Clare! And, when I thought of her, the idea of all that was to happen to myself was forgotten—I covered my face with my hands, and cast myself on the ground; and I wept, for I was in desperation.—She had gone wild as soon as she had heard the news of my apprehension—never thought of herself, but confessed her acquaintance with me. The result was, she was dismissed from her employment—and it was her only means of livelihood.
“She had been every where—to my master—to the judge that tried me—to the magistrates—to the sheriffs—to the aldermen—she had made her way even to the secretary of state! My heart did misgive me at the thought of death; but, in despite of myself, I forgot fear when I missed her usual time of coming, and gathered from the people about me how she was employed. I had no thought about the success or failure of her attempt. All my thoughts were—that she was a young girl, and beautiful—hardly in her senses, and quite unprotected—without money to help, or a friend to advise her—pleading to strangers—humbling herself perhaps to menials, who would think her very despair and helpless condition, a challenge to infamy and insult. Well, it mattered little! The thing was no worse, because I was alive to see and suffer from it. Two days more, and all would be over; the demons that fed on human wretchedness would have their prey. She would be homeless—pennyless—friendless—she would have been the companion of a forger and a felon; it needed no witchcraft to guess the termination.——
“We hear curiously, and read every day, of the visits of friends and relatives to wretched criminals condemned to die. Those who read and hear of these things the most curiously, have little impression of the sadness of the reality. It was six days after my first apprehension, when Elizabeth Clare came, for the last time, to visit me in prison! In only these short six days her beauty, health, strength—all were gone; years upon years of toil and sickness could not have left a more worn-out wreck. Death—as plainly as ever death spoke—sat in her countenance—she was broken-hearted. When she came, I had not seen her for two days. I could not speak, and there was an officer of the prison with us too: I was the property of the law now; and my mother, if she had lived, could not have blest, or wept for me, without a third person, and that a stranger, being present. I sat down by her on my bedstead, which was the only place to sit on in my cell, and wrapped her shawl close round her, for it was very cold weather, and I was allowed no fire; and we sat so for almost an hour without exchanging a word.——
*****
“She was got away, on the pretence that she might make one more effort to save me, with a promise that she should return again at night. The master was an elderly man, who had daughters of his own; and he promised—for he saw I knew how the matter was—to see Elizabeth safe through the crowd of wretches among whom she must pass to quit the prison. She went, and I knew that she was going for ever. As she turned back to speak as the door was closing, I knew that I had seen her for the last time. The door of my cell closed. We were to meet no more on earth. I fell upon my knees—I clasped my hands—my tears burst out afresh—and I called on God to bless her.”——
The mental and bodily sufferings of the condemned man in his cell, his waking dreams, and his dead sleep till the morning of execution, though of intense interest in the narrative, are omitted here that the reader may at once accompany the criminal to the place of execution.——
“I remember beginning to move forward through the long arched passages which led from the press-room to the scaffold. I saw the lamps that were still burning—for the daylight never entered here: I heard the quick tolling of the bell, and the deep voice of the chaplain reading as he walked before us—
‘I am the resurrection and the life, saith the Lord; he that believeth in me, though he were dead, shall live. And though after my skin worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God!’
“It was the funeral service—the order for the grave—the office for those that were senseless and dead—over us, the quick and the living——
“I felt once more—and saw! I felt the transition from these dim, close, hot, lamp-lighted subterranean passages, to the open platform and steps at the foot of the scaffold, and to day. I saw the immense crowd blackening the whole area of the street below me. The windows of the shops and houses opposite, to the fourth story, choked with gazers. I saw St. Sepulchre’s church through the yellow fog in the distance, and heard the pealing of its bell. I recollect the cloudy, misty morning; the wet that lay upon the scaffold—the huge dark mass of building, the prison itself, that rose beside, and seemed to cast a shadow over us—the cold, fresh breeze, that, as I emerged from it, broke upon my face. I see it all now—the whole horrible landscape is before me. The scaffold—the rain—the faces of the multitude—the people clinging to the house-tops—the smoke that beat heavily downwards from the chimneys—the waggons filled with women, staring in the inn-yards opposite—the hoarse low roar that ran through the gathered crowd as we appeared. I never saw so many objects at once so plainly and distinctly in all my life as at that one glance; but it lasted only for an instant.