“Yes, the sheriff has just come and is waiting for you,” jeered one of the guards with brutal frankness.
The poor fellow stiffened at once. “Very well. I am ready.”
A heavy rain was falling, but the crowd between the prison and Kennington Common was immense. At the time of our trials the mob had treated us in ruffianly fashion, but now we found a respectful silence. The lawyer Morgan was in an extremely irritable mood. All the way to the Common he poured into our inattentive ears a tale of woe about how his coffee had been cold that morning. Over and over again he recited to us the legal procedure for bringing the matter into the courts with sufficient effect to have the prison governor removed from his position.
A messenger with an official document was waiting for us at the gallows. The sheriff tore it open. We had all been bearing ourselves boldly enough I dare say, but at sight of that paper our lips parched, our throats choked, and our eyes burned. Some one was to be pardoned or reprieved. But who? What a moment! How the horror of it lives in one’s mind! Leisurely the sheriff read the document through, then deliberately went over it again while nine hearts stood still. Creagh found the hardihood at that moment of intense anxiety to complain of the rope about his neck.
“I wish the gossoon who made this halter was to be hanged in it. ’Slife, the thing doesn’t fit by a mile,” he said jauntily.
“Mr. Anthony Creagh pardoned, Mr. Kenneth Montagu reprieved,” said the sheriff without a trace of feeling in his voice.
For an instant the world swam dizzily before me. I closed my eyes, partly from faintness, partly to hide from the other poor fellows the joy that leaped to them. One by one the brave lads came up and shook hands with Creagh and me in congratulation. Their good-will took me by the throat, and I could only wring their hands in silence.
On our way back to the prison Creagh turned to me with streaming eyes. “Do you know whom I have to thank for this, Kenneth?”
“No. Whom?”
“Antoinette Westerleigh, God bless her dear heart!”