"Guilty: judgment has passed: the prisoner is to be executed on Wednesday next."
Sir Morgan still controled himself:---he turned back to Mrs. Godber; and, taking both her withered hands into his, he said in the fervent accents of one who supplicates for liberation from torment, but in whispering tones that were audible to none but her--
"Mrs. Godber, as you hope hereafter to rejoin your own boy, tell me--where is that unhappy child of mine that once wore this dress?"
Slowly she released her hands: slowly her face relaxed into a smile: she looked down into the court: the escort of dragoons had formed in two ranks, leaving a lane to the door of the Falcon tower: the sheriff's carriage had drawn up: the prisoner was descending: the torch-light glared upon him. She drew in her breath with a hissing sound; pressed her hands together; and then, with an energy that seemed to crowd the whole luxury of her long vengeance into that single action and that single word, she threw out both arms at once, pointed to Edward Nicholas, and, with a yell, she ejaculated--"There!"
Sir Morgan fell to the ground like one smitten by lightning; and long weeks of unconsciousness gave to him the balm of oblivion.
FOOTNOTES TO "CHAPTER XX.":
[[1]] Harlech, if we remember, is the true county-town of Merionethshire: but, Dolgelly being the larger and more central place, if a man has any county business (for example, if he wants hanging or so) he goes to Dolgelly.
[[2]] This is a satiric hit of the German author at an English foible which cannot be denied: we wish no nation that we could mention had worse. That the satire in this case however is not carried beyond the limits of probability--is evident from the following paragraph which appeared in many of the morning papers during the third week of last October:
"It is scarcely credible, and yet we are positively assured of the fact, that bets to a large amount are depending upon the issue of Mr. Fauntleroy's trial; and that the books of some of the frequenters of Tattersall's and the One Tun, are not less occupied with wagers upon the fate of a fellow-creature than with those upon the Oaks, Derby, and St. Leger. To persons who are not aware of the brutalizing effect of gambling upon the mind, this circumstance will be a matter of astonishment; and even the more experienced can scarcely view with indifference so gross an outrage on common decency."