"I"ll say this," he cried, looking firmly round, "that if I had tenlives to lose, and the loss of each would give me ten times theagony of the hardest death, I"d lay them all down--ay, I would,though you gentlemen may not believe it--to save this one. Thisone," he added, wringing his hand again, "that will be lost throughme."
"Not through you," said the idiot, mildly. "Don"t say that. Youwere not to blame. You have always been very good to me.--Hugh, weshall know what makes the stars shine, NOW!"
"I took him from her in a reckless mood, and didn"t think what harmwould come of it," said Hugh, laying his hand upon his head, andspeaking in a lower voice. "I ask her pardon; and his.--Lookhere," he added roughly, in his former tone. "You see this lad?"
They murmured "Yes," and seemed to wonder why he asked.
"That gentleman yonder--" pointing to the clergyman--"has often inthe last few days spoken to me of faith, and strong belief. Yousee what I am--more brute than man, as I have been often told--butI had faith enough to believe, and did believe as strongly as anyof you gentlemen can believe anything, that this one life would bespared. See what he is!--Look at him!"
Barnaby had moved towards the door, and stood beckoning him tofollow.
"If this was not faith, and strong belief!" cried Hugh, raisinghis right arm aloft, and looking upward like a savage prophet whomthe near approach of Death had filled with inspiration, "where arethey! What else should teach me--me, born as I was born, andreared as I have been reared--to hope for any mercy in thishardened, cruel, unrelenting place! Upon these human shambles, I,who never raised this hand in prayer till now, call down the wrathof God! On that black tree, of which I am the ripened fruit, I doinvoke the curse of all its victims, past, and present, and tocome. On the head of that man, who, in his conscience, owns me forhis son, I leave the wish that he may never sicken on his bed ofdown, but die a violent death as I do now, and have the night-windfor his only mourner. To this I say, Amen, amen!"
His arm fell downward by his side; he turned; and moved towardsthem with a steady step, the man he had been before.
"There is nothing more?" said the governor.
Hugh motioned Barnaby not to come near him (though without lookingin the direction where he stood) and answered, "There is nothingmore."
"Move forward!"
"--Unless," said Hugh, glancing hurriedly back,--"unless anyperson here has a fancy for a dog; and not then, unless he means touse him well. There"s one, belongs to me, at the house I camefrom, and it wouldn"t be easy to find a better. He"ll whine atfirst, but he"ll soon get over that.--You wonder that I think abouta dog just now, he added, with a kind of laugh. "If any mandeserved it of me half as well, I"d think of HIM."
He spoke no more, but moved onward in his place, with a carelessair, though listening at the same time to the Service for the Dead,with something between sullen attention, and quickened curiosity.
As soon as he had passed the door, his miserable associate wascarried out; and the crowd beheld the rest.
Barnaby would have mounted the steps at the same time--indeed hewould have gone before them, but in both attempts he wasrestrained, as he was to undergo the sentence elsewhere. In a fewminutes the sheriffs reappeared, the same procession was againformed, and they passed through various rooms and passages toanother door--that at which the cart was waiting. He held down hishead to avoid seeing what he knew his eyes must otherwiseencounter, and took his seat sorrowfully,--and yet with somethingof a childish pride and pleasure,--in the vehicle. The officersfell into their places at the sides, in front and in the rear; thesheriffs" carriages rolled on; a guard of soldiers surrounded thewhole; and they moved slowly forward through the throng andpressure toward Lord Mansfield"s ruined house.
It was a sad sight--all the show, and strength, and glitter,assembled round one helpless creature--and sadder yet to note, ashe rode along, how his wandering thoughts found strangeencouragement in the crowded windows and the concourse in thestreets; and how, even then, he felt the influence of the brightsky, and looked up, smiling, into its deep unfathomable blue. Butthere had been many such sights since the riots were over--some somoving in their nature, and so repulsive too, that they were farmore calculated to awaken pity for the sufferers, than respect forthat law whose strong arm seemed in more than one case to be aswantonly stretched forth now that all was safe, as it had beenbasely paralysed in time of danger.
Two cripples--both mere boys--one with a leg of wood, one whodragged his twisted limbs along by the help of a crutch, werehanged in this same Bloomsbury Square. As the cart was about toglide from under them, it was observed that they stood with theirfaces from, not to, the house they had assisted to despoil; andtheir misery was protracted that this omission might be remedied.
Another boy was hanged in Bow Street; other young lads in variousquarters of the town. Four wretched women, too, were put todeath. In a word, those who suffered as rioters were, for the mostpart, the weakest, meanest, and most miserable among them. It wasa most exquisite satire upon the false religious cry which had ledto so much misery, that some of these people owned themselves to beCatholics, and begged to be attended by their own priests.
One young man was hanged in Bishopsgate Street, whose aged greyheadedfather waited for him at the gallows, kissed him at its footwhen he arrived, and sat there, on the ground, till they took himdown. They would have given him the body of his child; but he hadno hearse, no coffin, nothing to remove it in, being too poor--andwalked meekly away beside the cart that took it back to prison,trying, as he went, to touch its lifeless hand.
But the crowd had forgotten these matters, or cared little aboutthem if they lived in their memory: and while one great multitudefought and hustled to get near the gibbet before Newgate, for aparting look, another followed in the train of poor lost Barnaby,to swell the throng that waited for him on the spot.