'No reprieve, no reprieve! Nobody comes near us. There's only the night left now!' moaned Dennis faintly, as he wrung his hands. 'Do you think they'll reprieve me in the night, brother? I've known reprieves come in the night, afore now. I've known 'em come as late as five, six, and seven o'clock in the morning. Don't you think there's a good chance yet,--don't you? Say you do. Say you do, young man,' whined the miserable creature, with an imploring gesture towards Barnaby, 'or I shall go mad!'
'Better be mad than sane, here,' said Hugh. 'GO mad.'
'But tell me what you think. Somebody tell me what he thinks!'
cried the wretched object,--so mean, and wretched, and despicable, that even Pity's self might have turned away, at sight of such a being in the likeness of a man--'isn't there a chance for me,--
isn't there a good chance for me? Isn't it likely they may be doing this to frighten me? Don't you think it is? Oh!' he almost shrieked, as he wrung his hands, 'won't anybody give me comfort!'
'You ought to be the best, instead of the worst,' said Hugh, stopping before him. 'Ha, ha, ha! See the hangman, when it comes home to him!'
'You don't know what it is,' cried Dennis, actually writhing as he spoke: 'I do. That I should come to be worked off! I! I! That I
should come!'
'And why not?' said Hugh, as he thrust back his matted hair to get a better view of his late associate. 'How often, before I knew your trade, did I hear you talking of this as if it was a treat?'
'I an't unconsistent,' screamed the miserable creature; 'I'd talk so again, if I was hangman. Some other man has got my old opinions at this minute. That makes it worse. Somebody's longing to work me off. I know by myself that somebody must be!'
'He'll soon have his longing,' said Hugh, resuming his walk.
'Think of that, and be quiet.'
Although one of these men displayed, in his speech and bearing, the most reckless hardihood; and the other, in his every word and action, testified such an extreme of abject cowardice that it was humiliating to see him; it would be difficult to say which of them would most have repelled and shocked an observer. Hugh's was the dogged desperation of a savage at the stake; the hangman was reduced to a condition little better, if any, than that of a hound with the halter round his neck. Yet, as Mr Dennis knew and could have told them, these were the two commonest states of mind in persons brought to their pass. Such was the wholesome growth of the seed sown by the law, that this kind of harvest was usually looked for, as a matter of course.
In one respect they all agreed. The wandering and uncontrollable train of thought, suggesting sudden recollections of things distant and long forgotten and remote from each other--the vague restless craving for something undefined, which nothing could satisfy--the swift flight of the minutes, fusing themselves into hours, as if by enchantment--the rapid coming of the solemn night--the shadow of death always upon them, and yet so dim and faint, that objects the meanest and most trivial started from the gloom beyond, and forced themselves upon the view--the impossibility of holding the mind, even if they had been so disposed, to penitence and preparation, or of keeping it to any point while one hideous fascination tempted it away--these things were common to them all, and varied only in their outward tokens.
'Fetch me the book I left within--upon your bed,' she said to Barnaby, as the clock struck. 'Kiss me first.'
He looked in her face, and saw there, that the time was come.
After a long embrace, he tore himself away, and ran to bring it to her; bidding her not stir till he came back. He soon returned, for a shriek recalled him,--but she was gone.
He ran to the yard-gate, and looked through. They were carrying her away. She had said her heart would break. It was better so.
'Don't you think,' whimpered Dennis, creeping up to him, as he stood with his feet rooted to the ground, gazing at the blank walls--'don't you think there's still a chance? It's a dreadful end; it's a terrible end for a man like me. Don't you think there's a chance? I don't mean for you, I mean for me. Don't let HIM hear us (meaning Hugh); 'he's so desperate.'
Now then,' said the officer, who had been lounging in and out with his hands in his pockets, and yawning as if he were in the last extremity for some subject of interest: 'it's time to turn in, boys.'
'Not yet,' cried Dennis, 'not yet. Not for an hour yet.'
'I say,--your watch goes different from what it used to,' returned the man. 'Once upon a time it was always too fast. It's got the other fault now.'
'My friend,' cried the wretched creature, falling on his knees, 'my dear friend--you always were my dear friend--there's some mistake.
Some letter has been mislaid, or some messenger has been stopped upon the way. He may have fallen dead. I saw a man once, fall down dead in the street, myself, and he had papers in his pocket.
Send to inquire. Let somebody go to inquire. They never will hang me. They never can.--Yes, they will,' he cried, starting to his feet with a terrible scream. 'They'll hang me by a trick, and keep the pardon back. It's a plot against me. I shall lose my life!'
And uttering another yell, he fell in a fit upon the ground.
'See the hangman when it comes home to him!' cried Hugh again, as they bore him away--'Ha ha ha! Courage, bold Barnaby, what care we? Your hand! They do well to put us out of the world, for if we got loose a second time, we wouldn't let them off so easy, eh?
Another shake! A man can die but once. If you wake in the night, sing that out lustily, and fall asleep again. Ha ha ha!'
Barnaby glanced once more through the grate into the empty yard;
and then watched Hugh as he strode to the steps leading to his sleeping-cell. He heard him shout, and burst into a roar of laughter, and saw him flourish his hat. Then he turned away himself, like one who walked in his sleep; and, without any sense of fear or sorrow, lay down on his pallet, listening for the clock to strike again.
