Strictly Dickens: Chapters LXIV & LXV

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Say look, it's Sunday evening. I'm in the mood, so let's carry on with Barnaby Raj. Let's do an extra episode. Chapter sixty four Breaking the silence they had hitherto preserved, they raised a great cry as soon as they were ranged before the jail and demanded to speak with a governor. Their visit was not wholly unexpected, for his house, which fronted the street, was strongly barricaded, the wicket gate of the prison was closed up, and no loophole or grating was any person to be seen. Before they had repeated their summons many times a man appeared upon the roof of the governor's house and asked them what they wanted. Some said one thing, some another, and some only groaned and hissed. It now being dark or nearly dark and the house high, many persons in the throng were not aware that anyone had come to answer them, and continued their clamour until the intelligence was gradually diffused through the whole concourse. Ten minutes or more elapsed before any one voice could be heard with tolerable distinctness, during which interval the figure remained perched alone against the summer evening sky, looking down into the troubled street. Are you? said Hugh at length, Mr Ackerman, the head jailer here. Of course he is, brother, whispered Dennis. But Hugh, without minding him, took his answer from the man himself. Yes, he said, I am. You have got some friends of ours in your custody, master. I have a good many people in my custody. He glanced downwards as he spoke into the jail, and the feeling that he could see into the different yards and that he overlooked everything which was hidden from their view by the rugged walls, so lashed and goaded the mob that they howled like wolves. Deliver up our friends, said Hugh, and you may keep the rest. It's my duty to keep them all. I shall do my duty. If you don't throw the doors open, we will break them down, said Hugh, for we have the rioters out. All I can do, good people, Ackerman replied, is to exhort you to disperse, and to remind you that the consequence of any disturbance in this place will be very severe and bitterly repented by most of you when it is too late. He made as though he would retire when he had said these words, but he was checked by the voice of the locksmith. Mr Ackerman, said cried Gabriel, Mr Ackerman I will hear no more from any of you, replied the Governor, turning towards the speaker and waving his hand. But I am not one of them, said Gabriel. I am an honest man, Mr Ackerman, a respectable tradesman, Gabriel Varden, the locksmith. You know me? You, among the crowd, cried the Governor, in an altered voice, brought here by force, brought here to pick the lock of the great door for them, rejoined the locksmith. Bear witness for me, Mr Ackerman, that I refuse to do it, and that I will not do it, come what may of my refusal. If any violence is done to me, please to remember this. Is there no way of helping you? said the Governor. None, Mr Ackerman. You'll do your duty, and I'll do mine. Once again, you robbers and cutthroats, said the locksmith, turning round upon them, I refuse. Ah, how till your horse? I refuse. Stay, stay, said the jailer hastily. Mr Varden, I know you for a worthy man and one who would do no unlawful act except under compulsion. Under compulsion, sir, interposed the locksmith, who felt that the tone in which this was said conveyed the speaker's impression that he had ample excuse for yielding to the furious multitude who beset and hemmed him in on every side, and among whom he stood an old man quite alone. Under compulsion, sir, I will do nothing. Where is that man? said the keeper anxiously, who spoke to me just now. Here, Hugh replied. Do you know what the guilt of murder is, and that by keeping that honest tradesman at your side you endanger his life? We know it very well, he answered. For what else did we bring him here for? Let us have our friends, master, and you shall have your friend. Is that fair, lads? The mob replied to him with a loud hurrah. You see how it is, sir, cried Varden. Keep em out in King George's name, remember what I have said. Good night. There was no more parley. A shower of stones and other missiles compelled the keeper of the jail to retire, and the mob pressing on and swarming around the walls, forced Gabriel Varden close up to the door. In vain the basket of tools was laid upon the ground before him, and he was urged in turn by promises, by blows, by offers of reward, and threats of instant death to do the office for which they had brought him there. No, cried the sturdy locksmith, I will not. He had never loved his life so well as then, but nothing could move him. The savage faces that glared upon him, look where he would, the cries of those who thirsted like wild animals for his blood, the sight of men pressing forward and trampling down their fellows as they strove to reach him and struck at him above the heads of other men with axes and with iron bars all failed to daunt him. He looked from man to man and face to face, and still, with quickened breath and lessening colour, cried firmly I will not. Dennis dealt him a blow upon the face which felled him to the ground. He sprung up again like a man in the prime of his life, and with the blood upon his forehead caught him by the throat. You cowardly dog, he said, give me my daughter give me my daughter. They struggled together, and some cried kill him, and some, but they were not near enough, strove to trample him to death. Tug as he would at the old man's wrists the hangman could not force him to unclench his hands. Is this all but return that you make me, you ungrateful monster? he articulated with great difficulty, and with many oaths. Give me my daughter, cried the locksmith, who was now as fierce as those who gathered round him. Give me my daughter. He was down again and up and down once more, and buffeting with a score of them who banded him from hand to hand, when one tall fellow fresh from the slaughterhouse, whose dress and great thigh boots smoked hot with grease and blood, raised a pole axe and swearing a horrible oath, aimed it at the old man's uncovered head. At that instance and in the very act he fell himself as if struck by lightning, and over his body a one armed man came darting to the locksmith's side. Another man was with him and caught both the locksmith roughly in their grasp. Leave him to us, they cried to Hugh, struggling as they spoke, to force a passage backwards through the crowd. Leave him to us. Why do you waste your whole strength on such as he when a couple of men can finish him in as many minutes? You lose time. Remember the prisoners, remember Barnaby. The cry ran through the mob, hammers began to rattle on the wall, and every man strove to reach the prison and be among the foremost rank, fighting their way through the press and struggle as desperately as if they were in the midst of enemies rather than their own friends, the two men retreated with the locksmith between them and dragged him through the very heart of the concourse, and now the strokes began to fall like hail upon the gate and on the strong building, for those who could not reach the door spent their fierce rage on anything, even on the great blocks of stone which shivered their weapons into fragments, and made their hands and arms to tingle as if the walls were active in their stout resistance, and dealt them back their blows. The clash of iron ringing upon iron, mingled with the deafening tumult, and the sound high above it as the great sledgehammers rattled on, the nail and plate and plated door, and the sparks that flew off in showers. Men worked in gangs and at short intervals relieved each other that all their strength might be devoted to the work, but there stood the portal still as grim and dark and strong as ever, and saving for the dints upon its battered surface quite unchanged. While some brought all their energies to bear upon this toilsome task, and some, rearing ladders against the prison, tried to clamber to the summit of the walls, they were too short to scale, and some again engaged a body of police a hundred strong, and beat them back and trod them underfoot by force of numbers. Others besieged the house or which the jailer had appeared, and driving in the door brought out his furniture and piled it up against the prison gate to make a bonfire which should burn it down. As soon as this device was understood, all those who had laboured hitherto cast down their tools and helped to swell the heap, which reached halfway across the street, and was so high that those who threw more fuel on the top got up by ladders. When all the keeper's goods were flung upon this costly pile to the last fragment, they smeared it with the pitch and tar and rosin that they had brought, and sprinkled it with turpentine. I wonder if they mean resin. To all the woodwork around the prison doors they did the like, leaving not a joist or beam untouched. This infernal christening performed, they piled they fired the pile with lighted matches and with blazing toe is that word again, and then stood by awaiting the result. The furniture being very dry and rendered more combustible by the wax and oil, besides the arts that they had used took fire at once. The flames roared high and fiercely, blackening the prison walls and twining up its lofty front like burning serpents. At first they crowded round the blaze and vented their exultation only in their looks, but when it grew hotter and fiercer, when it crackled, leaped and roared like a great furnace, and when it shone upon the opposite houses and lighted up not only the pale and wondering faces at the windows, but the inmost corners of each habitation, when through the deep red heat and glow the fire was seen sporting and toying with the door, now clinging to its obdurate surface and now gliding off with fierce inconstancy, and soaring high into the sky, anon returning to fold it in its burning grasp and lure it to its ruin, when it shone and gleamed so brightly that the church clock of St. Sepulchres, so often pointing to the hour of death, was legible as in broad day, and the vein upon its steeple top glittered in the unwanted light, like something richly jewelled, when the blackened stone and somber brick grew ruddy in the deep reflection and windows shone like burnished gold, dotting the longest distance in the fiery vista with their specks of brightness, when wall and tower and roof and chimney stack seemed drunk, and the and in the flickering glare appeared to reel and stagger, when scores of objects never seen before burst out upon view, and things the most familiar put on some new aspect, then the mob began to join the whirl, and with loud yells and shouts and clamour, such as happily is seldom heard, bestirred themselves to feed the fire and keep it at its height. Although the heat was so intense that the paint on the houses over against the prison, parched and crappled, crackled up, and, swelling into boils, as it were, from excess of torture, broke and crumbled away, although the glass fell from the window sashes, and the lead and iron on the roofs blistered, the incautious hand that touched them, and the sparrows in the eaves took wing, and rendered giddy by the smoke fell fluttering down upon the blazing pile. Still the fire was tended unceasingly by busy hands, and round it were men, and they were going always. They never slackened in their zeal or kept aloof, but pressed upon the flame so hard that those in front had much ado to save themselves from being thrust in. If one man swooned or dropped, a dozen struggled for his place, and that, although they knew the pain and thirst and pressure to be unendurable, those who fell down in fainting fits and were not crushed or burnt, were carried to an inn yard close at hand, and dashed with water from a pump, of which bucketfuls were passed from man to man among the crowd, but such was the strong desire of all to drink, and such the fighting to be the first that, for the most part, the whole contents were spilled upon the ground, without the lips of one man being moistened. Meanwhile, and in the midst of all the roar and outcry, those who were nearest to the pile heaped up again the burning fragments that came toppling down and raked the fire about the door, which, although a sheet of flame, was still a door, fast locked and barred, and kept them out. Great pieces of blazing wood were passed, besides above the people's heads to such as stood about the ladders, and some of these, climbing up to the topmost stave, and holding on with one hand by the prison wall, exerted all their skill and force to cast these firebrands on the roof or down into the yards within. In many instances their efforts were successful, which occasioned a new and appalling addition to the horrors of the scene, for the prisoners within, seeing them between their bars, that the fire caught in many places and thrived fiercely, and being all locked up in strong cells for the night, began to know that they were in danger of being burnt alive. This terrible fear, spreading from cell to cell and from yard to yard, vented itself in such dismal cries and wailings, and in such dreadful shrieks for help, that the whole jail resounded with the noise, which was loudly heard even above the shouting of the mob and the roaring of the flames, and was so full of agony and despair that it made the boldest tremble. It was remarkable that these cries began in that corner of the jail which fronted Newgate Street, where it was well known the men who were to suffer death on Thursday were confined, and not only were these four who had so short a time to live, the first to whom the dread of being burnt occurred, but they were throughout the most importunate of all, for they could be plainly heard, notwithstanding the great thickness of the walls, crying that the wind set that way and that the flames would shortly reach them, and calling to the officers of the jail to come and quench the fire from a cistern which was in their yard and full of water. Judging from what the crowd without the walls could hear from time to time, these four doomed wretches never ceased to call for help, and that with such with as many distractions and an as great frenzy of attachment to existence as though each had an honoured, happy life before him, instead of eight and forty hours of miserable imprisonment, and then a violent and shameful death. But the anguish and suffering of the two sons of one of these men, when they heard or fancied that they heard their father's voice, is past description. After wringing their hands and rushing to and fro as if they were stuck mad, one mounted on the shoulders of his brother and tried to clamber up the face of the high wall, guarded at the top with spikes and points of iron, and when he fell among the crowd he was not deterred by his bruises, but mounted up again and fell again, and when he found the feat impossible, began to beat the stones and tear them with his hands, as if he could but make a breach in the strong building, and force a passage in. At last they cleft their way among the mob about the door, though many men a dozen times their match had tried in vain to do so, and were seen in, yes, in the fire, striving to prise it down with crowbars, nor were they alone affected by the outcry from within the prison. The women who were looking on shrieked loudly, beat their hands together and stopped their ears, and many fainted. The men who were not near the walls and active in the siege, rather than do nothing, tore up the pavement of the street, and did so with a haste and fury that could not have surpassed if they had been in the jail and were now near their object. Not one living creature in the throng was for an instant still. The whole great mass were mad. A shout, another, another yet, though few knew why or what it meant, but those around the gate had seen it slowly yield and drop from its topmost hinge. It hung on so that Sy one side was still upright, but because of the bar and its having sunk of its own weight into the heap of ashes at its foot, there was now a gap at the top of the doorway, through which could be described a gloomy passage, cavernous and dark. Pile up the fire it burnt fiercely. The door was red hot and the gap wider. They vainly tried to shield their faces with their hands, and standing as if in readiness for a spring, watched the place. Dark figures, some crawling on their hands and knees, some carried in the arms of others, were seen to pass along the roof. It was plain the jail could hold out no longer. The keeper and his officers and their wives and children were escaping. Pile up the fire. The door sank in again. It settled deeper into the in the cinders, tottered, yielded, and was down. As they shouted again they fell back for a moment, and left a clear space about the fire that lay between them and the jail entry. Hugh leaped upon the blazing heap, and scattering a train of sparks into the air, and making the dark lobby glitter with those that hung upon his dress, dashed into the jail. The hangman followed, and then so many rushed upon their track that the fire got trodden down and thinly strewn about the street, but there was no need of it now, for, inside and out, the prison was in flames. Chapter sixty five During the whole course of the terrible scene which was now at its height, one man in the jail suffered a degree of fear and mental torment which had no parallel in the endurance even of those who lay under sentence of death. When the rioters first assembled before the building, the murderer was roused from sleep, if such slumbers as his may have that blessed name, by the roar of voices and the struggling of a great crowd. He started up as those sounds met his ear, and sitting on his bedstead, listened. After a short interval of silence the noise burst out again. Still listening attentively, he made out in the course of time that the jail was besieged by a furious multitude. His guilty conscience instantly arrayed these men against himself and brought the fear upon him that he would be singled out and torn to pieces. Once impressed with the terror of this conceit, everything tended to confirm and strengthen it. His double crime, the circumstances under which it had been committed, the length of time that had elapsed and its discovery in spite of all, made him, as it were, the visible object of the almighty's wrath. In all the crime and vice and moral gloom of the great pest house of the capital, he stood alone, marked and singled out by his great guilt, a Lucifer among the devils. The other prisoners were a host hiding and sheltering each other, a crowd like that without the walls. He was one man against the whole united. ignited concourse, a single solitary, lonely man, from whom the very captives in the jail fell off and shrunk appalled. It might be that the intelligence of his capture having been bruted abroad, they had come there purposely to drag him out and kill him in the street, or it might be that they were the rioters and in pursuance of an old design had come to sack the prison, but in either case he had no belief or hope that they would spare him. Every shout they raised and every sound they made was a blow upon his heart. As the attack went on he grew more wild and frantic in his terror, tried to pull away the bars that guarded the chimney and prevented him from climbing up, called loudly on the turnkeys to cluster round the cell and save him from the fury of the rabble, or put him in some dungeon underground, no matter of what depth, however dark it was or loaths loathsome, or beset with rats and creeping things, so that it hid him and was hard to find, but no one came or answered him. Fearful, even while he cried to them of attracting attention, he was silent. By and by he saw as he looked from his grated window, a strange glimmering on the stone walls and pavement of the yard. It was feeble at first and came and went, as though some officers with torches were passing to and fro upon the roof of the prison. Soon it reddened and lighted brands came whirling down, spattering the ground with fire, and burning sullenly in corners. One rolled beneath a wooden bench and set it ablaze, another caught a water spout and so went climbing up the wall, leaving a long, straight track of fire behind it. After a time a slow thick shower of burning fragments from some upper portion of the prison which was blazing nigh began to fall before his door. Remembering that it opened outwards he knew that every spark which fell upon the heap and in the act lost its bright life and died an ugly speck of dust and rubbish helped to entomb him in a living grave. Still, though the jail resounded with shrieks and cries for help, though the fire bounded up as if each separate flame had a tiger's life and roared as though in every one there were a hungry voice, though the heat began to grow intense and the air suffocating, and the clamour without increased, and the danger of his situation, even from one merciless element, was every moment more extreme, still he was afraid to raise his voice again, lest the crowd should break in and should, on their own ears or from the information given them by the other prisoners, get the clue to his place of confinement, thus, fearful alike of those within the prison and of those without, of noise and silence, light and darkness, of being released and being left there to die, he was so tortured and tormented that nothing man has ever done to man in the horrible caprice of power and cruelty exceeds his self inflicted punishment. Now the door was down, now they came rushing through the jail, calling to each other in the vaulted passages, clashing the iron gates dividing yard from yard, beating at the doors of cells and wards, wrenching off bolts and locks and bars, tearing down the doorposts to get men out, endeavouring to drag them by main force through gaps and windows where a child could scarcely pass, whooping and yelling without a moment's rest, and running through the heat and flames as if they were cased in metal. By their legs, their arms, the hair upon their heads they dragged the prisoners out. Some threw themselves upon the captives as they got towards the door and tried to file away their irons, some danced about them with a frenzied joy, and rent their clothes and were ready, as it seemed, to tear them from limb to limb. Now a party of a dozen men came darting through the yard into which the murderer cast fearful glances from his darkened window, dragging a prisoner along the ground, whose dress they had nearly torn from his body in their mad eagerness to set him free, and he was bleeding and senseless in their hands, Lord of the Flies. Now a score of prisoners ran to and fro who had lost themselves in the intricacies of the prison, and were so bewildered with the noise and glare that they knew not where to turn or what to do, and still cried out for help as loudly as before. Anon some famished wretch whose theft had been a loaf of bread or scrap of butcher's meat, came skulking past barefooted, going slowly away because that jail, his house, was burning, not because he had any other or had any friends to meet, or old haunts to vis visit, or any liberty to gain but liberty to starve and die, and then a knot of highwaymen went trooping by, conducted by the friends they had among the crowds, who muffled their fetters as they went along with handkerchiefs and bands of hay, and wrapped them in coats and cloaks, and gave them drink from bottles and held it to their lips, because of their handcuffs which there was no time to remove. All this and heaven knows how much more, was done amidst a noise, a hurry and a distraction like nothing that we can know of even in our dreams, which seemed forever on the rise and never to decrease for the space of a single instant. He was still looking down from his window upon these things when a band of men with torches, ladders, axes, and many kinds of weapons poured into the yard, and hammering at his door inquired if there were any prisoner within. He left the window when he saw them coming, and drew back into the remotest corner of the cell, but although he returned them no answer, they had a fancy that someone was inside, for they presently set ladders upon it and began to tear away the bars at the casement, not only that, indeed, but with pickaxes to hew down the very stones in the wall. As soon as they had made a breach at the window large enough for the admission of a man's head, one of them thrust in a torch and looked all round the room. He followed this man's gaze until it rested on himself, and heard him deemed why he had not answered, but made him no reply. In the general surprise and wonder they were used to this. Without saying anything more, they enlarged the breach until it was large enough to admit the body of a man and then came dropping down upon the floor one after another until the cell was full. They caught him up among them, handed him to the window, and those who stood upon the ladders passed him down upon the pavement of the yard. Then the rest came out one after another, and bidding him fly and lose no time or the way would be choked up, hurried away to rescue others. It seemed not a minute's work from first to last. He staggered to his feet, incredulous of what just happened, when the yard was filled again, and a crowd rushed on, hurrying Barnaby among them. In another minute not so much, another minute the same instant, with no lapse or interval between, he and his son were being passed from hand to hand, through the dense crowd in the street, and were glancing backwards at a burning pile which someone said was Newgate. From the moment of their first entrance into the prison the crowd dispersed themselves about it and swarmed into every chink and crevice as if they had a perfect acquaintance with its innermost parts, and bore in their minds an exact plan of the whole, for this immediate knowledge of the place they were, no doubt, in a great degree, indebted to the hangman, who stood in the lobby directing some to go this way, some that and some the other, and who materially assisted in bringing about the wonderful rapidity with which the release of the prisoners was effected. But this functionary of the law reserved one important piece of intelligence and kept it snugly to himself. When he had issued his instructions relative to every other part of the building and the mob were dispersed from one end to the other and busy at their work, he took a bundle of keys from a kind of cupboard in the wall, and going by a private passage near to the chapel, it joined the governor's house and was then on fire, betook himself to the condemned cells, which were a series of small, strong, dismal rooms opening onto a low gallery, guarded at the end at which he entered by a strong iron wicket, and at its opposite extremity by two doors and a thick grate. Having double locked the wicket and assured himself that the other entrances were well secured, he sat down on a bench in the gallery and sucked the head of his stick with an air of the utmost complacency, tranquility and contentment. It would have been strange enough for man's enjoying himself in this quiet manner, while the prison was burning and such a tumult was cleaving the air, though he had been outside the walls, but here in the very heart of the building and moreover, with the prayers and cries of the four men under sentence sounding in his ears, and their hands stretched out through the gratings in their cell doors, clasped in frantic entreaty before his very eyes. It was particularly remarkable. Indeed Mr Dennis appeared to think of it as an uncommon circumstance and to banter himself upon it, for he thrust his hat on one side as some men do when they are in a waggish humour, sucked the head of his stick with a higher relish, and smiled, as though he would say Dennis, you're a rum dog, you're a queer fellow you're a capital company, Dennis, and quite a character. He sat in this way for many minutes while the four men in the cells, certain that someone had entered the gallery but could not see who, gave vent to such piteous entreaties as wretches in their miserable condition may be supposed to have been inspired with, urging whoever it was to set them at liberty, for the love of heaven, and protesting with great fervour and truly enough, perhaps for the time, that if they escaped they would amend their ways and would never, never, never again do wrong before God or man, but would lead penitent and sober lives and sorrowfully repent the crimes they had committed. The terrible energy with which they spoke would have moved any person no matter how good or just, if any good or just person could have strayed into that sad place that night, to have set them at liberty, and while he would have left any other punishment to its free course, to have saved them from this last dreadful and repulsive penalty which never turned a man inclined to evil, and has hardened thousands who are half inclined to good. Mr Dennis, who had been bred and nurtured in the good old school and had administered the good old laws on the good old plan, always once and sometimes twice every six weeks for a long time, bore these appeals with a deal of philosophy. Being at last, however, rather disturbed in his pleasant reflection by their repetition, he rapped at one of the doors with his stick and cried Hold your noise there, will you? At this they all cried together that they were to be hanged on the next day but one, and again implored his aid. Aid for what? said Mr Dennis, playfully rapping the knuckles of the hand nearest him To save us they cried Oh certainly said Mr Dennis, winking at the wall in the absence of any friend with whom he could humour the joke and so you're to be worked off, are you, brothers? Unless we're released to night, one of them cried, we are dead men I tell you what it is, said the hangman gravely. I'm afraid my friend, that you're not in that ear state of mind that's suitable for your condition, then you're not a going to be released. Don't think it We'll leave you off that ear indecent row I wonder you ain't ashamed of yourself, I do. He followed up this reproof by wrapping every set of knuckles one after the other, and having done so resumed his seat again with a cheerful countenance. You've had law, he said, crossing his legs and elevating his eyebrows Laws have been made a purpose for you and a very handsome prison's been made a purpose for you. A parson's kept a purpose for you a constitutional officer's appointed a person for you. Carts is maintained a purpose for you and yet you're not contented will you hold that noise you sir in the furthest? A groan was the only answer. So well as I can make out, said Mr Dennis, in a tone of mingled badinage and remonstrance there's not a man among you I begin to think I'm on the opposite side and among the ladies, though for the matter of that I've seen a many ladies face it out in a manner that did honour to the sex. You in number two don't grind them teeth of yours worse manners, said the hangman, rapping at the door with his stick I've never seen in this place afore I'm ashamed on you you're a disgrace to the Bailey. After pausing for a moment to hear if anything could be pledged in justification, Mr Dennis resumed in a sort of coaxing tone Now looky here, you four I've come here to take care of you and to see you ain't burnt instead of the other thing. It's no use your making any noise for you won't be found out by them as has broken him and you'll only be horse when you come to the speeches, which is a pity What I say in respect to the speeches always is give it mouth that's my maxim give it mouth I've heard, said the hangman, pulling off his hat, to take his handkerchief from the crown and wipe his face and then putting it on again a little more on one side than before I've heard an eloquence on them boards and you know what boards I mean and have heard a degree of mouth given to them speeches that they was as clear as a bell and as good as play there's a pattern and always when a thing of nature's to come off what I stand up for is a proper frame of mind. Let's have a proper frame of mind and we can go through it with credible, creditable, pleasant, sociable whatever you do and I address myself in particular to you in the furthest, never snivel I'd sooner buy half though I'd lose by it see a man tear his clothes a purpose to spoil 'em before they come to me than finding him snivelling it's ten to one, a better frame of mind every way This is so revolting, I'm wanting it to come to an end while the hangman addressed them to this effect in the tone and with the air of a pastor in familiar conversation pastor with his flock, the name the noise had been in some degree subdued for the rioters were busy in conveying the prisoners to the sessions house which was beyond the main walls of the prison, though conducted connected with it, and the crowd were too busy in passing them from thence along the street. But when he had got thus far on his discourse the sound of voices in the yard showed plainly that the mob had returned and were coming that way, and directly afterwards a violent crashing at the grate below gave note of their attack upon the cells, as they were called, at last. It was in vain the hangman ran from door to door and covered the grates, one after the other with his hat, in futile efforts to stifle the cries of the four men within. It was in vain that he dogged their outstretched hands and beat them with his stick or menaced them with new and lingering pains in the execution of his office the place resounded with their cries. These, together with the feeling that they were now the last men in the jail, so worked upon and stimulated the besiegers that in an incredibly short space of time they forced the strong grate down below, which was formed of iron rods two inches square, drove in the two other doors as if they had been but deal partitions, and stood at the end of the gallery with only a bar or two between them and the cells. Hello cried Hugh, who was the first to look into the dusky passage. Dennis before us well done, old boy, be quick and open it up here, for we shall be suffocated in the smoke going out Go out all once, then, said Dennis. What do you want here? Want echoed Hugh The four men Four devils cried the hangman. Don't you know that they're left for deaf on Thursday? Don't you respect the law, the Constitution Nothing let the four men be Is this a time for joking? cried Hugh Do you hear 'em pull away these last bars that have got fixed between the door and the ground and let us in Brother, said the hangman in a low voice as he stooped under the pretence of doing what Hugh desired, but only to look up at his face. Can't you leave these four here men to me if I've the whim, you do what you like and have what you like of everything for your share and give me my share. I want these four men left alone, I will tell you. Pull the bars down or stand out of the way, was Hugh's reply. You can turn the crowd if you like, you know that well enough, brother, said the hangman slowly. What? You will come in, will you? Yes. You won't let these men alone and leave them to me you've no respect for nothing, haven't you? said the hangman, retreating to the door by which he had entered, and regarding his companion with a scowl. You will come in, will you, brother? I tell you yes what the devil ails you are you going? No matter where I'm going, rejoined the hangman, looking in again at the Iron Wicket, which he had nearly shut upon himself and held ajar. Remember where you're coming, that's all. With that he shook his likeness at Hugh, and giving him a grin, compared with which his usual smile was amiable, and disappeared and shut the door. Do you remember his likeness is on the stick that he has? Hugh paused no longer, but goaded alike by the cries of the convicts and by the impatience of the crowd, warned the man immediately behind him the only way was wide enough for one abreast, to stand back and wielded a sledgehammer with such strength that after a few blows the iron bent and broke and gave him free admittance. If the two sons of one of these men, of whom mention has been made, were furious in their zeal before, they had now the wrath and vigour of lions, calling to the man within each cell to keep as far back as he could, lest the axes crashing through the door should wound him, a party went to work upon each one, to beat it in by sheer strength and force the bolts and staples from their hold. But although these two lads had the weakest party and the worst armed, and did not begin until after the others, having stopped a whisper to him through the grate, that the door was the first to open and that man the first out. As they dragged him into the gallery to knock off his irons, he fell down among emong using the voice, a mere heap of chains and was carried out in the step that state on men's shoulders with no signs of life. The release of these four wretched wretched creatures and conveying them astounded and bewildered Into the streets so full of life, a spectacle they had never thought to see again until they emerged from solitude and silence upon that last journey, when the air should be heavy with the pent up breath of thousands, and the streets and houses should be built and reefed with human faces, not with bricks and tiles and stones, was the crowning horror of the scene, their pale and haggard looks and hollow eyes, their staggering feet and hands stretched out as if to save themselves from falling, their wandering and uncertain air, the way they heaved and gasped for breath, as though in water when they were first plunged into the crowd, all marked them for the men. No need to say this one was doomed to die. There were the first words broadly stamped and branded on his face. The crowd fell off as if they'd been laid out for a burial and had risen in their shrouds, and many were seen to shudder as though they'd been actually dead men when they chanced to touch or brush against their garments. At the bidding of the mob the houses were all illuminated that night, lighted up from top to bottom as at a time of public gayety and joy. Many years afterwards old people who lived in their youth near this part of the city remembered being in a great glare of light within doors and without, and as they looked, timid and frightened children from the windows, seeing a face go by. Though the whole great crowd and all its other terrors had faded from their recollection, this one object remained alone, distinct and well remembered. Even in the unpractised minds of infants, one of these doomed men darting past, and but an instant seen, was an image of force enough to dim the whole concourse, to find itself an all absorbing place, and hold it ever after. When this last task had been achieved, the shouts and cries grew fainter, the clank of fetters which had resounded on all sides as the prisoners escaped, was heard no more. All the noises of the crowd subsided into a hoarse and sullen murmur as it passed into the distance, and when the human tide had rolled away, a melancholy heap of smoking ruins marked the spot where it had lately chafed and roared.