Читать книгу Charles Peace, or The Adventures of a Notorious Burglar - Anonymous - Страница 17

While Peace was in comparative security, and enjoying immunity for his past crimes, the hours were rolling away sadly enough with Mr. Edward Gregson, alias the Bristol Badger, alias the Old Un. He was caught in a net from which he was not likely to escape. He was deeply impressed with this fact.

The day appointed for his trial was close at hand, the nearer it approached the more anxious, nervous, and fidgety, he became. He was anxious to obtain the services of some leading barrister to conduct his defence, but he had not funds sufficient for that purpose.

His sister, who was married to a drunken, worthless fellow, was the only person who stood by him in the hour of his extreme need. She went, at his request, from one to another of the burglar’s quondam associates, for the purpose of raising a sum sufficient for the defence.

At Gregson’s direction she waited upon Peace, who was not a little disconcerted when she presented herself at his lodging in Bradford. He, however, did more than many of the others did—​he gave her a few pounds.

He also spoke words of kindness to her, and expressed a hope that the verdict would be more favourable than anticipated.

And now let us return to Gregson, who had been confined in one of the model cells of Broxwill.

The little money he had with him at the time of his capture, he had spent entirely upon sumptuous dinners.

Gorging himself, like a boa constrictor, he would fling his enormous frame upon the hammock-like bed, which oscillated beneath his weight, and slept from dinner time to dinner time.

Thus did the earlier portion of his imprisonment pass pleasantly enough.

It is true that he sometimes complained of the regulation respecting the quart of malt liquor, but upon the whole behaved himself very quietly.

In fact, as he was almost invariably asleep, it could hardly have been otherwise.

But, alas! one dreadful morning he was informed that his money was all gone, and that he must, for the future, content himself with the prison diet.

He knew from experience what that was.

A mug of gruel and a piece of bread was brought him for his breakfast. He surveyed it with contempt, and emptied it away into the slops.

He did not care about breakfast or tea. He liked being fed once a day, like the lions in a menagerie, or the bull terriers in the mews.

His anxiety was great to see what his hot dinner was. It happened to be a soup day; and his disgust on finding that he was to dine off a little thin broth and a piece of bread defies description.

He entreated the warder, in the sweetest tones his rough voice could command, to bring him something better than that.

The warder only laughed at him.

From entreaties he passed to threats, and from threats to a savage blow with his fist, which would have annihilated the jocund official had he not parried it with the iron door, which rang beneath the shock, and covered the brawny hand with blood.

He howled with pain, and stretched himself on his bed in sulky silence.

After this he became a little more tractable; contenting himself with grumbling at everything that was brought him.

His sister paid him a visit. She informed him that she had obtained some money towards paying counsel for his defence.

Upon hearing this he seemed greatly pleased; despite his recklessness and bravado, he had become sad and serious as the time for the opening of the assizes approached.

He still clung to hope, even as a drowning man might cling to a spar.

At length the day arrived on which the trial had been appointed to take place. The facts connected with the charge of murder were simple enough.

Jane Ryan, who had become by this time a sort of heroine, was the chief witness; but there were others who were to be called as witnesses for the Crown, who to a great extent could corroborate her evidence.

Jane, when placed in the box, was calm and self-possessed.

She swore most positively to the prisoner as being the man who stabbed James Hopgood. She averred that she had a distinct and vivid recollection of every minute circumstance attendant upon the crime committed on that fatal night.

The counsel for the defence by a series of cross questions and inuendoes, strove to throw a doubt upon her testimony.

But Jane never wavered for a moment. Her answers were clear and concise. Every word she uttered bore the impress of truth.

Her cross-examination was continued for so long a time that it became wearisome.

There was, of course, the usual wrangling between the advocates as to what was admissible as evidence.

Objections were taken to some of the questions put to the witnesses, and an appeal was made to the judge, who overruled certain objections, and admitted others.

Jane’s former master and her fellow-servant were the next. They both swore positively to the prisoner as the same person who stabbed the young carpenter.

Eight other witnesses were examined, amongst whom were the two Messrs. Ashbrook and the policemen.

The weight of evidence was clearly against the prisoner, and after retiring for a short time the jury returned a “Verdict of Guilty,” upon the charge of wilful murder.

The judge passed sentence of death upon the prisoner in the usual form, and Gregson, who did not display the slightest emotion, was taken back to Broxwill gaol.

Jane Ryan, who had borne up with wonderful firmness and fortitude throughout the trial, now gave way. When the sentence was passed she swooned, and was carried out of court in a state of insensibility.

“Poor gal,” said Richard Ashbrook; “we none of us know what it has cost her to get through this day’s business. Poor lass! it’s the recollection of her sweetheart that’s done this. It can’t be any sympathy she feels for that miscreant.”

“Ah! no—​for it aint that as does it,” said a female attendant. “The poor dear soul has nerved herself up to go through a trying part, and she’s broken down now it’s over. It’s a chance if she ever overgets this day’s business.”

“She’s none of your weak sort of bodies,” observed the farmer. “Jane’ got a brave heart.”

“May be she has, sir; but the bravest of us are a little overcome at times,” returned the woman.

With care and attention Jane Ryan was soon sufficiently restored to be taken by the good-hearted farmer and his relatives to Oakfield House. She was with good kind friends, who strove in every possible way to restore her to her wonted health and spirits.

But a canker worm was at her heart. And those about her acknowledged to themselves that she was no longer the same Jane whom they had known in an earlier day.

* * * * *

There were but a few grains of sand remaining in Time’s hour-glass for the hardened criminal, Gregson. The morning of his execution was at hand.

Let us visit the street before Broxwill gaol before the fatal day.

It was Sunday night, at eleven o’clock; the public-houses had closed and forced the people into the air, which was rain—​into the street which was mud.

A vast crowd was already collected before the gaol, and were watching the ominous preparations for to-morrow.

The new act for carrying out the last dread penalty of the law within the precincts of the gaol had not as yet passed, and the public were permitted to see the last throes of the doomed. Now, even the representatives of the press are denied that privilege.

There were lanterns placed at intervals of several yards down the whole length of the street. Dark shadows might be seen flitting round these lights.

The harsh sound of iron striking stone rose in the air.

They were digging holes in the ground with picks and iron crowbars.

At the end of the street, at the farther extremity of the prison, there was a yard surrounded with iron spikes.

The door of this yard was open, lights trembled in its mysterious depths.

A group of men and women stood near it; a policeman was stationed at each side of the door.

Occasionally men carrying large iron bars and wooden posts passed out. These, planted in the ground, were formed into a barrier that the mob might be kept at a certain distance from the scene of execution.

Gradually the group in front of the yard increased into a crowd.

As at every quarter of an hour the church bell gave forth its solemn notes they clung closer together, and peered over each other’s shoulders into that black space from which indefinite sounds were raised and which was guarded so vigilantly by its two sentinels.

They heard the noise of wheels and cried joyfully—

“It’s coming! it’s coming!”

But they became silent as, drawn by three horses, a strange vehicle passed them.

It was a large square cart of enormous size, upon four low, broad wheels. It was painted black.

It passed slowly up the street, and halted before a small door which opened from the prison into the street.

From the interior of the prison sprang three men in their short sleeves. They dragged with them a huge pole, and erected it towards heaven.

A low murmur ran through the crowd. This was a portion of the gallows.

How strange and absorbing is the interest of every class in all that pertains to death!

Many of those assembled round Broxwill Gaol, remained there all night. These were, of course, the “roughs.”

But it must not be for a moment supposed that the interest was confined to them.

Numbers of persons belonging to the middle and upper classes had engaged seats at windows of those houses commanding a good view of the scaffold.

As the night wore on the throng of persons diminished in numbers. There were, however, many around the apparatus of death when the first few streaks of dawn were visible in the horizon.

In an hour or so after this people debouched from all quarters of the town, hurrying on towards the fatal spot.

As the minutes flew by the multitude increased.

The salesmen of hot potatoes, coffee, pies, and other delicacies, were threading their way through the crowd.

Some loud-voiced fellows began to cry out the last dying speech and confession of the notorious murderer, Gregson, better known as the Bristol Badger. They recited some doggrel lines as they took their way along, which persons of a powerful imagination might suppose to be the production of the wretched man who was about to die.

The windows of the houses commanding a view of the ghastly scene now began to fill with people.

In them too, many of the fair sex were to be seen. The crowd before the scaffold became denser—​people, as is usual on occasions of this description, push and elbow each other. An English crowd is bound to do this.

“Where ye’re shovin’ to?” said a tall youth to a brawny looking man, who to all appearance was a navigator. “Jest keep yer elbows to yerself.”

“It aint my fault, yer fool,” said the navigator. “It’s the people behind who’s a pushing.”

“Well, then, you’re strong enough, and can keep ’em back if you like.”

“Don’t you be so cheeky, young fellow,” returned the other; “you aint everybody.”

“Give him a dab in the eye,” said a voice behind.

“I shan’t be at all particular about that if he gives me any more of his cheek.”

“Hush! Order!” ejaculated another of the crowd. “This aint a time to be a-quarrelin’.”

“Right you air, old man,” said another.

“Pies, all hot—​all hot,” shouted out an itinerant vendor of those delicacies. “Here’s some of the right sort, all hot.”

Several persons became purchasers. The morning air had given them an appetite, and they devoured the pies with evident relish.

A man in a black suit, with a white necktie and a low crowned hat, proceeded to distribute tracts to the gaping throng.

In a few moments he got unmercifully chaffed, but heedless of this he proceeded on his mission.

The hours passed on. It was nearly eight o’clock.

A man in a sable suit, bent form, and a feeble step, made for the door of one of the houses opposite to the gaol. He wore green spectacles, and to all appearance was a cripple, with a false arm. He passed through the doorway, and in a few moments after this had taken up his position at one of the front windows of the second floor of the house he had entered.

He seemed to be a broken, afflicted creature, who was past the meridian of life. His form was bent with premature age or disease—​it was not possible to say which.

This person, who was disguised so completely that his own mother would not have known him, was our hero, Charles Peace.

He had come to see the last of Ned Gregson.

His make-up suggested a Dissenting minister. He seated himself by the side of a tall, thin, serious-looking person, of quiet manners and gentlemanly appearance.

The prison bell began to toll.

Then, as if by presentiment, the crowd became more orderly, the men ceased their jests, and the vendors their cries.

“It is nearly time for the carrying out the final act of the law upon the poor condemned wretch,” said the tall gentleman to Peace. “What must be his feelings now?”

“Ah, sir! the thought is terrible. It is painful to dwell upon. What, indeed, must be his feelings?”

Here he heaved a profound sigh.

“I have never attended an execution,” remarked the other; “and now my heart begins to fail me. I wish I had kept away. And you——”

“I, like yourself, have never witnessed a scene of this nature, but, having come, I shall endeavour to fortify myself as I best can.”

“I am not an advocate for the abolition of the punishment of death,” remarked Peace’s tall companion. “I frankly own that I do not believe it can with safety be done away with.”

“Most assuredly not,” returned Peace, in the mildest tone of voice. “In the interests of society it is requisite that the guilty should not escape punishment. The murderer is unworthy of sympathy from his fellow-man.”

“I am quite of your opinion—​indeed, I may say that you express my sentiments to the very letter.”

Peace bowed, and his face wore a complacent expression, which was altogether at variance with its ordinary appearance.

His companion was evidently quite taken up with him.

“The man who is about to suffer has been convicted upon the clearest evidence of a most dastardly and cold-blooded murder. The circumstances which led to his discovery are a little singular; and, indeed, I might say romantic.”

“So a neighbour of mine was saying,” observed Peace. “I am not acquainted with all the particulars.”

His companion gave a succinct but graphic account of all those facts with which the reader is already acquainted.

“How very singular!—​how remarkable!” exclaimed Peace, adjusting his spectacles when his companion had ceased.

A short thick-set man, with dark piercing eyes, a close-cut grey beard, now appeared on the scaffold, at which he took a hasty glance.

This figure presented a weird-like appearance.

“There he is!” said several voices.

“Who is that?” said Peace.

“Calcraft, the hangman,” answered his companion.

“Oh, indeed. What has he come for?”

“To see that the arrangements are made in a satisfactory manner. He has made one or two mistakes lately, and I think the old man is getting a little narvess.”

No. 4.

PEACE ESCAPES FROM THE POLICE, AND SEEKS SHELTER IN A YOUNG GIRL’S BEDROOM.

It was quite true that Calcraft had had one or two mishaps; but these, it is said, were attributable to circumstances for which he was in no way responsible. He certainly fulfilled the duties of public executioner creditably for nearly fifty years, during which period he made use of what is known as the “short drop.”

His successor, Marwood, advocates and makes use of the “long drop,” and many have affirmed that his mode for putting criminals to death is the most merciful of the two; but when doctors (I mean hangmen) differ, who shall decide?

Calcraft has now retired. He is seventy-nine years of age, and was, when I last saw him, in tolerably good-health for a man of his years.

The name of the gibbet’s victims have been legion; for until a very recent period our penal code was most severe. We have hanged not only the murderer, the ravisher, and the incendiary—​not only the burglar, the highwayman, and the forger, but the sheep-stealer, the petty thief who purloined a roll of cloth or a loaf of bread from a shop-counter. If any nation ought to know how to hang, it should assuredly be the English.

Decapitation has been a mode of death reserved for aristocratic culprits, although in the “Halifax gibbet” and the Scottish “Maiden” some faint resemblance to the guillotine may be traced. But we have always obstinately refused to employ the machine, adapted from the mediæval types by the benevolent French physician, and have stuck manfully to the gallows.

Formerly the convict doomed to the “triple tree” used to be flung off a ladder. Then we grew more humane, and made him stand with a noose round his neck in a cart, which was drawn from under him at a given signal.

Ultimately, in the middle of the last century, being under the necessity of hanging a lord—​the noble convict was Laurence Earl Ferrers, who had murdered his steward—​the scaffold, with a trap-door secured by a bolt, and flapping down from under the criminal’s feet, was devised for the express accommodation of the murderous peer.

This was in the reign of George II.; and we have not advanced one step since then in the way of hanging.

The “new drop” is more than a hundred years old, but nothing has been done to render the grim agency more efficacious.

When the bolt is drawn and the drop falls, Marwood asserts, according to his arrangement, that the neck of the criminal is at once broken, and that death is instantaneous. This is his theory; but in practice, we believe that in nine cases out of ten the wretched culprit dies from suffocation.

A murderer, it may be urged, deserves no better fate.

He has shown no mercy to others, and has no right to expect that mercy should be shown to him.

We adhere to the notion that hanging is the shortest and swiftest mode of killing; and Marwood has declared that if he were condemned to death, and had to choose the mode of execution, he would certainly prefer hanging to any other.

Peace remained silent and thoughtful when Calcraft appeared on the scaffold. The latter, after a glance round, returned to the gaol.

Shortly after this the prison door opened slowly. One of the gaolers stood in the portal.

There was now a cry of “hats off” and a thousand heads were bared, a thousand faces upturned.

One would have believed it was a performance at the theatre they were witnessing.

Gregson appeared, bound and pinioned. This was the signal for groans and hisses, which were, however, supressed by the more discreet and better-behaved portion of the throng.

Behind Gregson was the chaplain, with an open Prayer-book in his hand, the sheriffs in their robes, the officers of the gaol, the myrmidons of the gallows.

A regiment of policemen encircled the scaffold with their truncheons drawn.

A trembling ran through the crowd, which resembled the waves of the sea beneath the first blast of the north wind.

This was followed by a murmur like that of the waves when the wind lashes them into wrath.

The crowd became hushed and silent.

The chaplain began to read the service of the dead.

The Badger looked sullenly upon the ground, presently he raised his head and examined the faces beneath him as if there was some one whom he wished to find.

He withdrew his eyes almost reluctantly, and turned them upon the officers behind him.

At this sign the clergyman moved on one side, and Calcraft approached.

All was hushed into silence, deep and terrible as that of the tomb.

Gregson had already made one step towards his death—​he now placed himself on the drop.

Calcraft adjusted the noose around the miserable man’s neck, then passed a strap round his feet and secured it with horrible deliberation.

He drew a white cap over his eyes and mouth—​then he disappeared beneath the gallows.

For an instant Gregson stood motionless upon his open tomb.

The eyes of Charles Peace were rivetted on the form of his quondam companion.

The bolt was withdrawn from below; there was a frightful crash; a black chasm opened beneath the feet of the culprit, whose body swung round and vibrated in the air.

Then commenced those struggles, which, we are informed, are merely muscular and involuntary, but which nevertheless are sickening to behold.

Charles Peace was in no way moved by the appalling spectacle, albeit he affected to be overcome, and buried his face in his hands.

His newly-made acquaintance, however, was visibly affected. The expression of his countenance was indicative of the most profound sorrow.

In a few minutes the crowd before the scaffold recovered from the shock.

A motionless figure dangled from the rope. It was evident enough to all the spectators that life had fled.

Gregson had paid the penalty of his crimes.

The crowd swayed to and fro; several groups of persons took their departure in various directions.

During the whole of the melancholy proceedings the pickpockets were industriously plying their vocation.

More than one of the light-fingered gentry had been given into the custody of the police.

This was a common thing at the time of public executions.

Full two-thirds of the multitude had in the space of a quarter of an hour bent their way homewards.

Many, however, still remained to witness Calcraft’s re-appearance on the scaffold for the purpose of cutting the rope from which the body of the murderer was suspended.

Those that remained were, of course, the roughest and least sensitive of the throng.

Their thirst for the horrible appeared to be insatiable.

The unprincipled scoundrel, Gregson, who, as a just penalty for his manifold crimes, suffered death on the public scaffold, was a ruffian of the very worst type. Educated to crime from his earliest youth, his conscience, which had never been tender, became, as years passed over his felon head, “seared as with a hot iron.”

If we were to take a retrospective glance at his career from the day that he first enlisted in the “Devil’s Regiment of the Line” until the last dread sentence of the law was carried out, we should find abundance of evidence to prove that the way of the transgessor was hard. As we have before signified, “A life of crime is always a life of care.”

Gregson found to his cost, despite his callous nature, that this axiom was a true one; nevertheless, he was so steeped in vice and immorality that he found it impossible to reform or mend his ways.

Throughout his whole life there was not manifested one trace of mercy or generosity such as was attributed to the old highwaymen.

On all occasions he displayed a spirit of almost animal ferocity, shown to all who interfered with him.

Gregson, in fact, loved crime—​the double life it involved, the excessive danger it created, and the cynical enjoyment it yielded him of doing always the worst thing he could think of.

The man was so radically bad—​so naturally prone to wickedness—​so utterly dead to the whispers of conscience—​that he was a foul blot upon the face of nature.

He was a sort of wild beast, who waged ceaseless war against society.

It is indeed a sad thing to reflect upon that in this civilised country, with the means of education and moral training open to the poorest and humblest in the land, such monstrosities as Gregson and Charles Peace should have existence.

But we will not dwell further upon this painful theme. Gregson, as we have seen has paid the penalty of his crime.

The career of Peace it is our purpose to chronicle. In doing this it will be necessary, as this work progresses, to diverge occasionally to note the actions and doings of other groups of characters with whom Peace was more or less connected.

Charles Peace, when he had seen the last of Gregson, rose from his seat, and moved slowly towards the centre of the room, which was more than half-filled with sightseers.

The tall gentleman who had sat by his side during the execution also rose, and prepared to take his departure.

“This is a scene when once witnessed is not easily to be forgotten,” he observed to Peace. “I assume, sir, you are like myself, but too glad it is over.”

“I am, indeed, sir,” answered Peace, in oleaginous accents.

“You do not desire to remain longer?”

“Oh, dear me, no.”

“Nor I. We will get away as speedily as may be convenient.”

“By all means.”

The two companions descended the stairs, and gained the street. This done, they walked side by side until they had got clear of the gaol and its ghastly surroundings.

It transpired, in the course of conversation, that Peace’s companion was journeying in the same direction as our hero, who expressed himself very well pleased at having his company on the road.

“We have met for the first time this morning, sir,” observed Peace; “allow me to express a hope that we may meet again under more auspicious circumstances.”

The gentleman bowed, and said, “I hope so, I’m sure. Any way, we shall not meet again under similar circumstances, for I tell you frankly that this is the first, and it will be the last, time of my being present at such a scene.”

They walked on for some little distance further, and came within sight of a roadside inn, with seats and alcoves in its front.

“I think a little cold brandy and water will do us both good,” said Peace. “What say you?”

“As you please, I have no objection,” was the ready rejoinder. “As a rule I do not take any spirits in the morning, but this is an exceptional case.”

The two strolled in the grounds in front of the hostelry, and glasses were ordered and paid for by Peace.

“It is a terrible thing to see a fellow-creature put to death—​terrible to even the most callous and unimpressionable. But it is a necessity—​an absolute and imperative necessity.”

“Undoubtedly it is.”

“I do not complain of the law as it stands,” observed the other; “I think it a just and reasonable law; for the very least a member of a civilised community has a right to expect at the hands of his fellow-citizens, should he fall by the blow of an assassin, is that his murderer, after being convicted by a jury of his countrymen, should be put to death. What say you?”

“I am of the same opinion as yourself.”

“I think the mischief arises, or has arisen, on more than one occasion, by the injudicious use made of the prerogative of the Crown. Villains of the deepest dye have been respited, while criminals of a lesser degree have been executed. This, I think, has materially weakened the effects of the punishment of death. It is not only unjust, but is manifestly injurious. It is by the reliability of punishment—​by the certainty that punishment follows conviction—​that we can hope or expect it to act as a deterrent from the commission of crime. I have given the subject some consideration, and I could cite many instances in which the clemency of the Crown has been made use of in an unjust and most injudicious manner.”

“I am not so well up in the subject as you are,” remarked Peace, who throughout his life was always ready to moralise; “still, at the same time, I see the force of your argument.”

“Well, sir, I will instance a case which came under my own knowledge. In the year 1844 I had a brother residing at Battersea, and, when in the metropolis, I was in the habit of paying him a visit once or, indeed, sometimes twice a week. One evening I was crossing Battersea Bridge, on the left-hand side going from the Bridge-road, when all of a sudden I observed a woman on the opposite side running along with her hands to her throat, from which a stream of blood was flowing. I was, as you can readily imagine, moved to an extremity of fear at the heartrending sight. The poor creature proceeded onwards with tottering steps, and did not stop till she had reached the ‘Old Swan’ tavern, on the Battersea side of the bridge. This was kept at that time by a man named Goslin, who was a friend of my brother.”

“And what followed?” inquired Peace.

“You shall hear, for I remember every incident in this fearful tragedy as clearly as if it had occurred but yesterday. The woman rushed in front of the bar of the ‘Swan,’ and fell on the floor, deluging the place with her blood. Her throat was cut from ear to ear. I arrived at the tavern just in time to see her fall, and to also see her breathe her last.”

“And who was her murderer?”

“A man named Dalmas. It transpired in the course of the subsequent inquiry that he had been paying attention to the murdered woman, whose name was Macfarlane. She was a school teacher, and had half supported the odious wretch who so cruelly and remorselessly took her life.”

“And the motive—​jealousy, I suppose?” said Peace.

“Nothing of the sort. The ill-fated woman, Macfarlane, was engaged to be married. She wrote to Dalmas, informing him of her engagement, to which he did not presume to offer any objection, neither had he any right to do so; indeed, he clearly understood that she was about to make an alliance with a gentleman, which would place her in a much better position in life. Dalmas wrote a very kind letter to her, in which he requested her to meet him on the Middlesex side of Battersea Bridge that he might bid her a last farewell, declaring that he was about to return to his native country, France, but did not like to leave without bidding her good-bye. She acceded to his request, and met him at the appointed time. The wretch proceeded to carry out his fell purpose unperceived, and while behind his victim he drew a razor across her throat, and inflicted such a fearful wound that she did not survive many minutes—​certainly not more than five or six minutes. The wretch, after his barbarous act, coolly walked through the turnstile on the Chelsea side, and succeeded in making his escape.”

“And was never caught, I suppose?”

“Oh, yes, he was; the police captured him in the course of a few days, and brought him in a four-wheeled cab to the Millman-row Police-station. Strange to say I saw him taken there. Well, to cut a long story short, he was tried and convicted upon the clearest evidence. There was not the faintest shadow of doubt as to his guilt—​indeed he did not attempt to deny it. The murder was cold-blooded, premeditated, and brutal. Most assuredly, if any man ever deserved hanging certainly it was the wretch Dalmas, for there was not one redeeming point in the whole case. Well, sir, what do you think happened?”

“I cannot say.”

“To the surprise of everybody the fellow was respited. Why or wherefore no one could possibly tell. No one has ever been able to account for the strange caprice of the executive. I don’t believe there was an attempt made to even get up a petition to spare his worthless life. I don’t believe there was a single individual—​certainly none that I ever heard of—​who was not perfectly assured at the time that the law would be suffered to take its course. Indeed, as far as I can remember, everybody was thunderstruck upon seeing it announced in the public papers that Dalmas had been respited.”

“How very extraordinary!” remarked Peace. “And what became of him?”

“Oh, he was of course doomed to penal servitude for his natural life. He is at the present time in Portland prison, dispensing the medicines. He was a chemist by profession. He has been kept all these years at the expense of the public, and the probability is that he has found himself much more comfortable during his incarceration than he did when earning, or endeavouring to earn, a precarious existence outside the walls of his prison house.”

“It seems hardly possible.”

“I have been giving you a plain narrative of facts,” returned the other, “and I can vouch for the truth of all you have heard fall from my lips; but this is only one of the cases I could cite to prove to you or anyone else the injudicious use made of her Majesty’s prerogative.”

“A scoundrel who would be guilty of such an atrocious crime was utterly unworthy of the clemency of the Crown,” said Peace. “It seems to me most singular that mercy should be extended in such a case.”

“It surprised everybody—​none more than myself. I shall never forget the death of that poor creature in front of the bar of the ‘Swan.’ It has made so lasting an impression, that we have been, and still are at a loss to imagine the sympathy—​the misplaced sympathy, I may term it—​for those who imbrue their hands in the blood of their fellow-creatures.”

“But I do not believe for one moment in the sincerity of anyone who endeavours to screen a murderer,” observed Peace.

“Neither do I, sir—​neither do I,” ejaculated his companion. “If it became a personal question if a murder had been committed in their own immediate circle, they would be the first to demand the assassin’s life. We have a practical instance of this in the Marquis of Boccaria, who, while the sheets of his work against capital punishment were passing through the press, did his best to get a servant hanged who had stolen his watch.”

It was evident to Peace that the topic was a favourite one with his companion, for he gave one or two more instances of a similar nature to Dalmas’s case.[1]

After some further discussion the two companions took their departure from the roadside inn, and walked on towards their respective destinations. When the time came for them to part company Peace’s picked-up friend gave him a card, with his name and address on the face, and said he should be glad to see him at any time he could make it convenient to call. Peace thanked him, and promised to pay an early visit.

And so the two parted.

When left to himself, Peace had more time to think over the sad event of the morning. Gregson’s fate made an impression on him, but it is to be regretted that this was but of a transient nature. He was too fond of adventure, too prone to wrong-doing, to allow the miserable end of his brutal and guilty associate to take deep root in his heart, or have any influence over his future actions or way of life. He returned to his lodging, it may be a sadder, but certainly in no way a better man.

[1] The description given by the speaker, of the murder on Battersea Bridge, is true in substance and in fact. The trial of Augustus Dalmas, for the murder of Sarah Macfarlane, took place, June 14th, 1844. The prisoner was found guilty; there was not one extenuating circumstance in the case, and no possible plea for a respite. Dalmas is at the present time, or was a few months ago, at Portland, in a responsible situation as dispenser of medicine to the sick, and his life is not one of hardship or suffering. He must be now close upon seventy years of age, if not more.