Yet I doubt if any of
us slept. Each lay in his place, tortured at once with the hope of
liberty and the fear of a hateful death. The guard call sounded;
the hum of the town declined by little and little. On all sides of
us, in their different quarters, we could hear the watchman cry the
hours along the street. Often enough, during my stay in England,
have I listened to these gruff or broken voices; or perhaps gone to
my window when I lay sleepless, and watched the old gentleman
hobble by upon the causeway with his cape and his cap, his hanger
and his rattle. It was ever a thought with me how differently that
cry would re-echo in the chamber of lovers, beside the bed of
death, or in the condemned cell. I might be said to hear it that
night myself in the condemned cell! At length a fellow with a
voice like a bull's began to roar out in the opposite thoroughfare:
'Past yin o'cloak, and a dark, haary moarnin'.'
At which we were all silently afoot.
As I stole about the battlements towards the--gallows, I was about
to write--the sergeant-major, perhaps doubtful of my resolution,
kept close by me, and occasionally proffered the most indigestible
reassurances in my ear. At last I could bear them no longer.
'Be so obliging as to let me be!' said I. 'I am neither a coward
nor a fool.
Pages:
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
66
67
68
69
70
71
72
73
74
75
76
77
78
79
80
81
82