CHAPTER XVIII
THE RECORDER'S REPORT
Tom was thrust into a condemned cell measuring but nine-and-a-half by six feet, and in height a foot less than its length. Yet even this hole he was to share with a comrade in like calamity. And in a dribble of summer twilight, as the massive door clanged behind him, he found himself shut up with none other than his tigerish young antagonist of the ward in Chapel Yard.
The recognition was mutual, and Tom held out his hand.
“I refused yours once before,” said he. “Come, I apologise. We can afford to forgive each other now.”
His hand was taken with an evil grace; in a little, however, the other loosened a not unfriendly tongue, but one so blasphemous and so foul that Tom half regretted his advance. He could not regret it altogether. The vilest conversation was better just then than none at all; that of Tom’s whilom enemy was vile enough, with its horrid levity, its coarse swagger and a forced but bloodcurdling contempt of death. Still it was something to listen to; something new to think about and shudder over; and the creature (having been alone at night since his conviction on the opening day of the sessions) hardly paused till the small hours of the morning.
His name was Creasey. He had been convicted of stabbing his wife (he was twenty years of age), but had never done it; ’twas a pack of lies. But he boasted to Tom of many a thing he had done in his short life; and they were such things as Tom never forgot in his. He lay listening and shuddering upon his bed. Yet when the other seemed to have talked himself out, his own torments only began, and he was grateful when the brute broke out afresh. So the night wore on until one or two in the morning. Then there was a long, unbroken silence; then a sobbing and a shaking, and a burst of frantic prayer from Creasey’s bed; then quiet, then snoring, and the bell of St. Sepulchre’s marking the weary mile-stones of the night.
Tom never slept a wink.
Next morning, in the bottom day-room, which the condemned prisoners had the use of during the day, he rubbed shoulders with a third convict under recent sentence of death; but this was a heavy, sullen, middle-aged man of the name of Carter, who sat all day with his huge head between his cruel hands, and spoke to nobody; nor did either youth venture to speak to him.
Overhead there was another day-room, and eleven more prisoners under sentence nominally capital; but these were morally certain of reprieve; and could be heard playing leap-frog and larking and singing from morning till night.
“I wish we were up there,” said Creasey, mournfully. “But wait a bit: the yard’s for us the same as for them, when it’s exercise time, and then there’ll be a bit o’ fun for us all!”
The bit of fun essayed by Creasey was openly to incite the eleven jovial spirits from upstairs to badger Tom and put him in a rage. But by this time Erichsen’s reputation in Newgate was such that the plot fell through for want of supporters. Tom shrugged his shoulders at the petty treachery, and was treated by Creasey with a sly servility when they were locked up together once more. Meanwhile the burden of the day had been lightened by several visitors and as many private interviews.
Mr. Macmurdo, the surgeon, and Mr. Cotton, the Ordinary of Newgate, had both shown Tom the kindest attentions; he could see, however, that each regarded him as a man only too justly sentenced to death. The surgeon offered to use his influence in the matter of a separate cell at nights. Tom would not hear of it.
“No, no,” said he; “it would be a poor kindness, though I thank you with all my heart for the thought. The greatest ruffian in the gaol would be a better friend to me than my own reflections. Ah! I see what you think!” cried Tom, as a queer light glimmered in the surgeon’s eyes. “Well, I have done protesting my innocence; but don’t let them leave me by myself, that’s all I ask.”
Mr. Cotton entered into spiritual matters, to which Tom listened courteously, though chiefly out of loving respect for his dear father’s memory: for where was the God who would permit an innocent man to suffer death for another’s crime? When, however, the good chaplain closed his books, he referred discreetly, as he rose, to certain efforts already being made to obtain a reprieve, adding that he would himself do what he could to further them, as a matter of course
“Why should you, sir,” asked Tom, deferentially, “when you are quite convinced of my guilt?”
The chaplain coloured.
“I never said I was convinced,” he cried. “It is no part of my duty to be convinced in such matters either way. No, my poor fellow, your guilt or your innocence is a matter between your own heart and God Almighty. I, His servant, am only concerned with your immortal soul, and the longer you live the more time will be yours for repentance—of all your sins—and the greater your chances of immortal life. But build upon nothing of the kind.” And with a parting exhortation the Ordinary went his way.
Bassett was the last visitor. He was in a tremendous hurry. The petition was already receiving support and signatures on every hand; the newspapers were full of it. And he who had furnished the sinews of defence was now working heart and soul for the respite, for which there was still every reason to hope; so said Bassett in a breath, and was gone next minute.
It was the last piece of news that heartened Tom most: the news that the Noble Unknown believed in him still, against judge and jury, and was still heroically striving to save his miserable life. Who could he be? Some friend of Claire’s? The thought came for the first time; it never came again. Claire was with the judge, the jury, and the world: she had not written him one word.
Tom was now in prison dress, a gaunt, dread figure; but they had let him keep a slip of paper that he had often taken out of a pocket in his own clothes, to pore over and to dream upon. He produced it now. It was the slip of paper Daintree had handed down to him during the proceedings at Marylebone, and he had never seen the writer’s face. But he had made a face unto himself; had built up a character from those few scribbled words; and both face and character were the sweetest, the kindest and the best that had existed upon earth during the last eighteen hundred years.
So, when his last visitor had departed, the condemned man was not ashamed to kiss that flurried scrawl with his lips, nor afterwards to find it smudged with his tears.
Those were the days when the capital convict was first found guilty, next brought up for sentence, and next “reported to the King.” The two latter functions rested with the Recorder of London; the last having its origin in the number of offences for which a man might be condemned to death without the least risk of being executed. The Recorder would wait upon his Majesty in Council, and make his report of the prisoners lying in Newgate under sentence of death; whereupon the King would be graciously pleased to respite (say) all but the wilful murderers. The amended report was straightway despatched to the prison, and his final fate broken to each man without a moment’s unnecessary delay.
It was the 18th of May and a Thursday night near the stroke of twelve. All was silent in the condemned cells, for even Creasey’s voluble tongue had ceased to wag, and Tom lay thinking on his bed. His companion was a trashy hound, ever cursing God or entreating Him with shrieks and tears: unburdening his sordid soul to Tom half the night, venting covert spite and enmity upon him day after day. To-night he had been alternately protesting his innocence, abusing his dead wife, and mocking heaven and hell by the hour together. Tom lay awaiting the reaction which would follow as surely as the morning, and to-night it was before its time. The silence had been dead indeed, but not long so, when the creature leapt from his pallet with a scream. Next instant he was kneeling by its neighbour, fawning over Tom with trembling arms and twitching fingers.
“I done it! I done it!” he whispered hoarsely. “There—I had to tell somebody, and I have! I’d got to tell or burst. I feel better now.... No, no!” he was yelling next moment. “What have I said? I was joking, you flat—joking, I tell yer! Ha, ha, ha! It’s you that done yours; I never done mine at all!”
And he was strutting up and down the cell, trembling from head to foot, and laughing horribly through his chattering teeth.
But a worse sound yet cut his laughter short: it was the sound of voices and the rattling of keys.
Creasey inclined his bullet head one moment, then stumbled to the door, and fell heavily upon his knees.
“The Report!” he quavered. “Erichsen—the Report! It’s come—it’s come!”