Chapter 64
Breaking the silence they had hitherto preserved, they raised a greatcry as soon as they were ranged before the jail, and demanded to speakto the governor. This visit was not wholly unexpected, for his house,which fronted the street, was strongly barricaded, the wicket-gate ofthe prison was closed up, and at no loophole or grating was any personto be seen. Before they had repeated their summons many times, a manappeared upon the roof of the governor's house, and asked what it wasthey wanted.
Some said one thing, some another, and some only groaned and hissed. Itbeing now nearly dark, and the house high, many persons in the throngwere not aware that any one had come to answer them, and continued theirclamour until the intelligence was gradually diffused through the wholeconcourse. Ten minutes or more elapsed before any one voice could beheard with tolerable distinctness; during which interval the figureremained perched alone, against the summer-evening sky, looking downinto the troubled street.
'Are you,' said Hugh at length, 'Mr Akerman, the head jailer here?'
'Of course he is, brother,' whispered Dennis. But Hugh, without mindinghim, 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 downward, ashe spoke, into the jail: and the feeling that he could see into thedifferent yards, and that he overlooked everything which was hidden fromtheir view by the rugged walls, so lashed and goaded the mob, that theyhowled 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 shall break 'em down,' said Hugh;'for we will have the rioters out.'
'All I can do, good people,' Akerman replied, 'is to exhort you todisperse; and to remind you that the consequences of any disturbance inthis 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 said these words, but he waschecked by the voice of the locksmith.
'Mr Akerman,' cried Gabriel, 'Mr Akerman.'
'I will hear no more from any of you,' replied the governor, turningtowards the speaker, and waving his hand.
'But I am not one of them,' said Gabriel. 'I am an honest man, MrAkerman; a respectable tradesman--Gabriel Varden, the locksmith. Youknow 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 doorfor them,' rejoined the locksmith. 'Bear witness for me, Mr Akerman,that I refuse to do it; and that I will not do it, come what may of myrefusal. If any violence is done to me, please to remember this.'
'Is there no way of helping you?' said the governor.
'None, Mr Akerman. You'll do your duty, and I'll do mine. Once again,you robbers and cut-throats,' said the locksmith, turning round uponthem, 'I refuse. Ah! Howl till you're hoarse. I refuse.'
'Stay--stay!' said the jailer, hastily. 'Mr Varden, I know you fora worthy man, and one who would do no unlawful act except uponcompulsion--'
'Upon compulsion, sir,' interposed the locksmith, who felt that the tonein which this was said, conveyed the speaker's impression that he hadample excuse for yielding to the furious multitude who beset and hemmedhim in, on every side, and among whom he stood, an old man, quite alone;'upon compulsion, sir, I'll do nothing.'
'Where is that man,' said the keeper, anxiously, 'who spoke to me justnow?'
'Here!' Hugh replied.
'Do you know what the guilt of murder is, and that by keeping thathonest tradesman at your side you endanger his life!'
'We know it very well,' he answered, 'for what else did we bring himhere? Let's have our friends, master, and you shall have your friend. Isthat 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'sname. Remember what I have said. Good night!'
There was no more parley. A shower of stones and other missilescompelled the keeper of the jail to retire; and the mob, pressing on,and swarming round the walls, forced Gabriel Varden close up to thedoor.
In vain the basket of tools was laid upon the ground before him, andhe was urged in turn by promises, by blows, by offers of reward, andthreats of instant death, to do the office for which they had broughthim 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 ofthose who thirsted, like wild animals, for his blood; the sight of menpressing forward, and trampling down their fellows, as they strove toreach him, and struck at him above the heads of other men, with axes andwith iron bars; all failed to daunt him. He looked from man to man, andface 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. Hesprung up again like a man in the prime of life, and with blood upon hisforehead, caught him by the throat.
'You cowardly dog!' he said: 'Give me my daughter. Give me my daughter.'
They struggled together. Some cried 'Kill him,' and some (but they werenot near enough) strove to trample him to death. Tug as he would at theold man's wrists, the hangman could not force him to unclench his hands.
'Is this all the return you make me, you ungrateful monster?' hearticulated with great difficulty, and with many oaths.
'Give me my daughter!' cried the locksmith, who was now as fierce asthose who gathered round him: 'Give me my daughter!'
He was down again, and up, and down once more, and buffeting with ascore of them, who bandied him from hand to hand, when one tall fellow,fresh from a slaughter-house, whose dress and great thigh-boots smokedhot with grease and blood, raised a pole-axe, and swearing a horribleoath, aimed it at the old man's uncovered head. At that instant, and inthe very act, he fell himself, as if struck by lightning, and over hisbody a one-armed man came darting to the locksmith's side. Another manwas with him, and both caught the locksmith roughly in their grasp.
'Leave him to us!' they cried to Hugh--struggling, as they spoke, toforce a passage backward through the crowd. 'Leave him to us. Why do youwaste your whole strength on such as he, when a couple of men can finishhim in as many minutes! You lose time. Remember the prisoners! rememberBarnaby!'
The cry ran through the mob. Hammers began to rattle on the walls; andevery man strove to reach the prison, and be among the foremost rank.Fighting their way through the press and struggle, as desperately as ifthey were in the midst of enemies rather than their own friends, the twomen retreated with the locksmith between them, and dragged him throughthe very heart of the concourse.
And now the strokes began to fall like hail upon the gate, and on thestrong building; for those who could not reach the door, spent theirfierce rage on anything--even on the great blocks of stone, whichshivered their weapons into fragments, and made their hands and arms totingle as if the walls were active in their stout resistance, and dealtthem back their blows. The clash of iron ringing upon iron, mingledwith the deafening tumult and sounded high above it, as the greatsledge-hammers rattled on the nailed and plated door: the sparks flewoff in showers; men worked in gangs, and at short intervals relievedeach other, that all their strength might be devoted to the work; butthere 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 thesummit of the walls they were too short to scale; and some again engageda body of police a hundred strong, and beat them back and trod themunder foot by force of numbers; others besieged the house on which thejailer had appeared, and driving in the door, brought out his furniture,and piled it up
against the prison-gate, to make a bonfire which shouldburn it down. As soon as this device was understood, all those who hadlaboured hitherto, cast down their tools and helped to swell the heap;which reached half-way across the street, and was so high, that thosewho threw more fuel on the top, got up by ladders. When all the keeper'sgoods were flung upon this costly pile, to the last fragment, theysmeared it with the pitch, and tar, and rosin they had brought, andsprinkled it with turpentine. To all the woodwork round the prison-doorsthey did the like, leaving not a joist or beam untouched. This infernalchristening performed, they fired the pile with lighted matches and withblazing tow, and then stood by, awaiting the result.
The furniture being very dry, and rendered more combustible by waxand oil, besides the arts they had used, took fire at once. The flamesroared high and fiercely, blackening the prison-wall, and twining upits loftly front like burning serpents. At first they crowded round theblaze, and vented their exultation only in their looks: but when it grewhotter and fiercer--when it crackled, leaped, and roared, like a greatfurnace--when it shone upon the opposite houses, and lighted up not onlythe pale and wondering faces at the windows, but the inmost corners ofeach habitation--when through the deep red heat and glow, the fire wasseen sporting and toying with the door, now clinging to its obduratesurface, now gliding off with fierce inconstancy and soaring high intothe sky, anon returning to fold it in its burning grasp and lure it toits ruin--when it shone and gleamed so brightly that the church clock ofSt Sepulchre's so often pointing to the hour of death, was legible as inbroad day, and the vane upon its steeple-top glittered in the unwontedlight like something richly jewelled--when blackened stone and sombrebrick grew ruddy in the deep reflection, and windows shone likeburnished gold, dotting the longest distance in the fiery vistawith their specks of brightness--when wall and tower, and roof andchimney-stack, seemed drunk, and in the flickering glare appeared toreel and stagger--when scores of objects, never seen before, burst outupon the view, and things the most familiar put on some new aspect--thenthe mob began to join the whirl, and with loud yells, and shouts, andclamour, such as happily is seldom heard, bestirred themselves to feedthe fire, and keep it at its height.
Although the heat was so intense that the paint on the houses overagainst the prison, parched and crackled up, and swelling into boils,as it were from excess of torture, broke and crumbled away; although theglass fell from the window-sashes, and the lead and iron on the roofsblistered the incautious hand that touched them, and the sparrows in theeaves took wing, and rendered giddy by the smoke, fell fluttering downupon the blazing pile; still the fire was tended unceasingly by busyhands, and round it, men were going always. They never slackened intheir zeal, or kept aloof, but pressed upon the flames so hard, thatthose in front had much ado to save themselves from being thrust in; ifone man swooned or dropped, a dozen struggled for his place, and thatalthough 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 apump; of which buckets full were passed from man to man among the crowd;but such was the strong desire of all to drink, and such the fighting tobe first, that, for the most part, the whole contents were spilled uponthe ground, without the lips of one man being moistened.
Meanwhile, and in the midst of all the roar and outcry, those who werenearest to the pile, heaped up again the burning fragments that cametoppling down, and raked the fire about the door, which, although asheet of flame, was still a door fast locked and barred, and keptthem out. Great pieces of blazing wood were passed, besides, above thepeople'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 theprison wall, exerted all their skill and force to cast these fire-brandson the roof, or down into the yards within. In many instances theirefforts were successful; which occasioned a new and appalling additionto the horrors of the scene: for the prisoners within, seeing frombetween their bars that the fire caught in many places and thrivedfiercely, and being all locked up in strong cells for the night, beganto know that they were in danger of being burnt alive. This terriblefear, spreading from cell to cell and from yard to yard, vented itselfin such dismal cries and wailings, and in such dreadful shrieks forhelp, that the whole jail resounded with the noise; which was loudlyheard even above the shouting of the mob and roaring of the flames, andwas so full of agony and despair, that it made the boldest tremble.
It was remarkable that these cries began in that quarter of the jailwhich fronted Newgate Street, where, it was well known, the men who wereto suffer death on Thursday were confined. And not only were these fourwho had so short a time to live, the first to whom the dread of beingburnt occurred, but they were, throughout, the most importunate of all:for they could be plainly heard, notwithstanding the great thickness ofthe walls, crying that the wind set that way, and that the flames wouldshortly reach them; and calling to the officers of the jail to comeand quench the fire from a cistern which was in their yard, and fullof water. Judging from what the crowd outside the walls could hear fromtime to time, these four doomed wretches never ceased to call forhelp; and that with as much distraction, and in as great a frenzy ofattachment to existence, as though each had an honoured, happy lifebefore 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, whenthey heard, or fancied that they heard, their father's voice, is pastdescription. After wringing their hands and rushing to and fro as ifthey were stark mad, one mounted on the shoulders of his brother, andtried to clamber up the face of the high wall, guarded at the top withspikes and points of iron. And when he fell among the crowd, he was notdeterred by his bruises, but mounted up again, and fell again, and, whenhe found the feat impossible, began to beat the stones and tear themwith his hands, as if he could that way make a breach in the strongbuilding, and force a passage in. At last, they cleft their way amongthe mob about the door, though many men, a dozen times their match, hadtried in vain to do so, and were seen, in--yes, in--the fire, strivingto prize it down, with crowbars.
Nor were they alone affected by the outcry from within the prison. Thewomen who were looking on, shrieked loudly, beat their hands together,stopped their ears; and many fainted: the men who were not near thewalls and active in the siege, rather than do nothing, tore up thepavement of the street, and did so with a haste and fury they couldnot have surpassed if that had been the jail, and they were near theirobject. 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 itstopmost hinge. It hung on that side by but one, but it was uprightstill, because of the bar, and its having sunk, of its own weight, intothe heap of ashes at its foot. There was now a gap at the top of thedoorway, through which could be descried a gloomy passage, cavernous anddark. Pile up the fire!
It burnt fiercely. The door was red-hot, and the gap wider. They vainlytried to shield their faces with their hands, and standing as if inreadiness for a spring, watched the place. Dark figures, some crawlingon their hands and knees, some carried in the arms of others, were seento pass along the roof. It was plain the jail could hold out no longer.The keeper, and his officers, and their wives and children, wereescaping. Pile up the fire!
The door sank down again: it settled deeper in thecinders--tottered--yielded--was down!
As they shouted again, they fell back, for a moment, and left a clearspace about the fire that lay between them and the jail entry. Hughleapt upon the blazing heap, and scattering a train of sparks into theair, and making the dark lobby glitter with those that hung upon hisdress, dashed into the jail.
The hangman followed. And then so many rushed upon their track, that thefire got trodden down and thinly strewn about the street; but there wasno need
of it now, for, inside and out, the prison was in flames.