The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition, Vol. 19

  CHAPTER III

  IN THE MATTER OF THE HANGING OF DUNCAN JOPP

  It chanced in the year 1813 that Archie strayed one day into theJusticiary Court. The macer made room for the son of the presidingjudge. In the dock, the centre of men's eyes, there stood awhey-coloured, misbegotten caitiff, Duncan Jopp, on trial for his life.His story, as it was raked out before him in that public scene, was oneof disgrace and vice and cowardice, the very nakedness of crime; and thecreature heard, and it seemed at times as though he understood--as if attimes he forgot the horror of the place he stood in, and remembered theshame of what had brought him there. He kept his head bowed and hishands clutched upon the rail; his hair dropped in his eyes and at timeshe flung it back; and now he glanced about the audience in a suddenfellness of terror, and now looked in the face of his judge and gulped.There was pinned about his throat a piece of dingy flannel; and this itwas perhaps that turned the scale in Archie's mind between disgust andpity. The creature stood in a vanishing point; yet a little while, andhe was still a man, and had eyes and apprehension; yet a little longer,and with a last sordid piece of pageantry, he would cease to be. Andhere, in the meantime, with a trait of human nature that caught at thebeholder's breath, he was tending a sore throat.

  Over against him, my Lord Hermiston occupied the Bench in the red robesof criminal jurisdiction, his face framed in the white wig. Honest allthrough, he did not affect the virtue of impartiality; this was no casefor refinement; there was a man to be hanged, he would have said, andhe was hanging him. Nor was it possible to see his lordship, and acquithim of gusto in the task. It was plain he gloried in the exercise of histrained faculties, in the clear sight which pierced at once into thejoint of fact, in the rude, unvarnished gibes with which he demolishedevery figment of defence. He took his ease and jested, unbending in thatsolemn place with some of the freedom of the tavern; and the rag of manwith the flannel round his neck was hunted gallowsward with jeers.

  Duncan had a mistress, scarce less forlorn and greatly older thanhimself, who came up, whimpering and curtseying, to add the weight ofher betrayal. My lord gave her the oath in his most roaring voice, andadded an intolerant warning.

  "Mind what ye say now, Janet," said he. "I have an e'e upon ye, I'm illto jest with."

  Presently, after she was tremblingly embarked on her story, "And whatmade ye do this, ye auld runt?" the Court interposed. "Do ye mean totell me ye was the panel's mistress?"

  "If you please, ma loard," whined the female.

  "Godsake! ye made a bonny couple," observed his lordship; and there wassomething so formidable and ferocious in his scorn that not even thegalleries thought to laugh.

  The summing up contained some jewels.

  "These two peetiable creatures seem to have made up thegither, it's notfor us to explain why."--"The panel, who (whatever else he may be)appears to be equally ill set-out in mind and boady."--"Neither thepanel nor yet the old wife appears to have had so much common sense aseven to tell a lie when it was necessary." And in the course ofsentencing, my lord had this _obiter dictum_: "I have been the means,under God, of haanging a great number, but never just such a disjaskitrascal as yourself." The words were strong in themselves; the light andheat and detonation of their delivery, and the savage pleasure of thespeaker in his task, made them tingle in the ears.

  When all was over, Archie came forth again into a changed world. Hadthere been the least redeeming greatness in the crime, any obscurity,any dubiety, perhaps he might have understood. But the culprit stood,with his sore throat, in the sweat of his mortal agony, without defenceor excuse: a thing to cover up with blushes: a being so much sunkbeneath the zones of sympathy that pity might seem harmless. And thejudge had pursued him with a monstrous, relishing gaiety, horrible to beconceived, a trait for nightmares. It is one thing to spear a tiger,another to crush a toad; there are aesthetics even of theslaughter-house; and the loathsomeness of Duncan Jopp enveloped andinfected the image of his judge.

  Archie passed by his friends in the High Street with incoherent wordsand gestures. He saw Holyrood in a dream, remembrance of its romanceawoke in him and faded; he had a vision of the old radiant stories, ofQueen Mary and Prince Charlie, of the hooded stag, of the splendour andcrime, the velvet and bright iron of the past; and dismissed them with acry of pain. He lay and moaned in the Hunter's Bog, and the heavens weredark above him and the grass of the field an offence. "This is myfather," he said. "I draw my life from him; the flesh upon my bones ishis, the bread I am fed with is the wages of these horrors." He recalledhis mother, and ground his forehead in the earth. He thought of flight,and where was he to flee to? of other lives, but was there any lifeworth living in this den of savage and jeering animals?

  The interval before the execution was like a violent dream. He met hisfather; he would not look at him, he could not speak to him. It seemedthere was no living creature but must have been swift to recognise thatimminent animosity; but the hide of the Justice-Clerk remainedimpenetrable. Had my lord been talkative, the truce could never havesubsisted; but he was by fortune in one of his humours of sour silence;and under the very guns of his broadside, Archie nursed the enthusiasmof rebellion. It seemed to him, from the top of his nineteen years'experience, as if he were marked at birth to be the perpetrator of somesignal action, to set back fallen Mercy, to overthrow the usurping devilthat sat, horned and hoofed, on her throne. Seductive Jacobin figments,which he had often refuted at the Speculative, swam up in his mind andstartled him as with voices: and he seemed to himself to walkaccompanied by an almost tangible presence of new beliefs and duties.

  On the named morning he was at the place of execution. He saw thefleering rabble, the flinching wretch produced. He looked on for a whileat a certain parody of devotion, which seemed to strip the wretch of hislast claim to manhood. Then followed the brutal instant of extinction,and the paltry dangling of the remains like a broken jumping-jack. Hehad been prepared for something terrible, not for this tragic meanness.He stood a moment silent, and then--"I denounce this God-defyingmurder," he shouted; and his father, if he must have disclaimed thesentiment, might have owned the stentorian voice with which it wasuttered.

  Frank Innes dragged him from the spot. The two handsome lads followedthe same course of study and recreation, and felt a certain mutualattraction, founded mainly on good looks. It had never gone deep; Frankwas by nature a thin, jeering creature, not truly susceptible whether offeeling or inspiring friendship; and the relation between the pair wasaltogether on the outside, a thing of common knowledge and thepleasantries that spring from a common acquaintance. The more credit toFrank that he was appalled by Archie's outburst, and at least conceivedthe design of keeping him in sight, and, if possible, in hand for theday. But Archie, who had just defied--was it God or Satan?--would notlisten to the word of a college companion.

  "I will not go with you," he said. "I do not desire your company, sir; Iwould be alone."

  "Here, Weir, man, don't be absurd," said Innes, keeping a tight holdupon his sleeve. "I will not let you go until I know what you mean to dowith yourself; it's no use brandishing that staff." For indeed at thatmoment Archie had made a sudden--perhaps a warlike--movement. "This hasbeen the most insane affair; you know it has. You know very well thatI'm playing the good Samaritan. All I wish is to keep you quiet."

  "If quietness is what you wish, Mr. Innes," said Archie, "and you willpromise to leave me entirely to myself, I will tell you so much, that Iam going to walk in the country and admire the beauties of nature."

  "Honour bright?" asked Frank.

  "I am not in the habit of lying, Mr. Innes," retorted Archie. "I havethe honour of wishing you good-day."

  "You won't forget the Spec.?" asked Innes.

  "The Spec.?" said Archie. "O no, I won't forget the Spec."

  And the one young man carried his tortured spirit forth of the city andall the day long, by one road and another, in an endless pilgrimage ofmisery; while the other hastened smilingly to spread the news of We
ir'saccess of insanity, and to drum up for that night a full attendance atthe Speculative, where further eccentric developments might certainly belooked for. I doubt if Innes had the least belief in his prediction; Ithink it flowed rather from a wish to make the story as good and thescandal as great as possible; not from any ill-will to Archie--from themere pleasure of beholding interested faces. But for all that his wordswere prophetic. Archie did not forget the Spec.; he put in an appearancethere at the due time, and, before the evening was over, had dealt amemorable shock to his companions. It chanced he was the president ofthe night. He sat in the same room where the Society still meets--onlythe portraits were not there: the men who afterwards sat for them werethen but beginning their careers. The same lustre of many tapers shedits light over the meeting; the same chair, perhaps, supported him thatso many of us have sat in since. At times he seemed to forget thebusiness of the evening, but even in these periods he sat with a greatair of energy and determination. At times he meddled bitterly, andlaunched with defiance those fines which are the precious and rarelyused artillery of the president. He little thought, as he did so, how heresembled his father, but his friends remarked upon it, chuckling. Sofar, in his high place above his fellow-students, he seemed set beyondthe possibility of any scandal; but his mind was made up--he wasdetermined to fulfil the sphere of his offence. He signed to Innes (whomhe had just fined and who had just impeached his ruling) to succeed himin the chair, stepped down from the platform, and took his place by thechimney-piece, the shine of many wax tapers from above illuminating hispale face, the glow of the great red fire relieving from behind his slimfigure. He had to propose, as an amendment to the next subject in thecase-book, "Whether capital punishment be consistent with God's will orman's policy?"

  A breath of embarrassment, of something like alarm, passed round theroom, so daring did these words appear upon the lips of Hermiston's onlyson. But the amendment was not seconded; the previous question waspromptly moved and unanimously voted, and the momentary scandal smuggledby. Innes triumphed in the fulfilment of his prophecy. He and Archiewere now become the heroes of the night; but whereas every one crowdedabout Innes, when the meeting broke up, but one of all his companionscame to speak to Archie.

  "Weir, man! That was an extraordinary raid of yours!" observed thiscourageous member, taking him confidentially by the arm as they wentout.

  "I don't think it a raid," said Archie grimly. "More like a war. I sawthat poor brute hanged this morning, and my gorge rises at it yet."

  "Hut-tut," returned his companion, and, dropping his arm like somethinghot, he sought the less tense society of others.

  Archie found himself alone. The last of the faithful--or was it only theboldest of the curious?--had fled. He watched the black huddle of hisfellow-students draw off down and up the street, in whispering orboisterous gangs. And the isolation of the moment weighed upon him likean omen and an emblem of his destiny in life. Bred up in unbroken fearhimself, among trembling servants, and in a house which (at the leastruffle in the master's voice) shuddered into silence, he saw himself onthe brink of the red valley of war, and measured the danger and lengthof it with awe. He made a detour in the glimmer and shadow of thestreets, came into the back stable lane, and watched for a long whilethe light burn steady in the judge's room. The longer he gazed upon thatilluminated window-blind, the more blank became the picture of the manwho sat behind it, endlessly turning over sheets of process, pausing tosip a glass of port, or rising and passing heavily about his book-linedwalls to verify some reference. He could not combine the brutal judgeand the industrious, dispassionate student; the connecting link escapedhim; from such a dual nature it was impossible he should predictbehaviour; and he asked himself if he had done well to plunge into abusiness of which the end could not be foreseen? and presently after,with a sickening decline of confidence, if he had done loyally to strikehis father? For he had struck him--defied him twice over and before acloud of witnesses--struck him a public buffet before crowds. Who hadcalled him to judge his father in these precarious and high questions?The office was usurped. It might have become a stranger; in a son--therewas no blinking it--in a son, it was disloyal. And now, between thesetwo natures so antipathetic, so hateful to each other, there wasdepending an unpardonable affront: and the providence of God alone mightforesee the manner in which it would be resented by Lord Hermiston.

  These misgivings tortured him all night and arose with him in thewinter's morning; they followed him from class to class, they made himshrinkingly sensitive to every shade of manner in his companions, theysounded in his ears through the current voice of the professor; and hebrought them home with him at night unabated and indeed increased. Thecause of this increase lay in a chance encounter with the celebrated Dr.Gregory. Archie stood looking vaguely in the lighted window of abook-shop, trying to nerve himself for the approaching ordeal. My lordand he had met and parted in the morning as they had now done for long,with scarcely the ordinary civilities of life; and it was plain to theson that nothing had yet reached the father's ears. Indeed, when herecalled the awful countenance of my lord, a timid hope sprang up in himthat perhaps there would be found no one bold enough to carry tales. Ifthis were so, he asked himself, would he begin again? and he found noanswer. It was at this moment that a hand was laid upon his arm, and avoice said in his ear, "My dear Mr. Archie, you had better come and seeme."

  He started, turned round, and found himself face to face with Dr.Gregory. "And why should I come to see you?" he asked, with the defianceof the miserable.

  "Because you are looking exceedingly ill," said the doctor, "and youvery evidently want looking after, my young friend. Good folk arescarce, you know; and it is not every one that would be quite so muchmissed as yourself. It is not every one that Hermiston would miss."

  And with a nod and a smile, the doctor passed on.

  A moment after, Archie was in pursuit, and had in turn, but moreroughly, seized him by the arm.

  "What do you mean? what did you mean by saying that? What makes youthink that Hermis--my father would have missed me?"

  The doctor turned about and looked him all over with a clinical eye. Afar more stupid man than Dr. Gregory might have guessed the truth; butninety-nine out of a hundred, even if they had been equally inclined tokindness, would have blundered by some touch of charitable exaggeration.The doctor was better inspired. He knew the father well; in that whiteface of intelligence and suffering, he divined something of the son; andhe told, without apology or adornment, the plain truth.

  "When you had the measles, Mr. Archibald, you had them gey and ill; andI thought you were going to slip between my fingers," he said. "Well,your father was anxious. How did I know it? says you. Simply because Iam a trained observer. The sign that I saw him make, ten thousand wouldhave missed; and perhaps--_perhaps_, I say, because he's a hard man tojudge of--but perhaps he never made another. A strange thing toconsider! It was this. One day I came to him: 'Hermiston,' said I,'there's a change.' He never said a word, just glowered at me (if ye'llpardon the phrase) like a wild beast. 'A change for the better,' said I.And I distinctly heard him take his breath."

  The doctor left no opportunity for anti-climax; nodding his cocked hat(a piece of antiquity to which he clung) and repeating "Distinctly" withraised eyebrows, he took his departure, and left Archie speechless inthe street.

  The anecdote might be called infinitely little, and yet its meaning forArchie was immense. "I did not know the old man had so much blood inhim." He had never dreamed this sire of his, this aboriginal antique,this adamantine Adam, had even so much of a heart as to be moved in theleast degree for another--and that other himself, who had insulted him!With the generosity of youth, Archie was instantly under arms upon theother side: had instantly created a new image of Lord Hermiston, that ofa man who was all iron without and all sensibility within. The mind ofthe vile jester, the tongue that had pursued Duncan Jopp with unmanlyinsults, the unbeloved countenance that he had known and feared for solong, were all
forgotten; and he hastened home, impatient to confess hismisdeeds, impatient to throw himself on the mercy of this imaginarycharacter.

  He was not to be long without a rude awakening. It was in the gloamingwhen he drew near the doorstep of the lighted house, and was aware ofthe figure of his father approaching from the opposite side. Littledaylight lingered; but on the door being opened, the strong yellow shineof the lamp gushed out upon the landing and shone full on Archie, as hestood, in the old-fashioned observance of respect, to yield precedence.The judge came without haste, stepping stately and firm; his chinraised, his face (as he entered the lamplight) strongly illumined, hismouth set hard. There was never a wink of change in his expression;without looking to the right or left, he mounted the stair, passed closeto Archie, and entered the house. Instinctively, the boy, upon his firstcoming, had made a movement to meet him; instinctively he recoiledagainst the railing, as the old man swept by him in a pomp ofindignation. Words were needless; he knew all--perhaps more thanall--and the hour of judgment was at hand.

  It is possible that, in this sudden revulsion of hope and before thesesymptoms of impending danger, Archie might have fled. But not even thatwas left to him. My lord, after hanging up his cloak and hat, turnedround in the lighted entry, and made him an imperative and silentgesture with his thumb, and with the strange instinct of obedience,Archie followed him into the house.

  All dinner-time there reigned over the judge's table a palpable silence,and as soon as the solids were despatched he rose to his feet.

  "M'Killop, tak' the wine into my room," said he; and then to his son:"Archie, you and me has to have a talk."

  It was at this sickening moment that Archie's courage, for the first andlast time, entirely deserted him. "I have an appointment," said he.

  "It'll have to be broken, then," said Hermiston, and led the way intohis study.

  The lamp was shaded, the fire trimmed to a nicety, the table covereddeep with orderly documents, the backs of law-books made a frame uponall sides that was only broken by the window and the doors.

  For a moment Hermiston warmed his hands at the fire, presenting his backto Archie; then suddenly disclosed on him the terrors of the HangingFace.

  "What's this I hear of ye?" he asked.

  There was no answer possible to Archie.

  "I'll have to tell ye, then," pursued Hermiston. "It seems ye've beenskirling against the father that begot ye, and one of his Maijesty'sjudges in this land; and that in the public street, and while an orderof the Court was being executit. Forbye which, it would appear thatye've been airing your opeenions in a Coallege Debatin' Society"; hepaused a moment: and then, with extraordinary bitterness, added: "Yedamned eediot."

  "I had meant to tell you," stammered Archie. "I see you are wellinformed."

  "Muckle obleeged to ye," said his lordship, and took his usual seat."And so you disapprove of caapital punishment?" he added.

  "I am sorry, sir, I do," said Archie.

  "I am sorry, too," said his lordship. "And now, if you please, we shallapproach this business with a little more parteecularity. I hear that atthe hanging of Duncan Jopp--and, man! ye had a fine client there--in themiddle of all the riffraff of the ceety, ye thought fit to cry out,'This is a damned murder, and my gorge rises at the man that haangithim.'"

  "No, sir, these were not my words," cried Archie.

  "What were yer words, then?" asked the judge.

  "I believe I said, 'I denounce it as a murder!'" said the son. "I begyour pardon--a God-defying murder. I have no wish to conceal the truth,"he added, and looked his father for a moment in the face.

  "God, it would only need that of it next!" cried Hermiston. "There wasnothing about your gorge rising, then?"

  "That was afterwards, my lord, as I was leaving the Speculative. I saidI had been to see the miserable creature hanged, and my gorge rose atit."

  "Did ye, though?" said Hermiston. "And I suppose ye knew who haangithim?"

  "I was present at the trial; I ought to tell you that, I ought toexplain. I ask your pardon beforehand for any expression that may seemundutiful. The position in which I stand is wretched," said the unhappyhero, now fairly face to face with the business he had chosen. "I havebeen reading some of your cases. I was present while Jopp was tried. Itwas a hideous business. Father, it was a hideous thing! Grant he wasvile, why should you hunt him with a vileness equal to his own? It wasdone with glee--that is the word--you did it with glee; and I looked on,God help me! with horror."

  "You're a young gentleman that doesna approve of caapital punishment,"said Hermiston. "Weel, I'm an auld man that does. I was glad to get Jopphaangit, and what for would I pretend I wasna? You're all for honesty,it seems; you couldn't even steik your mouth on the public street. Whatfor should I steik mines upon the Bench, the King's officer, bearing thesword, a dreid to evil-doers, as I was from the beginning, and as I willbe to the end! Mair than enough of it! Heedious! I never gave twathoughts to heediousness, I have no call to be bonny. I'm a man thatgets through with my day's business, and let that suffice."

  The ring of sarcasm had died out of his voice as he went on; the plainwords became invested with some of the dignity of the Justice-seat.

  "It would be telling you if you could say as much," the speaker resumed."But ye cannot. Ye've been reading some of my cases, ye say. But it wasnot for the law in them, it was to spy out your faither's nakedness, afine employment in a son. You're splairging; you're running at lairgein life like a wild nowt. It's impossible you should think any longer ofcoming to the Bar. You're not fit for it; no splairger is. And anotherthing: son of mines or no son of mines, you have flung fylement inpublic on one of the Senators of the Coallege of Justice, and I wouldmake it my business to see that ye were never admitted there yourself.There is a kind of a decency to be observit. Then comes the next ofit--what am I to do with ye next? Ye'll have to find some kind of atrade, for I'll never support ye in idleset. What do ye fancy ye'll befit for? The pulpit? Na, they could never get diveenity into thatbloackhead. Him that the law of man whammles is no likely to do mucklebetter by the law of God. What would ye make of hell? Wouldna your gorgerise at that? Na, there's no room for splairgers under the fowerquarters of John Calvin. What else is there? Speak up. Have ye gotnothing of your own?"

  "Father, let me go to the Peninsula," said Archie. "That's all I'm fitfor--to fight."

  "All? quo' he!" returned the judge. "And it would be enough too, if Ithought it. But I'll never trust ye so near the French, you that's soFrenchifeed."

  "You do me injustice there, sir," said Archie. "I am loyal; I will notboast; but any interest I may have ever felt in the French--"

  "Have ye been so loyal to me?" interrupted his father.

  There came no reply.

  "I think not," continued Hermiston. "And I would send no man to be aservant to the King, God bless him! that has proved such a shauchlingson to his own faither. You can splairge here on Edinburgh street, andwhere's the hairm? It doesna play buff on me! And if there were twentythousand eediots like yourself, sorrow a Duncan Jopp would hang thefewer. But there's no splairging possible in a camp; and if you were togo to it, you would find out for yourself whether Lord Well'n'tonapproves of caapital punishment or not. You a sodger!" he cried, with asudden burst of scorn. "Ye auld wife, the sodgers would bray at ye likecuddies!"

  As at the drawing of a curtain, Archie was aware of some illogicality inhis position, and stood abashed. He had a strong impression, besides, ofthe essential valour of the old gentleman before him, how conveyed itwould be hard to say.

  "Well, have ye no other proposeetion?" said my lord again.

  "You have taken this so calmly, sir, that I cannot but stand ashamed,"began Archie.

  "I'm nearer voamiting, though, than you would fancy," said my lord.

  The blood rose to Archie's brow.

  "I beg your pardon, I should have said that you had accepted myaffront.... I admit it was an affront; I did not think to apologise, butI do, I ask your pardon; it
will not be so again, I pass you my word ofhonour.... I should have said that I admired your magnanimitywith--this--offender," Archie concluded with a gulp.

  "I have no other son, ye see," said Hermiston. "A bonny one I havegotten! But I must just do the best I can wi' him, and what am I to do?If ye had been younger, I would have wheepit ye for this rideeculousexhibeetion. The way it is, I have just to grin and bear. But one thingis to be clearly understood. As a faither, I must grin and bear it; butif I had been the Lord Advocate instead of the Lord Justice-Clerk, sonor no son, Mr. Erchibald Weir would have been in a jyle the night."

  Archie was now dominated. Lord Hermiston was coarse and cruel; and yetthe son was aware of a bloomless nobility, an ungracious abnegation ofthe man's self in the man's office. At every word, this sense of thegreatness of Lord Hermiston's spirit struck more home; and along with itthat of his own impotence, who had struck--and perhaps basely struck--athis own father, and not reached so far as to have even nettled him.

  "I place myself in your hands without reserve," he said.

  "That's the first sensible word I've had of ye the night," saidHermiston. "I can tell ye, that would have been the end of it, the oneway or the other; but it's better ye should come there yourself, thanwhat I would have had to hirstle ye. Weel, by my way of it--and my wayis the best--there's just the one thing it's possible that ye might bewith decency, and that's a laird. Ye'll be out of hairm's way at theleast of it. If ye have to rowt, ye can rowt amang the kye; and themaist feck of the caapital punishment ye're like to come across'll beguddling trouts. Now, I'm for no idle lairdies; every man has to work,if it's only at peddling ballants; to work, or to be wheeped, or to behaangit. If I set ye down at Hermiston, I'll have to see you work thatplace the way it has never been workit yet; ye must ken about the sheeplike a herd; ye must be my grieve there, and I'll see that I gain by ye.Is that understood?"

  "I will do my best," said Archie.

  "Well, then, I'll send Kirstie word the morn, and ye can go yourself theday after," said Hermiston. "And just try to be less of an eediot!" heconcluded, with a freezing smile, and turned immediately to the paperson his desk.