The Making of a Novelist | Page 4

him might have
furnished Shakspeare himself with a theme as terrible as he found in
'Othello.' Anyway, the man was to be hanged and I was deputed to

attend the execution.
At that time I had never been a witness at a death scene. I have seen
thousands hurried out of life since then; and though even now I should
find an execution ugly and repellant, I recall with some astonishment
the agony of horror which this commission cost me. I had an
introduction to the sub-sheriff and another to the governor of the gaol;
and I presented these at the gaol itself on a night of rainy misery which
was in complete accord with my own feelings. I went hoping with all
my heart that the permission to attend the awful ceremony of the next
morning would be refused. It was accorded, and I left the gaol in a sick
whirl of pity and horror.
I shall remember whilst I remember anything my last look at the
gloomy building from the fields which lie between it and the town. The
flying afterguard of the late storm was hurrying across the sky, the
fields were sodden, and rainpools lay here and there reflecting the dull
steely hue of the heavens. A single light burned red and baleful in one
window, and right over the black bulk of the gaol one star beamed. It
seemed to me like a promise of mercy beyond, and I went back to my
hotel filled with thoughts which will hardly bear translation.
Next day I had a first lesson in one or two things. I saw death for the
first time; for the first time in my life I saw a human creature in the
extremity of fear, and I had my first lesson in human stupidity. I have
told the story of this execution in another place and have no mind to
repeat it here. But I shall never forget the spidery black-painted
galleries and staircases and the whitewashed walls of the corridor. I
shall never forget the living man who stood trembling and almost
unconscious in the very gulf of cowardice and horror. I shall never
forget the face of the wretched young chaplain who, like myself, found
himself face to face with his first encounter with sudden death, and who,
poor soul, had over-primed himself with stimulant. I shall never forget,
either, that ghoul of a Calcraft, with his disreputable grey hair, his
disreputable undertaker's suit of black, and a million dirty pin-pricks
which marked every pore of the skin of his face. Calcraft took the
business business-like, and pinioned his man in the cell (with a

terror-stricken half-dozen of us looking on) as calmly to all appearance
as if he had been a tailor fitting on a coat.
The chaplain read the Burial Service, or such portion of it as is reserved
for these occasions, in a thick and indistinct voice. A bell clanged every
half-minute or thereabouts, and it seemed to me as if it had always been
ringing and would always ring. I have the dimmest notion--indeed, to
speak the truth, I have no idea at all--as to how the procession formed
and how we found ourselves at the foot of the gallows. The doomed
man gabbled a prayer under his breath at galloping speed, the words
tumbling one over the other. 'Lord Jesus have mercy upon me and
receive my spirit.' The hapless chaplain read the service. Calcraft
bustled ahead. The bell boomed. Hughes came to the foot of the
gallows, and I counted mechanically nineteen black steps, fresh-tarred
and sticky. 'I can't get up,' said the murderer. A genial warder clapped
him on the shoulder, for all the world as if there had been no mischief
in the business. Judging by look and accent, the one man might have
invited the other to mount the stairs of a restaurant. 'You'll get up right
enough,' said the warder. He got up, and they hanged him.
Where everything was strange and dreamlike, the oddest thing of all
was to see Calcraft take the pinioned fin-like hand of the prisoner and
shake it when he had drawn the white cap over the face and arranged
the rope. He came creaking in new boots down the sticky steps of the
gallows, pulled a rope to free a support which ran on a single wheel in
an iron groove, and the man was dead in a second. The white cap fitted
close to his face, and the thin white linen took a momentary stain of
purple, as if a bag of blackberries had been bruised and had suddenly
exuded the juice of the fruit. It sagged away a moment later and
assumed its natural hue.
I learned from the evening paper and from the