Various
Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol. 64 No. 396 October 1848
CHAP. IV – THE EXECUTION
The execution of Hendrik the Mariner was fixed for six in the evening. Long before the appointed hour, crowds of people, eager to see the horrible spectacle, thronged through the St George's Gate, in the direction of the place of punishment. Nothing was more seductive to the populace of that day than the sight of a grisly head rolling upon the scaffold, and reddening the boards with its blood. The Antwerp burghers were not exempt from this horrible curiosity; and Headsman's Acre, as the field was called in which capital punishments then took place, was crowded with spectators of all ages and classes, including women, many of them with their children in their arms, urchins of tender age, and old men who, already on the brink of the grave, tottered from their easy chair and chimney corner to behold a fellow-creature expiate, by a premature death, his sin against society. Noisy and merry was the mob collected round the tall black gallows and the grim rusty wheel.
In the crowd, close to the scaffold, stood Lina, her heart beating quickly and anxiously, her tears restrained from flowing only by the reflection that she was there to give Gerard courage, and that weeping was the worst way to do it. Her brother Franz stood beside her, in holiday suit, his broad-leafed Spanish hat upon his head, and his brown cloak over his shoulder, according to the fashion of the time. Lina had represented to him, in lively colours, the frightful danger incurred by Gerard; and he, with his usual rough good-heartedness, swore to break the neck of the first man who threw a stone at the new headsman.
It was late, and the shades of evening fell upon the earth, before the executioner's varlets completed the necessary arrangements on the scaffold. At the moment these terminated, a cart pierced the throng amidst general stir and hum of curiosity. The criminal, attired in a black linen gown, sat with a priest in the hinder part of the vehicle. Gerard was on the foremost bench, his broad bright sword in his hand, and one of his assistants beside him. None could divine, from his countenance, what passed in his mind; his features were fixed and rigid; his eyes, bent upon the ground, avoided the people's gaze; and but for the weapon he bore, none could have told which of the two, he or Hendrik, was the condemned man. Unconscious of his own movements, he ascended the scaffold, so confused in spirit that he saw nothing, not even Lina, although Franz several times made signs to catch his attention.
And now the varlets would have removed the prisoner from the cart to the scaffold; but he pretended he had not finished his confession, which he wished now, for the first time, to make full and complete, seeing all chance of pardon gone. Perhaps he nourished a vague hope of escape in the darkness; for heavy clouds drifted across the sky, and night approached so rapidly that already those upon the outskirts of the crowd could scarcely distinguish what passed upon the scaffold. So that the people, fearing the increasing darkness would deprive them altogether of the show they coveted, began to clamour loudly for the execution of the sentence. The culprit, still resisting, and claiming delay, was brought upon the scaffold by force, and made to kneel down. The headsman's assistant bared the condemned wretch's neck, and pointed to it with a significant look, as if to say, "Master, strike."
At sight of the naked flesh into which he was to cut, Gerard started as from a heavy sleep, and his limbs trembled till the scaffold shook under him, and the broad-bladed sword fell from his hand. The varlet picked up the weapon and gave it back to his master, who clutched it convulsively, whilst the red rod of the superintending official gave the signal to strike. But Gerard neither saw the rod nor heard the voice of its bearer. Already a murmur arose amongst the crowd. "Quick, master! quick!" said the varlet, whose ear caught the ill-omened sound.
Summoning all the strength and courage his recent sufferings had left him, Gerard raised the sword, with the fixed determination to strike a bold and steady blow, when at that moment the victim turned his head, and at sight of the impending steel, uttered a lamentable yell. No more was wanting to upset Gerard's resolution and presence of mind. They left him on the instant: his arms lost their strength, and he let the sword fall on Hendrik's shoulder, but so feebly that it did not even wound him.
At the chill touch of the blade, the criminal's whole frame quivered with agony; but the next instant, feeling himself unhurt, and perceiving the advantage to be derived from his executioner's irresolution, he sprang to his feet, and stretching out his fettered arms to the people, implored help and pity, for that he was wilfully tortured.
At this appeal the fury of the mob burst forth with uncontrollable vehemence.
"Strike him dead!" was the universal cry; "strike the torturer dead!"
And stones flew about Gerard's head, but in no great number, since, fortunately for him, they were not plentiful on the field. The unhappy youth stood for a moment stunned by the uproar; then, folding his arms, he stepped forward to the edge of the scaffold with the air of one for whom death has no terrors.
"Wolves!" he exclaimed; – "wolves in the garb of men! ye came for blood – take mine, and slake your fiendish thirst!"
This rash defiance excited to madness the fury of the rabble. Women, children, and men of the better classes, fled in all haste from the field, leaving it occupied by the very dregs and refuse of Antwerp, who pressed fiercely forward to the scaffold, making violent efforts to seize the headsman, in spite of the resistance of the police and officials. The uproar and confusion were tremendous. Around Gerard a number of officers of justice assembled – less, however, for his protection, than to prevent the escape of the culprit, who made furious efforts to get rid of his manacles, and continued to appeal to the people and shout for assistance. At this moment of confusion, when scarcely anyone knew what his neighbour did, a man ascended the scaffold, and approached the executioner. It was Franz.
"Gerard," he said, "Lina conjures you, in God's name, and by your love for her, to speak to her for one moment. She is below; follow me!" And he leaped from the scaffold, on the side where the mob was thinnest. Gerard obeyed the charm of Lina's name. How gladly, he thought, would he bid his beloved one more farewell before encountering the death he deemed inevitable. In another second he stood by her side. At the same instant Franz, stripping off his cloak, muffled Gerard in its folds, pressed his broad hat over his eyes, and placing Lina's arm in that of the bewildered headsman, drew them gently from the spot.
"Go quietly and fearlessly through the crowd," he said, "and wait for me in the copse beyond the farthest gibbet."
And seeing that Lina obeyed his directions and led away Gerard, who followed passively as a child, Franz ran round to the other side of the scaffold, and set up such a shouting, that the mob, thinking he had seized the delinquent headsman, rushed furiously in that direction, leaving a free passage to the lovers. Franz continued to shout with all his might, and to affect the most violent indignation.
"Strike him dead!" he cried; "strike him dead! Down with the base torturer! Throw his carcass to the ravens!"
And he hurled stones at the scaffold, headed a charge on the police, and behaved altogether like a madman let loose. Favoured by this attracting of the attention from them, and under cover of the darkness, Lina succeeded in getting her lover away unrecognised, for Franz's cloak and hat completely concealed the headsman's well-known costume. But before they reached the thicket, the mob got possession of the scaffold, released the prisoner, and began ill-treating the officials, to compel them to confess what had become of the executioner. On finding that this latter personage, the cause of the whole tumult, had disappeared, a man, one of the lowest of the people, who had seen Franz throw his cloak over Gerard's shoulders, and who had watched the direction taken by Lina and her disguised companion, guessed that the fugitive was no other than the headsman himself, and immediately started in pursuit. Before he could overtake them, Lina and Gerard disappeared amongst the trees. His suspicions confirmed by this mysterious conduct, the ruffian, blaspheming with exultation and fury, rushed upon the lovers; and, tearing off Gerard's cloak, beheld the headsman's livery. Thereupon, without word or question, he lifted a heavy cudgel, and struck the poor fellow violently upon the head. Gerard fell senseless to the ground. The murderer would have repeated his blow, but Lina, with the courage of a lioness defending her young, grappled him vigorously, and clasping her arms around his, impeded his further movements. The sight of her lover, stunned and bleeding at her feet, seemed to give her superhuman strength; and bethinking her that it was better to have one enemy to contend with than a hundred, she abstained from calling out, lest her cries should bring foes instead of friends. Fortunately the uproar of the mob drowned the imprecations of Gerard's assailant, who vociferated horrible curses as he strove, with brutal violence, to shake off the heroic girl. At the very moment when, her last strength exhausted, she was about to succumb, Franz entered the copse, and, seeing Gerard motionless on the ground and his sister struggling with a stranger, immediately guessed what had occurred. A cry of rage burst from his lips, and before Lina remarked his presence, his powerful hands were upon the shoulders of her antagonist, who lay, the next instant, upon the grass at his feet.
"Lina!" cried Franz, seizing the fallen man and dragging him in the direction of the scaffold, "hide Gerard in the bushes; if he still lives, he is rescued from all he most dreads. Quick! I will return."
With these words he hurried from the copse, dragging his prisoner after him so rapidly, that the prostrate man, his legs in Franz's iron grasp, his head trailing in the dust, and striking violently against each stock and stone, could make no effectual resistance. As soon as Franz was within earshot of the mob, he shouted, more loudly than ever —
"The headsman! here I have him – the headsman!"
"Death to the villain!" was re-echoed on all sides; and from all four corners of the field the mob, who had dispersed to seek the object of their hate, rushed towards Franz. When Lina's brother saw himself the centre of a dense crowd, howling and frantic for blood, he hurled amongst them the man whom he dragged by the feet, with the words —
"There is the headsman!"
"Death to him!" hoarsely repeated a hundred voices, and as many blows descended upon the shrieking wretch, whose expostulations and prayers for mercy were unheard in the mighty tumult, and whom the mob, blinded by fury, easily mistook in the darkness for the delinquent executioner. His cries were soon silenced by the cruel treatment he received; in a few minutes he was dead, his clothes were torn from his body, and his face was disfigured and mutilated so as to be wholly unrecognisable.
Leaving the mob to their bloody work, Franz returned to his sister, and found her weeping and praying beside the body of her lover, whom she believed dead. On examination, however, he found Gerard's pulse still beating. The violent blow he had received had stunned but not slain him. Fresh water thrown upon his face and chest restored him to consciousness, and to the caresses of his dear Lina, speechless and almost beside herself with joy at his recovery. When his strength returned, the trio crept stealthily from the copse, and safely reached the town, where Gerard concealed himself during the evening in the house of his mistress. When midnight came, and the streets of Antwerp were deserted, he betook himself, accompanied by Franz, to his own dwelling, and made his unexpected appearance in his father's chamber.
The old headsman, who lay broad awake upon his bed of sickness, weeping bitterly, and deploring the death of his unhappy son, deemed himself the sport of a deceitful vision when he saw the dead man approach his couch. But when convinced, by Gerard's voice and affectionate embrace, that he indeed beheld his child in solid flesh and bone, his joy knew no bounds, and for a moment inspired the young man with fears of his immediate dissolution.
"My son, my son!" he cried, "you know not half your good fortune. Not only have you miraculously escaped a cruel death, but you are also delivered from the horrible employment which has been mine, and was to be yours. The accursed obligation that weighed upon our race ceases with life, and you, my son, are dead!"
"And pure from the stain of blood!" joyfully exclaimed Gerard.
"Begone," continued the old man, "and dwell far from thine unjust brethren. Quit Antwerp, marry thy good Lina, be faithful and kind to her, and heaven bless thee in thy posterity! Thy sons will not be born to wield the axe, nor wilt thou weep over them, as I have wept over thee. The savings of thine ancestors and mine insure thee for ever from poverty; make good use of them and be happy!"
His voice grew weak with emotion, and died away in inarticulate benedictions. Gerard hung upon his father's neck, and stammered forth his thanks. The events of the day appeared to him like a dream. He could not realise the sudden transition from the depths of despair to the utmost height of happiness.
For many years after these incidents there lived at Brussels, under an assumed name, the son of the Antwerp headsman, and his beautiful wife Lina. The old man's blessing was heard, and when Gerard's turn came to quit a world of cares for a brighter and better abode, brave sons and fair daughters wept around the dying bed of the Doomster's Firstborn.
A FEW WORDS ABOUT NOVELS – A DIALOGUE, IN A LETTER TO EUSEBIUS
Dear Eusebius, – Whether it be a fable or not that the Lydians invented chess, to relieve themselves from pain and trouble, and were content to eat one day and play another, unquestionably amusement is a most salutary medicine to heal the "mind diseased," and even to mitigate hunger itself.
The utilitarian ant would not have had the best of the argument with the grasshopper, – "dance now," – if the latter had not insisted on dancing too long – a whole summer. Even hunger would do its dire work in double-quick time, if left to fret incessantly on the mind as well as the fast failing substance. Avert the thought of it, and half a loaf will keep alive longer than a whole one, eaten together with cankering care. "Post equitem sedet atra Cura," said the most amiable of satirists; but Care, the real "gentleman in black," won't always be contented to sit behind, but is apt to assume an opposite seat at the table, and, grinning horribly, to take away your appetite "quite and entirely." You may try, Eusebius, to run away from him, and bribe the stoker to seventy or eighty miles an hour, but Care will telegraph you, and thus electrify you on your arrival, when you thought him a hundred miles or so off. I have ascertained a fact, Eusebius, that Care is not out of one, but in one, and has a lodging somewhere in the stomach, where he sets up a diabolical laboratory, and sends his vile fumes up, up – and so all over the brain; and from that conjuration what blue devils do not arise, as he smokes at leisure his infernal cigar below! Charge me not, Eusebius, with being poetical – this is sober prose to the indescribable reality. Your friend has been hypochondriacal. It is a shameful truth; but confession is the demon's triumph, and so the sufferer is punished – mocked, scoffed at, unpitied, and uncured. The Lady Dorothea Dosewell had proposed a seventy-fifth remedy. My lady, I am in despair: I have not as yet completed the fifty-sixth prescription; the fifty-fifth has left me worse. The Curate, who happened to be present, laughed at me, as all do, and said, "No wonder – you are like the man who complained of inveterate deafness, had applied every recipe, and was cured by the most simple one – a cork-screw. Do set aside all your nostrums, and spend a week or two at the curacy, and I'll take care to pack in half-a-dozen novels, and you will soon forget your own in other folks' woes."
"I will go," I replied; "but I protest against any woes whatsoever. When young as you, Mr Curate, I could bear them, and sit out a tragedy stoically; but shaken nerves and increasing years won't bear the tragic phantasmagoria now. Sentimental comedy is too much, and I positively, with shame, cry over a child's book."
"I fear," quoth the Curate, "it is a sure sign your heart is hardening. The sympathy that should soften it is too easily and too quickly drawn off by the fancy to waste, and leaves the interior dry. Come to us, and alternate your feelings between fancy and active realities; between reading imaginary histories and entering practically and interestingly into the true histories of the many homes I must visit, and you will soon be fresh in spirit and sound again."
Let me, Eusebius, use the dialogue form, as in some former letters: suffice it only to tell you previously, that I took the Curate's advice and invitation, and for a time did my best to throw off every ailment, and refresh myself by country-air exercise, in the society of the happy Curate and his wife, at the vicarage of – , which you know well by description. And here we read novels. Even at the Curate's house did we read novels – those "Satan's books," as a large body of Puritans call them, whilst they read them privately; or, if seen, ostensibly that they may point out the wickedness in them, and thus forbid the use of them; as an elder of the demure sect excused himself when detected at a theatre, that he "came to see if any of their young folk were there." How often people do what is right, and defend it as if it was a wrong, and apologise for what gives them no shame! Thus the Curate commenced the defence of novel-reading: —
Curate. – What is the meaning of the absurd cry against works of fiction? If it be true that "the proper study of mankind is man," is it not wise to foresee, as it were, life under all its possible contingencies? Are we not armed for coming events by knowing something of their nature beforehand? Who learns only from the world amid which he walks, learns from a master that conceals too much; and the greater portion of the lesson, after all, must come out of the learner's own mind, and it is a weary while before he has learnt by experience the requisite shrewdness. Life is too short to learn by a process so slow, that the pupil begins to decay before he has learnt one truth. The preparatory education is not amiss. The early tears that tales of fiction bid to flow scald not like the bitter ones of real sorrow; and they, as it were by a charm of inoculation, prepare the cheek for the after tears, that they burn not and furrow too deeply. I cannot conceive how people came to take it into their heads that plays and novels are wicked things necessarily. Your Lady Prudence will take infinite pains that her young people shall not contaminate even their fingers with the half-binding – and perhaps fail too – and for honest simplicity induce a practice of duplicity, for fiction will be read. It is the proper food to natural curiosity – an instinct given us to learn; and I dare to say that letters were invented by Cadmus purposely for that literature.
Aquilius. – Say nothing of Cadmus, or the serpent's teeth will be thrown against your argument. Their sowing was not unlike the setting up a press; and your literary men are as fierce combatants as ever sprang from the dragon's teeth, and have as strong a propensity to slaughter each other.
Curate. – Yes, and even in works of fiction we have had the conflict of authors. They write now as much against each other as formerly. Fielding proposed to himself to write down Richardson; and religious novelists of our days take the field against real or imaginary opponents. Richardson, able as he was, very cunningly set about his work – his Clarissa. By an assumed gravity, and well-managed affectation of morality, he contrived to render popular among prudes a most indecent work. The book was actually put into the hands of young people as an antidote to novels in general. This appeared to Fielding abominable hypocrisy, corrupting under disguise. And to this honest indignation are we indebted to him for his Joseph Andrews, the antidote to the very questionable morality, and unquestionable moral, of the virtue-rewarded Pamela.
Aquilius. – I was told the other day by a lady, that there are few kitchens in which Pamela is not to be found. She detected her own maid reading it, and was obliged to part with her, for setting her cap at her son, a youth just entered at College. The girl defended her conduct as a laudable and virtuous ambition, which the good author encouraged, – was not the title Virtue Rewarded? So much, for Pamela. You will not, however, surely defend the novel-writing system of nearly half a century ago – the sickly sentimentalities of the All for Love school – that restless progeny not allowed to rest on circulating library shelves till their rest was final – whose tendency was to make young persons of either sex nothing but fools.
Curate. – And whose authors had the fool's mark set upon them, not unhappily, by Jenner, in his Town Eclogues: —
"Thrice-happy authors, who with little skill
In two short weeks can two short volumes fill!
Who take some miss, of Christian name inviting,
And plunge her deep in love and letter-writing,
Perplex her well with jealous parents' cares,
Expose her virtue to a lover's snares,
Give her false friends and perjured swains by dozens,
With all the episodes of aunts and cousins;
Make parents thwart her, and her lover scorn her,
And some mishap spring up at every corner;
Make her lament her fate with ahs and ohs,
And tell some dear Miss Willis all her woes,
Whilst now with love and now with grief she rages;
Till, having brought her through two hundred pages,
Finding at length her father's heart obdurate,
Will make her take the squire, and leave the curate;
She scales the garden-wall, or fords a river,
Elopes, gets married, and her friends forgive her."
Aquilius. – And was it not whimsical enough that, in the presumption of their vanity, upstarted the Puritan school, who had ever declaimed against novels and dramas, to counteract the mischievous tendency of these silly love-tales, and wrote themselves much sillier, and quite as mischievous?
Curate. – Are you then audacious enough to pass censure upon Cœlebs, and suchlike?
Aquilius. – "Great is Diana of Ephesus!" I abominate every thing Hannah More wrote – vain, clever, idolised, spoiled woman as she was – her style all riddle-ma-ree. Read her lauded What is Prayer? and you are reading a conundrum. An affected woman, she wrote affectedly, with a kind of unwomanly dishonesty. There was good natural stuff in her too, but it was sadly spoilt in the making up.
Curate. – You will shock the good, or rather the goody folk, who will insist upon the religious and moral purpose of all her works.
Aquilius. – They may insist, for they are an obstinate race. What moral, or what religion, is inculcated in this – "A brute of a husband" – selfish, a tyrant, a gourmandiser – ill-treats an amiable wife. He scorns patient virtue, and is an infidel. He must be converted– that is the religious object. He must be metamorphosed, not after Ovid's fashion – there is the moral object. How is it done, do you remember? If not, you will never guess. By what latent virtue is he to be reclaimed? Virtue, indeed! would the indignant Puritan proclaim – what virtue is in poor human rags? He shall be reclaimed through his vice! Indeed, Madam Puritan, that is a novelty. So, however, it is. The man is a glutton. On his conversion-day he is gifted with an extraordinary appetite and discriminating taste. It is a pie – yes, a pie, that converts him to piety.
Curate. – Oh, oh, oh! you are mocking surely. A pie!
Aquilius. – Yes, a pie. It is remarkably good – quite delicious. It puts the brute in good humour with himself and every body, and he grunts applause, and promises his favour to the cook. At this stage – this incipient stage of his conversion – a pathetic butler bursts into tears, and affectionately sobs out the beautiful truth. The cook for the occasion was his mistress – the ill-treated wife. He becomes a perfect Christian on the instant; and with the conversion comes the moral metamorphosis, and the "brute of a husband" is, on a sudden, the best and most religious of men. Now, in what respect, Mr Curate, would you bid any of your flock to go and do likewise? Setting aside as worthless, then, to say the best of it, the moral, the set-up primness of the whole affair is so odious, that you long even for a little wickedness to set nature upon nature's legs, that we may at least acknowledge the presence of humanity.
Curate. – We must ask Lydia to defend the writers of her sex. You are severe upon poor Hannah, who would have been good enough in spite of her extreme vanity, if the clique had let her alone. Her Cœlebs was to be the novel par excellence, the model tale, – and with no little contempt for all others.
Aquilius. – Your Lydia has too much good sense, and too much plain honesty, to defend any thing wrong because it is found in woman. The utmost you can expect from her is not to object to the saintly Hannah, as was the charity of the Wolverhampton audience, when her play was acted there. Master Betty was hissed, and this impromptu was uttered, during a lull, from the gallery —
"The age of childhood now is o'er,
Of folly and of whim —
We dont object to Hannah More,
But we'll ha-na-more of him."
Curate. – Yet she is supposed to have done some good by her minor tales for the poor. Possibly she did – the object was at all events good.
Aquilius. – And here she was the precursor to a worse set, so bad that it can hardly be said of them that they are "daturos progeniem vitiosiorem."
Curate. – Yes, even wickedly religious. The scheme was, that the poor should teach the rich, and the infant the man. I remember reading some of these tales of Mrs Sherwood's. Is there not one where a little urchin, not long after he is able to run alone, is sent out on an errand, – an unconverted child, – commits the very natural sin of idleness, loiters by the way, and lies under a tree. There, you will suppose, sleep comes upon him – no, but grace. He rises a converted man-child, an infant apostle, goes home and converts his wicked grandfather, or great-grandfather. "Ex uno disce omnes." Great was the outcry against Maria Edgeworth's children's tales, because they did not inculcate religious dogmas. This was a great compliment to her genius, for it showed that every sect would have wished her theirs. She wisely left the catechism to fathers, mothers, and nurses, and preferred leaving to the parson of each parish the prerogative of sermonising.
Aquilius. – Some of you take your prerogative as a sanitary prescription, and sweeten your own tempers by throwing off their acerbities, ad libitum, one day in the week; abusing in very unmeasured terms all mankind, and their own congregation in particular – indeed, often in language that, used on week days, and by any other people, would be looked upon as nearly akin to what is called "cursing and swearing." So do extremes sometimes meet. A little thunder clears the air wonderfully; the lightning may not always be evident.
Curate. – All writers, especially novelists and reviewers, assume this privilege of bitterness, without the restriction to one day out of seven; hence, to say nothing of the better motives in the other case, they are more practised in acerbity than amiability. Your medicine becomes the habit, not the cure. We must have civil tongues the greater part of our lives. Your literary satirist uses the drunkard's remonstrance —
"Which is the properest day to drink —
Saturday, Sunday, Monday?
Each is the properest day, I think;
Why should you name but one day?"
Aquilius. – But to return to our subject. Novels are not objected to as they were; now that every sect in politics and religion have found their efficacy as a means, the form is adopted by all. And with a more vigorous health do each embody their principle. The sickly sentimentality school is sponged out – or nearly so. The novel now really represents the mind of a country in all its phases, and, if not the only, is nearly the best of its literature. It assumes to teach as well as to amuse. I could wish that, in their course down the stream of time, it had not taken the drama by the neck, and held it under water to the drowning.
Curate. – You are wrong. The novel has not drowned the drama. It is the goody, the Puritan school, has done the work, and will, not drown, but suffocate, the noble art that gave us Shakspeare, by stopping up all avenues and entrance to the theatres – having first filled the inside with brimstone, or at least cautioned the world that the smell of brimstone will never quit those who enter. In discussing the subject, however, I would class the play and the novel together, under "works of fiction." Why, by the way, did the self-styled religious world that set up a crusade against novelists – and "fiction-mongers" – show such peculiar favour to John Bunyan, and his Pilgrim's Progress– the most daring fiction? I believe that very imaginative, nay, very powerful work, has gone through more editions than any other in our language: a proof at least that there is something innate in us all, – a natural power of curiosity to see and hear more than actual life presents to us – that sends all, from infancy to age, in every stage of life, either openly or secretly, to the reading tales of fiction. We all like to see Nature herself with a difference; and, loving "to hold the mirror up to nature," we prefer that the glass should be coloured, or at least a shade deeper, and love the image more than the thing.