Throughout the whole proceedings, Sir Henry Ashwoode, though deadly pale, conducted himself with singular coolness and self-possession, frequently suggesting questions to his counsel, and watching the proceedings apparently with a mind as disengaged from every agitating consciousness of personal danger as that of any of the indifferent but curious bystanders who looked on. He was handsomely dressed, and in his degraded and awful situation preserved, nevertheless, in his outward mien and attire, the dignity of his rank and former pretensions. As is invariably the case in Ireland, popular sympathy moved strongly in favour of the prisoner, a feeling of interest which the grace, beauty, and evident youth of the accused, as well as his high rank--for the Irish have ever been an aristocratic race--served much to enhance; and when the case closed, and the jury retired after an adverse charge from the learned judge, to consider their verdict, perhaps Ashwoode himself would have seemed, to the careless observer, the least interested in the result of all who were a.s.sembled in that densely crowded place, to hear the final adjudication of the law. Those, however, who watched him more narrowly could observe, in this dreadful interval, that he raised his handkerchief often to his face, keeping it almost constantly at his mouth to conceal the nervous twitching of the muscles which he could not control. The eyes of the eager mult.i.tude wandered from the prisoner to the jury-box, and thence to the impa.s.sive parchment countenance of the old ermined effigy who presided at the harrowing scene, and not one ventured to speak above his breath. At length, a sound was heard at the door of the jury-box--the jury was returning. A buzz ran through the court, and then the prolonged "hish," enjoining silence, while one by one the jurors entered and resumed their places in the box. The verdict was--Guilty.
In reply to the usual interrogatory from the officer of the court, Sir Henry Ashwoode spoke, and though many there were moved, even to sobs and tears, yet his manner had recovered its grace and collectedness, and his voice was unbroken and musical as when it was wont to charm all hearers in the gay saloons of fashion, and splendour, and heedless folly, in other times--when he, blasted and ruined as he stood there, was the admired and courted favourite of the great and gay.
"My lord," said he, "I have nothing to urge which, in the strict requirements of the law, avails to abate the solemn sentence which you are about to p.r.o.nounce--for my life I care not--something is, however, due to my character and the name I bear--a name, my lord, never, never except on this day, never clouded by the shadow of dishonour--a name which will yet, after I am dead and gone, be surely and entirely vindicated; vindicated, my lord, in the entire dispersion of the foul imputations and fatal contrivances under which my fame is darkened and my life is taken. Far am I from impeaching the verdict that I have just heard. I will not arraign the jurymen, nor lay to _their_ charge that I am this day wrongfully condemned, but to the charge of those who, on that witness table, have sworn my life away--perjurers procured for money, whose exposure I leave to time, and whose punishment to G.o.d.
Knowing that although my body shall ignominiously perish, and though my fame be tarnished for an hour, yet shall truth and years, with irresistible power, bring my innocence to light--rescue my character and restore the name I bear. He who stands in the shadow of death, as I do, has little to fear in human censure, and little to gather from the applause of men. My life is forfeited, and I must soon go into the presence of my Creator, to receive my everlasting doom; and in presence of that almighty and terrible G.o.d before whom I must soon stand, and as I look for mercy when He shall judge me, I declare, that of this crime, of which I am p.r.o.nounced guilty, I am altogether innocent. I am a victim of a conspiracy, the motives of which my defence hath truly showed you. I never committed the crime for which I am to suffer. I repeat that I am innocent, and in witness of the truth of what I say, I appeal to my Maker and my Judge, the Eternal and Almighty G.o.d."
Having thus spoken, Ashwoode received his sentence, and was forthwith removed to the condemned cell.
Ashwoode had many and influential friends, and it required but a small exercise of their good offices to procure a reprieve. He would not suffer himself to despond--no, nor for one moment to doubt his final escape from the fangs of justice. He was first reprieved for a fortnight, and before that term expired again for six weeks. In the course of the latter term, however, an event occurred which fearfully altered his chances of escape, and filled his mind with the justest and most dreadful apprehensions. This was the recall of Wharton from the viceroyalty of Ireland.
The new lord-lieutenant could not see, in the case of the young Whig baronet, the same extenuating circ.u.mstances which had wrought so effectually upon his predecessor, Wharton. The judge who had tried the case refused to recommend the prisoner to the mercy of the Crown; and the viceroy accordingly, in his turn, refused to entertain any application for the commutation or further suspension of his sentence; and now, for the first time, Sir Henry Ashwoode felt the tremendous reality of his situation. The term for which he was reprieved had nearly expired, and he felt that the hours which separated him from the deadly offices of the hangman were numbered. Still, in this dreadful consciousness, there mingled some faint and flickering ray of hope--by its uncertain mockery rendering the terrors of his situation but the more intolerable, and by the sleepless agonies of suspense, unnerving the resolution which he might have otherwise summoned to his aid.
CHAPTER LXX.
THE BARONET"S ROOM.
Desperately wounded, O"Connor lay between life and death for many weeks in the dim and secluded apartment whither O"Hanlon had borne him after his combat with Sir Henry Ashwoode. There, fearing lest his own encounter with Wharton, and its startling result, should mark them for pursuit and search, he placed O"Connor under the charge of trusty creatures of his own--for some time not daring to visit him except under cover of the night. This alarm, however, soon subsided; and consequently less precaution was adopted. O"Connor"s wounds were, as we have said, most dangerous, and for fully two months he lay upon the fiery couch of fever, alternately raving in delirium, and locked in the dull stupor of entire apathy and exhaustion. Through this season of pain and peril he was sustained, however, by the energies of a young and vigorous const.i.tution. The fever, at length, abated, and the unclouded light of reason returned; still, however, in body he was weak, so weak that, sorely against his will, he was perforce obliged to continue the occupant of his narrow bed, in the dingy and secluded lodgings in which he lay. Impatient to learn something of her who entirely filled his thoughts, and of the truth of whose love for him he now felt the revival of more than hope, he chafed and fretted in the narrow limits of his dark and gloomy chamber. Spite of all the remonstrances of the old crone who attended him, backed by the more awful fulminations of his apothecary, O"Connor would not submit any longer to the confinement of his bed; and, but for the firm and effectual resistance of O"Hanlon, would have succeeded, weak as he was, in making his escape from the house, and resuming his ordinary occupations and pursuits, as though his health had not suffered, nor his strength become impaired, so as to leave him scarcely the power of walking a hundred steps, without the extremest exhaustion and la.s.situde. To O"Hanlon"s expostulations he was forced to yield, and even pledged his word to him not to attempt a removal from his hated lodgings, without his consent and approbation. In reply to a message to his friend Audley, he learned, much to his mortification, that that gentleman had left town, and as thus full of disquiet and anxiety, one day O"Connor was seated, pale and languid, in his usual place by the window, the door of his apartment opened, and O"Hanlon entered. He took the hand of the invalid and said,--
"I commend your patience, young man, you have been my _parole_ prisoner for many days. When is this durance to end?"
"I"faith, I believe with my life," rejoined O"Connor, "I never knew before what weariness and vexation in perfection are--this dusky room is hateful to me, it grows narrower and narrower every day--and those old houses opposite--every pane of gla.s.s in their windows, and every brick in their walls I have learned by rote--I am tired to death. But, seriously, I have other and very different reasons for wishing to be at liberty again--reasons so urgent as to leave me no rest by night or day. I chafe and fret here like a caged bird. I have been too long shut up--my strength will never come again unless I am allowed to breathe the fresh air--you are all literally killing me with kindness."
"And yet," rejoined O"Hanlon, "I have never been thought an over-careful leech, and truth to say, had I suffered you to have your own way, you would not now have been a living man. I know, as well as any of them, how to tend a wound, and this I will say, that in all my practice it never yet has been my lot to meet with so ill-conditioned and cross-grained a patient as yourself. Why, nothing short of downright force has kept you in your room--your life is saved in spite of yourself."
"If you keep me here much longer," replied O"Connor, "it will prove but indifferent economy as regards my bodily health, for I shall undoubtedly cut my throat before another week."
"There shall be no need, my friend, to find such an escape," replied O"Hanlon, "for I now absolve you of your promise, hitherto so well observed; nay, more, _I_ advise you to leave the house to-day. I think your strength sufficient, and the occasion, moreover, demands that you should visit an acquaintance immediately."
"Who is it?" inquired O"Connor, starting to his feet with alacrity, "thank G.o.d I am at length again my own master."
"When I this day entered the yard of the "c.o.c.k and Anchor"," answered O"Hanlon, "the inn where you and I first encountered, I found a fellow inquiring after you most earnestly; he had a letter with which he was charged. It is from Sir Henry Ashwoode, who lies now in prison, and under sentence of death. You start, and no wonder--his old a.s.sociates have convicted him of forgery."
"Gracious Heaven, is it possible?" exclaimed O"Connor.
"Nay, _certain_," continued O"Hanlon, "nor has he any longer a chance of escape. He has been twice reprieved--but his friend Wharton is recalled--his reprieve expires in three days" time, and then he will be inevitably executed."
"Good G.o.d, is this--can it be reality?" exclaimed O"Connor, trembling with the violence of his agitation, "give me the letter." He broke the seal, and read as follows:--
"EDMOND O"CONNOR,--I know I have wronged you sorely. I have destroyed your peace and endangered your life. You are more than avenged. I write this in the condemned cell of the gaol. If you can bring yourself to confer with me for a few minutes, come here. I stand on no ceremony, and time presses. Do not fail. If you be living I shall expect you.
"HENRY ASHWOODE."
O"Connor"s preparations were speedily made, and leaning upon the arm of his elder friend, he, with slow and feeble steps, and a head giddy with his long confinement, and the agitating antic.i.p.ation of the scene in which he was just about to be engaged, traversed the streets which separated his lodging from the old city gaol--a sombre, stern, and melancholy-looking building, surrounded by crowded and dilapidated houses, with decayed plaster and patched windows, and a certain desolate and sickly aspect, as though scared and blasted by the contagious proximity of that dark receptacle of crime and desperation which loomed above them. At the gate O"Hanlon parted from him, appointing to meet him again in the "c.o.c.k and Anchor," whither he repaired. After some questions, O"Connor was admitted. The clanging of bolts, and bars, and door-chains, smote heavily on his heart--he heard no other sounds but these and the echoing tread of their own feet, as they traversed the long, dark, stone-paved pa.s.sages which led to the dungeon in which he whom he had last seen in the pride of fashion, and youth, and strength, was now a condemned felon, and within a few hours of a public and ignominious death. The turnkey paused at one of the narrow doors opening from the dusky corridor, and unclosing it, said,--
"A gentleman, sir, to see you."
"Request him to come in," replied a voice, which, though feebler than it used to be, O"Connor had no difficulty in recognizing. In compliance with this invitation, he with a throbbing heart entered the prison-room. It was dimly lighted by a single small window set high in the wall, and darkened by iron bars. A small deal table, with a few books carelessly laid upon it, occupied the centre of the cell, and two heavy stools were placed beside it, on one of which was seated a figure, with his back to the light, to conceal, with a desperate tenacity of pride, the ravages which the terrific mental fever of weeks had wrought in his once bold and handsome face. By the wall was stretched a wretched pallet; and upon the plaster were written and scratched, according to the various moods of the miserable and guilty tenants of the place, a hundred records, some of slang philosophy, some of desperate drunken defiance, and some again of terror, but all bearing reference to the dreadful scene to which this was but the ante-chamber and the pa.s.sage. Many hieroglyphical emblems of unmistakable significance had also been traced upon the walls by the successive occupants of the place, such as coffins, gallows-trees, skulls and cross-bones; the most striking among which symbols was a large figure of death upon a horse, sketched with much spirit, by some moralizing convict, with a piece of burned stick, and to which some waggish successor had appropriately added, in red chalk, a gigantic pair of spurs. As soon as O"Connor entered, the turnkey closed the door, and he and Sir Henry Ashwoode were left alone. A silence of some minutes, which neither party dared to break, ensued.
CHAPTER LXXI.
THE FAREWELL.
O"Connor was the first to speak. In a low voice, which trembled with agitation, he said,--
"Sir Henry Ashwoode, I have come here in answer to a note which reached me but a few minutes since. You desired a conference with me; is there any commission with which you would wish to charge me?--if so, let me know it, and it shall be done."
"None, none, Mr. O"Connor, thank you," rejoined Ashwoode, recovering his characteristic self-possession, and continuing proudly, "if you add to your visit a patient audience of a few minutes, you will have conferred upon me the only favour I desire. Pray, sit down; it is rather a hard and a homely seat," he added, with a haggard, joyless smile--"but the only one this place supplies."
Another silence followed, during which Sir Henry Ashwoode restlessly shifted his att.i.tude every moment, in evident and uncontrollable nervous excitement. At length he arose, and walked twice or thrice up and down the narrow chamber, exhibiting without any longer care for concealment his pale, wasted face in the full light which streamed in through the grated window, his sunken eyes and unshorn chin, and worn and attenuated figure.
"You hear that sound," said he, abruptly stopping short, and looking with the same strange smile upon O"Connor; "the clank upon the flags as I walk up and down--the jingle of the fetters--isn"t it strange--isn"t it odd--like a dream--eh?"
Another silence followed, which Ashwoode again abruptly interrupted.
"You know all this story?--of course you do--everybody does--how the wretches have trapped me--isn"t it terrible--isn"t it dreadful? Oh! you cannot know what it is to mope about this place alone, when it is growing dark, as I do every evening, and in the night time. If I had been another man, I"d have been raving mad by this time. I said _alone_--did I?" he continued, with increasing excitement; "oh! that it were!--oh! that it were! He comes there--_there_," he screamed, pointing to the foot of the bed, "with all those infernal cloths and fringes about his face, morning and evening. Ah, G.o.d! such a thing--half idiot, half fiend; and still the same, though I curse him till I"m hoa.r.s.e, he won"t leave it. Can"t they wait--can"t they wait? for-ever is a long day. As I"m a living man, he"s with me every night--there--there is the body, gaping and nodding--_there_--_there_--_there_!"
As he shouted this with frantic and despairing horror, shaking his clenched hands toward the place of his dreaded nightly visitant, O"Connor felt a thrill of horror such as he had never known before, and hardly recovered from this painful feeling, when Sir Henry Ashwoode turned to the little table on which, among many things, a vessel of water was placed, and filling some out into a cracked cup, he added to it drops from a phial, and hastily swallowed the mixture.
"Laudanum is all the philosophy or religion I can boast; it"s well to have even so much," said he, returning the bottle to his pocket. "It"s a dead secret, though, that I have got any; this is a present from the doctor they allow me to see, and I"m on honour not--to poison myself--isn"t it comical?--for fear he should get into a sc.r.a.pe; but I"ve another game to play--no fear of that--no, no."
Another silence followed, and Sir Henry Ashwoode said quickly,--
"What do the people say about it? Do they think I forged that accursed bond? Do they think me guilty?"
O"Connor declared his entire ignorance of public rumour, alleging his own illness, and consequent close confinement, as the cause of it.
"They sha"n"t believe me guilty, no, they sha"n"t. Look ye, sir, I have one good feeling left," he resumed, vehemently; "I will not let my name suffer. If the most resolute firmness to the very last, and the most solemn renunciation of the charges preferred against me, reiterated at the foot of the gallows, with the halter about my neck--if these can beget a belief of my innocence, my name shall be clear--my name shall not suffer; this last outrage I will avert; but oh, my G.o.d! is there no chance yet--must I--_must_ I perish? Will no one save me--will no one help me? Oh, G.o.d! oh, G.o.d! is there no pity--no succour; must it come?"
Thus crying, he threw himself forward upon the table, while every joint and muscle quivered and heaved with fierce hysterical sobs which, more like a succession of short convulsive shrieks than actual weeping, betrayed his agony, while O"Connor looked on with a mixture of horror and pity, which all that was past could not suppress.
At length the paroxysm subsided. The wretched man filled out some more water, and mingling some drops of laudanum in it, he drank it off, and became comparatively composed.
"Not a word of this to any living being, I charge you," said he, clutching O"Connor"s arm in his attenuated hand, and fixing his sunken fiery eyes upon his; "I would not have my folly known; I"m not always so weak as you have seen me. It _must_ be, that"s all--no help for it.
It"s rather a novel thing, though, to hang a baronet--ha! ha! You look scared--you think my wits are unsettled; but you"re wrong. I don"t sleep; I hav"n"t for some time; and want of rest, you know, makes a man"s manner odd; makes him excitable--nervous. I"m more myself now."
After a short pause, Sir Henry Ashwoode resumed,--
"When we had that affray together, in which would to G.o.d you had run me through the heart, you put a question to me about my sister--poor Mary; I will answer that now, and more than answer it. That girl loves you with her whole heart; loves you alone; never loved another. It matters not to tell how I and my father--the great and accursed first cause of all our misfortunes and miseries--effected your estrangement. The Italian miscreant told you truth. The girl is gone I know not whither, to seek an asylum from me--ay, from _me_. To save my life and honour. I would have constrained her to marry the wretch who has destroyed me. It was he--_he_ who urged it, who cajoled me. I joined him, to save my life and honour! and now--oh! G.o.d, where are they?"
O"Connor rose, and said somewhat sternly,--