Bladys of the Stewponey - Sabine Baring-Gould (top 100 novels txt) 📗

the stake. The circle of constables surrounding the place of execution opened to allow the cart to pass within, and in so doing disclosed the pile of faggots, and the post rising above it, to which was attached a hoop that was to clasp the waist of the victim and prevent her from sinking in shame and anguish into the element that surged up from below.

A fire burning in an extemporised grate of iron bars and bricks near the ground, composed of dry wood, blazed merrily, throwing up spirals of flame and a light, pungent smoke. The purpose was obvious enough. At this grate were to be kindled the brands by means of which the pyre was to be lighted simultaneously in three places.

The poor victim, on seeing the flames and smelling the reek which blew in her face, became again desperate, and writhed with such force that it required four men to restrain her.

Her cries, and the sight of the struggle, sent a thrill of terrible ecstasy through the spectators. Even the most callous shuddered. Some turned sick and faint, and elbowed their way out of the crowd, unable to endure more.

When the unhappy creature became visible, in the arms of the executioners, who were by main force lifting her upon the pyre, and when they saw the hoop being riveted about her, then all who witnessed the proceedings uttered a gasp. Those who could see nothing made frantic efforts to elevate themselves by leaping, standing on tiptoe, or grappling such as were taller than themselves. One fond father lifted his little child to his shoulder and believed he was giving him a fine moral object-lesson.

And now the hangman slipped a cord about the neck of the condemned woman and passed it round the stake. She endeavoured to get at it with her hands, but they were fastened behind her back, then to bite it asunder with her teeth, to slip her head under it—any way to free herself from the stricture that was destined to throttle the life out of her.

She gasped, “Stay! stay! I see someone waving his hand. He bears a pardon.”

But the executioner’s mother answered, “That is but a preacher who is exhorting the people and bidding them take warning by your fate.”

“There is a man getting out of a coach. He bears a reprieve.”

“That is the sheriff, who comes to see that the sentence of the law be duly carried out.”

“Hush! I hear a voice crying! He is declaring that I am to go free.”

“That is the chaplain reading the burial service.” And the priest’s solemn tones rose in her ear:

“In the midst of life we are in death. Of whom may we seek for succour, but of Thee, O Lord, who for our sins are justly displeased.”

“One moment! One moment more! Let me say a word to her.”

She signed with her head to Bladys. Then the latter stepped upon the pile of faggots and drew close to the poor woman. She, with ashen face, leaden lips, and starting eyes, turned to her and said, “I have no hope now. It is nearly over. Put your hand into my bosom. They did not find it when they stripped me of my gown. It is for you.”

“What is it?”

“What I spoke of before. It is for you only. I cannot die with the secret, and leave it to any one who may chance to find it. You alone have had compassion. You alone pity me. I have none else to think for, to care about. It is for you.”

Then Bladys thrust her hand where desired and drew forth a small packet.

“Put it away,” sobbed the unhappy woman. “Let none else see it. Let none else have it or any share of it. It is all for you.” She panted. Then in a hoarse voice said, “Wipe my face.”

With her handkerchief Bladys dried the tears, the sweat of mortal anguish which bathed the livid face.

And that whole vast concourse of sightseers kept silence. There was absolute stillness.

The executioner who stood behind the stake had his hand on the tourniquet and delayed. But there was a glitter in his eye, and he signed to the girl with a movement of his head. Then it was that—moved by intense pity—Bladys kissed the poor victim on the cheek. Instantly a mighty roar, like the bursting of a dam, the invasion of a flood.

Next moment Bladys was snatched from the pyre, plucked down, and thrust back.

Still the roar continued, it swelled in volume, it grew to an ominous thunder. It spurted into articulate cries of “Stone him! Cast him into the fire! Smash the sheriff’s carriage! Save her! It is not yet too late.”

But it was too late! The woman was dead.

What the people were about was this:—That kiss given by Bladys to her that was condemned to a horrible death was seen by the vast concourse; and that sight had wrought an effect extraordinary, incredible, revolutionary.

Instantaneously it had unlocked and set free all the humanity that had been sealed up in ten thousand hearts. It had struck a film from the eyes of every man and woman present, and they saw plainly, for the first time in their lives, that this execution, with its publicity, its barbarity, was a worse crime than that committed by the woman under sentence.

That pitiful kiss given on the pyre—given in welling-over human love to the poor, broken victim—had let loose the Christian compassion that had been in a death-trance for more than seventeen hundred years. It had been proclaimed as a Divine law by Him who stooped and wrote in the dust, when the sinful woman was brought before Him by her judges. Christian prelates had not felt it stirring when they sent heretics to the stake, nor Christian kings when they had condemned traitors to be drawn and quartered, nor Christian legislators when they adjudicated to the gallows the man who stole a sheep, and the maid who purloined half-a-crown. The excitement, the emotion roused by the kiss of Bladys, as is so generally the case with an unthinking crowd, took a wrong direction. In an explosion of resentment, it vented itself against the hangman who had strangled the woman, against his assistants for igniting the pyre, against the sheriff who had conducted the execution, against the constables who had endeavoured to keep order. But there was more than a roar of human voices. Waves of human beings swayed to and fro actuated by one passion of indignation. They sent up a foam of brandished sticks and hands in agitation, casting stones. There were seen men flying, wands wavering; there were heard cries from such as fell and were trampled on, or were thrust against the blazing pile, and were singed, by such as trod in the oozing tar, or stumbled over the preparatory fire, or were jammed between the wheels of the sheriff’s carriage. Yet above all rang the shrill cry of Holy Austin from the stone pulpit.

“My brothers, you do wrong. It is not the hangman who is in fault; he but fulfils the duty for which he is paid. Nor is the sheriff to blame; he sees to the execution of the laws. It is with the inhuman criminal laws of England that the sin lies. They are a disgrace to a Christian land; they are a stain on modern civilisation. You have votes; you send your deputies to Parliament. Unite and insist on this—that such barbarous enactments be swept away.”

The kiss of Bladys and the words of Austin were not lost. They did not arouse the multitude, and give direction to their indignation, in vain. They produced their effect beyond Shrewsbury. They had a far more extended effect.

In the same year, 1790, that this poor woman was burnt at Shrewsbury, in the very next session of Parliament, this method of execution was abolished, and the crime of petty treason was struck out of the Statutes.

Chapter 14.

A CHALLENGE

A mob in ebullition, traversed by currents in various directions—such was the scene presented by the open space before the west front of the Abbey Church.

One stream set towards the stake, where hung the strangled woman in the midst of rising smoke and lambent flames. Another drove in pursuit of the flying executioner and his assistants. A third made for the bridge, to escape into the town from a tumult in which blood might, and probably would, be shed, and which would entail an unpleasant after-reckoning.

A stone had broken a window of the sheriff’s carriage, but he had let down the glass, projected his head, and was haranguing, threatening the mob, and was calling on his javelin men to rally around him. These, however, had been dispersed and no longer formed a homogeneous body, and having lost cohesion, had lost with it all the little courage they possessed.

On the bridge was a jam, caused by a horseman endeavouring to make way through the mass of human beings encumbering it and constricted between the parapets. He had been despatched to invoke the aid of the military.

The wind was from the east, and it drove the smoke over the bridge, sickly with the odour of the singed and now burning garments of the dead woman. Some of the rabble insensately began to tear the fire to pieces, as though that would avail the poor creature. She was, in fact, dead before the flame had leaped up and licked her face and curled around her bowed frame. The attempts made to level the pyre only served to scatter the blazing faggots, endangering those who stood near, and such as were thrust into dangerous proximity by the press of the crowd.

The javelin men, dispersed, were spun like teetotums in the swirl, and gradually concentrated around the sheriff’s carriage, although when there too frightened to attend to his instructions, and too powerless to execute them.

Mother Onion had clutched the wrist of Bladys, and now dragged her towards the bridge. She had snatched the shawl from the latter, and had thrown it over her own head with the object of concealing her features.

“They know me. They are angry with us all. They are mad, and might injure me. You they do not know, and against you they bear no grudge. Come! Be quick! I pray God no harm has befallen my son. The people have lost their wits. It is all your doing. Why did you kiss her? Before that they were prepared to relish the execution, as they have done heretofore. Keep near me. Conceal me with your person as best you may. What was that you took from her? Was it gold? She was rich. Do not lag thus. We must press on; I am not safe. We must get home at greatest speed. Od’s-zounds! If they were to recognise me, there is no telling, in their present humour, but they might cast me into the flames.”

As the old woman, grappling Bladys, worked her way over the bridge, she rang changes on her alarm for herself, concern for her son, and impatience to learn what that was which Bladys had taken at the last moment from the woman on the pyre.

The stream set strongly across the bridge, but near the middle was brought to a standstill by the rider, as already mentioned; and then the old woman was driven against the parapet and nearly thrown down.

The pressure was relieved when the messenger had passed, and then the current resumed its flow, now with increased rapidity, and it carried Mother Onion and Bladys into the main street of Shrewsbury, at the place where once stood the Western Gate, which had been demolished before the date of this tale.

“Come aside, along this lane,”