Part 77 (2/2)
In this dreadful state three days and nights pa.s.sed over Alan's fated head. Nor night nor day had he. Time, with him, was only measured by its duration, and that seemed interminable. Each hour added to his suffering, and brought with it no relief. During this period of prolonged misery reason often tottered on her throne. Sometimes he was under the influence of the wildest pa.s.sions. He dragged coffins from their recesses, hurled them upon the ground, striving to break them open and drag forth their loathsome contents. Upon other occasions he would weep bitterly and wildly; and once--only once--did he attempt to pray; but he started from his knees with an echo of infernal laughter, as he deemed, ringing in his ears. Then, again, would he call down imprecations upon himself and his whole line, trampling upon the pile of coffins he had reared; and lastly, more subdued, would creep to the boards that contained the body of his child, kissing them with a frantic outbreak of affection.
At length he became sensible of his approaching dissolution. To him the thought of death might well be terrible, but he quailed not before it, or rather seemed, in his latest moments, to resume all his wonted firmness of character. Gathering together his remaining strength, he dragged himself towards the niche wherein his brother, Sir Reginald Rookwood, was deposited, and placing his hand upon the coffin, solemnly exclaimed, ”My curse--my dying curse--be upon thee evermore!”
Falling with his face upon the coffin, Alan instantly expired. In this att.i.tude his remains were discovered.
_L'ENVOY_
Our tale is told. Yet, perhaps, we may be allowed to add a few words respecting two of the subordinate characters of our drama--melodrama we ought to say--namely Jerry Juniper and the knight of Malta. What became of the Caper Merchant's son after his flight from Kilburn Wells we have never been able distinctly to ascertain. Juniper, however, would seem to be a sort of Wandering Jew, for certain it is, that _somebody very like him_ is extant still, and to be met with at Jerry's old haunts; indeed, we have no doubt of encountering him at the ensuing meetings of Ascot and Hampton.
As regards the knight of Malta--Knight of _Roads_--”Rhodes”--he should have been--we are sorry to state that the career of the Ruffler terminated in a madhouse, and thus the poor knight became in reality a _Hospitaller_! According to the custom observed in those establishments, the knight was deprived of his luxuriant locks, and the loss of his beard rendered his case incurable; but, in the mean time, the barber of the place made his fortune by retailing the materials of all the black wigs he could collect to the impostor's dupes.
Such is the latest piece of intelligence that has reached us of the _Arch-hoaxer_ of Canterbury!
Turpin--why disguise it?--was hanged at York in 1739. His firmness deserted him not at the last. When he mounted the fatal tree his left leg trembled; he stamped it impatiently down, and, after a brief chat with the hangman, threw himself suddenly and resolutely from the ladder.
His sufferings would appear to have been slight: as he himself sang,
He died, not as other men, by _degrees_, But _at once_, without wincing, and quite at his ease!
We may, in some other place, lay before the reader the particulars--and they are not incurious--of the ”night before Larry was stretched.”
The remains of the vagrant highwayman found a final resting-place in the desecrated churchyard of Saint George, without the Fishergate postern, a green and gra.s.sy cemetery, but withal a melancholy one. A few recent tombs mark out the spots where some of the victims of the pestilence of 1832-33 have been interred; but we have made vain search for Turpin's grave--unless--as is more than probable--the plain stone with the simple initials R. T. belongs to him.
The gyves by which he was fettered are still shown at York Castle, and are of prodigious weight and strength; and though the herculean robber is said to have moved in them with ease, the present turnkey was scarcely able to lift the ponderous irons. An old woman of the same city has a lock of hair, said to have been Turpin's, which she avouches her grandfather cut off from the body after the execution, and which the believers look upon with great reverence. O rare d.i.c.k Turpin!
We shall, perhaps, be accused of dilating too much upon the character of the highwayman, and we plead guilty to the charge. But we found it impossible to avoid running a little into extremes. Our earliest a.s.sociations are connected with sunny scenes in Ches.h.i.+re, said to have been haunted by Turpin; and with one very dear to us--from whose lips, now, alas! silent, we have listened to many stories of his exploits--he was a sort of hero. We have had a singular delight in recounting his feats and hairbreadth escapes; and if the reader derives only half as much pleasure from the perusal of his adventures as we have had in narrating them, our satisfaction will be complete. Perhaps, we may have placed him in too favorable a point of view--and yet we know not. As upon those of more important personages, many doubts rest upon his history. Such as we conceive him to have been, we have drawn him--hoping that the benevolent reader, upon finis.h.i.+ng our Tale, will arrive at the same conclusion; and, in the words of the quaint old Prologue to the Prince of Prigs' Revels,
------------Thank that man, Can make each thief a complete Roscian!
NOTES
[1] See the celebrated recipe for the Hand of Glory in ”_Les Secrets du Pet.i.t Albert_.”
[2] The seven planets, so called by Mercurius Trismegistus.
[3] Payne Knight, the scourge of Repton and his school, speaking of the license indulged in by the modern landscape-gardeners, thus vents his indignation:
But here, once more, ye rural muses weep The ivy'd bal.u.s.trade, and terrace steep; Walls, mellowed into harmony by time, On which fantastic creepers used to climb; While statues, labyrinths, and alleys pent Within their bounds, at least were innocent!-- _Our modern taste--alas!--no limit knows; O'er hill, o'er dale, through wood and field it flows; Spreading o'er all its unprolific sp.a.w.n, In never-ending sheets of vapid lawn._
_The Landscape, a didactic Poem, addressed to Uvedale Price, Esq._
[4] Mason's English Garden.
[5] Cowley.
[6] Query, Damocles?--_Printer's Devil._
[7] James Hind--the ”Prince of Prigs”--a royalist captain of some distinction, was hanged, drawn, and quartered, in 1652. Some good stories are told of him. He had the credit of robbing Cromwell, Bradshaw, and Peters. His discourse to Peters is particularly edifying.
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