'"We brought nothing into this world,"' the Reverend Cotton's voice echoed from the tunnel's damp granite walls, ' "and it is certain we can carry nothing out. The Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away, blessed be the Name of the Lord."
'I didn't steal anything!' the girl suddenly screamed.
'Quiet, lass, quiet,' the Keeper growled. All the men were nervous. They wanted the prisoners to cooperate and the girl was very close to hysteria.
'"Lord, let me know mine end,"' the Ordinary prayed,' "and the number of my days."'
'Please!' the girl wailed. 'No, no! Please.' A second turnkey closed on her in case she collapsed and had to be carried the rest of the way, but she stumbled on.
'If they struggle too much,' Logan told Sir Henry, 'then they're tied to a chair and hung that way, but I confess I haven't seen that happen in many many years, though I do remember that Langley had to do it once.'
'Langley?'
'Botting's predecessor.'
'You've seen a number of these things?' Sir Henry asked.
'A good few,' Logan admitted. 'And you?'
'Never. I just conceived today as a duty.' Sir Henry watched the prisoners climb the steps at the end of the tunnel and wished he had not come. He had never seen a violent death. Rider Sandman, who was to have been his son-in-law, had seen much violent death because he had been a soldier and Sir Henry rather wished the younger man was here. He had always liked Sandman. Such a shame about his family.
At the top of the stairs was the Lodge, a cavernous entrance chamber that gave access to the street called the Old Bailey. The door that led to the street was the Debtor's Door and it stood open, but no daylight showed for the scaffold had been built directly outside. The noise of the crowd was loud now and the prison bell was muffled, but the bell of Saint Sepulchre's on the far side of Newgate Street was also tolling for the imminent deaths.
'Gentlemen?' The Sheriff, who was now in charge of the morning's proceedings, turned to the breakfast guests. 'If you'll climb the steps to the scaffold, gentlemen, you'll find chairs to right and left. Just leave two at the front for us, if you'd be so kind?'
Sir Henry, as he passed through the towering arch of the high Debtor's Door, saw in front of him the dark hollow underside of the scaffold and he thought how it was like being behind and underneath a stage supported by raw wooden beams. Black baize shrouded the planks at the front and side of the stage which meant that the only light came from the chinks between the timbers that formed the scaffold's elevated platform. Wooden stairs climbed to Sir Henry's right, going up into the shadows before turning sharply left to emerge in a roofed pavilion that stood at the scaffold's rear. The stairs and the platform all looked very substantial and it was hard to remember that the scaffold was only erected the day before an execution and dismantled immediately after. The roofed pavilion was there to keep the honoured guests dry in inclement weather, but today the morning sun shone on Old Bailey and was bright enough to make Sir Henry blink as he turned the corner of the stairs and emerged into the pavilion.
A huge cheer greeted the guests' arrival. No one cared who they were, but their appearance presaged the coming of the prisoners. Old Bailey was crowded. Every window that overlooked the street was crammed and there were even folk on the rooftops.
'Ten shillings,' Logan said.
'Ten shillings?' Sir Henry was bemused again.
'To rent a window,' Logan explained, 'unless it's a celebrated crime being punished in which case the price goes up to two or even three guineas.' He pointed at a tavern that stood directly opposite the scaffold. 'The Magpie and Stump has the most expensive windows because you can see right down into the pit where they drop.' He chuckled. 'You can rent a telescope from the landlord and watch 'em die. But we, of course, get the best view.'
Sir Henry wanted to sit in the shadows at the back of the pavilion, but Logan had already taken one of the front chairs and Sir Henry just sat. His head was ringing with the terrible noise that came from the street. It was, he decided, just like being on a theatre's stage. He was overwhelmed and dazzled. So many people! Everywhere faces looking up at the black-draped platform. The scaffold proper, in front of the roofed pavilion, was thirty feet long and fifteen feet wide and topped by a great beam that ran from the pavilion's roof to the platform's end. Black iron butchers' hooks were screwed into the beam's underside and a ladder was propped against it.
A second ironic cheer greeted the sheriffs in their fur-trimmed robes. Sir Henry was sitting on a hard wooden chair that was slightly too small and desperately uncomfortable. 'It'll be the girl first,' Logan said.
'Why?'
'She's the one they've come to see,' Logan said. He was evidently enjoying himself and Sir Henry was surprised by that. How little we know our friends, he thought, then he again wished that Rider Sandman was here because he suspected that the soldier would not approve of death made this easy. Or had Sandman been hardened to violence?
'I should let him marry her,' he said.
'What?' Logan had to raise his voice because the crowd was shouting for the prisoners to be brought on.
'Nothing,' Sir Henry said.
'"I will keep my mouth as it were with a bridle,"' the Reverend Cotton's voice grew louder as he climbed the stairs behind the girl, "while the ungodly is in my sight."'
A turnkey came first, then the girl, and she was awkward on the steps because her legs were still not used to being without irons and the turnkey had to steady her when she half tripped on the top step.
Then the crowd saw her. 'Hats off! Hats off!' The shout began at the front and echoed back. It was not respect that caused the cry, but rather because the taller hats of the folk in front obscured the view for those behind. The roar of the crowd was massive, crushing, and then the people surged forward so that the City Marshal and his men who protected the scaffold raised their staves and spears. Sir Henry felt besieged by noise and by the thousands of people with open mouths, shouting. There were as many women as men in the crowd. Sir Henry saw a respectable-looking matron stooping to a telescope in one of the windows of the Magpie and Stump. Beside her a man was eating bread and fried egg. Another woman had opera glasses. A pie-seller had set up his wares in a doorway. Pigeons, red kites and sparrows circled the sky in panic because of the noise. Sir Henry, his mind swimming, suddenly noticed the four open coffins that lay on the scaffold's edge. They were made of rough pine and were unplaned and resinous. The girl's mouth was open and her face, which had been pale, was now red and distorted. Tears ran down her cheeks as Botting took her by a pinioned elbow and led her onto the planks at the platform's centre. That centre was a trapdoor and it creaked under their weight. The girl was shaking and gasping as Botting positioned her under the beam at the platform's far end. Once she was in place Botting took a cotton bag from his pocket and pulled it over her hair so that it looked like a hat. She screamed at his touch and tried to twist away from him, but the Reverend Cotton put a hand on her arm as the hangman took the rope from her shoulders and clambered up the ladder. He was heavy and the rungs creaked alarmingly. He slotted the small spliced eye over one of the big black butcher's hooks, then climbed awkwardly back down, red-faced and breathing hard. 'I need an assistant, don't I?' he grumbled. 'Ain't fair. Man always has an assistant. Don't fidget, missy! Go like a Christian!' He looked the girl in the eyes as he pulled the noose down around her head. He tightened the slip knot under her left ear, then gave the rope a small jerk as if to satisfy himself that it would take her weight. She gasped at the jerk, then screamed because Botting had his hands on her hair. 'Keep still, girl!' he snarled, then pulled down the white cotton bag so that it covered her face.