Some Distinguished Victims of the ScaffoldBleackley, Horace
History
Some Distinguished Victims of the Scaffold
Bleackley, Horace
Criminals -- Great Britain; Executions and executioners; Trials -- Great Britain
Backwards and forwards around the mourning-coach surged the mob,
clamouring with ribald fury for a glimpse of the celebrated forgers.
Robert Perreau, sitting with his back to the horses beside one of the
sheriff’s officers, pulled down the glass meekly, and gazed out with
calm, unruffled features. Then the long journey was resumed. Over the
heavy road the wheels and hoofs slipped and crunched down the slopes
of Snow Hill, and toiled up the steep ascent into Holbourn. Standing
erect in the cart, George Lee, a handsome boy highwayman, gorgeous in a
crimson coat and ruffled shirt, doffed his gold-laced hat with a parade
of gallantry to a young woman in a hackney coach. Then, while a hundred
eyes and a hundred loathsome jests were turned upon her, the poor girl
burst into a flood of tears. In another moment her lover had passed
away for ever. Huddled in the same tumbril with the swaggering youth, a
couple of Jews, condemned for housebreaking, shook and chattered with
dread, their yellow faces livid as death, a strange contrast to their
florid, bombastic companion. Shivering with cold, the two tortured
coiners were jolted over the snow, bound fast to their hurdle, their
limbs turned to ice by the frost. Within the black coach, the brothers
listened calmly and reverently to the prayers with which Ordinary
Villette, who sat by the side of Daniel, supplicated the Almighty to
pardon these victims unworthy of human mercy. And all the while, the
mob--forty thousand strong--shrieked, danced and hurled snowballs,
maddened like fierce animals by the scent of blood.
It was only half-past ten o’clock when the cortege reached the triple
tree. Two separate gallows had been prepared, for it was not meet that
Hebrew and Christian should hang from the same branch. So the tumbril
was drawn under the smaller crossbar, and, their halters being fixed,
the two Jews were left to their rabbi; while highwayman Lee, and the
coiners Baker and Ratcliffe, were placed in a second cart. Seated in
their coach a little distance away, the two brothers watched these
ghastly preparations with unruffled mien. When all was ready Sheriff
Newnham gave them a signal, and they descended to the ground. A moment
later they were standing beside their three wretched compatriots. Then
the Rev. Villette came forward to play his usual part. Holding the same
prayer-book, Daniel and Robert Perreau followed the services with pious
attention, their reverence forming a marked contrast to the swagger
of the boy highwayman. For some time they were allowed to converse
with the Ordinary, and each gave him a paper containing a last solemn
declaration of their innocence. It was noticed that Daniel raised his
eyes to the sky, and boldly asserted that he was guiltless.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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