The Works of George W. M. Reynolds — page 197: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

180 THE COURT OF LONDON you will find yourself safe and sound back in this cell again.” “You are a good fellow, Coffin, for being anxious thus to reassure me,” said Dysart, trembling somewhat with excite- ment, but not from actual fear. ‘““You’ve always behaved like a gentleman to me, sir,’’ replied the Hangman, “and I should have been sorry indeed to tuck you up. But now’s the time to move for’ard.”’ Having thus spoken in a hurried whisper, the Hangman signified aloud to the governor that everything was ready, and the procession was formed. The chaplain and sheriff, who had remained outside together conversing in the passage, went first. Then came Dysart, with his arms pinioned, and closely followed by the Hangman, the governor, under- sheriffs, aldermen, and a few of the gaol officials bringing up the rear. Along two or three stone passages did the mournful procession advance; and now the tolling of St. Sepulchre’s bell became more and more plainly audible to the ear. Again did a sudden terror strike to the very heart’s core of the criminal. Heavens! if the reprieve, the assurances that had hitherto sustained him, the promise of life, pardon, and liberty, — O God! if all these were but the delusions of his brain, the phantoms of his own imagination! That knell which rang so ominously, the solemn tread of the procession through the vaulted passages, the murmuring of the multi- tudes without, and now the deep voice of the chaplain commencing the service for the dead, — oh, what could all this mean? What did it signify? Wherefore this tremendous parade, this pomp and display of death itself, if all were to end in a continuance of life? And that chaplain’s voice, did it breathe an accent of hope? Oh,no, no! It was pro- found, solemn, even sepulchral, as if warning him in unmis- takable tones that this was indeed no mockery, but an awful, appalling, stupendous reality. Yes, there was death in all this, — death — death! And the hideous conviction struck to the soul of Dysart that he was duped, deluded, deceived, — ay, unto the very verge of that grave which was already yawning at his feet. Such were the thoughts that swept, ghastly as a train of spectres and swift as a flight of birds, through the imagina- Gomichooksscom