LITERATURE.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 7198, 5 February 1892, Page 1

LITERATURE.

JERRY STOKES. [Bt Grant Allen.] (Slrtiud Magazine.) (Continued.) Chapter 11. If anybody had told Jerry Stokes the ■week before that he possessed an ample, unexhausted fund of natural enthusiasm, Jerry Stoke3 would have looked upon him as only fit for Hatwood Asylum. He was a solid, stolid, thick-headed man, was Jerry, ■who honestly believed in the importance of his office, and hanged men as respectably as he would have slaughtered oxen. But that incredible verdict, as it seemed to him, begot in him suddenly a fierce outburst of zeal which was all the more violent because ot its utter novelty. For the first time in his life he woke up to the enthusiasm of humanity. You'll often find it so in very phlegmatic men j it takes a great deal to stir their stagnant depths ; but let them once be aroused and the storm is terrible, the fire within them burns bright with a warmth and light which astonishes everybody. For days the look on Eichard Ogilvy's face, when he heard that false verdict returned against him, haunted the hangman's brain every hoar of the twenty-four. He lay awake on his bed and shuddered to think of it. Come what might, that man must never be hanged. And, please heaven, Jerry added, they ahocld never hang him. The sentence, Canadian fashion, was for six dear weeka. And at the end of that time, nnleßß anything should turn up meanwhile to preveot it, it would be Jeiry's duty to hang the man he believed to be innocent. For all those years Jerry had stolidly and soberly hanged whomever he was bid, taking it for granted the law was always in the right, and that the men on whom be operated were invariably malefactors. But now a great horror possessed his soul. The revulsion was terrible. This one gross miscarriage of justice, as it seemed to him, raised doubts at the same time in his startled soul as to the rightfulness of all his previous hangings. Had he been in the habit of doing innocent men to death for years? Was the law, then, always so painfully fallible P Could it go wrong in all the dignity of its unsullied ermine P Jerry could hang the guilty without one pang of remorse. But to hang the innocent !— he drew himself up ; that was altogether a different matter. Yet what could he do ? A petition ? Impossible? Never within his memory could Jerry recollect eo perfect a unanimity of public opinion in favour of a sentence. A-^petition was useless. Not a soul would sign it. Everybody was satisfied. Let Ogilvy Bwing ! The very women would have lynched the man if they could have caqgbt him at the first. Ana now that he ■waj| to be hanged, they were heartily glad •f it Still, there is nothing to spur a man on in a hopeless cauee like the feeling that you stand . alone and unaided. Jerry Stokes saw all the world was for hanging Ogilvy — with the strange and solitary exception of the public hangman. And what did the public hangman's opinion count in such a case? As Jerry Stokes well knew, rather leBB than nothing. Day after day wore away, and the papers ■were full of " the convict Ogilvy." Would he confeaß, cr would he not ? that was now the question. Every second night the Toronto papers had a Bpeciai edition with a " Rumoured Confession of the Napanee Murderer," and every second morning they had a telegram direct from Kingston jaol to contradict it. Not a doubt seemed to remain with anybody as to the convict's guilt. Bnt the paperß reiterated daily the same familiar phrase, " Ogilvy persists to the end in maitaining his innocence." Jerry had read these words a hundred times before, about other prisoners, with a gentle Braile of cynical incredulity ; he read them now with blank amazement and horror at the callousness of a world which could hang an innocent man without appeal or inquiry. Time ran on, and the eve of the execution arrived at last. Something must be done : and Jerry did it. That night he sat long in his room by himself, in the unwonted throes of literary composition. He was writing a letter— a letter of unusual leogth and surprising earnestness. It cost him dear, that epistle j with his dictionary by his aide, he stopped many times to think, and bit his penholder to fibre. But he wrote none the leas with fiery indignation, and in a fever of moral zeal that positively astonished himself. Then he copied it out clean on a separate sheet, and folded the letter when done, with a prayer in his heart. It was a prayer for mercy on a condemned criminal — by the public hangman. After that he stuck a stamp on with trembling fingers, and posted it himself at the main office. All that night long Jerry lay awake and thought about the execution. As a rule, executions troubled his rest very -little. But then he had never before h&d to bang an innocent man — at least he hoped not— though his faith in the law had received a severe shook, and he trembled to think now what judicial murders he might have helped in hiß time unconsciously to consummate. Next morning early, at the appointed hour, Jerry Stokes presented himself at Kingston gaol. The Sheriff was there, and the Chaplain, and the prisoner; Ogilvy looked at him hard with a shrinking look -of horror. Jerry had seen that look, too, a hundred times before, and disregarded it utterly : it was only the natural objection of a condemned criminal to the constitutional officer appointed to operate on him. Bat this time it cut tha man to the very quick. That an innocent fellow-creature should regard him like that waa indeed unendurable, especially when he, the public hangman, waß the only soul onearth who believed in his innocence ! The chaplain stood forward and read the usual prayers. The condemned man repeated them after him in a faltering voice. As he finished, the Sheriff turned with a grave face to Jerry. "Do your duty," he said. And Jerry stared at him stolidly. " Sheriff," he began at last, after a very long pause, braoing himself up for an effort, " I've done my duty all my life till this, and I'll do it now. Tnere ain't going to be no execution at all here this morning!" The Sheriff gazed at him astonished, " What do yon mean, Stokeß ?" he asked, taken aback at this sudden turn. "No reprieve has come. The prisoner is to be hanged without fail to-day in accordance -with hiß sentence. It says so in the warrant : ' wherein fail not at your peril.' " Jerry looked ronnd him with an air of expectation. , "No reprieve haßn't come yet," he answered, in a Btolid way ; " but I'm expecting one presently. I've done my duty all my life, Sheriff, I tell you, and I'll do it now. I ain't a-going to hang this man at all— because I know he's innocent." The prisoner gasped, and turned round to him in amaze. "Yes, I'm innocent!" he Baid slowly, looking him over from head to foot ; " but you — now do you know it ?" " I know it by your face," Jerry answered sturdily ; " and I know by the other one'a face it was him that did it." The Sharif! looked on in pnzzled wonderment. Thia waß a hitch in fhe proceedings he had never expected. "Your conduct ißmost irregular, Stokes," he said at last, stroking his chin in hie embarrassment j '.' most irregular and disconcerting. If yon had a consrientiotu acruple against hanging the prisoner, you

should have told us before. Then we might have arranged for some other executioner to serve in your place. As it is, the delay Is most unseemly and painful ; especially for the prisoner. Your action can only cause him unnecessary suspense. Sooner or later tb 13 morning, somebody must hang him." (To be continued).