1829.] Autobiography of Jonathan Wild, the Younger. 77 



I indeed be hanged ?" he said^ or rather shrieked^ in a harsh, grating 

 tone of voice. 



" Yes," I replied, " you must, but it will be consoling for you to 

 know that I shall be hanged as well." 



" O God ! I cannot die ; I am not fit ; my hand is yet hot with 

 blood," — and his eye looked horribly white. At his earnest entreaties, 

 and by permission of the turnkey, I remained with him throughout this 

 his last night ; my own trial as an accessory having by some informality 

 in the indictment been postponed to the next assizes, and Atkins having 

 precluded the necessity of one, by a frank and unreserved confession. 

 At ten o'clock the jailer quitted us, and we sat down alone at an oaken 

 table, lit by a dim lamp, and garnished with an odd vokmie of tracts. 

 Until midnight Atkins remained tolerably composed ; but when all at 

 last was silent in the prison, its awful solitude struck chill and damp to 

 his soul ; his teeth chattered, cold drops stood upon his forehead, he paced 

 the floor like a madman, and clanked his chains, glad even of such an 

 opportunity to burst the horrid stillness. Just at this moment, the 

 watchman of the jail passed close beneath the window calling the hour, 

 in a tone which seemed to say " you hear it for the last time on earth \" 

 Its effect on Atkins was terrific. In such a state, — a state of the most 

 abject wretchedness — hours rolled away, until at length the church clock 

 struck four, and a few straggling gleams of day-light began to make 

 their way through our prison bars. From this moment the murderer 

 began to count each moment of his existence ; and with all that desperate 

 tenacity with which a weak mind clings, however falsely, to hope, kept 

 perpetually asking me the hour, and insisting that it was not so late as I 

 supposed. At last he could no longer shut his eyes to the truth, for the 

 day-light, hitherto faint, now distinctly lit up every object in the dun- 

 geon. How pale and ghastly by its momently strengthening beams 

 looked my confederate's face ! how withering its expression ! how intense 

 and concentrated the character of its grief! But a few hours before, and 

 his hair was black, a deep raven black : it had now a gray tinge — the 

 effect of years, the sorrows of a long life, had been condensed into one 

 single night. Precisely as the clock struck eight, the clergyman and 

 sheriffs arrived, Avhen, after the usual ceremonies, the procession moved 

 slowly on towards the scaffold. And here ensued a scene, which those 

 who witnessed it, will, I am convinced, carry with them to the grave. 

 Overpowered by intense affright, Atkins refused to proceed further ; he 

 shrieked for pity, clung convulsively to the jailer, and writhing in all 

 the nervous fever of despair, prayed for only ten minutes reprieve — for 

 six — for five — for two — for one — for but one single minute, while he 

 repeated the Lord's Prayer. As the executioner approached to place the 

 rope round his neck, his affright increased to madness. His red eye 

 kindled, his mouth, white with foam, seemed twisted into a thousand 

 shapes. But all was vain ; the cord was adjusted ; the cap drawn over 

 his face; and the signal being given, one shrill, piercing cry was heard 

 — then the slow — slow withdrawing of the bolt, a groan, and the mur- 

 derer, like his victim, was a corpse ! 



I now return to my own personal narrative. At the ensuing Guildford 

 assizes, my trial, in its turn, came on. The principal, indeed, the only 

 evidence against me, was that of a boy between eleven and twelve years of 

 age, who, it seems, had witnessed the whole transaction from an adjoin- 

 ing room, and of course could swear to my identity. This youth was 

 subjectetl to a rigid cross-examination, in llie course of which, struck 



