The Merry Past 



" Ah, Mr. Parson, I've helped many a poor dog out 

 of this world, and I'm now going out of it myself ; 

 and, to tell you the truth, my conscience won't let 

 me alone." " Well, well," replied the curate, " take 

 comfort, you are not to blame ; the men who suffered 

 had been condemned by the laws of their country, 

 and you were no more than the instrument in the 

 hand of public justice." " Aye, but I am afeard I 

 once hanged a man a little wrongfully. 



" One execution morning, when the men that were 

 going to Tyburn came down into the press-yard, one 

 of them whispers to me, as I passed close by him, 

 * Master Ketch, could you do a poor wretch a kind 

 service ? Twenty good guineas.' ' Are they all 

 weight ? ' says I to him. ' Aye, that they be,' says 

 he to me, ' not a light guinea among 'em.' My heart 

 was sorry for him, so I bid him to follow my directions, 

 and I would see what could be done for him. * When 

 you get to the cart,' says I, ' and all the people about 

 it, pop down when I make the sign, and slip under it, 

 and get away among the crowd.' But after he had 

 done so, as ill luck would have it, I happen'd to spy 

 among the mob a journeyman tailor, with a thin white 

 face and a red nightcap on ; so I made a dash at him, 

 seized him by the collar, and hoisted him into the 

 cart. 'Tis as true as you sit there. The poor devil 

 lifted up his hands and eyes, and protested his inno- 

 cence and all that, but I bawled louder than he did, 

 and told the mob he went on at that rate in gaol, and 

 never would confess nothing. 



" Now, Mr. Parson, I'm really afeard I hanged this 

 man a little wrongfully." 



211 



