CHAPTER FOUR THE DEAD-WARRANT ARRIVES FOR HEARTFREE; ON WHICH OCCASION WILDBETRAYS SOME HUMAN WEAKNESS.
Back The dead-warrant, as it is called, now came down to Newgate forthe execution of Heartfree among the rest of the prisoners. Andhere the reader must excuse us, who profess to draw natural, notperfect characters, and to record the truths of history, not theextravagances of romance, while we relate a weakness in Wild ofwhich we are ourselves ashamed, and which we would willingly haveconcealed, could we have preserved at the same time that strictattachment to truth and impartiality, which we have professed inrecording the annals of this great man. Know then, reader, thatthis dead-warrant did not affect Heartfree, who was to suffer ashameful death by it, with half the concern it gave Wild, who hadbeen the occasion of it. He had been a little struck the daybefore on seeing the children carried away in tears from theirfather. This sight brought the remembrance of some slight injurieshe had done the father to his mind, which he endeavoured as muchas possible to obliterate; but, when one of the keepers (I shouldsay lieutenants of the castle) repeated Heartfree's name amongthose of the malefactors who were to suffer within a few days, theblood forsook his countenance, and in a cold still stream movedheavily to his heart, which had scarce strength enough left toreturn it through his veins. In short, his body so visiblydemonstrated the pangs of his mind, that to escape observation heretired to his room, where he sullenly gave vent to such bitteragonies, that even the injured Heartfree, had not the apprehensionof what his wife had suffered shut every avenue of compassion,would have pitied him.
When his mind was thoroughly fatigued, and worn out with thehorrors which the approaching fate of the poor wretch, who layunder a sentence which he had iniquitously brought upon him, hadsuggested, sleep promised him relief; but this promise was, alas!delusive. This certain friend to the tired body is often theseverest enemy to the oppressed mind. So at least it proved toWild, adding visionary to real horrors, and tormenting hisimagination with phantoms too dreadful to be described. At length,starting from these visions, he no sooner recovered his wakingsenses, than he cryed out--"I may yet prevent this catastrophe. Itis not too late to discover the whole." He then paused a moment;but greatness, instantly returning to his assistance, checked thebase thought, as it first offered itself to his mind. He thenreasoned thus coolly with himself:--"Shall I, like a child, or awoman, or one of those mean wretches whom I have always despised,be frightened by dreams and visionary phantoms to sully thathonour which I have so difficultly acquired and so gloriouslymaintained? Shall I, to redeem the worthless life of this sillyfellow, suffer my reputation to contract a stain which the bloodof millions cannot wipe away? Was it only that the few, the simplepart of mankind, should call me a rogue, perhaps I could submit;but to be for ever contemptible to the prigs, as a wretch whowanted spirit to execute my undertaking, can never be digested.What is the life of a single man? Have not whole armies andnations been sacrificed to the honour of ONE GREAT MAN? Nay, toomit that first class of greatness, the conquerors of mankind, howoften have numbers fallen by a fictitious plot only to satisfy thespleen, or perhaps exercise the ingenuity, of a member of thatsecond order of greatness the ministerial! What have I done then?Why, I have ruined a family, and brought an innocent man to thegallows. I ought rather to weep with Alexander that I have ruinedno more, than to regret the little I have done." He at length,therefore, bravely resolved to consign over Heartfree to his fate,though it cost him more struggling than may easily be believed,utterly to conquer his reluctance, and to banish away every degreeof humanity from his mind, these little sparks of which composedone of those weaknesses which we lamented in the opening of ourhistory.
But, in vindication of our hero, we must beg leave to observe thatNature is seldom so kind as those writers who draw charactersabsolutely perfect. She seldom creates any man so completelygreat, or completely low, but that some sparks of humanity willglimmer in the former, and some sparks of what the vulgar callevil will dart forth in the latter: utterly to extinguish whichwill give some pain, and uneasiness to both; for I apprehend nomind was ever yet formed entirely free from blemish, unlessperadventure that of a sanctified hypocrite, whose praises somewell-fed flatterer hath gratefully thought proper to sing forth.
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