Chapter VIII: The Procession

At the time of which I write, a dweller in the midlands who wanted to go to town, did not drive down to the nearest railway station, to be transported from thence by the fiery dragon to his destination. Railways had been long heard of, and indeed there was one within twenty miles of Fairburn, which we should now call a tramway only, for engine it had none. Locomotives were the subject of debate in scientific circles, and of scorn among the rest of the community. A journey such as that my tutor and myself were about to undertake, is scarcely to be understood by readers of the present generation. Not only did it consume an amount of time which would now suffice for six times the distance, but it was surrounded by difficulties and dangers that have now no existence whatever--"extinct Satans," as a writer calls them, who is now scarcely held to be "modern," but who at that time had never written a line. The coach for which Mr. Long had thought it advisable not to wait, had met in its time with a thousand-and-one strange casualties, and the guard was a very Scheherazade at relating them. The "Highflyer" had come to dreadful grief in racing with an empty stomach, but many "outsides," against its rival, the "Rapid," which traversed a portion of the same road. It had often to open both its doors, to let the water through, in crossing Crittenden Ford, by neglect of which precaution upon one occasion, four "insides" had the misfortune to be suffocated. It had been dug out of snow-drifts a hundred times, and now and then it had _not_ been dug out, and the passengers had been frost-bitten. In winter it was usual enough for them to spend a day or two perforce at some country inn, because the roads were "not open." The "Highflyer" had once been attacked by a tiger (out of a travelling caravan), which killed the off-leader; but this was an exceptional adventure. It was attacked by highwaymen at least once a year, but in this respect was considered rather a fortunate coach. Only a few weeks previously, there had been found by the reapers, in one of Farmer Arabel's wheat-fields, mail-bags with letters containing many thousand pounds in drafts and bills, which had been taken by gentlemen of the road from the custody of the guard of the "Highflyer" in the early summer. These persons had gone into the standing wheat to divide their booty, and left there what was to them unavailable property, or too difficult to negotiate.

In the two trips I had already taken to the metropolis, I had gone by this curious conveyance, of which all Fairburn had something to say; but I was now to journey even more gloriously still: so thoroughly had Mr. Long got to be convinced that some immediate danger was imminent to Marmaduke at the hands of his uncle, that he could not bear the least unnecessary delay in giving him warning. We posted with four horses, and generally at full gallop. I agree with the Great Lexicographer in thinking that sensation very pleasurable indeed. The express-train, it is true, goes five times as fast, but you do not feel that there is any credit due to the steam-horse for that; you take it as a matter of course, and would do so, no matter what exertions it should make for you, short of bursting. But when you heard the ring of the sixteen hoofs upon the iron road, and the sharp crack of the whips in the frosty air, or leaned out of the window for a moment; and beheld the good steeds smoking in your behalf, you said to yourself, or to your companion, if you had one: "This is wonderful fine travelling." Perhaps you contrasted such great speed with that attained by the Exeter flying-coaches in your ancestors' time, and smiled with contemptuous pity at their five miles an hour, stoppages excluded.

The trees and hedges flew by you then, and gave an idea of the velocity, such as the telegraph-posts, seen vanishing thin out of the window of a railway-carriage, fail to convey; while, when you stopped for new cattle, the hurry and bustle attendant on the order, "Horses on," helped to strengthen the belief in your own fast travelling. Still, after the first few hours, even the enjoyments of a post-chaise-and-four begin to pall; and long before we had approached our destination, I was cramped, and chilled, and tired enough. It was growing dark, too, so that there was little to be seen without, and we had passed those dangerous parts of the road where expectations of possible highwaymen had afforded me some excitement. I was dozing dreamily, unconscious that the light of London was flaring like a dusky dawn in front of us, and that we had even already entered its then limits upon the north-east, when I was roughly roused by the sudden stoppage of the carriage, accompanied by wild cries, and a glare of lurid flame. Mr. Long had put down the window, and was leaning out of it. There was a dense fog, and gas had not yet been established in that part of London; but a vast assemblage of people were streaming slowly past us, and many of them had torches in their hands. They took no notice of us whatever, but yelled and shouted, and every now and then cast glances behind them at some approaching spectacle, which seemed to be about to overtake us. Presently, we beheld this ourselves. First came a great number of constables, marching twenty abreast, and clearing all before them with large staves; then a body of the mounted patrol--a corps then but newly formed, and which, although now well-nigh extinct, was destined in its time to do good service; then more constables; then a vast quantity of horsemen, armed and unarmed, and lastly this:--Extended on an inclined platform, built to a considerable height upon an open cart, was the body of a dead man; it was attired in blue trousers, and with a white and blue striped waistcoat, but without a coat. On the left side of him was a huge mallet, and on the right a ripping chisel.

"Great Heaven! what is this?" inquired Mr. Long of one of the mounted constables.

"Oh, it's him, sir, sure enough; we've got him at last," returned the officer.

"Him? Who?" cried I, half stupefied with fatigue and horror. "Have they found Sir Massingberd?"

No, it was not Sir Massingberd. The face which was now being slowly carried past us was wicked and stern enough, but it was not _his_ face. The skin was black, the eyes were projecting; it was plain that the poor wretch had been strangled. The excitement of those who caught sight of it was hideous to witness; they cursed and hissed in hate and fury, and battled to get near the cart, that they might spit upon the corpse which it contained. The force of the advancing crowd was so tremendous that we were compelled to move for some distance side by side with this appalling sight, and presently immediately behind it; there we seemed to fall in as a part of the procession, and were no doubt considered by the majority of persons to officially belong to it. We were borne southwards quite out of our proper direction, and were unable to prevent it, for it was as much as the postillions could do to sit their horses, and avoid being shouldered out of their saddles. Our progress was of course at a foot's-pace only, and twice the procession halted, once opposite a draper's, and once opposite a public-house, when the yells and hooting of the crowd were terrible to hear. Not only were these two houses closely shuttered up (as they well might be), but the shop-fronts everywhere were closed, and the windows and the tops of the houses crowded with spectators. By this time, we had got to know in what dreadful proceedings we were thus taking an involuntary part. The body in the cart was that of the murderer Williams, who had committed suicide two days before, to escape, it was thought, not so much the scaffold, as the execrations of his fellow-creatures. All London was filled with hate of him, as before his capture it had been filled with fear; and the government had caused this public exhibition of his corpse, to convince the minds of the public that the wholesale assassin was really no longer alive. The houses at which we had halted were those which had once been inhabited by his unhappy victims, the Marrs and the Williamsons. Subsequently, the corpse was conveyed to St. George's turn-pike, and there interred with a stake thrust through the middle of it; but before that frightful ceremony took place, the postillions had managed to extricate us, and we had driven westward to our destination. Still, I for my part had seen enough, and more than enough, to make that entry of ours into London a thing impossible to forget; and I think it rendered, by association, the mystery concerning which we had come up to Harley Street, more menacing and sombre than before.