Familiar Spirits (2 page)

Sims began talking about the condemned, ticking off their names with the nonchalance of a storekeeper inventorying his goods—as though Matthew didn’t know who they were, the three malefactors Sims humorously referred to as a “pair and one.” Sims did not break his stride as he talked, looked aside only to wave at a friend leaning from a doorway or to acknowledge the greeting of another poking his head from a 
window. The crowd in the street was thinning out. Sims picked up speed.

Matthew knew them all, the condemned, and marveled at Sims’s cold-bloodedness. Here was a rare gift—either of God or the Devil, who could tell?—Matthew thought as the two men crossed the bridge into the neighboring hamlet of Moulsham. Within the hour, Sims would string up three souls and take their bodies down again and all his contemplation was a casual remark about the weather! A fine day for a hanging indeed!

Well, it was a wondrous fair day and Matthew thanked God for it, but he himself had no love of hangings. He thought them cruel, gruesome affairs, and only his civic duty, such as beckoned him now, prodded him into attendance. How awful it all was. That terrible moment when the slender coil of hemp fell heir to the body’s weight and, like an obdurate landlord, evicted the soul from its temporal lodgings. If the neck did not snap with the force of the fall, the condemned man—or woman—would wriggle in helpless torment. The eyes would start from the skull and the black swollen tongue protrude obscenely. The pendent body— hardly human now—would become a mockery of its former self. Would dangle like a thing to scare crows. The head would loll foolishly, as though to declare: “See now, gentles, how easily the trick is done. A moment before you saw me quick who now am dead. Avoid my fate—if you can.”

We live in hope to escape the rope,
 
the constable quoted to himself when, the houses falling away on either side, he could see in the distance the place of execution. Sims pled the need to hurry, leaving Matthew to a more leisurely approach to the scene.

In a broad meadow, the scaffold had been erected, raw and grim in the still morning air. The constable mingled with the large and varied crowd. It was, indeed, a veritable anatomy of society—a great press of all ages and conditions such as a clever artist might depict on a broad canvas, from the gentleman in courtier’s hose, doublet, and cap to the poor scraggily bumpkin with his undernourished flea-bitten dog at 
his feet and hardly a breechclout to his name. Matthew saw women with young children in tow, sad-faced merchants and clerks, a rout of apprentices, and an equally large number of schoolboys released from their Latin exercises of the morning for the greater edification of a public execution. There were balladmongers and vendors of sweets and fruits, laborers and mechanics, alehouse wenches, the poor of the town mingling with the gentry of the county, learned divines, and at least one prominent knight, decked gloriously in a scarlet cape, his manhood celebrated by the monstrous codpiece he wore.

The constable greeted those he knew and pushed his way toward the scaffold where the hangman had now taken his place and was testing his equipment. Hooded and anonymous, Sims seemed even larger and more threatening a personage. Sensing himself the center of attention already, although the prisoners were yet to arrive, Sims was making a great show of these tests, yanking back the lever that operated the trapdoor and then jamming it forward again. The trapdoor fell open with a clatter, banged shut, clattered open again. He seemed to take pleasure in the simple mechanical operation.

He began testing the rope. He put his whole weight on it, then lifted himself up, his brawny arms bulging.

The crowd, increasing in number by the minute, watched it all with interest. They pressed in around the scaffold, talking excitedly. A few applauded when Sims, apparently satisfied with the good working order of his tools, stood back and took a braced stance at the rear of the platform.

While this was going on, Matthew had worked himself into a good position in front of the crowd. He could see the scaffold clearly, and the slight elevation on which the structure had been erected afforded a sweeping view of the spectators as well. He thought about the deaths he would presently witness.

A pair and one, Sims had said. That meant two men of no unusual demerit, and a single woman whose offense was as pernicious as it was damnable. William Hunt had stolen five swine—and poor underfed creatures at that!—from Jacob

Stone, a neighbor and kinsman. Matthew knew Hunt well. The other man was Diggon Ruttledge. Ruttledge was charged with having declared the Queen’s teeth and hair were none of her own, which everyone knew to be the truth but had the wisdom not to publish out-of-doors.

Last would come Ursula Tusser. Ursula was a pale, thin girl of about fifteen, a servant of Thomas Crispin, the tanner. It was her death the crowd had come to see on this fair morning. Not only come to see, but to relish.

A bell tolled in the distance, sweet and clear in the thin air. The crowd quieted. Matthew heard the clomping of horses and the creaking of wheels.

It was the prison cart, preceded by about a dozen men on horseback, some officers, others town officials. One of the dignitaries was the high sheriff of Essex, resplendent in his chain of office. The procession moved slowly toward the scaffold, the crowd drawing back to let them pass.

The three prisoners in the back of the cart were very miserable in countenance. They were dressed in prison garments—garments that would also serve as their winding sheets. Matthew watched as they were taken out, their manacles and leg-irons struck. The parson led the first of the condemned up the steps to the platform, followed by three of the sheriffs men with halberds, the sheriff s clerk, and the sheriff himself. When everyone was in his place, the parson stepped to the front of the platform and addressed the crowd.

He was a young man with fresh ruddy cheeks, fair hair, and a serious expression. Dressed in his cassock and surplice and with a copy of the Geneva Bible in his hands, he presented a satisfactory image of ecclesiastical authority. He spoke slowly and confidently, addressing the crowd as though they were his own parishioners, which in fact most of them were. In solemn tones he admonished them to take good heed to what they would presently see and reminded them that while all must die, to some it was reserved to die by the law’s hand for numerous crimes he proceeded to summarize. He said he hoped there were none present so frivolous of mind to find more pleasure than instruction in the death of their fel
low beings—miscreants as they might be—and then he bowed his head and recited a long prayer.

When this was done, the parson indicated to the sheriff in charge that the secular powers might proceed with the business at hand. The sheriff directed one of the clerks to step forward and read the charges against the prisoners. The charges were lengthy, couched in legal language, and it was doubtful that many hearing them could make sense of it all, although their sum was clear enough: death. Then, without further ado, William Hunt was brought forward beneath the rope.

Hunt was a ne’er-do-well farmer, a big, swarthy fellow. He .would leave six children behind him and a sickly wife but few others who would mourn his passing. Belligerent and quick-tempered before his arrest and conviction, he was a changed man now that death was his adversary and not some meek-mannered shopkeeper or hapless farmboy. Facing the eager crowd, Hunt stood pale and quaking, and the final words he was allowed and that indeed were expected of him were few and punctuated by loud sobs. He said he was sorry for his sinful life, asked the prayers of his neighbors, and warned the youth of the town to avoid his example.

When he was done, the hangman went quickly to work. The noose was placed around Hunt’s neck, tightened, and the trap sprung. After a minute of futile struggle Hunt was dead. The crowd cheered.

Matthew had averted his eyes during the agony. Now he looked up at the scaffold again where two of the officers were getting Hunt’s body down. One had him around the middle and was hoisting him up while the other worked to untie the noose. Then they dragged him by the arms across the platform and handed him down, headfirst, to their fellows on the ground, who without ceremony heaved his body into the cart. It was all quickly and efficiently done.

Now Diggon was made to climb the ladder. A simple-minded lad of about twenty-five, he had the crowd’s sympathy, since it was generally felt his fate was undeserved. Some treasonmonger from a nearby town had fingered him, and the a
uthorities had been obliged to investigate. They had taken him to an alehouse, filled him full of cheap wine, then invited him to express his views. What did he really think of the Queen? Well, she was a very old woman for all her majesty and dominion. Diggon spilled all.

Now he stood on the platform obviously confused about what was to happen to him and why. He looked out at the crowd and met the eye of many a friend, then at Sims, who cut his hair once a quarter, then at the parson, whose sermons he enjoyed without understanding half of them—the utmost of his religious knowledge was the Paternoster and six of the Ten Commandments. On his face was his usual expression of good-natured guilelessness. His pale, wide-set eyes seemed mildly amused, as though the throng before him had come seeking some other form of entertainment than his own demise and he would presently enjoy the spectacle with them.\

Diggon was not given the privilege of final words, although his neighbors would have gladly heard them. It was feared he would repeat his calumnies. Thus the ceremony of his death was brief. The parson prayed on his behalf, a simple plea for mercy and the promise of a glorious resurrection. When he was done, Diggon thanked him for his pains, gave Sims a penny—for someone had schooled him, at least, on that piece of etiquette—and grinned self-consciously while the noose was placed around his neck.

Sims went to work. It was all over quickly for Diggon— without fuss or struggle and with only a scattering of cheers afterward, and those by the handful of strangers who knew neither the man nor his crimes.

Matthew turned his back on the scene, his gorge rising. His gaze swept over the crowd, but he found no relief there either, for the death was now imprinted in his memory and the horror he felt he saw mirrored in many a face before him. He would have pushed his way through them, left them to their grisly spectacle, had duty not stayed him. Gladly would he have found solace in a pretty prospect of countryside, or in a book, or in a snatch of melody. But the crowd remained, 
and so must he. Behind him the sheriff s men were disposing of Diggon as they had Hunt. Matthew could hear the scraping of Diggon’s heels on the planking as his body was dragged toward the ladder. The trapdoor slammed shut.

Suddenly from the back of the crowd a strident female voice shouted, “Ursula! Give us Ursula!”

The demand was picked up by other voices, became a chant. He turned back to the scaffold. Ursula Tusser was now standing beneath the noose. He thought: She’s a child, a boy. A mistake surely. They’ve got the wrong one, those imbeciles. But it was no mistake. Ursula’s hair had been brutally cropped in prison. The coarse-spun garment she wore hung on her thin shoulders like a sack and extended to her ankles, hiding her sex. Next to the towering hangman she seemed diminutive, pathetic. Her small heart-shaped face and large eyes, green and subtle like a cat’s, stared at the spectators accusingly.

The parson approached her to ask if there was anything she had to say to those whom she had abused so vilely. She shook her head. She didn’t look at the parson, but kept her fixed stare on the crowd.

“What, woman? Not even a word of repentance?” the parson said.

“What sins I have, I have confessed to God in my cell,” she said in a soft but audible voice. “It will avail me nothing to repeat them here. I am come to die, not to preach. I’ll leave that to you, Parson.”

“It is fit you confess your sins before God and before this company, if only that those here may not follow your lewd example,” the parson remonstrated, his young man’s face furrowed with vexation.

“Yes, confess, confess!” screamed a voice in the crowd.

The demand was taken up as a chant: “Confess, confess!” It thundered in the constable’s ears. He watched Ursula. She seemed unmoved by this display of public hostility. The parson was angry; he was keeping his irritation in bounds only with the greatest difficulty. Finally he turned to the crowd and raised his hands to signal that the chanting must stop. It 
died away. The parson turned to Ursula. He said she was a wretched girl whom the wicked one had possessed entirely. He said her soul was utterly damned.

The girl cast an indifferent eye on the parson, muttered something inaudible, and then fixed her gaze on the crowd. A smile slowly formed on her lips. It was a humorless smile, cruel and vengeful, and it did not go unnoticed by the crowd. Many taunted and cursed, but others blessed themselves or hid their children in their skirts or turned aside themselves so as to avoid the accused girl’s stare.

There was nothing more to be done but hang her. The crowd demanded it, and Sims moved forward to perform his office. He placed the noose around Ursula’s neck, tightened it, stepped back, and, without further ado, pulled the lever releasing the trapdoor. The door clattered, the body fell. The constable watched in horror.

Ursula was dead. Her body swung lifeless in the still morning air. A thing to scare crows.

There was no cheering—not at first. First there was a silence, deep and inexplicable. The crowd gaped at the body, which the officers made no move to take down. Then someone shouted, “Good riddance to her and her kind!”