The sun was striking in at the great windows of the court, through the glittering drops of rain upon the glass, and it made a broad shaft of light between the two-and-thirty and the Judge, linking both together, and perhaps reminding some among the audience, how both were passing on, with absolute equality, to the greater Judgment that knoweth all things and cannot err.
Rising for a moment, a distinct speck of face in this way of light, the prisoner said, `My Lord, I have received my sentence of Death from the Almighty, but I bow to yours,' and sat down again. There was some hushing, and the Judge went on with what he had to say to the rest. Then, they were all formally doomed, and some of them were supported out, and some of them sauntered out with a haggard look of bravery, and a few nodded to the gallery, and two or three shook hands, and others went out chewing the fragments of herb they had taken from the sweet herbs lying about. He went last of all, because of having to be helped from his chair and to go very slowly;and he held my hand while all the others were removed, and while the audience got up (putting their dresses right, as they might at church or elsewhere)and pointed down at this criminal or at that, and most of all at him and me.
I earnestly hoped and prayed that he might die before the Recorder's Report was made, but, in the dread of his lingering on, I began that night to write out a petition to the Home Secretary of State, setting forth my knowledge of him, and how it was that he had come back for my sake. I wrote it as fervently and pathetically as I could, and when I had finished it and sent it in, I wrote out other petitions to such men in authority as I hoped were the most merciful, and drew up one to the Crown itself. For several days and nights after he was sentenced I took no rest except when I fell asleep in my chair, but was wholly absorbed in these appeals. And after I had sent them in, I could not keep away from the places where they were, but felt as if they were more hopeful and less desperate when I was near them. In this unreasonable restlessness and pain of mind, I would roam the streets of an evening, wandering by those offices and houses where I had left the petitions. To the present hour, the weary western streets of London on a cold dusty spring night, with their ranges of stern shut-up mansions and their long rows of lamps, are melancholy to me from this association.
The daily visits I could make him were shortened now, and he was more strictly kept. Seeing, or fancying, that I was suspected of an intention of carrying poison to him, I asked to be searched before I sat down at his bedside, and told the officer who was always there, that I was willing to do anything that would assure him of the singleness of my designs. Nobody was hard with him, or with me. There was duty to be done, and it was done, but not harshly. The officer always gave me the assurance that he was worse, and some other sick prisoners in the room, and some other prisoners who attended on them as sick nurses (malefactors, but not incapable of kindness,GODbe thanked!), always joined in the same report.
As the days went on, I noticed more and more that he would lie placidly looking at the white ceiling, with an absence of light in his face, until some word of mine brightened it for an instant, and then it would subside again. Sometimes he was almost, or quite, unable to speak; then, he would answer me with slight pressures on my hand, and I grew to understand his meaning very well.
The number of the days had risen to ten, when I saw a greater change in him than I had seen yet. His eyes were turned towards the door, and lighted up as I entered.
`Dear boy,' he said, as I sat down by his bed: `I thought you was late.
But I knowed you couldn't be that.'
`It is just the time,' said I. `I waited for it at the gate.'
`You always waits at the gate; don't you, dear boy?'
`Yes. Not to lose a moment of the time.'
`Thank'ee dear boy, thank'ee. God bless you! You've never deserted me, dear boy.'
I pressed his hand in silence, for I could not forget that I had once meant to desert him.
`And what's the best of all,' he said, `you've been more comfortable alonger me, since I was under a dark cloud, than when the sun shone. That's best of all.'
He lay on his back, breathing with great difficulty. Do what he would, and love me though he did, the light left his face ever and again, and a film came over the placid look at the white ceiling.
`Are you in much pain to-day?'
`I don't complain of none, dear boy.'
`You never do complain.'
He had spoken his last words. He smiled, and I understood his touch to mean that he wished to lift my hand, and lay it on his breast. I laid it there, and he smiled again, and put both his hands upon it.
The allotted time ran out, while we were thus; but, looking round, Ifound the governor of the prison standing near me, and he whispered, `You needn't go yet.' I thanked him gratefully, and asked, `Might I speak to him, if he can hear me?'
The governor stepped aside, and beckoned the officer away. The change, though it was made without noise, drew back the film from the placid look at the white ceiling, and he looked most affectionately at me.
`Dear Magwitch, I must tell you, now at last. You understand what Isay?'
A gentle pressure on my hand.
`You had a child once, whom you loved and lost.'
A stronger pressure on my hand.
`She lived and found powerful friends. She is living now. She is a lady and very beautiful. And I love her!'
With a last faint effort, which would have been powerless but for my yielding to it and assisting it, he raised my hand to his lips. Then, he gently let it sink upon his breast again, with his own hands lying on it.
The placid look at the white ceiling came back, and passed away, and his head dropped quietly on his breast.
Mindful, then, of what we had read together, I thought of the two men who went up into the Temple to pray, and I knew there were no better words that I could say beside his bed, than `O Lord, be merciful to him, a sinner!'