University of Virginia Library

37. CHAPTER XXXVII.
MR. CLOSE'S LAST SPECULATION.

In the Tombs' prison, where he lay under sentence of
death, Fyler Close maintained, as far as the limits of his
cell allowed, the same sports and humours he had practised
in the open air. The turnkey, who had charge of this
range of cells, whenever he looked in or brought his food,
never failed to come upon him in the very ecstacy of a
new device or gambol. This was in the day when
Fyler would place himself in the middle of the floor, and sit,
huddling his limbs together, gathering the sun—that streamed
in at the window of the cell at certain hours—in his
outspread hands like so much fire. But with the night
he crept into a corner, and stood shivering and driving off
with the self-same hands, shapes that swarmed thicker than
the sun-beams by day. He cursed the darkness; it was no
friend of his. The very first night he had lain there after the
trial he got into the corner furthest from the door, and while
he crouched there, the jurors glided across the floor, one by
one, and whispered in his ears, “Guilty”—then after them
the judge, with the same word in his mouth—then the haberdasher,
the poor blacksmith, Hobbleshank, and whoever
else he had dealt with, and muttering the word so that
it hissed in his ear, passed away.

One night the two lamps that light the prison-yard at
the rear, and lend a ray or two to the condemned cells,
went out; and Fyler, vexed beyond measure, dashed his
hands against the door, and shouted for Light—Light! They
left him alone, supposing it was some new freak, until he
fell down in his agony, and was found in the morning pale and
trembling, his eyes starting from his head, and his hair bristling
up. The keepers wondered what he had seen to stamp
such a horror in his look. With the day he recovered his
strength, and tried his gambols afresh. It was the second
morning after this that the turnkey entered his cell, and
placed his food before him, standing aside while he despatched
it if he choose. This officer was square and
heavy in his frame; but with one of his lower limbs so

far beyond the other in the length that he had the appearance,
as he came along the gallery, swinging his long arms,
and stretching it out before him, of working a great wheel
the revolutions of which drove him on. He stood against
the door, his long limb planted before him like a table, and
on this he rested his elbow, and regarded Fyler, who
made it a part of his scheme, to devour such food as was
set before him, with the ravening eagerness of a wolf.

“I suppose you're aware the hanging comes off next
Friday?” said the turnkey, by way of sharpening his appetite.

“That's a capital idea!” answered Fyler Close, looking
up from his meal, “I hope I'll have flitters and fresh
biscuit for breakfast that morning: Whose to be hung,
eh?—”

“You are the queerest chap!” pursued the turnkey,
slapping his long leg with his knuckles. “Why, next
Friday's you're day—you own it and can do jist what you
please with it till twelve o'clock. It's only a half apple,
after all. Next Friday's got no afternoon to you, old chap.
Now, between ourselves, aint you afeard to die?”

This interrogatory moved Mr. Close's mirthful feelings
greatly: he rose from his bench, tossed his knife and fork
high in the air—and marching to the basket that had
brought his food, and which was at the turnkey's side, he
cast in the great blue plate from which he had eaten, as if
it had been a huge coin, and said: “There, sir—there's
two hundred and fifty thousand dollars for the bread and
steak.” He broke into a dance which extended through
the cell, and occasionally included his bed, upon which he
mounted, by way of interlude.

The turnkey was answered: he gathered the basket
under his arm—turned for a look at Fyler, shaking his
head—and locking the door, set his wheel in motion and
moved away.

A week only. Fyler began, in his mind, to see the gallows-tree
rising in the yard. Instead of sleeping now, as
he had done all along, with some comfort, he spent the
better part of the night, standing upon his bed, which he
had drawn there, stretching himself up, his whole length,
and gazing through the narrow window of his cell, to catch a
sight of men moving in the yard below, or the stars, or the

line of dusky light that rose beyond the prison-wall, where
men were free, and walked the streets unchained. A week
only. The chance of a commission to inquire into his
madness, with a hope of which he had toiled so hard and
long in his freaks, seemed fading fast and leaving him manacled
more than ever. One trial more and he would fix
his mind. The next day when the turnkey came in he
took him apart, as though there had been a great crowd listening
to catch every word that dropped, and in a mysterious
whisper made known that he had great news for the
keeper, and begged him to be brought at once. The
turnkey turned about and stared at Fyler, but not knowing
what there might be in his wish, went away and presently
came back announcing that the keeper was at hand.
This was no sooner made known than Fyler, standing out
upon the floor, and fixing his hand, bent up after the fashion
of a born, began blowing furious blasts. The keeper
was a stout personage, with an inquiring nose, and dark
brows; he stood in the door, filling it to a hair, and looking
doubtfully at Fyler, asked what this meant?

“That's what he calls his Final Trump,” answered the
turnkey; “he was blowing trumpets all last night.”

When he had blown not less than forty peals, Fyler
came down his cell, and taking the keeper by the collar,
led him into the middle, and turned him about so that
he faced a blanket pinned against the wall. Having
provided him with this eligible point of view, he pulled
down the blanket and disclosed a great number of rude
figures, sketched upon the stone in chalk.

“What's all this?” asked the keeper, again.

“You know he's a angel of fire, sir, as was shown at
the Oyer,” answered the turnkey; “and these is his victims!”

On a closer inspection, one of them was found to resemble
not a little the long judge; there was another, a little
shambling figure with one eye out, and another, heavy-browed,
and solid of port as he could be made to appear
in rude chalk. This the turnkey thought was a juror who
had pressed matters against Fyler at the trial. They
were all scarcely more than scrambling lines upon the
wall; about them was a great pother of shrubby marks
and scratches—this was the fire.

“Well, sir,” said the keeper to Fyler, when he had
studied the lines a while; “What are you going to do
with these gentlemen—with this one for instance?” pointing
to the long judge.

“He's in for a couple of hundred years, only,” answered
Fyler; “but it's a slow fire, and it'll roast him tender
before his time's out.”

“You don't give a juryman as much as a judge?” asked
the keeper.

Fyler feigned to be all abroad for an answer till the
question was renewed by the turnkey, when it appeared
that he had allotted to the juror for special reasons, a fire
that was to last three hundred and twenty-five years and
a day.

But the fire seemed by all odds to rage hottest in the
neighborhood of the little figure with the single eye; he
seemed to have never tired of piling on the fuel, and as
far as chalk could represent, it was all a live coal. At
first Fyler said that was to burn a week—then he added
a year—then a hundred years—and so kept on extending
his term, till the keeper, out of all patience, broke away.

“A clear lunacy case as ever was!” said the turnkey,
appealing to the keeper with deference.

“Hold your tongue!” rejoined the keeper; “there will
be no more lunacy cases. The governor was gammoned
in the last case. Wearing spectacles without glasses and
eating sticks for beef steaks wont go any longer. Lock
the door and come along!”

Fyler pondered on what fell from the keeper. Another
rivet held his prison door—how should that and all others
be drawn at once? That same afternoon he read in his
cell, by close stealth, although no soul was present, a
paper which had got there, heaven knows how. Late
the night before a mysterious figure, more like a goblin
with interminable legs than any thing else, (it might have
been Ishmael Small,) had stalked in the street at the
back of the prison; some said afterwards it had climbed
the wall. As the paper fell through his window, dropped
from above, this might be so. Whatever it was, and whoever
might be its sender, it quickened his thoughts not a
little. It was clearly expedient for him to get back into
his wits at once. Accordingly when the turnkey brought

his supper that night, he found Fyler quietly seated and
looking about him with the air of one just wakened from
a dream.

“Where am I? who am I?” said Fyler. “How long
have I been in this place?”

“Why, old fellow, you're in the Tombs, Centre-street,”
answered the turnkey, “where you've been these four
weeks and better; and as to who you are, you're Fyler
Close as you was yesterday, and the day afore, and the
day afore that. That's who you are.”

“You must be wrong,” rejoined Fyler, quite calmly.
“I have been asleep twenty-five years or so, I think.
What a dream I've had! Angels about me in swarms,
dressed in handsome red dresses, and beautiful cherubs
carrying sticks with gilt tops.”

“Oh, oh!” cried the turnkey, slapping his long knee
like one that makes a great discovery—“I see how it is:
them red angels that was about you so thick was volunteer
firemen; and as for the cherubs they're nothing else
but the indefatigables that you see in court on your trial
with their staves. Oh, oh—that's a very good one, Mr.
Prisoner. I see you're a coming-to.”

“So I think, too,” continued Fyler, placidly. “And now
that I have got back to this sinful world, I'd like a slice or
two of the bread o' life, just to cheer me up and keep me
from fainting.”

“Something in the way of a parson, eh?” asked the
turnkey, looking curiously at him. Fyler gave him to understand
it was; “If that's it, you can have a whole loaf:
we have a wonderful run of blackcoats to this prison.
They come here to get moral texts for their sermons: you'll
be a capital one—and when it's known, won't there be a
competition! I guess not!” The turnkey laughed disdainfully
at himself: and Fyler hoped he might be made
a good text, and be a comfort to some poor creatures in
that way. The turnkey took his basket and keys and
went away; but presently returned and, putting his head
in at the door, asked Fyler “What he'd begin with?”

“You may send me a Presbyterian gentleman, if you
please,” said Fyler.

“You shall have one fresh and first-rate,” answered the
turnkey. “I'm glad you're come-to, old feller, you'll

hang so much cheerfuller. Good night!” He locked the
cell, and propelled himself at an increased speed along the
gallery, making known to the other keepers, as he passed,
that the old prisoner was in his wits again.

The Presbyterian came. Fyler eyed him sharply: he
was tall and narrow-faced. After a very brief interview
he left, finding the prisoner not open to his counsels. Fyler
confessed he didn't like his views of predestination at all,
and called for another parson. The next was large and
stout: and Fyler discovered there was an irreconcileable
difference in their notions of total depravity. Then there
came another, a short square man, who broached such
doctrine on the subject of infant baptism that Fyler almost
drove him from his cell. What a delicate conscience this
prisoner had, and how hard to please! He had but three
days more to live, and they would give him such comfort
as they could. At last there came along, after so many
trials, a snug little man, about Fyler's size, who wore a
wig, and whose religious views harmonized so entirely
with Fyler's that the broker took a fancy to him at once, and
made him spend hours with him in his cell. Fyler spared
no pains to cultivate an intimacy, and was not backward
in showing his affectionate regard for the little parson.
One night, after a long and delightful interview, in which
the little parson had inculcated a great number of excellent
principles, Fyler said to him, “Did it ever occur to
you how much we resemble each other in look?” The
little parson confessed it had not.

“Now I'll show that it is so,” said Fyler; “Let me
take your wig a minute.”

He accordingly removed it from the parson's head, and
placed it on his own.

“It would be so odd,” said Fyler laughing, “if any one
should come in now—I guess I'll fasten the door.”

He drew a string, which was somehow or other hanging
there, and the door was held close.

“Now let me have your coat,” said Fyler. The little
parson yielded it with some show of reluctance. Then
he took his vest, his pantaloons, his shoes; then he put on
his neck-stock and his plain black hat.

“Isn't the resemblance wonderful?” asked Fyler, giving
the parson, who stood shivering by, a look that made him

shake a little more. Fyler then invited him to another
quarter of the cell, where he insisted it would be to his
advantage to have a bandage put about his arms and
waist, to keep him from catching cold. The little parson
might have made some trifling objection, but he saw that
in Fyler's look which silenced him.

“It must be death to one of your tender constitution,”
said Fyler, “if you should get into the gallery in your
present state.” He bound him to a ring in the floor,
and fastened an end of the cord to the water-fascet, so
that the least motion on the part of the parson would
flood the cell. He then placed in his hands the pocket
Bible he had brought in with him, and opening it at the
book of Job, and commending patience to him, as the best
virtue under present circumstances, he left him—shivering
and bald-headed—upon the floor, and stepped lightly
forth.

Moving smoothly along in his parson's dress, and catching
as much of the parson's gait as he could, he reached
the prison-yard. When his feet struck the ground he
felt free—but looking up, with the high prison walls about
him, he breathed hard again, like one at the bottom of a
well. The sky was strangely overcast, and a chill crept
through his frame. The officers of the lower door were
away, and he was obliged to pass through the Session's
court-room. He stole up the steps, and looked through
the glass door leading from the prison-yard into the court.
A trial was going forward, and the court-room was thick
with people. He looked on for a moment with a curious
eye, remembering his own; and then shrunk back, shuddering
at the prospect of passing through. With a keen
sense in himself of what his parson's dress concealed, he
feared they might seize him and hurl him back to the cell
he had left. He opened the door—the officers glanced at
his black coat, and tapped the nearest of the crowd to
give him way. With a respect for the errand of charity
on which they supposed he had been bound, they fell
back, leaving a wide space through which he must pass
to the outer door. He would rather they had stood close
packed, and treated him in that regard like the meanest
of themselves. At length, with a heart fifty times at his
throat, he was upon the outer stairs; creeping stealthily

down from column to column, he reached the street. He
started forward at a swift pace, but becoming presently
confused, he halted and looked about. There was a
trouble in the sky—a darkness, not of tempest or customary
clouds; an eclipse was brooding above him. A cold
shadow filled the air, and Fyler was bewildered and
alarmed. At first he went to the right, and coming upon
an object that told him he was wrong, he returned upon
his track and went as far astray on the other hand. He
had lost his way, and seemed to have forgotten, all at
once, the bearings of the streets. While he wandered, in
this uncertain mood, the cold drops starting to his brow,
there came upon the wind a loud clamor of drums and
trumpets and marching feet. Torches flashed upon the
darkness—as a long procession turned a corner—and
Fyler, aided by their light, crept along a coal-yard wall.

In a minute more he was at an opening of the Great
Sewer, which was undergoing repair; falling flat upon his
face that no eye might watch him, he crept down its mouth,
holding on to the broken stones and fastenings of iron with
his hands, till he reached the bottom. He heard the tread
of feet above him—a gleam of light—and all laws silence
and darkness. How far within he ever groped his way
was never known, nor what scheme he had in view, unless
it might have been—wild and bold enough—to escape in
this way to the river, where Ishmael Small, it was said,
had been seen for many hours hovering in a boat about that
mouth of the Sewer.

Nor was Ishmael himself, who had the morning after the
arrest borne away an old trunk or two from the den in Pell-street,
seen after that night. The last act that could tell
where the broker stopped, was, that passers-by had heard
at a certain place, as they crossed the street, a sharp and
dreadful cry for help, riving the very earth beneath their
feet. The broker's body, perishing thus amid all the foulness
and infamy of the city's drain, was never found.