University of Virginia Library

5. PART V.

The morning of Edward's execution arrived, and
the sun shone brightly through the bars of his cell.
A clergyman, his friend the Methodist minister, who
had been the past year on a distant circuit, and hearing
of Edward's fate, hastened to give him spiritual
consolation, was seated beside him. Edward's face
was as placid as a child's. His pulse throbbed evenly,
and his whole manner was composed, for Edward was
prepared to die! The clergyman who came to administer
hope and consolation, in his last hours, felt that
he could sit at his feet, and learn of him!

The turning of keys, and the grating of bolts, at
length disturbed their heavenly communion. The
chaplain, in tears pressed Edward's hand, as the cell
door opened and the officer of justice entered. Politely
accosting the prisoner, he said with a faltering voice,
“I am ready to attend you, Mr. Carrington.”

Edward heard the summons without any other
emotion than a heightened color and slight tremor
of the lip. This tribute due to nature, passed,
and all was again serenity and peace. Taking the

arm of the sheriff, he was conducted by him to a carriage
in waiting at the door. The clergyman and
Judge Ellice, who had manifested a deep interest in
the prisoner, accompanied them in the carriage. They
then slowly moved through the dense multitude towards
the gallows, which was erected on a common
near the town. The prisoner descended from the carriage,
and leaning upon the sheriff and chaplain,
walked with a firm step to the foot of the scaffold,
which he ascended unsupported. His head was bared,
his neck-cloth removed, and his collar turned back
from his neck. His youthful appearance and resigned
air, created in his favor a general sensation of sympathy.
After the chaplain had addressed the throne
of grace, and embraced him, Edward, by the direction
of the sheriff, placed himself upon the “drop.” He
then cast his eyes over the blue heavens, the green
earth, the vast multitude, as if he were bidding adieu
to all, then exchanging last adieus with the judge, the
chaplain, and the sheriff, he raised his eyes, and gazed
steadfastly up to heaven, as if he had bid farewell
to all earthly scenes.

The sheriff was adjusting the fatal knot with professional
dexterity, when a loud shriek mingled with
the shouting of men's voices, and the rattling of distant
wheels, broke the awful silence reigning over the
dense multitude, and drew the eyes of every one from
the scaffold towards the southern extremity of the common,
over which, in the direction of the place of execution,
a carriage was whirled with the speed of the
wind. Out of one of the windows leaned a young
lady, waving a handkerchief, and uttering shriek on
shriek, while a gentleman on the coach-box wildly
waved his hat, and added his voice to hers, “Stop!
stop! Hold! for mercy hold! He is innocent! Hold!”
The next moment the carriage dashed into the crowd,
which retired on all sides in confusion at its reckless
approach. It drew up suddenly, within a few feet of

the gallows, when Isabel sprung out, and fell senseless
into the arms of Judge Ellice, who had recognised, and
flown to open the door for her.

“For God's sake, Mr. Sheriff, stay the execution
for a moment! There is certain proof of this young
gentleman's innocence,” cried Dr. Morton, springing
from the coach-box to the ground.

The sheriff was a man of humanity: and as there
were yet several minutes to expire before the time
would elapse for his prisoner's execution, he waited
in surprise the result of this extraordinary interruption.

In a few minutes Isabel revived, and gazing round
upon the fearful apparatus of death, cried, with a
shudder, as she covered her eyes with her hand, “He
is innocent! Oh God, he is innocent! The ring! the
ring! Oh, bring me to Judge Ellice!”

“He is here! by your side, Miss Willis,” said the
judge, with sympathy.

She looked up into his face steadily for a moment,
as if not fully recognising him, and then exclaimed
with thrilling energy, “Yes! it is you—you I want!
Oh give me the ring!” and seeing it upon his finger,
as he hastily drew off his glove, she seized it and tore
it from his finger, touched the concealed spring, and
tremblingly drew forth the concealed paper, which she
herself had placed there, and faintly articulating,
“Read!—read!” again fainted away. Judge Ellice
unfolded the paper and read its contents, with which
the reader is already acquainted, in speechless amazement.
The next moment springing upon the scaffold,
he placed it in the hands of the sheriff, briefly explained
the manner in which he had received the ring.
This gentleman read it with no less surprise, and as
he finished it, he threw the rope from his hand, exclaiming,
“He is innocent!”

“There is no doubt of it,” said the judge; “what
a wonderful interposition of Providence!”

They both embraced the prisoner, expressing their
firm belief in his innocence. The multitude shouted,
“A pardon!—a pardon!” though subsequently the
facts were made public.

The sheriff, on his own responsibility, suspended the
execution, and Edward was reconveyed to prison, to
await a pardon from the governor, to whom communicating
all the particulars, both the judge and sheriff
immediately wrote. The judge informing him that
he was wholly ignorant that the ring was a locket—
that it had never been removed from his finger from
the moment it was placed there by Miss Willis, by the
direction of the deceased Mrs. Carrington—and that
the ring was on his finger four weeks before her supposed
murder. “I confess,” he concluded, “that there
are more things in heaven and earth, than are dreamed
of in my philosophy. So remarkable an interposition
of Divine Providence, to term it nothing else,
should not, by short-sighted mortals, be treated with
neglect. In such cases it becomes us to wonder and
obey.”

The governor granted Edward a reprieve for a
second trial, or a full pardon, as he chose. He accepted
the pardon, and was conveyed in Isabel's carriage
to Laurel Hill. He lingered here a few weeks, and
then his spirit departed to join that of his beloved
Charlotte, in that world where there is neither sorrow
nor sighing, and where all tears shall be wiped away
from our eyes.