Sketches by Boz - Penn State University

Charles Dickensyesterday; and some forgotten phrase, some childish used when he loved her—long, long ago, before miseryword, rings in his ears like the echo of one uttered but and ill-treatment had altered her looks, and vice hada minute since. The voice of the clergyman recalls him changed his nature, and she is leaning upon his arm, andto himself. He is reading from the sacred book its solemnpromises of pardon for repentance, and its awful and he does NOT strike her now, nor rudely shake herlooking up into his face with tenderness and affection—denunciation of obdurate men. He falls upon his knees from him. And oh! how glad he is to tell her all he hadand clasps his hands to pray. Hush! what sound was forgotten in that last hurried interview, and to fall on histhat? He starts upon his feet. It cannot be two yet. knees before her and fervently beseech her pardon for allHark! Two quarters have struck; —the third—the fourth. the unkindness and cruelty that wasted her form andIt is! Six hours left. Tell him not of repentance! Six broke her heart! The scene suddenly changes. He is onhours’ repentance for eight times six years of guilt and his trial again: there are the judge and jury, and prosecutors,and witnesses, just as they were before. How fullsin! He buries his face in his hands, and throws himselfon the bench.the court is—what a sea of heads—with a gallows, too,Worn with watching and excitement, he sleeps, and and a scaffold—and how all those people stare at him!the same unsettled state of mind pursues him in his Verdict, ‘Guilty.’ No matter; he will escape.dreams. An insupportable load is taken from his breast; The night is dark and cold, the gates have been lefthe is walking with his wife in a pleasant field, with the open, and in an instant he is in the street, flying frombright sky above them, and a fresh and boundless prospecton every side—how different from the stone walls are cleared, the open fields are gained and the broad,the scene of his imprisonment like the wind. The streetsof Newgate! She is looking—not as she did when he saw wide country lies before him. Onward he dashes in theher for the last time in that dreadful place, but as she midst of darkness, over hedge and ditch, through mud213