The Duchess of Rosemary Lane. A Novel

CHAPTER VIII

Early the next morning, while Mrs. Chester, weary and sad-hearted, was watching by the bedside of her son, the tongues of the neighbours were wagging over extravagant accounts of the occurrences of the night. The early breakfasts were eaten with more than ordinary relish, and a pleasant animation pervaded the neighbourhood. The pictures that were drawn by the gossips of the return of the prodigal son, and of the scenes that took place in the house of the Chesters, culminating with the frightful struggle, were not drawn in black and white. Colour was freely and liberally laid on, and the most praiseworthy attention was paid to detail during the circulation of the various editions. Thus, Mrs. Smith, who had it from Mrs. Jones, who had it from Mrs. Weatherall, who had it from Mrs. Chizlet, who had it from Mrs. Johnson, who had it from Mrs. Ball, who had it from Mrs. Pascoe, who had it from Mrs. Midge, "who lives in the house, my dear!" happening to meet Mrs. Phillips, was most careful and precise in her description of Ned Chester prowling about the house for nights and nights, of his adventures during the last four years, of the interview between him and his father, of the father wishing to turn the son out of the house, of the son refusing to go, of the mother interposing, and begging on her knees that her husband would not be so cruel to their only boy, of his flinging her brutally aside, of the commencement of the struggle and its duration, of the setting fire to the house, and the mercy it was that the lodgers weren't all burnt in their beds, and of a hundred other details the truth of which it was next to impossible to doubt.

On the second day, an entrancing addition was made to these pictures. It was discovered that there was a child in the house, a mere baby-"one of the most beautiful little creatures you ever set eyes on, Mrs. Phillips!" – a child whom none of the neighbours had ever before seen. Now, whose child was it? Clearly, the child of the prodigal son. The likeness was so wonderful that there could be no doubt of it. This at once cleared up a mysterious thread in the terrible struggle between father and son. For it now came to be said that when Ned Chester's hand, with a glittering knife in it, was raised to strike the deadly blow, the child, with its lovely face and golden hair, had with bold innocence seized her father's hand, and taken the knife from him. Aroused by the child's beauty to a proper sense of the dreadful deed he was about to commit, Ned Chester burst into tears, fell upon his knees, and clasped his baby to his breast. This was a good domestic touch, and was enthusiastically received.

But where was the mother of the interesting child who had so providentially arrested the uplifted hand of her father, and saved him from the commission of a dreadful crime? An answer to this question was easily found. Ned Chester had married, and had come home with his child. He had married a lady "with money." First she was a governess; then the daughter of a sea-captain; then the daughter of a retired sugar-baker, who had amassed an independence; lastly, she was a nobleman's daughter, who had fallen in love and had eloped with handsome Ned. Where, then, was the mother? Dead? Oh, no. The noble father, after hunting for his daughter for three years, at length discovered her, and tore her from her husband's arms-this being distinctly legal according to the Rosemary Lane understanding of the law as it affected the families of the aristocracy. But Ned Chester, determined not to be parted from his little girl, had fled with her to the home of his childhood, which he reached after many perilous escapes from the pursuing father-in-law. The romance attached to this imaginative and highly-coloured version rendered it very alluring, and it was implicitly believed in. Thus the story grew, and passed from mouth to mouth.

While the gossips were busy with her and hers, Mrs. Chester had her hands and heart full. Her husband, bruised in body and spirit, lay ill in hospital, her son, beset by dangerous fancies, lay ill at home. In these larger responsibilities, the small circumstance of the non-appearance of the new tenant who had brought a strange child into her domestic circle scarcely found place in her mind.

The lovely lad, Ned Chester, was in the sorest of straights. What kind of life he had led during the years he had been absent from home might readily be guessed from his present condition. It not being safe to leave him alone, Mrs. Chester was at her wits' end how to manage, but she found an unexpected and useful ally in the strange child who had found a place in her poor household. She made the discovery on the second day of her son's illness, when, with eyes dilated with terror, he was describing, with wonderful minuteness, two horrible creatures created by his delirium, which were standing at the foot of his bed. Mrs. Chester listened to him with a sinking heart.

"There! there!" he cried, rising in his bed, and clutching his mother's hand with such violence that she moaned with pain. "Do you not see them? They are coming closer and closer! Give me a knife! Give me a knife!"

With shuddering shrieks he hid his face in the bedclothes, and during this interval Sally and her baby-treasure entered the room.

"Go out, child! go out!" exclaimed Mrs. Chester, fearful lest, should her son see the children, he should do them some violence in his paroxysm. But Sally's cravings were too strong for obedience. The breadwinner of the family being no longer able to work, the supplies ran short, and Sally's need for food for herself and her precious charge was most pressing. She had come to ask for bread.

Ned Chester raised his wild and haggard face from the pillow, and his eyes fell upon the form of the strange child. The effect produced upon him by her appearance during the fateful struggle with his father was repeated. The terrible look departed from his eyes, the delirious fancies faded from his imagination.

"They are gone-they are gone!" he sighed, and sinking back upon his bed again, he gazed with a kind of worship upon the child, and gradually passed into a more peaceful mood.

Dr. Lyon, an able, sensible, poor doctor, to whom the tide which leads to fortune had never yet come, regarded her husband's condition as the more serious of the two.

"Your son will get over it," he said to Mrs. Chester; "with him it is only a matter of time and nursing. He is playing havoc with his constitution, but he is young as yet. It is different with your husband, who is no longer a young man. He has been a heavy drinker all his life. He has received a shock," continued Dr. Lyon, "which may lead to a serious result."

These words brought to Mrs. Chester's mind forebodings of fresh trouble; visions of a coroner's inquest flitted before her, and of her son arraigned for the murder of his father. She trembled from fear, but wisely held her tongue; meanwhile it devolved upon Sally to provide for the material wants of her treasure-baby. She proved equal to the occasion, and played the part of Little Mother in a manner at once affectionate and ingenious. Children in Sally Chester's station of life learn quickly some very strange lessons being from necessity precocious. Of course she knew her way to the pawnbroker's. She had noted the superior texture of her baby-treasure's garments, and one by one they were "put in pawn," and were replaced by such of Sally's belongings as the Little Mother could conveniently spare. Thus the little stranger was gradually transformed, until she became in outward appearance as to the manner born in the locality in which her childhood was to be passed, and in this way Sally obtained food, and supported herself and her charge during the illness of her lovely lad of a brother.

Every movement made, and every word spoken, by the strange child were, of course, of the deepest interest to Sally, and were magnified by Sally's admiring sense. The child could babble but a few words, and of these "mama" was the principal. That she was conscious of a marked and inexplicable change in her condition of life was clearly evident, but, except for a certain wonderingly-mournful manner in which she gazed around her, fixing her eyes always on one object for full two or three minutes before removing them to another, and for a habit she had, for the first few weeks of her sojourn in Rosemary Lane, of sobbing quietly to herself, there was nothing especially noticeable in her but her beauty-which was so remarkable as to draw upon her the affectionate attention of every person who saw her.

By this time Ned Chester had recovered from his delirium, and once more took his place among the residents of Rosemary Lane, evincing, for the present, no inclination to play truant again.

He took a strange pleasure in the society of the child, and exhibited so marked a partiality for her that the impression among the neighbours that he was her father gained strength. But upon being questioned on the matter, he denied it distinctly. "She's no child of mine," he said roughly, and called his mother to prove it. Then the true story became known-to the displeasure of the Rosemary Lane folk, who, by a singular process of reasoning, considered themselves injured because the romance was stripped from the history. Baby's beauty alone prevented her from being looked upon with disfavour.

As the days went by, Mrs. Chester found it a harder and harder task to live, and but for the kindness of the neighbours to Sally and the baby, the children would have often gone to bed with empty stomachs. Looking about for a friend in her distress, Mrs. Chester consulted Dr. Lyon, with a vague hope that he might be able to assist her. He listened patiently and kindly to Mrs. Chester's story.

"Let us look the matter straight in the face," he said, when she had concluded; "you have no resources-no money, I mean."

"None," she sighed.

"Your husband is in the hospital, and there is no saying how long it will be before he comes out. I should say that if even he does come out, which is doubtful, he will be no longer able to work."

There was no cruel delicacy about Dr. Lyon; he knew the class he ministered for, and he invariably spoke plainly and to the point, and always with kindness.

Mrs. Chester nodded a mournful assent.

"Your furniture has been seized for rent, and you have no home-to speak of."

Mrs. Chester nodded again.

"And," he continued, "it is clearly a necessity that you must live. Listen to this letter."

He read to her a letter from a country union, forty miles from London, which wanted a matron; residence and rations free; wages 18l. per annum.

"I think I have sufficient influence to obtain the situation for you," said Dr. Lyon. "You are a kind woman, and I can recommend you."

Hope lighted up Mrs. Chester's face-for one moment only.

"It's forty miles away," she murmured, and added, "and there's Sally!"

"Upon that," said Dr. Lyon, "I cannot advise you. Go home, and sleep upon it, and give me your answer the day after to-morrow."

She thanked him' and walked slowly out of his consulting-room, which was about as large as a pill box; but returned within five minutes to ask him now much a week eighteen pounds a year would give her.

"Seven shillings," he replied.

Mrs. Chester went home filled with sorrowful contemplation of this sad crisis in her life. To part from Sally would be like tearing a string from her heart; but if it was for the child's good! – Yet even if she could calmly contemplate the separation, where could she place the child? There was the practical difficulty, in the solution of which she played no direct part.

So entirely occupied had Sally been with her duties as Little Mother, that since her first introduction to the reader she had not fainted dead away, as her wont and seemingly her pleasure were. But while the conversation between the mother and Dr. Lyon was proceeding, Sally once more indulged, and swooned off suddenly and unexpectedly. There were only herself and her baby-charge present, and they were sitting on the floor in the one room to which Mrs. Chester was now reduced. It was evening, and dusk, and the baby-child, naturally supposing that Sally had gone to sleep, crawled close to the insensible form of her friend and protector, and placing her face upon Sally's breast, fell asleep also. In this position Mrs. Chester found them when she arrived home.

Sally did not stir when her mother raised and shook her. Then the mother, rushing to a despairing conclusion, wrung her hands, and moaned that her child had died of starvation. What extravagance of emotion she might have exhibited in her grief it is hard to say; but a slight movement from the child assured her that she was mistaken in her impression. She ran hurriedly back to Dr. Lyon, and begged him to come and see Sally immediately.

"It is only one of the old attacks," he said to the grief-stricken mother, as they stood together by the poor bed on which the children were lying, "but brought about now by a different cause. See, she is sensible now. Sally, what is the matter with you?"

"I am hungry," moaned Sally, "and so is baby. We've only had a slice of bread between us to-day."

Dr. Lyon looked at the mother's white face, and bit his lips hard.

"Do not leave the children," he said. "I will send in some medicine in five minutes."

The medicine duly arrived in the shape of a four-pound loaf of bread, a small pat of butter, a two-ounce packet of tea, and a little sugar. On the loaf of bread was stuck an apothecary's label, with the written inscription, "To be taken at once with a cup of hot tea." The mother burst into tears, and set about preparing the medicine for the children. But Dr. Lyon had forgotten that to make hot tea a fire was necessary. Mrs. Chester had no coals. There was nothing of value in the room, and there was no time to lose. She stood by the cold empty grate, considering for a moment. Her eyes fell upon her wedding ring. It was all of the world's goods she had remaining. A melancholy freak it was that induced her to creep to Sally's side and say:

"Sally, I'm going to make you some nice tea, and good Dr. Lyon has sent you some nice bread-and-butter."

"Oh," replied Sally, in a whisper, "I'm so glad-so glad! Make haste, mother, make haste! You don't know how hungry we are."

"I must run out and get some coals, dear child," said the mother. "You'll lay still, wont you?"

"Yes, mother."

"Kiss this, my dear," said the mother, with a sob, placing the wedding-ring to Sally's lips.

Sally, without any understanding of her mother's meaning, kissed the ring, and then kissed her mother, whose tears bathed her neck.

"Don't cry, mother," said Sally; "it ain't your fault."

"Heaven knows it ain't, my sweet," replied the mother; and with a heart made lighter by Sally's embrace, ran out, and soon returned with wood and coals.

That night Sally, lying awake, but supposed to be asleep, overheard a full account of her mother's troubles, as they were related to the brother who had brought this trouble upon them. Mrs. Chester did not reproach her boy, being indeed utterly blind to his faults; and she confided to him only because she yearned for sympathy and counsel. He was ready enough with both-with heartless sympathy and empty counsel-devouring a great part of the loaf of bread as he bestowed them after the fashion of his nature, and greedily drinking the tea which his mother poured out for him with ready hand and loving heart.

"And you think I had better accept the situation, Ned, if I can get it?"

"I don't see what else is to be done. I've got nothing."

"I know that, I know that," interrupted the mother tenderly. "Or you would never see us want."

"Of course I wouldn't," replied the lovely lad, in a whining tone; "but luck's against me-it's been against me all my life!"

"It'll turn one day, Ned, you see if it won't," said the mother, gazing, from force of habit, with infatuation, at the mole on his temple; "and then when you're a rich man you'll take care of your poor mother, whose heart is almost broken at the thought of parting from her children, won't you, Ned?"

The piteous words and the more piteous tone in which they were uttered elicited from the vagabond son nothing but a sulky promise-as intangible as the air into which it was breathed-that when he was a rich man, he wouldn't forget the mother that bore him.

"It must be done, then," sighed Mrs. Chester; "there's no help for it. But where am I to put Sally? Who's to look after her? Eighteen pounds a year is seven shillings a week. I could give half of that, three-and-sixpence a week, for her keep. It might be managed that way."

"Half of eighteen pound," grumbled Ned, "is nine pound. If I had nine pound, I could make my fortune."

"Whatever I can spare, you shall have, Ned. But Sally comes first. She's not old enough to look after herself, and she's a girl, remember."

Which had no other effect upon Ned than to make him wish he was a girl, for girls always had the best of everything, and he couldn't be worse off than he was-an unconsciously-uttered truism, of which he did not see the point. They stopped up talking for an hour longer, and by midnight the room was quiet and dark. Mrs. Chester did not sleep; she lay awake all the night, thinking of the sad change in her fortunes which was about to take place.

CHAPTER IX

Sally, walking about the streets the next morning, with her baby in her arms, was aware that a critical change in her prospects was impending, which threatened to separate her and the child who was now part of her life; and as far as such a mite as she can be said to determine, she resolved that such a separation should never take place. She would run away into the wide, wide world.

She set off at as good a pace as her little legs could achieve, but the child she carried was no light weight for one of her tender years, and before she had extricated herself from the labyrinth of courts, alleys, and narrow streets which intersected Rosemary Lane, she was exhausted. Leaning against the wall, she looked up to the sky with a sad and weary face. She had never forgotten the beautiful dream she had dreamt on the night of her brother's return, and it now recurred to her, bringing with it a dim hope that something wondrous might happen to aid her in her difficulty. If she had been acquainted with the history of Jack and his Beanstalk, she would have audibly wished for a tree-up which she could climb into a kinder land than Rosemary Lane. But although no miracle brought light to Sally's troubled soul, something happened which seemed to her very wonderful.

She had halted immediately before a cobbler's stall, and the face she saw as she looked down to earth was that of Seth Dumbrick the cobbler-no other, indeed, than the cobbler who in Sally's dream had appeared to her in the clouds, mending boots and shoes for the angels. Here was the realisation of Sally's dim hope. Fancies of grand processions and magic trees and angels in the clouds thronged her mind, revolving around two central figures-the sweet figure of her beautiful child, and the strange one of this queer-looking cobbler whose chin had not met razor's edge for a week.

Seth Dumbrick, observing Sally's agitation, and also attracted by the children, paused in his work, and spoke to Sally. She did not hear the words, but the voice of the man was kind, and that was sufficient to give colour to her hope.

"O Mr. Dumbrick," she exclaimed, pressing her hands to her breast, and gazing upon the cobbler with eyes open to their fullest extent. "It was you I dreamt of-it was you!"

"Ah, Sally," was Seth Dumbrick's calm comment, "it was me you dreamt of, eh? What sort of a dream?"

"Oh," cried Sally, "so good-so beautiful!"

"Tell me the dream," said Seth.

Sally gave him a practical reply. "I am so tired, and so hungry! And so's my baby."

Seth's eyes wandered to the baby, who was staring at him solemnly.

"Yours?" he gravely asked of Sally.

"Mine," as gravely answered Sally, with an emphatic nod.

A smile passed over the cobbler's lips. His stall was curiously built in front of a flight of steps leading down to a cellar, in which he lived, and as he sat at work on his platform his face was almost on a level with the pavement. Now, as Sally made reference to her tired and hungry condition, she peered into this cellar. It was dark and safe. If she and her baby could hide there, no one in the world would be able to separate them.

"May I come in?" she begged.

"Come along," said Seth.

There was room on the platform for the children, and Sally, with her baby, joyfully squeezed in, and nestled in the corner, where they could see and be seen by the cobbler, but were almost quite hidden from the passers-by in the street. Seth Dumbrick then, reaching out his hand, opened a little cupboard on his right, and taking from it a loaf of bread, cut two thick slices, over which he spread a careful layer of dripping from a yellow basin. Sprinkling these liberally with salt, he gave them to the children, and proceeded with his work while they ate.

Every movement he made was watched with admiration by Sally, and the disclosure of the cupboard containing food was to her something almost magical.

Seth Dumbrick was a character in the neighbourhood. Not a person in Rosemary Lane was on visiting terms with him, and the children, as they passed and repassed, were in the habit of casting longing looks into the dark shadows of the cellar which had never yet received a guest, and which was popularly supposed to contain rare and precious deposits. The circumstance of his having been seen at various times carrying bottles and jars with living creatures in them imparted an additional interest to his habitation. He was never seen in a public-house or a place of worship.

Everything in this man's face was on a grand scale: there was not a mean feature in it. His lips were full and powerful, his nose was large and of a good shape, his great grey eyes had in them a light and depth which were not easily fathomed, and but for his forehead, which hung over his eyebrows like a precipice, he would have been a well-looking man. But this forehead was of so monstrous a bulk that it engrossed the attention of the observer, and except to those with keen and penetrating insight, destroyed all harmony of feature in the face of the man. His flesh was not over clean; his hands were as hard as horn; he had a week's bristles on his chin, and an old red nightcap on his head.

Before the children had finished their slices of bread-and-dripping, Seth, bending forward, took Sally's boots from her feet, and examined them. They were in sad need of repair, and without a word, Seth began to patch and hammer away at them. Sally's eyes glistened with grateful pleasure.

"And now about that dream of yours, Sally," said Seth Dumbrick, as Sally, after partaking of the last mouthful of bread, wiped her lips with her hand. "Did I have a gold-laced hat and silk stockings on?"

"Oh, no," replied Sally, screwing up her lips, "only you was setting on a stool, mending shoes-as you're doing now."

"Well, that's not much of a dream, Sally. You could dream that dream over again this minute, with your eyes wide open."

"No, I couldn't-no, I couldn't!" protested Sally, with a vigorous shake of her head. "You don't know!"

"Well, go on; I was sitting here mending shoes-"

"No, no," interrupted Sally, "you wasn't sitting here."

"Where, then."

"There!" said Sally, pointing with her finger upwards to the sky.

"There!" echoed Seth, with a startled look, following the line of Sally's finger.

"And angels was flying all about you, and it was their shoes you was mending."

And then Sally related the whole of her dream as circumstantially as it was in her power to do. The narration occupied some time, and at its conclusion Sally's face was red with excitement, and an expression of interest was in Seth Dumbrick's features.

"And I was putting a pair of shining slippers on the feet of this little thing," he said, taking the baby in his arms. "I didn't know you had a little sister, Sal."

"I ain't got none; she ain't my sister-she's my baby."

Seth Dumbrick, holding himself aloof from his neighbours, and not being given to idle chatterings, knew none of the particulars of the child's introduction to Rosemary Lane, and he now learnt them for the first time from Sally's lips.

"Poor little castaway!" he said.

"She wasn't dressed like this when she first come," said Sally.

"No! How then?"

"She had nice things, better than I ever seed."

"What's become of 'em?"

"Pawnbroker's," tersely replied Sally.

"Ah! and you've no idea who or where the pretty little creature's mother is?"

"She never had a mother."

"That's not according to nature, Sally. A mother she must have had."

"No; she had a ma, not a mother. I knew she wasn't like us the first moment I ever see her. That was the night brother Ned come home, and me and baby went to bed together. Then I dreamed that dream of you and the angels. Wasn't it a beautiful dream?"

"It was a rare fine dream, Sally, a rare fine dream! Angels! and Seth Dumbrick a-working for 'em! that's the finest part of it. Seth Dumbrick sitting in the sky, with angels begging of him to mend their shoes! And I'll do it too-when I get there. I'll set up as a cobbler in the clouds, and make my fortune. Ha, ha, ha! Sally, go on dreaming like that, and something'll come of it."

"What'll come of it?" asked literal Sally.

Seth Dumbrick rubbed his chin with his horny hand. The bristles were so strong, and his hand was so hard, that the action produced a rasping sound, such as the rubbing of sand-paper produces.

"There was a woman once, Now her name was Southcott-Joanna Southcott it was. Now she was a poor woman, too, as you'll be."

Sally nodded. She had never bestowed the slightest thought upon the matter, but if she had made it the subject of the most serious contemplation she could have had no other expectation than that of a certainty she would be a poor woman all her life.

"Joanna had dreams, and prophesied. She dreamt of angels and the devil, and had a fight with the devil."

"Did she run away from him, and did he run after her," inquired Sally, almost breathless with excitement, for in her mind at that moment the devil stood for the new tenant who, in her own dream, had tried to destroy her treasure-baby.

"That's not told," answered Seth Dumbrick.

"But she beat him!" suggested Sally, with her little hands tightly clasped.

"She beat him bad, did Joanna. My mother-she was a Devonshire woman, like Joanna-believed in her, and so did a heap of others. And now I come to think of it," said Seth, with a musing glance at the pretty child lying on his leather apron, "there's something strange in Joanna Southcott's name coming into my head in this way. For, you see, Sal, when Joanna was an old woman, she gave out that she was going to be brought to bed with a Prince of Peace; but she never was, more's the pity, for that's the very Prince the world wants badly, and never yet has been able to get. She used to go into trances, used Joanna, and prophesy."

"Tell me," said Sally.

"About 'em? Well, there were so many! She was always at it."

"What's trances?" asked Sally, with feverish excitement, "and what's prophecy?"

"Well, Joanna'd be sitting as you're sitting now, when all at once she'd go off-fall back or forward, insensible. That would be a trance. Then she'd dream something. Then she'd come to, and tell what she dreamt. That'd be a prophecy."

" I do that!" cried Sally, in a fever of excitement. " I fall back and faint dead away-dead away! For a long time. And I don't know nothing that goes on all the time. Oh, my! But I ain't begun to prophesy yet, that I knows on. Tell me, what is prophecy?"

"Something that comes true, or is likely to come true. Now, here and there your dream's a good deal like some of Joanna's dreams. She was a prophetess; my mother had some of her writings. Fine writings, promising fine things. You look out, Sally. You keep on dreaming and fainting dead away, and some day perhaps you'll prophesy."

Sally nodded. Her eyes were full of fire, her little lips were parted in wonder, and in her childish mind strange and yearning hopes and cunning designs were beginning to stir.

"That dream of yours," proceeded Seth Dumbrick, in all earnestness, "might signify something. There's a mighty deal in it to an understanding mind. If you were older than you are, Sally, I'd asked you to commence and prophesy."

Sally answered by another nod. Indeed, fascinated by the earnestness of the speaker, no less than by the mystery which seemed hidden in his words, Sally's head oscillated up and down with regular motion, following with ready acquiescence the current of Seth Dumbrick's utterances.

"Other people have had dreams," said Seth Dumbrick, "that signify something, and led to something. There was Maria Marten. You know about her."

Sally, who had seen the tragedy of Maria Marten, or the Murder at the Red Barn enacted at a penny show, replied eagerly:

"I've seed her! and I've seed the pickaxe-and the grave-and the blood!"

"That all came of a dream. A mole-catcher her father was, and she was a fine young woman. The girl went away from home one fine day, dressed up in man's clothes. She had a sweetheart, and she was going to meet him to be married. But instead of taking her to church her sweetheart took her to the Red Barn, and shot her. Now it was a year afterwards that Maria appeared to her mother in a dream-"

"Yes, yes!" cried Sally. "Dressed in a white bedgownd. She was at the show."

" – and said that she'd been murdered, and buried in the Red Barn. Well, her mother told her dream, and the peopled laughed at her. But the ghost came to her a second time the next night, and a third time the next, and then the mother wouldn't be denied. They went to the Red Barn, and there they found Maria, done up in a sack, and buried under the floor. Every word of it is true. Now," said Seth, graciously and condescendingly, as though he were about to present Sally with a large piece of plum-cake, "I'll tell you something that I wouldn't tell to everybody. I saw that man hung."