He made no attempt to escape, and confessed the crime.After his imprisonment he behaved in a most decorous manner; he won upon the good opinion of the jail chaplain, and he was visited by the Bishop of Lincoln.It does not appear that he expressed any contrition for the crime, but seemed to pass away with triumphant certainty that he was going to rejoin his victim in heaven.He was visited by some pious and benevolent ladies of Nottingham, some of whom declared he was a child of God, if ever there was one.One of the ladies sent him a while camellia to wear at his execution."]
You will live in New Hampshire.In your sharp need and distress the Brown family will succor you--such of them as Pike the assassin left alive.They will be benefactors to you.When you shall have grown fat upon their bounty, and are grateful and happy, you will desire to make some modest return for these things, and so you will go to the house some night and brain the whole family with an ax.You will rob the dead bodies of your benefactors, and disburse your gains in riotous living among the rowdies and courtesans of Boston.Then you will, be arrested, tried, condemned to be hanged, thrown into prison.Now is your happy day.You will be converted--you will be converted just as soon as every effort to compass pardon, commutation, or reprieve has failed--and then!--Why, then, every morning and every afternoon, the best and purest young ladies of the village will assemble in your cell and sing hymns.
This will show that assassination is respectable.Then you will write a touching letter, in which you will forgive all those recent Browns.This will excite the public admiration.No public can withstand magnanimity.
Next, they will take you to the scaffold, with great eclat, at the head of an imposing procession composed of clergymen, officials, citizens generally, and young ladies walking pensively two and two, and bearing bouquets and immortelles.You will mount the scaffold, and while the great concourse stand uncovered in your presence, you will read your sappy little speech which the minister has written for you.And then, in the midst of a grand and impressive silence, they will swing you into per--Paradise, my son.There will not be a dry eye on the ground.You will be a hero! Not a rough there but will envy you.Not a rough there but will resolve to emulate you.And next, a great procession will follow you to the tomb--will weep over your remains--the young ladies will sing again the hymns made dear by sweet associations connected with the jail, and, as a last tribute of affection, respect, and appreciation of your many sterling qualities, they will walk two and two around your bier, and strew wreaths of flowers on it.And lo! you are canonized.
Think of it, son-ingrate, assassin, robber of the dead, drunken brawler among thieves and harlots in the slums of Boston one month, and the pet of the pure and innocent daughters of the land the next! A bloody and hateful devil--a bewept, bewailed, and sainted martyr--all in a month!
Fool!--so noble a fortune, and yet you sit here grieving!""No, madam," I said, "you do me wrong, you do, indeed.I am perfectly satisfied.I did not know before that my great-grandfather was hanged, but it is of no consequence.He has probably ceased to bother about it by this time--and I have not commenced yet.I confess, madam, that I do something in the way of editing and lecturing, but the other crimes you mention have escaped my memory.Yet I must have committed them--you would not deceive a stranger.But let the past be as it was, and let the future be as it may--these are nothing.I have only cared for one thing.
I have always felt that I should be hanged some day, and somehow the thought has annoyed me considerably; but if you can only assure me that Ishall be hanged in New Hampshire--"
"Not a shadow of a doubt!"
"Bless you, my benefactress!--excuse this embrace--you have removed a great load from my breast.To be hanged in New Hampshire is happiness --it leaves an honored name behind a man, and introduces him at once into the best New Hampshire society in the other world."I then took leave of the fortune-teller.But, seriously, is it well to glorify a murderous villain on the scaffold, as Pike was glorified in New Hampshire? Is it well to turn the penalty for a bloody crime into a reward? Is it just to do it? Is, it safe?