Читать книгу List, Ye Landsmen!. A Romance of Incident онлайн

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“Oh, sir, take him down, give him to me,” she cried in a voice that would have been a shriek but for her weakness.

“How long have you been here?” said I, moving so as to enable me to confront her, and yet have my back on the gibbet, for the end of my tongue seemed to stick like a point of steel into the roof of my mouth, every time the lightning flashed up the swinging figure and I saw it.

“I was here before it fell dark,” she answered.

“Where do you come from?”

“From Harwich.”

“You have not walked from Harwich?”

“I came by water to Margate, and have walked from Margate. Oh, take him down—oh, take him down!” she cried, stretching her arms up at the body. “Think of him helpless there! Jimmy, my Jimmy! He is innocent—he is a murdered man!” she sobbed; and then continued, speaking swiftly, and drawing closer to me: “He was my only son. His wife does not come to him. Oh, my Jim, mother is with thee, thy poor old mother is with thee, and will not leave thee. Oh, kind, dear Christian sir”—and she extended her hand and put it upon the sleeve of my coat—“take him down and help me to bury him, and the God of Heaven, the friend of the widow, shall bless thee, and I will watch, but at a distance from his grave, until there shall be no fear of his body being found.”