With an oath or two for not having treated him at first
like a friend, he said he would soon set me all right; and pulling
out two hundred pounds, told me to pay him when I could. I felt as
I never felt before; however, I took his notes, paid my sneaks, and
in less than three months was right again, and had returned him his
money. On paying it to him, I said that I had now a lunch which
would just suit him, saying that I would give it to him--a free
gift--for nothing. He swore at me;--telling me to keep my Punch,
for that he was suited already. I begged him to tell me how I
could requite him for his kindness, whereupon, with the most
dreadful oath I ever heard, he bade me come and see him hanged when
his time was come. I wrung his hand, and told him I would, and I
kept my word. The night before the day he was hanged at H---, I
harnessed a Suffolk Punch to my light gig, the same Punch which I
had offered to him, which I have ever since kept, and which brought
me and this short young man to Horncastle, and in eleven hours I
drove that Punch one hundred and ten miles. I arrived at H--- just
in the nick of time. There was the ugly jail--the scaffold--and
there upon it stood the only friend I ever had in the world.
Driving my Punch, which was all in a foam, into the midst of the
crowd, which made way for me as if it knew what I came for, I stood
up in my gig, took off my hat, and shouted, 'God Almighty bless
you, Jack!' The dying man turned his pale grim face towards me--
for his face was always somewhat grim, do you see--nodded and said,
or I thought I heard him say, 'All right, old chap.
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