Great Expectations

The sun was striking in at the great windows of the court, through the

glittering drops of rain upon the glass, and it made a broad shaft of

light between the two-and-thirty and the Judge, linking both together,

and perhaps reminding some among the audience how both were passing on,

with absolute equality, to the greater Judgment that knoweth all things,

and cannot err. Rising for a moment, a distinct speck of face in this

way of light, the prisoner said, "My Lord, I have received my sentence

of Death from the Almighty, but I bow to yours," and sat down again.

There was some hushing, and the Judge went on with what he had to say

to the rest. Then they were all formally doomed, and some of them were

supported out, and some of them sauntered out with a haggard look of

bravery, and a few nodded to the gallery, and two or three shook hands,

and others went out chewing the fragments of herb they had taken from

the sweet herbs lying about. He went last of all, because of having to

be helped from his chair, and to go very slowly; and he held my hand

while all the others were removed, and while the audience got up

(putting their dresses right, as they might at church or elsewhere), and

pointed down at this criminal or at that, and most of all at him and me.

I earnestly hoped and prayed that he might die before the Recorder's

Report was made; but, in the dread of his lingering on, I began that

night to write out a petition to the Home Secretary of State, setting

forth my knowledge of him, and how it was that he had come back for my

sake. I wrote it as fervently and pathetically as I could; and when I

had finished it and sent it in, I wrote out other petitions to such men

in authority as I hoped were the most merciful, and drew up one to the

Crown itself. For several days and nights after he was sentenced I took

no rest except when I fell asleep in my chair, but was wholly absorbed

in these appeals. And after I had sent them in, I could not keep away

from the places where they were, but felt as if they were more

hopeful and less desperate when I was near them. In this unreasonable

restlessness and pain of mind I would roam the streets of an evening,

wandering by those offices and houses where I had left the petitions. To

the present hour, the weary western streets of London on a cold, dusty

spring night, with their ranges of stern, shut-up mansions, and their

long rows of lamps, are melancholy to me from this association.