But, none the less, he was sentenced to a lifer, and, the mask of John
Ward being torn from him, he was sent to Sheffield to stand his trial as
Charles Peace. The leap from the train is already recorded; and at his
last appearance in the dock he rolled upon the floor, a petulant and
broken man. When once the last doom was pronounced, he forgot both
fiddle and crowbar; he surrendered himself to those exercises of piety
from which he had never wavered. The foolish have denounced him for a
hypocrite, not knowing that the artist may have a life apart from his
art, and that to Peace religion was an essential pursuit. So he died,
having released from an unjust sentence the poor wretch who at Whalley
Range had suffered for his crime, and offering up a consolatory prayer
for all mankind. In truth, there was no enemy for whom he did not
intercede. He prayed for his gaolers, for his executioner, for the
Ordinary, for his wife, for Mrs. Thompson, his drunken doxy, and he went
to his death with the sure step of one who, having done his duty, is
reconciled with the world. The mob testified its affectionate admiration
by dubbing him 'Charley,' and remembered with effusion his last grim
pleasantry. 'What is the scaffold?' he asked with sublime earnestness.
And the answer came quick and sanctimonious: 'A short cut to Heaven!'
III--A PARALLEL
(DEACON BRODIE AND CHARLES PEACE)
NOT a parallel, but a contrast, since at all points Peace is Brodie's
antithesis.
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