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 Ithought I heard him say, 'All right, old chap.' The next moment - my eyes water.He had a high heart, got into a scrape whilst in the marines, lost his half-pay, took to the turf, ring, gambling, and at last cut the throat of a villain who had robbed him of nearly all he had.But he had good qualities, and I know for certain that he never did half the bad things laid to his charge; for example, he never bribed Tom Oliver to fight cross, as it was said he did on the day of the awful thunder-storm.Ned Flatnose fairly beat Tom Oliver, for though Ned was not what's called a good fighter, he had a particular blow, which if he could put in he was sure to win.His right shoulder, do you see, was two inches farther back than it ought to have been, and consequently his right fist generally fell short; but if he could swing himself round, and put in a blow with that right arm, he could kill or take away the senses of anybody in the world.
It was by putting in that blow in his second fight with Spring that he beat noble Tom.Spring beat him like a sack in the first battle, but in the second Ned Painter - for that was his real name - contrived to put in his blow, and took the senses out of Spring; and in like manner he took the senses out of Tom Oliver.
"Well, some are born to be hanged, and some are not; and many of those who are not hanged are much worse than those who are.Jack, with many a good quality, is hanged, whilst that fellow of a lord, who wanted to get the horse from you at about two-thirds of his value, without a single good quality in the world, is not hanged, and probably will remain so.
You ask the reason why, perhaps.I'll tell you; the lack of a certain quality called courage, which Jack possessed in abundance, will preserve him; from the love which he bears his own neck he will do nothing which can bring him to the gallows.In my rough way I'll draw their characters from their childhood, and then ask whether Jack was not the best character of the two.Jack was a rough, audacious boy, fond of fighting, going a birds'-nesting, but I never heard he did anything particularly cruel save once, I believe, tying a canister to a butcher's dog's tail; whilst this fellow of a lord was by nature a savage beast, and when a boy would in winter pluck poor fowls naked, and set them running on the ice and in the snow, and was particularly fond of burning cats alive in the fire.Jack, when a lad, gets a commission on board a ship as an officer of horse marines, and in two or three engagements behaves quite up to the mark - at least of a marine; the marines having no particular character for courage, you know - never having run to the guns and fired them like madmen after the blue jackets had had more than enough.Oh, dear me, no! My lord gets into the valorous British army, where cowardice - Oh, dear me! - is a thing almost entirely unknown; and being on the field of Waterloo the day before the battle, falls off his horse, and, pretending to be hurt in the back, gets himself put on the sick list - a pretty excuse - hurting his back - for not being present at such a fight.Old Benbow, after part of both his legs had been shot away in a sea-fight, made the carpenter make him a cradle to hold his bloody stumps, and continued on deck, cheering his men till he died.Jack returns home, and gets into trouble, and having nothing to subsist by but his wits, gets his living by the ring and the turf, doing many an odd kind of thing, I dare say, but not half those laid to his charge.My lord does much the same without the excuse for doing so which Jack had, for he had plenty of means, is a leg, and a black, only in a more polished way, and with more cunning, and I may say success, having done many a rascally thing never laid to his charge.
