Vigil

“ He changed, too, the holy night vigil into a brightness like that of day, by causing waxen tapers of great length to be lighted throughout the city: besides which, torches everywhere diffused their light, so as to impart to this mystic vigil a brilliant splendor beyond that of day. [1] As soon as day itself returned, in imitation of our Saviour’s gracious acts, he opened a liberal hand to his subjects of every nation, province, and people, and lavished abundant bounties on all. ”

“ All listened, awed, wonder-stricken, and transported in spirit to the hearths which they had left, and around which they had often kept joyous vigil by the light of the burning turf. Fortunately, no inopportune shell came from the enemy's batteries to cast its lurid glare over the joyous group or glitter on the beard of the singer. O pure and romantic natures! Oh! what a natural poesy and gayety surrounds this race, which we are wont to cover with a cloud of melancholy sadness. Were I to live a hundred years, I could not efface the vivid remembrance of those noisy vigils at Bastion No. ”

“ This sort of vigil was rather nerve-trying. He was sure, now that he had time to think about it, that some very little thing might account for the mystery. He began to think that the footsteps had probably been made by some servant or by a somnambulist. ”

“ Sentinels were stationed to keep a vigilant guard, a roaring fire was built, and our weary exiles, wrapped in their cloaks and with their feet to the fire, soon forgot, for a few hours, all their troubles in the oblivion of sleep. ”

“ On the third year they will see the forms of those doomed to die within the twelvemonth passing one by one into the church. If the watcher fall asleep during his vigil he will die himself during the year. ”

“ It was the only subject that men talked of, that inflamed both their hearts and their heads, at the public meetings, during the guard-room vigils, and amid the crowds that incessantly gathered in the streets, barring both foot and roadways. Men's minds were carried away by the illusions thus diffused ”

“ Now the desire of the Holy Spirit is thus:—Remoteness from the habitation of men, continual quiet, weeping and sorrowful cries, joyful hymns, the singing of the Psalms, and praises, fasting, and abstinence, and vigil, poor apparel, a humble gait, the cloaking of the thoughts of the passions, the hidden prayer of the mind; know ye that such are the things in which those who are in the desire of the spirit wish to walk, and they never wish to perform the lusts of the flesh. ”

“ For the rest most of our information about them comes from self-appointed vigilantes who, rifle in hand, knock unexpectedly at the doors of their summer residences and do not even offer them the customary five minutes in which to say their prayers. ”

“ How vigils shall be conducted on Sundays. On Sundays they shall rise earlier for vigils. In which vigils let the following measure be observed; that is, after six psalms and a verse having been sung—as we arranged above,—all sitting down in their places and in order upon the benches, there shall be read from Scripture, as we said above, four lessons with their responses. ”

“ A caution equally vigilant was observed in the march, on approaching any defile or place where an enemy might lie in wait; and scouts were always kept in the advance, or along the ridges and rising grounds on the flanks. ”

“ The victim's only provocation consisted in having spoken out like a man against the monstrous evils under which the law-abiding citizens had so long [Pg 219] and so silently been groaning. This murder was the last straw. The murderer had been promptly taken by members of the secret Committee of Vigilance; the trial had been swift; and the hangman's noose was being made ready for its victim. ”

“ Men pass my grave, and say, "'Twere well to sleep, Like such an one, amid the uncaring dead!" How should they know the vigils that I keep, The tears I shed? ”

“ To mark this, on the days preceding those of their birth (into the other life) , which days we call their vigils, eating more sparingly than usual, we devoutly preface those solemnities with the due observance of fasts, and with affliction of the flesh; that, purified by the abstinence of the preceding day, we may the more worthily celebrate the joy of the following festival. ”

“ We find constantly the same tale of the sudden quarrel, the blow with a stick or a stone, the thrust with the knife which every man carried, the stroke with a hatchet. Then the slayer in his panic flies to a nun's garden, to a monastery, or to the shelter of a church, where the men of the village keep guard over him till knights of the shire are sent from the Court, to whom he confesses his crime, and who allow him so many days to fly to the nearest port and forsake the kingdom. ”

“ In the midst of this horrid slaughter, one man among the rear prisoners, with great presence of mind and the most undaunted courage, turned and advanced to the soldiers, amidst the fire of hundreds, and while his fellow-prisoners were falling all around him, and in an humble and suppliant manner, with his hat in his hand, this resolute soul, in the face of danger and death, implored mercy of Capt. Shortland to spare his countrymen. ”

“ And John bowed before him again, and asked the abbot to make him a monk. And John having urged him, the abbot shaved his head, and arrayed him in the holy garb of the monastic life. And John devoted himself to the ascetic life, and he fought many fights, and he fasted very long fasts, until his body dried up, and by reason of his excessive fasting, and prayer, and prostrations, and ceaseless vigils, his bones appeared from under his skin. ”

“ It is not long since the gallows was a public spectacle here in the midst of us, and a hanging made a holiday for the rabble of this city and the neighboring towns; even women came to see the death-struggle of a fellow-creature, and formed the larger part of the mob; many of you remember the procession of the condemned man sitting on his coffin, a procession from the jail to the gallows, from one end of the city to the other. ”

“ The crowd rushing and eddying to and fro—the night, the yells, the pale faces, many frighten'd people trying in vain to extricate themselves—the attack'd man, not yet freed from the jaws of death, looking like a corpse—the silent, resolute, half-dozen policemen, with no weapons but their little clubs, yet stern and steady through all those eddying swarms—made a fitting side-scene to the grand tragedy of the murder. ”

“ The delinquent was conducted with solemn pomp to the place of execution, a blood-red flag was displayed before him, the universal clang of all the bells accompanied the procession. First came the priests, in the robes of the Mass and singing a sacred hymn; next followed the condemned sinner, clothed in a yellow vest, covered with figures of black devils. On his head he wore a paper cap, surmounted by a human figure, around which played lambent flames of fire, and ghastly demons flitted. ”

“ At a Death, the Relations and Neighbours keep a noise and howling till the day of Interrment, always at their own Houses, where the Corpse being put in a Trunk, and carried a small Circuit on Men’s Heads, the Town’s-Folks attend with wild Noise and firing of Guns, till finding the Deceased does not wake, they drink and make merry, and bury with the Corpse a Portion of Liquor, Pipes, &c. This done, a little Victuals is supplied by the Relations every day to the Grave, for a considerable time. ”

“ The offender is led before his regiment, and after the rehearsal of his disgrace to his fellow-soldiers, his arms are pinioned, his eyes bandaged, and an open coffin stands ready to receive his lifeless body. The file of soldiers aim at the one fluttering heart, and the lightning-like death ends the dreadful scene. ”

“ With firm steps and smiling faces the roll of martyrs went forth to their fate during the whole of that long autumn day, until the rough soldiers of the guard stood silent and awed in the presence of a courage which they could not but recognise as higher and nobler than their own. Folk may call it a trial that they received, and a trial it really was, but not in the sense that we Englishmen use it. ”

“ They hold out their hands, with the fingers eaten away, gruesome sights, and mumble prayers for alms. Once one died, or nearly died, on the road, a crowd formed round, with a policeman on guard, but no one would touch it to give assistance. ”

“ Very well. Now attend to this. You have heard it propounded, or assumed, that the murder took place some time between 3.15 and 4 o'clock. Do you still adhere to your statement that it was just after three when you heard the sound of the gun?
A. Aye.
Q. You are on your oath, remember.
A. All right, master.
Q. And you adhere to it?
A. Yes, I do.
Q. That is enough. You can stand down.
A sibilation, a momentary rustling and shuffling, as on the close of an engrossing sermon when tension is relaxed and the hymn being prepared for, followed the dismissal of the witness. ”

“ That crowd which the four sergeants posted at nine o'clock in the morning at the four corners of the pillory had inspired with the hope of some sort of an execution, no doubt, not a hanging, but a whipping, a cropping of ears, something, in short,—that crowd had increased so rapidly that the four policemen, too closely besieged, had had occasion to "press" it, as the expression then ran, more than once, by sound blows of their whips, and the haunches of their horses. ”

“ And from a thousand battlefields shall rise up armies of airy witnesses, who, with the memory of their awful sufferings, shall confront the miscreants with shrieks of fierce accusation; and every pale and starved prisoner shall raise his skinny hand in judgment. Blood shall call out for vengeance, and tears shall plead for justice, and grief shall silently beckon, and love, heart-smitten, shall wail for justice. ”

“ But night at the diggings is the characteristic time: murder here—murder there—revolvers cracking—blunderbusses bombing—rifles going off—balls whistling—one man groaning with a broken leg—another shouting because he couldn't find the way to his hole, and a third equally vociferous because he has tumbled into one—this man swearing—an other praying—a party of bacchanals chanting various ditties to different time and tune, or rather minus both. ”

“ Strong men, to whom tears had been a half forgotten memory, wept as the thurible was waved over the casket and the wreaths of incense smoke ascended toward the dome. Men, brought face to face with a great crime, stood in the presence of their God, while the priests around the altar, clothed in mourning vestments, offered supplication for the soul of the deceased, and prayed for pardon for his murderers. ”

“ Hectic whispers rose at times from groups of officers—whispers that were yearning, again pleading, again, with ferocious suddenness, stabbing to a savage, insupportable note, like the expectant, hysterical cries of worshipers at a bloody shrine about to behold the pomp of some dreadful, mysterious ceremonial. ”

“ Isn't that courage? Isn't it courage to get the brains of one's comrade full in the face, and then to stand on guard in the same place while suffering the extremes of cold and dampness? ... On the night of the 13th I commanded a section of corpses which a mitrailleuse had raked. I had the luck to escape, and I shouted to these poor devils to make a last assault. Then I saw what had happened and found myself with a broken rifle and a uniform in rags and tatters. My commandant spoke to me that night, and said: 'You had better change those clothes. ”

“ The crowd consisted of men, women, and children, and as they could not see the scaffold, all eyes were turned to the centre tower, where a person was in readiness to hoist the black flag as soon as the fate of the criminal was sealed. Policemen were stationed to keep the people from the prison walls to prevent their hearing what was taking place; but a rush was made, and they crowded round the wall, from which place they could distinctly hear the chaplain going through the burial service, and Peace making his last dying speech from the scaffold. ”

“ On that terrible night, during which the horrors of civil war were added to those of incendiarism, while so many men animated by the spirit of vengeance and the hope of pillage rushed upon one another, a little band of kind-hearted folk, moved by so much suffering, patrolled the streets, bearing relief to the victims. ”

“ You pass suddenly from ancient to contemporary history, from the killing of other years to the killing that is of to-day—the killing and the wounding—and along the hills where there are still graves there begin to appear Red Cross tents and signs, and ambulances pass you bearing the latest harvest. ”

“ The door of the hall was broken in with heavy blows, and with loud shouts a troop of men, dripping with blood, rushed in and threw themselves in rage upon him, crying: "We have thee at last, thou foul knave! thou who hast robbed and murdered so many. At last the hour of retribution has come."
And the leader cried: "Fasten a rope to the arch of the gates, give him an hour to say his prayers, but in the deepest dungeon, and then hang him for a punishment and a warning." ”

“ There stands the poor criminal on the fatal platform, and the minister of death is near him, making the necessary arrangements for his execution; deep sympathy is expressed in every countenance, many sighs are heaved, and many weep; the silent prayer is offered up, and all are breathless, expecting the drop to fall which is to hurl him with convulsive agonies into the other world. ”

“ Some times the whole detail for guard—first, second and third relief—would make it a point of honor to sit up the entire night, and watch and listen as though the enemy might pounce on them at any moment, and hurry them off to prison. ”