venture in;
and when we did, there he was lying like a man asleep in his bed, with
his nightcap on, and his hand under his cheek, and he smiling down on
the flags, very sly, like a man who has won something cleverly. He was
dead, and his limbs cold by this time.'

There was an inquest. Mr. Dangerfield 'looked very composed in death,'
says an old letter, and he lay 'very like sleep,' in his bed, 'his
fingers under his cheek and temple,' with the countenance turned 'a
little downward, as if looking upon something on the floor,' with an
'ironical smile;' so that the ineffaceable lines of sarcasm, I suppose,
were traceable upon that jaundiced mask.

Some said it was a heart disease, and others an exhalation from the
prison floor. He was dead, that was all the jury could say for certain,
and they found 'twas 'by a visitation of God.' The gaoler, being a
superstitious fellow, was plaguily nervous about Mr. Dangerfield's
valediction, and took clerical advice upon it, and for several months
after became a very serious and ascetic character; and I do believe that
the words were spoken in reality with that sinister jocularity in which
his wit sported like church-yard meteors, when crimes and horrors were
most in his mind.

The niece of this gaoler said she well remembered her uncle, when a very
old man, three years before the rebellion, relating that Mr. Dangerfield
came by his death in consequence of some charcoal in a warming pan he
had prevailed on him to allow him for his bed, he having complained of
cold. He got it with a design to make away with himself, and it was
forgotten in the room. He placed it under the bed, and waited until the
first call of the turnkey was over, and then he stuffed his surtout into
the flue of the small fire-place, which afforded the only ventilation of
his cell, and so was smothered. It was not till the winter following
that the gaoler discovered, on lighting a fire there, that the chimney
was stopped. He had a misgiving about the charcoal before, and now he
was certain. Of course, he said nothing about his suspicions at first,
nor of his discovery afterwards.

So, sometimes in my musings, when I hear of clever young fellows taking
to wild courses, and audaciously rushing--where good Christians pray
they may not be led--into temptation, there rises before me, with
towering forehead and scoffing face, a white image smoking his pipe
grimly by a plutonic fire; and I remember the words of the son