"How is Dom holding up?" Halligan asked.

"He received communion. I think he is prepared. And you?"

Halligan turned up a card, put it on another. "As much as I'll ever be."

"Is there anything I can do for you, James?"

He shook his head.

"Are you sure you don't wish to make confession?"

"Thank you, Father. But I don't think so."

He thought of pressing the issue. Of talking once more of Halligan's soul, of the grave danger it was in. He wanted very much to help this man, someone who appeared so lost, so utterly alone. He had seen men, wicked men, lifelong sinners, thieves and rapists and murderers, have sudden revelations just before they died. They wished to receive communion, to have their sins absolved. But then again, he had seen others die silently, remorselessly, their hearts hardened, still others go to their grave cursing God with their last breath.

"That woman," Cheverus said after a while. "The one you left back in Ireland."

Halligan looked up from his cards. "I'm not sure why I even told you about her, Father."

"Sometimes it is good to talk to another. Especially at a time like this."

"It doesn't change anything. What I did. What I left her to face alone."

"No, you are right. But then again, maybe by talking about it, it changes you," Cheverus said.

"How?"

"In here," he said, touching his chest. "Who you are."

"Och, Father," Halligan scoffed. "Like they say, talk is cheap."

"Not if it comes from the heart."

"I'm the same fellow I always was. Like I told you before, if I had it to do all over again, I'd have run off and left her just the same."

"Maybe. Maybe not."

"I would. Believe me, I would," he said with a forced laugh. "I'm not a good man. I'm the sort of fellow that looks after his own neck. Always was. Though I won't get my neck out of this one," he said with a snort.

"Perhaps you have changed."

"I doubt it," he replied.

"The approach of death changes some people, James. I have seen it many times. You loved her very much, didn't you?"

Halligan set the cards down and looked at his hands. He looked at them as if they were things he had never before seen. Then he glanced over at the priest. "Maybe." Then, musing on it for a moment, he conceded, "Yes, I suppose I did."

"Perhaps you ought to write to her and tell her that."

He shook his head, glancing toward the small window where a narrow patch of blue sky seeped in. "I told you, Father. It's too late. She's probably already made a new life for herself and hearing from me now would only cause her pain. No, it's no good," he said, shaking his head.

Cheverus rubbed the cross that hung from his neck.

"You said you had never told anyone about what you did. About abandoning the woman and your son."

The words had their effect on Halligan. He seemed almost to flinch, as if his sin had been made word suddenly, for the first time spoken out loud like this.

"No, I didn't," he replied.

"Not even Dominic?"

"No," he replied. "Not even him."

"Why, James?"

"Why? I dunno," he said. He pondered that for a moment. "No, that's not true. I do know. I was ashamed. 'Twas a cowardly thing, a terrible thing I'd done, and I didn't want anybody to know."

"And yet you told me."

Halligan took a gulp of air. "It didn't seem to matter anymore who knew about it. Not where I was going."

"Still, you wanted someone to know your secret. You didn't want to go to your eternal rest without telling another soul."

He looked over at Cheverus and a thin smile of capitulation crossed his lips. He nodded slowly. A glassy stillness settled over them. Outside the jail somewhere, a young boy's voice could be heard calling. Though the actual words could not be made out, the tone was playful, light, a child enjoying a summer's day.

"You had asked me why I left France," Cheverus said at last. "And I told you that it was because of the Revolution. That's true. But I didn't tell you everything." He paused for a moment. "Like you, I have lived with a secret. A terrible secret. Something I have been too ashamed to tell anyone."

Halligan looked at him, waiting.

"I denied God," he explained. "I denied Him to save my own miserable neck."

That's how Cheverus began. How he started to tell the prisoner what he had not told anyone, what he had kept in his heart for fourteen years: about that September Sunday at the Convent of the Carmes and what happened later in the alley. He found it difficult at first, a physical pain in his throat and mouth, each word having to be yanked out of him like a surgeon pulling a rotted tooth. Once he got going though, a certain momentum seemed to take over, carrying him forward. After a while, he could not have stopped himself even if he wanted to. He told Halligan everything. How the sunlight fell on the garden that day and how brightly the whitewashed walls shone. How sweet the air smelled. He wanted to make this man, this confessor of his, see and feel everything that day, just as if he had been there. He wanted him to know all of it. And then he told of how the mob suddenly appeared. How the terrible slaughter started, and how quickly it progressed, overwhelming him, flaring up like a wildfire, immolating him. How it had paralyzed him at first and then, when he'd come finally to his senses, how he had run for his life, run madly, like a crazed animal, with the singleminded will to live. And at last, when he was caught in that alley and questioned, how he had denied--not once, but like Peter, three times--his Lord, his faith, all those martyrs who had died back at the convent garden. Simply to save his own neck. He told all of this to the prisoner, who sat across from him quietly listening.

When he had finished, he was surprised by how quickly and effortlessly it had slipped out of him, the way a soul departed the body of a dying person. There one moment, gone the next. Yet he couldn't really say he felt better or worse for having told it. He didn't know how he felt, except perhaps that he sensed a certain loosening in the muscles of his shoulders, a subtle lifting of the weight he'd carried on his chest for so long. And he didn't know exactly why he had told it now, to this man, someone he didn't know, someone who didn't even believe in God's forgiveness. Someone who would be dead in less than a day's time and take his secret with him.

"So you see," he said at last, "I, too, have done something which has shamed me."

"The way I see it, Father, you had no choice," Halligan replied.

"Ah, but I did. I could have chosen to die. Many others did."

"And what purpose would that have served?"

Cheverus thought for a moment. "I would have died a martyr's death. Loyal to my faith and to my God."

"But then you couldn't have been here to help Dom," he said. Then with a hint of a smile, he added, "Or me."

"Have I?" he asked. "Helped you?"

"You've listened to me, Father. That's something. Like you said, it's good to get some things off your chest."

Cheverus looked over at him and nodded.

"And besides, now you believe we're innocent."

"Yes, I believe you," Cheverus replied, taking a deep breath. "Forgive me for placing this burden on you now."

"It's no burden, Father. I'm glad you thought enough of me to tell me." They both fell silent for a few seconds. "Want to play?" Halligan asked, holding up the cards.

"If you would like," he said.

"You wouldn't happen to have any money on you, would you, Father?"

"No," he said. "I don't gamble." Then he saw the man was only joking. He smiled sheepishly.

They passed the time talking and playing cards.

PART IV.

O what sad, what awful sight!

To see the two on the scaffold stand And just about to take their flight To unknown worlds by law's command.

Too much for human sight to see Inflicted in an other case: Was it for crimes of less degree I'd curse the hangman to his face.

-- ANONYMOUS, "AN ELEGY COMPOSED ON THE OCCASION OF THE EXECUTION OF DOMINIC DALEY AND JAMES HALLIGAN".

At 3 o'clock, sentence was executed by Major General Mattoon, sheriff of the county. Notwithstanding their protestations of innocence, in which they persisted to the last, it is believed that of the 15,000 supposed to be present, scarcely one had a doubt of their guilt. Daley and Halligan were natives of Ireland. Daley was about 34 years of age; he left a wife, a mother, and a son in Boston. Halligan was about 27 years of age; and we believe had no connections in this country.

-- MASSACHUSETTS SPY.

WORCESTER. JUNE. 1806.

A day remarkable for the execution of Dominic Daley and James Halligan .. . The criminals who were executed this day, in their last words, denied the crime, and declar'd their innocence in the most solemn manner, and forgave everyone, as they hoped for pardon themselves--poor men, they must have been guilty.

-JOURNAL OF MRS. MARY SHEPHERD.

JThe condemned] appeared to be sensible of their awful situation and to be impressed with a proper sense of religion. A Clergyman of the Roman Catholic persuasion, the Rev. Mr. Cheverus of Boston, attended them to the place of execution, and offered every consolation which could be administered to men about to be launched into eternity. Daley and Halligan both affirmed in the most solemn manner to the last moment that they were innocent.

-- REPUBLICAN SPY. JUNE 8. 1806.

Chapter Fifteen.

The day of the execution broke with a fierce, searing light flowing over Mount Holyoke. Mists above the river and the low bottomlands quickly scattered, leaving a bluish, drowsy haze suspended over everything. By eight, a listless warmth already hung in the air. The drone of cicadas sounded along Main Street, and turkey buzzards rode the air thermals high overhead. It would be one of those sweltering summer days that drove cattle and dogs for shade.

Despite the hour, an enormous crowd lined the route the condemned would walk. Northampton had never seen a gathering this large, not even back in the days of Jonathan Edwards's great revival. There hadn't been a hanging for many years, so people had come in early to get a good view of the two Irishmen as they passed from the jail to the meetinghouse where they would hear a funeral sermon delivered by Reverend Williams. Young boys had taken up positions in the great elm trees that lined Pleasant and Main streets. They sat there waiting, eager, obstreperous as magpies. One small boy who couldn't find an empty limb had taken his grandfather's old spyglass and climbed atop the courthouse to get a better view.

A half mile west of town, people had also begun to gather on Pancake Plain, a flat area which surrounded a small knoll called Gallows Hill. Chairs had been assembled there for the town's dignitaries, as well as for those who'd come from far away. Most of the merchants had closed their shops for business to be able to watch the spectacle, though a clever few had set up stalls in the street to take advantage of the large crowds. Because of the heat, a man peddling ices did a brisk business, as did the Osborne sisters, whose millinery shop sold ladies' hats and parasols and fans. They also sold a good many handkerchiefs, for it was said that no lady of any real modesty could watch a hanging and not be made sick to her stomach by the sight of it.

One man, the blacksmith Wallace, continued to work as if it were any ordinary day. The fire in his forge blazed and sweat ran down his sooty face. His hammer blows could be heard reverberating up and down the street. Yet even he would occasionally push his way through the crowds in front of his shop in anticipation of catching sight of the prisoners as they passed by. People parted to let a burly man wielding a hammer through.

Halligan woke groggy-headed from a dream of soft green light and the salty smell of ocean. For a moment before his head cleared, he thought he was waking in a green field after a night of hard drinking. He almost expected the sound of the ocean and of gulls squawking and wheeling overhead. But then he saw the dark stone walls and the iron bars, and he knew. Yes, he knew. Well, today's the day, boyo, he said to himself, with neither dread nor excitement, with a feeling closer simply to curiosity. He sat up, wiped his eyes. Daley was already on his knees praying.

"Momin', Jamy boy," he said.

Halligan nodded a greeting.

They were served a special breakfast. Dowd brought them salt mutton and ham, potatoes and corncake and buttermilk, and a pot of very hot tea.

"Eat hearty, lads," Dowd said, as he passed them the trenchers of food. "It'll likely be a long day for you," he added.

The guards stood watching behind him. Halligan heard a mocking laugh from one of them.

"Your big day, paddies," said a burly militiaman with deep-set, rust-colored eyes.

"Mind your tongue," Dowd warned the man.

"It's all right, Mr. Dowd," said Daley. "Let 'im talk. I don't mind." "Are you scared?" the man continued, smiling. "Can you feel the noose around your neck?"

Dowd turned on the man savagely. "There's no call for that. Don't you have any respect?"

"For them?" he said, snorting. "When you get to hell, paddy, tell the devil who sent you."

"I'll save a place for you," Halligan offered, winking at Daley.

"Do you want me to tell the sheriff?" the turnkey threatened the man. "If you don't shut your mouth, I'll tell him."

The man stared at Halligan, but didn't say anything more.

"Is there anything else I can get you lads?" Dowd asked solicitously.