Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 17.djvu/242

236 my own personal, natural, individual self, with these two hands? Durus sermo! What if I should be cut down, as my friends tell me? There is something infamous in the very attempt; the world will conclude, I had a guilty conscience. Is it possible that good man, sir Roger, can have so much pity upon an unfortunate scoundrel, that has persecuted him so many years? No, it cannot be; I don't love favours that pass through don Diego's hands. On the other side, my blood chills about my heart at the thought of these rogues, with their bloody hands grabbling in my guts, and pulling out my very entrails: hang it, for once I'll trust my friends." So Jack resolved; but he had done more wisely to have put himself upon the trial of his country, and made his defence in form; many things happen between the cup and the lip; witnesses might have been bribed, juries managed, or prosecution stopped. But so it was, Jack for this time had a sufficient stock of implicit faith, which led him to his ruin, as the sequel of the story shows.

And now the fatal day was come, in which he was to try this hanging experiment. His friends did not fail him at the appointed hour to see it put in practice. Habbakkuk brought him a smooth, strong, tough rope, made of many a ply of wholesome Scandinavian hemp, compactly twisted together, with a noose that slipt as glib as a birdcatcher's gin. Jack shrunk and grew pale at first sight of it, he handled it, measured it, stretched it, fixed it against the iron bar of the window to try its strength; but no familiarity could reconcile him to it. He found fault with the length, the thickness, and the twist; nay, the very colour did not please him. "Will nothing less than " ing