New York City History

y were about to lead him into the dungeon of the condemned, the studded door of which would not open again save to admit his passage to the gallows-tree; and his poor child was beside him. Hardened, sin-stained as he was, the father was himself visibly affected; but the tempest of wild, passionate grief that agitated the little girl, so soon to be left an orphan, was something remarkable in one of her years. She was evidently a child of the streets. Her dress was ragged and foul, and even her face so unclean as to be barely redeemed by the large, beautiful black eyes which would alone have betrayed the sunny clime of her origin. While the wretched criminal stood, shame-facedly and with drooping crest, before her, she fell upon his manacled hands, kissing them wildly, and betraying in her childish grief all the deep, sensitive, despairing sorrow of a woman. The villain before her might have often beaten her, debased her immeasurably, but the mysterious cord that linked their beating hearts was unbroken, though it sang like a bowstring in the gusty horror that swept between, and stretched to attenuation as the elder spirit sank, groaning, into the abyss of its own wickedness. Hot tears gushed from her eyes, her little throat was swollen with the choking sobs, and her narrow, rag-covered chest heaved with tumultuous agony. But after he was taken away, when the iron door which to her was, indeed, the door of the tomb, had closed between them forever, she became quickly calm, and her face soon wore an air of quiet resignation. As she was about leaving the court-room she stooped and picked up a weather-stained guitar. I guessed her vocation, and was resolved to speak to her. 'What is your name, little one?' 'Angela, sir.' It was a sad voice, but very sweet. 'And do you play on this for a living?' 'I play and sing also, sir.' The court had been dismissed, and the crowd were confusedly dispersing. 'I say, little gal, can't you give us a song 'afore you go?' said an inconsiderate policeman, meaning to be good-natured. 'I shall not sing to-day, sir!' said the little girl, decisively; and then, with a dignity of grief which sat well upon her, despite her rags, she passed out of the room with her dingy guitar, while the large man who had accosted her so rudely shrank back, abashed, before the glance with which the black eyes reproached him to the heart, ere they vanished in the crowd. Here was a chance for me. I happened to be the only reporter present at the scene--'sensation' was my forte--a 'beat' upon all the other dailies had come directly to my hand. It was late in the week, and I was also afforded the chance of cooking the thing up remuneratively for two or three weekly papers. But the whole thing stood before me like a picture which it seemed a sacrilege to copy. So I cheated the _Tribune_ with the rest, and, for the first time in my life, let the opportunity for a sensation slip my hand. No credit to either heart or head, however, for a relapse into my chronic state of impecuniosity, on the following week, caused me to curse a squeamishness whose absence might have earned a score of dollars. But I soon forgot the incidents in the court-room in the manifold and hum-drum duties of my profession. Several months afterward, however, I was passing down Park Row, when my attention was attracted to a little girl playing a guitar and singing an Italian song in a plaintive, monotonous air. Her dress and voice attracted my attention on the instant, and, when I saw her face, I recognized Angela, the girl of the trial-scene. It was her father whom, at that very moment, I was going to see hanged. I stood stock-still with amazement, the coincidence was so startling. When she had finished her song, and had garnered up the few coppers placed in her hand by the careless and uncritical crowd, I stepped up to her and said: 'Angela, do you remember me?' 'Yes, sir,' she replied, her dark face lighting up with a gleam of recognition. 'Do you know what day this is?' 'It is the morning of my father's death--how should I forget it?' 'You refused to sing on the day of his sentence--can you find heart, then, to do so in this dreadful hour?' The dirty li