He looked round in all our faces, as if to collect our suffrages in favour of this pleasantry.  His high rank and importance there, prevented any word or sign of displeasure.  Most of us lifted our upper lip so as just to show our teeth, thereby intimating that we knew he had said a very good thing, at which, but for the painful business then in progress, we should be ready to die with laughing.

We now followed the sheriffs through the Sessions-house, and thence, by a covered passage on the eastern side of the yard of that building, to the prison.  I shuddered at beholding the numerous precautions which experience and ingenuity had suggested to cut off hope and prevent escape, Spikes and pallisades above, and doors of massy iron below, appeared in long and terrible array against the wretch, who, having eluded the vigilance of the officers of the gaol, should attempt, by flight, to save his life.  At one of the iron doors, we were severally inspected with as much suspicious care as if we had been seeking to get out, instead of pressing forward to be let in.

At length we reached a gloomy apartment, which, I believe, is called the press-room.  Here I found rather a fuller attendance than I had expected; some eight or ten persons having been admitted by another entrance.  These had formed in two lines, and their eyes were incessantly turned towards the door.  I fancied, when I made my appearance, that they regarded me with peculiar attention, as if for a moment they had mistaken me for a more distinguished character than I really was.  If I were right in this, they certainly were soon undeceived.  Mingling with them, I looked about me, as I saw them look about.  Silence generally prevailed.  A few whispers were exchanged; and now and then such sentences as, “The time grows short”—­ “They will soon be here”—­“What must their feelings be at this moment?” were murmured along the ranks.

That amelioration of the culprit’s destiny, which, by relieving him from the galling fetters heretofore deemed necessary for the safe detention of his person, now leaves his mind more perfect leisure for communication with his Creator, had not then taken place.  The approach of the prisoners was signified first by a whisper, and then by the clanking of the irons attached to the limbs of one of them.  It was a dreary morning; and the sombre aspect of the apartment well accorded with the dismal preparations of which it was to be the theatre.  A block with a small anvil was placed near the entrance, by which a miserably attired individual was stationed with a candle, for the purpose of lighting the workman who attended to remove the irons.  The flame of the candle was too small to afford a general illumination of the room; but its limited power gave to the eye a more distinct view of a little circle round the anvil, in which the main objects were the smith, with his hammer already grasped; his assistant, and two or three officers, were, in the absence of the more important objects of curiosity, eagerly gazed on by some of the party, and by me for one, as appendages of the picture not unworthy of notice.