The sound of the fetters was now close at hand, and the voice of the minister who attended the wearer of them, could be heard.  In the next moment two or three persons entered, and these were followed by the ordinary and one of the malefactors.  The latter looked right and left, as if he had calculated on recognising there some friend or relative.  A ghastly paleness sat on his cheek, and there was an air of disorder in the upper part of his face, which his wild but sunken eye, and negligently combed locks joined to furnish.  The unhappy youth, for he was not more than twenty, advanced with a steady step to where the smith expected him.  He was resigned and tractable.  When about to place his foot on the block, he untied a band, which had passed round his body to sustain the weight of his irons; and as he disengaged it, he let it carelessly fall, with an expression in his countenance which told, so I fancied, that, in this moment, reflecting he should never want it again, the immediate cause and consequence of the miserable relief flashed full on his imagination, with all their concomitant horrors.  But with calmness he attended to the workman, who directed him how to stand.  He manifested great presence of mind, and, I thought, seemed to gaze with something of curiosity on the operation, which he contributed all in his power to facilitate.  The heavy blows echoed through the room, and rudely broke in on the low murmurs and whispers which had for some little time been the only sounds heard there.  A singularly irrational feeling came over me.  I could have reproved the striker for indecorously breaking silence, and even have questioned his humanity for being capable of such vigorous exertion at a moment when, as it struck me, everything ought to have presented the coldness and motionless stillness of the grave.

The rivet was knocked out, the fetters fell to the floor, and the prisoner was passed from the anvil to the further extremity of the room.  A second entered.  This was a middle-aged man.  Reflection seemed with him to have well performed its duty.  Calm and undismayed, he advanced to the anvil, apparently unconscious of the presence of a single spectator, and wholly occupied with meditations on eternity.  Having already witnessed that part of the preparatory ceremony which he was then to undergo, I withdrew from the circle to observe the other sufferer.  He had now been joined by the ordinary, and was standing near a table, on which several ropes were lying.  He was directed to place his hands together, and he was then pinioned.  Here, again, I felt a disposition to criticise the conduct of the officers, like that which I had previously experienced while witnessing the labours of the smith.  The adroitness and merciful despatch which I noticed, I could hardly help regarding as meriting censure for the insensibility which they marked.  Those who have to perform a severe duty cannot often properly fulfil their task, and at the